Speaker 1: Pushkin. If you listen to this podcast regularly, you know
Speaker 1: there are lots of quick things you can do to
Speaker 1: make yourself a little happier. Get a bit of extra sleep, say,
Speaker 1: or take some time for exercise. But there is one
Speaker 1: way to improve your mood that could literally be staring
Speaker 1: you right in the face this very second. There are
Speaker 1: seven point seven billion people in the world, and talking
Speaker 1: to just one of them can often make you feel
Speaker 1: so much better. Social interaction is usually available all around us,
Speaker 1: but many of us, even in the busiest cities, can
Speaker 1: go a whole day without properly engaging with another human being.
Speaker 1: I'll admit I sometimes hide away from social situations too.
Speaker 1: I skip work gatherings to stay at home. I eat
Speaker 1: by myself when I'm on a train or plane. I
Speaker 1: often check emails on my phone rather than starting a
Speaker 1: conversation with a stranger. I repeatedly fall for the lie
Speaker 1: of the mind that talking to people will be awkward, annoying,
Speaker 1: or just training. So when I put out a call
Speaker 1: for listener questions, I was really glad to see that
Speaker 1: so many of you were also looking for ways to
Speaker 1: master the art of becoming more socially connected and making
Speaker 1: new friends. I was also thrilled that I'd have a
Speaker 1: chance to bring in an expert on empathy who just
Speaker 1: happens to be one of my favorite Happiness Lab all stars.
Speaker 1: I'm Jamie Zackie. I'm a professor of psychology at Stanford
Speaker 1: and author of the War for Kindness. Jamie's going to
Speaker 1: give us a crash course on how to be better
Speaker 1: at building meaningful social connections. If you're struggling to connect
Speaker 1: with an abrasive coworker, or if you're feeling like your
Speaker 1: social skills have atrophied a bit during lockdown, or if
Speaker 1: you're worried about taking on someone else's misery, never fear,
Speaker 1: Jamil as always has some great advice. So sit back, relax,
Speaker 1: and learn how to get out there and interact in
Speaker 1: the social world. You're listening to the Happiness Lab Listener
Speaker 1: Questions Special Edition with Me Doctor Laurie Santos. Jimmie, I'm
Speaker 1: so excited that we have you on the Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: today because when we put out these questions to listeners,
Speaker 1: the main thing that we get questions about art how
Speaker 1: we can deal with social relationships and social connection, how
Speaker 1: we can increase empathy. It was exactly the stuff that's
Speaker 1: up your alley, so hopefully that you can help all
Speaker 1: of us like figure this stuff out. I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like for me, the pandemic has put into stark
Speaker 1: relief both the importance of social connection but also how
Speaker 1: fraught it can be, Like how out of practice I
Speaker 1: got very quickly living in the pandemic, because is something
Speaker 1: you've experienced art seeing the work? Oh my goodness, yeah,
Speaker 1: I still remember. It's been several months, but my first
Speaker 1: in person talk and conference after being locked away mostly
Speaker 1: at home for a year and a half. And I
Speaker 1: love that stuff. I mean, that's part of why I
Speaker 1: got into this field, because I love the community. And
Speaker 1: yet going back it was the most terrifying thing. I
Speaker 1: literally have fun stage and I actually thought I was
Speaker 1: going to faint and had to hold on to the
Speaker 1: podium just to keep myself upright, which is not something
Speaker 1: that I've ever experienced. I think for so many of us,
Speaker 1: our social muscles have just atrophied, and it's like taking
Speaker 1: a cast off. You know, if you've been in a
Speaker 1: cast for six months, you don't take it off and
Speaker 1: then immediately try to lift weights. But that's what a
Speaker 1: lot of us are doing, and I think it's critical
Speaker 1: for us to be gentle with ourselves and understand that
Speaker 1: we need to restrengthen, we need to reacclimate to this
Speaker 1: social world that we have been part of for all
Speaker 1: of our lives but then abruptly taken out of for
Speaker 1: a super long time. And so I love this idea
Speaker 1: of being gentle with ourselves because I think that's what
Speaker 1: a lot of our questions involve, is this idea of
Speaker 1: how can we face the challenges that come with resocializing
Speaker 1: but also be gentle with ourselves in the process. And
Speaker 1: one of the listeners that we got a question from
Speaker 1: was really struggling with this idea of connection, especially during
Speaker 1: the pandemic and some of the changes that happened during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And she had a question that I found
Speaker 1: really sad, and so I'm hoping we can help her out.
Speaker 1: This is Evannah Cole who asked this on Instagram. Avana asks,
Speaker 1: the pandemic has made it difficult to start a new
Speaker 1: life in a new country or city. It seems impossible
Speaker 1: to make meaningful friendships. Loneliness seems inevitable in this post
Speaker 1: pandemic era. So my question is, can you be happy alone,
Speaker 1: which was a very sad question. Is I want to
Speaker 1: pivot from that question and maybe ask kind of what
Speaker 1: she implied, which is loneliness inevitable right now or are
Speaker 1: their paths out well? I think it's, first of all,
Speaker 1: loneliness is totally normal right now, and I resonate completely
Speaker 1: with what this person is saying. You know what's more
Speaker 1: boring than water? Water is the most boring beverage on
Speaker 1: the planet, unless you're thirsty, in which case it is
Speaker 1: the single most interesting thing on Earth right and I
Speaker 1: think that we have gone from sort of having water
Speaker 1: all around us to being in a drought, a social drought,
Speaker 1: and so it's totally normal to feel lonely. You know.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite parts about the Happiness lab out
Speaker 1: of many is this theme that you come back to
Speaker 1: a lot that our minds lie to us, and that
Speaker 1: those lies make it harder for us to find fulfillment
Speaker 1: and happiness, and a lot of the lies you talk
Speaker 1: about pertain to ourselves what will make us feel good
Speaker 1: or bad in the future. I think that it's important
Speaker 1: to know that our minds also allied to us about
Speaker 1: other people, so we systematically think that other people are
Speaker 1: more judgmental, less friendly, and even more extreme than they
Speaker 1: really are. We even think that people are way more
Speaker 1: selfish than they really are. I think. I think Jean
Speaker 1: Paul Sartre said that hell is other people. I think
Speaker 1: maybe hell is our imagination of what other people are.
Speaker 1: But here's the problem. We often interact not with the
Speaker 1: people who are really out there, but with the people
Speaker 1: in our minds. And in many cases, instead of interacting
Speaker 1: with the people in our minds, we stay by ourselves
Speaker 1: because the scariest thing on earth is to get in
Speaker 1: an argument or even worse like ask someone out, even
Speaker 1: on a friend date, and have them reject us out
Speaker 1: of hand. Right, those experiences are so terrifying that we
Speaker 1: just stay home because we want to avoid again the
Speaker 1: mean people we imagine. Here's the even worst part. When
Speaker 1: we avoid the mean people we imagine, we don't get
Speaker 1: the data we need to realize that our minds were
Speaker 1: playing tricks on us all along. We don't get to
Speaker 1: meet the actual friendly people who might have turned into
Speaker 1: our new bestie or colleague or business partner, even our
Speaker 1: new love of our life, well maybe the only love
Speaker 1: of our life. No, but this is such an important point, right,
Speaker 1: it's not so much that we're doomed to loneliness. We're
Speaker 1: doomed maybe to be worried about loneliness or worried about
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that might make it scary for
Speaker 1: us to interact with other people. But so much of
Speaker 1: the data suggested if we could just try it, if
Speaker 1: we could just take some baby steps and talk to someone.
Speaker 1: You ask someone out on a friend date. You'll just
Speaker 1: make that first connection with a stranger where you talk
Speaker 1: about the weather. It's probably going to go a lot
Speaker 1: better than we expect. And then we'll start getting the
Speaker 1: data that you talk about. Right, you can say, oh,
Speaker 1: that wasn't so bad. Yeah. You know, as a kid,
Speaker 1: I was terrified of the ocean because I always thought
Speaker 1: that I would get attacked by a shark. You know.
Speaker 1: Shark attacks turned out to be basically the least common
Speaker 1: way you can die ever, you know, except don't getting
Speaker 1: struck by lightning four times in a row. But I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. And shark attacks loom large in our
Speaker 1: imagination and change our behavior in a way that we
Speaker 1: don't really need to change. I think that rejection and
Speaker 1: mean people are like the shark attacks of the social world,
Speaker 1: we think way more about them than we need to,
Speaker 1: and so we adjust our behavior because we think rejection
Speaker 1: is everywhere. When it turns out, if we just take,
Speaker 1: as you're saying, that little leap of faith, that little
Speaker 1: step to put ourselves out there and try to connect,
Speaker 1: we might be shocked by how accepting and friendly people are,
Speaker 1: and that might then empower us to take that next
Speaker 1: step to pull ourselves slowly but surely out of loneliness.
Speaker 1: And I think one thing, if you're hearing this and
Speaker 1: you're still feeling like, oh my god, it's the shark
Speaker 1: attack of rejection is looming really large. I think one
Speaker 1: thing to know is that the social scientists have data
Speaker 1: on this right, like they've really looked at when you
Speaker 1: reach out to somebody and talk to a stranger for
Speaker 1: the first time, are they going to reject you? Are
Speaker 1: they going to think it's awkward? Are they going to
Speaker 1: be annoyed with you? And by and large, I mean,
Speaker 1: you correct me if I'm wrong, to be able, but
Speaker 1: my read of the data is no, it's just going
Speaker 1: to go fine better than okay. Our friend Nick Epley
Speaker 1: talks about this all the time that when you ask
Speaker 1: people what would it be like to talk to a
Speaker 1: stranger today, or even to talk with a friend, but
Speaker 1: instead of just discussing your day, actually going deep with
Speaker 1: them and asking what matters to them, what they're struggling with,
Speaker 1: and telling them what you're struggling with any of those
Speaker 1: social risks. You ask people what it will be like,
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, my goodness, it will be the
Speaker 1: most frightening, worst part of my day. It will be
Speaker 1: so awkward, it'll be horrible. And then Nick actually gets
Speaker 1: people to do these things and he says, well, what
Speaker 1: was that like? And they say, oh, my goodness, was
Speaker 1: the best part of my day, the most meaningful and
Speaker 1: connected that I felt in weeks. So again, the data
Speaker 1: are exactly opposite to our intuitions. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the cases where I think knowledge is power, because
Speaker 1: when you know that, hey, I'm scared of that social
Speaker 1: shark attack, but there aren't that many sharks in the
Speaker 1: water at least, you know, not right near the beach
Speaker 1: in Cape Cod, which is where I was always terrified,
Speaker 1: then you can use that information as fuel to take
Speaker 1: those little steps. But I think another thing that feels
Speaker 1: scary about connecting right now is that the world socially
Speaker 1: feels like kind of a fraud place. We all have
Speaker 1: these really distinct identities that feel very salient, that feel
Speaker 1: different than a lot of other people's identities. You know, politically,
Speaker 1: we're super polarized, and that on top of everybody who's
Speaker 1: kind of out of practice with social stuff, and so
Speaker 1: I think it can feel especially scary when you're trying
Speaker 1: to connect in ways that might involve contacting somebody who
Speaker 1: has really a different perspective than you. And that was
Speaker 1: another set of questions that we got a lot about.
Speaker 1: I'll just read them. Another from a listener on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Nomfundo Nomfundo says, Hey, Laurie, First, thank you for an
Speaker 1: amazing podcast. Thank you, Nomfundo. I'm super keen to hear
Speaker 1: how to build healthy relationships with friends and colleagues and
Speaker 1: even in the romantic context, especially across social, economic and
Speaker 1: political differences. Jimmie, I know this is a spot where
Speaker 1: you've done a lot of work in terms of what
Speaker 1: we can do to build up empathy, and so how
Speaker 1: can we build these healthy relationships across what feels like
Speaker 1: a scary divide. Well, first of all, I totally resonate
Speaker 1: with what no Fundo is saying here. If it's hard
Speaker 1: to connect in general, it's especially hard to connect when
Speaker 1: we feel like we're different from someone else. I think
Speaker 1: one issue here and again, another social trick our minds
Speaker 1: play on us is that we focus on other people's
Speaker 1: statistics instead of their stories. It's almost like, instead of
Speaker 1: seeing someone as a person, you see them as a
Speaker 1: baseball card. I don't know, Laurie, if you ever collected
Speaker 1: baseball cards. I did, and you see every season a
Speaker 1: player had played, and what their batting average was, how
Speaker 1: many runs they batted, and all that stuff. And I
Speaker 1: feel like these days we look at each other as
Speaker 1: though we're reading statistics off of a baseball card, and
Speaker 1: sometimes those statistics can be super misleading, especially when they
Speaker 1: make someone seem different from ourselves. I'll give you one
Speaker 1: example from the political domain. So it's true that people
Speaker 1: see folks on the other side of the political divide
Speaker 1: as extreme and evil and all that stuff. They also
Speaker 1: just don't know who they are as people. So there
Speaker 1: was one statistic that was incredible where Democrats believed that
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of Republicans earn more than a quarter
Speaker 1: million dollars a year. The actual percentages too and likewise,
Speaker 1: Republicans believed that thirty two percent of Democrats identified as
Speaker 1: LGBTQ plot and the actual percentage is six. So right,
Speaker 1: it's not just that we think the other side is bad.
Speaker 1: We literally don't know who they are because we're thinking
Speaker 1: about what they're doing. We're over relying on statistics and
Speaker 1: their associated stereotypes to figure out who's there. At quick
Speaker 1: salve for this is to try, at least temporarily, to
Speaker 1: forget about statistics. Now they do matter. It matters that
Speaker 1: we're different from each other. I'm not saying that we
Speaker 1: should be blind to those differences or act like we're
Speaker 1: all the same. In fact, I think we should understand
Speaker 1: that we're all different, not just from people on the
Speaker 1: other side of a divide or difference, but from people
Speaker 1: on our own side. Right when we ask people about
Speaker 1: their individual stories, we don't pretend that they're similar to us.
Speaker 1: We realize that they're different from every other person on
Speaker 1: the planet. And it turns out that when people can
Speaker 1: access each other's biographies, when they can understand and also
Speaker 1: feel heard telling their own stories, it's not that differences
Speaker 1: melt away, but we find points of commonality that would
Speaker 1: shock us or surprise us if we were to keep
Speaker 1: in this baseball card model of social interaction. One of
Speaker 1: the ways I know you've talked about doing that is
Speaker 1: to really make sure you're getting access to the stories, right,
Speaker 1: because that can be a little bit hard if you're
Speaker 1: not really trying to connect with people and hear their
Speaker 1: side of some perspective. Right, Absolutely, it feels hard to
Speaker 1: get other people's stories, but in fact it's extremely easy. People,
Speaker 1: including people who are different from ourselves, often will open
Speaker 1: up very quickly if you show any genuine curiosity in them. Now,
Speaker 1: if that curiosity feels like it's going to be weaponized
Speaker 1: in like five seconds, then maybe people will clam up,
Speaker 1: and maybe they have a right to. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is one lesson from work that we've
Speaker 1: talked about before on deep canvassing. This is work by
Speaker 1: Josh Kella and David Brookman where they show that when
Speaker 1: people go door to door talking about political issues, but
Speaker 1: start out asking people what's your story, Like, what's the
Speaker 1: time that you felt like people were rejecting you or
Speaker 1: like you felt judged for who you were, people are
Speaker 1: more than willing to share those stories. And then after
Speaker 1: sharing those stories, they're more than willing to hear other
Speaker 1: people's stories. It turns out, if you want someone to
Speaker 1: listen to you, one of the best things you can
Speaker 1: do is listen to them first. Because we are a
Speaker 1: highly reciprocal species, right, we tend to pay back what
Speaker 1: other people give us. So if we judge people guess what,
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna do the same to us. And if
Speaker 1: we listen to people and invite their stories, they'll probably
Speaker 1: want to hear ours too. So far, we've talked about
Speaker 1: lots of wonderful ways that we can connect with people
Speaker 1: and maybe even find new friends across the political divide.
Speaker 1: When we get back from the break, we'll take all
Speaker 1: of these challenges one step further to figure out how
Speaker 1: we can deal with people who really disagree with us.
Speaker 1: We'll tackle that big challenge when the Happiness Lab returns
Speaker 1: in a moment. So far, we've been talking about what
Speaker 1: we can do to make new friends in this strange
Speaker 1: post pandemic era where we're all feeling a little bit
Speaker 1: socially out of practice. Now I want to turn to
Speaker 1: the question of how we can navigate some of the
Speaker 1: challenges that have come up in the friendships that we've
Speaker 1: had for a long time. A lot of our listeners
Speaker 1: had a question about how they can support people who
Speaker 1: are going through some tough times during the pandemic, because again,
Speaker 1: this has not been a cake walk for most of us.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are really struggling right now. And
Speaker 1: we had one question from a listener that I want
Speaker 1: to get the producers to play now because I thought
Speaker 1: it was really powerful. So, producers, can you play at
Speaker 1: Megan's clip for us? Hi, Laurie, my name's Megan Kan.
Speaker 1: I live in Omaha, Nebraska. I've been listening to the
Speaker 1: show for a long time and I love it. And
Speaker 1: my question is how can we contribute to the happiness
Speaker 1: of our friends when they're suffering without acting like their
Speaker 1: happiness is our responsibility. I have a lot of friends
Speaker 1: who have mental illness or come from a trauma background,
Speaker 1: and it's really hard to see their suffering. You can
Speaker 1: watch that mental illness eroding their happiness, and especially when
Speaker 1: those friends don't seek therapy, it starts to feel like
Speaker 1: I'm their therapist and I'm not trained to be a therapist.
Speaker 1: I can start feeling like this friendship has been com
Speaker 1: toxic for me. It's really draining a lot of my
Speaker 1: energy and a lot of my happiness, and so I
Speaker 1: want to be able to support those friends, to be
Speaker 1: there for them, to be mindful of their happiness without
Speaker 1: compromising my own. So, Jamille, this feels like a really
Speaker 1: tricky one. Any thoughts on how we can navigate this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of thoughts. I mean, first of all, I think
Speaker 1: many of us have been through what Megan is describing here,
Speaker 1: feeling as though we care for someone and can't do anything,
Speaker 1: and that helplessness can be a real killer. It can
Speaker 1: be so difficult and painful. Unit study empathy a whole bunch,
Speaker 1: and one of the pieces of empathy that we talk
Speaker 1: about in this world is empathic concern, the desire to
Speaker 1: improve somebody else's well being. Empathic concern is a desire,
Speaker 1: and like any other desire, it produces a goal in
Speaker 1: our mind, an assignment to fix this other person. And
Speaker 1: it's very easy to feel as though empathy has failed
Speaker 1: if you're not able to change somebody else. Now, that
Speaker 1: can be dreadful for everyone involved, right, It can be
Speaker 1: really difficult for the person experiencing empathy. And in the
Speaker 1: worst of cases, and I see this a lot in
Speaker 1: healthcare workers people can start to decide, well, if I
Speaker 1: can't change other people, if I can't fix them, if
Speaker 1: I can't make them happier, then I've failed at empathizing.
Speaker 1: So I'm a bad empathizer, I'm a bad caregiver, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to stop. I've literally seen people pull back
Speaker 1: from their entire profession, like social workers, because they don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're able to fix other people. But guess what,
Speaker 1: the job of empathy is not actually to fix other people,
Speaker 1: because other people are not in our control. Megan said
Speaker 1: that she's not trained as a therapist. Neither am I,
Speaker 1: but my wife is, and I asked her about this
Speaker 1: very issue, and she says, you know that one of
Speaker 1: the most important things is to realize that when we
Speaker 1: try to show up for other people, all we have
Speaker 1: control over is what we bring to the situation. Can
Speaker 1: we be as attentive, as supportive, as non judgmental as possible.
Speaker 1: If we do that, then I would say that our
Speaker 1: empathy has succeeded, irrespective of how it lands with the
Speaker 1: other person, because we've done what we can. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about this in the world of self compassion,
Speaker 1: and you know, I have to shout out Kristin Neff
Speaker 1: and Christopher Germer, who have excellent resources online that you
Speaker 1: can look for here. One of their practices is known
Speaker 1: as equanimity, and it's this practice of understanding that we
Speaker 1: want the best for other people. We want to express
Speaker 1: our good will for them and to be there for them,
Speaker 1: but that we cannot control whether our help actually makes
Speaker 1: a difference for them. We can't even control whether they
Speaker 1: accept our goodwill. All we can do is provide to
Speaker 1: them what we can. Now. The other side of this,
Speaker 1: and some good news here for Megan and the rest
Speaker 1: of us, is that oftentimes that's all people really want
Speaker 1: from us. I think oftentimes we overestimate how much people
Speaker 1: want us to solve their problems. In fact, when people
Speaker 1: think about giving support to others, another trick that their
Speaker 1: mind plays on them is that they think that they'll
Speaker 1: be bad support providers if they don't know the exact
Speaker 1: right thing to say. In fact, if you ask support
Speaker 1: receivers what they want, oftentimes it's not for someone to
Speaker 1: fix their problems. It's just for someone to be there. So, Megan,
Speaker 1: even without fixing your friend's problem, you might be doing
Speaker 1: a lot more than you realize. You are just by
Speaker 1: being a friend to that individual, And I think that's
Speaker 1: so important, especially when you're in that position, you know,
Speaker 1: because of course we've all been there. I've been there too,
Speaker 1: of feeling like, oh, I'm not making the difference that
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to make. Just remembering that the listening is
Speaker 1: the difference and that matters more than we can often realize.
Speaker 1: I think that was super helpful advice. Is there any
Speaker 1: point at which you think you might need to step back?
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we can feel and pathetically beholden to people,
Speaker 1: but then there's sometimes when we're struggling ourselves where we
Speaker 1: might need to take a break and really focus on
Speaker 1: our own health. Is that the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: we need to consider when we're thinking about empathy one
Speaker 1: hundred percent? I think equanimity allows us to realize that, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can bring the best version of myself to this
Speaker 1: situation to this other person that I can, but it's
Speaker 1: not my responsibility to fix them. Along with that, it's
Speaker 1: also important to practice self compassion. Being around somebody that
Speaker 1: we care about who is really struggling is its own
Speaker 1: type of suffering for us as well, and so I
Speaker 1: think it's important to also turn that compassionate lens that
Speaker 1: we have for a Megan's case for her close friend
Speaker 1: and point it back at ourselves and realize that we
Speaker 1: too suffer when we're around people who suffer, and that
Speaker 1: we need to care for ourselves during those times too.
Speaker 1: Megan's case is kind of particularly extreme, right. It's a
Speaker 1: case where you have a close friend that's really going
Speaker 1: through a tough time that you're trying to help. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us also have peripheral people in
Speaker 1: our lives that are either going to a tough time
Speaker 1: or just have the kind of personality where they're not,
Speaker 1: let's say, as consistent with our happiness goals as we
Speaker 1: might let right, yes, our next listener's question is really
Speaker 1: asking a question about this, How can we navigate people
Speaker 1: whose moods and whose goals for happiness might not be
Speaker 1: as consistent with ours. This question comes from mass com
Speaker 1: eighty four on Twitter. Mass com asks, good afternoon, Laurie.
Speaker 1: Do you have any advice on how to stay happy
Speaker 1: or focused even though sometimes you're in an environment where
Speaker 1: the individuals around you don't share the same mood or
Speaker 1: the same goals, especially in a work environment. So I
Speaker 1: think this is something that Jimmy Lee, you're a uniquely
Speaker 1: qualified to answer, and part because you're just like a
Speaker 1: super happy person. I feel like your mean happiness is
Speaker 1: much higher than everyone else, so you're constantly in a
Speaker 1: position where people's mood is worse than yours. But also,
Speaker 1: since I know you've been thinking a lot about how
Speaker 1: we can navigate the moods of other people and stay
Speaker 1: empathic and try to help folks even when their moods
Speaker 1: and their goals might differ from ours. Yeah. Well, you know, Laurie,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, let me first say that I
Speaker 1: appreciate that positive sentiment, but I think it's way off base,
Speaker 1: which is not your fault. But I don't consider myself
Speaker 1: someone who's happy all the time by any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination, including over the last two years. I think
Speaker 1: it's been a really hard time, And you know, I
Speaker 1: try to emphasize the positive when I'm out in public,
Speaker 1: especially when I'm thinking about the science, because I think
Speaker 1: that the science, especially the science that I study, the
Speaker 1: sunny side of human nature, gives us all this information
Speaker 1: that people are really wonderful in all these ways, and
Speaker 1: I do believe those data in my mind, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that that doesn't mean that I believe those data
Speaker 1: in my heart all the time. You know, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: when you're stuck in traffic and like looking at the
Speaker 1: person next to you or any people in San Francisco
Speaker 1: just not use turn signals that never knows. There are
Speaker 1: so many there's so many times that I've struggled in
Speaker 1: so many different ways, And so I don't want anyone
Speaker 1: out there to think that just because we study this
Speaker 1: stuff that makes us natural experts at being awesome at
Speaker 1: I don't all the time and just feeling terrific. But
Speaker 1: I think that we, like everybody else, hope that tools
Speaker 1: from psychology can help all of us access happiness just
Speaker 1: a little bit more than we would have otherwise. So
Speaker 1: to get back to Mascom's question, which I think is
Speaker 1: a really good one, we all have that person in
Speaker 1: the office or you know, our apartment building or whatever
Speaker 1: who maybe is a little bit gloomier or maybe has
Speaker 1: a bad attitude. Pro tip if you don't have that
Speaker 1: person around you, you might be that person for other
Speaker 1: You got to listen to extra episode. So yeah, stay
Speaker 1: tuned for more of the Happiness Lab. But I think
Speaker 1: one to remember is that oftentimes, just because someone comes
Speaker 1: off as unhappy doesn't mean that they don't want to
Speaker 1: be happy. Just because someone comes off as a little
Speaker 1: bit mean doesn't mean that they don't want to be
Speaker 1: friendly or kind. I think that people buy and large
Speaker 1: share our goals and values. The issue is that a
Speaker 1: lot of the times they feel disconnected from them. So
Speaker 1: I often try to get past the way that people
Speaker 1: present and try to be curious about what's underneath that.
Speaker 1: You know, so often anxiety shows up as anger or boredom,
Speaker 1: sadness might show up as frustration. People don't always perform
Speaker 1: outwardly what they're feeling inside. So the first thing that
Speaker 1: I would encourage someone to do if they have someone
Speaker 1: around them who seems to not share their happiness goals
Speaker 1: is to really ask yourself, are you sure? Because maybe
Speaker 1: they do share your goals, but there's something getting in
Speaker 1: their way. Yeah. I think that there's also a couple
Speaker 1: of techniques that we can all use, but also encourage
Speaker 1: others to use to get a little bit more happiness
Speaker 1: and meaning. For instance, in the workplace, there's a great
Speaker 1: study that came out just a couple months ago on
Speaker 1: burnout in the workplace, which I mean goodness, what is
Speaker 1: more common these days? I feel like burnout is just
Speaker 1: like the vibe of the twenty twenties. So far, it's
Speaker 1: like vibe of the decade burnout, but you know the
Speaker 1: decade is not over yet by a long shot, but
Speaker 1: nonetheless super common experience. And it turns out that there
Speaker 1: are different ways that compassion can help us overcome burnout.
Speaker 1: The first is in order to know how, we need
Speaker 1: to know that burnout actually is more than one piece.
Speaker 1: There is exhaustion, just a sense of being totally overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by what we have to do. And there's also cynicism,
Speaker 1: a sense of depersonalization and disconnection from the people around us.
Speaker 1: So if you have someone around you who seems really unhappy,
Speaker 1: I might start by saying, well, in what way are
Speaker 1: they unhappy? And might I make a difference in helping
Speaker 1: them get on board with those goals or even become
Speaker 1: happier If people are really exhausted, it turns out that
Speaker 1: self compassion and self care matter a lot, right just
Speaker 1: giving yourself that time to recharge. But interestingly, if people
Speaker 1: feel cynical and connected, sometimes what they need is not
Speaker 1: to binge. Watch ted Lasso and eat a box of
Speaker 1: bond bonds, which I mean are two excellent activities, especially
Speaker 1: it's fair to be fair, you know, especially when performed together.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that one of the best salves
Speaker 1: or treatments for depersonalization, for cynicism, for that sense of disconnection,
Speaker 1: is not to retreat into ourselves, but rather to help
Speaker 1: other people. When we express compassion for others, we often
Speaker 1: end up feeling well, like there's more meaning to our
Speaker 1: connections with them. So I guess for mass com I
Speaker 1: would say, think about what your co worker is going
Speaker 1: through and maybe ask yourself what could they do to
Speaker 1: feel better? And you know, if you express compassion to them,
Speaker 1: you might feel better too. That's the beauty of so
Speaker 1: many of these social strategies, as are like this wonderful
Speaker 1: win win. You do this nice thing for somebody else,
Speaker 1: You extend them compassion, you try to help with them
Speaker 1: in the workplace, and then you feel better too. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's such a wonderful thing. I think we're so many
Speaker 1: of us are locked in this vicious cycle where we
Speaker 1: imagine people are worse than they are, so we interact
Speaker 1: with them as we imagine them to be, and we
Speaker 1: miss out on connections, but just flipping the switch on
Speaker 1: our behavior can change that vicious cycle into a virtuous
Speaker 1: one where beliefs turn into positive actions and positive outcomes.
Speaker 1: So far, we've been talking about ways that we can
Speaker 1: re envision humanity is, you know, the kind of thing
Speaker 1: where a lot of people are fighting with us rather
Speaker 1: than against us, and ways that we can hear people's stories.
Speaker 1: We get back from the break, we'll take this one
Speaker 1: step further to how we can do that with people
Speaker 1: who are really in a spot where they're disagreeing with us.
Speaker 1: We'll tackle the challenges of that kind of social connection.
Speaker 1: When the Happiest Lab returns in a moment, the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab will be right back. We were chatting before the break,
Speaker 1: we were talking about how to manage people who weren't
Speaker 1: feeling so happy. I think our next two questions really
Speaker 1: fit nicely with that there again kind of how can
Speaker 1: you navigate people who seem to think and have a
Speaker 1: mindset that's different than yours. But a lot of our
Speaker 1: listeners wrote in about a mindset of what you might
Speaker 1: call past simism, or this idea of feeling cynical like
Speaker 1: you were talking about. So one of the questions we
Speaker 1: got comes from Brandon Harris. Brandon writes, I'd love more
Speaker 1: insights on how to help people that are prone to
Speaker 1: focusing on what's wrong or thinking too critically or negatively, basically,
Speaker 1: how we can turn an extreme pessimist into an optimist.
Speaker 1: Brandon goes on to say that his wife tends to
Speaker 1: focus on what isn't right, or what hasn't been done,
Speaker 1: or all the negatives. He says that she's aware and
Speaker 1: wants to be better about focusing on the positives, but
Speaker 1: it's just hard to be thankful because it's kind of ingrained.
Speaker 1: And we got a similar question from another person who
Speaker 1: jowned in from the Happiness Lab classroom on Facebook. This
Speaker 1: is from Katie Canning, who writes specifically about how to
Speaker 1: do with the same kind of thing, but with kids.
Speaker 1: So Katie asks how to help children work towards happiness
Speaker 1: when they feel utterly despondent due to life events and
Speaker 1: can't see anything to be grateful for. I think this
Speaker 1: comes up a lot right where it's easy, when times
Speaker 1: feel tough, to focus on all the negatives to just
Speaker 1: be into the gripe thing rather than the focusing on
Speaker 1: the blessings and I know this is something that you've
Speaker 1: been thinking about more and more because I know you
Speaker 1: have this cool ted talk about cynicism, which everyone should
Speaker 1: check out. But yeah, any advice for how to get
Speaker 1: people out of this pessimism trap, this kind of griping trap. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a great set of questions. And
Speaker 1: the first thing I would say is that things are
Speaker 1: really screwed up in a lot of ways. So it's
Speaker 1: not all in our heads, you know, Laurie, both you
Speaker 1: and I are a psychologists, so we love thinking about
Speaker 1: people's minds and in particular, you know some of the
Speaker 1: tricks that our minds play on us. But if you
Speaker 1: think things are bad, it might not be your mind playing.
Speaker 1: That's things really, you know, along a bunch of dimensions
Speaker 1: are really tough right now. So the first thing I
Speaker 1: want to say is just to validate people who are
Speaker 1: having a hard time seeing the bright side. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think that right now what we have is
Speaker 1: only an optimism deficit. I think that we have a
Speaker 1: world in which pessimism, it can be a really natural
Speaker 1: reaction to what's out there, and especially what's out there
Speaker 1: that we hear about in the news. Right because there's
Speaker 1: this disproportionate focus on negative information that we receive when
Speaker 1: we're doom scrolling, you know, at least for me at
Speaker 1: like eleven thirty PM, when I need to wake up
Speaker 1: at six am, right, So it's it's totally natural response
Speaker 1: to a topsy turvy world. That said, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I come back to over and
Speaker 1: over again is this idea that people are better than
Speaker 1: we realize they are. Right. So, yes, horrible things happen
Speaker 1: and people do awful, awful things, and it's easy, very
Speaker 1: easy to focus on those. I mean, those are the
Speaker 1: shark attacks of the social world that are actually worse
Speaker 1: than real shark attacks. Oftentimes, what we see people doing
Speaker 1: the horrible things that we hear about in the news,
Speaker 1: but that's not representative of most people. In fact, one
Speaker 1: of the books that I've been reading to my own kids,
Speaker 1: who are six and five, is this book called Most People,
Speaker 1: and it's really beautiful. It's about the idea that the
Speaker 1: vast majority of people want to help one another, want
Speaker 1: to connect with others, want to have a positive impact
Speaker 1: on the world. And I know that's a book for
Speaker 1: six year olds, but honestly, the last time I read it,
Speaker 1: I've started crying because I think it's so easy to
Speaker 1: forget that. But really it's true when you look at
Speaker 1: opinions around what people want from the world, whether they
Speaker 1: want to be rich and famous or whether they want
Speaker 1: to be part of community. People think that others around
Speaker 1: them want to be rich and famous, but in fact,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people are much more interested in
Speaker 1: connection and community. So again, we've got it backwards, and
Speaker 1: I think that turning that upside down perception right side
Speaker 1: up can be really empowering. I mean that not just
Speaker 1: in terms of optimism, like a complacent view that everything
Speaker 1: is actually great when things are really messed up. I
Speaker 1: mean that when we realize that most people around us
Speaker 1: want what we want, a peaceful and connected world, that
Speaker 1: actually can make us the opposite of complacent. It can
Speaker 1: help us agitate for change because it can be really
Speaker 1: paralyzing to think I'm the only one who wants things
Speaker 1: to change for the better. That can make us pessimistic
Speaker 1: if we feel alone. Optimism doesn't have to be the
Speaker 1: same as thinking everything is great. Optimism can mean wanting
Speaker 1: a better future and understanding that most people want it
Speaker 1: with us, and so fighting for that even more fiercely.
Speaker 1: Now I want to tackle a different challenge that a
Speaker 1: lot of listeners asked about how we can manage not
Speaker 1: se eye to eye with the people in our lives,
Speaker 1: particularly where there might be disagreements. So we had a
Speaker 1: couple questions that came up about this. One that comes
Speaker 1: from Suva I Am on Twitter, asks how can we
Speaker 1: better create happy teams at work? Specifically, how can we
Speaker 1: disagree and still work happily together. Similarly, we get a
Speaker 1: question from Samir that asks can we talk about disagreements
Speaker 1: and reasoning with others because naturally I'm right one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the time. I think Samir is being a
Speaker 1: little facetious. War maybe, but he says, I find it
Speaker 1: demoralizing when the people I talk to do not see
Speaker 1: things the way I do. And then Samir goes on
Speaker 1: to explain that he grew up in Pakistan but has
Speaker 1: since traveled the world and he finds himself constantly struggling
Speaker 1: to explain where he learned about these new experiences. He
Speaker 1: finds it hard to kind of connect with people because
Speaker 1: he's had these new experiences, and his experiences make it
Speaker 1: really hard to see eye to eye. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I'm so happy we have you here in
Speaker 1: particular to answer this question is that you've written an
Speaker 1: entire book about strategies we can use to increase our empathy.
Speaker 1: For listeners who haven't checked out, they should definitely check
Speaker 1: out The War for Kindness because it's amazing. But any
Speaker 1: tips for Suva, Samir and all the others who might
Speaker 1: be NAVI getting this challenge of dealing with people they
Speaker 1: disagree with. I mean, it's the challenge of our age,
Speaker 1: or at least one. I put it in the top five.
Speaker 1: It's in the conversation for a challenge of our age.
Speaker 1: It's so common and so difficult at a number of levels.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it sounds like these folks
Speaker 1: are talking about two different types of challenge and disagreement.
Speaker 1: So let me take those one at a time. Forsuva's
Speaker 1: great question around conflict at work, but I think this
Speaker 1: also pertains to conflict outside of work. I think that
Speaker 1: one of the most productive things we can do when
Speaker 1: we disagree with someone is be really clear right off
Speaker 1: the bat about what we disagree on and what we
Speaker 1: agree on, because oftentimes I think that disagreement raises people's walls, right,
Speaker 1: It sort of raises their defenses to such a degree
Speaker 1: that they start to think in zero sum terms about
Speaker 1: the other person full stop, right Like, if you disagree
Speaker 1: with me about this thing at work, then I must
Speaker 1: just like not like you and we must disagree on
Speaker 1: everything else, And that's probably not true. In fact, usually
Speaker 1: conflicts at work are very local about how a particular
Speaker 1: project should get done, and oftentimes people share if you
Speaker 1: just zoom out a little bit, they're big picture goals.
Speaker 1: They are working together on a team. So one of
Speaker 1: the big differentiators here in the sort of organizational psychology
Speaker 1: world is between task conflict and relational conflict. So task
Speaker 1: conflict is where you just have a different opinion about
Speaker 1: how something should get done. Relational conflict is where, well,
Speaker 1: you kind of don't like each other, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term. I think we often confuse the first
Speaker 1: of those for the second, because when we are threatened
Speaker 1: by task conflict, we start to think this is scary.
Speaker 1: I don't like it, and so I don't like the
Speaker 1: person who's here with me right now. It's critical when
Speaker 1: we can to not extrapolate or overgeneralize in that way,
Speaker 1: but instead to have open conversations about, well, we disagree
Speaker 1: about this, but let's refocus. Let's just back up a
Speaker 1: little bit and zoom out what do we agree on?
Speaker 1: And oftentimes starting with that common ground makes discussion of
Speaker 1: task conflict of what you disagree about feel much less
Speaker 1: dangerous and therefore go much more productively. I've even heard
Speaker 1: this as a strategy in work meetings, right where you
Speaker 1: start with okay, let's start with where we're all on
Speaker 1: the same page, we all agree on this, we all
Speaker 1: agree on this, I'll be all be honest. And sometimes
Speaker 1: if you zoom out, that could that could be a
Speaker 1: long part of the meeting where you're listings like if
Speaker 1: there's this one tiny spot where we don't agree, and
Speaker 1: that can make like, oh, we're all on the same page.
Speaker 1: We just have to deal with this one tiny task conflict,
Speaker 1: and it can feel completely different than we are at
Speaker 1: odd completely I mean, I think that it's sort of
Speaker 1: a group meeting version of the compliment sandwich, you know,
Speaker 1: but much more authentic though, right, because oftentimes people really
Speaker 1: do agree on I don't know, eighty ninety percent of
Speaker 1: things in a workplace context, and yet it's so easy
Speaker 1: to focus on the ten percent until it becomes a
Speaker 1: hundred right, So just interrupting that process is critical. And
Speaker 1: then to Samir's question, I think that I mean, which
Speaker 1: was hilarious by the way, Samir, Yes, I too, am
Speaker 1: right one hundred percent of the time, which I imagine
Speaker 1: means Sameir that you and I would agree one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the time as well. So what happens if
Speaker 1: we disagree? My goodness, one of us is in an
Speaker 1: existential pickle, aren't there? Or maybe both of us? You know?
Speaker 1: This is something that Adam Grant writes beautifully about and
Speaker 1: think again right around the idea of intellectual humility, which
Speaker 1: is how do we face challenges to what we know
Speaker 1: or what we think? Do we view them as threats
Speaker 1: to who we are? Or do we view them as
Speaker 1: chances to grow and learn? And I think that oftentimes
Speaker 1: we do the first, because we confuse our opinions with
Speaker 1: our self worth, right, And I think that oftentimes, especially
Speaker 1: in a social media environment where people are very uncharitable
Speaker 1: and waiting to pounce on any inconsistency or whole in
Speaker 1: somebody else's argument, it makes sense to be very protective
Speaker 1: of our opinions. But that's probably not the world we
Speaker 1: want to live in. I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: if Twitter was somehow turned into a three dimensional space,
Speaker 1: I would try to get as far away from it
Speaker 1: as possible. Right Instead, I think we want to live
Speaker 1: in a world where we can support each other at
Speaker 1: a broad level and challenge each other at a specific level,
Speaker 1: again getting at that idea of task versus relational conflict,
Speaker 1: but at a bigger picture level. So I mean, oftentimes
Speaker 1: with my own students and in my own lab, we
Speaker 1: love to disagree because disagreeing is one of the ways
Speaker 1: that we can test our own assumptions and become a
Speaker 1: little bit less wrong in the future. There's an element
Speaker 1: of intellectual bravery to being open to your assumptions being challenged.
Speaker 1: The thing is, and this is what I think a
Speaker 1: lot about as well, is that it's not enough to
Speaker 1: be intellectually brave in conversation, because that's not always our default.
Speaker 1: In order to cultivate that bravery, we need to feel
Speaker 1: as though we are socially safe. So empathy, compassion, and
Speaker 1: mutual support, shared values. Conversations about all of these things
Speaker 1: and about our connections to each other lay the foundation
Speaker 1: for a more open minded and productive disagreement. Ell of
Speaker 1: ending on this idea of bravery because I think that
Speaker 1: it really underlies a lot of what we've been talking
Speaker 1: about today. We kind of need to be brave to
Speaker 1: challenge our assumptions about what other people are like. If
Speaker 1: we want to reconnect and make friends, we kind of
Speaker 1: have to be brave and face the fact that we
Speaker 1: might not be able to fully help somebody who's feeling
Speaker 1: like they're in a difficult spot. But you know, we
Speaker 1: are brave enough to kind of take those first steps
Speaker 1: and listen. And if we want to deal with the
Speaker 1: disagreements we're facing, we kind of need to be intellectually
Speaker 1: brave and allow ourselves to feel challenged, but do that
Speaker 1: with a bit of a growth mindset. And all these cases,
Speaker 1: we're just taking the research on social connection and sort
Speaker 1: of bringing it to the four But do you think
Speaker 1: that understanding these things better can really make us brave
Speaker 1: in that way? Like, do you think that knowing the
Speaker 1: science has helped you become braver in terms of your
Speaker 1: social connection and in terms of your empathic concern I
Speaker 1: think that it has when I can apply it. There
Speaker 1: are so many cases when we really feel like we're
Speaker 1: under a lot of threat and it's really hard to
Speaker 1: do much of anything except try to survive. But I
Speaker 1: think when I'm able to have the patience with myself
Speaker 1: to slow down and remember what the science tells me,
Speaker 1: then yeah, I have found it to be extremely helpful,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of your listeners have as well.
Speaker 1: You Know, one thing that I want to say about
Speaker 1: bravery is that oftentimes we think of expressing bravery as
Speaker 1: doing something brand new that we've never done before. It's
Speaker 1: like the psychological equivalent of being Alex Hanald and you know,
Speaker 1: and climbing the face of Al Capitan with no rope.
Speaker 1: But a lot of us have been in a giant
Speaker 1: valley over the last two years, we've lost altitude, and
Speaker 1: so one thing that I want to emphasize to everybody
Speaker 1: is that it's also brave to return to where we were.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of work to get back to
Speaker 1: that sense of connection, that sense of togetherness that we
Speaker 1: had before the pandemic. And I hope people give themselves
Speaker 1: credit not just for being brave and trying new things,
Speaker 1: but for being brave and trying old things too well.
Speaker 1: A lovely way to end as usual, Jamie, You're amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for reminding me about the importance
Speaker 1: of being brave and being self compassionate as we all
Speaker 1: return to the old normal new one of the normals
Speaker 1: that we're all going back to. You've been fantastic. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on Happiness Lab today. Oh Laurie,
Speaker 1: my friend, it is always such a delight to talk
Speaker 1: with you. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks
Speaker 1: again to our rockstar guest Jamil Zaki. For more wonderful
Speaker 1: wisdom from Jamille, check out his book The War for Kindness,
Speaker 1: Building Empathy in a Fractured World. And thanks so so
Speaker 1: much to all of you who roll in with questions
Speaker 1: for this episode. If you have a question we didn't cover,
Speaker 1: then send us an email. You can reach us at
Speaker 1: THHL Voice at Pushkin dot fm. That's tl v O
Speaker 1: I c E at push ki n dot fm. You
Speaker 1: can also contact me on Twitter or Instagram and I
Speaker 1: hope you'll be back really soon for the next episode
Speaker 1: of The Happiness Lab. Listener Questions Special Edition with Me
Speaker 1: Doctor Laurie Santos. The Happiness Lab is co written and
Speaker 1: produced by Ryan Dilley, Emily Ann Vaughan and Courtney Guerino.
Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing,
Speaker 1: and mastering by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Meilabelle, Heather Faine,
Speaker 1: John Ours, Carl Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Brant Haynes, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Nicole Morano, Royston Preserve, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries and me, Doctor Laurie Santos. To find more
Speaker 1: Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your podcasts,