Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners. You know that I often
Speaker 1: like to share the conversations I have with interesting folks
Speaker 1: on other podcasts, and today I've got one that I
Speaker 1: think you'll really enjoy because I had the pleasure of
Speaker 1: taking part in a live recording of a new podcast
Speaker 1: called IMO, hosted by former First Lady of the United
Speaker 1: States Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson, and for
Speaker 1: their first live show ever at south By Southwest, the
Speaker 1: siblings had Yours truly on as a guest to discuss
Speaker 1: a very tough happiness question, how can we fight hopelessness
Speaker 1: and scary times. I hope you enjoy our conversation and
Speaker 1: be sure to check out IMO wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Well, Hey, south By Southwest, Wow, Boston.
Speaker 3: Hi, Craig Robinson, my big brother. Yeah, he's so nice.
Speaker 4: You all are nice. How about my sister Michelle Obama?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm not used to being up here
Speaker 2: with somebody. Usually when i'm speaking, I'm speaking on my own.
Speaker 2: But I got company.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: When was the last time we were on a big
Speaker 2: stage together?
Speaker 5: You remember It's been a while. Yeah, remind me, what
Speaker 5: do you think I am thinking.
Speaker 2: About the two thousand and eight convention and that was
Speaker 2: a big moment for me because that was Barack's first campaign.
Speaker 2: In that campaign, people didn't know me, so I got
Speaker 2: accused in the press of being angry and combative.
Speaker 3: Because of the way I spoke.
Speaker 2: So I found that I had to use this speech
Speaker 2: to reintroduce myself to the country. So this was a
Speaker 2: big speech, major speech at the DNC, and my big
Speaker 2: brother introduced me and we were.
Speaker 5: On stoge an honor.
Speaker 3: Yeah there, it was quite an honor.
Speaker 2: But in his introduction, when you're on stage and you're
Speaker 2: doing a big speech, you have teleprompters. So you have
Speaker 2: prompter in the front, have prompter on the left, prompter
Speaker 2: on the right. Because you're reading from the prompter. Because
Speaker 2: it's timed, you got to hit it right. It's national,
Speaker 2: it's live.
Speaker 5: Let me cut in here. She had to read from
Speaker 5: a prompter.
Speaker 2: I memorized, Oh, well, mine, here we go, favorite child.
Speaker 3: He memorized everything.
Speaker 5: Memory.
Speaker 2: Well, my speech was a little longer, a little more impactful,
Speaker 2: so I needed the teleprompter, right. So he does this
Speaker 2: beautiful introduction of me. It's all action packed, and you
Speaker 2: know he says, and ladies and gentlemen, the next first
Speaker 2: Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama and I come
Speaker 2: on stage and they're cheering, you know, and we do
Speaker 2: this greet in front of the prompter where I think
Speaker 2: that my big brother is gonna lean down and give
Speaker 2: me a hug and say, you got this, girl.
Speaker 3: I love you.
Speaker 2: I'm so proud of you. So I go out there
Speaker 2: and we're on national TV. And do you remember what
Speaker 2: you said to me.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 2: I'm leaning down to my ear and you said, left
Speaker 2: prompter out.
Speaker 4: And he walked off. I was looking out for left
Speaker 4: prompter out. I was looking out for you. I knew
Speaker 4: you hadn't memorized it, so I didn't want you to
Speaker 4: be surprised, but you know, I mean, and that wasn't working.
Speaker 5: So now I'm thinking, what was he talking about?
Speaker 2: So I'm wa eving, trying to play it off, and
Speaker 2: I'm walking up to the stand and what he meant
Speaker 2: was the left prompter was out, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: good looking out. But anyway, that was my brother looking out.
Speaker 2: But that was the last time we were on stage.
Speaker 5: That was the last time. And look at us.
Speaker 4: Now we are here, our new podcast, I amo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, what we've been doing. We're gonna chat a
Speaker 2: little bit so you guys will get a sense of
Speaker 2: our dynamic and sort of some of the lessons we
Speaker 2: learned growing up. And some of this podcast was started
Speaker 2: because you know, this last year was pretty I won't
Speaker 2: say completely rough, but we had some We lost our
Speaker 2: mom this year for those of you who don't know
Speaker 2: Marian Robinson. And as a result, yeah, yeah, my mom.
Speaker 2: She she and our dad were some amazing people. And
Speaker 2: I think as a result of that lost Craig and
Speaker 2: I you know, it brought us even closer together.
Speaker 3: We were already close.
Speaker 2: But I don't know about you, but there's just something
Speaker 2: about losing what was our last parent, and anytime in
Speaker 2: your life when you lose a parent, it's tough.
Speaker 3: You think you're going to be ready for it as.
Speaker 2: An adult, but I think, you know, part of losing mom,
Speaker 2: it kind of puts us in the position where we
Speaker 2: are we're the wise ones in the family.
Speaker 5: Hard to believe, I know.
Speaker 2: I mean I talked to Malia and Sasha about this
Speaker 2: all the time as they are becoming adults. I know,
Speaker 2: Malie always says, well, when do you actually feel like
Speaker 2: an adult, and I was like, never, not really ever
Speaker 2: do you feel like you know what you're doing? So
Speaker 2: I said, the fact that you're in your twenties and
Speaker 2: you feel like you are clueless, it's like you're right
Speaker 2: on schedule. Because I remind her that even now at
Speaker 2: sixty one and how old are you.
Speaker 5: Sixty three, Let's be very clear, he's my big brother.
Speaker 4: Although it's all over people because she's so iconic, people
Speaker 4: think I'm her little brother.
Speaker 5: If you can believe that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's because you're bold and you have younger kids.
Speaker 5: That is true. I think that helps.
Speaker 2: Because he's to set of older kids and he's got
Speaker 2: a set of younger kids as well. So I called
Speaker 2: him the head of the ODC, the Old Dad's Club.
Speaker 3: He is president and CEO.
Speaker 2: But even at this age, it's a little daunting to
Speaker 2: think that now we kind of have to step up
Speaker 2: in our family and be that wisdom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we're always doing it at home with our families,
Speaker 4: answering questions. So we're going to be doing that with
Speaker 4: our listeners. So as more as we get going, you'll
Speaker 4: see we'll have a listener questions and we'll have one
Speaker 4: later today.
Speaker 5: So stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so you know, our goal is to share
Speaker 2: some of what we learned. We know people are going
Speaker 2: through some tough times, and I don't think Craig and
Speaker 2: I are feeling any different than anyone out there. You know,
Speaker 2: we're dealing with a lot of uncertainties. I for one,
Speaker 2: feel for folks who are struggling and will continue to
Speaker 2: struggle in these uncertainties.
Speaker 3: I worry about folks being out of work, you know.
Speaker 2: I worry about how we think about diversity and inclusion.
Speaker 2: I think about how we treat one another and the
Speaker 2: voices that we hear, and what that does, what models
Speaker 2: that's setting for the next generation. Who do we want
Speaker 2: to be as a country. All of that keeps me
Speaker 2: up at night. And I know that a lot of
Speaker 2: people are struggling with some of those things. But I
Speaker 2: find in those moments that it is better not to
Speaker 2: try to figure that stuff out alone. And for me
Speaker 2: and Craig and our family, you know, we always try
Speaker 2: to step outside of our loneliness and talk as a
Speaker 2: family and as a community and to share those concerns.
Speaker 2: And I hope that our listeners are pushed to do
Speaker 2: some of the same things too. That you know we're
Speaker 2: not going to figure this stuff out on our own,
Speaker 2: and that we need each other and we need to
Speaker 2: step out of our loneliness and start talking to each other.
Speaker 2: So hopefully this podcast will spark some conversation, but more importantly,
Speaker 2: I hope it leads people to seek out their own
Speaker 2: communities of trust and conversation. So we're not sitting alone
Speaker 2: in these feelings. So that's my hope. Oh, go ahead
Speaker 2: and clap.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: See we're not used to a live audience yet, so no,
Speaker 4: I absolutely agree with me. To her point, we talked
Speaker 4: about not having all the opinions.
Speaker 5: Or all the answers, or all the answers. We got
Speaker 5: plenty of opinions, but not all the answers.
Speaker 4: We're going to have a guest with us on most
Speaker 4: of our episodes, but sometimes it'll just be the two
Speaker 4: of us, ye, kind of chopping it up. But before
Speaker 4: we bring out our special guest today, I thought i'd
Speaker 4: pose a question to my sister. It's interesting now that
Speaker 4: we're doing the podcast, we talk all the time, but
Speaker 4: now we save our talking for when we see each other.
Speaker 5: Now, don't say anything. Don't say anything, David, don't say anything.
Speaker 4: But do you remember how mom and dad taught us
Speaker 4: how to handle adversity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I talk about this in both of my books.
Speaker 2: For those of you who don't know our story, our dad,
Speaker 2: who Fraser Robinson, he developed MS in the prime of
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 3: You know, he didn't always have it. He grew up
Speaker 3: as a boxer.
Speaker 2: And athlete, a swimmer, and like in his early twenties,
Speaker 2: he contracted MS and he couldn't walk without the assistance
Speaker 2: of a caine and the disease progress. So we only
Speaker 2: knew our father as someone with a disability, and I
Speaker 2: think that growing up with a parent with a disability,
Speaker 2: looking back on it, we were always kids that were
Speaker 2: growing up with a real sense of vulnerability right before
Speaker 2: us because our father was the sole breadwinner, our mom
Speaker 2: stayed home. He was a city worker, so that salary
Speaker 2: was important. I think we knew that. But to know
Speaker 2: that the person that you lean on most is vulnerable,
Speaker 2: I think it always made us clear about adversity. I
Speaker 2: think we lived within adversity to a certain extent, and
Speaker 2: it sort of made us both a little wary in
Speaker 2: interesting ways. For a kid and Craig, I don't know
Speaker 2: if you remember little things that we didn't at the
Speaker 2: time tie to our dad's disability. But Craig was always
Speaker 2: like doing disaster preparedness stuff around the house. I mean,
Speaker 2: I kid you not this little boy. And he was
Speaker 2: about ten, and I was always his willing sidekick, running
Speaker 2: behind him like what are we doing now? And he
Speaker 2: came home one day and said, you know, how are
Speaker 2: we going to get out if there's a fire? So
Speaker 2: he made us all do you remember I do I
Speaker 2: tell your little worries?
Speaker 5: So I was. I was worried about it.
Speaker 4: And you know, back in the seventies there were a
Speaker 4: lot of house fires.
Speaker 5: I don't know about you.
Speaker 3: Guys were smoke detectors.
Speaker 5: There weren't no sprinkler systems.
Speaker 2: We're talking young people back in the Stone Age.
Speaker 4: So I was always worried that we lived on the
Speaker 4: second floor and our dad couldn't get around, so how
Speaker 4: would we get out if there were fires? So I
Speaker 4: coming home from school and having done a fire drill
Speaker 4: at school, I set up a fire drill for us
Speaker 4: at home.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't just that.
Speaker 2: He had to make sure that he could drag our
Speaker 2: dad to safety.
Speaker 4: So he made I made my dad get on the almost.
Speaker 4: He had to be humiliated.
Speaker 3: But he humored you.
Speaker 4: He because I had him stand up, and I grabbed
Speaker 4: him from behind and put my arms under his shoulders
Speaker 4: and then just leaned him back and I dragged him
Speaker 4: through every room of a house to make sure that
Speaker 4: I could get him around.
Speaker 5: And he let me do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, God bless yeah yeah. But that indicated this
Speaker 2: little boy was worried about some stuff that probably a
Speaker 2: normal ten year old wouldn't worry about. And that wasn't it.
Speaker 2: You know, he would tie his left hand behind his back. Right, oh,
Speaker 2: your right hand because he was right handed, because he
Speaker 2: was worried that he would lose the use of his
Speaker 2: right hand, so he needed to know how to do
Speaker 2: everything with his left hand. There was one week that
Speaker 2: you walked around blindfolded just in case you lost her,
Speaker 2: I mean his eyesight. And I'm there like little me,
Speaker 2: going no to your left, right, to your right?
Speaker 5: No, wait, she was right there right there.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know why we're doing this,
Speaker 2: but my brother says we're doing it, and our parents
Speaker 2: would just humor us. But while we lived with probably
Speaker 2: that underlying level of uncertainty, I think when you talk
Speaker 2: about how we learned to deal with adversity. I think
Speaker 2: we learned it by watching our father persevere, you know,
Speaker 2: because let me tell you, our father, despite his disability,
Speaker 2: was a man who got up every day.
Speaker 3: And went to work.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't remember a time in our life
Speaker 2: that our dad missed a day of work.
Speaker 3: Blue collar worker.
Speaker 2: He took pride in the little things that I think
Speaker 2: we take for granted, like paying your bills on time,
Speaker 2: not being house poor. That's those a word that we
Speaker 2: don't want to be house poor. But my father would
Speaker 2: never let.
Speaker 3: A bill go by. He was resilient and he.
Speaker 2: Was positive in his life. He was a joyful man
Speaker 2: because I think he adversity was relative in our house.
Speaker 2: You know, if you could walk, if you could, you know,
Speaker 2: hold down a job, if you could take care of
Speaker 2: your family, if you could love your kids, if you
Speaker 2: could live with honor and decency, well who cares if
Speaker 2: you couldn't walk, you know who? He saw the blessings.
Speaker 2: So I think for as I look at it, for me,
Speaker 2: we learned to I mean.
Speaker 3: Adversity was relative.
Speaker 2: Diversity was a part of life, but it wasn't everything.
Speaker 2: You know that you'd have to just work your way
Speaker 2: through it. And the other thing I think Dad taught
Speaker 2: us was gratitude, immense gratitude. I mean our fathers you
Speaker 2: could tell from the stories, was a kind, gentle man.
Speaker 2: He rarely raised his voice or got angry. But you
Speaker 2: know when he was disappointed in us was when we
Speaker 2: showed a lack of gratitude for what we had. You know,
Speaker 2: if we had a bowl of ice cream and we
Speaker 2: were looking for the second scoop before we finished our
Speaker 2: the first group, what.
Speaker 3: Would he say?
Speaker 5: Never satisfy, never satisfied.
Speaker 2: That would be the one admonistion, never satisfied.
Speaker 5: And hate the those two words to this day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And when I face adversity, his words, you know,
Speaker 2: sit in my brain, It's like, what do I have
Speaker 2: to complain about? What is it that I can't overcome?
Speaker 2: Because of the model that my father set for me.
Speaker 2: You know, why wouldn't I be happy? Why wouldn't I
Speaker 2: be able to get through this? Because we saw a
Speaker 2: man do it every day and do it without complaint.
Speaker 2: Because if anybody had a reason to complain, would be
Speaker 2: my father, who was a black man growing up in Chicago,
Speaker 2: raised in desegregation, who was an intelligent man with ability
Speaker 2: to do art, but couldn't live up to his promise.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were a whole lot of reasons for
Speaker 2: our father to be upset and angry and not happy
Speaker 2: and to feel disappointed, to feel sorry for himself, but
Speaker 2: he was the exact opposite. And so that's what I
Speaker 2: think about when times get hard. It's like, look, my
Speaker 2: dad would push through it.
Speaker 5: Right, right, and I would. We could.
Speaker 4: We could talk about our dad for two shows, right,
Speaker 4: but we've.
Speaker 5: Got the perfect yes, we do yes.
Speaker 4: To talk about happiness and adversity and all that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. Doctor Lori Santos is a Yale professor. Oh
Speaker 4: you guys, all right, all right, yeah good. She's host
Speaker 4: of a wildly popular podcast called The Happiness Lab. She's
Speaker 4: also the teacher of one of the most popular classes
Speaker 4: at Yale.
Speaker 3: Wish we had this when we were I.
Speaker 5: Wish we had it.
Speaker 4: And that's psychology and the good life. And she's just
Speaker 4: an all around great person. So can you welcome doctor
Speaker 4: Lori Santos.
Speaker 6: Everybody, Well, hey, professor, hey Michelle, thank you for being
Speaker 6: on here.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. Yeah yeah, yeah, little
Speaker 1: intimate group, this is a little.
Speaker 3: Bit intimate chat. So how did you come to teach
Speaker 3: the course.
Speaker 2: I know you've answered this question a million times before,
Speaker 2: but what led you to understand that young people today
Speaker 2: need a course on how to be happy?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I took on this new role on Yale's campus,
Speaker 1: where I became what's called the head of college. Yale's
Speaker 1: one of these funny schools where there's like colleges within
Speaker 1: a college, like Harry Potter, like Gryffindors Lytherin kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I became head of a college on campus, and
Speaker 1: that meant that I was like living with students, like
Speaker 1: eating with them in the dining hall, hang out with
Speaker 1: them up close and personal. And I just didn't realize
Speaker 1: the college student mental health crisis was as bad as
Speaker 1: it was. You're right now, Nash. More than forty percent
Speaker 1: of college students say they're too depressed to function most day.
Speaker 1: More than sixty percent say they're overwhelmingly anxious. Like, this
Speaker 1: was a real crisis that I was seeing, and that
Speaker 1: felt really frustrating because like, my field has all these
Speaker 1: strategies we can use to feel better, experience more resilience,
Speaker 1: feel less stressed. And I was like, let me just
Speaker 1: develop this class. And then it got very very big,
Speaker 1: not as big as this. But you're listening to a
Speaker 1: live recording of me on Michelle Obama's new podcast, I AMO.
Speaker 5: We'll be back after a quick break.
Speaker 4: We've got a live question. We have a person, James.
Speaker 4: Are you here?
Speaker 5: Oh? There he is, James. James, you stand up, all right?
Speaker 5: I'm standing all.
Speaker 4: Right, Janet, all right, great, many so excited to be here.
Speaker 7: My question is I'm twenty eight and I live in LA.
Speaker 7: The fires impacted people close to me, and it feels
Speaker 7: like that's only going to become more frequent. And everything
Speaker 7: that's been happening politically, domestically, and globally, it feels like
Speaker 7: a version of the world is ending.
Speaker 5: And when I talk to.
Speaker 7: Friends, they say this is the new normal, And my
Speaker 7: immediate instinct is the push back. You know, we can't
Speaker 7: accept this, but personally, living with the inevitability of it,
Speaker 7: it also forces me to rethink what I always assumed
Speaker 7: adulthood would look like, you know, buying a house, starting
Speaker 7: a family. So my question is, do you have any
Speaker 7: advice on how to plan for a future that feels
Speaker 7: so different from the one we were promise without becoming
Speaker 7: apathetic or just resigning yourself to things getting worse.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much. Cool, Thank you, James.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an aim in from everybody in this room, right,
Speaker 2: everybody's feeling like that a bit lor You want to
Speaker 2: start by taking any a but an answer, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, yeah, I mean, I think the first thing to answer,
Speaker 1: the first thing to say for that question is that
Speaker 1: this is normal. Right, You're not the only person in
Speaker 1: the room that's going through that, And I think that
Speaker 1: normalization is critical. All too often we can get into
Speaker 1: this like toxic positivity vibe where it's like, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: kind of embarrassed that I'm so upset and frustrated and
Speaker 1: overwhelmed sad about what's going on in the world. But
Speaker 1: like we're supposed to feel that negative emotions are normal
Speaker 1: in an abnormal world, and I think it's fair to
Speaker 1: say that we are, you know, not it's not great,
Speaker 1: but we're in an abnormal world right now. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of point number one. The other
Speaker 1: reason that normalization is so important is that psychologically it
Speaker 1: can help us when you realize that these negative emotions
Speaker 1: are a common human experience, that there are emotions that
Speaker 1: are there to help you. They still don't feel good,
Speaker 1: but it can allow you to get through them a
Speaker 1: little bit better. Even here in Uti Austin, there's a researcher,
Speaker 1: Kristin Nef who studies this process of what she calls
Speaker 1: common humanity right recognizing like we're all going through it
Speaker 1: right now, and what she finds is that can actually
Speaker 1: help you get through tough times. She does this cool
Speaker 1: research with Afghan and Iraqi veterans and finds that those
Speaker 1: that give themselves self compassion realize that everybody's going through
Speaker 1: a tough time here, they wind up coming out with
Speaker 1: less evidence of PTSD and other related disorders. So like
Speaker 1: when you give yourself a little grace for feeling those
Speaker 1: negative emotions, realize they're normal and bad times, that actually
Speaker 1: helps you get through the negative emotions.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I want to get your take on, Laurie,
Speaker 2: is what's happened to the bar on happiness? Because it
Speaker 2: really feels like these days that the expectation of young
Speaker 2: people are so high, and some of that I think
Speaker 2: is our fault as parents. You know, when we were
Speaker 2: growing up, I mean, life was a lot simpler, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, just to give you an example of excitement
Speaker 2: in our house was getting pizza on report card day
Speaker 2: if we got good grades, you know, I mean at
Speaker 2: Christmas time.
Speaker 3: We could ask for three gifts.
Speaker 5: That was it.
Speaker 2: You know, go through the Sears Roebucks wish book you
Speaker 2: could pick three.
Speaker 5: Things out and that was it.
Speaker 2: What that?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: Or first of all Sears and that was the only
Speaker 2: store you go to. You get your car tuned up
Speaker 2: in a washing machine, and your school clothes all in
Speaker 2: one place. And they have a catalog. And you know
Speaker 2: what a catalog is young people. It's the thing you
Speaker 2: look through for items and you pick it out. Well,
Speaker 2: that came out each year and that's where all the
Speaker 2: toys were. So you know, our parents just you know,
Speaker 2: they weren't happy that we got good grades. You know,
Speaker 2: I can tell you. Did my our parents push us
Speaker 2: to go to Princeton. No, they were just like ghosts.
Speaker 2: Do something with your life as long as you're a
Speaker 2: good person. But when I think of young people today,
Speaker 2: this standard for happiness is like gone through the roof.
Speaker 5: I mean, you.
Speaker 2: Don't just go to college, but they're like seven colleges
Speaker 2: you can go to or it doesn't matter or you know,
Speaker 2: people you look on house hunters and everybody's looking for
Speaker 2: you know, marble counters and trade ceilings, and you know
Speaker 2: a man cave and there's a certain car and you know,
Speaker 2: and you're not supposed to be successful, but you're also
Speaker 2: supposed to be famous because social media tells you that
Speaker 2: that's what it means to be happy. So I guess
Speaker 2: that's the long way of asking, is some of this,
Speaker 2: you know, not just the world, because the world's been
Speaker 2: bad and it's been worse than it is right now,
Speaker 2: but people, young people are more unhappy than I think
Speaker 2: we ever were with a lot less.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 1: And we have data on this right looking across time,
Speaker 1: and those rates of depression, anxiety and stuff I just
Speaker 1: talked about, they're worse than there are young people right
Speaker 1: now than ever since we've recorded them, right like, and
Speaker 1: it's much worse. And I think you're exactly right. I
Speaker 1: think it's a lot our expectations. Right. We have tools
Speaker 1: that allow us to see those fancy houses, those fancy vacations,
Speaker 1: those fancy schools, and they're just in our pockets, dinging
Speaker 1: all the time, giving us a comparison that makes us
Speaker 1: feel kind of crappy, right, And what we know from
Speaker 1: the happiness science is that it's not what we objectively
Speaker 1: have that makes us happy. It's what we're expecting, it's
Speaker 1: what we're used to, you know. That's why I love
Speaker 1: the story of your dad, right, you know, just getting
Speaker 1: a little bowl of ice cream like that should be enough, right.
Speaker 1: And so I think that, especially in young people, the
Speaker 1: definition of enough has changed. There's lots of reasons for that.
Speaker 1: But I think getting to a better point of accepting
Speaker 1: and what our expectations are that'll help a lot.
Speaker 2: And that's different from being complacent, right, because I think
Speaker 2: we were taught that you don't need everything, and you're
Speaker 2: not entitled to everything.
Speaker 5: You're not.
Speaker 2: We were taught not even entitled to happiness exactly. Our
Speaker 2: parents didn't think they were responsible for our happiness.
Speaker 5: For anybody in our generation.
Speaker 2: You imagine a parent who worried about whether your child
Speaker 2: was happy, and we didn't come from that. It was like,
Speaker 2: you're not happy, to get over it, read a book,
Speaker 2: get out of my face, move along, go outside, you know,
Speaker 2: and our generation of parents and mean, we lose sleep
Speaker 2: if little person is sad today, and it's like sadness
Speaker 2: and anxiety that's all a part of life.
Speaker 3: But we as we parent our children.
Speaker 2: I sometimes I think we've made them a little less resilient.
Speaker 2: And again that's not to say that people aren't dealing
Speaker 2: with real anxiety and mental health issues. But I think
Speaker 2: one of the things I try to think about as
Speaker 2: a parent, and I think our parents.
Speaker 3: Did to us.
Speaker 2: They tried to prepare us for what the world was
Speaker 2: going to be, which was oftentimes disappointing, most of the
Speaker 2: time hard, and there would deep anxiety that you'd have
Speaker 2: to get through at all times.
Speaker 3: So they gave us those tools much.
Speaker 2: Earlier than I think some parents today are willing to
Speaker 2: let their.
Speaker 3: Kids go through some of those tough feelings.
Speaker 2: So then they get out in the real world and
Speaker 2: they're confronted with a whole lot of emotions that nobody
Speaker 2: ever told them what's coming.
Speaker 1: That's right, and I think it leads to mental health crisis,
Speaker 1: not just in our young people, but also in parents.
Speaker 1: The former Surgeon General vveck Murty talked a lot about
Speaker 1: parent mental health and parent stress. He actually issued like
Speaker 1: a public health advisory on the fact that parents are
Speaker 1: going through their own tough emotions. But the biggest tough
Speaker 1: emotion that parents reported is guilt, as though you know
Speaker 1: they're not doing enough for their kids happiness, They're not
Speaker 1: doing enough to kind of give them everything they need.
Speaker 1: And I think that reflects exactly what you're saying, Laurie.
Speaker 4: I want to get James question sort of deals with
Speaker 4: a little bit of hopelessness there, and I was just
Speaker 4: trying to figure out what does it mean for us
Speaker 4: our culture with so many people feeling hopeless?
Speaker 1: Yeah, was bad, as you probably guess, not great to
Speaker 1: live in a completely hopeless culture. And we really do
Speaker 1: live in more of a hopeless culture than we ever
Speaker 1: have before. Your researchers go out and study this, and
Speaker 1: they have over time. One of the best questions for
Speaker 1: this is they just ask people, on average, can you
Speaker 1: trust the other people around you? Right in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: when they asked polksact question, around fifty percent of people
Speaker 1: said yeah, on average, most folks can get trusted. When
Speaker 1: you ask that same question in twenty eighteen, it's down
Speaker 1: to a little less than a third. That doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like a big drop, but if I was plotting that,
Speaker 1: that's basically how much money we lost in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight when the financial crisis happened. Right, So this
Speaker 1: is a like complete like off a cliff decline in
Speaker 1: people's sense of trust, in people's sense of hope, and
Speaker 1: it's bad for lots of reason. It's bad for us personally.
Speaker 1: People who experience less hope experience more depression, experience more anxiety,
Speaker 1: experience more loneliness, which is interesting, hope seems to be
Speaker 1: connected to our social connection. Also bad for our bodies.
Speaker 1: People who are more sick report experiencing more diabetes, experiencing
Speaker 1: more heart disease. And it's probably bad for us as
Speaker 1: a society because when you don't experience hope, what you
Speaker 1: think is like, stuff's never going to get better. And
Speaker 1: when you think stuff's never going to get better, you
Speaker 1: don't take action to make it better. Right, You don't vote,
Speaker 1: you don't do things pro socially to help other people.
Speaker 1: And what you find research wise is if you study
Speaker 1: people who are cynical, they self report not voting, they
Speaker 1: self report not donating to charity, not doing the stuff
Speaker 1: that you need to do to make things better. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really bad, and it becomes a vicious cycle, right
Speaker 1: because as more people get hopeless, then they look out
Speaker 1: in the world with this hopeless lens. They post on
Speaker 1: social media with a hopeless lens. We get podcasts that
Speaker 1: are very hopeless, and it just becomes this cycle where
Speaker 1: we reinforce each other's bad perception of the world, one
Speaker 1: that might not even be really accurate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you talk about that transference, the ability for
Speaker 2: us to you know, export our bad energy onto other people,
Speaker 2: and we naturally, as humans we pick up those those cues.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit more about that transference that.
Speaker 1: You Yeah, I mean, we know for sure that emotions
Speaker 1: are contagious, right, They're just like COVID and we know this. Right,
Speaker 1: you go into an office and you hang out with
Speaker 1: somebody who's feeling hyped up and optimistic and excited, you
Speaker 1: kind of catch that. Right. You go into the same
Speaker 1: office as somebody who's down and not feeling it like,
Speaker 1: you catch that too, right. These days, we don't just
Speaker 1: catch emotions from the other people we're around. We have
Speaker 1: this transfer system online where folks are catching emotions globally.
Speaker 1: You know, I hop on some social media platform, I'm
Speaker 1: catching some emotion from somebody on Instagram that lives in
Speaker 1: a different country and a completely different time zone. But
Speaker 1: I catch that too, And that's made worth by the
Speaker 1: fact that these social media companies obviously have algorithms that
Speaker 1: thrive not on us catching each other's positive emotions, but
Speaker 1: I'm catching each other's anger and outrage and sadness. Right,
Speaker 1: that's what gets eyeballs on our phones. And so all
Speaker 1: these things together means not just that there's transference, but
Speaker 1: there's particular transference of the bad stuff, of the hope blessness.
Speaker 4: You know, our mom and mishe will remember this, But
Speaker 4: obviously we didn't have social media growing up, but we
Speaker 4: had friends who had stuff or friends who said things,
Speaker 4: and our mom was always why do you care about
Speaker 4: what they say? And I find trying to give my
Speaker 4: kids that advice is hard with social media, and I
Speaker 4: think a lot of parents find it hard. How do
Speaker 4: we balance that these days with social media? Because you know,
Speaker 4: we recently were talking with someone else who was telling us,
Speaker 4: you just if you take social media away, you got
Speaker 4: to replace it with something. But my question is, how
Speaker 4: do we help help folks find a balance here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the ways to find a
Speaker 1: balance is just to realize that what we're exposed to
Speaker 1: affects us. Right, you hop on Instagram and you start
Speaker 1: scrolling through that feed, you might know that some of
Speaker 1: the stuff you look at as photoshopped. You might know this,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff you know these companies are they
Speaker 1: have algorithms that are sort of pointing you in a
Speaker 1: bad direction. But that doesn't enter psychologically. You're just soaking
Speaker 1: in the emotions and then the stuff you see. Right,
Speaker 1: But I think that knowledge can be a little bit
Speaker 1: of power.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You can even ask yourself, like how do I feel
Speaker 1: after that? Scroll through Reddit or through social media and
Speaker 1: ask yourself the question, do I feel more empowered, more hopeful,
Speaker 1: or do I feel kind of gross and like in despair? Right?
Speaker 1: You can make the choice to put that away. Right.
Speaker 1: You can kind of notice mindfully how it's making you feel,
Speaker 1: and you sort of choose to stick it back in
Speaker 1: your pocket. Social media companies wouldn't have these algorithms if
Speaker 1: all our eyeballs weren't on phones anymore. And we actually
Speaker 1: have more agency than we often remember in that fight.
Speaker 2: People always ask me and Barack how do we stay
Speaker 2: hopeful in the not just the eight years that we
Speaker 2: were in the White House, but beyond, Because let me
Speaker 2: tell you, there was a lot of negative energy float
Speaker 2: in our way, a lot of rumors, a lot of gossip,
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, my husband wasn't born in
Speaker 2: this country. We didn't care about we weren't patriotic, you know.
Speaker 2: He yeah, he didn't get into Harvard. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you all remember, I certainly do.
Speaker 5: He wore a suit, wore a.
Speaker 3: Tan suit once. I mean, you know the level of
Speaker 3: scandal that occurred.
Speaker 2: But through it all, what kept us saying, and we
Speaker 2: tried to instill this in our daughters, is you know
Speaker 2: you cannot you know, you cannot live through social media.
Speaker 2: I don't think I have ever once looked at a
Speaker 2: comments section period and at all ever.
Speaker 5: And I know it's difficult.
Speaker 2: For this generation, but you know, I would implore young
Speaker 2: people to stay don't let that negative energy enter into
Speaker 2: your space. These are people who don't know you. A
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff is made up and it does
Speaker 2: not feed you. And I you know, I mean, I
Speaker 2: can't do it, and we never do. Now that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean you don't stay informed. But staying informed has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the comments section, you know, it has
Speaker 2: everything to do with the content of the stories that
Speaker 2: you take in. And I think, you know, we cannot
Speaker 2: get so trapped by social media that we feel so
Speaker 2: caught up into the one way we get information. We've
Speaker 2: got to broaden our spectrum, and we have to get
Speaker 2: off the phone, you know, which is another thing, and
Speaker 2: I would love for you to talk a bit about
Speaker 2: that as a tool. I know you've got a lot
Speaker 2: of tools, but there are a lot of people here
Speaker 2: of all ages who are trapped by their phones. And
Speaker 2: when you talk about us being disconnected and not talking
Speaker 2: to each other, I am.
Speaker 5: I am not out in.
Speaker 3: The world like a normal person anymore.
Speaker 2: But when I am, people don't even recognize me. You
Speaker 2: know why, because they're on their phones. Nobody is looking
Speaker 2: at each other. I can walk right past somebody with
Speaker 2: a hat on, you know, and I'm just a black
Speaker 2: woman in a cap.
Speaker 5: But I don't know. No, I've done it. I don't
Speaker 5: know about it. I have done it. I fly commercial.
Speaker 2: I am out there with the people, and folks are
Speaker 2: not paying attention.
Speaker 5: I fly commercial.
Speaker 4: So okay, okay, see the thing.
Speaker 3: I'm here.
Speaker 5: Walking around flying commercial. How's Michelle tell Michelle? I said, Hi,
Speaker 5: how she doing? They? Okay?
Speaker 6: Anyway, strategy strategies.
Speaker 5: I'm going to get a mute button for.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, but strategies. I mean, I think awareness is really
Speaker 1: key here. One of my favorite strategies for sort of
Speaker 1: dealing with your phone and being on your phone all
Speaker 1: the time comes from the journalist Catherine Price. She has
Speaker 1: this lovely book How to Break Up with Your Phone,
Speaker 1: where she argues you don't have to break up with
Speaker 1: your phone so much as you need to take it
Speaker 1: to like couples counseling so that you can be a
Speaker 1: wait better. But she has this really handy acronym that
Speaker 1: she uses whenever she finds herself on her phone is WWW,
Speaker 1: which you can think of because you're probably on the
Speaker 1: World Wide Web rye. But this is not Worldwide Web.
Speaker 1: WWW stands for what for? Why, now? And what else?
Speaker 1: So what are you on your phone for? Maybe you're
Speaker 1: checking your email or looking at a map, Maybe you're
Speaker 1: just deep in some TikTok dive? Right? Was there a purpose?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Why? Now? This is an important one because you notice
Speaker 1: your emotions? What drives you to your phone? Were you bored?
Speaker 1: Were you anxious? Right? What's your cue that gets you there?
Speaker 1: What's that craving coming from? And then finally, what else? Right?
Speaker 1: What's the opportunity cost of being on your phone right now,
Speaker 1: you might be missing Michelle Obama on your flight, Like
Speaker 1: there's just saying right now thanks to you need to notice, right,
Speaker 1: you might miss the beautiful scenery, you might miss the
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk to someone who has interesting stories, interesting ideas.
Speaker 1: Right that what else question is critical because what studies
Speaker 1: show us is that because we're on our phones, we're
Speaker 1: less social than we could be. A lovely study by
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dunne at the University of British Columbia had people
Speaker 1: with their phones or without their phones sitting in a
Speaker 1: waiting room. They weren't even using their phones. It was
Speaker 1: just like present or not, and she just measure the
Speaker 1: amount of smiling that people did. You know, casual, somebody's
Speaker 1: in your room, you just smile at them. She sees
Speaker 1: thirty percent less smiling when phones are present. Right, calculate
Speaker 1: that by all the phones you know, on planes in
Speaker 1: Austin and so on. So we're really missing out. But
Speaker 1: that strategy of WWW, I think what it gets us
Speaker 1: towards is like we just have to be mindful, We
Speaker 1: just have to notice. These are good tools, right, we
Speaker 1: know even from COVID times they were so useful. But
Speaker 1: we just have to use them in a healthy way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: Time perty quick Break, But there'll be more of me
Speaker 1: on Michelle Obama's new podcast IMO in.
Speaker 5: Just a Moment, Laurie.
Speaker 4: What can we do to find hope when things are tough,
Speaker 4: like in Jamee's situation he's looking at his friends who
Speaker 4: have lost things in a fire or you know, other
Speaker 4: personal disasters.
Speaker 5: What can we do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there are a couple of things right.
Speaker 1: One is making sure you have the right definition of hope,
Speaker 1: because I think sometimes when we think of hope, we
Speaker 1: think of what at least psychologists might call optimism. We're
Speaker 1: just like, everything's gonna be fine. And I think that
Speaker 1: everything's gonna be fine. Is like I mean, look at
Speaker 1: the new like, look at X, like anywhere is not fine, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think it's important to like call it
Speaker 1: the way it is. It's not fine. But hope isn't
Speaker 1: that hope says things are not fine. But I can
Speaker 1: actually see at least a few paths for things to
Speaker 1: get better. Why is that psychologically so important? If you
Speaker 1: think things are fine right now, are you going to act?
Speaker 1: You're going to take agency, You're going to do anything?
Speaker 1: About it now, because you're just kind of things are
Speaker 1: fine right now. You know the world's not on fire.
Speaker 1: When you experience hope, what you feel is things are
Speaker 1: not fine right now, but there is a path. What
Speaker 1: does that path do? It gives you agency, It gives
Speaker 1: you a sense that like something can be done, and
Speaker 1: probably I can be a small part of what needs
Speaker 1: to get done. And that small part is key because
Speaker 1: I think when we think we have to be the
Speaker 1: only one out there fixing everything, that also makes us
Speaker 1: feel a little overwhelmed and sad. But when you realize
Speaker 1: that you're a small action. You're checking in on someone,
Speaker 1: you're donating five bucks to a cause you care about,
Speaker 1: you stepping up in any way to make things better,
Speaker 1: that actually matters. And one of the things we know
Speaker 1: psychologically is that it also helps us feel a little
Speaker 1: bit more hopeful when we take action. So you show
Speaker 1: up at that cause you care about, or go to protests, right,
Speaker 1: donate some money. Psychologically you start to feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're even getting closer to a solution because I stepped up.
Speaker 1: Maybe other people step up. You also see good social
Speaker 1: evidence that you're not the only one. You show up
Speaker 1: at a protest, You're usually not the only one there.
Speaker 1: You get a whole room like this, full of people
Speaker 1: who care. Now, all of a sudden, your beliefs start
Speaker 1: to change. So you can, instead of being that vicious
Speaker 1: cycle of hopelessness that we talked about before, you can
Speaker 1: become part of a virtuous cycle of hopefulness. And that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that can also be socially contagious.
Speaker 2: And as somebody who has seen all kinds of power
Speaker 2: at work, you know, I've been at some of the
Speaker 2: most powerful tables, one of the things I remind people
Speaker 2: of is, yes, there is large power. You know, there
Speaker 2: are a handful of people in the world who can
Speaker 2: do a few things that can impact so many. But
Speaker 2: the truth is is that the small power that each
Speaker 2: of us has to do something right in front of us,
Speaker 2: if we're all doing that, outweighs anything that you know,
Speaker 2: some big leader somewhere can do.
Speaker 5: I mean, if you just think about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just think about as our parents did you know,
Speaker 2: marrying and Fraser Robinson who didn't go to college, you know,
Speaker 2: mother stayed at home, father was a city worker. And
Speaker 2: let me just stop and and and give a big
Speaker 2: shout out to city and federal workers, people who are
Speaker 2: the lifeblood of this country. Also, those jobs helped to
Speaker 2: create an entire middle class of people like our fathers,
Speaker 2: our father our parents, and they do the lion's share
Speaker 2: of the work in this country. You know, if we're
Speaker 2: going to start asking who's doing what, I would from
Speaker 2: my experience the folks who are working on the ground
Speaker 2: and picking up our garbage and making sure that our
Speaker 2: you know, schools run and that our air is clean,
Speaker 2: and that our flights stay up in the air. That
Speaker 2: those people are the true heart and blood of this country.
Speaker 3: But that power is what changes things.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Those parents, with a little bit that they were able
Speaker 2: to do with their power, raised two of us, you know.
Speaker 2: And if you just think that if everybody on this
Speaker 2: planet was valued and had an opportunity to have a
Speaker 2: job and to take care of their kids and to
Speaker 2: raise them with some level of honesty and kindness and
Speaker 2: with humanity and taught them to love everybody and to
Speaker 2: be inclusive. You know, just imagine if everybody did that
Speaker 2: little thing right in their plate. You know, if you're
Speaker 2: going to have some kids, you know, if you can
Speaker 2: have the courage and the power to exercise that small
Speaker 2: thing of raising them with some truth and some honesty.
Speaker 2: Just imagine where we would be right now as a country,
Speaker 2: you know, imagine what our leadership would look like and
Speaker 2: how we would ask them to speak and to act
Speaker 2: and to model that.
Speaker 3: That is the that is the beauty of small power.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: So, as James, you know, thinks about what to do.
Speaker 2: You know, I hope that retreating into hopelessness is not
Speaker 2: on the list, because shoot, if my dad didn't, this
Speaker 2: is how I fail. My father, Frasier Robinson didn't retreat
Speaker 2: with all that he could have retreated from in times
Speaker 2: a lot tougher than this, because he wanted to lay
Speaker 2: a foundation for us that we have that obligation, all
Speaker 2: of us to do the same thing. We can't afford
Speaker 2: to be hopeless. I would say, yeah, And I love.
Speaker 1: The U share the story of your father, because it's
Speaker 1: also one of the strategies that we can use, tiny
Speaker 1: strategy we can use individually to do better, which is
Speaker 1: sharing these positive social stories like the world and social media.
Speaker 1: All these aglorithms are filled with terrible stories, but you
Speaker 1: can actually see the good ones. You can say, you know,
Speaker 1: my dad in the midst of experiencing this terrible disease
Speaker 1: was hopefully you taught us gratitude, right, And you know
Speaker 1: it doesn't even have to be Michelle Obama's dad. Right.
Speaker 1: You can find these little examples of moral goodness, but
Speaker 1: don't just keep them to yourself. Share them. And I
Speaker 1: think if you're a parent, this is one of the
Speaker 1: best things you can do to your kids, right, because
Speaker 1: they're maybe don't even have as much kind of frontal
Speaker 1: low power to go out there and find those good
Speaker 1: stories over the dinner table. What moral goodness did you
Speaker 1: see today?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: What was something that delighted you that kind of made
Speaker 1: you happy, specifically about what somebody else was doing. We
Speaker 1: don't share these enough. But the sad thing is like
Speaker 1: they're out there, we just don't hear about them enough.
Speaker 1: And so that's one of the reasons I'm so glad
Speaker 1: y'all are doing this podcast. There's there read way more
Speaker 1: stories than that that come out that allow for what
Speaker 1: researchers call social savoring or sort of savoring the goodness
Speaker 1: of other people.
Speaker 2: And that's also a way, I'm sorry, creative for people
Speaker 2: to use their social media.
Speaker 3: You know, you know it's there for a reason. There's
Speaker 3: power in it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, but we have to resist the notion to use
Speaker 2: it to harp on each other, to diss and to
Speaker 2: you know, spread gossip into you know, I mean, each
Speaker 2: of us in our world can encourage the people within
Speaker 2: it to use the tool for good. You know, it
Speaker 2: is a choice that we can make right now, everybody
Speaker 2: in this room, everybody listening to this podcast, who hears us,
Speaker 2: you can make a choice to either, you know, use
Speaker 2: these tools for good, or use them for evil, or
Speaker 2: to use them to appease your frustration. Because remember, as
Speaker 2: Laurie said, we pass on that energy. You know, we're
Speaker 2: passing it on our anger. Our rage, you know, is
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why you know, when our household
Speaker 2: we use the model going high is important, because going
Speaker 2: high is the model, especially if you have a platform
Speaker 2: like we did for eight years. Yeah, it's easy to
Speaker 2: get on a big platform and rile people up and
Speaker 2: to say hateful things and to make fun of people.
Speaker 3: Of course, anybody could do that.
Speaker 2: Any leader can do that, right That's the easiest way
Speaker 2: to lead because you're sort of tapping into your easiest basis,
Speaker 2: you know, core, and you lash out. You share that anger,
Speaker 2: the strength and the power comes is when you can
Speaker 2: harness that you know and understand that if you have
Speaker 2: a platform, if you're going to be on social media,
Speaker 2: that you now have an obligation not to spread hate
Speaker 2: and bitterness and anger.
Speaker 5: And if only because I want to give.
Speaker 4: James some takeaways, but this is Craig's job, we also
Speaker 4: have we also have the happiness doctor here, So how
Speaker 4: can we and and let me back up, because our
Speaker 4: mom used to say, you're responsible for your own happiness,
Speaker 4: and that was some of the most empowering advice she
Speaker 4: ever gave us.
Speaker 5: How can we help.
Speaker 4: Those out there who don't have a Marian Robinson or
Speaker 4: a social group, how can we help them work through
Speaker 4: making themselves happy?
Speaker 1: Well, your mom might have been a better happiness scientist
Speaker 1: than yeah, because she's like reading the evidence out there,
Speaker 1: because that's what the evidence really shows, is that it
Speaker 1: takes some work, but you can do things to feel better,
Speaker 1: even in a horrible situation. Right, even in a horrible situation,
Speaker 1: there are things you can do to feel a little
Speaker 1: bit better. And I think one of the biggest ones
Speaker 1: is really to connect with other people. You know, you
Speaker 1: talked about the problem of phones leading us away from
Speaker 1: each other. You talked about the loneliness crisis, Like, you're
Speaker 1: in a room with lots of other folks right now,
Speaker 1: you're probably in lots of rooms with lots of other folks.
Speaker 1: Just talk to them, right, check in on your friends,
Speaker 1: reach out to them. These things sound silly, they sound
Speaker 1: like such a tiny thing to do, but they allow
Speaker 1: us to get towards more civic action, right. They're really like,
Speaker 1: in at very time anyway, the basis of democracy, right,
Speaker 1: just talking to people and getting to know them, right,
Speaker 1: And so in your own small world, do that and
Speaker 1: reach out to the people that you care about. We
Speaker 1: often assume again that that's kind of a silly thing
Speaker 1: to do, but what the studies show is that when
Speaker 1: you're reaching out to other people, when you're checking in
Speaker 1: on other people, that boosts your happiness too. So you're ultimately,
Speaker 1: by doing nice things for others, growing the pie, and
Speaker 1: you're giving yourself a little bit more of a sense
Speaker 1: of hope because whenever you take action, you're like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I have some agency. Things can't be that bad.
Speaker 1: I can make it a little bit better.
Speaker 2: Well, And I know, Craig, you're a coach, you've coached, you've.
Speaker 3: You know mentored.
Speaker 5: I know that.
Speaker 2: You know, mentoring isn't just about giving, you know, it's
Speaker 2: about what you get in return.
Speaker 5: You want to talk about it, Yeah.
Speaker 4: I I you know, I started out in corporate America
Speaker 4: and moved into coaching, but I always felt like I
Speaker 4: wanted to be a coach or a teacher because I
Speaker 4: was coach and mentored by my dad, my mom and
Speaker 4: really good coaches. And I thought it was really the
Speaker 4: reason why I got to do all the wonderful things
Speaker 4: I got to do, and I felt like I needed
Speaker 4: to share that with all these other young people out there.
Speaker 4: And to Laurie's point, it makes me feel fantastic and
Speaker 4: it just is just such a wonderful, warm feeling to
Speaker 4: be able to help folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think another thing that we can do
Speaker 1: again kind of channeling your parents, because I think they
Speaker 1: were on top of this stuff, is what your dad said, right,
Speaker 1: find something to be a little bit grateful for that
Speaker 1: can feel big in the situation that James is in
Speaker 1: right when it feels like everything is collapsing around you.
Speaker 1: It's hard to be living in la in the midst
Speaker 1: of these fires and be like, well, I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: if that feels hard, choose a lighter version of that strategy.
Speaker 1: Look for just something that's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: delight in the world, like just a delight, something great.
Speaker 1: This is a practice I heard from the writer Rosquee.
Speaker 1: He has this lovely book called a Book of Delights,
Speaker 1: where he decided every day he was just going to
Speaker 1: go out and find some small wonder in the world
Speaker 1: that delighted him. And they're tiny things like you see
Speaker 1: somebody on the train and give each other a fist bump.
Speaker 1: You walk into a cafe and it's playing El DeBarge
Speaker 1: like Rhythm of the Night. It's just like a great
Speaker 1: song and boss days like that's the delight, right, And
Speaker 1: what it does is it allows him to train his
Speaker 1: brain away from something that our brains do naturally, which
Speaker 1: is what researchers call a negativity bias. We instantly notice
Speaker 1: all the bad stuff. You scroll through your feed and
Speaker 1: your brain is locked onto the bad information. But to
Speaker 1: find the good stuff, to find the delights, you gotta
Speaker 1: put a little energy into it. And when it becomes
Speaker 1: a game, when you know you're sharing them with someone
Speaker 1: else or writing them down, now all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you find them a little bit more quickly. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I love Ross's book is that he
Speaker 1: actually shows that this power of delight can help you
Speaker 1: fight all kinds of stuff in lots of ways. It's
Speaker 1: a book that deals with a lot of the bad
Speaker 1: stuff that's going on. It talks really explicitly about racism,
Speaker 1: it talks really explicitly about cultures of violence and things
Speaker 1: like that. But when you find the delights, you're able
Speaker 1: to kind of get through it. You're kind of patting
Speaker 1: yourself with some positive emotion to deal with the negative stuff.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the reasons I think we
Speaker 1: need to find our light a little bit more. Is
Speaker 1: the other thing that research shows is that if we
Speaker 1: want to make changes, we kind of need the emotional bandwidth.
Speaker 5: To do that.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways you do that is finding
Speaker 1: your light right focusing on positive emotions. There is researcher
Speaker 1: at Constantine kush Lef who works at Georgetown, and he
Speaker 1: asked the question, who's out there doing the work to
Speaker 1: solve the problems right, who's showing up at the protests,
Speaker 1: who's engaging like climate justice? And what he measures is
Speaker 1: people's positive emotion and he finds it. The more you
Speaker 1: self report having more positive emotion versus negative emotion, the
Speaker 1: more you're going out to that protest for a cause
Speaker 1: you care about, the more you're donating to kind of
Speaker 1: fix the things out there in the world. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like putting your own oxygen mask on first, so
Speaker 1: you can help others, but it's not just like others.
Speaker 1: It's like helping the whole world. And so that pit
Speaker 1: of research has helped me because sometimes it can feel
Speaker 1: bad to not be hopeless in a hopeless world. Like
Speaker 1: if you're going through what James is going through, it's
Speaker 1: like should I experience delights? Should I get happy? Because
Speaker 1: El Dubarge is on in this cafe?
Speaker 5: It feels like weird.
Speaker 1: But his research helps me because it's like, no, it's
Speaker 1: almost your responsibility to find positive emotion because it actually
Speaker 1: allows you to get towards the actions that can fix stuff.
Speaker 4: All right, So for James, we've got five minutes for
Speaker 4: some fakeaways, and that was a great place to start.
Speaker 4: You find your light, all right, I'm looking toward Lori
Speaker 4: for a couple of takeaways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. I think a big one is
Speaker 1: to notice how you feel when you're participating in the
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven news cycle. Right, the news cycle
Speaker 1: didn't used to be twenty four to seven. We all
Speaker 1: probably remember there was the day when you get the
Speaker 1: paper in the morning, you read it, you were very informed,
Speaker 1: but you put that thing away, didn't walk around with
Speaker 1: you in your pocket.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I think there's you can probably be informed with like
Speaker 1: eighty percent less time on your phone, and you'll still
Speaker 1: know all the terrible things that are happening. I promise
Speaker 1: they'll still be covering them. You know, it'll be twenty
Speaker 1: three hours later, but just kind of give yourself a
Speaker 1: little bit of a break. Why information is good. You'll
Speaker 1: still have that, but you'll kind of protect your positive
Speaker 1: emotion a bit. I think the second one is just
Speaker 1: one that we've talked about already. Social connection. Reach out
Speaker 1: and try to help someone else every especially if you're
Speaker 1: feeling vulnerable, especially if you're feeling in a crummy place,
Speaker 1: Just ask what can I very small thing can I
Speaker 1: do for somebody else? For a friend, text them, just
Speaker 1: say hey, thinking about you donate three bucks or something whatever.
Speaker 1: You can finally afford a little tiny thing to a charity.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, that will start making you feel
Speaker 1: good and you'll be doing good in the world.
Speaker 2: Too, And I absolutely thank you, and I just want
Speaker 2: to throw a mom hat kind of peace on there
Speaker 2: for James is that you know your physical health is
Speaker 2: directly tied to your emotional status. And I know, young people,
Speaker 2: you aren't at the point where you believe what we've
Speaker 2: been telling you that you gotta get sleep.
Speaker 3: You really do. It absolutely matters.
Speaker 2: You know why are old people but probably a little
Speaker 2: bit happier because I take a nap and I go
Speaker 2: I will go to bed, and I love nothing more
Speaker 2: than going to bed early. Now if you're in your twenties,
Speaker 2: that sounds really crazy, but you know it absolutely matters.
Speaker 2: And what you eat and whether you move your body.
Speaker 2: You know, we've got Lori here because like there is
Speaker 2: real evidence.
Speaker 3: We still live in a world where science matters.
Speaker 5: Well please please.
Speaker 2: As we wonder what is wrong, you know, and how
Speaker 2: we fix it. You know, we can't ignore the fact
Speaker 2: that they're really smart people who have done really important
Speaker 2: research to come up with the whys and to give
Speaker 2: us answers. So this stuff actually matters, and when you're
Speaker 2: sixty plus it all makes sense. And taking care of yourself,
Speaker 2: getting outside, making sure you get a little bit of
Speaker 2: fresh air, how you move your body, what you put
Speaker 2: in it matters. So if you're young and you you
Speaker 2: don't feel it yet, because when you're our age, you
Speaker 2: will feel it if you start some of those habits. Now,
Speaker 2: you know it doesn't change the world for sure, you
Speaker 2: know it is not it is.
Speaker 5: Voting still matters.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, you know, not partying every night
Speaker 2: of the week and thinking that you're going to wake
Speaker 2: up in a good mood that helps too.
Speaker 1: But I think I think you're like, not only does
Speaker 1: it You said it doesn't matter if voting, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: For I think it does. Right, If you take care
Speaker 1: of your body, you're gonna be You're going to have
Speaker 1: the bandwidth and the resilience to fight, whether that's fighting
Speaker 1: at the voting booth or fighting in other ways. And
Speaker 1: you also channel something else that I have and talk
Speaker 1: to my students about. You mentioned. We mentioned gratitude, right,
Speaker 1: and gratitude is really changing your thought patterns. It's noticing
Speaker 1: the delightful stuff and trying to move away from the
Speaker 1: negative stuff. But there's other ways we can use our
Speaker 1: thought patterns to feel good. I think one of them
Speaker 1: is just thinking back right, getting a little bit of
Speaker 1: psychological distance. As Michelle said before, things have been bad before, right,
Speaker 1: and when you remember that, you're like, oh, we came
Speaker 1: back from it. We've come back from really awful stuff. Historically,
Speaker 1: especially if you look in long history, We've come back
Speaker 1: from really awful stuff. And what does remembering that do?
Speaker 1: It makes you realize, oh, things could be different even
Speaker 1: in a bad situation. I can see a path to
Speaker 1: something being better. What's that? That's hope, that's fighting your
Speaker 1: own cynicism right there.
Speaker 2: And one more thing, one more thing, one more thing,
Speaker 2: you know, for young people out there, I just encourage
Speaker 2: us all to sort of right size our happiness meter,
Speaker 2: yes you know, and take a little pressure off of
Speaker 2: ourselves and not to measure joy and happiness by the
Speaker 2: wrong things. And let me tell you, look, we are successful,
Speaker 2: we got degrees, we make money. There's nothing wrong with
Speaker 2: that at all. But it is I will guarantee you
Speaker 2: that having stuff or money, or all the things that
Speaker 2: right now seem to be so important, you know, extolling
Speaker 2: the virtues of how much stuff you get, and my
Speaker 2: experience that really truly is not the key to happiness
Speaker 2: and finding out what your purpose is. You know who
Speaker 2: you are helping and why over how much money you
Speaker 2: have in your bank account. You know, truly, I know
Speaker 2: a whole lot of these billionaires, and not all of them,
Speaker 2: as we can see, seem happy, you know, because that's
Speaker 2: not ultimately if that's your only goal is to have
Speaker 2: more than you need, to never be satisfied.
Speaker 3: If you get on that path and that's.
Speaker 2: What you're going after, you know, there will be a
Speaker 2: whole in your heart and it may feel like it's
Speaker 2: the world, but it may actually be our misguided sense
Speaker 2: of what it means to be human. And truly, what
Speaker 2: it means to be human isn't whether we get to
Speaker 2: space or how much money we have in our bank account.
Speaker 2: It's really how we treat each other. How do we
Speaker 2: make each other feel? How how do we you know,
Speaker 2: care for one another? You know, and I guarantee you
Speaker 2: if you spend your life doing that, you know, really
Speaker 2: reordering your steps to be that person in the world.
Speaker 3: I can tell you that's.
Speaker 2: What makes me feel better and hopeful, is directing my
Speaker 2: energy at a real purpose. So I would urge James
Speaker 2: to make sure he's driven by that and not by
Speaker 2: some other artificial goals that we've been told are important.
Speaker 4: It's a great point to end on me. Please help me.
Speaker 4: Thank doctor Lorie Santos.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: As you can see, we do have a lot of opinions,
Speaker 4: and we could keep this thing going on and on,
Speaker 4: but listen and subscribe.
Speaker 5: Thank you all for being here.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys.
Speaker 5: Thanks Lori