Happiness Is an Option for You: 4 Easy Habits That Make Your Life Better Based on Research
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Hey, it's really well. And welcome to the malabanan broadcast. Oh, right. Let's do the same.

Okay, are you ready to put your happiness out on? I know I am. I have a really cool show for you. We have the og of happiness research.

His name, john hkr, harvard educated, works with all the major brands, teaching one of the largest and most successful positive psychology training programs in the world. Not only that, but he has written three new york times best selling books. Shahn says, you and I have happiness.

All wrong. The definition is wrong. That's part of the problem. So today, here's we're going to do we're going to get shown on the line.

And I, of course, i'm going to hold his feet to the fire and i'm going to listen to that scientific stuff. And then we are going to break IT down into Normal people speak because research is wonderful. But if I can apply the shit in my life, I am going to be a miserable bitch. And we are going to make sure that we live here with happiness tools in our pockets and motivation in our back seat, so that we not only learn and listen and laugh today, but that we also put IT into action already shaan. Acr, welcome to the cast.

Thank you so much.

I've been looking forward to this. Me too. I wanted to just ask you so that we are all starting on the same playing field. What is the definition of happiness? The original way the psychology .

looked at happiness was just a pleasure pain model that all we're doing is human beings is responding to things that feel good in that moment or things that hurt and we run away from those and then they decided pleasure must be what happiness is um because we're running towards that all the time.

So shine, if i'm tracking with what you're saying, you're saying that happiness is not the things in life that make us feel good. If it's not the things in life that make us feel good, then what the heck is having a shot um to me.

I don't think that there shouldn't a difference between happiness and joy joys, something we can experience, even the life is not good, like in the midst of childbirth is not high level of pleasure all the time, but moments of joy can correspond even with the highest a mouse of fear and pain we can experience as human beings.

I honestly am a little confused about the difference between happiness enjoy because if you're talking about childbirth, i'm like, shan, I don't know what kind of epidemic had in your wife, but I did not experience a whole lot of joy until the kid was out and they hand me the ice pack to put in my under. So when you talk about joy, what do you mean? I'm confused.

I I want there to be confused because I want the two to be completed. I think we need to help redefine happiness for the world. That happiness is the joy feel moving towards your potential.

The joy that we're experiencing is that feeling like that were not stagnant even in those moments once we've had the baby, there's you know, it's not sudden that everything's perfect again. Now they're waking is up, right? And now we're taking care of this little thing that we have no idea how to take care of fully sweden and already exhausted at that point. And then the doctors leave the room like what do we do at this moment? I think we're constantly looking for that moment where like everything is great, that there is no stress, the racist finished what we fine is that never actually happens for people.

okay. Thank you for that because i'm less confused and I think i'm starting to get IT. So the word that you used was conflict. And that I realized is a fancy way to say you want us to take the conceptive happiness in the moment and mush IT together with the experience of joy and make IT all one giant ball and now understand why we get the word happiness wrong, because they aren't separate things. Happiness, enjoy work together.

Let me see if I can give you an example shown and make sure i'm tracking so that everybody listening is getting this research from you in the moment. For example, you can be happy while you're eating an ice cream count because you love ice cream and it's a very pleasure thing on a hot day to have a awesome scope of ice cream, right? But as soon as you're done with that, you're not happy anymore because that's over.

You're saying that, that is happiness, but you also want us to expand this idea of happiness to include moments of struggle like, let's say, you're in the dle of training for a five k or you're studying for an exam or you've just been broken up with. And even though the experience sucks, you know deep down that you're gonna the Better for IT. And so those are the kind of moments where you don't quote, feel happy in the moment.

But as you're moving through IT and you're growing, you can access joy because you realize that you're gonna progress through this pain and you can feel good about that. Yeah and one more thing that I love was when you said there is never a moment where everything is great. Can you tell us more about that and how IT impacts happiness?

It's not where you are, the determined happiness for people because as soon as they finish the race, they're think about what they need to do when they get home, or as soon as they get that promotion and they immediately thinking about what am I going to do now that I have this promotion and how do I get this persons writing to become more positive. It's whether or not there's growth. You're doing something meaningful .

in this world that makes a lot of sense. Now we have a lot of questions from listeners, ers who wanted your insights and advice and tools about being happy or shown. But before we jump into those questions, I want to turn to you listening, and I want to ask you to be selfish right now.

I want you, in listening to the conversation, and in particular, listening to shine, answer people's questions. I want you to think about an area in your life where happiness has eluded you. Maybe it's at work, maybe it's with your health, maybe you've strolled in friendships, maybe you're not feeling a lot of happiness or joy in having a sense of purpose.

And I want you to identify that because I want you to use that area of your life as a way to make shaan advice, research and tools deeply personal, deeply relevant and applicable to what you're dealing with right now. And that way, as we start team up questions from other listeners, you can listen to Shawn answer and to the struggles that other people are having through the lens of the issue that you want to improve. And that's a way that you can personalize this.

So IT becomes a master class coaching session directed right at you. Are I good? So now that you have that are of your life where you wish you were just a little bit happier, let's go to our first question from a listener named tina.

Hi man, he is my question. How to change your thinking that you can only achieve happiness depending on external things, like if I had enough money, if I had a job, if I had a partner to find IT within you. So IT was a great question.

because we assume that the external world is a good predictor of happiness. That's why when parents say they want the best for their kids, they want their kids to be happy. They assume that means in a good school, or like the top of their team, or they mean something in their head that that determines success and that's guarantee happiness because they've checked off some externals. But when you look at the research, as you know, the external world is a terrible predict of happiness, right? We find happiness and all these surprising places, and we find unhappiness in places where people have everything.

I think I understand what you're saying, but joan, can you give us an example from your own life? I mean, what does this look like in the real world that you find happiness and prising places, but you find unhappiness and places where you thought you had everything?

When I was at harvard, when I got in, I applied on the there I was a volunteer firefighter. I wasn't like a very Victorian or anything, and I was so happy that had gone in. And I assumed that everyone who got into a place, an environment with opulence and opportunity would be guaranteed happiness. Yes, what we found is the eighty percent of them go through biliteral depression once they get there. Another ten percent, last time this was public, contemplate to taking their .

lives hold on a second shot. I just need to make sure that I understand what you just said. These are some really scary numbers. Eighty percent of people who step foot on campus as a student will become depressed, and another ten percent contemplate taking their lives. Are you just talking about the students at harvard.

just harvard in that moment? Um I was one of them. I went through depression myself after I graduated when my job was to make sure that the first year students who went from being, you know, top one percent of their school now realized that half of the students are now below average in this incredible place, right? They had a success, the show of guaranteed level of happiness.

And I did not. When I travel to fifty countries doing this research, I have learned very quickly that the story that I just described had nothing to do with harvard, is how the brain process is the world. That if we think our happiness is based on the external, the problem is that every time your brain has a success, IT changes the goal post of what success looks like.

And as soon as that occurs, then what should have create great levels of happiness didn't. So you get a degree, don't get excess, you don't have a job. You get a job, don't get excited yet. You have to get through inflation or you got to get that promotion.

I think at some point you wake up and recognize i've been living this. I'll be happy when i'll be happy when I get the house. I'll be happy when I finally have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a partner.

yeah. I'll be happy when I lose the pants. I'll be happy with this. And that model doesn't work.

And what team is asking is how the how do I change my mindset? How do I stop trying to find IT outside of me? I don't even know how to begin to find IT inside of me.

In fact, you mention that you were depressed and I was reading an article where you were interviewed and you said that you were writing in a journal during this period. And the first century, he wrote, was, I don't remember being happy and I don't think i'll ever be happy again. And now you're like the the world's gu of happiness in that moment. So shon, you had experience that I think everybody has at some point i'm not happy and I don't think i'll ever be happy again. What's the first thing that you would want somebody to know if that's where you are right now?

I think the very first thing I want is actually the recognition because I kind of wish I had known that earlier. That whole thing we're talking about.

you mean the thing about how we move the goal posts once we achieve something and therefore we set up the trap where never actually happy?

I think you're right. I think we all have that moment where we realized I thought i'd be happy when and that didn't work. But then if you ask somebody why they're not happy, they'll tell you about one of their externals, right?

I'm not happy right now because I don't have a boyfriend. I'm not happy right now because I don't have enough money. Um so I think the very first step might be acknowledging the human brain is designed to foil any attempt that successful guarantee happiness because every time you hit one of those targets, we change what we think would create happiness.

That's fascinating that your brain is working against you. And I want to make sure that you listening really hear this and absorb bit. Because if you can understand what you're up against when IT comes to you, being able to access the research that john going to teach us all today, understanding that your brain is working against you, I think is a really important step in this because it's constantly switching up the goal posts, and that's why you never feel happy. That's a terrific realization.

It's sort like when you train for a marathon and you think that when you cross the finish line, you're gonna be as happy as you could possibly be. The truth is you're a little relieved. You're proud of yourself.

But what I found is that I was training for the marathon that made me happy and that brought me joy. IT wasn't achieving that goal. IT was actually working towards. So when you understand that it's about sort of making progress towards something, where do you starch on? Can you talk to the person listening, particularly if the person listening is unhappy right now in any aspect of their life, what do you want them to do first?

So I think the first is a recognition that this isn't working from there. I think that requires a mindset shift and a behavioral shift. And the work that I do, I researched what we can do to create happiness when the doesn't look like IT should. And I think one important caveat to that is the what i'm talking about, what we can do internally that doesn't negate the need for external changes.

So let's start with the mindset. And what is one simple step that somebody who is sitting alone like sean unhappy, shown back in, you know, the mid twenty tens writing I don't remember being happy and I don't think i'll ever be happy again. How the hell do you change your mindset? Because if you keep saying that to yourself, you're not going to be able to access happiness within what I ve .

learned this research is the depression was not the in the story at all. And that even in the mist of a broken world, in fact, only in the mist of a broken world have we ever been able to create happiness. So the question is, how do we do so?

I think the starting point is realizing there are multiple realities in this moment. And one of them is, you know, I don't have a boyfriend, girlfriend or I don't have this money or I don't have this shop that I want or and frustrated about whatever IT is. I think when you acknowledge that that's true, you say that one reality, but there's also some other reality as well.

Last week I went to the hospital because I was, have chest pains. Young, yeah. I was an E. R. And you, I realize in that moment when they strip you of kind of everything, and you know, the doctor is gonna knock on the door, when the doctor knocked on the door, I was like, this could change my life IT didn't. I was completely fine.

But there is so much negative in this world that I could spend the entire rest of my life focusing upon that and upon my fear, but that that doesn't serve me at all. In depression, I just needed a step for D. I felt I just stopped moving. So I started doing these habits. And these are the habits .

that we know work. So before we jump into these habits on, I just want to do some table setting so that everybody listening understands what you're talking about when you say the habits that we know work. I'm very familiar with your work. I'm familiar with all the research that you do.

And so I just want to make sure that you listening stand that Shawn has spent his entire career researching happiness, and he is distal IT down to four key habits that he coaches people in professional and personal settings to practice for twenty one days. And when he says these are the habits that we know work, that's what he's talking about. So sean, why do you walk through the four habits that everybody should try for twenty one days?

We get people to write down each day for two minutes, three new things that they're grateful for that have occurred over the past twenty four hours. So there's not what you're grateful for. The matters is the scanning.

We also got people to go on a fifty minute brisk four to five times a week, which we found as the equivalent of taking an A T. Depression for the first six months, for the next two years as a thirty percent, or relax trate back to that depressed state. We find that if you take your hands off your keyboard for two minutes a day and just watch your breath go in and out, you're training your brain to do one thing at a time.

And twenty one days later now, your accuracy rate improving by ten percent. The love of happiness rise, stress levels drop in the quarter. L levels of the people there around you change to their stress levels are dropping as well.

You're literally exchanging other people's biochemical patterns based upon your habits. And finally, you ve got people to write a two minute positive email each day, praising or thinking one new person, a different person each day for twenty one days and row. So just thanking them for something or praising them for something a twenty one days later, we find that IT dramatically improves the greatest predictive of your long term love s of happiness, which is your social .

connection score bomb. That's not just the happiness advantage people, those are the happiness actions. And i'm telling you, based on the research, the van is right. You gotta a do IT.

And what I like about what you're teaching a show is that through these habits, and you said a gratitude practice, a journal practice, exercising every day, taking two minutes to write a note to somebody. These are simple things that leverage all this research. I always say, shon, this is not just a listening podcast.

This is a fucking in doing podcast. So do those things for twenty one days. And I think you will be shocked at how the needle moves. Or is john likes to say you swing in a new direction. So thank you for explaining what the four habits are that you've been researching that you recommend to everybody. And what i'd like to do, Shawn, is can we go back in time to that moment your life when you are depressed? And could you just explain to the person listening, how exactly did a daily gratitude practice help you when you were a depressed twenty six year old researcher at harvard?

Gratitude, for example, in those moments, I need to stop scanning for all the deficits of my life. And I need to use some those finite resources to scan the world for the things that was grateful for. And IT was hard because my brain kept in like, yes, but what about this? But what about this thing you have? So I have literally train my brain, and we train IT exactly like, we've seen anything else with the human body.

Is I to keep doing IT, right? Like I can build a by sativa only lift, await once, then i'm done right? I had to do IT every day, and I had to create a pattern out of IT, even when I wasn't cheero going to work, and even when I can see no change in my life, i'd saved for the first two weeks.

I thought no change in my life. I ve just that they're writing down things from grateful for in my life. Still feels terrible. Like I remember breathing her when I was depressed, because like everything, her and everything doesn't seem like this worthwhile.

I think one of the most impressive things about your experience shown is that you actually kept doing IT even while your life felt terrible. And just to remind everybody, this was at a moment in your life where here you are as a graduate student researching optimism and yet you're struggling with profound depression. Can you talk to me about what I was like to live in those two realities where you're shown up and faking IT in your data day life as a researcher of optimism, and yet deep down you're struggling with profound depression?

I want to talk about this much, any of the interview. So I love to talk about this too, because I think you're going deeper. You know that some of surface questions we Normally get, I think that the habits are what pulled me out.

depression. I write my gratitude I journal, I do exercise. I uh write, uh, two minute time, note almost every day. I'd say ninety plus percent days since my met twice.

I know that when I don't do those things, just like when I don't brush my teeth, I get this film in my mouth. That's when I feel like my world looks like when I don't do those habits. Those habits are the building blocks .

for creating happiness.

What was the turning point for you? The turning point for me in of this was actually not me. My job was make sure other people didn't get depressed. So I kept trying to be there for other people. I was just supposed to be this parag on of of knowing what you are supposed to do.

And optimism, right? And I kept going deeper and deeper and depression, because I knew that there is a disant between what I was feeling and what I was showing to the world. The turning point for me, and what actually got me to try to do those habits, was at the bottom of of the depression for me.

I turned my a closest friends and family and told them that I was going through depression. And a couple of these people were some of my competitors. There are harvard, right, or my peers.

And I told me going through depression and I said, it's genetic. There's nothing you can do know my grandmother, grandpa, rents. And like it's genetic, I just want to tell somebody.

But immediately the ground to support was phenomenal. They kept calling me, they email me, they met up with me, they. Woman brought cupcakes, but as soon as I did that, everything changed.

And the reason for IT was actually a study I found way later in my life. Um IT was study by these two researchers in Virginia. And they found that if you look at the hill, you need to climate front of you.

If you look at that hill by yourself, your brain shows you a picture of a hill that looks twenty to thirty percent steep when you're alone compared to that hill that you look at of the same high, or standing next to someone who your told is gna climb the hill with you. So I said that on a convoluted way, when you're alone, hills actually look twenty to thirty percent step to the visual cortex, which is amazing, because I thought we have an this objective view of the world, right? That's bad.

This is good. This is how, call that mountains IT was one. Those matrix moments where I realized that the world is objective is subjective. Those chAllenges are collecting and expanding based upon whether not you think you're radically alone going through this and try and get off this or where there with other people.

So soon as I open up other people, that was the turning point, because that was the move from happiness as a self help idea to this recognition that happiness was not an individual support at all. And finally, that hill of overcoming depression in front of me drop by twenty to thirty percent. And they open up about things they were doing with chAllenges they were experiencing. And we start creating these meaningful narratives and social bonds. So he was a combination of habits and social connection in a mindset shift that allowed in that moment to break from this idea that nothing matters and that there's nothing that that can do that matters, and they have to just wait for the world to change.

I have never heard anybody say that happiness is a team sport. You're saying when you prioritize connecting with people in a more meaningful way or even simply to seek some support and help, the result that you feel is more joy and happiness even as you're going through these very difficult times. And i'm sorry to really get at a much deeper secular level what you're saying.

We need a different definition for this. It's not pleasure. It's something else that way more important. Well, IT makes perfect sense. The surgeon general just had that up ed piece about the epidemic of loneliness, and he talked about his own struggle with IT and how the turning point was him in dmitry, just like you did to his family, friends and to a few colleagues, that he was really struggling with this.

And I was there checking in on him and then sharing back that they felt disconnected from social groups and from themselves as well. That really was the turning point. But I love that you added that research because IT is true when you are down and sad, and you feel like a sad sac that nobody wants to hang out with.

That's the story you tell yourself. And that story then make you keep isolation. And it's when you reach out that you changed, and then that provides a little bit of that intrinsic lift that you need.

Maybe there is something I can do. Maybe there is hope. Now I promise everybody, we are going to to the up, day up unhappiness. But one of the things about happiness when you talk about is the topic is you got ta go down before you get back up. And we ve got a lot of questions from listeners who are feel a little down.

So I want to take a quick pause, let our sponsors lift back up because they allow us to bring you all this amazing research at zero costs. And sean, when we come back, we are going to dig in to a few more questions from our listeners, and we are going to talk about amplifying happiness as well. Stay with us.

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Welcome back. I melt Robins. And today you and I are getting a master class in happiness research. Shaan aakre is in the house, three new york times best sellers research at harvard.

The guy has not only the research, but he's got the tack, the takeaway to we are teaming up your questions about happiness and letting the expert, mr. Shaan a ker, answer them for you. This one is super related, able. And IT comes from a listener named sherman.

Since my ten years, i've been asking myself, why am I here? What's my purpose? How do I create happiness within myself? I ve made so much progress yet right now, I feel lost.

I feel like a failure. I feel not good enough. I feel like i'm not a good enough mom to my daughters. I feel selfish. And I feel, of course, and like i'm not living up to my potential, I know I am blessed and I do a lot of things, right? I don't think i'm depressed.

I'm not completely unhappy. So what the fuck am I? I mean some god, the vertex of nevada and hell shine, what tops are you?

Um so many things. First of all, what I kept hearing in my head over and over again as this sounds like me this so human. I think we fluctuate all the time between this like i've got things going and then wow, certainly don't like if I have a really productive monday.

I get everything done. I'm super cleaning the house. Tuesday and wednesday are terrible. I'm exhausted. I don't want to do anything.

I feel like I waste every tuesday and wednesday will ever have an amazing monday. I think that that's because, uh, we swing right. I think that I could be doing Better as a dad.

I could be doing Better as you know, husband, I know that when I work really hard at being a great dad, I know I immediately look around at all the people. They're doing amazing things at work. And like so by then, when I do is ten of stuff for work or travel ever, then i'm like, oh, I should be a Better that right?

I swing back and forth between this, and I think what we need are those inner points in the mist of IT. I researched this, but, you know, I also went to the divine school before getting into this. So what motivated my beliefs, why positive psychology mattered, came from this belief that the story we tell ourselves in the lens to which we view the world, changes how we act in IT and where we find our meaning. And I think that those belief systems answers to those questions about, how can I feel loved even when i'm not achieving my highest right or my potential?

Can you just back the truck up for a minute and explain what is a happiness ker point? You drop all these terms, and I think you forget that I do not have A P, H, D. And happiness research.

okay? And I want to know what these tools are. So what is a happiness anchor point and how do we create them for ourselves? IT sounds like the more that we stay true to what we value, the Better chance we have to stay happy. But the fact is it's hard to do that in today's world where there's so much in your daily life that's fighting for your attention. I mean, it's so easy to lose any anchor 在 you may have and just start to drift。

That's very difficult because that we get on the instagram and we know exactly who's doing great. You know, based on likes, right? Or based on some sort qualification or money can tell you who is doing great and who is not one of those feel that, boy. So where those inkpots ts could come from, I think that they have to come from other people as well. There is a study, the came out and ford, that found that loneliness had nothing to do with actually the number of people within your life.

Loneliness was simply the absence of meaning you felt in the relationships with other people and their meaningful impact upon you, that if you weren't doing anything meaningful for other people's lives, then you didn't feel social connection for the people there around you all the time, right? And vice vera, so if that's the case, if meaning is what's driving our levels of happiness, my grandmothers said that you know she's like, if you want a friend, you have to be a friend um and was like, okay, that's over simplistic. I I want a .

girlfriend really .

for me um I can be the girlfriend right so I am in that moment like I I I didn't understand now I get IT. I think we're searching for meaning and people searched for in different ways religion and philosophy and psychology. I think that a lot of the things that we search for don't work out for this, which is why we have get to the poem she's talking about where we feel this more text.

I got IT. I don't have you got IT. I don't have IT because we're reaching on the things often times they are, Lucy, while we're grabble on the things that are true, my mentor, tl bench hara said, you're never as great as you think you are, and you're never as bad as you think you are.

And what I loved about that is that meant there is a middle path in the midst of IT, right that sometimes when I think i'm a great you know speaker or whatever IT is, you know then I get I get humbled very quickly by anything um or if I think that um you know not doing great and occasionally i'll get an email and like, hey, this was really important to me, right um that the middle ath was actually the one that I want to be in. And is this recognition? I am not at my full potential, but that's okay.

And the reason that's okay is because I am having a meaningful impact upon other people. So that habit that I mentioned of writing a two minute because of female praising your thinking, someone else, I found that one to be probably the most helpful of any other things that research, because you can take someone in a socially isolated ate with high levels of introversion. And if every day they scared for one new person to write a two minute positive femto, you, they stop on the eight, on day eight.

That's when they realized fully that they're not a crazy extrovert with all these friends. They corrected. They're like, I wrote everyone in my favorite list in my mom choice, everyone.

And then they scared and they remember who's that mentor who got me into this job or who's that high school teacher that seem to have some answers to some those questions that person was just asking. Or my kids, first, great teacher, who transform my son's life. I don't talk them anymore because my kids and second grade, right? And you start to see all these people.

They are in our lives. They were not connecting with in a two minute email. Thinking them or praising them are saying, i've seen how you've been going through breast cancer and it's IT inspires me that you are able to find happiness in low health when I strugling to find happiness when I seemed that power health, right?

That those moment that just brief, uh, meaningful act using technology for two minutes, we found that if you do IT for twenty one days and row, your social connection score rises up to the top fifteen percent of people worldwide, right? That's including experts, right? And what we found was is that you were lighting up these nodes of meaningful connections on your mental map, social connection. And that I think if you look at the physics, I think if you look at religion, I think if you look at psychology, they keep breaking down this idea that you can achieve happiness alone, that you can just figure out your thoughts enough, and then you did IT. You can just maintain your happiness, that happiness and meaning only come from this interplay with the ecosystem, with others around us.

I love that. Well.

I just can tell one quick study is a beautiful one, not about humans. Um i've probably ard this one. This was also in the new york times as well.

They found at least fireflies. Fireflies everywhere lied up individually and randomly in the dark. That's how they attract to me. And there's success rate per night per bug is three percent on which i'm told this is good.

But these these researchers found on opposites, the globe, these two species on southeast in asia, and one of the smoking amounts of tennessee that you can take buses out to go sea. And these fireflies have these neural transmittals allow them to all light up and all go dark at the same time, which is beautiful, but not that smart, because we live in a survival of the face world. We were told be the fastest, smart st.

Brightest, light shining othe wise will never be successful at mmt. They studied these fireflies, and they realize, we just understand how systems work, that when they lit up together, seemingly with their competition, the success rate doesn't drop. The success rate goes from three percent to eighty two percent per bug is not like one bug does Better.

The system was doing orders and magnet be Better than we thought as possible because as they look up together, their life became brighter. And IT was attracting more and more potential mates than a single light would have been able to do and create these virtual cycles. And we kept seeing the same thing. We when we looked at humans um we found that the greatest predictor of long term levels failest as you know, the social connection, it's the breath debt, meaning in social relationships. So it's not something you can figure out in your head and then you did IT and then you can hold happiness forever is about finding a way of lighting up with other people in getting them to .

light up as well. What i'd love about your research is that you're also making IT actable because I think that's part of the problem that when we feel shady and we say shooting things to ourselves, we don't take the actions that actually change IT.

I heard one time I was on the plane and the woman sitting at the back, he said he was talking to somebody else loudly that he had just met about all these, uh, psychological understanding about herself, like literally a littery of all the psychological problems that he had and realized SHE. And he said he had been going to the therapy for years. SHE had this incredible knowledge about herself and understanding where he was.

And I didn't not no point that SHE ever mentioned anything SHE was doing about IT right SHE was talking to a stranger about IT um which you was was more trauma dumping than actually trying to move forward. But I think there is this moment where you know I really thought I had had read enough books i'd find happiness, right? I thought I read in a books I be smart and then people would like me was the completely not sure right? Um I love what you're saying there is that there's this interplay between the beliefs and actions that we do.

If you say you believe those, we are not doing me. So i'm not sure you actually believe these things right, that there's got to be connection between those. And what I would say is in addition to that is don't try to do IT alone, right? We'd treat happiness like self help, like I.

I know our books are in self help section sometimes, right? But as soon as we do this on our own, without that friend, without that mentor, without those people, they were doing meaningful x then we can frustrate very quickly and think we're doing something wrong. And what's wrong is actually the former. Like happiness never works out if it's an individual pursuit. You can't do enough yoga to force yourself in a happiness less that yoga caused you be more peaceful with that .

interaction with your mother in law. That's what you mean when you say it's a team sport, it's not that you need other people to be happy. Is that your happiness and your ability to access joy in your life that leads you up and then that impacts everyone around you that is so cool.

And this is also a very cool moment for us to hit. The pause button was shown and here, reward from our sponsors. I would be happy, happy, happy if we had to take a listen to them.

And when we come back, trans gona tackle a question about how you can remain happy when the people around you in your family are miserable. Stay with us. You know, if there's one thing that I know about you because you listen to this podcast that you have big ambitions, you care about your goals.

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Welcome back. I melt Robins. Today you and I are getting a master class in the research around happiness with none other than sean agr and shown.

I'd want to just jump right in with another question. This one is from pam. I've heard you're only as happy as your happiest child, and i've got just the one, and he is sure not happy.

He lives with his face in his phone and says he doesn't mind being a lunar. I know he was happiest many years ago when he had a girlfriend who adored him, and he was really active. Now he's twenty six, you should be in the prime of his life, but he isn't.

And as a result, I feel deeply unhappy. How do I move past this and can I help him to do the same at sixty two and four years out from breast cancer treatment, I think it's time to find my warm people and find out happiness. thanks.

I hear that I have two kids in my own, and so much my happiness is built upon them. And because of them, or when they're hurting, I, so if he was me, so I think that does unavoidable. The fact that there's pain associated with I love should not be the surprising part.

We got to hear only a little bit of her story, right? Her story was the sun story, mostly right? Then when we heard that he went through breast cancer, like I would have loved to hear her story, and yet we're hearing her story is a bit character, or a the side naratu of her sun story, which means that our happiness becomes very fatal.

They always tell you, diversify your portfolio, right? Don't be on all stocks and you know, don't be on all bonds. Don't be on all one thing, right?

I think the same thing happened with meaning. We see IT with people who love their kids. We also see IT with worker lix where they love something. And as meaningful, the work is meaningful and pleasurable and they're good at IT, right? So then they just do more of IT.

But the more they do that and they don't do other things, they're slowly taking out other meaningful parts of their life so that their entire meaning portfolio is all in one stock, is all that sun or all becomes that work. We don't even know what to do with ourselves. We don't have work to do, right? That's the work a holic, right? Like they they give free time. And I like, what do I do about just a few more emails than i'll feel happy again, right?

I remember when we first met, you had to make yourself a promise that whenever you want a plane, you are gone to put your laptop away and you force yourself to watch a movie, because you are starting to see that you loved work so much. And this was me, too, that you hadn't diversified where you got your happiness from. And so I think about that swinging.

And if you never knew the depth of sadness, you wouldn't ever experience the greatest heights of joy. I had that experience watching my husband struggled, depression, and I could throw every book on the planet at them, every podcast episode, adam, but I can't do the work form. I can just hold space for that.

And I think we have to do that for ourselves, that on those days that you feel like shit, you've got a hold space, and eventually it's GTA swing back. But the truth is like, I get very triggered when somebody that I love is sad, and I want to fix IT chon. How do you show up? brothers?

Is such an interesting question. Because, you know, when we speak to groups of people, you get three hundred people on the room, plus, you know, just the test. Someone's going through grief. Maybe twenty percent are on N N T depressed and anxiety medication, ten percent or more have been abused, right? The more I think about IT, the more I become paralyzed as a speaker, like if I thought about that, I definitely would soft pedal some of the things in the happiness advantage.

If one of my friends had just lost her son, I would not go immediately to this because I think that there's a moment that in a long moment for grief, that we need to allow and recognition that that part of love, and that's part of being human at the same time. What's helped me hold that space where you're describing is that after a talk, someone come up to me and be like, this traumatic eventually happen to our kid, and I immediately think my head, why did I say some these things, right? And they were like, you have no idea how much I need to hear this today.

So my beliefs and assumptions about what that person needs to hear were completely wrong. And I give myself space to realize in those moments that I don't have everything figured out, which is actually really helpful in in a way that I think links back to what you are a describing was exactly what my parents felt about me when I was depressed, right? My parents have study to me.

They were like, we felt hopeless. We watch you go through depression. We saw your depressed and we couldn't do anything. And you in boston, far away from us.

So I could hear them feeling the same thing that that parent felt as well and that's why my happiness researcher now because I went through to that depression right? So that moment of suffering that you're describing um what I keep telling parents that you know say my kid is depressed, I say I was too and that's not in the story and that's very typical very like that is very Normal. I think we panic when we don't feel the happiness were told response to feel all the time.

You should not feel happy all the time if you do. That's a disorder, right? You're divorced from reality what we want you to do is that when you feel swing towards the negative side and you do doing deficit thinking, that we need to spend some those precious final resources, this scaling for the positive parts, the story they're equally true. Or to talk about our story instead just our some story.

You know, I think that the numbers that you said about an audience are way higher. And I would push back on you and say that the research and the recommendations that you're making work and that everybody needs to hear him. And if you're in a state of acute grief, then you're not gna be capable of doing IT.

But the second that you're grabbing for a lifetime, these simple habits that you're talking about of simply getting out of bed, exercising journal, practicing gratitude and then sending a note of kindness. And I might just be to people to help you during the funeral that that gives you a lifetime, that gives you access to the power within you, that helps you come back to yourself. And so I think we make the mistake of tiptoeing around people's depression and people's sadness, and we treat them with kid gloves when actually what they need is not only the empathy and the support in the chicken, but these guide posts that help you swing back in the direction of feeling happier.

Again, I want to go to another question that we have. I bet you've got a great answer for and mary pio, this is a mary, according from girlfriends in the united kingdom, absolutely adore listening to your inspirational podcast. Thank you.

Can you advise people who perhaps have chronic illness and can't exercise or work full time? Have they too can lead a happier and more fulfilled life? How do you stay motivated and hopeful and keep joy in your life? How do you prevent yourself from spiraling and thinking the worst because you are sick so much of the time? Thank you so much. And standing all.

it's very tough. And I faced last week when, you know, my hair wasn't doing well, I actually looked outside the window, and there is a security guard, guard outside the hospital. And I so much wanted to be him.

I wanted his life. He wasn't caring about health. So this question hits home where someone has to think about their health all the time.

I used to write in books when I signed IT. I'd say, happiness is a choice. shine. I don't do that anymore.

I have an idea. What if you wrote happiness is an option?

I like that.

I have another idea. I want to talk to you listening to us right now. Yes, you, you know how? In the beginning of our conversation, I asked you to pick an area of your life where you wish that you could access more happiness.

And I asked you to be selfish and to listen to all of shots, insight and research and tools through the lens of that particular aspect of your life. I now want to ask you a question, what if happiness was an option for you in that area of your life? You know, that relationship in your family that makes you miserable.

What if happiness was an option? What if a career where you felt more joy was an option? What if you being happy with the habits of the morning routine that you have is an option that just opens up a whole new level of creativity and freedom doesn't IT.

Because when it's an option, IT means that there are multiple ways that you can attack IT, right? IT means that you can think about IT differently. IT means that you're not stuck where you are shine. What do you think about that approach? Happiness is an option.

I like that because choice seems to add a burden where I don't want there to be a burden. But direct sign that is an option. I love that.

I might use that. Now that's great. When we can't do something, we're outlining something that's the deficit.

I can't exercise, but we know that most of these habits don't involve exercise. So there are things that we can do in those moments that can raise levels of happiness. I think the choice is, is, is harder.

I think the choice is harder when you're being racially discriminated against or when you have a health issue or when your kid is depressed. I think the choice becomes harder within those moments, but still as an option as you're describing. And where I think we get meaning, even when our own body becomes our prison, is from other people.

Now, when you say meaning comes from other people, I want to be very clear, everybody, because we are also saying you have to stop thinking. You'll be happy when you get in the relationship or lose the pounds or you finish the PHD or you have your first song playing on the radio. I'll be happy when or thinking that some achievement is going to make your life fulfilling.

No, what becomes fulfilling in life is working on this thing, climbing the mountain. So I want to be very clear that john is not saying that other people are the source of your happiness. What on is saying is that meaningful connection with other people creates feelings of meaning and enjoy and happiness in your life, and that serving others and helping other people creates meaning, enjoy. And I saying they are correctly shown.

Yeah, we were working in fluent michigan in the midst of inequality and discrimination, racism. So we were trying to raise loss of happiness for the teachers so they may stay for more than two years. What we found, what we are doing this is that only in the classrooms where we were able to raise the levels of happiness for the teachers, the teachers, students, parents or guardians, while being scores started and improving dramatically, we are only working with the teachers, and yet the students test scores, and those classrooms were rising.

We were finding that if you could change the minds, that behavior of some, the individuals within an ecosystem, you could actually measure the impact of people, two, three, four degrees separate, that they never even met. And the reason I highlighted is one that makes us feel good about ourselves. But two is the reason for taking that next step.

If doing this gratitude de journal is just about me, IT feels empty and vacuous, right? What we are finding in the midst of this is that when people were able to raise their levels of happiness, joy, meaning IT cause, other people who have see that happiness was an option. But there is a state that came out about is Better to live a meaningful life than a happy life. As soon as you split, meaning and happiness, we've already made a mistake. yeah.

Isn't IT the same thing?

Yes, they should be because it's very difficult to stay happy when you feel like your life is meaningless and is very difficult to keep doing meaningful activities. If you don't feel any joy doing that or any return on IT, let people be part of your life as well. That's when we start to see those those larger gains. And people saw us a happiness shown.

I'm just processing everything that we've already covered, and I know there is so much more that you can teach us, but can I just take a second and make sure that I can synthesize everything that we've covered so far so that nobody misses out because so far, there's been jam packed with takeaway and insights. So first, if you're unhappy, you're not playing a enough game in life. You're too focused on your own misery.

You too focused on yourself. And gratitude is one way to make you see the bigger picture. All of these things are about getting out of your own tiny, tiny, selfish, miserable focus and expanding your eyes to see that there's a lot more about your life experience and about what is your potential that's available to you when you stop staring at your navel and complaining about everything that's going on.

I could just listen to you forever because I feel like you are able to synthesize this in such a beautiful way. And you can hear from the people who call in. And even though they're suffering, you're doing something so meaningful in their life, you know, we get so focused upon, you know, whether not a glasses, half four or half empty, right? And then we decide our having a space upon that right, optimism or pessimism. But I ve always had this idea, like this picture of my head, of we're so focused on this clasping half or have empty, but ignoring that there's a picture of water sitting right next to IT that we could fill IT up with when we do these habits and when we care for another other people in, we're filling up that glass, and that glass not look like the day before. Yeah.

that's great. I always like to say that it's not about the water that in the glass. It's about the fact that you have a glass, you can dump the water out, you can fill IT back up.

You are the glass and all the tools that you're giving us today, whether it's a different way to think about happiness, whether it's a new definition that includes both moments and moving growth and how you can incorporate joy, whether it's the four habits that you walk this through, those are always you guys that you can empty the glass or you can fill IT with more experiences of joy which lifted you up and then that impacts everything about your life. But if you at the bottom line, IT, especially if you're talking to a listener who's like i'm the glassman, there's a picture next to me shown what the help goes talking about. Can you just bottom line, what somebody should do right now to tap into this concept of happiness? Enjoy.

except where you are right now? But we realized that this is not the end of the story. So I believe the change is radically possible from our genes and environment when we change our mindset and change our behavior, and we link in with other people as well.

I thought i'm going to be thinking about this interview for a long time. You just got this depth that makes a just beautiful. And so I learned a lot from this.

I learned a lot from this tushan. And i'm going to be thinking about this for a long time too. And more importantly, everybody listening.

I hope you are not only thinking about what you learn today. I hope you put IT into action because, as you know, this is not just a listings podcast. The male robbin's podcasts is doing podcast.

And there's one thing I want to do before I say goodbye, I want to make sure to tell you that I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to push a door wide open to a happier you, because happiness is an option. So take IT. I love you.

OK my OK just to go 也 OK not happy。 okay? Wow, that is a big truck going by.

You know what? I'm not happy that the truck is going by, but I feel a lot to join my heart because we're making and. You can feel h, my god, okay, I have to take this up because I been harassing her.

Here is the truck again, my god. Leave IT to melt the schedule podcast tapings on a construction day, we're going to do something a little different today. And I don't know if we've told you this or not because i'd like to invite you onto the podcast and then completely surprise you by what we're doing.

So you feel very uncomfortable just getting oh, and one more thing I know this is not a blue per. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers, right? And what I need to read you.

This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a license therapies.

And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapy or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in the next episode stitcher.

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