Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - The Science of Happiness, Love & Human Connection with Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky #683

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

If you can’t shake the idea that happiness lies just around the corner, that you’ll ‘be happy when…’ you achieve X, Y or Z, then this conversation will bring you into the present. Because as my guest reveals, the secret to happiness isn't your future success, money or health, but something far simpler (which you can change today). It’s feeling loved. That's the conclusion happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky has arrived at after 36 years studying what makes us content, and it's the focus of this week's episode. Sonja is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of several bestselling books on happiness. Her latest, written with relationship scientist Harry Reis, is called How to Feel Loved. It makes the case that being loved is not the same as feeling loved – and the latter is key to individual happiness and societal wellbeing. During this warm and inspiring conversation, Sonja sets out her five mindsets – including Radical Curiosity, Sharing, and the Multiplicity Mindset – which can help us feel more loved. She demonstrates how we can all adopt them to forge better relationships with everyone from friends, partners and family members to colleagues and strangers. We explore the idea of hedonic adaptation – why those things we assume will make us happy (good looks, a better job, a bigger house) bring short-lived rewards. We discuss why happier people tend to become more successful, rather than the other way round, and Sonja reveals fascinating research linking happiness to physical health and immunity. Our conversation also takes in cultural attitudes to happiness, from Sonja's early years in Russia to her decades living in the US, and what these differences reveal about the assumptions many of us hold without realising. Sonja shares a moving account of meeting the Dalai Lama, including his own definition of happiness. And we try out some of the exercises from her book live in the studio, including her Fast Friends questions designed to dissolve barriers and build closeness in minutes. By the end of this powerful episode, you'll understand why forgiveness, curiosity and honest conversation matter more to your happiness than almost anything else. You'll feel more optimistic about your potential to feel loved. And you’ll come away with practical ways to bring valuable connections into your life, starting with your very next conversation.   The Thrive Tour: Transform Your Health and Happiness, a live show: Book Your Tickets https://drchatterjee.com/live   Thanks to our sponsors: https://boncharge.com/livemore https://dohealth.co/livemore https://drinkag1.com/livemore   Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/683   DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's not necessarily the success leads to happiness, is that happiness leads to success. When you are a happy person, your thoughts are flexible, your immune system is stronger, you're more likely to approach others, you're more confident, you're more optimistic, and all of those things can become self-fulfilling prophecies. When you feel better, you do better. Hey guys, how you doing? I hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rongan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Living.

more. If you can't shake the idea that happiness lies just around the corner, that you'll be happy when you achieve X, Y or Z, then this week's episode is for you. Sonia Lubomirschki is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California Riverside and the author of several best-selling books on happiness. Her very latest, written with the relationship scientist Harry Rice, is called How to Feel Loved, and it's makes the case that being loved is not the same as feeling loved, and that this is the key to individual happiness and societal well-being. In our conversation, we explore the five mindsets which can help us feel more loved, the idea of hedonic adaptation why those things we assume

will make us happy only ever bring short-lived rewards, and we also discuss the fascinating research that links happiness to better physical health and immune function. We also explore cultural attitudes to happiness, what Sonia learned when she met the Dalai Lama, and we also try out some of the exercises from her book, Live in the Studio, which are designed to dissolve barriers and build closeness in minutes. By the end of this powerful conversation, you'll understand why forgiveness, curiosity, and honest conversation matter more for your happiness than almost anything else. And you'll feel more optimistic about your own potential to feel loved. You've been studying happiness now for over 30 years.

In your view, what are some of the common myths that exist about this topic? Well, I think the most common one is this idea that, like, I'm not happy now, but I'll be happy when. Like I'll be happy when I move to that city I always wanted to live in. I'll have, when I have a baby, when I have that job that I always wanted, when I get a little bit more money, when I lose a little bit more weight. And the problem with that myth is that there's a truth to it, right? Like, you probably will be happier when you get that new job or have a baby or get a boyfriend. But human beings adapt very quickly to positive changes in their lives. It's called hedonic adaptation, right?

So we make more money and at first we're happy and then we're like, oh, well, it would be very nice to make even. more. And so hedonic adaptation is a very powerful phenomenon. And so we adapt and then we want even more and even more. The problem is that you're the same person in that new job or that new relationship and that if you tend to not be a very happy person, you bring that person with you. It's like in Zen and the Arth motorcycle maintenance, I think Robert Persig writes, the Zen you feel at the top of the mountain is the Zen you bring up the mountain with you. Same kind of idea, right? Love that. Yeah, same idea. So the idea is that changes in circumstances don't make you as happy as you think they will.

Although if you're in a bad relationship, if you live in poverty, obviously changing those circumstances is going to help you. But for most people who are pretty comfortable improving their life a little bit is not going to make them happier forever. And so it's really, it's a cliche, but what makes us happy is really something on the inside of us, not something on the outside of us. What's the relationship then between money and happiness? You know, it's kind of nuanced. Money does make people happier, but it depends on what you spend it on, right? So the way I like to think of it is that there's sort of three buckets of things that make people happy. One is connection.

Two is contribution to society. Three is personal growth. So if you spend your money on connecting with other people and, you know, I don't know, paying for dinner with your friends, taking your nephew to the circus. If you spend your money on contributing on helping others, whether it's philanthropy or just being generous, or you spend your money on personal growth, learning a new skill, traveling,

then those things will make you happier. But if you spend your money on, like, things or possessions, a bigger house, a bigger car, that's not going to make you happier forever. It kind of fits alongside that first myth, doesn't sense? That we think, and maybe we think this, because of culture and society. But I think many of us are conditioned to believe

that when we get that job, when we get that raise, when we get that car, when we get that phone, things are going to get better, right? And is that perhaps something that is normal to feel when you're a teenager and in your 20s? Does experience and age basically teach you as it has for me that these things really are myths? And as you get older, you realize actually, wait a minute, all of those external things,

sure, you may want them. But if you think they're going to bring you something like deep contentment and happiness, you may be a little bit disappointed. Yeah, it is true. As you get older, you learn, you become a little bit wiser. But one of the theories is that it's evolutionarily adaptive for humans to always want more, right? Imagine if we are in our ancestral past, we would get to that mountain, we got, you know, we got food. And then we sort of were satisfied with that and we just sort of sat there and didn't do anything else, right?

We would never make progress as a species. So always wanting more is actually beneficial for us as a human species. But for individuals, it doesn't make us happy. Yeah, that makes me think about the role that culture plays, right? So let's say the United States of America, known around the world as a go-getting culture. You know, whatever you want you can do. You just got to put your mind to it, work hard, right? And of course, America over the years has innovated in so many different disciplines so well. But of course, and maybe this is part of it as well.

There's many cultures like I, you know, my parents are from India, and they came to the UK in the 1960s and the 1970s. I never heard the term happiness growing up. It just wasn't a thing that we would talk about. But of course, America talks about happiness a lot. And I wonder, is that because of this kind of evolutionary argument? So people aren't satisfied. They're constantly trying to innovate.

Get bigger buildings. Get better airplanes. Get better technology. And therefore, is what makes us content and happy fundamentally at odds with that kind of continual growth? Yeah. Or continual desire, I should say. Yeah, it's such a hard question because I don't think it's, I think that, Yeah, I think the United States is a great example of like that, as you said, like the go-getter society where we always want more and more and more.

And we've been very successful. And there's one theory, actually, that meritocracies that award people who are sort of doing better, working harder, are smarter, actually are really bad for happiness. Because if you don't succeed in a meritocracy, then who do you have to blame only yourself, right? As opposed to if you live in a system that's really rigged and, you know, then you're like, well, that's just how the system is. But here's a subtle point. Happiness is also good for us because it actually leads to success. So even though, yes, this go-getting, this always wanting more can actually detract from happiness, there's the opposite causal direction that happier people are actually more likely to succeed.

So it's not necessarily the success leads to happiness, is that happiness leads to success, right? When you are a happy person, right, you have that creativity, you're, you're, your thoughts are flexible, your immune system is stronger, you're more likely to approach others, you know, you're more confident, you're more optimistic. And all of those things can become self-fulfilling prophecies. So this idea that sort of when you feel better, you do better, yeah, there's research behind it. Hundreds of studies support that idea. You said before that money can result in more happiness depending on your starting circumstance. Can we just unpack that a little bit? Because this is,

I guess a slightly controversial area in terms of the relationship between money and happiness. You've done a lot of research, I think, around this entire topic. You probably know the latest research around this. What does it actually tell us? Sure. There's like several stories to tell about money. So the first story is money definitely makes you happier when you're poor. Right.

So if money prevents you from being poor, it definitely contributes to happiness. the wealthier you are, the less impact money is going to have in your happiness. We know that to be true. But we also know, and I also mentioned that money will make you happier if you spend it on the right things. Right. We already talked about that. And then there's another subtlety, which is from a study that was not a fairly recent study. This almost seems unfair.

So money will make you happier if you're happier to begin with. So they found that happier people when they made more money. So happiness and money was correlated for happy people. But if you're an unhappy person to begin with, more money did not actually make you happier. It's not kind of like almost unfair. Yes, the Zen you feel at the top of the mount is the zen you take along the mountainside with you. Exactly. Maybe because happy people are spending the money.

When they get the more money, they're happier with it. They spend on the right things. An unhappy person, no matter how much they get, is still grumpy and disgruntled. I wonder if I might share my perspective on money and happiness. A couple of times you said that money can make you happier if, and then I think at another time you said money can contribute to happiness. And the way I see it is that money can remove common obstacles to happiness. But I don't personally believe that money in and off itself can bring happiness

because happiness, I believe, is fundamentally an inside job. It's internal. So if money, for example, made us happier, why do we have so many wealthy people who are not happy? Because I think there's other contributing factors as well. And would you agree, disagree with that? Totally. And actually, I love the way you stated that it removes obstacles.

And it's true, it removes obstacles that can make it harder for people to be happy. But some people, no matter what, right? And by the way, it's partly genetic. You know, there's this really strong genetic influences on happiness. Some people are just unlucky to kind of be born with a low set range for happiness. Because even when those barriers are removed for them, they're still not very happy. But I like the way you stated it. I'm a little, I'm hesitant to use causal statements.

So when I say things like money makes people happy, that's actually not something I would ever write down in a research article because it's too strong. Yeah. You know? It's a contributor for some people. Yeah, yeah. It's correlated with, you know, you can't, yeah. There's not that many experiments where people are given money, although one of my colleagues, Elizabeth Dunn, has done studies

where they gave people, I believe, was $10,000 sort of gifts. And they found that, yeah, basically if you're poorer to begin with, those gifts made a much bigger difference in your happiness than if you're wealthier, if you come from wealthier countries. Not surprisingly. What's the relationship between happiness and health? Again, lots of all correlational, almost all correlational research, right? So, I mean, hundreds of studies show that happier people are healthier.

So first you can look at just correlations, right? So happier people have less pain, have less likely to have cancer, heart disease, less likely to develop a cold. Some of my favorite studies people were given were injected the rhinovirus, the cold virus, directly into their noses, into their nasal passages. They were paid a lot of money to do this. I think $800, this was in the 90s. Wow. That was a lot of money in the 90s.

There was a lot of money now, but in the 90s? Exactly. Wow. Well, because it was a big study. Then they had to sequester the participants in a motel for five days and kind of watch them. Anyway, long story short, happier people who were injected with the cold virus were less likely to get a cold. and when they did, it was shorter, right? So if you're unhappy, you're more likely to get a cold.

Basically, your immune system seemed to be less strong. So that's one example of a study. Happier people, and then so there's a correlational studies. There's longitudinal studies. So if you measure people at time one and you follow them across time, happier people live longer. They recover faster from surgery. They're less likely to develop all kinds of conditions,

whether it's cancer, heart disease, diabetes. And then, but really there are very few experiments. It's almost impossible to do experiments on this. It's almost all correlational. But anyway, so tons of studies that are correlational that show that happiness is related to health. And the researchers try to control for other factors. So, for example, in that study where people were injected with a cold virus,

they controlled for things like age, body mass index, depression. Which actually surprisingly, none of those things had an effect. Even depression, you'd think, because it could be that it's really depressing. depression that is associated with the strength of immune function. Not in this study, though. How do you think the culture in which we grow up in affects our view of happiness? And I'm particularly thinking about someone like yourself who, I think until the age of nine,

you grew up in Russia and then you came to the United States. So you've kind of got two massively different cultural inputs to your perspective on happiness. Yeah, the story I tell myself is that. One of the reasons that I started studying happiness is that I was so shocked by the cultural differences when I came to the U.S. So in Russia, you walk in the streets, people don't look happy. There's a notion of the evil eye that I think is a popular cultural notion that if you sort of look happy or successful to others, that bad things will happen to you. In Russia, yes.

In the U.S., you know, you walk on the street. I remember the first place we went to was actually New York, not famous for its happy people on the street, but yet people would sort of smile and say hello to me walking the street. And I was shocked at that because you just don't see that in Moscow where I was from. But we actually recently wrote a paper that showed that it had to do with who you express your happiness to. If you go inside of a Russian home, people are singing and dancing and, you know, they look very happy. Inside of American homes, I found they were kind of serious and, you know, like, please pass the salt. You know, there's not really much singing, dancing going on.

But anyway, the bottom line is there are big cultural differences. We've looked at some of those differences. Lots of other researchers have. You know, some cultures don't have a, yeah, don't even talk much about happiness. In Russia, if you ask people, you know, as happy as important to you, they'll say no. They'll say it's important to suffer. Again, you mentioned Zen Buddhism. Russians will say it's important to suffer because suffering builds character.

and also suffering might lead you to sort of to find salvation in the next life. So that's one difference. Anyway, the point is like there's lots and lots of different perspectives on happiness. And the American one, the Western one is just one type of perspective. Yeah. It's kind of fascinating. I was reading your latest book, How to Feel Loved, this morning in my local coffee shop. And I was deep in thought for about an hour.

And I was making all kinds of notes. And then just before I got it to leave, one of the baristas said, Hey, Ranga, what were you reading? And as I was trying to very, you know, briefly kind of summarise the essence of the book, she said something which kind of relates to what you just said. She said, well, I'm from Belarus originally in Eastern Europe. And she says, I think Eastern Europeans have this reputation here for being quite stoic and dour.

and not smiling. But honestly, since I came to the UK, I find it quite hard to connect with people here. Whereas I find when I go back home to Belarus that people are a lot more authentic and they talk more deeply. And it was really interesting because I thought,

I initially thought of this book I read a few years ago by this Belgian scientist, Batcham-Masquiza called Between Us. And she talks about the difference between me cultures and we, cultures. And, you know, and again, I'm bringing up America because I think it's an extreme kind of me culture as opposed to a we culture. And I think in America, certainly one of the things

I found when I started going for conferences is, you know, you say to someone, and this is a complete generalization, but, you know, how are you doing? Oh, I'm great. I'm awesome. It seemed to be that a lot of people are great and a lot of people are awesome, right? And I'm not criticizing it, because all cultures have got their little tendencies, right? It's just an observation. In Britain, we're known for the stiff up a lip. You know, we don't wash our dursy laundry in public, as it were. We say the right thing and the proper thing when we're out.

But I wanted that barista from Belarus is sort of part of her might be thinking that, yeah, but I don't know what people are really thinking, right? All these things play into happiness, don't they, and our ability to be authentic with other people. Yeah, I think authenticity is so important. And one of the premises of this book is if you want to feel loved, you need to be known and you need to really know the other person. And how can you be known or know the other person if you're just saying, I'm great, I'm fantastic, right?

That's a small talk, right? It's sort of this shallow level of getting to know each other. And so I agree with the barista that I think a lot of Western cultures, you know, there's not much deep talk, right? And so, but again, like, you can't really connect and feel loved by others without that deep talk, without that authenticity. Because we're mostly just showing to each other, you know, the highlight reel, right? Just the positive aspects of one another. And when we do that, we don't really, yeah, we don't really know what's deep inside in the other person.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to get into this key book. It really is fascinating. Let's just finish off, though, on some of the themes that we're talking about. So we've discussed some of the myths that people. commonly believe about happiness, I guess we should probably define happiness at some point, because I guess you could talk to 10 different people from maybe 10 different countries

and ask them if they're happy and it might mean something different to them. So as a researcher in this field, how do you think about happiness? Sure. Well, when we measure happiness, we let people define it for themselves. But researchers define happiness as having two components. The first component is experiencing positive emotions fairly frequently, not all the time, but frequently. So happy people will experience, depending on the culture or the person, they might experience joy, enthusiasm, excitement, or tranquility, calm, curiosity, pride. So depending on the person is going to be a different set of positive emotions. But experiencing frequent positive emotions is a really important part of happiness. I would say the hallmark of happiness.

But it's not sufficient. the other component of happiness is having a sense that your life is good, that your life is going well, you're satisfied with your life, you're progressing towards your life goals at a good pace. So those are the two components of happiness,

positive emotions, which is the emotional component, and life satisfaction, which is we call the cognitive component. And you really need both to be a truly happy person. You can imagine being like, when I had my two first, I had two kids,

and I really was very satisfied with my life, I sort of had exactly what I wanted, like a beautiful family and a great job and these two kids. But I didn't have many positive emotions because it was so hard when they were little. It was a lot of negative emotions. So I wasn't truly a happy person. You can imagine another person, let's say a college student, university student who's like parting a lot and having fun. So they have a lot of positive emotions. But they don't really know what they want to be when they're growing up.

They're not really satisfied with the way their life is going. So they are high on one and not high and low on the other components. So you really need both components. to be a truly happy person. Over your decades of studying this topic, are there some key things that you have changed your mind on or surprising things that you learned that you weren't expecting? This episode is sponsored by Bon Charge.

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live more. For 28 years, I've been doing what I call happiness interventions, right? Starting in 1998. This is a long time ago. Yeah, my lab pioneered. what we call happiness interventions. And happiness interventions are basically clinical trials. But instead of testing a vaccine or a medication, we're testing a practice like expressing gratitude, does that make people happier, doing acts of kindness? And so we've done 28 years of happiness interventions. And this is the surprising part.

Or maybe it shouldn't have been surprising to us. A few years ago, it hit me that after all this time that all the interventions that work to make us happier, the reason they work is they make us feel more connected and more loved by others. So when I write a gratitude letter to my mom, it makes me feel more loved by her. When I do an act of kindness for my colleague, my friend, it makes me feel closer to them. So almost all interventions, all happiness interventions are about connection. So again, it may seem like a cliche, but almost all powerful ideas when you distill them,

right, sound like cliches. For sure. Yeah. So that's really the surprising thing. Now, there's some happiness interventions like running on the beach or meditating. Maybe those don't necessarily have anything to do with connection, although even those you could argue can be connecting. But almost all of them that work are about feeling connected and feeling loved. And so that's why I started to think about that as a key to happiness.

Yeah. Although that kind of ties a little bit back to what we're saying before about cultural. differences and me cultures versus we cultures, right? Because we cultures, I very much grew up in a we culture, you know, Asian, Indian culture is very much about the family. So, you know, doing things for others and doing things that are good for the wider group are kind of built into how we're brought up. You know, I, for example, live in the town where I grew up, right? So I went dad was alive, I was around to care for dad. Now, mum is not so well.

She's elderly now. Me and my brother are around to care for her. And I was reflecting today and I thought, maybe one of the best things I have ever done for my health, well-being, and longevity is to live near my mom. Do you know what I mean? I'm not saying it's for everyone,

but for me, I think it probably is. Yeah. You know, it's such a great example because I can imagine people listening and saying, oh, but I'm, because this is a sort of collectivist, another, but I know Batia and I love her one. Yeah, yeah, of course she's a colleague

and I love, I love... I thought her book was great when I read it. Yeah, so I read it too a long, a while ago. So, but the idea of the we and the me cultures is a, it's a beautiful way also to describe them, but I can imagine the people in the me cultures listening to you and saying, oh, but I care about family too

and yet how many of us actually decided to just live in the town where our parents are, like very few. But yeah, the connection and of course you can find connection in many different ways. And yet it is at the heart, it really is the key to happiness. Again, it sounds like a cliche, but feeling connected.

And some people will say, well, I'm connected to my religion or I'm connected to my pets, actually, you know, or my child, you know, it could be, you can find that connection in many different ways. So it doesn't have to be living in the same time as your parents. It could be something very different. For sure. But it is at the heart, which is why, like, the, the, AI explosion is sort of changing a lot of things. You know, people are even getting feeling connected

to, you know, chatbots because it's, it's so human. It's such a at the heart of, you know, what we need as humans. Yeah, I love this idea that you've been studying happiness interventions, like gratitude and acts of kindness. And, you know, I've read many of your studies in which have shown that these things are really good for our levels of happiness, right? And they're simple. Gratitude, acts of kindness. They're not difficult to do. But, you know, I like the fact that if you look at them in a sort of 30,000 foot view, all of them are helping us feel more connected. I think that's a really beautiful sentiment and a very powerful one.

And I think that kind of leads onto this latest book that you've written with your co-author, Harry Rice. You know, is it Harry Rice? Harry Reese, How to Feel Love. Can you kind of explain to us the origin story? How did you get to this book from years of studying happiness? Well, again, it started in 1998, right, when we started doing these happiness interventions. And then again, a number of years ago where I realized it's really all about feeling connected and loved.

And then I've known Harry for a long time. He's a preeminent relationship scientist. I'm a happiness scientist. He's a relationship scientist. And we just sort of started talking about, like, what is the key to happiness? And he agreed, you know, really the key to happiness. He's like happy people feel loved and people who are unhappy don't feel loved. And so it took us five years to get there.

We started, we were sending our book proposal to our agent for five years. And it just wasn't quite there, it wasn't quite there, wasn't quite there. And finally just sort of all came together. And we sort of came up with this idea of sort of five mindsets to bring, to embrace, if you want to feel loved, if you want other people in your life to feel loved. And yeah, so it took a long time, really seven years total. And here we are. Here we are.

Yeah, I mean, right at the start of the book, you guys explained the origin story. And I think I've written it down, so I think this is what Harry actually said to you. I know people who are happy and people who are unhappy, and I could tell you the main difference between them, happy people feel loved. And I sat there. And I thought about this on you. And I was thinking, okay. happy people feel loves. The wording is really quite precise, right?

Because it's like, yeah, we all want to be loved. We all know that it's nice to love other people and experience love from others. But feeling loved by others is something a little bit different. Can you kind of explain the difference? Yeah, because we can be loved and not feel loved. It's a little bit like a person who can be lonely when they're surrounded by other people.

It's a little bit like we all know people who are beautiful, but they don't feel beautiful, right? We know people who are smart and they don't think they're smart, and there are people who are loved, but don't feel love. For some reason, that love is pouring on them and it's not getting into,

there's not getting inside of them. One way I like to think of it is like, there's a cup of love. This is my cup of love, and you're pouring love to me, you're expressing it, but maybe there's a leak on the bottom and it's sort of leaking out. Maybe there's sort of a lid and it's not quite getting in.

So lots of reasons why that might happen. But I think the important point is that really it's feeling love that's critical to happiness, not being loved. Yeah. So I think back now to a conversation had with Brony Ware a few years ago, she wrote the book Five Regrets of the Dying, right? And Bronny and I had the most gorgeous conversation. And one of the regrets that she found that people had on their deathbed, is that I wish I'd spent more time essentially with friends and family

basically on my relationships. Right? I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I wish to spend more time on these relationships in essence. And I guess that in some way speak to this idea, right? It's this idea of love. I wish I'd spent more time on love. Had I spent enough time on love,

maybe I wouldn't have a regret on my deathbeds. But then I think we need to broaden out, what we mean by love. Because I would say in the culture here in the UK, love is usually associated with, I guess, romantic partnerships or maybe you can love your family, you can love your children. But we wouldn't typically, like a guy in this culture here, but this came up on a podcast a few years ago

with a guy called Nahal Arthur Nica, when he challenged me to say to my male friends, I love you, right? And I thought, initially, I was like, man, you're kidding me? Like, if I said that to them, because it's not what we do. So what is, you know, how do you think about the word love? I'd love to challenge you the same thing. Well, please, yeah, let's go any direction you want.

I think the US is similar. Maybe UK is a little bit more extreme on this dimension. But yet, again, most people, when they think of love, they think of romantic love or family love. This book is much more broad. We use love in a broad way. Of course, we love our friends. We can love our neighbors.

We can even love colleagues. I think love should be brought to the workplace as well. You know, I tell my friends all the time that I love them. I have male friends who will tell each other that they love each other. It's so beautiful. I think we could change that norm. I think it would be beautiful to change that social norm. But it's so funny, my kids will be confused because I'll be on the phone and I'll say,

oh, I love you so much. Oh, yeah, I love you so much. And they're like, who are you talking to? And I'll say, oh, I was talking to my friend X. Is that because your kids have grown up in America, so they have a different perception of what love means to you? Well, I think they are a little bit like what you're describing, that they, like most people.

They reserve love for just these. You must be talking to a romantic partner or another child or your parent. I mean, I think hopefully they're learning from me. But anyway, I would say why not? Bring love into other places, our spaces. Why is that important? Because it's the key to happiness. And I think expressing it, it's just so beautiful.

Like if actually, if your friends start telling you they love you, I bet maybe at first it would be a little weird or uncomfortable, but it would make you so happy. It makes me so happy when my friends and I share, you know, express love for each other. You just said it's the key to happiness. So therefore, I have to ask the question, right? How many years now is it since you've been studying happiness?

36 years. Okay, okay. 36 years, you're arguably one of the world's leading researchers on this topic, right? And you've just said that love is the key to happiness. Well, let me rephrase it, feeling loved is the key to happiness. So after all these decades of research, you think it can be made that simple? Yeah, and that's why it sounds like a cliche, because it sounds so simple, that after all these decades,

I've learned that feeling loved is the key to happiness. So maybe if we back up and think about the things we discussed before, let's say money, for example, maybe the people who, when they get more money, are actually, they feel happy, maybe they feel happier, maybe it's because they're feeling love.

I find that fascinating. So does that mean we can cognitively know that yeah, you know what, I'm loved. My parents love me. My partner loves me. But maybe they're not expressing it. Maybe I'm not open to receiving it. And if I don't feel it,

then it doesn't have the same effect. Of course. It's almost like it's not there if you don't feel it. But getting back to the three buckets that contribute to happiness, connection, contribution, and personal growth, you can interpret all of them as being about feeling loved, right?

So if I spend my money on my friends and family, then that'll make me feel more loved. If I spread my money on helping others, they'll make them and me feel more loved. And even personal growth, that's the one that's maybe a little bit different, but you could think about loving myself more. You know, if we define it really broadly,

it could include self-love as well. So when I'm learning and growing, that will build my sense of sort of self-compassion and self-love for myself. I've never actually put out this idea, so thank you for inspiring. it. Yeah. Okay, well, let's get to this new book then, which is a very thought-provoking read, right? So, it's all about how do we feel loved? And I can't imagine you would go to anyone on the street and say,

would you like to feel more love? I can't imagine anyone's going to say no to that. You know, it's a nice feeling to feel loved, right? Right, right, right. So how do we go about our lives, feeling more love? Well, first of all, I just had a thought. For some reason, I have had several friends in Europe who went to bookstores to buy this book, and they all reported the same thing, which is that the bookseller kind of looked at them with sadness, kind of like felt sorry for them because they thought they don't feel love. They're like, which is so funny. Yeah, I never thought of that.

Which is so funny. So when you were telling the barista story, I actually thought you might say she was like feeling a little sorry for you that you're reading a book about how to feel more loved, right? Because it suggests that you don't feel loved. But anyway, so the key to feeling loved is being known. So if you show love towards me, but you don't really know me, I'll always wonder would he love me if he knew me, if you really knew who I am on the inside. So feeling known on the inside is really critical.

And it's interesting, actually, because that brings us sort of the importance of authenticity and showing kind of like your fuller self or maybe your true self. I'm not sure if there is really such a thing as a true self. You know, one of Ronnie wears, one of the other, one of the other regrets that she writes about in the five top regrets of the dying, which is in the book.

And I think it's the one that says something like, I wish I had lived the life that I wanted to live, not the life that was expected of me. Totally. I think she says that's her most powerful one. I wish I lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me. I think that might even be the top one.

Yeah, I think it was. And it's in here, I think because it's really about being your true sort of authentic self and showing that to others. and how important that is. And if you don't really know my authentic self, that again, how can I feel loved if you don't really know me? Like when you say I love you, what part of me are you loving, right?

If you don't really know who I am on the inside. And so that's why having more sharing and having deep conversations is so important to feeling loved. Yeah. I wonder why we don't share more of our true selves. with the people around us. I guess part of it is because we feel shame, we feel they're going to judge us.

So we put up these walls, don't we, around us? We said, no, I'm not gonna let you in, which of course is why, I think at least, being with your close friends and being completely unguarded is one of the most energizing and rewarding things in the world. I mean, I'm very, very lucky to have to have some really, really good mates.

And I kind of feel I could pretty much share anything with them about anything. And it's just so wonderful spending time with them. That's so amazing. And think also about falling in love, romantic love, where when people fall in love, they often start like kind of peeling back the layers and then that time period of sort of self-disclosure

more and more and more where you learn everything about each other is also one of the most like intense and fulfilling times. that people ever describe. But yeah, it's really, it feels risky, right, to share more of yourself with others. There's some really great work like Nick Epley from Erews, Chicago, where he says, where people assume that if you share more,

that that's going to be uncomfortable, that it's going to be, we're going to be judged, right? It's going to be used against us. Or worse, no one's going to care, right? And yet we sort of have, we mispredict, right? We don't realize that actually it's going to be a lot more sort of fulfilling and comfortable than it, than we expect.

But yeah, we, yeah, it's, there's a risk that we take where we share more of ourselves. Yeah. So you and Harry write about these five mindsets that we need to adopt or we can consider adopting if we want to feel more loved, right? So let's assume, even if someone's listing has already got a load of love in their life

and they want to, and they already feel very love, which is wonderful. I'm sure there'll be many people who don't, right? So let's explore these five different mindsets. I have my favorites, which you'll get to. The first one, of course, is the sharing mindset. And I guess you just touched on that now, haven't you, a little bit? Yeah.

which very quickly allow you to go deep with someone. Is that under-sharing mindset? Yeah, it's under the sharing mindset. It was a long time ago, Art Aaron, who sort of started this idea, yeah, it's called Fast Friends. Fast Friends, that was it. This idea of 36 questions that become increasingly intimate. So you might start with, like, if you could have dinner with anyone who would it be,

but it gets much more intimate to, like, you know, what's a traumatic experience in your life? Or when was the last time you cried? Nowadays, by the way, there's all these like conversation card decks that you can buy, you know, on the web. And I have friends who actually bring these card decks to dinners and they will use them to prompt deep conversation. And they work because sometimes we're sort of at a loss about what to ask. And again, again, it's Nick Epley who showed this. We're afraid to ask deep questions of each other, right?

Like I think if I asked you a really personal question about your life, you might think that I'm prying, right? or that I'm getting sort of too personal, that I'm nosy. And yet most of us crave to be asked, right? We sort of, I mean, obviously at the right time, at the right place, at the right pace. But we crave to be seen. We crave to be heard, right? We want other people to know about our inner life. And so, yeah, so don't hesitate to ask other people deep questions and then to try to

answer those questions. I wonder if now might be a time for us to practice or model this. Sure, let's model this. Because this podcast is literally about connection. It's about conversation. I've always said these are not interviews. I don't do interviews, right? What we do on this show is have conversations

where we explore ideas together. So I think, you know, maybe some of those fast friend questions we should try. What was the first one you said about? Well, the first one was like, if you could have dinner with anyone, you know, who would it be? If I could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? It could be a famous person

It could be someone who's no longer alive Honestly, it would be my dad Yeah Dad died in 2013 And Yeah, I guess if I could have dinner with anyone I'd love one more dinner with him

That's beautiful Thank you How about you? Thank you for sharing that Well my answer is Not as deep as yours I'd love to have dinner with Bill Clinton. Wow.

I just think he's so interesting and charismatic and he's had an interesting life and I'm sure he would tell great stories and he would listen to my stories. Charismatic people are, you know, we all love charismatic people because they're so, because they're curious in us. You know, they make you feel like you're the only person in the world.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the other questions? Well, the deeper questions are things like when was last time you cried by yourself and why? I think, I'm trying to think now, when was the last time I cried by myself? I think it was quite recently

and it relates to my mom because mom's health has not been great for a few years now and if I look at the entirety of her life, she's definitely coming towards the final linings. Let's put it like that. So I guess the last time I would have cried by myself

was probably in the last week or two when mom wasn't doing so well and I was just imagining what is it going to be like when she's no longer around. Yeah, that would probably be it for me. How about for you? Well, it's a little bit similar. I had my last kid when I was 46,

which means that, and she's 13 now, which means that when I think about, when I think about there's a certain age that I'll never see her at, you know, it's because when she's 40, I would be, what, I would be 86, and when she's 50, like, I don't know if I'd ever see her at age 50. And certainly not probably at age 60.

And so the last time I cried was thinking about how I'll just never see certain phases of her life because I had her so late in life. And she does too, she cries about that too. We've just asked and answered just two questions, just two questions. But I feel that we have, we've just learned something so remarkable about each other

that we could have sat at a cafe somewhere or at a work event, being together for the whole day and not got as deep as we got with just two questions, right? And that's, I guess, the point of what you're trying to say, right? And just in a few minutes, it doesn't have to be an hour of depth, right? Again, and it just kind of breaks my heart how, like, how shallow most conversations are. That most of us don't go deep at all. And especially when we meet a new person, you know, because we've just met today,

I was actually going to say, if we didn't, if I weren't recording a podcast, I would give you a hug right now because I'm also a very physical person. But especially when you meet a new person, usually when you meet a new person, you're trying to impress each other, which is totally human, is totally normal. You want, like, I'm sitting here and I want you to think that I'm kind and smart and interesting and funny, right? And so we're showing kind of the positive parts of us. and that but which which might actually succeed I might succeed in impressing you I might succeed in getting you to admire me but it's not going to forge a connection what forges a connection is really kind of breaking that fourth wall right and sort of going deeper now and I think I'm thinking of examples like on first dates like I've been on a lot

of first dates where the guy and I'm sure women do this too but the guy will just spend the whole date just talking and sort of being impressive which is totally normal. Doesn't sound like that. Yeah. No, but it's, it's just how it is. And once in a while, I'll sort of, I'll kind of break that

fourth wall. So I had a conversation, I had a date once where the guy was, you know, talking about the war and, you know, in Gaza, of all things. And he's really intellectual, really smart, writer. And I kind of stopped at my own point. I said, you know, you're a little bit

intimidating. You know, which is a vulnerable thing to say, right? because, and I'm actually not even easily intimidated, but I felt him to be very intellectually formidable, intellectually formidable. And he was like, really? And it just kind of broke this, kind of the medium shallowness of the conversation.

It wasn't shallow, but it was just sort of intellectual. And he's like, really, why do you think so? You know, and so it's just one example where you can kind of puncture that, you know. Yeah, I guess you wanted to know him, not how much he knew, like who he was. Exactly.

Right? Yeah. So like really showing. So the sharing mindset is about showing kind of who you believe yourself to be on the inside and what matters to you. It doesn't have to be dumping your traumas or secrets on another person, right? It's sort of just being real, being authentic. Because again, you're not going to feel connected. You're going to feel loved if the other person doesn't see what's inside of you.

And I don't see what's inside of you. And so one of my favorite parts of the sharing mindset is something called a vulnerability paradox. So the vulnerability paradox is the idea that we think if we're vulnerable, people will like us less, but actually people like us more. Because we think of we're vulnerable. We might be judged. It might be used against us, right? It might be uncomfortable. And yet, again, at the right time and the right pace, it actually makes you more likable.

How can someone apply the sharing mindset in their life, right? So again, the framing is that we want to feel loved because that's going to make us happier. There's five mindsets that we can adopt to help us feel more love. The first one is the sharing mindset, which you just outlined. So if someone's listening and they're thinking, okay, I don't feel enough love in my life, how do I start applying this? What advice would you have for them? Well, I think the order of the mindsets might have needed to be changed.

Okay. So can we do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, because we realized after writing the book that if I want to feel loved, the first step is really to make the other person feel loved. And that's happened to me in my life where I had a family member. I didn't feel that loved by her. And so I thought maybe I need to sort of somehow make myself more love.

It's lovable. It's show my wonderful qualities. And I said, no, following the book, the first step is to make her feel loved. And the first step is actually radical curiosity. It's called the radical curiosity mindset. Because the first step is really, I show curiosity in you, authentic interest and your inner life and the details of your day and your passion and what you feel to be on the inside of you. And so I start asking questions. And then you tell your story. And that's when Sherry comes in. then you start answering the question, and then you start sharing more of your full self, and then I listen, and that's listening to learn mindset. We've already covered three. So radical curiosity I've shown you that helps you. So if I'm really curious about you,

and think about, I mean, you're a podcaster, like so you are naturally curious. In fact, I can't imagine someone. If you're not curious, why I have this job, right? But what was the last time that someone was so curious in you? They just couldn't wait for you to finish your sentence to tell your story. It's like a gift. It's incredibly, it's so powerful, right?

It feels kind of magical. So when I show curiosity in you, you're going to feel so good and you're going to want to share. You're going to want to open up, right? Even if you're someone who doesn't open up easily, then the sharing mindset comes in, right? You open up. And then when you're opening up, what do I do? I am listening. I'm listening what we call listening.

to learn, right, instead of listening to respond. I am truly listening. I'm paying attention. I'm comprehending. And I, you know, I care about what you have to say. And then the idea is, and this is the hard part, most of the time, you're going to reciprocate. Yeah. Right?

So the reciprocity norm is one of the most powerful principles of social behavior. You're going to reciprocate. You're going to show curiosity and interest in me. And then I start sharing and bearing. and, yeah, showing more of my true self to you. Yeah. I think we all reflect on our own lives. We can probably think about moments where that happened.

Like I can certainly tell you, on doing a podcast for almost nine years now, when I open up, almost certainly the guest will open up. We just did that now, didn't we, with those questions? But it, you know, because it almost, I don't know, it breaks the kind of invisible wall. And then suddenly it's like, oh, yeah, you know, we're in this together. There's a common humanity.

It's like, yeah, oh, I know what that's like because I felt this or this happened to me at one point, right? Yeah, that's a beautiful example of the reciprocity norm working. Well, it's more than the reciprocity norm. Yeah, because you created a new norm. It's the reciprocity norm and also kind of a depth of conversation norm. Yeah, you're modeling the behavior that you want the guest to all. also show. Yeah.

Yeah. There's one thing you said, which I, I loved, which is, can we change the order of these mindsets? Yeah. Because I think it's something very powerful there, which I've realized as an author is, is this idea that the idea is never finished. But in this country, I have a lot of younger authors asking me for advice, because I've written six books now.

And one of the things I will always say to them is, you have to understand that that book is just a snapshot in time. That's it, right? It's the best that you can do at the time you press send and the paper gets printed. You don't suddenly stop thinking about it the minute it goes to print. Every single one of my books,

if I had another three months on it, it would have changed again. If I had another six months on it, it would have changed yet because these ideas are constantly evolving. So I just wanted to comment on it back because I think it's really important that, yes, as an author, but also in life, right? You're never done. Like, you think you know something, but then three months later, you're like, you may have a different perspective. That comes to mindset five, multiplicity, right? We can even sort of contradict ourselves sometimes as we're evolving and growing, but that's okay.

Yeah, and in fact, we should contradict ourselves. as we're growing and evolving because otherwise, yeah, otherwise we're not really growing and learning. Exactly. If we believe the same thing, because there's things that I've said that I don't believe anymore and people are like, well, they're kind of... You set that 20 years ago. I'm not the same person 20 years ago. My first book was called The How of Happiness and I'd been doing research on happiness for a long time and people kept saying to me, well, you should write a book about happiness. And actually, I wish I'd talked to you a long time ago.

And I kept saying, I'm not ready. I don't know enough. And they're like, no, no, no. And they kind of said what you said. They're like, just write it now, because that's going to be the snapshot in time. And I just felt like I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. Finally, I was ready.

Of course, even when I was ready, it wasn't the final word on it because there's lots of things now I could change. But yeah, I'm going to write that down after we finished. Well, I think it's the same way. You know, people say, oh, I'm not ready yet for kids. You're never ready. Yeah. Like, do you know what I mean? It's a leap of faith.

It's a leap of faith. You get ready. You learn as you do. I wasn't ready to start this podcast. But I started, I figured out how to do it through the process of doing it, which I kind of think these are core principles to life. But I want to definitely get to the final two mindsets because they're my two favorite ones, open heart mindset and multiplicity.

Before we do that, I just want to reiterate. What you're saying is that these mindsets are important to feeling loved, okay? The first one you would like to have, as stage one, is radical curiosity. And one of the things I got from that chapter, which I think is really important, is you said that curiosity is not just a fixed personality trait, but a state of mind. I think this is really, really important, Sonia, because I think some people will go, yeah, well, Rangan and Sonia, you two are curious. That's easy for you.

I'm not curious, but you're effectively saying it's a skill that can be cultivated. Absolutely, but it's not easy. I have to say it's not easy and you can't fake it, right? We all know people who are curious in us in the moment. It's so interesting if you say it's not easy because, I guess this is my bias. Because I'm naturally curious, I'm like, what is easier than being curious about another human being? Everywhere I go, like this barista or coffee shops, I mean, you know, my wife and kids laugh at me. I can talk to anyone about anything.

And it energizes me because I love learning about people. Right, right. Okay, but you should not be a curiosity teacher. I think it comes too easy for you. Exactly. Yeah, it's kind of like the mathematician was brilliant and they can't really teach math because they're just too smart at math. And I think for me, I am a curious person, but sometimes it's hard for me to be curious. And so I have to kind of force myself.

But then I will find something. I feel like every human, by the way, this is called social curiosity, which is curiosity about the other person, as opposed to a curiosity about a topic, right? because all of us can be curious about, like, you know, football or, you know, marine biology. But about, I feel like every human has something to offer that's interesting and exciting, right, and novel. But sometimes it takes a while to kind of get it to get that, right, to find that out. And so for me, it's not so easy. So maybe, I'm just saying, maybe I would be a little bit of a better teacher for those who are not so curious.

But yeah, it's a state of mind. It's something you can really teach to train yourself on. I actually have a student, Madison, who did a study where she had people, like, every day try to be curious about something. And so it worked. People really did find curious things every day. Yeah. I think it's a very powerful message that you can get better at it because I think I personally believe that curiosity is one of the most important values to hold, particularly these days, right? As we feel more and more division, right?

Exactly. I mean, I'm, I don't want to share too many years about this, but there is literally someone who I've been pretty good friends with for a number of years who I think is voting for one of the quite kind of extreme far-right political parties in the UK. And it's easy to just shut that down and go, oh, this is ridiculous, you know, what's. sort of person would do that kind of thing. But that's a trap, right? I think that's an absolute trap. It's like, no, Rangan, why does this person who you have known pretty well for a number of years, who is a decent guy on so many levels, what is it about him? Why does he adopt this belief, right? So applying curiosity that everything can be challenging. And sometimes this is one that's a little bit more challenging can be, but I'm like, okay, Ronan, you can't just shut someone down

for this and say you're wrong. I want to try and understand why is it that you think that this is the right move? Do you know what I mean? Exactly. Because when you say to people, oh, you should be curious. And everyone nods and says, of course, curiosity is great. But when you actually give an example like this, it's really hard. And there's actually studies that are done on this. like curiosity can reduce prejudice. Yeah. It can reduce polarization in the United States. You know, you're sitting across from someone who's wearing a different hat.

You know, no pun intended, right? And then you actually ask questions like, why do you believe this? Like, why do you, right, why did you vote this way? And actually really, it also gets to know people in a deeper way first. There's actually a really interesting study that was done recently where the people of very different political persuasions share, about this, back to the sharing mindset, share about themselves. And one person would say, you know, I've been really struggling with my son.

And this is what's going on with my son. And the other guy says, I'm really struggling with my son. And then you see each other as sort of as humans, right, the deep humanity within each other. You and your friend, you already have known each other, right? So you already know the person's decent in these other ways. Another example is in the middle of a fight with your partner, try to be curious. And it's easier said than done, right? But sort of in the middle of the fight, you're like, wow, I wonder why they are so angry, right?

Yeah. Why are they so angry? Or is the amazing marital therapist, Tara Rhea says, when you're in the middle of that fight, remember that this is someone you love. I love that. It's beautiful. It's so obvious, but it's like, remember this is someone you love. But radical curiosity, yeah, it's not always easy, but it's very powerful. And it does, it can take work to really figure out what it is that you're interested in.

And another example is your kids, right? So you want to show curiosity in your kids or your parents. By the way, one thing that I like to tell people is we're often not curious enough about our parents, right? They're the ones who ask us questions. We don't tend to ask them enough questions. And so I would want to tell your listeners, you know, pick up the phone and call a parent or a caregiver and ask them like something they really care about. You know, what is it they're really caring about these days or ask them about the past, their childhoods.

But think about your kids, right? They might be, I had a kid who was really into video games going on and on about video games. I had no interest in them. And then I started thinking about, okay, how do I get curious about what is it they're so excited about? One of my kids, my youngest, was also into anime. And again, I had no interest in anime.

And she's like, oh, why do you watch this show with me? It's called Attack on Titan. I think it has like 80 or 90 episodes. I end up watching 86 episodes with her. And it was actually an amazing show. And even though it's not my genre at all, it's kind of violent and animated. But I learned a lot about her by watching the show with her

and by getting curious about what it is that she likes about the show. Anyway, just to say that even things that you didn't think you'd ever be interested in, you might become interested in by showing curiosity. Yeah. Okay. So radical curiosity. sharing, listening to learn. Those are the first three.

And then let's go into those final two. Your favourites. Yeah, I just think, I know this is really, you know, on one level, it's how do we feel happier? But I think the learnings, for me, they go beyond happiness. They go into how do you create a harmonious society, right?

Open heart mindsets, you know, the fourth out of the five mindsets, I just love this idea. You know, for a few years now, I love their phrase open hearts. The thing I've been thinking a lot about over the last few years is what would it be like, Rangan, to live each day with an open heart? Right. What would it be like to start to notice when your heart starts to close? And as soon as you notice it, try and pause and see if you can open it again.

And that goes beyond just me with my children or my wife. I like to try and apply that to, like this morning, I was in the coffee show, reading your book. And I think it was in, I was reading this chapter. And I was trying to think about wishing everyone who walked in kindness. I remember random people were walking in. I took my head up from the book. And each one I, just inside my head, I thought, I wish you to have a wonderful day. I wish happiness.

I wish you to be happy. And it was, I felt great. They don't even know I'm doing it. And I was like, this is awesome. Is that amazing? It also really works, if you have a colleague or a friend that you're actually not feeling great about, maybe you have a little bit of a fight with them. Yeah.

And sometimes I remember doing this and I was saying to myself, I want them to be happy. I wish that they are happy. And that really works to kind of reduce negative energy. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me about this open heart mindset. And maybe this is where we can bring in your trip to see the Dada Lama in, because that plays a feature in this chat.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, open heart, yeah, it's a beautiful thing. So open heart mindset is basically seeing the other person with warmth and compassion. and kindness. The Michelangelo effect is part of the open heart mindset. I actually am teaching a class this week remotely about the Michelangelo effect on Friday. So Michelangelo is when you believe in someone.

Usually it's your romantic partner, but it could be someone else, your sister, your best friend. You believe in someone, you want them to be happy. You want them to achieve their dreams and you help them achieve their dreams and to become their best possible self. And the reason it's called the Michelangelo effect,

is that the artist Michelangelo was said to sort of look at a block of stone, just sort of a block stone, and he would see like a vision inside of it. He would see a person or an angel, and he would carve the stone, and he would sort of set that image free. And the idea is that you do that to the person, to your partner, to your best friend.

That's part of the open heart, right? So it's kindness, compassion, warmth. And I would hope that most relationships have the open heart mindset, already because they probably wouldn't be stable if they didn't. I often think that of the five mindsets, that's the one that's most common already existing. Because if you don't have kindness and open heart towards your romantic partner, your best friend, you probably wouldn't be together. I would hope.

I mean, there are probably some that don't. Whereas like radical curiosity, you can have open heart but not curiosity. I've actually heard people say, you know, my girlfriend loves me, but she doesn't, she's not curious about me or she doesn't really listen. So, but I think Open Heart is kind of at the, yeah, I mean, it's the core of a relationship. I've become aware of the last years of, not in my life, but I've heard from people that would say, look, I've been friends with this person for years, but I've noticed that this friend doesn't appear to be that happy when I do well at something.

I wonder if that plays into this open heart mindset whereby the friend is, I don't know, maybe they've got their own insecurities and they feel threatened if their friend does well. Like I mentioned before, this very tight group of friends I've got from university at Edinburgh. And one thing I know about all of those guys

is that there's just zero competition. Look, if we're on, a pool table or a tennis court or a tailor tennis table, yeah, there's friendly competition between us. But what I mean is, if any of us had succeeded in something or wanted to share news, we'd all be so happy for the other person. We wouldn't see their success as being a reflection of us not being successful, but I know not everyone has that. So is that part of what you mean by open heart mindsets? And I love this because just this weekend, I was with these two friends who are, I think of it as my closest friends,

and I was saying the exact same thing to them. I said, the thing about our friendship is that if we share any kind of wins or success with each other, it would just be 100% happiness. There would be zero, you know, thread or jealousy, right? But that's not true for a lot of people. And when you think about in general, the list of people with whom you share your successes with

is the smallest list. right? You're much more likely to share something negative that happened to you. That's a good point. Right? When you think about what's the list of people that you would just feel like would, yeah, would just be purely happy for you and not at all threatened. You know, we all have insecurities. So, yeah, that's a great point.

That's a great point. So like to find those people. Because I will like sometimes come home and I'll say like if something good happens, I win an award and I tell my kids. And they'll be like, mom, you're. boasting. And I'm like, well, kids, like if I can't tell you about my success, who can't I tell them to? But I think they learn in school, like, you're not supposed to boast. And so I'm not even sure I would put my kids right now on the list of people that I would share my wins with.

But that's interesting, isn't it? That they're perhaps learning you're not meant to boast. This comes to this idea that we pick up these cultural messages all the time, don't we, about what is accessible and what is unacceptable in the particular culture in which you live. And so, yeah, no one in Western culture wants to come across as, you know, showing off or boasting, right? But take that to an extreme. It means that you hold back and you don't share parts of yourself with others, right? Yeah, exactly, which is the sharing mindset. And with your mates from Edinburgh, right, you wouldn't think of it as boasting when you share a success.

It's just like a beautiful thing that, and we're so happy for each other. Yeah, I think it's, maybe that should be like one of these criteria for friends. Like if you feel like there's 100% joy in your successes, they're your true friend. What did you learn from the Dalai Lama about an open heart mindset? Oh, so interesting. You know, when we went to visit the Dalai Lama, it was with a group and was led by Arthur Brooks, who was a friend and a happiness expert as well. And he gave us this speech.

I think it was a group about 12 people, kind of at the first dinner we had. And he said, you know, I know you're all here looking for something. You're looking for something from His Holiness of Dalai Lama. And he said, just forget about it. You know, you don't know what that is. It's just going to come, it's just going to happen. You're not going to know where, how it's going to happen. It's just going to, but like don't, don't strive for it.

And so we're having, we had to actually had multiple conversations with His Holiness. And you're not allowed to bring a phone or a computer. You can only bring a pencil and paper. I love that. Old school. You love that. I love that stuff. I love that.

Yeah, yeah, you love that. I'll try to get an invite for you. Oh, please do. I would love to do that. And so we're in Darm Sala, right? Where he lives and works. And so we all have our pencil and paper. And so he's talking, as an interpreter, and His Holiness says,

love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. And I was like, and I just immediately felt this is like a message directly to me. Maybe everyone felt that way. But I felt like this is a message directly transported to me. And so I wrote in kind of big letters, you know, circled it.

Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. I think people can interpret it differently. But one way to interpret it is that it's an act. Like you do things to be in love, to maintain love, to express, love, to receive love. You don't wait for it. You act with love. And you decide to love. You decide to receive love. So that's how I interpreted it. It's not just sort of the sort of feeling that kind of like drops on you from the sky. And suddenly you're like, I'm in love. That you have, you act with love.

why do you think that phrase had such a powerful effect on you at that time? I think at that time I was thinking maybe my heart wasn't that open. You know, you were talking about whether your heart is open, you want to live with an open heart because I was waiting to sort of fall in love.

And I think I was thinking that, yeah, this was going to sort of drop from the sky somehow. I was going to meet someone and I would just fall in love. And I think I realized, that like I have a lot to do with it, that maybe to open my heart up. And I'm even sure what it is.

It's all kind of a little bit of a mystery, right? Yeah. It's really a, it's something you can act on and not just sort of wait for. It's interesting when you said that, love is not feeding love as a decision. Yeah. I immediately thought of my wife. And I guess if I thought about that phrase for a bit longer, I might have multiple interpretations of it. But the thing that came to mind immediately was, when I decided to ask her to marry me all those years ago, I made a decision. I made a decision to love her, the intention being for the rest of our lives.

And that is a decision. Yes, you could argue, oh, things happened, there was passion, there was romance, and there was, it was complete head over heels. But I guess beyond that point, when you get into the nitty-gritty of marriage and kids and mortgages and family and all that kind of stuff, it's a nice reminder that this is a choice that you made. It's a decision. And not as an obligation. Yeah. As a very beautiful thing that I chose. Again, you know, like we mentioned before, Terry Reel saying, you know, remember that this is someone you love. Remember this is someone you chose to spend time with.

Yeah, Bob Sternberg has a theory of love called the triangular theory of love. And decision to love is actually one of the three sort of vertices. It's sort of intimacy, passion, and decision. So that's aligned with that as well. One thing, as I was reading your book and thinking about your life and the fact that you have studied and published scientific papers and peer-reviewed papers on happiness for so long, I was trying to put that alongside how powerful your meeting the Dalai Lama was.

And it made me think about putting to you this idea that when we think about happiness, is the scientific method the best way to look at happiness? Yes. I don't know if it's the best way. I think it's a very important way. It's interesting. Okay, a few years ago... You see what I'm getting at.

Yeah, yeah. A few years ago would say, yes, it's really the only way, you know. And I've been a rigorous empirical scientist for 36 years. And I think for most of that time, I kind of look down on people who would give advice that wasn't evidence-based, right? That was not empirical. I mean, you could, I mean, I could respect... Like the Dalai Lama? Well, maybe before I really, you know, had met the Dalai Lama, but thinking about, I would respect, say, a wise person, like a grandmother, right, who's wise and had a long life and might give you advice.

I would respect that. I would respect, say, a therapist who's been, you know, who's had lots of clients and has seen lots of different problems. And I said, well, from all of my experience, this is what I think, you know, people should do. But I still somehow thought I elevated the empirical scientific method over all of these other. sources of wisdom and knowledge, which really were, you know, anecdotal and clinical, right? But now that I'm older, I really, I can, I don't know, now I see that these are just different sources of wisdom and they're all equally valid. And I also draw now on my own, you know, life, I've lots of life experience.

I've lived like many lives in a way, you know, I've been single, I've been married, I've been in different countries, you know, I've had four kids. And so it used to be, if people ask me a question, let's say you asked me, Sonia, do you think I should write gratitude letters once a day or once a week or once a month? I would say, Rangan, I have no idea because there's no study that actually, you know, empirically tests, you know, that exact question. And now I would say, now I would answer the question. I would say, yeah, there's not exactly a study that, but I know enough from all the research that I've done, I've read, from my life experience, from my friends, experiences from my therapist, you know, I would give you an answer. So I feel like it's now, I feel like it's equally valid to draw on all these sources of knowledge and wisdom.

Yeah, I love that answer. And I guess the reason for asking is because I think all sources of knowledge and wisdom are valid. And I think we need to look at them all. Right. So in my world of health, scientific research is very important, but so is clinical experience. And I've said this many times of this podcast, I think we've over-prioritized scientific research at the expense of clinical experience. And I think with health, that is a massive issue because clinicians who have seen 10 to thousands of patients

have picked up stuff. And you see patterns and you see things that aren't, you see things that haven't always been answered yet by science, but you also know them to be true. Right, right. I always say absence of evidence is not equal to evidence of absence, right? Just because it hasn't been tested, doesn't mean that. Yeah, the scientific method is there to try and test things, you know, let's say in medicine.

Or clinicians are noticing something. It's like, okay, well, a lot of clinicians are noticing this. We haven't got any studies on this. Why don't we study it to see if we can understand what might be going on? I guess I was thinking about it through the lens of you meeting the Dalai Lama because I know he's very interested in science, right? I read that in your book. I've heard you say that before.

But this idea that he, you know, I think I've heard you say he talks a lot about a mother's love. Yeah. Which will maybe just play you to go. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful what he said. And I repeat this a lot to my kids and to my friends. He said, I'm your mother and you are my mother. Rangan, I'm your mother and you are my mother.

How can we ever fight each other or hate each other? when we're each other's mothers. Like everyone, I'm your mother and you're my mother. I think he said it's an old Buddhist idea. It's such a beautiful idea. It's beautiful. I'm your, I mean, you turn to the person in the street next to you. I'm your mother and you're my mother.

Yeah. Some of us may not choose to say that to the person in the street. But even if you were to think that, right, every time you're about to get annoyed with someone or, you know, driving in track, and someone drives in a way that you don't like, before you scream expletives in the safety of your car, it's quite a nice thought to go, you're my mother.

Yeah, and similar to I want you to be happy. Yeah. I want you to be happy. Because, of course, if you're my mother and I was your mother, we'd want each other to be happy. That's what's really interesting though, isn't it? That this idea that there are people out there like the Dalai Lama who seem to have,

wisdom, like really, really insightful wisdom to share with us who have not done research. It's fascinating, isn't it? Or what did you say before about loving others, right? And love thine, well, in the Bible, it's like, you know, love thy neighbor, like yourself. It's all there. Well, a couple things. First of all, people, I will get emails to say, all your research is in the Bible, right? Forgiveness and gratitude. But when I was preparing to write my first book, so it was published in 2007, I was writing in 2005, a long time ago, 21 years ago. And so I decided to read a bunch of self-help happiness books first, just to see what's out there. And I read the art of happiness by His Holiness. And I've often said since then and, you know, before then, that that's the

best book of happiness out there, you know, that I had read. And just as you say, like, even though he's not a scientist, pretty much everything he writes in the art of happiness is true. Yeah. I guess some people, maybe it depends how you've been brought up, right? It depends on what you believe. Like, I guess if you've been brought up to believe in the sanctity of the scientific method and actually that we can only look at the world through the lens of science, then you will need scientific evidence before you write in your gratitude journal. Now, as it happens, there is a lot of research on the benefits of gratitude, but some people won't do it.

Okay, what gratitude? What you want to write down a few things I'm grateful for in my life? You're kidding me, I've got better things to do. Oh, what are you telling me there's a study there that's going to do that for me? oh, now I'm going to do it. So I think that's kind of interesting that we're all different. We all need different things.

As it happens, I know listens to this podcast are fans of journaling and a fans of gratitude. You have studied this as one of your happiness interventions for many years. Can you give us some top line kind of take home points as to what does the research tell us about gratitude? Right. Well, first of all, I wanted to say,

I often get asked to give talks to groups of physicians or doctors, because they're, and they're the groups that really want that scientific credibility and that scientific evidence, right? They don't want a self-help guru who's sort of talking about their experiences. And so I always start with gratitude. Gratitude just seems kind of silly and trivial and almost hokey, but it's very powerful, right? So, I mean, I myself don't love the idea of like counting blessings, but lots of studies have shown that if you write down things you're grateful for, you know, about once a week, you're

happier. you feel more connected. Gratitude letters turn out to be even more powerful than gratitude lists, partly because when you write a gratitude letter to a particular individual, like your mom or your colleague, your mentor, your best friend, it's richer, right? Because you're writing about what it is that they've done to support you. Does that still have a benefit whether you send it or not?

Well, we don't come, we don't, we've done that. We've done both, right? Because the original study, actually, the first gratitude study was done by Marty Seligman, where he had, who's the founder of positive psychology, where he had people write the letter and send it, and there was a powerful effect. But we said, okay, the problem there is that the sending and the expressing are confounded, right?

We don't know what, because sharing the letter with someone is very powerful. And so we split it, we disentangle those two things because we found that just writing is powerful. We did another study where we had people either write to themselves, gratitude or text it to another person or express it on social media because we thought that might be interesting comparison. We actually found that all of those conditions were associated with more happiness, but only one of those three people felt more connected.

Can you guess which one it was? Writing privately, texting or social media? Writing privately? Texting. Texting. Well, because you're actually texting that gratitude to a person. Right? Right. So, right, so I'm basically sharing it.

Right. So writing privately versus sharing. So sharing one-on-one with someone was the most connecting. Sharing on social media wasn't as connecting or writing privately. Well, I think back to these mindsets and the second one is the sharing mindset. And of course, that's what you're doing. When you write a gratitude letter and share it, you are being vulnerable, aren't you? Exactly, exactly, which is why it's uncomfortable for people. And in fact, we've looked at cultural differences because in some cultures, it's not something that's done very often.

So it's a little bit uncomfortable to share gratitude. But discomfort is not necessarily a sign that we shouldn't do something, right? In fact, often it's the opposite, right? People like leaders will say, yeah, you want to go outside your comfort zone. It's almost like a cliche. Those cliches are true. I realize that's like I get older. All cliches are true.

You know, it's so funny, yeah, because I was saying how, like, feeling love is the key to happiness. It sounds like cliche, but almost every big idea is a cliche. It makes me think of people who go on, like, psychedelic journeys, and they come back and they're like, I've discovered the answer to everything. And you're like, okay, what's the answer? And it's like, it's love, you know, or we are one, right? And yet, you know, it's true. It is true. It's powerful.

It just sounds hokey. It sounds kind of ridiculous. All right. we are one, we are all one. But before we move on to the multiplicity mindset, the fifth mindset in your book, if you were to reflect back to your meeting with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, are there some key moments that stand out?

You know, when you recall that whole experience, what are some of the first things that come to mind? Three things. One is actually meeting him and hugging him and, you know, it's beautiful. And he's just so naturally happy. His face has just exudes such warmth. I'm really into, like, people who are warm, you know?

And I'm not even sure what it means. Like, you know it when you see it. Yeah. Because often the eyes are just kind. Like, you have kind eyes, actually. Oh, thank you. You know what I mean? Some people are just warm and he's, some people aren't.

They might have, they might be so funny and interesting and smart and fun to hang out with, but they're not necessarily warm. So I love the warmth, hugging him, that when he says, love is a feeling, not a decision. And then the third thing that he said that I also wrote down that I thought was so powerful, he said, excessive self-focus is the door to all misery. Excessive self-focus is the door to all misery. And I thought it was just wonderful how he put it.

And it's something that a lot of mine, others' research, has also supported that when we're too focused on ourselves, you know, we're going to be unhappy. and that almost everything we're talking about today is about a focus on others, right? On loving others and listening to others and showing curiosity in others. The irony being that most of us now walk around with a phone in our pockets

that has a camera that we can focus on ourselves. Right. Like we've literally got selfie cameras. All of us, right? And this is the new norm. But I think about that as a, contrast to what you heard from the Dalai Lama, right? An excessive focus on the self.

These flipping smartphones are, for many of us, creating an excessive focus on the self. You know, now it's standard, isn't it, to use it as your mirror. You know, if I just look as a snapshot of society, we have a device around with us that is constantly encouraging a focus on the self. And video calls, I just read that, you know, we have the self-view. Yeah. And I would say everyone turn off the self-view every time.

Don't ever have the self-view on. And I actually read somewhere that we, 70% of the time, we're looking at ourselves when we're doing a video call. Like, we just can't help it. That's the point. We just can't help it. Yeah, we just can't help it. One of my favorite quotes is from G.K. Chesterton. And it's something like we're all walking around sort of being the star or the protagonist

of our sordid little play. It's like we're all playing this, like, play inside of us, and we're the star. Yeah. It's like we're all the protagonists of like our sordid little play, and we're all walking around. That's normal. That's human.

I mean, that's how we survive. We have a sense of a, I was just reading the Michael Pollan book about consciousness and kind of how we have a sense of self. And because maybe there's not really a self, but we create it because we want to feel like that's me over there and that's me back then. and that's me in the future. And it's all about me, me, me.

I mean, that's how we thrive and survive in the world. The multiplicity mindset, the fifth and final one. What is this? And why is it so important? My favorite mindset. Okay, well, the word multiplicity, I'm told, comes from trauma research, where the idea is once you've had a trauma, it's part of you always, but it doesn't define you.

And so multiplicity is the idea that not, any behavior or trait or feeling defines us as a person. We're like a quilt of many things, right? A quilt of like traits and behaviors and features and aspects. So sometimes I'm gentle and sometimes I'm kind and sometimes I'm selfish and sometimes I'm narcissistic. And that's true for me. That's true for you.

That's true for everyone. And it's like, you know, it's like the Walt Women quote, you know, I contain multitudes. We're all many people. We're all many things. And you don't want to judge a person by just. one behavior and one trait. And the thing is, it sounds great, right? Like, how can you disagree with that? If I tell you that, you're like, oh, yeah, that sounds, of course I agree. And yet, when you look at specific examples, then people have a very hard time with the multiplicity mindset.

Do you think that that might be because a lot of us tend to judge ourselves very harshly, right? So we're not very forgiving to ourselves. We, you know, we can often have shame about stuff that we've done in the past. And therefore, we apply that and project it out to others, right? We can't forgive ourselves. So, of course, I can't forgive the person around me. They did this, therefore, they are bad without realizing, well, yeah, but you might have that quality or that character traits within you.

It was just expressed in this person at that time, and it could have been expressed in you if the circumstances were right. So funny. Yeah, and we project a lot, right? In fact, I have friends who are like, they're a certain way, and then they tell me that I'm the same way, and it's clearly projection. But I actually have the opposite theory,

which is that it's evolutionarily adaptive for humans to be judgmental about others. This idea that on the ancestral plane, we would meet people, and we had to make snap judgments. Are they a friend or a foe? Right? So to be judgmental is actually hardwired.

But so now we're still judgmental, It comes most easily for us to be judgmental about others, and then we can get to about ourselves too. So then we have to override it with deliberate effort and intention and energy. And so, and I see myself doing that, like I'll see someone, you know, say something nasty to someone else. And I'm like, oh, what a jerk. And my first reaction is always, what a jerk.

And then I have to kind of override that, you know, something I don't always succeed with compassion. Right? So I feel like, yeah, it's like it's auto, it comes automatically for us to make that judgment about others and then we have to override it. But it also happens with ourselves, absolutely, that turning the multiplicity lens onto ourselves is so important because we judge ourselves just as much as we judge others, right? We have this sort of self-critic that's constantly telling us, oh, what a stupid thing you did. What a fool you are. Why, you know, why did you hurt that person? I guess we can naturally probably see that with our children, right? Like if our children do something that perhaps isn't the most desirable thing, I guess most parents would probably intuitively know that this is not the totality of them. They were tired, they hadn't eaten for six hours, they were hungry, that's why this happened. we might be able to do that with our romantic partners,

but I guess we often don't apply that same lens to people beyond our inner circle, do we? But I think it's a very important... I certainly know in my own life, actively cultivating the practice of being less judgmental has been incredibly beneficial. And I think, honestly, the way you get to that is with curiosity.

Yeah. Because curiosity is the antidotes to being judgmental. It's like why has this person chosen to behave like this? Exactly, exactly, exactly. So it's harder when you don't know the person very well, right? Because you don't have other qualities of them to kind of, as an antidote. But even with our kids and our romantic partners, our best friends, you know, I hear this all the time. People will say he's being, he's selfish.

You know, with the kids, you know, the advice that you get as a parent is, you should criticize the behavior and not them as a person, right? And I think, and yet we still, I think we still do it, you know, I think unless we're very evolved. Again, it's like our judgmentalness. It's really hard to separate the trait from the behavior.

Yeah, I read recently that there's a well-known personality online who's getting, you know, battered with all kinds of reels at the moment, right? everyone's making fun of this personality and making videos and I'm just like, man, guys, this is a lot to be putting on one person. Whatever your view is of that individual, just imagine being on the receiving end of that

from a lot of people all around the world. It's not a nice thing. But I was reading the other day about this idea that collective Chardon Freud is one of the fastest ways to feel connected. Yeah. So mocking someone and taking joy in their misfortune, especially when they're well-known, Sheldon Freud. Yeah. And then doing it collectively. So we're all bonding together over this

experience of judging another human. Yeah. Yeah. And it's quite interesting to watch it play out in real time. I'm like, oh, wow. Well, I can't help but think the playground with the bullies all getting together, you know, kicking a little kid, right? I mean, it's really not that different, and it sort of feels good to put someone down. And yet it's not a recipe for happiness, right? Yeah. In my book on happiness, right, I had this concept called junk happiness v. core happiness. Junk happiness being those little, you know, there's a little short doses of things that you

think make you happy, like chocolates or sugar or whatever it might be. And I say, listen, in and of themselves, I don't think they're a problem. The problem is as if we engage in them too often or make the mistake of thinking they're giving us the true deep levels of happiness and contentment that we're after. And I kind of see that, you know, the collector Sharden Freud, almost of being junk happiness. Totally, totally. Because it's not going to lead to durable happiness. Exactly. You're going to fit in the moment.

You know, look at that guy, whatever. And it actually like eating too much chocolate. it might actually then make, or drinking too much, it might actually make you feel bad, worse about yourself later, like, oh, I can't believe I did that. So, but actually, I love this idea of junk happiness versus core happiness. Yeah. Because similar to an idea that I and others have, which is very similar, but it's basically like empty calories versus sort of nutrition, right? Yeah, exactly. So you're having that little bit of a hedonic boost is fine, but it's just really empty calories.

But it's not going to, it's not going to be long lasting. but like say being kind to another or writing a gratitude letter or really connecting having a deep conversation with someone, that's really more like the nutritional meal rather than that's going to endure and it's going to be meaningful. One of my definitions of meaning is that it's something that endures, right? It's something that lasts beyond the moment. And so that's that nutritional meal

as opposed to the empty calories, the junk calories. Same thing, right? In that chapter, you, quote, I think someone called Saar de Simone, who I hadn't heard of. A Brazilian-born healer and author, and there's just this beautiful passage around the mindsets of paradox.

The willingness to see other people as not just this or that, but as this and that, opening ourselves up to being surprised, even being delighted by them. People are contradictory. They can be selfish and kind, small-minded and generous, extroverted and insecure. Our minds don't like contradiction. That's the point, isn't it?

Our minds don't like contradiction. We want things to be neat, orderly, categorizable, because it helps us to make sense of the world and allows us to stay comfortable and self-righteous. I mean, it's so beautiful, isn't it? But it gets to the heart of the heart of this. It's messy to acknowledge that actually someone can do a selfish act, but the entirety of them is not a selfish person. And even this idea that we have this within ourselves, right?

I think that is a very powerful realisation to go, you've got all of this inside you as well. And if the conditions were right, it may come out of you as well. And I think that humanity is a really important, particularly today. I know, particularly today, and yet it's so hard. So I've been thinking about the multiplicity mindset for years now. And yet in my own life, again, I have to really override the judgmentalness with effort. You know, even it's still not easy for me. I still, when I see someone act selfishly, my first reaction is they're selfish.

And then I have to kind of take a beat and be like, okay, this is a selfish behavior in a person full of many other questions. qualities, right? So it's really hard. Oh, you know, one of my pet peeves recently is that, I don't know if you've noticed, and this is true in America, everyone's ex is a narcissist. So people talk about their ex is a narcissist. Everyone's ex is a narcissist. Everyone's ex is a narcissist. Or their parents are narcissists. And it's like, no, that's not true. First of all, we're all narcissists. It's a continuum. We're just sort of lower, higher on it. But anyway, that's just an example of like people are just giving leave. It's just easier to get. give someone a label. Like Saas says. Yeah. Our minds don't like contradiction. We want things to be neat, orderly and categorizable, right? So it's easy.

And again, I have to acknowledge that some people have left narcissistic partners. Yes. And, you know, that has been hugely problematic and probably very hard to do and well done for getting out. And I don't think everyone's ex is a narcissist. But it might make it easy for us to move on if we can neatly put them in a kind of little box. Bucks. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

What is the, like the multiplicity mindset, understanding that all of us have multiple traits, right? How does that help us feel more loved? Oh, good question. Well, first of all, it helps us make other people feel more love. which is the first step. And for us feeling, remember, the first step for me to feel more loved is to make you feel more loved. And so first I turn the multiplicity lens onto other people, my friend, my partner, my colleague.

And it helps me feel, it helps me make other people feel more loved, right? Because if I see someone in a complex way, I see them in all of their messy humanity, I'm going to be able to be curious about them, to listen to them with warmth and acceptance. So when you're telling your story, and maybe I'm something you're saying to me, I'm a little bit disapproving of or makes me uncomfortable, I'm going to be, again, more accepting, forgiving, loving towards you. And then when I turn the multiplicity lens onto myself, it'll help me feel more love because it'll help me love myself more, right? And we know if I love myself more, that I'll be, then when you express love to me, I will notice it more. I will see it as more genuine, right? I will actually. literally will sort of you'll fill my cup of love and it won't leak out if I love myself more. So multiplicity mindset is really important for both turning onto another person and also turning it onto yourself. Of course, in order to apply the multiplicity mindset, that might require an element of forgiveness.

Yeah. And forgiveness is a word that a lot of people struggle with. Can you talk to us a little bit about forgiveness and how it applies here? Sure. So forgiveness doesn't mean, I'll just start by saying what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not justifying. Forgiveness is not condoning. Forgiveness is not excusing.

And forgiveness is not reconciling. You don't actually have to reconcile with the person to forgive them. Really, the scientific definition of forgiveness is that when you're not forgiving, usually you're seeking revenge or you're seeking avoidance. You want nothing to do with the person or you actually want revenge. You want to yell at them or hit them. And forgiveness literally means to kind of like reduce those motives for revenge or avoidance and have a more positive kind of pro-social approach to the person.

So when you've truly forgiven someone, you basically want them to be happy. You have sort of a more positive reaction towards them. You don't have to reconcile. You don't have to excuse their behavior. part of how to operate the multiplicity mindset is to forgive because we all have, we all have done things that sort of need forgiveness and other people have done things that we are willing to forgive. And actually one strategy to be more forgiving towards others is to think of our own behavior

that needs forgiveness. And think of times in our lives when we've been forgiven and that's going to help us have empathy, right? Empathy is another important, uh, uh, important state to help us forgive others, right? Just really understand, stand in their shoes and try to understand, like, where they're coming from when they did that thing that they did. Yeah.

Yeah. In that chat, so there was a practical exercise towards the end that I thought was really, really great. If you're unsure of how to put the multiplicity mindset into practice, consider this straightforward but surprisingly challenging exercise developed by ACT trainers, is ACT being acceptance and commitment therapy trainers, okay? The goal of this exercise is to cultivate acceptance in situations that commonly trigger frustration or discord, an invaluable skill for any relationship.

Okay, so here's the exercise. Begin by identifying one of your partner's behaviors that you find especially difficult or frustrating and have them do the same for you. that in and of itself, right, I think it would be powerful, right? Okay, if it's done in a calm environment and situation, I think, you know, being open and honest and sharing that, I think would be quite powerful. But that's not it. That's like step one.

The example is perhaps they work too much, constantly interrupt, forget important plans, or fail to pull their weight on household chores, okay? Whatever it is. Then for one week, commit to observing these behaviors with full, full awareness and without judgment. This means acknowledging the behavior with curiosity and compassion without trying to ignore, fix, criticize or interpret. And this is like quite a hard game.

It's a hard one. Okay? At the end of the week, reflect together how adopting an attitude of mindful acceptance shifted the dynamic between you and your partner. I mean, I think that just sounds like such a powerful and illuminating exercise to do. I'm going to talk to Vid after this and fit to my wife and see if she's game. You're going to do this? Well, why not?

By shifting from judgment to acceptance, this practice can help both you and your partner feel more loved and more understood. So why would I not try it? If it's going to do that for me? Oh, I'm surprised. No, I shouldn't have accepted. I shouldn't have expressed a prize. No, I'm just excited. I'm excited because I've never done something like that.

I want to hear how it goes. But I would say coincidentally, but probably not coincidentally, my lab is doing a study right now on what we call partner acceptance to try to get people to accept their partner's behaviors more. And it's very similar to this where you identify a trait or behavior of your partner that you find very frustrating or even sometimes it makes you want to walk away. So it could be like something serious. Now, we're not talking about abusive relationships, right?

We're talking about things that are kind of normal things that happen in every relationship. And then we have different conditions. One condition, it actually goes a little bit beyond this because this is kind of just telling you to be compassionate and accepting. And people are going to interpret that differently, right? So one way is just kind of loving kindness. It's just to kind of send, just say, I want you to be happy, just send kind of loving kindness towards the person. another is gratitude. So interestingly, a lot of these sort of frustrating attributes are often associated with positive attributes, right?

So the person who is a workaholic, they work a lot, they kind of neglect you, but maybe they're also a good provider. Maybe they're also very organized, right? So it kind of... Multitudes. Yeah, exactly. We contain multitudes. Or I had a partner who wouldn't text me back, you know, or who was often late. And that was the negative question.

but on the positive side, he was just so present with the people in his life that that's why he was not texting or he was late because he was really present with others. And he's also present with me. So he's not texting other people, Durwal while he's with me. And so almost every trait has kind of a positive quality that's associated with this. That's another thing to think about. I think that is such a powerful teaching for all of us. you know, the trait that you despise also has a positive impact in another setting. What you used was beautiful, like the partner who's not texting you. Yeah, because when they're with their friends or they're totally present,

they're not looking at their phone, but he also does the same thing with you, which is a great thing. So would you want to, because we would want to delete that trait completely from there? Because if you did, you would also have to delete the other thing that is a positive thing. And then the third way that you can do this experiment is with sort of maybe the more obvious one. It's just compassion, just thinking about maybe what is it

in their background and their childhood that has led them to be this way, right? To sort of have this habit that really is frustrating to you. So maybe, you know, when they were growing up, they lived in a chaotic environment and they had to kind of control things. They had to sort of micromanage things. And so now as an adult, they're kind of a micromanager, right?

So they're doing it because it's something that's worked for them in the past. And maybe it's not working so much anymore. But having compassion about where that behavior comes from is also very helpful. No, I love it. And the exercise I read out, one of the things I really like about it is it's not really telling you what to do or how to feel. It's given you the guidelines on how to do the exercise. But at the end of it, you're saying at the end of the week, you can ask yourself, how was it? when you didn't judge, when you just observed, right? Yeah. The thing may still annoy you.

Or maybe you'll, maybe you've shifted your perspective somewhat. Maybe you realize, actually, you know what, I don't have to say something every time. If I don't criticize every time, if I just watch and observe, like, I don't know what I'm going to find. But I think it's a really interesting one. I love exercises that help us develop self-awareness. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a fan of where people are told what to do. It's like I've never seen that with patients work in the long term. I think that works in the short term, but over time, people have to understand why they're eating this way,

why they're doing this exercise. Do they feel better when they do that? Do they feel worse? That's the only way things become sustainable in my experience. And so I love that idea that you can try that for seven days and then just see. Does do things feel different? So I will email you and I will let you know. I can't wait.

Look, we could talk for so long about this topic. I'm truly fascinated by all your research. Even the book and this idea of feeling loved is the most important thing to happiness. I think is a very novel concept. We know that relationships are important and that connection is important. We know that being loved is important,

but feeling loved? I honestly think, Yuen, And Harry had you done something really wonderful by putting this idea and putting it out there to us to think about how can we feel more love in our life? So I want to acknowledge you for that and thank you. For someone who has, I guess, realized throughout this conversation that they're not happy and that they don't feel loved in their life, what advice would you give to them? I would say for someone who doesn't feel loved and is not happy, I would say that it's under your control. I mean, I think this is, I think it's a powerful message of our book is that when people don't feel love, they think, oh, it feels very overwhelming.

It feels like, what do I do? I need to make myself more lovable, somehow convince the other person to love me. I need to change myself or I need to change the other person. I need to, yes, I'm persuade them that I'm lovable, that they need to love me. And that doesn't seem very feasible to me. And what we're arguing in this book, Harry and I, is that if you want to feel more loved, you don't need to change yourself,

you don't need to change the other person, you just need to change the conversation. Because a relationship is a series of conversations. You need to change the next conversation and the one after that and the one after that. And how do you change those conversations by applying the five mindsets? By asking questions with curiosity,

by sharing something about yourself, by listening, truly listening to learn, not listening to fix things, by listening with warmth, with kindness, by listening with acceptance and forgiveness. So it's really about what to do in your next set of conversations

with that best friend, with the partner, with your mom. So it's really, it's under your control. It's actually empowering. Yeah. I love that message that we can be the ones to change this. And I know I've read it.

somewhere in your book that it's like it starts with you, you go first. Don't wait for someone else to do it, you go first. Just to follow up on what you just said, we both know that a lot of people feel lonely and isolated these days. And so there will be some people listening who'll be thinking, well, I don't live anywhere near my family, I've moved for work, I don't have many friends I feel alone

how do I start doing this could it be for example that if they don't have close friends or work colleagues that they get on with could it be as simple as going to their local coffee shop and ordering a drink and trying to apply some of this to their barista or at their supermarket when they're buying food Instead of buying it on an online delivery service,

could they go and actually at the checkout, talk to the cashier? Like, is it the same principles that apply? It's the same. Well, I want to start with, there's actually a study on this. People were asked to buy a coffee at Starbucks by either chatting a little bit with the barista

and asking for the coffee or just sort of ordering it on their phone and just picking it up, and people were happier when they actually had to sort of say something to the barista. I mean, it's maybe kind of obvious. It is. But for those people who need a scientist,

If it's only to do it, you've got it now, right? Exactly. So I would say exactly what you said is applying the five mindsets. So if you're lonely and if you have any interaction with other humans, to start with curiosity, sort of ask curious questions. You don't have to start very deep or personal, but just sort of ask, when you're really curious about someone, people sense that and they want to,

everyone kind of wants to talk about themselves. So first start by asking questions and really listening. and then when there's room for that to share and to kind of gauge their interest. And yeah, exactly that. And then listen with warmth and acceptance. So that's all five mindsets. And you do that with, you could be at the coffee shop,

it could be with the colleague that maybe you don't talk to so much. It could be with acquaintance that could turn into a friend or you join a running club or you join some kind of group organization. And so again, I would say start with curiosity, follow up with sharing and listening with warmth and acceptance. Yeah, I love it. Hey, this book, Caterfield, love the five mindsets that help you get more of what matters most, I think is just wonderful, very thought-provoking books. So thank you for writing it. Thank you for coming to the studio. And thank you for the decades of research that you have done in this field. I think many of us apply some of the learnings off your research without even knowing it was you who actually did it. Right? We've covered gratitude and acts of kindness so much on the the show over the years, but of course, some of that primary research has been done by you. So I want to say thank you for that. Apart from the book, Sonia, if people want to stay up to date with what

you're doing, are there any other avenues for them to do so? Sure. I have a TED Talk. That's five minutes. If you don't have a big attention span, just if they search for Sonia happiness. But how to feel love.com really has everything on there. And I have a newsletter and all the other research that I'm doing is on there. So thank you so much. has been a lovely conversation. You have great questions. And I love how you'd have insights in the middle of questions because people don't often kind of have insights while they're speaking. You know, they have kind of prepared questions and that's it. So I love some of those insights. Yeah. I have to write them down. Well, I appreciate that. And it's, you know, people don't realize

this, but I've got my notes here. There's not a single question on here. It's just a conversation. I'm very clear what this podcast is. These are conversations. And I've learned over the years, like those five principles, I'd like to think that I have applied them on this show. You know, listening with curiosity, listening to learn, sharing, having an open heart, the multiplicity mindset. I really feel that that is what the show has always been about. And it's about exploring an idea together. It's so funny because actually in my TED talk, I say the key to happiness is to have a, conversation, really, because that's how you connect, you know, how you, all these mindsets

come across during conversations and podcasters are basically, that's what you're doing for a living. But many of us don't really have a lot of conversations. So I would say if I had to give people advice, like go out. If you want to be happier today, go out and have at least a 15-minute conversation with someone. And if you can't do it in person, there's an app, there's an app called T-S where you can just go on and have a conversation with a stranger.

How do you spell that? T-W-O-S. It's kind of a beautiful app. In fact, the guy who runs it lives in London. I'm going to see him at some point. So, yeah, if you can't go to the coffee shop to have a 15-minute conversation there, you can go to this app tos or you can call up a friend, obviously, call up a family member. But yeah, literally, my advice is if you want to be happier tomorrow or today, have a 15-minute conversation.

And you're doing this as your work. So maybe that's why you're happier or you're happier to begin with. Yeah. Well, Sonia, thank you so much for the conversation. and I hope we get the chance to do it again at some point in the future. It's a pleasure to talk to you. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life.

And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, it not only helps them. It also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know. about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I'd be consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world of

endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign it for free at Dr.chatsy.com forward slash Friday 5. Now, if you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world, covering all kinds of different topics, happiness, food, stress, sleep, behavior change and movement, weight loss, and so much much more, so please do take a moment to check them out. They are all available as paperbacks, e-books, and as audiobooks, which I am narrating. If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated

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