Good Life Project - Tal Ben-Shahar | Happier, Even Now

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Growing up in Israel, Tal Ben-Shahar wanted to be the best squash player in the world. He turned pro at a young age and quickly rose up the ranks. Then a strange thing happened, he achieved his dream, but crashed hard, realizing it didn’t make him feel how he thought it would. That experience set in motion a lifelong journey into the science of happiness that led him to study at Harvard, then eventually teach what became the most popular course at Harvard on happiness. Tal is now a bestselling author and lecturer, working with executives in multinational corporations, everyday humans, and at-risk populations exploring leadership, happiness, education, innovation, ethics, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting, and mindfulness. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and have appeared on best-sellers lists around the world. Tal is a serial entrepreneur and is most recently the co-founder and chief learning officer of Happiness Studies Academy, bringing together the thinking of the world's leading scholars and the latest scientific research on happiness, then educating leaders who are themselves dedicated to personal, interpersonal, and communal flourishing.You can find Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar at:Website: https://www.happinessstudies.academy/cihs/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happiness.studies.academy/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So growing up in Israel, my guest, Tal Ben-Shahar, he wanted to be the best squash player, not just in the country, but in the world. And he turned pro at a pretty young age and quickly rose up the ranks. Then this weird thing happened. He achieved his dream, but then he crashed hard, realizing it didn't make him feel how he thought he would feel. And that experience set in motion this lifelong sort of quest into the science of happiness that led him eventually to study in the United States at Harvard and eventually teach what

became the most popular course at Harvard on happiness. Kyle is now a bestselling author and lecturer, working with executives and multinational corporations, everyday humans, and at-risk populations, exploring everything from leadership, happiness, education, innovation, ethics, self-esteem, resilience, goal-setting, and mindfulness. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages and have appeared on

bestsellers around the world. Paul is also a serial entrepreneur and is most recently the co-founder and chief learning officer of Happiness Studies Academy, which is all about bringing together the thinking of the world's leading scholars and the latest scientific research on happiness, and then educating and training leaders who are themselves really dedicated to personal, interpersonal, and communal flourishing. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. We'll be right back. Flight risk. minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Growing up, I know it seems like squash for you was really the thing that was

not just a passion, but almost an obsession. Very much so. You know, I remember when I was 16 years old and very, very much into squash, waking up one morning and having the following thought, which was, what will I do with my life when I no longer play squash? Because, you know, at least as a professional athlete, you know, that you have quite a short half-life. And I thought, what will I do when I'm, you know, 30 or 35 with my life? And of course, my decision was then, you know, I will become a coach. I thought of becoming, you know, the Israeli national coach at that time, but could not see my life without it. The notion of you as a 16-year-old thinking about what comes next before you had actually sort of like stepped into the ultimate, like what you were aspiring to do,

is an unusual thought process for, I think, any 16-year-old. Yeah. There are certain people who are more inclined to reflection or rumination. I'm certainly one of them. I think among psychologists, there is a disproportionate amount of number of them. And, you know, it's both a blessing and a curse. So, you know, Socrates, the father of Western philosophy, once said that the unexamined life is not worth living. But I have to add a second part to that sentence, which is that the overexamined life is tedious. And I certainly have fallen into the trap of tedium throughout my life, also when I was 16. Yeah, which is sort of an interesting tell, just about, and almost like a little bit of foreshadowing as to what would come over a period of years. I know you rose up, as you mentioned, you had this huge aspiration to be at the top of the squash world and to really be, I guess,

the Israeli national champion. And you did it. You actually put in the work. You rose up the ranks. You did what you came to do. But it seems like that was a bit of a double-edged sword for you. Yeah, it was because it brought home at that time a very surprising truth. So specifically for many years while I was training and playing, I wasn't happy, but worse than that, I constantly felt stressed. There was a knot in my stomach,

which was always there and wouldn't, well, it went away once in a while whenever I won a big match or when I had the near perfect training session. But it was rare. And the norm was the knot. However, I always believed, in fact, I was certain that that knot would go away once I achieved my goal. Once I reached my dream,

which at that time was to be the national champion. And I got there. And I realized when I got there that there was no there there, meaning for the first few hours, I felt elation, probably happier than I'd ever been, certainly up to that point. However, within a few hours, the same knot returned. And the elation that I felt just a short while earlier turned into real deep despair. Because the model that gave me hope for so many years that, you know, this will be over, you know, the pain. And again, I'm not talking about the pain of training hard. That was trivial by comparison.

You know, yeah, so you're tired, you're sore. That's the life of a professional athlete. But the physical pain with a psychological cause, I mean, that was unbearable. And especially once I realized that it won't go away, once I fulfilled my dream. And the thing, though, is that very quickly I went into the next stage, which for me was, OK, so what I have to do now in order to get rid of this knot is win the world championship, because the national championship obviously is not enough. It's not a high enough aspiration. And I started again,

like Sisyphus. The stone was rolled down the mountain and I had to climb a steeper mountain. It wasn't the same incline. So again, for years, I aspired to become the world champion, believing that winning that would alleviate the discomfort, dis-ease. I never got to win the world championship. I won a few international championships, but got injured at a relatively young age and a career ending injury. But I replaced that squash aspiration with different ones. And specifically, initially, at least, it was, OK, get into a top college, you know, get into Harvard, which I did. And then it's get, you know, get a great, get the, you know, the best grades and then get the, you know, get into, get a good job and on and on. And at some point, I just realized that I probably had it wrong. You know, that it's not about the external. It's not about achieving that this or that milestone, that it was more about me changing my perception, the internal rather than the

external world. And that's when I turned to psychology. Yeah. I mean, it occurs to me, listening to your story and also sort of folding that in with so many conversations I've had over the years with people who have sacrificed so much of their lives to rise, to meet this one expectation of being the best of the best in any domain or whatever that internal or familial or societal definition of success was, and then met it. And immediately after, fell into this anywhere from malaise to really deep depression. It was interesting. I talked to a former Olympian not too long ago who actually meddled. She did exactly what she came to do

and went into a very, very dark place after and then started talking to her friends who were all other fellow Olympians and noticed an astonishing prevalence of this same exact phenomenon. And I'm curious, you describe it as almost this existential feeling of, okay, what now? That didn't give me the feeling I wanted to feel. So what now? I wonder how much of the feeling is that and also the feeling of waking up

and for years having this thing that you're striving for, a purpose. And then you wake up the next morning and it's no longer there. And then when you blend those two things together, it just creates this compound effect. Yeah, the perfect storm. So yeah, this is a pervasive phenomenon. And take the example of someone who's unhappy as a child, unhappy as a young adult, but has a goal, has a dream to become, say, a movie star. You know, let's take the most probably admired, respected and rewarded of all stardoms. And, you know, for many years, you know, he's weighing tables at restaurants, but he's constantly sustained by the belief that once he makes it, then he'll be happy. And then eventually, years later, after years of pain and suffering, he makes it. And he's ecstatic, elated, happier than he had ever been before. And, you know, for a month, for two months, for a year, you know, it could not be better because now he can have any man or woman he wants because he's admired, revered, because now he can buy anything he wants. He's wealthy. He has it all. And then

after a year, suddenly the knot that perhaps he had or the dis-ease that he experienced returns, because it inevitably does. And now he's lost, because at least before he had the hope that once he makes it, then he'll be happy. But he made it. And again, he realized that there is no there there. You know, the difference between sadness and depression is that depression is sadness without hope. Before he had hope, now he no longer has hope. And he realizes that he cannot find happiness in this reality. So he looks for answers outside of reality. What's outside of reality? Well, it could be alcohol or drugs or the ultimate exit from reality, which is suicide.

And this is why we have so many very successful people putting an end to their lives or turning to drugs and alcohol. Because the model that they had, the model that we were taught from a very young age, just disintegrated, fell apart. And there is no good alternative model that is out there for them to grasp on. Yeah. I want to actually go into what would a new model look like? If we were to reimagine, what are the contributing factors to happiness? Let's talk about some of those things. But before we get there, I think it actually makes sense to ask a more fundamental question, which is when we talk about happiness, what are we actually talking about? You know, there are many definitions to happiness. Some people have given up on trying

to define it. And they simply say, well, it's like beauty, you know, you can't define it, but you know it when you see it, or you know it when you experience it. I'm not of that school of thought. I think it is important to define happiness because once we define it, it can help us find it, achieve it. You know, there's a lovely line, the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, where she asks the Cheshire Cat, you know, where should I go? And he says, well, that depends on where you want to get to. And then she says, well, I don't know where I want to get to. And then he says, well, then it doesn't matter where you go. So, you know, I think it is important to know where we're going,

to define our path. So my definition of happiness comprises five elements. The first element of happiness is spiritual well-being. Spiritual well-being, very briefly, can of course come from religion, but it doesn't have to. It can come from a sense of meaning and purpose in life, or from being present to whatever it is that we're experiencing, to the miracle of existence. So meaning and presence are the two elements of a spiritual life. Physical well-being, the second element of happiness, is about regular physical exercise, about movement, about sleep, about nutrition. Of course, these are important elements of happiness. Then there is intellectual well-being. You know that there is research showing that being curious, asking questions, learning constantly and

consistently doesn't just make us happier. It also makes us healthier. In fact, contributes to longevity, being a lifelong learner. So that's intellectual well-being, engaging with texts or with nature or with a work of art. That's intellectual well-being. Then there is relational well-being, interpersonal relationships, also relationship with oneself. The number one predictor of happiness is quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. And finally, there is emotional well-being. Emotional well-being is about dealing with painful emotions, sadness, anger, envy, anxiety, and also cultivating pleasurable emotions like joy, like gratitude, like love, like excitement.

So these five elements, spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional well-being that make up the acronym SPIRE are the building blocks of happiness. Now, it doesn't mean we need to have it all. That would be overwhelming to even think about having it all. But it does mean that given that we are a system, a whole system, we can find an in towards increasing levels of happiness through any one, any and all of these five elements. So we can meditate, or we can exercise, or we can engage in learning, or we can invest more in our relationships or express gratitude. I mean, these are all powerful, impactful ways of increasing levels of happiness, especially if we practice them consistently and constantly. So ritualizing them is, of course, important. And I want to dive into some of those in a bit more detail. Curiosity came to me as you're sharing that when you describe these five elements,

the second word in each one of the qualifiers is well-being. Having spent some time with some of the research on happiness and money over time, it's been interesting to see that one of the big illusions was that we thought that for every dollar earned, there would be X percent more happiness. And in fact, that peaks out at a certain level of income. But what was interesting for me to see was, and you're going to be much more familiar with the details of this research than I am, but I do recall seeing a follow-up wave of research that then looked at a vastly larger global data set and looked at the relationship between income and not just happiness, but they broke out as a separate measure, subjective

well-being. And they looked at them as two distinct things. income and not just happiness, but they broke out as a separate measure, subjective wellbeing. And they looked at them as two distinct things. And what they found from my recollection is that there is this leveling off. And I think in the US it was around $75,000 a year in income, something like that, where it didn't matter how much more you made, happiness pretty much just flatlined. But subjective wellbeing continued in a linear relationship up with every dollar more that you made. The data set stopped at around a quarter million dollars a year, so they didn't go beyond that. So I'm curious what you feel is the relationship between these things. Yes. So the relationship between money and happiness is that money matters up to a certain point. So that point is essentially

where you feel like your basic needs are met, whether it's for shelter, for food, of course, for education. Beyond that, money doesn't make that much of a difference to your happiness levels unless you know how to spend it wisely. Now, specifically, there are two ways that we know we can spend money wisely. One is on experiences rather than things. And two, it's on giving. And let me elaborate a little bit on each one of those. So they asked people, what do you think will make you happier? Buying, you know, if you have discretionary income, you know, say $10,000, would it be on upgrading your car thing or, you know, going on a vacation with your loved ones. And most people said, well, we think a car, you know, if that is something that I want, would make me happier because a

vacation is over in two weeks. A car I'll have three years from now. Well, it turns out that their intuition was wrong and that a vacation, an experience, actually yielded more long-term happiness. In most cases, again, this is, of course, average generalization, but in most cases, it yielded more happiness than buying a thing. Because a thing you get used to, you adapt to. You know, you're excited about the car initially, and then very quickly it just becomes a car, another car that you own. Unless you're, you know, a car expert or a racer, and then you

have experiences with the car. But in most cases, when it's about something, we get tired of it. Or even if we don't get tired of it, we stop noticing it. It's the novelty that's important. As Daryl Bem, a Cornell psychologist said, the exotic is erotic. But once it becomes an everyday occurrence, it's less exciting. Whereas with experiences, what you're doing, you are cultivating relationships. Because again, I'm talking about most vacations. Some vacations mean the end of relationships, of course, but in most cases, it strengthens the connections among people. And that is a very important predictor, antecedent of happiness.

So that's one element. Choose experiences over things once basic needs are met, of happiness. So that's one element, choose experiences over things once basic needs are met, of course. The second element is giving. So I'll share a study and actually I'm bringing together a few studies into one here. This was done through a joint University of British Columbia, Canada and Harvard Business School research. And what they did was they brought in people to a lab and they measured their levels of happiness. And then they gave them a nice sum of money. And then they said to them, go spend this money on yourself, go buy yourself something. And they did. And they bought themselves a gadget or shoes

or whatever. And then they came back to bought themselves a gadget or shoes or whatever. And then they came back to the lab and they measured their levels of happiness again. And what they found was that their happiness levels went up significantly as a result of the shopping spree. You know, this is important research. This is the first time in recorded history that we have scientific evidence for Carrie Bradshaw's claim from Sex and the City that buying shoes makes you happier. So that's good so far. Not so good if we go a little further. A day later, they went back to the lab and they measured their levels of happiness again. What did they find? They were right back where they started. In other words,

there was a shopper's high that lasted less than 24 hours. Second part of the same study, they bring in another group of people and they measure their levels of happiness. And once again, they give them the exact same amount of money that they gave the first group. And once again, they tell them, go spend this money. Only this time they tell them, go spend it on someone else. Now, spending it on someone else can be buying homeless people meals. It could be donating it to your favorite charity. It could be buying a colleague or a friend shoes. Go spend it on someone else.

And then they go back to the lab and they measure their levels of happiness. What do they find? Happiness levels go up to the same degree as the shoppers, with one very big difference. A day later, when they measured their levels of happiness again, it did go down slightly, but it was still significantly higher than base level. Even after a week, they saw the impact, the positive impact for well-being of giving. So to give in so many ways is to receive. You know, my mother tongue is not English. English is my second language. My mother tongue is Hebrew. And in Hebrew, and this is a biblical word, in Hebrew, the word for giving is Natan. And Natan, like the name Nathan, that's the biblical name. And if you spell Natan,

whether you do it in Hebrew or you do it with Roman letters, it's a palindrome. So N-A-T-A-N, or in Hebrew, Nun-Taf-Nun. You would read it the same left to right and right to left. No coincidence here. There is a deep meaning to this word because today this is verified by a lot of research. We know that when we give, we're given right back with interest. Yeah, the giver's glow. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. You know, it's interesting when you think about giving, it makes sense, especially when you sort of explain the reciprocal energy, that it would feel good. I remember sitting down with Adam Grant a couple of years back. We were talking about something similar. He's done a whole bunch of

work on how giving affects different people in different ways. And he was actually citing, I think it was Sonia Lubomirsky, who did this work. Because I think counterintuitively, I think very often, tell me if I have this right, we feel like, well, if we give a little bit every day, then we can kind of keep that giver's glow going for a long time. And yes, it's good for other people and it's better for us. But is it true, in fact, that the research showed that, in fact, that if you actually cluster your giving in something like one day a week, that it actually has a stronger effect? Yes. So this is Sonia Lubomirsky's research on giving. And what she did was she had a control group course that didn't give.

And then she had two experimental groups. One group gave five times during the week. And the other group gave five times on one day of the week. And yes, she found more impact for those who concentrated their giving. And I've often wondered why that is. And what I think it could be is that giving on one day gave you sort of a strong dose of the value of giving. Now, that means strong motivation to do it again. So that could very well have created an upward spiral through very

strong emotion. I mean, look at the connection between the word emotion, motion, and motivation. They all come from the same root. And it's when we have strong emotions that we are driven to motion, that we have motivation. Perhaps do it again, and again, and again. So we're creating an upward spiral of giving of, I've done a lot of thinking and reflecting on this upward spiral of thinking for a slightly different reason. You know, the field of positive psychology or the science of happiness often comes under attack for being a selfish or for supporting a selfish pursuit. Because, you know, I want to be happier. That's why I'm taking a course on happiness. That's why I'm reading this book. And this is selfish. And, you know, why are you being selfish in a world that needs selflessness, not selfishness, certainly today? But this is a false dichotomy because there's a lot of research showing that when we give others, we feel better about ourselves.

That's just one side of the equation, though. There is also research showing that when we cultivate our own happiness, we're much more likely to give. So potentially, we can create an upward spiral between giving to self and giving to others. Because giving to others is also giving to ourselves. And when we give to ourselves, we're more likely to give to others. And it's this upward spiral that I think is very important to understand in order to create a synthesis between the selfish camp and the selfless camp. And the synthesis to my mind could be called selffulness rather than selfishness or selflessness. Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm fascinated by your hypothesis about why that once a week might sort of be more effective at

the sprinkling approach every day too. It's almost like it's a bit more of a slingshot up into that broaden and build spiral rather than have kind of simmering at the bottom, you know, like a little bit every day. It never quite launches into the momentum. Yeah, and again, so that's a great metaphor. The metaphor that I was thinking of as you were speaking was, you know, maybe it's diluted in, you know, in a sea of maybe

not unkindness, but in a sea of banal experiences and it disappears. So it doesn't, it's not recognized. It's not felt as much. Yeah. The other thing that you mentioned in terms of the relationship to money and happiness and on the spending side, well, a lot of it is like there are two ways that we can sort of give was this distinction between experiences and stuff. You know, I'm going to get something versus I'm going to invest in an experience and the

relational nature of experiences and how that may well be at the heart of why it's more effective. Part of my curiosity around this too, I'm fascinated to hear your thoughts, is when you get something, let's say it's a car using your example, you're driving that car every day, you have it over a longer period of time, so you have this long sustained opportunity to habituate to just having it. It just doesn't affect you anymore. Most experiences, if you go on a vacation or you go on a really cool adventure, those

are usually these short hits in the context of your life. It's a day or a week or maybe a month if you're really fortunate. So I wonder if part of what's going on is that you have a much greater opportunity to habituate to the thing that you buy, whereas you don't have that to the experience because it's much more fleeting. I'm curious how that lands with you. Yeah. So habituation absolutely plays a role here. Daniel Kahneman talks about the hedonic treadmill, again, enjoying this car initially, but then losing interest to a great extent. And this habituation is important. It's actually a survival mechanism, because if we didn't habituate, then it would mean we wouldn't habituate to painful experiences

either. And then we wouldn't be able to survive for long in all likelihood because most people experience very difficult losses, whether it's a loss of a person, first and foremost, or a loss of identity or a job or a relationship. And these losses would be, they are devastating. They would be insurmountable if we didn't habituate. So that's the upside, so to speak, of habituation, that we can habituate to the downside of life. But, you know, it's a double-edged sword. We also habituate to the good things. And we can certainly prolong enjoyment of things by being more mindful of the experiences, by expressing gratitude more regularly for the experience. But ultimately, habituation takes place. Whereas when we go on vacation, you know, we can go to, you know, Cancun one year and go to the, you know, Catskills the next year, or we can diversify. And this will diminish the

likelihood of habituation. In other words, increase the likelihood that we will continue deriving the, what I've come to call the ultimate currency, the currency of happiness from these experiences. Yeah. I wonder if sometimes also, to a certain extent, you can game that impulse. But like you said, there are these unfolding levels of good and bad. It is a double-edged sword. Whereas the notion that, well, what if you extended that vacation to a year or to a lifetime with the same person or a group of people? Would you then habituate to those people in a way where you started looking for the shiny new friend group, the shiny new partner in life, simply because you've had a longer time

to sort of like go back to a baseline and you're not getting that same hit, which would be a devastating thing. And I feel like some of the other things that you've mentioned are ones where, because I think we don't particularly care if we habituate to a car or a thing, but we do care if we habituate to the people that we say we hold dear in our lives, we don't want that relationship to end. So I wonder in circumstances like that, you know, how, what are the things that we do to counter that sort of innate impulse? Yes. So, you know, one of the thought experiments that I often run in my class is the following.

You know, I say to them, imagine that you're, so first of all, I have a poll in my class is the following. You know, I say to them, imagine that you're... So first of all, I have a poll in the class and I ask them, so who is the sexiest, most attractive man in the world? And, you know, they vote on it and, you know, it's a different person every year. And then who's the sexiest, most attractive woman in the world? And they vote on it and it changes. And then I say to them, okay, so now imagine that your sexiest man, woman alive is not just that good looking and attractive, also kind, generous,

and totally heads over heels in love with you. And, you know, he, she's smart interesting curious so you know anything you ask for you get in that one person and uh you get together and uh you have uh you you know a lustful loveful relationship and you're together for five years, and basically you live happily ever after. And then after those five years, a psychologist comes in and runs an experiment. And the experiment is to measure your physiological excitement, levels of arousal when a person walks into a room. And, you know, you're hooked up to all these electrodes, your head, your heart, your what's called galvanic skin response to your hand. You see how much you're sweating from excitement when the person comes in.

And your beloved, your perfect lover or partner comes in. And then all the measures are taken. Then five minutes later, a person whom you find attractive, moderately attractive, comes in. Where will you be more excited? And the answer physiologically, in most cases, is with the second person. And many people find this disturbing, because what monogamy, polygamy, you, it is possible to find happiness there. However, it takes work. And the kind of work that it takes is investing in the relationship, doing the same things that work and doing new things and experimenting and trying things and opening up gradually but consistently, becoming more and more intimate over time.

And the reason why we know this is true is because there are such relationships. They exist. They are not the majority, but they're out there. And the fact that there are such relationships changes the question from, is it possible to enjoy lifelong happiness with one person, to how is it possible to do it? Because some people do do it. Most generally, it is, as I said, about work. And there is a common misconception here because most people believe that once you find your perfect partner, you're ready to live happily ever after.

That's a misconception and a dangerous one for long-term happiness. You know, imagine this. Imagine for years you had been looking for your perfect job. And after years and years of searching, you find your perfect job where it's just the right fit for you, exactly what you wanted to do, what you were looking for your entire life. A Monday morning comes and your first day of work, you go in to your office. You sit down and you put your feet up on your mahogany desk and you say to yourself, I found it. I have arrived. And you stay there and you revel in your success, in your happiness. And you stay there more and more, just reveling, enjoying just the accomplishment of having found your perfect,

ideal job. Before you know it, you'll be fired. Why? Because you need to start working. Not only that, you want to start working. And you do. And you invest more time and more effort than you ever had before. Because this is exactly what you wanted to do with your life. And yet, when it comes to relationship, our model is radically different. we look for the right partner and everyone invests in looking for the right person. You sometimes have to kiss many frogs before you find your prince or princess and you find them. And then what happens? You live happily ever after, or so you hope and think and believe, and that's how you act. Part of the problem comes from movies because that's how movies are created, constructed. You know, the partners recognize each other, they, you know, feel something, but then there is conflict throughout the movie. And then towards the end of the movie, you know, they kiss, they make love, and they live happily ever after. The screen comes down. The problem is that love begins where movies end. And it's the hard work after the falling in love

that is the essential ingredient of lifelong happiness with a partner. So investment is essential, indispensable to long-term happiness. Yeah, I love that. It's interesting. I'm very fortunate to be married to somebody who I love dearly. And we work together and we live together and we've been married for over 20 years. And just recently, we actually, I think it was last year, John and Julie Gottman came up with this book called Eight Dates, which, you know, ostensibly is you set up eight dates where

you talk about very specific subjects, oftentimes challenging ones. And we looked at that and we thought to ourselves, you know, we've been together now, you know, the better part of three decades, married over two, you know, okay, we'll try it, but we know each other. And we sat down and we did the work that you are not the same person that you were a decade ago or two decades ago. And sometimes you don't share your own inner evolution because there's so much comfort with that other person. And it's really, it's such a stunning gift to be able to actually consciously devote energy to doing that work.

And the outcome is really is staggering but i agree you know the that that is the myth is you know the the curtain goes down and that's it yeah you know the gothmans are great researchers on on relationships and you know i teach their work and then there is someone else whose work I teach, and that is David Schnarch. And David Schnarch has a wonderful book, a book that I owe a lot to by the name of Passionate Marriage. David Schnarch in the book talks about long-term committed relationships and how they can not just last, but flourish and get better over the years. And one of his key ideas, not the only, but one of the key ideas is that the most important part

of healthy long-term relationship is not what most people think. Most people would say it's about learning to validate one another. And validation is important. And acceptance and unconditional regard of the other is important. But he said that's not the most important thing. He said rather than being validated, we need to seek to know and to be known. To know and to be known. Why? Because it's through knowing and being known that we cultivate intimacy. And intimacy is the foundation of passion. And if we are to sustain

passion, not the relatively superficial one that perhaps we experienced on the first date or first year, even the honeymoon phase. But passion that is deep and transcendent almost. And that is what couples can experience after 20 years or even 40 years. The key though is not validation. The key is learning to know and to be known. I love that. And now I have a new book for my reading list. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need him. Y'all need a pilot flight risk the apple watch series 10 is here it has the biggest display ever it's also the thinnest apple watch ever making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running swimming or sleeping and it's the fastest charging apple watch getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. When we were talking a little bit earlier, and you were sort of laying out these are the five elements of happiness, the way that you talk about happiness, meaning was a part of that. And I'm fascinated by meaning. When I look at the average midlife crisis, it's not a crisis of money or power or even happiness in my mind, it's an existential crisis. It's a crisis of meaning.

And you look at the work of Viktor Frankl and people in that sort of whole canon. And I'm fascinated by the question of, can you be happy without having a significant source of meaning? And is meaningfulness a stronger measure of a life well lived than happiness? Or is it a false dichotomy? Yes. So I was going to start with the end first. Yes, I do think it's a false dichotomy because meaning is part of happiness. It's not the whole of happiness, but it's part of it. And let me give an extreme example that, at least to me, illustrates why they're not one in the same. You know, Viktor Frankl wrote about finding meaning in a concentration camp. You know,

he spent time in Auschwitz, hell on earth. And yet he found meaning and other inmates found meaning. But to suggest that they were happy in the concentration camp would be, I think, a real stretch and absurd. So they're not one in the same. You also need an element of basic pleasure to experience happiness, or at least the absence of suffering to experience happiness. The thing though is, can you experience happiness without meaning? And my argument is that you cannot, that we need to have meaning. However, it's about understanding the full gamut or the full continuum of what it means to find meaning. Viktor Frankl himself makes an important distinction between the meaning of life and the meaning in life. So the meaning of life basically answers the question, why am I here?

What's my ultimate purpose? Many people find it in religion. Many people find it in serving others. Many people find it in serving Mother Earth, you know, in the environmentalist movement. You know, this is a big purpose. This is the meaning of life. This is why I was brought here. However, there is also meaning in life. And meaning in life lowers the bar, and in a healthy and important way. Two reasons. First of all, not everyone finds the meaning of life. And that doesn't mean that they can't experience meaning in their life. And second, even people who do find for themselves the meaning of life, that doesn't mean that at every moment in their life they're connected to that sense of purpose. So we need to lower the bar to a meaningful life.

And how do we do that? It's by looking for meaning in our everyday experiences, in the mundane. It's finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. So this is work that Adam Grant and others did about how we can reframe our current experiences. Amy Wisniewski, Jane Dutton, who had worked with Adam when he was in Michigan, they have done work showing that even janitors in hospitals can find a sense of purpose, meaning a calling in the work that they do day in and day out. The question is, certainly, teachers can, business people can, hairdressers, engineers, every profession that they research, they found that there were people who were able to find a sense of meaning and purpose in what they were

doing. The question is, how can we raise levels of awareness about it? You know, my business partner, Angus Ridgway, has spent many years at McKinsey. And we work together in the field of leadership development through Potential Life. And recently, he was having lunch with his brother-in-law. And his brother-in-law is a cardiologist. And his work, his expertise is pacemakers. So basically, what he does is puts pacemakers in. And every few years, he takes it out and changes batteries and puts it back in. So when they were having lunch, Angus said to him, you know, I finally figured out what you do for a living. So his

brother-in-law curiously asks, what? And Angus says, you change batteries for a living. And, you know, his brother, just to give you some background, Angus is British. This is British humor. His brother-in-law looked at him intently, did not even smile. And he said, Angus, you are right. Some days I change batteries. Other days I save lives. So the exact same experience can be interpreted in radically different ways. If I'm a school teacher, you know, I can see my work as a grind. Again, I have to deal with these young, you know, inconsiderate students.

Again, I have to teach the same material that I taught last year. Or I can think about my work as cultivating the young minds of the future, of creating a better world. Same work, very different interpretation. And it turns out that interpretation can make all the difference. This is about finding the meaning in life, if not the meaning of life. I love that because it's accessible to anyone and everyone. Like you said, the bigger question of even singular purpose or life purpose, I actually really hate that phrase, but just the notion that there is this one thing out there and

that we are destined to find it. Well, maybe somebody does stumble upon it, but a lot of people never will. But this notion of meaning in life, that on any given moment of any given day, you can find a sense of purpose in so many things, even when it's not apparent, when you actually really examine it. It's so powerful to me. I have two friends that both teach middle school and one of them ruins the day because it is known as the toughest age of any kid that you could possibly teach. And it's kind of brutal. They're struggling. They don't know themselves. And the other one is like, this is the best possible season in a human being's life to be there when they're just trying to figure out which way is up and who they are.

And yes, it's brutal. And yes, it's hard. And yes, it takes so much work. But to have the opportunity to make an impact at that moment in their process of self-discovery and revelation is such a gift. And it's just what you're talking about. It's the frame that you bring to an experience that allows you to find that sense of meaning or purpose or not. As you're talking, I think there is a recurring theme in some of the

things that we were discussing. And the recurring theme may sound to many like a compromise or a cop-out or an unnecessary concession, but I think it's important. And the theme is lowering the bar. It's lowering the bar on what constitutes a meaningful life. It's lowering the bar on what constitutes a romantic relationship. It's lowering the bar on what constitutes a healthy relationship in that, or what is love. And that goes to the work of Barbara Fredrickson about, you know, what is love? And that it's not just that one in a lifetime thing that you find that you can actually cultivate it with with many people if you put the work in so lowering the bar whether it's on love whether it's on meaning whether it's on happiness i think is important making it more realistic rather than detached from reality.

Yeah. And like you said, there is, I have no doubt that some people will hear that invitation and think, why would I ever want to lower the bar on my life? I want to strive to be the best, to experience the most, to really to just have it at the highest possible level. And in fact, really coming full circle to the early part of our conversation,

when you look at how people experience life when that is the ultimate aspiration, even when they achieve it, it doesn't make them feel the way that they felt. And yet they sacrifice so much more to be able to get to that place. Yes, they sacrifice a lot. And inevitably, inevitably, they'll experience frustration. If we set the bar unrealistically high,

unrealistically high, then no matter what we achieve in reality, we will be disappointed. And again, this is not about compromising on our ability to flourish far from it. It's about understanding our nature and then taking this nature into consideration, making the most of it. Yeah. It occurs to me also through this entire conversation that when we kind of zoom the lens out, the ability to focus on any of these things, to be intentional at any of them, is based on a sort of a meta skill of awareness. You know, we can't make any of these decisions. We can't adopt any of these points of view or embrace any actions or practices and listen until we have some level of awareness of who we are and where we are at any moment in time. Yeah, awareness is critical. It relates to a topic that I've been thinking a lot about

recently, which is what I've come to call rhetorical choices. And rhetorical choices are similar to rhetorical questions. A rhetorical question is a question where the answer is obvious. It's asked for effect. So if I ask my son, do you want daddy to be angry? You know, I'm not expecting him to, you know, think about it for a while and say, you know, the answer is obvious. Or do you want to be happy? You know, it's obvious. It's a rhetorical question. Similarly, we have rhetorical choices. For example, if I ask you, Jonathan, so do you want to appreciate the good things in your life? Or do you want to take the good things in your life for granted? You know, it's a no-brainer.

It's obvious. You ask any person this question, they will say, of course, I don't want to take for granted the good things in my life. And yet, most people, most of the time, take the good things in their lives for granted. Not because they don't know what the right choice is, but simply because they are not aware, they're not mindful of the fact that at every moment in their lives they can actually choose. So making them more aware of the fact that they have this choice, bringing it to the fore of your consciousness through awareness, through mindfulness is the necessary prerequisite of practicing the right choice, the rhetorical choice, the choice that will make you happier. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.

You know, reflecting on the way that you have brought yourself, your work, your curiosity, inquiry, and research to the world, you know, much of your early days, it happened in the classroom. You taught for quite a while at Harvard, spoken to numerous organizations around the world. And it seems like you have sort of like continued to create this expanding ripple of ways to get the message out. The most recent of which, and tell me if this is wrong, but from what I understand is this Happiness Studies Academy, which really says, okay, so let's take the world of positive psychology and bring in all sorts of other schools of thought, draw from them all, and then create teaching experiences for people. I'm curious about how this came to be and what your intention is with it.

Yes. So the Happiness Studies Academy essentially came to be five years, five and a half years ago when I was on a flight, a transatlantic flight. And you know, Jonathan, those states where you're, when we used to fly back when, when you're very tired, but too uncomfortable to fall asleep. So I was in one of those states when a question came to mind. And the question was, how is it that there is a field of study for psychology, which is my field, a field of study for history, biology, medicine, education, business, you name it, but there is no field of study for happiness. So yeah, there is positive psychology, but that's just the psychology of happiness.

What about what philosophers had to say about happiness? Lao Tzu, Confucius, Aristotle. What about what historians had to say? Economists. How about what, you know, our great books in literature, you know, Marianne Evans or Shakespeare have to say about happiness. Chinua Akebe, what about what neuroscientists have to say about happiness? Why isn't there a field or rather an interdisciplinary field of study

that brings together what all these different disciplines, fields have to say about happiness. And I resolved on that flight to help create a field of happiness studies that brings together philosophy and economics and neuroscience and biology and history and film and literature and bring these together to shed light on arguably life's chief pursuit, if I were to quote David H people. And we have a certificate program, which is a year-long journey where students answer two questions. The first question, how can I become happier? The second question, how can I help others become happier? So again, this is the self-reinforcing loop of generosity, of self-fullness. And we have students from over 60 countries around the world.

We teach it in different languages. And this is what provides me with so much happiness to work with students who are keen to bring about more happiness, more well-being, spiritually, physically, intellectually family among their friends and community, the workplace, in hospitals, in the therapeutic relationship, in coaching, you name it, because happiness is important wherever and whenever we are. And that feels like a pretty good place for us to uh come full circle as well because i agree with all of that so sitting here in this container a good life project if i offer up the phrase to live a good life what comes up give yourself the permission to be human give yourself the permission to experience the full range of human, the painful as well as the pleasurable. And by doing so, you fulfill your potential for happiness, not by rejecting emotions, not by ignoring difficulties and hardships, by being real, by being authentic, by being fully

human. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source

code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary.