The Decibel - Introducing Happy Enough: lessons from Canada’s happiest people

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

The host of The Globe and Mail's newest podcast, Garvia Bailey, gets some crowd-sourced wisdom from people nominated by loved ones as ‘the happiest people in Canada’ for a recent Globe and Mail feature. They live across the country, in cities and rural areas. They include toddlers and seniors, men and women, and people who have been through extremely hard times. She speaks with Erin Anderssen, The Globe and Mail’s happiness reporter, about these happy people and checks in with the nominees themselves to discuss how to live a happier life. Who are these happy people living among us? And can they let us in on their secrets?

Hi, it's Maynika. This weekend, we're sharing a new Globe and Mail podcast with you. It's called Happy Enough. Each week, host Garvia Bailey talks to people about what it means to be happy and why it matters. This episode is with the Globe's happiness reporter, Erin Anderson, who asks, what can we learn from the happiest people in Canada? The search for answers took her across the country. New episodes of Happy

Enough are released every Tuesday. You can listen to and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Hope you enjoy the episode. When we're seeking ingredients for a happy life, we might consult a scientist, maybe open up a self-help book, or even if you're, you know, religious, maybe you're looking for a monk, if you know one. Don't get me wrong, these are all great sources. But I'm convinced we can find happiness experts closer to home. Maybe you know one working at the local coffee shop,

always smiling at the grumpiest customers. I know those people. Or maybe you live with one, a partner who always laughs and makes light of the hard things in life. It's super easy to see someone who is relentlessly happy and feels cynical about it. Take one of my closest friends. I actually call her my sister. She's that close. When we first met, she was impossible to miss. Always the biggest, loudest laugh, always lighting up a room with her joy, always ready

to bust an impromptu dance move. I will admit to giving her a bit of side eye. I mean, who is that happy all the time? But it took all of five minutes to realize that I was encountering, in the wild, a genuinely happy person. Over a decade later, we're still besties. But the question is, who are these consistently happy people living among us, and can they let us in on their secrets?

I'm Garvey Bailey, and this is Happy Enough. Today we're getting some crowd-sourced wisdom from people who were nominated as the happiest people in Canada. They live across the country. They live in cities. They live in rural areas. They include toddlers, yes toddlers and seniors, men and women, and people who have been through extremely hard times.

After the break, we'll speak with Erin Anderson, the Globe and Mail's happiness reporter, on how she found these people and what she learned from them. Can't wait! Erin Anderson is a reporter at the Globe and Mail. Last summer, she started reporting on happiness after covering mental health for 15 years. Talk about a dream job. Welcome Erin. about a dream job. Welcome, Erin. I learned so much from the article that you wrote in finding Canada's happiest people. Now, first, how did you go about finding these people? What they were saying, where they were, like all of, give me some of the things, the background on this piece that you wrote. So what, the idea that I had was to ask people to name the happiest person they know. Perfect.

And so a hundred Canadians, more than a hundred Canadians, and I think I'm still getting some nominations, wrote in names. And what was amazing is long paragraphs, in some cases, describing this person, you know, that they were the kind of person who lit up a room, they were always had wise words to say, they were good listeners, they were thoughtful, resilient, all the things that you might expect. Now you read those as a journalist, and then the question is, well, what's going to happen? You know, wives were nominating husbands, best friends were nominating best friends, grandmas, granddaughters.

Did people really know what made a happy person? Okay, well, what were the interviews like? Were they genuinely as happy as their friends and family suggested? Okay, so first of all, I want to say, and I'm not exaggerating, every single interview I did was such a learning experience for me, full of joy and wisdom. You know, the people I was talking to were, first of

all, super honored that anybody would identify them as the happiest person they knew. But I think what what really struck me is how much they had consciously thought about happiness already. I think I left I left every conversation having learned a piece of wisdom having been inspired by them you know they were they were funny and thoughtful and I guess what I came away with, the one lesson that I came away with is that, yes, we know happiness when we see it. We know those people who pick that happiest person. I mean, I haven't gone through the

whole list yet, but in those random people I've called so far, there was not one miss, not one miss. Nailed it, nailed it. When you looked across the demographics of the responses, I know you've got a lot of responses, so I'm sure you didn't get a chance to look at every single thing. But was there any kind of similarity? Like we were looking at, you know, when you think about location or sex or economic status, right? Like, all of these things, was it a diverse group of people? Was there any kind of characteristics that kind of, you know, lent to their degree of happiness?

They certainly were. They were from all over the country, different ages. Someone nominated their two-year-old grandson. There are grandmothers who nominated granddaughters who were in university, seniors who had retired, best friends who had known each other for like all their lives who were nominating them, co-workers, nominated co-workers. I would say they were, you know, diverse by demographic, by age, even by race. There were immigrants on the list, people who had been divorced, who had cancer, who had experienced loss early on. It was really fascinating. There were more women than men. I think that was the only difference. Now, of course, on economic status, I can't know everything about the people on the list.

And within the group I interviewed, I would say it leans more towards a higher income or financially stable group of people, but not always at the beginning of their lives. Some of them, they worked hard to get to where they were and didn't start out with, you know, privilege, you know, from a place of privilege. Sure, sure. There's a bit of a tendency to be suspicious of people that are just over the top happy, incredibly happy. Maybe it's because I just want that for myself and I want a perfect life. I want things to be perfect. But our lives are not perfect. Was there hardship that they spoke to or did it feel like they were just like living their best lives? What were those conversations and what was that kind of balance between hardship and

and being this happy individual that their friends are looking at as the happiest. Well, I don't wanna suggest this was a group of people who are all unicorns and rainbows because that certainly was not, that was not the case. When I say that the conversations were happy but thoughtful, it was so much more nuanced. It wasn't thinking of happiness as a set point And you're always happy they were working hard to be happy and maybe they maybe

Maybe they would say, you know, they might have been born with a little edge on the happiness gene But it didn't wasn't like they were automatically happy all their lives and It didn't, it wasn't like they were automatically happy all their lives. And in fact, one of the things that I found really interesting was that almost all of them had been through some kind of an adversity. Their lives were not perfect. Some of them had dealt with like terminal or very, very aggressive cancer diagnosis. One young woman had lost her father when she was in university. They had experienced divorce, a huge change in careers, periods of unemployment, not knowing what they were going to do, moving from one country to another country.

All of those things are changes and adverse experiences. And I think what came through is more, not that they had a perfect life, but that the way that they chose intentionally to respond to those experiences was very different. You know, there are, in reading the article, I saw that there was some common threads between these people. So I'm wondering if you could tell me

about the pieces of advice that seemed to pop out as universal or things that kept on coming up. I mean, I would say the main takeaway, the main takeaway is just a reminder that you don't necessarily pursue happiness. Happiness isn't the goal as much as learning resilience, for instance, as you mentioned, or gratitude, practicing gratitude, thinking about nature and your place in the larger world, considering what your values and priorities were. I think a common theme that I found, and maybe that's what resonated so much in the interviews, is that these people had typically

taken a lot of time to think about their values and priorities and to really get to know themselves. And that helped shape their happiness. But certainly there were a lot of common themes, some of them that we already know and we see in self-help books already. But I think the practicing of it is what really came through. Okay, I want to turn to some specific people that we spoke to. Can you tell me about Tom? He's the priest that turned teacher. I found his story fascinating as well as so intentional.

I think Tom was actually my first interview and so the first real test of whether the project was gonna work and I remember we we got on the zoom call and he instantly was just this warm gentle open guy and he starts telling me right away his kind of his life story about how he was studying to be a Jesuit priest as a young man and really beginning, I guess, to wrestle with whether this was what he wanted in life. And at one point he goes over, arrives in Calcutta hoping to do some volunteer work, and he gets led by a sister to the home of Mother Teresa.

And he starts telling me how he's sitting on a bench with her, she's holding his hand, and Tom, who is already clearly so thoughtful about what's his purpose, what difference is he going to make in life, asks her, you know, how will I know? How will I know what I'm supposed to make in life is ask her, you know, how will I know, how will I know what I'm supposed to do in the world? And Mother Teresa tells him, learn your heart's desire, get to know your heart's desire and it will work out. And he describes this moment where he's on the philosopher's walk in Toronto at the University of Toronto. And he just, I think he had just retired and he just starts crying.

And he said, I really had to think about why, why was I crying? And he told me how he realized that here he was at this stage in life where he'd had this, you know, this, he'd met a wonderful wife, you know, decades of marriage, he had children and grandchildren, he'd had this career that he loved as a principal, and obviously people who loved him and a lot

of contentment in life, and he remembered all the doubts that he'd had. When he was not a great student, when he didn't think, left the priesthood and never thought he would meet someone to fall in love with. He was turned down as principal nine times before he actually became a principal. So everything, he had had his own doubts that he dealt with and doubts from others, criticisms from others. And I think that was so revealing to me, right? Because it's about, you know, life isn't perfect and happiness can't be perfect either. And it's really about the journey, the journey that we take.

We reached out to Tom Bonik so we could hear his advice on happiness. He's 81 and lives in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. He spoke about gratitude. I like to read a lot. Years and years and years ago, and I think Rabbi Abraham Heschel, an activist, he said, as I get older, I only have one prayer and it's gratitude. And I think it touched a nerve with me. I thought, you know, I'm always, mom and dad always said, you're just always so thankful. You will give you a job.

This eight hours mucking out barns before the front end loaders and all the equipment that we have today that you might use on a farm, it's backbreaking with pitchforks and shovels. You always would say, yeah, that would be great. I'd like to do that all day long on a Saturday, coming home from boarding school. They said, you never said no. You always said yes, and you always sounded grateful. Well, I think I got to practice that more and more as I would reflect, and the Jesuits certainly taught you to reflect. Self-reflection was big in the Jesuits. I would always look at things that were happening in my life and I'd say, oh my God, Tom, you are so lucky. And I know that I had taken our Volvo. This was, it was already 14 years old

and I took it in for an oil change. And the garage phoned up and they said, Tom, I'm sorry to say, but guess what? Your car caught on fire. And I said, oh my God, it caught on fire. Are you guys okay? And he said, yeah, it was parked outside the garage. It was going to go in for the oil change

and it just caught on fire and electrical fire. And I said, Oh, thank God that never happened in the garage. And thank God it never happened when Jackie and I were with Stephanie and Alyssa on the expressway somewhere. And Jackie would say, but Tom, our car burned down. And I'd say, but Jackie, look, look at all the, it just, we couldn't have been luckier. So I guess I always had this craziness

and Jackie sometimes said, oh my God, Tom, you know, you drive me crazy because every time something bad happens, you always say, no, Jackie, that was not bad. That was really good. We were really lucky. Erin and I will be back to speak more about the happiest Canadians after the break. I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about Kat and the discussion you had about speaking

to strangers because that is my jam right there. It's my favorite thing to do. I love to tell people, I love your pants, you're looking good today. And you know, the idea of oftentimes people look at me like, uh-huh, that's cute. Mm-hmm. But more often than not, we strike up a conversation or there's big smiles that are exchanged or... So tell me about this idea of speaking to strangers and speaking to Kat about that. Yeah.

Talking to strangers is actually one of the strongest scientifically based happiness interventions. It makes you happy, it makes the stranger happy. And one of the reasons why we don't do it is called the liking gap, where we think we're reluctant to talk to a stranger because we think they won't like it, even though they do really like it. And, you know, as you're saying yourself, when you greet someone and they greet you back, it's like this awesome moment of connection, even if you never see that person again. So you asked me about Kat Jovey, who, you know, really focused in our conversations on her relationships. And she talks about how when she gets, when she gets together with her friends,

she puts her phone away, she really focuses on them, what they're saying, their body language, because she thinks that's how, that's respectful. That's how you build that connection. You don't have your phone out. But she doesn't always practice that approach with her friends. She also makes an effort to talk to strangers. We got in touch with Kat to hear her advice on speaking to strangers.

Kat is 39 and lives in Toronto. I think initially it starts out as just, I just want this person to know that I'm recognizing them as another human. I think all too often in life, whether it be we're ordering a coffee or we're getting groceries or whatever it is, to me it seems like people forget that this is in fact a human helping you with that thing. And it's free to, you know, chat with them or to give them a compliment or whatever it is. And I don't know why people don't do it more often. Yeah, so I was dropping my mother's car off to get its tires changed, get its winter tires on.

And sometimes I can tell when I'm really in a mood where I want to be chatty, there's a certain, I don't know, energy that I have. And I was like, ooh, watch out, whoever makes eye contact with me, we're doing it. But I walked in and there was a gentleman sitting at the window where you could watch the stuff happening.

And immediately in my head, I just thought of like a proud papa looking at his baby at the hospital kind of thing. And so I said, Oh, it looks like you're waiting for your baby. He was like, my baby's getting new tires, our new boots. And then we just started chatting from there. And it was lovely. I was there for 30 minutes, it felt like five. It's again, you never know what talking to someone will do, either for you or for their

day. Maybe that person really just needed someone to talk to for a minute. You never know what giving someone a smile or a, hey, have a good day or some small thing, how it could change their day and so I try to think about that and sort of move through the world thinking oh if I do something tiny and small and nice like maybe that'll brighten someone's day and so I just I try to do that in any interaction that I have. They feel good, I feel good, we're all winning here. There's no downside. I feel good. We're all winning here. There's no downside. So Erin, there was another woman in the piece who emphasized having fun and her name was

Joanne. Can you tell me a little bit about Joanne? So I think it was about two thirds of the way through my interviews that I got on a Zoom call with a woman in Toronto named Joanne Libard, who was over the moon that someone would have identified her as the happiest person. She was effervescent, the kind of person I'm meeting her and I'm thinking, wow, if I lived in Toronto, I would be coming to your parties whether you invited me or not. First of all, I mean, she was really thoughtful about happiness. She, you know, her faith is really important to her.

She volunteers a lot. She has, you know, there's a lot of depth to her happiness, but she also has this side of her that is really, really engaged with novelty and trying new things and being up for an adventure. She was the one who said she never turned down an invite, no matter how weird it might sound. As a result, she's tried polo on horses, even though I don't think she's like ridden a horse very often. She, I think she did Owling at one point, jumped out of an airplane, you know, gone.

She's just been this like, I will try everything, strange concerts, anything, like, like really celebrating this idea, the part of happiness is just being open and curious to the world. We spoke with Joanne about her willingness to take a chance on something new and to have fun. I do consider myself a very happy person and it's intentional. I really want to squeeze the most out of life's lemon and I like to be, you know, just experience things with childlike wonder when I can. I mean, you know, I've got five decades on me, so that's not always the easiest thing. But I do try and focus on the positive. And so it is something that's really important to me.

I want to be a joyful person and I want to bring joy to others as well. Things are difficult for everyone right now, and yet I know that there are certain things that are wonderful in my life. And so keep focusing on that and be intentional about it and you will be filled with happiness. Like that is going to be the majority of your life. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have that stress, but it's going to help you through. Like I sort of said at the beginning, grab life as hard as you can and squeeze. I remember when I was in grade nine, our school had a high school trip to Italy. And I was raised by a single mother who I know struggled to raise money to send me on

trips and stuff like that. But she did and I went to Italy. And because I knew how much she had scrimped and saved, I tried to not spend any money. So I think she'd given me, let's say, $300, and I proudly returned from my trip having not taken any of the side trips that were on offer and brought back a sizable portion of that spending money back to my mom.

And I don't know if she was mad, but she was definitely not impressed. And I was shocked by that. But she's like, I did not, you know, go to the trouble of sending you to another country to experience things for you to have to not experience them. You had the money, you should have done everything you could. And that was a lesson that always stuck with me. And so wherever I go, I try to just get the most out of opportunities, activities that I can. And that has brought me probably the most happiness in my life. So if you have opportunities, seize them.

She can be my best friend too. Maybe we can be invited to her parties. That would be nice. I would enjoy that. We could just sneak in. Just sneak in. Just through the back door. I wanted to ask you about the lessons that you've learned through this. What was the most surprising lesson you learned as you spoke to all these great people and read all these excellent, excellent pieces of art about happy people? Well, I think some of the ways that they were cultivating happiness were things that I already knew.

And maybe a lot of us already know. By then, I'd spent a few months writing other stories, mainly talking to experts. So the idea that you should practice gratitude, for instance, that you should spend time in nature, I think those are things we understand, even if we're not that great at actually instituting them into our everyday life. But one of the things, despite all the self-help books that I kind of read, that I felt was the surprising thing was what Joanne kind of talked about. But then really everybody talked about, which was this idea of having fun. And I thought that was so interesting because I think, I mean, as kids, we know, like we're all about fun, right?

Trying new things, you know, being silly. But then as adults, we make a lot of our social events are like book clubs or, you know, dinner parties, which also are super fun, but aren't necessarily silly. And I think what I saw from the people I interviewed was how much just having fun, trying new things, experiencing novelty was really key to building strong connections with their friends, creating these positive memories that would sustain them later, really learning perhaps most importantly,

not to care what other people think. Because I think it was Joanne who said, that is the death of happiness. Worrying about looking foolish or being embarrassed by another person, even if you don't know them. And I think almost everyone in the group had really moved past that, had moved past worrying about that. And they were free to just have a good time, have harmless fun with their friends and think

about the world on their own terms. And I really, I really took that to heart, actually. Just be more silly and free and have more fun. You know what? I heard it through the grapevine that you really have taken that to heart. You have made some personal changes based on that exact advice. Tell me about that. Well, I have tried a few things. Okay, go ahead, hit me with it. Yeah, one of the things that I really started doing

was saying good morning and good afternoon to every single person who kind of passes by me on the street while I'm out walking my dog. And as you know yourself, that has just cheered up the dog walks in such an amazing way People look at you sort of askance and then they almost always smile and say good morning back It's like the simplest the simplest thing. So, you know, thanks to Kat Jovi for reminding me to do that

On the on the fun side if you looked in my closet right now, you would see it's pretty full of sequins In fact, they're all in the middle so that when I open the door, I get a little rush of joy from seeing them. And you know, people wear sequins like on holidays and, you know, put them away. That is not what I like to do. I like to wear them out. I own these amazing sequin gold boots. I actually own gold ones, black ones and green ones. But since I talk to people like Joanne, I'm like,

I'm just going to wear those boots. I'm going to rock those boots everywhere I go. I wear them to the grocery store. I wear them around on the street, walking the dog. I wore them to the office the other day. And you would not believe how many people say, I love your boots, or they roll down the woman rolled down the window of her car. And she was like, Hey, great boots. At the food court above the Ottawa Bureau of the Globe and Mail, an older guy came up to me and he said, Your boots are amazing. I had this sequin kiss belt buckle as, as when I was a younger guy, I'm going to go home and see where that belt buckle is. I said, you should wear that anytime you feel like it. So, you know, that, that seems like

a small, it's such a small thing, but look at the connection, like, look at the interactions I've had with people that I wouldn't have over something as silly as a pair of sequin boots. It's so silly, but it's so right. You know, like I would be the person jumping all over you to talk to you about your beautiful boots. I'm so into this and, and I want to just thank you so much for bringing this kind of, because just you telling this story, I don't even have to see your boots. Just talking about this kind of joy and connection has already got me floating a little bit right now. Erin,

you're the best. Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with us today. So much fun. Thank you for having me. That was Erin Anderson, happiness reporter at the Globe and Mail. Thanks again for joining us. Now reading books is great. Listening to podcasts, also great. But there's something truly inspiring about hearing the voices of everyday people who are working at being happy and kind of nailing it. It seems to me that happiness isn't about avoiding life's inevitable hardships. They're just going to come, right? It's about how you face them, how you seize the opportunity, how much gratitude you can muster,

how you include people on your journey, even if it's just for like a five minute cameo. So let's put on our sequins and get going. Okay, I currently have no sequins in my closet, but maybe I'll find my own equivalent, like soft pants, but fancy version. This show was produced by Kyle Fulton and Emily Jackson. Our executive producer is Kieran Rana.

If you're enjoying our show so far, please leave us a rating and review. It really helps us get noticed, kinda like sequins. I'm Garvey Bailey, and we will be back next week on Happy Enough and we're going to be talking meditation. The practice has been around for thousands of years as a way to calm your mind. Happiness researchers almost always recommend it as a tool to improve happiness. So what is it exactly and why is it so effective? Until then, you can find

us at theglobanmail.com.