The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 1 - Johann Hari On Why We're Becoming Less Happy And More Lonely

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes I will be selecting my favourite sections from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. In this episode Journalist and Author Johann Hari, most well known for writing the New York Times bestselling book ‘Lost Connections’, explains why as humans we are becoming less happy and more lonely. As a species, we are becoming more and more disconnected, and Johann mainly puts this down to the fact that we are being driven by ‘junk’ values. Like junk food, our ‘junk’ values seem to be attractive to us, but really only go on to harm both us and our happiness. Johann explains that only once we begin to understand our intrinsic and extrinsic motivations will we finally be free to live a more connected and happier life. Full episode - https://g2ul0.app.link/or4oJ5MOrfb Johann: https://www.instagram.com/johann.hari/ https://twitter.com/johannhari101 Watch us on Youtube - youtube.com/c/StevenBartlettYT

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue this podcast is centers around business entrepreneurship and um i guess the pursuit of success generally speaking but what is it that's causing us to become lonelier as you know because entrepreneurs are you know known to be incredibly lonely as a as a group i guess a professional group of society but um what's causing us broadly to become lonelier i think there's think there's a lot of things, but I'll give you an example of one of the other causes that I think might, I think you'd have better insight onto this than me, but I think might

play out more in people who are inclined to become, you know, business leaders, not all of them. So everyone listening to this knows that junk food has taken over our diets and made us physically sick, right? I don't say it's with any sense of superiority for most of my 20s i basically lived on kfc i had a low point one day when i went to the um my local kfc at the end of brick lane and i remember going it was it was the afternoon of christmas eve which makes it even sadder as a story i remember going in and saying my order which was so disgusting i won't even repeat it and the guy behind the counter said oh johan i'm really glad you're here and i was like and he said wait a minute and he went back behind the friars and came back with every member of staff and a really

big christmas card which they'd all written to like to our favorite customer and part one of the reasons why my clogged heart sank is because i suddenly thought this isn't even the fried chicken shop i go to the most right but okay so we know that junk food appeals to the part of us that wants nutrition but actually doesn't give you nutrition, makes you sick, right? But what's interesting is something very similar has happened with our values. A kind of junk values have taken over our minds and made us mentally sick. So there's an extraordinary man called Professor Tim Kasser, who I learned a lot about. He's in Illinois. He's done incredible work researching this for 30 years. And he showed lots of things. But I'll give you an example of one of the things he's shown,

and I think in a really, really interesting way. So every human being has two kinds of motivation, right? So let's imagine what would be an example. Imagine you play the piano, right? I'm completely unmusical, but maybe you aren't. No, I'm definitely not. Imagine you play the piano in the morning because you love it and it gives you joy, right? That would be an intro, or you play it piano in the morning because you love it and it gives you joy

right that would be an intro or you play it with your kids or you know you know as part of a band or whatever that would be an intrinsic reason to play the piano right you're not doing it to get something out of it you're doing it because that experience is the thing you love right okay now imagine you play the piano not because you love it but to pay the rent in a you work in a dive bar, right? Or, I don't know, to impress a woman, maybe there's some piano fetishist out there or something, right? Or maybe because your parents are massively pressuring you, they want you to be a piano maestro, right? That's not an intrinsic reason to play. You're not doing it for the thing itself.

That's called an extrinsic or junk reason to play it. You're doing it to get something else out of the experience because of how it will look to other people or for something else that you'll get further down the line, right? Obviously, all human beings are a mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic motives. But what Professor Kasser showed is a couple of things. Firstly, as a culture, we have become much more driven by these junk values. We've become much more obsessed with doing things and driven by doing things because of how we'll look to other people in a kind of a cheap way because of money, because of status, right? Professor Kasser also showed the more you are driven by money and status and the kind of external appearance of how you look to other

people rather than joyful or important experiences with them, the more likely you are to become depressed and anxious, right? And I think this is one of the most difficult factors to think about because I could think about how much it played out in my own life. I know you obviously do a lot of work with social media. I think social media drives us so much to be driven by these junk values, right? I think all the time about, I've got three teenage nephews and a teenage niece. I think all I've got are two godchildren who are just on the cusp of starting social media. Social media drives people to think in terms of these junk values right how many likes did i get what how you know how good do i look in this picture for instagram right the more you are driven in those directions

the more unhappy you will become and there's a kind of um deeper reason for that which connects a lot of the causes of depression and anxiety that i write about in in my book lost connections which is everyone listening to your show knows that they have natural physical needs. Obviously you need food, you need water, you need shelter, you need clean air. If I took them away from you, you'd be screwed really quickly. Right. But there's equally strong evidence. All human beings have natural psychological needs, right? You need to feel you belong. You need to feel your life has meaning and purpose. You need to feel that people see you and value you. you need to feel you belong you need to feel your life has meaning and purpose you need to feel that people see you and value you you need to feel you've got a future that makes sense and where you're going to be valued and our culture is good at lots of things

i'm glad to be alive today i like dentistry i like gay rights i all sorts of things but we've been getting less and less good at dealing with these deep underlying psychological needs that people have and it's not the only thing that's going on but I think it's a really key factor in why the crisis is going up. Bye.