The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - You're Actually Not Bothering People Enough
Episode Date: August 10, 2026Most of us hate asking for favors. We worry about being a burden, coming across as needy, or facing rejection for asking too much. But what if our fear of bothering people is stopping us, and the peop...le around us, from becoming happier? Dr. Laurie explores why our instincts about asking for help are usually wrong. She speaks with psychologist Nicholas Epley about why asking others for help can actually make them like us more. And author and entrepreneur Jia Jiang shares how 100 days of asking for outlandish favors totally transformed his life. Experts Mentioned: Nicholas Epley, Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Jia Jiang, author, entrepreneur, and expert in “rejection therapy” Resources Mentioned: Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection, by Jia Jiang (2015) “What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection,” by Jia Jiang (TED, 2016) “100 Days of Rejection Therapy,” by Jia Jiang (YouTube series, 2013) RejectionTherapy.com “Surprisingly Happy to Have Helped: Underestimating Prosociality Creates a Misplaced Barrier to Asking for Help,” by Xuan Zhao and Nicholas Epley (Psychological Science, 2022) “Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability,” by Anna Bruk, Sabine Scholl, and Herbert Bless (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018) Related Episodes: “Treating the Pain of a Broken Heart” “Forget Small Talk: Go Deep Instead” “The Surprising Case for Oversharing” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died.
Then the rumors started, and she died again.
And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way.
Marilyn Monroe actually died.
The third way.
I'm Jake Brennan,
and on my podcast, Hollywoodland,
I revisit some of the biggest stories
from Hollywood history,
separating the myths
people want to believe
from the reality underneath them.
Hollywoodland is part of the
exactly right network.
Listen to new episodes every Monday
on the IHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Pushkin.
Hey, Happiness Lab listeners.
We're finally coming to the end
of our Happiness Hot
series, a whole season in which I've been calling out the bad happiness advice that I hear so
often on the internet.
For our final Hot Take, we're heading back into the Happiness Lab archives to revisit a misconception
that I struggle with myself.
Many of us find it hard to ask for support, either because we're afraid of inconveniencing
other people, or we don't want to come off as too needy.
We're taught to handle things on our own, even at times when we really could use a helping
hand.
But today's hot take is this.
We should be bothering people a little more often.
It turns out that asking someone for a favor doesn't just make life easier for you.
It can actually make the other person happier as well.
So stay tuned for research and stories that reveal why asking for everything from a little assistance
to a massive act of generosity can be good for everyone involved.
Here's this week's, in case you missed it, happiness hot take.
I hope you enjoy it.
We're in a first grade classroom in Beijing, China.
It's about 20 years ago, ahead of the annual holidays.
To mark the occasion, a teacher has brought and wrapped presents for her students.
The gifts are stacked up in a corner, ready to be handed out.
And if she just stopped right there, it would be a great story.
Zha Zhang was one of those excited kids.
But she had all of us come to the front of the classroom and said,
hey, why don't you guys say nice things about each other?
If someone calls your name and say something nice about you,
you can go get a gift and sit down.
One by one, the kids started sharing kind words about,
their classmates.
It was great when it started.
Someone can sing really well, someone can't help for other teachers.
And I would applaud and support my turn.
But the flow of compliments soon slowed down.
And then petered out completely.
Worried, Zhao's teacher asked,
Um, doesn't anyone have anything nice to say about the students who are still at the front
of the class?
No one spoke.
Three gifts sat uncollected in the corner and three kids stood rejected at the front of the room.
And I was one of them.
It was just a fleeting few minutes in Xia's life,
but the events of that day cast a long shadow.
Jha eventually graduated school,
then headed to college and began a new life outside China.
But the thing is, once I came to the United States,
I started following a path of almost like a least resistance.
Nearing his 30s,
Zha felt like he was being held back
from chasing his dreams and fulfilling his potential.
And he traced some of that back to the fateful day many years ago,
where he stood rejected in front of his country.
classmates. Pretty sure it didn't help. You see, Jean needed all the confidence, self-belief,
and drive he could muster, because he had a dream. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur.
You know, I actually come from a family of teachers, but I didn't, never want to be a teacher. I want
to be entrepreneur because I was inspired by Bill Gates. Becoming the next Bill Gates requires a
willingness to put yourself out there. You've got to be prepared to tell potential investors and clients
about your big plans. And you've got to be prepared for them to laugh.
you out of the room. You have to knock on door after door after door, asking for support and
backing until you get the answer you want. And Jaa just wasn't sure he could handle that.
I just felt like my fear of rejection was really holding me back. Though now fully grown,
Jaure still felt the pain of his six-year-old self. And I was just miserable, to be honest,
because I feel like I'm getting old. My wife was pregnant, and I just feel like I probably
missed my mark to be this entrepreneur that I've always wanted it to be. So, when she was,
Shopping to admit defeat and give up on his dream
and remain miserable on this path of least resistance?
Nope.
So that's where I realized I got to overcome this fear of rejection.
Even if you didn't get dissed by your entire first grade classroom,
you can probably still relate to Zha's lack of confidence.
It's not just entrepreneurs who need to make themselves vulnerable to others.
Whether it's in our careers or just in daily life,
many of us have a hard time asking for the help we need
because like Ja, we fear rejection.
We may worry we'll get a big fat no from a friend or stranger,
or we may just hate the idea of bothering busy people.
We may fear being seen as pushy or annoying or needy.
These fears may feel very real,
but did they match the reality of reaching out to the people around us when we need help?
By not even opening the conversation,
are we actually making ourselves and other people less happy than we could be?
Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy.
But what if our minds are wrong?
What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy?
The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction.
You're listening to the Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.
I was a former college football player, so asking for help is not the kind of thing I typically did very much.
This is social connection expert and Happiness Lab regular Nick Epley.
Like Ja, Nick grew up with a reluctance to ask for help.
I was pretty strong and capable and I could do stuff,
and that always made me fairly reluctant to ask others for help,
to do almost anything.
If you've heard Nick on other episodes of this season,
you may recall that he studies the way our minds mess up
when it comes to happier social connection.
Recently, his lap has turned to the fears
that he and so many of us have when it comes to asking for help.
And our research and that of many others in the field
has been making it crystal clear
that many of those fears are miscalibrated,
that is they're exaggerated.
We tend to underestimate how positively these interactions are going to go.
Nick's work begins from a premise that many researchers argue
is a universal psychological truth.
We enjoy doing nice stuff for other people.
I think feeling happy to have helped is a very real thing.
You go do something kind for somebody else, you'll feel pretty darn good.
We usually notice how good it feels to help others when we're in the role of the helper.
We forget that the same maxim holds for the people we ask to help us.
Notice that asking for help from somebody else gives us,
an opportunity to do something kind for you.
And by not asking for help,
you are really missing out
on an opportunity to make somebody else feel good.
We sometimes worry that our requests
will be a burden on the person we approach,
that they'll feel pressured to say yes.
But Nick's research shows
that that usually isn't the case,
especially when we have a relatively simple request.
Calling upon another person for assistance
can be a gift not just to ourselves,
but also to the person we ask.
So in some ways, it seems almost selfish
to not ask other folks for help when they could give it to you easily,
because you're denying them an opportunity to do something kind for you.
The problem is we usually don't see it that way.
And when we fail to ask for help,
we don't get to witness the happiness boost it gives us
or the person giving us assistance.
And so we continue to believe that seeking help is an imposition,
rather than a wonderful way to bond and make everyone happier.
We only get feedback from the things we choose to do.
And we don't get feedback from the things we choose to avoid.
And in an imperfect world like that,
we're going to get a systematically distorted view
of how these social interactions are going to go
that naturally confirms our belief.
To test just how deeply ingrained these false beliefs are,
Nick designed a simple experiment.
He set up a photo op at a popular spot on campus.
But the camera he put out there wasn't a modern smartphone.
It was a vintage Polaroid Instant camera.
And that choice was key,
because old school polaroids aren't built to let you take selfies.
So in the old days, if you wanted somebody to take a picture of you,
you had to go up and ask them to do it.
So Nick's subjects had to find a stranger to assist them.
But before they approached anyone,
the subjects were asked how annoyed they thought the stranger would be
by being stopped and how positive their mood would be afterwards.
Nick later compared these predictions
to what the strangers actually said about taking the polarites.
And we found that people tended to underestimate
how positively others respond,
how willing they would be to help,
how happy they would feel helping after they actually did,
it was a more positive experience for the person you asked for help than people expected.
Nick's subjects also grossly overestimated how inconvenience the photo takers would feel.
Their guesses were six times higher than what the helpers themselves later reported,
six times higher.
Our predictions of how other people will react to our helping requests are way, way off.
They were likely to want to try to help you,
and given that they were perceiving it as an act of kindness,
given that you'd asked for it,
they'll feel good when they actually help you out.
Results like these prompted Nick to rethink,
his own resistance to asking for help.
Here in Chicago, it sometimes snows in the winter.
But if I couldn't plow my driveway,
I was often reluctant to have a neighbor come and shovel my driveway.
And then our work in part made it clear to me
that the neighbor would probably feel pretty good,
being able to do that for me.
And so I now will ask him if he could do it.
that if I can't shovel it.
And it's created lots of good conversations between us,
where I get a chance to thank him for that.
He feels good for it.
And I don't think I ever would have done that before.
Asking for help to take a quick photo
or for a friendly neighbor to lend you a hand shoveling snow
are great places to start.
But aspiring entrepreneur, Ja Zhang, was in a hurry.
He wanted to supercharge his fight
against his crippling fear of rejection.
So the approach he took was rather a extreme.
He decided to ask people for some pretty,
fantastic favors.
I saw this big guy.
He looked like a security guard of some sort.
He was sitting behind the desk and I said, okay, I'm going to ask him.
Then as I just inching toward him, I just slowed down.
I was like, this is so scary.
My heart was pounding.
I was sweating.
We'll hear how all this turned out when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.
Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month.
Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.
Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability.
Bell, connection is everything.
I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland,
I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history,
separating the myths people want to believe
from the reality underneath them.
Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe
isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon.
Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic
that her death can only be explained
through conspiracy theories.
And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact.
So on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died.
Then the rumors started and she died again.
And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died, the third way.
Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide.
Listen to Hollywoodland on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Wanted to be entrepreneur, Zhang, wanted to beat his fear of rejection.
So he began where a lot of us do when we're ready for a big behavior change.
He did a Google search.
Google is like a real Yoda.
After a few clicks, Jean stumbled on a website that would change his life forever.
Rejection Therapy.com, a site that teaches a practice known as exposure therapy.
Let's say you want to get over your phobia of heights.
Exposure therapy would tell you to confront that fear
by visiting locations a little bit above ground level
and then over time climbing higher and higher,
so that through gradual exposure, you get used to heights.
Rejection Therapy.com applies that same logic
to the fear of asking for help.
The website suggests things like challenging a stranger
to a game of rock paper scissors,
or asking for a small discount the next time you buy something.
The challenges even have different levels.
so you can start with just a mild taste of rejection
and gradually build up to going way out of your comfort zone.
Jat was ready to dive in.
I was like, this is the best idea I've ever heard.
The site recommended a month-long challenge, 30 days of rejection.
And I didn't want to do 30 days because I was like, you know,
I want to go hardcore.
Let me overdose on rejection and see what happens.
So I did 100 days of rejection.
And rather than performing these challenges privately,
Jat decided he needed to film all his interactions
and to share them with the entire world.
I know if I do this by myself, I'd probably get a couple of rejections and just quit.
But if I declare that to the world, and I would think people hold me accountable.
So I can't just quit that easily.
So that's what I did.
All right, this is my first try.
Day one of Jah's rejection marathon started pretty spectacularly.
I'm going to try to borrow $100 from a stranger.
Jha picked a security guard sitting by a desk in the marble-filled lobby of a nice mall.
Excuse me, do you think I borrow a hundred dollars from you?
The security guard looked confused, like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.
No?
No? Why? All right. No? Okay, sorry. Thanks.
Shaw didn't wait around to answer the security guard's question.
I just ran as fast as I could.
Jaa was downhearted. He assumed the interaction had gone terribly,
that the guard had badly rejected him.
But all that changed once he watched the footage.
I was like this NFL scout looking at a game film, you know, analyzing myself.
Ja was shocked by what he saw, and not by the guards' reaction, but by his own.
I looked so scared, and I was like, oh, wow.
I didn't know he was a security or someone.
I don't know, he just sits there.
He looks like a security guard.
I thought he might pull off a gun or just yell at me or something.
Watching the video revealed that Shah had nothing to be scared of.
He didn't get the hundred bucks.
But the guard was nice.
He even gave Jha a window of opportunity.
He asked Jha, why?
Like, why did he need the $100 anyway?
I could have said many things.
I could have negotiated with him.
I could have said if you can't do 100, can you do 5?
You know, can you do 1?
I could be explained that I was overcoming a fair rejection.
I just ran.
So I said, okay, next time, no matter what happens,
I am going to stay engaged.
So I'm not going to run.
That's the thing.
I'm not going to run.
On day two of his 100 days of rejection,
Jaa headed to his favorite burger joint,
five guys, burgers and fries.
He purchased a cheeseburger and ate it,
and then returned to the counter for the big ask.
Yeah, it's really good.
The burger's really good.
Can we get a burger refill?
Could he have a burger refill?
That is, another cheeseburger totally for free.
Okay.
All right, I would like you guys a lot more.
You to have a burger refill.
The cashier said no.
But this time, Jaat didn't run away.
And I started negotiating.
I started to stay calm and I tried to explain myself.
And when I left, I didn't feel as bad.
Like, I feel way better than the first day.
Ja was rejected.
Five guys does not offer burger refills, even if you ask politely.
But the no Zha received from the cashier yet again
came with more kindness and humor than he expected.
Day two was the success on to Day Three.
By day three,
Jaa already felt like he was heading for a rejection gold medal.
I'm driving to a Krispy Kreme.
So his next ask took his odd requests to Olympic level heights of ridiculousness.
I'm going to ask them to make me some specialized donuts.
Jao wanted the folks at Krispy Kreme to make him a set of five donuts
interlocked in the shape of the famous Olympic rings.
Well, there's no way they're going to say yes to that.
You know, and I would just come in and make a joke, you know, and get rejected
and hopefully not be too scared.
Yeah.
The employee, Jackie Braun, got a pen and paper and asked Jaa to help her sketch out the design.
She didn't look angry or confused.
She kind of seemed to relish the challenge.
And 15 minutes later, she brought me out a box of donuts that looks like Olympic rings.
That is really good.
That is really good.
Yeah.
Man, you'll make me really happy today.
Jackie didn't even charge Ja'i for the donuts.
It's on me, she told him, with a big beaming smile.
So when I was walking out at that donut shop,
I was like, wow, how many years have I missed my life?
Because I was expecting a note.
So that was a magic moment for me.
Pleased with his success, Jean went home and posted the day three video,
but it didn't get the handful of views he was expecting.
Millions of people watched that donut clip.
It got so much attention that his Olympic ring donut story wound up on daytime television shows.
I think Krispy Kreme stock actually went up that day.
Because this is like a marketer's dream, right?
I asked them for donuts that look like Olympic rings.
And I was like, no way they're going to say yes.
They couldn't say no to me.
They were like, yeah, how can I make this?
And when I left there, I just had tears in my eyes
because I just couldn't believe this world is much nicer than I thought.
It's much kinder than I thought.
Jeal's donut success was a turning point for him.
It convinced him that he could successfully ask for just about anything.
And Shah really did ask for rather strange things.
He asked to become a mannequin in a department store
To give the safety announcement on an airplane
To slide down the pole at a fire station
And to feed a lion at the zoo
There we go
Oh, hold on, hold on, it's okay, it's all right, it's all right
The videos that followed were as hilarious as they were popular
Like when he asked for a haircut from a dog groomer
Can you tune me like a German shepherd?
Like Tibetan Mastiff or Chow Chowchow or something
Zhao's videos eventually attracted the attention of a certain psychologist.
And I thought this is fascinating, right?
This is an extreme version of what I did.
Psychologist Nick Epley's research had already shown that people are more willing to help us out than we think,
that they react more positively than we expect to simple requests, like taking a quick Polaroid photo.
But watching Zhao's YouTube videos, Nick realized people may also agree to far more complicated requests.
I mean, it's off the charts what he asked people to do.
Nick carefully analyzed Ja's videos, counting exactly how often his pleas for help got rejected.
And it turns out less often than he's accepted.
Most of the time, a little over 50% of the time, to these crazy requests, the person does it.
Nick also watched to see the reactions of the strangers that Jaa approached.
Did the donut makers and flight attendants and zookeepers get mad and yell at him and tell him to go away?
or were they genuinely trying to be kind and accommodating?
Nick's analysis was striking.
In the vast majority of interactions,
people reacted completely positively.
Shaw's extreme experiment in a rejection therapy
is a great example of two things that our lying minds often get wrong.
First, we don't get rebuffed nearly as often as we fear.
And second, the people we ask for help
are usually much happier to oblige than we expect.
But my guess is that hearing Jha's story didn't exactly
prompt you to go out and demand weird-shaped donuts, or to borrow money from strangers on the street,
or to head into a lion's den at dinner time. So what simple strategies can we all employ to be more
comfortable in asking for help? Things that will allow us and the people around us to enjoy the
happiness benefits that come from bonding over a helping hand. We'll find out when the Happiness
Lab returns after this quick break. Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave Netflix and Disney Plus
From $94 a month, price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit.
Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability.
Bell, connection is everything.
I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history,
separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them.
Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon.
Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories.
And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact.
So on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died.
Then the rumors started, and she died again.
And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died.
The Third Way.
Learn more about what happens when fame,
media obsession, and conspiracy collide.
Listen to Hollywoodland on the Iheart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm dividing my life into BD and A-D
before donuts and after donuts.
It was a watershed moment for me
because it opened up this whole new world to me.
A decade after asking a Krispy Cream employee
to build him the Olympic Ring of Donuts,
Jean now runs the very company that inspired
him, rejection therapy.com.
He's also an in-demand speaker and the author of Rejection Proof,
How I Beat Fear and became Invincible through 100 days of rejection.
I didn't plan this.
I didn't plan this thing to go viral and someday I'll write a book,
someday I'll do a blog, you know, someday I will give a TED talk or be on Laura Sandals
show.
I never planned all that.
All I did was like, I'm going to do something.
And the viral videos John made are now used by clinicians to help patients with social
anxiety. They may seem extreme, but Jaa says they can still teach us important lessons that we can
apply in everyday settings. His first takeaway is, people are actually much nicer than we think. People
are actually very open, especially if you ask them wacky stuff. A second lesson is that your fears
that people will angrily reject you or think less of you if you ask for assistance are likely to be
very, very misplaced. Jaa is living proof that you'll hear no far.
less than you expect. When I started, I thought I was going to get 100 rejections. You know,
maybe like I got some yeses if you get really lucky, but as it turned out, sometimes just by asking,
you get a yes. But to get to that yes, Jae says we also need the courage to expose our vulnerabilities
and to ignore any worries we may have about seeming needy. I don't want to bother other people.
I want to be independent, right? And the research backs this up. Psychologists have long found evidence
for what's known as the beautiful mess effect.
We assume that people will avoid us if we seem needy or dependent on help.
But it's actually just the opposite.
People like us better when we show weakness or express emotional vulnerability or seek their help.
Being messy makes us seem more open and relatable.
Really good friends, they ask for help.
They ask for opinions.
They ask for help and they're vulnerable to each other.
If you give and take, that really build relationships.
In fact, sometimes the fact you're asking shows that, okay, I'm asking you because I need you.
And that's really, it increases the bond you have with each other.
But connecting with potential helpers also requires changing the negative mindset
that many of us have about soliciting assistance.
Your attention while asking for help can make the whole interaction less comfortable for everyone.
It's something that Jaa learned early in his days of rejection therapy.
I was expecting rejection, and all my focus is how I could deal with that rejection.
I couldn't even think the possibility that people would say yes to me.
And if you don't bring this aggressive energy, you're not that tense.
People actually relax when they talk to you.
To decrease that tension, Jaat advises that you really do need to come to terms with the possibility of being rebuffed and to relax about it.
That's actually the key.
If I'm coming in and if I'm open to rejection, then I'm fine.
If I give the other person the freedom to say no to me, I give myself the freedom to ask whatever I want.
One way to do that, Jaa says, is to explicitly admit that what you're asking for might not be.
doable, and that it's totally cool if the person can't help you, that you know they're not
doing it to spite you, or because they don't like you.
I say, okay, I know I'm making a big request here. I know this is a little bit weird,
and it's okay if you can't do it. If I put that thing, what they are doubting up front,
it actually put people at ease. He's saying that I can say no to this.
And if you're still feeling guilty about your request, Jha suggests thinking back to how
you felt when someone asked for help. Would you really be annoyed if the situation,
was reversed. Jaa says he even thinks back to cases where he felt frustrated when good friends
failed to call on him when they were in need. I had a friend and he spent like almost a year looking
for a job and he didn't ask for any help. It was really hard for him. I was like, you could have
told me earlier. That job, I know someone who was hiring for that job. What did you tell me earlier?
But Ja has one final strategy that may seem counterintuitive given his own experience. He recommends
not going as hardcore as he did.
Go outside of the comfort zone a little bit.
Don't go way out.
You don't have to come in and ask for $100 like I did.
That was a big step.
It's like an exercise, right?
If you've never lifted weights,
you don't want to come in and bench press like 300 pounds.
You're going to get crushed.
But go out of your comfort zone a little bit
and just test the water and then gradually expand your comfort zone.
You can start doing this again and again.
And every time you do, you become so much better than before.
And Josh should know,
because asking for what he needed publicly
and fighting his fear of rejection
didn't just change his life.
Jackie from Krispy Cream, right?
The person said yes to me
to make Olympic donuts.
It changed her life too.
Jackie Braun also went viral
for those Olympic donuts.
A viewer of Ja's video
even made her a Facebook page
entitled, Give Jackie a Krispy Cream a raise,
and thousands of people signed the petition.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I mean, thank you.
Very, very much.
She received a personal video
from the CEO of Krispy Kreme.
And she now stars in training videos
that are used by the entire corporation.
She becomes like a celebrity within her company
just all because she said yes.
Sometimes saying yes is more fun than saying no.
And Jough thinks we'd all benefit
from the fun of asking for help more often.
Rejection therapy has become a movement.
It just feels my heart because I hope
this movement can keep going
and to help people overcome their fear.
So many of us are missing out
on making new social connections
or deepening our bonds with existing friends,
just because we don't want to ask for help or favors.
That may be because we don't want to appear annoying or vulnerable,
or because we fear the humiliation of our pleas being rejected.
But the science shows that our worries about being pushy and needy are unfounded.
People are way more happy to help than our lying minds think,
and our reluctance to ask for help winds up preventing the people we care about
from receiving the happiness boost that comes with being kind.
So why not follow Zha's advice?
and push your rejection comfort zone a bit.
You don't need to ask a stranger for money
or demand specialized donuts,
but you can make sure you give the people in your life
opportunities to support and care for you.
It'll make them and you feel much better than you expect.
The Happiness Lab is co-written and produced by Ryan Dilley.
Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver,
with additional scoring, mixing, and mastering by Evan Viola.
Jess Shane and Alice Vines offered additional production support.
Special thanks to my agent Ben Davis
and all of the Pushkin crew.
The Happiness Lab is brought to you
by Pushkin Industries and me, Dr. Laurie Santos.
On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died.
Then the rumors started, and she died again.
And now, we're going to set the record straight
and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died,
the third way.
I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland,
I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history,
separating the myths people want to believe
from the reality underneath them.
Hollywoodland is part of the Exactly Right network.
Listen to new episodes every Monday
on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is an IHeart podcast.
Guaranteed human.
