The Mel Robbins Podcast - Happiness Is an Option for You: 4 Easy Habits That Make Your Life Better Based on Research

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

In this episode, you’re going to learn the 4 happiness habits that, based on research, are scientifically proven to make you happier in 21 days.Happiness is not only possible; it is an option for you.Our guest today is one of the most respected happiness researchers in the world. Shawn Achor is the author of 4 New York Times bestsellers and has created the largest happiness training program in the world. He is here to prove to you that happiness is not only possible but also an option for you.This conversation is packed with practical and proven tools that you can put to work in your life immediately. We will also dig deep into the research that supports everything that you are about to learn.Shawn goes deeper than he has ever gone in an interview, discussing his struggle with depression and how these 4 habits have helped him climb out of it.Get out your notebook because we are drilling into decades of psychological research that will ladder up to more meaning in your life.Today you’ll learn:How to find happiness amidst pain and fearThe 4 simple habits that create more happinessWhat Shawn calls the ‘turning point’ for his struggle with depressionHow to be happy even when you’re lonely and the importance of connection and communityThe first step YOU need to take to living a happier, more meaningful lifeHappiness is not an emotion; it is a framework, and that framework is getting built today!Xo Mel In this episode you’ll learn: 2:04: What is the definition of happiness?3:12: Where can you find happiness amidst pain and fear?10:41: What happens when you become fearful that you will never be happy again?12:53: Step #1 to claiming happiness is recognition. This is why.14:05: This is YOUR starting point for living a happier life.15:49: These 4 simple habits for 21 days will change your life.17:53: What kept Shawn going: the habits that pulled him out of a depression.21:22: Reminder: Happiness is a team sport.29:24: What loneliness actually is32:37: The importance of social connection and community35:14 The story we tell ourselves is how we navigate our lives.40:35: It’s not the end of your story; the reminder I even needed45:47: Happiness is an option, not a choice.48:58: What Shawn learned in Flint, Michigan, about mindset and behavior51:52: The tools and takeaways you need to remember after this conversation Disclaimer

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. All right, let's do this thing. Okay, are you ready to put your happiness hat on? I know I am. I have a really cool show for you. We have the OG of Happiness Research. His name, Sean Acre. Harvard educated works with all the major brands teaching one of the largest

and most successful positive psychology training programs in the world. Not only that, but he has written three New York Times bestselling books. Sean says, you and I have happiness all wrong. The definition is wrong. That's part of the problem. So today, here's what we're going to do. We're going to get Sean on the line. And I, of course, I'm going to hold his feet to the fire. And I'm going to listen to that scientific stuff. And then we are going to break it down into normal people's feet because research is wonderful. But if I can't apply this shit to my life, I am going to be a miserable bitch. And we are going to make sure that we leave here with happiness tools in our pockets and motivation in our backseat

so that we not only learn and listen and laugh today, but that we also put it into action. Alrighty, Sean Aker, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this. Me too. I wanted you just ask you so that we are all starting on the same playing field. What is the definition of happiness?

The original way the psychology looked at happiness was just a pleasure or pain model, that all we're doing as human beings is responding to things that feel good in that moment or things that hurt and we run away from those. And then they decided pleasure must be what happiness is because we're running towards that all the time. So Sean, if I'm tracking with what you're saying, you're saying that happiness is not the things in life that make us feel good. If it's not the things in life that make us feel good, then what the heck is happy to

Sean? To me, I don't think that there should be a difference between happiness and joy. It's not the things in life that make us feel good, then what the heck is happy to shot? To me, I don't think that there should be a difference between happiness and joy. Joy is something we can experience even when life is not good, like in the midst of childbirth, it's not high levels of pleasure all the time, but moments of joy can correspond

even with the highest amounts of fear and pain we can experience as human beings. I honestly am a little confused about the difference between happiness and joy. Because as you're talking about childbirth, I'm like, Sean, I don't know what kind of epidural they had in your wife, but I did not experience a whole lot of joy until the kid was out and they handed me the ice pack to put in my underwear. So when you talk about joy, what do you mean? I'm confused.

I want there to be confusion, because I want the two to be conflated. I think we need to help redefine happiness for the world. That happiness is the joy you feel moving towards your potential. The joy that we're experiencing is that feeling like that we're not stagnant. Even in those moments, once we've had the baby, there's, you know, it's not suddenly that everything's perfect again. Now they're waking us up, right? And now we're taking care of this little thing. We have no idea how to take care of at least we didn't. And we're already

exhausted at that point. And then the doctors leave the room like, what do we do at this moment? I think that we're constantly looking for that moment where like everything is great, that there's no stress, the race is finished. Well, we find this never actually happens for people. Okay, thank you for that, because I'm less confused and I think I'm starting to get it. So the word that you used was conflate, and that, I realize, is a fancy way to say, you want us to take the concept of happiness in the moment and mush it together with the experience of joy and make it all one giant ball. And now I understand why we get the word happiness wrong because they aren't separate things. Happiness and joy work together.

Let me see if I can give you an example, Sean, and make sure I'm tracking so that everybody listening is getting this research from you. In the moment, for example, you can be happy while you're eating an ice cream cone because you love ice cream. And it's a very pleasurable thing on a hot day to have a awesome scoop of ice cream, right? But as soon as you're done with it, you're not happy anymore because that's over. You're saying that that is happiness, but you also want us to expand this idea of happiness to include moments of struggle. Like let's say you're in the middle of training

for a 5K or you're studying for an exam or you've just been broken up with. And even though the experience sucks, you know deep down that you're gonna be the better for it. And so those are the kind of moments where you don't quote, feel happy in the moment, but as you're moving through it and you're growing, you can access joy because you realize that you're going to make progress

through this pain and you can feel good about that. Yeah. And one more thing that I love was when you said there is never a moment where everything is great. Can you tell us more about that and how it impacts happiness? It's not where you are that determines happiness for people because as soon as they finish the race, they're thinking about what they need to do when they get home or as soon as they get that promotion, they're immediately thinking about, you know, what am I going to do now that I have this promotion? And how do I get this person in my team to become more positive? It's whether or not there's growth. You're doing something meaningful in this world. That makes a lot of sense. Now, we have a lot of questions from listeners who wanted your insights and advice and tools

about being happier, Sean. But before we jump into those questions, I want to turn to you listening. And I want to ask you to be selfish right now. I want you in listening to the conversation and in particular listening to Sean answer people's questions. I want you to think about an area in your life where happiness has alluded you. Maybe it's at work, maybe it's with your health, maybe you've struggled in friendships, maybe you're not feeling a lot of happiness or joy in having a sense of purpose.

And I want you to identify that because I want you to use that area of your life as a way to make Sean's advice, research, and tools deeply personal, deeply relevant, and applicable to what you're dealing with right now. And that way, as we start teeing up questions from other listeners, you can listen to Sean's answer and to the struggles that other people are having through the lens of the issue that you want to improve. And that's a way that you can personalize this. So it becomes a master class coaching session

directed right at you. All right, good. So now that you have that area of your life, where you wish you are just a little bit happier. Let's go to our first question from a listener named Tina. Hi, Mel. Here's my question. How to change your thinking that you can only achieve happiness depending on external things, like if I had enough money, if I had a job, if I had a partner,

to find it within you. Sean. It was a great question because we assume that the external world is a good predictor of happiness. That's why when parents say they want the best for their kids, they want their kids to be happy, they assume that means in a good school or like the top of their team, or they mean something in their head that that determines success and that skin guarantee happiness because they've checked off some externals. But when you look at the research as you know, the external world is a terrible

predictor of happiness, right? We find happiness in all these surprising places and we find unhappiness in places where people have everything. I think I understand what you're saying, but Sean, can you give us an example from your own life? I mean, what does this look like in the real world that you find happiness in surprising places but you find unhappiness in places where you thought you had everything? When I was at Harvard, when I got in,

I applied on a dare. I was a volunteer firefighter. I wasn't like a valedictorian or anything. And I was so happy that I got in, and I assumed that everyone who got into a place and an environment with opulence and opportunity would be guaranteed happiness. Yeah.

What we found is that 80% of them go through debilitating depression once they get there. And another 10% the last time this was public, contemplated taking their lives. Hold on a second, Sean. I just need to make sure that I understand what you just said, because those are some really scary numbers. 80% of people who step foot on campus as a student

will become depressed and another 10% contemplate taking their lives. Are you just talking about the students at Harvard? Just Harvard in that moment. I was one of them. I went through depression myself after I graduated. When my job was to make sure that the first year students who went from being, you know, top 1% of their school now realized that half of the students are now below average in this

incredible place, right? They had a success. They showed guarantee levels of happiness and it didn't. When I traveled to 50 countries doing this research, I learned very quickly that the story that I just described had nothing to do with Harvard is how the brain processes the world. That if we think our happiness is based upon the external, the problem is that every time your brain has the success, it changes the goal post of what success looks like. And as soon as that occurs, then what should have created great levels of happiness didn't? So you get a degree, don't get excited yet, you don should have created great levels of happiness didn't?

So you get a degree, don't get excited yet, you don't have a job. You get a job, don't get excited yet, you have to get through inflation or you've got to get that promotion. I think at some point you wake up and recognize, I've been living this, I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when I get the house. I'll be happy when I finally have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a partner. I'll be happy when I lose the pants. I'll be happy when this. have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a partner. I'll be happy when I lose the pants. I'll be happy when this.

And that model doesn't work. And what Tina's asking is, how the hell do I change my mindset? How do I stop trying to find it outside of me? I don't even know how to begin to find it inside of me. In fact, you mentioned that you were depressed, and I was reading an article where you were interviewed, and you said that you were writing in a journal

during this period. And the first entry you wrote was, I don't remember being happy. And I don't think I'll ever be happy again. And now you're like the world's guru of happiness. In that moment though, Sean, you had an experience that I think everybody has at some point. I'm not happy. And I don't think I'll ever be happy again. What's the first thing that you would want somebody to know if that's where you are

right now? I think the very first thing I'd want is actually the recognition, because I kind of wish I had known that earlier. That whole thing we're talking about. You mean the thing about how we move the goalposts once we achieve something and therefore we set up this trap where we're never actually happy? I think you're right. I think we all have that moment where we realize I thought I'd be happy when and then it didn't

work. But then if you ask somebody why they're not happy, they'll tell you about one of their externals, right? I'm not happy right now because I don't have a boyfriend. I'm not happy right now because I don't have a boyfriend. I'm not happy right now because I don't have enough money. So I think the very first step might be acknowledging it. The human brain is designed to foil any attempt that successful guarantee happiness because every time you hit one of those targets, we change what we think would create happiness. That's fascinating that your brain is working against you.

And I want to make sure that you listening really hear this and absorb it. Because if you can understand what you're up against, when it comes to you being able to access the research that Sean's going to teach us all today, understanding that your brain is working against you, I think is a really important step in this, because it's constantly switching up the goal posts, and that's why you never feel happy. That's a terrific realization.

It's sort of like when you train for a marathon, and you think that when you cross a finish line, you're gonna be as happy as you could possibly be. The truth is you're a finish line, you're going to be as happy as you could possibly be. The truth is you're a little relieved. You're proud of yourself, but what I found is that it was training for the marathon that made me happy and that brought me joy. It wasn't achieving that goal. It was actually working toward it.

So when you understand that it's about sort of making progress towards something, where do you start, John? Can you talk to the person listening, particularly if the person listening is unhappy right now in any aspect of their life? What do you want them to do first? So I think the first is a recognition that this isn't working. From there, I think that it requires a mindset shift and a behavioral shift. And the work that I do, I research what we can do to create happiness when the world doesn't look like it should. And I think one important caveat to that is that while I'm talking about what we can do internally,

that doesn't negate the need for external changes. So let's start with the mindset. What is one simple step that somebody who is sitting alone, like Sean on happy Sean, back in the mid 2010s, writing, I don't remember being happy, and I don't think I'll ever be happy again. How the hell do you change your mindset? Because if you keep saying that to yourself,

you're not going to be able to access happiness within. What I've learned in this research is the depression was not the end of the story at all, and that even in the midst of a broken world, in fact, only in the midst of a broken world, have we ever been able to create happiness? So the question is, how do we do so? I think the starting point is realizing

there are multiple realities in this moment. And one of them is, I don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend or I don't have this money or I don't have this job that I want or I'm frustrated about whatever it is. I think when you acknowledge that that's true, you could say that's one reality, but there's also some other realities as well.

Last week I went to the hospital because I was having chest pains. I'm young, yeah. I was in ER and I realized in that moment when they strip you of kind of everything and you know the doctor's gonna knock on the door when the doctor knocked on the door, I was like, this could change my life.

It didn't, I was completely fine, but there is so much negative in this world that I could spend the entire rest of my life focusing upon that and upon my fear. But that doesn't serve me at all. In depression, I just needed a step forward. I felt like I just stopped moving. So I started doing these habits.

And these are the habits that we know work. So before we jump into these habits, Sean, I just want to do some table setting so that everybody listening understands what you're talking about when you say the habits that we know work. I'm very familiar with your work. I'm familiar with all the research that you do. And so I just want to make sure that you listening understand that Sean has spent his entire career researching happiness. And he has distilled it down to four key habits that he coaches people in

professional and personal settings to practice for 21 days. And when he says, these are the habits that we know work, that's what he's talking about. So Sean, why don't you walk through the four habits that everybody should try for 21 days? We get people to write down each day for two minutes, three new things that they're grateful for that have occurred over the past 24 hours. So it's not what you're grateful for the matter is the scanning. We also got people to go on a 15 minute brisk walk four to five times a week, which we found is the equivalent of taking an antidepressant for the first six months for the next two years

as a 30% lower relapse rate back to that depressed state. We find that if you take your hands off your keyboard for two minutes today and just watch your breath go in and out, you're training your brain to do one thing at a time. And 21 days later, not only your accuracy rates improving by 10%, the levels of happiness rise, stress levels drop, and the cortisol levels of the people that are around you change their stress levels are dropping as well. So you're literally changing other people's biochemical patterns based upon your habits. And finally, we've got people to ride a two minute positive email each day praising or thinking one new person, a different

person each day for 21 days in row. So just thanking them for something or praising them for something. But 21 days later, we find that it dramatically improves the greatest predictor of your long-term love of some happiness, which is your social connection score. Boom! That's not just the happiness advantage people. Those are the happiness actions. And I'm telling you, based on the research, the van is right, you got to do it. And what I like about what you're teaching us, Sean, is that through these habits, and you said, a gratitude practice, a journaling practice, exercising every day, taking two minutes to write a note to somebody, these are simple things

that leverage all this research. I always say, Sean, this is not just a listening podcast, this is a fucking doing podcast. So do those things for 21 days, and I think you will be shocked at how the needle moves, or as Sean likes to say, you swing in a new direction. So thank you for explaining what the four habits are

that you've been researching, that you recommend to everybody. And what I'd like to do, Sean, is can we go back in time to that moment in your life when you were depressed? And could you just explain to the person listening, how exactly did a daily gratitude practice help you when you were a depressed 26 year old researcher at Harvard?

Gratitude, for example. In those moments, I need to stop scanning for all the deficits in my life. And I need to use some of those finite resources to scan the world for the things I was grateful for. And it was hard because my brain kept being like, yes, but what about this? But what about this thing you don't have, right? So I literally trained my brain and we trained it exactly like we've seen anything else with the human body is I had to keep doing it, right? Like I can't build a

bisepiphyl only lift a weight once that I'm done, right? I had to do it every day, and I had to create a pattern out of it, even when I wasn't sure it was gonna work, and even when I can see no change in my life, I'd say for the first two weeks, that's not no change in my life. I'm just saying they're writing down things I'm grateful for, and my life still feels terrible. Like, I remember breathing hurt when I was depressed, because like, everything hurt, and everything doesn't seem like it's worthwhile. I think one of the most impressive things about your experience, Sean, is that you actually kept doing it even while your life felt terrible. And just to remind everybody, this was at a moment in your life where here you are as

a graduate student, researching optimism, and yet you're struggling with profound depression. Can you talk to me about what it was like to live in those two realities where you're showing up and faking it in your day-to-day life as a researcher of optimism, and yet deep down, you're struggling with profound depression? I don't get to talk about this much in any of the interviews, so I'd love to talk about this too, because I think you're going deeper than some of the surface questions we normally get.

I think that the habits are what pulled me out of depression. I write my gratitude, I journal, I do exercise, I write a two minute kind note. Almost every day, I'd say 90 plus percent days since my mid 20s. I know that when I don't do those things, it's like when I don't brush my teeth, I give this film in my mouth. That's when I feel like my world looks like

when I don't do those habits. Those habits are the building blocks for creating happiness. What was the turning point for you? The turning point for me in all of this was actually not me. My job was to make sure other people didn't get depressed, so I kept trying to be there for other people. I was supposed to be this paragon of knowing what you were supposed to do in optimism.

And I kept going deeper and deeper in depression because I knew that there was a dissonance between what I was feeling and what I was showing to the world. The turning point for me and what actually got me to try to do those habits was at the bottom of the depression for me, I turned to my eight closest friends and family and told them that I was going through depression. And a couple of these people were sort of my competitors there at Harvard, right, were my peers. And I told them I was going through depression.

And I said, it's genetic. There's nothing you can do. You know, my grandmother, grandparents, and like, it's genetic. I just wanted to tell somebody. But immediately the grounds swall of support was phenomenal. They kept calling me. They emailed me. They met up with me. They won't have brought me cupcakes. But as soon as I did that, everything changed. And the reason for it was actually a study I found way later in my life. It was a study by these two researchers in Virginia, and they found that if you look at a hill, you need to climb up front of you. If you look at that hill by yourself, your brain shows you a picture of a hill that looks 20 to 30% steeper when you're alone compared to that hill that you

look at of the same height while standing next to someone who you're told is going to climb the hill with you. So I said that in a convoluted way. When you're alone, hills actually look 20 to 30% steeper to the visual cortex, which is amazing because I thought we have an objective view of the world, right? That's bad. This is good. This is how it called that mountain is. It was one of those matrix moments where I realized that the world is not objective, it's subjective. Those challenges are clacting and expanding based upon whether or not you think you're

radically alone going through this and trying to get out of this or whether you're with other people. So, as soon as I opened up to other people, that was the turning point because it was to move from happiness as a self-help idea to this recognition that happiness was not an individual sport at all. And suddenly that hill of overcoming depression in front of me dropped by 20 to 30%. And they opened up about things they were dealing with, challenges they were experiencing. And we started creating these meaningful narratives and social bonds. So it was a combination of habits and social connection and a mindset shift that allowed in that moment to break

from this idea that nothing matters and that there's nothing shift that allowed in that moment to break from this idea that nothing matters and that there's nothing that I can do that matters and I have to just wait for the world to change. I have never heard anybody say that happiness is a team sport. You're saying when you prioritize connecting with people in a more meaningful way or even simply to seek some support and help, the result that you feel is more joy and happiness even as you're going through these very difficult times. And I'm starting to really get at a much deeper cellular level what you're saying. We need a different definition for this. It's not pleasure.

It's something else that's way more important. Well, it makes perfect sense. The surgeon general just had that op-ed piece about the epidemic of loneliness. And he talked about his own struggle with it and how the turning point was him admitting, just like you did to his family friends and to a few colleagues that he was really struggling with this and it was there checking in on him and them sharing back

that they felt disconnected from social groups and from themselves as well that really was the turning point. But I love that you added that research because it is true. When you are down and sad and you feel like a sad sack that nobody wants to hang out with, that's the story you tell yourself. And that story then make you keep isolating. And it's when you reach out that you change, and then that provides a little bit of that intrinsic lift that you need. Maybe there is something I can do. Maybe there is hope.

Now, I promise everybody, we are going to get to the uppity up on happiness. But one of the things about happiness, when you talk about as a topic, is you got to go down before you get back up. And we got a lot of questions from listeners who are feeling a little down. So I want to take a quick pause.

Let our sponsors lift you back up because they allow us to bring you all this amazing research at zero cost. And Sean, when we come back, we are going to dig into a few more questions from our listeners and we are going to talk about amplifying happiness as well. Stay with us. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins, and today you and I are getting a master class in happiness research. Sean Acre is in the house, three New York Times best sellers, research at Harvard.

The guy has not only the research, but he's got the tactical takeaways too. We are teeing up your questions about happiness and letting the expert, Mr. Sean Aker, answer them for you. This one is super relatable and it comes from a listener named Charmaine. Since my teen years, I've been asking myself, why am I here? What's my purpose? How do I create happiness within myself? I've made so much

progress. Yet right now I feel lost. I feel like a failure. I feel not good enough. I feel like I'm not a good enough mom to my daughters. I feel selfish. I feel course, and like I'm not living up to my potential. I know I am blessed. And I do a lot of things right. I don't think I'm depressed. I'm not completely unhappy. So what the fuck am I? I'm in some goddamn vortex of Nirvana and Hell.

Sean, what pops out of you? So many things. First of all, when I kept hearing in my head over and over again, it's, this sounds like me. This sounds so human. I think we fluctuate all the time between this. Like I've got things going and then wow, I certainly don't. Like if I have a really productive Monday, I get everything done

and I'm super cleaning the house. Tuesday and Wednesday are terrible. Like I'm exhausted. I don't want to do anything. I feel like I waste every Tuesday and Wednesday whenever I have an amazing Monday. I think that that's because we swing, right? I think that I could be doing better as a dad. I could be doing better as a husband. I could be doing better as a husband. I know that when I work really hard at being a great dad, I know I'm immediately look around at all the people who are doing amazing things at work and I'm like, whoa, I'm so bad.

Then when I do this ton of stuff for work or travel ever, then I'm like, oh, I should be a better dad, right? I swing back and forth between this. And I think what we need are those anchor points in the midst of it. I research this, but you know, I also went to the Divinity School before getting into this. So what motivated my beliefs in why positive psychology mattered came from this belief that the story we tell ourselves and the lens to which we view the world changes how we act in it and where we find our meaning. And I think that those belief systems answer some of those questions about how can I feel loved even when I'm not achieving my highest right or my potential.

Can you just back the truck up for a minute and explain what is a happiness anchor point. You drop all these terms and I think you forget that I do not have a PhD in happiness research, okay? And I wanna know what these tools are. So what is a happiness anchor point, and how do we create them for ourselves? It sounds like the more that we stay true to what we value, the better chance we have to stay happy. But the fact is, it's hard to do that in today's world,

where there's so much in your daily life that's fighting for your attention. I mean, it's so easy to lose any anchor that you may have and just start to drift. That's very difficult because if we get on Instagram and we know exactly who's doing great, based upon likes, right? Where based upon some sort of quantification or money can tell you who's doing great and who's not.

And none of those filled that void. So where those anchor points could come from? I think that they have to come from other people as well. There was a study that came out of Stanford that found that loneliness had nothing to do with actually the number of people within your life. Loneliness was simply the absence of meaning you felt in the relationships with other people and their meaningful impact upon you. That if you weren't doing anything meaningful for other people's lives, then you didn't feel social connection for the people that are around you all the time, right? And vice versa. So if that's the case, if meaning is what's

driving our levels of happiness, my grandmother said it, she's like, if you want a friend, you have to be a friend. And I was like, okay, that's a really simplistic. I also want to go for a friend. Not really, actually. For me. I can't be the girlfriend, right? So I, in that moment, like I, I didn't understand. Now I get it. I think we're searching for meaning. And people search it for in different ways. Religion and philosophy and psychology. I think that a lot of the things that we search for don't work out for us, which is why we get to the point

where she's talking about where we feel this vortex of I've got it. I don't have it. I got it. I don't have it because we're reaching on the things oftentimes, they're loose-ery, while we're grabbing on the things they're true. My mentor, Talbin and Shahar said, you're never as great as you think you are, and you're never as bad as you think you are.

And what I loved about that is that meant that there was a middle path in the midst of it, right? That sometimes when I think I'm a great speaker or whatever it is, then I get humbled very quickly by anything, right? Or if I think that I'm not doing great, then occasionally I'll get an email and say, hey, this was really important to me. That that middle path was actually the one that I wanted to be in. And this is recognition, I am not at my full potential, but that's okay.

And the reason that's okay is because I'm having a meaningful impact upon other people. So that happened that I mentioned of writing a a two minute pause of email praising or thinking someone else. I found that one to be probably the most helpful of any of the things that I've researched, because you can take someone in a socially isolated state with high levels of introversion. And if every day they scan for one new person to write a two minute pause of email to you, they stop on day eight. On day eight, that's when they realize fully that they're not a crazy extrovert with all these friends that they can ride to. They're like, I wrote to everyone my favorite list and my mom twice, that's everyone. And then they scan and they remember, who's that mentor

who got me into this job or who's that high school teacher that seemed to have some answers to some of those questions that that person was just asking? Or my kids first grade teacher who transform my son's life, but I don't talk to him anymore because my kid's in second grade. And you start to see all these people that are in our lives that we're not connecting with. And a two minute email thanking them

or praising them or saying, I've seen how you've been going through breast cancer. And it inspires me that you're able to find happiness in low health when I struggle to find happiness when I seem to have higher health. Right? That those moments that just brief meaningful act using technology for two minutes, we found that if you do it for 21 days in row, your social connection score rises up to the top 15%

of people worldwide. Right? That's including extra. Right? And what we found was that you were lighting up these nodes of meaningful connections on your mental map of social connection. And that, I think if you look at the philosophers, I think if you look at religion, I think if you look at psychology, they keep breaking down this idea that you can achieve happiness alone, that you could

just figure out your thoughts enough. And then you did it. You could just maintain your happiness, that happiness and meaning only come from this interplay with the ecosystem with others around us. I love that. Oh, I just can tell one quick study. It's a beautiful one. So, not about humans.

You probably heard this one. This was also in the New York Times as well. They found all these fireflies, fireflies everywhere light up individually and randomly in the dark. That's how they attract a mate. And their success rate per night per bug is 3%, which I'm told is good. But these researchers found on opposite sides of the globe, these two species, one in Southeast Indonesia, and one in the smoky mountains of Tennessee that you can take buses out to go see. And these fireflies have these neurotransmitters that allow them to all light up and all go dark at the same time,

which is beautiful, but not that smart because we live in a survival of the fittest world. We're told to be the fastest, smartest, brightest light shining, otherwise you'll never be successful. At MIT, they studied these fireflies and they realized we just don't understand how systems work, that when they lit up together, seemingly with their competition, the success rate doesn't drop. The success rate goes from 3% to 82%. Per bug is not like one bug does better. The whole system was doing orders and magnitude better than we thought was possible because

as they lit up together, their light became brighter. And it was attracting more and more potential mates than a single light would have been able to do and create these virtuous cycles. And we kept seeing the same thing when we looked at humans. We found that the greatest predictor of long-term levels of happiness is, you know, the social connection. It's the breadth of the meaning and social relationships. So it's not something you could figure out in your head and then you did it and then you can hold happiness forever. It's about finding a way of lighting up with other

people and getting them to light up as well. What I love about your research is that you're also making it actionable because I think that's part of the problem that when we feel shitty and we say shitty things to ourselves, we don't take the actions that actually change it. I heard one time I was on a plane and the woman sitting in the back. She said, she was talking to somebody else, Lally, that she had just met about all these psychological understanding about herself, like literally a litany of all the psychological problems that she had.

And I realized she said she'd been going to therapy for years. She had this incredible knowledge about herself and understanding where she was. And at no point did she ever mention anything she was doing about it. She was talking to a stranger about it, which was more trauma-dumping than actually trying to move forward. But I think there's this moment where I really thought that if I read enough books, I'd

find happiness. I thought if I read enough books, I'd be smart, and then people would like me. I know that was a completely not sure, right? I love what you're saying there is that there's this interplay between the beliefs and the actions that we do. If you say you believe those, but you're not doing any of those, I'm not sure you actually believe in these things, right? That there's got to be connection between those. And what I would say is, in addition to that, is don't try to do it alone, right? We treat happiness like self-help. Like I know our books are in self-help sections sometimes, right? But as soon as we do this on our own, without that friend, without that mentor, without those people that we're doing meaningful acts for, then we can frustrate very quickly

and think we're doing something wrong. And what's wrong is actually the formula. Like happiness never works out if it's an individual pursuit. You can't do enough yoga to force yourself into happiness unless that yoga caused you to be more peaceful with that interaction with your mother-in-law. Oh, that's what you mean. When you say it's a team sport, it's not that you need other people to be happy.

It's that your happiness and your ability to access joy in your life, that lifts you up, and then that impacts everyone around you. That is so cool. And this is also a very cool moment for us to hit the pause button with Sean and hear a word from our sponsors. I would be happy, happy, happy for you to take a listen to them. And when we come back, Sean's going to tackle a question about how you can remain happy when the people around you and your family are miserable. Stay with us.

Welcome back, I'm Mel Robbins. Today you and I are getting a master class in the research around happiness with none other than Sean Acre. And Sean, I'd want to just jump right in with another question. This one is from Pam. I've heard you're only is happy as your happiest child. And I've got just the one, and he is sure not happy. He lives with his face in his phone and says he doesn't mind being a loner. I know he was happiest many years ago when he had a girlfriend who adored him.

And he was really active. Now he's 26 and should be in the prime of his life, but he isn't. And as a result, I feel deeply unhappy. How do I move past this? And can I help him to do the same? At 62 and four years out from breast cancer treatment, I think it's time to find my warm people and find that happiness.

Thanks. I hear that. I have two kids of my own and so much of my happiness is built upon them and because of them or when they're hurting, I still wish it was me. So I think that that's unavoidable. The fact that there's pain associated with that love should not be the surprising part. We got to hear only a little bit of her story, right? Her story was her son's story mostly, right? Then we heard that she went through breast cancer, like,

I would have loved to hear her story. And yet we're hearing her story as a bit character or as a side narrator of her son's story, which means that our happiness becomes very fragile. They always tell you to diversify your portfolio, right? Don't all be on all stocks and you know, don't be on all bonds, don't be on all one thing, right?

I think the same thing happens with meaning. We see it with people who love their kids. We also see it with workaholics where they love something and it's meaningful. The work is meaningful and pleasurable and they're good at it, right? So then they just do more of it. But the more they do that and they don't do other things, they're good at it, right? So then they just do more of it. But the more they do

that and they don't do other things, they're slowly taking out other meaningful parts of their life so that their entire meaning portfolio is all in one stock. It's all that sun or it all becomes that work. We don't even know what to do with ourselves when we don't have work to do. That's the work of Holic, right? Like they get free time and they're like, what do I do? Maybe I'll just have a few more emails than I'll feel happy again, right? I remember when we first met, you had to make yourself a promise that whenever you want to plane,

you are gonna put your laptop away and you're gonna force yourself to watch a movie. Yeah. Because you were starting to see that you loved work so much. And this was me too, that you hadn't diversified where you got your happiness from.

And so I think about that swinging. And if you never knew the depth of sadness, you wouldn't ever experience the greatest heights of joy. I had that experience watching my husband struggle with depression, and I could throw every book on the planet at him, every podcast episode at him, but I can't do the work form. I can just hold space for that. And I think we have to do that for ourselves.

That on those days that you feel like shit, you've got to hold space and eventually it's going to swing back. But the truth is, like I get very triggered when somebody that I love is sad. And I want to fix it, Sean. How do you show up for others? It's such an interesting question because when we speak to groups of people, you get 300 people in a room plus, you know, statistically, someone's going through grief, maybe 20% are on an anti-depressor anti-anxiety medication. 10% or more have been abused, right? The more

I think about it, the more I become paralyzed as a speaker. Like if I thought about that, I definitely would soft pedal some of the things in the happiness advantage if one of my friends had just lost their son. I would not go immediately to this because I think that there's a moment that, in a long moment, for grief, then we need to allow. And recognition that that's part of love and that's part of being human. At the same time, what's helped me hold that space

that you're describing is that after a talk, someone will come up to me and be like this traumatic event just happened to our kid. And I immediately think my head, why did I say some of these things, right? And they were like, you have no idea how much I need to hear this today. So my beliefs and assumptions about what that person needed to hear were completely wrong. And I give myself space to realize in those moments that I don't have everything figured

out, which is actually really helpful in a way that I think links back to what you were describing. Was exactly what my parents felt about me when I was depressed. Right? My parents have said it to me. They were like, we felt hopeless. We watched you go through depression, we saw you were depressed, and we couldn't do anything, and you were in Boston far away from us. So I could hear them feeling the same thing that that parent felt as well. And that's why I'm a happiness researcher now, because I went through that depression, right? So that moment of suffering that you're describing, what I keep telling parents that, you know,

we'll say my kid is depressed. I say, I was too, and that's not the end of the story, and that's very typical, right? Like that is very normal. I think we panic when we don't feel the happiness we're told we're supposed to feel all the time. You should not feel happy all the time. If you do, that's a disorder, right?

You're divorced from reality. What we want you to do is that when you feel swung towards the negative side and you're doing deficit thinking that we need to spend some of those precious finite resources discanning for the positive parts of the story they're equally true. Or to talk about our story instead of just our son's story. You know, I think that the numbers that you said about an audience are way higher.

And I would push back on you and say that the research and the recommendations that you're making work and that everybody needs to hear them. And if you're in a state of acute grief, then you're not gonna be capable of doing it, but the second that you're grabbing for a lifeline, these simple habits that you're talking about, of simply getting out of bed, exercising,

journaling, practicing gratitude, and then sending a note of kindness, and it might just be to people that help you during the funeral. That gives you a lifeline. That gives you access to the power within you. That helps you come back to yourself. And so I think we make the mistake of tiptoeing around people's depression and people's sadness.

And we treat them with kid gloves when actually what they need is not only the empathy and the support and the check-in, but these guide posts that help you swing back in the direction of feeling happier again. I wanna go to another question that we have. I bet you've got a great answer for Anne Marie. Hi, Mel. This is Anne Marie,

calling from Guildford in the United Kingdom. Absolutely adore listening to your inspirational podcast. Thank you. Can you advise people who perhaps have a chronic illness and can't exercise or work full-time? How they too can lead a happier and more fulfilled life? How do you stay motivated and hopeful and keep joy in your life?

How did you prevent yourself from spiraling and thinking the worst because you're sick so much of the time? Thank you so much and sending all of love. It's very tough and I face that last week when you know my heart wasn't doing well. I actually looked outside the window and there was a security guard outside the hospital and I so much wanted to be him. I wanted his life where he wasn't caring about health. So this question hits home where someone has to think about their health all the time. I used to write in books and when I signed it,

I'd say happiness is a choice, Sean. I don't do that anymore. I have an idea. Yeah, go ahead. What if you wrote happiness happiness is an option. I like that. I have another idea. I want to talk to you listening to us right now.

Yes, you. You know how in the beginning of our conversation, I asked you to pick an area of your life where you wish that you could access more happiness. And I asked you to be selfish and to listen to all of Sean's insight and research and tools through the lens of that particular aspect of your life. I now want to ask you a question. What if happiness was an option for you in that area of your

life? You know that relationship in your family that makes your miserable? What if happiness was an option? What if a career where you felt more joy was an option? What if you being happy with the habits or the morning routine that you have is an option? That just opens up a whole new level of creativity and freedom, doesn't it? Because when it's an option, it means that there are multiple ways that you can attack it, right? It means that you can think about it differently. It means that you're not stuck where you are. Sean, what do you think about that approach? Happiness is an option. I like that because choice seems to add a burden where I don't want there to be a burden,

but a recognition that it's an option. I love that. I might use that now. That's great. When we can't do something, we're outlining something that's a deficit. I can't exercise. But we know that most of these habits don't involve exercise. So there are things that we can do in those moments that can raise levels of happiness. I think the choice is just harder. I think the choice is harder when you're being racially discriminated against or when you have a health issue or when your kid is depressed. I think the choice becomes harder within those moments, but still as an option as you're

describing. And where I think we get meaning, even when our own body becomes our prison, is from other people. Now, when you say meaning comes from other people, I want to be very clear, everybody, because we are also saying you have to stop thinking you'll be happy when you get in the relationship or lose the pounds or you'll finish the PhD or you have your first song playing on the radio, I'll be happy when or thinking that some achievement is going to make your life fulfilling. No. What becomes fulfilling in life is working on this thing, climbing the mountain. So I want to be very clear that Sean is not saying

that other people are the source of your happiness. What Sean is saying is that meaningful connection with other people creates feelings of meaning and joy and happiness in your life and that serving others and helping other people creates meaning and joy. Am I saying that correctly Sean? Yeah, we were working in Flint, Michigan in the midst of inequality and discrimination and racism. So we were trying to raise levels of happiness for the teachers so they'd stayed for more than two years. What we found while we were doing this is that only in the classrooms where we were able to raise the levels of happiness for the teachers, the teachers, students, parents, or guardians while being scores started improving dramatically.

We're only working with the teachers. And yet, the students test scores and those classrooms were rising. We were finding that if you could change the mindset and behavior of some of the individuals within an ecosystem, you could actually measure the impact of people, two, three, four degrees separate that they never even met.

And the reason I highlight that is one that makes us feel good about ourselves, but two is the reason for taking that next step. If doing this gratitude journal is just about me, it feels empty and vacuous, right? What we're finding in the midst of this is that when people were able to raise their levels of happiness, joy and meaning, it caused other people to see that happiness was an option. But there was a study that came out about is better to live a meaningful life than a happy life. As soon as you split meaning and happiness, we've already made a mistake.

Yeah, isn't it the same thing? Yes, they should be because it's very difficult to stay happy when you feel like your life is meaningless. And it's very difficult to keep doing meaningful activities. If you don't feel any joy doing that or any return on it. Let people be part of your life as well. That's when we start to see those larger gains and people's levels of happiness. Sean, I'm just processing everything that we've already covered. And I know there is so much more that you can teach us. But can I just take a second and make sure that I can synthesize everything that we've covered so far so that nobody misses out because so

far this has been jam packed with takeaways and insights. So first, if you're unhappy, you're not playing a big enough game in life. You're too focused on your own misery, you're too focused on yourself, and gratitude is one way to make you see the bigger picture. All of these things are about getting out of your own teeny, tiny, selfish, miserable focus and expanding your eyes to see that there's a lot more about your life experience and about what is your potential that's available to you when you stop staring at your navel and complaining about everything that's going on. I could just listen to you forever because I feel like you're able to synthesize this

in such a beautiful way and you can hear it from the people who call in and even though they're suffering, you're doing something so meaningful in their life. We get so focused upon whether or not a glass is half full or half empty. And then we decide our happiness based upon that, right? Optimism or pessimism. But I've always had this idea, like this picture in my head, of we're so focused on this glass being half full or half empty, but ignoring that there's a picture of water sitting right next to it that we could fill it up with. When we do these habits and when we care for and let other people in, we're filling up that glass and that glass does not look like it did the day before. Yeah, that's great. I always like to say that it's not about the water that's in the glass. It's about the fact that you have a glass.

You can dump the water out. You can fill it back up. You are the glass. And all the tools that you're giving us today, whether it's a different way to think about happiness, whether it's a new definition, that includes both moments and moving toward growth and how you can incorporate joy,

whether it's the four habits that you walked us through. Those are all ways, you guys, that you can empty the glass or you can fill it with more experiences of joy, which lift you up. And then that impacts everything about your life. But if you had to bottom line it, especially if you're talking to a listener who's like, I'm the glass male, there's a picture next to me, Sean, what the hell are you guys talking about?

Can you just bottom line what somebody should do right now to tap into this concept of happiness and joy? Except where you are right now, but we realized that this is not the end of the story. So I believe the change is radically possible from our genes and environment when we change our mindset and change our behavior and we link in with other people as well. I feel like I'm going to be thinking about this interview

for a long time. You've just got this depth that makes it just beautiful. So I learned a lot from this. I learned a lot from this too, Sean. And I'm going to be thinking about this for a long time too. And more importantly, everybody listening, I hope you're not only thinking about what you learned today. I hope you put it into action. Because as you know, this is not just the listening podcast, the Mel Robbins podcast is a doing podcast, and there's one thing I want to do before I say goodbye. I want to make sure to tell you that I love you, I believe in you and I believe in your ability to push a door wide open to a happier you

because happiness is an option. So take it, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Okay, am I okay, Jesse to go? Yeah, okay. Ooh, I guess I'm not happy about that.

There's something in my throat. Okay, wow, that is a big truck going by. You know what? I'm not happy that the truck is going by. But I feel a lot of joy in my heart because we're making progress on this. And you can feel, oh my god, okay, I have to take this off because I've been harassing her. There is the truck again. My god. Leave it to Mel to schedule podcast tapings on a construction day. We're going to do something a little different today. And I don't know

if we've told you this or not, because I like to invite you onto the podcast and then completely surprise you by what we're doing. So you feel very uncomfortable just kidding. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. legal language. You know what the lawyer's right and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪