The One You Feed - How to Unleash the Power of Happiness and Success with Emma Seppala

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Emma Seppala reveals how to unleash the power of happiness and success that leads to overall well-being. She explains how to apply the proven science behind the transformation that leads to new levels of success, fulfillment, and contentment. In the episode, you'll be able to: Discover how managing energy, not time, can exponentially boost your productivity Realize the extraordinary effectiveness of breathwork in enhancing emotional resilience Challenge the traditional success notions to make happiness your ultimate job satisfaction indicator Appreciate the key role compassion plays in fostering healthy relationships Question societal norms to redefine success for a more fulfilling life To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In case you're just recently joining us, or however long you've been a listener of the show, you may not realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Emma Seppala. Our stress response is only meant to be for fight or flight, not all day constantly. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Emma Seppala,

science director at Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. She is also the author of The Happiness Track. Emma is co-director of the Yale College Emotional Intelligence Project. She consults with Fortune 500 leaders and employees on building a positive organization and teaches at the Yale School of Management's Executive Education Program. She graduated from Yale, Columbia, and Stanford. Hi, Emma. Welcome to the show. Thanks. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to have you on. You've written a new book called The Happiness Track,

and we'll talk about that shortly. But I'd like to start like we usually do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, usually do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

I definitely agree that the one you feed is stronger in the sense that the people you surround yourself with, the values of the people around you, the values you've learned, and also the attention you put towards fostering traits like compassion, kindness in yourself. At the same time, I also think that we're naturally kind and compassionate. That's our natural instinct. It's just that it gets overshadowed sometimes. It's not just about cultivating those qualities because you see them naturally in children and we know that from research we see that children naturally act altruistically and that adults do too actually when you don't give them a lot of time to think they are more likely to do the kind act the fair act so i just think certain things do push us towards acting according

to the more negative wolf and that those things are things like stress. I think when we're under a lot of stress, we don't necessarily have the bandwidth within ourselves to act according to our best self. Sometimes people act in a way that's, quote, evil because they're a little ignorant of all of the facts. They have a skewed vision, perhaps. But I think that at our core, we're good. And I think the research also points to that when we look at it. Yeah, nothing like some stress to bring out those more challenging behaviors. I think it's easy to be good when things are going good. It's when things get challenging that it becomes harder. Yes. And that's where activities like meditation or, you know, activities that really foster calmness and contemplation and well-being within you, like even taking walks in nature and taking time to unplug and slow down, they can really help to reset your nervous system so that you act according to your best self, that natural tendency we all have.

Your book is called The Happiness Track and the subtitle is How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. So you're not writing this just from a here's how to be happy perspective, but also from a perspective of in order to be successful, it sure helps to be happy. Can you talk about that connection for a minute? Well, I'll start with a story of one of the Stanford undergraduates that participated in a class on the science of happiness that my colleague and I founded a number of years ago. And the student said she had to drop out of the class. And when my fellow colleague instructor asked, well, why? The student said, because it goes against everything I've ever learned. My parents told me I have to be very successful. And when I asked them how to be very successful, they said, you have to work very, very hard.

And when I asked them, how do I know when I'm working hard enough? They said, when you're suffering and can seem like a shocking story, but really it's, it's something that is all around us. That theory is there. We have a sense that no pain, no gain. If you don't work yourself into the ground, you're just not going to compete as well. You're not going to come out first. You're not going to do better than others, etc.

But if you look at the data, if you look at the research, we have it all wrong. This is a false theory. And that's why we're seeing 50% burnout across industries. We're seeing that 75% of the American workforce is disengaged at work. We're seeing that 80% of doctor's visits are attributed to stress. There's something going on. There's a pain point that we all feel, that we've all seen, if not in ourselves and in people around us, that this theory of success, the idea that in order to be successful, you

have to postpone or sacrifice your happiness is simply false. It's not working. At least you can see it's not working. And so when I looked at the data, I saw again and again that if you actually do things to take care of yourself and the people around you, you actually are more creative, more productive. You're more focused, more charismatic and more successful in the long run, more innovative in your thinking, more influential. The list goes on. So it was from seeing this pain point in the people around me, very successful environments like Silicon Valley, Yale University, Manhattan, different places where I worked. And so I wrote this book because I saw this pain point and I wanted to show people the data that there's another way and it's a better way and you're not going to burn out and you're going to do better.

Yeah, you talk about six major false theories that are behind our current notions of success. So the things that we think are important to be successful, you're saying that a lot of these things aren't true. Maybe we could talk about what a couple of those are. Sure. Well, one of them, I think an obvious one is the idea that you can't have success without stress. People just buy into that. And it's so interesting because you see, we fuel ourselves with stress. We overschedule ourselves. We wait till the last minute to get things done. We fuel up with caffeine, our energy drinks. We have bought into this idea that the only way we can be productive is thanks to adrenaline coursing through our veins. And then we wonder why we're so exhausted

by 2 p.m., why we fall on the couch when we get home after work, why we don't have energy, why we have sleep problems. And it's because we're constantly tapping into this fight or flight system. And you know, it's nothing new, this idea that stress is bad for you. But we have still bought into the fact that we need it somehow we've become kind of addicted to adrenaline. But the problem is, that's why we're burning out. That's why we're seeing such high burnout levels. If you look in the animal world, we're only supposed to feel stress a few minutes in our life. Those are the words of a psychologist at Stanford who wrote a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. But the idea is that our stress

response is only meant to be for fight or flight, not all day constantly. And so when we constantly fuel ourselves up like that, we are burning through all of our systems. We're burning through our immune system. We're burning through so many things in our body. We're using up so much energy. And then we wonder why we don't have energy. And then we just keep fueling up. The problem comes is that when we're constantly in this high adrenaline mode, we're also not able to focus. We lose our ability to make good decisions. Our emotional intelligence drops. We're not able to communicate as easily with other people. We're not able to communicate as easily with other people. We're not able to take a broader perspective when it's needed. And our

immune system is compromised. We've all experienced this and there's plenty of data on that too. So we really need to rethink this idea. But if you actually take time to do things like meditation or whatever it is that calms you down, and if you actually make time for that in your life, you'll see that your attention is broader, your memory improves, you're able to connect better with other people. You're actually more powerful. If you think about who's more powerful when they arrive at a negotiation table, for example, the person who's super anxious, a negotiation table or job interview or first date, you name it. The person who's really anxious and really wants the job or the negotiation outcome, whatever it is, or the other person who's really calm, who's really centered, who could just walk away and be just fine. Clearly, it's the calm one. And yet calmness has somehow is not a, quote, sexy feeling.

We're always talking about I'm so excited to see you. We don't say I'm so calm to see you. We don't say, I'm so calm to see you. So in the United States in particular, we value high intensity, high intensity stress, high intensity excitement. So we know that also from data. When we think of happiness, we think of high intensity emotions like excitement and thrill. And that's all fine and good. But what we're buying into is a life of high intensity all the time.

And then we're wondering why we're exhausted. Also wondering why there's such high anxiety levels when we're constantly doing it to ourselves in some ways. That's why things like meditation, yoga, spending more time in nature, unplugging in the evenings, unplugging on the weekends, allowing yourself to have a little technology detox when you don't absolutely need to be on your various instruments of communication. So that's just one of the theories. Another theory is this idea that we have to be so focused on our niche all the time, so focused on our field. I need to be number one in my field. I need to know everything in order to be innovative, in order to be creative. So the number one attribute that CEOs look for in

the incoming workforce is creativity above everything else, above integrity, above work ethic, everything. And it makes sense if you think about it, because creativity and innovative thinking is so needed in any field that you're in to excel and to get ahead. And so the mistake that we make is that we are constantly so focused on our field, so focused on learning, and we are always thinking about the next thing on our to-do list. But as a consequence, we actually prevent ourselves from getting into a creative mindset. So if you look at the data, our brain is most likely to come up with a breakthrough solution when we're idle, when we're in the shower or in that moment right

before sleep, or when we're maybe in the car, just zoning out, listening to music. And there's a reason for that. When we're in an idle situation, our brain is actually in active problem solving mode. So you'll probably notice that you'll find the solution to something you've been pondering on forever in a moment you least expect it. The idea is that you need to take time off. You need to take time to be idle. And if you think about it, you could go all day long, never ever accessing that creative mindset because people roll over in bed and check their email. And then if you wait in line, people are checking their emails. All those moments when you used to wait for the bus and just space out or daydream are spent on our devices. And then when we're at

work, we're constantly focused and learning and so forth, which is great, but creativity actually needs you to take that time off. So, you know, even if it's in the name of productivity, take some time off, which we also know is so good for your engagement. When you get back to work, we know from research that when you take time off of work, when you're in the evenings on the weekends and so forth, you come back much more engaged. You come back much more energized. So it's a great way to manage your energy too. And something again that we've forgotten. Does meditating feel like a chore, another to-do list item to check off, or perhaps it's even fallen off the list entirely? If you sense that meditating regularly would benefit you,

but you struggle to find a sustainable place for it in your schedule, I can help. There are reasons people struggle with creating and maintaining a meditation practice, and it isn't because meditation isn't right for them. In my free guide, The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Seem to Stick with a Meditation Practice and How to Build One That Lasts, I teach you why it can be a struggle to build a meditation practice that lasts and the small fixes that can have a big impact when it comes to getting you where you want to be with meditating regularly. Go to OneYouFeed.net and sign up for this free guide right on our homepage. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us tonight. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, Really.

No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You talk in the book a lot about managing your energy. So not managing your time, but managing your energy. Share a

little bit more about what that means and then maybe talk some about how we can manage our energy better. Yeah. So one of the ways, you know, what I just discussed is that slowing down that adrenaline rush or curbing it in some way, you know, it's fine to have a coffee or if you're the kind of person who likes to be last minute to get things done because that motivates you, that's fine. But just watch how much are you fueling your life with adrenaline because that's burning through your battery at high speed. One thing that you might want to do, and that also brings out the greatest creativity is to alternate high and low intensity tasks in your day. For example, if you have a presentation to prepare, that's a high intensity focused, concentrated day. For example, if you have a presentation to prepare,

that's a high intensity focused concentrated work. Do that for the first hour at work. But the second hour, do the things that allow you to mind wander, to be less focused and less intensely focused. Clean out your desk, enter data, something less intense, and then you can go back to an intense activity. So kind of sandwiching high and low intensity activities like that can not only help you restore your energy and manage your energy but also will help you be more creative because in those tasks that demand less focus you're able to mind wander which actually leads to those creative moments and research shows that when you go back to your high intensity activity let's say you go back to that presentation and keep refining it you're going to be more focused. So that's one way. The other way,

obviously, like I said earlier, is managing that, how much adrenaline, how much caffeine, how much speed you live with in your life. And finally, meditation is huge. I mean, at this point, everybody meditates at this point. Everybody has heard of it, at least. It's so simple, and yet it's so powerful. We live in a time and age when we're taking in more information than ever before. So a 2009 study showed that we take in 35,000 gigabytes of information every week, which is enough to crash a computer in a couple of weeks. That was 35,000 gigabytes of information a day. But that was in 2009. The iPhone had barely come out. I don't even want to know what it is at this point. But we are in a deluge of information.

And then we're wondering why our thoughts are racing, why we're feeling stressed, why we're feeling overwhelmed. We've come to a point where we absolutely have to unplug in order to create some balance. Our ancestors, even our grandparents, even our parents did not consume this much information. And we haven't yet found a balance. It's happened so fast. So I think that's why a lot of people are finding this kind of revolutionary act of sitting and doing nothing, which is so revolutionary in our culture where we are such doers. Just for a few minutes is actually balancing us out. And there's so much research at this point showing the very, very many, many benefits. You also talk about resilience and you talk about

how animals and children have a lot of natural resilience. And yet as adults, we don't show that in the same way. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Well, we can see in children and in animals, when they get upset or when they get stressed, they're over it in a couple of minutes. As soon as the stressor is gone, they've moved on and they're doing just fine. And you'll notice that kids have a lot of energy and the animals go right back to being very peaceful after they've been at the vet or they've been chased in the wild. And the reason for that is that after being in fight or flight mode, our body immediately goes back to a parasympathetic mode from sympathetic to parasympathetic,

which means from fight or flight to rest and digest to that mode in which the body can repair itself, restore all of the resources it's lost during the fight or flight moment so that it can be strong and resilient in the face of another stressor. And that's why it's so important for us to make that time in our life when we can go into that parasympathetic calming state, which again, in our culture, we don't value, but it's so essential to manage our energy that way. And so that's really critical. And a very important way that you can do that is actually through your breath. And that sounds so simplistic, but it's not at all. It is so powerful. I've done research with some of the most

stressed individuals in our society, which are veterans returning from combat with trauma. Their nervous system has sometimes been turned into fight or flight mode and somehow hasn't been able to shut off again. It seems like that's what trauma can sometimes do to someone. shut off again. It seems like that's what trauma can sometimes do to someone. They have trouble sleeping. They're always anxious. They're extremely jumpy in very normal, non-dangerous situations. They can't function normally. Their cognitive skills decline because their body is so taxed. Their mind is so taxed from whatever experience it was that led to the trauma. And that doesn't allow them to live in the present moment and to move on with their lives. In one week of doing some breathing exercises with them through a nonprofit called Project Welcome Home Troops and learning a yoga-based breathing exercise

called Sudarshan Kriya Yoga Sky Breathing, they were able to come back to themselves. They were able to sleep again. Their anxiety normalized and they've moved on with their lives. I've been invited to officiate their weddings. They have relationships, jobs. They finished school. It's amazing. They've just moved on. And how is it that something so simple as the breath can reset our nervous system?

If it can do it for them, it can do it for any of us. It is so powerful. So we know that from experience, but also we know that from research that when we have different emotions our breathing changes for example anxiety is short and shallow anger is short and shallow sobbing laughing those are all examples of how emotions are tied to breathing you come home you're exhausted it's been a long day you plop down on the sofa and you sigh our breath changes with our feelings but the most interesting part is,

is that when you change your breath, you can change your feelings. And there's a really interesting research study that shows that too. So just with your breath, you can change the state of your mind. And this is very powerful because think about it. When we're having a strong emotion, it's really, really hard to control our emotions with our thoughts. Yet, that's what people are always telling us. They're like, oh, calm down when you're feeling not calm. I mean, is that helpful when people say that? Or when we try to say that to ourselves, like, oh, don't freak out. Or when we're trying to go to sleep and we're saying, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep. It doesn't work. And we know from research too, that what you resist persists in the mind. But with breathing, you can change

how you feel. And that's, to me, revolutionary. Because when you have peace of mind, when you have presence of mind, you have everything. So do you want me to share a story with you about how powerful breathing is? Sure. And then maybe you could share a little bit about how to do some of this breathing, like what people could do now, an exercise they can use. And I'm always interested in like, how long do you need to do the breathing exercise for? And so maybe you can just share some of that also. Sure. So I'll share the story of a friend of ours who was an officer in the Marine Corps, and he was in charge of the last vehicle on a convoy going across Afghanistan. And every other vehicle passed safely. But his unfortunately hit an IED, an improvised explosive device.

In that moment, there was a huge explosion. And when he looked down, his legs were mostly severed below the knee. And at that moment of shock, he remembered a breathing exercise. And it was a breathing exercise he learned about in a book for officers for very difficult moments. And that breathing exercise involved breathing in for a count of four, holding for a count of four, breathing out for a count of four, and then holding for a count of four. And thanks to the presence of mind that he had from that breathing, he was able to do his duty, which was first to check on his men, second, to give orders to call for help. And third, he looked down at his legs. He tourniqueted them himself.

He propped them up. And only then, when everything was said and done, when everything was taken care of, did he fall unconscious. And later he was told, had he not done that, he would have either bled to death or fallen into a coma. led to death or fallen into a coma. That story, I think, is such a powerful reminder to all of us that the breath is so incredibly important when it comes to presence of mind. It could even save a life. So I wanted to share that with you. And why is it that breathing is so powerful? Well, we know that when we inhale, our heart rate increases. And when we exhale, our heart rate decreases. We know that our breath and our emotions are tightly linked. So just lengthening your exhales can also really start to slow things

down for you. So you're in a meeting, you're driving, you're feeling anxious, you're feeling angry, you're tired, whatever it is, you can actually change how you feel through your breath. Lengthening your exhales is going to calm down your heart rate. The sky breathing that veterans learned that really helped them get over the trauma is it takes a few days to learn. It takes about three or four days to learn. So that is its 20-minute practice. It's also very, very powerful. And that's something that people can learn.

If they're veterans, they can learn it through Project Welcome Home Troops. And if they're just regular community members, they can learn it through an organization called Art of Living. you described the four seconds in hold four seconds four seconds out hold four seconds i've heard all kinds of variations on that seven seconds in obviously you could just do it any moment but do you find that doing it for a set amount of time leads to benefits do you have any sort of like regular practice of it in the same way that people have like a meditation practice? Yes. I personally do this guy breathing every single day. It's a 20 minute practice. If you want to learn like a shorter one, this is funny because it's one I described in my book and I never realized that my book agent really took that chapter to heart and he started practicing

this breathing that I'm about to describe. And he's kind of a type A New Yorker. And he was saying, Oh, Emma, I've been doing that breathing from chapter two and I'm feeling really good. And I'm breathing at first. I started with five minutes. Now I'm being 10, I'm being 15 and he's really feeling a difference. So that was really funny and great news too. So, you know, that was a very simple breathing technique where I just said, breathe in for a count of four, breathe out for a count of eight. So you're, you're basically breathing out for twice as long as you're breathing in. And just doing that for a couple of minutes to start your day would be terrific, but really it's something you can do at any point. I mean, I like to meditate or do breathing exercise anytime during the day when I'm feeling my

energy dip a little bit. And I find it's such a healthier way to restore my energy and my peace of mind and my concentration and focus than any other substitute, such as a substance of sorts, which again, leads to crashes. I really think of the analogy of plugging in my phone to fill up my battery. There are no side effects, but you do feel much better. You're more focused. You're just more on top of your game. You talk about another false theory of success. And you say that it's, you know, look out for number one, you know, that we should look out primarily for ourselves. And then you go on to talk about a skill that you can develop that helps you to be happier and more successful is show compassion to others. What is the value of compassion in becoming more successful?

I think a lot of people listening to the show go, well, it's obvious what the value of compassion is. But outside of that, in more of a driving a successful career type way, where does that play in? Well, we have this false view that in order to be successful, you have to look out for number one and elbow people out of the way. But if you look at the data again and again, it's those people who are kind, those people who support others, those people who have good positive relationships with other people who uplift others. Those are the people that get promoted. Those are the people that you want as colleagues. Those are the people you offer a job to. And so I'm not saying to be a doormat, no way you've got to have skill. But the idea is that if you are a kinder, more supportive, more giving person, you are

the kind of person that everyone else wants to support as well, that everyone else wants on their team, that everyone else wants as a manager, as an employee, and so forth. It makes sense when you think about it, but the data is showing that too. And so this is a really old paradigm, the lookout for number one, and it really needs to move on because when you are a kinder, more compassionate person, you actually benefit tremendously. Your happiness increases, your physical health increases, and you even live longer. There's so much data to show that people who are kinder, who have very altruistic traits actually are healthier and live longer or happier and live lives filled with meaning and purpose, which is so fulfilling in a very deep way that other forms of happiness or joy may not bring.

Do you think that as our culture is changing, that this idea of being more compassionate and kind at work is more effective than maybe it would have been 30 or 50 years ago? Absolutely. There's a trend towards this. So workplaces are bringing mindfulness in, but the next trend is compassion. And we're seeing that there's a lot of interest in compassion trainings. And managers are starting to understand that their employees are going to be more loyal to them. And there's research on that. Employees prefer to work for a boss where they're happy and where they have good, positive

relationships than another workplace where they get paid more. So we're always thinking, let's entice our employees with more material perks. But more than anything, people want to be happy at their workplace. And that makes sense. If you think of the number of hours they spend there, they spend most of their week there. What are some compassion practices that people are being trained in? I recommend loving kindness meditation as a place to start. I have a YouTube loving kindness meditation up from the research study that we did. I just put it up because people kept asking about the practice that we researched and now it seems to be quite popular. I also have a downloadable one off my website. If people prefer to have it on their iPhone, then that's

at no charge. And we'll have a link to both those things in the show notes at one you feed.net slash Emma. So people can link right to those things as well as your Twitter and other accounts. Sure. Well, I think compassion is a great place to wrap up the conversation. Thanks so much, Emma, for taking the time to come on. Thank you for the work that you do. And it's been nice talking with you. Eric, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for focusing on these positive aspects of human behavior and the human heart. And it's just so important for us to remember that and to focus on that. Excellent. Well, thank you. Take care. You too. Bye. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast.

When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community. Go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like Why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor? What in the museum of failure and does your dog truly love you we have the answer go to really know really.com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign jason bobblehead the really know really podcast follow us on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts