The Science of Happiness, Love & Human Connection with Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky #683

27:26Of course, she's a colleague. And I love, I love. I thought her book was great when I read it. Yeah. Yeah, I read it to a while ago. But the idea of the we and the me cultures, it's a beautiful way also to describe them. But I can imagine the people in the me cultures listening to you and saying, oh, but I care about family too. And yet, how many of us actually decided to live in the town where our parents are? Like, very few. But yeah, the connection. And of course, you can find connection in many different ways. And yet, it is at the heart. It really is the key to happiness. Again, it sounds like a cliche, but feeling connected.

28:02And some people will say, well, I'm connected to my religion or I'm connected to my pets, actually, you know, or my child. You know, it could be you can find that connection in many different ways. So it doesn't have to be living in the same town as your parents. It could be something very different. For sure. But it is at the heart, which is why like the AI explosion is sort of changing a lot of things. and people are even feeling connected to chatbots because it's so human. It's such at the heart of what we need as humans. Yeah, I love this idea that you've been studying happiness interventions like gratitude and acts of kindness.

28:42And I've read many of these studies which have shown that these things are really good for our levels of happiness, right? And they're simple. Gratitude, acts of kindness, they're not difficult to do. But I like the fact that if you look at them in a sort of 30 ,000 foot view, all of them are helping us feel more connected. And that's a really beautiful sentiment and a very powerful one. And I think that kind of leads on to this latest book that you've written with your co-author, Harry Rice. You know, is it Harry Rice? Harry Reese. Harry Reese, How to Feel Loved. Can you kind of explain to us the origin story?

29:21How did you get to this book from years of studying happiness? Well, again, it started in 1998, right? When we started doing these happiness interventions. And then again, a number of years ago where I realized it's really all about feeling connected and loved. And then I've known Harry for a long time. He's a preeminent relationship scientist. I'm a happiness scientist. He's a relationship scientist. And we just sort of started talking about like, what is the key to happiness? And he agreed, you know, really the key to happiness. He's like, happy people feel loved and people who are unhappy don't feel loved.

29:56And so it took us five years to get there. We started, we were sending our book proposal to our agent for five years. And it just wasn't quite there, wasn't quite there, wasn't quite there. And finally, just sort of all came together. And we sort of came up with this idea of sort of five mindsets to bring, to embrace, if you want to feel loved, if you want other people in your life to feel loved. and yeah so it took a long time really seven years total and here we are here we are yeah yeah I mean right at the start of the book you guys explained the origin story yeah and I think I've written it down so I think this is what Harry actually said to you I know people who are happy and people who are unhappy and I could tell you the main difference between them happy people feel loved and I sat with it I thought about this Sonia and I was thinking okay happy people feel loved the wording is really quite precise right because it's like yeah we all want to be loved we all know that it's nice to love other people and and experience love from others but feeling loved by others is something a little bit different can you kind of explain the difference yeah because We can be loved and not feel loved.

31:15It's a little bit like a person who can be lonely when they're surrounded by other people. It's a little bit like we all know people who are beautiful, but they don't feel beautiful, right? We know people who are smart and they don't think they're smart. And there are people who are loved but don't feel loved. For some reason, that love is pouring on them and it's not getting inside of them. One way I like to think of it is like there's a cup of love. This is my cup of love. And you're pouring love to me. You're expressing it. But maybe there's a leak on the bottom and it's sort of leaking out.

31:48Or maybe there's sort of a lid and it's not quite getting in. So lots of reasons why that might happen. But I think the important point is that really it's feeling love that's critical to happiness, not being loved. Yeah. So I think back now to a conversation I had with Bronnie Ware a few years ago. She wrote the book Five Regrets of Dying, right? And Bronnie and I had this most gorgeous conversation. And one of the regrets that she found that people had on their deathbed is that I wish I'd spent more time essentially with friends and family, basically on my relationships, right? I wish I'd worked so hard.

32:27I wish I'd spent more time on these relationships in essence. And I guess that in some ways speak to this idea, right? It's this idea of love. I wish I'd spent more time on love had I spent enough time on love maybe I wouldn't have a regret on my deathbed but then I think we need to broaden out what we mean by love because I would say in the culture here in the UK love is usually associated with I guess romantic partnerships or maybe you can love your family you can love your children but we wouldn't typically like a guy in this culture here and i but this came up on a podcast a few years ago with a guy called nal arthur nike when he challenged me to say to my male friends i love you right and i thought initially i was like man you're kidding me like if i said that to them because it's not what we do so what what is um you know how do you think about the word love oh i'd love to challenge you the same thing so well please yeah let's go any direction you want I think the U.S.

33:35is similar. Maybe U.K. is a little bit more extreme on this dimension. But, yeah, again, most people, when they think of love, they think of romantic love or family love. This book is much more broad. We use love in a broad way. You could love—of course, we love our friends. We can love our neighbors. We can even love colleagues. I think love should be brought to the workplace as well. You know, I tell my friends all the time that I love them. I have male friends who will tell each other that they love each other. It's so beautiful. I think we could change that norm. I think it would be beautiful to change that social norm.

34:12But it's so funny, my kids will be confused because I'll be on the phone and I'll say, oh, I love you so much. Oh, yeah, I love you so much. And they're like, who are you talking to? And I'll say, oh, I was talking to my friend X. Is that because your kids have grown up in America So they have a different perception of what love means to you. Well, I think they are a little bit like what you're describing, that they, like most people - They reserve love. Yeah. You must be talking to a romantic partner or another child or your parent. I mean, I think hopefully they're learning from me. But anyway, I would say, why not bring love into other places, other spaces?

34:52Why is that important? Because it's the key to happiness. Yes. And I think expressing it, it's just so beautiful. Like if actually, if your friends start telling you they love you, I bet maybe at first it'll be a little weird or uncomfortable, but it would make you so happy. It makes me so happy when my friends and I share, you know, share, express love for each other. You just said it's the key to happiness. So therefore, I have to ask the question, right? How many years now is it since you've been studying happiness? 36 years. Okay. Okay. 36 years, you're arguably one of the world's leading researchers on this topic, right?

35:26And you've just said that love is the key to happiness. Well, let me rephrase it. Feeling loved is the key to happiness. So after all these decades of research, you think it can be made that simple? Yeah. And that's why it sounds like a cliche, because it sounds so simple, that after all these decades, I've learned that feeling loved is the key to happiness. so maybe if we back up and think about the things we discussed before let's say money for example maybe the people who when they get more money are actually they feel happy maybe they feel happier maybe it's because they're feeling love right i i find that fascinating it's not so does that mean we can cognitively know that yeah you know what i'm love my parents love me my partner loves me, but maybe they're not expressing it.

36:21Maybe I'm not open to receiving it. And if I don't feel it, then it doesn't have the same effect. Of course, it's almost like it's not there if you don't feel it. But getting back to the three buckets that contribute to happiness, connection, contribution, and personal growth, you can interpret all of them as being about feeling loved, right? So if I spend my money on my friends and family, then that'll make me feel more loved. If I spend my money on helping others that'll make them and me feel more loved. And even personal growth, that's the one that's maybe a little bit different, but you could think about loving myself more.

36:55You know, when I'm, if we define it really broadly, it could include self-love as well. So when I'm learning and growing, that will build my sense of sort of self-compassion and self-love for myself. I've never actually put out this idea. So thank you for inspiring it. yeah yeah okay well let's get to this new book then which is a a very thought-provoking read right so it's all about how do we feel loved and i i can't imagine you would go to anyone on the street and say would you like to feel more love i can't imagine anyone's going to say no to that you know it's a nice feeling to feel loved right right right so how do we go about our lives feeling more love?

37:41Well, first of all, I just had a thought. For some reason, I have had several friends in Europe who went to bookstores to buy this book, and they all reported the same thing, which is that the bookseller kind of looked at them with sadness, kind of like felt sorry for them because they thought they don't feel loved. They're like, which is so funny. Yeah, I never thought of that. Which is so funny. So when you were telling the barista story, I actually thought you might say she was like feeling a little sorry for you that you're reading a book about feeling about how to feel more loved, right? Because it suggests that you don't feel loved.

38:12But anyway, so the key to feeling loved is being known. So if you show love towards me, but you don't really know me, I'll always wonder, would he love me if he knew me? If he really knew who I am on the inside. So feeling known on the inside is really critical. And it's interesting actually, because that brings us sort of the importance of authenticity and showing kind of like your fuller self or maybe your true self. I'm not sure if there is really such a thing as a true self. You know, one of Ronnie Ware's, one of the other regrets that she writes about in the five top regrets of the dying, which is in the book.

38:47And I think it's the one that says something like, I wish I had lived the life that I wanted to live, not the life that was expected of me. Totally. I think she says that's her most powerful one. I wish I lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me. I think that might even be the top one. Yeah, I think it was. And it's in here, I think because it's really about being your true sort of authentic self and showing that to others and how important that is. And if you don't really know my authentic self, then again, how can I feel loved if you don't really know me? Like when you say I love you, what part of me are you loving, right?

39:22If you don't really know who I am on the inside. And so that's why sharing and having deep conversations is so important to feeling loved. Yeah. I wonder why we don't share more of our true selves with the people around us. I guess part of it is because we feel shame. We feel they're going to judge us. So we put up these walls, don't we, around us? We said, no, I'm not gonna let you in, which of course is why I think at least being with your close friends and being completely unguarded is one of the most energizing and rewarding things in the world. I mean, I'm very, very lucky to have some really, really good mates.

40:13And I kind of feel I could pretty much share anything with them about anything. And it's just so wonderful spending time with them. That's so amazing. And think also about falling in love, romantic love, where when people fall in love, they often start like kind of peeling back the layers. And then that time period of sort of self-disclosure more and more and more where you learn everything about each other is also one of the most like intense and fulfilling times that people ever describe. But, yeah, it's really it feels risky, right, to share more of yourself with others. So there's some really great work by Nick Epley from University of Chicago where he says where people assume that if you share more, that that's going to be uncomfortable, that it's going to be we're going to be judged.

40:57Right. It's going to be used against us or worst. No one's going to care. Right. And yet we we sort of have we mispredict. Right. We we don't realize that actually it's going to be a lot more sort of fulfilling and comfortable than than we expect. but yeah we yeah it's it's there's a risk that we take when we share more of ourselves yeah so you you and harry writes about these five mindsets that we need to adopt or we can consider adopting if we want to feel more loved right so let's assume even if someone's listening has already got a load of love in their life and they want to and they already feel very loved which is wonderful.

41:41I'm sure there'll be many people who don't, right? So let's explore these five different mindsets. I have my favorites, which we'll get to. The first one, of course, is the sharing mindset. And I guess you just touched on that now, haven't you, a little bit. What else would you like to say on the sharing mindset? And is this where, I didn't note it down, but I really love this idea of fast questions, which I read about early on in the book. But these questions, which very quickly allow you to go deep with someone. Is that under-sharing mindset? Yeah, it's under the sharing mindset. It was a long time ago, Art Aaron, who sort of started this idea.

42:21Yeah, it's called Fast Friends. Fast Friends, that was it. This idea of 36 questions that become increasingly intimate. So you might start with like, if you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? You know, but then it gets much more intimate to like, you know, what's a traumatic experience in your life? Or when was the last time you cried? Nowadays, by the way, There's all these like conversation card decks that you can buy, you know, on the web. And I have friends who actually bring these card decks to dinners and they will use them to prompt deep conversation. And they work because sometimes we're sort of at a loss about what to ask.

42:55And again, again, it's Nick Epley who showed this. We're afraid to ask deep questions of each other, right? Like, I think if I asked you a really personal question about your life, you might think that I'm prying, right? Or that I'm getting sort of too personal, that I'm nosy. And yet most of us crave to be asked, right? We sort of, I mean, obviously at the right time, at the right place, at the right pace. But we crave to be seen. We crave to be heard, right? We want other people to know about our inner life. And so, yeah, so don't hesitate to ask other people deep questions and then to try to answer those questions.

43:29I wonder if now might be a time for us to practice or model this. Sure, let's model this. Because this podcast is literally about connection. It's about conversation. I've always said these are not interviews. I don't do interviews, right? What we do on this show is have conversations where we explore ideas together. So I think, you know, maybe some of those fast friend questions we should try. what was the first one you said about? Well, the first one was like, if you could have dinner with anyone, you know, who would it be? If I could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? It could be a famous person.

44:08It could be someone who's no longer alive. Honestly, it would be my dad.

44:17Yeah. Dad died in 2013. And yeah, I guess if I could have dinner with anyone, I'd love one more dinner with him. that's beautiful thank you how about you? thank you for sharing that well my answer is not as deep as yours I'd love to have dinner with Bill Clinton wow I just think he's so interesting and charismatic and he's had an interesting life and I'm sure he would tell great stories and he would listen to my stories charismatic people are you know we all love charismatic people because they're so because they're curious in us you know they make you They make you feel like you're the only person in the world.

44:58Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the other questions? Well, the deeper questions are things like, when was the last time you cried by yourself and why?

45:14I think, I'm trying to think now, when was the last time I cried by myself? I think it was quite recently and it relates to my mom

45:27because mom's health has not been great for a few years now. And if I look at the entirety of her life, she's definitely coming towards the final innings. Let's put it like that. So I guess the last time I would have cried by myself was probably in the last week or two when mom wasn't doing so well. And I was just imagining what is it going to be like when she's no longer around. yeah that that would probably be it for me how about for you well it's a little bit similar um i had my last kid when i was 46 which means that and she's 13 now um which means that when i think about um i think about there's there's a certain age that i'll never see her at, you know, it's because when she's 40, I would be, what, I would be 86.

46:25And when she's 50, like, I don't know if I'd ever see her at age 50. And certainly not probably at age 60. And so, the last time I cried was thinking about how I'll just never see certain phases of her life because I had her so late in life. And she does too. She cries about that too. we've just asked and answered just two questions just two questions but I feel that we have we've just learned something so remarkable about each other that we could have sat at a cafe somewhere or at a work event being together for the whole day and not got as deep as we go with just two questions, right? And that's, I guess, the point of what you're trying to say, right?

47:21Just in a few minutes, it doesn't have to be an hour of depth, right? Again, and it just kind of breaks my heart how shallow most conversations are, that most of us don't go deep at all. And especially when we meet a new person, you know, because we've just met today. I was actually going to say, if we weren't recording a podcast, I would give you a hug right now because I'm also a very physical person. But especially when you meet a new person, usually when you meet a new person, you're trying to impress each other, which is totally human. It's totally normal. You want, like I'm sitting here and I want you to think that I'm kind and smart and interesting and funny, right?

48:01And so we're showing kind of the positive parts of us. And that, but which might actually succeed. I might succeed in impressing you. I might succeed at getting you to admire me, but it's not going to forge a connection. What forges a connection is really kind of breaking that fourth wall, right, and sort of going deeper. And I'm thinking of examples like on first dates. Like I've been on a lot of first dates where the guy, and I'm sure women do this too, but the guy will just spend the whole date just talking and sort of being impressive, which is totally normal. It doesn't sound like magic. Yeah.

48:36No, but it's just how it is. And once in a while, I'll sort of, I'll kind of break that fourth wall. So I had a conversation, I had a date once where the guy was, you know, talking about, we were talking about the war and, you know, Gaza, of all things. And he's really intellectual, really smart writer. And I kind of stopped at one point. I said, you know, you're a little bit intimidating. You know, which is a vulnerable thing to say, right? because, and I'm actually not even easily intimidated, but I felt him to be very intellectually formidable. And he was like, really? And it just kind of broke this, that kind of the medium shallowness of the conversation.

49:19It wasn't shallow, but it was just sort of intellectual. And he's like, really, why do you think so? And so it's just one example where you can kind of puncture that. Yeah, I guess you wanted to know him, not how much he knew, but like who he was. Right? Yeah, so like really showing, so the sharing mindset is about showing kind of who you believe yourself to be on the inside and what matters to you. It doesn't have to be dumping your traumas or secrets on another person, right? It's sort of just being real, being authentic. Because again, you're not gonna feel connected, you're not gonna feel loved if the other person doesn't see what's inside of you And I don't see what's inside of you.

50:03And so one of my favorite parts of the sharing mindset is something called the vulnerability paradox. So the vulnerability paradox is the idea that we think that if we're vulnerable, people will like us less, but actually people like us more. Because we think if we're vulnerable, we might be judged. It might be used against us. It might be uncomfortable. And yet, again, at the right time and the right pace, it actually makes you more likable. Hmm. How can someone apply the sharing mindset in their life? Right? So again, the framing is that we want to feel loved because that's going to make us happier.

50:43There's five mindsets that we can adopt to help us feel more love. The first one is the sharing mindsets, which you just outlined. So if someone's listening and they're thinking, okay, I don't feel enough love in my life. how do I start applying this? What advice would you have for them?

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52:43well I think the order of the mindsets might have needed to be changed okay so can we do that yeah yeah yeah um so because I realized we realized after after writing the book that if if I want to feel loved the first step is really to make the other person feel loved and that's happened to me in my life where I had a family member. I didn't feel that loved by her. And so I thought maybe I need to sort of somehow make myself more lovable and show my wonderful qualities. And I said, no, following the book, the first step is to make her feel loved. And the first step is actually radical curiosity.

53:17It's called the radical curiosity mindset. Because the first step is really, I show curiosity in you, authentic interest in your inner life and the details of your day and your passion and what you feel to be on the inside of you. And so I start asking questions and then you tell your story. That's, and that's when Sherry comes in, then you start answering the question and then you start sharing more of your full self. And then I listen and that's listening to learn mindset. We've already covered three. So radical curiosity, I shown you that helps you. So if I'm really curious about you and think about, I mean, you're a podcaster, Like, so you are naturally curious.

53:57In fact, I can't imagine someone, if you're not curious, why have this job, right? But when was the last time that someone was so curious in you, right? They just couldn't wait for you to finish your sentence, to tell your story. It's like a gift. It's incredibly, it's so powerful, right? It feels kind of magical. So when you, when I show curiosity in you, you're going to feel so good and you're going to want to share. you're going to want to open up, right? Even if you're someone who doesn't open up easily, then the sharing mindset comes in, right? You open up. And then when you're opening up, what do I do?

54:33I am listening. I'm listening what we call listening to learn, right? Instead of listening to respond, I am truly listening. I'm paying attention. I'm comprehending. And I, you know, I care about what you have to say. And then the idea is, and this is the hard part, most of the time you're going to reciprocate. Yeah. Right. So the reciprocity norm is one of the most powerful principles of social behavior. You're going to reciprocate, you're going to show curiosity and interest in me. And then I start sharing and bearing and showing more of my true self to you. Yeah. I think we all reflect on our own lives.

55:12We can probably think about moments where that happened. Like I can certainly tell you on doing a podcast for almost nine years now. When I open up, almost certainly the guest will open up. We just did that now, didn't we, with those questions? But because it almost, I don't know, it breaks the kind of invisible wall. And then suddenly it's like, oh yeah, we're in this together. There's a common humanity. It's like, yeah, oh, I know what that's like because I felt this or this happened to me at one point, right? Yeah, that's beautiful. That's a beautiful example of the reciprocity norm working.

55:55Well, it's more than the reciprocity norm. Yeah, because you created a new norm. It's the reciprocity norm and also kind of a depth of conversation norm. Yeah, you're modeling the behavior that you want the guest to also show. Yeah. Yeah. There's one thing you said, which I loved, which is, can we change the order of these mindsets? Because I think there's something very powerful there, which I've realized as an author is this idea that the idea is never finished. In this country, I have a lot of younger authors asking me for advice because I've written six books now. And one of the things I will always say to them is, you have to understand that that book is just a snapshot in time.

56:45That's it, right? it's the best that you can do at the time you press send and the paper gets printed you don't suddenly stop thinking about it the minute it goes to print every single one of my books if i had another three months on it it would have changed again if i had another six months on it it would have changed yet because these ideas are constantly evolving so i i i just i just wanted to come on that because i think it's really important that yes as an author but also in life right you're never done like you think you know something but then three months later you're like you may have a different perspective that comes to mindset five multiplicity right we can even sort of contradict ourselves sometimes as we're evolving and growing but that's okay yeah and in fact we should contradict ourselves as we're growing and evolving because otherwise yeah otherwise we're not really growing and learning right if we believe the same thing because there's things that i've said that i don't believe anymore and people are like well You said that 20 years ago.

57:45I'm not the same person that 20 years ago. My first book was called The How of Happiness. And I'd been doing research on happiness for a long time. And people kept saying to me, well, you should write a book about happiness. And actually, I wish I'd talked to you a long time ago. And I kept saying, I'm not ready. I don't know enough. And they're like, no, no, no. And they kind of said what you said. They're like, just write it now because that's going to be the snapshot in time. And I just felt like I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready. Finally, I was ready. Of course, even when I was ready, it wasn't the final word on it because there's lots of things now I could change.

58:19But yeah, I'm going to write that down after we finish. Well, I think it's the same. You know, people say, oh, I'm not ready yet for kids. You're never ready. Yeah. Like, do you know what I mean? It's a leap of faith. It's a leap of faith. You get ready. You learn as you do. I wasn't ready to start this podcast, but I started, I figured out how to do it through the process of doing it. I kind of think these are core principles to life. But I want to definitely get to the final two mindsets because they're my two favorite ones, open heart mindset and multiplicity. Before we do that, I just want to reiterate what you're saying is that these mindsets are important to feeling loved, okay?

58:56The first one you would like to have as stage one is radical curiosity. And one of the things I got from that chapter, which I think is really important, is you said that curiosity is not just a fixed personality trait, but a state of mind. Okay, I think this is really, really important, Sonia, because I think some people will go, yeah, well, Rangan and Sonia, you two are curious. That's easy for you. I'm not curious. But you're effectively saying it's a skill that can be cultivated. Absolutely, but it's not easy. I have to say it's not easy and you can't fake it, right? We all know people who are curious in us in the moment.

59:33It's so interesting you say it's not easy because, and I guess this is my bias, because I'm naturally curious. I'm like, what is easier than being curious about another human being? Everywhere I go, like this barista or coffee shops, I mean, you know, my wife and kids laugh at me. I can talk to anyone about anything. And it energizes me because I love learning about people. Right, right. Okay. But you should not be a curiosity teacher. Yeah. I think it comes too easy for you. Exactly. Yeah, it's kind of like the mathematician was brilliant and they can't really teach math because they're just too smart at math.

1:00:09And I think for me, I am a curious person, but sometimes it's hard for me to be curious. And so I have to kind of force myself. But then I will find something. I feel like every human, this is, by the way, this is called social curiosity, which is curiosity about the other person as opposed to a curiosity about a topic, right? Because all of us can be curious about like, you know, football or, you know, marine biology. but about, I feel like every human has something to offer that's interesting and exciting, right? And novel, but sometimes it takes a while to kind of get it, to get that, right?

1:00:42To find that out. And so for me, it's not so easy. So maybe I'm just saying, maybe I would be a little bit of a better teacher for those who are, who are not so curious, but yeah, it's a state of mind. It's something you can really teach to train yourself on. I actually have a student, Madison, who did a study where she had people like every day try to be curious about something. And so it worked. People really did find curious things every day. Yeah. I think it's a very powerful message that you can get better at it. Because I think, I personally believe that curiosity is one of the most important values to hold, particularly these days, right?

1:01:21As we feel more and more division, right? Exactly. I mean, I'm... Maybe I don't want to share too many ideas about this, but... And there is literally someone who I've been pretty good friends with for a number of years, who I think is voting for one of the quite kind of extreme far right political parties in the UK. And it's easy to just shut that down and go, oh, this is ridiculous. You know, what sort of person would do that kind of thing? But that's a trap, right? I think that's an absolute trap. It's like, no, Rangan, why does this person who you've known pretty well for a number of years, who is a decent guy on so many levels, what is it about him?

1:02:18Why does he adopt this belief, right? So applying curiosity to everything can be challenging. And sometimes this is one that's a little bit more challenging for me, but I'm like, okay, Rangan, you can't just shut someone down for this and say, you're wrong. I want to try and understand why is it that you think that this is the right move? Do you know what I mean? Exactly. And because when you say to people, oh, you should be curious and everyone nods and says, of course, curiosity is great. But when you actually give us an example like this, it's really hard. And there's actually studies that are done on this.

1:02:53Like curiosity can reduce prejudice. It could reduce polarization. In the United States, you're sitting across from someone who's wearing a different hat, no pun intended, right? And then you actually ask questions like why do you believe this? Why do you vote this way? And actually really and also get to know people in a deeper way first. There's actually a really interesting study that was done recently where the people of very different political persuasions share about this, which is back to the sharing mindset, share about themselves. And one person would say, you know, I've been really struggling with my son.

1:03:29And this is what's going on with my son. And the other guy says, I'm really struggling with my son. And then you see each other as sort of humans, right? The deep humanity within each other. You and your friend, you already have known each other, right? So you already know the person's decent in these other ways. Another example is in the middle of a fight with your partner, try to be curious. And it's easier said than done, right? But like sort of in the middle of the fight, you're like, wow, I wonder why they are so angry. Why are they so angry? Or as the amazing marital therapist Tara Rios says, when you're in the middle of that fight, remember that this is someone you love.

1:04:09I love that. It's beautiful. It's so obvious. But it's like, remember this is someone you love. But radical curiosity, yeah, it's not always easy, but it's very powerful. And it does, it can take work to really figure out what it is that you're interested in. And another example is your kids, right? So you want to show curiosity in your kids or your parents. By the way, one thing that I like to tell people is we're often not curious enough about our parents, right? They're the ones who ask us questions. We don't tend to ask them enough questions. And so I would want to tell your listeners, you know, pick up the phone and call a parent or a caregiver and ask them, like, something they really care about.

1:04:49You know, what is it they're really caring about these days? Or ask them about the past, their childhoods. But think about your kids, right? They might be, I had a kid who was really into video games, going on and on about video games. I had no interest in them. And then I started thinking about, okay, how do I get curious about what is it they're so excited about? One of my kids, my youngest, was also into anime. And again, I had no interest in anime. And she's like, oh, why don't you watch this show with me? It's called Attack on Titan. I think it has like 80 or 90 episodes. And I ended up watching 86 episodes with her.

1:05:24And it was actually an amazing show. And even though it's not my genre at all, it's kind of violent and animated. But I learned a lot about her by watching the show with her and by getting curious about what it is that she likes about the show. Anyway, just to say that even things that you didn't think you'd ever be interested in, you might become interested in by showing curiosity. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so radical curiosity, sharing, listening to learn. Those are the first three. And then let's go into those final two. Your favorites. Yeah, I just think, I know this is really, you know, on one level, it's how do we feel happier?

1:06:06But I think the learnings, for me, they go beyond happiness. They go into how do you create a harmonious society? right? Open heart mindsets, the fourth out of the five mindsets. I just love this idea. For a few years now, I love that phrase open hearts. The thing I've been thinking a lot about over the last few years is what would it be like, Rangan, to live each day with an open heart? right what would it be like to start to notice when your heart starts to close and as soon as you notice it try and pause and see if you can open it again and that goes beyond just me with my children or my wife I like to try and apply that to like this morning I was in the coffee shop reading your book and I think it was in I was reading this chapter and I was trying to think about wishing everyone who walked in kindness.

1:07:14I remember random people walking in. I took my head up from the book and each one I just inside my head, I thought, I wish you to have a wonderful day. I wish happiness. I wish you to be happy. And it was, I felt great. They don't even know I'm doing it. And I was like, this is awesome. Isn't that amazing? It also really works. If you have a colleague or a friend that you're actually not feeling great about, Maybe you have a little bit of a fight with them. And sometimes I remember doing this and I was saying to myself, I want them to be happy. I wish that they were happy. I want that. And that really works to kind of reduce negative energy.

1:07:53Yeah. Yeah. So tell me about this open heart mindset. And maybe this is where we can bring in your trip to see the Dado Lama in. Because that plays a feature in this chat. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, open heart, yeah, it's a beautiful thing. So open heart mindset is basically seeing the other person with warmth and compassion, kindness. The Michelangelo effect is part of the open heart mindset. I actually am teaching a class this week remotely about the Michelangelo effect on Friday. So Michelangelo is when you believe in someone. Usually it's your romantic partner, but it could be someone else, your sister, your best friend.

1:08:35And you believe in someone, you want them to be happy, you want them to achieve their dreams, and you help them achieve their dreams and to become their best possible self. And the reason it's called the Michelangelo Effect is that the artist Michelangelo was said to sort of look at a block of stone, just sort of a block stone, and he would see like a vision inside of it. He would see a person or an angel, and he would carve the stone, and he would sort of set that image free. And the idea is that you do that to the person, to your partner, to your best friend. That's part of the open heart, right?

1:09:09So it's kindness, compassion, warmth. And I would hope that most relationships have the open heart mindset already because they probably wouldn't be stable if they didn't. I often think that of the five mindsets, that's the one that's most common already existing. because if you don't have kindness and open heart towards your romantic partner or your best friend, you probably wouldn't be together. I would hope. I mean, there are probably some that don't. Whereas like radical curiosity, you can have open heart but not curiosity. I've actually heard people say, you know, my girlfriend loves me, but she's not curious about me or she doesn't really listen.

1:09:49So, but I think open heart is kind of at the, yeah, I mean, it's the core of a relationship. I've become aware of the last years of not in my life but I've heard from people that would say look I've been friends with this person for years but I've noticed that this friend doesn't appear to be that happy when I do well at something I wonder if that plays into this open heart mindset whereby the friend is I don't know maybe they've got their own insecurities and they feel threatened if their friend does well. Like I mentioned before, this very tight group of friends I've got from university at Edinburgh.

1:10:35And one thing I know about all of those guys is that there's just zero competition, right? If we're on a pool table or a tennis court or a table tennis table, yeah, there's friendly competition between us. But what I mean is, if any of us had succeeded in something or wanted to share news, like we'd all be so happy for the other person, right? We wouldn't see their success as being a reflection of us not being successful. But I know not everyone has that. So is that part of what you mean by open heart mindsets? And I love this because just this weekend, I was with these two friends who are, I think of as my closest friends.

1:11:18And I was saying the exact same thing to them. I said, the thing about our friendship is that if we share any kind of wins or success with each other, it would just be 100 % happiness. There would be zero, you know, threat or jealousy, right? But that's not true for a lot of people. And when you think about it in general, the list of people with whom you share your successes with is the smallest list, right? That you're much more likely to share something negative that happened to you. That's a good point. Right? When you think about what's the list of people that you would just feel like would, yeah, would just be purely happy for you and not at all threatened.

1:11:58You know, we all, you know, we all have insecurities. So, yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. So, like, to find those people. Because I will sometimes come home and I'll say, like, if something good happens, I win an award and I tell my kids. And they'll be like, Mom, you're boasting. And I'm like, well, kids, like if I can't, you know, tell you about my success, who can I tell them to? But I think they learn in school, like you're not supposed to boast. And so I'm not even sure I would put my kids right now on the list of people that I would share my wins with. But that's interesting, isn't it?

1:12:30That they're perhaps learning, you're not meant to boast. This comes to this idea that we pick up these cultural messages all the time, don't we? About what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in the particular culture in which you live. And so, yeah, no one in Western culture wants to come across as, you know, showing off or boasting, right? But take that to an extreme. It means that you hold back and you don't share parts of yourself with others, right? Yeah, exactly. Which is the sharing mindset. And with your mates from Edinburgh, right? You wouldn't think of it as boasting when you share a success.

1:13:05It's just like a beautiful thing and you're so happy for each other. yeah I think it's maybe that should be like one of these criteria for friends it's like if you feel like there's a hundred percent joy in your successes they're your true friend what did you learn from the Dalai Lama about an open heart mindset? oh so interesting you know when we went to visit the Dalai Lama I was with a group and was led by Arthur Brooks who was a friend and a happiness expert as well and he gave us this speech I think it was a group of about 12 people, kind of the first dinner we had. And he said, you know, I know you're all here looking for something.

1:13:46You're looking for something from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And he said, just forget about it. You know, you don't know what that is. It's just going to happen. You're not going to know how it's going to happen. It's just going to—but like don't strive for it. And so we're having—we actually had multiple conversations with His Holiness. and you're not allowed to bring a phone or a computer. You can only bring a pencil and paper. I love it. Old school. You'll love that. I love that stuff. You'll love that. Yeah, yeah, you'll love that. I'll try to get an invite for you. Oh, please do. I would love to do that.

1:14:22And so we're in Dharamsala, right, where he lives and works. And so we all have our pencil and paper. And so he's talking, he's an interpreter, and His Holiness says, love is not a feeling, love is a decision.

1:14:41Love is not a feeling, love is a decision. And I was like, and I just immediately felt this is like a message directly to me. Maybe everyone felt that way, but I felt like this is a message directly transported to me. And so I wrote in kind of big letters in a circle that love is not a feeling, love is a decision. I think people can interpret it differently. But one way to interpret it is that it's an act. Like you do things to be in love, to maintain love, to express love, to receive love. You don't wait for it. You act with love. And you decide to love. You decide to receive love. So that's how I interpreted it.

1:15:27It's not just sort of the sort of feeling that kind of like drops on you from the sky. And suddenly you're like, I'm in love. That you act with love. Why do you think that phrase had such a powerful effect on you at that time? I think at that time I was thinking maybe my heart wasn't that open. You know, you were talking about whether your heart is open, you want to live with an open heart. Because I was waiting to sort of fall in love. and I think I was thinking that yeah this was this was gonna sort of drop from the sky somehow I was gonna meet someone and and I would just fall in love um and I think I realized that like I have a lot to do with it that maybe to open my heart up and I'm not even sure what it is it's uh it's it's all kind of a little bit of a mystery right yeah um that it's really a it's something you can act on and not just sort of wait for it's interesting when when you said that love is not feeding love as a decision, I immediately thought of my wife.

1:16:30And I guess if I thought about that phrase for a bit longer, I might have multiple interpretations of it. But the thing that came to mind immediately was when I decided to ask her to marry me all those years ago, I made a decision. I made a decision to love her. The intention being for the rest of our lives. And that is a decision. Yes, you could argue, oh, things happen. There was passion, there was romance, and there was. It was complete head over heels. But I guess beyond that point, when you get into the nitty gritty of marriage and kids and mortgages and family and all that kind of stuff, it's a nice reminder that this is a choice that you made.

1:17:20It's a decision. Not as an obligation. I said, it's a very beautiful thing that I chose. Again, you know, like we mentioned before, Terry Reel saying, you know, remember that this is someone you love. Remember this is someone you chose to spend time with. Yeah, Bob Sternberg has a theory of love called the triangular theory of love. And decision to love is actually one of the three sort of vertices. It's a sort of intimacy, passion and decision. so that's aligned with that as well one thing as i was reading your book and thinking about your life and the fact that you have studied and published scientific papers and peer-reviewed papers on happiness for so long i was trying to put that alongside how powerful your meeting the Dalai Lama was.

1:18:18And it made me think, it made me think about putting to you this idea that when we think about happiness, is the scientific method the best way to look at happiness? I don't know if it's the best way. I think it's a very important way. It's interesting. Okay, a few years ago. You see what I'm getting at. Yeah, yeah. A few years ago, I would say, yes, it's really the only way. And I've been a rigorous empirical scientist for 36 years. And I think for most of that time, I kind of looked down on people who would give advice that wasn't evidence-based, right? That was not empirical. I mean, I could respect, say.

1:19:05Like the Dalai Lama. Well, maybe before I really had met the Dalai Lama. But thinking about, I would respect, say, a wise person, like a grandmother, right, who's wise and had a long life and might give you advice. I would respect that. I would respect, say, a therapist who's been, you know, who's had lots of clients and has seen lots of different problems and has said, well, from all of my experience, this is what I think, you know, people should do. But I still somehow thought I elevated the empirical scientific method over all of these other sources of wisdom and knowledge, which really were anecdotal and clinical, right?

1:19:42But now that I'm older, I really – I don't know. Now I see that these are just different sources of wisdom and they're all equally valid. And I also draw now on my own – I have lots of life experience. I've lived like many lives in a way. You know, I've been single. I've been married. I've been in different countries. You know, I've had four kids. And so it used to be, if people ask me a question, let's say you ask me, Sonia, do you think I should write gratitude letters once a day or once a week or once a month? I would say, Rangan, I have no idea because there's no study that actually, you know, empirically tests, you know, that exact question.

1:20:24And now I would say, now I would answer the question. I would say, yeah, there's not exactly a study that, but I know enough from all the research that I've done, I've read from my life experience, from my friends' experiences, from my therapist, you know, I would give you an answer. So I feel like it's now, I feel like it's equally valid to draw on all these sources of knowledge and wisdom. Yeah, I love that answer. And I guess the reason for asking is because I think all sources of knowledge and wisdom are valid. And I think we need to look at them all. So in my world of health, scientific research is very important, but so is clinical experience.

1:21:04And I've said this many times in this podcast, I think we've over-prioritized scientific research at the expense of clinical experience. And I think with health, that is a massive issue because clinicians who have seen tens of thousands of patients have picked up stuff. and you see patterns and you see things that aren't, you see things that haven't always been answered yet by science, but you also know them to be true. I always say absence of evidence is not equal to evidence of absence, right? Just because it hasn't been tested doesn't mean that. Yeah, the scientific method is there to try and test things, you know, let's say in medicine, or clinicians are noticing something.

1:21:47It's like, okay, well, okay. A lot of clinicians are noticing this. We haven't got any studies on this. why don't we study it to see if we can understand right what might be going on i guess i was thinking about it through the lens of you meeting the dalai lama because i know he's very interested in science right i read that in your book i've heard you say that before but this idea that he you know i think i've heard you say he was he talks a lot about a mother's love yeah which will maybe just so beautiful what he said and i repeat this a lot to my kids and to my friends He said, I'm your mother and you're my mother.

1:22:24Rangan, I'm your mother and you are my mother. How can we ever fight each other or hate each other when we're each other's mothers? Like everyone, I'm your mother and you're my mother. I think he said it's an old Buddhist idea. It's such a beautiful idea. It's beautiful. I mean, you turn to the person in the street next to you. I'm your mother and you're my mother. Yeah. Some of us may not choose to say that to the person in the street, but even if you were to think that, every time you're about to get annoyed with someone or driving in traffic and someone drives in a way that you don't like before you scream expletives in the safety of your car, it's quite a nice thought to go, you're my mother.

1:23:13Yeah, and similar to, I want you to be happy. Yeah. I want you to be happy. Because of course, if you're my mother and I was your mother, we'd want each other to be happy. That's what's really interesting though, isn't it? That this idea that there are people out there like the Dalai Lama who seem to have wisdom, like really, really insightful wisdom to share with us who have not done research. It's fascinating, isn't it? Or what did you say before about loving others, right? And love thy neighbor. Well, in the Bible, it's like, you know, love thy neighbor. Like yourself. It's all there. Well, a couple of things.

1:23:56First of all, I will get emails to say, all your research is in the Bible, right? Exactly. Forgiveness and gratitude. But when I was preparing to write my first book, so it was published in 2007. I was writing in 2005. Long time ago, 21 years ago. And so I decided to read a bunch of self-help happiness books first, just to see what's out there. And I read The Art of Happiness by His Holiness. And I've often said since then and before then, that that's the best book of happiness out there that I had read. And just as you say, even though he's not a scientist, pretty much everything he writes in The Art of Happiness is true.

1:24:38Yeah. I guess some people maybe it depends how you've been brought up right it depends on what you believe like I guess if you've been brought up to believe in the sanctity of the scientific method and actually that we can only look at the world through the lens of science then you will need scientific evidence before you write in your gratitude journal right now you know as it happens there is a lot of research on the benefits of gratitude but some people won't do it okay what gratitude what what you what you want to write down a few things i'm grateful for in my life are you kidding me i've got better things to do oh what you're telling me there's a study there that's going to do that for me oh now i'm going to do it so i think that's kind of interesting that we're all different.

1:25:33We all need different things. As it happens, I know listeners to this podcast are fans of journaling and are fans of gratitude. You have studied this as one of your happiness interventions for many years. Can you give us some top line kind of take home points as to what does the research tell us about gratitude? Right. Well, first of all, I wanted to say I often get asked to give talks to groups of physicians or doctors because they're, and they're the groups that really want that scientific credibility and that scientific evidence, right? They don't want a self-help guru who's sort of talking about their experiences.

1:26:09And so I always start with gratitude. Gratitude just seems kind of silly and trivial and almost hokey, but it's very powerful, right? So I mean, I myself don't love the idea of like counting blessings, but lots of studies have shown that if you write down things you're grateful for, you know, about once a week, you're happier, you feel more connected. Gratitude letters turn out to be even more powerful than gratitude lists, partly because when you write a gratitude letter to a particular individual, like your mom or your colleague, your mentor, your best friend, it's richer, right? Because you're writing about what it is that they've done to support you.

1:26:44Does that still have a benefit whether you send it or not? Well, we've done that. We've done both, right? Because the original study, actually the first gratitude study was done by Marty Seligman, where he had, who's the founder of positive psychology, where he had people write the letter and send it. And there was a powerful effect. But we said, okay, the problem there is that the sending and the expressing are confounded, right? We don't know what, because sharing the letter with someone is very powerful. And so we split it, we disentangled those two things because we found that just writing is powerful.

1:27:22We did another study where we had people either write to themselves gratitude or text it to another person or express it on social media because we thought that might be interesting comparison. We actually found that all of those conditions were associated with more happiness, but only one of those three people felt more connected. Can you guess which one it was? Writing privately, texting, or social media. Writing privately? Texting. Texting. that gratitude to a person, right? So I'm basically sharing it, right? So writing privately versus sharing. So sharing one-on-one with someone was the most connecting.

1:28:07Sharing on social media wasn't as connecting or writing privately. Well, I think back to these mindsets and the second one is the sharing mindset. And of course, that's what you're doing. When you write a gratitude letter and share it, Yeah. You are being vulnerable, aren't you? Exactly, exactly. Which is why it's uncomfortable for people. And in fact, we've looked at the cultural differences because in some cultures, it's not something that's done very often. So it's a little bit uncomfortable to share gratitude. But discomfort is not necessarily a sign that we shouldn't do something, right? In fact, often it's the opposite, right?

1:28:45People like leaders will say, yeah, you want to go outside your comfort zone. It's almost like a cliche. um but yeah cliches are true i've realized as i get older all cliches are true you know it's so funny yeah because i was saying how like feeling loved is the key to happiness sounds like a cliche but almost every big idea is a cliche it makes me think of people who go on like psychedelic journeys and they come back and they're like i've discovered the answer to everything and you're like okay what's the answer and it's like it's love you know or we are one right and yet you know it's true it's true it's powerful it's just it sounds hokey it sounds kind of ridiculous all right we are one we are all one but before we move on to the multiplicity mindset the fifth mindset in your book if you were to reflect back to your meeting with his holiness the Dalai Lama are there some key moments that stand out you know when you recall that whole experience what are some of the first things that come to mind?

1:29:52Three things. One is actually meeting him and hugging him. And, you know, it's beautiful. And he's just so naturally happy. His face is just exudes such warmth. I'm really into like people who are warm, you know. And I'm not even sure what it means. Like, you know it when you see it. Yeah. Because often the eyes are just kind. You have kind eyes, actually. Thank you. You know what I mean? Some people are just warm and some people aren't. They might be so funny and interesting and smart and fun to hang out with, but they're not necessarily warm. So I love the warmth, hugging him, that when he said love is a feeling, not a decision.

1:30:27And then the third thing that he said that I also wrote down that I thought was so powerful, he said, excessive self-focus is the door to all misery. Excessive self-focus is the door to all misery. And I thought it was so just wonderful how he put it. And it's something that a lot of my and others' research has also supported, that when we're too focused on ourselves, you know, we're going to be unhappy. And that almost everything we're talking about today is about a focus on others, right? On loving others and listening to others and showing curiosity in others. The irony being that most of us now walk around with a phone in our pockets that has a camera that we can focus on ourselves, right?

1:31:14right? Like we've literally got selfie cameras, all of us, right? And this is the new norm. But I think about that as a contrast to what you heard from the Dalai Lama, right? An excessive focus on the self. These flipping smartphones are, for many of us, creating an excessive focus on the self. You know, now it's standard, isn't it, to use it as your mirror? You know, if I just look as a snapshot of society, we have a device around with us that is constantly encouraging a focus on the self. And video calls, I just read that, you know, we have the self-view. Yeah. And I would say, everyone turn off the self-view every time.

1:32:00Don't ever have the self-view on. And I actually read somewhere that 70 % of the time we're looking at ourselves when we're doing a video call. Like, we just can't help it. That's the point. We just can't help it. Yeah, we just can't help it. One of my favorite quotes is from G.K. Chesterton. And it's something like, we're all walking around sort of being the star or the protagonist of our sordid little play. It's like we're all playing this like play inside of us and we're the star. Yeah. It's like we're all the protagonists of like our sordid little play and we're all walking around. That's normal.

1:32:35That's human. I mean, that's how we survive. we have a sense of a I was just reading the Michael Pollan book about consciousness and kind of how we have a sense of self and because maybe there's not really a self but we create it because we want to feel like that's me over there and that's me back then and that's me in the future and and it's all about me me me and I mean that's that's how we thrive and survive and in the world the multiplicity mindset the fifth and final one what is this and why is it so important my favorite my favorite mindset. Okay. Well, the word multiplicity I'm told comes from trauma research, where the idea is when you, once you've had a trauma, it's part of you always, but it doesn't define you.

1:33:17And so multiplicity is the idea that not any behavior or trait or feeling defines us as a person that we're all, we're like a quilt of many things, right? A quilt of like traits and behaviors and features and aspects. So sometimes I'm gentle and sometimes I'm kind and sometimes I'm selfish and sometimes I'm narcissistic. And that's true for me. That's true for you. That's true for everyone. And it's like, you know, it's like the Walt Whitman quote, you know, I contain multitudes. We're all many people. We're all many things. And you don't want to judge a person by just one behavior and one trait.

1:33:52And the thing is, it sounds great, right? Like, how can you disagree with that? Like, if I tell you that, you're like, oh yeah, that sounds of course i agree and yet when you look at specific examples then people have a very hard time with the multiplicity mindset do you think that that might be because a lot of us tend to judge ourselves very harshly right so we're not very forgiving to ourselves we you know we can often have shame about stuff that we've done in the past and therefore we apply that and project it out to others, right? We can't forgive ourselves. Of course, I can't forgive the person around me.

1:34:31They did this, therefore they are bad without realizing, well, yeah, but you might have that quality or that character traits within you. It was just expressed in this person at that time. And it could have been expressed in you if the circumstances were right. So funny. Yeah, and we project a lot, right? In fact, I definitely have friends who are like, they're a certain way and then they tell me that I'm the same way and it's clearly projection. But I actually have the opposite theory, which is that it's evolutionarily adaptive for humans to be judgmental about others. This idea that like on the ancestral plane, we would meet people and we had to make snap judgments.

1:35:11Are they a friend or a foe? Right. So to be judgmental is actually hardwired. But so now we're still judgmental. It comes most easily for us to be judgmental about others. And then we can get to about ourselves too. So then we have to override it with deliberate effort and intention and energy. And so, and I see myself doing that. Like I'll see someone, you know, say something nasty to someone else. And I'm like, oh, what a jerk. And my first reaction is always, what a jerk. And then I have to kind of override that, you know, something I don't always succeed, with compassion. Right. So so I feel like, yeah, it's like it's it comes automatically for us to make that that judgment about others.

1:35:55And then we have to override it. But it also happens with ourselves. Absolutely. That turning the multiplicity lens onto ourselves is so important because we judge ourselves just as much as we judge others. Right. We have this sort of self-critic that's constantly telling us, oh, what is, you know, what a stupid thing you did. What if you know what a fool you are. Why, you know, why did you hurt that person? I guess we can naturally probably see that with our children, right? Like if our children do something that perhaps isn't the most desirable thing, I guess most parents would probably intuitively know that this is not the totality of them.

1:36:36They were tired. They hadn't eaten for six hours. They were hungry. That's why this happened. And we might be able to do that with our romantic partners. But I guess we often don't apply that same lens to people beyond our inner circle, do we? But I think it's a very important, I certainly know in my own life, actively cultivating the practice of being less judgmental has been incredibly beneficial. And I think, honestly, the way you get to that is with curiosity. Yeah, exactly. Because curiosity is the antidote to being judgmental. It's like, why has this person chosen to behave like this? Exactly, exactly, exactly.

1:37:23So it's harder when you don't know the person very well, right? Because you don't have other qualities of them to kind of, as an antidote. But even with our kids and our romantic partners, our best friends, you know, I hear this all the time. People will say, he's being, he's selfish. You know, with the kids, you know, the advice that you get as a parent is you can criticize the behavior. You should criticize the behavior and not them as a person. Right. And I think and yet we still I think we still do it. You know, I think unless we're very evolved. Again, it's like our judgmentalness. It's really hard to separate the trait from the behavior.

1:37:58Yeah, I read recently that there's a well-known personality online who's getting, you know, battered with all kinds of reels at the moment. Right. everyone's making fun of this personality and making videos and I'm just like man guys this is a lot to be putting on one person whatever your view is of that individual just imagine being on the receiving end of that from a lot of people all around the world it's not a nice thing but I was reading the other day about this idea that collective schadenfreude is one of the fastest ways to feel connected. So mocking someone and taking joy in their misfortune, especially when they're well-known, schadenfreude, and then doing it collectively.

1:38:51So we're all bonding together over this experience of judging another human. And it's quite interesting to watch it play out in real time. I'm like, oh, wow. Well, I can't help but think the playground with the bullies all getting together, you know, kicking a little kid, right? I mean, it's really not that different and it sort of feels good to put someone down. And yet it's not a recipe for happiness, right? Yeah. In my book on happiness, right, I had this concept called junk happiness v. core happiness. junk happiness being those little you know those little short doses of things that you think make you happy like chocolate or sugar or whatever it might be and I say listen in and of themselves I don't think they're a problem the problem is as if we engage in them too often or make the mistake of thinking they're giving us the true deep levels of happiness and contentment that we're after.

1:39:51And I kind of see that, you know, the collector schadenfreude almost of being junk happiness. Totally, totally. Because it's not going to lead to durable happiness. Exactly. You're going to fit in the moment, you know, look at that guy, whatever. And it actually makes like eating too much chocolate, it might actually then make or drinking too much, it might actually make you feel bad, worse about yourself later. Like, oh, I can't believe I did that. So but think actually, I love this idea of junk happiness versus core happiness. Yeah. Because similar to an idea that I and others have, which is very similar, but it's basically like empty calories versus sort of nutrition, right?

1:40:26Yeah, exactly. So having that little bit of a hedonic boost is fine, but it's just really empty calories. But it's not gonna be long lasting, but like say being kind to another or writing a gratitude letter or really connecting, having deep conversations with someone, that's really more like the nutritional meal rather than that's going to endure and it's going to be meaningful. One of my definitions of meaning is that it's something that endures, right? It's something that lasts beyond the moment. And so that's that nutritional meal as opposed to the empty calories, the junk calories, same thing.

1:41:03In that chapter, you quote, I think someone called Sar de Simone, who I hadn't heard of. a Brazilian born healer and author. And there's just this beautiful passage around the mindset of paradox. The willingness to see other people as not just this or that, but as this and that, opening ourselves up to being surprised, even being delighted by them. People are contradictory. They can be selfish and kind, small minded and generous, extroverted and insecure our minds don't like contradiction that's the point isn't it our minds don't like contradiction yeah we want things to be neat orderly categorizable because it helps us to make sense of the world and allows us to stay comfortable and self-righteous i mean it's so beautiful isn't it but it but it gets to the heart of this it's it's messy to acknowledge that actually someone can do a selfish act, but the entirety of them is not a selfish person.

1:42:15And even this idea that we have this within ourselves, right? I think that is a very powerful realization. You've got all of this inside you as well. And if the conditions were right, it may come out of you as well. And I think that humanity is really important, particularly today. I know, particularly today. And yet it's so hard. So I've been thinking about the multiplicity mindset for years now. And yet in my own life, again, I have to really override the judgmentalness with effort. You know, even it's still not easy for me. I still, when I see someone act selfishly, my first reaction is they're selfish.

1:42:54And then I have to kind of take a beat and be like, okay, this is a selfish behavior in a person full of many other qualities. Right. Um, so it's really hard. Oh, you know, one of my pet peeves recently is that, I don't know if you've noticed, and this is true in America, everyone's ex is a narcissist. So people are talking about their exes. Everyone's ex is a narcissist. Everyone's ex is a narcissist or their parents are narcissists. And it's like, no, that's not true. First of all, we're all narcissists. It's a continuum. We're just sort of lower or higher on it. But anyway, that's just an example of like people are just giving, it's just easier to give someone a label.

1:43:34like sar says yeah our minds don't like contradiction we want things to be neat orderly and categorizable right so it's easy and again i have to acknowledge that some people have left narcissistic partners yes and it you know that has been hugely problematic and probably very hard to do and well done for getting out and i don't think everyone's ex is a narcissist But it might make it easy for us to move on if we can neatly put them in a kind of little box. Right? Yeah. Yeah. What is the, like the multiplicity mindset, understanding that all of us have multiple traits, right? How does that help us feel more loved?

1:44:24Oh, good question. Um, uh, well, first of all, it helps us, uh, make other people feel more loved, which is the first step. And for us feeling, remember the first step for me to feel more loved is to make you feel more loved. And so first I turn the multiplicity lens onto other people, my, my friend, my partner, my, my colleague. And it helps me feel, it helps me make other people feel more loved, right? Because if I see someone in a complex way, I see them in all of their messy humanity. I'm going to be able to be curious about them, to listen to them with warmth and acceptance, right? So when you're telling your story and maybe something you're saying to me I'm a little bit disapproving of or makes me uncomfortable, I'm going to be, again, more accepting, forgiving, loving towards you.

1:45:13And then when I turn the multiplicity lens onto myself, it'll help me feel more love because it'll help me love myself more, right? And we know if I love myself more, that I'll be, then when you express love to me, I will notice it more. I will see it as more genuine, right? I will actually literally will sort of, you'll fill my cup of love and it won't leak out if I love myself more. So multiplicity mindset is really important for both turning onto another person and also turning it onto yourself. of course in order to apply the multiplicity mindset that might require an element of forgiveness yeah and forgiveness is a word that a lot of people struggle with can you talk to us a little bit about forgiveness and how it applies here sure So forgiveness doesn't mean, I'll just start by saying what forgiveness is not.

1:46:14Forgiveness is not justifying. Forgiveness is not condoning. Forgiveness is not excusing. And forgiveness is not reconciling. You don't actually have to reconcile with the person to forgive them. Really, the scientific definition of forgiveness is that when you're not forgiving, usually you're seeking revenge or you're seeking avoidance. You want nothing to do with the person or you actually want revenge. Do you want to yell at them or hit them? And forgiveness literally means to kind of like reduce those motives for revenge or avoidance and have a more positive kind of pro-social approach to that person.

1:46:49So when you've truly forgiven someone, you basically want them to be happy. You have sort of a more positive reaction towards them. You don't have to reconcile. You don't have to excuse their behavior. Part of how to operate the multiplicity mindset is to forgive because we all have done things that sort of need forgiveness. And other people have done things that we are willing to forgive. And actually one strategy to be more forgiving towards others is to think of our own behavior that needs forgiveness. And think of times in our lives when we've been forgiven and that's going to help us have empathy, right?

1:47:25Empathy is another important state to help us forgive others, right? Just really understand, stand in their shoes and try to understand like where they're coming from when they did that thing that they did. Yeah. In that chat, there was a practical exercise towards the end that I thought was really, really great. If you're unsure of how to put the multiplicity mindset into practice, consider this straightforward but surprisingly challenging exercise developed by ACT trainers. ACT being acceptance and commitment therapy trainers. okay the goal of this exercise is to cultivate acceptance in situations that commonly trigger frustration or discord an invaluable skill for any relationship okay so here's the exercise begin by identifying one of your partner's behaviors that you find especially difficult or frustrating and have them do the same for you that in and of itself right i think would be powerful, right?

1:48:26Okay. If it's done in a calm environment and situation, I think, you know, being open and honest and sharing that I think would be quite powerful, but that's not it. That's like step one. The example is perhaps they work too much, constantly interrupt, forget important plans or fail to pull their weight on household chores. Okay. Whatever it is. Then for one week, commit to observing these behaviors with full awareness and without judgment this means acknowledging the behavior with curiosity and compassion without trying to ignore fix criticize or interpret yeah and this is like like quite a hard game it's a hard one okay at the end of the week reflect together how adopting an attitude of mindful acceptance shifted the dynamic between you and your partner i mean i think that just sounds like a such a powerful and illuminating exercise to do i i'm going to talk to vid after this and vid to my wife and see if she's going to do this Well, why not?

1:49:37By shifting from judgment to acceptance, this practice can help both you and your partner feel more loved and more understood. So why would I not try it? It's going to do that for me. Oh, I'm surprised. No, I shouldn't have expressed surprise. No, I'm just excited. I'm excited that you're going to do this. I'm excited because I've never done something like that. I want to hear how it goes. But I would say coincidentally, but probably not coincidentally, my lab is doing a study right now on what we call partner acceptance to try to get people to accept their partner's behaviors more. And it's very similar to this where you identify a trait or behavior of your partner that you find very frustrating or even sometimes it makes you want to walk away.

1:50:20So it could be like something serious. Now, we're not talking about abusive relationships, right? We're talking about things that are kind of normal things that happen in every relationship. And then we have different conditions. One condition, it actually goes a little bit beyond this because this is kind of just telling you to be compassionate and accepting. And people are going to interpret that differently, right? So one way is just kind of loving kindness. It's just to kind of send, just say, I want you to be happy. Just send kind of loving kindness towards the person. Another is gratitude.

1:50:49So interestingly, a lot of these sort of frustrating attributes are often associated with positive attributes, right? So the person who is a workaholic, they work a lot, they kind of neglect you, but maybe they're also a good provider. Maybe they're also very organized, right? So it kind of— Multitudes. Yeah, exactly. We contain multitudes. Or I had a partner who wouldn't text me back, you know, who was often late. And that was the negative quality. but on the positive side, he was just so present with the people in his life that that's why he was not texting or he was late because he was really present with others.

1:51:27And he's also present with me. So he's not texting other people while he's with me. And so almost every trait has kind of a positive quality that's associated with it. So that's another thing to think about. I think that is such a powerful teaching for all of us. The trait that you despise also has a positive impact in another setting. What you use is beautiful, like the partner who's not texting you. Yeah, because whenever they're with their friends or they're totally present, they're not looking at their phone, but he also does the same thing with you, which is a great thing. So would you want to, because we don't want to delete that trait completely from there.

1:52:09Because if you did, you would also have to delete the other thing that is a positive thing. And then the third way that you can do this experiment is with sort of maybe the more obvious one, it's just compassion. Just thinking about maybe what is it in their background, in their childhood, that has led them to be this way, right? To sort of have this habit that really is frustrating to you. So maybe when they were growing up, they lived in a chaotic environment and they had to kind of control things. They had to sort of micromanage things. And so now as an adult, they're kind of a micromanager, right?

1:52:41And so they're doing it because it's something that's worked for them in the past. And maybe it's not working so much anymore, but having compassion about where that behavior comes from is also very helpful. No, I love it. And the exercise I read out, one of the things I really like about it is it's not really telling you what to do or how to feel. It's giving you the guidelines on how to do the exercise. But at the end of it, you're saying at the end of the week, you can ask yourself how was it when you didn't judge when you just observed right? yeah the thing may still annoy you or maybe you're maybe you've shifted your perspective somewhat maybe you realize actually you know what I don't have to say something every time if I don't criticize every time if I just watch and observe like I don't know what I'm going to find but I think it's a really interesting one I love exercises that help us develop self-awareness.

1:53:43I'm not a fan of stuff where people are told what to do. I've never seen that with patients work in the long term. I think that works in the short term, but over time people have to understand why are they eating this way? Why are they doing this exercise? Do they feel better when they do that? Do they feel worse? That's the only way things become sustainable in my experience. And so I love that idea that you can try that for seven days and then just see. Does do things feel different? So I will email you and I will let you know. I can't wait. Look, we could talk for so long about this topic. I'm truly fascinated by all your research, even the book and this idea of feeling loved is the most important thing to happiness, I think is a very novel concept.

1:54:31We know that relationships are important and that connection is important. we know that you know being loved is important but feeling loved i i honestly think you and harry you've done something really wonderful by by putting this idea and putting it out there to us to to think about how can we feel more love in our life so i want to acknowledge you for that and thank you for someone who has I guess realize throughout this conversation that they're not happy and that they don't feel loved in their life what advice would you give to them I would say for someone who doesn't feel loved and is not happy I would say that it's under your control I mean I think this is I think is a powerful message of our book is that when people don't feel loved, they think, oh, it feels very overwhelming.

1:55:28It feels like, what do I do? I need to make myself more lovable, somehow convince the other person to love me. I need to change myself or I need to change the other person. I need to, yes, I'm going to persuade them that I'm lovable, that they need to love me. And that doesn't seem very feasible to me. And in what we're arguing in this book, Harry and I, is that if you want to feel more loved, you don't need to change yourself. You don't need to change the other person. You just need to change the conversation because a relationship is a series of conversations. You need to change the next conversation and the one after that and the one after that.

1:56:05And how do you change those conversations? By applying the five mindsets, by showing, by asking questions with curiosity, by sharing something about yourself, by listening, truly listening to learn, not listening to fix things, by listening with warmth, with kindness, by listening with acceptance and forgiveness. So it's really about what to do in your next set of conversations with that best friend, with the partner, with your mom. So it's really, it's under your control. It's actually empowering. Yeah. I love that message that we can be the ones to change this. And I know I've read it somewhere in your book, but it's like, it starts with you, you go first.

1:56:44Don't wait for someone else to do it. You go first. Just to follow up on what you just said, we both know that a lot of people feel lonely and isolated these days. And so there will be some people listening who'll be thinking, well, I don't live anywhere near my family. I've moved for work. I don't have many friends. I feel alone how do I start doing this could it be for example that if they don't have close friends or work colleagues that they get on with could it be as simple as going to their local coffee shop and ordering a drink and trying to apply some of this to their barista or at their supermarket when they're buying food instead of buying it on an online delivery service could they go and actually at the checkout out, talk to the cashier.

1:57:42Like, is it the same principles that apply? It's the same. Well, I want to start with, there's actually a study on this. People were asked to buy a coffee at Starbucks by either chatting a little bit with the barista and asking for the coffee or just sort of ordering it on their phone and just picking it up. And people were happier when they actually had to sort of say something to the barista. I mean, it's maybe kind of obvious. It is. But for those people who need a scientific study to do it, you've got it now, right? Exactly. So I would say exactly what you said is applying the five mindsets.

1:58:11So if you're lonely and if you have any interaction with other humans, to start with curiosity, sort of ask curious questions. You don't have to start very deep or personal, but just sort of ask. When you're really curious about someone, people sense that and they want to, everyone kind of wants to talk about themselves. So first ask, start by asking questions and really listening. and then when there's room for that to share and to kind of gauge their interest. And yeah, exactly that. And then listen with warmth and acceptance. So that's all five mindsets. And you do that with, you could be at the coffee shop.

1:58:46It could be with the colleague that maybe you don't talk to so much. It could be with acquaintance that could turn into a friend or you join a running club or you join some kind of group organization. And so again, I would say start with curiosity, follow up with sharing and listening with warmth and acceptance. Yeah, I love it. Hey, this book, Cancer for Your Love, the five mindsets that help you get more of what matters most, I think is just wonderful, very thought provoking book. So thank you for writing it. Thank you for coming to the studio. And thank you for the decades of research that you have done in this field.

1:59:23I think many of us apply some of the learnings off your research without even knowing it was you who actually did it, right? We've covered gratitude and acts of kindness so much on the show over the years. But of course, some of that primary research has been done by you. So I want to say thank you for that. Apart from the book, Sonia, if people want to stay up to date with what you're doing, are there any other avenues for them to do so? Sure. I have a TED Talk. That's five minutes. If you don't have a big attention span, just if they search for Sonia or happiness. But howtofeellove.com really has everything on there.

1:59:58And I have a newsletter and all the other research that I'm doing is on there. So thank you so much. It's been a lovely conversation. You have great questions. And I love how you'd have insights in the middle of questions because people don't often kind of have insights while they're speaking. You know, they have kind of prepared questions and that's it. So I love some of those insights. Yeah, I have to write them down. Well, I appreciate that. And it's, you know, people don't realize this, but I've got my notes here. There's not a single question on here. It's just a conversation. I'm very clear what this podcast is.

2:00:32These are conversations. And I've learned over the years, like those five principles, I'd like to think that I have applied them on the show. You know, listening with curiosity, listening to learn, sharing, having an open heart, the multiplicity mindset. I really feel that that is what the show has always been about. And it's about exploring an idea together. It's so funny because actually in my TED Talk, I say the key to happiness is to have a conversation, really, because that's how you connect. You know, how you all these mindsets come across during conversations and podcasters are basically that's what you're doing for a living.

2:01:13But many of us don't really have a lot of conversations. So I would say if I had to give people advice, like go out. If you want to be happier today, go out and have at least a 15 minute conversation with someone. And if you can't do it in person, there's an app called Twos where you can just go on and have a conversation with a stranger. How do you spell that? Twos, T-W-O-S. It's kind of a beautiful app. In fact, the guy who runs it lives in London. I'm going to see him at some point. So, yeah, if you can't go to the coffee shop to have a 15-minute conversation there, you can go to this app Twos or you can call up a friend, obviously call up a family member.

2:01:47but yeah literally my advice is if you want to be happier tomorrow or today have a 15 minute conversation and you're doing this as your work so maybe that's why you're happier or you're happier to begin with yeah well Sonia thank you so much for the conversation and I hope we get the chance to do it again at some point in the future it's a pleasure to talk to you

2:02:12really hope you enjoyed that conversation do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect.

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2:04:18Making lifestyle change is always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more.

2:04:32Thank you.