The Truth About Your Happiness and How To Boost It

27:39Then they asked people after they completed their assignments, the people who talked to strangers were way happier than the people who kept to themselves. So again, it's just a reminder that we're not good at knowing what's going to make us happy. And so we have to often remember back and say, oh yeah, I really did like it when somebody dragged me to that party, right? So we have to be more intentional and we have to get over some hurdles. This is why I do this. Like I really care about getting these ideas out there because I see us all, myself included, so easily becoming more isolated. The cable knit sweater I picked up from Quince is getting me through this cold weather.

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30:42That's$15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes when the network is busy. Capable device required. Availability speed and coverage varies. See MintMobile.com. This is interesting. If you're feeling stuck or plateaued, chances are that you're not engaged socially. And if you're going to engage socially, why not do it at a high level with high value people? Remember, it's also your time and effort. Christoph also goes a little further and explains the psychology behind these social media platforms. In fact, if we look at the numbers, we are in a serious crisis of happiness these days.

31:22We are seeing an unprecedented rise in mental health problems. and it's basically a result of where we put our attention to, especially the minds of young people. So when we look at the influence of especially social media is having on people, then we see that it's really devastating. In Europe, for example, we see an increase in psychiatric diagnosis of teenagers of 400 % within five years, right? 400%, just imagine that. And we can point that really to that time when the age limit of certain social media apps was lifted from, I think, it had to be. And when kids actually got cell phones and had permanent access to social media.

32:10The troubling thing to find out about social media is not just that it makes you addicted, but it does so intentionally. This is an intentional function of these applications. They're designed to make you addicted because being addicted to it means you will come back, right? It becomes such a habitual thing. And we just think about this. We now have 2 billion people using social media. That's 2 billion brains that are constantly being fed a kind of like digital drug that releases dopamine in large quantities. And that's a huge difference. And I predict that in a couple of years, we'll see a difference between people using social media and people who don't on the larger scale that we do see now.

32:56But it's already starting with young brains, of course, because those are still molded in a way. Now, when I say that this is done on purpose, I'm really not joking. One of the co-founders, one of the early co-founders of Facebook admitted that they found some sort of psychological weakness in people and used that for their end. We have that on paper. That's Sean Parker saying that. So he's very, very much not happy about having started this thing. Of course, it made him rich, but it's problematic. Now, how does this happen? Why does it happen? I mean, you already mentioned the keyword, it's comparison.

33:38And we are all worried about our privacy on Facebook. I think we should be much more worried about that comparison and how it's being utilized. So if you, say, have 365 friends on Facebook, that means that every day you have your life compared to the life of 365 people. That's exactly 365 days versus your day. It's basically comparing your day with one year worth of moments of other people's lives. So you just get that metaphor in. You're comparing yourself to one year of someone else's life. And of course, if you have one year, the span of one year, there's always something. There's a wedding.

34:21There's a holiday. There's a promotion. There's a birth of a baby. Depends on how old you are. but there's always something good happening within one year. And what was your highlight today? Maybe you had an avocado toast or something like that, right? Now, I'm here. And what we are doing is say it's super important that we share stuff with ourselves because that avocado toast, as significant as it was, focusing on that feeling of that positivity, that's actually very good for you. While feeling kind of like something where you have this giant one year worth of life experience that's never going to work.

35:03What we're doing in order to get all this attention, these likes that are actually fueling our addiction so much is we're making our lives better than it actually is. And I don't know anyone who hasn't confessed to me that, you know what, sometimes I'm actually not feeling that great, but I'm still smiling all the pictures and saying, oh my God, my life is so great. That's kind of like what's expected. And it's made by design. So that also means when you cheat the system, it makes everyone else feel even more miserable. Because again, if you're not even honest to the people around you, then they will feel even more insignificant.

35:45Now back to Dr. Waldinger and his research on relationships, especially what happens to them over time. We saw so many different kinds of partnerships. I mean, so many different kinds, like some where people felt they found their soulmate and they were inseparable. Some where people lived really separate lives, some nasty relationships and, you know, a bunch of divorces. But, you know, there were some characteristics that were really important. One was that we realized that, you know, here were two people who decided to get together and to stay together. And all of us are moving targets. All of us are changing every day, right?

36:30And you realize that when you get together with someone, you're changing, that person is changing. You are not going to be the people 10 years hence that you were when you got together. So how do you deal with two moving targets moving together? And I think one of the things we found was that the couples that were the most satisfied were the couples who really welcomed change in the other person and rolled with it and adapted to it and supported somebody in taking chances, trying new things, that kind of thing. It didn't insist that somebody be who they were on the day they got married or the day they had their first date, that that is a recipe for disaster.

37:13The other thing is that the people who were the most satisfied were people who kept being curious about their partners. So one of the things they find in research studies is that we are most tuned into our partners when we first start dating. And if you think about it, it makes sense because you're like worrying all the time. Is this person into me? What are they thinking? What are they feeling? Right? So you're really preoccupied with what's going on for this person. And then as we stay together, we think, oh, yeah, I know what they're going to say. I know what they're going to do. And then what they find is that people are actually less tuned into their partners the longer they've been together in perfectly good, stable relationships.

37:57So one of the things we found was that the people who managed to keep relationships vibrant were the people who kept being curious about their partner. Who is this person today? Actually, one of my meditation teachers taught me this exercise, this meditation that's really useful. And you can use it in relationships. The question you ask yourself is, what's here now that I've never noticed before? You know, so it could be while you're sitting and breathing, which you've done thousands of times, right? Or it could be while you're having dinner with your partner, you know, which you've done over and over again.

38:34What's here now that I've never noticed before? And see what comes up. Let's bring in our third expert on happiness, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. We asked him for the most important do's and don'ts when it comes to building and maintaining these relationships. Yeah, you know, let me start with the things that we should avoid completely. So if I'm feeling great and I'm happy, we shouldn't go up to them and say, look, you should do what I'm doing. Look how happy I am. That will probably not work. So to be sensitive to where they are rather to where we are. Now, in terms of helping other people, so the most important thing that we can do is to be there for them, meaning to listen.

39:18You know, listening, it's an art and it's underrated. It's important. You know, many people wonder, how is it that therapy helps? And what do the great therapists do? Well, the great therapists are empathic. They listen. They're present. Yeah, once in a while they can say something. But that's something also stems from, and if it is profound, it's because it stems from deep listening. So, you know, the marching order of, you know, parent therapists for sure, but also parents and partners who want to help the other is listen first. And then to lead by example, you know, as we talked about parents earlier, you know, you don't want your kids to be on the phone all the time.

40:02Lead by example. If you want them to pursue their passions, to do things that they're passionate about, well, do that yourself and share what you do. Another thing that's important to share is also hardships and difficulties. Because, you know, if my expectation is that my life should be, ought to be, can be always happy, I'll experience frustration. However, if I know that part and parcel of every life, including my parents' life or including my partner's life or my best friend's life, there's also hardship there, then I will be more likely to give myself the permission to experience that. So leading by example.

40:42Yeah, my non-negotiable, personally, that is, my non-negotiable is important dates, for example, in terms of relationships. It mostly has to do when work detracts from relationships. And relationships, I mean, whether it's with my wife, whether it's with my children, extended family, intimate friends. That comes first. And everything else has to revolve around that. Now, with that, you know, I work hard, I'm ambitious. You know, I used to, not so long ago, travel a lot. And yet, top priority in words and in deeds, relationships. And things have to revolve around that. As Tal Ben-Shahar states, our relationships are integral to our happiness and fulfillment.

41:34They also take time and effort to cultivate, so they need protected, especially in a modern world that seeks to break them down and isolate us. Our programs are designed to help you build, navigate, and secure them. Now, this compilation about happiness wouldn't be complete if we didn't look at the flip side of it as well. When we're feeling down, sad, or anxious. You know, whenever I talk about happiness or positive psychology, I always start by talking about the role of painful emotions. And notice I don't call them negative emotions because with negativity, there's already a value judgment there.

42:13I always begin by talking about the role of sadness or anger or anxiety or envy or hatred and how they're part and parcel of every life, including by default of a happy life. And that's important to emphasize precisely because of what you pointed to, AJ. And many positive psychologists are on this. The motto is smile all the time or don't worry, be happy. or eliminate negative emotions. And that's not possible, nor is it desirable. You know, I often have a thought experiment that I offer. And I also add that this may not just be a thought experiment that may become a reality 10 years from now.

43:01Imagine you had a machine that you could go into, and that machine would automatically eliminate any painful emotions. You could go into it, your kids could go into it. so you're feeling down or your child comes home from school feeling down, just go into that machine and you'll feel all better again. A little bit like Woody Allen's Orgasmatron. Would you want that machine? And my answer would be that it would be nice to have once in a while, but if we had it accessible all the time, if we could live according to that ideal and be positive and happy according to that definition of happiness all the time, that wouldn't be a good thing because think about it and most people if you ask them to reflect on the times in their lives when they grew the most when they learned the most that have been most meaningful to them they would usually think about difficult experiences not happy-go-lucky joyful polyamic experiences.

44:05When I first taught my class, a student came up to me and said, might I join you for lunch? And I said, sure. And then he said, oh, I hear you're teaching a class on happiness. And I said, yeah, positive psychology. And then he said, but you know, now that you're teaching this class, you've got to watch out. And I said, what? And he said, you've got to be careful. And I said, why? And he said, because if I see you unhappy, I'll tell your students. You know, ever since then, I've been getting this so, so often. And I tell my students and I, you know, I tell whoever is ready to listen that there are only two kinds of people who do not experience painful emotions, the psychopaths and the dead.

44:44And I'm neither a psychopath nor dead. And hence, I go through the ups and the downs like everyone else does. And I think that's an important way to jump into this subject of happiness, because there are so many myths and misconceptions about that exact idea, being happy all the time, and the singular pursuit of happiness. Now, in the study of positive psychology, I know there are a lot of myths that we're trying to break that normal society views as what happiness is. What are some of those myths or misconceptions? Yeah, so beyond the unbroken chain of pleasurable emotions. It's also the fact that happiness is about pleasure.

45:29And it's not. Happiness is much more than that. Happiness, yes, is partially about pleasurable emotions. It's also about a deep sense of meaning. And sometimes what we do that is meaningful to us doesn't necessarily provide pleasure. It's very much about relationships. It's very much about thinking and scholarship that may at times be difficult and hard. And of course, it's related to our physical well-being, our bodies. So happiness is a multifaceted construct. It's not just, okay, I'm smiling now, I'm on the beach and having fun, I'm having an ice cream. Oh, it makes me so happy. That is, yeah, it's pleasurable.

46:14It's part of the equation, but a small part. Well, what's interesting is everything you listed also causes me great frustration. It doesn't always make me happy. Friends, accountability, those sorts of things. So it's interesting how we tend to equate pleasure and that seeking of pleasure all the time with happiness, but that can also lead us astray and keep us from the real happiness that we want in life. My first book on happiness, I wrote about the lasagna principle. I'm into food metaphors. Lasagna is my favorite food, you know, especially the way my mom makes it. And yet, and yet, it's not that I want lasagna every day, all day.

46:54You know, even lasagna I want in moderation. And, you know, that's another myth that people think, okay, so I'm going to find that one thing that's going to make me happy, and then I'm going to do it all the time. Or that one person who will make, that's another myth, who will make me happy, and then we're just going to live happily ever after. All good things, as Aristotle reminded us in moderation. In light of this, Dr. Ben-Shahar shares three very important skills we need to train for our intellectual well-being, being bored, satisficing, and slowing down. You know, one of my close friends, her name is Shirley Yuval-Yair.

47:31She's a child psychologist. She talks about her kids that when they come to her and say to her, mommy, I'm bored, she always responds in the same way. And she says, that's okay, sweetheart, just be bored with dignity. And I think that's a very important response. And, you know, my kids already today, you know, they note off by heart, okay, daddy, I'll be bored with dignity. And it's important to learn to be bored for various reasons. One, and this relies on the work of many psychologists, including Adam Grant, who wrote Originals. And we need those quote-unquote times when we're bored because it's during those times that very often we get our best ideas.

48:18You know, it's no coincidence that, you know, we get in the shower or we used to, again, my generation, we used to get it in the car. Today, we're on the phone in the car, so it's not a bored quote-unquote time. So having those three spaces where we are doing nothing is important. You know, there's so much talk today about quality time for children, quality time. Well, we need nothing time as well, empty time for our kids. So that's one reason, creativity, originality. There's another reason which relates, AJ, to what you said about, you know, Netflix and the paradox of choice. And that is how sensitive we are versus how desensitized we are to stimulation.

49:10You know, if I have 500 channels, if I have the option of just about every movie that was ever created, literally at my fingertips, then I'm not going to appreciate, you know, a good movie as much. or when I watch a movie, I'm going to think of all the counterfactuals, meaning of all the movies I'm not watching while I'm watching this. That could be better because I'm not having a perfect experience. I'm having a good experience, but it's not perfect, and it should be perfect because what excuse do I have for it not being perfect, having so much choice? And if I constantly have more stimulation and more stimulation, it becomes less interesting.

49:49It becomes less exciting. I think about kids raised in the 19th century. For them, the highlight of the day was sitting with their family around the table and maybe reading a book together. Today, boring. Why? Because it's not in 3D and it's not changing every seven seconds and it doesn't have sound effects. You know, I think, Johnny, what we need to do here, and this is also the advice of Barry Schwartz of the tyranny or the paradox of choice, is that we need to accept the good enough satisfies in his words. And it has to do with expectations. Where has my understanding of happiness changed over the years?

50:42One of those places is around expectations. You know, I used to think that having high expectations, having greater expectations is great, is the way to go. And today, I still think that it's partially true, partially with a significant caveat. that. Specifically, when it comes to expectations in terms of success or for me as a teacher of my students or as a parent, yeah, I want to have high expectations. But when it comes to happiness or joy or pleasure, instead of having high expectations, we need to have realistic expectations. Let me give just a couple of examples. So if I have a night off and I come home and I'm in front of my Netflix and I say, wow, it's a night off.

51:32I can watch anything that I want. It's going to be amazing. I'm bound to be disappointed because I'm going to start watching something and then it's not going to live up to my expectations, of course, because they're extremely high. And then even if it's a great film or a great series, it's not as great as the ideal that I depicted before starting it. It's never going to meet that ideal. So I'm going to be disappointed and not enjoy a potentially enjoyable movie. Whereas if my expectation is, as you pointed out, you know, there's a lot that I can learn from this, or I can really enjoy this, it can be fun, and tomorrow is another day and I can watch something else, then that's more realistic.

52:18Now, that's about a movie. So, you know, the consequences thereof are not major. But think about other areas. Think about relationships. If I go into a relationship with great or greatest expectations, and when I say I do, I truly believe that we're going to live happily ever after, that we're going to experience the same high and joy and passion and ecstasy that we're experiencing now during the honeymoon phase for the rest of our lives, I'm bound to be disappointed. these are unrealistic high unrealistic expectations we need realistic expectations such as in every relationship there are ups and downs even in the best of them there are difficulties and hardships and it's natural and we're going to go through these hardships and grow from them and we're going to rejoice in the positive moments and experiences having realistic expectations whether it's of the food in the fridge, the film or Netflix or our beloved.

53:23You know, I want to go off a little bit on a tangent, which is very much related to what you said. And it's also connected, Johnny, to your focus on empathy. One of the things that I talk about a lot for happiness is intellectual well-being. And specifically under intellectual well-being, I focus on deep learning. Deep learning in the sense of, you know, getting into a book and reading and rereading a chapter or a paragraph. The first course that I took as an undergraduate in college was a course that was offered during freshman week. So that's even before the official semester started. It was a course on speed reading.

54:06And it was a great course, you know, increased my reading speed. But I think more and more today that an even more important course would have been on slow reading. Why? because today, as you pointed out, every five seconds, every three seconds, we need a new stimulation because that's what we're used to. You know, we hardly spend any time on a web page. You know, when kids today watch my childhood movies or TV shows, it's too slow for them because there is only one screen. Because it's one shot for, you know, two minutes. Mr. Rogers, it's hardly moving. You know, it's in slow-mo. It reminds me, many of my students say, when we watch you on video, we play you at 1.5, sometimes 1.75.

54:55I try not to take that too hard. We need constant stimulation. Now comes relationship and no one changes every three to five seconds. And we get bored with partners. And that's why there is so much relationship hopping around in the world today. Why? Because we do not exercise our slow, deep muscles. And how do we exercise them? Of course, within relationships, we also can exercise them through reading and rereading, through slow, deep engagement with text. And that habit or that practice is then transportable, transferable to our relationships. just like the unhealthy habits of jumping around every three to five seconds is then transportable and transferable to our relationships.

55:50To wrap this up, here's Dr. Waldinger's advice. If you think you're a lost cause when it comes to developing happiness. Well, first, you know, what we say is it really is never too late because we have the data to show it, right? That there are people who like find their tribe for the first time in their 60s or they find love in their 80s. I mean, it's kind of astonishing. And we have 20-somethings who have said to me, I'm no good at relationships. They're never going to happen for me. They're sure that it's just not going to work out for them. And so the message that we can give backed by science is that's not the truth, that it is really not too late.

56:30But then you're asking the big question, like, well, what then what? What do you do? And I think that it involves doing some of the things we've been talking about, that it involves figuring out what could you do? What small steps could you take? And one of the things I want to name is that people should expect a little bit of failure. Like not everybody you reach out to is going to respond with warmth. They may ghost you. They may not respond at all. They may feel annoyed, right? Sometimes that happens. And so I think when you think about starting to reach out, it's important to remember that there are going to be times when it doesn't work.

57:13It's like shooting baskets in basketball. You're not going to make the basket every time, right? And that has to be something we prepare ourselves for. And then to think about maybe a place to start is think about something you love. Think about something you love to do. It could be anything. It could be bowling. It could be playing the banjo. It could be knitting, gardening. It could be working to prevent climate change. It could be anything. And think about ways to do it alongside other people who share a similar interest because that's a natural place. Often, you know, that gives you, first of all, it gives you something in common.

57:57It gives you a place to start conversations. And then one of the things that research tells us is that if you put yourself in situations where you're going to see the same people repeatedly and maybe have casual conversations, those conversations can start to deepen. That's why the water cooler or the coffee machine at work was so important. We We don't know what we're going to do now that those are falling out of existence. But these are the kinds of things we can do.

58:37AJ, I love these compilations. They are action-packed. So much great information. and what I really enjoy about him, it's just an opportunity to revisit some of these interviews and guests who have changed our lives as well as our audiences. It's funny you should mention that, Johnny. I got a message from Robert on LinkedIn who said he is taking notes on these compilation episodes and he's gone back and listened to the full episode because of them. So it's so great to dig into our archives and share all of these impactful guests with you. This week's shout out goes to Apple Podcast listener Moose4567 and he writes, I discovered the Art of Charm podcast shortly after graduating college and I was trying to find my way socially, professionally, and dating-wise as a working young adult and was looking for how to improve in these areas of my life.

59:26Johnny and AJ provide listeners with a ton of knowledge and tools to improve these areas in one's life. By applying what you learn in the podcast, you will see your life transform before your eyes. Certainly, that's been my experience over the subsequent five plus years, where I've seen incredible gains by applying what I've learned in the podcast. In particular, episodes focused on resiliency, examples of the episodes where they interviewed Stephen Hayes on building more self-compassion, and episodes focused on social skills, with examples from the Toolbox episodes have been extremely valuable.

1:00:02Thank you, Team Articharm, for providing an immense service to the public. Well, thank you, Moose4567.

1:00:37form for those of you who love LinkedIn. All right. Now, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. We hope you guys have an epic week.

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