Transcript
00:00:00you've been studying happiness for 36 years is there a commonality between all of the most
00:00:06effective happiness interventions that you've found yes well thank you for aging me but yes 36 years
00:00:11so actually it was 1998 my lab pioneered happiness interventions so 98 long time ago 28 years ago
00:00:18bill clinton was in the white house um and so i've been doing research on these interventions
00:00:23testing whether practices like expressing gratitude or doing acts of kindness or being
00:00:28social makes people happier so interventions are like clinical trials but instead of testing a
00:00:33vaccine we're testing like a happiness strategy and then one day it finally hit me that what all
00:00:38these interventions had in common is the ones that worked the reason they worked is because they made
00:00:43us feel more connected to and loved by others right so when i write a gratitude letter to my mom it makes
00:00:49me feel more loved by her right when i do an act of kindness for a colleague or a friend makes me feel
00:00:54closer to him so almost all happiness practices maybe not all like maybe if you run on the beach
00:00:58or meditate it's not about connection but almost all of them are about feeling connected and feeling
00:01:03loved why we i think the human species wouldn't have survived if we did not feel connected and loved and
00:01:12it's a extremely strong signal and so what i concluded is the key to happiness is feeling connected which
00:01:19sounds like a cliche right but and when you think about like in our ancestral past if we did not feel
00:01:24connected and loved we wouldn't survive we wouldn't find mates like we wouldn't pass on our genes
00:01:29so it's incredibly important it's one of the most important tasks of human beings is is to sort of
00:01:35maintain connection okay so to take a bit of an evolutionary lens yeah uh if you are not belonging to
00:01:41the tribe mattering to the tribe understood by the tribe uh and a part of that a human on its own 20 000
00:01:47years ago isn't going to last very long therefore it's important for you to get back into connection
00:01:53it doesn't seem to me though that unhappiness necessarily drives people back to connection and
00:01:58love it can often make people behave in ways have habits and a demeanor that actually makes them kind of
00:02:04hard to love right so it's not really unhappiness that drives them back to connection it's not feeling
00:02:08loved or feeling lonely which actually is very very similar to feeling unloved i think actually a lonely
00:02:14moment and a moment where you don't feel loved are almost identical and and there again they're a
00:02:20signal to to us humans that something's a rise something's amiss i need to you know regain reconnect
00:02:26that connection i actually was feeling a little lonely a few weeks ago and i actually i don't usually
00:02:30feel lonely i have lots of friends and family who love me and i left a message for a friend and she just
00:02:35actually just left me a message back yesterday and she said oh i feel so so sorry for you like so
00:02:40i feel so bad i wish i were there and she's like sonia feeling lonely is a signal that you know you need
00:02:46to kind of put more effort and energy into reconnecting so um yeah lots of people spend their entire lives
00:02:53trying to be lovable is that the wrong goal entirely yes well there's a part of it that's that's not a bad thing
00:03:02which is if you want to be a better person right we working on yourself wonderful right but i think the
00:03:09i think when you don't feel loved to conclude that oh i don't feel loved i need to make myself more
00:03:15lovable like i need to sort of somehow broadcast how wonderful i am or maybe i need to get richer or
00:03:21more famous or more beautiful so people would love me more that's the part that's a myth and it does not
00:03:26actually get you to feel more loved is it a supply of love problem or an acceptance of love problem i
00:03:35think it's an ex or not necessarily acceptance but it's not a supply of love problem so many of us are
00:03:40loved but we still don't feel loved so why is that maybe somehow we don't trust it we don't see it
00:03:47um you know it's not somehow getting in you know i think of it as like a cup of love you know this cup
00:03:52of love and you're pouring love you're showing love to me but maybe it has a leak in the bottom and the
00:03:58love is sort of leaking out or maybe it has a lid it doesn't have much of a place to get in that's one
00:04:03way that that happens um um but okay so the idea is that when we think when we think we're not love we
00:04:12think i need to be make myself more lovable and so i sort of show you how wonderful i am and what
00:04:17does that accomplish it might lead you to admire me right i might impress you it happens all the time
00:04:24like here i am sitting here talking to you chris and i want you to think that i'm smart and interesting
00:04:29and funny and kind and i might succeed in impressing you and i might succeed at you admiring me but it's
00:04:36not going to forge a connection so that's not the answer to to real connection what's the difference
00:04:42so i think admiration is like it's like an influencer has a lot of followers and they might be admired
00:04:47but the followers don't really know them and my co-author of the of my book how to feel loved
00:04:54harry reese and i believe that really the key to feeling loved is being known because if you don't
00:05:00really know me if i'm just broadcasting my my positive qualities hiding my weaknesses you don't
00:05:06really know who i am on the inside what really matters to me and if you don't really know me
00:05:11i can't truly ever feel loved because i'll always wonder if he knew me maybe he wouldn't love me
00:05:20that fear of being seen yeah what just definitionally what does it mean to feel loved
00:05:28feeling love means that i believe i make a difference in your life and that i really matter
00:05:33in your life it really comes down to that i mean love of course is about affection and care
00:05:38and intertwined goals but i think it really comes down to like i matter to you and you matter to me
00:05:44and it's much broader by the way than of course romantic love and what we talk about feeling love we
00:05:48we're talking about feeling loved at work by your neighbors by your family by your friends so it's
00:05:53not just about your partner 40 of people say they don't feel as loved as they want to be by their
00:05:59partner and nearly two-thirds of young men feel that nobody truly knows them isn't that terrible
00:06:06yeah it's it's really a it's sad it's a problem i actually think those numbers are probably
00:06:10understatements i bet people you know feel embarrassed yeah exactly exactly so yeah we did a survey expressly for
00:06:16the book right found that it was at 70 percent said they don't feel as loved as they want to be at least
00:06:21one significant relationship in their life so it's 70 percent um and why is that i think many of them
00:06:28have love they have connection they have friends and somehow yeah they're not they're not it's not
00:06:34getting it's not getting internalized what are the big ways structurally tactically literally what are
00:06:40the big ways that people don't accept love well i was talking about the cup of love i think if you're
00:06:46anxiously attached or avoidantly attached i think that's a huge barrier somehow again if you're anxious
00:06:53it's like you're watching for signs of rejection signs that the person doesn't love you if you're
00:06:57avoided maybe you're not even noticing those signs of love um i mean it could even be it's funny we the
00:07:03idea of the love languages we actually debunk the idea of the love languages in the book we have a
00:07:08whole section on it we didn't do it someone else did it um but there's there's a truth to it i mean
00:07:12it's a good heuristic that if somehow like i actually was dating someone who kept sending me gifts
00:07:18like in the mail with like little handwritten notes it's actually really cute and yet didn't do the
00:07:23things that i actually really wanted him to do which is really like saying something to me or you know my
00:07:28love quote leveling love languages are are words of affirmation and physical touch well hang on a second
00:07:33have you debunked it or are you like a subject to it what we've debunked is that there's not just
00:07:40five languages there's there's many and that it what we debunked is not we uh other people have debunked
00:07:45the idea that matching in your love language uh predicts like how good or how strong or how stable your
00:07:52relationship is it does not predict it it turns out everyone cares about two love languages words of
00:07:57affirmation and quality time it also turns out that the more love languages your partner shows love to
00:08:02you the better so it's not about the matching that's the matching idea that really we've debunked but i
00:08:07think it's a great heuristic so i like to talk about it so i'll bring it so it is funny like i'm like
00:08:12bringing it in and yet i've debunked it a little uh pick it directly i know exactly but um but yeah
00:08:17anyway this example i was dating someone who was sending me gifts and that was his love language um and i just
00:08:25wasn't reading it like i wasn't seeing that like i wasn't saying that that's an expression of love so
00:08:29that does happen sometimes when the you're just not yeah you're not taking in whatever the person is
00:08:34doing their love language is different from yours okay what else what are some of the other ways that
00:08:39people are rejecting love not accepting it yeah if you don't love yourself very much uh it's hard to see
00:08:48signs of other people's love as genuine now everything everything we talk about is really much more nuanced
00:08:55than like a simple explanation so for example a lot of people think if you don't love yourself
00:08:59you can't really love other people i think that's a that's a myth and i think esther perel
00:09:04actually was a was someone i heard talking about that she said no you learn to love yourself
00:09:09also in the context of relationships it's a bi-directional kind of thing um having said that
00:09:15if you really don't love yourself if you love self-esteem you're not gonna believe other
00:09:18people's expressions of love you're not gonna be aware of them you're not gonna see it as genuine
00:09:22furthermore if you don't love yourself you literally are gonna be quote less lovable right people
00:09:28people it leaks out right that your your self-image is poor and you're not gonna be as
00:09:34likely to receive love so um so i think that's another barrier yeah what have you learned about
00:09:40building self-esteem and self-love because it sounds here like hey we're on the receive but in
00:09:46the context of self-esteem and self-love we are both the recipient and the giver yeah i would say
00:09:51nothing um that is the one thing i don't know i'm an interventionist i'm an experimental social
00:09:56psychologist i don't know of any good interventions to increase people's self-esteem no way well interventions
00:10:04in the lab you know that have been actually like evidence-based i mean of course i could well we can
00:10:07do anything off vibes right i can come up with something that sounds good that's the reason we
00:10:11need you we need you to test whether or not my vibe coding of an intervention is actually good but
00:10:16remember evidence of our absence of evidence is not evidence of absence right so just because there
00:10:21aren't interventions doesn't mean that they wouldn't work i mean i could i could speculate you know
00:10:26like based on years of experience and you know expertise that you know like for example just um pursuing goals
00:10:32passions that that are important to you you know and having successes in in those things and
00:10:38practicing your social skills like that's going to build your self-esteem i just don't know any
00:10:42maybe they're out there but i don't know any successful interventions that have that have actually
00:10:47boosted people's self-esteem that's interesting i wonder whether and this is completely in fact i'm
00:10:52going to take this off i'm going to put this one on for the time being love it um this is the bro
00:10:56scientist huh love it yeah i wonder if part of self-esteem is kind of like an aggregate a
00:11:06lagging measure aggregate for how your local ecosystem socially and emotionally seems to be
00:11:14feeding back to you in a positive way that self-esteem can be built up on your own but you need to be very
00:11:21deluded if you were able to hold self-esteem when the world was giving you no evidence that you should
00:11:27hold on to it right because that would be incredibly maladaptive you you are as a social creature you're
00:11:34actively ignoring signals that you should pay attention to if everybody else in the tribe is going
00:11:39sonia you you can't behave like that you can't keep behaving like that we're not giving you positive
00:11:44reinforcement we're not giving you love we're not giving you belonging you're not mattering we're not
00:11:47listening we don't care because you've been an asshole you're being an asshole and that's maladaptive to
00:11:53the group as as a whole presumably the opposite of that would be this is good keep going more of that
00:11:59this is helping us you are a good person you are contributing we care about you and over time that
00:12:05would help to build up now people can have self-esteem that is self-generated but again you need to have
00:12:13nubs of steel or basically no no eyes and ears if you're going to ignore the the feedback from everybody
00:12:17else okay no no that is actually and i'm not just flattering you that it's actually a brilliant idea
00:12:23and you've just reproduced some you change hats you've just independently developed some really solid
00:12:30theories in psychology about about how self-esteem is kind of a measure like a like a metric a meter of
00:12:38what's happening exactly like a sociometer i think is what someone calls it one of my colleagues calls
00:12:44it absolutely we're social animals right we don't live in isolation where you don't man does not live
00:12:48on an island right um and so that also means so if i were to build a self-esteem intervention right now
00:12:56i would say go out and this is actually very similar to my happiest interventions go out and help other
00:13:01people right contribute to community well actually the three buckets of that that computer the three
00:13:06buckets that contribute to happiness are um uh anything to do with connection so go and connect
00:13:12with other people right uh spend time with others listen you know we'll get back we'll get to that
00:13:16later to um contribution to society to community right helping others when you help others you're
00:13:23going to get positive feedback from the world and then the third is personal growth right so work on
00:13:27yourself but it also can be just like learning to garden learning new language going to travel
00:13:32having experiences that you can talk about to other people that gives you um this gives you esteem
00:13:38right if you sit home in your garage all day right you're not gonna build that very easily is the
00:13:44person that you're dating the most important relationship for providing this sense of love
00:13:51well interesting in in western society most people have romantic relationships that actually a far
00:13:57majority end up getting married at some point i think something like 85 percent by age 56. um
00:14:03i would say for a lot of a lot of people would report that that is their most important relationship i
00:14:09personally think that friends are what makes life worth living um that's more of my kind of personal
00:14:13theory that you get more of it from friends but it's also a very gender-based theory so it turns out that
00:14:19men derive more happiness from romantic relationships than women you probably know this yeah that's why
00:14:25men suffer more through divorce because so much of their social belonging was tied up in the other
00:14:30person whereas women had distributed it they put all their eggs in my basket whereas women have you
00:14:34know very close uh friendships uh social support networks um but again i think friends are what makes
00:14:41life worth living and um yeah so really maintain those friendships did you read uh friends by robin dunbaugh
00:14:48no but i know about it yeah yeah interesting idea he he talks about um you know the concentric circles
00:14:54of friendship and i think he talks about you have room in your life ish for about five
00:14:58five very close friends but that a partner takes up two of those slots i thought that was really
00:15:02interesting to think about you know you're you're um distributing this around but what's the the the most
00:15:09common answer to the question how many close friends do you have to call on an emergency is zero that's
00:15:13not the the median but it's the most common answer more people have no friends to call on in an
00:15:18emergency than any other number and uh i wonder whether people who aren't in a relationship
00:15:26don't realize hey you need two additional close friends to compensate for your singleness and that
00:15:32might help to fill in some of the gaps now yeah there's there is a category of love and intimacy
00:15:39obviously that can't be replicated by friendships that is available in an intimate partnership right
00:15:44obviously but more isolation means that maybe people are placing even more pressure on romantic
00:15:53relationships to fulfill all of these different needs and when they're not in a romantic
00:15:56relationship they're not supplementing that with more friends i mean i love that idea the two two for
00:16:02one um but uh our but we also have the the false belief that our partner needs to fulfill all of our
00:16:08needs so like eli finkel's book the all or nothing marriage right that and so we know this to be true
00:16:14and yet we still think that right that they yeah so one person needs to fulfill you know sexual
00:16:19spiritual emotional intellectual needs and that almost never happens and so which is why uh delegating those to
00:16:26your friends and family is a great idea are there more important words to hear than i love you
00:16:32yes so on valentine's day right almost all the cards say i love you right almost all of them i would
00:16:38say 99 and so we had the idea that they should say maybe it's more important or as important to say
00:16:45i feel loved by you you make me feel loved which is really more about what they're doing the gift that
00:16:52they're giving you because again like that's what matt you could be loved if you're if you are loved
00:16:57but you don't feel loved it's like almost doesn't matter like it's like you could be beautiful but
00:17:00you don't feel beautiful you could be smart and you don't feel smart then you know that's a problem
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00:18:08and modernwisdom at checkout is there a skill to accepting love do you think is that something
00:18:14that can be developed over time you know i to use a more flippant example everyone's got that friend
00:18:22that when you pay them a genuine compliment they dismiss it this is kind of like the british
00:18:25approach to receiving a compliment oh you must be not you um you look really good today well if you
00:18:32had nothing else to do with your life other than get ready for a party you too would look great and
00:18:35you go hey dude i've just worked really hard to try and give you something that's an opportunity for
00:18:42you to feel good and for me to feel good for making you feel good and now neither of us feel good so
00:18:47congratulations but yeah it makes me think about that but at a much deeper level right the skill of
00:18:53accepting love right and absolutely true and actually your example is great because i've noticed that as
00:18:57my friends and i get older we are better at receiving compliments we're just sort of receiving
00:19:02receiving generosity it's like it just the practice we practice and practice and practice um and i see
00:19:09that like there's more of a focus on kind of self-development um you know at least in certain
00:19:13circles and people are really working on themselves and uh yeah i see that everywhere so yeah i i think almost
00:19:19everything can get better with practice even when it feels really unnatural at first why is having a
00:19:26sharing mindset so important um we were talking about how the key to feeling loved is to be known
00:19:32right so if you don't know me i'll never really feel loved by you because right because i always wonder
00:19:36would he love me if he knew me how do i get to how do you get to know me i need to share more of
00:19:41myself it doesn't have to be you know trauma sharing or over sharing it has to be done at the right pace
00:19:48and also i need to really have some emotional intelligence like read the room so i might like
00:19:52so i need to share more of myself right not just the highlight reel but more of myself but again not
00:19:57like to spill all my you know weaknesses so but but i would want to test the room right so when you ask me
00:20:02how are you you know most of the time i say fine uh maybe i might start with oh i had you know i was
00:20:08sort of struggling today with something you know i had a rough morning and then i look at your reaction
00:20:13and see like are you really interested to hear about my rough morning and that's kind of the toe in the
00:20:17water and then you can share more and more so i just want to like make sure that people understand
00:20:22that it's not just like oversharing i'm talking about but it's showing like who are you who do you
00:20:29believe to be on the inside like showing more of that you know what matters to me doesn't have to
00:20:35be something negative it could just be like my opinion about that movie that maybe everyone likes
00:20:40but i don't like it um you know showing something genuine about me um you know that yeah that shows
00:20:46you who i am it's an interesting bi-directional relationship here too right i think about the
00:20:52uk as well um there is a good culture of mocking in the uk especially as you're a kid growing up
00:20:59there's a piss-taking banter back and forth one of the interesting things there is if you try to put a
00:21:07slightly orthogonal opinion forward i'm going to say something that's a little bit different to what
00:21:13most people expect typically that's not met with oh that's really interesting now that's that's i've
00:21:19never thought about stuff like that before that's really cool i'm really glad that you brought that
00:21:22up it's why would you say that that's so strange and i think if you think about that in the context
00:21:27of a relationship the fact that this is going back and forth between two people means that the less
00:21:33it is encouraged and received wow that thing that you said that was evidently surprising to me that
00:21:39might have taken a little bit of effort for you to say that wasn't received and encouraged in the way that
00:21:46might make you want to continue to do it more that means that you do it less and are less encouraged
00:21:51to do it which means that i know you less which means that i don't get the opportunity to do it
00:21:55it's a vicious cycle and actually someone was just telling me like they had one time they were
00:21:59vulnerable and they really got punished for it they got judged for it it was used against them
00:22:04it was one out of a hundred times and yet they now don't want to reveal anything ever about themselves
00:22:09um and we kind of over generalize from that it's a formative experience i mean how many times i see
00:22:16this online a lot and i'm aware people use the most extreme examples when they talk on the internet but
00:22:23how many times do you see some story online about a person who really tried to open up to a partner to a
00:22:28to a parent to a close friend to a confidant and it was such a painful experience for them
00:22:35but like that is the formative experience of what opening up of what asking to be loved of what asking
00:22:41to be known feels like and um yeah that's that's ruthless there's a um rob henderson my friend told
00:22:49me this idea where he said if you if you get rejected by one girl but you've gone up to a hundred
00:22:56even if you get rejected by a hundred getting rejected by one is just another drop in the bucket
00:23:00but if you've only ever gone up to one girl and you get rejected that one time it's the biggest event
00:23:04in your entire life and the same thing goes for hey maybe this is an example for if you're going to
00:23:08open up to somebody make sure that the first one has got a high hit rate of at least not being an
00:23:13asshole to you yeah exactly exactly but bad is stronger than good so we remember those bad events it
00:23:17also suggests that maybe a parenting uh something that parents should emphasize is like to to model
00:23:24kind of sharing and sharing and listening and i should say that you know we really can't talk
00:23:28about sharing without talking about how the person responds as you say and so actually feeling loved
00:23:33for me i would argue starts with curiosity right so it starts with really you being curious about me
00:23:39and asking deep questions and then i know i can share i feel safe i feel inspired to share so i'm not just
00:23:45sharing out of the blue and i'm i have to guess whether you care or not or whether it's gonna be
00:23:49uncomfortable or whether you're gonna judge me or use it against me so it really starts with curiosity
00:23:55and genuine curiosity is so rare really when you think about it how often people really really care
00:24:01about what goes on in your inner life and like you know ask you a lot of questions um anyway so that
00:24:07that's that's where really i'm coming from is like someone asks another person a question that you're
00:24:11genuinely interested in getting an answer to and then you share in response you don't just kind of
00:24:16you know share out of the blue okay so sharing mindset stepping into an interaction
00:24:21with the understanding i'm going to put more of myself across than i might naturally uh tend to
00:24:28and that's going to happen it's going to unfold over time i'm not going to trauma dump immediately
00:24:34uh and what what else just on the sharing mindset are there any other sort of uh pitfalls that people
00:24:39need to be aware of go slow um well the vulnerability paradox which we're kind of hitting on without
00:24:45naming it so vulnerability paradox is that we think being vulnerable will lead other people to like us
00:24:50less on average people like us more it's interesting yeah why do you think that's the case so so we think
00:24:57yeah we're so focused on the bad like i reveal some kind of i don't know like bad habit i have
00:25:02and the other and other people and we i think it's so terrible people will judge me and i'm embarrassed
00:25:07and other people just think it's human or maybe they have the same habit um actually something happened
00:25:12to me a few weeks ago where i really i totally bombed giving a talk like i i usually never do but i just
00:25:19completely blanked out and i was just standing there on stage and i'm like i don't know what comes next
00:25:24i literally said i don't know what what to say and it was mortifying and i can't tell you how many
00:25:29people came up to me later and were like sonia like i i loved it like it just made you more human
00:25:36you know they so the thing that i thought was mortifying other people thought was like a cute human
00:25:41failure i mean that's that's that was an unvolunteer are you familiar with the pratfall effect do you
00:25:46know this yes so it's when somebody gets all of the answers right in a test but they drop their
00:25:50pencils on the way up to hand their paper in and it's a british study the word prat i don't know
00:25:55whether the word pratt has come over to america anyway um we we like people who show their human
00:26:01side uh which is which is strange right because there's an assumption that we just want everybody
00:26:06to be as perfect as possible there's a great line from a famous screenwriter
00:26:11who said if you want to write a character that no one connects with make them perfect
00:26:17all right so we actually don't want perfection because it's not human it's not interesting it's
00:26:20not complex i want to show you a video jared can you pull up that video of that gymnastics girl
00:26:26so there's this there's a look at this just watch watch this video okay
00:26:37daddy i'm scared i'm not brave you are brave you are brave you do things that no one else has ever done
00:27:04you are doing you are doing skills that are insane to even adults
00:27:10you have more courage in your little body than a thousand people have and all of their bodies combined
00:27:18you are mine and i am yours nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you nothing you will do
00:27:27whatever cause me to give up on you i'm going to let you know when i think you're making a bad
00:27:32choice
00:27:32i am not going to let you talk down on yourself i'm not going to let you give up on yourself and i'm not
00:27:40going to let you quit because something might be scary you can quit if you truly don't love something
00:27:46okay but you cannot quit because something might scare you okay you are not failing me
00:27:54and if i have made you feel like you are not good enough or that i don't care about you and i have
00:28:00not done my job as a father i love you very much okay and i don't think that you're bad i don't
00:28:12ever want you to think that i wouldn't be there and do whatever it takes to make sure that you can
00:28:17be successful doing whatever you want to do because at the end of the day this is something you have
00:28:24told me you want to do now if you truly do not love cheer guess what you don't have to do cheer
00:28:31if you truly love doing cheer then yes i'm going to let you know when i think you are making a silly
00:28:36decision because you don't think you're good enough or because you think something is too hard or too
00:28:41scary the only limits that you have are the limits that you put on yourself if you keep telling yourself
00:28:49you are incapable of doing something guess what you will prevent yourself from doing something if you
00:28:55tell yourself that you can achieve something even if it doesn't happen right away guess what you
00:29:00will eventually end up doing achieving it but we have to be able to be strong here okay to make this
00:29:10we are capable of doing it starts with this okay what do you think of when you say that okay a couple
00:29:16things um well it was beautiful that he could go underneath what her fear was not just she's afraid of
00:29:24you know doing this this flip but she's afraid that if she fails that maybe her dad won't love her
00:29:30which is really beautiful like he gets under the fear and i do have one critique that was beautiful
00:29:36obviously what he said but i do have one critique of this death well hey if anyone is open to feedback
00:29:42something tells me that it's anthony the dad and it is that the what what therapist i'm not a therapist
00:29:47what therapist says that you want to first um validate what she says right so she kept saying i'm scared
00:29:53and he's like no you're not scared and and i guess the what you're supposed to do is kind of not
00:29:58supposed to do right ideally you want to kind of validate like i i understand you feel scared right
00:30:02now or something like that and then go and talk about and give the speech that you get a bit of
00:30:06validation in the emotion yeah yeah first validate yeah is that important do you think when receiving
00:30:11love and trying to give it as well it's so interesting so one thing we talk about right let's say you're
00:30:16sharing more of yourself because you want to feel more loved and so you are sharing more of yourself
00:30:20and then i'm listening so listening is so critical most of us are not very good listeners and so what
00:30:24we do when we're trying to listen turns out the one study showed 25 of the time when we're listening
00:30:31our mind is wandering and i bet it's higher than that because we have this inner chatter we're like
00:30:37distracted or we're mostly we're rehearsing what we want to say next right how i want to respond to you
00:30:42and and and we also want to sort of fix or give advice which i do all the time instead of just simply
00:30:50making the person feel heard which is what we're just talking about and just validate it right which
00:30:54is like wow that must have been really hard or that must have been really inspiring you know how
00:30:58did that feel and again that sounds like therapy talk but you can put in your own words um i do think
00:31:03the pendulum has swung a little too far on like validating over fixing you know that nail in the
00:31:10head video that's so popular the woman who has this nail in the head oh you've got to watch this okay
00:31:15so she has a nail in the head and she's like oh i feel i'm in such pain and all my all my sweaters
00:31:20are are shredding and the guy's like well you have this nail in your head and and she's like and
00:31:25basically the point of the video is she just wants to be heard and then once he says i'm so sorry it
00:31:31must be so painful for you to have a nail in your head and she's like ah right and that's the point
00:31:36of the video whereas he keeps trying to give her advice can you should take the nail out of your head
00:31:41and then you won't feel so so much in pain and you won't shred your sweaters and i just think
00:31:45like yeah it's like the again the pendulum has swung so far like sometimes people kind of need
00:31:50like fucking need advice right they need to be told take the nail out of the head but i i
00:31:55agree that at first you want to validate and then give advice later most people don't realize how
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00:32:53modern wisdom i understand what you mean about therapy speak maybe going mainstream to an extent where
00:32:59validation is given when it shouldn't be a lot of people do need some tough love i don't know whether
00:33:05good therapy speak has been widespread yet though i get the sense that in a lot of these conversations it's still quite
00:33:13performative it's people saying the thing that they've heard is kind of cool well it's really important
00:33:18like to just follow your body and to just do what feels good for you as opposed to i'm gonna sit in
00:33:26the muck with you i'm gonna sit in the discomfort you know yeah the validation thing good point i'm sure
00:33:32anthony will take it on board um but he's sitting he's sitting in the emotion with his daughter right he's
00:33:40holding that space it's unfortunate that holding space has kind of been meme-ified into i hate that
00:33:45phrase yeah but it's that what it what it means is so good it's just a shame that the phrase has
00:33:50become a cliche of itself in a way um but well there's there's one kind of therapist speak that i
00:33:57think is is so amazing and effective and it's non-violent communication right it's using i statements
00:34:01right so so i feel hurt when you do this as opposed to why do you always do this you know what's wrong with
00:34:07you and so um and that yeah i it's that is just so effective has been shown to be effective in so many
00:34:13contexts and people are doing it more again instead of accusing the other person it's about you so
00:34:18like it's not like you're doing this it's like i feel this way when when i see this or it's my
00:34:23understanding or the story i'm telling myself is that you're um and then you and then you ask and then
00:34:29you have a request um so um i'm a big believer in non-violent communication and the tldr of that is
00:34:36i statements not use statements yeah there's a whole process to it but sort of i feel this when
00:34:42you you know so let's say yeah like let's say the person never cleaning up you know i feel you know i
00:34:48i don't know overburdened when you don't wash the dishes when you do this um you know i'd like to
00:34:56talk about i'd like to understand what's going on maybe you you're really stressed out at work
00:35:00um you know and then you have a rook and the hard part is the request it's like what do you actually
00:35:04it's easier to criticize it's harder to kind of ask the ask is the hard part you know why i would
00:35:09it's it's vulnerable um to sort of ask to say i i yeah it's hard to ask that's a funny it's almost
00:35:17obvious to me why maybe it's not so obvious i would love for us to come up with an agreement about
00:35:24how you split how we split chores um so yeah i statements yeah i i guess criticizing somebody else
00:35:33puts the ball in their court it also makes your displeasure known and like uh absconds you of
00:35:41having to take responsibility but putting yourself forward and going i would really like it if you
00:35:47did that is another opportunity for this person to hurt you right it's like i'm going to request this
00:35:53thing not only have you done this thing that pissed me off that i've now had to tell you about
00:35:56i've had to tell you that it's hurt me but i'm now going to like offer you this thing
00:36:04that you could reject this request that's why it's that's why it's vulnerable because you're risking
00:36:09rejection and that's life sometimes you'll be rejected what's your advice to people who when they
00:36:16get to the precipice of vulnerability of exposing a little bit more of themselves and they feel like
00:36:21they should that that sort of fear comes up and the tightness in the chest and the ringing in the ears
00:36:28what is your advice to them in that moment i mean part of my advice is just to go for it take the
00:36:36leap so many great things in life involve taking risks almost everything right like having a baby
00:36:42you know going for that job that you know moving to a different city um but before they they take that
00:36:48leap i would go slow right so maybe the first time just you yeah um reveal something smaller and then
00:36:56take us yeah take a step baby steps i would say okay so listening to learn yeah people are not just
00:37:03playing the game of tennis waiting to hit the ball back yeah uh genuine curiosity what else we talked
00:37:10about sharing so curiosity let's say so so if you start with curiosity like i'm really interested in you
00:37:14and curiosity by the way has a enthusiasm component right like i'm really i'm excited to hear what you
00:37:19have to say that's why it's such a gift right like how often does that happen when someone's so excited
00:37:24charismatic people are really good at this right that's why we flock to them because they're so
00:37:27excited to hear what you have to say so it starts with curiosity then you tell us i'm curious about you
00:37:32then you start sharing which is hard and but i'm i'm validating and i'm supporting your sharing by
00:37:38like really listening and asking questions so question asking is not talked about or even studied
00:37:44that much so important we don't ask each other enough questions so research shows that we think
00:37:52that especially asking deep questions if i ask you a deep question i'll think oh he's gonna think i'm
00:37:56prying that i'm being a little nosy and sometimes that happens but on average people crave to be seen
00:38:04right they want to be known um i have an example for my daughter who has a roommate who's having a lot of
00:38:11problems and her her family was coming over they were crying there were all these sort of sessions
00:38:16and they're speaking spanish so she didn't know my daughter didn't know what they were saying
00:38:20so i said to my daughter why don't you talk to your roommate and ask her what's going on
00:38:24and she said oh mom i i couldn't do that she'll think i'm prying and i think you know she could be
00:38:30right but i think most most likely she's wrong that this roommate probably would feel really
00:38:36supported and loved if she uh if she was asked about it so but we usually think yeah so we don't ask
00:38:42enough questions so ask your friends colleagues and partners those deep questions okay and that's
00:38:49radical curiosity that's part of radical curiosity and part of listening because it's listening is a
00:38:53back and forth and then there's two more mindsets we talk about one is called open heart and it's
00:38:59almost like an obvious one you know i think open heart is basically warmth kindness believing in the
00:39:05other person wanting their them to be happy wanting their dreams to come true it's i say it's obvious
00:39:11because i would think most stable relationships have that mindset it's the other mindsets that often
00:39:16people don't necessarily have so i actually we sent the book to a few early readers and um two of my
00:39:24male friends said they they're like we love the book but they broke up with their girlfriends after
00:39:29reading the book and it and we were i was really surprised because i thought it was prescriptive like
00:39:34oh do this listen better you know show curiosity but they actually used it to hold a mirror to their
00:39:39relationships so they had the open heart they had kindness and warmth and belief in the other person
00:39:44but one person said she's not really sharing and i'm not really sharing another person said my
00:39:49girlfriend is no longer curious about my work she never asks about it um and so those are really
00:39:56important and need to be worked on the open heart i think is one that i would hope most relationships
00:40:01already have okay yeah and the last one is my favorite the last mindset it's called multiplicity
00:40:09so the term multiplicity i'm told comes from trauma research the idea if you have a trauma it doesn't
00:40:13define you it's like you're a quilt of many many things of course you had the trauma you can't take
00:40:18it away but it doesn't define you and they were all we're all multi you know the walt whitman quote
00:40:22you know i am multitudes i contain multitudes um so i'm like a quilt of both positive and negative
00:40:28qualities and traits and behaviors right so sometimes i'm kind and other times i'm selfish sometimes i'm
00:40:34loyal and sometimes i'm narcissistic and we're all like that right and sort of use that multiplicity
00:40:40lens to turn on the other person so when you're revealing your story and something you say something
00:40:45i might disapprove of makes me uncomfortable i use a multiplicity lens and see you as a human in all of
00:40:52your complexity and what's interesting about that is that when i tell this to people everyone nods and
00:40:57they're like oh yeah of course and then when you actually give specific examples it's really hard
00:41:04right people will say oh what a jerk right what an asshole like he did that or she did that um
00:41:11so that's a really hard one yeah i um i think it's difficult for so few people want to sit in a
00:41:20discomfort zone uh a tough emotion and their solution is to just fix it to just say if i just come up with
00:41:27the solution to this thing we don't need to worry about it anymore what will be the solution to uh so
00:41:33someone reveals something negative about them about themselves i don't want you to feel that way anymore
00:41:39allow me to minimize it allow me to uh tell you what you can do like um this person at work keeps
00:41:49mistreating me in this way and every time that they do it makes me feel really small and i'm worried
00:41:54that they don't like me and i think that i don't really belong there anymore well she's a bitch anyway
00:41:58and you shouldn't do it and you're like hey dude you're not you're not in this with me what i want to
00:42:05hear from you is damn that must be that must be really hard to go through
00:42:12what what's that been like over the last couple of months or what are you what are you worried this
00:42:17means or what's the emotion just after that happens like oh okay like i'm someone cares someone cares
00:42:24enough to do that and uh yeah i just think people's it comes from two two directions it comes from i don't
00:42:34want this person who i care about to suffer anymore and also i don't want to be in this discomfort
00:42:40anymore and both of those things together can be wrapped up in a i'll just fix it minimize it or make it go
00:42:46away um uh i had a coach once and some a friend did something that i was really upset about and so i'm
00:42:54talking to the coach and i'm doing that i'm minimizing i'm thinking oh well because of this and this reason
00:42:59they must have done it and the coach said sonia just stop it right now and he said skip right over
00:43:06the rumination and the justification the rationalization and right onto sadness go right go straight to
00:43:12sadness which is just be sad that your friend did this right which is kind of like what you're saying
00:43:17sort of sit in it and then you can you know rationalize but but the rationalization like
00:43:22you know there's a fine line between kind of condoning justifying and compassion
00:43:27right when is it compassion where you see someone and they do something kind of terrible and you can
00:43:32see like this happened once with my friends where this guy said something really terrible
00:43:36in a text and we're like oh what a jerk and one of my friends said you know when i read that
00:43:42text i see the little boy inside of him or i see the teenage boy who used to be rejected by girls
00:43:50and so whatever he got triggered it's not excusing or condoning or justifying but it's having
00:43:55compassion uh and and i don't it really helps me to see people in the sort of more complex light
00:44:00again it doesn't mean i want to hang out with him but i again i think that compassion is really helpful
00:44:07what do you think of the things in a relationship that makes people feel unloved the most
00:44:14i think when people kind of feel a little like i guess when they start to feel invisible
00:44:19and the other person stops noticing well stops asking questions or even we talked about that
00:44:24stops being curious about you we often stop being curious about the people we've known the longest
00:44:29right because we think oh i know everything about them and of course you don't because every day we're
00:44:33having new fears and dreams and self-doubt right and regrets um so stopping being curious but the other
00:44:38thing is yeah just kind of feeling yeah like that you're invisible they don't they're not noticing the
00:44:44little things you know when we ask people what makes them feel loved a lot of them were those little
00:44:48things like like i remember being at a party and friends would bring me like a piece of fruit or water
00:44:54or a blanket and before i even knew i wanted those things they're like sonia you you need this water
00:45:00you need a blanket because you seem cold and i'm like oh i didn't even know i needed a blanket and so
00:45:05like when people when you feel loved is when people you you feel loved when people are doing they're
00:45:09noticing you and they're noticing things that you need before you even need before you even realize you
00:45:15need them so those little things when and when your partner your best friend sort of stops noticing
00:45:20those things you you don't feel loved have you looked at the whatever the strongest predictors
00:45:25are of long-term relationship satisfaction so i partnered with a love scientist to write this book
00:45:31because i'm really more of a happiness scientist i don't think i can answer this question but i will
00:45:34tell you a really interesting finding that we do talk about which is how do you respond to good
00:45:39versus bad news in a relationship right you come home and you say hey honey um i got laid off uh or
00:45:46you know something bad happened my car the car broke down and everyone kind of knows how to respond to
00:45:51bad news or sort of something bad that happened um but what if you come home and you say hi honey
00:45:57i got a new job offer in new york right so it turns out how we respond to good news is a better
00:46:04predictor of relationship duration than how to how we respond to bad news because it's so
00:46:09it's not easy right you got a job offered in new york i mean it could be threatening does that
00:46:13mean we have to move does that mean you're going to work harder so you don't have time to
00:46:16you know with the kids maybe you might even be envious that like my career isn't going as well as
00:46:21yours and so what research shows is the the best you know well the the reaction that is predictive
00:46:29of relationship duration is truly celebrating good news with your partner right like that's so
00:46:34amazing being enthusiastic right that's so amazing tell me what happened how did you know what did they
00:46:39say you know how did you feel um maybe later you can deal with some of the insecurities that come out
00:46:44of that right but so so that is one factor that predicts relationship strength is is celebrating it's
00:46:50called capitalizing celebrating good things this episode is brought to you by whoop according to my
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00:47:55trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com modern wisdom that's
00:48:01join.whoop.com modern wisdom it's interesting how much easier it is to sort of care for somebody who's
00:48:09struggling than it is to celebrate somebody who's winning many ways yeah and you know what how many
00:48:15people are the list of people that you share your wins with is a small list is that right right because
00:48:23we we learn not to be boastful right and i remember like i would come home and tell my family about some
00:48:29some great thing that happened maybe an award i got and my kids would say oh mom you're boasting
00:48:33and i'm like if i can't share this with my family like who can i share what is going on yeah and so
00:48:37we're we've sort of trained like not to boast and yet of course like we want to celebrate those things
00:48:42right so and so um yeah and so we we don't have as much practice both sharing and i guess reacting
00:48:50to to those wins what about in the relationship if you're doing everything right and the other person
00:48:56just doesn't show it in return great question and i get asked that question a lot where let's say
00:49:02i'm doing all the right things so i'm i'm sharing i'm listening i'm curious i'm seeing you in the
00:49:08multiplicity lens i'm excited with i'm listening with warmth and acceptance and the other person
00:49:13just does not respond they don't return they don't reciprocate they're not curious about you they're
00:49:17not listening they're not sharing what do you do so i'm not a therapist i mean therapists are very
00:49:22like you know they'll never sort of say exactly directly what they really think i think right
00:49:26bluntly and i'll just say bluntly maybe you need to walk away maybe you've made a poor choice
00:49:32if it's a family member yeah probably you can't walk away but just accept that you're not going
00:49:37to feel as loved as you want to feel by this person um i mean obviously keep trying but if you've kept
00:49:42trying and it's not working well so much of it i think the discontent that people feel in situations
00:49:49like this is i i feel an incompatibility here and i'm continuing to push up against it and you know
00:49:57how when you see a bridge and a bridge twists like this it's because one side is going in one direction
00:50:02and another isn't moving with it you just did that it's just a bridge that's rotating right but the
00:50:06tension occurs in the flexing like this and i wonder how many people if you were to just say hey dude
00:50:12this just isn't working and you're continuing to try and put this square peg into a round hole
00:50:18is where the discomfort comes from and if it's you got an uncle that you just cannot resonate with or a
00:50:27younger brother who just you and him are like different species so okay guess what thanksgiving
00:50:32and christmas you're going to see each other you wish him happy birthday you keep on top of it but
00:50:37the tension and the pain is coming from you wanting a thing which is not accessible
00:50:42and i don't think it's your job in life to drown trying to keep people afloat who refuse to swim
00:50:48exactly although you know you try curiosity by the way with the brother or the uncle right like why
00:50:52why do you believe that thing that you know you think shut up sonja i don't i don't need to hear
00:50:57right well if that's right if that if that's the response consistently and i i completely agree with
00:51:02you but is there's this tension because i hear all this advice like you know people in our society in
00:51:08our individualistic society they they kind of break up too often you know they kind of end relationships
00:51:13too often like certainly on dating apps or you know you're like oh this person isn't working for me
00:51:17i'm just going to go to the next person so there's sort of this advice you hear that maybe we don't work
00:51:22hard enough um to sort of fix our differences and then there's all those people and i'm thinking
00:51:28romantic relationships and they're together forever and they're just clearly not right for each other
00:51:32and they're clearly unhappy and i feel i really feel for them right like life is too short um so i
00:51:39don't know i don't know what's but i guess both can be true at the same time it is absolutely the
00:51:42both can be true i've got this idea called advice hyper responders so advice doesn't distribute evenly
00:51:48it distributes more like alcohol than medicine uh the people who could really benefit from loosening up
00:51:54and having a drink remain abstinent while the people that are already drinking too much they take it on
00:51:58board so for instance the person who has the fear i am emotionally inadequate will absorb the message
00:52:06you should open up about your emotions wholesale because it confirms their fear that they already
00:52:11weren't good at doing emotions and that will cause them not to rectify the uh imbalance but to over
00:52:18exaggerate something that already exists um another one of the person who permanently feels like they're not
00:52:23working hard enough will take on the david goggins jocker willink message of just get up at 4 30 a.m
00:52:29you've got to crush it dude as opposed to going i actually need to listen to the advice that tells
00:52:34people to chill out a little bit more meanwhile the place i first saw this was after me too so me too
00:52:40told guys don't be pushy with women and the dudes that were blowing through boundaries didn't pay any
00:52:45attention to it meanwhile nervous guys that could do with a little bit more of a
00:52:49went all the way to the other they decided they were like i knew i was too much already i already thought
00:52:53i had this so interesting and this is how advice lands in groups that already are moving in that
00:53:00direction it confirms calling this advice hyper responders so you throw advice down and the people
00:53:06who already do it pick it up first uh it often doesn't correct over it doesn't correct imbalances it
00:53:12just exaggerates predispositions and um i think it's true and that's how you end up in situations like
00:53:17this how is it the case that people are both cycling through relationships too quickly and staying in
00:53:24ones that they shouldn't for too long well it's because different kinds of people bingo bingo and
00:53:29then when you give a piece of advice this is the thing that's like interesting and pernicious about it
00:53:33is that typically one side of the fence sounds like a more pro-social and noble piece of advice
00:53:41so for instance the idea work harder and ignore your emotions sounds upward aiming it is believing
00:53:47in the little guy it's grassroots it's spitting sawdust it's zero to hero that tends to be more
00:53:53popular to talk about online even if it increases the disposition of the type a person that can never
00:53:58switch off the idea of don't let good relationships fall away you should work through them and try hard
00:54:06sounds pro-social in a world of atomized transactional swipe dating but it worsens the situation for the
00:54:13people who already burden themselves way too much with psychological strength that makes them powerful
00:54:20in the boardroom but silent at the kitchen dinner table okay but let's talk about one i think one
00:54:25concept that can kind of unite what you're talking about is is the idea of is the idea of dosage right
00:54:30so aristotle's golden mean right so there's a there's an optimal dosage for everything like uh
00:54:35there's somewhere in the middle there's an optimal weight like amount of time you should stay together
00:54:40before you break up etc etc and i'm a huge believer in dosage i think it applies to almost everything
00:54:45right and so in terms of happiness research right can you do too much acts of kindness absolutely right
00:54:51you can be too kind to others you can neglect yourself you can do too little almost everything uh should be
00:54:57done in moderation including moderation of course um so that's uh that's how i think about things
00:55:03that's sort of in the optimal dosage but sometimes you're talking about things that sometimes aren't
00:55:06the same continuum right it has to be on the same continuum the same spectrum to to figure out what
00:55:11the optimum dosage is well ideally people people are going to take some of the advice from the opposite
00:55:16side of the spectrum and unfortunately people don't usually want to hear that so yeah it's it's an
00:55:23interesting one okay so tactically what are the most powerful habits for implementing this the more i
00:55:30think about feeling loved and and these mindsets the more i think they apply to almost everything
00:55:35you know like when you study something you see it everywhere um but seriously like it applies to
00:55:42uh reducing polarization in our society right when you're curious and really listening to people who are
00:55:47on the other side of the political spectrum it actually see research has shown it's reduced it
00:55:52reduces prejudice it reduces differences and so i think out of all everything i've talked about
00:55:59i think curiosity and listening are probably the two habits that can really change your life like
00:56:03if we all became better listeners more curious research shows that if you're a leader or a manager or a
00:56:08supervisor and if you're curious and really listening to your employees or your followers
00:56:14they're going to be more productive they're going to be more engaged they're going to be less likely to
00:56:16quit pretty amazing right uh it's not that hard to implement um and then sharing sharing too there's a
00:56:24study that came out of maybe a year ago that had people who are literally like wearing different
00:56:29hats on the political spectrum no pun intended um sharing and so i might share about like i'm struggling
00:56:36with my son and the guy in the other hat is sharing oh you know i'm also struggling with my son
00:56:41that reduced prejudice and reduced polarization just sharing more of your humanity with someone
00:56:46who's really different from you um so but yeah but i will i would stick with those three and but
00:56:51especially curiosity and listening okay what's something if you were to say this technique
00:56:59or this habit this one thing that you can do tomorrow that would improve your ability to feel love
00:57:05what would it be well first of all have a conversation with the person that you want to feel loved by
00:57:12um and actually this is my number one kind of happiness tip if you want to be happier tomorrow
00:57:18have a 15-minute conversation with someone uh at least 15 minutes and then when you're having the
00:57:23conversation share listen show curiosity listen with acceptance and warmth when you think about
00:57:29relationships they're really a series of conversations even when you're not talking right you're communicating
00:57:35that's how i think about relationships there are series of conversations and so when you think about
00:57:40i want to feel more loved it seems very overwhelming like what do i do i need to make myself more lovable
00:57:44i need to change your mind and get you to love me more but really all you have to do is change the next
00:57:49conversation or change the next series of conversations so that would be my number one tip is show up
00:57:55differently in your next conversation with that person by sharing more listening more showing
00:58:00curiosity with warmth and acceptance so you're saying that life is just one big podcast that's your
00:58:05main that's the main yes absolutely but also i'm kind of biased because i'm a talker so my my oldest
00:58:11daughter once said to me mom you talk so much i can't think so i do like to talk but but and also in
00:58:18our culture where we're actually there's some research on this you know individualist cultures are more
00:58:22talking cultures uh collectivist cultures like asian cultures are more listening cultures um but you
00:58:27know we can adapt these mindsets you know you don't have to talk a mile a minute you know it's just
00:58:32it's just communication that matters yeah across all of the studies that you've been a part of
00:58:38what's your favorite one like what's it what's the most fun or interesting or novel study that you've
00:58:43done i think my favorite one is that we ask people to act more extroverted for a week
00:58:47so we said to both introverts and extroverts we said for the next week act more extroverted we
00:58:53didn't actually use the word extroverted because it has connotations in our culture i think we said
00:58:58you know sociable energetic uh talkative and then for the week after we asked people to act more
00:59:05introverted again using different words like deliberate and quiet um and vice versa and we were shocked
00:59:13at what we found so we found the biggest effects we'd ever found in any of our interventions people
00:59:18in the week that people acted more extroverted they were so much happier and sort of everything
00:59:22improved in during the introversion week surprisingly sometimes people actually got less happy or kind
00:59:28of no change and the second surprise was that this effect was the same for introverts and extroverts
00:59:35so even people who were already extroverted increasing their extroversion improved their
00:59:39happiness but well it's interesting that you you thought that was the surprising part no no this
00:59:44the introversion is the surprising part i think to me that the introverts you know susan kane wrote
00:59:49this great book right called quiet love the book and i'm a big fan of introversion i think there's a lot
00:59:53of benefits to being introverted but she she writes that you know introverts get exhausted by trying to act
00:59:59social i don't much i actually don't quite believe it like the evidence is now showing that it's actually
01:00:04the extroverts that get exhausted by social behavior it makes sense because they're social much more of
01:00:08the time okay um yeah so so the introverts also got happier acting extroverted most people have no
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01:01:16a checkout what do you make of the where you get your energy from on your own versus with other people
01:01:23is the best definition of introversion versus extroversion does this still hold true or is this
01:01:27been replication crisis so i love the definition again that susan kane made popular it's a sexy
01:01:32definition but it if it's inaccurate then we need new one i believe that the evidence is not really
01:01:37holding up and actually nick eppley who wrote a book called a little more social great book talks about
01:01:42this i think that the evidence is not quite there um so i don't maybe again absence of evidence is an
01:01:48evidence of absence um but the studies i think there's only with one exception studies are showing that
01:01:54introverts that are asked to act more social do not feel depleted or exhausted um but again maybe we need more research
01:02:01research that's interesting it wouldn't surprise me i think a lot of the time what introverts are doing
01:02:08is finding a home base or finding a situation that feels comfortable and familiar to them
01:02:17but you can get detrained out of your social muscle an awful lot like if you don't lose it use it you lose
01:02:23it and if you don't get into the rhythm of seeing for instance we have every friday and this is one of
01:02:28the best it's one of the best two best things that three best things actually that uh from a habit
01:02:34perspective that i've done first one is sleeping with my phone outside of my bedroom second one is
01:02:39when i think about a friend that i haven't spoken to in a while i just text them immediately and i'm
01:02:43like hey man just thinking of you hope everything's good or whatever uh but the third one we've got a
01:02:47standing dinner reservation at 6 p.m every friday and it's just an open invite for between six and eight
01:02:53people and no matter how good or bad your week's been you always turn up and if you're in town you're
01:03:00there sometimes people bring new friends sometimes people it's just you and it's been me and one other
01:03:05guy and um the fact the fact that you've got that it means some people have got more introverted days
01:03:11and more extroverted days on my most introverted day i'm still at dinner and i leave i'm like
01:03:17that was fine that was worth it i love it i love it i love it um very important point that you just
01:03:23raised right so so when in our in these studies when we asked when we ask introverts to be extroverted
01:03:28we don't ask them to go to a party and be the life of the party they can choose how to be extroverted
01:03:34right so an introvert is going to do different things so they might call up a friend they might
01:03:38chat a little bit more during lunch you know i was super shy when i was young and when i was when i was
01:03:44in college i can't imagine that i and i really was i my parents told me that before age 10 i did not
01:03:49speak to other adults other than teachers and and family members and that i really kind of pushed
01:03:56through it but okay here's one one one way i did it in college you know we had sections and i forced
01:04:01myself to say one thing in each section and it was terrifying like i it was really really hard
01:04:06but then the more you do it you know so anyway that's the kind of thing that introvert might say
01:04:10like at lunch i'm gonna i'm gonna try to say one more thing but i love your three habits i'm
01:04:16gonna add one more to it that one of my friends introduced me is when you meet someone or you're
01:04:21talking to someone they say oh let's get together you know this happens all the time and what happens
01:04:25is you don't get together you know you start your text and then you know you get busy and then
01:04:29you're like oh how about next week and that doesn't work out he said you do not leave that
01:04:34interaction without making a firm plan to get together you know a specific time and place
01:04:40and date and that that really works i heard a really machiavellian way to work out if someone
01:04:46actually wants to hang out with you uh if you propose a date and they cancel and you say tell me
01:04:51when you want to reschedule for and they don't reschedule it was basically reverse engineering whether
01:04:56or not this person is genuinely busy or just doesn't like you uh i don't know whether i think you'd probably
01:05:00need you reading into that a little bit much people are just busy but uh i thought i thought that was
01:05:04an interesting i like that tell me when you want to reschedule for yeah yeah yeah just tell me when
01:05:08like hey especially if you recancel if you cancel dude like it's on you okay you fucked it i was gonna
01:05:13go yeah um you know there's a new yorker cartoon and it's like how about never is it never good for you
01:05:19yeah but that's what someone says if they don't come up with a date or a time yeah what's something about
01:05:24happiness that almost everyone believes but is wrong well the one that's kind of boring is that
01:05:31people think well okay it's maybe it's not boring i have a book about this called the myths of happiness
01:05:36um i'll be happy when i'll be happy when i have a baby i'll be happy when i move to new york i'll be
01:05:42happy when i get that tech job i wanted to get i'll be happy when whatever um and the truth is you are
01:05:48happy when those things happen but then what happens is it's called hedonic adaptation we adapt to that
01:05:55new goal and this is by the way humans probably would never progress if we didn't have adaptation
01:05:59because then we'd we would just kind of sit on the mountain and do nothing but we always want more
01:06:04and uh you bring your same self with you when you to the new relationship or to the new city or to the
01:06:10new job and so sort of putting all your eggs in changing your life circumstances to be happier now
01:06:16there's a caveat if you live in a war zone if you're poor if you're in an abusive relationship
01:06:21absolutely changing your circumstances is going to make you happier but if you're kind of normal
01:06:26like you know uh comfortable circumstances then changing them is going to make you happy temporarily
01:06:33is there a way to hack hedonic adaptation yes uh through variety novelty surprise and gratitude
01:06:41right so we adapt to constant stimuli right so when things are the same like you buy a new
01:06:46car at first you're like i love this new car and then you know that for the eighth time you sit in
01:06:50the car you don't notice the car anymore that it's new and so novelty variety sort of maybe um yeah so
01:06:56you have novel create novel circumstances so actually a relationship is a better example we don't want
01:07:01to adapt to our new spouse so you do different things with them i mean it seems obvious right you
01:07:06do exciting activities with them you learn new things with them you see new friends i mean people
01:07:11are endlessly fascinating and dynamic right so they're not constant um and then surprise open yourself up
01:07:17to surprises right so if you go to a lot of i don't know social events there's going to be things that
01:07:21are surprising right if you take risks there'll be things that are surprising i should say surprise
01:07:25in a positive not a negative way and then finally gratitude is the antidote to hedonic adaptation
01:07:33because when you think about it when you adapt to something you start taking things for granted
01:07:38and when you're grateful it's like you don't take it for granted anymore right so like if i'm grateful
01:07:42for my health i'm not taking my health for granted so truly expressing gratitude but it's not easy
01:07:48right like how often can you sort of express gratitude for your car or even for your spouse
01:07:53um but i i'm a big especially given that the uh stimuli is the same yeah so you're expressing
01:07:58gratitude for something you've experienced previously exactly
01:08:02you know uh something we don't adapt to uh is a view a view like a beautiful view from that's
01:08:08interesting is that interesting so actually i have a beautiful view i did and i got it for a reason
01:08:13like i think it's worth paying for the view no one really knows why i think one reason is novelty and
01:08:20variety well variety right it's always changing with the weather with the seasons um i also think there's an
01:08:27evolutionary reason that humans are hardwired to like to look at things to have a view right because
01:08:35you can see like i don't know friends and enemies and also by the way water and mountains we are hardwired
01:08:42to want to see water and mountains for kind of obvious reasons that they they're going to help us
01:08:46survive and thrive and so that's why views of water and mountains are most like vancouver is supposed to
01:08:51be one of the most beautiful cities water and mountains together yeah yeah that's interesting
01:08:56okay yeah let's say that you met a a 20 year old today what would you tell them to prioritize if
01:09:02they wanted the highest probability of being happy when they were 50. relationships relationships um
01:09:13relationships but but it's really everything we were talking about today like really put effort into
01:09:18maintaining relationships learn social skills i wish we could take classes in college in high school right
01:09:24everyone can learn some social skills how to have a conversation so have conversations um spend time
01:09:30with people don't spend time alone you know in the garage on the screen right because it's not going
01:09:34to give you practice with those social skills so relationships in person ideally face to face like
01:09:39you said like those dinners make a habit of it learn to listen be curious and share um yeah those would be
01:09:49my top my top habits okay well i uh speaking of which well oh my gosh i have something for you yeah
01:09:56thank you can i open it yeah you can it's a card that it's a card with my name on it
01:10:03okay so thank you card okay
01:10:14thank you i love arthur by the way that's a man mentions arthur brooks uh we were in an almost plane
01:10:20crash together i have a fun story about that wow we were in a plane and it was gonna crash and i was
01:10:26holding i was sitting next to him i started holding his hand um and he's very confident so it turns out
01:10:31it's very good to be if you want to be in a plane crash arthur's about as christian as you can come
01:10:34so he was probably hoping it crashed well haha no no he was just he is very it's it's very useful to
01:10:40be yes sitting next to a very confident very masculine christian person yeah you know i'm
01:10:47literally holding his hand and he's like sonia is it gonna be okay everything is gonna be okay
01:10:52and then later on he's like sonia i didn't realize because we had lost an engine actually fell
01:10:56out of the plane um what was it india where the fuck i know we were in india in the middle of nowhere
01:11:02he's like sonia i didn't realize how bad the situation was um anyway you've you've got tens
01:11:08of thousands hundreds of thousands of people to write gratitude letters and i don't know whether
01:11:11anyone's done it to you on a podcast i figured that it would be nice not on a podcast i certainly have
01:11:15beautiful letters from my students i love consider me a student thank you sonia lubomerski ladies and
01:11:20gentlemen where should people go to check out everything that's going on uh howtofeellove.com
01:11:24just the title of my book howtofeellove.com and we also by the way we have a quiz where you can take
01:11:30and it shows it will tell you just five minutes it will tell you which mindset is your strongest
01:11:34mindset and which is your weakest mindset and i think it could be very useful thank you sonia i
01:11:40appreciate you thank you all right see you next time everyone bye yeah oh my god thank you thank you
01:11:46thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode another one that i know you love
01:11:52It's just here.
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