THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Thought provoking, helpful tools for discovering and using your character strengths, improving relationships, making stress work for you, and many more ideas for creating a passionate and fulfilling life. Author, inspirational speaker, NYU professor (and my friend) DAN LERNER.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The pursuit of happiness, discovering our strengths, improving relationships, making
stress work for us, Understanding the difference between harmonious passions
and obsessive ones. Those are just a few of the
topics covered in this episode. It'll provoke thoughts and give
you some tools to pursue whatever happiness and fulfillment means

(00:22):
to you. If you're listening with someone, you're probably gonna
want to hit pause and discuss some of these ideas.
That's what Jennifer and I did when we listen to
our guests book You Thrive. I am with my dear
friend Dan Lerner, sought after speaker, author, performance coach, and
professor at n y U, who coach teaches the Science

(00:46):
of Happiness, which is always the most popular elective class
at NYU. Who would want to sign up for the
Science of Happiness? Dan, Welcome. Before we get going, I
want everybody listening, all of us to get in the
proper headspace to absorb all the ideas and the tools
that we're gonna talk about in this hour. So I'd
like you to take all of us through the exercise

(01:07):
you take your students through. Right at the start of
the first class. Sure you got it. So this is
a pretty simple exercise. I'm gonna walk you through it.
Uh not too fancy, won't be graded. Just if you
like to close your eyes wonderful if you don't want to,
equally wonderful. But what I want you to do is
very simple. For the next thirty seconds, I want you

(01:27):
to think of the happiest memory that you can whatever
comes to mind first, and bring that to life. I
want you to think about where you were. You can
think about who you were with. You can think about

(01:48):
what activity you were doing, what made it so happy
for you, and really try to bring back those feelings.
Really take yourself back to where you were, and and
not only happiness, but what kind of happiness you were feeling.

(02:08):
Were you were you like jumping for joy with a friend?
Was it what? Was it a sense of calm where
you just felt at ease, at peace? Was it a
sense of pride? Is something you have just accomplished? Was
it love? Were you with somebody who you cared really
deeply about? Just really bring that to life for yourself,

(02:34):
not yourself. Smile. You may already be doing that. I
think most of us are by now. That was a
very vivid. That was a very vivid description. I hope
everybody out there can think of many wonderful, happy moments
in their life to choose from, but maybe the ones
they choose as reveal a lot about them. I mean,
how often do you suggest people do that to get

(02:54):
in a proper headspace. So often we're told no, no,
forget the past, the future, they don't exist. We just
have this moment, the present moment is all we have.
What's the power of going back to something positive? Well,
positive emotions change the way that our brains work. And
so when I when I use that in class or
when I use it in in the professional world, when
I'm talking to a clienter, I'm talking to a large audience, UM,

(03:17):
what I basically say is, look, now you're prime. I mean,
when we ask UH professionals or college students to think
of the happiest memory they can for thirty seconds. If
you then teach them words in a foreign language, they're
going to obtain about more words. If you ask professionals
to do exactly what we just did, what every listener
just did, if they were as long as they were um,

(03:38):
as long as they were participating, and then you give
them a test of creativity, how many uses can you
think of for this pen or this paper clip? On average,
you come up with about more so whether it's five
year olds or doctors who diagnose more quickly. Um, you
have these benefits to come with positive emotions. And so
you know, I might not ask them to do that

(03:59):
on a regular basis, but simply knowing that when you
do this, you're better prepped for test taking, for memory,
for creativity, for performance. Even if you look at managers
and how they rate the folks who work for them,
they rate their folks who are happier, is more creative,
is more dependable, so and it's doing better quality work.
So it's such a quick example, and it's just an

(04:21):
easy example. We took thirty seconds. Boom. We're all ready
for this podcast, and we're gonna engage in this podcast
in the way we might not have have. We started
off by saying, I want you to think of something
that that really brings you down? Right, What about the
power of negative emotions to drag us down? And and
the importance of if you can't summon a positive mindset,

(04:42):
at least aim for neutrality, Dan and don't let the
negative side pull you down, because I've heard plenty of
sports psychologists and psychologist periods say that, hey, we we
can't bounce around being positive and optimistic, but try to
avoid spiraling to the negative. Yeah, that's a great point.
So here's the thing about negative emotions. They matter, they're important.

(05:04):
You want them. Look, you want to be scared. We've
been scared for sixty years since the first cave person
who's running away from the first dab or two tiger.
You don't want to be like, oh cool, I'm just
gonna think positively and everything will be okay. No, you
want to have fight or flight. It's important. It tell
it warns us of things. But there are certain times

(05:25):
when we want to be able to focus on the
good things. So for example, and I almost bring it
back to you, Chris. You know, for an athlete, whether
you're playing golf, baseball, tennis, doesn't matter. You want to
be in the moment, of course, But when you start
thinking about um past shots, you don't want to remember
the last bad shot you had, the last bad at

(05:46):
bat you had. You want to remember that you are able,
you're capable of making these shots. You want to remember
the practice you put in, how hard. You've worked, so
you want to remember something that allows you to go, no,
I'm ready for this moment. So it doesn't always have
to be happy and bouncing, no question. And you notice
I mentioned calm for example. Calm is under the umbrella
of positive emotions. We often think big smile on your face,

(06:07):
jumping up and down. That's not the only kind of
positive emotions. Sometimes it's just tranquil Right, we'll get to
calm later. Calm and the flow's sake. Is that really
interest me? And that's something that you are an expert in.
Optimist and pessimist. I mean, binary labels can be dangerous.
We're all wired in complex ways. But you do write
about optimism and pessimism, whether or not they're innate to

(06:29):
some degree, whether they can be learned. You know, to
what degree you can become more optimistic if you desire to.
And and you define optimists as someone who just has
more hope or more confidence in a better outcome. That's
sort of your definition. Yeah, I mean, it's that's sort
of the standard definition that you'll find hope and competence
in the future, right, as opposed to say, lack of

(06:50):
hope or lack of competence about the future. And UM,
it's interesting because folks listening out there, if we ask
the question are you an optimist or you pessimist? A
lot of folks are gonna raise your hand for one
or the other. Some people are gonna raise their hand
for both, and some people are gonna say, what will
I'm a realist, right, and that is a perfectly acceptable answer. Um.
The answer for optimism and pestimism is there's there's a

(07:11):
place again, sort of like emotions, there's a place for both. Um,
there are huge benefits to being optimistic. So if we
look at optimists as college students, they tend to have
higher g p as and better social experiences. If we
look at optimists in the workplace, they tend to bounce
back be more resilient in the face of of challenges.
So I think it's it comes up in a big way.

(07:33):
In sport, everyone's gonna strike out, everyone's gonna drop it pass.
No one throws a hund percent completion percentage, no one's
gonna you know, no one's gonna be able to eagle
every hole in the golf course. So when you hit
that bogie, when you don't sell whatever, it is that
you're selling in your workplace. You gotta bounce back. And
the original data that came out on optimism and pessimism,

(07:54):
which comes from Dartin Martin sellignating a mental minding University
of Pennsylvania. UM. He was looked an insurance sales people
and you know, the retention right there was horrible. It
was like people were leaving within the first three years.
So how do you fix that? What's going on? Well,
look back in the day. You're making phone calls all
day long, right, and everyone's saying no, no, it's the
middle of dinner. Why don't you give me your number

(08:15):
and I'll call you during dinner? Right, So you're getting right, Like,
how do you bounce back from that? Like people? And
I'm being nice to my language here, right. So what
they found is that folks who had an optimistic explanatory
style tended to do to be far more resilient. That
is to say three things. It's temporary, it's local, and
it's um and it's external. So like, let's bring it

(08:38):
back to sport. So you want to have a short memory.
So learning optimism is oh, that guy is playing really
well today, not I'm always gonna get home runs hit
off me. But that guy is playing well today, it's
not me. By the way, it's not the game tomorrow. Right.
So again we go back to business and you get
hung up on when you're trying to sell something. Oh,
that guy's having a rough day, or I'm do because

(08:59):
I had five nos in a row. I don't get
six nos in a row. So when it comes to
turned optimism, a lot of it is how we talk
about bad events. Something went wrong. Maybe it wasn't me,
maybe it was, and maybe it's not gonna happen tomorrow.
And by the way, it's not my whole life. It's
one sales call, not my family, not my friends. So
how we talk about things as opposed to a pessimist

(09:20):
explanatory style, which is, oh, well, clearly it's me. Clearly
I can't sell. And clearly if I can't sell here,
then maybe people don't like me, including my family and friends.
And you know that man and woman walking down the
street home I'm interested in, right, So it's like it
that's when you start to get to that spiral when
you talk about things that don't go well as in
terms of like forever stuff right, Well, start using the language.

(09:43):
Otherwise you start to uh kind of nurture self talk
that is, oh, next time, it'll be different, right, that
kind of Sales departments have solved that problem of the
incessant knows by having robots do what humans used to do.
Now you get those called hi, this is staying from
the auto resource center, and then they they just hang
up on them, and no one's self esteem gets crushed

(10:05):
because the computer doesn't know. I'm Surprobably so many hands
would shoot up when you ask are they a pessimist?
They accepting that label seems different from the folks who
walk around saying we'll wait a minute. I just I
like to brace for negative outcomes because then I'll be
ready for them and it'll be easier to handle. I

(10:26):
mean my counterpoint is, yeah, but then you're gonna walk
around bracing for negative outcomes, most of which will never happen.
And what does that due to your psyche? But I
understand that mindset. We've seen plenty of it with COVID nineteen.
People bracing against the worst possible outcome and having that
dominate their mindset. Yeah. Absolutely, Now, when it comes to pessimism,

(10:47):
customism can be a really, really good thing. Again, it's
kind of like emotions. And by the way, it's it's
really interesting stuff in the research. If you are a pessimist,
if if you don't see the world in an optimistic way,
trying to turn you in an optimist can almost be detrimental, right,
because you don't really buy it, you don't really believe it.
What you want to do is you want to use

(11:07):
that pessimism in the right place, to the right amount,
right at the right time. It's called defensive pessimism. If
you are pessimistic about going up on stage and doing
a talk, well, you know, there's no way it's gonna go. Well,
all right, talk to me about that. What do you
what are you concerned about. Well, I'm concerned that I'll
get dry mouth. Okay, let's plan for that. Let's bring
a bottle of water, maybe two bottles of water up there.
I'm afraid I'm gonna forget my lines. Okay, let's plan

(11:29):
for that. So defensive pestimism allows us to plan. The
college students, it's I better study harder, okay, study harder, right,
And you know, in the workplace, h's I need to
prepare differently in order to be in that place, so
defensive pessimism is good. The challenges with pessimism is we
use them too much. Even when we win, even when
we get the good grade in the test, we win,
the game will make the sale. We don't enjoy the

(11:51):
outcome as much as optimists do. So finding the right
place for each of those in our lives is really important.
None of us are all optimi stroll customists. That would
be called mania or depression, and you know, you'd have
much bigger issue. And some of us, all of us,
will have optimism or custimism about something specific in our lives.
I'm pretty optimistic that when I give a talk or

(12:12):
teach a class tomorrow, it's gonna go well. I'm pretty
pessimistic about my golf game because I know that you know,
so you pick it from the club. That's right, that's right.
You know. You see so much defensive pessimism in sports too.
I think coaches that we have to prepare to avoid
the mistake and be ready to bounce back when it happens.

(12:34):
And hating a loss is so much more prevalent than
enjoying and loving and savoring a win. So I mean,
there's plenty of obviously hyper successful pessimists out there who
use it in the way you just describe to to
rededicate themselves and work harder. I think that's that's interesting
to know, because pessimists out there, you're not doomed to unhappy,

(12:56):
you're not alone, You're actually you know, you can be
a pretty decent shape. It's gotta find little room for
optimism having an engaged life. And you write about that
and and the awareness of our strengths. And we were
talking the other day, and it surprised me how many
folks walking around out there, not just your students who
are still trying to figure themselves out at eighteen nineteen
years old, but but adults are not fully aware of
what their own strengths are and how to use them.

(13:20):
A vast majority of them numbers that I've seen from
Gallup organization, they hover around seventeen sevent People don't know
their strengths and don't use them on a regular basis.
Right now, we're not talking about strengths like skills, how
will you shoot a ball, how well you sell a product,
how well you drop a marketing plan or design a
power point. We're talking about character strengths, which are very different, right,

(13:40):
Character strengths and values are things that that flew throughout
our lives. So a character strength might be bravery. Uh,
And that bravery we might think of like, oh, a
firefighter who runs into a burning building. That bravery also
might be raising your hand in a cloud in a
crowded classroom. That bravery might be walking up to a
coach and asking them a question that when that code
can be kind of intimidating. Right, that's bravery. And so

(14:02):
if one of your strength is bravery, using it not
only m helps you feel good, but it helps you
perform better, and it helps you become more engaged. Um.
You know, when it comes to um, when it comes
to strength, most of us can't identify them. And what's
interesting is a lot of us don't see our strengths

(14:22):
as strengths. So, Chris, you and I were talking to
the other day about a client that I had, UM,
who's the CEO of of a sizeable organization, And when
he took a strengths assessment assess an assessment that I
want to share at some point on this show, maybe
you share afterwards. It's free everybody, it's free. Um, he
found this number one strength was fairness, and he was like, fairness.

(14:45):
You know, it's like big cel like that's not a strength.
And I'm like, all right, let's talk about this for
a second. How have you promoted people in your company?
It's like, well, I always promote them when they've worked
really hard. I'd rather promote them in that way than
higher stars from the outside. I'm like, what do you
call that those? I guess that would be fairness. But
everyone's fair. And I said, did you worked on Wall
Street for ten years? Was everyone fair? No? Not? Everyone

(15:08):
is fair? And so then he took it back to
his family and his wife was like, yes, you're you you.
We have six kids and you are very very even
handed with each of them. And when we talk to
other folks, you think about things very fairly, like she
was bringing up ideas that he hadn't seen. So for
a lot of us, our strengths are we see them,
we go a lot of strength, and we're taken to
somebody else, a close friend or family member, they're like,

(15:29):
all day long, it's pretty clear Chris that you know
you you My bet is you took the assessment, curiosity,
love of learning, those things would be way way up
there for you because you're a curious person who loves
to learn it. It's obvious, and maybe it's obvious to you,
but one of the great things about using strengths is
that um uh is that and this leads to engagement, right,

(15:49):
It's one of the most most most direct path to
engagement that we know now. Engagement often a lot of
listeners here will will know that as the term flow
or getting into the zone own right, when you get
into a place for you lose track of time, like
you looked at you've been reading or playing a sport,
or in the garden or cooking or having a conversation
or whatever, and you're like, how did two hours fly by?

(16:10):
That is often engagement, right. You just lose track and
you feel no emotion in those moments. You don't feel
emotion until the moment you're done, and then you you
come out of it and you're like, whoa, that was amazing, right,
So being in that space is an amazing place to be.
Using strengths is often the most direct path becoming engaged. Yeah,

(16:32):
I love the topic of flow state because man, is
it needed in lives and there are so many people
who bounce between boredom disengagement and anxiety, and I think
the flow state can only operate right in the space
between those two things. If you're board, you're you're not
you're not in flow if you're too anxious. When when

(16:52):
I get ready for a broadcast, I try to find
the headspace. And you know, flow state isn't really defined
the same way by by everybody, so I try to
be more specific. I will say relaxed intensity, and that
I've found over years of trial and error and not
finding it and seeing what happens when you don't, that's
the best headspace for for announcing a game, because you

(17:12):
need to have the relaxation to allow the words to flow,
to let whatever it is speak through you sometimes when
it's very spontaneous. But if you don't have the intensity,
you don't have the mental focus to be in command
of the facts. And so if you can get relaxed
intensity and lots of things. I don't think it's about
sports broadcast. It could be anything. But the trick is

(17:34):
how to do that and through trial and error, how
to find kind of that flow because we know what
it feels like, we just don't know the entry points.
Sometimes that's right, that's right. You know. I mean when
we look at in the research for folks out there,
just think about a chart. We have an X and
Y axis, right, one axis is skill and the other
axis is challenged. Right, So you know, to to Christ's point,

(17:56):
he spot on you know about anxiety or boredom. If
if you too much skill, not enough challenge your board.
If you play tennis against the three year old, providing
you are not also a three year old, you're probably
gonna get bored. Right you play tennis, you know, against
the greatest player in the world. Actually it's kind of cool,
but my game is rusty. I give me a three
year old, I need I need to build my confidence
back up. Then I need to swing the racket and

(18:17):
destroy some child. Now I hear what you're saying. I
play against a lot of really good players. It's it's
good to be humble too sometimes, Oh it totally is.
But you're finding your spot, like right where you're meant
to be that way too, right, Like you're finding like
that perfect spot where your challenge and skill is there.
And so you have to be focused, but you're not

(18:37):
so overwhelmed that you're not relaxed. You can still be
relaxed in that moment, right, And that's an amazing feeling.
So being able to find that And like I said,
with with strengths, when you incorporate a strength into that,
if you go, I mean, I don't want to harp
on tennis courts. We can talk about marketing plans or
or school kids. Um, if you can incorporate that bravery
into the classroom, into the boardroom, into the surgical room,

(18:59):
onto the tenn this court. If you can incorporate bravery,
providing it's one of your strengths, then the odds are
I should say the odds are better. You'll get into flow.
And if it's another one, like like love. And this
is a fascinating one because when Angela Duckworth did her
research at West Point and she looked at West Point cadets,
what's the number one strength that that overall that they showed,

(19:20):
most people would guess it's bravery, teamwork, Um, justice, it's love.
And they were like, wholl whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, can't
be love. You got the wrong person here, you got
the wrong cadet. But when they they didn't identify love,
that love just came out of the survey that's what
the that's what the survey produced. And then they were
surprised by that. Yeah, it was love was number one.

(19:41):
And uh, they were surprised by because they figured it
be bravery. They think they figured it would be justice. Um,
but when they talked about it, they realized, Wait, I
don't jump on a grenade because I'm brave. I jump
on it because I love the soldier next to me,
and that's why I do it. So you see it
with certain CEOs and leaders too. They're like they don't
buy it at first, and then they're like, oh, I
actually do love the folks who work for me. That's

(20:02):
why I work so hard right for them because I
love them. And so once you start to dive into
that process, it becomes really interesting with your work, with
your family, with your friends. It's really cool. We talked
about stress so much, and stress is seen as a negative.
Stress is proven to be debilitating to your health, mental
and physical health. But erasing it doesn't seem realistic, and

(20:27):
as more and more people would find it difficulty, even
less and much less do away with it. Dan, So
how can you make stress work for you? So? Um,
let me let me hammer home the point you just
made real quick Chris, what's the last thing you want
someone to tell you when you are stressed out? Relax? Exactly,
exactly down. I know that we're gonna get to relationships.

(20:50):
We're gonna get to relationships. That's definitely the last thing
you want to tell somebody else you're involved. That's a whole.
It's like a quantum leap, right, Um, you're yeah. If
you want to look at and be like, oh, oh
is that all I need to do? Oh? Thank you
for that advice. I'm perfectly calm now, bry like and
And the funny thing is is it's actually not what

(21:11):
you want to be. So when we look at research
on people and how they handle stress best, um, if
you get them more stressed out, clearly they are not
going to perform well. So if you show them videos
that are stressful videos, shared news that stressful news, tell
them they're about to go out and give a talk
in front of five hundred people who are going to
judge them, it doesn't help them. Remaining calm. Saying remain

(21:32):
calm doesn't really help much either. The The theme that
runs throughout what's most helpful is using and reframing that
stress right, So helping someone get excited is where we
often find the greatest value. There's a great study at
at a Harvard gutting Jeremy Jamison who wrote a paragraph

(21:53):
that talked about students about take the graduate entrance exams
and instead of saying nervous, they use the word excited. Right,
So one group would read it what they we're nervous.
They didn't do as well. The group that read it
with the word excited actually did much better. They scored
about thirty five points higher. So when we look at
research all along that line, replicated, replicated, replicated. So much

(22:14):
of it is about how how can we reframe it
as excitement when you think about the physiological um uh
manifestations of stress. By the way, let's take a step back.
Let's just define stress. Stress is something that happens when
something that you care about is at stake. You don't
care about it, You're not gonna be stressed out right,
So what happens? And I'm sure everyone out there can

(22:36):
can think about a stressful moment for a second. Not
that I want you to dwell on it right now,
but I feel free, like your heart starts to be
a little faster your palms start to those sweating, your
breath gets a little short. You might start to sweat. Right,
how do you feel when you get excited about something?
Your heart starts to be a little faster, your pause
like a little sweat. It's the same thing. So um,
we have this like fight or flight that's sixty years old. Uh,

(22:59):
and it starts to scare us with things that shouldn't
scare us that much. When we can reframe it as excitement, Oh,
this could be really interesting. I start to see that's
one of my heart's beating and so quickly. That's why
my breath is a little shorter, because I have a
great opportunity here, because this matters to me. I think
that's when you start to be able to reframe that stress.
You see. There's a great quote by Steph Curry which

(23:19):
I can't give your word for word, but basically he says,
I get I get nervous, I get anxious, I get butterflies.
But when I feel those butterflies, I know it's because
something great could happen. It is such a classic example
of a healthy reframing of the stressful situation. So um.
So a lot of it is is how we think
about that, right, he seems so stressed, for he seems

(23:40):
so relaxed and so chilled before a game. It's interesting
that he reveals that inside he's feeling that. Very few
coaches and athletes would tell you that being flatline or
calm is the best way to go into a big
game or a big match. I mean, I've seen it
in tennis over the years, and I even in my job,
I will try to create some butterfly is some stress.

(24:01):
When it's not, they're the worst thing that you can
feel is nothing. You want to feel that excitement, You
want to feel that nervous energy, be a little bit
on edge. I'll just do it by under preparing in
some way and not having everything quite so scripted, are
written down, and certainly not rehearsing it ahead of time,
so that the safety and that is a little smaller,
and that gets that kind of that gets that kind

(24:22):
of proper adrenaline going, right, that that applies to everyday
life too. Sure. I mean, like we said, anything do
you care about? Right? So you know, anytime you feel
some stress, I shouldn't say any time to me back
up for a second, if you ever about to have
like surgery, if something is you know, is dangerous like
that you have very low control over. It's not necessarily

(24:42):
I want to get excited about this thing, because that's
just bake. You know. I'm not a I'm not a
a specialist and happy ology. It's not about always being happy.
You have to be aware. As we talked about, negative
emotions can be good. Pessimism can be really valuable. Um,
as the captain on the Titanic probably would have. Right, Um,
maybe there's an iceberg out there, and in this case,

(25:03):
like there's some things we don't want to be excited about. Right,
But when we're about to perform, when it's us about
to perform as but someone could say performing on us,
as as in surgery, it's us about to perform. Those
nerves they can they can alter outcome in either a
negative or a positive way. So learning to to work

(25:23):
that for yourself, um, can be really important. And as
you said, you don't want a flat life, right, so
you underprepare just two. Right. I do the same thing
in my talks. I always have a slide er two.
I customize all my talks. I'm like, I'm not quite
sure I'm gonna say there, but it's really important, and
that can be really nerve racking, but it can also
be really exciting and make a difference to the overall performance.

(25:45):
But that applies to more than just talks and lecturers,
in broadcasts and games too. I mean, maybe maybe you
don't want to go into a sales call. You don't
want to feel under prepared. But imagine engaging in someone
with a conversation is supposed to reading a script in
front of you. It's be gonna be better if it's
not so wrote right, if there's a little bit less
security there, you know it's actually you're you're touching on

(26:08):
some really interesting stuff that goes on in research on mindfulness.
So when it comes to sales, uh, there's there's some
terrific research. If you have a salesperson go out there
with the script, you know this was done door to
door sales. They also have telepone sales, because I don't
think door to door sales are well curtainly not in
the last two and a half years. UM. When they
are told to be more excited, it doesn't make a

(26:28):
whole lot of difference. When they are told to do
one thing that's that's new in their pitch and maybe
something that someone else won't even notice. Pause here, uh,
speed up a little bit there, change their tone of
voice a little bit. One thing that's novel to anything
what they've done before, their sales numbers go up. Right,
So we're being mindful as opposed is droning on. That

(26:48):
makes a big difference. It It introduces novelty to us,
to to to the to the client, to the listener,
to the to the friend, to the date. Right, that
can be really helpful, you know, you know we're so
wired dan through time to get more efficient at things
so that we can do it without even thinking. You
do it subconsciously. Your your your autonomic nervous system does

(27:12):
a lot of the important things. And I and I
think that that that to me leads to Boardom and
I we were talking and it's so interesting that intentionally
doing something different, um less efficiently, but just breaking the mold,
breaking the pattern in our everyday lives. It could be
anything literally anything the way the way you know, cold

(27:33):
shower versus hot shower, or just break breaking up those
kinds of routines that just engages us and makes things
a little sparkier, you know, Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean
we get into these habits and summer we're like, how
about you're interesting? Right? Sometimes we want to be mindless,
Like you don't want to wake up in the morning
and be like, hmm, what do I do now now?

(27:54):
Like usually pretty clear at my age, exactly what you
need to do right now? You mean both, Actually it's
treading on much of a choice to But after that,
when you have choices, yeah, I get you, exactly it. Um, yeah,
you know you want to be mindless. You want to
you know, and we have our routines. We get up,

(28:15):
you do what you gotta do. I do what I
gotta do, you know. But if we start through every
choice and every opportunity, it would be endless. We drive
us literally drive us crazy. So you want to have
certain habits that certain routines that are really helpful. And
it's interesting if you look at folks who were successful
in that way, you know, like Charles Dickens is one
who had a very set routine. My Angelo had a
very set routine she wrote out which included like sports

(28:37):
clad supported. She wasn't writing well that day, but it
was like this is the time, this is the time,
this is when I sleep. That's that's really important to us.
But being able to change things up, Like you said,
it's going to be essential to our being able to
be aware of the world, right. I mean, even if
it's paying attention to one thing. A stranger says to you,
how how are they? How are they how are they

(28:58):
using the body language that's so interesting? How much they
use their hands, you know, how are they how are
they pitching their voices? It high as it low is excited,
you know, So we can start to focus on those
little things. It takes us out of the kind of
the droning on of stuff. If you drive a different
way to work every day, if you if you um,
if you make sure you want to say hello to
a different person every day when you get to the

(29:19):
office and you don't necessarily usually say hi to write,
not only does that allow us to to sort of
stay on our toes, but I know we're gonna get
to relationships later, but it also allows us to because
what we're gonna interact with different folks, with more people,
maybe cultivate other friendships and relationships we might not have otherwise.
And so that's one of the great benefits of keeping
these fresh, keeping things new, um and finding the right

(29:40):
balance between the routine and and and the novelty. Among
your many titles, Daniel were also Julian Learner's dad. Your son.
Julian is one of the stars known as best known
as now These uh fourteen right, one of the stars
of the Wonder Years uh maybe s and also has
a background in theater, very talented singer and musician. So

(30:04):
he intersects with a couple of things. One I know,
I mean he played Gavroche and Limaz and other roles,
and all those actors around him will find ways, even
though they do eight shows a week on Broadway, to
do something different, do something subtle, and the audience may
not notice. They may notice in a way they don't
even appreciate, because that performance seems to be more inspired

(30:24):
and less autonomic than normal. But that that I find
very interesting, and that just the value of sort of
changing things up and how it impacts other people in
ways that they might not even know. But you'll just
come across it's more interesting, more engaged, absolutely absolutely knowally.
It's one of the earliest lessons I remember him learning.
He was doing the show out in New Jersey called

(30:45):
Last Days of Summer, and he was he was doing
the lead. The co lead was a guy named Bobby Conty.
He's currently in Company on Broadway and it's done. He's
done a bunch of things. He's an incredibly talented young guy.
And I remember him saying to Julian, you out, it's
not about doing it the same every time, It's about
finding something new every time you do it. And I

(31:06):
saw that show seven or eight times, and every time,
you know, Bobby was fresh, Bobby was new, and and
I couldn't have starily put my finger on it, but
there was something about it that he had done differently
that made such a difference. And I think you're gonna
get that in a lot of different performers, and it's
it is a really interesting thing. You can do it
because you're intentionally doing something new. You can also do

(31:26):
it because you're you're exploring a character and realizing that
they're a little different, they've they've evolved a bit more
than last time. I think we could argue that the
same thing would come into play whether you're announcing, or
you are working in an office, or you're a lawyer,
or you're a doctor, you're a teacher, like if you
are mindful about these things. How are you different as
a doctor, lawyer, teacher, announcer, you name it, then you

(31:48):
were yesterday because you learned something yesterday if you thought
about it, like, how am I different today? And it's
It's one of the things that I asked Julian after
every lesson, which is, what's one thing you do differently now?
Doesn't have to be huge, one thing, one thing, and
it could be something as small as um, I stand
a little differently when I sing or I felt a

(32:09):
little different in my you know, in my breathing when
I was singing that passage, and I was like, cool, Like,
that's it, one little thing I think today to your point,
things changed, Things have changed so much, and a lot
of folks are expecting huge change and they're expecting huge
change fast. But I always say that, um uh, Taylor
Swift ruined your life right now. Not big caveat because

(32:32):
I said that last week. I almost had a student
slat um. But I was like, let me be real clear,
and Taylor, if you're listening, I'm a huge fan, huge fan, um.
But what I mean is that the stories were told
in our culture indicate that she was a superstar from
the second she picked a guitar. That Bill Gates was
a genius from the second he laid his hands on

(32:54):
a computer keyboard right that Chris Fowler was you know,
let's not no no, no, no no skip over that skip over,
don't even know where I'm going It good have to
do with your morning routine. So um, But we don't
talk about the work they put in. We don't talk
about the fact that she practiced for all those years.
We don't talk about the fact that he got his
hands on a computer even think like breaking into like

(33:15):
a local library to like do it for all those years.
And so too often we're like, well, I should be
really good, really fast. But it's the little things. It's
the little improvements we make on a daily basis. I
wish we would talk about more. And it's the failures.
You know, at some point, Taylor Swift fell on her face,
just like Julian literally fell flat on his face in

(33:36):
front of three thousand audience members and lay mid in Chicago.
And that was the best lesson maybe of all tour.
You know, when I met up at the stage door
and he was crying and I was like, what did
you do after you fell in your face? It's like
I got up and I kept going. I was like,
that's right, and you rock the rest of the show.
Don't forget that. So we don't talk about failure enough.
I don't think. We don't talk about the little things.

(33:56):
We don't talk about the hard work. It's like boom,
Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, Bam, Bill Gates, Bill Gates, And unfortunately,
I think that that's real detriment to us trying to
be happy and or trying to be successful. Yeah, I
don't want to. We could go off on the perils
of instant gratification versus appreciating delayed and trying to circumvent
the ten thousand hour rule to master something that that's

(34:20):
the whole podcast series and books on that. But it's
well taken. One last Julian story you were telling me,
and this applies to reframing nerves as excitement. So he's
never sung the national anthem in public, and the Rangers
asked him to come to Madison Square Freaking Garden, the
world's most famous arena, and sing the anthem before a

(34:40):
game the other day. I mean that is it's a
hard song to sing, even though he's talented, even though
he's done all kinds of stuff and show business. It's
MSG and it's the anthem. How did you see him
on the spot? So to convert nerves to belting out
a great version of that? Yeah, you know, I mean
he worked incredibly hard on that. And to be totally frank,

(35:02):
he was super nervous about that, you know, he You're right.
He kept asking us questions how many people are gonna
be there, and what's gonna sound like? And the reverb.
I've never been in a place like that, and what
But became a parent throughout the week. It was a
lot of it was about the unknown. What does it
look like to stand in an arena with the eighteen
thousand seats? What does it sound like when you have reverb?

(35:22):
But I've never been to a place like that, And
so he was nervous and asking a lot of questions
and anxious and understandably so um and uh he called
me right after sound check. He you know, he and
he and Aaron went uh to sound check about two
hours earlier, and I was gonna come just after sound
check and he called me and he had switched completely. Dad,
It's amazing. The reverbs cool, the seats are so cool,

(35:45):
and you know he had done it run through in
the space he had heard it. You know, now he's like, oh,
the questions I had are gone. He's still had a
few questions. What are they gonna be doing when I'm
singing kind of things like bud Either hockey fans are
probably be screaming like you know, likes where I work.
But that's okay, right, like you know, um, or they're
gonna screaming let's go Rangers, which is which is what
they did. Actually, so um it calmed him down, and

(36:07):
I'm sorry, didn't calm that. It It flipped him from
the nerves too, this enormous level of excitement and he
was still bouncing around the whole thing, but it was
a very very different way. He was couldn't wait to
get out. There's really looking forward to it. He and
I have a word um which we started on the
lame his tour and actually my my my buddy Alan,

(36:30):
who I teach with and I wrote the book with. Uh.
He he used it with his daughter too. We don't
talk about being nervous. We talked about being nervous sighted.
So we're nervous sighted. It's a little bit of both.
And what he said to me, and I remember because
I got the garden. He looked at me and he goes, Dad,
I'm excited nervous. And that's why I know he's flipped,
because I've taught him it is okay to be nervous.
You will be nervous. You got to frame in his excitement.

(36:53):
So now excited nervous is our word. And that's where
he had flipped. It was you said two things that
he worked hard, so he was prepared. The clarity brought confidence.
Once you realize, okay, the reverb, the external stuff that
we cannot control. Going into the experience, right, you get
some clarity about that. You sot can't control it, but
you you know what to expect, and then you can

(37:14):
just say, Okay, my part, my part, I'm not nervous about.
I'm excited about because I've done the preparation. And that,
I think is what I try to drill to anybody.
A preparation is confidence. You're not gonna be able to
control a fraction of the things. I think control is
largely an illusion, but you can control what you do
and how you react when when curveballs come at you.

(37:35):
That that's that's powerful stuff. I don't you know. I
almost go back to you, and you're right, it's about
controlling what what it's about focusing on what you can control.
And you know, I go back to what you said.
When you prepare for uh, prepared to to do a
to be on air, or I've prepared to give a talk,
there's a certain percentage, a small percentage that we want

(37:55):
to be unknown, right, uh, But we don't want it
to be a huge percentage, right. And so for Julian,
I think there's a lot of folks out there. If
you can, if you can sort of get your hands around,
you know, high percentage of things, you know that the
percentage that you can't is lower, then you're gonna be okay.
It's when you there's too much unknown, too much that

(38:16):
you really have no idea what's coming at you, where
it can really tip back into nerves supposed to excite
the relationships. A lot of the things we talked about
play into relationships because they're so important to us. And
there's a phrase that you use in your book, You Thrive,
and obviously targeted at young people who are preoccupied, as

(38:36):
you might expect, with relationships, it's also new in college.
But I think it applies to all of us that
it's tough to grow together when when neither partner is
growing as a person or in other words, lacking a
feeling of fulfillment. Talk about that. That just that the
navigation of the inner personal relationship and how you know,
it's an entity into itself, but it's two individuals who

(38:59):
have to be all so progressing. Yeah, absolutely, well, you
know it's it. I don't want to be too cliche here,
but there's that great quote from uh Sending Zuperi, who
wrote The Little Prince but did lots of other writing
which I really adore, where he says, as as a
couple for folks who folks are getting married, Um, it's

(39:19):
not It's not that we should hold hands and look
into each other's eyes for the rest of our life.
It's that we should hold hands and look out to
the world to take in things together as we as
we move forward. And that's so much what we're talking
about when it comes to comes to good relationships, right,
I mean, what are the things that we can enjoy together,
What are the things that we can each bring to

(39:40):
a relationship separately. That's important. You're gonna be different than
I am in certain ways, and I want to embrace
that difference. Right, it's not about being the same person.
It's about really not appreciating what someone else brings to
this table, and often as things you don't know. I
want to know more about what my partner knows that
I don't know, Like I get to learn things, and

(40:03):
I want to ask questions when it comes to one
of the things that that she enjoys. You know, what
is it that gets her exciting? What what is it
that gets her engage? You know? And it's interesting because
there is a process, uh, one of the best ways
we know to nurture healthy, positive relationships, whether we're talking
about romantic relationships or friendships. Um, but it's in you
and I chatted about this the other day. Active constructive responding.

(40:25):
Right when someone comes to you with good news, Um,
you don't want to you know, there are clear ways
you don't want to respond. Although I will bet any
listener out there you've gotten in this response, you will.
You roll up and you're like, made a big sale today,
had a great day. This happened, And and the person
you're telling either says, um, that's nice or or goes yeah,

(40:48):
I actually had a good day too, or worst of
all says something like you got promoted, dude, you're gonna
have to work like an extra ten hours a week
and we're never gonna see each other and what's that
all about? Right, So it's like constructive responding, but act
constructive is they come to you with the news and
you start asking questions, tell me more about that. How
did it feel when it actually happened? Who was there?

(41:09):
What were you thinking in the moment, Like what did
you want to do? What did what did you do?
And what we find in the research is that often
when we do active, constructive responding with someone, whether it's
a partner or a friend or anybody, um that that
that interaction with them with us can feel even better
than the moment that happened itself. Right, So they get
to relive it, but they get to relive it with

(41:30):
someone they wanted to share with in the first most
and over the course about six weeks, when we do
this consistently, there's closer bonding, there's greater trust, there's there's
um uh uh greater warmth. Right, So we get to
cultivate these positive relationships in a way simply by helping
extend that feeling active constructive response. I guess the level

(41:51):
of authenticity that you employ that with could indicate the
health of the relationship, and many all of us can
act is better when it's authentic. But let's talk of
out the inevitable challenges for relationships and communication breakdowns. You
call them thinking traps, and we're gonna give people tools
and how to break out of them. But you tell
you talk about personalizing labeling. Everybody, I think can understand

(42:15):
what that means in terms of a conflict in a relationship.
What are some of the others? So thinking jobs are
basically these these um ways that our mind work that
we are not necessarily conscious of. Right, So, if you
have ever um if you have ever gotten some sort

(42:36):
of news, let me give you an example. You text
somebody someone you care about, maybe someone you're dating or
wine to date, and you see the three dots pop
up that makes appear everybody listening has his experience like Dan,
what do I do? Right? So you have different ways

(42:59):
to think about it. You could and as Chris referred to,
you could catastrophize. They hate me. They found out that
I I'm a terrible person and they never want to
see me again. That would be catastrophizing. You could um
have a negative filter, which is to be like just
to start thinking about you. But but what what could
be going on? What could be bad here? What did
I do? What did I do? It could be black

(43:20):
and white thinking, um, they again they hate me in
that regard or they love me. It's either one or
the other. It's it's nothing in between. So we don't
necessarily you can't put our finger on this to be like,
oh I catastrophizes or I have black and white think,
well I personalized, right, But they happen, and they happen
all the time, right, I'm trying. I'm trying to think

(43:43):
of another good example for listeners out there. Um, like
what you you're using mind reading though, right, some of
some of that stuff comes from and listen, Couples who
know each other well always believe that we can think
what the other person is they with with clarity. And
maybe maybe you've had an occasional disagreement Ennifer and I,
you know, maybe one and a half disagreements in twenty
seven years. But but but sometimes you want to say

(44:07):
you're the authority. And lots of things You're wise in
so many areas, but you are not the authority on
what I am thinking. And I try to remember that
in conversations and conflicts, not just not just in a marriage,
but any kind of relationship or business relationship. Either you're
not able to read the other person's mind. And we
all think we can and we know exactly what they're
up to and why, why they did this or that.

(44:29):
That's absolutely right, and yet we still do it, don't we.
How do you break out of it? How? How? What?
What's the tool to not do that? So that that's
a great question, and I would say, ask a question,
right if if you need to ask clarifying questions, if
you're talking about mind reading, if you genuinely believe that

(44:50):
you know that this person is thinking X, ask him
a question about that is what you're saying. I mean,
if what I'm hearing I think is that you're saying
that you would rather do this than that. Right, And
they might say, yeah, that's exactly it, But there's a
good chance they're gonna go, that's not actually what I'm saying.
That's not that's what you're hearing, That's not what I'm saying. Okay, alright, good,

(45:12):
because I was I was thinking this is what you're saying,
So clarify this for me because I'm not clear on
this right now. We don't tend to ask clarifying questions.
We tend to jump from assumption to assumptions. How our
minds work, it's how we've evolved to be right too,
in in in a in order to survive somehow, we
need to have sort of these rules. But when we
make those assumptions about how other people are thinking, we

(45:33):
get into trouble. So asking a clarifying question like that
can be really really helpful. Right, um, something When we
talk about the three dots on the phone, for example, well,
let's think about three other possibilities if we go directly
to catastrophizing to saying, um, they clearly hate me, right,
what if is gonna happen? Right? They could have been distracted,

(45:55):
they could be at work, they could be driving, and
they had to put their phone down if they really
what really really wanted, really want to answer us. Their
phone could run out of batteries. They want to say
just the right thing because they really like us, and
they wanted to pull back for a second, so they
made sure they did that. You know, there's an exercise
and it's it's it's very closely related to cognitive behavioral therapy.
It's just called A B, C D. The A is
you know, what's the activating event? I get three dots?

(46:17):
The B is what do you believe they hate me
to see? Is what's the consequence I'm really feeling horrible
about this? The D is the dispute. What are three
things you can think of? And so everything that we
talked about today, I don't argue. Almost everything that we're
talking about in positive and performance psychologies require some practice.
And so if you're someone who tends to catastrophize, then
choose three things a day, right, identifying when you've done

(46:40):
in the past. Right, it's with the three dots. It's
before I have a sales meeting. It's before I get
on the field. Right, it's not gonna go us, not
gonna go. Well, I wait a second, let me think
of three other possible um explanations. And we're really doing
is we're rewiring our brain to process differently. It's not
easy the first time. It's gonna feel weird the first

(47:01):
time because this is stupid. And of course they don't
like me, because that's what I've been thinking for the
last fifty years, right, is that when people people don't
get back to me, they clearly don't like me. Um.
But over the course about a month, what we're doing
is we're rewiring our brains to see the world differently.
And while it's a very uh, it's a it can
be a challenging UM exercise in the beginning. As the

(47:21):
weeks go on, it becomes more and more natural, you
find that you might not even start to think about
having to do it. You will start naturally going to, Oh,
they must be busy with something else. I'm sure they
get back to me later. Most things worth working towards
your challenging. By the way, this thing, if you're gonna
give me three things that you boom, you can change
in a second, I'm gonna I'm gonna doubt the usefulness

(47:42):
of them. How do we catch ourselves and in conflict
personalizing or hyperbolizing and say you never, you always or
they always those kinds of words to me, UM seem
fraught and trying to resolve a conflict as opposed to
like flame it. Yeah, absolutely, And there's some real challenges

(48:04):
here with that because um, these words are loaded for
different people. So you always do X right as and
it means for that person like they're seeing you a
very specific way. What are three other words you can
use to describe either why you do what you do
or to describe what it is that you do. So

(48:25):
you always clam up when we're having a tough time
and conversations, right, because and maybe I was maybe I
say this to you, Chris, You always clamb up when
we're having an argument, right, And maybe what I'm assuming
is that, um, you're giving up on the argument, right.
And if I ask you, well, what are three what
are three things that are happening here? You might say, look,

(48:46):
I need to think about things before I respond. That's
important to me. I need to process things. And you,
being more of an extrovert than I am, you want
to talk about things out loud because that's how you
process that maybe how you process things. So when we
start to really explore what is happening there, what that
label is? Right? You are a um uh, you're a procrastinator, right,

(49:12):
Like no one's a procrastinator. People procrastinate, so it might
do more often than others. But well, let's talk about
what's happening there. Well, I really don't want to do that.
Why not because it's not an activity enjoy Oh I
always thought you enjoyed it. No, I really don't. That's
why I sort of like I do other things before
I get there. I never realized that. So we've just
gone from a label of you are a procrastinator to

(49:34):
a I procrastinate to I procrastinated about this too. This
is why I procrastinated about this, and we're able to
now have a conversation that's far more productive by saying
I thought that you enjoyed whatever it might be, and
we learn more about each other. That's where it's really at.
Pointing fingers. It stops the conversation. It's telling them what

(49:54):
they are as opposed to asking them what's going on. Yeah,
that's that's really that's great stuff. I I I will
try to employ some of those things going forward. Um.
One of the other parts of relationship, the real fun
part is passion, and passion takes different forms, And you
said that passion is your favorite topic to teach. It's
what you It's kind of the ground finale, right of

(50:14):
the of the science of happiness at the end there,
but but and there's different kinds of passion, and I
think that's what's important. And this was eye opening when
I when I read your book, because you tend of Oh,
passion is just healthy. It's great. You know your passion
for for your relationships and for life and for your
work and for your hobbies. What could be bad about passion?

(50:35):
But there are different types. There are two types of
very distinctive types of passion. One is called harmonious passion um,
and that, as it sounds, is something that you are
passionate about, something you have an intense desire or enthusiasm
for that fits into with harmony to the rest of
your life. Right you do it, but you also have
other things going on. And the other type is obsessive passion.

(50:56):
And that is as we as it as the title,
indicates something that you really can't let go of, and
not only when when you're in the activity, but when
you leave the activity. If you have an obsessive passion
for playing golf, you might be sitting at your dinner
table with your three kids and your partner and you're
still thinking about golf, and you might be feeling a

(51:19):
little guilty that you're not out there practicing because you
could be getting better and you could be beating other people,
and you could be the best. Obsessive passion is rooted
in the two passions are very different, and I think
they translate well into as we're talking about relationships. With
harmonious passion, it's rooted in something that you love. Well,
look everyone on everyone listening right now, other than the

(51:41):
four year olds and younger have been five years old right.
I love using five year olds as an example because
we either we have them or we've been one. And
you look at a five year old and a five
year old, they get up in the morning, they're like
tid to pay with legos, time to finger paint, kind
of big kickball, whatever it might be. They know what
they want to do and they do it because they
love it. But a lot of us still do that

(52:02):
with our work. If we're super lucky to have something.
The way to have a harmonious passion for with obsessedive passion,
it tends to be rooted in status, and that can
be in relationships or work, money, glory, um reputation. Right. So,
I have a bunch of friends who work at at
a well known um investment bank. We won't name it here,
We'll just say that it rhymes with old man snacks

(52:24):
and uh, I think I got it. Yeah, okay, you
got that one. And you know, it's not that they
dislike their work, but the primary reason that they do
it is the salary is great, the perks are great,
the business card is is pretty prestigious. Um. But they
wouldn't necessarily that said they love their work. I do, however,
have one friend who works there, and he was there

(52:47):
for twenty years. I said, what is it about this
that you love? And he goes, Dude, I'm a math geek.
I want to m I t like I get to
solve problem sets. You know, Yeah there's red tape, and
yes there their politics to go on, but I get
to do something that I genuinely enjoyed doing. And then
I get to go home and having a good nood
and I get spent out of my family. You know.
So the two passions are very different in how we

(53:08):
explore them and whether we can leave them at the
door or whether we can't leave them at the door.
And back to relationships, we all know people who started
dating someone and they disappeared. They're like, sorry, I'm spending
time with Sheila all the time, because I'm like obsessed
with this relationship as opposed to someone who started dating
someone and and and maybe ended up marrying them. But
there's still time for their friends. There's still time for

(53:31):
other things, maybe less understandably, but there's still a part
of that pie that we spend doing other activities hobbies. Right,
So I got emphasized that passion does not have to
be doesn't have to be work. Clearly, it could be
could be passionate about your work, but you'd be passionate
about gardening or cooking, or riding your bike or reading.

(53:51):
You know the thing about passion, And we're doing you know,
we could do again the whole season passion. But one
of the things that fascinates me is when people have
a harmonious passion, let's say it is for reading or
gardening or cooking. As long as they're able to build
that into their lives in a regular basis, they are happier.
They tend to be happier overall. They tend to be

(54:12):
rated as more likely, less likely to lie, cheat and
steal in the workplace, more trustworthy in the workplace, warmer.
They tend to enjoy other things like work, even if
their passion isn't work. So as long as you find
a passion you can pursue harmoniously. It tends to change
through a lot of things in our life, not just
the time that we pursue the passion. So there are

(54:33):
and by the way, you know, since we want people
to walk away with takeaways today, there's some really interesting
ways to go about doing this. Um they're uh. Meaning
is a really key point. And if you look at
you so you can look at some well known people
who are clearly passionate. You can look at someone like
Steve Jobs versus Richard Branson, right, both enormously successful people,

(54:55):
enormously successful in so many ways. You can question whether
one is happening. You know one thence that we tend
to think he's a little less happy or he was
happy when he was with us, and Branson seems to
be a happier guy. But when they talk about passion,
it's interesting because Job says you have to be passionate,
you have to be irrational, because passionate, pursuing a passion
is irrational, right, which means you have to be a

(55:17):
little out there. Branson says you should pursue your passion
in a way that works for the world and you.
And that is so key when it works for the world,
because now we're talking about meaning, and meaning is so
much at the root of our ability to have well being.
Meaning we we we define as as a connection to
something larger than ourselves. So when we ask a question

(55:38):
about a pursuit, maybe it's your work, maybe it's a hobby,
how does your work help make the world a better place?
How does the how does your work help other people?
The research shows that our levels of meaning when we
discussed that tend to go up. Firefighters take it back
to the firehouse. All of a sudden, their meeting goes up.
Emergency UH, first responders taken back to the hospital. Meeting
goes up. Teachers take it back to the teacher's line.

(56:00):
How does the work that we do we have genuine
conversations or journal on it, or have family discussions. Meaning
tends to rise and we can incorporate meaning into our
pursuit of passion. All of a sudden, it's not about me, me, me,
my golf game, my golfing, and me being the best.
It's about how am I gaging with others too? That
brings us to relationships as well, which is key, which
is I'm able to pursue this with other people knowing

(56:22):
I'm doing good for other people, knowing that I'm helping
make the world a better place. That's such such a
win win win that we're able to pursue a passion
very differently in a richer way with other folks. Sometimes
you have to stop and think and maybe get slightly
created to figure out where the meaning is. When you're
a firefighter or a teacher or a surgeon, it's a
little more obvious that you're having a direct and profound

(56:43):
benefit to any number of people every day. Um, But
meaning can be found in lots of places. And you know,
if you do what I do, you tend to try
to convin yourself when when you're in those moments that
what you what you do has meaning because it brings
happiness to people. But almost anybody, if you're a little
bit creative, I think you can find that kind of dan.
Last thing here we talked about passion. How can it

(57:04):
be stoked If someone listening is feeling like they don't
have requisite passion for anything right now, you're just sort
of like rudderless and passionless, which I don't think is
rare state of affairs for a lot of people right now,
not all, not uncommon, no way. You know, it's one

(57:24):
of the you know, rare data points you have a
hundred percent answer on when you ask five thirty five
respondents that they think that passion is an essential part
of the living of a funning life, of them say yes,
and yet not all of them have passion. So that
is a huge challenge, the fact that, um, uh that
not everyone has one, or maybe they had one and
it was obsessive and they burned out. What do I
do now? So there's some myths about passion, which which

(57:47):
which are are far too persuasive. People tend to think overwhelmingly,
the passion is a thunderbolt moment. Right, I walked by
the guitar shops, saw that guitar and knew I was
gonna be the greatest guitar player in the history, said
nobody ever except maybe Jimmy Hendrix, Right, So, you know what,
we tend to think, that's it. I'm gonna find it tomorrow.
It's gonna happen there. Passions overwhelmingly, Uh, take about three

(58:12):
years to develop, right, So you gotta be patient and
they start as a spark. So some comes to me
and said says, I'm interested in French. I'm like, I
don't know. I'm not like moved to France, you know.
I'm like, okay, you should take French one on one
and if you like French one or take you know,
if you're not in college, take a French class, take
an online French class. If it's something that's interesting for you.
Don't jump in completely, but rather see how that goes.

(58:36):
You might find yourself taking another class. You may then
find yourself taking two classes in a row, and maybe
you you wind your way towards uh that kind of passion.
But you know, going back to Julian, I remember he
was a gymnast when he was young, and I remember
about three years in people would ask him what he does.
He'd say, I do gymnastics. About three years in and
he said, I am a gymnast, which is when you

(58:57):
start to identify as that. And that's a really healthy
progression because you're taking your time. You're learning how to
integrate something that you're interested in into the rest of
your life, rather than wanting it so bad that it
has to dominate and push everything off to the side.
That's the recipe for a farmer harmonious passion. And by

(59:18):
the way, and Chris, I think you and I talked
about this the other day. Most people who have a
harmonious passion have more than one because because they know
what the routine is to integrate an interest, maybe not
even yet a passion, an interest into their lives, they
can do with something else too. And you start to

(59:39):
bring these multiple passions together harmoniously, and it becomes really
quite special. The way that you know. One of the
key takeaways from the class, and this is something for
folks here. Um is the reason why obsessive passions and
this is this is my own kind of metaphor, are

(59:59):
so dangerous, is because it's like you're living your life
on one pillar and God forbids something should happen to
that pillar. If it's a little chip, a little nick,
you have nowhere else to go. If you have multiple pillars,
let's say it's gardening and cooking and tennis and family. Right,
you have a bad day in the court, or you
have a bad day at work, I'm gonna go back
to my house where I love my family, who about
whom I'm passionate. I get to go to the garden,

(01:00:20):
and tomorrow is another day. It almost goes back to
the pessimistic, the optimistic inspantory stuff marks another day. I
can go back to work, I can get back on
the horse. It's okay. So being able to cultivate multiple interests,
you know, slowly, carefully with other people, potentially that's the
path where you're really integrating a the things you like

(01:00:40):
positive emotion, be engagement because you're not giving yourself too
much pressure. Uh, you're cultivating relationships which are key. You
have some meaning there potentially because you're able to see
how it works for the world and you're actually getting
things done. You're you're you're achieving at a certain level. Two,
and that I would say is a much richer way
of coming at not just happiness, but overall well being,

(01:01:01):
which is having more than just the happiness. It's having
some other things that are there for you, both in
good times and in challenging times. So, Dan, we've covered
a lot of ground here, a lot of different topics.
Still just the tip of the iceberg. Invite people to
read you Thrive and attend one of your talks, but
if you could give some key takeaways which would come
under the heading of sort of well being, which is

(01:01:23):
what we all want to be about. Absolutely, And you know,
all these are gonna be about rewiring, as I mentioned before,
rewiring how your brain works. So they're not I'm not
gonna say they're easy. And by the way, they're not
all gonna work for everybody. Right that's if I said
they're all gonna work for everyone, I'll be talking about
self help. But there's a chance that you're gonna find
one too, maybe three of these that do work, and
some of them will work today and some of them

(01:01:44):
will work next year. I want to be a gratitude journal,
and that is real simple. Every night, every night, you
write down three things you're grateful for and why uh
no more than five minutes. Each one is a sentence.
I'm grateful for my partner because when I'm very specific,
I'm grateful from my partner because when I got home
and had a rough day, they were there to listen
to me, period the end. I'm grateful for the fact

(01:02:06):
that I lived next to the woods because I got
to take a long, good calming walk today, period the end.
Now you write three of those at night, and over
the course about a month, what we do is we're
rewiring our brain to see the world differently. You might
not have appreciated that force before or your partner in
that way before, but and it might be tough at first,
but over the course about thirty days are overall levels
of positive emotions, which you talked about earlier in the show,

(01:02:28):
tends to rise because we're seeing the world differently. So
that's one UM five minutes or less. Uh. One that
takes officially six minutes is breathing. UM. If you take
twice a day three minutes to do deep belly breaths,
not like your standard breasts, just sitting there breathing, but
deep into your diaphragm, super deep breasts and follow the
breaths in and out a ka in parentheses mindfulness meditation. UM.

(01:02:53):
We find that not only do our levels of positive
emotions go up, but our levels of stress go down. Right.
So we have this oppera not only to raise positive
emotion because I said, I'm not like doctor happiology, but
also to address challenging emotions. And that's really important, and
especially at a time like now, and we're getting through
stressful times and that becomes, again, like anything else, a practice.

(01:03:15):
You do it daily and you have to remind yourself
or set a tim or set an alarm. Could you
start to do that more naturally UM in your life
at challenging time, So you start to practice that. You
said belly breathing that people think about breathing from the
bottom up right, because it actually has a physical effect.
It's not just breathing deeply in your lungs, right. You
want you want the whole torso involved. That's exactly it.

(01:03:36):
That's and that kind of breathing effects something called our
vagus nerve, which is a nerve that runs through our body.
It runs through um touches all of our organs. So
it helps us regulate our responses. And that's really key.
Like anyone out there who's ever had a snap response,
if you had a snap response at your kid or
at a colleague or you just you know, and you
just regret it later. Sometimes it gives us a chance

(01:03:57):
to just pause and go up, I'm gonna take them on, UM,
take breath and then and then then we respond very
differently because we've trained ourselves to do this, and it
affects our organs, this vagus nerves, so on and so forth. UH.
And finally, you know, I gotta say my favorite is
when I give you, and that is to go to
uh either the website that that will give you, um

(01:04:20):
the www dot you thrive, that's letter you p h
R I v E dot info, or go to via
institute dot org v i A institute dot org and
take the assessment for signature strengths, for character strengths. Because
when you get the results, look at the ones that
really resound for you share them with a friend or

(01:04:40):
family member to really figure out, like why is bravery
a strength? How do you identify or humor or justice
or wisdom or appreciation of beauty and mastery, Because we
find that when we use those in a new way
every day, pick one a right mind's appreciation of beauty
and mastery. I have to read some whitmen or look
at a piece of beautiful art or watching a amazing athletes.

(01:05:01):
You know, it elevates me, It makes my day. And
we find that when we do that once a day
in a new way every day, our level of overall
well being can shoot through the roof. And also it
feels amazing. So doing that it can be a wonderful
overall practice as well. And again you'll see the difference
with that pretty quickly often um, but certainly after a

(01:05:24):
couple of weeks. And that's uh. That's just a wonderful,
science based but really enjoyable way to look at well
being as well. Very grateful to Dan Lerner for his
expertise and his wisdom and hope that this helped you
in your pursuit of greater well being and happiness. Now
for a much deeper dive, I do highly recommend Dan's

(01:05:44):
book You Thrive, How to Succeed in College and Life
on audible. If you want to lean into some of
these ideas, I suggest to go to the website you
the letter you Thrive dot info. That's where they have
the questionnaire, the survey that's going to give you insight
on how to identify and use your character strengths, use
the resources table. I found it very useful as always.

(01:06:08):
Grateful to my co executive producer Jennifer Dempster and Jason
White Celt for his editing skills. Grateful to you for listening.
Always appreciate the support and the feedback. I'll talk to
you soon.