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December 19, 2024 48 mins

This week Scott is joined by author, speaker and pioneer in the global happiness movement, Karen Guggenheim. Scott and Karen discuss overcoming trauma with happiness, how happiness can be learned by making small daily changes, and how to use compassion to overcome diversity. 


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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Arthur Brooks talks about you know, happiness is love, and
it's true. It's love, you know, and it's love. It's
in personal love, it's romantic love, it's filial love, it's
parent love, caregiver love, love for the planet, animals, whatever
it is. But it's this amazing feeling and significance and

(00:24):
largely you feel that with people.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today is great to have
Karen Guggenheim on the show. Karen is a pioneer in
the global happiness movement, having created the World Happiness Summit.
She's also an author and speaker who inspires people about
how to grow post trauma and rebuild a life focused
on meaning, purpose, and happiness. In this episode, we discuss
her new book, Cultivating Happiness, Overcome Trauma and Positively Transform

(00:55):
your life. Is it possible to overcome pain by learning
to be happy? This This is the question Karen Guggenheim
asked herself after the sudden death of her husband in
twenty thirteen. In this episode, we talk about her own
personal journey and also how happiness can be learned through
small daily changes that we can all bring more compassion
positively into our days to feel better about ourselves and

(01:17):
others and to deal with adversity. So that further ado,
I'll bring you Karen Guggenheim. Karen Guggenheim, it is so
amazing to have you on the Psychology Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah. I wanted to do on the show for a
long time.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thank you. Yeah, I've definitely wanted to be here, and
I flew all the way to New York to be
here with you.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Incredible, so honored. So tell me, like, who is Karen Guggenheim?
You know, how would you describe yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Well, I was waiting for you to tell me that.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
You want others to define your identity.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
No, no, absolutely not, But I feel like it's I have,
of course my identity, but in the last eleven years
it's really changed, some of it through my willful action
and then some just because of the events that happened
in my life. So my identity has shifted a little
bit from you know, wife and to widow for example.

(02:15):
So that was a shifting identity. But at the core,
I think who I am is definitely I'm a mom,
I'm a friend, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I
think I if I can say I'm a visionary, I
feel like I'm a catalyst as well. So I've taken

(02:36):
pain and tried to do something that is helpful and
beneficial and good, and that's who I am.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Amazing. At what point in the story of your life
did you get interested in happiness?

Speaker 1 (02:50):
After my life broke?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
When was that?

Speaker 1 (02:53):
So? About? So eleven years ago my husband died suddenly
from the flu, and yeah, and I was married to
him half my life, literally, and so so much of
me was tied to this relationship and to this person
because we had a really good, strong marriage and friendship.

(03:16):
We were very very good friends, and he really got
me and I got him, and so it was.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
A very.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
It was a very welcoming relationship and a relationship of
belonging and you know, romance whatever. But the most important
part it was that I could be totally myself with
this person and not feel judged and just feel home.
And when that ended, my first inclination was to shut

(03:45):
off to the world, make the room really cold, get
into my bed, put down the blinders, and just lay there.
Right And then I remember it had children, and so
I knew that I had to show up for them.
And so I decided to live, and that meant that

(04:07):
I was going to become an active participant in my life.
And to me, that meant that my purpose was going
to be happiness, and I was going to get to happiness.
And I didn't know how. I didn't know definitely about
the scientific definition of happiness or well being. I just
intuitively knew that for me, survival meant that I had

(04:30):
to like overshoot it. It had to be so great
and so wonderful that I'd want to live in that life.
And the first step I knew to go into that
life was to feel the pain. Because when you are
in shock or in laws, the shock first, so the

(04:50):
pain is not immediate, and there's kind of like that
decision of am I going to avoid it? Am I
gonna use any kind of tricks and to get away
from it? But since I knew that I wanted to
go to happiness, of course I've realized then it's inside.
You don't go out, you go in. But the first

(05:12):
step was to feel that pain, and so I embraced
the pain. I didn't wallow in it, but I embraced it.
And four months after he died. I was getting an
NBA Georgetown University because I knew that I had to retrain,
you know, my career and so and I wanted to

(05:33):
be with people. It was very important for me to
be with I didn't want to be with people, but
I knew that where for where I was going, I
needed to see people. So I began to travel every
other weekend and to Washington, and so accidentally I became
happy again.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Wow. What were you What was your job before eleven
years ago?

Speaker 1 (05:58):
So international crisis management communicator. I was a former journalist,
so I've always been one of the ims who am
my identity. I'm a storyteller. So I've been a storyteller
all my life, and so in a way, my work
now is a different kind of storytelling. I'm storytelling happiness.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Where were you born?

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I was born?

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Said that? Okay, yes, wow, and you were When did
you come to America? Well?

Speaker 1 (06:30):
The first I always came, you know, back and forth,
because my mom was actually born in La My father's German,
so we're an international family. Yeah. But to live really
was when I think it was it was seventh grade maybe, yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Wow, So you you've had quite an interesting life.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
So far, it's been interesting.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Y's been a journey and you've kind of and where
you're at now is on happiness. Why do you think
happiness is so important? Can compare it to other things
you could have focused on, like achievement or even self actualization?
You know why happiness?

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Because happiness is something that you feel in your gut, right,
And so I believe that when you narrow it down,
we do things because we want to be happier, because
we want others to be happy that we care about, right,
And so self actualization and self awareness and all these

(07:33):
other things I think our components for us to become happier, right,
And so I just believe that happiness is incredibly important
when we define it in the correct way, right, that
it's not just pleasure to find it for me. So,
you know, it's funny because my definition largely came from
a conversation with a Robert business dinner. He's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, he's one of my mentors.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, he's great. It's just so wonderful. And you know
he said, you know, happiness has a cognitive component and
an emotional component, and it's universal that it feels good.
The other thing that I got from rich Lard is
that the happiness shouldn't hurt other people, right, You're for
sort of your happiness shouldn't be here, yes, which is important, right,

(08:19):
or even yourself exactly, not to hurt others or yourself.
And and then what I love the most is a
cognitive component, right, And that's where I guess achievement and
purpose and meaning, significance, mindfulness, and then the ways of being,
of being kind and compassionate and being altruistic, and all

(08:44):
of these things are the ones, the components of happiness
and relationships in particular, that you can do something about.
And that way you can construct your happiness in a
way because as you do that, then you're hedging for
more moments of positive emotion. So it's not that it's
linear positive emotion, but emotion, but it's the trend towards.

(09:06):
So for me, happiness is that that line, that trend
that is towards more positive emotion. Understanding that you know
the totality of human experience is going to bring you
to those low moments. But perhaps when you learn these frameworks,
you don't go as slow as you would have or
stay there as long as you would have if you

(09:28):
wouldn't be practicing these habits.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I want to just say the name of your book
and I'll show it for those looking as well. Cultivating
happiness over colon, overcome trauma, and positively transform your life.
I think maybe some people not expect that subtitle right
after that title, and so it's it's surprising and it's interesting.
I want to double click on the word trauma for

(09:53):
a second. I feel like the word trauma's overused these days.
Everything is now trauma, you know, like back pain, It's like, okay,
that's trauma.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Or if someone says, get what you wanted trauma.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
If someone doesn't, or you don't agree, even you don't
agree with someone you know politically or whatever, it's like,
don't traumatize me by telling me your you know, beliefs
that are different than mine. How do you define trauma?
I asked you to define happiness. These are very weighty questions.
Now can you define trauma?

Speaker 1 (10:18):
You know? I don't think I can. I can define
my experience with it, and I have come to realize
that good answer that you can't define laws. You can't
define trauma in a way because what is traumatic to
you may not be to me. Right and so what

(10:42):
I can say with my experience and trauma is to
have an experience which shakes the foundation maybe of your life,
of your identity, of your future. I feel that, you know,
when I would in that room and my husband was dying,
because I was there when when he was dying and

(11:04):
it was like cold, it's cold blue. It wasn't code red.
I was expecting code red. It's really cold blue. And
you have little the doctors working on him and all
that stuff, and the hyperreality of the moment. I never understood,
you know, like this is another thing. It's life for
death that you're here, it's life for death. If you
do that, when you've seen death, you understand what death is.

(11:28):
And when we talk about life or death, it's not
that you know. And that was guilty of doing that too,
Like it's not when you were in that moment, Oh,
this is what we're talking about. When I had to
call my kids and tell them their father had died,
that's real. That's trauma. That's a moment in time that

(11:48):
shakes your entire, your entire you know, humanity. And so
for me that was a really traumatic experience. And then
you know, making that choice to grow from the experience
was like the most amazing thing ever, and so grateful

(12:09):
that I was able to do that. How I was
able to do that, I don't know. So for me,
I feel and I have a spiritual life, right, I'm
not very I'm not religious, but I do have a
spiritual life, and I feel it something greater than myself
supported me in that moment because my reaction was not

(12:30):
like a natural reaction to what occurred.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh that's interesting, or what if? What if alternatively a
different side of yourself came out that was always within you.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Possibly, but it was not natural.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Consciousness.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
As he was dying, and I kind of blocked this out.
But my sister was also there. She said that I started.
I started. I tapped into gratitude immediately as he's dying.
I was grateful to him as the thought. As he's dying,
and I'm telling him, I'm so grateful to you. You know,
you're such a great dad, You're a great husband.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
It's okay, don't worry about it. I got it, you know.
And and so it was like a really not The
nurses and the doctors were looking at me like this
lady's insane. But that's how I could live through the moment,
you know.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Of course, And well you bring a lot of this
into your book. I just started, you know, kind of
where your book starts off, which is really viewing pain
and loss as catalysts for change. So you see a
real great benefit to think of think of really hard
life challenges in that way.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, well, there's nothing you can do about it, right,
Some things you can do you can't, like.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, as Irvin Yelm says, sooner or later, you have
to give up all hope for a better past exactly.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
And and Fred Luskin talks about that too at at
the Summit, the World Happiness Summit, And it's true, you know,
But what I also learned, I learned so many different things.
And one of the things that is so important to
realize is that when you let go of the pain,

(14:12):
and it takes a while because you need to have
the tincture of time to heal some of the some
of it, but when you're willing to let go of
the pain, and sometimes when we've lost something, we hold
onto the pain because we're afraid that if we let go,
we're gonna forget the person. But what I have experienced

(14:33):
in letting go of the pain. Is the love has
grown so obviously not romantic love because my husband is
not here. But I can remember conversations. I can remember
moments that make me feel so loved even today that
I didn't have access to when I was just feeling

(14:56):
the pain.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Something else another part of deep, deep reservoirs of strength
or within you. Yeah, that, I mean, it's it's interesting
how we want to think about that. But you know,
whether it's something outside yourself or it's whether it's something
that was hidden inside yourself. You know, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
You know. I grew up in a third world country,
so I saw a lot of pain, yeah, but I
saw a lot of happiness and I saw a lot
of joy in the midst of people who really really
poor in like really unfair situations. And so there was
a grit and a resilience and not avoiding and saying okay,

(15:36):
our life is is great. And there's something about the
Necaraguan people because they can make fun or not fun,
but bring laughter into a really challenging situation and accepting
the situation is challenging.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Well. Humor, I think is one of the most underrated
tools in the psychotherapy slash coaching toolkit. So I agree,
especially absurdist humor. Yeah, I mean everything is so absurd,
like I bet your your wife here, I bet even
him just here in New York, traveling here, it was
absurd like and then everything you know, everywhere you go

(16:13):
in New York there's like some catastrophe. Right, It's amazing.
You also talk about neuroplasticity and connecting with purpose under
times of distress. It sounds like you went through both
when when your husband passed. Is that right?

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yes? So I actually I rewired my brain completely, like
I am not naturally a joyful person or temperaments. No,
I was, you know, I wasn't a glass have full
person really no, And none of this came natural to me.

(16:51):
That's what I was always I was since a little kid,
had been courageous and perseverance. So I use those strengths too,
and then analytical. So first I sliceaid, well, I'm going
to live because I'm going to be a good mom,
Like being a mom is super important to me, and
so for that to happen, I need to do these things.
And then made the commitment. And that's something else that

(17:13):
I think is you know we're living in a time
I think it's so important to build resilience and to
build resilient kids. And I agree, And we need to
be committed to I think you know, to be committed
to certain things in certain ways of being. And so
one of the things that I learned is that we
have a to do list, right, every day we have

(17:35):
to do list? But what about a to be list?
What do you want to be today? You want to
be kind, you want to be nice, you want to
be altruistic, you want to be forgiving. You get to
control that, and when you do that, you know the
experience of life for me at least softens, and then

(17:58):
I'm able to Okay, that's disappointing. But then I got
like twenty seven other things were pretty cool. So it's
I used to be focused on what thing, one thing
I didn't get instead of the twenty seven wonderful things
I got.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Or even like the one person who criticizes you over
all the people that love and then you call everybody, yeah,
and you want them to sympathize with you.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Absolutely, and somebody I agree, agree, and somebody will be like,
oh but I heard the compliment and not talk about
that I need to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
You know. Wow, so you really think you fundamentally like
transformed eleven years ago. I mean, that's incredible. You know,
your book could have also been about transformation, could have
been about a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
No, it is, it's but totally it is about a transformation.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
But I'm saying, I guess that could have been one
of the words in the title as well.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
You're right, You're right. But you know, in essence, when
he died, I was transformed immediately into into wife immediately, no, no,
no wife, you know, like and then our family structure
we went from four to three and as having a
partner in raising children no more. So you like, who

(19:14):
do you ask? Something that you know I talk about
is that I felt like I was born again in
not in the born again I saw Jesus type, but
born again in that this is a new reality, this
is a new identity. I don't know what I'm supposed

(19:35):
to be doing, and I have very adult responsibilities because
I'm responsible for exclusively for my kids in our life,
and I'm feeling completely lost, you.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Know, yeah, yeah, I mean there's no there's no set
timetable for grief. You know, some people don't show post
traumatic growth, you know, yes, And what would you say
are some of the biggest, biggest things people can do
if they want to kind of accelerate that growth process.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Well, the very first thing I want to tell everybody
who's listening is that it's possible. So just by opening
that window into the possibilities of your life. And it
doesn't matter if you don't know how. It doesn't matter
if it looks super bleak, because it does, and you know,
but the possibility that it can happen will head you

(20:33):
towards it possibly happening, and you know, being patient and
loving with yourself and some of the things that I did.
For example, I remember that my nephew had given me
the Christmas before a T shirt and it said I
am Happiness. And I wore the T shirt after my

(20:56):
husband died. Not because I was happy, but I figured,
if we wear a shirt for a team, we follow
because we're like fans and we support that team or
what they're about. So I said, I'm gonna wear the
happiness shirt because this is where I'd like to be.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, behavioral activation, but the cognitions follow the behavior.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
And then the other thing I started copying what happy
people do.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
How do you know who are happy people? Like? How
do you know that?

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Well? I saw them. They look joyful, they look engage
in life, they look like they wanted to do things.
So that's not ha ha, but like, oh, you know,
they have energy, so they are creative. And so that
to me was like, okay, that looks like something that
could be happiness, right, And so that meant, you know,

(21:49):
saying yes eventually to go and have lunch with the group.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So I was.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
I told you I was doing my MBA, and so
I would fly into Washington, DC. And I would originally
fly in for the classes and fly out immediately, like
the classes over, I had to the airport and come
back because my younger son was still in high school
in Miami. And then I started staying and leaving on Sunday.
So then I would go to dinner with the group.

(22:17):
And I remember one year out after his death. And
there are two things about that. One is it's funny
that you think it's like, Okay, you've passed the first anniversary,
the first Christmas, the first New Year's, the first Father's Day,
first birthday, and then it's like okay, now it's not
gonna hurt because I've done the first one. And when

(22:39):
you realized first year, day one that it still hurts,
it's almost as impacting as the original laws because you
realize it's a forever deal in one way or the other.
So acceptance on that and letting go right and the
other thing. I remember, I was at lunch with a
group of friends. Somebody said something really funny and I'm analyzing.

(23:04):
I'm like, ooh, that was funny, and I go, can
I laugh? Is it appropriate for how long? Can It's
been a year? But is it enough a year? It
should be a year and a half. And I had
this whole internal conversation. And then the same way that
we talk about, you know, toxic positivity, like you also
shouldn't block the fact that if you're joyful in a

(23:26):
moment that that's okay, right also, And so I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna laugh. I'm going to laugh. And I laughed,
and that was like the snowballing effect. What other things
were to come that I said yes to because I
allowed myself to feel around all my feelings.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, the permission to laugh, that'd be another book.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Permission to laugh absolutely, because we have labels right, and
for me, when I heard the word widow, for some
reason till this day, I think of like The Godfather
or an old Italian movie where now you your hair's
cut off, your your you went to the nunner or

(24:08):
whatever you were in black for the rest of your life.
And that's why I'm wearing pink pants, you know, thank you.
It's it's it's these labels and I I you know,
till this day, when you sign your you're filling out paperwork,
like to go to the doctor, it says single, married
or widow? What can I just be single? Why why
do I have to, you know, go to that moment

(24:31):
again as widow? And and uh, those are things that
perhaps we can do away with, but you're only aware
of it if if you're in that category. But those
words mean a lot. And so I don't feel like
in my identity that I am a widow. I think

(24:52):
there's something that happened that that widowhood is part of it,
but something else that I learned from Moga Dot, who's
really great. He wrote a book called Self for Happy
in many other books, but we connected really closely because
he sadly lost his son tragically from an emergency appendectomy,

(25:17):
and that then dedicated his life to promoting happiness at
scale whatever. And he said that his son's name was Ali,
and so Ali lived and Eli died, and he chooses
to focus equally true, he focuses on the part that
he lived, and so for me, I choose to do
the same. Instead of getting stuck in the bit that

(25:38):
my husband died and he died young, and you know,
unfortunately from the flues, which you know still boggles my mind,
I choose to focus on the part that he lived
and the work that I do, you know, with the
World Happiness Summit, is bringing legacy to the kind of
person that he was. He's incredibly kind, he was a scientist,

(26:00):
it was a physician, and so all of those components
come up in my work and it makes me feel
joyful and also gives me a lot of meaning and
purpose to bring that way of being that he was
in the work that I do today.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Beautiful, let's move on to the part of your book
where you talk about the importance of movement and breathing,
very undervalued things in our society, with everyone so focusing
on their work, right and not so, tell me a
little about the importance of these exercises.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
So thankfully I had been doing yoga for about fifteen years,
so the power of the conscious breath, and actually that
got me through the moment of him dying. I just
went into breathing, conscious breathing, because I could have easily fainted,
but I went again, what do I control in this
situation where I control? I can control my breath because
everything was out of control, and so I tapped into
the breathing. And I think that's something that we have

(27:03):
always not I think, but we we actually have always
within our control our breath in any given circumstance. So
if you're you know, like for a panic attack, or
you're getting news that are really challenging, there's a layoff,
you know, your love life, you didn't get the answer
you wanted, et cetera. You can go into conscious breathing

(27:25):
and then that has all the reactions that are happening,
you know, biologically through your body. That then is bringing
you into coherence, which is really amazing. And then the
other part about movement, So I see that into physical
movement but also mental movement. Not get stuck. And you know,

(27:45):
we all know about the growth versus the Mike fixed mindset.
And so for me that movement is so important to
go into the growth and then moving your body, you know,
again letting biology do its bit. So where if you
listen to music or or you move with dance, then
you're bypassing cognition, you're letting biology help you out into

(28:11):
into going towards greater happiness or or well being or
releasing stress.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Wow, wonderful. Any any particular people you followed that that
helped you the most with learning breathing techniques, Any any
shout outs you want to give?

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Oh, my goodness. So I had my yoga instructor in
Miami who helped me out a lot.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
What's their name, So it's it's.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Her, actually, Veronica Vidal. She's my yoga instructor. And then
I became certified. That was before my husband died, But
that helped me a lot certified. Yeah, yeah, beautiful.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
So you had a new appreciation of life right after this?
And and so what what kind of message you want
to get people who are are desperately trying to find
any meaning in their life anymore?

Speaker 1 (29:04):
So, you know, I mean sometimes I can also say
that I sympathize with whoever's going through a lot of
anxiety because I have anxiety, so it's something that I
deal with. You know, it's sometimes it's really hard because
you get into this you know, yes, viral.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, we all have our loops.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
We went to the loop and break you see how
you can break the loop, and that means putting in
rituals that you commit to. So, for example, I commit
every morning to reading and journaling and meditating and whichever
way you meditate, you know, whatever it is that whether

(29:43):
it's prayer or it's you know, mindfulness practice or whatever
it is. Breathing techniques, those are kind of hacks into
the spiraling. And I go for a walk almost every
morning for about four miles. Helps me a lot to
be out in nature and to experience that. I listened

(30:04):
to music when I'm taking a shower, so that helps
me reset as well. I don't I don't listen to news,
So for example, you get a lot of people like,
oh my god, news are stressing me out, don't listen
to it. And if you really need to do it
in the middle of the day when your brain is
not that susceptible, So don't do it first day, first

(30:26):
thing in the morning or last thing at night. You're
not imprinting good things into your brain and that helps,
that helps out. But you know, if you want to
tap into meaning, investigate it. You know, before this happened
in my life, I feel like I was sitting back,

(30:49):
sitting on the bus bench with my purse, waiting for
the Happiness bus to come. And it had to be yellow,
and it had to be a certain way, it had
to be on this street, and like almost hit me
with it. And when he died, it was like that
park bench like blew up and I had to look
at the bus was around the corner. Maybe it was

(31:11):
actually a motorcycle and it was red. So I had
to go and be active into finding the purpose in
my life, into finding meaning, into creating all these different things.
And so it's hard when you're feeling down because you
stop moving, right, you stop moving. So it's so just

(31:33):
go walk around the block of like one block, it
doesn't matter. It's like three minutes. And we think we
have to do these gigantic things, but you don't. You
just have to do a little tiny thing. And if
you're feeling down, call somebody and offer help on principle,
not because you want to do it, but you do

(31:54):
it because you at least test how you feel afterwards
that you done that, and if you feel good, do
it again.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
People also tend to think that you have to do
everything for some other reason. I like how you say
we can savor just for the sake of savoring, you know,
and Abraham Asa called them the b values, things that
are values in and of themselves. We don't try to
get anything else other than those things are ends in themselves.

(32:31):
That takes a shift of consciousness. Doesn't allow yourself to
do things just for the sake of the thing itself.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Absolutely, absolutely, you know, at the end of the day,
you have to have this conversation with yourself and how
do you want to mostly feel in your life? And
if you mostly want to feel better or have more meaning,
invest in that invest time and it hires time, and

(33:00):
it requires attention, It requires repetition, and it requires which
is the speaker, which is the frameworker, which is the
program that resonates for me? Or which are the practices
that work for me? And start to maybe journal and
see which are the routines that start to make you

(33:20):
feel better and which ones don't stop doing the ones
that don't make you feel better and start doing the ones.
And it's not about avoiding responsibility or avoiding problems in
your life. Believe me, I've had to tackle so many
and now as an entrepreneur, it's not easy being an entrepreneur,
That's true. But but then I have the conversation, right,

(33:43):
do I do I want to you know, put on
the world Happiness on It? Do I want to work?
Do I want to work in a large organization? Or
do I want to be self employed? And so when
you go into yes, that's what I'd like. So then
it's part of the process.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
You know, what is the World Happiness on It?

Speaker 1 (34:03):
The World Happiness on It is this most amazing, amazing
event that takes place every March and no it travels around.
It brings together the world seating experts and the science
of happiness and well being with a global audience. And
it's the experts and practitioners who who are bringing this

(34:24):
work into organizations, educational environments, business businesses and how can
we learn tools, evidence based tools for a happier life,
you know, in individuals, collective well being, like I said, workplaces, schools,

(34:50):
et cetera. And last year was in Lake GOMO. This
year was in London and we were very honored to
have the US Surgeon General, doctor Vivek Murthy there. We
also launched our World Will Being Policy Forum with Professor
Lord Lyard at London School of Economics and that is

(35:11):
and doctor Murphy was there as well. That is our
initiative to bring this into country policy and also education
and business because we need the private sector in order
to make this change at scale. Absolutely, And in the
next conference in March in Miami, so I hope all

(35:34):
of you will be there because it's going to be amazing.
It's going to be in Miami Beach at the New
World Center. You live in Florida, right, I live in Miami.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's your hometown. Wonderful. When did you start this conference?

Speaker 1 (35:51):
I found it will Haasu in twenty sixteen, and then four,
no five months later, we had the first World Happiness
Summit in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Look at you. We're doing us for so long and
it's become a staple of the happiness summits. Yeah, very nice.
You've become You've become a rising legend in the field
of happiness studies.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
I'm very happy to be able to share what I
have learned, and to share work, you know, like your
work and the work of others who have dedicated their
lives to to really bringing evidence and research into it.
Because we know this intuitively, and we've been talking about
this for what thousands of years and human happiness right,

(36:39):
and and I love the fact that we have the
science to support what we know intuitively and we know
that it's the right thing to do. But now we
have the metrics to also support that.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Agreed, No no lives, no lives detected. There no lives
detect you know. So I want to return to your book.
I captured the moment when you said the world happiness
on it, so we took a little detour there, but
glad that we were able to talk about the world happiness.
Let's return to your book for a second. Relationships, because
you have a whole really cool section on relationships and

(37:16):
what does it take to have a happy relationship.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
It takes awareness, decision making. I love the Powelski's they
talk about positive relations the positive relationship.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Hi, Susie.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
I love it when they talk about when you ask
some your spouse or your partner to go to the
supermarket and you ask for ten items and they bring
back nine. So don't focus on the one day left out,
which we tend to do. Right, That will go a
long way in your relationship making, you know, focus on

(37:59):
on everything and that's working well, and then address what's not,
but perhaps through a constructive lens, you know, and really
understand that we are our relationships. I mean, we're you know,
we're nothing without people. Yes, you know, we need people.

(38:20):
We enjoy people. I think the meaning and the reflection
is in people. And so investing the best of our
time is also important, right, It shouldn't be scraps of
our time with the most important people in our in
our world, because in our world, in our in our lives,

(38:40):
we tend to do that sometimes and ah, they love us.
It's okay, you know, and that's that's not fair to
you and to them, because it's so magical to have
people in your life who love like love is the
most amazing thing. Like Arthur Brooks talks about, you know,
happiness is love, and it's true. It's love, you know,

(39:01):
and it's it's love. It's in personal love, it's romantic love,
it's filial love, it's parent love, caregiver love. Love for
the planet, animals, whatever it is, but it's this this
amazing feeling and significance, and largely you feel that with people.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah, for sure, or animals sometimes absolutely. I felt that
with your dog.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Yes, it's adorable. And I'm sorry to hear they're stressed
a little bit. So you said they were stressed a
little bit too stress.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, I'm very sorry.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
We spoil him though, we spoil him.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, Okay, I want to Uh, there's a chapter I
really like in your book on forgiveness. Can you talk
a little about why forgiveness is so important in relationships?

Speaker 1 (39:53):
I love forgiveness and we talked about earlier. You know,
Fred Luskin out of Stanford. He's spoken at except for
the first one, at every summit, and he usually ends
the conference because it's the.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
Hardest thing and the happiness that is forgiveness, and you know,
for obvious reasons, because usually when forgiveness is involved, it
is because we feel an injury and that's emotional and
a lot of other things.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Tied into it. But it's such an important thing if
you want to be happier, because you allow fertile ground
for your happiness to thrive, right, and that doesn't mean
that what happened is okay, and some things will never

(40:43):
ever be okay. And you don't even have to forgive
the person, you know verbally or they may not even
be aware. You just have to really forgive in your heart,
in your mind. But it's just the most amazing thing.
And then of course if you're you know, forgiveness of
friends and you know, misunderstand things in the day to
day are also really conducive to positive relationships. But forgiving

(41:06):
things that were done. You know, initially I didn't want
to forgive the doctors who make the mistakes that caused
my husband's death. That was hard to forget. It was
really hard. It was really really hard. But what am

(41:27):
I going to do with it? You know, what am
I going to do with it? Because if you attached
to unforgiveness and bitterness, it's taking more away from it.
It's taking energy that I can invest in my children,
invest in myself, invest in my business. My creativity would
go down, my sense of hope would go down, because
it's a drain, right, and so it's like one of

(41:50):
the most important things, and some people they don't know
how to begin, right, and just having a willingness is
the first step, and and I really encourage those that
are struggling with that to look at Fred's work because
it's amazing. And we have our content, by the way,
free on our YouTube channel, and so you can see
the talks there.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
The World Happiness YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yes, the World Happiness.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
To put up.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yes, we wanted to do that because it's so it's
it's amazing and against transformational and the talks are like
they blow your mind.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
I bet how many people attend these.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
We talk about that round one thousand. And then we
also do it online, so some people, some people join online,
and we do more than that. We do different kinds
of programs. So we collaborated with the Ukrainian positive psychologist
a La Clemenko and we did two programs with her.

(42:48):
One of them Marty was involved and Selement and so
it would therefore people in Ukraine. And we did that
for free, free programs, one called Resilient two point zero
and over one hundred thousand people have participated since last year,
so that's really it's really amazing. And so when people say, oh,

(43:12):
well do you is it the right time to talk
about happiness? Because that's another thing that I get is
it the right time because this is where that is happening.
And so the right time to talk about happiness is
when you're ready to talk about happiness, right. And what
I have found that people who are suffering they want
to know about these things. And so in March, you know,

(43:33):
twenty twenty two, we had a lot of interest from
people in Ukraine as they were, you know, beginning with
the war and such, and we got some requests from
people who were actually in camps in Poland saying I
can you know? They wanted to buy a online so

(43:56):
we donated it. What kind of camps it just refugee.
They were just refuge you know, they were just fleeing.
Some people free access to the they wanted to They said,
we're suffering. You know, we know that there's a World
Happiness Summit. Can I buy a ticket or whatever? And

(44:17):
so we donated those that access for free to to
be able to listen in virtually. But what I'm trying
to say is that you know, it's always the right time. Now,
we never push right and show it in anybody's face.
What we're saying is that we're a platform for this

(44:37):
amazing work that people are doing, and that we're now doing.
So if you would like to understand what science says
about well being, says about happiness, about resilience, about great
about forgiveness, kindness, meaning and purpose, here it is, you know.
And so beyond that now we've done you know, we
do workshops, and we're doing things in education as well,

(45:02):
and and now moving into a women's initiative, So a
women initiative. We're having the launch of the event at
Gallop Headquarters in Washington, d C. On December fourth, and
it's talking about women's well being at work because it's
suffered a lot and me well, because one of the
key aspects is that, you know, women tend to be

(45:26):
the care the caregivers and responsible. Largely it's changing now,
which is wonderful to see more of men's caregiving, you know,
to to to children, but largely it's women. So that's
very that impacts work. It's yeah, it's it's hard, it's challenging.

(45:46):
So so we're going to look at that. And of course,
when whether it's men or women, when one thrives, it
trickles to the other. The same when when we do
things for children, it helps also the community. So what
we're trying to do is also go into different points
we can help and shed light on different things that

(46:08):
perhaps others are not doing at that moment, so that
we can all thrive together and create what Liar talks about,
the win win scenarios to move away from cerosome games.
And that's from an economist, right, talking about creating these
opportunities for growth.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yes, and Mas would call them synergy synergies. So enhanced
spirituality is the last part of your book. What was enhanced?
What is enhanced spirituality?

Speaker 1 (46:39):
So I, like I shared, you know earlier when when
my husband passed away, I had this kind of spiritual,
immediate spiritual I don't know what it was. It was
like like a like a holding something. I felt like
something held me in that moment. And so from then

(46:59):
on I just have been able to tap into this,
you know, collective humanity and the importance of all of
us being okay together and tapping into the fact that
we're human beingness right and so, and we're more alike
than not even though we have all these differences. And

(47:22):
that for me is spirituality and the things that bind
us together and love, you know, that's that type of
spirituality in that sense, and so the way that it
was enhanced or that through the experience or through the
post traumatic growth, is that understanding that we are all intertwined.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Really wonderful all things are putting in this world. And
I'm so glad we find me were able to do
this podcast and good luck on your book tour.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Thank you so much, and thank you for all the
work you're doing into making this world a better place
and the highlighting the work of others, and your work
is so really important in this world too. Thank you.
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Host

Scott Barry Kaufman

Scott Barry Kaufman

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