April 1, 2025 • 20 mins
What really makes people happy? It's a question many of us ask—especially when we're chasing joy but still feel unfulfilled. In this episode of the Wellness Connection Podcast, Fiona Kane shares powerful insights for everyday people who want to feel happier, healthier, and more connected.
If you're someone who’s tired of surface-level advice and wants to build real, lasting happiness, this conversation is for you. Drawing from research by Harvard professor Arthur Brooks, Fiona explores how faith, family, friendship, and meaningful work contribute to our baseline happiness—plus practical ways to improve yours.
🎧 Perfect for:
Adults seeking personal growth
Anyone feeling stuck or disconnected
Listeners who want simple, evidence-backed tools for emotional wellness
👉 Hit play and start creating happiness that actually lasts.
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fiona Kane (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
with Fiona Kane.
I'm your host.
I wanted to talk to you alittle bit about happiness.
So I have talked about thisbefore, but I'm always reading
and watching talks and gettingnew knowledge, and I wanted to
share with you some of what Ilearned about today.
So there's a few things that Ilearned and I will reference
(00:23):
them towards the end so you knowwhere I heard about these
things.
So the first thing I wanted totalk about is, when we talk
about happiness, there's aninteresting thing that I have
talked about here before, whichis called hedonic adaptation,
and what that is is, say, whenyou win some money or you get a
(00:48):
job or you have a new car orsomething that makes you happy,
you're happy for a while, butthen eventually you go back to
whatever your kind of standardsplace is.
So we all kind of have a, Isuppose, what would just be like
our standard setting forhappiness, and then something
will happen that's great andwe'll be happier for a while,
(01:10):
but then we'll go back to ourstandard setting and it's the
same the other way around, as insomething bad might happen or
something that will make us sad,but then over time we just sort
of go back to our naturalsetting.
So the question isn't aboutchanging, like fixing the big
things.
It's more about, well, how dowe change that natural setting,
(01:31):
that all of the time setting?
Because what we do know is thatit wears thin, it wears off.
When it's kind of about theexciting things and the exciting
things are wonderful, but forsort of happiness, that
long-lasting happiness, it'sactually more about that
baseline happiness that you have, being better overall and the
more that we can change that,the better off we will be.
(01:53):
And there actually was a study,and it was a study of lottery
winners, and it's Brickham 1978is the study, and apparently
what they saw.
They looked at lottery winnersand they looked at accident
victims who lost their abilityto walk, and what they looked at
is they looked at their levelof happiness or unhappiness.
(02:16):
And then they checked back withthese people later and what
they found is they both kind ofwent back to their natural
setting, whatever their naturalsetting was, and so it wasn't
sort of that different to eachother over time.
So over time we do tend to justgo back to the factory settings
, as it were.
Is what I was just talkingabout then.
(02:37):
So I saw a talk today and thistalk is part of the ARC
Conference, a-r-c I think it'sAlliance for Responsible
something I can't remember now,but anyway it's worth checking
out and this talk was all abouthappiness and it's a Harvard
professor, and what he wastalking about is he was talking
(03:00):
about what happiness actually isand therefore, how to achieve
it, and essentially, it's aboutthat baseline happiness that I
was talking about a moment ago.
So he said that happiness isn'ta feeling.
So we perceive it as being afeeling, but it's not a feeling.
And he explained that thefeeling of happiness is a bit
like the smell of dinner it'sevidence of the dinner, right,
(03:22):
so the smell is evidence, butit's not the dinner itself.
So happiness, a feeling ofhappiness, is not happiness
itself, but it's just a feelingof happiness.
And so what he described, whathe explained it actually is, he
explained that happiness is acombination of three
macronutrients, and those threemacronutrients are enjoyment,
(03:46):
satisfaction and meaning.
So that's enjoyment,satisfaction and meaning, and
they are the things that createreal happiness, and this is what
determines your baseline, thesethings, right?
So the person who did this talk,by the way, his name is Arthur
Brooks and Professor ArthurBrooks.
(04:08):
So he explained that you know,enjoyment isn't the same thing
as pleasure.
Pleasure is more of an animalthing, where enjoyment is where
you kind of add people andmemory to make it it's like
makes it uniquely human.
And then he talked about makesit uniquely human.
And then he talked aboutsatisfaction and how we get
(04:29):
satisfaction.
And the satisfaction isessentially the joy you get from
accomplishing something that'shard and something hard and you
struggle right.
So you struggle and you achievesomething and that's
satisfaction.
And it's only humans that wantthat.
And it's important to considerthis when we actually think
(04:51):
about making life too easy forespecially young people,
children and young adults thatwhen we take away struggle from
people that don't getsatisfaction.
So remember that an importantpart of satisfaction is that we
have some struggle and weachieve something that's
difficult, and that's actuallywhere we get the satisfaction,
and a lot of our belief inourselves and our trust in our
(05:13):
own abilities comes from that.
So don't underestimate theimportance of satisfaction and
of where it comes, from, whichit comes from.
The struggle comes from doingsomething hard ourselves, not
someone doing it for us.
So he talked about you knowthat we need meaning in our
(05:34):
lives, and so there has to besome sort of coherent purpose,
some goals, somethingsignificant in your life,
something that matters.
And then he was talking aboutsome identical twins, right?
So there's a study done onidentical twins.
They were separated at birthand then they were reunited when
they were 40.
And they did all thesepersonality tests and things
(05:54):
just to see what the differenceswere and what the similarities
were.
And with this testing, whatthey found out is a few things.
So they found out that the 50%difference in happiness is
genetic.
So essentially, genetically, weget 50% of our happiness
genetically.
So from our mother, maybe ourmother and father as well, I
(06:16):
don't know, but genetically wedo get 50% of our happiness,
standard, happiness level.
Genetically.
We also get things likeaddictive tendencies, like
alcoholism, that sort of thing,about 50% again from parent,
from genetics.
And that doesn't mean you willbecome alcoholic, it just gives
you the information that youneed to know.
(06:37):
Hey, it's probably a good ideayou don't drink because you know
that there's a high chance thatyou could become alcoholic.
So it's just this information,it's data, it's not destiny,
it's just data, right?
However, what they also foundis okay, the 50% is genetic.
After that 50%, the next 25% iscircumstantial, so it depends on
(06:59):
what's happening for you inlife at the moment, and that's
the transient thing.
It's the new job or the new car, or the new new relationship or
lack of whatever those things.
But that happiness, that boostin happiness or reduction in
happiness, comes from these kindof transient things in life and
from circumstantial things.
So whatever's happening in yourlife at the time, it'll go up
(07:20):
or down by that 25%, and thenthere's the last 25% of
happiness and that's the bitthat is in your direct control.
And that is about that setpoint.
I was talking about that setlevel, that standard level of
happiness that we have.
And also, when we have thisinformation, it allows us to
manage those genetic.
(07:41):
You know, if we've got geneticchallenges, this helps us
override that because we've gotthis 25% influence.
And so this professor wastalking about, based on
neuroscience, what the four mainhabits are, the four main
things that we need to know,that we need to have to achieve
this happiness and this sort ofthis base level of a good
(08:05):
quality sort of happiness.
So the first one is actuallyfaith, and when he said faith he
referred to your faith, so itdoesn't necessarily mean, like
in his case I think he said hewas a Roman Catholic it's not
necessarily about faith in thechurch.
It's more faith in somethingthat's bigger than you.
So it could certainly be yourreligion and your God.
(08:27):
It could also be things likebeing in nature, or might be
music going classical music orsomething but essentially it's
like to be in awe of somethingand to not be caught up in the
narcissism and to sort of seeyourself as smaller rather than
see ourselves as bigger.
(08:48):
So just hold on for a moment.
Sorry about that.
So essentially, what I wastalking about was the faith in
all thing, and it was somethingthat just allowed you to see how
small you are, that there'ssort of bigger there's a
universe, there's a planet,there's a God, there's whatever,
there's nature.
But it's sort of to get us outof our narcissism and out of our
(09:14):
head and to see that we're partof something bigger.
So faith was actually reallyimportant.
Another one is family.
Family is number two and familyis really important and that's
why I think in our society ofrecent times, we have moved away
from faith and we've also movedaway from family, and actually
we've moved away.
I'll keep going through thislist.
(09:35):
We've moved away from a lot ofthese things and family is
really important and we've sortof been encouraged not to have
children, that there's betterthings you can do and you should
focus on your career, and no,family is really important.
Now, I didn't end up havingchildren, so I'm not making any
judgments on anyone around that,but I do understand the
importance of family and um, soI do have very close
(09:55):
relationships so with mysiblings and um and uh, good
relationships with my livingparents, that sort of thing, uh,
and some other relatives,cousins and that, and that, uh,
family is really important andthat family is really important.
And family is important forlots of reasons, but they kind
of know your story.
They have your back.
Obviously, the only reason youwouldn't have a relationship
(10:18):
with family is if they werereally dangerous to you
psychologically or physically,if they were harmful to you.
That does not include someonewith a different political
opinion, by the way, and that'sa big issue that we see now in
society.
We've got such strong views andstrong opinions about politics,
but what's happening now and Isee it with all these recent
elections is essentially peopleand there's even psychologists
(10:42):
who've been going online andsaying, oh, if your family voted
for this person or that person,you've got a justifiable reason
not to talk to them.
Don't be ridiculous.
It's really not true and infact, it's a really good thing
to practice talking to someonewith a different opinion of you,
a different opinion than you.
Be respectful and be interestedin their opinion.
(11:06):
You don't have to agree withsomeone, but just listen to them
, because you'll find a lot ofthe time.
Most people arewell-intentioned, they care
about other people, they wantthe best, just have different
ideas about what that looks likeor who can achieve that or what
politics works or whatever itis.
But please don't use politicsas a reason to not talk to
(11:26):
people.
It's happened in my life andit's really unfortunate when a
person can't just have adifferent opinion with you, uh
and uh, and it's so a reallyimportant part of learning how
to think, learning how tounderstand the world, is
actually through conversationand um and talking things
through and been allowed to getit wrong, and I've been allowed
(11:47):
to have different opinions andlearning right.
So please don't let politics bethe reason you don't talk to
people, especially your family.
Family is really important.
So the first one was the faith.
The second one was family.
The third one is friendship,and this is like about real
friendship.
These are the people, not thepeople, not transactional
(12:09):
friends.
Friends like I'm friends withthis person because I can get
something out of them or theycan do something for me.
It's more, he described it asbeing in the nicest possible way
, but people who are useless toyou, and not useless as in
worthless, not the same thingbut I just mean people who
there's no transactional benefitfrom this person, as in they
can't get something for me, dosomething for me, give me
(12:30):
something, but they can be myfriend and they can be there for
me.
It's that person who can bethere for you, but there's no
transactional element about it.
And so it is important to havethose kinds of friends and so
real friends as opposed to atransactional friend.
And I was interesting becauseanother talk that I saw today,
there was a woman talking aboutdating and she said that she was
(12:53):
and she was talking abouttechnology and how we're doing
too much technology and notenough like real life and real
people stuff.
You know, yeah, she said shewas on a bus in London and she
saw these two couples sittingnext to each other.
They weren't a couple but likea young woman and young man, and
she noticed they were bothengrossed in their phones and so
she kind of just a bit of asticky beak and had a look to
(13:14):
see what they were both doing.
And they were both on datingapps.
And she said it was reallyinteresting because they were
both on dating apps and theywere looking at people that were
quite similar to each other.
And she said they had thiswhole bus trip where they looked
at the dating apps and werelooking at these people on the
apps and then they got off thebus at the other end and never
actually saw each other andnever noticed each other.
And you know, once upon a timethat's where we met people.
(13:36):
We met people on the bus, wemet people on the train, we met
people at work.
I met my husband at work but wemet people in real life.
And the sad thing is we're noteven seeing the people in real
life because we're so stuck inour phones.
So, yeah, uh, friendships arereally important, uh, and and
maybe putting down our devices abit and looking around and just
being present, because if welook around and we're present,
(13:57):
we'll have time to have awe andsee that the world's a bit
bigger and get out of ournarcissistic heads.
But also we might see peopleand meet people and make friends
and partners and things likethat.
So friendship is reallyimportant.
And the fourth one, in regardsto happiness, was work.
So work was really importantand what the reason it was
important was a number of things.
(14:18):
So I it's about so, so one it'slike we need to earn our
success.
If we earn success, we feelfeel good about ourselves, and
that could be about earning yourpaycheck, uh, but also it could
be about that you do somethingthat changes the life for
somebody else, and that could beit doesn't have to be, you know
like you don't have to be theDalai Lama or whatever.
You don't have to do stuff likethat.
(14:38):
I mean, it's great if you cando wonderful things and if you
can be some great figure.
That makes great change.
But the support it could justbe that you support someone in
their small business to succeed,and that can be the great thing
that you do every day forsomeone and still a beneficial
thing.
So the essential thing is thatyou do something, you're
creating value of some sort,you're earning some money and
(15:01):
feeling good about yourself andyou're doing something that
affects other people in someways.
You're doing something on merit.
So it's very much about meritas well.
So that whole success thing andthat whole satisfaction thing,
it's merit.
It's like I've done this thing,I've worked hard, I'm doing
this thing, I've had successbecause of me, you know, as
opposed to something got handedto me or whatever, and so
(15:22):
essentially what it required is,you know, the dignity to the
dignity is like being needed,and the essence of despair is,
if you like, a liability thatnobody cares about, or so the
people are managing you.
So you know, dignity is reallyimportant and the dignity of
having a job cannot beunderestimated.
Having a job and being neededmake a huge difference.
(15:45):
So our work makes a hugedifference, and that's whether
or not your work is being afamous psychologist or doctor or
a garbage man or anything inbetween.
It's actually not about one'snot lesser or whatever.
They're just different.
And the main thing is that youachieve these feelings of
satisfaction, happiness thatyou're making a difference, and
(16:05):
I'll tell you what clearingrubbish off the streets does
make a difference.
We'll soon find out if Garbostopped doing it.
So everyone plays their roleand we're all different cogs in
the wheel and we do differentthings.
And just because someone's likea so-called professional, it
doesn't mean their role is moreimportant.
In actual fact, if the plumberstopped doing their job and the
garbo stop doing their job, uh,not that plumbers are, um, in
(16:28):
any way not qualified or noteducated, but you know, if those
kind of more uh, what weservice, uh based uh, or what do
you call blue collar workers orwhatever, if uh tradies and
stuff, if they stop doing theirjob, we're in a world of trouble
.
So, uh, so yeah, it's not justabout oh, oh, you're making a
difference because you're abrain surgeon.
Yeah, of course a brain surgeondoes make a difference, but
(16:49):
there's lots of ways that youcan make a difference and feel
good about yourself and beachieving something.
So just keep that in mind.
That it's not about the jobitself necessarily.
It doesn't mean you can't tryfor something different or do
something different if you feeldrawn to do something different,
but it's not like a job that'sbetter or worse from that
(17:11):
perspective.
So, anyway, that's what he said.
If we practice these four mainhabits, then that is what
achieves that sort of baselineof happiness to be higher and
that's how we ultimately achievethat happiness.
And so remember, with all ofthese things whether it be
things like friendship, reallife, friendship, real people
(17:32):
and not just transactionalfriends, and you know, work
doing something, and if youcan't find paid work and you can
find voluntary work, we can geta lot out of that as well.
So it's not to say paid work isthe only way, it's just the
satisfaction of showing up andmaking a difference right, and
I've done volunteer work in thepast and I've really done well
out of it, sort of emotionally,physically, but also then
(17:53):
ultimately helped me get paidwork in the long run.
So you know it was worthwhilefor that purpose so, but also
just for the difference it mademy life every day, as well as
the people I was helping, sosort of.
(18:15):
Have it in mind that essentially, we need sort of good habits, a
system of good habits, toachieve that baseline happiness
that we all would love to haveor that we would love to improve
.
And they're the things, that'syour faith, your family, your
friendships and your work.
They're all important and theyall play their role, and so it's
important to consider all ofthose in um in the factor
factoring happiness.
Uh, the other thing that'sreally helpful, of course, is
(18:36):
just any level of gratitudewhich they would all bring that
level of gratitude.
So gratitude for the friendsyou have, for the friendship and
um, and you know, gratitude forhaving a job, if you're lucky
enough to have one, if you'refor the friendship, and
gratitude for having a job Ifyou're lucky enough to have one,
if you're lucky enough to havefamily, gratitude for that, even
if they drive you nutssometimes, you're lucky you have
them, because one day you mightnot or one day you probably
won't.
So it's just gratitude can bepart of this as well.
(19:01):
So, anyway, that was from theARC conference, arc 2025
conference.
Most of it came from that, andit was Professor Arthur Brooks
who I was referring to and histalk, which was really well done
and really interesting, and Ihighly recommend that you check
(19:23):
it out as well.
But remember that happinesswell, 25% is very much in your
hands, and that baselinehappiness is something that you
do have a lot of control over.
So focus on the bits.
Like I always say, focus on thebits that you can control, and
they are the bits that you cancontrol and that will help
(19:43):
improve your happiness.
Please like, subscribe andshare and rate the podcast as
well, and if you're on Rumble orYouTube, you can comment.
I'd really love to hear fromyou and please.
It makes a big difference themore people that hear about the
show, the more I can share thesestrategies and learnings that I
have, and my goal is always tohave important conversations
(20:04):
about things that matter.
So, anyway, I'll see you againnext week.
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
with Fiona Kane.
I'm your host.
I wanted to talk to you alittle bit about happiness.
So I have talked about thisbefore, but I'm always reading
and watching talks and gettingnew knowledge, and I wanted to
share with you some of what Ilearned about today.
So there's a few things that Ilearned and I will reference
(00:23):
them towards the end so you knowwhere I heard about these
things.
So the first thing I wanted totalk about is, when we talk
about happiness, there's aninteresting thing that I have
talked about here before, whichis called hedonic adaptation,
and what that is is, say, whenyou win some money or you get a
(00:48):
job or you have a new car orsomething that makes you happy,
you're happy for a while, butthen eventually you go back to
whatever your kind of standardsplace is.
So we all kind of have a, Isuppose, what would just be like
our standard setting forhappiness, and then something
will happen that's great andwe'll be happier for a while,
(01:10):
but then we'll go back to ourstandard setting and it's the
same the other way around, as insomething bad might happen or
something that will make us sad,but then over time we just sort
of go back to our naturalsetting.
So the question isn't aboutchanging, like fixing the big
things.
It's more about, well, how dowe change that natural setting,
(01:31):
that all of the time setting?
Because what we do know is thatit wears thin, it wears off.
When it's kind of about theexciting things and the exciting
things are wonderful, but forsort of happiness, that
long-lasting happiness, it'sactually more about that
baseline happiness that you have, being better overall and the
more that we can change that,the better off we will be.
(01:53):
And there actually was a study,and it was a study of lottery
winners, and it's Brickham 1978is the study, and apparently
what they saw.
They looked at lottery winnersand they looked at accident
victims who lost their abilityto walk, and what they looked at
is they looked at their levelof happiness or unhappiness.
(02:16):
And then they checked back withthese people later and what
they found is they both kind ofwent back to their natural
setting, whatever their naturalsetting was, and so it wasn't
sort of that different to eachother over time.
So over time we do tend to justgo back to the factory settings
, as it were.
Is what I was just talkingabout then.
(02:37):
So I saw a talk today and thistalk is part of the ARC
Conference, a-r-c I think it'sAlliance for Responsible
something I can't remember now,but anyway it's worth checking
out and this talk was all abouthappiness and it's a Harvard
professor, and what he wastalking about is he was talking
(03:00):
about what happiness actually isand therefore, how to achieve
it, and essentially, it's aboutthat baseline happiness that I
was talking about a moment ago.
So he said that happiness isn'ta feeling.
So we perceive it as being afeeling, but it's not a feeling.
And he explained that thefeeling of happiness is a bit
like the smell of dinner it'sevidence of the dinner, right,
(03:22):
so the smell is evidence, butit's not the dinner itself.
So happiness, a feeling ofhappiness, is not happiness
itself, but it's just a feelingof happiness.
And so what he described, whathe explained it actually is, he
explained that happiness is acombination of three
macronutrients, and those threemacronutrients are enjoyment,
(03:46):
satisfaction and meaning.
So that's enjoyment,satisfaction and meaning, and
they are the things that createreal happiness, and this is what
determines your baseline, thesethings, right?
So the person who did this talk,by the way, his name is Arthur
Brooks and Professor ArthurBrooks.
(04:08):
So he explained that you know,enjoyment isn't the same thing
as pleasure.
Pleasure is more of an animalthing, where enjoyment is where
you kind of add people andmemory to make it it's like
makes it uniquely human.
And then he talked about makesit uniquely human.
And then he talked aboutsatisfaction and how we get
(04:29):
satisfaction.
And the satisfaction isessentially the joy you get from
accomplishing something that'shard and something hard and you
struggle right.
So you struggle and you achievesomething and that's
satisfaction.
And it's only humans that wantthat.
And it's important to considerthis when we actually think
(04:51):
about making life too easy forespecially young people,
children and young adults thatwhen we take away struggle from
people that don't getsatisfaction.
So remember that an importantpart of satisfaction is that we
have some struggle and weachieve something that's
difficult, and that's actuallywhere we get the satisfaction,
and a lot of our belief inourselves and our trust in our
(05:13):
own abilities comes from that.
So don't underestimate theimportance of satisfaction and
of where it comes, from, whichit comes from.
The struggle comes from doingsomething hard ourselves, not
someone doing it for us.
So he talked about you knowthat we need meaning in our
(05:34):
lives, and so there has to besome sort of coherent purpose,
some goals, somethingsignificant in your life,
something that matters.
And then he was talking aboutsome identical twins, right?
So there's a study done onidentical twins.
They were separated at birthand then they were reunited when
they were 40.
And they did all thesepersonality tests and things
(05:54):
just to see what the differenceswere and what the similarities
were.
And with this testing, whatthey found out is a few things.
So they found out that the 50%difference in happiness is
genetic.
So essentially, genetically, weget 50% of our happiness
genetically.
So from our mother, maybe ourmother and father as well, I
(06:16):
don't know, but genetically wedo get 50% of our happiness,
standard, happiness level.
Genetically.
We also get things likeaddictive tendencies, like
alcoholism, that sort of thing,about 50% again from parent,
from genetics.
And that doesn't mean you willbecome alcoholic, it just gives
you the information that youneed to know.
(06:37):
Hey, it's probably a good ideayou don't drink because you know
that there's a high chance thatyou could become alcoholic.
So it's just this information,it's data, it's not destiny,
it's just data, right?
However, what they also foundis okay, the 50% is genetic.
After that 50%, the next 25% iscircumstantial, so it depends on
(06:59):
what's happening for you inlife at the moment, and that's
the transient thing.
It's the new job or the new car, or the new new relationship or
lack of whatever those things.
But that happiness, that boostin happiness or reduction in
happiness, comes from these kindof transient things in life and
from circumstantial things.
So whatever's happening in yourlife at the time, it'll go up
(07:20):
or down by that 25%, and thenthere's the last 25% of
happiness and that's the bitthat is in your direct control.
And that is about that setpoint.
I was talking about that setlevel, that standard level of
happiness that we have.
And also, when we have thisinformation, it allows us to
manage those genetic.
(07:41):
You know, if we've got geneticchallenges, this helps us
override that because we've gotthis 25% influence.
And so this professor wastalking about, based on
neuroscience, what the four mainhabits are, the four main
things that we need to know,that we need to have to achieve
this happiness and this sort ofthis base level of a good
(08:05):
quality sort of happiness.
So the first one is actuallyfaith, and when he said faith he
referred to your faith, so itdoesn't necessarily mean, like
in his case I think he said hewas a Roman Catholic it's not
necessarily about faith in thechurch.
It's more faith in somethingthat's bigger than you.
So it could certainly be yourreligion and your God.
(08:27):
It could also be things likebeing in nature, or might be
music going classical music orsomething but essentially it's
like to be in awe of somethingand to not be caught up in the
narcissism and to sort of seeyourself as smaller rather than
see ourselves as bigger.
(08:48):
So just hold on for a moment.
Sorry about that.
So essentially, what I wastalking about was the faith in
all thing, and it was somethingthat just allowed you to see how
small you are, that there'ssort of bigger there's a
universe, there's a planet,there's a God, there's whatever,
there's nature.
But it's sort of to get us outof our narcissism and out of our
(09:14):
head and to see that we're partof something bigger.
So faith was actually reallyimportant.
Another one is family.
Family is number two and familyis really important and that's
why I think in our society ofrecent times, we have moved away
from faith and we've also movedaway from family, and actually
we've moved away.
I'll keep going through thislist.
(09:35):
We've moved away from a lot ofthese things and family is
really important and we've sortof been encouraged not to have
children, that there's betterthings you can do and you should
focus on your career, and no,family is really important.
Now, I didn't end up havingchildren, so I'm not making any
judgments on anyone around that,but I do understand the
importance of family and um, soI do have very close
(09:55):
relationships so with mysiblings and um and uh, good
relationships with my livingparents, that sort of thing, uh,
and some other relatives,cousins and that, and that, uh,
family is really important andthat family is really important.
And family is important forlots of reasons, but they kind
of know your story.
They have your back.
Obviously, the only reason youwouldn't have a relationship
(10:18):
with family is if they werereally dangerous to you
psychologically or physically,if they were harmful to you.
That does not include someonewith a different political
opinion, by the way, and that'sa big issue that we see now in
society.
We've got such strong views andstrong opinions about politics,
but what's happening now and Isee it with all these recent
elections is essentially peopleand there's even psychologists
(10:42):
who've been going online andsaying, oh, if your family voted
for this person or that person,you've got a justifiable reason
not to talk to them.
Don't be ridiculous.
It's really not true and infact, it's a really good thing
to practice talking to someonewith a different opinion of you,
a different opinion than you.
Be respectful and be interestedin their opinion.
(11:06):
You don't have to agree withsomeone, but just listen to them
, because you'll find a lot ofthe time.
Most people arewell-intentioned, they care
about other people, they wantthe best, just have different
ideas about what that looks likeor who can achieve that or what
politics works or whatever itis.
But please don't use politicsas a reason to not talk to
(11:26):
people.
It's happened in my life andit's really unfortunate when a
person can't just have adifferent opinion with you, uh
and uh, and it's so a reallyimportant part of learning how
to think, learning how tounderstand the world, is
actually through conversationand um and talking things
through and been allowed to getit wrong, and I've been allowed
(11:47):
to have different opinions andlearning right.
So please don't let politics bethe reason you don't talk to
people, especially your family.
Family is really important.
So the first one was the faith.
The second one was family.
The third one is friendship,and this is like about real
friendship.
These are the people, not thepeople, not transactional
(12:09):
friends.
Friends like I'm friends withthis person because I can get
something out of them or theycan do something for me.
It's more, he described it asbeing in the nicest possible way
, but people who are useless toyou, and not useless as in
worthless, not the same thingbut I just mean people who
there's no transactional benefitfrom this person, as in they
can't get something for me, dosomething for me, give me
(12:30):
something, but they can be myfriend and they can be there for
me.
It's that person who can bethere for you, but there's no
transactional element about it.
And so it is important to havethose kinds of friends and so
real friends as opposed to atransactional friend.
And I was interesting becauseanother talk that I saw today,
there was a woman talking aboutdating and she said that she was
(12:53):
and she was talking abouttechnology and how we're doing
too much technology and notenough like real life and real
people stuff.
You know, yeah, she said shewas on a bus in London and she
saw these two couples sittingnext to each other.
They weren't a couple but likea young woman and young man, and
she noticed they were bothengrossed in their phones and so
she kind of just a bit of asticky beak and had a look to
(13:14):
see what they were both doing.
And they were both on datingapps.
And she said it was reallyinteresting because they were
both on dating apps and theywere looking at people that were
quite similar to each other.
And she said they had thiswhole bus trip where they looked
at the dating apps and werelooking at these people on the
apps and then they got off thebus at the other end and never
actually saw each other andnever noticed each other.
And you know, once upon a timethat's where we met people.
(13:36):
We met people on the bus, wemet people on the train, we met
people at work.
I met my husband at work but wemet people in real life.
And the sad thing is we're noteven seeing the people in real
life because we're so stuck inour phones.
So, yeah, uh, friendships arereally important, uh, and and
maybe putting down our devices abit and looking around and just
being present, because if welook around and we're present,
(13:57):
we'll have time to have awe andsee that the world's a bit
bigger and get out of ournarcissistic heads.
But also we might see peopleand meet people and make friends
and partners and things likethat.
So friendship is reallyimportant.
And the fourth one, in regardsto happiness, was work.
So work was really importantand what the reason it was
important was a number of things.
(14:18):
So I it's about so, so one it'slike we need to earn our
success.
If we earn success, we feelfeel good about ourselves, and
that could be about earning yourpaycheck, uh, but also it could
be about that you do somethingthat changes the life for
somebody else, and that could beit doesn't have to be, you know
like you don't have to be theDalai Lama or whatever.
You don't have to do stuff likethat.
(14:38):
I mean, it's great if you cando wonderful things and if you
can be some great figure.
That makes great change.
But the support it could justbe that you support someone in
their small business to succeed,and that can be the great thing
that you do every day forsomeone and still a beneficial
thing.
So the essential thing is thatyou do something, you're
creating value of some sort,you're earning some money and
(15:01):
feeling good about yourself andyou're doing something that
affects other people in someways.
You're doing something on merit.
So it's very much about meritas well.
So that whole success thing andthat whole satisfaction thing,
it's merit.
It's like I've done this thing,I've worked hard, I'm doing
this thing, I've had successbecause of me, you know, as
opposed to something got handedto me or whatever, and so
(15:22):
essentially what it required is,you know, the dignity to the
dignity is like being needed,and the essence of despair is,
if you like, a liability thatnobody cares about, or so the
people are managing you.
So you know, dignity is reallyimportant and the dignity of
having a job cannot beunderestimated.
Having a job and being neededmake a huge difference.
(15:45):
So our work makes a hugedifference, and that's whether
or not your work is being afamous psychologist or doctor or
a garbage man or anything inbetween.
It's actually not about one'snot lesser or whatever.
They're just different.
And the main thing is that youachieve these feelings of
satisfaction, happiness thatyou're making a difference, and
(16:05):
I'll tell you what clearingrubbish off the streets does
make a difference.
We'll soon find out if Garbostopped doing it.
So everyone plays their roleand we're all different cogs in
the wheel and we do differentthings.
And just because someone's likea so-called professional, it
doesn't mean their role is moreimportant.
In actual fact, if the plumberstopped doing their job and the
garbo stop doing their job, uh,not that plumbers are, um, in
(16:28):
any way not qualified or noteducated, but you know, if those
kind of more uh, what weservice, uh based uh, or what do
you call blue collar workers orwhatever, if uh tradies and
stuff, if they stop doing theirjob, we're in a world of trouble
.
So, uh, so yeah, it's not justabout oh, oh, you're making a
difference because you're abrain surgeon.
Yeah, of course a brain surgeondoes make a difference, but
(16:49):
there's lots of ways that youcan make a difference and feel
good about yourself and beachieving something.
So just keep that in mind.
That it's not about the jobitself necessarily.
It doesn't mean you can't tryfor something different or do
something different if you feeldrawn to do something different,
but it's not like a job that'sbetter or worse from that
(17:11):
perspective.
So, anyway, that's what he said.
If we practice these four mainhabits, then that is what
achieves that sort of baselineof happiness to be higher and
that's how we ultimately achievethat happiness.
And so remember, with all ofthese things whether it be
things like friendship, reallife, friendship, real people
(17:32):
and not just transactionalfriends, and you know, work
doing something, and if youcan't find paid work and you can
find voluntary work, we can geta lot out of that as well.
So it's not to say paid work isthe only way, it's just the
satisfaction of showing up andmaking a difference right, and
I've done volunteer work in thepast and I've really done well
out of it, sort of emotionally,physically, but also then
(17:53):
ultimately helped me get paidwork in the long run.
So you know it was worthwhilefor that purpose so, but also
just for the difference it mademy life every day, as well as
the people I was helping, sosort of.
(18:15):
Have it in mind that essentially, we need sort of good habits, a
system of good habits, toachieve that baseline happiness
that we all would love to haveor that we would love to improve
.
And they're the things, that'syour faith, your family, your
friendships and your work.
They're all important and theyall play their role, and so it's
important to consider all ofthose in um in the factor
factoring happiness.
Uh, the other thing that'sreally helpful, of course, is
(18:36):
just any level of gratitudewhich they would all bring that
level of gratitude.
So gratitude for the friendsyou have, for the friendship and
um, and you know, gratitude forhaving a job, if you're lucky
enough to have one, if you'refor the friendship, and
gratitude for having a job Ifyou're lucky enough to have one,
if you're lucky enough to havefamily, gratitude for that, even
if they drive you nutssometimes, you're lucky you have
them, because one day you mightnot or one day you probably
won't.
So it's just gratitude can bepart of this as well.
(19:01):
So, anyway, that was from theARC conference, arc 2025
conference.
Most of it came from that, andit was Professor Arthur Brooks
who I was referring to and histalk, which was really well done
and really interesting, and Ihighly recommend that you check
(19:23):
it out as well.
But remember that happinesswell, 25% is very much in your
hands, and that baselinehappiness is something that you
do have a lot of control over.
So focus on the bits.
Like I always say, focus on thebits that you can control, and
they are the bits that you cancontrol and that will help
(19:43):
improve your happiness.
Please like, subscribe andshare and rate the podcast as
well, and if you're on Rumble orYouTube, you can comment.
I'd really love to hear fromyou and please.
It makes a big difference themore people that hear about the
show, the more I can share thesestrategies and learnings that I
have, and my goal is always tohave important conversations
(20:04):
about things that matter.
So, anyway, I'll see you againnext week.
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