Hedonic Adaptation and Future Happiness

You've been studying happiness for thirty six years. Is there a commonality between all of the most effective happiness interventions that you've found? Yes, well, thank you for aging me, but yes, thirty six years So actually, it was nineteen ninety eight, my lab pioneered S interventions. So ninety eight, long time ago, twenty years ago Bill Clinton was in the White House And so I've been doing research on these interventions, testing whether practices like exppressing gratitude or doing acts of kindness or being social makes people happier So interventions are like clinical trials, but instead of testing a vaccine, we're testing like a happiness strategy. And then one day it finally hit me that what all these interventions had in common is the ones that worked The reason they worked is because they made us feel more connected to and loved by others, right? So when I write a gratitude letter to my mom, it makes me feel more loved by her. right? When I do an act of kindness for a colleague or a friend, it makes me feel closer to him. So almost all happiness practices, maybe not all. L maybe if you run on the beach or meditate, it's not about connection, but almost all of them are about feeling connected and feeling loved Why I think the human species wouldn't have survived if we did not feel connected and loved. and it's an extremely strong signal And so what I concluded is the key to happiness is feeling connected which sounds like a cliche, right? But And when you think about like in our ancestral past, if we did not feel connected and loved, We wouldn't survive. We wouldn't find mates, like we wouldn't pass on our genes So it's incredibly important. It's one of the most important tasks of human beings is to sort of maintain connection. Okay. So to take a bit of an evolutionary lens. Yeah. If you are not belonging to the tribe, mattering to the tribe, understood by the tribe and a part of that A human on its own twenty thousand years ago isn't going to last very long. Therefore, it's important for you to get back into connection It doesn't seem to me, though that unhappiness necessarily drives people back to connection and love. It can often make people behave in ways, have habits and a demeanor that actually makes them kind of hard to love. Right. So it's not really unhappiness that drives them back to connection. It's not feeling loved or feeling lonely, which actually is very very similar to feeling unloved. I think actually a lonely moment in a moment where you don't feel loved are almost identical And there again, there' a signal to us humans that something's awise, something's a miss. I need to know regain, reconnect that connection. I actually was feeling a little lonely a few weeks ago And I actually I don't usually feel lone. I have lots of friends and family who love me And I left a message for a friend and she just actually just left me a message back yesterday and she said, Oh, I feel so sorry for you. feel so bad. I wish I were there. And she's like, Sonya feeling lonely is a signal that you you need to kind of put more effort and energy into reconnecting Um, yeah, L lotots of people spend their entire lives trying to be lovable Is that the wrong goal entirely? Yes. Well, there's a part of it that that's not a bad thing, which is If you want to be a better person, right? We working on yourself, wonderful, right? But I think the I think when you don't feel loved e that, oh, I don't feel loved. I need to make myself more lovable. like I need to sort of somehow broadcast how wonderful I am, or maybe I need to get richer or more famous or more beautiful to people with love me more. That's the part That's a myth and it does not actually get you to feel more loved. Is it a supply of love problem? or an acceptance of love problem I think it's an or not necessarily acceptance, but it's not a supply of love problems. So many of us are loved, but we still don't feel loved So why is that maybe somehow we don't trust it, we don't see it Um You know, it's not somehow getting in, you know, I think of it as like a cup of love, you know, this cup of love and you're pouring love, you're showing love to me. But maybe it has a leak in the bottom and the love is sort of leaking out. Or maybe it has a lid, it doesn't have much of a place to get in. That's one way that that happens Um Um But okay, so the idea is that when we think When we think when we're not love, we think, o, I need to make myself more lovable. And so I sort of show you how wonderful I am. And what does that accomplish? It might lead you to admire me I might impress you. And it happens all the time. Like here I am sitting here talking to you, Chris, and I want you to think that I'm smart and interesting and funny and kind And I might succeed at impressing you and I might succeed at you admiring me But it's not going to forge a connection So that's not the answer to real connection. What's the difference So I think admiration is like, it's like an influcer has a lot of followers and they might be admired the followers don't really know them And my co author of my book, How to Feel Loved, Harry Reese and I believe that really the key to feeling loved is being known Because if you don't really know me, if I'm just broadcasting my positive qualities hiding my weaknesses You don't really know who I am on the inside. What really matters to me And if you don't really know me, I can't truly ever feel loved becausecause I'll always wonder If he knew me, maybe he wouldn't love me Mm. So that fear of being seen. Yeah. Just definitionally, what does it mean to feel loved? Feeling love means that I believe I make a difference in your life and that I really matter. in your life. Its really comes down to that. I mean, love of course, is about affection and care and intertwined goals But I think it really comes down to like, I matter to you and you matter to me And it's much broader, by way, than of course, romantic love. And when we talk about feeling love, we're talking about feeling loved at work. by your neighbors, by your family, by your friends. so it's not just about your partner Fty percent of people say they don't feel as loved as they want to be by their partner, and nearly two thirds of young men feel that nobody truly knows them Is not terrible It's really a It's sad, it's a problem. I actually think those numbers are probably understatements. I bet people You know, are feel embarrassed exactly, exactly. So, yeah, we did a survey Eressly for the book, right foundound there was at seventy percent said they don't feel as loved as they want to be at least one significant relationship in their life. So it's seventy percent Um, And why is that? I think many of them have love, they have connection, they have friends And somehow Yeah, they're not they're not it's not getting it. It's not getting internalized. What are the big ways structurally, tactically, literally, What are the big ways that people don't accept love? Well I was talking about the cup of love. I think if you're anxiously attached or avoidantly attached, I think that's a huge barrier somehow. again, if you're anxious It's like you're watching for signs of rejection, signs that the person doesn't love you, if you're avoided, maybe you're not even noticing the signs of love Um I mean, it could even be as funny. the idea of the love languages, we actually debunk the idea of the love languages in the book. We have a whole section about it. We didn't do it. someone else did it But there's a truth to it. I mean, it's a good heuristic that if someow like I actually was dating someone who kept sending me gifts Like in the middle with like little handwitten notes. It's actually really cute. and yet didn't do the things that I actually really wanted him to do, which is really like saying something to me or you know my love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch. Well, hang on a second. Have you debunked it? you a subject to it. What we've debunked is that there's not just five languages, there's many and that what we debunked not we other people have debunked the idea that matching in your love language predicts like how good or how strong or how stable your relationship is, it does not predict it. It turns out everyone cares about two love languages, words of information and quality of time. It also turns out that the more le languages your partner shows love to you, the better So it's not about the matching. That's the matching idea that really we've debunked. But I think it's a great hear stick. so I like to talk about it. So I'll bring it in. So it is funny, like I'm like bring it in and yet I've debunked it. a little pick a direction. I know exactly. But But yeah, anyway, this example, I was dating someone who was sending me gifts and that was his love language And I just wasn't reading it. L I wasn't seeing that. like I wasn't saying that that's an expression of love. So that does happen sometimes when you're just not Yeah, you're not taking it in whatever the person is doing. Their love language is different from yours. Okay What else? What are some of the other ways that people are rejecting love, not accepting it? Yeah If you don't love yourself very much. It's hard to see signs of other people's love is genuine. Now, Everything we talk about is really much more nuanced than like a simple explanation. So for example, a lot of people think, if you don't love yourself, you can't really love other people I think that that's a myth. And I think Esther Perrell actually was someone I heard talking about that. She said, No, you learn to love yourself also in the context of relationships. It's a bid directional kind of thing Having said that, if you really don't love yourself if you love self esteem, you're not going to believe other people's expressions of love. you're not going be aware of them, you're not going to see as genuine. Furthermore, If you don't love yourself, you literally are going be ote less lovable, right? People people it leaks out, right that your your self image is poor and you're not going to be as likely to receive love. So So I think that's another barrier What have you learned about building self esteem and self love Be it sounds here like, hey, we're on the receive, but in the context of self esteem and self love, we are both the recipient and the giver I would say nothing. That is the one thing. I don't know. I'm an interventionist. I'm an experimental social psychologist. I don't know of any good interventions increase people' self esteem no way. Interventions in the lab, you know that have been actually like evidence based I mean, of course I can Well we can do anything off vibes, right? I can come up with something that sounds good. That's the reason we need you. We need you to test whether or not my vibe coding of an intervention is actually good. But remember,ence our absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, right? So just because there aren't interventions doesn't mean that they wouldn't work I mean, I could I could speculate, you know, like based on years of experience and, you know, expertise that you know, like for example, just pursuing goals, passions that are important to you, you know, and having successes in those things and practicing your social skills, like that's gonna to build your self esteem. I just don't know any Maybe they're out there, but I don't know any successful interventions that have actually boosted people' self esteem. That's interesting. I wonder whether and this is completely in fact, I'm gonna take this off and I'm gonna put this one on for the time being.ove it. This is the Bros scientist hat Love it there. I wonder Part of self esteem kind of like an aggregate. A lagging measure aggregate. for how your local ecosystem socially and emotionally seems to be feeding back to you in a positive way Self esteem can be built up on your own, but you need to be very deluded if you were able to hold self esteem when the world was giving you no evidence that you should hold ono it Right? Because That would be incredibly maladaptive, you are as a social creature, actively ignoring signals that you should pay attention to If everybody else in the tribe is going, Sonya, you you can't behave like that You can't keep behaving like that. We're not giving you positive reinforcement. We're not giving you love. We're not giv you belonging. You're not mattering. We're not listening. We don't care Be you've been an asshole. You're being an asshole and that's maladaptive to the group as a whole Pumably the opposite of that would be, this is good, keep going, more of that, this is helping us. You are a good person, you are contributing, We care about you. And over time, that would help to build up. Now, people can have self esteem that is self generated Again, you need to have Nerbs of steel or basically no no I's and ears, if you're going to ignore the feedback from everybody else. my bro sign. No, no, that is actually And I'm not just flattering you that it's actually a brilliant idea and you've just reproduce some of the change hots You've just independently developed some really solid theories in psychology about how self esteem is kind of a measure, like a metric, a meter, of what's happening Exactly. So like a sociometer, I think is what someone calls it. One of my colleagues calls it bs We're social animals, right? We don'tve in isolation where a man does not live on an island, right And so that also means so if I were to build a self esteem intervention right now, I would say go out and this is actually very similar to my happiness In interventions, go out and help other people, right? Contribute to community. Well, actually the three buckets thatriute the three buckets that contribute to happiness are U Anything to do with connection. So go and connect with other people, right? Snd time with others. Listen, you know, we'll get back we'll get to that later. to u contribution to society, to community, right? Helping others. When you help others, you're going to get positive feedback from the world. And then the third is personal growth, right? So work on yourself, but it also can be just like learning to garden, learning new language, going to travel, having experiences that you can talk about. to other people that gives you this gives you esteem, right? If you sit home in your garage all day, right? You're not going to build that very easily. is the person that you're dating the most important relationship for providing this sense of love Well, interesting in Western society most people have romantic relationships that actually a v majority end up getting married at some point, I think of like eighty five percent by age fifty six Um I would say for a lot of people would report that that is their most important relationship. I personally think that friends are what makes life worth living. That's more of my kind of personal theory than you get more of it from friends. But it's also a very gender based theory. So it turns out that men Derive more happiness from romantic relationships than women, you probably know this. Yeah, that's why men suffer more through divorce because so much of their social belonging was tied up in the other person women had distributed it. They put all their eggs in my basket, whereas women have very close friendships, social support networks Um But again, I think friends are what makes life worth living and, um So really maintain those friendships. Did you read Friends by Robin Dunbell No, but I know about it. Yeah interestnteresting idea. He talks about you know, the concentric circles of friendship. And I think he talks about you have room in your life is for about five very close friends, but that a partner takes up two of those slots I thought that was really interesting to think about your distributing this around What's the most common answer to the question, how many close friends do you have to call on in an emergency is zero? That's not the median, but it's the most common answer. More people have no friends to call on in an emergency than any other number And I wonder whether people who aren't in a relationship You don't realize, hey, you need two additional close friends to compensate for your singleness and that might help to fill in some of the gaps. Now yeah, there's There is a category of love and intimacy obviously that can't be replicated by friendships that is available in an intimate partnership Right, obbviously. but More isolation means that maybe people are placing even more pressure on romantic relationships to fulfill all of these different needs And when they're not in a romantic relationship they're not supplementing that with more friends I mean, I love that idea, the two two for one But but we also have the false belief that our partner needs to fulfill all of our needs. So like Ela Finkel's book The All or Nothing Marriage, right that And so we know this to be true and yet we still think that, right? that they yeah, so one person needs to fulfill, you know sexual, spiritual, emotional, intellectual needs, and that almost never happens. And so which is why delegating those to friends and family is great idea Are there more important words to hear than I love you Yes So on Valentine's Day, right? almost all the cards say, I love you, right? Almost all of them. I would say ninety nine percent And so we had the idea that they should say, maybe it's more important or as important to say I feel loved by you. You make me feel loved which is really more about what they're doing, the gift that they're giving you Because again, like That's what matter. You could be loved. if you are loved, but you don't feel loved, it's like almost doesn't matter. Like It's like you could beautiful, but you don't feel beautiful You could be smart and you don't feel smart. then you know, that's a problem You might not believe me, but this sleep optimization looks like. I'm not talking about the night gown, It's just for sex appeal. I'm talking about my eight sleep. The eightight Sleep Pod five comes with a smart covey you throw in your mattress that actively cools or heats each side of the bed up to twenty degrees. and now they've added the world's first temperature regulating duvet and pillowcase. So you've got three hundred sixty degree coverage for deep, uninterrupted rest It's like being Walt Disney without the cryogenic chamber And the racism. Best of all, their autopilot feature learns your sleep patterns and makes adjustments to improve your sleep in real time. It even detects when you're snoring and lifts your head a few inches to help you breathe better. That's why eightight sleep has been clinically proven to add up to one hour of quality sleep per night. They have a thirty day sleep trial so you can buy it and sleep on it for twenty nine nights. If you don't like it, they. give you your money back. plus the ship internationally. Right now, you can get up to three hundred and fifty dollars off the pod fiveive by going to the link in the description below by heading to eight sleep d. com slash modern wisdom and using the code mododern wisdom a checkout. That's e Ght sleep d. com slash modern wisdom. and modern wisd Check out Is there a skill to accepting love do you think? Is that something that can be developed over time? You know, to use a more flippant example Everyone's got that friend that when you pay them a genuine compliment, They dismiss it. This is kind of like the British approach to receiving a compliment. Oh,, no you must be no you look really good today. Well, if you had nothing else to do with your life other than get ready for a party, you too would look for it. and you go, Hey, dude I've just worked really hard to try and give you something. That's an opportunity for you to feel good and for me to feel good for making you feel good. And now neither of us feel good So congratulations, but yo It makes me think about that, but at a much deeper level, right? The skill of accepting love.ight. And absolutely true. And actually, your example is great because I've noticed that as my friends and I get older, we are better at receiving compliments. We're just receiving, receiving generosity. It's like just that practice, we practice and practice and practice. And I see that like there's more of a focus on kind of self development You know, at least in certain circles and people are really working on themselves and I see that everywhere. So yeah, I think almost everything can get better with practice, even when it feels really unnatural at first Why is having a sharing mindset so important We were talking about how the key to feeling loved is to be known Right So if you don't know me, I'll never really feel loved by you because right because I always wonder, would he love me if he knew me? How do I get to how do you get to know me? I need to share more of myself. It doesn't have to be you know, trauma sharing or oversharing. it has to be done at the right pace And also I need to really have some emotional intelligence, like read the room. So I might like so I need to share more of myself, right? notot just the highlight reel, but more of myself. But again, not like to spill all my, you know weaknesses So but I would want to test the room, right? So when you ask me, how are you You know, most of the time I say fine Maybe I might start with, oh I had, you know, I was sort of struggling today with something. You know, I had a rough morning. And then I look at your reaction and see like, are you really interested to hear about my rough morning? And that's kind of the toe in the water. and then you can share more and more. so I just want to like make sure that people understand that it's not just like oversharing I'm talking about. but it's showing Who are you Who do you believe to be on the inside? Like showing more of that You know, what matters to me, doesn't have to be something negative It could just be like my opinion about that movie that maybe everyone likes, but I don't like it U, you know, showing something genuine about me Um, you know, that yeah, that shows you who I am It's an interesting bidirectional relationship here too, right? I think about the UK as well There is a culture of mocking in the UK, especially as you werere a kid growing up, there's a piss taking bano back and forth One of the interesting things there is if you try to put a slightly Othog no opinion forward. I'm going to say something that's a little bit different to what most people expect Typically that's not met with Oh, that's really interesting. That's I've never thought about stuff like that before. That's really cool. I'm really glad that you brought that up. It's whyy would we say that? That's so strange. And I think If you think about that in the context of a relationship The fact that this is going back and forth between two people means the less it is encouraged and received, wow, that thing that you said that was evidently surprising to me that might have taken a little bit of effort for you to say That wasn't received encouraged in a way that might make you want to continue to do it more, That means that you do it less and are less encouraged to do it, which means that I know you less, which means that I don't get the opportunity to do it. It's a official cycle And actually someone was just telling me like they had one time. they were vulnerable and they really got punished for it. They got judged for it. It was used against them It was one out of a hundred times, and yet they now don't want to reveal anything ever about themselves. And we kind of over generalize from that It's a formative experience. I mean, how many times? I see this online a lot and I'm aware People use the most extreme examples when they talk on the internet. How many times do you see some story online about a person who really tried to open up to a partner, to a parent, to a close friend, to a confidant It was such a painful experience for them that like that is the formative experience of what opening up, of what asking to be loved, of what asking to be known feels like And, um Yeah, that's that's ruthless. There's a u Rob Henderson, my friend told me this idea where he said If you If you get rejected by one girl But you've gone up to a hundred. Even if you get rejected by one hundred, getting rejected by one is just another drop in the bucket. But if you've only ever gone up to one goal and you get rejected that one time, it's the biggest event in your entire life. And the same thing goes for, hey Maybe this is an example for if you're going to open up to somebody, make sure that the first one has got a high hit rate of at least not being an assole to you. Yeah, exactly.. But bad is stronger than good. so we remember those bad events. It also suggests that maybe parenting somethingomething that parents should emphasize is like to model kind of sharing sharing and listening. And I should say that, you we really can't talk about sharing without talking about how the person responds, as you say. And so actually feeling loved for me, I would argue, starts with curiosity, right? It starts with really you being curious about me and asking deep questions. And then I know I can share, I feel safe, I feel inspired to share. So I'm not just sharing out of the blue and I have to guess whether you care or not, or whether it's gonna to be uncomfortable, or whether you're going to judge me or use it against me. So it really starts with curiosity And genuine curiosity is so rare. Really, when you think about it, how often are people really really care about what goes on in your inner life and like you know ask you a lot of questions. Anyway, so that's where really I'm coming from is like someomeone asks another person a question that you genuinely are interested in getting an answer to and then you share in response. You don't just kind of You know, share out of the blue. Okay, so sharing mindset, stepping into an interaction with the understanding, I'm going to put more of myself across then I might naturally tend to and that's going to happen It's going to unfold over time. I'm not going to traumaum immediately. What else just on the sharing mindset, are there any other sort of pitfalls that people Yeah go slow. Well, the vulnerability paradox, which we're kind of hitting on without naming it. So vulnerability paradox is that we think being vulnerable will lead other people to like us less. On average, people like us more interesterest Yeah. Why do you think that's the case So we think yeah, we're so focused on the bad. like I reveal some kind of I don't know, like bad habit I have. And the and other people and we I think it's so terrible. people will judge me and I'm embarrassed and other people just think it's human. or maybe they have the same habit. U A, something happened to me a few weeks ago where I really I totally bombed giving a talk I usually never do, but I just completely blanked out and I was just standing there on stage and I'm like, I don't know what comes next. I literally said, I don't know what to say. And it was mortifying And I can't tell you how many people came up to me later. And we're like, Sona, like I loved it. like it just made you more human. You know, they so the thing that I thought was mortifying, other people thought was like a cute human failure. that was an un fam. Are you familiar with the Prat fall effect? Do you know this? Yes. So it's when somebody gets all of the answers wr right in a test, but they drop their pencils on the way up to hand their paper in and it's British study the word Prat. I don't know the pat has comees over to America. Anyway, we like people who show their human side is which is strange, right? Because there's an assumption that we just want everybody to be as perfect as possible. There's a great line from a famous screenwriter who said, if you want to write a character that no one connects with, make them perfect Right. So we actually don't want perfection Because it's not human, it's not interesting, it's not complex I wantm to show you a video, Jared, can you pull up that video of that gymnastics skirl So there's this there's a look at this. just watch watch this video Okay. same to even adults you can do. make me stop loving you. Nothing you will do will ever cause me to give up on you. I'm going to let you know when I think you're making a bad choice. I'm not going to let you talk down on yourself. I'm not going to let you give up on yourself and I'm not going to let you quit because something might be scary. You can quit if you truly don't love something, but you cannot quit because something might scare you. Okay You are not failing me and if I have made you feel like you are not good enough or that I don't care about you then I have not done my job as a father. I love you very much. Okay And I don't think that you're bad I don't ever want you to think that I wouldt be there and do whatever it takes to make sure that you can be successful doing whatever you want to do. Be at the end of the day, this is something you have told me you want to do. Now if you truly do not love cheer, guess what? You don't have to do cheer If you truly love danger, then yes, I'm going to let you know when I think you are making a silly decision because you don't think you're good enough or because you think something is too hard or too scary. The only limits that you have are the limits that you put on yourself. If you keep telling yourself you are incapable of doing something, guess what yourself from doing something. If you tell yourself that you can achieve something, even if it doesn't happen right away, guess what you will eventually end up doing achieving it. But we have to be able to be strong here, to make this do what we are capable of doing. It starts with this What do you think Dad, when you say that? Okay, a couple things Well, it was beautiful that he could go underneath what her fear was not just she's afraid of, you know, doing this this flip But she's afraid that if she fails that maybe her dad won't love her which is really beautiful. Like he gets under this fe And I do have one critique. that was beautiful, obviously what he said But I do have one critique of the staff. Well, hey, if anyone is open to feedback, something tells me that it's Anthony, the dad. And it is that what therap I'm not a therapist. therapist sayays is that you want to first validate what she says,? So she kept saying, I'm scared. And he's like, no, you're not scared. And I guess what you're supposed to do is kind of not supposed to do, right? Ideally, you want to kind of validate like I understand you feel scared right now or something like that. And then go and talk about and give the speech that you got. A bit of validation in the emotion. Yeah, yeah. F first validate, Is that important do you think when receiving love and trying to give it as well It's so interesting. So One thing we talk about right let's say you're sharing more of yourself because you want to feel more loved and so you are sharing more of yourself. And then I'm listening. So listening is so critical. Most of us are all very good listeners And so what do we do when we're trying to listen? Turns out, one study showed twenty five percent of the time when we're listening. Our mind is wandering. And I bet it's higher than because we have this inner chutter. We're like distracted or we're mostly we're rehearsing what we want to say next, right? How we respond to you? And we also want to sort of fix or give advice, which I all the time instead of just simply making the person feel heard whichich is what we're just talking about and just validated it, right? which is that like, wow, that must have been really hard or that must have been really inspiring You know, how do that feel And again, that sounds like therapy talk, but you can put in your own words I do think the pendulum has swung a little too far on like, validating over fixing You know that nail in the head video that's so popular? The woman has this nail in the head Oh, you gotta was. Okay So she has a nail in the head. and she's like, Ohh, I feel I'm in such pain and all my sweaters are shredding. And the guy's like, well, you have this nail in your head. And she's like and basically the point of the video is she just wants to be heurard And then once he says, I'm so sorry, it must be so painful for you. to have a nail in your head. And she's like, oh Right? And that's the point of the video, where he keeps trying to give her advice you should take the nail out of your head And then you won't feel so much in pain and you won't shred your sweaters. And I just think like yeah, it's like again, the pendulum is swung so far. L sometimes people kind of need like fucking need advice, right? They need to be told, take the nail out of the head But I agree that at first you want to validate and then give advice later. Most people don't realize how much being dehydrated impacts their performance, which is why for the last five years, I've started pretty much every morning with EleMment. Element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. This orange salt in a cold glass of water is like a Seet. It's salty, orangey nectar and I really tell the difference when I take it versus when I don't. 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It's people saying the thing that they've heard is kind of cool. while it's really important like to just follow your body and to just do what feels good for you as opposed to I'm gonna sit in the mck with you I'm going to sit in the discomfort. you know, Yeahah the validation thing Good point. I'm sure Anthony will take it on board. But he's sitting he's sitting in the emotion with his daughter, right? He's holding that space. It's unfortunate that holding space has kind of been memified into I hate that phrase. Yeah, but what it means is so good. It's just a shame that the phrase has become a cliche of itself. In a way There's one kind of therapisty speak that I think is so amazing and effective and it's nonviolent communication, right? It's using I statements, right? So So I feel hurt when you do this as opposed to, why do you always do this? You know, what's wrong with you? And so and that yeah, that is just so effective, has been shown to be effective in so many contexts. And people are doing it more. Ag, instead of accusing the other person, it's about you. So like it's not like you're doing this. It's like, I feel this way when I see this. or it's my understanding or the story I'm telling myself is that you're And then and then you ask and then you have a request. So I'm a big believer in nonviolent communication And the TLDR of that is I statements, not you statements There's a whole process to it, but sort of I feel this when you, you know, so let's say yeah, like let's say that person never cleaning up, you know, I feel You know, I I had overburdened When you don't wash the dishes, when you do this. U you know, I'd like to you talk about it. I'd like to understand what's going on. Maybe you're really stressed out at work And know, and then you have a and the hard part is the request. It's like, what do you actually ask? It easier to criticize It's harder to kind of ask. The ask is the hard part, you know, would is vulnerable um to sort of ask to say, I Yeah, it's hard to ask It's funny, it'smost obvious to me why Maybe it's not so obvious I would love for us to come up with an agreement about how you split how we split chores. Um So yeah, I statements Yeah, I I guess Criticizing somebody else puts the ball in their court, it also makes your displeasure known. Like u abbsccondonds you of having to take responsibility Pting yourself forward and going, I would really like it if you did that. is another opportunity for this person to hurt you Right? It's like I'm going to request this thing. Not only have you done this thing that pissed me off that I've now had to tell you about. I've had to tell you that it's hurt me I'm now going to like, offer you this thing that you could reject this request. That That's why it's vulnerable because you're risking rejection. And that's life sometimes you'll be reducted What's your advice to people who when they get to the precipice of vulnerability of exposing a little bit more of themselves than they feel like they should That sort of fear comes up and the tightness in the chest and the ringing in the ears what is your advice to them in that moment Part of my advice is just to go for it. takeake the leap. so many Great things in life involve taking risks, almost everything, right? Like having a baby, you know, going for that job that you know, moving to a different city U But before they they take that leap I would go slow, right? So maybe the first time just Yeah. reveal something smaller. And then take us yeah, take a st baby steps, I would say.. Okay. So listening to Lun Yeah people are notot just playing the game of tennis, waiting to hit the ball back Genuine curiosity, what else? We talked about sharing. so curiosity, let's say. so if you start with curiosity, like I'm really interested in you. and curiosity, by the way, has an enthusiasm component, right? Like I'm, I'm excited to hear what you have to say. That's why it's such a gift, right? Like How often does that happen when someone's so excited? Charismatic people are really good at this, right? That's why we flock to them because they're so excited to hear what you have to say. So stressed with curiosity, then you tell us I'm curious about you Then you start sharing which is hard. And but I'm validating and I'm supporting your sharing by like really listening and asking questions. So question asking. is not talked about or even studied that much It So important. We don't ask each other enough questions So research shows that we think that especially asking deep questions, if I ask you a deep question, I'll think, ah He's going to think I'm crying that I'm being a little nosy And sometimes that happens, but on average People crave to be seen, right? They want to be known. I have an example for my daughter who has a roommate who' having a lot of problems. And her family is coming over crying, there are all these sort of sessions And they were speaking Spanish. so she didn't know. My daughter didn't know what they were saying. So I said to my daughter, why don dot you talk to your roommate and ask her what's going on And she said, Oh mom, I couldn't do that. She'll think I'm crying And I think, you know, she could be right, but I think Most likely she's wrong, that this roommate probably would feel really supported and loved if she if she was asked about it So But we usually think yeah, so we don't ask enough questions. So ask your friends, colleagues and partners those deep questions Okay, and that's radical curiosity. That's part of radical curiosity. And part of listening because it's listening is a back and forth And then there's two more mindsets we talk about. One is called open heart And it's almost like an obvious one, you know, I think open heart is basically warmth, kindness believing in the other person wanting them to be happy, wanting their dreams to come true. I say it's obvious because I would think most stable relationships have that mindset. It's the other mindsets that often people don't necessarily have. So I actually We sent the book to a few early readers And u twowo of my male friends said they they're like, we love the book. broke up with their girlfriends after reading the book And I was really surprised because I thought it was prescriptive, likeike, oh, do this, listen better, you know, S curiosity. But they actually used it to hold a mirror to their relationships. So they had the open heart. they had kindness and warmth and belief in the other person But one person said She's not really sharing and I'm not really sharing Another person said, My girlfriend is no longer curious about my work. She arasss about it Um, and so Those are really important and need to be worked on. The open heart, I think, is one that I would hope most relationships already have. Okay ye And the last one is my favorite The last mindset. 's called multiplicity So the terminal diplicity, I'm told comes from trauma research. The idea, if you have a trauma, it doesn't define you. It's like you're a quilt of many, many things Of course you had the trauma you can't it away but it doesn't define you. And they were all were all multude, you know, the walt women, quote, you know, I am multitudes. I contain multitudes and So I'm like a quilt of both positive and negative qualities and traits and behaviors, right. So sometimes I'm kindind and other times I'm selfish. Sometimes I'm loyal. And sometimes I'm narcissistic And we're all like that, right? And sort of use that multiplicity lens to turn it on the other person. So when you're revealing your story, And something you say something I might disapprove of makes me uncomfortable I use a multiplicity lens and see you as a human in all of your complexity. And it wass interesting about that is that when I tell this to people, everyone nods and they're like, oh yeah, of course And then when you actually give specific examples, it's really hard, right People will say, Ohh, what a jerk Right What an asshole? like he did that or she did that Um So that's a really hard one Yeah, I um, I think it's difficult for so few people want to sit in a discomfort zone a tough emotion and their solution is to just fix it. to just say if I just come up with the solution to this thing We don't need to worry about it anymore will be the solution to So someone reveals something negative about them about themselves. I don't want you to feel that way anymore Allow me to minimize it allow me to tell you what you can do like person at work keeps mistreating me in this way and every time that they do it makes me feel really small and I'm worried that they don't like me and I think that I don't really belong there anymore Well, she's a bitch anyway, and you shouldn't do it. and you're like, hey You're not in this with me. What I want to hear from you is Damn that must be that must be really hard to go through What's that being like over the last couple of months? So what do you What are you worried this means? Oh What's the emotion Just after that happens, like, o, okay, like Im someone cares. someomeone cares enough to do that Iy not Yeah, I just think Pe's It comes from two two directions it comes from I don't want this person who I care about to suffer anymore And also, I don't want to be in this discomfort anymore. and both of those things together can be wrapped up in a I'll just fix it, minimize it, or make it go away And I had a coach once and some a friend did something that I was really upset about And so I'm talking to the coach And I'm doing that. I'm minimizing, I'm thinking, oh, well, because of this and this reason, they must have done it Coach Ssona just stop it right now. And he said skip right over the rumination and the justification, the rationalization and write into sadness, G go straight to sadness, which is Be sad that your friend did this, right? whichich is kind of like what you're saying sort of sit in it And then you can, you know, rationalize. But the rationalization, like You know, there's a fine line between kind of condoning justifying and compassion Right? What is a compassion where you see someone And they do something kind of terrible and you can see like this happened once with my friends where this guy said something really terrible. And we're like, oh what a jerk And one of my friends said You know, when I read that text I see the little boy inside of him where I see the teenage boy who used to be rejected by girls And so whatever he got triggered It's not excusing or condoning or justifying. but is having compassion and I know it really helps me to see people in the sort of more complex light. Again, It doesn't mean I want to hang out with him but I Again, I think that compassion is really helpful What do you think are the things in a relationship that makes people feel unloved the most I think when people kind of feel a little like I guess when they start to feel invisible And the other person stops noticing. Well stops asking questions.ready we talked about that Stop being curious about you. We often stop being curious about the people we've known the longest, right? Because we think, oh, I know everything about them Of course you don't. because every day we're having new fears and dreams and selved doubts, right? and regrets. and So stopping being curious. But the other thing is, yeah just kind of feeling Yeah, like that you're invisible. They don't, they're noticing the little things. You know, we ask people what makes them feel loved, a lot of them were those little things like Like I remember being at a party and friends would bring me like a piece of fruit or water or a blanket Before I even knew I wanted those things, they're like, Sonya, you need this water, you need a blanket because you seem cold. And I'm like, oh, I didn't even know I needed a blanket. And so like when you feel loved is when people you feel loved when people are doing, they're noticing you and they're noticing things that you need before you even need before you even realize you need them. So those little things and when your partner, your best friend sort of stops Nicing those things you don't feel love Looked at the whatever the strongest predictors are of long term relationship satisfaction So I partnerered with a love scientist to write this book because I'm really more of a happiness scientist I don't think can answer this question. but I will tell you a really interesting finding that we do talk about which is how do you respond to good versus bad news in a relationship? rightight? You come home and you say, hey, honey I got laid off or you know, something bad happened. My car, the car broke down. and everyone kind of knows how to respond to bad news or sort of something bad that happened. But what if you come home and you say, Hi, honey, I got a new job offer in New York So it turns out how we respond to good news is a better predictor of relationship duration than how how we respond to bad news? because it's so it's not easy, right You got a job off for New York. I mean it could be threatening. Does that mean we have to move? Does that mean you're going to work harder so you don't have time to, you know with the kids? Maybe you might even be envious that like my career isn't going as well as yours And so what research shows is the best, you, well, the reaction that is predictive of relationship duration is truly celebrating good news with your partner, right? Be like, that's soing being enthusiastic, right? That's so amazing. Tell me what happened. How you know what did they say? You know, how did you feel Um Maybe later you can deal with some of the insecurities that come out of that, right But so anyway, that is one factor that predicts relationship strength is celebrating, it's called capitalizing celebrating good things This episode is brought to you by Whoop. According to my Whoop, I've tracked nearly two thousand days of my life And the thing that still gets me is that I could have predicted almost every bad day before it happens. That's because whoop gives you a complete picture of your health Every single day, your sleep, your workouts, your recovery, your breathing, your heart rate, even your steps. and over time you get to see what's working and what isn't. And the whoop five point zero is the best version yet. It's seven percent smaller. You get more than two weeks of battery life from a single charge.' got health span tracking to see how your daily habits affect your pace of aging. It's even got hormonal insights the women that are listening. I'm a huge fan. This thing rules. It's been a huge part of my health journey and it's why it's the only wearable that I've ever stuck with. Best of all, you can join for free, pay nothing for the brand new Whoop five point zero strap and you get your first month for free and there's a thirty day money back guarantee. So you can buy it for free. Try it for free if you don't like it after twenty nine days They just give you your money back. Right now you can get the brand new whoop five point zero and that thirty day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join dot whoop dot com slash modern wisdom. That's join dot whoop dot com slash Btom Misom. It's interesting how much easier it is to sort of half of somebody who's strugging than it is to celebrate somebody who's winning many ways. Yeah. And you know what How many people are? The list of people that you share your wins with is a small list. Is that right? right? Be we learn not to be boastful Right? And I remember like I would come home and tell my family about some some great thing that happened, maybe an award I got And my kids would say, Oh mom, you're boast And I'm like, if I can't share this with my family, like who can I share?uck is going on. And so where we've sort of trained like not to boast. And yet, of course, like we want to celebrate those things, right? So And so u Yeah. And so we don't have as much practice both sharing and I guess reacting to those wins What about in the relationship if you're doing everything right and the other person just doesn't show it in return greatreat question. And I get to ask that question a lot where let's say I'm doing all the right things. So I'm sharing, I'm listening, I'm curious I amm seeing you in the multiplicity lens.'m I'm listening with warmth and acceptance And the other person just does not respond. They don't return. They don't reciprocate. They're not curious about you. They're not listening, they're not sharing. What do you do? I'm not a therapist. I mean, therapists are very like, you know, they'll never sort of say exactly directly what they really think, I say, right Bluntly. And I'll just say bluntly Maybe you need to walk away. Maybe you've made a poor choice If it's a family member, ye probably can't walk away, but just accept that You're not going feel as loved as you want to feel by this person. I mean, obviously keep trying, but if you've kept trying and it's not working W so much of it, I think The discontent that people feel in situations like this is I feel an incompatibility here and I'm continuing to push up against it. And you know how when you see a bridge and a bridge twists like this, it's because one side is going in one direction and another isn't moving with it. you just did that, it's just a bridge that's rotating Right, But the tension occurs in the flexing like this. And I wonder how many people If you were to just say, hey, dude This just isn't working and you're continuing to try and put this square peg into a round hole is where the discomfort comes from. And if it's You got An uncle that you just cannot resonate with or a younger brother who just you and him are like different species So, okay, guess what? Thanksgiving and Christmas, you're going to see each other. You wish him happy birthday, you keep on top of it. tension and the pain is coming from you wanting a thing which is not accessible. And I don't think it's your job in life to drown trying to keep people afloat who refuse to swim. Exactly. Although, you know, you try curiosity by the way, with the brother or the uncle, right? Like why why do you believe that thing that, you know, you think' shhut up sonya? I don't I don't need to hear. Well, that's right, if that's the response consistently. and I completely agree with you, but there's this tension ' I hear all this advice like You know, people in our society in our individualistic society, they they kind of break up too often, you know, they kind of end relationships too often.ike partularly on dating apps or you know, you're like, oh, this person isn't working for me. I'm just gonna go to the next person So there's sort of this advice you hear that maybe we don't work hard enough to sort of fix our differences. And then there's all those people, and I'm thinking of romantic relationships, and they're together forever and they're just clearly not right for each other. And they're clearly unhappy And I feel I really feel for them, right? Like life is too short So I don't know, I don't know what's I guess both can be true at the same time. But it is absolutely, the both can be true. I've got this idea called addvice Hypresponders So advice doesn't distribute evenly, it distributes more like alcohol than medicine, the people who could really benefit from loosening up and having a drink remain abstinent while the people that are already drinking too much, they take it on board. So for instance, the person who has the fear I am emotionally inadequate will absorb the message You should open up about your emotions wholesale because it confirms their fear that they already weren't good at doing emotions and that will cause them not to rectify the imbalance, but to over exaggerate something that already exists. An one of the person who permanently feels like they're not working hard enough will take on the David Goggins Joca Willink message of justust get up at four thirty AM. You've got to crush it dude. As opposed to going, I actually need to listen to the advice that tells people to chill out a little bit more Meanwhile, the The place I first saw this was after M too. So M too told guys, don't be pushy with women And the dudes that were blowing through boundaries didn't pay any attention to it. Meanwhile, nervous guys that could do with a little bit more of a they dec they were like, I knew I was too much already. I already thought I had this. interesting. And this is how Advice lands in groups that already are moving in that direction It confirm calling this addvice hyperresponders You throw advice down and the people who already do it pick it up first It often doesn't correct over it doesn't correct imbalances. It just exaggerates predispositions And I think it's true and that's how you end up in situations like this. How is it the case peopleeople are both cycling through relationships too quickly and staying in ones that they shouldn't for too long, where it's because different kinds of people Binger Binger. And then when you give a piece of advice, this is the thing that's interesting and pernicious about it is that Typically one side of the fence sounds like a more pro social and noble piece of advice. So for instance, the idea workork harder and ignore your emotions sounds upward aiming. It is believing in the little guy, it's grassroots, it's bititt and sawdust, it's zero to hero. tends to be more popular to talk about online, even if it increases the disposition of the type A person that can never switch off The idea of don't let good relationships fall away You should work through them and try hard. Sounds pro social in a world of atomized transactional swipe dating it worsens the situation for the people who already burden themselves way too much with psychological strength that makes them powerful in the boardroom but silent at the kitchen dinner table Okay, but let's talk about I think one concept that can kind of unite what you're talking about is the idea of is the idea of dosage, right? So Aristotle's golden mean, right? So there's an optimal dosage for everything ike there's somewhere in the middle, there's an optimal wait like amount of time you should stay together before you break up, etcetera, etcetera And I'm a huge believer in dosage. I think it applies to almost everything, right? And so in terms of happiness research Can you do too much h acts of kindness? Absolutely, right? You can be too kind to others. You can neglect yourself. You can do too little. Almost everything should be done in moderation, including moderation, of course. So that's how I think about things is sort of in the optimal dosage. But sometimes you're talking about things that sometimes aren in the same continuum, right? It has to be in the same continuum, the same spectrum to figure out what the optimum dosage is What ideally people are going to take some of the advice from the opposite side of the spectrum and Unfortunately people don't usually want to hear that So yeah, it's an interesting one. Okay. so ically What are the most powerful habits for implementing this The more I think about feeling loved and these mindsets, the more I think they apply to almost everything. You know like when you study something, you see it everywhere But seriously, like it applies to reducing polarization in our society, right? When you're curious and really listening to people who are on the other side of the political spectrum actually research has shown is it reduces prejudice, it reduces differences And so I think out of all everything I've talked about I think curiosity and listening are probably the two habits that can really change your life. Like if we all became better listeners, more curious. Research shows that if you're a leader or a manager or a supervisor, And if you're curious and really listening to your employees or your followers They're going to be more productive, they're going to be more engaged, They're going to be less likely to quit retty amazing, right It's not that hard to implement And And then sharing sharing too, there's a study that came out maybe a year ago. peopleople who are literally like wearing different hats on the political spectrum, no p intended. sharing And so I might share about like, I'm struggling with my son And the guy in the other hat is sharing, oh, you know, I'm also struggling with my son. That reduced prejudice and reduced polarization. just sharing more of your humanity with someone who's really different from you So But yeah, but I would stick with those three but especially C curiosity and listening. Okay What's something if you were to say this technique or this habit, this one thing that you could do tomorrow that would improve your ability to feel love, what would it be. Well, first of all Have a conversation with the person that you want to feel loved by And actually, this is my number one kind of happiness If you want to be happier tomorrow, have a fifteen minute conversation with someone att least fifteen minutes. And then when you're having the conversation, share, listen, show curiosity, listen with acceptance and warmth. When you think about relationships, They're really a series of conversations. Even when you're not talking, right? You're communicating. That's how I think about relationships. There's series of conversations And so when you think about, I want to feel more loved It seems verywhelming. likeike what do I do? I need to make myself more lovable. I need to change your mind and getting you to love me more But really all you have to do is change the next conversation or change the next series of conversations. So that would be my number one tip show up differently in your next conversation with that person. by sharing more, listening, more, showing curiosity with warmth and acceptance. So youre saying that life is just one big podcast?ain that's the main Yes, absolutely. But also, I'm kind of biased because I'm a talker So my oldest daughter once said to me Mom, you talk so much, I can't think So I do like to talk, but but And also in our culture're actually there's some research on this, you know indivualist cultures are more talking cultures. Collectivist cultures, like Asian cultures are more listening cultures. But you know, we can adapt these mindsets. You know, you don't have to talk a mile a minute, you know, it's just Is this communication that matters across all of the studies that you've been a part of What's your favorite one Like what's the most fun or interesting un novel study that you've done? I think my favorite one is we ask people to act more extroverted for a week We said to both introverts and extroverts, we said for the next week act more extroverted. We didn't actually use the word extroverted because it has connotations in our culture. I think we said, you know, sociable, energetic, talkative And then for the week after, we ask people to act more introverted. Ag, using different words like deliberate and quiet and And vice versa And we were shocked and what we found. So we found the biggest effects we'd ever found in any of our interventions Pe in the week that people acted more extroverted, they were so much happier. and sort of everything improved During the introversion week, surprisingly, sometimes people actually got less happy or kind of no change And the second surprise was that this effect was the same for introverts and extroverts. So even people who were already extroverted increasing their extroversion improved their happiness. But well, it's interesting that you thought that was the surprising part. No, no, the introversion is the surprising part, I think, to me. that the introverts, you know, Susan Canain wrote this great book, Reit Cel Quiet love the book and I'm a big fan of introverversion. I think there's a lot of benefits to being introverted But she writes that, you know, introverts get exhausted by trying to act social I don't I actually don't quite believe it. L the evidence is now showing that it's actually the extroverts that get exhausted by social behavior. It makes sense because they're social much more of the time. Okay. Yeah, so the introverts also got happier acting extroverted. Most people have no idea where their testosterone levels sit. But what if I told you there was a solution, somethingomething that identifies low te faster than a high school bully And it won't cost you all your lunch money. That's where fununction comes in. Gives you access to over one hundred and sixty lab tests, including a deep dive into your full hormone paddle. Every result is reviewed by clinicians. Anything out of range is flagged, and you get clear explanations with a personalized protocol with actionable next steps So if something's off, you know exactly what to do about it. Whether you just need to go to the gym more or playay Creed louder in your car. Function will tell you exactly where your testesterone, and everything else stands. Normally, this level of testing would usually cost thousands, but with function, it's three hundred sixty five dollars a year. That's one dollar a day to stop guessing with your health and start knowing. And right now you can get twenty five dollars off, bringing it down to do three hundred and forty bucks. So get the exact same blood panels that I do and save twenty five dollars by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth. com slash modern wisdom using the code modern wisdom A check out. What do you make of the Wh where you get your energy from on your own versus with other people is the best definition of introversion versus extrovversion? Do this still hold true? or is this been replication?. So I love the definition. Again that Susan C Kan made pop. It's a sexy definition, but if it's inaccurate, then we need a new one. I believe that the evidence is not really holding up. And actually Nick Epplely, who wrote a book called The Little More Social Great Book talks about this. I think that The evidence is not quite there. So I don't know maybe again, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. But the studies, I think there's only with one exception. St are showing that introverts that are asked to act more social do not feel depleted or exhausted. But again, maybe we need more research. That's interesting. It wouldn't surprise me I think A lot of the time what introverts are doing is finding a home base or finding a situation that feels comfortable and familiar to them You can get det trained out of your social muscle an awful lot. Like if you don't use it, you lose it. And if you don't get into the rhythm of seeing for For instance, we have every Friday and this is one of the best this is one of the two best things The three best things actually, that from a habit perspective that I've done. F first one is sleeping with my phone outside of my bedroom Second one is when I think about a friend that I haven't spoken to in a while, I just text him immediately. I'm like, Hey man'm just thinking, you hope everything's good or whatever. But the third one, we've got a standing dinner reservation at six PM every Friday. it's just an open invite for between six and eight people. No matter how good or bad your week's been, you always turn up. And if you're in town, you're there, sometimes people bring new friends, sometimes people it's just you and it's been me and one other the guy. And the fact that you've got that it means some people have got more introverted days and more extroverted days On my most introverted day, I'm still at dinner and I leave and I'm like That was worth it I love it. I love it. I love it. Very important point that you just raised, right? So So in in these studies when we ask when we ask introverts to be extroverted, we don't ask them to go to a party and be the life of the party. They can choose how to be extroverted, right. So an introvert is going to do different things. so they might call up a friend, they might chat a little bit more during lunch. You know, I was super shy when I was young and when I was when I was in college imagine that And I really was. my parents told me that before age ten, I did not speak to other adults other than teachers and family members And then I really kind of pushed through it. But okay, here's one way I did it in college, you know, we had sections. And I forced myself to say one thing in each section. and it was terrifying. L it was really, really hard. But then the more you do it, you know, So anyway, that's the kind of thing that introvert might say. Like att lunch I'm gonna try to say one more thing. I love your three habits. I'm gonna add one more to it that one of my friends introduced me is when you meet someone or you're talking to someone, they say, o, let's get together You know, this happens all the time. And what happens is you don't get together. You know, you start you text and then, you know you get busy and then you're like, oh, how about next week? And that doesn't work out. He said You do not leave that interaction without making a firm plan to get together. You know, a specific time and place and date. and that really works I heard a really Machiavellian way to work out if someone actually wants to hang out with you. If you propose a day and they cancel and you say, tellell me when you want to reschedule for and they don't reschedule, it was basically reverse engineering whether or not this person is genuinely busy or just doesn't like you I don't know whether I think you'd probably need be reading into that a little bit much. People are just busy. but I thought that was an interesting. I like that. tellell me when you want to reschedule for. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, justust tell me when like, hey, especially if you rece if you canceled, do it? Like it's on you. okay? You fucked it. I was gonna go. Yeah. know there's a New Yorker cartoon and it's like Howb about never is never good for you? Yeah. that's what someone says if they don't come up with a date or a time.bs. What's something about happiness that almost everyone believes but is wrong?. Well, the one that's kind of boring is that people think Well, okay, maybe it's not boring I have a book about this called The Myths of Happiness I'll be happy when I'll be happy when I have a baby. I'll be happy when I move to New York. I'll be happy when I get that tech job I wanted to get. I'll be happy when whatever And the truth is you are happy when those things happen, but then what happens is called hedonic adaptation. We adapt to that new goal. and this is by the way, humans probably would never progress if we didn't have adaptation because then we'd We would just kind of sit on the mountain, do nothing, but we always want more And you bring your same self with you when you to the new relationship or to the new city or to the new job And so putting all your eggs in changing your life circumstances to be happier. Now there's a caveat If you live in a war zone, if you're poor, if you're in an abusive relationship, absolutely changing your circumstances is going to make you happier. But if you're kind of normal like, you know, u comomfortable circstances. then changing them is going to make you happy temporarily Is there a way to hack hedonic adaptation Yes, through variety, novelty, surprise and gratitude. Right So we adapt to constant stimuli, right? So when things are the same, like you buy a new car at first you're like, I love this new car. And then you know, for the eighth time you sit in the car, you don't notice the car anymore. That it's new. And so novelty varieties sort of maybe yeah, so you have novel create novel circumstances So actually relationship is a better example. We don't want to adapt to our new spouse So you do different things with them. I mean, it seems obvious, right? You do exciting activities with them, you learn new things with them You see new friends. I mean, people are endlessly fascinating and dynamic, right? So they're not constant And then surprise, open yourself up to surprises, right? So if you go to a lot of I don't know social events, there's going to be things that are surprising. right? If you take risks, there'll be things that are surprising. I should say surprise and a positive not in a negative way. And then finally, gratitude anntidote to hedonic adaptation. When you think about it, when you adapt to something, you start taking things for granted And when you're grateful, it's like you don't take it for granted anymore, right? So like if I'm grateful for my health, I'm not taking my health for granted. truly expressing gratitude. But it's not easy, right? Like, how often can you sort of express gratitude for your car or even for your spouse But I'm a big especially given that the stimuli is the same. So you're expressing gratitude for something you've experienced previously Exactly You know Something we don't dve to is a view A view like a beautiful view for That's interesting. Is that interesting? So actually, I have a beautiful view. I did and I got it for a reason. like I think it's worth paying for the view No one really knows why. I think one reason is novelty and variety. Well, variety, right? It's always changing with the weather, with the seasons Um I also think there's an evolutionary reason that humans are hardwired who like to look at things to have a view, right? Because you can see like, I don't know, fr an enemies. think this is. And also by the way, water and mountains. We are hardwired to want to see water and moundains for kind of obvious reasons that they are going to help us survive and thrive. And so that's why views of water and moundains are most like Vancouver is supposed to be one of the those beautiful cities Water and amounts together.. Yeah, yeah yeah, that's interesting. Yeah Okay, Let's say that you met a twenty year old today What would you tell them to prioritize if they wanted the highest probability of being happy when they were fifty Relationships relationships Um relationships, but but it's really everything we were talking about today, like really put effort into maintaining relationships, learearn social skills. I wish we could take classes in college and high school, right? Everyone can learn some social skills. How to have a conversation So conversations, spend time with people, donon't spend time alone, you know in the garage on the screen, right? Be it's not going give you practice with those social skills So relationships in person ideally, face to face, like you said, like those dinners. make a habit of it Learn to listen, be curious and share Um those would be my top My top habits Okay. well, I u speaking of which, Oh my gosh, I have something to here you. Yeah. Thank you. Can I open it? Yeah you can It's a card with my name on it Thank you, Card. Okay Thank you. I love Arthur, by the way. Aen. M since Arthur Brooks, we were in an almost plane crash together. I have a fun story about that. W, We were in a plane and it was gonna crash and I was I was sitting next him I started holding his hand and he's very confident. so it turns out it's very good to be if you want a a planane crashed is about as Christ soian as you can come, say he was probably hoping it crashed. Well,, no no, no, he was just He is verys it's very useful to be, yeah, sitting next to you, very confident, very masculine Christian person. You know, I'm literally holding his hand and he's like, Sonya is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. And then later on, he's like, Sonya, I didn't realize because if we had lost an engine actually fell out of the plane. was it India? the fuck I know were India in the middle nowhere.. He's like, Sonyia, I didn't realize how bad the situation was. Anyway, you you've got Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to write gratitude letters and I don't know whether anyone's done it to you on podcast. I figured it would be nice. Not in a podcast. I certainly have beautiful letters for my students love consonsidering a student. Thank you. Sonia Lub Burerssky, ladies and gentlemen, Why should people go to check out everything that's going on? How tofeelove. com. This is the title of my book how tofeelove. com. And we also by the way, we have a quiz where you can take and it show it will tell you just five minutes. it will tell you which mindset is your strongest mindset and which is your weakest mindset. And I think it could be very useful. A. Sonya, I appreciate you. Thank you. All right. See you next time, everyone. Bye. Yeah. Oh God. o my go. than. Thankk you o my God. Hey, it's Ran Reynolds here from MittMobile. Now, I was was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited preremium wireless for fifteen dollarars a month is back