Transcript of Episode 551: Dr. Laurie Santos: How Modern Life Hijacks Your Happiness And Why Going Analog Fixes It New

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

All right, you guys, welcome to Habits and Hustle. We have a very good guest today. This is one that I really feel we all need badly right now. Her name is Dr. Laurie Santos. She is an expert in the science of happiness, and what's extremely impressive is she has the most sought-after, most popular class of all time. At Yale University, and it's called Psychology and the Good Life, correct?

That's right, yeah.

Wow. I cannot— I've been like waiting for you to be on this show. So thank you for being here.

Yay, I'm glad it finally worked out.

I mean, yes, me too. I don't even know where to begin. I know I was telling you earlier that I have like a whole plethora of questions that I write, and then I never end up asking the questions. But what I really love about you, and I was saying this a little bit earlier, is that everything that you actually talk about is not just, you know, just opinion or just, you know, randomness. Everything is very science-backed.

Mm-hmm.

So for people who are listening and you're like, oh, whatever, it's her opinion. No, it's not. Everything is very science-backed. And there are strategies actually for being happy. It's not just something that's sometimes innate.

Yeah.

So would you say that being happy is a skill?

Definitely. I think it's a skill and it's something that you have to practice, right? I mean, it makes sense, you know, as a fitness influencer, you know this, right? It's like you can know what you need to do, but unless you actually get out to the gym and do that stuff, nothing is going to change.

Absolutely.

And this is exactly the way our mental health works, right? There are things that we know we need to do to feel a little bit better, but unless you actually get out and you practice that and you build your skills up, you're not gonna end up feeling any better.

So do you think that I mean, in your, you know, not think, but in your, in your research and all your findings, I've always, I always thought that we all have a baseline for happiness, right? And then we can like, maybe like we can kind of like tweak it a little bit up and down.

Yeah.

But what do you, what's your belief in that?

Yeah, well, what some of the studies show is that there is part of our happiness that seems to be kind of built in. This is what researchers call it being heritable, right? Some of the differences we see across people out there in the world in terms of how happy they are, they're just based on like something about their biology, right?

Okay.

And we know this because if you look at identical twins, their happiness levels tend to be a little bit more similar than, like, regular siblings who aren't perfectly genetically related.

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Right.

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But if you look at how much happiness is heritable, it's kind of a small amount. So it's about the same amount of, like, genetic basis as you might see for, like, religiosity, like, are you religious or not, or risk-taking, how much of a risk do you want? So there's, like, some basis to, like, the fact that it's built in, but not as much as you might think. It's much less than, for example, like, weight, right? Which we know is something that you can change around with, like how much you're working out and stuff like that, right?

Well, wait a second, 'cause I mean, so for an example, okay, like, you know, Noah, who I'm married to, he's naturally extremely happy no matter what. Like his baseline is exceptionally high. He'd always say to me that he trains himself to be happy and very positive, right? And I always like poo-pooed it for like many, many, many, many years. And then I realized that over time, the people I speak to who are that way, like, actually do what you say. Like, they're practicing the skill of being happy. So can we talk about how do you practice being happy, like, in a real way? Like, I mean, and try to— please try to do me a favor and stay away from, like, you know, having gratitude. Like, that's like— that word gratitude is overplayed in my mind. Yes, I understand having gratitude. Is the, you know, gateway drug to like a panacea of great things. With that being said, what could we do in real time, practical, actual things, strategies to train our brains and ourselves to be happy?

Yeah, well, one of the big behavioral changes we can make to feel happier is just to engage in a little bit of social connection.

Okay.

If you looked at pretty much like every study of happy people, it suggests that happy people are more social. And interestingly, that's true for introverts and for extroverts, right? If you look at the benefits of of social connection for introverts, they're just as high as for extroverts, which many people don't expect, but it's what the research really shows. And so I think that's just an easy one, right? Like, make time to call a friend, like connect with somebody, get off your, you know, scrolling on your screen and really connect in real time. That's a big one. Another big one that we know matters a lot is something that I bet you'll relate with, which is like just doing nice things for your body can make you feel happier. So moving your body just a little bit, not like running 3 ultramarathons, but just like getting moving. Just— no, literally, There's one study that shows like a half hour of pretty intense cardio can be as effective as taking a prescription of anti-depression medication for just like feeling better. And another study I love shows how long that lasting effect from moving your body can be.

So you do a half hour of cardio, you know, say 9:00 AM on Monday, how long does that little boost last?

Yeah.

It actually lasts for over 20, almost 24 hours that you get that kind of hit. And so just remembering that our brain is connected to our body and that like our mental health our physical health matters for our mental health can be really important.

By the way, I think I talk about that exact thing probably ad nauseam, like 20 times a day, because I will not do anything until I do cardio. Not strength training, actually cardio, because cardio sets, like, primes my brain for my mood and my happiness. If I don't do it, I feel myself dipping with, like, depression. Or not like, not hardcore clinical depression, but I'm not as on point. I'm not, my memory's not as good. My productivity's not as good. My general mood, like I will not, honestly, you don't wanna be around me if I don't get my cardio because I'm now, I'm at the place where I've now primed myself, like I said, to do it. So then it's kind of like, what do you call it? Like a, it's a habit stack, right? Before I do everything else I need to do, that's the non-negotiable.

Right, because it's gonna make you feel better. And this is something that I talk about with some of my students. I had one student who, you know, said that she had a complicated relationship to like fitness and exercise. It was really bound in like body stuff and whatever. And she said, you know, hearing these studies about the connection with happiness was really important because it had like all these issues and it was all fraught. But when I realized like, oh, I'm just gonna feel better if I do this, this is like this gift to myself, somehow that really unlocked for her the ability to turn it into a habit and to sort of make it more of a daily practice.

Is there any science based around how long you actually have to do for how much cardio you need to do to boost your, I guess, your serotonin and your overall happiness muscle? Yeah. How long, what intensity? Mm-hmm. What is the research around that?

Yeah, it probably varies a lot based on your body, right?

Okay.

Like what you're gonna have to do is different than what I, my 50-year-old body is gonna have to do to get things moving. Really what you need to do is you need to, to feel like your heart's pumping. The standard studies often use like a half hour of cardio and they don't define it. Call it kind of, you know, medium intensity, but they—

But 30 minutes.

Yeah, 30 minutes. Okay. As I said, it's not, sometimes we can get in our head that it's like, it only counts if it's like an ultra marathon, or it only counts if it's something really intense. But for the mood effects, it can be pretty short.

And it's true. I think 24 hours is exactly the amount of time.

You need it again. You're like, dude, when's this coming back? Yep.

100%. Because by the next day, if I'm not doing that again, I'm like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble. That's why it's become like, it has to be a daily habit.

Yeah.

So that's the first thing. So exercise is number one.

Yeah. Social connection, exercise. Another big one that's kind of surprising is what researchers these days are calling time affluence, which is this idea that you feel wealthy in time. It's the opposite of what so many of us experience, which is what's called time famine, where we're literally starving for time. And there's a sense in which time famine works a lot like bodily famine, where you're feeling yucky and kind of triaging and kind of very stressed. Like, just not having any time makes you feel like that too. And so there's a lot of research suggesting that we should find ways to feel a little bit more wealthy in time, whether that's taking stuff off your actual plate. Another strategy I love is use some money to get back time, you know, buy the pre-chopped veggies, you know, like spend a little extra to get back time. Those things really matter.

I think there's such misconceptions around what makes people happy, right? Like people think if I make more money, I'll be happy. If I actually lose the weight, I'll be happy. And you're the expert and I'd like you to talk about it. What did you find, or what do you think is the biggest misconception about what people are chasing to be happy that actually doesn't, doesn't turn the happiness dial at all?

Yeah, money is a real big one.

Yeah, for sure.

And you have to be careful about this, right? If you're living below the poverty line, if you can't put food on the table, yes, getting more money is gonna make you happier. But for, I'm guessing maybe a lot of the people who are watching right now, more money isn't gonna make you as happy as you think. What a very famous study that came out in about 2010 showed that the level The level of money that you need to get to that if you get more money, you're not gonna be happier is around $75,000 in 2010, right? Right now that'd be around $100,000.

Right.

What does that mean? That means if you have $100,000 right now in your salary and you double or triple your salary, it's just not gonna make that much impact in your happiness. And so many of us don't believe that. So many of us think, oh, if I could just get that raise or just get that promotion at work, I'll be happier. But it just doesn't make you as happy as you think.

Is it because like anything in life, you get used to whatever you're doing? That's exactly right.

And this is, and this is one of the reasons that so many of these good circumstances, you know, changing, you know, losing the weight if you wanna lose the weight, getting more money, getting a promotion, getting the perfect relationship, those things don't make us as happy as we think for as long as we think. And psychologists have this funny phrase for this idea of getting used to stuff. They call it hedonic adaptation. You adapt to all these hedonic things in life. And hedonic adaptation is bad. It makes the bad, it makes the great things in life worse as time goes on. But it has this interesting good side, whereas hedonic adaptation also makes the bad things in life a little bit better as time goes on. So all these things that we think, oh my gosh, I couldn't deal with that. If that happened to me, I wouldn't be able to, you know, get through the day. Once they really happen, you wind up being stronger than you think, and you just kind of get used to it.

That's so interesting. I know I, I like read about— I've read this before, and I've heard you speak about this many times about the, like, the idea of someone who's a paraplegic and someone who wins a lottery.

Yeah.

I want you to wanna talk about that, that whole scenario? 'Cause I find that fascinating.

Yeah.

And it really kind of like lands the plane on what we're talking about.

Yeah. This is a very famous study that looked at our mispredictions about the things that make us happy. And so they asked regular people, hey, how happy would you be if you won Powerball and now you have $100 million? People think, oh my gosh, I would be way happier. Or they ask, how happy would you be if suddenly, you know, you're walking down the street, you get hit by a car, bad car accident, now you're paraplegic, you can't walk. How, how much, how would that affect your happiness? And people say, oh my God, I'd be so miserable. But when you you go out and you actually interview real people who've had these happen, real lottery winners and real people who've had an accident, what you find is that it doesn't change their happiness as much as you think. I think the data for lottery winners 6 months out after winning the lottery is their happiness is no different from baseline. And the data for paraplegics is like, they might get a subtle dip in happiness, but it's not nearly what people predict. And this is— that was a very famous study that happened like, you know, over 2 decades ago.

But now this type of thing has been replicated in all these different contexts. Getting a terminal illness diagnosis, process, finding out you have HIV, getting the perfect job promotion, right? Getting tenure if you're like a nerdy, you know, academic like me. All these cases, people predict, oh my God, that great circumstance would make me feel amazing, or that terrible circumstance, I'd just be unhappy forever. But in fact, we don't stay as happy for as long as we think. Our circumstances just don't affect us in the way we expect.

Why is that? Like, what happens in our brain that I guess baselines everything, or just kind of like kind of, yeah, I guess just puts everything at an equilibrium.

Yeah. It's funny. Our brains really only notice changes. They don't notice like the steady state over time and where we are. This is like a real treadmill effect. Sometimes this is often called the hedonic treadmill, right? So when you're exercising on a treadmill, you know, for at first it's like, oh my gosh, this thing is moving. But then, you know, 10 minutes in, 20 minutes in, it's like, that's just the movement, right? Our brains just kind of get used to it. And so the same thing is true for our emotions and these hedonic states. At first, these things feel good, but then you stop sort of noticing it. Part of it's that we just, like, don't notice the good and bad parts anymore. You know, take, like, if you experience all the luxuries in life, like you fly first class. First time you fly first class, you're like, oh my God, the seat's so big. This is great. I get the drink or whatever it is. But then that's just what you come to associate with flying. You just, like, expect that. You fly first class all the time.

Right.

You go back to coach, oh my God, that's terrible. But just the regular thing that you experience in first class is no longer good. A few years ago for my students, it's outdated now 'cause they don't know this song anymore. I used to play the DJ Khaled song, All I Do Is Win. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

Love that song. And I always say psychologically, if all you did was win, that's bad 'cause you wouldn't notice the wins anymore. You would notice the losses. They would feel terrible.

Right.

But you never get any more extra pleasure out of winning all the time 'cause that's just the status quo.

It's true. And also, well, I wanna just finish that one question, but I was gonna say there's a whole thing, would you rather like lose $100 or whatever, or not bet and win the money or whatever that thing is, right? Isn't that also a personality thing though, depending on like who you are? Yeah. And, and what I was gonna say about that is, isn't it that like what, at what point in the average person, okay, like the, how long does that take to find its balance? Is it 6 months? You said 3 months. Is 6 months the amount for all these things to kind of like level out?

Those were the ones that they used in the study, but these things can level out pretty fast.

You're saying 6 months though is mostly, but it can happen quicker.

It can. Sometimes it can happen really quickly, right? You know, I'm out here in LA and I had the luxury of like flying first class out here, right? Right. But the second time I fly, you know, JetBlue Mint is really good, right? Yeah, I love it. It's great. Yeah, but the next time I'm in Mint, it's like, oh, I get the little packet, I get the thing. It's no longer as good. That wasn't 6 months. That was like my second iteration of it, right?

Isn't that crazy how fast it can happen then? That's exactly right.

And I think that's, that's the problem for the good things in life, because we want the good things to remain really good. It's a good thing for the bad things in life, right? Because we think, you know, the first time I experience a breakup, you know, totally. But the next time it's not as bad as you predict, you know.

Did you ever see this episode? Do you know, have you ever watched Frasier?

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Old school. Yeah. I love it. It was like my favorite show of all time. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is, have you, did you ever see the episode or have you ever heard of the episode when Fraser and Niles get this invite— or they didn't even get the invitation to this new spa, and they had to steal the invitation from Fraser's neighbor that was invited to this exclusive, elitist spa. And he was invited to go into the gold door, right? And so they finagled their way, they stole the invitation, they went to the spa, and they pretended to be Fraser's neighbor to get into the gold door of the spa. So they go, they come out, it was like the best day ever. Best experience of their life. They had the best time. They were like going on and on. They were like just in heaven. And as they were walking out of the door, they saw that there was a platinum door, right? And they're like, oh my God, how did we get stuck in this crap? Like for the peons, the gold door. And they were miserable because they saw that they actually didn't get to the pinnacle.

And it goes on and on because then what happens is they Like, they finagled their way the next day to get into the Platinum door. And then they're like, "Oh, this is the panacea. This is where it's all about." And then as they leave—

There's one better.

They saw the Diamond door. And it goes on and on and on. So, I found that whole episode really stuck with me because everything in life is so relative to where you're coming from.

Totally.

And like, the fact that we are now in a place, or I think we always were, 'cause Frasier's what, like a 25-year-old man? Show, we never appreciate where we are, or that's a mindset that, like, we need to change because then nothing's ever good enough.

Yes. And there's just so many classic studies. My favorite is in the athletic domain. You watch Olympians on the stand, on the medal stand, right? Obviously the gold medalist person who got first place, really happy. But what about the silver medalist? Not only is he not happy, if you analyze facial expressions of the silver medalist, you'll see expressions like contempt. Or deep sadness, anger, right? Which is shocking, right? This is a person who's second best in the world. They're taking home a medal for their country, and they're miserable. Why? They're not looking at all the billions of people who didn't make it up there behind them. They're looking at the one person who beat them. But the reason I love that study is that study also looked at the other person on the medal stand, the bronze medalist, the person who came in third. And it turns out that that that individual isn't showing contempt or sadness or anger. They're showing, like, true elation. In some studies, their facial expressions are even happier than the gold medalist. Why? Well, their comparison point isn't the gold medalist. Like, they were probably off by, I don't know, 0.2 seconds or multiple people or whatever.

Their comparison is like, "Oh my gosh, if I was just a little bit slower, a little bit worse, I'd be going home empty-handed." And so they're elated, right? And so this study, it just shows the power of comparison, right? We could be like, "Oh my God, I didn't get in the platinum door." Like, you know, Everything's wrong. Or we could be like, I could have not been invited to the spa. I could have not had the money to come to a spa at all. And so it's worth remembering that we have a tiny bit of control about which comparison points we use, but we need to remember that we need to execute that.

You're right. The, the comp— the re— also a reframe on how we think of it. And I wanted to, that's what I wanted to really talk about, but I was gonna just kind of add to what you just said. Like, think about Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps for a second.

Okay.

Mm-hmm. If it, what, If Michael Phelps never existed, Ryan Lochte would've been probably the best swimmer of all time, right? He's won what, 12 gold medals, 12, or maybe even more. Okay. But because there was a Michael Phelps right there.

Often on the stand with him.

Being on the stand with him. He's looked like he's like a nothing like, oh yeah. Like, oh yeah. Anybody can just win 12 medals, right? It's so, and so it's not just the person who's winning. It's also the, the, the comparison is also from like the, the, the, the onlooker or the audience or the, the other people on the side.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

And I think, and you can think about how much that affects us right now.

Oh, certainly.

Right. In a world of social media. Right. It's so hard to achieve your fitness goals, your financial goals, whatever goals you have, because you look on the internet and there's someone who's killing it much more than you. So it's really hard to feel satisfied with wherever you get to, cuz there's always a Michael Phelps out there who's gonna be better than you.

100%. That's, and that's really like the crux of all of this because we're living in a time when everything is digital now, social media. Media, you know, I, I don't have to tell you this, like loneliness, depression, anxiety, we're at like an all-time high.

Mm-hmm.

And every year I feel like it's getting worse. Is it not? Yeah.

I mean, some of the statistics, especially for young people, suggest it's pretty bad.

Um, but is it just young people?

It's a little bit everybody. The, the, the statistics for young people are the scariest and the worst. The United States, for example, is the worst in the World Happiness Report, the lowest happiness rating than we've ever seen in the annual World Happiness Report.

Right.

Wow. Um, we've dropped out of the top 20 happiest countries. Countries for the first time since the World Happiness Report has been going on.

When did we drop out of there?

Just this past year, just in 2025, which is the last year that the survey was done.

What number is the US now? I forget.

We're like 22 or 24, but like, that's striking, right? This is a rich country with lots of resources, right?

Wow.

Yet so many people at all age levels are unhappy.

And what would you— would you say it was mostly social media? What are the other reasons that are kind of making it such, so drastic. Like that's, that's, that's really bad.

Yeah. One of the things—

we're not a third world country.

I know. Yeah. One of the things in the US is that the US is a very rich country, especially relative to other countries, but we're also a very unequally wealthy country.

Right.

And that, it turns out, can affect the happiness of everybody, even the people who are on the top, like relatively higher. It's like bad to be in an unequally wealthy country. Right. So I think that's one of the factors. I think in the US right now, things feel pretty fraught politically, right? It just feels like everything's really tricky. But there is some evidence that the social media is particularly bad. One of the curious findings in the last World Happiness Report was that all English-speaking countries have gone down. But if you look at non-English-speaking kind of parts of those same countries, so take Canada, you look at like Quebecois, right? Montreal and the— they haven't dipped in happiness as much. So it's something about being English-speaking, but that— —kind of points to social media, right? Because so many of these platforms are more— there's more of this content based in English. And so there's like, huh, you know, the UK, Australia, the English-speaking parts of Canada and the US are all dipping in happiness. But if you don't speak English, it's a little bit better. And so— That's it.

I'm Canadian.

Yeah.

And, and that's interesting cuz Quebec, you know, Quebec is a French-speaking part of, you know, Canada. So you're saying that the Quebec, Quebecois, or Quebec part of Canada actually is happier than the rest of Canada, or at least they haven't gone down as much. They haven't gone down as much as the English-speaking. Well, you know what would be interesting now that Instagram has now turned on this whole translations piece, right?

It might be that goes away.

I wonder if that's going to go away.

Interesting.

Yeah, because now if you're— it's available to like everybody. I mean, this is so— and yet like we're still— we're so addicted. We will, even though we know the numbers We feel the dis— like unhappiness and the loneliness. We're at— we're so addicted, we can't stop.

It's so hard, right? Yeah. I mean, because the algorithms are really built to draw us in in so many ways, right? You know, the content is fast, it's really vibrant, there's no friction. We get a sense that we're interacting with people. It's a dopamine hit. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I think also even the political stuff, the algorithms are built to make us feel outrage. Mm-hmm. Outrage is a, an emotion that really sucks us in. We wanna read more. And so, right. Even though these posts and the algorithms are making us feel terrible, we're drawn to it even more.

And also, isn't it kind of a false sense of social community, right? Yeah. So if we're doing this, like we think, okay, we're— these are people, if we're watching some of these, are our friends, or— because it gives you just enough where you feel like, okay, I don't need to socialize, or I don't need to kind of go out there and do all these other really like valuable strategies to be happy because, you know, like I can just do this for 2 seconds even though it doesn't last. Yeah. Like how long does the dopamine hit from social media last in our brain before we need another one? Yeah.

I mean, I like to sort of talk about it as the NutraSweet of like social connection, right? Yeah. Because it's like, it's like, it feels like it's sort of sweet and you're enjoying it, but we don't get any of the like psychological nutrition from it in the same way. Right. It's like empty calories.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

It's really the kind of empty calories of connection and community, right? Yeah. I think another way to think about it is just this idea that we're drawn to it, we really crave it, but we don't actually like it. This is, like, such a— So true. Such an interesting feature of the human brain is that there's what's called a dissociation. So there's a difference between the circuits that are there for wanting, the, like, craving and going after stuff—that's the dopamine system—and the liking, which is, like, whether you actually enjoy stuff. So there can be all these things in life that we really like, but we don't have the craving for. I don't know, maybe this is different with you, but I have this for like hard exercise. Like whenever I have a hard, you know, like a really tough Pilates class, I'm like, I adore it. I feel so good afterwards. But my brain doesn't say like, ooh, I want that. Let's schedule it right away. Not in the same way that I would for like a nice glass of wine or like a cupcake or something like that. Or social media. Right. And social media is just the opposite, right?

We really crave, ooh, I wanna get back on TikTok right now. Soon, even just talking about it, if people are hearing, watching this, they might be like wanting, their fingers are like going to their phone to go to it. It, but you don't actually like it that much. And this is a problem because it means we're often going after stuff, like really wanting and craving these things that we're not even going to like if we do it, if we achieve it. What don't we like?

Do we not like the way we feel afterwards? Because I think that would be the number one reason. Yeah, I mean, I think people feel gross.

It's like kind of have a lack of purpose. You feel like you've wasted your time. Yeah, you know, often when you come off that, like, you know, 90-minute, you know, TikTok binge, you're like, what did I even and see like what just happened. Yeah, you don't remember anything.

Like, that's the thing. I, I, I, I would fall into that category because I like hate myself afterwards. It's like when you doom scroll, I'm like, okay, I just spent 45 minutes literally wasting my time making myself feel bad about myself.

Now I'm more anxious. Now I feel kind of crummy.

Yep, you feel more anxious. You feel like the— it's so hard not to get caught up in the comparison trap. Yeah, it doesn't matter. And I, I mean, listen, I'm— you could be the most confident, self-assured, successful, happy-ish person going on social media for 45 minutes to doom scroll. I don't know anybody who feels, you know, even like okay afterwards. Everyone always feels a dip in their, in their personality and in that way they feel in their emotional state. Yeah, I think that's right.

And, and it's hard, right, for nerdy researchers who really wanna get the good data because everybody's on these platforms. Yeah. Yeah. But when they're able to do really clear studies of like, you know, I assign you to say, go on, read a Facebook feed for, you know, 2 hours versus not, what you find is people feel worse afterwards.

What's worse, Instagram or TikTok?

Haven't really done those studies, but I think so, so a lot of what the studies show is it depends on how you engage, right? Mm-hmm. There are healthier ways to engage on social media. People talk about kind of active engagement. So you're posting things, you're commenting on things, you're reacting, as opposed to what we normally do on social media, which is passive engagement, which is just a Exactly. And I think TikTok, even more than other platforms, really encourages this passive, forever scrolly engagement. Why though?

Is it just they're just better at content?

Like, I mean, I think it's better— it makes more money, right? Because you see more ads.

Well, no, they're better at like creating these algorithms that really kind of pull you in fast. That's right. I mean, that's what I've noticed. I, I now I noticed, and I'm like, I thought a few years ago TikTok was more for the younger generation and Instagram was for my generation, but I feel like everyone now is just gravitating to TikTok because it's, it's faster instant gratification. I mean, how much more fast can it be at this point?

Right. That's right. I worry about like, what would that even look like?

So like, what would it look like? Yeah. Which is scary, right?

Because there is gonna be, you know, 5, the 5 years from now TikTok and it's like, oh my gosh, what's that gonna do to our attention?

100%. And what I can, I'm concerned about is that like, I'm already past the point, like I already had, you know, we, I should say, We were, we had like the generation when we didn't have social media and we didn't have cell phones. We were like, just played outside and we had to like, we let ourselves in the house and we had to figure it out on our own and we had to be bored and we had to kind of either like make friends or do nothing. You know what I mean? And also like depression and all the, all the mental health situations weren't at the place they are now. What I, I guess the, what I think is very concerning, cause I have two kids. A, how it's really affecting their brain. Like if it is the, the anxiety, depression, loneliness, if they're not on these phones, is that like what they're used to now? Mm-hmm. Are they now used to a different level of depression, anxiety, loneliness if they're not engaged? Because the, the addiction is so terrible. Like at least I know the difference, right? Like it, I guess it's like kind of like this, the having the, the ability to like know what it's like before versus after.

They don't know any different. That's right. That's right.

And I think there's a couple things that are problematic with that. One is like, I feel like being on technology all the time, especially for young people, is a hit on so many things of social connection, sleep, social connection in real life, sleep, um, attention, right? It's fragmented. We know a lot about the fact that just this mindset of presence winds up making us feel happier. If you could just be in the present moment, it sounds cheesy, but when you're flicking through a million things in, in some TikTok algorithm, you're not there. But a different thing I worry about is that I feel like young people, because they're on their phones all the time, they never have to deal with the friction of certain emotions that we had when we were kids, right? Boredom. There's nothing to do. I have to just, like, entertain my mind somehow. Or just, like, really simple social connection, right? I think we didn't have the luxury of, you know, say if you're sitting in your high school, like, you know, cafeteria, if I'm— if it's awkward to strike up conversation with somebody, you just pull out this device and now you're entertained and you're fine.

But kids today really have this. And I watch this— the fact that they have these devices that are so entertaining prevent people from engaging in real-life social connection.

You know, funny, I did a TED Talk last year on being bored and like mental resilience for children. And, you know, people just don't wanna be bored anymore, which is to me, I, I, I mean, that's where creativity starts. Opportunity happens. You think that's how you start thinking.

Can I tell you one super funny study about this? Yeah, tell me. You bring people into the lab and you say, you just have to sit here, no phones in this room, but there's an electric shocker. You know, if you need something to do, you can like shock yourself. And people, people, rather than just sit there and be bored and be with their own thoughts, actually like shock themselves. Most of the participants wind up shocking themselves because it's like, we're so uncomfortable being bored that we'd rather be in pain than just like sit there with our own thoughts. That's crazy to me. But you get it, right?

Oh, I totally, by the way, I totally get it. Like think about when you go into an elevator, the second that another person walks in, you're on your phone. You're looking down like, God forbid you make eye contact with someone. Yep. You know what else the kids are doing now? Even when they get together, this is what I, I, I have so many fights with my kid over this, but like they'll get together or he doesn't wanna have his friends at my house, like, mm-hmm. Because I'll be watching them and I will not let them be on that iPad and I will like, you have to go outside and blah, blah, blah. And so the friend doesn't want the, the friends don't wanna come over. Yeah. Right. Yeah. They wanna go to the other person's house where their parents don't care or they're not paying attention or they're not home or whatever. Whatever, because what happens is they, they'll socialize beside each other. They're parallel playing on phones. Yes. So they sit together. They're not actually engaging. That's right. They're, they're just playing video games now beside themselves instead of being in one house and the other house.

Like, I feel like there's so many, like, this is what's happening in our world. Like, it's so, you have to be a guard dog these days. Yes. Yeah.

To fight back. And, and it, they don't see it. You know, my experience with like that, I don't have my own kids, but I spend a lot of time hanging out with my college kids.

Right.

And I remember when I first took on this role as a head of college, on campus. I'm a faculty member who lives with students, and I started eating in the dining hall with students. Right. And I remember the college dining halls being, like, super loud, and everyone's talking. And now you go in, and they have these big, you know, like, headphones on, and they're all sitting there next to each— side by side, like, scrolling on their phones or typing on a screen. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this one spot where you have this opportunity for social connection of people who are your age like you, and everyone's just parallel processing on their own devices.

Yeah, they're just not even engaged. So it's probably, like, quiet as a mouse in there. There. Yeah, it's like a—

it's not a library, but like, it's much closer. That's really—

actually, I'm not surprised, to be honest. Yeah, I'm not surprised.

There's all these funny things that we miss out— like, that the current generation misses out on. I had this other funny experience as a head of college with my Yale students where one of my students was like, "Oxanto's like, there's this— there's this weird number on the wall in my room. Like, what is it?" I'm like, "What is she talking about?" So I go in her dorm room and I'm like, "Oh, that's a phone jack. Like, there's like a phone jack with a number." I'm like, "That, you know, if you still had phones in your room, that would have been your phone number." And Esther was like, "Oh my gosh." And she was like, "Well, did my roommate and I, like, did Lisa and I each have different numbers?" And I was like, "No, no, no, it was the same number. And, you know, you just shared one number for room." And she actually asked the question. She's like, "Well, what would happen if somebody, like, called for my roommate and, like, they didn't know she wasn't there?" And I'd be like, "Oh, you'd have to pick up the phone and be like, you know, 'Lisa's not here.

Like, I'll take a message.'" And I realized, oh my gosh, young people today don't have this experience at home where these, like, subtle, tiny interactions are, like, like, you know, I bet if your son like goes to a friend's house to pick them up, they don't like go to the door and ring the doorbell and talk to the parent. They just like text like, I'm outside, like, come out. Like these little teeny interactions that just made up our lives as kids, they don't have these anymore.

I know that's actually really sad to me. Like that, that's 100% true. So I try to like, you know, I don't, I don't give my kids a phone. I give them a very, my, my, I have a one's gonna be 13 in a couple days, but he doesn't have a regular phone. He has a, he's got a phone where he can, text me or call me. There's no internet on that phone and that's it. There's no social media or all that stuff. And so, you know, it is what it is. So he screams and yells at me all the time about it, but I'm trying to like keep him as alert to the world as possible.

And all the best practices really suggest that that's the right thing to do. There's a fabulous new book out by the journalist Katherine Price and the researcher Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan Haidt's talked about it a lot.

I know Jonathan Haidt, he's been on the show. I, I'm very familiar.

But they have this awesome— they have this— oh, Katherine Price.

I know who she is too. She was gonna come on here too. In fact, I gotta respond to her. I heard she's excellent. She's excellent.

You should have her on. Yeah. They, they partnered up to do this new book for kids called the— Jonathan Haidt's original book was called The Anxious Generation. Mm-hmm. But this book is called The Awesome Generation. It's like a graphic novel for kids that explain all the bad parts about phones. And it's so worth getting if you have a 13-year-old in your life or for anyone watching who has like a young kid in your Life, because it teaches kids at kids' level, like, what these companies are doing. And it's like, they're trying to steal your attention. They're making money off making you feel bad. And a lot of the kids who read this are like, wait, I don't want to, like, have, like, like, I want to be agentive. I want to do this. And so, yeah, I think teaching kids the problems with this and what, what's really at stake can be incredibly powerful. It's super powerful.

I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor Therasage. Their Tri-Light Panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go, and I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle, red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therasage Tri-Light everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therasage.com .com right now and use code Be Bold for 15% off. This code will work sitewide. Again, head over to Therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com, and use code Be Bold for 15% off any of their products. Okay, so I am going to go back and ask these questions because I'm going to start because you are so knowledgeable. I don't want to miss anything. Okay, so I have here at the beginning, but like the differences, like, but let's go back into happiness for a minute overall and the differences between your feelings, your thoughts, your emotions.

Because let's get into— I want to get back into like how people can go from not being happy to being even a little bit more happy. We know now, of course, you said about social, the social connection, super important. Exercise 100%. You said that the other one was time affluence, idea of having some free time. Yeah. Time. By the way, I think that's like a, a massive one. The time affluence. I had that written down here. Mm-hmm. Because I think that's what gives people, like, if you're, if you're making all this money, we have no time to, to do anything. Mm-hmm. Who cares how much money you're making? Right? So you can, the, the $100,000 amount that you were saying, if you make a million dollars, you're still miserable. That's right. If you're doing nothing.

And usually that trade-off is that, right? If you wanna make more money, you have to spend more time to make more Right.

Unless you're just like a trust fund kid or like, you know what I mean? But then also there's a lot of, they're the trust fund kids when they don't have to work for something, they're usually miserable also. Exactly. Yep. So like there's so many elements. Is it because you have to also be productive to be happy as well?

Well, I think we like this idea of pushing ourselves, right? Yeah. It helps to think about the definition of happiness. So social scientists talk about happiness as having these two parts, kind of being happy in your life and being happy with your life. Mm-hmm. So being happy in your life is the sense that, you you, it feels good to be you. It's the kind of the ratio of positive-negative emotions that you have. People often call it the affective part of happiness or the emotional part of happiness. But then there's also being happy with your life, and that's your sense of meaning and purpose, how you think your life is going. People call this the cognitive part of happiness, and you want both of those to be good. You know, let's cut back to our trust fund kid. You know, maybe they have lots of pleasures in their life. You know, they're flying first class and going to the fun parties and whatever, but in terms of meaning and what matters, because it all comes so easy, maybe you don't have those challenges as much. You know, again, we don't want to generalize to all, you know, trust fund kids, whatever.

But the truth is, it's the majority of them.

I mean, yeah, very few. We all know these people who have every hedonic pleasure in their life but feel like their life is kind of empty.

Is it because then you just, like you said, it's because they don't have meaning in their life? So I love when you say that. I've heard you this, be happy with your life versus happy with your life versus happy in your life. And so with your life is just, it's more of the overall picture. Yeah. How you think it's going, right?

Right.

Like I've got a great life and the in your life is like the day-to-day type of things, like the going on the private jet or doing, you know, whatever, going to the parties or doing whatever you're doing.

Or it's probably more just like you're the fact that you have lots of positive emotions. Or have positive contentment and joy and humor and you have a decent ratio of that to the sadness and anxiety and anger and the negative emotions. It kind of feels good in your life to be you.

And so how do we— so what is like— so how do we change these, besides what you said, like the thoughts into actual behavior? Like, we know how the behavior is to start socializing more, to exercise more, all those things. What else is there that we are not doing? Yeah, that is causing cause us such unhappiness.

Yeah. Well, another set of changes, we talked about some of these behavior changes. We can also think about mindset changes that we can make. I won't bring up gratitude, although that is a mindset.

We can talk about it. I just feel like everything, whenever you ask a question now about like, how do we feel better? Or like gratitude. Yeah. Like, ugh. Have a gratitude journal or like be grateful for this. Okay. And also, I just feel like—

but also like a how do you do it? I mean, especially when it feels like the world is falling apart a little. Yeah. Right.

Like number one, how do you do it in an authentic way? Yeah. Like, mm-hmm. I, I, I'm really, I think my, my point is like platitudes just bother me after a while. Right.

Like, and there's, there's so much data on the fact that there are what's called individual differences in this, like different people differ in this. So Sonja Lyubomirsky, who's an expert on happiness. Yeah. Who, who does most of the great studies on gratitude. Gratitude, she's kind of just not that into gratitude herself. She's like, I know it works, but like, uh, it feels a little hokey to me, right?

So there are differences, right? Can you introduce me to her? I like her.

You'd like her. Yeah, I know. She— but, but, but I think this is important, right? Whenever we talk about these practices that work, they tend to be like averages, right? They're just like a study. On average, you— and on average, you go up, but some people get more of a benefit from it than others. Although I'll give you my version of a gratitude practice that maybe you'll, you'll resonate with. Okay. It's instead of gratitude, think about delights. Yes. Just like delightful things in the world. I learned about this. I interviewed for my podcast the poet Ross Gay, who has a book called The Book of Delights, where every day he just tried to find something that was delightful and wrote an essay about it. And they're really stupid things like, you know, purple flowers. Why are there flowers that are purple? It's so weird. He had this one essay that I love called Tomato on a Plane. He had to bring a friend, like, you know, a tomato plant, and he took it on the plane and everyone was commenting like, oh my gosh, you got this plant on the plane. Or even he has like an essay about El Dabar, Garage, the like, you know, crappy '80s band.

Oh my God. Yeah, the Rhythm of the Night or whatever. But it's like those things are just like a thing that puts a quick smile on your face. And if you train your brain to find those— Roske actually recommends sticking your finger in the air and being like, delight, you know, it's a kind of a delight in the world. That all that's doing is it's like counteracting all the negative stuff we see all the time. So this is a practice you might like. It's not like, oh, I'm so grateful, like, because that's kind of weird, but like, oh, that's funny, that's cool. It's just delightful.

It's just nice. Yeah. Like, delightful. I like that word. I just feel like, I don't know if it's also because I've been doing this podcast for a long time, or I'm very curious and I ask a million questions and like, a couple of things, just like, it's always the same. Like, how do we get from A to B? Well, meditation, gratitude, this. But like, like you just said, and this is my point, not everybody's the same. And depending on where you are in your life or how you're feeling like it's not about just writing in a gratitude journal 24 hours a day or like 10 minutes a day. Like people like me, I'll forget to write in the gratitude journal or like the idea, like I can't think right. Like I'm not good in that thing. Or meditation. My meditation is running on a treadmill. Yeah. That's when I have my best, you know, when I think the best and I'm super clear. So it's not like a one size fits all for everybody.

Totally. I like to, I often tell my students, think of it like a toolkit. Yeah. And think of it like a scientist, right? These are, you're, you're kind of doing experiments on yourself to see what works. What works. And what works might be what makes you happier. What works might be what you can actually stick with, right?

Um, that's a big one. Yeah, you can actually stick with is like 99% of the game.

In so many ways, it's actually like a fitness journey or a happiness journey.

By the way, fitness is the microcosm for life. It's totally true. I promise you, the life skills you learn from fitness can help you with anything else in life.

But even as a trainer, it's like, it's one thing if like, oh, if you do this exercise, it's gonna make you stronger. But if you like can't get yourself to do that exercise and you hate it and you're dreading going gym every time you have to do it, like pick a different thing. And I think these happiness skill sets are really similar.

It's 100%. So your friend, I don't know how good— Sonia Lubomirsky. Sonia, what's her last name? Sonia? Lubomirsky. Okay, so Sonia Lubomirsky.

She's a professor at UC Riverside. Great, great. She has a really cool new book about love coming out. Okay. That's really quite fun.

Thank you. Good plug for her. And you're more than— I want you, you're invited to come on this podcast at any given time, Sonia. I was gonna say that, so we're talking the gratitude expert is saying that she's not a big fan of gratitude anymore. Mm-hmm. So that to me is exceptionally compelling. And I wanna know then, so she's probably done all this. What, what else did she, I mean, I can have her and ask her, but did she believe in gratitude for many years and then switch?

Oh, I think she still really believes in gratitude, but she's just kinda like, I don't dig it. You know? Yeah. It's like, like I know the power of squats, but like I hate them, so I'm just gonna like do some other leg exercise, just do something else, you know? Yeah. So, okay.

So the, the gratitude, why is everyone so on this kick then?

Like, why is that becoming like, I mean, the data for most people, the data are pretty clear, right? It's that, you know, in, in as little as 2 weeks, scribbling down 3 to 5 things you're grateful for can significantly boost your satisfaction with life and your wellbeing. Okay. Like for the people that don't—

1 or 2 in a week. That's different.

So, oh, 3 to 5 every day.

So, oh, 3 to 5 every day.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, expressing gratitude to others can be a powerful way to feel more connected to them. So on average, the data work, but again, that's, you know, on average, the like Pilates works for everyone, but some people hate it. And so try something else.

100%. Well, this is what I was gonna say. Maybe this is not cons— I don't know if this is gratitude necessarily, but like what I try to do, and it's not, it's not forced or contrived, but like if I notice something positive or like nice about something, I'll compliment them.

Huge. Yep. Right. Mm-hmm.

And like some people are very very like, very like, they withhold their compliments. I don't care. Like, I don't care if you're a man, woman, you know, whatever. I'll say, oh, I love your smile. I love your shirt, or your hair looks great. Or like, I really like the way you do this. Like, I always find, I notice things that I like about everybody and tell them. And that also changes the way, the dynamic. Totally.

And there's also some great data from folks like Nick Epley and others that compliments actually matter. Really? Like, you, you, you feel like, eh, well, I maybe shouldn't say, 'cause people already know, or like, be, they'll like it, but they're not gonna like it that much. We're constantly underestimating the benefits of them for the people who hear the compliment. Yeah. But also for ourselves and giving the compliment.

I think it's just like, I think so. Like for me, I don't have to be grateful in the sense I, it's a different version.

I'm giving you permission. You can drop gratitude. Try some delights, try some compliments. I love the delights. There are other ways. Yeah.

It's also like, I guess that you're saying also it's not as cheesy as like, I'm so grateful for whatever. Yeah. Like I could just be like, you know, I had a great iced coffee. It was delightful. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I loved it. You know?

Yeah. Delight. You know, like that works too.

Another great practice if you do it with your family, if you have young kids, is set up a delight practice with them where it's like even just have like a text thread that's like delights and you just text each other delights. Like, you know, walking down the street and saw this funny looking dog, like delight. Delight. You know, like, you know.

Right. So it can also just, this whole delight thing can also just be whatever it's kind of like cute and quirky that you like that, that gave you a nice feeling.

And often my delights are like stupid, you know, it's like I had one in LA where I was like just walking down the street and like somebody was going by in the car and I couldn't hear what they were listening to, but they were, you know, jamming in their car and I was like, I was like, that's a delight. That just like gave me a little smile on my face, you know? But, but what is that doing? That's one second that I'm not thinking about what terrible things happening in the world, right? That's one second that I'm not ruminating on, you know, some conversation I had before that's making me feel bad. I'm training my brain to notice notice that there's positive stuff out there. That's very similar to what gratitude does in the mind too.

So tell me other things too. So like in your class, well, there's a couple days in your class. How many years have you been doing this now in the class?

It started the first time I taught that class was 2018, which is interesting. It's like pre-COVID, you know, it's a lot has changed since then.

I, I, well, I wanted to ask you that. That's why I thought it was 2018. How has, have you noticed a change in the students before COVID in 20 when you started versus now? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I mean, an— there's not great data, but anecdotally, yeah, I think they, you know, they spent a whole amount of time not being social, right? Like in their typical social pattern, right? Where they'd be talking to students in class and seeing them, right? Right. Um, up until recently, the most recent class of students that we just graduated at Yale spent all of their high school online for the most part, right? You know, imagine how different you'd be if you just like didn't have a high school in person with other humans. Sure. Right? And so I think they're playing catch-up, right? I think they're less practiced at certain kinds of social skills than other folks because of COVID And I think that's not just true for those, I mean, I think we all have to, you know, recognize that this was a traumatic time for lots of us. Right, right, right. And we got out of practice with lots of things we were used to, and we haven't really given ourselves the grace to notice what that's done.

So you did notice a very different, like a different child. Yeah. Yeah. Pre-COVID versus post-COVID.

And there's lots of other, you know, it's really interesting what's happening at the college level right now with AI tools and so on, right? You don't have to come up with your own ideas in the same way anymore. You don't have to do the work. And I think we, you know, there's lots of conversation about what does that mean for their learning and how do we give them a test if we can't have them write an essay or write a paper? Right. I think we're not thinking what does that do to your happiness? You know, 'cause so many of the things I remember about college that I enjoyed were like, you're putting some effort into that hard paper and I figured it out or I studied and I got, you know. Yeah, the struggle. Yeah. We're getting rid of the friction of learning, the struggle of learning, and that's not great.

How are they allowed? Like, are, are there any kind of ways to figure out if they're using AI? Like, they're at Yale, for God's sakes. I would imagine they would be able to—

there, there are tools, but they're not like foolproof. They have a lot of false positives. So you can run, you know, a paper, for example, through one of these tools that tells you if it's AI or not. But sometimes it says it's AI and it isn't. And so it's— oh wow. My mode is just like, you just have to trust students to want want to learn themselves. So I often present a lot of these data on, well, what does that mean if you're using this tool? What are you losing for yourself?

What are you teaching in the class? Like, if I was a student, what would I like? What would be the class? What would be the syllabus?

Yeah, well, we start by all the misconceptions we have about happiness stuff that we talked about— money for my students, grades, for example, perfect looks, all these things. And we go through all the data. Yeah. And then we talk about, well, why do we get it wrong? And we talk about things like hedonic adaptation. One reason where, you know, money doesn't make us as happy or perfect looks don't make us as happy is we just get used to it.

Talk about looks. I think that's a really important one for everybody, older, younger. Yeah. People as they get older feel like they're losing their looks, whatever.

Yeah. Well, as we, the mind naturally makes these social comparisons, right? Or comparisons in general. And what are the comparisons we make with our looks? One is to how good everybody else looks. Mm-hmm. And especially in the age of TikTok and Instagram, you can constantly find somebody who's fitter than you, prettier than you, better hair than you, better eyelashes, whatever it is.

All the things. Yep.

All the time. Time. Another comparison we make is we compare against ourselves. And at least with the current beauty standards being the way they are, maybe particularly for women, but I think for men as well, like, it's like over time you're moving away from what is typically the ideal if you're, you know, in middle age, like, you know, you and I are. And so that means you're constantly feeling like everybody else is better than you, and even like old you was better than you. What's funny about the comparisons we make is we tend not to pick comparisons that make us feel great, right? Our mind naturally goes to the person that makes us feel crappy. And that's not helped by the fact that these algorithms and these filters and all these things— like, people are curating the best images of themselves.

They're not even real. Yeah, you're looking at people with Facetunes and, um, like, just filters or whatever. And they're— because of it though, people like the— plus, I don't know if you've noticed— well, you're probably not on social media like I am, but the, uh, the, the amount of jargon around plastic surgery, like with Kris Jenner getting her— with her facelift, every third reel or third clip is about like how to like change your face. And getting a facelift has become synonymous with like getting a smoothie down the street. Like, it's not any different. Like, a facelift is a massive surgery. They're like moving your face.

Yeah. And, and I see this even not— I mean, that's like, you know, people in middle age and these kinds of things. I often worry about it even in our tweens, right? You know, there's so much more emphasis on, you know, skincare and getting retinol and all these chemicals that didn't necessarily even have—

by the way, they're getting facelifts in, in their 20s. Maybe that's the LA thing. No, no, no. Oh, you're not surprised. I mean, yeah, I think it's very prevalent in socioeconomically— I mean, of course, if you can't afford it. Yeah. But if people are like— or actually, maybe I shouldn't even say that. That's not true because I know a lot of people who I've— because a lot of young girls follow me and they're not necessarily— they're not super rich. They're like, they're They're working people, middle class, I would say. They're flying to Turkey and all these other pla— Colombia to get their eyebrows done. They're getting their, their face to be like a ponytail snatched. They're getting their face. And these are girls who are like 27, 28 years old. What I wanted to ask you, cuz I think that's unbelievable to me. Mm-hmm. Do you, have you done any sci— any research to show how people's happiness changes after they change their face and the looks thing? Because I bet you it's exactly the same as a lottery ticket winner. And the money and everything else, you're not any happier. Just because you're hotter doesn't mean you're happier.

Yeah. You find something to feel like you're not hot about. Exactly.

You'll find more shit to complain about.

The most data on this one is in cases of weight loss. And what you find is that it doesn't really improve your happiness in the same way you think. Right.

I think, I think what it does maybe is it gives you like, I think what I, what I noticed, I had a weight loss show many, many, many years ago and, uh, it was like a— it was basically people who are, uh, going to be married, like engaged, and whoever like wins, they win like their dream wedding. Okay, I was a trainer on the show. Anyway, what I noticed actually was when they lost the weight, what I think— what I really kind of— what I really noticed was that they were proud of the work that they did. And so that self-efficacy that I did it gave them the confidence to then change pieces of their lives, like the ripple effect of like, oh, I— that I, I can't get the better job I want, I can't get the guy I And half of them, I think, broke up with the, you know, their whoever they were engaged to. But my point is, and that in all in my life with all this stuff, is the fact that you are doing a hard thing over and over again, that gives you that self-esteem and self-confidence.

But it's not that the scale is saying something different. It's not the weight.

It's not the actual number on the scale. It's not like, oh, now I'm a size 2, so I'm happy. Yeah. That's why people who take Ozempic and all these weight loss things, they're not the, I guess you would say, like the heat —treadmill, yeah, treadmill—doesn't apply because they're not building the habits that they can prove to themselves that, you know what, I can do hard things. I did this. I made this happen. I'm in charge. I consistently made this happen. So I don't, I actually agree. Like, I don't think when you can just like lose weight, that doesn't make you any happier or change your face.

It's just like, by and large, all these changes to our circumstances, and I put, you know, changing your looks in one of these things, they just don't impact our happiness as much as we think or for as long as we think. So it's not to say that if you, you know, achieve your fitness goals or something, you're not gonna feel good. Well, it's like, it's not gonna feel as good as in your mind you're predicting, and it's not gonna stave off, right? You know, instantly, you know, you might be, you know, a weight that you care about or a fitness level you care about, but like, there's still other problems. The world's still falling apart. Like, you know, you're still gonna have bad days, et cetera. And so it doesn't, it doesn't have, I think that where we get it wrong is we assume if I when I get this thing, then I will be happy ever after, right? We researchers call this arrival fallacy. If this, then happy forever. And like, that's just not how happiness works. It's taking constant work to kind of keep going.

Absolutely. Okay, go back to the class. So then you, that's what you guys go over.

So we go through, you know, some of why we get it wrong, and then we talk about the things in that really do make us happy. So we talked about some of these behaviors, maybe some of these mindsets. One that we go over a lot with my Yale students that we haven't talked about yet is this the idea of thinking with a little bit of self-compassion, which is something that I think we get wrong, especially in the modern, like, influencer age. We think we have to push ourselves and kill ourselves, and we sometimes are like really mean drill instructors inside our heads, and we think that that works to motivate us. But what the science shows is it doesn't work in the way we think. It makes us procrastinate, causes us to have lots of resistance. We're actually better off if we can engage in what researchers call self-compassion, which is kind of treating yourself like a friend or treating yourself like a good coach would treat you rather than like a mean drill instructor. Really? And so it has these different parts. It has a part of kind of noticing, like, this is really hard right now, I'm struggling right now, it's tricky.

It's the kind of mindfulness noticing part. Then it comes with a practice of what's called common humanity often, but it's basically like, and that's normal. Everyone struggles, everyone has a hard time, everyone's screwing up in 2026. No one feels perfect, right? Right. And then the final step is what's called self-kindness, where you just kind of are nice to yourself. I think the reason we get this wrong is we assume that self-compassion is kind of like self-indulgence. Indulgence. Yeah, if we're nice to ourselves, like, we'll never get off the couch. But if you think about, like, how you treat a good friend who is actively screwing up, I hope you wouldn't scream at them like a drill instructor. Like, you'd be like, yeah, but I hope you wouldn't let them off the hook either. I hope you'd, like, get curious. Like, I want to fix this. Let's do the hard thing. Let's work through this. You'd, like, get problem-solvey and coachy. That's the self-talk that you want to bring in your head for everything, whether that's trying to get happy your— achieve your fitness goals, whatever hustle you wanna engage in, if you can engage in that hustle in a more self-compassionate way, the studies show that you'll achieve your goals better.

Then what is toxic positivity?

Hmm, that's a big one. Yeah, I think this is a misconception about that piece of happiness that's about being happy in your life. We think it's only being happy in your life. If you have any moments of feeling sad or anxious or angry or whatever it is, then something's wrong. Right. And this is bad because our— this is a messed up notion because I think one thing we know about negative emotions, that they're important signals, right? Think about why we have emotions like anger or sadness from, like, an evolutionary perspective. They're like the dashboard light on our car. It's like when your engine light comes on, like, that's telling you something important. It's like, oh, right, something's up. I already— your tire light comes on, like, I gotta put air in it. Sadness is your, like, psychological engine light coming on and saying, like, something's wrong, something's missing. Loneliness is your psychological engine telling you, like, I need to get some social connection. A big one for me and my students, overwhelm is your psychological engine. Be like, there's too much on my plate right now. I gotta take something off my plate. These are alert signals that our bodies and our minds are telling us that if we just like, no, no toxic positivity, pretend that's not happening, we're like losing out on this really important signal of what we might need and what we might need to do differently.

Well, I think there's all this chitchat around like, you know, uh, your piece and there's like these, again, it's the button. It's these these like, these like, uh, tag words or these taglines, healing, peace, self-care.

This is another one that the studies show is, you know, really, if you look at happy people, the studies show that happy people are other-oriented. They're more focused on other people's happiness than their happiness. That's right. Right. And so, yeah, I also think the self-care is problematic because when you look at what's being advertised with the self-care, it's often like a bubble bath or like a spa product. And often true self-care is asking like it's asking for help. It's like doing the hard thing of like taking a really good thing in your life off your plate because you don't have the bandwidth for it. Like, it's often harder than like pouring a bubble bath.

I also think it's very self-indulgent. I think we're living in a very self-indulgent society culture now where everything is about me healing and feeling safe and safe spaces and triggers and you're not giving me peace and all these other things that are like really kitschy.

The irony is that like, it's probably hurting our happiness.

And the people who are talking like this are the most miserable people I've ever seen in my life. Like, they're so miserable. They're the toxic ones. Yeah, they're the ones who are triggering me because I can't— like, it's, it's that, that feeling of constantly focusing on yourself, yourself, yourself. So like, that's— I think that's actually a great thing to— I have these— having kids, right? It's a great thing because then you can't, you know, you can't focus on yourself that much. Hopefully you don't because you have other people you have to, like, concern yourself with.

Yeah, it's really not just about you.

It's not just about you. Yeah. And so again, this is another reason why, like, I think they're the most— that's kind of creating a lot of, like, toxicity or miserable people is because they're focusing way too much on how they feel constantly. And I mean, if we could just take that part away. But how do you— like, if someone doesn't want to do these things, like, you can tell, you can scream until you're blue in in the face, you know, they're not gonna— they don't want to listen. They're not going to do it, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Like, well, I find it helps just like for people to know the facts about the happiness, right? Like, if you see like, oh, if you do X, Y, and Z, you'll be happier. I think sometimes people are like, oh, well, I definitely want to be happier, so let me do X, Y, and Z. So that's what— one of the reasons I love sharing the science with my students and beyond. It's like, yeah, now you know what— now I've given you— you saw the graph, like, now you know what to do. Like, right. Right? I think another thing is that we, you know, we— it's hard to do the uncomfortable things. Yeah. Like, it's hard to sit and allow your negative emotions. It's hard to, like, focus on other people and get out of your self-brain. And it winds up being better for happiness, but it takes some work, and sometimes it's hard to put in the work.

Do you think high achievers in general are more miserable than just regular people who are just living their life?

Perfectionism is not great for our happiness. Right. And there's lots of evidence that perfectionism has been going up over time. And these— one researcher, Curran, and his colleagues found these old data sets from like the '80s of people self-reporting their perfectionist beliefs and ones that went up till today. And they find that you just see this sharp increase in perfectionism from the 1980s until now. And it's a particular kind of perfectionism because we can think about perfectionism like I have these like hard standards for myself. Myself, but then there's another one of like, other people are watching me and they have high standards that I have to live up to. And that's the one that's been going off. It's like seeing yourself through other people's eyes, that's where we feel like we need to be perfect. And I feel like you can't help but see that statistic and not think like, well, that's gotta be due to social media.

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If that high performance is coming in with lots of perfectionism, lots of self-criticism, you could only perform highly because you have this crazy drill instructor in your head, right? You're setting your expectations way too high for what's actually doable, then that's gonna lead to some unhappiness. It— you can push yourself if you push yourself with a little bit of compassion and grace. And grace. Yeah. Just realistic standards about what's possible, right?

A lot— most often than not, than not, that those two don't go hand in hand. Oh, for sure.

Which is ironic because we'd achieve more if we gave ourselves some grace. I actually, uh, was working with a group of former Navy SEALs who are like some of the most Type A, like hardcore people. And I was talking about this work in self-compassion, but I was bringing up the study showing that people who engage in more self-compassion can get through trauma better. In fact, Kristin Neff has these studies where she shows that combat veterans who engage in more self-compassion have lower rates of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And so the idea is like, if you really want to push yourself through some hard stuff, you need to do that in a way that's like being nice to yourself. And they kind of resonated with it, but they were like, well, the marketing's all wrong. Like, I wish it wasn't called self-compassion. I wish it was called like hustle and performance. Like, all like, it should be called because that's— Habits and Hustle. Yeah, yeah, we should brand it based on the podcasting or something. But yeah, but I think, I think the, the problem isn't the, the pushing yourself. The problem isn't wanting to hustle part.

The problem is the how you do it. Do it part.

But unfortunately, I feel like very rarely, yes, do I know— and in my world, uh, that I've— in my experiences, the two go hand in hand very— I mean, yeah, I think that maybe you get there after a lot of bad experiences or being very unhappy.

That's what I think. It's like you hit this level of burnout and it's not working anymore. 100%. Try new strategies. You try new strategies. Wouldn't it be nice to like, yeah, First and not hit their burnout.

It would be fantastic. Or like, you know, another misconception is work-life balance, right? Do you believe that there's such a thing of work-life balance? No.

And in fact, I hate that term. I, I really trying to push a different term, which is work-life harmony. Mm-hmm. Um, because everything we know, it's like delight. It's like delight. Yeah. Work-life harmony. The reason for work-life harmony is that there's tons of studies showing that if you feel happier, if you have more of a positive mood, you perform better. one of my favorite examples of this comes from medical doctors. You bring medical doctors into the lab and give them a really tough problem, like, like those TV show medical shows where it's, like, hard. But half the doctors are put in a good mood first. They just, like, watch silly cat videos so they're laughing. What do you find? The doctors who are in the good mood come up with the most innovative solution. Like, and that's just one example, but, like, study after study is like, if you're feeling good mentally, you perform better. Better. And work-life balance gets that wrong. It's like, well, if I want work to go up, you know, life, you know, my social connection, my sleep, all the stuff I care about has to go down. And, and it's just wrong.

Like, it scientifically doesn't work that way. So work-life harmony is what it really— like, if I invest in my positive mood, if I invest in my social connection, the work is going to go up too, because I'm going to think more innovatively and be more creative, and then I'm going to have more juice to, like, get You know?

Yeah, I know what you're saying. I'm just thinking realistically, right? Because then you have like life, right? We have so much to do. And, you know, the more successful you become, the busier. Yeah, more. And like you said, like, that does not— that does not equal happiness by any stretch. So where is the happy medium, right? Because if you want to be— if you are a driven, ambitious person that wants to be successful, you have to do the things to be successful. And the more— it's always more, right? So then you get here. Well, if you want to get like they gotta do this and this. You gotta go to that extra speaking gig. You gotta do this thing. It's very overwhelming.

Yeah. Right? And I think step one is the step of noticing where you are. Right. And noticing what your bandwidth is. This is what in the self-compassion literature is called mindfulness. It's not what we normally think of mindfulness, like meditation. It's just like noticing, like, I'm frantic right now. Like, I don't feel good right now. I'm snappy at my spouse right now. Like, I'm not in a great place. Place. That's the mindfulness that matters, because then you can be like, oh, well, the balance is off. Like, somehow the balance is off. That this is looking at— this is like responding to the alert light in your car where it's like overwhelm is flashing. Yes. And then that means you really gotta take something off your plate. And, and that's hard, right? It's hard if you're successful, if you're like, I'm gonna do one last speaking gig, or I'm gonna do less of my successful podcast because I need more time. But that's the healthy thing to do, right?

Because you— it's that time affluence.

Exactly. Yeah. And just like the burnout out part, right? Burnout is usually due to overworkload, right? Yeah. And so if we do that to ourselves, and again, this is, as we keep using these fitness analogies, this is something between—

it's a microcosm. Fitness is a microcosm for life.

Like in fitness, you have active rest. Yeah. Right? You have, if you're training for a marathon, you train at 80%, not 110%. 80% trainer. No, I have my, my trainer will be very proud of me for bringing these things up. But no, but we, we know that like bodies need rest, that bodies can't be at 110% all the time. Right. We forget that our working selves can't do the same thing either. So sometimes to get forward, you need to scale back.

So if you were gonna— if you were gonna do a happiness curriculum for adults versus the college people that you deal with, obviously, what would you put on there that's different? Yeah. And then what we're doing wrong?

Yeah, I think it's pretty similar. You know, right now online, we have the original version of the class that I taught on YouTube, and then we made a teen version for middle school and high school. Students, and then we made a version for parents. And the dirty secret is like, it's basically the same class. I use slightly different examples, but the things that I'm teaching are all the same. I think, for example, social connection— and there's data to back this up— matters if you're 13 and if you're 93, right? Engaging in self-compassion, treating yourself like a friend, giving yourself some grace— that helps if you're in high school or if you're a Yale student or if you're, you know, in midlife, right? Right. The things that we need are pretty consistent.

So really there's no difference between what a parent, a college student, an adult should be doing to be happy. There's not like an added thing that— because everything you just said, it applies to everybody. Yeah. It's the same across the board.

But when I use the example of going to prom and the midlife people are like, oh, this is not for me. It's like, no, no, it was for you. It's just different example. Exactly.

But no, so you're just saying you basically swap out an analogy or an example.

And there's less memes for the adults. Right. But other than that.

I mean, but the class is the most popular class of all time. Why do you think that is?

I think it's because our young people are struggling so much, right? I mean, right now nationally, more than 40% of college students report being too depressed to function most days. Over 60% report being overwhelmingly anxious. More than 1 in 10 has seriously considered suicide in the last 6 months. Like, this is a national phenomenon of students struggling. And I think students hate that. And I think they don't want woo, right? I think they want this evidence-based approach to tell me, hey, what does the science say I can do better? Feel better. That's insane.

Like, that to me is so insane that those numbers are like that.

They're so— and they, and they're rising, right? The depression statistic doubled in just the last 10 years. So, um, yeah, what— we're really in crisis. But, and that's frustrating because, like, oh my gosh, do we have tools? If we could just share these tools for how people could do better, I think everyone would benefit.

So if someone only has 10 minutes a day to work their happiness muscle, what would you tell to do?

I think one of the things I often suggest is you've heard lots of strategies, you know, today in our conversation from like social connection to time affluence to self-compassion. Some of those you like patted yourself on the back. Why are you like, oh yes, I exercise. Oh yes, I engage. And some you like felt a little called out. I would do the ones that you felt a little called out on, right? It's like, you know, again, the fitness analogy. If you're only doing leg day and you haven't worked on your upper body at all, you're gonna get more bang for your buck if you squeeze in a little bit more upper body. If you have that 5 minutes extra work work out. And I think the same is true for the happiness stuff. You'll, you'll, if you're, there's some strategy that you're not engaging in, doing that will help. But if you're like, I'm bad at all these things, I would say in your 5 minutes, like, text a friend and set up a time to like meet up in real life. Or, you know, call someone, literally use the phone for what it was meant to be as a phone where you can call someone.

Oh, I can call people all the time, but I don't answer the phone.

And then I would say maybe just really sort of think about and notice what your self-talk is doing. And if it's super self-critical, if it's always ruminating about the past, maybe engage in some mindset shifts to feel happier.

Do you think therapy is making people happier or more depressed?

Therapy, I think, can be really useful, and I think it's worth distinguishing between, like, what's going on, right? Again, use the physical analogy. If you go into your doctor's office and you're like, I have some high blood pressure, a doctor might be like, well, you know, hit the gym and maybe, you know, cut out the salt or whatever. If you go into your doctor's office and you're like, "Doctor, I'm having acute cardiac arrest right now," they're not gonna be like, "Well, go to the gym next, a little bit more." They'll be like, "Oh no," and bring the thingies and, like, clear— you know, it's a different treatment, right? Right. And I think therapy is particularly helpful for when you're in an acute mental health situation. You know, if you're experiencing panic attacks, if you're clinically depressed, right? Like, you need some, like, advanced help. You know, all the things I mentioned are really good preventative mental health therapy, but sometimes you need to kind of jump in. But yeah, I think therapy, you know, there's lots of evidence suggesting that therapy is really useful. Just as we were saying, different kinds of therapy resonate with people in different ways.

Like, some people are more cognitive behavioral therapy, where you really want to be changing your thought patterns. Some people, um, you know, really, you know, need antidepressant medication to get through it. And that's why I think talking with a qualified professional who can help you figure these things out can be so useful.

I think what I'm talking about is that there's been a lot of research that I've read that the people who are going to therapy regularly for years on end— I'm not talking for an acute situation that happened, but more chronic. Again, the self-indulgent part of talking about your problems, ruminating about what's wrong— I've seen statistics that show people that has actually contributed to people's mental health decline. Decline and their depression and their anxiety.

Yeah. I mean, I think one thing you need to do is you need to make sure that you're really moving forward and that you're really making changes, right? And sometimes that talk therapy can be that, right? You get this insight of like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I was speaking to myself like that. Or, oh my gosh, I get this insight. But often these insights come with work about what you need to do to change things. Right. And if you're not doing that, then it's not really helping.

So there should be some kind of like implementation That's right. Right. So like, it's not about just talking about it. It's about what are you going to do to do something different?

The talking gets you the insight, but then the question is like—

the talking gets you the insight for sure. Yeah. But then, then what? Because if you just sit there and ruminate and ruminate. So like, to me, like, I just had someone on here recently. We were talking about this and some of the research was staggering about how people's mental health has really declined because there's been so much more chat matter about going to see a therapist. My therapist said this, my therapist done that, my therapist— and people go see these therapists for like 10, 20 years at a time. And it's— that could be very— I think it's shown to be quite detrimental. Yeah.

I mean, I think, you know, I often worry about the therapy speak that I see less in like true clinical practice and more like online because we hear a lot of like, oh my gosh, you know, he's insecurely attached. Like, you know, this is my trauma. And like, we hear a lot of these terms online, um, like dime store—

to see, was that Sink that you're getting your information from? The dime store, whatever that is. I agree with you. I think there are some great people out there who can really move the needle in real time, but you should be cognizant of where you're getting your information from and who you're talking to.

So much— I mean, this is one of the reasons we've tried to put out all this evidence-based stuff, is there's so much bad stuff online.

You know what I found to be very trendy study, and I've actually— it's unbelievable— people are using ChatGPT as their therapist now and like are like actually firing their therapists and just talking into ChatGPT, and they're getting like actually more profound results than with the— with their therapist.

So the data— I mean, these are the things where like the research is coming out, you know, because obviously ChatGPT is so new. And so my read on the research is like it has some benefits and can be effective, right? If you're having a panic attack at 3 in the morning, it's hard to call your therapist, but ChatGPT's there. So it's kind of available all the time. Interestingly, it also seems to work better sometimes because people don't tell their therapist the same things they tell their ChatGPT. So there's some things you're like holding back from your therapist, whereas online with the LLM, you just kind of unload. And so, you know, to really process things, you gotta be honest. And if you're not being honest with a human therapist, but you're being honest for the LLM, then you're gonna see a difference. So yeah, so I think the jury is still out. And the, the problem is that these tools don't necessarily always know the right thing to say. And there have been some, oh yeah, awful cases of giving really bad information. But, but yeah, I think that, I think these things are gonna wind up being used.

The same thing with, um, for example, uh, like Chatbot Friends. Yes. Right. Where people are using these tools to like fill in when they're feeling lonely. And I think the short-term benefit of that might be high, but the long-term consequences might be more negative.

I saw movies about this many years ago about these like girl, you know, like these artificial, like these girlfriends.

It was an Ex Machina. Do you remember that?

That was what I was thinking about. And now it's actually real. It is unbelievable that like life is now imitating art so quickly.

And I think these changes happen fast and we need to understand the benefits and the drawbacks of them.

Well, there are some one of these AI things, not even ChatGPT, um, that I think was Claude AI. Okay. I think, and, and I remember asking Claude AI a question and I asked it like a few times, I think it's the same question. And it's like, Jennifer, you've already asked me this question many times. Do you really want me to tell you the same? Do you want me to repeat myself? It's not gonna be helpful or useful. Why don't you? And like, I was getting yelled at by Like, by the AI was basically telling me to go fuck off. Basically, it's like unbelievable. I'm like, and I'm like, well, what do you mean? Like, I'm like, I just wanted to ask. And they're like, you've asked me in every direction possible. There's no other answer I'm gonna give you. And I'm like, is that a normal thing? The reason why I'm bringing it up is that like, I think that there's certain AIs, like I think maybe ChatGPT and I, I'm not an expert by any stretch, but what I was gonna say is that their program to like, to basically like to just like, like just kind of like acquiesce, just kind of like tell you whatever you wanna hear, basically placate you as best as possible.

And for certain mental health things, for example, for something like schizophrenia where you have these mistaken beliefs, it can be really dangerous. It is.

And like, they're like basically programmed to say how wonderful and great you are. But there are other ones out there, I guess, like Claude, I don't know if that's just my experience, but that was basically like browbeating me for asking the same question 3 times.

Well, this is the interesting thing is we're finding out these data of what these tools are good at, what they're bad at, at the same time as the companies are changing them really quickly. Yeah. You know, so if we hear data about like, oh, you know, ChatGPT is too nice to you, then, you know, the next version won't be anymore. Perhaps.

I was gonna say, now I'm gonna go on there. They're like, what do you want again? Yeah. You know, but I just find it very interesting. And it's like a time, it's a time saver. It's a money. I, I just think that like, it's funny how things are kind of evolving like that. Yeah. And I wanted to ask you if you had any science or any kind of data on like what, how, like how people's level of happiness happiness have either declined or inclined by using these tools.

On the, on the like friendship one, my read is that the data suggests that short-term it's great, but long-term it's kind of making things worse. Yeah. You know, because you really do need in real life community and in real life connection. Absolutely. On the therapy, I think there are benefits and drawbacks too. But I mean, these tools are getting faster and more interesting, so I think the jury's still out.

Oh, it's crazy. Okay, so anything else that I didn't ask you about that Should not really.

You, we covered a lot of ground. I wasn't expecting this was fun. Yeah. Real. Thank you.

I'm glad that you had a good time. Um, I feel like with the, I, I feel there's a couple thing I put here is what is one habit that looks productive or impressive, um, on the outside but quietly erodes happiness over time?

I think hustle culture, like, you know, perfectionism. I think, you know, people, perfectionism is a funny one because, um, we're often a little bit proud of it, you know, in job interviews. That's a cliché of like, what's your worst, worst habit, you're like, I'm a perfectionist. Yeah. But you really were like, I'm so proud of, and I think that we—

I work too much. I work too much.

We hold these, but I think in practice they're really eroding my happiness. But I thought you were gonna go a different way. I thought you were gonna ask what's the thing that like people believe is positive but is bad. That was my next question.

So let me, let me ask that. What is one thing that people think is positive?

Hmm. So this one's gonna be controversial. We're gonna get like hate mail sent to you about this one. Good, I love it.

Bring it on, people.

The bad thing, the thing that people think is good but isn't I knew I liked you from hello.

So here's the thing.

So it's nuanced. It's nuanced, right? Positive thinking isn't bad, right? Like, believing that you can do something is great, but the way people talk about what you're supposed to do for manifesting has a problem. So this is the usual manifesting, like, say I want to get fit, right? Like, I want to, like, you know, have better legs. I'm gonna do leg day at the gym. And what happens is you start to fantasize about the positive outcomes of it. Like, oh my God, if I hit the gym and did leg day every day, like, I'd have stronger legs and my legs would look great and I'd be so proud of myself. You get all these rewarding thoughts in your head about how awesome it will be. So our brains are like kind of stupid when they start elaborately fantasizing about the reward we're gonna get. There's some part of us that thinks we already got that reward and so we don't have to put in any more work to go after it. So Gabrielle Öttingen has these studies where she finds that the women who have most positive fantasies about losing weight are the ones who are less likely to put in the work to lose this way.

And the college students who have the most positive fantasies about good grades, like, oh my gosh, like, I'm gonna— my mom's gonna be so proud, I'm gonna get into this program— they're the ones who put the less work into studying.

See, what I find so interesting, like, I, I, I know you don't know me from a hole in the wall, but I'm a person that always, like, just, just kind of rails on this whole manifestation thing because I'm an action-oriented person. And just, like, the idea of just thinking something never really kind of, it didn't like, it didn't like feel good for me. But, but what I was gonna say is you're, so you're saying basically the same thing, but what if you manifest, like think about it and then like, what's that, what's the alternative? Like how do you do it?

Yeah. So, so a healthier way to do this, and this is from Gabrielle O'Dingin's work, she actually has this acronym she uses, WOOP, W-O-O-P, which is like healthy manifesting. And that stands for wish, outcome, um, obstacle plan. So normally the manifesting is just the wish outcome, like, oh my God, I want to lose weight, oh, it'd be so great, I'd fit in my stuff better, whatever, and we stop. But you got to do the next steps. Obstacle plan. What are the obstacles to losing weight? Oh, I travel all the time and I don't really have a healthy eating plan when I'm traveling. Oh, like, I don't have a gym membership, right? Like, I, I like, really like fattening food. Like, these are the obstacles, and I'm using my brain to go through and notice all of these. And then you get to the last step, plan, where you say, okay, I'm traveling a lot, how am I gonna— oh, I should pack healthy food. So when I, you know, travel to LA, you know, for this talk, I'm gonna pack some healthy food. Or like, I need a plan for like, I gotta go to the gym every day, right?

Right. It's like an action plan. Exactly.

So what you're using your imagination to do is to plan out what you would do, like, when the time— like, if the obstacle comes up, how are you going to get through it.

Because you feel like in your head, if you're thinking, oh, when I'm, when I have a six-pack or whatever, or when I get an A+ on this test, the idea of you thinking about it actually is just as good as what the reality is.

Yeah, exactly. There, there are all these funny studies on the effects of mental practice of like the consequence of imagining something vividly. One of my favorite studies is you have somebody either vividly imagine putting quarters like into, you know, maybe a phone booth over and over. So one quarter at a time, or imagine eating one M&M over and over slowly over time. And then you just have subjects do that, and then they come out, and in the waiting room, there's just a big bowl of M&Ms, and you ask who eats them. And what you find is the person who imagined eating all these M&Ms, the last thing they want to do is eat more M&Ms. Right. Oh, wow. Because even though it was just in your head, you kind of, like, have this leftover reward. Like, I already ate all the M&Ms, right? And so the same thing happens with, like, fitness. Like, I already got the six-pack. Why do I have to go to the gym? Like, I already got the perfect grade, and my mom's proud of me. Like, why do I have to study. So what you need to do is to, you know, have a little bit of that, but shut it off and say, okay, let me use my imagination for something good, which is to get to the action part.

Like, that's so interesting. So are you not supposed to fantasize then? You can. It's like a fantasy, right? Like, then it just becomes—

but that's like, follow it up with, okay, that would be great, I'm motivated to do that, why am I not doing that right now?

Yeah, what can I do to get to that point? Exactly.

And this is what what like effective people do. I had Michael Phelps's coach on my podcast and he talked about that one of the things Michael Phelps did a lot was visualization. Yeah. But because he was so good at it, he would often visualize, well, what would if something bad happened? So he'd think like, what if I dove into the pool and my goggles fell off? Or what if I like hit my foot, right? That's what this WOOP strategy is. Wish, outcome, but then obstacle. Oh, my goggles fell off. Or like, oh, I don't have a gym membership. Oh, oh, studying's gonna be hard 'cause I wanna go to this party this week. Weekend, right? And then you come up with an action plan and you imagine it in your head like, oh, what I'm gonna do if my goggles fall off. This was what actually happened to Michael Phelps in Beijing.

He trained like that.

He was like, oh, well, what I would do is like, if I didn't, couldn't see, then I'd just count my strokes. There's always 4 strokes to the end or whatever it is. And in fact, that actually happened to him in a gold medal race, one of the races he won the gold medal in where he was like, goggles fell off and he was like, oh, I know what to do, right? So when you imagine the plan to overcome the obstacles, it gets easier. Here. So that's the secret weapon in manifesting. It's not the like, ooh, good things have come to me. It's like, what are the things preventing the good things from naturally coming to me? Oh, I might need a plan of action to get through that.

I love that. And I could not agree with you more. Again, how many people have sat here talking about manifestation? And I either, well, I don't really bite my tongue. I usually say something because I, I'm not someone who can just sit there and not say a word, but I will say that I'm so happy to hear that someone of your stature—

nuance. It's not that the, it's not that the fantasy is bad, it's just what you follow it. Well, do you stop there and you're like, I'm done, or do you do the planning part?

Right. But everything in life is nuance. Nothing is just like straight, straightforward. Like everything has like different variables and nuance, right? Like, yeah, of course I can, I can wish a million things. I can wish that I can get like a, you know, whatever. I can go on a private plane to I would love to go to Bermuda right now for a week, but is it gonna happen? No, unless I do this and this and this to make it happen. Exactly. But I'm so happy you said that because there's such a thing.

You will get some hate mail.

I'm sorry. I know. Listen, that's okay. I mean, whatever. I'm fine with it. I'm, I, I've got thick skin, so it's okay. It's so funny.

Even with my Yale students, you have a whole lecture on money doesn't make you happy and that hurts them. But when I was like, manifesting doesn't work, they were just like, no, really?

Yeah. I don't know what it is with people. Like, this is why I'm saying people get so easily offended. Like, what did they make up the word manifestation? What do they care? And like, this is just, we're not allowed to have discourse. We're not allowed to have different opinions. Like the fact that that's even a situation that I can even get hate mail because I don't believe in the, just the, the word manifestation on its own is so ridiculous to me. And this is also a cause of why people are unhappy. People like to be, I think there are people who actually like to be unhappy or like to be miserable, like to be confrontational. They get off on it.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the moral outrage is rewarding, right? And I think especially in online spaces, we see this a lot.

Exactly. It's attention. Mm-hmm. Right? Exactly. Well, I love that you came on this podcast.

Yay. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

I'm so happy. Can you come back again? Yeah. Yeah. I love this. I mean, I don't know what we can cover next time, but we can do the same thing again. I'm fine with that. Um, all right. So, uh, Dr. Kay, so where do people find you?

Uh, you should check me out at drlorisantos.com, which has links to everything else, and you can get free copies copies of all the courses I teach on YouTube at Dr. Laurie Santos.

And very worthwhile, very worthwhile. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for having me. Bye!