Have you ever considered that the secret to lasting happiness might be hiding in plain sight, awaiting your discovery? That's exactly what Denise Russo and Samantha Powell help you uncover in our latest podcast episode. We bid farewell to our enlightening series on Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky's "The How of Happiness," where we've unraveled the intricacies of joy and how to maintain it. By exploring the happiness pie chart, you'll learn about the 40% of happiness within your control and how to weave the five "hows" into the fabric of your identity. We also delve into the potential life-altering impact of happiness education in schools, offering a profound reflection on how these teachings could sculpt a society brimming with well-being and purpose.
Join Denise and Sam on a venture into the realm of positive activities where everyday life blossoms with contentment. Imagine forging a path where routine moments transform into building blocks for flourishing happiness, inspired by the principles of Ikigai and positive psychology. We discuss the creation of 'upward spirals' of well-being through positive emotions, and the art of habit stacking as a method to secure a positive mindset, tipping our hat to the insights from 'Atomic Habits.' The conversation takes an intriguing turn as we discuss the smartest ways to utilize financial windfalls for boosting happiness, guiding you towards investing in experiences that offer lasting delight. Embrace this conversation, as we equip you with the insights and habits that promise the bliss of sustained happiness.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Have you ever considered that the secret to lasting happiness might be hiding in plain sight, awaiting your discovery? That's exactly what Denise Russo and Samantha Powell help you uncover in our latest podcast episode. We bid farewell to our enlightening series on Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky's "The How of Happiness," where we've unraveled the intricacies of joy and how to maintain it. By exploring the happiness pie chart, you'll learn about the 40% of happiness within your control and how to weave the five "hows" into the fabric of your identity. We also delve into the potential life-altering impact of happiness education in schools, offering a profound reflection on how these teachings could sculpt a society brimming with well-being and purpose.
Join Denise and Sam on a venture into the realm of positive activities where everyday life blossoms with contentment. Imagine forging a path where routine moments transform into building blocks for flourishing happiness, inspired by the principles of Ikigai and positive psychology. We discuss the creation of 'upward spirals' of well-being through positive emotions, and the art of habit stacking as a method to secure a positive mindset, tipping our hat to the insights from 'Atomic Habits.' The conversation takes an intriguing turn as we discuss the smartest ways to utilize financial windfalls for boosting happiness, guiding you towards investing in experiences that offer lasting delight. Embrace this conversation, as we equip you with the insights and habits that promise the bliss of sustained happiness.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Welcome to what's On your Bookshelf, with your hosts Denise Rousseau and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:
Hi everyone, welcome back. It's another episode of what's On your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we are living out loud the pages of books that are on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Rousseau, I am here with my friend and co-host, sam Powell, and I can't even believe that we are coming to the close of the first book of our new year and our theme for the year, which is Happiness. We're talking about the book the how of Happiness by Dr Sanja Lyobomorsky, which we've gotten much better at pronouncing over these last many episodes. And so, sam, I have to say I'm not really happy that we're ending the book today, but I'm so happy to be here with you. It feels like it went fast, right.
Speaker 1:
It did go fast. It did go fast and it's funny it's not a new year anymore at this point. You know we're finally wrapping up this book, but it's been a nice, I don't know. This has been a great, great, great learning opportunity and I loved you know, I really loved this. I think this is this should be required reading for everyone who lives a life at all. It should be one of those, like you have to. I was thinking about this last night. I'm like people should have to take like a happiness class in high school. Like it should be one of those like required courses of just like.
Speaker 2:
okay, let's talk about how you really actually maybe not high school, maybe nobody's mature enough in high school to handle it, Maybe when you're in your mid twenties yeah, I'm thinking like maybe when you're a junior, because Vincent called me yesterday from college and he's taking one of his core classes for his, for his major and he said I don't understand why you have to take this class. It's just, it's, it's nothing that I'm interested in. And he said I feel like I am resonating when there's a class I'm interested in and I'm not resonating when it's a class I'm not interested in. And I said, vincent, that's basic common sense and what I'm finding, and you and I talked about this off of the microphone. It's the same with this.
Speaker 2:
A lot of this, even though it's being taught by a psychologist and doctors and scientists and research after research after research throughout this book, most of it is just common sense, not commonly applied, and I hope that for our listeners, they're learning that these 12 happiness activities really can change your life. So what we're going to talk about today is that we're in the end of the book, we've moved away from those 12 happiness activities and we're going to talk first about these five house behind sustainable happiness. But maybe, sam, we should start with a little bit of a review. The author actually talks about this on the first page of this chapter, which I guess is page 257 or so, and you've always done such an awesome job reviewing us, especially with that pie chart, so would you help our listeners just get a recap of where we've come from and where we are today?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, geez, oh gosh.
Speaker 1:
That's the whole journey of the book. So right over these last weeks and months, I guess at this point, we've been talking about how, when researchers look at what makes up happiness for humans, what they find is that 10% of that is down to circumstances, what's happening to you, what's going on at any given time. 50% of what makes up your happiness pie chart is a set point, right? How are you naturally predisposed? But 40% of this pie chart are just from intentional activities, right? Things that you do on purpose, every day, every week, every month, every year, to increase your happiness level. And so what she lays out, based on this argument that, hey, 40% of your happiness is totally within your control, here's 12 activities based on the research that you can do. And we've been spending 12 weeks over the last last 12 weeks here on a different activity.
Speaker 1:
And this book doesn't just say, hey, here's 12 activities, go try them. It says, hey, here's some assessments to one figure out where that happiness set point is that 50%? So you know what you're working with. Then let's talk about the Oxford Happiness Scale. Where are you in, just your happiness level right now? There's an assessment you can take there, and that's the part. You can measure the difference in the change and the growth in that area. And then there's an assessment on which of the 12 activities most resonate with you. And then she suggests you pick the top four I think three or four that you like that resonate with your day-to-day life, who you are, things you enjoy, and those are the one of the 12 that you can do. So you can actually pick up this book, read the beginning of it, do the assessments and then you can actually just target the four things and just read the section on those and she gives you different ideas on things that you can do, and that's what we've been talking about over the last few weeks.
Speaker 1:
And so now, as we're rounding all of this out, and we say, okay, now you know where you're predisposed, you know how to go assess your happiness on random, any random interval you'd like, and here's a bunch of activities to take that 40% in your control and here's how to narrow down which ones you want to do. Now we're at the end of this, which is how to create sustainable happiness, and she says secrets to abiding happiness, and I love that thought process. So, now that you're doing things, what can you do to make sure that this is just part of who you are? Right, and this is the part that reminded me of, like, atomic habits, right, how do you make this part of your identity? How do you make this part of what you're doing? And so that's really the journey we've been on, and I'm excited to round this out in this way of now that we know what to do. How do we make it stick?
Speaker 2:
and last, and she's got some great stuff in here, yeah, I love that, and this is, you said, this is the how of happiness. So we've learned what it is. We've learned what you can do about it. This is about how to sustain it. So as we get to the end of the book it's not really the end of the book, it's kind of like it's just the beginning and so I would really highly suggest that you continue to use this book like a Workbook for yourself and don't just put it back up on the bookshelf. I know for myself. We've gone weeks on this book so far and so there were things that I forgot that as I listen to the episodes again, or maybe again, then I'm able to say, oh, if I forgot that, that was about this one Element. And so I love that you mentioned about atomic habits because I actually have that written down on a couple of the pages here that it's about sustaining things over time, small things that can make remarkable results, which is the tagline from atomic habits.
Speaker 2:
And if you have only joined us on our podcast for this particular book, the book that we did prior to this in 2023 was the book atomic habits by James Clear. It's a great series and a great book Definitely one for the book show. So this chapter is talking about how you can be happy for a short duration. In fact, most of us do things or buy things or have things that give short bursts of happiness, but then those things dwindle. It's kind of the concept that the doctor was talking about in the book, that people think money can buy happiness, or a new House can buy happiness, or maybe a new car or a new job or a new relationship, but eventually those things fade away.
Speaker 2:
And so she gives these five, five house, and the first how she talks about is about your positive Emotions, and what I thought about this was that she said this is about creating happy moments, and this is a principle that's found even in Ikigai, which I talk about quite frequently with school of thoughts. In fact, our very first ever episode of what's on your bookshelf Was the book Ikigai, which absolutely for sure should be on your bookshelf. But I was curious, sam, what you think about this. That is it. Is it logic? Is it emotion? Is it a combination? What? What is this about this?
Speaker 1:
first, how, in positive emotions and happy moments that help you to sustain happiness yeah, I think the quote that I really like this she kind of kicks this section off is she says that happy people experience positive states or positive states of emotion more frequently, then do that of their less happy peers. They can even be said that positive emotions make happy people who they are, right. So when we think about happiness, what we're really thinking about is that we're sitting in a state of positive Emotion, right on the emotional spectrum, and it's usually like I'm thinking like the feelings wheel, right, some of those things we equate in like the positive side of the spectrum, some of those we equate in the negative side of the spectrum. But happy people is what she's saying is basically are the folks who experience, and more frequently, the positive side of Emotion. And what that made me think of it was some of the exercises that we use for coaching all of the time, right, like when I want somebody to set goals and to set, you know, a vision of what they're doing.
Speaker 1:
We make sure the first thing is to get them into a state of positive emotion, because I know From the research that that helps people get to Really vivid you know visions of what they're trying to accomplish. Their goals become, you know, more robust, more you know, smarter they become. You know really really better, well defined, when they're sitting. They're coming from a state of positive emotion. So I loved seeing this one first, because this is this is a principle I use in in my like on my business, but also in in my life. And you know she says that positive emotions beget upward spirals. So positive emotion feeds positive thinking, feeds positive, you know, actions and then consequences and all that sort of good stuff. So getting into the state of positive emotion and helping yourself do that Moves you in the direction of happiness.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I was trained a few years ago in a program called positive intelligence and I love that. The doctor recommended a reference doctor, barbara Fredrickson. She's sort of like a pioneer or thought leader in positive intelligence and positive psychology and what she said in the book is that moments of pleasure Don't just make you feel good, they broaden your horizons to build your social, physical and intellectual skills. So that upward spiral that you were just talking about, sam is, is the how of sustained happiness. It sort of feels like common sense, but yet we forget when we get stuck in circumstances or situations where we don't maybe feel happy.
Speaker 2:
And positive intelligence and positive psychology teaches you how to prioritize the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, emotions and actions that you have in your mind.
Speaker 2:
That will give you different results than if you just stay stuck in the negative. And this part in the book Sam is where I was thinking about atomic habits as far as habit stacking, because she talks about things like, for example, if you really love exercising, an outcome of exercising might be that when you're energetic you're more creative, and so maybe you leave exercising and you come up with a great new idea that you want to implement at work or in your business and that maybe, from there, you have this great idea about wanting to try a new recipe because it's something that you know that will be healthy and sounds good. And so, as you stack in these positive habits or these positive, sustainable happiness activities, how much more happy will you be? Because this is about shifting your mind into prioritizing happy thinking, happy believing and happy doing so that you can be happy and have results that are different than perhaps you have on days when you don't feel so happy.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I really like that. And you're absolutely right about the habit stacking. You know, as being a part of that right, that in this upward spiral you can end up stacking activities from a habit standpoint, from a just activities standpoint, into really moving yourself in the direction of happiness. I thought the part where she was talking about if you were to come across a pile of money, right, so let's say, like all your basic needs are met financially from that standpoint, and then you are all of a sudden dropped a large sum of money in your lap, what should you do with it to actually boost your happiness? And I was like that's a great question, like based on everything we learned, like I still didn't really know the answer of that. And she basically said, if you spent the money on numerous pleasure, pleasant, mood boosting things occurring on a day to day or weekly basis, that would be what you should do with the money to make you happy. And that's really driving home this point of it's what you're doing every day, every week.
Speaker 1:
You know consistently like atomic habits, right when it's. You've got to be doing something that fits one of these you know mood boosting happiness activities she gave us and that if you wanted the money to make you happier. It's not go buy the jaguar because again, we know from Hedonic Adaptation that's going to be great at first but then you know, then that's going to drop off. But if you take that money and you spread it out over time to help you boost your mood very purposefully, that money actually can make you happier. And I, like I thought that was just a really great illustration of how to put this into place, right, how to take something, take what we've learned and put yourself into that positive state of emotion. You know over time, and you don't need money to do that. And most of the activities, right, they don't actually cost any money. So, thinking about it from that standpoint, I don't know, is lovely.
Speaker 2:
It's really lovely, because I don't think any of the activities had to do with buying stuff. No, no, they had to do with how you use your time, and so she says in the book that it's in any case, no coincidence that the 12 happiness strategies are activities like practicing daily gratitude, focusing on the best person that you can possibly be, being generous, spending quality time with loved ones. Those are all designed to accomplish exactly what we need to ward off negative feelings, or, in some cases, even depression, and increase your positive emotions, foster positive thoughts and fuel positive experiences. When I read that, sam, I thought about the stuff that we teach so often with the School of Thoughts listeners and lead the game listeners, which is that if you have some sort of result in your life and you want to change it, you need to change something you're doing. And to change something you're doing, you have to change something you believe about what you're doing or don't believe about what you're doing. And to change the thing you believe, you have to change the way you think, and this book is about boosting positive connections in your mind, to increase the thoughts in your mind that are more positively aligned, and happiness activities boost positive thinking, and so I know we're almost out of time for this episode, and I thought we'd get to the end of the book and I guess we're not going to. So the great news is we'll have another episode after this one, but I do think it's important maybe for us to just chat briefly, sam, that we're about in the almost middle of the year or so, getting towards it.
Speaker 2:
Yep, around that time and over the last couple of months of this year, there have been probably people listening to this podcast that have been impacted by things that maybe haven't been so positive Lots and lots of change in the economy and corporations and transformations. A lot of people have been laid off all the way through April at many companies, and so I think it's really important to tap into this, that this book talks about that, in the face of adversity, you can build resistance and you can bounce back from stressful experiences simply by elevating your positive thinking. And this isn't just about happy, go lucky. This is about how to prioritize the thoughts and the activities that can give you happiness, because I think that we can both attest that you don't get happiness in a title. You get happiness from the experiences and the relationships that you build and by the things that you produce and do that make a difference in the world.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and she says in the book that when the source of positive emotion is yourself, it's renewable, right? So, again, happiness doesn't come from circumstances. Does it move you? Here and there there's a 10% little shift. It gives you, sure, but it comes from yourself. And what she's saying is really to sustain this. If you're getting yourself into a state of positive emotion, getting yourself into those positive feelings, then one that gives you that upward spiral, but it also gives you a renewable source of energy. Essentially, it is something fundamental, because you're not relying on anything but how you think, how you approach, how you handle your reaction to the environment around you, and that is what sustains your happiness, and I can attest to this in my own life. I've seen that work going through. I don't know. I feel like I've gone through it all sometimes, but when you can work yourself back into a positive state of emotion, regardless of what's going around for you, it's renewable, you can get through anything and you can maintain happiness. On the other side of that, Absolutely Well.
Speaker 2:
next time, when we get together, let's talk about how the timing and the variety of this is equally as important, so that you don't get stuck in the mundane and things that once made you happy now seem boring. So I'm looking forward to diving into that with you and seeing if we can get to the end of this book together on our next episode. Sam, it always makes me so happy to be here with you and I'm looking forward to our time together next week on another episode of what's On your Bookshelf.