Can happiness truly be solved like a mathematical equation? That's the tantalizing promise of our latest discussion on "What's On Your Bookshelf," where Denise Russo and Sam Powell dissect the happiness equation from "Solve for Happy." We challenge the myths that cloud our understanding of joy, suggesting that contentment isn't just a fortunate coincidence but our natural state of being. As we share tales from our own lives and those of the famous, we uncover that success may follow happiness, not the other way around. Join us as we swap stories and insights on how shedding old habits and embracing new perspectives can steer us toward a life brimming with joy.
Have you ever considered that your expectations might be the thief of your contentment? This episode takes a deep look at the role perceptions and expectations play in our happiness, drawing a line between our life's events and the stories we tell ourselves about them. Reversing negative thoughts and experiences might just be the key to reclaiming our innate happiness. Our discussion is peppered with both celebrity anecdotes and our personal journeys, as we illustrate that true success is often a byproduct of happiness, not its precursor.
Wrapping up with an exploration of happiness versus suffering, we reflect on the poignant lessons from Miley Cyrus's Grammy-winning moment. We share a poignant exercise that involves drafting a 'happy list', highlighting the importance of recognizing what genuinely brings us joy. I offer a glimpse into my own list, emphasizing faith, family, and life's simple joys. We conclude by pondering the narratives that shape our emotional landscape, and how we have the power to rewrite them in pursuit of a happier life. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation that celebrates the stories from our bookshelves and their capacity to stir a gamut of emotions, guiding us closer to 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.
Can happiness truly be solved like a mathematical equation? That's the tantalizing promise of our latest discussion on "What's On Your Bookshelf," where Denise Russo and Sam Powell dissect the happiness equation from "Solve for Happy." We challenge the myths that cloud our understanding of joy, suggesting that contentment isn't just a fortunate coincidence but our natural state of being. As we share tales from our own lives and those of the famous, we uncover that success may follow happiness, not the other way around. Join us as we swap stories and insights on how shedding old habits and embracing new perspectives can steer us toward a life brimming with joy.
Have you ever considered that your expectations might be the thief of your contentment? This episode takes a deep look at the role perceptions and expectations play in our happiness, drawing a line between our life's events and the stories we tell ourselves about them. Reversing negative thoughts and experiences might just be the key to reclaiming our innate happiness. Our discussion is peppered with both celebrity anecdotes and our personal journeys, as we illustrate that true success is often a byproduct of happiness, not its precursor.
Wrapping up with an exploration of happiness versus suffering, we reflect on the poignant lessons from Miley Cyrus's Grammy-winning moment. We share a poignant exercise that involves drafting a 'happy list', highlighting the importance of recognizing what genuinely brings us joy. I offer a glimpse into my own list, emphasizing faith, family, and life's simple joys. We conclude by pondering the narratives that shape our emotional landscape, and how we have the power to rewrite them in pursuit of a happier life. Tune in for a heartfelt conversation that celebrates the stories from our bookshelves and their capacity to stir a gamut of emotions, guiding us closer to 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 Russo and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:
Hi everybody, welcome back. It's another episode of what's On your Bookshelf. This is a Life and Leadership podcast where we're taking deep dives into the books on our shelves and trying to live these pages out loud. My name is Denise Russo. I represent an organization called School of Thoughts. I'm here with my friend, sam Powell, representing her organization Lead the Game, but together we are exploring the power of living a life of happiness. That's our theme for 2024 and we are in the midst of a book called Solve for Happy. Looking forward to getting through our episode together today, because we're, in part, one of this book. Sam, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1:
I'm doing good. I'm ready to jump into this chapter because it's got a lot in it. This is setting up the equation we're solving an equation here for happiness. I am looking forward to this and this is part one. I got to say on part one he's got this little smiley face, little equation guy on it, but he's got a little quote too. I have to read it because I laughed you said this last time about the order of these books and how they just divinely came to us correctly in this way. I had to laugh because he says this is setting up this whole part one where he's setting up basically the book and says happiness in the modern world is surrounded by myths.
Speaker 1:
Much of our understanding of what happiness is and where to find it is distorted. When you know what you're looking for, the quest becomes easy. It may take time to unlearn old habits, but as long as you stick to the path, you'll get there. I laughed because if we go back to the how of happiness, we learned all these myths about what makes you happy and what does it and what that really looks like. We know from that book what are the things, the activities that genuinely make you happy. I just giggled at the first part of this. That's like we have this wrong. It's like, yep, I know we do. I also know some of the things we could do. Then he started talking about you've got to unlearn habits.
Speaker 2:
I was like I also knew how to do that because we did that with atomic habits.
Speaker 1:
He says as long as you stick to the path, you'll get there. All I could think about was James Clear's quote of you should be far more concerned with your trajectory than your current results. It's okay if you feel generally unhappy right now. What you should be concerned with is are you on a path to happiness? He's telling us, and giving us a little bit of hope here, that once you know what you're looking for, once you get past these myths, then it's actually pretty easy. That's how this whole part kicks off. I loved it because I was like there it is Bam bam from the last two books.
Speaker 2:
I highlighted the same exact part to get us started. I laughed as well. If you can imagine, friends, that there's a bubble and inside the bubble is where happiness lives. Outside the bubble are these myths that are bumping into it. They're crashing into it, they want to break into it. Happiness may be surrounded by myths. Myths try to make you see happiness in a distorted way. Atomic habits was really around that. If you have some strong old habits that might need to be broken. This book is really helping us stick to the path of unbreaking old habits, building new ones and really forging the strength of the ones that you have. He talks about sticking to the path, but that's exactly what the how of Happiness was about. It was about happiness activities that help you, with intention, build strength in that bubble, which are your habits, which I thought was interesting.
Speaker 2:
For me, this first chapter of the book was really about the fact that happiness is a conscious choice. The reality is, you want to be happy. Who would ever say nope, I really don't want to be happy. Everybody wants to be happy. You might be looking in the wrong places for happiness. We touched upon that a little bit in the last episode about where are you looking for your happiness.
Speaker 2:
If happiness is your default state, which you talked about, sam, in the how of Happiness, if 40% of our happiness is within our control, there's still a whole bunch of default state that's outside of our control, where we start from. But if happiness is the default, then what actually upsets it? You were talking on the last episode, sam, about being a math fan and a math student. He gives this equation that the happiness equation is that it's greater than or equal to your events minus your expectations, and I thought that that was really an interesting way to look at math.
Speaker 2:
I have to be the first one to say that I was never good at story math questions on tests, but I got this one Events minus your expectations of them is less than or equal to your happiness. It's all about our thinking, our beliefs, our actions, our results that come from those which we talk about time and again on all of our episodes, that everything starts in our thoughts and that we have to unlearn and relearn some of those things, and so, for me, this whole first chapter was about Iki Gai and finding the balance that you need to live a life of happiness, and he says here that we long for an elusive goal of satisfaction, contentment and peace, which is also known as happiness, and it's interesting because he starts this chapter off making the argument that happiness is our default state.
Speaker 1:
Right, that, as human beings, happiness is our default state. And he's saying that happiness is the absence of unhappiness. And I thought it was interesting that he used like babies as an example. So like babies are just happy unless something is causing them unhappiness. Right, Like they need food. They're uncomfortable there, you know they need, they need something to change to just get them back to their default state. But it's like as soon as you take care of that need, they're back to their default state of just content and happy. And so he's making this argument from the outset of this book. Is that we are meant to be happy because that is actually our default setting, which I thought was really interesting. Like, what did you think about that? Do you believe that? Do you buy into that idea?
Speaker 2:
What I took from it is that you don't need a reason to be happy, but you do need a reason to not be unhappy. Say that again Okay, so you don't need a reason to be happy, but you do need a reason not to be unhappy. So, in other words, the default state is that you are wired to be happy, so you need a reason not to be unhappy. In other words, when things happen to us, we don't have a reset button he talks about in the book. We have the ability to unlearn and reverse the effects of what went wrong in a certain path. Now an example of a baby. The baby can't change itself. A baby can't feed itself. It needs external forces to be able to provide the comfort, the peace, the satisfaction that's needed there. But when you serve, you have to solve for this. One of the things I wrote down is that you don't defer happiness, like when I am blank, then I will be happy. So for a baby, they may not even know. Oh man, when my diaper gets changed I'm going to stop crying. It happens by default because now they're not wet or now they're less uncomfortable. But when we think about things like how we shared last time in the beginning of the book he said how he built up his career. I know for me there was probably young in my career when I thought, oh well, when I have this other title, well then I'll be happy. Well, when I make this certain salary, well then I'll be happy. Well, when I have this house and this neighborhood in this place, well then I'll be happy. When I get married, then I'll be happy. When I have kids, then I'll be happy. When my kids are in college, then I'll be happy. If you're always waiting for tomorrow, you can never celebrate the joy of today and tomorrow is not promised.
Speaker 2:
I often talk about with you, sam, and with our friends, that there are things in our life that bring us happiness and if we wait for tomorrow, we're going to miss out on today. And I share the story often with my friend, wendy and the struggle that she's gone through, experiencing very severe cancer. And I look at her life and I have learned through the books we're reading, the podcasts we're sharing, but watching her life, that she finds things in every day that just make her happy and she relishes in those things. And so for me, music is one of those things that makes me happy. I'm curious for you what's something for you, sam, on a normal daily basis that just brings you happiness?
Speaker 1:
I think for me, I really enjoy just spending time with people, that I love having a conversation, I love to hear what's going on in people's lives. So the simple thing is, when my son comes home from school, asking him how was your day, and getting some crazy story out of it. Sometimes they're insanely dramatic because he's in third grade and that's how that works, and sometimes they're sweet and sometimes they're funny and sometimes they're frustrating, but it's all. I just I love the experience of hearing his version of events, because I like stories, right, and I like hearing the stories of people from those people and things like that. But you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:
I was thinking about what you said about there is no reset button and having to unlearn and reverse what went wrong, right, so if we take, you know, like right again in math, you're starting with logical arguments. If you're building up an equation, if you're building up something, it's like if this event, this, right. And so we're starting with this if statement of if happiness is our default state. What we're actually trying to do is just not be unhappy, right, we're just not trying, we're trying to reset ourselves and, right, we don't have that button. And you're saying, right, that it's about your thoughts, it's about how you approach you know the circumstance around you, it's what you think about it, it's how you react to it. And you know, I see this a lot because he says we don't have the reset button, but that unlearn and reverse what went wrong and what happened along our lives. And so if you think about this argument of default, state is happy, and if you don't feel happy, then it's well, what's causing unhappiness? Right? What does that? What are those driving factors? And it's interesting, like I see this in coaching all the time we talk about limiting beliefs with people, someone will be like, oh, I don't think I could ever do that. It's like, well, why couldn't you do that?
Speaker 1:
And it, as we peel back the layers with people, you find that they've got some sort of thought process right, something happened in their life, or happened multiple times in their life, that gave them this perception of reality. Right, it's not really what's happening, but it's because of how many times something's happened, right, you're skewed and you think that that's what's going on. And so when you're helping somebody to move beyond that, it's really breaking down and understanding what's happening. And so, like you're talking about with the equation is.
Speaker 1:
You know, happiness is your happiness is greater than or equal to your perception of the events in your life, right? And so that's where he's saying, like, you have to unlearn the things that are making you unhappy, right? So it's that perception of the events minus your expectations, right? I perceive this to be happening, but I expected this to happen, and if what you perceive to happen is better than what you know, what you expected, then you're happy, and if it's the opposite, then you're not. And I think that's fascinating. It's just a fascinating setup to me of this default state and simplifying it down into just eliminating the things that are making us unhappy and we're controlling.
Speaker 2:
You know, we're trying to do something about the perception and we're trying to do something about the expectations, and those are both thoughts, yeah and so, and I wonder if some of it comes from how how we define success, because he talks about this in two opposite sides of the coin. So the first part he talks about is that success is not an essential prerequisite to happiness. But while success doesn't lead to happiness, happiness does contribute to success, and so what I was thinking about when I was reading that is that when you think about success is not an essential prerequisite to happiness, well, this actually has me thinking about a couple of things. For example, how many celebrities have committed suicide, gotten divorced, been on drugs? They have what society says is success. They've got money, they've got fame, but at what expense? To their happiness? I recall that probably sometime earlier this year well, yes, not probably, it was earlier.
Speaker 2:
This year was the Grammy Music Awards, and I always watch that pretty intently, because my very first job, my first career job, was for the recording academy, and I thought that was going to be the pinnacle of my success. I was so excited to work for that organization and it turned out to be probably the worst place I've ever worked, not because of the place, not because of what I did, but because of someone, that who I had to work for, and so that idea of success was somewhat shattered for me. But the point of the story is whose success are we looking at? To build our own success? And this year at the Grammys, I recall there was a place, a time in the award show, where someone was winning a very, very prominent, significant award and yet and this person has millions, if not billions of dollars Sold, tons of records, lots of success in the industry and when the person went up to give their speech, their speech was around the lack of success or their distaste for the Academy for not giving somebody else a so-called deserved award. And it was sort of distasteful the way that that speech came across, because his success was not tied to his happiness. It was clear he was very unhappy and yet had success, money and he was standing there with the trophy, with the Grammy and not just a regular Grammy, like a very significant award.
Speaker 2:
And so on the flip side, when Mo talks about success doesn't lead to happiness, but happiness does contribute to success. He does share some facts in here where he says that where there are people that basically have all the pillars of Iki Gai, people that love what they do, they're good at what they do, they're surrounded by people they love doing it with and they're doing something that makes a difference in the world. Those are those four pillars. He pretty much talks about that and says that this is one of the ways that you can remember to solve for happiness, about positive intelligence. It's about how coaching can help businesses and professionals be more successful. I thought that that was really profound for me, because people put their definition of happiness in terms of success, and success being in terms of titles and money and awards and fame, and yet we're seeing time and again that people that have those things may still be unhappy.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that's I mean. We learned that in the last book, right, that chasing after those types of things doesn't actually make you happy. They can give you a blip of happiness, but they don't last because of hedonic adaptation. Right, because you reach a level they have to reach more and more and more and more and more and more. Right, this is never ending cycle, so you're never satisfied, you never get to contentment because you are approaching it as I'm reaching for something, or reaching for something, or reaching for something, and it's interesting, right, because it's. You know, what he's saying is the two big factors going into happiness are your perception of the events of your life, minus your expectations of how life should behave, right? So I think about your Grammy story, right? The person's unhappy. It sounds like, I don't know, I missed the Grammy so I didn't watch it but it sounds like they're unhappy because the perception of the events that were happening you know were, you know was less than the expectations of how it should have gone.
Speaker 1:
Right and so, therefore, the scale was tipped, and the scale was tipped to unhappiness, right, and you know that's. That's a good example of what this looks like, right? This person who should have, for all intents and purposes, been really happy but wasn't, because, you know, they felt like something was sounds like potentially unjust or not, right? Yeah, you know, based on what you know, what they perceive to be happening, and so, therefore, we're unhappy, despite a situation where they should have been happy.
Speaker 1:
And that's what he and that's what Mo says is that it remember, it's the thought, not the actual event, that's making you unhappy. It's how you're thinking about it, how you're perceiving the events of your life, versus how you expect life should behave.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, yes, I'll give you an opposite story. Same show, another artist goes up. Now this artist has been a singer since she was a young girl, famous on Disney, went on to be famous Her father is very famous and in the show she was winning an award for having one of the best songs such a catchy fun song and and the lyrics, though, of her song are totally unhappy, basically like well, you know, I can buy my own flowers, but you should have bought them for me, as kind of the gist of her song. And you can guess it's. This is a song that was written by Miley Cyrus, went on to be the record of the year or the song of the year, and so, anyway, she goes up for her award. This is the first Grammy that she's ever won, and she's been an artist for more than 20 years, which is really weird to say because she's still very young. But she was giving her speech and she was just elated to the point where, when she was singing part of the song, at the very end, she was so joyous and she said and the very last verse of it, she said I just want to Grammy. And she walked away so happy. It was as if what you just said, her expectations from an event were exceeded, and so her happiness was raised in a much different way. But it was just a much different experience watching watching that happen for that person.
Speaker 2:
And so Mo gives a really practical exercise that I wonder if we don't share with each other and with the listeners. Because here's a way you don't have to be a famous singer to find your happiness or lose your happiness, and you don't have to be me or Sam to seek your own happiness. And here's what he says if you were forced to set priorities, what would be at the top of the list of the things that make you the happiness? And so I did this exercise. In the book he says I feel happy when blank, and I started writing down some things. So maybe for you that you're listening, write that down.
Speaker 2:
I feel happy when blank. He calls it a happy list, and I'm not sure if you did it, Sam, but I did it, and I and I thought about this that if I was forced to set my priorities, if there was nothing else I could do, what would make me the happiest? And for me, none of it had anything to do with my career, it had everything to do with my faith, with my family, and the things that I get to see, an experience in the world, whether it be water or a sunset, or a beautiful painting or something like that, or listening to wonderful music.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I like the happy list activity where you just write out Whole list, like don't be says, don't be shy, there's no reason to feel inhibited because no one is ever going to see your list. To sit down with a cup of coffee and just write your list out of, I feel happy when, and then you can see, right, what are the themes, what, what would you prioritize on that? Right, what does that really look like? And I like the actions. I didn't sit down and really like write, write everything out, but I took some time to sit and think through that and do it.
Speaker 1:
And you know it's funny because the things that came to mind were a lot of simple things, right, like I feel happy when I listen to his bus stories, right, when I, when I, you know, when I feel connected with my spouse, when I, you know, do all sorts of. They didn't have to be these huge moments, they ended up being a lot of just little things. I feel happy when it's raining outside and I'm curled up with a book and a cup of tea, like I love. Right, I'm happy when I get to go to dinner with my friends, like they were. They were simple things, but it's an interesting list, like I, you know. I think it's a good exercise To do because it gives you an idea of like, right, when do you feel that happiness? Right? What are those things? And it's interesting, I think, to think of it to, of those are all also often things in the moments when you have an absence, of unhappy things happening right, it's like oh, you know, like I'm able to take time to sit and read a book on, you know.
Speaker 1:
You know, rainy day or whatever, right, like the others, just an absence of unhappiness going on in those moments. Who says it's it was an interesting activity? I definitely encourage people To do it and it's interesting. He finishes this chapter talking about Pain versus suffering, which was an interesting like Pivot. You know we start talking about, like, the default. You know happiness is our default state. What's the equation that really set that up, knowing that it's your thoughts, and then he leads into pain Versus suffering, which I thought. What did you think about that?
Speaker 2:
This was a tough one for me because this, this chapter, is like a roller coaster. My friends like be prepared when you get this book, read it and then reread it. I'm a highlighter and I am a right in the book person and I am a tag the pages person. And this one was was interesting for me because he talks about this whole beginning of here's the happiness factor. But then he said here's the tricky bit. It's not the events that make us unhappy, it's the way we think about them. That does. And when we got to this part about pain versus suffering, he talked about these stories that we replay in our minds over and again, and it really made me think about my mom.
Speaker 2:
My mom is my best friend. I love her. She's the most peaceful, kind, loving, generous, wonderful human being that has ever walked on the face of this earth bar none. I'm sure other people might say that about their mom, but they haven't met my mom then, because they would know that she's the one.
Speaker 2:
But what my mom does is she replays sad memories, and so when I talk to her about things she holds tightly to the suffering that she has from memories that the person she may have experienced it with doesn't even remember, like my mom, will tell a story, sam, of a time when maybe we I don't even remember the whole gist of the story because that's how unimportant it was to my level of happiness or unhappiness but it was something like we went, we were little, my brother and I, and this you're talking like over 50 years ago.
Speaker 2:
Ok, so my brother and I we went somewhere like Kentucky fried chicken and that my mom Decided not to buy something we asked for, like how silly is that? It was about fried chicken, and I don't even remember going to this restaurant. But the suffering that my mom has over this experience, where she felt like she disappointed us maybe, has stayed with her for 50 years. And so most as we let our suffering linger as a form of self generated pain and all the thinking in the world until converted into action has no impact on the reality of our life. But the reality for my mom's life is that she's holding these memories and it's hurting her. And yet he says at the close of the chapter suffering offers no benefit whatsoever, none, but that happiness starts with a conscious choice and you know what to do, and then next time we talk about how to actually do it. So I'm curious, before we close for today, sam, what was your biggest takeaway from this chapter?
Speaker 1:
I think it's the thought process on that happiness is the default setting for us and that it is really the absence of unhappiness. We control that when we think about the pain and the suffering. Pain is useful. Pain is a very, very useful emotion. Our emotions aren't there to be good or bad or anything like that. They are there to be our little red flags for ourselves to say, hey, this is good, we like this, we don't like this. Hey, there's a threat, hey, there's not. Pain is very, extremely useful. Pain is necessary and it helps you figure out what to do next.
Speaker 1:
But knowing that, okay, if my default state is happy, what am I doing to cause unhappiness? What am I doing to stay in unhappiness? What am I doing to suffer? By not releasing thoughts, by not processing through this? I see people do this all the time, where they get stuck and they stay in this state of just unhappiness and it's so unnatural. We know that it's unnatural and we feel that it's unnatural, but it's like we can't let it go. It serves us not at all. I think that that's really my big takeaway is that happiness is the default. Unhappiness is what is driving us to move out of this default state. We control if we sit in unhappiness or if we don't. And that takes internal work, that takes us working on ourselves, and I'm here for that. I'm here for doing the internal hard work to figure out how to get back to happy, often when unhappiness comes around and it will- Absolutely, I think, for me.
Speaker 2:
I go back to thinking about that original bubble I was mentioning when we started, which is we can be afraid that things are trying to attack the bubble of happiness or we can be satisfied knowing we're in a bubble that is protected. That's preventing those myths from entering into our happy state. So next time we're going to talk about chapter two. So that's still in part one. I tell Sam off of our microphone friends that I keep getting messed up on these chapters because there's so much goodness in this book and I can't wait to read it and reread it and then reread it again. So chapter two is where we're going to go next, sam. What's kind of the keys for our friends to think about as we get ready for chapter two next week?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, chapter two is called 657, which talks us through the different states that we sit in, which was really interesting, and then goes into really the setup for the second part of the book and the other parts, because that's what each six, seven and five are the other parts of the book. So a little bit of mystery there for you on what that's all about. We'll talk about it next time and we'll talk about really the different states that we sit in as humans, which I thought was really interesting. So I can't wait to get into that.
Speaker 2:
Me too. So next week, joy, happiness, escape, suffering, confusion. It's sort of like a Roku special all tied in one drama suspense, comedy, sadness, action adventure. We hope you'll be with us. It's been great being with you today, sam. Thanks so much for being here with me. My name is Denise Russo. I've been here today with my friend Sam Powell. We hope to see you next week on another episode of what's On your Bookshelf.