What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Andy Hughes, Scott Miller, and Samantha Powell.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
89 - The Happiness Project - November
What if the secret to a happier life lies in the simple act of laughing out loud? In this episode of "The Happiness Project," we journey through Gretchen Rubin's November focus on gratitude and contentment. We'll share a heartwarming story of a family outing to a comedy movie, illustrating how laughter can be a powerful catalyst for joy. We'll also explore how introverts and extroverts might find their unique pathways to happiness through small, everyday actions like giving positive reviews and practicing good manners.
Kindness is much more than a bland virtue; it’s a profound practice that can transform our lives and the lives of those around us. We dive into the concept of loving-kindness from Buddhism and share touching personal anecdotes, such as a daughter's natural inclination towards kindness. These stories highlight the tangible impact of small, thoughtful gestures and the significant challenge of being kind to oneself. Maintaining a positive attitude is crucial for genuine happiness, and we discuss how self-compassion can lead to a more fulfilled daily life.
Effective communication is the bridge to genuine connections and meaningful relationships. We’ll cover how questioning unrealistic self-beliefs and reframing them positively can change your internal dialogue and outlook on life. Learn strategies to shift from an argumentative stance to one of genuine curiosity, and discover the power of expressing agreement, giving compliments, and acknowledging others' contributions. These simple yet profound techniques can help create a supportive and uplifting environment, both personally and professionally. Join us as we embrace positivity and explore the deep connections between kindness, communication, and happiness.
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf, with your hosts Denise Russo and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we are living out loud the pages of the books on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Russo and I'm here with my good friend and co-host, sam Powell. We are walking through the book called the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. This is a book about how this author spent a year really trying to elevate her already state of happiness, and I can't even believe, sam, that we are almost to the end of the quote unquote year of this book and we're talking today about November. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's crazy to think about that. Yeah, we've. We've moved through a whole year of her journey, almost, and yeah, this one's. This is an interesting one, because when we think of, I think, when we in the states think of November, we think of Thanksgiving, we think of I think. When we in the States think of November, we think of Thanksgiving, we think of a lot of gratitude and thankfulness, we think of fall, the end of the year. Right, there's just a lot of reflection. I think that happens in November and I thought her topic that she picked for the month of November was really, really interesting. So this is to keep a contented heart is her goal, and it's really all about her attitude, which I'm sure you and I have a lot to talk about in in that space. So for her, this involved laughing out loud, using good manners, giving positive reviews and finding an area of refuge. So when you started this chapter, what'd you think about it?
Speaker 2:A couple things that I thought about was what you were sharing as far as November. I often think in November about having an attitude of gratitude and thankfulness, and in fact, every year in November I write out something I'm grateful for every day leading up to Thanksgiving, and it's been a very like therapeutic thing for me every year to be able to do that and to just share some thoughts on what I'm thankful for. And so when I think about attitude and a contented heart, it made me think of just like peace and being in balance. I think that really this is what people seek after, and sometimes maybe they seek after it in the wrong places. And so, when the first part of this chapter was talking about laughing out loud, I can recall a time not long ago I went to the movies with my mom and my brother and his daughter and my son and we went to go see Despicable Me 2.
Speaker 2:Or, no, sorry, 4. Despicable Me 4, because that's what came out this year and I can't believe there were four in the series, which is just a total aside, but it was so funny, the movie was so funny that there were times I was watching the movie and I was looking over to my right where my mom and my son were, and over to my left where my niece and my brother were, and we were all literally laughing out loud and we had such a great time that at the end of the movie I recall having a conversation with the five of us saying that was just so fun and it was just this like feeling of happiness. And so she goes on, gretchen. The author goes on to say that a small child typically laughs more than 400 times each day, and yet an adult only laughs 17 times. And that made me sad in this book of happiness, and so I was curious what maybe you took away from this first part of the chapter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. And you know, I really thought a lot about the word contented but then looked at like the list of things she chose, Like when I think of the word contented, I don't think that I would have gone with laughing out loud and using good manners and giving positive reviews and maybe the finding an area of refuge like that one. Okay, I that one makes sense to me. But as I read this chapter and as we got started, especially like in the laughing out loud section, I was like oh, there, there is, like there is like there's that movie theater moment, right, of that contentment in just happiness.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of times we forget that happiness really in its core, like the soul of happiness, is contentment. Right, it is that I'm, it's like what I have in this moment, what I have in you know, in this experience, is enough and is good. And you know, like I'm just satisfied with it. Like when I think of contentment, like that's what I think about, it's like just satisfied with what I have in a very peaceful way and to me like that really does feel like the soul of happiness to me, Right. And then when you throw in things like laughter and you know and things like that, then it I don't know it tips the scale over into like what we typically think of when we think of happiness yeah, and it makes me think that perhaps Gretchen is an extroverted person.
Speaker 2:As we've read through the book, it seems like the things that she does that bring her joy anyway or bring her the happiness, are outward facing. But I I like the way that you've described it as well that for me, if you were to just say this month we're going to talk about contentment, what does that mean to you? To me that means what you just described, which is sort of like more reflective and quiet and maybe even just where I'm by myself and not around a lot of other things. But yet when I reflected on this laughing out loud piece, I don't laugh out loud frequently unless I'm with people that I love doing something that's fun. And I think back to you know you and I both have studied a lot about human behavior and there's certain personality styles that fall into categories, and the one that's opposite to me is the one that is the extroverted laugh out loud, likes to be center of attention kind of a personality style.
Speaker 2:And yet when I think about the joy and happiness I get when I see other people I love, being happy is a contended feeling.
Speaker 2:It's like saying, if you saw Dan and Austin laughing and smiling versus being pensive and passive.
Speaker 2:Maybe you'd have a different feeling about that. Or same for me with Olivia, vincent and Quinn is that if I see them happy, then I'm happy somehow, and I think that that kind of segues into what Gretchen talked about next, which was she didn't just want to be laughing, she wanted to be kinder, and this is something that's truly been on my mind over the last couple of months about what does kindness mean? It's easy to be kind to people that, let's say, deserve kindness and not to say nobody doesn't deserve kindness, but it's easy to be kind to kind people. It's really hard to be kind to people that are unkind to you. It's really hard to be kind to people that are unkind to you, and so I'm sure we could think of many examples where you've had maybe a customer service experience where someone was not kind to you or something of that nature, and you have to remember that maybe in that moment that person doesn't have a contented heart and maybe their attitude is showing up a certain way because of something they've experienced.
Speaker 1:But we have a choice to either digest that or show kindness towards it, and that's hard to do, especially if somebody's not nice to you yeah, it reminds me of that um pie chart meme I've seen on the internet a million times, where it's like big circle and it's like someone's life, and then it's a one dot and it's like this is what you know about their life, right, yes, and how true is that? Right, like. How many times, I mean, have we done this ourselves? Where you know some of that?
Speaker 1:Maybe unkindness comes out of us, but it's because of nothing to do in that moment. It's the 15 things that happened, you know. Right before that, I thought her take on kindness was interesting, as she was like, as she's just introducing this chapter, she's saying that like, right, she wanted to laugh more, but along with, like, having a more humorous attitude, I wanted to be kinder. I'd considered kindness a respectable but bland virtue in the same dull class as reliability and dutifulness. But researching Buddhism, which, with its emphasis on loving kindness, had convinced me that I'd overlooked something important, and so she said she wanted to practice loving kindness.
Speaker 1:But I thought that was interesting because I've never thought of kindness as a bland like kindness is hard. Kindness to me is like it is a virtue to be worked towards and like in my life experience, because it's easy to not be kind right, it's easy to be all the opposite things of kind. It's really hard. So I don't know like, and again it kind of, and I and this is where it really made the connection to contentment. To me it's like I have to bring myself into a place of contentment to then act out outwardly in kindness and that's I don't know. To me that has never, ever felt like a bland thing, but I could see how someone could do that. So that was just a perspective that I hadn't had on kindness before.
Speaker 1:And she said it right, like I wouldn't have put it in the same category as reliability and you know, like dudefulness, like just those wouldn't have fallen into the same thing. But then again, like kindness is probably one of my core values. So I think that it's something that I strive towards, so it's something that I have up on a pedestal perhaps. Um, that you know that I think I'm always working towards and it's hard. But I thought it was interesting and I liked this idea of loving kindness, because when I think of kindness, I do think of it as a place of an expression of love, for, you know, the beings around us, right, like it's. You know there's something to that. So I thought that was really interesting, as she was thinking about what she wanted to do in this month. Right, she wanted to have a more humorous spirit, but I just thought that was an interesting take on kindness.
Speaker 2:I love how you described it because, as you were talking about your thoughts around it, olivia's face kept popping into my mind, because this is my daughter. Like she is a living definition, I think, of kindness. She's the type of person that, no matter what's happening around her or to her, she always, always, always shows kindness, and I can think of many times where we've been places and she will stop wherever we are and compliment someone on something. It could be something even trivial that she just shares that kindness with someone, and I've seen times with being with Olivia Sam where she'll give somebody a compliment and be kind to them and they start to cry, like you just don't know, like you said, that little dot of what's happening in someone else's life. But you also see in some of the people when she's sharing these compliments, like a smile on their face, that maybe it's all they needed to turn their day around or just to remind them that they matter. And so one of the things that Gretchen talks about in the chapter about this is that she says I wonder whether working on my attitude should occupy an entire month's worth of resolutions, and I was thinking to myself when I read that, yeah, maybe that should be my entire year next year is working on my attitude. But she said she read something called Schopenhauer and it says oddly enough, he's well known for pessimism, and it convinced her of the importance of having a cheerful disposition, and this is the quote that she shared Whoever is merry and cheerful has always a good reason for so being, namely the very fact that he is so.
Speaker 2:Nothing can so completely take the place of every other blessing, as can this quality, whilst it itself cannot be replaced by anything. A man may be young, handsome, wealthy and esteemed. If we wish to judge of his happiness, we ask whether he is cheerful, and so that really struck me to say if you aren't cheerful, if you aren't happy, if you aren't kind and if you don't have the right attitude, the attitude of gratitude or the attitude of kindness, then you're missing out on something that is given to you in those moments. And we've talked about this many times before, about the power of time and that if we let a day pass and we didn't exhibit these things or experience these things, that day is lost into the past, never to be retrieved again. And so it definitely got me thinking about what are the things I need to do, to be kind not even just to others, but to myself, because maybe that's the hardest person sometimes for us to be kind to is ourself. Yeah, I think that that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's very true, right, I mean, I come across that in working with clients all the time. It's like the question when somebody is being really self-critical is if you, if your best friend, your spouse, who are, you know, one of the people you care about most in the world was going through the thing that you're going through, what would you tell them? Right, what grace would you grant them? What things would you say to them and what space would you allow for them? What kindness, you know, essentially, would you give to them that you need to give to yourself? Right, like, what does that look like?
Speaker 1:And I think that we lose sight of that all the time. We're so self-critical because we are, you know, we, right, as we've learned from all of these books. Right, it's our perspective, it's our right. We are so blinded by the life that we've lived, the experiences that we've had, that we forget sometimes. Right, that we extend this kindness to so many other people. And kindness is hard to do, right, it is really a difficult task sometimes. Do some people naturally like Olivia's of the world, naturally fit in it more? Yeah, but it's still a difficult thing because we all are people with feelings. But I think extending it to ourselves, like you're saying, is one of the hardest, hardest things. I see people struggle with this all the time, hardest things. I see people struggle with this all the time.
Speaker 1:And you know, and that's I don't know how many times as a coach, I stop clients as they're talking about something and say, ooh, let's pause on that. Right? Like you just said, this, is that something you would actually say to someone else, right? Is that a thought you would have? Is that a standard you would hold someone else to? And you know the answer is always no, of course not. Right. Like you know, I'm doing something. You know I'm holding myself to a standard in which I would never expect anyone else to live.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's really good that the way you're describing this, because I can think of times I've spoken to some of my clients as well where there's been a couple of instances, not even just recently, where people have said I'm not good at this, I can't do this, I don't think I will ever blank, I just won't ever achieve X, whatever it is, is in that tone of almost like verbalizing an untruth, like would you really never like? If, let's say, for example, you get laid off from your job, is it true that you will never get employed by someone again? If you take the steps to become employed again, then probably it's not true. If you are in a toxic work or personal relationship, is it possible that not every work or personal relationship is that way and that you can choose to stay stuck or you can go somewhere and not just survive but actually thrive? And if you're going to be kind to others and you can be kind to yourself first, how might you get there?
Speaker 2:And maybe the way to be kind to others is where she segues and talks about good manners, which I thought was an interesting second step to having good manners. Like you think about people that don't have good manners, are they not kind people Like are they parallel roads to one another? Kindness and manners Like have you ever been to a store or a restaurant or even or somewhere, sam, where a stranger holds the door open for you? It's almost like you consciously think about oh wow, that was so nice of them to do that. Well, was it really nice or was it just good manners that that person took the extra five seconds to hold the door for you?
Speaker 1:Right, right. And then there's always those awkward moments where somebody is holding a door for you for like a long time and you have to like hustle it through it and I'm like, I feel like this is defeating the purpose of you being nice, but yeah.
Speaker 1:But I thought this was interesting, right, because this is like her way of kind of manifesting kindness in action. But the direction she took it was really interesting to me because she said, in particular, to be more agreeable and kind, I needed to use better manners as a conversationalist, and I found this fascinating One because, you know, this is probably an area I can always work on, but from, like, a leadership perspective. Right, it made me think a lot about like, in order to be a good leader, you really need to be a good listener a legitimately great listener, right, you have to be able to understand what people are saying, really be open to people bringing you ideas, complaints, issues, problems, things like that, and then being able to turn around and ask good questions. Right, and that's kind of what she gets around to, like, she's talking about it as like, using good manners in conversations, but what she said, like her natural tendency she's had a lawyer, like she was a lawyer, right, so she had this argumentative spirit, which is great when you're a lawyer, right, like, you need to do that to be successful.
Speaker 1:But a conversation is exhausting and is sometimes quite rude, right, when somebody says something and you're immediately trying to fight it? Right, you're not listening, you're looking to respond instead of looking to understand. Right, you're listening for the wrong thing. And so she realized that was something she kind of needed to nip a little bit in her own thing. And she, you know, she said she would like leave you know after a night or whatever.
Speaker 1:She'd be like, was I really as obnoxious as I think I was? And she's like, and her husband usually wasn't very reassuring to her that, oh, of course not. Right, like you know, she kind of had a nice self-reflection but then really went on. I mean, it was a really interesting story about just how she worked on changing that and then I think that how that helped her connect with people better, right, helped her feel more of this contented heart in her interactions with people, right, and what she was really getting down to was truly listening in curiosity with people, right, and what she was really getting down to was truly listening in curiosity with people was truly, you know, trying to engage them, being, you know, asking them questions, instead of looking to respond to every single thing that somebody says.
Speaker 2:I love that word curiosity that you just shared. It sort of makes me think of Alice in Wonderland. It's something like curiouser and curious and and she gives some tips. Gretchen gives some tips to the readers about things that she asks people she cares about, to maybe draw out that curiosity. So she'll say things to people to try to get into their viewpoint. Like, let's say, you were saying she's a lawyer and she argues as a lawyer.
Speaker 2:The very first thing she said that she shares with people she cares about is you're right.
Speaker 2:Like how hard is it when we are having an argument, whether it's personally or professionally, and for you to pause and take a step back and just say to another person you know what you are right, and not in a sarcastic way, not in a snide way, but truly genuinely saying you know what you are right, not in a sarcastic way, not in a snide way, but truly genuinely saying you know what you are right.
Speaker 2:Then she went on to say um, you have a good memory, or tell everyone that story about how you, whatever it was, and not to embarrass someone, but to uplift someone and to be able to elevate them, to be able to share people love.
Speaker 2:To be able to share.
Speaker 2:People love to hear stories, but some people love to share their stories as well, and so another thing she said was I hadn't thought about that before which I think this is a great one for leaders to use is, when you are speaking to your team, remember that you hired them for the skills, talents, competencies and background that they came to the table with, but sometimes we forget the value that we bought when we hired someone to be a part of our teams, and if you can embrace the fact that you should always have people on your team that are smarter than you, faster than you, brighter than you, know more than you, or know things that compliment the things that aren't your strength areas, how much better your team could be, and so sharing a question with your team about I hadn't thought about that before helps them to see that you do care and that you did listen and that you're willing to try something, as opposed to dictate the way you think something should always be done, even if it's different than the way you think it should be done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I like that a lot and I think that that takes a lot of you being able to put your ego to the side right, put your insecurities to the side right. You don't want to look like a fool, but you have to. Sometimes, right, you have to sit in that humility, sit in that you know humble spirit, because that's where the best conversations happen, that's where you learn the most, that's where you lean into that curiosity. So, yeah, I totally agree with that, and she said that too, when she talks about giving positive reviews, because that was one of her other things for the month, I highlighted this part where she said, although enthusiasm seems easy and undiscriminating, in fact it's much harder to embrace something than it is to disdain it. It's riskier, right, and it's kind of got that same thought process to it is that it's hard, it's hard to laugh out loud, it's hard to be kind, it's hard to engage in good manners in a conversation where you're truly listening to someone. Right, and it's hard To give a positive review. Right, like and I think I know this made me think of like the internet, right, the things that we and the news especially.
Speaker 1:Right, the things that we gravitate towards is the gossip is the negative side of stuff is the oh my gosh, this band sucks. Right, I they're just. You know that's ridiculous and like that's how we like socially bond is over this, like negative bond is over this, like, yeah, that negativity and it's so easy to jump on that bandwagon but to turn around and be like, no, I actually really like that band. Like it might not be the popular opinion here or right, it's not an easy thing, but I actually really like them because they play three of my favorite songs. Right, and this is in saying those things out loud is really hard because it is riskier. Right, because we naturally gravitate towards this negative train of thinking. Right, we learn that and solve for happy. Right, like we default to negative so often and it's comes from that place of we're trying to keep ourselves safe. But I think this is like learned junior high behavior right.
Speaker 1:Like it's easier to talk smack about the kid next to you than it is to stand up for them right? And?
Speaker 1:stand up for the things that are really good. So I thought that was really. You know, there was this weird underlying theme to this whole all these activities she had of like really sitting in a contented heart, really embracing these things that she did actually was really like. To change your attitude on this stuff is actually quite difficult, even though it seems like it should be easy. It should be easy to laugh out loud, it should be easy to be kind, it should be easy to be able to give positive reviews for somebody. Right, but it's not right. The reality is is it's kind of goes against some of our hardwired nature of this keeping ourselves safe, decreasing risks and therefore being more inclined to the negative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's easier to be like this and that's the saying something about like you're like the six people you're around the most, or something like that. You know what I mean. Yeah, and if you think about even, for example, the movie Mean Girls and then there was like a sequel to it later, many years later it's easy to be mean if you're hanging around other mean people, so wouldn't it stand to reason that it's also easier to be kind when you hang around kind people? In fact, she segues into this part of giving positive reviews about talking about a friend of hers, a friend that lives full on out with zest, she calls it, and she said I wanted to embrace that kind of zest, and what it was was in the story that Gretchen tells is her friend had a surprise birthday party where they went to a concert with Barry Manilow.
Speaker 2:Like, if you're listening to this and you are a millennial, you may not even know who Barry Manilow is, but this lady that was at the birthday party was so, so excited about this opportunity to be with this iconic music legend for her birthday party. And so at one point in the party the friend leaned over to Gretchen and she just said, with probably a lot of happiness. This is terrific music and this is a great concert. And when she showed that happiness and that excitement, it made Gretchen happier. Even if Gretchen didn't like the music or wasn't really thrilled to be there watching her friend have, that experience filled her up and that's why she said I wanted to embrace this kind of zest and stay away from unnecessary negative statements. Like you said, you could say you could probably go online after that concert and see how many people said, oh, he looked this way and oh, he sounded that way and oh, it wasn't what I expected, as opposed to saying wouldn't it be so awesome if our social media feeds were filled with this zestfulness of positivity?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And as you're telling this story, the thing I am thinking about is I think it was a TikTok or something right On relationships, and it was about how you and your partner or somebody you have a relationship with don't necessarily have to have the same hobbies or likes, like, you can have very divergent things you like to do and still have a very successful, fulfilling partnership, things you like to do and still have a very successful, fulfilling partnership. But the key is is that you don't necessarily have to like the thing they like, but what you have to lean into and what you have to turn towards is their excitement about the thing that they like. Right, so it's not like it might be that, like my husband and son love baseball I could kind of take or leave baseball. To be very honest, I didn't know anything about it until my son started playing it, but they love it and the thing that I love about it is their love for it, right, what is it about it? What are all the stats that they know, the players that they have like?
Speaker 1:Watching their excitement, watching a conversation on that is the joy for me, and I think that that's where you can make positive reviews easier for yourself, right. You don't necessarily have to love the thing, but you can love the enthusiasm of the person about the thing, right, and that's sort of the joy that Gretchen found in that concert with her friend, and to me that's such a tangible way to connect with other people and to be genuine about it, right, I don't have to fake my way through loving something that I don't. I love your love of this, right, and that's genuine to me because I love you, right. It's that kind of a thought process.
Speaker 2:And if you're not around that, then you need to find a place of refuge, and I know we're almost out of time for the episode today.
Speaker 2:So, and if you're not around that, then you need to find a place of refuge, and I know we're almost out of time for the episode today. So I'll wrap my part up by just saying that if you are finding yourself somewhere where you can't be in a positive attitude, or you're finding it hard to have this, this state of peace and contentment, seek it, find it, go somewhere that you know you can get it. And what she said and I'll close my part with this, sam is that by the end of November, I'd realized that one of the most important lessons of happiness and this happiness project is that if I keep my resolutions and do the things that make me happier, I end up feeling happier and acting more virtuously. Do good, feel good, feel good, do good. And for me, that reminded me of lessons that you taught us from Atomic Habits that if you want to show up a certain way and you want to become known as a person that does something and is something, you have to first show up that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and we learned that too in the how of happiness. That was one of the things you could do was just act happy and it will make you happier. Right? If you show up this way and you find these places, then you will be happier. The science backs it up. So, yeah, I love that. That's a great way to end this episode.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, next week we're going to talk about Chapter 12, which is December, and then we'll share a sneak peek into how we can help you walk through your own happiness project. It's been great to be here with you, of course always, sam. I can't wait to talk with you again next week on another episode of what's on your Bookshelf.