Understanding The New Happy with Stephanie Harrison

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspiration to help you operate at your fullest potential, integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. I'm your host, Ashish Kothari, the founder and CEO of Happiness Squad and author of the bestselling book Hardwired for Happiness. I will be your personal guide on your journey to explore the many facets of happiness, well being and flourishing, from personal growth to building more positive environments at work. In each episode, we will share powerful insight, tips and stories from our guests who are leading experts, company executives, and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge. Whether you're looking to overcome life's challenges, to go from good to great, or to enhance your team's performance through flourishing, this podcast is the place for you to find more joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Join us every week as we rewire for happiness together. Welcome to yet another episode of the.

Happiness Squad Podcast where we share strategies to make happiness your competitive edge. Today we are joined by Stephanie Harrison, the visionary behind the New Happy philosophy, which has captured millions worldwide through its transformative approach to happiness. Stephanie holds a Master's degree in Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and was the Director of Learning at Thrive Global prior to starting New Happy. Stephanie's art newsletter, podcast and programs reach millions of people around the world every month and I can't wait for her new book to launch in May of 2024. In today's episode, we chatted about Stephanie's journey from traditional success to discovering true happiness. We dove into how her ideas of happiness have evolved, shifting from seeking perfection like so many of us to finding joy in helping others. Stephanie also shared insights from her upcoming book, the New Happy, and we explored a myriad of topics, including the importance of accepting yourself and recognizing one's worthiness, talent as a cultivated skill, finding your purpose, and the power of serving others in cultivating our own happiness. So get ready, dear friends, to rethink what happiness means and learn practical ways to bring more joy and meaning into your life. Stay with us till the end of the conversation. That was not just personally inspiring for me, but also filled with tips that you can use right away to start living your new happy life. Hi dear Stephanie, it is so lovely to have you with us on the Happiness Squad podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here with you. It's such an honor.

You know I have been following you and friends, if you're listening, Stephanie is the most creative expressions of happiness and has an ability to take some of the most complex topics and bring them to life through just magical visualization. You know, her graphics are unbelievable. I'm a huge fan, and so it is a real, real pleasure to have her with us. Her book is coming out in May. It's called the New Happy. I had an early copy that she kindly shared with me, and I know you will love it, and I think there'll be so much resonance with, you know, hardwired for happiness that you. You have read. So. And the practical nature of the tips she offers, the illustration she has. I mean, they're going to bring a smile. And there is so much here that we'll talk about. But I'll start with the first question we always ask our guests, Stephanie, and literally, because your book is called the New Happy, it is the question. I think it written for you. I think it's been. We've practiced it 60 times already with other guests. But this is the real one, I feel, which is, you know, what does happiness mean to you? And how has that definition changed from the old happy to the new happy?

It's so funny, isn't it? It's absolutely perfect. I feel so honored. I currently define happiness as being part of a community that gives and receives, so giving and receiving. And I believe that true happiness comes from, you know, being yourself in service of others. And that's certainly not what I used to believe, as you've read in my book. It's definitely not what I grew up believing or what I was taught, which all was centered around really a quest for achievement, for perfection, for superiority, and for a sense of being the best kind of in. In everything you can be. And I think that going through this shift has been a really, a really interesting journey. And as you said, I hope that anyone who's. Who might resonate with that previous version of happiness and is hoping for something different might find some tools or support in the work that I do.

Yeah, I love it, right? This, this. It's such a common feeling. And I run into this all the time, you know, and it was the same story for me. We hustle for worthiness out there because we feel only through our achievement, fame, money, frankly, all of that. If we get all that, then we feel worthy and hence happy. But then there is something missing. And I love your framing, which is know who you are, and from that, serve others. Right? And if we serve others, I mean, the research is so clear, when we give, we are happier. So I love it now I know you've had, you know, you've had an amazing career. You've done all the achieving things, right? You were a consultant. You were at LinkedIn, you were at Thrive. And all through, you also traversed life has thrown definitely its set of challenges, obstacles and suffering, you know, your way. So share a bit, Stephanie, of your personal story of how you actually came to the new happy.

Yeah, so as I said, I. I had always believed that, oh, these things will make me happy. And I didn't have any sort of conscious awareness of that belief. It was just something that was deeply ingrained within me. You know, it wasn't. It wasn't like I could spell that out the way I can describe it today. It was just, oh, that's what you do to be happy. Right? And so I live my life according to those. Those principles and those objectives. And then one day when I was in my early 20s, I had, you know, this big, fancy job. I had this really nice little apartment. I was living in New York City. I had sort of everything that I had always dreamed of achieving or experiencing. And yet I found myself struggling very, very much, experiencing health problems, struggling with my mental health, feeling as though nothing I did really mattered. Just kind of this whole range of signals that was indicating, like, actually, things aren't working out for you. And finally they got loud enough where I was willing to listen to them and started to. Started to think, well, maybe I've gotten something wrong here. Maybe I've. Maybe I've made some mistakes that if I learn a little bit more, I could try to correct them in the future. And so that led me to want to start studying happiness, and ultimately is what led me to, you know, get a grad degree in positive psychology and eventually, you know, start my company, which is based upon the work that I did when I was in graduate school. And I think that what I was really interested to pursue when I was at Penn was trying to really unravel these stories that we've told ourselves about happiness in our culture, and where do they come from and why do they exist and who benefits from them? What are the things that we're taking for granted that might not actually be serving us? And as you said, what I discovered became very clear. We have all of the wonderful information about what we need to do in order to be happy. All of those answers that I was looking for, you know, when I was having my own breakdown, they're out there, they're in academic journals. They weren't as popularized as they are today, but they were Certainly, you know, they were certainly something that I could find. And so at first, I was amazed by that. I was so grateful that all of these amazing scientists had gone out and figured out the answers to my questions. And then I got really mad because I realized that everything that we learned from our culture was so different from what these scientists had discovered about the sources and pathways to true happiness. And I wanted to really understand how we got to that place and what we could do differently, how. How we can unwind, you know, old happy in our lives and experience true happiness. So I spent my time at grad school researching this. And then once I left, I also continued to study it in my own time and starting to build this philosophy of happiness. And then at a certain point, you know, along that journey, my partner became really sick. Out of nowhere, he just woke up one day and was, you know, saying, I don't feel very well. And we were left pursuing a cure for an illness that no doctor could diagnose. We had no idea what was going on or what the problems were. And slowly he declined and declined and declined and became, you know, completely dependent upon me to be his caregiver. And I eventually left my job in order to help support him. And it was at that time that I decided that I would work full time on sharing this message with the world and started to consider what that might look like. And that's when I started making this artwork that you talked about so generously and starting to share these ideas with people. Because not only was it something that I wanted to offer to others, but also I knew from my research that helping others was the best way to help myself in that really difficult moment. So in reality, as. As difficult and painful as that time was, it also was what led me to be able to do this work that I do now. And it also gave me a chance to take those ideas that I had about happiness and this philosophy that I developed and then actually test it in my own life and see. See if it worked or not. And I was thrilled to find out that it did. And that spurred me on even further to want to share it with people in case they might find it useful too.

It's such a beautiful yet painful story, right? Life, I mean, your life hasn't a lot of people think those who are happy, oh, yeah, there is no suffering. But I think you are a lived life experiment of, hey, in suffering. If I hadn't learned what I did, both, first yours and then of your partner's, this works. Without this, life would have been very Very different. And it's not about the absence of suffering, but being, building that resilience and those skills that allow us to navigate it more gracefully.

So true. And it's so true. And I think, you know, building on what you're saying, another belief that I had about happiness which really ties into, you know, this old happy idea, is that a happy life is one where there is no suffering, where there are no challenges, and everything is sort of just moving along perfectly. Right. And when, when I say that out loud, it sounds so obviously impossible. Right. But I think that deep down a lot of us actually believe that, you know, we just have to arrange our lives in the perfect configuration and then we will be permanently happy and letting go of that need to strive to control all of the events of your life in that way or to shape them into something that it's not. I could have worked really hard to try and make my life something that it wasn't. And that really wouldn't have helped me because it would have disconnected me from so many things that are really personally important to me and my values and my ability. You know, it's instead accepting what was going on and striving to say, well, this is the reality of my life. What can I do? How do I navigate through this? That's what led me to discover, you know, my love of creating art. And I never would have found that otherwise. Right. Or, you know, all of these other things. And so it's, as you're saying, it's, it's about like living, finding happiness alongside of life's inevitable sufferings.

In fact, you know, Viktor Frankl said it beautifully, right. It is when we give meaning to suffering. And he talked about it from his time in the concentration camp. It is our will to meaning. It's our will to give meaning to the suffering that makes the suffering meaningful. And we grow from it. Right. We also know from all the post traumatic growth research, more people when they face trauma, grow from it versus get depressed. Right. But it requires real work. And I think this field of happiness and the science behind it and the learnings, you know, are a powerful way to do this. You know, Stephanie, I'm going to share something with you because, you know, you described, you know, these beliefs and kind of what you went through. In my 25 years before I launched Happiness Squad with consulting, you know, I was at five different firms. I was last 17 years at McKinsey. But you know, I've had friends across all different consulting firms. I have friends who are executives. And you know, this Is I'm going to voice some, I'm going to leave the names out. But what you describe is something that, you know, we put up with, then we feel not enough and we just live it. And I think it's especially. I feel I've heard this more from my women friends than from male friends, even though I don't think that it's any different. It's just that I think men sometimes are even more closed. But, you know, this notion of. I've had many young, young women friends who've said they are. There is one who said, you know, despite being perfectly healthy physically, she couldn't have children and they could not conceive. And when she did get pregnant, she lost the baby. There were so many others who have said, you know, every flight home on Thursday, I cry, I break down and I cry. There's somebody else who said, you know, I had to go for the meeting. I had to get myself off the plane because I felt like I needed to throw up and I felt so anxious. I personally, in 2014, 2015, I was. In 2014, I was already a partner for about three, four years, and I was going through moments when I was feeling extreme anxiety in the morning. I used to wake up, you know, in a curveball. I know of many other men, colleagues who are on either seeing a therapist or they are taking pills, right? So, like, we. We somehow have a way. These beliefs are so part of us around what it means to be perfect and how all the things that we had expected to do and if we are struggling somehow, we are broken. There is something weak about us. We don't want to share it, that we keep living. So, you know, first I want to just acknowledge and say, you know, it takes a lot of courage to break it and chose to go a different path, but then stay with it, you know, when the opportunity arose for you. But friends, if you are hearing there is possibility, I think it is choosing to break the norm, right. Of what our lives have become, that normal is not normal. It is not normal.

Like, so funny, isn't it? Like, I was joking around with one of my old friends a couple months ago and we were talking about, oh, you know, if our younger selves could see what we're doing now, what would they think about us? And I was joking around saying my younger self would be horrified that I make pictures for the Internet. Like, how. How did you go from being a management consultant to doing that? You know, if my younger self would be kind of. I honestly think that maybe they would be Kind of horrified that I had stepped off of that path that I had worked so hard to get onto. And how could. How could you walk away from something that would presumably make you so happy? But of course, that younger self didn't know that, as you're saying, the norm wasn't working and certainly wasn't working for me. And I was lucky enough to be able to kind of take a different path.

Yeah. And, you know, you're reflecting back on your younger self. Right. I often do this exercise with many of my clients. We do this 80th birthday. I'm sure you've done that with your clients too. And I had one client, senior executive at a Fortune 500, and we were having this conversation because there's really a conversation about what should I do with, you know, where should I go next? And, you know, there was this, you know, I've achieved a lot here, but what is the next next X curve look like for me? Et cetera, et cetera. And we did this 80th birthday meditation together around, you know, celebrating his 80th birthday party. He had tears. He had tears running down his face because he said, you know, as I look to my 80th and as I connect to, again, your core thing of who I am, my strengths and what I really care about and what I want to be remembered by, he was like, you know, I wasted 40 years of my life and I'm not doing any of this Right. So again, there is a reflection on the younger self that the fact that they're going to be like, oh, my God. But I think when, when we look at our future self and allow ourselves to just tune deeply within of what we would want to hear, I think there is so much opportunity that opens up for choosing to be a different path, you know.

Yeah, that's such a beautiful exercise. I adore that.

So, my friend, let's dig into your two core things around new Happy that you started with, you know, discovering who you are. And the second piece is serving others. So talk to us a little bit around what are some ways in which, you know, our listeners can start that journey of discovering who they really are?

Such a good question. Where to begin? And I would love your thoughts too. I think that for a lot of us, that journey begins with the practice of self acceptance and the recognition that there are no conditions of your self worth. So you can go do something amazing and it doesn't make you more worthy, and you can go do something horrible and it doesn't make you any less worthy. And learning to actually adopt that as the perspective is, as I said, so foreign. Was so foreign to me. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean? That what I do doesn't define my worth as a person and the value that I have. So I think that that's usually the idea that I like to introduce people with. To start, you know, this recognition of. There's. You've probably heard throughout the course of your life all of the ways in which you're not good enough. You're too loud or you're too quiet or you're too slow or you're too fast or, you know, the list goes on and on forever. And we have to sort of cast those off a little bit and recognize the truth of our inherent worthiness, which we can do by taking a step back and looking at any other person that we see and thinking about their worthiness as a human being and recognizing, you know, like, looking at you. I would never put conditions on your worth. I would never say, oh, you know, that just because he said this doesn't mean he's no longer good enough. So can I practice extending that to myself as well? And I think that you don't have to accept yourself fully in this moment. That's probably going to be too hard for most of us who've been really conditioned by old happy. But you can start to practice. And the more that you can start to embody that and try to see yourself through those eyes of unconditional self acceptance, then the more that it starts to become a little bit ingrained within you and it influences your choices, which then makes it all easier and you start to kind of create this positive upward spiral. So that's usually where I advise people to start with, at least as an introduction to the concept.

Yeah. And I would add, you know, self acceptance and self love. Right. Just loving, loving ourselves for who we are and recognizing that nothing in the world is perfect. So are we. So are we. We're not perfect, but that doesn't make us less worthy. We are all works in progress. I love that. You know, we had Dr. Shauna Shapiro on our podcast. I think it's. It's been about three, four months ago. So we'll tag, tag it again on this. And you know, she wrote this beautiful book, says, good morning, Shauna, I love you, or good morning, I love you. And her message was, you know, when she was going through her journey, I think this just motion of everyday morning and kind of acknowledging yourself and saying, hey, I love you, versus feeling like I'm not right yeah, right. And it's amazing to me. There's so many people who will hear this and cringe, go like, oh, my God, what are you talking. I'm just going to call it out. We're like, what are you talking about? I love you. Like, hello, that's like, what is that? But if you don't love yourself, how can you expect others to love you?

And it's also this recognition of, like, I always want people to recognize that. How, when you think about the times that it's been easy for you to grow or to take on challenges or to do something that's different or new, what made it easier for you, it was probably having somebody who cared about you, who was cheering you on or was in your corner or was supporting you or coaching you through it. So why would that be any different for yourself?

Exactly.

Don't you think that loving yourself would make those things that you want to do much easier?

Yeah. And accepting ourselves for wherever we are and recognizing that, you know, we can still, you know, we can still, from that place, move forward, grow. We are always growing. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. It's like we've sort of equated this idea of, oh, if you accept yourself or if you love yourself, then that means that you don't want to change, which is just so fundamentally silly. Right. Of course. Like, of course that if you have that sense of love for yourself, you want to grow and you want to improve, and it actually becomes a lot easier. So I totally reject that idea that, you know, loving yourself means that you're not interested in growth. You can. You can do both at the same time.

Absolutely. And. And are able to achieve so much more because you're doing it from a place of ground, you know, from a place of groundedness. Right. It's this classic piece, again, that goes into people tell themselves the story that I'm a perfectionist, when what they're really trying to run away from is, like, feeling not good enough or feeling it's. That's going to define them. Right. In fact, you know, Stephanie, I always, you know, this. This has really always resonated with me, which is, you know, if you look at most animals, if you look at most things in our world around us, they seem to be quite content with being right. I mean, they're in the moment. They're eating grass or, like, you know, out there sitting. They're in the moment. But when we think about humans, even though we call ourselves beings in the world we live in, I think we probably should be called human doings because we don't like to just be. We don't because our whole sense of, to your point, worthiness is tied to achieving and doing things out there. So If I have 30 minutes, you know, it's so amazing to me, like somebody would cancel a client meeting and literally people are like, what can I fill that time with?

Yeah, totally. Got to use the time productively.

Got to use the time productively. No, it's crazy. So self acceptance and love is one way that we can start to know ourselves. What else?

I think from there learning to. The second component that I like to, to advise people to pursue is recognizing that they have unique goals and motivations and desires for their life and recognizing that moving towards those is a good thing and something that is really important for them to continue becoming who they are. So, you know, we're all, for whatever reason, we don't quite know, but we're all attracted to certain pursuits or ideas or you know, hobbies, things that light us up or inspire us. And the problem comes with when we decide, oh, those things aren't good enough for me or they're not going to help me to be successful or they're not going to prove my worthiness or whatever else we do. And so we ignore them and we push them away in favor of doing what we're supposed to do and achieving the goals that have been set out by our society that we're told are necessary. And I think that tuning into those things that bring you joy or that make you feel alive, that's so important for your well being. And again, when you're really deep and old happy, you might not have any idea what those are. And so how do you start small and start thinking like, I sort of want to read this book today or maybe for some reason this television show is really interesting to me. I wonder what it is that I'm attracted to about it. Like starting to notice these little signals that the world gives you as you engage with it about how you are being pulled towards something and what that looks like for you. Because to your point, and what we were talking about a little bit earlier, part of old happy culture is this idea that you have to push yourself and push and push and push and you can never stop pushing. And in fact, when we are intrinsically motivated by something as you are, when it's something that you just find enjoyable or interesting for the, for the joy of doing it, you don't have to push yourself at all. You're pulled towards it, you're pulled towards it without Ever really having to exert that sort of willpower or effort that we associate with achievement and with goals. And, and if you do that, then you're able to experience this profound joy of engaging with the world while also becoming more and more of yourself. And I think that that's one of the most beautiful things about us as humans. And the more that we can tap into that, the happier we're going to be.

We hope you're enjoying this episode. If you'd like to start building habits and integrating the Hardwired for Happiness practices into your life, come check out Rewire our program on the Happiness Squad website. Rewired contains 35 minute micro practices that can help you truly build habits for a happier, healthier life filled with more love and meaning. The program uses the science of habit formation and the power of community to support you in moving from knowing to doing to being. Now back to the episode.

Yeah, I mean, it is so beautiful. I've always said I said this on an earlier podcast, the Fear. Right. My original book, Stephanie, wasn't called Hardwired for Happiness. It was actually called From Fear to Freedom, A Journey from Within.

Oh, I love that too. That's a beautiful title as well.

So I'm probably going to re release the book again under that title. But really that's what I'd been researching. The whole field of happiness was not what I was researching, but I fell into that. Right. But yeah, but the notion, as I always say, a very something similar to what you just said, which is you really need the gravitational pull of purpose to pull you out of the gravitational pull of fear. Otherwise that's. If you don't have that, if you don't have something that is pulling you, you will go back and revert to kind of what feels comfortable yet painful.

Right? Right.

Because we are programmed for so many years growing up and then we build this lifestyle where there are external, extrinsic, in the moment things that we tie our happiness to that leaving them in pursuit of something which as I will say, quote unquote in the society would be. You know, that's silly, right? That's so silly. Like, why would you do that? You have the stable job, you're. So why would you do that? You don't even know if it's going to work. I think there is so much fear and so much of these noises, echoes that we hear back that unless we find something like that. Right. It just is hard to break away from it.

It resonates so much with me hearing you say that. I Couldn't agree more. And I feel. I feel that reflected in my own life experience. Like, I think that there were so many things that I wanted to do, but I was always so afraid of doing them, afraid to even acknowledge them to myself, as though admitting them to myself was going to, like, bring the world crashing down around me. Right? It was. It all just got suppressed. And you just need to push it down so that you don't even acknowledge it because your life might explode. Right. But then, you know, the only thing that helped me to overcome that fear was doing it for other people, was finding that greater purpose that you're talking about, because otherwise I never would have been brave enough to do it. And I think that that pull of your purpose, of the things that bring you joy that are meaningful and important to you, like, it's sort of like the difference between swimming upstream in a river, trying to, you know, fight the current and get to your destination versus flowing with the river. And so much of the advice I see online about doing, achieving your goals or, you know, crafting your life or whatever it is, it's all about, like, let's get better at swimming upstream. Like, let's, like, let's arrange our lives so that we can be really, really strong, strong enough to push through the forces. And instead I would love for people to say, okay, how do I float downstream instead toward the things that are important and meaningful to me.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, my mantra for 2024 that I'm living my life with. You love this analogy. I know you will, Stephanie, so I'll share it with you. Is three words. It's stillness in motion. And it came to me in a retreat at the end of 2023. I was in Jamaica. And, you know, stillness in motion, I think is a beautiful, beautiful concept. And this is the image that came to me, you know, because to some extent, they're polar oppos. It. Right. How can you be still and in motion, but then bring to your mind the image of two eagles soaring in the sky on wind currents, covering miles without fluttering a single wing?

Wow. Yeah.

It's finding similar to what you're saying. You described the analogy of finding your downstream and getting in the flow. It's the same. Find the natural wind currents that will carry you versus fighting your way.

To.

Achieve lots of ground. Right. They cover miles, miles and miles without giving up too much energy. And if we look at natural systems around us, that is the nature of life. Nature of life is not push and pull, push and push and push. It's not. So it's.

That's beautiful. That's a gorgeous image and a beautiful mantra. I love that.

So I always go into that. You know, you also talk about talent, and I think, again, something that we don't enough people think about. Right. Talent. So talk a little bit about talent and how important that is. Yeah.

So in the book, I argue that we have these three different types of gifts that we can discover, and they're a part of us, and then that's how we share ourselves with the world. And one of those is talent. And, you know, I think that talent is something that. There's so many misconceptions about it as a concept. And I think that it can be really helpful to. To break down how one gets a talent, because everybody wants to be talented, right? It's a. It's a beautiful goal. We. We all want to feel like we have something important and perhaps unique to offer. And so what I lay out in the book is kind of like a roadmap for developing talents, which can be used no matter what you want to. What you want to cultivate. But the way that I advise people to think about talents is that, you know, these are specific skills that you have learned how to master. And that means that no matter what, no matter what you've been through or no matter what, you know, if you would like to develop a talent, there's always some way that you can do that. And yes, of course, like, let's say you want to be the world's greatest swimmer, but you don't have the right body type or you have a disability that makes swimming hard. You know, like, there's going to be challenges that are associated with how you decide to move towards that goal. But it's always possible to learn how to cultivate a talent. And I think of my own life as an example. When I started making artwork, I had never used a graphic design program before. I had never made art before. I had never posted on social media before. I didn't have a personal account. I didn't have any knowledge of how to build a community or any of that stuff. Those were all talents that I developed. And the way that I did that was by figuring out what was joyful and interesting for me, what felt true and authentic, and then practicing over and over again and cultivating, you know, flow states to be able to develop more rapidly and to be able to experience that state of transcendence. You know, really testing ideas, trying things, making a ton of mistakes and a ton. Making a ton of things that I'm embarrassed by now, but it all mattered because it all added up into, you know, now being able to do something that my, let's say, like five year ago self would have never, ever, ever, ever imagined. So if there's a talent that you want to develop, it's something you can do. And it's just about, like, figuring out what it is that calls to you. Make sure you're choosing the right thing, the one that's authentic, and then identify what you can do in order to practice and cultivate that on a regular basis. And if you do that, you will absolutely see the results that you're looking for.

I love that. And I cannot believe that you were never like that. You only started graphics drawing, like how many years ago in.

20. 20.

Wow.

So I guess like four years. Less than four years now. Yeah. And I'm lucky because my work is very simple. So it's like I didn't have too much to learn. It's not like I'm making these very intricate or 3D things. You know, it's a very, it's a very simple form of work. But that was also a conscious decision of, okay, you know, this is how I, the, the pictures, the artwork that I share comes from the pictures in my head. You know, that's how I see things. And when I read research, I'll have these mental conception, concept, conceptualizations of it. And so it's sort of like very intuitive in a sense to me. But when I started trying to translate these concepts, I knew that I didn't have the skill to be able to do things that were complicated. And so I said, okay, well, I'm just going to be the girl who does really simple stuff. And, you know, like, it's sort of embracing a weakness and trying to turn it into a strength in a way.

I, you know, there is. I just had a conversation this morning, Stephanie, with the most amazing, most amazing 70 year old. Her name is Beena Mirchandani. She's part of our community. She's in India. She's 70 years old. She was a very successful executive in the retail space. And, you know, a year ago at 69, she decided to start painting.

Oh, that's so great.

And she just finished her exhibit. She makes the most beautiful watercolor notices and still life. And she just finished her first public exhibition. She sold 10 out of her 15 pieces. Oh, her work is amazing. Right. So this notion of we are not fixed at any age, you started four years ago. And it doesn't need to be complicated either. Right. So, yeah, right. We can all become it. In fact, friends, here's another statistic for you if you might not know this. I only discovered this about two weeks ago. Did you know that the you that you think you are, the you that you think you are, every cell in your body in three months is a new cell. Your body regenerates, not all at the same time, but continuously. But the reality is the you you are three months from now is not going to be the three you are. The same is true for everything outside. Right? The same is true if you imagine. Like think about. So our body regenerates every 90 days. Our emotions recycle. I might say every 90 seconds. Emotions rise and falls. Our thoughts change every 90 milliseconds. Not scientific, I know, I'm making it up, just playing on 90. But the reality is our thoughts change faster than our emotions, and our emotions change faster than actually our body. But we are continuously changing, so is the world around us. Seasons change, you know, things grow, things move. You know, some move at a slower pace, some change at a faster pace, but change is the reality in life. But somehow our egos and our images of who we are and who we are meant to be have this level of fixedness about them.

So true, isn't it? It's like thinking about, thinking about the cultural aversion we have to aging. Right. Holding on to an idea of how we used to look or what we used to be able to do, and then missing out on all of the things that we can do now that are different, that are available to us.

I mean, I love, love, love your art. Like, I can't tell you. Like I've, you know, every, every time there is something that you, that you put out there, Stephanie. It is, it is. And it comes deep from here, you know, and it's. Yes, it is simple, but life is simple. We make it complicated. And I think it's your simplicity and deep. But it also shows to me how deeply you understand it. One of my most favorite scientists was Richard Feynman. And I loved him because he could explain the most complicated things in the words of a six year old, you know?

Right. Yeah, Right. So kind of you.

Thank you. So let's shift to service. Let's shift to the second part, which is discover who you are. Discover who you. Who. What a unique gifts are. You know, what your. Yeah. What your talents are. And then you practice so they become a skill so you can then do great things. Then you say the second aspect of new happy is around giving it away. Right. This notion of serving others. Talk a little bit about that.

I think that helping other people is the secret to happiness. And I think that the only reason that we haven't really acknowledged that broadly, even as you said, despite the abundance of research that shows how powerful it is to be of service to others is because it's so counterculture to the way that we have been socialized into looking at ourselves and our lives. So really, the argument that I make is that the purpose of life is found in being of service to others. The joy of life is found in being service to others. The growth of you as an individual is found in being of service to others. And we are struggling as individuals and as a society because we have sidelined that as a nice to have in favor of personal growth and personal achievement and self glorification and aggrandization. And instead we need to focus on taking ourselves and offering them up to the world. And the more that we can do that, not only the happier we become, but also we make other people happier too. And so that's how we can create a happier world.

Yeah.

And isn't it true, Stephanie, also, sometimes it's even bringing awareness of in what way are you serving the world?

Totally. Totally. Everyone is doing something already. Everyone is already in service. That's the thing that makes me. Makes me both laugh and very frustrated because it's, you know, like if we demean this idea of helping other people, then we don't pay attention to the millions of ways that people are helping one another right now and the support that they're giving to people. Right. Like the fact that we're having this conversation is an act of. You're providing me with an act of service, inviting me to come speak to your community. That is a profound gift. And yet if we don't have that mindset of looking and recognizing our interdependence upon one another, then it just becomes like a transactional thing or something that you naturally do. But in fact, it is service. And that takes forms every single day for all of us. Whether it's through, you know, your relationships with your family or what you do in your community, or how you show up for your team at work, you're already serving. And the more that you can focus on that and then continue to find new ways to expand and share yourself as authentically as you can, the more happiness you can experience.

It is so powerful. As you serve others, you also start to bring awareness to how many others are serving you. Right. Our culture is so much about the Power of the self and self reliance and self dependence, which, by the way, is also at the heart of the mental health crisis. Because when you say it's all about you versus, you know, you're afraid to ask for help because you feel you're weak.

Right.

You're imperfect.

I agree.

I love the word ubuntu. Right. You are. You know, you are so. I am. Right. Like, it is so true. And I think it's this notion of serving. And by the way, you don't have to leave your job to serve others. A lot of people think serving means, oh my God, now I've been all focused on myself and now I should go leave it and serve others. Or people say, I'm going to serve others outside of my job or I'm going to serve others when I retire. Right. And you covered that point really beautifully too. Right. This notion of how can we be in service regardless of where you are and what you're doing, Entrepreneurship is not the only way of being in service.

No, no. And, you know, it's so interesting. Like, I remember a while ago, I noticed how, like, there are so many, so many people who I was speaking to were saying, oh, I want to. I want to help people. I want to, like, find my new happy and be of service. So I need to quit my job and become a coach or I need to, you know, like, kind of give up my whole life or whatever it is and go do something completely different. And if you want to be a coach, fantastic. Be a coach if that calls to you. But that's not the only path to being of service. There are so many millions of ways to serve. And you can do it right now, wherever you are. Right. It's about your next conversation. It's about the way that you show up for all of the people in the world around you today. And that's, I think, what I find really inspiring. You don't have to change your whole life. You can just start behaving a little bit differently and then reap the benefits of the personal joy that you get from that.

Yeah. And that's where the beautiful part of your uncover your gifts and serve the world to me, you know, really comes. You made it. Really, Again, your book, super, super simple Around. Look, if you connect what you care about, those things that bring you joy with your talents, things that you are strong in, you combine those two and start to figure out how I can live into those. Right where you are, in the place where you work, or if you want to go do something else that's fine, do that too. But just know this. So we talk about ikigai and I say, friends, just know this. If you have a job, right? Four elements of ikigai. What you love, what you're good at, what the world needs and willing to pay for. If you have a job, you have three out of the four in place. Whether you realize it or not, if you were not leveraging your strengths at work in some shape or form, doing something that you're good at, you wouldn't have the job. If the company wasn't doing something that actually provided value to the world, nobody would pay them the money.

It wouldn't exist.

I would never give my money to somebody that wasn't serving me. So the company you're part of is right, serving. So you've got the humanity, need somebody is willing to pay for it. Your strengths. So better to try and pursue and integrate what you love and right here at your job, change it. And I love the title of your chapter, the Perfect Job. Nobody told you about work.

Thank you. Yeah, we can turn our jobs, the jobs that we have, into ones that allow us to serve. I love how you describe that.

It's beautiful. So look, tell us a little bit, Stephanie, of like, obviously you have this book coming out. It's going to be in May. I can't wait to celebrate you and support you in this book launch. I think I've read lots of different books around happiness and when I read your manuscript, I love the simplicity of it. I love the authenticity of how you've shared your story. And again, it is so, so, so easy to digest, so easy to apply. Thank you for doing that. Thank you.

Thank you.

So you serve the world. Yeah. You serve the world. How can the world find you? And to really get more of Stephanie's.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah. All of your work, how could they bring them into their lives?

Oh, thank you so much. You can find most of my work is available@thenewhappy.com or on social media. EwhappyCo. Everywhere.

Beautiful. So as a parting, my last question to you, Stephanie, is, you know, you said, you know, if my 20 year old looked at what I'm doing now, she would be aghast. Oh my God. What are you doing? If the older you right now, Stephanie would give an advice to your younger you, what advice would you give?

Hmm. What a great question. I think honestly the words that come to mind are just very simple. Keep going, you know, just keep, keep pursuing what you're doing, which I feel very grateful for. I feel very grateful to my older self for that word of affirmation.

Yeah, keep doing right. Don't hustle for worthiness out there. Yeah, right.

Totally.

Well my friend, this was a real joy. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so grateful to you for all that you do. Thank you.

Take care.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us. Review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.