Cassie Holmes, PhD - Happier Hour

Foreign.

This isn't going to be a happy hour for you. We're talking about how to use your time better and how to be happier through all of it. That's the subject of our conversation today, everybody. My name is Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. Our show comes to you every week now for years with hundreds of episodes and more about everything to do with scaling your company, getting the strategy right, getting the team hired, engaged, retained, like that kind of thing, executing better with less drama and more profitability and optimizing your cash, metal and all the way. Then there's you and the way you manage your time, the way you lead. A good thing to remember is that a leader of a company a thousand times yours doesn't have any more time in the day than you do. So how we're going to use that time is really great. So I'm excited to have and to welcome to our show today Cassie Holmes. So Cassie is a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She's got focus on both psychology and marketing, which there's a lot of interplay between those two things. And she's been featured in the New York Times, the Economist, the journal, lots of places. She's got a new book out, Happier Hour and that's the subject of our conversation today. Cassie joins us from New York City where she's doing her book launch. Cassie, welcome to the show.

Hi Bill. Thanks so much for having me. This will be fun. I promise it will be a happy hour.

Awesome. Well, so let's start with maybe a little bit of your background so you have an interesting arc and then you had an idea for this book and the premise of it kind of tell your story that leads to this before we go into the fundamental ideas here.

Absolutely. Earlier in my career when I was on the faculty at Wharton, so I was living in Philly at the time and I had had a crazy busy day in New York City. I had gone up to present my research and there were back to back meetings and then a networking dinner afterwards and I barely made the very last train that would get me home to my 4 month old and my husband back in Philly. And I remember so vividly on the train that night as I was looking out the window and everything was passing by so quickly. I realized that time was passing by so quickly and I was exhausted and overwhelmed and I was questioning whether I could keep up. There was just so much to do and not enough time to do it between the pressures of work, wanting to be a good parent Wanting to be a good partner, having that sort of never ending pile of chores waiting for me at home. I was realizing there was just like too much to do and I didn't have enough time to do it, let alone to do any of it well, let alone to enjoy any of it along the way. And I remember thinking like, if only I had more hours in the day if I quit my job, that, you know, if I quit and move to a sunny, slow paced island somewhere, then surely I would be happier, right? I put this question to the test with some of my favorite collaborators to look at. If I were to have a whole lot more time, discretionary time in my day, would I be happier? And we looked at this relationship between the amount of discretionary time individuals have and their life satisfaction, analyzing data, tens of thousands of working and non working Americans. And the results we found were really interesting. It was an upside down U shape, so an arc or a rainbow. And what that says is that yes, having too little time. Folks who have too little time, too little discretionary time in their days are less happy because they feel stressed. What we didn't expect and which I think is really interesting is is that also people with too much discretionary time in their days are also unhappy. And we looked into this and what it seems is that or what the data shows is that when people have spent a sort of entire day with nothing to show, and not just a day on vacation or a weekend, but regular in their day to day life, when their days they have nothing to show for how they spend their hours, they feel less productive and that undermines their sense of purpose and therefore satisfaction. And this was really informative because it suggests that except at the very extremes, it's not so much about having a whole lot more time. It's not about being time rich, it's about how do you make the time that you have rich? How do we spend the hours of our days so that at the end of the day we don't look back exhausted and depleted and overwhelmed, and instead look back and yes, while we may have been busy, that we feel fulfilled and excited for the next day. And so that is sort of what set me on my course of not quitting and moving to this sunny island, but in fact shifting my research focus to, to answer these questions as to how should we be investing our time for greater happiness. And that led me with these insights to actually develop. And I've been teaching a course among our MBAs and executive MBAs at UCLA called Applying the Science of Happiness to Life. Design. And I've seen the wonderful impact. And of course, not everyone can come to LA and sit in my classroom for 10 weeks. And so I wanted to sort of spread these learnings and share them so that more people could understand how to invest their hours for greater happiness. And that is what motivated me to write the book.

Well, that was a whole lot. That was a lot there. But it's useful to take a couple of things. First of all, this notion of studying happiness, I think is coming up more and more. So we have a center here near me at UC Berkeley, at Cal, that studies happiness and satisfaction. And we see programs and courses and things, people looking at happiness all over the world. Now, what kinds of people are happy? When are they happy? And I love that you've looked at happiness from the point of view of time. And I think, like, so I'll just reflect a little bit on it. The things that I see for myself and maybe that I hear the first one that you talked about is too little time. So I think about a day when I'm packed back to back to back to back to back. No breaks, like, whatever. I feel harried. I'm, like, running for things. I can't do too many days like that in a row and I start to get irritated. I can manage more days like that if there are breaks in between. So even if there's a lot of things in the day, if I have a break to go take a walk and breathe for a second, pause in between things, then I'm much better off. If I have a day where I do a couple really important things. But I have a lot of time off. I kind of like that. Like that. That's a very satisfying day. Like, oh, I'm gonna do a couple big meetings and I'm gonna go surfing and finish the day and then we're gonna have dinner with my wife. Like, awesome day, right? And. But then the. The other side is also a concern. Or like, if I do a really long day, like, if I do a couple of days in a row of like 7 in the morning until 7pm I'm also like, oh, like, I'm kind of spent. I need some recovery time to balance out what I just did. Or put some things in the day to break up, to give myself a little bit of time back. And then the other one, though, is also true. Like, go on vacation and plan to do nothing. I think there's kind of a fantasy like, I'm just going to be on an island, on a beach and have nothing to do for days at a time. I'm very quickly bored. And the idea of retiring makes me anxious. Like, what am I going to do with myself? What do people do all day? I can't. I don't like to golf. Like, you know, and so there are things that I like to do, but what, I want to do them all day, every day. No, like that's just having nothing to do is also makes me anxious. And after a couple of days of doing nothing on vacation, I'm like, okay, we need to go, let's go to a museum, let's go around, let's see something else. Like, I need to put something in the day to spend that time. Right. Otherwise I feel like I'm wasting the time. Yeah, I think the two bookends are kind of what you're speaking to is finding that balance of feeling productive and useful and spending your time on something. Right. You spend it on something. Flicking through TikTok is not going to be something that you're going to be like, wow, I really spent some quality time in my life. I saw a lot of little snippets.

Right, right. Totally.

And yet you could chew through an hour in the waiting room at your doctor's office flicking through that distraction. Mindlessness. Nothing.

Absolutely. So to each of those three points, I have lots that I can say. And so to that first one of the too little time. Yes, there are definitely negative effects of feeling time poor, of this feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. And we conducted a national poll and found that almost half of Americans feel this way, that they don't have enough time to do everything that they want to do. And the effects of that are really negative. So when people feel time poor, they are less healthy. They don't feel like they have the time to exercise. So they don't. You see that they feel less confident to be able to achieve what they set out to do. You see that they're less nice, so less likely to take the time to help others. And you see that they're less happy, which is what picked up and was picked up in the data that I shared and that you are expressing in your experience of like, you know, if back to back meetings on those days or like multiple days in a row, that is back to back and exhausting. And you have no room to breathe, let alone to do anything that you enjoy doing. Apparently for you as surfing, you know, like that that feels bad, yet not yet that feels bad. Interestingly, in our data we found that in the Arc it was actually among that sample of American time use survey folks. It was beyond about two hours of discretionary time in the day. That's actually where you saw it leveling out with less than that. You see, saw that people are less happy. And initially I was like two hours of discretionary time. There's no way that sounds like so indulgent and outside the realm of possibilities. But in fact it's not so if you count up or I did this exercise for myself at that time when I had my young son, now I have a son and a daughter who are a bit older, that actually it's like between the 20 minutes of like cuddling with my little guy and then the half hour, yes, I would like to be more of having dinner with my husband. 20 minutes of talking to my best friend on the, my walk home from work, and then another 15 minutes of singing, you know, to my son as I'm putting him to bed. That's about an hour and a half that I wouldn't have wanted to spend in any other way. Those minutes, that hour and a half brought me joy. And so two hours is not totally outside the realm of possibilities. And picking up on your sort of third point in which I can speak more to is the amount of time that we actually waste in our day that sort of, you know, fall away while scrolling through social media, you know, or looking at TikTok or trying to catch up on email, that not all email is actually worthwhile, that there's, there actually are minutes available. So it is this like this middle, not sort of getting out of the extreme. Like you do want some time for the breaks, but you don't need a whole lot more time. And to your point about, you know, vacation, like, I too, I like fantasize about getting on the plane, bathing suits packed and sitting by the pool in Mexico. Day three I'm like, wake up. I'm like, okay, what are we going to do today? It doesn't take long to actually want to do stuff.

Read a book and sit by the pool a little bit. Then you're like, okay, let's go snorkeling today. Should we go?

Let's go do something. And I, Leo is 9 and my daughter is 7.

So yeah, 23 and 25 today. So it's definitely a whole different thing. And it's interesting on the one hand, when I hear your, your, your, your research, I think, well, wouldn't it be cool if like you made all your money and then you had your kids and then like you did One thing at a time. Except I think struggling, like the intense amount of work and effort that it takes to raise kids and be at kind of some peak times of your career also exposes kids. Like, the kids watch without thinking and noticing that they're watching. They see and observe and they're learning something from that. So if all you did was like, focus on your kids for a few years, that might feel like, okay, I didn't miss anything. But it also might be a little too much tension.

Yeah. And there is, you know, the potential to lose perspective. And I mean, it is. I will also note that among my friends who are not working and are focusing on their kids, I initially started asking them, I was like, how does it feel to have a lot of time available? And they're like, why I don't have any time available? You know, so we all find tasks on things to spend our time on. And then the hope is, or the goal is to spend on ways that are fulfilling. And actually this gets to your retirement fear is that there is research that shows that among retirees, those who spend their time in ways that feel worthwhile, in particular, they were looking at the effects of doing volunteer work, were more satisfied. We find in our data that actually among those who do have a lot of discretionary time when they spend their time in ways that they know as feeling worthwhile for them, in the data anyway, it got picked up as enriching. Hobbies, playing sports, spending time with loved ones. So through social connection that actually didn't see this dip in satisfaction. So it's really, again, not about how much time you have, it's really how you spend that time. And so to the extent your retirement, don't worry if you come up with another avocation, I guess, or a way to spend your time that is enriching and rewarding for you and impactful in whatever way that matters to you, then you will still be satisfied.

Well, so the. In the long arm, like, I think mostly like, okay, my work, the way that I work is deeply satisfying. I enjoy it, I'm good at it, you know, But I think about the pace and nature of it evolving over time as my needs and interests shift. So, and even now, like, it shifted over the last 10 years considerably. And I could see it shifting over the next 10 years where I might work with fewer people or do different kinds of things or travel differently than I do today and have started to evolve it. When I. And I think about those things, like, like time of life and phase of life seem to matter a Great deal in how we spend that time. When planning my own life, I think about like my legacy. So what do I want said about me when I'm dead and gone? Like what are the qualities and characteristics? And that ultimately becomes like my, my why or my motivation? Like for. So for me it's making a difference, like being one of the good guys, being generous, that quality, as long as people that I care about, that I worked with, that my family friends say that, then I've done my job. And then the other thing are like, what are the areas or concerns, the fundamental things that matter? Like you know, I like play. Play is a big theme that's a concern in my life. What kind of time do I dedicate to play and travel? So I mentioned surfing, but I like sailing, I like scuba dive, you know, I like lots of different things. Do I have enough time for that in have I reserved time for that? I like certain kinds of work. I like, you know, so if I like block out that and I design my calendar and then I fit my work into it, then I've actually reserved time for all the things that I care about. Right. So relationships.

Yeah. And to again, there's sort of different points that parts of what you said that I think are really important to speak to. So first about the time in life. And so in our research we've actually found and looked at what's the effect of age on how we experience happiness as well as the types of experiences that elicit happiness. And we find looking initially we were looking at millions of blog posts when people expressed happiness and we found that there were sort of two types. Among younger people, they were more likely to express, express excited happiness. As people got older, they were more likely to express happiness as sort of calm contentment. And so I think that that is important to keep in mind that the types of experiences that elicit happiness. And we also found that among young people, extraordinary experiences elicit greater happiness as people get older. And extraordinary experiences that, you know, amazing travel still elicits great deal of happiness, but also as do ordinary sort of joys within the day to day life. As people get older, they're more likely to notice and savor and appreciate those simple pleasures that contentment. So it's important to keep in mind that the sort of inputs into what makes us happy are going to shift another point.

I think that's really, really, really useful. And I also think there's an opportunity for both. So there's this. You're talking about two different kinds of happiness. One sounds like Hedonistic, pleasurable, excitement, play, parties, activities. You know, these are things that we, we take often selfish pleasure from. Like, you know, I enjoyed that, that was fun for me, that kind of thing. And then you talked about satisfaction, fulfillment, like more peaceful things. And I think about that as being sort of the more core. So one is like the play parts of me and then the other is like the purpose of fulfillment aspects where I'm satisfied with, I'm present, proud of something. And then I know from experience that when I actually get both of them together, I'm like super, like, like that's next level moments that feel like flow and that kind of thing. Like if I were to take a group of executives or other leaders sailing and I would do like my work while being in the outdoors, like those are peak flowy kinds of things. When I created a program to take kids flying and I got to go flying and then also like do something great for kids and that kind of thing, that was very satisfying. It took like a selfish activity of flying and combine those two things. That was also something that was kind of next level.

Yeah, and that's a great point. And that sort of distinction between the two types of happiness. When I was talking about the shifting happiness with age, I was talking more about the way we almost experience enjoyment from that excitement to sort of more calm. And yes, actually it's not like you want all of one or all of the other. It's sort of the proportion at different phases that is satisfying. This other distinction that you're picking up on is also a really important one, is that sort of how happy something makes you feel in the moment versus how satisfied and fulfilling and meaningful it feels sort of after the fact. The research does sort of speak to this, these dimensions and actually we find that the correlation is very high. Yes, there are some activities that are sort of fun but not meaningful and some activities that are meaningful but not fun. But actually when an activity feels meaningful, it is more likely to also feel fun. And so they, they do move together. And as you pointed out, those activities, and actually that's what I identify or I sort of define as the most worthwhile activities are those that are both fun and meaningful. And to the extent that you are spending on those activities that deliver on both dimensions, like that is joy and that is where you're likely to get into flow to the extent that you're not distracted during it. And those are the ways that if you can fill your days, that they give you energy as opposed to take away energy. Right.

But here's the thing. I think there are some number of us. I don't know how significant this is, but I do encounter this pretty regularly. And it's not a phenomenon that I suffer from, but I find some people feel like they can't feel good about it. It's not fulfilling if it didn't involve self sacrifice. Right. So if there wasn't a little bit of suffering with it, then they liked it. I'm like, why would you do that? Like, I don't mind doing what I do that I feel proud about in a nice place with a little bit of play and fun and getting paid for it. Like that adds to the thing. I don't feel like I need to like suffer or surrender something in order to feel proud of it or good about it. But where is that? I don't know if you looked at that at all, but I'm fascinated with the people that have that. Yeah.

And it is interesting. I think that the way that, I mean, my hope is that through these strategies and through the research which I share in Happier Hour, is that allows individuals to identify for themselves what are those activities that are in fact worthwhile? It might be that there are some that actually like. And so through time tracking, this is an exercise that I absolutely suggest folks do because it allows you to identify for yourself. And so what this is, is over the course of a couple weeks or one week, if it seems too tedious, is writing down what you're doing, what activity are you doing, and being quite specific. So not just work, but what feature of work are you doing? And then also important is rating on a 10 point scale how positive and not just enjoyment, but how did that activity make you feel in terms of happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment? So that with that personalized data, you, you can look back and see, okay, what over the course of the week, what are those activities that really fulfilled me? What are those activities that actually are not at all enjoyable? And also you can see how much time you're spending on these various activities. So you can identify how much waste there potentially is because some of those unenjoyable activities are not actually necessary. So that's a helpful information. And then there are some that yes, they are not fun, but they do have to happen. And then there's strategies for that. How do you make those activities less dreadful? So there's an important component in this, like once you accept and recognize, yes, my time and how I spend it is so important because, you know, our hours add up to our days and our years and ultimately our life So I have to spend it. Well, like, or else you're missing out on your life as it's passing you by. Once you identify that, then. Or like, once you recognize and appreciate that, then it's a question of identifying, okay, you know, for you, what are those worthwhile ways of spending that I. In terms of worthwhile, both happy and fulfilling, and, you know, your sacrificial friend or sacrificing friend, you know, it might be different activities that are feel worthwhile than something that you or I might identify, but it's helpful to identify them so that you can carve out, make the time for those and hopefully minimize the time you spend on those wasted activities. In terms. Another sort of source of identification, which you absolutely pointed to, is thinking back at the end of your life. What life do you want to have lived? How do you want to be remembered? This is an exercise that, in the book, as well as I have my students do, is write their own eulogy. And it's quite impactful. It's poignant. But it's absolutely not an exercise about death. It is really leading you, pushing you to clarify, what life do you want to live? How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to have people think about you? You know, impact do you want to have? And that's really helpful because taking that broader perspective of your life and thinking about years can inform how you spend your hours. And so it's really helpful to clarify what is important to you, what does matter as you're figuring out how to allocate your time going forward?

Yeah, I think there's a core to that. Right. When you think about the people that matter most to you, it's often family and a few close friends, and what do you want those people to say about you after you're gone? And you might have a narrative or a story of certain accomplishments and things like that, but there's a central theme through it that says something. And it could be that you created something beautiful and there's a legacy in the world, or it could be that you, like, did whatever you brought happiness to people or that kind of thing. But there's a kind of a flavor. And I think that that starts to being a centralized theme for your life, you know, in like, Simon Sinek's it's your why, or it's the Aubrey Daniels thing about, you know, what you actually care about. But there's something there that. That really matters. And that memorial exercise or eulogy, it really does, like, go to the end, the end of a Successful life. What do you say? And if you could imagine that. I have found every now and then some people get like, they can't do it. The idea of thinking about their death is too confronting. I usually tell people, so imagine your retirement party and this speech. What do people say at your retirement party if you can't think about that? Like, if the doubt. But it's not a lot of people that can't imagine that because you.

But there are some. Yeah, As I mentioned, I have this as an assignment in my class and I had one student who was a very conscientious student and she just came to me and she's like, I am sorry, I know this is, I have to forfeit my grade, but I cannot do this. It evokes so much anxiety. And I'm like, don't worry what your assignment. Let me change the assignment for you. Write out what life do you want to live. And notably, it actually is the same assignment. It's just framed a little differently. And she could do that. It's like, like, tell me the story of the life that you ultimately want to live. And she's like, okay, I can do that. But yes, there are some of the. It is anxiety provoking for some, but again, that's not the point. The point is to clarify what does matter. And under like. And what I think gets revealed in that is, as you noted, it is one's values as well as one's purpose. And so that purpose is the why. Right. And actually there's another exercise in the book that I walk people through the five whys to help sort of dig in is what really drives me answering, what do you do? This is in a work context and why do you do that? Why is that important? And then asking your question, like asking at that layer, well, why is that important? And once you go sort of five layers deep, you ultimately do find out what really drives you. And that was very helpful for me when I actually, it seemed like you guessed my purpose. It's to spread happiness. It's both creating the knowledge about what makes people happy and disseminating the knowledge about what makes people happy so that they can be happier. And that is really helpful for me in figuring out how I'm going to spend my time. Because then I take on projects, I say yes to tasks even if they aren't sort of immediately seeming fun, but I'll do them because it's like, yes, that's in line with what I want to set out to do, the life that I want to live. And Ultimately, that time does feel fulfilling. So, yes, all to say, it sounds like you are thinking along these lines already, but there is absolutely data to support it.

Yeah, a lot and lot of research has been going into this. For me, it's just it. It. Like in. In every different context, there's an expressed purpose that all relate to that greater one. So if I say the purpose of my life is making a difference, right. And I say it differently at different times, whatever sort of resonates with me, but it's all around the same kind of thing. Like being one of the good guys, being generous, contributing to other people is what it all comes down. Then I think about my work. I'm like, okay, well, what's my job at work? How does that connect to that? Well, our purpose and our business is helping leaders build a better world. So we simply help leaders fulfill on what they want to do. And what they want to do is ultimately like, good for the world in some cases. And if it isn't, we don't work with them for very long. We figure that out. Or, or usually they. They find somebody who expresses their purpose like that and it's turned off. And so they don't work with us in the first place. But. So that is. But then there's other times where it's like, wait, what is what? Like, I struggle with something, right. And. And to like, to be somewhat real and raw. When my dad declined and ultimately passed away, it was really hard for me, and I didn't want to deal with that. My dad had been my hero growing up, and I, like, I couldn't find myself, like, I'm supposed to be making a difference and being contributing to people. But I can't deal with this in this way now with my dad, because that changes him from who he was for me.

Right.

And I came up with providing leadership for my family. So corralling the family was something that I could do in dealing with dad and then going through all of that. You know, my dad passed away some years ago, 2008. And. And in the end, you know, I love him. He loved me. Like, we're good now. I don't have any unfinished business, but it was really hard sometimes. Like, we go through hard things sometimes. And you're like, how do I bring that purpose? How do I find something in what feels like an inherently unhappy time?

Yeah. And. And I'm so sorry that you lost your dad. And thank you for sharing. There are like, there's circumstances that are awful that suck and that we will.

Not always surfing in play and doing our best work.

Absolutely. And sadly they will happen inevitably. And the last couple years have shown all of us that we can't take our positive circumstances for granted. But it is helpful to have these tools that you know, yes, it's going to be hard, but you have these things that you can pull from and learn from and build from. And having knowing your purpose was what you went to. It's not that you're not going to feel sad for some time, but it helps you be resilient and figure out, okay, how, how do I continue on? And that is important to continue on in and caring for yourself because, you know, there's also these other sort of mood boosters. And sometimes it's not taking you from like an okay mood and like making you happier, but it sort of gets you through the bad times, like getting outside and exercising. That is something that does boost our mood and it pulls us through those hard hardships and hard times. And knowing your purpose is another one. So, yeah, the reason actually, while the title of my book Happier Hour might sound initially quite flippant and it's very purposeful in that it's not about happy hour. It's not it on or off that like, yes, you will be happy, it is happier. And it's like, how can. What decisions and choices, small choices that you make in your day to day of how you invest your hours that make you feel happier, more fulfilled. And it's not also just about this hour, the immediate happiness. It's again speaking to the fact that our hours add up to our life overall and how we're gonna spend the life has to start with an hour.

So yeah, yeah, you know, we. Well, I'm reminded of another like a personal thing. So when my daughter was very young, she got sick. Like, you know, a lot of kids did. But my wife was away traveling and she had a high fever and she seemed quite sick for, you know, over a week. And I was up most of the night. So I was kind of like out of sleep, trying to work, trying to take care of her, like doing all this kind of stuff. And I was like completely exhausted. And after a couple nights of it, when I was kind of at the edge of breaking point, my mom was here. And my mom came upstairs in the middle of the night. She said, how could I help you? Like, what could I do? Right. So here's a moment that's deeply unhappy. I'm stressed, I'm at my wits edge. And yet in that moment I also realized, oh, my mom cared for me like this when I was young, my mom loves me and in that moment of my mom offering to help me with my daughter was really all about my daughter. Then I also was reminded of how much my mom loved me. Right. And so I got happiness or happier moment in an unhappy like difficult time.

Yeah.

And I think that there's something there about connecting those dots, seeing like, okay, I'm spending my time this way. Right. And something that I, you know, you choose like, you know, I'd rather every day with sunshine and every day I go surfing and every lark sailing or like whatever it is. And I do really powerful work. But sometimes stuff happens, right?

Totally. Yeah.

You don't like to have happen and then you have to like put some perspective on it. Right. September 11th happened and I'm like, oh my God, the whole world seemed terrible and that kind of thing. And I took a walk and I and like an awe walk and I would just like look up into the redwoods around our house and that kind of thing. And I'm like, that grounded me and centered me. I'm like, the birds still live in the trees and things continue on. How do we pull back and shift that time notion of, you know, what, what am I doing to take care of myself to find happiness too?

Yeah. And I think something that's coming through in what you're sharing and absolutely does in the research too is just how important those relationships that connection is with the people that we care about are. And you know, the time tracking research, when you look at the people's happiest moments, it is when they are having like genuine connection with another person. When you. And it is like those relationships both get us through the bad times, but also make fun times more fun. And it points to, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs at the base of the pyramid. So these are the things that we need for well being are. At the very bottom are our physiological needs. So we need health, shelter, food, water. The very next, the most fundamental psychological need is a sense of belonging, of connection, of having relationships that make you feel connected and that you feel known friendships, you feel known and you know someone else fully. And then it's like only once those relationships are satisfied and you have a sense of connection and belonging, then it's about competence next. And then, and then it's self actualization beyond that. So like to the extent that you execute your competence on something that you care about and your purpose. But those relationships and you know, we talk about our time and the busyness of our Days and we're rushing about and it's so important to create the time to cultivate and those connections with the people we love. There's a really fascinating study as a longitudinal study that followed a cohort of men starting in their early 20s in Boston, some that were attending Harvard, others that were living in a sort of less affluent or less well situated circumstances in Boston. And they sort of track them over the course of their lives for 75 years, checking in intermittently, what are you doing, how are you doing? And what they found at the end of these folks lives. The single biggest determinant to life satisfaction was not money, was not fame, it was whether they had strong relationships. And it didn't have to be family necessarily, it could be friends that feel like family. And it is. So it's important to keep in mind, but not. But, and what is also important to keep in mind is that those relationships and investing in them, it doesn't necessarily require a lot of time to have a really strong connection. I mean my relationship, and I use this example because it is so true and so affecting, both for me and it's sticky for others to think about how they sort of, you know, they put it into their experience. But my seven year old daughter, as I mentioned, I have a seven year old daughter. We have a weekly coffee date every week for 30 minutes and it's just 30 minutes. We go to a coffee shop and we are just delighting in each other's company. It's just she and I and she has her hot chocolate, I have my flat white and we have croissants and it is 30 minutes, but it's a 30 minutes that colors my week. Right. I look forward to it every week as does she. We remember back on it and if you ask me, how happy are you in life? I'm like, I am, I am happy because. And then I was like, well, why am I happy? Because I have this relationship with my daughter that I love so much. And it's yes, there are other times that we spend during the week, but it is actually that 30 minutes that really sort of fills that relationship and solidifies that relationship and celebrates that relationship and sort of continues it. And it's this sort of, you know, as I talked about before about some of these exercises that some people might view as quite depressing. And one of them, but I think is not, I think can be and has proven to be quite impactful is counting times left. How many times left do you have to do one of these assertive activities that bring you true joy. And with my coffee date with my daughter, I calculated, all right, with my maternity leave, every day I would sort of bundle her up and we go to the coffee shop and then it's been weekly since. And then, but important to count how many times do we have left to have our coffee dates, recognizing that in a few years she'll rather go to the coffee shop with her friends, and then she's going to go off to college and then she's going to move somewhere across the country. And I calculated that even though she's only 7, we have about 35% of our coffee dates left. And what does that make me do? Well, it makes me prioritize that time. I make the time. Meetings are scheduled around it, even when we feel busy and tired, like, oh, maybe we shouldn't do it. Nope, we're going to spend this time. And it also makes me not only spend the time, but totally savor. Like, I remove distractions, put my phone away, quiet. That, like, mental to do list that is constantly running in my head because that is our 30 minutes.

And yeah, there's something really brilliant about savoring, like stopping, noticing fully taking it all in that we, you know, we rush through our lives, we rush through this, we rush through that. We. And. And then we manage our distractions increasingly with the little device in our hand, flicking through this or that in an anxious way these days. But stopping to savor things is a very powerful things. Just stop, notice. Notice everything. Take in the smells, hear the sounds. Like if you can connect a little bit. The other thing, though, I think, like, I could tell you, you know, with kids a little bit older, so, you know, maybe I had a routine with our son, transitional. Going to coffee shop every morning before his early school years. But then later, like, we had our ski trips together. And then when my kids turned 18, they each had a private trip with me. We did a thing, just the two of us together. And I think that they actually change. And then we've started to design and think about, you know, 10 years, my wife and I. Anyway, the kids, not so much. But think about 10 years out in the future, okay? By then they'll probably have families. So what are we going to do? Trips, holidays, like, what are the things that we want to build together? Because while you only have so many of your coffee things, but then there'll be something after that that you will create. And especially if creating regular rituals and touch points and then really being present during them is your practice. Like, that's going to be an ongoing thing. Before we run out of time, I want to just point to some of the exercises in your book because they're very related to a lot of the ones that we talk about, but I'm sure take them in different directions and expand on them. So I want people to point. Before we do that, let me just remind everyone that we bring episodes to every week. Like them, subscribe, get notifications, that kind of thing. So you get them. If you want to get all that or more, you can go to our website scalingcoach.com there it is. If you're watching on video, it's right there on the screen and we'll put it in the show notes and then if you want to send us a note like you want to give some feedback, ask for some follow up or anything like that. The email is info scalingcoach.com and info scalingcoach.com the website scalingcoach.com but wherever you're getting this, YouTube, Facebook, Apple, Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, LinkedIn, Live, like whatever it is, just like and subscribe right there is fine. You don't need to necessarily. But if you want to go, go to our website scalingcoach.com we love that. So let's go to some of your exercises and stuff maybe. I think I've got them all here. So the first one you talked about, it was like tracking time. So just thinking about reflecting on where you spend your time and what of it is satisfying and in what ways. So there's that one. There's more of that in the book. Then you also talked about the five whys. Very much like the work we do in helping companies find their purpose. But you can do the same thing in other areas of your life. Like why do you really care? And probe that, probe that, probe that until you come with something that you actually feel something for. You talked about Five Senses Digital Detox just now, even with your daughter, like turning off your phone and like being like fully experiencing something. There's an old Star Trek episode, once up a card episode where he met a group and they like did this time thing and time would kind of stand still. But I know there are a few times when I've done that with my family that have just been magical. I'm just like stop and notice stuff. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so moved right by just my family's like, why is dad crying again? He always cries, but like, why not joyful activities. You talked about finding and doing that kind of thing. The eulogy exercise a memorial like that. You've got all of that. And then learning from elders, like, what is it that there is to learn? I think a lot about, like what was there to learn from my grandparents, from my parents, that kind of thing. Who are other people in my life. What is it that the wisdom that I want to like soak in now so I don't f up this time in my life.

Totally. We have a lot to learn from folks who have lived a good one. Yeah. And we should ask them about it.

Well, that's a lot to chew on. The book is Happier Hour. Get it now, Amazon, wherever. Happier Hour is the book. And we'll put the link in the title up there in the video version and in the show notes for that. But I think you can remember that pretty well. Happier Hour and go find that now. Make a difference for you. Cassie, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for, for joining us today.

Well, thank you so much, Bill. This was, this was absolutely worthwhile. Both happy and fulfilling Happy hour for me.

Hey, some shout out and thanks gratitude to some other folks. Wanda Mitchell in the background getting our guests prepared. Our shows scheduled and done. And out the door, the folks at Podfly Productions who produce and edit the audio side of our show and get that out every week along with the show notes and all that. And Vern Harnish, author and creator of Scaling up and the original Rockefeller Habits, my friend and mentor. Thanks, everyone. Keep Scaling Up. We'll talk to you again next week.

Sam.