The Psychology Of Feeling Loved | Dr Sonja Lyubomirsky

I've done 36 years of research on happiness, and after all those decades of research, I realized that the key to happiness is fuck.

Why is it that so many of us are loved and yet we actually don't feel loved?

If you want to feel more loved, you need to become known. You need to be known to the other person and to really know the other. And most of us have these sort of walls around us, and that means I don't really know you and you don't really know me because you can barely see through.

Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers And doers. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, a high-performance psychologist named Michael Gervais, who head coach Mike McDonald and former head coach Pete Carroll brought in to work with the Seahawks, famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos Project.

Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent. They have to stay mentally tough.

Today's guest is Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology and one of the world's leading researchers on happiness, whose decades of work have helped shape how we understand what it means to live a happy life.

But people get wrong is to get more love in their life or to feel more love. The more money, fame, power, beauty that we have, the more we'll have. And that we know from lots of research that that's not the answer to happiness or to feeling loved.

In her latest book, How to Feel Loved, Dr. Sonja explores a powerful and often overlooked idea that the key to happiness isn't just being loved, it's feeling loved. And more importantly, we talk about why so many relationships fall short even when love is present.

The 3 words that everyone wants to hear, it's not, "I love you," "You've lost weight," it's—

With that, let's jump into this week's conversation with Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky. Okay, Sonja, I picked up your book because it challenged a first principle, and I've known of your work and known of your research, And it challenged the first principle that I have, which is the directionality of love. And so before we get into what was challenging me, welcome. I'm so happy that you're here.

It's a pleasure to be here in person.

Yeah, this is great. I really, really enjoyed your book, and it's called How to Feel Loved. And first and foremost, where can people go to check into it and buy the book?

Very easy. The title.com, howtofeelloved.com. People can find lots of information about the book. We even have a quiz that we developed. we talk about 5 mindsets in the book: the sharing mindset, the listening to learn mindset, the radical curiosity mindset, the open heart mindset, and the multiplicity mindset. And we developed a quiz to help people understand what is their strongest mindset and which mindset is in their most need for improvement in a particular relationship in their life. So go to howtofeellove.com and check out the book and take the mindset quiz.

I loved it. And it's also, if you're thoughtful, a bit of a diagnostic of your current relationships that you're in.

Yeah, exactly. We were actually stunned to hear that we wrote the book as a kind of a prescriptive, like, here's what you do to feel love, to embrace these mindsets. But then a couple of early readers actually told us that they broke up with their girlfriends after reading our book, 'cause they used the mindsets to hold sort of a mirror to their relationships. And one guy said, these are both guys, one guy said, I realized after reading your book that my girlfriend is no longer curious about my work. And the other guy said, my girlfriend is no longer sharing, and I'm no longer sharing with her. And I'm assuming, by the way, they went to couples therapy or they talked about it, but they ended up breaking off the relationship. So that was surprising to us. But we think it's also an important benefit, I guess, of learning about the mindset is that you can use the mindsets as a diagnostic about your current relationships.

And so maybe just a quick background for you first, just set the context. Why did you want to write about love?

Because I've done 36 years of research on happiness, and after all those decades of research, I realized something. I had not been really listening to the data that were in front of me, and I realized that the key to happiness is feeling loved. And I can say more about that in more detail, but the key to happiness— I'll repeat it— the key to happiness is feeling loved. That's why I wanted to write a book about feeling loved.

It is worth repeating. The key to happiness is feeling loved.

And it's not being loved. A lot of us are loved, but we don't feel loved. And there's lots of reasons for that. A lot of people say, like, I have connections. I know people that love me, but I'm still not happy. And I think that feeling loved is really, really important. And that's subjective. And it's also under your control.

Okay, so let's talk about the control thing. This is, this is where my approach in love and a good life, maybe even a great life, is to have people that I can share love with. And so my job in that is to fill up with love because we can only give what we have. If we're anxious, we give that. If we're frustrated, we give that. So my job is to fill up as best as I possibly can and then give it. And that is part of a meditation practice. It's part of a daily living practice. It's part of the relationships I want to be in. So my job is to be in a position of control and be great with the things that I can control. And when I read your title, I was like, wait, hold on, this is not how I see it. So can you— you're nodding your head like you know where I'm coming from. Can you address why you pivoted in the way that you did?

Well, I'll start with saying a reader recently emailed me and said, what's more important, to love someone else or to feel love from someone else? And I was like, it's kind of a ridiculous question because of course both are important. And I also want to say that we have a little bit of a counterintuitive message in our book, is that if you want to feel more loved, the first step is to make someone else feel loved first. So of course they go together, and it's a dynamic process that I make you feel loved and then you reciprocate by making me feel loved. But feeling loved, it's like, how do I say it? It's as though, let's say you're wealthy, you have a lot of money, but you don't feel wealthy, or you don't— I don't know, you don't see it. Then it doesn't matter how much money you have because you don't feel wealthy. If you have a lot of love out there but you don't feel it, it's as though it's not there. So that's really key to happiness.

Yeah. So as I was digging into it, and I think you'll appreciate this, I didn't start as a skeptic. I started curiously, like, wait, hold on, you've done a ton of research on relationships and now love. And so I was like, where is she coming from? You and your partner that wrote the book, not to be lost on that, that it was a tag team here. And can you open up first? Like, let's just start the basics. Your definition of love. Like, let's start with some very basic things so we can get on the same page there.

Sure. And my coauthor is Harry Reese, who is one of the world's preeminent researchers on love and relationships. And I'm a happiness researcher. So kind of made sense for us to get together. Although we realized that love scientists and happiness scientists don't talk to each other as often as we should.

It's a really fun insight, yeah.

Yeah, and so love, we define love very broadly. I mean, love is basically, right, the sense that you matter to someone and that they matter to you and that you have the sort of sense of warmth and bonded feelings with someone else. Often your goals are intertwined, but it doesn't have to be romantic love. It could be love for your neighbor, your child, your best friend, your colleagues even, you know? And I think we should bring actually the word love into more spaces. Than we do.

Of course, you're not just talking about romantic love, but so what does love look like outside of romantic love?

Well, it's warmth and kindness and a feeling that someone matters. We talk about a mindset in our book called the open heart mindset, and that's basically love for all kinds of people in your life. So open heart means you believe in someone, you want them to be happy, and they matter to you. So really, I think that's the key. I want you to be happy, and you matter to me, and I matter to you.

You created this image, I think it was towards the end of your book, where imagine that the person that you're wanting to be connected with is on the other side of a foggy glass. Can you walk the listener through that image and what is on the other side of the foggy glass and how to work through the foggy glass?

And I love that metaphor. So this idea is one of the key messages of our book is that if you want to feel more loved, you need to become known. You need to be known to the other person and to really know the other. And most of us have these sort of walls around us, or you can think foggy glass around us. Like, we're sitting here, imagine, yeah, we're sort of surrounded by like a foggy glass or a curtain. And that means I don't really know you and you don't really know me because you can barely see through. And the only things you can see maybe are kind of like the things that I show you, which are often the positive qualities, right? When you first meet someone, especially on a first date or professional meeting, like we want to impress the other person, right? I want you to know that I'm smart and interesting and funny and virtuous. And that's great. And it's human, it's normal. And I might impress you, I might succeed in impressing you, I might succeed in getting your admiration, but I'm not going to make you feel loved, or you won't make me feel loved. So the idea of the foggy glass is that if I show genuine curiosity in you, if I truly listen to you, if I show warmth and acceptance towards you, it's as though I'm kind of clearing that glass a little bit, and I'm seeing a little bit more and more of you, you become a little bit more known to me, and then you reciprocate, and I become known to you. And this is so important because we argue that I won't ever really feel loved if I feel that you don't really know me, right? Because I'll always wonder if he really knew me on the inside, what it's like, all the messy complexity, some of the negative stuff too, then you wouldn't love me. So being known is really critical. To feeling loved.

I'm nodding my head to everything. What do you hope— I want to get to the 5 mindsets that you outline. It's great. What do you hope the reader understands right now from your message, or the listener in our community understands most? Because what you just said is tight and it's beautiful and it's powerful. But what is the thing that you want people to understand above all else?

Mm-hmm. The first is, and I mentioned this before, but again, it bears repeating. By the way, most people don't feel as loved as they want to be in their relationships. We actually did a study, a survey expressly for the book. We found that 70% said they don't feel as loved as they want to be in at least one relationship. 40% reported not feeling as loved as they want to be by their romantic partner. So this is very common. If you want to feel more loved, you go first. You make the other person feel loved by— what do you do? Showing real curiosity in them and listening to them. And we'll get to that in more detail.

I think that's one of the mindsets.

Yeah. But I think the key is, or a really important take-home message, is that this this is really empowering because most people think, oh, I don't feel enough loved. I need to make myself more lovable, right? So I have a family member that this happened where I didn't feel as loved by her as I wanted to be, as I needed to be. And so I thought, what do I do? How do I somehow make her love me more? Right? So we think, I need to make myself more lovable. I need to show my good qualities to this person, or I need to somehow change them. Get them to sort of love me more, express it more. Right.

But both of these seem like a mess.

Yeah. And we don't have control over that. And so we say, and this sounds like very pad, but we spent 7 years working on this, and suddenly it all kind of clicked. And by we, I mean me and Harry Reis, is that if you want to feel more loved, you don't need to change yourself. By the way, it's always good to work on yourself and evolve. So I'm not saying improve anyway, but you don't need to change yourself. You don't need to change the other person. What you need to do is change the conversation, show up differently in your conversations with that person. And that's very controllable, very empowering.

And when we show up in that way, and you're saying in these 5 mindsets, when you show up in that way and you go first, which is you are working to see them, to understand them, and that creates a loving approach to them. They feel seen, understood, and loved.

Exactly.

And then in return, they start to act differently. And because you've acted differently.

Exactly. So you first make them feel loved by, again, the first mindset, or not necessarily in order, we call it radical curiosity, is you show genuine interest in them. And it's actually amazing how rare that is. You know, when a person is so interested in you, they're really curious in you, whether it's the details of your day or your work or, you know, your feelings. You show interest, and then when they start talking, you ask them questions. We don't ask each other enough questions, research shows. We think that asking deep questions will be seen as nosy or prying. It actually turns out that that's false. On average, people want to be asked, right? Because they want to be seen. So let's say with you, I ask you— and actually, the family member I mentioned, I started thinking, what is she really interested in? It turns out she's very interested in health. So she reads a lot about health. And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna start reading a little bit about what she's interested in and then asking her about that. And so you ask them questions about their interests, you remember those interests, and then they start talking, and then you truly listen. The second mindset is called listening to learn, and most people are not very good at it, including myself. We mostly listen to respond than to listen to learn, right? We are trying to think of the next thing we wanna say, or we try to think how to fix whatever their problem is. But listening to learn is really being with them and asking them, what was that like? You know, the 3 words that everyone wants to hear. This is kind of a joke. It's not, I love you. I've heard the joke is that it's not, I love you, it's, you've lost weight, or you were right. But actually, no, it's not that. It's, tell me more. Tell me more and really mean it. Isn't it such a gift to be so curious and to really listen and to stay with them? And so that's what makes people feel seen, heard, and loved.

So if we go back to radical curiosity as a mindset, as one of the 5 that you've identified to help feel more loved, and again, it's by initiating a way that you are engaging in the relationship. And then what happens is that people see you differently and feel differently about you, right?

But yeah, they reciprocate. So this is a tricky thing. So reciprocity is one of the most powerful norms of human behavior, right? It's evolutionarily adaptive, right? We reciprocate. It's very hard. That's why the Hare Krishna at airports used to give you flowers so that you would reciprocate, because it's very hard not to reciprocate. And so the idea is that I would show my family member that curiosity and listening, and then she would return the favor and then ask me questions about myself. And that happens most of the time. But I keep being asked, actually, by people who've read the book, they're like, but sometimes it doesn't happen, and I do everything right and doesn't happen. So that's a whole other sort of question. Should you sort of give up on that person and walk away, maybe accept the fact that that person lacks the capacity to reciprocate. So that has happened once in a while.

That is best reserved for narcissists and people that really are not capable of seeing you. And so, okay, that withstanding, it sounds clever to be curious, to be radically curious. It sounds really clever. Okay, good. What are the ways to do that? And how do you respond if somebody doesn't respond well? And I know you just walked through, like, find something that they're interested in, ask them questions about it. To me, that almost feels tactical, right?

I think there's a fine line between something that seems a little bit like manipulative almost, or strategic. Although when you think about it, many things in life kind of have multiple goals, right? So I might help you because it feels— makes me feel good about myself to help you, but I also actually genuinely wanna help you. So I think it's okay. To have sort of multiple goals in mind. So if I want to make someone feel loved by showing curiosity, at first I might start being a little strategic about it. Another example from my 12-year-old daughter said to me one day, she's like, Mom, I have this classmate, and she told me a month ago that she's really obsessed with— it was some kind of sport. I don't even remember, some kind of obscure sport. And she said, I remembered that, and I asked her later about that sport, and the girl just went crazy. Like, she was so happy. Because no one asked her about this. And then she just went on and on and on. And that's social intelligence. It's also strategic, right? But she also made this girl so happy and strengthened their friendship.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Sunlighten. I'm really excited about a new partner of ours. Something that I've come back to again and again is when I invest in recovery with the same intention that I bring to my work, everything gets better. My energy, my focus, my ability to show up fully for the people that I'm with and the work that I care about. That's why I am so bought in on the Sunlight and M-Pulse intelligent sauna. I was first introduced to their team a few months ago and was so impressed by what they've created. This is one of the most advanced infrared saunas that they've built in over 25 years of pioneering this technology. That's right. They've been at this game for 25 years. I had one installed in my home a few months ago, and it's made a real difference. I feel more refreshed, more grounded. More relaxed, and it's become a consistent part of how I recover, how I reset every day. I'm using it to support muscle recovery, for improved oxygen delivery, and for nervous system recovery. And what I love most, I don't have to leave my home. Right now through May 31st, Sunlighten is offering up to $2,200 off, free shipping, and a free red light mask. Head to sunlighten.com and use the code mastery for this great discount. Again, that's sunlighten.com and use the code mastery. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Proton VPN. For so many in our community, travel is part of the rhythm of doing meaningful work. Boarding flights, hopping between cities, working out of hotel lobbies and coffee shops. It's all part of what it takes for some of us to lead and build at a high level. And one thing that's easy to overlook in that rhythm is digital security. Because the moment you connect to public Wi-Fi in a hotel or airport or cafe, your activity is suddenly a lot more exposed than most people realize. Logins, emails, financial information, sensitive work, it's all in the open in a way that doesn't match the standards we hold for the rest of our lives. That's where ProtonVPN comes in. ProtonVPN is a secure service designed for people who want to prioritize their digital privacy and security. It lets you access the internet the way it should work. Open, secure, and on your own terms. If you take your work seriously, take the conditions you work in seriously too. Right now, Proton VPN is offering you 70% off a 2-year plan when you go to protonvpn.com/mastery. That's Proton, P-R-O-T-O-N, vpn.com/mastery for 70% off your 2-year plan. Again, that's protonvpn.com/mastery. /mastery. So that's interesting. You slipped in there, but I think it was the most important part of the sentence was when you are curious, it's a way to help somebody feel loved.

Absolutely right. That's what we're trying to do at first. The first step is you make someone else feel loved by showing genuine curiosity in them. It has to be genuine because you'll be able to tell if you're faking it.

And you don't know necessarily if the person is feeling loved, right? Because if you're asking me questions, I can interpret that as inspection. I can interpret that as, oh boy, I need to perform. I can interpret that as like, whoa, if I'm not perfect, I'm creating a bunch of maladaptive responses to an honest question.

Right. Well, Mike, you're bringing a really important point up, which is that it takes— you have to read the room. It actually takes quite a bit of emotional intelligence to do what we're suggesting to do. Right. So when I'm asking you questions, right, I don't want to be an interrogator or an interviewer. It has to be just the right amount, just the right amount of deepness. And then I need to kind of gauge your responses. Are you sort of responding in a way that I am expecting? Like, should I ask you more? Should I kind of pull back? Maybe now it's time for me to share. Because if there's an imbalance, then people feel the imbalance. So you really need to kind of read the room. And some of us, like, it takes practice. Some of us are not as good at that as others. Yeah.

You know what I found is like, the pacing of questions actually helps. And I find myself purposely slowing down and then ending the sentence with an up in, in kind of inflection as opposed to, you know, a very fast kind of abrupt ending. So a fast question with an abrupt ending. My experience is it creates a bit of anxiousness. It's like a cheap lever you can pull for people is like you can go fast and then leave, leave empty space, which creates anxiousness.

Great tip. Yeah. The more I talk about these topics, the more I realize sort of how many— it's so dynamic, like how many factors are involved, how many cues are involved. Or when you share— we haven't talked about the other aspect, which is sharing. Sharing is important. If I'm sharing something with you, I need to gauge your response, your curiosity. Are you really listening? Do you really care what I'm saying? Should I say more? Should I say less? Should I ask you a question now? And again, I think we all can do it, and it takes practice. And some people, when people tell me like, oh, I try to do this with someone and they just don't respond, they don't reciprocate. And sometimes it's just the person lacks the capacity within that moment or the self-awareness to respond because all of their mental resources are being used up by something else. Exactly.

Yeah. And if somebody were to want to build a curious mindset, Well, there's different kinds of curiosity, and actually my lab is studying curiosity.

We've done studies where we ask people to try to be curious every week. So you can be curious about a topic, right? So let's say I wanna learn more, I'm watching a show right now about hockey. I won't say what the name is, but it's amazing. And I'm learning a little bit about hockey, right? So I can get curious and learn more about it. But what I'm more interested actually is social curiosity, which is curiosity about a person. And sometimes it's easy when we're falling in love or making a new friend that we're really excited about, right? We're very curious about them and we like, we wanna know everything about them. And sometimes it's harder. It's actually often hard with people we know well. Like, we have a partner for many years or decades. We often stop being curious about them because we feel like we know everything, right? We stop asking questions of the people we've known the longest. And so some of the tips are to sort of approach others with wonder every day, because even if I've married to someone for 30 years, they are having new thoughts, new dreams, new doubts. New fears, new feelings, new experiences every single day that I don't know about. Right.

So as I'm thinking right now, I'm like, I need to do that more with my wife. And like, you already see each other.

Yeah.

But like, my wife and I, we see each other and hug each other and laugh with each other and argue with each other, like, all the time. So there's so much raw clay there. How would you hope that people in intimate relationships deploy curiosity better?

Yeah. And sort of ask more and really mean it. You know, like, how was your day, honey? You know, and tell me more. Again, like the 3 words. So that's, you like that, tell me more. Yeah. You can say it different ways or like, so something was hard today. What was the hardest thing about it? Or how did you really feel when your colleague did, said that?

What about when you start asking questions and somebody responds and go, well, I hear you asking, but you don't really care.

Well, again, that's the key that you need to really care. Now, if you really care and they somehow that's not coming through, that's, I guess, a different problem. But maybe you're at first being a little more performative, right? And maybe that's okay. We all kind of have to start somewhere. It's like learning to play the guitar I remember I was once interested in Judaism, and it felt very weird to me to do these rituals. The books all kind of said it's okay. At first they're going to seem weird and unnatural, and after a while they'll seem more— or I actually, I do happiness interventions for most of my career.

What is that?

Okay. Happiness intervention is basically a clinical trial where instead of testing a vaccine or a medication, we're testing a happiness practice, like expressing gratitude or doing acts of kindness. Or asking someone just be more social. So we do these experiments that randomized controlled trials, and then we randomly assign some people to write a gratitude letter every week, or to do acts of kindness every week. And so sometimes people at first feel a little bit unnatural doing it. It doesn't come naturally to them, but then they sort of find the rhythm, they own it. So it's okay. I think lots of things start a little bit unnatural. Sports, you know, first, it doesn't feel right.

Right. I think embracing the awkwardness is very different than suggesting, like, let's fake your way through it. Because if I'm going to be a coach or I'm going to be a teammate or I'm going to be a student or a loving partner, I just need the raw clay to be honest. And then we can really go somewhere together.

The word fake is a terrible word, right? Or you can just say, like, yeah, this is a little awkward for me right now, but I'm going to just admit. And this is the sharing mindset, is one of the mindsets, which is that you're vulnerable and you're admitting this is a little awkward. But start with that, and then it'll get better. Actually, we were talking about how if you want to help someone, you feel like you need to be authentic, and really it comes from the heart, and you're helping someone not because you want something in return. My point is, no, it's almost never like that. We almost never have pure motives. We almost always have multiple motives. So I help for 5 different reasons. And I think it was His Holiness the Dalai Lama who said, Dave Erickson, I've had the fortune of meeting with him a few times. He said something like, it's okay. I am sure he said it much more eloquently than this, but he said something like, it's okay to feel good when you help someone, like to do it in part because it makes you feel good. That's great. The important thing is that you're helping and that you also want the person to be happy, right? So it's okay to have multiple motives. I'm thinking of like a student in school and they're learning, they're studying for a test because they want to learn. And they want to be a scholar and they want to be a doctor or whatever when they grow up. But you know what? They also are studying because they want to get good grades and they want to get lauded by their teachers and their parents. And that's okay. We almost always have multiple motives.

Yeah, that is really clean. It's honest. I think that's where the springboard for this. Yeah. Okay. Dalai Lama. Pretty cool. Like, again, when you were in his presence, going back to, like, mastheads or, like, the icons of something. What did you notice?

He— and by the way, Harry Reese, my co-author, and I, we actually went together with a group to India, to Dharamsala, to meet with him. And so we have some stories in the book about it. He's so serene in the face of a lot of hardship and adversity. And the way he talks about the adversity, about how China has treated Tibet, he's just so serene about it. And one of the most powerful things that he said to us is he said, And I can say this to you, Mike. I am your mother and you are my mother. We are each other's mothers. How can we ever harm each other when we are each other's mothers? And I think that is so powerful. And he said a lot of things sort of like this, sort of like, we need to treat each other well because we are each other's mothers. Isn't that beautiful?

Yeah. When I was in his presence, it was a small room, like, I don't know, 30 people. And the joy that comes from this man is undeniable. And he is radically unbothered. And he shared that he's terrified of sharks. It was a, it was a really—

I did not hear that. Good thing there's not a lot of sharks in Dharamsala.

But there was another surfer in the room with us. So, you know, but anyways.

Yeah.

Okay. Awesome. Will you start at the top and just list the 5 mindsets to help people feel more loved?

Sure. We start in the book with what we call the sharing mindset and getting back to this idea that we all have walls around us. We're all— and actually, when you notice that, you see it everywhere. We all have walls around us. We build these walls to protect ourselves. So they're there for a good reason. And yet they also prevent people from really, like, getting in. We don't let people in. And yet, again, to feel love, we need to be known and we need to really get to know other people. So the sharing mindset is one way. That I can become less opaque, that I can sort of take down the walls a little bit. And so sharing means sharing authentically, sharing vulnerably, not just telling you all the positive things about me because I want to impress you. But it doesn't have to be negative, by the way. It could just be like, here's my true opinion about that movie that everyone loves but I hate. So it starts with sharing. The second mindset is listening to learn instead of listening to respond. Again, very difficult for almost all of us. We're kind of all passing the mic to each other when we're talking. I can't wait to get my mic. We also often want to fix other people's problems instead of just validating their feelings. And therapists, coaches, of course, know this. And so they know it is valid. I'm very good at sort of fixing. You know, the question you should ask yourself, do you want to be hugged, heard, or helped?

In this moment?

Yes, in this moment, of course. The third is radical curiosity, is to really show genuine interest in the other person. It's such a gift. And listening too. You know, it's such a gift to be really curious about the other person. I think of it as an act of kindness.

I think curiosity as a mindset is one of the most significant mindsets in our modern world. And we are sucked into this need to be expert because of this fear of people's opinions. FOPO was some of my research. And this evolutionary, if you will, under quotes, biological dictum to be included, to not be rejected, is right underneath the surface for all of the things that you're suggesting. Like, it is a driver that is very hard to escape unless you address it.

Yeah. In fact, we started the book actually with this idea that it's evolutionarily adaptive to want to feel loved. And then when you don't feel loved, which is very much linked to feeling lonely or feeling like you don't belong, you almost literally feel like you're going to die. Because in our ancestral history, when you didn't belong, when you didn't feel loved, you really could have died.

Right? You were pushed to the fringe, and that was a near-death experience.

Exactly. So it's actually an important signal that something needs to be repaired, a bond needs to be fixed. So it's actually a good thing when you don't feel loved. It's healthy. It's a healthy signal that tells you to go and do something to make yourself feel more loved.

Okay, so we hit 3. Let's go 4 and 5. Open heart and multiplicity.

So open heart I'd mentioned before. So open heart mindset is sort of having warmth, compassion for someone, kindness, and believing in them. We talk about something called the Michelangelo effect, which is that The artist Michelangelo was said to see a block of stone, a block of marble, and he sees an image in that marble, and then he sort of sets that image free. So maybe it's an angel or a person, David, and he chisels away to set that image free. And the open heart mindset includes me seeing something in you. Maybe I see that you want to be more extroverted, that you want to be more patient, you want to be a marine biologist, you want to be a writer, and I try to help you achieve— I believe in you. I help you achieve that goal. So that's part of the open heart mindset.

Before we go to the last one, what is a practice to be more open-hearted that you can point to?

For decades, my lab and I have been doing interventions where we ask people to do acts of kindness for others. And so this is very simple, simple but not simplistic. Just do small, small or medium or large acts of kindness for people around you. Yeah, I think we did the very first acts of kindness intervention in 1998. So basically what we find is if I ask you, say, for the next month, to do 3 more acts of kindness, say, every week that you don't normally do, you feel happier, you feel more connected. We also have been showing that doing acts of kindness gets under the skin. So we actually take people's blood before and after this intervention, and we find that people who are asked to do acts of kindness for others, as opposed to one of the comparison conditions is do acts of kindness for yourself, which, by the way, is also a good thing. Self-care, maybe a little bit of self-indulgence, take a nap, have a piece of chocolate. But if you do acts of kindness for others, you show changes in gene expression that are associated with a stronger immune profile. So less pro-inflammatory gene expression, right? So more inflammation is bad. So you kind of want to have less pro-inflammatory gene regulation, gene expression, and a little bit— and we also have some evidence of greater antiviral gene expression.

So somebody buys— I'm in line, and for whatever reason, they want to buy my tea. The person behind them, they don't know me, whatever. Or maybe we had a conversation. So that's what you're pointing to when those things happen. And can you give— 3 other examples?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my favorite example is compliments. So I don't think we give each other compliments often enough. In fact, there's research on this. Something like every 5 times that I think of a compliment to someone, I don't actually say it for something like 3 or 4 of the times.

Is this your research?

No, this is Nick Epley from University of Chicago.

Oh, Nick.

Beautiful research.

Nick did this.

You know Nick. Yeah. Love Nick. He has a new book out, by the way. It's going to be amazing. Coming out April. Have him on. Okay, so compliments. So I go to Trader Joe's all the time. It's a grocery store for those of you, anyone who's international. And I will often say things like, wow, you are so good at your job. Because I'm very busy. I'm always running, right? They're like, thank you for being— because they're super efficient. They're really, really fast. Like, thank you for being so good at your job. You made my day better. And they're often shocked to hear it. I think people don't usually say that. It's a small but genuine compliment. Or I'll say to someone, often a woman, I'll say, you are so beautiful. That's a little dangerous sometimes to say things like that. But as a woman, I'll say to often women, more women, I'll say, you are so beautiful. When I really mean it, by the way, it has to be authentic. And I've had women cry. They start crying, and they're like— and especially, I actually talked to one of my students once who's really beautiful. I said, you're so beautiful. She's like, oh, no one ever tells me that. I'm like, are you kidding me?

And it takes a lot of courage to give a compliment.

It's vulnerable to give a compliment.

It is.

It could be awkward. So again, compliments— I have never done a compliment study, but I've done lots of acts of kindness studies. And so obviously, a compliment is a type of act of kindness, as is showing curiosity, as is showing gratitude. There's lots of different kinds of kindness, and people really appreciate it. And we probably all had these experiences where someone gives us a compliment. I remember 20 years ago, another professor who was more senior than me gave me a compliment because I had a thought that she thought was really smart or creative. And I still remember that compliment.

I had a compliment in 4th grade.

You still remember? What was it?

I was dribbling a basketball, and I don't know, she was probably— I was in 4th grade. She was probably in 7th or 8th grade. And for some reason, we're walking down the hallway of our school. I remember it so crisply. And she goes, wow, you're really good at that. You must play a lot of sports. And I thought, oh, yeah. And I remember, like, wanting to be better at dribbling. And, like, I just— it was a weird thing, but I just really remember. And that's one of the oldest I remember. But when people give them all, you know, it's just such a breath of fresh air.

And it's not just, oh, it makes you feel good. Because as you said, like, it can actually change the path of your life. Yeah. Like, whether it's you recommit to sports, or I remember someone told me that they liked the clothes that I wore, and I'd been kind of insecure about my style. People tell me sometimes, like, they'll be like, Sonia, you know, remember, you know, 10 years ago, I saw, I met you in an elevator, like, at a conference, and you gave me a compliment. And then that inspired me to, you know, do whatever they were doing. So I don't remember it. And you know, the cost to me of giving someone a compliment, like a 10-second compliment, right?

But it costs vulnerability.

Yeah.

The cost is—

But it's so little, right?

Yeah, it's really not that expensive to do it.

And the benefit to them could be this much. And another example, 'cause I love giving these examples, 'cause I'm a full professor, if a student gives a really good talk, whether it's in my department or a conference, I try to remember to email them or to say something to them. And just say, hey, that was a great— that was wonderful talk, you know, because I know how much it means to them.

Yeah.

To hear that.

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Right. We don't— yeah, we don't— I don't think that has not been done yet. So we've only done just general acts of kindness for others. So they could be all kinds of acts of kindness. But Nick Epley, again, back to Nick from Chicago, he has done studies showing that we underestimate sort of the rewards or value of compliments. We underestimate the value or the benefits of deep questions. This is sort of the theme of his research. We underestimate the benefit of gratitude. So we think, like, oh, if we express gratitude to someone, yeah, we kind of generally think they'll be kind of nice, but it's a lot more positively received. And acts of kindness too. We think, oh, it might be a little awkward to do this act of kindness or reach out. One of my favorites, reach out to an old friend or colleague that you haven't reached out in a while. Just send them a text. And by the way, after listening to this, if everyone does this, the world would be a better place. We think, oh, why don't we—

I wonder if we could do a social—

a little challenge.

Yeah, I mean, cool just to do a challenge, which is like, how many people would you want the listener to reach out to?

Oh, oh, oh, just one. Just one.

Just one. I was going a little bigger.

I mean, you could do 3.

Let's go 3.

Yeah, 3. So reach out to 3 people in your life, and it could be your friend from high school, your colleague from 2 years ago, you haven't really been in touch, and just say, hey, I haven't heard from you, just a little bit of a note. It could be, I'm so grateful that you're in my life, that you helped me with this thing. People generally think, oh, it might be a little awkward. They haven't heard from me for a while. Maybe they don't really want to hear from me. But on average, people love to, you know, wouldn't you love to receive one of those messages?

I'll tell you one I recently received. It was from somebody I really respect. We don't spend a lot of time together. We did some work up at the Seahawks. He was a guest speaker and we got to know each other. And he sent me an email and he said, hey, just, I've been thinking about you a bunch. You really are a soul feeder. And, um, wishing you the best. And I was like, no one has ever used soul feeder. And I was like, oh wow, that, like, it was awesome. So I saw him just recently, like 2 weeks ago at the Super Bowl. And, um, I was like, hey, remember that note you sent me? And I was like, I gotta say thank you. And he was like, yeah, it's true. It was easy. It was non-consequential for him, but it mattered a lot to me.

And actually, in your thank you also matters because there's also research on how important it is to then to show gratitude for that, because then it makes him feel even better. We just don't do that enough.

So let's think about, before we get to multiplicity, the mindset of multiplicity, I want to do one more thing on the acts of kindness. I like that you said random. Strike that and put general. General acts of kindness.

Or intentional, deliberate, because they're usually deliberate.

I like that a lot.

They're not random.

Yeah. And I— this was probably like a handful of years, 10 years ago. I've been married to my wife for 30-some years. Came downstairs one day and I said, God, you are beautiful. And in my mind, she is stunning. And, and she just had this glow about her. And she said, thanks. And she said, it's a depreciating asset, you know? And I went, no, it's not the tone of your skin. It's not. It's just the way you carry yourself. And she's like, but my looks are depreciating. And I was like, oh, hold on. It's really important when I talk about how beautiful she is that I'm talking about not physical but I'm talking about like everything. And for me, it's that spark that comes out of somebody's eyes, that aliveness, that zest for life, that, that thing that is undeniable that they're here and with it and they've got a strength about them and or even the vulnerability that's for it. Like all of that is so beautiful. And so I just want to mark that when you— to our community, when you give a compliment, to also know that I guess it is nice to say that the outfit you are wearing is pretty or nice, or you look great in that. That is cool. I do not want to get too intense on this, but it is the essence of a person if you can see that. Like, soul feeder.

Exactly. And you know what? In part, it is a gift. I mean, partly because the person feels so wonderful to hear it, but it is a gift because it means you are really noticing. You are really paying attention. You are really with them. You are really attuned to them. You've noticed something about them, that zest or that energy. Some people say, I feel loved, but I don't feel understood. That's actually fairly common. And we kind of say it should go the opposite direction, that the more I make you feel understood, the more likely you will feel loved. It's not a guarantee, but that's why we start with curiosity. By the way, another challenge I would say is try to be curious about someone today, or at least 3 people, right?

So, okay, let's go back to our challenge. 3 people today. Like, don't wait for tomorrow. Do it today.

Do it today.

3 texts.

Reach out to people. 3 people in your life, just simple texts. It could be, I'm grateful for you, but it could be just even less, you know, more neutral. And then show curiosity, genuine curiosity in 3 different, 3 different people, 3 different conversations.

Are these 2 separate challenges or the same challenge?

Yes, 2 separate challenges. 2 separate challenges.

Okay, so 6 people or 3 people?

6 people.

Let's go 6 people. I like the decisiveness. 6 people, 3 of them of which you are reaching out because you want to share appreciation.

That takes seconds to write a little text.

Yep. And then for 3 other people, we are doing what?

We're showing curiosity in a conversation we're having with them.

So how are you doing? How's that project you're doing?

Tell me more. But really think about something that you actually are curious about. Right? Great curiosity. Okay.

6. This is great. Come on, let's move the needle. We need it more now than we ever did.

Absolutely. And by the way, we talk in the book and— okay, so open heart mindset, again, showing compassion and believing in people. But notice that all of these mindsets, and we'll get to the last one, which is maybe even more relevant, are important when you're talking about strangers. When we're talking about this polarized society we live in, we're talking about bridging divides across politics, religion, whatever. Imagine sitting down with someone who's wearing a different hat from you, right? Whether, no pun intended, but it could be in sports, could be in politics, and really showing curiosity in them. Like, why do we don't agree on these things? Because most people just kind of shut down. Either they yell at each other or they just don't talk. Someone was telling me that they have these, MAGA-supporting relatives, and they love them, but they just don't talk about politics to them ever. And like, okay, that's one way to deal with it, but why don't we show curiosity in that person's thinking and beliefs and feelings? Another study showed that actually being vulnerable and sharing, like about my struggles with my son, you have similar struggles with your son, even though you're on opposite divide. So all of our mindsets are really relevant also about bridging divides.

Great. Before we get to multiplicity, I've said this 5 times because I really do want to sit there for a minute together. Our community, they're really switched on. They are high performers. How can your work help people that are ambitious? They really want to have an amazing life and do amazing things. You know, there's a thought that sometimes gets complicated, which is if you really want to do special things, you have to sacrifice relationships. And I wrestled with that probably most of my professional career. And it was haunting. It was that when this— when we first started this podcast 10 years ago, it was probably the question I asked most quote unquote experts, like, how have you managed your love life? You are so good at what you do. Meaning there's so much time under tension and investment in your craft. Like, how are you doing it? And I didn't get many satisfying answers.

Right. Well, I think you already kind of answered your own question earlier because you talked about the importance of being connected and feeling loved to a person's success, right? That you actually are going to be more successful when you have wonderful relationships in your life. People who support you, they're there, of course, when you need distraction, when you need support, healing, whatever. And so you actually will be more successful if you are feeling loved in sort of other areas of your life. And they also will support you literally by championing you or helping you train or whatever you're doing. But the other thing is, a lot of what we talk about in the book is about basically, I would say, attunement. Because when you think about curiosity, sharing, listening, it's about really being present and attuning to another person. And those muscles, are also, of course, so important in almost any kind of performance. Right.

What do people in high-performance environments misunderstand about love?

I mean, I'm not sure there's something unique about people in high-performance environments. I think maybe we all have sort of similar misunderstandings. And the one that I keep going back to is the idea is, if I want to feel more loved, I need to make myself more lovable. I need to show off and broadcast how wonderful I am. And the more wonderful I am that I can show you, the more maybe you'll love me and I'll feel loved. This happens a lot on first dates. Actually, I went through a period, I went to a lot of first dates, and usually the guy, and I'm sure women do this too, will just sort of spend the whole first date talking about themselves or talking about their opinions. And it's normal. I have compassion for that. They're trying to impress me, right? They're trying to impress, broadcasting those wonderful qualities, and it doesn't work.

Peacocking, sending all the right beautiful feathers forward.

And sometimes it's really interesting, and I try to kind of disrupt that. And I will just say, actually, I had one date with someone who is actually a well-known writer, really, really smart. We are having this actually really great intellectual conversations, but it was still not forging a connection. So I actually said, I actually interrupted him, and I said, you are a little intimidating. And actually, it is kind of a vulnerable thing for me to say, because I am, and I even said, I am not often intimidated, but you are a little, and he was like, really? And it kind of broke that fourth wall. And we ended up having a, you know, whatever, a more connecting conversation after that. So again, what people get wrong is to get more love in their life or to feel more love, we need to sort of be more wonderful or pursue those success. You know, the more money, fame, power, beauty that we have, the more we'll have. And that we know from lots of research that that's not the answer to happiness or to feeling loved. Awesome. Multiplicity, maybe my favorite mindset. It comes from— well, I'm told it comes from trauma research. This idea that if you have a trauma, it doesn't define you as a person, right? It's part of your quilt of many things. So the idea is that we are all a quilt of both positive and negative and neutral qualities and features and traits and behaviors, and we're not defined by just one trait or behavior. And this is a really hard one. The reason we talk about is that when you're sharing, when I'm sharing, maybe you share something that makes me uncomfortable, that maybe you share a bad behavior you once did or a negative quality. And that the idea with multiplicity is I recognize you, I see you, maybe I accept, maybe I forgive. I accept with warmth. Now, sometimes you share something and I might have that compassion and multiplicity, and maybe it makes me not really want to hang out with you. But that's okay, because it's not about justifying or condoning or excusing. It's about, seeing people in all their messy humanity, and that we're all full of contradictions. We've all done bad things, right? So I'm honest sometimes, and you know what? Sometimes I lie. I am kind sometimes, and sometimes I'm selfish, and sometimes I'm loyal, and sometimes I'm narcissistic. And, you know, we are all like that. And so to also to view ourselves with a multiplicity mindset, with self-compassion, is also critical.

Let me summarize to make sure I'm on the same page, which is Yeah, you know what? There's multi-dimensions to people. And so can you hold the complexity of another person in your mind's eye, in your heart? And can you do the same for yourself? You know, it's not good or bad. It's, it's way more complicated than that. And it actually will feed curious, radical curiosity.

Right, exactly. Like, why did you do that thing? And I have some examples that actually people people have a really hard time with. I'll just start with something else, which is that I think that we are by nature as humans judgmental, and that being judgmental is evolutionarily adaptive, right? That I need to make a quick judgment about whether you're a friend or an enemy, right? And maybe that came from our ancestral past. And so we need to deliberately overcome that judgmentalism.

I've had to work hard at it.

No, we all do. We all do. Because often— one of my examples actually is a friend said something pretty awful. To a woman, and we found out about it. And my friends are like, can you believe he said this? It was text, actually. We're like, I can't believe he said this. This is so awful. And all of us immediately are judgmental, right? We're like, I can't believe him. We don't like him. But the second response is, wow, I can see that little boy, that little threatened boy inside of him. Maybe that teenager who was rejected by women, you know, when he was young. Come out in that text. Right. And so I have compassion for him. Now, again, doesn't mean I want to hang out with him.

Bad behavior is bad behavior. But you can address the behavior and also understand the complexity of where that might have come from.

And there's also advice that parents are often given about their children. Right. So a child might misbehave, and so you can punish them for their behavior, but not for them, their trait or the person.

Right. And then casting the gaze on yourself with multiplicity is a great way to embrace the complexity of your tapestry. So to speak. So you move into MDMA and monogamy in this kind of subchapter. Can you open up why you went into those two directions? And I just said them like they're related, but I don't think that you put them in a related way.

Yeah, I guess they kind of are related. So I do research. I have a line of research on MDMA. It's actually not at all surprising that I study MDMA, which is also known as Molly or ecstasy for people who don't know, because, you know, we were talking about how we all have walls around us. And MDMA is an incredible substance that helps people lower their walls, right? When people are on it, under the influence, it lasts about 4.5 hours. People feel like they can really share. They see complexity in other people. They see beauty in others. They're grateful. They are not as defensive. That's why it's used for trauma, because you can really go back into the room where you were raped or you're in combat, and you can process that without the fear. It's sort of like the walls come down, the defensiveness comes down. I had a neighbor who told me, that he negotiated his divorce settlement under the influence of MDMA with a guide, which I thought was brilliant, right? Because imagine how emotional and defensive people get, you know, writing divorce agreements. So anyway, so I thought that was just very relevant, right? Because almost all the mindsets, people are incredibly curious when they're on MDMA. Now, I'm not suggesting that we all take MDMA, but it's scientifically, it kind of opens the window into sort of what actually happens, like in the brain, for example, you know, what brain pathways are involved when you're really curious or when you feel really loved or when you're really listening, when you're really sharing.

What are some of those tip of tongue brain networks that you're most interested in?

I'm not being a neuroscientist. I can't speak like from memory right now. I think I used to know better, but it's actually really interesting. It's very revealing, kind of like what brain pathways are involved when you're really feeling understood and feeling loved. It's something that you, it's hard to manipulate in the lab, but with the substance we have.

Is that similar research to ketamine? Is the feeling safe enough to bond with the therapist?

Very, very interesting. I don't know. I mean, I know about research on ketamine. Ketamine is a very different substance, right? It's dissociative.

100%.

Very, very different. But yes, absolutely. We actually write— I have a paper on this where I write about how MDMA is beautiful for sort of fostering the patient-health professional alliance and bond.

That's where I saw— so we know that rapport matters so much. In the therapy, Dave Erickson.

Maybe it's the most important thing.

The most, 85% and some would suggest. Exactly.

Yeah.

If I am your patient or your client and I'm just kind of wound up, I'm protecting myself and I just can't quite let go to let you see and understand me, it's going to take a long time to get the change that I want. So what the research around MDMA and others is suggesting is like, wait, are there mechanisms to help somebody feel safer? Which is different than alcohol. Alcohol, like, there's a disinhibition that takes place, but it's different. I'm not using, I don't use MDMA or ketamine. I'm not, I haven't been down that path, but I really do like the point that you made in your book that alcohol is different than these other psychotropics.

Exactly, I think it's very, very different. Also, people say that on MDMA they feel more like themselves.

Right.

Yeah, it's as though we have these walls around us which kind of shields what we hide, who we really are. MDMA, you feel more authentic on it. I don't think anyone says that they feel more authentic on alcohol, maybe on cocaine or another drug.

Yeah, you hear people say, oh, God, what did I just do last night? Great. The second is you made a point to bring up monogamy. If you're talking about love and most of the Western world, I think most of the world is aligned with monogamy as a choice of intimacy. And so you just pushed against it. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Rag Bone. I've been a big fan of Rag Bone for a number of years. I just love what they do. It's a go-to for me when I'm choosing clothes. I've been wearing their Infused Denim for a while now. They've done just a really nice job with this product. For me, I am really intentional about what I invest in. In clothing, it's no different. I want things that are well-made, that stand the test of time, that don't distract me, that support my focus on the things that matter most. And that's exactly why these deliver. and they look sharp, full stop. They've spent 20 years obsessed with getting this product right, and that kind of long-term commitment to craft, that's something we talk a lot about here at Finding Mastery. Quality compounds. The right inputs made consistently over time show up in everything, and you can feel that the moment you put these on. If you're ready to upgrade your denim with something that's genuinely built to last, head to rag-bone.com and use the code Finding Mastery for 20% off your entire order. Again, That's rag-bone.com, R-A-G-B-O-N-E.com, and use the code Finding Mastery for 20% off. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn. Earlier I mentioned LinkedIn Hiring Pro, and I want to come back to something a little more personal. We talk a lot about the people who make extraordinary things possible, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge some of ours. Janelle, Taylor, Alex, Emma, and our newest teammate Chelsea. Every single one of them came to us from LinkedIn, and every single one of them has raised the bar of how we operate here at Finding Mastery. Our relationship with LinkedIn, it also runs a lot deeper than just using their tools. We also work with their teams on the corporate side, helping them build the kind of high-performance culture where great people want to stay. They want to grow. I've been building businesses for over two decades now, and I'll tell you, the right team, that matters so much. It's the difference between grinding and flowing. So this partnership leadership I believe in from the inside out. When you hire through a platform like LinkedIn Hiring Pro that surfaces people who are genuinely aligned with what you're building, you get a different quality of candidate, not just in skills, but in fit and values, the kind of energy someone brings to a team. So if you're thinking about your next hire, I wanna strongly encourage you to be intentional about where you look. The right person is out there, and LinkedIn Hiring Pro helps you find them faster with a lot more confidence. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/Mastery. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's LinkedIn.com/Mastery.

Yeah, and actually, I'm someone who's pushed against things my whole life and career, including actually doing research on happiness before there was a happiness field back in 1989. Ed Diener is the founder of the field, and he was really only one person who was working on it. So yeah, monogamy, non-monogamy. So, so it's actually incredible, again, when you see it everywhere. My kids and I sometimes watch reality shows, like The Bachelor or Love Is Blind. They often are choosing between two people, and I'm like, kids, why do we have to make this choice? Why is there a choice? So this is just an example of our society is built around monogamy. But this is actually a very relevant question to ask in a book about how to feel loved, which is that, can you feel loved by more than one partner? And one kind of maybe easy answer is, well, think about your children, right? If you have more than one child and you have kids.

I do.

I have four. Certainly people will say you can feel loved by more than one child, and we can love more than one child. We can feel loved by multiple friends. We argue that you can feel loved by multiple romantic partners as well. But this is assuming this is all ethical and transparent and they know about each other.

So the research supports that. I thought the research— the research I was aware of is that that multiple relationships, it's doable but complicated. And I'm going to make up this number right now, so don't hold me to it, but just generally, like, in the 80% range, do not end well.

So is that old?

Is it— is it right?

I don't think that's right, but it's so hard because there's so little research on non-monogamy and the samples are not very representative. And, you know, we just need more, like, huge studies.

Yeah, this was— sorry to interrupt— this was open relationships.

Yeah.

So marriages that had open relationships where they would invite other couples, and I think it was either swinging or whatever the terminology is, that, yeah, you can do it, it's just really complicated, and they usually end sourly.

Well, so I have so much to say about that. One is that it's possible, at least in that study, that the couples that chose to open up chose for a reason. And it's possible that maybe they had lost passion or maybe they already had some kind of problem. So the causality could be going the other the other way.

Yeah.

So we need bigger studies. But for example, there was a YouGov poll that was pretty big and representative.

What is YouGov?

YouGov is an organization that supports voting, and I think it's more democratic. And I believe 40% of millennials reported either having been non-monogamous or wanting to be non-monogamous at least some of their relationships. And so that's huge, right? So those numbers could be changing. So we need a lot more research because is, yeah, we really don't know. It's really hard to compare. So we need a lot more research. But some of the research that's been done is actually kind of the opposite to what you say. For example, that there's more jealousy in monogamous relationships than non-monogamous, because in monogamous relationships, you don't really talk about it. So maybe you hang out with your colleague at work who's an attractive woman, and your wife, like, I don't know, there might be more sort of misunderstanding or uncertainty. In non-monogamous relationships, there's a lot more conversation, communication. On the other hand, there's a lot more effort to emotional effort that's put in. It's difficult. So anyway, so I could say a lot more about that, but I think it is relevant to our book because it's about feeling loved. And we talk about how to apply feeling loved, not just to sort of monogamous, non-monogamous situations, but to children, to parents, to colleagues. Right. So how do the mindsets look different in these sort of different types of relationships?

Yeah, it's great. Where I land on that part of the conversation on monogamy, non-monogamy, is that But whatever works for somebody, great. And I know me well enough is that I like really want to go deep in the relationship. And I feel like if I had— I don't know, let's say that we're going to breakfast and there's a buffet of a lot of different things. I can't eat all of them. Like, I can sample a couple, but I'm staying kind of at the surface. I'm getting a taste and a taste and taste. I just want to really go as far and as deep into the intimacy domain as I possibly can. And that feels really great to me. I can hear like knucklehead friends of mine like, what are you talking about?

You know, like, well, a couple of responses. So one is there's as many different types of non-monogamous relationships really as there are couples, right? Because everyone's very different. And so there certainly are types where people really, really go deep with each other and they really have like one person, but maybe they date others, you know, once in a while, right? So they're still going deep. But the retort that I would have for you is in a lot of these kinds of deep monogamous relationships, you go to a party or a dinner or whatever, a conference, and you're not really able or allowed to go deep with someone else. So let's say you want to have a really beautiful conversation with a member of whatever sex you're attracted to. That would not be considered sort of kosher in many monogamous relationships. So that's something that I would say monogamous people might be missing.

There you go.

Yeah.

So anyway, okay, I've got 2 questions, 2 kind of like heavier questions, if you will. When it comes to a relational mindset, how would you first and foremost describe somebody who has a relational mindset? Somebody who holds relationships at the forefront of their thinking and being?

Yeah.

Which is, I think you are.

Yeah. Well, it's funny, there's research on gender differences that talks about how, like, women are more likely to have a communal orientation versus an agentic orientation, that men are. And by the way, there's truth to this. You know, there's sort of, if you look at base rates, And so that's kind of what's reminding me of what you mean, kind of a communal orientation. So you're— yeah, like relationships are more important to you, that you put more effort and energy into them. Is that, is that what you mean?

Yeah, I think it's built on this premise that your relationship with yourself is really important. Your relationship with others is really important. Your relationship with experience is really important. Your relationship with machines is really important.

Got it.

So what I'm, what I'm kind of extrapolating out of is I think that at the core, people that have a relational mindset are, are going to experience more in life. And as opposed to what's the opposite, a transactional, you know, mindset. This idea of what is relational. And I know that you've spent through this love research and happiness research and your partner on relational research. I just wanted you to talk about that a little bit. And, and maybe, maybe one way into that is what would get in the way of somebody having a relational mindset?

Well, thank you for asking that question. I've never been asked that before, so I'm just trying to figure out how to answer it because the word relationship can be, yeah, it can be defined very broadly. Like, isn't someone who has a transactional relationship with machines, they still have a relationship with them? So maybe I think I'm getting stuck on, stuck on the semantics.

I think you're bringing up something good. I'm new in this territory, but I am going to go after this, to really understand it.

Okay.

And you're right, transactional is a type of relationship.

Yeah.

And so it's a way to relate with something. I'm thinking of something other, which is like, for us to go really far, we need to be able to lock arms and stay locked as— and if we unlock, to lock back in, you know, because what happens to most teams is that they say they want to be a great team, but they struggle being great teammates when it gets hard. So then you don't really have a team. Because all the teammates are fraying. So when you invest in the relationship between each other, you're more likely to stay locked in when it gets hard. And that is a requisite to be able to move through the fog and messiness and prickliness of complicated environments. So I just think that this piece, especially in our world that we're living in, is gonna be a massive asset.

Absolutely, right? And the world is changing, and I can speak more to relationships with humans, right? And your example is with other humans on a team, if you really believe— and I'm rewatching Ted Lasso with my daughter, so this is, of course, one of the themes of that show. Right. The important thing is to support each other and relationships between us because that's going to make us more successful. And so I think if you really believe that, you're going to put more effort into that and more— yeah, it's going to be a goal as opposed to like, we're all kind of islands and we're going to sort of be competitive with each other and succeed, and we're not going to succeed alone. As we know, no man is an island. So I completely agree with you. And then with the sort of the new AI world that we're facing, where people with like a lot of people, I think in the future are going to be not spending much time with humans. I don't think everyone's going to be. I might, might, I have a kind of a rule of thirds. I think one third are going to go down that hole and are going to be spending most of their time. Yeah. With AI companions, just like right now, many people are on their devices, uh, even on devices though, they're often communicating with actual humans. And so, yeah, even more important, it's going to be the actual human relationships and communities, right? So people are— I feel like there's a lot more talk now about building communities, maintaining communities, being in person with one another. So there might be kind of a little bit of a backlash against this.

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Great question. We have a little bit of a section on that. Getting back to the mindsets, right? Now, it's going to look different with a child than with a— by the way, we're talking about young children versus older children— than with your best friend or your partner. But really being curious and listening to your child. We know this to be true. We know this is important, but it's so hard when they're going on and talking about— my kid talking about Minecraft or something. I'm not really that interested in that game, but really getting to understand what they're really interested in and asking them questions. Tell me more, right? Of tell me more about that kid who said that thing at school today, and then really listening and staying with them as opposed to just trying to fix their problems, right? So if a kid is acting out, there's these famous kind of examples of this, like from TV shows. Everyone Loves Raymond has this nice example of this, the daughter like totally acting out, and they sat with her and they're like, okay, what's going on? You know, instead of just punishing, but being like, clearly there's something that's leading her to act out. So listening, curiosity, sharing is gonna look different, right? You're not gonna just share your deepest thoughts and feelings with your kid, because that might be frightening to them or inappropriate. But you might share just enough, like, hey, when I was— although they hate to hear that, like, when I was your age, I had this problem too. But sort of sharing a little bit that helps them put things into context. Multiplicity, of course, punishing the behavior, not the person, really, or separating the person from the behavior. And then open heart, of course. We all kind of— that's the one that we all know. We all know we need to be kind and compassionate and believe in our child, right? It's the other 4 mindsets that are harder.

You've studied love and happiness for decades. How has your research changed the way you live?

I've always been a naturally fairly happy person, like, not like a 10, but, you know, maybe a 7 or 8. So I wasn't seeking that out with the research. But certainly, just like for anyone, you know, if you live with a certain material day in and day out, it— I can't help but be affected, right? So I've gotten really good at sharing and a little bit better at listening. I think I reach out to friends all the time to express gratitude to them. You know, that's actually one of my favorite things to do. I say to my friends, I love you a lot. In fact, my kids will get confused, right? Because I'll be on the phone, I'll be like, I love you so much. And they're like, Mom, who are you talking to? Oh, that was my friend so-and-so. I hope that we all do that more often. And so it does affect my daily life. It doesn't mean that I'm happy all the time. No, of course not. Just like therapists are not necessarily happy, right? They know what to do. But it does kind of put in the forefront like, oh, maybe learn to meditate, you know, oh, do this more, you know, go spend time in nature, physical exercise. You know, I'm a big fan, right? Because that's associated with happiness. What is physical exercise?

Did you add the outdoors to it?

Yeah, well, I did. I kind of separated them because being out in nature and outdoors also affects happiness and makes you feel kind of more relaxed and reduces anxiety. So putting those together, my go-to exercise is running outside, you know, by the beach. So So yeah, I kind of, I'm lucky enough to put those together. Not everyone is, you know, if they live in a cold climate, for example. But yeah, both of those are happiness boosters.

Nature.

Nature and exercise.

And for me, if you do it with somebody else, now I've got relational.

Absolutely.

That's a trifecta for me.

Yes, absolutely.

And if I do something that kind of pushes me up to the edges of my limits, not all the time, but, you know, enough kind of appropriate doses throughout the week, happy days. Look, I feel like I I've really spent a lot of time with you, and thank you for being generous with your science, the sharing of your science, the really good writing of science is hard to do, and I really appreciated your book, and just the nature of how we covered this conversation. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. It's really, you asked amazing questions today, and it was a pleasure to talk, sharing and listening and curiosity, right? Next time on Finding Mastery, bestselling author Mark Manson joins us once more explore how to think clearly in a world flooded with noise, distraction, and competing truths. Mark breaks down why sincerity matters more than ever and the 3 principles he uses to navigate modern life: radical ownership, radical honesty, and radical acceptance. So join us Wednesday, May 27th at 9:00 AM Pacific only on Finding Mastery.

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Come on.