Interview - Positive Psychology 101 with Tal Ben-Shahar

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 interview series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with Tal Ben Shahar. Tal is one of my absolute favorite teachers and just love his work and thrilled to be chatting today. He is one of the world's leading positive psychologists who taught the the largest class in Harvard's history on Positive Psychology 101. And he's written a number of great books, including two of my favorites, Happier plus the Pursuit of Perfect, which we have philosopher's notes on, plus a new book I just discovered called choose the Life youe want, which is 101 big ideas all about optimizing your life. Absolutely love it. Tal, thank you so much for taking the time to chat today.

Thank you, Brian, for having me on.

Well, let's jump straight in. In Happier, you talk about the fact that happiness is the ultimate currency. Can you tell us what that means and why it's so important we get that fact?

Sure. It basically goes back to the ideas of Aristotle, who talked about happiness being the highest end. If you think about it the way we measure our life, whether it's consciously or subconscious, consciously it's through happiness. So, for example, let's say I was offered a billion dollars, but knowing that with that billion dollars I'll also be really miserable, then I wouldn't take that billion dollars. I would only take it if I think that it can be translated immediately or later on into the ultimate currency, the currency of happiness. So it's through happiness that we take measure, that we evaluate everything else, whether it's a relationship, whether it's money, whether it's education. Ultimately, we decide what to do or what not to do based on how happy we think we believe that thing will make us.

And then your work talks about the fact that sometimes we make incorrect assumptions about what it is that will in fact lead to happiness. In one of the things you talk about and frame beautifully, you describe a happiness archetype and juxtapose that with the rat race or the nihilist and the hedonist. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Sure. So what I try to do in order to explain what happiness is, is look at the time dimension. And happiness very often is equated with pleasure with enjoying ourselves in the present. On the other hand, other people equate happiness with achieving goals, with doing something for our future. And very often I've been asked by students or colleagues would say, well, should I be thinking about my present benefit, how I'm doing right now in the moment, or should I be thinking about future benefit? And the answer is yes. In other words, we should be thinking about both, because happiness is about finding things that we enjoy in the present moment and things that contribute to our future. Ideally, that is where we want to go. So for example, if I'm in a relationship where I enjoy spending time with my partner, where we experience pleasure together and we're building something together for the future, then this is a happy relationship. If I'm at work when where I'm overall enjoying what I'm doing the day to day, and also feel like I'm growing and building something for the future, then I'm in a place where I'm happy. The opposite of that would be the nihilist. That's a person that doesn't enjoy the present and doesn't enjoy the prospects from for the future. Then we have the rat racer who only thinks about the future. We have the hedonist who only thinks about the present. Ideally, as much as possible, we want to be in the and archetype, meaning to have present and future benefit.

Beautiful. Thanks for unpacking that and just to kind of move through some ideas here. My favorite big ideas from all your work. The importance of happiness rituals. You talk about the fact that great athletes who want to perform at a high level have rituals. They do things consistently. And if we value happiness as the ultimate currency, we too need to figure out what those things are that help us stay plugged in. Can you tell us why that's so important?

Sure. You know, one of the things that I'm most concerned with, and something that I'm researching and studying, is how do we attend lasting change? Because it's not easy, but relatively easy to get people to experience a high, to be excited about an idea or about a book about a workshop. And I've seen many people get excited by a book that they read or a workshop that they go through. And yet most people, after the initial excitement, go back to where they were before. So it's a temporary high, but it doesn't bring about lasting change. So in studying that, in reading about it, in doing research about it, what I found was that the major difference between people who only experience a high following a workshop, a book, a lecture, versus those people who enjoy lasting change. The major distinguishing characteristic is that those who enjoy lasting change introduce rituals. Ritual rituals are, in the words of Jim Lohr and Tony Schwartz, they rely on deeply held values, things that we really care about. And there are things that are repeated over and over again in particular times, very often particular places. So for example, a ritual could be exercising three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, between 7am and 7:45am I'm jogging. A ritual could be a gratitude journal. Every night before going to sleep religiously, I write down the things for which I'm grateful. It could be work rituals where at work at the end of each week on a Friday afternoon, I write about all the progress that I've made during the week. So there can also be negative rituals. So for example, I don't surf the web it the mornings as a ritual because that's the time I spend on other things. The bottom line is that if we want to enjoy lasting change, we have to introduce rituals. Some people can introduce one or two rituals, other 20 rituals. But we must have rituals if you want to enjoy lasting change. Otherwise the change is temporary. It's a high that very often disappears.

Fantastic. And were those actually rituals that you use? The Monday, Wednesday, Friday, jogging. I know you've kept a gratitude journal. Want to hear a little more about that? But are those three examples of your actual rituals?

Very much so.

Oh, that's so great.

These are some examples.

Right on. And then let's go to the gratitude journal for a moment, if we can. How long have you kept your gratitude journal? Every single day now?

Since the 19th of September 1999.

That's 19th of September 1999.

Wow. It was actually after I watched Oprah and she talked about keeping a gratitude journal. That was for the research. The research on gratitude journaling came out in 2002. But, you know, I really liked Oprah's idea and have been doing it as a ritual religiously since.

That's amazing. And how do you do it? How do you recommend someone considers doing it? And also, I'm loading a few questions in here. Why is it so important? Why is working our gratitude muscle out such a big deal?

Yeah, well, first of all, doing it as a ritual, we can do it either every day or once a week. But the key when doing it is to, in the words of Barbara Fredrickson, to make it heartfelt, to really experience it. So not being doing it every day. And there are certain things that I repeat every day, such as my family. But even if I write, you know, so let's say I write Cherelle, my daughter, it's important to write it and to experience what I'm writing. So to experience the love that I feel toward Chirill, or if I write about A meal that I had to as much as possible re experience the pleasure that I derived eating whatever it was that I ate. So it's important to, to experience it because unfortunately, it's very easy to, you know, just go through the motion and write it down, do it in 30 seconds. And then we don't really derive the benefits from it. So we need to feel it. Now why is it so important to do it? In many ways, what we're doing when we're keeping a graduate journal is we're countering a lot of the negative forces that are all around. For instance, what we're mostly exposed to in the world is negative press. You open the news, front page news is it's war, it's rape, it's frauds. And what that does, when we see it on the front page, and we see it constantly and consistently, is that it communicates a very specific message to us. It tells us the world is a bad place. The right approach, the realistic approach, is to be pessimistic. And anyone who is optimistic, who is positive, is detached from reality. But if you think about it, most people, most of the time are good. If you think about it, there are many more people who love and contribute and are honest than people who hate, rape and steal. But the distorted view that we receive through the lens of the media convinces us, convinces first and foremost our subconscious mind that the right thing to do is to be negative. And unfortunately, being negative or positive for that matter, very often becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So if we think that the world is a bad place, we bring more negativity to our life. If we have a positive outlook, we bring more, we create more positive experiences for ourselves and for others. So it's really important to spend time on the gratitude journal because what that does is highlight for us the positive elements in the world in our life. It counters in many ways the negative bias that we get through the media and other means. People who keep a gratitude journal and the research here is remarkable, are happier, more optimistic, they're more successful, meaning more likely to achieve their goals, they're kinder, more generous toward others. In other words, it doesn't just benefit us when we express gratitude, it benefits other people. And finally, they're also healthier, actually strengthens our immune system. Number of physical as well as psychological benefits to experiencing heartfelt positivity on a regular basis.

Beautiful. Thank you so much. What a beautiful description of that. And I'm inspired. I keep one not on a absolutely regular basis, but also try to practice it throughout the day. And kind of have a grateful flow of just deep appreciation of all the different people in our lives who make all the simple things we take for granted possible. And I just love that description of it. Can you tell me about exercise? You, I believe you said something along the lines of not exercising is like taking a depressant. Can you talk about why exercising is so important and why it's a big part of your ritual?

Yes. So again, if you think about what we were made to do, born to do, if you think about our nature, it's only over the past 50 years or at most 200 years, when we're no longer required to physically exert ourselves. So today I can call up and have pizza delivered to my home. I can work in front of a computer all day, write, whether it's books or reports, and, and be able to afford food and shelter. This is a new turn in history. Up until recently, we had to work physically, whether it was in factories or for even longer part of history out in the field to run after an antelope or run away from a lion. And we were hunters and gatherers, we worked in the field. And our bodies over the years have learned to need it, to require this exercise, this exertion. And over the last 200 years or 50 years, when this was taken away from us, our bodies and our minds can't deal with it. And what that does is it quite literally makes us depressed, which is why not exercising is like taking a depressant. And what we need to do is we need to go back to our old ways. So unnecessary to go and, you know, and start chasing antelopes. We do need to go to the gym and exercise. The research once again on physical exercise is literally mind boggling. And let me just mention just a few of the benefits. So first of all, it has very similar effects to our most powerful psychiatric medications. Whether it's anti anxiety drugs, whether it's antidepressants, whether it's drugs we use for attention deficit, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The physical exercise works in very similar ways to our most powerful psychiatric medication in terms of also the same chemicals, whether it's norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, all those feel good chemicals in the brain that is what's released through exercise. Not only that. So recent research came out and some of it is reported by John Raitty, who's a psychiatrist at Harvard, shows that regular physical exercise reduces the likelihood of dementia of Alzheimer by over 50%. You know, there is no drug, no medication that comes even Close to having that effect. It quite literally, not metaphorically, it quite literally makes our brain younger. Leads to what neuroscientists call neurogenesis, the genesis, the birth of new brain cells, neurons. So there are so many benefits. You know, schools that introduce it, the kids actually score better on in, in terms of their grades. School violence goes down, happiness goes up. It helps school children, it helps the elderly, you know, and everyone in between. I cannot overemphasize how important regular physical exercise is. And when I say regular physical exercise, it doesn't have to be extreme. As little as 30 minutes, three times a week of aerobic exercise, Whether it's jogging or walking or playing football or dancing. 30 minutes 3 times a week goes a very long way in terms of contributing to our mental and of course, physical health.

That's awesome. What do you do? If you don't mind sharing? Sure.

So I used to play squash. I actually played professional squash, but unfortunately I got injured and I can't play squash anymore. That would have been my top choice right now is jogging and the stationary bike. These are the two. Plus I also do yoga.

Yep, that's great. And you do the jogging three times a week. It sounds like just kind of get a map of your week.

So the jogging I usually do for 5 minute warm up, then 30 minutes of jogging. And again, I don't push myself too hard. It's not to the point where it's unpleasant. A good rule of thumb is jog as fast still enables you to talk.

Yep.

And, and then I do yoga at least three, three times a week. But that's, you know, that's in addition to my aerobic exercise.

That's fantastic. Well, thank you for sharing that. Again, such powerful research. I love the fact that it's literally mind boggling to you. That puts it in perspective. Tell me about perfectionism versus optimalism. This is one of my favorite ideas from your work that I talk about a lot in my work. I'd love to hear you describe the difference between a traditional perfectionist and what you call an optimalist.

Well, perfectionism has many definitions. I basically talk about three elements that make up a perfectionist. The first one is the rejection of failure. It's the very deep fear of failure. And no one likes failure. But a perfectionist fears failure so much that he or she stops trying. He or she is paralyzed by that fear. It's an extreme, deep, paralyzing fear of failure. So that's the first element of perfectionism. The second element of perfectionism is the rejection of painful Emotions, it's not giving ourselves the permission to experience, whether it's sadness or anxiety or envy. It's only allowing the pleasurable emotions in. So that's the second component. The third component of perfectionism is never being satisfied with success. So not appreciating the good things in life, taking them for granted. So it's the three elements. It's the very deep, extreme, obsessive fear of failure, it's the not allowing for painful emotions. And third, taking for granted the good things and not appreciating success. The opposite of the perfectionist is someone that I've come to call an optimalist. And it's a word that I coined, which is based on obviously comes from the word optimal. Optimal being the best possible given the constraints of reality. The best part given the constraints of reality. So what is an optimalist? An optimalist, in terms of failure, embraces failure, doesn't love failure. No one does but recognizes that failure is an important part of growing and learning. The mantra that I repeat over and over again, learn to fail or fail to learn. You look at the most successful and the happiest people in the world. There are people who gave themselves the place, the permission to fail. In terms of painful emotions. The professionist rejects painful emotions. The optimalist gives him or herself the permission to be human, allowing the painful emotions to flow through them. And paradoxically, when we allow painful emotions to flow through us, when we accept them, when we give ourselves the permission to be human, these painful emotions are more likely to go away and we open ourselves up to pleasurable emotions. And finally, the antidote to not appreciating success, taking for granted what we do have is what I mentioned earlier in the form of expressing gratitude.

Perfect. Well, thanks for quoting that word and making such great distinctions there. And embracing reality is the phrase I really got out of that and kind of orienting around those three domains in a more healthy, conscious way. So we talked about. Your first point was rejection of failure. And one of the things you say in addition to learn to fail or fail to learn is you talk about how you encourage your students to fail more often. Can you tell us why that's so important?

Yeah, just because it's a lot of research, a lot of data showing the direct relationship between failure and success, meaning the more failure, the more success. So Dean Simonton from the University of California, Davis, has done wonderful historical psycho history, so historical research, looking at the most successful artists and scientists. And what he finds is that the most successful artists and scientists are also the ones who have failed the most times. Whether it's the Michelangelo's of the world, the da Vinci's, the Marie Curies, the Thomas Edisons, there are ones who consistently failed because that's how you learn. And if you think about it, it applies to the. From the simplest to the most complex activities. You know, we learn how to walk by falling down. We learn how to draw a circle by scribbling. And just imagine, just imagine if a little kid had a. A parent who didn't want them to fall down and hurt themselves, didn't want them to fail. So each time they just were about to get up, they would hold them, they would not let them fall down, that never learned how to walk. Instead, you know, kids fall. They sometimes cry because it hurts. But then they don't say, okay, well, I've had it with walking. They continue and they get up again and they fall down again, they get up again, they fall until they can walk. And the same applies to managing. The same applies to running an organization. The same applies to being a parent or a partner. The best relationships in the world are not the ones that are devoid of failure. There are ones where failure and conflict and disappointment takes place constantly and consistently. And the partners learn from those failures and conflicts.

And then that's kind of the. You're touching on some of, kind of Carol Dweck's growth mindset. Right? To approach failure with an actual desire to grow from them is an entirely different orientation than thinking that everything we do is a test of our worth.

Ultimately, that's exactly right. I mean, it's so much easier to live that way. It's so much more pleasant to embrace failure than to constantly be vigilant on the lookout. Am I going to fail the next time? And if I do, what are they going to think? What am I going to think to put our ego on the line every time we try? Whereas if we start from the basic premise, I'm going to fail, and I'm going to fail many times. And you know what? I'm going to fail even more times because I know that there is a high correlation direct relationship between failure and success. When you approach life as a whole that way, that failure is part and parcel of every healthy, successful, happy life. It makes things so much easier, more pleasant, so much less pressure and stress.

What a powerful shift just to do that would set us free. Let's talk about one of the reasons why, again, just failure, rejection, all these things to kind of counter that. You have a great story about throwing your knapsack over the wall and commitments. I'd love to hear you talk about why commitments are so important in that regard. And just saying we're going to go forward and then going for it, right?

Yes. So I use the knapsack analogy to think about yourself going on a road trip and then getting to a wall and you have a knapsack on your back. What do you do? One thing to do is you turn around, you leave, and just to hang out, to wait, hope something would happen. But there is another option, and that is to take your knapsack and throw it over the wall. Because when you throw it over a wall, you're committing. You're saying, I need to get that knapsack somehow. And once that knapsack is over the wall, you have no choice but to find a way, whether it's under, whether it's around, whether it's over the wall. This idea of commitment really works, which is why people who set goals are more likely to be successful. Because what is a goal? A goal is a commitment, especially if it's done in writing or in public or to a coach. Once we make the commitment, We find ways of actually getting there. And there's a lot of research, whether it's by Locke and Latham on goal setting or other research by Sheldon on commitment, showing how when we throw that knapsack, metaphorically speaking, we're much more likely to get there to the. The wall. And again, just like with failure, that it's inevitable. It's inevitable that we'll face walls along.

The way, and it's inevitable that sometimes we won't be able to get over that wall when we embrace that, too, and allow that to be a possibility. And that that's okay. And that's inevitably part of the process, right?

Exactly. And it really is okay because, yes, it's not fun not to be able to get over the wall. It's not fun to fail. But there's always, always benefits to gain from failure. There are always things we can learn, and who knows, we may have to go another way and then find a path that will lead us to a better place.

That's great. And then one of the other ideas I'd love to chat with you briefly about, with goals, you talk about the importance of kind of getting out of our comfort zones, but not getting into kind of our panic or snap zone, I like to call it kind of getting in that stretch zone. Can you tell us about the importance and how you orient yourself to goals that you aren't setting just ridiculous goals, you're Kind of finding that nice edge that's outside of your comfort zone but not so wacky that it stresses you out.

Right. So we want to get to a point where we are stretching ourselves, where it's not easy. Because if it's easy, it's also after a while boring. And when we're bored, we certainly don't maximize our potential. On the other hand, if we go too far and if we stretch ourselves too much, we are more likely to snap. So you know, it's going back once again to Aristotle's idea of finding that golden mean and not too difficult, not too easy in modern day terms. It's also when we experience, in the words of Mihaly, Csiks and Mihaly, when we experience flow and is just the right balance between how difficult the task is and our abilities. If too easy, it's boring. If it's too difficult, it leads to anxiety that would stretch us, stretch goals, goals that we have again, a good rule of thumb, just about 50% chance of attaining that's fantastic.

And then go hit that goal and go for your next 50, 50 goal rather than going for the 1% chance of success and then just kind of overwhelming yourself. And as you said, with flow being, your skills aren't quite, you know, anywhere near the challenge that you're putting yourself through.

And to remember that even that 1% chance goal, if we have many 50% chance goals, we can much more easily get that 1%. In other words, divide and conquer.

I love it. So one other idea would just love to chat about. In your most recent book, I'm pretty sure you said that you have or had add. I just want to start there. Is that accurate?

I do.

That's so. I appreciated your vulnerability and throughout the book you mentioned a number of stories that were just so great and frankly touching and just that connection I could feel to you and very inspiring. But how do you, how have you addressed that? I know a lot of people listening to this struggle with their attention. I certainly have in different degrees at different times and know so many people who have. How have you addressed that and what do you recommend for us as we approach mastering our attention?

Right. So for me the most important thing, hands down in terms of dealing with my ADD was sports. I played a lot of sports as a child and every kind of sport until finally finding what I saw at least for 10 years of my childhood as my calling, which is playing squash. And I was on the court every day for hours and, and that went a long way in helping me deal with My add to the point where for years I didn't even know that I had it. Now, when did I discover that I did have it? It was actually when I was, you know, first of all, when I was a kid, it wasn't diagnosed like it is today. So, you know, I was a restless child and I couldn't sit down, and the teachers knew that. But today, you know, it is, it is add. But I actually found out about it when I was an undergrad at Harvard and the squash season was over, so I played on the varsity team. And when the squash season was over, I was so far behind on schoolwork, I said, okay, I'm not going to. I'm not going to play squash for a couple of months and just focus on my, on my studies. Within three days, I wasn't able to sit down for, for 10 minutes and constant on my work. I was so distracted, I was all over the place. And then as soon as I went back to working out, not three, four hours a day, but even the half hour a day, as soon as I went back to working out, my concentration came back. So physical exercise, and I'm not the only one. There's again, research on it. John Rate, in particular, the Harvard psychiatrist, got into researching physical exercise because of his own add, or he has adhd, and again showing that it works magic. Now, not in all cases, there are some people for whom physical exercise is not enough and they would need Ritalin or other medication. But in many cases, ADD and ADHD is preventable if we introduce physical exercise into our lives. So that's one thing. The other thing, ADD is not all bad because, you know, as I mentioned in my book, I've also found it as sort of what I've come to call a happiness mechanism because it forces me to, to work with, to engage in things that I'm passionate about. Because, you know, if I sit down and read a book related to positive psychology or related to philosophy, then I can sit down and concentrate for a long time. I still need my exercise, but I can concentrate. However, if I start reading something else that I'm not passionate about, then, you know, I get a lot more distracted than most people would who don't have add, which is a good thing because it forces me to focus and work on things that I'm passionate about.

That's great. What a great reframe. And I love how John Ratey says that. What does he say? Something like taking or exercising is like taking a little bit of Ritalin and a little bit of Prozac. Kind of.

With the side effects.

Yeah, with no side effects other than the goodness. That's fantastic. Well, two more questions I wanted to ask you. One, your biggest aha. And I'll save the last one for a moment, but do you have any big aha's? And all the research that you've done, you just stumbled across a finding that you just. You literally just said, really? That's just phenomenal. That's amazing.

Yeah, I had a few of them over the years. So let me mention a couple. The first one is physical exercise. I must say, I knew that it was good for me. I just didn't know how good it was. Another one, also related to the mind body connection is meditation. The research on meditation. And even if 15 minutes of meditation, of just quieting the mind a day is remarkable, it changes the way our brain functions. It makes us more resilient in the face of painful emotions, more susceptible to positive emotions. Another research, another aha moment for me was in the area of relationships. So a book that really had an influence on me and on my relationship is David Schnarch, who writes about passionate marriage. And one of the ideas, one of his big ideas there that he talks about is the idea of the gridlock. What is a gridlock? A gridlock is the point that we get to in a relationship that where we're stuck, that it's not one of those conflicts in a relationship where, okay, we talk about it, we make up, and we go back to where we were before. It's an issue that's not resolvable. Why? Because it goes to some very deep values. And compromising on it would mean going against some very deep values for both sides of the relationship. So there can't really be compromise. There is real disagreement. And with this gridlock, with this being stuck, there's a lot of fear in the relationship because it's not like any other conflict that happened before. Now here is the thing, and this is what's for me an aha moment. What David Schnard says is that every relationship, no exception, even the best of them, go through a gridlock. In other words, get to a point where they're stuck, they're lost or afraid. And what happens in a gridlock is one of three things. One thing that very often happens is that relationship ends. And today, where it's considered legitimate to end relationships, many people end the relationship, they divorce. Another option is to stay together, but not really to be together. So you're physically still together. Officially, you're still married or in the partnership, but you're not really together, you've separated. The third option is to go through that gridlock and to do two things. One, to hold on to the relationship, not to give up on the relationship, and to hold on to the self. And after a while, what happens is that the two individuals holding onto themselves and holding onto the relationship, they get stronger and they're able to. To deal with this gridlock. It's just like going to the gym. You know, you lift weights and initially X amount of weights is difficult, almost unbearable, but you go through it and you. And you persist. And then after a month or three months, you're able to lift these weights, you become stronger, but you became stronger only because you went through the stress and the difficulty the same in the relationship. And for me, this was an aha moment. It was also a relief because when we reached a gridlock in our relationship, it was scary. But then to get validation and to say, it's fine, it's natural, it's part of every relationship, and if we hold on to the relationship and hold on to ourselves, we'll just get stronger as a result. That, for me, was a very important recognition in my relationship. And it doesn't just apply to relationships, it applies to life as a whole. Life is tough. There are hardships and there are difficulties and there are challenges, and we all go through them. A happy life is not a life that is devoid of those. We can't lead a sterile life. And it's important to recognize that, to accept these difficulties and hardships and to know that we can grow a great deal from these crucibles.

Mm, amazing. And again, it reminds me of your conversation around the optimalist of embracing reality and realizing that this is inherently part of the human experience. And your phrase of giving ourselves permission to be human is something that my wife, Alexander and I have discussed many times. So again, thank you for that. And I like to joke in these chats that we could chat for a weekend about all these ideas. We've still barely scratched the surface. But to wrap it up, what's your number one tip? If you're going to give one tip to people looking to optimize their lives, regardless of where they are in the journey, what would that number one tip be?

So the number one tip would go to the essence of what I think is a healthy life, and that is go to reality. People often ask me, so tal is there, what's the secret of happiness? It's in vogue to identify the secret, and I'm not going to fall for that, I think that's superficial. I'm not going to give the secret. I'm going to give three secrets. All right, here they are. The first secret is reality. The second secret is reality. Do you want to guess the.

I think we're trending toward reality.

Yes, I think so. Because, you know, that is so important and it underlies everything that we discussed. For example, it's part of our nature that we need to exercise. So adhere to your nature, to your real nature, not to the, you know, the last 50 years change in nature, to our deep nature. So that's adhering to reality, reality in terms of the gratitude, because, you know, reality is that there is a lot of, a lot more good than bad in the world. Yes, life is tough and difficult and there is fraud and there is hatred and terrorism. Yes. There is also much love and honesty. And if we want a healthy life, we need to see that part of reality as well. And then also reality in terms of painful emotions. It's part of reality. Give yourself the permission to be human, be a real human being. And you know, I could continue because also when you talk about leadership, the most successful leaders throughout history are the leaders who would have the most following, who would be the most have the most impact and influence on others are authentic leaders. Leaders who are, who are real, who are true to themselves. You know, it also goes to a whole other line of research in psychology on strengths. What does it mean to focus on strength? It means to know who you really are and then be true to that self. So underlying well being success in just about every domain is reality. Study reality. Whether it's your personal subjective reality. Study your emotions, listen to them, be attuned to them. Whether it's human nature and the reality of that, whether it's the reality of your relationship, of your partner, of your child or your colleague.

Fantastic. Reality, reality, reality. Tull, I really appreciate you taking so much time. And for those of you who haven't engaged in Tahl's work yet, check out Happier. Check out the Pursuit of Perfect. Tahl's new book, choose the Life youe Want. He's got a great class called Happiness 101. Go to Tal Benshahar where they can learn more. Is that the best place to send people? Tal?

Yes, please.

And some great online courses as well that are fantastic. Alexander and I have enjoyed and can't recommend you and your work in Aftal. Once again, thank you so much.

And Brian, thank you for all the wonderful work that you're doing bringing so many of the ideas from the Science of Happiness to People. Thank you, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that interview. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson me. Two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living Membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.