The Importance Of Practicing Happiness — Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar | Flow Research Collective Radio

The foundation of happiness is allowing in unhappiness. When I reject unhappiness, when I reject painful emotion, when I reject sadness or envy or anxiety or frustration, these emotions will only intensify. They will actually grow stronger. It is when I embrace, when I accept emotions, that is when I'm most— they're most likely to flow through me rather than overstay their welcome.

What does it take to do the impossible? What does it take to level up your game like never before? What does it take for individuals, organizations, for even institutions to achieve paradigm shifting? Nothing is ever the same again.

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Our mission is to decode the neurobiology of flow and cognitive peak performance. Access the minds of maverick scientists, groundbreaking innovators, and world-leading experts to understand what it takes to achieve ultimate peak performance. Ultimate human performance so you can feel your best, perform your best, and accomplish your boldest goals. I'm your host, Ryan Dorris, and together with bestselling author Steven Kotler, I present to you Flow Research Collective Radio. Hey there, Ryan Dorris here. Welcome to another episode of Flow Research Collective Radio. Now, today's episode was particularly exciting for me personally because I actually reached out to today's guest when I was about 19 years old. I was studying philosophy in Trinity College in Dublin, and I used to have a habit of just finding the most impressive researchers in the world in the topics that I was interested in and cold emailing them. And I reached out to this particular person, and they were kind enough to respond to me. Which was epic. And so it was a real pleasure, 6 or 7 years later, to actually get to interview Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. Now, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar is an American and Israeli teacher, author, and entrepreneur in the areas of positive psychology and leadership. He's more well known as one of the world's leading experts on the fairly important topic of happiness. And as a lecturer at Harvard University, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar created what was at the time the most popular course at Harvard. It was a course on the psychological aspects of life fulfillment, and it examined empathy, friendship, love, achievement, creativity, spirituality, happiness, and humor. And in this episode, we go deep with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar to really try and give all of you an understanding of the things that he covers in that course. So think of this as a mini course from Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar on the same things he used to teach at Harvard. And we go through specifically his SPIRE model, and we talk through each element of that to leave you with some really actionable tools straight out of the positive psychology literature. And we begin kicking things off by defining happiness and discussing the signs of happiness. So I think you're going to really enjoy it. And I also asked Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar whether studying happiness for the entirety of one's life actually improves happiness, and he gave an interesting answer to that as well, which I think you're going to find curious. Now, before we jump in, I want to make a quick announcement from the Flow Research Collective. So we are currently accepting a number of new participants into our flagship peak performance training, Zero to Dangerous. Zero to Dangerous has been designed for high-performing, overworked entrepreneurs, leaders, business owners, knowledge workers, innovators, individuals, which you may be one of, who are trying to achieve big, bold, ambitious things but are struggling with what comes with trying to achieve big, bold, ambitious things, such as stress, burnout, overwhelm, the general trials and tribulations that come with being a high performer within today's hyper-distracted, demanding 21st century world. And the purpose of Zero to Dangerous is to give you tools to deal with those things more effectively so that you can level up what you're capable of achieving by spending more time in flow each day, by driving yourself into that state of flow with consistency so you can work towards spending the majority of your workday in that state, hyper-focused, bashing out your highest quality work possible. So, if you want to inquire about working with us through Zero to Dangerous, you can go to getmoreflow.com and pop an application through there. We will chat with you, we'll suss out whether it's a good fit for where you're at right now. And that's getmoreflow.com. We'll also give you more info on exactly how it works, what it looks like, a breakdown of the curriculum, that kind of thing. So, that's getmoreflow.com. And for now, let's dive into today's show with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. You're going to dig it. Tal Ben-Shahar, a huge welcome to Flow Research Collective Radio. It's absolutely great to have you here. My first question is, have I pronounced your name correctly?

You have indeed.

Okay.

That means you passed the test.

Good. I'm glad. It's a good start then.

There are a few psychologists out there with very long names. I always give extra credits on an exam if they can spell the name correctly.

Right. Yeah. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who we call the godfather of flow science. I was speaking with someone who did a PhD in flow research recently. They said their biggest learning was understanding how to spell Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's name. So there you go. So, Tal, what I'd love to jump in with is a big and somewhat, well, both complex and straightforward question, which is literally just what is happiness in your view?

Yeah. So, you know, of course there are many definitions to happiness and some people have just given up on it and said, well, happiness is like beauty. You basically know it when you see it or know it when you experience it. I do think there is real value to defining happiness because when we know what we're looking for, we're more likely to find it. So happiness comprises, according to my definition, of 5 elements. It's about spiritual wellbeing, physical wellbeing, intellectual wellbeing, relational, that is interpersonal wellbeing, and finally emotional wellbeing. And it's these 5 elements, spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional that together make up the acronym SPIRE. And together contribute to a happy life. Now that doesn't mean that we need all of them simultaneously or that we can't be happy if we are amiss on one or even four of them, but it does mean that they are good heuristics, good things to think about as we pursue happiness.

Hmm. Could you break down maybe a definition of each of those elements for us?

Sure. So spiritual well-being can be about religion, of course, but it doesn't have to be. Spiritual well-being is about experiencing a sense of meaning and purpose in life. It is also about being able to be present in the moment to fully experience existence. You know, Albert Einstein once remarked that there are two ways to live our life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle. And when we're present, when we're in flow, we experience much of our existence as a miracle. So that is spiritual well-being, a sense of meaning and a sense of presence. Physical well-being, of course, is about health. It's about regular exercise. It's about sleep. It's about nutrition. Then we have intellectual well-being. Intellectual well-being is about curiosity and learning. You know that there is research recently came out showing that people who are curious, who ask many questions, who constantly learn, are actually more likely to live longer. So curiosity is associated with health and longevity. So that's intellectual well-being. Then we have relational well-being. Number one predictor of happiness, quality time we spend with people people we care about and who care about us. And finally, emotional well-being, which is about cultivating pleasurable emotions, of course, and no less important, learning to deal with painful emotions.

It's a great model. It's very all-encompassing in a really nice way. As you were talking through those categories, I was thinking about flow, which you mentioned. Do you see flow and the experience of flow state in general as sitting under one of those categories specifically, or as potentially being something that enhances all of those 5 different forms of well-being?

That's a good question, and it goes to the essence of the model. And the essence of the model is that everything is interconnected. So if, for example, I enjoy healthy relationships, of course I'm going to experience more pleasurable emotions. Moreover, a relationship is meaningful, potentially good relationship is meaningful. So it's also associated with spiritual wellbeing. There's a lot of research tying physical health and relationships and, you know, and so on and so on. So you can connect each one of the spire elements to any of the other. Flow is a broad enough concept so that it fits into all of the categories. When I teach flow, which I do as part of our certificate program and part of our other programs and intervention. I usually teach it under physical wellbeing because I talk about the mind-body connection. I also teach it under spiritual wellbeing because it's very much about meditation in action. You know, flow is also a source of emotional wellbeing. You know, it's what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called, you know, peak experience. It's also about peak performance. So it's related to intellectual growth and development because when I learn something and I'm in flow, I'm much more likely to develop and grow and learn and internalize the material. So it's really connected to the 5 Spire elements.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I'm really curious because one of the things we're obsessed with here at the Flow Research Collective is teaching and training flow and trying to take this elusive, sporadic state of consciousness and give people tools that make it at least easier to access that state with some level of consistency rather than being totally elusive. I'm really curious what some of the things you teach are when you're teaching flow.

Right. So I focus on the straightforward or ideas that Csikszentmihalyi talks about in terms of the right level of challenge. You know, not too difficult, not too easy, about ongoing clear feedback. That's of course important. The thing that I focus on more, and that is because it brings flow and happiness together in the most powerful way, is doing things that we deem as worthy. In other words, that are meaningful to us. And of course, Csikszentmihalyi talks about it. So finding something that I'm passionate about to to my mind, is the essence of a happy life. It also doesn't guarantee, but it significantly increases the likelihood that I'll experience flow. That to me is the leverage point, the key element for leading a life of flow, of engagement.

Hmm. That makes sense. With respect to the SPIRE model and the 5 different elements, are there actions or guidelines or even habits that you recommend people deploy within each category to fully flourish within each domain?

Yeah. So first of all, the key word here is habits or rituals, because, you know, it's one thing understanding something at the, on the intellectual level. It's another thing actually implementing it and making it part of your life. You know, I often think about the double standard that exists when it comes to psychological change. And that double standard is that, for example, if you had decided, Rianne, that you want to be a good football player, well, you know, you would— first thing you would do is, you know, find a coach and then practice, practice on the field, you know, kick that ball around. Or if you decided you want to be a better musician, you would, you know, sit in front of your piano or take up the harmonica or whatever and play. Practice. Whereas when it comes to happiness, many people think that it's enough to just, just know about it, you know, just take a course on happiness or on flow and read the book, you know, Finding Flow, or read the book, you know, The How of Happiness, and you're all set. And again, there's a double standard because when it comes to happiness or cultivating any psychological state, we need to put in the work. We need to practice just as we do when we develop any other skill. And the key here is once again habits. In music, you know, you need the habit of practicing daily. In football, you need the habit of being on that field daily or being in the gym or wherever. We need to create those habits. So yes, absolutely. Every one of the Spire Elements has a long list of habits that are associated with it.

That I just— two of the words I wrote down there, just practice happiness. Because that alone as a statement is a paradigm shifter for a lot of people. The idea of bringing a growth mindset into an area like happiness is just something people don't tend to do. We don't tend to think that you have to work hard at the habits that lead to happiness.

But then we pay a very high price for that. You see it also in other areas, this double standard, for example, relationships. You know, so we go into a relationship and we think, you know, the most important thing is finding that right partner. And once I find that right partner, then we'll live happily ever after. This is really the model that we're exposed to in the movies. Problem though, is that movies end where love begins. And after we fall in love and commit to one another, that's when the real hard work continues. And again, there is a double standard here because When we look for our ideal job and we find it, we don't say, okay, found it. That's it. Now I can just rest on my laurels and do nothing. No, that's when we start working really hard because we had just found our ideal job. The same should apply to relationships. This is when we start working really hard because we have found our partner.

Hmm.

Yes.

It's interesting to me. It seems like people have a distaste for what I think we could call intentionality in general. Intentionality meaning putting in effort consciously to improve some end result, that people have a distaste for intentionality within certain domains. It's no issue to work hard at work. That's what we do, obviously. But it's a little weird or perceived as unromantic to work hard in a relationship or or to work hard for happiness. So that's, yeah, no, that's interesting. I think it's a great point. What are some of the habits that you tend to either recommend or see as bearing the most fruit within, let's say, well, let's start with spiritual wellbeing.

Yeah. So with spiritual wellbeing, I talk about various, one of them is simply meditation, sitting down and focusing on the breath going in and out, or doing yoga, which is a form of meditation, or listening to music mindfully. It's about being present to whatever it is that we're doing. In the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn, wherever you go, there you are. That is the essence of meditation. And what people need to understand is that there isn't just one kind of meditation, because many, many students have said to me over the years, you know, I've tried meditation, doesn't work for me. You know, I get bored or I fall asleep or whatever. And my answer to that is, first of all, sleep is not a bad thing. You know, the Dalai Lama once said that sleep is the deepest form of meditation. But second, experiment, try things out. Yes, try with breath meditation and try with walking meditation and try and experience more flow because flow is meditation in action. The one thing that I point to when I talk about meditation is formal and informal meditation. So formal meditation is when you go through the motion and you sit down or you go through a yoga class. Now that's formal. Informal meditation is when you're present to whatever it is that you're doing. And that could happen while you're listening to a podcast or reading a book or eating or playing ball. So meditation and formal and informal meditation Both contribute to our well-being. I mean, that is really well documented.

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. One of the ways I've heard that conceptualized is as dispositional mindfulness, meaning the goal is not just the mindfulness when you're quote unquote doing the meditation, but it's to actually cultivate a more mindful disposition, becomes almost like a layer across all of your experience.

And one way to do that, to increase the likelihood that we're mindful, is to have reminders. And the reminder can be on our smartphone, remind us to return to the here and now, or it can be, we can use a bracelet to remind us. Apropos, this reminds me of a story that Sarah Norum talks about in her amazing book, Appreciative Coaching. And in the book, she talks about Rory. Rory is her client. And Rory started a business. It was a yoga business. And what he realized, though, that since he's opened that business, he has been a lot less mindful. He's been very distracted and consequently not being in the present, less happy. So what he did was on his watch, He actually wrote the letter N, the letter N. So each time he looked, what is the time? Oh, it's now. And that reminded him to return to the present, to return to the here and now. You know, I often wear bracelets and the reason I wear a bracelet is to remind me of various things. And one of the things that I most often want to be reminded of is to be present, especially during times when I'm more distracted. Than others. So having these reminders is a key tool for reminders.

I actually have a friend who has a watch that he wears all the time and it has no clock face on it. It just says in the middle of the clock face, now, funnily enough. So maybe he got that from her book. Yeah. Anything else within the spiritual well-being components? We mentioned flow, we mentioned mindfulness. I don't know if you think about or look at, for example, the psychedelic literature or any of the other kind of research around non-ordinary states or all states with respect to that spiritual component of the model.

Yes, I do look at these states and I must say I'm fascinated by it. I do not teach it because I'm a little bit scared of going there. So, you know, when it comes to my teaching, I'm very conservative in the sense of, you know, I teach where things that where there has been a lot of research on them, and that's where I teach. That doesn't mean that I don't explore myself or encourage my students to explore things and try things. You know, for example, I don't teach much of this or any of the self-help New Age literature, but that doesn't mean I don't read it and experiment with it. And I always distinguish— and again, this is a point I make very clear to my students— I always distinguish between research and me-search. You know, so research is looking at what's out there and, and, you know, looking at, you know, double-blind experiments and things that have been running in the lab or in the field. Me-search is about trying things out on yourself and seeing what works. And both are important. Another element that I do explore when it comes to spiritual wellbeing is meaning. So there's an important distinction that Viktor Frankl, makes in his book Man's Search for Meaning between the meaning of life and the meaning in life. Now, when it comes to the meaning of life, you know, some people find it, others don't. The existentialist Albert Camus once wrote, at every moment in my life, I have to make a decision. Do I drink a cup of coffee or do I kill myself? You know, he's an existentialist. You know, according to existentialists, there is no inherent meaning of life. But that doesn't mean that we can't find meaning in life. And meaning in life can come from our day-to-day work. It can come from our micro interactions. It can come from observing and being engaged with nature. And towards that end, One of the very simple exercises that we can do is ask ourselves, you know, what is meaningful to me? Or what, what do I find that is meaningful in my work? And again, that could be the fact that I make a living and provide my family, or that could mean the fact that I'm helping other people or making other people smile or whatever it is for me, finding meaning in life and just Highlighting that, just writing that is important. Another exercise, and that's derived from the work of, um, Wisniewski and Dutton, is, um, finding calling in what I'm doing. So seeing my work not just as a job or as a career, but seeing it as a calling and highlighting those elements in my work that make it a calling.

What's funny is my philosophy dissertation, my final year, at undergrad was literally on that distinction of meaning in life versus the meaning of life. So I wrote about 10,000 words on that sentence. The reason I chose to do it was, as you're mentioning, I found there was something about that distinction between the meaning of life and meaning in life and separating out those two concepts and untethering them that I found so liberating and almost relieving in terms of it doesn't matter if there's no meaning of life, you can still have an immensely meaningful life from an experiential standpoint. So I love that. What are some of the things that you think folks can do to highlight their calling within whatever their work is?

You know, a lot of the work in psychology is common sense. But as the French philosopher Voltaire once said, common sense is not so common, especially when it comes to applications. So the common sense part here is ask yourself, what is it in my work that provides me with a, with a sense of meaning? What is the calling element in my work? And I want to share an example that I often share with participants that helps them understand the way in which we can distinguish job, career, and calling. So let's say you have children. You come home and, you know, you have to go through the bedtime routine, you know, young children. And one way of seeing it is, you know, oh wow, now I have to go through it again. I have no choice. You know, they're my children. I'm responsible for them. I have to do it. That's child rearing as a job. Then I could come home, same children, same situation, same life, and say, oh, I'm gonna go through the bedtime routine because I'm gonna help them really succeed, and I'm gonna read them a book because, you know, that's really gonna make them get into a good university in the future. That's child rearing as a career. Or I can come home and say, what a privilege it is that I now have the next 2-3 hours to spend with people I care about so much. Because, you know, parents care about their children. It's there, it's right in front of them. The thing is, We need to remind ourselves to highlight that for us and then go through the next 2, 3 hours with a sense of calling, much more connected, much more experiencing the meaning in raising children. So highlighting it by writing about it, what is meaningful for me in child rearing? What is meaningful for me in creating a podcast? What is meaningful for me in being a teacher or a banker? It doesn't matter. But what the research shows very clearly is that in just about every kind of work, and I don't want to go to the extremes here, but in just about every kind of work, you can find an experience and sense of meaning and purpose.

I was actually just this morning reading about a little parable of a woman walking along the street in Paris, watching two guys on a building site laying bricks. And she goes up to one of them and asks, what he's doing and he says, "I'm laying bricks." And she goes over to the other and asks what he's doing and he says, "I'm building a cathedral." And it's such a tiny perceptual shift that is so significant.

Yes, they do the same thing and yet their experience is so very different. Interestingly also in the context of flow, the person who's building a cathedral is much more likely to experience flow than a person who's laying bricks. A person who perceives raising children as a calling, as a privilege, is much more likely to experience flow with their children than is a person who sees it as a chore. So that perception can change our experience.

What is it about that perceptual shift that increases the likelihood of access to flow?

It's the— I mean, what is flow? Flow is about engagement. And how do we create engagement? Engagement doesn't come from the outside in because, you know, people can do the exact same thing and one person will be engaged, the other won't. Engagement usually comes from the inside out. So yes, you have to create the conditions outside. Again, it's not too easy, not too difficult, have feedback and so on. But ultimately it's about what we bring to the experience, not what the experience brings to us. And if we bring to the experience sense of connection. If we're motivated to do it because it's important, because we care about it, we're much more likely to connect, to connect to it. You know, if you think about philosophically, reality comprises subject and object. Reality comprises what's out there as well as my interpretation of what is out there, which is why two people with the exact same external reality may experience life very differently. The reality will be very different, not because the external is different, but because the internal is different. And this is of course where psychology comes in. Let's create the internal that will maximize the likelihood of flourishing and thriving. It cannot guarantee it because, you know, it doesn't matter what my internal is. If I go to a reality, external reality, that is miserable, you know, whether it's dire poverty, whether it's a war zone, whether it's going to the extreme with Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp, it's very unlikely that I will experience happiness no matter what my internal interpretation of that reality is. So it doesn't just depend on the internal. It certainly doesn't just depend on the external. Reality is subject and object.

No, that's a great breakdown. I love that as well. Very nicely articulated. I remember listening to a lecture of yours, Tal, about many years ago, and you were talking about not being upset that you're not happy, I believe. And I found that very interesting, almost articulating the kind of meta emotions that you can have about having or not having another emotion. Can you talk a little bit about how you think about that?

Sure. You know, the foundation of happiness is allowing in unhappiness. Uh, when I reject unhappiness, when I reject painful emotion, when I reject sadness or envy or anxiety or frustration, these emotions will only intensify. They will actually grow stronger. It is when I embrace, when I accept emotions, that is when I'm most, they're most likely to flow through me rather than overstay their welcome. You know, there's a beautiful poem by Rumi, who's the Sufi poet called The Guest House. And in The Guest House, Rumi talks about how we need to welcome all emotions, all thoughts, welcome them into our home. Because if we reject them, we lose out a lot. And what we lose out on is first of all, the opportunity to grow. And second, we also experience more pain than we need to necessarily. In Buddhism, there's a lot of talk about this and more and more so in modern research about the existence of two levels of suffering. The first level of suffering It's inevitable. You know, when I see, you know, someone on the street who is hurt, you know, that will cause suffering. If one of my family members is unhappy, you know, that will cause suffering. This is natural. You know, we all experience it. We all go through it. The second level of suffering comes when I reject the first level. If I say to myself, which I had in the past, Tal, you shouldn't be so anxious. You know, you're the happiness guy. You should be happy all the time. Or you shouldn't experience envy towards a friend. What kind of friend are you? And when you say these things to yourself, when you think these things, you experience another level of suffering. Now, the first level of suffering is inevitable because we sometimes feel anxious and we sometimes experience envy. These are natural human emotions. When we reject them, we simply add another level. When we accept them, they do not overstay their welcome. You know, when I was younger, one of the words that I hated was surrender. I used to look at these new age gurus talk about surrender to your emotions, and it really got me angry. Today, in my grand old age, I've come to appreciate and embrace this idea. Eckhart Tolle writes about surrender and how not fighting, but rather accepting the present moment for what it is, that is a big step in the direction of flourishing.

Hey there, Rian Doris here. I want to interrupt Tal just for a quick moment. So I wanna talk about happiness, productivity over the course of one's career, because that is the purpose of Zero to Dangerous, our flagship peak performance training. It's designed to give you the neuroscience-based tools so that you can spend the majority of your working time in a flow state, and as a result, improve your happiness, your wellbeing, and all of the key things that Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar is talking us through right now. If that's of interest, you can go to getmoreflow.com to apply for Zero to Dangerous and our team will speak with you soon. That's getmoreflow.com to apply. Now let's go back to the show. So I want to go back to the rest of the SPIRE model in a moment. But before we do that, I have one quick question. So you mentioned from a teaching perspective, You like to stay with things that are more empirically validated or at least more fleshed out from a research perspective. You just touched on some, I think, really powerful ideas from Rumi and Eckhart Tolle that are potentially within another category or field. And I'm curious as to what some of the either ideas or concepts or insights that you have encountered personally are that have been most impactful on you that are not necessarily research-backed or empirically validated or have a rigorous basis?

Yes. So I'll share with you some interventions that I've used and implemented in my life, and yet I have not found a satisfactory foundation in research. You know, work on NLP, neurolinguistic programming. I can't tell you the number of times that I've spoken to NLP practitioners and said to them, why don't you do research? Because, you know, I've tried it and it's great. And I'm sure that if they did research on their NLP interventions, they find terrific results and it can become mainstream. Again, there are many people who study NLP, you know, and Tony Robbins really popularized it, and yet it's not respected in academia because there is not enough, there's not much research on it. So this is one area that, you know, I personally, I use, you know, I went through an NLP practitioner's course, really enjoyed it, really got some things out of it, but unfortunately couldn't find sufficient research on it for me to include it as part of my curriculum.

That's a great example. I love that. It's interesting. To my knowledge, at least within neurolinguistic programming, part of the core philosophy is in a sense anti-research and anti-theory, I believe, isn't it? In that a big emphasis is on results and solutions for the individual within the intervention without too much theorizing and things like that.

The thing though is that you can research outcome. In fact, this is my favorite kind of research. You know, I do teach theory in my classes, but only enough so that students feel that they are on rigorous ground. But the purpose of teaching theory is not as an end in itself, It's so that they can engage in effective practice. Kurt Lewin, who's maybe the father of social psychology, said, you know, decades ago, he said, you know, a good theory is a theory that works in practice. It's only as good as it is in practice.

Hmm. Nassim Taleb, the author of Antifragile, has a great quote. He says, what's rational is what works. Which I think is an interesting one in that vein of thinking.

Yes, exactly. And what he means there and what he does there in that one profound sentence is connect theory and practice, mind and body, rather than the dualism that exists so often. It's, well, it's good in theory, but I don't know about practice, or vice versa. As the saying goes, as the academic says. This may work in practice, but does it work in theory?

I love that. That's great. Final question, I promise, before we go back to the rest of the model. Has researching happiness and becoming definitely one of the world's leading experts on the topic made you a happier person, do you think?

Yeah, that's an easy yes. So many of the ideas from The Research of Happiness were not new to me, meaning I'd heard them before, whether it's from my grandma or they were just out there in the ether. However, once I saw the scientific evidence for it, I was much more likely to do it. And let me give you an example from my class at Harvard. So one day during the semester, the head of the Harvard Physical Education Department. He also headed all the gyms at Harvard, came to me and said, you know, Tal, what did you tell your students? And I said, why? He said, because our gyms are packed. And I said, well, I just, this week I taught about physical exercise. Now, what did I teach about physical exercise? I taught about the fact that, you know, Michael Badiek's research that shows that regular physical exercise is equivalent to our most powerful psychiatric medication, or John Ratey's work showing the value of physical exercise. Now, all of the students knew that physical exercise was important before I told them so, or before Michael Baddiek and John Ratey told them so, but as soon as they saw the research on it, there was a shift, and they were much more likely to go and exercise based on that. They knew what serotonin is, they knew what dopamine is, norepinephrine, endorphins. You know, we've all heard those terms, or at least some of them. And yet when you see it, you know, black and white, when you actually see the research that was conducted on it, you're much more likely to follow suit. And I was convinced as well by research. You know, I found it difficult to meditate, and I started and I stopped and I started and I stopped, and then I saw the research which She's very compelling. And eventually I found a way to persist. And, you know, for me, the way was initially listening to music mindfully, and later on yoga in addition to listening to music. And that's what I do until this very day.

Nice. That makes a lot of sense. That's one of the things people say a lot about Stephen's research and work on flow as well is that just hearing about some of the models and some of the hypothesized neurochemistry that may show up in the state and things like that gives enough of a kind of cognitive grasp or something to grip onto it so that you can start experiencing more just simply as a result of knowing what it is that you're looking for even experientially and knowing that there's some science behind it.

Yes. And that's very important. It goes back to the importance of knowing some of the theory before jumping into the practice.

So we've got physical well-being, intellectual well-being, relational well-being. Obviously, this model is interconnected anyway. We touched on lots there that I'm sure impact those other areas. What are some of the other key habits within physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional wellbeing?

When it comes to physical wellbeing, pretty straightforward. Exercise regularly, at least, at least 30 minutes, 3 times a day. In addition, move. You know, it's unhealthy to sit down for 8 hours straight in front of a screen. Some doctors argue that sitting is the new smoking. Now, when you look at the data, they are exaggerating, but not by much, meaning it's really unhealthy to be sedentary. Rule of thumb is, you know, every 30 minutes or so get up and, you know, take 20 steps, uh, at least, you know, obviously if it can be more than that, even better. So physical exercise, nutrition is very important for happiness. So for instance, you know, there's a lot of mix-up around nutrition. You know, you have the vegans who swear by their approach. You have the, You know, the paleos who swear by their never the twain shall meet. And the question is, where do I go? Because both of them actually provide you with research. And by the way, both provide rigorous research. Where do you go? What do you do? Well, you go— the way I teach it is I go for the non-controversial, low-hanging fruits, metaphorically and really. So, so for example, you know, we know that fruits are good for you. Maybe not too many, but some fruit is certainly good for you. We know that a lot of vegetables are good for you. We know that processed food is not as good as food that is less removed from nature. We know that sugar is very unhealthy. And here is what we know more than anything, that moderation is important. Not sure if you're familiar with the blue zones, those areas around the world where people live the longest and they live the best. So it's not just that they live to their 90s and sometimes above 100. It's not, they're not tied to a life support system when they're in their 80s and 90s, you know, they live well. And the question that Dan Buettner and other researchers asked was, you know, what's unique about them? And the first thing that they established, it's not genes, meaning people who live in the blue zones and, whose children say move out of the blue zones, they don't live longer than the average person. In other words, it's because of lifestyle. It's because of the way they live in these blue zones. And what are these ways? You know, whether it's Okinawa or Sardinia, Italy, or even a place in Costa Rica or Linda Loma outside of Los Angeles or a Greek island, you know, what is unique about these places? What's unique about them is many of the spiral elements, that I talked about. So for example, they walk a lot or they exercise a lot, they're physically active. They have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. They have relationships. The other things when it comes to food, they eat healthfully. You won't find extremes there, but I'll give you one example, which is a personal favorite. So in Okinawa, the residents of Okinawa before every meal have a mini prayer. And their prayer— and they usually pray to their ancestors— their prayer is, give me the strength to eat until I'm 80% full, which I love. Give me the strength until I'm 80% full, not to stuff myself, not to starve myself. In other words, in moderation. So this is important when it comes to nutrition, sleep. Is very important. Recovery in general is extremely important. You know, there's a lot of work on stress over the last few years, and stress has really become, you know, public enemy number one. You know, you look at the headlines in the newspapers, you know, stress is the silent killer. You know, stress is what harms organizations, individuals, you know, the, the world. Not true. Stress is not a problem. Think about it. You go to the gym, you stress your muscles when you lift weights. Not a bad thing because you stress them once, twice. You go 2 days later, you stress them some more, you actually get stronger. This is what anti-fragility is about. You get stronger as a result of that stress. The problem is not the stress. The problem rather is the lack of recovery. When you lift weights and more weights and more weights, that's when you get injured. That's when you get weaker. But if you have recovery, whether it's physically in the gym or psychologically in life, that is when you actually grow from stress. So this is part of physical wellbeing. In terms of intellectual wellbeing, you know, I mentioned earlier, learn, study, you know, watch lectures online. We have so much access today, which is, which is amazing. Ask questions, explore new fields that will not just make you happier, it will also help you live. Longer, as it turns out. So that's intellectual wellbeing. Relational wellbeing, spend quality time with friends, with family. And when I say quality time, you know, if we were talking 6 months ago, I would say make those relationships real, meaning face-to-face interactions, because 1,000 friends on social media are no substitute for that one BFF, best friend forever, that you meet with and you interact with. With life. But, you know, today it's more challenging to have those face-to-face interactions. So what I recommend is cultivating deep relationships, even if it's through media, you know, put time aside, whether it's for a phone call, whether it's for a, you know, a Zoom, Skype conversation, whatever it is, but spend time with people you care about and who care about you and spend that time when, you know, phones are off, unless it's a phone call, and when distractions are off so that you can be present and derive the most from that conversation. And finally, emotional wellbeing. The first thing, as I mentioned earlier, give yourself the permission to be human, embrace painful emotions. They're natural. They're part of every life. We don't want to add a second level of suffering. And then cultivate pleasurable emotions. For example, express gratitude on a regular basis. It's very simple, very straightforward. You write down things for which you're grateful, or you go around the table with your family and each one says one thing or two things that they're grateful for. That contributes a great deal to happiness. Simple, straightforward. The key, as with all of the things that I talk about, about is to create habits, to create rituals around them so that they're consistent, persistent. And that's how change comes about through practice, ongoing practice.

And not to discount them because of the simplicity. Tal, you had pretty incredible accomplishment as a lecturer at Harvard. Your course, which was on positive psychology, Life Fulfillment, Empathy, Friendship, Love, Achievement, Creativity, Spirituality, was, I believe, the most popular course in Harvard's history. So I have two questions off the back of that. One is, why do you think it ended up being the most popular course in the history of arguably the world's most prestigious and well-known university? And What was, do you think, the biggest shift or insight that the students who attended that course left with?

Right. So first of all, the course was the largest course at Harvard at the time. There were larger courses in previous years, and I think subsequently as well. But at the time, the reason why it became popular is because of the following incidents. So the first year when I taught the class, I had 8 students, 2 of them dropped out, leaving me with 6. Um, the following year there were more, and every year when, um, students evaluate a class, they evaluate on a few measures, you know, whether it's, uh, you know, the, you know, the lecture, the, the quality of the readings, and on and on. So that's on a 1 to 5, and the class did well, but many classes do well. In that respect. But then there is also a part where they ask, do you have anything else to add? Any other comments about the class? And a large number of the students wrote, this class changed my life. And when they reported on that in the final report, what's called the Q Guide at Harvard, the following year it became the largest class at the university. And my intention was that this class will help students change their lives. It was my explicit intention, not my hidden objective, because I thought when I put together this class, what would I have wanted to learn when I was sitting where they were sitting just, you know, 10 years prior? What could have helped me and my fellow students become happier? And I put together a class based on that question. A class that was academically rigorous. You know, people ask me, so how do you grade a class on happiness? And I tell them, well, it's obvious. If they're not happy by the end of the semester, they fail. No, of course not. It's a regular class. You know, they write papers for it. They have exams. It's like any other class. So it's based on rigor. And I always ask, is this relevant to their lives? Can this in some way help students, adults later on in life lead a more full and fulfilling life? If the answer is yes, it's in. If the answer is no, it doesn't matter how interesting or compelling the research is, it doesn't make it into the syllabus.

Interesting. That makes total sense. So you work, I believe, with organizations with, through Potential Life. Which is one of your companies. I know you've had a few different organizations, which is cool. What is the essence of the change that you're trying to elicit when you work with organizations at Potential Life?

Yes. So Potential Life is about leadership development at scale. So my partner, Angus Ridgway, spent 21 years at McKinsey as a director. Head of their leadership development. And he and I essentially realized that we're facing the same challenge. And the challenge is that on the one hand, we can go in and give a lecture in an organization and inspire many people. The problem though is that one lecture is unlikely to lead to lasting change. Yes, it may shift things for some people and it may initiate a process, that will lead to lasting change, but the lecture in and of itself, not enough. But you have scale because you can give a lecture to 1,000 people or 10,000 people. On the other hand, you can work one-on-one with a manager or a small group of managers over a long period of time and affect change, actually shift the needle when it comes to their leadership abilities. The problem there is that there is no scale, and the question that Angus and I asked was, how can we affect change at scale? And we created an online platform where participants, and it could be 50 or 20 participants, or it can be 500 employees, go through a program together where they help themselves flourish, become happier, as well as become better leaders.

And I believe one of the main focuses is peak performance, or one of the outcomes that is sought after. Can you talk a little bit about how you reconcile or think about the 3 elements of positive psychology and happiness, peak performance, and leadership development? How do those intertwine?

Yes, so the connection is an intimate one. The thing though is, is that it's is the opposite of what most people think. So most people believe that success is the cause, happiness is the effect. In other words, if you want to be happy, you have to be more successful, whether it's getting to this school or get this job or make so much money or getting this promotion. And they're right in the short term, meaning when I get into, you know, my top choice university, of course I'll be happy maybe a month or two. When I get my dream job, I'll be ecstatic for maybe 6 months or so. When I make a lot of money and I get my new home, yeah, of course I will be thrilled temporarily. In other words, success leads to short-term spike in our levels of well-being, not to lasting happiness. The thing though is, is that there is a relationship between these two variables. It's a very intimate one in the opposite direction. If I increase levels of wellbeing, levels of happiness, I will actually become more successful. All other things being equal, of course. In other words, I increase levels of happiness even by a little bit, 3%, 5%, I'll become more creative, more likely to think outside the box, more innovative, more productive, more energetic. My relationships will improve, my teamwork will be better. Companies that increase their employees' levels of well-being enjoy more productivity, creativity, better teamwork, higher levels of revenues and profits ultimately. In other words, we see that happiness pays. It's a good investment for the individual and for the organization. And this is the premise that Potential Life is built on. When it comes to peak performance, peak performance has a reciprocal relationship with happiness as well, because I'm much more likely to perform at my best if I increase levels of happiness. And when I am in a peak performance zone, when I experience flow, that contributes to my happiness. So in that respect, they reinforce each other.

Yeah, that makes sense. Absolutely. Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage, the title of that book in many ways, I think sums it up. And the idea that's very contrary to popular perception that happiness is a precursor to success rather than the other way around, I think does a good job of summing that That up. Tal, one of the questions that we love to close our interviews with is what we call the research genie question, and we love to ask it in particular to extremely well-accomplished academics and intellectuals like yourself. So the question is essentially, if you could click your fingers and in an instant have all of the research that you could possibly dream of be done to answer a certain question, what would that question be?

How do you bring about lasting change? Because we know what makes people happy and we know that it's pretty straightforward. The thing, though, is that most people don't implement what they know. So just knowing is not enough. So what can we do to increase the likelihood that people will follow up on what they know, that people will be more likely to, to enjoy, to experience lasting change. It's a big question and a very important one. We have some answers to that, but not enough. We're still in our infancy and I'm sure we'll be learning a lot more over the coming years.

Hmm. That's a great one. Can you tell us a little about the work that you're doing with The Happiness Studies Academy?

Yes. So the Happiness Studies Academy essentially was born 5 years ago when I was on a flight. I was in that state of mind where I was half asleep and, you know, too tired to do any work and yet too uncomfortable to fall asleep. And then a question came to mind, and the question was, how is it that there is a field of study for psychology or philosophy or history or medicine or education or law or geography, you name it, but there is no field of study for happiness. Yeah, there is positive psychology, but that's just the psychology of happiness. What about what philosophers have to say about happiness and theologians and historians and economists and neuroscientists? Why isn't there a field or rather an interdisciplinary field of study that looks at arguably life's most important question. And I resolved then, and have been doing this with a group of colleagues, to create a field of happiness studies. And the Happiness Studies Academy was born out of that desire. And 3 years ago, we started offering our first certificate program. In happiness studies that brings together all these different disciplines, all for two primary objectives. The first, to help our students become happier, and second, to help our students help others become happier.

Great. Where can people learn more about the Happiness Studies Academy or contribute?

Well, the Happiness Happiness Studies Academy's website is happinessstudies.academy. We were very creative coming up with that. There we have access to most of our work in the form of lectures and workshops and work for schools as well as organizations.

Great. That's, that's great. The final question, Tal, just before we close it out. So one of the quotes that I have always found hilarious, which one of my very grumpy uncles used to love repeating, is that I'm happiest when I'm unhappy. And a lot of people, at least in my experience, like to talk about the fact they don't really care about happiness and they're actually more interested in other things like producing results or freedom or whatever the case may be. Do you see happiness as the overarching North Star for life, I suppose, in general, or do you think it is something else?

Yeah, so the answer is yes. However, there are nuances there. So first of all, you don't need to consciously or explicitly care about happiness to really care about happiness, just like you don't need to consciously or explicitly necessarily care about food to care about food. It's part of our nature to care about food, and it's part of our nature to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Admitting it or not admitting it, that's not the point. However, however, there's research by Iris Mouse and others showing that people who wake up in the morning and say, you know, happiness is very important for me, you know, happiness is something that I really value, and I want to become happier, people who do that actually tend to be less happy. So, you know, your uncle's quip actually has some value to it. Now, the problem though is what if I know all the benefits of happiness? What if I know that first of all, I want to be happy, you know, most of us do and I admit it. And I also know that becoming happier will help me perform better, be more successful, more creative, have better relationships. And I know all these things. So what, I'm going to fool myself and say, yeah, I know all these things, but I actually don't want to be happy because I know Iris Mauss's research that says that we shouldn't wake up in the morning and say that happiness is important? No, self-deception is not the path to happiness. The way we overcome this paradox is by pursuing happiness indirectly. And the analogy that I use is that of sunlight. You know, so let's say the sun is shining and I'm looking up at it right now. It's going to really hurt my eyes if I look at the sun directly. However, if I break down the sun into its elements, you know, using a prism, I can look and enjoy and even go towards the rainbow and derive much pleasure and satisfaction from it. Same thing with happiness. If I pursue happiness directly— happiness is important to me, I want to be happy— that will actually hurt ultimately more than help. However, if I break down happiness and pursue it indirectly, I'm much more likely to find happiness. Now, what is breaking down happiness? What are the metaphorical colors of the rainbow? The Spire Elements. So I can wake up in the morning and say, I want to do work that is meaningful, or I'm going to meditate or exercise, or learn new things or spend quality time with my best friend or express gratitude. If I do all these things, this is indirectly pursuing happiness. And that's how I circumvent the paradox that directly pursuing happiness actually detracts from happiness. So you can let your uncle know that.

That's great. I love that. And that really helps. I think a lot of folks who have that Type A tendency to want something to grab onto or chase after. So you chase after the spire elements and then you get happiness as a byproduct. Hopefully. I love that. Well, listen, Tal, thank you so much. I've kept you past our allotted time because all of your wisdom has been so great to hear. So I appreciate your time very, very much. Where can people learn more about you and go deeper into your work?

Yes. So the website, thehappinessstudy.academy or potentialife.com, or my personal website, albenshahar.com.

Super. Thanks, Tal. All the best.

Thank you very much, Ryan.

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