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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Take the Next Steps to Happiness With Megan McDonough [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PP: We all have times in our lives that are filled with uncertainty and stress. Maybe it's career upheaval, a change in our life stages or the end of a relationship. Even as we wrestle with the challenges at hand, we wonder what the next step is. I'm Paula Phelps and this is Live Happy Presents, a podcast sponsored by the Wholebeing Institute, that looks at what to do when those inflection points arise in our lives. Megan McDonough is founder of the Wholebeing Institute, which is the world's leading educational organization, teaching the science of human flourishing. She is here today to talk about how the challenges we're facing right now, no matter how daunting they seem, actually hold the opportunity to explore, strengthen and reshape your life. Then, she'll tell us about an online program offered by the Wholebeing Institute to help you take the next step to move toward happiness. [EPISODE]   [00:00:59] PP: Megan, this is an incredible program that you're going to share with us today. I have so many questions, and I'm really excited to hear about it. But I wanted to start out by learning, how did you develop this and what got you here? [00:01:12] MM: For that, we're going to go back to the year of 1999. You remember that year, that was the year everybody was saying, computers are going to crash.   [00:01:21] PP: The end of the world.   [00:01:21] MM: End of the world when computers go from 1999 to 2000, the world was going to crash. It turns out thankfully, that the world didn't crash. But in a way, my own life crashed. I remember specifically the day I was working for DuPont, and I was in their corporate offices in a meeting. Even the day I recall, it was a gorgeous spring day, one with the depth of the sky, it was a beautiful baby blue. And there were these cherry blossoms all ripe and opening. It was incredible beauty outside. But inside, it felt like I had my back against the beauty, like I couldn't see it. This was metaphorical. Actually, literally, because I was sitting in a meeting thinking, "Ah, I'm just dying here." It wasn't because I didn't have a great job. I love my job, love the people. But I remember writing on my notepad, "This is killing me."   [00:02:20] PP: Wow.   [00:02:21] MM: So for me, that day, something became very clear. My work here was done, that this was an inflection point in my life. The reason I start with that sort of background back in 1999, is because we hit these, I think of as inflection points all the time in our lives. That was a big one in my life. But many people, as part of being human, because there's no getting around it. We had times when we feel like we've hit a termination, either we get a – either our relationships come to an end, our work feels like it's dying out, our health might be going downhill, our loved ones' health might be going. We look at these points as times of great change ang angsts. It feels entirely like a terminus and it's really a very rich place. Might feel really difficult at the time. That's when I started changing and moving in different ways in the world that looked at the science of flourishing, how we can go forward in a way that really liberated us to live more into an authentic life, in a way that feels rich, and happy and satisfying. [00:03:30] PP: Well, how do we know that we're at an inflection point versus just having a bad day at work? We all have those moments where it's like, "Okay, that's it. I'm going to go home tonight. I'm going to write my letter." How do we know? [00:03:43] MM: It's a great question, because life is full of little stress points anyways. Why is this an inflection point? One of the things that your listeners can pull from your website is a handout that's related to sort of this discussion we're having today. In that handout, I listed sort of all of those who have felt sense of when life is changing for you. When do I know that this is more than just a bad day? That it’s really an inflection here. Part of that answer is, it lasts longer than just a bad mood. It's like a chronic outcoming of this sense that maybe there's got to be something more, a clarity like I had that data. I've run my length around this thing or it might come from an external situation where you lost your job, or the kids moved out of the house and all of a sudden, you have an empty nest. In many ways, these inflection points, they become ways in which we have to actually redefine who I am. Actually, look at the different ways in which we're shaping ourselves because who we knew ourselves to be before is not who we have to be in the situation, as an empty nester, as a single person, as a person who realized their job no longer works for them or has been retired. These are all things that happen. So if you look up that list of handouts, your listeners can get a sense of, "Ah, maybe this is bigger than just a bad day." Part of that is, what is the felt sense. I mean, for me back in 1999, this wasn't just one episode. This was sort of a building of a felt sense over time where I'm just – there was a sense of dryness, a desiccation and it wasn't enlivened by this very sacred life. So those are sort of the key points that point to, "Ah, this is an inflection point. This is a change of who I see myself to be and where I'm headed." [00:05:48] PP: As you're getting that sense, and you realize this is an inflection point. That realization is one thing, but what to do with it is a whole big, scary next thing. What do you do once you've realized that you need to do something? [00:06:06] MM: It's so funny, because what is the first thing we do when we're having difficulties? Where do we go? Let's ask Dr. Google. [00:06:15] PP: I was going to say the bar, but I knew that was the long answer. [00:06:16] MM: Maybe the bar. So, still, maybe we go for a drink, maybe we talk to our friends, maybe we ask Dr. Google. But what we're really doing is just sort of splattering this – not desperation, but this angst that we're feeling, and we're reaching out and trying to find answers. Interestingly enough, when I was going through that inflection point in my own life, I mean, that's exactly what I did. I was reading, I was taking a little bit from this. I was Googling and getting all sorts of junk. Because when you Google, how do I live happier, you don't get your wonderful side of living happy, because that wasn't around back in the '90s. W What you end up doing is creating a smorgasbord of, "Let me try this. Let me try that. Let me try this. Let me ask the same people that I've always asked about and they're –." They might be wonderful, supportive people, but they might not have the answers either. So the first offer is to find a place, which is what we're talking about today. So program that systematically in step by step takes you through the process of living happier now, as you move into that definition of new self. Because what we're really in and this is actually in your handout, you can feel free to fill in these blanks. The place we're actually in right now is a place that the anthropologist, Victor Turner called the liminal space. When we know that one thing is ending, we don't yet know where we're going, that's a place of uncertainty. It's that liminal space of no longer and not yet. [00:07:51] PP: That's a very scary place. [00:07:54] MM: It's a very scary place. That's why we ask a lot of people, and we have a lot of conversations, and we ask Google and we go to the bar and drink. We try to forget about our problems. Because we're searching for this sense of stability in the no longer and not yet. We don't like uncertain places. It's very scary. So when you ask, "What do we do?" First, we realize, "Oh, this is an inflection point. This is a liminal space. This is a no longer and not yet." There are other words too for it. I think this place of inflection points is a really sacred time. It's interesting when you notice these inflection points when you're younger. You might have the graduation from high school, or college, or getting married, or having children, or finding a partner or landing a new job. There's lots of sort of inflection points when you're younger that are noticing as, "Ah, this isn't change." But when you're my age, I'm 60 this year. In midlife, all of a sudden you realize, "Wow, where are the big sort of milestones? Where are the inflection points?" That's why I wanted to elevate this for your listeners that this sort of challenge that you're going through with emptiness, retirement or even younger than I am into second jobs or more children. This no longer not yet time, along with being uncertain, scary is also a sacred time. It is deeply sacred time to do some deep work about who you are as an individual, and where you're heading in doing so in a conscious way. So that it comes from within out, versus the pressure of society, of norms, of expectations driving what you should be doing. When I think of the liminal space of no longer not yet, it's a sacred time. It's also the time that the mythologist, Joseph Campbell said, "This is a hero's journey" or Jack Mezirow in learning and development called it disorienting dilemmas. They're really times where we think about, "Ooh, what’s next for us?" So instead of this trial and error of going out to Google, to the bar, to your friends. How do we apply and study the evidence-based approach to move towards happiness? That's what our certificate in holding positive psychology does. It takes these uncertain times and it spells out clearly, step by step over the course of nine months, so that you can really use the sacred time to craft not only how you're standing in this present moment, but how you're shaping yourself towards the end. [00:10:39] PP: How important is it for us to prioritize personal happiness in this journey, because we – especially as women, I will say, we take care of our families, we take care of our spouses, we take care of the people we work with. We're caretakers and we tend to put ourselves last. As you hit an inflection point, what happens when you begin to prioritize your own personal wellbeing. [00:11:04] MM: It’s so interesting. When I made this change for myself, and I was just miserable at work. Again, not because it was a horrible place to work, but because I had reached the end of my rope that of doing work. I had two young children and my husband was a stay-at-home dad. In one way, it was extremely selfish of me to leave that role. I was the breadwinner. I had all the benefits. Talk about fear when I decided to stay home, but I would leave in the morning, and my kids wouldn't be awake. I would come home at night and they were asleep.   [00:11:35] PP: Oh my God.   [00:11:37] MM: This isn't what I was leaning into. This isn't what I wanted. My husband was 1000% behind me saying, "Yeah, let's do something different. Let's experiment with this." So part of that task of prioritizing happiness is first, realizing that it doesn't just serve us. We serve our children best when we're in a place where we're open, and giving, and loving, not when we're stressed, and unhappy and demanding. The other thing I would say is that, many times it's hard. We think that happiness, we think that prioritizing the successes will bring us happiness. If only I got the right job, if only I had more money, if only I had more time, then I would be happy. It says backwards, because we know that happier people actually set the conditions for more success. So we're actually starting with the primary view. This is what Live Happy teachers all the time, right? This is the basic premise that if we begin with a sense of grounding, and who we are, and using our strengths of showing up in the world in a way that's pointed to the best of who we are. People will enjoy being around us, we'll get more done. So what is selfish about that? We tend to think as women, we need to be martyrs to flagellate ourselves to do more, get more done, to give more, give more, and let me sacrifice myself on the martyrdom of motherhood or womanhood. It's just – how's that going for you? [00:13:09] PP: Yeah. There's a lot of people I'm sure who are seeing themselves right now in that, because I think we all do. It's become so second nature for us. So give me this high-level view of the steps that you took, and that you've learned and you use toward creating personal happiness. [00:13:27] MM: Sure. This was at first a struggle for me, because this didn't come about until I created the Wholebeing Institute. With that creation of Wholebeing Institute in 20 years of evidence-based work, both in yoga and mind body, medicine and in the field of positive psychology, I was grappling around. What I hope to do is give you an overview of how to save two decades of trying into a really cohesive path. I wish I had this program 20 years ago; I would have saved myself a whole lot of time. So I'm going to give you in the next 15 minutes or so an overview of the steps that we take our students through in nine months. This is nine months of community connectedness, where we're all working towards our highest and best and learning what does it mean to live a happier life. It begins at the very start of the course with the understanding that who you are is more than who think yourself to be. What I mean by that is the concept of self. It isn't just one self that lives within us. We identify the different selves of sometimes, we have an ought self speaking to us. I really ought to just work harder and give more to my kids and give more to my family. I really ought to bring on the paycheck, stop complaining, be – I really ought to be grateful for what I have. This ought self voice inside of us that is one voice of a self. We have our authentic self that in this moment might be happy, sad, challenged, angry, all the things that can come up now. But we also have these things in our head, these concepts of ourselves that are called possible selves. That when we do this mental time travel into the future, we see ourselves in different ways. Sometimes we see ourselves a successful business people, or a loving mother, or becoming a loving grandmother. Or sometimes we have these possible selves that scare us, "I'm going to want to die broke" or "I'm going to retire and be all alone or won't have enough money to get by" or "I'll never find happiness" or "I'll never find a mate." These possible selves are all mental concepts in our head about either what we want, or what we're afraid of. Usually, at 2:00 a.m. in the morning is when we’re creative, right?   [00:15:49] PP: Exactly.   [00:15:50] MM: The first thing to do is identify all of those selves that live in this ecosystem of your own experience. Then, when we get them on paper through this process of working together in this course, you can then decide upon the narrative of the possible self that you want to start taking action on and working into today. So we actually pick a possible self that we need for ourselves, the ideal self. This is my ideal. Why that's important and why it's different than goals? Then we have some sort of measure, "Oh, this is the direction I'm heading. This is how I want to craft my life." This becomes a deliberate shaping instead of a, "Let me try this, and let me try that." It's a deliberate shaping of today towards a possible self. And you'll find that, "Wow! There were times when my possible self is here right now and today." That's what's so brilliant about it. As we go through day by day in the program, we realized that there were times as we work towards our ideal self, that we have to understand the concept of learning as a goal before we perform as a goal. I know early on 20 years ago, when I left my corporation, started my own business, I was do, do, do in a performance type mode. Let me do this, let me try that, let me get this done. What we're saying in the sacred time of a liminal space of moving towards your ideal that there is a learning goal before you get to the performance. That's why we take nine months to do it. It's interesting when I think, even in the last few years with the pandemic, a lot of people are in a place of asking themselves. "Oh, that was a completely different experience. What did I want to take from that and shape from that into the next steps?" Because we're all of a sudden entering back into the workforce and feeling, "Wow, that pace has picked up again. I'm right back to where I used to be. How can I shape this more than ever?" [00:17:51] PP: Right. And you wonder, am I still willing to tolerate that? Is that still what fulfills me even/ I think that has changed the way we receive work. [00:18:01] MM: So true. Part of that is, we look at the course in the possible selves. Part of it is about defining ourself, our ideal self. I call that selfing. Selfing in a way in a positive way.   [00:18:15] PP: I like that,   [00:18:17] MM: Right. How are we constructing who we are in our experience as humans, such that it's enlivening, and engaging, and it’s being an expression of divine expression of who we are at the core of our being. This is what I would call selfing. But there's also another part of this work that's equally important. This I like to call unselfing. What are we letting go of? What are we realizing that this isn’t helping us anymore, this way of thinking, of believing. I don't need to hold on to. One of the things we teach in the course is a five-pointed a methodology for wellbeing. It's called SPIRE. [00:19:01] PP: I love this methodology. Yes, explain this to us.   [00:19:04] MM: Each of those belong to a different category of wellbeing. First is spiritual, mindfulness and meaning. What is it that you believe in that's bigger than yourself, that you can let go and trust into, meaning in your life? Because if you go at this happiness thing as you're carrying everything on your own shoulders, it really becomes heavy in and of itself. It's just builds on the ego, so what do you need to let go of and spiritually connect with? Could be your religion, divine, nature, God, the peace, your physical wellbeing. Not only your nutrition, your eating, your exercise, but how are you using your body as a container to express that idea itself? How do you move in the world? I is for intellectual or inquiry. What are you interested in? Curiosity and openness to experience enlivens us, so what are those things that do that for you? What's the relational wellbeing you have? We know that relationships are the number one predictor of wellbeing, so cultivate consciously in its course. How to map your network of relations? Which ones are you using in a way that's elevating? Which ones might you have to just clip back a little bit because they're actually not serving you? The last one of the models is emotional wellbeing, speaking about the power of positive emotions and how to use them to broaden and build your experience. So that the power of the negativity bias that we all have is decreased. So that's the SPIRE model that we use to both build the positive self and unself, letting go of what we don't need. [00:20:38] PP: That's fantastic. I know you've seen it change your own life. You're seeing it change the lives of others. What point in the program does that hit? Is that about halfway through, three-fourths of the way through that you've hit this point of being able to let go? [00:20:52] MM: Well, it's a process. It's so interesting to watch people go through the course, because it is sort of this unfolding. This unfolding doesn't have a specific timeframe. We've had people start at the very beginning of the program, where we unveil that SPIRE methodology and say, "Ah. This is a whole different way of thinking about how I'm working in the day" to then moving on to really defining happiness for ourselves. Actually, in defining that happiness and understanding the components of it emotionally, using our strengths, and using a meaning, it opens us up. So we begin not only to learn the content, but connect with others, the faculty, the group, because we all go through it as a cohort together. In that conversation, community is one of the most powerful. We hear again, and again, it's the most powerful, is working in connectedness around this topic, this content. Because in module three, what we do is we put people into small groups. We call the learning pods. So, you will be working very closely with other people in the group, define how you're using that content for yourself, and talk about how your day is unfolding and how you're utilizing it. That's usually a game changer for people this unfolding of angst, not just about happiness, it's not just about content, it's really working with others who are defining their next step in life. Or imagine, if you're in a small group, someone thinking about retirement and you're working with a woman who is looking at a career change, right? Or a coach who's looking to build this in their business. Those rich conversations inform. Then, in the next module, you talk about what habits am I building on a day-to-day basis. This is all about habit change. So we spend a month on what are you doing every day that's elevating you and bringing you towards your ideal. It could be something as simple as taking pictures or something beautiful every day. Could be doing a vision board, clipping a picture for a vision board every day for 30 days. It doesn't matter what you do, but what you're doing is activating over 30 days, a habit creation. We talk a lot about the science. Then, because no man is an island and a woman is an island, we talk about relationships. How do you really have conversations and relationships that are active and constructive? Mapping out that relational list is so important to understand. It's only then, after we've gone through all of this work, that we asked you what goals are important to you. [00:23:32] PP: That's the opposite of what we’re used to. I love that. [00:23:37] MM: Most people will start with – and then, do you ever find yourself picking a million goals, because you don't know which one is the right one to pick it and try –here, it's almost – with the start of this new year, people have already probably saying, "Oh, that was the wrong goal. I don't want to do that one." But after you understand what happiness is, how you're applying it in group conversations, and how you're creating habits, then you can ask yourself, "Okay. What's important to me? What goal do I want to reach?" So we have a change model where we get clear on what we want, we activate hope. We then activate our actions, and we go forward and navigate this change going for those things that are important to us. So this is the change model. We spend a month on this. Because our goals never go the way we planned them out in our head, right? Obstacles arise, difficulties arise, irritating people arise. The next month we spend on resilience, right? Things are not going to go the way we expected. Resilience is key. How do we have a setback, and then move forward, and then life happens and we move around? How do we think about in context of mindset, and a way of moving forward where we become better at resilience, of moving, of expounding no matter what happens, we're bouncing back, or bouncing forward passed where we were before. I teach the next module, which is the module on leadership. Because at the end of the day, you're becoming a leader in your own mind? How do we think about the power of leadership in our own life? What that does that mean in context with others? So we begin to actually be a hero in our own journey instead of the victim played out by others. Then we come together again, the last module, which is where the students present their final project, which is what was most personally compelling to them. You started this question, when does the unfolding happen? Anywhere and everywhere again, and again in that process, because this human life is about unfolding. What we try and create in the connectedness of the program is a positive, upward spiral that is ever broadening and growing over time. We keep seeing more, and more and more. It doesn't end even after – [00:25:59] PP: Even after the course.   [00:26:00] MM: It doesn't end.   [00:26:02] PP: Let me ask you. What are some of the most compelling stories you've seen in people, some of the transformations that you've seen in people who have gone through your program? [00:26:11] MM: What’s been really interesting, and one of the things that we look at is, what difference does this make in your day-to-day life. There was this one woman, I remember specifically was in tears when we first got together, because she was so miserable in her very highly successful job. She's just – you could tell, she was one of these goal getters, she would just get things done. She says, "But I'm miserable. I'm just absolutely a cranky woman." Her final project was about daily blessings. She set up this mason jar in her home, so when she got together with dinner with her husband and her children, they created a family ritual of counting blessings, and they would put blessings into that jar. Talk about it and put it into the jar. And it became sort of a habit in the family. So it changed not only her life. She came back like a completely different person, because her final project was about counting blessings, not burdens. She came back a completely different person. Her family life had changed, because of that interaction. Another example are people who are coaches, and I've been approaching their coaching work from the premise of how to be a good coach. What they wanted to do is understand how to ask questions that elicited the best out of the clients that they were working with. So they actually wanted the skills of positive psychology to increase their practice of coaching. What they found happening is that, help them get clear about who they were coaching, what they were coaching people towards, so they get clarity on their own business and their own self in it. So we have a lot of solopreneurs, who – whether they have therapists, or coaches, or teachers, wellness practitioners that not only want to use this in their practice, but they use it for themselves. So they go through this program, and they realize that their life is happier as they help others in their life. [00:28:13] PP: What a benefit of – you're doing it for somebody else, but then you end up being able to give this gift to yourself and a lasting one. I love the fact that people are going through this with someone else, because I've seen that power of connection. I know, I've been in programs where, say, a woman didn't feel supported by her family, or by her husband for going through this. That is so important to have that little community. So even if the rest of your world is kind of disintegrating or not supportive, you've got that community that you've built. I imagine that that community lasts long after the program. [00:28:51] MM: Long after. We've been in business for 10 years; we still have our first small groups back 10 years ago tell me that they're still meeting as a group. I guess, this is sort of close out this conversation by asking viewers to think about. If you stayed on the trajectory of doing what you're doing now, where will you be in nine months? If you took the program and helped you shape possible self future into your ideal self, what would look different in your day, nine months from today? That's really the promise of stepping into the science of human flourishing. [00:29:24] PP: That is so powerful. Megan, we're going to tell our listeners where they can learn more about your program. We're going to send them to our website. You've got some great handouts that we're going to let them download from there for free. Tell them more about the program and let them know how they can sign up for this. As we finish this out, is there any other message that we haven't covered today that you really hope everybody hears as I walk away from this? [00:29:50] MM: I want to say thank you to you. We've worked together for years. So my first thing is just gratitude for you in the work at Live Happy. The second thing I want to say is I look forward to seeing your listeners in the course and getting to work with them, and a certificate of Wholebeing Positive Psychology. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:30:10] PP: That was Megan McDonough, founder of the Wholebeing Institute, talking about how we can take the next step to move toward happiness. If you visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab, you can download a free set of worksheets to help you identify what internal signals you're receiving about personal change, and help you think about how this can become a time of positive growth. We'll also tell you more about Megan, the Wholebeing Institute, and the certificate in Wholebeing Positive Psychology and how this nine-month program can help you walk through the changes you're experiencing. We'll also give you a special link just for live Happy listeners to learn more about the program and how you can be a part of it. Enrollment is underway now for the program that begins in March. Again, just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. We hope you have enjoyed this special episode of Live Happy Presents. From Megan McDonough and myself, Paula Phelps, thank you for joining us and remember to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Making the Most of Your Time with Cassie Holmes  [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 401 of Live Happy Now. Do you feel like you have plenty of time to do all the things you need to get done? Or are you like the rest of us, who are just trying to fit it all in? I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm talking with Cassie Holmes, an award-winning teacher and researcher on time and happiness and author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. Cassie is here today to talk about what it means to feel time poor, and why that has become so prevalent today. Then, she'll explain how we can learn to better structure our days and begin using our time, instead of losing it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:45] PF: Cassie, thank you for coming on Live Happy Now. [0:00:48] CH: Thanks so much for having me, Paula. I'm excited to chat with you. [0:00:52] PF: Well, you have written an amazing book that takes on a huge topic that so many people are dealing with today. I think, before we really dive into that, can you clarify by telling us what you mean when you say time poverty? [0:01:05] CH: Yeah. Time poverty is the acute feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. I am sure, even if you haven't heard that term before, everyone knows exactly what that is, because they felt it is really prevalent. We conducted a national poll that showed that nearly half of Americans feel time poor. That they don't have enough time to do what they set out to do. [0:01:33] PF: That's amazing. Because I mentioned this book to my nurse practitioner when I was seeing her a couple weeks ago. She was like, “Time poor. I'm not familiar with that.” I explained, not as eloquently as you just did, and she was like, “So that's what you call it.” [0:01:48] CH: Yeah, exactly. [0:01:49] PF: Like you said, and even if they haven't heard the term, everyone has experienced this. I find myself saying a lot like, okay, our parents didn't live this way. What happened? Where did the time go? Why is it that we are all living in such a time crunch? [0:02:04] CH: Yeah. It's a really important question. Because it is such an issue. It's an issue, because it's so prevalent, as I said. It's an issue, because it has really negative consequences, which we can speak to in a second. In terms of why, why is it that we feel this way? I think there's a couple of factors that contribute to it. One is cultural. That there's been this taking on as viewing busyness, almost as a status symbol, a signal of competence, and that you're needed. Then we take on so much, because we feel like we should, right? It's that productivity orientation. Also, recognizing that it is a feeling of having too little time to do all that you want to and think you should be doing. That expectation of what we think we should and could be doing is influenced by technology, to be honest. I think that our smartphones are so useful in so many ways. They help us do those things that we should be doing, to check tasks off our to-do lists. We can order groceries at any moment. We can coordinate schedules. We can respond to emails. Also, it's the idea of all the things we could be doing at that moment. With social media, you have this constant view into other people's lives, but only their happiest moments of their lives. [0:03:32] PF: Like the highlight films. [0:03:35] CH: Right. It's like seeing. Well, you're waiting in line at the coffee shop, or at the grocery store, you're looking at your phone and seeing the amazing vacation, or the fun meal that someone is having and have like, “Oh, I could be doing that right now.” As well as we could be learning Spanish at any moment, watching a performance somewhere. Of course, there's no way that we would have time to do all this notion of what we could and should be doing. I think that that's also one of the culprits of why we feel time poor. [0:04:11] PF: Right. We're going to obviously get more into what it means to be time poor and what it's doing to us, but one thing that I found so interesting early on, that you talk about having too much free time is just as detrimental as not having enough free time. I've found that so fascinating. Can you explain why? Can you also talk about what that sweet spot is of that perfect amount of free time? [0:04:37] CH: Yeah. I think that's a really important learning from the data for all of us who feel time poor. Because in those days and in those states where we feel so time stretched, oftentimes, I know for myself, for instance, I have been like, I don't know if I can do it. I need to quit. There's no way, so I should quit this job that I love so much and I've worked so hard for it, but it's just not possible. We day dream. “If only I had all the hours of my days. Living on a beach somewhere.” [0:05:07] PF: I'd been Costa Rica picking whatever is in Costa Rica. [0:05:11] CH: Yeah. Surely, I would be happier. But is that true? In our work, we looked at with Hal Hershfield and Marissa Sharif, what's the relationship between the amount of discretionary time people have and their happiness? Among our studies, including looking at data from the American Time Use Survey. Looking for among tens of thousands of working, as well as non-working Americans, how they spent a regular day. We could calculate the amount of time they spent on discretionary activities. Across studies, we found this consistent pattern of results. Namely, it was a upside down U-shape, or like an arc, or rainbow, suggesting that on both ends of the spectrum, people are less happy. In that data, we found that folks with less than approximately two hours of discretionary time in the day, they were unhappy. Those were the time for folks. That's because heightened feelings of stress. On the other side, we saw that those with more than approximately five hours of discretionary time in the day, were also less happy. The reason is, because we are driven to be productive. We are averse to being idle. When we have all the hours of our days open and available, and we spend them with nothing to actually show for how we spent that time, it undermines our sense of purpose. With that, we feel dissatisfied. I also want to note that it's not just that paid work is a way of spending that gives us purpose. For many of us, it actually is. Volunteer work, engaging in a hobby that's really enriching and develops us, that's also worthwhile ways of spending. Actually, we see that when people spend their discretionary time in worthwhile ways, that you don't see this too much time effect. You don't see that more is better. You don't see that too much time effect. This is, I think, important for all of us, in those heady days to not quit. Don't quit. Don't sell your house and move to the island, because a weekend, you will be bored and looking for a sense of purpose. [0:07:29] PF: Yeah. As I was reading that, I was thinking about some of the research that exists on people, how the death rate goes up when people retire. It's not really associated with declining health. It really ties back into what you were talking about, when they lose a sense of purpose and their overall happiness goes down, their overall well-being goes down, I feel like, that's got to be connected. [0:07:48] CH: Absolutely. Related to that you see among retirees who actually do volunteer work, that you see higher levels of satisfaction. When you have that available time, is making sure that you invest it in ways that do feel worthwhile, that give you that sense of purpose. Again, our days living on the beach might not be quite as happy as we daydream about. [0:08:16] PF: Absolutely. One exercise that you offer that people can really help to figure out their days is time tracking. I thought this was so excellent. We'll make sure that we have a link to your site, so people can go and download these, because you have given some wonderful worksheets and exercises. Can you talk about time tracking and how it works and why it is so important in the way we see our days, and the way we start shaping our days? [0:08:42] CH: Absolutely. In terms of how to live days that feel fulfilling and satisfying, the trick is to really maximize the amount of time that's spent on activities that feel worthwhile. Minimize the amount of time that is spent on activities that feel like a waste. Then, the question is, well, what are those activities that are worthwhile? Research does time tracking to pull out tracking for that individual, or among a broad sample of people, what activities they spend their time on, how they feel over the course of their day, so they could pull out on average, what are those activities that are associated with the most positive emotion? What are those activities that are associated with most negative emotion? You see that on average, activities that are socially connecting, so whether intimately, or spending time with family and friends are the most positive. You see the most negative are commuting, working and doing housework. Maybe not surprising. What's important is that this is based off of averages. There are some folks and I would like to put myself in the category of work is actually a great source of satisfaction. Also, there are instances of socializing that are not at all fun. I suggest that people track their own time for a week. The worksheet is on my website. It's so simple. I mean, granted is somewhat tedious for that week, but it's worth it. [0:10:12] PF: It pays off. [0:10:14] CH: Is that for every half hour, write down what you're doing, the activity. Being more specific than just work, or socializing. What work activity are you doing, so that you can pull out what are those activities that are the good ones? Also, whether those ways of socializing that are the good/bad ones. Because in addition to writing down what you're doing is rating on a 10 point scale, how it made you feel coming out of it. Of satisfied, happy fulfilling. Then what's wonderful is at the end of the week, you have this fantastic personalized data set. You can look across your time and see what are those activities that were your most positive. Also, what are commonalities across them. You might see, for instance, that actually, it's not socializing per se, or being not at work. It's for me, it was like, I really value one-on-one time, whether with a family member, or a friend, or a colleague, that was actually time that was really fulfilling for me. Then I also recognized in groups, less fulfilling. But that's me. You, as you have your own data, you can really hone in on what are those activities that feel not satisfying. To dig into the commonalities to figure out why. Also, you can see just how much time you're spending across your various activities. Helping you pull out like, “Holy cow. I had no idea that I was spending that much time on social media, or watching TV, or burning like, oh, email.” It's like, my entire life is spent on email. Recognizing that, in fact, maybe not surprising for email, but for some, it's actually quite surprising that social media doesn't make them feel very good, even though they have it in their head like, “Oh, this is my fun time. This is my me time.” It's really helpful to have this information to see where you're spending your time, such that there are opportunities to reallocate away from these times that are actually somewhat of a waste, according to you, not according to me, but according to your own data, so that you can reallocate them towards those activities that are more worthwhile. In the context of time poverty, where so many of us feel we don't have enough time, this is really important information to find pockets, where actually, we do have available time. If we spend it on ways that are more fulfilling, then perhaps, and I experienced this myself and have heard from readers, perhaps at the end of the week, even if you're busy, you look back and you feel fulfilled and satisfied and happy, because you spent on these worthwhile things. [0:13:09] PF: That exercise really reminded me of when you're going to go see a nutritionist, or something, they say, write down everything you eat for a week. You're like, “Oh, I got this. I'm going to blow it away.” Then you're like, “Oh, wow. I didn't realize I really picked up that many little pieces of chocolate, or whatever.” It's like, it really does make you sit down and think, “Wow, okay. There are areas where it's not just time has been stolen from me. I am generously giving it away.” What a great way to reset and figure out how to change that. You also give tips for making chores, or things that you don't love doing. Say, housework. How do you make that more enjoyable and feel more fulfilling? [0:13:48] CH: Time tracking, or even in your reflection, there are activities that are not fun. That's just – [0:13:53] PF: We can't just quit doing them, I guess. [0:13:54] CH: You can't quit doing. They’re necessary. Unless, you want your family, or housemates to kick you out, because you're not contributing to chores. We do have to do them. I do share some strategies to make them feel more positive. One of those is bundling. This is out of research by Katie Milkman and her colleagues. It's so simple yet so effective. Is basically, you bundle this activity that you don't enjoy doing, like chores, like folding the laundry, and you bundle it with an activity that you do enjoy, such that that time that you're spending becomes more worthwhile. It becomes more fun. For example, folding the laundry, if you bundle that with watching your TV show. Actually, one of readers was saying that her husband is now bundling ironing with watching sports and he is now so excited to iron each week, because he sets up the ironing board in front of the TV and that is his dedicated time to watch sports. Commuting, that was one of those other activities that is just so painful, because you're waiting through it. You just want to get there already, and it feels like a waste. During your commute, if you're driving, listen to an audiobook. Or if you're on the subway, or bus, read a book. When in this work on time poverty, I ask people to complete the sentence, I don't have time to. One of a very frequent response is, I don't have time to read for pleasure. If every time you got in your car, or that you're on the train going to work, you are “reading,” then you'll get through a book every week or so. All of a sudden, that time that was a chore, or felt like a waste feels more worthwhile and fun. [0:15:49] PF: One thing that you bring out and we all know this is true that when we feel pressed for time, the first things that go out the window seem to be those things that are going to make us feel better and are good for us, things like exercise, things like preparing our meals, so we're eating more healthy. How do we change our mindset and realize that those are the things we need to schedule in first, so that we don't just disregard them? [0:16:12] CH: Exactly. Exercise is a really important one, because exercise is an activity that has direct implications, not only for your health, but your emotional well-being. It's a mood booster. It is very effective at offsetting anxiety, which so many people are suffering from. Also, offsetting depression. It makes us feel really good about ourselves. Once we do make that time, we realize that we can do it. Actually, in terms of our feeling of being time poor, a part of that is that we don't have the confidence that we can accomplish what we set out to do, given the resources that we have, namely the time that we have. If you actually spend your time in ways that increase your self-efficacy, like exercise, then and I can speak to myself and I share this as an anecdote in the book is that, like you said, when I feel busy, my morning run is the first thing I give up. When I make the time and I'm out there running, it's like, “Oh, my gosh.” Thank, gosh, I did, because I'm feeling good. I feel like, I can take on the day on those important things. With that sense of accomplishment, it expands my sense of how much time I have available to do and complete what I set out to do. Both exercise, as well as doing acts of kindness. I have research that shows that when we actually spend time to give a little to someone else, that increases our sense of accomplishment, and self-efficacy. It actually increases our sense of time affluence, too. But it's important that it's giving time, not that time is being taken from you. [0:18:07] PF: You're an expert at this. How do you tell yourself, go ahead, invest the time, do the exercise, take the time to prepare your meals, whatever it takes? We can make a habit out of it. Once we get into that groove after 30 or 60 days, it's not that difficult, but how do we then, we're at this time of the year where people are trying to develop new habits anyway, so this might as well be one. How do we do that? [0:18:30] CH: It's such an exciting time of the year as people with that fresh start, looking for it and becoming more intentional. Actually, towards the end of the book, I have this chapter on time crafting. Pulling all of the strategies together from across the book, how do you design your week, such that you are protecting, carving out time for those things that matter, putting them into your schedule, so my Monday morning run. In many cases, it's the time and investing in those relationships that are so important to us that often do get neglected, when we're in a hurry. Putting those things into the schedule first. Protecting them. Also, placing them in that important work that you love so much. Your deep-thinking work. Put it into your schedule, so that it doesn't get filled by unnecessary meetings, or even responding to email. So that you make sure that you do have that time in the part of your day where you're most alert and most creative, and then seeing, consolidating the activities that you don't enjoy doing, because as we start activities and our anticipation of those activities have a big effect. If we condense them, then all the bad stuff, it's less painful if you get it all done together. Whereas watching TV, for instance, that first half hour is great. Five hours in on binging, less enjoyable. In fact, quite anxiety producing, because you feel really guilty and bad about yourself and it's not even fun at that point anyway. Putting those half hours and being really intentional. I do talk a lot about how to design your week, so that you are making time for the things that matter. Highlighting and increasing the impact of those activities that really matter. This is so important to do, because – Can I share an analogy that I think is – [0:20:35] PF: Please do. [0:20:36] CH: - really helpful for folks to have in their heads? I continue to touch back on it, when I'm making my own time saving, or spending decisions. It's an analogy about prioritization. It's nicely depicted in a short film that I share in actually the first day of my class that I teach to MBAs on how to be happy applying the science of happiness. In the film, a professor walks into his classroom and on the desk, he puts this large, clear jar. Then into the jar, he pours golf balls up to the very top, and he asked the students, is the jar full? The students nod their head, because it looks full. Nope. Then he pulls from a bag on the side, pebbles, and he pours the pebbles into the jar and they fill the spaces between the golf balls, reached the very top and asked the students, “Is the jar full?” They’re like, “Yes.” But he's like, “Nope.” Then he pours sand into the jar and it fills all those spaces between the golf balls, between the pebbles, up to the very top and he asked the students, “Is the jar full?” By this point, they're laughing. They’re like, “Yes.” He explains like, this jar is the time of your life. The golf balls are all those things that really matter to you. Your relationships with your family members, your friendships, that work that you truly care about. The pebbles are those other important things in your life, like your job, your house, the sand is everything else. The sand is all of that stuff that just fills your time without you even thinking about it, whether it's social media. For me, the email inbox. For some, it’s TV. It’s like, those never-ending requests that come in that it's easier to say yes to than no. Even though, you don't really care about what that task is. What's really important to note is that had he put the sand into the jar first, all of the golf balls would not have fit. That is if we let our time get filled, it will get filled with sand. We won't have had time, we wouldn't have spent the time on those things that really matter to us. We have to identify what are those golf balls, put them into our schedules first. Protect, prioritize that time. Then the sand will fill the rest, absolutely. We need to be really intentional and thoughtful. The time tracking exercise that I mentioned was one way to really identify, what are those golf balls for you, such that when you are designing your week, you're doing the time crafting part of it. That goes into your schedule first. That morning run, or whatever your form of exercise is actually really important. Put that into your schedule for us. Because actually, for exercise for instance, not only does it influence how you feel while you're doing it. You get that mood boost and sense of self efficacy, but also it colors how you experience the rest of your day. It has a really big impact, beyond just the experience itself. [0:23:34] PF: That is so huge. I know we have to let you go, but there was one more strategy you talked about that I had never heard of. Absolutely fell in love with, and really want you to share this with our listeners. That's the idea of time left. That was so powerful. Can you talk about what that technique is and why it works so beautifully. [0:23:55] CH: Yeah. I'm so glad you asked about that, because I do think it's a really important one. It is recognizing that some of those golf balls are really, actually from simple, ordinary moments in our life. These everyday moments, like a coffee date for me with my daughter, or having dinner with your family. Or, it's just these everyday moments that sometimes we're moving through them, because they're so every day that we expect they will continue to happen every day. But that's not true. Our time is passing, our time is fleeting, and circumstances in our life are changing. If those sorts of activities that bring joy involve someone else, circumstances in their life, too, are changing. One way to make it so that we do pay attention, we prioritize time and pay attention during these sorts of simple joys that are right there and the time we're already spending is to count the times left. Picking a experience that brings you joy and calculating, how many times have you done it in your life so far? The next step is to calculate, how many times do you expect to have do this activity in the future, accounting for the fact that circumstances in your life will change, if it involves another, circumstances in the other person's life will change. The last step is to calculate of the total times doing this activity in your life, what percentage do you have left? More often than not, it's way less than you think. Initially, it's sad. But the benefits of seeing this is really worth that initial sadness, is because what it does is it makes me protect the time. Then also, it influences how you experience that time, knowing that it is limited, that it is so precious, we remove those distractions, so that phone gets put away, that constant to-do list that's running in our heads, that gets quieter, because we realize that this is the time of our life that really matters, and to really make it count. It doesn't have to be a whole lot. All of us who are time poor, it doesn't have to be a lot of time for these activities to have a really big impact on how satisfied we feel in our weeks, how fulfilled we feel in our lives. I think that the counting times left is a very lenient and impactful exercise to make us spend our time on the activities that matter, as well as make the most of those times when we're spending them. [0:26:29] PF: I would say, that is correct, because that, like I said, it just stopped me when I read that. That's absolutely incredible. This book is so full of strategies, information, hope, techniques. What is it that you really hope readers take away from it? [0:26:46] CH: I hope that people just become more intentional in the time that they're spending and to really soak up. There's so much happiness and joy right there that's available, no matter how time poor, no matter other constraints that we have facing our lives, that there is a lot of happiness and joy available to us, if we are that intentional about the way that we spend our time. [0:27:13] PF: Cassie, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We're going to tell our listeners more about your book, where they can find it. Thank you for writing this. This is something we all need. It's presented so incredibly well. I really appreciate it. [0:27:28] CH: Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. It was a treat. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:27:35] PF: That was Cassie Holmes, talking about how to make the most of our time. If you'd like to learn more about Cassie and her book, download some free worksheets to help you plan your time better, or follow her on social media, visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. While you're on the website, be sure to drop by the Live Happy Store and check out our great selection of Live Happy gear and merch, so you can show the world how you live happy. That is all we have time for today. We will meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Exploring the Emotion Wonderland With Nadine Levitt  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 394 of Live Happy Now. Navigating our emotions can be a challenge, and that's especially true for children. But this week's guest has turned even our most complicated emotions into a magical adventure. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm joined by Nadine Levitt, an author, educator, music artist, lawyer, and parent who wanted to change the way children learn about their emotions. So she created Emotion Wonderland, a magical place where all our emotions coexist, and we get to meet them, befriend them, and better understand them. This week, Nadine explains how she created the Emotion Wonderland, what she hopes children and parents will get from it, and talks about how approaching our emotions differently can change the way we process our feelings. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:54] PF: Nadine, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:57] NL: Thank you so much for having me. It's awesome to be here, so thank you. [00:01:00] PF: You have done something so incredible with your creation of Emotion Wonderland. So I guess can we start by talking a little bit about your background and how that led you into the world of emotional learning? You have interesting background. [00:01:16] NL: That's true. First of all, thank you for saying that. So my background, I'm in education. I've been in education for about 10 years, but I definitely did not come through to education in a very traditional trajectory. I wanted to be a singer, and my dad really made me get a law degree. He said, “Please, please, please. No matter what you do, just get something behind you.” To make money as an opera singer, which is what I love to do, you really have to be in that top one percent, and he clearly did not believe that I would make it there. So he was just trying to look out for me. But I then got sucked into sort of earning money and in the corporate world as a lawyer. For six years or so, I literally argued about cheese. I argued whether Camembert should be called Camembert or whether it was a geographical indication, like champagne or port. One day, I woke up and I was like, “Gosh, I am not saving the world. Like this is not what I had in mind for myself,” and I ended up sort of taking up other opportunities, and there were other adventures sort of waiting for me. I came to America, and I did go back to law for a little bit in order to get my green card. Then I quit that once I could and started singing again. I soon became a mum, and I think this is where everything sort of started focusing on education. Because now, I had these little beings, whom I wanted to help guide through that world of education and that world. I wanted to set them up to be successful little beings, and I really noticed how emotions played into people's success, whether it's academic success, professional success, or relationship success, confidence. All of these things really played into how nice a relationship you have with your emotions. How healthy is that relationship? How respectful is it? I have two kids. One of whom has really big emotions, a highly sensitive child. It was really because of my kids that I made My Mama Says, and I turned it into a whole suite of tools. I had a curriculum around it that was in schools for social and emotional learning. The reason that I made it, let me just backtrack a little bit, because I would have gladly taken other programs. But what I realized was that I didn't love the approach for most of the programs. So the programs were either really complicated to understand or just not empowering at all. One of the big problems that I had was that every program I saw would teach kids about emotions one at a time. So this is happy. This is sad. There’s a frown, right? It just was this caricature of what emotions really are, and it made no sense to me because, I mean, I can't name a single time when I felt one emotion alone. [00:04:09] PF: Right. That’s so insightful for you to pick up on that. I love that component of it. [00:04:15] NL: Yeah. It’s just like, well, if we're going to teach kids about how to identify their emotions and how to maybe start thinking about what those emotions are trying to tell us, then we've got to start looking past that loudest emotion and start thinking about it as more holistic. So there's many emotions, and together they bring a message for us. So we have to listen to all of the messages. That's why we created – First of all, it was My Mama Says, and then Emotion Wonderland is sort of the latest thing that we've created, our latest baby, so to speak. This is sort of a course, and there’s a quiz to start with, which is a really easy, free, and simple, fun way to start talking to kids about how they're feeling and start thinking about emotions coming in groups, not just one at a time. [00:05:04] PF: Let me ask you because Emotion Wonderland is a stunning place to visit. It is all these different characters. Can you talk about that? Like how did you come up with the idea of this is how to present them? Because there's several ways you could have gone to show these different emotions. Talk about the approach that you took and kind of how you came up with that. [00:05:26] NL: Each emotion is reflected as an animal of some kind, and the reason that I did that is it's much easier to think of a village of emotions that are inside of us all the time, kind of like Inside Out, except in Inside Out, they really have all of those emotions are controlling that little girl. I don't think that they control us, but they're inside us all the time. So it's much easier to objectively see a character and say, “Okay, the Sad Sullen Pup is visiting me right now.” Or, “The Goofy Goat is in town. He brought a whole lot of friends with him.” I did it really because it's just a little bit easier to talk about when it's not this color or this faceless sort of thing. I wanted it to reflect how they're friends, and there's many different – They pull different emotions with them, and so this concept that they could have a life of their own. We weren't tossing around whether we should make them not animals but just like little blobs type of thing. [00:06:28] PF: Little Minion type of things. [00:06:29] NL: Yeah, minions. But then we workshoped all of these curriculums with schools, and what we found was that the kids, they understood emotions easier with the animals and they – [00:06:40] PF: Oh, interesting. [00:06:41] NL: Yeah. Because they actually put those behaviors onto animals, and the other ones were a little bit harder to differentiate, if they're just a blob. It's harder to give it a personality and to really relate to it. [00:06:55] PF: So how many emotions do we have in total in the Emotion Wonderland? [00:06:59] NL: Well, obviously, we have thousands of emotions inside of us, so – [00:07:02] PF: You didn't hit them all. That’s the sequel, right? [00:07:03] NL: No. I definitely didn’t hit them all. So in our coloring book, for example, we actually give lots of room for kids to create their own characters and say, “Who's in your village,” and think about ones that might not have been listed in the village. But we have 30. So there was some amazing work done by Brene Brown about how many emotions the average adult can reference. I think it was four total, happy, glad, sad. But if you say to people, “How are you doing,” and how often do you hear people say, “Good, good.”? [00:07:35] PF: That's the pat answer. Yeah. Or fine. [00:07:38] NL: Yeah, yeah. Or when you think about how do I feel right now. I love to ask this question on any presentations that I give. I say just check in with yourself for a minute and see how you're feeling right now. Usually, on average, people write down one or two emotions. So we really wanted to start saying, okay, what else is there? Now, if you've got those two loudest ones, what other emotions are there for you? What's nice about the visual, the 30, is that we've balanced them out between very, very challenging emotions to really easy emotions. I don't believe in bad or good emotions because they actually all have that purpose. Sometimes, there's similar purpose. So for example, happiness and grief actually have a similar purpose. So happiness tells us what we're connecting with, right? But sometimes, it's really hard to see exactly what we're connecting with because we're just so busy caught up in the dopamine hits and joy – [00:08:33] PF: Of course. [00:08:34] NL: When we feel grief, we've lost what we're connecting with. But the important piece there is understanding what exactly do you miss so much, and how can you maybe fill that void and lead a more connected life so that if we’re really purposeful about it, grief usually is easier for us to take that time to become reflective and really purposefully think about what it is that we connect with. [00:09:00] PF: Oh, that's so insightful. As you worked with these different characters, how did you determine what animal you would use? I mean, like your yoga deck is just absolutely incredible, how you really explain this emotion and then this pose that they can do and why they're doing it. So how did you come up with all of that? [00:09:18] NL: Well, for the yoga cards, specifically, I actually worked with a yoga master who's amazing, just to make sure that I was honoring also the yoga side to it, and I wasn't sort of saying the wrong thing. Exactly, exactly. But the philosophy is that all of these emotions are important for us, and so we have to honor all of them. One of the things that we hear parents saying a lot is don't be so angry or don't just start your day so frustrated or grouchy or whatever it is. But the reality is that if we just say, “I'm feeling really grouchy right now, and what else am I feeling? I feel like maybe a little misunderstood, or I feel like I'm maybe a little bit shy.” So there's like all these things, and you can start to piece it together. Before you know it, the person is not feeling grouchy anymore. They've honored it. So the idea, really, with the yoga deck and with all the characters was really to start thinking about creating spaces for kids to understand like where do they live inside your village. Where do you feel it? How can we honor it, and how can we create space for that emotion to exist? A lot of it, they relate very specifically. So frustration, that's actually a Kriya that releases frustration interestingly, so this twist. Some of them are very purposefully done that way. Others were more based on the character. Brave, for example, or Sad Sullen Pup. Like what would sadness look like as a body shape? What's nice about the yoga cards, though, is that they don't just exist as yoga cards. So some friends of mine who have young kids have shared this with me. I get this response a lot that parents have put the cards all over the room. Then they say to their two or three-year-old, “Where's the Angry Hippo?” They go find, and they jump on the Angry Hippo. It’s so exciting for me because you're creating that emotional literacy at such a young age, where they can start to also read it and see it and recognize it and talk about it and, again, honor it. [00:11:24] PF: How’s that going to change their growing up experience? Because we didn't talk about emotions growing up. We didn't – As you said, it was like are you happy, mad, or something in between. So how is that going to change things for them? [00:11:37] NL: Well, I hope, I think emotional intelligence is really awareness and then learning new skills and practicing them. I have been pushed. Somebody pushed back. A psychologist once pushed back on a podcast to me and said that they didn't believe that emotional intelligence is learnable. It's something that we're just born with. I just really disagree with that. Because at the end of the day, I think it really is just that awareness. It's understanding how things work and understanding how tools can be helpful in regulating them. When I say regulating, I don't mean control them. I mean, how do we listen to them? Then once they've delivered their message, they go away anyway. If we know how they work, and we know that there are certain tools that create more space around it, so we don't feel overwhelmed with all these big emotions, challenging emotions sort of getting in our faces, and I think things like breath work or things like listening to music and things like that, I think you do become more emotionally intelligence. I think you can recognize that in yourself quicker, and you can have a much healthier relationship with your emotions. So I'm hopeful that these will be kids that will not be scared to talk about emotions, that will be able to tap in for themselves and say, “How am I feeling right now,” and really, I think, just honor their emotions that they're feeling. [00:13:03] PF: I think what's interesting about the timing, I've been doing some writing about Gen Z and how they are the most aware of the need for mental health, that is a huge value for them. So I believe that's going to continue. Now, you're reaching some young people who are the Alpha generation, that post Gen Z, who are also growing up in an environment where mental health is talked about, where it's more accepted for you to explore that. So I think this timing is absolutely incredible. Because as they're growing up in this age, where they are supposed to talk about emotions, you have given them all these tools for learning about emotions. [00:13:41] NL: I agree with that. I think, interestingly, I just read a consumer report that said it was 84% of employees. They feel more valued and connected with their job if their bosses care about their mental health. It's a money thing. It's good for the economy. It's good for people. It's good for relationships, I think, if we start to think about the types of innovation that we can also unlock with people being more comfortable and having a more stable mental health based on their emotional regulation and so forth. Anxiety and fear stops so much innovation and stops so much development. I think if we can have a relationship where we're not scared of fear, like we don't let it stop us from doing things, we listen to fear, and we say, “Hmm, thanks for showing up. I like the exhilaration that you're providing right now, right? I like that dance. Let's dance, and thanks for making me more aware and alert. I will be careful.” But it doesn't mean I'm not going to get up on that stage and sing. It just means I'm going to be aware and alert, and thank you for being here. I think most people who, if you're an adrenaline junkie or if you're somebody who just loves the adrenaline rush of things, which is how I used to feel about performing, it really is more about that fear because you have that little bit of fear. So fear in small doses is wonderful. Fear, when you have it in large doses, it can be completely debilitating. I just think about what kind of a world could we have if people understood fear a little bit better. On the flip side, what about anger? [00:15:24] PF: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Put that in perspective. It can be a game changer. [00:15:28] NL: Right. How much anger are we seeing in the world today? We’re seeing a lot of conflict right now. But imagine if we could approach some of that by honoring it and saying no change in history of – As far as we know it, there has never been any real change created without anger. Think about that. [00:15:49] PF: It’s true. That is – You have to get riled up to want to change. [00:15:53] NL: Exactly. It takes effort. So I think when people understand that part and they also say, “Well, how can I use this anger in a positive way?” Or if you're encountering anger, think about why and what could that mean and how quickly it can be diffused by just giving them the space to actually be heard and say – I noticed it just with my toddler, and I work with toddlers, or when I work with my kids. My kids are no longer toddlers. They're now 10 and 9. But I remember, they'd be, “I’m so frustrated.” I'd be like, “Okay. I can see that. You're really frustrated. But tell me, what else are you feeling,” and how quickly it would deescalate. [00:16:35] PF: One thing that did strike me as I was looking at all the tools that you've created, and I want to talk about the specifics of them. But even though this is designed for children, parents will receive such a tremendous benefit. You've got the magnetic board, where you put your emotions. Casey, our marketing manager, and I were joking. It's like, “I need that in my office.” It’s like, “It's not for the kids. I'm doing that for me.” So it's something that everyone who works with it is really getting the benefit from. [00:17:03] NL: Absolutely. We've done a lot of workshops for kids. But, of course, the parents are always there. I've had so many parents afterwards say, “Oh, my gosh. I needed this. Like I absolutely learned something. This is great.” The magnet ball that you were just talking about is very cool, actually. So, Ella, my daughter, often says to me – We actually carry one on the car now, and when she's having big feelings, she'll say, “Mom, where's the magnet board? I need the magnet board.” I'm like, “Okay, okay.” But she likes having the visual aspect of it like, “If I've got this, what are some of the other options of other emotions that I'm feeling,” and she likes the prompt of it. Sometimes – [00:17:38] PF: Explain to us what the magnet board is and how that works. [00:17:41] NL: Yeah. We all 30 characters as magnets, and then it's in a sort of travel-sized magnet board sort of box. It’s got a pen in it as well, a whiteboard pen, so that you can draw on one side, and the other side is an actual village. So the idea really was that you could put up teachers or anyone else. Parents can say, “Okay. When you're feeling confident, what else are you feeling?” Then they could find the other emotions and put those on the other side. But what it's turned into is really cool prompt for story writing and thinking about and really just engaging with these emotions and thinking about who would be friends with who, where would they live in the village, and so on, so forth. But I think having a visual prompt that you can start to say, “Well, when I feel this, I often feel these other emotions too.” When you think about – So one thing we do in our house is this mindful minute, and it's literally – It takes a minute, and you say, “How are you feeling today,” and you pick out the emotions that you're feeling. A magnet board is great for that because you can just literally pick it up and put it up. It's helpful because it's not just the one. It's many emotions, and sometimes they look conflicting. You might be happy and sad. So you can talk about that. So it's a great prompt. [00:18:58] PF: That's terrific and what a wonderful way for children to let their parents know how they're feeling, without having to – They can’t always voice it or don't feel like voicing it, but just being able to put it up there. That's an incredible gift. [00:19:12] NL: It's definitely less confrontational than sort of sitting in front of your child and saying, “So tell me, how are you feeling?” [00:19:16] PF: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Tell me about the plushies. How'd you come up with those, and how do you see them being used? [00:19:24] NL: So we have the Angry Hippo, and we have the Sad Sullen Pup. The idea is that those tend to be pretty challenging emotions for kids. When some of the kids that we were working with were really, really overwhelmed with some of these big, big emotions, it's really helpful to hold something and feel like you're not alone, especially because it was also quite – They’re very cute. So not to be scared of anger, that it's got a really positive side to it. But it really is helpful for those tactile kids in particular to hold something, whether it's, “I'm so sad and I'm not alone and I love this little being,” to also practicing empathy, right? So my example here is I have a lot of kids who say, “Ah, it makes me so sad for the Sad Sullen Pup because it's always sad.” I'm like, “Yeah. It's nice to have that empathy, that you feel that way.” Then we think about what are some of the positive things about sadness. What are some positive things that sadness brings you? What are some of the messages that sadness brings you? So there's lots of different reasons for it, but it really works for those tactile kids in particular because it just – When you're feeling homesick or when you're going somewhere, just to take care of something, whether it's anger, feeling angry or sad. It really is helpful to be the caretaker of those emotions. [00:20:46] PF: That's fantastic too. I think about children who have lost a parent, lost a sibling, have gone through something very, very tough and traumatic and don't yet have the words for it, to be able to have Sad Sullen Pup and be able to share that sadness. I think that's such an amazing way to be able to approach it. [00:21:08] NL: Mm-hmm, absolutely. [00:21:10] PF: So what else do we have? We've got the magnet board. We've got the plushies. We've got a couple of books that we haven't talked about. Let's talk about the books that you have because those are very cute. [00:21:20] NL: Yeah. It started with the books, actually. So the first book is called My Mama Says Inside Me Lives a Village, and that introduces the concept that inside us live all of these different emotions, and they don't control us, and we don't control them. But if we listen to them, because they're messengers, then they'll go away. But with all of these emotions inside of us, then it means we'll never be alone because we have all of these feelings. So we're connected to something, and we're getting signs from something. Even when we are physically alone, we're connected to our emotions. The second book is My Mama Says Inside Me Lives a Superhero. This is sort of the follow up, and it's the idea that there are sort of a cause and effect, right? We have consequences to the things that we say and the things that we do and the things that we don't say and do. The superpower that we have is that we can make people feel things with our words, actions, and inactions. So it's a very fun kind of story about a mom saying you have a superpower, and the kid guessing like, “Does it mean that I can fly? Does it mean [inaudible 00:22:26] the sky? Does it mean I can do this?” [00:22:29] PF: I love that. [00:22:29] NL: Yeah. So it's like really cute characters of a snail that has super speed and a llama that can throw up protective orbs. We have a gorilla that can freeze things. We have – I can’t think. I can't remember now. Opossum that brings things back to life, I think. It's a very cute story, and it's this concept that we're teaching kids that their words, actions, and even inactions that may seem frivolous to them and was sort of just a passing comment can really, really hurt or can really, really hold somebody up and help people. So a smile can turn someone's day around or asking someone to play when they feel – It’s all on rhyme. It’s a cute story. [00:23:12] PF: You also have online resources. So there's things online, like is a wonderful starting point for parents to start exploring. Can you tell us, where do you advise that they start? [00:23:22] NL: So there's two places. One is go to emotionwonderland.com, and it really is this joyful, colorful place. [00:23:29] PF: It’s an adorable – I want to live there. Animate me, so I can just go live there, okay? [00:23:34] NL: Exactly, exactly. So it's a great place to start because you can see the video sort of that introduces the philosophy behind the program. It’s a free quiz, so you can come back to it as many times as you want, and it's for kids to really start thinking about how are they feeling. It’s based on which socks would you pick, which face are you most drawn to right now. So it's a really quick, simple, and fun quiz. Then you get your results, and the results – These are the top three emotions that you might be feeling right now, and here are some of the friends that often come with this emotion. Here's the purpose behind these emotions. It just starts a lot of conversations. That's a great place to start for sure. We have a course that we are on emotional intelligence, which takes kids through an exploration of this is what you think emotions might – A certain emotion might look like, and it might be the emoji, right, a smiley face. It was like, “But this is what it really looks like.” Then there's a video of all the different versions of happiness or excitement or whatever it is. The reason that I say that is because when you think about if I feel happiness and also excitement and also joy or a little bit of fear because I'm about to ride a roller coaster, it looks so different to happiness when you're in love and not built up on a couch and just grateful for life and calm, about to watch your favorite show. Those are both happiness. Very different looking and feeling. So the course really takes kids through the nuance of that. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What are the stories that we tell ourselves with this emotion? Because there's all these thoughts that we start to tell ourselves, and that really goes into sort of the pattern recognition of our brain. So if you ever are expecting a call from a spouse or something, and suddenly you don't, you immediately go to, “Oh, gosh. I hope they haven't had a car crash. They haven't had this,” da, da, da. Those thoughts start spiraling, right? Well, that's the same for kids, so realizing that certain thoughts come. The stories that we tell ourselves with certain emotions, some of them are helpful. Some of them are less helpful. So having the tools to fact check them is really important. It’s a short little course. We just did it for four different emotions. We do talk about their friends and things and their purpose, the sort of a nice way to arm your kids with emotional intelligence skills. On the My Mama Says website, which is M-A-M-A, My Mama Says, we also have a lot of free resources. So parent activities that you can use with your kids, and they're just fun games, ways to start talking about emotions because we really want this to be integrated. So it's not just I'm going to an hour workshop or I’m – [00:26:19] PF: Right. [00:26:20] NL: Right? [00:26:21] PF: Yeah. It becomes part of your life. It just is like – It’s play and it's fun and it's enjoyable. [00:26:25] NL: Yeah. So next time you listen to the radio or you're listening to a song, ask your kids like, “What emotions do you think are reflected in the song? What do you hear reflected and why?” Then how that changes the conversation in the car, you know? You can pick any emotion. What you think that would look like in body language or – [00:26:46] PF: Oh, interesting. [00:26:47] NL: Things like playing freeze tag, emotional freeze tag, or doing certain art. There's art games, and we've organized them into here are the activities that you can do in the car, here are the activities that you can do in the park, here are the activities you can do over a meal, with friends, so on so forth. So we've got them all in these different sectors, but it really came from all those workshops that we had with schools. [00:27:11] PF: I know that we're doing a fantastic promotion. You're part of our 12 Days of Christmas giveaway. So we're going to be sharing your Emotion Wonderland characters with some of our listeners. That's something they can sign up for, and we're going to tell them more about that in the outro. As we let you go, looking five years down the road, when you look at Emotion Wonderland, what do you see? [00:27:35] NL: I see it as a movement where people start to – It’s not just about me and our brand and our things. I think I would like to see a shift where people start to approach emotions from that group sort of perspective, and that it leverages play a little bit more. So I think having it be something that is just in your everyday integrated tool for people, that's really what I want. I want this to be a movement for a different way to think about emotions. [00:28:00] PF: Nadine, thank you for sitting down and talking about this. I know we'll talk again, but thank you. Best of success on this because this is just an incredible program that you've created. [00:28:10] NL: Thank you so much and happy holidays. I hope it's not too many big emotions. [00:28:16] PF: Only the good ones. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:28:20] PF: That was Nadine Levitt, talking about navigating our emotions. If you'd like to learn more about Nadine, get some free resources from the Emotion Wonderland or her My Mama Says website, follow her on social media, or find out more about her other offerings, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. If you aren't following us on Instagram, this is the time to start. Through December 13th, we are having the 12 Days of Giving, where we're giving away one great prize every day. On December 11th, you have the chance to win the free Sad Puppy plushie from the Emotion Wonderland. So follow us @mylivehappy to register to win one fabulous prize a day. That's @mylivehappy on Instagram. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Women Supporting Women With Caroline Miller  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 393 of Live Happy Now. December 1st marks Women Supporting Women Day, and this week's guest believes that's something we aren't doing nearly enough. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm joined by author, speaker, and coach Caroline Miller, who's concerned about women's failure to support one another led her to write the e-book, #IHaveYourBack, which is about creating mastermind success groups for women. This week, she's here to share what she's learned about why women don't support one another, explain what it's doing to our culture, and then tell us what we can do about it. Let's take a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Caroline, welcome back to Live Happy Now. [00:00:45] CM: Oh, thanks for having me. I appreciate it so much. [00:00:48] PF: It has been a while since we've talked and had you on the show. But when I saw what you're working on, I knew we had to get you back on to talk about this. So tell me – First of all, before we jump in, why don't you tell us what it is that your new project is? [00:01:04] CM: Well, I have a new e-book out called #IHaveYourBack, mastermind success groups for women. It's available as an e-book download for purchase on my website. I decided to just self-publish because I had been obsessed for several years now with finding a solution to why we, as women, know but don't always talk about the women don't support each other and how we actually actively undermine each other. I finally got to the point where I was brave enough to not just write about it, but include an evidence-based solution because all I saw was the problem being made more beautiful. I wanted to put out something that was proactive that people could do something immediately about, and that's the project. [00:01:53] PF: Let's talk about what it was that you saw that made you say, “I have to write about this.” [00:02:01] CM: The fact that women were standing still and going backwards, in terms of female CEOs and fortune 50 or fortune 500 companies, the World Economic Bureau saying it's going to be even longer, 185 years that the women achieved pay parity, the Me To movement. Time's Up was all coming out. What I saw was a lot of demonization of men, but no one talking about the problem of women shooting at each other inside the tent. I thought, okay, yes, we have real problems with what men have historically done to women. The patriarchal culture is very dangerous and difficult. But it's not the only thing that women are up against, and I didn't understand or know why it's so dangerous to talk about this topic as a woman. I wanted to understand, first of all, is it just me knowing that this has happened to me and every woman I know, while we whisper about and talk about it? Or is it real? That's number one. I wanted to find that out from an evidence-based perspective. Number two, the thing was if I opened my mouth about this publicly, I want to put out a solution. So I had to name the problem. I had to put it in the context of the fact that, yes, men do need to pay a price for what they've done and continue to do to women. But that's not the whole shooting match because we're sliding backwards. Why? Why are women sliding backwards in terms of pay equity and reproductive rights and all these other things? Is it possible that women are also holding other women back? Can I talk about that? So that's what I took on board. As I said, I just hired two researchers. I went through thousands of pages of research. What I learned was sickening and upsetting but hopeful because I did come up with something that I believe can change women's lives. But you have to be thoughtful and strategic about how you do it and are prepared to talk about that, so yeah. [00:03:59] PF: Can you tell us some about what your research found, what you were finding? [00:04:05] CM: A bunch of things. I found that what – Scarcity theory. A lot of people just go, “Yeah, women don't support women in professional settings.” But that's just because there's only one seat at the table. Women have to guard their seats, just like Katie Couric saying, “I wasn't going to mentor Ashleigh Banfield. That's career suicide.” I think she said career suicide. So I found that, yes, there's a scarcity theory theory out there, but we continue to act as if it's true. So even when it's not true, if we continue to believe that there's only one seat at the table for a woman of power, we will continue to act as if there is no room for the rest of us. I'll tell you another thing, culturally. I remember watching a football game with my husband maybe a year ago, and I watched a kicker make a field goal, and the whole team celebrated, went out, hugged him. I turned to my husband and I said, “I can't think of a single time the bench is cleared theoretically in an analogy in any possible way for me because I did something well. It just hasn't happened for most women that the bench is clear when a woman supports another woman's individual success.” Women tend to be friends. What they don't do is believe and achieve together. So what I found were all these examples of sisterhood coming together to change communal causes, reproductive rights, the Jane movement, the domestic workers strike. This is why the sisterhood is considered so important and like that's the way it is. But what I can't find, what I couldn't find, were examples of women coming together to support each other's individual goals. Communally will come together and work for rights and this and that thing, but the minute you have women going for their own goals, if you bring them together to support each other, that's considered just like a unicorn. It's considered so unusual for women to support each other's individual goals that when it happens, it elicits this, “Oh, my God. Where are these people?” [00:06:18] PF: Yeah. You talk about this in your book. Like how do you then start turning this around? [00:06:23] CM: Okay. So here's what I really do believe is going to make a difference in is making a difference is if women get together in strategically formed mastermind groups, and there are a number of reasons why they have to be formed carefully. You can't just go to like a Sheryl Sandberg lean in group and be assigned a group of people. Too many women tell me they've been assigned to groups put together by organizations, and you have to pay for the privilege. They don't know anything about these women's backgrounds or character. How do you know who's in it? So what you have to do is you have to go straight with Shelly Gable’s research, active constructive responding. You have to pull together a mastermind group of women who have a demonstrated history of being curious and enthusiastic about another woman's individual goals and dreams. That's number one because she found that that's the Rorschach test. You want to know if someone's in your corner, float an idea or success or some dream of yours in front of them and just watch. How do they respond? Are they curious? Are they enthusiastic? Do they change the subject? Are they passive destructive, active destructive, passive constructive? She found that those are all wrong ways to respond to another woman’s success or dreams. The only one right way that I think determines whether or not someone is invited to be in your mastermind group is active constructive responding. So that's number one. Women have to get together and be agentic. We have to talk in ways we haven't been encouraged to talk about, which is about our goals and dreams. We have to do it in groups where we're not interrupted, where we're not mansplained. Most women never even get their dreams and goals out of their mouths, let alone their ideas, because they're always interrupted. So if you're in a mastermind group that has guidelines, and that's what I published here. It's a 43-page e-book. I lay out the case, the evidence for why we're doing this consciously and unconsciously, and here's how you start a mastermind group. Here's how you do it. Step one, step two, step three. So that’s it. You find those people. You have guidelines about how long people talk. You state your goals and dreams. You have to create psychological safety. Then all these amazing things begin to happen when you have accountability to the right people in the right group for the right reasons. You find that there's more creative risk taking. You begin to believe in yourself because other people support your dreams. They believe in you. They see you the way you want to be seen, the Michelangelo effect. People sculpt you with their praise and their feedback because they see you the way you want to be seen. That's just some of the reasons why these groups work. [00:09:03] PF: Let's talk a little bit about how someone goes about putting this together. Someone's like, “Okay, yeah. I want that support from other women.” So where do you start looking at? You've told us what we don't want and kind of the people that we want. We can't really go around interviewing people and saying, “Hey, how about this? Are you going to fit in my group?” How do you get it started? [00:09:24] CM: Well, it doesn't have to be your friends. In fact, some of your friends will be very threatened if you dare to dream bigger than who you are at that moment or what you want life. So it has to be people who fit this criteria, active constructive responding. You can observe people how they talk about other people's successes. Take a look at your social media feed. How many people are actually trumpeting another woman's success? If this is someone you know or want to get to know better, maybe it's an acquaintance, ask them. Reach out and ask them if they want to be in your mastermind group. That's one way. So I would keep it small. My current mastermind group is four people. I think the biggest could be seven. So you can find them either through your social circle. Or let's say you have one person you know you want to be in the group. Ask them if they know someone who fits all these criteria. That's the first way. I go into the rest of it in the book. So that's where you start. But it has to be somebody who wants to become her very best self, who has, let's say, a future best self in mind. There are three ways that people live. They have an ought self, an actual self, and an ideal self. Most people, and I'm going to say a lot of women, live as an actual self, just the person they show up as or as the ought self, the person they think they should be, according to their relationships, the way they're raised, the culture they're in, whatever. But many people never shoot for that ideal self. You want somebody who wants to maximize their potential and do whatever it takes, have grit. I think the last time you interviewed me, it was about my book, Getting Grit. This takes grit. So you have to be able to have the grit to pursue that. It's so much easier when you have the wind at your back because other people are brainstorming with you, supporting you. So you start by creating that circle. I also want to say that it's really important, once these groups get going, that these benefits continue to go into what Barbara Frederickson talks about, the upward spiral. You begin to feel like you matter. All this new research on mattering and an organization, how many people actually feel like they matter in a group? Not a lot of women have an opportunity to feel like they matter in a group where other people have their backs. They do begin to feel like experts. We all longed to be experts. When you bring your expertise into a group, you have an opportunity to teach people something. You bring what it is you know about web design, or web hosting, or writing a book, or giving a speech. Those collective energies coming together allow every person in there to be an expert. That's another huge psychological boost. It's just massive, having the freedom to ask other people to give you their ideas, to support you. I've had female friends ask me to lead a round of applause when they take the stage because they're worried other people won't clap for them. It's often the people who should be leading the applause for you who are not. I think the thing I want to be sure I'm doing here is talking about the fact that I think we do these things not because we want to, but because we're acculturated to do this. We are supposed to believe that there are mean girls. That that’s just the way women are. I mean, and so when we believe this, we unconsciously behave this way. So I want to take some of us just off the guilty hook and say we don't always know why we do these things to each other. But I do think that there are too many women who also know better who don't make any effort to lead a round of applause, amplify another woman's success. [00:13:01] PF: Well, let me ask you the purpose of creating a group like under – There are several different reasons and several different flavors, if you will, of groups that you could create. What would be – To who's listening, like why would you want to – What would be your purpose in putting that together? [00:13:19] CM: Because not enough women voice their dreams period. Being be able to voice your dreams and your goals, and brainstorm your way with also goal setting theory behind the pursuit of these goals, you will maximize your chances of succeeding. So as everyone in the field knows, I wrote – Not everyone. A lot of people know I wrote the first book to connect the science of happiness with the science of goal success. That book was my capstone at creating your best life. It was reissued last year as kind of a global bestseller. But it was the first book to put science to goal setting. I think every woman should be in a group where people have her back, but she's pursuing goals with the evidence of goal setting theory behind how those goals, learning goals and performance goals, are set, pursued, and achieved. We have to make it possible from every angle for us to succeed. So this is not just about coming together to talk in a nice way about each other. This is a working group. This is your board of directors. But do not go into an organization and be assigned a group. That is a nonstarter, as far as I can tell because you have to know the character and the behavior of the people you're going to be essentially opening the kimono in front of. Too many women have been violated by other women who blossom about them, make fun of them, tear them down. I mean, this one woman said at some of the research I looked at that she had to choose between her sanity and her career because the more she succeeded at work, the more she was torn down by other women. So you have to be in that kind of group. Let me quickly say some of the – What I've heard as a criticism. People say, “Well, men take each other down. Men are critical of each other. Men bully each other.” Yes. Of course, that's true. However, men are socialized to be goal directed, and, and, this is more important, and they are not biologically wired to be in friendship dyads the way women are socialized and wired to be. This Tend-and-Befriend research from the year 2000 that came out of the UCLA nurses study found that women need other women. We often have best friends who are good for us, but generally we do not. So the Tend-And-Befriend research found that oxytocin is secreted when women get together, and they take care of each other, and they bond. Especially they nurture each other when they're down. So that's why this being thrown out of the tribe is so existentially hellish for women because it violates our chemical nature. So, yes, it happens to men, but women are relationship-oriented. Men are more transactional. So it's even more potent for us to be in the right group in the right ways at the right time, as much as possible. [00:16:17] PF: So by bringing this out and by, one, sharing the massive research that you've done on it and bringing it forefront to women, what do you hope to accomplish, and how do you hope this is going to change the way that we interact and support one another? [00:16:31] CM: I want every woman to have access to just the guidelines on how to support a mastermind group and all the reasons why we need to do it. Even Kristin Neff has said, her most recent book on radical self-compassion, she's like, “This is what women don't do for themselves. They're compassionate for the world, and they lack compassion for themselves to do this.” We all need to understand that it's a compassionate act for us to come together in support of our own dreams and goals. Especially when – Just go back to the diseases of despair. Women are dying in numbers disproportionately larger than men. As Case and Deaton, the economists, have found, often because they lack a sense of purpose, so alcoholism, eating disorders, depression, suicide, women are really paying the price more than men. So that's a piece of why I'm doing it. I want women to be armed with these tools. I want them to know why it matters, and I really want women to understand we're not doing this just because we're nasty people, meaning us tear other women down, or we're jealous of them, or we pass along gossip about them. I think we've all been conditioned equally poorly, some more than others, and we need to understand the conscious and unconscious reasons why we do it. But we all have learned to override yelling at our in-laws at Thanksgiving, hopefully. I mean, there's all kinds of wiring that we overcome in order to be socially appropriate, to be members of tribes. We can overcome this wiring and this conditioning if we want to. That's what I believe. [00:18:03] PF: I love it. You know I love that you've done this because I think it really does open our eyes toward our behaviors and the fact that we can change them. You give us a really great blueprint for making that change and starting our own little path to success into turning this ship around. As we let you go, what is the one thing that you hope everyone takes away from this conversation? [00:18:29] CM: When you hear of another woman’s success, whether you want to or not, pass it on in a positive way to somebody else. Override that instinct to be envious, which I have, which we all have. Share another woman's success on social media. Do it twice a week, and you're going to feel better, and the world's going to be better. [00:18:50] PF: I love that. I love that. Thank you for that. That is a terrific tip. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:18:59] PF: That was Caroline Miller, talking about the importance of women supporting women. If you'd like to learn more about Caroline and her research, follow her on social media, or find out where to download her e-book, #IHaveYourBack, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Just a reminder that today is the last day to take advantage of Live Happy’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday savings. Visit our store at store.livehappy.com and take 30% of everything in there. That’s store.livehappy.com, and no promo code is needed. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Setting Your Intention for Holiday Shopping with Tracy McCubbin  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 392 of Live Happy Now. As the holiday season begins, it's easy to get caught up in the frenzy of buying gifts. But this week's guest wants us to consider a different way. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I am joined by decluttering expert, Tracy McCubbin, who is asking us to take a step back and become more intentional with our holiday shopping. In this episode, she explains how we can approach the holidays differently to create more joy, focus on giving of ourselves rather than giving gifts, and how we can shift the focus from shopping to sharing the spirit of the season. Let's take a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:41] PF: Tracy, welcome back to Live Happy Now. [00:00:44] TM: Thanks, Paula. I'm so happy to be had. I’m living so happy to be back. [00:00:49] PF: Hi. I'm happy to have you back. This is something you and I talked about the first time that we had a conversation because it became so apparent that we could use your expertise in this area. We're moving into the holiday season now. We've got Black Friday, two days after this podcast goes up, and it's a time when everybody – Their mind turns to shopping. It's like even the casual shoppers seem to turn into power shoppers. So I wanted to talk to you about some of the ways we can safeguard ourselves, our budgets, and the people who are receiving gifts from us, and make this less cluttery and more practical and fulfilling for us. [00:01:28] TM: I love this conversation. I'm so excited to be talking about this. So let's just start with what we should start every day with. But let's start with this around holiday shopping season. Let's talk about our intention, right? What’s our intention for buying gifts? Are we buying things because we feel guilty? Are we buying things because that's what we've always done? What's our intention? I like to, as a business owner, at the end of the year, some vendors that I work with, some clients that were big jobs, my team, I like to give holiday gifts because I want to thank them for their relationship. It's a way for me to acknowledge, and I'm very intentional about it. I buy things that can be consumed. I don't assume that I know anything about them. My staff, they want money. That's what they need. So I try and get a little something that we have at the party. Last year, I gave them all reusable knives and forks and a little kit. So we had a petite lunch on the job. [00:02:33] PF: Oh, that's so cool. [00:02:35] TM: Yeah. So it's about being intentional. As the sales start and Black Friday is the mother of all the sales. [00:02:45] PF: Got those running shoes on? [00:02:46] TM: Exactly. It's about starting with do you have a list. Are there things? Have you been waiting? Like our TV broke. We need a new TV. Have you been waiting for the Black Friday sales? That's great. You're intentional about it. You've done your research. You know what you want to buy. But if you just go into Black Friday and Cyber Monday and just, “It's a deal, it's a deal, it's a deal, it's a deal,” you're going to end up on the wrong side of buying. It’s about, before this holiday season starts, you getting intentional with why you're buying and your budget. What can you afford? Look, Paula, if you can't afford to buy something, it's not a gift to someone else. If buying that gift puts you in debt, you're not giving someone a gift. So really starting this holiday season out like, “Here's how much I have. These are who I want to buy for. This is what it looks like.” [00:03:45] PF: We do fall into that trap, and there’s several different entry points to this trap. One of them is people who say, “We have to buy for our entire family.” Have a friend who they get together, and it's all the nieces, the nephews, the in-laws. Those lists are ridiculous, and it's a financial hardship, and it takes away from maybe they would have gotten a nicer gift for their spouse or for one of their children, and it's like, “Well, I can't. I have this much money, and now it has to be spread between 30 people.” So – [00:04:16] TM: The thing about that too is those 30 people, like, look, take the little kids off the list, right? Because it's a different experience for them. But those 30 people, I can guarantee that 29 of them don't need what you're buying for them, right? Like I have friends who they've done it. They have a complicated extended family, their step parents and somebody raised in a house that was – It's like 40 people all variously related. This is the greatest thing. Every New Year's Day, they have their New Year's Day party together. They pull a name from a hat. The whole year, they only get presents for that one person. [00:04:54] PF: I love that. [00:04:55] TM: Every birthday. So one person takes care of one person. Like you said, they get nicer things. They get things they can use. Also, can we start normalizing that it's okay to ask people what they want? Like this idea that you're supposed to just figure it out, and you're supposed to have mental telepathy. When did that happen? [00:05:20] PF: Yeah. Because people end up buying something that they would like and think somehow this other person is going to like it. It's like, “Yeah, we don't.” [00:05:28] TM: Right. Look, there’s something. It's a tradition and Hanukkah and Christmas. Sort of doing that is fantastic, but let's go this year into being mindful. Is it just another toy that's going to get broken? Is it just another sweater? Are we just buying because somebody in our family said we had to? What about a family trip? What about – I mean, I think about grandparents. They don't need anything. They're at the last chapter of their life. I was lucky enough last Saturday to go – I have a friend in my life who's 94. I drove down, we had lunch with her, and it was just the best day. I thought holidays are coming up, and I was like, “Oh, no, no, no. This is what she wants, and this is what I want.” These are the gifts I'm going to give her. I'm going to give her the gift of my time and get the gift of her time, like to be able to spend this time with her. If there's someone – If you find yourself – Look, nothing makes me crazier than that like the gift to get the person who has everything. If they have everything, they don't need anything. [00:06:40] PF: They need nothing. [00:06:41] TM: I'm letting you off the hook and – [00:06:47] PF: Well, why do we start thinking that we need to do that? What happens in our brain that makes us go from rational budgeted people to, “I've got to get this. I've got to buy it.”? [00:06:59] TM: Today, they start playing that Mariah Carey Christmas song. It’s the season, and we're just trained, and we're marketed to, and we're – It's just the way that it's always been. But I'm saying we can mix it up. We can make it different, right? We can approach this a different way. Somebody just messaged me, and it cracked me up. They said every time their mother-in-law comes over to their house, she brings something she's decluttering, and she hides it in their house. They did it in a way that it's become this kind of fun game for the grandkids. They're like, “What did Nana leave?” Like they’ve got to try and find it. So is there a way that when you're talking with your family like, “Can we take a trip together? Can we all go in on something for the one person that really needs it?” It’s not about the volume. It's not about who's got the most presents under the tree. It's are you being intentional, and what's your intent in your buying, and understanding that you're being marketed to. You know that little thing like, “One for them, two for me.” Or it's on sale. It doesn't matter if it's on sale, if you don't need it. If you don't need it, and you're not going to use it, and you buy it on sale, you've still wasted money. [00:08:23] PF: You said something that I want to touch on again, and that was buying gifts for another family. I think that is some of the greatest joy you can find is when you adopt a family. Or like for us, it's been the last few years an older person because I've lost most of the old people in my life that I really cared about, and there's something very special about being able to give them things that they truly need and want. So talk about that, how we can go about doing that. [00:08:53] TM: Yeah. I think that's so – One of the great things about being of service, doing things for other people, is that, first of all, it doesn't take much. It's like if there's an elderly person that can't get out the way they used to, and you're already at the grocery store, and you call them and say, “Hey, can I pick you up?” They're like, “Oh, great, a few things.” You're already at the grocery store and what you're going to gain from that experience, well, you're going to feel the joy you feel, the self-respect you feel by helping someone else. I feel like we tend to lean into it in the holiday season, but we can do it all year. Like if it feels that good, we can do it all year. I think the interesting thing to point out here, Paula, is one of the biggest health – One of the hardest things on an elderly person's health is loneliness. So can you go and visit a neighbor? Can you make some cookies and sit down and have a chat? Like I said, I went to see my godmother, and we were going to only be there for an hour. We were there for four hours. It was a glorious afternoon. We sat outside, and we had lunch, and we drank iced tea and laughed and told stories. She's getting ready to go. It's going to be her time soon, and there were things I think she needed to say, and it was so lovely to be able to be there for that. So if you can take this time, if the gift giving and getting isn't fulfilling, like you said, can you do something else with your time? [00:10:30] PF: That is such great advice. Another thing that you touched on is experiences. We're also big on that, like doing an experience for the family instead of gifts, going on a trip, or maybe depending on what your budget is. Maybe it's a day at Six Flags or the zoo or something like that. Talk about how that can be such an ongoing gift. [00:10:54] TM: The thing that's – I mean, look. You and I have talked about like what we went through in the pandemic and our loss of connection with our tribe, with our people. We don't need more stuff now. We need to reconnect. We need to see people, and those experiences do that, right? To say like, “Oh, well. We all went apple picking for the day.” Or, “Somebody really wanted to try this restaurant. So we all chipped in, and we always went and shared a meal.” That's the stuff that you're going to remember. Because I'll bet if you look back on the holidays past, I don't think you can remember what anybody gave you. [00:11:30] PF: You remember what somebody else got that you wanted but – [00:11:33] TM: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So swapping that out for experiences and understanding that what those experiences do is they create the memories. They create the memories, and they reinforce the connection. That's what we're looking for, right? That's what we want. We want to be connected to our people. So I invite people to do it differently, and there's going to be somebody who's going to gripe. There's going to be somebody who's like, “We've always done it this way. We can't.” But maybe slowly, when they understand and they sort of see it another way, you can get everybody on board. [00:12:11] PF: That was going to be my next question. Because as you said, not everyone's going to go, “Oh, my God, Tracy. Great idea. Let's do it.” So if you're the lone voice, how do you, one, bring it into the conversation, and how do you sell this to them? They're being marketed to 24/7. How do you market our ideas? [00:12:32] TM: I think you – Let’s say there's sort of 12 people in your family that you do this. I think, first of all, to quote Brene Brown, “Clear is kind.” Talk about it like, “Hey. This year, we've had a lot of expenses. We just feel like we can't buy presents in the same way that we have in the past. We really want to do something with our family. Who's on board for this?” Then if someone puts up resistance like, “What's that about,” because, usually, the person who puts up the resistance, it's not that they necessarily – It’s, like you said, that they want to really shop for themselves. They want the experience of the shopping. Also, maybe they really need stuff. Maybe they're not being truthful. Maybe they’re like, “No, I need gifts this year because we're having a tough time.” But I think if we can take this idea that it's all supposed to be a big surprise. If I see one more car commercial with the giant bow on it, and the husband or wife is like, “How did you know,” it’s like that does not happen. First of all, I think about it too. If my husband to be bought me a car, I would be like, “Wait, what? That’s – [00:13:49] PF: How much did – Why did we not talk? Do we not talk about purchases over $1,000 anymore? [00:13:54] TM: Exactly. That there's so much stuff with that. So I think it's starting not going in and being a bull in a china shop and “We're doing it this way.” But saying, “Hey, this is what I've been thinking. This is what I've been feeling. Here's where we're at financially.” Because the other thing that that does is that that normalizes a conversation about our finances, right? We're so embarrassed to say, “I can't afford that.” But maybe you're just being truthful, right? You can't afford everything. Why do you pretend that you can? I think it's having – Thanksgiving is coming up, so you could – That you’d sort of say to people like, “Hey, maybe we do it differently this year.” [00:14:37] PF: Right, right. Thanksgiving is the ideal place to kind of broach that conversation and kind of get the ball moving in a different direction. With adults, it's one conversation, but what about with kids? Because, especially like tweens, teenagers, where they're like, oh, man, they want the shiniest new gadget, and they want things, and there's so much pressure now to have all those things. So how do you pick up that conversation with them, and how do you approach them differently than you do, say, other adults in your life? [00:15:09] TM: Yeah. Honestly, I think that it's never too soon to talk about finances. It's never too soon to say – You don't want to burden your kids with your finances, but there's nothing wrong with a conversation of like, “This is what we have to spend on Christmas. This is what we budgeted. It is not an endless, bottomless well of spending. This is what we have. So can you rank what you want in order?” If there's something that they want that doesn't fit in the budget, can you say, “Great, do you want to work this off? Like can we do a trade? Can you learn that X amount of times of mowing the lawn gets you those new air pods?” I think it's a very, very healthy conversation, and studies have shown that the sooner kids have financial literacy, the more successful they are in the future. If your kid doesn't see you overcharging and getting all this credit card debt to give them the perfect Christmas, they're not going to understand the cause and effect of putting things on a card. But if you can say like, “We have $500 a person or $250 a person to spend on Christmas, how would you like that?” They get the idea of budgeting. So I think that there's a very, very positive way to have the conversation and use it as a teachable moment. [00:16:33] PF: That is so good because I remember many years ago going Christmas shopping with a friend, and she was joking but yet entirely serious that she hadn't paid off last year's Christmas presents, and here we are shopping. It was surprising to me because it's like I didn't take it that seriously. [00:16:51] TM: Then she's putting herself in a financially difficult position to look good for other people, right? To look like she's being generous, but she's hurting herself. I would venture a guess that if the people in her life that she was buying gifts for knew how hard it was for her, they'd be like, “Don't buy me anything. Don't do that. You don't have to do that.” So really, get honest about how much you have to spend. That's why as the sales start, if there are things that you've had your eye on, and they go on sale, and it's a smart decision, fantastic. But if you're buying just because it's shiny and, like you said, it's, “Oh. Well, everybody's getting the Cabbage Patch doll,” or whatever the new toys. I just dated myself, Paula, to be talking about that. [00:17:38] PF: I remember those fights over the Cabbage Patch dolls. [00:17:42] TM: The new toy that everybody's got to have and the kids got to show up in school with. Of course, for the teenagers and the tweens, that's what's happening. That's what's happening in their development and their social group. But is there some things that they can work off like, “Well, you want this. So it costs X. So here's how you get it, babysit for the neighbor or take somebody's trash cans in.” You can help them figure out what something costs and what they have to do to get it. I think it's a very – I think that's the best gift you can give a child is financial – [00:18:15] PF: Yeah. That's a whole another gift that keeps on giving. Then you hit the end of the shopping season, and people are like – Things they were laughing about at the beginning of the shopping season now become viable gifts. It's like, “Ah, a Chia Pet.” Or it’s like, “Who does not need the desktop basketball set,” right? [00:18:35] TM: Yeah, and if you find yourself just buying because you have to buy. I had a dear friend of mine last year send a beautiful Christmas card. In it, she said, “I am purchasing no gifts this year. I have given money in everybody's name to plant a tree in Northern California, where the trees had burned down.” I was like, “Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for doing that. I don't need anything. That is great.” So some of those, like something that you know will make the world a better place may be the best use for your money, as opposed to a Chia Pet or a desktop basketball – [00:19:15] PF: I love that because, yeah, having something done in your name is a huge gift. I think people that haven't experienced that kind of underestimate how good it feels for the recipient to be like, “Oh, my gosh. You did that for me.” When my mom was in her last days, so the last few Christmases we had with her, she didn't need anything. Everything's downsizing. Go to assisted living and then nursing home. So I started doing the Heifer International with her, and it's like it became this thing because it's like, “Oh, I got you a goat this year, Mom, and look –” It was a cool thing. Like she appreciated it and it was – I don't know. It just seemed special, more – I can't remember any gifts that I gave her up until that point in her life. [00:20:00] TM: For her and also think about her in that position, right? She's winding down. She can't do what she used to. But she basically used her gift to help someone else. I mean, the Heifer International project is unbelievable, right? Because it's like you give one person a goat, and then they have goats, and then they give their goats on. It just goes forward. So for your mom to still be able to contribute and help people must have made her feel fantastic. [00:20:28] PF: Yeah. And it was a really special time for us. It was a great moment that we shared and, again, hard to explain if you haven't actually done that and experienced it. So what if you are the recipient, if you are the victim of a heavy shopper? How do we kindly send a message that, “No. Honestly, I don't need anything. I don't want anything.”? How do we send that message? [00:20:51] TM: I think you start early. I don't think you blind side somebody. I don't think you wait until the morning when everyone's wrapping presents. You just start – You know who those people are in your life. I think you start saying now like, “Hey, I just want to give you a heads up. I really don't want anything for the holidays. I am downsizing. I am X, Y, and Z. I really don't want anything. What I would love is to go to a movie and lunch with you. What I'd love is to do X, Y, and Z with you,” and offer them an alternative. Some of them we're not going to be able to help. I mean, I would say maybe you want to buy them my book, Make Space for Happiness,” so they kind of look at what they're doing. But I think it's about not being angry with them and getting as far ahead of it as you can like, “I don't need anything. I don't. I don't. I don't want anything. I don't need anything. I want to spend time with you. Can we make that our gift?” [00:21:49] PF: I love that. That is such great advice. I think everybody can change their whole holiday season by doing that because it just kind of makes you take a breath and refocus on, and you don't have to buy wrapping paper. [00:22:02] TM: Yeah, exactly. [inaudible 00:22:05] benefit. That's the other thing. When it's an experience like that, both of you win. You get to spend time with that person that you love. Paula, instead of looking at it like, “I’m not getting – I’m not buying anybody some presents,” it’s like we're getting to do this thing that we love, that we love to do together. I think that's really the trick. I'm focusing on the positive side of it. It's about being intentional. I think that's the interesting thing, right? Be intentional about how you decorate your house. Be intentional with the gifts you buy. Be intentional about what kind of holiday season you want to create. Do you want it to just be about the stuff? Or do you want it to be about reconnecting with the people that we may have lost touch with over the last couple of years? [00:22:55] PF: I love that. That's so important. That's such a great message. That is a perfect place to wrap it up. Maybe we'll get together after the first year and talk about what to do with all the stuff we got that – [00:23:05] TM: Yeah, yeah. January is Get Organized Month. Let's talk about it in January. I got lots of tips, lots of tips here over that unwanted holiday stuff. [00:23:14] PF: All right. We will talk again. But, Tracy, thank you. Thank you for your insight and your guidance and for talking with us today. [00:23:21] TM: Thanks, Paula. Great to see you, as always. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:23:28] PF: That was decluttering expert Tracy McCubbin, talking about how to step back and become more intentional with our shopping this holiday season. If you’d like to learn more about Tracy and her work, follow her on social media, or buy her book, Make Space for Happiness, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. If you'd like to pick up some intentional gifts designed to spread joy all year long, the Live Happy Store is having its annual Black Friday sale. If you visit us at store.livehappy.com, you'll find lots of great joyful merchandise that you can share with others this season. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Why Sports Fans Have More Friends With Ben Valenta and David Sikorjak  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 390 of Live Happy Now. If you're a sports fan or you know someone who is, you're going to love today's guests. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I have the pleasure of sitting down with David Sikorjak and Ben Valenta, authors of the new book, Fans Have More Friends. These two strategy and analytics experts are diehard sports fans, who set out to prove their hypothesis that being a sports fan leads to happiness. Their research proved them right. And this week, they're here to talk about why cheering on your favorite team is doing more for you than you might have realized. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:38] PF: David and Ben, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:41] BV: Thanks for having us. [00:00:41] DS: Thanks for having us. [00:00:42] BV: Happy to be here. [00:00:43] PF: Well, this is exciting because this is something we have not touched on at Live Happy, which is unusual. It feels like a lot of things we've looked at from so many different angles but not fandom. Sports are such a huge part of our culture, and I don't think we've ever touched on how it really affects us psychologically. So I guess for starters, how did the two of you meet, and how did you decide to write a book about this? [00:01:08] BV: Our relationship goes way back. We've been working together for, I don't know, 10, 12 years. We've always been kind of collaborators and like-minded in how we see the world and have been working in the sports business in some way, shape, or form for the last, I don't know, 8 of those 10 years and have constantly had some insight into – Or maybe the better way to say it is we had an intuition that sports fandom was all about social connection, and this came through kind of years of spending time with fans, of thinking about the sports business, of working in sports media. At a certain point, I think we became convinced that that intuition was actually a truth, and we could elevate it to the level of an insight, something that kind of defined how people approached the space. At a certain point, I think we decided we should prove this out. We should sort of see. We should put our insight to the test and see if it really does hold water, if we really can define fandom as a social enterprise. Eventually, we landed on – I think a testable hypothesis is what we're looking for, and that's where we got to. So the fundamental insight was that to be a fan is to be a part of a community. That’s a line that we landed on years ago, working for the New York Knicks. That stuck with us for some time. We decided that if that's true, if fandom is all about community, if it's all about the social connection, then fans would enjoy more robust social networks, more robust social infrastructure. So the shorthand way to say that is fans would have more friends. So we set out trying to devise a way to reliably test fandom and compare it to the number of friends in one social network. What we found over the last several years and 30-plus surveys and tens of thousands of respondents is that it's true. In fact, fans do have more friends, and that's the title of our book, Fans Have More Friends. [00:03:03] PF: So how long did it take you to go from an idea to a finished product? [00:03:09] DS: To be a fan and to be part of a community was something that we coined back in 2016, where we got to the point where like, “Let's test this out.” We’re seeing it come up in different contexts around sports over and over with different types of people, men, women, white, black, all sorts of people, younger and older. The same thing held that we were observing social relationships as the incentive for the devotional behavior of sports fandom. We didn't start testing this until – Devised a way to test this until the end of 2018. Then once we kind of landed on a method, it kept coming back. Fans have more friends. It's not only that. The bigger fan you are, the more friends you have. The bigger fan you are, the closer you are to all your friends. The more you interact with those friends, the closer you are to family. Just every single – It kind of – This is what we thought all along. We never thought we would be able to prove it out in such a consistent and robust way, and it's kind of held now for three years now in testing this. [00:04:16] BV: Just to draw a line into that, like the way to think about it is the bigger fan you are, the more likely you are to have a positive healthy relationship with your mother, right? It extends a great aspect of your social life. So it's not just that fans have more friends, as Dave points out. It’s that you have a close relationship and closer ties with your family, both as parent to child, child to parent, kind of working both ways throughout one's life. [00:04:39] DS: Just to give you an example on that, we ran surveys recently where if you have measured from non-fans, so basically the general population, and then rated them across the scale on how big of a fan they are, if you have children living out of your home, we ask if there are adult children, how close do you feel with child number one? How close do you feel with child number two? What we found for whether kids are at home or not, but it's really the most acute for when you are an empty nester, the bigger fan you are, the stronger of a relationship you report having with each of your children. [00:05:12] PF: Were you able to determine why that is? Because that's super interesting because people – I mean, parents struggle like, “How can I be close to my children?” Now, it's like go to games. Yeah. [00:05:21] BV: Well, it's really like the reliable rhythm of being a sports fan keeps you in constant connection. So I have three brothers. We all live dispersed around the country. I'm from Colorado, and my folks are still in Denver. The thing that we talk about most often is the Denver Broncos, right? That will anchor those conversations. Now, that will unfold into how are the kids and how's work and all that kind of stuff. But it usually starts with the Denver Broncos. Actually, this just happened. It's the NFL trade deadline when we're recording this. The Broncos made a big trade at the deadline, and my phone just lit up with text messages mostly from my family, my mom included, but a bunch of friends as well. When you start to see your fan engagement as that social connection, you sort of can't unsee it. Then you begin to recognize, “Oh, this is actually the thing incentivizing my fandom, but it's also the benefit of my fandom.” It results in more conversations. It results in more text messages. It results in more frequent interaction that is ultimately good for us and leads to strengthened relationships. [00:06:27] DS: Build on the point is it's like a covert way of just saying how are you doing. But sports just gives you many times over and over like your mom texting you have how's it going and after a while could be braiding. But if it's around sports, if the sky has something else, that conversation keeps on going, and it's just a fluid back and forth, which is just more pleasurable for both parties. [00:06:51] PF: That can even work if you are on opposing teams because I know in our house, there are friends who do not support the proper teams. When we'll have it, it's like that back and forth of like really just talking trash, but you feel closer. I mean, it really does kind of – It keeps you in contact, even though that's the way that you're going about it. [00:07:11] BV: Absolutely. I mean, that's the one thing we – The one question we get most often is like, “Well, what about the tribal nature of sports? What about rivalries and things like that?” What we find is that those things actually tend to make the experience of being a fan more engaging and more fun. That means that they animate those interactions and those connections in the same way. In other words, like they make those conversations with those people more fun, right? When you're talking trash, it's all with a tongue in cheek. It's all in good fun. We're able to kind of play in this space that is ultimately very playful, and we can have that kind of conversation, that kind of interaction, which leads to just more intimate conversations down the line that aren't necessarily about sports. It just kind of creates this space where we can bust other’s chops, and it's all good. [00:07:54] DS: There's not many spaces where we can do that, where we could actually mock a friend, a family member, or a stranger because of sports affiliations. With sports, you actually have that permission to do it in a way that is just – It’s fun. It's playful. It's childish. All those things are really good. [00:08:11] PF: What about right now? Because it seems everyone's pretty sensitive to people who don't agree with them. There's a lot of polarization. There's a sensitivity when someone disagrees with us. With sports, that disappears. Can you address that? [00:08:28] BV: Well, that's exactly right. I mean, because it's playful. Because it sort of seem to matter so much but not matter at all, that gives us that permission to not be so sensitive and to recognize that this is one space in my life that I cannot – I'm not taking these things personally, right? I'm not going to be overly sensitive. I can just go in there and have fun. I can receive the comments, and then I can take a lick in it. I can dole one out. It’s all good natured, and it's all in good fun. [00:08:55] PF: How can that help us? Or can it? Maybe I'm assuming. How can that help us in the real world? Because, again, there's so much polarization. Is there a way that sports fandom can help us get past some of that? [00:09:09] BV: Well, yeah. We addressed the notion of polarization, so we can get into that in the book. Before we get into the polarization piece, though, just to address the question kind of point blank, the way it can help us is we just have more interactions, right? So we have this safe space where it's fun to interact, and that incentivizes us to get involved and interact. As it turns out, we're social creatures, and those interactions, those connections are really good for us, right? We've talked a lot about so far fans have more friends, and they interact with those people more often, and they have better relationships with their families and so on and so forth. But it turns out that those connections have a meaningful impact on your wellbeing. So it's not just that fans have more friends. It's because of those friends, fans are happier. They are more satisfied with their life. They're more optimistic about the future. They're more confident in themselves. They're more trusting of other people. They're more likely to give to charity. They're more likely to be registered to vote. There's this whole cascade of wellness markers that come out of this connection, and it's partly because it's fun, probably because it's entertaining, probably because it's all of those things. But the connection is what's most important. [00:10:15] PF: Did you find what the connection is between being a sports fan and having those tendencies? [00:10:20] BV: The connection, I would say, is connection. Like it is that you're just more plugged into the world around you. You're more plugged in your community. You are more engaged in the world because you have all of these different touch points to draw on. [00:10:33] DS: You saw a game with friends, and your friends will tell you about, “Hey, there's this thing going on in town. You should go to it.” Probably you're going to go or you're out in the world, connecting with other people, and that's how you learn about other things. You're getting depolarizations. That's how you're exposed to people who may be slightly different than you. It doesn't mean that you kind of adopt their views, or it shifts your views. But it just means you feel a closeness to somebody else that's different to you. That's important, where – We talked about this in our book, and we mentioned there's this feeling thermometer to kind of get into the polarization piece that is used in political science. They're used in political science for years, and it measures how – It's a 0 to 100 scale, and you're taking the survey or asked, “How do you feel about Democrats with zero being cold and 100 being hot? Then vice versa, how do you feel about Republicans?” What we lay out in the book is the bigger fan you are, if you separate the sample out into Republicans and Democrats, Republicans have warmer feelings towards Democrats, the bigger fan they are. Democrats have warmer feeling towards Republicans, the bigger fan they are. To be clear, the feeling is cold from opposing views. That's the nature of our polarization. But the fact is, and we've read a lot about polarization in writing this book, and it often left us depressed. Like there's no way out. We're just growing apart as a country, as two separate countries, and we don't talk to each other. What kind of the psychology teaches us is that in group and out group becomes more solidified. Therefore, we don't talk. Therefore, we dislike each other more, more and more, regardless of how much we are into the politics of it. But our contention is sports fans, and it actually gets us to mix those in groups a little bit. If you're a Dallas Cowboys fan and you are a liberal that lives in New York, when there's a lot of Dallas Cowboys fans here in New York, you know there's other fans that are not – Don't share the same views as you. You also know that it crisscrosses race and religion and education and income. You're part of this one Dallas Cowboys tribe, and that actually has an impact on you. So that's why we see the warmer feelings towards the opposing party within both kind of Democrat and Republican tribes. [00:12:52] PF: That is so interesting. So how can that be used by individuals, if we start understanding that? How can we use this as a tool for trying to build a bridge? [00:13:04] BV: Ultimately, that's kind of what we're advocating for is to, I want to use your words, use this as a tool. We all – There's a lot of people who are sports fans. This cuts across a major segment of the American populace. So it's a mainstream behavior that people are engaging with but not necessarily consciously aware of the benefits that they're receiving because they're fans. So what we want people to do is become aware of this thing as a tool. Now, that tool can be used to mitigate polarization. It can be used to mitigate loneliness. But these problems that kind of befuddle us can be lessened, can be decreased, can be dampened by recognizing that that fandom is this thing in your arsenal that you can pull out at any time to create connection, to expand your worldview because it's going to create the interactions with other people around you and create that engagement in the world that we were talking about previously. [00:14:01] DS: Even if you're at the airport and see somebody with an Alabama jersey on and you make a comment about Alabama, it's a 10-second interaction. The science says you both are uplifted as a result of that interaction. You as a sports fan, if you're conscious of what's going on in the world, and you can go up to a complete stranger and talk about the Phillies and Astros game tonight, those interactions are really good. We encourage – As Ben was saying, this was our motivation of if you're a fan, lean into it. These are good things. It's good for you, good for others, good for society. Realize that this is the impact of it, and it's already happening. Now that you know it’s happening, lean into it more, and more good should come out of it. [00:14:41] BV: I guess what that means is, specifically, recognize that sports can be the anchor to a interaction, right? So one thing that I've changed in my life is I will say yes to anything that comes my way that sports-related I will say yes, right? To where I was kind of like falling out of love with the fantasy leagues and the pick’em pools, I will now say yes. Let's go do it. I realized that this is not a fatuous kind of obnoxious thing but actually something that's really meaningful for my life, right? But I'll also extend that invite. So whenever I see some – I’ve even started going through my contact with my phone. If there's somebody I haven’t talked to for a while, I'm aware of kind of like the teams that they follow. I'll use that as a way into sending you that message. Hey, I saw so-and-so traded so-and-so. What do you think of that? Oh, by the way, it's been a while. How you doing? Right? Or I'll invite people over on a Sunday to get together. Whether I care about the game or not, it almost makes no difference. It's just the device that gets people together, and then you're reaping the rewards of that togetherness. [00:15:36] PF: That's great, and it's interesting that you talk about fantasy leagues, things like that. So it's not just straight up fandom for the game. It reaches well beyond that. [00:15:47] BV: Absolutely. I mean, again, let's just change how we think about fandom for the game and all these different activities. The activity almost doesn't matter. It's the activity that creates connection, right? My fantasy league with 10, 12 college buddies generates on a weekend probably 250 text messages on average, right? Those would, otherwise, not happen. If I see now that the fantasy league across whatever 24 weeks of NFL season is generating 250 text messages a week, like that's a lot of interaction that I would have otherwise not had, if I didn't have that fantasy league. Now, all of a sudden, I've reframed how I think about and approach that entire enterprise, and it puts it in those terms. Now, I know it's impacting my wellness. I know it's actually causing oxytocin to be released and flow through my bloodstream. Like it's changing how I see the world. If you're aware of that and you can lean into it, then all of a sudden, you can really start to reap the rewards. [00:16:39] DS: I can give another example, a more personal [inaudible 00:16:42]. We wrote the book and we’re – Ben and I talked about this. We're living the book, so to speak, as kind of a – What we found is it’s like it's telling us to think of things differently. So I'm a Yankees fan. The Yankees had a great start to this season, looked like a dominant team. Then in August, it all fell apart. It often left me depressed on days, and I would go into work and work on stuff and be angry about going home to watch the game or having to watch the game. I have an eight and six-year-old boys, two boys who are obsessed with the games. Our family time, and my wife who is not a sports fan or who was not a sports fan, has now kind of signed up, as it is our best family time. Well, it's seven o'clock. We are – The four of us are on the sofa. We are talking. They’re asking questions. We're engaged in things. We are together as a family, watching this thing called baseball. So like learning from the stuff that we're writing in that book, it's like, well, just forget about that and stop being angry about all the stuff that's wrong with the Yankees and what's right with the family engagement around it. We just have this beautiful time every night when the Yankees are on that, otherwise, would – We’d still have beautiful time, but it just wouldn't be as kind of cohesive as sports has made it in our home. [00:17:57] PF: Yeah. How does that bring it together? When you're cheering together, when you're bemoaning the loss together, how does that tighten you as a family unit? [00:18:06] DS: Well, it gives you something else to talk about, and it's great that you bring up the loss because we often – Another question we get is, well, is this true for winning teams that you're happier, as opposed to perennial losers. It works. It works both ways. You can celebrate together, which is great to commiserate and find the occasion to do something together and celebrate. It's also great to commiserate. Yankees lost. When I get together with Yankee fans, I – We all want to like vent about it, and like venting is good. Like in other things in life, you keep it in, and you boil inside. With sports, we all vent, and it’s actually just like a positive release, and somebody else is listening on the other end and understands and gives examples of it. There's not much stuff that we can vent and do that stuff and have that kind of dialogue so freely with other people, whether it's somebody close or a complete stranger. [00:18:56] BV: You know, Paula, the way to think about it I think is you're going on an emotional ride together, and like all of those components are important. The emotional aspect amplifies the togetherness and vice versa. But ultimately, the celebrating, the commiserating doesn't really matter. It's just the fact that you're going on this ride together. [00:19:14] PF: I love that. I love that. One thing that you talk about is the importance of passing down fandom in your family. Two questions related to that is like why is that so important, and then how do you do that? [00:19:26] DS: Well, the first one, I think the reason it's important, we talked a little bit about the impact that this can have on your relationships with your children or your parents, kind of going both ways. So I think just recognize like in the data, what we see is that relationships are improved or the likelihood of relationship being improved are correlated with fandom. So basically, it’s just a way of trying to kind of stack the odds in your favor to ensure that you have a close relationship with your children or with your parents. Because, again, you come back to just the cadence of communication increases, and that's ultimately good for relationship. The way to do it, Dave and I are kind of like working through this right now. We both have young kids. My son is just kind of getting into it, and he calls every sport on TV baseball, whether it’s baseball or not. He calls every team the Los Angeles Rams, even though the Rams only play football. But it's getting them into the space where they can use sports and create social connections around sports, right? Like that's, I think, ultimately, what you're handing to your kids is a tool that will help them socialize, right? We see. We just did some polling with teens that this all holds true with 13 to 17-year-olds. So if you're a highly engaged sports fan as a teen, you're going to have more friends. You're going to be happier. You're going to do better in school. You're going to have closer relationships with your family. It's not so much the fandom that's doing anything there. It's just the fandom gives you a way to connect with people, and the connections are good for us. If I think about my kids, like one of the things that I want for them is to have close friendships. I think that that's an important to a fulfilled life. By giving them fandom, by kind of indoctrinating them in this school of fandom, what you're doing is giving them a tool that allows them to connect. It increases the likelihood that they will have more robust friend networks, if they're fans. [00:21:08] DS: One more thing of it kind of goes back to the playfulness of sports fandom. There’s not many things as a parent with kids that it doesn't matter. Like there's not an expectation. You have to do these things for school or even if you're playing in a sports team. Or did you work out? Did you prepare? Did you think about these things? It's all freedom sports fandom, and it creates a playfulness within the family that is highly beneficial. [00:21:31] PF: You also say that it can help us build confidence in other people. I found that interesting. What mechanism is at play there to make that happen? [00:21:40] DS: Well, it's all the same mechanism at work, right? You're interacting with people, and you will then kind of view them more positively. So we have several questions that we ask around. How trusting are you of other people? Do you typically trust somebody when you meet them? Or do you not trust them? So as you can predict, that the bigger fan you are, the more trusting you would be of that person, whether you're meeting a stranger. It really just comes down to your interacting with more people, and that exposure to other people [inaudible 00:22:10] them. You’re not always on guard in these interactions because you're happy to walk up to a stranger and talk about the Cowboys. Again, that's good for you. We see this time and again, and then we measured it further in confidence in institutions. How you feel about whether it's the police, the military, religious leaders, the news media, professors, scientists. We see with that that the bigger fan you are, the more confidence you have in those institutions. [00:22:39] BV: I think one way to just sort of sum up everything that Dave just said is a line that we include in the book. Actually, we quote Brene Brown, who I would assume, Paula, you're familiar with. [00:22:48] PF: Most of our listeners are. [00:22:49] BV: I would – Yeah. I guess we're playing to the right audience here. But she has a line that I love, and that resonates with us and really encapsulates a lot of what Dave was just saying, which is it's hard to hate people up close. The idea – [00:22:59] PF: I love that. [00:23:00] BV: Effectively, what we're saying is fandom puts you in a place where you are connecting with more people, both intimate connections, relationships, family, close personal friends, etc. But also just strangers on the street, right? You're going to have those interactions with the barista because she's wearing the Dodgers hat in Los Angeles, and you can have that brief 10-second interaction about the team that's going to impact your day. But it also exposes you to other people, right? It just kind of like helps build that muscle of connecting with other people. Ultimately, that's the thing. That exposure is the thing that changes your worldview. It creates that sense of trust in other people, it creates that sense of confidence in other people, and it just sort of broadens your perspective on the world. [00:23:39] PF: I like that. This is so well researched, and that's what's interesting too. How difficult was it to get research on this, put this all together? [00:23:47] DS: I mean, this is what we do, the research and fielding surveys, conducting focus groups, doing ethnography. So we feature a lot of people in the book that we tell stories about, and those came about. We met them in focus groups. We conducted ethnography, so I wouldn't do – We went into homes with people, with the games with people, with the sports bars. I mean, this is what we do. So we enjoy doing it. We felt like early on, we had an interesting thread to pull on. The book is about just continually pulling on the thread. Fans have more friends. Their measures of wellbeing, it leads to a broadened worldview. All these things just came out through the research that we conducted. [00:24:28] PF: Very interesting. So this is a terrific book. We're going to tell the listeners how they can find you, how they can find a copy of the book. As I let you go, what is it that you hope people take away from reading this book? [00:24:42] BV: I hope that they take away that they should lean into their fandom. If they’re fans themselves already, lean into that. Embrace it. I think maybe more broadly, we take kind of a step back. It's really to – We want to reframe the conversation we have around sports fandom. I think the current cultural conception of sports fans is sort of the obnoxious face painter bro, maybe a little drunk in the stands and making you feel uncomfortable. That person does exist, and that thing does exist. But when we focus exclusively or we frame our conception of fandom exclusively around that person, we miss all of this other connection that's really good for us. So what we want to do is get people to recognize, “Oh, this is actually really good for me,” right? I can lean into it. I can enjoy this. I can use it as a tool. But I should lean into it because it's going to impact my life. Dave on his line earlier, being a sports fan is good for you, good for others, good for society. We want people to recognize that. That's the ultimate takeaway here. [00:25:37] PF: I love it. [00:25:38] DS: It's available for anyone, everyone, young, old, male, female. Sports crosses everything. [00:25:45] PF: Yeah. There's a few sports out there that you can choose from. You can find one. [00:25:48] DS: We have a lot here. Yeah. [00:25:51] PF: Well, I thank you guys so much for sitting down with me. I just – I love this topic. I love the approach that you've taken and the way that you're opening this door that just really hasn't been walked through yet. So thank you so much for the work you're doing and for sitting down and talking with me about it. [00:26:05] BV: Thanks, Paula. It was a lot of fun. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:26:11] PF: That was Dave Sikorjak and Ben Valenta, authors of the new book, Fans Have More Friends. If you'd like to learn more about their research, follow them on social media, or buy their book, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. A reminder that November is gratitude month, and what better way to show your gratitude to others than to gift them with a plate of homemade treats. The Live Happy Store has a brand new giving plate, which you can fill with your favorite treats and share with a neighbor, your kids’ teacher, a coworker, or anyone else in your life whom you'd like to show appreciation to. The poem on our Live Happy giving plate encourages them to continue spreading the joy by doing the same for someone else. You can check it out right now in the Live Happy Store at store.livehappy.com. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Becoming a Happy Leader With Tia Graham  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 389 of Live Happy Now. Not everyone feels that work and happiness go hand in hand. But today's guest believes that not only can you find happiness at work, but you must. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm sitting down with Tia Graham, a certified chief happiness officer, Founder of the company Arrive at Happy, and author of the new book, Be a Happy Leader.   Tia has multiple certifications in neuroscience, positive psychology, and leadership coaching, and she works with executives and teams to help create happier workplaces. Today, she's here to teach us how we can find more happiness at work. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:45] PF: Tia, thank you so much for coming on Live Happy Now. [00:00:48] TG: Thank you for having me. [00:00:51] PF: Work has long been a challenge for people, and it's so important because it's something that we spend most of our time doing, and there's a lot of unhappiness in the workplace. I wondered, in your studies, in your research, what made you decide to focus on leaders in the workplace? [00:01:10] TG: Yes. So prior to starting my company, Arrive at Happy, I was a director of sales and marketing, a leader in the luxury hotel industry and different places in the United States and Europe. So I was a leader of teams for 14 years. Positive leadership was always very, very important to me. I took it as an honor, leading people. In my 14 years of leadership in the hotel industry, I had some incredible inspirational happy leaders, and I also had the complete opposite. I had some toxic, very negative leaders. One of my big missions is to have more happy leaders in the world of work. Then when I started researching the levels of disengagement with leaders, that was another big motivation. Also, the science of happiness isn't extremely well known within corporate America. So, yeah, lots of motivation to bring this into work. [00:02:12] PF: What is the difference between unhappiness at the leadership level and unhappiness at the employee level? Have you seen any differentiation? [00:02:21] TG: So it's actually quite similar, and this is all of the Gallup research. There's a little bit more disengagement at the employee level, but it's pretty close. In terms of people who are actively disengaged in both groups, it's around 13 to 15 percent, so really everyone's interconnected. [00:02:42] PF: Because you tend to think that leaders, at least from an employee standpoint, employees think, well, they should be happier. They're making more money. They get to take some time off for golf. Whatever it is, it seems like leaders should have it a little bit easier when it comes to happiness. They're in a little bit more comfortable position. [00:03:00] TG: Yeah. There is some correlation, like how you reference being able to play golf. There is some correlation between how much money you make and how happy you are and having less stress and anxiety about money. Really, some leaders have more time affluence, right? They have more time for friends and family, for hobbies, etc. Also, though, with leadership comes more stress, more anxiety, more pressure. So there's different challenges as well. [00:03:31] PF: The leaders that you have worked with that you've seen, is that happiness kind of an innate thing, that they are naturally happy people, and they bring it to the workplace? Or is it something that they've had to work at? [00:03:43] TG: So the research shows, and this aligns exactly with all of the companies that I've been working with over the past six years, is there's a group of people who are more genetically predisposed to be happier, and life circumstances do play a part. But there are some leaders who actively make choices that increase their wellbeing and create sustainable wellbeing. Then there are some leaders who do not, right? Who do not prioritize their own happiness and focus on whether it be their physical wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, mental health, psychological, investing in their relationships. As I said, little bit genetically predisposed. But then there are some people who truly make this a priority and focus on it and others who don't. [00:04:40] PF: What kind of outcomes do you see in the leaders, and what are the differences in the outcomes they see in their workplace? [00:04:47] TG: So a leader who is happy at work is more productive. So they work faster and they work smarter. They are more creative and innovative, as their brain broadens and builds with more positive emotions. They have higher rates of employee, team member loyalty, less unwanted turnover. Motivation within the team is higher. Sales are higher. There's a direct correlation between sales, and the customer service scores are higher as well. That all translates to the engagement scores, which most companies do engagement surveys once a year. [00:05:27] PF: There’s actually a cost to the company of unhappiness and stress in the workplace. [00:05:32] TG: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Whether it be the cost of recruiting, hiring, training, the cost of knowledge drain, when people leave, the cost of customer unhappiness or customers not being satisfied, and then putting that out on social media or choosing not to come back to that business as well. There's this huge phenomenon happening called quiet quitting, where people are doing the bare minimum, right? You think about the cost of productivity there, which directly relates to engagement. There is also the cost of potential revenue. The research shows that when sales or business development professionals are happy while they're working, they'll sell 37 to 45 percent more. So if you have a lot of your sales force that isn't feeling that great, they're not making as much money for the organization as well. [00:06:36] PF: So interesting because I think if more people equated the financial outcomes with happiness, they might kind of change the approach. So how do people start changing that mindset? Because, obviously, this has to start at the top for you to change the organization. So how do they start changing that? [00:06:57] TG: Yes. So the world of work is changing fast and for the better. I'm actually very optimistic about where it's going and how it's going to benefit humans globally. There are some organizations. Like Deloitte, for example, has achieved wellbeing officer at the very top, Jen Fisher. So leaders at the top, if you think about the CEO and the executive team, is first to understand about positive psychology, the science of happiness and the neuroscience behind happiness. Also understand and be motivated by the direct connection between happy employees and business outputs. To see the correlation, how it directly affects the bottom line, right, just what we were talking about earlier. Then be committed to creating a positive work culture and focusing on supporting the whole being all different aspects of people's lives. In addition to continuing to focus on productivity and output and driving results, focus equally as much on the relationships and how people feel, cultivating a sense of belonging, making sure that people have psychological safety, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and so on. Really investing in leadership training and development, as well as measurement to make sure that people are feeling happy, they're feeling engaged, and that the executive team can see, can be proactive, if there's an area of need, if there's a leader that's not creating this type of culture. [00:08:41] PF: So what do people do in situations, where maybe you have an organization, and the top leader or the CEO, owner, whatever it is, is not happy, is not going to be happy, is not going to buy into this? How then does a team underneath that start making it happen? Because that's something I have seen a lot of, where you have a leader who is a bully, really. It's a situation where they want things done a certain way, and they don't care about happiness. They don't care about wellbeing. They just want it done. So how does the rest of the team then create an environment that can kind of override that? [00:09:21] TG: Yes, such a great question. I was in that exact situation when I worked for five hotels in New York City, and the leader above me was just as you described, and then I had a team that worked for me that I truly wanted to create a bubble. So the first step is to know that even though everyone at the top might not be a happy positive leader, it doesn't mean that you can't create a positive culture within your team and to never underestimate the ripple effect that you have with your coworkers and with the people that you work with because emotions are contagious. Mirror neurons in our brain have us feel the way that other people are feeling around us, whether it be virtual or in person. So just to remember that you truly can have a positive effect on people, and to look at strategies and tools for you to contribute to make the team happy, as well as make yourself happy. There's a wonderful book by Dr. Annie McKee called How to Be Happy at Work. So for anyone listening, who's not necessarily a leader but really wants to increase their happiness at work, there's a lot of great actions in there, proven actions in there for how you can increase your wellbeing, even if maybe the CEO or executives aren't that happy. [00:10:49] PF: That's great, and that's great to know there's a resource out there for that because that is becoming more and more important for people and especially with Gen Z entering the workforce. I think that's really going to change the way that leaders have to create an environment because Gen Z places such an importance on mental health. You think that is going to help turn this tide too and help us realize like we really need to foster a culture of happiness and creativity? [00:11:19] TG: Yes, absolutely. I mean, the levels of anxiety and chronic stress, overwhelm, burnout with different generations, even including teenagers, that it's bringing to the forefront and need to focus on mental health. Of course, there's been so much focus on physical health over the years, and yet mental health now is really, really coming into the foreground. Leaders and people need to go farther than maybe suggesting meditation or saying, “Okay, here's a discount to a yoga class where you live,” or that sort of thing. But to really actually create safe spaces, where people can have vulnerable conversations. I can't help but think of the wonderful Brene Brown of talking about having hard conversations at work. Recently, I heard the CEO of Microsoft speak at this conference called The Future of Work, and he was talking about he shares with his team when he's not doing well mentally. I'm like, “Okay, if the CEO of Microsoft can talk about this when he's feeling extremely stressed or he's feeling very anxious, everyone should be able to.” So the old paradigm of it's sort of like game face for work, do not show emotions, be strong, have your work face is not working for people right now, right? I don't think that people need to be authentic. Of course, they’ll be professional, but to be authentic and to have vulnerable conversations about how people are really doing. [00:12:58] PF: Yeah. That is a big shift to turn around, but it is slowly listing toward that side. [00:13:04] TG: Yes. That will take time. [00:13:06] PF: It will. What about people who are workers, but they're working from home? So they have a different kind of struggle. How do they apply these things? [00:13:20] TG: Yeah. So for people who are working at home, there's benefits and, of course, there's challenges, right? So a lot of people are loving that they have more time back, don't necessarily have to commute. Maybe they can get a quick workout in at lunch. Maybe they can eat lunch outside, give their kid a kiss and a hug when they get home from school, etc. So first up I would say is savor and recognize and have gratitude for the blessings that are in your life with that working from home. Also, recognize that the challenges include feeling more disconnected and some people even feeling isolated, so being intentional about creating human connection moments. So human connection is the number one driver of happiness, right? Spending time with people you care about who care about you. So whether that be video calls, walking meetings, sending little video chats, having that human connection piece is really, really important. Another potential driver of unhappiness from working at home is sort of that work scope creep. It can creep into every part of your day. So having very clearly defined boundaries of when you’re work and when you're not working and making sure that the habits that help us stay healthy like good sleep, good food, meditating, exercise, time for hobbies, time for learning, spending time with friends and family, loved ones, etc., that you honor those. I recommend scheduling them. I joke of like I schedule everything. I schedule meditation. I schedule date nights with my husband. If not, it's very easy to just keep working. So, yeah, and I would say at home, as much as you can also incorporate if you can get a standing desk, if you can have a little more movement and keep your body healthy at home, to do that as well. But really focus on the human connection piece. [00:15:20] PF: Whether you're working at home or in an office, how do you then reach out to someone who is working remotely or another coworker to help them have that same experience? How do you help them along in their happiness journey? [00:15:33] TG: Yes. So I mean, one just resource that pops in my head is if you have someone on your team who or that you work with that you see is struggling or maybe could use some more happiness and wellbeing, I would highly recommend people take the free Yale Happiness Class by Dr. Laurie Santos. It's a great resource of sort of this introduction to positive psychology or the science of happiness. Another great resource is the book Happier by Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, who I actually studied with for a year. He's a fantastic teacher. I speak on this multiple times a month, and most people aren't that familiar with the science of happiness, so really just starting to share those resources. A very simple question is when you're connecting with people to say, “How are you doing really,” and truly being present for someone that you know is not doing so well, and they're kind of like, “I'm fine,” is I would say open up and share maybe some challenges that you're going through right now. By being vulnerable, they might feel safe to do the same. But I think just checking in with people is really, really important. [00:16:47] PF: Yeah. It’s something we got away from during the pandemic, and it feels like a lot of people are having trouble going back to that, that check in. Would you say that's what you're seeing? [00:17:00] TG: Yes, yes. I mean, during the height of the pandemic, when everyone was so isolated, right? It was like this constant, “Is everyone okay? Is everyone okay?” Even though life is more open now, there are a lot more experiences that we can do, there's still a continuum of people feeling lonely and feeling isolated. So I would, yeah, say reach out as much as you can. [00:17:28] PF: Obviously, technology has made all this possible, our ability to work remotely and connect remotely. But how does technology also negatively affect our happiness and our stress levels? [00:17:41] TG: Yes. Thank you for bringing this up, such a great question. Yes. So the research shows that too much technology, and especially too much time on social media, increases human anxiety and increases levels of sadness and depression. So it's about being very intentional and cognizant about how and when you're using technology. So in my keynote talks, I talked about being very intentional about the content that you consume. Obviously, this podcast is a fantastic piece of content. This is a great type of content for people to consume. But if you are watching and checking the news throughout the day on your smartphone, it's going to make you less happy and more anxious. So maybe you have one or two times a day where you check. I tell people never watch the news on television because it makes you 31% more negative for the rest of the day. But stay informed. Read about the news. But it can consume you, and it can make you feel very negative and anxious. Also, in terms of email, right? Having – Setting boundaries for yourself that – For example, my two young daughters go to sleep around 8:30 PM. I try to have connected time with my husband and not sit and do email from 8:30 to 10:00 at night. I really try and have that as focus on our relationship time. Again, it's being very intentional and also noticing how you feel engaging with the different technology pieces. I tell people, if you get on Facebook and you're full of anger, maybe you need to unfollow a lot of accounts. Or maybe you just need to not get to be on Facebook. [00:19:39] PF: Go watch a cat video, right? [00:19:40] TG: Exactly. So, yeah, I say nourish your brain the way you nourish your body. [00:19:46] PF: It’s so important, especially the emails. I'm glad you brought that up because that gets overwhelming. Being able to put limits and boundaries on that in itself is just a huge thing to be able to do. As we let you go, where do people start? As they walk away from this, what is the one thing that they can do today to apply one of your principles in the workplace to start making it a happier place for them? [00:20:11] TG: Yes. So one place to start is to increase the amount of specific appreciation that you give to others. People, adults are not acknowledged enough in life or in work. When you give specific appreciation for something that they did for you, a way that they took care of a customer, whatever it is, they are going to be filled with happiness, and you're going to feel happier because you deliver that information, whether it be verbally or written, etc. I would say whatever team you're a part of is increase that type of communication, where people are appreciating each other more, and everyone's happiness will rise. [00:21:07] PF: That's terrific. Tia, your book gives us a lot to learn. I'm going to tell all our listeners how they can get it. We'll have something on the website about it. But thank you so much for sitting down and talking with us today. You're doing some really important work, and I'm glad you took 30 minutes out of your day to be able to spend this time with us. [00:21:25] TG: Oh, thank you. You can't see me right now, but I have a huge smile on my face. So thank you for having me. [00:21:30] PF: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:36] PF: That was Tia Graham, author of Be a Happy Leader. If you'd like to learn more about Tia, follow her on social media, access some her great tools online, or buy her book, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. As we begin November and enter the season of giving, Live Happy has a whole new way to share your happiness with others. Brand new in Live Happy Store is our giving plate, which you can use to pay it forward to others. Just fill it with your favorite treats and share it with a neighbor, your kid’s teacher, a coworker, or anyone else in your life you'd like to show appreciation to. The poem on our Live Happy giving plate encourages them to spread joy by doing the same for someone else. You can find it right now in the Live Happy Store at store.livehappy.com. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Make Space for Happiness With Tracy McCubbin  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 387 of Live Happy Now. If you're like most people, you probably have a little bit of extra stuff laying around the house. But by the time you finish listening to this episode, you just might be ready to let it go. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week I am joined by decluttering expert, Tracy McCubbin, author of Make Space for Happiness: How to Stop Attracting Clutter and Start Magnetizing the Life You Want. Tracy has some surprising things to say about the relationship between clutter and happiness. And what straightening up the space in your house can do for this space in your head. Check it out. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Tracy, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:45] TM: Paula, thank you for having me. I love the title of your show. I love it. [00:00:51] PF: Thank you so much. Yeah, it pretty much tells what we're about. [00:00:55] TM: You know, I think there's this – I see it. I'm a professional declutter. I own a decluttering company. And I see with so many of my clients that they are waiting for something to happen to get happy, “Oh, if I get that bigger house, then I can start being happy.” Or, “Oh, if I just get my kids out of middle school, then I can be happy.” And my feeling from my own life is that there's no waiting. It starts now. You're not guaranteed tomorrow. You're not – so much can happen. And so, sort of putting off finding the happiness, I think we waste a lot of time. [00:01:32] PF: We do. And so, that's why we're here. We're here to give the little shortcut. [00:01:36] TM: I love. Happiness hacks. [00:01:38] PF: That's right. That's right. Well, you have several. I've got to say, I spent time with your book over the weekend, and I love everything about it. Because you connect decluttering and happiness in a way that I just have not seen done. And it's so concise. And you simplify it. And I guess before we really dive in, can you tell me how you discovered that connection between clutter and mental health? [00:02:05] TM: Well, I kind of came to being a professional declutterer. I've had my company for 15 years. I have nine people who work for me. We are unbelievably busy. I'm so grateful for all of our clients. But over the years of doing this, I just started to see – I live in Los Angeles. I have a lot of very – like, celebrity clients, and wealthy clients, and all stratas. And I just started to see that there was no correlation between stuff and happiness. And actually, what I really saw is that the more stuff people had, the more burden they are. It wasn't storage units full of stuff, or big giant houses, that wasn't equating happiness. And another component is I'm a child of a hoarder. My dad is an extreme hoarder. Diagnosed. And we're dealing with that right now. I've also watched the extreme end of someone really being a prisoner to their stuff, and how it's affected every relationship in his life. Everything about it. For me, just working with people, and then starting to do my own research like you, like, “Well, how can we be a little happier? What can we do?” And sort of realizing that it comes back to the same principles. Get some exercise. You don't have to run a marathon. Just take a walk around the neighborhood. Move around. Just move your body. Be of service. Help somebody outside of yourself. Connect with your friends. And have a gratitude practice. And know where in that stuff is buy more things. Nowhere in that as shopping will make you happier. [00:03:48] PF: That's such a great point, because how big of a problem is clutter in our world? I mean, when you said you have 15 people working for you? [00:03:57] TM: Yeah, yeah. [00:03:58] PF: Started answering my question right there. [00:04:00] TM: Yeah. Yeah, we are in a clutter crisis. This country especially is in a clutter crisis. And it's a perfect storm of a lot of things. And one of the things that I talked about in the book, Make Space for Happiness, is that what we don't realize today, 2022, that we are being marketed to 24 hours a day. Back in the old days, when I was a kid, I'm 57, there were three TV channels. You knew the commercials came on at 18 minutes. And you kind of knew the drill. And now, we are – commercials marketing to 24/7. And it's also never been easier to shop. You don't even have to put pants on now to go shopping. We're just buying, buying, buying at this breathtaking, breathtaking speed, and we're not any happier. [00:04:56] PF: Yeah. One thing, as I was reading your book, it made me think about how – as a kid, you and I are about the same age. And as a kid growing up, you get the newspaper. And if there was like a sale going on, that was a big deal. Like, Sears has having a sale on something. And now it's like you get the paper every – Okay, what's on sale at Target this week? What's on sale here? There's just a constant barrage of print as well that's hitting you. [00:05:21] TM: Yeah. And we have a thing around our house. I was at the grocery store the other day, and it was like, literally, almost everything was on sale. Buy three, get – And I was like, “Wow! If everything's on sale, nothing's on sale.” That it's sort of this. And also, speaking to you went school clothes shopping. I wasn't getting a new outfit every weekend. You went school clothes shopping. And you got some stuff for holidays and your birthday. But this constant I need, I need, I need, I need something new, it's really flipped our priorities. And so, for me that was taking the jump of working with so many clients. Dealing with my dad. Just going like, “This isn't fixing things. This isn't fixing things.” And look, I say this, I'm not saying that you're never going to shop again. I'm not saying there are some amazing people have done in podcast about not spent money for a year. And I think those are fantastic. I'm not saying that. I'm saying I want us to have an awareness. What are we bringing into our homes? Are we being mindful about it? Are we just shopping and shopping and shopping and shopping? And thinking that it's going to give us happiness? There's a little bit of science – there's a lot of bit of science, around shopping. And what happens, especially if you online shop, is you get a hit of dopamine when you put the thing in your cart and you hit by now. You get a hit of dopamine when the package shows up on your doorstep. You get a hit of dopamine when you open it. You've kind of had these little events where you're like, “Oh, I'm a little happier. I'm a little happier. I'm a little happier.” But it's not sustainable. It doesn't stick around. So, then you're like, “Oh, well, I got to buy more to get that feeling back.” Not unlike that first cookie made me feel good. Maybe the fifth one will make me feel better. You know? And so, it's understanding the shopping, the acquisition cycle, and really seeing what it does to go like, “Oh, right. I'm actually not getting any happiness from that.” And getting a good feeling for a few minutes. One of the things that I want people to realize about clutter, especially about bringing it into your house, is that there are forces working against us. It's not necessarily that you're weak, or that we're lazy, or we're bad housekeepers. It's that we're being told to buy all the time. All the time. And I think when people kind of realize that, they can sort of see their part in it and also not beat themselves up so much. [00:08:05] PF: Mm-hmm. Well, it happens once they look around and they say, “Well, I have all this stuff.” Do they then want to stop? Or do they keep going? Typically, when you're working with people, what happens? [00:08:16] TM: I define clutter as the stuff that gets in the way of what you really want to do. If you want to, every morning, cook yourself a really healthy breakfast so you can start your day off right, but your kitchen counter is covered with appliances that you don't use, and mail, and all this stuff, and it's not set up to cook, then that becomes clutter. If your closet is so stuffed with clothes that getting dressed in the morning literally brings you to tears. I cannot tell you how many people are like, “I cry in the morning.” I'm like, “That's not a good way to start your day.” [00:08:49] PF: No, it's not. [00:08:50] TM: That's when your stuff becomes clutter. It's realizing when it's crossed over, when it's become clutter, and how that clutter is affecting you. Your home should be the place of respite. It should be the place of refilling your well. That you come home, and you sleep, and you nourish yourself, and you connect with your family, or your partner. Or if you're by yourself, you take some downtime. But if you're moving your stuff back and forth laterally to make room for yourself, that is adding stress to you. It's understanding the effect that the clutter has on you. And in this book, it's really about understanding why you're bringing the clutter in. What do you think that's missing? What's the hole inside of yourself that you're trying to magnetize something to fill it? [00:09:38] PF: And one thing in your book, and you identify seven clutter blocks that keep us from getting rid of things that we don't need, we don't want, we don't use. I loved the way that you break those down. Can you talk about those a little bit? [00:09:53] TM: Absolutely. The clutter blocks are the emotional stories we tell ourselves about why we can't let go stuff that we don't want need or use. It's a complicated story. And the funny thing is we all tell ourselves the same story. This ranges from everything from clutter block number one, which is my stuff keeps me stuck in the past. This is maybe you have grown kids, and you still have their rooms exactly the way they were. This may be clothes that you don't fit into anymore. And let's acknowledge, let's acknowledge that there is gravity, and your body is going to change over time. It's going to change over time. Things that you wore 20 years ago, you may not be able to wear anymore. And I see so many people hanging on to that stuff, especially those clothes, “Well, I used to be that size.” And I remember – what that stuff does is tells you that your best days are behind you. [00:10:52] PF: Oh my. Wow! What a powerful way to look at it. [00:10:57] TM: Yeah, that you're not moving forward. Another clutter block is clutter block number three, the stuff I'm avoiding, which is, full disclosure, that is my clutter block. That is I hate to open mail. I hate emails. Everything about being a grown up is really stressful for me. And so, I avoid it. But it doesn't get better. That letter from the IRS, ignoring it is not going to make it better. [00:11:26] PF: I got to confess, that's my thing, too. [00:11:29] TM: Yeah, it's funny. Oftentimes, very productive, successful people fall into this, because they kind of are doing so much other stuff that they don't deal with being a grown up. We got to be a grown up. Another great clutter block, this is one of my favorites, and this came up so much during the pandemic, I'm not worth my good stuff. This is my people who have beautiful things, but don't use them. They don't burn the fancy candle. They don't wear the nice sweater. They're saving for a special occasion. It's always this time down in the future. And what I like to say is use the nice stuff. You're worth it. Even if you're just heating a piece of pizza, put it on the piece of China. Burn the nice candle. Why have all these beautiful things if you don't use them? What are you saving them for? Big part of my company, dClutterfly, our business is that we help families after someone has passed away. We'll help empty out the house. And I cannot tell you how many times I've been in homes where, literally, their wedding presents from 40 years ago that were never opened, that were never used. That they're sort of waiting for that special occasion. And then life comes and goes and they never used it. I'm like use it today. Today is the special day. Today is the special day. Another great one, and I really see this. This is clutter block number six. And I really see this with people, especially women kind of between 40 and 60. We're really starting to kind of get the impact of being the sandwich generation. Still have kids. And your parents are aging. And clutter box number six is trapped with other people's stuff. And this is really about inheriting. Someone has passed away. Someone has gifted you things that you're sort of got all this stuff from someone else and you feel guilty letting go of it. But you have no use for it. I work with people all the time who have rented a storage unit to pay to store the furniture that they don't want from their parents or grandparents, but they can't imagine getting rid of it. They're really trapped in this cycle of holding on to things that they don't – will never use, but can't let go of them. [00:13:53] PF: In that case, you're really dealing with a lot of guilt, aren't you? [00:13:58] TM: Yeah, so much guilt. So much guilt. And what I really say, this one, is start to have the conversations now. Everyone is so nervous, or they think it's morbid, or it's too emotional to talk about what happens when someone passes. But I am very big on getting your house in order, getting your stuff in order. Telling people what really is valuable. Not what's imagined valuable. Who you want to have stuff? I have a lot of my – I call them my little old lady clients. They're sort of 85 and above. And they're at their last chapter. And they're enjoying it. And they have started – I see more and more. They're starting to give their jewelry away now before they pass with the idea being – And one of my first clients said it to me. She was like, “I'm never going to wear this ring again. I can't get it on my fingers. But I want to see my granddaughter wear it.” I don't want to wait until I'm gone. I'm going to go to lunch with her and see it on her finger and know that she's enjoying it. And so, I think that we, when this generation starts to do that, accept it. Understand. Don't shy away from it. Really know, “Oh, they're celebrating. And this is something that we can share together.” [00:15:16] PF: I love that. And you don't have to wait until you're 85 to do that, right? [00:15:19] TM: Nope. No, no, no. My niece just went up to visit my mom. And she's like, “Nana was giving me all this stuff. What does that mean?” And I was like, “Because Nana doesn't need it anymore. Nana's retired. Take the cute clothes. She wants to enjoy it with you.” I think that if you're out there, and you're listening, and you're trapped with other people's stuff, remember this. You don't really want this stuff. You want the connection to the person who's passed. And so, we think by keeping all the stuff, we're going to keep the connection. And what I say is, if you're keeping more stuff than you're comfortable with, if you're keeping stuff and it's a financial burden, if your garage is full of stuff, you start to actually lessen the connection because you start to get resentful. And so, what I'm saying is maybe you just keep a small amount so that you can truly be happy. And when you look at it, you remember that person enjoying. Not like, “Ugh! I have a $400 a month storage in it full of my grandma's furniture. You know? That really honor that connection. I think that people are so – they think they have to keep everything. And it really becomes a burden. I mean, it's called trapped with other people's stuff for a reason. That people are really stuck. And I do gently joke with my clients, because they're like, “I don't know how I'm going to get rid of this. My mom would be so mad.” And I was like, “I've been doing this for a long time. No one has ever come back from the great beyond to be mad at you about –” And I feel like if people – Honestly, if people – If you were able to, let's say, have an hour with someone who passed away just by magic, they would want you to be happy. They wouldn't want you to be burden. They wouldn't – I really know this with all my heart, because they’re at the end with so many people. And so, if you're in this, if you're trapped with this, just change your lens on it. Just look at it a little bit of a different way. Would that person really want you to be beholden to their stuff? [00:17:28] PF: Yeah. Yeah, because you tell a really compelling story in the book about the woman had a whole storage unit full of precious moments, figurines, and it was costing money, and it was creating problems in her marriage. [00:17:40] TM: Yeah, exactly, exactly. That she was paying to store these things that were her mother's. And she had a very fraught relationship with her mother. And she was like, “Well, this was so important to her.” But it was really financially a big burden to them. And so, here she was financially putting her and her husband. And they were trying to start a family. They were trying to do all these things. And they have this giant storage bill for stuff that she didn't even want. And so, it's like she had to get real with what she was doing and the choices that she was making. And that those precious memories weren't her precious memories. [00:18:15] PF: Right. And so, how big a shift is it? Because it's not as simple as you sitting down with someone and saying, “Okay, here's what you're going to do.” And then they say, “Oh, that works.” And now everything's fine. How big a shift is it to turn around? Because we didn't get into this spot overnight. [00:18:33] TM: Well, I’ll use my favorite expression. Rome was not cluttered in a day. I think that it's a shift. It's a mindset shift for sure. And I think to start – before you even start decluttering, before you even get into it, the most important thing is to figure out why. Why do you want to make this change? Because the change will never stick if you don't have a compelling why. Do you want to declutter and have less stuff because you want to have friends over for dinner and feel comfortable at that? Do you want to be able to shut the door and go on vacation and not worry about it? Do you want to downsize to a smaller house? What is your why? And notice, in all of those whys that I list, it's never about, “Well, I want to just be a good housekeeper.” It’s not what it's about, right? It's just not there. And it's not about the shame. It's about what's the positive actionable thing that you hope to do by having less stuff? One of my favorite phone calls I ever got from a client, she had a cute little apartment, but the stuff had taken over. She had two bedrooms in it that she couldn't use. She hadn't had friends over in I think she said like 10 years. And so, we decluttered. And she did great. And a couple of weeks after we worked together, she called me and she said, “A friend of mine called me and said, “Hey, I'm just down the street. Do you want to meet for coffee?” And she said in the first time in 10 years, “I could have them come over to my house and have coffee.” And she said, “The joy that that brought me, that I wasn't like rushing to meet them at a coffee shop, or embarrassed about my house.” She said it changed everything. [00:20:25] PF: That’s amazing. [00:20:26] TM: Yeah. That for me is what's your why? Why do you want to go on this journey? And you know, Paula, it can also simply be as simple as like I just want a little empty space. I just want a little corner to breathe. I just want some peace. Right? It can be that. And so, it's definitely click into your why. Go easy on yourself. Start small. Be aware of why you've held on to the clutter. Why you're bringing the clutter in. Just start to make some changes. And don't be a weekend warrior. Don't think you're going to get it done in one weekend. It’s just not. You're just not. I think we got to go a little easier on ourselves. [00:21:14] PF: And then how do we remind ourselves about our goals and our purpose in this journey? Because just like a diet, or an exercise program, you can get gung ho at the beginning, and then get off track. [00:21:27] TM: You know, sometimes it's as simple as writing it out on a piece of paper and sticking at your desk where you see it every day. It's some visual reminder. It's also when you do declutter, like, let's say you do a shelf in your linen closet, or you do the junk drawer in your kitchen, take a moment to see how good that feels. When that the next time you've got to go find a rubber band, you know exactly where they are and they're not old, broken ones. Go like, “Oh, right. That's why I wanted to get decluttered, because it works. This just made my life easier.” If you celebrate those wins, if you celebrate how it feels and the change that came out of it, then the behavioral change starts to stick. [00:22:09] PF: That's terrific. And what about, at the top of the show, we talked about the constant marketing? The emails? The text alerts? All these things? How do we kind of put a bubble around ourselves to minimize or eliminate as many of those as we can? [00:22:27] TM: I think it's understanding, especially around social media. Look, I love social media, I have a big Instagram and TikTok presence. I love connecting with people. I do these five things you can declutter in under five-minute challenges. It's great. But also, having literacy, media literacy and understanding it's still a sales platform. People are still selling to you. Somebody went said to me about television years ago. They said, “Oh, the shows, we're just the filler between the commercials.” You know? And so, I think it's having literacy and understanding, “Oh, right, that influencer is not my friend. I may like them, but they're not.” Even though it looks like it's my girlfriend saying to me, “Oh, try this thing. That's not the case.” And so, understanding the reality of it, right? Understanding the cycle of acquisition. When you order something online, “Bing!” You get a dopamine hit when you buy it. The next day, “Bing!” When it shows up on your doorstep, you get a dopamine hit, “Bing!” It’s this. And that dopamine hit doesn't last. So, you're like, “Oh, I got to buy more to get it again.” Just really understanding what – just educating yourself. Like, everything, right? Educating yourself. How can you – when you understand, “Oh, these things can hack my happiness.” One of the most fascinating things, they did a study, and I think at Yale. And they found out, if you write a handwritten thank you note, you raise your serotonin for 30 days. [00:24:14] PF: Oh, my gosh! [00:24:16] TM: One handwritten note, you raise your serotonin for 30 days. That's amazing. Like, amazing, amazing, amazing. [00:24:26] PF: That’s a heck of a payoff for one night. [00:24:27] TM: It’s a heck of a payoff. And if you think about that, happiness hack, that not only are you raising your own serotonin, but you're also doing it for someone who gets the note, right? You're being of service. You're having a gratitude practice. It’s those little things that makes such a big difference. [00:24:48] PF: Yeah. And let's talk, because I know I have to let you go, but I don't want to. Talk about the payoff in this of reducing clutter and what it does for our happiness? Because you spelled it out so beautifully in your book. Can you tell us that? [00:25:03] TM: Absolutely. First of all, on the kind of simplest scientific clutter equals stress. They’ve proven it. They've done millions of studies. Visual clutter, it raises our cortisol levels. And women especially, and especially women who are perimenopause and menopausal, it is – You know, it's a real thing, this cortisol. It's kind of where the tummy comes from. And more clutter raises your stress. The other important piece of information is that every piece of clutter in your house is a decision you have to make. Do I want this? Where does it live? Will I ever use it? Do I spend too much money for it? And all of those constant decisions put you in decision fatigue, which is basically your brain is just tired of making decisions. So, what will default to making bad decisions. If you think about the science of this clutter, it's definitely working against you. This isn't – I really want people to take this in. This isn't about being a perfect housekeeper. This isn't about looking like a page from Pinterest. This is about creating a home that supports you. A home that makes you happy. [00:26:22] PF: And everybody has a different level of what they consider cluttered. And I have a friend who is very proud of being a maximalist. And I'm very much of a minimalist. And for her, it's not stressful. It stresses me out to go to her house, but she's great with it. Different people do have kind of like this different barometer of what they consider clutter, right? [00:26:45] TM: Of course. Yeah. And like in our house, my partner, his kids are older. I don't have kids. We're two people. But if I go into a house where there's a family of five, it's a very different amount of stuff. That's why there's no recipe for, “Oh, you should only have 30 books. And oh, you should only –” No. What works for you. But the caveat to that is, is it really working for you? [00:27:09] PF: Right? [00:27:10] TM: Is it really working for you? If you walk in your closet in the morning to get dressed, and you burst into tears, I'm going to tell you, it's not working for you. And that's another thing on the decluttering journey that I tell people, is just spend a day or two going through your house, living your life, and seeing where the log jam happens. Where are you not cooking a healthy meal because the kitchen is too cluttered? Is your bathroom full of expired makeup? And all that kind of stuff. Where's the log jam? And start there. [00:27:47] PF: That's terrific. Tracy, you have so much we can learn from you. I really am excited to tell our listeners about your book. We're going to tell them how to get your book. How to follow you on social media, because they can get all kinds of tips and great advice that way. And thank you so much for coming on the show. Because like I said, you've just got a lot that we can learn from you. [00:28:07] TM: Thank you. I love it. I love connecting with people. And I really love connecting with people who are on a happiness journey, and realizing that so much of it is in our own hands. And there are things – Look, life is hard. We just got through – I don't know if it'll ever be replicated in my lifetime what we just went through, you know? And so, the things that we can do within our power to bring ourselves and our community a little more happiness, I think we got to be both feet in. I think we got to – how can I make my world a little bit better? [00:28:45] PF: Yeah. And this is such a great way. It's simple. Not necessarily easy, but it can be done. [00:28:52] TM: Exactly. [00:28:55] PF: That was Tracy McCubbin, author of Make Space for Happiness: How to Stop Attracting Clutter and Start Magnetizing the Life You Want. If you'd like to learn more about Tracy, follow her on social media, or download a free chapter from her book, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. And until then, this is Paula Phelps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]