Do Not Be Blinded By Happiness

In this interview you will be able to discover more about happiness with Tal Ben-Shahar. Who is an author and lecturer who taught the most popular course at Harvard University on "Positive Psychology," and the university's third most popular course on "The Psychology of Leadership"—with a total of more than 1,400 students.

Transcript

Welcome to the World of Happiness.

Agora,

Albensahara.

How are you here?

Is there a spectacular?

Well,

Thank you very much,

Luis.

And thank you very much for putting this important project together.

We've been talking about happiness for a very long time.

And you know what it takes to understand the science as well as the activation of that science into multiple disciplines.

And I think that the key question for you here is,

What do you mean when you talk about whole being,

Well-being,

I mean whole person well-being and how we can articulate that at school,

At work and in society?

Yes.

So,

You know,

There are many definitions of happiness.

Aristotle defined it and Marty Seligman at dinner defined it.

The definition that I find most useful,

Not necessarily the only one or even the best one,

But the one I found most useful comes from Helen Keller,

Who talks about happiness as wholeness.

In other words,

Looking at the well-being of the whole person.

Now,

What does that actually mean?

So looking at East and West,

Looking at psychology and philosophy,

You essentially can extract five key components or elements of the human being.

These are spiritual,

So we're talking about spiritual well-being,

Physical well-being,

Intellectual well-being,

Relational well-being and finally emotional well-being.

And together these who make up the acronym SPIRE,

Together these constitute whole person well-being or in short whole being.

So I'll just say a few words about each one of these elements.

So first of all,

Spiritual well-being,

The S of the SPIRE.

When we talk about spirituality,

Of course we can talk about religion.

However,

We can also just talk about a sense of meaning and purpose.

One of the dictionary definitions of spirituality is the real sense of significance of something,

When something is important to us,

Which means that if I find my work significant and important,

Then I'm experiencing spirituality.

If my family life is significant,

Important to me,

Then I'm experiencing spirituality in that domain.

In school,

If a student,

Whether a 10-year-old student or a 50-year-old student,

Finds meaning and purpose,

Significance,

Importance in their work,

They are experiencing spirituality.

So the first element of spirituality is meaning and purpose,

Which we can get from religion and we can get from elsewhere.

The second element of spiritual well-being is being present,

Being mindful.

Now,

Henry Miller has a lovely observation.

He writes that we can see the divine if we really focus even on a blade of grass.

And there is a lot of truth to it.

If we are really present to something,

And basically anything,

We can experience it as spiritual.

Because if you think about it,

Or let me put it this way,

There's a lovely quote by Albert Einstein who said,

There are two ways to live our lives.

One is as if nothing is a miracle.

The other is as if everything is a miracle.

And if we really look at something,

Whether it's a blade of grass,

Whether it's the person standing across from us,

Whether it's a dog running around,

If we really look,

Then we realize that everything really is a miracle.

And then we can connect to the spirit in existence.

So these two elements of spiritual well-being,

A sense of meaning and purpose,

And a sense of presence,

A sense of mindfulness.

When we get to physical well-being,

The second element,

The P of the spire,

The first element is realizing that mind and body are connected.

You know,

There's a lot of research in psychology showing how when we think certain thoughts,

Very often these thoughts come true.

If we think we're good at math,

We're likely to be good.

If we think we're poor,

That same thing is going to happen.

If we think we're going to grow and learn and change,

You know what Carol Dweck calls the growth mindset,

Well,

That's going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If we think that our constitution,

That our abilities are fixed,

Well,

That becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In other words,

What we think very often manifests itself in the external world.

Mind and body are connected.

There's some amazing research showing that,

You know,

For example,

If we imagine ourselves lifting weights,

Imagine ourselves lifting weights,

We actually get stronger over time.

Mind connected to body.

The second element of physical well-being is that we need to adhere to our nature to lead a full and fulfilling life.

For example,

Our nature dictates that we need to move rather than be sedentary all the time.

People who move regularly,

And I'm not just talking physical exercise,

Which I will talk about in a minute,

But just regularly moving actually makes us not just happier and also healthier.

More and more doctors are talking about sitting as the new smoking.

So just moving around on a regular basis every 20 or 30 minutes,

In other words,

At the end of this presentation,

Get up and walk.

Just doing this on a regular basis contributes to our physical as well as psychological well-being.

Regular physical exercise,

At least three times a week,

Goes a long way,

Not just making us healthier physically,

But also mentally healthier.

Eating foods that are aligned with our nature,

In other words,

Natural foods rather than processed food,

That's important,

Not just for physical well-being,

Also for psychological well-being.

Getting a good night's sleep.

Again,

This is nature's dictate is important and using all artificial measures to keep us up for a long time,

That's unhealthy.

So that's physical well-being.

Next is intellectual well-being,

The eye of spire.

And here it's less intuitive for most people.

You see,

There are two elements once again with the intellectual well-being.

The first is curiosity,

Learning,

Being open to experience.

One of the wonderful things about your project,

Luis,

About Agora is that it's about learning,

Lifelong learning.

And there's a lot of research showing how healthy that is.

Healthy not just psychologically,

Also physically.

We actually live longer when we learn,

When we become lifelong learners.

Not to mention the fact that we become more successful.

The world is changing so fast just in order to keep up to date with things we constantly have to learn and grow.

So that's one element of intellectual well-being.

The second element of intellectual well-being,

In addition to curiosity and openness and learning,

Is deep learning.

You see,

Today people no longer engage deeply,

Whether it's with text or with art or with nature.

The average amount of time people spend on a webpage is seven seconds.

This doesn't provide for deep learning.

And we don't exercise these neural pathways,

These muscles,

Metaphorically speaking,

That learn to engage to deeply understand something.

And that's unfortunate because if I can take the example of engaging with text,

That doesn't just have an effect on how well we can learn a philosophical theory or engage with an idea.

It also has implications for our relationships.

Because if I don't develop those deep engagement muscles in one context,

I'm unlikely to be able to use it in other contexts.

For instance,

One of the reasons why people find it so difficult to stay together in our modern day with one person,

One romantic relationship over a long period of time,

Is because they don't know what it means.

They don't exercise the muscles of deep knowing,

Deep understanding,

Deep learning,

Being fascinated by one text or by one person.

And just like we hop from text to text to text or from webpage to webpage to webpage,

So we replicate this behavior when it comes to relationships.

Unable to really get to know and engage in a relationship.

So deep learning,

And again,

I'm not just talking about learning of text,

I'm talking about learning when it comes to a work of art or nature or piece of music,

A painting.

This has implications to our well-being,

Both in terms of our enjoyment of that work of art or text,

As well as our ability to enjoy other things such as people in greater depth.

So we have a spiritual,

Physical,

Intellectual,

And now we get to relational well-being.

Number one predictor of happiness,

Quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us.

Unfortunately,

Today we're losing out when it comes to relational well-being.

Why?

Because most relationships today are virtual relationships.

And unfortunately,

1,

000 friends on social media are no substitute for that one BFF,

Best Friend Forever,

Whom we encounter face to face.

Now don't get me wrong,

I love social media.

I mean,

I love technology.

The fact that we're chatting now is thanks to social media.

However,

It's no substitute for that face to face interaction,

Whether it's with family,

With friends,

With colleagues,

With fellow journeyers along the way of learning.

So getting together,

You know,

In Agora people got together physically.

Today we have the luxury that we can get together virtually,

Not as a substitute though,

In addition to.

So real relationships,

That's,

You know,

The happiest nations in the world are the nations where people spend quality time together,

Whether it's with family and or with friends.

The happiest individuals in the world and the healthiest,

By the way,

Are people who spend a lot of time with friends,

With family.

At the same time,

It's not just relationship with others that we need to cultivate,

We also need to cultivate relationship with ourselves.

You know,

The golden rule talks about,

You know,

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

And the golden rule presupposes love of self because it tells us to love others as we love ourselves.

Now,

If we don't love ourselves,

Is that the standard that we apply to others as well?

Not good.

When the Dalai Lama came to visit,

For the first time when he came to visit the West,

He was blown away,

Shocked in fact,

By the fact that so many people in the West do not like themselves,

Have low self-esteem,

Low self-worth,

Evaluate themselves negatively.

And he talked about a word in Tibetan,

The word is Tsewe,

And Tsewe means compassion.

Now,

When we talk about compassion in the West,

What we mostly mean is compassion for other people.

And he said,

No,

In Tibetan Tsewe explicitly means first compassion to self and by extension,

Compassion towards others.

So when we talk about relationships,

It's important to cultivate self-love first as the foundation of love for others.

So this is the R of SPAAR and finally E,

The E of SPAAR,

Emotions.

Here we're talking about both painful emotions as well as pleasurable emotions.

Let me begin with painful emotions.

One of the topics I talk about a lot and write about a lot because I think it's so central to a happy life is the idea of the permission to be human.

And what I mean by that is giving ourselves the permission to experience the full range of human emotions.

You know,

Louise,

In one of my certificate programs,

Which you participated in a few years ago,

I had a student who at the end of the certificate program,

And this is a year-long program,

Put her hand up and she wanted to share something with the rest of the group.

And she said,

You know,

This was towards the end of the year,

She said,

You know,

I'm a therapist.

She was a very successful therapist.

I studied the science of happiness.

But sometimes she said,

I feel like a fraud.

And I said to her,

You know,

How do you mean?

She said,

Well,

You know,

Sometimes even though I'm supposedly an expert in psychology,

In therapy,

In positive psychology,

I sometimes go into these dark places and I feel like a fraud.

And,

You know,

She started to tear up and felt overwhelmed.

Now,

There were 200 people in the room and she was sitting in the front and I said to her,

Do you mind if I ask a question of the rest of the group?

And she said,

Sure.

So the question I asked,

I said,

Please put your hand up if over the last three months you've been to one of those dark places.

And then I asked her to look back.

Everyone put their hand up,

By the way,

Including myself.

And I said to her,

Look around you.

You know,

We all go into these dark places and it's important we need to give ourselves the permission to be human,

To experience the full range of human emotions.

Because when we do,

That's when we're able to overcome these emotions most readily,

Most promptly.

And then she looked back at me and look,

And,

You know,

I had my hand up as well.

I also go into these dark places.

And then I look into her eyes and I suddenly noticed something.

And I say to her,

You don't believe me,

Do you?

You don't believe that I go into these dark places?

And she said,

No,

I don't.

Now,

This was a very important teaching moment for me,

An aha moment,

Because I understood that most people think,

OK,

Well,

I go into these dark places.

But when I become an expert on happiness,

When I master the field of positive psychology,

The science of happiness,

Then I won't go into these places anymore.

It's simply not true.

And the belief that it is true leads to a great deal of unhappiness.

So it's and,

You know,

I often say that the first step in becoming happy is to allow in unhappiness.

First step to happiness is allowing in unhappiness.

When we allow in unhappiness,

First of all,

The painful emotions dissolve,

Are more likely to go away.

And second,

We also open ourselves up to pleasurable emotions.

Golda Meir,

Who was the Israeli prime minister in the 1970s,

Once said,

Those who cannot weep with their whole heart cannot laugh with their whole heart either.

Two sides of the same coin.

We need to allow emotions in so that we can experience the full range of human emotions.

And then we also need to actively seek pleasurable emotions,

Joy and love and excitement and fun by playing,

By expressing gratitude on a regular basis,

By savouring.

There's a lot of research by the likes of Barbara Fredrickson on the importance of pleasurable,

Positive emotions.

And,

You know,

The benefits are beyond the fact that it feels good to feel good.

We also become healthier as well as more successful.

You know,

Happiness is a very good investment.

It's a great investment for schools.

It's a great investment for organizations.

It's a great investment for community and for nations.

It's a great investment all the way back to the individual.

Because when we increase levels of happiness,

Not only are we having a better time,

Why not,

But we also become more productive and more creative.

So for the workplace,

It's a great investment.

Teamwork or relationships in general improve when we increase levels of happiness.

And finally,

Also in schools,

Our grades improve when we increase levels of happiness.

So wherever you look,

In whatever domain you look,

Happiness is a good investment.

Well,

It's so clear that this whole person approach is definitely strategic and is definitely something that we have to look into more detail.

Can we expand a bit more?

How can we apply a model like Aspire into schools?

Is it possible that actually we grow happy kids in a world where we need more and more conscious leadership?

Yes.

So the answer is absolutely yes.

You know,

Janusz Korczak once said,

The great Polish educator,

Said that if you want to change the world for the better,

You need to reform education.

And I think what he was talking about then,

You know,

He didn't have the same words and language,

But essentially what he was talking about was Aspire education.

That looks at the spiritual aspect of a person,

The physical,

Intellectual,

The relational and the emotional.

And unfortunately,

Right now,

Schools,

What they're mostly focusing on is the intellectual component.

And even there,

They're not adhering to human nature,

To what intellectual well-being is all about.

Because,

You know,

What schools mostly focus on today is surface learning.

Yeah,

Just learn for the exam and then spew it out on the exam and then you're educated.

You know,

What relearning is about is deep learning.

It's about exploring,

Being curious about what you learn.

You know,

Going to school and experiencing the excitement or in the words of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,

The adventure of learning.

So that's when you get to intellectual well-being.

And the thing is,

The world is so multifaceted and that it's certainly possible to find things that students are interested in.

Moreover,

Make education relevant.

You know,

It reminds me of work done by Steve Mariotti.

Steve Mariotti is the founder of the National Foundation for Training Entrepreneurs.

And what he does,

He goes to schools and he teaches them about business and what he has found from the beginning,

When he started,

You know,

Decades ago and still today,

He has a large organization that is global.

When students see the relevance of a math class to business,

They become interested.

When they see the relevance of English,

Of writing,

You know,

A business letter,

For example,

For their future,

They become more interested.

We need to connect school intellectual development to life so that it's relevant.

Moreover,

Today,

You know,

Using the internet,

Using technology,

We have access to some of the best lecturers,

Best teachers in the world on every topic from Shakespeare to Mencius,

From classical music to rock music.

So we have access and we need to get students excited about education.

So this is intellectual well-being where I started.

In terms of spiritual well-being,

I alluded to that,

Helping students find a sense of purpose.

William Damon from Stanford University did a lot of work showing how students today lack a sense of purpose in their work.

They don't connect to the importance of what they're doing.

And that's unfortunate.

And they pay a high price,

Again,

Psychologically,

Physically,

As well as in terms of their performance in school.

Teaching mindfulness in school,

You know,

The second part of spiritual well-being.

What could be more important than that?

Having yoga classes,

You know,

To center the kids,

To help them focus better,

To make them happier and healthier.

That should be part of education.

Now,

When it comes to physical well-being,

There's a lot of work,

For example,

By John Raity from Harvard Medical School on the importance of physical exercise in education,

Incorporating it as part of the curriculum.

Schools that introduced regular physical exercise saw,

First of all,

Happiness levels go up,

Health levels go up,

Less fewer chronic diseases in the youngsters.

Violence levels went down.

Bullying went down by over 60% in these schools.

I mean,

How much money are our governments spending on reducing bullying,

On improving relationships in school?

Well,

You have an intervention here that we know works.

And grades improve as well.

Students are able to focus more.

One of the main reasons for the rising levels of attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is that students are less active today than they were in the past.

Because they are,

You know,

Playing video games more of the time.

They're on social media more of the time.

Schools that introduced exercise benefit a great deal.

I talked about intellectual well-being,

The R of SPY relationships.

Again,

School needs to introduce project-based learning,

Team learning.

You know,

The value added in the workplace in the future is relationships.

This is where companies are going to fulfill their potential,

Not when individuals work alone in silos,

Working together,

Interacting,

Networking.

Well,

It needs to start in school for two reasons.

One,

It's more fun doing things together.

Two,

It's more productive,

More creative,

And more helpful for the present as well as for the future work.

And finally,

Emotional well-being.

School needs to teach students about the permission to be human.

You know,

I see,

You know,

We introduced our programs in schools.

And students immediately connect to the permission to be human.

Why?

Because on social media they see everyone happy and laughing and doing great all the time.

And how does that reflect on me when everyone else is doing great,

Except for me?

You know,

Not good.

And they need to understand that painful emotions are a natural part of every life,

Their own included,

So that they can better deal with it.

And why not teach students to cultivate pleasurable emotions as well,

Such as gratitude,

Such as excitement,

Such as savoring and joy?

And doing these things will contribute not just to their happiness,

Also to their present success in school and future success in their profession.

Yeah,

And actually focusing on professions and seeing how the workforce world is going,

Where companies are basically getting ready for new works,

New jobs,

Robotics,

Artificial intelligence,

And really shaping the landscape of what the workforce is going to look in the coming years.

How do you balance skills-based learning with emotional intelligence and this is part of a focus on how we innovate?

You see,

The two go hand in hand.

Just like in school you get better grades if you focus on spire and happiness.

Same in organizations.

What you do is you find there are organizations that introduce emotional intelligence learning,

That introduce happiness in their midst.

They become more productive,

More creative,

They make more profits.

In other words,

Happiness pays.

Now,

In today's world,

The two have to go together.

In the past,

Helping your employees become happier was nice.

It was a good thing,

Moral even thing,

Virtuous thing to do for managers.

But it wasn't an absolute necessity.

Today it's a necessity.

Why?

Because in today's workplace,

It's not enough just to motivate your employees with money.

Just give them the five dollars a day and they'll do whatever you ask them to.

And you pay them six and they'll do more of it.

In today's workforce,

People are looking for much more than that.

You want to keep your top employees,

You have to take care of them.

Because they'll leave you.

You have to start looking at them as volunteers.

Your top employees are volunteers.

They don't need to be there.

They can get a job elsewhere.

They can do as well or better financially elsewhere.

They're looking for something else.

They'll stay in the workplace if you provide for their happiness.

And happiness,

What does that mean?

It means providing them a sense of meaning and purpose at work.

And looking after their physical health as well.

Having them engaged intellectually in what they do.

Having good relationships in the workplace.

That's one of the best ways of increasing retention at work.

Having solid,

Good relationships.

And finally,

Help them enjoy joy and pleasurable emotions in the workplace.

That's how you keep them.

Remember,

They're volunteers.

So investing in happiness in all these ways,

Specifically the SPIRE elements,

Is critical for the future workplace.

It will increase creativity,

Innovation,

Retention,

Productivity.

People will be healthier and they will be more engaged.

In other words,

More present to what they're doing if you increase levels of happiness.

Val,

What do you think that we're still having a big number of skeptics when we talk about happiness?

Why do you think it's happening?

How can we actually do something about it?

Yeah,

You know,

The reason why there are so many skeptics is because historically,

Happiness has been dominated by the self-help or later,

By the New Age movement.

And,

You know,

Self-help,

New Age very often over-promise and under-deliver.

So they promise you the five steps to happiness.

The three things you need to do to experience,

To be a great leader.

Or the one secret of the good life.

Now,

Unfortunately,

You know,

There are no easy solutions.

It's not,

You know,

If you just smile and you'll be happier.

Just believe that you can do anything and then you'll be able to do anything.

Not that simple.

It's more complicated.

And that's why we need a science of happiness.

That's why we need get-togethers like Agora.

That's why we need certificate programs and degree programs in the field of happiness.

So that people can understand the evidence-based approach,

Scientific approach to leading a happier life.

And once people understand there is a science behind it,

Then they're less likely to be skeptical.

Well,

It's always amazing talking to you.

Always inspiring.

Always learning.

So we really appreciate your time.

If there is one final recommendation that you can make to all these people around the world who are connected to make a happier world,

More happiness,

Less misery,

What would it be?

Actually,

If you don't mind two things.

Please.

The first thing that I would say is,

You know,

One of the best ways to increase happiness levels is by helping others.

When we give,

We receive.

So spend time giving.

And giving can be in the form of,

You know,

Physical giving,

But it can be an act of kindness and generosity.

So be kind,

Be generous towards others.

You will make their lives happier as well as your own.

The second thing that I would like to bring up and end with is some very important research in the area of happiness.

You know,

There is research by Moss and others showing that when we wake up in the morning and say to ourselves,

I want to be happy or I want to pursue happiness,

It's an important thing for me.

I value happiness.

We're actually less likely to be happy.

We're actually more likely to experience loneliness and frustration.

Now,

That's a problem because,

You know,

I just spent the past half hour talking about just how important happiness is.

But here is research telling us that,

Hey,

Wait a minute,

If you value it and pursue it,

Then you're less likely to be happy.

What's going on here?

How can you resolve this paradox or this problem?

And the answer is pursuing happiness indirectly.

So if I start pursuing happiness directly and I say I want to be happy,

That's not going to lead to more happiness.

That's actually going to lead to more frustration.

But if I pursue happiness indirectly,

For example,

If I say I want to experience more of a life of purpose,

Pursue purpose,

In other words,

Spiritual well-being,

Or I want to exercise more regularly or eat more healthfully,

Physical well-being,

Or I want to learn more,

Engage in text,

Nature or art in a deeper way,

That's intellectual well-being.

Or if I want to spend more quality time face to face with the people I care about in the world,

You know,

Technology of just being with the person,

That's relational well-being.

And finally,

Expressing gratitude on a regular basis or talking about my feelings,

Giving myself the permission to be human or writing about them,

That's emotional well-being.

So when I pursue happiness indirectly,

That's when I'm potentially fulfilling my potential for happiness.

In other words,

Pursue happiness indirectly.

The metaphor that I would use,

You know,

We have sunlight,

We look at the sunlight directly,

It hurts.

However,

Looking at it indirectly,

Looking at the colors of the rainbow,

Breaking down sunlight into its component,

Into its elements,

Then we can enjoy it.

The same with happiness,

Pursuing it directly actually can hurt.

Pursuing it indirectly,

Breaking down happiness into its spire elements,

That's when we can fulfill our potential for happiness,

For health,

For goodness.

Thank you so much.

That's probably why the conditions to happiness are so relevant as well as trying to find the happiness in us.

So thank you so much.

We pursue happiness indirectly and we learn from the whole SPIRE model and you as an example of what happiness and science can do to the world.

So thank you so much.

Thank you,

Louise,

For all the work that you do.

Reviews

Thank you. Grateful for this talk. Sending good wishes.

Wow thanks sooo much. It makes so much sense everything you guys said. Thanks for sharing it with us ✨🥰

Super duper! Xxx

~ fantastic, compelling talk brimming with rich insights into the vastly under appreciated science of happiness...

Insightful talk. Thank you 🙏

Great Talk! Thank you