Laurie R. Santos

[gentle music] Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy, but what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction.

You're listening to The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.

[upbeat music] I'm chatting with Eric Zimmer about his new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life.

But the ideas behind Eric's book stretch back decades, back to his own recovery from addiction and to a well-known parable that continues to inspire his award-winning podcast.

The humor that I want to celebrate is the kind where you are just laughing so hard that you're holding your sides and tears are streaming down your face, and it's really hard afterwards to even explain what was funny about that.

But in that moment, you are so locked in, 100% present, and that is, these days, very rare to have that complete 100% presence with another person where they're not, like, half on their phone or half thinking about something else.

That's all next week on The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

UN Women estimates that gender-based violence costs countries about $1.5 trillion per year, but greater financial security and autonomy can help protect women from violence.

From a human perspective, it might seem that happiness should come naturally.

However, according to Dr. Laurie Santos, an expert on happiness and a professor of psychology at Yale University, happiness is a skill many of us have to develop because it's secondary to our basic survival needs.

Let's rewind a little bit there.

An expert on happiness.

Right, we've got to do a list for this party.

Who are we going to invite? Well, Dr.

Laurie Santos.

Oh, not again.

Often over various podcasts, I've had you in my ears loads and loads of times.

Seriously, you and Laurie Santos and Dex.

I have heard that you are

a big behavioral science nerd.

So the first one is happiness.

And I talked to Laurie Santos, who's a happiness expert at Yale, and she sort of walked me through like, well, let's talk about the different concepts that back this up.

And the first one is gratitude.

So there was a study that was done that they surveyed people and they basically said, you know, tell me how much you care about your material things.

Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy, but what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction.

You're listening to The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

I was extremely nervous.

I was told to sit, to wait, and I began to really just tremble.

So I meditate every morning.

And after I meditate on weekdays, I take out my calendar.

I did it this morning, and you were in my practice, Laurie.

[laughs]

This episode is a great one to pair with however you're choosing to move today.

I'm joined by my good friends Dan Harris and Laurie Santos for what feels like a very timely conversation about strategies you can use when you're feeling stuck or when you feel like you might be drifting.

Dan Harris is the author of the bestselling book 10% Happier and host of the excellent 10% Happier podcast, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

He also developed an app, the Ten Percent with Dan Harris meditation app.

Dr. Laurie Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale University and the host of another terrific podcast, The Happiness Lab podcast.

We often talk about how September is the other January and how we can treat this moment as a clean slate.

September is back-to-school time.

I have two guests today, people I happen to love.

You started the field of wellness and wellbeing and happiness research in psychology.

We've had several guests on the show who've talked about things in this field, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laurie Santos, Arthur Brooks, and I'd love to get your take on it.

You, across the studying you do, have studied something called flourishing.

Can you share with us a bit about what flourishing is and what we can do to achieve it?

Among the many ideas he shared, the one that stands out most to me is that we can change our negative self-talk and feel better by providing logical arguments that counter our negative narratives.

To learn more about happiness and well-being, please listen to our special miniseries on the topic, including episodes one seventy-nine through one eighty-two.

You'll hear from guests like Laurie Santos and Arthur Brooks.

This episode was produced by Katherine Reed, Ryan Campos, Alex McCarthy, and me, Matt Abrahams.