Thank you

... 'cause you made a connection that I didn't even think of.

But you're absolutely right.

Those are the moments where, you know, we say things all the time that we think are positive, like, you know, "I believe my behavior matters," right? Or, "I believe I'm not alone." And we want people to get to those beliefs.

Those are the core beliefs I talk about in the book.

But we need to add the warrants to those, otherwise they sound like just hopefulness in a world in which it seems like things are not going the right way.

In the book, I mentioned speaking at a large public school, and the superintendent got up in front of me and said, "Hey, we got this guy to come in and talk about positive psychology 'cause we could all use a little happiness because our graduates are graduating into the worst world graduates have ever graduated into." And I listened to him, and you could see the w- the room not deflate but get prepared, like hunch up for the challenges that are in front of them.

Talk to us about I'm Not Alone with regard to that hill study.

Yeah

... which simply was about how, um, there was a person that was injured on the side of a, of a path, um, or a road, and all these people that should have helped didn't, and then the person who you never thought would have helped was the one who actually helped, the, the Good Samaritan.

So the pastors learn this, uh, are, are reading about the story.

They're writing up a sermon, and then they have to walk across campus to deliver the sermon, and there's two conditions.

Half of them they told, "You have plenty of time to get over there.

Just walk down this path, and you'll deliver your sermon to the people that are waiting for you there.

We have lots of time." The other group they said, "You are so behind right now.

Mm.

So the sentence that really grabbed me when I was looking over the information about your book is this sentence: "The greatest predictor of your future is the beliefs you hold about the world." So I'd like you to explain that 'cause I think that's a great place to start this conversation.

That's a great place to start.

I, I think we've known for a long time that our beliefs are powerful.

What the research that I've been doing over the past 10 years has been showing is that we've been underestimating how powerful our beliefs are of predicting our future lives.

For example, a study came out earlier this year from Yale, and they tracked- 12,000 seniors over a 12-year period of time from age 65 to age 77 and most people believe that as you get older, as you move towards 77, that there's a decline mentally and physically.

We hold that belief, so we don't, we don't even put that in the belief category.

We put that in the scientific fact category but it turns out that that's actually accurate.

So you can't really change your belief unless you realize it's a belief, and so what are the kinds of beliefs that maybe we don't pay attention to or don't realize that they're beliefs that we could change?

[laughs]

This is Hogwarts from the movie Harry Potter, and that's Harvard.

And when they see this, they say, "Shawn, why do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard? Seriously, what does a Harvard student possibly have to be unhappy about?" Embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science of happiness.

'Cause what that question assumes is that our ex- external world is predictive of our happiness levels, when in reality, if I know everything about your external world, I can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness.

90% of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by your, the way your brain processes the world.

And if we change it, if we change our formula for happiness and success, what we can do is change the way that we can then affect reality.

What we found is that only 25% of job successes are predicted by IQ.

[laughs]

And how did you navigate those feelings? And how can we all learn to do that?

Well, I'm still working on that one.

You're so good at this because you're able to pair a line in the book to C.S. Lewis' Great Deports.

That's incredible that you made that connection.

And with Tolkien as well.

And you write that they had so much respect for one another.

We've heard over and over again that comparison is the thief's joy.

hanging out together.

So I'm curious, you know, what are those true limits? You know, can belief genuinely transform human performance, health, perception, behavior? Or are we perhaps mistaken psychologically mediated placebo effects for something deeper about reality?

So it's a great question.

I think there's two questions embedded within it.

One is, can the beliefs change our performance? And then is there a limit to those beliefs? So let me start with the limit one.

Absolutely.

Reality is the limit to the beliefs.

The problem is that we often don't know what reality actually is because every input that comes into our brain comes in through this lens that's through the lens of these beliefs about the world.

Yeah, and what does the science show in terms of do people change beliefs through evidence or perhaps through emotionally significant experiences?

Could you explain the example of home field advantage and why it's so powerful for showing the effect of beliefs?

Sure.

So like most of your listeners who know about the placebo effect, they know probably about the home field advantage.

It's pretty prevalent in our society that if you play in your home stadium or your home court, you have an increased likelihood of winning regardless of opponent.

In college football, you have a 60% chance of winning in your home stadium.

The same thing happens in soccer.

There's, like, a 30% chance of losing at home, but there is a 50% chance of winning at home with a 20% chance of a draw, but what you see is this massive benefit to playing in your home stadium.

Why is mattering such a powerful fuel for our action?

And it's hard to change our beliefs, right? Like, but wh- why is it so hard to change our beliefs?

Well, so it actually is fascinating about how hard it is to change.

Some beli- so, uh, I, uh, went to the divinity school before getting into this work.

So I studied Christian ethics, I'm Christian, and compared it to Buddhist ethics, 'cause I wanted to see something that was different.

Um, 'cause I was fascinated about how our beliefs about the world shape what happens next.

Um, which is exactly what I do in the research now.

And while I was doing that, when I was studying Buddhism, I learned that traditional Buddhism says that you inch your way towards enlightenment doing consistent, disciplined habits every day of your life, and you just slowly and incrementally move towards enlightenment, but you'll never actually get there, uh, in this life.

Can you, can you unpack that one a bit?

Mm-hmm

... you know, who we are and that connection to meaning in our lives.

And one of the things that I did, um, to try and find my way back out of this is that I started journaling.

So I, I, I have my journal, and the very first entry I wrote was, "I don't remember being happy, and I don't think I'll ever be happy again." And it sounds, it sounds almost melodramatic now, but in the midst of depression, that's what I felt.

I just saw this art exhibit, and it's about this woman who photoshopped herself as a 30-year-old or later on in life into pictures of her when she was little, so sitting on a bench waiting for the bus.

So you've got the 30-year-old sitting next to the six-year-old, and I love that because I, I wish I could go back to that boy who wrote that journal entry and, and to anyone who's experiencing depression.

I wish I could go back and show him a glimpse of the, the, that that was not the end of the story-

So you went to Harvard, and suddenly your world was rocked because you studied, you went into divinity.

I can be happier today.

You can because what's amazing is we go back to it and say, "Well, this is how I was born," or, "This is my childhood," or, "This is what I've gone through." And what we find is that, yes, if you don't fight your genes, if you don't move away from your previous experiences or if you're just defined by your environment, your happiness will be entirely your genes and your environment.

But if-If we choose to do some simple things in our life, if we choose to do some of the things you've talked about before about being grateful, if we create positive habits in our life, what we find is that choice for happiness be- starts becoming easier and easier and easier.

The happiest people in the world, the top 10% of happiest people, are not happy all the time.

I actually don't get to study people that are happy all the time, because that's a disorder, actually.

[laughs] Because-

Yeah

... today.