← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
The Science of Happiness: Five Simple Strategies for Reducing Anxiety and Increasing Connection | Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reis
01:03:17
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey. How we doing, everybody? For many people, and this is certainly true for me for many years, when we think about how to get happier, we tend to approach it as an individual pursuit. We engage in what is sometimes called self care, exercise, sleep, meditation, et cetera, et cetera. All that stuff is great. But the research suggests that the most reliable source of happiness is actually the quality of your relationships. To be clear, relationships are not easy. One of my perhaps overly glib lines about this is that the human curse is that we need other people in order to be happy, and yet other people can be a titanic pain in the ass. And that brings me to today's guests who have a really empowering approach to this aspect of human happiness, which they describe as how to feel loved. In fact, that is the title of their book, how to Feel Loved. One of the misconceptions that they're hammering away at in this book is that we often think that feeling loved is. Isn't really in our control. It's up to the other person. But my guests flip this on its head and they argue that there are in fact strategies to feel loved. And they're often not the strategies that many of us fall back on. In other words, we're looking for love in all the wrong places. My guests are Sonja Lyubomirsky, Distinguished professor at the University of California, and Harry T. Reese, Dean's professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester. In this conversation, we talk about what it means to feel loved and why many people who are loved don't feel it. We talk about an antidote to loneliness, a broader definition of love beyond romantic love. Why feeling loved may actually be the true key to happiness. We talk about their concept of the relationship seesaw. I'll let them explain that. The power of curiosity, listening and reciprocity. Why dropping your armor is necessary, although difficult. Some practical tools for feeling more loved and some tips on asking better questions. Real quick, before we dive in here, don't forget to check out my new app. It's called 10% with Dan Harris. You can get it if you go to danharris.com there's a free 14 day trial if you want to try it before you buy it, We've got a growing body of amazing guided meditations from extraordinary meditation teachers like Jay Michelson and Jeff Warren and Joseph Goldstein. I could go on. We also do weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions on video. We do them every Tuesday at 4 Eastern you should come check that out. Danharris.com, join the party. Okay, we'll get started with Sonja Lyubomirski and Harry Reiss right after this. I had a meeting at my house the other day with three of my team members, Caroline, Abby, and Ben. And it was a great meeting. And I was thinking as I was in the middle of the meeting, how important it is to hire. Well, I'm on my second company now, and I've just seen over and over again that perhaps the most important variable when you're building a business is the quality of the people you hire. That's why you need ZipRecruiter. When you post your job, ZipRecruiter suggests screening questions to help you hone in on top candidates faster. And today you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com Zip 10% T E N P E R C e n t ZipRecruiter's matching technology immediately finds qualified candidates that check all your boxes. ZipRecruiter recommends screening questions you can easily add to get the highest quality applicants. Want to see who's recently active? ZipRecruiter's filters can show you four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com 10% that's ZipRecruiter.com T E N P E R C E N T Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. The best B2B marketing often gets wasted on the wrong people. I can't tell you how often I'm scrolling and I get served ads for stuff I have no interest in. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over a billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all major ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com happier. That's LinkedIn.com happier. Terms and conditions apply. Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reiss, welcome to the show. And in Sonia's case, welcome back.
- [05:20]
B
Thank you.
- [05:21]
C
Happy to be here.
- [05:22]
A
Happy to have you both here. Okay, Sonia, I'll start with you. Since you're the returning ringer or veteran. The book is how to Feel Loved. In this context. What do you mean by loved?
- [05:33]
B
Hmm. Well, we define love very broadly. It's not just romantic love. It's you can love your colleague, your family member. Sometimes you even have a moment of love with a stranger. And we argue that many people are loved, but they don't always feel loved. And feeling loved is actually maybe the most important thing. It's maybe the really maybe the key to happiness. Harry and I started talking about this years ago. He's a relationship scientist. I'm a happiness scientist. Those two fields don't often talk to one another, and we realize that maybe, yeah. That feeling loved is the key to a happy life.
- [06:10]
A
It's crazy to me that those two fields don't often talk to each other, because that would indicate, at least to me, that happiness researchers view happiness as an individual pursuit as opposed to a team sport.
- [06:22]
B
Yeah, you could say that, I think. But. But certainly happiness scientists talk a lot about the importance of relationships, right? The importance of having social connection. And. And in fact, one way that I kind of came to this topic theme to this book is that I've spent my career doing what are what are called happiness interventions, which are basically clinical trials, but instead of testing a vaccine or medication, we testing a happiness practice, like expressing gratitude or doing acts of kindness. So we do experiments to test these practices. And after 28 years basically of doing this work, it hit me one day that almost all of the interventions that work to make people happier, the reason they work is they make us feel more connected and more loved. Right? So if I write a gratitude letter to my mom, it makes me feel more loved by her. Right. If I do an act of kindness for a colleague, it makes me feel closer to them. So almost all happiness practices are really are about feeling connected and feeling loved. Now, you could argue maybe like meditation or physical exercise could be just solely individual, but it's really fairly rare.
- [07:25]
A
Harry, you want to jump in on any of this?
- [07:27]
C
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with what you said, Dan. You know, the idea that happiness researchers and relationship researchers weren't talking to each other is crazy. They're so interlinked. As Sonja was describing, what makes happiness interventions work is almost always something about being more connected to other people, and yet nobody was making that connection. And by the same token, relationship researchers were all focused on having happy relationships, and they were not talking about how those happy relationships affect the individual's well being. So when Sonia and I realized this, that's where the idea of the book came into being, that we wanted to have that conversation on the page.
- [08:10]
A
You know, I've done 10 years worth of interviews on this show. Hundreds and hundreds of happiness researchers, relationships experts, meditation gurus, celebrities, and often I get people who are in one camp or another. They're on the self care, let's call it that. That could be, you know, your meditation practice, your exercise practice, your gratitude practice, your relationship to your own demons, whatever it is. And then I have lots of people who talk about relationships, how to skillfully communicate, how to set boundaries, how to, you know, diagnose a narcissist in your life. All of that, and this is, comes screaming out of the pages of your book too. The way I've started to think about this over recent years is these two buckets are indivisible. We're doing a lot of damage by keeping them in separate buckets. And they're actually in a mutually reinforcing double helix, like a kind of positive upward spiral. The more you take care of your own nervous system, the more you are available to other people. Relationships are so crucial to our happiness. And therefore when you have positive relationships, you get even happier, then your relationships get even better, and up you go. Does all of the yammering I just did make sense to either or both of you?
- [09:26]
C
Makes total sense to me, Dan, the idea that you build happiness by building relationships and when you build relationships, you build happiness. We know from a lot of different approaches that these upward spirals are what makes life worth living.
- [09:42]
B
And one of my favorite examples is people often say things like, you really need to learn to love yourself before you love others. And that's not true. I mean, it's a kind of a bi, as you said, like a bi directional healing situation. Like, yes, like being compassionate and loving yourself is going to help you have healthy relationships. And yet you learn to love yourself through feeling loved and having healthy relationships as well. So it's really kind of bi directional dynamic. It's really a fascinating process.
- [10:12]
A
Yeah, I mean, one great example of that is what do you do if you're lonely? We're in the middle of a loneliness epidemic globally. What's the advice? One piece of advice is volunteer. So that is, it does a lot of things for you, but one of the things it does is remind you of your own nobility, the fact that you have something to offer. It's a kind of self love, although not an obvious one in our individualistic culture. And so that's an example that you can access the upward spiral from either side.
- [10:39]
B
Yeah, Brooke, we actually. We talk a little bit about loneliness because it's so important. One can argue that feeling lonely is essentially not feeling loved, not feeling like you belong. And, you know, people have tried to sort of do loneliness interventions. They're incredibly hard to do. You can't just kind of throw friends at lonely people because they tend to be suspicious of that. You know, like, why does this person really want to do with me? And so prompting lonely people to do acts of kindness, like you said, to volunteer, is actually, in my mind, maybe like the only kind of successful sort of loneliness intervention that we have.
- [11:14]
C
Yeah. And to take that one step further, you can look at all the loneliness interventions that have been posed. For example, in the Surgeon General's book, He provided quite a number of interventions for loneliness. They all involve simply getting yourself in the presence of other people in a productive and constructive way.
- [11:36]
A
Yep. Well, let's go back to this word, loved. I've been. It's not done yet. I'm toward the final stages, I hope, of finishing this eight year long book project that I myself have been on. So I have a lot of jealousy of the two of you having given birth. My book's about love, and I totally agree with your broad definition of love. We do it a disservice in our culture. I mean, by the way, other languages have many words for love. We've got one word to describe everything from romantic relationships to how we feel about cookies. And that, I think, is doing a real disservice to it. And the fact that you guys are taking this innate capacity, this mammalian capacity we have to give a shit. It's like anything kind of north of neutral for a stranger, momentarily, for somebody you see on the news, for whom you wish compassion, to your spouse, to your kids, to your family. To me, all of that seems like love. Does that jibe with how you're seeing things?
- [12:36]
C
Well, to be fair, we're defining love in a very broad way. As you suggest, it can be almost any kind of caring, affectionate feeling for another person. We don't want it to be a grab bag for any kind of positive sentiment you might have. You know, you might feel admiration for somebody else, you might feel respect for them. You might feel that somebody was fun and exhilarating to be with. We're not talking about that kind of thing. What we're talking about is caring, concern, affection for another person's.
- [13:10]
A
Well, Being, Yes. I think Plato said love is to will the good of the other.
- [13:14]
C
That's a great quote. We should have used that in the book.
- [13:17]
B
Basically wanting the other person to be happy. Feeling like they matter in your life. Feeling like you matter in their life. And again, the focus on our book is really not on loving the other, but on feeling loved, because that's really what we all want. Feeling like you matter to, to the other person and your well being matters to them.
- [13:35]
A
You said before that that's the key to happiness. Is it more to say, Sonya, on that score? Because I don't think if you stop people on the street and say, what's the key to happiness? That most people in our consumerist, capitalistic, competitive, clout seeking, selfie taking culture would say that. But I could be wrong.
- [13:57]
B
Yeah, I think. Well, a lot of people say, think that it's about those external things, you know, we call extrinsic goals. You know, money, fame, beauty, power. As researchers, like, we kind of know that's not true. And it's constantly surprising to us that people still kind of believe that many of us are sort of continue to pursue those things. You know, more success, more accomplishment. Yeah. Popularity, status, power. I see that all the time. And yet, you know, lots of people, kind of the grandmother's wisdom is sort of relationships, connection, love really is critical. You know, on your deathbed, that's kind of what people say that is most important to them. Yeah. So we, we really focused on how to help people feel more loved and that it's sort of not, it's actually not as, not as sort of difficult as we think because it seems like it would be really hard. Like it would be like out of your control. Right. Like, how do, how, how do I get someone else to love me more? Like, maybe I need to make myself more lovable or I need to change myself in some way, or I need to change the other person in some way. In our book, we actually provide a really empowering message. Feeling loved is really in your control because it's not about changing yourself. It's not about changing the other person. It's about changing the conversation. And when you think about a relationship, it's basically a series of conversations. And so our book is really about what takes place during those conversations, how you can make yourself and the other person feel more loved in those conversations. Which seems a lot more like tractable, a lot more feasible. Right. To accomplish.
- [15:29]
A
Yeah. So along those lines, now that you've taken us to the, to the practical aspects of the Book. One of the central metaphors in the book, and maybe, Harry, you can tackle this, is the relationship seesaw. Right.
- [15:45]
C
We came up with the idea of the relationship seesaw because we wanted to capture the back and forth that goes on when people engage in the kind of conversations that let them feel loved. So, you know, the idea of the seesaw is that you can begin the process by lifting the other person up. Now, what do we mean by lifting the other person up? We mean elevating their sense of self, elevating the parts of them that they normally would keep hidden so that they're encouraged to talk about themselves, to really open up, to show curiosity, to listen with a genuine interest in the other person not to listen, and, you know, just waiting for your turn to enter the conversation. And the beauty of this is that when you lift the other person up, just like when you're sitting on a seesaw, that in turn gives them the opportunity to lift you up on your end of the seesaw. So our approach to this idea of feeling loved is very much of a back and forth. You feel loved by helping the other person feel loved, which encourages them to help you feel loved. And so there's a back and forth that builds up. It's a cycle that one of our colleagues calls a broaden and build cycle. You broaden yourself by listening to the other person with curiosity and you build a connection with them.
- [17:04]
B
Another way to think about it is like we're all walking around with walls around us and we don't really show that much. When you realize that, it's sort of. You see it everywhere, everywhere. People are just walking around and they're only showing the tips of their self, the kind of shiny, positive parts. And you can't really feel loved if you have this wall around you because you'll always wonder, if that person really knew me, what's behind that wall, would they love me? And so the key to feeling loved is really lowering those walls and becoming known to the other person. Maybe not 100% known, but known more than before, and to really, truly know the other, to help them lower their walls. And how do you do that? As Harry said, you show genuine curiosity in the other person. You really listen to them, which gives them a sense of safety and trust. And how often does it happen that someone is so excited to hear your story, so excited to know more about your inner life or the details of your day? Right. That doesn't happen very often. You know, most of us are just engaging in small talk, really. And so when that Person, like, shines that light on you, you feel safe to kind of, like, lower that wall a little bit to go up from that seesaw, and then you reciprocate. Because reciprocity is incredibly powerful. Compelling. Right. Harry often says that it's most. Right. You say this most. One of the strongest principles. Right. Of social behavior. And then you shine the light back at them.
- [18:29]
C
Yeah. I believe reciprocity is probably the strongest, most potent norm that we have in social relations. When one person does something good to you, you tend to do a good thing for them. When one person treats you badly, you tend to treat them badly. So the idea is that if you show genuine curiosity in another person, they're going to show genuine curiosity in you.
- [18:53]
B
And the implication of this is, is if you want to feel more loved, what you need to do first is try to make the other person feel more loved. And, I mean, I've thought about this in my relationships when there's been a time when. And most people, by the way, acknowledge there's at least one relationship in their life where they would like to feel more loved by. So if we all kind of consider that, I've thought, like, how do I get this person to love me more? But so it's a little counterintuitive to actually start by myself by listening more to them and showing curiosity in them, to sort of lift them up first. So actually the ball is in my court.
- [19:28]
A
Yeah. So I get that. The ball is in our courts. And it can feel like a bit of a tall order because I'm walking around feeling unloved, whether I'm aware of that or not. And you're saying I need to do two things that are both of them difficult. One is really reach out and engage with somebody that I might have some resentment towards and hear them out. And the second is drop my armor and display a willingness to be known. I can see a lot of these suggestions jabbing at our stinginess, the stinginess that some of us might feel emotionally.
- [20:04]
C
Yeah. Lots of times people feel like, I'll show interest in you, but I want you to show it to me first. And the problem is, of course, how do you get someone else to show interest in you? How do you get someone to be curious about you? You know, you can't just sit there and say, okay, be curious about me. What is in your control? And this is a point we bring up often in the book. What's in your control is the idea that you can show interest in another person. You can start the cycle that is in your control. And so it does take a bit of what you might call altruism to say, I'm going to start this by helping you feel more loved. But that's how the cycle works and that's the most effective way that you can actually make it happen.
- [20:50]
B
And you know, a reporter recently, I was talking about this, said to me, oh well, you know, this is so much work, you know, and my readers are going to rebel and they're going to say, look, I'm already like so overwhelmed and now you're asking me to do all this work and to sort of show curiosity in another person and listen to them when I'm the one who's feeling unloved. And yes, that's exactly right. You know, relationships do take work, but I would argue that it's a beautiful kind of work, right? When you have that connection with someone and you're, you're really interested in what they have to say and they're interested back in you, hopefully. Like that's a beautiful moment, right? So I wouldn't even call it work, although it does take initiative.
- [21:28]
A
Brief illustrative aside, I have an 11 year old son and it's sometimes hard to get him talking. And he and I were having lunch right before this taping and I was asking him a bunch of questions and he was being not communicative and so I just kind of backed off and ate my lunch and let him come to me. And he did, he actually said, what have you been working on today? And I told him I've been mostly just kind of fretting a little bit about this book project that I keep talking about. And he said like, what are you worried about? And I said, well, I've been thinking today about the subtitle. And then it goes off the rails. He's like, you should make the subtitle a your mom joke. It's like, okay, yeah, that was as far as we're going to get in a constructive conversation. But it is a good example of like, I did express some curiosity in him. It didn't quite work because he's, you know, you know, 11 year old boy and they're unpredictable. But then I kind of backed off. I, I had made my bid, I didn't press it too hard. And then he, he came to me.
- [22:24]
C
Well, if it's any consolation to you, Dan, I spent the past week with my daughter who's 30 and same, same dynamic exactly the way you described.
- [22:33]
B
It is amazing how rare that kids say to the parent, you know, what are you thinking about, you know, what's going on in your life lately. But it's. Yeah, it's so compelling, right. It's so powerful when someone shows an interest in us, you know, and, and it's so hard, I would say, to do the opposite, to show genuine curiosity. You can't fake it, right? You really have to find something. You know, I have four kids and sometimes they're talking about something I'm really interested in, like video games or something. And I just really honestly have no interest in the details of the video game. But you know, our job really, if we want to feel more loved by them, is to try to find something that we can share. You know, we fortunately have found like TV shows that we watch together. And one of my 14 year old and I are obsessed with Mad Men right now. And so we watch an episode every night and we read the recaps and we discuss it. So we found something, right, that we can share. But you can't fake that genuine curiosity in the other person's inner life.
- [23:28]
A
Yes. Coming up, Sonya and Harry talk about some practical tools for feeling like loved tips on asking better questions and why. Genuine curiosity, reciprocity and emotional pacing Deepen connection more than performative listening. You know my views on sleep. It's incredibly important. And as a lifelong insomniac, I am always interested when there's a way to improve my sleep. A company called Leesa L E E S A sent me this mattress cover, this foam upgrade to my existing mattress which I very easily and quickly strapped right on top of the mattress on which I sleep. And it has made my bed much more comfortable, which has helped my sleep, which is a major service that Lisa has provided to me and can provide to you. Lisa makes all kinds of mattresses from the mattress cover that I received to actual mattresses themselves. They've got a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep. Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. From night one, you'll feel the difference. Premium materials that deliver serious comfort and full body support, no matter how you sleep. Leesa mattresses are meticulously designed and assembled right here in the USA for exceptional quality. Plus they back it all up with free shipping, easy returns and a 120 night sleep trial. I also want to say Leesa is not just about sleep, it's about impact. They donate thousands of mattresses each year to those in need, while also partnering with organizations like Clean Hub to help remove harmful plastic waste from our oceans. Go to leesa.com for 30% off mattresses plus get an extra $50 off with promo code happier exclusive for my listeners. That's L EE E S a.com promo code happier for 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout Lisa.com promo code HAPPIER. You don't need a personal trainer to hit your 2026 goals. All you need for a personalized workout is is fitbod. Fitbod creates a personalized workout routine based on your goals, your fitness level, and your available equipment. The workouts adapt to your growth, so each workout is challenging enough to push you to make progress. Fitbod tracks your muscle recovery so you can avoid burnout and keep up your momentum. It's fine tuned by experienced, certified personal trainers to bring best practices and exercise science directly to you, achieve your New Year's resolutions, and learn new movements the right way with over a thousand demonstration videos. As you know, I am a huge fan of exercising. I'm a daily exerciser unless something has gone badly wrong with my schedule and I have checked out fitbod. It looks great. I love the fact that they've got all of these videos and you can tailor it to whatever equipment you have around you, either in your home or if you're traveling. It's a great product. Level up your workout in the new year. Join Fitbod today to get your personalized workout plan. Get 25% off your subscription or try the app free for seven days at Fitbod. Me 10%. That's f I t b o d me t e n P E R C E N T. Okay, so let's talk about some more practical tools here. You've got these five mindsets that you recommend in terms of helping us to operate the seesaw. The first is the sharing mindset. Sonia, you want to take that one?
- [27:18]
B
Sure, sure, sure. So we were talking about how important it is to show more of yourself, sort of a deeper, fuller version of yourself to the other person. Because you can't really feel loved if the other person doesn't know you. If you always wonder if if they knew me that they wouldn't love me. And that's a really hard one for a lot of people. A lot of people hold things close to the vest. They have these walls, and we have these walls to protect ourselves, and that's important. They sort of function, but when they're too high, we can't really connect with another person if we don't lower our walls a little. Now how do you do that? Pacing is really important. You don't just reveal your deepest secret and trauma right away to the other person. You have to really read the room. I often say I wish high schools and colleges had courses on emotional intelligence or social skills. Right. Because that's something that's really hard to teach. Like, at what moment do you reveal that one particular thing about yourself to that person? You really have to kind of read that person and do it at the right time. So I would start small. If someone asks you, how are you? Instead of saying, I'm fine, maybe you say, oh, I had a rough day today, or, Dan, as you said, I. I've been fretting about something today, right? So that's just like really starting small. And then if you get a good response, you can go a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper, see how they react, allow them to ask questions and to respond to you.
- [28:39]
A
You've kind of answered this. But I just want to put a fine point on it. I've had Brene Brown on the show many times. I love her, and she talks a lot about vulnerability or disarmament, you know, bringing down the walls that we think protect us but actually make us miserable, kind of lock us in. And yet the question is always like, how do you do it without, as you say, trauma dumping or bleeding all over the place?
- [29:01]
B
Right. Starting small, you kind of kind of know that. You know, it's really magical when it happens, you know, I had a zoom actually once where I was pitching, giving a talk. You know, I had a talk to give, and it was just like professional zoom. And we were kind of talking, but I was talking about this book, actually, because it was about a year ago we were writing this book and. But the importance of sort of sharing. And the guy who I was pitching to, who's sort of the organizer of this conference, said, yeah, I just had a baby. And it's really been hard on our relationship, you know, since we had a baby, which, by the way, is very common. And just the way he said it, it was like it just kind of broke the fourth wall. And I think we've all had this experience where we're kind of engaging this sort of small talk or middle talk or kind of very, like, professional. And suddenly someone says something that's just a little bit like, pierces the surface, right? And then it's like a magical moment where you suddenly forge a connection, right? Because most of the time we're trying to impress the other person. It's like, Dan, we're talking to you now. We want you to know that we're smart and funny and kind and interesting. Right? Like we're trying to impress you. And maybe you'll be impressed, but it doesn't forge a connection if we only stay on that level. What really forges a connection is that if we share something a little bit about ourselves, you share something about yourself. You sort of, we puncture that kind of small talk.
- [30:15]
A
The second of the five mindsets, and Harry, I'll throw this to you is the listening to learn mindset. What's that about?
- [30:24]
C
Well, the listening to learn mindset says that one of the ways to approach conversations is to listen to the other person as if there was going to be a quiz tomorrow. Most people listen to prepare their response. That is most people listen waiting for their turn to enter the conversation and oh, here's what I'm going to say next. Listening to learn means that you have a genuine curiosity about the other person that you really want to know not only what they're telling you, but you want to know more about it. So one of the most powerful things you can say to a person in a conversation is tell me more. It's really easy and sometimes people will be astounded that you ask that and they'll really go into opening up in a much more vulnerable and deeper way. So the idea of listening to learn is that when we listen to another person, we're listening to connect, we're listening to find out what that person is really all about, what makes them tick. And we want to find out as much as possible. And so we approach the conversation with that kind of a mindset. Not the mindset of, you know, I'll wait till they finish talking, smile nicely and then tell them about myself.
- [31:40]
A
Aside from tell me more, you recommend something called level three questions. What's that?
- [31:47]
B
I think asking questions is really important because when you think about people, when people think of listening, they think of like you're just sort of, you know, like making like you're kind of staring at the other person and you're doing the non verbals and you're, you know, you look like you're really engaged. I actually don't love that when people do that to me because I'm like, are they really listening or are they just sort of being performative listening? Right. And so, but asking when you ask questions, that's when you can really tell the person is really listening. And so one of my favorite examples is actually my best friend lives in Barcelona. And so we leave each Other voice memos all the time because of the time difference. And so I will tell a story about my life or something I'm thinking about, and then she will ask questions. And the level three questions, the level one is kind of like, oh, what happened? You know, level three is when you're asking a question that shows that you really understand, and then you're kind of taking what they said to a new level. So my friend will make an observation or ask me a question that gives me a new insight, you know, that I've never had before. That's not easy to always do, but it's sort of. That's what really shows me that she's listening. Right. It's not the kind of looking like you're listening, you know, like making eye contact. It's the showing that she's really, like, going to, like, a deeper level than maybe even I considered. So that's beautiful when that happens.
- [33:01]
A
Agreed.
- [33:02]
C
Yeah. Let me just add one thought to that. You know, listening is an idea that gets a lot of attention in the media today. And in some ways, that attention is exactly the wrong kind of attention, because what many of those programs do, they talk about, smile six times, lean forward, paraphrase what the other person says. They give you a bunch of tools that you can artificially apply in a conversation that don't necessarily allow you to really figure out, what is this person telling me? How can I help them go deeper with it? How can I elaborate on it? And that requires attending to them and really tuning what you do and say to, you know, where they're going and what they're saying. If they're telling you about something happy, then, you know, you can try to share that excitement and talk about what a wonderful thing it is. And if they're talking about something sad, you can try to help them more deeply understand what they're feeling.
- [34:00]
A
These are great tools. Okay, so let's get to the next mindset. I'll leave it to the two of you who tackles it. It's called the radical curiosity mindset.
- [34:09]
B
Well, I'll start because I. Well, you thought a lot about kind of distinguishing listening from curiosity. And so my favorite example is, imagine you're sitting in a lecture like you're a student. You know, you're sitting in a lecture, and you're listening really well to the lecture, and you're taking great notes, and. And you're even asking these Level 3 questions about the lecture. And then there's a test on the lecture, and you get an A plus on the test. So you're great at listening. But you know what? You could be completely not curious at all about the topic of the lecture and still get an A. And so curiosity is really something that's beyond that. It's an enthusiasm, I think, Harry, you're the one who sort of talks about the importance of sort of enthusiasm and excitement and energy that comes with curiosity. It's. When you're not just sort of listening is really more of a process and curiosity. It's more of an enthusiasm. It's something, as we said, you can't fake that. You want to know more and you know it when you see it. Right. And it's not that common. What was the last time you were like at a dinner party or a reception or, you know, some. Something with people and someone was so excited to hear your story? Right. They're like leaning in and their eyes are bright and they're smiling and they just can't wait for you to finish your story. Right. That doesn't actually happen that often and it's rare and it's so powerful and compelling.
- [35:30]
C
Indeed.
- [35:31]
A
How do you operationalize that advice if you can't fake it, if it's not a skill you can develop?
- [35:36]
C
Well, it is a skill you can develop because enthusiasm involves being genuinely curious about what the other person tells you. Sonia's example of listening to a lecture is a good idea. You know, you can memorize everything that you're told and get an A plus on the exam, but do you really care about it? But if you take a class where you really care about what the topic is and you really want to learn, that wanting to learn comes across and it allows you to incorporate the information so much better and you're not going to forget it the day the exam is over. When people do this in conversations, when you show enthusiasm, and it's a remarkably powerful experience. One of the places we see this most clearly is in teaching. Teachers who are enthusiastic about the process of teaching and about the subject matter that they're teaching are the ones who communicate that to their students. And there are dozens of studies that support that idea.
- [36:35]
B
But it's true. It is hard to teach curiosity, but I think we all can find something of interest in something. Maybe not always right. There's been times where I've been. I've actually tried to do this in my life where I used to go to. To these kids birthday parties where you kind of. You have to talk to these other parents that you have no interest in talking to. Right. And I'm trying to Find something. You know, I'm talking to some dad and I'm saying, well, tell me about a recent trip you took. Oh, you went to Greece? Well, I've never been to Greece. You know, tell me the most interesting thing about that. And so you can find something of interest in most topics, you know, but it does take sort of effort and energy. Like, we've done studies, actually, one of my students did a study where she asked people sort of every day engage in at least like, one curious behavior. And people didn't have any trouble doing that. I mean, that was very broad. So they said things like, oh, I learned about this new sort of type of dance. And so I was interested in it. So I decided to go online and learn about this dance or like a friend, you know, cook something new. And so I decided to sort of learn. And I was curious about this recipe. And so everyone. People didn't seem to have trouble finding something to be curious about every day. Or we're also doing a study with conversations where we're going to ask people to, like in a conversation with a friend or a partner, to ask them some questions about something that you're curious about. And I think we all can do that to find something of interest to talk about.
- [37:56]
A
You know, one aspect of this I do think is trainable, the enthusiasm part, the genuinely being happy for somebody else. There's a ancient 2,600-year-old Buddhist technique. It's called mudita practice M U D I T A and it's sometimes translated as sympathetic joy or just. I think of it as the opposite of schadenfreude, taking happiness in other people's happiness. And there are these meditation practices where you envision people happy and you send phrases like may actually your happiness increase. And this can make you the type of person that other people want to call when they have good news.
- [38:39]
B
Exactly. Yeah. Like charismatic people. Right. Or another type of people who are. Who show enthusiasm about whatever you have to say. Compersion, I think, is another word in English for that, for mujita. Right. That's that being happy for someone else's happiness.
- [38:52]
C
Okay. Yeah. There's an adage that appears in many different forms that says a happiness shared as a happiness doubled. And we've done a lot of research on that, actually. That shows when you relate good news to another person and they show that kind of enthusiasm about your happiness, your happiness grows and their happiness grows. So when you can share good news, if the other person can really, I mean, saying that, oh, that's nice. Good for you, that doesn't get anything but, wow, that's the best thing I ever heard, you know, or that's the best thing that's happened this week that produces this kind of building up for both people.
- [39:32]
B
You can actually fake enthusiasm at the beginning and then it becomes real. It's kind of like laughter when you start laughing and you force yourself to laugh and then you actually keep laughing for real. So actually we haven't really, we didn't talk about this in the book, but I actually think there's something to that where you sort of can kind of look and seem enthusiastic and actually that will turn into real enthusiasm. And the other thing I want to mention is that there are cultures and I'm from Russia myself. You know, I was born in the Soviet Union where there's sort of a notion of the evil eye. And I think there's some cultures where it's hard. This idea of the happiness shared is a happiness, you know, doubled. I think it's a little bit hard to experience or it's not as common. Right. Because showing happiness to others sometimes is perceived as having sort of detrimental effects or could bring bad luck to you. So that's kind of a very interesting little side note.
- [40:22]
A
Coming up, Sonja and Harry talk about the final two mindsets, plus their beef with the whole concept of the five love languages. I have to admit, one growing source of tension around the house right now is that there's a little competition brewing among my wife, my son and myself over everybody's favorite socks. Bombas socks. Bombas is a sponsor of this show and they sent me some socks recently. The problem is everybody loves these socks and now we're fighting over them. If you've got comfort on your 2026 resolutions list, I highly recommend Bombas. The all new Bombas sport socks are engineered with sports specific comfort for running, golf, hiking, skiing, snowboarding and all sport. I like to exercise every day. Bombas are perfect for that. However, they're also perfect for just wearing with my Nike low tops and looking good. And they've got more than just socks. They've got luxurious Sherpa Sunday slippers that feel like walking on clouds. They've got the new squishy Saturday suede slip on shoe for comfort on the go. They've got underwear and T shirts. They got a lot going on. And for every item you purchase, an essential clothing item is donated to somebody facing housing insecurity. One purchased, one donated. With over 150 million donations and counting, head on over to bombas.com happier and use the code happier for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B A S dot com happier and then use the code Happier at checkout Foreign. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sometimes it can feel like everybody else has it all together in their love lives, whether married, dating or single. The truth is, many of us are still figuring it out and finding our way. And no matter where you are in your romance journey, therapy can help you find your way. Help you determine what you want, what feels heavy, and how you can take some of the pressure off yourself. This issue of our romantic lives, or lack thereof, can be particularly a fraught in February, which is full of flowers and candy and stuffed animals and lots of talk about relationships and dating. And therapy can be a great way to work out your issues, whatever they are. I have found that individual therapy and couples counseling can be extremely helpful for me personally. Better Help has quality therapists who work according to to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. They give you a short questionnaire to help identify your needs and preferences and then their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. And if you're not happy with your match, you could switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com happier that's betterhelp.com happier. Okay, so fourth mindset of five and again, just to reset for the listener, these are mindsets that can help you operate the relationship seesaw. That is kind of one of the controlling metaphors for this book that Harry and Sonia have written. The fourth mindset is the open hearted mindset. I'll make that a jump ball. Whichever one of you wants to take it, you can take it.
- [43:53]
B
Well, I'll take it. But to say basically one way to think about the open heart mindset is Open heart mindset is basically feeling kindness and warmth and bonding towards another person, wishing them well, wanting their dreams to come true. And one way to think about that mindset is I think most relationships that are kind of stable and sort of reasonably healthy are characterized by the open heart mindset. In fact, it's almost like a definition of a relationship. Like if you don't have warmth and kindness towards someone, what's the point? Right? Like you're not going to probably be in a relationship with them. You know, with some exceptions, you Know, with maybe a family member, you don't have a choice to be around. And so I think open heart in some ways. Yeah, it's the most common. It characterizes a lot of relationships, but when you lack it, you have very little. There's really huge costs.
- [44:39]
A
Right.
- [44:39]
B
When you're not showing warmth and, and kindness towards the other person, it's really unhealthy. Would you agree with that, Harry?
- [44:45]
C
Totally agree. And there's a lot of research that shows, and some of the best studies are Sonia studies that shows that when you do something kind for another person, you benefit. You know, perhaps the other person benefits if what you do is effective enough, but you benefit from the act of doing it. There are studies that even show that this produces an increase in dopamine in the brain by doing something kind. If you can do one kind thing every day, that's just a small and easy way to increase your happiness.
- [45:20]
B
And, you know, like we have studies that compare doing acts of kindness for others to doing acts of kindness for yourself. Right. So Dan, you mentioned self care before. And so self care is wonderful. You know, I'm a big fan. And yet it might make you feel good in the moment, but doesn't necessarily translate to how happy you are a week later or a month later. And so we find that doing acts of kindness for others is more happiness inducing than doing acts of kindness for yourself. But more than that, we've done studies of maybe two or three studies now where we collect blood from participants before and after they do acts of kindness for others or for themselves. And we find that only in the group that does acts of kindness for others do we see changes in RNA gene expression. So we're talking about immune gene expression. We see reduced pro inflammatory gene expression, so more inflammation is bad. Right. So you want to have less pro inflammatory gene expression. So that's associated with a stronger immune profile. So not only does doing act of kinds for others make people happy or more connected, but also there's a suggestion that it makes you healthier, that boosts your immune health. Pretty cool.
- [46:28]
A
Very. This is why the Dalai Lama calls it wise selfishness. You know, if you want to be selfish, you should do it the right way, because kindness is what actually will make you happier. Okay, final mindset, the multiplicity mindset.
- [46:44]
C
I'll take that one. The multiplicity mindset is the idea that we all have parts of ourselves that are desirable and admirable, and we all have parts of ourselves that are less desirable and perhaps even repulsive on some level. Acknowledging that it's okay to have weaknesses, it's okay to have shortcomings is a major part of being able to feel loved with another person. Now, this cuts both ways. In terms of your connection with another person, you have to acknowledge and recognize that they have parts of themselves that are not really that good. You know, they. They may have shoplifted when they were younger. They may have done something even worse than that. That doesn't make them a bad person. It means that they have a part of themselves that is something that they're not particularly proud of. The interesting part of the multiplicity mindset is that it also gives you permission to have weaknesses and shortcomings. So one of the reasons that we hide our vulnerabilities is that we're afraid that you're going to think that I really am an undesirable person. But if I understand the idea of multiplicity, then I realize that I can have weaknesses, and letting you know about them isn't necessarily going to turn you off to me. So, you know, Walt Whitman expressed this idea in his poem, you know, I contain multitudes. We all contain things that we're proud of, and we all contain things that we're less than proud of. And acknowledging that a full person has all of these is one important way of allowing yourself to feel loved and allowing you to feel love toward another person.
- [48:38]
B
And I want to add that this is a really hard one to embrace, because I think at heart, we're all kind of judgmental about other people, and we're judgmental about ourselves. One of my pet peeves is, have you noticed that everyone's ex is a narcissist? Like, everyone's ex is a narcissist. And you know what? We're all narcissists. We're all narcissists. It's a continuum. I'm a little bit narcissistic, and so are both of you. And sometimes I'm kind, and sometimes I'm selfish, and sometimes I'm loyal, and sometimes I'm not, right? So we all have those qualities now. We don't want to, again, dump those on others right away. So timing matters. But I think it's just something that's just really important to keep in mind to embrace and try to be. One of my, actually, New Year's resolutions is to try to be less judgmental when you hear someone doing something bad. A new kind of approach that I'm taking is if I hear about a bad behavior, a friend will say, oh, can you believe this guy did this Right. And at first I'm like, oh, my God, yes, I can't believe it. That's so awful. But my second reaction after I've kind of calmed down is I see the little boy inside that man who did that bad thing. And that little boy is maybe threatened or insecure or whatever. Right. And so you could always find a charitable or some explanation, set it in context of that. That really helps us all, I think, to recognize everyone's humanity and how all of us have these sort of messy, complicated insides.
- [50:02]
A
Yes.
- [50:03]
C
And an essential part of this is that recognizing the multitudes in another person opens the door to forgiveness. If someone has wronged you in a pretty significant way, if you're going to be judgmental about it and say, oh, they're just a bad person for that, that makes it impossible for the relationship to continue. But if you recognize that there may have been some reason they did this bad thing, that can help explain it. It opens the door to forgiving them and moving on with the connection.
- [50:33]
A
I think it's crucial to point out that there's a difference between explanation and excusing.
- [50:39]
B
Yes, absolutely right.
- [50:40]
C
Yes. And I would also say there's an important difference between forgiving and forgetting. Forgiving means not forgetting.
- [50:47]
B
Right. So forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is not condoning. Forgiving is not excusing. Forgiving is not pardoning or rationalizing. It's something you do for yourself, actually, not. Not for the other person.
- [50:59]
A
Okay, so we've just gone through these five mindsets that can help us operate the aforementioned relationship seesaw. Do you have thoughts about how to apply these mindsets in different contexts? Because as we established at the beginning of this conversation, you're talking about love in a capacious way, inclusive of romantic relationships, parenting relationships, workplace, strangers, etc.
- [51:24]
B
We have a chapter where we talk about sort of applying mindsets and sort of different kinds of relationships. For example, whether it's with your kids or with your colleagues versus your romantic partners. And obviously it's going to look a little different, although I think less different than one thinks. I mean, some obvious examples. Sharing mindset. Right. With your kids. You're not going to want to share some parts of yourself with your children, you know, because it might scare them. It just might not be healthy for your relationship with them. You might not want to share everything with your boss. Right. But it doesn't mean that you don't share at all that you have to sort of be wise about it. So that's just one example. But something like listening, curiosity, I think applies to pretty much any context, any relationship. I can't really think of a context where it's bad to listen. Right. Harry, when is it ever unhealthy to listen or be curious except for when you're doing it? Too much moderation. I'm a big fan of moderation. We should do everything in moderation, including moderation. So maybe if you're too curious and we know people, for example, with high functioning autism become so curious about certain topics, special interests, that they, that could actually take them away from other sort of things that they need to be doing in their life. So maybe sometimes curiosity can kill the cat. Right? It could be a little too much everything in moderation.
- [52:39]
C
And by the same token, I would add, I can't think of a situation in which having an open hearted mindset would be a bad thing. It's always a good thing, even in a competitive world. You know, in the world of competitive sports, for example, the athletes who have a warm hearted approach to their competitors, it doesn't make them compete any less, but it makes them not want to hurt the other and it makes them feel like the competition is a joy because you're bringing out the best in each other.
- [53:12]
B
I'd like to argue to bring open heart mindset more to work contexts. We talked about sort of love in a very broad sense. We don't use the word love enough. I think at work it just seems like it's inappropriate, right? And yet loving your colleagues, being really warm towards your colleagues, people who work for you with you, who supervise you, I think that's beautiful. I think the world would be a better place if we use that word love more often. My friends and I say we love each other all the time. In fact, sometimes I'll be on the phone, I'll be like, I love you so much. And my kids are confused. They're like, who are you talking to? I'm talking to my friends. Why don't we say, say we love you more to each other? You know, that's, that's one of my, I guess, goals, is try to get the world to use that word more often.
- [53:55]
C
Well, I was in, in North Carolina over the holiday and we were riding the shuttle bus to pick up our rental car and I got to talking with the bus driver. I was showing some curiosity toward him and eventually he talked about how he loved his colleagues. Now this is a shuttle bus driver working for a rental car company. And yet he loved the people he worked with and he actually used that word.
- [54:23]
A
Harry, let me stay with you for a second. The whole goal here is to help us feel loved. The whole goal of your project. What are some of the principal barriers in this? We've been talking about some of the skills we can develop, but what are the barriers we might bring to the table and then how do we work with them?
- [54:41]
C
I think the primary barrier that we bring to these situations is that we approach the conversation with the wrong mindsets. We assume that the way to get love from another person is to talk about your many accomplishments. You know, how many awards have you won, how many articles have you published? Even how many charitable acts have you done over the holiday? We believe that we need to impress the other person with our desirability. And the irony is that we think this goes in exactly the wrong direction, that this creates a wall, a barrier of sorts between yourself and the other person, because it sets up an ideal that the other person, perhaps, you know, they'll be impressed, but they can't connect to it.
- [55:33]
B
Heavy effort. Again, I don't want to use the word work because I think it's positive kind of beautiful kind of work. It does take effort to sort of switch your mindset off of maybe off of yourself and onto another person, to try to make someone else feel loved first. You know, it needs to be intentional. It needs to be effortful. But one huge caveat I think we haven't really talked about is once in a while you will do everything right. You'll embrace the five mindsets and you will do that dynamic, reciprocal thing that happens on the seesaw, and it's not going to work. And once in a while, that person is not going to respond. Maybe when you tell your story, they're not going to really listen and be curious, or maybe they're not going to share. And once in a while that's going to happen. And maybe you haven't chosen well the person to feel loved by. That's something important. You have to choose. Well, maybe that person is just not going to make you feel loved. And so you need to maybe put a pause on that relationship, maybe walk away from it, or maybe just accept that you're not going to feel loved by that person. So I do. We do want to sort of bring in that caveat that once in a while that's going to happen.
- [56:37]
C
Right.
- [56:38]
A
So are there other ways to diagnose the viability of your various relationships?
- [56:43]
C
Well, one way to diagnose the viability of this whole approach is to experiment with it, to try it and not plunge right in deeply. But rather you know, take baby steps into it and see if the other person responds. You know, the idea of the seesaw is not that I support you for half an hour and then you support me for half an hour. It's much more of a I support you for, you know, a brief moment in a conversation. How do you respond? If you don't respond in a supportive, enthusiastic way toward me, maybe that's a sign that it's not going to work. You know, you can sort of experiment with it at a relatively safe and basic level to see if it's working.
- [57:29]
B
And you know what? We actually had a very interesting experience when we were writing the book, and we had sort of our initial drafts. We sent a few friends and acquaintances, and we were surprised. Like, I had two guy friends read the book, and they wrote me and they said, you know, your book led me to break up with my girlfriend. So two different people actually used the book and used the mindsets in a way that we did not intend, but we actually now think it's very useful, is they use the mindsets as a diagnostic tool of their relationships. And so one friend said, your book made me realize that my girlfriend really doesn't share and she really doesn't listen. And another guy said, your book made me realize that my girlfriend just has sort of ceased to show any curiosity in my work or in my life. And so they ended up breaking up. I mean, I assumed that they had discussions first. And so that's another way to sort of think about it, is that, like, to what extent. Extent are these five mindsets being embraced in your relationship? And if they're not, how can you fix that? And if you can't fix that, then maybe that's telling you something important.
- [58:30]
C
Yeah. A common feeling that people have, and this is especially true for couples who go into couples therapy, is that one person feels like they're doing all the lifting. So they're in the seesaw, and they feel like they're lifting the other person, and they feel like they're not getting lifted back. And one of the best ways to check on that is to have a conversation about it, to ask the other person to do more lifting, ask them why perhaps they're not doing the lifting. And that can not only be a diagnostic tool, but it can also be a therapeutic tool.
- [59:03]
B
And we actually created a quiz where it's on our website, howtofeellove.com, where people can kind of gauge the extent to which they're embracing the five mindsets in a particular relationship. And Then they get feedback to say, you know, maybe you're really good at sharing, but you're not so good at listening. And here's some tips. So I think that's. Again, I think that we hope that people will find that useful, but there's.
- [59:24]
C
An important thing to keep in mind. And what Sonia said just brought this up for me. You know, how much you're lifting the other person because you're doing it right, you're actively involved in it. Sometimes you don't know that the other person is actually trying to help lift you up, but for some reason, it's not getting across because you don't know what's in the other person's head. You don't know what their motivation is. You don't know what their intention is. So by checking it out, such as on our quiz, or by simply conversing about it, you can find out, well, maybe there were times that the other person was doing the lifting and you weren't quite open to it. You weren't quite realizing it. And that can be an important part of. Of this process.
- [60:09]
A
Also, I believe in the book you talk about if only myths, is it worth discussing what some of those are?
- [60:17]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And we already talked about them a little bit. Harry had said that one of the problems is people kind of embrace the wrong mindset or sort of think in a way that is not helpful about their relationships and why they don't feel loved or how to feel more loved. And the if only myths are basically what he had said earlier, which is that, you know, many of us believe that I will be more loved if only the other person knew about all my accomplishments and all my positive qualities. Or I would feel more loved if the other person didn't know about some of my weaknesses and flaws and sort of bad behaviors. Or I'd feel more loved if I were more successful if I had more money, fame, power, beauty. We think that that's the solution and it's not the solution. Right. So I think that we make pretty clear.
- [61:04]
A
One of the things I believe you take on one of the this is one of the if only myths that I believe you talk about is that our relationship would work if only our partner spoke our love language. And you guys take a hard run at the concept of love languages.
- [61:20]
C
Sure, I'll take that one. The concept of love languages is flawed because it makes the assumption that if only my partner spoke the love language that is most important to me, then I would be happier. And research shows that that's just not the Case. For one thing, the basic elements that everybody wants in their relationship, expressions of affection, kindness. Are true, regardless of whether that's your primary love languages or not. Also, the research very clearly shows that if your partner tries to speak your love language, your particular love language, the thing you say that you value most in a love relationship, that doesn't make the relationship any better than if they speak one of the other languages. There's just not a lot of evidence that this kind of primary importance makes all that much of a difference.
- [62:19]
B
And I don't want to jump in. First of all, I love the idea of love languages. I mean, it becomes so popular everywhere if you go on dating apps. You know, people. People say what their love languages are, and I think they're a great heuristic to talk about sort of how we give and express love. It just turns out that, as Harry kind of alluded to, there's supposed to be five love languages, right? Words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, physical touch, and acts of service. Okay, so those are five. But it turns out that really there's two of them that everyone prefers. So that's one kind of myth about the love language. It's not that we all have these different ones and we have to match. So we all want quality time and words of affirmation. So those are the two that researchers that everyone prefers. It also turns out that, of course, there's lots more than five. There's many more love languages. One of my favorites is giving your partner freedom is sort of another love language, but there's many, many, many others. It turns out that matching in the love languages doesn't predict how good your relationship or how long is it going to last. And then, really, my favorite finding is it turns out your relationship is better off with, like, the higher number of languages the other person expresses their love in. Right? So it turns out, like, the more the better. So it's not the fit issue. Actually, one of my top ones is physical touch. You know, it's not that it has to be physical touch. It's just the more, the better. So. But I still love the idea, so I don't want to kind of reject it as a heuristic. It just has some flaws.
- [63:47]
A
Before I let you go, is there anything either of you were hoping we would get to that we haven't gotten to?
- [63:52]
C
Well, one of the things that many people have asked us about is the idea of whether you can feel loved by a chatbot. That's certainly a timely idea. And the popular media has had numerous Examples of this kind of thing. And our take on it is kind of a mixed take. But the bottom line is probably not. The positive side of it is that if you're not feeling much love in your life, a chatbot can fill that void. If you're starving, McDonald's burger will probably help you not feel hungry. Will it provide much nutrition? No. The chatbots are trained on models that include a lot of the research that we're talking about. And most chatbots by now are pretty darn good at validating, at understanding, at showing curiosity, adopting a multiplicity mindset, even at adopting an open hearted mindset. So a chatbot can do that. And if you're hurting, if you're, if you're missing it, that is a powerful experience, and it certainly explains why a lot of people feel that way when they're talking to their chatbot. On the other hand, at some point you have to realize that it's an algorithm talking to you. It's not another person who has decided that they're really interested in you. It's a chatbot that has been programmed to show interest in you. So on some level, it starts to become an empty experience. Now, there probably are some listeners to this podcast who are going to rebel against this idea because they're going to say they love talking to their chatbot. And I would argue there are a lot of people who love McDonald's burgers too.
- [65:42]
B
Although I would also add for the same reason that we're so moved and we feel great, grand emotions and we love, say, going to movies, right? We're kind of fooled that the movies are actually real when they're not real for the same reasons, we find it very powerful and compelling. Right. And when the chatbot shows curiosity in us, when it's not real curiosity, but it certainly feels real. And AI companions certainly are the best listeners that we'll ever have in our lives. Right. They remember everything. I also wanted to add in terms of, you know, you had asked about, what we hadn't touched on is, you know, when you think about relationship failures and like breakups and problems in relationships. Again, I'm not a therapist, so this is really more my kind of opinion based on lots of research. I think it's often about not feeling loved. It's often about the other person is doing all these things and I'm still not feeling loved. Or like when you do have a problem in a relationship, like I had a relationship where the person was not texting me often enough or fast enough, right. And I realized, like the problem wasn't the texting. It was that it wasn't making me feel loved when they weren't texting fast enough. Right. So it's often a lot of these kind of relationship problems are a symptom of not feeling loved. And, you know the show Couples Therapy, which is a great show, where there's real couples in New York and they kind of forget the camera's there. And it strikes me, watching that show, how often they're fighting and fighting about this and this, and you don't do this enough. And you did this to me. And often the underlying issue is like, I'm not feeling loved enough by you. So that just sort of struck me as we were writing the book.
- [67:21]
A
Is that a thing you would recommend saying in a conversation with your partner?
- [67:28]
B
Yeah, perhaps. That would be pretty powerful to say that. Our book comes out around Valentine's Day, and almost all Valentine's Day cards say I love you. Right. They all say I love you. And so we wanted to change that to, you make me feel loved. So that's the positive side of it, Right. That. That's really beautiful. Like, you make me feel loved. And it's about you and not about me. But in a conversation, and I don't know, Harry, in a deep conversation with a partner, when you're having a problems, to say, I'm not feeling loved enough by you, I mean, maybe that would be a very powerful thing to say.
- [67:59]
C
Yeah. And I would phrase it differently. I would say I would feel more loved if you. So, you know, don't put it into I don't feel loved because that's very likely to get a defensive response. But I would feel more loved if you answered my text messages within 10 minutes. Oh, like, sure, I can do that. You know, it's much easier to respond to that kind of more helpful framing.
- [68:22]
A
Yes. Or you can put it through the five mindsets. I would feel more loved if you were, you know, more open about what's happening for you. Or I would feel more loved if you, you know, asked me real questions about my day or showed any interest or happiness for me when I'm happy, etc. Etc.
- [68:38]
C
Yes, absolutely.
- [68:41]
A
Okay, final question. Can one or both of you just plug the shit out of the new book and the website and everything else?
- [68:50]
B
So I think this book, how to Feel Loved, is the best work I've ever done in my career. And I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it's true. I think Harry has said the same thing. I really think it's going to resonate with a lot of people. Our website is called howtofeellove.com and we have a quiz that I think people will really find useful, which is just five questions. And it's going to tell you what your sort of best kind of highest ranked mindset is and what the mindset is that needs the most improvement. And you'll get feedback on that and then we'll give you some tips on how to sort of embrace those mindsets even more.
- [69:25]
C
And I would add that I also think this is the best thing that I've done in my career. And one of the things I like about it is that it makes all of the research we've done real. This is taking the research and presenting it to the world in a way that really feels real. And it just validates all the things that we've done for so many years. And, you know, there's this idea of giving psychology away, making it something that helps people deal with the most important challenges they face in their lives. So I'm really excited about the book, Making a Difference in People's Lives.
- [70:04]
B
And I also wanted to add that it's really, again, I maybe have said this before, that the book really has a, an empowering message that feeling Loved is actually under your control. That it's not about like, oh, I have to change myself to be more lovable. It's not about, I need to change the other person to somehow love me more. It's about changing the conversation, changing how I act and what I show in a conversation in the next set of conversations, which is really, really something that's feasible, workable, tractable, you know, under everyone's control. So I hope that people will. We'll take that as an empowering message.
- [70:41]
A
Thank you both. Pleasure to talk to you. Congratulations on the new book and good.
- [70:46]
C
Luck with your book, Dan.
- [70:47]
B
Yeah, about love too. Yeah. Thank you. It was a pleasure to talk to you.
- [70:55]
A
Thank you again to Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reiss. Great to talk to them. Don't forget to check out my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. We've got a growing body of guided meditations from extraordinary teachers and we do these weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions. Super fun. Danharris.com Check it out. There's a free trial. Finally. Thank you very much to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.