The Three Things No One Tells You About Happiness

Summary

Podcast Summary

Becoming You with Suzy Welch

Episode: The Three Things No One Tells You About Happiness
Date: July 28, 2026
Host: Suzy Welch, NYU Stern Professor

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Overview

This episode kicks off a 16-part series on human values by deep-diving into "Eudaimonia"—the personal value of happiness, pleasure, self-care, and well-being. Suzy Welch, drawing on her experience as a business journalist, professor, and values researcher, unpacks three surprising truths about how people regard happiness, what it means, and how it shapes relationships and careers. She also brings in data from the Becoming You Labs’ research, insights from philosophy and history, and some personal anecdotes (including her relationship with happiness and an eye-rolling sibling). The episode has a humorous, honest, evidence-driven tone, making it as insightful as it is relatable.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Eudaimonia, and Why Not Just Call it Happiness?

[00:30–10:51]

• Eudaimonia Defined:

  • Eudaimonia is the Greek term Aristotle used for human flourishing—a richer, less confusing way to discuss happiness as a value without the baggage of words like “self-care,” “pleasure,” or “fun.”
  • The reason for using the Greek word is practical: “If your top value is self care. Oh, don't call me selfish. Your top value is fun. I'm not that frivolous. Your top value is pleasure. That sounds kind of X-rated, okay? People get very defensive about those words.” (Suzy Welch, [07:40])

• Value Discovery Tools:

  • Suzy has created scientifically validated tools and inventories (Welch Bristol Values Inventory & Values Bridge) to measure values like eudaimonia.
  • “We all have these 16 values. Everyone does. They're universal... What changes is where they are ranked in your list of values and how much you are actually living each one.” ([04:57])

• Personal Connection:

  • Suzy's own relationship with eudaimonia is low—it’s her 15th out of 16 values.
  • Anecdote: As a teen, she related deeply to Dostoevsky’s view that “suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.” Her sister Ellen confirms she’s always been low-eudaimonia and high-achievement.

  Memorable Quote

  • “I just don’t have any interest in self care or balance or having fun or pleasure recreation. I just don’t. I want to work all the time and I want to change the world as I do it.”
    —Suzy Welch ([08:45])

• Judging Each Other:

  • People constantly judge others for how much fun, self-care, or happiness they seek; Suzy warns against foisting our preferences onto others.

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2. Surprising Data on Eudaimonia—Who Values it, Who Feels They're Getting It?

[10:51–15:35]

• How Many People Value Eudaimonia?

  • 63% of the general population ranks eudaimonia in their top 5 values.
  • 30% have it as a moderate value (ranked 6–11), 7% as a peripheral value (bottom 5).

• Gender Differences:

  • 65% of women vs. 56% of men have eudaimonia in their top five.
  • Men tend to value achievement, work centrism, and affluence more.

• The Authenticity Gap:

  • Most people want to live their values more than they currently do.
  • For those who rank eudaimonia highly, the average gap between desire and actualization is 36%.
    • “Women have a 37% gap and men have a 32% gap. So women feel like they're achieving their eudaimonia less.” ([15:34])

• Age Differences:

  • Desire for eudaimonia peaks in Gen Z and Millennials, drops for Gen X, even more for Boomers, and is lowest in the Silent Generation (age 70+; only 37% have it in their core).
  • “When I was growing up, the message was joy is earned. Okay, that is not the cultural narrative right now... the pandemic taught us the bottom could fall out at any time.” ([15:52])

• Income Differences:

  • The wealthier you are, the less you value eudaimonia (6% less if you earn over $150,000).

• Values Formation:

  • Values are influenced by generation, culture, childhood, trauma, and more.

Notable Quote

• “Everybody wants happiness, but not in the same amount. And guess what? That’s okay.”
  —Suzy Welch ([17:41])

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3. The Philosophy and History of Happiness

[17:41–30:18]

• Philosophical Shifts on Happiness:

  • Aristotle: Happiness (eudaimonia) means flourishing, measured over a lifetime—virtue, not momentary feeling.
    • “One swallow does not make a summer. You know, one good day at the beach does not make a good life.” ([20:55])
  • Epicurus: True pleasure is simple—a little food, close friends, freedom from fear. Chasing excess leads to anxiety.
  • Stoics (Seneca, Marcus Aurelius): Happiness equals tranquility, unshaken by external events; focus on what you control.
    • “In the Stoic philosophy, the pursuit of happiness takes a back seat to a more enduring quest... anchoring one's life solely on the elusive emotions of happiness is precarious.” (Stoic Voiceover, [24:47])
  • Utilitarians (John Stuart Mill): Not all pleasures are equal—higher (intellectual, artistic) vs. lower (bodily). Worthier happiness is the one that “engages the best of you.”
  • Buddhism: The pursuit of happiness itself is a trap—true peace is non-attachment, releasing craving.
    • “If there's happiness, there is sadness... I’m not searching for happiness, I’m searching for peace.” (Shaolin Monk, [29:36])

• Modern Day:

  • Unlike historic eras, today’s culture prioritizes unpostponed happiness—unique in history, perhaps fueled by the pandemic and shifts in cultural narratives.

Suzy’s Take

• “This idea that happiness is something you do not postpone, that's new. And it doesn’t make it wrong. But it also should sort of give you pause...” ([30:18])

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4. Eudaimonia is a Make-or-Break Value for Relationships and Careers

[30:18–39:52]

• Relationship Alignment:

  • Where you place eudaimonia can be “a make or break data point for your romantic relationships and your career.” ([30:28])
  • Couples with mismatched priorities on happiness/self-care (“divorce value”): For example, Pooja (high eudaimonia) and Ankit (low) could not compromise, ultimately divorced.
  • Couples with matched values can use it as a “savings account”—one couple survived infidelity because both highly valued fun, pleasure, and recreation.

  Memorable Quote

  • “If it’s a top value, your partner should have it as a top value. If it’s a bottom value... woe to the person who’s married to a low eudaimonia person like me…” ([38:29])

• Workplace/Industry Alignment:

  • Same applies to careers:

    • High eudaimonia people thrive in fun, social industries or companies; those driven by achievement are a better fit for intense, work-oriented fields.
    • Anecdote: High-eudaimonia friend did well on Wall Street while it was a party scene; when culture changed, he was out—now runs a café in Paris.

  • Even cities carry value profiles (e.g., New York—high achievement; New Orleans—high eudaimonia).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Judging Happiness:
  “There’s a lot of shoulds when it comes to eudaimonia. People are always taking their value of eudaimonia and they're putting it on other people.” ([17:00])

• On the Pandemic’s Influence:
  “The pandemic taught us the bottom could fall out at any time. Why would you wait to postpone joy?” ([15:55])

• On Using Values for Choices:
  “Use it as a screen. Use your eudaimonia as a screen when it comes to your romantic relationships and when it comes to your careers. These are two of the two biggest decisions you make in your life.” ([39:45])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:30] — Episode intro, Dostoevsky quote, definition of eudaimonia
• [08:45] — Suzy's personal story: why she values work > happiness
• [10:51] — Statistical breakdown: how many people value eudaimonia
• [13:36] — Gender differences, the authenticity gap
• [15:35] — Age and generational differences
• [17:41] — Shifting social norms; uniqueness of today’s happiness focus
• [20:55] — Philosophical history: Aristotle, Epicurus, Stoics, Mill, Buddhism
• [29:36] — Shaolin monk quote on peace vs. happiness
• [30:18] — Happiness as a relational and career make-or-break
• [38:29] — The divorce value; value screening for jobs and relationships
• [39:52] — Eudaimonia in cities and industries; wrapping up

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Conclusion & Final Takeaway

Suzy Welch closes by stressing that the value of happiness—how much of it you want, when you want it, and how you define it—is deeply personal and profoundly shapes your life’s biggest relationships and choices. The only “right” way is the one that fits your authentic self and those you live and work with.

“We all want [happiness]. We just want it in different amounts and in different time frames and in different ways. And knowing that about yourself is the unlock that can shape your life and will shape your life if you let it.” ([41:53])

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Action Step:
To find out where eudaimonia ranks for you, take the Values Bridge assessment (code in show notes).

Tone:
Warm, witty, data-packed, honest, gently provocative—classic Suzy Welch.

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For listeners:
No matter your relationship with happiness, you’ll leave this episode with surprising data, big ideas, reassurance about differences, and actionable advice for relationships and careers.

Transcript

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[Suzy Welch]

This idea that happiness is something you do not postpone, that's new. All right, well, hello everyone. It's your very happy, happy, happy host, Suzy Welch. And I feel compelled, absolutely compelled, to start our episode about happiness with the little snippet from the very unhappy icon, Fyodor Dostoevsky. So let's get right to it, shall we? Here he is. You ask me what man needs most, it is not comfort, not peace, not even happiness. No, man needs meaning he needs to suffer for something, to kneel before something greater than himself. Well, that's uplifting, isn't it? You know, he was a cheerful one, that Fyodor. I think I'm saying it right. Sorry to all Russian speakers, but I think this quote about the nature of happiness and the human need for happiness or not is a great place to start today's podcast, which is about the value of Eudaimonia. Eudaimonia. That is the Greek word for personal flourishing, pleasure and well being, and basically happiness. And it happens to be a value held by the majority of people in their core, in their top five values, according to our research at Becoming youg Labs. Now, not everyone holds eudaimonia as a top value. I mean, Dostoevsky didn't, and incidentally, I do not. But a lot of people do, and maybe even you have it as a very highly ranked value, and statistically, you probably do. But what is happiness anyway? What is it, of course you think you know, of course you do. Happiness, like, duh, obvious. But I'm going to challenge you in today's podcast with three, count them, three things about happiness that I bet you don't know. But you should, because happiness as a value is incredibly important. Not just how you feel about it and how much you want it, but also how much you value it in comparison to those you live with and work with. So again, hi, this is Susie Welch. As I said, I'm a professor at NYU Stern School of Business, where I teach a class called Becoming youg. The same title as this podcast, Becoming you is a scientifically validated methodology that helps you discover your purpose. And it does that by excavating three data sets. Your aptitudes, your interests and your values. The motivations, wants, desires and beliefs that drive everything you do or everything you want to do. So we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about values because a they really matter in purpose discovery, but also because values are the focus of my research. And if you must know, I am the creator of the Welch Bristol Values Inventory and an assessment called the Values Bridge. Again, a scientifically validated test which rank orders your values from 1 to 16, and it tells you how close you are to living those values or not. And if you've ever heard anybody talking about eudaimonia or these words, scope or work, centrism, or if you've heard somebody mention the the authenticity gap, that is because they have taken the Values Bridge. Now, the Values Bridge has been taken by hundreds of thousands of people and as a result, becoming YouLabs has the largest, cleanest, most robust data set on values in the world. We do. And I cannot wait to share some information with you today about that data set. And I think some of the numbers will surprise you, but some others might feel very, very logical, like the gender differences when it comes to happiness as a value. But let's just do a little lay of the land here before we launch into our time together today on the pod. By the way, I'm super happy that you're here. We're actually at the of a really big series on Becoming youg on the podcast, and I could not be more excited for it. We've been dying to do it for a year and we finally have all of our ducks in a row to do it. And so here's what it is. Over the next few months, we're gonna take each and every one of the 16 values that humans have one by one, and we're gonna do a deep dive on each and every one in turn so that by the end of the time we're done with this series, you will know everything you can know about each and every value and thus. You know, I'm a professor, so I use the kind of word thus and thus you will know about yourself. We all have these 16 values. Everyone does. They're universal. What changes is where they are ranked in your list of values and how much you are actually living each one. And so this is our context for today. We're starting with Eudaimonia, the happiness value. This week, I'm going to talk about three things that you should know about it, but probably don't. And after that, we are going to be off to the races and we're going to do the same pair of podcasts for each and every value. I'm so excited. I really am. And I really hope you are, too. So let's get going. Before we launch into the three things you should know about happiness, a little scene setting, if you will. First, I want to talk about where the word eudaimonia comes from. All right, I owe you that. And second, I want to return to a moment for that dust to that Dostoevsky quote that we started with. It is of particular personal relevance to me, and my big sister Ellen is going to pop in to attest to why. So, first, let's talk about this crazy word, eudaimonia. I mean, why not just call this value happiness? Professor Welch. And here's the reason for it. I did not want to make people's heads explode. That's the honest reason. Look, everyone wants happiness. Everyone. Even Dostoevsky, underneath it all. But when we talk about happiness as a value, it goes up and down in your ranking depending on when you want it. Do you want it right now, no postponing? Or are you willing to delay it for the sake of other values like achievement? That's the value of success. Or affluence. Money, belonging, that's friendship. Or maybe your family. This is a value we call family centrism. Most human beings, I mean, 99.9% of human beings want happiness, but how much you value it is reflected on how soon you want it right now or later, whether you're willing to postpone it or not. So how do you test for this psychometrically? That's the work I do. We test for it. How do you test for it to remove something called social desirability bias? How do you test for it to get high accuracy? This is the kind of thing that social scientists think and worry about. I think and worry about it. So let me spare you all the really nerdy details, but it turns out that the answer is that you ask about the timing of a person's desire for fun and pleasure and self care, and that's all well and good, but the truth is there's no English word that captures those three things at once. I mean, I could stop here and I could give you six hours, and you couldn't come up with one word that describes all those three things at once. That's a big problem. But the bigger problem is that all three of those words set People off. Your top value is self care. Oh, don't call me selfish. Your top value is fun. I'm not that frivolous. Your top value is pleasure. That sounds kind of X rated, okay? People get very defensive about those words. Those words. Words are loaded. And so finally, after a year of deliberation, we decided at the lab to call that value that captures the desire for unpostponed happiness, Eudaimonia, a Greek word, okay, that generally means the good life. If you're a scholar of Aristotle and you're listening to this, you're coming out of your skin right now because I am simplifying a concept, okay, this Eudaimonia concept. But sorry to the six of you Aristotle scholars in the universe. I know you've written me, you know, hi. And I've met you at conferences and I'm sorry, not sorry. Eudaimonia is the best solution to this problem because people want to know their values, and this works. So there you have it. That's my explanation for why we call eudaimonia the personal happiness value. And you can take it or leave it, but you know what? Please take it. I think it works, and I'm told that it does. So look, the last thing I want to be clear about, and I want to be super clear about this, is I'm a values agnostic. If you are not hurting anyone, your values are your values to live in any order you want. These are not virtues that we're talking about here like honesty and, and kindness and justice, which are not optional. These are choices over your lifestyle. And you should go and live your exact, your values exactly the way you want to. But for full disclosure and transparency. I want to say something up front. Eudaimonia is my 15th value out of 16, only belovedness comes in lower. And I just don't have any interest in self care or balance or having fun or pleasure recreation. I just don't. I want to work all the time and I want to change the world as I do it. And I want to do all the things like try everything for learning's sake, okay? That's. Those are my values. And interestingly to me at least, this has been true of me my entire life long. That's how I know about that Dostoevsky quote that we started the podcast with, because I read it for the first time in 10th grade. I was 15 in the book Notes from the Underground. And I was like, this is me. This is me. Exactly. I mean, I felt different from my friends. I knew I was different. And Here was somebody describing my values and feeling finally seen and vindicated as 15 year olds want to feel. I brought the quote home over Christmas break. I was away at schools, in boarding school, and I dropped it on my family at dinner. Okay? What I did is I was at dinner and I said to my family, like, there's a quote where he says suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. This was me declaring that I desired to suffer in life so that I had an extremely high consciousness. I wanted to know stuff you could have predicted. Maybe I was going to be an academic at this point. But I said to my family at dinner, Christmas dinner, what an asshat I was. Okay? I was a little pretentious, you know, Baby intellectual suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. And I remember my sister Ellen, who was studying to be a doctor at Brown at the time. I mean, the extravagance of her eye roll at the moment was. It's a surprise that her eyes did not get lost in the back of her brain because nobody's ever done a bigger eye roll. And she said to me, you don't actually believe that, sue, do you? And I said, yes, yes, I believe it. I believe it to my core. And so I actually called my sister the other day to ask her if she remembered this incident. And she didn't remember it exactly, but she remembered what I acted like in those days around the beginning of this value low eudaimonia emerging in me. So let's check in with her and see what she has to say about it. Ellen, where do we find Ellen? Hello? I love you. Where do we find. Hi. Where do we find you today?

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

I'm at my desk working. Okay.

[Suzy Welch]

And in Boston, Correct?

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

Yes. Okay.

[Suzy Welch]

All right. Do you kind of remember me in this era when I was discovering that I was a fun suck?

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

Yes, of course I do. You were discovered. You were discovering so many things and you sort of love the sperm and wrong of it.

[Suzy Welch]

Yes.

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

And you embraced these big thoughts by great thinkers.

[Suzy Welch]

I was super willing and still amazing, very willing to postpone any kind of fun or happiness or joy. Am I right? I've always had this low pneumonia.

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

Yes, you always have. You always have. And you haven't changed. Studying and learning and also trying things for the sake of trying them. That was just your.

[Suzy Welch]

Yeah.

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

What you wanted to do. No, totally. You weren't interested in the other stuff.

[Suzy Welch]

I wonder where your value of eudaimonia is. Any idea? High, low, medium low?

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

Yeah. All about delayed gratitude. Yeah.

[Suzy Welch]

I think you're another one with the 15, 16 range. What a happy, fun family we are. Love you. I will talk to you very soon. Okay, bye.

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

All right, bye.

[Suzy Welch]

Okay, now that we have the scene set, let's move on to the three things you gotta know about happiness. I'm beginning to make this point already in the podcast, and that is this. Not everyone values happiness equally. Yes, really, and no one should. There's no rules, but there's so many shoulds when it comes to happiness, pleasure and recreation. Overall, for the general population, Eudaimonia is a top value. 63% of the general population has it as a top five value, 30% have it as a moderate value from like their value 6 to 11 in the ranking, and 7% like me have it as a peripheral value in the bottom five values. This doesn't mean that people like me don't ever want fun or want to do self care, but we just prioritize all the other values basically above it. Incidentally, the next up value is voice, which is authentic self expression. 53% of the general population has that in their top five. And then there's non Sibi, the value of wanting to help people in a one on one intimate relations. That's at number three with 47% having it as a top five value. But let's stay focused on Eudaimonia because it has some interesting nuances when you get deep into the data.

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[Suzy Welch]

So let's talk about gender. Eudaimonia as a value heavily towards women. It's 63% in the general population have as a top value. But Inside of that 63%, the split is 65% women and 56% for men. That is statistically significant. I wonder why that is, don't you? My theory is that men are lower on eudaimonia because they over index. We have the data on this. They over index on achievement and work, centrism and affluence. Just saying. Now, there's another interesting fact about eudaimonia, and it's about how much people feel that they are actually living this value. We call this measurement the authenticity gap. Let me explain it a little bit. Let's just say you have eudaimonia, you know, self care, pleasure, recreation, again, happiness as your number one value. And if you felt you were living it fully, you fully were living your life so that you were able to, you know, have as much happiness, self care, as much as you wanted, then your authenticity gap would be zero. Okay, here's your value. Here's how much you're living. No gap. But that's rare. That's super rare. Most people have a gap not just on eudaimonia, but on every value. Like they say, I wish I was living this value or that value, 10% more or 20% more. And when it comes to eudaimonia, the average person who has it as a top value wants to be living it 36% more, which is pretty high. It's not the highest, it's the sixth highest among all the values. The value with the highest authenticity gap, by comparison is luminance. That's the fame value, and that has got an 82% gap. You know why it's so hard to be famous. And then radius, which is the desire to change the world. That's actually a value. It has a 64% gap. Why? Because it's super hard to change the world. For the general population, though, with this value of eudaimonia, people have a 36% gap. But here, here comes gender again. Women have a 37% gap gap and men have a 32% gap. So women feel like they're achieving their eudaimonia less.

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Hmm.

[Suzy Welch]

Okay, now let's talk about this value, Eudaimonia and age more nuance. But let me summarize it by saying the Desire for eudaimonia, for happiness, okay, as a value. It peaks as a value for Gen Z and millennials, and then it just drops like a stone. The older you get, it becomes less important to you. Gen X cares about it less boomers, less still. And then by the time you get to the silent generation, which is the oldsters, people over 70, they barely have it as a value at all. It's 37% have it in their core. Now. I wonder about that. I mean, obviously that. That jibes with my own having eudaimonia as a lower value. And I think there's so much generational stuff wrapped up in our values. Let's talk about values formation for a second. Like where our values come from. Now, look, there's two fields of study in the. In the values space. There's values formation, how we come by our values, and there's values expression. I happen to be a scholar of values expression, how we live our values. But of course, over the years, I've bumped and rubbed elbows with and read a lot of work by the people who study how we come by our values. And this is psychiatrist, psychologist, neurologist, evolutionary biologists and so forth. Think about it this way. There's kind of a big cauldron, and a lot of stuff goes into you as a child. Your culture, your parents, your trauma, your good experiences, your next door neighbor, your dog, whatever. A lot of stuff goes into that cauldron, and it forms what your motivations and desires are. But some of the stuff that goes into that cauldron is the generation you were born into. The cultural zeitgeist. That delaying of joy, that waiting for happiness, that was much more the norm when I was coming up and along. So it's not surprising to me that there's a real link between the desire for eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is a top value. And how old you are. When I was growing up, the message was joy is earned. Okay, that is not the cultural narrative right now. And I think that actually one of the reasons for that is the pandemic. I have no research on this. I'm just. I'm just hypothesizing, you know, with the pandemic, it kind of taught us the bottom could fall out at any time. Why would you wait? Why would you wait to postpone joy? Right after the pandemic ended, a crazy thing happened to me. I have a friend who's a professor at a Midwestern university, and she invited me to come speak to her class. And professors help each other out all the time. So I went and I spoke to her class and I talked all about my career. It was a communications class, so I spoke about my career in communications. They were fascinated about my time on the Today show, blah, blah, blah. And when I was done, I talked a lot about business and where business and careers were going. Obviously my area of specialty is career formation, career development. And I was talking about that. And after I talked for 90 minutes, can you believe it? And when I was done, she said to the class, okay, Professor Welch will now answer any of your questions at all. Anything that you want to bring her. And literally, I mean, much to my, like, wow, the entire class stood up and they got behind. It was a large classroom, and they got behind the mic to come down the aisle and speak into the mic and ask me the questions. And so the first young woman comes up, student comes up to the mic and she said, okay, well, thank you for coming and thank you for speaking to us. You've had such an interesting and varied career. You've done this, you've done that. She starts listing off some of the things I talked about. And she said, and so I really have one big question for you. What do you do for self care? And I mean, when she said that, I, like, I was. I mean, this was. I was speechless. Okay. Of all the things you could ask me about my life and my work and everything, I was talking about, like, what I personally did for self care. And it was interesting when she said it. Almost everybody sat down. They all had the same question. They sat down. Cause their question was asked. And I said to her, like, I was so. I wish I had a videotape of it. I was so flummoxed. I literally said to her the truth. I said, I actually don't. I don't ever think about self care. I said, I guess I pray every day. Maybe that is self care. Maybe that qualifies as self care. Although it doesn't feel like it while you're doing it because you're kind of supplicating yourself. You know what I think I do for self care? Honest to God, I think my dogs are self care. And so I said, look, if you're looking for self care, get a dog, go adopt a dog. And this was not a satisfactory answer. I mean, I could tell by looking at the faces of the students. But this to me was right after the pandemic. And during the pandemic, this became like this kind of like, what do you do for self care? Became a real question. The last Thing I want to note in the data is about the connection between income and eudaimonia. And it turns out the wealthier you are, the less you value eudaimonia. 6% less if you earn over $150,000. Now, I have no idea how to explain it. Perhaps those people who have more money over index on achievement and work centrism, and that would be my working theory on that. So look, if you're sitting around thinking everybody should have some given stated level of pleasure and recreation and balance and self care, that's not true. I mean, the thing is that happiness is not a universal value, that everybody needs the same amount as it's often portrayed to be. There are real variations on how much people want and prioritize this value by age and by gender and by income. And then forget all that just personally by personality, okay? And yet here's the thing, because there's all these assumptions, we just judge each other about this value all the time. I was talking to a producer for a podcast that I'm actually going on later today, and I was talking to her yesterday about the work I'm doing on values. And I started to talk to her about eudaimonia and I described what eudaimonia was. You know, it's balance, it's self care, it's recreation, it's pleasure. And she goes, oh, I have none of that. I really, really, really should have more. And I said, why do you want more? And she said, no, but like, you know, people are, you know, people are always telling me I should, I should work less. I said, there's a lot of shoulds when it comes to eudaimonia. People are always taking their value of eudaimonia and they're putting it on other people. And look, people like me with low eudaimonia, I want everybody to work more like me. I can't understand why people don't like prioritize work, centrism and achievement. Even I do it. Even like the, you know, the values agnostic over here. And people who like really strive for self care and strive for balance and pleasure say they can be offended by people like me. And there's a lot of judgment that gets slinged all around around this value of eudaimonia because everybody thinks about it, it's not an obscure value. And so I would say be careful of the shoulds. Be careful of the shoulds for yourself and be careful of the shoulds that you hoist and foist onto other people when it comes to this value. Of happiness. Everybody wants happiness, but not in the same amount. And guess what? That's okay. All right, here's my second point. My second point on this podcast, and that is that we are in a new and radically different time when it comes to the concept of happiness. We are. And I want to talk. Oh, gosh, you know, get your popcorn. I want to talk about the philosophical history of eudaimonia as a value, because it is so interesting. The history of happiness is so. There should be a course about the history of happiness. The question of what happiness is and whether you should chase it is one of the oldest debates and arguments that humans have ever had. All right, let's start with my friend Aristotle, who I've already simplified in this podcast. He was writing and living in 350 BC, and he gave us that word eudaimonia, as I mentioned before. And then after he gave us the word eudaimonia, the good life, he then immediately told us that we'd been thinking about it all wrong. Happiness, Aristotle said, isn't a feeling. It isn't a good afternoon. It's a life. You can't call anyone happy until you see the whole arc of how they lived, because eudaimonia is flourishing, earned, he said, through virtue built across decades. His famous, famous quote was, one swallow does not make a summer. You know, one good day at the beach does not make a good life. So basically, to sum up all of Aristotle. I mean, please don't kill me, Aristotle scholars, as I am boldly doing right here, the ancient world of Aristotle. He was wildly influential. They thought happiness was the long game. Now, let's talk about the next, next, second big wave of happiness philosophers. It was led by Epicurious. And here's a little twist. The man whose name became very synonymous with indulgence actually preached the total opposite. Epicurus said real pleasure was simple. A little food, a few good friends, and freedom from fear. That was epicurious. Okay? He said, chase the big, intense highs and you'll only buy yourself anxiety. The Epicurean ideal wasn't more. It was enough. Enter the Stoics. Okay? Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and they were writing as Rome rose and then it fell. Okay? I mean, they made the boldest move of all when it came to happiness. They had a word for happiness. They had it. But it wasn't pleasure. It wasn't eudaimonia. It was tranquility, a deep, unshakable steadiness that no person or circumstance could touch. And how do you get to this tranquility you split the world into two piles according to the Stoics. In one there's the things you control. Your judgments, your choices, your character. And in the other pile was everything else. Your health, your wealth, your reputation, the people who love you, and whether you will live to see tomorrow. And the claim of the Stoics was tranquility is only possible when you stop staking your happiness on that second pile. And the moment your peace depends on a promotion or a person, or an outcome or an event, you've handed your well being to forces that don't care about you. The Stoics were fun, right? I would, I would have fit right in with these Stoics. Okay, now Epicetus taught that a man in chains could be freer than an emperor if the emperor's calm depended on things that the world could take away. So here's a little summary of all the Stoics. I love this little summary. I like the kind of sound of

[Stoic Philosophy Narrator]

the voice in the Stoic philosophy. The pursuit of happiness takes a back seat to a more enduring quest. Stoics argued that anchoring one's life solely on the elusive emotions, emotion of happiness is precarious and transient. The fickle nature of feelings leaves us susceptible to the whims of circumstance. Instead, the Stoics measured the richness of life by the virtuousness of one's character, focusing on enduring qualities such as wisdom, courage, justice and self discipline. Unlike fleeting emotions, these virtues were deemed within our control, independent of external conditions. The Stoics wisdom lay in grounding themselves in virtue and perpetual self betterment. By prioritizing qualities that withstand the test of time, happiness naturally emerge as a byproduct.

[Suzy Welch]

So to sum it all up on the Stoics, the Stoics for happiness wasn't a feeling you chased. It wasn't a thing you you did. It was tranquility, the refusal to be governed by the outside. Okay, not a numbness, not indifference, but the. The steadiness of someone who has stopped negotiating with fortune. Now let's jump in the history of happiness 2000 years, because that's the next big wave of happiness thinking. And it was John Stuart Mill and the birth of Utilitarianism. And this poor guy, John Stuart Mill, he was just tormented his whole life. He had nervous breakdowns and he was a great moral philosopher. I had to read him in college. I kind of loved him. And his take on happiness basically was that all pleasures are not equal. There are higher pleasures, higher roads to happiness. And those were like art and love and intellectual life. And then there were lower ones that are merely bodily, like sex and drugs and rock and roll, like having a beer. His argument was that a smaller amount of a higher pleasure beats a flood of lower ones, and he said, go ahead, pursue happiness. But the happiness worth having is the kind that engages the best of you, even when it's harder, even when it aches as you pursue it. Okay, getting your PhD is a better kind of happiness than going to the beach with your friends. That's what he said. It costs more upfront and it pays off slower. So it sounds a little like Dostoevsky, doesn't it?

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[Suzy Welch]

This sort of history of happiness. I have to pay very huge heed here to a huge school of philosophical Thought around happiness, and that is older than any of them, and that is Buddhism. The Buddhist tradition asks the most radical question around happiness in the whole history of happiness. Philosophical history of happiness, the conceptual history. What if the pursuit of happiness is just a trap? Buddha started from a very hard observation. Dukkha. I think I'm saying it right, which is usually translated as suffering, though it's closer to a kind of a low persistent unsatisfactoriness and the sense that something is always slightly off. And his diagnosis was startling. He said the cause isn't what we. That we don't get what we want. It's the wanting itself, the grasping, the endless reaching for the next pleasure, the next fun thing, the next. The next party, okay? The next hit of dopamine. And then the moment we have it, we start reaching again. And we are like, thirsty. The humans are thirsty, thirsty creatures. And we keep drinking salt water. So the Shaolin monks still talk about this. Let's hear from one. I love this act. And so this monk was asked if he was happy. Are you happy?

[Shaolin Monk]

I'm not searching for happiness, I'm searching for peace. If there's happiness, there is sadness. If something can rise, something must fall. If you can attain something, there's something to lose. That's why it's difficult. That's why I stopped the moment. I don't know what type of happiness you mean. Being satisfied with where I'm standing. Yes. Does it mean that I don't have hard moments? I have hard moments. And that's why for me, like, what is it I ultimately look for, I would call it is just peace.

[Suzy Welch]

So happiness in the Buddhist tradition isn't something you pursue. It's what's left when you stop pursuing. Not indulgence, not denial, just release, loosening of the grape. Non attachment. I mean, if you've ever gone to yoga and they say to you, practice non attachment, this is what they're talking about. It's freedom from being yanked around, craving fun. You're welcome. You now have your PhD in happiness studies. But really, seriously, what strikes you here with all this history that I've just gone through? What strikes you? Every single. I'm telling you what strikes me. Every single historical era and perspective on happiness is different from what we're seeing today in 2026, with eudaimonia being a top value. I mean, I've talked about the five big philosophical traditions of eudaimonia, five mirrors of humanity's history, and not one, not a single one, says happiness, that you grab something you grab right now, today, which should make you wonder, right, about what that says about us as people right now. I always talk in my class about the Happiness Industrial Complex, which I say becoming you is not a part of the happiness. This industrial complex, look, we are a methodology that helps you discover your purpose. I actually have a slide that I show every single time I teach Becoming youg at nyu. And when I teach it all around the world, which I'm very, very, very lucky to do, and it says becoming you does not promise you happiness. We think happiness is an outcome of having a meaningful and authentic life. Happiness, okay, this is based on my own feelings about it is not a. Is not the goal, it's an outcome. But there are hundreds of books about how to achieve happiness, hundreds of podcasts, and some of them are made by some of the most wonderful people in the world who are friends of mine. I see them at conferences and cocktail parties. We hang out together. They don't like it when I use the term Happiness Industrial Complex, and maybe I shouldn't, but right now, I mean, there are happiness retreats, there are happiness webinars and so forth. This is unique to our time and day. This is unique to right now. I mean, and I bet it sort of peaked right after the pandemic, but I think it kind of started in the 60s. And so if Eudaimonia is a top value for you, understand how unique you are in the, you know, sort of 3000, 4000, even 5000 year history of the philosophy of happiness. This idea that happiness is not something you postpone. Let me say it again. This idea that happiness is something you do not postpone, that's new. And it doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't make it wrong, but it, it also should sort of give you pause and sort of say, well, when I'm asking other people to have my level of happiness, why would I be doing that? Because even I am new and if I had lived five generations ago, people would have been asking me about my definition of happiness. All right, let's get to the third thing that no one tells you about happiness, but they absolutely should. I probably should have started with this one, but I kind of like it so much and I want to end with it. That is that where happiness, where eudaimonia is ranked for you, how important it is for you to achieve your pleasure or recreation or self care right now, how high that is on your rank thinking. That is a make or break data point for your romantic relationships and your career. It's huge. Okay. And I'm sorry, not sorry to break this news to you because perhaps it's most true about Eudaimonia is a value. Because where you place this value, all right, it's not just personal, it's relational. Let's talk about how Eudaimonia fits into personal relationships. I have so much data on this because I've been doing becoming you for a long time. And because we do this, this process called becoming us, where we do becoming you and the values bridge with couples. All right, What I find and found time and time again and sometimes secretly, I want to tell you this now, it's not a secret anymore, is I often think to myself, I think about Eudaimonia as a divorce value. If you both don't share Eudaimonia in the general same bracket, it can cause gigantic problems in your relationship. I've also seen it save relationships. I'll tell you two different stories about this. I work with a couple for purposes here. We'll call them Pooja and Ankin. Okay, they got married. It was an arranged marriage, kind of in the American way and that the parents kind of let them meet each other beforehand. But it was basically arranged and they kind of made a good match on paper. They were both professionals, they'd both gone to Ivy League schools, blah blah, blah, and they were both starting off in their careers. They got married and very quickly it became clear that they had very different levels of eudaimonia. Pooja had it as her top value and Ankit had it probably at like number 15 or 16. He was a person who really believed in delayed gratification. He was going to work really hard. He wanted to be a CEO. He went in every day. He thought about his career constantly. He did not like the idea of partying or self care. He was just a high achievement work centrism affluence person. Pooja was very high on eudaimonia, belonging, which is the friendship value. And she loved to party. She was super smart, fabulous personality, and she liked to go out every single day after work for drinks. She loved to party on the weekends. She used to love to go on ski trips with her friends. And he just like, was like, where's your like? Of course they were judging each other like crazy, like, where's your. Where's your desire for achievement? Where's your desire for work centrism? Where's your desire for money? And this went on. And of course this happens all the time. Despite the fact that they had this major difference. They went ahead and had A child. And after the baby came, she wanted to continue to fulfill her value of eudaimonia. And he was like. And now you're putting, like, your. Her social life in front of the baby as well. And they came to the brink of divorce. They took the values bridge, and they saw. And we saw in stark black and white that her number one value was eudaimonia. And his number, it was like his 14th or 15th value, okay? And they just stared at each other. And she wanted to continue her lifestyle, and she did not want to compromise. They tried to make it work. We talked it through. They used the language of the values bridge. But this was. They had other really stark values differences as well. For instance, for her, affluence is like, as 13 or 14. And for him, it was like, number two, these are really big differences about what you want in life. I wish they'd taken the values bridge before they got married. They tried to work it out, Believe it or not. They had another child and then finally separated and did divorce. So they both carried on. He has remarried, she's not remarried. But they had very profound differences in eudaimonia that they could. They could not build the bridge. They could not build the bridge. Now I have a happy story, though, about a couple that I've known for a long time. They have four children. They had a really happy, fun beginning of their relationship. They met in a. In a vacation town that everyone knows of. They were both bartenders. They had a spectacular, fun beginning of their lives. And then they kind of settled down. They had the kids. She stayed home with the kids. And he continued to run a business. And he did a dumb thing, which is that he cheated on her. He. It was terrible. Everyone knew about it. He thought he might leave her for this woman. Everyone was talking about it. It was kind of agonizing. I remember getting the call, something saying, did you hear? And I was like, oh, darn. I thought they were such a great family. I thought they'd make it work. Well, a few weeks later, they gave me a call, and they'd. The values bridge. And they wanted to come over and ask. They asked basically, susie, will you help us out with this? And I wanted to help them as friends. And I looked at their values bridge results, and guess what? They both have eudaimonia at number one. Okay? I asked them about it. And look, you know, one of the things that they really like this is. I'm sorry, because I'm, like, such a freaking prude, but one of the things they. They love to party. But, like, they had, like. Like a really good sex life. Okay. And that's part of eudaimonia. Okay? That is part of it is pleasure and stuff that makes you feel good in the moment. And it saved them. It saved them. You know, we were talking about it and she said, like, I'm so mad at you right now. I hate you and I hate. You've humiliated me and you've. You've done this terrible thing to our family. But I love this part of you. I love this part of our history together. I want to keep having that fun with you. And he said, I feel the same way. And that was like 10, six years ago. Six years ago. They are so happy. They worked it out. They fought back. And I think it was. I think their Eudaimonia savings them. I think their memory of how they share this thing around happiness, this same feeling around what feels good to. They shared it. It saved them. And I went out to dinner with them last summer. They're good.

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

They're good.

[Suzy Welch]

And I think that the Eudaimonia did it. So it matters so much. You don't have to have it exactly one to one, but I think if it's a top value, your partner should have it as a top value. If it's a bottom value, I mean, woe to the person who's got a. Who's married to a low eudaimonia person like me who doesn't understand how that works in a person's head. It could be so tiresome. Look, look, the same thing about having kind of a. Same level of eudaimonia. It really matters when it comes to a job. Companies have values. Industries have values. They do. I mean, some industries are really fun and people are really sociable in them, and others are real grinds. We know that Hollywood's got values. PE has values. And if you are a person who's got very high eudaimonia and you go into a low eudaimonia company or industry, you're cooked. You're cooked. And so I actually had a friend, I went to college with him. Party, party, party all the time. Hi, Eudaimonia guy. You wanted to be at his parties. His parties were so fun that he himself often got arrested at his parties. Okay. I mean, he would, like. He would just do something outrageous and the police would come. When he got out of college, he went right to Wall Street. These were the good old days in Wall street where you could party. And he went into sales. Perfect fit. Okay. He entertained people. High salesmen and he was like a party job in a party industry with a party guy. And then the big crash happened, 2007, 2008, and all the fun went out of Wall Street. Oldsters like me remember this. And SEC started to have a lot of rules around what salespeople could do. And he kept his job because he was so good at it. But all the rules around sales ended, and he couldn't bring his eudaimonia to work anymore. And he eventually got fired because he couldn't stop being a high eudaimonia guy. Guess what he does right now? He owns and runs a really fun cafe in Paris.

[Ellen (Suzy's sister)]

Okay, whatever.

[Suzy Welch]

He took his eudaimonia to the right job for him. He's a party guy and should be in a party industry. But look, sometimes I look at who goes into P.E. for my students. A lot of them go into private equity. And these are people who have achievement, work, centrism, affluence, scope as top values. They're going into an industry that really supports those. Even cities have different levels of eudaimonia. When I worked at Bain, when I was a young working gal at Bain, we tried to open an office in New Orleans. We're like, why are there no consultants in New Orleans? Well, we've quickly found out there were no consultants in New Orleans because nobody works in New Orleans. It's a wonderful, fun city. My father's family is from there. I love it. No shade on New Orleans. You know, people walk down the street with an open beer at 10 in the morning. The reason why there's no consultants there is because no one is actually working in New Orleans. And if you've got really low eudaimonia and you want to work, work, work, like my colleagues at Bain did, then don't go work in New Orleans. Okay, sorry, sorry. To the whole city of New Orleans. I may have one listener there, but. Sorry. There's a reason why certain people gravitate to New York City. It's intensity, it's urgency. I can't wait till we have the data where we can do by cities. I'm telling you the value of scope, which is the desire to grind and learn and have adventure. That's gotta be off the charts for most New Yorkers. All right, look, use it as a screen. Use your eudaimoni as a screen. When it comes to your romantic relationships and when it comes to your careers, these are two of the two biggest decisions you make in your life. Pretty much. I mean, there's one. Another big decision around children but who you end up with, who you partner with, and where you. Where you work. Check out this values alignment. Because eudaimonia can really make or break your comfort level. And nobody tells you that about happiness. But they should. They should. Okay, but that's what I'm here for. I think I've pretty much gotten to the end of these three things. I don't want you to fuzz over or equivocate on where you are with this value of eudaimonia. I want you to stare straight at it. All right? Stare straight at it in every aspect of eudaimonia. It's a super important value because everyone talks about happiness and everyone thinks about it and everyone judges each other about it. So when that happens, I think your best strategy is to know the data about eudaimonia and to know the history about eudaimonia and know about you. Now, it's interesting to end this podcast. I went looking for a really good quote about happiness to sum it all up. And here's this marvelous thing. There is no one quote that sums it all up because all the quotes are related. How much the person's saying the quote, how they feel about happiness. That's what. That's my. It made my whole point for me. It's like, wait, they're all coming from different places about happiness. You know, eudaimonial. It's such a personal thing. We all want it. We just want it in different amounts and in different time frames and in different ways. And knowing that about yourself is the unlock that can shape your life and will shape your life if you let it. And I really think that you should. I am Susie Welch. I love spending this time with you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for following along with becoming you. If you want to drop me a line about this, you can do so in the show notes. If you like this podcast, and only if you liked it, please leave a review. It really helps a lot. Maybe you just listen to this podcast and you think, wait, wait a minute. I want to know exactly where you ranks for me. I'm dying to know. Well, guess what? We'd love to help you do that. Go to thevaluesbridge.com that's where you can find the assessment. We're going to give you a code in the show notes, and guess what? We'll give you 50% off so that you can take it right now and maybe have people that you love take it. There's a functionality in the values bridge that if you check a little box and somebody else checks their box too. You can compare your results. So find out what everybody around you feels about Eudaimonia. Again, the code for 50% off is in the show notes. All right, I will see you next week on Becoming youg have a great week. Until then,

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