← Beyond Blind Blaming
Beyond Blind Blaming
The Science of Well-being: Uncovering the Hidden Barriers to Happiness | Stephanie Harrison
00:37:31
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- [00:01]
Stephanie Harrison
Many of us have been conditioned into an idea of happiness that comes from our culture and the world around us.
- [00:07]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Stephanie Harrison, she's the creator of the New Happy philosophy and an expert in the science of well being. Her company, the New Happy, teaches millions of people around the world to be happier every day.
- [00:18]
Stephanie Harrison
This experience and journey came out of my own personal unhappiness. I really started to investigate the science of well being because I was trying to find these answers for myself. There's no stimulating where we're going to eliminate all of our problems and we're not going to have things that we have to deal with. There's such a misunderstanding about motivation in our culture, which is that being cruel to yourself will motivate you to do more and achieve more. But the research shows that in fact, it prevents you from being able to reach your full potential.
- [00:50]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Can you talk about the four steps to happiness?
- [00:52]
Stephanie Harrison
I think that there is this journey that we need to go on and the first is to.
- [01:09]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Welcome to Beyond Blind Blaming. This is the place where we explore how easily hidden truths can hold us back, trapping us in cycles of frustration and blame, often without even realizing what's truly stopping us. Each week I'm joined by experts and professionals who share their journey of taking back control of their story, overcoming hidden challenges, and discover how to stop blind blaming from dictating their outcomes. The insights you're about to gain will help you see beyond your current limitations, find the courage to seek new perspectives, and ultimately live a life that's both purposeful and powerful. So if you're ready to break free from blind blaming and discover what's possible, you'll definitely want to listen to our next guest. I'm your host, Kevin Saint Clergy and today I'm joined by Stephanie Harrison. She's the creator of the New Happy philosophy and an expert in the science of well being. Her company, the New Happy, teaches millions of people around the world to be happier every day. She has a master's degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania where she was later an instructor. Previously she was the head of learning at Thrive Global where she directed the development of science backed programs for well being that reaches millions of employees at Fortune 500 companies around the world. Stephanie, welcome to the show.
- [02:21]
Stephanie Harrison
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here with you.
- [02:24]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, let's start with a little bit about you and your background and what led you to do what you do now, which sounds like helping people be happy or find their happiness.
- [02:33]
Stephanie Harrison
I think that in many ways this experience and journey came out of my own personal unhappiness, my struggles to find what I was looking for in my own life. And I really started to investigate the science of wellbeing because I was trying to find these answers for myself. And along the way, as I did, I discovered that there's so much information out there that wasn't being translated from academic journals or from institutions down into regular people's lives. And I wanted to be a part of that and helping to disseminate those messages so that people can, as one of the goals of your podcast, live better, healthier, happier lives.
- [03:11]
Kevin Saint Clergy
What is Positive Psychology? I read that in your bio and I was like, well, I don't think I've heard that term before, so tell us about that a little bit.
- [03:18]
Stephanie Harrison
So traditionally, psychology was focused on alleviating suffering, which makes perfect sense, right? There is so much pain that can be experienced from mental illness, from navigating trauma and other difficult experiences in one's life. And that was really the primary focus of the field for all of its time. And then the founder of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, decided that there seemed to be a problem with that approach, that even though you could help people to recover from their traumatic experiences, those people weren't then equipped to build lives of meaning and purpose and of connection and fulfillment. And so he thought that there might be different tools and different research required to understand what makes for a good life. And that's really what positive psychology focuses on, is how to help people to experience greater flourishing in their lives.
- [04:10]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, this is something new. I hadn't heard of it before. Well, it looks like you went into business for yourself. How long ago did that happen?
- [04:17]
Stephanie Harrison
I officially started the New happy back in 2018, but it was a very. I wouldn't even call it a business. It was a humble newsletter that I started that I wrote once a week. I was working full time at the time, and I just wanted to share some of what I discovered in my studies. And eventually it took me about three years to go and be able to do that work full time. So when I left thrive in 2020, I started the New Happy then, and that's been my primary focus for the last four years now.
- [04:45]
Kevin Saint Clergy
That's great. I did something similar. I had a consulting contract back in 2005, and then about three years into it, when I got it to where I could do it full time and figured I needed to focus more on this, I did. So congrats for that. What do you think was your biggest challenge when you first started, gosh, I.
- [05:02]
Stephanie Harrison
Mean, I feel like all of it, everything was hard. I was coming from the corporate world, right? And I had learned a lot of the skills that were required to succeed in a large organization or institution, like managing upward and building influence and learning how to navigate complex organizations and all that kind of stuff. But I realized that I didn't have any of the actual skills that were required to be an entrepreneur. I didn't know how to do things, to take on challenges that were completely unfamiliar and you were the only one who could solve them. Right. Or to push yourself and motivate yourself. Every day I feel like I had to learn a whole completely new skillset and set of emotional regulation tools to help me to navigate being an entrepreneur versus being an employee at a large company.
- [05:46]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Sounds like you have a psychology background. Almost.
- [05:50]
Stephanie Harrison
It's helped me to reframe things and find new tools, that's for sure.
- [05:54]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, what kind of challenges did you have when it came to finding the best people and getting them to stay?
- [05:59]
Stephanie Harrison
Well, the benefit of what I do is that it's really just me. So I'm not running a team or managing a group of people. So I've worked with some amazing people on short term engagements and had them come in to help. But for the most part it's just me driving this forward. And so I think that makes it a little bit easier and also kind of reduces the complexity of running an organization that's any larger than one person.
- [06:24]
Kevin Saint Clergy
There's no doubt about that. Solopreneur. But at the same time you have a lot less stress. So I work with practices large and small and clients large and small and have for a long time. So I think it just depends. It kind of is very similar to your book on happiness, which we'll get into shortly. I always have people clearly define what they think success is and then I help them build that business around that. I try to help them create a business that creates a life, not that is their life.
- [06:50]
Stephanie Harrison
That's amazing.
- [06:51]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Is this your first book? The new Happy.
- [06:53]
Stephanie Harrison
My first book, yeah. Yeah.
- [06:55]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Okay. Well, it's a huge. I love it. I can't wait to recommend it to everybody and we'll definitely make sure we put on the resources. And I've got a new book coming out here soon too, so we're definitely. I enjoyed it. But can you talk about the happiness myth that you start with in the book and as well as how we can define our own happiness? Much like I said about how I help people define what success means to Them. It sounds like you take a very similar approach with happiness.
- [07:17]
Stephanie Harrison
I love that you do that, because one of the things that's become increasingly clearer to me over the years has been that if we're not operating from the right definition, we set ourselves up for major difficulties down the line. And so much of those definitions that we have are not consciously considered. And so in the work that you do, helping people to identify that and to take a step back and figure out what they're actually working towards, it's exactly what I'm trying to do as well. So with respect to happiness, I believe that many of us have been conditioned into an idea of happiness that comes from our culture and the world around us, and that because we haven't allowed or been given the space to challenge that, we end up pursuing it, thinking that it's going to make us happy. And this really centers around ideas of perfection. Trying to make yourself perfect and optimize yourself, trying to be more and more successful. Kind of this mentality of nothing is ever enough. You have to keep persisting and pushing yourself more and more. And then isolation, being alone and being separate from other people. And these beliefs really seep into our lives in so many different ways, whether it's through our institutions or our schools or the media. And the more that we internalize them, the more that they direct what we do and how we pursue happiness. And I think that for me, thinking about how they affected me, I never knew why I wasn't happy, because I thought I was doing everything right. I thought I was doing all the things that were going to make me happy. And it was really frustrating because, of course, if you're working really hard on something and you don't get the results you want, it's very destabilizing and disempowering. And I think that that's a big part of the general decline in wellbeing that we see in our country and in the world.
- [09:06]
Kevin Saint Clergy
There's some similarities between my new book. When I was 10 years old, I had an incredible batting average of.550. I don't know if you know much about baseball, but that's pretty good. One out of two times I went to bat, I got a hit better than Babe Ruth. And then the next year, I went to zero. And I was preteen. So everybody blamed my attitude. They blamed my swing. I had swing coaches. My dreams of playing professional baseball kind of faded away. And then the next year, it was again a zero batting average, and I ended up quitting. And then two weeks after quitting, I had a simple eye test where they found that I just couldn't see. I couldn't see well enough to hit the ball. And the parents blamed everything else except something that was out of my control, which was the real problem. So the concept's called blind blaming. That's where we start blaming other things when there's something deeper going on or something that we don't see or recognize. And as I was reading through your book and finishing it up, preparing for the podcast, it seems like there might be some things about happiness at the core of people's problems that they're not even aware of. Am I wrong there?
- [10:04]
Stephanie Harrison
No, you're completely right. And I love that concept. And I'm so excited to read more in your book.
- [10:09]
Kevin Saint Clergy
I will get you the book, I promise. Yeah, I can't wait. I'm finally done. It's been a year in the making, and it started with a TED Talk that I wrote. Still trying to book it, but I started sharing with podcast guests, and they're like, you should write this as a book. And I'm like, I don't know. In my free time. Anyway, keep going.
- [10:25]
Stephanie Harrison
That's amazing, because writing a book was one of the hardest things I've ever done. And so you deserve all the celebration for this amazing milestone. I love the concept. I completely agree. Like, and I think in the case of happiness, like, we end up blaming ourselves, right? Or the world blames us for not being happy and saying, like, what's wrong with you? Why can't. Why haven't you figured this out? And so I think that there's so much overlap and connection between that incredible concept of yours and how we've been socialized and conditioned to think about our own pursuits of happiness.
- [10:59]
Kevin Saint Clergy
That's where your myth of happiness, I really enjoyed that because you're right. Just like we have to define success, I think sometimes that people wonder why they're not happy, and they think it's their job or they think it's their income or what they don't have because their buddy just keeping up with the Joneses. Everybody just got a new car, and they can't afford the car.
- [11:17]
Stephanie Harrison
It's easy, isn't it, to look around and to kind of fixate or pinpoint on. This is the problem in my life that's preventing me from happiness. But I've experienced myself, and what I know from the research is that there's no state of being where we're going to eliminate all of our problems, and we're not going to have things that we have to deal with or where we're going to be able to free ourselves from difficult emotions like envy or anger or sadness or whatever it is. And real happiness, I think, is less about looking around to point out these problems and trying to fix it, but more about embracing all that you have and finding ways to engage more in the things that matter to you.
- [11:58]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, my girlfriend saw me reading the book again. She saw it on the countertop. She's like, oh, is that who I was on your podcast? And she said, well, make sure you tell her what you told me when we first met, that it's not my job to make you happy. I'm already happy. I just want to share some of that with you. So where does responsibility fall into the concept that you're teaching? Because I've always firmly believed that it's my responsibility to be happy, not have somebody else make me happy. How do you feel about that? Any comments or thoughts?
- [12:25]
Stephanie Harrison
I think that every one of us has a level of profound personal responsibility for our choices, for the way that we respond to our emotions and our thoughts, for the way that we show up in the world. And I think that I would agree that we each have this opportunity to claim that responsibility for ourselves. And I also think that one thing that has gone less acknowledged in the broader discourse about happiness is that the level of responsibility that you can claim is then also influenced by external factors that might be affecting you. And so sometimes I think about it like if you have a circle of responsibility, there's this other broader circle around you which includes all of the context of your life and of the situations that you're in and your relationships and things like that. And I sometimes think that imagining it as a permeable boundary where those things influence you and affect you can also help people to understand that there are certain factors in their lives that might be outside of their control. But. But that doesn't mean that they don't have the opportunity to identify what it is that is within their control and what can be changed. And I think that that work of defining that line and identifying where is my power and how do I claim it and where do I not have power and where do I need to accept something instead is a very challenging kind of like day by day process for all of us.
- [13:51]
Kevin Saint Clergy
It's kind of. And it's all fresh on my mind. But the blind blame, it's called Beyond Blind Blaming is the actual title of the book. How do you move beyond it? But it didn't cover enough Happiness after reading your book. And you got to pick a point where you just say, okay, enough's enough. It's got to go to the editor, right? You know, every time I read a new book, I'm like, oh, this is so good. I need to include some of this stuff in there. And I'm reading your stuff after I gave it to her, and I'm like, happiness, pop. I should have put some of that in there.
- [14:15]
Stephanie Harrison
It's so hard, isn't it, when you're trying to. When you're trying to write something and you want to include everything and you want to just have it connect to all of those different ideas. I felt the same way. Like some of the work and cutting different topics or not including things was actually the hardest part for me.
- [14:30]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, walk us through how to find freedom for what you called the old happy. And if you could define the old happy for everyone. I don't want to take people away from reading your book, but I just picked some of my favorite sections and wanted you to talk a little bit more about them.
- [14:43]
Stephanie Harrison
So old happy is society's kind of understanding of happiness and how it's affected us. And as I mentioned, you know, it's really centered around these ideas of you have to be perfect, you have to achieve these specific goals, and you have to do everything by yourself. And I think, honestly, one of the most helpful things with starting to move away from that is simply noticing it, paying attention to it when it shows up, being able to point it out in your own life or when it's affecting you. And one of the places that can be really helpful to start with that is just starting to pay attention to your own self, talk the way that you speak to yourself or communicate with yourself in any way. And how the majority of us have been really conditioned to speak to ourselves in such a hateful and cruel way. And there's such a misunderstanding about motivation in our culture, which is that being cruel to yourself will motivate you to do more and achieve more. But the research shows that, in fact, it holds you back. It prevents you from being able to reach your full potential. And so simply starting to pay attention to where that old happy messaging has come into your head. And for me, a lot of it began with noticing how that cruelty with which I spoke to myself, and then striving to say, okay, what's a slightly nicer thing? I could say to myself, what's a slightly kinder thing? And working my way up to ultimately an entirely different type of relationship with myself.
- [16:08]
Kevin Saint Clergy
I had Added a line this morning said, be kind, be nice. Because I recently had to get somebody for slander and correct them for lying. It was awful experience. And we got it done. I was like, I don't understand why people just can't be kind and be nice. But that advice is good, but I don't think we follow it for ourselves. Be kind and nice to ourselves. And I think it was Tony Robbins that said, change your story, change your life, change how you speak to yourself. And it sounds like that's what you're saying.
- [16:32]
Stephanie Harrison
Absolutely. And I think that somebody who would engage in such hurtful outward actions that ultimately really does stem from having hurtful inward reactions. Right. Being cruel to yourself is, over time, so destabilizing, so, so painful. And ultimately it can lead people to do things that really hurt other people. Right. Whether it's they're trying to recover a sense of control or to bring other people pain so that they don't feel alone in their pain. There's all these different reasons. But I often tell people like, if you struggle to do it for yourself, if you struggle to think that you're worthy of that kindness, you can mentally trick yourself a little bit by reframing this as an act of service. Because people who are kind to them find it a lot easier to be kind to others and to be good citizens, good community members, good family members, and all of that kindness that you're giving yourself ultimately equips you to show up more for other people. And so for people who might feel worried about being selfish or anything like that, I often counsel them as to the outward benefits of it as well.
- [17:38]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Are you tired of feeling stuck in your business, career, relationships, or your health? Are you frustrated by problems that just won't go away no matter what you try to? After coaching and teaching thousands of people for over 25 years, I've discovered something powerful. Every unresolved problem has a hidden solution you just can't see yet. That's why I created the From Stuck to Breakthrough challenge. A free 5 day live experience where I'll show you exactly how to uncover what's really holding you back and finally break free to the results that you want. Whether it's in your business, your health, your wealth, your relationships, I'll help you discover the real root cause of your challenges and give you the blueprint for permanent change. Join me and a community of like minded people ready to break through. Go to blindblaming.com again, that's blindblaming.com to sign up and we'll see you soon can you talk about the four steps to happiness that you talk about.
- [18:31]
Stephanie Harrison
So I think that there is this journey that we need to go on. And the first is to learn to spot and identify old happy. Because if we don't talk about the things that are getting in the way, then we'll never be able to walk towards our final destination. We sort of have to clear the debris on the road, so to speak, and allow ourselves to walk it. Then we have to take a pause and really reconsider how we think about happiness, thinking about how and what it truly is, those experiences that really bring us joy and correct that experience. Then from there we can discover our unique gifts, all of the things that make us who we are, that allow us to basically to feel alive, to feel like we're doing something that's aligned with our, you know, our souls or our true selves, and then find ways to express those gifts in service of other people, whether that's in your community, through your work, in the broader environment, your family, wherever it is. And ultimately, it's that experience of being yourself and sharing yourself with other people that leads to true happiness.
- [19:34]
Kevin Saint Clergy
How do you think happiness relates to job performance, relationship success? Any advice there on job performance or burnout or anything like that that everyone goes through? I know you as an entrepreneur, have probably been there. It's just something we all experience.
- [19:48]
Stephanie Harrison
Universal, isn't it? I would say that there have been several extremely compelling studies that have been done over the last six or seven years that have found that there is a direct causation from happiness to success at work. And so happier people tend to be better performers in the workplace. They are less likely to suffer from burnout, they're more creative, they're more resilient. All of these downstream impacts. So if you need an argument to focus on your own happiness, you can think about the benefits that it'll give not just to your work, but then also to your loved ones as well. Right. Like when you are. If you think about when you're happy, one of the things that I always mentally picture is it's sort of like having like an open aperture like you have, instead of this very narrow beam of focus. When you're happy, your world sort of opens in new ways. And what I mean by that is you see the beauty in the world more readily. You see the beauty in other people, and you feel inspired to want to celebrate it and to show up for them in new ways, and you feel more expansive, like there are these possibilities that are waiting for you. And that's because experiencing happiness in the form of a positive emotion has all of these incredible benefits to your relationships as well. And I know when I feel happy and fulfilled in my life, it makes me a better person. It makes me more generous, it makes me more present, it makes me more creative. All the things that I want for myself actually come once I focus on that well being and happiness. And so it's really one of the most important things that we all can do for ourselves and also to benefit other people.
- [21:26]
Kevin Saint Clergy
See, this is great because it's really at the core of some unresolved problems I think a lot of people have that they haven't figured out how to be happy. And I think it affects their health. I think it affects their defining their purpose, a reason to get up every morning, everything. So may I ask you to be a speaker at one of our mastermind groups? If that's something you do.
- [21:43]
Stephanie Harrison
That's so lovely. Thank you so much.
- [21:46]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, how do you build strong, long lasting relationships? Because in business, as you've probably learned, I've always felt it's the quality and quantity of the personal relationships you take the time to build. And it sounds like you need to be happy first because as you said before, this relates to personal relationships, spouses, things like that. Talk to us a little bit about how you think happiness leads to building strong, long lasting relationships.
- [22:11]
Stephanie Harrison
When we think about the best relationships that we have in our own lives, they probably tend to have several characteristics in common. They're somebody who sees you for who you are, they make you feel like you matter. They invest in your wellbeing, they contribute to your life in some way, whether that's through their skills at work or their passion or in a family environment, through the work that they do to help with the home and with the kids and all of that kind of stuff, there's this exchange of giving and receiving that goes on. They tend to be characterized by acts of kindness and warmth and care. And those things that lead to good relationships, they also lead to personal happiness. And so I would say you don't have to focus on your own happiness to the exclusion of your relationships. In fact, working together with people to create healthy, happy relationships is what will also make you happier. And so when you're thinking about the relationships in your own life, really sitting down and thinking, like, what's my intention for this relationship? How can I show up in the way that will make them feel seen, appreciated, like they matter? How can I give them those acts of kindness? How can I contribute to them and how can I ask for the same thing in return or give them the opportunity to do so? And that is what is going to help to create those experiences of positive relationships which then in turn contribute to happiness down the road.
- [23:35]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, how do you handle people that, you know, need your book or need to be more happy? How do you approach people like that? Because I think a lot of times one of the first things that I teach is when they have an employee who's not doing what they're supposed to be doing, or they go overboard. I always encourage clients to start with just a simple question. Are you okay? But when you have somebody that's chronically negative, any suggestions on how to get them, especially when they're an employee, which is. You got a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs listen to this podcast now, and individuals. But I think a lot of people are also knowing that their husband is very unhappy, or their wife, or vice versa, or whoever their partner is. Any advice there? When they know they have somebody that needs help with happiness, but they're just not sure how to approach it.
- [24:19]
Stephanie Harrison
One framework that I found really helpful comes from Marshall Rosenberg and his work and theory on nonviolent communication. And in that, he argues that any negative emotions are the result of an unmet need. And so when somebody is persistently negative or pessimistic or frustrated or antagonistic, any of those things that, you know, as a business owner make you feel a sense of tension or worry or, you know, a sense of, oh, gosh, I don't know how to deal with this. I find that thinking through and starting to interrogate what their unmet needs might be can help to overcome that scenario. And so if you're thinking about that with an employee, for example, perhaps there's a way that you can sit down and have a conversation with them. And I love the question that you say, like, are you okay? Because what that's doing in that moment is meeting an unmet need for connection and for being able to share your pain or what's bothering you or what's going on in your life that hasn't maybe been acknowledged in that environment. And then once you know about what their unmet needs are, then you can meet them. And when that happens, people naturally experience greater well being. They're more positive, they're more optimistic, they're able to engage in their work in the ways that benefit them and benefit the company. And so for me, it's really helped me to engage in those situations in a compassionate way by thinking like, what's the unmet need here or needs and how can I. One, understand them and then two, figure out what might be done to meet them.
- [25:52]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Now, when you started your business, it's as you probably learned, you probably had to do some marketing. Is there any marketing tips and tricks that you've learned over the last. Well, let's see. So four years or six? Six years now since you started.
- [26:05]
Stephanie Harrison
Yeah, six years. But four years for real?
- [26:07]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Yeah, r4 for us. So in the last four years, what marketing have you done to try to get your message out there? I'm sure the book helped a little bit or a lot.
- [26:16]
Stephanie Harrison
Yeah, gosh, it's been a huge education for me. I actually worked in product marketing before this at LinkedIn. But the experience of learning how to market yourself and your own product and your own business is vastly different when you don't have access to millions of dollars in resources. So I think that one of the things the new Happy has been able to build like a really large audience on social media and a very large platform. And I think that that comes from learning how to market, ironically, through the answer to my previous. Your previous question, which is through meeting people's needs and through really being mindful about how you're describing yourself. Because everybody has needs. The people who come to your clients practices, the people who are listening, they all have these needs that are driving them. And once we know what they're looking for, we can meet them in ways that help them. And so whether that's with creating content that helps to address it, putting information out there that gives people the answers that they're looking for, giving them a journey that they can go on where they start to understand how they can improve their health and wellbeing or the benefits of doing so. All of that being of service ultimately is the best form of marketing, in my opinion. It's trying to show up for your customers or your clients before they even might even know that they need you, and being there for them, giving them a helping hand, and ultimately that's really become my philosophy with our work, is how do we show up for people who might need us and how can we meet them with the resources that support them, and then that helps to bring those people in for more engagement and for more support.
- [27:52]
Kevin Saint Clergy
And what is your business behind the book? What do you do?
- [27:55]
Stephanie Harrison
So the New Happy, basically I started it because I wanted to communicate this philosophy to people and I wanted to find a way to help people through these daily experiences of creating greater wellbeing. So there's a media arm of the company, which provides a daily newsletter, daily podcast, artwork. We create artwork to communicate these ideas, videos, content, resources, educational materials, all that kind of stuff. And then there is the book, of course, which sort of shares the full philosophy in detail. And so that's for people who are interested in going much deeper into it and getting a roadmap for what exactly they can do. And then I also work with companies and so I'll come in and speak to organizations and support them with their well being and advise on how they can implement the latest science in their organizations to help them.
- [28:44]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, it sounds like a lot of fun.
- [28:46]
Stephanie Harrison
It is. I feel very grateful. It's a dream come true.
- [28:50]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Well, how often do you see happiness as that hidden problem, that hidden truth that a lot of people don't see?
- [28:57]
Stephanie Harrison
Almost all the time. Not to be kind of. What's the quote? Like a man with a hammer. Every problem looks like a nail. I sometimes feel like that. But I do think it is such a driving factor for so many things. And part of my argument that I make is that the pursuit of happiness ultimately is our deepest goal in life. So it ends up driving all of the choices that we make in one form or another. And so me starting my company was because I thought it would in some way make me happy to do this work. And me getting out of bed today and hopping on a call with you is the result of me thinking, hey, this is going to be a great conversation. It's going to make me feel happier. And so ultimately, if that is the kind of driving force of human beings, then it has an impact on all of the choices that we make. And so it does feel like it is like the hidden part of the iceberg, so to speak, in a lot of situations.
- [29:51]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Because I see a lot of people, which is, again, what motivated me to write the book was a lot of people don't realize what's really going on and they start climbing the wrong mountain and they start trying to solve the wrong problem. Quote I have that my editor really liked was, you're not failing at solving your problems, you're succeeding at solving the wrong problems perfectly. I really believe that some people just are miserable because they haven't clearly defined happiness and done some of the things you recommend in your book.
- [30:16]
Stephanie Harrison
Thank you. I agree. And I think your analysis is so astute and so important because a lot of people think that they're really self aware. Right. But what we know from the research is that almost nobody is self aware. It's a very, very rare attribute and it's sort of like drivers, right? Everybody thinks they're a great driver, but not everybody can be a really great driver, obviously, given what we see on the road. And I think that we would be ironically, a lot happier if we stopped thinking that we knew everything about ourselves and started being more curious about ourselves and what we're doing and why we're doing it and maybe letting go of that feeling that I actually do know myself. What if we approached ourselves with a greater sense of humility and said, I haven't quite thought this through yet and there are things that I'm missing and that would ultimately help us to become more self aware over time.
- [31:09]
Kevin Saint Clergy
I talk about awareness a lot and the blind blaming concept because I think when we don't know what's going on or we get uncomfortable or we get stuck in what I call the blame loop, we just start pointing fingers. It's my job that's not making me happy. It's my relationship that's not making me happy. It's my boss and who knows what else. And a lot of times what we're finding is that there's underlying health issues or I created this kind of obstacle DNA where we try to look at five different areas of their life. I should have put happiness in there, but it's not one of the major categories. But it's like looking at health and your purpose and your growth and do we have the right resources? And typically when I take somebody through this whole process, we'll find that underlying problem, but. And it really changes their lives basically as far as growing. So if we can find that problem as happiness for burnout or sometimes, how difficult do you find it is to get people? When you find out what the true cause of their unhappiness is, how hard do you find it is for them to change?
- [32:06]
Stephanie Harrison
Some people cling pretty tightly to the sources of their misery, unfortunately, and they think they're getting something out of it still. So it can be a journey. I think it depends on how unhappy they are, how willing they are to challenge the status quo, how open they are in general. And then something I've increasingly been noticing as well is how much curiosity and openness and humility they possess, because that's what helps them with unlearning these ideas. If you've been told for your whole life that just around the bend there's this magical land of happiness and you can get there. If you get promoted every year at work and you have a certain amount of money in your bank account and you are the exact weight you want to be or whatever it is, then a lot of people don't necessarily want to give that up right away. And it helps if they can really be open to challenging themselves, looking internally at their past experiences and sort of accumulating the proof for themselves of. Oh, yeah, I remember that time that I did get promoted, and I was happy for 20 minutes, and then it faded away. Right.
- [33:13]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Until their first unhappy employee.
- [33:14]
Stephanie Harrison
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So if they're willing to do that, if they're willing to engage in the process of unlearning, it gets a lot easier. And again, like, that, to me, comes from that willingness to say, hey, maybe I don't have all the answers, and maybe there's something new I can learn.
- [33:29]
Kevin Saint Clergy
I'm being vulnerable. You're describing something I called behavioral bedrock. And it just keeps adding layer after layer after layer after layer. It's in this thing I call the blame loop, which. I'll send you the book when we're done.
- [33:39]
Stephanie Harrison
Can't wait.
- [33:40]
Kevin Saint Clergy
But it's just this vicious cycle where we keep adding layers to something. It makes it even harder and harder to break free. And you just described it perfectly.
- [33:48]
Stephanie Harrison
Well, I love that term. That's brilliant.
- [33:51]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Yeah, that was actually a fun part, is coming up with my own language with certain things. But we'll see what you think. Well, if somebody needed to get ahold of you for either speaking engagement, I know they can get your book on Amazon. That's where I got the Kindle version and got through it pretty quickly. But if they want to get ahold of you, what's the best way to get in touch?
- [34:08]
Stephanie Harrison
They can just reach out@hello, thenewhappy.com and I will be in touch as soon as I can.
- [34:14]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Great. And one of the last things I like to end with is you've clearly invested in yourself, and you definitely have a growth mindset. How do you learn more things? Do you like to read? Do you join mastermind groups? Do you have a coach yet? What are some things you like to do to develop yourself?
- [34:28]
Stephanie Harrison
I love to read. I basically spend every night just reading scientific journals and studies, trying to broaden my knowledge on different topics. So right now, I'm in the middle of a textbook about attachment disorders in adults and what clinicians can do in order to support them. And so I just. I love to gain access to the brilliance of what people have done and what they've contributed. And then I sort of put that into my own mental database of how this all fits in and try to figure out how I Can use it to teach. I love to try new things. Like I'm in the middle of starting to learn how to play the piano because I want to be a beginner at something and push myself to do something that feels really uncomfortable. A lot of what I've had to do over the last few years has been learning those skills like we talked about for the business and how to do all of these things that I had never done before. And now that I feel like I've got a bit of a handle on them, I want to take on a new challenge. And so that's when. And then I love to be in communities with people who help you to see things about yourself that you might not have seen before. So working together on problems and helping individuals, that's probably where I get a lot of my personal growth as well, is through those relationships.
- [35:35]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Yeah, I like that. We actually own a mastermind group, so that's where I would love to have you speak to our team. We've got a group of 50 or so and we're developing more in different industries, so it's been a lot of fun. I'm with you though. That was kind of my calling. When I got in a room with everybody and we're sharing ideas and then the group helps this one person find their hidden truth, I was like, oh, so much fun.
- [35:55]
Stephanie Harrison
So incredible.
- [35:56]
Kevin Saint Clergy
Yeah, everybody's crying. I mean, there's a lot of crying and stuff that we do, but because once people really figure out what's going on at the core of most of the problems that they have, it's pretty life changing. And breakthrough moments. We'll call them. So. Well, Stephanie, thank you for taking the time. I know you're super busy. Definitely want to talk after we're done about having you come speak at one of our mastermind groups though. And we've got a couple coming up. So I hope you have a wonderful day and we'll talk again soon.
- [36:19]
Stephanie Harrison
Thank you so much, Kevin. So great to be here with you.