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Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Shige Oishi on How to Live a Psychologically Rich Life | EP 571
01:01:27
In this episode of Passion Struck, host John R. Miles welcomes one of the world’s leading psychologists, Dr. Shige Oishi, to discuss his latest book, Life in Three Dimensions.
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- [00:01]
John R. Miles
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- [00:38]
Shige Oishi
There's nothing wrong with the William James equation. I mean it's really brilliant. But two ways to maximize the self esteem. One is maximize your success, then your self esteem is higher. But the other approach is reduce your desires. If you want a lot then the success has to be enormous in order to get equation like a high outcome. But by reducing ambitions, even your success is a little. If the desire is small, then you could feel good about yourself.
- [01:13]
Narrator
Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John R. Miles. And on the show we decipher the secrets, tips and and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now let's go out there and become Passion Struck. Hey, Passion Struck fam. Welcome to episode 571. I am thrilled to have you as part of this incredible community. Whether you're a longtime listener or joining us for the first time, you've become part of a global movement dedicated to igniting purpose and living boldly. I couldn't be happier to have you here. So today I want to ask you a profound what if the key to a truly fulfilling life isn't just about happiness or meaning, but something much deeper. For decades, the pursuit of happiness or sense of purpose has dominated our understanding of the good life. But today's guest, Shige Yoichi, produces a transformative third dimension, psychological richness. The idea that a life filled with diverse, novel and even challenging experiences can be just as, if not more fulfilling. Shige Oishi is one of the world's leading psychologists and the Marshall Field IV professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He has dedicated his career to studying happiness, meaning and culture, building on the foundational work of his mentor Ed Diener, while pushing the boundaries of what we know about well being. His groundbreaking research has been featured in major outlets like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and his brand new book, Life in Three Dimensions redefines what it means to live a good life. In today's interview, we explore how psychological richness differs from happiness and meaning, why it matters, and how it can transform your life. We'll dive into the science behind these ideas. From the psychology of happiness hired by Ed Diener and Marty Seligman, to Carol Riff's self Determination Theory, Shige will share how psychological richness addresses the potential pitfalls of happiness and meaning, the traps of complacency and narrowness, and why embracing curiosity, exploration and even adversity can help us live with fewer regrets. We'll also discuss how psychological richness connects to today's loneliness epidemic, the importance of mattering as well as belonging, and how we can cultivate richer, more vibrant lives. If you've ever wondered why happiness and meaning sometimes leave you feeling stuck or unfulfilled, or if you're looking for ways to add more depth, curiosity and richness to your life, then this episode is for you. Before we dive into today's episode, let's reflect on the powerful conversations we shared last week. On Tuesday, Ethan Cross joined me and we explored insights from his latest book, Shift Managing your emotions so they don't manage you. In our discussion, Ethan presents a science based guide to mastering our emotional lives and he offers actionable strategies to ensure our emotions amplify our capabilities rather than hinder them. Then on Thursday, Eric Zimmer joined me. He's a behavioral coach and host of the One you Feed podcast and he shared his journey from overcoming addiction to becoming a hope for so many people worldwide. He emphasized that recovery and personal growth are not about grand gestures, but about consistent, intentional steps. These discussions provided valuable perspectives on managing our inner worlds and embracing the challenges that lead to personal growth. And if you're ready to take these insights even deeper, don't forget to check out our episode starter packs. With over 570 episodes, we know it can be overwhelming, so we've curated playlists on themes like leadership, personal growth, alternative health, and so many more. You can find them all on Spotify or by visiting passionstruck.com starterpacks for weekly inspiration and actionable tips. Be sure to sign up for my Live Intentionally newsletter. It's packed with exclusive content and tools to help you put the lessons from our episodes into practice. And if you prefer watching these conversations. All of our episodes are available on our YouTube channels @JohnR Miles and Passion Struck clips where you can catch the videos and share them with others in your life who are passionate about growth. So get ready for a thought provoking conversation with Shigi Oishi that will challenge how you see the world and your place in it. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin.
- [05:47]
John R. Miles
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- [05:48]
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John R. Miles
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- [09:19]
John R. Miles
I am absolutely thrilled today to have Dr. Shige Oishi with me on Passion Struck. Welcome.
- [09:25]
Shige Oishi
Sh thank you.
- [09:27]
John R. Miles
First off, I want to congratulate you for your new book, Life in Three Dimensions. I was so impressed reading this that I cannot wait to dive into this and to introduce it to our leaders. But congratulations on its release.
- [09:42]
Shige Oishi
Thank you so much.
- [09:43]
John R. Miles
So I'm going to start off where your book starts off. You introduce the book by talking about your father's journey versus your own life. And as you're doing it, your father's life represents comfort and tradition, while your own life has been more filled with exploration and uncertainty. How have these contrasting paths shaped your views and the difference between the life you've led and your father's?
- [10:09]
Shige Oishi
Frankly, when I started my research back in 1995, I really didn't think about my own life at all. It is only after 20, maybe 25 years of research. That picture we get from the happiness research looked like my father's life rather than my own life. And that's when I had some crisis or the second thought about what happiness research really means and what we found. So it's really just recently it just occurred to me that my father led a very cozy, pleasant, happy life and I study happiness and try to be happy myself. But maybe many things I did were counterproductive to happiness, and maybe my dad was doing better in that dimension.
- [11:01]
John R. Miles
I recently interviewed Sandra Matz, who teaches at Columbia, and as I was listening to her story in her new book, she really started to talk about her journey was much like your father starting out. She lived in A small village in Germany. And now her work is really studying the global village that we find ourselves in. And I would say your journey and my journey are pretty similar. I left my family when I turned 18, joined the military and flew the coup. And so I experienced much more of a global village moving a number of times over my lifetime. How do you think that circumstance where not only is the global village us moving to different places, but through algorithms and technology and social media, the global village is now everywhere around us. How do you think that is influencing how we see ourselves and our sense of mattering?
- [12:09]
Shige Oishi
I think that's a really interesting point, that in many ways our life is way more globalized compared to 30, 40, 50 years ago. We are so connected to outside world. But if you look carefully about algorithms and social media and we were putting into a small sort of niches where our background preferences coded in their own language and we have this illusion of we live in a global village, but in reality we really don't live in a global village village. We live with the somebody who has similar view, similar political view, similar maybe music taste and so forth. So I think the media context is a very interesting one. It is magnified, I mean, physically speaking, right. My dad lives in a village of maybe 150 people, right. So now we live in a huge, much larger scale village, but at the same time it is not truly diverse, globalized kind of village, but you're just hanging out with the close like minded people in the end. So that's my how I feel about like how that that global village versus the real village life look like.
- [13:32]
John R. Miles
What I'm hearing you say in many ways is that when we live in these smaller villages, we really become close minded based on the values, traditions, thoughts of that small village, that small community where many people fall into the trap of following the herd. And what you're saying is when you start looking at this from a global perspective, you start getting many more diverse viewpoints into the way that you're thinking and exploring life. Is that a fair way to think about the two?
- [14:03]
Shige Oishi
So I think that your life for instance, going to the military, living in a different place, so those are the situations where you really put yourself in a strange situation, strange culture and really allow you to be immersed with the new environment. And what I was saying in terms of global village, in terms of media, social media and so forth, has the illusion of these real exposures. But in reality maybe exposure is just like a little village that you're just still talking to the very people, people who share the same kind of backgrounds and viewpoints. I think it's. It is really important to distinguish what we think is a real face to face the real exposure to the culture and outside world versus sort of the illusion of the exposure to the outside world through media and so forth.
- [15:02]
John R. Miles
Okay, so another thing I wanted to ask you about, since you brought this up, is I've really become fascinated by the work of the late Emile Bruno, who was trying to really focus on dehumanization and how do we end conflicts by having people see the other side. As you think about this global village we work in now, or we work and live in now, there are so many times when we're not seeing the other side. What are. Through the research you've done, what are some ways that we can break this path that we've gone down of decisiveness and division?
- [15:38]
Shige Oishi
I think that openness to experiences is a huge factor and huge predictor of psychological richness. And the people who, for instance, college students who study abroad are very different than those people who are not willing to. And the mindset of openness, just exploration, see what's out there, I think is the most important first step. And when you put yourself in a completely different worldview and world, then finally you start, you know, beginning to see what the other side or other people view us and also life in general. So I think it is very increasingly difficult to see the other side because we have this illusion of we are seeing what's happening all over the world, but not really, because we're not really putting ourselves online and seeing that the other side. So it is difficult. It is ugly sometimes. It's. It's really challenging to do. So I. I truly admire those people who do.
- [16:50]
John R. Miles
I think one of the things that we should really do more of is I've traveled to probably 50 different countries. I've been to Japan more than a dozen times. And one of the things I'm always grateful for when I'm on these travels is realizing that the. The more I'm around people from other countries, the more we're all alike, the more we want the same things in life. And yet we let the 20 of differences get in the way of the 80 in commonality that we all share. So over the past 18 months, I've been really doing some deep dives into happiness. And I think this all started by. I had Bob Waldinger on the podcast and when he came out with his book the Good Life. And it's a very interesting read. The Harvard Adult Study of Harvard Study of adult aging really points to our health, our connections, at what point makes us happy. And one of the things I found intriguing about your own work is your mentor was Ed Diener, who is considered to be one of the pioneers of happiness studies. Looking back on decades of research, what have we learned and what have you learned since your time with Ed about what truly makes people happy?
- [18:13]
Shige Oishi
Yeah, I think what's most interesting is that people's sort of the concept of what makes people happy might make them happy. Often incorrect that when we think about happy life, we think about like big success in life, right? Big promotion, big wedding, birth of new babies, buy a new house, a new car and things like that. But what Ed and others found is that those things, yes, it makes people happy, but not for long. Within six months, usually the effect of those promotions, weddings and so forth, just disappears. And what really matters is just a little things like walk, walking a dock every day in the neighborhood and saying hi to your neighbors, having coffee with your best friend every week, or having romantic dinner once a month or so with your partner. These little things that is repeatable is what makes people happy. Ed had the famous article entitled Happiness is a frequency, not intensity of positive events. And that's exactly. I think that's the most profound findings from the happiness research.
- [19:37]
John R. Miles
Well, I saw as I was looking through all your materials that Marty Seligman was one of the many people, in addition to my friend Ethan Cross, who gave you an endorsement for your book. And Marty's work in positive psychology really emphasizes optimism and strength. How does your thought process and your research intersect with or diverge from these ideas?
- [20:05]
Shige Oishi
Yeah, I mean, Marty's idea, of course, you know, very valid and well accepted that the positive emotion is important. Optimism is clearly important. And I like his Parma model as well. But I think that when people try to maximize happiness and when people think happiness is more of the personal success, career success, personal success, rather than the interpersonal success, and mistakenly think that the happiness is the big achievement, not just everyday little things you do with your friends and the family, then I think there are some negative consequences. This is nothing to do with what Mari did. This is just that those who are obsessed with happiness, sometimes I think that the structure their lives to avoid negative emotions, try to be stay within the comfort zones and so forth. So my work really came out of this concern that overly excessive pressure to feel happy. Pressure probably is one of the source for the anxious generations and why people are so worried about their lives and futures. And one way is try to be Optimistic and just get over the anxiety. But another way is try not to so emphasize the happiness. Just accept that negative things happening in life and then we can learn from it. And then just some new learning, new perspective you acquire enrich your life in the end. So that's how I view my life and the work in the context of positive psychology.
- [21:55]
John R. Miles
Thank you for that. And Shige, you go in the book we were talking about happiness, but then you start going into exploring the meaning in life and you go into the work of Carol Riff and the difference between the hedonic model and the eudaimonic model, which focuses more on personal growth and purpose, etc. How would you describe meaning in life and how does it differ from happiness?
- [22:25]
Shige Oishi
So I think the meaning in life is often defined as essentially the three things that person who lives that life has to feel that their life matters, so life is significant. And then also they have to feel that they have purpose in life, that their life is going somewhere. So they have sense of direction, not the aimlessness. And then the third factor is the coherence. We all have so many social roles. I'm professor, husband, father, etc. Etc. And these different roles are highly fragmented. What is required for each role is different. So modern people, I mean people in the 21st century often feel torn, right? But the meaning in life, the people who find their life to be meaningful, find this coherence. These different pieces and roles fit together under one big umbrella, often religious belief or sense of mission, personal missions and so forth. Meaning in life has the significance, has this purpose and has the sense of coherence. So that's how not just me, but most people in the field, such as Mike Steger, defined the meaning in life. And it's a little bit different from happiness in a sense that the happiness is focused on whether you personally feel that your life is going well. So it is really self contained. Whereas in order for you to feel like your life matter, it just has to feel that it matters not just to you, but others. So I think the sense of contribution to the society is much, much bigger. You're the military person, right? Really tough life day to day, but you have a sense of mission. You are doing this for other people and next generations and old Americans and so forth. So that's the sense of meaning. Whereas happiness could be very self contained. You do what you like and then even if you feel like that doesn't necessarily contribute to anyone else, you could feel happy. So that's, I would say, is the main difference between happiness and meaning in life.
- [24:53]
John R. Miles
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- [24:55]
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- [26:03]
John R. Miles
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- [26:05]
Shige Oishi
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Narrator
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Shige Oishi
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- [26:26]
John R. Miles
And then where does your third model emerge and how does it necessarily differentiate between the classic battle and where does it enrich it?
- [26:40]
Shige Oishi
Yeah, so the surprising thing is that when we talk about happiness and meaning in life, especially in terms of personal happiness or making somebody happy, then it looks like it's a two opposing force that the hedonic versus Eudaimonic. But empirically speaking, when you ask people how satisfied they are with their lives and how meaningful they think their life are, these two things often correlate very highly. And many of the corrects or predictors of happiness and meaning in life are pretty similar. So that's what was surprising to me that many of the stable factors, stable social relationship is really just a big predictor of both happiness and the meaning in life and my own well, another findings that is a little bit counterintuitive is that if you ask political orientations of the people, some are more politically conservative, some are more political liberals in general, at least in the United States, politically conservative people say they are happier and also find their lives to be meaningful compared to politically liberal people. Then there is a question, is there any path to good life through holding sort of political liberal view? So that that's one of the places where I, I started to think about maybe there is a third way to the good life. You don't have to hold on to conservative values or stable factors, but maybe exploring something new could be a way to a good life.
- [28:43]
John R. Miles
An area of research that Ethan Cross actually turned me on to was the work of Edward D.C. and Richard Ryan. I actually had Dr. Ryan on the show this past year. And in self determination theory they really found the connection to our intrinsic worth is tied to three variables, as you're well aware. But for the audience it really comes down to our autonomy, mastery and relatedness or connections. So where does your research align with that and where does it expand upon their framework and take it to a next level?
- [29:24]
Shige Oishi
I think the self determination theory is fundamentally motivational theories that that how important it is for us to have this intrinsic motivations to pursue what we love. And those people who do things for intrinsic reasons and self determination reasons, they do show that their life is more meaningful, they think that their life is more satisfying and so forth. So I think the self determination theory very similar also, just like Carol Riff's psychological well being theories that capture both hedonic but also very much eudemonic aspect of well being. My idea of psychological richness is not necessarily the motivation focus on the motivation per se. You're doing this for the intrinsic reason versus extreme extrinsic reasons. The mind is more of that life with the diverse, you know, experiences. If you do something that you don't usually do, then what happens? Does it lead to the happiness? Does it lead to the meaning? Does it lead to more psychological richness? And it turned out the novelties and curiosity seems to be really tightly correlated with this new idea of psychological richness rather than the happiness or meaning per se. I mean it, it is not, my view is orthogonal, I would say to the self determination theory of rich Ryan's and EDC's work.
- [31:05]
John R. Miles
So yeah, and since you just brought that up, I recently found something called the belonging parameter. Not sure if you've seen this, but it was created by the American Immigration Council of all people. But their surveys found that right now in America, 64% of workers feel excluded in the workplace. 74% of Americans feel excluded in their communities. Overall, 67% felt some level of exclusion. But the thing that was striking to me was that almost 20% of all Americans feel like they have no sense of belonging at all in their lives.
- [31:52]
Shige Oishi
Wow.
- [31:52]
John R. Miles
So to me, this is really becoming a profound issue. And it's not just an American issue, it's a global issue. Where does psychological richness come into play here to help fix this lack of sense of belonging that so many people have?
- [32:11]
Shige Oishi
So what is interesting is that the relationship, quality of social relationship is really huge predictor of happiness and the meaning in life, as I said. But psychological richness is not super highly correlated with the quality of social relationship per se. Just because you could read, lead very psychological rich life by yourself. For instance, reading the novels, watching movies. I mean, those things could be done alone, and it could actually enrich your life quite a bit. You learn something new, you learn some new perspective in life and so forth. So if people are having such a tough time connecting with others and suffering from loneliness, one way to treat it is obviously to increase the social connection. But if that's still not working, then I think another way is really to think about, like, how can they connect in a different way, connect with the different idea, with the different authors, imaginary world of the characters? So I would say psychological richness research tells us that maybe engagement with the literature, art, music, and things like that will definitely at least help for those who are struggling to connect with other people.
- [33:38]
John R. Miles
Thank you for addressing that. And I saw in the book that you highlight the work of Susan Cain. And I have been a huge fan of Susan's work since Quiet came out and was so honored to have her on this show to discuss Bittersweet, which is the book that you highlight in your book. And it was interesting. Last night I was on Fox News talking to the anchor about why people fail on their New Year's resolutions. And it really got me thinking about this sense of belonging and. But from a different perspective. One of the things that I think leads to people not completing their New Year's resolutions is their emotional state, meaning how their emotional state plays into how they're feeling about completing them. So things that Susan talks about, such as sorrow and longing, are needed to make us whole. I think these negative emotions also play a role into how we live our lives. The goal we set out. And reading this, you tend to agree. And I was hoping you could talk about that.
- [34:50]
Shige Oishi
Yeah, I think the New Year's resolution is a really tough one, that you have to be changing who you are and trying to do something new. And it is uncomfortable, it is unpleasant. And then when you try to get out of your bed and try to Go to gym, it's raining, you don't want to do this. And then once you don't do it, then you feel so bad and particularly when you are so focused on the outcome that you have to do this. When you do this, you'll be happier and things like that. I think we are often too harsh on ourselves and discouraged by the initial little failure. I think if you're accepting these things, oh, it was a rainy day, I didn't go out, but tomorrow is a different day. I could do it tomorrow. And I think that the richness mindset essentially is that you, these things happen, stuff happens, bad things happens. Sometimes things don't go the way you envisioned, but that's okay. You learn something new and then maybe you can reset and restart. I think the New Year's resolution is a wonderful thing, but I think we're too harsh on ourself and too fragile like to easily discouraged by the initial failures. I think you should just think of this as a process. Sometimes you go two step forward, one step back, and then just do it as you can and then see what kind of things you discover about yourself and how it goes rather than okay, yes, oh no, oh, I failed. Just forget about this.
- [36:27]
John R. Miles
I did an interesting solo episode that came out today as we're recording this, but the theme of the episode was on own your cracks. Meaning so often we want to approach things in life like from the standpoint of being perfect, but there is no such thing as being perfect. So I explored in this episode the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and incompleteness, impermanence are really a better way to think about our goal setting. And as I was thinking about that, I read following this discussion about Susan's book, this six studies that you explored the role of positive and negative emotions. And what I found interesting was in all six, those who were leading happy life, who experienced a lot of joy, contentment and pleasantness, but rarely experienced sadness, anger and fear were very similar to living a meaningful life.
- [37:32]
Shige Oishi
Yeah.
- [37:32]
John R. Miles
From that study and the final experiment you did, what did you find about people who lived a richer week, a richer month, a richer year?
- [37:44]
Shige Oishi
Yeah, I mean, it is interesting that when you think about happiness in particular, you have to maximize positive emotions and minimize negative emotions. And when you, on the other hand, think of a day as an interesting day, psychologically rich day or week and so forth, what you find is that those days are the day where you find a lot of felt a lot of joy and excitement and so forth, but also some struggles and angers and sadness as well. A lot of things happened in on a psychological rich day or psychologically rich week. Whereas happy day or happy week is not so much many different emotions or many different things, just everything turned out to be how you expected, how you anticipated, and everything went well. Yeah. Psychological life is different in a sense that you could have a lot of sorrows and sadness and angers, but as long as you learn from it. So in our studies, those people who experience a lot of negative emotions learn something new from it and then they change their perspective in life. And that was crucial for psychological richness. Negative emotion is not just, oh, it's okay to feel angers and so forth. Yes. But it is good because that really make you think about your life and the world. And then you start to see differently about yourself and the world. And that's what's enriching about negative emotions and negative events. That's why I want people to embrace sometimes some of the potential negative consequences. We become too safe and try to stay in the comfort zone and sometimes to avoid the negative emotions. But sometimes it's okay. It's even better, I think, to try to go put yourself in uncomfortable situations, go beyond the comfort zones, and then you learn something new and you become wiser and your life is psychologically rich.
- [39:55]
Narrator
Yeah.
- [39:55]
John R. Miles
To me, that is some really fascinating findings that you've found there and something that I'm going to incorporate more into the way that I'm approaching some of my own solo episodes this year to try to focus more on this. Another area I wanted to highlight with you, Shige, is I have been really fascinated for years by the work of Cornell psychologist Tom Gilovich. And really what he examines is the science of regret, how inactive or action shape our lives. And what I find about his work is through all these studies he's done, he has found the same thing that Bronnie Ware found in the five regrets of the dying. Basically, 76% of people regret not trying to pursue becoming their ideal life, if I take it at the 50,000 foot level. And this really led me to think about your chapter six, where you're trying to quantify a psychological rich life. Can you talk about the study that you did around obituaries and what that showed?
- [41:03]
Shige Oishi
I love Tom Gilvich's work and I think it is really profound that in the short run, we really regret about something we did, something we said, stupid things we said. But in the long run, it is we regret something that we didn't do. I should have stayed in school, I should have taken that job and so forth. And that really I think influenced the way I think about good life. And that's why I felt some of the approach to happiness is missing because it's. If it's a. It's the frequent comfortable interactions with the people that makes you happy, then obviously when you have a chance to move to another company or another city or another country, you wouldn't do that. Right? But that could really give rise to in the end, a huge life regret. Why didn't I do that? I should have taken that job, I should have taken that opportunities. To me, I think that the psychological richness mindset is to minimize this huge life regret of inaction. And yeah, many of the research I did, I I think emphasize that in the short run we are so worried about making mistake and saying the wrong thing or doing a wrong, you know, things and we don't do it. But in the long run we wish we have done it. And then when we examine the obituaries, the New York Times in June 2016, we had hundred over 100 obituaries. And these are very famous, well accomplished individuals. But we find that some people led what we call like a boring life by happy, maybe, but not so interesting life. And some people led very tough life, maybe not so happy, but admirable, adventureless life. I think those are the people who led the life of no regret. And perhaps some of the people who led the happy life might have led at the end life of some regret.
- [43:22]
John R. Miles
So I just want to use one example that you can talk about because you mentioned in the book a lot of people, when they think of someone who's led a really deep, creative, meaningful life, think of Steve Jobs. How would you rate him from your own research and what you think is a rich life?
- [43:45]
Shige Oishi
I think that Steve Job is the example of psychological rich life, right? I mean, he dropped out of college, worked in the apple orchard, and when he was 19 he decided, okay, I want to go to India. So he goes to India in search of guru. In the end he didn't find it. But later he looks back and say he learned something really important, that the people in the Indian, the small villages know how to use their intuitions and we Americans know how to use our rationalities, but we don't know how to use intuition. And I think he became wonderfully interesting person of using some intuition as well as the rationalities. And I mean he founded the successful company Apple and then he was fired from the company he established and Then studied the Pixar and then just brought back and so forth. I think he had so many up and down, twist and turn. I mean, he obviously wasn't that happy many times he alienated many people, he yelled at many employees and so forth. I mean, he wasn't a happy person. But clearly he, I think led a psychologically rich life and life of adventure, curiosity, learning at the end. I mean, if you read the biography of Steve Job, he says that on the deathbed I led a good life, I learned so much and I have no regret. I think he's a wonderful example of somebody who led a psychologically rich life.
- [45:28]
John R. Miles
Well, thank you for going into that. And another thing that really caught my eye was when you looked at different personality structures, extravision and openness really came out. And you found that openness to experience is strongly linked to leading a psychologically rich life, which obviously Stephen Jobs it explored throughout his life. And he had key characteristics of curiosity. Imagine this imagination, willingness to explore intellectual and artistic pursuits.
- [46:04]
Shige Oishi
Right.
- [46:05]
John R. Miles
And your research has a fascinating reciprocal relationship open. If I understand it, openness enhances the likelihood of engaging in psychologically enriching activities. Can you go into this a little bit more and yeah, why so important?
- [46:22]
Shige Oishi
Yes, when you think about who goes to study abroad, as I said, I think the people who are open to experiences, people like Steve Jobs, are much more likely to do study abroad. But what was interesting from the personality research is that those people who do go study abroad in the end become even more open to new experiences. So there are this interesting reciprocal relationship between the personality and psychologically rich experiences. In the book I talk about this old lady, Joy ryan. Until age 84, she has never seen the mountains or oceans or anything. She lived in a small town in Ohio, but then her nephew call and they went to Smoky Mountain national park and she loved it. So then she went on to essentially go entire national parks having this initially a little bit of openness to experiences, but then actually experience something completely different and then that will open you up even more. So I think this is the interesting reciprocal experiences that how personality is not just a determinant of the psychological richness, but it could be the outcome of the psychological rich experiences as well.
- [47:47]
John R. Miles
I wanted to jump ahead to chapter 11 in your book. You write at the beginning of this, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Which is a quote from philosopher niche. But you write here which is true. Most psychologically rich experiences are intentional. One usually makes the choice to study abroad. You talked about, one chooses to read one chooses to watch one chooses to take up a DIY project. But I want to go into something that's a little bit more personal for me and what this chapter is really about. Earlier this year, out of the blue, we were affected in Tampa Bay in a period of two weeks by two major hurricanes. And in my case, one of them impacted us with about 2 1/2 to 3ft of water in our house. Thousands and thousands of people around me lost everything. And one of the interesting things I've seen is how people are responding to it. How do these things that we don't control that happen to us impact our experience of being psychologically rich?
- [48:49]
Shige Oishi
Right? The natural disaster is a really excellent example of this. Nobody wants be flooded, nobody wants earthquake and so forth. And the research on this natural disaster is really interesting that after experiencing this natural disaster, people often report that they change the perspective in their lives and they realize that neighbors they've known for decades a totally different person than they thought they were. Because most of the times, right, neighbors are nice and greeting and so forth. But at the time of emergency, a lot of time they really come and help you and realize witness a lot of humanities in those emergency terrible disaster situations. And so we looked at Kobe areas, Hanshin, Awaji, earthquake victims of 1995, all the way until 16 years later. And if you look at the happiness and life satisfaction these people who lost their houses in 1995, even 16 years later, they're still less happy, less, less satisfied with their life. They report more physical symptoms, illnesses than those Kobe residents who didn't lose their houses. So if you just look at the happiness or life satisfaction, then obviously the effect of negative natural disaster is really negative and long lasting. Time does not heal everything, unfortunately. But the silver lining of that is that they have, I think, more trust in humanities and more pro social worldview after going through these natural disasters. I am hoping that the concept like psychological richness will capture something positive about going through these difficult natural disasters. But as a community that comes together and there is something positive out of that.
- [51:04]
John R. Miles
Thank you for sharing that. And I wanted to go back to Tom Gilovich's work here for a second. In chapter 14, you go into a good life without regrets. And as I was reading through this, it was your whole approach to how you were talking about a wood is a good job caught my attention. And you're right. In 1890, William James invented the self esteem equation in the Principles of Psychology. And I'm sure not many of the listeners have heard this. So I'm going to read it. Self esteem equals success. Slash pretensions. By pretensions he meant one's aspirations. Self esteem is high if one has fulfilled most of their aspirations and low if one hasn't. What was wrong with his formula? And how does living a psychologically rich life change this equation would be part one of the question.
- [52:04]
Shige Oishi
I mean there's nothing wrong with the William James equation. I mean it's brilliant. I mean it's really brilliant. But two ways to maximize the self esteem, right? One is maximize your success, then your self esteem is higher. But the other approach is reduce your desire. So that's the more the Buddhist approach to life, right? If you want a lot then the success has to be enormous in order to get that equation like a high outcome. But by reducing the ambitions even your success is a little desire is small, then you could feel good about yourself. So the formula is brilliant. And indeed when you look at the happiest country in the world, you know Finnish, Finland, Norway and Denmark and asked Dane what's the secret to happiness? And they often say that don't expect too much lower expectation when to know you have enough. And William James equation is brilliant in a sense that you can maximize the success or you can reduce the ambition and you can increase your self esteem or this case happiness as well. But as I said in my book that reducing the ambition part, yes, that works if you're trying to maximize happiness but that could inadvertently making you conservative as to whether should I go or should I stay? Kind of situation people get to tip into stay as an answer as opposed to go. And I'm saying that once you get out of that equation and then there are something out there by making a lot of mistakes and not achieving things still you can maximize something else. And that's something else to me is a psychological richness. So don't reduce the ambition. Ambition could be big, but you just have to try even if you're not successful that's okay because it's not okay in terms of happiness. But if you don't care about happiness then you're okay because you might get greater degree of psychological richness.
- [54:27]
John R. Miles
So I want to ask you a follow on question question to that. So in this chapter you write that you analyze pay scale survey of over 2 million people.
- [54:36]
Shige Oishi
Yeah.
- [54:36]
John R. Miles
In 502 job categories. And according to this data and your work, what predicts satisfaction and what jobs did you find where people were the most happy?
- [54:50]
Shige Oishi
So job satisfaction is interesting that it is very highly correlated with the payment. So you can Think about high paying job, right? As satisfying job. So computer scientists, data scientists, they're pretty happy surgeons, happy lawyers actually are exception financial sector people and so forth, they're all happy. But what is interesting is that pay scale also have the meaning in their job. And when you look at that, pay is not strongly correlated with the meaning. So for instance, the computer scientists, data scientists, they tend to find their job to be meaningless. Well, these insurance actually people, they make good money, so they are satisfied with their job, but they tend to think that their job is not so meaningful. On the other hand, the teachers, right? Second English as a second language teacher, for instance, they don't find their job to be super satisfying. They are not getting paid that much. But if you ask meaning in their job, then they score quite high. And what is interesting to me is that artists or art director, museum curators, editors, they are not that happy with the job. And surprisingly, they don't find their job to be particularly meaningful. But I think these are the people. If there was a third dimension of job, how interesting, psychological rich, how much creativity you can bring to a job, and so forth, then maybe these were the jobs that could score high on that third dimension. Although in terms of meaning and happiness, art director, curators, writers and editors are not that high.
- [56:51]
John R. Miles
Thank you for going into that as well. And the last thing I wanted to cover in this chapter was you wrote about, and I'm gonna have to check this podcast out. Two psychologists and four beers. What a name for a podcast. Yeah, but the two hosts used trip metaphors to describe a happy life and a psychologically rich life. And if I had to do this interview again, I might have started with this question. But can you describe how these two are different? Because I think this is a really good metaphor for understanding the difference.
- [57:24]
Shige Oishi
Yeah, happiness is like going to the luxury resort where, you know, all inclusive. So you don't have to plan anything. You just pay and show up and every day they'll give you a great food and entertainment and you're totally relaxed, you know, only positive emotion you feel, right? So, so that is in a way like happiness. Okay. On the other hand, psychological richness is like a backpacking trip. You have no plan, you are poor, you, you're staying a youth hostel or something like that. Nothing predictable. You have to work on it. You, you have to plan really challenging, maybe you miss out a lot of things, but in the end, which trip will be more memorable, more interesting and essentially psychological rich life, I think is more memorable life compared to all inclusive resort vacation type life that try to maximize comfort, relaxations, and try to minimize the negative emotions and challenges.
- [58:41]
John R. Miles
That basically sums up the difference for me. I've never been a huge fan of the all in resorts. I'd much rather do a vacation where I'm mountain climbing or echoing some challenge personally.
- [58:53]
Shige Oishi
Wow. So that's the issue. Happiness is great, but sometimes it's boring. And for some people, boring is better than challenge and difficulties. And I totally get that. But I think what you get with the psychological richness is the unexpectedness, something completely new about yourself in the world and somebody you know else as well.
- [59:16]
John R. Miles
I want to go back to where we started talking about your father. His life, as we brought up at the beginning is an example of stability, tradition, living in that small village. For those listeners who find themselves in similar circumstances, what would be some small actions they can take today to add more richness into their lives?
- [59:38]
Shige Oishi
I think actually you can find richness in the familiar environment of even your spouse of 40 years or 50 years. Sometimes when you put yourself in a new situation, you discover something new. I mean, my wife and I met in 1991 and it was around 2010, I think for the first time I realized I don't have anything on the wall. So I said to her and like, oh, we should buy some paintings. And then she said, oh, I can paint. And it's like, what? I didn't know you can paint. And then she just started painting and painting and I discovered completely new part of herself. And I think these things could happen even if you live in a stable life, if you just encounter some completely new situations, you discover something new from the familiar individual. So I'm not saying you have to go out and do something new every day, all the time. It is something. Sometimes that's the easiest way to discover something new. But a lot of time rereading your favorite book, second time, third time, you discover something new, right? I mean, I'm, I'm reading Raymond Carver's Cathedral like third time today, and I'm just like, wow, I, I missed that first two times and it just bring me something new. And of course, with the life experiences, you can relate to different aspects of the stories as well. So I always think that psychological richness is not necessarily only, only achievable through direct exploration. You can do a lot of things by reading, watching, listening to the podcast and talking to the. Your old friend you haven't talked to for decades, for instance, you learn something new. So there are many opportunities out there. Even if you live a life like my father in a small village surrounded by the same people, you can still find some something new.
- [61:42]
John R. Miles
My takeaway from that is even with familiar experiences, you can build a life that holds richness by incorporating those different things into your daily life.
- [61:52]
Shige Oishi
Yeah.
- [61:53]
John R. Miles
To foster a more psychologically deep and meaningful way to approach it. So my last question would be, what would be for a listener or reader, the one major takeaway you would like them to have from today's discussion?
- [62:11]
Shige Oishi
I think we are faced with this question of should I stay or should I go? Job, relationship. But the little thing like, should I go to the same restaurants I like or should I try something new? Should I go to the museum today or stay home? And I say, if you tend to lean toward life of stability, then when you have this question, should I go or should I stay? Just go. Just do it. It's always a good choice. Even if something terrible happen, we can always laugh about it. It's going to be an interesting story later on. My point is when we try to maximize happiness, we often think about, oh, what if something wrong happens? This and that. And try to avoid something. Try to stay within our comfort zone. But once in a while, we should really try something new. And when you thought about, oh, should I do this? Just do it. I would say that's the number one easiest thing to do this year.
- [63:20]
John R. Miles
So that'll be the title for this episode.
- [63:22]
Narrator
Just do it.
- [63:23]
Shige Oishi
Just do it.
- [63:24]
John R. Miles
Dr. Shige Oishi, thank you so much for being here today. The name of your book is life in three dimensions. It releases February 4th, and I'm so excited for this to go into the general public where more people can learn how to live a psychologically rich life. If people want to learn more about you, where's the best place for them to go?
- [63:44]
Shige Oishi
I think my University of Chicago homepage. Google Shige Oishi. UChicago. It's there.
- [63:54]
John R. Miles
Okay, Shige, thank you so much.
- [63:56]
Shige Oishi
And thank you so much for having.
- [63:57]
John R. Miles
Me to have you on the show.
- [63:59]
Shige Oishi
Thank you.
- [64:00]
Narrator
I can't think of a more profound and inspiring conversation than the one we just had with Dr. Shige Oishi. His exploration of psychological richness challenges us to rethink the very foundation of what makes a life well lived. By introducing this third dimension alongside happiness and meaning, Shige invites us to embrace curiosity, adversity, and the transformative power of diverse experiences. As we wrap up, I encourage you to reflect on today's insights. Are you prioritizing psychological richness in your life? How can you step beyond routines or comfort zones to explore new perspectives, deepen connections, and add richness to your journey. If this episode resonated with you, please take a moment to leave a far star rating and review. Your feedback helps us continue bringing impactful conversations like this one to the Passion Start community. And if you know someone who could benefit from Shige's insights, share this episodes with them. You never know whose life it might help inspire. All the resources we discussed today, including Dr. Oishi's groundbreaking book Life in Three Dimensions, are linked in the show notes. At passionstruck.com you can also watch the video version of this episode and don't forget to subscribe and share it with others who are passionate about growth and intentional living. And as always, I'm passionate about bringing these insights to organizations and teams through speaking engagements. If today's discussion sparked ideas for creating a richer, more vibrant culture in your workplace, visit johnrmiles.com speaking to learn more about how we can work together. And then lastly, let's talk about Thursday's episode Are you a perfectionist? Do you often feel that your pursuit of excellence leads to stress or dissatisfaction? In my upcoming episode, we sit down with Katherine Morgan Schaffler, a renowned psychotherapist and author of the Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control, A Path to Peace and Power. Catherine challenges the conventional view of perfectionism, suggesting that it can be harnessed as a personal superpower rather than a flaw. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that could transform your relationship with perfectionism. Repetition is how we learn, and we think repetition like repeating the same mistake over and over again. We think that that's an emblem of our failure. No, that's an emblem of our growth. Repetition can represent, you know, failure, but it can also represent learning. Habits need to be in repetition, thinking of ourselves as people who are strong, capable, good, worthy, loving, free. That identity structure needs some repeating. And by some repeating, I mean maybe it takes you years. That's okay, that's what it takes for everybody. Thank you for being a vital part of the Passion Star community. Your commitment to living with intention and embracing growth inspires me every day. Remember, the fee for the show is simple. If you found value here, share it with someone who could benefit. And, as always, apply what you've learned so that you can live what you listened. Until next time, live life. Passion struck.