What We Know About Joy (So Far) | Mid-Season Reflection

TRANSCRIPTION What We Know About Joy...So Far | Mid-Season Reflection

Roger: What do we know about joy? What sparks joy? What sustains joy? And how do we access it when we need it the most? We're halfway through season two, the season of joy, and I thought now, especially now would be a great time to refresh and reflect on some of the learnings from the first half of this season.

I'm Roger Kastner and I'm the host of the What Do You Know To Be True Podcast. In these conversations, I talk with ordinary people about their extraordinary talent and the meaningful impact it has on others. For over 25 years, I've been working with leaders and teams to co-create pathways to being better versions of themselves, and these conversations are intended to amplify the stories and experiences of people who have done just that.

I have heard from many people that joy feels elusive right now, and this was a hot topic in a few episodes of the season so far. So I wanted to start this look back by addressing what we can do to open up more possibilities for joy in our lives right now. So let's drop into the conversation I had with Dr.

Adam Dorsey about the three things anyone can do to create more space for joy. 

I feel like we're at this break glass moment where high performers, high agency, purpose-driven, resilient people are feeling overwhelmed that they're unable to access joy and they're tapping out. There's a lot of reasons why the epidemic levels of anxiety and loneliness that you talk about on your podcast, uncertainty with global crises, even the fear of layoffs from companies that are making record profits.

Then we flipped the calendar into 2025, and another level of heaviness seemed to set in thriving or feeling super psyched. Seems to be out of reach for so many people right now, and so many of the people that Mr. Rogers talked about, like, look for the helpers. These are people are traditionally the helpers, the resilient shepherds, those high performers that live into their superpowers and have meaningful impact.

On others, but here's the thing. I believe connection can be a powerful antidote to this collective amygdala hijack that people are experiencing. So drawing from your expertise and the collective wisdom from your podcast guests, let's break that glass here and give people some powerful tools that they can stop that amygdala hijack, lessen the feeling of being overwhelmed and move from merely surviving to truly thriving.

So what do you got, doc? 

Dr. Adam: But let's just start with the word super psyched. Just to be clear, I, I don't want any of the listeners to think that super psyched means being happy all the time. It means being super connected to our psyches. Of course. I want people to be super psyched about their lives and to feel like they're connected to their lives and to feel that their lives are representations of something deep from within and something that is authentic.

But being super connected to our psyche could mean that you're super psyched. Could also mean that you're super in the midst of grieving and you're connected to your psyche as you grieve. But you were talking about joy, which is a very interesting topic in and of itself. It's something that many of us are taught not to really experience.

It's not really super punk rock to ex express joy. You're supposed to kind of crap on it. Um, when you have swagger, you might be feeling joy, but you're supposed to look super cool, particularly for males, but even for females, uh, the expression of joy in and of itself. Is something that we tend to have stop gaps around, and one of the first things I would do is ask people to laugh a little bit harder when they're watching a comedy.

Maybe just 5% more. It would be authentic and it will be authentic over time. I would ask them if they're feeling a modicum of joy. I would ask people to ask themselves, are you really expressing it? To its fullest degree. I, I realized I was born on the enthusiastic side of the bed, but here's what can happen to us around joy or enthusiasm in and of itself.

I was sitting in college expressing some spectacular enthusiasm of something, and the woman sitting across me said, wow, you're so easily impressed. Kind of looking at me ance and kind of low key kinda looking down at me. And I came up with a retort that I stand by to this day. I said, no, I'm not easily impressed.

It's actually that I have a high capacity for appreciation for a guy who generally couldn't articulate his thoughts and feelings very well at that age. Uh, I stand by that quote to this day and I would ask each of us to ask ourselves, could we. Increase our capacity for appreciation of things we've seen that gratitude and awe lead to more fulfilling lives.

Uh, awe may be even considered gratitude on steroids. There's a lot of science on that. You were talking about a host of things. Uh, I won't be able to attend to all of them, Roger, unfortunately. But here's what I can tell you. We can, as Ted lasso reminds us, we can only control the controllables. And another thing I know for sure is that we are not very conscientious about how we allocate our time.

We're not very intentional. We get sucked in like flies or moths to a flame to social media. Um, spend time doom scrolling there. And yet we say we're so busy that we have no time to do anything. If we actually looked at how we're allocating our time, we're being sucked into voids thinking that we're being productive by.

I don't know, reading about being informed, finding out about other people's lives on, uh, on Facebook, uh, going into Reddit and learning about a thing. That's fine by the way, if that is really what you want to be doing with your time. But we can't say we're too busy to do the important things. There's an old XY axis that I believe comes from Eisenhower.

He declared that there are two basic points on this x, y axis. There is. Urgent and there is important, and oftentimes these days with a 24 hour news cycle and with all these emails and texts and all of the stimuli we get, everything seems urgent, and yet we don't have enough time to deal with what is truly important.

I am one such person, and so what I ask people to do is to use social media. Don't let it use you. Create more than you consume. A lot of us are consuming social media at just large volumes, and I would have to ask you, is it good medicine? Is it making you feel more engaged with your life? My guess is it's not, but what does make us feel more engaged with our lives and what does actually bring down anxiety and depression?

A sense of connection with self, which is the primary connection that precedes all other connection is being in the creator's chair. Creating does not necessarily mean painting. I'm a horrible painter. If drawing was the only thing that we, we, we could consider our art, I, I would be tapping out immediately.

But being on this podcast right now, I'm creating, you're creating, um. Writing is a form of creation. When I'm doing my work as a psychotherapist and listening to people's stories and taking them in and being curious, I'm creating new neural pathways to accommodate these stories and learning more about the world from their subjective realities.

This is a form of creation. As I articulate back to them, perhaps something that might help creation could be having a meaningful conversation with a friend. Helping them out with a problem or just laughing together is a form of creation. I would ask people, get more in your life. Act as if you have the camera crew of the office or parks and recreation doing a, you know, a mockumentary of your life, and ask yourself, am I using my time in a way that is meaningful or meaningless?

Is it feeding me or is it bleeding me? Oftentimes if we just get more intentional, we can attend more to the important. So if you want a rich, interesting life, get into the creator's chair. Be conscientious about how you allocate your time. Your time is your one non-renewable resource. You can lose your health and you can get that back.

You can lose your money and get that back. You cannot lose your time and get it back. So think about how you want to use your time. Think about what is truly important. Think about what you can control. And, and if you think it's too late, like you and I were talking offline, like wouldn't it have been great if we'd started our geek stuff at a very young age and we're living with compounding interest over the years?

That would've been awesome. Yeah. We would be infinitely further ahead than we are now. But as the Chinese proverb says, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Start planning now. Time is gonna pass anyway. You might as well. You might as well be doing the things that actually matter.

Roger: I love how simple these steps are that Dr. Adam shared with us, and it should be no surprise that a couple of the other guests had perspectives on laughter, appreciation and creating. Here are brain health expert Dr. Crystal Color sportscaster, Jen Mueller, an executive coach, Nana jc, who all shared their own perspectives for getting on the path to joy.

I was listening to an episode of Let's Talk Brain Health recently, where you had Jess brain on Yes. Jess brain. Yes. Um, and uh, she's talking about the power of laughter and. It made a lot of sense to me this, this idea that when we are laughing, we are more creative, we are more innovative, we are more present in the moment. And, and I loved what she said about when, uh, when we're laughing, we can only think about the thing that's producing joy. 

Dr. Krystal Culler: And I think that's one of the most beautiful things around some of the conversations at least I get to have through our work or even the podcast is. There are these small tangible elements where yes, we can spend a short amount of time talking about the science of laughter and how it shows up, but you know, can frame it in a way where we could think about it for ourselves and then reflect, well, where am I sitting at in those moments when I have a good laugh, who am I with?

And then can I intentionally create a few more moments of that or a few more opportunities to be around those people because I notice how I feel. I'm there and then being mindful too of we likely have that influence on others. And so I think those practical ways to start to make those connections. And it's always easy.

I see the jokes all the time where it's like half of adulthood is texting your best friends. We need to get together soon. It's actually like getting those moments with people that are in your circle that bring you joy. Enjoying them being present when you're there and carving them out and it's like, let's not say it.

Let's get something on the calendar and having that follow through. But really there's a lot of things I think all of us could implement. And I remember what stood out for me for her was, you know, how much kids laugh compared to adults and if we're even challenging your listeners, if you're thinking about when is the last time you had that good laugh.

We probably want a little more of that and we can intentionally start to fold some of that in. So I think it's a good challenge For us, it was shocking the stats on how much kids laugh on average per day versus adults 300, 400 to five to 15 times a day between kids and adults, like, Ooh. Yeah. And I think it's the cliches.

We always hear that laughter is the best medicine. To actually think about how we can use that for ourselves. Try to find those things that are something you do every day or something you enjoy. And then adding in this little boost of laughter, it's kind of like your little pickup shot for the day, so to speak.

Like get in those quick wins where you can and pair it with something you enjoy doing. And I think the open mind for adults too is accepting some of those challenges, like when you hear that statistic between kids and adults. Okay, now what can I do about that? Like, you know, we all know how we feel when we've had a good laugh.

I, I know I appreciate the people that are in my, in my circle that when I leave I'm like, my face hurts. Like my facial ma muscles have been like needing a massage. I've had a really good laugh, but it also like. How you feel like carries over for a couple of days. Just those types of relationships that you can have and cultivate throughout your life.

It's like, how do we get a little bit more.

Roger: So I'm curious about where and how does Joy show up in your rockstar power of helping others find their voice? 

Jen Mueller: I think it is truly just loving people and knowing that that connection is what makes it worthwhile. I love talking sports, like I love watching sports and talking sports, but what makes my job worthwhile is the people, and it's getting to know them and it's understanding what that opportunity meant for them.

If I'm on stage and I'm talking to an audience, it's being able to see the aha moment when they go, oh, I can do this. Like this doesn't have to be so hard. Oh, I just needed a new way of thinking about it. It really is the connection with people. And I will tell you that early in my career, and I journaled about this a lot, I would not consider myself an empath, which is a, that's a personality type.

I would characterize myself as somebody who has a tender heart towards people. When I first got into the industry, that was not applauded or encouraged, right? Because I'm a female working in a male dominated environment. So what I was told to do was, you know, your best bet at succeeding is to act as close to a man as you can and not ever be noticed in there.

Because if somebody notices that you're a woman and that you do things differently, there's a greater likelihood they're gonna single you out, and they're gonna find a way to get you up there, right? So you almost had to be very callous at the beginning. And the, the further I got into my career, the more I realized I didn't have to do that.

You also get some credibility and some respect that makes it easier to actually be who you are and to care about people. But once I allowed myself to just be authentic and to care about the people that I work with as human beings. Then you start to see the real conversations in the real relationships, and then it becomes really gratifying because I will forget every single score in Stat I, I cannot remember specific plays.

I do not remember scores. I do remember conversations with people, and I remember conversations where they let their guard down. Or where they gave me a hug or where they swore they were never gonna do this post game interview, and then they did one with a smile on their face. Like, that's what I remember more than any of the highlights that you would ever see on tv.

Roger: I think this idea of being, being attached to our purpose and being in service of others, um, has always been our path to purpose and our path to meaningful existence. And I think that's not gonna change. 

Nana Gyesie: You know, what she says is actually quite powerful. Does it actually proves that we, the humans on this planet, the 8 billion of us are creators.

We are the creators, whether we know it or not, because AI was created by you and I, I mean it was Jenson Wong, and all these other folks, or some ottman for the ars, right? People. So what it, to your point, if we are doing malevolent things and, and, and it's learning from these large language models and the machine learning as malevolent and kind, but mostly malevolent, that it's a reflection of humanity and then it develops its own unconscious on sentient, the sentient of AI tools, but that sentient is based on what the creators created.

Hence there's a new creation. Do you see where I'm going? Mm-hmm. Well, what the individual begins to understand that they are a creator. Even in an organization, even if you're the lowest of the top pole, you are there because you're creating something that is good for the aggregate. So we are creators, so are we conscious about what we are creating or unconscious about what we're creating?

And that's where the mindfulness of thinking about where am I, where, where am I going? What do I want to do? Whether that's a leader thinking that a leader who's running a trillion dollar organization or a manager who manages the portfolio, right? Or, or, or, or a mom or husband or a fiance or whoever the person is that we are all of value in this creation economy, creating for yourself and others.

Creating a problem that solves something for you, hopefully solves problems for other people because we are connected in this way, right? The entangle of quantum entanglement or Ubuntu, or into being by taking a hand. So whether we like it or not, or whether we know it or not, there is this innate connection that we all have.

So at the individual level, I'm Roger, what can I create? Consciousness, knowledge, information that shifts people within systems and paradigms. What can I create? Hmm. Empathy, mindfulness, self-actualization, right? 'cause this is all influenced by the things that influence how I came up. Whoever you are, if you're asking this question, what can I create in the cost of this organization I work in?

But often our own programming and trauma gets in the way, in the form of limiting self-beliefs. Excuses and because we've been told we're small or insignificant, so we believe it, but with, with sophisticated, we act like, oh, there are real reasons why I can't do it 'cause I just had a child, or I don't have enough money, or I'm not smart enough.

But this is a time for creation. That's the story, this to realize that we all can create as an employee, as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as as a human. And in that creation, if it makes something better for you, means it may make something better for other humans like you as well. And if one is all operat from that perspective of contributing and improving and adding. Well, one is relevance. 

Roger: Okay. Hopefully, now that we're feeling that joy is more possible for us, I want to turn towards the difference between joy and happiness. I've found these terms to be used interchangeably and in contrast between psychologists, neuroscientists, and other experts. For instance, Dr. Lori Santos is an expert on happiness.

She is the Yale professor. Of the wildly popular course, the Science of Wellbeing, and she hosts the Happiness Lab Podcast. Dr. Santos once wrote that happiness encompasses a broader sense of life satisfaction and fulfillment. While joy is a more fleeting and intense positive emotion. Conversely, David Brooks, the New York Times opinion columnist, political commentator, and author of how to Know a person has described the difference as happiness usually involves a victory for the self.

Joy tends to involve the transcendence of the self. Happiness comes from accomplishments, joy comes from when your heart is in another. Joy is the present that life gives you as you give away your gifts. For a tiebreaker perspective, Brene Brown, the vulnerability and shame scientist, author, and a favorite amongst the guests, shared that joy requires connection to something bigger than ourselves and a deep sense of appreciation.

Whereas happiness is the feeling of pleasure often related to the immediate environment. Current circumstances for what it's worth, our guests predominantly shared the definition similar to what David Brooks and Brene Brown shared, that joy is a state of mind based on acceptance, connection, and gratitude.

Whereas happiness is a temporary positive feeling based on external circumstances. And I love how Anna Hall and Nana Gyesie capture the differences when they shared their perspectives. on joy and happiness. 

Something is like in the moment, fleeting, something makes me happy and joy feels something that's more universal, that has resonance, that's gonna stay with me. And maybe that speaks to that potency. 

Anna Hall: I think it does. Joy is, is is deeper. It's felt more throughout our entire being. It's, you know, mental, emotional, physical, chemical, happiness, I think is more of a lighter kind of. Slower burn. That can be an outcome of joy. But we need, I believe that we need joy in order to get to happiness and in order to fuel our purpose, which we can talk about more happiness, I think is, is a result of joy.

It's a result of peace. It's a, it's a result of enoughness. Yeah. I keep coming back to the word outcome, but I don't think you can. Decide to be happy. I think when you have joy and peace, and especially when you're connected with your purpose and you know how to give and get in the realm of purpose every day, that happiness becomes a side effect of that.

It's like, right, like joy is the pill, happiness is the side effect. 

Roger: There seems to be, um. Sometimes some confusion and or mixing of definitions between joy and happiness. How do you, uh, how do you separate the two? 

Nana Gyesie: Yeah, so I think if you're talking about the distinction between what's fleeting and what is sustainable and real, so pleasure, or the so-called pursuit of happiness isn't seeking moments that don't last.

So you have it and then there's an addiction to get it again, because anything other than that is unsatisfactory. That's what leads to this kind of, um, this rat race, this acquisitive nature. This, uh, protect protectionist nature, my, my mind, because that happiness is. Different. Joy is rooted in nothing but awareness. Not 'cause I got the promotion or I got that a hundred million dollar contract, right? Because even two days later we, we off and I think, well when I get the $150 million contract, more, more, more, more real. Joy is in. Seeing things as they are and accepted and as they are.

And in that acceptance, there's a recognition of your power and efficacy to choose differently mentally and emotionally. And when one chooses differently mentally and emotionally, then one begins to manifest differently. 'cause everything is magnetic. Or the neuro scientists talk about confirmation bias.

This is gonna be bad, this is gonna be bad. My my 60 evidence is gonna be bad. And then it's bad. Even if it's bad, the Buddhist might will say, well, okay, it happened. What does this mean? And what, what can I take away from it? What's the opportunity here? It's horrible. There's nothing I can do. And then in that, there is wisdom.

'cause your, the reason we suffer is because everything bad that happens to us is actually, um, a chemical reaction.

So there's cortisol and all these things in our bodies. I say, this is black. So we have to play the same chemical game to have more dopamine, which is saying, this is challenging, but what's my efficacy here? And in that one shift from being evicted to evict talk, Mike. Mm-hmm. And that's where joy comes and joy comes from realizing that.

Whatever happens, I am not that my awareness is superimposed to the phenomena that's bad or good. That what's bad and good is simply another phenomena that rises and falls 'cause a constant. Here is my awareness that the awareness is constant and everything is just passing. There's just waves like, like clouds in the sky.

Roger: As you may have heard me say in a couple of these conversations, words matter. So I find the discrepancy to be interesting to a point I respect and love the work of the people on the other side of this discrepancy, like Dr. Lori Santos and Harvard Professor Arthur C. Brooks. And yet I wanna make sure that when we talk about joy on this podcast.

We're talking about the joy that is experienced when there is a connection to something bigger than ourselves. Rooted in gratitude and based on a deep awareness of the present moment and more to that point, what we can do to access, amplify, and help others find it for themselves as well. As we've found to be true, accessing joy can be hard to do, especially now.

And yet our guests have shared many ways to access joy and how to help others access joy as well. 

Anna Hall: So I have a question for you. 

Roger: Okay. Hit me 

Anna Hall: In my deep study of joy. Mm-hmm. With lots of practice and lots of purpose discovery, I actually found that there's four main ways people access joy. So I, joy Fuel is, is actually a program, let's call it a hack, to get to joy faster.

'cause life is busy and our brain likes to categorize and label things so that we can just get to it and skip steps and not use as much fuel. So there's four main ways I found that people access joy and when I do workshops and and purpose guide, uh, experiences. I, I bring people through an exercise to help them figure out their main form of joy, fuel.

'cause remember we said joy is very potent. 15 minutes a day can fuel your whole day. Don't wait for the weekend to get joy because then you're gonna need like more than the two days that you have. You gotta get joy on a regular basis. Don't delay joy, don't put it off. It's like the coolest, most effective way of self-care that I am aware of.

But there's four main ways people get joy and they are movement, adventure. Rest and synergy. You can remember that from the, the acronym Mars, like the planet. So joy I describe as joy. Fueling is losing track of time, losing track of self, feeling delighted. And afterwards you're energized. You're ready to go, you're resilient.

You can take on that hard thing. You can keep going on that project that you were stuck on before. Now you, Roger, are probably thinking, well Anna, that sounds like a flow state. And basically I would say it is, you know, when you're, when you're noticing that sun and feeling the warmth on your cheek for just a moment, you're so in that present time that you're not thinking about time or self or you know, is my lipstick the right color?

Is my hair sticking up? Like you're in that moment? I don't call joy fuel a flow state though, even though it kind of is. Because again, our society has turned a flow state into getting into a mindset to achieve things or to finish things or to get things done. And joy fueling is joy for the sake of joy.

Like joy is the objective and the outcome. It's the strategy, it's the plan, it's the tactic, it's everything. Joy for the sake of joy. So movement is when you're, maybe for some people it's exercising. It's that endorphin high. It's for a lot of PE people, movement is joy, fuel 'cause it actually slows down the brain, chatter and unites mind, body and spirit.

Uh, it can be weightlifting, it can be even just taking a moment to stretch. That's joy, that feeling. Adventure. I named this one specifically for the older adults who have been my purpose guides throughout my life. Many a 90-year-old has said to me, Anna, I am never gonna have another adventure. I'm not traveling anymore.

You know, that's heartbreaking to hear. Mm-hmm. Adventure in the land of purpose and joy means to be curious. To try new things, to think of things in a different way. To open your mind to learn something new, to try something where you don't know where the outcome is going to be. To meet a new person and be completely curious about what is their joy and what makes them tick, you know, to try a new restaurant.

All of that is curiosity. Great joy. The next one is rest totally undervalued. In our society, we, a lot of us say rest equals lazy. Not true. We are human beings. We are biological, chemical, energetic creatures. We need rest. So for some people, rest is getting enough sleep. That's definitely me, but it's also relaxing mind, body, and spirit at once.

And that's where I listen to music or have a sound bath of lots of bass and beautiful melodies like in headphones in my ears, and I'll dance around my house. That to me is rest. And the last one is synergy. Going back to our conversation about energy, it's energetic connection with other people. Also with animals nature.

It can be an energetic connection with, with other beings. It can also be a transcendent, energetic, like spiritual connection with the bigness, the oneness. And I found that people who really resonate with synergy is what makes them lose track of time and self and get energized. Have a great affinity to large bodies of water like oceans or large lakes and trees and mountains.

So as I describe these to you, movement, adventure, rest, and synergy. Roger, is there one that really, you need all four to be clear, but is there one that really resonates with you as That's my, that's my main joy fuel pathway. That's where I get my energy. 

Roger: Synergy is all around connection, as you've said.

Yes. And, uh, made me think about, uh, my friend Mark Meadows, who was, who had an episode recently, but also in all the conversations that I have with him, it's all about connection and belonging and what he is taught me about how we all belong to each other already. We're already connected. How much of what we try to do.

Life is to separate, you know, separate ourselves from other people. Um, and this idea that we we're all connected and yet we experience life through differences. I think. I think there's the polarity there where yes, there are differences. We are innately different, and yet we're all connected. Yes, I love that word, synergy.

That talks to the energy between us and that we all bring and we can all tap into if we choose to. Okay. Synergy. That might be recency bias, but my answer to synergy. 

Anna Hall: No, I was gonna say, your whole demeanor changed when you talked about synergy. You lean forward, you light up, you're excited, you need all four.

But I would say, Roger, if you're having a hard day or you're feeling kind of stuck, or you just can't push through something, or you're just, you're just feeling low energy. My purpose prescription for you would be to go out there and get some synergy. Go meet a friend for coffee. Go take a walk in nature.

Go, you know, do something that's energetically connective to get refreshed. 'cause that's really what joy fuel is, is it's, it's a two part equation. You've gotta do things that make, like you lost track of time and self when you were talking about synergy, right? Like you were, you were in the moment. It was exciting.

Exciting equals intrinsic motivation. Meaning equals values, right? You were talking about connection and relationships. So that's the first part of it. The outcome of joy fuel is that you're energized, right? And so I heard your, your outcome is of synergy is like why you do this podcast is synergy. You're connecting with people and sharing that energy out into the world.

Beth Collier: I think curiosity does lead to joy. I think the ability for us to make connections with people and also to learn new things can be very joyful. And there's, I mean, there's plenty of research of like what happens to the brain when you learn and when you are following your curiosity, you're going to learn something.

And when you are connecting with another person. That is something that can bring you joy as well. We need connection and when you can ask questions and find, you know, something that you share in common or just something that you think that's interesting, I did. I didn't know that about you, or I didn't know about that.

That thing was, it's fun to learn and so I think the joy, there's a lot of joy in the discovery. 

Roger: What do you think is the relationship between your superpower of emotional honesty and joy? 

Alex Cook: Everyone feels joy when they are able to. Do the work they're, they're here to do. I think the most joyful thing is to do, to do your work.

The most joyful thing is to do the work that you're here to do. You know, we all have something, gifts that we have, that we just have. Um, and a big part of life is discerning what those gifts are, um, and then putting them into practice that brings about. Joy. And I think those gifts are always meant, meant to serve.

They're always meant to, to bless. They're always meant to beautify, um, to do something for somebody, whether it's being, you know, a fireman or, or being a muralist. And the other thing, the other thing I'll say brings a lot of joy to me, is witnessing progress, whether it be in the world or in myself. Um, nothing makes me feel better than seeing myself getting better at something.

And I think that comes from, from work. It comes from, you know, putting in the hours, whether it be just thinking about what I'm doing or painting murals or having conversations. Um, it just feels great to say, wow, I did it differently last week, or I did it differently last year. I, uh, um, and I'm, and I'm better at it now.

Roger: I love that. And I think our willingness to make mistakes. I mean, we all, we, you know, you spend five minutes on social media and you'll see some of those inspirational posts around, you know, your growth is just outside your comfort zone. I mean, there's, implicit in growth is the willingness to make mistakes.

Alex Cook: So much of life is made better by taking everything less personally. Uh, you think it's a, it's a really magnetic negative, uh, that we all feel, you know. About identity, I am my success or my my failure. Um, it's so easy to feel like we are our mistakes or, or almost as, as erroneously we are our successes.

Uh, it's just so dangerous to take everything personally. You know, if I feel like, wow, I made this amazing mural as soon as it's finished, I feel this huge pressure to do it again or to do a better one. Um. But if I feel like beauty is there to be engaged with, I love beauty, I'm gonna go give it a try, that's a completely different worldview than now.

I have this pressure on my shoulders to be a great artist that that's what I mean, the difference between personal and impersonal. I can go just as hard towards beauty and tenderness and love. Do it in a way where I just know that that exists in the world. I'm not the source of it. And in fact, I think I might be more tender and more loving because I don't have the terror in my life that makes me feel, uh, when I feel that it's my job to be the source.

Dr. Adam: It's my contention that connection is the precursor to everything we want. Uh, and that's why I call it super psych, super connected to our psyches. We want to live this life. Alive. We wanna be alive while we're living. So the definition, and this was done a working condition, working definition with about 10 licensed mental health professionals was vitality.

What makes us come alive? Life force. I believe that when people say I wanna feel connection, they are talking about life force. They're talking about vitality. They're talking about things that bring them alive, and we each have a unique connection formula. Is ours to figure out. It's a puzzle. And the only way we figure out is by trying a bunch of things.

My mom was right when she said, try it. You might like it. One of my favorite, uh, examples of this is I was working with somebody you read about in my book, uh, a Biologist, um, and he would, you know, smoke weed and watch, you know, seventies TV and go to sleep and wake up and he'd face the commute and you know, he said he described himself as having the dad bod of dad bods.

He was living a very kind of, I, I'll call it a limp handshake life. Have you ever been at an occasion and had a handshake and it was just limp or one of those awkward handshakes where they kind of put up their hand, not he was living life. His connection with life was like that, and one, if, if I had a T-shirt, it would say no limp handshakes like.

That's the bottom line, no living inch. And I would, the other alternative would say more cowbell because we all need, I mean that would be the other defining characteristic. Uh, you know, the greatest SNL ski of all time also carried connotations that I think apply to life. We all need a little more cowbell in our life.

So anyway, this guy and I were trying to fish for something that would give his life more vitality and he said that something that he loved doing as a kid was gardening. Fantastic. He's a biologist who loves gardening. Let's get started. So he started with something small tomato plants, and little by little the gardening bug took over.

And in a, just like an opposite of Kafka, he did not turn into a cockroach. No. He turned into. This vital gardener with a really green thumb. And instead of watching seventies TV and doing the bong hit, he was drinking herbal tea and reading about gardening and going to sleep, waking up early, working out and getting his hands in the garden before work, using everything he had.

He, he was working out 'cause he wanted to be stronger so he could garden better. And now he, instead of having the dad bod of dad bods, he has just a dad bod as he says. Um, and from that. I came up with, uh, an acronym, all based on very solid research, and the acronym is feed, FEED. Uh, so F stands for flow.

One of the things we've studied a lot, Miha Chi Mihai, studied this idea called flow, and it's been one of the most important additions to modern psychology. It's when you're immersed in a thing. And three hours could go by and it feels like 30 minutes. And you've all experienced this in some way at some time.

It could be an incredible conversation. Where has the time gone? Or you could be involved in a creative project and say, whoa, I was so in it, I didn't even realize that time had passed. So that's flow E. The first E stands for educate. Uh, does it move your needle? In some meaningful way, are you learning something?

He was definitely learning. And we also know that learning is a, an activity that causes more dopamine, uh, more of our dopamine receptors. Our, uh, our endogenous dopamine is, is increased. The second E would stand for energize. Um, does it require energy and does it give energy back? You and I both know that the greatest things in life require energy, often sweat.

Sometimes it requires a little bit of a cost price for admission, maybe even uh, activation energy. But on the other side of giving energy, we get the energy back. We can come back from a long bike ride and say, that was awesome. I'm exhausted. I left it all on the road, and that was the best use of time ever, even though I was cursing myself as my legs were getting tired or full of lactic acid and hurting.

The last letter, D is, stands for depth. We're not just meaning based creatures. There's a fellow who lives not very far from you, uh, Michael Mead, who said that we are not just homo sapiens, we are homo symbolists, we are meaning chasing creatures. And for him, the biologist, all four criteria were met in gardening.

He, he experienced flow. It was educational, it was. Energizing, and it was very depthful and meaningful to him. He started inviting people over to his garden, having barbecues. People were taking great joy. He was known as that garden guy. And this was, this may sound like a, like a very simple thing. It in some ways is, and yet he found his thing and he's much more present at work.

Um, his, his job is, is good, um, uses his education and we also found new ways to find novelty in his work. That's a whole other topic unto itself. Um, so, but now his, his, his long commutes to work, you know, he's listening to gardening podcasts a lot of the time. I mean, he's, he's, he is just, he is, he is that guy.

We can all figure that out, um, over time. And I have a funny feeling, uh, you know, you know, relationships are beginning to happen. So, you know, other, other, other good things come after we, after we find our thing. But we first, you know, the first of the four connections is connecting to ourself, which is not it selfish act, it's not narcissistic, but it's, it informs all of the other connections that I described in the book.

Roger: So there you have it, the key learnings on joy from the first half of the season of Joy. I'd love to hear your thoughts and perspectives on what you've learned from these conversations so far. Or if you have a suggestion for a guest for the second half of the season, go ahead and leave a comment below.

Thank you all for being here. The best way to support these conversations is to subscribe, leave a review or comment and share with a friend. Thank you for that. Okay, be well my friends, and as always, love you mean it.