Latest / The Bold Lounge / Stephanie Harrison: Bold Joy- Redefining What It Means to Be Happy

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Stephanie Harrison: Bold Joy- Redefining What It Means to Be Happy · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Stephanie Harrison.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She is the creator of the New Happy Philosophy.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Her work has been featured in publications such as CNBC, fast Company, forbes and Harvard Business Review.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: She is the founder of the New Happy, a company helping individuals, companies and communities apply this philosophy in their lives.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The New Happy's art newsletter, podcast and programs reach millions of people around the world every month.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: She has a master's degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and previously she was the director of learning at Thrive Global.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you, so happy to be here with you.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, love that.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So let's jump into being bold.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: So we had a little bit of a pre conversation, so we'd love to hear your definition of bold and then, if you think there's a connection between being bold and being, happy.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It's really interesting, you know, when you sent over this question a few weeks ago.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I've been thinking about it a lot ever since and I believe that being bold is acting in alignment with your true self, and I would say there's a profound connection to that and happiness.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: So for me, boldness, as I've come to think of it, feels deeply, deeply connected to an experience of a life well-lived.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, alignment I love that word versus balance.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I don't use balance because balance is exactly that like it's.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It's momentary, so true, it just lasts a little bit.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: If you think of a teeter totter, like you only stay in that straight, you know, line for a little bit, and the alignment with your truest self, I think, is almost like and I don't know if you feel this way Sometimes I feel like it's a journey, like it's, it's not a destination.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Right, if you've heard that too, and I'm going to really enjoy getting into the pieces and parts of your book really as that guide for us when we're thinking about what happy means today versus what it meant in the past.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I think framing it as an action is also so much more approachable, because it's like what's the next step I can take, and can I make it a bold one?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And then, bit by bit, you end up building a beautiful, authentic and happy life using that as your guide.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: So when you think of a memorable, bold moment for you, based on being aligned with your truest self, what comes to mind for you?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I think probably quitting my job with no plan we're in the same club, yeah so I was.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is great, we can commiserate.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Uh, quitting, quitting my job with no plan and a dream that was probably a bold, uh a bold, maybe a foolish thing that I did it's a big swing of bold.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think yeah.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet you thought about it, I bet you knew like something had to give.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Usually that's the sign it's like something's got to change or I'm curious about something new.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly, I felt like the.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: It was sort of just this internal feeling of, oh, the time had come, and I guess the feeling is sort of like when you're on the edge of a rock cliff or a diving board and you have to just eventually bite it and just jump in anyway.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It's sort of that feeling I think came along with it.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you had to take the step.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that, as I'm coaching or working with individuals organizations, is.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I feel like that first step sometimes is the hardest step of the one.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: That's the most free.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It is yeah, and.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And then you know there's something also about that when you you can look back and you're like if you're in the water and you look up at the cliff and you're like I did that and you can draw a lot of strength from it, right, even in the hard moments that come, that might be following from the initial leap.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Right, there's not just one hard moment.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Most likely At least that hasn't been my experience no definitely not A hundred percent.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the case for me as well.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So when you made that leap, when you said I'm quitting my job, I don't really have a plan, what happened next for you with regard to connecting to your truest self?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I think that at that moment, I knew that I had developed this philosophy of happiness, and I knew that it was in the early days of the pandemic and we were collectively going through this shift in terms of thinking about some of the values that we held, collectively going through this, you know, shift in terms of thinking about some of the values that we held as a society, and I thought, okay, this might be the moment to try and catalyze a transformation at a broader level.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: And I knew that I had this philosophy.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't quite know how to communicate it, but I felt like I would be able to figure it out and start to play around with things.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: But I needed the space and the time to do that.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: And so that's when I started, you know, trying to create resources and materials that would help people to understand how they could live happier lives, and there is so much trial and error involved so much trial and error.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: But I think one of the most amazing things was, as somebody who was really afraid of failure previously, was that the more that I tried and failed, the more I learned about myself and the closer I ended up getting to myself.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: I had always had this idea that failure would take me away from myself, but in fact, these experiences of setbacks and failure ultimately brought me closer to myself, which was really amazing.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a profound statement too.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I think of.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Like we hear about growth mindset all the time, but I'm not sure everyone knows how to apply it, and I think you just defined it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: In a way.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: It was like oh yeah, each time I fail, I learned something about what I did.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: But I also learned something about me, how I responded, what I did during the failure, how I responded to the failure and then the what's next?
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Right, and I think that's the part of the.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: You know, the iterative cycle of succeeding and failing is that you keep going and you either realize I need to try again or you sometimes realize you need to stop right, like that's not the right.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so true.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: It's like almost having a scientific or a tinkerer or a craftsperson mindset right.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Like you know, if I was a carpenter building a table, if I built my first table and it wasn't perfect, I would never just quit.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I would say, you know like I'd be like okay, I'm going to build another table, yeah, I'm gonna find another way to do this and I'll try and fix that weird leg that I made or whatever the problem was, and I think so often when we get into our, when we're doing work, that maybe happens more in our heads.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: it's easy to forget that, but I think having that approach to it of being a craftsperson or somebody who's trying to build a skill is so much gentler and more supportive than I have to get this perfectly right away, otherwise I'm a failure.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a framework called the bold framework.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So it's believe, own, learn, design, and the D is design.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: So, as you're talking, like I'm thinking about, it's really designing the next step, curating your learnings, like bringing them all together.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, what does it tell me?
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: What does it not tell me?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Because I think sometimes we don't really think about, oh, what's still unknown, right, and exploring.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: That is often a bold move in itself, Right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I love that, yeah.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: So if someone says I want to be happier which a lot of people listening probably have said that what do they need to do when they think about even defining what happy means?
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Like, what is your definition of happy?
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: This is the main problem, in my opinion.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: To be honest.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So I think that the biggest issue that we have is something I call old happy, which is our societal understanding of happiness, and this is something that we've been conditioned into from the very beginnings of our lives, and we've been taught all of these lessons about who we need to be and what we need to do in order to be happy, and these messages end up really hurting us because they compel us to pursue things that make us miserable.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So if you're listening and you have struggled with perfectionism, for example, well, that's because old happy culture has told you for your entire life that you need to be perfect in order to be happy, and perfection takes many different forms, and it's a never, ever ending list.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: If you feel the pressure to always be productive, you can never relax.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: You always have to push yourself and prove how good you are.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: That's old happy telling you that success is what leads to happiness and well-being, and so the first step in finding real happiness is really, in many ways, un-brainwashing ourselves from these stories that our society and our culture have told us, so that we can create the space to be able to explore what real happiness looks like.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So when someone's just starting to explore it, whether it's their next bold move which I think, like we talked about the very beginning, which I was excited to hear that you feel it's aligned because I do too is that bold move can bring you closer to your truest self?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: When I quit my job without having a job in 2020, I got to a place of burnout where I had tried everything that used to work to make me happy or to fix it.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I'm a fixer and it just it wasn't working and for me, I had to make that choice, which was me, and what was interesting is that at 48, I needed to like, relearn who I was.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: That's disassociated from this incredible career I had in incredible places, and it wasn't like I was identity connected, but it was, you know, 25 years of hard work.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So it was like I can be anything I want to be and then I'll be happier.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Then I'll find joy, like we've heard joy a lot in the last several years too.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So when someone's kind of making that step towards happy, is there a sign of unhappiness or things along the route that we need to pay attention to in the new happy of like okay, like something isn't aligned or something feels off.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Your feelings are your best guide, in my opinion.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: So think about, especially as women, we have been conditioned into believing that our feelings should be suppressed or ignored and that they're a liability.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Right Like that they're a problem.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: We're too sensitive.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Too much, whatever Right.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: And especially thinking about women in the workplace and the ways in which women have been taught that they need to adopt masculine traits in order to be successful, even though we, of course, know from research now that traditionally feminine traits tend to be more successful in business, but that's a conversation for another day.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: So so, regardless, you have all these stories about your emotions, right, but I would invite you to think about your emotions as the most amazing feedback system that has ever been created, because, essentially, you go out and you have a chat with somebody, you run into a friend outside and you have a nice chat and you leave and you feel wow, I feel warm and nice and I feel energized.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Great, you just got feedback about the quality of your connection with that person.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Your emotions are giving you the signal that this person matters to you, that they're fulfilling, that your needs are being satisfied.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And then, conversely, you know, let's say that you drive to your office and you pull into the parking lot and you sit in your car and you have to give yourself a pep talk to open the car door, which I've been there before your feelings are telling you something, right?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: So oftentimes what happens is we end up suppressing those emotions for years and years and years, and then we have breakdowns or breakthroughs or burnout or, you know, challenges with our mental health and all that.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: So the more that we can listen to our feelings now, in the moment, the more that we can attend to the wisdom that they have within us.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So if you find yourself consistently feeling difficult emotions, it's probably a sign that your needs are not being met in some way or another, and that is a sign that you might want to take a bold action and move towards something that is going to be more fulfilling.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Why is it that you think that in 2024, we're still in this place and I'm just gonna, you know, live the experience as a woman, thinking that we can't express ourselves or be ourselves?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Because I was there and it wasn't like anyone said, be this or be that, it was this convention.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, from second grade through high school, through early undergrad, I was like 100% me and I think, once I got to my graduate programs and into large academics, it was like I can't be 100% me right now and I I don't mean, you know, doing anything against anything in a wrong way, but I mean I felt like I needed to fit into a mold.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: So what do you think it is about?
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: When it comes connected to our happiness and our emotions or who we are?
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like we dim it a little bit somewhere along the way?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: From when we were a kid, yeah, to you know, maybe our early or late thirties, early forties.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Is there any in your research?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Did you find anything specific to that?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: So I argue that there's this thing that I call the perfect self, and it's this mental version of ourselves that we think we need to be.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, we have a perfect self, but that perfect self comes from our society, and, specifically, I argue that it comes from the forces of individualism, capitalism and domination.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: And so what happens is you adopt this mental picture of who you need to be in order to be happy, and individualism tells you that you're by yourself.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: You can never lean on anybody, you can never struggle, you're on your own.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Capitalism tells you that you have to always be productive, you have to be achieving, you have to do things in a certain way at the right time, you always have to be pushing, and domination is where the patriarchal society comes from.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: That tells us that you're too emotional or you're too sensitive.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: You have to engage in a masculine-oriented way.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Then there's obviously the layers of the ways in which that applies for things like race and class and all of these different levels of domination that occur in our society, and you end up with this mental image of yourself that's so stripped and devoid of everything that makes you you, everything special about you, everything unique, all of your humanity, all of your beautiful talents and gifts and your passions and your mistakes and your struggles, because those make you you as well, and you strive ever more to continually fit into that box.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: But doing that only makes us miserable, and we don't know why, because the whole time society is telling us, doing this will make you happy.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: And so then what happens?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: We blame ourselves, it becomes our fault that we're not happy, and then, as women of course, like we're especially conditioned to blame ourselves, men do it too.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: But meanwhile the whole time it's that we've been forced into this box and told to conform and to be a certain way, and that way it doesn't serve us.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting, I think along the way, too, that way doesn't serve us.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting, I think, along the way, too, that there are messages that we're receiving, going back to what we just talked about previously, that something's telling us that's not in alignment.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: And then I think for me it was like this I can make it, I can make it work.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And then I'd have a bad day, and then I was like I can make it work, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Then I was diving and then it was like I was getting to a point where I couldn't get back to stable, of like figuring it out.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: And I know that's a little bit of part of how I operate and how hard I work in my expectations of myself, right, but when you're seeking this alignment with yourself which connects to your happiness, and you're trying so hard, it goes back to what you just said of like, why isn't this working?
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I must be doing something wrong.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: And I totally felt that.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I totally felt like I wasn't tough enough, I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't smart enough and it was really starting to tick me off and because I was like I know I'm those things, it was an illogical type of thing happening.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So what can we do and how?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: In the book does this and helps us kind of guide us through it.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: But is there something we can do to kind of reset or kick us out of that negative, not spiral but cycle?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: That's what I would say, mine was.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the way you describe that.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I think the most important thing that people need to do is you need to stop viewing your humanity as a liability and stop blaming yourself for it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: So I often say, like the features of your humanity are not a problem, they're something to embrace.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And so here's an example.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Let's say I'm at work and I make a mistake, I send a wrong email to my boss, and then I go to myself and I go oh my God, I am the worst, I am so stupid, I am such an idiot and I go into the spiral.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: You have to stop.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: In that moment you have to say I am a worthy and wonderful human being who is completely acceptable as they are, and I made a mistake because I'm a human and that's okay.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: You have to stop viewing those mistakes as proof that you're bad, because to make a judgment about your whole human self based upon one email is fundamentally illogical.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Even if you're not bought into this idea, I think you could probably say that one person should not be judged for the contents of a typo in an email, but we treat it like yeah, we treat it like we're going to jail for it.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Basically, Do you ever find that sometimes is there a connection between doing something simply, between doing something more complex, or it's a just depends?
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: on the person.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it depends on the person and the things that bring them a special joy or energy, and so I think part of making choices that are aligned with who you are is knowing more about who you are and the things that light you up.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so in your book it really is the guide are and the things that light you up yeah, so in your book it really is the guide.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the things and what caught my attention and when I found you or your visuals so I'm a very visual person and so you take a challenging or complex concept and you simplify it through these beautiful visions and drawings, you know, in the sense of things that you can look at very easily and figure it out and go, yeah, that's it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: What was a reason or how did you create the idea around the visuals to the new happy.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I wanted to find a way to communicate these new ideas in a different way, Because I personally maybe again it's just the way my brain works, but I struggle to hold on to words in the same way like in terms of understanding concepts, and I have always had I suppose it's a level of neurodivergence where I have these mental representations in my head of these ideas and I never thought anything of it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I thought it was just a weird quirk of mine, better left, ignored and shoved under the rug.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And then when I quit my job and I was trying to figure out what to do, I thought well, I'm at rock bottom.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I might as well get over myself and try doing this thing and start making these little pieces of artwork.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: So it took me about a year to figure it out and to kind of come up with the visual style, and then it's evolved since then but to really land on the core idea of we're going to take these colors that represent certain emotions or experiences, and then simple shapes and have them interplay in some way or communicate these ideas.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: And so I started to basically go through studies and then translate the key findings of the study into an image to see what would happen and if people would understand it more.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: To be honest, I never really thought people would like them.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I was totally surprised that people seem to connect with them.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've definitely got a different response than you expected, then because we love them, thank you.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: And so when you started, you made a comment about might as well, try like.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: You felt like you were at rock bottom when you were starting off.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: How did your personal journey connect to creating this guide?
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: So I was not a happy person growing up.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I always struggled with my mental and emotional, psychological well being.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: I didn't have the language around that, though.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: It was just something I knew was harder for me than it was for most people.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: It was hard to be happy, yeah, yeah, hard to be happy, and I couldn't figure out why, and I always thought it was my fault and all that stuff that we were just talking about.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: And then, after I graduated college, I got this big fancy job.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Then I was like sure that it was finally going to make me happy.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, it didn't.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: And your degree is in positive psychology.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, did how you felt draw you toward that degree.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, did how you felt draw you toward that degree?
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: So my undergrad was in something different.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It was in I actually ended up making up my own degree, but it was focused on the relationship between people and organizations.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And then I got this job in management consulting and unfortunately, it was just a really bad fit for me.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Given what I do now, it's probably not that surprising.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I one day, you know, found myself like having a breakdown on my bedroom floor, wondering why nothing I did ever made me happy and what I could do, and was there any hope for me to ever?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: have a good life 2013 moment.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: That, yeah, okay yeah, and then I had this moment of like, almost like a little moment of curiosity, amidst the sobbing of oh, maybe it's not your fault, stephanie, maybe you were given all the wrong messages about what you should do, and maybe there's other information out there that you could find.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: So that's what then compelled me to want to go and led to my graduate degree in positive psychology and really powered my desire to help people to understand that we've been doing happiness all wrong, and it's not only not working, but it's actively making us miserable, and unless we address it, we're never going to find personal happiness for ourselves, nor will we be able to make our world a happier place either.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I think what I learned through the book is like if you keep using the old happy as your guide, you're never going to find or feel happy, exactly, and it's so painful to grapple with that, isn't it?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: It feels it's so tempting in some ways to be like oh, if I can just get this promotion or just get this job or just do that thing, then I'll finally get there.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't work, yeah.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I think in the sense of and I've heard this was a quote that some I think Brian holiday, and one of his emails, like it went out this week, one of the quotes that he, you know he said 37 things he's learned in 37 years and he has a friend that said you can wake up and you have two choices be happy or be very happy.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: So when I see this word thrown around, like what does it mean?
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And like for me especially reading your book and kind of doing some other things that I've just been trying to understand, the connectedness of happiness to other things that we do, it isn't like yeah, you can't just wake up and then jump into that.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: So like when someone wakes up and they want to say I'm going to be happy today, yeah, can't do it that way, I don't think you can make yourself happy.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But what can someone do using your book as the guide?
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Do they need to demystify what happy means to them first?
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: You can, or you can take the shortcut, which is pretty simple If you want to wake up and feel happy, go try and make somebody else happy.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Go try and help somebody else, and that is the most reliable way to experience your own happiness.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: And really, at the end of the day, what the book and the philosophy is trying to guide people to do is to create lives of service and meaning and purpose that leverage their authenticity and their unique gifts in order to help others and, as far as we know from the research, this is like pretty much the most reliable way to live a happy life that's full of purpose and that provides people with a sense of joy on a regular basis as well.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: So you can go through the book, you can do the whole unwinding old happy process, but if you just want a shortcut, if you just want to go out and help somebody today, you'll probably end up getting a lot of benefits, totally, yeah.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Like I think we get sometimes in a space for me.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I know I get in my head and I'm like you know I didn't do that well or I lost that client, or like that's going well, so why am I not happier?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: And I think sometimes I don't even understand why I'm unhappy.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Like I have so much to be grateful for, I have so much to be thankful for and I love that.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Like I seem to go do something for somebody else because it'll take me out of my own head and doing something for someone else totally makes me happy it does, and I get pushback sometimes on this and like there's some nuances here, of course, that we can dig into.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: But the truth is is that we live in a culture that tells us to focus more and more on the self, obsessively right, like everything is about me and what I want and what my desires are, and we also live in a culture where people are more and more and more unhappy because focusing on the self is, to be honest, like a pretty much straight shot to misery if you do it for too much time.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I feel like we need to spend a little bit of time getting to know ourselves, discovering our strengths and our gifts, learning about what lights us up and our passions and our purpose, and then we need to stop and go off and help people and use it in some way.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: But we've gotten like a rest of development stuck on the first part, and it's like you know.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Everyone is continuing to spend all of their time focusing on the self, thinking that that's where the happiness is, but it's not working because we haven't taken the proper step of going out and sharing it, because we haven't taken the proper step of going out and sharing it, and so I want to encourage people to not think they need to, like, become better or get more certifications or become more qualified or to do all these things.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: That's all happy.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: You don't have to do that.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: You can just go and help and see what happens, and I can guarantee it'll be better in the long run if you just start like that.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think sometimes we over complicate the next run.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: If you just start like that, yeah, I think sometimes we overcomplicate the next step.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know whether it's a bold step or a step towards happiness or together they, they mean that.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: But I think we often are to ourselves think, oh yeah, I can't, I can't help that person.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: You know I don't have a degree or I don't have that background, and I find that just even saying how you really doing exactly yeah, or hey, I'm thinking of you, I just wanted to check in.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I knew you had a big project.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: You know you're feeling good about it or whatever.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I want to be an expert in that project.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I don't have to have a degree in psychology, you know, like I just need to be a friend, I just need to be aware, and so I just want the listeners to hear that it's just simple actually to figure out your next step to helping someone else could just be asking how they are really and not accepting I'm good, yeah.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And not just letting them go with that.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's such a beautiful example and we discount those moments of help.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: But those moments are everything.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Those moments are what build our relationships, they're what create business contacts and clients.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: They're what create safety and love and compassion.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Those moments add up to being the most important things that matter in our lives.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I think to your point like sometimes people hold themselves back from helping because they think they need to do something.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Like quote important Right, and it is important to ask somebody how they're feeling.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: It's arguably the most important thing that we could do.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so in one of the part four of your book is uncovering your gifts and in chapter 10 is why you matter book is uncovering your gifts and in chapter 10 is why you matter.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Why was it important for you to have a chapter around uncovering our gifts and us understanding?
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: because I do think it connects to what we just because most people unfortunately don't have the loving support systems that help them to do that.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: I think that everyone wants to have like loving and supportive relationships and, of course, like we all do, but being able to have a loving and supportive relationship where people help you to see your unique gifts and point them out to you as a skill.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: It's like a skill like empathy or compassion, and so most people that I meet don't have those support systems in their life that point out their strengths and their talents to them, and so I wanted people to see that, despite growing up in a world that tells so many of us that, like we suck, we're garbage, we're not good enough, there's something wrong with you.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: You have so much within you like, so much goodness within you to offer the world, and the more that you start to share that, the more that you offer that up to people, the more joy that you get to experience and the difference that you get to make in their lives.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: And it's all just hidden within you.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: You just have to have the right prompts to be able to discover it.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you have to intentionally do something about it right.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: It isn't just like, oh, I'll do that tomorrow, I'll think about it, something about it.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: It isn't just like, oh, I'll do that tomorrow, I'll think about it, you again.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: It's a step that you have to take within yourself because no one else can make you happy.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear a lot of when I have a relationship, I'll be happy.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: When I get married, I'll be happy when I have a baby, I'll be happy when I get this divorce.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: You can do the opposite.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: You know, when my kids leave, like, yeah, totally, you know, like the things you hear, especially in your, your mid-50s.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: So, in the sense of that, like when people are looking for that external thing which is the old happy, to make them happy, yeah, I almost feel sad because I'm I'm just concerned they'll never find it for sure.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: It's like a cue, like if I ever catch myself saying those words, yeah, I have big red alarm bells go off in my head where I'm like, oh, I'm an old happy, what's going on here?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: I need to question whatever it was I just said about, I'll be happy when this is over, or blah, blah, blah you know and it's normal like you will get caught in that, but that's okay as long as you bring awareness to it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: That's all that matters.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I mean, the intentional awareness of like.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: That was something I used to think.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know, when you start reading the book, you really do unpack what happiness means for you and you also see kind of what old happy looks like.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And as I was like, yep, yep, I have to have a title, I have to have a degree, and it's interesting For me now, being the age I am, I look back to college and I really feel like a lot of that told me that's what I had to do.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, even this morning I was talking about when I went to my MHA.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I showed up my first day in jeans and a hoodie for my graduate program and everyone was wearing a suit.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Wow, you know so it was like you actually need to dress student, like you're going to dress in the workplace and trying to fit in right or fit this mold of like it out.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: So I go back like that was like I had to do that if I wanted to get a job, finish my degree and be happy.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Right, when you think about the research you've done.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: So this is a science back book.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: You know what is the process that?
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Like where do you start researching?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Happy and along the way, like was there anything that was like wow, I didn't think I would find that.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Was there a notable something that you found in your research that was surprising to you?
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, there's so much.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm such a research nerd Like I.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Basically my process was I was just reading all the books I could get my hands on before I went to my graduate degree and there I learned how to read studies and how to dig, do literature reviews and stuff, and so for my graduate thesis I wrote the first version of this book and I had like 300 citations and I had just gone wild looking through all the research trying to figure out all of these answers and then basically, like after I graduated, I just kept doing it by myself and it was sort of like a spiderweb, like splintering off into all these different directions trying to figure it out.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I think one of the personal light bulb moments for me that might resonate with your listeners here is what surprised me was that scientists knew, and have known for a long time, that pursuing goals like power, wealth, fame, external achievements are never going to make you happy.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: And I remember coming across that and being like it would have been nice if somebody had told me that it would have been nice if this was public knowledge, because I wouldn't have spent my whole life pursuing achievements, thinking that they would make me happy if, in fact, what the science shows is that connection and community and personal growth and contribution and all of these other things are goals that will make you happy.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: That shift has been very transformational in my own life.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, you're really living like the part five of your book, which is about serving the world.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: You're like walking the talk, so, and you're also being vulnerable, which I think I didn't think that would make me happy.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I thought that would scare me.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: I thought that would make me weak, which is, again, probably old, happy you know coming up, you know it's everywhere.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's everywhere, I can't get it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Once you, once you see it, it's like oh, my God, that's it.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: Oh wait, you're right there.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: So like in the sense of that.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I think really, truly, that's where we can actually serve others, inspire others and help others is like telling our story and saying, yeah, like I didn't have it all together, I still don't have it all together, like I think we're all figuring it out.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: And the sooner we figure that out, the better we'll be, because we can actually help one another, versus one person hiding their whatever's happening or not being true about kind of how things are going, or you know, and there's a degree of this.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying just put it all out there, but pretending that everything's always great, which it isn't for anyone is just not healthy.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: I love how you said that.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I think that's you just said that so beautifully Like if we are all pretending that everything is perfect and hunky dory, then we're cutting everyone else off who can help us and therefore we're cutting them off from their happiness.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Like if I refuse to let you help me, lee, like I'm limiting your ability to experience happiness and vice versa.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: So we can be there for one another and we can show up for one another and help to fulfill our needs, and that's how I think we will be able to experience happiness.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: It's a far cry from this, you know, individualistic, self-focused pursuit that we've been kind of trapped in for so long.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Right, I think in my book I write about the myths of boldness or the word bold, and one of them is being bold, you have to go alone.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I love that, definitely not a solo act and you have to make the move, which is your responsibility.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You have to take the action.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: But it isn't something you have to do alone.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: And I think the other thing you know there's five key ones.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: The other one that's kind of resonating with me with this conversation is that it has to be big, it has to be loud.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: That's a must be something huge.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: That's bold.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: No, like boldness comes in quiet, in the small moments, the things that no one else knows about, potentially that you think and plan and create and get curious about within yourself, which then maybe you have a one on one or you do something smaller in scope.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: So I think happy might also be that way to like.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: You think something big has to happen for you to be happy.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: You know, and I think what this book will guide you to is that the moments of happiness, I think are the smaller things that come together to create the overall feeling and experience Would you agree with that Absolutely.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: So, so gorgeously said.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: It's a good book.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot, thank you.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: So, as we close out, and people, I think some of our listeners may be in this transition phase of their life, right, so either they're in transition, meaning they actually are in between jobs, or you know our environment right now.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: If it's involuntary, you're looking for another job or you're just kind of at that age.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: There's something about happiness and being in your late 40s.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: You know that, I'm sure research, you've seen a lot in there, but there is a curve of happiness that seems to dip, I think, in our late 40s and that might be where we say enough, something's got to give.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what advice or information from all of your research could you give to someone who's kind of in that space right now?
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I would say, if you're in that space, if you can prioritize just like 10 minutes of quiet time a day just to connect with yourself, like, get to spend a little bit of time with yourself.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: You might journal, do free writing, you know where you don't judge yourself, but you just write down whatever's on your mind.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: One thing I used to do is go for quick walks.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: When my life was really hectic, I would only have like 10 minutes a day for my own self and I would go for a walk and record a voice memo, just like talking out loud, sharing my feelings, whatever it is that helps you to sort of reconnect with yourself.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: And then ask yourself what's one thing I can do today to be myself and give of myself?
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Is there one small action that I can take?
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Or can I change one small action I'm already doing to be more authentic or more service oriented?
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And then see what happens.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Because I think you're right Like we glamorize these big moves and even I'm perpetuating that because I said you know like, oh me quitting my job was a bold move, but in reality my true bold move was probably the day that I started a newsletter many years previously and I sent an email to you know, like 17 people.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: That was much quieter, not a big deal, no one noticed, no one cared.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: But that was the.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: That was a bigger moment for me.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: So don't discount those little moments like you just described.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it could be in a relationship.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: It could be personal life.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: You know how you want to feel, how you want to be healthier.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: It could be in your professional life of like, within your organization, kind of going to the next level, or could be, and then thinking about as I think, and say that, like why is that something that you want to do, and making sure it is aligned to your truest self.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think that's always a good.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I think measurements of like do I want this job because I think it's going to make me happier, or x, y or z, like whatever, that is that goal that you have.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Just kind of checking yourself on the why of so true, I think will be helpful too.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And then taking it through the old happy rubric and the new happy rubric you're thinking about it as you read the book.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: I think that'll be super helpful.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for being on the bold lounge.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: All the information about the book, about Stephanie, about signing up and following her on Insta and LinkedIn, is below in the notes.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the bold lounge, stephanie.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you for an amazing conversation.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: You are wonderful and I'm really grateful.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.