Oprah & Arthur Brooks: Build the Life You Want - Episode 2 | Oprah's Super Soul | OW N Podcasts

A big thanks to the Hartford for supporting this special episode. This is the second episode of our build the life you want series. Hi everybody. We're back. Okay. For the art and science of getting happier, build a life you want. Arthur C. Brooks is here. And so is Oprah Winfrey. So is Oprah Winfrey. I've joined forces with bestselling author, Harvard professor and Atlantic columnist, Arthur C. Brooks to co-write our book, build the life you want the art and science of getting happier. We're so glad to know the book resonated with readers with a debut at number one on the New York times bestseller list. Now, Arthur and I are together again for this three part podcast series. We're diving deeper into the insights and all eight chapters of build the life you want. We'll also answer questions from readers like you. I want to give one of our readers, Suzanne, Suzanne, Hey, a chance to ask your question. Hi, I'm Suzanne. And I love the distinction made between hope and optimism. And I was wondering if there is a simple kind of quick way to incorporate this into my morning routine so that I have a little bit more hope for that day, especially as I am launching a new business in a new city. Great. What's the difference? Yeah. The difference is that, and by the way, good luck, Suzanne, I'm the love entrepreneurs. I'd love to see the spirit. You can tell that she's so enthusiastic about getting this thing going and asking the right question. A lot of people think that hope and optimism is the same thing, but they're not. Optimism is a prediction. Everything's going to be great. That's what optimism is. And that's not necessarily true. If you're an entrepreneur, it's not necessarily, and it's also more general, right? It could be even specific. I can be very optimistic about the future of your business. You can be very optimistic about what's going to happen this day, but that's predicting everything's going to be all right. Yeah. Hope isn't a prediction. Hope is a declaration of action. Hope says something can be done and I can do it. You can be a pessimistic, hopeful person. I mean, a very hopeful pessimist by saying, you know, I'm not so sure things are going to turn out okay, but there's stuff I can do to make this situation better. And hope is, I mean, hope is empowering. Hope is incredible. So, you know, if you're an entrepreneur and you're just optimistic about it, okay, but you know, look, Oprah, you've had businesses and there's ups and there's downs and just thinking everything's going to be okay all the time is not necessarily the best tactic. Or even saying, you know, I believe it's going to be okay. Um, I feel that it's going to turn out okay. Yeah. You've got to have hope that includes some action to make it turn out. Yeah. So the way to do that is not to wake up in the morning and say, today is going to be a great day, right? Only good things. No bad things. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's going to be good and there's going to be bad. Bring it on. Why can I say bring it on? Because there's a bunch of things that I can do. Yes. And also because as one of the main tenants of the book is to be able to accept your unhappiness. Yeah. And I think we've talked about this before and you know, we have a declaration of independence. It says that happiness is our birthright. And so everybody is trying, striving, pursuing, pursuing happiness when in fact we should be taught exactly what we're trying to say in this book or actually saying in this book is that you need the combination of both. I think so. When unhappiness shows up, people are like, Oh, unhappiness, it is, it is about the balance in your life. Absolutely. You know, some days you wake up and you're like, yes, you know, I don't know, man, I don't know. But then you make a list of the things that you can do this day, make a list of the things that you can do that will make things tangibly better in your business or your life or your relationships or the lives of other people. And that's a, that's an expression of hope and empowerment and that will make things a lot better. So chapter four is titled focus less on yourself and you introduce us to something called the moral deed study. What is that? This is a study. It's a really interesting study. It's so much of, you know, the work on, on how we can get happier uses human experiments at universities. So the way that you do this is you take a bunch of students, usually undergraduate students, cause they'll do anything for 20 bucks. And you, you set them up into different groups and give them different instructions and see how they differ with the results. So this is one that asks if you do something, if you treat yourself or if you think nice things about another person, or if you go out and do a nice thing for another person, which one of those three actions would give you the most happiness now left in the wild, most people will be like, I'll treat myself. You know, I'll go to a spa, I'll eat the candy bar. I'll, you know, go out to dinner. I'll go have a good time. Right. But they'll, they, they randomize the students into the three groups, one group, go do something nice for yourself. The other is think beautiful thoughts about others. And the third is go do something nice, just a random act of kindness for another person. And then they saw how happy they were in the wake of that. And also how happy they were later on. And in unambiguously the happiest group or the kind acts, the random acts of kindness, people, that was it. That wasn't the natural thing to do. The natural thing to do is to serve yourself. But if you basically don't stop with thinking nice things about other people, think of something nice that you can do. You know, we were talking about this the other day. Remember when we were talking, um, uh, I was giving this example and we were discussing this about when you feel a little bit helpless at work, you're feeling a little bit unhappy at work, the way that you can turn around a job that you don't like very much that you find boring or something is to start doing random acts of kindness for the people in your office. Yeah. It turns out that you can use this experiment. All these experiments are so incredibly useful. Look at the person in the next cubicle and go to the break room and bring her back a fresh cup of hot coffee, even though she didn't ask for it. Make sure she likes coffee. Right. Yeah. And bring it back to her and say, you know what? You look like you could use a fresh cup of coffee. And pretty soon you're the person who does that. Okay. So is the reason you feel better when you do something for somebody else because of the other person's reaction or is it because it does something inside you? Well, this is an interesting thing about acts of love. You know, one of the things that we find is when people are really lonely, they want love, the best way to give it is to give love, to get love, give love. It doesn't matter if you feel it or not go do something. What that does is it really starts the process of reframing things in your own brain. Life, your load is lightened. When you're helping another person, you take the emphasis off yourself. You're not, you're not looking in the mirror anymore. When you know, woe is me. It's incredibly self-focused and I get it because when you're feeling rotten, you're thinking about your own feelings. You get relief when you actually do that. Plus you magnetize yourself with those feelings from another person. You're going to, you're going to draw love to yourself when you actually give it. That's, that's a, and again, just a little cup of coffee or a little compliment. You know what I used to do and I love this is, is that if I was at the grocery store and I used to love to, like after I paid for my groceries, you know, tell the PR, tell the cashier that pay for the next person in line. Yeah. And I never knew who that person was or what, but I just know that I always felt that when the person puts their groceries up and they say, Oh, the groceries already been paid for that for the rest of the day, that person feels good that that thing happened. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I know for sure. And they're still telling the story that it was Oprah Winfrey that paid for the pork chops. No, but it is, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. And the truth is that that is, it's a, who knows is, is it the hand of God? It's hard to say. I've done tons of research on. This is a funny thing that I found early on in my career as a social scientist. I found that for example, that, that it looked in my data, it's weird things, mystery, that when people gave money to charity, the next year they made more money. It's a weird thing. It's like, it doesn't make sense. And I think it's, something's wrong with my data. It's the tithing principle. Yeah. Right. And, but, but it was like, they made more money the year after they gave money away. And it was like, it looked causal in my sense. So I go to this friend of mine who teaches the university with me as a psychologist. I was, as an economist, I was working in a slightly different field. I said, I got this data problem. I keep finding that when you give money away, you get richer. He's like, Oh, we've known that for 30 years. I said, well, tell me more. He said, but it's trivial. He said, when people give more money away, they get happier and they're more effective in their jobs. They're more empowered and they get rewarded is the whole point. And so the connection is not that, that, you know, the wheels of the universe turn and they, you know, money comes out of a helicopter that what happens is that you get happier and you work with more joy and make more money is the bottom line. Give more, get happier, give your time. There's actually a study. I love this that shows that when people give more, they get more attractive physically to other people. Really? Yeah. Yeah. There's a study that says this, you know, these guys they're asked to come into the lab with their wives or girlfriends. And, um, and they say that the researchers say, I'm going to give you a pocket full of coins. You just have to walk down to the other building down there. And my colleague is down there waiting and he's going to ask you a couple of questions and you go home, you get to keep the money. Like that's it. So he's walk out of the building and halfway through, there's an alleyway between the buildings and a homeless guy comes wandering out. It turns out he's involved in the experiment. Of course he panhandles the guy. Got any change? He does. They put the coins in his pocket, right? And he has to make a decision in front of his partner. What is he going to do? Okay. He makes the decision to keep walking. The guy in the next building asks first him, did you give money to the homeless man? And then to his partner, how attractive do you find him right now? It turns out the more you gave the guy, the sexier she finds you. That makes sense to me because I would feel that way too. Yeah, for sure. Let's hear from Breon. A teacher from New Jersey has a question about the ways in which others judge us. Breon, let's hear it. Hi, my name is Breon. After reading the section, Stop Caring What They Think, I thought, yeah, but sometimes I do have to care about what other people think and how they see me, especially in regards to stereotypes that can affect everything from work to personal safety. My question is, how do I square that circle? How do I care less about what other people think while living in a society that judges people based on how they look and can be discriminatory? I thought that's really spot on. Very deep question. Yeah, it is true that, that it matters, you know what people think about you, but don't go looking for information about how people think about you. Yeah. The big problem is it's a comparison machine that, you know, Teddy Roosevelt, the U S president at one time said that comparison is the, is the thief of joy. You know, it was a profound insight. And so the whole idea that you're comparing yourself with other people, what does that person think of me? What does that person think of me? Sometimes it's necessary. You know, if that person is looking at me in a mean way, that might be a threat. I have to, I should care what my boss thinks of me and my, and my style of work. Those, those things are necessary and they make sense. And that's, we're evolved to care about those things. But stop looking for the social comparisons that are totally gratuitous. How many likes did I get on that social media post? What, what are people saying about the outfit that I'm wearing? Stop asking people their opinion of you. That's a really important thing to do because these are just looking in mirrors all day long and it'll make you nuts. And I think work towards affirming for yourself what looks good for you. Yeah. And when you know that yourself, it's just like, I used to say this all the time and I still feel this way that if you go shopping and you're not quite sure about a pair of shoes or a dress or whatever, you can ask everybody, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? But when you're sure you don't ask anybody when you're sure you don't ask anybody. Yeah. Yeah. And the happier you are, the fewer opinions you're soliciting. Yes. You'll find that, you know, when you're really feeling kind of, yeah, you have to ask everybody, everybody, everybody all the time. So what, you know, what do you think? I do a good job. I do a good job. You know, I find myself doing this all the time. And when you're more secure in a relationship, you're doing that less and less and less. Yes. It's really important. I mean, I tell you that the most important thing for me is I want my wife to be proud of me. I really do. It's really, it's an audience. I want, she's watching and she's proud when I know, because I'm in love. But, um, but you know, when I'm most secure, I'm not asking, I'm not asking, I'm not seeking, I'm not grasping all the time. This is the key thing. When people feel like their, their worth has been somehow diminished. You're in love. And how long have you been married? 32 years. Pretty damn good. I must say. Yeah, no, it's a, well, beats working for a living. Yolanda is a married mother of six from Kenosha, Wisconsin. About envy. Hi, Oprah. Hi, Arthur. Thank you so much for bridging the gap between scholarly articles and the mass media on happiness. I struggle with envy and the part that you wrote was so refreshing on page 89 and how not to water the weed of envy. But I do have to declare that I still struggle with it because I don't struggle because of what people have or their successes. Well, I guess a little bit of their success, but because of their ability to handle stress and their ability to lead teams, do you have any recommendations for me? Well, before you recommend anything, Yolanda, I want to say give yourself a high five and a hug because if you're raising six children, I don't know how you compare anything that anybody else is doing to that because they're not in your household. They're not dealing with what that means. I mean, that alone deserves a round of applause. Yeah. You're a good manager. Yes. You already are. You're running a company. You are. That's right. That's right. It's phenomenal. No, it's really great. Plus, you know, she's got the self-awareness to see this as a source of discomfort. Most people are miserable from envy and they don't even know why they're miserable. They think they actually need to get more status. They need to get more money. They need to get ahead or they, or even worse, they need to tear somebody down and then they'll feel better. Well, yeah, that's when the envy weed has really taken over a big part of their life. Envy is a naturally evolved phenomenon. Envy is a way that we, we can compare ourselves to others to understand our own place in the hierarchy. And we want to be able to have a sense of ambition about doing better. And the way that we do that is by comparing ourselves. You say, the lab person's got this attribute that got this quality, these possessions, whatever it happens to be. I want those things. I would really like those things. And that envy, it spurs us to actually be better. And that's the reason that it's selected. Isn't envy. You shouldn't have it. I should. Well, that's the malignant kind of envy. And that's what it can turn into. Yeah. Cause there's a difference of being jealous and envy, right? Well, there's a difference between benign envy and malignant envy or malicious envy. Benign envy is like, I look, I've always admired you, but I didn't think you didn't deserve it. Yeah. The problem with malignant envy or malicious envy is what we have a lot of today. And so much social media is about the reason that people enjoy it so much when the mighty fall. That's right. It's because that's kind of schadenfreude that they get. And that's a really bad thing, not just for our society. It's horrible for the person who experiences envy. So that the medieval philosophers talked about envy as one of the deadly sins. I can see why it would be. And by the way, there's two commandments about it. Not just one. It's like, don't do that. Don't covet. Yeah. That's, that's envy. Thy neighbor's ox or his ass or his wife or anything. Oh, it's awful. Yeah. But there's like, and so like, don't covet your neighbor's social media following. I mean, it's getting, you know, for the current moment, it's absurd, but you know, it's all the same principle. There's a heavenly virtue that the ancient philosophers talked about that combats the deadly sin. And that is admiration, admiration. Yeah. And giving admiration is a gift. It's so beautiful. I don't know how you switch envy to admiration though. Well, here's the thing. It's based on admiration. Typically it's either based on, it's either based on jealousy or admiration when there's the benign envy that, but it might, it cut at you. It can, it can make you feel less. Okay. Oh, I get it. The bot, the baseline is admiration, right? But because you don't think you can measure up to whatever that is, you feel bad about you, you, you then turn that. But the thing that you would have normally admired if you were a full hold person becomes jealousy and envy. So instead of focusing on I'm less admire the fact that the other person is doing something well, and then it becomes a gift. You can actually turn that impulse into the gift of admiration. Now, you can't do that when you don't know the person. It's a celebrity on social media. Stop following celebrities on social media because all they'll do is make you feel less. It's this global comparison. It's absurd. Yeah. But you also have a lot of envy maybe for the next door neighbor and the fact that our kids are so impeccably dressed or, or the fact that your buddy down the street, he just got a big promotion at work. Express that as admiration and to say, look, that is unbelievable. I admire that so much. I would love that. I wish, I just want you to know that. I would love that. But let's speak specifically to Yolanda's question because Yolanda is envying people who their ability to manage things or to handle stress when you're already doing it. I know, I know. Of course. I mean, that's, this is the key thing. You're always six kids and the people that she's, they don't have six kids. And even if they do, she doesn't see them at home. You're not in there. Yeah, that's right. And you know, they're, they're weeping bitter tears thinking if only I had everything Yolanda has. I mean, this is the funny thing that everybody admires or envies everybody else for what they have. But if there's something that's really genuine about that, maybe there is somebody that she sees that has these incredible management capacities, the ability to keep chaos or a calm in the face of chaos. Go to that person and say, I love that about you. I admire that. What's your secret? And once you do that, you've given that person that you'll just like that. Yes. It's a transformation. Validated, right? They're not going to be like, Oh man, another person who admires me. No, we all want that. And if you can turn that into a, the gift of admiration, it's just, it's soul changing. Well, yes. The same thing because one of the things she was saying was she envied their ability to handle stress. Do you have advice for that? Yeah. I mean, the truth is that those are the people that you actually want their advice because you know, and the admiration opens the door and then you know what? Yeah. The person would say, you know what? I envy that you're managing six kids. You'll learn. You'll learn a lot showing up at work. Yeah, totally. And the fact that she's got the, she's got the, you know, the good sense to recognize that somebody else is handling stress wall. I mean, she's got everything going on. I mean, Yolanda's got it going on for sure and she still wants to make progress. Good for her. You know, I used to be one of those people who I used to call it the disease to please. Um, I said yes all the time because I really didn't actually know how to say no. And explain why. And what, what I realized is, is that after a while I, I would have said yes to something and I'd be in an event and I'd be like, so resentful. Like what am I doing here? And why did I say yes to this? And blah, blah, blah. Explain why people pleasing in any form is the opposite of service and it doesn't work. So there's two kinds of ways to say yes to people. There's a yes that you say because you want to be loved. And there's a yes that you say because you love. Okay. Always say yes because you love a person, not because you're seeking their approval, not because you're seeking their love to be a pleaser is to say, please love me. Yes. Please love me. Will you love me now? If I do this thing for you? The answer is no. By the way. Yeah. The answer is no. They don't love you anymore. No. If you're going to show up to their event, they'll appreciate it, but they're not going to love you more. And, and this is, this happens to a lot of people and they'll appreciate it. And then they'll ask you again because you said it the first time and they're looking, you know, we all want approbation and we all want praise and we all want the approval of other people. We want that. And, and one of the ways that we get that, we solicit it, we try to trade for it. Yeah. And that's not the right way to do it. You know, these, when you're, when you're doing something out of the goodness of your heart, make sure that it's an, it's an act of love, whether you get something back or not. One of the things that you say is that family is the first of the pillars. We were talking about this in the last episode, uh, followed by friendship, followed by work, followed by faith. Uh, Brendan is going to kick off this chapter with a question. He's a doctoral student at Harvard. Hi, I'm Brendan. And I love the content across the book that talks about the four pillars. And I've been thinking a lot about page one Oh five, when you talk about relationships with our family and unmet expectations. And I think my question for you is what is your advice for people that have opportunities to work on all of these pillars, but are really scared about the family pillar in particular? Do you think that they should start with the family pillar in order to be happier or should they try to make progress so to speak on other pillars first to then get more comfortable with some of these techniques and advice that you offer in the book? Good question. Good question. Yeah. A lot of people struggle with their family relationships. I mean a lot of people were watching us or you know, like, yeah, I know, I know it would be great if I had one of those, you know, families that looked like a stepped off the pages of a, you know, commercial. Yes. Everybody's loving each other and going sailing or whatever people do and their families. And it sounds like a complete nightmare in their own family because they'd be, you know, uh, uh, killing each other. I get it. And a lot of people have a lot of schism and a lot of removal from their family. It's been a long time since they've had a healthy relationship. I get that too. And also trouble being accepted for who you are completely, completely. Yeah. For sure. They wanted you to be or expected you to be. Yeah. Working on the pillar of family doesn't mean immediate, complete 100% success. This is the thing. You know, there's lots of things that we w we should do. You know, we should eat right. We should get some exercise. We should, you know, we should do these things. That doesn't mean that you have to immediately be able to run a marathon. It doesn't mean that you immediately should, that healing is going to happen just because you reached out. You just need to start and you mean to start in an undramatic way. And people will ask me, you know, what's the first step in a fitness journey and the answer is get up off the couch and walk around. Yeah. That's all it is. You don't go walk around for half an hour. That's, that's the beginning of the fitness journey. So the, the, the, the version of that for a room relationship with your family, that's freighted and dramatic and trouble is to take down the drama by, you know, 15 ticks and basically just make it easy. Just make it easy. Don't don't have any expectations about it at all. Just be open. Yeah. I mean, cause the key thing is it's like the, you're, you're not, you don't have to rely on the fact that everything's going to be perfect by tomorrow. I think, I think, I think that's key. I think, I think Brendan, I think that's key is when you start to rebuild relationships or build relationships wherever you are, it's have no expectation for it so that whatever shows up, you're willing to accept that move to the next level or not. Yeah. I mean people think they think, you know, if, if my mother isn't the perfect mother, then I have no relationship and we have to go to zero. That's wrong. Yeah. You know, if you had a lot of trouble for a long time, call up mom and say, how you doing? Just like any other person that you would, that you haven't talked to in a little while and just don't be, don't make it into a big deal is the whole do it, but don't make it into a big, so you're saying start small and work your way up, start small and lower your expectations, lower your expectations. That's right. And just let every gesture be a gesture coming from the space of love and not judgment yourself. You're just going to, you're going to give this, you're going to give this thing, you're going to give this thing, you're going to get something back. Maybe not. And the whole point is a lot better than not having had the interaction in the first place. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. And you are going to feel better because you made the effort. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, absolutely. You are. I mean, I know you're going to remember a bad time when you were a kid and this thing and you did that thing to me, but just let it go for a minute. Let it go for a minute. Holding onto the bad times when you were a kid, when you're now no longer a kid, that is just, well you wrote a book on this with Bruce Perry. Yes. I mean, it's in a really important book that talks about, you know, all the things that happened to you. What happened to you? Yeah. Yeah. And that's a, everybody should read that book. You're, I mean, you're carrying like these heavy suitcases around with you on it and you actually have permission to put them down, right? You don't have to carry all that stuff all the time. Right. Right. Right. But people don't quite realize that. And it's also the anger and resentment and bitterness. A lot of the time that the family relationship is so bad because of all those things they did to you. And really what's going on is you're refusing to let go and just let it go for a minute. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Thanks to the Hartford for supporting this special bonus episode of super soul. Today's bonus episode is presented to you by the Hartford. The Hartford is a leader in property and casualty insurance and employee benefits for more than 200 years. They have provided people and businesses with the support and protection they need to pursue their unique ambitions, seize opportunity and prevail through unexpected challenges in an industry that sees customers as risks and data points. The Hartford stands apart, committing to people beyond the policy by using their knowledge, data and resources to make positive contributions to society. It's why they are committed to making adaptive sports more accessible to youth and adults with disabilities, help employers create stigma free workplaces with mental health resources, support small businesses with opportunities to showcase their products and services to revitalize main streets, provide fire safety and prevention education in cities, most at risk for home fires. So whether it's a bridge to span the golden gate, a storefront with the family name on the door or a home in which to make memories, trust the Hartford to help protect what matters to you. Brought to you by the Hartford learn more at the Hartford.com slash achievement. So we have another reader question about family from Emily from Idaho, Emily. Hi, my name is Emily. I have a question about family conflict. In chapter five, you said that a good way to resolve family conflict could be a family meeting where you talk about your differences. As someone who's one of the younger members of my family and isn't quite as strong, um, personality wise, and just in the presence of the family, I was wondering if there's any other things I can do to encourage us all to understand each other and be happier as a family unit. It's good, isn't it? Yeah. Um, often younger members of the family, they have this problem being drowned out, right? Because you know, bigger people, older people, you know, stronger personalities, pecking order, yada, yada, yada. My little girl, my youngest daughter is, is, is relatively taciturn personality. She's an introvert, right? In a whole family of ultra extroverted people. I mean, you've met my, I mean, they're just like, ah, um, and, and it bothered her at first, but she became unbelievably effective at being glue, connective tissue in our family. And the way that she did it was a classic technique in Congress. So what you find is that there's the Congress members of Congress that are the loudmouths always given the speeches, blah, blah, blah. They're always like it. It turns out they're giving a speech to an empty chamber usually on C-SPAN or something. They can send it out. But they're always the ones who do all the talking. Then they're the ones who are the more introverted, more the quieter personalities. Those are the ones that are actually getting a lot done. And the way that they do it is one on one. They do it with relationships one on one. They're not trying to fight through in a big debate. Good advice, Emily. So Emily can do this. Emily can be that effective member of Congress by actually resolving conflict, addressing issues by going one to one to one to one. And it can turn out that by the time they get to the family meeting, Emily solved the problem beforehand. That's what I recommend. And that's what my daughter does. Emily's influence. Yep, exactly right. That's her sphere of influence for somebody who speaks very, very softly is to do it in a one-to-one relationship, which by the way, creates a whole lot of happiness. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, when you're working things out as opposed to just having a big, you know, family brawl better. Here's another question from one of our readers, Kathleen, Kathleen. This is Kathleen. You know, I was really fascinated between, you know, with the discussion on empathy and compassion. You talk about how we need to evolve and move towards compassion. So could you break that down for us? The differences between empathy and compassion and how we should pursue more compassionate relationships in our lives and how compassion is so critical. Yeah. Empathy and compassion. You and I have talked about this and we write about this in the book. Everybody wants to be empathetic. Everybody thinks empathy is the ultimate virtue. That's not right. Empathy according to many social scientists is an overrated virtue. It doesn't mean you shouldn't feel other people's pain, but the problem is that we're paralyzed by other people's pain and they need us to do something, even something they don't like. Usually the worst parents of teenagers are super empathetic, right? It's like, Oh, I feel your pain. Like you're not their friend. You're the parent. A good parent is highly compassionate, meaning that you got to do hard things in the interest of the other person in a spirit of love, even though they don't like it. So compassion has an element of empathy in it, feeling pain, but then it goes on to understanding the problem, um, to, to tolerating the pain that it causes and acting. Acting is really what compassion is about. And this is the thing, you know, when you're, when you have teenage kids, a lot of the times you say, I got to do something that he's not going to like, I got to do something he's not going to like, but if I don't do it, I'm not showing him proper love. I'm not being a good father. We have a way of doing that. So we can go from empathy to compassion in my house. My wife came up with this one because you know, I had, I suffered through a lot of teenagers, right? And it would be in the last episode, we talked about my son Carlos and my wife would say in her prayers, she would say, Lord, you have a problem with Carlos. How can I help? And what she was asking was for God to put compassion on her heart, as opposed to simply feeling the empathy that was coming from the, from the conflict in the situation. It was incredibly effective as it turns out. Empathy is feeling, compassion is action. Well, I know a lot of readers connected with a phrase that, uh, was written in the book, emotional ATM. Explain that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I work a lot, you know, my students are typically in their mid twenties. My MBA students at the business school are in their mid twenties and a lot of them still have a kind of a version of a relationship with their parents that, that, that stems from a one dimensional or one directional kind of giving from when they were little kids. When your kids are little, you give them everything, right? They're not giving you emotional support when they're three. They're not making dinner when you're, when they're three. And the result is that there's always a kind of a one way valve where the parents give and the kids take. Now that evolves. It's not like they have to cook your dinner when you're 28 years old, but there's kind of this feeling that it's kind of transactional in a lot of ways. The best way when people have a rotten relationship or kind of an incomplete relationship with their aging parents is asking themselves, am I treating my parents like an ATM machine, like an emotional ATM machine? Am I always asking them for stuff when I call up? Is it a, is it an interview? So did you, did you get to school on time today? How are you feeling today? You know, you got your winter sweaters out. Um, do you think you're getting enough protein? And the reason for that is it's always one way, one way, one way. And breaking that down so that you're thinking not what, what am I asking them for emotional support or material support, but what can I do for them? You know, well, how can I take interest in, in, in my parents in a new way? You'll freak them out by the way. You'll freak out your parents. If you started taking interest in their hobbies, cause they'll be like, what are you, what's going on? What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Right. But that turns out to shut down the ATM relationship and it can get you into a real emotional equilibrium with another adult. One of the hardest family challenges I know is forgiveness. Almost all unresolved conflict. You say it comes down to unresolved resentment. So a practice of forgiving each other explicitly and implicitly is extremely important. Walk us through the four forgiveness strategies, if you will. Yeah. And forgiveness is not straightforward. Um, and it's by the way, it's hard. The main, the, the person who benefits the most from forgiveness is the forgiver. There's a ton of research on this, right? And the Buddha said that, yeah, that that hatred is like picking up a hot coal to throw at somebody. The person who's burned the worst is the person who has the coal in his hand and refusing to forgive is just like not letting go of the coal. It's just going to burn you more and more and more and more. I mean, you need relief. That's good. I mean, let it go. Good. Let it go. Even if the person doesn't deserve it, let it go. Right. Get rid of that hot coal in your hand. It's hurting you. It's hurting you. Yeah. But then you have to kind of have a repertoire of forgiveness techniques depending on the gravity of the offense and your own personality and a whole bunch of things. So, you know, we go through this, all these different kinds of forgiveness and, and, you know, forgiveness can be as simple as discussion and airing of a particular difference that people have. You know, forgiveness can come by by acknowledging that there's conflict and talking about it. That's actually a form of forgiveness. Forgiveness can be as simple as deciding to let something go. And, and minimize, it's called minimization. Minimization is where, you know, you basically, you, you make it clear that you don't care anymore. You don't have to say anything. It's like, it's all good. It's all good. And, and, and you know, it's all good because I'm being nice to you and normal with you again. Yeah. But if that's not the case, then you actually have to have overt forgiveness, which is to say, I forgive you. Yeah. I forgive you to actually say, I forgive you for that. And that requires that somebody say, please forgive me. And that's super important. And, and it's, you got to have this range of forgiveness techniques in your arsenal. And there's a whole bunch of research that shows when things are more appropriate than others, you know, in couples that have infidelity, for example, minimization is not the best way. No, you need, you need the hardcore stuff typically. Yeah. I know someone who, you know, went through a terrible divorce because they were betrayed. The person not only had an affair, but brought the, the mistress to their home and which is nothing. I told the trail total. I said, that's, that's a violation of everything. And when they tried to get back together, she tried to get back together with him. He said, I don't want to talk about it. And I said, then it can never work because you got to be able to talk about it. And there has to be true remorse, you know? Yeah. Yes. Um, you know, conflict is a funny thing. Um, actual conflict between partners in a, in a deep romantic relationship is one of the most intimate things that can happen. And one of the things that I recommend when I'm talking to couples is that they learn to fight and sometimes fight a lot more. This is really important that they, and they're fighting overtly. Now it's actually funny because, you know, when you're married, um, you have different conflict styles, you know, and I first got my wife's Spanish and, you know, like fighting with yelling is a form of simple communication in Spain. And I was like aggrieved for the first five years of my marriage. It was like, but you know, you get used to it. Very passionate. It was so passionate. I couldn't handle, I'm from Seattle. We don't do that. You know, but, but now I actually understand. Um, and, and as a social scientist, I've studied this a great deal that whether it's required forgiveness or any other conflict that, that it can be the most intimate thing in a couple's life. I'm from Seattle. We don't do that. I'm not yelling. This is what she'll say. I'm not yelling. But, but the truth is that you should look at, at every kind of conflict, you know, forgiveness, um, bringing things to the surface as an opportunity to become more intimate with a person because you don't get to say the truth very often and to say the truth and listen to the truth is the most intimate thing. You know, couples will be like, we feel so much tenderness and love toward each other. We're so intimate with each other. After we had a big fight, I guess we're just making up. No, no, no, no, no. You were more genuine with that person than you've been maybe in a long time. I get that. You spoke and heard the truth. No wonder you're so tender. It's like a lobster that just took off its shell. It was molted. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's for sure. So we're going to end episode two here. Thank you. Thank you. As always. I love hearing from all of our readers with your thoughtful questions. My essay, if you're listening or watching, uh, this series, I bet you're thinking there's someone in your family or in your life who also needs to read, build a life you want. When you're done with this book, you can give them your copy or get them a copy. It's a gift for their wellbeing, a roadmap to enhance their, enhance their lives. So do it. I don't, you think so? Wouldn't you love to get this as a gift? You know, it's like, you know, before we quit one thing, let's read the dedication in this book. Okay. You know, it's like, Oh, to my kids and to my grandkids and to my friends. And it would, you'd be saying to my bestie, Gail, no, not going to read it. You read it. We dedicate this book to you and your life's journey. May you get happier year after year and bring greater happiness to others. This book is dedicated to the people watching us right now. Yes. It's dedicated to you. When we, when we come back, the conclusion of our three part build a life you want series on our next episode and we'll walk through the final three pillars of happiness, friendship, work, and faith. We'll also tell you what you can do to ignite a happiness movement in your own life. Bye everybody. Thank you. Get happier. Thanks to our episode sponsor, the Hartford.