 We'll go ahead and get started. Sound good, Tal? Great. Great. All right. So, one of the things I was laughing, you had this in your book about being the positive psychology guy and the happiness guy that people expect you to be happy all the time. Now, that branding mistake we have made, we are the art of charm and everyone expects us to be charming all the time. However, when you are doing things in life, there are things that you implement and boundaries that you set up to protect yourself and sometimes they don't always come off as charming and I'm guessing much in the same way those things don't always come off as you being so happy. So, please tell us about that. Yeah, you know, so when I first taught my class, a student came up to me and said, might join you for lunch and I said, sure. And I said, and then he said, oh, I hear you're teaching a class on happiness and I said, yeah, positive psychology. And then he said, but you know, Tal, now that you're teaching this class, you've got to watch out. And I said, what? And he said, you've got to be careful. And I said, why? And he said, because if I see you unhappy, I'll tell your students. And, you know, ever since then I've been getting this so, so often and I tell my students and I tell whoever is ready to listen that there are only two kinds of people who do not experience painful emotions. The psychopaths and the dead. And I'm neither a psychopath nor dead. And hence, I go through the ups and the downs like everyone else does. And I think that's an important way to jump into this subject of happiness because there are so many myths and misconceptions about that exact idea being happy all the time and the singular pursuit of happiness. Now in the study of positive psychology, I know there are a lot of myths that we're trying to break that normal society views as what happiness is. What are some of those myths or misconceptions? Yeah, so beyond the the unbroken chain of pleasurable emotions, it's also the fact that happiness is about pleasure. And it's not. Happiness is much more than that. Happiness, yes, is partially about pleasurable emotions. It's also about a deep sense of meaning and sometimes what we do that is meaningful to us doesn't necessarily provide pleasure. It's very much about relationships. It's very much about thinking and scholarship that may at times be difficult and hard. And of course, it's related to our physical well-being, our bodies. So happiness is a multifaceted construct. It's not just, okay, I'm smiling now. I'm on the beach and having fun. I'm having an ice cream. Oh, it makes me so happy. That is, yeah, it's pleasurable. It's part of the equation but a small part. Well, what's interesting is everything you listed also causes me great frustration. It doesn't always make me happy. Friends, you know, accountability, those sorts of things. So it's interesting how we tend to equate pleasure and that seeking of pleasure all the time with happiness but that can also lead us astray and keep us from the real happiness that we want in life. Yeah, that and more. You know, I've my first book on happiness. I wrote about the lasagna principle. You know, I'm into food metaphors. And lasagna is my favorite food, you know, especially the way my mom makes it. And yet, and yet, it's not that I want lasagna every day, all day. You know, even lasagna I want in moderation. And you know, that's another myth that people think, okay, so I'm going to find that one thing that's going to make me happy and then I'm going to do it all the time. Or that one person who will make that's another myth who will make me happy. And then we're just going to live happily ever after. You know, all good, all good things as Aristotle reminded us in moderation. Well, I think the pandemic has shown us that many of the things that we want, miss and need, we're not even getting in moderation and new challenges have arisen. Johnny and I joined one of your Happiness Studies Academy webinars and you talked about some learnings that you had personally around happiness through the pandemic. So what has this last year taught you personally about happiness in your own life? You know, the first thing, I mean, the first challenge that I had is even justifying doing happiness during this time. So one of my friends quipped, half joking, saying, oh, I think we should quarantine happiness until all this is over. And, you know, he made a point. The thing that I learned most about happiness or the science of happiness is how important the fundamentals are. So many people say, so are you doing things differently now or what are you doing differently now? And my response is that I do the same things but more often. So for example, you know, physical exercise, extremely important, not just for physical well-being, for psychological well-being, you know, in fact, works in the same way as our most powerful psychiatric medication. So I used to exercise three times a week, religiously. Today, during over the past year, it's been five times a week. Why? Because I felt like I needed it. You know, I often when, you know, when I go out for a run for an exercise or my wife did it, we tell one another, well, I'm just going to get my fix. And it actually literally works in the same way. It's, you know, we call it the wonder drug. So I needed to fix three times a week. Now I'm up to the quota for two, five times a week. Keeping a journal. You know, I've been keeping a journal since I was 14 or so. And I certainly continued keeping a journal into adulthood after I saw the research on journaling and I know how much it helps. But I did it, you know, every two or three weeks when I felt like it. During that pandemic, there isn't a week that goes past without at least one or two entries. Same things, just more of it. And, you know, many, many, many people will tell me, for example, well, we're so busy now or so stressed or I don't have time to exercise or journal. Now is the time when we need to do more of it. I remember when, when the pandemic was rolling, it was at this point as we're recording this almost a year ago, I believe it was, it was middle of March, March 13th, 16th, at least for us here in America where things definitely got to an alarming situation. And upon looking at what was coming and so much uncertainty, there was certain habits, habits for myself that I knew that I would have to dig into in order to work through that. And my happiness is a big part of my productivity. If I'm happy, if I'm feeling good, I'm going to be more interested in working. And we were in the middle of a pivot ourselves for our company and with the pandemic, our needs to be more so online was even more apparent. And remembering how much work was going to be involved and where we were at heading into that. And I, in fact, I doubled down on all the habits that I did have. In fact, I got even more regimented with my workouts and with my eating. However, I was able to keep that up for about a month, but it was just, it was, it was overwhelming and too much. And, and what we learned was it was going to be more of a marathon than a sprint in order to get to the, to the others, the other side of that. Any thoughts for yourself about all that uncertainty and what was coming and how you planned on using your work and studies to roll through that? Yeah. So, you know, so there were things that I planned and, you know, I knew that work and I also, you know, was and am familiar with the work on dealing with hardships and difficulties, which is very much part of the science of happiness. But there were some things that, you know, that I didn't expect. You know, for instance, one thing that I've been doing more of over the past year is I've been watching more TV. Now, generally, I didn't switch the TV on much, you know, as far as I was concerned, we wouldn't have had a TV at home. But I found the distraction through, you know, some, you know, comedy or, you know, binge watching a series so incredibly helpful. You know, I was thinking about it and as I was preparing, I was going to lecture on it and I looked for the word distraction on Google and I only found negative connotations. How do I overcome distraction? How do I get distraction out of my life and so on and so on? Whereas distraction can be a blessing and especially when we are bombarded by constant bad news. So having that distraction can be incredibly helpful. So, you know, that's something that emerged and, you know, I've enjoyed some wonderful times alone with my family binge watching. Well, I think one of the biggest realizations for me during the pandemic was just the impact of that external media on my mental health and happiness and being more selective, like I am with what I put in my body for food, what I consume mentally and you bring up a great point because we were and we still are in a barrage of bad news and a lot of the headlines are negative. So it's hard to feel happy and feel peace even if things may be going well for you in that moment when we're seeing how difficult this is for everyone around us and certainly what's shown in the media. Do you have habits built up around your media consumption and social media consumption to keep that balance? Yes, I do and I think in today's world, pre, during and post pandemic, we all need to create those habits. Why? Because otherwise we become victims. We become addicted to, you know, to social media, to, you know, to the TV universe. You know, when I grew up, there was one TV channel and, you know, that's what we watched and we all watched Dallas on, you know, I grew up in Israel. So Dallas was on Wednesday night and Night Rider was on Monday night. You know, later on Dynasty came along and, you know, that is what we watched. You know, today you have 500 channels and, you know, in movies that you, you know, that come out at the speed of sound. So we need to create boundaries around our consumption because it's accessible and, you know, as the, you know, the social network so clearly pointed out there are very, very smart people working at getting you stuck to that screen around the clock. And the only way to to deal with that is by creating rituals, healthy rituals, rules, boundaries around it and preferably not doing it alone. So having an accountability buddy or doing it as a family. You know, one of the, one of the questions that I often ask when I speak to couples is the following. I say, okay, so I want you to answer this question to yourself. Don't say it out loud. What is the first thing that you turn to in the morning when you open your eyes? And again, they're sitting next to their partner now. Now everyone, of course, chuckles because it's not their partner. It's their smartphone that they, that they, most of them turn to. Now, we're addicted to those. And then my second question is, so if you were an alcoholic, would you go to bed with a bottle of whiskey right next to you? Of course not. You know, you could keep it as far away as from you as possible provided you want to deal with your, with your alcoholism. And yet we're addicted to this phone and we have it next to us. In bed, we have to create rituals. We have to create boundaries. We have to, we have to make it easier, not easy, but easier for us to resist the lure of those sirens. And how do you do that in your household? Because many in our audience are cringing, like myself, thinking about how my phone comes first, but that has been a difficult boundary to build for both of us. So are there specific strategies you're implementing to create that ritual? Yeah, so the idea essentially is to create what I've come to call islands of sanity. Islands of sanity both temporarily and in terms of time, so both time and space. For example, there are certain areas that you don't bring the phone to. You know, it could be your kitchen or your dining hall, so when you are with your partner or friends or family, no phones, except for emergencies of course, or there are certain times. So between, for us between 4 30 p.m. and 8 30 p.m. There are no screens, you know, the kids can jump around, they can do, you know, they can play basketball, they can talk, they can help around the house, they can't be on the computer. So they have to, even homework, so they have to do their homework before or after. And the reason we did it was because we tried many other things and they just didn't work. Why? Because our willpower is just not strong enough to withstand the onslaught of those sirens. Again, I think there is a beautiful metaphor and by the way, before we implemented these rules, we read about the sirens from the Odyssey and we had a, you know, a conversation around it. Why did Odysseus ask his sailors to tie him to the to the mast so that he wouldn't hurt himself? You know, I'm quite curious with all the studies that you have done and what has been shown as the impact of social media on our happiness and what sort of information could you give our listeners for them to get wise to what's going on because as much as we talk about this, the first wave when they hear anything negative about social media is like, well, that's everybody else. That's not me. And it's not until we give hard numbers that people start actually paying attention. Yeah, so a couple of things. First of all, it is important to also look at the upside of social media. For example, one of my colleagues did research showing that many introverts benefit from social media because it's an opportunity for them to be social without the usual challenges that go along with it. Also, we meet people through social media. You know, I recently got in touch with my BFF from, well, we were from the age of 10, between 10 and 12 and then we moved countries and we hadn't been in touch for almost 40 years. Thanks to social media, we're in touch again. You know, that's a real blessing. So there is an upside to it. The thing though is always moderation. How do we manage that and we have to manage it? Because you know, Johnny, as you point out, we all struggle with it. The research is scary. I'll give you a couple of examples. So this is Jean Twenge. She's a professor in San Diego and what she found was that her research revolves around teenagers and every five years we take a measure of the mental health of teenagers in the United States. It's a very extensive study, a deep dive into their well-being. And every five years you see, you know, up 1%, down 1%, but generally stable over the years and between generations until this time. Compared to five years ago, levels of depression among teenagers in the U.S. went up by over 30%, 3-0. Levels of suicide went up by over 30%. Now she unheard of the spike, unheard of, and she mined through the data asking the question why and came up with one answer. And I quote, the ascendance of the smartphone. It's when kids stopped playing together in the sandbox, when they stopped having face-to-face in-person interaction, when the tiny gadget literally took control over their lives, over their communication, and their interaction. Now it's very difficult to take it away from them because that is how they interact. You know, so if I tell my son, you know, no social media for a week, that means, you know, he won't know when his friends are going out. He won't know when they're actually meeting. He won't know what homework he has or how to do the homework. So they need it. Unfortunately, there is a real downside to it as well. We have to curb the exposure. So I have to ask, as many of our clients are parents struggling with this exact issue, and certainly dealing with other households who don't have Sanity Islands, who don't have these boundaries, and of course, children feeling left out from their peers, unable to connect and communicate with these tools. So how are you able to implement these boundaries and what steps did you take? How old were your children when this started for some of our parents in the audience who are struggling with this exact very phenomenon? Yes, so first of all, it's to recognize and accept the fact that it is a struggle. It's not easy for us. And the thing is the reason why it's so difficult is because we're the first generation going through it. I was just talking to my friend yesterday and I said to him, for my parents, it seemed like it was easier because they raised us. They provided for us. They were amazing parents. But in the afternoon, I would go out and play with friends. And that was fine. I would play soccer and hide and seek and go to friends' place and they would come to our place. And it was basically, do whatever and that's how I learned empathy and that's how I learned how to negotiate and resolve conflict and such important life skills. You don't develop those life skills when you're on social media. You don't develop it when you're playing video games. Some of it you do, but most of it you don't. Another very troubling study is about the levels of empathy among the young generation. They've gone down and again as a result of too much time on the screen, not enough time playing in the sandbox together. So today we're making it up as we go along. So first of all, as parents, to be easier on ourselves. First thing, second, just to put boundaries. And you know the boundaries have to be whether it's around x number of hours in front of the screen. And there are more and more programs today that can limit screen time, you know, from within the smartphone. So utilize those. And another thing, and this I owe this to my brother-in-law, you know, when I talked to him about it and he said, wow, you sound like the prophet of doom, you're a happiness professor. Come on. And then he said, you know, the way I think about it instead of thinking about it in terms of what they don't do, think about what they do do. In other words, create alternatives. And what that means is that we need to put more time. So okay, so they won't be on the screen, but what will they do instead? Will they play, you know, ball with their friends? Great, if possible, more challenging now in times of corona. But maybe play a board game with their family. And that means with you too. And that means we can't use the screen as a babysitter. We just need to become more involved. And you know, the nice thing about it is that as we become more involved, we also potentially find treasures of happiness. The number one predictor of happiness is quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. And many of us have forgotten that. It is an incredibly important thing to remember. And when I look into the future, knowing that the next generation has less, less empathy, it terrifies me because I know how much and how important empathy has been for us to create what we have created for ourselves. So it makes me a bit nervous. In fact, every time our producer gets somebody else who wants to send books, I always make sure that I get a physical copy because I'm so tired. I stare at my screen enough and to be able to close my computer and go on the porch with a coffee and an open a book. It is, I look forward to those moments in my day. Just talk about an island of sanity and serenity. And for myself who grew up as Gen X, normalcy, you know, having the computer open is a work thing where kids now, it's a mishmash of that's where they play, that is where they're going to be working, that's where they study. That's an incredibly, seems to me to be messy with all of those things connected to the same mechanism. Well, what struck me is the need for you to follow your own boundaries and set a good example too. And I think that's also become a challenge in the house for a lot of parents who feel tied to their work and must check Slack and, oh, I have a late night email that I have to get to. We're often setting a poor example for our kids when they're seeing us gravitate to technology instead of talk to our spouse, our partner, or engage with them. Yes. And, you know, and we need to realize how difficult it is to change those habits because you're right, most of the homes that I visit or have visited, you know, you see it's not just the kids who are addicted, the parents are equally addicted. You know, we go out with friends and, you know, periodically they would check. Now, we didn't have smartphones 20 years ago and, you know, we managed okay. And, you know, I always say, unless you're an ambulance driver, it's okay to switch the phone off. And initially it's difficult. And after a while, you know, Johnny, I completely relate to what you say. You begin to crave those islands of sanity, or as you said, islands of serenity, which I love. And they're important. And they're important for us as parents. They're important for us to present as a role model for our children. They're important for us physically as well as psychologically. Now, what strikes me is, and I'm thinking of my great uncle who blesses heart, loves watching TV, but he's happy with the antenna. He's got four channels. He doesn't want cable. He doesn't want all of the choices. And yet here we are with more choice than ever. But bored, frustrated, not finding happiness. So how much does this paradox of choice and overwhelming amounts of options and content actually make us more bored? I find it so fascinating. I'll stare at Netflix for 30 minutes and not pick anything and wonder, I have so many options, but here I am sitting on the couch board. Yeah. You know, one of my close friends, her name is Shirley Uvaldea-Iyer. She's a child psychologist. She talks about her kids that when they come to her and say to her, mommy, I'm bored, she always responds in the same way. And she says, that's okay, sweetheart. Just be bored with dignity. And I think that's a very important response. And you know, my kids already today, they know it off by heart, okay, daddy, I'll be bored with dignity. And it's important to learn to be bored for various reasons. One in this relies on the work of many psychologists, including Adam Grant, who wrote originals. And we need those quote, unquote times when we're bored, because it's during those times that very often we get our best ideas. No, it's no coincidence that, you know, we get in the shower or we used to, again, my generation, we used to get it in the car. Today, we're on the phone in the car, so it's not a bored, quote unquote time. So having those free spaces where we are doing nothing is important. You know, there's so much talk today about quality time for children, quality time. Well, we need nothing time as well, empty time for our kids. So that's one reason, creativity or originality. And there's another reason which relates, AJ, to what you said about, you know, Netflix and the paradox of choice. And that is how sensitive we are versus how desensitized we are to stimulation. You know, if I have, you know, 500 channels, if I have option of just about every movie that was ever created, literally at my fingertips, then I'm not going to appreciate, you know, a good movie as much. Or when I watch a movie, I'm going to think of all the counterfactuals, meaning of all the movies. I'm not watching while I'm watching this, that could be better because I'm not having a perfect experience. I'm having a good, but it's not perfect. And it should be perfect. Because what excuse do I have for it not being perfect, having so much choice? And if I constantly have more stimulation, more stimulation, and more stimulation, it becomes less interesting. It becomes less exciting. You know, I think about, you know, kids raised in the 19th century. You know, for them, the highlight of the day was sitting with their family around the table and maybe reading a book together. You know, today, boring. Why? Because it doesn't, it's not in 3D, and you know, and it's not changing every seven seconds. And it doesn't have sound effects. Yeah, I certainly relate to that in the situation, especially where you are craving so much stimulation that nothing can actually solve that craving for you. And you end up watching a few minutes and losing interest and then grabbing the iPad and going back to the device. And yet we're seeing more and more with social media that our attention span is shrinking. It's like you got to hit them in 10 seconds. You got to hit them in five seconds. They're already gone in three seconds. Is that hurting our psyche mentally and impacting our happiness? It's hurting our psyche. It's hurting our happiness. It's hurting our relationships. You know, I want to go off a little bit on a tangent, which is very much related to what you said. And it's also connected, Johnny, to your focus on empathy. One of the things that I talk about a lot for happiness is intellectual well-being. And specifically, under intellectual well-being, I focus on deep learning. Deep learning in the sense of, you know, getting into a book and reading and rereading a chapter or paragraph. You know, the first course that I took as an undergraduate in college was a course that was offered during freshman week. So that's even before the official semester started. It was a course on speed reading. And it was a great course, you know, increased my reading speed. But I think more and more today that an even more important course would have been on slow reading. Why? Because today, as you pointed out, every five seconds, every three seconds, you know, we need a new stimulation because that's what we're used to. You know, we hardly spend any time on a webpage. You know, when kids today watch my childhood movies or TV shows, it's too slow for them because there is only one screen. Because it's one shot for, you know, two minutes. You know, Mr. Rogers, it's hardly moving. You know, it's in slow-mo. It reminds me, you know, many of my students say, you know, when we watch you on video, we play you at 1.5, sometimes 1.75. You know, I try not to take that too hard. So, you know, we need constant stimulation. Now comes relationship and no one changes every three to five seconds. And, you know, we get bored with partners and that's why there is so much relationship hopping around in the world today. Why? Because we do not exercise our slow, deep muscles. And how do we exercise them? Of course, within relationships, we also can exercise them through reading and rereading through slow, deep engagement with text. And that habit or that practice is then transportable, transferable to our relationships. Just like the unhealthy habits of jumping around every three to five seconds is then transportable and transferable to our relationships. You know, brings up an interesting point about the comprehension or learning of certain things. One of the aspects of your book, all the great little short stories about your barber, and you even mentioned the beginning of the book, this book is not to be meant to read in one sitting. It's read one of the little stories and then digest, think about it for the rest of the day. And I love that. And as much as I love reading, I have to do a lot for work. I read everything that comes through and I enjoy reading. And sometimes I don't have the opportunity to read things in the way that I would like to. I'm choking them down. I have to get my questions ready to get the interview set up. But with all this stimulation, when is the last time like how the learning process for these young kids is rapidly changing? And I don't know how the brain is reacting to the way that they're learning now where they're just digesting so much stimuli that nothing is generally setting in and something else that AJ had brought up about staring at a screen for 30, 40 minutes trying to figure out what would be the best movie to watch here. When I was young, if I went to the fridge and just opened it and stared inside, and my dad of course like, what the hell are you doing? I'm like, um, trying to figure out what I want to eat. That's not how we're going to do it. You think about what you're going to eat and then you go into the fridge and you pull it out. You just don't stand in front of it. I think we have to adopt a bit of that same mindset if we're going to Netflix is like, you're going to think about what you want. You're going to look at a couple of choices. You're going to look and you're going to take it. If you don't like it, you should still, there's an appreciation that you should find in it and derive some sort of value out of it. So you're just not getting antsy and figuring, I need to be stimulated in one way. And if I'm not stimulated in that one very way, I'm on to the next thing. It's changing how we take in information so fast. Yeah. And, you know, I think, Johnny, what we need to do here, and this is also the advice of Barry Schwartz, of the tyranny or the paradox of choice, is that we need to accept the good enough satisfies in his words. And it has to do with expectations. Where has my understanding of happiness changed over the years? One of those places is around expectations. You know, I used to think that having high expectations, having greater expectations is great, is the way to go. And today, I still think that it's partially true, partially with a significant caveat. Specifically, when it comes to expectations in terms of success or for me as a teacher of my students or as a parent, yeah, I want to have high expectations. But when it comes to happiness or joy or pleasure, instead of having high expectations, we need to have realistic expectations. Let me give just a couple of examples. So if I have a night off and I come home and I'm in front of my Netflix and I say, wow, it's a night off, I can watch anything that I want, it's going to be amazing. I'm bound to be disappointed because I'm going to start watching something and then it's not going to live up to my expectations, of course, because they're extremely high. And then even if it's a great film or a great series, it's not as great as the ideal that I depicted before starting it. It's never going to meet that ideal. So I'm going to be disappointed and not enjoy a potentially enjoyable movie. Whereas if my expectation is, as you pointed out, there's a lot that I can learn from this or I can really enjoy this. It can be fun. And tomorrow is another day and I can watch something else. Then that's more realistic. Now, that's about a movie. So the consequences thereof are not major. But think about other areas. Think about relationships. If I go into a relationship with great or greatest expectations and when I say I do, I truly believe that we're going to live happily ever after, that we're going to experience the same high and joy and passion and ecstasy that we're experiencing now during the honeymoon phase for the rest of our lives, I'm bound to be disappointed. These are unrealistic, high unrealistic expectations. We need realistic expectations such as in every relationship there are ups and downs, even in the best of them. There are difficulties and hardships and it's natural. And we're going to go through these hardships and grow from them. And we're going to rejoice in the positive moments and experiences, having realistic expectations, whether it's of the food in the fridge, the film or Netflix or our beloved. Now, one of the things that I recognize in the participants in the Happiness Studies Academy is that they want to help others find happiness. But that is often so difficult. So you learn all this great science around happiness, you make changes in your life and you're feeling better. But your partner, your friend, your children are not happy. What advice do you have for those of us who want to give the gift of happiness when someone in our life is maybe not feeling and happy? Is there a strategy that actually works or are there some things we should avoid completely? Yeah. Let me start with the things that we should avoid completely. So if I'm feeling great and I'm happy, we shouldn't go up to them and say, look, you should do what I'm doing. Look how happy I am. That will probably not work. So to be sensitive to where they are, rather to where we are. Now, in terms of helping other people, so the most important thing that we can do is to be there for them, meaning to listen. Listening is a lot of science behind it, but it's an art and it's underrated. It's important. Many people wonder how is it that therapy helps? And what do the great therapists do? Well, the great therapists are empathic. They listen. They're present. Yeah, once in a while they can say something, but that's something also stems from, and if it is profound, it's because it stems from deep listening. So the marching order of parent therapists for sure, but also parents and partners who want to help the other is listen first. And then to lead by example, as we talked about parents earlier, you don't want your kids to be on the phone all the time, lead by example. If you want them to pursue their passions, to do things that they're passionate about, well, do that yourself and share what you do. Another thing that's important to share is also hardships and difficulties, because if my expectation is that my life should be ought to be, can be always happy, I'll experience frustration. However, if I know that part and parcel of every life, including my parents life or including my partner's life or my best friend's life, there's also hardship there, then I will be more likely to give myself the permission to experience that. So leading by example. I think that's so powerful in that when we're bringing ourselves up and having that happiness that we are willing to share by listening to others and not talking about ourselves, but actually investing the time and that relationship and the patience and the empathy to realize that there are times, and as we've seen in this pandemic, where you might be high, your spouse might be low, and sometimes the roles are reversed, many of us want to take action, right? We're so focused on what can I do when in actuality it's more of the passive, it's how can I not focus on myself, be there fully to support my partner, my friend, my family member. Yeah, and what we are also doing there when we're there for them is we're allowing nature to take its course. You know, painful emotions, difficulties and hardships, they play a very important role in our life when you look at our life as a whole. You know, that's how we grow stronger. That's how we learn. That's how we develop. You know, if you go to the gym and you set all the weights there on zero, and everything is very easy for you. In other words, there's no resistance. You're not going to get stronger. You're not going to grow. It's when you have resistance that you grow, and that applies on the physical level. It also applies on the psychological level. Now, some of the advice you see online is to cut negative people out of your life, and to only surround yourself with positive, happy people. But odds are, not everyone around you is going to be happy 24 seven. Is there a time or a place where removing that negative person from your life is the right path versus being there to support that person who might be going through a difficult moment? I mean, the thing is that we do actually need a mix of people. If you were only around people who are positive and happy all the time, guaranteed you'd become depressed. Why? Because you'd feel left out. You'd feel inadequate. You'd feel like there's something wrong with you. We do also need some negativity around us as difficult or as counterintuitive as that may sound. There is a terrible word in German, Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is reveling in others' misfortune. Schadenfreude, to my mind, tries to include too much in it. Because actually being witness to other people's hardship does have an important value. And the value is simply the feeling that I'm not alone. It's not reveling in their misfortune. It's recognizing that I'm not the only one who's struggling, who is experiencing some misfortune. And that's important. And it's important because it's true. Because everyone hurts sometimes. So the idea here is to accept that there is some negativity. Now, if there are people who put us down constantly, if there are people who in order to elevate themselves need to trample on others and they're not pleasant to be with, and we can distance ourselves from them, then perhaps we should do so. But sometimes it's not realistic. And sometimes they have other characteristics that we do appreciate and desire. So we have to make the decision for ourselves. Am I against distancing ourselves from some people? No. I think sometimes it's necessary, important, and a good thing to do. But very often it's not possible or overall desirable. You know, you mentioned something that I love. And not everybody is going to be an agreeable, positive, happy person. And you wouldn't want everyone being so agreeable and positive around you at all times. I think it would drive you a bit crazy. But the idea and where the people conflate the idea that being disagreeable means that you're an unhappy person. I know plenty of disagreeable people who are generally happy people. In fact, it's their disagreeableness that allows them to build up some walls so that they can be happy. It's bizarre, but I see it linked all the time. Yeah, you know, the idea of a disagreeableness or a person who doesn't agree with us all the time is actually a very important part of friendship. And one of, to my mind, the most beautiful pieces ever written on friendship is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. And Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830s wrote in his essay on friendship the following. He said, in a friend, I'm not looking for a mush of concessions, a person who will agree with everything that I say. Rather what I'm looking for is a beautiful enemy who will help me challenge me in my apprenticeship to the truth. So sometimes those disagreeable ones are our beautiful enemies. And again, just like in the gym, we sometimes need that resistance to grow also with friendship, disagreeableness, maybe, maybe a virtue. Well, it's that different perspective that puts you in a position where you would start to rethink yours to see if there's anything that is going on with somebody who's so steadfast in thinking in another way. It's fantastic. Well, I think Johnny and I can agree that I'm the enemy, but we maybe disagree about how beautiful I am. So we're working on that in our own friendship. You know, one of the things that we see online now and is trending that I'd love to get your perspective on is this idea of toxic positivity when there's too much positivity. And I know many people equate positive psychology with just the pursuit of positivity 24 seven. We've sort of touched on this a little bit, but what are your thoughts around toxic positivity? You know, whenever I talk about happiness or positive psychology, I always start by talking about the role of painful emotions. And notice, I don't call them negative emotions because with negativity, there's already a value judgment there. I always begin by talking about the role of sadness or anger or anxiety or envy or hatred and how they're part and parcel of every life, including by default, of a happy life. And that's important to emphasize precisely because of what you pointed to AJ. And many positive psychologists are on this. And you know, the, the, you know, the motto is, you know, smile all the time or don't worry, be happy or, or eliminate negative emotions. And, and that's not possible, nor is it desirable. You know, I often have a thought experiment that I offer and, and, and I also add that this may not just be a thought experiment that may become a reality 10 years from now. Imagine you had a machine that you could go into and that machine would automatically eliminate any painful emotions. You could go into it. Your kids could go into it. So, you know, you're feeling down or your child comes home from school feeling down, just go into that machine and you'll feel all better again. You know, a little bit like Woody Allen's Orgasmatron. So would you want that machine? And, and my answer would be that it, you know, would be nice to have once in a while. But if we had it accessible all the time, if we could live according to that ideal and be positive and happy according to that definition of happiness all the time, that wouldn't be a good thing. Because think about it. And most people, if you ask them to reflect on the times in their lives when they grew the most, when they learned the most that have been most meaningful to them, they would usually think about difficult experiences, not happy, go lucky, joyful, ex polyonic experiences. I be happy all the time or to have this machine sounds like a black mirror or Twilight Zone episode and we all know how those go. Yeah, they tend not to end well. Now, I'm curious, are there any non negotiables for you when it comes to happiness in your life? Just do not do this if you are working towards happiness. I know many people have thought about what to do, but are there things that we're doing consciously or subconsciously that are robbing us of that happiness that you put on your non negotiable list? Yeah, my non negotiable personally, that is, my non negotiable is you know, important dates, for example, in terms of relationships. It's it mostly has to do when work detracts from relationships and relationships. I mean, whether it's with my wife, whether it's with my children, extended family and intimate friends, that comes first and everything else has to revolve around that. Now, with that, you know, I work hard, I'm ambitious, you know, I used to not so long ago travel a lot and yet top priority in words and in deeds relationships and things have to revolve around that. I think it's so important. It's why we do this show to help others have better relationships in their life by working on themselves, but also showing up in a more impactful way. Can you tell us a little bit about the certificate for happiness studies and what's going on inside the Happiness Studies Academy? Johnny and I have really enjoyed it and I love for our audience to hear more. Sure. So I co founded the Happiness Studies Academy in order to help students, our participants answer two questions. The first question is how can I become happier? The second question is how can I help others do the same? So we have students going through our year long certificate program who are there because they're primarily concerned about their own happiness. There are others who are concerned about their own happiness and their family or their co-chees. We have teachers, we have managers, we have therapists, doctors and all focused on cultivating life's ultimate currency, happiness. It is the ultimate currency. We love that and thank you so much for joining us. The last question we ask all of our guests is what their X factor is? What is that mindset or skill set in combination that have made you successful in your life? Hard work, dedication. I know it's not a very creative or novel idea here, but you know, as Jefferson reportedly said, the harder I work, the luckier I get. I'm a big believer in hard work, old school. We are too and oftentimes that's not what we're seeing in social media and how difficult life is so it's great to hear from successful people how much work they're putting in to be successful. Thank you again for joining us Tal, it's great. Thank you AJ, thank you Johnny. Thank you for being so charming. We're a work in progress, thank you.