274. Choose Connection Over Perfection: Why Happiness Starts with Better Communication

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: One of the best ways to improve your sense of wellbeing is through connection. My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast. Talk Smart, the podcast. Today I am excited to speak with Sonja Lyubomirsky. Sonja is a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. She's received many awards and accolades for her teaching and research. She's author of the bestselling, The How of Happiness and Myths of Happiness. Her latest book is How to Feel Loved with Harry Reis. Sonja, it is lovely to be here with you. When I was an undergrad here at Stanford, you were a grad student and you were so kind to help me with statistics, which back then and still to this day, challenge me. So thank you not only for being here, but thank you for helping the Matt of several decades ago to get outta this place and graduate. 

[00:00:57] Sonja Lyubomirsky: So sweet of you to say, it is a pleasure to see you again. 

[00:00:59] Matt Abrahams: Yes. Great. Shall we get started? 

[00:01:01] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yes, absolutely. 

[00:01:02] Matt Abrahams: Your work is always been fascinating to me. It's always been fun to watch what you have done. You study happiness and wellbeing. Can you define your working definition of happiness and how do you distinguish it from purpose and meaning? 

[00:01:15] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Great question to start with. I define happiness the way that researchers define happiness, which is that it really has two components and the first component is the experience of positive emotions. So happy people often experience joy, serenity, curiosity, pride, affection, not all the time, of course. And the second component is feeling like your life is good, that you're progressing towards your life goals at a good pace. You're satisfied with your life. I like to think about these two components as being happy in your life and being happy with your life.

[00:01:43] You really kind of need both, and it terms of meaning and purpose, it's very highly correlated with happiness. People make a big deal about this distinction, but they almost always go together, right? It feels good to have meaning and purpose. And the second component of happiness, which is this life satisfaction component, is even more highly correlated. So when I'm satisfied with my life is when I have meaning and purpose. 

[00:02:05] Matt Abrahams: I really like this notion of happiness being with and in, and that's helpful because it distinguishes different target areas where we can work on that. And we'll talk about several ways that your work has shown that we can work on both of those. You are really well known for your work on gratitude interventions. In fact, I every night practice one of them. I have a gratitude journal. Can you talk to us about the value of gratitude and its impact on wellbeing and happiness? 

[00:02:30] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Well, my lab pioneered what we call happiness interventions, where we experimentally test things like gratitude practices, back in 1998. And so basically gratitude interventions are like clinical trials, but instead of testing a new vitamin or a vaccine, we're testing a gratitude practice. So basically we, and now many others, have shown that if you express gratitude different ways, it could be a journal, it could be a reflection. I mean, it could even be a painting depending on your talents and skills and values, people feel more connected, people feel happier after expressing ratitude. And you can imagine that it's like a reframing of your life. It leads you to think more positively. Also, gratitude neutralizes negative emotions, right? It's hard to feel grateful and envious, or grateful and resentful at the same time.

[00:03:14] Matt Abrahams: I'd be curious if there's one particular intervention you practice. I will share that every night I do some journaling. I've talked about that before, and I'll write down what went well, what didn't go well in the day, especially around communication. And if there was a negative interaction, I will always make sure to follow it up with some gratitude for the day or for some experience, and it really does help me feel better. Is there a practice you put into your life? 

[00:03:34] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yes, absolutely. Some of it is in the morning, 'cause I find myself feeling anxious a little bit when I wake up. And some of it is just talking to others. And so like I had a hard day the other day and I said to a friend, we're so lucky, right? So that's my gratitude practice is like reminding myself, oh my God, yes, this and this is happening and it's hard or it's bad. But really in the big scheme of things, we're so lucky. 

[00:03:57] Matt Abrahams: I like that idea of recognizing that we are fortunate and saying that internally helps. You published a fascinating study suggesting that when people are instructed to act extroverted, even if they're introverted, they experience a boost in their wellbeing. For our listeners, many of whom are introverted and get nervous in communication, how can they take this approach? Can you walk us through this? How does acting extroverted actually help you feel better? 

[00:04:23] Sonja Lyubomirsky: This finding surprised even us, this study was over the course of just one week. Now we let our participants define what they meant by extroverted, right? So if you're an introvert and we say, can you try to be more extroverted this week? It doesn't mean you have to be the life of the party. It doesn't mean you have to go to any parties actually. And you know, I used to be actually very shy and in college I would force myself to say at least one thing in every section just to force myself to be a little bit more extroverted.

[00:04:47] And we thought that the introverts would sort of get exhausted. You know, the Susan Cain idea that introverts are exhausted by social interaction. And they didn't, maybe again, because we allowed them to do what they wanted or maybe because it was just for one week. And I actually wanted to add something. Someone that you also knew back from when you're an undergrad, Steve Cole and I, and one of my graduate students, Ramona Martinez, just this week published a paper where we followed almost this exact study.

[00:05:12] We asked people to act extroverted, but we also measured their blood. So we took blood spots from them before and after, and this is very cool, like really hot off the presses. And we found that people who acted extroverted, not only did they become happier and more connected, but they were less lonely. But they showed changes in their RNA gene expression associated with a stronger immune profile. So acting more extroverted actually maybe somehow got under the skin to boost their immune systems.

[00:05:39] Matt Abrahams: Wow. The part that I think is really, I mean, there are many things interesting in here, but you let people define their view of extroversion, so it's not like you have to speak up and you have to move around and meet lots of people. Whatever you see is enough, and it gives permission, I guess, to do that.

[00:05:54] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Small steps, right?

[00:05:54] Matt Abrahams: Exactly. A major source of speaking anxiety, which I have spent a lot of my career studying, is what I call the comparison trap, comparing our internal states to somebody else's external confidence. You've written extensively on how social comparison is what you call the thief of happiness. What's going on in that and how can we reframe it so we aren't stealing from our own happiness?

[00:06:18] Sonja Lyubomirsky: A couple of coincidences here. First of all, my own dissertation at Stanford was also about social comparison and happiness, and I found that people who are happy are basically, it's not that they didn't compare, 'cause we can't help but see that person as more beautiful, that person makes more money. They just didn't care as much about it. The other minor coincidence is I have a newsletter, and literally yesterday my newsletter was called The Comparison Trap: How to Stop Sabotaging Your Happiness because it's everywhere. And especially with social media where now like everyone's lives are up there for us to compare against every day. And so there's lots of advice about how not to compare. You know, there's, you can meditate, you can try to distract yourself. I like connection as opposed to comparison. If you see someone and you feel envious, send them or someone else a note of connection instead. 

[00:07:04] Matt Abrahams: Oh, that's really interesting. So when you feel inadequate or not living up to, reach out instead of become internal, which is really interesting and counterintuitive for sure. I think also what I have found helpful in the work I do and in my own life is, it's very easy to see other people this way, but if you take a moment to reflect on times in your life where you've actually had success in that domain, that can help too. 

[00:07:29] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Absolutely. So gratitude or celebrating yourself, capitalizing. I often think that self-absorption is really one of the most toxic things. You know, sometimes you have to think about yourself. The Dalai Lama, actually, I had the fortune of visiting His Holiness in India, and one of the quotes that stayed with me, this was about two years ago, year and a half ago, he, he says something like, self-absorption is the door to all misery. 

[00:07:52] Matt Abrahams: Oh wow. Absolutely. I think you would agree, I'd love to hear, reflection is important. I mean, we improve, we grow through reflection. So I'm putting you on the spot, but do you have ideas about how we can reflect without becoming self-absorbed? 

[00:08:06] Sonja Lyubomirsky: First of all, again, moderation in everything. There is actually some research on, I think it was called something like self-focused versus self-reflection. So there's a, kind of an intellectual reflection. It's the kind of thing that philosophers talk about, know thyself, which has benefits. And it's the other kind, and I used to study rumination with Susan Nolen-Hoeksema at Stanford, and that's the kind of quote, bad kind of harmful kind of reflection where you're just going in circles, it's like going from A to B back to A back to B. You're not solving problems, you're not getting insights. You're just going around and around, and that's not helpful. 

[00:08:39] Matt Abrahams: So I think it's that intellectual piece where you go in with some specific curiosity and a specific goal, so you have an off ramp to that cycling. One of your most famous interventions is the best possible self writing exercise. Can you describe this and I'll give you imaginary extra credit points if in your description you talk about a communication related example. 

[00:09:00] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Ha ha, you're a teacher at heart. We sort of borrowed or stole this from a colleague named Laura King, and this idea is it's basically an optimistic thinking intervention where you imagine your best possible future self. So imagine in 1 year, in 5 years, with undergraduates, we usually use 10 years. You think in 10 years all your dreams have come true. Your goals have been achieved, and you visualize that and you write about it. But you don't just write about the achievement. You write how to get there. And often students have told me that they've realized that, sometimes they'll say, I didn't even know what my goals were until I wrote it down.

[00:09:30] A lot of people's goals are about extroversion or about speaking in public or just speaking up, maybe even in conflict discussions with their family, with their romantic partners. And so they feel like they're not assertive enough. And so that is actually one of the goals that people have built. People will write about and imagine in five years, there you are, you're the best possible self in terms of this domain. And again, people say it helps them realize their goals and helps them realize that they're achievable, right? That when they break them up into baby steps, they realize they can take the first step and then the second step. 

[00:10:03] Matt Abrahams: Yeah. It makes it clear and it gives you permission to explore, think, and actually then operationalize. It's a really powerful exercise. Before we get to talk about your new book, which is awesome. You are part of a group of people who've defined, in essence, a niche in psychology, positive psychology. Taking a step back, for those people who listen who want to create a change and a well established establishment organization, I mean you among others, really carved out a niche. Can you think about what led to the success of that? How did you guys take something that, and, and I don't mean offense, but many people didn't think was important to study. 

[00:10:41] Sonja Lyubomirsky: I talked to a friend who I hadn't seen in like 30 years, who was a student here at the time, and he said, wow, Sonja, you are really brave when you're a grad student studying happiness. 'Cause no one really was studying it. And I didn't think I was brave, but I was very anxious. I was like, why? What am I doing? People thought I was crazy. People thought happiness was unscientific. It was fuzzy.

[00:11:00] And I feel like in other areas of my life, I've often done things that really go against the grain, that people think I'm crazy, not just in research, in lots of ways. And maybe I should take that as a compliment. When people say, what are you doing? You're crazy. Go continue doing that. You know, it's a good sign. Do something that like no one else is thinking about. Of course, sometimes you can make mistakes and go the wrong direction, but yeah, it definitely takes some courage and I guess resilience and resources to continue doing that.

[00:11:28] Matt Abrahams: You must have great pride in seeing there's now, not just in the academic world, but a whole industry around wellbeing and happiness. And I don't mean that in a negative way, although people are taking advantage of it. People are getting genuinely helped, that there are people who are happier as a result of the work you and others did to get this out there. Was there ever a concerted effort where you and others who do your work came together and said, we need to really think about how we position and communicate this to make progress? 

[00:11:54] Sonja Lyubomirsky: There was one time, it was after September 11th. I remember getting together with Marty Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and like some other people, Barb Fredrickson in the field. And, and I remember Marty, he was the co-founder of the field, is positive psychology, you know, is it important? Should we keep doing it? And then finally, and actually it didn't take long before hit us, like absolutely, like even more than ever. In fact, the most common emotion people reported after 9/11 was gratitude. I mean, there was also fear and all kinds of other things, but gratitude was actually the most commonly reported.

[00:12:26] So wellbeing is what helps us get up and change the world. 'Cause people often think, oh, people are happier just self-focused. They're just gonna be selfish. They're gonna sit on the couch and do nothing. But no, the paper that has the most citations by far in my work, is a paper that shows that happier people are more successful. They're the ones who persevere more, they're more creative, they have more energy, they're healthier, they have better negotiation skills. They're better leaders, they're more productive. And so wellbeing is really important, in both in the good times and the bad times.

[00:12:56] Matt Abrahams: So it sounds like personal tenacity, resilience, coming together with like-minded people, and that's how you create a movement. That's how you make change. In your new book, with Harry Reis, you use the metaphor of relationships as a seesaw. Can you explain what this is and how can we foster deeper relationships? Because your new book is all about blending relationships and happiness together. 

[00:13:19] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah, we were just talking about happiness interventions, right? So I've been doing happiness interventions for decades, and then after a while it hit me that almost all of the interventions that work to make people happier, the reason they work is they make people feel more connected to and loved by others, right? So when I write a gratitude letter to my best friend or my mom, it makes me feel more loved by them, right? When I do an act of kindness for a friend or a colleague, it makes me feel closer to them. So Harry and I started talking about how really the key to happiness is feeling loved. And it's not just being loved, it's feeling loved. And then we decided to write a book about how to feel more loved, 'cause most people wanna feel more loved in at least one relationship.

[00:13:57] And the seesaw is basically an approach to relationships or really an approach to conversations that helps you feel more loved. So in a relationship, you can think of it as a series of conversations, right? So in your next conversation, how do you make the other person feel more loved? And how do you make yourself feel more loved, and you start with the other person, actually. So I actually had this experience with a family member where I didn't feel as loved by her as I'd like to, and I was thinking, what do I do? And then I realized, I need to make her feel loved first. And what you do first is you show genuine curiosity in her inner life, in her world, and then try to get her to open up and then listen when she opens up.

[00:14:38] Most of us are not very good listeners. The idea is that most of us have walls around us and we don't show that much of ourselves to each other. So how do I lift you up a little bit, by showing genuine curiosity and really listening. And you know what, it doesn't actually happen that often. You probably know that most people are not great at that, right? So I show curiosity in you, which is hard to fake, right? And then it gives you the safety and the motivation to open up a little bit more, and then you reciprocate, hopefully. And the idea is that we lift each other up, 'cause the key to feeling loved is really knowing the other person and becoming known by the other person. 

[00:15:16] Matt Abrahams: Visual metaphors, I think, are really helpful and I can see what you're talking about there. And I love re-envisioning relationships as conversations that are driven by curiosity and listening and respect, and allowing the other person to be who they are. You said part of it is getting to know the other person, but also part of it's getting to know ourselves. How can we do the self-knowing part? 

[00:15:40] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Self-knowing is really important too. And not just self-knowing, but self-love and self-compassion. Because if I don't have sort of compassion for myself and you show me love, that love is not gonna really get in. And we don't talk as much about self-knowing, but it's really more about showing a little bit more of ourselves to others. And one way to think about it is, imagine like a first date or the first time you have a meeting with a professional colleague. What are we trying to do? Usually we're trying to just impress each other. And that's very human. That's very normal. And so let's say I spend the whole time trying to impress you. I might succeed in impressing you, but it's not gonna forge a connection. It's not gonna make either of us feel loved.

[00:16:15] And what makes us feel loved is by lowering those walls a bit and being more vulnerable. And by vulnerable I don't mean like trauma dumping and telling you all my biggest secrets. You know, you have to pace yourself. You've probably had this experience where someone just reveals something, all of a sudden you're like, whoa. It's like they break the fourth wall and it changes the dynamic completely. And so it's really about me getting to know you a little bit better and then you getting to know me a little better. The walls come down a little bit more. If you only see the tip of myself, maybe I'll be admired but not loved. 

[00:16:47] Matt Abrahams: Oh, that's an interesting distinction, admired but loved. The distinction there, I have to think about that. But I like this idea of back and forth, of reciprocity, of gradualness. All of that makes a lot of sense. I knew this was gonna be a wonderful conversation, Sonja, your work is something that I've admired for a long time and put into practice in my own life. As you know, we end all these conversations with three questions. One I make up just for you, and two, I've been asking everybody, are you up for that? 

[00:17:13] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yes, absolutely. 

[00:17:14] Matt Abrahams: I would really like to get your thoughts on how this all plays out in a world of social media. In social media, people are just creating highlight reels. They're showing the best of. It almost seems to work against this deeper connection you're talking about. What are your thoughts about how this fits in or helps or detracts from what you're talking about? 

[00:17:35] Sonja Lyubomirsky: So much to say about that. It's nuanced, right? Because of course some people feel much more connected with social media. If you have family in a different country and it's really wonderful to be so connected. And I'm not the first person to say that human beings are wired for face-to-face social connection. We're wired for voice. We actually have a study showing that voice is what makes us feel most connected. And then an even bigger danger, I think is our AI companions, because they are the best listeners. You know, I really feel like maybe it's okay. Some of these things can supplement our connections, you know, as long as we're grounded in IRL. 

[00:18:09] Matt Abrahams: I think it comes back to what you've talked about before, moderation. When you go to extremes, it can be troubling. Tell me who's a communicator you admire and why?

[00:18:17] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Okay, Esther Perel, I love her. And it's partly because, well, first of all, I'm fascinated by everything she says. The way she says it, she has a sense of expertise, but also she surprises me. So a lot of communicators, you listen to them a few times and then you hear the same thing over and over again. And every time I listen to Esther Perel, I hear something a little bit different. I'm like, oh, I hadn't thought of it that way. So yeah, she's my role model. 

[00:18:42] Matt Abrahams: That's great. She's awesome. And if people don't know Esther Perel, they should watch her TED Talks or listen to her show. It's great. Final question, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

[00:18:54] Sonja Lyubomirsky: So I guess one of them would be what I call an open heart, which is just positive intent. I come with good wishes. I wish you well. I want you to be happy. I want this to go well. That's the positive intent. So that'd be first ingredient. And the second is this having emotional intelligence, so being attuned to the other person. So I guess the second one would be attunement. It's just very hard to teach attunement. I guess the third, I was gonna say listening, but that's really very similar to attunement. But truly listen, when you think about a lot of like secrets to things going well is just real listening. True listening to the other person.

[00:19:26] Matt Abrahams: I like this idea of positive intent. Come with positive intent. We've done a lot of conversations with people who are into improvisation, and they start from positive intent to the interaction. I like that a lot. I like the distinction you made between attunement and listening. This notion of attunement is, it's not just listening to what's said, but how it's said, how much is said, your relationship to what's said. It's tough, but it makes a big difference. Sonja, it was lovely to reconnect with you after all these years. Lots of gratitude for not just what you shared today, but for what you did for me in the past. And thank you for the work you do and for helping so many people form closer relationships and feel better and have more happiness in their lives.

[00:20:04] Sonja Lyubomirsky: Thank you so much, and thank you for having an impact with all the listeners too. 

[00:20:10] Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. To learn more about happiness and wellbeing, please listen to our special miniseries on the topic, including episodes 179 through 182 with guests like Arthur Brooks and Laurie Santos. This episode was produced by Katherine Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder. With thanks to the Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram. And check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content and our newsletter. Please consider joining the Think Fast Talk Smart Learning community at fastersmarter.io/learning, you'll find video lessons, learning quests, discussion boards, my AI coach and a book club. Again, that's fastersmarter.io/learning to become a part of our global learning community.