How to Stay Hopeful (Live from SXSW with Michelle Obama)

"What can we do to find hope when times are tough?" That was the question posed to Dr Laurie for a live recording of IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson https://www.imopod.com/ at the 2025 SXSW festival. Dr Laurie explained what science says about retaining hope and how we can act in ways that make us feel better even in bleak times - and the former First Lady shared her tips for staying hopeful. IMO is a new show hosted by Michelle and her brother Craig - with guests ranging from Jay Shetty to Seth Rogen. Listen to IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson https://www.imopod.com/ wherever you get your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:32Laurie Santos?

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• 1:16Laurie Santos?

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• 1:47Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 1:55Laurie Santos?

  Hey Happiness Lab listeners. You know that I often like to share the conversations I have with interesting folks on other podcasts. And today, I've got one that I think you'll really enjoy. Because I had the pleasure of taking part in a live recording of a new podcast called IMO, hosted by former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, and her brother Craig Robinson. And for their first live show ever at South by Southwest, the siblings had yours truly on as a guest to discuss a very tough happiness question. How can we fight hopelessness in scary times? I hope you enjoy our conversation. And be sure to check out IMO wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Well, hey, South by Southwest.

• 2:43Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Boston. Hi Craig Robinson, my big brother. Yay. He's so nice.

• 2:54Speaker 04

  You all are nice. But how about my sister, Michelle Obama?

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm not used to being up here with somebody. Usually when I'm speaking, I'm speaking on my own, but I got company.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  I appreciate it.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  When was the last time we were on a big stage together? You remember?

• 3:18Speaker 04

  It's been a while.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:19Speaker 04

  Remind me, what are you thinking?

• 3:21Speaker 03

  I am thinking about the 2008 convention. And that was a big moment for me because that was Barack's first campaign. In that campaign, people didn't know me. So I got accused in the press of being angry and combative because of the way I spoke. So I found that I had to use this speech to reintroduce myself to the country. So this was a big speech, major speech at the DNC.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  I remember.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  And my big brother introduced me. And we were on stage.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  Quite an honor.

• 3:52Speaker 03

  Together. It was quite an honor, but... In his introduction, when you're on stage and you're doing a big speech, you have teleprompters. So you have prompter in the front, have prompter on the left, prompter on the right, because you're reading from the prompter, because it's timed, you gotta hit it right, it's national, it's live.

• 4:10Speaker 04

  But let me cut in here. She had to read from a prompter. I memorized mine.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Here we go. Favorite child, he memorized everything.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  Memorized, memorized.

• 4:21Speaker 03

  Well, my speech was a little longer, a little more impactful, so I needed the teleprompter, right? So he does this beautiful introduction of me, it's all action-packed, and, you know, he says, "And ladies and gentlemen, the next first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama." And I come onstage, and they're cheering, you know, and we do this greet in front of the prompter, where I think that my big brother is gonna lean down and give me a hug and say, "You got this, girl. I love you, I'm so proud of you." So I go out there, and we're on national TV, and do you remember what you said to me?

• 4:59Speaker 04

  I do, I do.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  You leaned down to my ear and you said, "Left prompter out." And he walked off.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  I was looking out for her.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  Left prompter out.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  I was looking out for you. I knew you hadn't memorized it, so I didn't want you to be surprised.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  But, you know, I mean...

• 5:18Speaker 04

  When that wasn't working.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  So now I'm thinking, "What was he talking about?" So I'm waving, trying to play it off, and I'm walking up to the stand, and what he meant was, the left prompter was out. And I was like, "Okay, good looking out." But, anyway, that was my brother looking out. But that was the last time we were onstage together.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  That was the last time. And look at us now. We are here, launching our new podcast, IMO.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Well, what we've been doing, we're gonna chat a little bit.

• 5:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  So you guys will get a sense of our dynamic and sort of some of the lessons we learned growing up. And some of this podcast was started, because you know, this last year was pretty, I won't say completely rough, but we had some, we lost our mom this year. For those of you don't know, Marion Robinson. And as a result, yeah, yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Our mom. She, she, she and our dad were some amazing people. And I think as a result of that loss, Craig and I, you know, it brought us even closer together. We were already close, but I don't know about you, but there's just something about losing what was our last parent. And any time in your life, when you lose a parent, it's tough, but you think you're gonna be ready for it as an adult. But I think, you know, part of losing mom, it kind of puts us in the position where we are the, we're the wise ones in the family.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  Hard to believe, huh?

• 6:53Speaker 03

  I know. I mean, I talk to Malia and Sasha about this all the time as they are becoming adults. I know Malia always says, well, when do you actually feel like an adult? And I was like, never, not really, ever do you feel like you know what you're doing? So I said, the fact that you're in your twenties and you feel like you are clueless, it's like you're right on schedule. Because I remind her that even now, at 61, and how old are you?

• 7:22Speaker 04

  63.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Let's be very clear, he's my big brother.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  Although, although people, because she's so iconic, people think I'm her little brother, if you can believe that.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Well, that's because you're bald and you have younger kids.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  That is true.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  I think that helps, because he's got a set of older kids and he's got a set of younger kids as well. So he, I call him the head of the ODC, the Old Dads Club. He is president and CEO.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  But even at this age, it's a little daunting to think that now we kind of have to step up in our family and be that wisdom.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we're always doing it at home with our families answering questions. So we're going to be doing that with our listeners. So as more, as we get going, you'll see we'll have listener questions and we'll have one later today, so stay tuned.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So, you know, our goal is to share some of what we learned. We know people are going through some tough times and I don't think Craig and I are feeling any different than anyone out there. You know, we're dealing with a lot of uncertainties. I, for one, feel for folks who are struggling and will continue to struggle in these uncertainties. I worry about folks being out of work. You know, I worry about how we think about diversity and inclusion. I think about how we treat one another and the voices that we hear and what that does, what models that's setting for the next generation. Who do we want to be as a country?

• 9:01Speaker 03

  All of that keeps me up at night and I know that a lot of people are struggling with some of those things. But I find in those moments that it is better not to try to figure that stuff out alone. And for me and Craig and our family, you know, we always try to step outside of our loneliness and talk as a family and as a community and to share those concerns. And I hope that our listeners are pushed to do some of the same things, too. That, you know, we're not going to figure this stuff out on our own and that we need each other and we need to step out of our loneliness and start talking to each other.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  So hopefully this podcast will spark some conversation, but more importantly, I hope it leads people to seek out their own communities of trust and conversation so we're not sitting alone in these feelings. So that's my hope.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  Oh, go ahead and clap. Yeah, see, we're not used to a live audience yet, so.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  No, I absolutely agree with Meech. To her point, we talked about not having all the opinions.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Or all the answers.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  Or all the answers. We've got plenty of opinions, but not all the answers. We're gonna have a guest with us on most of our episodes, but sometimes it'll just be the two of us.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 10:23Speaker 04

  Kind of chopping it up.

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Yep, yep.

• 10:25Speaker 04

  But before we bring out our special guest today, I thought I'd pose a question to my sister. It's interesting, now that we're doing the podcast, we talk all the time, but now, we save our talking for when we see each other now.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  You're like, "Don't, don't say anything."

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Don't say anything.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Save it.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Don't say anything. But, do you remember how, how mom and dad taught us how to handle adversity?

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I, I talk about this in both of my books. For those of you who don't know our story, our dad, who, Frasier Robinson, he developed MS in the prime of his life. You know, he didn't always have it. He grew up as a boxer, an athlete, a swimmer, and like in his early twenties, he contracted MS, and he couldn't walk without the assistance of a cane, and the disease progressed. So, we only knew our father as someone with a disability. And I think that, growing up with a parent with a disability, looking back on it, we were always kids that were growing up with a real sense of vulnerability, right before

• 11:33Speaker 03

  us. Because our father was the sole breadwinner, our mom stayed home, he was a city worker, so that salary was important. I think we knew that. But to know that the person that you lean on most is vulnerable, I think it always made us clear about adversity. I think we lived within adversity to a certain extent.

• 11:55Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  And it sort of made us both a little wary, in interesting ways, for a kid. And Craig, I don't know if you remember, little things that we didn't at the time tie to our dad's disability, but Craig was always like...

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Doing disaster preparedness stuff around the house. I mean, I kid you not, this little boy, and he was about 10, and I was always his willing sidekick, running behind him, like, what are we doing now? And he came home one day and said, you know, how are we gonna get out if there's a fire? So he made us all, do you remember?

• 12:31Speaker 04

  I do, I, I do.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Tell, tell your little worry story.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  So I, I was, I was worried about, and you know, back in the 70s, there were a lot of house fires. I don't know about you guys.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  There weren't smoke detectors.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  There weren't, no sprinkler systems.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  We're talking young people back in the Stone Age.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  So I was always worried that we lived on the second floor and our dad couldn't get around. So how would we get out if there were fires? So I, coming home from school and having done a fire drill.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  At school.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  I set up a fire drill for us at home.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  But it wasn't just that. He had to make sure that he could drag our dad to safety. So he made.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  I made my dad.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Get on the floor.

• 13:15Speaker 04

  I almost, I, I, he had to be humiliated.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  But he humored you.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  He, I had him stand up. And I grabbed him from behind and put my arms under his shoulders and then just leaned him back. And I dragged him through every room of the house to make sure that I could get him around. And he let me do that.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  God bless him.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  But that indicated this little boy was worried about some stuff that probably a normal 10-year-old wouldn't worry about. And that wasn't it, you know, he would tie his left hand behind his back.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  My right hand.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  Your right hand, because he was right-handed, because he was worried that he would lose the use of his right hand, so he needed to know how to do everything with his left hand. There was one week that you walked around blindfolded, just in case you lost your, I mean, his eyesight. And I'm there, little me going, no, to your left, Greg, to your right, no, wait.

• 14:20Speaker 04

  She was right there.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Right there, I was like, I don't know why we're doing this, but my brother says we're doing it. And our parents would just humor us.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  But while we lived with probably that underlying level of uncertainty, I think when you talk about how we learned to deal with adversity, I think we learned it by watching our father persevere. Because let me tell you, our father, despite his disability, was a man who got up every day and went to work. I mean, I don't remember a time in our life that our dad missed a day of work. A blue collar worker. He took pride in the little things that I think we take for granted, like paying your bills on time, not being house poor. That was a word, "We don't want to be house poor."

• 15:12Speaker 03

  But my father would never let a bill go by. He was resilient and he was positive in his life. He was a joyful man because I think adversity was relative in our house. If you could walk, if you could hold down a job, if you could take care of your family, if you could love your kids, if you could live with honor and decency, well, who cares if you couldn't walk? He saw the blessings. So I think, as I look at it, for me, we learned to... I mean, adversity was relative.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Adversity was a part of life, but it wasn't everything. That you'd have to just work your way through it. And the other thing I think Dad taught us was gratitude, immense gratitude. I mean, our father, as you could tell from the stories, was a kind, gentle man. He rarely raised his voice or got angry, but you know when he was disappointed in us was when we showed a lack of gratitude for what we had. If we had a bowl of ice cream and we were looking for the second scoop before we finished the first scoop, what would he say?

• 16:33Speaker 04

  Never satisfied.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Never satisfied. That would be the one admonition, "Never satisfied."

• 16:40Speaker 04

  I hate those two words to this day.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  And when I face adversity, his words, you know, sit in my brain. It's like, what do I have to complain about? What is it that I can't overcome because of the model that my father set for me? You know, why wouldn't I be happy? Why wouldn't I be able to get through this? Because we saw a man do it every day and do it without complaint. Because if anybody had a reason to complain would be my father, who was a black man, growing up in Chicago, raised in desegregation, who was an intelligent man with ability to do art, but couldn't live up to his promise. I mean, there were a whole lot of reasons for our father to be upset and angry

• 17:29Speaker 03

  and not happy and to feel disappointed, to feel sorry for himself. But he was the exact opposite. And so that's what I think about when times get hard. It's like, look, my dad would push through it.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  Right, right. And we could, we could talk about our dad for two shows, right? But we've got the perfect

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Yes, we do.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  guest to talk about happiness and adversity and all that kind of stuff. Dr. Laurie Santos is a Yale professor. Oh, you guys, all right, all right. Good. She's host of a wildly popular podcast called The Happiness Lab. She's also the teacher of one of the most popular classes at Yale.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Wish we had this when we were

• 18:25Speaker 04

  I wish we had it. And that's Psychology and the Good Life. And she's just an all-around great person. So can you welcome Dr. Laurie Santos, everybody?

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Well, hey, Professor.

• 18:52Laurie Santos?

  Hey, Michelle.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Thank you for being on here.

• 18:56Laurie Santos?

  Thanks so much for having me.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:59Laurie Santos?

  A little intimate group.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  This is a little intimate chat. So, how did you come to teach the course? I know you've answered this question a million times before, but what led you to understand that young people today need a course on how to be happy?

• 19:17Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, well, I took on this new role on Yale's campus, where I became what's called the head of college. Yale's one of these funny schools where there's like colleges within a college, like Harry Potter, like Gryffindor, Slytherin kind of thing. So I became head of a college on campus, and that meant that I was like living with students, like eating with them in the dining hall, hanging out with them up close and personal. And I just didn't realize the college student mental health crisis was as bad as it was. Right now, nationally, more than 40% of college students say they're too depressed to function most day. More than 60% say they're overwhelmingly anxious. Like, this was a real crisis that I was seeing. And that felt really frustrating because like, my field has all these strategies we can use to feel better, experience more resilience, feel less stressed. And I was like, let me just develop this class. And then it got very, very big.

• 20:03Laurie Santos?

  Not as big as this, but pretty big.

• 20:07Laurie Santos?

  You're listening to a live recording of me on Michelle Obama's new podcast, IMO. We'll be back after a quick break.

• 20:17Laurie Santos?

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• 21:01Laurie Santos?

  and organic cotton. And if a cashmere hoodie isn't quite right for someone on your list, Quince has so much more. From leather bags and jewelry to cozy scarves, down outerwear, and even hotel-quality bedding. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. The holidays have a way of putting time into perspective. Another year around the table, another chance to hear a favorite story, another memory with the people who matter most.

• 21:43Laurie Santos?

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• 22:28Speaker 04

  We've got a live question. We have a person, James, are you here? Oh, there he is, James. James, can you stand up? All right.

• 22:38Speaker 05

  I'm standing.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  All right, James. All right. Brave man.

• 22:42Speaker 05

  Hey, so excited to be here. My question is, I'm 28 and I live in LA. The fires impacted people close to me, and it feels like that's only going to become more frequent. And everything that's been happening, politically, domestically, and globally, it feels like a version- of the world is ending. And when I talk to friends, they say this is the new normal. And my immediate instinct is to push back. You know, we can't accept this. But personally, living with the inevitability of it, it also forces me to rethink what I always assumed adulthood would look like. You know, buying a house, starting a family.

• 23:27Speaker 05

  So my question is, do you have any advice on how to plan for a future that feels so different from the one we were promised, without becoming apathetic or just resigning yourself to things getting worse? Thanks so much.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  Cool. Thank you, James.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  That's an amen from everybody in this room, right? Everybody's feeling like that a bit. Lori, you want to start by taking a stab at an answer?

• 23:56Laurie Santos?

  I mean, yeah, I think the first thing to answer, or the first thing to say for that question is that this is normal, right? You're not the only person in the room that's going through that. And I think that normalization is critical. All too often, we can get into this like toxic positivity vibe, where it's like, I'm feeling kind of embarrassed that I'm so upset and frustrated and overwhelmed, sad about what's going on in the world. But like, we're supposed to feel that. Negative emotions are normal in an abnormal world. And I think it's fair to say that we are, you know, it's not great, but we are in an abnormal world right now. And so I think that's kind of point number one. The other reason that normalization is so important is that psychologically, it can help us. When you realize that these negative emotions are a common human experience, that they're emotions that are there to help you,

• 24:40Laurie Santos?

  they still don't feel good, but it can allow you to get through them a little bit better. Even here in UT Austin, there's a researcher, Kristin Neff, who studies this process of what she calls common humanity, recognizing like, we're all going through it right now. And what she finds is that can actually help you get through tough times. She does this cool research with Afghan and Iraqi veterans and finds that those that give themselves self-compassion realize that everybody's going through a tough time here. They wind up coming out with less evidence of PTSD and other related disorders. So like, when you give yourself a little grace for feeling those negative emotions, realize that they're normal in bad times, that actually helps you get through the negative emotions.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  The other thing that I want to get your take on Lori is what's happened to the bar on happiness because it really feels like these days that the expectation of young people are so high and some of that I think is our fault as parents. You know, when we were growing up, I mean, life was a lot simpler, you know. I mean, just to give you an example of excitement in our house was getting pizza on report card day if we got good grades, you know. I mean, at Christmas time, we could ask for three gifts. That was it, you know. Go through the Sears Roebuck's wish book and you could pick three things out and that was it.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  Wait, the young folks don't know what that is.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. It's a catalog. Store, first of all, Sears and Roebuck's, that was the only store you'd go to. You'd get your car tuned up and a washing machine and your school clothes all in one place. And they had a catalog. And you know what a catalog is, young people? It's a thing you look through for items and you pick it out. Well, that came out each year and that's where all the toys were. So, you know, our parents just, you know, they were happy that we got good grades, you know. I can tell you, did my, our parents push us to go to Princeton? No, they were just like, go do something with your life as long as you're a good person.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  But when I think of young people today, the standard for happiness is like gone through the roof. I mean, you don't just go to college, but there are like seven colleges you can go to or it doesn't matter. Or, you know, people, you look on House Hunters and everybody's looking for, you know, marble counters and tray ceilings and a, you know, a man cave and there's a certain car and, you know, and you, you, you're not supposed to be successful, but you're also supposed to be famous because social media tells you that that's what it means to be happy. So I guess that's a long way of asking, is some of this, you know, not just the world?

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Because the world's been bad and it's been worse than it is right now. But people, young people are more unhappy than I think we ever were with a lot less.

• 27:41Laurie Santos?

  That's right, and we have data on this, right, looking across time. And those rates of depression, anxiety and stuff I just talked about, they're worse than they are in young people right now than ever since we've recorded them, right? Like, and it's much worse. And I think you're exactly right. I think it's a lot our expectations, right? We have tools that allow us to see those fancy houses, those fancy vacations, those fancy schools, and they're just in our pockets, dinging all the time, giving us a comparison that makes us feel kind of crappy, right? And what we know from the happiness science is that it's not what we objectively have that makes us happy, it's what we're expecting, it's what we're used to. You know, that's why I love the story of your dad, right? You know, just getting a little bowl of ice cream, like, that should be enough, right? And so I think the, especially in young people, the definition of enough has changed.

• 28:26Laurie Santos?

  There's lots of reasons for that, but I think getting to a better point of accepting and what our expectations are, that'll help a lot.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  And, and that's different from being complacent, right? Because I think we were taught that you don't need everything, and you're not entitled to everything, you're not, we were taught, not even entitled to happiness.

• 28:46Laurie Santos?

  Exactly.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  Our, our parents didn't think they were responsible for our happiness, for anybody in our generation. You imagine a parent who worried about whether your child was happy? We didn't come from that. It was like, you're not happy, get over it, read a book, get out of my face, move along, go outside, you know? And our generation of parents, I mean, we lose sleep if a little person is sad today. And it's like sadness and anxiety, that's all a part of life. But we, as we parent our children, I, sometimes I think we've made them a little less resilient. And again, that's not to say that people aren't dealing with real anxiety and mental

• 29:31Speaker 03

  health issues, but I think one of the things I try to think about as, as a parent, and I think our parents did to us, they tried to prepare us for what the world was gonna be, which was oftentimes... Sometimes disappointing, most of the time hard.

• 29:47Laurie Santos?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  And, and there would be deep anxiety that you'd have to get through at all times. So, they, they gave us those tools.

• 29:56Laurie Santos?

  That's right.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Much earlier than I think some parents today are willing to let their kids go through some of those tough feelings. So, then they, they get out in the real world and they're confronted with a whole lot of emotions that nobody ever told them was coming.

• 30:11Laurie Santos?

  That's right, and I think it leads to a mental health crisis, not just in our young people, but also in parents. The former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy talked a lot about parent mental health and parent stress. He actually issued like a public health advisory on the fact that parents are going through their own tough emotions. But the biggest tough emotion that parents reported is guilt. As though, you know, they're not doing enough for their kids' happiness, they're not doing enough to kind of give them everything they need, and I think that reflects exactly what you're saying.

• 30:38Speaker 04

  Laurie, I want to get, James' question sort of deals with a little bit of hopelessness there. And I was just trying to figure out, what does it mean for our culture with so many people feeling hopeless?

• 30:53Laurie Santos?

  Yeah. Was bad, as you probably guessed, not great to live in a completely hopeless culture. And, and we really do live in more of a hopeless culture than we ever have before. Your researchers go out and study this, and they have over time. One of the best questions for this is they just ask people, on average, can you trust the other people around you? Right? In the 1970s, when they asked folks that question, around 50% of people said, yeah, on average, most folks can get trusted. When you ask that same question in 2018, it's down to a little less than a third. That doesn't sound like a big drop, but if I was plotting that, that's basically how much money we lost in 2008 when the financial crisis happened, right? So this is a like, complete, like, off a cliff decline in people's sense of trust and people's sense of hope. And it's bad for lots of reasons.

• 31:37Laurie Santos?

  It's bad for us personally, people who experience less hope, experience more depression, experience more anxiety, experience more loneliness, which is interesting, hope seems to be connected to our social connection. Also bad for our bodies, people who are more cynical report experiencing more diabetes, experiencing more heart disease, and it's Probably bad for us as a society because when you don't experience hope, what you think is like, stuff's never gonna get better. And when you think stuff's never gonna get better, you don't take action to make it better. Right? You don't vote, you don't do things prosocially to help other people. And what you find, research-wise, is if you study people who are cynical, they self-report not voting, they self-report not donating to charity, not doing the stuff that you need to do to make things better. So, yeah, it's really bad. And it becomes a vicious cycle, right?

• 32:21Laurie Santos?

  Because as more people get hopeless, then they look out in the world with this hopeless lens, they post on social media with a hopeless lens, we get podcasts that are very hopeless, and it just becomes a cycle where we reinforce each other's bad perception of the world, one that might not even be really accurate.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you talk about that transference, the ability for us to, you know, export our bad energy onto other people. And we naturally, as humans, we pick up those cues. Can you talk a little bit more about that transference that you?

• 32:54Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, I mean, we know for sure that emotions are contagious, right? They're just like COVID. And we know this, right? You go into an office and you hang out with somebody who's feeling hyped up and optimistic and excited, you kind of catch that, right? You go into the same office with somebody who's down and not feeling it, like, you catch that too, right? These days, we don't just catch emotions from the other people we're around. We have this transfer system online where folks are catching emotions globally. You know, I hop on some social media platform, I'm catching some emotion from somebody on Instagram that lives in a different country and a completely different time zone, but I catch that too. And that's made worse by the fact that these social media companies, obviously, have algorithms that thrive not on us catching each other's positive emotions,

• 33:37Laurie Santos?

  but on catching each other's anger and outrage and sadness, right? That's what gets eyeballs on our phones. And so, all these things together mean not just that there's transference, but there's particular transference of the bad stuff, of the hopelessness.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  You know, our mom, and Meesh will remember this, but obviously, we didn't have social media growing up. But we had friends who had stuff, or friends who said things. And our mom was always, "Why do you care about what they say?" And I find trying to give my kids that advice is hard with social media. And I think a lot of parents find it hard. How do we balance that these days with with social media? Because, you know, we recently were talking with someone else who was telling us you just, if you take social media away, you got to replace it with something. But my question is, how do we help help folks find a balance here?

• 34:35Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, I think one of the ways to find a balance is just to realize that what we're exposed to affects us, right? You hop on Instagram and you start scrolling through that feed. You might know that some of the stuff you look at is photoshopped. You might know that some of the stuff, you know, these companies are, they have algorithms that are sort of pointing you in a bad direction. But that doesn't enter psychologically. You're just soaking in emotions and then the stuff you see, right? But I think that knowledge can be a little bit of power, right? You can even ask yourself, like, how do I feel after that scroll through Reddit or through social media? And ask yourself the question, do I feel more empowered, more hopeful? Or do I feel kind of gross and like in despair, right? You can make the choice to put that away, right? You can kind of notice mindfully how it's making you feel and and you sort of choose

• 35:20Laurie Santos?

  to, you know, stick it back in your pocket. Social media companies wouldn't have these algorithms if all our eyeballs weren't on phones anymore. And we actually have more agency than we often remember in that in that fight.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  People always ask me and Barack, how did we stay hopeful in not just the eight years that we were in the White House, but beyond? Because let me tell you, there was a lot of negative energy floating our way. A lot of rumors, a lot of gossip, a lot of, you know, my husband wasn't born in this country. We didn't care about, we weren't patriotic. You know, he, yeah, he didn't get into Harvard. I mean, you know, I don't know if you all remember. I certainly do.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  He wore a tan suit.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  Wore a tan suit once, I mean. Blasphemous. The level of scandal that occurred. But through it all, what kept us sane, and we tried to instill this in our daughters, is, you know, you cannot, you know, you cannot live through social media. I don't think I have ever once looked at a comment section, period. At all, ever. And I know it's difficult for this generation, but, you know, I would implore young people to stay, don't let that negative energy enter into your space. These are people who don't know you.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  A lot of this stuff is made up, and it does not feed you. And, you know, I mean, you can't do it. And we never do. Now, that doesn't mean you don't stay informed, but staying informed has nothing to do with the comment section. You know, it has everything to do with the content of the stories that you take in. And I think, you know, we cannot get so trapped by social media that we feel so caught up into the one way we get information. We've got to broaden our spectrum. And we have to get off the phone. Yeah. You know, which is another thing.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  And I would love for you to talk a bit about that as a tool. I know you've got a lot of tools, but there are a lot of people here of all ages who are trapped by their phones. And when you talk about us being disconnected and not talking to each other, I am not out in the world like a normal person anymore. But when I am, people don't even recognize me. You know why? Because they're on their phones. Nobody is looking at each other. I could walk right past somebody with a hat on, you know, and I'm just a black woman in a cap.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  I don't know about that.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  No, I've done it.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  I don't know about that.

• 38:12Speaker 03

  I have done it. I fly commercial. I am out there with the people, and folks are not paying attention.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  I fly commercial?

• 38:22Speaker 03

  So...

• 38:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Okay. See? It's a good thing I'm here.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  Well, more so than I was.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  You know, with this face, walking around flying commercial. How's Michelle? Tell Michelle I said hi. How's she doing? They okay?

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 38:43Laurie Santos?

  Strategies. Strategies, yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  I'm gonna get a mute button for him. I'm just kidding.

• 38:52Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, no, but strategies. I mean, I think awareness is really key here. One of my favorite strategies for sort of dealing with your phone and being on your phone all the time comes from the journalist Catherine Price. She has this lovely book, How to Break Up With Your Phone, where she argues you don't have to break up with your phone so much as you need to take it to like couples counseling so that you can like deal with it better. But she has this really handy acronym that she uses whenever she finds herself on her phone. It's W W W, which you can think of because you're probably on the World Wide Web, right? But this is not World Wide Web. W W W stands for what for, why now, and what else? So what are you on your phone for? Maybe you're checking your email or looking at a map. Maybe you're just deep in some TikTok dive, right? Was there a purpose, right? Why now? This is an important one because you notice your emotions. What drives you to your phone? Were you bored?

• 39:36Laurie Santos?

  Were you anxious, right? What's your cue that like gets you there? What's that craving coming from? And then finally, what else, right? What's the opportunity cost of being on your phone right now? You might be missing Michelle Obama on your flight. There's a saying right next to you you didn't notice, right? You might miss the beautiful scenery. You might miss the opportunity to talk to someone who has interesting stories, interesting ideas, right? That what else question is critical because what studies show us is that because we're on our phones, we're less social than we could be. Lovely study by Elizabeth Dunn at the University of British Columbia had people with their phones or without their phones sitting in a waiting room. They weren't even using their phones. It was just like present or not. And she just measured the amount of smiling that people did, you know, casual, somebody's in your room, you smile at them.

• 40:20Laurie Santos?

  She sees 30% less smiling when phones are present, right? Calculate that by all the phones, you know, on planes and Austin and so on. So, so we're really missing out. But that strategy of W W W, I think what it gets us towards is like, we just have to be mindful. We just have to notice. These are good tools, right? We know even from COVID times, they were so useful.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 40:39Laurie Santos?

  But we just have to use them in a healthy way.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love that.

• 40:44Laurie Santos?

  Time for a quick break, but there'll be more of me on Michelle Obama's new podcast, IMO, in just a moment.

• 40:56Laurie Santos?

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• 41:41Laurie Santos?

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• 42:26Laurie Santos?

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• 42:55Speaker 04

  Laurie, ¿qué podemos hacer para encontrar esperanza cuando las cosas son difíciles, como la situación de James, que está mirando a sus amigos que han perdido cosas en un fuego o, ya sabes, otros desastres personales? ¿Qué podemos hacer?

• 43:11Laurie Santos?

  Sí, creo que hay un par de cosas, ¿verdad? Una es asegurarte de que tengas la definición correcta de la esperanza. Porque creo que a veces cuando pensamos en la esperanza, pensamos en lo que al menos los psicólogos podrían llamar optimismo, donde simplemente pensamos "Todo va a estar bien". Y creo que "Todo va a estar bien" es como, quiero decir, mira la nueva, mira a X, mira donde sea. No está bien, ¿verdad? Y así creo que es importante llamarlo así como es, no está bien. Pero la esperanza no es eso. La esperanza dice: "Las cosas no están bien, pero en realidad puedo ver al menos unos pocos pasos para que las cosas mejoren". ¿Por qué es eso tan importante psicológicamente? Si crees que las cosas están bien ahora mismo, ¿vas a actuar? ¿Vas a tomar agencia? ¿Vas a hacer algo al respecto? No, porque simplemente piensas "las cosas están bien ahora mismo, ya sabes, el mundo no está en un fuego".

• 43:54Laurie Santos?

  Cuando experimentas la esperanza, lo que sientes es "las cosas no están bien ahora mismo, pero hay un camino". ¿Qué hace ese camino? Te da agencia. Te da la sensación de que algo puede hacerse y probablemente yo pueda ser una pequeña parte de lo que necesita hacerse. Y esa pequeña parte es clave, porque creo que cuando pensamos que tenemos que ser el único que está ahí arreglando todo, eso también nos hace sentir un poco abrumados y tristes. Pero cuando te das cuenta de que eres una pequeña acción, estás entrando en alguien, estás donando cinco dólares a una causa que te importa, estás saltando de cualquier manera para mejorar las cosas, eso en realidad importa. Y una de las cosas que sabemos psicológicamente es que también nos ayuda a sentir un poco más esperanzados cuando tomamos acción, ¿verdad? Así que apareces a esa causa que te importa, vas a protestar, ¿verdad? Donas algo de dinero.

• 44:36Laurie Santos?

  Psicológicamente empiezas a sentirte como "Oh, estamos incluso acercándonos a una solución porque yo me he puesto en marcha, tal vez otras personas se pongan en marcha". También ves buena evidencia social de que no eres el único. Apareces a una protesta, usualmente no eres el único allí. Tienes una habitación entera como esta llena de personas que se preocupan. Ahora de repente tus creencias empiezan a cambiar. Así que puedes, en lugar de ser ese ciclo vicioso de desesperanza que hablamos antes, puedes convertirte en parte de un ciclo virtuoso de esperanza. Y ese es el tipo de cosa que también puede ser socialmente contable.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  And as somebody who has seen all kinds of power at work, you know, I've been at some of the most powerful tables. One of the things I remind people of is, yes, there is large power. You know, there are a handful of people in the world who can do a few things that can impact so many. But the truth is, is that the small power that each of us has to do something right in front of us, if we're all doing that, outweighs anything that, you know, some big leader somewhere can do. I mean, if you just think about, yeah. Just, just think about as our parents did, you know, Marion and Frazier Robinson, who

• 45:48Speaker 03

  didn't go to college, you know, mother stayed at home, father was a city worker. And let me just stop and, and, and give a big shout out to city and federal workers, people who are the lifeblood of, of this, this country. Also, those jobs help to create an entire middle class of people like our, our fathers, our father, our parents, and they do the lion's share of the work in this country. You know, if we're going to start asking who's doing what, I would, from my experience, the folks who are working on the ground and picking up our garbage and making sure that

• 46:33Speaker 03

  our, you know, schools run and that our air is clean and that our flights stay up in the air, that those people are the true heart and blood of, of this country. But, that power is, is what changes things. You know, those parents, with the little bit that they were able to do with their power, raised two of us, you know. And if you just think that if everybody in, on this planet was valued and had an opportunity to have a job...

• 47:14Speaker 03

  And to take care of their kids and to raise them with some level of honesty and kindness and with humanity and taught them to love everybody and to be inclusive. You know, just imagine if everybody did that little thing right in their plate. You know, if you're gonna have some kids, you know, if you can have the courage and the power to exercise that small thing of raising them with some truth and some honesty, just imagine where we would be right now as a country. You know, imagine what our leadership would look like and how we would ask them to speak and to act and to model.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  That, that is the, that is the, the beauty of, of small power. You know, so as, as James, you know, thinks about what to do, you know, I hope that retreating into hopelessness is not on the list. Because shoot, if my dad didn't, this is how I feel, if my father, Frasier Robinson, didn't retreat with all that he could have retreated from in times a lot tougher than this because he wanted to lay a foundation for us, that we have that obligation, all of us, to do the same thing. We can't afford to be hopeless, I would say.

• 48:33Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, and I love that you share this story of your father because it's also one of the strategies that we can use, tiny strategy we can use individually to do better, which is sharing these positive social stories. Like the world and social media, all these algorithms are filled with terrible stories, but you can actually see the good ones. You can say, you know, my dad in the midst of experiencing this terrible disease was hopeful, he taught us gratitude, right? And, you know, it doesn't even have to be Michelle Obama's dad, right? You can find these little examples of moral goodness, but don't just keep them to yourself, share them. And I think if you're a parent, this is one of the best things you can do to your kids, right? Because they're, maybe don't even have as much kind of frontal lobe power to go out there and find those good stories. Over the dinner table, what moral goodness did you see today? Right?

• 49:18Laurie Santos?

  What was something that delighted you, that kind of made you happy specifically about what somebody else was doing? We don't share these. Enough, but the sad thing is like they're out there. We just don't hear about them enough. And so that's one of the reasons I'm so glad y'all are doing this podcast. Oh, that's nice. There's going to be way more stories than that that come out that allow for what researchers call social savoring, where sort of savoring the goodness of other people.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  And that's also a way I'm starting to create for people to use their social media, you know? You know, it's there for a reason. There's power in it, you know? But we have to resist the notion to use it to harp on each other, to diss and to, you know, spread gossip and to, you know? I mean, each of us in our world can encourage the people within it to use the tool for good, you know? It is a choice that we can make right now. Everybody in this room, everybody listening to this podcast who hears us, you can make a choice to either, you know, use these tools for good or use them for evil or to use them to appease your frustration.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  Because remember, as Lori said, we pass on that energy, you know? We're passing it on, our anger, our rage, you know? It's one of the reasons why, you know, when our household, we use the motto, going high is important because going high is the model, especially if you have a platform like we did for eight years. Yeah, it's easy to get on a big platform and rile people up and to say hateful things and to make fun of people. Of course, anybody could do that. Any leader can do that, right? That's the easiest way to lead because you're sort of tapping into your easiest basis, you know, core and you lash out. You share that anger.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  The strength and the power comes is when you can harness that, you know, and understand that if you have a platform, if you're going to be on social media, that you now have an obligation not to spread hate and bitterness and anger.

• 51:26Speaker 04

  And if, only because I want to give James some takeaways, but I

• 51:34Speaker 03

  This is Craig's job, too.

• 51:36Speaker 04

  We also have, we also have the happiness doctor here. So, how can we, and let me back up, because our mom used to say, "You're responsible for your own happiness." And that was some of the most empowering advice she ever gave us. How can we help those out there who don't have a Marian Robinson or a social group? How can we help them work through making themselves happy?

• 52:03Laurie Santos?

  Well, your mom might have been a better happiness scientist than you guys thought, because she's like reading the evidence out there, because that's what the evidence really shows, is that it takes some work, but you can do things to feel better, even in a horrible situation, right? Even in a horrible situation, there are things you can do to feel a little bit better. And I think one of the biggest ones is really to connect with other people. You know, you talked about the problem of phones, leading us away from each other. You talked about the loneliness crisis. Like, you're in a room with lots of other folks right now, you're probably in lots of rooms with lots of other folks. Just talk to them, right? Check in on your friends, reach out to them. These things sound silly, they sound like such a tiny thing to do, but they allow us to get towards more civic action, right? They're really like, in a very tiny way, the basis of democracy, right?

• 52:48Laurie Santos?

  Just talking to people and getting to know them, right? And so, in your own small world, do that. And reach out to the people that you care about. We often assume, again, that that's kind of a silly thing to do, but what the studies show is that when you're reaching out to other people, when you're checking in on other people, that boosts your happiness, too. So you're ultimately, by doing nice things for others, growing the pie. And you're giving yourself a little bit more of a sense of hope, because whenever you take action, you're like, "Oh, my gosh, I have some agency. Things can't be that bad. I can make it a little bit better."

• 53:18Speaker 03

  And I know, Craig, you're a coach. You've coached, you've mentored. I know that mentoring isn't just about giving. It's about what you get in return. You want to talk about that?

• 53:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, I started out in corporate America and moved into coaching. But I always felt like I wanted to be a coach or a teacher because I was coached and mentored by my dad, my mom, and really good coaches. And I thought it was really the reason why I got to do all the wonderful things I got to do. And I felt like I needed to share that with all these other young people out there. And to Lori's point, it makes me feel fantastic. And it's just such a wonderful, warm feeling to be able to help folks.

• 54:12Laurie Santos?

  Yeah. And I think another thing that we can do, again, kind of channeling your parents, because I think they were on top of this stuff, is what your dad said, right? Find something to be a little bit grateful for. That can feel big in the situation that James is in, right? When it feels like everything is collapsing around you. It's hard to be living in L.A. in the midst of these fires and be like, well, I'm grateful for... If that feels hard, choose a lighter version of that strategy. Look for just something that's a little bit of a delight in the world. Like, just a delight, something great. This is a practice I heard from the writer Ross Gay. He has this lovely book called The Book of Delights, where he decided every day he was just going to go out and find some small wonder in the world that delighted him. And they're tiny things, like you see somebody on the train give each other a fist bump. You walk into a cafe and it's playing El Debar, like, "Rhythm of the Night," which is like

• 54:57Laurie Santos?

  a great song. Ross Gay was like, "That's a delight," right? And what it does is it allows him to train his brain away from something that our brains do naturally, which is what researchers call a negativity bias. We instantly notice all the bad stuff. You scroll through your feed and your brain is locked on to the bad information. But to find the good stuff, to find the delights, you gotta put a little energy into it. And when it becomes a game, when you know you're sharing them with someone else or writing them down, now, all of a sudden, you find them a little bit more quickly. And one of the reasons I love Ross Gay is that he's a great coach.

• 55:27Laurie Santos?

  ...his book is that he actually shows that this power of delight can help you fight all kinds of stuff. In lots of ways, it's a book that deals with a lot of the bad stuff that's going on. It talks really explicitly about racism. It talks really explicitly about cultures of violence and things like that. But when you find the delights, you're able to kind of get through it. It's like you're kind of padding yourself with some positive emotion to deal with the negative stuff. And this is one of the reasons I think we need to find our light a little bit more is the other thing that research shows is that if we want to make changes, we kind of need the emotional bandwidth to do that. And one of the ways you do that is finding your light, right? Focusing on positive emotions. There's this researcher, Konstantin Kuschev, who works at Georgetown, and he asked the question, who's out there doing the work to solve the problems, right? Who's showing up at the protests?

• 56:12Laurie Santos?

  Who's engaging in like climate justice? And what he measures is people's positive emotion. And he finds that the more you self-report having more positive emotion versus negative emotion, the more you're going out to that protest for a cause you care about, the more you're donating to kind of fix the things out there in the world. It's kind of like putting your own oxygen mask on first so you can help others, but it's not just like others, it's like helping the whole world. And so that that bit of research has helped me because sometimes it can feel bad to not be hopeless in a hopeless world. Like if you're going through what James is going through, it's like, should I experience delights? Should I get happy because El Debar is on in this café? It feels like weird. But his research helps me because it's like, no, it's almost your responsibility to find positive emotion because it actually allows you to get towards the actions that can fix stuff.

• 56:57Speaker 04

  All right, so for James, we've got five minutes for some takeaways. And that was a great place to start, you find your light. All right. I'm looking toward Lori for a couple of takeaways.

• 57:10Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, let's do it. I think a big one is to notice how you feel when you're participating in the 24/7 news cycle, right? The news cycle didn't used to be 24/7. We all probably remember there was a day when you get the paper in the morning, you read it, you were very informed, but you put that thing away, didn't walk around with you in your pocket, right? I think there's, you can probably be informed with like 80% less time on your phone and you'll Still know all the terrible things that are happening. I promise they'll still be covering them, you know.

• 57:41Speaker 03

  It'll be there.

• 57:42Laurie Santos?

  23 hours later. But just kind of give yourself a little bit of break. Why? Information is good. You'll still have that, but you'll kind of protect your positive emotion a bit. I think the second one is just one that we've talked about already. Social connection. Reach out and try to help someone else. Especially if you're feeling vulnerable, especially if you're feeling in a crummy place, just ask, what can I, what very small thing can I do for somebody else? For a friend? Text them, just say, hey, thinking about you. Donate three bucks or something, whatever you can financially afford, a little tiny thing to a charity. All of a sudden, that will start making you feel good and you'll be doing good in the world, too.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  And I, absolutely.

• 58:19Laurie Santos?

  Thank you.

• 58:20Speaker 03

  And I just want to throw a mom hat kind of piece on there for James is that, you know, your physical health is directly tied to your emotional status. And I know young people, you aren't at the point where you believe what we've been telling you that you gotta get sleep. You really do.

• 58:42Laurie Santos?

  You gotta get to sleep.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  It absolutely matters. You know, why are older people probably a little bit happier? Because I take a nap and I go, I will go to bed and I love nothing more than going to bed early. Now, if you're in your twenties, that sounds really crazy, but you know, it absolutely matters and what you eat and whether you move your body. You know, we've got Lori here because like there is real evidence. We still live in a world where science matters.

• 59:10Laurie Santos?

  No, please, please.

• 59:12Speaker 03

  As we, as we wonder what, what is wrong, you know, and how we fix it, you know, we can't ignore the fact that there are really smart people who have done really important research to come up with the whys and to give us answers. So this stuff actually matters. And when you're 60 plus, it all makes sense. And, and taking care of yourself, getting outside, making sure you get a little bit of fresh air, how you move your body, what you put in it matters. So if you're young and you, you don't feel it yet, because when you're our age, you will feel it. If you start some of those habits now, you know, it doesn't change the world for sure.

• 59:57Speaker 03

  You know, it is not, it is, voting still matters.

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  But in the meantime, you know, not partying every night of the week and thinking that you're gonna wake up in a good mood, that helps too.

• 1:00:15Laurie Santos?

  No, but I think you're right. Like, not only does it, you said it doesn't matter for voting, it doesn't matter for, I think it does, right? If you take care of your body, you're gonna be, you're gonna have the bandwidth and the resilience to fight, whether that's fighting at the voting booth or fighting in other ways. And you also channeled something else that I often talk to my students about. We mentioned gratitude, right? And gratitude is really changing your thought patterns. It's noticing the delightful stuff and trying to move away from the negative stuff. But there's other ways we can use our thought patterns to feel good. I think one of them is just thinking back, right? Getting a little bit of psychological distance. As Michelle said before, things have been bad before, right? And when you remember that, you're like, oh, we came back from it. We've come back from really awful stuff historically, especially if you look in long history. We've come back from really awful stuff.

• 1:01:00Laurie Santos?

  And what does remembering that do? It makes you realize, oh, things could be different. Even in a bad situation, I can see a path to something being better. What's that? That's hope. That's fighting your own cynicism right there.

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  And one more thing, one more thing, one more thing. You know, for young people out there, I just encourage us all to sort of right-size our happiness meter.

• 1:01:24Laurie Santos?

  Yes.

• 1:01:25Speaker 03

  You know, and take a little pressure off of ourselves and not to measure joy and happiness by the wrong things. And let me tell you, look, I, we are successful. We got degrees, we make money. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But it is, I will guarantee you that having stuff, or money, or fame, all the things that right now seem to be so important, you know, extolling the virtues of how much stuff you get. In my experience, that really, truly is not the key to happiness. And finding out what your purpose is, you know, who you are helping and why,

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  over how much money you have in your bank account, you know, truly, I know a whole lot of these billionaires, and not all of them, as we can see, seem happy. You know, because that's not ultimately, if that's your only goal is to have more than you need, to never be satisfied. If you get on that path and that's what you're going after, you know, there will be a hole in your heart. And it may feel like it's the world, but it may actually be our misguided sense of what it means to be human. And truly what it means to be human isn't whether we get to space or how much money we have in our bank account.

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  It's really how we treat each other. How do we make each other feel? How do we, you know, care for one another? You know, and I guarantee you, if you spend your life doing that, you know, really reordering your steps to be that person in the world, I can tell you that's what makes me feel better and hopeful, is directing my energy at a real purpose. That's right. So I would urge James to make sure he's driven by that and not by some other artificial goals that we've been told are important.

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  It's a great point to end on, Meech. Please, help me thank Dr. Laurie Santos for being with us.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Thank you, Laurie. Thank you so much.

• 1:03:47Laurie Santos?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:03:49Speaker 04

  As you can see, we do have a lot of opinions and we could keep this thing going on and on, but listen and subscribe. Thank you all for being here.

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  Thank you, guys. Thanks, Laurie.

• 1:04:11Laurie Santos?

  The Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers, one that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life, and more. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today. Here's something the happiness research shows time and again. Small moments matter more when we take time to savor them. And I think the best gifts are ones that make it easier to be present so that we can savor those small moments. Think the kinds of pieces you notice every time you use them.

• 1:04:53Laurie Santos?

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• 1:05:35Laurie Santos?

  tech, and more, it's easy to create a gift that feels meaningful and on-brand. And with 4imprint's expert support and their 360-degree guarantee, you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive exactly as intended. Explore gifting with confidence at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, for certain.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.