1373: Sonja Lyubomirsky | Five Mindsets to Get You More of What Matters

Money, fame, and abs buy admiration, not intimacy. How to Feel Loved https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063426668/?tag=jordanharbing-20 author Sonja Lyubomirsky reveals the five mindsets that make you feel loved. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1373 https://jordanharbinger.com/1373 What We Discuss with Sonja Lyubomirsky: Being loved and feeling loved are two different things. Surveys found 70 percent of people can name a close relationship where the love just isn't landing. Someone can adore you completely, but if it never clears your firewall, you can feel utterly alone in a room full of people who care. The fix isn't becoming more lovable or overhauling your partner — it's changing the next conversation. A relationship is really just a series of conversations, which means feeling more loved is far more under your control than the entire self-help aisle wants you to believe. Money, status, and six-pack abs buy admiration, not intimacy — and admiration never makes anyone feel known. Optimizing your dating life like you're shopping for a used Porsche, chasing the mythical 'four sixes,' only builds a more elaborate CAPTCHA for loneliness. The five love languages are closer to pop theology than science. Researchers debunked the idea that partners must 'match' or the relationship is doomed. There are far more than five ways to connect, and the two everyone actually craves are simply quality time and words of affirmation. If you don't feel loved, go first. Get curious, listen to learn instead of to reply, share, and lead with warmth. Text that old friend, ask your parents real questions, break out the conversation cards. Connection is a skill, and every small drop counts. And much more... And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/id1344999619?mt=2&ls=1 — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking https://jordanharbinger.com/course — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course https://jordanharbinger.com/course! Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser https://www.jordanharbinger.com/news/ newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom! Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanHarbinger/! This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors https://www.jordanharbinger.com/deals/: BetterHelp: 10% off first month: betterhelp.com/jordan https://www.betterhelp.com/jordanFactor: 50% off first box: factormeals.com/jordan50off, code JORDAN50OFF https://www.factormeals.com/jordan50offPaka: Paka hoodie & crew socks: go.pakaapparel.com/jordan https://go.pakaapparel.com/jordanProgressive Insurance: Free online quote: progressive.com https://www.progressive.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:15Speaker 02

  Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  We talk about wealth, people who have it all, success or wealth, that wealth or success or fame amplifies what you already have, right? So if you were a generous person, before you got rich, you become even more generous. If you are a greedy person, you become even more greedy. If you're socially, you become more social. If you're antisocial, you become more antisocial. But the problem with meritocracies is that if you don't succeed and if you're not happy, the only person you can blame is yourself, right? So there's actually more suicidality, more depression, anxiety in more meritocratic cultures, I believe. The difference is that happy people feel loved.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people. Our mission is to help you become a better-informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers, even the occasional extreme athlete, music mogul, or real-life pirate. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of some of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology, geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more, that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get

• 2:34Speaker 02

  started. Today on the show, how can you be surrounded by people who genuinely love you, spouse, kids, friends, coworkers, and still feel completely alone? Today, we're talking with happiness researcher Sonia Lubomirsky, author of How to Feel Loved, about the surprisingly massive gap between being loved and actually having that love register psychologically. We'll get into why money, status, attractiveness, achievement, and optimizing your dating life like you're buying a used Porsche can get you attention without getting you intimacy, and why the whole love language thing might be a lot shakier than Instagram therapists would have you believe, and why vulnerability does not mean turning dinner into an unsolicited director's cut of your childhood trauma. We'll also get into listening, radical curiosity, AI girlfriends and boyfriends, MDMA and chemically-assisted

• 3:19Speaker 02

  connection, and the uncomfortable possibility that these tools won't actually fix your relationship. They'll merely reveal that you picked the wrong person. So yeah, nice light episode about happiness today. Here we go with Sonia Lyubomirsky.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  So this is an interesting subject, how to feel loved. I think a lot of people might think it's too squishy. You're studying love from a science perspective. I mean, isn't that the realm of poets and, I don't know, the scribes?

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Almost everything in psychology sounds like that, right?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Sounds squishy or like fuzzy. So I started studying happiness, actually, 37 years ago, if you can imagine that, 1989.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Nobody was happy in the 80s.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  But no one was really studying it, except for one person, Ed Diener. And it was considered this very fuzzy, unscientific topic, and I felt really insecure, like, what am I doing studying happiness? And love, I guess, seems even more or equally fuzzy and unscientific. And yet, of course, we can study all these things. Psychology wouldn't exist if we couldn't measure and intervene and investigate these topics.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  This has nothing to do with your book. But how do you measure happiness in science? Because you have to have a science. You have to define it.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  We let people, in a way, define it for themselves, but we measure happiness. I define happiness as really having two components. This is the way researchers define happiness, that the first component is experiencing positive emotions, right? So happy people experience fairly frequent positive emotions. What positive emotions? It could be anything, right? For some people, it might be tranquility. If you live in Taiwan, serenity, calm tranquility.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Maybe you haven't been to Taipei, but yeah.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, but I mean, in Asian cultures, it's more valued.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  In American culture, it's more like enthusiasm, excitement, joy is more highly valued.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  That's funny. It's cultural. I had not thought about that. That's what I would define it as. If something is tranquil, I don't think I'm happy. I'm probably borderline bored.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  And that's fine. And then pride, curiosity, affection, you know, those are also positive states, emotions. So anyway, so people who are happy experience fairly frequent positive emotions. Not all the time, of course.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  But that's not enough. That's the first component. The second component of happiness is feeling like your life is good. Like, you're satisfied with your life, you're fairly satisfied with how progress you're making towards your life goals. So those are really the two components of happiness, life satisfaction and positive emotion.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  That makes sense, I suppose. It's tough, right? Because there's a lot of people that say like, oh, are you happy with where you are now? Yeah, of course. But then I see people of way more than me, and they're miserable. And it seems like such an arbitrary line.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  You really need both those components. My example I use is when I had my first two kids, I was so satisfied with my life. I had this great marriage and job, and I had a boy and a girl, exactly what I wanted. And yet, every day, like, I actually was really unhappy. I had a lot of negative emotions, right? I wasn't sleeping, and

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  and the two-year-old was having tantrums all the time. Anyway, and so I wasn't a truly happy person, because I only had one component of happiness and not the other component.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  That tracks. My kids are four and six, almost seven, and I'm very happy with the fact that they exist and that they're growing well. But yeah, there are some days where I go, well, I slept two hours because he barfed all over me at 4 o'clock in the morning, or 1 o'clock in the morning. And that wasn't positive emotion, but it didn't really affect my overall happiness. It was like a momentary lapse. Just like people who seem like they have everything, they can afford to eat really great desserts every time they go out to eat, but they're terrible, miserable, and they have road rage because they're on the red line all the time with their emotions.

• 6:37Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. So when you see these unhappy people that seem to have it all, what is often the problem? Is it that there's things we can't see that are making them miserable, like their greater life is very unhappy? Or are there just some people that, for whatever reason, live in negative emotions all the time and they can't help it?

• 6:55Speaker 03

  There are definitely individual differences. There's a huge genetic component to happiness.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Oof, that's bad.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  It's bad news in some ways, but it doesn't mean you can't change it. It just means it's harder, right? You have to put more work into it. If you're sort of unlucky to have a base, a set range, like a range of happiness that's a little bit lower. And so some people are just unlucky. I actually heard something really wise the other day, which is that we talk about wealth, right? People who have it all or success or wealth, that wealth or success or fame amplifies what you already have, right? So if you were a generous person, before you got rich, you become even more generous, right? If you are a greedy person, you become even more greedy. If you're socially, you become more social. If you're antisocial, you become more antisocial. So that happens. But also, social comparison is so powerful and compelling. We compare ourselves to others. You can argue that's adaptive, right? Like, it's useful for us to see where we are.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Maybe down the age of the internet, but yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  But it was adaptive in their ancestral past, and we tended to compare to people who are like a little bit better off than us. We're like, oh, maybe we should work a little harder. Maybe we should, blah, blah, blah, do this more. And yet, now, starting the age of television, we started to, it was like, remember, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was like

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  the first show that everyone was like, oh, my God. I didn't know that there was this lifestyle.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  I need an island now.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  And of course, with social media, now we're exposed to it every second of every day. So no matter how rich you are, I remember listening to a radio show, they were talking about these two mansions on a hill, beautiful mansions, really rich people. And you know what? The person in the one mansion is thinking the other mansion is like a little bit better. View is a little bit better, right? Or they have a better deck or whatever. And so there's always someone better to compare yourself to.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  That's the problem. So you have to really kind of let that go, and it's really hard to let it go.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Do we know why we compare ourselves to people that are just slightly above us? Because you're right. I don't look at the house on the hill that has a wraparound 360 view of LA and go, man, almost, I just need to work a little harder, right? And you find out it's, I don't know, John Grisham's house or something, or Michael Bay, some director, right? And I don't think about that. And I don't look at my friends who sold, I don't know, 10 million books or something. I don't look at buddies like James Clear or Mark Manson and go like, oh, I need a book that has outsold every other book this decade. I don't do that. But I don't even look at other podcasters and care. But I, probably my neighbors, maybe? I don't know. It's

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  The line is, again, totally arbitrary, who I compare myself to and who I ignore.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  And people differ, because some people do compare themselves to the super-successful. They're like, oh, I

• 9:12Speaker 02

  That's terrible.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  It's terrible. But so there's a researcher in my field called, his name is Leon Festinger, and he had this theory of social comparison, the first big theory. And he said it's basically evolutionarily adaptive to compare a little bit higher, right? Because that inspires us to work a little harder, do a little bit more. But for example, if I'm studying the violin, and I'm looking at like Yo-Yo Ma, that'll inspire me, hopefully. I'm not going to feel bad. I'm not him. Or maybe if you want to be a film director, you look at someone who's really successful, and that might, hopefully, that's inspiring to you.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  But someone who's a little bit off, so someone in your film school class or your writing class, and they just published their first short story in The New Yorker.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I want them to get hit by, yeah, not really, but

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, in college, we used to have these jokes about it, right? Someone would be like, hey, I just won five national scholarships, and I didn't. So I feel a little bit bad about that.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  No kidding. Are you Russian?

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Yes, I am. Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  I know a few Russians. Whenever I ask them questions like, oh, are you generally happy with you? These are simultaneously the most stoic, but also the most miserable, and I can't decide which it is. What's going on with that? Like, if you ask a Russian guy if he's happy, he'll look at you like you just asked him if he planned to grow another foot and a half by the weekend.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Okay, so I do have some insight into this. I am Russian, but I came to the US when I was about 10 years old. I'm very Americanized, so I'm actually more American than Russian. We actually have a paper that Russians don't appear happy in public, but they do appear happy in private. So if you go inside the Russian home, they'll be drinking and singing. They actually will look a lot happier than the average American home. When I first immigrated here, I would be invited sometimes to my friends' dinners, and I thought they were just ridiculously serious. They'd be like, will you please pass the salt? And they would have this very quiet conversation, whereas in a Russian home, sometimes they're yelling like-

• 10:53Speaker 02

  I thought vodka might have something to do with it.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Exactly, of course, of course. They're like reciting poetry. Anyway, so there's a little bit of a notion of the evil eye, that if you appear successful or happy in public, that something bad will happen to you. When I had my first baby in LA, my mom were like, Sonia, you cannot take the baby outside. Do not take her baby.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  I've heard this.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  They'll be envious that you have this beautiful baby. I'm like, this is ridiculous. I'm not going to stay at home all day with the baby and not show my face.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a Russian thing. I stayed in Ukraine for several months, 25 years ago, with Russians, and they were quite happy at home. The drinking definitely had something to do with it. But there was almost this, don't get too happy about something because it's probably just going to disappoint you later. And I thought that was the weirdest way to look at anything. I remember being like, oh, this is so great. Aren't you excited for this? And they were like, a little. Everything was cautious.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  That's because life in the Soviet Union or Russia really was like that. Like, you really can't ever depend on anything. We're lucky in America, right? It's a meritocracy. I mean, whatever, you could argue about what's happening right now. It's less so. But the problem with meritocracies is that if you don't succeed and if you're not happy, the only person you can blame is yourself.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  It's your fault, yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  So there's actually more suicidality, more depression, anxiety in sort of more meritocratic cultures, I believe.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Really? That's interesting. So the government is against me, and there's no upward mobility. Oh, well, everybody else is in the same boat, except for the Politburo, so it's not my fault. But here, it's like, hey, your business didn't succeed, and maybe it's because your crop got wiped out by a tornado. But somehow, everyone still blames you because it's America, and you could have done something to avoid that. Yeah, that's an interesting insight, okay. So on to the topic of love, the topic of your current book. How can somebody be surrounded by people who genuinely love them and still feel completely unloved?

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, isn't that interesting? I mean, it's often not such a so black and white. My co-author, Harry Rees, and I did a survey expressly for our book, and we asked people, do you feel loved in your relationships? And 70% could name at least one relationship in their life that's significant, where they don't feel as loved as they want to be. And I think that number is actually an understatement. I bet there's more than that. And so, yeah, so maybe you want to be loved a little bit more, a little bit more frequently. Why that is, I'm not really an expert on the why. I think there's lots of reasons. It could be somehow you're not seeing, you're not aware of it. It's not getting in. You're not taking it seriously. You don't think it's authentic. Imagine this is a cup of love, and you're pouring love into my cup of love, and maybe there's a leak in the bottom, and it's somehow leaking out. Or maybe the top has only a very small opening. It's not quite getting in.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Some people think this is a metaphor for anxious attachment and avoidant attachment. So people who are insecurely attached, maybe the love is not getting in somehow. But the point being is that it's a common, that it happens, that we can be loved but not feel loved. And by the way, you can be smart and not feel smart. We all know people who are beautiful and don't think they're beautiful, right? So this is not just unique to love.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, well, it makes me a little bit sad, I suppose. What is the difference between intellectually knowing that somebody loves me and then feeling it in my body, or knowing it in a different level?

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, well, feeling love basically is really feeling like there's someone, I mean, the way we define it, it's a, you feel this sort of care, warmth, affection, and you really feel like you matter to the other person. You make a difference in their life, and you really feel it in your bones. And so that's really what feeling loved is, like-

• 14:04Speaker 02

  But isn't that a weirdly subjective interpretation on my part of their behavior? They almost can't really control that.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  That's actually what our book is about. It's actually quite empowering, because when people don't feel loved, they think, ah, maybe there's something wrong with me. I need to like make myself more lovable. I have to show you how wonderful I am, right? Or what good qualities I have. Or I have to somehow change you, change you to love me more. And yet, it's actually more under your control. You don't have to change yourself. You don't have to change the other person. What we argue is all you have to do is change the conversation.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  When you think about it, a relationship is a series of conversations, right? Even when you're not talking, right? You're always communicating. And so it's just take it one conversation at a time. In the next conversation, do something to make the other person feel more loved and to make you feel more loved. It's sort of a dynamic process in the next conversation. So it's really about changing the conversations in your lives, which seems a lot more feasible and workable and controllable, right?

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. It seems strange that there's two people who could get the same treatment. One person feels really loved and fulfilled by that, and the other person is like, completely doesn't have, absorb that at all.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  I know. It could be self-esteem, by the way. We talk a little bit about, like, if you don't have self-love, first of all, it's going to leak out, so the other person is going to sense that. Yeah, you're not going to really believe. When you're saying, I love you, I'm not really going to believe it. And so one of the keys to feeling loved is to be known. So people who really don't show themselves to others, if I'm not really showing what matters to me to you, and I'm not showing you who I really am, I'm not really, even if you say, I love you, I'll be like, he doesn't know me. How, what is he loving? When he says, I love you, what part of me is he loving? Just this one little side that I'm showing, right?

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  And so that's one of the keys, is to really show more of yourself.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Tell me about this television appearance. You opened the book with this. It's a fun anecdote, I think.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  So, oh, yeah, I was asked a long time ago, well, you know, I'm a happiness expert. I've been on lots of TV shows, and I often get asked questions like, what is the secret to happiness? Or like, what are the top three? I still remember that.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  This is very mass media-

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Soundbite nonsense.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  I still remember, like, a very last minute, the producer runs in, they're like, the host wants to know, I think it was Jane Pauli, what are the top three secrets to happiness? I'm like, oh, okay, okay.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  You have 38 seconds before you go live on television.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  And so I always hated that question, like, what is the secret to happiness? And I started talking to Harry Rees, who's an eminent relationship scientist. He said, I don't know what the secret to happiness is, but I know the difference between people who are happy and unhappy. The difference is that happy people feel loved. That's one, like, source of this whole book.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  How convenient that both of them tie together so neatly.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  But the other source actually comes from the 37 years of research that I've been doing. So in 1998, so it's less than 30, which is, what, 28 years ago? Bill Clinton was in the White House. This is a long time ago. My lab, my graduate students and I, we pioneered what we call happiness intervention. So we started doing these studies, experiments, to test what kind of practices make people happier. So interventions are like clinical trials, right? But instead of testing a vaccine, you know, or a medication, or surgery, we're testing like gratitude, or kindness, or, you know, anything you could do to be happier. And after 28 years of these interventions, or maybe a little five years ago, so it hit us, it hit me.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  We have an epiphany, which is that almost all of the interventions that work to make us happier, the reason they work is they make us feel more connected to and loved by others. So really feeling loved is the key. So when I write a gratitude letter to my mom, it makes me feel more loved by her. When I do an act of kindness for my mom, or for my colleague, or for my best friend, it makes me feel more loved or connected to them. So that's really the key to happiness.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Huh, okay. This is fascinating, because now I'm recontextualizing all this behavior from my wife to my kids. Oh, okay, this is maybe why they're doing this. And I guess it's probably more obvious when you come at it from that frame, like, of course, this is why we do this.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  It's all about connection and love.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  And so now, when we don't feel connected or loved, it almost feels like we're going to die, right?

• 17:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  It feels awful.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  It seems like we shouldn't have necessarily evolved that, right? Like, why would you feel lonely if you're still socially connected?

• 17:59Speaker 03

  I know, I know. Yeah, that's a, that's a really great question. Like, why would you? I mean, I would say, again, I guess you're not truly, if you're feeling lonely, I mean, unless there's a biological problem, because I think there's some people who are depressed who just feel lonely, and they're not really irrational.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 03

  But for, let's say, the rest of us, loneliness is a signal that there's something off, like, that you need to kind of put more energy into reconnecting. Or maybe there's a relationship that sort of needs to repair, and that's healthy, right? That's good. It's a signal. So think of it as a signal. Now, obviously, if you're lonely all the time, that's not very adaptive. But momentary feelings of loneliness, when people move to a new city, or they start a new career, right? They might feel lonely at first. That's okay, you know? That means that they need to like work hard at connecting.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  I don't know if this is a guy thing, or a me thing, or something, but I remember when I was working like 16-hour days, alone in an office. My business partners were out like drinking and wasting their time and not helping. I didn't notice that I was lonely, but then my buddy was like, hey, let's go eat sushi, which I hadn't, I don't know, I probably hadn't gone out and done anything for literally years at this point, just work. And it felt like years, anyway. And I went out and I ate sushi, mediocre sushi in Santa Monica with this friend that I hadn't seen in a while. And I remember leaving and being like, this was the best night that I've ever had. This person is basically, and I was like, wait, wait, wait, real talk. This is not my best friend. I haven't known him since I was four years old or anything. Why does it feel that way? And I remember sitting down and going, maybe I need to relax a little more than I am.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  I guess stress enough. Feeling connected is the key to happiness. Of course, working on your relationships really matters, right? That's why your relationship with your wife, your kids, your best friend, your colleagues, really matter. By the way, our book is called How to Feel Loved. It's not only about romantic relationships, it's about all kinds of relationships. We even have a chapter, how does this apply to parent-child relationships, to colleague, to boss-employee relationships? Because feeling loved is important in all contexts, you know? And you can, again, love, you can define very broadly.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Sure, I was going to say, you're working at Amazon, your boss maybe doesn't love you, per se.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  But if you ask people, they will say, like, there are colleagues that they feel loved by, or that they love. I wish we could bring the word love more into our daily life. I use it with my friends all the time. In fact, my kids get confused because I'll be on the phone. I'll be like, I love you so much. And they're like, Mom, who are you talking to? I'm like, I'm talking to my friend.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Who you've never met, who's medium close to the fan.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Well, I wouldn't say medium close, but yeah, I, love is great. Right? Let's bring love back.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Guys have trouble with this.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  I can count on one hand, the number of guys who I see and they're like, I love you, man. I haven't seen you in so long. I mean, there, there's also that moment where it's like, do I say it back now? I don't know. I have to say it back.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  I dare you this week to say I love you to a male friend.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  I did it yesterday.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  Oh, awesome.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  It's not my friend who I've known since I was five, but that wasn't that hard. I've known him since I was five.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  I was talking to a male friend who says he has a friend who they've known each other forever too. And my friend is always saying to the guy, I love you, but he never says it back. And he's like, oh, I know he loves me. He just, whatever reason, he just can't say it. That's okay. Cause you know, they love you.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Very much a guy thing.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  That could be you. That could be you. Yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  I don't have a problem saying it, but I think most guys do. It's very vulnerable. I bet you half my friends barely even say it to their wife. They probably send a text.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  It's very vulnerable, but it's so important. This is, I mean, this is one way that you feel loved when the other person expresses it. And again, one of the keys to feeling loved is to be known. And part of being known is to be vulnerable, right? Cause you have to show parts of yourself that are vulnerable. And if you're not willing to show that, you have to take that risk. You have to take that risk if you want to feel loved, just like with anything in life. If you want to have a great career, have children, ask out that beautiful woman, you have to take a risk.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  This is funny because I, if we give the listener the homework to go say, I love you to a friend. All of the women are going to go, okay, I've done that eight times this week. And all the guys are going to go, is this optional?

• 21:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  I guess I'll call my mom. It's going to be something like that.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  I'll be so happy if half your male listeners will say, I love you to someone this week. They wouldn't have otherwise.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  And don't do it by email. Don't send a text.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  It's a good start. You know what? It's a start.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  So that counts.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  That's like a first step. Yeah. Start with a text or email and then you can go on. And when you feel comfortable with that.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  Then you can say it out loud.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  We can give them the crutches, send it as a text and then nervously stare at your phone where the dots come back and see what the person's going to say. Tell us about Erica. She's got the sort of perfect life and still feels lonely. Stays up at night.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  You can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely, right? And in fact, that's the definition of loneliness. Or you can have people in your life who love you and you don't feel loved. And so we have lots of examples of people like that. And the book is really about like what to do, right? If you're in that situation and, and really what to do is you need to go first. It's actually a little bit counterintuitive. If you don't feel loved, and I'm actually thinking of a family member in my life who I don't feel as loved as biased as I'd like to be. What do I do? I need to go first and make them feel loved and hopefully they'll reciprocate, right? And how do you make them feel loved? Again, the key to feeling loved is to be known, but also to know the other person. I need to really get to know that person. So think about that person, whether it's a colleague or best friend or child or parent that you want to feel more loved by.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  You need to show interest in them, curiosity in them, ask them questions. So how do you make someone feel loved? By really getting to know what matters to them. But it has to be genuine, authentic, right? You can't fake it. Like you start by asking questions. Ask them, show genuine curiosity in their story, in their inner life. You know how people are always telling you about the details of their day and they're going on and on and on. Actually, I was, I was just stuck in line behind a woman at the checkout and she's just like, oh, this parking lot. She's going on and on about some.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  She's talking to you?

• 23:18Speaker 03

  No, she's talking to the cashier.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  I need to like buy my bagel and I have compassion for people like that.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  But also clearly like she's lonely.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Very, yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  And the cashier is like being friendly, but you know, really needs to get on. And she's like, oh, because this is parking lot. But why is it that people feel the need to tell each other people like the details of their day, which are usually really boring? They really want to be seen and heard, right? And so if that person showed true interest in that woman's story, she would probably feel loved. And by the way, you can feel loved temporarily even by a stranger. I think about it as drops of love. The amount of drops of love are falling on you. Great. Right? Anyway, so if I want to feel more loved by a family member, the first thing I do is show curiosity in them and ask them questions and think about their interests and hobbies and ask about those.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Can you ask about the mundane details of their life? You're like, how was your walk this morning? I mean, does that count or do you go deeper than that right off the bat?

• 24:10Speaker 03

  I'm all for deep conversation. I think we don't have those enough. I'm done with small talk, but sometimes the small talk is like lubricant that you have to kind of start. It's like a social lubricant.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  You have to read the room. You don't want to go deep too fast, too soon. Cause people's like walls will go right up.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  But most people, so there's actually a whole set of research studies on this that we think if we ask people deep personal questions, they will think, oh, you're prying, right? Or it's going to be uncomfortable, but on average, people want to be asked. They want to be seen.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  I was an exchange student in Germany in the nineties and I have a host family there. The mother passed away, but 20 plus, whatever years ago, the host father had left her for another woman. They came to my wedding and I was like, so what happened there? And he was told me, and then I said, what is my host brother, what does he think? And he goes, oh, we've never talked about this. You and I just talked about this on the walk to the bar from the car. 10 times more than I've ever spoken to my son about this.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  And I thought, oh, that sounds like a problem. You should probably handle that.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  I think you just have to start, start with a little bit. And in fact, even like my kids, I think I asked them like, do you ask your dad this question? They're like, oh no, I don't want to ask him that. I'm like, actually you should ask him. I think he'll, we want to be asked. Our kids almost never ask parents questions. It's like the other device, the other kind of recommendation I have for your listeners is like, call your mom or dad or caregiver and ask them questions. Be curious about their life, because that's pretty rare too.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Apparently admiration and attention aren't the same thing as love. Bad news for influencers and potentially devastating news for LinkedIn. We'll be right back.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  I also want to let you in on a little inside baseball that maybe a lot of people don't know. When you use our promo code, it does help support the show. We don't get a percentage of every sale or anything like that, but the company knows, hey, people are hearing the ad, they're using this code. That means they're more likely to renew their sponsorship with the show. So if you sign up, you're going to buy something, please use our code. Often enough it's Jordan, but check it out on the deals page at jordanharbinger.com/deals. It's a win-win situation. You get a discount and you help keep the show going strong. Thank you for your support. Now back to Sonia Lubomirsky. I started interviewing my parents on video just because they're in their mid 80s and it's probably one of my last chances. My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, so now's the time.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Before she doesn't want to or can't remember things or something like that. And I've got these little cards. They're, I can't remember what they're called. They sell them on Amazon.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  Conversation cards.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  It's something like that. Yeah. But I can't remember the brand or anything, but it probably doesn't even matter. There's a million varieties and there's ones for children. There's ones for friends. There's ones for families, ones for parents. A lot of them are kind of crap, cliche nonsense, but so those goes toward the back. But you'd be surprised, well, maybe not you, but many people would be surprised what you get out of your mom and dad. What's a piece of advice you'd wish you'd taken earlier? And you think, oh, this is silly. And my dad will just come up with something when I was 17. And you're just like, oh, I've never heard this story. And my mom will be like, I never heard that story either. And it's pretty incredible to get that out on video.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  Amazing. I'm so glad you're doing that. On Father's Day this year, the New York Times published this article saying something like questions to ask your dad. I have four kids, so I sent them to all of them, like hoping that they would ask. And I think some of them actually did.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  And there were great questions. They were like, who were you before you became a dad? What is something you would have told your younger self about being a father? Or like, I don't know, what was like the scariest thing about being a father or things like that?

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  It was all about fatherhood. My favorite actually conversation deck, and I don't get any money from them. It's called the and, you know, like weird name. And so they have really good questions, but as you say, there's tons of them.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  I'm going to write that one.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  So the word the and then and, right?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  And they also have it for like strangers and some of them are so good. My favorite question, and this is like the most advanced level question you can ask, especially if you have a romantic partner or a best friend is ask me something you're afraid to ask me.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. I've gotten that card before and I put it right in the back because I'm afraid to ask.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  No, I mean.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  That question.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  That's a really hard one.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Oof.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  I remember having, being in a relationship. One of the questions we, we talked about was like, what's the hardest thing about our relationship?

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Things like that. What do you think I could have achieved or like a dream that I have not been about the other person, not about yourself? Anyway, so if you're at a loss for words, use these conversation cards.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  It's called the, and I'll say, team, when you put this in the show notes, dump it in the Slack, because I'm going to forget to go and buy that, that by the end of the show. So you guys remind me.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  I'll grab that. I feel like you just can't get enough. And like I have three or four decks, a bunch of the questions are probably the same, but I don't care because I don't know, $9 or something like that. And the gems you get out of your parents, wife, whatever, kids are priceless.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  The point about that is getting to know the other person, right? So that you, people feel loved when you're genuinely interested in asking these questions. Obviously you don't, don't just do it in a rote way. So you're not really interested and you really want to hear the answer. And then, but by the way, when they're telling the story and they're answering, you want to really listen. One of the mindsets we talk about in our, in my book, it's called listening to learn. Is you really listening to learn something and not trying to fix it? You're really paying attention, right? So that's really key and it's even more key, I think, with people we've known for a long time. So the research shows that we stop being curious about the people we've known the longest.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  That totally tracks. Of course. Yeah. Well, I sleep with her every night. What am I, I don't know. I'm going to ask a new question. I couldn't even think of a new question.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  But you know what? And in fact, actually sex is actually a great space for that. We just assumed that everything we've been doing for years is they still like doing, right? So it actually is worth asking, um, do you still like that? You know, maybe we should try something new.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  I never liked that actually.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Sorry. I lied to you on our fifth date and I never corrected the record.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  And that's really hard to say after many years.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  20 years later, what?

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. But it's very vulnerable, but you know, it's worth talking about. But anyway, this is just one space, but the people we've known for the longest, we think we know everything about them. And yet we, of course we don't, in part because we're always changing, right? Every day, like you're having new interviews and experiences and thoughts and dreams and wishes and self doubts and whatever anxieties.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Both good and bad things. Those are all new every day. So there's always new things happening and hopefully you're evolving too. So we want to keep being curious about the people even that we've known the longest.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good point, especially I think when kids come into the picture. Because for example, I'll go on a two week trip to Laos with a group of entrepreneurs or something like that. But my wife stays back with the kids. So she's having two weeks of experiences, being a mom with the kids. Maybe some of it's routine, maybe some of it's not. And I'm in another country with a bunch of new people climbing a mountain, literally. And I don't know, avoiding minefields or something like that. So then I come back and it, how was your trip? Jeez, where do I even start? It would take me three hours to explain the first two days. And then you just kind of go, well, it was fun.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  You also, you don't want to kind of like boast or sort of show that-

• 31:29Speaker 02

  It was great. I really enjoyed the break I took from you and the kids.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  How was waking up at four o'clock in the morning every night?

• 31:34Speaker 03

  And I remember, like, I've always worked, but there was a time where I would be home with the kids and my husband was a lawyer and he would come back and I felt like I had nothing to tell him. And now thinking back on it, of course, there's so many things. It's not just, oh, I did this and I did that and then I changed the diaper. It was more like, how are you feeling now about being a mother? Or like, are you kind of anxious about this thing? Or like, did you feel like this friendship of yours is improving or deteriorating? You know, I mean, there's just so many things that we're thinking in our heads-

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  That we could be talking about with our spouse.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  It's true. I talk a lot with my wife, but some stuff, we don't often do the deep stuff, I would say, unless we're in the car. Cause we have one of those Dexes in the car and we pull those out and it's like-

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Actually, the car is a good, that's the pro tip. No one's like, oh, I have to go make dinner now, or no one's getting a phone call. You're just in a car, one of you is driving and the other person is sitting there holding the car.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Right. And when your kids get older, that's also the time to have deep conversations with them, because they can't run away. Or like, obviously, a walk, a hike. Right. I totally agree. I mean, I remember having, I wanted to talk to my two teenagers about porn.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Oh, God. How do you even start that conversation?

• 32:37Speaker 03

  I know. And I, but I wanted to sort of tell them, it's really not that realistic. Yeah, I kind of, I don't know. I wanted to say a few things about it. And so I decided to do it in the car. It was a boy and a girl. I really wanted to talk to the boy more than the girl.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, she, he's probably slightly more interested in it.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  And it was a little awkward and it was actually hilarious because they couldn't run away. It was very awkward. He didn't say anything.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  How old was he at the time?

• 32:57Speaker 03

  I think they were both 18, 16, 17.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  So, okay. Did they have smartphones and stuff by then? Was that, what year? Like, was this?

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Maybe they had phones, but not like smartphones. But anyway, so-

• 33:06Speaker 02

  So he had seen plenty of porn by then?

• 33:08Speaker 03

  I'm sure he had. I'm sure he had. I'm sure he had.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  But anyway, it was really awkward. So he really didn't say anything, but the girl was hilarious. She saw how awkward it was. It was actually really sweet of her. She decided to make it easy for us. She started asking me a lot of questions. So she's asking me all these questions because it wasn't really about her. So she's like, oh, well, mom, what do you think about this? Anyway, so the point of the story is have those hard conversations in the car.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  I cannot imagine talking about porn with my mother.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  I just wanted to say a few things. I just want you to know, women don't necessarily want what you're seeing. Mostly, they're like, we know.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, we can tell. It looks horrible. But you know what, though? A lot of guys don't know that. I get letters from people like that, or I talk to people online and I'm like, oh, God, the line between reality and fantasy for you is completely blurred. And then I'm like, what is this person like in real life?

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  How do they function? Do they think action movies are real too? I mean, I'm so confused. What is happening right now?

• 34:05Speaker 03

  Hilarious, hilarious.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  And then you're thinking, am I talking really to a 30-year-old? Because this person is 13 years old in my mentally.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  So yeah, so deep conversations are important. The key to feeling loved is to know and to be known. And to do that is to have real conversations, authentic, deep conversations about things that matter. They don't have to be negative. It doesn't have to be your secrets or traumas. It could just be about, hey, that TV show everyone else loves, I actually don't like it.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  I think it's really boring. Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that's vulnerable also to admit sometimes. Yeah, just what really is on your mind, what really matters. On a first date, I will sometimes ask that. What do you think about a lot? Like, when you wake up in the morning or in the shower and driving in the middle of the night? What do your thoughts turn to? And that's actually a good question to ask, because it doesn't have to be like really vulnerable, you know? It could be like, oh, I think about my mom getting older, you know? But it could be like, I actually get, have anxiety, like, I'll be anxious about little things at work or with kids. And so in the middle of the night, I'll think, I'll have these little anxious thoughts. So that's a little vulnerable, but it's also shows a little bit more of myself.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. That's true. And then I suppose you could say, was there anything I could do to help with those particular bits of anxiety? And you go, no, I just love worrying. It's my second favorite hobby.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  But it shows your true self. I, I know, I just, I'm just so bored with small talk. Again, it's not a good way of knowing and being known. Now, if you're into, whatever, World Cup, you can spend hours talking about it. That's great. What I call kind of medium talk. It's like, you're interested in the topic, great, you can really relate. But that's not how you really connect. Well, you can connect a little bit like that, but-

• 35:28Speaker 02

  That's how guys connect. That's the limit most of the time.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  But to really connect in a deep way where you're like, oh, that person-

• 35:34Speaker 02

  He likes Barcelona. I feel seen. He loves Spain. Messi. Yeah. I pick on guys a little bit when these topics happen because I, one, I am one and I've seen how they connect. And a lot of it is just, especially in light of the fact that I had dinner with my childhood friend, who I met when I was five, last night. And he was like, hey, man, dump of all of these real, it wasn't like, hey, so what's cracking? It was like, hey, both of my kids have special needs, not mine, but his. And so that's been really tough. And I've been working 17-hour days. And he wasn't even just ranting. It was, we just started real.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  It's like factual. Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Yes. We started real because I've known him over 40 years. There's no pretense left, man. That stuff expired in the eighties, right?

• 36:17Speaker 03

  That's great. I remember my husband coming back from like having dinner with a friend, a colleague, and they'd spent hours talking. And I said to him, oh, you know, I heard that he is getting a divorce. And my husband's like, really? And I'm like, this didn't come up.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  This didn't come up.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  In your three-hour dinner?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  I know. I'm like, what?

• 36:33Speaker 02

  He didn't mention?

• 36:34Speaker 03

  But I think that's a guy thing. Maybe they-

• 36:36Speaker 02

  It so is.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Whatever. They talked about football. I don't know what they talked about.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  And also, it's, the other guy maybe didn't even hide it. He just didn't think to even discuss that, because why would you?

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Anyway, so deep, being known and knowing the other is really key. Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. I bet his wife had a three-hour dinner with her friend and they only talked about the divorce.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Of course, of course.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  That's all they talked about the whole time, with three minutes at the end to talk about the other person's kids, because it's polite. Yeah, that's so, gosh, guys, we gotta get those cards. It's crazy how romantic partners are both the people who can make us feel the most loved and the people with whom we feel that maybe the largest deficit in love or connection. You have data on this, I assume, right? From your surveys and everything?

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. There's the, 40% in our survey said they wish they felt more loved by their romantic partner. But their romantic partner was also the person that they felt most loved by.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Oh, that's interesting. So it's you love me the most, but I still want a little bit more.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. Or it's a little bit different people who are saying, I really feel loved by my partner. And then another set is like, I'm not feeling loved by my partner.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  But they're both a big group of people, maybe 40, 40 or something. Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Oh, I see. Yeah, okay.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  So it could be that too. Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Do most people feel loved or most people don't feel loved? What does the survey data say on this?

• 37:50Speaker 03

  Well, again, I think most people feel loved, but 70% would like to feel more loved in at least one relationship in their life. That means that maybe many other relationships-

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Oh, geez.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  They're feeling loved enough. So that could be with their kid or their mom, or their colleague, or their boss, or their romantic partner. 40% want to feel more loved by their romantic partner. Again, that doesn't mean they don't feel loved at all, just not enough.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Huh. I feel loved by all of the people that I care to be loved by generally.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  So I think you're in the 30%.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Okay. My parents are great. My wife's great. My kids are great.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Got some close friends. Everybody else, they're dead to me. I don't care. No. But I mean, I don't care if like the barista I see in the morning loves me. That's not really high on my list. But the close relationships? Yeah. I don't have anybody where I'm like, oh, gosh, I'm really on the rocks with this person.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  So maybe you're doing all the right things, because the right things to do, again, are sharing, listening, showing curiosity, showing warmth and acceptance of the other person. So, by the way, when I've been on a podcast to talk about my book, How to Feel Loved, some of them say like, so you basically wrote a book about podcasting? Because it's all about sharing, listening, curiosity, right?

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  But you probably already are good at those things?

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Yes, but also, you know what? I gotta give credit where credit is due. My friends are really good at these things too. Like I mentioned, my friend was the one who started last night was like, how are your kids doing? My kids both have special needs. My wife's losing her mind. I've been working 17-hour days. I didn't say, hey, let's ditch the small talk. Let's do this. And my producer, Gabriel, who's also, I would say, one of my best friends, definitely, he'll just say like, hey, man, how are you? By the way, I've been meaning to ask you, how are you feeling about your mom being diagnosed with Alzheimer's? And that's like, this is not a shortened version of the conversation. This is how the phone call starts. So they do that for me. And I go, okay, this is, years ago, I would go, oh, okay, we're doing this. And now I'm just used to it. So I have that. And then I think that's probably rubbed off on me with other relationships.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  That's awesome. And you know, if more of us do that, it's gonna rub off on others, right? So we can literally start a revolution.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's contagious.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  Exactly. More and more people are gonna be engaging in conversations that matter.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  I think it actually is contagious, because if you have, for example, to your point earlier, if your friend says, I love you, man, we don't see each other enough. You go, wow, that felt pretty good. Then you do it to your other friend. I'm getting emotional right now even telling the story, because you're like, I want to deliver that. That felt amazing. You know, if he does the same thing, calls his sister and says the same thing, I feel like it really actually is quite contagious. Cause the feeling is, especially for guys like me who are starved for that shit, it feel like it's quenching a thirst that you didn't know you had.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Amazing. Now, there's a friend and colleague whose name is Nick Epley, and he has all this really cool research.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  I think he's been on my show.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  He has a new book called A Little More Socials, and he's a great guy. I love him. But he has this really beautiful research. And almost all of it is like, we underestimate how rewarding X is. And so one cool study is like reaching out to friends, old friends, or, or, you know, whatever, old, new friends. And just like sending a text, hey, I'm thinking about you, or how you doing? And we don't do it enough, because we're like, oh, I don't know. It's been a while. Maybe they don't want to hear from me. They'll be a little awkward. But on average, people love to get those texts. Like, right? Wouldn't you want to get that text right now?

• 40:53Speaker 02

  I have a free course that I sometimes shill on this show. It's called Six Minute Networking and it's free. It's at sixminutenetworking.com. And I think the first exercise is every weekday, go to the bottom of your phone list, because those are the threads that are like five years old, because it sorts by recent usually. You skip the ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends, whatever, but then send a message. It's like, hey, I haven't talked to you in such a long time. Jesus, look, the last message is from pre-pen. I have had two kids since then. Here's a photo of them. Is this even still your phone number? And then you use your full name, because if it's not saved, they're not gonna answer you, right? Cause it's embarrassing. And you do it with four, because two might be like dead number, new phone, who dis?

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Or I was your boss at a movie theater 20 years ago. I don't really care. So then you get one or two responses. And those people are universally thrilled to hear from you.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  It's so funny. Even I know this. And I forget, I got a text from a colleague friend, old friend, who I really hadn't talked to in years. And he said, I think about you more than you will know.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  By the way, this is like a romantic thing.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  No, it's just in context, it's a nice thing.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  And I was like, oh, my God. And I just thought, he never thought about me. And so I think we underestimate how important that is. And that also applies to, by the way, to doing little acts of kindness for people, to giving compliments, to expressing gratitude, right? I have a whole line of research on gratitude. It's good for the self, it's good for others, it's good for connection, right? Just say like, I really appreciate that thing that you did for me. We just don't do that enough.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  One of the other elements of the exercise that I failed to mention is if something reminds you of someone, instead of just going, oh, that reminds me of Tim, you go, oh, I need to text this person. You can take a photo of the weird thing on the menu that Tim made once and made everybody barf, and you can send him a photo, hey, this restaurant makes your favorite food, and suddenly everyone's laughing about this.

• 42:41Speaker 03

  I love that because again, you think of someone else much more often than you ever tell them.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Always.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  People will see me on a podcast, right? And like, a lot of people will write like, hey, I saw you, but most people don't. If I see someone mention a newspaper, I don't necessarily write to, hey, I saw you. But I think it's cool, I love it when they do. It's just like a little connection.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Some of the craziest things have come out of this. I don't know if you know Graham Wood. He's a journalist. He writes for The Atlantic and things like that. He writes about ISIS or Iran. So he wrote a piece for The Atlantic. I happened to see it in social media pop up or something like that. And I was like, Graham Wood, I haven't talked to that guy in a really long time since he's been on the show. He had a book about ISIS. So I sent him a text and he's like, where are you, Jordan? I haven't talked to you forever. I'm actually in China. And I said, that's weird, I'm in China. He goes, oh, yeah, I'm in Yunnan, actually, with my kids. And I said, I'm in Yunnan right now with my kids. And I said, where are you, Dali? He goes, yeah. I go, where? No, I am too. I'm at a coffee shop. He said, me too. He was 30 seconds walk from where I was in freaking China. And I texted him because I read his piece on Iran.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there's such great connections. I guess we want to do those, just again, encouragement to your listeners, like, just do it a little bit more often than you do. Like, we were, sometimes we're working, we don't have time to write that text, but people love hearing from you, yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  If you're really working that hard, throw it in your to-do app.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Because it's just, it is such a light touch thing to do. Sending a text is 10 seconds. What people are afraid of is they're like, oh, but then they're going to want to have lunch. And I'm like, don't flatter yourself. These people are all busy.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  And if they do say, oh, we should get together and do something and you don't have time, you can say that. But people are just obsessed with the idea that, and I think they're scared to reconnect because, I don't know, again, it feels vulnerable or something. What is really the danger of all these people suddenly wanting to hang out with you? Like, how cool are you, really?

• 44:21Speaker 03

  But actually, you're right. Either you think you'll be rejected, they don't want to hear from you, or the other way, oh, they're going to want to be like, I have had that, by the way, worry myself. But you're right. Look, words also, we can always say, yes, things could be awkward, you can always just communicate about it.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  It's also texting. You can just pretend you didn't see it if they keep asking you to hang out, right?

• 44:41Speaker 02

  No, that's not what mature people do. Why does another person, and I'm making an assumption here, so maybe this is incorrect, but why does another person understanding us, why does that make the world feel physically less threatening?

• 44:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, again, we all want to really feel seen and heard. And yet, feeling safe versus feeling at risk, right? That's all like, I mean, the important kind of things is to feel safe versus to feel at risk, to feel whole or like, healthy as opposed to broken, and to feel at home versus lost, right? I guess when we're like, in our family, we have, we have a great family life, our caregivers, we just feel so loved and safe with them, right? And we feel like really unknown by them. And so I think that's that feeling that we're kind of searching for in our relationships as adults. So when we find a romantic partner that really understands us, and we feel really safe with them, I guess it kind of brings us back to that womb feeling, you know? I'm just speculating, I'm not a developmental psychologist. But yeah, feeling understood, again, the key to feeling loved is to really be known

• 45:37Speaker 03

  and know the other person. And sort of feeling understood is almost the same as feeling, being known, feeling known.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Tell me about the spouse hand-holding experiment. I feel like that, were they going to zap somebody or sting somebody or poke somebody? Anyway, they were like, oh, hold your husband's hand. And then it was like, they were way less anxious about the pain stimulus.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And I actually had that experience where I had to get an amnio.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  What is that?

• 45:57Speaker 03

  When you're pregnant and they're testing to make sure the baby's okay. Like, they put this like-

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Oh, they test the fluid?

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, they put this giant needle or something into your, and it's actually kind of, could be painful.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, it sounds really horrible and my stomach is clenching up.

• 46:09Speaker 03

  I got pregnant, my, when my daughter was like 12. And my husband had this trial in DC, and so he couldn't be there for the amnio. And so I asked her to come with me. And it was like magic, like, it really was painful because he couldn't find, like, the fetal cells are like floating around.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, my stomach is hurting in sympathy for you.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  It's not really that painful. It's a little painful. But because he couldn't really find the fetal cell, so he kept poking more and more. But my daughter, I just held her hand, and she was 12, and it's like, I didn't feel the pain.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  How long is the needle? Because it's got to go through abdominal muscle and fat into the womb.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  It's a big thing.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  My God.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  I kind of try not to look at it. But the thing is, you're so excited to have the procedure because you really want to know. And they also tell you the gender, so it's kind of exciting.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  I'm just imagining like a five-inch-long syringe needle.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  I think it's pretty long.

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Brutal.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  But the point is, yeah, like, a loved one, you holding their hand, it literally reduces pain, eliminates pain. So it's like magic.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  The goal is not to trick somebody into loving you more by becoming their unpaid emotional support animal, which is really good news because those vests look ridiculous. We'll be right back.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  If you liked this episode of the show, I invite you to do what smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment, support our sponsors, they make the show possible. All of the deals and discounts are searchable and clickable on the website at jordanharbinger.com/deals. If you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find a code, email me, [email protected]. We're happy to dig those up for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Sonia Lubomirsky.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  My son is super afraid of shots. He's not even afraid of the needle, he just gets anxiety around the shots. My daughter doesn't even seem to care, she's foreign, super tough. But my son is, he'll melt down before we get in the car to go to the doctor if he thinks he might get a shot.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  And you know, it gets worse as they get older because they are anticipating better the older they are. Anyway, yeah, so you hold his hand, I always had them on their, on my lap or whatever.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  One time, he had to get a vaccine for something, and I asked him if it would make him feel better if I also got it. And she's like, I can't vaccinate you for rubella, you're 45 years old. And I said, how much for a fake vaccine?

• 48:18Speaker 03

  That's hilarious. I mean, they do sham vaccines, right? They do study-

• 48:20Speaker 02

  She gave me a fake vaccine.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  That's hilarious. Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious. Because we have done that, like, COVID vaccines, like, we do it all together as a family.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  That's interesting. It's almost like love, or if the feeling of love helps us share the load, share the burden.

• 48:34Speaker 03

  Totally, share the pain, share the, yeah, yeah, love is incredible. That's why I'm like, but let's bring love back.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  To every relationship, my colleague Barb Fredrickson, yeah, she's the one who has this theory of sort of drops of love. I used to think it's like, love is this grand thing. I think it's actually a Russian idea, like, you can only fall in love once in your life because more than that, that's not really love. And now I'm like, no, like, as Barb says, there could be little drops of love, like, we could be talking and have like, a little drop of love between us. And it's beautiful. You know, it doesn't last long, that's okay. And maybe with a colleague, there's more drops or balloons. So, great, yeah, let's bring it back.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  Is it a Russian literature idea that you can only fall in love once? Where does that come from?

• 49:12Speaker 03

  I don't know. It probably is part of the culture. I don't know, it could just be me. But I've always thought, like, my friends, I remember being young and my friends would be like, every boyfriend they had, they were like, oh, I was in love with him. And I was like, really? Was that like, really true love? And I do think that they were defining love in a very loose way, more like crusher infatuation, they called love, you know? I still don't think I've been in love like, that many times in my life, like, really, really true love. I mean, I guess my, my criteria, I don't know if this is a Russian thing, is like, how long does it take you to get over it, right? If you're over it like, a month later, I don't think that was real love.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  That's a good point.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  It should take at least probably a year or more.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  That's grim.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  Well, that's for romantic love.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  I see, but still.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  The book has some examples of quiet moments of love. I would love to talk about these because I feel like these are pretty salient, especially for people who think love is, like you said, grandiose, or has to be a big gesture.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  I mean, my favorite example is, again, it could be your friend, or a colleague, or a partner, they get you something, they get you that cup of coffee, or the croissant, or the gum, or whatever, the sweater, the blanket, before like, you even knew that you needed it.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  My wife, she lives for this kind of stuff. I'm like, oh, I made you some tea. Even if she doesn't even want it, it's cloud nine. And I need to do more of it, but it's not my, and we'll talk about this soon, love language, so it's not at the top of my mind most of the time.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  I do encourage you to do it because I think, again, as a mother of four, I'm constantly like, mothering others. And so I'll tell my kids, I'm like, I want someone to bring me my slippers. And sometimes they'll bring me my slippers. And my friends are great at that, so I love parties, I go to a lot of parties.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Adults have parties? God, I have the wrong friends.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, you have, your kids are too small, so you have to just wait until they're a little older.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Oh, you're going to kid parties?

• 50:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no, I meant like, adult parties. I mean, you're like, probably too busy with-

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm too busy, that's true. Yeah, I mean, not getting invited to these things because you're like, it's going to be lame and leave at eight.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  There are great parties out there.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Anyway, so we go to parties, and my friends will come, they'll like, bring me a drink of water, they'll bring me a blanket, and they're like, Sonia, you, you need a drink of water.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  What kind of parties are these where you got a blanket and water?

• 51:10Speaker 03

  They go on very late, right?

• 51:12Speaker 02

  Okay, fair.

• 51:13Speaker 03

  But anyway, the idea is that they see me, I feel seen, they see that I need something that I, maybe I didn't even know I needed until I got it. And so, again, that's like, feeling seen, feeling known is so important.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  It's really interesting how my wife reacts to me making tea, again, even if she doesn't really want it in the moment, or isn't that thirsty, or she'll be sitting on the couch and I'll bring a blanket. She's not cold, it's just the gesture. And this stuff means the world to her. I've been trying to program my brain to fricking remember to do this, and it's not easy.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Let's talk about love languages, okay? Researchers have basically debunked the idea of love language.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  That's what I thought.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we had, we have a whole section in the book that's like, a summary of that. But I still love the idea of love languages. Okay, I'll explain why. So, you know, there's idea there's this sort of, what is it? Words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, gifts and quality time. So this is the debunking part. One is, of course, a lot more than five. There's like so many more ways that you can connect. You can connect through your spirituality or actually giving each other space or whatever. There's a million ways to connect.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  So it's not really five. And the biggest thing is there's this idea that you have to match in your love languages. And if you don't match, the relationship doesn't last. And that's false, right? So the fact that you guys aren't matching doesn't matter. It turns out that there's two love languages that we all actually want to some extent. And those are words of affirmation and quality time. We all kind of want that. Great. And it turns out that the more love languages that you express your love in, the better.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  So it's not like it has to be the one matching one. Having said that, there's some truth to it. Again, I think it's a good heuristic. I talk about love languages all the time. I was dating someone who kept sending me things in the mail.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Okay, this is a long time ago, I assume.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  No, not a long time ago.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm single.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 53:01Speaker 03

  Sending me things in the mail. And it was cute. It was like little books with like little handwritten notes.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  Actually, that's kind of romantic, I'm not gonna lie. Guy's got some swag.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  It is, and yet it's not really my love language, right? So what I really wanted him, I think, is more you to do words of affirmation, to actually say things.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  What was in the notes?

• 53:19Speaker 03

  Well, the notes were like cute, little funny things. They weren't like, I love you. They were more like, they were cute, right?

• 53:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:25Speaker 03

  And they really were coming in the mail, which is rare, right?

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Yes, that's why I thought it was 1997 when you were talking about it.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Oh, that's what you said.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  And I realized his love language is gifts and mine is words of affirmation or sort of other things. It's a good heuristic to kind of realize that, oh, he is expressing love in this different way.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Poor guy spent a hundred dollars on post as he's still single.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. Anyway, so I do think they're a good heuristic, but they don't predict relationship duration, right? So basically, again, that key is quality time and words of affirmation are good for everyone. Everyone wants those. And the more love languages you use, the better. So that's sort of the bottom line.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  That's interesting. I'm glad to hear that because for a long time, everybody was like, oh, these five love languages. Oh, no, this is all researched and it's all facts. And I kind of accepted that. But then, as I started realizing that science was more important than trendy self-help, I started researching the sources. And it's like, oh, just kidding, this is religious, sort of based in religion, not scientific.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  I didn't even know that. Yeah, yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Okay, but having said that, if you recognize your wife loves you to make tea for her or whatever, bring her your slippers, great.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  I find that useful, but I'm glad that the whole, hey, if you don't match, your relationship's not doomed, is not scientific.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  Obviously, it's not. Obviously, it's not.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  I don't know. Maybe I'm just waiting out the clock, making that tea, delaying the inevitable. I don't know. That's, some people certainly think that. I mean, I've seen, do you know Dr. Max Butterfield? He's on social media. He's the guy who goes, Max Butterfield, Dr. Max Butterfield. And he debunks the trendy social media relationship advice. There's people out there that believe that your soulmate exists, first of all, but not a thing. And that you have to look similar to them or it's not going to work out. There's all kinds of, you think five languages is junk science. You haven't seen nothing yet. There's a lot of people will accept as gospel absolute nonsense.

• 55:12Speaker 03

  Isn't that amazing? I mean, because my kids watch TikTok, hopefully not too much.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, hopefully.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  But they will tell me stuff. I'm like, oh, my God. And some of it is interesting and some of it is actually factual things that they're just learning about the world.

• 55:23Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  They're like, do you know about this rare disease? And it's true, like it exists. But I'm like, do you really need to spend hours like going in this rabbit hole of this rare disease?

• 55:30Speaker 02

  My kid and I watch, he's six, we watch YouTube videos at night, those shorts.

• 55:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  And there's this series that pops up in my explore tab constantly. It's called Scientifically Interesting Ways to Die. And it's like a Soviet guy who got blasted in the face by a gamma ray laser whatever. And like his brain cooked. And I'm, now my son's like, wait a minute, I want to know more.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  You're charmed. It's so funny because my daughter, who's 13 now, but she was, from a young age, she was always asking me, she's like, Mom, would you rather die drowning in blah, blah, blah? Or, and she was always, and she still asks me questions like, would you rather die X or Y way? I'm like, why are they obsessed with this anyway?

• 56:03Speaker 02

  Or your kids are watching TikTok and they're learning facts.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  And they're learning facts about weird things, but probably also things that are wrong. So, but we do talk about them.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wonder, do they come to you and say, is this science or is this nonsense?

• 56:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, they'll say like, oh, I read this. Actually, my two oldest daughters, they do a lot of reading, like actual stuff. So they, we will actually argue because I'll be like, no, no, there's research behind this. And they're like, no, there isn't. Like, that's total bullshit. So they actually are more skeptical than even I am.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Good for them.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  I was actually reading about acupuncture. There's actually quite a, I think, I believe, like, there's quite a bit of research that supports that acupuncture works for certain conditions.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  I didn't know that. I thought it was all placebo.

• 56:38Speaker 03

  Well, there's new research about this layer of the skin that's beneath the skin that, what is it called? The ethyle, I don't know how to pronounce it.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's one of those. We'll look that up.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, my daughter, my oldest daughter's like, no, that's not valid. I don't know. I'm not going to sell that question. That's not my expertise. But the point is like, my kids are actually more skeptical now than I am.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  That's good because we need more of that. I'd rather have people be too skeptical than not skeptical enough.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  In the book, you suggest that things like hate crimes, school shootings, even other forms of violence may share a root in people not feeling loved enough. I assume people who are critical of your work go, well, that's an enormous cause of leap. What are you doing with this?

• 57:15Speaker 03

  It is an enormous cause of leap. Yeah, yeah. There's not like actual like experiments showing that, but we're speculating that some of the polarization in our society, sort of violence, hatred, phenomena like incels.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:26Speaker 03

  People who belong to gangs. Like, I would speculate if those people, individuals felt more loved, their lives might be different. I actually went to a dinner where there was an expert on terrorism and how people get recruited into terrorist activities.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  That would be interesting.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  These are all like guys who don't have families and aren't close to their families. And I'm like, yeah, if they had like a someone who really loved them.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  You're not blowing yourself up and, yeah.

• 57:48Speaker 03

  Less likely, they're going to join a terrorist organization, right? So that's kind of almost obvious. But anyway, it is speculation. It's all kind of like anecdotal evidence. I don't have research.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  Oh, man. It would be really interesting to go talk to a bunch of gang members or former gang members in a prison or even not and find out the answer to this question.

• 58:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, feeling loved is really key. And actually, I'm thinking about also research on mentoring, which is basically a mentor really makes you feel understood and loved in a way. And there's research that shows that kids who grew up in poverty, and let's say they're, you know, at least, you know, intelligent kids. If they have at least one adult in their life that pays attention to them, their outcomes are like completely different. They end up doing really well. You just one person.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Big brother, big sister, scientific evidence.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, it could be that. It could be the priest. It could be the one teacher.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 58:34Speaker 03

  You know, my husband went to this horrible school, but this one teacher recognized how smart he was.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Became a lawyer.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, he came kind of from, you know, working class. But yeah, this one teacher recognized how smart he was. Everyone else was like, oh, didn't even notice, right? And like started giving him all these books to read that were kind of more advanced. And yeah, it just sort of takes one person to kind of see you. You hear stories about this all the time. I have a friend who was in the special needs classes, actually, who was like highly intelligent, miscategorized. And there was one teacher who recognized, actually, you're brilliant. You shouldn't be in those classes. You should be in the advanced classes. Anyway, but it's really about feeling seen, understood, known and loved. I'm going to use the word love. You know, that mentor makes you feel loved, makes you feel seen.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  That is super interesting. I had several teachers like that because I had a bit of a rough start. I guess probably the combo of being a boy, being a little bit A D D and having a lot of trouble paying attention.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  A lot of my teachers were like, he needs remedial this, that, and the other thing. And my mom was like, but he can read at a sixth grade level and he's in second grade. And they're like, you just think that because you're a teacher. And my mom was like, I'm a special ed teacher. My son is not, and they were like, jerk. And then one teacher was like, wait a minute, what's going on here? You don't belong in this class. So she plucked me from remedial math and put me into a gifted and talented program where I was building cities and stuff. And that kind of changed the way that I viewed myself in fourth grade.

• 59:57Speaker 03

  Isn't that amazing? Obviously, more than one person is better. But again, feeling known. If people see you, know you, understand you, again, it all comes down, we are sort of the same theme, right, is running through this.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  What it also makes you want to do is be that person for someone else. Because you think like, oh, yeah, my cousin's having a little bit of trouble and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, he's smart. He'll figure it out. It's like, you might want to tell him some of that stuff, actually. Yeah, that hadn't occurred to me till now. What are people usually chasing? They say they want love, but then they get 10 plastic surgeries, they try to get rich or pose rich on Instagram. They want to be famous. They're seeking status, achievement. What are they?

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  Well, again, like most of us, when we don't feel loved, we think, oh, we need to make ourselves more lovable somehow. And how do we do that? Money, status, fame, beauty, power, right? I have a whole book called The Myths of Happiness, which is about this, how like chasing those things don't actually make us happy, happier. For lots of reasons, including we just get used to the new level of whatever we get and we just want more.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  I see that. That makes sense, right? You're never famous. I feel like one of the most miserable places to be would be the person who's almost the famous person. You're almost George Clooney, but not quite. And you probably won't ever be. That person is miserable, right? Because they have almost what they think they want.

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  There's actually this great anecdote where like there's two billionaires talking and they're, one guy is sort of showing off about all this stuff he has. Maybe like his private jet is even nicer, that he has this and he has that that the other guy doesn't have. And the other guy says, you know, actually, I have something that you don't have.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, enough.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  Enough.

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  That is an anecdote. This is one of those apocryphal stories.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  But anyway, yeah, so we chase those things. Again, money, these are called extrinsic goals in psychology, money, power, fame, beauty, popularity. And those aren't necessarily inherently bad, right? Yeah, so we chase those things. We think they'll make us happier and more love. But really, again, feeling loved comes from being known and knowing the other. It's really that and more. Obviously, by the way, it's not a bad thing to have some money and some authority and not be unattractive and all of that. That working on those things isn't a bad thing, but chasing those things doesn't make you happier. Yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  This is slightly unrelated, but I was doing a show about yachts and boats and rich people who have them, right? And the amount of crazy psychopathic battling that goes into which slip you get at the marina is absolutely unhinged. And it's kind of funny for those of us that are never going to buy a hundred million dollar yacht. These people will go absolutely ape shit about which slip they get because it's all status game. Do you have to walk further to your boat? And then when you do, you're walking past Mark Cuban's boat and Jeff Bezos's boat and they're all bigger. It burns inside.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  There's also a theory of like, when you have a lot, you become really irritated or angry or sad or upset, you know, about really small things.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:42Speaker 03

  I might get really upset when my flight is delayed by four hours, but the really super rich, successful person might be upset if their private jet is delayed by 20 minutes, right?

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  But it's still the same level of negative emotion, right?

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I will say flying on a jet is probably one of the first moves I would make if I had the money to do it. TSA is just grinding me down to a note.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  Exactly. Me too.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  Why does admiration feel intoxicating, but doesn't actually make us feel known at all?

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  Because mostly what we're trying to do when we meet each other, we want to impress each other, right? Like, I want you to think that I'm smart and funny and interesting.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. So far, so good, by the way.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  You too. And so I might succeed in getting you to admire me and I might succeed in impressing you, but it's not going to forge a connection. And again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with trying to impress someone unless you overdo it. Because if I'm trying to impress you, I'm focusing on myself and not on you.

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a good point.

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  I'm focusing on how I'm coming across as opposed to really focusing on you and being really present. And remember, we talked about five mindsets in our book and, you know, that sort of curiosity, radical curiosity and listening to learn are like two major ones. I'm not really listening or curious about you because I'm focusing on myself and how I'm coming across, right? And so I'm not going to really make you feel loved and connected. Yeah, I'm not truly present with you.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  There's an anecdote, another anecdote that I'm going to get the people wrong, but it was like Benjamin Disraeli and some actress. You know this one?

• 1:03:58Speaker 03

  So Gladstone and Disraeli were running for office at the same time, right? One person makes you feel like they're the most interesting person in the world, or they make you feel interesting. And that's exactly, that's what radical curiosity and listening to learn mindsets are about. I'm so interested in your story. By the way, asking questions is really important. So I'm not just making eye contact and nodding. I mean, that's fine. That's not enough. I almost feel get weirded out sometimes when people are too.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  They're doing the mirroring thing because they read a.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  Or the guy, the hostage negotiator, right? Chris Voss.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  Chris Voss. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:26Speaker 03

  But anyway, yeah, fine. You can, you know, it's good to make eye contact and all that. But when you ask questions, then you know the person is really with you, right? Especially when they're asking questions, like really gets what you just said, maybe takes it on a new level. And so that makes you feel like, wow, she's really interested in what I have to say.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  I've told this story on the show before, so I'll try to keep it short. But when I lived in New York, I had a cab driver and I was with a bunch of friends and I sat on the front. So I was talking with the cab driver and he was kind of in a bad mood. And he had come from, I think Somalia or Ethiopia, I can't remember. And he was like kind of annoyed because he'd probably been working like 17 hours a day. And I wanted to go in the opposite direction. He really didn't want to take me, but it was already in the car and there was four of us. He was like, fine. And I started asking him, you know, when did you come to the United States? And he told me, and then I said, man, imagine this, in 20 years, your kids are going to be successful. They're going to have gone to college and stuff like that. And they're going to be telling all their friends like, yeah, my dad was a cab driver in New York and he paid for all this. We, otherwise I would live in a war zone, Somalia. And he was so fricking happy. When he dropped me

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  off, he was like, this is amazing. Like, you're such a good guy. And the next day, I was walking down the street with my girlfriend in Manhattan and a cab cuts through four lanes of traffic or whatever it was on Broadway. And the guy goes, Jordan! And I was like, that's the guy. He saw me on the side of the road and he was so, this man had never been happier to see anybody. No one has ever been that happy to see me, except for my own children and this cab driver. I remembered that because I was like, wow, this guy needed just a little bit of real human connection.

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  And really being seen and being asked questions, like, tell me about your life. Like, how often does that happen? Actually, I have a similar story. I don't, I don't want to upstage you. I had an Uber, like really early flight. And I usually actually am not chatty with drivers, but this time I was. And so the guy also was from Somalia. That's what made me think about it. And so I was asking him, so he was from Somalia, he was adopted and actually adopted by kind of like a well-off family in Berkeley. So he actually does well, but he had discovered like two years ago, his biological family in Somalia and reconnected with them. And he has, I don't know, 18 brothers and sisters or something.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Holy moly.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  They're all very poor, right? Living in Somalia. So he told me every Friday, he drives an Uber and all the earnings that he makes, he sends to the biological family.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  Isn't that incredible?

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Speaker 03

  And the guy was like, I don't know, 30. And so when I got out, I just said to him, I just have to tell you, because it was a little awkward, but I was like, I'm just going to say this. If I were your mom, I would be so proud of you that you're doing this. So I just said something like that. And it was just very moving for both of us. And so this is sort of Nick Epley's thing. Talk to your driver, talk to your barista, which I don't usually do. I'm just kind of busy and I just want to go. But it can impact someone's life, right?

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  What meaningful work that must be. Right? Because an Uber driver, I feel like a lot of these guys are rightfully not very inspired by what they do for a living. This guy must just think, I'm on a mission right now. Every $5 ride I take or $2 tip, that's lunch in Somalia for this whole family potentially. It's way more worth it. Plus, he has a regular job, so he's not killing himself doing the Uber thing.

• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  Right, exactly.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wow, that's really something. There's a woman in the book, Searching for the Four Sixes, which I thought was funny. What was this? It was six-figure income, six-pack abs, six feet tall, six inch, you know what?

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  Exactly. So this is actually a friend of my co-author, Harry.

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  Oh, so you know this person?

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  He knows her. I don't know her.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  She admitted she wants a guy with six figures, six-pack abs, six feet tall and a six-inch penis.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's looking for the Four Sixes. She hasn't found it.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Surprise, surprise.

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  But hilariously, one of my friends came up to me and they were like, oh, I see that you mentioned our friend, and I'll just call them Suzie.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  I see you mention our friend Suzie in the book. And I'm like, what do you mean? Because Suzie is not in the book. And he's like, well, you know, the Four Sixes. And actually, it's hilarious because that is not about Suzie, but this friend clearly thought Suzie is the kind of person to be looking for the Four Sixes. Anyway, it's hilarious.

• 1:08:15Speaker 02

  If your dating checklist requires six figures, six-pack abs, six feet and six inches, congratulations, you have built a captcha for loneliness. We'll be right back.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  Don't forget about our newsletter, We Bit Wiser. It is specific, actionable, practical, and it'll have an immediate impact on your decisions in psychology or your relationships. You never know what you're going to get. It's a two-minute read almost every Wednesday. And if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show. JordanHarbinger.com/news is where you can find it. Now for the rest of my conversation with Sonia Lubomirsky.

• 1:08:51Speaker 02

  She's still single, surprise, surprise. Which is funny because actually, is that really that rare? I don't know. The abs maybe in the United States are tough. That's a tough one.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  Well, actually, if you go on dating apps, a lot of men, I just delete them, but they just show their abs, just their chest and nothing else. I'm like.

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  That's weird.

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  I don't even see their face. I'm like, anyway, so you can get that, but.

• 1:09:10Speaker 02

  If you put your abs in, in your chest on the dating app, maybe you don't want to show your face because it's embarrassing.

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  Again, I just delete anyone who doesn't show their face.

• 1:09:18Speaker 02

  Guys are so weird with this stuff, but I guess there's women looking for the Four Sixes. So what are you going to do?

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  How do you signal that on the app? Six-figure, you just have to put the Four Sixes in the app and people know what that means.

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  I had been off of dating apps for a long time. I finally got on like a week ago. So it's actually been kind of hilarious, but also like gross. There are definitely men who will talk about, yeah, at least three of the Sixes. They will put on the app.

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  I'll let you guess which ones.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but anyway, anyways.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  That's so funny. These people are trying to optimize, right? They're saying, I will be happy or satisfied when I have somebody as the Four Sixes. But are those the channels that make people happy? Of course not.

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, again, getting back to love and feeling loved is about being known and knowing the other and having conversations that are deep and sharing and listening and accepting people. That's really the key. It's not about the Four Sixes, you know? By the way, it doesn't hurt to have the Four Sixes, right? So again, I'm not saying that success, status, money, power, fame, beauty, like, people who have those things actually are a little happier than people who don't.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Wow, do those sit-ups, guys. Stretch that penis.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  Hilariously. But again, we talk about these five mindsets, right? So it's like, you first show curiosity in the other person, radical curiosity. Then they start telling their story, right? Then you listen to learn, right? Instead of listen to respond, right? Usually when we're listening, we're like rehearsing.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  Our response, right? We all do this. So you're listening and then you share, right? The idea is that you reciprocate, you ask me questions and I'm sharing. And then the other two mindsets are called open heart, which is basically showing kindness, believing in the other person, being warm. I mean, that's kind of almost obvious. Most relationships have that.

• 1:10:50Speaker 02

  I actually struggle with that. I don't know. It's not my nature to be warm, really.

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  Oh, I think you're warm or warm enough.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  God, I gotta tell my friends and family.

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's funny. I mean, there are people who have a coolness to them. I think you're more like warm with an edge.

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I gotta have that for the show. I can't just be all fluffy.

• 1:11:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. So open heart, but most relationships have the open heart. They just may not have the other things. A lot of people will say like, you know, yeah, I love my girlfriend, but she's not curious about me or we're not really sharing. And then the last one we call multiplicity mindset, which is understanding that we humans are so complicated and messy and we have both positive and negative qualities. And I'm kind, but sometimes I'm selfish, you know? And I'm loyal, but sometimes I'm narcissistic, right? We all have those qualities or traits and behaviors. We don't want to judge a person just by one bad action. And that's sort of acceptance, forgiveness. And so, yeah, we need all, kind of all of these five mindsets. And we actually created a quiz. So if you want to find out.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  We can link to it in the show notes. Yeah.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  It's in howtofeellove.com, which is that. But yeah, that'd be great if you can link to the quiz.

• 1:11:49Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:11:49Speaker 03

  Because people really like the quiz. You think about a relationship in your life and then it's just a five-minute quiz. And then it's It tells you like which mindset you're sort of best at and which is sort of in need of improvement. And then there's lots of tips about how to

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  How to improve it?

• 1:12:02Speaker 03

  How to improve it. Yeah. So if listening is your Achilles heel or like warmth and compassion.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  Kind of is, yeah. People will always write in and go, oh, you guys are so compassionate on the show because I do this Friday advice segment with my producer Gabriel. I'm not the warm one, though. He really is. And it sort of makes me do it. People are like, you guys do such a great job validating people's feelings. And I'm like, I would never do that in real life. It's all him.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  I have to challenge you on this, and I'm not just flattering because I'm actually very like honest. I've been called a bitch, you know, because I'll like give people like

• 1:12:31Speaker 02

  Yikes.

• 1:12:31Speaker 03

  Feedback. I do think you have warmth. You're just kind of, how do I say it? Yeah. Warmth because you have some positive energy, right? I think people who have no positive energy, then it's hard to have warmth. So you have positive energy, a little warmth with a little edge.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  Good. Hey, I like that. It could be the caffeine, but I'll take it. Yeah, that's great. I wonder if you think, I mean, you use dating apps. Are they training us to filter for dating market value as opposed to? They can't really ask if we can build mutual understanding. So it seems like they're filtering for the wrong thing.

• 1:13:01Speaker 03

  I know. It's so hard. I don't know. Lots of people have written about dating apps. I mean, many of our friends, right? Have found friends and partners on dating apps. Actually, my best friend in LA, I actually met on a dating app. We realized we weren't attracted to each other, but we became best friends. So

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  That's fine.

• 1:13:14Speaker 03

  Amazing, right? So they're good people on them. And so, I don't know, I think you just have to keep trying and keep eating people. But you're right. What do you see on them? You see pictures. Mostly people are filtering by photo.

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  Just by attractiveness. Although sometimes it's a little bit more than that. There's like a little signal, right? It's like kind of the type of person that you tend to get along with. I don't know.

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  So it's like a goofy person and then there's a dog in the next photo and you're like, oh, I like.

• 1:13:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's like little signals in the photos, right? So it's not just being shallow or racist or whatever. But people will write things and sometimes they're a little revealing about themselves in the whatever app it is, you know, whatever the profile says. So it's really hard. It's really hard. One of my friends, Arthur Brooks, you may know him.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:52Speaker 03

  He's brilliant, actually. He has lots of great wisdom and advice. But I remember talking to him and he was saying how the problem with dating apps is that we're women are kind of looking for their twin. Like you kind of want someone who shares sort of your values and interests. And then you date them and then you're not attracted to them. You're like, I wonder why I'm not attracted to them because they're your twin.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:09Speaker 03

  You know, that's not attractive, right? There's this theory of love that you need closeness, but you also need differentiation, right? So closeness is great. There's no such thing as too much closeness or connection, but you need some differentiation, sort of some edge, right? That makes sense. You don't want to be dating your brother, right? You want to date, the genetic pool needs to have variance in it, right?

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  Sure, sure. That's interesting. What do you make of these people who are spend 45 minutes trying to take a selfie in the pool in Las Vegas or at the airport?

• 1:14:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm compassionate, right? Because our society is sort of set up that beauty matters, right? It really does. It really does matter. You're going to get more attention, not just on social media, but walking through the airport, right? People are going to look at you and hit on you. But I feel a little sad, right? That people are doing this. And also because I'm comparing myself to the person's best selfie.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  Sure. Lighting is perfect.

• 1:14:54Speaker 03

  And that's always been true, you know, for like when we see billboards with models, right? They could get all these touch ups and that they don't really look like that.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, they airbrush the mole off their stomach or whatever it is.

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  And now, of course, with AI, it's even worse, right? But even back then, what was it? Was it Dove that had this?

• 1:15:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was all the body positivity.

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it showed kind of like you take a model who actually, when you look at her in real life, she actually looks kind of like you. She's not that drop dead gorgeous. And then you put all this makeup and she looks completely different. So it's nice to remember that because we're comparing ourselves to that drop dead gorgeous cover girl.

• 1:15:25Speaker 02

  That's a good point. Can you walk us through the relationship seesaw exercise? I thought that was quite interesting and useful.

• 1:15:30Speaker 03

  So we have this idea that we're kind of, you and I, so Jordan and I, we're kind of sitting on a relationship seesaw. And the idea is that we are mostly not really showing our full selves to each other. So we call it a seesaw spelled with S E A, like we're in the sea.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:15:42Speaker 03

  We're in the water.

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  Clever.

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  So we're in the water because we're kind of like immersed in water. I'm only showing kind of the tip of myself to you. You're showing the tip of yourself to me. That's just how it is with most of us in our, in our lives. So how do we get to know each other better? Like, how do I get known or be known or know you? First, I show curiosity in you. And by showing curiosity, that's really genuine. It's like I'm pressing on the seesaw from my end. And it helps lift you out of the water, right? Because you're inspired and moved and you feel safe and trusting. Just be a little bit more vulnerable and show a little bit more of yourself. And then I'm really truly listening to you, listening to learn instead of listening to respond. You lift yourself up a little bit more out of the water, right? Now I kind of see you more. And then what do you do? You reciprocate by kind of pressing on your end of the seesaw.

• 1:16:26Speaker 03

  And then you lift me out of the water and then I share more about myself. And it's kind of this reciprocal process. And then we add warmth and acceptance to it. And that, those are the open heart and multiplicity mindset. So

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  It's kind of this reciprocal dynamic process.

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  I like this. I think it's a good analogy. It makes things easier to remember. You describe MDMA, so ecstasy, the drug essentially.

• 1:16:45Speaker 03

  3,4-methylendioxymethamphetamine, known as ecstasy or Molly. I do research on this.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  Research?

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  Yes, research, yeah.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, how's that going?

• 1:16:52Speaker 03

  Research is going great.

• 1:16:53Speaker 02

  How do you research that? Do you get pharmaceutical grade MDMA?

• 1:16:56Speaker 03

  Well, I don't.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  No wonder you have such great parties.

• 1:16:59Speaker 03

  I have a collaborator who gets the pharmaceutical grade MDMA exactly.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  Now I get the blanket and water thing. Way more clear now.

• 1:17:06Speaker 03

  That's hilarious. Yeah, in the lab, yeah, we don't have access to that.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:17:09Speaker 03

  We would get into much, much trouble if we did. But yeah, so we actually have, or my collaborator has done these studies, giving people MDMA. Why do we study MDMA? Because it makes people feel truly loved and really connected and understood and seen and grateful and positive, right? So incredible thing because it's hard to induce that feeling of truly feeling loved and understood in the lab.

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Speaker 03

  But with MDMA, you can do it in, you know, in half an hour, 45 minutes.

• 1:17:36Speaker 02

  So is the chemically induced love, is that basically the same thing?

• 1:17:39Speaker 03

  It's so funny. I have a whole paper on MDMA. If anyone's interested, you can sort of look it up.

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  But my website is just sonyalumirsky.com, which has all my papers.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  Good luck spelling it. We'll link it in the show notes.

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure, sure. But the book is howtofeellove.com, but it has everything there too. But anyway. So if you take MDMA, people report actually feeling more like themselves on MDMA. Okay, like when people get drunk, and let's say you get drunk and you're more social, but then next morning you don't necessarily think, oh my God, I'm so glad I got drunk and I was more social.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  That's never happened.

• 1:18:07Speaker 03

  I mean, some people do, like whatever, it reduces inhibitions. But yeah, usually you don't feel great, right? But MDMA, people will report actually, because what happens is it takes down the walls or expands the walls around you. So we all have walls around us. That's totally normal. They protect ourselves. But MDMA sort of helps reduce, again, lower them or expand them. And so I can be more myself. Also, people are very curious on MDMA. So all of the mindsets basically are like dialed up on MDMA. And so that's why we study it. And so we've shown in our studies, if you give people MDMA versus a controlled substance placebo, and then you get them to have a conversation with each other, ask them each other questions using conversation cards.

• 1:18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:46Speaker 03

  They'll feel closer and more trusting and

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  It must be such a bummer to get the placebo when you're in an MDMA study.

• 1:18:52Speaker 03

  We did another study where the comparison was meth, if you can believe it or not.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  So here's the thing.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:18:59Speaker 03

  I don't want to like promote meth to the public, but

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  Generally, that idea.

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  But it turns out people really can't tell the difference between meth and MDMA. Kind of interesting, right? MDMA is considered this like heart opening.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, you do it in plant medicine. You go to a rave, maybe.

• 1:19:11Speaker 03

  By the way, it's not a plant. It's made in the lab, but whatever. It's heart opening.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:15Speaker 03

  Whereas meth is considered this like ghetto awful drug. By the way.

• 1:19:18Speaker 02

  Inject it when you're in an alley or something.

• 1:19:19Speaker 03

  Or not injected, but

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Oh, you don't inject it? Then you don't know anything about meth.

• 1:19:22Speaker 03

  I think that's heroin, but I'm not promoting meth because it's much more addictive.

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:19:25Speaker 03

  It's neurotoxic, cardiotoxic. So yeah, I'm not promoting it, but it turns out like when we did the studies comparing meth and MDMA, the results were almost identical.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 1:19:33Speaker 03

  And meth also made people feel like very connected, very loved.

• 1:19:37Speaker 02

  I don't think you need to even say you're not promoting meth. No one's like, oh, man, I've been so tempted to check it out.

• 1:19:40Speaker 03

  Can I just tell you, when we got those results, I said to my collaborator, I said, I think we should call our paper, you know, we like wrote the paper about it. We should call it Breaking Good.

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  Wow, I see what you did there. That's great, actually.

• 1:19:52Speaker 03

  She looked at me like I was insane. And she's like, no, we're not calling our paper that.

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  That's too bad. That is a great title and I think easy to remember versus

• 1:19:59Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  What is the paper called now? Who knows, right?

• 1:20:01Speaker 03

  The Effects of whatever. Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, lame.

• 1:20:03Speaker 03

  3,4-methylendioxy

• 1:20:06Speaker 02

  Sorry. Yeah. Oh, man. One anecdotal claim, well, many people will claim, like you said, plant medicine, it can condense years of psychotherapy into an afternoon.

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  Totally. It's true. It's true.

• 1:20:16Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:20:16Speaker 03

  I'm watching this show with my daughter about the 1920s Germany and they're using hypnosis to get someone who has war trauma, whatever it used to be called.

• 1:20:24Speaker 02

  It used to be called shell shock.

• 1:20:25Speaker 03

  Shell shock.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Speaker 03

  And getting back to that horrible combat experience. And I said to her, you can just use MDMA for that, or you can use ibogaine. I mean, there's actually, there are psychedelic drugs that actually, that really work, you know, for many people.

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  You seen In Waves in War? It's a documentary about Navy SEALs who have PTSD symptoms and they do MDMA. Or ibogaine. I can't remember which one it is. It might be ibogaine.

• 1:20:47Speaker 03

  It's incredible. Again, I'm not, there's more clinical trials that need to be done. The study, the research so far shows that it can be incredibly effective to kind of get lower the walls. And the idea with MDMA, I don't know much about, as much about ibogaine, but the idea with MDMA is that it reduces fear. And so you can go back into that room, the field, the combat field, or if you're raped, they have rape victims, take them into that room where you're raped. And you can process, because you really need to go back and kind of integrate and process that experience before you can get over it. Otherwise it's sort of repressed or, you know.

• 1:21:16Speaker 02

  That would be really scary.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  It is scary. In fact, Rick Dublin, who does these studies, has this talk where he says the combat veterans say, and they call this ecstasy, because it's not fun to do that kind of work on ecstasy, right? Like if you don't have trauma and you take it, it's great. You just feel loving.

• 1:21:33Speaker 02

  You go to a rave and you dance all night. You just got to stay hydrated and get your blanket. Yeah.

• 1:21:37Speaker 03

  And the water, right?

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  That's right. Wow, that's, man, this is very interesting stuff. That's a whole separate show. For the person listening who feels loved in theory, but not in practice, what would you say is a conversation they should initiate tonight or this week? How do they start that?

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  You start that by asking questions of the other person. Show genuine curiosity. Make them feel loved first. Show genuine curiosity, listen, and hopefully they will reciprocate. Now, once in a while, or maybe more than once in a while, you do everything right. You showed curiosity, you, you listen, you share. And you know what the other person just doesn't reciprocate. I get asked that question, like, what if they don't? What if you still don't feel loved by them?

• 1:22:12Speaker 02

  You're banging your head against the wall.

• 1:22:14Speaker 03

  And what I say, and you know, I'm not a therapist. I'll just, I'm like very blunt. You know, therapists will never actually tell you what they really think. I'll say, maybe you should walk away from that relationship. Maybe you should give up. Maybe you should pause it. If it's a family member, you can't really walk away. Maybe kind of accept that you're not going to feel as loved as you want to feel by that relationship. Because that's sometimes gonna happen, you know?

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  Yikes, okay. What's one truth about feeling love that science has forced you to accept? But most people maybe still don't want to hear.

• 1:22:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. I guess, yeah, the idea that vulnerability, it's called the vulnerability paradox. Like, we think that being vulnerable or revealing a weakness, because we all want to hide our shortcomings and weaknesses, right? Revealing weakness actually makes people like you more rather than less. When is it done at the right time, place, and setting? And the example I like to use is like John F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, which was this huge disaster. He like went on television, he admitted he made a mistake.

• 1:23:05Speaker 02

  I can't remember any other president that has done anything like this.

• 1:23:08Speaker 03

  Of course, can you imagine today? But his approval ratings were shot way up.

• 1:23:12Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:23:12Speaker 03

  Because people are like, oh, my God. And of course, it was Kennedy and the way he did it. And it's not going to work for everyone in the same way. But again, the vulnerability paradox is actually being vulnerable and actually sometimes revealing some, a side of you that's not completely positive can actually, yeah, help you connect and people will like you more. This actually happened to me recently where I gave a talk and I totally bombed.

• 1:23:33Speaker 02

  Ouch.

• 1:23:33Speaker 03

  It's kind of a long story, but I completely blanked. I literally just stood there and I was like, I don't know what to say next. I have no, like, I just completely forgot.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:23:41Speaker 03

  So it was so mortifying, but so many people afterwards were like, they loved it. It's like, they liked me more because I bombed this talk? I was truly shocked, even though I know about the vulnerability. It's like, they're like, it made you seem more human.

• 1:23:53Speaker 02

  Talk, one star. Personality and delivery, five stars. Yeah, that's funny. Good for you. That is the only way you could handle bombing a talk like that. Otherwise, because everyone already knows, right? You can't pretend you've got nothing left to fall back on.

• 1:24:07Speaker 03

  Exactly, like, it was, it's videotaped. They're like, oh, I videotaped it.

• 1:24:10Speaker 02

  Oh, no, gosh. Sonia Lyubomirsky, thank you very much. This has been fun. Did I get it right?

• 1:24:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, you got it right. Wow, how to do that. Lyubomirsky, which means love and peace.

• 1:24:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  Lubomir is peace in Russia, like the Mir space station.

• 1:24:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Speaker 03

  Thank you, you know, it's been lovely. See, we, the conversation really flowed between us.

• 1:24:29Speaker 02

  I never put it together, your name means love and peace. That's pretty cool, actually.

• 1:24:35Speaker 02

  Urologist Dr. Justin Hooman reveals why fertility, testosterone, and erections can be your earliest warning signs of heart and metabolic disease and why most men miss the signal.

• 1:24:45Speaker 04

  Our testosterone levels start to decline starting at the age of 30. We say one to 2% every year. The reproductive health is a snapshot of overall health. So if you do have low sperm counts, it's kind of a wake-up call. Hey, fix your overall health picture. I try to keep it simple. What's good for your heart is good for your testicles, it's good for your sperm. So lifestyle is one of them. Within that, I talk about diet, exercise, sleep, and stress. Optimize your diet, minimize your processed foods, vegetables, lean proteins. Exercise-wise, combination of cardio, heavy weightlifting, that's good for your hormonal health. We know you need good testosterone levels within the testicle in order to have good sperm health. Testosterone replacement therapy, that shuts down your testosterone. There's genetic aspect to sperm health. There's not much you can do from a genetic standpoint.

• 1:25:29Speaker 04

  And then supplements is something a lot of guys talk about. So there's certain supplements within the fertility category that can help. That's how you optimize. There's no question about it. We're unhealthier, right? We're less healthy now than we were 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago. We're eating more processed foods. And we wake up, we're sitting at a desk all day, coming back, watching Netflix all day, and rinse and repeat. That's the whole thing. It's unhealthy living, really. It's poor food, poor exercise. We're consumed by screens and all of that just ultimately leads to unhealthy life. Men really aren't engaging in the healthcare system. But at the end of the day, it's not so objective as your cardiovascular health. We've been reproducing for however long as humans. All you really got to do is what's good for your heart health, your overall health, is good for your reproductive health.

• 1:26:13Speaker 02

  Whether you're in your 20s, your 40s, or facing infertility, episode 1254 of The Jordan Harbinger Show could change how you think about men's health.

• 1:26:23Speaker 02

  Thanks again to Sonia Lyubomirsky. The big takeaway here is that being loved and feeling loved are not the same thing. Someone can care about you enormously, but if you don't feel seen, understood, valued, and genuinely known, all of that love can somehow fail to make it through the firewall. And importantly, go first does not mean spend the next 20 years becoming a more efficient emotional vending machine for somebody who just never reciprocates. The five mindsets that she talks about in the book, sharing, listening, curiosity, and open heart, allowing people to be complicated human beings instead of reducing them to one trait, or one mistake, or one role. There's a lot more in the book about that. So maybe the better question isn't simply, does this person love me? It's, do we actually know each other? Are we still curious about each other?

• 1:27:06Speaker 02

  And does this relationship make it safer for both of us to become more visible? All things Sonia Lubomirsky will be in the show notes on the website. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support this podcast, all at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Our six-minute networking course is still available, still free at sixminutenetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram, and you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. And this show, it's created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Tada Sylavas, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can really give us is to share the show with those you care about.

• 1:27:49Speaker 02

  So if you know somebody who's interested in love, dating, relationships, or improving their relationships, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.