Dr. Laurie Santos

And so I think, you know, your experience with the happy and not so happy rich folks and the happy and not so happy poor folks kind of bear out what we think, which is like, it's just not your circumstances that doesn't matter as much as you assume.

Yeah. Well, we just talked about the thing you're not supposed to do. You don't have to change your circumstances. And that's great because quintupling your income is tricky. Moving is tricky. Switching your life around all over the place is hard, right? And the good news is design shows you don't have to do that. That doesn't work as well as you think.

Yeah. Well, we just talked about the thing you're not supposed to do. You don't have to change your circumstances. And that's great because quintupling your income is tricky. Moving is tricky. Switching your life around all over the place is hard, right? And the good news is design shows you don't have to do that. That doesn't work as well as you think.

Yeah. Well, we just talked about the thing you're not supposed to do. You don't have to change your circumstances. And that's great because quintupling your income is tricky. Moving is tricky. Switching your life around all over the place is hard, right? And the good news is design shows you don't have to do that. That doesn't work as well as you think.

But you can hack your behaviors and your thought patterns and your feelings to get some good results, right? Let's take behaviors, right? One of the biggest behavioral changes you can make to feel happier is just to get a little bit more social connection. Like psychologists do these fun studies where they look at people's like daily usage patterns.

But you can hack your behaviors and your thought patterns and your feelings to get some good results, right? Let's take behaviors, right? One of the biggest behavioral changes you can make to feel happier is just to get a little bit more social connection. Like psychologists do these fun studies where they look at people's like daily usage patterns.

But you can hack your behaviors and your thought patterns and your feelings to get some good results, right? Let's take behaviors, right? One of the biggest behavioral changes you can make to feel happier is just to get a little bit more social connection. Like psychologists do these fun studies where they look at people's like daily usage patterns.

So how much time are you spending sleeping or exercising or at work or whatever? And the two things that predict whether or not you're happy or not so happy is is how much time you spend with friends and family members and how much time you're just physically around other people. Like the more of that you do, the happier you're going to be. And, you know, that's just a correlation, right?

So how much time are you spending sleeping or exercising or at work or whatever? And the two things that predict whether or not you're happy or not so happy is is how much time you spend with friends and family members and how much time you're just physically around other people. Like the more of that you do, the happier you're going to be. And, you know, that's just a correlation, right?

So how much time are you spending sleeping or exercising or at work or whatever? And the two things that predict whether or not you're happy or not so happy is is how much time you spend with friends and family members and how much time you're just physically around other people. Like the more of that you do, the happier you're going to be. And, you know, that's just a correlation, right?

So your savvy listeners are thinking right now, like, well, is it that hanging around with other people causes you to be happier? Or do you tend to like hang out with other people more if you are happy? Like which direction does the causal arrow go? And here we have these lovely studies by psychologists who do these kind of funny experiments where they

So your savvy listeners are thinking right now, like, well, is it that hanging around with other people causes you to be happier? Or do you tend to like hang out with other people more if you are happy? Like which direction does the causal arrow go? And here we have these lovely studies by psychologists who do these kind of funny experiments where they

So your savvy listeners are thinking right now, like, well, is it that hanging around with other people causes you to be happier? Or do you tend to like hang out with other people more if you are happy? Like which direction does the causal arrow go? And here we have these lovely studies by psychologists who do these kind of funny experiments where they

offer people a $10 Starbucks gift card to just talk to somebody. Usually talk to a stranger that they don't know on the train. Some lovely work by Nick Epley and others have done this. You force people to get social. And what people predict, especially with strangers, is like, ooh, that's going to feel awkward and kind of weird.

offer people a $10 Starbucks gift card to just talk to somebody. Usually talk to a stranger that they don't know on the train. Some lovely work by Nick Epley and others have done this. You force people to get social. And what people predict, especially with strangers, is like, ooh, that's going to feel awkward and kind of weird.

offer people a $10 Starbucks gift card to just talk to somebody. Usually talk to a stranger that they don't know on the train. Some lovely work by Nick Epley and others have done this. You force people to get social. And what people predict, especially with strangers, is like, ooh, that's going to feel awkward and kind of weird.

But what you find across the board, and this includes in introverts and extroverts, is that talking to somebody actually feels good. It increases your positive emotion. It gives you a sense that your life is going better. You feel less lonely. It just has these positive outcomes that we don't expect.

But what you find across the board, and this includes in introverts and extroverts, is that talking to somebody actually feels good. It increases your positive emotion. It gives you a sense that your life is going better. You feel less lonely. It just has these positive outcomes that we don't expect.

But what you find across the board, and this includes in introverts and extroverts, is that talking to somebody actually feels good. It increases your positive emotion. It gives you a sense that your life is going better. You feel less lonely. It just has these positive outcomes that we don't expect.

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the reason why social connection matters so much is it's building off this basic neural circuitry, right, for seeing faces and so on. I think that gives us a real insight into the kinds of social connections that work best, right, which has been characterized in the field as sort of in real time social connection, right, which we're kind of moving away from.