Stephanie Harrison
speaker
575 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 24 Oct
Stephanie Harrison’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Oct 2025 with 1.
Appearances
After I graduated from school, I had all these new tools and insights about happiness. And when Alex, my partner, got sick, I realized that I had this opportunity to try and put them into practice, even in this very difficult time.
And so I was 28 when he fell ill, and we spent many, many years trying to navigate his illness and the medical system and all of the challenges that having a rare disease has. And so much of... What I talk about in my work is this idea about true happiness coming from being who you are and using it to help other people.
And through showing up for Alex and being able to practice how I could be there for him, I was actually, in fact, able to tap into a level of well-being that I never imagined. And that's certainly not generally associated with being a caregiver and all the stresses that are associated with that.
And I realized that the more that I gave, whether it was to him or to the work I was doing with my company by that time, that the more joy I was able to experience, even though I was objectively also really suffering at the same time. And that kind of duality of that experience of going through something that was tremendously difficult and prolonged while also realizing the
fulfillment of love and purpose and community, it really gave me an appreciation on a whole other level for these concepts and hopefully gives people some level of trust in that I'm not trying to tell you to do something that I wouldn't do myself. It's something that I have witnessed profoundly changed my life in ways I never would have imagined.
Oh, how long do you have? I think that the latest statistics show that one in two Americans will experience difficulties with their mental health in their lifetime. 25% of people in the country are suffering right now. Forty percent of people say that they're incredibly lonely and have no one to confide in.
We witness the manifestations of this every day through seeing the division in the country, through the lack of community support that people have, through all of these different manifestations. I really think it comes down to the way that we conceptualize and understand happiness.
Because if we think fundamentally that our happiness can only be fulfilled by achieving and perfecting and dominating, then we're going to go out and do those things without realizing that they're hurting people and contributing to the problems in our world. And so in the U.S., many of these forces that lead to old happy are very, very strong, like individualism, for example. And
that ends up making it sort of a perfect breeding ground for a lot of these beliefs and makes it even harder for us to unwind them here.
It's so tricky, isn't it? I argue that capitalism is one of these driving forces of old happy because... No matter what we do, it's never enough, right? Because in a capitalist society, in a world with intense competition, where there are so many entrants into the marketplace, where there's always something more that you need to do, you really have to push yourself more and more and more.
And it's almost like there's never a ceiling to what's enough. I've witnessed this in my own journey. Feeling like, oh, I just need to work a little bit harder or push a little bit more and then I'll be able to experience the success that I want because that'll make me happy.
And this pressure, this hamster wheel that capitalism puts us on without offering broader solutions that support people as they go through difficult times or setbacks or challenges really ends up doing a number on our mental health as those statistics so beautifully illustrate and devastatingly show. And I think that
We really have to be mindful of reckoning with the fact that yes, we want to build businesses or achieve certain goals or outcomes, but how are we doing in this in a way that's sustainable and good for all of us in order to experience wellbeing, which is ultimately at the end of the day, what we want and why we're working to do that business because we think it'll help us to be happy in the future.
Yeah, it's really simple. After 10 years of research, I've basically been able to boil it down that true happiness comes from being who you are and then using it to help other people. And so this can be very translated to running your own business, of course.
You can think about all of the unique skills that you have, the ideas that you possess, the gifts of character and wisdom and all of these beautiful things that are within you and then find a way to express them through the work that you do. And the more that we can do that and craft environments where people are able to tap into those two experiences, the happier we can all become.
Such a great question. I mean, it's the work of a lifetime, obviously, of course, right? Because we're always changing and we're always interacting with the world and it's affecting us in these different ways. But I think that usually what I like to advise is inviting people to think about who they are from a lens of strength.
Rather than weakness, again, which is what we learn in old happy capitalist individualistic culture. When you think about your self-awareness, it's all about the problems that you have and the things that you're lacking. But if instead you think about it from a lens of what am I good at? What are the things that make me feel joy?
What makes me feel alive or like I'm able to express myself in a specific way? and you start making a list of all those unique gifts, then you can start to become a fuller understanding of who you are as a person and then figure out how you want to express that outward in different ways.
What happens if you lose your job or electricians are no longer needed or all of the technology goes away and you're no longer able to keep up with it for whatever reason, right? It's putting all of your self-worth eggs in one basket, so to speak. And so when I think about myself, even though I feel very proud of myself
For example, the work I've done, I try to remember that that work is just an expression of me rather than me itself. And that means that if a piece of work is not well-received, it doesn't mean that I'm not well-received. It just means that that specific outcome or that output that I did was not where I wanted it to be. And it's that mindset that helps us to bounce back.
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