The Science Of Creating Happiness with Scott Crabtree

00:00 Creating happiness. It is scientifically proven to make you healthier and it certainly makes you a better person to be around. What's more, it can make your business thrive. So how do we do it? Today, I talk to happiness expert Scott Crabtree. Roll theme. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever. More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Hey, welcome to the Team Super Dad podcast. We are live, live on a, what day are we on here? Wednesday night in the UK. It is a new year, 2021.

00:42 So thank you for being here. I've just time-stamped a podcast, which some people don't say you should never do, but I don't care. That's so bad. That's absolutely fine. If you've had a great start to the year, then brilliant. If it's been a challenging start to the year, then, well, I hope you're in a good place. You're in a right place. You're here with me tonight on Team Super Dad podcast. We are dads creating our best life ever. There's some mums listening as well, and you are totally welcome because relationships, the power of our family, whether you're still together or whether you're co-parenting, equally important. And that's an essence of Team Super Dad and our F5, Focus, Fitness, Finance, Family, and Fun. You can read and hear more about all of that on the Team Super Dad website. But tonight is all about happiness.

01:24 It's all about happiness, a subject dear to my heart, as we will get into with Scott Crabtree. I have a, I've just been looking at my Audible account, a couple of books with the title Happiness in Tony Shea sadly died recently and his Zappos ethos of delivering happiness and the happiness advantage as well, which Scott was familiar with as soon as I mentioned it. So without more of the without further ado, I'm going to bring Scott in to the Team Super Dad podcast. Thanks for having me. Oh, and by the way, if you are listening, if you're listening live, then we are on StreamYard across all the socials. So you can comment and I'll see those come up. We can even bring you into the conversation.

02:04 If you're watching on the repay or listen to the podcast, then we would love it if you comment, leave a review. Basically, do what you can to spread the word. It's always appreciated. So let's crack on. Scott Crabtree. Awesome to have you here all the way from America. It's a tricky day in America, as we will touch on in a minute. But before we get into that, let's do the introductions. Scott, I came across you because of the other podcast that you've been on, basically, and the subject of happiness and how that fits into the Team Super Dad ethos and values, particularly around work.

02:46 There's the fun in the F5, but there's also the work side of it in finances. And your focus on happiness inside of the workplace was something that instantly attracted me to having you on here. And you said yes. So that's even better. So great to see you. Please feel free to introduce yourself. Can't wait to get stuck into this conversation. Thank you so much, Johnny. I'm so happy to be here with you and all of your listeners. Keep in mind, I basically speak for a living, so you can interrupt me anytime if I go on too long. Long story short, I had a pretty successful career in software and in particular making video games. Ended up at Intel and almost literally stumbled into the science of happiness.

03:29 Randomly saw a book about it in a bookstore. In fact, one of these books back here, The How of Happiness by Sonia Libramirski. I discovered there was a solid peer-reviewed science of choices we can make that lead to more happiness for ourselves, more joy for ourselves, whichever word you want to use. Scientists use subjective well-being. And I learned that not only do we feel better when we're happier, but we perform better when we're happier. And I thought, boy, I need this. I was not terribly happy in my time at Intel. Great company, but I was not very happy there. And I thought, boy, I need this and the world needs this.

04:09 So I dove deep into it without the slightest idea that I want to end up quitting Intel to found Happy Brain Science so that I could share that science with the world and in particular be a translator between scientists and the working world and help people apply it so they could thrive more at work. Yeah, totally, because it's really easy for people to put happiness into the realms of it's a bit woo-woo and you can't just create that or I've got every right to be sad. It suits me to be this way. Or loads of bad things have happened to me. Of course, I'm going to be sad

04:46 and forgetting or ignoring the fact that we can just choose it, let alone all the benefits that come that come with it. Exactly. This is actually one of the main objections I get. in my work: I repeatedly see this theme of like, happiness is elusive. You can't define happiness. You can't hold on to happiness. It's counterproductive to do that. You know, you've got your wonderful F5 and fitnesses in there, right? No, I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, etc. But that said, I ground everything I do in peer-reviewed research. And that peer-reviewed, experimental, scientific data is abundantly clear. You absolutely can make choices that will result in you being happier.

05:31 Is it easy? No. Will it last without you continuing to invest in it and work on it? No. But you can absolutely make choices that will lead to more or less happiness in your life. Yeah, totally. And kids know that, don't they? Yeah, they do. I get it. What age do we forget that? It's a very good question, Johnny. I love that fun is one of your other F5 because I'm all about fun. I, again, I had a career in game development. I've got a closet full of games just off camera here. We love to have fun as kids. You know, I'm a dad. Before we go any further, this is a little bit old, but I'll just quickly show you my two adorable daughters.

06:17 For our podcast listeners, two daughters, huh? What age are they? Althea is 12 and Zinnia is eight. And 11 and 9, my guys. Jago, the boy, is 11 and Rosie is 9. So very similar age. Nice. So, as you said, kids have a natural sense of joy, happiness, playfulness, fun. And then somewhere along the way, as you know all too well from your own story, we get distracted, we lose our way, we get burdened, we focus on the wrong things. It's so easy because the message from the world is

06:56 it's fame that'll make you happy, it's good looks that'll make you happy, it's money that you make you happy. And I mean, maybe those things help a little, but according to the scientific research, they don't help nearly as much as other things we could pursue. Now, I'm in the United States, obviously, various listeners are in different cultures and subcultures, but there's this overwhelming chorus from the world of chase the money, focus on fame, just get climb the ladder, and that's how you'll be happy. And science says that doesn't work very well. We adapt to whatever level of success we have, so a lot more money makes a little difference in our happiness, and it dissipates quite quickly.

07:42 So, the message from the world is chase the fame, chase the money, chase the success, and then you'll be happy. And science is works a little, not very well, not very lasting. If you'd like to be happy and successful, the data suggests, work on being happy first, because happiness brings success better than success brings happiness. Yeah, and that's a bit like there's a Tolly Buckhand in his firewalking. There's a phrase that comes up a lot of is wherever I go, here I am.

08:18 Yes, yes. And so, if you're taking like people move countries in the hope of finding in the hope of finding happiness for failing to realize that the very person that was unhappy has gone with themselves, it's you know, human beings can be so smart and creative and wonderful, and we can also just mess up our lives and not realize some obvious stuff. So, so, Johnny, I moved from the United States to New Zealand thinking this will help my marriage, this will help my life. You actually did this, really has tell the story, come on, tell the story. Well, whatever level you want to, but but it's a real life experience, right?

09:01 Yeah, I, you know, I thought, well, my marriage isn't so great, but maybe a fresh start in New Zealand will help. You know, I it's not a lot of game development going on in Portland, Oregon, USA, where I live. There's a game company in Wellington, New Zealand. Maybe I can sort of keep rebooting my game career over there. And as you said, wherever you go, there you are. So, my wife and I went over there and discovered, oh, shocker, we still didn't have a great marriage. I still wasn't terribly happy. It's that's one of the things that the science can help us get more clear on.

09:39 This is a blanket statement, and there's way, way more subtlety than it's about to come across in a short soundbite. But the science says that on the whole, for most of us, most of the time, all of our life circumstances, we're where we live, what car we're driving, whether we have a house or apartment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all those life circumstances end up having a pretty small impact on our happiness because, again, we adapt to whatever those circumstances are. So, I get a new Nissan leaf and I'm like, wow, I'm driving an electric car. I never thought this would happen.

10:16 That's so awesome. And in under a month, I'm flipping somebody off on the highway saying, You cut me off, you jerk, and I'm just miserable driving along. We adapt. So it's not where we are, it's not what car we're driving that really makes a lasting difference in our happiness. And I know, obviously, from our previous conversations and preparing for this, your work focuses on the happiness around work, you know, and creating that happiness in work. Tony Shea sadly died recently. His book had a real impact on me, one of the first books I read on business culture.

10:56 Yeah. If anyone's not read that or listened to it, Delivering Happiness, Tony Shea, he's the founder of Zappos. Yeah, great book. Yeah, we spend so much time in work. So I forget exactly what the adage is, but it's about like work-life balance. And, you know, but is it, is it about can you be happy in work but not happy at home? Or can you be happy at home but not happy in work? Where does which of which impacts people's happiness most? Their home or their work? Great question, Johnny. It, you know, you just said a minute ago, wherever you go, there you are. So, you know, we're walking around with our brains wherever we go, work, home, et cetera.

11:38 And largely, we're going to feel similarly. It's very difficult to be overjoyed at work and miserable at home or vice versa. Certainly it's happened to some of us, right? Part of why I focused on work was it was work that was making me unhappy, or part of it that was making me unhappy. But the other reason I chose to focus on work is exactly what you said. We spend so much time at work. I mean, like it or not, if we're working a normal full-time work schedule, we spend more time at work than any other segment of our life. If you ignore sleeping, of course, we spend more time with our colleagues than our families.

12:20 And too many of us think, well, yeah, I get paid to work. So I go to work. It's miserable. I hate it, but that's what I have to do. I'm grinding it out so that I can make money. And then when I'm done work, then I get to be happy. Oh, life's too short to be miserable for the thing you're doing with most more hours than you're doing anything else. So the data is clear, if correlational. I don't mean to be too nerdy on you and your, but it's nice to hear nerdy stuff. Be real, whatever comes natural. Careful encouraging me here because I'm quite a nerd, quite a geek. But I try to ground everything I do in scientific data because I trust the scientific process more than I trust any single person's opinion, including my own.

13:06 So I try to be clear about how high quality that data is. And as I'm sure most of your listeners immediately understand, there's a difference between clearly causal evidence and correlational evidence. You know, two things happen to go together. Is there causality there or not? Let's be clear about that. So this is correlational data, but the correlational data is that a dad or a mom, but a dad who is more engaged at work has kids who behave better in school. So the connections between what we're doing and how we feel at work and the way we show up for our families and the kind of dads we are and therefore the kind of kids we have and bring up into the world, it's very, very strong.

13:51 Again, I'm not claiming a lot of causality here, but it's clear that what we're doing at work affects what we're doing at home. The quality of our life at home affects what we're doing at work. And is that because we're coming home, you know, it sounds simple, right? But you're coming home less stressed. You're coming home less anxious. You're coming home happier. You've got a smile on your face and you're embracing your family rather than coming home like a bear who actually the kids kind of almost run away from a little bit. But then they want to hug him because they're excited to see him. But they know when he comes home,

14:30 he's not much fun for an hour or something like that. That can create anxiety in kids, which I guess they then take into school. Absolutely. Absolutely. And part of why I love the part of why I fell in love with the science of happiness so much is so much of it is win-win. Basically, there's a virtuous circle. The kinder we are, the happier we are. The happier we are, the kinder we are. The more generous we are, the happier we are. The happier we are, the better citizens we are, the better dads we are. Fundamentally, Johnny, the science says, and this is this is a bit oversimplified for brevity. We can dive in deep wherever you like, but a bit oversimplified.

15:14 Science basically tells us when we're stressed, when we're afraid, we go toward fight or flight. Fight or flight is not a switch, it's a continuum, right? You can be a bit guarded or full-on panicked. But to whatever degree you are toward fight or flight, your brain is figuratively shrinking. These wonderfully human, uniquely human layers of neocortex, loosely speaking, just under our skull, largely go to the back burner. And the limbic system and the brainstem, which together look like the brains of most other mammals, your cat or your dog, for example, those go to the front burner.

15:51 They get all the oxygen, glucose, et cetera. And when you're in fight or flight, you see three and only three solutions to problems. Fight, which could be yelling at your kids, by the way. Run, which could be I'm going golfing all weekend instead of being with you. And although you hear about it less, your number one default response to stress is just freeze. Because if you shut up and stay still, the mountain lion might not see and you might get away, which is a great way of surviving an encounter with a mountain lion and not such a great way to be a great dad. So if you find joy, happiness, we can get into definitions later if you want to, but whatever word people want, we're talking about lasting, meaningful sense of well-being and positive emotions.

16:39 To whatever extent you come home happy, you come home with a fully human working brain that's ready to be a great dad. And if you come home when your boss has just been yelling at you and you're miserable about what you're doing and you don't have any meaning in it, if work is misery, you're likely to come home ready to fight, run away, or just freeze and not be there for your family. Yeah, which alarmingly, we just mentioned about the impact on kids, but what I'm about to say now is it seems to be lost in so much commentary about relationships and separation and stuff. But women are attracted to masculinity. They want us to be

17:23 not dominating and controlling in their baby, but they want us to be strong and show up as leaders in our family, co-leaders at the very least. When we show up withdrawn and detached, the very thing that our partners fell in love with, that shine starts to fade. And men have to take responsibility for their masculinity and how they show it and how they let it out. And so happiness, lightness, vulnerability are all parts of things which are present in the early stages of a relationship.

18:08 And what you just shared there about coming home, fight, flight, or panic. It's not very attractive, really. And it's not a great way to foster connection at all. So that's quickly impacted the love and joy in a relationship. Exactly. And science is very clear. Everyone is different. And anybody listening to this may not fit the following, but for the vast majority of us, for most of us, most of the time, the single most important factor in our happiness and well-being is the quality of our relationships with other people.

18:48 So again, there's this virtuous cycle, right? If I have good relationships at work, I can have good relationships at home. And that will lead to more happiness and more effectiveness, both at work and at home. And if I'm miserable, if I come home and fight flight or freeze, I'm probably not going to be a good relator with my kids, with my wife. And so investing in our happiness helps us have better relationships, which helps us get more happiness, which helps us get more relationships, which, by the way, helps us be more successful at work as well. Creativity, leadership, confidence, money. Yeah.

19:32 I'm more about, I'm more about meaning and lasting impact than the surface things. But there's this quote that I like: happiness is the ultimate accessory, meaning, you know, the thing that can make you most attractive. attractive is not a great watch or a great hat or a great earring, it's being happy. I mean, I want to be with happy people. Yeah, people talk about people who've been on relief projects or they visit third world countries for the first time. And quite often I hear, I've not done it myself, but I hear how they're what's what's what's startling at first, what is immediately noticeable is

20:15 how happy children seem to be or happy with it with virtually nothing. They're playing with with this with a flipping old tire and they're laughing and joking and the people are welcoming and they'll have you into your highway even though they got nothing to offer you. And it just seems an ease about it, which clearly highlights that as humans, it's not about what we've got, it's about who we're being. Yes. It's not about what we've got. It's about who we're being. It's about how we're relating. It's about wanting what we have, right? So look, finance is one of your F5, and I'm all for strong finances, right?

20:56 Nobody wants or needs to go through life stressed about being in massive debt, for example. That's very bad for happiness. I'm not anti-money at all. I have a for-profit company. Happy Brain Science makes money, charges a lot of money for workshops and stuff. You know, I'm not anti-money in any way, shape, or form. But the data is clear. If your basic needs are not met, if you cannot afford healthcare and shelter and food on a regular basis, more money will make a massive difference in your happiness. Once your basic needs are met, once you have a place to live, some food on the table, you can go to see the doctor.

21:32 A lot more money makes a tiny difference in your happiness. The latest data, again, not claiming causality here, but the correlational data is that at least in the United States, once you're making $70,000 a year, more money will not get you more happiness. Now, it might lead to higher life satisfaction. You might ride the bus home with your head a little higher saying, whoa, I just got a promotion. I'm making over $100,000 a year. That's awesome. And more power to anyone who wants to be successful and make more money. But again, let's be clear on what's most important in life. And the data suggests once you have enough money, sure, I'm all for more money.

22:17 I hope to make more money in 2021 than I did in 2020. But that's not what I'm focused on. What I'm focused on is connecting with people, helping people, getting into that focused zone that scientists call flow. Having a positive attitude as challenging as that's been throughout 2020 and unfortunately in my country today as well. Let's focus on the right things. And if we focus on the right things, the money will come because science says our brains fundamentally work better when we're happier. Yeah. I'm just letting that settle in for a second there because when you hear when you, you know, this is what I love about the podcasts and the conversations is that inside of the general conversation, certain things get said and you just have to, and I encourage listeners to do this sometimes, just press pause and take in that

23:13 last sentence. So it doesn't just doesn't just hit you like words. Actually, you can just take it on board and consider, okay, so where, where have I got happiness in my life? Where have I let happiness slip? Where am I not choosing happiness? And then what are the impact in some of those areas? And it is a self-audit, but it's also about taking some responsibility in those areas because it's very easy. I know I've done it myself, but it's very easy to blame other people for our own state of happiness when actually it has to start from inside. And that's about choice, right? I saw one of your tweets from today about choosing happiness. What can you tell us about that?

23:54 Yeah, well, first of all, just a super quick story. I had the great pleasure to do a semester abroad at the University of Sussex in Brighton in your wonderful country. So I used to live in Brighton. Oh, did you? Great, great town. I loved my time at yeah. But anyway, it was during my time in England when I was riding along on a train and I was reading a self-help book. And I honestly can't remember what it was. This was just a few years ago. But this book basically said: if your life is a play, what is your role? Are you thinking of yourself as a victim or are you thinking of yourself as a hero and an actor and somebody who takes action?

24:39 And you know, long story short, I don't want to ask for people's sympathy, but my childhood was not exactly a delightful walk in the park. I had it easier than many, I'm sure. But, you know, there were some challenges there. And when I was younger, when I was a teenager, I thought, oh, stuff's happening to me. It stinks. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, things do happen to us. And those things can affect our happiness and our well-being. And you're focused on exactly the right issue, Johnny. Can we become not passive, but active? Can we realize that happiness is a choice?

25:19 And it's easier said than done, right? I had a very unhappy 2020 on the whole, as a lot of people did. I mean, the world circumstances have been very challenging for a while now. But how do we show up to that? How do we respond to that? Do we just say, oh my goodness, I used to get to travel and do all these workshops with live audiences and now I don't? Or do we say, oh my goodness, I live in a time of the internet and I can connect to audiences all over the world despite there being a pandemic. Wow, Boeing called me and asked if I could do more virtual workshops right when the pandemic started. How lucky am I? Am I going to focus on the fact that I can't go outside and hug random strangers anymore in a pandemic?

26:03 Or am I going to focus on what is still good? And the data is clear. Again, this is not just my opinion. I spent many years at Intel, as you heard, and the former former CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, had a quote that we often repeated in meetings and hallways at Intel. That quote is, everyone has an opinion, some people have data. So again, I try to trust the scientific data. And the data suggests if you choose different things, you will be happier. Very, very simple example to make sure this is clear to everybody. You've got fitness in your F5.

26:46 Yay, hooray. Because the data is abundantly clear. If you're getting regular exercise, you will be happier. The data is clear. If you watch a lot of TV, you'll not end up as happy. If you spend a lot of time on social media, you'll get less happy. Now, let me be clear: a little bit of good educational TV, engaging TV, totally fine. Social media, wonderful. That's how we're going to reach some people, right? But if you're going to choose between going on a run or watching your seventh TV show, science is abundantly clear. You're going to end up happier if you go on that run. So there are choices we can make. There are lots of them. But we're not passive actors in our own happiness and well-being.

27:31 We are, we're the person in charge of our own lives. So let's make them better. That's the right. That's what Team Super Dad is all about. We can turn things around for ourselves by taking action. Yeah, totally. I was on a landmark education course once and this woman was sharing about her partner had died and it was hell. And, you know, to really, really, she was stuck in her sadness. And the course leader said to her, so how long are you going to be like this for? Yeah. Almost like a Tony Robbins kind of moment. So how long are you going to be like this? That's exactly what happened.

28:11 You said that. She's like, until I'm not sad. And he's like, well, no, no, how long? Like a week, 10 days? She goes, he goes, I don't mind how long you're going to say, but let's just all be clear now. There's 150 people in here. Let's just choose how long you're going to be like this because then you'll know. You'll know. You won't be wondering how long you're going to be stuck like this. You could just choose how long you're going to be stuck like this. And I'll share a little story. On the train ride home that night on the tube, right, in London Underground, I was a bit confused about what was going on and trying to work through a lot of stuff that had come up during the day.

28:47 And I could see my reflection in the window. And I was looking pretty fed up. As we came out of the underground bit into the open air on the edge of London, my cell phone rang. And it was my family calling from Chicago. And they'd just been to the cinema, to the movies that we normally go to. And they were like, oh, Johnny, it's us. We've just been, we know you're always with us and we were thinking of you. And so we decided to call. And as I'm having this conversation, I see my same reflection, obviously, in the window. And just two minutes later, I've gone from being confused, miserable, like, oh, so much crap's happened to me to laughing and joking and feeling utterly loved.

29:26 Because of what I'd heard that day, I was like, oh, wow, I could choose this whenever I want. And that moment with that lady sharing about. about her loss and her sorrow and the coach saying, well, how long are you going to be like this for? It all just like keys in a door. It all just fitted together. And I can't say that I can pick that up every day and just make it happen. But, you know, in times of feeling a little bit low, I can go back to that and say, okay, well, what is going wrong here? I haven't been running. I haven't been doing my meditating. I haven't been doing my journaling. I haven't spoken to any of my sisters. I sent my sister a message today, just telling her I love her, basically.

30:09 And that's about that generosity that you were talking about, passing it on as well. So, particularly in this time when we're all stuck indoors, actually, if you're having a cup of coffee, I'll stop prattling on in a second, but I do this with my neighbors. If I'm having a cup of coffee, I think, well, I'm going to sit there and drink this anyway. So I go and knock on one of my neighbors' doors and say, I'm having a cup of coffee. Should we have one together? And they probably laugh about me when I'm not there, but I do that regularly with my neighbors. And sometimes it's on the doorstep now, and sometimes it's indoors. But it's about reaching out and connecting with people. Yes, yes, yes. More than anything else, it's about reaching out and connecting to other people.

30:52 And there's, again, there's lots of factors, lots of choices we can make to be happier. But you've hit the nail on the head, Johnny. First and foremost, it's about connecting with other people. Daniel Gilbert, Harvard professor, said, if you had to summarize all the science of happiness in one word, which thankfully we don't, I'd be out of a job. But if you did, get really well paid for doing that. Social. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Yeah. So he says, if you had to summarize the science of happiness in one word, it would be social.

31:31 The late, great positive psychologist, which is basically the science of happiness, Chris Peterson, summarized the science of happiness, positive psychology as other people matter. If you look at the very sad journals of people who take their own lives, you find the word I mean mine a lot. And if you look at journals of people who are thriving, you see far less of those references to self and more focus on others. There's so much subtlety here, right? Because we're responsible for ourselves. We're the only ones. You know, I'm talking about what's going on between your ears and the choices you make. And you got to be in charge of your own life and you, you, you.

32:15 But when you're thinking about all those choices and how you're going to be a super dad, the most important choice you can make for your happiness, therefore, brain function, success, and so much more in life, the most important choice you can make is to connect with other people in an authentic way. If I'm not talking too long, I just want to say, I bet your neighbors love you. And I bet there are introverts listening to this call saying, oh my goodness, I don't want somebody knocking on my door asking for a cup of coffee. Or, wow, how weird is that? Like, I had the great pleasure of having a dinner with

32:55 Sonia Lubomirsky, who I mentioned earlier, who wrote my introduction to the science of happiness, a book I highly recommend called The How of Happiness. And there were four of us at the table, and a fellow researcher asked Sonia, so what's the most exciting research that hasn't been published yet of yours? And Sonia said, sorry, Professor Lubomirsky said, we're doing a study right now that says that has found the biggest happiness boost in anything we've studied so far. And that is act like an extrovert. Whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, act a bit more outgoing. Treat an elevator ride as a social experience. Go knock on your neighbor's door and say, hey, you want to have coffee.

33:38 Now, I know there are introverts listening to this saying, like, no, you don't understand, Crabtree. You're an extrovert. I'm an introvert. That's going to make me miserable and exhaust me. According to the peer-reviewed data, introverts want social contact less. It will tire them more. But, and both introverts and extroverts get a massive boost in well-being from reaching out and connecting to other people. And by the way, that research just completed peer review and got published in 2020. So solid science suggests reach out, connect. And don't overthink it, I guess.

34:19 Like as human, I often mention this, right? Dogs just walk up to each other and sniff their ass. There's no airs and graces there. There's no, like, oh my god, what's he going to think? Oh, no. I know. Maybe, well, I haven't done my hair today. Or nudge the nose, go around the back, sniff the ass. Like, we need to be more dog. It's so true, Johnny. That there's a wonderful article on psychology today. And I hope your listeners and watchers will forgive me. I can't remember the author, but I believe it's a female psychologist who's writing about why are dogs so popular?

35:03 Why do so many people love dogs, spend thousands of dollars to get a purebreed dog, whatever? Why are dogs so popular? And she says, Here's what dogs do: they're always happy to see you, they always bring energy, they always accept you just as you are. And I think the last one was they're always ready to play and have fun. I'm not exactly sure on that last one. I should look at it, whatever. Yeah, exactly. So, honestly, this has changed how I relate to my wonderful daughters. I think I want to be like our dog, Maubin. We have a dog named Maupin, and Moppin's always happy to see any member of the family.

35:47 Wag the tail, and oh, it's so good to see you. If I haven't seen you in hours, I'm overjoyed to see you. I try to be more like my dog. If I haven't seen my kids in a while, I'm like, Althea, great to see you. How are you? Sinny, yeah, what's going on? I haven't seen you in a while. So, dogs are popular because of just what you said. They don't overthink it, they just connect and they connect with energy and acceptance and joy. And they're choosing it. Like, a dog doesn't choose it, right? They don't realize they're choosing it, but it's a dog just thinks, Well, why wouldn't I wag my tail and jump up and be happy? Like, that's what there is to do. You know, you pick your kid up from school, whatever there has been going on in your day, it doesn't matter because your kids walking out of school.

36:32 Why wouldn't you run up to them and hug them? And I try as much as possible. It's not always about saying yes to my kids, but if they say, Can we go to the park or can we get a treat? Or can we like what the natural instinct as a parent is to say, No, I've got this planned, we're busy, or I gotta, and actually, if you stop yourself, think, hang on a minute, really? What reason do I have to say no? Yes, yes, and how magical, conversely, on the opposite side of that conversation, how magical is it for a kid to come out of school with like this wild idea and then be told, okay, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It there's there's a wonderful technique.

37:17 I know we're all busy, right? And I'm as guilty of it as anybody of like, no, kiddo, I can't play a game right now. I gotta, I gotta work. And sometimes I do, right? Sometimes I'm scheduled for a live podcast with Johnny, and I gotta do that. I can't go play a game right now, but way too often, as you said, I'm like, No, I gotta get through my email. It's like, really? Are the people in my email more important than my daughters? So, there's this wonderful research, and again, I'm gonna have to ask forgiveness for not having all the details right at my tip of my tongue here. But you may know the Heath brothers, they are both professors, they write wonderful research-based books such as Switch, Made to Stick, Decisive.

38:02 And I believe it's in Switch, How to Change When Change is Hard. They talk about script the critical move, which basically is don't overthink it, focus on the one thing that's going to make the biggest difference. So, they cited research that said for struggling families, for people who are going through hard times, the single most effective difference in the quality of that family life was for parents to have a time-in strategy. That is, most of us are familiar with timeouts, right? You've been a bad girl, you go sit by yourself for five minutes, whatever.

38:39 This is the opposite. This is, okay, it's only five minutes, Althea or Zinnia, but I am going to focus completely on you for five minutes. And just five minutes of really focused parent to kid connection that can fuel hours of independent play for that kid while I do a podcast or present to DreamWorks or whatever it is I'm doing, right? So, it's more about quality than quantity. And let's not overthink it. Let's choose happiness by choosing relationships, by choosing our kids over that last email, etc.

39:21 Yeah, yeah. Hey, kid. Um, I've got. 10 minutes. What would you like to do? Yeah. Boom. Just do it. And whatever it is, right? I mean, you talk about people want dads to lead. And generally speaking, I think that's true. I don't think it's 100% true for everybody, but I think in generally speaking, it's true, right? But maybe for just those 10 minutes, maybe your kid's leading, you know, if you're asked to be an Arctic fox or put on a 2-2 or be a Martian for 10 minutes, all right, you're in charge. Let's do it. Oh, totally. And oh, I love, I love this subject.

39:59 I can just riff on this for hours. But my son and I, he's been desperate to play some football. And so I arranged it the other day that my daughter stayed with her mom for the day so they could do some mum-daughter stuff. And we had a dad's Sunday. And we played football, soccer, three hours, three hours in the park, and it rained and then it stopped raining and the sun came out and then it rained again. And when we left, it absolutely hammered it down, right? So it was three hours and it was kind of getting dark. But that time just flew by and it was freezing cold. It was like a million and one reasons why we couldn't do it. Just like you say, he looks calmer. He's happier.

40:41 He's just making those making that time is magical. Absolutely. Hey, Johnny, if it's okay, I want to go back to something that we touched on earlier about choosing happiness because I want to give that a little more subtlety to it. Yeah, please. I absolutely believe everything we've both said so far. Happiness is a choice. And trying to prevent yourself from ever having negative emotions is a fool's errand, right? It has been a tough year or so for the world.

41:22 I don't mean to go dark in the middle of this very positive talk, but it's a dark day in my country, the United States of America. A mob has stormed our capital, right? Scientists like to coin words. A word they've coined recently is emo diversity. What emo diversity gets at is those who feel all of life's emotions actually end up thriving the most. So you talked about that workshop where the person said, How long are you going to be sad in your grief? Note that it was not, hey, snap out of it right now. Sure, you lost a loved one, but let's put on a smile and be happy. I mean, sadly, you and I have both lost siblings in our lives, if I remember your story correctly.

42:06 And to be candid with you and the audience, I lost my younger sister last year, middle of last year, middle of 2020. That was unbelievably sad for me. And look, I know the science of happiness. I know how to make myself happier. It was not a happy time. 2020 has been a really, really rough, rough year. I'm on the west coast of the United States. We had unbelievably intense blankets of smoke from firefighters, from forest fires for a week plus, on top of the pandemic, on top of racial injustice, on top of. And the point I'm trying to make is: of course, we're going to feel sad sometimes.

42:49 Of course, we're going to feel unhappy sometimes. And that's okay. That's normal, natural, healthy, and even helpful. Those negative emotions can help us move forward, right? You realizing you were not happy is part of what made Team Super Dad happen, right? My unhappiness, my sister's unhappiness, to be fully candid about it, is part of why I latched on so much to the science of happiness. And I hope I'm making a positive difference in the world today. Our shame can alert us that we violated our own moral code. Anger can get us to fix injustice of the world. So, look, there is nothing wrong with unpleasant emotions.

43:29 The question is, those are going to come. There's no doubt. It's unavoidable. Bad things happen. Mobs store the capital. Siblings die. Parents die. Sad things happen. We're going to feel unpleasant emotions. That's okay. That's natural. The question is: given everything that's going to happen, given that you're going to have some hard times, what are you going to do when you do have a choice? When you have a choice between connecting with a colleague or burying your head in a spreadsheet and not connecting with anyone at work, when you have a choice between eating fruits and vegetables, which believe it or not, has a causal effect on happiness, or eating that chocolate cake, which makes you feel good for two minutes, but then maybe doesn't help you be happier.

44:17 What are you going to do? What are you going to choose? You mentioned mindfulness earlier, and I try to ground all my work in science, as I've said, but I also really appreciate meditation and mindfulness. And by the way, science says it's a wonderful tool for happiness and creativity and more. You may know there's a Buddhist monk named Tich Nhat Han. Tich Nhat Hanh says, to suffer is not enough. How can I smile when there are starving children in the world? Because there are also beautiful children who are happy with smiles on their faces and a beautiful blue sky. So I just wanted to make sure people understand: look, if you think I'm in the business of like, be happy all the time, no matter what's going on, that is not it.

45:01 Trying to constantly be blissed out is a fool's errand. But given that, given that we're going to have hard times, given that there are bad things in the world and suffering and unpleasant emotions, let's choose as much joy as we can. Let's choose as much helping each other out, connecting, being generous, and all those things. Focus to go back to your F5. Focus and flow, especially in tough times, help us be happier. So we are going to suffer. It's unavoidable. It's how do we cope? It's how do we choose, given that life can be hard sometimes. Yeah, such an important message. And to realize that these experiences happen to us,

45:44 not necessarily to crush us, but to teach us something for an experience. If you're biblical, it's God never sends us challenges we aren't capable of handling. But even as a being, as a creature on this earth, our hard times shape us and create us. And I really reflected on that with everything that happened in my life with the divorce and death and all the things that went on. I was like, it was the essence of Team Super Dad. What if all this had happened for a reason? Yes. I think if people can ask themselves that, then they can take some understanding out of a bad situation, out of anything that's going on, anything stressful or a loss or pain or discomfort.

46:31 You can say to yourself, well, what if this is happening for a reason? Yes. And then start to build upon it. You know, must have been that those sorts of thoughts must have gone through Nelson Mandela's head, 23 years in prison. He must have had to seriously reflect on that thought himself. Absolutely. Scientists, there are researchers studying what they call traumatic growth. Trauma comes, something horrible happens to us. Some people sink and decline, and some people respond and seem to grow and get stronger because of it. And what's the difference there? It's unclear. I want to be clear where I claim to be an expert and where I don't, and I'm not a deep expert in traumatic growth.

47:16 But essentially, the science of well-being, positive psychology, neuroscience, and more, says the happier, one of the benefits that comes with happiness is resilience. If you have strong relationships, if you focus and get into flow, if you have a positive attitude, if you cope and have good coping, healthy coping skills, such as exercise, for example, when those hard times come, you're going to be more resilient. You're going to bounce back more quickly and more completely than someone who's not prepared. They're not strong enough because they don't have all the resources because they haven't helped their brain be the best brain it can be by choosing happiness.

48:00 Yeah. Yeah. And you know what's important to mention here is that this isn't something that people have to study for weeks, months, years to take on board, to develop. This is something that people can, every person can just start to adopt. I saw your shared link to Insight Timer, the meditation app. I'm going to find you on there and friend you. I love that app. That's a free app. It is a free app and it's a wonderful app. And I have a bit of passion about mindfulness because it's undoubtedly changed my life.

48:44 I want to be clear with people again, very briefly, the science and the science of mindfulness is relatively new. We're talking about a couple of decades of science as opposed to hundreds of years of science. Some studies are higher quality than others, better sample size, better methodologies, etc. Those qualifiers aside, there's a growing mountain of evidence that those who choose to practice mindfulness. Let me give a quick definition before I continue for those who are like, what are these guys talking about? Mindfulness does not have to be. to be spiritual. It certainly can be, but it doesn't have to be. Mindfulness, a lot of people define it as Jon Kabat-Zinn, for example, his definition goes something like: mindfulness is paying attention with as little judgment as possible to the present moment.

49:32 Period. So mindfulness is just, let's focus completely on this moment right here. And when we find ourselves riding a train of thought or judging ourselves or anything like that, let's just come back to what's happening right here right now. So for those who are not familiar with mindfulness, that's mindfulness. And another quick definition: same way that you can get physical activity without working out, but if you're working out, you're definitely getting physical activity. Similar with mindfulness and meditation. It's possible to be mindful without meditating. If you're meditating, you're basically doing a mindfulness workout.

50:08 Back to where I was. The science says that those who choose to meditate, those who choose to practice mindfulness, this is not a quick fix, but those who choose to meditate enjoy better self-awareness, better self-control, higher quality of relationships, more creativity, better physical health, multiple indicators of that, inflammation, blood pressure, et cetera. Better mental health, less anxiety, depression, et cetera. And ultimately, more happiness. And I swear that's a partial list of the benefits you get from mindfulness. So it's a stressful world. It's a distracting world. To be completely transparent with everyone, I run anxious.

50:52 I mean, I worry, I'm like an Olympic-level worrier. So what mindfulness can do for people, and especially people who run high strung like me, it's like, let's just be here now and let's deal with this moment and not the past, which is often sad for us if we're thinking about the past, if we're living in the past, not the future, which is often anxiety-producing. What's going to happen? I don't know. Let's deal with this moment right here, right now. Part of the connection I want to make here is mindfulness, among other choices you make in your life, can rewire your brain.

51:34 So for those who are not familiar with neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity used to be a hotly debated topic in science. There is now sweeping consensus. The human brain can rewire itself throughout our lifetimes. And just to pause and let that sink in, because I think it's nothing short of miraculous. Your brain can think thoughts that rewire your brain. If you practice mindfulness on a regular basis, you'll find yourself calmer, more connected, more creative, etc.

52:12 If you choose happiness on a regular basis, you'll have a happier brain. Let me make that more specific and concrete. If I choose to practice gratitude on a regular basis, I will have a more grateful brain in under a month, if you do it intensely enough. We can see brain changes in an fMRI or other brain scan. We can see the structure of your brain change in under a month, which means that's just the way I am is a cop-out. That's the way you are so far. That's just the way he is. That's the way he is now.

52:49 And if we meditate and practice gratitude and reach out to our loved ones and connect with our kids, we will rewire our brains and enjoy the benefits of that better brain. That is deeply, deeply powerful. And anybody can hear that and almost run wild with it. If they let themselves, if they let themselves, right? Yeah. Just pause for a second, take a deep breath, let the air fill your lungs. Right. So if I could rewire my mind, what would I want to rewire it to do, to be, to think, to

53:33 like, and that's where the adventure can start. And I think going back to the top of our conversation, we were talking about being a kid. A kid can, in a second, create a magical world of fairies and dinosaurs in the lounge with little more than a stick and a pretty dress. And what you've just shared there is the fact that we can do that as adults because our brain is a tool that has the capability of that. It can rewire itself. I think it's nothing. nothing short of incredible. I mean, we, and again, it is not this simple.

54:16 We're having a fairly short podcast conversation. I want to acknowledge life is hard, right? It's hard to rewire your brain. It's hard to choose gratitude and mindfulness every single day and focus and fitness and family and fun. It's hard to choose that every single day, right? Life throws us challenges. And it is absolutely possible to choose to be a super dad, to choose to be happier, to choose to be more engaged at work, to choose to connect better with others. We can decide who we want to be. And no, we don't radically transform our whole brains overnight, but we can change who we are.

54:58 We can rewire ourselves. So, who do you want to be? Let's not be passive about life. Let's define our target. Let's become the super dads we want to be. Yeah, listen, I've, if anyone listening, right, the super dad moniker is not about something being superhuman and doing things that no one else can do, it's about recognizing that we have busy lives, that we have a lot to take on, and that we can do it all with success. We can be a super dad by just adopting some of these practices. And over Christmas, I found it quite tough.

55:36 Um, this second lockdown has sort of just hit me in ways that I haven't really expected. And as the internal chatter has kept saying negative things, doing weird things like playing annoying pop songs over and over again, I've had to step in and take back control. So, and I had a lady on the podcast the other day, and um, we were talking about mantras, so I've just put in a practice in place that when the chatter is running wild, I just say, I am wise, I am loved, I am successful. Nice. And it's like, because I don't, I can't control the internal chatter, but I can slot that in place. It's like a that's like a virus, antivirus kind of just I just run the antivirus program.

56:18 I am wise, I am loved, I am successful. And sometimes I'll in other words, you know, I am fit and healthy, like if I, if I'm just going about to go out for a run. So, people can do that as well. And I think that's a powerful way to for people to take small steps in this process that we're talking about. Insight Timer is an app on Android, it's on Google Play, it's on Apple Store. It's just a, you know, 50% of the tool is free, basically. In fact, more than that, all of it's free. It's just that you can't rewind and save things or play it locally. But we've got a Team Super Dad group on Insight Time, actually. So cool. Well, listen, John, we're coming up to an hour, which I like to keep this under the 60 minutes.

57:02 We haven't even got into the whole science of happiness in work. So I'm already riding you back up to come on. This was perfect, though, because I think just coming again, time stamping the podcast, but coming off the back of Christmas, coming into January, lockdown, pandemic, the shocking scenes in the States this evening. I think it's important that we've spoken a lot about what all of us, men and women, mums and dads, can do to be a bit more at peace, to be connected to our neighbors, to our children, to our partners, and to find some solace in ourselves that sadness is okay

57:51 if accepted in the right way rather than wallow in it. And knowing that happiness is a doorway that is always open for us if we want to go and walk through it, have a nose round, or even create it exactly as we want because our brain has the capacity to do that. Just beautiful. Absolutely. Yeah, there's a lot we didn't get time for. When people, when organizations come to me and say, we'd like your session, the science of being happy and productive at work, how much time do you need? I tell them, well, I get the best feedback and people are happiest with it if I have three to four hours to cover that topic.

58:31 So, so of course, you didn't get time for all of that, right? But as you said earlier, Johnny, it's so important. Don't get overwhelmed by the mountain of scientific data about happiness. Don't get overwhelmed when I say I have a four-hour workshop on the science of happiness. Do one thing. And at the risk of being a bit self-serving, if people just want a trickle of happiness information, they can go to my site, happybrainscience.com and sign up for our free happiness starter kit, which will give them some free e-books and tools. tools and then give them happiness tips in our monthly newsletter.

59:09 So totally want you to share that. Totally. Bunch of free resources on their recommended reading list and so much more. YouTube channel, etc. So just repeat the name again for us. The URL is happybrainscience.com. And I just want to repeat what you said. The key is to get started. Just take a first step. Choose happiness. I'm going to share that so everyone can see that on the screen. Thank you. There we go. Bring that up. Brilliant. So they can come and connect me at Happy Brain Science.

59:47 Obviously, you're on LinkedIn. Yes. Facebook, Twitter. I would love to take questions there, connect with folks and help however I can. Yeah. And listen, we'll chat after I say goodbye to everybody, but we talk about possibly doing a workshop inside of Team Super Dad for the members and come back on and we'll do a second, we'll do a part two and talk more specifically about creating happiness in work because that is the real focus of Happy Brain Science and the gamification of it. By we didn't even get into that. You create games for organizations for their teams to work happier, which is a beautiful thing.

1:00:27 Yes. I'd love to come back, Johnny. This has been delightful. Thank you for having me. Thank you, everyone, for listening. And thank you for helping me spread the science of happiness. That's brilliant. Scott, thanks so much. If you've enjoyed this podcast, then please share it. Leaving a review is great, but in the essence of our conversation today, please share it. Share the love. And I'll see you on the next Team Super Dad podcast. Scott, it's a real pleasure to meet you and hang out tonight. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. What a great conversation about happiness. Something seemingly so obviously part of our day-to-day life, but also something that people struggle with so much.

1:01:11 And as we, you know, I won't go over it all again, but different books, the times that it's come up for me as a subject, the studies I've done into it, the times in my life when I really wasn't that happy and wanted to make a change there to transform that situation. I really, really hope that you got a lot out of that and can tap into your own happiness inside of Team Super Dad. This is one of our core tenants in the one-on-one coaching I do with people in the Hero Academy and the courses, the foundation part of the Hero Academy. Happiness, in fact, runs right through it. And as a dad, when I think about my life and the tricky times and, you know, the goals, the ambitions, all I really wanted was to be happy, to fall in love, to have fun, to spend time with my kids, to grow old

1:02:05 happily. Like the word happy just seems to fit into every sentence. And we are really preoccupied a lot of the time with money and success and fashion, cars, music, money. Like there's a lot of things that we get preoccupied with. And maybe we take happiness for granted. I don't know. Maybe we have it that it's something we've either got or we haven't got and there's not much we can do about it. But today's conversation, I hope, really showed that happiness is a choice. With tips and tricks, with a focus on the subject, we can all create happiness for ourselves, for the people around us.

1:02:41 And so I really encourage you, if you've got a lot from that, to come on over to Team Super Dad and take a look at what we do inside of the Hero Academy. If you want to work one-on-one with me, if you're struggling in this area, then just reach out. And if it's a short call, then by all means, dive into my diary and I'll gladly have that. And we can also chat in that time about working further together on all of the offers from Team Super Dad. As always, if you've loved this podcast, then please give us a like, give us a share, give us a review. I'm always keen to get more reviews for the Team Super Dad podcast and also more listeners.

1:03:23 Numbers are growing. It's tricky. It's tricky, but it's also a labor of love. And I hope you're getting as much out of it as I am. Let me know if you've heard any other people on other podcasts that you think would be a great guest for Team Super Dad. And if you've got any feedback, I enjoy these conversations, but I also want to make Team Super Dad podcast as fun as possible. And the wrap-up, if you haven't listened to that, the wrap-up with Glenn and other dads that are going to be coming on and building out that team, then I hope to, I guess, balance out these slightly serious, more serious conversations with the. the banile fun and piss taking of each other on the wrap-up.

1:04:04 A group of dads hanging out, celebrating the end of their week. Thanks again. I'll see you on the next podcast. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss out. I'll see you next time. Team Super Dad out. Bye. This has been Team Super Dad. Find us at Team Super Dad.com. Join the program and create the best life ever for you and your children. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad.