EP#33- How to Become Happier with Dr. Tim Bono, Positive Psychology Professor at Washington University in St. Louis

[MUSIC] What truly builds sustainable long-term happiness is that you day monic well be. That word you day monic comes from the ancient Greek philosophers who talked about you day monia, which is Greek for one's true self, aligning your day-to-day life with your true self, your true purpose. What brings you a sense of meaning and what connects you to something bigger than yourself? [MUSIC] Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins. I couldn't be more excited to share that Dr. Tim Bono is this week's guest on the podcast. It's actually pretty full circle, given that today is the first day of the WASHU 2021 graduation ceremony. So what better way to finish out the rest of this year by bringing on one of my favorite professors onto Everyday Endorphins? Dr. Tim Bono is the assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and lecturer in the psychological and brain sciences department. He's also the author of Happiness 101, Simple Secrets to Smart Living and Well-Being, his teaching and research focuses on positive psychology and college student development. You'll hear why this is probably one of my favorite classes offered at WASHU, especially how related it is to everything I talk about on the podcast, but in this episode, Dr. Bono and I talk about the fundamentals of positive psychology, some misconceptions around the science of well-being and happiness in general, and some tips for how we can lead happier, healthier lives. Before we get into the episode, I have a brief message for my sponsor, Anchor. Hi Dr. Bono, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today. It's my pleasure to join you today, Stella. Thanks for having me on. It's such an opportune time to talk about the fundamentals of positive psychology, given that we just finished the last class just a few days ago, which was really sentimental for me because, A, that was my last time ever taking a college class essentially. And B, this was one of my favorite courses throughout the semester, so it was so sad to see it be finished and just wrap up the entire course material. It's bittersweet for me also, because even though I'll continue to teach this course in the future, I really met what I said on the last day, which is that this class in particular has been very special, given that we were discussing happiness during a semester when it was difficult to find happiness, trying to figure out how to navigate this pandemic and still take care of our mental health. But I was truly inspired by the way so many people in our class came together and were doing podcasts or involving themselves in the community or really reaching out to ensure that those around them were prioritizing their mental health to whether the storm that we were all in. Absolutely. And I think that taking this class, especially right now, has been even more important as just in a reminder to have around ways to reframe our thoughts and ways, some strategies we can adopt to be a bit happier during the crazy past year that we've all gone through. I know that you started teaching positive psych back in 2012 at WashU. So I'd love to hear a bit more about why you started teaching this class and what inspired you to begin teaching this. Well, in many ways, I was just lucky. You know, I was in the right place at the right time. I had finished my PhD at WashU in 2011 and I'd been hired to be a lecturer in the psychology department. And the chair of the department at that time was Dr. Randy Larson. He covered some of his research this semester. And there had been a positive psychology course that he had taught years prior to that when the field was like brand new, like the early 2000s. But he couldn't teach it anymore because he became the chair. And he said, I think that there would be value in us reintroducing that class. And he said, your research interest talking to me would really position you to teach this class. Would you have any interest in that? And I said, yeah, I think that would be a great opportunity. So I started it as a seminar course. It had 17 students in it because I really wanted there to be an opportunity not only to delve into the research, but also to discuss the findings and consider how we can apply these ideas into our lives. So I started to teach the class in 2012. The first three times that I taught it, it was a seminar course. Then it came to my attention that more than 17 students wanted to take the class. So I was asked if I could expand the course enrollment and sure enough, it has enrolled more than 17 students ever since then. Yes, I think that our class has about 300 students enrolled at the moment, which I guess if you're doing a hybrid, you can afford to have over 300 students in the class. Yeah, I think we were at 391 actually this semester. Usually the cap has been 300 ever since I expanded it in 2014. But because, as you say, with the hybrid model, Dean Smith actually emailed me before the semester started and said, "You know, I think this is a semester when a lot of people are going to want to take this class, you know, you can expand it in." That sure take the cap off, basically. And we had a pretty good showing. And I think that in many ways, it worked really well. We had a system set up so that remote students could still engage. We had online clicker activities. People could do. There was a system with the TA that people could still submit questions, even if they were tuning in from California or China. And I would respond. And hopefully it was still a meaningful experience for them as well. Yes, I mean, I came to class in person most of the days. And you know, some days it was just easier to stay at home and zoom in. But I really valued the in-person experience because we haven't been getting that the past year in general, especially at school. But also the concepts especially discussed in this class made it feel like I was actually soaking up the material even more so. Especially when we talked about the unit on mindfulness and our attention, which I really loved. But something that I really found super useful about this course was just how applied these concepts are in our own lives. And I think there's a lot of misconception around the term positive psychology or the science of happiness. But something that I took away from this class is that it's not about being happy. It's about becoming happier. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about some of those misconceptions regarding positive psychology and what actually constitutes becoming happy. Yeah, it's an important question because it's really at the foundation of this field because that's one of the things that you have to accept when you are doing research in a field like this or even taking a class in a field like this is that there are lots of cultural conceptions and misconceptions about the nature of happiness and its pursuit. It reminds me a little bit of when I was an undergrad at WashU, I was a music minor. I had a minor in piano performance actually. And I had taken piano lessons from someone who had given me a very nice person but just did not instill good habits in me. So the first semester that I'm taking piano lessons with a WashU music professor who top of the line, she was fantastic. But basically the first semester was breaking me of my old habits so that I could build a foundation upon which to study Bach and Beethoven and Brahms. And I kind of think about that in a similar way with positive psychology that the first lecture is just let's break down some of the misconceptions that exist about happiness because I think that one of the symptoms of American exceptionalism is this idea that we're supposed to be happy all the time or if you go to the self-help section of a bookstore, they're trying to sell you on this idea that if you do these three things or you follow these five pieces of advice then you will be happy all the time. And researchers have studied people from all different walks of life, different parts, different backgrounds and no one is happy all the time. But the happiest people, people who are the happiest, the highest proportion of time, what they seem to understand is that life is hard, life comes with challenges. And so psychological health is not just about knowing how to be happy, just as important as knowing how to persevere through adversity and how to have the coping mechanisms that allow you to remain steadfast even during really difficult times like the past year of the pandemic that we've all been experiencing. But even outside of the pandemic, just loss and despair and anxiety that are par for the course. So that's one of the things I really try to impress upon students or just other people who are interested in learning about positive psychology. It's not about being happy all the time. The pursuit of happiness is also about knowing how to deal with unhappiness because that's part of life. But if we have a realistic understanding of that, then we can perhaps minimize the impact of that negativity and get back on the track toward happy is a bit more easily. And I really loved this concept around positive affect and negative affect and how we adapt to both this concept around hedonic adaptation. Over time, novelty wears off and we adapt to the circumstance. And something that I found really fascinating was this concept around slowing down our adaptation to positive affect and speeding up our adaptation to negative affect. And you also proposed this equation around subjective well-being and life satisfaction. And I think those were really useful frameworks at least for me to understand a basic understanding around what constitutes happiness. So I'd love to talk a little bit more about that equation that you presented in class and what it looks like to slow down and speed up our adaptation to different types of affect. Yeah. And in many ways, that goes back to just what we know about the human experience that in our day-to-day lives. There are good things in their bad things that come up, even in the span of one day, even if it's a pretty good day, you might accidentally burn your bagel in the morning or maybe you get tripped as you're walking down the steps or little things like that, but sometimes there are really big things that happen to us. So going back to this idea that the pursuit of happiness is involved knowing how to manage unhappiness, it's all about that ratio. The pursuit of happiness is not about eliminating negativity. It's about minimizing the impact of negativity. And so we use this idea of this hedonic treadmill, the notion that even when good things happen, they feel good for a tie, but then we adapt to them. They become normal. If you get a big raise at work or a big promotion, you get a bigger paycheck. That's exciting for a little while. But eventually you just sort of get accustomed to driving a nicer car or living in a fancy neighborhood that just becomes normal. So if we want to maximize our happiness then, it's not necessarily about affecting or changing the number of good things or the number of bad things. It instead has more to do with the mindset that we take when we are approaching or experiencing those good things or those bad things. So simple things we can do to slow down adaptation to good things has to do with the practice of gratitude, calling attention to the good things. If we got a job that we're really excited about, yes, eventually that becomes the new normal, but maybe once a week, taking a moment to say, what are some good things that happened in my job this week that I can be grateful for? That's a great way to slow down our adaptation to it. Another thing is with variety, introducing variety so that if we are always doing the same kind of projects, even if it's a job we really like, trying to change those up a little bit. We're working with different people, reaching out to different colleagues, bringing in different baked goods for the office when we're finally at a place where we can be in person again, introducing variety wherever we can. Those are the two big things that affect how quickly we adapt to something, attention and variety. So making sure that we're placing attention on the good things and introducing variety is a great way to slow down adaptation. And we can apply that same principle to our negative experiences that when there are bad things that happen, one of the best ways to speed up our adaptation to that is by gaining insight into it. Because often when we experience a trauma or a catastrophe in our lives, there's lots of unanswered questions or our emotions will start to blow things out of proportion and leave us in a place that creates a lot of angst. And one way that is very effective to push through that angst is by gaining insight into it. And a very effective way to gain insight is by writing about it or talking things over with a trusted friend. And they can provide a perspective or just putting our emotion into language that also helps us gain insight. It reduces the variety, helps us move beyond it a bit more quickly. And also attention there can really affect things. It's only natural that we give attention to a crisis as we should to understand what we can do to fix it as much as we can, but we don't want to perseverate on it. We don't want to give it undue attention. We want to give as much attention as it needs and then divert our attention to something else. Think about other good things, think about other things that bring us a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives so that we're not entirely consumed by that negativity. So those are ultimately what we want to be doing. Slowing down adaptation to positivity, speeding up adaptations to negativity. Also amongst all the tips that you just shared, it seems like these are very small steps that we can take in order to slow down and speed up our adaptation. They're not overwhelmingly challenging tasks that we have to do in order to become a bit happier. These are things we can incorporate in our day to day lives. And as we continuously do these kinds of actions, the hope is that they become more habitual. And then there's less thought or effort put behind them, which is a great segue also into the willpower lecture that we discussed around making the smaller choices easier or at least eliminating smaller decisions that you have to make so that you have a greater amount of energy to put your willpower towards something that's more important and more meaningful. Yeah, you're exactly right. That it's really in the small daily choices that we make that accumulate to a sense of well-being. Often we, in our interest in increasing our happiness, we will chase the big things. I'm going to, three months from now, I'm going to go on a huge blowout vacation and then I'll finally be happy. Well, if you hit your job and you hit your relationships and you hate everything about your life during those three months, but you have one week that you're excited about, what the other 51 weeks of the year are treacherous, that's not sustainable for a sense of well-being. So the pursuit of well-being is really about building in those small daily behaviors and mindsets that do position us to enjoy even the small moments because that's ultimately what our entire lives are made of. It's the accumulation of those small daily characteristics that are playing a role. I saw a quote somewhere, it may have been circulating on social media or something, but it was basically like, the pursuit of happiness is about building a life that you don't have to, like you have to escape from to take a vacation toward. It was something along those lines and I think that's really important advice that it's much better for us to be thinking about how can we structure our day-to-day lives to give us a sense of well-being, even amid the difficulties and the challenges and the exams and the papers and the conflicts that come up in relationships, even with that, what can we do to be building a sense of well-being in our daily lives so that the vacation is a cherry on top, not that the vacation is a some escape from how terrible our lives are. And certainly, if we can build willpower into that, as you mentioned, that's ultimately what keeps us on track toward maintaining a gratitude journal or getting exercise on a regular basis or taking care of ourselves, that sense of self-discipline helps us to redirect attention from the behaviors that are not good, that building might feel good in a short term or not really good for us in the long term so that we can be making it a habit to take care of ourselves in ways that in the long term we do see benefits to our overall well-being. I wish that this class was easy to get into as a freshman because I feel like so many people would benefit from hearing these things earlier on in their college career. I feel like oftentimes it's not until we're about to leave that we have the hindsight and we can look back and say, "Wow, I wish I had made a better choice in that experience." Or, "I wish I knew these strategies and these having this toolkit to actually help me feel empowered to make better choices, to live a more meaningful life." So I wonder why is that when we're just about to graduate or in our final year of college that we're now starting to gain more clarity around taking care of ourselves and the importance of building in those smaller choices every day so that you can ultimately lead a healthier and a happier life. Yeah, it's a really good question. What if we did offer this for first-year students? And who knows, maybe that's something that we think about in the future. Maybe there's a year where I just offer like eight sections of this so absolutely everybody who wants to take it is able to do so. I might have to clone myself or something, but you know, the sky's the limit there. Part of the research I've done has looked specifically at the transition of young adults from high school to college. And I shared some of these graphs in the class where I look at the trajectories, the ups and downs of the first 15 weeks of the fall semester. And in some years where I've done that, I have sat down with students at the end of their freshman year. And I say, now look at this. Okay, here's your own data. You can see here that on the weeks that you did not get a lot of sleep, you were stressed, you were anxious, you had an advice with your roommate. Here's all this research showing the benefits of sleep, the importance of relationships, the importance of exercise. You can see on the weeks when you didn't exercise, here's the psychological tool that took. And then I'll say so if we could hit the rewind button, but you could take with you this chart showing your own data and all this other research that's been conducted. Do you think that you would have made these changes? And a very common response I get. I think from some of the particularly intuitive and wise students, they say, no, they say, you could have told me this, I would have believed you, but I had to have the stumbles along the way to learn the hard way in order to get me to change my habits. They kind of reminds me that final scene in the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy has gone through this fun house of craziness. And then she gets to the end and she's told her, click your heels, she got her three times and say, there's no place like home. And in so many words, she's like, wait a second, you mean that's all I had to do? Why didn't you just tell me that at the beginning? And what she's told there is I could have told you that, but you wouldn't have believed me. You had to go through that whole journey yourself to realize what didn't work. So you could see how easy it was to incorporate things that did work. And I think who knows what would happen if we offered this class specifically for freshmen. But I do think that there is a difference between a freshman in college and their first semester in a senior in college during their second semester. Now, Beth Stella, if you were to look back on your own four years, you probably feel like you're a different person. I know I did. Beginning to college to end to college was transformative. I do think that there's just a different level of a wear of self awareness that maybe people are in a position to hear these messages as they are about to embark upon the next major life transition that potentially is even more beneficial for them. I think that's a really great point. And it also reminds me of the JK Rowling quote that you shared in class around failure. I mean, I think that was during her Harvard commencement speech. and she was tired. about the importance of failure and how it's a necessity in order to move past those failures and ultimately gain more resilience and come out on the other side. I think that also really ties into just the overarching idea around this course, around perseverance essentially, because we know that adversity is coming. We know that life has its ups and downs, no matter your life circumstance or your genetic predisposition or whatnot. There are certain strategies that you can adopt and certain choices that you can make within your own control that will actually bolster your own happiness. I think there was a statistic that you shared in class around like certain percentages that determine your actual life satisfaction around like genetics and your environment and then the choices that you make. Yeah, there have been a number of studies done with identical twins, which essentially allows us to calculate the heritability parameters around how much of our well-being is due to our genetic predisposition versus other characteristics like intentional choices or the circumstances that we find ourselves in. And the breakdown is that about 50% of the variance in the population looking at differences in happiness is due to genetic predisposition. But that means that there's a significant amount that is due that is made up by our own choices. A small amount is due to circumstances, but it's much less than people think. So the circumstances that relies are things like our education level, how much money we make, whether we go on to get married, what neighborhood we live in, what kind of car we drive, those are the circumstances, but cumulatively they add up to 10% of our overall happiness. Again, it's because we adapt to those things unless we are living in a poverty, if you're living below the poverty line and your basic needs are not met, it's really hard to be happy. But once we've crossed a point where we're no where we are no longer preoccupied by, do I have a roof over my head and do I have a meal on the table tonight. And do that much for our overall happiness, what seems to matter much more are the intentional choices that we make. And again, it goes back to this idea we've been talking about just the daily things that we are building into our lives. Not the one big huge vacation we're going to take three months from now. But what are the things we're doing today? How are we prioritizing our relationships today? How are we reaching out to others to say, I know we can't be together yet because the CDC has these guidelines still, but I just want to let you know I'm thinking about you. How are we expressing gratitude for the good things going on in our lives? How are we taking care of our physical health by getting a good amount of sleep at night, going out and getting exercise when we can. Those are the behaviors that we can be doing every day that build a sustainable level of happiness in the long run. And I think that there are two separate definitions that we have around happiness and talking about these strategies that we can adopt in order to increase our own overall happiness may not make as much sense unless we also talk about the two different types of happiness that is shared in the course. We covered hodonic well being and you to monic well being and I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the difference between the two and which one we should ultimately be striving a bit more towards. Yeah, so when you ask people what makes them happy, you get answers that run the gamut so it's everything from going on a shopping spree or writing a roller coaster or eating an ice cream cone to spending my summer vacation in Honduras where I was building homes for people who are living in poverty or living a family or mother Teresa who lived among the poor and Calcutta and all of those people will tell you that those activities make them happy. But when you dig more deeply, you find out that the reasons why they are experiencing happiness are different. And that's where we have these two broad categories. Hidonic well being which is all about the pleasure principle going on a shopping spree eating you know the special food going to a theme park, whatever it is that's one category which is fine we all should be looking forward to those things I love a good ice cream cone is as anybody else. But in addition to that, we know that those are sort of like the quick fix so enjoy the ice cream cone going to shopping spree but that's kind of here today gone tomorrow what truly build sustainable long term happiness is that you may mind. And that word you day monic comes from the ancient Greek philosophers who talked about you day monia which is Greek for one's true self aligning your day to day life with your true self your true purpose what brings you a sense of meaning. And that's where you find that people who are dead who dedicate themselves to community service or to raising a family or to helping the poor you know they might not be experiencing a whole lot of moment to moment pleasure in those activities. But nonetheless it gives them such meaning and purpose behind that that is what accumulates to long lasting happiness and life satisfaction. So I think it's important to balance them and certainly have the things that you just enjoy just you know quick weekend get away with your friends but it's also important to make sure that your life is dedicated to some larger purpose you know that gives you a sense of autonomy a sense of competence and most importantly a sense of relatedness to something bigger than yourself. Absolutely I mean this touches on the last you know that we had around positive relationships every single person that is on the the happier end of the graph that you were showing in class the one thing that they all had in common was around the quality of their relationships having strong positive relationships in their life. And I remember you mentioning that people who are on the happier end of the spectrum not everyone meditates not everyone goes to the gym five days a week not everyone eats a salad for lunch every day. And I know those are strategies that we commonly think of when we think of leading a healthier life and being happy but the research shows that not everyone's doing those things but the one thing that everyone who is on the happier end of the spectrum shares is the quality of strong relationships. I love for you to explain a bit more why that is and I think it's also really interesting because college is a time where you're meeting new people and you're building new friendships and maybe you are dating romantic partners or whatnot. So I think college is also a time where we're kind of exploring our own relationships and learning what constitutes a strong relationship versus one that maybe serves you know in the moment something that's more around the sense of hedonic well being kind of here today gone tomorrow. Yeah and for the stuff that truly is long lasting and it does seem to be the case that every research study this ever looked at this is found that unequivocally these single strongest predictor of our overall happiness has to do with the strength of our relationships with other people. And you know I think about the George Clooney movie up in the air came out like more than a decade ago at this point but the whole premise is that here's this wildly successful individual but you know he's he has everything he wants sort of but he doesn't have relationship because we have a home base that's what makes him up in the air everything is up in the air in terms of why relationships are so important to us if you think about the benefits we get from a relationship partner and this could be the work colleagues we have it could be a romantic partnership. It could be our platonic friendships having strong relationships with those we spend our time with the benefit of those good relationship partners is that they do a lot of the things that position us to speed adaptation to negative affect and to slow down adaptation to positive affect remember that's ultimately what is contributing to our ability to build happiness and satisfaction into our lives when good things happen are we able to hang on to them when bad things happen are we able to do that. And strong relationships seem to do both of those things exceptionally well if you go on a trip by yourself you'll enjoy it in the moment you'll be able to look back on it but if you have close friends there while you're there you have someone to savor that experience with they're going to draw your attention to things that maybe you didn't see so as you're walking along the beach I'll say oh do you see that that awesome sunset maybe you hadn't seen it yet but now you see it because you're with that. And it's also gratifying to see other people that we care about have a good experience that makes us feel good to know that we are sharing in their happiness and then after the fact you know randomly comes up in conversations and remember when we've been on that trip and so you're able to then relive it because you have someone to relive it with all of those things are slowing down the adaptation savoring it drawing your attention to good things and then likewise on the on the bad days if we have other people in our lives they are the people who we can process that with again to take our emotions which are going to blow things out of proportion and translate that into language to gain insight into it and they're also the people who love you no matter what you know who say all right you had a bad day at work maybe a messed up maybe did poorly on a test you know what screw it let's go get ice cream let's go do something else they are the ones who redirect our attention and make sure that we're speeding up our editate by helping us gain insight into it that's that's slowing down or that's speeding up the adaptation by giving by by taking away the variety and the uncertainty and it's also redirecting attention so we're not giving undue attention to that bad thing that's happened and reminding us that that one thing is just one thing I've still got other good things in my life he among them is the relationship I have with this person so that's a large part of why relationship is not going to be are so very important to us because we know that happiness is about slowing adaptation to good, speeding adaptation to bad, and there seems to be nothing more effective in doing that than strong relationship partners. In a way, it seems like strong relationship partners can also just help broaden your perspective because if they help you let go of the negative experiences in life and better saver the positive ones, that will essentially enable you to be more in the present and also enjoy the positive moments while they've lasted and also be hopeful that there's more to come down the line even if you experience a setback or a negative experience as well. And I know this was spoken about in class in the context of romantic relationships and when we were talking about marriage, but we spoke about how healthy relationships ultimately mindset plays a huge role and there's two different types, the finding mindset and the cultivating mindset and the cultivating mindset in particular really reminds me around this concept of eutomonic well-being where you're looking to align your decisions with your life purpose and your values. And in this cultivating mindset, instead of focusing narrowly on finding the perfect partner or finding the perfect person to check off all the boxes on your list, you're cultivating a broader perspective where you're seeking out someone whose values more or less align with your own. And so in that sense, it seems like by having that type of mindset, you're contributing to your own eutomonic well-being in a way. Yeah, I think that's a great way to to characterize that distinction there, that cultivating mindset tends to lead to the happiest and most long-lasting relationships and it's because you acknowledge that once you have found a person who has some baseline level of compatibility that, you know, although there may be conflicts or differences that come up because you're grounded in the areas that matter the most in terms of values and interests and purpose. That helps you navigate the inevitable conflicts that come up and you recognize that that's a normative part of relationships is you disappoint each other. You do things or you say things that can be hurtful and that's not the end of the road. That's actually those are the defining moments of the relationship that then involve resolving that that conflict and it's in the resolution of it that seems to be where there's real opportunity for the relationship to become even stronger because when you have to extend grace and compassion and forgiveness to another person, you make yourself vulnerable. But if you navigate that correctly, the result of that vulnerability very often is that you become even stronger because you've revealed an aspect of your humanity and you've entrusted that to that other person and as long as they have received that trust and extended it back to you, now you've solidified the bond between the two people. I really love how we ended the class on positive relationships because it just shows how the science of well-being and the science of happiness extends so much far beyond the choices we make around what we consume and how much we exercise and those smaller things but happiness extends to our relationships, the types of people we surround ourselves with, the way in which we use our money, the way in which we have our perspective around the world and I think not adopting so much of a black and white mindset, but being open to new opportunities and new possibilities as well. And what about you drew that connection because that's one of the many reasons relationships comes last because not only is it the most important topic but as you may have noticed, you know, all throughout the lectures this past week, I was drawing in other material we had covered around hedonic adaptation and the broadening build theory of positive emotions and mindfulness and resilience. You could relate every other topic we've covered in some way to the benefits of relationships and so it was in some ways just the perfect way to have a culmination of all of the topics because they all converge with this predictor of happiness that is more important than any other. I was also reading Angela Duckworth's book on grit and the power of perseverance and passion and so reading that alongside taking this class just further showed how interconnected every single topic is around the science of well-being grit resilience will power empathy mindfulness. It seems like these are kind of buzzwords that are thrown around but there's so much deeper than that and they're so interconnected and really can help bolster our own positive emotions and lead a more meaningful life. Yeah and certainly that work that Angela Duckworth has done has informed a lot of our perspectives on that and kind of underscores also the importance of finding happiness is not just about focusing on what makes you happy it's having those skills that can position you to whether the storm and things are not going well and she has done some groundbreaking research in that in that area to illuminate those strategies that are important on the really difficult days. And you know with that said as a lot of my listeners are in college and many of them are now about to graduate I was wondering if you had any advice for college students and in particular recent grads because this episode will be published on the day of my graduation as you know we're now wrapping up these past four years what advice would you have for the next phase in our lives? Yeah well first I'll happy graduation and congratulations and welcome to the ranks of Washu alumni it's a great club to be part of but I think that what's most important you know I had a conversation a couple of years ago with some friends of mine when we turned 30 and I think one of the things that we realized is that our 20s was like the time to dig your out what we really wanted to do with our lives and then our 30s is the time where we like actually started to do what we really wanted to do. It takes some stumbling around you may recall that on the last day class I had one of my close friends from my Washu days Avi and Sierra that couple who I had joined the Zoom call to talk about what they what had contributed to a happy marriage for them and Avi I didn't even know he was going to do this but he offered that additional advice on you know don't expect a linear path during your 20s expect to maybe start a job and then hate it and then have to jump to something else and that you might still and very likely you will be developing skills even in the job that you hate that what you might not realize it but that will come to your advantage in some way later on. So I think that with every experience you have it isn't necessarily a job that's going to be positioning you for your next job but it could be giving you skills that will that will help you in terms of your own well-being or make you a better relationship partner or give you the grit and the perseverance even if you're switching to a different industry altogether you might be developing some other psychological skills that you can take with you so instead of like suffering through how many days in time over with this say okay even if I find the perfect job there's suddenly hard times what can I do to take care of myself is it that I need to exercise more can I build good relationships with the people I work with even if I hate the nature of the work maybe other still good people you know still see if you can find some skills you can be developing all the while because those skills can still transfer even if it's you go back to school and end up in a completely different different industry and I think it's also important I try to remind myself still of a quote I once heard from Maya Angelou forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give yourself and I really think that starts with self forgiveness and self compassion it's okay to stumble around a little bit I know that's very unsettling for you know especially type a wash you people who want to have everything mapped out and know exactly what their next thing is but the final piece of advice I'll give you which really served me quite well actually it's very simple advice but I don't think I would have taken it unless someone told it to me is if people can help you they usually will and all you have to do is ask and it's amazing how easy it is to find somebody on LinkedIn or you come across an article they wrote for the New York Times and you send them an email and say hey 22 years old and just graduated from college it seems like you do really interesting work could I could I schedule a phone call with you for 15 minutes just to pick your brain it for a little bit and you'd be surprised how how easily people will take you up on that I think that a lot of people like to live by kareacy through recent college graduates and kind of go back and think oh man if I could start over what would I do differently you all are sort of the proxy for those of us for maybe a little farther along who kind of you know maybe maybe would have done some things differently and it's incredible like there are internships I got there are job opportunities I had just because I sent someone an email and said I think you do interesting work could I ask you a few questions about that I had some really cool internships like in grad school I worked with a beauty and forest park because I sent an email that someone I'd never met and said this seems interesting to me can I ask you some questions and the person said sure let's talk and then I was hired the next summer to work there for it I think was an internship designed for undergraduate musical theater majors I was a PhD student in psychology but you know what I'm and a very competitive one too tons of people apply for it but I mean it just goes to show I did that because I received advice if people can help you they usually will and use your 20s to ask questions of people who seem to do something cool that you know if you see somebody like that seems like they do cool work and they seem like they have like a balanced life find out what approach that person took to get to where they are and use that information to to chart your own path I love that I mean it just seems like we got to be fearless in our 20s you just have to be fearless and put yourself out there and keep asking questions and I loved having the guest speakers come during our last lecture, the Mary-Dee. couple and I remember they were saying how now in your 20s you're living in like a three-dimensional world. I thought that was a really interesting idea behind this concept of now not being on this linear path necessarily but being in 3D and you can go any direction that you choose. That visual kind of stuck with me and I hope it's something that I bring with me and post-grad life and that resonates with other people as well. And it only becomes more complex from there as you make your way beyond your 20s but that's okay. You know you become at peace with knowing that you've left some things behind. Don't underestimate the role that luck plays and sometimes you get unlucky and other people do get lucky but when the luck train passes by try to hop on and make as much of it as you can but yeah there will be missed opportunities and that's okay. You can only do so much with what you have and so you got to focus on that. You know badgering yourself with disappointment over the things you didn't that didn't go well the school you that you applied to that you didn't get accepted to the internship you really wanted but you didn't get waking up every morning and feeling regret over that will not make you well. It will only take away from your ability to focus in on whatever opportunities you do have. So a very important skill for psychological health is the ability to recognize thoughts and emotions that are not good for us and to redirect attention to those things that aren't good for us. And yeah it's natural to feel sad and oh really wanted to get into that graduate program or I really wish I would have gotten this internship and this person who's less qualified than me got it. Yeah it's okay to feel sad about that but for like five minutes and then go you know put your attention on working as hard as you can on the opportunity you do have so that you can build yourself you know in that lane and then open up more more doors for yourself later on. Right just like feeling that emotion not judging it but not letting it consume you and just having that resilience to pivot and focus on the next thing and put your energy towards something that's more positive. I mean really I think in a nutshell this class is around building your own psychological immunity. No matter you know as we mentioned earlier looking at the twin studies no matter the the life circumstance or the things that you can control there's a lot that you can control that will predict your own happiness and while being. So I just I was very sentimental on the last day of class I loved the way that you finished out that presenting and it was just so wonderful to be a student of yours and have you on as a guest for the podcast. Oh well it's been my pleasure that really means a lot to know that you enjoyed the course as I mentioned it was a great experience for me as well and you know please stay in touch let me know if you need a sounding board or for any of your listeners you know you you can take my advice and send me an email even if we've not met before if there's anything I can ever do for anyone. One last question that I ask every guest that comes on to the podcast is what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day. Yeah well I don't know if it brings them every day because it depends on the weather a lot but I I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood right next to forest park and so with the weather permits I enjoy going running and you know that that physical activity releases a large quantity of endorphins and so I do that as often as I can but even you know I would say that that daily I certainly am in touch with with friends and family that is certainly something that brings me a great sense of pleasure and happiness but that certainly gets even larger boost on days when I've slept well and it had an opportunity to exercise also. Thank you again Dr. Bono it was wonderful having you as a guest. It's my pleasure I really enjoyed exploring these topics with Stella. Thank you for listening if you liked what you heard please follow rate review everyday endorphins on whichever listening platform that you use to stream my episodes thanks again and I'll see you next time