Dan Lerner || Thriving in College (And In Life)

have my buddy Daniel Lerner on the show. Daniel is co instructor of NYUS The Science of Happiness course and co author of the new book You Thrive, How to Succeed in College and Life. Daniel, it's really exciting to chat with you today. Oh man, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. We have so much that we can talk about, and I want to

start by kind of talking about your prior career. You know. Now, you teach this really popular course at NYU, You go around the world giving these great talks, You inspire people, you help people. But you were actually a talent agent for a while in the music classical music industry. Is that right? I was? I was in music was really my life the first thirty years of it. My parents are both professional musicians. My father was in the Pittsburgh Symphony and my mother was an office singer. As I

believe you may know, I knew your mother. Another very inspiration. I know where you get the inspirational aspect of yourself, that's right, I mean for everyone out there. Scott and my mom was head of the voice department of Carnegie Mellon when Scott arrived, so they formed a great bond before Scott and I got a chance to meet. But yeah, right out of college, I went into the music business.

I was fascinated by not only music, but really musicians, and I was fascinated by those musicians who were realizing real excellence on stage, who were pursuing those things about which they were passionate, who were communicating with the world through that medium. And so I spent almost you know, I spent ten full years in that business, first as an agent representing a talent, mostly young opera singers, and then in marketing, marketing and consulting really for all areas

of the classical music business. So it was terrific. It was a wonderful opportunity to help young performers really be their best. Yeah, so you saw a lot during that time period is sort of what it takes to develop your full being, your full expression. You probably saw lots of blocks and people, right, lots of things that did you ever talk to some of the people you're representing us? You know, I think this might be blocking you up, or this anxiety or fear might be blocking you up.

Was that ever a part of your relationship with any of your clients? You know, it's a great question. And I think that the way that I went about management was really helping them, well, I mean say helping, let me say, working with them to maximize both their experience on stage and their experience hostage. And that's not necessarily how agents tend to go about it. Often it's how do we get how do we help you be your

very best on stage? And as my experience progressed over the years, I realized that I was really seeing two very distinctive types of artists. One was the artist who was thriving on stage, great career, things were going well, they were learning and maturing and developing their level of expertise and performance, And that artists would also have a really rich, fulfilling life often hostage. They would have a family,

or they would have a great group of friends. They would have a spiritual pursuit, they would have hobbies, they would have things that were really important to them away from the stage. But I also see another kind of client artist, and that was the one who was equally successful on stage, who was traveling the world and singing big roles and by definition successful in their pursuits, but

they were distinctly unhappy away from the stage. I would get phone calls at three in the morning from people saying, I'm incredibly unhappy, I'm depressed, and why do I do this? And you know, that's really what drove me to pursue where I am now, which is what's happening, what's psychologically, what's allowing one person to be successful on stage and off and the other person to be successful on stage

but not all. I remember a really poigant story you told me about as someone who called you unexpectedly during the middle of their performance. Was it at Carnegie Hall or something or they are the met exactly? It was Carnegie Hall. It was Cardigi gest. I got a phone call. It was a Saturday night and I got a phone call, and I remember it was nine to fifteen and I'm looking at my watching to make a long story short?

Would you like a long version of the short person, Let's go with the short version, all right, make a long story short. I got a phone call from a very very well known musician who I had never met, but whose name I knew very very well, and they said, it's intermission for me. I've been striving to be a success in this business since I was kid, since I remember singing when I was really young, and I always had the measure of my success being when I sing

a solo concert at Carnegie Hall. And it almost sounds like a joke, but it's not right. How do you get to Carnegie Hall. So this person had pushed and studied and focused on this being their moment of success. And they walked off the stage intermission doing their very first solo concert at Carnegie Hall, and realized they were miserable.

Life wasn't going very well. They weren't a very good partner to their partner, they weren't they're good friend, they weren't happy even performing anymore, and so their agent had given them my number. About this point, I was in coaching and said maybe you should give them a call, and sure enough they said, yeah, here I am. What do I do now? So you know, it was incredibly difficult to hear someone who would work so hard and yet was so unhappy. And I'm afraid that's what happens

far too often. You know. The thing is certainly I saw in the music business a lot, but it is hardly exclusive to that field. You're going to find it in every field. And that's what's been so fascinating about doing this kind of work and meeting people in sports and music and law, in medicine, people who are doing a huge variety of things who are successful but not necessarily happy. Yeah, it's so great that you're able to

leverage those experiences and apply it to helping everyone. Everyone's a big turn and shooting for it, but everyone we possibly can. In a way, I have to say, I think that they speak to the experiences speak to each other, which is to say, if I'm working with someone who's very well known and successful in a kind of a worldwide stage, that can get the attention of people who might not be there but we yet or ever or

are even striving for that level of recognition. But also working with folks who are not well known, who are people you walk by in the street and wouldn't think of twice who are successful in their own way in their fields. I think that but not well known. That helps the folks who are well known to say, look,

we're all human beings. We're all striving to live a fulfilling or a thriving life the way that the path you set yourself on might find your name and lights and you it might not, but we're still looking for essentially the same thing, which is living a life that is fulfilling. Yeah, I like that. I like fulfilling. I think I prefer fulfilling over happy any day. And that's such a good point. You and I have talked about that quite a bit. You know, happy is a wonderful thing.

I would presume that everyone wants to be happy. Let's say everyone wants positive emotions, just to be more specific about it. But it's not hardly the only thing, right. Happy is one element of many, many, many factors that we want in our life. We want to be engaged, we want to have good relationships, we want to have meaning, we want to be accomplished, we want there's so many things. So yeah, that's one part of it, you know. Yeah, so yeah, for sure. So tell me what the cheesiest

line of the semester is? Oh, that you tell your students all right, so you know, it's a great transition because when we talk about the various factors that come into play when we're striving to live a fulfilling life, I will say, look, and I will preface it eactly as you just said. I said, look, this is the cheesiest line that I will give you all semester, I promise, And then I tell them that they are all beautiful little snowflakes and they all grown as they should. Because

it's an incredibly cheesy line. But the idea is really, if you try to be it's great to have role models, but if you try to be exactly who those people are, it's not going to work for you. You're different than they are. In fact, you're different from the person sitting to your right and sitting to your left. And I'll have to look around, but there are five hundred people in our class, some hundred students in our class, and look around and say, none of you are exactly alike.

You know the factors that come into play when we're talking about thriving. As we mentioned before, positive emotions, relationships meaning purpose, engagement, all these different and then many many more. I see kind of like a mixing board for a music engineer, where some people want a little more bass, some people want little more trouble, you know, and they're all these little dials, and you need to have some

in each measurement. You know, you have need to have a little sound in some maybe you want more sound in some areas. But they're almost never exactly the same as the person around you. The challenging part is figuring out really what works for you and bringing that together so that it sounds as to extend the analogy the metaphor that sounds as beautiful as it can for you. I bet the students really resonate with that, you know,

they seem to. Here's the thing with costumes, you know very well, because you know, you've taught in undergrads longer than I have. I believe for many of them, they've gone through a machine, you know, and it's a very efficient machine of school of high school said being told when you do X, you'll be successful. Often it's get the grade and successful get into the school. You be successful. Do these extracurriculars if you want to go to this school and you be successful, and it puts them into

a bit of a box. Now, structure is not a bad thing per se, but assuming that everyone is going to thrive within the same structure, that might not be as healthy. So I think to have the students to help them understand they don't have to live inside of that structure that's been given to them their whole lives. And in many cases it's parents who are saying this is a field you should go into, right because either I did you know as your parent, or because it's

it offers you security. And every parent wants their kid to be secure, or they see it as something their kid will be happy with, and so their student won't necessarily try their own path. They won't understand that they won't dare to go differently, and that I think is the pathway to a pathway to really to frustration and regret down the road. Absolutely, and by the way, Scott,

just the same things in class. If I ask students who here Alan are on my colleague and I asked students who here has been stressed out in the past month, people raise their hands, and I don't. It's not for us to know. I want them to raise their hands because they start to look around and realize, oh my gosh, like everyone around me is raising their hand, I'm not

the only one's been stressed out. And then I can turn to them and say, actually, ninety percent of you have reported that you felt overwhelmed in college in the past year. Forty five percent of you and this is numbers from the Gallop poll in twenty fifteen, forty five percent of you have said that you felt sad in college over the course of the past year. Thirty three percent of you have felt that has experienced work toabilitating depression.

So we're not going to ask the depression question in class. That's a bit too personal. But to ask about overwhelmed or even ask about sadness, and to look around and see anywhere from half to ninety percent of their peers raising their hand, I think that really helps them understand they're not alone. And then we can move forward and go, look, Blakes, let's figure out what's going to work for you, because apparently whatever you're doing can either be tweaked or be

overhauled or somewhere in between. And given that license, I think I'd like to think helps them really explore their undergraduate experience in a way that allows them to take

advantage of wonderful opportunities that are there. Yeah, there's this expression at pen called pen face where students feel as though they have to put up this veil of strength or courage and when they're all really going to the same thing, and you know, it's really I think that's a really important point, you know, to get these students understanding that there's a lot of similar challenges they go through. Can you tell me some challenges you see on college

campuses today? Oh gosh, I think I think a lot of students, Well, you bring up a pen face idea. Have you heard of that before? I've not heard that phrase particularly, but it doesn't surprise me. I'm sure that every campus has something. Many campuses I would imagine have something akin to that. Some school is probably more so than others, But I think it runs the gamut. A

lot of it's perfectionism. I mean, if straight a's is what got them into college, and straight a's is clearly what's going to help to be successful at the next level, and so they start to strive for grades rather than experiences for winning rather than learning, And that can be a very slippery slope, right, because it takes the joy out of it. It can often take the joy out of it, I should say, and it can often take the engagement of it. What about just experiencing those things

that you're interested in? Then you might not be as good as quote unquote other people around you, but are willing to fall in your face and fail a little bit. I think that's so key, you know, and I fail, but just to know that you're learning your own way and that's okay. So I think the grade bit is really challenging. I would say the pressure to pressure to succeed very early on in their post college careers hits a lot of students before they even walk onto campus.

That's to say, Look, I'm forty five years old and when I graduated from school. One of my best friends was in the tech sector, back when tech sector was booming, and I remember him saying, I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm thirty, and I thought, WHOA, that's amazing. A million dollars by the time you're thirty. First of all, I was in classical music, so that wasn't happening for me. The second of all, that's just

a lot of money for a young person. Now, if you don't make a million dollars by the time you're twenty three, you're like a failure and there's no way to come back from that. Oh, no, li of failure. I know, well, you let me know when you get to twenty three, you let me know how. But I think they see that too often, and so they start to set goals that don't necessarily align with their wellbeing

or happiness. And i'd say that, you know, and maybe the third I'll say the third, but let me preface it by saying, it's the question I get asked most often that I think might be the biggest challenge. Our students would come up and say, I'm interested in these four things, any four topics. How do I choose? And my standard answer, and I can talk more about this if you'd like, but my standard answers is why do

you have to choose? Yeah? I like that you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one, twenty two, you're interested in these four things. Maybe what the focus should be is how can I make each of them a part of my life? In some capacity so that I can continue to enjoy things that I find engaging and follow that path. And that's a tricky one because you don't get a whole lot

of parental or societal support around that. But I do believe that in many ways, and we can, whether we're look at studies of passion or an array of other domains. Pursuing those things that engage you, that's an essential part of the path to living a good life. So when you're being structured out of that, it's an early path to potentially unhappiness or unfulfillment struggling. And look, this is the other thing, by the way, that I'll tell my students early in the semester is I'll tell them the

story of the clients that I've had anonymously. And what I'll say is, these people will call me when they're thirty five years old and they're super successful and they're not happy. I get you when you're eighteen and nineteen and twenty. So the routines and habits that they've developed that have helped them be successful on but unsuccessful off stage field, classroom, we can work on those right now.

Let's figure out what works for you. So You don't call me when you're thirty five unless you're going to share really good news with me about how often things are or you want to take it with some things and get them better. But we have the chance now to help you develop habits and routines that can get you both great at what you do and happy in your life. Oh I like both those things, right, I know, well in combination exactly it. You know it shouldn't be

an either or a proposition, right, Yeah? They feed off each other, right, yeah, dynamic ways. Well, talk a little about the importance of positive relationships, not just from friends, but what about from mentors? Professors? Mentors are huge, right.

So if you go back to a study I believe it was either a Gallup study or produced study a couple of years ago when they asked college graduates who had been out of school between five and ten years and who had been assessed as thriving in their lives what the key factors were during their undergraduate experience that allowed them to thrive years later. The top two answers

were both about mentors or professors. That is to say, and I'm going to get this wording paraphrase here, I had a professor who cared about me as a person. And the other question was I had a mentor who who supported my interests. So friends are amazing and they're incredibly important, and never take anything away from them. They're there for the great times to celebrate them, they're there for the tough times to be able to have it to be a head or an ear, shoulder, shoulder or

an ear. But professors and mentors are profoundly important. Not only do they help you set the goals that will allow you to grow and give you the support and the knowledge and the experience that will help you be efficient in your growth, but they kind of keep you the societal thumbs up, like, yeah, I'm here, I'm supporting you, I'm here for you. So let's do it. And I

think that level of confidence is key. That Richard l at Harvard, when the freshmen first come in to his classroom, will ask the question again paraphrasing, what's your job here this first semester at Harvard? And they'll guess and guests and guests, and no one ever gets it until you sell it. No, you're all wrong. Your job here is to find a mentor or a professor that you really align with because that's so important to your ability to thrive now and down the line. Wow. What a complete

reframing of the point of why they're there. Yeah, exactly. Wow. I mean, look, I would be hard pressed to think of anyone who exemplifies it better than you. Oh no, seriously, I mean think about all the wonderful mentors. I was super blessed with amazing mentors and music and in academia and other pursuits. But like your ARC is like amazing mentor, amazing professor, amazing mentor, And I'd be curious to know how that affected you. Yeah, I feel like I am

like a professional mentor seeker, that's for sure. I will admit that. Yeah, I mean I really admire lots of people and I want to learn from them, And yeah, I've been blessed that they've wanted to teach me. There is great value in reaching out to and not being shy to do so. And you find that people are often happy to help someone who is earnestly, you know, wanting to improve themselves and a similar direction as themselves. Yeah. So I think that, and you put your finger on it.

In a lot of ways. Often someone will see themselves their younger selves in you, and there's a wonderful thing about being able to give back to others. None of our paths are easy, but in a way they can really help make the most of someone's pursuits. Oh I couldn't have said that better. Yeah, oh, yes, you could have. I think people listening to this episode are going to be like, wow, they are actually friends. Well it is true. If you are listening and you're thinking we were actually friends,

we are absolutely totally friends. It's true. Yeah. I count myself very, very lucky to have Scott this friend. He's a guy, thankful friend, Thank you, thank you. Likewise likewise Yeah, So can we move on for a second to character strengths. You know, you talked about kind of the intersection of happiness and strengths. Can you unpack a little more of what are some of these potential strengths that we could

be identifying in college students. We as professors, you know, sure so sure, you know, As we said before, because we have this structure and we see so many students come through our classroom, it's easy to put on blinders and look for very specific attributes that indicate to us, Okay, they have a talent for this, Okay, they have a talent maybe for something else, but they're here for another reason, okay, And like be able to sort of start categorizing and

thinking about who's going to thrive in here and how and who might not thrive quite as well as richly, let's say, And if that is what we're doing, we're leaving out certain factors that can help the students that we that we work with, and I'd say even the people that we have the opportunity to interact with outside of the classroom. And that would be among many other elements character strengths. What are our strengths of character? What are those values in life that we have to help

us to thrive. So if you look at and there there are a number of different assessments. So best known might be Strengths Finder in galap but the v end you know, it's I see it a lot in businesses and I think it's terrific, particularly in the workplace. But if you're talking about life overall, if you're talking about being in a classroom or not, or maybe the last classroom experience was fifty years ago, the idea of pursuing strengths of character can be particularly rich and helpful. Those

strengths of character. You can find an assessment at via victor what is it Victor Indigo Alpha. Oh, that's what the I stands for. No, I've always wondered what it' stood for. Value as an action, right, Values in action exactly. So if you go to the Values in Action website can get a free assessment there. And what it is is it's not a measurement of how good you are, how bad you are. It's not a measurement of how smart you are or what your IQ is. It's just

a measure of those strengths with what you thrive. So, for example, strength, some strengths in those twenty four are bravery. They are honesty. They are love and capacity to be loved. They are beauty, appreciation of beauty and mastery. They are justice, they are zest for life. And what we find is that people who are able to incorporate their strengths into their pursuits are far more likely to be engaged in those pursuits, whether they're in the classroom or in the workplace.

Galloped the poll of strengths a number of years ago and founded those organizations that help people to use their strengths at work, those employees have a seventy three percent chance of being engaged. Wow, that's huge effect. It's huge, especially when you think about the organizations that emphasize shoring up weaknesses over using your strengths, and those organizations those people have a nine percent chance of being engaged in

the workplace. Yeah, that's it's quite striking because it's just we're throwing out all these statistics. I'm going to make up a statistic probably ninety probably you just did so. I can probably ninety percent of businesses focus on the negative aspects and just trying to get rid of the negative as opposed to building on the strends. Probably, So that's its huge appliicate. Now I just made up that ninety percent. But that's just my gut is telling me.

That sounds about right to me. I think your gut is spot on. Well. I mean, look, think about some of the great management gurus. Peter Drucker said that the greatest companies are teams are made up of the constellation of strengths. Now, he clearly wasn't referring to to the via the die is in action, nor was he referring to strengths finder, because this is well before either of

those were available to us. But he saw the people who worked in their strengths and formed a team where people not only brought them together but appreciated the other people's strengths, because that's the tough part if your strength, and I think maybe one of the easy ways to do it. And this is not a strength thing, but if you're an extrovert and I'm an introvert, and you're sitting there thinking, why is this guy never talk I was supposed to thinking, I wonder what he's processing right

now because he's listening really, really well. And after this meeting's done, I'm going to ask him or her what he heard, because I'm telling you something he's going to hear a lot more than I am, because all I think of as what to say next. Unless you get that kind of appreciation, you're not really realizing the benefits of that constellation of strengths. So it happens all the

time in college campuses. Clearly, people thinking I actually just want to hang out with people who are like me, or I appreciate this person's strengths whether they know it or not, because they're like my strengths as opposed to thinking how do I put this team together and appreciate other people's strengths. Before that even happens, I just say

to a student, figure out what your strengths are. Go to the VIA website, take the assessment, and when you find out that your strength is, say bravery, figure out a way to use it in a new way every day. Maybe it means asking a questioning class that you'll nervous to ask that doesn't seem quite right, but you're going to be brave enough to ask that question. Maybe bravery looks to you like writing a paper that's a little outside of the box, pushing that boundary a little bit,

because for you, that's how you express bravery. For other people, that might be going in a political march or joining a political cause. It might be something like that. For others it might be a ropes course. Who knows. But the idea is if you're able to use it, maybe it's asking somebody out that you're nervous to ask out. You know, when you express that rate, you're far more likely to at least what Marty Seligman will say is, who was that? Marty? I think you said no I'm sorry.

It was Alice Linley who said, experience what it is to be the real you. Well, I really liked that quote. I really like that quote. You just said, yeah, and it really has me thinking a lot. Let me give you one quick strength just because it might be a fun story. So just as an example, one other example of how students can use strengths, I had a student

couple of years ago. She had just finished her toward doing the Navy, and she was assessed for her strengths, and she had her boyfriend get his strength assessed as well, and so for his birthday, she did a strengths date where one of his strengths was appreciation of beauty and mastering. So she did a date where she took them through a really lovely place for breakfast. She'd done them for a really nice walk in the park. She took them to the net Museum afterwards, and then they sat on

the roof and watched the sunset. He was like, this was the best date I ever had. So being able to structure an experience like that for a friend or for a partner is a really wonderful gift. And she said it was the best day she'd ever had too because she just got to see him so wonderfully, wonderfully engaged. Well, well, so maybe on first States people should be giving each other the via. Hey, you know, you could do a lot worse, right, you do a lot worse and worrying

about like your hair. It's a really good point. I spend way too much time worrying about my hair. Do you have magnificent hair because I spend so much time worrying about my hair? Hours and hours? Well, thank you man. So let me ask you about willpower. I think this is an important topic you cover in your book and something that kind of in a lot of ways is

what enables our character. You know, we may have the potentiality for certain characters, but our lack of willpower might get in the way of that, right, Loly, no question. Do you see that among college students plays a role in their success? I'd say I see among everybody that I've worked with, both as a coach and as an instructor. But in some cases it is a key factor in success. You know, the capacity to do do what you know is best for you long term and forego what you

want in the short term. That would be key for everyone from great athletes, to great world leaders, to great musicians, to great academics, great mothers, great fathers. Self control actually is one of the predictors for a healthy child. I'm sorry. Self control for the parent is one of the great predictors for a healthy child because that parent can do it is right for their child. When it comes to students on campus, absolutely, and I think there are number

of factors that come in. One of the greatest factors. And when we teach this class, we teach it as a kind of a part one Part two. Class is choice. Has to say college students have more choice vast majority. Ninety nine. I'm making this number up at ninety nine point plus percent. As college students have more choice. Second, they step put on campus, and they ever have in their entire life, right when they were in high school.

We were all high school, were told what class to go to, when to be there, what was due, where we're eating, who we were eating with. And you wake up the next morning because you have to wake up at a certain time. You know where your breakfast is, right, so on and so forth. You get to college, you don't know where your dorm is, you don't know what classes you're going to take. You don't know what time those classes are, you don't know who you're going to

have breakfast with. You don't even know who you're going to be sleeping with that first night. And I'm talking clearly about roommates. But you have all of these choices that you never had. Here's the thing with willpower. Willpower is depleted as the more choices you make. So if you wake up in the morning and high school you get down to the table and there's a bowl of cereals sitting there, you have not just made the choice

between bagel, cereal, eggs, pancakes, waffles. So you haven't depleted to willpower when you go to high school because you jump on the bus, you walk the same path of day. It's not like, am I gonna take a subway today? Am I going to go with certain friends? Am I even going to go to class? Because if I don't, no one's going to know. So you haven't necessarily depleted your willpower in high school. But in college, by the time it's ten am, providing you decided not to hit

the snooze button fifteen times, your willpower is depleted. And for a reference point, and by the way, you're in college, Like, what am I going to wear? I have to look like super fly because who knows what I'm going to run into today, and maybe I'm going to want to see that girl in my Science of Happiness class or that guy in my my CAM class, and I have to look good. This is the reason why. One of the reasons why Mark Zuckerberg always wears the same hoodie,

or at least he has a billion of them. Why Steve Jobs always wore the same thing, Why Alverd Einstein were the same thing. Because they don't want they have to make the choices. Thus they say their willpower for other things, allowing them to focus. So for college students and will power, yeah, it gets trained super fast because it's the hit with all these choices, and by the time mid afternoon hits, evening hits the habits, the bad habits kick in. We rarely make bad decisions in the

morning like we do in the evening. Our ability to work through and not procrastinate, for example, grows in the afternoon and evening as well. We eat less healthy in the afternoon evening because our willpower is drained. So for college students, yeah, it's a huge factor. That they don't think about very often. I'd say there are a couple of ways to there's a couple of shortcuts that they can build in to preserve that well power and to

save it's when they really need it the most. That's a great lesson if you can impart that on the students, imparting and having them actually take advantage of it, or two different things. But here's the thing about the course, and I imagine you found this too, teaching the science and happiness. Some students who can look at it and go, oh my gosh, that's amazing. I totally have to take advantage of that. And other students are going to go whatever, dude.

But hopefully they'll look at the characters during this class and go, I'm going to try that on my next day one the optimis in class and go, all right, how am I going to explain the next bad things that happens to me? So that can maybe have a different style of dealing with bad things. You know. The hopes is that whether it's with the class or the course, I should say, or or the book, that people will find something. The snowflakes will find the woman's right for them.

Maybe it's one thing, two things, and actually they can take a habit, they can create three things, four things, but I seriously that it's going to be all of them. So hopefully if what power works for you, wonderful, and if it doesn't, you'll find something else. Yeah, willpower doesn't work so well for me. I mean either it's not one of my character strengths because there I actually find it gets in the way of creativity, which is one

of my character strengths. And curiosity. Ah interesting, if I think if you have too much willpower, you're going to like kind of ignore the seemingly irrelevant and miss out on the beautiful connections. But anyway, I starting to sound a little hippie. If so, I'll stop. Hey, and I wonder about that. Think about it. What if you're totally committed to keeping the blinders off, you're going to be like, how am I not going to allow myself to get the blinders onto? You know? How am I get to

constantly allow myself to stay open to experience? That takes for power too, Because then for a lot of folks it's easier just to be like, Hey, I'm going to put my head nose of the grindstone get the good grade. Not worry about you know, creatived beated. That's for the hippies like that takes some that says take some stuff control. You know, that's actually a really good point. I'm going to rethink that. What's the difference between harmonious and obsessive passion? Oh? Look,

who's asking me that question? As you passion itself? You know you should do if you're out there listening, you should google Scott Breakoff and articles on passion. You're too nice. You're too nice. I know that you have a lot of great stuff to say about it. So the things I'm interested in most are development of excellence and expertise in our life and how we can do so in a healthy way. And the study of passion, which has really been vibrant for the last twenty five years, particularly

the University of Montreal. I think for me is one of the key elements when it comes to bringing together well being and excellence. The thing about passion is Bob Baloran has been doing so much of this research and his colleagues I really found there are two very distinctive

pathways to pursue a passion. Now, a passion can be anything, almost anything, I believe that they've When he pulled five hundred and thirty five students University of Montreal, they came up with a list of well over one hundred passions. Because at first the students were saying, well, I don't

know by the passion. When they realized that a passion is a strong desire to do something, and to do something at least eight and a half hours a week, they were like, wait, does that include having conversations with friends? Does that include gardening? Does that include cooking? Does that include skateboarding? It does, so all of a sudden, these passions can be to your earlier point. They can be so diverse that we may have them and not even

know it. But the thing about passions that are so essential to bringing together well being and excellence is that these two roads are very distinctive. One is harmonious and one is what is terms obsessive. And the harmonious attributes of harmonious include intrinsic drivers. So you're doing something because you love it. It's super easy. I love looking at kids because they get up and they're five years old and they're like, I want to play with legos, Like

that's usually an intrinsic motivation. They get up. The first thing I do is play Legos. The first thing I want to do is play in the sandbox. First thing I want to do is fingerpaint. The first thing I want to do is play piano. First thing I want to do is go out and play a sport. So a harmoniousassion, we can look at our kids and be like, yes, it's something you wake up looking forward to. An obsessive passion is different in that it's often driven by external circumstances.

You do it because your parents want you to do it. You do it because the money is really good, You do it because the status it gives you in your culture, and those drivers can lead towards a very different passion that is far less healthy. So when we look at harmonious passions, we find that the results are that people tend to have higher levels of positive motion. They can they're more engaged, they can focus, they have better memory.

Turn that's the wrong way to put it, but they retain more the information when it's harmonious memory, Thank you very much. What's the definition of the exactly? So there are all these wonderful benefits, but when you look at the folks who are obsessively passionate, they have much higher levels of negative emotion even you know when they're not only when they're doing the pursuit that they're passionate about,

but for the rest of their day. So, for example, we looked at the Valerian looked at high school and college basketball players assess them for harmonious or obsessive passion. And those college basketball players are harmonious really enjoyed their practice, but then the rest of the day was better too. Those who are obsessive didn't enjoy practice, and the days they had practice, the rest of their day was worse. So it's not just about the one thing, it's about

everything in their life. So when we pursue a harmonious passion with this opportunity not only to engage and do better, but to be happier, to be better friends, to have more relationships, well, when it's obsessed, if it tends to bring us down. And there's a huge rate to burnout when it comes to obsessive passions, far far, far far

far greater than harmonious passions. But here's the bottom line, and this is what a lot of people will ask when we talk about this is, But don't you need to be obsessively passionate to really be great quote unquote great to be the best? And we're finding is for the most part, with very few exceptions. The studies seem to show that it's not the case that both types of passion lead to very very high levels of performance, but only one of them, the harmonious, also leads to

fulfilling life. Yeah, Dan, just to clarify something between people, when you measure harmonious and obsessive between people, you can look at differences, but within a person, there there's no profile of a person who is zero percent obsessively passionate, right, I mean, every single one of us has a mix of the two, and it's all about getting the gears

the relative ratio right. You're totally spot on, And it's such an important point to know that, just like so many things in our life, few of us are black or white in anything, and passion is exactly the same way. So one may recognize some obsessive passion as part of their path, some characteristics of the obsessive aspect, but that can be helpful to be able to recognize both and know, well, where am I being obsessive? Is it healthy for me? Can I shift a little bit more towards the harmonious?

How's that really working out for me? As again, the snowflake that I am the strength to be unique, to pursue your own path. It's actually that's such an interesting one too, Scott. When we think about people who are admired on both sides of the aisle, so to speak, one can say that we have unique people or snowflakes, really both sides. You know, if we look at someone like Teddy Roosevelt. You know, one of the is I love about Roosevelt comes to uniqueness is that he wasn't

just a president. He was a rough rider soldier, He was an environmentalist, start of the National Park system. He was a hard nosed, rough and tumble guy who loved rough sports in football, boxing, those kind of things. He's also a very very very very sick kid news young. You know, asthma was so bad he couldn't leave the house, couldn't have the window open. So here's this guy who had all these different things going. He was completely unique.

Who look at someone like Maya Angelou very similar, so many different things happening, completely unique human being. There's a wonderful clip of Bruce Lee talking about how he discusses his pursuit of the martial arts and how martial arts to him is fully expressing himself and at a certain point just the words don't do him justice anymore, but it's clear that he has pursued things in a different way,

different than everyone else has. So yes, I used snowflake in a very positive way to say, you know, we are unique people. Whether you're Ronald Reagan or you are Barack Obama, these are incredibly unique folks who have taken very brave steps that other people wouldn't have. Do you encourage any of your students to be unique but also to be conscious of others? Is just being unique the

most really important thing? Well? Fortunately, you know. There are a number of topics that we discuss in the course in the book, and maybe the center of that is meaning. When it comes to essential drivers for thriving and meaning it can be defined many ways, but one of which is to feel that you are a part of something greater than yourself. Adam Grant when of your colleagues at Pen's talked about how we cultivate meaning, and certain ways include questions such as how does your work help the

world be a better place? How does your work help other people around you? And when people consider those questions in relation to their work, whether it's firefighting, or being a parent or being an academician, we tend to get a sense it other people matter. How we affect other people matter, How we take care of people around us matter. Our place in the community matters, star place, but how we contribute to the community matters. So is it okay just to be unique? Well, I mean, but the question

of how am I helping the world be a better place? Yeah, that's important, and that starts to connect you to others. So no, it's not just about being unique. There many factors come in to play. Great thanks Dan, and I love all the factors that you talk about in combination in your book and I wish all the best with the book and hope that you can continue inspiring on today's youth. Thank you very much. Hey, it's a tremendous gift to be able to work with all these students

every year. Heck, you know what, we take that back, it's a tremendous gift to be able to work with one student. The fact they get to work with any students at all is really fortunate. And now I have to thank you for letting me share what we're doing with all your listeners, because, hey, as I always say, it change one person for the better. If you help them thrive today, then we've done our work, done our job. Thanks again, well, you're doing great things, Scott, Thanks for

having me on. Thanks Dan, thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott barrk Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as thought per booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com