Suzann Pileggi Pawelski || Using Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts

Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today. I'm really excited to have James and Suzanne Peleggi Powewski on the podcast. James is Professor of Practice and Director of Education in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he co founded the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program with Martin Selgman. Susie is a freelance writer, Psychology Today blogger, and well being consultant in the science of happiness and

its effects on relationships and health Together. James and Susie are calthers of the new or re leased book Happy Together, using the science of positive psychology to build love that lasts. They also give romance and research workshops together around the world, and I've had the pleasure of seeing one of their workshops, and I have to say it's pretty awesome. Hey, guys, thanks so much for timing with me today. Thanks so much for having us. Scott, happy to be here, so

great to be with you. Scott. Yeah, it's really good and I have so many questions as I was reading this book that I really feel like this can help a lot of people with their relationships. I'm wondering why you guys decide to write this book in the first place. That's a great question. It seems that in today's culture there's so much focus on getting together rather than being together. So much focus on finding a perfect person and then on the wedding day, but not much focus on the

actual marriage that's intended to last a long time. And that's a great question well as well. No, Scott, we have the absolute perfect relationship. We have not had any since we met, and we thought, you know, we should just share our secret sauce with the world and you know, have everybody kind of learn how it's done. That's a joke. No,

you're humans. We're human. We're absolutely human. And one of the reasons why we wrote this book is to try to dispel this notion of the expectation of the perfect relationship. And so the word perfect actually comes from two Latin words, which means thoroughly done. So no relationship is thoroughly done unless one or both partners stop working at it right.

But we have this pressure in our society, this expectation, this kind of fairy tale approach that we're going to meet the perfect person, the heavens will open, the violins will play, and we will live happily. Ever After, I thought, well, of course it's but this is you know, for the science of it and the long term nature of it, it's important to understand that that expectation, that feeling of falling in love, it's great, but that's not the whole

picture of a romantic relationship. And so there's so much there's so many voices in our culture today kind of with that expectation, and I think people then wind up being caught between delight when they feel like they're falling in love and kind of expecting that this will happen, you know, this will continue forever, or despair if they don't get hit by that, you know, that experience or things fall apart in some way. Yeah, I love that, and that's something that I really resonated with me when

I saw one of your workshops. Is just how human and real you know this is. You're not trying to paint something that's not attainable, You're trying to paint a room. I mean, I think we live in an overly curiated society, right, and so people are presenting the best part of themselves

out there understandably. But the last thing we wanted was to write a relationship book which would make people feel worse instead of better, which would make people feel like, you know, we didn't title it, you know, thirteen things you need to Know for the Perfect Relationship, or I've had different titles maybe entertaining and kind of interesting and draw you in and entice you to buy the book, but it's just not reality. And so reality, I think

is the relationships are. There's a lot of promise and possibility. There's also a lot of hard work that needs to be rightly directed to be successful. And it's interesting because it seems that another aspects of our life, we don't expect to just buy a gym membership and have the you know, a fitner more town body overnight. We don't get that first job and you're going to catapult to the corner office. Right. So at the gym, you have to work out, you train for work, you take training classes,

and you work at it a lifetime. You move up in your career to get a more flexible and strong body. So why is it when it comes to romantic relationships, long term relationships like marriage? Do you think you just you know, find someone, You make all these decisions, you plan a wedding, and then it just happens. Like other aspects of our life, they're healthy habits you need to help keep the relationship going and going well. Writing Yeah,

and you guys coined the term relationships to be in right. Yeah, So just like it takes healthy habits and a lifetime of working out to keep your body healthy, same as in a marriage. Like your body changes, you change as an individual. As a couple, you evolve maybe some things that worked in the beginning. Either sometimes it gets sale, you know, you fall in a right like you do with workouts, and you're kind of bored, or your body gets used to something and you have to try different routines,

some novelge to maintain interests. The same in the marriage or long term relationship. What are those healthy exercises you can do, make an effort to keep it exciting. It doesn't just happen. You had to work together with your partner and come up with ideas and suggestions and activities that work for both of you. I love that. Okay, So you've pretty much made it clear how this book

differs from other books and relationships. So do you feel like that the predominant books that are out there on the topic are kind of unrealistic in what they promise the reader? I think many of them are unrealistic. I think others are very much focused on problems and how to solve them, which is of course important. We all need to know in our lives how to solve the

problems that we find in our sphere. And it's a problem, though, is that are a problem with orientation and duly focus our attention on what's not going well in relationship and forget the things that are going on that are really great about it. And so because you know, in that initial phase where we fall in love and there's that excitement and so forth, those positive feelings just kind of overwhelm our systems, and we oftentimes think, well, that's the way.

It's just going to be forever. Things are going to be great, but then the day the grind, day in and day out, you got to set your schedules, and you got to figure this out and figure that out, You got to figure out your budget and all that has and then sometimes those those annoying things just kind

of start to creep in. And because the way we're wired is to be much more sensitive, is very sensitive to threat and problems, and so we can tend to focus on you know, if you would just do that differently, or if that's really this is a perfect relationship, but there's this problem and that can take that can overridingly occupy our time and focus and our attention, and then we can, if we're not careful, forget about the things

that are going well. So part of what we're trying to say is that yes, we do need to have books, and you know, it's important to have Mary's therapists. Absolutely, it's also so important to be balanced about it and to focus at least as much time we would say, on what's going well in the relationship, and we tend to think that, well, it's going well, so I don't need to think about it. But actually, if something is going, Well, that's a doorway, it's an option, it's an opportunity to

think about that more and to grow it. And you know Scott as a psychologist, obviously the figure ground concept I talked about that. Well, I'd like to talk about what you focus on. So those perceptual things, you know, you talk about if you look at a picture and you can focus on you know, you see the beautiful woman or you see the old hag, hopefully the beautiful woman.

I just wrote about that in my Psychology Today blog because it reminds me of when you get together with a partner and you see a strength of theirs that you really love. Right, So at the beginning of the relationship, you know, with James being a philosopher, I loved his an analytical mind and deliberate slow thinking. He helped me think through things. Years into it, I'm like, you're driving me crazy, you know. I think he's trying to deliberately

slow me down and be this persnickety philosopher. I could think that, but knowing that like a top strength of his is analytical thinking. When I look at our relationship and my spouse through a lens of positivity, I realize No, he's being James, and he's leading his strength. He's not trying to annoying it. But you know that's a strength that is and that's how he sees things. Yeah, so we haven't actually, I don't think we use the phrase

positive psychology yet. But a lot of what you're talking about is some of the core tenants of this newer field in psychological polity psychology. I know that many of the listeners in this podcast are big fans of positive psychology, but some might not be that aware with it. James, you're one of the leaders. When I say one of the leaders, I mean like one of the d V

the leaders of this newer field. Could you please talk a little bit about it and maybe and talk a little about the program that you run at penn On PI Positive Psychology. Sure, yeah, absolutely so thanks Scott. You know, it's great to be talking to another one at V

the leaders, So it's great to connect about this. You could answer this question just as well and better than I. But the way I like to describe positive psychology is that mainstream psychology focuses on what's wrong with people and how to fix it, which is important, and positive psychology focus is on what's right with people and how to cultivate it, which is also important and I think usually a lot more fun. And so this field was started

about twenty years ago. Now. Martin Seligman was the person who most responsible for launching this when he was president of the American Psychological Association in nineteen ninety eight, and the field really took off, and about five years later I had met him at the first public meeting on positive psychology that happened in Washington, DC in two thousand and a few years after that, he started the Positive Psychology Center of the University of Pennsylvania, and he wanted

to start a master's program called Master Applied Positive Psychology Program to bring in people from all around the world in all kinds of professional pursuits, so doctors, lawyers, educators, business people and so on, who wanted to study the research in positive psychology and then take it back to

the professions and apply it. Invited me to come and join them at the University of Pennsylvania and we co launched, co developed and co launch this program which I now direct and we both teach, and we now are thirteen years later. We have some five hundred students who've come through the program from about twenty five or thirty different countries around the world. Yeah, it's such an incredible sense of community that program and these people they've come with

long friends. It really has got just a few minutes ago left. We have weekend classes once a month, face to face and so people come in from across the United States from around the world for that face to face meeting, monthly meeting, and we have a distance learning modules in the intervening times. And I have to tell you the connection, the feeling. I mean, we laugh together,

we cry together. It's really an extraordinary group of people who are brought together is such diversity, but brought together but a common goal of wanting to learn about the research and practice positive psychology and take it back into their professional domains and really to expand this, you know. And we're living in a time when a community can be really hard to come by, and people feel so

separated and isolated and split off from other people. And so I think one of the things to my mind that's so special about positive psychology, in addition to the emphasis on the research, is what can happen, The magic that can happen is Marty likes to call it. Marty Sellivan likes to call it the magic of math that happens when you come together and you're actually yeah, into practice. Now does the techniques of pop psychology? Does it ever give a little spark of love for anyone in the

in the in the program. Has that ever happened? Do any marriages ever come out of that? You know? It actually has. So there have been two pairs of former students who have now gotten married, so Amy and reb REBELI. They now have two kids. And then just this past November, there were a couple of alumni, David Yaden and Bit Smith, who got married. So they asked me to be the celebrant for the wedding. It was a gorgeous wedding in New Orleans and it was a great It's just a

meaningful time and a great opportunity. We were able to use principles from our book in conducting a way. Yeah, and I had the privilege of being there and watching that. It really was beautiful. I definitely teared up, teared up and yeah, so okay, so clearly positsychology, you know, kind of it's not antithetical, it's conducive to cultivating relationships and

even romantic relationships. And you make that clear. Something that is also unique about this book is kind of your philosophical background and bringing Aristotle to the table of this. Can you talk a little bit about what Aristotle thought about relationships and how do you integrate that with positive psychology. Yeah, no, it's a great question. I would imagine that when people, you know, pick up a book on relationships and positive psychology,

they don't necessarily expect to start with a arisyle. So that's a good thing to explain. First of all, as you know, Aristotle had a lot of great ideas that actually form a lot of the theoretical basis for positive psychology in terms of his virtue ethics and so forth, strengths and so forth. One of the things Aristotle wrote is that there are three things that human beings love. We love what's useful, we love what's pleasurable, and we love what's good. And he said there are friendships that

go with each of those things that we love. So we have friendships with people who are useful to us. Think about, you know, two friends getting together and starting a company and making a ton of money that's great, or two friends who get together and go out in the town on the weekend and have a ton of fun. Aristotle says, there's nothing wrong with these types of friendships. You know, they're great if you can have them. But there's a third kind of relationship that's even more powerful,

and that's a relationship of virtue or character. And that's when you're attracted to the other person, not because what you can get out of the relationship or merely enjoy. Women are pleasure from it, but because you see the good in the other person's character and you are inspired by that to want to become a better person yourself. And so this is a concept set of concepts from Aristol that have been very impressive to me, and Susie

took those ideas a very interesting direction. So on our honeymoon we were talking about Aristotle and Nick Nickey and ethics, because doesn't everyone talk about that on your hetame when you now you know why I love Susie. She was willing to talk about the nick after I was like, whs your suitcase like extreme, we have to pay all this money when we are impacted In our honeymoon room, James had about two thousand bucks. They take books on

your honeymoon. Can you tell books well at beach reading? Yeah, it's a baby reading this babies big fake toes. You know the books that he uses from the sixteenth century, are they books that they're not You're not as Yeah, you don't want to take the scrolls with you. They could get damage to the transition. So as we were talking about Aristotle, James likes to talk about the Aristotilian friendship.

He talks about in class with his students and he has students pick someone to be their Statilian friend throughout the year to help support them with their you know, work and have somebody to communicate with and you know, like a buddy. So I sent to James on the beach, why did Aristotle have to just limit us to friends friendship? What if we took this one step further and we

re applied it to our relationship. So rather than just being your basic lovers, we became Aristotilian lovers, and we really worked hard about helping one another identify our strengths, seeing the good in one another, and making the goal of our marriage to really focus on helping, you know, grow the goodness and the character and achieving goals together. That focused on each other becoming a better person, and he said, I love that idea, And that's sort of

how it happened. So when this book came about, my whole thing was I was never looking to write a book. I was never looking to write a book on relationships. So what did I do? I wrote a book on relationships with my husband. I only wanted to do a book if we could get Aristotle in. And James can tell you I fought to get Aerorstottle, like Oristutle's not going to get edited out because I thought this concept.

I had never seen a relationship book that had as its sort of foundation, if you will, seeing the goodness in your partner and then using positive psychology as the mechanism or the means to achieve that goodness. Yeah, and it does tell so nicely with the writings about love in the humanistic psychology tradition that I'm a big fan of. And as we talked about self actualizing, love was all about helping to grow each other. So put Maslow the

same dinner table with James, Susie and Aristontal No absolutely sad. Look. Look, one of the things one of the things that we realized in writing this book is that there's a there's just such a proliferation of material that we could use, much more than we could ever have put into a single volume. So this isn't intended to be the exhausted last word on the subject, but a first kind of

a beginning. So there's so much that people have thought about, this self actualization or this helping each other to actualize, looking at the good, focusing on that and so forth. But again, one of our concerns is that in our culture, those voices, the volume is it turned up very high on those voices, and we don't really hear that message as much as I think we really need to, absolutely, and your book really does a good good job of bringing that more into the mainstream. I thought we could

maybe talk about practical tips without giving it away. We still people to buy the book, right, but we're happy to get practical way. The point of all of this is really the message that we want, you know, that

we want to get through. When Susie suggested that we write this book again, neither one of us ten years ago, neither one of us would have predicted that we'd be, you know, in this position of having written a book on relationships when she suggested that we do this, my number one reason for saying yes was that I thought of it as an important project that the two of us could undertake that could help us in our own relationship.

So the point about the relationship, Jim, that's not something that we built and hope that people will go to. That's something we need and we want to be there, and we want to invite other people, you know, to join us. And so it's really about our own relationships, a relationship, and also inviting others and hoping that we can have a community of folks who are interested in this, in this information. So it's really about getting that message across however we can. We're happy to share tips that

could be helpful with people. Thank you, thank you. How about once? Should we start with gratitude, the practice and gratitude? Yeah, because you know, that's a kind of a buzzword these days, and some people might think that's like, you know, why do you need a book to say that gratitude is important? But tell me your twist to it. Well, we could start with there's Yes, there's so much on gratitude out there, and the majority of the research seems to be on

expressing gratitude, which of course is very important. There's not as much or there's barely any, only importance of receiving gratitude. And when you're in a relationship doesn't have to be a romantic relationship, just a diad. There's two people, right,

So there's the giving and the receiving component. And so when we were giving our romance and research workshops and talking to people experiential and our own marriage, we realize, just as important as to give gratitude well, express it well. If it falls on kind of rocky ground and it's not received, well, it's like giving me a gift and you don't open the present, then it doesn't work. So in our book we talk about the response being just as important, and we use a metaphor of the gratitude

dance because light dancing, which we've done together. We talked about the ball room dancing lessons we took. It really takes two people, and if you're not responding well to the one person's moves, the dance isn't going to happen. Well, so let's do some role play. Okay, I give it, so, Sussey, I really like that shirt you're wearing. This whole thing. So if I give a compliment to somebody, I don't do it because I want them to feel awkward or

just kind of like that was mean. Thanks. Rachie didn't respond in a way that I can, you know, do anything with right, and it really shuts me down, and I don't I don't know, it's not fun. It really shuts them down. Or you know another thing I could say, Hey, Susie, I really like that shirt. Oh I really like your pants. So this is the hot potato right, So it's I've paid you a compliment, man, you better pay me back otherwise, you know, you're not owe me. And it's like I'm

not comfortable with it for some reason, you know. And I thought of the childhood game of hot potato where you throw it back or you're gonna get burned. Like why is that we tossed them all back and forth. It's like I don't want it. You had it and you're so it doesn't really land on you know either. Verson a third a third one that your listeners might resonate with, Susie, that was a really delicious dinner you made. Thank you so much for taking the time to do

that for us. I ran out of the the spice. I didn't have the right space the spice. And then I over boiled the potatoes because I had to answer the phone. And then I bought a different rice brand and I realized it was chimmier than the other one. That So at this point, Scott, I was like, shoot me, now, I was just thank you for the dinner, right, I don't want to hear this whole litany of reasons why I'm an idiot for thinking it was a good dinner. Yeah,

was right, So I'm making a no to myself. Ever, Ever, thanks Susie for the dinner again, because I don't get in this whole litany of thing. So those are some different common ways in which I think people responded gratitude in ways that really shut the dance of gratitude down. And it's just like a bad habit, Like that's a true story and we had it in our book, you know.

The Italian in me, I want to be a good cook like my family was, so I would always get him the detailed discounting you call it discounting in the book, not coming clean, like having to tell him why the meal wasn't as good as it could have been. And I didn't realize that was really shutting him down. I mean,

he would get so annoyed. And it's funny because when we talked about this store workshop attendees, so many people identify men and women where they had to come clean and they couldn't have accepted the gratitude because they felt that, you know, it wasn't perfect and they made some mistakes and it really isn't good for the relationship. It doesn't help build the bond, but rather usually annoys and frustrates.

I think a lot of us find and a lot of the workshop justicipants reported that it's almost like we feel like gratitude is you know, a plate of cookies, and if you take one of the cookies, you accept the gratitude. It's like there's not going to be enough for everybody else, so you feel kind of guilty for taking that in and accepting it, right, which of course is ridiculous. Gratitude isn't limited, you know, like a plate full of cookies. Is I love that we should just

leave that hang in there that you can find a book. Yeah, but we don't want the listener, you know, think getting the wrong impression because Susie is one of the most positive individuals I've ever met in my life. So we don't want them getting the wrong impression of Susie. So let's how Susie respond, how she would actually respond. Yeah. So, just like we have identified some ways that we think kind of shut down the gratitude dance, so we've identified

some ways that we think actually helped to continue it. Right, So I might now you just use the same example, Susie, that was a wonderful dinner that you prepared for us. It was delicious. Thank you so much for taking time to do that. You're welcome. So if she responds she just accepts it, she just takes it, then that's a start. And I don't have to listen to all the litany of all the things that went wrong with it. It's just I know that it landed, she understood it, and

she accepted it. So accepting is one thing, and again a lot of us find that it's hard to accept gratitude, but it's an important part of that diadic continuation of the relationship. A further step we might take is not just accepting, but really amplifying it, So letting the other person know how we feel when we received that from them. So if I were to say, Susie, thank you so much for taking the time to prepare this delicious meal.

We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for noting that I really appreciate you know, worked hard on that, and I'm happy you enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing it with me, James. Great. So, you know, it doesn't take necessarily all that long, but it lets me know that it really matters to her, that it really makes a

difference to her. Right, So again, you know, or there will be times when I'll do various things around the house or the kitchen or it and if she never responds to me, then it's hard to know how she's feeling about it. Right. But if she says, you know, when you when I see you doing those things, it really makes me feel like you care and you're engaged

and so on, then that's great. And then a third step we might mention is then when we can actually move beyond the accepting and the amplification savoring it to advancing the relationship as a result of it. Right, So, we oftentimes think of gratitude as a kind of you know, a statement, but really we can think of it as a doorway, and when we accept the gratitude, it's like you know, seeing the doorway. When we amplify it and really savor it, it's like opening the door and looking

out to the vista that's outside. And then when we advance the relationship through it, it's like actually walking through the doorway and having so much more in the relationship available to us. Can want to give it an advance example? Sure, so can we use the same one. Okay, So if I said, you know again, Susie, thank you so much for making this food. I really appreciate you creating this delicious dinner for us. Thanks James. Well, can you tell me,

like specifically, what did you really enjoy about it? Was there? Yeah? Particular? Yeah, Well, the fact that you made this castle role. It reminds me of the castle role that my mom used to make and you know, when I was a kid growing up. It just brings back all the nostalgia of you know, that experience, and so the fact that you've got that recipe from my mom and made it, I just it really makes me feel warm and stuff. So great to

hear that. So you see, I mean we could continue for a while and the doorway metaphor I think is really beautiful to the poetic side of James. I'd like to also think of it as gratitude instead of just being transactional. It could be more interactional and you have upward spirals of positive emotion where we're going deeper and now James is opening up to me and telling me about childhood experiences and we could really, you know, have

more authentic connection than just a basic transaction. Yeah. It reminds me of the Erran the work of the Arrans on self expansion and the thirty six questions. Yeah, like more and more deeper. Yeah, Yeah, that's great. Can we talk about passion for a second, because that's another that's a big one with relationships. A lot of people talk about how passion wanes and then they freak out when that happens. They're like, it's over, it's over now. Yeah.

Can you maybe calm people down a little bit, you know that maybe that's not the end of the world, or there are things they can do. I think that's a great question. And again I think when you look at pop culture, you know, when you hear about these hot and heavy romances and you have fragrances named obsession and you have song titles I Can't live without You

and your Everything. So people think and expect that that kind of all consuming sweat the way feeling is ideal in a relationship, and the minute that it wanes, then the relationship dies. And there's a lot of problems with that. I mean. The first one is that often the way passion is presented in pop culture and in the media is in that way, which is more of an obsessive passion. So Bob Bellern, who's the leading passion researcher, talks about

there's two types. So there's the obsessive, which I just explained, and then there's a healthier passion where you maintain your identity. You don't have to be with the other person, but you want to be with the person. So unfortunately, a lot of people are in a relationship that may be obsessive and then they fall apart, and then they get in another relationship and it falls apart and not a relationship, but right, what's going on? Because it's the wrong kind

of passion. It's not a healthy passion. Do you want to jump in here, Well, yeah, so I'd say that, you know, paradoxically, Scott if people find the passion quote unquote waning, that can actually be a good sign. What can be a problem is if that initial feeling of all consuming this about a relationship never wanes, it's actually an indicator that you may not be in love. You

may be an obsession. Right, So the healthy kind of way of living life is not to get obsessed with any one particular portion of it about it all's work indicates, but rather to have a sus So this harmonious is balance, right. And so now when you first meet somebody, it's certainly natural to be you know, you're thinking driving along the highway because it's a new powerful thing in your life.

And so we're not saying that romances mad, but we're saying that the natural progression of a relationship would be that then you are able to integrate that person into your life and vice versa, in concert with the other healthy passions that you have. And if you can't do that, and if you're just stuck at that level of I can't live without you, that may be a warning side.

And the research actually shows people in relationships, women in relationships with men who are obsessively passionate towards them are less sexually satisfied. Both partners are less satisfied the women. The women are women in relationships with men who are obsessively passionate towards them. The women report being less sexually satisfied in true. Yeah, you know, I think that the obsessive passion, and I imagine that would work the other

way around as well. When you have someone with a really anxious attackachment style, which I think is going to be correlated with obsessive passion, you're going to find it kind of freaks the partner out in a matter of male or female. It's such a great question because when I was an interviewing Bob Vallery for the book, I'm really into attachment styles, and that is exactly I predicted.

And I say to Bob, I'm curious. I would think that this is, you know, an unhealthy attachment style, the anxious or the avoidant, and he said, I think so too, And they're currently conducted in research on that right now as you speak, well, it's got to be the case. I mean, you know, it's almost like, how could that not be the case. There's the corporation there, because you you do find that anxious attachment style is quote with less sexual satisfaction that you find that as well. So

I'm linking those literatures together makes a lot of sense. Indeed. Yeah, And one of good tip Bob said in our interviews that listen to your friends, those friends you trust, because in the research, it shows that your friends can usually see the signs of obsessive passion the red flags before

you do. So maybe some of us had friends or maybe it was ourselves in the relationship where you know, you get in a relationship with someone and then suddenly, let's say your friend does and then suddenly, you know, your friend kind of seems different. He or she's not the same person they used to They're not still engaged in the activities and interests they used to be since they met someone. You don't recognize them anymore, and that's one of the telltale signs that they could be in

an obsessively passionate relationship. Good good. I like that. Yeah. Often, like when you're so in it, it can be really hard to see a bigger picture both both couples, you know. Yeah, or even like a therapist, not just a friend, but like a counselor or something can probably see things right, definitely, So I mean, we can talk about some healthy ways to your point about the anxious attachment styles to a

lot of it is you know, ego based. So if somebody's only focused on you know, their insecure and focused on their ego, obviously someone the other person is probably not going to be satisfied in bed. So they talked about for harmonious passion, to maintain or to develop a healthy passion, try to diversify your interests. So you have your partner a great but what are those other activities

that you enjoyed before the relationship. You know, maybe you'll enjoyed hiking on the weekends, or your bridge class, or your book club or some sort of you know, pick up basketball game. What were those activities? What were the friends you spent time with? And make sure you carve out time to do those things because the research shows you can't be obsessively passionate over a bunch of things. They're just not enough time in the day. So yeah,

I love that. Yeah, even polyamorous individuals who have multiple partners, because that's the thing too, And I'd imagine you'd want to apply your research to that community as well. You still can't, you know, there's still a limit with It's exactly exactly like even with that community, I'm sure that they have limits too. It's like, you know, where you start spreading yourself too thin in a way. Cultivate arose. We haven't we haven't used that word yet, but it's

one of my favorite words. Yeah, aros is all about growth. Right, Well, this is great. Your book is great. I really recommend people go out and get it. And I just want to end here. You know, is there one piece of advice that you most want people to remember about having great relationships? I think I'd like to say, focus on finding and feeding the good in the relationship. And one way to do that is to focus on strengths. So, as you know, Scott, in positive psychology, one of the

key things are character strengths. Specifically how for the listeners and audience you might not know. Researchers have identified twenty four character strengths that have been valued across time and cultures. And we all have strengths, and we have them in varying degrees. And you can find out what your top strengths are for free by going to the VIA website. I'll put that, yes, okay, I'll put that in the

show notes. Okay, so I guess we'd like to say in the book, one of the highlights we talk about finding and feeding the good inn the other person by knowing your strengths, knowing your partner strengths, and then working together to help lead with our strengths and help really further practice our strengths in our relationship. You want to jump into something, No, I'm just saying, wow, do you

want to see a thing? James, Yeah, exactly right. And I think that one of the things that's so wonderful about positive psychology is that it helps to give us the language and the perspective and the activities and the ideas of doing that. Right. So it's one thing to say, you know, you should recognize the good and any other person that's really important, But what does that mean, which, again coming back to the relationship, Jim, you know, it's one thing to say, well, I need to get fit,

but what does that mean? Well, how do you do it? You write in the tips tools exactly, so that means putting your you know, your bottom down on that bicycle and going for thirty minutes, or you know, lifting these weights and so on. So the specific exercises and positive psychology, like identifying your strengths and so forth can give us the real specific and helpful how too for accomplishing this. When we talk about going on strengths dates, you could

read the book and learn about that. But again, I think to James's point, then there's a practical component because you could say, we'll focus on good. Okay, what's the tangible? So we like using these wonderful character strengths because everybody has character strengths, right, you don't have to go out and buy some new equipment. You're working on character strengths

and you could come up use your imagination. Hopefullybody has some creativity even though it's not if it's not a top strength like it is Ree Scott, that you can be created and work with your partner on injecting some novelty in your life by coming up with exercises and dates that focus on your strengths. Yes, well, I like that.

That's kind of like Esther Perel meets positive psychology. That's right, because she talks about the importance of novelty to keep things exciting, but it doesn't talk about the strength so much. So that's great. Cool guys, Well, thanks so much for this chat, and yeah, I consider really exciting and inspiring to talk about this topic with you all. So have a great day. Thanks so much. It is wonderful. We have such tremendous respect for you and the work that

you're doing. It's a real honor for us to be able to be with you and have this conversation with Thank you, Thanks James. It means yeah, have a good one. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, please add a rating

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