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Episode Transcript
The transcript is computer generated. There may be errors.
Sharad: Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host Sharad Lal. This is episode 77. Today we are tackling one of life's most profound questions. What is happiness? And more importantly, what role does it play in our lives? to explore these fundamental questions, we're joined by an exceptional guest, happiness scientist, Sha En.
Yeo. Sha En. brings a wealth of expertise to our conversation. She holds a master's in positive psychology from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. where she studied under the founder of positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman and the renowned professor Angela Duckworth. Over the past 13 years, Sha En has inspired more than 25, 000 people across the Asia Pacific region with her insightful keynotes and transformative coaching. She's a familiar voice on the radio on 91. 3 FM, a best selling author, and a two time TEDx speaker. If that weren't enough, Shine also serves as the president of the Asia Professional Speakers Association.
In this episode, we'll explore the spectrum of positive emotionsFrom joy to contentment. We'll examine happiness through a scientific lens and discover practical ways to enhance both our wellness and performance through happiness in work and personal lives.
But before we dive in,Thank you very much for your incredible support. We're listened to in 140 countries and are in the top 3 percent globally. If you haven't already, please do consider subscribing. Now without further ado, let's embark on this enlightening journey with the incredible Shahin Yeo.
Sharad Lal: Hi Sha En, good afternoon. Welcome to the How To Live podcast.
Sha En Yeo: Thanks, Sharad, for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I am so excited. The last time we did a formal talk like this, we were on the other end. Yes, you're right. You were the one interviewing me. I loved it. That was a lot of fun too. That was a lot of fun.
And I hope I can make it as exciting for you as you did for me.
Sharad Lal: So Sha En, for people who don't know you well, You are the happiness scientist. Yes. And I know you've pursued this path of happiness and it's come into work and you help people in happiness. What led you down this path?
Sha En Yeo: Yeah, I have two reasons, in secondary school, I was bullied quite a lot. And as a result, I guess I had this outlook on life that was very pessimistic. I thought that's it. Nobody's going to be my friend. Nobody likes me. I look awful. I'm fat, and then I had a teacher who came in about 15 and she just started talking to me differently. she said, why do you beat yourself up? you're in full control of how you think of yourself.
She never gave up on me.
And I think by the time I hit 16, I started to think that maybe life wasn't that bad. Maybe I could smile. Maybe I could feel joy from within.
I guess that personal path led me into this whole field because I kept asking, how can I be happier? How can I live with more joy? So I think the early seeds were planted in my personal life. But then when I became a teacher, I saw kids who were struggling with their emotions, kids who couldn't get up after falling down.
And as a teacher, I didn't think that my only job was to teach English, maths and science, right? So the question came up again, how do I help these children to flourish? more than just doing well in academics.
so I guess the personal and professional collided and I started reading a lot more books to try to answer those questions. And that led me to positive psychology.
Sharad Lal: What a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing that, Sha En. Thank you for asking. And it was more like, You experienced what a teacher could do to a kid who's struggling.
Yes. And then you went and did it back because you knew the value of it.
Sha En Yeo: Yeah, absolutely. I have so much to thank her for at the time. I just felt like, why is she still here? And I guess that's what I can do for people now, see the potential and the strengths that's in them.
And then use psychology to support them to believe in themselves.
Sharad Lal: What a wonderful service. Thank you. So as you started reading up, what did you discover about happiness?
Sha En Yeo: I discovered that we can learn it. as I always thought my life was going to be miserable.
It was only when I came across books like Learned Optimism, and so many other books on how to be happy, that I realised that it's something we can actually learn, even if we didn't know how.
I think that was my biggest takeaway after going to study, that we can break it down into something that's very accessible for everybody. Which means that no matter where you are in life, there's always a tool that you can use to make it that much better.
And to me, that's very empowering.
I've heard people talk about gratitude also in a similar way. Yes. Maybe some people inherently have it, but you can build gratitude. So what I'm hearing is you can learn happiness and we always think it is a happy kid, sad kid.
That does not matter so much you can learn it.
Sharad Lal: It's like a muscle that you build. It's like a muscle. So maybe we get into that. How can we learn happiness?
Sha En Yeo: there's so many strategies, but one thing that's really worked for me is the practice of just being mindful and aware.everybody wants to be happy, but there's something you need to begin first, and that is to know where you are at this present moment,
Or just being aware of the thoughts, so many people come to me and say they have lots of negative thoughts. Thoughts about, being not good enough, beating themselves up, making mistakes, being a loser, imposter syndrome, and all of that.
And they want to change it. But I always go back to them and say, hey, what is the thought you have right now?and that's something that is a practice. We can pause and be still and ask what's going on in our mind. How are we feeling right now? What's going on in your body? And I find to me, this deliberate practice of awareness can be very profound.
when we're checking in, it need not be the happiness emotion. It could be any emotion, but just checking in to see what we're feeling right now can bring us in better connection to ourselves. Yes. And if it is, like sadness or difficult emotions.
It helps us process it. In the research, they found that positive emotions generally tend to be fleeting. all of us want to hang on to it that much longer. so the process of savouring
The good moments can be an extended process instead of experiencing and then moving on to the next thing.
Sharad Lal: The next thing, I love the word that you use, the phrasing, savouring, positive emotion. I know you've come back from Maldives right now. And you're
savouring that positive trip. Yes, a positive trip. Yes, I'm teleporting there right now.
How do you savour something like that?
Sha En Yeo: Let's take the example of Maldives. You've had such a wonderful experience there. It can actually show, by the way, from your tan and body language. Three shades darker. Three shades, darker. Three sun kissed tan. Yeah. So apart from that look, how do we keep Something like that, which has brought us happiness.
How do we savour it and keep it a little longer and have it within ourselves? Part of it is memories. Obviously sometimes it is in our head, the vision of where we were. Sunsets are my thing. but I discovered in Maldives that I am beginning to appreciate the sunrise as well.
So many, the second morning or something, I just walked out because I woke up early.
It's just nature at its finest. The sun was coming up, there's not a soul in the world except me and this incredible force.
I think for me that was quite shifting. It's like I'm just present, I'm so small in this universe, and all the things that I tend to worry about in that moment, they don't matter. And I think we don't have enough of these sometimes to allow all our worries and concerns and what's next and what's next to occupy our mind space. But I think that's what I'm going to take with me. That's huge. And maybe we talk a little bit more about it.
Happiness is such a broad word. What exactly is happiness? Is it jumping? Is it awesome? Is it contentment? How do you define and think of happiness? Yeah, this is such a broad word.
spectrum, like you said, Sharad, and if we think of happiness, normally people think of happiness as the big smile, the emoji, effusive enthusiasm, but I think that the quietest forms of happiness include contentment, which is just being in appreciation of the current moment, not wanting more, not pursuing, not chasing.
Right, and then there's joy, and to me, joy is something that comes from the soul.you feel a very deep connection internally, I feel like happiness is a very external thing. I ate an ice cream, and I'm happy. But when I share that ice cream with my loved one, I feel joy. Because that connection is from the soul.
Sharad Lal: I've never heard of joy talk like this, that's such a wonderful thing. Maybe we talk a little bit more about joy. Sure. So you talked about joy. as something coming from the soul, something internal. Maybe if you can talk a little bit more for us to understand examples of joy.
Sha En Yeo: Yeah, it's, I always see happiness as in levels. So level one,
is like the effusive one that you see, and that's mostly external facing. then I think contentment It's maybe level two where it's quieter.
I'm appreciative of what I have in life. And then I think joy is the deeper part where you think, Hey, this is what my life is. It's almost connected to purpose for me, that deep feeling of matter. when you experience and feel that joy, you know that it comes from somewhere deep inside.
That's so good. So it was like contentment, which goes deeper into joy.
Is externality also sometimes in? you've done something well and it feels joy, like how does joy work?
Forsure. my learning is that To create joy, we must know what takes for us inside.And freedom is a big one for me. so the way that I live and construct my life, if it is confined, I will not
experience that I need
to have that freedom, whatever that means to me. I love that. Can we go deeper into freedom? And you just talked about freedom is such an
part of joy and happiness and it's an
an important part of your life. How do you see it
to life? And what
does it mean
you?
Yeah, freedom to be yourself. there's this book that says the courage to be disliked. Wonderful book. Yeah. And the whole book is about just being you, but it, why is it so hard? Because I think
growing
up, we get told not to do this. Don't be like this. in order for you to get something, please someone else. And I'm a recovering people pleaser.
I grew up in a house where my parents were fighting a lot and I was playing the role of mediator, right? Which means that I always have to make peace and
harmony.
right? so I learned it, but the real me just wanted to be free of all of that. so I think that's why freedom drives me the freedom to be who I am.
I don't need to be a mediator. I want to enjoy my life for
sake,
How did you discover that you were a
pleaser
and how did you go about getting that freedom and happiness that you have now? You know what? I've been through so many coaching programs.
I still actively go for therapy. I've done a lot of inner work, trauma, and all of that.
And,
One of my coaches asked me to write down the number of times I say yes to people without thinking or smiling automatically, even when I'm uncomfortable. And it was only until I did that exercise that I realised, Oh my golly, I am saying yes a lot.
no wonder I'm so busy. so in order to unparent from that, I've had to be
conscious.
First of all, to pause when someone says, Hey, do you want to do this? The excited people pleaser part of me will be like, yes, but now I'm just like, okay, just give me a minute. let me get
to
you after checking my schedule.
I realised if it's not now, I feel more courageous to say, no, thank you. It's taken a lot of work to get here. The courage to be disliked. Yeah. And I've been on a similar journey in my own way. Sometimes when you realise it, some of us correct to the other extreme, where we start saying no.
And then a good part of us, which we like is being helpful
caring.
And sometimes in having
this strong
boundary that goes away. So is there like a tug of war? How does that process work?I was doing this course on trauma informed and. The teacher of the course, Natalia Rachel, was talking about pendulums.
so I think we need to be aware of the pendulum swing. And that is, if we have always been a people pleaser, in order to cause that wreck, we go to saying no to everything. At some point, the pendulum will settle. And that's where I think the skill of discernment is. We need to discern for ourselves truly.
and ask yourself, Hey, what was that like for
Did at
At any point I feel like I shouldn't be here? Did I have any bodily reaction to being with that person, for example, in that event?
And if the answer is yes, then the next time then you'll know that if there's something similar, maybe that one you should say no. But if you went and you really genuinely had a good time, then you say yes.
Because you become more skillful with discerning what really works for you.
We've had
Natalia in this podcast and she's wonderful. And I'm glad you got to experience that with her. Like, if I'm
about myself, we
get upset that we're going to the other extreme, but if I understand, that's the natural process
of the pendulum.
You will go
to the other extreme, and with time, you'll discern and understand how to reduce the pendulum swing
and come towards the middle.
Yes, and I would say, don't judge when you go through the pendulum. Let's refrain from judging ourselves. We can be so hard on ourselves, right? But if we go to the extreme, at least now we have the narrative to say, it's part of the swing.
We are our biggest self critic. We criticise ourselves much more than we do to other people. and managing that inner voice is such a critical thing. Absolutely. So Shine, we maybe move
a little forward, what is
the science
talk
about happiness? And I know you've gone to positive psychology.
What does science say about this? Wow. There's so many pieces, but I think we talked about gratitude earlier. And there's so much research on the power of that. Many people, when they hear it for the first time, they're like, huh, you asked me to count my blessings.
How does it help?
I
think we
to understand the
mechanisms behind why it works and why sometimes it doesn't.
gratitude is an emotion that's actually quite spiritual. if you only connect intellectually, then you actually don't experience the dopamine release and all the things that come with really being in a grateful
space.
And sometimes it's because we are rushing gratitude, right? The journal, I'll just do it,
but I always get people in my workshops and my coaches to pause and I say, where do you feel it?
Think of an image that really helps you to feel it. Or sometimes I show them a video that activates if you do brain scans, you'll see certain parts of the brain lighting up in gratitude.
you feel it here most of the time in the chest or the heart because you're connected
with it
very viscerally.
In terms of happiness, there's always talk about happiness versus meaning, happiness versus wellness.
What is out there? What should we think of like happiness and overall wellness, meaning, those kinds of things, or are they related? Yeah, they are related, right? So if we think about what helps a person to have
well being, then I think a very
simple definition is to ask, Is the person feeling
good?
right?
And that's maybe more on the positive emotions. Number two is the person functioning
well.
because movement and progress is a very important part of being a human. We have goals, we don't like being stagnant.
So if they're only just feeling good,
the
dopamine hits,pleasure, but there's nothing happening
their lives,
at some point that's gonna feel very empty.
But the other
way is
also not
helpful. That means they are functioning well,
we see this
a lot at the workplace. High functioning people, but they're not
feeling good.
The night
maybe they have a panic attack,
Maybe they are, they're drinking too numb, or
But
when they show up the next day, wow, they tick all the
boxes.
Happiness
is just a general state when you look back at the course of your life.
Generally, did you feel happy about the events in your life? Can you appreciate the different things that happened? And then, of course, there's things like mental health. looking at overall health. whether you are able to cope.
Are you able to recover well from difficulty and illness?
all
these different pieces of it, but they're all related. Thank you for painting that entire picture.
So
all these kind of contribute to us doing well, performing well, and happiness is
one component
of that. yes. Who are the people who have influenced you in your theoretical understanding of happiness?
Oh my, wow, so many, Angela Duckworth was also my teacher
and she
talked to us
about it. She taught you?
Yes. Seriously? Yeah. Wow. She's super cool.
She taught us about grit as well. for many people who are not very familiar with grit and Angela Duckworth's work, if you can talk a little bit about it. Yeah, the definition of grit is passion plus perseverance. So many people think of grit and that we should grit our teeth.
Maybe that's the perseverance part. But she studied a lot of children who were preparing for the spelling bee and also at West Point Academy, the soldiers, and found that it's a combination of people who succeed.
Passion
and perseverance at the same time. So if you're thinking about how to cultivate a more gritty self, you first need to find something.
That can draw you in, that passion, because simply just gritting your teeth, it's not going to get you as far as if it was something you were passionate about. Obviously we all go to work for different reasons. Some of us have the benefit of finding a job we are passionate about and not all of us do, but can we find an aspect of our work that lights us up because that will help us to persevere and that will allow us to cultivate the grittiness.
What a powerful So now maybe let's focus on work since we've gotten up and
I know a lot
of your work is with happiness and work. Yes. How does happiness relate to work? Yeah, I think everybody goes to work with several goals. Obviously The basics is you want to put food on the table, right?
But at the same time I think especially if you look at the across different generations people also want to go to work to find it The time that we spend at work is sometimes more than the time we spend with our family
happiness and work
sounds
like
it doesn't seem to
come together.
but I am a believer that if we can find aspects of our work
and we
can inject joy there, we can bring meaning, we can bring purpose, we can help people to recraft the way they do their work, then work can be
joyful and
me.
I know you work with some leaders and organisations on this. How do you normally start working? I don't know if there's a story that comes to mind, how you've
helped
They get a little happy from work. Yeah. So recently, one of the CEOs came to me and said, I have this team and they're all from different places and that's quite common, right?
they're moving into this new entity that they're forming and they all. agree on the big purpose, but the way that they operate and work together may not always be the same
So she said, how can we bring them together to work more joyfully and more resiliently towards the bigger purpose? So part of what I do is to find out from the team, what are the challenges they're facing? Is it a
challenge? Is
Is it an expectation challenge? Is it a
pitching
challenge?
everybody's
about
the same thing, but everyone's aiming slightly differently on the target. from the conversations, that's where I realised,
sometimes the challenge might be A, or it presents as A, but the real challenge is actually B or C, and it's
only through
conversations that I get to Fascinating.
In the work that you've done, typically, what are the hidden challenges that
not
out there, which most companies or leaders or teams are facing? Yeah, such a great question. sometimes they'll come to me and they'll say, Oh, Shan, do you do
stress management
training? Then I will always ask them, what's causing the stress?
Then they'll say, Oh, there's a lot of change in the company. and I think they are
not adapting well,
and I'll say, okay, so what do you mean by not adapting? so it's like peeling an onion.
so if they're feeling stressed, it likely is because they're feeling constrained. So I think at the bottom of many of these terms, top of the iceberg challenges, whether it's communication or it's usually about trust, it's usually about safety, it's usually about
relationships.
And whatever session
we do,
All the solutions have to target what's right at the bottom. Not what's right at the top. It has to target the core and it comes back to your whole thing on freedom.
So
once you identify
these core issues and there's so much psychological safety, trust, let's say relationships, how do you go about making that change in the team?
I always go in and I start by creating a sense of safety
I always say, let's go into this with a spirit of learning.
After all, we have a similar common purpose, but we just have
perspectives.
because of that yeah. space that we have created, more people are willing to just put down the defences for the moment and go into it with a spirit of learning, curiosity,
and
I also thought it depends on the person
Like you
come across as someone who is trustworthy, a good person will be open to different perspectives.
Is that important?
How do you get to be that person who can actually facilitate something like this, sometimes in toxic, slightly charged environments? Yeah, I think, through the pandemic, I had a lot of experience doing webinars across APEC, and I couldn't see people.
at all,
But all I have are the words that they reply to on chat. But if you think about it, every human is driven by some core basic needs. People want to be valued. People want to be seen. People want to be heard.
but there will also be people who maybe
have been hurt
before.
so they've put up their defences in the form of,
disconnection.
anger, fighting, like they want to challenge you, or withdrawing. And if I do see some of those characters, I will make special effort
check in
on them
one
to one, but I will set the stage for everyone and I will name it. I don't shy away from naming it.
I will name all the elephants in the room to make sure that all the objections that could potentially be there have been
and I will tell
them,
I'm not
here to tell you how to do your job.
I just happen to know some ways that we can talk to each other that will help us all to reach a much better way of working. How does that sound? so they don't have to fear me that I'm controlling them because they
already maybe
feel disempowered in some way it takes time and experience to get there, to know the words to say. That's powerful, because you that itself makes them feel seen and heard, do you get pushback that, hey, happiness, all this is good, but how does it affect
results?
No, absolutely but honestly, if they wanted stats, I always
them
the stats. Thatemployee who is happy and high in well being is always a better performer.
So
people
who have massive objections, I
say,
Let's go in and try small things. Small shifts in things that you do over time, like what James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, can lead to exponential results.
as you're doing this, do people
get the impression that
Should we be happy all the time? There shouldn't be place
for negative emotions. Sometimes people
get confused about that. Maybe you can talk to that. Yeah. No, I, I never market the way that I do my work that way because that's not real. Yes. And in fact, I always start by saying change is hard. We live in a world that, things are moving all the time.
Which means that we will struggle, But the question is, how are we responding to all this onslaught of different things that come our way? There are different ways, And so I think if we are able to acknowledge that, then people won't think you're just trying to go in positify And that framing is
really
important because if you meet them where they are, they're more likely to see that you are actually here to help and not just come in, do that big smile and go. Is there anything around happiness that we haven't talked about that we should spend a little more time on?
I think
like this, we talked a bit about authenticity, but I think that many people talk about it in, and maybe it's been overused,
Yes. But
Recently someone asked me, what does it mean to be really authentic? then I said, Is there such a thing as real authenticity?
And I think what they were trying to say was that people use authenticity to the point where they become fake. It shows your real self. then they're like, go all out. And then they showed. that real self, but it's also quite made up. people think of, if I can break that out, authenticity is vulnerability.
So you show yourself as being so vulnerable that you're trying to be authentic, but that's not you. You're still trying to get that label of authenticity, which is fake. Yes, correct. Exactly. so that's what that prompted the question from one of
webinar
participants. What's the real authenticity question?
How do I know if I can trust? Because what if that is not the real person? Yeah, and I said sometimes it's not always easy to tell whether someone is being true But we can observe over time.
and sometimes they also confuse like you said vulnerability with authenticity and swing the other side and share everything about their life
So again, I think it's finding that balance of sharing versus oversharing.
Do we need to force ourselves to be authentic all the time?
Actually, I don't think so.
It
comes with safety. To be authentic, you need to be safe, right? And so if you find that the environment at work is not safe, then show only what you feel comfortable with.
Authenticity flows with safety. That's so important. that means that if you're trying to mask what you're feeling
you're
not safe in that environment, that is okay.
Yeah. But then you can go back and ask, what
will create the conditions
of safety for me to show up more fully? And
not
all workplaces are going to have those conditions. And that's life. That's the truth.
Yeah.
then you can make a decision, is that where you want to stay?
Very interesting, Shine.
as you were talking
about authenticity, another question struck me.
you were talking about how do I figure out if somebody else is being authentic, and with time you can, and that's one way. How do you figure out if you're being authentic? Because I myself don't know whether, is this authentic to me, or am I just being
driven by
a trend, or
peer pressure,
like
do
Do we figure out authenticity for ourselves?
It's
someone asked me, as well, can you lie to yourself? I think we certainly
right?
All the time. Yeah, we absolutely can. So that question is for you in the quiet
times, and
I always advocate time for introspection. I don't think we do that enough. We always move on to the next thing.
so journaling is great. Talking to someone is great. Going for walks where it's peaceful and quiet to allow processing. That's all great. And it's only in those moments. I think that we can pause and think, was I really
being
Who's the real me? and
it may not
always be a hundred percent knowledge.
We all work in progress,
and we only have to be accountable to ourselves in
that
moment,
I love that.
We started with that, those quiet moments.
maybe if I can, trouble you for a process that you have, like you're saying, you want to be quiet. There's journaling, there's nature, but there's also questions you might want to ask yourself and try to get a deep answer. How do you do this for yourself? Yeah. Yeah. So for example, if I wanted to see if I was really authentic in a particular moment, I could ask myself, what was going through my mind when I responded in this way.
Let's say you came back from an outing and you felt a little bit weird, can say, oh, What was that telling me? Was it because the person is not someone you're familiar with? Was it because they said something and you just went along with it without actually agreeing?
So it's always what was that
all
about? It's
curiosity.
and then
you write down the answers so that you can better understand your behaviour in the and for me that helps. It's like, why did I respond
why?
It's not judging. It's Oh, it was
because at that moment I wanted that person to think I was cool.
And we all do
that, right? Yeah. And that's okay. maybe that's who
I want
to be with that person. And then, so we can come to a bit more acceptance that we have many parts of us.
I love that part where you're saying that space is for you to be curious about yourself versus judging yourself. I was listening to a podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, Jeremy Corona, he's a coach where he does journaling every morning.
He starts with an hour of that. And he has different colour pens for the different voices he has in his head. Oh, that's cool. I love colours. And he wants to give them all space. So that they come out and not onto someone else. So if it is a bitchy one inside there, that gets written out. Yeah. it is more important to bring that part out so it doesn't come out to other people.
Because that's the objective of journaling. Of journaling. I think authenticity is being able to welcome and embrace all of them. Yes. And not, Oh, I don't like the bitchy one. Let me just dismiss it.so ever since I have learned to embrace all those parts,
And I'm just going to say, Exactly how I feel about this person. I used to just not be very politically correct. And I'm just going to say it. God, it feels so good.
and so if you're keeping that, I would say, get it out in a safe space with someone you can
That
is the beginning, right?
what you're saying is, you take it out in a controlled environment.
So with your husband about someone else or on your notepad. So you take that entire thought out. once you
do it,
all the negative energy kind of comes out and you could then handle it with that person in a better way, in a more feedback oriented way that this was not right. It hurt me. You can have a better rational conversation.
It's
more
calibrated. It's more calibrated. Otherwise it becomes a projection, right?
We don't have to positify everything, and I'm learning to be better that way. That is so cool. there's another thing that I struggle with and I'd love to get your thoughts, like you're talking about something good, happiness, wellness. I talk about purpose and we do that on stage, we do it in our social media, but sometimes we ourselves may not
be.
living to our principles. I've seen some people, for example, go absolutely opposite in the real world. Yeah. I've seen some people try
and even
control it in the real world, but not in a very constructive way. How do you handle, you're doing something
really good out there,
But in your personal life, how does that work?
Because you're human as well. Oh my goodness. Last year was one of those years that was really challenging. my dad was going through a really hard time.and physically, mentally, and there was not having to show up in front of stages and asking people to be happy and grateful.
But in those moments, I did not feel very grateful.
Yeah And so
To me, authenticity is not trying to dismiss. Those feelings.
so I just try to be as authentic as I can and
grateful
that we are getting a bit more clarity day by day. I can only
grateful
for what's real, right? I cannot say, oh, I'm so grateful that, I'm going to a hospital and, when there's no
and I think people appreciated
that
As you said, I got goosebumps and I would have thought that the people who attended that session might even have had an enhanced experience because of the authentic start to it. Yeah. Yeah.
there was
One moment I remember I had to put my phone on sound mode and I never do that during training because obviously that's rude.
I said, I'm so sorry. I told everyone, I said, if my phone rings, it's because this is what I'm going through. But my commitment is I'm here and present with you.
but
can tell
that my mind was 50 percent on the phone and 50 percent trying to
still be present.
I can tell you, that
was
a really hard Yeah. Good for sharing that. Yeah. but life happens, right? Life happens. And what I'm getting is that you can be authentic in a nice way, get it across and do what you need to do. So that's good to know.
Bottom
line,
If there's a message around happiness that you'd like to leave listeners with, what would that be?
think
Many of us find happiness externally.
I would encourage you to begin from within, whether it is spending time to introspect, whether it's time to be with yourself.
have so much stimulation that we don't have enough actual time to be And
if we
don't know ourselves, how do we know what will make us happy?
That's
such a powerful way to end this. Sha En, thank you very much for making time. You've
added
so much wisdom. You've done so much work on your own
to become the person
you are. You're the president of the Speaking Association. You're spreading happiness in the world. You're delivering a great message to the world.
Thank you very much for all
the good work
you're doing.
Thank you
for having me. I really enjoyed our very deep conversation, Sharad. Thank you.
Sharad Lal: Thank you, Sha En, for such an informative and deep conversation. For more on Sha En, please check the show notes. Here's something all of us could try. How can we savour happiness for longer versus letting it just fleetingly pass? Let's think of a recent happy event.
Maybe it's something big like Shawn going to a beach holiday, or maybe something small. Instead of jumping to the next thing, can we stay with that feeling? Maybe we can journal about it, express our emotions around it, take a walk and feel it.
Let's savour every bit of it before releasing it and moving on. Wish you all the very best. I hope you enjoyed this episode. The next episode will drop two weeks from now on October 8th. Do join us for that. Till next time, have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye.
Sharad: Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host Sharad Lal. This is episode 77. Today we are tackling one of life's most profound questions. What is happiness? And more importantly, what role does it play in our lives? to explore these fundamental questions, we're joined by an exceptional guest, happiness scientist, Sha En.
Yeo. Sha En. brings a wealth of expertise to our conversation. She holds a master's in positive psychology from the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. where she studied under the founder of positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman and the renowned professor Angela Duckworth. Over the past 13 years, Sha En has inspired more than 25, 000 people across the Asia Pacific region with her insightful keynotes and transformative coaching. She's a familiar voice on the radio on 91. 3 FM, a best selling author, and a two time TEDx speaker. If that weren't enough, Shine also serves as the president of the Asia Professional Speakers Association.
In this episode, we'll explore the spectrum of positive emotionsFrom joy to contentment. We'll examine happiness through a scientific lens and discover practical ways to enhance both our wellness and performance through happiness in work and personal lives.
But before we dive in,Thank you very much for your incredible support. We're listened to in 140 countries and are in the top 3 percent globally. If you haven't already, please do consider subscribing. Now without further ado, let's embark on this enlightening journey with the incredible Shahin Yeo.
Sharad Lal: Hi Sha En, good afternoon. Welcome to the How To Live podcast.
Sha En Yeo: Thanks, Sharad, for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I am so excited. The last time we did a formal talk like this, we were on the other end. Yes, you're right. You were the one interviewing me. I loved it. That was a lot of fun too. That was a lot of fun.
And I hope I can make it as exciting for you as you did for me.
Sharad Lal: So Sha En, for people who don't know you well, You are the happiness scientist. Yes. And I know you've pursued this path of happiness and it's come into work and you help people in happiness. What led you down this path?
Sha En Yeo: Yeah, I have two reasons, in secondary school, I was bullied quite a lot. And as a result, I guess I had this outlook on life that was very pessimistic. I thought that's it. Nobody's going to be my friend. Nobody likes me. I look awful. I'm fat, and then I had a teacher who came in about 15 and she just started talking to me differently. she said, why do you beat yourself up? you're in full control of how you think of yourself.
She never gave up on me.
And I think by the time I hit 16, I started to think that maybe life wasn't that bad. Maybe I could smile. Maybe I could feel joy from within.
I guess that personal path led me into this whole field because I kept asking, how can I be happier? How can I live with more joy? So I think the early seeds were planted in my personal life. But then when I became a teacher, I saw kids who were struggling with their emotions, kids who couldn't get up after falling down.
And as a teacher, I didn't think that my only job was to teach English, maths and science, right? So the question came up again, how do I help these children to flourish? more than just doing well in academics.
so I guess the personal and professional collided and I started reading a lot more books to try to answer those questions. And that led me to positive psychology.
Sharad Lal: What a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing that, Sha En. Thank you for asking. And it was more like, You experienced what a teacher could do to a kid who's struggling.
Yes. And then you went and did it back because you knew the value of it.
Sha En Yeo: Yeah, absolutely. I have so much to thank her for at the time. I just felt like, why is she still here? And I guess that's what I can do for people now, see the potential and the strengths that's in them.
And then use psychology to support them to believe in themselves.
Sharad Lal: What a wonderful service. Thank you. So as you started reading up, what did you discover about happiness?
Sha En Yeo: I discovered that we can learn it. as I always thought my life was going to be miserable.
It was only when I came across books like Learned Optimism, and so many other books on how to be happy, that I realised that it's something we can actually learn, even if we didn't know how.
I think that was my biggest takeaway after going to study, that we can break it down into something that's very accessible for everybody. Which means that no matter where you are in life, there's always a tool that you can use to make it that much better.
And to me, that's very empowering.
I've heard people talk about gratitude also in a similar way. Yes. Maybe some people inherently have it, but you can build gratitude. So what I'm hearing is you can learn happiness and we always think it is a happy kid, sad kid.
That does not matter so much you can learn it.
Sharad Lal: It's like a muscle that you build. It's like a muscle. So maybe we get into that. How can we learn happiness?
Sha En Yeo: there's so many strategies, but one thing that's really worked for me is the practice of just being mindful and aware.everybody wants to be happy, but there's something you need to begin first, and that is to know where you are at this present moment,
Or just being aware of the thoughts, so many people come to me and say they have lots of negative thoughts. Thoughts about, being not good enough, beating themselves up, making mistakes, being a loser, imposter syndrome, and all of that.
And they want to change it. But I always go back to them and say, hey, what is the thought you have right now?and that's something that is a practice. We can pause and be still and ask what's going on in our mind. How are we feeling right now? What's going on in your body? And I find to me, this deliberate practice of awareness can be very profound.
when we're checking in, it need not be the happiness emotion. It could be any emotion, but just checking in to see what we're feeling right now can bring us in better connection to ourselves. Yes. And if it is, like sadness or difficult emotions.
It helps us process it. In the research, they found that positive emotions generally tend to be fleeting. all of us want to hang on to it that much longer. so the process of savouring
The good moments can be an extended process instead of experiencing and then moving on to the next thing.
Sharad Lal: The next thing, I love the word that you use, the phrasing, savouring, positive emotion. I know you've come back from Maldives right now. And you're
savouring that positive trip. Yes, a positive trip. Yes, I'm teleporting there right now.
How do you savour something like that?
Sha En Yeo: Let's take the example of Maldives. You've had such a wonderful experience there. It can actually show, by the way, from your tan and body language. Three shades darker. Three shades, darker. Three sun kissed tan. Yeah. So apart from that look, how do we keep Something like that, which has brought us happiness.
How do we savour it and keep it a little longer and have it within ourselves? Part of it is memories. Obviously sometimes it is in our head, the vision of where we were. Sunsets are my thing. but I discovered in Maldives that I am beginning to appreciate the sunrise as well.
So many, the second morning or something, I just walked out because I woke up early.
It's just nature at its finest. The sun was coming up, there's not a soul in the world except me and this incredible force.
I think for me that was quite shifting. It's like I'm just present, I'm so small in this universe, and all the things that I tend to worry about in that moment, they don't matter. And I think we don't have enough of these sometimes to allow all our worries and concerns and what's next and what's next to occupy our mind space. But I think that's what I'm going to take with me. That's huge. And maybe we talk a little bit more about it.
Happiness is such a broad word. What exactly is happiness? Is it jumping? Is it awesome? Is it contentment? How do you define and think of happiness? Yeah, this is such a broad word.
spectrum, like you said, Sharad, and if we think of happiness, normally people think of happiness as the big smile, the emoji, effusive enthusiasm, but I think that the quietest forms of happiness include contentment, which is just being in appreciation of the current moment, not wanting more, not pursuing, not chasing.
Right, and then there's joy, and to me, joy is something that comes from the soul.you feel a very deep connection internally, I feel like happiness is a very external thing. I ate an ice cream, and I'm happy. But when I share that ice cream with my loved one, I feel joy. Because that connection is from the soul.
Sharad Lal: I've never heard of joy talk like this, that's such a wonderful thing. Maybe we talk a little bit more about joy. Sure. So you talked about joy. as something coming from the soul, something internal. Maybe if you can talk a little bit more for us to understand examples of joy.
Sha En Yeo: Yeah, it's, I always see happiness as in levels. So level one,
is like the effusive one that you see, and that's mostly external facing. then I think contentment It's maybe level two where it's quieter.
I'm appreciative of what I have in life. And then I think joy is the deeper part where you think, Hey, this is what my life is. It's almost connected to purpose for me, that deep feeling of matter. when you experience and feel that joy, you know that it comes from somewhere deep inside.
That's so good. So it was like contentment, which goes deeper into joy.
Is externality also sometimes in? you've done something well and it feels joy, like how does joy work?
Forsure. my learning is that To create joy, we must know what takes for us inside.And freedom is a big one for me. so the way that I live and construct my life, if it is confined, I will not
experience that I need
to have that freedom, whatever that means to me. I love that. Can we go deeper into freedom? And you just talked about freedom is such an
part of joy and happiness and it's an
an important part of your life. How do you see it
to life? And what
does it mean
you?
Yeah, freedom to be yourself. there's this book that says the courage to be disliked. Wonderful book. Yeah. And the whole book is about just being you, but it, why is it so hard? Because I think
growing
up, we get told not to do this. Don't be like this. in order for you to get something, please someone else. And I'm a recovering people pleaser.
I grew up in a house where my parents were fighting a lot and I was playing the role of mediator, right? Which means that I always have to make peace and
harmony.
right? so I learned it, but the real me just wanted to be free of all of that. so I think that's why freedom drives me the freedom to be who I am.
I don't need to be a mediator. I want to enjoy my life for
sake,
How did you discover that you were a
pleaser
and how did you go about getting that freedom and happiness that you have now? You know what? I've been through so many coaching programs.
I still actively go for therapy. I've done a lot of inner work, trauma, and all of that.
And,
One of my coaches asked me to write down the number of times I say yes to people without thinking or smiling automatically, even when I'm uncomfortable. And it was only until I did that exercise that I realised, Oh my golly, I am saying yes a lot.
no wonder I'm so busy. so in order to unparent from that, I've had to be
conscious.
First of all, to pause when someone says, Hey, do you want to do this? The excited people pleaser part of me will be like, yes, but now I'm just like, okay, just give me a minute. let me get
to
you after checking my schedule.
I realised if it's not now, I feel more courageous to say, no, thank you. It's taken a lot of work to get here. The courage to be disliked. Yeah. And I've been on a similar journey in my own way. Sometimes when you realise it, some of us correct to the other extreme, where we start saying no.
And then a good part of us, which we like is being helpful
caring.
And sometimes in having
this strong
boundary that goes away. So is there like a tug of war? How does that process work?I was doing this course on trauma informed and. The teacher of the course, Natalia Rachel, was talking about pendulums.
so I think we need to be aware of the pendulum swing. And that is, if we have always been a people pleaser, in order to cause that wreck, we go to saying no to everything. At some point, the pendulum will settle. And that's where I think the skill of discernment is. We need to discern for ourselves truly.
and ask yourself, Hey, what was that like for
Did at
At any point I feel like I shouldn't be here? Did I have any bodily reaction to being with that person, for example, in that event?
And if the answer is yes, then the next time then you'll know that if there's something similar, maybe that one you should say no. But if you went and you really genuinely had a good time, then you say yes.
Because you become more skillful with discerning what really works for you.
We've had
Natalia in this podcast and she's wonderful. And I'm glad you got to experience that with her. Like, if I'm
about myself, we
get upset that we're going to the other extreme, but if I understand, that's the natural process
of the pendulum.
You will go
to the other extreme, and with time, you'll discern and understand how to reduce the pendulum swing
and come towards the middle.
Yes, and I would say, don't judge when you go through the pendulum. Let's refrain from judging ourselves. We can be so hard on ourselves, right? But if we go to the extreme, at least now we have the narrative to say, it's part of the swing.
We are our biggest self critic. We criticise ourselves much more than we do to other people. and managing that inner voice is such a critical thing. Absolutely. So Shine, we maybe move
a little forward, what is
the science
talk
about happiness? And I know you've gone to positive psychology.
What does science say about this? Wow. There's so many pieces, but I think we talked about gratitude earlier. And there's so much research on the power of that. Many people, when they hear it for the first time, they're like, huh, you asked me to count my blessings.
How does it help?
I
think we
to understand the
mechanisms behind why it works and why sometimes it doesn't.
gratitude is an emotion that's actually quite spiritual. if you only connect intellectually, then you actually don't experience the dopamine release and all the things that come with really being in a grateful
space.
And sometimes it's because we are rushing gratitude, right? The journal, I'll just do it,
but I always get people in my workshops and my coaches to pause and I say, where do you feel it?
Think of an image that really helps you to feel it. Or sometimes I show them a video that activates if you do brain scans, you'll see certain parts of the brain lighting up in gratitude.
you feel it here most of the time in the chest or the heart because you're connected
with it
very viscerally.
In terms of happiness, there's always talk about happiness versus meaning, happiness versus wellness.
What is out there? What should we think of like happiness and overall wellness, meaning, those kinds of things, or are they related? Yeah, they are related, right? So if we think about what helps a person to have
well being, then I think a very
simple definition is to ask, Is the person feeling
good?
right?
And that's maybe more on the positive emotions. Number two is the person functioning
well.
because movement and progress is a very important part of being a human. We have goals, we don't like being stagnant.
So if they're only just feeling good,
the
dopamine hits,pleasure, but there's nothing happening
their lives,
at some point that's gonna feel very empty.
But the other
way is
also not
helpful. That means they are functioning well,
we see this
a lot at the workplace. High functioning people, but they're not
feeling good.
The night
maybe they have a panic attack,
Maybe they are, they're drinking too numb, or
But
when they show up the next day, wow, they tick all the
boxes.
Happiness
is just a general state when you look back at the course of your life.
Generally, did you feel happy about the events in your life? Can you appreciate the different things that happened? And then, of course, there's things like mental health. looking at overall health. whether you are able to cope.
Are you able to recover well from difficulty and illness?
all
these different pieces of it, but they're all related. Thank you for painting that entire picture.
So
all these kind of contribute to us doing well, performing well, and happiness is
one component
of that. yes. Who are the people who have influenced you in your theoretical understanding of happiness?
Oh my, wow, so many, Angela Duckworth was also my teacher
and she
talked to us
about it. She taught you?
Yes. Seriously? Yeah. Wow. She's super cool.
She taught us about grit as well. for many people who are not very familiar with grit and Angela Duckworth's work, if you can talk a little bit about it. Yeah, the definition of grit is passion plus perseverance. So many people think of grit and that we should grit our teeth.
Maybe that's the perseverance part. But she studied a lot of children who were preparing for the spelling bee and also at West Point Academy, the soldiers, and found that it's a combination of people who succeed.
Passion
and perseverance at the same time. So if you're thinking about how to cultivate a more gritty self, you first need to find something.
That can draw you in, that passion, because simply just gritting your teeth, it's not going to get you as far as if it was something you were passionate about. Obviously we all go to work for different reasons. Some of us have the benefit of finding a job we are passionate about and not all of us do, but can we find an aspect of our work that lights us up because that will help us to persevere and that will allow us to cultivate the grittiness.
What a powerful So now maybe let's focus on work since we've gotten up and
I know a lot
of your work is with happiness and work. Yes. How does happiness relate to work? Yeah, I think everybody goes to work with several goals. Obviously The basics is you want to put food on the table, right?
But at the same time I think especially if you look at the across different generations people also want to go to work to find it The time that we spend at work is sometimes more than the time we spend with our family
happiness and work
sounds
like
it doesn't seem to
come together.
but I am a believer that if we can find aspects of our work
and we
can inject joy there, we can bring meaning, we can bring purpose, we can help people to recraft the way they do their work, then work can be
joyful and
me.
I know you work with some leaders and organisations on this. How do you normally start working? I don't know if there's a story that comes to mind, how you've
helped
They get a little happy from work. Yeah. So recently, one of the CEOs came to me and said, I have this team and they're all from different places and that's quite common, right?
they're moving into this new entity that they're forming and they all. agree on the big purpose, but the way that they operate and work together may not always be the same
So she said, how can we bring them together to work more joyfully and more resiliently towards the bigger purpose? So part of what I do is to find out from the team, what are the challenges they're facing? Is it a
challenge? Is
Is it an expectation challenge? Is it a
pitching
challenge?
everybody's
about
the same thing, but everyone's aiming slightly differently on the target. from the conversations, that's where I realised,
sometimes the challenge might be A, or it presents as A, but the real challenge is actually B or C, and it's
only through
conversations that I get to Fascinating.
In the work that you've done, typically, what are the hidden challenges that
not
out there, which most companies or leaders or teams are facing? Yeah, such a great question. sometimes they'll come to me and they'll say, Oh, Shan, do you do
stress management
training? Then I will always ask them, what's causing the stress?
Then they'll say, Oh, there's a lot of change in the company. and I think they are
not adapting well,
and I'll say, okay, so what do you mean by not adapting? so it's like peeling an onion.
so if they're feeling stressed, it likely is because they're feeling constrained. So I think at the bottom of many of these terms, top of the iceberg challenges, whether it's communication or it's usually about trust, it's usually about safety, it's usually about
relationships.
And whatever session
we do,
All the solutions have to target what's right at the bottom. Not what's right at the top. It has to target the core and it comes back to your whole thing on freedom.
So
once you identify
these core issues and there's so much psychological safety, trust, let's say relationships, how do you go about making that change in the team?
I always go in and I start by creating a sense of safety
I always say, let's go into this with a spirit of learning.
After all, we have a similar common purpose, but we just have
perspectives.
because of that yeah. space that we have created, more people are willing to just put down the defences for the moment and go into it with a spirit of learning, curiosity,
and
I also thought it depends on the person
Like you
come across as someone who is trustworthy, a good person will be open to different perspectives.
Is that important?
How do you get to be that person who can actually facilitate something like this, sometimes in toxic, slightly charged environments? Yeah, I think, through the pandemic, I had a lot of experience doing webinars across APEC, and I couldn't see people.
at all,
But all I have are the words that they reply to on chat. But if you think about it, every human is driven by some core basic needs. People want to be valued. People want to be seen. People want to be heard.
but there will also be people who maybe
have been hurt
before.
so they've put up their defences in the form of,
disconnection.
anger, fighting, like they want to challenge you, or withdrawing. And if I do see some of those characters, I will make special effort
check in
on them
one
to one, but I will set the stage for everyone and I will name it. I don't shy away from naming it.
I will name all the elephants in the room to make sure that all the objections that could potentially be there have been
and I will tell
them,
I'm not
here to tell you how to do your job.
I just happen to know some ways that we can talk to each other that will help us all to reach a much better way of working. How does that sound? so they don't have to fear me that I'm controlling them because they
already maybe
feel disempowered in some way it takes time and experience to get there, to know the words to say. That's powerful, because you that itself makes them feel seen and heard, do you get pushback that, hey, happiness, all this is good, but how does it affect
results?
No, absolutely but honestly, if they wanted stats, I always
them
the stats. Thatemployee who is happy and high in well being is always a better performer.
So
people
who have massive objections, I
say,
Let's go in and try small things. Small shifts in things that you do over time, like what James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, can lead to exponential results.
as you're doing this, do people
get the impression that
Should we be happy all the time? There shouldn't be place
for negative emotions. Sometimes people
get confused about that. Maybe you can talk to that. Yeah. No, I, I never market the way that I do my work that way because that's not real. Yes. And in fact, I always start by saying change is hard. We live in a world that, things are moving all the time.
Which means that we will struggle, But the question is, how are we responding to all this onslaught of different things that come our way? There are different ways, And so I think if we are able to acknowledge that, then people won't think you're just trying to go in positify And that framing is
really
important because if you meet them where they are, they're more likely to see that you are actually here to help and not just come in, do that big smile and go. Is there anything around happiness that we haven't talked about that we should spend a little more time on?
I think
like this, we talked a bit about authenticity, but I think that many people talk about it in, and maybe it's been overused,
Yes. But
Recently someone asked me, what does it mean to be really authentic? then I said, Is there such a thing as real authenticity?
And I think what they were trying to say was that people use authenticity to the point where they become fake. It shows your real self. then they're like, go all out. And then they showed. that real self, but it's also quite made up. people think of, if I can break that out, authenticity is vulnerability.
So you show yourself as being so vulnerable that you're trying to be authentic, but that's not you. You're still trying to get that label of authenticity, which is fake. Yes, correct. Exactly. so that's what that prompted the question from one of
webinar
participants. What's the real authenticity question?
How do I know if I can trust? Because what if that is not the real person? Yeah, and I said sometimes it's not always easy to tell whether someone is being true But we can observe over time.
and sometimes they also confuse like you said vulnerability with authenticity and swing the other side and share everything about their life
So again, I think it's finding that balance of sharing versus oversharing.
Do we need to force ourselves to be authentic all the time?
Actually, I don't think so.
It
comes with safety. To be authentic, you need to be safe, right? And so if you find that the environment at work is not safe, then show only what you feel comfortable with.
Authenticity flows with safety. That's so important. that means that if you're trying to mask what you're feeling
you're
not safe in that environment, that is okay.
Yeah. But then you can go back and ask, what
will create the conditions
of safety for me to show up more fully? And
not
all workplaces are going to have those conditions. And that's life. That's the truth.
Yeah.
then you can make a decision, is that where you want to stay?
Very interesting, Shine.
as you were talking
about authenticity, another question struck me.
you were talking about how do I figure out if somebody else is being authentic, and with time you can, and that's one way. How do you figure out if you're being authentic? Because I myself don't know whether, is this authentic to me, or am I just being
driven by
a trend, or
peer pressure,
like
do
Do we figure out authenticity for ourselves?
It's
someone asked me, as well, can you lie to yourself? I think we certainly
right?
All the time. Yeah, we absolutely can. So that question is for you in the quiet
times, and
I always advocate time for introspection. I don't think we do that enough. We always move on to the next thing.
so journaling is great. Talking to someone is great. Going for walks where it's peaceful and quiet to allow processing. That's all great. And it's only in those moments. I think that we can pause and think, was I really
being
Who's the real me? and
it may not
always be a hundred percent knowledge.
We all work in progress,
and we only have to be accountable to ourselves in
that
moment,
I love that.
We started with that, those quiet moments.
maybe if I can, trouble you for a process that you have, like you're saying, you want to be quiet. There's journaling, there's nature, but there's also questions you might want to ask yourself and try to get a deep answer. How do you do this for yourself? Yeah. Yeah. So for example, if I wanted to see if I was really authentic in a particular moment, I could ask myself, what was going through my mind when I responded in this way.
Let's say you came back from an outing and you felt a little bit weird, can say, oh, What was that telling me? Was it because the person is not someone you're familiar with? Was it because they said something and you just went along with it without actually agreeing?
So it's always what was that
all
about? It's
curiosity.
and then
you write down the answers so that you can better understand your behaviour in the and for me that helps. It's like, why did I respond
why?
It's not judging. It's Oh, it was
because at that moment I wanted that person to think I was cool.
And we all do
that, right? Yeah. And that's okay. maybe that's who
I want
to be with that person. And then, so we can come to a bit more acceptance that we have many parts of us.
I love that part where you're saying that space is for you to be curious about yourself versus judging yourself. I was listening to a podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, Jeremy Corona, he's a coach where he does journaling every morning.
He starts with an hour of that. And he has different colour pens for the different voices he has in his head. Oh, that's cool. I love colours. And he wants to give them all space. So that they come out and not onto someone else. So if it is a bitchy one inside there, that gets written out. Yeah. it is more important to bring that part out so it doesn't come out to other people.
Because that's the objective of journaling. Of journaling. I think authenticity is being able to welcome and embrace all of them. Yes. And not, Oh, I don't like the bitchy one. Let me just dismiss it.so ever since I have learned to embrace all those parts,
And I'm just going to say, Exactly how I feel about this person. I used to just not be very politically correct. And I'm just going to say it. God, it feels so good.
and so if you're keeping that, I would say, get it out in a safe space with someone you can
That
is the beginning, right?
what you're saying is, you take it out in a controlled environment.
So with your husband about someone else or on your notepad. So you take that entire thought out. once you
do it,
all the negative energy kind of comes out and you could then handle it with that person in a better way, in a more feedback oriented way that this was not right. It hurt me. You can have a better rational conversation.
It's
more
calibrated. It's more calibrated. Otherwise it becomes a projection, right?
We don't have to positify everything, and I'm learning to be better that way. That is so cool. there's another thing that I struggle with and I'd love to get your thoughts, like you're talking about something good, happiness, wellness. I talk about purpose and we do that on stage, we do it in our social media, but sometimes we ourselves may not
be.
living to our principles. I've seen some people, for example, go absolutely opposite in the real world. Yeah. I've seen some people try
and even
control it in the real world, but not in a very constructive way. How do you handle, you're doing something
really good out there,
But in your personal life, how does that work?
Because you're human as well. Oh my goodness. Last year was one of those years that was really challenging. my dad was going through a really hard time.and physically, mentally, and there was not having to show up in front of stages and asking people to be happy and grateful.
But in those moments, I did not feel very grateful.
Yeah And so
To me, authenticity is not trying to dismiss. Those feelings.
so I just try to be as authentic as I can and
grateful
that we are getting a bit more clarity day by day. I can only
grateful
for what's real, right? I cannot say, oh, I'm so grateful that, I'm going to a hospital and, when there's no
and I think people appreciated
that
As you said, I got goosebumps and I would have thought that the people who attended that session might even have had an enhanced experience because of the authentic start to it. Yeah. Yeah.
there was
One moment I remember I had to put my phone on sound mode and I never do that during training because obviously that's rude.
I said, I'm so sorry. I told everyone, I said, if my phone rings, it's because this is what I'm going through. But my commitment is I'm here and present with you.
but
can tell
that my mind was 50 percent on the phone and 50 percent trying to
still be present.
I can tell you, that
was
a really hard Yeah. Good for sharing that. Yeah. but life happens, right? Life happens. And what I'm getting is that you can be authentic in a nice way, get it across and do what you need to do. So that's good to know.
Bottom
line,
If there's a message around happiness that you'd like to leave listeners with, what would that be?
think
Many of us find happiness externally.
I would encourage you to begin from within, whether it is spending time to introspect, whether it's time to be with yourself.
have so much stimulation that we don't have enough actual time to be And
if we
don't know ourselves, how do we know what will make us happy?
That's
such a powerful way to end this. Sha En, thank you very much for making time. You've
added
so much wisdom. You've done so much work on your own
to become the person
you are. You're the president of the Speaking Association. You're spreading happiness in the world. You're delivering a great message to the world.
Thank you very much for all
the good work
you're doing.
Thank you
for having me. I really enjoyed our very deep conversation, Sharad. Thank you.
Sharad Lal: Thank you, Sha En, for such an informative and deep conversation. For more on Sha En, please check the show notes. Here's something all of us could try. How can we savour happiness for longer versus letting it just fleetingly pass? Let's think of a recent happy event.
Maybe it's something big like Shawn going to a beach holiday, or maybe something small. Instead of jumping to the next thing, can we stay with that feeling? Maybe we can journal about it, express our emotions around it, take a walk and feel it.
Let's savour every bit of it before releasing it and moving on. Wish you all the very best. I hope you enjoyed this episode. The next episode will drop two weeks from now on October 8th. Do join us for that. Till next time, have a wonderful day ahead. Bye bye.