See show notes for this episode: S 02 | Ep 49 Stop Trying to Fix People: How Changing the Conversation Changes Everything.
0:16 Alex Shevelenko: Welcome to Experience-Focused Leaders.
0:20 Alex Shevelenko: This is a very special podcast because today you're going to learn what it takes to be loved and to find happiness—small little things.
0:32 Alex Shevelenko: We're going to learn that from our guest, Sonja Lyubomirsky, who has recently published a book, How to Feel Loved: The 5 Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most.
0:43 Alex Shevelenko: Sonja, welcome to the pod.
0:46 Sonja Lyubomirsky: I'm so excited to be here, Alex.
0:48 Alex Shevelenko: So, Sonja, I've been following your work for decades because positive psychology really intrigued me. I kept seeing your name referenced as one of the founding mothers of the discipline, and I loved the research. After reading this latest book, I felt like its applications are deeply relevant across our most intimate, important relationships. But it's also relevant for those in our business audience who want to build deep, true relationships at work that are meaningful and create in-depth friendships. They can take away incredibly practical tips that will make them better humans and better professionals.
1:43 Alex Shevelenko: So tell us, what drove you to write this latest book that's a little different? Then we'll dive into some applications for folks who think this title doesn't apply to them because they just want to achieve great professional success—when, in fact, it might.
2:04 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Oh, I totally will. Yeah, thank you for that intro—that's really kind.
2:08 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Well, I've been a happiness scientist, as you kind of hinted, for 37 years. It's going to be 37 years in September.
2:18 Sonja Lyubomirsky: The reason I wrote this book—and I wrote it with my co-author Harry Reis, who is an eminent relationship scientist... So I'm a happiness scientist, and he's a love scientist. It's because I spent all these years—since 1998, so 28 years—doing happiness interventions.
2:37 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Happiness interventions are basically experiments to test different happiness practices. They're clinical trials, but instead of testing a vaccine or medication, we're testing things like expressing gratitude, meditating, or doing acts of kindness.
2:53 Sonja Lyubomirsky: I discovered after all these years that the reason these interventions work to make us happier is that they make us feel more connected and more loved.
3:05 Sonja Lyubomirsky: That was one of the paths to the book, where I realized, “Wow, feeling loved is really the key to happiness.”
3:13 Sonja Lyubomirsky: And if it's the key to happiness, how do we feel more loved?
3:17 Sonja Lyubomirsky: That's when I teamed up with Harry Reis, who knows all about relationship research.
3:23 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Feeling loved and connected really is the key, and it has evolutionary roots, right? Imagine being in our ancestral past: you're in a tribe, and you don't feel connected or loved.
3:35 Sonja Lyubomirsky: That is actually life-threatening.
3:38 Alex Shevelenko: You know, it feels like being stuck in the Sahara Desert on your own.
3:46 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Exactly, yeah! Or you won't find a mate, and you won't pass on your genes. So feeling connected and loved... it's not surprising that it's the key to happiness.
3:56 Sonja Lyubomirsky: So we started getting interested in how you feel more loved.
4:02 Alex Shevelenko: That's the million-dollar question. To translate that into concrete terms, for example: a lot of folks could take one of your interventions around gratitude journals, right? They might write something down, but in the book, you cite a study showing that if you write a expression of gratitude and then share it with the person you feel grateful for, that has an even greater impact because you actually expressed it.
4:38 Sonja Lyubomirsky: That's true! We have actually done studies comparing sharing versus not sharing. But it's not even just about sharing—it's that if I write a gratitude letter to my mom, and I'm very close to my mom and love her so much, it makes me feel more loved by her when I'm thinking about all the things she's done for me over the years.
4:56 Sonja Lyubomirsky: If I do an act of kindness for a colleague at work and help them with a task, I feel closer and more connected to them, right?
5:04 Sonja Lyubomirsky: So that connection is really the key.
5:08 Alex Shevelenko: So you're saying that writing, "I'm grateful that I have a Ferrari" isn't going to have as much of an effect?
5:14 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Well, yes! We've actually tried to do studies comparing that. It's really gratitude for people that is the key. In fact, when we ask people to write gratitude letters or lists, it's almost always about other people.
5:30 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Not surprisingly, other people are just so important. You know, Sartre wrote, "Hell is other people," right? Which is like the opposite of what I'm saying.
5:45 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Other people can be hell, right? They're sometimes the sources of our greatest misery—but they're also the sources of our greatest happiness.
5:55 Alex Shevelenko: Well, interestingly, let's go in this direction: a lot of us are in situations where we use other people as a source of blame—quoting Sartre—blaming them for our situation, not being happy with the way they are, and not accepting them for who they are or for the situation.
6:25 Alex Shevelenko: I think in the book you give another way to handle that, giving yourself more efficacy regarding other people and your reaction to them.
6:39 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah! I have two ways to respond to your thought.
6:44 Sonja Lyubomirsky: One is that you really do have a lot of agency and efficacy, right?
6:50 Sonja Lyubomirsky: When people don't feel loved or connected to others, they think, "Oh, I need to make myself more lovable, right? I need to somehow show other people how wonderful I am." Or, "I need to somehow change the other person." Like you said about blaming: thinking it's the other person's fault, or that you have to change them.
7:08 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Those two paths don't really work very well.
7:11 Sonja Lyubomirsky: What we say is that you don't actually have to change yourself if you want to feel more connected and loved. You don't have to change the other person, either—you just have to change the conversation.
7:21 Sonja Lyubomirsky: That is much more feasible and doable. When you think about it, every relationship—whether it's romantic, a colleague, a friendship, or a parent-child relationship—is a series of conversations that you're having. Even when you're not talking, you're communicating.
7:37 Sonja Lyubomirsky: So, change the next conversation that you have with that colleague, your parent, or your friend.
7:45
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Then the other way I want to answer that is: you mentioned blaming other people and not accepting them.
7:51
Sonja Lyubomirsky: One of the mindsets we talk about that's important to embrace—if you want to feel more loved and make other people feel more loved—is called multiplicity.
7:57
Sonja Lyubomirsky: It's actually one of my favorite mindsets. It's probably my favorite mindset.
8:01
Sonja Lyubomirsky: This is the idea that we're all flawed, right? We all have faults.
8:06
Sonja Lyubomirsky: We know this, right? Humans are messy and complex, and we shouldn't judge other people just by one bad behavior or one negative trait.
8:15
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yet, even though I know this, I still do it. I'll see someone doing something and I'm like, "Oh, what a jerk," right?
8:21
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Multiplicity is really working hard to see people like a quilt of many, many qualities, right? Positive—
8:28
Alex Shevelenko: We need to grow a beard and become Walt Whitman's kind of "multitudes" type!
8:35
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah, yeah! "We contain multitudes."
8:39
Alex Shevelenko: And then the more we do that with ourselves, the more we can see that in others.
8:44
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah, we do it to ourselves, too, right? So we turn the multiplicity lens toward ourselves, because we do this to ourselves all the time.
8:47
Sonja Lyubomirsky: We have the self-critic. We do something like say the wrong thing or insult someone, and we feel so bad. But we don't want to judge ourselves by our worst behavior, and we don't want to judge another person by their worst behavior either.
9:02
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So yeah, anyway, I think that's a very important mindset.
9:04
Sonja Lyubomirsky: We're kind of jumping ahead, but when you want that conversation to go well with your colleague, your friend, or your spouse, one important thing to keep in mind is to look at them through a multiplicity lens.
9:19
Alex Shevelenko: Well, I think one of the topics that you cover in your book is this research article about the study that allows people to have conversations with strangers that lead to a much closer connection at the end of the study. Do you want to—?
9:38
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Right, right! It's called the Fast-Friends Paradigm, where two strangers get together—like you and I were pretty much strangers when we just met—and then we start asking each other questions. But we start with kind of easy questions, like "If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be?" Then they progress to a little bit more intimate questions, because pacing is really important.
10:00
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Then you share a little bit more of yourself. This is called the sharing mindset, because if I want to feel loved, you need to know me. If you don't really know me, I'll never feel loved, right? Because I'll always wonder: "If he really knew me, would he love me?"
10:15
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Actually, I kind of condensed the book into a very simple formula. I have a friend in marketing, and he said, "You really need to create a very simple formula."
10:23
Sonja Lyubomirsky: At first I was like, "No, I can't do that. I'm a scientist." But then I realized that there actually is sort of a formula.
10:29
Sonja Lyubomirsky: The simplest version is: Feeling Loved = To Know and To Be Known. It's knowing and being known.
10:38
Sonja Lyubomirsky: How do we do that? Well, one way is to ask each other increasingly intimate questions, like in those studies with the Fast-Friends Paradigm.
10:45
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So you can really get to know me by asking questions like: "Tell me about a family member who surprised you the most this year." Those are increasingly intimate questions.
11:00
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Then you learn about me and get to know me. Or you could ask me, "What's your biggest failure?" or "What is something that you failed at?"
11:11
Sonja Lyubomirsky: It doesn't have to be negative, either—it could be positive, like, "What's your biggest dream?"
11:15
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Then you share, too. Because if I want to make you feel loved, I need to get to know you by asking you questions and, importantly, showing genuine curiosity.
11:26
Sonja Lyubomirsky: In that study's paradigm, you're sort of reading off the questions, so hopefully you become curious as you read them off—I think that's what happens. But in the real world, you're not going to sit there with a list of questions, although some people do! Some people bring them to dinner.
11:42
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So we ask each other questions about our lives and our inner worlds that we're really curious about. It has to be genuine, or else you can't fake it—I'll be able to tell you're not really interested.
11:54
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Then I ask you a question like, "Is there a dream that you have?" Maybe I should ask you this right now.
12:04
Alex Shevelenko: That's good, because I was going to ask you: What is your dream for this book, and what is your dream for your work?
12:10
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Oh, well, the dream is really to disseminate this. I really think this is the best work I've ever done in my career. I mean, something has to be your best work, and for me, this is it.
12:24
Sonja Lyubomirsky: To me, it's about getting this out to as many people as possible. Because based on research—and also just wisdom, experience, and intuition—I truly believe that this works. This is the key.
12:38
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So, as I was saying, I'll ask you a question. The question I might ask you is: What is a dream that you've always had, but that you have not achieved—and why?
12:51
Alex Shevelenko: OK.
12:53
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Do you want to answer that, or we can use it as—?
12:59
Alex Shevelenko: Let me try to answer that. It's a question worthy of thought. Obviously, it could be a two-hour answer, but for now... A dream or a goal I've had that I haven't achieved, and why I haven't achieved it:
13:24
Alex Shevelenko: Well, since I'm speaking to an author, this is a little on the weaker side because it's a professional-type thing, but I've certainly wanted to write a book.
13:45
Sonja Lyubomirsky: And you still haven't?
13:46
Alex Shevelenko: I still haven't. I have the foundations of it, and I even have a title, but I haven't allocated—and I think the "why" part is that I haven't allocated the time it deserves to be worthy.
14:02
Alex Shevelenko: There's also something about a book feeling more "out there" than a podcast, right? Where we are right now. A book is more methodical.
14:12
Alex Shevelenko: I need to invest time in it, and then you don't have the time due to whatever priorities or excuses. So I think I'm kind of in the creation, collection, and learning phase, but not necessarily deeply in the publishing phase yet.
14:29
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Well, I would ask because we help people to publish.
14:32
Alex Shevelenko: You know—right! Of course that's what you talk to people about all the time.
14:35
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Well, my next question would be: why haven't you found the time? Why are you making excuses, right? Because, of course, it's all about priorities.
14:41
Alex Shevelenko: Yeah. We don't—I don't want to make this about me as much as I'd like. This is an example, and you probably don't want to interview me, but pretending like—I'll return this as a compliment: when I read your book, I was profoundly impressed with a very difficult combination of knowing that this is evidence-based and that there is research behind it.
15:19
Alex Shevelenko: It's not like a guru-type person who has a coaching practice—which may actually be spot on 90–95% of the time and aligned because of results—but, like you said, doesn't have the interventions behind it to back it up.
15:43
Alex Shevelenko: The problem with most evidence-based studies is that they bore you with evidence, but you've managed to strike a beautiful balance between evidence and rhythmic flow. I listened to it on audio, so that was the reading, but it was almost close to meditative in the way it comes across. That's a pretty high bar.
16:15
Alex Shevelenko: So when you read quality books from people who combine these things... This is for everybody: go get the book. You will come back and thank Sonja and myself for recommending it—Sonja for writing it, obviously, and her gifted co-writer.
16:25
Alex Shevelenko: But the bar... it's potentially that perfectionist bar when you're exposed to great things, right? Like you said, this is not your first book, but for me, when I get to see great stuff, I may hold off when I see people master it—
16:51
Sonja Lyubomirsky: But hopefully it's inspiring, right?
16:52
Alex Shevelenko: It's inspiring, yeah.
16:54
Sonja Lyubomirsky: I was actually just reading advice... And by the way, I've always been a very rigorous, systematic scientist, but as I get older, I've actually become more open to all kinds of evidence. Whether it's anecdotal or life wisdom, I'm more confident, I guess, or trusting of my own intuition and wisdom.
17:15
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So anyway, one piece of wisdom that I've been reading and thinking about when you have a big goal is to just not think about the big goal, right? Because it's too overwhelming. Thinking, "I'm going to write a book," is overwhelming, so you do something right away today instead. It could be texting someone you know who has written a book, asking someone who can give you advice, or asking them to have coffee with you.
17:40
Sonja Lyubomirsky: And that would be it! That's it for today. If you take these baby steps... Because otherwise—I'm a perfectionist, so I don't know about you, but I feel like I need to have full information and be really confident before I take a step. But really, sometimes we need to be a C or B student instead of an A+ student all the time, and just go for it.
18:03
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Anyway, we're getting a little bit off-topic, but—
18:05
Alex Shevelenko: No, but it's beautiful! I think that you've kind of hit on something, which is that not everything that matters can be measured, and—
18:23
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah, I mean, we try to in psychology. But again, taking the example we're showing here: I'm asking you a question about your dreams, and I really was curious when I asked you what your answer would be.
18:34
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Lots of people ask questions, and you can tell they aren't really that curious. Maybe it's more about them answering, or maybe it's performative. I don't know—maybe they feel like they should, and you can tell they aren't engaged even if they're looking at you and nodding.
18:54
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Curiosity and genuine interest are really important, because if I'm really interested in you, you're going to open up more to me, right? You're going to tell me more. I'll ask, "What's the barrier? Why aren't you getting up, say, an hour earlier every morning?"
19:12
Sonja Lyubomirsky: You might say—I'm just going to put words in your mouth—"I'm actually feeling a little insecure about it because I don't know if I'm going to do a good job, and I have to put it out into the world." Or whatever the barrier is: "My father wrote a book and I don't know if I could ever measure up to him," or "I don't know if I have the ability."
19:38
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So, you'll be able to open up more if I'm genuinely curious, right? And then I have to—
19:41
Alex Shevelenko: Exactly. And then this all leads to a deeper—these are all kind of the steps to a deeper connection.
19:47
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Then I really listen! So, I'm curious, I'm asking the questions, and then I'm listening. And I'm listening by not just nodding, but really taking it in.
19:56
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Listening is attention. There's something called high-quality listening in the research, and high-quality listening means you're attending—obviously, paying attention is important.
20:08
Sonja Lyubomirsky: The second component is comprehension: I'm really understanding what you're saying. If you were to give me a test tomorrow on what you said, I would get an A+ on it.
20:18
Sonja Lyubomirsky: But then there's a third component, which I think is my favorite: basically, I care about what you're saying. It matters. It's not just like listening to a lecture; I actually care. I want you to be happy, and I want you to succeed.
20:39
Sonja Lyubomirsky: That's part of listening, too. The best listeners really care; it matters to them what you're saying. So, yeah.
20:46
Alex Shevelenko: You mentioned Clinton in the book regarding that, right? Like people who are charismatic like Bill Clinton.
20:54
Sonja Lyubomirsky: They make you feel like you're the only person in the room—and they really do. They really are so curious.
21:01
Sonja Lyubomirsky: I often ask people: When was the last time that someone was so curious about you? Maybe it was at a dinner party, on a date, or anywhere. They were so curious that they just couldn't wait for you to finish your story, right? They just really wanted to know. It's incredibly compelling.
21:20
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Charismatic people like Bill Clinton and others have that ability. They're really listening, and they really care. They remember what you said. Clinton would famously remember, and then he'd meet someone again 10 years later and ask them about their cousin.
21:40
Alex Shevelenko: It's so interesting because as you mention that, I reflect on some of the challenges we have in our close relationships—where we work with somebody every day, or we're married, or with our children. We almost get into trouble where we start guessing what they're going to say and lose the curiosity in the relationships that are the most important in our lives. Yet, we can be curious about a stranger—which is great—but couldn't we bring that into our—?
22:21
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So we actually—there's research, and we talk about this in the book—we stop being curious about the people we're closest to because we think we know everything about them. Maybe we've known them for years or decades.
22:29
Sonja Lyubomirsky: But the truth is, of course, you don't know everything about them. In part, because sometimes we just haven't asked, right? There are lots of stories about your wife, child, or colleague that you've never asked them. But also, because they are constantly having new experiences, right?
22:44
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Every day, your wife, child, dad, or best friend is having new experiences, new thoughts, new dreams, new self-doubts, and new feelings. So we want to continually ask questions, right?
23:02
Alex Shevelenko: Well, reading your book—and I may ask a personal question—it almost felt like you were on your own journey, on the relationship side in particular.
23:17
Sonja Lyubomirsky: I mean, I'm definitely on a journey. Yeah, I'm not sure how it reflected in the book.
23:23
Alex Shevelenko: It's a gut feeling! But I can relate because I am on that journey, where I'm interested in relational work—whether it's bringing in Esther Perel or Terry Real and trying to understand: How do I bring that into a relationship with my kids or at work? That's really important.
23:44
Alex Shevelenko: So I'm on this journey, and to your point, if you're on that journey and you're serious, you discover new things about yourself every day. You see the world in a new way every day.
23:57
Alex Shevelenko: Particularly for people who are learning, I could be much more aware of certain things in a week's time or in a year than a few years back. So we have this potential to change as humans; we are never finished business, right?
24:16
Alex Shevelenko: This assumption that we kind of know everything—where we use our judgy, analytical side to jump to conclusions, speaking for myself—gets us into a lot of trouble. Is that what you're seeing?
24:34
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah, absolutely! There are lots of little answers to that. We are always changing, and therefore other people are always changing, too. You're saying sometimes we have a greater pace of change or capacity to change—absolutely.
24:52
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Regarding what you said about being judgmental: I actually have a little pet theory about this—and I'm sure there's a theory out there—getting back to evolutionary psychology. I think that's just a really important way to understand human behavior.
25:07
Sonja Lyubomirsky: In our ancestral past, when we met a new person, we needed to make an instantaneous, automatic judgment of whether they were a friend or an enemy, right? We still do that, so we have to overcome it deliberately.
25:26
Alex Shevelenko: Crocodile brain.
25:27
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Crocodile brain—maybe the social exclusion brain! It's making these exact—or like stereotyping. Stereotyping comes very naturally to humans; there's a reason for it. So if we don't want to stereotype, we need to deliberately, intentionally, and with effort overcome that bias and tendency.
25:51
Alex Shevelenko: Back to a question for you—I was kind of leading to a question. We share this background of having grown up in the Soviet Union and coming to the US in early or relatively early stages of life.
26:06
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah.
26:07
Alex Shevelenko: As I reflect on my own journey, I'm noticing a lot of little hidden things that came out of that experience: growing up, the transition, fitting in—whether with family or on your own—into the new culture. I travel a lot, so I'm continuing to fit in.
26:29
Alex Shevelenko: What has been the impact of that experience on your work and life?
26:39
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Such a good question. I mean, I'm very Americanized, and most people don't even know that I'm an immigrant because I was almost 10 when I came here, so I was pretty young.
26:54
Sonja Lyubomirsky: I credit immigration as one reason I started studying happiness. I noticed—and there are a couple of reasons—that how Americans and Russians express happiness was so very different.
27:09
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Russians are, on average, less happy if you look at scales, but when you go on the street, they just don't look happy.
27:17
Alex Shevelenko: I remember the "happiness."
27:19
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yes, exactly! I was just shocked. We actually landed in New York first—which is not known for its happy expressions—and people would say hello and smile at you on the street! I thought that was crazy.
27:32
Alex Shevelenko: That was weird and crazy, right?
27:34
Sonja Lyubomirsky: We actually have a paper about expressing happiness to strangers. There are different cultural norms, perhaps because of things like the "evil eye."
27:45
Sonja Lyubomirsky: When I had my first baby, my mom was like, "Don't take the baby outside because of the evil eye!"
27:52
Alex Shevelenko: Put a pin. Did you have the pin?
27:53
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah! And I was just like, "What? I live in California—I'm going to take the baby out." I basically spent all day outside with the baby.
28:02
Sonja Lyubomirsky: But anyway, I've definitely been more attuned to cultural differences, which I think a lot of cross-cultural psychologists are.
28:12 Sonja Lyubomirsky: I think it's because you have insights about human behavior when you see such differences. I became a social psychologist. Social psychologists basically study the power of the situation on our behavior, right?
28:19 Sonja Lyubomirsky: I mean, I'm also a personality psychologist, so I look at individual differences, but we are also very much affected by the situation that we're in—including relationships and conversations, like what the book is about.
28:37 Sonja Lyubomirsky: If you're in a conversation where the other person is truly curious about you, they're really listening, and you're both sharing... that is a very powerful situation that will make you feel more loved and connected, and less lonely. And you have the power to create that situation yourself. You don't just wait for it to happen.
29:02 Sonja Lyubomirsky: That's another thing: I was very shy when I was growing up. I almost didn't talk to other people at all, and I overcame that.
29:17 Alex Shevelenko: Well done to you on that!
29:19 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah, it turns out it's possible through a lot of willpower to overcome that. But if people have trouble overcoming shyness, I don't blame them, because it's very hard.
29:31 Sonja Lyubomirsky: I actually really practice what I preach. I think I'm pretty good when I want to put the effort into it, because it takes effort to really find something you're curious about in another person, ask them about it, and really listen—knowing that most of us are not good listeners—and then hopefully they ask you back, they reciprocate, and you share.
29:59 Sonja Lyubomirsky: I want to get back to this formula that summarizes the whole book. I was saying: Feeling Loved = To Know and To Be Known. But how do you know and be known?
30:05 Sonja Lyubomirsky: The other formula is basically: Feeling Loved = Asking + Listening + Sharing. That's it!
30:14 Sonja Lyubomirsky: You ask questions with curiosity, you listen with attention, caring, acceptance, and warmth, and then you share. Because when I'm curious about you, you tell your story, and then you'll usually reciprocate—reciprocity is a very powerful norm of social behavior. You'll reciprocate by asking me questions about myself, and we'll have this back-and-forth.
30:42 Alex Shevelenko: When you brought up your own journey and moving between cultures, what are the extra challenges that individuals or couples from different cultures have to overcome?
31:03 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah, great question. We have a little section about this in the book: How do these mindsets apply when, say, one person is from an individualist culture like the US or Western Europe, as opposed to a collectivist culture like East Asia?
31:22 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Or for that matter, how does it apply when people have very different personalities—extrovert/introvert, someone who is neurodivergent, or has an anxious or avoidant attachment style? There isn't a ton of research on this, but we have some guesses.
31:34 Sonja Lyubomirsky: With culture, for example, there are some cultures—Asian cultures being one example—that are more listening-oriented cultures, while some cultures like America are more talking cultures.
31:45 Sonja Lyubomirsky: So when I say Feeling Loved = Asking + Listening + Sharing, the weight of those components is going to look a little bit different, and you just have to be attuned to it.
31:58 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Let's say you're with someone in a relationship or a colleague from a culture where maybe they're not asking you a lot of questions, but they're showing their curiosity a little bit differently—maybe through nonverbals, or maybe it's just one question, but it's a very deep one as opposed to ten questions.
32:20 Sonja Lyubomirsky: We just have to be attuned to these differences, because I really think it's universal—well, I hate to use the word "universal" because it's such a strong word, but really, we all want to feel loved.
32:28 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Curiosity, listening, and sharing are important to all humans no matter what, but it might just look a little bit different.
32:36 Sonja Lyubomirsky: People who are neurodivergent might have trouble reading cues in other people—like eye contact—and so they might behave a little bit differently in a conversation. But you can still make them feel loved, and they can make you feel loved. It's just interesting how these differences play out, sometimes in subtle ways.
33:02 Alex Shevelenko: So, Sonja, maybe to connect this multicultural theme within the thread of professionalism as we wrap up: an executive in a large organization hears the word "love," right? They might say, "We love customers, we love our employees," and make banalities out of it. Some people will just pay lip service to it, but the ones who go deeply into it and create these beautiful environments where people are really heard and understood—how do they model this change? Is it one-on-one conversations, or is there a way to do this at scale?
33:48 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Such a great question! I'm actually on a mission to bring the word "love" back more into the workspace—not just saying "I love my customers," but saying "I love you" to your colleagues.
34:04 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Love is very broad. One of my colleagues, Barbara Fredrickson, has this idea that even with strangers, you can have drops of love as you're talking to them. We're all part of the universe in some ways!
34:22 Alex Shevelenko: We're all love!
34:23 Sonja Lyubomirsky: We're all love, exactly! I know that sounds a bit "woo-woo," but it's kind of true.
34:28 Sonja Lyubomirsky: In work environments, those exact same mindsets apply. We have a chapter on that, too: How does it apply to parent-child relationships, to colleague-boss relationships? It's still going to involve being curious, listening, and sharing.
34:45 Sonja Lyubomirsky: The leader of an organization models that behavior by maybe sharing something vulnerable about themselves. It doesn't have to be some deep secret or trauma; it could just be something real about who they are on the inside.
35:06 Sonja Lyubomirsky: They model sharing, and of course, they model curiosity and listening. Everyone knows this: good leaders are good listeners. They really listen to their employees and colleagues.
35:20 Alex Shevelenko: Well, I unfortunately have to wrap it up, but as a good leader, I'm going to model my curiosity and say: I'm really curious how people can learn about your work.
35:30 Sonja Lyubomirsky: Great transition, Alex! The book is called How to Feel Loved. The website is very easy—just the title, HowToFeelLoved.com—and there you can find everything.
35:43
Sonja Lyubomirsky: You can find the book and a quiz on the website. We have a quiz that helps people determine which mindset is their strongest and which is their weakest, and then we give tips on what to do. We've gotten great feedback about that.
35:59
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So yeah, HowToFeelLoved.com is where you can find me. You can also find all my research articles under my name at SonjaLyubomirsky.com.
36:09
Sonja Lyubomirsky: I know that's hard to spell, but by the way, Alex, as you know, "Lyubomirsky" means love and peace—or love of the world.
36:15
Alex Shevelenko: Yeah! It's very appropriate—you were born with the right name to write this book.
36:17
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Yeah! I mean, I've never really liked the name because no one can spell or pronounce it, but it's sort of useful for a happiness scientist, right? Lyubov and mir—love and peace.
36:29
Sonja Lyubomirsky: So anyway, SonjaLyubomirsky.com—or you can just Google "Sonja happiness."
36:38
Alex Shevelenko: And we'll share this in all the right places where appropriate.
36:44
Alex Shevelenko: Sonja, I can't thank you enough for the book. It's already having an impact on my life. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, expertise, and love with us today.
36:55
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Thank you, Alex! It's been a pleasure talking to you. Please email me if you have thoughts, questions, or ideas as you're reading the book. To anyone listening to this, I love to hear from readers—I really do. It's fascinating to me to see what people's responses are, because sometimes they're surprising.
37:12
Alex Shevelenko: Please do—it's an amazing book. Thank you, Sonja.
37:16
Sonja Lyubomirsky: Thank you! Yeah.