“Dr. Happiness” on Surviving Family Discussions at Thanksgiving

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Mark Masselli ( 00:04 ):
We've just gone from a historic election right into the holidays. Are you feeling stressed, looking for
ways to stay strong? We're talking to one of the world's leading experts on resilience and wellbeing.
Dr. Amit Sood ( 00:17 ):
We've done over three dozen clinical trials that have consistently shown that changing how we look at
our life and becoming more self-aware and aware of others and small, little changes in direction
completely can change how we are experiencing life.
Margaret Flinter ( 00:35 ):
Our guest is Dr. Amit Sood, the Executive Director of the Global Center for Resiliency and Wellbeing.
He's the author of the new book, It Takes You to Tango: Leverage the Science of Loneliness to Master
the Art of Connection.
Dr. Amit Sood ( 00:50 ):
If little things bother you, if something bothers you, ask yourself, "Will it matter five years from now?" If
it is not going to matter five years from now, it's not worth your time today.
Margaret Flinter ( 01:00 ):
This is Conversations on Health Care.
Mark Masselli ( 01:11 ):
Dr. Sood, welcome to Conversations on Health Care.
Dr. Amit Sood ( 01:15 ):
Thank you so much for inviting me. It's truly a privilege to talk to you and talk to your guests and talk to
all your members who participate. I'm happy to share a part of my life and what I do to stay sane.
Mark Masselli ( 01:31 ):
Well, that's great. Well, let's just count up the ways we could be stressed because we're here at the
holidays. We've just had a very divisive election and we're still coping with the post-pandemic economy.
The American Psychological Association reports that over seven in 10 adults said the future of the nation
is a significant source of stress in their lives.
( 01:54 ):
So Doctor, I'm looking for a prescription. What do we do?
Dr. Amit Sood ( 01:59 ):
Well, I have a basic structure I use for any stressful situation in life and it has three steps. The first step is
identify what is stressing me out, and there are three stresses, really. One is demand-resource
imbalance. "I have to pack 10 pounds of sand in a three-pound sandbag day after day after day." Two is
lack of control. "There's a lot of stuff happening that is not in my control. It was always the case, but I'm
more aware now." And three, "I can't find purpose. I can't find meaning for some of the things." So
that's the first part, identify. So identify your stressors.

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( 02:36 ):
And then I think about the next thing, which is, "Okay, what is actionable? What can I do here? I can't
change what's happening on the other side of the moon, but what I can do is change what's happening
in my home, in my neighborhood with the people I work with," and that's what I focus on. I focus on,
"How am I holding the steering wheel and how am I driving the car?" instead of looking at 10 miles the
way that my GPS does.
( 03:02 ):
And third part is reframing. Reframing, I reframe by focusing on gratitude, by focusing on what is going
right within what could have gone wrong. I focus on compassion because I know that as much as I'm
struggling, there is many more people who are struggling much more. And I focus on acceptance by
recognizing that two-thirds of the earth is covered with clouds. It's going to rain on my backyard
someday.
( 03:27 ):
So that's what I do, identify, eliminate, and reframe, and that's what I've been doing, and mostly I've
been focusing on, "What is actionable? What can I do?" I don't stew on stuff.

Margaret Flinter ( 03:41 ):
Well, that is sage advice, and I'm hearing it through a filter a bit around what we've just been through as
a country, and we don't want to get too political, but the national elections following a long campaign
season certainly is stressing many people. Some folks may feel that their own preferences or rights or
way of life is at stake or that they're at risk for others that they're concerned about.
( 04:08 ):
Do you have any particular advice for people at this moment in history as we move past the election, but
into a new season in the country?

Dr. Amit Sood ( 04:18 ):
So you know, I do not let someone who shouldn't be in the story of my life write the title of my story. I
think it is very important for people to keep locus of control within themselves as much as they can.
Keep your courage, keep your hope, keep your inspiration because there are some people in the world
who want you to be meek, who want you to feel weak, that there are some people who want you to
have low self-worth because you know what? If you have low self-worth, you will conform to what they
are saying or doing or what they want you to do.
( 04:52 ):
So I think staying strong and staying together, this is the time when all of us, nationally and
internationally, should come together because you know what? We all, you, I, everybody, they have just
one goal. Let's not create us versus them. We have just one goal, which is to build a better world for our
planet's children. At the end of the day, that's what everybody's trying to do. And while we can see that
some people may have very different ways of doing it, I still feel, despite our differences, there is much
more common between us than there is difference, and focus on that commonality, grow that
commonality, and work towards finding solutions that can support each other. That's what I focus on. I
try not to demonize people. I try not to see people as different. I try to see everybody is actually just
working towards the same goal, though the path may be different.
( 05:52 ):

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What it does to me is it allows me to reframe situations better, it allows me to handle adversity better,
and it allows me to not create us-versus-them separation, which is what is happening now. See, the
thing is I have to give a talk very, very quickly at Mayo around how to deal with difficult people. And
recently, I was in Italy and in Rome, and I realized there's three things you can do. First of all, in Rome,
live like Romans, and two is if you don't like how things are happening, there's three choices: either
change yourself, change Romans, or leave Rome.
( 06:33 ):
Now, leaving Rome is not the option for me. That, to me, is sort of giving up on my people. Changing
Romans is also not easy, though sometimes you can do that, but the most I can do is change myself. So I
work on me. I work on how I can integrate my values, my effort to collectively build a better world.

Mark Masselli ( 06:57 ):
Oh, that is great. I'm thinking about, as you said, us versus them, and then I'm thinking about winners
versus losers. And I'm thinking about the election, that many are elated by the election outcome. They
think of themselves as winners. Is this a political victory, a source of comfort for them? Can having one's
views affirmed with success having a calming effect for someone or is it just transitory?

Dr. Amit Sood ( 07:24 ):
So first of all, everything is transitory because our mind has a great ability to forget, but at least as far as
we can see, a lot of people feel validated. A lot of people who have felt like they were sort of
shortchanged by the society have felt like they have hope and they collectively feel victorious, and I
think that's a good feeling. That feeling will sustain over a period of time. But in general, when you look
at studies, let's say when you go through a very messy divorce, you feel poorly and then you recover
back. And when you win a Nobel Prize, you know how long does that excitement last after you win a
Nobel Prize or an Oscars? It's like somebody, one of the Nobel laureates, said like two minutes and then
they were back to baseline.
( 08:23 ):
So we have this, we regress to the mean, we go up and we go back to the mean because life as usual
takes over because our day-to-day concerns dominate our mind. Our mind has amazing ability to get
distracted, and also our mind tends to have a lot of wandering attention. Mostly we focus not on what's
going to happen two years from now. We focus on what happened yesterday, what is happening today,
and what will happen tomorrow, the day-to-day sort of noise. And so people will come back too, the
euphoria will settle and the sadness will settle, and life will go on as usual.

Mark Masselli ( 09:03 ):
Margaret, I love the concept of I won the Nobel Prize and somebody and the background's yelling, "Take
out the garbage!"

Margaret Flinter ( 09:09 ):
Absolutely.

Dr. Amit Sood ( 09:09 ):
I'm the garbage guy at home. Yes, I do. That's what I do. And when I'm doing that, so what I try to do is I
try to connect my daily activities with something uplifting. So when I'm taking out the garbage, I say,

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"Okay, what garbage thoughts I have?" And I've been, as I was watching this election, you like
somebody, you don't like somebody, and I said, "Okay, who am I to start judging people?" And so I think
that was one garbage thought that...
( 09:41 ):
You may have heard about this thing called emotional labor, which happens a lot at work. Emotional
labor is when you look at someone at your meeting and you say, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to meet this
person. Ugh, how am I going to go through it?" And when you meet them, you say, "Hi, it's so nice to
meet you. I've been looking forward to it." So that delta between how you feel and how you have to
express is the emotional labor.
( 10:07 ):
Now, the higher the emotional labor, the greater your risk of burnout. So I found I can't be impolite to
anybody or aggressive. So I try my best to like every human being. I try to find something I like about
that person and that has made my connections, my ability to relate with people, ability to help people,
that has made it much easier.

Margaret Flinter ( 10:30 ):
Well, Dr. Sood, I can see why. It's been said your resilience approach is the most widely tested one that's
available, and it's even been included in over 35 clinical trials. So explain to our audience your approach
and the science behind it. How has it been used in clinical trials and what has it told us?

Dr. Amit Sood ( 10:50 ):
So we've done over, you're right, we've done over three dozen clinical trials that have consistently
shown that changing how we look at our life and becoming more self-aware and aware of others and
small, little changes in direction completely can change how we are experiencing life, how productive,
happy, and connected we feel.
( 11:12 ):
So there's three steps to the program or the approach. The first step is to become aware of why we are
struggling, and that really originates in how the human brain operates. Our brain is not designed for
peace and happiness. It is designed for survival and safety. We have negativity bias. If you are lying on a
bed of flowers, if there's one thorn sticking, you will feel that in your thigh, and that's what happens.
You had a wonderful day, met 20 great people, but one person gave a negative comment. That is the
person you're going to be thinking about as you're driving back home.
( 11:45 ):
So we have this negativity bias. Our mind tends to wander a lot. And by the way, our brain gets tired in
90 minutes. So by 10 AM in the morning, if you're not choosing to rest your brain, you're working with a
tired brain, and tired brains don't know how to be happy. So that's the first part, awareness. We educate
people about their brain. It's like you won't drive your car without knowing how the steering wheel
operates, then why would you live your life without knowing how the brain operates?
( 12:11 ):
The second part is attention, what you focus on. It's like you're going to a restaurant and there's a menu
of 200 items. Now, if you don't train your attention, you're going to tell the waiter, the server, "Please
get me items that I'm allergic to and the ones that are icky and expensive and that will make me throw
up tomorrow." That's the kind of thoughts I want to think. But with good attention, you focus on what is

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nurturing. So we help people train their attention to focus on, let's say, gratitude, on kindness, self-
compassion, self-acceptance.
( 12:45 ):
And third part is mindset or attitude. So awareness, attention, attitude. When stuff happens, like let's
say you're driving to the airport and you got pulled over and you got a ticket, now how long are you
going to keep that cop in your head? Two minutes, two hours, two days? So the goal is to recover
quickly because stuff happens and you don't want to torture yourself.
( 13:09 ):
So those are the three steps, and they can be learned relatively quickly, relatively easily, and I find
people are hungry for this kind of authentic stuff that has been scientifically validated.

Mark Masselli ( 13:22 ):
Well, you've had a number of very interesting experiences in your lifetime, including meditating with a
Himalayan monk and meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. But I'm wondering what you say to
those who believe psychotropic medications are best for them, or should we say a glass of wine at
dinner? Some may think reprogramming their mind is not right or it's too tough. What do you have to
say about that?

Dr. Amit Sood ( 13:48 ):
I will not disagree with them. I try not to disagree because everybody has a point and opinion and there
is some logic to it. Now, people who are really, really struggling in the trenches, if you have a fractured
bone, then your bone needs help for it to heal. Similarly, some people who have got a significant genetic
predisposition who were never hugged as a child, who were abused as a child and who've got a lot of
stress, and that's how they have mental breakdown, they need help with psychotropic medications, they
need help with therapy and with other things. But I think for a majority of us, I think if we can align our
thinking with our core values, that will be helpful.
( 14:35 ):
It's like what I'm not saying is, for example, I live in Minnesota, there's a lot of snow in the driveway, and
when I shovel the snow, when the driveway is full, I can't drive my car. It gets stuck. When I shovel the
snow to the side, I'm not melting the snow, but it opens the driveway. Similarly, when I have negative
thoughts and I have self-doubt and imposterism and all of that, then it'll clog my mind. It'll prevent me
from completely blossoming and from being able to help others and from being authentically happy. So I
shovel those thoughts to the side.
( 15:11 ):
That's all what we are doing. We're not brainwashing, negating the mind. We're choosing to live by our
values. And I think it's a healthy combination of both. We need both. We need the right chemicals in our
system and we also need the right way to think. And when you combine both, sky is the limit.
( 15:36 ):
See, the challenge is, and this really bothers me, that we work so hard. Humans do. We're so wonderful.
Nobody can forgive like we do. Nobody has the... We donate a trillion dollars in charity, we give our
kidneys to strangers, yet we suffer the most emotionally. You've never heard of sharks having panic
attacks or lions walking around with chronic anxiety, but humans experience fear every single day, and
we don't need to do that. A lot of stress is optional. And I think if we can work through some of the ways
we are thinking and focus on common purpose of helping build a better world, we'll be much better off.

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Margaret Flinter ( 16:19 ):
Well, Dr. Sood, those are such good words to live by. And I want to pick up on this theme of loneliness
and also connection and particularly get your thoughts on American men who, some say, some of the
research says, are among the loneliness of all. I've heard the term friendship recession used with regard
to men in America. 20% of single men now saying they don't have any close friends.
( 16:48 ):
How do you recommend that men in particular, as well as everybody, but men in particular, make more
connections, develop those friendships? Are there concrete ways we can train our mind or steps we can
take to accomplish that?

Dr. Amit Sood ( 17:03 ):
Absolutely. So there's three connections, Margaret, that complete our life. One is connection with
others. Two is connection with purpose in life. And third and most important is connection with
yourself. And all three connections are broken at this time.
( 17:20 ):
Now, I like to start, and that's what the book It Takes You to Tango is about, is I start with connection
with myself. A lot of us carry shadows from childhood. Two-thirds of us have had adverse childhood
events. We were creating our brain when we did not know how to create our brain, so we regularly feel
unworthy. We regularly feel nobody cares about us, so we reject ourselves. Rejecting ourselves sounds
good because we feel like by self-rejection, we are going to make ourselves better, we'll improve, but
that is a perfect way to let guilt and sometimes shame dominate our mind. So I try to help people
convert guilt into self-compassion and action, so that is the first step about nurturing a positive
relationship itself.
( 18:13 ):
Then building self-worth. One of the things that has happened, which has harmed us, is social media.
Whenever I go to social media, be it LinkedIn or any other social media, I walk away thinking, "Oh, boy,
I've done nothing in life. I've not accomplished anything because people are so, so, so accomplished,"
and I walk away like an imposter. So trying to convert your comparisons into healthy comparisons and
being inspired by people and also looking at people who are doing much worse than us.
( 18:41 ):
And third part is self-love, developing acceptance of yourself, forgiveness of yourself. And so shedding
self-rejection, building self-worth, and nurturing self-love, that is the first part of developing your
relationship, the first relationship, which is with yourself.
( 19:02 ):
The second part, which is relationship with others, it depends on the single most important thing, which
is respect. Respect is the new language of love. We all crave respect. When I tell my kids, "I love you,"
yeah, good. When I show to them, "I respect you," it really matters to them. We really like people in
whose presence we feel worthy. So helping others feel worthy in your presence, that is a very important
part of a relationship. The other parts, of course, is kindness and friendliness and giving time. And I'm
not talking about going out, looking, things that you can find easily on Google.
( 19:39 ):
Third part is your connection with purpose. Now, I used to think about my job, my work as I build
resilience programs and sell resilience programs. And then I re-articulated it and I said, "I actually am

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helping build a kinder, happier, more hopeful world for our planet's children." And so think about your
purpose. In two studies, people who had a strong sense of purpose needed nobody else to feel
connected.
( 20:06 ):
So start at one of these three places. My suggestion is to start in your connection with yourself because
80% of us experience imposterism and low self-worth, and so that's why I focus on that first. Find ways
to give respect to others, to help others feel worthy in your presence, and with low expectations, and
rethink about what you do with a deeper sense of purpose. Like in a farming community, the son said, "I
am making money through growing crop." The father said, "I am growing crop and selling it." And the
grandfather said, "I'm feeding the nation." A janitor here at work said, at the hospital, said, "I'm saving
lives."

Mark Masselli ( 20:51 ):
That's right.

Dr. Amit Sood ( 20:53 ):
So no matter what you're doing, what you're doing is amazing.

Mark Masselli ( 20:57 ):
One, two, three, very easy steps. Margaret, when you were talking about social isolation and then Dr.
Sood was talking about Tango, couldn't help but think, as a health system, we run Vinnie's Jump & Jive, a
dance hall, for people because we are very concerned about social isolation, and I know it brings in a lot
of young people who may be facing some of those problems.
( 21:21 ):
But you know, I do want to talk about something very serious, and it's your work that you've done as the
co-developer of HappiGenius, really a program designed to teach social-emotional learning, but it also
has dealt with a number of criticisms, and there are states out there that are talking about banning
social-emotional learning. Tell us why that's happening, what you're doing to address it, and illuminate
that for our listeners.

Dr. Amit Sood ( 21:56 ):
Obviously, any program that we develop has to be scientific, has to educate kids in a secular way and
give them skills that are just not limited to the classroom, but will impact their life and help them be
more successful in life. And so we have tried to integrate all that, being scientific, secular, and empower
kids to improve their connection with themselves and with others.
( 22:22 ):
The criticism around SEL is, first of all, that it doesn't work, which is a very fair criticism. How can you
expect, if a child gets beaten up emotionally or however at home multiple times a week, if you just give
them a 30-minute curriculum once in the classroom and two exercises of deep breathing, it's going to
make any difference? So the overall effect size, as we measure in studies, is small with SEL programs.
Plus, people feel like, "Okay, I've got this 30 minutes of once-a-week SEL program. I don't have to do
anything about improving the quality of classroom or how kids are treated in the lunchroom or in the
bus or at home or by teachers, et cetera. So we feel like we have put the Band-Aid and the inner wound
is going to heal." It's not going to heal.

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( 23:09 ):
So what I'm trying to do is a couple of things, or what we are trying to do, I'm sorry, not I. One is we
think about this as a way of life, not as a particular practice. So how are kids experiencing their entire
classroom and school experience, how they are treated and how they are asked to treat others in the
lunchroom, in the bus, at home? So educating parents, educating teachers, educating the entire
ecosystem. When we change that and make it more around improving kids' self-worth, instilling in them
courage, hope, inspiration, and keep it secular or appropriately religious, whatever makes sense to
them, I think that will have a significant impact and we will not get pushback.
( 24:11 ):
Personally, I have experienced zero pushback for the program that we have shared, and the beauty
there is because many of our teachers are middle school or high schoolers, so we teach elementary
school kids. See the old-man me teaching, disgusting dad, it's not going to work. But when my cute
daughters teach or your kids teach to somebody, to elementary school kids... One girl said a very cute
note. Her mom said that, "Oh, my daughter feels like your daughter, she just put the stars in the sky and
she's the one she put the moon. She just loves spending time with your daughter." So we have to be
creative.

Margaret Flinter ( 24:57 ):
Yeah. Well, you know, Dr. Sood, and I think this was particularly heightened during the COVID pandemic,
we tend to think of teenagers perhaps being the most depressed and anxious, and there's a lot of
concern about their behavioral health over these last several years, but I was struck by a recent Harvard
survey on mental health that actually the 18 to 25-year-old age group, young adults, are the ones most
in crisis around this issue of loneliness and depression. 36% of participants aged 18 to 25 in their study
reporting anxiety, 29% with depression.
( 25:36 ):
Does this age cohort need more attention than we're giving to them? And do you think structurally
we're letting kids leave high school or leave college, if they go on to college, and then without that
structure, they're simply not prepared with the skills to develop these connections? Tell us a little bit
about that, your thoughts.

Dr. Amit Sood ( 25:56 ):
That's such an important question. So when you look at the trajectory of self-worth, self-worth... So
when I picked up my daughter when she was eight years old from her daycare, she was very happy and
she said, "Something exciting happened at lunch. The flowers were smiling at me." I was, "Oh, that's so
cute."
( 26:18 ):
And then I looked up the literature on self-worth. Our self-worth peaks around that time, and then self-
worth comes down. It crashes through teenage years, and it remains very low around 19, 20. That is the
natural trajectory of self-worth because your threat system is fully mature and you're thrown into this
fish tank or shark tank of all these people who you think judge you. Yet your prefrontal cortex is not
mature yet. So you cannot think rationally, you cannot reframe. So these kids are bound to experience,
biologically, they are likely to experience a lot of negative emotions. You know that two-thirds of mental
health issues, they declare by age 20, two-thirds of mental health issues. So these kids definitely, 18 to
25, are going to need more attention.

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( 27:14 ):
I completely agree with you that their brains, you know my daughter is in college, she just turned 20,
they leave home at age 17 and they're completely independent. Their prefrontal cortex is not mature
yet. They cannot make rational decisions while their reward network is very excitable. They get very
excited about novelty. "Let's try this, let's try that, cool," et cetera. And their threat network is very
active at that time. So they need more guidance. They need more guidance from us and from teachers.
( 27:55 ):
So we've been visiting her college every month to make sure we are there in her life and talk to her
every day or every other day. Completely agree.
Mark Masselli ( 28:03 ):
Well, that's great. I want to get something, because Thanksgiving's right around the corner, I want to get
something on the menu for everybody because I know it brings out lots of families and that can also
create heartburn and headaches. I'm wondering what advice, in addition to all the food they're going to
eat, what advice can you share for them to enjoy this time of year?
Dr. Amit Sood ( 28:26 ):
Yeah, I think a couple of thoughts. One is if little things bother you, if something bothers you, ask
yourself, "Will it matter five years from now?" If it is not going to matter five years from now, it's not
worth your time today.
( 28:41 ):
Number two is recognize that everybody is special and struggling. An expression other than love is a call
for help. So if somebody is acting annoying, it is most likely because they are suffering inside. When you
look at the moon with a pair of binoculars, you start seeing all the scars. When you look with bare eyes,
it looks beautiful. So it is bound to happen that when you are going to be thrown close to people, you're
going to see imperfections in them, scars in them, and adjust yourself to those.
( 29:20 ):
The single most important aspect of life is relationships. And I try to remember, my brother is 65, I see
him twice a year. I'm going to see them 40 more times. So when you see your loved ones, remember
you're going to see them 40, 50, 60, 100 times more. And if you remember that, it'll be easier for you to
be kind to them.
Margaret Flinter ( 29:42 ):
Well, this has been so interesting and timely. Dr. Sood, thank you for joining us and thank you to our
audience for being here.
( 29:49 ):
Just a reminder, be sure to subscribe to our videos on YouTube, find us on Facebook and X with our
account name, CHCRadio. And as always, remember you can go online to CHCradio.com, sign up for
email updates and also share your thoughts and your comments about this program.
( 30:06 ):
Take care and be well. Dr. Sood, thank you so much.
( 30:13 ):

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