Tuesday Feb 21, 2023

Episode #20: A special episode of Coming Up Clutch, with J.R. Reid

In this special episode, Jon and Nick were interviewed about the science of flourishing and what it means to flourish by performance coach and strategist J.R. Reid, for his podcast, Coming Up Clutch.

Key conversation points:

What human flourishing is and how you can experience it
The two greatest predictors of general well-being, life satisfaction, and fulfillment
What you can’t miss if you want to have more life-satisfaction and experience fulfillment

Highlights:

[00:01 - 11:50] Introducing Nick and Jon

Nick's and Jon’s most embarrassing moment
Nick's and Jon’’s backgrounds, stories, and professional journeys

[11:51 - 21:00] What human flourishing is and how you can experience it

Jon:
- Methodology behind the research: Identify the things in life that you do for the pursuit of nothing else (i.e. doing the thing is an end in itself). Do that with no further goal in mind.
- Flourishing research today looks for multiple areas of life that you do just for the sake of doing it (e.g. pursuing relationships, being happy, being satisfied, fulfilling your potential, experiencing flow, etc.) and figuring out ways that you can enhance those as much as possible in your life.
  - Key areas:
    - Fulfillment, of potential and in the sense of life satisfaction
    - Flow
    - Close social relationships
    - Happiness & positive emotions
    - Character strengths or virtues
    - Mental and physical health
    - Meaning and purpose
    - Accomplishment
- There’s no research that says you have to reach a baseline in each of those areas to flourish.
- Human Flourishing Program at Harvard's account: your individual well-being is high and your well-being in relation to others and your context is high (i.e. defined interpersonally, among a community). So you can have high well-being, yet not be flourishing.
- Positive psychology: if you have high psychological well-being, then you’re flourishing.
Nick:
- What’s not in the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s account of flourishing: achievement or success.
- The gap between fulfillment and success is often because we’re relying on the end goal of success (i.e something done for a very specific outcome).
- Flourishing is well-being, generally feeling good (but not necessarily all the time), and performing optimally in areas of meaning.
  - Areas of meaning is important because if you perform optimally in something you’re forced into, it won’t provide the same level of satisfaction as someone who’s performing optimally in areas of meaning.

[21:01 - 24:45] The role purpose plays in flourishing

Research: Asking the question about your personal “Why?” in life is conceptually different than purpose.
Purpose is a sub-component or pathway to meaning (i.e. it’s about impact and contribution) - ”it’s a bit of the 'me' and a bit of the 'we'.”
The best of the best have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, but they’re predominantly intrinsic (i.e. they know what their why is and what they’re doing each day, and orient their day around it via calendaring, recovery, etc.).
Success on the field of competition is not an automatic route to well-being, life satisfaction, meaning, or fulfillment.

[24:46 - 34:15] The two greatest predictors of general well-being, satisfaction of life, and fulfillment

Meaning
Quality of relationships (social connection, community, intimacy, friendship, etc.)
- 2018: In the UN’s annual happiness report regarding satisfaction in the workplace, #1 predictor of workplace satisfaction was interpersonal relationships (i.e. we have to like the people we work with); #2 was that we must find our job interesting (#3 was pay).
Jon regarding money: common mistake people make is confusing a means with an end in terms of how they’re living their lives (i.e. they’re focusing on the means rather than the end).
- The “when I _______, I’ll focus more on my relationships. Until then, I’m going to grind it out.”
- Money can help prevent you from suffering, but it can’t be an end in itself (i.e. it’s not the end source of fulfillment). Once all your material needs are completely met, it’s generally not doing much for you.
- Human beings can’t help but compare themselves to others.

[34:16 - 41:53] What you can’t miss if you want to have more life-satisfaction and fulfillment

Nick:
- Ask yourself: What’s your recipe for a good life?
  - What ingredients do you want?
  - How much of each ingredient do you need?
  - Intentionality - cook your recipe!
- What’s most important to you (i.e. want), when does it hit a point of diminishing returns (i.e. need), and how do you put the recipe together?
Jon:
- Part of the journey to living a good life is identifying what works best for you and what makes you different from other people.
- Enhance the eight domains that research says are ends in themselves, but don’t focus on making one far surpass the others thus to the detriment of the others.
  - Happiness and other positive emotions
  - Good, close social relationships
  - Meaning and purpose
  - Flow
  - Accomplishment
  - Mental and physical health
  - Character (developing strengths and character virtues)
  - Fulfillment, of potential and in the sense of life satisfaction

[41:54 - 46:58] What’s anti-fragility and how can we leverage it to become a better leader?

Fragile = adversity strikes, we brake
Resilient = adversity strikes, we navigate it and come out the other side
Antifragile = adversity strikes, we navigate it, come out the other side, and grow our capacity because of it (this is not the “suck it up” attitude or rigidity)
The goal: develop stress tolerance to unpleasantness, because research tells us we need unpleasantness to grow

[46:59 - 54:01] Wrapping Up