IN THIS EPISODE OF THE HUMAN UPGRADE™...

...you'll learn some surprising lessons sorrow and longing can teach you about creativity, connection and love. You’ll find out why longing isn’t passive—as most people think—but actually “momentum in disguise.”

Author Susan Cain combines research, the stories of others, and memoir to explain how sadness can be your superpower. “Bittersweetness is the hidden source of our moon shots, masterpieces, and love stories,” she says in her newest book, “Bittersweet: "How Sorrow And Longing Make Us Whole”.

Longing can improve your creativity and fuel a drive to express yourself. Longing coupled with pain can help you to connect to others and provide a common ground that enhances compassion and helps you feel less alone in your troubles. 

Instead of hiding or shying away from feelings like sadness and longing, Susan encourages you to embrace them as part of who you are, and part of what it means to be human. This conversation gets into:

• How bittersweet differs from melancholy
• How Acceptance Commitment Therapy helps you manage the “bitter of life” 
• How sadness is the ultimate bonding agent
• How the concept of “winners” and “losers” changed over time
• How to live and work authentically in an environment of enforced positivity
• How to embrace deep reflection and ask yourself: "What. Are. You. Longing. For?"

Special offer for The Human Upgrade listeners: Go deeper into the topics of Bittersweet and Quiet with Susan’s 30-day interactive online courses. Go to https://www.susancain.net/ and use code ASPREY15 to save 15%.  

More about Susan Cain: She’s the author of “QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” which spent seven years on The New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 40 languages. Her record-smashing TED Talk, “The Power of Introverts,” has been viewed over 30 million times. She’s spoken at Microsoft, Google, the U.S. Treasury, the S.E.C., Harvard, Yale, West Point and the US Naval Academy. She’s an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School.

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