More Happy Life with Andy Proctor

More about Dr. Hanks

Julie de Azevedo Hanks, PhD, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist with 28 years experience specializing in women’s emotional health and relationships. She is an assistant professor of social work at Utah Valley University. Dr. Hanks is the founder and director of Wasatch Family Therapy, an outpatient therapy clinic in Cottonwood Heights and Bountiful, UT. She is author of The Burnout Cure and The Assertiveness Guide for Women, a blogger, a local and national media contributor, an online influencer, a private practice consultant, and an award-winning performing songwriter.  A native Californian, Hanks currently lives in Sandy, UT. For additional resources visit DrJulieHanks.com or connect with @drjuliehanks on social media.

Where to find Dr. Julie Hanks

https://www.instagram.com/drjuliehanks/?hl=en

http://www.drjuliehanks.com/

What’s something you can just do today to decrease the regret you would have in the future?

Here are the top 5 regrets of the dying:

What can you do to connect with your friends more? How can you arrange your life to work less? How can you be more yourself? What are you doing express your true feelings? How are you deliberately adding to your levels of happiness?

I have a list that is growing. I had a bucket list before, but after hearing about Stacy Taniguchi’s 100 LIFE list, I changed the name. I don’t like the focus on avoidance of death or hurrying before you kick the bucket. I like the focus on LIVING and celebrating the life we have now.

Here are a few things from my LIFE list:

I have two categories: to accomplish and to experience.

In the “To accomplish: category:

In the “to experience” category:

Your list will be different than mine, but what I have found is that as I contemplate these experiences and accomplishments that I want to have, it makes me excited to be alive. It brings meaning to the struggle in my life. The hard stuff becomes a little less hard because I’m headed toward something.

There is a book called The Happiness of Pursuit that I highly recommend. In this book, the author often talks about the importance of always having a “life-affirming quest”.

What is your life affirming quest? Do you have one right now or are you just kind of floating along? No judgement. I have definitely had some moments of floating along.

No matter what your job or your current vocation, adding something to your life list can be a catalyst for a life-affirming quest and make your life more meaningful.

If you have things to live for, you’ll be more likely to live.

Read the show notes here: https://morehappylife.co/6-powerful-strategies-to-increase-meaning-in-your-life/

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of negativity in the news? Do you doomscroll? Well, 2020 is the year of the doomscroll and it can be really hard to avoid the negativity that inundates our digital news feeds. I have spoken about the benefits of taking breaks from the news and the negative impact that constantly watching the news can have on our health. Some choose to avoid the news altogether, but with the constant changes in even our local regulations, you have to be informed.

My guest on today’s episode of More Happy Life is Mauro Gatti, the creator of The Happy Broadcast, an anxiety free news broadcast that started as Mauro’s way of using his skills as an artist to decrease his own anxiety. He started looking for positive news to balance the negative news. When he combined this with his gift as an artist, The Happy Broadcast was born. He has been illustrating and sharing positive news on social media since 2018 and it is one of the most inspiring Instagram accounts I have ever followed. I even did a special episode based on the news on The Happy Broadcast.

I loved my conversation with Mauro and hope you not only listen to our conversation, but that you go follow his inspiring work. We all need a little positivity boost amidst the things that are out of our control. One big takeaway I got from Mauro was to get out and do something. Even if you only watch negative news, do something to be a part of the solution! All the positive news is a result of someone who decided to take action for a good cause.

In our episode we covered a lot:

More About Mauro Gatti and The Happy Broadcast

Originally from Italy, Mauro Gatti lives in Los Angeles where everyone surfs except him. Mauro is an award-winning creative director, illustrator and designer who loves pizza, dogs, and imagining things. He also loves to make people happy with his art, because a smile is the cheapest route to happiness.

Mauro is also the creator of The Happiness Broadcast, where he finds positive news from all over the world and creates art to depict the positive stories. His account on instagram has over 530,000 followers with even more on Facebook and Twitter. He recently published a book that just came out yesterday (September 22nd) and is both pleasing to the eye and inspiring to the soul.

Buy The Happy Broadcast book here.

Mauro’s website: https://www.thehappybroadcast.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_happy_broadcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehappybroadcast/

Sexuality and Happiness is a topic I have not discussed on the More Happy Life podcast. I have wanted to for quite some time, but I wanted to introduce it with the right person and I think Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is the right person. This podcast talks about all things from the foundation of positive psychology research. I think positive sexuality is a really powerful topic for the listeners to hear about and to discuss on social media after hearing this episode. There is so much negativity around sexuality and desire (not just in conservative cultures like the LDS culture) and I am excited to shed a positive light on this topic with an expert. Listen today as we discuss the positive side of sex and our own innate sexuality.

Some of the topics we cover:

More about Dr. Finlayson-Fife

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is a LDS relationship and sexuality coach as well as a  Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in the state of Illinois.  She has a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. Her teaching and coaching focuses on helping LDS individuals and couples achieve greater satisfaction and passion in their emotional and sexual relationships.

In addition to consultation with couples and individuals (in person and online), she teaches online relationship and sexuality courses designed to foster self and sexual development and create happier relationships and individuals.  Dr. Finlayson-Fife also offers many live workshops and retreats for couples and individuals.

Jennifer is a frequent guest on LDS-themed podcasts and writes articles for LDS-themed blogs and magazines, on the subjects of sexuality, relationships, mental health and faith.

Sexuality and Happiness is a topic I have not discussed on the More Happy Life podcast. I have wanted to for quite some time, but I wanted to introduce it with the right person and I think Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is the right person. This podcast talks about all things from the foundation of positive psychology research. I think positive sexuality is a really powerful topic for the listeners to hear about and to discuss on social media after hearing this episode. There is so much negativity around sexuality and desire (not just in conservative cultures like the LDS culture) and I am excited to shed a positive light on this topic with an expert. Listen today as we discuss the positive side of sex and our own innate sexuality.

Some of the topics we cover:

More about Dr. Finlayson-Fife

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is a LDS relationship and sexuality coach as well as a  Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in the state of Illinois.  She has a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. Her teaching and coaching focuses on helping LDS individuals and couples achieve greater satisfaction and passion in their emotional and sexual relationships.

In addition to consultation with couples and individuals (in person and online), she teaches online relationship and sexuality courses designed to foster self and sexual development and create happier relationships and individuals.  Dr. Finlayson-Fife also offers many live workshops and retreats for couples and individuals.

Jennifer is a frequent guest on LDS-themed podcasts and writes articles for LDS-themed blogs and magazines, on the subjects of sexuality, relationships, mental health and faith.

When was the last time something really hard happened to you? How did that change your life? Have you healed and moved on from this? Bruce Feiler's research showed that the average adult goes through a major disruptor about every twelve to eighteen months. And that adults face three to five big ones, what Bruce calls “lifequakes,” with an average aftermath of three to five years. This aftermath of disruptors could last over half the life of adults! 

I feel very strongly to help people going through major transitions and for this reason, I brought Bruce Feiler onto the show. His recent book Life Is In The Transitions is the topic of our discussion today on episode 134. We talk about the major stages of transitions that and how to best navigate those. 

The stages are:

1. The Long Goodbye

2. The Messy Middle

3. The New Beginning

During these stages there are many common markers or milestones. Bruce gets personal with me in asking me to share more details of something that was a major lifequake for me: my divorce. It was amazing how well my experience matched the data that he has been gathering about transitions across the stories of hundreds of people all over the world in the project Bruce has called "The Life Story Project". 

We discuss how to best share your new self once you have made the decision to say goodbye to the old and we talk about the importance of ritual in transition. We roughly cover many of the following tools for transitioning:

About Bruce Feiler:

A six-time consecutive New York Times bestselling author, presenter of two-prime time series on PBS, the inspiration of NBC’s Council of Dads, and TV host whose two TED Talks have been viewed more than two million times, today’s guest, Bruce Feiler (FY-ler), the author of the book Life is in the Transitions, joins me in an amazing episode. You may have read his article The Stories that Bind Us, in the New York Times that went viral in 2013. Friends, I’m blown away at my guests every time and Bruce is now one of my favorite people.

https://www.brucefeiler.com

Get Life Is In The Transitions here: https://amzn.to/3ipKlad

For the women listeners who want to support the men in your life, this is the episode for you. For the men who need support from other men or women, listen in. I loved Kristin’s thoughts in this episode to help liberate men to express themselves. Personally, I have struggled to feel comfortable as a man to express myself. I am a very expressive person and it’s hard to know when I can express my true emotions. This conversation was refreshing for me to dive into the barriers to emotional expression that exist in Western Culture for men. We also dived into some amazing topics in positive psychology like gratitude, wonder and awe. I just returned from one of the most awe-inspiring places on earth - the giant redwood forests of Northern California.

I hope you tune in to the whole chat with Kristin Petrucci. 

Kristin Petrucci received her post graduate positive psychology training from the University of Utah.  She is a Transformational Speaker, Corporate Mindfulness Expert and Positive Psychology Coach.  Her main focus is to help men live victoriously.  She believes that Active Gratitude is the key to Victorious Lifestyle and is the Founder of KP Speaks.  She would love to collaborate and can be found on Instagram @kpspeaks_ and Linkedin

Participate in her pilot study:  www.kp-speaks.com/pilot-study

In Episode 132, I speak with Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, THE leading researcher on social isolation, loneliness, social connection and how those things impact health. Maybe you have heard the statistic that loneliness is worse for your health than smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day. Well, we dive a little deeper to clarify this notion to include the difference between loneliness and social isolation. We also talk about what a healthy socially connected life might look like. We also cover a few preliminary data points on how the coronavirus pandemic of COVID-19 has had an impact on social isolation and loneliness. 

Here are some of the main points from our conversation:

Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad's advice on how to be happier:

More about Dr. Holt-Lunstad:

Julianne Holt-Lunstad is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, where she is also the director of the social neuroscience lab. Her research is focused on the long-term health effects of social connection and has been seminal in the recognition of social isolation and loneliness as risk factors for early mortality. Recognized as an expert in the field, Holt-Lunstad has provided expert testimony in the US Congressional Hearing, worked on the US Surgeon General’s Emotional Well-Being in America initiative, served on the advisory group for the UK Cross-Departmental Loneliness Team, and a consensus committee for  National Academy of Sciences. She also serves as scientific advisor for the Australian coalition to End Loneliness, the Foundation for Art & Healing, the Rural Aging Advisory Council, AARP Services Inc. and United Healthcare; and she regularly consults tech companies as well.

Holt-Lunstad has received too many awards to name and is making a positive mark on the world with her research. Her work has been highlighted in the BBC 100 Breakthrough Health Discoveries in 2015 and has been covered in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time magazine, Scientific American, “This American Life,” the TODAY show, NPR, and many other major media outlets. I am honored to be her TEDx speaker coach for her TED talk, and something we joke about is that her research has been cited in at least 10 other TED talks and dozens of books.

It’s an honor to have Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad on the show and I hope you listen all the way to the end for her advice on how to build a happier life.

Where to find and follow Dr. Holt-Lunstad:

https://twitter.com/jholtlunstad

julianneholtlunstad.byu.edu

Who do you intend to become? Are you satisfied with where you are at right now or do you want to witness a positive evolution of yourself? If you desire a change, this episode is for you.

I honestly believe that this has to be one of the most life changing episodes I have ever recorded because it is jam packed. If you’re like me, you’ll want to re-listen to this one and take notes and then go buy the book because today’s guest goes over some amazing principles about how to create real change inside yourself.

Today’s guest is Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author Willpower Doesn't Work. From 2015-2018, he was the #1 writer in the world on Medium.com. During that time, he grew his email list from 0 to 400,000 without paid advertising. Ben and his wife Lauren adopted three children from the foster system in February 2018 and one month later, Lauren got pregnant with twins who were born in December of 2018. They live in Orlando. Ben's blogs are read by millions monthly.

On a personal note, I had the great opportunity to get to know Ben a little more personally as well and I have witnessed first hand that he is the real deal. He doesn’t just write really amazing blog posts and books and have another life. He lives it. I share a story in the podcast about how Ben’s book Willpower Doesn’t Work changed my life a few years ago and I think that his new book is even more life changing.

Full show notes: will be found at: http://morehappylife.co/personalityisntpermanent

How do you make friends as an adult? And if you have made a friend, how can you keep them and strengthen that friendship? In today’s episode we talk about the importance of friendship as an adult as well as how to build and strengthen friendship in our lives. I interviewed Kat Vellos, the author of the amazing book We Should Get Together, on these things, and I’m very excited to share this with you.

What are the biggest barriers to friendship?

We talked about a lot of practical ways to overcome these obstacles in the interview.

We talked about Dr. Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas conducted research that showed that it takes approximately 200 hours to go from strangers to really close friends. When was the last time you spent 200 hours with someone? How many people can you say you have spent 200 hours with in the last 5 years?

This is a fascinating interview and I hope you not only listen to this interview, but pick up Kat’s book! I have it now and have devoured it! It is an amazing book with such charming illustrations and memorable stories and the best part is that it is packed with tips on how to build and strengthen friendships. Do you feel like you need more friends right now? This is the perfect book (and podcast episode) for you!