February 13, 2023

The Science of Fun and 3 Ways to Add More to Your Life | Mike Rucker

1 hour 15 minutes

In today’s episode, we cover fun with Mike Rucker. Mike is an organizational psychologist, behavioral scientist, recovering entrepreneur, and the author of The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life.

The pursuit of pleasure has been beaten into us as an unhealthy one by many thought leaders throughout history, but what role do fun and leisure play in increasing our productivity, how can you leverage pleasure to make daily work more enjoyable, and what can you do to create more space in your day for pleasurable activities if you find yourself burning out on work?

What to Listen For

Introduction – 0:00

How does focusing on happiness lead to rumination and depression?

Hedonic Flexibility Principle – 16:02

What role do fun and leisure play in maximizing productivity and life satisfaction?

How important is it to take a sabbatical periodically to recharge and regain a healthy focus on life and work?

Activity Bundling – 34:03

What can you do to add fun and pleasure to your daily activities to make them more enjoyable and thus encourage you to do them better?

Creating Options for Fun in Your Life – 43:28

What little decisions can you make everyday to make your life more fulfilling?

What simple framework can you use to create space in your life to integrate more fun activities and decrease the number of soul-sucking activities?

It is evident that happiness does not necessarily lie in big accomplishments or major life changes, but rather in the small choices we make each day. When we focus on making those choices fun and enjoyable, we are more likely to stick with them and see lasting results. What are some small decisions you can make today to add a little bit of fun and pleasure to your daily routine?

A Word From Our Sponsors

Are you ready to take your career to the next level in 2023? Looking to grow your high-value social circle?

You are one relationship away from changing your entire life.

Listen: your social circle, professional network, and lack of confidence are thwarting your attempts at accelerating your career.

But there’s something you can do about it.

After coaching over 10,000 clients including military special operators and Fortune 500 executives we’ve learned a thing or two about what it actually takes to grow your network. In fact, over 90% of the amazing guests on this show are from referrals in our personal networks.

We’ve packaged our best insights inside a course called, Social Capital. And, as a thank you for being a podcast listener, we want to give you this training for FREE to start 2023.

To get your hands on this training and immediately start improving your relationships, go to theartofcharm.com/sc

Do you LOVE the toolbox episodes? Did you know that every week we give a LIVE mini-toolbox lesson inside our Private Facebook Group? Best of all it is FREE to join. Join today and get access to all of our live training and level up your communication, leadership, influence and persuasion skills. With 14,000 members it’s a great place to network, learn and overcome any obstacle that’s in your way.

Additional Sponsors:

Babbel - https://www.babbel.com/charm

Hello Fresh - https://hellofresh.com/charm65

Athletic Greens - https://athleticgreens.com/charm

NextEvo - https://nextevo.com/charm

Resources from this Episode

The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life

Mike Rucker’s website

Check in with AJ and Johnny!

AJ on Instagram

Johnny on Instagram

The Art of Charm on Instagram

The Art of Charm on YouTube

The Art of Charm on TikTok

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

...more

View all episodes

By The Art of Charm

4.7

1047610,476 ratings