Yayayayayuh!!

It’s Sunday night and I just got off the phone with a happiness hero of mine. Dude’s name is Tal Ben-Shahar and he taught the most popular class at Harvard of all time. The subject of the class (+ our chat) was……………………………………… HAPPINESS!

How do I feel right now? Exhilarated. Absolutely ALIVE. Passionately buzzing like a “143” beep from a Motorola pager back in 1992.

Ask me how I felt an hour ago. The answer: Quite similar although the passionate buzz was more like a nervous vibrating. But alas…

Nervousness and excitement are two sides of the same coin.
  • The nervous side: *negative* expectation of the event’s outcome.
  • The excited side: *positive* expectation of the event’s outcome.

The coin just means you REALLY care about the event. BAM.

So when I felt nervous before that chat (as I almost always do before something incredibly exciting), I knew it was a *GREAT* thing – your boy (me) was excited about talking to Tal. In fact, peep the behind the scene goodness here:

But let’s rewind two days for a hot second. In prepping for the interview, I found myself sittin’ comfy in a window seat of a Manchester Starbucks – enjoyably accompanied by an English Breakfast hot tea and a chocolate “chunk” cookie (we say “chip” in the States, ya bloody bastards). Before long, an hour an a half of YouTube watching passed me by – and what did I have to show for it?

4 pages of questions to ask Tal (slimmed down to 3 for the interview)

As I was doing my research, one of the Big Ideas which Tal reemphasized repeatedly was to give yourself the permission to be human. He says that there are two types of people who don’t feel feelings. Boom. Bam. Bang:

  1. The psychopathic
  2. The dead

So, yesterday, I shot a short video (in Liverpool UK) talking about that, and this:

  • Why we need to allow ourselves to be human
  • Why you *DON’T* wanna be happy all of the time
  • Why it’s important to feel *ALL* your feelings
  • Why there’s a pink elephant stomping thru your life

The interview will be a part of the A Roadmap for Young Adults virtual-conference which will launch in mid-January of 2013. Sign up here to hear this chat (+ another 35):

www.ARoadmapForYoungAdults.com

And if you wanna dig deeper into Tal’s work, I highly (highly, highly) suggest reading Happier. It’s one of my favorite books (of all time!) as Tal takes the latest rigorously tested scientific research on Happiness and makes it SUPER practical and totally applicable for your daily life. [Knuckle-bump, Tal!]

And while you’re waiting for Amazon to ship that, here’s a great video for now. Yes, it’s over an hour long (O-M-G…W-T-F-!), but don’t you think it’s time you invest in YOURSELF?

Drop a comment below and let us know:

How would you feel if you got to interview one of your heroes?

Excited? Nervous? Anxious? Honored?

And would it matter that 1,000’s of people would listen to the chat when you were done? How would you deal with your emotions in the moment? What would you tell yourself? Would you back out?

Can’t wait to hear your point of view, and remember… invest in yourself!

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