What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Andy Hughes, Scott Miller, and Samantha Powell.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
84 - The Happiness Project - June
We'll also dive into the broader concept of generosity, moving beyond financial contributions to uplifting and inspiring others to dream big. Denise recounts a memorable coaching moment that encouraged someone to pursue their dream of writing a book, demonstrating the powerful impact of empowering others. Together, we'll reflect on how fostering an environment of support and encouragement can lead to greater happiness and productivity, both in personal and professional spheres.
Lastly, we delve into the art of building genuine connections and the joy of bringing people together. Despite being introverted, Denise shares her knack for creating meaningful relationships that transcend professional roles, leading to unexpected collaborations. We'll celebrate the joy of friendships and express our gratitude to our listeners and our dedicated team member Scott. Tune in to discover how strong social bonds and acts of generosity can enhance happiness and create a thriving, supportive community.
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf with your hosts, denise Russo and Samantha Powell. Hi everyone, welcome back. It's another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we're living out loud the pages of the books on our shelves. My name is Denise Russo. I'm here with my friend and co-host, sam Powell, as we explore the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. We're in chapter six today, which is called June. It's all about friendship, sam. I can't wait to talk about this with you because I love that our friendship has grown even beyond just the time we've been together with our episodes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. This is all about making time for friends, and I love the time that we have together really regularly because we do this podcast and other things together, and so, yeah, this will be a fun one, I think, especially thinking about June too. That's when you know summer's going on and you know, you think about the fun, especially coming out of May, which was making time for fun. This is making time for friends and, yeah, I love this, and as I read through this, all I could think about were my friends that I definitely like, sent some text messages off and things like that. As, as I was reading through this one because it's I think it's a, it's the obvious one for me, with happiness, right, like we know, that connection to others drives happiness. It is in every piece of research and every you know, every recommendation out there under the sun, and so this one is just, I don't know very joyous to me.
Speaker 1:I think so too. She starts it out by even saying that everyone, from contemporary scientists to ancient philosophers, agree that having strong social bonds is probably the most meaningful contributor to happiness. And so next to that, I wrote in the margins wow, like that, that's the most, the most meaningful contributor to happiness. And so she talks about a couple of ways to do that. She says remember people's birthdays, be generous, just show up, don't gossip, and make three new friends. And so, as I was reading through the book, I have lots of highlights in here around.
Speaker 1:You need close, long-term relationships or true friendships, and I can recall there was a time in college where one of my very close friends from college who later then became even the godfather of my children and is still one of my close friends today he said to me something at our young age of in our early 20s maybe we weren't even 20 yet we were having this conversation, and I remember why we were having the conversation. I was good friends with this one person and something was changing in that friendship, where the friendship time together was going to be changing. Maybe it was like somebody was graduating or moving away or something. And he said to me my friend Jason. He said you know what friends come to us, for seasons and reasons. Some of them come in for a short time, some come in for a long time, but it's about the time you have with them that matters, and this part was talking about. You need true friendships and it got me to thinking about who I would say is my longest time friend. Her name is Sandy and she lives a couple hours from me in Florida, but we grew up together in New York and I've known her since I was in the second grade. So once since I was seven years old I've known her, and there was a gap in time after we graduated from high school. I actually moved away, like in 11th grade, and then, you know, had my life in Florida, went to college in Florida, but somehow, thanks to Facebook, we found each other many, many years later, like we were both grown, had kids, we had lost complete touch and I remember that we met up for the first time in something like 20, 30 years since I had seen her and it was the most joyous, amazing, beautiful, heartfelt time and after that we just kind of had some time to talk with each other and said to one another like you're my person. You mentioned that kind of word in the episode last week, but she's my person and I'm her person.
Speaker 1:And so Vincent found this song by a guy named Ben Rector and Scott. Let's make sure we put this song in the show notes. It's a song about how you can't make old friends, meaning that when you start out and have your friendships, no matter when they start and for me it was when I was seven or when I was with Jason and maybe I was 17, you can't make old friends. So all that time that you have your true friendships, don't lose sight of that by forgetting simple things like remembering their birthday, where you mentioned, I think last week about, or maybe at the beginning of this episode, sending a text just saying hey, I'm thinking about you and how important that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, yeah, and you've. You have to maintain the relationships right To really get to to the depth of what it is. It's funny, as you're saying, like the longest friends I forget the number of years that was in this, like study or whatever but my one of my friends, I have this core group of friends. We've got like a friend group text message that we'll often shoot stuff off on. But um the I. It's like, once you've been friends with someone for so many years, like they go into your lifelong bucket. It's like, if you can maintain an active friendship with somebody it was like seven or ten years or something like that, I forget what the number is then they go into this like lifelong bucket. It's like, once you've put in enough investments like it reminds me of, like Malcolm Gladwell's, like 10,000 hours, like to become an expert in something. It's like, once you've put in enough investments like it reminds me of, like Malcolm Gladwell's, like 10,000 hours, like to become an expert in something. It's like, once you spend so many, so much time with someone it's probably 10 years, it's probably 10,000 hours, cause that's what it is for everybody, right, like, but it's then they go into this category of like you've have you, they are your old friend and they are your like depth and they know so much about you. You've made it through enough, I guess, changes in life to like get into this category of like really, really, you know deep, deep friendship, which I think is interesting, right, and I think about the friendships that I have, or the friendships of people that I know that they have, right, like my mom's really good about maintaining friendships over distance, over time. I mean she's got friends who are core. I mean deep, deep friendships that have lasted 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, right, like, you know those kinds of things and I think about those versus the ones that are for seasons, right, oh, you know, we were really good friends while our kids were on these teams together, while, you know, and sometimes those people you know transcend and become something bigger, but it's, I don't know. I think it's such an interesting thing, but that community is important and I sent that for the my really good group of friends. I sent them a picture of this highlighted part in the book that says studies show that if you have five or more friends with whom to discuss an important matter, you're far more likely to describe yourself as very happy and I think about that and I think about, and then it goes on to say, like some researchers argue, that over the last 20 years and this book was published a while ago, so over the last few decades, the number of confidants claimed by the average American has dropped.
Speaker 2:And I think about, you know, some of the struggles that, like, our younger generations are facing, like the Gen Z kids, the kids who are in their 20s right now. It's not kids, but you know the young adults that are in their 20s now, you know, are really struggling. Right, these are the people who experienced these formative years through COVID and all this kind of stuff. Right, the connections were broken, this ability to really form these deep trenches type friendships where I could, I have multiple people I could call when the stuff hits the fan, when things go really wrong, when it's like I just need to talk to somebody. You need people. And if you've got and that's at least five here that you can call, you're more likely to describe yourself as really happy. And I think about those struggles.
Speaker 2:I think about you know, some of that change in that period during COVID. We're all disconnected and who stayed really mentally healthy and who didn't. It was the people who maintained those, you know those connections and things like that. Like my friends and I did like video chat, so we were like this is fun, like we should just do this randomly anyways. Like you know, it's that way to maintain those connections and maintain that you know depth, to where you know. I think it's the depth of we are good enough friends that if something were to happen and I needed something or you needed something, it's you call and I'm there for you, right, and I think that that's I don't know, such an interesting like I don't know. I think it's an interesting thing to think about your friendships and think about what levels of friends that you've got and what does that mean for your happiness and your connection and you know things like that.
Speaker 1:And maybe think about, if you're listening, who's somebody you care about that you haven't talked to in a while. There's probably a bunch. How hard would it be to just send a note and say I was truly just thinking about you today and see what happens from there? I know that whenever I get those little notes from people that just say you were on my mind, it makes me feel so happy to think, wow, of all of the billions of thoughts that blur through our brains every day, that somehow a thought about me in a good way popped into somebody's mind and they took the time to let me know it. And maybe they didn't say this is what I was thinking about, or I want to have a really long conversation with you, or let's go meet up for some. It was just simply to say you popped into my head today and I just wanted to let you know, and it always just feels so good?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and that's that little bit of like maintaining connection with people and you know, I think that that really does wonders for us, because receiving something like that feels good, sending something like that feels good Of like you know, it's it's not just that I thought about you and then I moved on with my day, it's that I thought about you and I let you know, and we've talked about this, I think, in multiple, multiple books, because I feel like I say something like this, then somebody will listen to the episode and be like I thought about you, which makes me so happy and, you know, like right, and that's what this is about is really, you know, increasing that, that happiness. And, like you said, it's the little things, it's the birthdays, it's the when they cross your mind. You know that that helps. You. Just keep that, keep that connection, keep that connection going. You just keep that, keep that connection, keep that connection going.
Speaker 2:What did you, what did you think about her? Be generous, part of this, right. So this is all about, you know, making time for friends. But her take on generosity was really interesting, because I think the first thing you think about is being generous is usually like a money thing right, like I'm spending money on someone, but she she thought about it and like contributing in her own way and she had some different ways that she did this and I. I loved this part because it made me rethink ways I can be generous that are more true to who I am, because I'm not, like she said, I'm not a shopper. I was like I identified that I'm not a not a shopper. I don't like it's just not my thing. But some of the other ways she talked about generosity really did resonate with me and really, you know, are things that I enjoy.
Speaker 1:I actually loved this part of the book because she said to be generous. It isn't about buying something to get somebody's affection, it's about to help people think big, and I think for me, when I hearken back to times when I had some of my very best teams that I led, or even some of the clients that I've coached, it's probably the thing that I love the most. In fact, yesterday I was talking to this woman who I shared with you off microphone that I had been talking with. She was a really senior or is a really senior executive at a company where she was leading human resources, but from the lens of not a human being being a resource, but a human being actually being a human. And so she asked me a question about what did I think one of my superpowers was? And I had to pause for a minute and think about how would I articulate what that is, or what did I really like about leading teams or some of that being around people? And it was about this idea of helping people think big. In every case where I had the most productive, happiest, most trusting teams, they were all times when I think what I was able to do was help those people think outside of where they were that baseline, of where they were to think bigger, to dream farther, to elevate something about their being. And so when she was talking about being generous, she was talking about things like what could you say to someone to lift them up, and not with a false expectation, but something where you could just say some sort of a nice compliment or encourage them or or really dig deeper.
Speaker 1:I can recall a couple of months ago I was talking to this person who was recommending a friend to to me to be coached, and the person that recommended was a friend of mine who was a coach and we were getting into the conversation and I asked him you know, what are some of the things that you're dreaming about or that you're thinking about doing for yourself? And through the course of the conversation, sam, he kind of just mentioned that he sort of had this bucket list dream of writing a book, but he never really did anything about it. And the more he was talking about it, you could sense this excitement about the topic for this particular book, which has nothing to do with with coaching or the job his day job. It was a totally random other topic and I remember talking to him in the conversation and saying to him you should write this book like you would be so good and imagine what it would be like when people are reading the book and getting so much joy from it and seeing the book on the shelf.
Speaker 1:And by the end of the call he was so excited. He said I don't know. I think I actually just need you then to help coach me into writing it because I don't think I can do it. And in that conversation I remember saying to him you can do it. Why do you think you can't do it? There's many things I thought I couldn't do that I did do, and so when I read this chapter, I immediately thought about him and one other person that you and I both know that you coached that had those same thoughts around the fact that she didn't know that she could actually quit her job and write and publish a book and she did all of it in less than three months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's. I think it's one of the biggest gifts that you can give somebody is to help them break down their barriers. And I think, like, right, that's you and I both love this and this is, I think, why we're called to coaching and things like that. But, yeah, it's that it's you can help, you can be generous with other people by just being the encouraging person, right, the person that's you know, helping them see down the path a little bit bigger, a little bit farther, a little bit more, or just helping them be the person who isn't negative in their life too.
Speaker 2:I was just talking to somebody this week who recently gotten laid off and you know, like same experience you and I had gone through a year ago and she and I just connected to talk about that. And I always worry about people going through this because it's such a tough experience, it's such a tough thing to reconcile, but she was in the same kind of mental place. I was where. I was, like it's going to be fine, I'll find something else, I'll figure it out. Like you know, it's like she was just in a very peaceful place and she said I don't know how many people keep telling me I'm crazy for feeling this way. Right, like you know, she was, like I had it.
Speaker 2:I have an interview this week but, like, whatever you know, I might not. I might not even take it, even if they offer, because I think I'm going to have a summer of me and figure some things out. I was like that's great, that's awesome, she goes. You don't think I'm crazy. I was like, of course not. I think that investment in yourself is one of the best things you can do and, especially if you've got the moment to do it, like take it right. That was one of the things my husband said after we got laid off to me. He was like I don't want you to take anything for at least a little tiny bit. I want you to spend some time on you and to like take a deep breath and do what you want to do, and like having somebody in your corner encouraging you and saying that is so important, because often what we find, especially in our close friends and family, is that they start to project their own insecurities about that type of situation onto you.
Speaker 2:And that's why I said I was like anybody who's telling you oh my gosh, you got to go find a job, you got to do whatever. You got to know it's coming from their place of insecurity in this. If this was happening to them, they don't have their finances in order and so they're freaking out about it. They don't they, they can't imagine not having this identity of being a worker and so that's you know, really driving this other conversation. But I think that being that person and being that encourager and being that heck, yeah, that sounds great. Like go go have the summer of you, go live your life. That sounds incredible. Is is a really interesting form of generosity in you know, in spending time with your you know, with friends and with people you care about, like I, just I love that.
Speaker 1:Gretchen talks about it here, where she says one of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. But one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself, which is a two way street. So in the example you gave, where you were able to give that happiness to your friend, if you weren't already that happy, centered person, like you just said, you couldn't have given that to her and what she needed was for you to mirror the fact that she did feel peaceful and for you to be able to say why would I think you're crazy? If you don't think you're crazy, why would I think you're?
Speaker 2:crazy, exactly, and sometimes you just need that person that's gone ahead of you to say like, well, they could do it, I could do it. Like just living my own life out loud, right, hey, I started a business. Hey, I did whatever, started so many interesting conversations with people. Right, the fact that I went ahead and did this is the reason that other people have now done the same thing or, you know, lived their own dream or done whatever, and it like like I love that. I, I circled, that I hearted that in the book because I was like that.
Speaker 2:That is one of, I think, my fundamental truths that if one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself, right, it's that you can't pour from an empty cup. You can't, right, you've got to feel, you've got to be fulfilled in order to help other people feel like they've got a chance at it too, which is, you know, it's really good. It's interesting that you, of the things in this generous section that you said that you really loved, was this help people think big. Because the next thing she says is bringing people together, and I, like you, said your superpowers. I think this is one of your superpowers, like to me.
Speaker 2:You are like I think this is one of your superpowers. Like to me, you are like I was calling like the great connector. Like you know a million people. You will bring a million people together. I've met I don't have any interesting people because you're like you have to talk to this person. I'm like why do I have to talk to this person? You're like you just do and then I sit down, I talked, talk to me, but like, this is what it. This is one of the things I think is definitely one of your very unique superpowers you can bring people together in a way that is I've just never seen in anybody else and it's such a joyous thing and such a happy thing that I don't know. Like to me, this is like one of your top, special, very unique superpowers.
Speaker 1:It's funny for me to hear you say that, because I'm so introverted and people will be always like no, you're not.
Speaker 1:Stop saying that about yourself. You're totally not. But I am, and I despise networking events which you are becoming the queen at, and I often tell you like I want to just live vicariously through you. I am a hermit. I'd rather stay inside my house than to go to a networking event.
Speaker 1:But if I know someone, or I meet someone and I know someone else that could benefit from knowing them, I do love putting them together and in fact I recall a couple years ago I was putting together a team and I had a leader at that particular time who was very well I don't want to say very, let me be careful how I word this. I'm going to say very because I don't have a better way to say it. He was very generous in allowing me to try to construct a dream team. I didn't get to construct it exactly the way I wanted, as you very well know, but I knew immediately when he said go build this team. I knew who was going to be my first stringers, what their roles were going to be like, how they were going to work together with each other and in most cases you know this to be true none of the people knew each other, but the thread was they all knew me, and so what I found to be so unique with that team was that I already had the belief in the people and the trust with the people, but I had to build an environment for them to believe in one another and build trust with one another. Now I'm not going to say it was 100% perfect. Well, except that we did get 100% leadership, trust, employee engagement, productivity scores from that team, which was was amazing, despite a lot of org changes and different things that happen in a in a business setting. But it's interesting to think through it because some of those people today you and I no longer work with but we're still very close friends with and that still call upon both of us for different things, and so I do love that.
Speaker 1:You pointed that out, because I've gone through jobs In fact, that's a perfect job example the friendships that I created, like with you. I became friends with you in a job, two, three jobs before that. We created a friendship that outlasted that job, that brought us to an opportunity in the future, that then, when that opportunity ended, we were able to come together and do our retreat and create this podcast and who knows what the universe has for us to create together. But it had nothing to do with the tasks. It had nothing to do with the tasks. It had nothing to do with the job. It had nothing to do with how brilliantly smart you are and the great output you have, even though those are attributes that are key to who you are in a business setting. It had everything to do with the fact that we built a friendship.
Speaker 1:That I just knew. I told you the very first day I met you. I remember exactly where we are, what the restaurant looked like, the seat you were sitting in, and when I left that lunch I said I need to be friends with that lady. I just knew that. I'm so happy that there was some reason that I was in the town you live in, at a restaurant where you were, and you just so happened to be at a meeting that I was at where.
Speaker 2:Where that happened, because you don't know in those moments what the future has yeah, exactly, and I think that that's one of those things like I don't know how many stories you've told me about you happen to be in a like it's just wherever you are, you find this way to connect with people in a way that's like you can see something amazing in that person, like you've sort of like you have multiple stories where, like the waiter at your restaurant, like it's now some family friend of yours, or like you were giving a tour somewhere or doing whatever, but I think it like really speaks to this generous spirit of connection and it's that under it's really appreciating people for the unique strengths that they bring and what that is. And I think when you sit in appreciation for your friends and for the people who are really close to you in your life, and you can really understand and see what is this beautiful goodness inside of them, like that gets reflected back, that I mean that really becomes the foundation of things that does transcend time and roles and jobs, and you know all the things that you're. You know all the things that you're. You know all the things that you're saying, and I was thinking about that the other day.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about I was thinking about books. I like to read and I was thinking about writing I like to do, and it was leading me back to what I really really love is quirkiness. I love quirky people. I love people that you know just are beautifully. I don't want to say flawed, but you know what you would consider flawed, right, like they just have these weird quirky things about them that are kind of amazing and I love that about people. But I think, like that's one of those unique talents you've got, where you can like really quickly uncover that about somebody, like what is that unique thing or the unique things about them, and like then how could that, how could bringing these two people together like benefit the individuals and then the group. You know the little group as a whole and you know things like that. So I think that when we're approaching making time for friends, it's it's that who they really are and those connections and that you know being generous with how those, how those things go.
Speaker 2:And she I know we're getting probably close to time here, but she talks about you know, some other things like showing up for people, which I think we've we've talked about, and it's probably pretty obvious if you want to have friends, you got to show up in ways that matter. Not gossiping, I think, is like the opposite side of that I'm. I think this is one of the most important things people need to let go. It's talking bad about other people, you know, and I want to see us do the opposite, like talking good about people when they're not in the room, appreciating their quirkiness, appreciating that like, oh man, I love that this person rambles on for forever. I could just I always learn something interesting from them. Or you know, something like that. It's not a you know, it's not this gossip, it's not this negative, it's this like I don't know, flipping it to be appreciation and things like that.
Speaker 2:But she, her last thing was making new friends and she spends, you know, quite a bit of time of on like how to make new friends and things like that. But I thought it was interesting. She started with this goal of making three new friends and so she said that. You know, it felt a little weird, like quantifying it and saying I'm like I have this goal of three people that I have to meet, but she said it it's kind of changed the thought process in her friends do from.
Speaker 2:You know, do I like you, do I have time to get to know you? Right, these are the barriers that kind of keep us away from people a little bit. To are you someone who will be one of my new friends, one of my three new friends? Right, and approaching new relationships, approaching new conversations with not? Do I like you? Do I want to be friends with you? Do I want to make time for you, but I want to increase the circle of my friends? Right, like I want to be friends with you? Do I want to make time for you, but I want to increase the circle of my friends? Right, like I want to spend more time with people and are you going to be one of those people?
Speaker 2:Like, I think about the curiosity that you would sit in in a conversation with a new person so very differently, right, and so I've been thinking about this and I'm like, oh, as I go to all these networking events, right, as I people, it's like, are you gonna be one of my people? Like, are you gonna be? You know what is it? I'm like now I'm on a treasure hunt. Right now I'm on this like different approach and I I love that question. I like that really, really stuck with me as I'm thinking about making new friends. I have established friends, but as I go out there in the world and do new things and meet new people, I loved that thought process.
Speaker 1:Oh, I really love that you just termed it as you're on a treasure hunt. That's so beautiful. I think we could all take that as sort of a closing thought around, looking at your relationships or your encounters truly as a treasure hunt, because, you're right, I meet people in super random places and then become friends with them. And I'm thinking about, actually, my cousin, who I told you about that I'd recently met for the first time ever and he's like a treasure to me and I didn't know the very first time, like I was so nervous when I thought I'm going to meet this person who's an adult man now that I've never known. We just have some common DNA and through the course of getting to know him as a person, I have found like Jeff is my treasure, like he was somebody worth finding.
Speaker 1:And when I think about some of my older friends that you've heard about on a lot of these episodes, like my friend Jason I talked about earlier, sandy I've talked about before, or, for sure, wendy, who you've all heard about, these are treasures. And wouldn't it be cool to think about this chest that you have with what you're deciding to make space for, because the chest can only hold so much and. But being able to find those golden pieces, man, that's so beautiful. So for me, I'm a bad networker and I know we're out of time, so I'm going to leave it for the people who are like me, that don't like to do networking, is that she has some very practical tips about what you can do if you're at a networking event so I'm not going to spill the beans on it by the book.
Speaker 1:Scott has a link to the book in the show notes, but there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, there are nine or 10 different tips on what you can do if you really need some help, nudging you to build these new treasure chest relationships. So I love that as the close for this, this chapter. Sam, what are we talking about next time?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, next time. So moving from June to July, which is by some happiness, and it's all about money, which is in like, which is an interesting shift we've made through the years, through the, you know, through the years she's gone, so that'll be an interesting one to talk about. And we've explored money a bit in some of the other books too, so I'll be interested to hear some of your takes on. I don't know how that fits together with what we've learned.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm excited about that as well, because we know from the how of happiness that money doesn't buy you happiness, so maybe buying happiness has nothing to do with money. We'll have to see. So once again, my friend, it has been wonderful to be here with you today to talk about friendships. I look forward to ours continuing to grow. If you're listening, and even though we may not know you, thanks for being our friend and listening, and we'd love for you to share our episodes with your friends and let us know what you're getting out of these episodes. It really helps us too as we're building out our strategy for what we're going to do next year. Scott has ways for you to reach us in the show notes. Scott's our friend too. You don't get to hear from him or see him much on the camera, but so happy that he's a part of our team through this journey as well. My name's Denise Russo, so, on behalf of Scott and Sam, thanks for being here with us today.