205: Happiness vs. Intelligence

Most people claim “happiness” is one of their top priorities in life, but how many of us really take time to define what that means? Is it free time? Is it friends and family? Is it financial success? Humans have evolved with a brain hard-wired to avoid danger and threats to our personal safety above all else, but that is not the ideal mental model for a fulfilled life most would define as happy. For many people, their ideal of happiness goes against much of their hard-wired tendencies, so to achieve it, it requires serious thought, hard work, and deliberate lifestyle design.

On this week's Yoga Talk Show, author, Raj Raghunathan, shares his research, teaching, and writing around happiness based on his career.

Raj is an award-winning Professor of Marketing at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas in Austin. Raj’s work has appeared in leading marketing journals, and has been cited in several mass media outlets, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Austin American Statesman, The Houston Chronicle, and Self Magazine. He is the author of a new book titled, “If You Are So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?”

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Listen & Learn:

• Why "what you're missing out on" might be causing unhappiness
• Why it's important to define happiness
• Why happiness is to be lighthearted but not at the cost of being cruel and a state of harmony (right now is good)
• Why you must prioritize happiness, go on a news fast, and a nature feast
• Why you should develop a spiritual attitude (that life is aligned, not benign or maligned)
• How default negativity can cause people to note dangers, and it's easy to get lost in this

Yoga Practice Tip of the Week:

• Grip Strength - how to deal with wrist pain?

Links & References from the Show:

• Happy Smarts

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• Write to us [e-mail]

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