Their ability to convert wealth into wellbeing so investing in the right things that brings quality of life in people you mention that there is a variance between rich and poor countries but theres also a great deal of diversity when it comes to happiness right moment the developed world and countries like your own country mark or your neighbor is finland norway they consistently ranked higher than. Other democratic western countries like for example the United States or south korea for that matter and this is where i think gets a little bit ideological what kind of an Economic System what kind of a capitalist system is more conducive to. Social wellbeing is there an answer to that a clear cut answer to that so what we did see in the world happen this report is that there is a group of countries that do consistently well when it comes to Life Satisfaction the nordic countries Finland SwedenNorway Iceland but also the netherlands switzerland canada new Zealand Australia are all doing quite well and youre right the us i think currently ranking nineteens i think russias place 68 so. This seems to be something that is working with some of the nordic countries one of the areas is. Investing in education investing in universal health care in the nordic countries theyre by no means perfect but i think theyre doing some things right in terms of creating good conditions for good lives i know that in the latest World Happiness report on mark was pushed. By finland do you have any sound so what allowed the fence to get ahead of you. I mean im not sure whether we got a list happier with the finns got happier. But i mean. The 2nd decimal when we look at the absolute happiness numbers that sets those countries apart so im happy for them and. Happy for the danes as well. And you know we can try to become happier or we can try and make the less happy i would go with the 1st i mean whether it is. A combined population with the number of People Living in the city in moscow or lets say in new york do you think its a meaningful comparison to. Try to see how lets say russia is doing compared to denmark because you know creating a good life for 5000000 people is very different from trying to do the same for several hundreds of thousands let alone 1300000000 as in china is perhaps easier but i think it does make sense to compare because whether you are 5w1cw i think people who. All want social connection i think they want a healthy Life Expectancy that is long i think they want low levels of corruption i think they want a society that is generous i dont think that is different in a big country compared to a small but i mean within the smaller country its easier to control for already variables than lets say in a country that has 11 time zones and when every region has its own regional and ethnic specific i think it is easier to. Create those conditions for 500000000 definitely you will see a bigger level of both here in russia and also in the u. S. In terms of where the population want the country to go so there are some advantages in being a smaller country in that sense now you mention the United States in the latest World Happiness where there is a chapter on of well being and Political Behavior which essentially says that we dont know enough about this relationship i wonder you dont know in a way how close that knowledge. And new case study when it comes to engaging or perhaps using b. And happy people theres a lot of things to unpack there actually one of the conclusions also in that chapter was that the larger the share of people within the country that. The bigger than likelihood of people voting for the existing government so it actually makes sense for governments to focus on improving quality of life focusing on improving Life Satisfaction for the public if they want to be reelected there is an entire new area being sort of looked at now that he is focusing on inequality in wellbeing. Usually the rankings up based on the National Average but of course you have people above that average and you have people below that and what we see for example. A lot of countries theres a big inequality in terms of well being some people are very happy some people are very unhappy. So i think one of the key issues now for a lot of societies is an increase in polarized nation. And i think the u. S. Is also a case for that what i found interesting about that chapter and it goes into some specifics about the american case as well as the british case as well its just that its not only that sought to present himself as a champion of the deplorable and the downtrodden but it is also the case that hes a lecturer at. A lower on the subject if well being questionnaire and the question that i had is what do you think is more dangerous to try to keep these people away from politics or to allow them to change politics because their way people unhappy people express themselves in society and in politics is also very different from the way happy people. Man it has themselves and many people would not like that shift i think everybody should of course take part in politics the countries that do really well in happiness rankings also have a large voter turnout and i see all voices represented in part its. What is interesting about trumps voters. When asked. How satisfied they are with life now but also how satisfied they were were with life early on or whether life was better. I believe its around 73 percent says that life was they were more satisfied previously. And of course of course if you have that perspective whether its true or not or whether its your subject to that of course can create a foundation for you coming out with a political slogan that. Lets make America Great again whether thats the objective case or do you think its a perm and then disposition when people are simply unhappy if or lets say political establishment is this something that could be changed by lets say trump himself is it easy to make those people who are currently dissatisfied and base them for is it easy and possible to make them happy again i think its its possible i dont think its so we can see theres a lot of factors that impact how you and i would answer how happy we are how satisfied we are with life. Everything from genetics and age to the choices we make on a daily basis what we choose to do with the time and who we spend our time with to areas that governments can influence policies equality access to Health Care Education and so on so it is possible but i think it takes a lot to move the needle for people that are happy or unhappy. So i think its a long. Battle so we prove quality of life i also heard you say that. Was elected it was the end happiest day of 2016 1st of all. Who suggested that how would you explain this showing because supposedly a lot of people unhappy people go out. Way that at the ballot box so why should the majority of the population be and rightly so this was a u. K. Study so theres an excellent study called mapping this that uses phones and people have downloaded an app and then they are asked 12 or 3 times a day how happy they are and then they can see where people when theyre happy theyre happy when theyre with their friends theyre not so happy when theyre at work theyre happy on fridays they have and they are mondays but they could also see over time which days they have in the day. They found the happy Christmas Day with together with our families we had a lot of food and wine and so on but then in 2016 they looked at one of the happiest days this year and the force on happiest day was that question prizing that the brits would be more than happy about the election november as they didnt know that you know that this is out of their own political if you remember the majority of people in britain voted to leave so that thought they thought it was a good thing what the majority of people in the u. K. Thought was. Unhappy was getting elected so that sort of unified the brits well mike we have to take a very short break now but we will be back in just a few moments. Good good one. So the temporary orders that im under before i go to final trial actually do allow me to address them as james and use male pronouns but i cannot do that in front of 3rd parties who know him as a girl so basically i cant go to a school i keep them away from any friends he might have at school that know him as a girl and at my home hes known as james and i use male pronouns what im prohibited from doing right now is trying to convince him that hes actually a boy. Welcome back to all of them are that mike viking feel all of the Happiness Research institute and best selling author my before the break we talked about the various institutional factors that happen as bad then that the only ones perhaps not even the most important ones people as you said before you can be very happy and very and happy under the same circumstances how much of a personal responsibility happened then i think we should look at happiness the same way we look at health so how long you and i are going to live essentially depends on 3 categories it depends on genetics we have predisposed for some to see since it depends on the countries we live in the cities we live in the quality of the health care you know the lay of the level of pollution in moscow in copenhagen and then certainly it depends on the choices that you and i make on a daily basis to exercise what is a diet that we see. We drink and so on and i think it makes sense to look at happiness the same way so we also own more this happy than the policies we live only of the countries we live in also impact Happiness Levels we can see the happiness countries in the world on a scale from suits attend the average Happiness Level is around 7. 00 in a country like syria youll have a Happiness Level of around 3 and then the choices we made on a daily basis im more concerned not so much about the choices but lets say the mental discipline because for example we know where they exactly that some people are more prone to exaggerate than others women tend to be more anxious than men but its also well established in psychology that you can achieve great progress if you take on a ship of your mental and emotional disposition is that the same with happiness if you want to be happy can you be happy i think there is something you can do but of course you are influenced by the conditions who live under and by your genetics there is something you and i can do to improve our wellbeing our Mental Health our happiness but there is also some boundaries we tend to go to syria and see that happiness is a choice right there and i know somebody who has been to syria many times i can actually tell you that happiness for many people is a choice because under very very horrible conditions these people manage to smile they manage ship appreciate the confidence of life i dont know if they have and idea of who get it but you can actually. Write so i dont believe certainly life. Is. Necessarily for happiness i can be very happy without smiling i think smiling is a form of communication and what we see in the data is that people are really unhappy in syria so i think there is something we can do and try and make the best of the situation we are in but i think there is also some limitations due to our environment and the country and even now in many of your lectures you mention several dimensions subjective well being overall Life Satisfaction every day motions and what aristotle referred to as you do morning in the sense of prepress just sounds of striving for good how important is the latter so its one of the areas we actually have most trying to understand and so we we know a lot in terms of Life Satisfaction overall happiness with life we know a lot of what drives that and we also know quite a bit of the emotions we experience on a daily basis both positive and negative ones and how that impact lives satisfaction we know less about the mention theres also a discussion around how do we measure that level of purpose that level of meaning in life. We can see some things drive it like having kids have a wonderful positive impact on that sense of purpose. So when it comes to to Life Satisfaction we can see the best predictor of that from the other domains is actually experiencing positive emotions on a day. You also author of the bestselling book on the. Concept of enjoying a little comforts of life and i think even more broadly its kind of being able to be contented with the current moment without necessarily rushing into the future and as i was reading it i kept wondering how compatible with your demoniac can you be content and striving for good at the same time. Definitely a happiness to be found in being content with what we have but i think its also a happiness to be found in the pursuit of things so im less a fan of the pursuit of happiness im more fan of the happiness of pursuit i think having a goal that were working towards is something that is good for our mood something that is good for our. Satisfaction. So i think we can actually be both i mean there is something i dont have that i would like to create in mind but at the same time i can also be content with what i have achieved so far by speaking about who get i wonder how. Old or new this concept is because the sort of the type of working life balance that exists and then where it is to be honest with you unprecedented in in much of the developed world plot on developing it is it really be kind of did it precede denmarks economic success or is it the result of marx having a very balanced way of life probably more the latter but its been a concept that has his existed in danish language for 200 years. So its not only a result of where the society is now but of course for some very good balance between work and life in a small people to. Take it slow spend time with family and friends to spend 4 hours keep cooking a stew but i think the thing about the experience ive had since the book was published was that it happens everywhere so i received letters from readers in russia u. S. And france and germany saying ive been having for you all my life i just didnt know there was a word for it so of course it happens here as well but what is uniquely danish is a word that describes that situation and perhaps also that danes c. D. s poddar off the National Sort of cultural and identity and talk about it a lot i know that almost every interviewer asks about tips on how to increase ones subjective wellbeing and you usually say that there is no magic bullet for all i wonder though what works for you personally are there any personal hacks into happiness i think there are different strategies and different perspectives i think. Theres something we can do and should do to improve our mood here and now and i think theres a long term goal in terms of a long term perspective in terms of improving conditions for good lives i think here and now. In denmark we have a sort of Mental Health a. B. C. Which is doing something x. And doing something meaningful and doing something together with other people seems to be a good universal recipe for improving here now how we feel at the same time i think we should look further down the line and consider how can we create. Society that enables people to enable people to flourish and focusing on reducing corruption focusing on reducing the level of freedom focusing on lifting people out of poverty. Goals that we should strive towards long term now in addition to things that we have to strive towards i think there are also things that we should consider with. Some of perhaps and then i know you spoke a lot about social media which supposedly were aimed to make us more connected but there is now a growing body of Research Showing that it is having and negative impact on many people there is there are some scientists for example paul dolan of the you who argue that in 10 years time we will speak of social media in this same matter in the same way we speak about tobacco now is something that is pleasurable in the moment but highly toxic and addictive do you agree with that i agreed that. We should be mindful of how we use social media and i agree with that it can have negative consequences for our well being. So if we use social media to compare ourselves to everybody else that. Leading these seemingly amazing lives on instagram and so on. Then it can have a negative effect if we use social media. To actually be social then that might have a positive impact i think. We have to be a little more nuanced in how we look at social media or so if we say books you know books can be great and they can be horrible so i think its the behavior is what we choose to do with either books or social media. That is the key here now i think one of the reasons why is social comparisons are so debilitating is low selfworth you know the failure to respond to be kind to yourself and i find it striking that we now have almost an epidemic so its low selfworth in western countries most of which have based on this very idea of the Intrinsic Value of human life thats actually the basis of western civilization that human life individual live has an intrinsic meaning and Intrinsic Value why do you think. You know in this era of progress so many people find it so hard to accept themselves checks of their lives for what it is youre right that we are increasingly becoming expose shoe a wide spectrum of demands and we increasingly becoming exposed shoe standards that is impossible as a human to live up to beauty standards level of income level of success and i think the as we talked about before food that social comparison becoming more pronounced. I think osho intending with that we have the. Expectation that when we lifted people out of poverty when we became richer then wed become happier and i think valleys what a lot of people are struggling with now they expected that once they reached a certain level of income then they would be happy. And yet we create new size we create new things we want and i think. Sometimes we run out of explanations for why we feel unhappy because if we hav