Show Notes
Why is it that so many of us are loved... and yet don’t actually feel loved? Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is a Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside and one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness. Her newest book, How to Feel Loved, co-authored with relationship scientist Harry Reis, lands at a strange moment: a time when more people than ever say they are connected, and more people than ever say they don’t actually feel it. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, Sonja offers a quietly radical reframe. After 36 years of studying what makes a life happy, she has come to believe the answer lies in this: Feeling loved. And here is where it gets interesting. Sonja’s research is showing that feeling loved is not something we have to wait for. It’s something we can help create. Most of us, when we sense the absence, default to one of two strategies. We try to be more lovable. Or we try to change the person on the other side. Sonja argues that neither one actually works. What changes a relationship is changing the conversation. She walks Mike through the five mindsets at the heart of the book: the sharing mindset, listening to learn, radical curiosity, open heart, and multiplicity. Along the way, they explore why most of us are listening to respond instead of listening to learn, the three words people actually want to hear (hint: it’s not I love you), and why ‘tell me more’ might be one of the most loving phrases in the English language. Sonja shares her foggy glass metaphor for why being known is the prerequisite to being loved, the Michelangelo effect, and a striking line the Dalai Lama once said to her about how we hold each other. The conversation also gets honest about the harder edges. Bridging political divides at the dinner table. Staying curious about a partner of 30 years. Navigating the modern questions around AI companions, monogamy, and what it means to really go deep with another human. And the research on what tiny acts of kindness, including the impact a 10-second compliment can have. If you’ve ever been surrounded by people who love you and still felt unseen, this conversation is a gentle invitation back in. The good news is that feeling loved is under your control, more than you think. Sonja’s research will show you exactly where to start. Most of us are waiting to feel loved. Sonja shows us how to create the conditions for it... starting today. _____________________________________________________ Links & Resources This episode is brought to you in part by our partner Sunlighten, the company that has pioneered infrared sauna technology. Go to https://findingmastery.com/sunlighten to see how you can save up to $2,200 on their mPulse Intelligent Sauna. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/ Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X Book: How to Feel Loved by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reis. Learn more and take the mindset quiz at howtofeellove.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
More from Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Finding a way to coach yourself with challenge and grace can be an extraordinary unlock for performance. Mikaela Shiffrin is an Olympic gold medalist and the winningest alpine ski racer in World Cup history. We first released this conversation in 2023. Since then, she has won Olympic slalom gold at Milano Cortina and her sixth overall World Cup title, tying the women’s record, and what she describes in this conversation is the inner work that was already well underway. Mikaela and Mike get into the performance anxiety that had her sick at the start gate years into her career, the self-coaching habit she developed to put her own assessment first, and the race she lost at Killington that she calls the most free she has ever felt in her career. She is open about how long she let the outside world dictate how she felt about her own skiing before she reclaimed that for herself. Coaching yourself well is incredibly difficult, and Mikaela shows us in this conversation what becomes possible when you do it in a world-class way. Enjoy the conversation. -------------------------------------------------- Links & Resources Mikaela Shiffrin: linktr.ee/mikaelashiffrin Mikaela Shiffrin’s YouTube Series: Moving Right Along, on her channel youtube.com/@mikaelashiffrin Mikaela Shiffrin’s Podcast: What’s the Point with Mikaela Shiffrin: listen here Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/ Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What happens to the rest of your relationships when the one you have with yourself goes untended? Dr. Thema Bryant is a clinical psychologist, tenured professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, director of the Culture and Trauma Research Laboratory, and former president of the American Psychological Association. She hosts The Homecoming Podcast and wrote Matters of the Heart: Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love. Thema emphasizes that one of the biggest predictors of our mental wellbeing is not your achievement or your bank account. It is the people you spend your time with. Thema and Mike get into her working definition of trauma, the difference between guilt and shame, and why so much people pleasing begins as a strategy for staying safe. Thema talks about being evacuated from Liberia as a teenager during a civil war, and the shift in her own identity after the death of her mother. This conversation is also for the person doing well by every external measure who sees no reason to do any of this work. It is not that you need to, Thema says. It’s that you deserve to. At one point, Mike asks her how we would lead differently if we knew what she knew. Thema’s answer is that you would not leave yourself behind. Enjoy the conversation. __________________________________ Links & Resources: Dr. Thema Bryant’s Website: drthema.com Dr. Thema Bryant’s Books: Matters of the Heart: Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love, Reclaim Yourself: The Homecoming Workbook, Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole, Authentic Self, The Antiracism Handbook Dr. Thema Bryant’s Podcast: The Homecoming Podcast with Dr. Thema (video version on YouTube, audio on Spotify and Apple Podcasts) Mentioned in this conversation: Dr. Lisa Miller’s research on spirituality as a protective factor for mental health. Her Finding Mastery episode: The Psychology of Spirituality | Dr. Lisa Miller. Her book: The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/ Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X #FindingMastery #ThemaBryant #DrMichaelGervais #MattersOfTheHeart #Relationships #Trauma #Healing #Shame #EmotionalSafety #SelfWorth #Attachment #Loneliness #Therapy #Psychology #MentalHealth #HighPerformance #Emotionaltrauma #reltionshiptrauma #selfhelp #selfhealing See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
“…the stories that we tell ourselves and other people become our lives.” — IN-Q This is a conversation about the story you are living inside, about creativity as a practice rather than a talent, and about why being witnessed helps us release what we might otherwise carry alone. Before this conversation started, IN-Q walked the entire Finding Mastery team through a poetry workshop. Each person wrote about a personal experience with risk that changed the direction of their life, then read it out loud to the room. Mike opens this episode saying he has never started a podcast feeling the way he felt coming out of it. IN-Q is a spoken word artist, two-time Emmy-nominated lyricist, multi-platinum songwriter, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of Inquire Within. He has written songs with Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Aloe Blacc, and he was one of the original members of Da Poetry Lounge in Los Angeles, the open mic he calls church without religion. IN-Q and Mike get into the three guidelines he gives people before they write, and the night he read his old breakup poems and realized every one of them applied to the new breakup. He also describes giving himself the room every morning to decide not to be a poet. Choosing it again each day – instead of waking up already being one – keeps the work from turning into a life he inherited from a version of himself that has already faded away. Both of them tell stories about an old chip on the shoulder, and the two trace back to a similar place. The chip became fuel. IN-Q calls it unhealthy fuel, and describes chipping away at it now, trying to turn it into a sculpture. Change your story, change your life, is how he puts it. He also tells you exactly where to start. Enjoy the conversation. ____________________________________________________________________________ Links & Resources IN-Q’s Website: in-q.com IN-Q’s Books: Inquire Within, The Never Ending Now Poetry Journal IN-Q’s Album: The Never Ending Now (featuring Isabella Turso) IN-Q’s Poetry Special: IN-Q – Live at the Ace Theatre, streaming on Amazon Prime Video IN-Q’s Poetry Workshops and Retreats: in-q.com/poetry-workshops Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/ Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What if the calmest person in the room isn’t avoiding pressure, but experiencing it differently? Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is one of the world’s most recognized spiritual teachers and humanitarian leaders. He founded the Art of Living, which teaches meditation, breathwork, and service in over 180 countries, and he is the author of Notes for the Journey Within. Stress has a use, and Gurudev compares it to a pinch of salt in food, useful in that amount and unconsumable past it. Most of us have taken on far more than that, and have never learned how to put it down or manage it well. Gurudev and Mike get into why he defines success as exhibiting your limitation, why he thinks failure is worth being proud of, and why authority over your own mind is the only authority there really is. Mike asks him when his body last went into fight or flight. He says it never has. This one is for people who are working hard and running warm. What Gurudev points back to is something simple and repeatable: breathing, meditation, and learning how to release stress before it accumulates. Near the end, Mike asks him to finish a sentence: Mastery is... Gurudev’s answer: recognizing you are not there. Enjoy the conversation. ______________________________________________________ Links & Resources: Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Website: gurudev.artofliving.org Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Books: Notes for the Journey Within: Essentials of the Art of Living, An Intimate Note to the Sincere Seeker, Celebrating Silence The Art of Living Foundation: artofliving.org Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/ Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
How much of the time you spend in pain comes from the injury itself, and how much comes from the fear around it? Dr. Tom Walters is a board-certified orthopedic physical therapist, strength and conditioning specialist, educator, and founder of Rehab Science. He has spent more than two decades helping people understand pain, movement, and injury recovery, and he is the author of Rehab Science: How to Overcome Pain and Heal from Injury. Tom’s starting point is that pain and injury are not the same thing. Pain is an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience tied to actual or potential tissue damage, which means what you believe about your body can change what you feel in it. Tom and Mike get into the nocebo effect, how a clinician’s words or reaction to a scan can amplify pain, why the field traded the word chronic for persistent, and how to manage exercise loads as your body adapts. Mike tells the story of an MRI he had around the age of 23. The doctor looked at the film, his eyes got big, and he asked if Mike was okay. Mike says his pain felt worse instantly. Tom says many musculoskeletal conditions improve with time and movement. He encourages people to take an active role in recovery: try an appropriate movement, notice how your body responds, and adjust from there. Enjoy the conversation. ___________________________________________________________________ Links & Resources: Dr. Tom Walters’ Website: rehabscience.com Dr. Tom Walters’ Books: Rehab Science: How to Overcome Pain and Heal from Injury, plus the 2026 Rehab Science body-region series: Knee, Back and Spine, Hip, Shoulder, Elbow, Wrist & Hand, Ankle and Foot, and Head & Neck Dr. Tom Walters’ YouTube Channel: Rehab Science The Rehab Science App: Rehab Science on the App Store Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/ Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.