Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Action for Happiness podcast.

In this episode, Mark is in conversation with Sir Anthony Seldon, who is a leading contemporary historian, educationalist, commentator and political author.

He is currently the director of Wellington College Education and he was a co-founder and trustee of Action for Happiness.

Anthony was previously head of Epsom College, vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham and Master of Wellington College, where he pioneered the teaching of well-being.

He is a long-standing campaigner for young people's mental health and author or editor of over 40 books.

Today, Anthony will be teaching us what we can do to raise our happiness, especially in difficult times, and how to raise future generations to thrive in an uncertain world and help make things better.

We hope you enjoy.

Thank you so much for being here for another live action for happiness event my name is mark williamson and it's fantastic seeing you joining us from all around the world today we're talking about raising happiness we'll be thinking about how we can define and work with happiness in a more authentic way in challenging times in a way that really gets to the richness of a fulfilled life we'll be talking about the challenges to happiness in our modern world and the many ways in which we individually and collectively need to change how we live in order to achieve more of that.

And crucially, we'll also be looking at the next generation, how we can help future generations to thrive in this complicated world.

And I couldn't think of a better person, a more inspiring friend to have with me for this conversation than Anthony Salon.

So Anthony, it's lovely to have you with us and thank you for being here.

Well, thanks for having me on, Mark, and hello everybody.

Anthony, you were actually our very first guest for one of these webinars back in 2020.

And we've since had nearly half a million people joining us live and over 100 speakers.

So thank you for getting us going.

But also, for those of you who haven't been here along the Action for Happiness journey this whole time, Anthony has been a great source of not only inspiration to me personally, but he's kind of the reason that we're all here.

He helped create Action for Happiness back in 2010.

He helped find me and encouraged me to do this and has been a great source of support and mentoring for me over the years.

So many of us are here with Anthony to thank, as indeed there are many young people and adults all around the world with Anthony to thank for the inspiration he's brought to their lives.

So Anthony, thank you, first of all, on behalf of all of us for being part of the birth of this great movement.

Well, it's been a pleasure, Mark and everybody, and we're all doing it together, aren't we?

I mean, we're doing it for ourselves, obviously, but also for all those people around us who we can make feel more joyful and happy.

Anthony, you've obviously, or I first came across you working when you were the head of Wellington College.

You were a pioneer in introducing the teaching of happiness and well-being in a school context.

I think we can come to that whole idea of teaching young people skills for life a bit later in this conversation.

You've obviously carried on doing a range of related things since.

And I would love to tap into your professional experience along this conversation.

But also, I know that you live the values that we talk about with Action for Happiness.

And I know that you're also a meditator and pioneer in terms of encouraging people to be mindful.

So I wondered if you'd like to say a little bit about your own practice there and how you use mindfulness and other skills to sustain you along your professional journey.

So, I mean, life's tough, isn't it, everybody?

I mean, life's a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be when I was born, in as far as I thought very much about what lay ahead.

And, you know, we're all there to help each other.

And some things, like what Action for Happiness advocates, undoubtedly help us, but only if we put them into practice.

this.

So is this a good moment, Mark, just to begin with a very brief meditation mindfulness exercise?

I think that's a wonderful suggestion.

Thank you.

And so why don't we all, wherever you are in the world right now, take a moment just to be with Anthony for this and let's maybe leave the chat alone and just be really present.

Over to you, Anthony.

Thank you.

That was, by the way, a totally unspontaneous bit of conversation there between Mark and me because we planned that little bit beforehand, but everything else is unscripted.

So let's just, wherever we are in the 40, 50 countries around the world, but also wherever we are at the time of day and wherever we are emotionally.

Let's just all be together.

And we can only be together, in the moment, which is now, and now in Slovenia, and now in South Africa, and all the other places, all South America, Europe, beyond the people are joining from, now is the same wherever you are, whether it's night or day.

And so just close the eyes and, yeah, just inhale.

How about that?

Just inhale deeply coming in and exhale.

And as you're exhaling, let go of the tensions in the body.

Another deep, slow inhalation.

Inhale freshness and vitality and goodness and energy.

And it comes and exhale the tensions of the day-to-day and all the things you want to let go of.

Just feel that sense, that delicious sense of inhaling and of being present and feeling the seat if you're on a seat and floor if you can feel the floor under your feet and just be present together as a community, as a global community, just being here, one deep inhalation.

You too, Mark.

It comes and, ah, yes, out, exhale.

That's great.

And back to you.

Well, I would quite happily do the rest of the session continuing with that.

Anthony, one of the challenges that all of us that believe in this face is a skepticism, I think, about happiness, about why we should take our inner lives and our mental health seriously and why happiness is something that matters in a world that seems so full of very real or practical challenges to our cost of living, to our global safety and other things.

I always find it thought-provoking to listen to your view on this.

What do you think we mean when we talk about a deeper sense of happiness?

And what's it all about in terms of life and why this matters?

So, I think that there's a difference between pleasure that we pursue in our lives and happiness.

And just because in many languages, in many countries, actually in every language in every country, they are jumbled up together, doesn't mean that we can't in Action for Happiness distinguish them.

And pleasure, which we, the maximization of pleasure, minimization of pain is what drives most human beings at most points in history.

And pleasure is associated with, you know, having a cup of coffee, he says, grabbing a visual aid, or a cup of a glass of something maybe lovely, maybe alcoholic.

Or, hang on, another visual aid coming up here, some sugar, a sugary drink.

And pleasure, nothing wrong with pleasure or a new toy, a new screen.

A new car, whatever it is, a new something in a flat or apartment or house, wherever you might live.

I mean, that's all pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

But there's something, you know, I mean, pleasure is consumed.

And when, look, sugar, I think it's sugar, I can't tell you, I haven't got my glasses on, let's pretend this is sugar.

I mean, after you've eaten it, I mean, nobody else is going to benefit from that sugar rush, that pleasure that you will receive if you have that or a piece of chocolate.

It's about consumption.

It's about material, physical things that you can touch and smell.

And once they consume, they're over.

And you might want to tell everyone about, you know, so great, Lanty Nard.

But that's different from happiness.

Happiness does not depend upon the consumption of material things.

Happiness is an inner feeling.

It's about the heart, the soul.

It's about love.

It's about things that we share, as is joy, which we might say could be even deeper than happiness.

And to strive like, you know, we are not action for pleasure.

We're action.

That's the rest of the world.

We're action for happiness.

And happiness is something that you don't need to be rich to appreciate.

You don't need to have ever more possessions than other people.

You don't need to rise up and become ever more important in your communities or your, place of work, if you're at work, or whatever you do.

And it's very different.

It's this inner feeling that we can't, sometimes the more we try and pursue it, the more elusive it is.

We can feel it when our bodies feel good, when we feel in harmony with ourselves and with other people.

And when we're not in harmony with our bodies, we might have drunk too much, another visual aid.

When we're not in harmony, that's pain.

We don't feel happiness.

When we're not in harmony with other people, our relationships with people at home or at work or family have gone wrong.

So it's about harmony, I think, happiness.

And the 10 steps are all about how to find that happiness.

And it's very unselfish to try and make ourselves happy.

Everyone who loves us, everyone we love wants us to be happier because the more happy we are, the more health we have, the more energy we have, the better we are to be around, actually.

So, yeah, we're action for happiness.

And it's very understandable, I think, because people misunderstand pleasure.

Selfish, nothing wrong with that, depending on how much we do it.

But that's a value judgment.

But pleasure is not the same as happiness.

Happiness is lovely and it's infinite, by the way.

It doesn't.

I mean, you can only have so much chocolate.

Look, I love chocolate.

But, you know, being more than a certain amount of chocolate, the pleasure really begins to decline.

But happiness is literally infinite, as it's the energy that it gives us.

I love that comparison to the chocolate challenge.

And that's why everything is related to chocolate.

Well, I agree.

I have a deeper purpose in life, which is to try not to overconsume dark chocolate.

But there's something about this question of, well, I know that you're also a spiritual person in the sense of, you know, this connection to something bigger and not wanting to necessarily make this a religious conversation or certainly wanting to keep this, as I know you do, a conversation that welcomes all perspectives and faiths.

It feels to me that there's something rather shallow in our society that's built around the chase of pleasure.

And actually, part of what you're talking about here is recognizing that there's a depth to life, that somehow the modern consumer individual society, whilst functional, or at least has been for some decades, even though we're running into some major challenges in the West, there's nevertheless a void in somehow.

There's like something's missing that like life's we've we've lost the the deeper conviction in how we're living.

So, yes.

And so for me, well, it's one of the 10 steps to have meaning.

And we all find that in different ways.

And the wonderful saying that you know very well, Mark, and many others will from Thoreau, 19th century America, that most men and women lead lives of quiet desperation.

He said and this is the key point go to their graves with their song still inside them, they go to their graves with their song still inside them and they're leading a life of desperation because they haven't at the time or opportunity perhaps to find out what their song is so of all the eight billion people on earth we all have a unique song we all have a unique meaning and opportunity.

Now, for many people like myself, ultimately it's a religious meaning, but it's not, for many people, they're not religious and they can find deep meaning, but a life without meaning, Mark, and everybody, it's tough.

And if we, some people find their meaning in family, in horses, in beliefs that they have.

And the more we can feel that we have a looking, and that means giving time and belief.

A lot of people want to tread on our dreams.

They.

Face or they want to squeeze out and deny other meanings and saying, you know, but are we really just computers?

Is that what AI is going to tell us?

What's the human essential?

AI will never be able to replicate.

AI will fly planes, it will conduct advanced medical operations, it will do most of the things that we're doing at the moment, but it will never do.

What is it that it will never do.

And AI, in a way, is going to help that quest to find meaning for all of us, and it will be different.

But giving time to it and nurturing it and finding like-minded people so that we don't just spend our lives skating, as Thoreau said, skating along the surface, never finding time.

It's always too busy, always, you know, or some people may be frightened of looking too deeply, but never do.

And they go to their grave with their songstone and something.

There's nothing necessarily that's going to happen to find the meaning.

It's about human agency and supporting each other and finding people who we share that quest with.

I mean, Are we really, whatever ages the guests are tonight, I mean, you might be teenagers and less, or you might be well into your hundreds.

I mean, whatever age you are, it's never too late.

It's never too late.

It's never too late to find happiness.

And it's never too late to find meaning.

I think this is such an important point.

And I love the reference to the like-minded community.

Because here we are in a group with people with a relative amount of agency.

People have chosen to be here to spend time with you today.

I'd love to actually use that wisdom we have with us, Anthony, and just turn to the community for a second and maybe ask a question based on what you've just said.

So wherever you are joining us, what is it that brings a sense of meaning, something slightly deeper than a pleasurable happiness, a sort of meaning to your life?

And maybe if you'd like to say a few words in the chat, I can read some of these out to Anthony, and then maybe, Anthony, you can see if these resonate in terms of other things you've heard.

Because, of course, you've interviewed many prime ministers, you've worked with leaders of all types, and you've worked with young people at the beginning of their lives.

I'm sure there were some common themes.

I'll just read a few of these out.

So talking to my children, family, working in healthcare, volunteering, my faith, being playful, writing poems and stories, loving my partner, feeling acknowledged, helping someone, being praised, seeing my children grow, helping others, being a mum, caring for animals.

Living with nature, exercising, and many, many others that I can't read.

But you get the general picture.

Are many of these sounding familiar?

Yeah, they are, Mark, and they're all lovely and moving and touching to listen to and to be reminded of.

And these are the things that are the deeps in life.

And so it won't be happening.

I mean, I don't think I've met a grown-up, you know, parents with grown-up children who don't regret it.

That they couldn't spend more time with each other.

And sometimes that would also be more time with their own parents, more time with their siblings.

And of course, everybody comes back and says, oh, you know, traveling across a big city, Santiago or Los Angeles, wherever you might be, or London, you know, or Dublin, you know, of course it takes time and yet we can and we can use technology that we couldn't be using 10 or 15 years ago to have really meaningful conversations.

This conversation wouldn't have taken place, you know, 10 years ago.

And so you mark, we talk about prime ministers.

So yes, as by the way, Panima, my former PA at the university who is on with her friends, hi, would know, you know, I was always writing books, even when I was trying to run schools and universities or teach and the other things that I've done.

And, you know, what do we, what do prime ministers share?

We might think that, oh my goodness, you know, they are so powerful and so important, what joy and happiness they must feel.

Actually, no.

They are sometimes the least happy and fulfilled people, even though they have all power on earth.

And one thing that, I mean, obviously some more than others, but one thing that is common with all the 10 that I've known is that they all look back and wish that they had spent more time When they had, if not supreme power, great power to make other people's lives better and to remake the country and the world, whatever leaders, whatever countries they were leading, they wished that they spent more time with themselves and with wise people.

Their lives were just such constant press and urgency that they needed the stillness, being by a lake, being in the mountain, being with loved ones, hugging their own children.

I mean, the children of very powerful, like very rich people often have very tough times because their parents are too busy to treasure them and nurture them, hug them.

Advice to everybody, go and hug.

Somebody now, now, immediately.

And if you're on your own, give yourself a big hug.

And, you know, you know, I mean, it may be great holding a robe, but not that great.

And, you know, we just need to savor the time.

And we need to stop the lie, which is that we can't find time.

We're just making choices that don't allow us enough time.

And there's no point in beating ourselves up, Mark, for the past.

You know, we may not have had children.

A lot of people don't.

But most of us had parents.

I think we all probably had parents.

And maybe they've gone and we can't spend more time with them.

But there's no point in beating ourselves up for what we have not done.

But what's a good action for happiness way forward is to make the most of the opportunities that we now have.

To savor, to celebrate, to write the things that we wish that we could write.

You know, to write, you know, ethical wills for our children to discover, to write lovely things, to communicate and to build bridges and to heal.

I mean, it takes so much energy to have family rifts and rifts at work, you know, to go up and to be the grown up who leans across and, builds that bridge, makes the first step, there's such, oh my goodness, there's such energy that's released where there is a compassion and when we build bridges between family and friends or colleagues where things have gone wrong.

And that's what the path of peace that.

The walk around walking across Europe, building this path of peace.

And the first walk was along the Western Front and the book's called The Path of Peace.

And that's all about helping us find what we share in common rather than what devices.

Why are we so wound up with, We're justifying our reasons to find reasons for division when actually the happiness, the energy comes from the healing and the sharing and the walking side by side with each other.

Yeah.

I've got what the question was, Mark.

I probably haven't answered it.

No, I mean, you brought up so many points there.

First of all, referring to the connection with colleagues, I'm happy to report that Panima says, hi, Anthony, great working with you.

You made me happy.

So that's a nice example of a virtual hug coming your way.

I once worked with a coach.

I was very grateful.

In fact, hearing you mention how many books you've written, I'm writing my first book at the moment.

So hats off to you for being able to churn those out because I'm realizing how hard it is to do.

But I'm reflecting on moments in my life that have been quite profound.

And one was working with a coach who helped me sort of get into what, imagine you were later in your life, like future me, what advice would future you give yourself?

And basically, I found myself saying almost exactly what you've just advised us.

Spend more time with the people you care about doing things that you really care about.

And so I think it's through that lens of our future wise selves, we sort of all know this within us, and yet we find it hard.

Now, I also have to say that I've been very fortunate with my own personal relationships, and I haven't had yet to deal with something I know you've dealt with, which is losing your partner, your wife of many years died.

And I know you've talked about that in public before, but I hope you don't mind.

I just wanted to ask your insight on what lessons have you learned about your own life and your own sort of coping strategies, if you like, for dealing with loss.

Dealing with those challenging moments in life that, however much we might know they're coming, I don't think we can ever be fully prepared for.

So, Mark, yes, so eight years ago, almost exactly, my wife of 32 years, Joanna, died of cancer.

And there'll be many of it.

Everyone, I think, listening has lost people.

And it's moments like this.

I mean, when I also took over a school recently which had a tragedy, there are moments like this that your action for happiness stops being a slightly annoying at times list of 10 actions that you sort of get frustrated because you're not taking them seriously enough.

I mean, it stops sort of being academic theory, and it actually is really grounded and real because, you know, you run up against it.

And I think that it's good that why actual happiness is so important is because you're building your muscles, your coping muscles, your agency muscles, your happiness muscles.

And, you know, I mean, it's a bit like building these.

I'm not going to show you my own muscles because it will make you all jealous.

But, you know, I mean, it is, you know, we're building them, you know, when the sun's shining for the times when it isn't shining, when it's frankly incredibly tough.

And so as it was to, you know, to lose a, the wife and the mother of your children.

But you come through it, and you come through it actually by taking very seriously the 10-point plan of Action for Happiness.

So exercise.

Also listening is Sarah, who I married two years ago, who is my new wife.

She's not as she said she's not actually my new wife she's my wife and sarah's trainer is listening down from the west country and and and taking you know where we look after our body i mean i i would very consciously in those times and learning the difference between grief and depression because they're different you you you just get the body exercised because this you know if the body, We know it's in theory, but we don't always know it about it.

That if we look after our body, that we hydrate ourselves is water, doesn't you, honestly.

You know, if we keep our body hydrated, we don't have too much sugar.

We have lots of healthy foods.

We try maybe even have 30 different plants in our body every week.

If we look after our body in terms of our diet and exercise and rest, it is easier you know the times was most difficult Mark was where I didn't you know and drinking a lot you know.

On such occasions for people who go through that, that's really not helpful.

I mean, it might blunt the sadness for a time, but it then comes back and hits you much harder.

So it's being sensible.

It's putting into practice those things.

And it's remaining optimistic and believing that things will turn.

And actually, the person who you've lost, those who've lost people, they don't want you to be sad.

they don't want you to be withdrawn.

It's not actually helping them and honoring them.

What they would want you to be is to be back, re-engaged, looking after the family, looking after yourself, doing the things that you loved.

Just a final thought, Mark, is that, getting the point that you mentioned, it is so important to savor the relationship while we have them.

And so, you know, what a shame to blitz relationships with families in frustrations and annoying phone calls and disputes when actually, you know, your bro might not be around forever.

And yeah, you know, I mean, everybody message your siblings, if you have siblings after this, and tell them how much you love them and go for it and arrange to meet up and make these things real.

So, yeah, it is tragedies, setbacks are about realizing that the 10 steps of action for happiness are for real.

Well said.

Thank you.

And people in the community will know I often talk about my passion for realistic optimism.

So it's for what, man?

For realistic optimism.

the gritty reality of life, but then finding a constructive response to it, which I think is what you've just shown so beautifully.

But let's come to the building of resilience muscles that you talked about, and particularly through the lens of the next generation.

You've been helping to raise happiness for young people, not in a glib sense, but in what I feel is like an approach to instilling values and a sense of character to people to help them be equipped to thrive, not just with wishful thinking optimism, but in a sense of grit and determination as well.

So I wondered if you could say a bit about what it means to be truly, well, to develop the life skills we need in the modern world, in this whole human being rather than just...

Yeah, and one of those is not to indulge.

In grief.

I mean, Queen Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, spent 50 years in grief after, almost after the death of her husband, Albert.

I mean, that didn't serve anybody.

I mean, for goodness sake, grow up and get on with it.

And you'd start serving other people.

It made her miserable.

And she squandered an amazing opportunity to look after other people.

And I think we can learn these things, Mark.

You know, it's easier to learn the piano.

It's easier to learn Mandarin or foreign languages, English, when you were young.

And if we can help impart the habits of happiness and how important family meals are, how important it is to spend time together.

I mean, if family, I'm looking at my phone, actually, the reason I can't find my phone is I'm looking at it.

I was trying to say my phone, I can't.

If everyone is looking at the phone.

Obviously, they're tired, but it's fine to be on the phone.

But to spend time together and have that weird, weird, weird thing called conversation.

And there's somebody at school, a granddad, who's done something so beautiful, which was he's made nine fountain pens carved from wood and put them in beautiful wooden boxes and given to his children and grandchildren to to write handwritten letters back to him.

And he says, every time I get a handwritten letter, I'll write you a handwritten letter.

You know, who, when did you last write, all of you, a handwritten letter?

Do young people know how to write them?

I mean, I didn't think that moment's gone.

I think, I hope we'll always be sending each other handwritten letters.

We need to be using our hand more.

I mean, education should be about the hand.

and the heart down here and the head but it's so often just isn't it just about the head and we forget about the hand all those dexterous skills and the making creative things and we forget the education system not valued by Ofsted or the British accountability system or exams globally all we validate children for is, their ability to pass tests and exams.

Is it surprising that globally mental unwellness is getting in epidemic proportions?

Is it surprising that globally up to a quarter and more of young people don't want to attend school and they're absenting themselves?

But what we can be doing in schools and in our homes is helping people to discover what they love about life.

When they help me encouraging them, developing their confidence, agency, self-esteem.

I mean, every school should be asking what you love, you know, what do you think you're best at?

Should be asking what can we do to help you?

Not school shouldn't be something done to people.

They should be done with and for young people with trust and the best schools manage that.

So yeah, it's all about, hey, look, another visual aid coming up.

This glass now is going to become a, actually, that's how you put it, we're going to use this.

This is going to be a waterfall.

And what happens is that we wait for everyone to fall off, the analogy well known to lots of you, wait till people fall off the edge of the waterfall, hit the bottom down here at this end, and then we rush in and try and help them.

They might have, you know, had anything of a whole number of sad things that happened to people.

You know, what we're talking about is building capacity at the top so that fewer and fewer people fall off the edge by giving them more agency, more help and more support to build up those muscles, as you say, Mark, of your mental resilience, and we know that it works, and we also know that governments globally are often not interested.

Which is a shame in the building of character and agency and, you know, or having nature in schools and having all the kind of things that we as a community believe are important.

And having animals.

I mean, you know, I would have animals in schools when, as Panima will remember, when I introduced dogs into my university.

Oh, my goodness, what school we got from other universities.

You know, the idea that you are having therapy dogs.

And now I think that every university and lots of schools have therapy dogs.

What is it about animals, for goodness sake, that allows us to have better conversations with them than we do with our neighbors?

Well, I remember as a teenager, I would often tell my dog things I would never tell my friends and pets.

John, tell us one of those things now.

I would have probably talked about feeling rejected or unloved as a teenager with my long, smelly hair and my aspirations to be a rock star, probably.

Anthony, some people, as you said here, won't have children or families or necessarily be working in education.

But I feel that what you've said in some ways is beyond that.

It's universal to us.

And when I look at the world, you talked about the challenges in the world.

And we're seeing in the Action for Happiness community, and indeed when I look at data from around the world, much higher levels of anxiety, which in some ways is really understandable because in recent years we've seen a global pandemic.

We've seen more war.

We've got worries about the climate.

We are worried about cost of living, inflation, political upheaval.

Some of these things are new and genuinely different to how they felt a few years ago.

Some of these, you might argue, are always part of the human condition.

And yet this idea of resilience is feeling out of reach.

So a very simple question from a long buildup is, what advice do you give to someone who's feeling that they're struggling to cope right now, feeling overwhelmed, feeling anxious?

Don't beat yourself up about it.

Don't add to whatever you're feeling the burden of, aren't I a bad person because I feel this way?

And don't believe the lie that you will never get better.

You'll never feel happy in yourself and you'll never feel contentment again because you will.

And don't beat yourself up.

And just in as far as you can, start doing those things that we talk about in the 10 steps of, looking after the body, getting physical exercise, going out for a run, or if you can't run, go out for a walk, get some exercise, move your joints, get some fresh air, get out into the open, be with people, look after other people, find somebody mentioned volunteering, Mark, there on your list, such a fantastic way.

I mean, lives that are dedicated to others, look after others, are happy lives.

Lives that are just about ourselves are unhappy lives.

And it's finding the right balance in that.

So yeah, I mean, however low you might feel, however anxious you might feel, however afraid you might feel, you might feel the most anxious, the most afraid, the lowest person in the universe.

There is still hope.

You are going to come through it.

Do not beat yourself up.

Just take little steps, you know, one at a time, and forward you will go.

And it will live.

It will get better.

And that's the way it is.

And on meaning, Mark, you know, what is it?

Start looking at the things that give meaning.

And some people do find, everybody finds great joy and release and purpose and meaning.

And look at different groups.

Consider going to a church or mosque or temple or joining action groups where you feel part of something.

You know, if I feel low...

And I join in something, I feel part of that bigger woo, you know, it just begins to slide away.

And so always, you know, believe that you can do it, and it will get better.

Yeah, thank you.

That's very wise.

And one of the reasons we do these events as a live conversation with the participation of the community is this is our way, even if we're online to create a sense of togetherness.

And I'm so grateful for everyone who's taking time to be with us here today, Anthony, to share their thoughts in the chat.

If you would like to volunteer as an Action for Happiness volunteer, please go to our actionforhappiness.org slash volunteer.

There are many ways you can get involved and help.

We also have resources for children and young people if you are working in the education sector and drawing on much of the wisdom that Anthony and others have shared over many years around how we can make resilience and the 10 keys, part of every young person's future.

Anthony, in a moment, I'd love to come to the questions we're having from the audience.

If you're watching this and you'd like to ask Anthony a question, please do use the Q&A function and you can also vote on other people's questions.

But maybe we could take another quick pause before we go to the questions, Anthony.

I feel like you've shared so much.

Maybe you could take us to another little mindful reflection of this to just present So wherever you are, just feel part of this community.

So we all love to feel that we belong.

And we are all social beings.

And so you belong.

You're loved.

And just feel part of a community.

Just put your arms around the thousands of people, how many are listening to this.

Just feel yourselves held by them.

Feel cared for, partial, held by, hugged by this extraordinary community, virtual community that is part of this.

And just inhale that, just inhale the light and the light and release, just let go as you exhale anything you want, tension or thoughts from the day you want to get rid of.

So yeah, back to you, Mark.

I'm still just inhaling and exhaling some of the tension from the day.

Martina's asked one, which is very close to my heart.

She makes the observation that chronic pain affects happiness.

And how do we overcome that?

I should confess that I had chronic back pain for many years and it really undermined my well-being.

And it took me a long time to realize how much that was a stress-related cause of chronic pain for me, as well as a very real physical thing.

Anthony, do you have any thoughts on pain and happiness and well-being in general?

Well, it's such, I mean, pain, mental, emotional, physical is such a denture and a distraction, unwanted intrusion into our lives.

But the good news is that there are ways of coping with it and managing it better.

Mark, why don't you just share yourself?

What has wisdom taught you?

Well, I think there's an unhelpful thing that the medical community sometimes teaches us or says to us about that creates more fear associated with our pain.

So I was told I had a degenerative spinal condition that made me close in and it made me tense.

That was cheerful.

Yeah, very helpful.

I mean, and it was only when I happened, my wife who was training to be an osteopath was very wisely, more enlightened than me and helped me see that some of my real pain was caused by tension as much as it was by a damage to my back.

And that shift from being scared to feeling hopeful was really transformative.

And so often our experience of pain, I think we all know that if you experience a pain that you know is an accidental nudge from a friend, you might have exactly the same pain in a very dangerous situation and it affects you because of the association you have with it.

And so there's something about the combination of physical and mental that means if we can release our fear, and back to your points earlier really about having a sort of agency, sense of hope, sense of control almost.

And one of the reasons lots of my wife's work as an osteopath, for example, helps people feel more in control of the situation they're in.

And I think whatever we're doing, whether we're leading a team or bringing up a child or looking after a friend, giving people have a sense of agency and that they can do something.

That's what Action for Happiness is really about.

Of course, whatever pain, physical, emotional, mental, we experience can always be ameliorated, improved, and sometimes leaning into accepting the pain and sometimes being still so that we can see actually, we can have true insight about what the pain is really about.

And how maybe lifestyle changes, the way that we are, can turn chronic pain into something that one can learn to live with without blighting the happiness in one's life.

So we could talk more about that, but I hope that that just gives an indication of a direction.

But, you know, if you think that the pain will be with you till the day you die and perhaps even beyond that, And it's going to, you know, that's going to be true.

What we expect, what we believe of ourselves becomes the reality.

If we believe that actually, hey, I can manage this, I can learn to live with it, and I'm going to be taking steps towards doing that, such as Mark talked about, then you will find, you will find that it gets easier.

Okay, enough.

Abbey has asked, with your knowledge of happiness in young people, how can teens be encouraged to find authentic happiness when they're learning about the world through the lens of social media?

Well, Abbey, great question.

Another great question.

Yeah.

Through, what is it that gives teenagers joy?

What gave you joy, Abby, when you were, maybe Abby, you are a teenager.

You know, if so, what is giving you joy now?

If not, what gave you joy?

And it's a question worth asking.

And it will not be different for, let's suppose, Abby, you're in your 40s.

It will be the same that gave you joy 25 years ago as is true of teenagers now.

Teenagers might scowl and be scornful and dismissive of parents and if they have parents and loved ones.

But, you know, what they crave is love and being held and acceptance and being sought well of and doing things.

You know, even the coolest child on earth isn't so cool.

They can't really enjoy, you know, a trip with the family or a nice meal together or playing a game.

Do you remember games where one had sort of things that one moved around?

You know, doing these things are eternal and reflect back on that experience and help make it real for them.

You know, it's a aimless, often frightening, soulless, joyless place, cyberspace.

And a lot of carers, parents, teachers can feel pushed away and they think, well, if my child's going to like that, very well, I'm not going to engage with them.

They're pushing you away because they want you to lean into them.

Lean into them and show them your love.

Give them your time.

Nothing more precious than giving them your time and doing the things that teenagers always had loved.

Yeah, that's very wise.

On the particular point of screens, I think, I mean, I happen to have a teenage girl or actually three teenage kids in the house at the moment.

Arabella's asked a related question, would love to hear our views on the impact of screens and social media.

And what I found myself believing that at younger ages, quite firm boundaries to protect people from content they're not really ready for yet is quite important.

But actually, with my teens, it's more important to help them develop their own boundaries and self-efficacy and ability to make voice choices.

And if they've got the values and the resilience that you talked about earlier, then they're reasonably well-placed to choose where they place their attention.

And actually, the challenge, whether we're young or old with social media and devices, is that if we're in a bad place and we're looking at unhelpful media, it's going to leave us in a bad way.

It doesn't matter what age we are.

I'm as prone to that as anyone else.

So I wonder, Have you seen in a school or other context sort of good advice to anyone who's trying to change their relationship or the relationship with someone they love with the device?

Well, I think you said it.

I mean, the devices, they're not going to go away.

And they're part of our lives.

And good parenting, good friendship, good schools help people use them for the undoubted.

Benefits that they can give, safety benefits, being able to phone on the way home, being able to be in touch, being able to access extraordinary world feast of art history, of astronomy, of scientific information, incredible teaching and resources, but in a way that is measured and balanced.

The most important question is 2024.

It's almost coming to a close.

We are coming into the second quartile, second quarter of the 21st century.

The most important question is, what does it mean to be human?

And how can we be more fully human?

Not how can we be more like machines, which goes wrong with so many schools and so many places of work where people are reduced to just as if we're on a factory floor where it's all very mechanical.

It's not real, it's not caring, there's no comedy, there's no laughter, there's no love, there's no humor, there's no surprise, curiosity.

I mean, how do we transact to get the human?

Including the spiritual, back into homes and families?

How can we do the things that the air will never be able to do?

You know, that's the most important question.

What is it?

What is it?

What is human intelligence?

What does it mean to be human?

How do we deepen that?

Because no one listening, we can't undo what we've been in the past.

I wish 101 things that I'd never done, or things I'd done could have done better and taken more time, not least with my own parents.

But I can't undo that.

Beat yourself up now from this day onwards.

We have that opportunity, which is limitless, to make us become more fully human, to become more people that we are, and to find our song.

And by the way, as Thoreau said, as we talked about earlier, we all have our distinctive song.

Only those people who don't believe that they have a song won't have a song.

Don't believe that you've got a song, that you've got something unique, uniquely precious, uniquely valuable to give to the world.

And, you know, you won't have that.

And believe that you have.

Give it the time to give your own distinctive scent and perfume, which will be unique anywhere on earth.

And you will move more towards it.

is you do say you'll feel more fulfilled and happier and you'll become more fully human.

Yeah, well said.

Are you up for a very quick, quickfire round?

I can see lots of lovely questions.

Do you want to try and do a few fairly...

Hey, Mark, let's go through it.

So what's your understanding...

This is Fiona.

What's your understanding of the difference between contentment and happiness?

Let's try and do 20 seconds on each of these.

Fiona, I think it's linguistic.

Fiona, what do you think?

You can't answer that.

I think it's linguistic.

I mean, contentment is great.

The idea of being contained, held, hugged, and happiness with all the differences since we talked about between happiness and pleasure.

So, yeah, you know, I think they're great.

I mean, I love them both.

I want more contentment.

I want more happiness.

And I want them now.

Louise says, what's the best or wisest or most practical, useful piece of advice you've ever been given out of everyone you've worked with and interviewed?

Wow, no pressure there then.

Louise, it's never to put yourself in a position where you are asked, what's the most important, and valuable piece of advice you'll be given in your whole world.

Right.

But nevertheless, I'm going to go for it.

Love more.

Love more.

Two words, eight letters in the English language.

Love more, Louise.

And start now.

This is one I'm loathe to do quickly, because it's so important and challenging, but I know you'll have wisdom as well.

Fernanda asks, any suggestions for those of us who've been diagnosed with depression?

Benanda, with you on that and know that things will get better and follow the guidance that you're given and look at what Action for Happiness is doing and take those steps.

But believe that you will get better.

Do the things like looking after, getting exercise, getting outside, being with people.

Trying to serve and help where you can, and you will get better.

Elizabeth asked something which I think we've touched on already, but do you think that pleasure is self-centered, whereas happiness is both more altruistic and more altruistic?

Yeah, Elizabeth, I mean, it's partly linguistic again, isn't it?

It's like the contentment point.

I mean, we have different words in language for different states, but I think pleasure, I'm going to go back to my visual aid at the end with sugar.

I mean, this is not happy.

There's nothing wrong with it, as long as you don't have too much, but it is material, and it passes, and it's self.

No one else is going to have that sugar.

And happiness is all these things.

I mean, it's boundless, limitless.

You can't contain your happiness.

Happiness is energy.

It just exudes out of you, and you give it to other people.

And, yeah.

Anthony, we're out of time, and I'm wanting to respect your precious time, because I know you have another commitment as well today.

I'd like to invite us to end with something we call The Checkout, which we do at the end of every Action for Happiness community gathering.

It's got three very quick steps.

First of all, wherever you are in the world, let's all take a quick pause, take a breath, and reconnect with how you're feeling right here, right now.

All the thoughts that have come up listening to Anthony and being together in this community, the feelings you're experiencing, that sense of connection, maybe some different emotions within you just notice how you're feeling right now, and the next step is to bring your attention specifically to something you appreciate about this time we spent together something we feel grateful for that Anthony shared or that you've seen in the chat or that you felt or experienced being part of this.

And holding that sense of gratitude and appreciation finally, let's send that out into the world.

We're so privileged to be here, to have this chance to learn from Anthony, to be together.

There are so many places and people in the world that really need this, this message, these ideas.

So let's send out some well-wishing to other parts of the world, to other places, people, loved one, causes that we care about.

And remember the Action for Happiness pledge to create more happiness and less unhappiness in the world.

Anthony, Anne-Marie had a question which we didn't get to about can you say something about gratitude so I'm going to say something about gratitude which is a huge gratitude to you for making time for us all today and particularly for the influence you've had on me personally and on Action for Happiness for a sincerely heartfelt difference that you've made for me and for many others, very grateful and I wondered if you had a final word you wanted to leave us all with as we part today.

Everyone, all of us can make so much difference in the world and that do not ever think that you can't transform other people's lives because you are you and make it happen to the best extent that you can and spread that unhappiness, spread that happiness and work to mitigate the unhappiness.

You have unimaginable abilities which will roll on deep into the 22nd century because of who and what you are and your ability to transact love and honour and goodness.

That's a lovely way to end.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, everyone, for being part of this event.

Anthony, keep up the inspiring work and we'll see you all again really soon.

Thanks, everyone.

Love everybody.

Bye-bye.

And that's it for today's episode of the action for happiness podcast we hope you enjoyed it please do subscribe so you always get our newest talk and don't hesitate to share this episode with a loved one if you think that they might like to hear it too and now we hope you have a brilliant rest of your day let's create a happier and kinder world together.