Episode #20: A special episode of Coming Up Clutch, with J.R. Reid

In this special episode, Jon and Nick were interviewed about the science of flourishing and what it means to flourish by performance coach and strategist J.R. Reid, for his podcast, Coming Up Clutch. 

Key conversation points:

• What human flourishing is and how you can experience it
• The two greatest predictors of general well-being, life satisfaction, and fulfillment
• What you can’t miss if you want to have more life-satisfaction and experience fulfillment

Highlights:

[00:01 - 11:50] Introducing Nick and Jon

• Nick's and Jon’s most embarrassing moment
• Nick's and Jon’’s backgrounds, stories, and professional journeys

[11:51 - 21:00] What human flourishing is and how you can experience it

• Jon:
  • Methodology behind the research: Identify the things in life that you do for the pursuit of nothing else (i.e. doing the thing is an end in itself). Do that with no further goal in mind.
  • Flourishing research today looks for multiple areas of life that you do just for the sake of doing it (e.g. pursuing relationships, being happy, being satisfied, fulfilling your potential, experiencing flow, etc.) and figuring out ways that you can enhance those as much as possible in your life.
    • Key areas:
      • Fulfillment, of potential and in the sense of life satisfaction 
      • Flow
      • Close social relationships
      • Happiness & positive emotions
      • Character strengths or virtues
      • Mental and physical health
      • Meaning and purpose
      • Accomplishment
  • There’s no research that says you have to reach a baseline in each of those areas to flourish.
  • Human Flourishing Program at Harvard's account: your individual well-being is high and your well-being in relation to others and your context is high (i.e. defined interpersonally, among a community). So you can have high well-being, yet not be flourishing.
  • Positive psychology: if you have high psychological well-being, then you’re flourishing.
• Nick: 
  • What’s not in the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s account of flourishing: achievement or success.
  • The gap between fulfillment and success is often because we’re relying on the end goal of success (i.e something done for a very specific outcome).
  • Flourishing is well-being, generally feeling good (but not necessarily all the time), and performing optimally in areas of meaning. 
    • Areas of meaning is important because if you perform optimally in something you’re forced into, it won’t provide the same level of satisfaction as someone who’s performing optimally in areas of meaning.

[21:01 - 24:45] The role purpose plays in flourishing

• Research: Asking the question about your personal “Why?”  in life is conceptually different than purpose.
• Purpose is a sub-component or pathway to meaning (i.e. it’s about impact and contribution) - ”it’s a bit of the 'me' and a bit of the 'we'.”
• The best of the best have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, but they’re predominantly intrinsic (i.e. they know what their why is and what they’re doing each day, and orient their day around it via calendaring, recovery, etc.).
• Success on the field of competition is not an automatic route to well-being, life satisfaction, meaning, or fulfillment.

[24:46 - 34:15] The two greatest predictors of general well-being, satisfaction of life, and fulfillment

• Meaning
• Quality of relationships (social connection, community, intimacy, friendship, etc.)
  • 2018: In the UN’s annual happiness report regarding satisfaction in the workplace, #1 predictor of workplace