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1% Better Podcast Lisa Bennett – Quick Links

Learn more about Lisa and her upcoming book, Savor the World
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Check out host Craig Thielen’s full bio page

Key Takeaways

• Getting better is not always about doing more: Sometimes improvement starts by slowing down enough to recognize what is already good, especially when life feels overwhelming
• Savoring is the positive counterpart to coping: Lisa explains that when people face stress or adversity, they often focus on coping, but savoring provides balance by helping people take in positive moments as well
• Savoring is more than gratitude: Gratitude is one pathway into savoring, but Lisa also points to awe, wonder, accomplishment, and sensory experiences as other ways to reconnect with what gives life meaning
• Small moments can restore agency: In a world that can feel too big to fix, savoring helps people focus on where they do have impact — in their work, relationships, community, and daily choices
• The 1% Better mindset includes reducing, not just adding: Craig connects savoring to the idea that 1% Better is not simply about trying harder. Often, it means reducing stressors, simplifying, and creating space to be more present

1% Better Podcast Lisa Bennett – Transcript

Craig Thielen (00:08)
Today on 1% better, we’re tackling something I think almost everyone can relate to. How do you keep getting better when the world around you feels increasingly overwhelming? We’re living through exponential change, uncertainty, AI disruption, nonstop information. And sometimes it just feels, yeah, overwhelming. But what if part of getting better isn’t about doing more or trying to keep up? What if it’s about slowing down enough to recognize and appreciate what’s already good?

My guest today, Lisa Bennett, calls that savoring. And she believes it could become as important to our well being and resilience as gratitude has become for many. So today we’re gonna go in, explore how we can move from overwhelm to agency, from simply coping to actually savoring, and how small shifts in what we notice might just help us become 1% Better. So with that, welcome to the show, Lisa.

Lisa Bennett (00:59)
Thank you so much, Craig. I’m excited to talk with you about this. Feels like a great alignment.

Craig Thielen (01:03)
Yeah, so let’s let’s dive in. So you you’re an author, you’re a journalist, speaker, you’ve had a chance to work with some really great people in the emotional intelligence space. We can talk about that. Daniel Goleman, I believe, and and and probably others. So first of all, how did you get into this idea and what exactly is savoring?

Lisa Bennett (01:25)
I stumbled into it in a very long circuitous, completely accidental way. and I’ll I’ll tell you that and then I’ll tell you what savoring is because it’s widely misunderstood. so I have spent most of my career in and around purpose-led organizations and people, working with CEOs and executive directors and so on, and who are pursuing good work in the world, right?

Craig Thielen (01:50)
Absolutely.

Lisa Bennett (01:51)
yeah. And I found I came to a moment I sort of took on this mantle of, you know, we’re all trying to save the world. And I grew up in that, you know, just a sense of that story in the ether and we have to save the whales and save the planet and save people in war torn countries and starving children and all of these really, serious important issues. and I I took it quite to heart and and I experienced it at one point in my life across multiple dimensions, you know, I personal and professional. So I was working on these purpose-driven causes in the world and personally I was also navigating a time of my my marriage falling apart and my mom ailing, in her her older years. And I was trying to hold it all together and finally I couldn’t. And, it all seemed to come crumbling down. my mom died despite my efforts. my marriage fell apart and I realized that the issues I was working on, were barreling along and world seems to be getting more and more chaotic. and and I had this moment where I took myself away to a beach on the coast of Northern California. And I was sitting up on these sand dunes and I was looking down and you know it was full of grief. And I kind of fell back and had a little nap and woke up.

And I looked down and I saw these little children running on the beach and these dogs running on the beach and these birds soaring overhead and the waves crashing. And I smelled the incredible smell of the ocean. And I was like, wait a minute. all of this is true too. And it there was something about it that felt like there’s a bigger container here for the work that we’re trying to do in the world. And what is that?

That was 10 years ago that you know, I was like, I got this glimpse of it. I didn’t know what it was, but I got a glimpse of it. And I went through this journey of interviewing all kinds of amazing people over the years and trying to understand, how do we live in times like this without having them daunt us so that we have to go collapse on a beach somewhere, right? How how do we day to day sustain ourselves while we’re we’re navigating a very complex world. And as it happened, there’s a body of research about this thing called savoring, which I had no idea about it. I was all on it.

Craig Thielen (04:21)
I’ve never heard of it before I met you, so that’s where I was curious where you found that word. So okay. Let’s talk about that.

Lisa Bennett (04:28)
Okay. you know, i it for me it originated with E.B. White who some 50 odd years ago he wrote Charlotte’s Web and a number of other beloved books, but he had given an interview. It was I guess it was in the nineteen sixties, and he gave an interview in which he said, I I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day.

And I thought, yeah, that’s it. That’s pretty much a description of life. You know, like we really love it and we’re concerned. We’re really concerned. and so I just lived with that quote for a long time. And then one day I thought, wait, the second part is that makes it hard to plan the day if you’re torn. Right. So what is what if we think more about this savoring bit? We’ve thought a lot about the saving bit.

And I literally stumbled into a body of research on this that I did not know existed. and it turns out that that it it came on the scene in two thousand and seven with the first book on savoring. Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff were the authors of that. And since then there has been this slow growing body of research for over about 20 years now. And I think what what is at the heart of this is that it is the it’s savoring is the positive counterpart to coping. You know, when you were hit with some really big challenges, we usually go to coping first. How are we going to get through it, push through it, all those things that we have to do. But if we keep doing that, we end up depleted in one way or another.

So this from the psychological research on it is what provides the balance. So yes, there’s lots of stuff we have to just push through rise to, but we need to balance that with a sense of the positive as well, even in the midst of it.

Craig Thielen (06:14)
So what what would you say? I mean, immediately when I hear you talk about it, and and I love the word by the way, it’s it’s such a positive word. I mean, you think about the word savoring, I think about just an amazing meal or leg of the lamb where it falls off or a glass of wine or a tiramisu or it could be an experience that you have or a moment you have with someone or a sunset and and you just wanna savor it. You just want it to last. You want it

Lisa Bennett (06:40)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (06:40)
To be in that moment. But when I’m hearing you talking, I also kind of think about the word gratitude, because that can be the counterpart to coping, is just being thankful for everything that you have and don’t dwell on the the negative or the stress or things out of your control, such as some of these global things that are happening in the world, but just to be able to be grateful. So how would you say it’s different or the same as gratefulness?

Lisa Bennett (07:05)
so it’s a really, really great question. And gratefulness is a one manifestation of savoring, right? There are diff different pathways in into it. So if you think about it as just the positive counterpart to coping with some kind of adversity or challenge, right, then yes, 100%, you know, practicing grateful living helps. And there’s a great body of research that’s been developed as that’s become more more well known over the years, but it’s not the only way in, you know. so awe and wonder is another pathway in. and a professor at the University of Berkeley wrote a a influential book on that a couple of years ago called Awe, Professor Dr. Keltner. And the day we’re we’re having this conversation, people in Europe are experiencing awe and wonder as they’re watching the eclipse, right? and so that’s another way in. And and there there are actually multiple ways in that the original researchers on this identified. So gratitude is one, awe and wonder is another. taking pleasure and accomplishment is a third. And allowing oneself to really kind of take in sensory pleasures, slow down enough to take in pleasures. There are more, but I’ll pause there because that one seemed to touch you.

Craig Thielen (08:22)
No, I I love that. I I actually I actually that’s that’s great. there’s so many things that you’re triggering for me. the sensory thing is interesting because I we I do a lot of work and we do a lot of work at Trace Central with AI and of course the whole world is mesmerized at the moment with AI and what it is and what it isn’t. but one of the things that’s very clear AI is not as intelligent as as it’s been sort of sold to be or that people tend to think it is. And one of the reasons why it’s not, or one of the limiting factors of AI versus humanity, if you if you want to compare those two, which they constantly, you know, the the world, the proponents constantly do with this notion of AGI and human-based intelligence. But one of the distinguishing factors and there’s there’s many but the one that you mentioned is sensory factors. AI doesn’t have sensory factors. It can’t smell, it can’t feel, it can’t feel what it’s like to have your heart broken. It can’t smell the forest after it rains there’s so many sensory things that we as a humans just take for granted.

Perhaps because we’re all humans, the AI has no idea about. And frankly, it I don’t know if it ever will. I mean, you could put sensors, I guess, up, but I d it’s still not the same. I don’t even think we understand. I mean, our senses are not just the five senses, they’re very nuanced. I mean, even smell, for example, you know, dogs can smell something like a hundred times more than a human or something like that. And so and sight and and all sorts of things. so that’s just a really interesting thing, is just allowing yourself to open yourself up to the senses that we do have because that’s innately human.

Lisa Bennett (09:57)
Yeah, and I love that you say that because the you know the innate innately human is something I just keep thinking about more and more, you know, what in in this age of AI, right?

Craig Thielen (10:08)
Mm-hmm.

Lisa Bennett (10:10)
and it’s such a complex thing and I’m sure you know way more than about it than I do. But but but finding and nourishing our own humanity in a time of, this acceleration in technology in this time of a poly crisis, you know, in time in which we know there was a study done earlier this year by the National Alliance of Mental Illness that surveyed people in the workplace and found seventy percent of them are stressed about the state of the world. Right? And seventy percent and yeah, well like lot of us feel that, but when you think about the implications.

Craig Thielen (10:44)
And then and probably just sorry sorry to interrupt, but probably the reason it’s only seventy percent is the other thirty percent are just trying to get their next meal to live or to survive the next day. And so they’re not worried about anyone else because they’re just worried, you know, it’s the whole different levels of survival, right? so it could be it could actually be everybody if you ha the what do they say, first world problems. The more you have time to do things, the more you’re gonna worry about stuff and make up problems.

Lisa Bennett (11:11)
Right, right, right. But the whole, balancing all of this, so much of this for me as I’ve thought about it, it’s like there was a level at which I thought, this is kinda neat, right? To go from a th the pressure of this shared story that many of us have lived within that the world needs saving. Right. At one level that’s pretty arrogant. It’s it’s

Craig Thielen (11:34)
I’d say at a pretty big level it is I I thought about it. Like I said, there’s so many things I want to go down, but when you said save the world, the the first thing I thought of is like, really? Like can can I actually save the world? Is that really my job? You know, is I am I even capable? Now of course we want to contribute to positive impacts, but largely none of us are gonna save the world.

Lisa Bennett (11:55)
Right. But it is a shared story that that has been around since the sixties, right? And it’s been used to define all kinds of campaigns. And I as I

Craig Thielen (12:05)
you mean that the actual term saved the world? Is that is that just started in the sixties? ‘Cause the the notion has been around obviously for you know, centuries. I mean philosophers from Socrates onward have been talking about these kinds of things, but the the actual term, that’s interesting. Okay.

Lisa Bennett (12:23)
Yeah, in terms of it being used in campaigns. Right. Yeah.

Craig Thielen (12:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lisa Bennett (12:26)
And or as an organizing thing. And and in many regards it was very effective and mobilizing. But what what as I have looked into this, what seems to happen now is that this this framing, this idea that was once very mobilizing is now kind of demoralizing because it’s it all seems too big, right? So then savoring the world is about creating this this different kind of relationship to it ultimately. And I think it’s important to dive into the word a little bit because you mentioned all the nice associations with food or a glass of wine or sunset and so on. And and that is how it’s it’s most generally seen, right? We’ve we’ve learned that there is an art to eating, there and that too was new, right? That too was introduced by MFK. Yes, that’s a a hundred percent. Absolutely.

Craig Thielen (13:16)
New and it’s old, every everything that that’s new is actually not new. It’s like rediscovering, even you know, the sidebars. I I got into a big health kick about whatever five years ago, and you just go in all these rabbit holes about how you can get healthier. Well, one of them was the sequence in which you eat foods is actually credibly important in terms of how your body absorbs nutrients, how your blood sugars spike.

But then when you look at it and you go, this is new, we now understand it. It’s actually no our ancestors hundreds and thousands of years ago knew about this because they ate certain things in a certain sequence. And so it’s like we have to rediscover some of the things that we’ve lost, right?

Lisa Bennett (13:56)
Absolutely. Absolutely. the you know, in in terms of how we conceive of savoring, I think you could probably make the same argument that you just made that yes, people knew this forever, but we lose track of things and have to find them again all the time for our age, right? For w whatever the the the time period is. but but I think it’s really important because savoring can be dismissed as just this nice moment of a meal or, sitting under an apple tree or something like, or or God forbid somebody says, Savor the moment, right? It’s really irritating to hear that.

It’s like okay.

Craig Thielen (14:32)
Well, here’s let me let me turn it. Maybe this is where you’re going, but what about the idea of not just savoring, which I again I connotate the word savoring with all this good experience and sensory?

Lisa Bennett (14:43)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (14:44)
But what if you flipped it and said, What about savoring the pain, savoring your mistakes, savoring something, maybe you just lost someone and you just and that’s it’s easy to say, we can talk about it and it’s a great idea, but when you’re actually in the pain is that part is that one of the what you say like manifestations of savoring is actually going you don’t just savor the good stuff. Every anyone can do that, but savor the the process that you’re going through as painful as it is, because there’s something good that can come from it.

Lisa Bennett (15:13)
Yeah, Craig, I love that you said that because it’s it is so important. It’s not meant to be an overlay of some positive, let’s slap a happy face on everything, right? That’s just not real. no.

Craig Thielen (15:24)
Not real. That’s not the human experience.

Like what you started off with with your struggles that you were going through. That I was thinking that’s just, I mean, not to downplay what you went through. It was significant and painful and not enjoyable. It wouldn’t wish on anybody. But frankly, it not many people escape this human experience without significant pain and you know, torment and all sorts of things and whatever way that goes through so it’s that’s not uncommon. What’s uncommon is what do we do with it, right?

Lisa Bennett (15:52)
Yes. And how are we treating ourselves in this process? Right. knowing that these are rather stressful, challenging times we’re living through. creating some space and and time to to do what’s necessary to to allow oneself to to heal, to enjoy the moment. This is gonna sound incredibly corny, but right before speaking with you, I thought, well, I better check into my own word here, right? And and I literally sat on my back deck for two or three minutes and listened to a song I liked. And all of a sudden, I could feel the the slight breeze on my arms. Would not have been aware of that if I didn’t think, I’m gonna take a moment to practice this.

I would have just been focused on my work, you know. So it’s

Craig Thielen (16:41)
So is that just a micro technique that you just do during the day? Is it something you do before, like you said, just to kind of get in the mental I think they call it, you know, there’s theta brain waves and there’s you want to get in a certain mindset, but how do you use that technique… it’s a brilliant technique. Some people use breathing, different forms of meditation, but just just sitting and again, we’re back to the sensory. You just go in, what’s around me? There’s a there’s a world out here that kind of gets you into that zone. How do you use that?

Lisa Bennett (17:08)
Yeah. Well, i the framework that I am writing about in my book right now, it focuses on three levels and I call it, remembering, reconnecting, and reverberating, right? And and the remembering is like what what did you fall in love with in about life in the first place? what was it that you really cared about? Because I know that when I had children, one of the the amazing things about the experience for me was re-experiencing the wonder that they experienced in being alive. Right? We get away from that. It it’s the greatest thing in the world and we get away from it.

Craig Thielen (17:47)
Kids kids have a way of bringing it right back to it. That’s what that’s what’s brilliant about kids and why they give you so much energy because like it brings you back to that mindset, right?

Lisa Bennett (17:57)
Yes, and look at what you just said there, right? It gives you so much energy. And, that doesn’t these things that that’s the crazy thing is it doesn’t take a lot, right? It doesn’t it doesn’t take great a great amount of time, but it does take a different mindset. And there is the research to back up. There was a study that came out earlier this year, a different study.

strictly on savoring interventions. Right. So it looked at nearly two decades of studies about savoring interventions, these little moments where, you and I might pause and go, it’s pretty cool we’re having this conversation. Right. and not just have the conversation, but, you know, isn’t it nice I get I got to connect with you.

We get to talk about something like this. And there’s a little shift that happens in that tiny, tiny pause. So that’s the reconnect part, right? If the remembering is what did, you know, why did you fall in love with about life in the first place? Reconnecting is what can you what can you connect with in this moment? And then the reverberating is how do you take that energy and go forth with it.

Craig Thielen (19:05)
Send it back out into the universe, right? You get you get a signal in, and how do you send something back out?

Lisa Bennett (19:11)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (19:11)
Like a wave in the ocean. so let me see here. So there it kind of triggered something for me. and you can call it different things, but I’ve I always l love these conversations because the the long format.

And there’s just nothing like it. if I met you on a street or you know at the airport or something, we wouldn’t be having a conversation like this. It’s actually really hard to get into deep, meaningful conversations e even in the business world. You just talk transactions, you talk this and that, and people make so many assumptions. So there’s always something that I learn and I benefit from. But one of those things is one of the things you just said, which is I’ve we’ve been doing this for four years now, and I think, over sixty episodes and there’s some things that I always look at what are sort of the trends, what are things that are convergent with all these various conversations, these authors and people have accomplished great things and been through great tragedies, and then what are things that are divergent? What’s like very unique to the situation? And one of the things that’s very convergent, that’s almost in every single conversation that I have that we have on the show.

Is that people said whatever it was that they overcame, they accomplished, they did, that was something that they learned from and they want to share, what sparked it, what got it over the edge, what got it to where it was if when they really reflect on it is something quite small. It was what a grade school teacher said to them, and sometimes it’s positive and negative, one of the gentlemen he ended up playing professional baseball and he’s paraplegic. I mean, he he can’t stand on his own. He has crutches. And he he was a pitcher in the minor leagues and he played professional baseball. And the whole thing stems back from when he was in grade school and he was told he couldn’t do something. And then of course, you know, the whole world at that point is telling you all the things you can’t do because you’re handicapped. And then he had a a a kid in his class, I think it was third grade, and they were supposed to go on a day trip or what do you call it, like a field field trip. I don’t I don’t know if they even do those anymore, but a field trip. And he was told, No, you can’t do it. We’re gonna be walking a lot. You stay back here, you know, a condescending teacher or whatever. It might have been right intended, but of course it demoralized them because the whole class is going on a field trip. And one of his friends brought a red wagon to school that day and said, You’re gonna come with me, I’m gonna pull you.

So from that moment, that was the moment that he goes, you know what? I can do what other people do. And it just gave him enough encouragement. Someone cared. And from that moment, he’s like, I’m just gonna not listen to the authorities or whoever. I’m just gonna do whatever I think I can do. So it’s often just that one conversation, that one spark, that one moment that triggers something in someone that gets them down a path. It’s quite interesting, almost to a person.

Lisa Bennett (21:57)
That’s fascinating. And I mean it it speaks to the a word that is a another incredibly important word of the moment, right? Which is agency. And if if we look at all these big issues and challenges and trends and dynamics and you know, you start to feel kind of small, right? But but if you if you look within your domain and where you have agency, it can be incredibly powerful.

Craig Thielen (22:27)
And it’s all up here. Nothing had changed in the entire world.

Lisa Bennett (22:30)
Yeah.

Craig Thielen (22:31)
The teachers, his parents, nothing had changed except in between his two ears, something triggered him and said, You know what?

Lisa Bennett (22:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (22:38)
I’m not gonna listen to anybody that can tell me what I can’t do. I’m gonna figure out a way to do it. And that that’s agency at like at its best definition, right? Like I am in my own control. Now he he believed that and therefore it happened. If he didn’t believe it,

No one else was gonna say, Yeah, you can pitch in the may the minor leagues and don’t worry, you can do it. No one was gonna say that, right?

Lisa Bennett (22:59)
Right, right. But it yeah, I mean and then it shows a lovely full circle that if you’re if you’re fed in some way, in that case by this thoughtful boy, right? or you know, I’m sure you have hundreds of other stories like that, but when you receive it and then you reverberate it out into the world, then how did that how does that get carried on?

Craig Thielen (23:21)
Yeah, and that’s when it gets I mean it’s fun. Everyone loves to hear the the story, the one in a million, the person that beat all the odds. But then in his case, he ended up coaching for 20 years professionally and inspired many hundreds, thousands of players. He does clinics with kids. Like he’s he’s out there basically his last twenty, thirty years of his life is just reverberating. Just a a glimpse and if one percent of those kids get something from him that hey, if he can do it, I can do it. Just think what he’s reverberated into the world.

Lisa Bennett (23:57)
Absolutely. And it applies everywhere, doesn’t it? Because, you know, it it’s it’s education, it’s community, it’s families, it’s the workplace. Because if people in the workplace are are feeling really weighed down, as we know they are, then engagement goes down because there’s a connection between you know, the whole flow dynamic, right? To engage in issues to engage in in work and missions, you have to have some kind of sense of equivalency that you’re up to the challenge. If you’re just daunted, you’re gonna you’re gonna give minimal, right? So that’s why I I’m so passionate about this, because I I I can see that it is these little moments that then help lift people up and get a more realistic sense of where they can engage.

And that that is okay, right? That it doesn’t have to be on this grand scale. And that if we do if we only look at the grand scale, we’re gonna just shrink and not have that kind of agency. And then everybody suffers, you know, because we do have a lot of stuff going on in the world these days and and having people be at their best. Making your one percent improvements is is what’s so important.

Craig Thielen (25:13)
Yeah, and then one one thing about the one percent mindset is that it’s all about you you have control over one percent. You don’t have control over a hundred percent, but you can make yourself better. And it it’s probably obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to a lot of people. They sometimes correlate one percent better. It’s just go try harder, learn more, drive, you know, bigger, better, faster, whatever you’re doing.

And it’s actually the opposite. In in most cases, it’s you know, less is more. So what are the things I need to reduce? What are the toxins, the stressors, the what can I simplify my life? That actually allows me to do more. And that’s a one percent better mindset that isn’t always intuitive to people. it’s two the two other things that you said that I just want to kind of get into a little bit, and then I want to get into the science of this. One is this when you said sometimes it can feel overwhelming if you really are worried about worldly things, like you feel pretty small, like what can I do? You know, my I only have one vote. And does my vote even count? and is it even worth it? but on the flip side of that, the the the other side of the sword is actually if you think, I’m part of something bigger.

And I just have a role to play. I’m not responsible for the whole thing. I didn’t create the world. I’m in in this bigger thing could be very spiritual. It could be there’s a higher being and and there’s someone else that’s in control. it could be that history, like I’m curious if part of savoring is actually going, you know what? What we’re experiencing right now is actually not as unique as you think it is. Now, sure, we have social media and we have AI and we have you know some some tech stuff that hasn’t existed before.

But the world’s always had some pretty big problems. And there’s been a lot of things. Like I I like to read. You like to read, clearly. and I like to read things that are right. I like to read things that are incredible, incredibly relevant right now, like AI. I also like to go back and just read what was going on a hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, a thousand. So I’m reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and what I learned from that is how and he says it many times in his meditations, which is more or less his diary, that the history repeats itself. It’s just a cycle. And so whatever I’m experiencing has been experienced before, it’s going to be experienced again. whatever great philosopher and emperors that came before, they’re dead. So, you know, get over it. And now what do I do with it? And a lot of things that he talked about, and he was, you know, dealing with some pretty big world problems. Like he had many countries that wanted to disseminate Rome. He had a lot of people attacking him, inside obviously, and outside. And it was faced with life and death every day. And he was very contemplative. He was very philosophical. And a lot of that was just understanding. I’m just even him, and you could consider him, the the greatest sort of power on the earth at that point, the Roman Empire. And he was at the crest of the Roman Empire.

And he was running it. And even then he goes, I’m but I’m just a cog. I am just a person. I have a role to play. And he wasn’t trying to own the worries of the world or even own the worries of Rome. So again, I tell that story because sometimes just learning from history, going, Hey, the problems that we’re having, there’s there’s a lot of problems, there’s always been problems. And maybe I can learn from that and understand, you know, how other people have dealt with it and learn from them. Is that part of savoring?

Lisa Bennett (28:26)
One hundred percent. And I you know, a story came to mind. I haven’t thought about it in while, but popped to mind as you were talking about that. I I interviewed a professor at Harvard once who had come out with this new book about Shakespeare. And you know, I was deep into journalism, so I was pulling out my best cynical questions and I said to her, do we really need another book about Shakespeare? You know? And I think I had even looked up how many books had been published about Shakespeare. And she, gave me one of those look in the eyes saying, like, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And she’s she said, everything needs to be reinterpreted for the times that you’re in. And I found that one of these things that really stuck with me, that, to your point, yes, the world has always dealt with massive challenges. there is so much that we learn that, there’s so much that you can feel strengthened by when you read about what other people have gone through when it’s not a poor us victim mentality and all of that kind of thing, right?

But I think it is really important to also recognize what the nature is of the particular challenges that we are living in. Because the particular challenges that we are living in, I I think it’s kind of pointless to say are they greater or lesser than at other times, but they are particular. Right? So lear so our learning how to be in relationship to them in a way that allows us to be our best selves and

And to love life in the process, right? And not be daunted, I think is really important.

Craig Thielen (30:04)
I’m curious about the getting into this the science and then we’ll get into maybe some techniques and practicalities ’cause I think that it it’s always fun to talk about things abstractly, but then it’s like, well, great, what am I gonna do about it? But the I’m I just wanna hit the science real quick. So when when th ’cause you’re a researcher and this is what you you’ve done, you’re writing a book. so the science of it, are you talking is that mostly like parasympathetic, sympathetic, and what it does to your body physically. Is it we know that the thoughts that you have in your head are something like 70 or 80% negative and, what you think is what you do and what you become. And so how do you rewire yourself to not be so hard on yourself, so to speak? Or is there other science? I’m just curious, like when you say the science of savoring, like what is that?

Lisa Bennett (30:50)
Sure. So it it started in 2007 with these professors of psychology, right? And they basically discovered, nobody’s quite figured out the counterpart to to coping yet. And so they came up with this this word and this academic discipline. And researchers have taken it since then so that they’re looking at you know, what is the effect on pain management, right?

Does does people’s experience of pain, like actual physical pain, change if they practice savoring techniques? The answer is yes. and looking at things like other measures of well-being, do does that change? And to your point about parasympathetic and sympathetic, you know, yeah, that’s a huge thing because we’re all constantly triggered all the time.

Right. And we need to take responsibility for countering these waters that we’re swimming in, which are so triggering. one avenue of the research that I find interesting is a little adjacent to savoring, but I have this big curiosity about and and the research hasn’t really gotten there yet, but this is what one of the things I’m trying to explore is when people practice these savoring techniques, does it change how they are in the world? Do they become more likely to engage and to act on behalf of the greater good, which is one of those mutually rewarding things? and there there was a study, this a study I love, by a couple of professors at Cornell University a number of years ago. way back when they had phone booths. but what they did was they planted money in these phone booths. And when people went in and they found money, right? Well, they planted two things. They planted coins in the phone booths. And then they planted somebody who would be walking along the path and drop a bunch of papers. When people went into the phone booth and they found coins, they got a little boost. And they were more likely to help the people who dropped papers than the people.

Craig Thielen (32:54)
Interesting. Cause they felt like they got `a little bit of good fortune, so like pay it forward, I’ll gonna help these people.

Lisa Bennett (32:59)
Exactly.

Craig Thielen (32:59)
But if they were in a mental state of mind, then they’re like, screw I it’s not my problem. Interesting. Yeah, makes sense.

Lisa Bennett (33:04)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Craig Thielen (33:07)
So another thing about Marcus Aurelius is that he had this saying that said, and it’s it’s all about this people worried about saving the planet concept. And he he s says it quite often actually. He goes, What’s good for the town is good for the person. And at first you’re like, What what do you mean by that? And he’s saying, Don’t just think about what’s good for you. Think so again to think about something bigger than you. So whatever it is, you’re making a policy, you’re gonna kill somebody, you wanna steal something, you wanna get a pro whatever it is you’re doing, going, will this make my community better, my town better? And then yeah, it makes me better, great. So that that’s an interesting concept. Again, he is thinking about this, you know, a long time ago when there was a he had a lot of more things to think about. But this is how he thought, is this gonna make and that’s kind of another way of saying are we gonna is this gonna make the world better? ‘Cause they you shouldn’t be in contradictions with your personal choices and this feeling of doing good for the broader, right?

Lisa Bennett (34:05)
Absolutely. And and there is also research that suggests that, you know, when when to come back to savoring, that is conceived of in the most narrow terms, like I’m gonna have all this pleasure for myself, right? The hedonistic does not carry you as far. Yeah.

Craig Thielen (34:22)
No. Yeah. I mean it’s it’s kind of like I I say that very quickly, but it it’s we all like it. And it’s actually a lot of people disagree with that. It’s it’s philosophical, frankly. And it kind of gets back into what is your purpose and where do you fit into the grand scheme of life and again spiritual and but if it’s if it’s just it kind of goes back to that same thing with with Marcus Aurelius If I’m only gonna do something for me and my kingdom and my legacy and my this or that, that’s a very different set of decisions than if I’m doing something for the good of Rome or even the good of the world, right?

Lisa Bennett (34:59)
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the you know, the solitary view is kind of what has led to a great deal of loneliness and anxiety, right? And we know people are hungry for connection and that’s also the the mindset of looking for those connections.

Craig Thielen (35:14)
You I got a question for you that’s kind of out of the blue that you may

Lisa Bennett (35:17)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (35:17)
or may not know and that is, I just saw the other day that

Depression is I think at all time highs relative to what we’ve been able to measure maybe over the last, I don’t know, forty, fifty plus years. But now there’s a shift in the demographic. It in the highest demographic depression is actually the youth.

Lisa Bennett (35:37)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (35:37)
And it it’s never been that way before. I mean, youth, when I say youth, I think I mean, between like 10 and 18. Something like that.

Lisa Bennett (35:44)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (35:44)
You think of kids as like, hey, they’re just naive. They’re having a good time. They don’t think about the future. They don’t think about saving the planet. They think about hanging out with their buddies or going on a date or doing and life is just exploratory. I used a different word before, awe and wonder. that’s just the world they live in. But now that’s the age group that’s the most depressed. And a lot of people connect it to this whole like they’re in this virtual world, they’re in social media, there’s a lot of stuff of course there’s been drugs and other substances around for a while, but they’re that’s not going away. So is that I’m curious if you’ve got into any of that from a savor perspective. are you seeing that as well, any evidence of that? And can this help the youth deal with that?

Lisa Bennett (36:27)
Yeah, and and it’s very interesting because I mean two things come to mind. One is the reason I got into the, you know, when I worked on a number of different environmental issues and co-authored this book with Daniel Goleman, the emotional intelligence expert, on how emotional intelligence can help us right look at the different environmental issues that everybody knows is going on, but it’s hard to reckon with. And I and I did that because I was concerned about my own children’s future, based on what I knew. Kids are not blind to that. Right. I used to have a stack of these books that I thought were really worrisome, and I I kept the door to my study closed because I thought, they can’t see that. But I was living it. They pick it up. They they pick up all the stuff. They know what’s going on. But to the really important question of can this help them? I have done, I’ve I have after finding this body of research and seeing the potential in it, I went to a number of leaders in different organizations to ask them their experiences. And one of the people I spoke with is a woman named Pat Mitchell. She’d been the first woman who headed up PBS, first senior woman at CNN and you know involved in a number of different organizations now. And she made this really interesting point that, people like to your point about looking back at history and how that helps us, right? Those of us who have also lived, more than 20 years know that things change and and you get a different perspective. And as she said, that you know, there is something that we really can give to young people who are growing up and yes, the, digital life is one piece of it, but that’s not the only piece of it. They know that things are pretty messy right now. And f for those who of us who have found a way to to navigate it, right? That is something that we can help offer to young people. And I feel deeply passionate about that. And it is often things like, you know, it can be techniques like this. It can be the related work of biophilia, giving them experiences in nature where they can fall in love with it and be be rewarded by that, you know, be strengthened by that.

Craig Thielen (38:43)
Yeah, I I love that. I wonder if, take that one level further. I I often think of these blue zones. you’re familiar with the the the work, the book and the series. And yeah,

Lisa Bennett (38:54)
yeah. I have the cookbook. Yep.

Craig Thielen (38:56)
and so but one of the things that they they learn from these different blue zones is that they have multi generational environments, very tight community environments. So you feel like you’re a part of something that’s real. Like if I do something, it could harm somebody else that I know. When you live in a big city, it’s like not my problem. If I litter, someone else will pick it up. It’s not my problem. But in these communities, we were on this little island, Carakou, and it’s part of Grenada, and it was a tiny little island. There might be like 500 people that live on it. And we went into on the way to our little place that we were gonna stay, and we’re like, well, we’re gonna go in and get a little six pack of beers. We’re hot and sweaty and we just wanted some refreshments. He goes, No problem. He stopped and we go, our luggage is in your car. Did you lock it? And he he looks at me like, lock it? Why would I do that? And we’re like, Well, someone might walk by and steal it. And he goes, I know literally everyone on this island. I know where they live, I know their grandma, I know their so it’s kind of this like community. That’s a different perspective when everything you do literally impacts someone that knows you and you know them. So I that’s an interesting thing. I’m not sure where I was going with this, but I know. Yeah. It’s the blue zone is that they were in these kind of multi-generational situations where literally grandma and grandpa lived with us. And so I’m wondering, and we don’t do a very good job in the United States, much less Western society, of actually like the elderly kind of get pushed to the side and many parts of the world, they are the most revered part of the culture.

Lisa Bennett (40:27)
Mm-hmm.

Craig Thielen (40:28)
And they, like I said, they live with their parents live with you, and they’re able to teach you things that maybe they have time, they have experience, they have perspective. You’re too busy trying to live life, what you know, career making money, paying bills. And so I wonder if that’s taking what you just said, kind of to the next level, how do we leverage that vast amount of wisdom that’s sort of sitting on the sidelines?

Lisa Bennett (40:50)
I saw something I wish I could remember what country it was, but th there was an news recently about some country where they have allowed college students to live in assisted living centers, rent-free, right? The college students to try to help them not be full of debt, you know, or overly full of debt.

Craig Thielen (41:10)
That’s Singapore, is it?

Lisa Bennett (41:11)
What’s that?

Craig Thielen (41:12)
Is it Singapore?

Lisa Bennett (41:13)
I don’t know if it’s Singapore. I don’t think it was, but it could be. and and just how fruitful that relationship ended up being. Like there’s a practical dimension to it, right? Like the p financial dimension on both ends. But it wasn’t only that. It was this incredible relationship that happened. And I think there’s a a a through line to what we’re talking about, which is, you know, when you bring in this the this positive psychology, this intervention of savoring as the counterpart to coping, right? What can happen is that you’re you’re opening up to a sense of greater possibility that where you can think of solutions like that.

Craig Thielen (41:53)
The AI said it’s the Netherlands. Yeah, which makes sense. They’re pretty inventive folks.

Lisa Bennett (41:56)
The Netherlands, okay. Okay, of course, right? Yeah.

Craig Thielen (42:04)
well let’s get into I know we’re we’re getting to the end here, but the practicality. This I this is a great topic and I think a lot of people go, Yeah, it makes sense. And I just you know, I I should meditate and I should have gratitude journals and I should do this savouring thing, but let’s break it down into like practical steps. Someone that is feeling the stress and they say, How what can I do practically to do this savoring thing and and help me deal with life?

Lisa Bennett (42:28)
Well, you know, the the interesting thing is that we are at a point where the research on it is relatively new. So there are those strategies that sound like they’re all in the the well-being domain, right? and I’m sure your listeners know a lot about those strategies. So I don’t think that that that is as important, right? but it is things like looking at well, to go back to the original researchers on it, they would make the point that you can look at this, you can savor retrospectively, you know, in the moment and and looking forward, right? So that’s one practical thing. You can recall something that was positive and spend a little time there. you can take those, you know, few seconds to sink into the moment and let and and and similarly you can allow yourself to look forward.

something. I think the the real big issue here is how are we relating to time, right? And are we just racing through everything, you know, racing through our lives, right? Or is there that pause that allows us to to see what’s positive in the workplace? Is there, you know, the moment to actually appreciate what somebody has done, not in a pro forma kind of way that doesn’t mean anything, but

to really, let it sink in what a colleague has done or a team member has done. when I interviewed a number of leaders about how they experience, because I think this is one of those things that a lot of people relate to intuitively. you know, how do you how do you savor? And and I heard things like, well, from people who are like really in it, really stressed, have big jobs.

Craig Thielen (44:06)
Yeah.

Lisa Bennett (44:07)
And it’s like I am taking, a brief time in the day and walking this was somebody who lived in New York City, walking across the street to go to Central Park and spent 15 minutes, just under a tree, right? Like walking under trees. That’s it. I spoke to somebody else who said she was learning how to dance in her eighties, right? And then another leader who who told me that what she did was she would try to envision a future that was healthier and more just and you know perhaps a little bit calmer than ours. And then she would try visualize the people that she loved in that future. As a profound shift, you know.

Craig Thielen (44:50)
Yeah. So am I sensing this correctly that savouring is sort of everyone has to kinda figure out their own ways, their own techniques, their own how they get there. I mean, there’s obviously some ideas. You shared some. I could probably share a bunch of ideas. But just like you have to find your own way and your own path on it.

Lisa Bennett (45:10)
You know, my particular bias is that that is the answer to all the most important things. That what we can look at from the research is i are the pointers of of what helps, right? We know gratitude helps. we know slowing down helps, we know getting into nature.

Craig Thielen (45:25)
Getting in nature, I mean, that’s scientifically proven to help, right?

Lisa Bennett (45:30)
Absolutely. You know, there’s a there’s a great menu of things. I think what what what is grounding for me in that so that is that it’s like, well what is what is the relationship to the world? What is the story you want to live in? is it one in which and we didn’t even get into the the research on declinism, which I find fascinating, but if you believe that the state of the world is in decline. And that’s the story you’re telling yourself all the time. You’re going to become less engaged as well as less happy. You know? and as as one professor at the University of Pennsylvania said, you know, decline is a fact, declinism is a problem. Right? Things. Yeah.

Craig Thielen (46:09)
Yeah, I no, I I I think that’s true.

Lisa Bennett (46:13)
So what’s the story? Is it everything’s a mess or is it I live in a better bigger container here and some things are absolutely wonderful?

Craig Thielen (46:21)
Right. And s some of it is just a mindset too. Like decline is a fact of nature. We all grow and we peak in different ways and then we decline physically, mentally. maybe not spiritually, maybe that doesn’t decline, but it it is a cycle of nature. So that part’s like, okay, let’s deal with it. Like if I wanted to pretend I could still play professional sports, probably not I’m I’m kind of swimming upstream as they say, but decline isms seems like a plague. It seems like a cancer. It seems like a limiting belief system to me. Even if you think the world’s gonna end in World War Three in six months, you don’t really know. And why would you wanna die with being depressed and anxiety and full of cortisol and full of why would you do that anyways? Why wouldn’t you go, Hey, what great, what can I do now and how can I like leave a mark or what can I learn? What can I savor? so I agree with the sentiment of the the the person there. declinism just sounds like a very bad path. Why would you want to go down that path? Even nobody knows. Nobody knows the future. I mean, right? And one of my favorite books is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and it’s like the one of the most profound books, but it’s the simplest book in the entire universe, I can explain the whole book in 30 seconds.

You can’t control the past, you can’t control the future. The only thing that you actually can c control and control using loosely, but the only thing you can experience, the only thing that you have is now. I don’t have five minutes from now. That’s not guaranteed. The the past is just my recollection of bits and pieces of it. And so even even that concept is really all you have to deal with.

Lisa Bennett (48:00)
Yeah. There you go.

Craig Thielen (48:03)
All right. Well, this has been a lot of fun. I what what I learned from it is that and what I expected, it’s not a surprise, is that savoring is very aligned with the one percent better mindset. How do we become, better? How do we improve, grow, learn, and savoring in in the broader way that you talked about it is absolutely another mechanism to allow people to, you know, just get better and be be better. And so I will ask you one last question on the podcast we ask everyone, which is step back from this idea of savoring and just think about the the life that you’ve lived and if you had to pass on life lessons, one percent better life lessons to your grandkids or to the next generation, what comes to mind that you think are just really important things that you’d want to pass on?

Lisa Bennett (48:51)
Wow, that is quite a question. You ask that of everybody?

Craig Thielen (48:55)
I do. You get I get all sorts of different answers. One one guy answered, you know, wear good shoes. So that was it doesn’t have to be profound, so no pressure.

Lisa Bennett (49:03)
I would say don’t underestimate the power of your own modeling. That if you feel like, you know, especially thinking about young people, if you feel that the challenges in our world today are are very daunting, know that they are, but it’s a matter of, right sizing things, not not looking at it to at that great scale. But bringing it to your own scale and not underestimating the impact that you can have on the people in your orbit and that in the final analysis, that’s what we have. That’s what we that’s what we can leave behind.

Craig Thielen (49:39)
That’s beautifully said. So thank you for sharing that and thank you for sharing the idea of savoring and I’ll be savoring it for a while.

Lisa Bennett (49:47)
Haha. Well, it was absolute pleasure and I can’t wait till your book is out ’cause I love your whole approach here.

Craig Thielen (49:54)
Very good, thank you.

Lisa Bennett (49:55)
Thank you.

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