The Happitalist Podcast

Over 17 episodes, Pete and Joe have built up a “body of work” and a “vocabulary” of Happitalism. They talk about how this experience has changed them, about how Happitalism gives them permission to throw more parties, and about how Season 2 will be scooped out of a hole in the sand.

This episode is a monologue by Pete. He covers how much money maximizes two kinds of happiness, how one kind of happiness goes down when you get too rich, and how experiences lift the ceiling on how much happiness our money can buy. He also relates how attitude alone can affect whether physical work confers health benefits. If experiences buy happiness, and attitude can increase health, he reasons that a proper attitude can squeeze more happiness out of everyday experiences. An ancient Chinese philosopher seems to agree.

In this episode we encourage you to seek challenges. This Intentional Activity brings manifold well-being benefits, many of which are not even apparent until you start a new thing. Individuals who try new things- whether that means moving to a foreign country, going camping for the first time, or taking a piano lesson- learn useful skills, build sustainable gains in well-being, and have more fun. Successful companies don’t fear adventurous spirits- we embrace and nurture them.

When people come together for events that explicitly value work that has transcendent meaning, amazing ideas emerge. When businesses invest (even tiny amounts) in those ideas, lives are transformed. Pete and Joe talk about a local event that does this, about the nonprofit sailing programs that have emerged in our community, and about how those programs powerfully help at- risk kids.

Researchers know that strong community connections are a constant thread in the lives of happy people. These connections can happen as a side-effect of your regular life. But you can also make connections affirmatively, with intention. In this episode we discuss numerous activities that you can do to build community, strengthen your connections with other people, and increase your happiness. Also they are all fun.

Storytelling is how humans learn, but science can persuade the skeptic- and lived experience changes lives. In this episode we talk about the disaster relief nonprofit that Pete co-founded, Joe discusses how volunteer experiences have transformed him, and Pete says society’s equation of altruism with goodness misses the point.

How do creative pursuits and leisure activities impact our well-being? How do we measure happiness? Dr. Pawelski and field reporter Jon Kirkwood talk about those questions, about Dr. Pawelski's new book, "Happy Together," about the role of artists in positive psychology, and about how Happitalist thinking can inform decisions about whether to invest more of ourselves in work or to focus more on leisure.

Happitalists identify and engage in activities that directly maximize their well-being. This sounds pretty indulgent and self-serving; so in this episode we explore how happitalist thinking can help humanity get the big stuff done. We also urge you not to defer well-being until you’re “rich enough” (you are already rich enough).

Pete’s always had a conviction that life should revolve around something bigger than economics. An itinerant childhood gave him an outsider’s perspective, a legal education refined his analytical bent, running a business tested his worldview, an obsession with positive psychology and well-being science coalesced these influences into the economic philosophy he calls Happitalism.

Democracy is breaking out all over, leading to notable improvements in most measures of well-being worldwide. But in more developed countries worker wages are stagnating, and income inequality worsening. We discuss the politics and economics underlying these trends with Professor Radelet- and we and consider the way forward.

Joe has responded to personal hardship by drawing a line between work and leisure, by giving himself permission to really take time off, and by urgently focusing on the things that reliably deliver boosts in well-being- like family, meaningful work, and time with friends. FWIW he’s more productive than ever. Pete wonders how regular people can do this, and Joe gives some pointers.

When well-being is the organizing principle of a business, when staff have free access to information, and when owners listen and trust, creativity flourishes (so do humans). Viewing our time as a limited resource helps us to focus on the direct pursuit of well-being.

The Happitalist entrepreneur seeks to maximize well-being within a business or community (or even a planet!). $H is the level of income that efficiently does this. Aspiring towards an income of $H for all raises thorny questions: how does $H from person to person? What are owners entitled to? What should owners want?

When the wealthy allocate their resources in ways that benefit the less well-off, the wealthy experience significant gains in well-being. Where these well-being gains exceed those they would experience by using their resources to amass more wealth, the logical (and selfish!) choice for the wealthy is to reallocate their own wealth towards the poor. This revolutionary idea is the point of this episode.

If maximum happiness is a universal human desire, then the single-minded pursuit of personal happiness is the ultimate indulgence in self-interest. In this episode we point out that this indulgence, properly understood and undertaken, has the power to change the world.

This episode dives deeper into Intentional Activities. We explore economics and the Fallacy of Measurability, and we suggest a new definition of success in business. We call on people to take responsibility for their own happiness, and we describe Intentional Activities with proven power to boost well-being.

We discuss three factors that influence well-being, point out their relative importance, and observe that most focus inordinately on the least productive drivers of well-being. We describe the correlation between income and happiness, we lay the groundwork for taking control of your own happiness, and we advocate paddleboarding.

This episode introduces the concept of “happitalism.” Envisioned as “capitalism 2.0,” Happitalism seeks to leverage the existing machinery of capitalism. But instead of “maximum return to shareholders,” the happitalist posits “maximum well-being to communities,” as the point of the economic activity. This paradigm is based on emerging learnings from positive psychology and well-being science: it does not demand religious belief, altruism, or governmental mandate for motivation, and it is better for the planet, for communities, for workers, and even for owners(!).