MM#100--To Flourish...and Thank you!

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I'm David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. And most importantly, welcome to Mojo minute 100. It's kind of a special milestone achievement. And we're kind of excited about it. So to celebrate this milestone, we're going to do it with one of my favorite words ever flourish. What does it mean for humans to flourish? Well, one of the founding fathers of the positive psychology movement wrote a book on that word and what it means that you can't guess its title. Well, if you did guess, flourish, you would be correct. And that author of the book is Martin Seligman. And actually, the full title of the book is flourish, a visionary new understanding of happiness and well being. And as always, let's kick it off with a quote. I used to think that the topic of positive psychology was happiness, that the gold standard for measuring happiness was life satisfaction, and that the goal of positive psychology was to increase life satisfaction. I now think that the topic of positive psychology is well being that the gold standard for measuring well being is flourishing, and that the goal of positive psychology is to increase, flourishing. Unquote. 

And again, that was Martin Seligman in his book flourish. Now some quick background on Seligman and the positive psychology movement. The if you've ever studied psychology at any basic level, you'll know that this field primarily addresses the human person from the disease side, meaning they study in basic psychology, they study and identify the dysfunction of the human person. And then they address those dysfunctions. And positive psychology grew within the broader field of psychology, obviously. And those psychologists said, we have to expand beyond mental illness, we cannot just study mental illness, we should figure out how to improve normal life, and how to help nurture and improve talent and the exercising of virtue in people's lives. And one of those authors that lead in this movement was Martin Seligman, the author we just heard from, and he's was, and still is, in the in the middle of this positive psychology movement. This book flourish is the upgrade from earlier books about the authentic happiness theory construct. And that theory kicked off the positive psychology movement in the mid to late 90s. 

And actually, let me back up and say, Actually, Abraham Maslow kicks off the movement in the 1950s with his book, motivation and personality, but then Seligman and others build upon that work. And we get to we get to this book flourish, and the major shift so now you understand there's a major shift happening from the authentic happiness theory to the well being theory. And so your biggest takeaway should be that flourishing and this book is like positive psychology 2.0, if you will. It's the latest software upgrade so to speak. So you don't get bogged down in the weeds just know there's a shift and we now have positive psychology 2.0 And this wellbeing theory is the major thrust of that new positive psychology movement. So with that all being said, what is this well being theory and how do we live it or how do we accomplish it or what is it? 

So we have a wonderful easy to remember acronym called perma. P is in Paul E is an Edward RS and Randy M is in Michael A is in alpha And let's go back to the book for a quote, quote, to learn all about perma.

Here then is well being theory, well being is a construct. And well being not happiness is the topic of positive psychology. Wellbeing has five measurable elements, perma that count toward it. P is for a positive emotion of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects. E is for engagement. R is for relationships, M is for meaning, and A is for achievement. No element defines well being, but each contributes to it, unquote. So that's pretty cool a and we'll obviously be digging deeper into cell admins book because it offers us a wealth of mojo nuggets of wisdom. But for now, and today's Mojo minute as we strive to develop our well being and our virtues as we always talk about. And we reach for that goal of flourishing. Let's keep in mind, perma positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement. And no element is more important than the other because they all contribute to well being and to flourishing. And so let us begin that cultivation needed in these areas of our lives, to help the world and ourselves improve in our wellbeing. The example of leading a flourishing life starts with us today. And as we kick it off, we just want to offer a special PBS. Special thank you to our listeners.

 As this is Mojo minute number 100. We are super grateful that you're here that you keep coming back. I'm super grateful. And so we just want to offer a special thank you. Because we never thought we would make it to Episode 100. But here we are. And we have great little following. And we hope to continue to keep bringing you more value and less time with these Mojo minutes. And we have some new stuff coming soon. But right now, as they say they're simmering on the stove. So we're doing some taste testing, and then we're sharing we're getting it right. And then once we do we will be rolling them out. But for now, we want to say thank you and keep flourishing perma style.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on