Show #117: Meik Wiking on Lykke, Hygge and global happiness results and predictors

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And onto this week’s show!

This week on the show the wonderful two times New York Times best seller Meik Wiking joins me once again. It was one of the most popular podcasts of last year on the Danish art of “hygge” which means cosiness so I’m excited to bring you another conversation with Meik. This time we go a bit deeper into happiness research, what the single biggest factors are for a society feeling happy for the most part, and what things like language use, daily actions and government stances on climate and equality do to impact the overall stats – You won’t believe what the biggest predictor of heart disease is in the United States. I am still in shock! Enjoy the conversation and I can’t wait to hear what your aha’s were.

 

Meik’s bio:

Meik Wiking is CEO of The Happiness Research Institute, Research Associate for Denmark at the World Database of Happiness and Founding member of The Latin American Network for Wellbeing and Quality of Life Policies. He holds degree in business and political science and has previously worked for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vilstrup Research and as a director for the think tank Monday Morning. Meik Wiking has written several books and reports on happiness, subjective well-being and quality of life and is often used as a public speaker around the world.

 

The questions I asked Meik:  

1. What have you learned about happiness in the past year and a half – your own / global research; Happiness habits; Difference in happiness and contentedness (some ideas are that happiness is fleeting but contentedness is deep and lasting… your thoughts?

2. How does one go from negative bias / this is hard / poor me into having a more positive bias.

3. Internet unhappiness: Social media seems to have become a slow cooker for abuse, disrespect and hate: are there enough cat videos in the world to save us? Can we play a role on an individual level at promoting happiness online?; And if you feel comfortable waxing on this as I think it’d be so interesting to have your take as a happiness researcher where equal sense of respect both men / women is surely a big factor in overall happiness ‘scores’: Nordic countries seem to do equality in a way that all men and women truly are equal, men don’t seem to feel like they’re ‘in danger’ as women rise up to hold positions of power / work more / men needing to parent more equally etc…

4. What are we getting wrong in our attempts to attain equality in the countries that don’t have it but are very close – anglo saxon nations for example – where men seem threatened, white male violence against partners / mass shootings etc on the rise – How do we ‘do’ equality and get everyone happy about it / not disempowered…

5. Is there research on equality in pay and how the society at large behaves + correlation to happiness scores by any chance?

 

Other helpful links:

Find out more about Meik here: www.happinessresearchinstitute.com

You can get his book “The little book of Hygge” HERE and “The little book of Lykke” HERE

You can follow Meik on Instagram @meikwiking and on Facebook

 

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