The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance

Discover Your Capacity to Create, Connect & Love – Susan Cain : 952

11 snips

Jun 28, 2022

In this engaging discussion, Susan Cain, author of "Quiet" and "Bittersweet," shares her insights on how sorrow and longing can fuel creativity and deepen connections. She reveals that longing is not passive but a driving force for emotional expression. Susan emphasizes the importance of embracing bittersweet emotions as a means of authenticity, transforming pain into artistic motivation. She also explores the nuances of introversion, the concept of winners and losers, and the therapeutic benefits of acceptance therapy to navigate life's challenges.

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INSIGHT

Bittersweetness and Transcendence

Sad music evokes a transcendent feeling, connecting us to something larger.
This bittersweet state, found in art and religion, is linked to creativity and deep communion.

ANECDOTE

Driven by a Dream

Susan Cain's lifelong dream was to publish a book, driving her to overcome her fear of public speaking.
This pursuit of her dream motivated her to give a TED Talk despite significant resistance.

INSIGHT

Longing as Motivation

Longing, a desire for a better state, fuels creativity and problem-solving.
It drives us to create and transform pain into beauty, motivating us towards a perfect world.

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IN THIS EPISODE OF THE HUMAN UPGRADE™...

...you'll learn some surprising lessons sorrow and longing can teach you about creativity, connection and love. You’ll find out why longing isn’t passive—as most people think—but actually “momentum in disguise.”

Author Susan Cain combines research, the stories of others, and memoir to explain how sadness can be your superpower. “Bittersweetness is the hidden source of our moon shots, masterpieces, and love stories,” she says in her newest book, “Bittersweet: "How Sorrow And Longing Make Us Whole”.

Longing can improve your creativity and fuel a drive to express yourself. Longing coupled with pain can help you to connect to others and provide a common ground that enhances compassion and helps you feel less alone in your troubles.

Instead of hiding or shying away from feelings like sadness and longing, Susan encourages you to embrace them as part of who you are, and part of what it means to be human. This conversation gets into:

How bittersweet differs from melancholy
How Acceptance Commitment Therapy helps you manage the “bitter of life”
How sadness is the ultimate bonding agent
How the concept of “winners” and “losers” changed over time
How to live and work authentically in an environment of enforced positivity
How to embrace deep reflection and ask yourself: "What. Are. You. Longing. For?"

Special offer for The Human Upgrade listeners: Go deeper into the topics of Bittersweet and Quiet with Susan’s 30-day interactive online courses. Go to https://www.susancain.net / and use code ASPREY15 to save 15%.

More about Susan Cain: She’s the author of “QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” which spent seven years on The New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 40 languages. Her record-smashing TED Talk, “The Power of Introverts,” has been viewed over 30 million times. She’s spoken at Microsoft, Google, the U.S. Treasury, the S.E.C., Harvard, Yale, West Point and the US Naval Academy. She’s an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School.

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