Prof Paul Dolan on Happiness

This week's podcast is with the brilliant Professor Paul Dolan.

Paul is a Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also is an author and hosts his own popular podcast called Duck-Rabbit

We had a great laugh with Paul, our conversation focused on the many facets of Happiness and how one glove does not fit all.

“This idea that one size fits all approach to living well, would be evolutionarily stupid. We would never evolve to be where we are if everyone was the same. So purely from an efficiency perspective, it makes sense that society has different types of people. So it’s about finding out where you are in that distribution…”

Paul uses data and analytics to question our perceptions of happiness and the myths we have been fed or “narrative traps” around stories of love, marriage, ambition, and success. 

He has an amazing way of using everyday examples to convey his points, which makes his work so relatable and brilliant.

“What you want money to be is like a referee in a football game. They always say referees have the best game when no one knows they are there. And that’s kind of how you want money to be, you want it to be there because you need it but not paying attention to it.”

A great episode, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Further reading by Prof Paul Dolan:

Book: 

Happiness By Design

Happy Ever After

Podcast: 

Duck-Rabbit Podcast

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