PROFESSEUR DE BONHEUR : LE BONHEUR EST GÉNÉTIQUE ! COMMENT ÊTRE PLUS HEUREUX ? VOICI LES TECHNIQUES

Hello everyone and welcome to Légé show today with a professor of happiness. She is a specialist in positive psychology. Her name is Florence Servan Schrebert. There is a lot to learn today. Are we unequal in the face of happiness? Yeah, we found that happiness is genetic. You are born with something and it won't change. That's quite distressing. Should we tell children the truth? You start telling your children about life when you feel they need to know it to be able to navigate the real world. You teach children gratitude. My children are also adults today. What amazes me about them is that they are truly capable of enjoying and marveling at the life they have. It has happened that they thank us for being their parents. It's not constant, I assure you. There is one thing that makes the difference between those who are happy and those who are not. Hello everyone and welcome to Légende show. Today with a professor of happiness. She is a specialist in positive psychology. She is a happiness specialist. Her name is Florence Servange Schrebert. We will tackle the subject, so the five things to do per day to be happier, to have a better happiness in our daily lives. What impacts our happiness? Is it our job? Is it our family life? Is it hereditary? Does having parents who are very happy, or not happy, influence our lives today, our daily lives? We will tackle the subject just before starting the show, friends. You will see, it's really very interesting. There is a lot to learn today with tests to do at home. You will be able to listen, watch the show and do tests at the same time which will bring out certain qualities, you will see, which will allow you to know a sort of daily guide to be happier. Just before starting the show, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel. Uh, and don't hesitate to comment on the show, to like the video, it helps us. That's the basis on YouTube. And if you are listening to us in an audio podcast, whether it's on Spotify, on Dieser, on Apple Podcast or Amazon Podcast, on all platforms, it's the same. If you give 5 stars, it helps us a lot with the algorithm. And that's it, thank you for being here, more and more of you. Thank you for making Légendes the number one podcast in France. Before starting the show on happiness, I wanted to tell you that something that made us very happy here is imagining the tour that we will be able to experience all together. We are really doing this to have a huge moment of happiness all together between October and November 2026. We will go to 16 cities and we will do 18 dates in the biggest venues in France. We have booked two dates in Paris. That's why there are 18 dates and 16 cities at the Adidas Arena and two dates in Brussels at Forest National. You can get your tickets, it will be a family show. You can come with children, with your parents, you can come really regardless of age and you will learn a lot of things with guests who have marked the channel here on Légendes, who have marked the media, guests who have exceptional backgrounds like Philippe Box, the forensic doctor, like Julien who is a Tiger combat helicopter pilot, like Thè Arga, the couple's therapist who talks about men, women, the difference between men and women, and there will also be artists who will join us depending on the dates. There will be Franck Dubosque on some, Michel You on others. There will be Maxime Gasteuil in Bordeaux and Toulouse for example. We will go to Montpellier, Chambéry, Dijon, Toulouse, Nice, Metz, Strasbourg. Here are all the dates if you want to check them out on légend-tour.fr. In any case, this is really a moment of happiness. We can't wait to see you there. There will be many surprises. We are working to give you an exceptional show. You buy a ticket, you will see many guests, many artists. We will not be able to film what is on stage. We will keep it private. That way, you will hear truly incredible anecdotes. And now, let's go with Florence, who is a specialist and professor of happiness on Légendes. Let's go. I am Florence Servant Schrebert. I am a professor of happiness and that's what we're going to talk about on Légendes, your happiness. Welcome Florence. I'll take the clap from you. Do we use "tu" or "vous"? Yes, we can use "tu". You are a professor of happiness. You know, watching the show prepared, it was already a pleasure. It was really hyper joyful. We will learn a lot. And you are a professor of happiness. Where are you a professor? What does it mean to be a professor of happiness? Well, I am a professor at the Sorbonne, in business schools, but also in companies. I speak a lot to adults, in fact, because we realize that adults really need to learn things about happiness. Yes. We will talk about many subjects. How do we measure happiness? We will also tackle a subject. Are we all unequal in the face of happiness? Yes. It's important, it's that we don't have the same physical characteristics and therefore sometimes psychological ones too to be with certain substances that we might have in our brain that can make us happy or not. We will tackle the subject that our living conditions do not dictate our happiness. That's also important. It's not because we have a good job or we are happy in our family that we will necessarily be happy in the broad sense. We will also talk about gratitude, which leads to living longer. We will tackle the subject of gratitude, but also how to teach children to thank, to realize that we are having a good time together. We will talk about the impact of social media, too, when we spend too much time on social media on our brain and our state of mind, which can rejuvenate our body. We will learn a lot. The key to a successful relationship too. What is the key? What allows us to succeed and also the things we shouldn't have in a relationship that can deteriorate it. We will tackle the subject of a test too, which will allow us to calculate and know our 24 main qualities and which allows us to better organize our life, our daily life in the broad sense and the five things that make us happy. So there's really a big program. I have 39 cards. I hope you have time because the subject is so interesting. I hope you will like it. In any case, what is happiness? It's indescribable because it's totally personal. I'm sorry, but I can tell you what happiness is for me. For you? Yes. It's not wanting my neighbor's life and being satisfied with or taking pleasure in or even enjoying what my life is, with its flaws and its qualities. Everyone can be happy. It's something that is okay for everyone. Everyone can be happy. Whatever baggage we arrive with, everyone can be not only happy but happier. A quick question, will we come back to this later, but can happiness be learned? Can we take courses, listen to you, read, we'll talk about your books, and be happier? Well, more than being learned, it's something that is worked on. That is to say, once we have heard what we are going to talk about, we can choose to apply it and little by little we will see if it does us good because science tells us that it can do us good. You wrote a book that sold 250,000 copies, that's huge. It's called "Trois kiffs par jour et autres rituels recommandés par la science pour cultiver le bonheur" (Three joys per day and other science-recommended rituals to cultivate happiness). Here I have the paperback version. If you want to get this book, I'll put it in the description. And you came to talk about the new book, we'll talk about it later, but it's called "Chiche Tonton l'audace" (Dare, Uncle Dare), which is a comic book this time. Uh, it's at Le Duc graphique, so I'll put the link for you too to get it, or rather to learn about it, because it's a comic book with beautiful drawings. It really has that old-fashioned comic book style, very beautiful. It's gentle, in fact. Yes. Well, it's true that I wanted a graphic universe that was more like the world before, you know, the world before the internet. Yes. So that's what I wanted to do, but it's very beautiful. Exactly. And why did you make a comic book when you released a book that sold 250,000 copies? Why did you embark on something else? But you know, one of the things that makes us truly happy, well, happy for me, and I've understood it, is to do something for the first time. I had never made a comic book before, so I told myself I would try. And just to clarify, you talk about positive psychology in it, you talk about that a lot in your courses too. What is positive psychology? It's what I teach. So it's not positive thinking, you know. Thinking, no, it's not the same thing. Positive thinking is telling yourself "Yes, yes, everything is great." Well, some people do that. Maybe it works, we don't have proof. Positive psychology is very precise, it's the laboratory study of personalities, behaviors, and organizations that work. That is to say, we observe people, we draw conclusions, we get statistics, for example, and then it allows us to explain things by saying, "Here, we know, we have seen, we have counted, it makes people happier." We know that happiness is organized like this. So then, we can rely on that. Are you naturally positive or not necessarily, you who are in positive psychology? Well, do you want to know the truth? I'm not, and you're not naturally positive. Wait, that's interesting. I'm not naturally positive. Uh, I'm full of worries and anxieties since always. Yes. Well, we call it anxiety, but also worries, you see. When my children were little and had a fever, I was convinced they wouldn't make it through the night, you see. I tell myself stories like that because worry is just a story we tell ourselves. The worst-case scenario, all the time. I see the worst-case scenario. And so I'll tell you, when I say it's like this positive psychology was waiting for me, it's because I found in all this information a way to worry less myself. That is to say, I told myself, "But in fact, yes, this is very useful to me." We're going to talk about all sorts of things. I'll tell you, I attribute being the way I am to being a third-generation Parisian. So in Paris, you're raised complaining about everything, grumbling about everything, criticizing everything. Not at all. And so that's my starting point. And so when I discover what psychology says, when I discover what psychology says, I tell myself, "Oh my, even I can bring some sunshine into this." And I think that's why today, when I talk about all this, people believe me, it's because I don't come saying, "I've always been positive. It's very easy." No, I know it's work, but I know it changes the experience. How do we measure, we talk about psychology, so understanding positive psychology, understanding what makes people happy. How do we measure the level of happiness? Are there tests to do? I'm not talking about the tests at the end of a magazine, but are there any serious tests we can do at home that can help us know where we stand on the happiness scale, each of you personally? Does that exist? Yes. And yes, and it was necessary to have them, because if I only talk about all this without you practicing it and having tested your happiness beforehand, you do something like what we'll talk about with the three joys, for example, and then your happiness level has progressed. So to know that it has progressed, you need to be able to evaluate it. So yes, for example, Oxford University has created a scale. So you answer about twenty questions, and at the end, it tells you your happiness score. Now, don't panic, just look at what it is. Of course, of course. And then you might want to try something else, even if it's just going for a run, seeing friends. What are the typical questions? The questions are: How do you feel in your environment? How do you perceive the people looking at you? What impact does that have on you? What is your level of satisfaction today? Yes. Yes. Personally. Right now, if I ask you on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you feel right now? So you can say it. We can ask you what your level of anger is right now. So again, from 1 to 10, you'll rate it, you'll tick something, and at the end, you'll have an average. On the Oxford scale, it goes from 1 to 6. And you absolutely must not panic. I really insist on that. Yes, yes. You find it? I'll try to find a link with the Community Manager team. We'll put the link in the episode description and in the YouTube video description, and then you can do it if you feel like it. How long does it take? It's not something that takes 4 hours. No, it's not something that takes 4 hours, but be careful, don't worry. Well, there you go. No, you shouldn't say, "Okay, it's a mirror, my God, I'm not happy." It's a snapshot in time. That's it, it's at the moment you answer it, and you can absolutely revisit it, and it will have changed. So don't forget that, and especially remember to revisit it. How are there signs to tell us that we are happy every day? Yes. How can you tell yourself, "Hey, I'm happy today"? Are there little signals that also make a person happy, you know? You work with people, you say, "Hey, he's happy." Or is there a contagion, you know, if you're in a good mood, if you say hello kindly to someone, if you're... we see it, we feel it, it starts from there. It's not so much a... Yes, in any case, when you feel it for yourself or when you are in contact with someone, there is something called mirror neurons. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, which is that, for example, if you look at a lemon, your mouth will start to water, you're just looking at a lemon. So your brain is connecting to the image of the lemon, and that triggers something. So if I arrive and you're in a great mood, and I'm in front of you, the same thing will happen, as if you were my lemon, and suddenly I feel happier because something in you is awakening it in me. So we have to surround ourselves with very smiling people. Uh, we also have to... if someone is not doing well, it's also worth feeling it because it's the same thing. We will go down with that person. I have a huge problem with that. It's that if someone is not well in the room, I feel it, and it brings me down. So you can possibly ask them if you see, if at a dinner table, you see someone is not well, I only see them. That's it. And you feel it, you feel it strongly. Yes. But well, we have to live with each other, so we have to get used to it. No one. My friends don't see it sometimes, I talk about it, I say, "Damn, didn't you see that so-and-so wasn't well?" And then I only focus on him or her and I want to connect, say "Are you okay?" We don't have the same sensitivity, you know. There's something called empathy, which is feeling what the other person feels. We don't have the same sensors. Yes, some are more sensitive than others, but in any case, because we are extremely, we are a species, it's called a social species. That is to say, we never function alone. Everything that happens in the room, as soon as there are people, it affects us. You say something very interesting in your book. You say we can't be happy alone. Yes. It's if you know when we want to punish people in prison, we put them in isolation. And what they describe, what absolutely all prisoners who have been in isolation describe, is that it's almost the worst thing that happened to them because, precisely, you have no mirror in front of you of humanity, and then you only talk to yourself in your head. So it's just impossible. But there's another reason. We talk about happiness, but we simply wouldn't want each other. A baby when it's born, a human baby is absolutely not ready to go. You know, when a calf is born, it gets up and goes to suckle its mother. Well, we don't at all, because it takes 2 years for the head to consolidate. But imagine if we had to give birth to children with 2-year-old heads, it would be very problematic. And at that point, the child at 2 years old would be born, would know how to walk, would come to suckle the breast, and so on. So because of that, we bring into the world babies who are all premature in terms of their autonomy, their ability to do things on their own. So they make themselves... they are very cute, they smell good. Why? So that we have the urge to take care of them, and that's how adults will take care of babies. So it's something that we have completely encoded. You and I, no matter how much we grow up, we always need others, always need someone. We live in groups, we survive because we are in groups. So that's really an encoding. We can't do without it. So that also works for happiness. So, are we unequal in the face of happiness? Are you and I really different, each in the studio here? We will be different at your place. Are we really different? Yes. First of all, we are... we are different in everything. In everything, that is to say, we really have a completely unique imprint that is very different. Yes. Totally different. There is no... well, there are identical twins, but otherwise we are all different, and it's true that we don't have the same starting capital for happiness. Is that scientific? Yes. Well, so when we say positive psychology, you imagine people in a room, it's called a psychology laboratory, people sitting around a table, and at that moment, maybe a researcher says, "Is happiness genetic? Is it something we are born with?" Hereditary, you mean? Well, yes, in any case, do we arrive, in fact, is there a heritage? You see, each of us arrives with a little box, and that will be happiness. So then, they have to ask themselves, "But how can we know something like that?" So they think. And here's the idea they had. They said, "We're going to find pairs of twins, identical twins. They are the same. So it's an egg that split in two. It's called monozygotic twins, that's what they're called. Except that these twins must have been separated at birth, adopted into different families. And we said it would be good if they were over 40 years old, so at least they've had experiences. You study twins who have different lives, but identical twins, or yes, who came from the same mother? They came from the same mother. It's the same egg, the same... they are identical twins, not fraternal twins. You're talking about identical twins. Yes, they are the real ones. Yes, but imagine, you have to find them, adopted, yes, who were separated and so on, and who have totally different lives. Yes. And who, for the most part, don't even know they have a twin, you see. And so some have been found. Yes. All of them have been found. So we looked in civil registry files, you see, you look at births and so on, and so the researchers went to meet them. They did several things. First, obviously, they asked a lot of questions, but above all, they measured their level of happiness, you see, by saying, "So they have different lives, they answer the same questions, well, the twins answer the same questions, and so we have different results." And there, what we observed, which was quite incredible, is that they don't know each other, they have different lives. 90% of them declare the same level of happiness as their counterpart. And sometimes in different social classes, they can find themselves in totally different families. Totally different. And so, the researchers, you see, are very happy. They say, "We've hit on something," and they publish in the scientific press, they say, "So, we've found happiness, it's genetic. You're born with something and it won't change." So, in the end, we say, "Yes, it's great" mathematically, but it's quite distressing because it means we would all arrive with something we can't modify. We stay like that for about 20 years, and 20 years later, these new researchers in positive psychology arrive, and what they say is, in fact, they turn things around and they say that 10% of these twins have exactly the same genetic makeup as the other. Yet they are happier or less happy. That's what's interesting. And what do they do? What happens? What is the reason that makes them happier or less happy? Because that's what gives us, those of us who don't have monozygotic twins, the hope of being happier one day. So, is happiness genetic or not? And how much does our life impact our happiness? Does our job, our family life, our personal private life impact it? What are the percentages? Well, that's the good question because, well, we've studied things a bit differently from that point on, and we know that this kind of... let's call it the little box we arrive with, so that's genetic makeup. Be careful, it's not hereditary. It doesn't come from your parents. You won't be like your parents. Yes. If your parents are very happy or not happy, it doesn't necessarily impact your happiness. We all know families where you have brothers and sisters, some are very happy, some have more difficulty being happy, parents, cousins, the same. Very unequal, it doesn't come from there. But so you do arrive with something that will condition, for half of it, your capacity to experience happiness. Just to explain it, we've all heard of dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, does that ring a bell? Molecules of happiness. These are neurotransmitters that travel in the brain and are indeed secreted when we feel good, and when we secrete them, we feel even better. So we don't all have the same amount of these liquids in our brain. That's what makes the difference. And so you meet people in your life for whom everything is great, you know, who have tons of energy and so on. Joyful, joyful all the time. No matter what happens to them, exactly. We have some in the team. They are great. Well, it's likely that there's a gene that does that, it's called 5HT. Well, their gene is longer than that of a person who doesn't smile all the time. Ah yes, those who are grumpy, they have less... they have a shorter gene. Yes. But that's interesting. It's a bit genetic. It's like being, for half of it. It's like being tall or short, blonde or brunette, you see. You will live with it, you will live very well with it. It's just your starting point. Excuse me. You say 50% of happiness is genetic. What about the next 50%? Well, that's what's most interesting. How do we become happy? What these studies have revealed, that's the biggest surprise, is that when you ask people, "What would it take for me to be happier?" we all have a huge list. We need more sun, we need more money, we need to be in love, we need to live elsewhere, we need to change jobs, we need to have a faster car, and so on. So these are external conditions, and in fact, external conditions will count for only 10% of our happiness, whereas we all imagine that if you change my life, I will be happier. In fact, it doesn't change much. It doesn't change much because I still have this center, which is very useful. We will really talk again about what allows us in moments of great misfortune, what this center, these 50% represent, it allows us to recover our happiness. But so there's only 10%? So yes, sometimes you have to change circumstances. There's 10% of, you see, it's a tiny bit. That's why sometimes people say money doesn't buy happiness, your job, etc., it's not necessarily... well, sometimes you have to change. Be careful, it doesn't mean we don't touch anything. Having a fulfilling professional life, we are still happier. Having money, we are happier. Let's stop pretending. I think it allows us to be happier. It's not why it makes us happy. It allows us to be. Exactly. Do you know what it allows? A change. We love changes. Like what I said earlier, when it's bad weather and then suddenly it's nice. At that time, you have like a boost of happiness. An increase, for example, it makes you happy very temporarily. Oh really? Yes. And that's the story, you've increased. So that's what I'm saying. Hop, you reach that level you had set for yourself. So you're super happy. And then very quickly, you'll get used to it. And so what will you have to do? Well, more and more, and that's it, like a drug. Yes, like a drug, we get used to everything. We need more and more of everything. Well, I can tell you there's good news behind that when it comes to getting used to everything, and that is that when something great happens, that's the bad news, it's wonderful, but we'll get used to it. So it will lose its flavor. For example, when you fall in love, that's what happens, you're super happy. So you really have like a surge. If I saw you again 6 or 7 years later, I'd say "How are you, Guillaume?" and you'd say "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Whereas when I saw you 10 years ago, butterflies in your stomach, exactly, that won't last. But if something very difficult happens to us, and that's where it's interesting, is that obviously it will be terrible to live through, and we will go through it, but we will return to our happiness center, just like we can also get used to it, you see. We will also get used to it, and well, we will return to that happiness center that is ours. So that's what ultimately allows us to have a fairly stable experience while living through all sorts of variations. But we are sure to return to that level that we know well. In fact, the story of the increase is interesting, which means that as a child, we often say children are happier than adults. You see them, I... we had already talked about it with doctors here who told us that one, I won't say the wrong numbers, but I think it was around that figure, a child laughs 200 times a day. An adult between 10 and 20. Yes. Yes. Real bursts of laughter. So in fact, we don't laugh much, but a child, 200 times a day, their mind is much less full than ours, meaning they have many fewer worries. And then what's fantastic about their brain when they're very young is that they have protections, they have the same antennas as us, but there's like a chemical protection that means they don't pick up everything. So obviously, they won't be as overwhelmed as we are. But be careful, that doesn't mean we were all happier. We laugh a lot more as children, that's absolutely certain. But there are also many people who are much happier as adults than they were as children because they have a sense of control over something. We said 50% genetic, 10% about our life circumstances, an increase, etc. That leaves 40% missing. What are the missing 40% to have a lot of happiness in our lives? Well, that's the most interesting part because that's what we have control over. Genetics, you don't have control over. Circumstances, it's complicated to change them. We can a little bit. And so the last 40%... I make this gesture because I consider it to be truly what we have in our hands, it's the behaviors we choose to adopt and the interpretation we make when something happens. So when something happens, either you can say, "Okay, it's the end of the world." Or you can say, "Ah, it's a bit of a blockage, I was supposed to go this way, well, you know what? I'll go this way." That's an interpretation, in fact. Exactly. In any case, to perceive each moment, you see, you can look at something. The glass half full, the glass half empty. Some always see the glass half empty. You have to see the glass half full. Yes. Or what's in the carafe is even more interesting. And that's what you teach in your books. Well, that's exactly what I talk about in my books. I talk about how we arrived at these conclusions and what the conclusions are. Because once you hear about this, when you're in a really difficult situation, you say, "Ah, but wait, if I look at it differently? If I tell myself, in a year, will it still matter as much?" I realize it won't matter as much, and so that lightens the load immediately. So yes, there.

There are many ways to pilot a little differently the way you feel. Yes, it's always telling yourself we could have it worse, to put things into perspective. Ultimately, that's putting things into perspective. So, look, that's super interesting. If I tell you, uh, Guillaume, what are you happy to have in your life? You'll give me a list, you'll have to think a bit, but you'll get there. Now, if I tell you, Guillaume, what are you happy *not* to have in your life? I'm happy not to live in Ukraine. I'm happy not to be sick. I'm happy. Here, the list is much longer and much quicker to make. So yes, you see, the negative and the positive will always allow us to realize that ultimately, where we are is still quite nice. There is what is called perma per, so positive. There you go, so that's on positive emotion, positive positive emotion, engagement, uh, relationships, meaning, accomplishment, if you'd like to explain them. Positive emotion. Well, emotions, that's really positive emotions. It's joy, attachment, love, creativity, laughter. So it's about experiencing positive emotions. Engagement, that's extremely interesting, it's that we need to contribute, to do something that serves a purpose. We need to be part of a human group. That's why when we say working, it's just working to earn a living. That's not true. When we work, we create something, we contribute to something. So that's something we absolutely need. Meaning, it's finding meaning in what we do, that is to say, what it's for. Now, it's not so much the meaning of life, but what we really recommend is to find meaning in all the little things. One day, perhaps, many people die without ever knowing what the meaning of their life was, because it's a question that is far too vast. You have to tell yourself, today I'm going to do my shopping. What's the meaning of doing my shopping? Well, I don't know, I'm going to feed my family, that's it, you see. There are all these little things that will allow you to say, I know what it's for. The most important thing, you know, we did a study on Harvard students who graduated in 1937. President John F. Kennedy was part of that graduating class, and we asked, there were only men at the time, we said to them, "Do you agree to answer a questionnaire every year about your happiness level?" So they do that, they answer every year, and then after about thirty years, the researcher who launched this study, because what we want is to measure their happiness throughout their lives, until their death, in fact. They committed to answering this thing every year, once a year. So the researcher who started it is going to retire, he's been there a long time. So he retires, and then the young researchers arrive and say to him, "Well, now it's been 30 years that you've been sifting through all these questionnaires. What have you learned about what makes people happy?" And he says, "I know everything about their lives, everything, everything." And I can tell you, there's one thing that makes the difference between those who are happy and those who are not, and that is love. And when he says love, he's not talking about romantic or family relationships, he's talking about the way we behave and what we feel towards each other. So that's where, when we have relationships, it's precisely that, it's that relationships with our loved ones are absolutely what makes the quality of our lives. So that's it, we can't do without it, we are always social creatures. Accomplishment. That's doing things, it's achieving things, after all. Yes. To fulfill oneself, to create, to have an intention and to see it realized. We love that. We've created tools, we've made fire. I mean, you see, we've always been creating things. To accomplish oneself. To accomplish oneself. It can be in every sense of the word. Every sense of the word. You want a cabin in your garden, you build a cabin in your garden, that's already an accomplishment. Absolutely. If everyone wants something and you do it, you cook a meal. You cook a meal. You've accomplished something. You say that it's control over our lives that makes us happy, in discussing this. Can it lead us to live, I'm talking about health, a little bit of a digression if you like, but can it lead us to live longer? Yes, there are, there are, well, what will lead us to live longer, there are two things we've observed. One is optimism. Now, to define what optimism is, it's not saying that things will end well. It's not that. It's also saying that I myself have an impact on how things will end, you see. So that means I have an influence on how things will end. So people who show optimism, because you're not optimistic or pessimistic. There are times when you exercise, you show optimism, and then the next day you can be pessimistic. You see, we can completely change our minds. But if I tell myself that what I do has an impact on my life, for example, these people will take their medication more regularly than those who say, "It's useless anyway, all of this, and what I do is useless, etc." So they will live longer. And then there's another thing that's quite incredible because it's an emotion that has been shown to allow us to live longer. Because, do you want me to tell you? You're going to talk about gratitude? Yes, I'll talk especially about the nuns. Ah yes, the nuns' experiment. Gratitude is super interesting. For me, preparing the show, it completely changed me. It marked me. I even talked about it to my parents. I talked about it to my whole family. I find gratitude fascinating, and how it can make you live longer. Yes. So gratitude, it's when something nice happens in your life, it's a pleasure. You say, "Well, that's nice." We can't accumulate pleasures. In fact, you see, it's a sensation that doesn't accumulate. It's in the moment. So we want, in order to prepare for more difficult things or to feel more fulfilled by pleasant things. Uh, so gratitude is what will allow us to fill ourselves up with pleasant things as we go along. And you know what it consists of? It's very simple. Something nice happens, and instead of stopping there, I say thank you. Now, it can be thank you to someone, it can be thank you to life, it can be thank you to a higher power if that's part of your beliefs, but you say, "I'm lucky, this thing that's happening to me, what's happening to me, thank you for that." So that's gratitude. Saying thank you to your parents. Well, yes, you can, but you were somewhere and you say, "Thank you." I'm having a great time with you. Thank you for that. I could also pass by and not say it. And when I say it to you, it's even more powerful. It might make you uncomfortable because we're not always at ease when someone says, "Thank you for being here, thank you for being you," etc. But in any case, if you felt it, if I feel it, the impact it will have, here's how we measured it. We say that again, a question in the laboratory, people around a table say, "Does feeling gratitude, having the impulse to say thank you, allow us to live longer?" When you want to do studies on living longer, you have to find people who live the same way, who eat the same things, who get up at the same time. There are too many factors that make us live better, live better. Smoking, alcohol, what you eat, stress, lack of sleep. Exactly. Exactly. Children, for example. So, so we said, let's take people who don't have children, super things that can make us sleep less, that disrupt us. So we want people who have exactly the same lifestyle. So where do we look? Well, we've already said it, but we found them in, yes. in a convent, because there you have women who have the same lifestyle, who eat the same things, who sleep at the same time, same time, well, I don't know if they sleep the same thing, I don't know, maybe they go to bed later, but more or less the same, they don't have children, and they are married to the same man, so it's completely ideal. And there, what we do is that in, in a specific convent, and in this convent, for 150 years, every time a young woman arrives, she's asked to write a letter, a sort of little biography. She writes a little text that tells her story. We give this box of 150 years of letters to semanticists. A semanticist is someone who works on vocabulary. And we say to them, "In these letters, can you quantify, so give a score to the fact that these young women expressed gratitude or wonder?" So if you have one who says, "My name is Elisabeth, I grew up on a farm, we had a dog and a tractor." Well, but if you have another who says, "My name is Caroline and I met the Lord at the age of 15. I can't wait to dedicate my life to serving others, you see, we don't have quite the same atmosphere in the letter." So they do that, they quantify how many there are. And then we have another box. And in this other box, there are all the medical records of these women. So what illnesses they had. And for those who have already died, at what age they died and from what. And we compare the two, and we realize that those who lived the longest were those who, in these letters written at 19 or 20 years old, showed the most wonder. So at that point, we say that being able to feel wonder and therefore to be thankful will have an impact on our health. We've even managed to determine for everything, you mean? Yes. Well, not for everything, but when something good happens, no, not for everything, it's impossible. But you have people, look, you arrive at a metro platform if you live in Paris. So the metro arrives at the same time as you. Either you say nothing, or you say, "Great, thank you." You see, there, you're in expression, well, you've just felt something, and that, you have to say it, gratitude. Should it be expressed? There are many, there are many levels. No, it can be in your head. That's level 1. Level 2, you say it to someone. White belt, is that it? It's like in judo. So yellow belt, you say it to someone. And this is something, for example, that I've implemented since I discovered all this. I found it so incredible that it could allow us to live longer that I wanted to teach it to my children. So it's something we started doing at the table where, so that's the level where everyone says, "Ah well, yes, I, it's interesting, that for you, you pass on, you teach gratitude to children." It teaches them to be, yes. Because I learned this at the age of 45. I tell myself that I can perhaps save them time and teach them this a little earlier. So, so of course, and we do that at the table, in fact. So what do you tell them at the table? Well, I called them "kiffs" (joys). That's what the kiffs are. It was to not bore them too much, because if I went and told them, "Here's gratitude," they were pre-teens at the time. So they were what? At that time, they were between 13 and 6 years old. Okay. So, so I said, if we find some "kiffs" today, we'll be able to live longer. So we tried, and in fact, we started doing that, and we became, we became better because at the beginning it's not completely obvious, especially growing up in Paris, so, it's something that you have to, that you have to train for. So, we did it, my children are also adults today, and what amazes me about them is that they are truly capable of enjoying and marveling at the life they have, not all the time. But it has happened that at different times, each of them thanks us for being their parents. Well, just when that happens once, it's completely amazing. It's not constant, I assure you. We are a perfectly normal family, and things go wrong, there are times when it's better, like in all families, we've lived through it. It's still great. And it is, and it is, and it is super important when you have a child, you want them to realize how lucky they are to be there, how lucky they are to meet Santa Claus, you see, you want them to, wait, you realize, you have to realize that. It's a chance to see someone, it's a chance to go somewhere, I took you to Disney. It's still a chance, not everyone can go. Do you know why else? Because, so, so I was at the yellow belt. After the next level is writing it. So you see, your kiffs, you make the list on your bedside table in the evening with your children, you tell them, "Here, let's write down the moments you have." Now, when they are little, you see, if they don't write, and they won't write right away, when you put them to bed, you ask them, "What are the three nice things that happened to you today?" And they'll think about it, and it works for us too when we write them down. Really. But yes, it works because, you know why, it's proven that their sleep will be deeper, that they will sleep longer. You're getting very interested, many of you who had trouble sleeping normally at night with children, for children and even for us, because otherwise we go to bed with our anxieties. But if you ask yourself what are three things, even on the worst days, what are three things for which I feel gratitude, we will sleep longer, we will sleep more deeply. So that's what's miraculous, in fact. So you make them say before sleeping the three moments, from what age does that work, because I have the impression that with a 5-year-old child, he will, he will, he will give me just one thing, and that's already good. And that's already good. That's already great. I meet a lot of families, you know, who tell me, "Well, at our place, we have a jar, and when the children are older, we ask them to write things down, they put them in every evening, and then at the end of the year or at Christmas, we empty the jar onto the table and we go over everything that everyone has noted in the family." That's great. And you, so you introduce into your family the fact that the nice things that happen to us, it's really, it's like our heritage, you see. And it's, and it's something, everyone opens the jar. Yes. Everyone opens the jar, and you, and you reread, you remember all the kiffs you had. That's it. That's it. And then another thing that's fantastic with gratitude is that if you do, they call it doing kiffs, right? You're around a table, every time someone else says something that you hadn't thought of, it adds one to your list. You see, if you say, "Ah well, today I received a text from my wife, it made me very happy." I can say, "Ah, but I also received a text from my boyfriend, but I hadn't put it on my list. So, hop, you have, you have more." So it's transitive, in fact. So it's quite brilliant. By the way, can I tell an anecdote about your husband? If you want. Yes, if you want. He's my husband, he's my gratitude partner. It's with him that we put all this in place. So your husband produced the series "Le Bureau des Légendes" (The Bureau of Legends). "Le Bureau des Légendes," which he gave me, his name is Alex Berger. We send him big hugs. For a little anecdote, "Le Bureau des Légendes," he gave me a poster that I had in the only office we had at the very beginning. We only had one small office, and we were looking for a name for the media. We were three, and how can we name the media? We were looking for a name that spoke to us, that had meaning, and so on. And these are very difficult meetings because the name is one of the hardest things to find when you have a project. We agree, even for a book it's very hard. And in fact, I had "Le Bureau des Légendes." I had this poster in front of me in the office. So I only saw that, and I had the face of a boy in front of me, big hugs, and there was just the E, the S, so "Le Bureau des Légendes," and I saw "Légende" written. And in fact, it's following, a gift that your husband sent, and I didn't know it was your husband when you arrived here. I really discovered it in makeup. And so for the anecdote, your husband sent the poster, and that's how we found the name. So if he hadn't sent a poster, there might have been another name on it. It's funny, though. I wanted to share the anecdote because it's real, it exists, it's quite crazy. There you go. I can tell you what this illustrates in terms of happiness, because it's brilliant. There are people who work on luck. What does it mean to be lucky? And in fact, it's not that we are luckier than someone else. I'm not talking about winning the lottery. I mean, even to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket. So, you know, you have to go for it. But a story as simple as this, where in fact what Alex did is that, basically, lucky people are people who do things and put themselves in situations. Alex and you, you met, I don't know how you met, in a café. In a café. Okay, and he sends you, he sends you this poster. So it's something that he, you see, that he does. You receive the thing, and in fact, from this completely trivial gesture, something will emerge because it will inspire you, it will change your life, but also because you looked up and you saw people at the moment it happened, and it completely illustrates that it happens constantly in our lives. It's like the metro arriving on time, these little things, but someone will do something with it, or we'll see it pass by and not pay attention. And so there are many incidents like this that are positive incidents and accidents that make life richer. Do you believe in signs from life? Sometimes we have the impression that the planets are aligning, we see something, we think of something, we see a sign with a word, I don't know. It's happened to all of us, we're driving, we see something, we say, "Wait, I was just thinking about that." Something happens, they talk about it, you hear it on the radio, it's about the subject. You see what I mean? Synchronicities, yes, that's pretty much what I prefer in life. That is to say, I've decided that every time I see identical twins, for example, in the street, it's a sign that something is accompanying me and wishes me well. And in fact, once you tell yourself that, once I tell myself that, there are many pairs of twins in the street, whereas before, I didn't see many. I love that, but you know what that is too? The S, which we were talking about earlier, the M, the meaning. We need, so we are a mortal species. We will all die. And because of that, we need to find some meaning, precisely, we are going to die, okay, but in the meantime, what makes us die? What is the greater power than us? And so when we see these little things, in fact, if we... I can talk for 4 hours about this. We are telling ourselves this and finding meaning. It's much nicer when you live with things like that. It's much nicer for you. Yes, we are looking for something. Yes. It's good to think that there is something behind it too, to think, "I am perhaps here for a purpose, etc." Have you asked yourself, the "why" you were here? I'll tell you, why I'm here. I really tell you, I tend to focus more on the "why" I'm here at this moment, because otherwise it goes through work, it goes through love, it goes through many things. But in any case, it's nice to ask yourself such frank questions. How to train our brain to be happy? I listened to an episode of "Légende" which says that it's not a muscle, but that our brain is a sum of small connections like that. So what we can do is create these connections voluntarily. And that's exactly what you just described. Moments of synchronicity, noticing them, that feels good. Exercising, that feels good. That is to say, it makes all our juices flow up there, and in fact, this incredible head that allows us to feel all these things, it's placed on a machine that we have to maintain, and we have to make the heart beat like that, the blood goes up, and everything circulates better. So feeling gratitude, exercising. Also, what we eat, we know that now. We can write down things that what we eat makes us happy. Well, what we eat makes us unhappy, rather. Yes, it's more, it's more, it's more in the negative. The way we pay attention to others, the moments of concentration we give ourselves, all of that, these are ways to connect all these neurons up there that make us feel good. So yes, we can, we can play on that. Is concentration, you know, we've all experienced, maybe not yet for you, and I don't wish it for you, but a breakup that hurts, we're sad, or for another reason, I don't know, something serious, you're sad. Some people drown themselves in work, some will drown themselves in alcohol, others will drown themselves in work. And does concentrating, being in a work tunnel, no longer thinking about anything else, allow us to be happier or at least less unhappy for periods? In what you describe, clearly it allows us to be less unhappy, but I prefer to always turn things around. In what way does concentration make us happier? I'll explain to you how. So there's a truly incredible study where they ask people, for 20 years, to equip people with a small device on their waist, and the device vibrates. At that moment, you have to stop, you have to say how you feel on a scale of 1 to 10 and describe what you are doing. So this is sent back to researchers. So it lasts 20 years. So there are hundreds of thousands of moments like that. They only keep the ones that were rated 8, 9, or 10 out of 10. So the moments when people were truly happy, and what they did was try to model, to compare everything that these moments had in common. And in fact, what these moments had in common is that people at that moment were totally concentrated on what they were doing. They knew what it was for. They knew for whom they were doing it. And concentration at that moment meant they stopped talking to themselves. Because you may have noticed that in your head, I'm talking to you now, but you're also talking to yourself and telling yourself things and you're replaying your day and you're saying you're hungry. No, I'm focused on what you're telling me. Wait, for that matter, I am focused. So if that's you and me, the show, we have to, because when we have a guest who is talking about a subject, I have to think about what we're going to talk about next, but also about what you're saying so that I can react and follow you. I'm following you here, but I also need to know where we're going. That's why I sometimes look concentrated like that. It's just that I'm wondering, you know, where it's going to end to have a logical continuation. Yes, so you're already talking to yourself, but never mind, we're really concentrated. But here, we're having a totally natural discussion because it's a subject that touches all of us, I think, happiness, and being happy. So in any case, as we're telling each other lots of stories, in these moments of hyper-concentration, in fact, we stop talking to ourselves. And that's what makes you suddenly look up and say, "Wow, an hour has already passed." You know, the famous moments where you say, "Time flew by," those are the moments when you were actually the happiest. That is to say, if I asked you at that time to rate how you feel, you would probably give a 10. So that's how concentration truly makes us happy in the moment. Which obviously questions what we do with our phones, the solicitations we have. We talked about, we'll talk about it, or the fact of being on social media for a long time for nothing. There are some terms, some anglicisms. You'll see. We'll talk about it. There's something very interesting that you're saying, you, because one of the levers for being happy is to have positive thoughts. You've been saying that all along, but you also say in your book that we are programmed. That's it, you might recognize yourselves or see people, we are programmed to see the negative first, and we will like conflict in some cases. That's super interesting. Why are we programmed to see the negative? Well, the very first thing to remember is that we are all the same. So, by listening to me, don't say, "Yes, but then she's positive and all that." First of all, that's false, because I explained that I wasn't. I'm as absurd as everyone else. To survive, we must perceive danger. You see, we are wired like that, and that's why we are still here. That is to say, humans are, yes, we are still here despite everything that has happened. And and that's why when we say in 20 years, in 30 years, we won't be here anymore. Frankly, we have already survived incredible things. We can imagine that we will still survive the next 30 years. Yes, but we're at an atomic bomb away from being here. It's different from 2000 years ago. Well, you had a dinosaur that was going to eat your whole village, you see. So, an angry guy, an angry guy, a red button, and it can launch something. Yeah, but an angry dinosaur, and you don't have the red button, and you see. And well, anyway, that's not the question. The question is that to survive, we must perceive what could happen. So we have to be quite vigilant. So everything that is negative makes much more noise in our heads than what is positive. So I'll give you an example. If, I don't know, I work with you, I arrive on Monday morning and I say to you, Guillaume, how are you? Did you have a good weekend? You'll say, "Yes, great." I'll say, "Okay, great week." Now, if I arrive and I say, Guillaume, did you have a good weekend? And you say, "You can't imagine the hell." I'll say, "Oh really? Go on, tell me." You see, that's really why sensationalist press, what they put on television every night. Yes, the taste of blood on social media. Oh, did you see what he said? Did you see what he did? But the news, the news is absolutely disastrous. Why? So that we stay hooked to it, and we stay hooked to it. If I said that if you're only given good news, many people have tried to create media that were only good news. In fact, it's not very catchy. So that's the starting point. After that, we need good news, it feels good. So sometimes we put news on Instagram, "Légende." It feels good to have good news. Absolutely. But you see, it's always the contrast. So what that means is that it's our nature. So anyway, we'll do it. We don't need to force ourselves to see the negative things. But once you learn, that's what I learned, once you learn that if you start to see the beautiful things too, then your experience is much more pleasant. So we are intelligent enough to be able to decide at some point to say, "Yes, well, I'll also look at what's going well." We like conflict. Some people feel more alive, more alive, not wanting, but more alive by having conflicts, and some of them will even secrete these neurotransmitters because they will, you see, to be able to...

to struggle and perhaps gain something, and so they are happy. We all know some, we all know some. You can send this little excerpt to friends you know. Ah, you see, I told you, look, is it because in France we complain more than elsewhere? Yes. So, there are, there are, there are very, very French phenomena, and one of the explanations is that we come from a very intellectual civilization. And it's true that if you look at the development of France in the arts, in literature, we really have antecedents of people like that, very sharp. And indeed, for example, when we decided who the teachers were, when we wanted to generalize schooling, because it was Richelieu who decided to generalize schooling, we took people who were good at spelling. If you had good spelling, you became a teacher, and so that's what became the norm. So we are really into very intellectual things. Which means that, unlike Americans, if I tell you something and you go, you're going to think about it and you're going to contest my point because if you don't contest it, you feel like you're not thinking about what I'm telling you. You seem smarter by not agreeing. Exactly. You seem smarter if you oppose what you're told. So, by default, we'll say no, and then sometimes in debates, they say no, not at all, when in fact, yes. When, when, yes. So we feel like we're much smarter if we're against it. Exactly. Exactly. Whereas Americans, everything is great, you know, and you talk to them about something, they talk to you about something, and they find it, you know, everyone finds it great. We see things. Yeah, Parisians complain more than others. Are Parisians less happy than the rest of the population? Well, believe it or not, complaining contributes to their happiness. I'll tell you a secret. I did my studies in the United States, in California, so we're in the temple of "everything is fine." I met Alex in California, my husband, and my husband isn't completely American. So he's half American, but he's half French, which saved me because I don't think I could have fallen in love with a 100% American. After 5 years there, I actually started to get bored because Americans don't have this sense of humor, at least the ones I knew don't have this really critical sense of humor that we have here in Paris, you know, where in fact, you never laugh at someone else. We always laugh at someone else, in fact. That's sort of the principle, but it makes us laugh. So, and I told myself, actually, I'm going to get bored. I don't want to raise my children in a place where everyone is, where everyone is super. So, in fact, we moved back to France and we never left. Your question is, are Parisians happy? Yes, Parisians are happy because this practice we have, well, yes, that's how we're happy, that's how we are among ourselves. It doesn't mean we're mean, it means it's our language. Now, I'm going to use some precise figures if you don't mind, from a French national survey, Ipsos 2026. 75% of French people declare themselves happy. I'll specify, 75% of French people declare themselves happy on an individual level. 71% in 2024, so it's gone up a bit already. Why are we happier than 2 years ago? Do you see this curve going up? So, what makes us happier? Because the news isn't exceptional either. No, it's a bit more complicated than that because during that time, other people have been measuring happiness, measuring the happiness of all countries in the world, and France has lost more points. We're tumbling down. Yeah. Yeah. That is to say, we are now in 46th position. 10 years ago, 10 years ago, we were in 20th. You see, we're going down in all the rankings except for crime, which, or other surveys, are exploding. No, but it's true. And otherwise, the rest of the rankings on pleasure, the happiest people, etc., we're tumbling down on all of them. Now, on the comparison. Yes, but what you're saying is very interesting because on an individual level, because here, basically, we're asking, are we happier in France? So people, well, nationally, we're going down, you see. We've had many people come to talk about it, the level of national education is dropping drastically. We're going down on many points, which is a bit scary. Moreover, even being optimistic, I'm telling you, it's still strange because if we keep going down, at some point, we'll find ourselves at the bottom of the rankings, next to more complicated countries. Now, if you can look at it that way, or you can say, at least it leaves room for improvement, meaning we'll be able to, we'll be able to climb back up. Yes. But just the difference, you say 75% of French people, this 10 euros on an individual level, it was 72. So, it's gone up. Another French characteristic identified by these people who measure happiness in countries all over the world is that in France, there's a huge difference between our perception of collective happiness, meaning "Oh dear, everything is going wrong," and our individual happiness, we realize that things are actually going well. So there's really a difference between the two. If it's collective, we complain about the government, about national education, about everything you described. We complain about taxes, about everything. But if I ask you, "But you, you Guillaume, in your life, you say, well, yeah, I'm doing okay." So it's a paradox. And according to the World Happiness Report, France ranks 35th, 35th globally, compared to 33rd place in 2025. So we have, and 27th in 2024. So, in fact, we are losing quite a few places in a short time. Yes. Yes. And we started at 20, it started in 2005. In 2005, we were 20th. And so, but you know, yes. But that also means that other countries are progressing. Finland, for example, is the happiest country in the world for the 9th consecutive year. Here, in the ranking, if I look at the figures, why are the Nordic countries, there are quite a few at the top, why are they happier than us? Is there a scientific explanation? You see, it's interesting because well, sometimes we say you need light and sun to be happy. Well, here's the proof that no, because they are much further north than us, and there's much less light, especially in winter, there's none at all. There's something different, and it's not me saying this. It's really people from these Scandinavian countries who live in systems where things are much less taken care of than in France. So, in France, we talked about taxes, education, all that is taken care of. Garbage is collected by the city, it's taken care of. You see, it's not you or me, the citizens, who will manage the problem of garbage collection. In Nordic countries, it's different. If a neighborhood decides that the garbage isn't collected properly, they consult and organize the garbage collection system. At school, it's not like here. You go to the opera, we, possibly someone will take your coat and put it in a cloakroom. You have two people who will guard the cloakroom during the entire performance so that no one steals your coat. When you go to the opera in Finland or Denmark, you hang your coat on a hook and go in, and no one guards your coat. People don't steal each other's coats. So, the way it's explained is that we, in fact, have a certain powerlessness regarding social security, regarding education. You see, we don't feel capable of going against these large organizations. So, we are more passive, and when you are more passive, you are less happy. And when you are active and you have a, it's called, I'm sorry for the word, it's called agency. Well, it would translate to "agencement," which means nothing. But when you have power over something, you feel more capable and you are happier. If, if I take what you're saying, in fact, we are a bit too assisted in certain areas from that point of view. Yes, from that point of view. Yes. From the point of view of having the feeling of being able to make a difference. Yes, because neither you nor I can make a difference on social security. You see, you talk about, in a nursing home, you say if you give two groups in a nursing home, one group a plant they will have to water, which they will have to take care of daily, with precise schedules for waking up, for eating, etc. Unlike another group that will have nothing to do and will be completely assisted, you say that the group that will take care of the plant and will have, in fact, a daily rhythm where they are in control, they are less assisted, will live longer. Yes. As soon as you give a group the possibility to change the furniture in their room as they wish, to take care of a green plant, then they are responsible for being responsible for something, especially when you say, "We're doing nothing for you," and conversely, you tell the others, "Don't touch anything, we'll take care of everything, and we'll water the plant." Well, we did this in two wings of different nursing homes, and in the wing where people took care of their plants and had the freedom to move their furniture, 18 months later, there were, I think, 30% fewer deaths, meaning 30% more people were still alive because they were taking care of this green plant, and it lasted for another 18 months. So, the fact of being responsible for something, and this is important for the elderly, because we have such a tendency to do things for them, thinking it's difficult, we'll do it for them, but in fact, we're not helping them. We're not helping them, on the contrary, because the more it is, the more horrible it is to have diminished capacities. So, as long as you still have the capacity to exercise them, it continues. You mean if Grandma clears the table, you should let her clear it. Exactly. Exactly. No, but it's things like that. I'll say, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, I'll do it," but in fact, no, you have to let her do it. You have to honor the fact that she can still do it, you see. That she still does it. It's very important for all of us. We don't want people to do things for us. I'm not carrying groceries either, you know. But, but yes, in any case, the things she can do, yes. Let her do them. Yes. You have gratitude dinners. I was talking about, at one point, you said, "I have gratitude dinners." Talking about gratitude before, I forgot to mention it before talking about faith and 9/11. We're really going to get into very different subjects. What are your gratitude dinners? Well, it's what I described earlier with our children, but in XXL version. That is to say, by dint of doing this little ritual of "kifs" at the table, we started involving our friends, other members of our family, and so on, and we decided, now, it's been 20 years that it's been going on, once a year, we get together. So it's a table where there are 22 of us because beyond that, there's no more room to sit. I already have a nice group. Yes. Well, then, we add more tables, and so on. We cook. So we're going to eat, we're going to drink. Anyway, it's going to be a great evening. But especially, it's more or less the same group. It's a chosen family, I call it that. And we'll do a round where everyone will give us their three "kifs," meaning their three reasons for gratitude for the year. And we cry, we laugh, these are very, very personal things that people will share. And because there's this incredible transitivity, it's like you're watching a series. You turn on a series, it's your episode of the year, and you see these people who have evolved, you see their pain, you see their joy, and so on, and no one would miss it. I have to book it 5 months in advance because no one wants to miss that evening. Well, that's extraordinary. Everyone shares three moments, three things. Yes. That they are happy about. But do they do one, and you do a round of the table? Then you come back for the three. You do the three. Yes. Yes. You do the three, and then you pass the word to someone else, and so it circulates like that. So you prepare in advance. Well, the topics, at least, it can happen. Since I'm the organizer, I do what I want, and so from time to time, I change the rules just when everyone arrives. So they've thought about it beforehand, but in fact, you have people who will think about it starting from 15 days before, saying, "Wow, the games at the table like that when you're with friends," or themed dinners, so to speak. That's great. You know, at Harvard, there's a researcher who developed 24 questions to create instant friendship. So, instead of saying, "What do you do for a living?" "Go on, tell me," etc. If you ask someone, "When was the last time you cried?" and the person is willing to answer, you'll get a much more authentic answer than if you talk about what you do, etc. And so he developed and tested these questions. And so these are things we can do with friends, we can do especially with people we meet for the first time. You know, I've had occasions to distribute questions like that in a group, and you have to go and ask the question you have on your paper to someone you don't know, and in fact, an almost immediate intimacy is created. So yes, doing things with your group of friends or people you don't know is very, very rich. Yes. What is this test called? It's, it's the 24 questions. The researcher's name is Arthur something. They are quite well-known. If you look for them. They are the 24 questions that provoke intimacy. We find them very interesting. When you say people who have faith are happier. Yes, that's a finding when you have faith. And when I talk about faith, it's really about feeling that there's a greater order than us. So it's not just religious, you see. It's not just belonging to a religion. It's really this inner feeling that people experience. Well, you have an explanation for everything. That is to say, in fact, you, it might not be the right term, but you submit to the fact that there is this higher power. So it's as if you have almost fewer decisions to make. So it's calmer because you know why things are there. So when we question people who have faith compared to people who don't, yes, they declare that life is lighter for them than for those who don't. It's just an observation. But faith can be, you see, a spirituality that you create, once again. It's not about belonging to one religion or another, but indeed, if you have an answer to the universe, because that's what it is, then you are less burdened than if you don't. Olivier Bonasser, who released a book that came out some time ago on God, science, ordeal, and came on the show, and he said, it's a bit like getting on a train, you wake up, well, you wake up and you say, "Wait, I don't remember, I didn't understand where we came from." And you go to everyone on the train. "Excuse me, where are we going?" Nobody knows. And where are we going? Nobody knows, and nobody is worried. It's as if we were all on a train, not knowing where we were going. And believing in God, or believing in something, allows you to give meaning to the train. Exactly. After all, believe what you want, but that's what it was, it's a beautiful metaphor, I find it good. It's very, precisely, it's very well played, and you understand that if you know where your train is going, or if you let yourself be carried by the train, you think there are many other things you don't need to decide. You see, you are less burdened, in fact. Earlier, you were talking about how gratitude can increase lifespan. By the way, we were talking about 9/11 and the survivors, and you said it could help recover from trauma. So, what researchers did was, 5 years after 9/11, they went to see the families of the victims. Of those who were, yes. Yes. Yes. So, because their intention was to see how and who had recovered, you know, what life was like for these people 5 years later. So, indeed, they noticed that there were families or people for whom things had moved on, and others for whom it was still extremely frozen. And so they looked for the differences between these different families, and what they found was that in families where gratitude was already present, meaning these were people who naturally, or because they had worked on it, were able to see a tiny sprout growing in a field of ruins, they had more ease in getting back on track. What I haven't said yet is that the idea of positive psychology, when Seligman had this idea, was to imagine preventive psychology, just like nutrition can be preventive. You know, if there are things you eat more or less of, your body will behave better in the long run and will probably be in better health. He wanted to do that, he wanted to understand that psychologically, because anyway, we're going to, what I call, get hit by buses. You ask for nothing, and life serves you fireballs like that. So, since we're going to get hit, are there things we can do beforehand, when life is relatively calm, so that when things turn upside down, we will have already activated things within us that will help us recover more, I don't know, easily, quickly, with less pain, etc. And that's how we demonstrate that gratitude, if you practice it with your children, with your friends, with your colleagues, etc., when something happens, I'm not saying if unfortunately, because once again, it happens all the time, when something happens to you, you'll be better trained, more resilient. That's a word that's a bit in vogue, but it's the ability to endure without breaking. It's the rubber that snaps back into place. That's it. To get back into place. To be able to endure while continuing to be there, and that's it. And to accept the shock without ever breaking. Now, I've seen that our state of mind can make our body younger. Is that true, does the way we think make our body younger? Yes, you're right. Two things can make us younger. The way we think about our body and the way others think about our body. Very interesting. So, we confined gentlemen between 70 and 80 years old to a holiday center, and we decorated everything as it was 20 years before. Okay. So when they were 50 or 60 years old. This happened in the 1970s. So we have a 1950s decor. And during this week, it lasted exactly one week, during this week, they were only supposed to talk about what they were like 20 years before, as mechanics, booksellers, whatever. They played the game of pretending. "I'm a mechanic," even though they had been retired for 20 years. Exactly. And they read magazines from that era, etc. Before they came in, we took all their measurements. We measured their blood pressure, their hearing, their vision, everything, everything, everything physiological, their heart rate, etc. And they lived like that for a week, zero mirrors in the house. Zero mirrors, they don't see themselves. They don't see themselves. And so they lived like that, they listened to the music of the time, let's say it was like that. And then at the end of the week, we took exactly the same measurements, so blood pressure, the thing, etc. And we realized that some of them even gained 2 centimeters, meaning they grew taller. Now, this is called the reverse clock study. What can we learn from this? That you should never change your home decor. In fact, you'll always live in the same mirror, remove all the mirrors, keep your posters from when you were young on the walls, and this, in fact, what it taught us is that if the world doesn't send you back the reflection of "you are old and you are losing your abilities," etc., then by staying mobilized as you were in the past, you will reverse your aging curve. So it's not all day, but it means that these representations we have, we come back to these elderly people with the plant. If taking care of a plant means taking care of something. It's not, but it's especially treating them as elderly and incapable, you see, that makes the difference. So, if suddenly I no longer have this permanent feedback of "you are old, you are not in good shape anymore," etc., then suddenly my health improves, and you can grow taller. No, that's huge. Ah, well, it turns out, as you know, you shrink scientifically. Yes, yes, it's scientific. It's a scientific study. These are scientists. They're not charlatans or anything. It's true. And so, the fact is, you shouldn't look in the mirror, or minimally. I know what your opinion is on this. Ah, well, you can look in the mirror if you like your reflection. There are people who love looking in the mirror. People who know, we all know some. Send this clip to friends. Our. No, but, you see, we laugh about it as if it were a flaw to love oneself. You know who Eddie Murphy is? The American actor, yes, who starred in Beverly Hills Cop, etc. He explained that in his generation, there were a lot of artists, Whitney Houston for example, who grew up like him when they became stars, except they completely burned their wings. Michael Jackson is one of them, Prince is one of them. Burning their wings means they all died prematurely from addiction. And he says something interesting. He says the difference between them and me is that I love myself, and I've always loved myself. And because I love myself, I completely respect the person I am. I don't drink, I don't have addictions, etc., because I love myself. It's the first time I've heard someone say it so clearly. I love my person, and I love myself. Well, I'll tell you something, it's a colossal strength not to reproach yourself, to say, "Yes, I am someone I want to take as far as possible, to express myself as much as possible, etc." I deserve it. Yes, I deserve it, and I enjoy spending time with myself. So, your mirror, you can love your reflection in that case, you look at yourself out of ego, anyway, to survive. Not dead. We all, yes, yes, yes, that's what makes humans endure. That's it. That's what makes our personalities too. You talk about the impact of social media in your books too, and what you call doomscrolling, what is it? Well, doom means darkness. Scrolling, we all know that word. Darkness. Yes, doom is darkness. So, scrolling is to scroll through videos like this, to filter. So, those who played the video game Doom, are we agreed? Well, did you know it meant darkness? No. Me neither. There's a game called Doom, and I understand now why there's lava everywhere, etc. It explains a lot of things. Ah, well, thank you for explaining. So, if you know the game, thank you. So, it's prettier in English because, frankly, "scrolling of darkness" is completely anxiety-inducing for us. But, but so it's the act of scrolling through images like this. Why do we scroll through images? Because they cause the secretion of this famous dopamine in our brain. And so we feel like it's doing us good. Do you know what we feel when it's what we secrete when it makes us feel good? And so, in fact, we want to continue scrolling to get more of it. So it's just a kind of little addiction, but during that time, we don't read the content. And secondly, time is completely swallowed up by it. During that time, you could have done things that put you in contact with others, and you didn't. Exactly. Now, if we talk about the results, still from this year, in terms of happiness in the rest of the world, it's the first time that Anglo-Saxon countries have all lost in quality of happiness and have fallen. Before, they were in the top five. Now, there isn't a single one in the top five. And one of the explanations we have is social media. It's the time we spend on social media that directly affects our level of happiness. So, what's very interesting is that if you exceed 4 hours, it's absolutely manifest, it lowers your level of happiness. But if you spend, when I say 4 hours, it's per day, 4 hours or more, but if you spend 1 hour, it increases your level of happiness. So, we realize that it's not at all as clear-cut as saying it's catastrophic or it can help. What we observe, however, is something we can really apply to our lives: there are two types of networks. There are those that allow you to connect with someone. So, for example, WhatsApp, messaging services. It's reciprocal. Everyone, you see, we want to talk, there are two of us, etc. So that's great. You share about yourself, you choose. Or, you have networks that show you content from anonymous people, driven by algorithms. So, that's Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. You see, these are people you don't know, and it pushes content to you, and that's toxic for our level of happiness. I hear you, I'm only talking about that. That's toxic. Whereas using messaging services that allow you to communicate, that does you good. So we can also distinguish things. It's not the smartphone itself. You shouldn't scroll, perhaps, in the morning when you wake up. Yes, that's obvious, that's absolutely proven. It's one of the exercises to do. If you want to do a good morning exercise, don't pick up your phone when you wake up, and pick it up when you're about to leave for your day. Don't touch your phone until you leave the house, and you'll see how you feel. You know, there are people who do information fasts. That means they won't watch the news for a week. Digitally, yes. Or even on TV. Even from everything, from everything. And you see how you feel after a week, much better. Much better. When you come back from vacation and you haven't watched TV and all the troubles. No, but it's true, the world's troubles. You come home, you feel great. You don't even want to turn on the TV. No, you know, our generations, who have been around since the internet arrived, it requires us to adapt much faster than we are capable of. So that's why it erodes our well-being. You see, previous generations had 100 years to get used to cars, trains, etc. For us, it arrives every 3 years, every 2 years, something new hits us. Yes. With AI now. Well, AI now, you see, so we're running behind. That's why it erodes our happiness. Are there any foods? Sometimes we talk a bit about food. Are there any foods that can help us be a bit happier? Yes, there are foods that are. Don't tell me sugar, we've done 20 shows against sugar. No, no, I'm not going to say sugar. Our, there's everything that contains vitamin B, that is to say, green vegetables, green beans, lettuce, zucchini, etc. That nourishes your brain. Do you know, do you know Parlonfanc, a guy who takes care of, who has an Instagram account that's great and who talks about food, agriculture, etc. Do you know him? And what does he say? Because you're talking about lettuce? We're going to invite him. I sent him a message earlier, well, late last night. He replied when he woke up. I proposed he come, he makes videos about, about a food. Now he's taken lettuce, bagged lettuce, you know, bagged salads, sorry. They're all clean, already washed. And it says on some of them, already washed. And in fact, he explains to us, and it's always verified, that in fact, people, the manufacturers wash these lettuces in chlorinated baths with chlorine where there's 200 times more chlorine than in a swimming pool. So, in fact, they're put in water with chlorine to kill absolutely all bacteria, all insects, etc. And so, each time, I get the impression, I don't know about you, we're told not to eat cadmium, we'll do a segment on that. We're told not to eat this, not to eat that. In fact, it's hard to

Knowing what to eat. It's not going out anymore. That's anxiety-inducing too. Yes, but we know what we're feeding our children. We buy sweet potatoes. We said sweet potato, you're crazy. There are too many pesticides, we buy potatoes, we shouldn't buy rice, especially not that stuff. Lentils now, Canadian lentils. I saw Hugo Clément, who is doing a formidable job on the subject, with Bakita, his media outlet, and all the shows he does, which are great, where he explains that Canadian lentils are sprayed with a certain product to dry them because there isn't enough sun in Canada. And so, we import all Canadian lentils, and we sometimes don't know if the lentils we eat come from Canada or France. And that's a real issue today. Very anxiety-inducing, not horrible, horrible, horrible. And for everyone, because we don't have a solution, you see, we don't have a solution, and we don't have any power over it. So that's part of what makes us anxious. It's exactly like that. Nevertheless, if you find a pesticide-free salad that grew in your garden, you can eat it, and it will have the good vitamins you need. Isn't that the secret? Excuse me? Well, probably, probably. But isn't the secret to rent a plot of land? You know, sometimes there are even city gardens. Now you'll tell me, "Yes, but the rain, the rain falling on big cities with the smoke, etc., spoils absolutely everything in the soil. So you eat your strawberry, and you eat all the pesticides and all the hydrocarbon products from cars, etc." But isn't the trick to buy a small house in the countryside with a small garden, and even in cheap areas if you can't afford it, but to move a bit further away and eat a bit of what we harvest? And being self-sufficient for food is complicated, though. I don't know, I don't know what to say because everything is stressful. We first need to find things that do us good, each of us. Some people tending their vegetable gardens already feel good about it. Then, maybe there will be a few pesticides. I don't know, anyway, we can't win, but all the activities that do us good are part of what will make us happy. Well, and the other thing we can do, I don't know what we're going to eat because there are also many difficulties, but for the brain, it's foods that contain omega-3s. It's a particular type of fat. So we find them in fish. So we should eat more fish. But we find them especially, there's a brand in France that ensures that animals, for example, chickens, eat grass. Because by eating grass, they ate these omega-3s, they laid eggs, and we ate them. You see, through them. Whereas today, chickens eat garbage in these kinds of battery cages. When we eat an egg, it no longer contains the fat we need. So you have to buy this particular brand, I don't know if I can name it, called Bleu Blanc Rouge. And there, in fact, we've made sure that the cows ate grass, that the chickens ate grass and grain, you see. And in that case, we eat something that comes from nature as it should be. We're going back to the fundamentals. Luxury will soon be about returning to the fundamentals. Exactly. Yes, we see it, organic is more expensive than conventional, whereas before our grandparents, our parents ate farm chickens, and it wasn't expensive. Yes, yes, yes. Today, we have to pay more to have healthy food. It's crazy, really. And yet, we don't even know what's in it anymore. What are trap products? That's it, yes, exactly. So trap products, social networks are trap products. A trap product is a product that we want to consume. So we want to go on a social network. And yet, it harms us. So there are obviously some that are obvious, they are trap products. So why do we go there? Because everyone goes there, and we're afraid of being left out of the group if we don't. Exactly. So we go back to social networks. I'll give you an interesting statistic. We took a group of students and told them, how much would you have to pay us not to go on Facebook anymore? So, well, they evaluated it. Some said, you have to pay me for a month, you have to pay me $100, and by paying me $100, I won't go on Facebook for a month. So we pay them $100, and they don't go anymore, and we see how they feel at the end of the month. They feel much better than at the beginning of the month. Nevertheless, they go back. Why? Because all their friends are on Facebook. So they know, they have proof that it harms them, but they continue to go there. Then, we ask them, how much do you want if none of your friends were on Facebook? And then, you know what they answer? They say, "I'm even willing to pay for that." That is to say, if there were a way to go back and for us not to be collectively on Facebook anymore, there wouldn't be this fear of being the one who isn't there, and so we would even be willing to pay to get rid of that. And I'll give you another example that we're gradually getting out of, and that's cigarettes. Cigarettes were absolutely a product that destroyed everyone's health, but it was so cool, you know, the Marlboro cowboy, etc. How did we manage to get rid of it? There have to be laws, there has to be a question of money. So indeed, they became more and more expensive. Advertising was banned. Then, I don't know, selling to minors was banned. Apparently, England now bans the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. So through collective actions, we've reached a point where smoking a cigarette, frankly, is no longer cool at all. And so, on the contrary, it's the smoker who is looked at, whereas before it was the non-smoker who was looked at. So we can get out of it, but it's very difficult. We must be well for those who are not well. I'll address the subject too, to finish. I have two small subjects left. But why must we be well for those who are not well? That's a question I'm asked very often: "But frankly, given the state of the world, do we have the right to be well? Is it something we have the right to do? Is it decent to be well?" And in fact, it's almost the opposite. Given the state of the world, we have almost an obligation to be well. Because if you look, we are in a country where freedoms are respected, where there is education, where the power plants are not exploded, we all have electricity, etc. So if we are not well, while other countries are suffering monstrously, how can we help them? That is to say, who will help whom on the day when we can connect the two? So it works in a family too. It works on the scale of all human groups. If we have the leisure, the chance to be well, the least we can do is to be well. You give the example of a metaphor, but it's real. You've already taken a plane, there are oxygen masks that fall, and they tell you, as a parent, to put on your mask first, which is counterintuitive. We want to help our child before helping ourselves. We love our child more than ourselves. So we want to help immediately. And in fact, no, if you faint because you don't have enough oxygen, you won't be able to help him. You put it on yourself first, you put on the mask, and then you put it on him. It's a bit the same. You have to be happy first to be able to help those who are not. If I have nothing to give, I can't give anything. Whereas if I have things and I nurture myself, and gratitude helps a lot with that, a lot, a lot, because the more gratitude I feel, the richer I feel internally, and therefore, the more I will do altruistic things, that is to say, things that take care of others for others. Yes. Should we say when we have children? It's always a question we ask ourselves. The other day, I was watching a news channel. I sometimes watch the news for a few minutes in the morning, and the news was always very anxiety-provoking. Well, there was the war in Iran, there were images of war in Iran and so on. My son asks me, "Why is there so much? What is that, Dad? Why are there...?" It was boats in Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, etc., passing by. Should we tell children the truth, at the risk of it being a bit anxiety-provoking, or should we keep them in Walt Disney mode of thinking for as long as possible? At 5 years old, stay in Walt Disney, we agree? Oh yes, yes, yes. Frankly, it's a boat race, I turned off the TV, I said, "We'll watch that later." Boat race, it's very, it's very long. No, no, it's the little boats from Iran that were going to get the mosquitoes, they call it. No, no. And so, I turned off the thing and I found a way around it and I asked myself the question. I said, "Should I tell him that there are people in the world who wage war?" There are little ones, there are... because he plays with little plastic soldiers like all children, things like that, or Playmobil, and so on. Should I tell my children? Should we sometimes talk about serious things? At 5 years old, no. At 5 years old, he will... I don't know what to tell you, but what is completely proven, I'm coming back to screens, is that a child who watches screens alone, these screens will make him anxious. Not because there is... even if you ask for cartoons or whatever, as long as a parent is next to him, it will help him to be educated, it will help him to have more imagination. If we leave him alone in front of a screen, then, on the contrary, it will cause his well-being to plummet, as well as his language skills, his ability to move in life, etc. You start telling your children about life when you feel they need to know it to navigate the real world. So when there are problems in class, it's not the war in Iran, let's focus on the problems in class first. You see, if between two personalities, there's something that's not right, we help them navigate that. They have plenty of time to discover war, frankly. And then sometimes he understands that you are lying to him. There's an age when... we won't talk about that subject if you're watching with a child, don't worry, I won't betray secrets from the holiday season, let's say. But there are times when he starts to... you understand, he'll ask the question, "But wait, does that really exist?" Because at school, you... And then, at the moment when he starts to talk about it, well, we ask ourselves the question. Yes. Well, of course, but we know that disappointments will be part of life. So this is just the first one. There's that and the... and the... yes. No, no, not the tooth fairy, the little tooth fairy, you see. But yes, obviously there are disappointments, but that's part of it. In all fairy tales, there are disappointments. Life is full of disappointments, so yes, this one is solid, but well, it's the first one, and resilience will be built from that. Let's finish with a subject that's not super cheerful. There might be a little last one because we won't end on this, on depression. Let's address the subject, or rather, when you're depressed, the principle of being depressed, for those who have never been, is to no longer see anything positive at all. Even rather cool things, we no longer see any positivity at all. Why can't we see the positive anymore when we're depressed? Depression is an illness. So it's not a mood, it's not something we do on purpose to feel. It's really a chemical modification of your brain. It's beyond not seeing the positive anymore, in fact, you're not even capable of making a decision anymore. You see, you no longer see to the right or to the left, etc. And then, at that point, we no longer talk about positive psychology. That's not what it's about. It's really about traditional psychology. And we go see a therapist, we go see a psychiatrist. It's not just about using these little tools. However, we've noticed that when there are patients for whom treatments are really difficult to make work, we introduce this notion of gratitude by telling them, "Go on, just one thing today, just one tiny thing." So the first day, they can't do it, the second day either, you see. But by trying, by trying, by trying, there comes a moment when, because the focus is completely narrowed when you're depressed, and in fact, the focus will start to reopen. But it's quite long to get out of depression, and we really need medical support, I specify, it's not just about reading books. It's a cheerful and cute subject. You talk about micro-moments of love, you say, you talk about that. What are micro-moments, and how many do we need in a day to be happy? 4 at a minimum per day. Yes. A micro-moment of love is a moment when you look someone in the eye, or you offer someone a chocolate, or you say hello to the butcher when you give him your order, and at that moment, we are really there, both of us, in the same place. So they are really very simple things. It's not sexual, it's not even friendly, it's just these interactions that we have. And there's someone who works on positive emotions named Barbara Fredrickson, and she has really identified that you can... you can decide in the morning that you will have six micro-moments of love during the day. So that means that in the way you will navigate and move that day, you will make sure to have nice things, even if they are very momentary, with six people. It's a new game, brilliant. You can spend your day doing that, or you can spend your day grumbling. You won't have the same result at the end of the day with the mirror effect and with... happiness is contagious, you said. Yes. And moreover, the micro-moment of love is reciprocal. That is to say, if you experience it, the person in front of you is also experiencing it. So everyone wins. You talk about a subject, it's... you say being in love makes us happier. But you told us about an experiment that could predict a divorce in 15 minutes. Yes, you see a couple in 15 minutes, you know they're going to fail. So, you put people behind a glass, they talk to each other, and you watch how they move, you see, they talk to each other, and based on the facial expressions they make between them, you mean between them, yes, they talk to each other, the people don't talk to them, they are watched, and you have a couple of researchers who... Yes, they say that in 15 minutes, by looking at whether there is contempt, by looking at whether there is indifference, by looking at whether one of them completely withdraws, by looking at whether they criticize each other, these are what they call the four horsemen. So here too, it's the horsemen of the apocalypse. These are really the four things that undermine couples: criticism, contempt, indifference, and withdrawing like a turtle when you're sulking. So if they see that between these couples, because they give them a topic of conversation that is a bit controversial, if they see that you have that, you see, because tell me about your mother-in-law Martine, I close the door, and well, they say, they know that these people won't last more than 3 years because when you experience that, it can't last. But there's an inverse thing, which is that they also know what will allow this couple to last. That's highly demonstrated and it's super interesting. It's admiration. And if with your spouse, many things can happen, and in a couple's life, there are obviously times when things aren't going well. There are times when we argue. They even say it's better to argue than not to argue because at least things come out. But as long as there is admiration left, if you admire the other, you will never put the couple at risk again. You will question the moment. You will never say to him, "Listen, let's stop." Well, at the moment of the argument, you won't say "Let's stop" because this phenomenon exists, and it's the most important thing, it's the admiration you have for the other. So what can break a couple: criticism, attacking, I'm reading the studies, attacking the character rather than the behavior, that's really it. Contempt, it's sarcasm. That's right, it's not being nice to the other, despising them. Defensiveness, playing the victim, you know, it's always saying, "Ah, but it's actually me who is here, it's you, it's your fault, actually. It's your fault." But that's something all couples have argued about, saying it's your fault. You didn't change the baby's diaper. It's me again who gets up. You see, it's a bit playing the victim, but it's a bit the case for everyone, isn't it? But yes, of course, it's the case for everyone. But when you go to couple's therapy, what they teach you to do is to talk about yourself and not about the other person, you see. That's right. To say, well, but that's a whole other subject. Withdrawal, so being a stone wall, closing yourself off emotionally, basically, and contempt. Contempt is what turns out to be the... you roll your eyes, you go... yes, that's the worst. If you despise the other, it's catastrophic for the couple. And so admiration is the most important thing. To finish, you talk about the 24 qualities. What are the 24 qualities? We all have 24 qualities. We all have 24 qualities, not in the same order. So you have to know, if I ask you to tell me about your flaws, you'll find your flaws right away. Generally, people find their flaws right away. But if I say, what are your qualities? We're not taught that in school. We're not taught to say, "I am, I am creative, I am curious." You see, that's not part of our French culture's vocabulary at all. It's very pretentious to say, "I am like that." Yes. Whereas, what does it matter if I'm creative? You see, how will that affect you? Because sometimes there's something, sometimes with certain people, not everyone in France, we don't like it when someone succeeds or does well or functions or is luckier than us. In any case, it's not done. Nevertheless, the people who developed this positive psychology said, "Still, we should look at what human qualities are." Let's look. Yes. So they looked, they met people, they read all the literature in psychology, in philosophy, everything. They found 24. And what happens is that these are qualities that exist all over the world, okay? If you live in India, you have them. If we live here, we have them, etc. But not in the same order. And so what's interesting is that you can take a questionnaire that will tell you, among the 24, you, Guillaume, your first quality is curiosity, let's say. Or the second is perseverance, or the third is... you rank them. They are grouped by family. Yes, there are families, but what's especially interesting is that we will use the first five to get out of all situations. And I can give a quick example. When I wrote "Trois kiffs par jour" (Three Joys Per Day), I realized I didn't know how to write a book. So I went to ask people, it's important before writing a book, but no, you also have to take the plunge. So I went to people saying, "How do you do it?" And they all said, "You sit down, and you don't move until noon." Okay. So I sat down at 8 AM, and obviously, I couldn't stay still, as I said earlier, I have a very hard time staying still. I thank you for having lasted over an hour already. So after 3 weeks, I can't take it anymore, and I have trouble moving forward, I can't take it anymore. I answer this questionnaire. There is a quality called perseverance. Perseverance is when you stick to something. You start and you go all the way. So the way you read it, these results are important, is that the first one comes very naturally to you. The second one almost as much, but a little less. The third one almost as much as the second, but a little less, and so on, and the 24th one doesn't come at all, and I discover that in my ranking, perseverance is in 24th position, so I don't have it, and I never will in my life, and it doesn't matter at all. But you have to accept it. But yes. However, in school, I was a very unhappy student because in the French school system, they only ask for perseverance. You have to do things, you have to sit still, etc. That's why it's hard for marotherapy. You have to not give up. You have to not give up. You have to not give up. You have to be enduring in concentration, but that's not for everyone. But that's not for everyone. So it wasn't for me. That's why I really prefer being an adult, because I do things my way. School, when you think about it, there were moments when it wasn't... Wow! Yes, school is tough. Anyway, here's the example, here's why it's important to know your qualities, not to see the ones you don't have, but to see the ones you do have. And in fact, what allows me to write a book? Because I've written many since then, it's always telling myself, "What will I learn by writing it?" Because there's curiosity. Then, what will I... there's something called creativity, which is very strong in me. That means I'll write for 20 minutes, and then I'll get up and go peel carrots. Why am I peeling carrots? Because these fingers need to do manual things, not just intellectual ones. And that gives me energy, and I come back and sit down, etc. So really, I urge you to take this questionnaire because all of a sudden it creates a vocabulary. So you have to give it to your family, you have to give it to your colleagues. There's even a test for children under 16, because when you talk to a child about their qualities instead of saying, "You can't stay still," you see, that's my main quality. No, no, no, of course, you tell him, but you are so capable of that, and he has to use that. What is this test called? It's called the VIA. Yes. In English, it's Values in Action. But are they all English tests? No, not at all. It's translated into 120 languages. Great, it's free. It's totally free. And the only thing is, well, when you look at the questions, they have statistics to see how many people in the world, in countries, are like this, are like that, and it's fascinating. The VIA, the 24 qualities we all have, is a kind of user manual for us. Do you know what it is? It's the IKEA manual for how you function. It shows you exactly what to do, how to assemble yourself. Have you ever assembled furniture? Yes, it's not a moment of pleasure. So, you've released a book, it came out not long ago. "L'Audace" (Audacity), the first graphic novel by the author of the bestseller "Trois kiffs par jour." It's written on it, it's from Le Lombard Graphic. I'll put the link if you want to order it in the description of the YouTube video and in the description of the episode if you're listening to us on an audio podcast. Whether it's on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, you'll find it below the episode description, and you can find it. It's a comic book. You've... it's pretty. It's a pretty comic book. The drawings are beautiful, you know. It's really old-fashioned. It's pleasant. What's the difference between... you talk about audacity, having audacity, and courage? Yes. Is it the same thing or not? It's almost the same, but it's precisely the difference that makes all the difference. In fact, if we want to be happier, we have to take the plunge. It's true that everything you do that's new, everything you do for the first time, everything you're going to learn to master, everything that will require concentration, is really what will allow you to shine. So I went in search of what audacity was, and I found a very simple difference. Courage, life forces us to be courageous. So these are the fireballs that make us do exceptional and difficult things, but it's obligatory. Audacity, it's its sister. It's ultra sexy because audacity is completely self-inflicted. That is to say, you do things that no one forces you to do. When you jump out of a plane, for example, if you're not a soldier, and you're going skydiving, no one forces you to jump out of that plane. And yet, it makes no sense. You see, it's in total unconsciousness, but you'll do it anyway. And when we put ourselves in difficult situations, in situations where we accept something, we embark on something, but I decided, you decided to do it, then you will experience enormous satisfaction, whether you succeed or fail, because attention, it doesn't always work, but at least we did it. What do we learn in this book? We learn that there's nothing worse than regrets, and that the antidote to regret is to do things. And in fact, I recount many situations where I did things, sometimes stupid, sometimes brilliant, sometimes useless, sometimes, you see, that changed the lives of other people. But in any case, I did them, and what people who have read the book or who come to my conferences tell me is that we all have audacity, and that it allows us to realize, it's not on a pedestal, where I say, "I don't have it, you have it, others have it, but I don't." We all have it. If you remove the roads, the small roads from your bike, and you rode your bike, you have audacity. You just need to awaken it. That's what I'm talking about. When we take risks, we are happier. Yes, much happier because we break out of this rhythm where everything is controlled. It's like a breath when you take a risk, you feel, you breathe air you hadn't breathed before. You feel alive. You say, to be happy, you have to pass the lesson. To be happy, you have to go, basically, you have to go. You have to stop saying you're going to do it, you have to do it. You say in the book at one point that it's better to have, it's surprising, you say it's better to have an objective and that it will sometimes make you happier than to achieve it. It's a bit like a fantasy. You have a fantasy, it can be professional. You have a fantasy, you want it, you dream of it, you fantasize about a world. Yes. You see? Yes. And sometimes when it happens, you say, "Ah, so that's it." But you know, sometimes in love, they say the best moment is when you climb the stairs, when you follow the person for the first time. When you follow the person. Exactly. When we envision something, why do people like to play the lottery? It's because at the moment they buy the ticket, they dream about it. You dream of the life you want, and the day you win, you win, you don't win. But at least you dreamed. That was wonderful. And when you reach one of your goals, you'll have a few quiet days, and then you'll have to find another one. You see, when you finish a book, you feel like life is over, whereas when you start it, you say, "Oh my god, it's too difficult, I'll never make it." But in fact, the best moment is when you fight, and when you search, and when you advance, and it's the same for all of us. It's when you're doing something. Once it's finished, it's finished. So you'll have to find something else. You released a book a few years ago called "Trois kiffs par jour et autres rituels recommandés par la science pour cultiver le bonheur" (Three Joys Per Day and Other Science-Recommended Rituals for Cultivating Happiness). 250,000 copies sold. Why was it such a hit? Because I've never met anyone who told me, "Wait, happiness, no, I'm good, I don't want any more, it doesn't exist." So we all aspire to be happier. I don't know, to be happy, but happier. So it's quite universal, in fact. You talk about daily rituals in the book. By the way, you say you have to talk to yourself like a friend. Yes. I've taken a few phrases, but it's interesting to understand what you can find in it. I'll put the link for both books if you want in the description of the video and the podcasts. Writing your daily life. Writing about the worst things in your life. You see, people who keep a journal, it's incredibly therapeutic for them to keep a diary. A diary like that, where you write down the worst things that have happened to you, you evacuate them. The fact that it goes from your head to your hand, and even typing, it works. You don't need to write by hand. And if you've experienced something fantastic, when you write it down, you relive it. So it's the ripple effect. You'll live it twice. It's very powerful. You talk about touch too. You say that to survive, you need four contacts. I give examples, but there are many others, but it's very interesting. To survive, you need four physical contacts with a human every day. Four physical contacts. We are mammals. We need skin-to-skin contact. We need warmth to warmth. When they found young children in orphanages who had never been touched, they were unable to develop mentally. That is to say, the brain had not developed. That's how important it is for our development. We feel it when we have a child, and you know, when you hold them close and give them a hug, you recharge too. It's fantastic. When we have young children in our lives, we can really have this closeness. It's a portable battery. Yes, it's a portable battery. The other day, and it's very true. When you have a newborn, you just had a baby, you put them skin-to-skin at the maternity ward, you feel like you're recharging. It's impressive. Yes, it's true. You talk about breathing too, you say you have to take deep breaths. Relaxation, ultimately, relaxation, breathing. You know, we were talking about anxiety earlier. Breathing is part of what will help us be less anxious, what will help us be more present, what will help us calm down and feel gratitude. It's useful for everything. It's the basic mechanism. The rituals for being happy, I'll give two more. Tidying up, you say it's super important to tidy up your home, it's super important. It lowers cortisol, the stress hormone, seeing a tidy environment when you come home. Exercising three times a week. Here, you're talking about sports, you say at least 30 minutes, three times a week. There are real benefits in that, and that leads us to feel better on a daily basis. One last thing that's a bit surprising is forcing yourself to smile. Why force yourself to smile? Well, I always finish my conferences like this by saying that we are all very different from each other. So, there are things that will work for you, that will work for me, they are not necessarily the same. But there is one that is absolutely universal and instantaneous, which is that if you need to feel better right now, what you can do is smile. So, it's not like this, but when all the facial muscles are engaged, in fact, it's impossible to have dark thoughts. So, it's immediate. Yes. And the body will lead the mind. And sometimes, we even do an exercise, they put a clothespin between your teeth because, hop, everything goes up. You bite a clothespin, you bite a clothespin on the side if you're listening to us on a podcast, like a bone, like a bone. Yes. But well, it's better to do it naturally, and it improves the mood that goes with it. Huge. So, I'll put the link if you want to order the two books, "Trois kiffs par jour" from Marabout, pocket version, and the one that just came out, "Chiche, tant qu'à oser" from Le Lombard, graphic version, and it's a comic book this time, by Florence, they say Servan Schrebert. Servan Schrebert, thank you very much for coming, it was a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for coming to tell us all this. I hope you enjoyed it at home. Thank you to the whole team for preparing the show with me. We'll meet again on Les Gens. You are more and more numerous each week. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for talking about it around you. Thank you for sometimes taking short excerpts from the show, showing them at the table when you're having Sunday dinner with family, when you're at work, when you're in class, or whatever, or with friends. It really helps us a lot to discover the show, the podcast. We are here three times a week. Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, I post either interviews or documentaries on Les Gens. And Lola is also here on Tuesdays with "Les Gens d'Histoire" and a journalist with an extra show about a life story every Tuesday. So there are four shows in total per week, and you can find us on all social networks, on Insta, etc., obviously on audio podcasts. You are actually Les Gens, the number one podcast in France. Thank you a thousand times for being so numerous. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. The more of you there are, the more exceptional guests like Florence today we can have. Almost 200,000 of you have joined us this month. So thank you for being here. I send you big hugs, and we'll meet again very soon on Les Gens with lots of new tips for being happy. I send you hugs. Ah.