About the Episode

This week’s episode of the Growth Guide podcast features Mike Rucker. Mike is an author, father, husband, organizational psychologist, and behavioral scientist. He is a charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association as well as a member of the American Psychological Association. After nearly two decades as a strategist in product development, marketing, and technology, his focus has shifted from product launches and digital media campaigns to health and wellness thought leadership, particularly on tactics to attract and motivate healthier behaviors. He joined us today to talk about his book, ‘The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life.’

In times like COVID-19, social behavior might become a problematic concept. Depending on whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, your social behavior gets complicated. If you are an extrovert, spending time in one place and not having the opportunity to socialize might cause pressure. If you are an introvert, lockdowns might be a good time for you. Starting the conversation, we talk about how a situation like the COVID-19 pandemic might affect the social behaviors of people.

Success always comes with a price. Sometimes you have to give up the things you love for success. That kind of sacrifice cannot be made by everybody, nor is it easy. It takes a certain amount of willpower to do that. People tend to be narrow-minded about famous people who are at a certain level of success that cannot be reached by everyone. People only see what they do or talk about how lucky they are to have that kind of life, not the fact that they have made a lot of sacrifices to build that life.

Research says that people who value time over money are the ones who tend to be happier. Having no control over how you spend your days can make you feel imprisoned. There is no debate that money is an essential fact in life, but if you have enough of it, then you don’t necessarily need more of it. In this phase of the conversation, we talk about how we can make plans that will give us more control over our time.

We remember both the most beautiful and the most disastrous things in life. It’s possible some of them used to be turning points in our lives. But we have a habit of clinging on to the bad memories of life more than the good memories. If you can be creative and find ways to reminisce about the best memories of your life, it can benefit you in a lot of ways you didn’t think about.