Welcome to the After-On podcast. I'm your host, Rob Reed.

And this is a series of conversations with thinkers, founders, and scientists.

Take a little time and stretch out because these talks are unhurry and meant to bring you

to a top percentile understanding of something important.

Also, whether you're ready to start up score ideas, a techie or a lit major, take your

time, engage your mind, and you'll be glad you did it.

Especially this week when we'll be talking to...

Yale University Psychology Professor Laurie Santos.

Laurie's early academic work was on animal cognition with a focus on monkeys and dogs, but

she's now also becoming a major force in positive psychology, which is the science of

something we're all interested in happiness.

Earlier this year, Laurie launched her first course on happiness at Yale.

Basically is an experiment. To her astonishment, it became the single most popular class in

the university's 317-year history.

Fully a quarter of the school took it.

The next thing she knew, she was on the today's show.

The New Yorker and the New York Times were writing about her class.

The equivalents of the New York Times, in many foreign countries, were covering it.

In short, it was pretty clear that she was onto something big.

If you're new to this show, welcome. It features in-depth conversations with world-class experts

about their domains of knowledge.

In each episode, I try to bring you and myself a serious grounding in something complex and

...