#1020: In 2013 Susan Cain published her book, QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. It was beyond a best seller. It has spent seven years on the New York Times best seller list and as of this recording is still in the top 500 books on Amazon. Her record-smashing TED Talk has been viewed over 30 million times on TED.com and YouTube combined. When they told me Susan was publishing another book, I didn’t hesitate. The book is called Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, and it was an instant New York Times best seller as well. The most beautiful and joyful experiences of my life have also held an ache and a longing, and this is what Susan is speaking to. She gives focus to the four Hippocratic temperaments of sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic. Most of our world’s greatest creativity and art comes from a melancholic temperament, but Susan writes, “We’ve organized American culture around a sanguine-choleric outlook (forward leaning and combat ready), while Freud labeled melancholic as narcissistic and the main stream culture often views sorrow and longing as clinically depressed.” Susan asks, “How did a nation founded on so much heartache turn into a culture of normative sunshine and enforced positivity?” What you’ll hear is a candid discussion that gives us permission to feel the feels and allow sorrow and longing in, in order to more fully experience joy and beauty. Find Susan’s book, BITTERSWEET: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, anywhere, and connect with her at https://susancain.net/ Self-Help(ful) is presented by Ziglar, the most trusted brand in personal and business development impacting over 250 million people worldwide. Visit Ziglar.com to see how they can inspire your true performance.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices