One of the problems that we have is we think that a happy life is a life where you'll never be sad or never struggle.

It's more so about that broad sense of my life is meaningful, my life has purpose.

Welcome to the art of accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease.

Hey, everybody, it's Joe, and we're here today with Stephanie Harrison who wrote a book called

The New Happy. And I have been a fan of her Instagram account. I just think the illustrations

and the care and conscientiousness is put into the account has always been something that's

fascinated me. And so we're having her on the program to talk about her new book. The book is

called The New Happy. And my first question is, Stephanie, anything you want to say about yourself

before we get started? And I have, then I'll have

my first question. No, no. You've done a beautiful job. Just ask away. Ask me your questions. I can't

wait. Okay. So the first thing, what made you write a book on happiness? Like what was the

personal reason for writing a book on happiness? I think because I knew very deeply what it was like to be unhappy,

and it was that personal unhappiness and misery that eventually compelled me to want to study

the topic to figure out what I was doing so wrong and where I had gone astray in my life.

And then ultimately, the more that I learned, the more that I wanted to share.

But it really was kicked off with my own experiences of suffering.

And can you go into details about what those experiences, like how bad did it get?

What was what was the bottom like?

Yeah.

I think, you know, it was first really triggered by my experiences when I was in my

early 20s. I was living in New York City, which was my life dream. I had my dream job. I had this

lovely apartment. I sort of had everything I had ever wanted in many ways. And yet I was experiencing so much pain. It started with

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