Todd Kashdan

Washington, D.C.

Author and Public Speaker at Freelance

Professor, psychologist, leads The Well-Being Lab. Author of The Art of Insubordination: How To Dissent & Defy Effectively https://t.co/ILrrCSM0yY

Articles

The Most Pleasant, Non-Drug, Non-Sexual Experience a Human Can Have

4 days ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

Before the main attraction, bookmark this 75-minute podcast episode named after my primary interests since age 13: There are questions you ask at a dinner party to seem interesting. Then there are questions that rearrange human molecules. This belongs in the latter category:It sounds innocent. Like a question you’d answer while twirling your straw in an overpriced cocktail. It pokes at the soft tissue of our lives. The places we didn’t know were bruised.
What If We Evolved from Bonobos Instead of Chimps?

6 days ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

Age has made me practical and protective of my time, which is why I’ve discovered that the best way to travel from Northern Virginia to New York City isn’t plane or train. It’s a first-class bus where I can recline, write, and arrive four hours later with the scent of marijuana clinging to my skin while chowing on a racist cookie. I brought one book with me this time by .
Most People Confuse Purpose and Happiness. Our New Study Shows Why That’s a Problem.

1 week ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

Before we get to the main attraction, I had the pleasure of sitting down with . Enjoy 8 minutes on how to extract wisdom from other people:One benefit of being a Premium Subscriber is first access to research from my Well-Being Laboratory.
When Well-Being Science Lost Its Mind (And How We Might Save It)

1 week ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

Every field has its shadow. Positive psychology was supposed to be the antidote to pathology. A science of flourishing. A blueprint for a life worth living. And for a while, it felt like it might deliver until it started spinning in circles, slapping smiley faces on suffering, and outsourcing human complexity to PowerPoint decks. Enter this debate.
Unwritten Rules of Therapy, How AI Misunderstands Bilingual Writers, & Depressed Students

2 weeks ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

Welcome to Provoked, a vibrant community of over 10,000. Explore our mission [here] as your go-to source for fresh insights on Purpose, Happiness, Friendship, Romance, Narcissism, Creativity, Curiosity, Courage, Compassion, and Managing Psychological Pain with a playful edginess. One of my greatest joys is hosting monthly 1-hour Zoom calls. With a growing community, each one is often better than the last.
Stop Chasing Adult Participation Trophies

2 weeks ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

Today’s Provoked newsletter is free, but most articles are for paid subscribers.Join 100,000+ monthly readers and you’ll see why. You get access to the Premium Content Archive, Community Conversations in the Chat Room, Virtual Calls, first access to The Well-Being Laboratory research, and more. I saw someone post the other day: “So honored to now be a bestselling author!”No one I knew. No book I recognized. Cover looked like it was designed on Microsoft Paint 1985.
Confronting The Biggest Prick At The Gym

2 weeks ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

At my gym, there’s this guy I couldn’t stand. Latino guy (about 83.1% of the men in my gym are Latino). Tower of muscle. Neck like a tree trunk. Face like a brick wall that someone scowled into existence. I mean that literally. His facial expression is a permanent scowl. He walks around the gym like he’s this year’s adult homecoming king. And the thing is, the Latino men in the gym treat him like he is. They fist bump him like a visiting deity. They take out their headphones when he walks by.
Ice Cream, Psychological Therapies, and Problems with the Scientific Community

3 weeks ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

About 100,000 people read this newsletter every month. Become a subscriber and you’ll see why: access the Premium Content Archive, chat room, virtual calls, first to The Well-Being Laboratory research, and more. It’s rarely the kind that starts with, “We asked 280 people to eat ice cream and say thank you for two days.” That sounds unserious. Silly. Even… cute. But it’s real (source). And the results? Better mood, better affect balance, better ratio of positive to negative emotions.
15 Years Later, He Hasn't Moved: The Indelible Mark of Love

3 weeks ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

About 100,000 people read this newsletter every month. Subscribe and upgrade your mental fortitude. Grief often arrives uninvited, settling into the corners of our lives in unexpected ways. It's not always the grand gestures or the overt expressions of sorrow that define our mourning, but the quiet, persistent habits that linger long after a loved one has departed. Consider the unwashed coffee mug left on a shelf, or the familiar scent that still clings to a favorite sweater.
Want to Say the Right Thing, Avoid Mistakes, and Never Get Hurt? Read This First.

3 weeks ago | toddkashdan.substack.com | Todd Kashdan

A quick welcome to the large number of new subscribers who joined after my last post on divorce, which received quite a lot of attention (read it here). I found it interesting to learn from several adults, mostly men, who couldn’t fathom a perspective that divorce could be a net positive (read the LinkedIn comments here). That is, divorce leads to a variety of outcomes.