033: The Pursuit of Happiness

Solutions for Higher Education with Southern Utah University President Scott L Wyatt

Quotes:

"We like to have a sense of perceived control. As we start to look inwards, we start to look at who and what we are, it can be a little uncomfortable. So, built into us humans are all kinds of mechanisms that allow us to have a sense on constancy and a sense of perceived control."

"If we have successes, we tend to almost immediately attribute it to an internal cause."

"we do tend to externalize those things that are more negative."

"this idea that individuals need to become vulnerable by examining their self and who and what they are until they're able to build that protective reality hard shell around them again." (From professor-emeritus John Ault)

"helping students realize that they've come a long way or that they actually know a lot now relative to what they knew causes that sense of happiness because there's a realization that they're making progress towards a goal"

"we're pretty active in the sense of distorting reality until we're kind of forced to face it"

"We are taught somewhere in the second or third grade that you go to college to get a degree. If we can help our students understand that, while that's a nice accomplishment, what we really want them to do is to get an education."

"we've been talking about this in the context of a university because that's where we are and that's who we're working with all of the time, but I'm assuming, Grant, this applies in every aspect of our lives. In our family relationships, in our hobbies and interests, and just everything that we're doing."

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