In a new podcast, this Northeastern associate dean wants to know what makes you happy
On ‘Happy You Asked,’ Erin Clair wants to figure out how we can be happier. From scientists to musicians to kickboxers, Clair is learning how simple yet complicated happiness can be.
Erin Clair wants to know how to be happy.
That’s not to say she isn’t happy — she is — but in her new podcast, “Happy You Asked,” Clair has committed herself to understanding how other people find happiness, one awkward conversation at a time. For Clair, an associate dean of undergraduate programs in Northeastern’s College of Professional Studies, her conversations on the show, which feature scientists, musicians, obituary writers and kickboxers, are a way to understand something that’s universal yet frustratingly elusive for so many.
“We all want to be happy,” Clair says. “That’s the one thing I can say we all want. A lot of us just have no idea how to do it because it’s not a skill that’s taught, crazy enough. We’re taught how to survive. We’re taught how to be successful. But how to be happy is a bit more complicated.”
Revolving around hour-long one-on-one conversations with various experts, each episode starts with the same question: What is happiness to you?
Clair approaches each conversation in the same way, with genuine curiosity, an open mind, a list of basic questions and a good sense of humor. With no prior podcasting experience, it was an approach that just made sense for Clair.
“If I pretend to have the answers, I am wrong,” Clair says. “Just listening, asking questions and leaning into my ignorance … I learn so much more and they really get to explain, ‘This is why I do this work.’”
Prior to joining Northeastern in 2023, Clair worked as an associate dean and English professor at Arkansas Tech University, where she had created a course built around investigating the idea of happiness. After leaving the classroom, she created the podcast to continue exploring her passion in a way that could “help as many people as possible,” she says.
From there, Clair’s easygoing, freewheeling approach allows the conversation to drift in any number of directions but always with happiness at its center. It’s a fairly broad umbrella by design. The show is built to support conversations with scientists such as Northeastern teaching professor Kristen Lee, who thinks about happiness in neurological or behavioral terms. But it also makes space for composer Matthew Kennedy, tabletop roleplaying game critic Emily Friedman and author Mary Grimm.
“I think for [my guests], for me, hopefully for the listeners, we all come to some sort of realization about ourselves, which is the point, and how we are shaping our own human experience and our lives and how we might want to shape it a little different or focus on different parts than we have been,” Clair says.
Clair released the first episode of “Happy You Asked” on July 1 and has released an episode every Sunday since. So far, across 13 episodes Clair has already been surprised and profoundly moved by the ways that, despite her guests’ many differences, they all are looking for happiness in the same place.
“The thing that struck me the most is that [for] almost everyone, when we talk about their happiest moments, they mention other people,” Clair says. “Sometimes it’s a partner or a student or their child, but almost always their happiest moment involves another person and that’s really where they find the most joy.”
“Happy You Asked” is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and most major streaming platforms, with video episodes released on Clair’s YouTube channel.