Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How To Live the Good Life - Lessons From The Longest Study On Happiness | Dr. Robert Waldinger

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

While there are no secrets to living the Good Life, Dr. Robert Waldinger is one of the most - if not THE most - qualified individuals to speak on what living the Good Life really means and how we can all build more meaningful connections.This conversation is so meaningful. Pulling on 85 years of research, we dive deep into what truly makes us happy, fulfilled, and resilient in the face of life's challenges. From the power of relationships and the importance of purpose to the art of mindfulness and the impact of social comparison, we explore practical strategies for living a more meaningful and satisfying life._________________Dr. Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, Harvard professor, Zen master, and the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development – the world’s longest and most comprehensive study on human happiness. For over eight decades this incredible study has followed the lives of thousands of participants in an effort to investigate and identify what makes people flourish – all of which Robert details in his newly-released book, The Good Life._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist, and I could not be happier, and I use that word intentionally here, to sit down with Dr. Robert Waldinger for this week's conversation. A psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, Harvard professor, and a Zen master. Bob has spent decades examining happiness. As the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, he's leading the longest-running scientific study on happiness. It's over eight decades long, following the lives of thousands of participants, which is explored in his newly released book, The Good Life.

This conversation is so meaningful that I trust you will resonate with it, no matter whether you're focused on the good life for yourself, your team, your business, or all of the above. All of us share a common thread. We're all humans who want to live a life that matters, that's purposeful and fulfilling. While there are no secrets to happiness, Bob and I dive into the increasing importance of true connection, the anecdote to loneliness, and ultimately, what it really means to live the good life. This is a special one. And if you're enjoying this

podcast and haven't already, just a quick reminder to hit the subscribe or follow button and to drop us a review wherever you're listening. It is the easiest and zero cost way to support the show. And with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Dr. Robert Waldinger. Bob, how are you? I'm good. I'm glad to be here. Oh, I'm so happy to be here with you as well. And on that note of happiness, you and your partner have written a seminal book on the good life, and you've nested it on 75 years, I think it is, or maybe it's plus. It's now 85. 85 years of research at Harvard. And it's an amazing,

amazing compilation of insights that you've pulled together. And so as I'm reading that book, and we're talking about happiness right now, is that I think you and I agree that happiness is not the end all be all, which might be very surprising for a lot of people. And so can you start with your insight about what you're calling the good life and then maybe string in it how you think about happiness as one of the variables of the good life? Well, what we found in this vast amount of data over 85 years is that human connection is a huge driver of a good life, right? Of wellbeing, of happiness. But that said, research tells us that happiness isn't just one flavor. Actually, there are kind of two big flavors of happiness and maybe a third that research is beginning to show us. So why don't I say a little bit about those and then we can

talk about the book and our study. I love that. Yes. The research is showing that there is a kind of happiness that they call hedonic well-being. And it comes from hedonism. And it's like, am I having fun right now? Is this a good party? Is this a good meal? Am I enjoying myself, right? And then the other kind of happiness

is called eudaimonic well-being. It comes from Aristotle, from the Greek. And it refers to that sense that life is good, that life is meaningful. And the best distinction between those two comes from a mom who's a friend of mine. And she said, I read to my daughter before bed every night, and she always wants me to read the books again and again. So I'm there and I'm exhausted. And she's asking me to read the books again and again. So I'm there and I'm exhausted. And she's asking me to read Goodnight Moon for the seventh time. And am I having fun? No. Is it the most meaningful thing I could imagine doing with my time? Yes. And so the difference between hedonic well-being, having fun, and doing something that we care about that's meaningful are these two flavors.

And I think what we know is that everybody wants some of both. Everybody wants some moment-to-moment happiness and some sense that life is basically good and my life has some meaning. But we prioritize it more or less depending on who we are. Some of us are real party animals. That's what we are. Some of us are real party animals. That's what we love. Some of us are much more, I'm going to defer that gratification because I'm aiming for this big, meaningful thing in my life. And there's one more flavor, which I'll add, comes out of Columbia University.

They've been studying something they call a psychologically rich life. And that's different. It's kind of, I want to have interesting experiences. So I want to go to new places. I want new experiences. I want to skydive. Not so much about meaning and purpose and not so much about moment-to-moment happiness, but about stimulation. And so, again, different flavors of happiness. And I think each of us can take a little moment to discern, well, what are my preferences here? And how am I living my life? What am I prioritizing in terms of the types of happiness I aim for?

I love the ability to be able to separate the three out. And then I'll add one bit of context, is that my understanding is that the brain is really well designed for hedonic pleasures, for hedonic happiness, which is like, it's difficult to discern the joy later. It's easier to discern the danger later. And so, you know what? Let me experience the good now. And the pleasure-seeking principle in our brains is quite remarkable. And so I understand why that one's easy. I really understand it. And I'm far more interested in the second and third, and I think most people are. But the third one about a psychologically rich experience in life, when people would say to me, early in my career, I'd say, okay, what do you want? Above all, what do you want? And people kind of push back, you know, and they take a nice little long exhale and they say, you know, I want happiness.

I want happiness for me and for other people, something like that. And then I would lean in appropriately. So, and I'd say, so when your grandmother dies, do you want to be happy? They go, well, well, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? I go, no, I don't. You said you want to be happy, you know, above all else. And I guess we could get, you and I could get to a, I don't know, philosophical position that maybe you do want to be happy. You know, like maybe like you, you've got such a rich perspective about birth and death that you're able to find a piece of joy and excitement about, you know, what's coming next. But most people want to feel sad. They want to have depth. They want to feel the range of emotions.

So where do you fit in into those three models, the range of emotion and the depth of emotion? Is that on the third pillar, the psychological rich type of happiness? Well, certainly the range of emotion can be there in that meaning and purpose type of happiness. Life is basically good, that life is hard right now, but I'm doing something I care about, right? Or life is sad, but it's meaningful to me. So I think that the hedonic kind, that's about moment-to-moment happiness. But the other two can have the full range of emotions. And that's, I think, why most of us don't just prioritize moment-to-moment happiness. Little kids do. You know, little kids are all about the moment, right?

And actually, I miss that. I love watching little kids and how it's just like, is this fun or is it not fun? But as we grow older, I think all of us want a range, as you're saying, a range of emotion. That's what allows us to feel like we're alive, that there's richness here. Oh, and we're terrified. Let me speak for myself. Terrified of the range. Terrified of the depth. Can't I just be a little bit more numb? Can't I just be-

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, I don't want that, but that's oftentimes what we'll turn to when we're a bit overwhelmed. So, okay. I just want to name this cartoon that I love. There are these two guys meditating on the cushion, and one is sitting there saying, I really do want to be in the moment, just not this moment. Exactly, right.

I saw another meme. It was a cartoon. It was somebody reading a very large book, and the person was kind of buried in the book. You couldn't see, but just like made the back third of their head. And the title was how to, how to live in the present moment. And then on the desk was a second, very large book, which was how to live in the next moment. Yes, because it's, you know, life is emerging. It's unfolding. It's unpredictable in so many ways. Absolutely.

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So what I'm going to tell you is from a treasure trove of data, right? And basically, what we find, you know, when we look at these 85 years of studying the findings are so stark that you live healthier, you live longer if you get exercise, if you eat right, if you don't abuse alcohol or drugs, if you get preventive healthcare, if you don't smoke, all that. So no surprise. But the surprise for us was that the good life is built on relationships. That what we found was that the people who had the warmest connections with others and maintain those connections as they went through life, those are the people who not just were happier, but they stayed healthier and they lived longer. That was the surprise that we didn't even believe at first. We understand how good relationships can make you happier, but how could they get into your body and make it less likely

that you'd get coronary artery disease or type 2 diabetes? How is that even possible? And then other studies began to find the same thing. And that's when we came to understand that this was a very solid, believable finding. So we've been spending the last 10 years in my lab looking for the mechanisms by which relationships do alter our physiology. It's a remarkable finding. And at the same time, it feels like my grandmother knew this insight. Yeah. Right. And I, and you, and your elders probably at some point knew and shared this with you when you're a kid, you know, like friends are important, you know, as like an early kind of beginnings of that and, you know, make sure that you're choosing well on your partner in life. So relationships is one

of the big emerging ideas like, okay. But I love the fact that you've got 85 years of research, not you personally, but you've been sitting on it. And you've been at the helm for- 20 years. 20 years. 20, yeah. And so let's just, before we go into, I love this insight that two of my friends who reviewed your book, Angela Duckworth and Daniel Pink, you know, friends are medicine. You know, their insight there, like friends are medicine.

Like it's just, it's simple and it's concrete and it's like, got it, you know? And then I would add to it, which I want to in a minute, which is that they're more than medicine because medicine is like self-serving. There's something generative to it as well. It's like when you and I have a good friendship and somebody else is watching, it's also medicine for others. So it's not just medicine for you and I. There's that bit of research maybe we can pull on. So let's just back up for one moment and talk about, just for a minute, the origin of why this study, this 85-year investigation started. And then if you could maybe break out the two groups that you primarily studied, and then to drive into two relationships, the large rock that's in the container and then the two that are quick follows behind it. Yeah. So the study started as two studies that didn't know about each other.

One started at Harvard University Health Service. It was a study of how young men go from adolescence into young adulthood, taking good developmental paths. And so these were Harvard College sophomores, 19-year-old guys recommended by their deans as fine, upstanding young men. And so if you want to study normal human development, you study all white guys from Harvard, right? It sounds about wrong. It sounds about wrong. It's the most politically incorrect sample a researcher could ever have. And so we're constantly having to explain to NIH why they should continue to fund us, which they do, because we're the only thing like it. So there was that part of the study. But there was also a study started at Harvard Law School by Sheldon Gluck, who was a law professor, and his wife, Eleanor

Gluck, who was a social worker. And they were interested in juvenile delinquency, but particularly in how some children from really disadvantaged and troubled families, how those kids managed to stay on good developmental paths, managed to stay out of trouble. So it was also a study of thriving, but in a very underprivileged sample by contrast with our very privileged Harvard sample. And so my predecessor, George Valiant, brought the two studies together and said, let's look at them as contrasting groups. I love it. So when we drill down into relationships are the big aha, what are your findings that can help us be better in the relationships we have? How to think about

the relationships is certainly one, and then how to behave inside of them or with them is certainly another opportunity to explore. And so there are no shortcuts here, right? And what are some of the guiding insights that have been meaningful for you? Yeah. So one of the things we found was that the people who were the best at this and ultimately the happiest and healthiest were the people who were active, who were proactive in taking care of their relationships. my friends, and they're always going to be there. But what we would see as we watch these lives is that perfectly good relationships would wither away from neglect. So the people who were particularly good at this in our study were the people who were taking care of their relationships, making sure they reached out to people, connected with friends, invited people over, made plans, right? So we coined this phrase social fitness, and it was really because the analogy seemed so apt with physical fitness. You know, like you don't go to the gym today and come home and say, good, I worked out, I'm done,

I don't ever have to do that again. We know that it's a kind of maintenance. It's a practice. And what we saw in our research is that social fitness is a practice. And it can be small stuff, right? It doesn't have to be a Herculean thing. It could be just sending a text to your friend and saying, hey, just thinking of you, wanted to say hello. And if you do those things repeatedly and make plans to take a walk or have coffee, whatever, that those things keep relationships vibrant over time. Okay. So let's go again, range and depth for just a moment. Robin Dunbar, that deep inside about 150 relationships is about all we can manage. Yeah. How do you think about range?

I think of it very differently. I mean, maybe 150 is all we can manage, but we vary a lot in how many relationships we want and need in our lives. So think about all the people who are shy, who are introverted. Those people find lots of people in their lives stressful. There's nothing wrong with being shy. There's nothing abnormal about being shy. It just means that you want and need fewer people, as opposed to the party animals who might really want 150 people in their lives and keep up with

those people. So I would say that it's highly variable, that we're all on a spectrum between introversion and extroversion, and that it is a matter of personal discernment what each of us needs. Okay. So when I think of Dunbar's magic number, I think of 150 as like the total that we can manage. And you're saying, which I think we're both agreeing. And then you're saying, right, but some people prefer to have far less. And I would agree with that a thousand percent. And when I think about introversion, extroversion, I typically think about how people gather energy. Do they gather energy from being in small groups of deeper conversation where they can listen and mull it over? And it doesn't mean they're not talking. It's just a different way of processing and gathering information. So is there a magic number that you came or that did not emerge? No, no magic number. When you study thousands

of lives, what you realize is that one magic number never fits everybody. Never. So that's the point, that in fact, some of those shy people will find 150 people incredibly stressful and it would break down their health. That's what I'm saying, that we have inborn temperamental styles that really vary widely. And therefore, the amount of social connection we need varies widely from person to person. Okay. So let's shrink the circle way down to an intimate few for just this part of the conversation. And on the intimate few, there are people in my life that I wonder this about. Like their best friends are mom, dad, aunts, and sister.

And that's their circle. And then a couple of external friends, but it's really the family of origin-ish that is their core. And of course, life partner. And I should throw in children as well. So it's like that outside of the immediate family, which are the best friends that this person has, the next layer is the family of origin. And would you say that counts, those relationships?

It doesn't matter if it's a friend group or... Because I've seen the research, it's how important it is to have an external social group, a group of guys or a group of gals that you hang out with or even mixed. And so can you help like discern that a bit? It totally counts. I mean, I think what we, when we look at the mechanism, so how does this work that can inform then who counts and, and who provides us with that benefit. So in the last 10 years, we've been studying and many other research groups have been studying how relationships get into our bodies and change them. And it seems to be about stress and stress regulation, that loneliness and social isolation are stressful. That if I have something upsetting happen during the day,

I can literally feel my body rev up. I can feel it go into fight or flight mode. My heart rate goes up. I might start to sweat. My blood pressure goes up, right? That's normal. That's to be desired, desired actually to meet a challenge. But then when the stressor is removed, the idea is we should go back to equilibrium, to baseline. What we think happens is that if I have something upsetting happen and I can go home and talk to my

wife or I can call a friend, I can literally feel my body calm down as I share that stress with somebody else. People who are isolated, people who are lonely, we believe stay in a kind of chronic fight or flight mode. And that means higher levels of circulating stress hormones like cortisol, higher levels of inflammation, and all of that gradually breaks down multiple body systems. So Dan, this is my long answer to your question, because then the question is, does it matter if it's your sister or your friend from elementary school or the friend you met two months ago? No. If that person has that effect on you, if that relationship has that stress-regulating property, it doesn't matter who it comes from.

Okay. Double-click for just a moment. And I've got two parts to this. Let's see which one. And maybe we can wrestle with them both, but where you naturally gravitate is that the first part is the homeostatic equilibrium that we're tuning for. And let's just use loneliness for an example. For me, loneliness is actually the outcome and it's the output. Like I don't feel connected to other people, even in a crowded room type of thing. Okay. But the input is a way that i'm speaking to myself about myself about others about my future about my past that i am disconnected in in a meaningful way that the output is that i feel lonely and so i'm curious from your standpoint there about the relationship with self and relationship with other and so so your findings are about the importance of relationship

with other, in particular, warm relationships. And then as a psychiatrist and a psychologist, it sounds like a bad joke, the two of us talking here, that the relationship with self, others, nature, and machines is really important in that order for me. And so, did you find anything about how the relationship of self is paramount or deeply influences relationship with others? Well, here my shrink hat is on, right? And yours is too. But the relationship with self is hugely important. And we had people who would tell us, I don't think people like me, or I don't think people want to be with me, or I feel like a failure. And that negative self-image was really impactful in keeping people away from others, in making people misinterpret reactions of other people. And so we know that there's a great deal that goes on inside that shapes how we behave, and then other people react to us that way. So actually, they did a study where they found that lonely people give

off a vibe without realizing it that says, don't come near me. And they also found that lonely people get lower quality care from their primary care providers in medicine, that there's something about the signals that lonely people give off that has people keep their distance many times. And so there's actually a whole field now of cognitive behavior therapy where they try to teach lonely people some of the skills to undo some of the dysfunctional beliefs. Oh my God, this is great. Okay, because you just spoke, Bob, right into my wife. Okay, so my wife, we don't go to the gym anymore,

but we used to go to the gym a bunch. And she has mastered the art of don't come near me. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. And so one of the things, and I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're talking about, but she says, if I make eye contact with somebody, I know they're coming over. And so I don't make any eye contact.

Yeah. And so it's like a closed off experience. And so she got to the point where she's like, I just don't like how this feels. It's too taxing to manage the social bit for her. And so that was not a good setting to be able to thrive. But she's using that purposefully, right? She's saying, I don't feel okay with people I don't know coming up to me in a public setting like this, in a gym. And so I'm assuming she doesn't give off that vibe because she's lonely. I'm assuming it's because she's saying,

this doesn't feel good to me to be in this setting, making eye contact and inviting you to come over. Right. A hundred percent. It's super tactical. She's really happy, but she wants, when she's working out, she just kind of wants to be in that zone. And so managing like somebody walking up and you know, she's like, I don't, I don't have the energy or want to do that. Yeah. So it's different to your point. Yeah. Okay. And then did you say it was a study on vibes? Did I hear you say that? Yeah.

Well, vibes is, you know, that's not the- Okay. I was going to love this. Oh, no, no, no. It wasn't. It's not, but it is a study. This comes out of a group at the University of Chicago. It's not my research.

John Cassioppo and his wife, I believe her name is Jennifer Cassioppo, did some research on this. And so what I believe they find is that other people see lonely people as not wanting contact. But I would have to go back and look at those studies. So I would suggest that our listeners go and look that up if they're interested, because I'm not sure how they measured it, but they did not measure vibes. No, I think what I just took away from this is that the great Dr. Waldinger talks about vibes. Well, I do.

It's the science of vibes. Yeah, right. Yeah. But that's probably more from my Zen life than it is from- Oh, yeah. That's good. That's awesome. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple of sponsors that are making this show possible.

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FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. Let's stay with relationships one more beat here. Is that chicken and egg? And is that your social environment helps with this relationship with self? Or is it, I should say, social emotional connections help with self? Or is it like a dynamic inner relationship with yourself impacts the external social? And I know what you're going to say. It's both. I know that going into it.

Yeah, exactly. So, but like, if you had to get off the fence, which one would you say you would bet on? Or if you're working with somebody that is maybe struggling a little bit? What I would say, if I'm working with somebody like a patient in therapy, I would say we start where we can, right? So I think it is both and I think that it is synergistic, right? But I would say, let's start with what we can work with, which is the self, right? You, the person I'm working with, let's start with you and see if we alter this, if we alter how you come across to people.

Let's see if people will then react to you differently. We can't control how other people behave toward you, but we can do some moving the needle on how you behave toward the world. So it's kind of impacting one side of that dynamic that always goes two ways. Yeah. I over-index on self and then because of that lack of control, the directional nature, and then it always feels kind of cheap. And maybe you can course correct me when I say, you know, something like in the back of my mind, I'm thinking that if this person had a deep relationship, they'd be great. But then introducing that into the conversation, it's like, yeah, thanks doc. Like, yeah, I don't.

Thanks. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly, thanks doc. Like, yeah, I don't. Right. Right. A pile on. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. But there are ways, you know, and, and you, I'm sure you know this, but research has shown there are, there are behaviors that can make it more likely that we'll start to develop new relationships. Okay. Break it down. Like kind of behaviors? Well, think of the water cooler at work. This iconic site where people come because they need water, or it might be the coffee machine or the snack bar, but basically where you encounter some of the same people over and over again. Often it's at a workplace. What they find is that when people encounter the same people over and over again, they strike up simple conversations, but then eventually over time, they can strike up deeper conversations. And some of those conversations may lead to ongoing connections

and friendships. So what does that mean? Well, let's say you don't work at a place that has that, or you work remotely. The research also shows that people can do things they care about alongside others. So let's say you love gardening, or let's say you love bowling, or you want to work to prevent climate change, right? You can volunteer in settings where the same people show up again and again, because what it means is that, first of all, there's something you immediately have in common, something you care about, and you have a natural place to start conversations. Like, how about these zinnias, or whatever it might be. And so, what they find is that if you put- Wait, wait, wait. What is a zinnia?

A zinnia is a kind of flower. Sorry. Oh, okay. I mean, I pulled that out of nowhere. I don't remember how I got that, but it is. It's really a kind of flower. But what the research shows is that if we put ourselves in those situations, we are more likely to make new friends, make new relationships. The other place that people can do this is finding ways to be of service. So we often think, well, people don't want me around, particularly if you're lonely, if your self-talk is pretty negative. But when you find places where people need you, that's often a place where connection

is easier and people are grateful for your help. It could be volunteering at a food pantry. It could be reading to children, tutoring kids who need and want the help. So there are various things that we can do, given our energy and our time, that will meet a need that other people have. And in that way, help us make new connections, even when we're shy and feel like people don't want us. What did you learn is the great threat of related to vulnerability or taking a relationship, whether it's a surface relationship a little bit deeper or extending the circle of potential conversations or an intimate relationship even

deeper. So we use the word vulnerability, but did your research point to what is so scary about that or challenging? What's getting in the way? Yeah. Our research didn't, but I've seen some other research that points to this idea that relationships are unpredictable. And so there are a whole lot of ways they can be unpredictable. So our fears could range from anything from, this person doesn't want me around. They're not going to like me. They don't like the way like me. They don't like

the way I look. They don't like the sound of my voice. It could be, I'm going to talk to this person sitting next to me on the airplane and they're not going to shut up. And I'm not going to have any peace and quiet on this six hour flight, right? It could be so many ways that a conversation could not go well. And so I think what we're really dealing with is the unpredictability compared with being alone. So I'll quote you another study that I bet you know about. They did a study of people who were about to take the commuter rail in Chicago. And they assigned two random groups. They assigned one group to do what you normally do. Might be being on your phone, might be reading the newspaper, whatever

you do, just do that. The other group was assigned to talk to a stranger. And they asked people beforehand, how much do you think you're going to enjoy this? And the people who were assigned to talk to a stranger said, nah, I'm not going to enjoy this. And then afterwards, they asked people again, well, how much did you like completing your assignment? The people who talked to a stranger were much happier as a group than the people who did their usual thing on the commuter train. And what that tells us is we're kind of bad at predicting

what's going to make us happy, particularly when it comes to making connections with other people. And is it because we're more interested in immediate temporal safety or pleasure or relief? Probably all that, particularly safety and predictability, because relationships are unpredictable. You know, even when you go home to your wife and you don't know what kind of mood she's going to be in or what kind of mood you're going to be in, right? I mean, that's unpredictable. And you guys know each other better than most pairs of people on the planet, right?

So if that's unpredictable, what's it like to meet a stranger? What's it like to talk to a person at work who you've really never talked to before? It's a little scary. There's some inertia to be overcome there. Do you have any insights around, and this is a bit of a leap from your research to a modern condition where people are, there's a downgrading of the need for relationships. It's kind of born out of the 1980s where it was a self-help industry where it was just about helping oneself. And it's migrated or extended where people aren't really needing, feeling like they need somebody else to be okay. And so my responsibility is to take care of me and focus on me. And what you're saying is, right, what you need, what we need, or what we found, I should say, is relationships.

It's a bit of a lifeboat for all of us. Yeah. And it's a lifeboat in two ways. Relationships help us through the hard times. So if you think about it, when something bad happens... In fact, we asked our guys, our initial subjects, at one point we asked them, who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared? And most of them could list several people. Some of them couldn't list anybody. And as far as we know, everybody needs at least one or two relationships where somebody has your back. And so relationships do that for us on the side of helping us manage hard times. But there's also so much energy that we can derive from relationships and so much help. This myth of the self-made man, and it's usually the man who thinks of himself as self-made, is a total myth. The idea that we don't rely on anybody else,

we don't stand on any other shoulders. Really, we're standing on other people's shoulders all the time with everything we do. And that when we acknowledge it and we leverage it, it's huge. I mean, the studies of like, how do you find your next job? You're much more likely to find your next job

from people who are actually kind of peripheral to your life but you just happen to know and connect with. There are all these ways in which the benefits of relationships are multiple and often hidden until we really focus on it and then say, oh yeah, that is how I found my last job. That is how I got through this big crisis. It's one of the big takeaways that I speak about often is that nobody does it alone. So we celebrate the extraordinaries on the podium. However, it's a full team. Yeah. And so that idea that none of us do it alone, I think has been really important. And one of the,

let's call it the bright lights of the best in the world is that there's a bit of a narcissism that runs through them. However, there's a team that's supporting them, challenging them. Yeah. Yeah. But we sell, Americans sell each other this myth that there is a loner, the Marlboro man myth, right? That you're just kind of a loner and you're tough and you do it all yourself and you're independent. And that's just not the truth. Okay. Quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't

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And I'd love to hear a few that rise to the surface for you that you've been inspired by. And everything from nothing to multi-billionaire, nothing in the account to multi-millionaire. And so can you maybe speak to a couple of the stories that were important for your personal development? Yeah. We talk about two men who we put next to each other and we contrast their lives. So they were both from Harvard, which is just helpful for comparison purposes. One was a super high achieving man who became a high powered lawyer and seemed to have all the advantages, made a lot of money, won a lot of awards in his life. The other was a guy who wanted to be a writer, but he had to come home from World War

II and take care of his ailing mother. So he became a high school teacher and he remained a high school teacher his whole life. The high school teacher was so much happier and more fulfilled in his life than the high-powered lawyer. So both started out looking like they had their whole lives ahead of them and they were going to be winners. But the real winner was the high school teacher, the guy who didn't have a glamorous career at all, didn't make a lot of money, didn't win awards. But it turned out that he loved teaching kids. He loved mentoring kids.

He liked his colleagues. He had a good marriage. He had three kids who he spent a lot of time with. And later on, lots of time building a sailboat with his grandchildren and a whole bunch of things. The high-powered lawyer was somebody who just always felt that his thing wasn't people. He didn't do well with people. He didn't prioritize people.

He prioritized work, and he prioritized achievement. And he was pretty miserable, particularly toward the end of his life. And the two contrasting stories are really about what we invest in as we go through life. I want them both. I want the combination of those two. And I think, if I remember, was this John and Leo? Did I get the pseudonyms? Yeah, you got them. Good for you. Good for you. No, I loved your book. I think what you did was special. And especially because you're standing on such a, you told stories, but are standing on mountains of research and findings.

And so when I read about John and Leo, I wanted like some dash between them. Like I want both. And I think that that's, I don't think I'm alone in that. And I didn't, I don't want what Leo had. Like for me, it's not enough. And I know that almost might sound, oh, you agree. I'm surprised you agree. Yeah, I'm a Harvard professor. And I'm talking to you, Mike, on this very fancy podcast. I mean, I'm not living a quiet life, right?

So we're both- I feel better hearing that. I feel a lot better. I don't know why I needed you to go, yeah, you're not crazy. You're not crazy. You know where some of my greatest tension in life is, is I've got this big ambition, big motor, and I pour into it. And the greatest regret I have is the times that I missed in the relationships with my intimate loved ones. And so managing that earlier was ridiculously hard. And I don't think I'm even doing, I wouldn't be the model now, but I am significantly better

than I was. And so I haven't figured out how to be an outdoor cat, you know, that has claws and wants to go explore. And at the same time, following kind of the institutional nature of education. My son is 14, so we're not traveling the world with a 14-year-old at school. So there's a challenge in it. I don't know. I'll pause there. I'm not looking for a silver bullet, but I'm just sharing that that's been one of my great challenges. Well, and I'm so glad you shared that because there is no silver bullet. That's what my sense is, having both from studying all these lives, from working with people in psychotherapy,

from sitting on a meditation cushion for years, right? Like what I find is that we never finally figure it out. So some days I sit there thinking, I don't have a clue what I'm doing. And I think that it is an endless process of working on it, of trying to find balance that we never fully achieve, but we get better. And then sometimes it gets worse again, and then we try to correct things and we get better. There are times when I feel like my wife and I are ships passing in the night, and then we correct that. But we never come to a final place where it's all good and it stays that way. That's my real sense of it. That's certainly what Zen has taught me too. Zen really teaches you never

finally arrive anywhere. So I just want to say I'm with you. Okay. So the narcissist uses relationships for their own aim as currency. They, of course, correct me if you see it differently, but they're more interested in having their needs met than others. And I'm by no means suggesting that that is a path forward. I'm suggesting in some respect that it's hard to balance all of it. And I love the support that my family provides me because it does allow me to go explore and come back. But making sure that I'm properly hydrating and feeding that relationship, I don't know if I'm alone in that. I don't know if other people are like, yeah,

I hear what you're saying, Bob, too, is that like passengers or ships passing in the night. But do you find that from your wife's perspective, and I'm kind of bleeding into ideas here, but from your wife's perspective, and we could extrapolate women in general maybe, that there's insights that are unique to women in your findings? And are there any differences that you have found? The differences weren't as great as we thought they would be. I mean, I think that I've been steeped in a lot of research and media about gender differences and the importance of gender differences. But when we looked at those gender differences, not just in our study, but in the whole literature, they weren't as great as we thought. Relationships are important to men as well. Women are better at being socially connected. I think because of their socialization, they have been raised to value social connection.

Women are more apt to confide in each other. They're more apt to share with each other things about their private lives and their emotional lives. Men are more transactional and they do more stuff together. But what we find is that the gender differences aren't so great. One of the differences we found that was interesting is when we asked people what they regretted the most, but this was the World War II generation, that the men were more likely to say, I wish I hadn't spent so much time at work. I wish I had spent more time with the people I care about. And the women were more likely to say, I wish I hadn't worried so much about what other people thought. And so for women, it was about trying to be authentic in relationships. And for men,

it was just trying to spend more time being in relationships. Oh my goodness. Okay. Can you point me to, I don't think this is published. I don't think you've published that, have you? No, we haven't. Because we had to call it and code it and it was a really cumbersome thing. And so we haven't really gotten it out there. I think one of the great constrictors of human potential is a pervasive fear of people's opinions. And what I heard just heard, and we call it FOPO for fun. And what I think I just heard you say is that according to your research, women might have a higher degree or prevalence of FOPO. But I don't want to make that leap without being able to really drill into it with you. Yeah. And I can't say that I have the hard and fast publishable data on that.

So that may be, it's a lot of lives, but it's still anecdotal. So let's not take this to the bank yet. But I think that you do hear women say, particularly in the workplace, that men are allowed more leeway in rocking the boat, in not being – I can't remember there's a term for it. It's something like socially confluent or something. And that women are expected to be more get along, go along kind of in their manner. And that that's unfair. It's an unfair constraint on women. So there is a difference there. And certainly women in the workplace are talking about this. Yeah. I think one of the things when we do work with senior leadership teams, one of the things that we're quick to point out is that like, what are the different types of leaders? And so who's the emotional leader, right? Who, and it's not gender specific,

but who, who's going to take care of the emotions from going deep enough that other people can work from incorporating emotions into decision making and to fold in the depth of relationships with an emotional tone to it so that they're not transactional and real. So we're always looking for the person that is a leader of emotion because there's plenty of transactional leaders, you know, leaders. And right. So who is going to hold that gravitas to make sure that, um, you know, we're being honest with each other. Yeah. Finding master is brought to you by I restore when it comes to my health. I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked until your hair starts to change. That's when people pay attention.

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quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. Okay. Because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. Okay, so I would like to kind of switch gears a little bit and think about how you speak to leaders. And so right now, according to Gallup, if you think about the layers of experience people have, suffering, struggling, and thriving, some of their recent research is that 51% of people are thriving. That means that 49% are suffering and struggling, and that's a huge number. Huge. And so, yeah. So if a leader knew what you knew, and you could speak right into leaders of enterprise or people that are responsible for the quality of the work environment,

what would you want them to know and how would you help them act differently? I would say prioritize relationships. So going back- We don't have time for that. Yeah, right, right. Yes, you do. Because your bottom line- No, you don't understand. It's too messy. No, there's good data. There's good data that shows that your bottom line will suffer. Can we do it in 20 minutes? Bob, can we do it in 20 minutes? Your bottom line will suffer. You will lose more. You will have more employee attrition.

Do you know how much, you know it costs $1 million to replace a surgeon in a hospital to just, just recruit a new one and onboard them and you know, the loss of revenue. Okay. So now that's a surgeon, but I was going to say, Hey, at this enterprise, we're not, we're not surgeons. You know? Okay. You're not surgeons.

You're widget makers, but we're selling something. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But, but what you find, I mean, the Gallup organization, so the Gallup survey of 15 million workers asks the question, do you have a best friend at work? Only 30% of people have a best friend at work, but those people are more engaged with customers. They do higher quality work. They are less likely to leave for another job that makes a better offer. And the people who don't have a best friend at work, so 70%, only one in 12 say they feel engaged in their jobs. So 11 out of 12 of that 70% are checked out. Right? So if you're, okay, you can say, I don't have time for that.

It's too expensive. It's too messy, but at your peril, Mr. Or Ms. CEO, that's my argument. Okay. Right. And so that's, so then you've also found that one in three CEOs report to be lonely. Yep. Yep. That's striking. Isn't that striking? And what we find is that the CEOs, you know, those emotional leaders, the CEOs who are tuned into the emotional climate

of teams and of their workers are the people who over time get best results. What we know, and I think this is from some good business school studies, is that leaders who lead through fear get good results immediately and then they tail off. And then there's resentment, there's passive aggression, there's all kinds of stuff. So you can start out looking good if you're a leader who leads via fear,

but otherwise it's those engaged, galvanizing leaders that do much better. And let's say you're not the one to feel like you can do that. Well, first of all, you can be coached. As I'm sure you know, you can be coached to get better at it. And you can bring around you a team of people, some of whom have those skills and can really set up the workplace and model behaviors in ways that prioritize teamwork, connections, cooperation. Bob, would you start with deepening the relationships or would you start, the answer is going to

be yes and, both of them, I'm assuming, but would you start with a process or set of processes to deepen relationships or would you start with clarifying purpose so that there's a drinking fountain, a trough that we're going to gather around or there's a shared mission that we're going to make sure that we are connecting to. And that's how we would accidentally create more meaningful relationships because the purpose matters so much. The mission is so big and bold and ambitious that of course we know we need each other. So which way would you start? I think I probably would start with purpose because for many people, for many workers, knowing why am I doing this is huge. And so I think having a purpose in an organization matters a lot. a big telecom company in Europe. And what they decided was that they were going to reconfigure their mission

so that it was about human connection. So it's telecoms, right? So it's telephone and internet connections. But what they decided was we really want people to know that they are helping people connect with each other. And when they did that, then they began to foster more connections among their workers. But it was with that overall umbrella of,

and we're all trying to foster connections in our larger society. And so I think that having that North Star of a purpose for the organization of a mission is pretty valuable. That won't light up everybody. Some people won't care about that, but you can help other people find different purposes. Like, I like my team. I like showing up for my team. I don't care what the overall purpose of the company is, but I like these guys. So I'm going to come back every day and I'm going to be involved because the team meetings matter to me. So not everybody's going to get on board with

a particular purpose, but a lot of people will. I like that you started there. That's where I start as well. And then I quickly, like it's a fast follow is for each person to know their unique purpose and how they see it stitching to the shared purpose, the purpose of the company. And then for people to share that amongst the leadership team or the team that they're on. merging between the enterprise purpose and my personal purpose and then understanding my partner's purposes and being able to hold that, almost tenderly hold that. I feel like it's like one and one is definitely something greater than, it's like 11. And then I just want to make sure that I'm thinking about this the way that you're thinking about it is that at business, it's striking to me that you would say it's important to have a best, you think maybe it's

important to have a best friend at work because that has not been my experience. And I want to understand if I'm hearing that correctly, that you would say, no, I think that if you could lean into having great friendships at work as opposed to being incredibly good with each other and have fun and be serious and support and challenge each other, but not necessarily hanging out on the weekends or after hours. I'm a little hazy in what you're suggesting. Okay. And that may be because the question was more general that they asked, that the Gallup organization asked in the survey. I see. I see. Okay.

So it could be I have a friend with whom I can talk about my personal life. Like, you know, if my kid is struggling and their grades are falling, it might be something I'd mentioned because I'm worried about it today. And there'd be somebody who I could talk to and would tell me about their life. Okay. So there's that part of friendship, but there's also having fun. This is the person who, you know, we all play basketball on a basketball team at work, or, you know, we get a lot of different things from friendships. We get material support, we get fun, we get emotional support, a lot of things. I don't know that the Gallup survey said what kind of support is crucial. They just said, if you're getting something personal to you from people at work, from somebody at least at work, that's going to bind you there. That's going to energize you.

That's going to make you want to go to work, right? So it might be the basketball game. It might be being able to talk about your daughter's difficulty making friends in her new school. There's so many things we get from relationships. And so, yeah. Okay. I told you, this is where I think sport has completely dialed it in. And unfortunately, it hasn't been metabolized by the people inside of sport to the level that we would hope. But sports purpose, like the organization's purpose is very clear. And so when people are inside of the environment, they're very clear what the purpose is. And the better organizations make it less transactional, more aspirational.

But my point is that teammates, we don't talk about teammates in business the same way that we do in sport. And so like the depth of friendship, they call it, they want to call it family, which I have a reaction to, uh, on the teams that I'm, I'm supporting, but that to the point that they're like, no, we are, there is a brotherhood or a sisterhood, or there is a, a bond that we have with each other that is different than any other bonds, you know, in our lives. And I'm like, wow, that part of binding around a shared mission, because it's hard to do elite sport is noted and we don't have businesses. So transactional it, you know, like, I think it was, I think I read it from you that it was an insight,

was it an insight from, I don't want to be callous here, but I think it was Aristotle that was saying basically like, but people wouldn't choose necessarily to go to work. They're going to work to make money and they're going to work to make money for another reason. And if we stop at, you know, at number two, which is to make money, then there's problems. Absolutely. I mean, because money is empty. It's like, well, why? What do you want to do with money?

But for many people, they want to look good. They want to have some security. They want to have a nice house, a nice car, a nice watch. And I think that we have over-scripted that that's not okay. want to have some security. They want to have a nice house, a nice car, a nice watch. And I think that we have over-scripted that that's not okay. We're suggesting to people that it's not okay to have extrinsic motivations. Motivators. Yeah. Yeah. And I find it feels like it's condemning, not condemning, but condescending in some ways. So maybe you can help me out from a research standpoint about intrinsic and extrinsic.

Well, it's a really good point because it can sound like, oh, it's all got to come from within and it's all got to be incredibly noble. No. You know, one of the things you probably know about is Daniel Kahneman's famous study about how happiness goes up as you make more money. And what he finds is that, yeah, but he finds that as you get your needs met, happiness really goes up. It's that what he finds is that the difference between 75,000 and 75 million isn't nearly as

great as we thought. And now it's more complicated than that. But I think to your point, it's not that these things don't matter. It's that they ultimately aren't so nourishing. So if you spend your time amassing wealth so you can buy your third home and your second yacht, that what people find basically is that it's kind of empty, that they get bored. Because ultimately, once you get your basic needs met and you have some nice things in your life, there are diminishing returns in going after more of that. Similarly, it's getting awards. So I'm in academia where the coin of the realm is professorships and awards of various kinds, right?

And what you find is that after a while, it just doesn't do it. Like many people will say, oh my God, I worked for 30 years to become a professor and now here I am and nothing much has changed. So what we find is that it's not that doing these things isn't worthwhile and meaningful. It's that the badges of achievement, whether they're achievement in wealth or achievement in your profession or whatever, that the badges of achievement don't keep us warm at night, but the work itself does. So like for me, these ideas really matter to me. So it matters to me that I talk about this, that I talk with you, that I get these ideas

out there, that I wrote this book. I want to do this because I care about it. I'm glad that it's become a bestseller. I'm glad, you know, that's nice. It feels good. but it doesn't feel good for that long. But when people say to me, this has made a difference in how I see my life, that's something I can take home. That doesn't fade so much, if that makes sense. So it's the work itself and the results of it rather than the badge

of achievement that comes with it. Okay. So in summary, as a forcing function, as a reductionist type of question here, how do we live the good life? Huh? Well, here's where I am going to be a guy with opinions, but they are based somewhat on, I mean, I think for me, the good life is being engaged in activities that I care about and being engaged with people who I care about and who care about me. Those are kind of the big ticket items. The third one threw me off. The first one I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The second one, people I care about, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I got it. The third one, they care about me. I was like, oh. And if you could open that up because the response I had to it was, it was an insight passed on from a mentor of mine, which was, and I think it was research-based, but I can't remember, but it was one of the keys to life is having people to love. Yes. And it's not having people love you.

So, and I don't know where that came from. Maybe you could point me back to some original research around that, but maybe not. That is less important. But why that third variable there? I've found is that there are relationships that aren't very mutual where people want me to listen to them, to take care of them, but they don't give a lot in return. And that can feel very depleting to me. So having relationships where there really is a genuine back and forth is the most energizing kind of connection I can have. Oh, I love that you're opening this up.

You just changed me. You just changed this, like you just added something meaningful to me. Well, you know, one of the things I find, and this is very personal, that I'm the listener and everybody else is the person who gets listened to, that I don't get enough of my needs met and that I can err on that side. But I think that's because of the kind of person I am. And I think it's why I kind of wandered into mental health care, which I love, by the way. I'm absolutely delighted that I ended up making that choice. But that the hazard for me, the occupational hazard, is that I can be the person who listens to other people all the time

and never talks about myself. I love it. And I explain the transactional limitation when I, I have one client a month that I spend time with. And, um, and so I explained the transactional nature. I said, this is like no other relationship. This is 100% about you. Yeah. And so they're like, Oh, Oh, that's right. And I said, so in some respects, you know, so in some respects, this is not how it's supposed to be outside of this room. There's a lot that's going to be light bulb moments inside, even the way it feels to be attended to and cared for and fill in the blanks, but this is not healthy in other parts. Okay, Bob, really quickly, as we're wrapping up, can I give you some quick hits, like really fast answers to relatively large questions?

To get my associations, just my- Totally. Yes. All right. Okay. You ready? Okay. It all comes down to- Connection. I am? Endlessly fascinated by the experience of being alive. You've said that before. That was awesome. That was really cool.

Okay. My vision is? My vision is staying engaged with life as long as I can. Money is? A means to ends. It's not an end in itself nice people well okay the doll the doll i i got you somehow you're struggling you got me because nice so so i've been accused of being too nice, right? Oh, I hit a nerve. You hit a nerve. The pejorative context of nice can be syrupy sweet and not being genuine, right? But if nice can be also kind, then kind people are the people we want to gravitate toward.

The Dalai Lama said, my religion is kindness. Yeah, that's really cool. All right. Listen, I just want to say thank you. There's so much more that I want to understand from your research. Where are you going next? Well, I'm teaching a lot of Zen. Where are you going next? who can use it rather than simply publishing in the academic journals that almost nobody reads. Because it seems to me like we know things from research that are really useful to people. And

so my job is now to put it into language that makes sense to people and to bring it out to as many people as I can. But by the way, I have so enjoyed this. This has been a real pleasure to get to talk. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Yep. Thank you so much. And your work is meaningful. I can't wait for our community to be exposed for those who haven't already picked it up. And where would you like to drive people to? Well, I'm updating my website, robertwaldinger.com. And if people want to buy the book, thegoodlifebook.com. And if people want to hear Dharma talks from me, they're on Insight Timer. Awesome. So keep pushing, keep flowing. Like what you're doing is awesome. And so thank you for helping us, you know, live a better life and create in return a better world for many. And so I'm stoked to have you on and thank you so much for this conversation. Well, thank you. This conversation was a real treat. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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