The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 509: Dr. Marc Schulz - Lessons From The World's Longest Scientific Study Of Happiness (The Good Life)

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... They are called "Mindful Monday." A perfect opportunity for you to be more thoughtful as you start your week. Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Dr. Marc Schulz is the Associate Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and an award-winning professor at Bryn Mawr College, where he directs the Data Science Program and is the Sue Kardas Ph.D. 1971 Chair in Psychology. He completed his BA at Amherst College and his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.  Notes: "Relationships are at the core of human flourishing." Friendships - Map out your social universe. Are the connections uplifting or depleting? Ask, "what do I value about the person?" Be intentional about your relationships and how you invest in them. The quality of the relationship you have with your partner will determine how long you will live. As we get older, we tend to get happier. We accumulate emotional wisdom. We should focus more on relationships that give us emotional sustenance. This work is built on a bedrock of scientific research. At its heart, the Harvard Study of Adult Development. An extraordinary scientific endeavor that began in 1938, is still going Bob is the 4th director of the study, and Marc is its associate director. "Generativity" – In psychology, expanding our concerns and efforts beyond our own lives is called generativity and it's a key to unlocking the vibrancy and excitement of midlife. When asked at the end of their lives, "What do you wish you'd done less of? And more of?" The study participants often referenced their middle years and regretted having spent so much time worrying and so little time acting in a way that made them feel alive. The story of John Marsden and Leo DeMarco… Leo lived a rich life because of the relationships he fostered with his wife, daughters, and close friends. John put all of his effort into becoming a lawyer, becoming well-known, and didn't focus on his relationships. They ended up on opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to happiness. Research has shown that people who have a close colleague at work are more engaged and productive than those who don't. Close to half of your waking moments are spent thinking about something other than what you are doing. Loneliness increases your risk of death as much as smoking or obesity. Evolutionary theories: Survival depends on us coming together as groups. We are social creatures. How to handle remote/hybrid working environments? There is a cost to not being together. There is a cost to working alone. Friendships need repeated exposure. Doing tasks together builds friendships. You can't do those well remotely. Strangers on a Train: What do you want to do while on a train? Listen to music or talk with the stranger sitting next to you? Most will say that they would rather put their headphones on, listen to music, or read a book. However, the research suggests that you'll be happier if you spoke with a stranger on the train. Life/Career advice: Think about the nitty gritty of a job. Talk to people doing the job. Spend extended time with them while they are doing the job. See what it's like.  

Friendships and other relationships that help us grow are really important. We all have old friends that we like to hang out with, and it reminds us of old times. But sometimes we realize that it's just about old times. So good friends also nurture us in a way that helps us grow. They might encourage exploration. They might bring new ideas to us that we hadn't thought about. So growth is also an important part of all relationships. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show, presented by Insight Global.

I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text, Hawk to 666866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You also receive the tales about how my book The Pursuit of Excellence will help you become a more effective leader. Text talk to 66866. Now on to tonight's featured leader. This is the great one. Dr. Mark Schultz is the associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. He is a practicing therapist

with postdoctoral training in health and clinical psychology at Harvard Medical School. He is also the author of a new book called The Good Life, Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. cited this study in both of the books that I have published. It is a fantastic one. During this conversation we discuss the most surprising fact he learned from the Harvard study of adult development. Then the qualities of an excellent friend and how to be one, how to be a great partner, and so much more. This conversation is packed with awesome stories, scientific research, and most importantly, I think, practical application. How can you take what you've learned from the study, from the book, and from our conversation and apply it, actually do it in your own life. Mark shares how you can

do this. And that's why you could tell, you can probably hear me smiling throughout this conversation is so good. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Mark Schultz. All right, Mark, it's great to have you here in The Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Such a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Let's start with two people, John Marsden and Leo DeMarco. There's a difference between these two guys. And in 1946, they were both at a major crossroads. Can you tell me more about those two people and what you learned from researching both of them?

Yeah, so these are two people that have been involved in a research project that has been going on for over 80 years. and we were able to follow John and Leo's life from the time they were students at Harvard University through to the end of their life. And they were both, you know, in some ways sitting on top of the world as they were students at Harvard University. Both did well in school and had bright futures. The war really interrupted a lot of their aspirations and dreams. So they each played a role in the war, but a very different role. And one of them became, became was interesting in becoming a writer, was an aspiration he had for his undergraduate life. He dreamed about being a writer, served in the war, events kind of intervened so that it was

tricky to follow that pursuit. One of his parents got sick at that time and he had to come home and help out. And he ended up being a high school teacher for his life. And he lived a life that was filled with connections and relationships and, you know, a very rich life in which he was part of a community that people, I think, appreciated him and he felt connected to many others. So he was a beloved high school teacher for his entire life. And things turned out differently than he imagined, but was quite happy. And one of the happiest people in the study, which includes 724 people. And then the other individual was interested in a high-powered career, was interested in becoming a lawyer,

and was a really good student in college and went to a top law school, University of Chicago, and went on to have an incredible career in law, did some teaching, did some public service work, very well-respected member of the community. But let a very different life, a life that felt more isolated and disliked. connected from others. He had challenges in his family life with his partners, with his kids over the years, and in many ways focused more on achievement as a critical aspect of his life than those connections with others. And he turned out to be one of the least happy people among the 724 people we studied. What do you draw from that from from Leo and John? By the way, Leo is the one who

became the teacher and John, the lawyer. What do you draw from the take? takeaways of even though Leo did not become a writer, he did a job that he did not necessarily want to do. And John, ambitious, focused, wanted to, I think, probably do a job that society said is admirable. He's a lawyer. His relationships, though, suffered. What are the takeaways from those two people? Well, I think it's a really simple takeaway that's backed by all the research that we've done in other studies, which is that relationships are really at the core of our human flourishing. If we want to flourish and be happy and satisfied in life, we need to nourish and cultivate our relationships. And Leo was someone who, you know, had a hard time doing that.

And so the message is a clear one, that relationship keeps us happy and healthy as we live through life. And these two men really illustrate them. It's not our achievements. It's not our success. It's not how many people know our name because of the work that we do. It's really the connections that we cultivate through life that are critical. Mark, a lot of people listening are quite ambitious, are getting promoted regularly, are continuously driving. I mean, I'm one of these that are continuously driving to improve and hit whatever the next level is. There's this kind of never arriving, always becoming mindset, which I think can be healthy. What do you say to somebody like that? I think having goals and being really motivated and trying to continuously improve is

great and really terrific that, you know, if that's a problem, I consider myself guilty on that way, too. I think the trick is not forgetting that the relationships are critical and it doesn't have to be either or. There are ways of pursuing those goals and sort of being all that we can be and still cultivate and nurture those relationships and connections. I think there's also an important message, which is that we all have, particularly when we're young, this idea that if I do this one thing, if I achieve at this level, if I only make X amount more money, then I will be happy. And the key idea there is the then part, that the happiness is somewhere off in the future. And happiness is life. We need

to kind of live life in a way that nurtures ourselves and connects us to other people so that we continue to derive those benefits. So I love, you know, striving's terrific. I'm in a job that's pretty competitive and I've worked hard of my life, but it's also been important to me to figure out ways to prioritize relationships with others. Let's get into the study. I wanted to start with the story and now we'll get into the study, the meat of this thing. So I've cited this study in both of the books I've published so far. I think it's one of the most useful studies ever done. So the in the book that you've written is built on a bedrock of scientific research. And I believe this began in 1938. Is that correct?

That's correct. Yeah. And you and you and one of your colleagues, Bob, you and Bob are now in charge. You're the fourth director and fourth associate director of this study that originally started in 1938, this Harvard study of adult development, this longitudinal study, it's long and it's continuously going and you follow up. Can you go deeper and give me the details about this study of what it was at its start and how you continue to stick with it up to this day? Yeah, be delighted too. So it's really a remarkable study that obviously began long before I was alive. It began in 1930s, but two very different groups of young men or boys at that time. So almost two-thirds of this sample, it was 724 people total. Almost two-thirds were young,

adolescent boys that were living in the poorest neighborhoods of Boston, facing real disadvantage and challenge. Most of them lived in tenement buildings without running water, came from immigrant families. So they were facing real important challenges in their life. And then literally just down the block from some of those neighborhoods was the remaining one-third of the sample who were students at Harvard University, John and Leo were part of the student cohort. And they were facing, obviously, a very different prospect on life. They were sitting in many ways on top of the world. Both studies began kind of independently,

and they were interested in trying to understand the factors that led to human thriving. So this was very unusual, particularly in 1930s, instead of focusing on why people develop problems or pathology, they were really interested in trying to understand on both groups, what kinds of factors led people to flourish in life. And that made them quite unique. Both cohorts were followed throughout their entire life. And when I say followed, I mean really closely followed.

The study was interested in their firsthand accounts of their life. So regular interviews, questionnaires, visits to their homes to see what it was like, what their parents were like, more recently to see how they behave when they interact with loved ones and of course more recently modern methods like brain scans and you know very careful studies of their physiology and their blood to look at important markers of health so this is a study that followed them throughout their adult years all the way into late life and now in fact we're following over 1300 of their children who are baby boomers middle age children and we incorporated wives along the way so an important challenge in the study

is that both samples were male originally, but it expanded to include wives and now the children of both cohorts. And in the book, The Good Life that I wrote with Bob Waldinger, we bring in lots of other research. So the things that we talk about, and I hope Brian, you and I talk about, are really findings that are, we find them in our study with this very close examination of people's lives through time, but we also find them in many other studies. So that's the study in a nutshell. incredible data set to be able to work with. Mark, when somebody comes to you and says, man, I want to live the good life. I mean, ambitious book title, for sure.

Yeah. But after digging into the book, it, I was, because I've cited this research multiple times in work that I've published, I was wondering how are these guys going to publish a book and kind of do it justice? I thought it's a super hard project. And yet, when you dig in, that was the part I was going to bring up. It's not just about this study and say, hey, just get good relationships. There are so many elements to building the good life.

You started the project and then you eventually published the book. What would you say is one of the more surprising things you found? Maybe something that was an aha or it changed your mind over the course of the beginning stages of, hey, we got this book deal, we got to publish it based on their study. and then you get to the end of that project, which probably, I imagine, took years. What was one of the AHAs or most surprising elements to it? So, yeah, this is a, you know, a study that I've been working on for 20 years along with my colleague. And we have been thinking a lot about the ways in which, you know, we published many studies.

I think over the course of the 85 years of the study, there probably upwards of 300 papers that have been published by this study. And Bob and I both started to think about how a lot of what we were publishing about in academic journals wasn't being read. It wasn't in a format that could be read by other people. And we're really interested in trying to take some of the core findings and think about ways to transform them in a way that could be understood, used, and benefit people in a much broader way than academic journals. So Bob, about six or seven years ago, did a TED talk. And that was our first sign that we were on the right path. That was a TED talk that went viral, and it's one of the top 10 TED talks of all time. So when we wrote the proposal for the book, we had a very clear idea that we weren't aiming this at academic audiences.

We were trying to aim this at regular people who are trying to figure out what the good life is, like all of us are. And we were going to try and use the findings to illustrate paths that people can take to find. happiness and health, and to use some of these incredible life stories, because we follow these folks so closely to use these life stories to illustrate that. And in addition, I think we also have a bunch of actionable steps that people can take. Both Bob and I are clinicians. We've worked with people over the years, you know, dealing with all sorts of challenges. And we had already begun to do this work, to translate it into a way that people could use. So all of that came together. We worked really hard on the proposal that happened over three years ago and then the

pandemic hit. And it's not a bad time to write a book, actually. So we worked really hard for the last three years. And so I think that's the long arc of it. But the surprising piece, like if we kind of step back and think about what's the signal here with all of our findings. So these hundreds of papers. And the signal, I think, really began to emerge if we look back about 30 years ago and it's continued to this day. It's relationships that are the most consistent or robust predictor of people's happiness and even their well-being, their physical well-being. And the physical part, I think, is the surprising piece that we all know, our connections to others have something to do with how happy we are. What I think was striking to us with a number of findings in our study and across many other

studies that suggests that relationships literally get under our skin and affect our health in important ways, even how long we live. So that was the, you know, to marshal that evidence, to review all of these studies, to put them together, to package it as a book, it's really clear how powerful relationships are. This comes from probably deep in our DNA over centuries of research. You've cited and I've read about the fact that we're social creatures. we like to be a part of tribes around people and actually like physically touching all of that part of it. Can you go a little bit deeper on that research and where this actually comes from that this is just kind of innately a part of us as human beings?

I think that's right. You know, if we look at evolutionary theories and evidence, it's clear that our survival, if you go back millennia, our survival dependent on us coming together as a group. That was how we protected ourselves from dangers. We were able to build shelters together to find food, to feed people. So our safety and security literally depended as we evolved on our ability to work together. And that social pressure is still here. It's still really important. So we're social creatures.

We need others. And I want to talk more about that. That's partly related to this idea of loneliness. But what's become clearer, I think, in recent years is the way. in which connections to others get into our bodies. And it's quite remarkable. Maybe it's not that surprising if we just think about our own experiences, right? When we fall in love for the first time,

when we feel the embrace of someone else, there's a physical reaction in our body that's quite powerful. And more and more science is capturing that. So in the book, we talk about some really interesting research that James Cohn has done in which he's brought people into a lab, and he's pricked them or, expose them to something that's painful. And he's done this under different circumstances, including ones in which people get to hold the hand of the person who's experiencing the pain.

And the presence of another, particularly the touch of another, reduces people's experience of pain and it affects the areas of the brain that sense pain and make us feel pain. So that's a very vivid example of it, but there are lots of examples of the ways that relationships help us steal that stress and literally reduce that corrosive effect of stress on our bodies. How about in the workplace, the world has changed. Some are fully remote. Some are hybrid environments. Bob Iger just came out this week and said, we're going to be in the office four days, a week at Disney. You stay home on Friday if you want. Yeah. And I think this idea of loneliness or this idea of being together are part of why some leaders are saying we need to be back together.

what do you think if you were advising, you probably do, I guess, if you're advising CEOs to say like, I understand the value of remote or a hybrid world, but I also understand the need for us to be together. What advice do you give to them? Yeah, I mean, this is, I think, the question for our day. It's not just a question for, you know, private enterprise. It's a question for everyone. And I'm going to frame it broadly and then come back to the kind of business world. I think part of what we take on in the book is this idea that relationships are, can be seen as transactional, that they're there because they get me things. And if I think about my own life, I teach at a university, we did some remote teaching, but most of the time I've done in-person teaching during the pandemic with

mass. It's been strange and unusual. And it has its own challenges. But we're all struggling with this idea, you know, can't we just have the meeting remotely? I don't want to get in the car. I don't want to get dressed up today. It's just much easier. It's a less of a constraint on my time. And I totally get that. My children are older now, but for parents, it's a huge benefit. But there, excuse me, there is a cost, I think, to that strategy. And the cost is the ability and opportunity to connect with others. So the classic water cooler, right, in all work settings, where you go grab some water or some coffee, and you have a few minutes of downtime

and unstructured interaction with other people. And you get to see that person, to hear them, that person feels like they're present, and people are appreciating their presence, that we lose that in important ways when we don't have those real-time-in-person connections. Now, there are ways to do it virtually, and I think people are figuring that out.

But I think we also have been realizing with three years of practice now that it's not the same those virtual interactions, no matter how clever the technologies are. And part of it is just being in the same room as each other, right? So when we talk to people, we mimic others, you know, the person I'm talking to, you and I are talking, we're nodding at each other.

I can see you on the Zoom screen here. And we're doing things that let the other person know, I'm hearing you. Oh, that's interesting. They're cues that we can pick up virtually, but what I can't see is Ryan's whole body, as we're talking, right? So there's a limit to the cues that we can get on a virtual screen. And we know we've done some of this research. We know that emotions are higher, for example,

when we meet in person than when we meet on a screen. And many people may think, well, that's great. You know, emotions kind of interfere with efficiency again. But emotions are part of who we are, right? Emotions are about things that are important to us. And if we want to connect with other people, emotions are a pretty critical piece of it. So you're a very critical piece of it. So you're a particular question about remote work and hybrid work, I think it's a good idea for people to be present in the workplace. How many days that means, I don't know. I don't get paid at that level to decide that. But I think the consideration of the benefits of in-person time together for teams, for creativity, for bonding, for learning to trust others, really critical. It's also critical,

because I'm not just worried about the companies. I'm worried about the people. I think there's a cost for people to work by themselves alone. We know that from looking at people that do night shifts, people who don't, you know, long distance trucking. There's a real cost to being apart from others for long periods of time. So we need to balance all those things when we think about what's best for the workplace. I'm biased, but my first job was a new business sales rep at a company called LexisNexis and if I was not going into an office every day with others who were really good at it for me to be mentored by to listen to to sit with them in their cubicles then go into mine and them sit with me to have regular meetings to have a lot of outside of the cubicle outside of the meeting room interaction in the hallway break room hey man it's 430 you want to come with us to the happy hour right that doesn't happen if you're at home And so I understand the world's changed. I get it.

And I understand we're all kind of biased to our own experience. In this case, though, I feel like the science backs it up. And the leaders who are being somewhat demanding of getting people in the office at times are being criticized. But I understand why they want that. It's not just for the bottom line. I think it's also for the culture. It's for the people. It is possible.

There are examples of companies that are fully remote that do off-site. once a quarter, like I get it, and it seems like they're trying. But man, I don't know. I think I would have been completely lost if that first job was, hey, come into the office once a quarter to meet up with so-and-so versus every, I mean, three of the people, Mark, that I met over the first two years of my first real job after I got done playing football after college, three of those that I met that I had not known prior to that job, we're in my wedding. And we're still very close friends to this day. And we've all left that company many years ago.

So that's what I'm saying. Like there's just so much there that I didn't go there to thinking, like, I'm going to make these friends. I went there to try to do a good job. And then the friendships happened along the way as we are all working, trying to do a good job. I think that's right. And everything you said, I think is just so important.

And I think rather than trying to shape this as either or, either we're completely remote or we're somehow in person or this hybrid stuff, which can mean so many different things. I think it's figuring out that balance. And, you know, one thing we know about friendships is that repeated contact is really critical for friendships. That's how people develop friendships. Now, in the workplace, you don't need best friends, right?

That's a bonus, but you don't need best friends. But learning how to trust people to work as a team, it's the same principle. Repeated exposure is really important, doing tasks together, some informal time. It's not necessarily a magic kind of formula. It's something we all know, but COVID has really created this natural experiment. And I think this is the challenge for society is to figure out how much of our business we can do in person, what the costs are of not doing that in person. And I think there are real costs to consider.

So I love what you said. Yeah. I read about the strangers on a train experiment. Can you describe that experiment and what you learned from it? Yeah, so this is a really fascinating study from some researchers at the University of Chicago. And what they did is they stopped people on their way to work, commuting on the train, the L in Chicago or by bus. And they said, what do you usually do when you go to work? And people said, well, I listen to my favorite podcast.

I listen to music. I read a book. or I sleep. I just sort of zone out for a while. What about talking to strangers? Oh, no, I don't do that. That's not good. And because they were a psychologist, they asked them, they did a cruel thing.

They said, okay, half of you, you're going to talk to strangers. That's what we want you to do. Before you get on that train, I'm going to check in on your mood, and we're going to find you at the end of your commute. And they found people at the end of the commute, and they checked in on their mood. people who talk to strangers were happier. Their mood got better and improved over time. So there are a bunch of lessons here that are really interesting.

One is that we are not good at what we call affective forecasting at figuring out what makes us happy. So people said talking to strangers will make me miserable. And they won't be interested in me is what a lot of people said. And that's the clue there that somehow if I talk to strangers, they won't like me. They'll reject me. I'm much better off chilling out. And it turned out, and the research is pretty clear

and there are other studies like this, that we get a boost from talking to strangers. And there's a kind of important lesson here that those people who you see in the morning when you pick up your coffee or you see on your way to work or, you know, it's break time here at the university, those people that are still working,

that I know their faces, but I haven't really interacted with them. If you reach out and have a real conversation, conversation, we feel this little jolt of energy. It's kind of exciting. It makes us feel connected. It makes us feel some sense of connection and some experience that's beyond our own self.

It gets us out of our head. So I think we underestimate the importance of those kinds of interactions. It also illustrates that we don't necessarily know what's going to, we can't predict what's going to make us happy because I would have definitely been in the camp to say, train ride listen to the podcast. Yeah. Read a book.

I am not talking to a stranger, Mark. Exactly. No. And then, and so I, so there's so much to realizing like, hey, maybe you're not fully sure. Maybe, maybe it'll make you more comfortable to sit and listen to the podcast because you don't really have to stretch. You don't have to be uncomfortable at all.

You can just sit there and listen, maybe take notes, read a book. Exactly. But talking to the stranger might be weird. It might be uncomfortable. You might have a law in the conversation and not know what to say, right? And that's the fear of like we we think we know what we want, but we're not really sure. And in that case, we just revert to what's most comfortable. I think that's absolutely right and really why.

So in the book, we also try and search ancient wisdom, you know, religious leaders, philosophy to look at what they've said about the good life. And people have been talking about the importance of relationships for a long time. People know this kind of in their head, but it's a different thing to practice it. And I think you're on to something that's really critical, which is that our fear, and the researchers ask people, what would happen if you talk to strangers? So people talked about all the scary things that you just described. And the scariest is that they would just basically tell me that I'm an idiot and not want to talk to me,

right? That I would be rejected. So relationships are good for us. We all know this at some core level, but many of us sort of hold back. or don't put the energy into it that we should. And a big piece of that is that relationships are messy. And we have the capacity to get hurt in those relationships. Some of us have really been burned in the past,

have had challenging or more than challenging relationships. So it makes sense that we might be wary. We might be a little anxious. So I totally get that. But we don't always know what's good for us. Is exactly right. Let's get personal for a second. You've done all this research.

So you're probably trying to live it out, right? You're trying to live the good life. So maybe this is a bit meta, but I'm curious as you approach the relationships and the people that are important to you in your life, whether it's your partner and friends beyond that. I'm curious, Mark, what do you think are the qualities of a great friend? Yeah, so relationships have the capacity to give us so many things. And when we think about friendships, you know, I can rifle off probably dozens of things that they give us. But when I'm thinking about a good friend, support during tough times is a critical piece of it. So we asked a question in the study, who would you call in the middle of the night if you were

sick or scared? Some people could name three or four or five people, and some people said, I don't have anyone. I'm not sure I can even rely on the person who's lying next to me at night to help me during that circumstance. So having support during challenge, during times of crisis, really important relationships are great for, you know, kind of helping to deal with stress in so many ways. So that's a critical part. A good friend is someone who you can have fun with and kind of chill, relax, you know, be yourself, really important. Friendships connect us with our past in some ways. So it's a way of kind of understanding where we've come from.

And they also, in a more direct way, kind of help us think about what our identity is and what's important to us. So, you know, and then the other thing that I would say that people don't think about sometimes is that for me and I think our research suggests us too, friendships and other relationships that help us grow are really important. So, you know, we all have old friends that we like to hang out with and it reminds us of old times. But sometimes we realize that it's just about old times, that we haven't moved on in ways that are important. Even though I've changed, our relationship hasn't changed. And we're not really talking about the ways that I want to grow. So good friends also nurture us in a way that helps us grow.

They might encourage exploration. They might bring new ideas to us that we hadn't thought about. So growth is also an important part of all relationships, but certainly friendships as well. Speaking of that, how do you know if you've outgrown someone or you're not aligned anymore and you should, I say end the friendship, but usually they just kind of, you drift apart. You don't have that conversation. I guess sometimes you might. How do you know? And I'm sure it's happening in your life that when it's like, you know, this one's,

we're just, we're just headed in opposite directions or even not opposite, just different directions where I'm kind of growing. I'm trying to get better. I'm doing this. And my friend from 20 years ago doesn't seem to be there. How do you, how do you manage those relationships? Yeah. So I have several thoughts about this.

One is that we talk a lot about this idea about thinking about relationships as a kind a social fitness that like physical fitness we need to work at it in some ways that all relationships will wither if we don't attend to them and work at them and it's like our muscles that we really literally need to put energy into it and to think about the ways to improve both those relationships and our role in those relationships right the the role part our own role is sometimes harder to face so i think it's really important to step back and to look at your kind of universe of relationships and to think about the ones that are working and make sure that you cherish them

and nurture them. And the ones that aren't working as well, I'm going to suggest there's another way of thinking about it before I answer the question about how you decide. So one way of thinking about it is that we don't need to get everything that we need from one person. So I have a friend who I just have a really good time with. We laugh, we enjoy each other's company.

If I need that kind of release, he's the person I want to be with. And that friend may not be able to do some of the other things that are important to me. Maybe isn't really interested in the kind of work that I do. I knows about it, but just isn't interested in it. So I can't talk to that friend about that. So it's okay. And I think this is something that people get, their attitude kind of changes as they get older. It's okay to have different kinds of friends.

And in fact, it may be quite adaptive to have friends that provide that learning and growth, friends who are just fun and happy to be with friends who have your back. and will help you in times of trouble. That's okay. Having said that, one of the things that we suggest in the book, one of the exercises, is to literally map out your social universe

and to think about it in terms of the frequency of contact you have with people, and whether those connections you have with that person are uplifting or depleting. So you're now talking about a relationship that's feeling depleting. It's no longer giving you the stuff that helps you grow and feel good

and vital, and it's in fact draining. And I think the first step is thinking about how important that person is to you. So a blood relative, a partner, you're probably going to want to decide, and maybe I need to lean in a little bit more. Maybe I need to think about ways to fix this. Friends are trickier, right? That friends in some ways come and go in our lives, depending on our circumstances. But I still think I'm an advocate of thinking about I'm loyal. I don't love to give up on people. And the attitude I've taken as I've gotten older, I'm in my 60s now, is, what is it that I can get out of this connection? What do I really value about that person? And maybe it means seeing that person less, so I agree with that part, Ryan. But eliminating them from your

life, that's a bigger decision. Now, of course, there are people that, you know, do things that are, you know, just inexcusable, that are wrong and they've really dropped the ball. And you may drop those friends. But I'm in general a pretty loyal person. And one of the things I've learned in my research and I think in life is that we can get along with an incredible range of people. It's kind of an extraordinary thing about human beings if we approach those relationships with the right attitudes and skills. And we can talk more about what they are. But I think we're quite flexible about the kinds of people that we actually can get along with. You come across to me as being very, very, calm and comfortable in your own skin. And usually when I come across people like that,

after doing 500 plus of these things, it's because that person is very thoughtful and very reflective and intentional in their life. These are all attributes, Mark, I admire deeply and want to become like that and trying to. When I say that, when I tell you that, what do you, what do you think? Well, first I want to say, you know, with real modesty, like I'm trying to be that way. So I love that. I appreciate that. And that's something that I strive to be. But it's, it's a hard road to get there. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, didn't come out in my 20s as a fully formed human being. I've learned and I've grown and I've been lucky in life. I had a good start, a family that, you know, I felt really cared for me. And, you know, I've also been lucky in the, the, the, the, the

kind of realm of partners. I have a terrific wife and a wonderful family. So I've had a lot of support along the way, but it's, but it's been a journey. There have been challenges in my life, moments that have been much harder. My wife and my kids, especially might laugh that someone called me calm or, you know, kind of thoughtfully reflective, but it's certainly something that I strive for. One of the key things I want to communicate to listeners is that one of the benefits of studying people across their entire lives is we get to see how people change and grow. So before this study, there was almost no data about what happens to people in adulthood. We had all these theories of child development.

And for many years in psychology, we had this idea that people were fully formed by the time they were 20 or maybe 25. And this study and others has now shown that people grow and change across the lifetime. And one of the things that happens just kind of normally as people get older, that get happier from middle age to late life people actually get happier which is remarkable if you think about the challenges of late life and part of the reason we think that people get happier is there's a kind of emotional wisdom that people accumulate and that emotional wisdom teaches us what i've just described about you know whether you pair your relationships down or not it teaches us to focus on the

relationships that give us kind of emotional sustenance that gives you us good stuff emotionally. So rather than worrying about new experiences and learning, as people get closer to the end of life, they kind of lean into the relationships that are important to them. They devote more time to them. That happens naturally, it seems, but it's an important change over time. So our study has really, it's been a study that's given me incredible hope about the ways that people change. There's one man in our study that we profile who, for much of us, life, five decades of his life. He was one of the least happy people in our study. He was very lonely. He was in a marriage that wasn't satisfying. He liked his work. That was his only source of

pleasure. In his late 60s or mid-60s, he had to quit his job because of health issues, and he decided to go to a gym and see what that was like. And in the gym, he found this relates to how we make friends. In the gym, he found people that he saw every day. And he realized that he kind of like seeing the familiar faces. And as the old man in the group, he started talking about old movies. And sure enough, some of the younger folks liked the old movies and he'd bring them over to his house. In his 70s, when we followed up, for the first time in his life, he said he had friends, people that he connected with that had his back, that he felt seen and heard by. So this is a message about change. So this started an answer to your question. I'm awkwardly deflecting it.

as reflective as I may seem all of us can get to that place. It requires some intention and work for many people. And sometimes it's circumstances, a good relationship or going to a gym changes someone's life. You got to get out there. You got to go for me. You got to get out there. No matter how old you are, no matter what's going on, you got to get out there. You mentioned your partner, your wife.

And I know that plays a huge role. There's a lot you've written about in the book about this too. it seems quite obvious to say, well, yeah, if the person you go down, you go home to every day that you lay down with every night, if that person is a good person, your life's going to be better, and if it's not a good relationship, then your life's probably going to be miserable. But can you share more about the happiness and the good life and how the partner that you're committed to plays a role in this? Yeah, so I want to start off by saying that it's not necessary for the good life to be

partnered. It's a bonus. To have a partner and a good partner is such an amazing experience, and people are very lucky when they have that. But people can flourish, be happy with friends, with work colleagues that they're close to with relatives that have their back. So it's not necessary to be in a marriage or an intimate relationship. But intimate relationships, when they're working, are incredible for us. They affect our, certainly our emotional health, but also our physical well-being. So there are great studies, for example, on how quickly wounds heal and how that might be related to the kinds of relationship you're in and the relationship challenges that you face. In our study, we found, this is kind of remarkable, that it wasn't your cholesterol level at age 50

that predicted how long you were going to live. It was the quality of your relationship with your partner. Wow. So relationships, particularly close ones, have that kind of impact. And it makes sense, again because relationships help us deal with stress. They're incredibly good at helping us regulate stress more and more. We're figuring out that's not just the skills that I have and how I kind of lean into challenges, but it's also the collection of people around me and how they're able to help me lean into challenges and work through that, help me regulate my emotions, help me figure out the path forward. So a good partner is incredibly powerful for that.

And then that's all the other things that we talked about with friendship, but only magnified. You're spending a lot of time with your partner that you may not be spending with a friend. And the opportunities for joy and shared connection and shared purpose, having kids together is something that is challenging for relationships, no question, but also provides a kind of shared experience and purpose that is a kind of beautiful thing to watch develop over time. Yeah, people who are able to share that, enjoy that. You know, having kids is a wonderful thing. Also challenging, too.

The age old advice, you know, how to, the guy said this to another guy. I'm quoting somebody. I forget who it was, but they said, you know, how do you get a great wife, man? And he goes, deserve one. And I think that's it. That's key. So Mark, again, awkwardly pointing this to you because I want, I want, I want, I like focusing on you because I kind of admire your disposition and that you've done all this work.

So you probably live it out too. What are the keys to being a great partner? What are the keys to being a great husband in your case? Yeah. Again, these are things that I've learned. And I have a kind of weird journey. So I got to kind of reveal all my cards. I met my wife when I was in graduate school training to be a clinical psychologist.

And one of the ways we got to know each other, this was before we were dating, was that we ran a couples group together. And in the couples group, we had to make these hard decisions about who to pay attention to and how to share the floor time. You ran a couple's group and you weren't a couple. You were just friends? We weren't a couple. We were colleagues. Were you secretly angling though, Mark? Were you like, I'm going for it here? It was in my mind. And soon after that, we started to become a couple. All right. So, you know, we learned in a kind of funny way about how to talk to each other about different. So I'd say my wife's name is Joan. I'd say, Joan, you know, I thought we should have focused more on this person. And she would say, no,

I think you're wrong. Like that person had too much floor time. It was time to move on. So that was how our conversations began. And actually, in hindsight, you know, it was lucky. It was an incredible way to begin a relationship. So, you know, some of the characteristics that we can all bring to relationships are curiosity, you know, really interested to know what my wife's experience is like. She is a psychologist, so I know some of what her life is like. But I'm interested in what her daily experience is like. And during the pandemic, I've done more remote work, so we're home more together. And I can hear her footsteps in the distance.

And I'm sort of curious what she was doing and where she went. So curiosity, really important. In this day and age, the importance of attention and presence, it's just it can't be understated. So we carry around those phones in our pocket that distract us all the time. and it's hard to shut off. It's hard to kind of leave work just at work. People don't actually do that.

Work carries home. So we need to figure out a way to give the gift of our attention. It's precious. That's really the most precious thing that we have. So when we talk to our partners, when I talk to my wife, I really try and shut off the phone, be present, look at her, pick up those signals about what she's thinking about that. Maybe it's harder for her to talk about and ask her about that.

So presence is just incredibly powerful. And with presence is, again, that kind of curiosity about her experience. Having a good time together, really important. So figuring out activities that you like. So I'm a sports guy and I've played racquet sports my whole life and really like it. And my wife, because she likes me and wants to do things with me, tried racquet sports. And it was a dismal failure. She just didn't like it.

She didn't like the people she was meeting. And so that's not something that I can connect with my wife, but there are lots of other activities that we enjoy. We both like reading. We like certain kinds of movies. We like being with friends. So figuring out those shared activities and really intentionally kind of maximizing them are really important. I think that last part, Mark, is important. I kind of play the lead role in our relationship of finding the cool experience for us and putting it on the calendar and then trying to figure out,

Child care is using my wife is handling that. So I'm like seeking out what is the fun thing that we're looking forward to, that we're putting it on the calendar, that we're going to do. And experiencing it as great friend, best friends in a sense together. That's the thing that we talk about with our children is the friendship element. And it sounds like you had a similar start. The friendship element, man, it's, I remember when I was an idiot, when I was younger and making mistakes and kind of breaking it off, you know, doing one of those things.

I was that guy. And, uh, you know the part I missed so much was when we, when I would go through one of those stupid spells was, was, uh, the friendship element. I was like, God, I miss my best friend. Like it was a tough, they were really tough times. And I was like, I was young and stupid, but, but that was the thing. I, I still have vivid memories of that. I was like, I hope, like, that's, that's like what you want to look for another person where you're like, you genuinely treasure their friendship. almost and the other things have to come too, but I think that's an important element. You think that's right. We have some research that we talk about in the book that when you watch

couples together and you try and figure out which what are the factors that are linked with satisfying marriages or intimate connections, what are the factors that are associated with people staying together across time. One of them is kind of what we call a bedrock of affection and warmth. So, you know, when I was younger, I had this idea. that, you know, relationships could be perfect. And I don't know where it got it from because my parents' relationship was not perfect, but that, you know, we're searching for our soulmate, and that means never having disagreements. And what a bad kind of idea about how relationships really work, that we all face challenges that in a relationship where two different people,

we're changing across time. You know, marriages are challenging because two people coming together with different needs and priorities. And then they change over time. time. So we need to leave room for that. And one of the ways, again, is curiosity about that experience, but also a kind of bedrock of warmth and affection. If you can communicate that, if you can have a good time together, you said something in there, Ryan, that I think is really important. I just want to highlight too. You know, we talk a lot in modern marriages about sharing the load, right, the division of labor at home. And we want it to be, for many of us, it's important for that to be equal is what we talk about. But it's really important for it to be fair.

it sounds like you're really good about thinking about what are the fun things that we can do and planning them and figuring them out. And your wife may take on another task that she's pretty good at. So we need to have a kind of balance of responsibilities that seems fair, whether it's exactly 50-50, really hard to do. And that may not be the best use of our resources. I know we're coming close the end of our time, but I have a question on a word that I struggle to pronounce. Usually when I read books, I don't always know how to pronounce the words. generativity. Is that a correct? Generativity. Okay, so generativity.

In psychology, expanding our concerns and efforts beyond our own lives is called generativity, and it's a key to unlocking the vibrancy and excitement of midlife. Can you talk to me more about generativity and what all goes into that? Yeah, so generativity is an important idea, and it's one that's connected to this study. So the director before Bob and I were involved was a man named George Valiant, who was a great leader for many years.

years of the study. And George was interested in looking at adult development. So some of your listeners may know, they may remember from psychology from college, that there's theories of adult development. Eric Erickson has one of them that's kind of staged dependent. And what George was interested in was this role of generativity, the idea of getting outside of yourself, connecting to people in meaningful ways that really means that you're making a difference in other people. people's life. So it could be being a mentor. It could be a grandparent connecting with a grandchild. It could be a volunteer experience that you're doing. And this becomes important in midlife. It continues to be important as we age. And I think as people think about retirement, it's a

particularly important idea. It has something to do with wanting to leave a legacy and wanting to be remembered, which we get more concerned with as we get older. But it also has to do with giving ourselves a sense of meaning. Then if we live in our head completely, you know, it's a very self-centered way, literally that language that we use. It's solipsistic. We worry only about ourselves and no one else. So generativity is about connecting with other people in a way that gives them something.

And it's something that you've accumulated over time, some expertise or wisdom. I had a nice experience yesterday. I was doing a weird thing. Our book just came out this week, so I was signing books that Brynmark College, where I work, is going to give to alums that have donated to the college. And in-walk, someone that's worked at the college almost as long as I have, but we haven't talked probably in 15 years. She just works in a different.

And we had this lovely conversation, and one of the things I like about this woman, she's a little older than I, is that I know she's contributed in meaningful ways to the lives of other people at the college, that she's been generative in that way. She's incredibly happy. She's a neat person to be with. So that idea about giving to others, expanding beyond yourself, so important, particularly as we get older. Part of the study, too, is you speak with people who are at the end of their lives.

And the question you asked is, what do you wish you'd done less of or, and more of? What are some of the typical responses that you, if you find kind of the average of responses, what have you found? It's beyond average, right? So when we look at those responses, it's the clear signal there. So it means that most of the people, what they talk about, is wishing they had done more to nurture close relationships. So they expressed it in different ways. I wish I were kinder.

I wish I had spent more time with friends. I wish I had not let friendships wither. I wish my wife and I had done, this is going to be good for you, Ryan, had done more fun things together. Some of them express it in the more negative or the opposite way. They'll say, I spent too much time at work and didn't attend enough to the people around me. So there were other themes. Of course, people talked about specific examples, but the predominant responses had to do with wishing they had spent more time with others and had nurtured those relationships. Quite, quite moving and sad in a certain way, too.

They were in their 80s. So some of them were lucky enough to have another 20 years, right? So it's not quite the end of life, but they were looking back on a lifetime of experience. And that's what they told us. You teach college. So I would imagine you have people in the early parts of their career, maybe early to mid-20s, who show up and say, Mark, I don't really know what I want to do. I'm finished with college, right? Maybe even they have a graduate degree.

I'm finished with this. Now I'm out in the real world. I do know I want to leave a positive dent in the world. I want to do good. I want to be a person who adds value to society. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person? So I do have these conversations all the time. And I start with, and I'm hoping you'll indulge me,

a kind of quick story about myself, which is that when I was young, I was really interested in science and neuroscience and, and you know, kind of the brain. And I really wanted to do that kind of work. I was really lucky when I was young to get a fellowship to work in a lab that was focused on understanding how visual perception works, how we see things. And the work it turned out was with goldfish, that what I spent a summer doing at this point was putting a tiny electrode in the brain of a goldfish and watching which neurons, which nerve cells in the brain lit up and didn't light up. Intellectually, interesting.

for me, but goldfish weren't that fun to work with. They didn't talk back to me. We couldn't have a conversation. I felt pretty lonely in that experience. So my takeaway from that and the series of jobs that I had when I was young, and I missed that period, that's the other thing that I tell young people, as much as you want certainty and a path, and you're looking at me in some ways with envy that I know what I'm doing and where I'll be, I miss those days when I was learning new things every year, every job that I was doing. So it's an exciting time and to embrace that. But I think people often think about the thing that excites them. So, you know, someone who loves reading English literature, I really want to do something related to English literature.

Reading English literature and working in fields that might be related to it very different. So I ask people to imagine what their daily life would be. How important is it for them to be around other people. How important is it for them to have time to step back and reflect? How much do they enjoy managing people, organizing people in some ways? How organized are they? Are they people that can stay on top of projects? So I often think it's helpful for people to think kind of nitty-gritty about the nature of the job, what it's like, and to talk to people. So the best thing young people can do is to talk to people that are doing things that they think might be of interest. And the question I should be asking is, could you take me through your day and tell me what your, you know, hour to hour what your

experience is like? So, you know, I'm in meetings a lot of the day. Is that what you want to do? And then, of course, as you get more advanced in your career, I am in meetings a lot, but I get to determine a bit who I'm meeting with and what the tenor of those meetings are like, what they're like, that I get to shape that. So great to have goals. I love young people. are talking about doing good and trying to save the world really critical. The next step is really thinking about what it would be like in a job that allows you to do that. And I want to say one last thing, because I do think about this a lot and I advise a lot of folks. You can do good in almost any job. That that was something I hadn't figured out when I was young. I was interested also in doing good

and finding jobs to do that. And one of the things I've realized as I've met more and more people and just my experience in workplaces has expanded, you can do good things in every work setting that you're in, that you can be a leader in shaping the culture and shaping what an organization does, and maybe most importantly in treating people you work with, with dignity and respect and helping nurture their growth as well. Those are things that you can do in every job. Really important. Thank you so much, Mark. The book's called The Good Life Lessons from the World's longest scientific study of happiness. And as I mentioned, I had very high expectations for the book because very aware of this

study and you guys absolutely killed. So I love the book. I highly, highly recommend it. It goes much deeper on the relationship elements of the good life and how. And I love actually you could see, and you guys put pictures of the surveys and the questions and how they answered. what they wrote, like you actually put those in the book, which made it feel more real and authentic. And just seeing the length that you guys would go to, that the whole team goes to, to get the

answers. Your people fly all over the country, all over the world. They do blood tests and brain scans. And on top of the interviews of those people as well as all the people in their lives, like it's so extensive, man. I didn't realize it was that level and it's still happening as we speak. It's fantastic, man. So thank you so much for being here.

And I would love, Mark, to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Absolutely. Real pleasure to talk to you, Ryan. Really, really fun to talk. Thanks, ma'am. I admire Mark Schultz. I appreciate how he shows up in the world. As I told him, I sensed a deep comfort in his own skin, a guy who has done work on himself,

reflected as taken what he's learned from all of his research to implement it into his life. and it's something I aspire to do as well. And that's why another reason why I love this podcast, it creates opportunities for me to speak to people who are further along than me, learn directly from them so that I can implement it into my life. And I hope you can do the same for yours. A few takeaways of the story of John Marston and Leo DeMarco, which we talked about at the beginning,

and they remark on this throughout their book, is the fact that Leo, even though he didn't embark on the career that he wanted, he wanted to be a writer. and he was a teacher for his whole life, but why he ended up being one of the happiest members of the study was the fact that he was fantastic at developing deep, enriching relationships first with his partner, then with his kids,

as well as with his friends versus John Marston, who went on to become a big-time lawyer and famous, but put his relationships in the back seat and didn't focus on them and ended up having and end up being one of the least happy participants in the study because as he got towards the end of his life, he realized he had not fostered great relationships. Just something for us to think about. Then friendships, as Mark said, map out your social universe. Are the connections uplifting or depleting?

Ask, what do I value about the person? Be intentional about your relationships and how you invest in them. Be mindful of them. Think about them. What are you doing to take action to foster a deeper relationship with the people that are most important you? And then I like me to talk about the keys to being a great partner, a good smile on his face, this fun conversation.

Be curious about them. I don't know about you, but my love language is curiosity, both being curious about them and them curious about me. I love curiosity conversation, especially with your partner. Then your attention and presence. Put the phone down. And sure, your partner is seen and heard on a regular basis. Have fun together, right? Plan exciting events.

Be friends. Be young again. If you feel like you've lost some of it. Like I love that responsibility of looking at searching out a concert or a place to go skiing or whatever. The fun events we go hiking, fun events we can do together. I think that's really important to maintain that friendship element of your relationship. Then be the bedrock of affection and warmth, as he said. It's so critical when it comes to a thriving relationship.

I love this conversation. I hope you did as well. If so, I love it if you would tell a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Mark Schultz. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader, a better friend. a better partner. And because you continue to do that and you continue to write reviews, you go to Ryanhawk.net, which will launch you into Apple Podcasts. You write a review, you rate the show, hopefully five stars. You continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk

to you soon. Can't wait.