Shownotes:
In this heartwarming and eye-opening episode of the pod, we dive deep into what truly makes life meaningful with Dr. Robert Waldinger. He shares groundbreaking insights from the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted on how relationships, attention, and gratitude shape our well-being. Uncover the truth behind lasting happiness and how simple, everyday practices can lead to profound joy. Join us for a conversation that could change the way you see your life. Tune in and transform your approach to happiness!
About Our Guest:
Dr. Robert Waldinger is a distinguished American author, professor, and Zen priest. He is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest studies on adult life, emphasizing the importance of relationships for well-being. In his psychiatric practice, he uses psychodynamic therapy, exploring unconscious impacts on mental health. Dr. Waldinger’s work bridges scientific research with spiritual practice, offering insights into living a fulfilling life.
Thrive Global Article:
Beyond Happiness: Dr. Robert Waldinger's Guide to The Good Life
Connect with and learn from Dr. Robert Waldinger:
Website – RobertWaldinger.com
Book – The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert Waldinger M.D. and Marc Schulz Ph.D
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, social-emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn both a post-graduate credential and a master's degree in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across 4 continents. As a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Website - LainieRowell.com
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available here! And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!
Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌
Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!
Transcript:
[00:00:00]
Lainie Rowell: Well, hello friends.
As someone who is endlessly fascinated by the intricacies of human behavior and the secrets to our flourishing, I was delighted to have the privilege to interview Dr. Robert Waldinger, author, professor, Zen priest, and leader of the world's longest scientific study on happiness. As Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, Dr. Waldinger watches entire lives play out over 85 years and two generations. His insights, offer practical wisdom and inspiration for anyone seeking a fulfilling life.
On top of that, he was just genuine and kind. He even said I could call him Bob. I felt like we became friends. It was so joyful having this conversation. And I hope that you feel that as you hear us talk. And really one of the many things he does exceptionally well is how he has this compelling blend of science and storytelling.
It's just amazing.
I know you're going to love it.
Bob, thank you so much for being here, and I really want to open up with kind of a background question, if you will. You are the director of the world's longest scientific study of happiness. And I'd love for you to talk more about it. And I just want to say, as a psych major, who, I'm going to date myself here, but. I was a psych major before the positive psychology movement. So a lot of my coursework was about how can we identify what's wrong with people. And I feel like this study was so innovative because it wasn't about what's wrong. It was about what's right.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: It was so innovative in 1938. No one was doing that when the study was founded, you know, and we were founded as two separate studies at Harvard that didn't even know about each other. One was a study of Harvard College sophomores, 19 year olds.
And the idea was to study normal development from adolescence to young adulthood. So, of course, if you want to study normal development, you study all white guys from Harvard, right? But at that time, that's what they did. And then the other study was a study of juvenile delinquency, and particularly, how some children from really poor and disadvantaged homes managed to stay on good developmental paths and thrive. So they were both studies of thriving, of what goes right in development, at a time when almost all the research had been about what goes wrong.
Lainie Rowell: And labeling it, right? This is what's wrong. This is what we can call it. This is how we can diagnose it. To me, that was just one of the things that I was so drawn to is like, wow, this is about what went right.
And I didn't know before that it was actually two different studies initially. And how did this keep going for this long and it's still going? This is fascinating to me.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, it's almost unheard of. So, you know, most studies stop before the 10 year mark because they, they fall apart.
Too many people drop out. The study directors lose interest. So many things happen, right? So almost every study stops, even when they intend to go longer. This study was granted so much luck and also the dedication of my predecessors. So I'm the fourth director and the first three directors and their staff were so dedicated and dogged and they kept writing to the participants and say, will you please participate with us again?
And, and they'd send thank you notes when they returned a questionnaire. They'd send birthday cards. These young men would come to us and say, I need a doctor. Can you find me a doctor? I need a therapist. And the study would find them help. And so we were not a hands off study, which is kind of interesting.
You know, in the purest science, you're hands off completely. But I think one of the reasons why we were able to keep people involved with us was we wanted them to feel like they were part of a community and that they mattered to us.
Lainie Rowell: Well, in perfect alignment with the findings and I know you are very good about saying, as far as we know, the world's longest scientific study of happiness, so I always appreciate the intellectual humility.
I love this term that is in the book. And for those who are not familiar, I cannot recommend this book enough. I already gave it the five star review on Amazon. It didn't need my help. There are plenty of other five star reviews on Amazon. Greater Good Science Center, one of their favorite books of the year.
I mean, it's editor's choice. There's so many accolades for this book and so well deserved. The book is called The Good Life. And please, at any point, dig into the book, but one of the phrases I love that you talk about in the book is social fitness and that's, that's a really big idea.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, and we made that up.
And I'll tell you why we made it up. We realized that the best analogy we could think of to doing your relationships well throughout your life was an analogy with physical fitness. You know, with physical fitness, we go and exercise and then you don't come home and say, Good. I'm done. I don't ever have to do that again.
We think of it as an ongoing practice. And what we found with the people in our study who seem to have the strongest social networks and the best relationships was that they kept at it. It was a practice for them. And so social fitness was a way to signal this is something you want to do every day, every week, small actions, just to keep contact with the people you care about and to strengthen the connections you have with the people who are most important to you.
Lainie Rowell: Another reason I love the phrase fitness, yes, it's an ongoing, it's a never like, okay, check the box, we're done with that. In my mind, directly connects to physical health and I feel like that's one of the big takeaways, right?
It's not just about happiness, it's not just about mental well being. It's also about physical well being.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, that's the thing. When we first began to see in our data that the people who stayed healthy and lived longest, were the people who had the best relationships, that it was more important than your cholesterol level and your blood pressure.
We didn't believe it at first because, you know, it stands to reason that you'd be happier if you had more relationships, better relationships, but how could having better relationships predict that you'd be less likely to get heart disease? Or type 2 diabetes or arthritis? Like how could that even be a thing?
And then many other studies began to find the same thing and we began to realize, okay, this is a robust finding. This is a real finding. It wasn't just a fluke in our study. And then we began to work on trying to unpack, well, how does that happen? How do relationships actually get inside us and change our physiology?
So we've been doing a lot of work in that area for the last 10 years.
Lainie Rowell: Now, is it fair to say, this is not my original thought, I think I'm borrowing from you, but does it have to do with the fact that the good relationships are stress regulators? Is that kind of what's impacting the physiological benefits?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: That is the best hypothesis we have, with some pretty good data, that relationships seem to help us manage our upset, right? So if you think about it, like stressors are happening all day long. I might have something happen an hour from now that's stressful. My heart rate will go up. My blood pressure will go up.
I'll start to sweat. I'll have, you know, higher levels of cortisol circulating, right? That's normal. So what we know is that the body is meant to go back to equilibrium. That's normal. And what we think happens is that if we have somebody we can talk to, you know, if I go home tonight and I can complain to my wife, or I can call a friend and say, you wouldn't believe what happened.
I can literally feel my body start to calm down. Right. And if you don't have anybody, if you're lonely, if you're isolated, what we think happens is that your body stays in a low level fight or flight response with all those stress hormones. All those, you know, weakening of the immune system, all that stuff going on and on and on, rather than subsiding as you get help with stress relief.
So that's how we think this happens.
Lainie Rowell: Again, appreciate the intellectual humility always. The evidence is suggesting that's the best explanation.
If you're open to it, I would love to, talk a bit about attention.
This is something that fascinates me. In the book you talk about the power of attention in relationships. And I think this is a really tough thing.
We're leading very distracted lives. I've heard the cell phone referred to as the dopamine casino, and (laughter)
It's a good one, right?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yeah, I like it.
Lainie Rowell: And as much as they can be used to make connections, they are more often than not causing us distraction. So we have to get better at that.
And one of the things that you say in the book is attention is the most valuable thing we possess. And so what can we do to really nurture these relationships using our attention? What are some practical strategies?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Much of it is just being aware of it. So noticing when am I giving my full attention and when am I not?
My wife and I come down to the kitchen every morning for breakfast and she's looking at her email and I'm on my phone scrolling through the news and we realize we're not looking at each other. We've hardly said good morning, right? And so what I've had to do personally is stop and say, wow, I haven't paid any attention to my partner.
Right? And you think about that at work, like, what if you are multitasking? What if you're looking at your computer screen and you're also talking to your colleague who is trying to get your attention? Or, you know, as a doctor, many doctors feel that they're forced to look at their computer screens while they talk to their patient.
It's really difficult for your patient to feel like you're there with them, giving your full attention when you're looking at your computer. So we're trying to find all kinds of new ways for doctors to be able to do it differently. But all of this involves simply noticing first. Am I giving my full attention or not?
So here, I have a second screen open here because of the way my Zoom is set up, but I am only giving you my attention. I'm not looking at this, and it's very deliberate, because if I looked at this, I'd go down some rabbit hole, right? There was a study that showed that when someone has their cell phone out, even if it's face down on the table between you and another person, the conversations are less deep than when there's no screen or cell phone in sight because the subliminal message is, we could get interrupted at any moment.
So part of it is not just to give someone your full attention, but put those screens away.
Lainie Rowell: I have a daughter who at the time of this recording, she's about to turn 13 and I'm probably not the most popular mom on the block for this policy I have, but when there's a group at my house, I collect their cell phones.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yes!
Lainie Rowell: And I just say, we're gonna be cell phone free to enjoy each other's company, because otherwise it's just so easy to get distracted. And I think especially when we're talking about kids who don't have the life experience or the abstract thinking, it's pretty easy for them to take it personally that they're not getting the attention from another one.
Even though you and I have the life experience to know like, oh, that thing is distracting so I appreciate you sharing that study too about even just having it in the physical proximity.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, and how do the teenagers do when you take away their phones?
Lainie Rowell: Oh, they play music and they're doing crafts and it's, it's a completely different vibe. And it's just, I can be the bad guy for that.
Oh, well, thank you. That wasn't meant to be a humble brag, but it's...
Dr. Robert Waldinger: No, no, no, no, no. It's an important message to get out there that it's possible to do this and that people have different experiences when they do it the way you're doing it.
Lainie Rowell: Well, and this is an interesting age, too, because you have the spectrum of who's had a cell phone since eight years old, I don't want to come off judgy and there's circumstances where that's required, I get there's family situations where that's required, but that was too early for our family, and so she's the last one in her friend group to have one.
So we have a different perspective and we're trying to do our best and there's things we'll look back and go, oh wow, why did we do that? But to get back to what you were talking about with the attention, I have become profoundly aware of the word noticing or notice.
And my work with gratitude, I, look Dr. Hussong and her team out of University of North Carolina talking about the four essential elements of gratitude, notice, think, feel, and do. And as I'm aware of that noticing is a really important thing in many aspects of our life.
And it's also one of the hardest things right now.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Absolutely. And the thing about gratitude is it's noticing what's not wrong because our minds are built to notice what's wrong. It's actually protective. You know, if you, if you notice the threats out there, you can protect your family, you can protect yourself, right?
It's good to notice what's wrong. But the problem is that these minds that evolved to pay most attention to what's wrong aren't very good for keeping us happy. And so if we deliberately notice what's right, what's okay, It makes us happier. One of my Zen teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh, who you may know.
He once, he said something which is repeated a lot. He said, let's celebrate because today is a no toothache day. And he means, you know, there's so much that's right that we never celebrate, right? We take for granted.
Lainie Rowell: It's so true. I remember having shoulder pain years ago, and I went and it ended up being I was dehydrated, I wasn't drinking enough water, started drinking the water, and then I went back to the doctor and they're like, so how's it been?
And I go, oh, it's actually been good. I hadn't really noticed. It's like you just are, cause that negativity bias and you're always looking for the threats and so I can tell there's something wrong with my shoulders, but I don't go, there's nothing wrong with my shoulders, my shoulders are amazing today.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: You know what else older people get better at it, because as we get more aware of our own mortality, it turns out to make us more grateful for being alive and for feeling okay, right?
And that actually that makes people happier as they get older, believe it or not. Which is kind of interesting that recognizing, oh gosh, life is short as we get older, makes us happier.
Lainie Rowell: I think that's a blessing for getting older. There are good things, right?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yeah.
Lainie Rowell: I'd love to talk about workplace, always trying to cover the whole gamut, personal and professional, but I'd really love to talk about workplace and relationships. This is something that I find to be a little bit tricky, so I'd love your guidance on, and really thinking about navigating cultivating these friendships when there's things like evaluations and thinking about professional boundaries. In The Good Life, you tell the story of Ellen, I'm doing air quotes, which listeners can't hear, but talking about this specific story, which by the way, one of my favorite things about the book is the stories that you share.
Because that's how we remember things, right? The stories really resonate. And the story of Ellen, which I don't know how much you're okay with me giving away, but it's kind of this heartbreaking situation. And so would you be up for sharing it?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yeah. Well, she she was very friendly with her work group and she became the supervisor of her friends. They were the employees and as she became the supervisor, she had to evaluate them. And that including, including giving some negative feedback. And then it really soured some of the relationships. And it was a real loss for her because they couldn't be social friends anymore in the same way.
And so it was an important story about the complications of friendships at work. Now that said, what we know is that it's really important to have friends at work, so the hope is you could be friends with someone who's a peer, or who you don't work with, but who's maybe in the same building, or in a different department but the idea is to have friends, but to also try to navigate the trickiness of different power relationships, right?
Where someone's your supervisor, or someone's your employee, and that, that makes work a little more complicated.
Lainie Rowell: I'd love your thoughts on something that I share with people, and this is something that I actually did learn in my psych program.
I was taught the praise to correction ratio. I was actually taught six to one, but we can go five to one or four to one. I think varying studies will give you somewhere within that range of the overwhelmingly acknowledging the good versus the constructive feedback. Is that maybe part of what could help these work relationships cause I know it's romantic relationships, family relationships, you know, we need to overwhelmingly acknowledge the good. To me, praise is a form of gratitude and that's a way to do it. So can that help?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, and, and partly we need to acknowledge the good because we are so focused on the negative, both as evaluators, but also then, you know, if I get 10 pieces of good feedback and one piece of negative feedback, I dwell on the negative.
We all do. That's what our minds do. So we really need to bring in the whole smorgasbord of feedback, including what's positive , because otherwise the person we're evaluating is just going to hear the negative. It's a way to try to counteract that negative bias that we've been talking about.
We just have to, we have to do it.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah, and I think when it's specific and authentic, it actually helps people to, yes, they're going to focus on the negative, but maybe in a more constructive way. It's not just that this person's always picking on me for doing things wrong, they genuinely seem to notice the good, so this seems like this could be something I should really focus on.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yes, and the other thing to think about when you're giving feedback is to give feedback, if you possibly can, in a way that you're offering something that someone could do about it. Like, what if I give you feedback saying, You're just not very interesting. What are you going to do with that? Right. You know, or if, if I say, you know, you're, you're just kind of lazy as a worker, what are you going to do with that?
But what if I could concretely say, it would be very helpful if you could get these tasks done in this amount of time, could we set a plan for that? In other words, if you're saying, I would like things to be different, give someone a path, a very concrete path for making it different rather than just leaving them with, well, how do I be less lazy?
Lainie Rowell: It's like saying you're too short. I don't know how to be more tall.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Exactly. Exactly.
Lainie Rowell: That's really not helpful. So on the positive side, the specific and authentic and on the feedback side, also specific, but actionable, right?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Actionable.
Lainie Rowell: I mean, we could make this entire discussion about all the things I love about the book and we'd go hours because it's really lovely. There's many wonderful things that you and Dr. Schultz do in the book, but you make it so accessible through the stories. And another one of the things that I loved is when you talked about curiosity and the role of enhancing relationships.
To me, this is very fascinating because I do think that whether it's the person we come home to every day, the person in the cubicle next to us, whoever it is, it's very easy to make assumptions. Or just, we've been together so long, there's nothing new to learn, and so, can you tell us a little bit more about that, curiosity and relationships?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Yeah, well, you know, if you think about it, we all want to feel seen for who we are, right? I mean, just that I notice you and I pay attention to who you are and how you're coming across. And the difficulty with long relationships is we start taking each other for granted. Oh, I know what you're going to say.
I know the next thing you're going to ask me. I know, you know, and we do this boy. I mean, you can sure do it with your spouse. I've had dinner with. my partner most nights for 37 years, that's a big deal. And it's hard not to take things for granted. Right. And with work colleagues as well.
Oh, I know what my boss is going to say. So curiosity makes people feel like you're really interested in today. Like, who am I today? Not how predictable I am, but what's here right now. And actually one of my meditation teachers taught me this. He gave me the assignment when I sat on the cushion.
So I've met thousands of times. And he said, one of the things to do to enliven your meditation is to ask yourself, as you meditate, what's here now that I've never noticed before? And you can do that with a relationship. So I can have dinner with my partner and as we're talking about the usual stuff, I can think to myself, well, what's here right now that I've never noticed before?
And it enlivens you, it enlivens your interaction with this other person. Even if you're just noticing that they have a new sweater or new earbuds or whatever, just, just noticing something.
Lainie Rowell: That's so lovely. It reminds me, so my husband and I have some catching up to do. We've got 14 years in the books and I remember when we met with our priest as we were getting married, he said, I want you to think about going to Niagara Falls for the first time, and how you're just filled with awe and wonder. And it's just so amazing. And now I want you to imagine that you live at Niagara Falls.
Getting married is like living in Niagara Falls. And I thought that was a really good analogy because you, when something is new, you do notice all the amazing things, but you get used to it. So I really love what's here now that I've never noticed before. I think that's a great strategy and it works in all relationships.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: It does. It does.
Lainie Rowell: I even think of my kids as they're like constantly changing. That's they're more noticeably changing than any others, but My daughter is now almost as tall as me. Amazing.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: I know, isn't that amazing? Right? Yeah.
Lainie Rowell: You're just so delightful. I don't want this conversation to end, but I really will honor your time. I promise.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Well, thank you. I'm enjoying the conversation.
Lainie Rowell: You're so kind. So, thinking about parents and educators and those who get to shape the lives of our littles and help them. And I'm thinking about the study, which is watching them from adolescence to adulthood and later in life. Just in general, what advice do you have for parents and educators who are really helping to shape these young lives?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: One big piece of advice, I think, is help kids tune in to what excites them, right? We spend so much time suppressing that awareness of what excites me. Like, oh, this excites me, and that thing, not so much. That kind of drains my energy. But a lot of times, because we have to do certain things, we have to learn our multiplication tables, right?
We have to learn to read, that we have to sit still in school, that there's a lot of time when we suppress all those signals about what I care about, what's enlivening, what's not so much. Help kids notice and help kids value that, right? We can do that as parents. We can do that as educators. And that doesn't mean they avoid the things that are important for them also to do, that they may not love, but it means that they learn that it's really okay to notice the difference between what excites them and what doesn't.
Because it's so useful to be able to find the things in life that are enlivening. It sets you up for well being, for thriving.
Lainie Rowell: Yes, absolutely. Is there anything that you just can't share enough? Like, you will put it on billboards, you will stand on tables, and you have to say it as many times as you need to because it's so important.
Or, is there something that you maybe haven't had a chance to share before that you would just love to get out there?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: I guess the thing I can't say enough, is that nobody's happy all the time. Because we get this message sometimes from the culture that if I just do all the right things, then I'll be happy all the time. And those people over there, like especially on social media, they're living their best lives. They have it all figured out.
They're happy all the time. No life is like that. And that's really important to name because otherwise we can feel like we're missing out, that other people do have life all figured out, and we don't. Life has ups and downs and joys and sorrows, and as Jon Kabat Zinn is fond of saying, "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."
You can't stop the waves of challenge and difficulty and even unhappiness, but you can learn to surf through those until you get back to the better times.
Lainie Rowell: I appreciate you making that connection to social media, and I'll go on record that I do think there are benefits of social media, but I do often think about the negative side of social media and the social comparison, but I don't know that I ever really thought about it in the way that you framed it of, makes us think we have to be happy all the time.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Right, right. Yeah, it's just to remember that when people show us their lives through photos and comments and stuff, that's not the whole story, right? We don't show each other everything and so actually another quote from one of my teachers which I love is, "we're always comparing our insides to other people's outsides."
And especially on social media. So just remember that that's not the whole story. And so don't do that comparing. Connect with people on social media. That's great. Just don't compare yourself on social media.
There's a psychologist named Jean Twenge, T W E N G E, and she studies this. And her research suggests that, that when we connect actively on social media, we get happier. And when we passively consume, when we doom scroll through other people's Instagram feeds, self esteem goes down, anxiety goes up, depression goes up.
So it's how we use social media.
Lainie Rowell: That connecting actively on social media is essential. And it reminds me of something in the book, making a connection to how actively connecting in the real world is also important. In the book, you mentioned the study about people getting on the train and people who sometimes work, people who sometimes connect with others, and then people who normally wouldn't connect with others, the researchers asked them to actually talk to people on the train.
They didn't want to. But in the end, they were happier, right?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Exactly. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it's a good example of how we don't always know what's going to make us happy. Like there's some resistance to connecting with other people. We also see it like if a friend says to you, Come on, let's, let's go to this party or let's go out to this restaurant.
We're gonna, let's meet some people. You might find yourself feeling like, Oh, let me just stay home. Let me just sit on the couch and watch Netflix. There's often this little resistance that happens. And so it's useful to notice, to remember, oh, when I overcame that resistance and I went out and met with these people, I actually felt great afterwards.
It was better than I thought it was going to be.
The research suggests that people are generally happier when they connect with others.
Lainie Rowell: Well, this has all been super helpful.
And I know that people are going to want to connect with you. I will put a link to The Good Life in the show notes for those who are listening, and I will make sure to link it in the article as well. And are there any other ways that people could connect with you and your work?
Dr. Robert Waldinger: So just my website, RobertWaldinger.com.
Lainie Rowell: Well, you have been so generous with your time, and I have all the happiness chemicals flowing after talking to you, and you made me feel noticed, you made me feel seen and heard this entire conversation, so you, you are a definite practitioner of the things that you share, so I appreciate that very much.
Dr. Robert Waldinger: Good, good. Well, this was a pleasure. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Thank you.
Lainie Rowell: Well, thank you again for being here and thank you all for listening.