From Harvard to you: The Secret to a Happier Life

Welcome to my series on exploring the people and topics they share through the global phenomenon of TED Talks. I recently had the privilege of speaking on a locally produced TEDx stage in the UK, and the experience was rewarding in so many ways.

But enough about me, I'm thrilled to introduce you to my friend Bob. I met him at a conference I facilitated recently in Phoenix where he was one of the speakers.

Along with his charming wife Jennifer Stone, we had dinner togther in the coolest TexMex restaurant and chatted away. I found Bob kind, interesting and interested. Relationships, clearly mean a lot to him. And now, let me intoduce you to Bob.

He's professionally known as Dr Robert Waldinger. Clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he most notably directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the world's longest-running studies on happiness. ?

?Bob (as he asked me to call him when we were introduced) gave a TEDx talk back in 2015. At the time of this writing, it has a whopping 41 million views. In his opening line, he posed this thoughtful question:

"If you were going to invest now in your future best self, where would you put your time and energy?”

?You might think acquiring money, prestige or fame would be the obvious steps toward achieving a fulfilled and happy life.??But, “the secret in plain sight” as Bob describes it, is evidenced through the study’s nearly 80 years of wide-ranging data.?

?In 1938, 268 Harvard sophomores, which notably included future US President John Kennedy, were selected.?Another cohort, of 456 disadvantaged young men from Boston’s inner-city neighbourhoods, was also chosen to be studied in tandem.

?Scientists studied the groups of men through questionnaires and in-person interviews.?(Yes, all the participants were men. Women weren’t allowed in Harvard when the study began.) Interestingly, the study first focused on “biological determinism”, a prominent theory of the time, with researchers examining participants’ physical and intellectual factors, including skull size and handwriting styles, as possible indicators of happiness.

?The study evolved to include more updated means of research like DNA testing and MRI scanners. It has also expanded to include family members, including spouses, and subsequent generations as “only ten of the original Harvard men are still alive. They’re all in their late 90s or just over a 100. And about 40 of the original inner-city men are still alive, all in their nineties,” Bob explained.?Incidentally, before you imagine that Bob discovered the secret to ever-lasting-life alongside the key to happiness, Bob is the programme’s fourth director, taking over the study in 2004.

?“My predecessor (psychiatrist George Valliant) took me out to lunch one day and said, ‘How would you like to inherit the Study of Adult Development?’ I almost dropped my fork.” But Bob accepted and he surmised the reason he was chosen was because he, like George before him, is a clinician as well as a researcher.

?“This is a study of human life so the experience of studying lives that clinical people do every day. I do deep-dives into my patients’ lives every afternoon during my clinical hours.

?“Rather than simply being a researcher trained in multiple choice questions, I understood the importance of more qualitative information, of sitting down with someone for four hours and interviewing them about their life,” Bob said.

?Of course, I love a good interview myself. So, here now my questions and Bob’s answers and the secrets to increasing your happiness.?

?GINA: Is happiness a choice or is it how we’re wired?

BOB: “Both. Some of it is how we’re wired. We all have a kind of happiness set-point. But we can change. We can make ourselves happier. It’s not too late for anybody.?In our study, some people would think, ‘Oh, it’s never going to get better for me.’ Then it gets better. Often it gets better because some relationship changes.?One man was so isolated and then when he retired, he decided to join a health club and he started going every day and he started saying hello to a few people and it grew and his whole social network was at that health club. And then they met outside and his life changed.”

?GINA:?Got you. So, we have to make an effort. For instance, he had to say,’Hello.’

BOB: “Yes, That’s the thing that is most useful for your readers. We have come to think about taking care of our relationships like we take care of our bodies. It’s an ongoing practice. Even our closest ones, if we put them on automatic pilot, even if there’s nothing wrong, they will get stale and wither. Same with our friendships, our work relationships, even smaller relationships are important, like saying, ‘hello’ to our postal worker. Social fitness, like physical fitness is something that will make our lives better.”

?GINA: Is there a different approach for someone who identifies as introverted?

BOB: If you’re the person who needs just one or two close relationships, that’s okay. Just tend to those. Don’t do what is draining and depleting. It’s not unhealthy to live with fewer relationships.

?GINA: What is something you do differently as a result of the study?

BOB: I’m more conscious now about who do I want to see, who do I need to see. I actively reach out. That’s a difference for me from before the study. I also try to really listen when someone, like my wife, is speaking to me.

?There you have it. Relationships are the secret key to happiness. But we're not to sit back and wait for the perfect ones to arrive, we have a responsiblity to reach out, nurture and maintain it. Our happiness, then, is up to us. Thanks, Bob. Here's to recommiting ourselves to taking purposeful steps toward building relationships.

?PS

For more on the matter, you can pre-order Bob’s upcoming new book, The Good Life”written with his Harvard research colleague Dr Marc Schulz. The book is set to be released in January 2023.?