Charles Duhigg

That is so much more effective.

It has less effectiveness.

So the overarching thing that I think I carried away from my reporting was there was this study called the, people are probably familiar with it, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, where they tried to figure out what makes you like healthy and happy and successful when you reach 65 years old.

And they looked at all kinds of things, like what diet you eat, how often you exercise, where you live, if you get married, if you stay married.

They found that the only thing that really correlated with long-term success and happiness and longevity at age 65 is having at least a handful of close relationships at age 45.

Because if you have a handful of close relationships at age 45, you're probably going to continue them.

The most, the best thing you can do for yourself, the best thing you can do for this nation is to maintain close relationships.

Even if you've fallen out of contact with someone, there's someone you haven't talked to in two or three years and you've been putting off calling them and saying, hey, let's catch up because you think the first five minutes is going to be awkward.

And they are going to be awkward because you forgot their wife's name and you can't remember how many kids they have.

Right.

But that's okay because if you call them up and you say like, hey, I'd just love to catch up with you.

And there's all this stuff that is going to feel dumb for me to ask, but I just want to ask about it.

The next 45 minutes is going to be one of the best conversations you've had in the last week.

And you are going to feel so good.

You're going to feel so much happier.

The more that we invest in our relationships with other people, the more that we invest in relationships with our neighbors, even if they put different lawn signs on their lawn, the more that we build connections, the more successful this country is going to be.

Because throughout history, our proudest moments are not when everyone agreed with each other.

They are when people disagreed with each other, but we were able to figure out how to live alongside each other peacefully.

That brought us...

the American Revolution and the end of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.