Dr. Ellen Langer

And that will improve our relationships and our relationships to ourselves.

The second is that people have to appreciate, enjoy, exploit the power of uncertainty.

And I mean, just be mindful, but that follows.

Each of these leads to the other.

Of course.

You know, I have an acronym that I use in teaching at the end of my classes.

It's called GLADO.

G-L-A-D-O.

So it's my recipe for happy life.

Be generous, loving, authentic, direct, and open.

And each of these leads to the other and all of them follow from being more mindful.

Being present, being there.

And it's funny because people say, sort of stop and smell the roses or you should be present.

And that's sweet, but it's an empty instruction because when you're not there, you're not there to know you're not there.

And so the way to be there is to notice new things about the things you think you know, you see you didn't know them, your attention naturally goes there, or top down to start off recognizing that you don't know, nobody knows, you can't know, and that not knowing is exciting rather than scary.

Thanks for having me.

Once you understand what I mean by mindfulness and how easy it is, it has nothing to do with meditation.

No matter what you're doing, whether you're doing a podcast, reading, eating, taking care of a child, playing tennis, you're doing it mindfully or mindlessly.

And the consequences of being in one state of mind or the other are enormous.

Everything changes.