DR ROBERT WALDINGER: This Is How You Make 2026 The Happiest Year of Your Life
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
coming up in this episode of Great Company.
Okay, if we started afresh tomorrow and made happiness our number one priority, what are the key things we should be focusing on?
What are the key things to focus on for happiness?
I mean, I'm going to give you the simplest answer. I would say it's Hi, I'm Bob Waldinger and I'm in great company. Dr. Robert Waldinger. Director of the world's longest running study of happiness. I'm the fourth director of the longest study of human life that's ever been done. It started in the year 1938 with 724 teenagers. Now in our 87th year, we want to know what helps people thrive. What are the predictors of who's going to be happy and healthy as they go through their lives? That just hadn't been done What did the results show in the end? They showed two big things. The culture gives us this message, oh, if you get really rich, then you're going to be happy. And it's not true.
Is loneliness dangerous for us? What is stress doing to the brain? Are we meant to be in relationships with one person? What makes a good life? What is it? Oh, just a little question.
There's research that showed that staying in a really terrible relationship is literally worse for your health. Depletes your health. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We studied these people their whole lives. And when they got to be in their 80s, we asked them, looking back on your life, what are you proudest of? Nobody mentioned their accomplishments. Get out of here. Everybody. They talked about their relationships with people. They said, you know, I was a good partner. I was a good dad. Why do you think that is?
Hello, everyone. My name is Jamie Lang, and this is Great Company. Your TED Talk has 28 million views. 51 million. Sorry, my mistake.
I don't know.
Who's counting over here?
Not really. Who's counting?
It's like, I'm so embarrassed that I even know that number, except when it passed 50 million, they got all excited.
Wow.
Why do you think it's had so many views? Well, so when I gave it, I gave it at a little elementary school auditorium in suburban Boston. It was a TEDx talk. And I thought people were going to laugh me off the stage because I was talking about something that I thought was so obvious. And instead, it went viral. And I think it's because... People are really concerned about growing social disconnection, how disconnected we are from everybody, how isolated we are.
How does loneliness affect our well-being?
And I think that my kind of shining a light on it was something that got people's attention in a way that I didn't expect it to.
Why do you think you'd be laughed off the stage?
Well, because I thought it was so obvious. I mean, do you ever have things where you know them, so don't you think everybody also knows them?
All the time.
Yeah, yeah.
I have that with my wife a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Why don't you know what I'm thinking? Exactly, yes.
In your book, The Good Life, the first chapter... in the book is what makes a good life. Yeah. So if I was going to ask you what makes a good life, what is it?
Oh, just, just a little question.
Um, I have long locked the doors, everyone. Cause I'm ready.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to give you the simplest answer. I would say it's, being engaged in things you care about and being with people you care about it's the activities you care about and the people you care about and if you've got those you've got a lot a lot of what you need for happiness but that's talking also about purpose right yeah but a lot of us struggle to find our purpose
because we have to, you know, we have to go and find out what we want to do. And when I was a kid saying, what do you want to do? I said, well, I want to be a stuntman, right? That's what I want to do. But I don't know how to become a stuntman. That's not, it's a dream. It's a pipe dream. So how do you, how do we find our purpose?
Well, I think one thing we can do is we can learn to pay attention to the signals we get about what energizes us, what lights us up, and what drains us of energy. Because we spend so much time being told what we're supposed to want to do and what we're supposed to appreciate, right? And think about all the time you sit in school and you have to suppress every little feeling because you have to sit still and behave and all that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:09
2
What are the key things to focus on for happiness?
0:09–2:32
3
How does loneliness affect our well-being?
2:32–13:37
4
Can we change our inherent temperament towards happiness?
13:37–15:00
5
What are some simple ways to find our purpose?
15:00–35:18
6
How does stress impact our health and happiness?
35:18–38:28
7
What unhealthy traits should we look out for in relationships?
38:28–52:32
8
How can we make meaningful connections with others?
52:32–1:00:50
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Great Company with Jamie Laing
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