Welcome. I'm Kevin Miller, and this is a podcast to elevate your experience of life, an experience that you're creating. In this episode, an 87-year study on what provides happiness. The answer is relationships. But I want to start off by asking a question I continually interest myself with.

Do we really want to be happy?

If we survey the culture, it looks like we very much want, you know, happy moments, the little

jolts of dopamine from entertainment and food and drugs and whatever.

But do we really want the deep and

abiding happiness in our souls? Because if we do, then our primary interest would be in

relationships, but not just any relationships. So I'm revisiting this conversation that I had with

Robert Waldinger. Robert is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard

Medical School and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General

Hospital, often referred to as the grant study. It's been going on for 87 years. So Bob's devotion

is on what most equates to human happiness and the answer, as I've said,

relationships. But let me point out that Robert himself is a Zen master and teaches meditation

around the world, which is a focus on what I feel is our most and first important relationship,

as I've learned. Self, the relationship with ourselves. I've continued to grow in appreciation,

not just for this message, but for Bob himself. If you have my book, What Drives You,

you'll see his endorsement on there.

Robert's book, Bob's book,

which is how I came to know of him,

is called The Good Life,

lessons from the world's longest scientific study on happiness.

And if you type in Robert Waldinger, TED, TED,

as in TED Talk, you'll find his talk, what makes a good life

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