Dan Buettner: Lessons From the World’s Happiest People

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.8 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2017

⏱️ 106 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Follow your bliss, not your material desires.” Dan Buettner We all want to be happy. But what exactly is happiness? Can it be cultivated? And if so, how? Somewhere along the way, you've likely heard of something called the Blue Zones — a term coined by this week's guest in reference to five hidden slivers of the world that boast the highest per capita populations of centenarians – people who thrive to 100 and beyond. Unlikely locales where people not live inordinately long, Places where people forgot to die. Interestingly, in addition to outliving their fellow western world equals, the Blue Zoners also seemed resoundingly happier. Dan Buettner wanted to know more. So he shifted focus from longevity and zeroed in on the elusive, ever-so-slippery nature of happiness itself. Deploying his expertise and that of others, he used hard science to better define the emotional state we seek most. He scoured the planet in search of the cultures that most exemplify happiness. He examined the internal and external factors that most promote happiness. And he extrapolated the key lessons that can be best applied for us to all ultimately live better and more fulfilled. The result of Dan's quest is the subject of today's conversation. It's also the the cover story of this month’s issue of National Geographic, the topic he explored all last week on the TODAY Show and the focus of his new Amazon #1 bestselling book, The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons from the World's Happiest People*. (full podcast on YouTube!) A true renaissance man, Dan is a National Geographic Fellow, a world adventurer with 3 endurance cycling world records to his name, a longevity expert, and a NY Times Bestselling author who has appeared on Oprah twice, as well as CNN, David Letterman, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, and the Today Show. He has delivered more than 500 keynotes over the last 10 years, including speeches for Bill Clinton’s Health Matters Initiative, Google Zeitgeist, and TEDMED. His TED Talk “How to live to be 100+” has been viewed over 3 million times. Long-time listeners will remember well our initial conversation. RRP 139 (April 2015) explored Dan’s fascinating, adventurous backstory and what he learned studying centenarians. This conversation picks up where that one left off to delve deep into the very nature of happiness. It's about the three pillars that compose it. And the extent to which your environment and lifestyle choices impact your ability to exude and maintain it. It’s a conversation about what you can do to design your surroundings to stack the deck in favor of happiness. And it’s an exchange about the impact of Dan’s work on fundamentally improving health and happiness in cities and municipalities across the United States. But ultimately, this is a powerful primer on how to cultivate greater awareness around the choices we all make daily around food, lifestyle habits, and the quality of our physical and interpersonal environments. And it's about how improving these choices can lead to the one thing we all seek – true, lasting happiness. Enjoy! Rich Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Places where people are making it to 100 and still water skiing or standing on their head or doing karate, it's not because they tried.
0:10.0	In all cases, longevity happened to these people. It was a residue of the right environment, an environment that nudges them into doing the right things all day long.
0:22.0	And with that insight, we went about creating a program that would help entire American cities live longer by shaping their environment so they're mindlessly and relentlessly nudged into doing the right thing rather than the wrong thing.
0:41.0	That's Dan Butiner, and this is the Retroll Podcast.
0:52.0	Hey everybody, how you guys doing? How are you? What is happening? Hope everybody had a great weekend. My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. This is a podcast. My podcast welcome.
1:08.0	Welcome back to the show where I have the great privilege of convening with great minds to bring you compelling conversations about things that matter, health, wellness, longevity, your physical fitness, your spiritual fitness, your relationships, your career.
1:23.0	And in the case of today's exchange, that elusive state of being we call happiness. What is it exactly? How do we cultivate it? How do we maintain it?
1:34.0	How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it? How do we maintain it
2:04.0	How did he learn about health and longevity by studying five hidden slivers of the world, the highest per capita populations of centinerians who live in hundreds of places where people essentially forgot to die.
2:19.0	And that was an amazing one for me. And since that experience, I have become quite close with Dan. We have become good friends. He's a kindred spirit.
2:28.1	done incredible work. Somebody who is truly changing the world and somebody who has become
2:34.1	an incredible role model and personal mentor to me. But before we get into the specifics of
2:39.8	today's conversation, a couple quick announcements. First, thank you. Thank you to everybody who donated
2:46.1	to my charity Water Birthday campaign. As of the date of this recording together,
2:51.3	together, that's an important point. We have raised an incredible $42,000. That is
2:56.9	unreal. And I am so grateful. Everybody at charity Water, including Scott Harrison, is thrilled,
3:03.6	it's amazing, and I so appreciate all of your contributions. We're still about $9,000 short
3:09.1	of my $51,000 goal, but not to worry. The campaign is still open. So if you have been sitting on
3:15.1	your hands now is the time to finally make that donation, a donation that will literally provide
3:20.8	clean water, a fundamental human right that 663 million people currently go without,
3:26.7	to those who have never before experienced what we take for granted. So please check out my fund
3:33.3	raising page at my.charitywater.org ford slash ritual. And let's hit that goal. Thank you so much.
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