This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody how we doing when

how we doing when people are making's resolutions, I think they mostly

focus on things like diet, exercise, finances, getting a new job, starting a

meditation habit, things like that. Maybe I'm wrong about this but that's my general impression. We live in an age of

optimization people are tracking their calories, tracking their sleep, tracking their meditation streaks,

tracking their heart rate, committing to arduous diet and exercise plans.

Some of these things are pretty healthy, although I would argue that you need to be careful

about not dieting or exercising from a place of self-loathing or conforming to societal norms that may have

nothing to do with your actual health.

But anyway, if you are interested in getting happier, healthier, and more successful, my reading of the data

strongly suggests that the most effective lever, the thing you really should optimize, is your

relationships, which I very rarely hear anybody

talking about in terms of resolutions and optimization or general life goals.

Some of you may be familiar with this study but the folks at Harvard have for 80 years or so been

tracking several generations of Bostonians to determine what leads to a long life and a happy life.

And the number one variable was not diet or exercise or meditation it was the quality

of people's relationships. Why? Because stress kills and stress can be reduced most effectively through having strong relationships.

Okay, so that long wind-up brings me to today's guest who is one of, if not the smartest people I know on the subject of doing relationships better.

Esther Perrell is a psychotherapist and best-selling author.

She has a therapy practice in New York City and she serves as an organizational

consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Her TED Talks have more than

40 million views and her books, Mating in captivity and the state of affairs,

...