The Secret to Happiness with Harvard professor Robert Waldinger | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Simon Sinek 0:00 You might know this because you are a psychiatrist. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

Robert Waldinger 0:07 One?

Simon Sinek 0:08 Exactly. One, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Robert Waldinger 0:11 I love that joke. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 0:13 We all wanna live a happy life, of course. In fact, we want it so much that there's a whole cottage industry built around helping us find it. But what does a happy life actually look like? In the 1930s, some Harvard scientists started tracking 724 teenagers. They kept detailed records about how they lived their lives and what gave them satisfaction. They tracked all 724 people for their entire lives. Only 10 of them are still living today, and they are all in their hundreds. But just like the people the study tracked, the scientists got old too. So the director of the study was handed to subsequent generations, and Dr. Robert Waldinger is the current director, a position he's held for the past 22 years, so he knows a lot about what actually leads to a happy life. I wanted to know the things he's learning. I also wanted to know how he's changed his own life as a result of the data he reads. And let's just say I'm making a few changes to how I live my life, too. This is A Bit of Optimism. I don't know how to ask this without it sounding, um, not polite, but it's the only way I can think-

Robert Waldinger 1:30 Go ahead. Go ahead

Simon Sinek 1:31 ... it's the only way I can think to ask it. [laughs] How come they picked you to lead the,

Simon Sinek 1:37 the, uh, the, the happiness study? [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 1:40 Well, well, I- you're not the only one who asked that question.

Simon Sinek 1:43 [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 1:43 I asked that question.

Simon Sinek 1:44 Did you draw the short straw?

Robert Waldinger 1:47 You know, I might have drawn the short straw.

Simon Sinek 1:48 [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 1:48 What happened was my, my predecessor, George Vaillant, asked a couple of other people, and they said no. They said, "This is a great big, messy albatross-"

Simon Sinek 1:59 Mm

Robert Waldinger 1:59 ... with data that goes back to 1938. So he got turned down and then-

Simon Sinek 2:04 So he proudly got his third choice.

Robert Waldinger 2:07 I think I was at least his third choice.

Simon Sinek 2:09 [laughs] So, so what made you say yes? Let's go there then.

Robert Waldinger 2:14 Oh.

Simon Sinek 2:15 [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 2:15 Well, so the research project that I begged them to fund, the federal government said, "Nah, we're not so interested." So I was in that place, and my predecessor said, "Come over to my office and just read through one person's file."

Simon Sinek 2:34 Mm-hmm.

Robert Waldinger 2:34 And so I said, "Okay." The file was probably a thousand pieces of paper.

Simon Sinek 2:38 Wow.

Robert Waldinger 2:38 And I started reading through, and I read about this 19-year-old guy and what he hoped for for his life, and what was most important to him, and what it was like to be dating. And then I read about his 40-year-old aspirations, and then I flipped to his 60-year-old discussion of his marriage and how disappointing it was.

Simon Sinek 3:01 You read his whole life.

Robert Waldinger 3:03 I read his life. I sat there and read his life.

Simon Sinek 3:06 That's-

Robert Waldinger 3:06 And it was like, "This is, like, the coolest thing I could do."

Simon Sinek 3:09 Based on the, the actual people you studied, tell

Simon Sinek 3:13 me something they get right as they are young kids in their teens and they, or even in their early 20s, and they start to think about what will make them happy, and they get it right.

Robert Waldinger 3:27 A lot of them care about making a difference in the world, and they care about the world.

Simon Sinek 3:34 Mm.

Robert Waldinger 3:34 And the people, I think, who, who stay with that, who they... It may not be the same purpose all the way through their lives-

Simon Sinek 3:41 Sure

Robert Waldinger 3:41 ... but the people who stay with that aspiration, I think stay engaged in life. And I think that's what they get right.

Simon Sinek 3:49 Now, that's really significant, right? Because if we look at how we're teaching our children, universities advertise as a reason to choose them over another, the starting salaries of their graduates.

Robert Waldinger 4:01 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 4:02 And our guidance counselors, they don't ask us the right questions about how we wanna contribute to the world. They ask us what we can do and where we think we can get employment. And so what I find very significant about what you're saying is, what if our guidance counselors, what if our deans, what if our parents start instilling in us at a very young age the importance of j- simply wanting to be a part of something bigger than ourselves?

Robert Waldinger 4:26 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 4:26 Forget about actually achieving it, simply wanting it.

Robert Waldinger 4:28 Yeah. Right. Of course.

Simon Sinek 4:29 That, that, as you said, the data shows that people who at a young age want to contribute to something bigger than themselves, they will somehow pursue that ideal for the rest of their lives, which keeps them at above average happy rates.

Robert Waldinger 4:45 Yes. And I think what happens is that many people have posited a kind of psychological maturity that involves wanting to be part of something bigger than the self.

Simon Sinek 4:55 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 4:56 Erik Erikson, I don't know if you've heard of his stuff, but he was a-

Simon Sinek 4:59 The Viking?

Robert Waldinger 5:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. He was a, uh, a psychoanalyst from Vienna in the '30s and '40s who came to Boston, who taught for a while at Harvard, and he started talking about the stages of adult development. Nobody had talked about adult development. Everybody was interested in kids 'cause they so-

Simon Sinek 5:21 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 5:21 ... obviously develop.

Simon Sinek 5:23 Right.

Robert Waldinger 5:23 But he said, you know, adults go through these stages, and one of his stages he called generativity versus stagnation. And the generativity was wanting to be part of something bigger than yourself. Realizing, oh, I wanna help raise kids, or I wanna mentor people, or I wanna do something that's-

Simon Sinek 5:44 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 5:44 ... not just me. And he said that the people who do that become the people who are gonna look back on their lives with less regret, with more of a sense that the, my life was good enough.

Simon Sinek 6:00 I think we're living in a time where though we intellectually know that because it's the subject of so many social media posts,

Simon Sinek 6:06 I think we're living in a time where people don't feel connected to something bigger than themselves-

Robert Waldinger 6:09 Right

Simon Sinek 6:09 ... in general. You know, y- we don't work for companies for 30 or 40 years anymore. Church attendance is down.

Robert Waldinger 6:17 Right.

Simon Sinek 6:17 Even the great power competitions of us versus the Soviet Union that we were proud to be a part of this side versus that side, like even, even at a global politics level, like those things have gone away. And I think you see it on the left and the right politically, people latching onto absolutely anything-

Robert Waldinger 6:32 Yeah

Simon Sinek 6:32 ... that gives them that sense of belonging, but it doesn't last. Those attachments don't last, but you can see them just grasping for it.

Robert Waldinger 6:40 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 6:41 In a way that maybe I'm idealizing, but I don't have memory of people doing in the past. The sort of the, the, the intense latching onto whether it's a far left or a far right point of view about how the world should work, and they latch onto it as if it's their life's purpose, but it isn't.

Robert Waldinger 7:00 Right.

Simon Sinek 7:01 It lasts for a period of time and then onto the next or it dissipates.

Robert Waldinger 7:06 Right. Or an identity as a certain kind of influencer, or an identity as a certain, as a person living a certain style of life materially. I mean, there are all, all these various identities that people are struggling for. I think you're right. Robert Putnam is a political scientist. He wrote a book called "Bowling Alone."

Simon Sinek 7:27 Yeah, I know this.

Robert Waldinger 7:28 And... Yeah. Right. So you know about this. So he, he tracked-

Simon Sinek 7:30 Great book

Robert Waldinger 7:31 ... he tracked how we've stopped belonging, right?

Simon Sinek 7:34 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 7:34 We've stopped all the things you just said, and we've just stopped joining clubs and volunteering and having people over to our houses. And what he's found is that it's gotten worse since the digital revolution.

Simon Sinek 7:48 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 7:48 The digital revolution has accelerated the trends that were already there.

Simon Sinek 7:53 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 7:53 And so the path of least resistance now is social isolation, greater and greater isolation. And, and we're all kinda desperate for what to do about it and how to feel like we belong.

Simon Sinek 8:05 I wonder if we need a new word, and I'll tell you what I mean, 'cause the technology has co-opted words, right? So a desktop used to be a horizontal surface.

Robert Waldinger 8:17 Yeah, yeah.

Simon Sinek 8:17 And now a desktop is a vertical surface.

Robert Waldinger 8:19 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 8:20 And a folder was something you used to put away in alphabetical order, and now a folder is something you click on.

Robert Waldinger 8:24 Absolutely.

Simon Sinek 8:25 It's taken words and things to make, to make the transition to living in a digital world. I know why they do it, it's because it's easier. But the word community used to mean like showing up and wearing a fez, you know? [chuckles] And there were secret handshakes, and there was a time to meet up, and there was free food, and community meant a thing, and now that word has been co-opted to like being on an email list.

Robert Waldinger 8:52 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 8:53 Now what you and I are talking about, we're attempting to offer an archaic definition of what community is, and I wonder if instead of trying to fight it, we just need a new word, and then people will want-

Robert Waldinger 9:05 For real

Simon Sinek 9:06 ... to think that that's the new word, because community already belongs online.

Robert Waldinger 9:09 [sighs] But I, I worry that the word we're substituting is something like tribe, and tribe has all those connotations of who we exclude-

Simon Sinek 9:21 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 9:22 ... who we make other, you know, all that stuff.

Simon Sinek 9:25 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 9:25 Um, and, and I think, I think we're all stuck in this place where we don't know how to belong without making other people enemies.

Simon Sinek 9:35 Yeah. I wanna scratch this just a little bit more, 'cause when I articulated the concept of why, the reason I called it the why was a sem- was a semantic problem that I faced, right? Which is I got tired of debating with people what comes first, vision or mission.

Robert Waldinger 9:53 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 9:54 And the debate would go on forever.

Robert Waldinger 9:56 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 9:56 And so I finally realized we were having a semantic debate.

Robert Waldinger 9:59 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 10:00 And so I asked the people who believed vision was preeminent, "What is the definition of vision to you?" And they said, "It's why I get out of bed in the morning." And I went to people who believed mission was preeminent, and I said, "What's mission to you?" And they said, "Well, it's why I do what I do."

Robert Waldinger 10:12 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 10:12 And so everybody, whether it was purpose or brand or whatever, whatever word they thought was the thing, they all gave me the same definition. And so I said, "Okay, so let's call it the why, and now we can all agree what it is, and now we can actually figure out how to do it rather than debate what comes first."

Robert Waldinger 10:29 Right. Right. Exactly. And that the-

Simon Sinek 10:31 And so I, I

Simon Sinek 10:32 wonder how people are defining community, and maybe you have some data that explains that. Like it's one thing to say, "I want my life to be a part of something bigger than itself. I want to feel a sense of purpose." But what actually, based on this longitudinal study, what actually do people mean when they say these words?

Robert Waldinger 10:52 The people who talked about it the most meant something quite fluid and quite individual. So the people who were the best at this would have like work mates over for barbecues, but they'd mix in their family, they'd mix in cousins, and they'd mix in people from their church, and they'd introduce each other.

Simon Sinek 11:14 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 11:14 And so you have these people who become like the nodes of a group of people that get connected. They become, if you will, connectors.

Simon Sinek 11:22 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 11:23 But that means that each person might be the node of a unique collection of people.

Simon Sinek 11:30 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 11:30 Right? As opposed to one thing, going to a church, going to a synagogue.

Simon Sinek 11:36 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 11:36 Yeah, you can do that, and that is a defined community, but most of us have these things that are more fluid and individual.

Simon Sinek 11:44 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 11:44 One of the, one of my friends who's the best at this keeps connecting his friends from random parts of his life, and it's really fun to get to be part of that group of people 'cause it's so diverse.

Simon Sinek 11:57 Well, I think you're touching on something that I think is really magical. If we're saying it's important for us to build community- And I've done this. I've gone to dinner parties, and it's the same 10 people at somebody-- at a just a different house.

Robert Waldinger 12:08 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 12:09 You know? And they say we care about community, but as you're defining it, it's not really community. It's just the same 10 people at different houses. And I think what you're talking about is the importance of the salon, the old, the, the old school salon.

Robert Waldinger 12:23 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 12:23 Which is instead of hosting a dinner party, we should take it upon ourselves to build salons, which is I'm gonna invite some tried and true friends. I'm gonna invite some people who I just met recently. I'm gonna invite somebody who I met at a different dinner party. I'm gonna... And I may or may not give a subject to discuss at the table, but this is what's gonna happen, because then I'll go to somebody else's dinner party who was at mine, and it's a lot of new people for me too.

Robert Waldinger 12:46 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 12:47 And I love this idea of us not just hosting dinner party for the people we know, but for hosting, specifically hosting dinner parties for people we know that our friends don't know.

Robert Waldinger 12:59 Exactly. Because the same 10 people is in a silo, right?

Simon Sinek 13:03 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 13:04 Like it's, it's almost tr- it could be hermetically sealed. And so you know what each other thinks. You know each other. But the most exciting conversations happen, for me, when people come who do completely different things, who come from different backgrounds. I mean, today I was on a call with a researcher who was growing nerve cells from schizophrenics, and he's trying to see is a nerve cell different in how it makes connections if it's got the genes of a s- someone with schizophrenia, and therefore someone who has delusions? D- or d- do the connections, uh, that a nerve cell make, are they different-

Simon Sinek 13:45 Right

Robert Waldinger 13:45 ... for people with delusions? And I'm like, I'm like buzzing-

Simon Sinek 13:49 Wow

Robert Waldinger 13:49 ... with all these ideas. And b- it's because a student of mine is also a student of his and brought us together.

Simon Sinek 13:57 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 13:57 And our heads started to explode with excited possibilities.

Simon Sinek 14:01 A- and I think what you're talking about is we connect not on the interest. That stuff is superficial, and that stuff is good at, you know, sort of getting people in the room.

Robert Waldinger 14:09 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 14:09 And but we're talking about deep, deep values that are deeper than our political points of view, because I can have the same values as somebody with a different political point of view than me, and I think people confuse those things sometimes. I love this. So how long have you, have you led the, the... How long have you been the boss of the study?

Robert Waldinger 14:25 Uh, 22 years.

Simon Sinek 14:27 22 years. And what

Simon Sinek 14:29 did you learn from the data that you've been able to apply to your life that has made you happier?

Robert Waldinger 14:37 I now call-

Simon Sinek 14:37 Like you, like you read, you were reading some data and you're like, "Huh, I'm gonna start doing that," and you did.

Robert Waldinger 14:43 I now call up my guy friends and I say, "Let's go for a walk. Let's go out to dinner. Um, we're not just gonna li- wait for our wives to do this thing, to organize our social lives. We're gonna do this." And, and at first it's really awkward, like, "We don't do this. We're guys." And then it's been a wonderful thing in terms of really getting to know individually people who were otherwise part of a social group, part of the same 10 people, if you will.

Simon Sinek 15:14 Yeah, yeah.

Robert Waldinger 15:15 But, but we never dug, dug more deeply into knowing each other. And so it made me do that because I thought otherwise I'm just gonna sit here on my computer all day long doing my research stuff, doing my academic stuff-

Simon Sinek 15:29 Mm

Robert Waldinger 15:29 ... and pick my head up and have no friends.

Simon Sinek 15:31 That's a really good one.

Robert Waldinger 15:33 Yep. Somebody said, "Take care of your body like you're gonna need it for 100 years." And I realized that, boy, this really, really matters, that in our data, the people who took care of themselves, so we're talking regular exercise, not abusing drugs and alcohol, not becoming obese, all that stuff-

Simon Sinek 15:56 Mm.

Robert Waldinger 15:56 They lived on average 10 years longer and stayed healthier. So even though it's not rocket science and it's not news, i- I could see in my own data how much it really matters.

Simon Sinek 16:09 People I assume

Simon Sinek 16:10 are starting to die now in the study these-

Robert Waldinger 16:12 Most of the original folks have died. 724 original people.

Simon Sinek 16:16 Right. Right.

Robert Waldinger 16:17 Fewer than 10 are still alive, and they're all over age 100.

Simon Sinek 16:20 Okay. So of the ones, o- of those 724, the ones who lived the longest, you know, 'cause biohacking is a thing now, and like the obsession, there's an obsession with longevity, and so the people who lived the longest, was there a pattern that you were able to discern? And the people who lived the shortest, was there a pattern that you were able to discern?

Robert Waldinger 16:41 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The longest was literally taking care of your physical health and being really socially engaged in the world, okay?

Simon Sinek 16:51 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 16:51 Those were the two things.

Simon Sinek 16:53 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 16:53 And the people who lived the shortest, it was the opposite. People who-

Simon Sinek 16:56 The opposite

Robert Waldinger 16:56 ... who, yeah, who became alcoholics, who became obese, who didn't take care of themselves-

Simon Sinek 17:02 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 17:03 ... and who were isolated.

Simon Sinek 17:04 This is why I think your work is very, very important, is because I think a lot of the longevity people and biohackers and all of they're all, they're all talking about vitamins and exercise and sure, sure, sure.

Robert Waldinger 17:12 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 17:12 That stuff's great. And they pay lip service to community-

Robert Waldinger 17:16 Right

Simon Sinek 17:16 ... whereas they're giving s- exact dosages of vitamin D that I should be taking on a daily basis-

Robert Waldinger 17:22 Yeah

Simon Sinek 17:22 ... but nobody's giving me a prescription to how to hang out with my friends.

Robert Waldinger 17:26 Because community doesn't make money. You can sell vitamin D. You can sell supplements.

Simon Sinek 17:31 [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 17:31 You can package them in fancy ways. You can sell them on a podcast, right?

Simon Sinek 17:37 I appreciate the cynicism so much, you have no idea.

Robert Waldinger 17:40 I'm so sorry. That's, I didn't-

Simon Sinek 17:41 No. I think you're 100% right. I think you're 100% right. There is a financial incentive to sell half a solution.

Robert Waldinger 17:48 Exactly. You know, and what I struggle with, so as you know, I'm a physician, I'm a psychiatrist, and one of the difficulties with medicine is that m- uh, the vast amount of disease is preventable. But you don't make money in medicine preventing disease.

Simon Sinek 18:05 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 18:05 You make money curing disease-

Simon Sinek 18:07 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 18:07 ... or trying to ameliorate disease with medications, with procedures. You don't make money preventing disease by encouraging people to socialize, by encouraging-

Simon Sinek 18:18 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 18:18 ... people to exercise.

Simon Sinek 18:20 You've been doing this for 22 years. Do you get tired talking about it?

Robert Waldinger 18:24 Yeah. Actually, no. I mean, okay, I do, I don't get tired-

Simon Sinek 18:28 'Cause you're getting the same que- like, you can do a bunch of pod- you're gonna have to answer the same questions five times in a row.

Robert Waldinger 18:35 Yeah, but how they get asked is so different. I mean, talking with you right now is really fun, right? Because of the way-

Simon Sinek 18:42 Thank you

Robert Waldinger 18:42 ... we're talking. No, but really. Because-

Simon Sinek 18:45 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 18:45 ... there's this kind of, there's a real back and forth, right? It's r-

Simon Sinek 18:48 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 18:48 ... we're having a conversation. There are other times when it's like, "Just shoot me," if someone says, "I'm," [laughs] you know, "I'm really looking forward to reading your book. Can you explain to our listeners what you do?" That's, that's like fingernails on a blackboard.

Simon Sinek 19:08 My, my, the, the interviews that I, that I hate doing is where the people are so over-prepared to talk to me-

Robert Waldinger 19:14 Yeah

Simon Sinek 19:14 ... that they ask me questions about my book like, "Simon, what are the five elements of The Infinite Game?" And I was like, "Well, you, you know the answer. You, you say it." Like, why are you asking me questions you know the answers to?

Robert Waldinger 19:25 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 19:25 Ask me questions you don't know the answers to. That's more fun. [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 19:28 Absolutely. Absolutely. And so, so when something spontaneous happens, like is happening now with you, I could do this forever. Uh, but, but when the other happens, I just, I just wanna be done and done.

Simon Sinek 19:41 So I have to... I mean, you might know this because you are s- uh, a psychiatrist. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

Robert Waldinger 19:50 One?

Simon Sinek 19:50 Exactly. One, but the light bulb has to really wanna change.

Robert Waldinger 19:54 I love that joke. [laughs] I love that joke.

Simon Sinek 19:57 What was your journey? How did

Simon Sinek 19:58 you get into psychiatry? Like, why s- when you decided you wanna go to med school, why the mind?

Robert Waldinger 20:03 Well, when I decided to go to med school, it wasn't gonna be the mind. I'm a Jewish kid from Des Moines, Iowa. I did not know any-

Simon Sinek 20:10 You're the Jewish kid from Des Moines, Iowa.

Robert Waldinger 20:12 Well, close. No, no. We had about 1,000 Jewish families in Des Moines. We had three and a half synagogues.

Simon Sinek 20:19 Wow.

Robert Waldinger 20:19 But... Yeah. But, so most of the psychiatrists I knew worked with seriously mentally ill people in asylums, and psychotherapy was not a thing you did in Des Moines unless you were really ill and needed to be in a hospital. So I didn't know anybody, but I knew I really liked working with people. And so when I got to med school, I realized that psychiatry was, like, by far the thing that excited me the most. But psychiatry is the stepchild of medicine, so a lot of my professors said, "You know, either you're at the bottom of the class or you yourself are crazy 'cause there'd be no other reason for you to go into psychiatry." So it took me a long time before I finally admitted, like, who am I kidding? This is really the most interesting thing. 'Cause otherwise it was memorizing the 12 types of thyroid tumors, and I didn't care about thyroid tumors unless somebody I knew had one. But I, I cared deeply about the mind and especially how my own worked. So I had to come around to it, uh, despite the stigma of being a psychiatrist.

Simon Sinek 21:27 How did you get over the stigma? Because it's, there's a lot of pressure to become an accountant or choose the, the line of medicine that's most in demand right now 'cause it's a better business option. You followed passion.

Robert Waldinger 21:38 I did. I did. Well, partly I followed passion because what I, I'm, I'm not good at doing things I'm not passionate about. Actually, all my energy drains and I start to shut down and I start to feel terrible. And I started to do that, I realized I don't care about most of medicine. So yes, I could become a cardiologist like many of my aunts and uncles wanted me to do, 'cause cardiology's a nice field, right? But I realized I would just die, I would just wither on the vine.

Simon Sinek 22:09 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 22:09 And what I've finally learned to do over time is to listen to that gut that says, "I'm drawn to this and I'm not drawn to that." That's probably the hardest lesson I've had to, like, keep learning throughout my life.

Simon Sinek 22:25 So good segue. If we look at the world as it is now, it seems that younger people who are trying to figure out what to do with their lives, their, quote-unquote, "passion" for something seems to be... I don't know if it's driven by external reward structure. You know, the number of-

Robert Waldinger 22:44 Yeah

Simon Sinek 22:44 ... young people who say, "I wanna be an influencer." It's like people who come up to me and say, "Simon, can I get your advice? I'd love to be a speaker." I'm like, "Oh, amazing." Or, "I wanna be an author." I'm like, "Great. What do you wanna speak about?" They're like, "I don't know yet." I'm like, "Well, then, no, no, you got it in the wrong order." Like-

Robert Waldinger 22:56 Well-

Simon Sinek 22:56 ... I wanna be an influencer. Influencer is a mechanism to spread something, but what is the thing you're passionate about to spread?

Robert Waldinger 23:02 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 23:03 That the thing that they think they're passionate for is something that looks cool, sounds cool, gets a lot of adoration, gets a lot of money, gets a lot of fame. And it, and it's an age-old question: How do I know what I'm passionate for?

Robert Waldinger 23:16 For me, it literally has been learning to tap into my energy. Is my energy higher or lower in this moment than it was a few minutes ago? Literally, and I had to learn that. For example, I'm really enjoying this conversation. My energy's higher. And if I'm in a conversation where it, where it starts to lower, I get it right away.

Simon Sinek 23:41 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 23:41 And one of the things I've come to understand is that we get trained to ignore those signals. I was at least. Think about all the times you had to sit in a classroom in school.

Simon Sinek 23:50 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 23:50 And you'd have these urges to do something or explore something, but of course you had to sit still and watch the clock until the class was over. We've been taught to suppress these inner voices, I think since we were in preschool.

Simon Sinek 24:06 I think you're right, but there's a nuance here that's very important, and I need you to unwrap it for me, which is we evaluate friends. Like, are our friends generative? You know, you know, on balance, not every time because sometimes we're tired, sometimes they're tired. But I mean, in general, when I hang out with ... X friend versus Y friend, is that friend generative in how I feel? Do I leave my time with them happier, elated, as you said, like up, right?

Robert Waldinger 24:31 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 24:31 And am I paying attention to that, that I wanna spend more time with them versus, "Ugh, well, we've been friend for 15 years, so, uh, I guess I'll go out with them," you know?

Robert Waldinger 24:39 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 24:39 Um, and I think that's true with our work as well, and it obviously conflicts with things like responsibility, 'cause sometimes you have to suppress that feeling [laughs] 'cause I have to be responsible. It's an imperfect standard.

Robert Waldinger 24:52 Right.

Simon Sinek 24:53 Uh, uh-

Robert Waldinger 24:54 I don't always feel like changing that diaper.

Simon Sinek 24:56 Right. Exactly. And I think you're touching upon it, which is folks like us are giving advice, like, "Trust your gut, follow that elation." But the problem is, is that I don't know if people are running towards it, or when they don't feel it, they rebel against it. So for, in a work environment, right? We see this a lot where it's particularly young people, but not, not exclusively. They just have more courage, I think. Which is if they're in a job that doesn't do that-

Robert Waldinger 25:22 Yeah

Simon Sinek 25:22 ... they're very vocal and sometimes rejecting of the, the culture, the leader, the boss, the job itself. And I think there's more about speaking out against the fact that I'm not-

Robert Waldinger 25:33 Mm

Simon Sinek 25:33 ... elated.

Robert Waldinger 25:34 Mm-hmm. Mm.

Simon Sinek 25:35 Thinking that by speaking out against it, I will find the elation, rather than doing more of the thing that elates me. Like going to work and saying, "Hey, my boss, this elates me in general. This elates me less in general. Can I do more of that, please?" Rather than rejecting, throwing the whole, the baby out with the bathwater.

Robert Waldinger 25:54 Absolutely. It's, there's more of a need to take responsibility for that, right? To have a sense of agency. "Okay, if I, if, if this job is draining as it is, what can I do?" Right?

Simon Sinek 26:08 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 26:08 "What can I do?" And some of that, as you know, has to do with connecting with people on the job. Like one of the things we know is that if people have, have friends on the job, if they have people-

Simon Sinek 26:18 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 26:18 ... they wanna show up for, that in and of itself is energizing, even if you're making widgets in a way that's boring to you.

Simon Sinek 26:26 Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

Simon Sinek 26:28 we're, we're creating a problem here, do you realize that? Which is because we're saying, "Don't run away from, run towards."

Robert Waldinger 26:34 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 26:34 Run towards a feeling, run towards the contribution to something bigger. And yet I think people if, if they're listening will say, "Ah, I think I'm running away more often than I'm running towards. I'm running away from relationships rather than towards new ones. I'm running away from a job I hate rather one toward the one that I think I'm gonna love." So now it begs the question, how do I know what to run towards?

Robert Waldinger 26:56 Hmm. [lip smacks] Okay, I have an example coming to mind. I loved doing theater as a high school kid, as a college kid, and if I just ran toward what I loved, I would be a failed actor today. So what I had to do was really take in the whole picture to realize, okay, I do, I love theater. I still love theater.

Simon Sinek 27:21 Mm.

Robert Waldinger 27:22 But the whole picture was I came to understand that a l- doing theater involved a lot of rejection. It involved getting bad reviews of plays sometimes in college, it involved getting turned down for parts, it involved feeling like I was acting with people who I didn't think were any fun to be with, all that, right? And what I had to do was take in the wh- the larger picture, not just the isolated passion that I was looking at, right? And so some of this is a kind of discernment where you say, "Okay, the wh- what goes with the whole package?" We go back to psychiatry. What I found was that psychiatry has a whole package. It's one of the lowest paid specialties in medicine, but it's got one of the best lifestyles. On the other hand, cardiology is way better paid, but I don't like doing it. So there's a kind of discernment that's required for what do I run toward? What do I hang back from or walk away from? But the challenge is to take it all in, not just to say, "Okay, I'm gonna focus on this one-"

Simon Sinek 28:34 Mm

Robert Waldinger 28:34 ... "one tiny part of it."

Simon Sinek 28:37 So you're asking people to do a cost analysis.

Robert Waldinger 28:39 Yeah. I guess I am. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 28:41 Basically. And I think that's right. I love photography, and I'm an active photographer, and I actively did not choose a career in photography 'cause I interned at a couple photo studios when I was younger, and I kept meeting people who were artists. They defined themselves as artists, photographers, and yet here they were shooting bottles of ketchup for an ad campaign.

Robert Waldinger 29:01 Absolutely.

Simon Sinek 29:02 And they l- their lo-- And I asked them, "Do you ever shoot for art anymore?" They said, "I either don't have the time or I don't have the energy." And so their passion became a job. I mean that pejoratively.

Robert Waldinger 29:13 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:14 It, it became work.

Robert Waldinger 29:16 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:17 And, and I think that's where when people say, "I wanna be in theater, I wanna be in fashion, I want..." And I think they forget that they're just businesses.

Robert Waldinger 29:25 Right.

Simon Sinek 29:25 They're just businesses. And I can tell you somebody who was passionate for fashion, who's a job in fashion, living their childhood dream, and they hate their life, and I can show you somebody who stumbled and bumbled and found themselves in manufacturing, making a widget, like they're making a screw that fits in the back of a thing that nobody ever sees, and that they're the happiest people alive.

Robert Waldinger 29:41 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:42 In fact, I, I was talking to a, a, a contractor, and I asked him just out of the blue, I was sort of making small talk. I'm like, "Just out of curiosity, do you like your job?" [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 29:51 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:51 And he says, "I love my job."

Robert Waldinger 29:52 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 29:53 He says, "I love it." And I, he, he, he said it with such passion, no other word for it. And I was like, "What do you love about it?" He goes, "I get to build things with my own hands, and I get to see them built."

Robert Waldinger 30:05 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:05 "I get to see what I built. I start with nothing. I start with a pile of wood and some nails-"

Robert Waldinger 30:10 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:11 "... and some Sheetrock, and then when I'm done, you get that."

Robert Waldinger 30:14 Right.

Simon Sinek 30:15 "And then I go do it again, and again, and again, and again, whether it's a kitchen remodeling or whatever it is." And he had such elation to see the fruits of his actual labor.

Robert Waldinger 30:26 Right. What you're saying reminds me of something I've come to understand, which is there's, there's grunt work in anything.

Simon Sinek 30:33 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 30:33 There's boring work in anything. And so really what we have to figure out is what is the thing we're aiming toward that has enough in it that we love that it's worth doing all the-

Simon Sinek 30:46 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 30:46 ... boring parts, right?

Simon Sinek 30:47 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 30:48 And so I'm sure not every bit of his contracting work, his construction-

Simon Sinek 30:54 Oh, no

Robert Waldinger 30:54 ... work-

Simon Sinek 30:54 For sure

Robert Waldinger 30:55 ... is enlivening. But boy, seeing what he's built lights him up, right? And he can, he can hold onto that vision while he's pounding that umpteenth nail.

Simon Sinek 31:05 I'm having

Simon Sinek 31:06 an insight here. [chuckles] Here's where we make a mistake. We're looking for the work to be the thing that is, that is passionate, and it's not the work that is the thing that is passionate. It is what that work produces.

Robert Waldinger 31:20 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:20 Right? 'Cause raising kids, it is awful. In the early part, you don't sleep. You've got, as you said, changing diapers in the middle of the night. You get peed on and thrown up on, and then they get a little older and they become teenagers, and they're a pain in the ass to be around. And then one of them gets bad grades, and you gotta deal with that, and another one gets a fight in school and punches a kid, and then you gotta deal with that. And like, where's the joy? That, I thought that having kids was supposed to be joyful, right? But, but then you have these unpredictable glimmers-

Robert Waldinger 31:54 Yeah

Simon Sinek 31:54 ... of your kids helping each other, or another parent saying, "Your kid's great," or the teacher saying, "Your kid helps all the other kids." You know, you get these unexpected glimmers that make all of that worth it in an instant.

Robert Waldinger 32:08 Yes. Yes.

Simon Sinek 32:09 And, and I know that from my work, like writing books is the w- it's the worst thing in the world.

Robert Waldinger 32:15 Yeah, I know. I know.

Simon Sinek 32:15 I don't know why anybody... I don't... People are like, "I wanna be an author." I'm like, "Don't. It's the worst."

Robert Waldinger 32:19 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:19 But when you put something out in the world that, that, that resonates with people, it's instantly worth all of it, and I'd do it again.

Robert Waldinger 32:28 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:29 Even though every time I've written a book, I've said, "This is the last one."

Robert Waldinger 32:32 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 32:33 And I think people are looking for the passion in the wrong place. They're looking for the passion in the labor, but they're not looking for what the labor produces. And maybe this is one of the problems with knowledge work, which is knowledge work is kinda sitting at a desk. I don't even know how you define what, quote-unquote, "labor" is in a lot of knowledge work.

Robert Waldinger 32:53 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:53 And, and then what's the result of that labor? And do we appreciate the results? Like, we don't think about what the things we make... We don't think about the impact they have in the world. I'll give you an, an awful example. I, I met somebody recently who has a very niche specialty. [chuckles] She helps project manage the building of super yachts for the mega wealthy.

Robert Waldinger 33:18 There you go. [chuckles]

Simon Sinek 33:19 Of course, my first question was, "How the hell did you get into that?" You know?

Robert Waldinger 33:22 Really?

Simon Sinek 33:23 And I asked her, "This is... Do your clients ever say, 'Thank you so much. Why don't you take the yacht with your family for a week?'" And she said, "It's never happened."

Robert Waldinger 33:35 Never. Right.

Simon Sinek 33:35 So I said to her, "So what you're telling me is these multi-billionaires who build these yachts for many hundreds of millions of dollars, that they use for two weeks a year, and they sail around the world just in case the family might wanna use it. At no point on this empty yacht has anybody ever said to you, 'Thanks for all your hard work. Why don't you borrow the yacht?'"

Robert Waldinger 33:55 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 33:56 And she said, "It's never happened." And I said, "Well, how does that make you feel?" She said, "Well, it also occurs to me that what the hell good am I doing in the world?"

Robert Waldinger 34:06 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 34:06 And so tremendous amount of labor, I'm sure incredibly well compensated, but there's no glimmer. There's no, there's no what an amazing opportunity that I have to give to my family, the opportunity to go on a mega yacht that none of us could afford, that none of us will ever have the opportunity. I'm gonna take my friends that I grew up with who have middle income jobs, and I'm gonna show them something and give them an experience, and that makes all of this shit worth it-

Robert Waldinger 34:31 Right

Simon Sinek 34:31 ... because I get to give that to people that I love, and she never gets that glimmer.

Robert Waldinger 34:36 Is she happy in her job?

Simon Sinek 34:37 No.

Robert Waldinger 34:38 Uh, yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 34:40 No. No, it pays well.

Robert Waldinger 34:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But don't, don't you think it has to be a combination of getting there and the outcome? Because, like, when you talked about kids and you listed, or you named... I've been through every horrible scenario and many more in raising my children. But there's also stuff along the way that is hilarious and wonderful and wacky, right? There's like stuff punctuating all the crap-

Simon Sinek 35:10 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 35:10 ... that is absolutely wonderfully wild and, and, and like getting to relive your own childhood is part of it for me.

Simon Sinek 35:18 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 35:18 I got to go to all these kids movies that I would never go to. I got to be on roller coasters. I couldn't do the work that I do if it was only the outcome-

Simon Sinek 35:27 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 35:27 ... because the outcomes are so far into the future. Like writing a book, right? As one of my friends said, who's in publishing, he said, "Only write a book if it's going to move along your own thinking in some ways."

Simon Sinek 35:39 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 35:39 And it's true. Like I... And I bet for you too, that it wasn't just that you were regurgitating stuff-

Simon Sinek 35:47 No

Robert Waldinger 35:47 ... that was tried and true.

Simon Sinek 35:48 I was, I was learning along the way.

Robert Waldinger 35:50 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 35:50 I had insights along the way that as I'm writing, I feel electric because a new idea is pouring out of me in that moment.

Robert Waldinger 35:57 Yeah. And that, that... I bet that was part of what kept you going, not just the outcome of having it to put into the world.

Simon Sinek 36:02 You know what we're defining here. You know what we're defining. We're defining a purpose-driven life.

Robert Waldinger 36:07 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 36:07 Because if you think what purpose is, purpose is idealism.

Robert Waldinger 36:10 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 36:10 And idealism, by its very definition, is unrealizable, right? All men are created equal. Never gonna happen.

Robert Waldinger 36:16 Never.

Simon Sinek 36:16 Never, ever, ever. Not in a million years.

Robert Waldinger 36:18 Right.

Simon Sinek 36:18 However, it's the striving towards that. And to your point, it's the, the mile markers. I don't know how to define them, but like, for example- ... uh, women's suffrage, civil rights, abolition of slavery. It's like, ah, ooh, look, we got... We're getting closer, guys. We're getting closer. Let's keep going.

Robert Waldinger 36:38 Right.

Simon Sinek 36:38 Right? To your point, I think if it was just awful work the whole time waiting for the final outcome, then we should, then you should, we should absolutely quit, and I think you're right. I think the, it goes back to those glimmers, which is the, the little glimmers that say, "You know what? This is worth it. I'm gonna ke- I'm gonna keep on this."

Robert Waldinger 36:55 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 36:55 "I'm gonna keep doing this w- kid rearing thing and not put them up for adoption because, you know, that was a fun family dinner last night."

Robert Waldinger 37:01 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Simon Sinek 37:05 I, so I think, so I think if we're talking about purpose-driven life, if we go right back to the be- beginning of this conversation, there is the des- and, and this comes directly from your data, which is what I love, which is from a very young age, we instill in people, we instill in our, in our youngest generations, it is good to be an idealist. It is good to strive to contribute to something bigger than yourself. You won't know how to get there. You'll change your mind 100 times, but you have to keep your head above the, looking beyond the horizon. And so long as you feel like you're getting closer to the horizon, even if it's a windy, difficult road, so long as you have elements that say, "No, no, no, I think you're on a good path here," you will have a happy life.

Robert Waldinger 37:45 And as long as there's something nourishing along the way. There's gotta be something along the way to keep me going.

Simon Sinek 37:52 Does money play any role in people's

Simon Sinek 37:55 happiness a- according to your study?

Robert Waldinger 37:57 It does. W- that w- what we find is that you need to get your basic needs met in order-

Simon Sinek 38:02 Right

Robert Waldinger 38:02 ... to be happy, and that every dollar you make toward getting your basic needs met, like, you know, food and shelter-

Simon Sinek 38:09 Right

Robert Waldinger 38:09 ... and educating your kids, like every dollar you make makes you happier.

Simon Sinek 38:12 Right.

Robert Waldinger 38:13 We know that. But that then you buy that $100 million yacht, it doesn't really make you happier.

Simon Sinek 38:20 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 38:20 Um, on average. Like, you know, if you, if you took all the $100 million yacht owners, they w- there would, they wouldn't be happier on average than the people who basically had enough material.

Simon Sinek 38:32 Who only have a $50 million yacht.

Robert Waldinger 38:34 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Simon Sinek 38:36 [laughs] But you, but you know comparison is relative, right? 'Cause billionaires aren't comparing themselves to us.

Robert Waldinger 38:42 Mm-mm.

Simon Sinek 38:42 Billionaires are comparing themselves to each other.

Robert Waldinger 38:45 Absolutely.

Simon Sinek 38:46 And so-

Robert Waldinger 38:47 And, and sometimes in great-

Simon Sinek 38:47 ... this is the part of the problem, right, is the relative scale.

Robert Waldinger 38:50 Yes, 'cause sometimes these billionaires are in great pain because they have a couple fewer billion than somebody else.

Simon Sinek 38:57 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 38:57 I mean, it's, it's hard to imagine, and yet I know it in my own life. Like I, I can compare myself on the most trivial things to other people.

Simon Sinek 39:05 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 39:05 And then I try to pull back from that and notice what I'm doing.

Simon Sinek 39:10 Unrelated, I'm just gonna say it 'cause it's fun. Do you wanna y- you, you wanna hun- understand the difference between a million and a billion?

Robert Waldinger 39:17 Tell me.

Simon Sinek 39:17 Like when people talk about millionaires and billionaires?

Robert Waldinger 39:19 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:20 So an easy way to understand the difference, a million seconds is 11 and a half days. A billion seconds is 31 and a half years.

Robert Waldinger 39:31 Wow. Whoa, whoa. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 39:34 [laughs]

Robert Waldinger 39:36 Okay.

Simon Sinek 39:37 And that's the difference between being [laughs] a millionaire-

Robert Waldinger 39:40 Millionaire-

Simon Sinek 39:41 ... and a billionaire

Robert Waldinger 39:41 ... and a billionaire.

Simon Sinek 39:42 It's not even close.

Robert Waldinger 39:44 Yeah. But you know, the most valuable thing we have is time.

Simon Sinek 39:49 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 39:49 So it's n- uh, I like your analogy that you were talking about seconds, but those seconds are, are far more precious ultimately than those dollars.

Simon Sinek 39:59 And money is a, is a redeemable commodity.

Robert Waldinger 40:02 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:02 We spend it, we lose it, we can make more. But spending time or energy, these are non-redeemable commodities, and everyone gets the same amount. From day one-

Robert Waldinger 40:14 Well, we don't know how much we get

Simon Sinek 40:14 ... everybody gets 24 hours in a day.

Robert Waldinger 40:16 But we don't know how much we get, right? That's the thing.

Simon Sinek 40:20 Oh, oh, in terms of lifespan.

Robert Waldinger 40:21 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:22 That's even, that's even more interesting, yeah. So you, we have-

Robert Waldinger 40:25 I mean, but you're right. We all have 24 hours in a day.

Simon Sinek 40:27 We all have 24 hours in a day, but we don't know how many 24-hour days we get.

Robert Waldinger 40:30 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 40:32 And so when we give that precious commodity to another human being, when we s- when somebody's struggling at work and we sit down with them and we, we give them some tough love, when your kid is struggling at school and the teacher spends an hour after school, when our friend is moving and we go to their house and we pack boxes.

Robert Waldinger 40:54 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 40:55 These, these... The expense of time as a gift, I mean it as a gift.

Robert Waldinger 41:00 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 41:01 Not, not in terms of are you being... 'Cause I, I'm totally anti the you, that you have to use all that time to be productive as well, 'cause I think sometimes zoning out and watching TV is the best use of that time. And so I'm not, I'm not making the analogy that you have to make use of all your time. I'm talking very specifically about the value of time as a gift to another human being-

Robert Waldinger 41:21 Yes

Simon Sinek 41:21 ... is more valuable than any gift on the planet.

Robert Waldinger 41:25 I have a quote here from one of my Zen teachers. His name is John Tarrant, and he said, "Attention is the most basic form of love." And if you think about it, our undivided attention, it's the most valuable thing we've got to give.

Simon Sinek 41:46 Oh. The only thing we have these days is divided attention.

Robert Waldinger 41:51 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 41:53 And we can't even watch TV without also checking social media and sending a text.

Robert Waldinger 42:01 Absolutely. I mean, they, uh, research shows we typically have two or three screens open at once.

Simon Sinek 42:09 So the only thing we have these days is divided attention, and yet the best way to express love to someone is undivided attention.

Robert Waldinger 42:17 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 42:19 You're blowing my mind a little bit. I wanna ask you two final questions.

Robert Waldinger 42:23 Okay. I'm having such a good time, by the way. This is really a lovely conversation.

Simon Sinek 42:28 I'm gonna ask you another hundred then.

Robert Waldinger 42:29 Okay.

Simon Sinek 42:29 How happy do money and fame actually make people?

Robert Waldinger 42:33 Huh. They don't, they don't make people not happy either. Well, actually fame may, because fame can, can make people intrude on your life and stuff. So fame actually might make you less happy. Money doesn't make you happier or not happier. Once you get above a certain level, you don't get much of a bump. You get some bump, but not that much. Fame, uh, fame is really a double-edged sword. And you might be able to say something about that because you've received a lot of public attention, and I'm sure it's not all wonderful.

Simon Sinek 43:04 I think of it as cost.

Robert Waldinger 43:06 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 43:06 Right? So my goal is to spread a message and to make a-- leave this world in better shape than I found it and contribute to the lives of my friends and the people I don't know as well. And part of the cost of that is some loss of privacy and, and it's worth it.

Robert Waldinger 43:24 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 43:24 Because the, the benefit so outweighs that very small cost.

Robert Waldinger 43:29 Oh, can I tell you, when my TED Talk went viral... So I'm, I'm very seriously involved in Zen, and someone said, "You should put up a website." And I had no web presence at all.

Simon Sinek 43:41 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 43:41 And I said, "No," I wasn't gonna do that, that that was all ego. That was all going over to the dark side. And my Zen teacher said, "You have the ability to convey ideas to people that will matter to them. Don't do that."

Simon Sinek 43:57 Yeah.

Robert Waldinger 43:57 And so they pushed me toward what you're describing, which is they said, "Don't stay in the shadows if you can be of use."

Simon Sinek 44:04 Yeah. That is my experience. At the, in the early days when I- my work started to gain traction, I was militant about keeping my face and name off everything. Like, I wanted to put my name on the book in, like, mouse type 'cause the idea-

Robert Waldinger 44:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Simon Sinek 44:17 ... never would put my picture on the cover of a book. I still won't, because I'm not the thing. And I refused to have my picture on my website for years.

Robert Waldinger 44:25 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 44:25 And I wouldn't let my name be the URL because it's not about me. And then at some point, I made the realization that I, and you're this as well, which is you, you actually live two versions of yourself. You are you, obviously, but you are also the representation of your message.

Robert Waldinger 44:42 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Simon Sinek 44:43 And how dare I selfishly deny the representation of my message? Because people don't follow ideas, they follow people. Because ideas are abstract and people are real. So we create representations of a set of values. So Martin Luther King is a representation of a set of values, and we follow Martin Luther King. But not really, we really follow the ideals that he stood for because I stand for those ideals, too.

Robert Waldinger 45:04 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 45:04 They're my ideals as much as they are his, for example.

Robert Waldinger 45:07 And in that sense, you're a placeholder, if you will-

Simon Sinek 45:10 Yeah

Robert Waldinger 45:10 ... for a whole set of values and aspirations.

Simon Sinek 45:13 Right.

Robert Waldinger 45:13 And that's a function that's important to serve.

Simon Sinek 45:17 Here's another question for you.

Simon Sinek 45:19 What's the best thing we can do right now for our happiness?

Robert Waldinger 45:22 Two things. Be-- engage with people and engage in things you care about. So ideally, engage in things you care about with people you care about. That's the sweet spot.

Simon Sinek 45:33 Bob, what a joy.

Robert Waldinger 45:35 Yeah, this was fun. This was rich fun.

Simon Sinek 45:37 What an absolute joy. I leave elated and buzzing.

Robert Waldinger 45:40 [laughs] Me too, actually. This was a pleasure, an unexpected pleasure.

Simon Sinek 45:45 Thank you so, so much.

Robert Waldinger 45:46 This was a pleasure.

Simon Sinek 45:46 I truly appreciate it.

Robert Waldinger 45:47 All right. Take care.

Simon Sinek 45:48 [upbeat music] If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsinek.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.