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Episode #633 - How to Feel Loved with Dr. Harry Reis

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply.” - Stephen Covey

Roger: Hey there, welcome to the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but to have the confidence to lean in and rock it. My name is Roger Whitney. I'm a practicing retirement Planner with over 30 years experience walking this journey. All right, we got a really big month this month.

ROGER OUTLINES THE MONTH AHEAD: A FOCUS ON RELATIONSHIPS, AN UPCOMING FINANCIAL DEEP DIVE WITH WADE PFAU, WISDOM FROM RETIREES NAVIGATING HEALTH CARE BEFORE MEDICARE, A CANDID DISCUSSION ON RETIREMENT CALCULATORS, AND A LIVE NOODLE HANGOUT.

Roger: Today we're going to focus on the non financial side of retirement, specifically relationships. Then next week we're going to take 180 degree turn and talk with Wade Pfau from retirement researcher on the financial side of retirement and his current thinking on a variety of topics. Then the week after that we're going to share wisdom from retirees of how they're navigating health care before Medicare. I want to make sure we capture that there's a lot of wisdom there from people doing it.

Roger: And then last week of the month, we're going to talk about retirement calculators and why they are wrong and in some ways they can be dangerous if you don't use them correctly. So we're going to have a lively review of retirement calculators to help you get the most out of them but also to help you avoid unforced errors. And then if that is not all that Saturday, March 28, I'm going to try something. We're going to have the Noodle live a live hangout at 10am Central on a zoom call with anybody who wants to come hang out where we're going to talk about retirement. We're going to talk about the episodes. It's just going to be me hanging out with you and lots of other listeners to just talk about retirement in a live hangout. So you can learn more about that at livewithroger.com. With that said, let's get this party started.

Roger: Virtually every study on contentment and happiness identifies the quality of your relationships as the key factor in having a happy retirement or I'll say rocking retirement. So we had Dr. Harry Reis from the University of Rochester, an expert on interpersonal relationships. This has been his lifelong passion. Come into the Rock Retirement club to talk about, well, interpersonal relationships. And he recently wrote a book with Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky on how to feel loved. That's the title of the book, the five mindsets that get you more of what matters most. And how to feel loved feels like a touchy feely title and it is. But this conversation in the book is much more about what you can do at a practical level to bring your relationships deeper. It's a very practical book of what the mindset is. They use the metaphor of a seesaw to slowly learn more about the people you care about most and feel comfortable enough for them to learn more about you. So what you're going to hear is a conversation from a live meetup we had in the Rock retirement club where Dr. Harry Reis hung out with us. So let's go learn from Dr. Harry Reis on how to improve our skills and in communication.

CONVERSATION WITH HARRY REIS

Roger: Welcome everybody to having a special guest. Hey Pete, how you doing? Pete is 16 days from retirement. to this special event with Dr. Harry Reis, who wrote a book with Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky. I always have to struggle with that, how to feel love. So we're going to chat about the non financial part of things. And under the non financial pillars, this is the relationship pillar. We have your bio. May I call you Harry?

Dr. Harry Reis: I prefer that you call me Harry.

Roger: We have Harry's bio in the clubhouse so we're going to share. you can check that out. Because it's extensive, it would take me too long to cite all that he has done around interpersonal relationships. He's a professor at the University of Rochester, currently in Massachusetts. With the snow following him, A, disclaimer is this audio is going to air on the public podcast. So we're going to have discussions with, with Harry around this topic and if you have a question, maybe just share your first name or be cognizant of what you do share because it will be on the public podcast and as we have members come in, I'll remind us from time to time. So Harry, before I introduce you, I have to do two things. One is that this is helpful hints in education. So our group is very familiar with this, Harry. You don't have to worry about this one. And the other one is we have is a no AI policy in terms of bots recording and writing notes of everything. That way we can just be humans here together and you can take notes and you have access to the replay so you can slow down and pause and, and revisit it if you want to. So with that said, Dr. Harry Reis. Can I have a hug? Do I need a hug? Is that what this is about? Hugs? I love hugs.

Dr. Harry Reis: Virtual hugs.

ROGER ASKS HARRY WHAT LED HIM DOWN THE PATH TO STUDY RELATIONSHIPS AND PARTNER WITH SONJA LYUBOMIRSKY FOR THE BOOK.

Roger: I would like to know what caused you to pull on this thread for decades on relationships that ultimately led to this.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah, that's a great question. And it's kind of an interesting story that kind of feeds on the sociology of science. you know, I've been studying relationships since somewhere around 1982, and my co author, Sonia Lyubomirsky, has been studying happiness since a little bit later than that. And we knew each other, but we weren't working in the same area. And so there's happiness researchers over there, and there's relationship researchers over here. And the happiness researchers will tell you that the number one thing that makes people happy is. Is social relations, good social relations. But they can't tell you what it is about the social relations that makes people happy. And here's the relationship researchers, and they're telling you all these nuances about, you know, what relationships are all about, but none of it ties into what makes people happy in the broader, more personal sense. And so there were these two silos of research that really didn't talk to each other very much. And Sonia and I were chatting at some conference or other, in the way colleagues always do. And at some point, there was just this, you know, flash of lightning that went off in our head that says we need to bring these two things together. And of course, you know, you know, it's like, you know, you see in the movie sometimes we should write a book. but it was literally like that. And, you know, it all sort of kicked off from that conversation.

Roger: Now, had you known her before we knew each other?

Dr. Harry Reis: not. I would say, not well. but social psychology is a somewhat small field, so people tend to know each other. And we go to conferences two to three times a year, and you see each other and you get to schmooze with each other, and you get to know each other. so we knew each other, but we'd never had that kind of, deep conversation.

Roger: I've had these moments at conferences with colleagues that I've known from afar or just socially, and had these, you need to take on the world type of moments of enthusiasm.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah.

Roger: Was it just timing, that caused you two to really actually do it?

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, yes and no. I would say there's a. There's a definitive answer for you. I. I think we were both at the place in our professional lives where we were looking for something a little different. We were looking for something that was a little bit challenging. And Sonia has more experience than I do writing this kind of book. And I was sort of interested in. In getting that kind of experience. And so, you know, the next morning, we had another conversation. Do we really mean this? You know, it was this just, you know, a cocktail party moment, or is it something we really Mean, and we both sort of felt like it was. And then, and then we talked to an agent. Richard, Pine, was our agent and he was very enthusiastic. And so that kicked it off and that, that's what got us to go from, from fantasy to reality.

Roger: Awesome. Well, congratulations. It's a wonderful book.

Dr. Harry Reis: Thank you.

Roger: And I don't say that I read a lot of books. I don't say that about a lot of books.

Dr. Harry Reis: And you know, you have a lot of stickies in there, so that's a good.

Roger: I'm a sticky guy. And I also, I'm also a diagram guy, as I. Yeah, yeah, I have my little seesaw there. Ping pong table, which I want to bring up in a little bit.

Dr. Harry Reis: Oh, okay. That's an interesting metaphor.

Roger: So in our vernacular, within the club, we work on financial pillars to have clarity and confidence, but we have some non financial pillars that are equally as important but often overlooked or just acknowledged and passed over. And one of them is relationships.

Dr. Harry Reis: Right.

Roger: And from a relationship standpoint, like, I'm. I, feel, you know, I know I'm loved. Been married 35 years. I have wonderful kids, I have great friends. What's the difference between being loved and feeling loved?

Dr. Harry Reis: Great question. And it's certainly one of the fundamental questions, in our book, you know, being loved is what someone else does for you. it's. Being loved is how another person acts towards you, whether they're kind to you, whether they do loving kinds of things to you. So it's something that's external to the person. Feeling loved is the internal sensation that you have of what gets in. And one of the things that sort of kicked off our conversations in the book is the idea that there's often a disconnect. You know, the disconnect is between a partner who says, I love you and I'm trying to show you love, and, and the reception of it. well, sometimes I feel it and sometimes I don't feel it. And it's that, you know, it's a communication thing to some extent, but it's definitely something that goes on between two people.

Roger: And I would imagine that it's important. If you don't feel it, you're still hollow.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah. If you. Yes. If you don't feel it, it's. It does no good, so to speak. now I want to put a caveat on that. sometimes people try to take that as an all or nothing kind of thing. And, I don't think in all or nothing ways about any of this. It's a matter of degree. So I think they're going to be very few cases where a person is being loved in a very strong sense, and yet the person doesn't feel any of it. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is the situation when a person is getting some love from the other person, but doesn't quite feel a lot of it. So there's a bit. You know, we did a survey as part of our research for this book, and 70% of the people in our survey, and this is just a random sample of Americans, 70% said that they wished they were more loved, or loved more often. So that's 70% of people saying they're not getting as much as they would like.

Roger: Was that the one that you referenced on page 14 where it also talked about this sense of not feeling worthy of being loved?

Dr. Harry Reis: I, don't remember what's on page 14.

Roger: It was a good. But, it was a quote about this survey, I think.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yes.

Roger: A lot of times we feel that we aren't worthy of it.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah, well, some, some, you know, one of the things we did was we asked people to describe circumstances in which they did feel loved and circumstances in which they felt they were not as loved as they wished. And some people gave us very poignant descriptions of, you know, conversations with their romantic partner where they just, you know, where they felt like their partner just wasn't getting it, where they felt like they just weren't seen as deeply as they wished. and I think, you know, in reality, I think all of us can point to times when we didn't feel as loved as we wish we were. and, that's the experience we wanted to talk about.

Roger: We have a life lab, retirement life lab, where we explore these topics. And one of the motto of that lab, Harry, is don't talk about it, be about it. And that's one thing I like about your book. It's not just academically talking about this topic. It's like, how do I actually do this? Right. That's where the rubber meets the road for an individual.

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, let me take that a step further, actually. and say that one of the things we tried to do in our book was not put this in the head of the person, but rather to put it as something actionable, that here are things you can do in your ordinary life. None of the things we talk about are difficult. I mean, to do Them perfectly, of course, is very difficult. But every one of us can do a little more of each of these things. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to, you know, to up your level of sharing, to up your level of listening and doing that. You know, it may not make your life perfect. No one's talking about that, but it can make it a little bit better. And so we're talking about making these things actionable in a way that you can, you know, we've, you know, the book came out, you know, on Tuesday of last week, and we've already gotten emails from people who said, I tried it tonight and it was great. you know, you can m. You can try these things in a relatively easy way as long as you're willing to put in the effort and the risk.

Roger: So before we get to the practical things to do, I, I, want to cover first. What are the stakes? What's at stake, practically, if you're not feeling loved and seen?

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, well, the, the stakes of, of not feeling loved in, in the profound and chronic sense are huge. Now, let me be clear. I'm not talking about, you know, not feeling love tonight. You know, everybody feels loved or not loved, you know, to varying degrees at different times, which now. So now I'm talking about chronically and strongly not feeling loved. Stakes of that are enormous.

HARRY TALKS ABOUT THE LONELINESS EPIDEMIC AND THE EFFECTS OF NOT FEELING LOVED.

Dr. Harry Reis: You know, I'm sure that everyone who's on this zoom has heard of the loneliness epidemic. It's very clear that in the Western world, loneliness has been growing for the past two or three decades. And the research on the consequences of this loneliness epidemic are really remarkable. And there's very good research on this. People who are chronically lonely get sick more often. They don't work as well if they're in school, they do more poorly. And the most striking result is that they're more likely to die early. And I'm not just talking about suicides. I'm talking about getting chronic illnesses and dying from them. So it's really remarkable. Now the question is, what's loneliness about? And we believe that loneliness is about not feeling loved. Loneliness is related to solitude and being alone, but is very clear to loneliness researchers that it's not just talking about other people not being around, it's feeling not connected to other people. And that feeling of connection and belonging is at, ah, its heart very similar to the feeling of not being loved by the people in your life.

Roger: Would parts of that be. You use belonging, not feeling like you belong or being seen or parts of

Dr. Harry Reis: That one of the key questions in the standard questionnaires about loneliness is, there is no one who I am special to. You know, the. It. The not belonging is. I don't feel a sense of connection. There aren't people I can. I can be close to and, and, you know, and, you know, I don't feel loved by the people around me.

Roger: Yeah. The studies I've seen, especially with 60 and older, this is definitely a big deal.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yes. Well, you know, you know, people who are 60 and older, face unique challenges, in this regard. you know, I. I mean, all of you know this. You know, many of us get our sense of belonging from work. when you stop working, it's not just that you lose the job and the sense of purpose in the job. You also lose the community that's part of the job. And at the same time, you know, the. If. If you're. If you're living in a partnered relationship, that relationship changes because now all of a sudden you're spending every day together. And for some couples, that's a. That's a big plus. And, for some couples, that's a difficulty.

Roger: So that's what's at stake. And there's a lot of science around that.

ROGER AND HARRY TALK ABOUT THE OBSTACLES AND MYTHS OF BEING LOVED.

Roger: I want to go to a couple obstacles before we get to the seesaw. I love seesaws, by the way. I use them in different. In different forms. And I'm thinking of common, beliefs about feeling loved. And some of the obstacles are of connecting what it takes to be loved to. Sometimes we have misconceptions about that. Right, Right. And I'm looking at sort of the if only syndrome.

Dr. Harry Reis: Right.

Roger: If only I could share my positive qualities and successes, I would be loved. Or if only I was more attractive or powerful or successful. If only I could hide my shortcomings, I would feel loved. I think a lot of these, we get trapped in.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yes. you know, I like to think of these as the myths of being loved. and if I'd had my druthers, we would have called them the myths in the book. But our editor didn't like the word myth. You know, we have a lot of beliefs about what it takes to be loved. These beliefs come from all over the place. They come from media, they come from, you know, the. What we learn growing up. They come from what we're told by parents. Sometimes they even come from, you know, some research that's out there. They're not necessarily bad things, but what they are are things that can be Counterproductive for feeling loved. So, for example, there are many people who will tell you that the way to be loved is to accomplish more, to be more attractive, you know, to go to the gym more often. Big up, build up big muscles to be rich. These are things that may get you admired. These are things that may get you followers if you're on the Internet, but they're not things that will get you the experience of love. Perhaps the best way, to describe that is, you know, have you ever seen a tombstone that said I had big muscles or I was beautiful or I had? 250 publications. Tombstones always say things like beloved father, loving parent, you know, child who was loved. You know, that's, that's what makes a difference. You know, some of the other ones we talk about are, you know, a lot, a lot of people believe that they have to hide their shortcomings because if you knew the things that are, you know, that are wrong with me or the things I'm embarrassed by that you would go, ooh, you know, stay, Stay away. I don't like that person. And, you know, the, the, the problem with that is that if other people don't know the full you, you know, the, the, the pluses and the minuses, you can never feel, you can never feel totally love. If all they know is your strengths. There's this lurking thought in the back of your head, yeah, but if they found out that I did these terrible things when I was in my 20s, they wouldn't love me. And so there's always that hesitancy. There's always that I can't let you know this kind of thing about me. And one of the points we try to make in the book is that you can only feel truly and fully loved for who you are as a person. If people know, you know, you know,

Roger: The full you warts and all, which is scary. And it also, it really. The other person isn't playing with you. Now you have pressure to perform, to live up to what you think the image is, right?

Dr. Harry Reis: Yes. And, and one of the interesting things is that as a relationship develops, that gets harder and harder. You know, if you've created this illusion, then all of a sudden you have to keep doing that. You have to keep being that way. and, you know, often that can, that can be hard, to live up to. You know, in the, in the realm of work, there's a similar, idea in something that's called the imposter phenomenon. You know, people who, you know, get jobs and perhaps you know, do well at first. and because they have some skill, but deep inside, you know, they have this feeling. If my colleagues and co workers find out that I'm not really that smart or I'm not really that talented, or I can't really, you know, do the job as well as I'm describing, you know, they're going to fire me and I'm going to be caught. And as a result, it's a lot of pressure and you have to. And you keep hiding and, you know, it ends up worse.

Roger: I wonder. Some of that comes from like, you think a work environment. The things that I'm guessing make you feel truly loved are hard to put on a spreadsheet. You can't quantify them, you can't track them. It's, it's much more of this fluid thing and that's uncomfortable. I'd rather have a spreadsheet, you know, just like in performance tracking. Well, we have to track it, we have to quantify it. And it, that's it. Well, I can track followers, I can track success and, income and all that.

Dr. Harry Reis: Right.

HARRY INTRODUCES THE SEA-SAW FRAMEWORK FOR RELATIONSHIPS.

Roger: Let's get to, let's switch to practical. And I want to start with ping pong.

Dr. Harry Reis: Okay.

Roger: Because as I was thinking about this, like, one of my gauges when I interact with people is what game am I playing? And ping pong is a game that you guys talk about. But it's, and I want to contrast that to seesaw ping pong to me is there's no real communicating going on. You share a story and then while Harry's sharing the story, I'm thinking of the same story of my version that I want to ping pong back to him. And we just sort of ping pong back stories. And I like to count, especially when I meet new people, how many questions they ask. And it's amazing how often you can go in a 30, 40 minute conversation and not have any questions from someone. And I think of that as ping pong. so that's what I meant by ping pong. But I want to talk about seesaw, which is the framework to reveal each other in order to feel loved and seen. So you want to give us that framework?

Dr. Harry Reis: Sure. I like your metaphor of ping pong, by the way. One of the things we try to do is talk about the difference between a conversation and an interview. and a conversation is more like the seesaw idea. So just to, familiarize people, we're using seesaw sea. and the idea is that here's the Water level. And most of us have some parts of ourselves that are above the water level, meaning that they're visible to other people. And then there are other things that are below the water level, which means they're not things that other people necessarily know about. When you have a. The kind of conversation that we think is important to building, this sense of feeling loved, one of the things you do is you lift the other person out of the water so that more of them becomes visible. In essence, you. You encourage them to talk more about things, about themselves that might not be visible, and thereby you lift them up so they become more visible. Then the interesting thing that happens is that they feel more seen, they feel more understood, and they're encouraged to reciprocate. And so then they will lift you out of the water by asking you deeper questions, by showing, affection and caring for you. And so there's this dynamic back and forth of lifting and being lifted. That is what characterizes the kind of, responsive and deep conversations that we're talking about. So the reason why we chose the metaphor of a seesaw is the idea that there's, you know, you can't do it by yourself. Right. You can't lift yourself up on a seesaw. So it's the idea that you. That you have to lift the other person and be lifted by them. And one of the implications of that, and this is one that sometimes seems ironic, to people, is in order to feel loved, one of the best things you can do to start that cycle is to lift the other person up so that they feel loved. So it's not necessarily immediately doing. It's not, you know, here's me, please love me. It's really lifting the other person up, which in turn will motivate them to do the same for you.

Roger: I've experienced this so many times on how to get that started. You know, I've been married 35 years, and I'll often get into my not so much anymore. Because I'm mature now. Harry.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yes.

Roger: In my whiny phases of, my wife is not doing this for me. I wish my wife would be this way with me. I wish you would do this and then finally come to the realization, wait, why don't I be that way first? Which is. I think what you're talking about is play the seesaw game. You got to go first, right?

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah. You know, I mean, this is one of the things I think we have to learn growing up, if we're lucky. And that is, how do you make another person do something, you know, that's extraordinarily difficult, but you can, but you can do something yourself rather easily, you know, so you say you have to, you have to start the cycle.

HARRY SHARES PRACTICAL MINDSETS FOR STRENGTHENING CONNECTION, INCLUDING LISTENING TO LEARN, RADICAL CURIOSITY, MULTIPLICITY, AND MUTUAL VULNERABILITY.

Roger: And so what does it mean to start the cycle?

Dr. Harry Reis: well, you know, the part of the five mindsets that I think is most amenable to being taken, advantage of by yourself is the mindset we call listening to learn. the idea of really listening to another person, when you're starting a conversation with them, not, you know, what most people do when they're having conversation is the ping pong idea. While you're hitting the ball, I'm preparing to hit back to you. So while you're talking about some experience you had, I'm thinking about, what am I going to say next? And the idea of listening to learn is not to do that, but instead to really zoom in on what's this person saying, to pay attention and then to ask them follow up questions that dig deeper into that. Now that's such an unusual experience for most of us that a lot of times the reaction of the other person is, Well, you're really interested in me. Okay? And that is a tremendously positive thing. So that's something that anybody can do. It's challenging in the sense that, you know, keeping it up and doing it, over time can sometimes be, you know, can be challenging. But the idea is that when you do that, you literally create a conversation in which the other person is going deeper and that kicks off the cycle.

Roger: It makes me think of Richard Feynman and curiosity. Yeah, curiosity. Exemplar for me, what happens? Like, we see people play ping pong where you're hitting the ball, but then it just keeps bouncing back to you. so you. Not everybody is open to playing that game. Right. It will feel the risk, you know, the, the motivation to do the same. Is that something you just have to navigate or how do you.

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, yeah, yeah, that, that's a great point. you know, sometimes you'll do that and it won't work. there was a New Yorker cartoon while we were working on this book, in fact, that I just fell in love with, where a man is talking to a woman and they're obviously on a first date and the man says something on the order of, would you please finish talking so I can spend the rest of the conversation talking about myself? You know, sometimes it doesn't work. I think you have to be generous in that judgment. It doesn't necessarily Work in the first five minutes of a conversation. It doesn't necessarily work even in the first conversation you have with someone, but if you've genuine, you know, you know, so sometimes I've, seen people who after one minute will say, see, it's not working, you know, but if it doesn't work, if you're giving a sincere effort and it's not working over time and that's going to happen, then it's a sign that that's not the right person for you.

Roger: I was gonna say that's sort of like, you know, you know, you know, dating of you, you want to collect the right people around you.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yes.

Roger: And this is part of the selection process of who's willing to play seesaw with you.

Dr. Harry Reis: And, and you know, and, and that's the whole idea about why, in, in another part of my professional life, I've, I've been writing critiques of, a lot of the online dating sites. And you know, the, the bottom line on what we know about those sites is that knowing whether you're compatible with another person from a questionnaire is fundamentally impossible. You know, beyond a few obvious things like are they a smoker? And you know, does religion matter to them? Those are kind of obvious. But beyond that, the only way, you know, is by having a conversation with the person and seeing if you can create that kind of back and forth cycle of chemistry. Because when it works, you know, it, you feel it, you know, time, time goes by and you don't even realize time is going by and the conversation is fluid and often it doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, that's fine, you know, it's not going to work with everybody, you know, then you, you know, you move on to,

Roger: to others because there are plenty of people that it will work. So one mindset to work on is listening to learn, which is that focused attention, not thinking of the volley, but, oh, tell me more about that and trying to lift them up to help them learn more about them.

Dr. Harry Reis: Right.

Roger: What would be the second mindset?

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, the second mindset that's very closely linked to that one is the curiosity. What we call radical curiosity. The idea of radical curiosity is not just doing listening to learn because you, you've read in a book that you're supposed to do listening to learn, but to actually be genuinely interested in the other person, you know, people are, people are fascinating. and being genuinely curious about another person so that you really want to know more about what they're like is really Important. And it's not about faking curiosity. Although faking curiosity is something that, you know, some people are good at. And, you know, if you can do that. Okay. but it's about, you know, it's, it's about energy and enthusiasm. It's about not just sort of sitting there, you know, oh, tell me more. It's about, you know, that's really interesting. I'd like to know more about that. Or, you know, you know, I've never been in a carpentry shop. What, you know, what is a carpentry shop look like? you know, and it's being genuinely curious. When you do that, other people, People notice.

Roger: When you do that, people light up. If you people.

Dr. Harry Reis: People light up. Yeah. You know, if you, if you go back in time to the 1930s, Dale, Carnegie wrote this wonderful book, how to Win Friends and Influence People. it's, it's, I believe it's the second best selling book of all time. and it's still quite a bestseller. If you read the book and you read the various rules he talks about, they all boil down to show interest in the. And make it obvious.

Roger: I want to share this, and I actually struggle with this. I think I'm a relatively curious dude, but I walk around and I think society promotes this. this comes from Ted Lasso.

Dr. Harry Reis: I, I love Ted Lasso.

Roger: It's so easy to walk around and just being judgmental about everything you hear, rather than, hm, hm. What's going on there?

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, that's another one of our mindsets.

Roger: All right, well, let's go there.

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, we have another mindset, and this is the one that's a little tricky to describe. we call it multiplicity. And it's the idea that everybody has multiple sides, some of which are positive and good, and some of which are, let's say, less desirable. There's a quote I really like from, Bryan Stevenson, who is the director of the Equal Justice Initiative. And what he says is, nobody is as bad as the worst thing they've ever done. You know, and the idea is that we all have positive sides and we have negative sides. And when somebody does something that is embarrassing, undesirable, maybe even dangerous, it's important to think about, well, why did they do that? And to not necessarily be judgmental about, you know, maybe, maybe they had a reason to do that. Maybe something went on, on in their life, that that made them do that. This doesn't mean to condone any kinds of bad behavior. You know, if if somebody does something horribly violent, that doesn't mean we want to condone that kind of thing. But I think one of the tricks, though is to think about is the behavior that's bad is not necessarily the person that's bad.

Roger: Would you agree with that? With, like, someone insulting you and, ah. Or, you know, without intention or.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah. And, and, and let me say that this is not always an easy thing to do. you know, if somebody were to insult me, my first impulse would be probably to think that they're a terrible person. one of the things that Sonia and I did when we were writing, the, writing this book is that we visited with the Dalai Lama in, in India. This was a year ago April. and one of the things he said is that you should love everybody as if you love. As if they were your mother. And someone asked him about that and, you know, asked, does he love the Chinese? Because the Chinese have done terrible things to the Tibetans. And he said, yes, he tries to love them. You know, if somebody were to insult me, the better part of me would be thinking, you know, why did they do that? You know, did I offend them? Did I behave badly? Are they having a bad day? did they come from a family in which, you know, the way you show affection for somebody is actually to, you know, to make critical comments about them, which is the family I came from. You know, there are lots of reasons why someone might insult you, and many of them are not that the other person's a bad person and that. And I, and I don't mean to say you, you know, you should, you know, hug the person and say thank you and, you know, and go to lunch with them. But, you know, just try to. Trying to adopt a non judgmental mindset can sometimes get you over the hump.

Roger: Yeah. We, we recently completed our survey for the public podcast. So we get, you know, hundreds and hundreds of comments and there are always people in there that's like, you just want to say, bless your heart. It's like, it's hard though. You have to have a thick skin with how some people communicate.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah. You know, the next time someone insults you, say to them, hm, you're having a hard, A bad day. Can I help with that?

Roger: Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Harry Reis: See what the, see what the reaction is. Yeah.

Roger: and then we had one more. I want to make sure we hit all. All five is open heart.

Dr. Harry Reis: Oh, yeah, right. Well, open heart is a, is a more, generic kind of mindset. I would say what, open heart is about is the is the idea of simply having compassion towards other people. you know, there's a lot of religious traditions that talk about that. Buddhism talks about that, Christianity talks about that, Judaism talks about that. and the idea simply is to approach other people with, a compassionate mindset, with the idea of trying to help them and, and doing little acts of kindness. One of the really interesting studies that, ah, that my, co author Sonia has done was a really clever study where they, gave one group of students the instruction to do something kind for another person every day for the next three weeks. And ah, that didn't mean, you know, major kind of things. It meant things like hold the door open for somebody, you know, you know, pick up something that they dropped. you know, one of the fun things that I've done sometimes is to pay the toll of the person behind me. You can't do that anymore with, I

Roger: know, like parking meters. You'll get a ticket for helping somebody.

Dr. Harry Reis: And then another group of people were told to do something kind for yourself. So, you know, go get a massage, you treat yourself to a smoothie, whatever kind of thing. The fascinating thing is that at the end of the study, when she asked people how they were doing, how happy they were, what their, you know, life satisfaction was, the people who did something nice for other people were happier than the people who had done things for themselves. And there's a lot of other research that supports that general principle. When you are kind to other people, the other person may benefit, but you benefit from it also.

Roger: It's a very fun game to play it.

Dr. Harry Reis: It's a tremendously fun game. You know, one of the versions of that game that I play with, the students in my class is that I always do this, around Thanksgiving, is that I ask them to write a gratitude letter to somebody, you know, a teacher, a relative, whatever. And the fascinating thing is that, you know, when Thanksgiving's come and gone and I asked them, you know, about the letter, the vast majority of them haven't done it. And you ask them why? Oh, it felt embarrassing. It made them feel too vulnerable. They thought they would look silly. And then you talk to the students who did do it, and they all talk about what a wonderful experience it was. And they all talk about, how great it was, how happy the other person was to get it. so it's. When people do that, it's a uniquely positive experience, and yet people are so reluctant to do it.

Roger: So practically speaking, we have this water that hides like an iceberg Most of us. And the goal is to go first and be generally curious in order to learn with some level of empathy which lifts the other person up and helps reveal more of that person. And I'm assuming this is very gradual at first. And then over time, as you build intimacy, it gets, you know, you reveal more and more. Because we feel safe and we feel loved. And that's essentially what we're talking about is how do we begin this game? Because we're all sitting here with our masks on. And how do we begin? By going first and then.

Dr. Harry Reis: Right, right. No, nobody's suggesting that you should, you know, plunge right into deep levels of intimacy in the first five minutes you've. You've talking to somebody. you know, perhaps you. You've even had that experience. And, you know, the first reaction is, you know, it's not comfortable. We're talking about a gradual process. You know, sometimes it unfolds relatively quickly with another person. You know, there's this instant chemistry and, and you go deep remarkably fast. That's not typical, though. The more typical thing is that this will unfold over time, over, you know, over. Over days, over weeks, sometimes even longer periods than that. that it's more graduated.

Roger: As we're playing this game with, say, our spouse or our friends or, with people we meet, it's a trial and error process. I would imagine, Harry, that all of us have different levels of capacity for what we want to be vulnerable to. Some people want to play like this, and other people are more so we have to respect where their boundaries are. Even if it's a intimate, like spouse.

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, and. And m. Yes, I agree totally. And more than even respect, I would say it's a matter of finding someone who's reasonably compatible with oneself. on that, you know, the, you know, the, the compatibility that comes from that conversation is, is real. and, and, and. And important. You know, there's some people for whom the, you know, the risk really feels pretty bad and they want to go kind of slowly about it. And then there are other people who just plunge right in. so I think, I think. I think there is some matching in that.

ROGER REFLECTS ON WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Roger: Okay, I have one last comment that you can agree or not agree with, and then let's open it up to some questions and some discussion is reminding ourselves of the intent of this whole. Why this is important. And the intent of this is by doing this, it will help us feel more seen and loved, which will help us create a more fulfilling life for Ourselves, which will help us look back on our life with less regret. Is that reasonable to say?

Dr. Harry Reis: And, it's totally reasonable. And I would add the word happy in there, that we will be happier with our lives. You know, the looking back on your life, is kind of interesting. There's a saying I love, which is that nobody on their deathbed ever said they should have spent more time at the office. you know, or, you know, think of the movie Citizen Kane. You know, the last scene about, you know, the. The sled burning. I forgot the name of the sled. Now Rosebud.

Roger: Rosebud, yeah.

Dr. Harry Reis: You know, there's, you know, here was this guy who was incredibly successful, and yet he was yearning for the kind of love that he had, with his. With his mother. you know, it's. It's about being able to. It's about being happy in the moment, but it's also about being able to look back on your life with a sense of, you know, I was connected, I was loved, I. I lived a meaningful and good life.

LISTENERS SHARE QUESTIONS ABOUT ONE-SIDED CONVERSATIONS, VULNERABILITY, AND LOVE LANGUAGES, LEADING TO PRACTICAL DISCUSSION ABOUT COMPATIBILITY, COMMUNICATION, AND CHOOSING PEOPLE WILLING TO “PLAY SEESAW.”

Roger: Let's open it up to questions. There's some comments in there. And recall, this is going to be on the public podcast. So if you share your name, give me an alias or just share your first name if you don't want your whole name out there. And now I'm going to ask. The first comment was related to Love Languages by, Do you want to share that verbally or do you want me to just read it? I guess you'd have to verbally tell me that. Or you could type it in.

Listener: You can go ahead and read it. That works.

Roger: Yeah. How important our love language is, you know, when we speak different dialects of what we mean by in, communication.

Dr. Harry Reis: Okay, here's where I have to put on my scientist hat. The idea of love languages sounds really good, and there's really not much empirical support for it. Now here's what I mean by that. the. The fundamental premise behind, the love languages movement is that if you find someone who's compatible with you in your preferred love language, you're going to be doing better. You will have a happier relationship. It's safe to say there's no evidence for that whatsoever. Furthermore, there's no evidence that people's preferences even break down in the way that the Love languages idea speaks. For example, one of the things that the Chapman's book says is that if you find someone who matches your love language, you know, you'll be Happier. But in fact, what the research shows is that two of the love languages, quality, time and words of affirmation make everybody happier. Doesn't matter which you say your love language is. When you get those two, you're happier now. And furthermore, there aren't five love languages. There are 150 love languages. There are many ways that people can show love for each other. Now, having said that, let me say the one thing that I think is useful about it is that it can be the basis of a conversation. The conversation can be about, you know, here's what I need from you. Here, here's what will make this relationship meaningful. So if you were to say, I really need to hear that you think I look beautiful, having a conversation about that can often be good because then the partner knows what you need and the partner can do those things. It doesn't have to be the partner's love langu. It simply can be a behavior that the person does. So as a conversation starter, I think it's perfectly useful. And like any conversation in a relationship, you have to talk about what you need from the relationship. But the idea that you should be searching for someone whose love language is the same as yours is simply not true.

Listener: May I respond?

Dr. Harry Reis: Sure.

Listener: So I should have not used quotes and understood that I'm speaking to an author and a scientist when I put that in there. so thank you for the insights. I think, largely what I was speaking to is understanding and communicating how somebody shows their love and really being receptive to that on a very, very basic level. Not necessarily, ascribing it to the air quotes love language, but, and the love language book. I think it's just important to understand, you know, some people show their love in different ways and you have to be receptive and aware.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah, I, and I totally agree with that. You know, there's the, the two sides of that are really kind of interesting. You know, one is that you have to understand how someone is showing love. But the other side of it is that the person has to be receptive to what you need them to show. So perhaps I'm somebody who isn't particularly good at words of affirmation, but if my partner tells me that she needs that or that that's important to her, then I need to learn to do that kind of thing. So it's a two way street in the communication. and I certainly would endorse that idea.

Roger: I think a practical example I was thinking of was my father in law who has passed was not a very Not a very, very emotionally evolved and it was very difficult to have a relationship with him at times. And one aha moment was he showed love by fixing things. He would always come over at my house and fix things and I felt like, oh, I gotta go help. And I finally realized no, I don't even need to help. He just wants to do this because this is how he shows love and how he receives love, at least in my. This is the way our relationship worked was I realized he shows love by fixing things. And the way he needs to receive love is that I have to always compliment about how he fixed it. And you could see that was his affirmation for himself. And I think just paying attention to how somebody. I don't know if that. There's no science in that Harry, but it worked for me.

Roger: Anyone else have a comment or thought related to this topic which is I always worry about these topics. I don't worry about, I don't worry about these topics. But they, in retirement planning they get to, they get put on the side shelf is touchy feely. There's no spreadsheet involved, which is just total BS to me because this is just what life is and this is where it's most important. Anyone else have a comment or a thought around this topic that they want to share or ask? This is the Bueller moment.

Laura: Roger, this is Laura. I do have kind of maybe a comment and then also maybe a ah, request for tips I'd say. but with regards to trying to make connections, within friendships, quite often there's a lot of people you might talk to and I think Harry's alluded to that there's a lot of talk from the other person and sometimes you feel like you don't ever have the opportunity to interject in the conversation and it's. You keep waiting for that moment and it doesn't happen. You're listening to what they're saying, you want to ask them questions but there doesn't ever seem to be an opportunity or you try to ask them questions and then they just want to keep talking. M so any. Yeah, I find that very common for both my husband and I when we're in social situations. So I'm m just wondering if there's any tips for trying to make better connections with those people.

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, you know, that's a great question and that's certainly happened to me also. So I, I know what you're talking about, Laura. I would say that one thing you can do to see if it works, is, is to literally interrupt and say, well, hold on a second, I want to ask you more about that. you know, and to, to see if they respond to that. But you know, to some extent it may be. The kind of thing that I was mentioning before is that it may be someone who just isn't willing to play on the seesaw with you. you know, that they, all they want to do is be lifted. and they want to be the focus of attention, they want to be the centerpiece of it. and if that's the case, then it may be. Well, you know, this isn't, this isn't somebody I want to play with. You know, imagine yourself in a playground with somebody who is on a seesaw and just wants to be up in the air. You know, they don't want to pick you up. But, but I think, you know, you know, sometimes a well placed interruption, you know, you can say, oh, let me tell you about my experience like that, you know, so you can, you know, be a little more assertive about it and see if they, if they take the bait.

Roger: I wonder if part of that too is I'm going back to those myths or the, you know, if only if I was. This is. I wonder if some people that we interact with, they're been playing the game of showing them best, their best selves or the success will make me liked. So they're ingrained in playing a game and they, they, I no doubt want to be, feel loved and, but they think they, they're so ingrained in a game that they can't get out of or have, it's hard to get them to get out of.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah. Sometimes, you know, you know, there's an old book called, Games People Play that, that talks about interactions as this kind of game, like, back and forth. And you know, I, I think if people are approaching their conversations with that mindset, it's unlikely that you, you'll, you know, form a deep connection because they're, you know, they're busy trying to impress you.

Roger: One comment when we were talking about insults that was shared was, yeah, it's good to have little phrases that you can pull on like and, and someone. But that didn't feel so good. Was that your intent?

Dr. Harry Reis: That's a, that's a, that's a great one. Yeah. you know, that, that could go anywhere, but I think that would be nice. Yeah.

Roger: Yeah, it could go anywhere, couldn't it?

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah, I'll remember that one.

Roger: And I was thinking on the open heart, one of, you know, you know, the one difficulty in having empathy and seeing different parts of things, sometimes you get pulled into the boat of other people's stuff. And one phrase that I learned a few years ago is like, that's got to be really hard for you. It sort of acknowledges it, but keeps it over there. You're not getting in the boat with them.

Dr. Harry Reis: Right? Yeah, certainly you. You know, if somebody's experiencing some difficulty, the last thing you want to do is, is get over involved. And often, you know, when someone's telling you about, their experiences, they're not looking for that. That, you know, they're. They're simply looking, you know, to be, you know, to be heard, to be seen.

Roger: Harry, I appreciate you playing a little bit of seesaw. I've learned. I've learned a little bit about you as I've asked you questions, in this format. It's not meant to be both ways, though. I don't feel slated. This is an important topic and it's just practical. This is just practical of how to feel more love so you can be happier and create a great retirement. Thank you so much for your research, and I'm so glad that you and Sonja had that moment at your conference.

Dr. Harry Reis: Well, thank you. I've enjoyed chatting with you and your listeners.

Roger: The book is how to Feel Loved. We'll have links to it for the podcast People in the noodle. One thing I want to announce related to this and Nicole might cringe, though, is we just last week, you know, we have these meetings, Harry, once a week on Zoom, and we have, you know, other than the roundup, which is our big conference, and every time we're in a room together, it is totally different than. We build relational currency in an entirely different way. And I know you touch on this in the book about in person communication. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Dr. Harry Reis: I'm, not sure what you're asking me.

Roger: Well, we're always on Zoom together, but when we're in a room together.

Dr. Harry Reis: Right.

Roger: Or face to face, it's always much more impactful.

Dr. Harry Reis: Absolutely. and, you know, I. I think Zoom serves a purpose. M. You know, I think it allows us to maintain connections with people when we can't be in a room together. But if Zoom were all there was, our lives would be quite impoverished.

Roger: So one thing that we've done as a club is last week we hired Event Planner, someone for 2027, obviously, to work on the roundup, but to create more in person connections throughout the year and have a schedule for 2027 so we can create the opportunity for the relationships and the connections that have started in within the club to be in person. Some on the technical side and some, on the, you know, just experiential side. I'm going to host a adventure weekend out in Colorado or moab, so we can start to build relational currency so we can find people to play seesaw with. So I just wanted to share that, that we're going to lean into in person opportunities for all of us so we can find those people. Harry, thank you so much, buddy.

Dr. Harry Reis: Oh, it's my pleasure.

Roger: Yeah, go shovel some snow for your friends.

Dr. Harry Reis: Yeah, exactly.

Roger: All right, everybody, have a wonderful weekend.

Dr. Harry Reis: Take care.

WHAT’S ON THE BOOKSHELF?

Roger: Now it's time to talk about what is on our bookshelf. Myself and the we try to make reading a our default habit throughout the month. So it's always fun to talk about books we're reading and I get to learn a lot about books that I might want to check out.

So who we're going to go to first, first on the team is Erin Coe. She works on the Retire Agile side. She read Wisdom Takes Work. She said, I just finished Ryan Holiday's Wisdom Takes Work, the last in a series. I haven't read this one yet. Erin says this is the fourth and final book in a series of stoic virtue values that include musings on courage, discipline, justice, and now wisdom. Erin says, I'm a huge Ryan Holiday fan and this one, like the others, did not disappoint. As with most of his writings, I tried to read just one chapter per night so I have time and space to reflect on the lessons. I like this book a lot, although I must say his previous writings offered stories and insights into a multiple of historical figures. Overall, a very good book. She gives it a four out of five. All right, so Wisdom Takes Work. This is on my to-read list. I haven't read this one yet.

Roger: Our next one comes from the fantastic Kevin Lyles, retirement coach in the club and frequent guest on the show. He read the greatest sentence ever written by Walter Isaacson. Kevin says, my favorite biographer, Walter Isaacson wrote this short 80 page book in which he dissects the origin and meaning of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence. I enjoyed reading the how the founders contributed to and influenced what I previously thought was the work of Thomas Jefferson. Isaacson does a nice job pointing out how some of these early disputes in our country's founding remain issues today. I enjoyed this two hour read. Four out of ten. All right, I want to read this too. It's a really short one.

Roger: I was going to do it on audio but I didn't want to waste a credit for such a short book. But I like Walter Isaacson. Writing an 80 page book is a thing because if you've ever read any of his biographies, which are great, they're very long. Our next one I believe comes from Nicole, which is an audio book submission.

Nichole: Hey, retirement answer man listeners, this is Nicole. I have been reading the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I finished the first three. I'm on the fourth. They are really quick reads. Murderbot, is a rogue security robot who is very antisocial but also loves people. So it's kind of a great mix of comedy and action. They're really easy to read. there is an Apple TV show that I watched the first season of with my husband. So that's kind of a nice way that we can share the same experience with a story. Even though he's not a reader. So I love being able to do that with him. I would say if you're looking for something fun and fast, it's a great series to take on and I'll give it four stars.

Roger: Some feedback we got from last month from a listener was everything you are suggesting is self help books and that's not necessarily the case. Thank you Nicole for giving us a fiction book. Have to check that out. Our next one comes from Troy Katterheinrich, the only way you can say it, who is a retirement planner on our team. And this one is sort of self helpy.

Troy: Hey Roger, Troy here from the Retire Agile team. My reading for February was a book called the Domestic Monastery by Ronald Rolheiser. Ronald is a Catholic priest and writer so he is coming from a unique perspective that I personally have not read from before. This book was super short, a 3 day read for me. He compares the ordinary life at home to a monastery and he argues that the day to day life can shape us and help us become our best self. Just like a monastery might do for a monk. And he talks about rhythms, habits, interruptions and busyness as things in life that make us better. It was a fascinating read. I do think about the audience of this show and this is definitely a book written to young parents. But I think the same concept can apply in retirement. We talk a lot about go go years, fun travel and experiences outside our normal life at home. But there is a lot of enrichment we can receive from ordinary life at home. So perhaps there's a sweet spot between life at home and retirement and adventure in retirement. So great book, unique perspective and a very quick read.

Roger: I love that perspective, Troy on the ordinary life can be extraordinary. It doesn't have to be all this go go stuff. Sometimes maybe we promote too much. One thing he pointed out, he said it was related to more to a younger audience. One thing that I have discovered, and maybe you have as well as that's okay because I, I read almost every book from a retirement perspective because I'm thinking about that for you and clients and others and I connect dots that aren't really intended by the author. So I think that's a helpful thing to do.

Roger: All right, our next is from Susan, coach in the Rock Retirement Club. She just read My Mother's Money by Mary Beth Pinsker. We actually had Mary Beth in the club as a meetup. And here's Susan's comments. Hearing Mary Beth Pinsker discuss the challenges she faced dealing with her mother's finances through illness and after death was eye opening. She is a personal financial expert, yet still ran into significant, unexpected issues. My parents are both deceased and I'm using this book to help me ensure I can do what I can do to help my daughters avoid the issues the author encountered. And it really is a good. That's. Those are Susan's comments. It really is a good cautionary tale that you can be an expert in this stuff and when you're dealing with yourself, you get a whole new perspective. And that's often lost in some of the expert, you know, articles we read because they're thinking of it from a theoretical standpoint. So great recommendation there.

Roger: As for myself, what did I read in February? I read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, which I believe is his newest book. Great book. I really enjoyed it. I haven't read Dan Brown in a while. I like the historical nature of it and a lot of factual things are included in it, even though it's a fictional book. He's the author of, the Da Vinci Code, which was probably his most popular book and a great movie with Tom Hanks. I enjoyed that. I went on to read the book just prior to that and I'll be honest with you, I found it a little bit formulaic. Maybe I need to read them, space them out a little bit. I also read the Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. I have the complete Hemingway series. I bought these books from Juniper Books, which I've been enjoying having on my bookshelf and I want to read classic authors and good authors. Ah, the Sun Also Rises. I didn't quite get it. I didn't get it. Bunch of bougie people hanging out in France, artists. I really enjoyed the writing, but it didn't really go anywhere for me. That's how I felt. And then I also read How to Feel Love by Harry Reis. That was my, my more technical book on the art of retirement. So those are the books that we've read. Now let's go to the Smart sprint.

SMART SPRINT

Roger: Now it's time to set a little step you can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life. All right, in the next seven days, just a easy, challenge, you're going to have lots of conversations with family and friends and maybe people out and about. In practice, a conversation where you are listening intently and being generally curious and maybe asking more questions than you're sharing. And just learn a story or an aspect of someone by giving them space and practice this seesaw rhythm that Harry's talked about. It's a fun exercise. To be honest with you. I've done it before. It's really fun and fascinating. It makes life a game, when you're really curious about other people.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Roger: All right, if you have not signed up for the Noodle, our weekly email, you can go to thenoodle.me and just type in your name and email and we'll send you a weekly summary of the show and also some exclusive content, including links to a lot of the things that we mentioned on the show. And the cool thing is if you hit reply to that. Well, I don't know if it's cool, maybe not. If you hit reply to that, that email goes directly back to me. So you can tell me something. You can ask a question. We'll try to get it on the show. It's a great way to start to build some two way conversations. And of course, you'll learn about how to register to hang out with the live Noodle later this month.

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