Episode 84 - Dacher Keltner, Cro-Magnon CEO’s, Your Jen Ratio and Why We Are Born to Be Good

Transcript

Announcer: This program is brought to you by PersonalLifeMedia.com.

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Susan Bratton: Welcome to Dishy Mix. I am your host, Susan Bratton. This is Part 2 of a two part series. You're going to get to learn even more from Dacher Keltner. Dacher is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. He runs an organization at Berkeley called The Greater Good Science Center. He is the co-editor of a magazine called "Greater Good" and the author of a new book which is our reason for discussion today. It's called, "Born to be Good", the science of a meaningful life. We're going to talk with Dacher about how to create meaning in our life, how to connect, build rapport and essentially be happier and more successful. Who doesn't want that?

So, let's get Dacher back on. Hi, Dacher.

Dacher Keltner: Hi, Susan. It's great to be back.

Susan Bratton: Aha, woo hoo. It's great to have you! This has been a lot of fun. You know, what I was most amazed about was I noticed in episode one that you kept relating research and work and books of other authors that have been working in various veins of all the things that you have been collecting. You have an amazing mind for holding so much knowledge about so many areas and the work of people. That really came through in your book, "Born to be Good", as well.

What I noticed as you were writing about all of these different things that you were quoting a ton of sources so that there's this amazing tree. Your book is like a tree of opportunity to learn across any one of these different branches - very impressive.

Dacher Keltner: You are making me blush, and I hope you're not teasing.

Susan Bratton: I don't think so. You know what? I need to cultivate my teasing. We're going to talk about that. So, one of the first things that I wanted to start out with was picking up on this idea of having emotional intelligence. It's the people in corporations who actually achieve their status by being socially intelligent.

I want to talk about creating rapport. We talked in the earlier show about the Duchene versus non-Duchene smiling and being able to trigger that. Explain what that is. Explain how you can create rapport, how you know you're creating rapport and weave some of that together for us.

Dacher Keltner: Sure. What a great way to weave these different findings together. We needed this research on power and hierarchies. We talked about this in the first episode. When you look at our culture and you look at organizations, one of the things that you might say is we have a trust deficit. Leadership in any kind of hierarchy really is founded upon cultivating trust and rapport.

We see this in kids' hierarchies, hierarchies at college, hierarchies in organizations, in any social group. The raw material of a healthy group is rapport and trust. And so, what we've been learning is that that rapport and trust comes out of and is created by these Jen related emotions. People who create rapport and trust are the people who smile in a really nice way.

You brought into focus this distinction between a Duchene and a non-Duchene smile. A non-Duchene smile just involves the lip corners going up, and the Duchene smile has that magical quality that is produced by the contraction of the muscles around the eyes. Those smiles create rapport. Wonderful tones of voice which you can modulate create rapport.

Nice patterns of touch can build and the findings are stunning. They can create trust in the work place. Kids are more likely to speak out in class if  their teacher has this warm touch and taps them on the back. That's another route to trust and rapport building. So, it's a really important message which is that leadership in healthy groups is as much founded in emotional intelligence and all of these important positive emotions as it is in effective strategy and that sort of leadership. So, it's very important.

Susan Bratton: There are a couple of things. We talked about Jen ratio which you alluded to in your answer in Part 1 of this two part series. Just the simple idea of Jen ratio is to bring the good in others to completion, not focusing on yourself but focusing externally and helping other people.

Dacher Keltner: Right.

Susan Bratton: The other thing that people need to know about you is that you are a master at facial action coding. Essentially, you doing the work with the work of Paul Ekman have done this categorization of human emotion through the different facial muscles that we use. Interestingly, what you found is that no matter who we are in the world we all use those same muscles to express those same emotions, right?

Dacher Keltner: Yes, this is one of the gifts of human evolution which is that human evolution gave us this set of 30 or 40 facial muscles under the surface of our skin. We all have this. So, if you are doing business in India or China and you want to build trust or rapport or you're in North Africa, you can cultivate these smiles and nice gestures. These are human universals.

The same with the voice. We have this amazing vocal apparatus that has been shaped by petal evolution that makes this voice the sound of play and kindness and appreciation and respect and trust that, again, is right there ready to be cultivated. Through this really micro analytic work looking at the human emotions we have learned these foundations of trust.

Susan Bratton: So, what you are really saying is that people can tell if you are faking that smile. People can tell you are faking it.

Dacher Keltner: Yeah, you know, it is a fascinating quality of all of these emotions that we have been talking about, things like love and appreciation and gratitude, which is that the ways that we communicate these emotions through facial muscles or through the voice are really involuntary. They are unconscious. They come out, and they are sincere readouts of these very important emotions and you can't really fake them.

Susan Bratton: You know, we're talking about rapport. One of the things you said in the book is that embarrassment can make you more likeable. How does that work? I thought that was a really interesting thing. I never realized it before. It makes total sense. Explain it to us.

Dacher Keltner: When I was doing research with Paul Ekman, I got accidentally interested in this very striking emotion, embarrassment. I was coding these people who were about to be startled, right? A loud pistol shot was going to go off right behind their heads, and they didn't know it. Bam! They get startled, and I was interested in the startle response because it's about three quarters of a second long. It really tells you how anxious and tightly wound a person is.

What I discovered accidentally was that about the half the people when they get startled they fly out of their chairs. They shriek. They think they wet their pants, and they get embarrassed. There was this beautiful display in facts terms that unfolded before my eyes where people turn their heads down. They avert their gaze. They show this coy little smile. They show the neck, this very deep sign of vulnerability.

Susan Bratton: Yeah, they turn their head a little.

Dacher Keltner: Exactly.

Susan Bratton: Uh huh, like your jugular.

Dacher Keltner: Exactly.

Susan Bratton: Uh huh.

Dacher Keltner: And I looked to other mammals and it had this human embarrassment display. It had the same qualities as mammalian appeasement displays. It's a way to say: I'm sorry, please forgive me. And then, there are studies that followed up on that showing if I see an embarrassment display I forgive you; I like you; I trust you. I think you are a good human being.

And then, it turns out once you have that lands embarrassment is everywhere. When we flirt, right? We are constantly embarrassing ourselves. We are embarrassing the other person to get that emotion out so that we can build this rapport and this affection.

Susan Bratton: When you show your humanity, you become more connected.

Dacher Keltner: Isn't it striking? It's funny when I was doing this research Bill Clinton was going through his impeachment hearings. Do you remember it took him like nine times to apologize? And he kept trying to do it in this ridiculous language. It cost him part of his legacy. Had he just shown embarrassment and even shame and apologized, it would have been forgotten very quickly.

Susan Bratton: I notice that when I am doing public speaking. You and I met because I emceed that conference. One of the reasons why I like to emcee is that...

Dacher Keltner: You like to embarrass people.

Susan Bratton: No, what I like to do is just be very real in front of people because I love to connect with people so much that if I can connect with a room full of hundreds of people than that's even more satisfying to me than connecting with a few people. My love of connection is so strong that I like the stage to connect.

What I realized is that I am just very much myself. I try to be just who I really am with no façade, and I also think about the fact that I am there to serve everyone in the audience. If I approach it out of service, I get the connection that I desire.

Dacher Keltner: What a terrific illustration. This is where the scientific field is going which that is back to this idea of Jen which is in the service of others that we find our greatest happiness. There is a study that's just published in Science Magazine in 2008 that showed by Liz Dunne that if you give people a sum of money in the morning and instructions either to spend it on themselves to indulge a desire or give it to others, they are happier in the afternoon if they give it away. So, really, it's in the service to others that we find happiness.

Susan Bratton: It's why I do this show. Dishy Mix is my Jen because I'm both bringing out the best in you, helping you come to your completion. And I'm doing it in service of the people who listen because I can bring you to them.

Dacher Keltner: I appreciate it.

Susan Bratton: And that's my Jen. My favorite part of my week is doing this show because I get both sides of Jen that way.

Dacher Keltner: I'll bet you do.

Susan Bratton: So, laughter and teasing creating rapport. We're not having enough fun.

Dacher Keltner: Oh my God.

Susan Bratton: Everything is so serious, and we've lost the art of teasing. I'm not a good teaser. I want to be a better teaser. How do we do it?

Dacher Keltner: First, I have done 15 years of research on teasing. Every culture has its strengths and its weaknesses. As we talked about earlier, for example, how Jen is impoverished in the U. S. and overemphasized in China. It is absolutely clear that in our current U. S. culture we don't laugh enough and we don't tease enough. We don't play enough, and we take ourselves, our precious selves, too seriously.

We have done studies finding that members of all cultures enjoy teasing enormously and do it regularly except here in the West. We have done studies finding playful teasing when you are using your voice and acting like a fool to point out a foible of a loved one actually brings people closer, helps couples solve the conflicts of connubial living.

We have done studies of kids at a basketball camp. If you give kids a chance to tease each other, they form friendships faster than if they praise or if they cheer each other on; pretty amazing. What teasing does is, again, it kind of stimulates a little bit of embarrassment, and then that becomes this glue of connection and affiliation. I have talked to lots of people working in organizations and teachers at schools. We are trying to weed it out of our daily social living and, I think, to dangerous effect.

Susan Bratton: Do you think the one of the reasons that brothers and sisters have such a deep connection is that there still is allowed to be teasing in the familial environment?

Dacher Keltner: Oh yeah, absolutely. It was fascinating. I did this essay for The New York Times Magazine on teasing in December, and I got flooded by emails. One of the regularities was kids who grow up in families that are really healthy and connected; those adults told me uniformly about how rich their teasing life was and how playful it was and what an art it was. So, I think you are spot on that's the glue of healthy families.

Susan Bratton: I also thought it was telling that when I asked you what you value most in your friends you wrote "playfulness and energy".

Dacher Keltner: Yes.

Susan Bratton: For me, when I went through my mid-life crisis I started evoking playfulness and play in my life. It was the number one change I made when I realized that I didn't like who I was, that I was way too serious, that I wasn't having enough fun. My favorite friends are my play friends, the ones who just want to do crazy - they come up with crazy fun things to do. Those are my best friends.

Dacher Keltner: Absolutely. You know, I was just meeting with Stuart Brown, who has a book coming out on play. He is one of the world's pre-eminent play researchers and neuroscientist. There are estimates that in many other cultures people play about 20 percent of the time. It's a basic part of the ancient mammalian brain. Do we play 20 percent of the time?

Susan Bratton: No. Well, I do [laughs].

Dacher Keltner: I know you do and keep doing it and spread the word because it has fallen away in our lives. We need more of it. We know in the happiness literature Americans are working too hard, and they need more leisure time. And leisure time is one of the great predictors of productivity and happiness.

Susan Bratton: You talked about the Dali Lama being the wisest person you have ever met. And in your book the thing that you focused on about your connection with him was his touch. You said earlier in creating rapport that it was your voice; it was your facial actions; it's the teasing and laughter; and it was touch. Tell us about how we can touch like the Dali Lama.

Dacher Keltner: I have been part of a couple of panels of Tibetan Buddhists and scientists through the Mind and Life Institute. Reggie Davidson was on them and just exploring the intersection between their 2500 year old ways and science. I was on two of these panels, and I think the two things that strike you; strike one, about being in the midst of the Dali Lama is, the first is probably what your listeners would expect which is compassion and touch. And I'll talk about that. And then, the second is how playful he is. Every answer has deep laughter and silliness in it. It is inspiring, and it gives me hope that you can cultivate this.

I had been doing research on touch, and one of the things that has provoked evolutionary theorists is the question: how can cooperation and kindness really take hold in little groups of non-kin, who are not bound to each other by genetic relationship. The thinking is that you need social behaviors that quickly transform our social interactions into cooperative ones. Like a smile, which we just talked about, builds rapport so fast that you can't even believe it.

Another one is touch, this amazing modality of communication. So, I was on this panel and I was starting to do this research on touch. As the panel was about to get going, the Dali Lama approached me and you're quite overwhelmed. There are 4,000 people in the audience or whatever, and I didn't quite know what to do. But, he bowed and I bowed, and then he grabbed me on the arms. He had very warm hands. He looked me right in the eye, and we were five inches away. I got flooded with gratitude and reverence.

I'm a kind of Darwinian, but I had Darwin's version of a spiritual experience, the feeling like humans are good which is what he has advocated. It was really through his touch and his eye contact.

What we have learned in this science of touch is nothing short of revolutionary. Why is it revolutionary? Because much like laughter and play, we are a touch deprived culture. We have taken it out of a lot of work place contexts for some good reasons, for many not so good reasons. Education settings, teachers are not supposed to pat their students on the back.

What we know is that touch calms down the stress-related regions of the brain. It promotes immune function. It promotes creativity. It promotes cooperation. If you have Alzheimer's patients and you regularly touch them, they suffer less depression. It may be the best preventative medicine that we will ever discover.

Susan Bratton: It just feels good. There's that. That's really enough for me [laughs].

Dacher Keltner: I agree. You have to fight the battle with those kinds of findings. On that, what we know is if you get a nice touch to your shoulder, the right kind of touch, of course, it's very likely you get a surge of this chemical called oxytocin.

Susan Bratton: I love that.

Dacher Keltner: You stimulate a region of your body called the vagus nerve which we can talk about. It's a little bundle of nerves that comes out of your spinal cord, winds through your chest and down to your digestive organs and calms your heart rate down and makes you connect. A little touch to the body stimulates the vagus nerve.

Susan Bratton: We are going to come back from break and talk about vagal superstars. I love that. One of my girlfriends, she's a pretty new girlfriend for me; she is the most amazing toucher. I haven't been touched by the Dali Lama, but I've been touched by Jerilyn. I bet she's right up there with his holiness.

Dacher Keltner: Is she a vagal superstar?

Susan Bratton: She is one of the vagal superstars. Here is what she does. Sometimes, someone will have a really good phrase, and you say, "I'm stealing that phrase". I stole her touch, and this is how I touch now.

What she does is she'll touch you, say, touch your arm. She won't just touch your arm; she'll hold you for a second, and then she'll run her fingers slightly along your arm. And then she'll start to pull away but it's almost like she's loving touching you so much that she can't quite let go. It's like she's milking every little bit of the sensation of touching you out of her fingertips as she slowly pulls her fingers away and off you. It's like the sliding off of you and barely wanting to let go touch.

Dacher Keltner: Nice.

Susan Bratton: Oh my God, is that good.

Dacher Keltner: I can't imagine her greeting the Dali Lama because he's famous for tickling and touching people's earlobes and warm embraces. He's a genius at it.

Susan Bratton: I love that, and now I have tried to model my touch after that because when she touches me I love the feeling so much that I want to practice that and give that to other people so they can have that level of touch. She's got a higher level of touch.

Dacher Keltner: That's a great tip.

Susan Bratton: Isn't it cool?

Dacher Keltner: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: So, we are going to go to a break. While we are on the break and you are listening to our sponsors, I want you to practice touching yourself like you can barely let go. Then, when you are done listening to Dishy Mix you can go touch somebody like that. See what happens [laughs].

We are with Dacher Keltner. He is the author of "Born to be Good", the science of a meaningful life and you're going to get to learn how to be a vagal superstar. And we're going to get some tips about building resilience, reducing stress and strengthening your relationships when we come back. So, stay tuned. I am your host, Susan Bratton.

Announcer: Listen to Coaching the Life Coach, business and marketing strategies for growth of transformational practices, your guide in the 21st century marketplace on PersonalLifeMedia.com.

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Susan Bratton: We're back with Dacher Keltner, "Born to be Good", the science of a meaningful life. Tell us about this silly little nerve that we have, Dacher.

Dacher Keltner: I know. It's really one of the most exciting things that we're studying in our lab right now.

Susan Bratton: This is like your new thing. This is the new exciting thing for you, right?

Dacher Keltner: It is.

Susan Bratton: You get on jags, don't you?

Dacher Keltner: We're just getting this out in our lab and getting the papers going. As most of your listeners know, you have this thing called the autonomic nervous system which is the part of the nervous system that lies below your brain stem. And it is bundles of nerves that go to organs in your body to help your body navigate its environment.

One part of the nervous system which science has studied a lot is the fight/flight, what is called the sympathetic autonomic nervous system. That boosts heart rate, makes your hands sweat, shuts down digestion, gives you cotton mouth, tenses muscles, makes you ready to go.

Susan Bratton: Dumps cortisol.

Dacher Keltner: Exactly. Exactly. We've done thousands of studies on that. A question that you should ask is: what else is there, right? There is this other branch called the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system, little bundles of nerves coming out of the spinal cord. One of those bundles of nerves is the vagus nerve.

Here's what we know and it's very recent to scientific inquiry. We know that the vagus nerve stimulates vocalization which helps you connect with others. We know, we're just learning as a field that the vagus nerve goes into the top of your spinal cord and interacts with oxytocin receptors, a neuropeptide that helps you connect.

We know that the vagus nerve calms your heart rate down and makes you peaceful around others, and then we know the vagus nerve does a lot of things but it is unique to mammals. Mammals are defined by caretaking, and the vagus nerve may have emerged in evolution to help, along with other activities, caretaking.

What we've been doing in our lab is to try to flesh that out, and what we're finding is that if I feel connected to strangers the vagus nerve is firing. If the vagus nerve is highly correlated with activation in parts of your frontal lobe to help you empathize with others. When you get touched in really friendly ways as Jeralyn does, your friend, probably it's that warmth in your chest that is the vagus nerve firing.

Then, there is this interesting group of people that I call vagal superstars. These are people who have in a resting state - their vagus nerve is firing a lot, right? Strong. And these people are people who experience a lot of joy and compassion. They have robust health. They have healthy marriages. They recover from the death of a spouse more quickly.

Kids who are vagal superstars, little eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds, there are the kids who we talked about this earlier, who bring people together, make strong connections, break up bullies from their humiliation.

So, we started to explore this really interesting possibility that one side to temperament are these vagal superstars.

Susan Bratton: You said that it pays to be kind when you were talking about this. What do you mean by that?

Dacher Keltner: Well, it's back to the homo economicus which is social theorists who have thought about how altruism and cooperation would emerge in human evolution and really struggle with it. Why in the world would you ever be kind to people who aren't going to be kind back or to non-kin because it's so costly. You give up resources. You risk being exploited, right?

And so, we've been going at this question of the evolutionary emergence of kindness from a different perspective which is that - actually, when you look at the literature and what we talked about in our two sessions, kind people have healthier marriages so they are probably more likely to raise healthy offspring. Kind people are more attractive in the romantic market. It turns out it's the most important criterion in many parts of the world in choosing a mate. Kind people are more likely to rise in social hierarchies.

And then, we've been doing research showing that in point of fact kind people - you can pick up on these trustworthy people right away - and you're more likely to give resources to them. What we did we had people play economic games with different strangers. Some of the people were vagal superstars who had high vagus nerves, very cooperative. Other people were Machiavellian types, more self-interested. We found that in these economic games strangers could pick out the trustworthy people really fast and gave more resources to them.

Susan Bratton: It also reminds me of that little thing that you did where you talked about how reputations rest on kindness, that it's actually how kind you are, that is, your reputation not your actions or your behavior or the things that you do or what you've accomplished or how smart you are, but the kindness quotient. Like those girls that were gossiping about each other. Tell that little thing. That was good.

Dacher Keltner: This is kind of a surprising finding that one of the most important things that constrained leaders and supporting groups is reputation, right? Our reputations are in the hands and minds of other people, and that is a very important property of our social groups which is that other people, they are the ones who determine what our reputation is. And that is invaluable in our success in life and within groups.

It begs the question: well, what is the central question or criterion for reputation? What we've been finding and several labs have been finding is that what group members really care about in determining the reputation of other people is are they cooperative and agreeable and friendly and good natured, and will they advance the interest of the group?

One way we got at this is we actually studied a sorority here at UC Berkeley, and we created the situation where we brought them to the lab in groups of two or three. We gave them the opportunity to gossip about other people in the sorority. The idea is that gossip is a way that we determine the reputation of members of our group.

There are two findings that really speak to the theme you're after which is - first, the people that got gossiped about a lot were the Machiavellian types in the group; the young women who back stabbed, who lied, pit group members against each other and are more manipulative.

Secondly and more generally, the themes of these gossip sessions and we've done all kinds of different studies of reputation, are really about: does the person have a good Jen ratio? Do they really act in ways that bring out the good in others? And that's the central foci of gossip.

Susan Bratton: I suppose it does go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that that conversation of those sorority girls is the same conversation that's happening in the work place.

Dacher Keltner: Oh, yeah.

Susan Bratton: [Laughs] It's no different.

Dacher Keltner: I love Americans. There are very few Americans who actually admitted that they've ever gossiped, but we're doing it all the time.

Susan Bratton: All the time. Absolutely.

Dacher Keltner: I did research in the Philippines. The Filipinos, a highly collectivist culture in this small community, are saving money to build a building. I said, "What's it for?" And they said, "That's going to be our gossip house where you get to go and gossip about other people". But, again, think about it. What people are doing with gossip is they are forming reputations about who is good for the group and who to watch out for.

Susan Bratton: They can tell if you're kind, and they can tell if you're smiling.

Dacher Keltner: Yes.

Susan Bratton: Alright. This is the last question. The Science of a Meaningful Life you are doing a seminar with Paul Ekman, and you are going to do the seminar to teach attendees resilience, reducing stress, strengthening relationships. You've given us a lot of terrific ideas about the things we can cultivate and foster within ourselves over this two part series.

Is there anything you might also impart as, maybe, your last bit of advice for us who want to live a meaningful life?

Dacher Keltner: Yeah, thanks for mentioning that. Our center is sponsoring these all-day seminars. I think the one in February is with Paul Ekman. It's at Greater Good Science Center. In May we have the honor of working with John Cabot Zen who is going to pioneer the study of meditation. Down in LA if you have Los Angeles listeners...

Susan Bratton: We do.

Dacher Keltner: We'll be working with Sonya Lyubomirsky who has "The How of Happiness" book in September.

The topic of today and what led me to write this book, "Born to be Good", is really this amazing new science: neuroscience, wellbeing science, family science, the good life or the meaningful life.

The seminar will focus on these age old but now science-based forms of wisdom that we can turn to really in any context of life, whether we're thriving or whether we've suffered a tragedy or going through economic hard times in different cultures. These are time honored and science tested ideas.

One set of lessons is: you've got to handle the stress of life, and it's clear that we are living in more stressful times than ever. All the data suggest this, and there are some great ways to do that, things like to not ruminate about your stresses and distract yourself and turn to other activities. To really work on your own life narrative, that may be the most important piece of wisdom, just to think about your story and the deep motifs and themes and to write about it and build it in. Think about the narrative of your family. The narratives are essential to wellbeing.

To find great physicality, be it walking or basketball for me or yoga. And all the data say that's good. One set of lessons is calming that stress-related system down through these different practices. Then, the other message is really what we've been talking about today which is all these ancient emotions that are at the core of the great traditions of knowing that are built by evolution and cultivating that gratitude that you talked about.

There really is a movement of gratitude diaries. People are doing it in schools, in families, in marriages, and it's good. Practicing compassion and meditating upon it and thinking about cultivating a more compassionate stance toward as many people as possible.

Play, we've talked about how missing play is in our daily lives. How do you do it? Well, you wrestle with your kids. You goof around with them. You call each other by funny nicknames. Everybody has nicknames. Use funny voices. So, that would be another one.

Then, I would like to make a pitch for one of my favorites which we haven't talked about which is awe and reverence.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Dacher Keltner: There are new studies finding that finding reverence in nature or spiritual practice or the beauty of art or rock 'n roll concerts, whatever it is. That is uplifting and it makes you a high Jen person. So, there are some old tips that now have this new science behind it that we will be teaching in those seminars.

Susan Bratton: Can anybody sign up for those seminars?

Dacher Keltner: I think part of it is continuing education, and then I think it's $70 to get the whole day. I can't remember the cost; I'm embarrassed to say.

Susan Bratton: That is so inexpensive. Don't even worry about it.

Dacher Keltner: But the other thing is that the proceeds go right to our center which funds the science and the magazine. As you described on your own show, it's a mutual Jen experience.

Susan Bratton: I love it. Well, I'll make sure that I post the links and the dates and how anyone can attend, both in Berkeley or LA, will be able to attend those.

Dacher Keltner: Great. They are posted on my website as well so they can go to that.

Susan Bratton: I'll be linking to everything that we possibly can do. It's funny, too. I forgot to tell you I emailed Tony Robbins, and I sent him your book.

Dacher Keltner: No way.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Dacher Keltner: You did?

Susan Bratton: Just yesterday or the day before. I thought, you know what? Tony would like to know about this. I finished your book in preparation for the interview, and I said, "This is right up his alley". This is the next level. He integrates so much. You have integrated so much into your book of all this work of other people and then added your own work as a layer on top of it. I emailed it to Tony, and he said something really interesting. He said, "Thank you is everything in life".

Dacher Keltner: It is.

Susan Bratton: So, I thought if you need an introduction; you probably know him.

Dacher Keltner: I don't know him.

Susan Bratton: I wanted to make sure he knew about this book because it is the culmination of so much of his work as well. It's creating meaning, this whole idea of writing your own life narrative, That's what he moves people through, is understanding what their life narrative should be and will be and how to create that.

Dacher Keltner: Absolutely. He does good work.

Susan Bratton: He is and so are you, Dacher. It's really been an honor and thank you so much for all the time you have given us.

Dacher Keltner: This is the best interview I've been a part of. I appreciate it.

Susan Bratton: Wow! Well, thank you. There will be a transcript of this as well.

Dacher Keltner: Good.

Susan Bratton: I'll put links to all of these things on PersonalLifeMedia.com. So, anyone who's listening to the show and might have gotten it out of iTunes knows that there is a resource. They can just do a search on our site and find you and get all of those links to all the things you are doing. You are also eminently Googlable yourself, so anyone can find you in the Greater Good Science Center.

Of course, your book is on Amazon, and I've got two autographed copies for listeners. You just go to DishyMixFan.com. Write your desire for one of those, and we'll get Dacher to personally autograph it. And we'll send it off to you which is really nice. Thank you for that.

Dacher Keltner: Excellent.

Susan Bratton: Good.

Dacher Keltner: It's an honor.

Susan Bratton: Thank you so much for the great work you do.

Dacher Keltner: You're welcome.

Susan Bratton: I really appreciate your time. It's been great.

Dacher Keltner: It stimulated my vagus nerve.

Susan Bratton: Good. I'm glad for me, too [laughs]. I'm your host, Susan Bratton. You've met. Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and author of "Born to be Good", the science of a meaningful life.

I hope that in some way we have created more meaning for you today, and I look forward to connecting with you again next week. Have a great day.

Announcer: Find more great shows like this on PersonalLifeMedia.com.

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