Feeling Lost or Behind in Life? The #1 Happiness Expert Explains How to Find Your Purpose

You wanna know one of the hardest things in life? It's figuring out your purpose. Why are you here? Today, you and I are talking all about how to find purpose and live a meaningful life, even when the world is overwhelming. How would you define purposelessness?

Purposeful is, you know, you have a really sharp focus mentally. Purposelessness is really diffuse and vague. We feel a deep sense of purpose when we feel like the things we do are connected to things that are larger than the self.

Our guest today is Dr. Dacher Keltner. Dr. Keltner is one of the world's leading experts on the science of meaning and purpose. Do you have any guidance for us on how you can begin to find your calling?

I think this is gonna be one of the central challenges of the next 40 years. It begins with like—

What is your definition of happiness? Happiness is if you feel like you're doing the things in the world that you're supposed —If you're feeling a lack of purpose and meaning right now, what's the first step you can take?

It begins with asking yourself questions like, what really inspired me as a child? What are your core strengths? This isn't about your career. This isn't about what you do. This is where you come alive.

I'd love to dig into your incredible research around awe.

Awe is an emotion you feel when you encounter things that are most typically vast and you don't understand. There's nothing better if your mind and body are body than a minute of awe a day. Reduces depression, reduces anxiety, reduces the daily stresses, makes you feel more connected, less lonely, more purposeful.

I know the person who's listening wants that. So how do we do it? Before we jump into this remarkable episode, you're gonna love this, on how to create a good life filled with purpose and meaning, you deserve that. My team was showing me something. 57% of you who watch the Mel Robbins Podcast here on YouTube are not subscribers. It's my goal that we get that number to 50%. I know you're the kind of person that loves supporting people who support you. So if that subscribe button is lit up, it means you're not a subscriber. Could you please hit subscribe? That's how you can show your support to your friend Mel Robbins, to the team here, to all these amazing experts that are showing up for you. It's free. And that way you don't miss a thing. And that way we also know that you love the guests that we're bringing you and the content that we're putting here and attempt to help you live a better life. Alrighty. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Holy cow, you're gonna love this episode about purpose. So let's jump in. Dr. Dacher Keltner, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

It's good to be with you, Mel.

It is so good to be with you, and I'm really excited for our conversation because I'm very, very familiar with your work and I use it, and it's exciting to be with you because your energy is extremely grounding. I'd love to have you speak to the person who's here with us and just share a little bit about what your extraordinary research might change in their life if they were to take it and apply it just day to day in the simplest ways.

Yeah, I think that the central message of today, hard won by science, we have such strength inside of us, we have such a sense of, how to make the world better. We can find beauty around us. We have a sense of calling and a way to improve the lives of people. And we just need to feel that and to sense that in ourselves. This is free. It's in us. It just takes a little bit of inquiry. And then we just have to put it into a practice a few minutes a day, and it will lead you in good directions.

I'm gonna feel better despite the state of the world after everything you're gonna—

Yeah, I mean, you know, This is a time of crisis for a lot of people. A lot of people are struggling. A lot of people are very tired. So grounded in that, you know, what we're gonna be talking about today is how do we find purpose? How do you find a sense of calling no matter what you're doing? How do you find the simple beauties in people around you and awe?

It's the perfect thing that we all need to be talking about and learning about right now. So I'm grateful that you're here. Thank you. You know, Dr. Keltner, you founded the Greater Good Science Center. Yeah. You've been doing research for the last 25-plus years 40-plus years on what makes for a meaningful life, purpose, happiness. We're gonna talk a lot about the research around awe. What are the most important things that you need in order to live a good life based on the research?

I mean, the science of happiness just exploded, you know, the past 30, 40 years. And I got swept up into it as a young scientist. And we have learned a lot, you know, we've learned that, Money matters a little, you know, so your context matters. It's great to be in a democracy as opposed to an authoritarian culture, right? It's good to have a healthy body. But what my field, psychological science, is really interested in is what can we do in our minds? You know, what can we do right now? What can we do with the people around us? And, you know, we know one thing that really matters is just little moments of joy and beauty and laughter and gratitude and awe and love, kindness, just find those little moments, 5 minutes a week where you're savoring a moment of beauty or thinking what you're grateful for. It's a time of hardship right now. There's no doubt about it. You know, I've been following data for 35, 40 years and like stress is higher, younger people are struggling. It's hard to know where we find meaning in life, the climate crisis, the political crisis, et cetera. So you gotta, figure out a moment or two each day where you just pause and slow down and find some peace. You know, it might be the sunset, it might be a piece of music, it might be how you journal, it might be listening to your show. Find a little peace in face of stress. And then, you know, I'm an introvert and I always struggled with the connect to everybody. I was like, ah, you know, I like solitude, you know, but alongside moments of joy and just, finding peace is just find little moments where you're connected to people. You know, I love this new literature on micro social interactions, a little bit of eye contact, saying hi to somebody, going to a farmer's market, just little moments where you're like, I'm part of humanity. So that's what I teach students, a little bit of joy, find a way to get calm, and then just connect a little and you'll be on your way.

I'm just speaking on behalf of the person who is with us. Yeah. And maybe they're exhausted. Yeah. And as you just said, there's a lot of reasons to feel beaten up by life right now, a bit resigned and sad about the state of the world or the state of your family or your job or bank account. So if they heard you say, just find 5 minutes, little moment of joy or kindness or micro connection, and I can almost feel them rolling their eyes like, oh, for God's sakes, Dr. Keltner, Seriously? Like 5 minutes a week is gonna, what does it do? Like when you look at the research, 'cause I believe this. Yeah. But you also have decades of research about why these micro moments of peace can actually help see you through very challenging periods in your life.

We have worked with high schoolers in really under-resourced high schools, you know, where it's tough. And there's not a lot of hope, and they're looking at a different kind of job market. And if they feel a little bit of hope or find a little bit of awe, they enjoy their studies more. Hmm. You know, we have worked with veterans who twice the rates of PTSD as the average civilian in the United States, and little moments of awe, right, reduce PTSD 32%. We work with healthcare providers, doctors and nurses during COVID chaos, right? Under-resourced, understaffed. And we just asked them like, find one minute right now of what's wonderful or awesome about life. And they're in a hospital, fluorescent lights, people are dying, they're working 14 hours a day. And they're like, you know, that woman who had a terminal diagnosis was so gracious and grateful to me and gave me a big hug. And that was remarkable human character, right? So what this tells us is, This stuff is deep in us. We've lost sight of it. Our culture is making it hard to get to. So we gotta take action and just find a couple minutes of it each day.

Why do you think it, it like buoys you up so much, particularly in a moment like this? Because I know how resigned and discouraged people feel, 'cause I read it, comments online. I feel it when I look at the state of the world or the headlines, this weariness. But why do you think this does not only give you a sense of hope, but it's a very important thing to be proactive about, especially right now?

When you're stressed, a part of your brain, the amygdala, is activated. You're seeing threat everywhere. Mm-hmm. You are overestimating uncertainty. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is pulsing through your veins. You know, your body is acting as if you are being chased by a big predator, right? Yeah. That's exhausting. And even if you have all the resources in the world, that stress exhausts you and you wake up tired. You don't feel like you have the energy to take on the things that face you. What's amazing, Mel, is, you know, these emotions of like gratitude and beauty and practicing a bit of kindness activate an energizing part of your nervous system. Oh. The vagus nerve, which calms your body and makes you feel strong and makes you feel open. It regulates your immune system in a healthy way. It activates dopamine, right? So you get this dopamine, which is like energy and purpose. You practice a little love or you give some resources, you volunteer for someone and you help them out. And suddenly it's like, I feel powerful. You know, I feel like this is who I should be. And that's, why we should be practicing this stuff just a few minutes a day. It doesn't cost you anything, and man, is it good for your body and good for the exhaustion that so many of us feel today.

I think oftentimes you can go through extremely challenging periods in life. We all do. Yeah. And we have words like, I feel lost, I feel stuck, I feel frustrated, I feel sad, things feel heavy, like this sense of, despair. But when you look at the research that you've done, yeah, how would you define purposeless so that the person who's listening might be able to go, oh, that's what it is, or, oh, that's what my daughter's dealing with?

Purposeful is, you know, you have a really sharp focus mentally. Your mind is, I know the 12 things I need to do to get this task done or to help my teenager, you know, think effectively about what to do next. So you have a sharp focus. Purposelessness is really diffuse and vague, right? And your mind feels kind of unfocused, you know? And when you're feeling purposeful, you're moving forward. You've got that dopamine energy. It's core to purposeful behavior. You're feeling empowered. And purposelessness is, you know, feeling sort of listless and you don't have a lot of energy. We feel a deep sense of purpose when we feel like the things we do are connected to things that are larger than the self. You know, I remember interviewing Yumi Kendall, who's this cellist for the Philadelphia Symphony, one of the great cellists and a friend of mine. And I was like, man, you know, I mean, being a musician's hard, you know, make a lot of money, work all the time, it's super competitive. There was sexism in the field and so forth. And she said, you know, every time I play my cello, as the notes go out, I feel connected to the audience and I feel like I'm connected to the history of music, you know, and that's purpose, right? What I'm doing right now is connected to something larger than the self. And when you feel purposeless, you're unaware of how you are part of a bigger story.

And we need that. Dr. Keltner, I just wanna pause right there. Okay. Because here's what I found to be insanely helpful. Well, because you hear the word purpose, and for decades of my life, I always thought that purpose was a thing outside of me. Yeah. And it was something to find. Yeah. And what I love about your distinction between this feeling of purposelessness versus waking up and living in a purposeful way is you just located all the power within us. Yeah. And I've never heard anybody describe it that way. Yeah. That purposeful is a way you can move through your day. Yep. And purposelessness is a way that you can move through not only your day and your weeks and your months and your years. Yeah. But it's very helpful to think about it that way because it somehow demystifies that there's some magical thing that is going to change all of this that's outside of me that I somehow have to find. Yep. Versus actually, I could access being more purposeful today and that might change things. Am I tracking correctly?

And it's so important and you're getting it exactly right. And it's, you know, for any age person, Right? You think about, you know, a person in the middle of their career and they're a nurse and they're working long hours, right? And they're, it's exhausting. Yeah. That kind of work, high pressure. You think about a teenager facing our world today, like what is their purpose going to be for the next generation? You think about somebody in the last quarter of their life. And Amy Wisniewski at Yale had this idea called calling. And she said, as long as you locate within you, like, this is who I am, This is what I wanna serve in the world, some larger thing. If you can figure that out, right? You might be a carpenter on a project or a roofer or a nurse in a hospital or a school teacher. If you start to see that in yourself, like, like for me, when I realized like my purpose is to teach, I come from a long line of teachers. I didn't know that. Once you realize like this is in me and I'm serving some part of the world through this action, you'll find purpose. And that is, it gives us a lot of power in some sense and agency to find that.

Could you, for the person listening, give some examples of how you might flip your mindset to this moment and today? And what would be an example of flipping from feeling purposelessness? —to saying, okay, I know I'm tired, but I'm gonna be more purposeful for the rest of the day. What would that look like?

Yeah, you know, I mean, I had a very poignant experience of that, you know, which is when I lost my younger brother. I am a hardworking person, like a lot of people listening, and had a lot of purpose. And then somehow the grief kind of dislocated me, and I felt like just, profoundly exhausted and without this sense of inspiration that he provided me and purposeless is how it felt. And I think that what you really need to do is you need to just kind of pause and reflect and think about what are the moments of purpose in this day? And for me, what was clear is I have a commitment to orienting with kindness to other people. That's not a radical idea. Almost every great ethical tradition thinks that's where we should begin, from Confucianism to the Abrahamic traditions to contemporary philosophy. It's like practice kindness, practice it when you're walking through a city, practice it when you're helping somebody get across the street, practice it in your daily work life. And then, you know, 30 to 40% of Americans volunteer. It's really good when you're really exhausted to return to this great tradition of our culture. Like, who can I volunteer for right now? And so those little moments, those little small steps of purposefulness really matter. You also mentioned calling.

Yeah. Do you have any guidance for us on how you can begin to find your calling?

I think this is gonna be one of the central challenges of the next 40 years. It begins with like having people think about what their core strengths are. Think about what you really care about. Think about the communities you wanna be with. You wanna think about who you wanna serve, right? As calling. And once, you know, Amy Wisniewski at Yale has this famous example of one of the people who's literally cleaning out bedpans in a hospital said, This is such vital work because I keep the place clean. And he knew he was serving people. So you start asking those questions, I think things will clarify.

Could you speak directly to the person who's listening, who is really struggling with trying to figure out their path in this really confusing moment in time?

This is, in some sense, the biggest question in life. It's like, what will my philosophy of life be? What will, how will I find meaning? I think you have to think about your core concerns, what you really care about in life, you know, and really think about the ways they present opportunities in your daily living. It might be, it might be that you really love taking care of nature and then build that into as much as you can, your off hours, your work and so forth. People have moved out of the church and are finding spirit and a sense of higher purpose in yoga, meditation. 40% of Americans find it in nature. So you wanna be thinking about what is my soul? You know, what is a higher source, if you will, or source of meaning? I love the work on what's called the social biome. What is that? Social biome? Social biome is just like, we know connection matters, but it can be exhausting and hard Ah, you know, I gotta like, I'm getting all these texts and you know, what do I do? And it just offers some simple ways to like say hi to some strangers and strike up a conversation and make sure you got one good friend you can talk to, you know, and that's about all you need. And so think about what your ideal social environment is. So, you know, this is a challenge of our times is to, in this time of crisis to like figure out how to find meaning again.

Well, it ties back to all of your research and your guidance telling us that you need to, or the opportunity. Yeah. Is to develop a mindset and an attitude about your own life where you're more purposeful. Yeah. And it's very clear based on what you just shared and based on all this research that it begins with an inquiry.

It does. You think about, 60, 70 years ago, 90% of Americans went to church and you go, or synagogue or whatever your practice is, and you would go in and that's inquiry. How do we think about these big questions about life and existence, life and death, and what's divinity, et cetera? And we have in some sense lost that and it really needs to be reintroduced. And I tell the thousands of students I teach each year, like, This is the central question in life, your philosophy of life. There are a lot of tools out there. I can't package something to you and give it to you. You gotta discover it. And then there are some great forms of guidance to follow to get there.

You know, it's magical that you're sitting here because as we were driving over this morning, my sister-in-law Christine is also our chief operating officer. We were just kind of chatting about what we were doing this weekend because I live in Vermont, she lives outside of Chicago. And she was saying, you know, I went to church and I just love going to church. And she said, I love going because it just gives me a chance to step out of the busyness of life and to sit quietly and to contemplate bigger themes. And to be reminded that there is something much larger in life than the things that are going on in my life. She said, "You know, it makes me very sad that so many people have left places of worship for good reason." You know, a lot of people leave and don't have the ritual of being in contemplation and being in community and really reflecting on larger themes about life that remind you that it's not about you. Yeah. That there's something bigger going on that connects us all. And I know we're gonna get into the research around this, but you do keep bringing up church. Yeah. But I know that you're not bringing it up to say that you need to go to church. No, I don't go to church. You're basically saying there are places and structures that used to be in our day-to-day life. Yeah. That got weeded out because of productivity and work and travel sports and— Exactly. You know, disenfranchisement with what was happening in the leadership in some of these places. Yeah. But we've lost something. So if you take the church or the synagogue or the mosque or the actual kind of secular nature out of it, what is it that we've lost that you want the person listening to really get personally purposeful about.

Oh, Mel, what a wonderful summary. And every now and then you're, you're just awestruck by an observation or an insight. And Jane Goodall, who's one of my heroes, you know, who studied the chimpanzees and fought for their protection, and she said, you know, she really felt, as Charles Darwin did, that chimps had a sense of wonder and awe. And she even said spirituality, she said, which is really Very simply being amazed at things outside of yourself. Hmm. And that's where purpose comes from is I have this self and I'm gonna navigate the world and meet my needs. But as humans and as mammals, I am able to connect to things in a service-filled way that are outside of me, right? And we used to find that in church. And that is, one of the fundamental strengths and forms of empowerment in church. And now we're adrift of that. And like you said, the productivity emphasis and the emphasis on writing code, as opposed to reading a novel and thinking about what does it mean to fall in love, you know, or what do I, how do I think about life and death? Has really, we've lost it. And I think it'll return. I think people are starting to wonder about that. And I don't bring up the yoga example as a sort of a silly example. It's very serious, which is it has this structure that you talked about of I'm with people, we're breathing together, we're quiet together, we're reflecting together, we're doing these ancient practices. And there's a lot of that that we can find in our lives.

Hmm. So Dr. Keltner, I can tell, especially given that you've been a professor for decades, that you're very worried about the state of the world and you're worried in what you're seeing and what the research shows, which is, you know, when I think back, I'm 57. When I think back however many decades that I was in college, you were like a little acorn ready to crack open and grow into a mighty oak and full of wonder and oh my gosh. And it's discouraging to hear your observation that you're not seeing that. So what is it that you think every 20-something needs to hear?

What I really started to emphasize in my teaching, I teach happiness to 500 students each year, is, you know, the most important thing that I want you to get outta this class is for you to inquire, figure out what's meaningful to you, and start to develop a philosophy of living. You know, that like, what do you care about? What's your sense of ethics? What are your core moral passions in you that you wanna be alive at every step of the way in life? When you're at the end of life, what do you want to have given to the world? What will that look like, right? Those are all questions about what's a philosophy of life. We have had millennia of efforts to teach this. You know, this used to be the core of an education. Who are you and what do you wanna give to the world? And we've lost it. I also use the word soul a lot. I'm a scientist, I couldn't measure the soul. I don't know what it is, but it's intuitive. It's like there's something sacred in me that is what life is about for me here on Earth. And they should feel that in their youth and find it. And that's what I ask them to do. And then the rest is easier, right? Once you figure out, like, I love serving young kids, then your job's gonna come. You know, you'll know how to sort of volunteer. Things come more easily once you ask those big questions.

What is your definition of happiness?

Happiness is if you feel like you're doing the things in the world that you're supposed to do, that give you a sense of purpose, give you the goosebumps as you're approaching the day, If you see it in other people and they're doing it with you, you tear up. Like, that's why I'm here. And that's what I would say. And within the scientific literature on happiness, we call that meaning. You know, right now I think we're in an era of meaning that you've been pushing me on, Mel. Like, hey, put aside this, you know, pleasure and ease and stuff. How do we really handle the exhaustion and purposelessness of our times? And it really is finding meaning. And that's when, You feel like I'm doing what I'm here on earth to do.

I wanna make sure as you're listening, you're picking up on this in what Dr. Keltner is teaching us. You have not attached career, job, and money to the thing that is your calling or your meaning.

Yeah, yeah. And you just gave me goosebumps. Thank you for saying that. Goosebumps are a source of awe and a recognition of what's important. In an idea, a big idea that you just floated. Yeah, you know, we're— there is no doubt, you know, it's harder to pay bills for young people. They're looking at affordability issues, new kinds of salary structure. We know AI now is going to hurt younger jobs, right? Which is not a surprise. So it's stressful, no doubt. But, you know, I think we're going to be in this era, and, and the upside to AI is it could enable this, which is to find your calling, your purpose, what you care about, and express it out there. And I think we're gonna move out of this era of perfectionism. That's— you may have seen it around you, you know, and man, it's tough. And like, allow young people, if they wanna, you know, be a struggling actress, that's a good thing. You know, that's where their purpose is. If they wanna, You know, if they wanna be a carpenter like my dad was, that's a wonderful career, right? We wanna encourage all of the kinds of work and not just the perfectionistic type work. So yeah, I think, and then to really broaden out and think about what's your service, what's your form of creativity and see if we can cultivate that.

If you're feeling a lack of purpose and meaning right now, what's the first step you can take?

It begins with asking yourself questions like, what really inspired me as a child? You know, and for me, it was like encountering dinosaurs when I was 5. I was like, I love evolution and dinosaurs. What inspired you as a child? Who inspired you in your life? You know, and you think about those people and, you know, Mel, what those questions get to is what's inside of you? What are your core strengths? Right? And we know from this really interesting, inspiring science and practice of virtue that's age-old is, you know, there's 6 or 7 core strengths that we can be thinking about. Each of us is different and they speak to us in different ways. So, you know, it might be knowledge, right? You might love crossword puzzles and, you know, studying things and learning about music or birding or the like. It might be courage. You know, you might just find great inspiration and sort of a sense of purpose in doing courageous things, getting out and taking chances. Kindness is just a universal, like, you know, tending to people, volunteering who need help. There are a lot of people today, you know, who could use— you're 90 years old and you could use that drive to the supermarket. There are the justice people and they're around us, you know, and man, They will find their purpose if they get a chance to, you know, to fight for what they think is fair. There's a kind of strength that's more transcendent, like meditation and spirituality and just finding the questions about divinity or whatever form it takes. And one of my favorites is the creativity types, you know, and they love humor and stand-up comedy, and they're gonna do spoken word or, You know, write their short story or join the book club or whatever. And there it's just like creating. And, and you know, what I love about these ideas is this isn't about your career or how you make money. This is just what you're gonna enjoy on the weekend and what you should prioritize in your life to find a little bit more purpose during these times.

What I love about those core strengths that you just listed off, and you said knowledge. Yeah. Courage, kindness, justice, transcendence, which to me felt like just seeking deeper connection. Yeah. And creativity. As you were talking, Dr. Keltner, and I'm glad you said this isn't like what you do for a job, I almost thought to myself, you know, if this is your core strength, it doesn't mean you're good at it, what it means is you come alive. You cannot help but feel like yourself when you are either doing something that's creative or you get lost in some sort of poem you're reading, or you are arguing with people because fairness is just something that just— you just get like— it's almost like, yeah. This is so core to who you are that you are the only one that can block yourself from this. Yeah. Is that, is that a fair thing to say?

Yeah. And you just gave me goosebumps because what you said is so important. You know, this isn't about your career. This isn't about what you do. This isn't about how you label yourself. This is where you come alive. This may not even be the thing you do most of the time, but it gives you so much meaning. And I have you, you're, Wonderful description made me think about my own life personally. And I was raised by, my mom taught literature, my dad was a visual artist, and I was no good at the arts, you know, and I couldn't write fiction to save my life. And even though I wanted to, but I will tell you, Mel, like being in a museum, seeing plays, reading fiction, hearing fiction, I am most alive in the arts, creativity, right? And beauty. And yet it's not how I make my living. It's not what I'm necessarily great at, but wow, do I come alive for reasons I can't describe to you. And just knowing that, it's like, if I want a sense of purpose, I go see a movie. You know, if I want a sense of purpose, I will go to a play, right? And just take it in. It'll give me all this insight about life as art does, because that's something core to me is what really matters.

You also, Dr. Keltner talked about two questions. You were talking about, you know, whether thinking about childhood or any moment in your life where you're inspired. Yeah. And then the second question was, who are the people? Yeah. Or the people in history that have inspired you? As you answer those questions for yourself and you think about your core values, what do you then do with those insights? Because it gives you data about what makes you come alive, but how do I then apply it? Yup.

In my life right now. Yeah, and you know, this is merging a couple of really rich literatures, Mel. You know, the narrative psychology of like, we are stories, we're almost like books. Dacher is a novel in some sense. So there are these early inspirations and people who move me, and those forms of inspiration point to like, this is what I care about, you know? And I remember, when I was on a panel with the Dalai Lama in 2003. And he said, you know, kindness is a basic state of human nature. And I was blown away. I was like, wow, that's so rich as an idea as a scientist. And it's also rich as an idea how to live life. It's like, it's so basic. That's all we have to do, practice kindness. His quote, if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you wanna be happy, practice compassion. That insight coming out of someone who inspires me taught me a lot. And then you start to take these insights through this inquiry, to use your word, and like, okay, I have a free weekend, what should I do? Well, maybe I'd like to volunteer inside a prison, which I did. Maybe I should volunteer in the parks and help with, Tracking what bird species are. Maybe I should volunteer in a school. So from the inquiry, and once you get a sense of like, I care about justice, you know, well, these are the people, this is the book I'll read. I'll read "To Kill a Mockingbird," you know, and then I'll have this conversation with people. So they're just guides. They're good compasses to friendships and to volunteer work, to what we wanna pursue, what we wanna enjoy as a film, So they're good ways to go about the life.

And I wanna make sure, as you were listening to Dr. Keltner, you heard the genius of the instruction. He didn't say quit your job and pursue something else. He didn't say you need to have some 17-step morning routine. He said, once you ask yourself these questions, when have I been inspired? Who inspires me? What is my core value here? He's instructing us to insert something that feels like that this weekend. Yeah. Into your life. Yeah. And that's how you start to remind yourself of who you are. That's how you start to reconnect with the parts of yourself that you have forgotten or that have been buried under the to-dos and the busyness and the headlines. It's by remembering what made you come alive and remembering what matters and then finding small ways where you are right now to do something. Yeah. It's so important and you make it sound so simple. Dr. Keltner, I'd love to dig into your incredible research around awe. What is awe and why did you decide you were gonna study it and write a blockbuster bestseller about it?

We've been talking about brief moments of really important meaning and purpose, and awe is an emotion you feel when you encounter things that are most typically vast and you don't understand. So you see a lightning storm or you hear, you're at the U2 concert and it's incomprehensible how music could be so powerful. Or you are witnessing somebody who is giving away all their resources to a stranger, right? And you're awestruck, vast and mysterious. As an emotion, it moves into our body and we tear up and we get goosebumps and our heart feels warm, right? It changes our neurophysiology. And then awe really is, as Jane Goodall said, when you're amazed at things outside of yourself and you wanna give to it, you wanna promote it, you wanna create community. It really brings out the better angels of our nature. And you know, when, as I, I got interested in awe. I was raised by, I was raised in a kind of a wild context of the late '60s and by an artist and a literature professor in Laurel Canyon, you know, crazy times, very awe-inspiring times. And I was lucky enough to develop scientific tools to study it.

How do you study awe?

Like, what do you do? We have people listen to music. We take people outside and they look at big trees. We have people think about someone who inspires them, right? In a really life-altering way. We've studied people in national parks. We've studied people at the Great Wall in China. We've had them look at big views. We, you know, there are other scientists who've gone to mosh pits at concerts, you know, so it's actually a pretty easy emotion to study. We've done research in art museums. You know, and you can get people to feel awe if they slow down and look at a painting in a really powerful way. And then you measure it. You ask people how you feel, you measure the brain, you measure the goosebumps, you measure activation of the vagus nerve. Turns out, even though people think you couldn't study it, it's actually pretty tractable or easy to study in the lab.

I'd love to have you walk me through. Okay. What is happening in my brain and body? Yeah. When I have a moment of awe. And I'm thinking about this because I'm taking a bucket list trip 3 days from now, going rafting through the Grand Canyon, something I've always wanted to do. This is like 3 years in the planning. And I know every time we come around a bend, I'm gonna be like, "Ah!" You just did part of it, so. And so what happens? I even feel awe, like I'm that crazy person in our family that around us, I'm like, shh, can you hear the barred owl? Can you hear the barred owl? 'Cause they're now doing their, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" Like they're calling right now to each other. And so what is happening in you in a moment of awe?

Yeah, what wonderful descriptions. So when you encounter things that are, way beyond your frame of reference, like the river in the Grand Canyon, or a symphony of birdsong that you hear. Or sunset. Sunsets, the colors and the changing colors in time. Incredible. Suddenly it's like, wow, this is different how I ordinarily perceive reality. It's beyond my frame of reference and I can't classify it. And then what happens is a part of your brain called the default mode network, quiets down, it deactivates. And the default mode network, or DMN, is where the ego and the self-relevant processes take place. My checklists and my to-do lists and my goals and ambitions, that quiets down. And that's very much akin to when people are out at nature, at the U2 concert or wherever, they feel like their ego is no longer hassling them. They feel like, I'm free of my ego. So that part of your brain deactivates. Then these regions of your nervous system, the vagus nerve, this big bundle of nerves wandering through your chest, calms your heart rate, opens your chest, makes you feel connected to other people. That's activated. A little bit of evidence showing oxytocin is released, this kind of like, we're all one being, you know, your immune system is functioning better. And then very importantly, you get quiet, your mind opens and expands. You see how you as Mel or Dacher or listener out there are part of larger things, right? And suddenly when you're feeling awe, you're like, wow, I'm part of everybody who's listening to this podcast, or I'm part of these people quietly meditating, or I'm part of an ecosystem. I'm listening to bird call and birdsong, and it sounds like human song and music. Wow, I'm part of this big thing, right? And then you have this sense of deep meaning and purpose. And that's so central to our conversation. Like, you know, when I have awe out backpacking, which, you know, which I do every summer, it's just with my daughter Natalie and friends, and it's just so reliable. And it's like, you know, I am this small species and a member of a big species, we're just part of this ecosystem. You know, I'm part of the trees and the rivers and the fish I see in the rivers and the changing light of the day. I'm just part of— this is life, right? I'm part of life. Darwin called it endless forms most beautiful is what life is. And that's transcendent, right? That's when you're like, all these individual concerns I have, the stresses, the exhaustion I feel, fade away. And you find something to devote yourself to.

I think you just explained why I am an absolute sucker for a documentary about wildlife. Yeah. I watch all the Earth series and I sit there, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, look at those penguins." Yeah. "Oh wow, look at the magic of the seals swimming through the sea kelp." And you're right, you just feel connected to something outside of yourself and magical. That has nothing to do with your to-do list or your self-criticism. What have you found in the research, Dr. Keltner, in terms of how making it a habit to purposefully have moments of daily awe, how does that improve your health?

Yeah, you know, Mel, as I was doing this work big lab, like lots of people working on this. We're heading into the mental health crisis, the loneliness epidemic Vivek Murthy had called our attention to, you know, and I faced a lot of skeptics like, wait a minute, if depression's rising out of COVID you think awe is the answer? And we actually found like if you practice a minute of awe a day, you feel less depressed, right? And so what we've found makes me feel bullish. And when I'm in front of 1,000 doctors and giving a talk, which I do routinely to MDs and nurses and healthcare providers, other healthcare providers, I say there's nothing better for your mind and body than a minute of awe a day. And what we know is a minute of awe a day reduces depression, reduces anxiety, reduces the daily stresses, makes you feel less exhausted and more energetic, makes you feel more connected, less lonely, more purposeful, is good for your heart, is good for your immune system, you know, reduces inflammation in the body. That's a few minutes of awe a day. You step outside and you look at the sunset and you pause and you watch the colors change and your body starts to feel, as Emerson said, like there's nothing nature cannot repair. So yeah, it's, you know, It's a battle cry in some sense for me, which is that we have data showing you don't, money gets in the way of awe. You don't need any money to find this, right? We, you know, what we need to do is just look around us, think about an opportunity for awe and go get it.

Dr. Keltner, can you walk us through how you do one minute of awe? Because after you gave that long list, I want that. And I know the person who's listening wants that.

So how do we do it? After we started to document these health benefits of awe, we started to test it. Like, can this benefit people in systematic ways? And we've got good evidence for that. And what I tell people is really simple, which is pause, put away your devices, right? Open your mind, take a deep breath. And then, you know, Mel, in our research from around the world, we found these 8 wonders., right, that really help us put awe into practice. So find it in nature, right? So go outside and look at the sky. I do this with my undergrads. They're like, oh my God, look at the clouds, you know? So take a minute to look at the sky. Moral beauty. Think of somebody who inspires you, right? And just feel that in your body. Think about collective movement. Is that what you're doing in your yoga studio or at the Red Sox game? At a concert. Think about a visual opportunity for awe. Some people love paintings or visual patterns. Think about music. You know, music's one of my favorite, you know, Mel, we forget how powerful it is, how much it can give to us. So find a piece of music that gives you some tears and just listen to it for a minute. And then a couple of the other wonders are, you know, think about ideas you care about. And really provocatively is the life cycle. Just think about this cycle of life. We only have a little time here on earth, right? It's just a fundamental truth. The people we love have this sort of sense of cycle and just reflect on what that means to you.

So I want you to help me and the person who's listening or watching on YouTube to experience awe right now. And my team, uh, has this extraordinary bouquet of flowers, and it has been sitting next to me this entire time, kind of under the table. And so I'm gonna grab it and put it on the table in front of me, and then I'm gonna have you walk me and the person who's with us through an experience of how we can feel awe. Wonderful.

Oh, those are beautiful. These are stunners. Yeah.

To my right is a gorgeous bouquet of flowers in this cool glass jar. And imagine jewel tones, like it's an explosion of spring. And if you love flowers like I do, we have a tree peony and an anemone and garden roses and snapdragons and lianthus and Queen Anne's lace and some greens, and it's like a very English garden style bouquet.

They're incredible. Yeah. You ready? Yes. You're gonna be a subject in an experiment? Yes, let's do it. All right. For the listeners out there, I'd really encourage you to either at this moment, you know, orient to the sky, or if you're outside, orient to some trees, or just you know, when you have a chance to pick a place in nature that really speaks to you. The important point is either take a moment to just take in some of the sensory experiences of nature, whatever it may be. Could be flowers, it could be trees around you, a forest, the sound of rain, et cetera. There's all research on this. If you are inside an office where there's no nature, pause for a moment and think of a place in nature that really means a lot to you, right? It could be a campsite that your family goes to, or a place you like to backpack, or a garden that you may be growing things in. Most of us have that thing, right? So we're gonna do that. And Mel, what I'm gonna have you do— okay— is I'm gonna have you kind of slow down and focus on this bouquet, and we're going to walk through the senses, and then I'm going to ask you awe-related questions. So what I'd like you to do, and this is good for any awe practice, is just to let your gaze move through the flowers and zero, zero in on the really fine details of flowers, and then move out and look at the broader patterns of the flowers. Go from small to vast. And let your powerful eyes see all the miracles of the flowers' patterns. I want you to let your gaze move around the bouquet and just look at the different colors and the hues the different colors. What comes to mind when you look at the shapes of the flowers, smallness and the vastness, and then the colors? Where does your mind go?

Well, the first thing is just how shocking it is that something so intricate and beautiful could come from what was once either a tiny bulb or a seed. And the diversity of the shapes, like the flat, open petals of the anemone versus the layers and layers and layers and layers of petals in these garden roses, and how different that is from the teeny tiny little blue— I don't know if those are cornflowers or what they are— and then the snapdragon. The snapdragon are like these puffs of popcorn up a stem. And then you look at the, uh, Queen Anne's lace, and it's so crazy fine that you would almost miss the fact that it looks like a piece of lace, but it's made up of these tiny little, uh, flat things that are like the size of a dime that each have another 25 tiny little flowers on them. Incredible. And so when you see them in a field, they're like 4 or 5 feet tall, and that's like a white blanket. But up close, you realize how intricate and delicate it looks. All right.

You ready for the next step? That was awesome. I think we have 12 million receptors in the nose that take in fragrances and tell us what things are. We navigate the world through our sense of smell. So if you can just reach, just move over and smell a few of the flowers, whatever ones you like. And Mel, I want you to engage in a stream of consciousness. Like, where does your mind go? Okay. I'll bring this close. When you smell things, what comes to mind?

Okay, so I just smelled a rose and it just reminds me of weddings. Like there's something about the rose smell that just is wedding, wedding, wedding. Okay, that peony does not have a smell. Let's go over to this one. Lianthus doesn't have much of a smell, but it reminds me of cut grass.

Mm, that's a nice smell. Yes, that's a—

cut grass for me is a big one.

Okay. What's it make you think of?

My dad, 'cause he was always out mowing the lawn. Oh, this one's really good. This rose is a different variety. It reminds me of my grandmother.

And what about your grandmother?

Like, just hugs. Smells warm, familiar. Smells like summer too. Beautiful.

Yeah. Isn't scent— scent is awesome. You know, just that it can transport us in time like that. That's incredible. All right, close your eyes. Final awe prompt in our awe experiment here on the Mel Robbins Show. You know, we have all these incredible receptors in our hands that help us understand what things are through touch. Just sort of move your hand over the flowers and just touch. And what do they remind you of? What's the touch feel like to you?

There's lots of different textures. It feels, oh my God, it reminds me of being a kid. I grew up in Western Michigan and tiny town, and I spent so much time laying in my front yard, staring up at the sky. And it reminds me of just touching grass as a kid.

All right, so it's just been a couple of minutes and what we've done are, 3 different sensory accesses, if you will, to awe, which is, you know, scent and vision and then tactile contact. Nature is one of the most powerful sources of awe around the world, no matter where you are, just trees and rivers and sounds and birdsong and skies and flowers and the natural world, mountains, et cetera. And I think that the key and what we do in all of our research is like, Pause, put things away, calm down, and then take in this whole miracle in some sense of the small intricacy of the design, the vastness, and then where does your mind go as you appreciate it? So as you look at the bouquet now, what comes to mind?

The anemones are insane. There's like these teeny tiny little, like, I don't know what the word's called, the little petally things around the center that the bees come to, and they're like purpley blue. And I'm focusing on that because like the actual crazy amount of detail, the variegation on the leaves, the difference of all the petals, it's right in front of you. And even forget nature, if you had a minute when you were going through the grocery store, Yeah. And you stopped for a second to just be present with a bouquet and notice all the difference. You could tap into this. Yeah. Inside. And it also, on a deeper level, just makes me think about my parents because my parents are massive gardeners and my love of gardening comes from them. And I think about my husband, Chris, who— 4 years ago, built me some raised flower beds, boxes for Mother's Day, because those damn voles kept eating all my tulip bulbs. So, you know, now I go out in the garden. Yeah. Every night. Yeah. And I cut flowers and I inspect what's coming up. And there's so much around you that you're missing. That you could slow down and drop into everywhere.

Yeah, and that's the lesson of all, right? Is there are these incredible systems that we're not aware of. And once you listen to a piece of music and then you take the time just to think about where it came from and what it means, suddenly it becomes richer. For me, because I've studied so much emotional behavior and expression in the face and the voice. If I just slow down and look at all the ways in which people are cooperating with each other on a daily basis, on a street corner, at a daycare center, you know, on a university campus, it just almost makes me cry, you know, and it's the same thing. You're seeing the miracle that is always there. And that's what all is. And it's, in some sense, it's, and I love your parents and your grandmothers recollection because it reveals what we've been talking about, which is it's part of your bigger story of life.

I'm gonna move that down, otherwise I'm gonna be so distracted by the flowers, I'm not gonna be able to ask you any additional questions. Dr. Keltner, what is an awe walk?

Humans are a walking species. It's, you know, we walk on our two legs, our two feet, chimpanzees don't. We have meandered to all the continents on the earth. We are an itinerant species. It's just part of what we do. And walking is great. There are all these great traditions of walking. There are often in spiritual traditions, forms of pilgrimages where you walk and you, and most people who are probably listening to this have a walking tradition. And that's good news. It's very good for your body and your mind. And so what we decided to do, Mel, and this was with Virginia Sturm, is we added a little awe to your regular walk. Okay. And it was exactly like what you did with the flowers. We asked people, take a walk once a week, and in our control condition, go out and enjoy your walk. In our awe walk condition, look around to the small and the vast, the little bark on the tree and the full bark patterns on the tree, the cloud, the patterns of clouds, the raindrop, the full storm, go from vast to small, and go to places that are filled with childlike wonder, right? Which we've been talking about, like, whoa, the swing sets my daughters used to swing on, et cetera. And just do that. And what we found, and that's, you can do that anywhere. Go on your walk, slow it down, just look around you and look for small things, you know, vast things, and then go to places where you might feel a little curiosity and wonder. And what we found is in that study, it made elderly people who are 75 years old or older feel less pain in their bodies. And more recently, we have a paper under review showing greater brain health 6 years later, which is amazing. And what's interesting, Mel, you know, I love how your mind, went on a journey with the flowers, which you were like, suddenly you got a bigger picture of your relationship to flowers. My husband, Chris, and the flower beds, and my clipping them each night, and the voles, and my grandmother, and my parents. Suddenly you had a map on where to go, and that's what the awe walk did as well. Once you start doing it, you start practicing awe walks wherever you go. I do awe walks in the airport. You know, I'll be like, okay, I'm really tense, I have flight anxiety. Let's look at the moments of goodness here, and it just, It can work.

You know, I have a little twist on this. Okay. Which is, 'cause every time I walk, I'm doing an awe walk because the thing I'm purposeful about is I play a game to see if I can just see a naturally occurring heart shape. Oh. In the vast clouds or in an oil stain in the concrete or a leaf. When I see it, because I now always see them everywhere. That's awesome. I just take a moment and really kind of savor that that was put there for me. Oh, that is nice. And it's killer. And so now our family group chat is full of heart-shaped random objects that people see on walks. But, oh, it's, it's a way that I've applied your research and added a little twist to it. That's a wonderful twist. You know, Dr. Keltner, I see this quote floating around that the amount of good in your life depends on your ability to see it.

Yeah, I love Thich Nhat Hanh, this Buddhist practitioner who said, you know, so much of our life is oriented towards fear. And of course, you know, there's a lot to be fearful of. You know, there's climate crises and economic issues and war, and of course, but that's part of the story. That is always part of the story. And if you just pause and open your mind, you have the chance to see the miracles of life in his words of, you can smell the flowers, you can hear, you know, young children laughing, you can see the light in somebody's eyes, just a little instant, right? So that is always true. And for skeptics out there, this is a hard time, you know, but time and time again, people who are facing the hardest times, right? I learned this from prisoners inside prison. You talk to veterans, like the toughest times in combat, it's like they return to these fundamental truths that there's also beauty and there's also awe. And I think we just have to just take the time, like this podcast and conversation with you, Mel, like let's remind ourselves of these beauties 'cause they are powerful and they're, They're there to guide us.

You know, Dr. Keltner, if you had to distill everything that you shared with us today to the most important thing for the person listening to do as soon as the episode is finished, what do you think that is?

I hope your audience appreciates, like, you know, I was genetically wired to feel a lot of anxiety. Panic is everywhere in my mom's side of the family. You know, losing my brother, really deep grief. And I had to find my way through answering the question you asked. And for me, you know, Eleanor Roosevelt, every night when she went to bed, she had this prayer where she said, I wanna see the simple beauties all around me and be aware of the hidden loveliness of people that they ordinarily hide. And for me, those two words, simple beauties, and I believe that, I believe that anywhere there are beauties in the people around you, in the natural world, in the music you hear, in the things that bring us all, you know, the Eight Wonders that we've talked about, And so to me, this is one of our great strengths as a species is to be able to notice the beauty in the glass of water or a conversation or the eyes of somebody or memories of the past, right? And we always have that capacity no matter where we are. Doesn't cost a dime. You don't have to move a step and the simple beauties are there to access. And I think that's, That's why Eleanor Roosevelt said it, and it's, it's meant a lot to me.

Well, Dr. Keltner, you mean a lot to me. No. And I know you mean a lot to the person who's listening, and your research and your work, uh, is a treasure for all of us. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for hopping on a plane even though you're anxious about flying and flying across country. I've got my To share all of this research and wisdom with us, and I am forever a fan and grateful. Mm-hmm, thank you, Mel.

I've had many goosebumps during our conversation for good reason.

It's been wonderful. Me too, and I also wanna thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that will not only help you find awe and beauty in your day-to-day life, I truly believe that if you apply everything that Dr. Keltner taught you today, It will help you find your calling and a deeper sense of meaning in this one incredibly amazing life that you get to live. Alrighty. In case nobody else tells you today, as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And creating a life that has a deeper sense of meaning and being more purposeful is clearly the secret to doing that. So go do it. Alrighty. I'll see you in the very next episode. Episode. I'll welcome you in the moment you hit play. Alrighty, thank you for watching all the way to the end on YouTube. And if you're wondering, Mel, what should I watch next? You're gonna love this episode. Check it out.