Why who you surround yourself with determines how far you go
We have been married for nearly fifty years. And yes, before you ask, we still actually like and love each other. More than that, we still choose each other, every single day. We’ve built careers, raised a family, navigated crises, celebrated wins, and hit walls we weren’t sure we could climb. And through all of it, what’s carried us isn’t ambition or achievement, but connection.
So as we wrap up February, a month that tends to make people think about love in terms of roses and dinner reservations, we want to talk about something bigger. Because love isn’t just a Valentine’s Day topic. It’s the thing the research keeps pointing back to, over and over again, as the foundation of a life that actually feels good to live.
And the most important part? This includes your work life. We’ll get there. But first, let’s talk about what science actually says.
What does the research say about relationships and happiness?
Harvard University has been studying what makes people truly thrive for over 80 years. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, now directed by Dr. Robert Waldinger, is the longest-running study on adult happiness ever conducted. And decade after decade, the finding is the same: people with warm, close relationships are happier, healthier, and live longer.
Dr. Waldinger has described loneliness as being as physically damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Let that sink in for a second. We talk endlessly about diet, exercise, and sleep as the pillars of good health, but we’re far less intentional about the quality of our connections. That’s a blind spot worth reconsidering.
This isn’t just about having a lot of friends or a big family. It’s about the depth and quality of your relationships. It’s about feeling genuinely seen and cared for by the people in your life. That sense of connection is what protects us, sustains us, and literally keeps us well.
Is happiness really a choice? What does science say?
Researcher Shawn Achor has spent years studying happiness in some of the world’s most high-pressure environments, from Harvard students to Fortune 500 companies, and he keeps finding the same thing: most of us have the success formula backwards. We tell ourselves, “When I get the promotion, then I’ll be happy. When the kids are older, when we’ve paid off the mortgage, when things slow down...”
But here’s the problem with that thinking: the goalposts keep moving. And while you’re waiting to be happy, you’re missing it.
Achor’s research shows that a brain in a positive state literally performs better: more productively, more creatively, more resiliently. Happiness isn’t a reward for success. It’s actually one of the fuels that drives it. And the practices that cultivate happiness? They’re deeply relational: gratitude, acts of kindness, investing in friendships, feeling connected to something larger than yourself.
Tony Hsieh, author of Delivering Happiness and former CEO of Zappos, takes this idea into the workplace and shows how organizations that prioritize meaning, purpose, and genuine human connection don’t just feel better: they outperform. People don’t just want a paycheck. They want to belong to something. And when they do, they bring everything they have.
How does neuroscience explain our need for human connection?
Here’s something that still amazes us, even after all these years of studying this: your brain doesn’t experience happiness in isolation. When someone you love smiles, part of your brain responds as if you are smiling. When a colleague walks in tense and distracted, your nervous system picks it up before a single word is spoken.
This is the mirror neuron network at work. Think of it as a kind of emotional WiFi that connects you to the people around you. You’re not just receiving information from others; you’re continuously broadcasting too. Your energy, your attitude, your tone, all of it is being picked up and mirrored by the people in your life.
What does this mean practically? It means that how you show up, the words you use, your body language, the warmth in your voice, whether you make eye contact or check your phone, is affecting the people around you every single moment. We co-create happiness with each other. We co-create stress with each other too. This is a profound responsibility, and an incredible opportunity.
The great news is that optimism, generosity, and warmth are just as contagious as anxiety and frustration. You get to choose what you’re broadcasting.
Can love really exist in a professional context?
Okay, we know this is the part where some of you get a little uncomfortable. Love at work? Isn’t that... inappropriate?
Here’s how we think about it. Love, at its core, isn’t a feeling reserved for romantic partners. Love is choosing to genuinely care about someone else’s wellbeing. It’s showing up with real attention. It’s telling someone a hard truth because you respect them too much to let it slide. It’s creating the conditions where someone can grow, take risks, and become more of who they’re capable of being.
When we describe it that way, doesn’t that sound like the best boss you’ve ever had? The mentor who believed in you before you believed in yourself? The colleague who checked in when things were hard, not because it was on their task list but because they actually cared?
That was love. It looked professional. It had boundaries. But it was love.
The reason this matters is because love expressed in a work context doesn’t diminish professional standards. It elevates them. People who feel genuinely valued and cared for don’t just perform better on metrics. They bring more creativity, more loyalty, more of themselves to their work. They’re more honest in their feedback. They go the extra mile not because they have to but because they want to.
Leadership that is rooted in genuine care is love in action. Not softness. Not sentimentality. Love as the deepest form of respect for another human being’s potential.
How do I build more connection in my daily life?
We’ll be honest: after almost fifty years together, we still have to be intentional about this. Life gets full. Work gets demanding. It’s easy to be physically present and emotionally absent.
We know this from personal experience, science, and we know it from working with hundreds of high-achieving professionals and couples who are brilliant at building careers and sometimes not so great at building connections.
So here are a few things we’ve found that actually moves the needle:
- Put your phone down and make eye contact. Seriously. It takes 10 seconds and it changes the entire quality of an interaction.
- Ask better questions. Not “How are you?” but “What’s been on your mind lately?” or “What’s been the best part of your week?”
- Tell people what they mean to you at home and at work. Don’t assume they know.
- Choose your emotional broadcast wisely. Remember the mirror neuron network: what you bring into a room, you give to everyone in it.
- Invest in a relationship before you need it. The best time to build trust and connection is not during a crisis. It’s Tuesday afternoon when nothing is wrong.
Relationships aren’t a life era. They’re the foundation of all of them.
Work-life integration is key, and work-life balance is a myth: you don’t become a different person when you walk into work. The same nervous system, the same capacity for warmth, the same need to feel connected is all there.
The research from Harvard, the positive psychology from Achor, and the organizational wisdom of Hsieh all point in the same direction: relationships aren’t the soft stuff you get to once the real work is done:
➡️ They ARE the real work.
➡️ They are how we create meaning, sustain performance, and experience the kind of happiness that doesn’t evaporate when the next challenge shows up.
➡️ And love, expressed honestly and appropriately in every area of your life, is what makes all of it possible.
So as you head into the rest of this month and beyond, we want to leave you with one question: Who in your life needs to feel your genuine care and attention today?
Don’t wait. Go be that person for them.
Happiness is not a destination you reach. It’s a practice you choose — one relationship, one moment, one act of love at a time.
