0:00:00.732,0:00:03.619
So here's the good news about families.

0:00:03.619,0:00:05.868
The last 50 years have seen a revolution

0:00:05.868,0:00:07.924
in what it means to be a family.

0:00:07.924,0:00:10.219
We have blended families, adopted families,

0:00:10.219,0:00:12.524
we have nuclear families living in separate houses

0:00:12.524,0:00:15.403
and divorced families living in the same house.

0:00:15.403,0:00:18.462
But through it all, the family has grown stronger.

0:00:18.462,0:00:21.011
Eight in 10 say the family they have today

0:00:21.011,0:00:25.548
is as strong or stronger than the family they grew up in.

0:00:25.548,0:00:27.532
Now, here's the bad news.

0:00:27.532,0:00:29.930
Nearly everyone is completely overwhelmed

0:00:29.930,0:00:32.241
by the chaos of family life.

0:00:32.241,0:00:34.299
Every parent I know, myself included,

0:00:34.299,0:00:36.895
feels like we're constantly playing defense.

0:00:36.895,0:00:39.948
Just when our kids stop teething, they start having tantrums.

0:00:39.948,0:00:41.988
Just when they stop needing our help taking a bath,

0:00:41.988,0:00:45.188
they need our help dealing with cyberstalking or bullying.

0:00:45.188,0:00:47.878
And here's the worst news of all.

0:00:47.878,0:00:50.804
Our children sense we're out of control.

0:00:50.804,0:00:53.869
Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute

0:00:53.869,0:00:56.148
asked 1,000 children, "If you were granted

0:00:56.148,0:00:59.581
one wish about your parents, what would it be?"

0:00:59.581,0:01:01.899
The parents predicted the kids would say,

0:01:01.899,0:01:04.765
spending more time with them.

0:01:04.765,0:01:07.610
They were wrong. The kids' number one wish?

0:01:07.610,0:01:11.956
That their parents be less tired and less stressed.

0:01:11.956,0:01:14.057
So how can we change this dynamic?

0:01:14.057,0:01:17.275
Are there concrete things we can do to reduce stress,

0:01:17.275,0:01:19.141
draw our family closer,

0:01:19.141,0:01:23.997
and generally prepare our children to enter the world?

0:01:23.997,0:01:27.193
I spent the last few years trying to answer that question,

0:01:27.193,0:01:30.218
traveling around, meeting families, talking to scholars,

0:01:30.218,0:01:33.276
experts ranging from elite peace negotiators

0:01:33.276,0:01:37.323
to Warren Buffett's bankers to the Green Berets.

0:01:37.323,0:01:40.689
I was trying to figure out, what do happy families do right

0:01:40.689,0:01:45.675
and what can I learn from them to make my family happier?

0:01:45.675,0:01:47.540
I want to tell you about one family that I met,

0:01:47.540,0:01:50.164
and why I think they offer clues.

0:01:50.164,0:01:53.151
At 7 p.m. on a Sunday in Hidden Springs, Idaho,

0:01:53.151,0:01:55.459
where the six members of the Starr family are sitting down

0:01:55.459,0:01:58.697
to the highlight of their week: the family meeting.

0:01:58.697,0:02:00.922
The Starrs are a regular American family

0:02:00.922,0:02:03.673
with their share of regular American family problems.

0:02:03.673,0:02:06.465
David is a software engineer. Eleanor takes care

0:02:06.465,0:02:09.257
of their four children, ages 10 to 15.

0:02:09.257,0:02:12.281
One of those kids tutors math on the far side of town.

0:02:12.281,0:02:14.786
One has lacrosse on the near side of town.

0:02:14.786,0:02:18.297
One has Asperger syndrome. One has ADHD.

0:02:18.297,0:02:21.625
"We were living in complete chaos," Eleanor said.

0:02:21.625,0:02:24.969
What the Starrs did next, though, was surprising.

0:02:24.969,0:02:27.737
Instead of turning to friends or relatives,

0:02:27.737,0:02:30.449
they looked to David's workplace.

0:02:30.449,0:02:33.227
They turned to a cutting-edge program called agile development

0:02:33.227,0:02:36.297
that was just spreading from manufacturers in Japan

0:02:36.297,0:02:39.273
to startups in Silicon Valley.

0:02:39.273,0:02:42.141
In agile, workers are organized into small groups

0:02:42.141,0:02:44.827
and do things in very short spans of time.

0:02:44.827,0:02:47.769
So instead of having executives issue grand proclamations,

0:02:47.769,0:02:50.969
the team in effect manages itself.

0:02:50.969,0:02:53.600
You have constant feedback. You have daily update sessions.

0:02:53.600,0:02:57.217
You have weekly reviews. You're constantly changing.

0:02:57.217,0:03:00.417
David said when they brought this system into their home,

0:03:00.417,0:03:03.833
the family meetings in particular increased communication,

0:03:03.833,0:03:06.209
decreased stress, and made everybody

0:03:06.209,0:03:09.313
happier to be part of the family team.

0:03:09.313,0:03:12.296
When my wife and I adopted these family meetings and other techniques

0:03:12.296,0:03:15.809
into the lives of our then-five-year-old twin daughters,

0:03:15.809,0:03:19.873
it was the biggest single change we made since our daughters were born.

0:03:19.873,0:03:22.062
And these meetings had this effect

0:03:22.062,0:03:24.561
while taking under 20 minutes.

0:03:24.561,0:03:26.713
So what is Agile, and why can it help

0:03:26.713,0:03:29.441
with something that seems so different, like families?

0:03:29.441,0:03:31.790
In 1983, Jeff Sutherland was a technologist

0:03:31.790,0:03:34.107
at a financial firm in New England.

0:03:34.107,0:03:37.125
He was very frustrated with how software got designed.

0:03:37.125,0:03:39.877
Companies followed the waterfall method, right,

0:03:39.877,0:03:42.935
in which executives issued orders that slowly trickled down

0:03:42.935,0:03:44.554
to programmers below,

0:03:44.554,0:03:47.202
and no one had ever consulted the programmers.

0:03:47.202,0:03:49.781
Eighty-three percent of projects failed.

0:03:49.781,0:03:52.178
They were too bloated or too out of date

0:03:52.178,0:03:54.860
by the time they were done.

0:03:54.860,0:03:57.304
Sutherland wanted to create a system where

0:03:57.304,0:04:01.482
ideas didn't just percolate down but could percolate up from the bottom

0:04:01.482,0:04:04.027
and be adjusted in real time.

0:04:04.027,0:04:07.090
He read 30 years of Harvard Business Review

0:04:07.090,0:04:09.882
before stumbling upon an article in 1986

0:04:09.882,0:04:12.961
called "The New New Product Development Game."

0:04:12.961,0:04:15.212
It said that the pace of business was quickening --

0:04:15.212,0:04:17.341
and by the way, this was in 1986 --

0:04:17.341,0:04:21.306
and the most successful companies were flexible.

0:04:21.306,0:04:23.090
It highlighted Toyota and Canon

0:04:23.090,0:04:27.394
and likened their adaptable, tight-knit teams to rugby scrums.

0:04:27.394,0:04:29.759
As Sutherland told me, we got to that article,

0:04:29.759,0:04:31.924
and said, "That's it."

0:04:31.924,0:04:34.641
In Sutherland's system, companies don't use

0:04:34.641,0:04:37.642
large, massive projects that take two years.

0:04:37.642,0:04:38.870
They do things in small chunks.

0:04:38.870,0:04:41.319
Nothing takes longer than two weeks.

0:04:41.319,0:04:43.385
So instead of saying, "You guys go off into that bunker

0:04:43.385,0:04:46.386
and come back with a cell phone or a social network,"

0:04:46.386,0:04:48.818
you say, "You go off and come up with one element,

0:04:48.818,0:04:51.338
then bring it back. Let's talk about it. Let's adapt."

0:04:51.338,0:04:54.946
You succeed or fail quickly.

0:04:54.946,0:04:58.114
Today, agile is used in a hundred countries,

0:04:58.114,0:05:01.052
and it's sweeping into management suites.

0:05:01.052,0:05:03.562
Inevitably, people began taking some of these techniques

0:05:03.562,0:05:05.837
and applying it to their families.

0:05:05.837,0:05:08.410
You had blogs pop up, and some manuals were written.

0:05:08.410,0:05:10.306
Even the Sutherlands told me that they had

0:05:10.306,0:05:11.816
an Agile Thanksgiving,

0:05:11.816,0:05:14.327
where you had one group of people working on the food,

0:05:14.327,0:05:17.658
one setting the table, and one greeting visitors at the door.

0:05:17.658,0:05:21.178
Sutherland said it was the best Thanksgiving ever.

0:05:21.178,0:05:23.858
So let's take one problem that families face,

0:05:23.858,0:05:26.875
crazy mornings, and talk about how agile can help.

0:05:26.875,0:05:29.041
A key plank is accountability,

0:05:29.041,0:05:30.840
so teams use information radiators,

0:05:30.840,0:05:34.603
these large boards in which everybody is accountable.

0:05:34.603,0:05:36.539
So the Starrs, in adapting this to their home,

0:05:36.539,0:05:38.200
created a morning checklist

0:05:38.200,0:05:41.788
in which each child is expected to tick off chores.

0:05:41.788,0:05:44.168
So on the morning I visited, Eleanor came downstairs,

0:05:44.168,0:05:46.878
poured herself a cup of coffee, sat in a reclining chair,

0:05:46.878,0:05:48.386
and she sat there,

0:05:48.386,0:05:51.384
kind of amiably talking to each of her children

0:05:51.384,0:05:53.375
as one after the other they came downstairs,

0:05:53.375,0:05:55.744
checked the list, made themselves breakfast,

0:05:55.744,0:05:58.527
checked the list again, put the dishes in the dishwasher,

0:05:58.527,0:06:01.647
rechecked the list, fed the pets or whatever chores they had,

0:06:01.647,0:06:04.071
checked the list once more, gathered their belongings,

0:06:04.071,0:06:06.708
and made their way to the bus.

0:06:06.708,0:06:10.785
It was one of the most astonishing family dynamics I have ever seen.

0:06:10.785,0:06:13.927
And when I strenuously objected this would never work in our house,

0:06:13.927,0:06:16.110
our kids needed way too much monitoring,

0:06:16.110,0:06:17.410
Eleanor looked at me.

0:06:17.410,0:06:18.578
"That's what I thought," she said.

0:06:18.578,0:06:20.898
"I told David, 'keep your work out of my kitchen.'

0:06:20.898,0:06:22.519
But I was wrong."

0:06:22.519,0:06:24.623
So I turned to David: "So why does it work?"

0:06:24.623,0:06:27.559
He said, "You can't underestimate the power of doing this."

0:06:27.559,0:06:29.093
And he made a checkmark.

0:06:29.093,0:06:31.229
He said, "In the workplace, adults love it.

0:06:31.229,0:06:33.705
With kids, it's heaven."

0:06:33.705,0:06:36.542
The week we introduced a morning checklist into our house,

0:06:36.542,0:06:40.689
it cut parental screaming in half. (Laughter)

0:06:40.689,0:06:43.774
But the real change didn't come until we had these family meetings.

0:06:43.774,0:06:47.095
So following the agile model, we ask three questions:

0:06:47.095,0:06:49.017
What worked well in our family this week,

0:06:49.017,0:06:53.177
what didn't work well, and what will we agree to work on in the week ahead?

0:06:53.177,0:06:54.764
Everyone throws out suggestions

0:06:54.764,0:06:57.496
and then we pick two to focus on.

0:06:57.496,0:07:01.398
And suddenly the most amazing things started coming out of our daughters' mouths.

0:07:01.398,0:07:03.518
What worked well this week?

0:07:03.518,0:07:06.438
Getting over our fear of riding bikes. Making our beds.

0:07:06.438,0:07:09.350
What didn't work well? Our math sheets,

0:07:09.350,0:07:12.537
or greeting visitors at the door.

0:07:12.537,0:07:15.965
Like a lot of parents, our kids are something like Bermuda Triangles.

0:07:15.965,0:07:18.510
Like, thoughts and ideas go in, but none ever comes out,

0:07:18.510,0:07:20.044
I mean at least not that are revealing.

0:07:20.044,0:07:23.807
This gave us access suddenly to their innermost thoughts.

0:07:23.807,0:07:25.594
But the most surprising part was when we turned to,

0:07:25.594,0:07:28.248
what are we going to work on in the week ahead?

0:07:28.248,0:07:30.265
You know, the key idea of agile is that

0:07:30.265,0:07:32.070
teams essentially manage themselves,

0:07:32.070,0:07:35.414
and it works in software and it turns out that it works with kids.

0:07:35.414,0:07:37.105
Our kids love this process.

0:07:37.105,0:07:39.294
So they would come up with all these ideas.

0:07:39.294,0:07:41.340
You know, greet five visitors at the door this week,

0:07:41.340,0:07:43.903
get an extra 10 minutes of reading before bed.

0:07:43.903,0:07:46.715
Kick someone, lose desserts for a month.

0:07:46.715,0:07:48.882
It turns out, by the way, our girls are little Stalins.

0:07:48.882,0:07:51.827
We constantly have to kind of dial them back.

0:07:51.827,0:07:53.819
Now look, naturally there's a gap between

0:07:53.819,0:07:57.187
their kind of conduct in these meetings and their behavior the rest of the week,

0:07:57.187,0:07:59.301
but the truth is it didn't really bother us.

0:07:59.301,0:08:01.651
It felt like we were kind of laying these underground cables

0:08:01.651,0:08:04.981
that wouldn't light up their world for many years to come.

0:08:04.981,0:08:07.411
Three years later -- our girls are almost eight now --

0:08:07.411,0:08:09.848
We're still holding these meetings.

0:08:09.848,0:08:14.580
My wife counts them among her most treasured moments as a mom.

0:08:14.580,0:08:16.963
So what did we learn?

0:08:16.963,0:08:19.464
The word "agile" entered the lexicon in 2001

0:08:19.464,0:08:21.664
when Jeff Sutherland and a group of designers

0:08:21.664,0:08:25.796
met in Utah and wrote a 12-point Agile Manifesto.

0:08:25.796,0:08:29.327
I think the time is right for an Agile Family Manifesto.

0:08:29.327,0:08:32.702
I've taken some ideas from the Starrs and from many other families I met.

0:08:32.702,0:08:35.461
I'm proposing three planks.

0:08:35.461,0:08:39.029
Plank number one: Adapt all the time.

0:08:39.029,0:08:40.815
When I became a parent, I figured, you know what?

0:08:40.815,0:08:43.914
We'll set a few rules and we'll stick to them.

0:08:43.914,0:08:47.563
That assumes, as parents, we can anticipate every problem that's going to arise.

0:08:47.563,0:08:50.997
We can't. What's great about the agile system

0:08:50.997,0:08:52.863
is you build in a system of change

0:08:52.863,0:08:55.894
so that you can react to what's happening to you in real time.

0:08:55.894,0:08:57.338
It's like they say in the Internet world:

0:08:57.338,0:09:00.082
if you're doing the same thing today you were doing six months ago,

0:09:00.082,0:09:01.740
you're doing the wrong thing.

0:09:01.740,0:09:04.648
Parents can learn a lot from that.

0:09:04.648,0:09:07.960
But to me, "adapt all the time" means something deeper, too.

0:09:07.960,0:09:10.336
We have to break parents out of this straitjacket

0:09:10.336,0:09:12.673
that the only ideas we can try at home

0:09:12.673,0:09:16.040
are ones that come from shrinks or self-help gurus

0:09:16.040,0:09:18.360
or other family experts.

0:09:18.360,0:09:20.632
The truth is, their ideas are stale,

0:09:20.632,0:09:22.928
whereas in all these other worlds there are these new ideas

0:09:22.928,0:09:26.253
to make groups and teams work effectively.

0:09:26.253,0:09:27.388
Let's just take a few examples.

0:09:27.388,0:09:30.608
Let's take the biggest issue of all: family dinner.

0:09:30.608,0:09:32.665
Everybody knows that having family dinner

0:09:32.665,0:09:34.993
with your children is good for the kids.

0:09:34.993,0:09:37.952
But for so many of us, it doesn't work in our lives.

0:09:37.952,0:09:40.224
I met a celebrity chef in New Orleans who said,

0:09:40.224,0:09:42.603
"No problem, I'll just time-shift family dinner.

0:09:42.603,0:09:44.739
I'm not home, can't make family dinner?

0:09:44.739,0:09:47.731
We'll have family breakfast. We'll meet for a bedtime snack.

0:09:47.731,0:09:50.597
We'll make Sunday meals more important."

0:09:50.597,0:09:54.147
And the truth is, recent research backs him up.

0:09:54.147,0:09:57.059
It turns out there's only 10 minutes of productive time

0:09:57.059,0:09:58.896
in any family meal.

0:09:58.896,0:10:02.814
The rest of it's taken up with "take your elbows off the table" and "pass the ketchup."

0:10:02.814,0:10:04.851
You can take that 10 minutes and move it

0:10:04.851,0:10:08.131
to any part of the day and have the same benefit.

0:10:08.131,0:10:10.956
So time-shift family dinner. That's adaptability.

0:10:10.956,0:10:13.246
An environmental psychologist told me,

0:10:13.246,0:10:16.581
"If you're sitting in a hard chair on a rigid surface,

0:10:16.581,0:10:18.031
you'll be more rigid.

0:10:18.031,0:10:21.934
If you're sitting on a cushioned chair, you'll be more open."

0:10:21.934,0:10:23.541
She told me, "When you're discipling your children,

0:10:23.541,0:10:25.939
sit in an upright chair with a cushioned surface.

0:10:25.939,0:10:28.493
The conversation will go better."

0:10:28.493,0:10:32.110
My wife and I actually moved where we sit for difficult conversations

0:10:32.110,0:10:34.930
because I was sitting above in the power position.

0:10:34.930,0:10:37.970
So move where you sit. That's adaptability.

0:10:37.970,0:10:41.324
The point is there are all these new ideas out there.

0:10:41.324,0:10:43.711
We've got to hook them up with parents.

0:10:43.711,0:10:46.138
So plank number one: Adapt all the time.

0:10:46.138,0:10:50.578
Be flexible, be open-minded, let the best ideas win.

0:10:50.578,0:10:54.674
Plank number two: Empower your children.

0:10:54.674,0:10:57.688
Our instinct as parents is to order our kids around.

0:10:57.688,0:11:00.282
It's easier, and frankly, we're usually right.

0:11:00.282,0:11:02.345
There's a reason that few systems have been more

0:11:02.345,0:11:05.397
waterfall over time than the family.

0:11:05.397,0:11:07.214
But the single biggest lesson we learned

0:11:07.214,0:11:10.101
is to reverse the waterfall as much as possible.

0:11:10.101,0:11:13.966
Enlist the children in their own upbringing.

0:11:13.966,0:11:15.854
Just yesterday, we were having our family meeting,

0:11:15.854,0:11:18.733
and we had voted to work on overreacting.

0:11:18.733,0:11:22.029
So we said, "Okay, give us a reward and give us a punishment. Okay?"

0:11:22.029,0:11:26.605
So one of my daughters threw out, you get five minutes of overreacting time all week.

0:11:26.605,0:11:28.363
So we kind of liked that.

0:11:28.363,0:11:30.002
But then her sister started working the system.

0:11:30.002,0:11:33.139
She said, "Do I get one five-minute overreaction

0:11:33.139,0:11:36.609
or can I get 10 30-second overreactions?"

0:11:36.609,0:11:38.837
I loved that. Spend the time however you want.

0:11:38.837,0:11:41.109
Now give us a punishment. Okay.

0:11:41.109,0:11:46.013
If we get 15 minutes of overreaction time, that's the limit.

0:11:46.013,0:11:49.437
Every minute above that, we have to do one pushup.

0:11:49.437,0:11:52.821
So you see, this is working. Now look, this system isn't lax.

0:11:52.821,0:11:55.549
There's plenty of parental authority going on.

0:11:55.549,0:11:58.264
But we're giving them practice becoming independent,

0:11:58.264,0:12:00.831
which of course is our ultimate goal.

0:12:00.831,0:12:03.149
Just as I was leaving to come here tonight,

0:12:03.149,0:12:04.973
one of my daughters started screaming.

0:12:04.973,0:12:07.488
The other one said, "Overreaction! Overreaction!"

0:12:07.488,0:12:10.417
and started counting, and within 10 seconds it had ended.

0:12:10.417,0:12:13.926
To me that is a certified agile miracle.

0:12:13.926,0:12:16.133
(Laughter) (Applause)

0:12:16.133,0:12:20.869
And by the way, research backs this up too.

0:12:20.869,0:12:24.445
Children who plan their own goals, set weekly schedules,

0:12:24.445,0:12:28.370
evaluate their own work build up their frontal cortex

0:12:28.370,0:12:32.597
and take more control over their lives.

0:12:32.597,0:12:35.749
The point is, we have to let our children succeed on their own terms,

0:12:35.749,0:12:38.853
and yes, on occasion, fail on their own terms.

0:12:38.853,0:12:40.601
I was talking to Warren Buffett's banker,

0:12:40.601,0:12:42.843
and he was chiding me for not letting my children

0:12:42.843,0:12:45.512
make mistakes with their allowance.

0:12:45.512,0:12:47.488
And I said, "But what if they drive into a ditch?"

0:12:47.488,0:12:49.629
He said, "It's much better to drive into a ditch

0:12:49.629,0:12:53.061
with a $6 allowance than a $60,000-a-year salary

0:12:53.061,0:12:55.733
or a $6 million inheritance."

0:12:55.733,0:12:58.213
So the bottom line is, empower your children.

0:12:58.213,0:13:02.999
Plank number three: Tell your story.

0:13:02.999,0:13:06.962
Adaptability is fine, but we also need bedrock.

0:13:06.962,0:13:08.902
Jim Collins, the author of "Good To Great,"

0:13:08.902,0:13:11.605
told me that successful human organizations of any kind

0:13:11.605,0:13:13.119
have two things in common:

0:13:13.119,0:13:16.414
they preserve the core, they stimulate progress.

0:13:16.414,0:13:18.619
So agile is great for stimulating progress,

0:13:18.619,0:13:21.901
but I kept hearing time and again, you need to preserve the core.

0:13:21.901,0:13:23.955
So how do you do that?

0:13:23.955,0:13:26.162
Collins coached us on doing something

0:13:26.162,0:13:28.949
that businesses do, which is define your mission

0:13:28.949,0:13:31.343
and identify your core values.

0:13:31.343,0:13:34.901
So he led us through the process of creating a family mission statement.

0:13:34.901,0:13:37.165
We did the family equivalent of a corporate retreat.

0:13:37.165,0:13:39.469
We had a pajama party.

0:13:39.469,0:13:43.029
I made popcorn. Actually, I burned one, so I made two.

0:13:43.029,0:13:43.901
My wife bought a flip chart.

0:13:43.901,0:13:46.518
And we had this great conversation, like, what's important to us?

0:13:46.518,0:13:48.643
What values do we most uphold?

0:13:48.643,0:13:50.399
And we ended up with 10 statements.

0:13:50.399,0:13:52.370
We are travelers, not tourists.

0:13:52.370,0:13:56.045
We don't like dilemmas. We like solutions.

0:13:56.045,0:13:59.276
Again, research shows that parents should spend less time

0:13:59.276,0:14:01.615
worrying about what they do wrong

0:14:01.615,0:14:04.772
and more time focusing on what they do right,

0:14:04.772,0:14:08.883
worry less about the bad times and build up the good times.

0:14:08.883,0:14:11.619
This family mission statement is a great way to identify

0:14:11.619,0:14:14.139
what it is that you do right.

0:14:14.139,0:14:16.429
A few weeks later, we got a call from the school.

0:14:16.429,0:14:18.417
One of our daughters had gotten into a spat.

0:14:18.417,0:14:20.773
And suddenly we were worried, like, do we have a mean girl on our hands?

0:14:20.773,0:14:22.027
And we didn't really know what to do,

0:14:22.027,0:14:23.455
so we called her into my office.

0:14:23.455,0:14:25.112
The family mission statement was on the wall,

0:14:25.112,0:14:28.223
and my wife said, "So, anything up there seem to apply?"

0:14:28.223,0:14:31.099
And she kind of looked down the list, and she said,

0:14:31.099,0:14:32.827
"Bring people together?"

0:14:32.827,0:14:36.283
Suddenly we had a way into the conversation.

0:14:36.283,0:14:37.615
Another great way to tell your story

0:14:37.615,0:14:40.910
is to tell your children where they came from.

0:14:40.910,0:14:43.611
Researchers at Emory gave children a simple

0:14:43.611,0:14:45.693
"what do you know" test.

0:14:45.693,0:14:47.771
Do you know where your grandparents were born?

0:14:47.771,0:14:50.235
Do you know where your parents went to high school?

0:14:50.235,0:14:52.020
Do you know anybody in your family

0:14:52.020,0:14:56.019
who had a difficult situation, an illness, and they overcame it?

0:14:56.019,0:14:59.589
The children who scored highest on this "do you know" scale

0:14:59.589,0:15:04.155
had the highest self-esteem and a greater sense they could control their lives.

0:15:04.155,0:15:07.411
The "do you know" test was the single biggest predictor

0:15:07.411,0:15:10.115
of emotional health and happiness.

0:15:10.115,0:15:12.291
As the author of the study told me,

0:15:12.291,0:15:16.145
children who have a sense of -- they're part of a larger narrative

0:15:16.145,0:15:19.099
have greater self-confidence.

0:15:19.099,0:15:22.075
So my final plank is, tell your story.

0:15:22.075,0:15:26.066
Spend time retelling the story of your family's positive moments

0:15:26.066,0:15:28.907
and how you overcame the negative ones.

0:15:28.907,0:15:31.363
If you give children this happy narrative,

0:15:31.363,0:15:37.074
you give them the tools to make themselves happier.

0:15:37.074,0:15:39.497
I was a teenager when I first read "Anna Karenina"

0:15:39.497,0:15:41.249
and its famous opening sentence,

0:15:41.249,0:15:43.208
"All happy families are alike.

0:15:43.208,0:15:47.299
Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

0:15:47.299,0:15:50.523
When I first read that, I thought, "That sentence is inane.

0:15:50.523,0:15:53.646
Of course all happy families aren't alike."

0:15:53.646,0:15:55.987
But as I began working on this project,

0:15:55.987,0:15:58.699
I began changing my mind.

0:15:58.699,0:16:01.251
Recent scholarship has allowed us, for the first time,

0:16:01.251,0:16:03.987
to identify the building blocks

0:16:03.987,0:16:06.963
that successful families have.

0:16:06.963,0:16:09.107
I've mentioned just three here today:

0:16:09.107,0:16:14.274
Adapt all the time, empower the children, tell your story.

0:16:14.289,0:16:18.660
Is it possible, all these years later, to say Tolstoy was right?

0:16:18.660,0:16:22.036
The answer, I believe, is yes.

0:16:22.036,0:16:24.748
When Leo Tolstoy was five years old,

0:16:24.748,0:16:26.490
his brother Nikolay came to him

0:16:26.490,0:16:29.464
and said he had engraved the secret to universal happiness

0:16:29.464,0:16:32.244
on a little green stick, which he had hidden

0:16:32.244,0:16:35.360
in a ravine on the family's estate in Russia.

0:16:35.360,0:16:39.793
If the stick were ever found, all humankind would be happy.

0:16:39.793,0:16:45.289
Tolstoy became consumed with that stick, but he never found it.

0:16:45.289,0:16:49.640
In fact, he asked to be buried in that ravine where he thought it was hidden.

0:16:49.640,0:16:54.185
He still lies there today, covered in a layer of green grass.

0:16:54.185,0:16:56.736
That story perfectly captures for me

0:16:56.736,0:16:58.944
the final lesson that I learned:

0:16:58.944,0:17:01.608
Happiness is not something we find,

0:17:01.608,0:17:04.504
it's something we make.

0:17:04.504,0:17:07.774
Almost anybody who's looked at well-run organizations

0:17:07.774,0:17:10.755
has come to pretty much the same conclusion.

0:17:10.755,0:17:13.144
Greatness is not a matter of circumstance.

0:17:13.144,0:17:16.008
It's a matter of choice.

0:17:16.008,0:17:19.472
You don't need some grand plan. You don't need a waterfall.

0:17:19.472,0:17:21.656
You just need to take small steps,

0:17:21.656,0:17:23.848
accumulate small wins,

0:17:23.848,0:17:26.672
keep reaching for that green stick.

0:17:26.672,0:17:30.321
In the end, this may be the greatest lesson of all.

0:17:30.321,0:17:34.488
What's the secret to a happy family? Try.

0:17:34.488,0:17:38.488
(Applause)