Ellen Langer – ‘Mother of Mindfulness’ on its benefits in and out of business

Mindfulness is an ancient concept with as much relevance for the modern corporate world as for ascetics sitting alone in a mountain cave, contemplating their navels. It can loosely be defined as focused, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment, and is a buzzword in top business schools across the globe. If you doubt it, ask the 'Mother of Mindfulness', as Dr Ellen Langer, the first female professor to go in tenure in the psychology department at Harvard University, is known. In this fascinating interview, Langer tells my colleague, Biznews founder, publisher and editor Alec Hogg, about the myriad anti-ageing benefits of mindfulness in and out of businesses – including more charismatic, innovative, competent, and overall healthier people. Langer also looks at mindfulness in the digital age, and exciting, ongoing research into its effects on serious chronic diseases, such as diabetes and Alzheimer's, that have not until now been the preserve of psychologists. – MS.ALEC HOGG: Dr Ellen Langer, PhD is the first female professor to go in tenure in the Psychology Department at Harvard University. She has been described as the "Mother of Mindfulness", and has written extensively on the illusion of control, mindful ageing, stress, and decision making. She's in the studio with us. Tenure is not something that people understand in South Africa, but it is quite an achievement..ELLEN LANGER: Yes, well this was in 1981, so it was quite a while ago. It means that one can pursue their research without fear of upsetting anybody because you can stay on as long you want to stay on..ALEC HOGG: You can't get fired..ELLEN LANGER: Well, there are always ways to make you want to leave, but this is not just strictly for Harvard. This is part of the university system across the States..ALEC HOGG: And a good system, also your Judges, are they in the same … when you're a Supreme Court Judge..ELLEN LANGER: For sure, yes..ALEC HOGG: A nice way to get rewarded but you're an author. You write a lot and you're in a subject that the whole world seems to be swinging towards..ELLEN LANGER: Yes..ALEC HOGG: Why do you think people are getting more interested now?.ELLEN LANGER: I've been asked that question a lot and I don't know the answer. One guess is that as the population is ageing, more people are starting to realise that you wake up now, the game is over, and you haven't lived a full life. Forget about life after death. You want to make sure there's life before death and then things just take time..What happens is, I've been writing about this (publishing papers and books) since the early 70's, so I'm also again, not sure why now, but it is now and that's the important thing. I think what my research speaks to is that virtually all of us almost all the time, are not there, we're mindless and when you're mindless, you're mindless. You don't know you're not there, so when we put people in the present, the very simple process of just noticing new things, what we do is mindfulness without meditation..Meditation is fine. It's a tool to make you mindful after you meditate. Our process is just more direct, but anyway the point is….ALEC HOGG: Be aware of what's happening around you..ELLEN LANGER: Well, we teach you how to be aware, but what I was going to say is that, when we do this, we find that we're able to make people more charismatic, more innovative, and more competent, we reduce burnout, and people are certainly healthier. In some of the earlier studies, we make people more mindful, and they live longer, and now we've attacked many diseases that people would have thought have nothing to do with ones' psychology..ALEC HOGG: Alzheimer's?.ELLEN LANGER: We're working with Alzheimer's right now. I would assume, yes, but until I have enough of the data, I don't want to say anything about that..ALEC HOGG: But you would think that it's mindfulness and….ELLEN LANGER: But we do have…yes, we have some research with ALS that nobody has been able to touch before, just correlation, so we find that those who are more mindful cope better live longer, and have fewer symptoms. We've just finished a study on diabetes. It's very exciting to me, but before I tell you about the diabetes study, let me tell you about the theory on which it's all based, which is basically, what they call the mind/body uniting, which is you take the mind, you take the body, and I want to see them just as words..We just put them back together then wherever we're putting one, we're necessarily putting the other. It explains placebos, spontaneous remissions, and a host of things. We do studies where we put the mind in unusual places and take the measurements from the body..ALEC HOGG: There's some wonderful stuff online. Just Google Ellen Langer and you'll be able to see it but this is a business channel and a business programme, and I was quite interested in the comments you've made. Not just you, but 75 being the new 55 and people working longer because retirement ages were brought in at a very different age. What kind of impact is this going to have on the young people, the youngsters coming up who don't necessarily have the opportunities they had in the past?.ELLEN LANGER: Oh, we'll have new opportunities for them. We'll have new jobs available of which people are not currently aware. You know nature abhors a vacuum, but we certainly don't want to push people out of work when they can be successful, vital members of the workforce, to make room for anybody. What we want to do is find other activities. Perhaps it will turn out that when people are young they learn something about the arts and the way of being and living in this world, so that when they join the workforce, they don't take on all the terrible things that people now, have to learn from people like us, how to get rid of. They don't become stressed..Right now people have the best that they think of doing is work/life balance, which is better than work/life imbalance but work/life balance suggests when you're at work, you're this person and when you're at home, you play, relax, you're this other person..If one follows the sorts of things that we talk about, you end up with work/life integration. You're the same person, and we can start that education to people earlier on, so that when they come to work, work is not "Oh my God, it's nine to five. I can't wait until I leave". If they become more mindful, then they are more productive and the day has a pleasure..We had thought, at one time, that if we wanted to ask people one question, and find out how mindless they are, it would be a question about how much do you need a vacation, because if you're doing it the right way….ALEC HOGG: You don't need one..ELLEN LANGER: You don't need it because, in itself, it's fun..ALEC HOGG: Like one of my heroes, Warren Buffett..ELLEN LANGER: Yes..ALEC HOGG: My hero, Warren Buffett…"Tap-dance to work", he says. "Don't work with people that churn your stomach." He goes into the office seven days a week and he's 83..ELLEN LANGER: Yeah..ALEC HOGG: He should not be the exception..ELLEN LANGER: No, I came all the way to Cape Town, from the United States. I was up at 4am to come to talk to people. If this were difficult for me, there is no money that anyone could pay me to get me to do it..ALEC HOGG: Ellen, your students as they are coming through and, as we say, you've had tenure at Harvard for many years, you see the brightest and the smartest. Are they getting brighter and smarter?.ELLEN LANGER: You know it is very hard to tell, because I may be getting brighter and smarter, so I don't know. People are always bright. I think we intend to take a developmental view of history that everybody before us, all the civilisations before us were somehow less smart and I don't know if that's true..ALEC HOGG: Well they've been connected to what you're teaching..ELLEN LANGER: Yes, exactly. That seems to be different. Rather than everybody deciding to go into economics to make a dollar or, more interested in pursuing their individual talents and, from that, our research makes very clear that if you do it your own way it will be more appreciated, so that you end up with the business success..What I'm suggesting is you can sell out and do it the way you are taught to do it, which was just somebody else's idea, nothing was given to us from the heavens, and you can do it your own way and you can succeed or you can fail. To me, the saddest of all, is selling out and failing. Most people are not going to be at the very top..ALEC HOGG: So young people are not going to be able to get the corporate jobs that would have existed in the past because the older people are sticking around, so if you're advising children and grandchildren: "Do your own thing. Start your own business.".ELLEN LANGER: Yes, I think that rather than say they're not going to get them. I'm not sure they're going to want them, but they are certainly not all going to turn out to be unproductive. "Oh, well, I wish they would retire, so I can finally go in for a 09:00-17:00 job and be stressed and unhappy, the way my parents and grandparents were." They are going to catch on to this different way of being, and in this way, and Warren Buffett can get into the office, he's not sitting bemoaning the fact he can't get into the office. He's doing something else with the same vitality, energy, and passion..ALEC HOGG: Last question, you did say a little bit earlier that they are getting it. The younger people are getting it more, but there's a complaint that comes from people a little bit older that the youngsters are always on their phones, they're distracted, they are trying to distract themselves, even when driving in this country..ELLEN LANGER: Yes, I'd probably side with the young ones on this. I think these phones are fabulously exciting, and for as long as they are, people should be on them, and if you and I were a couple, and we both loved being on our phones, there'd be no problem, so rather than have the person who wants the other person to get off the phone – that person should persuade the other person to have the same phone, an iPhone..ALEC HOGG: So when your daughter is sitting at the dinner table, and she's tweeting somebody, you let her go with it..ELLEN LANGER: Well, I'll tell you something, yes, but I think that people naturally move to that, which is more nurturing, supportive fun, so nobody is going to want to be on their phone when they can have this exciting conversation with somebody. I would say seduce….ALEC HOGG: Up your game..ELLEN LANGER: Exactly, up your game, and they will put the phone down..ALEC HOGG: Dr Ellen Langer, lovely talking with you. Thanks, for coming all the way from Harvard University for her insights here on mindfulness, living in the moment, living for now, and understanding what's going on and not allowing the whole world to act upon you. Well, we're going to find out more about Devere's flagship Investment and Strategy division just launched. We're crossing to London right after this.

Ellen Langer – ‘Mother of Mindfulness’ on its benefits in and out of business

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