Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing: Part 2 of 4

“Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing,” that’s the subject of today’s ACTEC Trust and Estate Talk.

Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing is a four-part special:

• Part 1:  Overview
• Part 2: (This podcast)
• Part 3
• Part 4

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Transcript/Show Notes

This is Susan Snyder, ACTEC Fellow from Chicago.

Welcome to Part 1 of our special series featuring ACTEC Fellow and Past President Steve Akers of Dallas, Texas. As President of ACTEC during the 2025 Annual Meeting, it was my honor to select Steve to present the 2025 Joseph Trachtman Memorial Lecture. Today Steve discusses the intersection of positive psychology and estate planning and the first three of thirteen key concepts. Please enjoy Part 1.

Welcome to the 2025 Joseph Trachtman Memorial Lecture. Before this lecture was renamed for former President Trachtman, it was called the Learned Lecture, which is appropriate today as I have always learned something new when I hear from this year’s speaker. As ACTEC President, I had the privilege of selecting our speaker this year, Stephen R. Akers, Past President of ACTEC. Currently Steve is Managing Director and Senior Fiduciary Counsel at Bessemer Trust. In this role, Steve serves as Chair of the firm’s Estate Planning Committee and works closely with clients in the Southwest region regarding their estate and trust planning issues.

He joined Bessemer in 2021 after a distinguished career in private practice. In addition to serving as president, Steve has served in many leadership roles in ACTEC and The Foundation. Steve is also a member of the advisory committee to the Heckerling Institute, where he’s a frequent speaker. He has previously served as chair of the ABA section of Real Property Trust and Estate (RPTE) law and is chair of the State Bar of Texas, Real Estate Probate and Trust law section.

So, Fellows and distinguished guests, please welcome Steve as he explores the science of well-being in his lecture, “Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing”.

Steve Akers:  Thank you, Susan.

I want to confess I’m out of my comfort zone speaking to this group. When I talk to this group, it’s about nerdy tax subjects. This is very different, this is going to be very different from any other Trachtman Lecture that you’ve heard.

New math. Counting Down, Counting Up. Whether you’re an old geezer blessed with white hair like me, or whether you like I was in 1988 at my first ACTEC meeting as a 35-year-old Fellow– we are all counting down. But not to be morose, we want to be counting up, make the most of every day that we have — to have happy, meaningful, fulfilling lives. Doing this is certainly not new. We’ve catch words for the decade. This is it. This is not a scholarly topic, this is not an erudite topic. But I remember Dr. Santos’ Symposium back in 2020, one of the most popular symposia that we’ve had about happiness. And we read in the World Happiness Report that’s done every year; last year, 2024, for the first year, the United States fell out of the top 20 of the happiest countries in the world.

A confession to make, as I do this, bear with me, this is a personal quest, as well, for counting up. And believe me, I’m not preaching to you. I’m having a serious chat with myself.

Overview. Let’s talk about some scientific backdrop to what we’re doing and then making the most for ourselves personally, for our clients’ legacies, and for our professional practices.

Part 1: Science Background

I want to emphasize, this is not just feel-good stuff. There is a lot of science behind this as well. Let’s look at a brief history, some studies, and some key concepts.

Brief history.

These topics of wellness go back to ancient times of the Greek philosophers. The Christian tradition speaks of living an abundant life, certainly for many, many years going back.

Moving forward to 1998, Martin Seligman, sometimes called Marty Seligman, was elected as president of the American Psychological Association. As he took the podium, a hush fell over the audience. A rumor had gone out that something big was going to happen. He announced a Manhattan Project for Social Sciences. Up to that point, psychology had emphasized focusing on alleviating philosophical problems, not helping healthy people lead richer lives. He called this the field of “positive psychology,” and hence, the field of positive psychology was born. And it has become a big field of psychology now.

The concept caught on, there were various programs at Harvard, University of Pennsylvania. Back in 2022, Seligman published his book, he called it Happiness. He wanted to call it Positive Psychology, and the publisher told him no one would ever buy that book, something else. Well, we move forward.

The various programs, Time Magazine article, university programs, the Harvard Business Review, really becoming mainstream. In 2011, Martin Seligman published his book Flourish, which received a lot of attention. A lot of the concepts that will come in this presentation come from that book, and thank you to Richard Franklin for sending me a copy of that book some years ago.

Moving forward since then, there have been university courses taught in this subject. Thousands of scholarly articles in the wellness area has become very mainstream. That’s a brief history.

Studies.

Looking at several studies — again, this is mainstream. The Army, back in 2008, approached Seligman if he would assist the Army in developing a program for soldiers to build their resiliency and mental wellness. That was initially planned as a limited rollout, but due to wartime urgencies it was rolled out to the entire Army, and it has continued since that time. The Army continues to use that, and it’s been expanded.

A second study, a Harvard study, beginning back in 1938, 87 years ago now. A study began looking at two groups of men, one was a group of 268 sophomores at Harvard University and the other was a group of 456 children from some of the poorest neighborhoods of Boston. These groups, they were all interviewed, they were given medical tests. Two years later, there were further interviews. Periodically, there would be extensive interviews, more medical tests would come along. Some of them became very successful; one became a President, others became derelicts. The study has continued to the present time and there have been over 2,000 participants in this program.

Can you think of the president who was a sophomore in Harvard in 1938 that became President? And there’s young John Kennedy at his desk in sport coat and tie, no less. I don’t know how much time John Kennedy spent studying at his desk, but it made a good picture.

The point of the study was not to determine what goes wrong in people’s lives, but what goes right. What leads to things going well? Well, the study continued over the years it got to the point that by the age of 50, they could predict with pretty good certainty who would become healthy octogenarians. It wasn’t medical tests — it wasn’t EKGs, it wasn’t blood tests, cholesterol tests — it was social relationships. Social relationships were the key. And a strong correlation to diminished risk of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, even cognitive decline.

Third study, neurological studies of dealing with the brain and negative bias. Within the brain neurologically, it’s been proven that negative events require more brain processing and therefore receive greater attention and greater memory. Hence, negative effects have a lasting, more lasting impression on us. Neurological reasons that that occurs, the negative bias. Well, that’s some brief studies.

Key concepts.

What are the key concepts now, the concepts of positive psychology? Perhaps the most well-known kind of protocol in the well-being world of positive psychology is Seligman’s PERMA approach. P-E-R-M-A.

• P = Positive emotions.
• E = Engagement — active engagement in activities. I’m calling this “flow.” More about that later.
• R = Relationships. Supportive. We’ve talked about relationships for the Harvard study.
• M = Meaning crucial for long-term fulfillment.
• A = Accomplishment.

Some people have added an H, Health, to the end of that. PERMAH, with an H.

Some concepts going with those.

The concept of “flow,” it is called in the positive psychology world. That is the sense of being fully absorbed in some activity to the point of losing track of time. Leading to enhanced productivity and more creativity as well. The concept of flow, very important.

The strengths-based approach. Positive psychology is not about fixing problems, it’s much more about building on the strengths of an individual. Seligman developed his Values in Action signature strengths program where he identifies twenty-four signature strengths classified into six different categories of virtues. They underpin all of those five elements of P-E-R-M-A.

More key concepts.

Resilience – being able to cope with challenges.

Mindfulness – being present in the moment.

Happiness – a lot of the non-scholarly as well as scholarly work in this area has used the term “happiness,” that is not in the sense of giddiness, but more broader meaning than that. Albert C. Brooks, who writes and speaks a lot about “happiness,” refers to the macronutrients of happiness being enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. He draws a distinction with enjoyment, that is not just pleasure. And he uses the example at a Thanksgiving dinner meal: pleasure is eating delicious food and it is filling in your belly; enjoyment is doing it with loved ones, building warm memories. He says don’t settle for pleasure. It’s easier, but that’s fleeting.

The last of the key concepts – longevity. Here we get to the counting up part – really helps with the counting down part as well. A number of studies show that these wellness and these concepts really have an impact on length of life as well; really have an impact on reducing various types of illnesses.

Several good books about aging. Thank you, Fellow Sandra Perkins, a voracious reader, for telling me about some really good books. All emphasize the importance of social relationships in aging well. The Brain Rules for Aging Well book. Interesting, he suggests that don’t retire; he says that retiring is very successful. Well, enough of the science stuff.

Part 2: What Do We Do to Count Up, to Flourish Personally?

Flourish, having meaningful lives, fulfilling lives. I heard this morning at a meeting, Dr. Howard Thurman put it, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, because this world needs people to come alive.” That’s a great way to describe flourishing. What are some things that we can do?

Some granular things. Well, we remember Dr. Santos. She had her top ten list of wellness. She gave us those from the backdrop, the scientific backdrop of positive psychology, as well as learned behaviors, that was her expertise.

Let me talk about some particular — drilling down on some granular things, and I want to start with some items directly related to the P.E.R.M.A. concepts. And we’ll go through a number of these specifics.

# 1 — Social Connections

That Harvard Study. This seems to be really a big one in all of the various studies. Dr. Rowe at Columbia University said that he tells his medical students in dealing with elderly patients, one of the best indicators of how well an elderly patient will be doing in the next six months is to ask: how many family or friends have they seen in the last week. Social connection is very important.

What kind of relationships will bring us this advantage? Dr. Robert Waldinger, who now is the director of that 87-year-old Harvard study, said that it’s the type of relationships that you could really depend upon in a time of need. It’s the type of relationship, not necessarily that it goes smooth all the time, but you can be authentic with the person, feel that you can really rely on the person in a time of need. He points out that even casual connections can be of help, really making connection with the person at the checkout stand in the store. For introverts, it could be as little as one or two relationships may be enough.

Dr. Waldinger kind of wraps it up that for him, kind of the best type of relationship would be “being engaged in activities I care about with people I care about.” That’s kind of the ultimate of the types of relationships.

The antithesis of this — just the opposite — a book I’m reading now about Janusz Korczak, who was back in Nazi Poland, saved hundreds of orphans in Nazi Poland. I’m reading a historical fiction about it, in this historical fiction, he asks some of the orphans, “What makes you happy?” One of the orphans gave him this response, “I think being happy being around people who love you. I’m not happy because I don’t matter to anyone and nobody else matters to me.” Wow, that would just be the pits.

# 2 — Choose Positivity; Choose Joy

To a better topic from that, choosing joy. Don’t be an “Eeyore”, don’t be a “Debbie Downer.” This is outside my mother-in-law’s room in her memory care unit. “We can choose joy.” After all, it’s called the field of positive psychology. It’s not a fake happiness, but an authentic, optimistic rather than a pessimistic view to life.

Fiction books, again, give us really good insight, even in very traumatic events of things that one can do to bring back and feel some joy in life.

A values exercise – Bessemer sometimes will do this with families, start off with cards of what are your values and have people list their main values. An ACTEC Fellow went through one of these programs and said it was a real epiphany event. “The word joy was nowhere in my values pyramid, never dawned on me. That seeking joy was an appropriate goal. As a person who is obsessively productive,” (I think we can all relate to that) “I never allowed myself to prioritize joy. Seeing how it ranked highly with others in the group was a big wake-up call.”

# 3 — Health

Taking care of our bodies. That’s the H that’s been added to PERMA. First, diet. The brain is only 2% of the body’s weight, but consumes not 2%, but 20% of the energy from the food that we eat. We need to give nutrients to our brains.

Exercise. Some studies that cardio in the morning can boost the mood for up to 24 hours. I heard this week some reports that resistance training can lead to much better results of reduction of cognitive decline. Reports that hearing in older people, older people with hearing problems that don’t get them corrected, significantly increased chance of cognitive decline.

Another health item, wonder pill. You know, imagine seeing this ad. “Amazing breakthrough. Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory, makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim, lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes. You’ll even feel happier, less depressed, less anxious. Are you interested?”

Well, we discard that. If it were true, you know, big pharma would be drooling over that. The billions of dollars they can make off that drug. The wonder pill is “sleep.” It’s sleep. Dr. Matthew Walker, who wrote that and based on the research that has been shown about sleep, said that he believes diet, exercise, and sleep are all important to good health, but he is convinced the most important of those is sleep.

Neurologically, what’s going on with sleep? Back in 2012, Dr. Meiken Nedergaard, a Danish biologist with her colleagues in 2012, discovered that 20% of the brain’s volume is fluid that runs through the living cells in the brain, washing out the waste. A year later, in 2013, they discovered that that fluid flow is much more active during sleep. When they put fluorescent tracers into the brains of mice, the fluid flow during sleep was much, much greater to the point that the fluid flow in active being awake was 5% of the fluid flow during sleep. In effect, sleep is just a nightly shower for our brain, washing away waste.

In 2012, they discovered that the fluid washes away waste. They called it, it’s like the lymphatic system for the rest of the body. They called it the glymphatic system for the brain. The brains produce amyloids during the day — these are proteins linked to dementia — these can be washed away at night. The longer that we’re awake, the more these can build up, and then the less time with no sleep that there is to wash those away. So, it’s not just that we feel better rested, neurologically, there are important things going on with sleep.

Susan Snyder: This concludes Part One of our special series on the 2025 Joseph Trachman Memorial Lecture series: Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing. Please join us for the next episode where Steve shares his remaining key concepts.

 

 

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