Standing Up Strong with Suzie & James Pawelski

Your relationships might be the most important thing you’re not actively training.

“We should invest our relationships, like our health and well-being depends on it, because it does.” –Suzie Pileggi Pawelski

In this episode, Suzie and Dr. James Pawelski—the husband and wife who co-authored the book Happy Together—explore how thriving relationships aren’t all about finding the perfect match, but about putting in the right kind of effort to build something worth having. They talk about how loneliness has crept into our lives and about the power of character strengths to build deeper connection and grow together over time.

Along the way, they introduce the idea of a “relationship gym”—where small, intentional actions can strengthen your connection every day.

Because strong relationships don’t just happen—they’re something you practice.

Dr. Jillian Coppley is a visionary executive recognized internationally for her expertise in character strengths, wellbeing, and organizational transformation. With deep experience in positive psychology, strategy, and change, she has led large-scale collaborations, built global programs, strategic partnerships, and thriving organizational cultures that empower individuals, teams and organizations to flourish. Her leadership blends strategic vision, research-based innovation, and deep personal care for others —creating environments where people and programs thrive and where meaningful, lasting impact takes root.

Suzie Pileggi Pawelski has a Master of Applied Positive Psychology degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a freelance writer, well-being consultant, and international speaker specializing in the science of happiness and its effects on relationships and health. Her 2010 Scientific American Mind cover story, “The Happy Couple,” was the catalyst for Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts. Happy Together was named a best book of 2018 by Business Insider, Success magazine, Fatherly and The Greater Good Science Center. Suzie pens a popular blog for Psychology Today and writes the “Science of Well-being” column for Live Happy, where she is also a contributing editor. Her writing and work has been featured in numerous top-tier media including Time magazine, Inc. magazine, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the(London) Times. She gives “Romance and Research” (TM) workshops around the world with her husband James.

James Pawelski is Professor of Practice and Director of Education in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania where he co-founded the Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program with Martin Seligman in 2005. The Founding Executive Director of IPPA, he is currently leading a three-year, multi-million-dollar grant investigating connections between the science of well-being and the arts and humanities. In collaboration with Penn’s Campaign for Wellness, he recently launched a new interdisciplinary undergraduate course called “The Pursuit of Happiness” to help teach students how to increase their well-being. An award-winning teacher and international keynote speaker, who regularly makes presentations in Spanish as well as English, he has given talks in more than 20 countries on 6 continents, including “Romance and Research” (TM) workshops with his wife Suzie.

This series is part of the Cynthia & Harold Guttman Family Center for Storytelling at the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the science of character strengths is integral to our work creating a community of upstanders.

https://www.holocaustandhumanity.org/

https://www.youtube.com/@holocaustandhumanity

Our thanks to the Mayerson Family Foundation and the VIA Institute on Character for their support of this series

https://www.mayersonfoundation.org/

https://www.viacharacter.org