Dec. 23, 2024: One of America’s most prominent anthropologists gives us a heartfelt gift this holiday season

Monday Morning Magic from Inkandescent® PR + Publishing Co.I love celebrating the brilliance of women! As we embark on the winter holidays this week, I share with you the gifts of Dr. Helen Fisher, a friend, brilliant scholar, and down-to-earth badass who penned six internationally best-selling books on the science of romantic love, attachment, adultery, divorce, and the evolution and future of human family life. These include: “Whey We Love,” “Why Him, Why Her,” and “The First Sex.” She spent her life investigating the biological basis of personality and how to use brain science to build teams, spark innovation, lead more effectively, and “win friends and influence people” at work, in love, and in life.

Dr. Helen died peacefully at her New York City home on August 17th, 2024. She had endometrial cancer. Despite growing weak in her final weeks in hospice care, Helen completed her manuscript for a book focused on her personality research, Thinking Four Ways: How to Connect With Anyone Using Neuroscience. She submitted it five days before her death. It will be published in the US by Alfred A. Knopf and in more than a dozen foreign editions. Click here to read her obituary in the New York Times.

Read more about her amazing career in the Fall 2024 issue of BeInkandescent magazine: “Let’s talk about love.”

As Christmas trees twinkle and Hannukah candles wait to be lit, we shine our Inkandescent light on this Truly Amazing Woman. I have been writing about Helen since I met her at the World Future Society Conference in 2008. She was the keynote speaker, and I was the publicist for an international futurist think tank called Social)Technologies.

Her speech was riveting, and I knew I needed to interview her. At the time, she was writing Why Him? Why Her? — How to Find and Keep Lasting Love. When I asked if she’d be open to talking, she repeatedly said she was too swamped to take the time.

I can be persistent. Finally, in the fall of 2010, she granted me an audience. I traveled to her apartment overlooking the Frick Collection art gallery in Manhattan, and as we sat in her kitchen sipping black coffee, she shared the story of her journey. In the years following, I kept up with this truly amazing woman, watching as she spoke worldwide, and was featured in top-tier publications and TV talk shows. I was also intrigued by the evolution of her relationship with Match.com as she eventually was hired to help them answer an age-old question: why do you fall in love with one person rather than another? Based on that research, she penned the questionnaire for Chemistry.com.

If you are curious about your own anatomy of love, click here to take Dr. Helen’s love personality test.

Here’s my favorite bit of advice from her book Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love: “Commit. Listen actively to your partner. Ask questions. Give answers. Appreciate. Stay attractive. Keep growing intellectually. Include her. Give him privacy. Be honest and trustworthy. Tell your mate what you need. Accept his/her shortcomings. Mind your manners. Exercise your sense of humor. Respect him. Respect her. Compromise. Argue constructively. Never threaten to depart. Forget the past. Say no to adultery. Don’t assume the relationship will last forever; build it one day at a time. And never give up.” Godspeed, dear Dr. Helen.

Until next Monday: May your heart be full of vast joy, your home filled with dear friends and family members, and most of all, may you love yourself. — Hope Katz Gibbs, founder and president, Inkandescent.us

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