Andrew Hafenbrack was the 2023/2024 Fulbright Scholar in Management, conducting research in Business at ISCTE- University Institute of Lisbon’s Business Research Unit. Here, Andy shares how impactful his Fulbright in Lisbon was.
«I had lived in Lisbon, Portugal 2015-2019 before I came back for my grant at the Business Research Unit at ISCTE-IUL in Spring 2024.
My son was born in Lisbon but we left when he was 3 years old. He had spent his life listening to us tell stories about Portugal, but he had nearly no recollection. A highlight of this visit was watching him learn about where he came from and about himself. Playing football on the real grass of Benfica’s Estadio da Luz (Stadium of Light) will probably stay with him for the rest of his life. Nearly all the art he has created since our trip has had a Benfica Eagle in it somewhere.
There were also many positive déjà vu moments taking my two year old daughter to the same Little Gym and zoo that I spent so much time at with my son when he was two.
My son and I also went to Germany to see the first Portugal National Team game of the Euro Cup 2024 on his birthday.
We took our first family trip to Madeira as well.
I wanted to interview people about how Airbnb changed the culture of Lisbon, as well as continue mindfulness projects with my Portugal-based colleagues. I did talk to ten or so people about Airbnb, but the interest I used to feel was not there anymore. In 2018, the shift of the housing stock from long term rentals for locals to short terms rentals for foreigners, with the rental prices quadrupling in some cases, was an open wound. By the time I came back, the prices had not come down, but it seemed like most people had made it through the stages of grief about the ways that some parts of Lisbon had become Disney-fied. While I became less excited about that project, I needed to be on the ground talking to people in order to realize we may have missed the window to capture the action.
I ended up spending more time with my co-author Samantha Sim to work on our project on changing the way people think about mindfulness. The dominant approach for prescribing mindfulness is to encourage people to meditate extensively and intensively – for about 45 minutes each day, six days per week, for at least eight weeks. This mindfulness regimen is described using a “Muscle Metaphor”, likening meditation to going to the gym to strengthen a physical muscle. We propose an “Aspirin Metaphor” instead where mindfulness is used on-the-spot whenever the situation requires. Having run six studies which support our idea of this Aspirin Metaphor, we recently submitted the manuscript to a top journal. Being in Portugal not only gave me face time with Samantha, but it also gave me the distance from my normal life and routine to be creative – it helped me see that this paper which we wrestled with since 2015 would resonate more with readers if we framed it in terms of metaphors. I also published another project I had started in 2013 on how mindfulness meditation can surprisingly make people worse at negotiating, which gave me some optimism after a string of journal rejections.
The phrase that I took away from this visit was “sometimes life can be really good.” This realization came partly because of where I was mentally at the beginning of the trip after living through the pandemic, untimely deaths in the family, and the stresses of the tenure track. But it also came because Portugal is a beautiful country with beautiful and friendly people. As a mindfulness researcher, I was drawn to Portugal to live in the first place and I keep coming back because it is a place where – through great food and wine, friendships, aesthetics, a functional social safety net, low crime, welcoming public spaces, and stunning landscapes – it is easy to savor the present moment.
I thank the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Federal Government and Congress, and the Portuguese Fulbright Commission for allowing me to reconnect with this wonderful culture. I thank ISCTE-IUL for their warm welcome and generosity. I hope what I learned from Portuguese people informs my work and helps people elsewhere live happier and more meaningful lives.»