This episode explores the science and practice of achieving genuine happiness, distinguishing it from fleeting feelings and offering actionable strategies based on the "macronutrients" of enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose.
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive
Welcome to the drive. Today's episode is
a special best of with Arthur Brooks,
Harvard professor, social scientist,
columnist at The Atlantic, and
best-selling author. I've sat down with
Arthur twice in the past few years to
talk about how to build a life that's
both successful and deeply happy. We
pulled the best moments from these two
conversations into one focused episode
built around four themes. Happiness,
what hijacks it, the tools and practices
that help, and the courage to live and
love well, highlighting the most
insightful and actionable takeaway steps
from previous episodes. I'm really
excited about this one because I've
actually recently gone back and started
rereading one of Arthur's books. And
I've come to realize in rereading it
that in just a span of a year and a half
or two years, it's so easy to forget
some of the nuance. And while I rarely
have the time to go back and listen to
old podcasts, I love having a mashup
like this that actually brings some of
the most important aspects from several
podcasts into one. So without further
delay, please enjoy this best of Brooks
Arthur, thanks for making the trip to
Austin. Although maybe it's only
partially to see me.
>> It's mostly to see you, Peter. I love
seeing you. It's the best. Doing this in
person is great. Last time we did it by
Zoom. This is better.
>> Congrats on the book. >> Thanks.
>> Thanks.
>> This is not your first, second, or third
rodeo, but I'm sure each time it's a
little bit of a what's the world going
to think?
>> Oh, yeah. No, no, it's like having a
child. I mean well a child you live with
for a super long time and they torture
you decade after decade but a book is
something where as you bring it into the
world you go through you remember
Elizabeth Kubler Ross the Swiss
psychiatrist wrote that famous book
about death and dying death and dying
>> and you have to go through five stages I
mean most of that research has been
questioned since then but it's pretty
interesting you go through bargaining
and denial and rage that's like as you
know when a book is coming out writing a
book denial and bargaining and rage
finally there's acceptance
but you're still nervous for Yeah,
there's a lot of stuff I want to talk
about with you on this topic, but let's
begin with a question, which is what's
the difference between happiness, which
is what you write about, and happy
feelings. Are they the same thing?
They're not. And this is a really
important misconception all of my
students and most of us actually have.
We live in the era of feelings. If you'd
talk to my parents or god knows my
grandparents about feelings, they would
scratch their head. What are you talking
about? I mean, talking about your
emotions all the time, ephemerra,
feelings seem so counterproductive. And
in point of fact, our grandparents were
right. Feelings are not happiness any
more than the smell of the turkey is
your Thanksgiving dinner. Feelings are
evidence of happiness. And that's
incredibly good news. I mean, a lot of
people think that happiness is a
feeling. It's quite incorrect. There are
many better technical definitions of
happiness, but they produce a lot of
feelings. are associated with a lot of
emotions, which is lybic system
activity. A part of the brain, a 40
million-year evolutionary process that
developed the lyic system to create
emotions. That's signals, information is
what it comes from. If you mistake these
feelings for the underlying phenomenon
of happiness, you're going to be chasing
it all over the place. You'll be chasing
ghosts. How I slept last night, what I
ate for breakfast, if my spouse yelled
at me this morning, that's what's going
to determine my happiness. you wind up
being managed as opposed to having any
prayer of managing your own happiness.
So that's the first thing to keep in
mind. It's not feelings.
>> It's hard to differentiate though having
read this stuff several times. You have
to remind yourself when you're in the
throws of what I just referred to as
negatively veanced feelings that this is
not a statement of my overall state of happiness.
happiness.
>> Yeah, for sure.
>> And then what's the relationship between
unhappiness and happiness? Are they
polar images?
>> How do they coexist? Well, for the
longest time, if you even go back to the
ancient philosophers, there was the idea
that happiness and unhappiness exist on
a spectrum. So unhappiness would be the
lack of happiness. We know a lot better
now given the explosion of neuroscience
and the way that emotions are produced
that in fact you can be happy and
unhappy or have happy and unhappy
feelings in parallel. So for example,
the average person spends about 40% of
their time with predominantly positive
feelings. It sits in a neutral idol of
positivity. Most people do, not
everybody. About 16 or 17% of the time,
the average person has predominantly
negative feelings. Something is going on
that's more intense. And part of the
reason is because negative emotions get
your attention and they're supposed to.
Evolution favors negative emotions.
Positive emotions nice to have. Negative
emotions pay attention because that
could cost you your life.
>> What are some of those? If you think
about this evolutionarily and not even
going back to millions of years ago, but
just going back hundreds of thousands of
years ago to the origin of our species
as homo sapiens,
>> what do we think are some of the most
powerful negative emotions that would
drive action? There's basically six
fundamental emotions or basic emotions.
These are the building blocks of all
emotional life that are produced by the
lyic system of the brain. Four negative
and two positive. The four negative
emotions are sadness, anger, fear, and
disgust. All four of those have a very
strong evolutionary basis. Fear and
anger, of course, have to do with
threat. They involve the amydala of the
brain. You know, when a car is about to
run you over and you're a pedestrian in
a crosswalk, that crosses your visual
cortex and is recorded in the occipital
lobe of your brain as an enormous
predator, that signals to your amygdala
to send the signal through the
hypothalamus of your brain to your
pituitary glands, which signals your
adrenal glands above your kidneys to
spit out stress hormones. That happens
in 74 milliseconds. By that time, you're
sweating, your heart is pumping, you've
jumped out of the way, and you've
flipped off the driver. A combination of
fear and anger in response to the
enormous predator. 3 seconds later, your
prefrontal cortex catches up and you
say, "I shouldn't have flipped him off.
That's not my values." Or whatever it
happens to be. So, that's your lyic
system keeping you alive. That's fear
and anger. Then, of course, there's
disgust, which involves the insular
cortex of the brain, also part of the
lyic system. That's when you pull
something out of the back of your fridge
you forgot about a few weeks ago and you
hold it and you're like that signals
don't eat it. And so anything that might
carry a pathogen signals that basic
negative emotion of disgust to you. Now
it can be misattributed to people and
that's what demagogic politicians always
do. That's what the media does to us. It
tries to reprogram the insular cortex,
the insula of the lyic system of the
brain so that when somebody disagrees
with you politically, you look at them
like a cockroach. That's what demagogic
leaders and dictators have done for time
of memorial so that people will
undertake barbaric acts against people
in their own countries, leis civil war,
etc. And then last but not least is
sadness. Sadness has also evolved.
Sadness is what you feel largely in the
dorsal anterior singulate cortex of the
brain, another part of the lyic system.
That's mental pain usually when you're
either socially excluded or you're
separated from a loved one. Now, that's
something that's evolved because you
don't want to be separated from your
tribe. You don't want to walk the frozen
tundra and die alone. But what happens,
for example, in grief, grief is
unreiated sadness. And the reason is
because your brain is saying, "Make this
separation go away." and you can't
because the other person is permanently
gone aka dead or divorced or whatever it
happens to be. And so the grief is just
this pulsating
activity in the dorsal anterior
singulate cortex of the brain saying I
must be reunited with that person but I
can't be and it takes a lot of time in
many cases for the dorsal interior
singular cortex to stop registering that
sadness that pain. The sadness we feel
when a person dies, which would be the
ultimate form of separation, right?
>> Is a more extreme version of say a
social isolation that you might feel
like what a kid feels if they go to sit
at the cafeteria table and all the other
kids get up and walk away.
>> Yeah. And there's interesting studies
that actually look at how that registers
in the brain. So the brain is so thrifty
as we all know. The neuroscience of this
is super interesting. So when you stub
your toe, there's actually two processes
going. There's sensory pain and
affective pain. Sensory pain means you
can feel it in the nerve endings and
it's very unpleasant. A effective pain
is I hate this and you feel both in
physical pain. The affective component
involves the same part of the brain the
dorsal anterior singular cortex when you
have something that emotionally bothers
you when you're being excluded. We know
that because there's these interesting
studies in an fMRI machine. They're
looking at the part of the brain that's
illuminated. They're being subjected to
being rejected by somebody else and they
can see the part of the brain that's
actually illuminated. I guess there is a
way to do it, but is there a benefit to
the reverse? I love going into cold
plunges, so I do it almost every day,
and it's insanely uncomfortable. There's
not a day that I step into that 42°
ice bath with jets shooting water around
me that I'm like, "This doesn't hurt."
But it doesn't come with the I hate this
because I'm choosing to do it and I
think there's value in it. Does the
brain treat that differently? How would
we think of that as an emotion? What it
is is a controlled aversive emotion
under your own power. And so, for
example, if you go to a haunted house on Halloween
Halloween
>> and get scared
>> and get scared, you're controlling the
fear. If you're on a really radical
amusement park ride, it's the same sort
of thing. And what you're doing is
you're subjecting yourself to a little
bit of the stress hormones and the
experience of the aversive emotion, but
since it's under your own control, you
actually use it in a way that you enjoy.
And so, people who do extreme sports,
this is the same kind of thing they do.
They like to feel a little bit in
danger. or one of my kids is somebody
who likes this. He really likes this a
lot. He likes to expose himself to
things that actually hurt as long as
he's under control.
>> Any evidence that other species do this? >> No.
>> No.
>> This is a uniquely human phenomenon.
>> Yeah. For example, there's also no
evidence that you can train any other
species to appreciate spicy food to
ingest capsain. No other species can be
trained to like the feeling of spicy
food that hurts your mouth. Only humans
can do that. And so this is a really
higher order phenomenon where we have
aversive emotions. Other animals have
aversive emotions but we actually can
dominate them through a process called
metaccognition where we experience the
emotions not just in the lyic system of
the brain but in the prefrontal cortex.
This is where it really gets
interesting. This is the human
difference is where this comes around.
So the dog wants the cookie eats the
cookie. Dogs are limbic creatures.
Little kids are limbic. when your kids
were little or when my kids were little
and be screaming over something as a
piece of rice on their chair, whatever
thing that bums them out. You're like,
use your words. What you're telling them
to do is to experience the emotion in
the prefrontal cortex of the brain where
they can decide how to react. They can
think about what their own emotions are.
And when you're doing that, then you can
get in the cold plunge and say, "It
hurts so good." And that's what
metacognition brings to you. And also,
you can say something like, "I'm really
sad about this. What am I learning?"
That's how you can be a far more evolved
human being by becoming more and more
metacognitive using the techniques for
doing so which is a lot about what I'm
writing about these days.
>> Okay. So what about the two positive?
>> The two positive and this is actually
pretty much all the neuroscientists
agree on the four negative. Not all the
neuroscientists agree on the two
positive. Some people believe that
surprise is a positive basic emotion.
And so there's a lot of different
schools of this, but two that pretty
much everybody agrees on are joy and
interest. Now, this is useful for us to
think about. Joy is obvious. It's
ordinarily when you're reunited with
somebody that you love or something good
happens pursuant to struggle. The joy
you get after you work really hard for
something and you get it. That's a basic
positive emotion and that's a reward
evolved reward. So, that you work hard
to find some berries on a bush and you
get your caloric needs met for the day.
You want to make sure that you get an
emotional reward for that. And that's
actually stimulating a part of the brain
called a vententral stratum which is
your reward system. And boom, that feels
good. Want to do it again. Do it again.
Do it again. Interest is different.
Interest is you get intense pleasure. If
people are listening to the drive, which
I do, why? Because I learn something
from it. Why do I care? I mean, it's not
like it's going to dramatically change
my salary trajectory or my professional
success if I listen or don't listen to
your show. I want to learn because
learning is intensely pleasurable.
That's really a fascinating phenomenon
because that's how people evolve and
make progress. And it makes sense that
that would be an evolutionary
phenomenon. We would favor learning so
that people can get ahead and feed
themselves and find new sources of food
and find new mates and all the things
that they do. And the way that that's
adapted to the current environment is
they listen to your show.
>> So it seems to me that both of those
could be found in creatures other than
us. Certainly joy. I guess learning
would be a testable hypothesis
presumably with a maze or something like
that. whether the learning is positively
veilanced. You can teach a worm to
learn. A worm will learn. You can teach
a worm things. We just don't know
whether it's a positively veilanced
experience because they don't have the
kind of brain that will give you
emotions as we understand them.
>> I wonder if optogenetics would provide
insight into that one day when you could
get sort of cellular level resolution of
different parts of the brain. I don't
know if you're familiar with Carl
Deseroth's work.
>> Yeah, for sure. You've had him on.
>> I have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Psychiatrist.
>> Yeah. That would be an interesting line
of inquiry, I suppose.
>> Yeah, for sure. And we know that dogs,
for example, have rudimentary emotions.
They can mimic human emotions really,
really well. But it's almost certainly
limbic phenomena that look metacognitive
more than anything else. And one of the
things that we do is we selectively
breed dogs so that their emotional state
more clearly mimics our own. We like
that. They make better companions. They
do something you're not supposed to do.
And they look guilty. They don't feel
guilty. That's certainly an illusion.
We have a new puppy. I can really relate
to this.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And there are certain ways
that they are quite similar to us. For
example, they have there's a lot of
research that suggests that they have
serotonin balance issues. And if you
give a dog a selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitor, it will actually
have some of the same effects it can
have on people. You can give your dog
Prozac and your dog will be less
depressed or at least have fewer
depressive symptoms in some cases.
>> So, there are ways that they are similar
to us for sure. Let's define happiness.
I don't think I understand what it
really is. And given that it's your
business effectively, it's what you
teach. It's what you write about. It's
the thing you think about as much as I
think about the longevity component of
biology. I'm sure you get asked this
question all the time, and I'm sure
you've got a 30 second answer, and I'm
sure you've got a three-hour answer.
Take it in any direction you like.
>> I've got a semester long answer, which
is the class I teach at the Harvard
Business School, which is what is it,
and how do you get it? The reason for
that is that by the time my students
reach me, my graduate students at
Harvard reach me, a lot of them are
realizing that the world's promises are
empty that you know the money, power,
pleasure, and fame that are supposed to
bring you undying happiness are false
promises. They're a bill of goods. They
can be instrumental to getting what you
want, but they can't intrinsically give
you the satisfaction that you desire.
So, I start in the first day of class. I
say, "Okay, guys, I mean, you spent all
your elective points getting into the
class." because they have a competitive
system to get these electives and the
class fills in like 9 seconds. It's
happiness after all who free candy kids
and there's hundreds of people on the
waiting list for this class. I say,
"Okay, you made a commitment to getting
this class. You must know what happiness
is." As I go around, I cold call them.
What's happiness? They'll say, "It's
that feeling I get on Thanksgiving and
you know, yada yada yada. Feelings.
Feelings." I'm wrong. Happiness is not a
feeling any more than your Thanksgiving
dinner is the smell of the turkey. The
feeling of happiness is evidence of
happiness. Now, we measure happiness in
all sorts of very complicated and very
simple ways. And one of the things that
we know is that all of the people who
are really happy, who have a lot of
happy feelings, but also have a lot of
satisfaction, contentment with their
lives, they're getting abundance and
balance across three dimensions. And so
this is the definition of happiness.
Now, think about this like if I were to
say, "Hey, Peter, what is the
Thanksgiving dinner?" You'd say, "Well,
it's carbohydrates, proteins, and fat."
You know, you'd say there's the three
macronutrients of all food. And you
know, we're always trying to get our
macros in order. Forget lifespan. Let's
talk about health span. And I say, let's
take it even farther to happiness span.
So, let's get our literal macronutrients
in order for health span. Let's get our
happiness span in order with the
macronutrients of happiness. They are
enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose.
Those are the three macronutrients of
happiness. If you don't have those
things in balance and abundance, you
will not report being a happy person.
Now, this is different than unhappiness,
which is another entire subject. Believe
it or not, happiness and unhappiness are
not opposites. They're different
phenomena. So, we're just talking about
happiness here. To be a truly happy
person, you need to enjoy your life. And
that requires not pleasure. It's
pleasure plus elevation. It's pleasure
plus metacognition. You know,
Thanksgiving dinner fills your belly and
tastes good. That's pleasure. But the
experience that you have of consuming
the Thanksgiving dinner with other
people and having a memory that you can
last forever, that's enjoyment. And so
it's a much more elevated experience
than pleasure. Satisfaction, which is
super fleeting and troublesome. And you
know, as MC Jagger saying, I can't get
no satisfaction. The truth is, you can't
keep no satisfaction. There's an entire
research literature on that that I've
participated in on the problem with
satisfaction, but it's the joy and
reward for a job well done and a goal
met. you know that elation from actually
meeting a goal. And last but not least
is purpose is meaning in life. I talk an
awful lot about the coherence, the
significance, the direction, the meaning
of meaning. And it gets back to a lot of
the great philosophy, but we can also
measure it. I have a few diagnostic
questions that I ask for the clients who
come to me and they lack purpose in
their life. You know, the questions I
ask are why were you born and for what
are you willing to die? And if you can't
answer one or both of those questions,
you have a serious meaning problem. we
got to dig in actually to solve that
particular problem. But that's it. I
mean these are the three macronutrients
either the protein, carbohydrates and
fat of happiness or enjoyment,
satisfaction and purpose.
>> Okay. So let's now talk about these
three components of happiness. You wrote
about this in strength to strength. But
let's go over them again and talk about
what each one means.
>> Happiness is not a feeling. We've
established that feelings are evidence
of happiness. When we look at the
happiest people and the way that we do
that typically there's some indirect
ways to figure that out. You know, I
could ask your wife, "How happy is
Peter?" And you're not there, and I
would get some really probably very
accurate information. There's some
tests, they're not very good, but I
could ask you a series of targeted
questions when you're under fMRI.
But the really the best way to do it,
the most cost effective and efficient
way to do that is for you to anonymously
answer a bunch of questions that are
sort of like this. Imagine all the
people you know were the happiest person
you've ever met, I mean, really happy,
is 10. and the most miserable sob you've
ever met is a one. All things considered
at this period of your life, not this
moment, this period of your life, all
things considered, thinking of those
people, what's your number? That turns
out to be incredibly accurate. You got
to have a large sample because some
people answer it in a wonky way. And it
has to be anonymous because if you
answer this in front of Jill, you'll
probably lie. They don't tell the truth
in front of their spouses necessarily in
front of their friends because they give
answers that people want to hear. But if
it's really honest and you're by
yourself, I'll get extremely effective
data from that. Based on these data, you
find that the happiest people, they have
three macronutrients in balance and abundance.
abundance.
>> By the way, before we get to those, are
those responses normally distributed?
>> Yeah, they are normally distributed, but
the mean is not five. Yeah, the mean is
more like seven and a half. So, there's
a bias toward the top part of the scale.
The reason for the skew is because you
feel like it would be better if it were
a five. If it were a five, it would be
saying that a three is within one
standard deviation. There's nothing
wrong with being a three. Nobody wants
to be a three. Numbers have cultural
veilance, right? They really do. And so
people will kind of uh yeah, it's like,
you know, being normal, happy, that's
like seven, eight. And what you find is
that most people over the course of
their adult lives, early 20s to early
50s, they're between seven and nine.
Most people are from seven to nine. Most
of the people that I talk to that I work
with, especially the executives that I
work with one-on-one who are threes,
they're depressed. They're actually
suffering from clinical issues. They're
behind the line of scrimmage. There's
nobody who's like, "Yeah, I'm pretty
normal. I'm like, you know, probably the
40th percentile. That probably makes me
a three and a half. 40th percentile is
probably a five is the way that that
works." They would like to be better and
they feel like they're not as good as
they should be despite the fact that in
the scale that looks like the middle of
the scale. It's not the middle of the
scale. So what do you find the people
who are in the upper end the eights and
nines and like my wife nine and a half I
don't get it but there you go they tend
to be really healthy and healthy means
they have balance and abundance across
what I often refer to as the happiness
is macronutrients it's very easy in your
audience because everybody knows protein
carbohydrates and fat and the best diets
are those that have all of them in
balance and abundance and you have to
get your macros and you're not going to
have 100% % protein. That sounds good
for somebody for a week until they
become miserable. So the three
macronutrients are enjoyment,
satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the
three macronutrients of happiness. And
none of those, by the way, is
straightforward. Any more than protein,
carbohydrates, and fat is
straightforward. It's like, I I'll be
fine. I'm going to eat a chicken and a
stick of butter and a ho, and then I'm
going to eat that exclusively for the
rest of my life, and it meets my macros,
so I should be fine. No, no, no. It
doesn't work that way. You actually have
to understand that. Understand what each
one of those things are. enjoyment,
satisfaction, and meaning. And you have
to have strategies to understand why
they're so hard to attain and what you
need to do, exercises to make sure that
you can be better and more skillful at
attaining each one.
>> So, let's start with enjoyment.
>> Enjoyment seems sort of straightforward.
I want to enjoy my life, get a lot of
pleasure. That's wrong. Pleasure is
limbic. Enjoyment involves the
prefrontal cortex. Enjoyment is a much
more complex phenomenon than pleasure.
Pleasure is a signal from the lyic
system that says this thing that you're
doing will help you survive usually
through caloric needs or pass on your
genes through something like sex. So
that's what pleasure is really all
about. It's nothing more. It's just like
any positive emotion. It sends a signal
saying do more of this. That's not the
secret to happiness. That's incredibly
eancent. It's extremely temporary. And
if you pursue pleasure, what you'll be
doing is you'll be engaging systems in
your brain. The dopamine system for
example, which is the anticipation of
reward. The reward being pleasure.
You'll hit the lever, get the cookie.
Hit the lever, get the cookie. It will
never last and you'll become an addict.
Pleasure seeeking. I mean, the hippie
phenomenon, the hippie motto of it feels
good, do it, is lifuining advice. It's
just the dumbest thing ever. If it feels
good, do it. You'd never go into the ice
bath. I mean, you wouldn't stay married
if it feels good. Do it all the time.
It's just terrible advice. So, what do
you need for enjoyment? The answer is
the source of pleasure. Adding two
things, people and memory. That's where
you're engaging your prefrontal cortex.
So, Anheiser Bush never runs ads for
beer of a dude alone in his apartment
pounding a 12-pack. They never do that,
right? A lot of people use the product
that way. Why don't they show that?
because that's the pursuit of pleasure
and that's dangerous. That's bad for
you. Use of methamphetamine is bad for
you. What we're incredibly good at using
science today is to take things that
give a little bit of pleasure
evolutionarily and supercharge them.
Natural endorphins that you get that
will block pain under normal
circumstances. We can supercharge them
in a lab and make fentinel and 100,000
people died last year. That pursuit of
that pleasure is utterly ruinous. We
look at a random series of events and
when it's random, we get payoffs a
little bit. We'll seek those events and
that gives us a little bit of pleasure.
We turn that into slot machines in Vegas
and then you're sitting there at 4 a.m.
by yourself.
Really, really bad for you. That's the
problem. Seeking pleasure alone, not
making memory will make you miserable.
Usually, if something gives you pleasure
and you're doing it alone, you're
usually doing it wrong. Pornography is a
problem. It uses the sexual function in
a way that leads to addiction and huge
problems in people's lives. It's
contraindicated. It's not good for
especially young people to use that. But
that's the same thing as fentanyl in
this way. Okay. So, what do you do? You
make sure you're with people, especially
the people you love, and you're making
memories. That's why Anheiser Bush's ads
have two dudes or 10 dudes or a family
cracking open a bud and drinking it and
laughing. Because in the ad, they want
you to associate the beer with
happiness, which is enjoyment is the
central factor, not the pleasure that
the little bit of alcohol will bring
you. And that's what we need to do.
That's the strategy. We're working on a
and maybe by the time this podcast come
out, it'll be out, but we're working on
a very, very in-depth newsletter on
basically the conflicting data on
alcohol, specifically around wine. Why
is it that at a biochemical level and
certainly looking at the Mandelian
randomizations, alcohol is toxic at any
dose and it's a monotonically increasing
function. So there's no amount of
alcohol that is healthy. Yet the
epidemiology is pretty significantly in
favor of modest drinking over
abstinence. And once you even strip out
all of the obvious confounders that
would lead to that, you're left with the
phenomenon you describe, which is if you
dig into the data really deeply, it's
the Mediterranean drinking pattern that
seems to be associated with some
benefits at low doses. people in memory,
not the alcohol per se.
>> The food and the wine and the people
combo that seems to be beneficial, not
the vodka and Red Bull in the dorm
issue. Even though it's the same
molecule, it's a very different
experience. Processed sugar is the same
thing. You find that people who eat
candy one to three times a month on
average live a year longer than people
who abstain completely from candy.
Candy's terrible for you. It rots your
teeth. It leads to metabolic syndrome.
Eating candy one to three times a day is
very different than eating it one to
three times a month. And so the whole
point is you do something that you
enjoy, something that gives you a little
bit of pleasure, which something really
sweet does because of our evolution,
something that gives you a little bit of
euphoria like alcohol makes you feel
good. But you do it with people and you
make a memory unless all your friends
are drunks, which is bad. you can get
into an unhealthy community that you're
doing it in a pretty moderate way and
then it's lifeenhancing despite the fact
that it's a poison and you can use a
little bit of poison in a productive
way, but it has to be about enjoyment,
never about pleasure, per se.
>> Such an interesting distinction,
>> man. I'm 59. It took me this long. This
is information that I wish I had been
able to use when I was in my 20s. It
would have saved me a lot of grief. It
really would have because all the time
that I wasted with drinking, with just
unproductive activity and the way that I
missed opportunities to love and be
loved and to have a happier life. This
is really really news that people can
use. And this is probably one of the
stronger arguments against evolution
being in favor of happiness. It's clear
that evolution is in favor of pleasure.
Pleasure might be one of the most potent
fuels that drives the engine of
evolution, at least when it comes to
reproduction, but certainly other
aspects of evolution as well.
>> You're exactly right.
>> But enjoyment is a higher order process
and I guess would not necessarily
have the same evolutionary drive.
Although I suppose being with people
obviously also has a strong evolutionary
bent. If for no other reason then we
couldn't have survived alone even
through the industrialization of agriculture.
agriculture.
>> No absolutely right. The problem is the
maladaptation that comes with
technological progress is that you can
strip off the component of enjoyment
that is pleasure and then supercharge it
in the lab. That's the problem. The
internet makes it possible to do that.
Chemistry makes it easy to do that.
There are all kinds of ways that we
strip out that component of enjoyment so
it's no longer part of the evolved
societies that would have been more
traditional. So, do you think that
that's a decent litmus test, Arthur,
where the person who's listening to this
who loves to smoke says, "Guys, I enjoy
smoking. Like, I really enjoy it." And
you would push back on that and say,
"No, you find pleasure in smoking." And
you find just as much pleasure if you're
sitting by yourself doing it, puffing
away, getting the physiologic high of
the tobacco, but you're not forming new
memories. You're not sharing in this
with someone else.
>> That's right. My wife smokes two times a
year when she's with her sister in
Barcelona. She loves her sister. Her
sister smokes only after meals, only
with people, maybe once or twice a day,
which is, by the way, too much. There's
conflicting evidence on that, but it's
suffice it to say that any amount of
tobacco and any amount of smoke in your
lungs is not good for you. My wife
smokes twice a year because she's with
her sister. My wife's not a smoker. I
used to be a smoker. I don't touch it. I
don't dare touch it. Not even twice a
year is the way that that works out
because for me I got the monkey on my
back immediately and I don't want that
thing to come back because I so
thoroughly stripped the pleasure from
tobacco off from the enjoyment of
communally smoking that I can't handle
it anymore. Part of that is my mad
scientist. Part of that is get back to
what we talked about earlier in the conversation.
conversation.
>> Okay. So what is satisfaction then?
Again, you mean people are like,
"Enjoyment is complicated." And it's all
complicated. That's why the knowledge is
so critically important. I mean, that's
why happiness is a serious business.
Satisfaction is the joy after struggle.
That's what satisfaction really is. You
struggled for it, you worked for it, you
got it, it feels awesome. If my students
cheat to get an A on my exam, there's no
satisfaction. But if they worked really
hard, you might say, "Chump, stupid.
Brooks probably gave the same exam last
year. Go find last year's exam." But if
they actually struggle for it and they
study for it, they get a ton of
satisfaction when they get an A because
that's how we're wired. We're wired
after you struggle for something a lot.
Again, this comes back to the
evolutionary psychology, even biology,
is that you go looking hard for
something and you get it, you want that
to be reinforced as a good thing to do.
That's why mother nature really wants
that to happen. And that's why we have
that evolutionary imperative. Okay, so
that's great. But here's this little
twist that mother nature throws into it.
If you knew that that satisfaction, that
joy wasn't going to last, you'd think
twice before going through the struggle,
you'd think twice about the costbenefit
analysis, like if you said to yourself,
you know, like that watch. It's a nice
watch. I don't know what kind of watch
that is. That's a C Master or something,
right? That's a GMT. It's a nice watch.
But if you thought to yourself, it's a
pretty expensive watch. I'm going to
really, really like it for a week. You'd
think twice about it. trivial example,
but there's all kinds of things that we
do. That relationship, that conquest,
that business plan, that fill in the
blanks, I'm not going to enjoy it for
very long. So, mother nature shields you
from that truth. You have to have it
wear off quickly because you wouldn't be
ready for the next thing. If you're a
caveman and you're looking for calories
and you find berries on a bush after a
long hike, that's incredibly satisfying.
That gives you a bunch of joy. But if
you sat there enjoying them for the next
week, you'd be a saber-tooth tiger's
dinner. You have to be ready for the
next set of emotions. That's
homeostasis. You go back to the
baseline, physical baseline, emotional
baseline. You always go back. But if you
realize that, you won't make the effort
in the first place. So, mother nature
tantalizes you with a joy that's going
to come after the struggle and then
veils the knowledge that you're not
going to enjoy it forever. So, people
actually think if I move to California,
I'm going to be happy for the rest of my
life because of the sunshine. I got the
data. It's a few months. The taxes are forever.
forever.
I mean, I see this constantly with
people, my students. The reason they
think they're going to be happier at 38
than 28, which is generally not true.
Generally, your happiness is lower at 38
than it is at 28 and lower at 48 than it
was at 38. The reason they don't know
that they get it exactly upside down, is
cuz they think that they're going to get
things they want and they're going to be
satisfied forever with them. When they
get married, they'll be permanently
happier. Have you been able to quantify
the length of satisfaction, the duration
of satisfaction when they get admitted
to Harvard Business School?
>> There are some studies on that and it
shows that the satisfaction they get is
usually a few weeks.
>> So before they even metriculate.
>> Oh yeah, for sure. So there's
interesting studies that ask this
question. When you get a bonus at your
job, when do you enjoy it the most? When
it hits your check or the day you find
out? It's a question that answers
itself. You go home because your boss
says you're the lynch pin in this
company. What a great job you're doing.
40% bonus. Boom. Dollars. You don't have
the dollars, but you go home and open a
bottle of champagne with your spouse.
Ah, I earned it. It's great. 3 weeks
later, it shows up in your check and
you're like, "Huh? Yeah. Yeah, good.
Good. I can do something with that." But
that's not where the real satisfaction
happens because of the homeostasis. Now,
the fact that that surprises you leads
to deeply suboptimal behavior. If you
keep getting surprised again and again
and again and again, the satisfaction
doesn't last. Natural conclusion is that
you just needed more. It just wasn't
enough. So, go get more and more and
more. And this leads to this chase, what
we call it in my business, the hedonic
treadmill that a lot of people know that
expression at this point. Hideonic means
feelings. The treadmill is you're
running, running, running, and running
to keep, maintain, and to get more of
certain feelings. And you never figure
out that you're on a treadmill and not
making progress. The homeostasis is that
you catch up immediately. You get ahead
by 2 in and immediately starts running
you backwards. Unless you keep running,
running, running, running. Then you're
going to be going the wrong direction.
And that's terrifying and terrible. So
people not figuring out mother nature's
cruel little hoax. They wind up on the
hydonic treadmill of more, more, more,
more, more, have more.
>> And why are we fooled by this?
>> Because mother nature wants us to be
fooled. I mean we are born to be fools
when it comes to this satisfaction problem.
problem.
>> So this is actually one of the
macronutrients where it seems that
evolution is fully engaged. Clearly
evolution favors pleasure over
enjoyment. But evolution is all for satisfaction.
satisfaction.
>> All for satisfaction
>> and all for fooling you into believing
this is the one that's going to be the
eternal satisfaction.
>> That is the animal path. Absolutely. But
there is a glitch in that matrix that we
can exploit if we're willing to stand up
to our natural impulses. This is where
every philosophical and religious
tradition comes in. Cuz most I mean life
is suffering according to the first
noble truth of Buddhism. That doesn't
mean life has to be suffering. It means
life is naturally suffering. What the
Buddhists are saying is that left to
your devices, you're going to suffer.
And the word for suffering in that first
noble truth of Buddhism is mistransated.
The word in Sanskrit is duka. And duka
actually means dissatisfaction.
The first noble truth of Buddhism is
that life is unsatisfying
because of the hideonic treadmill
because of homeostasis. And how do you
get beyond that? Well, you recognize
that the reason for your dissatisfaction
is the second truth is attachment. And
the third noble truth is that you need
to detach. And the fourth noble truth is
the eight-fold path which is entirely
contrary to nature. The eight-fold path
is not natural. That's why it's hard. So
here's the way to think about it just in
sort of drive listener terms. Mother
nature says satisfaction will come and
stay if you have more more more. What's
your life strategy? More more money more
power more pleasure more admiration more
Instagram followers more more
actually the right model a model that
better satisfies that gives you more
satisfaction that lasts is halves
divided by wants. All the things you
have divided by all the things that you
want. And this is basically kind of what
the eight-fold path of Buddhism comes
into. This is a baby version. So I
apologize to the Buddhists who are
listening to us is that you don't need
to have more strategy. You need a want
less strategy. The eight-fold path is a
want less strategy. We need to want
less. We need to manage our wants in
this life. And in so doing, then holy
mackerel, then satisfaction hangs
around, man. And that's why the Daly
Lama always says you shouldn't have what
you want. You should want what you have
really, which is another way of talking
about this. And there's all kinds of
techniques. There's visualizations.
One of the things that I like for doing
this is that because I have an arts
background. My mother was a painter and
I was a musician for many years
professionally. And we have a tendency
to think of our lives that we're
building, especially the hustlers, the
go-getters, the stvers who listen to
you, that your life is like a beautiful
painting and you're the artist with a
brush. And that canvas is your life and
you're putting their brush strokes on
the canvas. The problem is by the time
you're 45 and you're a styver, that
canvas is full, man. It's dense. I defy
people to add another brush stroke. You
need to use the metaphor that your life
is actually a sculpture that you're
chipping away that you are in there, but
there's too much stuff stuck to you. You
need less, less, less, want less.
>> All right. So, the third macronutrient
is sense of purpose. >> Meaning.
>> Meaning. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Meaning. And obviously it extends far
beyond quote unquote work.
>> Yeah, for sure. So meaning is the most
important because it's the protein.
You'll die,
>> right? You can vary carbs and fat a lot.
You can't mess with protein too much.
>> You can't mess with protein. It's a
basic building block and you're in big
big trouble when you become protein
deprived because there's no other way to
get it. It's not like your carbs are
going to transform into proteins. And
everybody knows when they don't have a
sense of meaning cuz their life is
empty. They're the most miserable when
they don't have a sense of meaning. But
nobody knows exactly what it is. It's
like, I need this thing, but I don't
know what it is. So, philosophers and
psychologists, by the way, define
meaning as actually a combination of
three things. Coherence, purpose, and
significance. Coherence is things happen
for a reason. That's the first part of
meaning. I believe that things happen
for a particular reason. That doesn't
mean my way is the right way. And it
might be randomness. My father was a PhD
biostatistician also very religious and
he used to say that the greatest miracle
in the world was randomness that God
built the universe with randomness and
regular distributions of events. He
thought that miracles were extreme tale
events in random distributions and God
loved randomness. In other words,
there's lots and lots of different ways
to understand the coherence part. Why
things are coherent. The second is
purpose which is direction. Your life
has direction. There's a word called the
rum line. RH hu m line. It's actually a
much more common word in Spanish, a
roombo. And it's actually part of common
parlance. Roombo means means the end
point toward which your voyage is tending.
tending.
>> You're not going to get there and you're
going to vary from it, but you have to have
have
>> a north star. You have to have something.
something.
>> You have to have something
navigationally. And the last is
significance. It would matter if I
weren't alive. It would matter if I'm
not here. So these are the component
parts. Now these are worth thinking
about in detail in our lives. But here's
the way I have a kind of a diagnostic
test to see if somebody has a meaning
crisis. And the reason this is useful,
it's a two question exam. And if
somebody doesn't have real answers,
everybody's got PC answers, answers you
give your mom or whatever, but if you
don't have real answers to this, the
good news is these are the two questions
to go looking for answers to in your
life. This is your vision quest is to
find the answers to these by reading, by
experiencing, by meditating, by spending
time by yourself, by praying, by asking
people's advice, by therapy. I don't
know. Do your thing. Question number one
is, why are you alive? Why are you
alive? You got to have an answer. Not my
answer, your answer. A real answer.
Question number two is for, what are you
willing to die today? Now, you flunk
this quiz by saying, "Oh, no." That's
how you flunk the quiz. But then the
adventure actually begins after you
flunk the quiz because like I'm going to
figure that out. I'm going to go find
those answers. I'm going to read. I'm
going to consider. I'm going to do all
the things that you do metacognitively
to find the answer to these questions.
>> Let's think about that for a second.
There are probably a lot of people who
cannot answer one, who can answer two,
>> or who can answer one but can't answer
two. I'm alive because some biological
process, etc., etc. But number two is I
don't know what I'm willing to die for.
>> Let's clarify that. Are you asking one
through the lens of biology?
>> It depends on how you answer it and what
actually gives you meaning. The way to
answer the first question, why are you alive?
alive?
>> A spiritual person or a religious person
would have a divine response to the
first question. An atheist would respond
to the first question in terms of
biology and they would really understand
that biological answer could give you a
tremendous sense of meaning and a sense
of place in the universe. Although it's
interesting because as someone who leans
far more towards the agnostic atheist
side, I spend most of my time coming to
grips with mortality. >> Uhhuh.
>> Uhhuh.
>> Which is a very difficult thing to come
to grips with.
>> The second question,
>> but I come to grips with that by
addressing your third point around sense
of purpose, which is my insignificance.
So in other words, it's only through
accepting my complete and utter
insignificance that I can have some
semblance of peace with my finitude and
my eventual and relatively quick demise.
Yeah, this is one of the reasons that
transcendence is one of the happiness
practices. The practice of
transcendence, whether it's secular or
religious transcendence, it's really
important because it makes you small. It
makes you small. You stand in awe of a
sunset. You stand in awe of seeing
somebody committing an unbelievably
selfless act. It makes you actually feel
smaller, which gives you peace through a
sense of perspective. That's a very
common phenomenon. One of the people who
works in my area, Derer Kelner at UC
Berkeley, he has a book called Awe, Awe,
that talks about the neurocognitive
processes involved when you're
experiencing awe and why it gives you
such deep peace. And it's really all
about what you're talking about. You got
to get small. Like Steve Martin used to
say in the 70s, get small. If you can
find ways to get small, you're going to
be a lot better off for sure.
>> But how do we reconcile that with the
need to have significance through your
sense of purpose? Well, the key is at
the same time you realize that you
matter, but at the same time it's okay
that the universe will be just fine if
you die. They seem like conflicting
phenomena, but they're actually weirdly
compatible. I think that they're weirdly
compatible. These ideas, this balance
between the two, it matters that I exist
here and things will be just fine if I
don't. You think about this when you get
married for the first time. You say,
"You love me, and if I'm gone, you'll be
okay." It's this sense of peace. That
balance between those two things turns
out to be the trick. I've never been
able to find that.
>> I guess practice makes perfect. I
haven't found it either, for sure. But
the way to think about this and the way
to find the answers to the questions is
really interesting. And I've worked on
this with my kids. I have adult kids. My
kids are a little older than yours. My
23-year-old, he's a piece of work, man.
His name is Carlos. He likes you. He's
human performance machine. He's a scout
sniper in the US Marine Corps. 204, 4%
body fat, 6 foot five. He's all about
it. He needs the information that you're
providing obviously. So, you know, he
didn't have the answers to that because
many adolescence don't and young adults
don't. But he found the answers to that
as he did something that was truly
difficult. Going through Marine basic
training and then infantry training
battalion and then doing the IND dock as
he's an operator in the Marines now in
the scout sniper platoon. Stuff's no
joke. It's hard. And you ask him the
question now, why are you alive? He
would simply say because God made me to
serve. That is both the how and the why
of the first question. And the second
question for what are you willing to
die? Very simple for my faith, for my
family, for my fellow Marines, and for
the United States of America and for our
allies. These are very solid answers.
These are not the right answers for
somebody listening or you or me
necessarily, but they are answers that
he actually believes. And that's what
gives him his sense of meaning is the
content of those two answers and finding
what we really do think about those
things. What really is persuasive to us
is a philosophical and for some a
>> In this next section, Arthur explains
the traps that hijack our happiness. We
spoke about the four idols. What is it?
Money, power,
pleasure, fame.
>> Fame is really a funny one though cuz
most people listening to us are like, I
don't want to be famous. Yeah, but you
want to be admired by others and you
want to have some prestige and that's
localized fame. That's to be known and
admired by the right people. It's
exactly the same phenomenon
philosophically and and psychologically.
So let's explore those a little bit
more. Is it necessarily the case that we
are hardwired to have preferences along
that spectrum? Well, I suspect it's both
nurture and nature. I can imagine that
the circumstances by which you grow up
would heavily influence that. But how
much of that do you think is sort of
hardwired versus developed as a result
of circumstances?
>> So there's a lot of research on that and
most of the philosophy would suggest and
even the evolutionary psychologists
would suggest that we're hardwired to be
looking for money, power, pleasure, and
fame because that makes us most that
gives us fitness in the mating market.
Who gets mates? somebody who's got a
bigger cave, more flints, more animal
skins, more buffalo jerky piled up in
the corner and is actually known by more
troglodites than troglodites that he or
she knows. This gives you mating
fitness. And so the results is this
would become an imperative. It would
become a hardwired imperative. And then
you have all kinds of evidence of this.
You actually find that when people are
kind of at their base nature when
they're being distracted, they will go
for these particular rewards over much
more intrinsic, more satisfying rewards
having to do with love. they will go for
these types of rewards all day long. We
see this in in our consumer patterns. We
even see some of the really interesting
neuroscience research talks about it how
it will illuminate our brains, how it
will stimulate the most dopamine. The
most dopamine comes from these not very
satisfying rewards, but nonetheless the
ones that we're supposed to go for. Now,
here's the key thing to keep in mind.
Mother nature wants you to pass on your
genes. Mother nature wants Peter A to
have like a hundred kids, but of course,
you don't want that. You want three and
you want to have a lifelong partnership
with one wife. And that means that you
can't live the hippie motto of if it
feels good, do it. That is the motto of
useful idiots. By the way, there's other
stupid mottos like if it feels terrible,
treat it and make it go away because
suffering is really important in a full
life, too, it turns out. But the key
thing to keep in mind is that mother
nature, she doesn't care if you're
happy. She doesn't care. That's not
mother nature. We don't select on
happiness. We select on biological
fitness to mate, to pass on our genes.
And so the result is if you follow if it
feels good, do it. You're going to be
chasing a whole lot of very fleeting
rewards for what you think is enduring
satisfaction and you're going to have
your hyonic treadmill speeding at a
terrifying velocity, and you won't even
know how to get off it. You need to get
in charge of your own life is the bottom
line. You wrote something, God, I want
to say it's been in the last couple of
months in the Atlantic about happiness
and success and noting that the happiest
people weren't necessarily the most
successful. If I'm remembering that
correctly, I think you wrote this in
maybe April. It might have been June,
but they looked at some data that
suggested actually a little bit of
sacrifice in happiness led to greater
success. Am I remembering that sort of correctly?
correctly?
>> Yeah, that's right. And part of the
reason is because people who are
tremendously successful in worldly
terms, when I'm talking about success,
we could define it different ways,
right? Having a lifelong marriage where
you're in love with your spouse, that's
unbelievably successful. Believing like
you have found spiritual transcendence,
that's unbelievably successful. Living
for the good of other people,
tremendously successful. But that's not
what we're talking about. We're talking
about worldly success, money, power,
fame, the admiration of other people. So
that these particular metrics of
success, people who are remarkably
successful along those worldly metrics,
they're making costbenefit calculations
systematically that are not in their own
happiness favor. Typically, they're
making sacrifices to their own happiness
for some reason. And this is one of the
things that I've looked at in my own
research. Why? Why? Why? Why? And I was
talking to a woman. One of the things
that I do as a social scientist, I'm not
just cranking data. I go out and talk to
the humans, which I find is a really
beneficial thing to do. And I was
interviewing this unbelievably
successful woman on Wall Street. I mean,
billionaire business starter, epic,
success after success, and very well
known. And she was confessing to me that
she was missing decisions, that people
were doubting it, that at the same time
that she and her husband were just kind
of roommates, that she had a cordial
relationship with her adult kids, that
she was starting to get bad blood work
back from her doctor. She thinks that
she was probably drinking too much, she
couldn't sleep right, and the whole
thing. And she said, "What are you
doing?" I say, "You don't need a nerd
from Harvard to tell you what to do. You
told me you're a billionaire. Step back
from your company, take a souvenir in
it, go onto the board, whatever. Get to
know your husband. Reestablish a
relationship with your kids. Start to
take care of your drinking problem.
Become a client of Peteria. I don't
know. You know what I'm talking about
here." I say, "Why don't you do these
things?" She thought about it. She said,
"I guess I'd prefer to be special than
happy." And I thought she that is the
hallmark of addiction. You know, I used
to be a musician. I've met a lot of
addicts. I've met a lot of alcoholics in
my life. And they will confess that
before they got clean and sober that
they preferred to be high than happy.
They all said that. They knew that
they'd be happier when they were finally
beyond this thing. But let's just get
high one more time. Just the feel of
that pipe on my lips one more time. Just
the burning of the alcohol in my throat
one more time. and just the what do
William Burroughs call the the red the
blood in the hypodermic needle before
you actually put down the plunger and it
gives incredible pleasure to people and
they say just one more time just one
more time and that's what that lady was
saying to me that's a success addiction
and that is absolutely implicated in the
dopamine system and that is like any
other behavioral addiction that a lot of
very worldly successful people fall prey
to a lot of people listening to us and
I'm glad they're listening to us right
now because they want an edge
But you got to ask yourself, Arthur has
to ask himself and Peter has to ask
himself and all the people listening to
them have to ask themselves, is this a
pathology that I'm actually feeding by
actually trying to get this edge? And I
hope it's not. And I hope it's not for
me, but I know a lot of people where it
is. We talk about workcoholism. There's
a lot of literature on workcoholism.
Workcoholism is an ancillary addiction
to success addiction. You know, people
work really, really hard. The payoff,
the cookie that you get, the dopamine is
just driving you to is the promotion, is
the raise, is the dollar, is the
compliment, is the agilation on social
media. That's where the real addiction
is coming in. And those are the people
that are going to be sacrificing their
own happiness decisions for these
success metrics. Do we have a sense of,
this is an unanswerable question, so
I'll rephrase it in kind of a more. What
would the world look like today if no
one was pursuing being special over
being happy? What year would we be
living in? Would it be 1842 right now?
What I'm really getting at is how much
of the modern marvels of this world do
we owe to the backs of people who
sacrificed their own happiness for the
innovation that allows us to be doing
what we're doing right now?
>> It's such a smart question and I've
considered this myself. For me to say
you and I should break our success
addiction. Therefore, the world would be
better if nobody had a success addiction
is the fallacy of composition. You know,
it's to basically say since I get home
faster if I go 100 miles an hour down
the freeway, it would be better if
everybody drove 100 miles an hour on the
freeway. Now, you live in Texas, so
you're like, "Yeah, actually that would
be better." But anyway,
but that is really really relevant
because what you find is that many of
the greatest innovators, composers,
creative intellects, these were people
that absolutely sacrificed their
happiness that were deeply deeply
unhappy. Look, there's a huge literature
that shows the vententralateral
prefrontal cortexes stimulated in
depressives in a way that makes them
highly creative. I mean, we actually
have good brain science at this point
that shows that people who are suffering
from mood disorders, they tend to be
disproportionately creative and they do
a lot. Van Gogh was not the outlier. It
turns out there's a lot of weird people
in Silicon Valley that have a lot of
pretty untreated maladies and they're
doing a lot. Now, you might say in
Silicon Valley a lot of them are doing a
lot of harm for society as well. But the
point is that it is true that the world
has been propelled by a lot of unusual
people with unusual goals. And so I
don't know if I were the divine how I
would create the universe. I don't know
how I would designate people in society.
I don't know whether I would make people
sacrifice their happiness for the
greater good of the whole. I'm just not
sure whether there's a kind of a success
martyrdom that's going on here. My two
cents having none of the data and none
of the insights that you do is that we
are probably a lot better off for people
who have made enormous sacrifices. And
I'm not just talking about like what we
think about in Silicon Valley. I mean
I'm talking about Newton and Gaus and
Oiler and the great physicists, the
great mathematicians. I feel like these
people made untold sacrifices in terms
of the pain that they endured as a
result of their genius.
>> I think that's actually right. But
there's one thing that I want to
emphasize which is that the misery is
not inevitable. You can actually and
this is the one of the reasons I've done
my work. I'm not asking people to not be
successful. I'm not asking people to be
not ambitious to not work hard. I'm
asking them to dominate it such that
you're not playing to your most innate
drives so that you can be successful and
happy. And that's a small quadrant of
the happy, unhappy, successful,
unsuccessful, the successful and happy
really, really successful and really
really happy. It's a pretty small group
of people, but it's not not populated. I
mean, I write in my book about the case
of Johan Sebastian Bach, the greatest
composer who ever lived, who died
surrounded by the people who loved him
and who revered him. And the reason is
because he got on his second curve. He
dedicated his work to other people. He
didn't say, "Forget it. I'm not going to
write any more music." He said, "I'm
going to write music and I'm just going
to detach myself from the ego of having
this enormous audience of people who
will say that I'm the greatest composer
ever and I'm going to do it for humanity
and for to glorify God and to refresh
the soul of other people. And if it's
really successful in commercial terms,
it is. And if it isn't, that's okay,
too." In other words, be really
ambitious but detach yourself from the
worldly idols and think about how you
can use your success in service of other
people. And that's the hack. That's the
workaround. That's actually the glitch
in the success unhappiness matrix is
when you become other focused. You can
be a success machine and also happy.
>> I agree with all of that. I was going to
actually make a slightly different point
which was just because that's what got
us here today as a civilization doesn't
speak to the individual choice that we
all have. I'll give you an example in my
world is my thinking on cancer screening
for an individual is based solely on the
individual. If I were in charge of
creating a cancer screening program for
everyone in the country or in the world,
it's a totally different question
because the former is really all about
individual risk, individual cost, and
what the reward potentially is. When you
start to talk about that at a societal
trade-off level, it's a much more
complicated problem. Now, you have to
look at quality adjusted life years and
all these other metrics and you have to
balance a budget to basically do this.
And so my takeaway from this is that
just because everything we said is
probably true, it doesn't mean that any
one individual doesn't have the
potential to make a choice to live in
less misery or to be happier.
Absolutely. And part of it is I believe
you don't even have to sacrifice the
success, but you do have to go against
your worldly urges in a very big way.
not against your worldly urge for
success but against your worldly urge to
pursue the success for a particularly
idolatrous reason. And that's a really
big distinction as it turns out. Now
this is the point that's made by
philosophers and theologians forever
that when you do things in service of
others to lift other people up to bring
other people together then you can
become unbelievably successful. You can
become the Daly Lama. You can become
Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa. You can do
Albert Schwitzer. What do all those
people have in common? They were world
famous, but they were doing this in the
service of their fellow women and men.
And that was the key distinction that
allowed them to wiggle their way into
>> Here are Arthur's tools and practices he
recommends for moving past the traps.
>> Here's the exercise I give my students.
They will hear that the way for them to
be successful is through the
visualization and manifestation that
comes from having a bucket list. All
right, the bucket list. On your
birthday, you list all your ambitions
and all your desires and your cravings
and you imagine yourself getting all
these things. You visualize yourself
getting these things. That's a good way
to blow up the denominator of your
satisfaction equation and feel like a
complete loser. You need a reverse
bucket list where you make a list of all
of your worldly attachments and you
cross them out. Not that you won't get
them, but that now they're not limbic.
Now they're in your prefrontal cortex.
Now that you can actually manage those
cravings in an entirely different way.
And this absolutely works. I do this on
my birthday every year now.
>> So give me an example.
>> This last year on my birthday, I
thought, what are my attachments that
are holding me down? And I realized it
was a lot of my political opinions.
Ticknot Han, the Vietnamese Buddhist
monk who started a Plum Village
community of Western Buddhists. He said
that the greatest source of misery and
attachment for most people is their
opinions. We're so attached to our
opinions. It's like we're hoarding our
gold. And if you get between me and my
opinions, you're stupid and evil. I'm
going to cancel you or whatever dumb
thing that we're doing today. And I
thought to myself, my political opinions
are too strong. I'm too attached to
them. So I wrote down about half of my
political opinions. I still have them,
but I crossed them out, which negated
their importance, their moral importance in my life. I mean, I need fewer
in my life. I mean, I need fewer opinions because I need more friends is
opinions because I need more friends is really what it comes down to. And I'm
really what it comes down to. And I'm way lighter. I'm way freer. But tell me,
way lighter. I'm way freer. But tell me, is the act of acknowledging the
is the act of acknowledging the opinions, the exercise, crossing them
opinions, the exercise, crossing them out, the exercise, and how does that
out, the exercise, and how does that translate? I mean, we sit here today on
translate? I mean, we sit here today on the heels of a tragedy that took place
the heels of a tragedy that took place very recently, a terrorist attack, and
very recently, a terrorist attack, and it's a very dividing event politically.
it's a very dividing event politically. It's hard for me to say, even though I'm
It's hard for me to say, even though I'm not a political person, I don't talk
not a political person, I don't talk about my political views publicly. I
about my political views publicly. I have very strong views. And as a result
have very strong views. And as a result of that, I'm prone to be very judgmental
of that, I'm prone to be very judgmental of those who hold opposing views,
of those who hold opposing views, especially the stronger my view. So
especially the stronger my view. So there's certain views where I'm like all
there's certain views where I'm like all about nuance and then there's some views
about nuance and then there's some views where I'm like nope this is black and
where I'm like nope this is black and white. How would that exercise help in
white. How would that exercise help in this situation? This gets back to
this situation? This gets back to metacognition. Metacognition once again
metacognition. Metacognition once again is not being limbic but rather
is not being limbic but rather experiencing emotions and emotional
experiencing emotions and emotional phenomena in the prefrontal cortex of
phenomena in the prefrontal cortex of the brain where you can make conscious
the brain where you can make conscious executive decisions is letting your CEO
executive decisions is letting your CEO do it as opposed to the kids do it. And
do it as opposed to the kids do it. And so what you do is when you have an
so what you do is when you have an opinion, a strong volatile political
opinion, a strong volatile political opinion, which is not just terrorism is
opinion, which is not just terrorism is bad. It's that anybody who disagrees
bad. It's that anybody who disagrees with me about this particular situation
with me about this particular situation is a [ __ ] That's what goes on the
is a [ __ ] That's what goes on the list. And what you do is you cross that
list. And what you do is you cross that out. Not because you don't think that,
out. Not because you don't think that, but because you're willing to consider
but because you're willing to consider that. you're willing to let your CEO
that. you're willing to let your CEO think about that as opposed to sort of
think about that as opposed to sort of axiomatically assuming that that it's no
axiomatically assuming that that it's no longer a limbic opinion where you see
longer a limbic opinion where you see something on TV and you get a sense of
something on TV and you get a sense of revulsion where your insular cortex
revulsion where your insular cortex engages because you have a sense of
engages because you have a sense of disgust on the contrary. Do you think
disgust on the contrary. Do you think that that's a better strategy than my
that that's a better strategy than my strategy, which is to tune all of that
strategy, which is to tune all of that out? Is to basically say, I'm going to
out? Is to basically say, I'm going to do something that feels cowardly, which
do something that feels cowardly, which is I'm not going to engage in any of
is I'm not going to engage in any of this by reading any of it, by watching
this by reading any of it, by watching any of it, by participating. I'm going
any of it, by participating. I'm going to focus on what I do best. I'm going to
to focus on what I do best. I'm going to do my job and not become a spectator.
do my job and not become a spectator. There's a lot to that because you should
There's a lot to that because you should specialize in what you can do well. you
specialize in what you can do well. you should focus on the things you can
should focus on the things you can control as opposed to the things you
control as opposed to the things you can't. So these are two different
can't. So these are two different phenomena.
phenomena. >> You could argue my strategy is a
>> You could argue my strategy is a dangerous strategy from a societal
dangerous strategy from a societal perspective because then if everybody
perspective because then if everybody took that approach, nobody would do
took that approach, nobody would do anything.
anything. >> Absolutely. You wouldn't have any
>> Absolutely. You wouldn't have any collective action. Everybody would be
collective action. Everybody would be ignorant for sure. But what you're
ignorant for sure. But what you're trying to do is protect yourself from
trying to do is protect yourself from your liyic system. When you block out
your liyic system. When you block out information, this is basically I don't
information, this is basically I don't like the news, so I'm going to cancel
like the news, so I'm going to cancel the newspaper. I'm no longer going to
the newspaper. I'm no longer going to get the news from the newspaper. You
get the news from the newspaper. You shouldn't be afraid of information and
shouldn't be afraid of information and that's all your lyic system is
that's all your lyic system is delivering to you is information. You
delivering to you is information. You should learn how to use information. So
should learn how to use information. So ideally you don't have to do that.
ideally you don't have to do that. Ideally what you do is you
Ideally what you do is you metacognitively you process the
metacognitively you process the information make decisions on how to use
information make decisions on how to use the information. Sometimes that's not
the information. Sometimes that's not efficient. Sometimes that's suboptimal
efficient. Sometimes that's suboptimal because you don't have time to do it. I
because you don't have time to do it. I have found that I use a combination of
have found that I use a combination of the two techniques. I was a president of
the two techniques. I was a president of a think tank in Washington DC for almost
a think tank in Washington DC for almost 11 years. And so I was man I was sadly
11 years. And so I was man I was sadly in the know. I was so aware all the time
in the know. I was so aware all the time of everything everybody was saying and
of everything everybody was saying and doing and I knew what was going on and I
doing and I knew what was going on and I knew if there was going to be a budget
knew if there was going to be a budget resolution. I could tell you what was
resolution. I could tell you what was going on with a farm bill, the whole
going on with a farm bill, the whole deal. Now I know a lot less and the
deal. Now I know a lot less and the reason is I ration my access to news. I
reason is I ration my access to news. I read total of 15 to 30 minutes of news
read total of 15 to 30 minutes of news per day all at once. I need more
per day all at once. I need more bandwidth for my work and I don't want
bandwidth for my work and I don't want it to intrude on my work. But I'm not
it to intrude on my work. But I'm not afraid of my lyic system. I'm not afraid
afraid of my lyic system. I'm not afraid of what this information will actually
of what this information will actually do to me because I'm working
do to me because I'm working metacognitively to make sure that when I
metacognitively to make sure that when I do have this information, I can process
do have this information, I can process it in executive ways as opposed to
it in executive ways as opposed to childlike ways. It's no longer ghosts in
childlike ways. It's no longer ghosts in the machine. I have a repertoire of ways
the machine. I have a repertoire of ways I can deal with it. I can choose my
I can deal with it. I can choose my reactions to my emotions. I can use
reactions to my emotions. I can use substitute emotions. I can act as if I
substitute emotions. I can act as if I had different emotions. and I can
had different emotions. and I can disregard my emotions but all of that is
disregard my emotions but all of that is on purpose and those are the fruits of
on purpose and those are the fruits of metacognition.
metacognition. >> What do you do with your knowledge base?
>> What do you do with your knowledge base? So as a mad scientist what are the tools
So as a mad scientist what are the tools you use from that to manage yourself
you use from that to manage yourself which is kind of a recurring theme here.
which is kind of a recurring theme here. We keep coming back to it and I want to
We keep coming back to it and I want to come back to it more formally to talk
come back to it more formally to talk about metacognition. But just briefly
about metacognition. But just briefly maybe what are the most important things
maybe what are the most important things that you think about as a mad scientist
that you think about as a mad scientist to regulate your own emotions and to
to regulate your own emotions and to presumably keep the balance more on the
presumably keep the balance more on the positive versus negative veilance for
positive versus negative veilance for the longest time. I mean the reason I've
the longest time. I mean the reason I've done this research Peter is because I
done this research Peter is because I need it. This is me search. That's
need it. This is me search. That's really what it is. And I know you do
really what it is. And I know you do too. I mean, you do this work because
too. I mean, you do this work because you want to live a long time and have a
you want to live a long time and have a high quality of life. In our community
high quality of life. In our community of health and wellness and fitness and
of health and wellness and fitness and longevity, and we're all doing the best
longevity, and we're all doing the best we can for our own lives and then
we can for our own lives and then sharing with other people, and this is
sharing with other people, and this is absolutely the case with me. If you're a
absolutely the case with me. If you're a mad scientist and you don't self-manage,
mad scientist and you don't self-manage, you're going to be all over the place.
you're going to be all over the place. You're going to be a big mess. You're
You're going to be a big mess. You're going to have difficult relationships. A
going to have difficult relationships. A lot of the time, you're going to be
lot of the time, you're going to be miserable. And it's avoidable. It's
miserable. And it's avoidable. It's actually unconstructive not to
actually unconstructive not to self-manage. But self-management is not
self-manage. But self-management is not one weird trick, as they like to say on
one weird trick, as they like to say on the internet. There's no hacks. It's
the internet. There's no hacks. It's really all about mental habits. It
really all about mental habits. It starts with the knowledge of the
starts with the knowledge of the science. It goes into specific practices
science. It goes into specific practices and then a lot of it has to do with
and then a lot of it has to do with teaching other people. As you know, the
teaching other people. As you know, the best way for you to live better is to
best way for you to live better is to teach other people how to live better.
teach other people how to live better. That's, you know, like if you want to be
That's, you know, like if you want to be healthy, start a health podcast or
healthy, start a health podcast or something and make sure you've got good
something and make sure you've got good science on your side. So when it comes
science on your side. So when it comes to mad science, the mad scientist
to mad science, the mad scientist profile that's hard to manage otherwise,
profile that's hard to manage otherwise, the mistake that people get into is they
the mistake that people get into is they try to stay on the positive side.
try to stay on the positive side. >> That's a logical thing to do.
>> That's a logical thing to do. >> Bipolar disorder, we find that the
>> Bipolar disorder, we find that the biggest problem that they have is
biggest problem that they have is staying on their meds because they like
staying on their meds because they like the manic, they don't like the
the manic, they don't like the depression, but they can't time it. And
depression, but they can't time it. And so you actually have to stabilize your
so you actually have to stabilize your mood so that you're not seeking the
mood so that you're not seeking the highs and trying to avoid the lows. And
highs and trying to avoid the lows. And by the way, I'm not saying that every
by the way, I'm not saying that every mad scientist has bipolar disorder. I'm
mad scientist has bipolar disorder. I'm just saying that they tend to have
just saying that they tend to have mania. They tend to have this kind of a
mania. They tend to have this kind of a hyper manic, as you know, John Gardner
hyper manic, as you know, John Gardner talks about the hypermanic edge. And
talks about the hypermanic edge. And that's what most mad scientists have a
that's what most mad scientists have a little bit of. That's why they tend to
little bit of. That's why they tend to make pretty good entrepreneurs like you,
make pretty good entrepreneurs like you, but they fall prey to a lot of mood
but they fall prey to a lot of mood issues that are pretty avoidable. At the
issues that are pretty avoidable. At the pro level of self-management in the mad
pro level of self-management in the mad scientist category is to not seek the
scientist category is to not seek the highs because the highs don't help you
highs because the highs don't help you that much. What you actually need to be
that much. What you actually need to be as a full person not riding the wave of
as a full person not riding the wave of your emotions. You need to manage your
your emotions. You need to manage your emotions and never let them manage you.
emotions and never let them manage you. And that gets into the whole topic
And that gets into the whole topic you're talking about which is
you're talking about which is metacognition. That is to experience
metacognition. That is to experience your emotions in your prefrontal cortex
your emotions in your prefrontal cortex as opposed to living according to your
as opposed to living according to your limic system. Never be managed by your
limic system. Never be managed by your lyic system. Your lyic system is nothing
lyic system. Your lyic system is nothing more than the factory for your emotions.
more than the factory for your emotions. That's really what it's doing. And if
That's really what it's doing. And if you're basically taking raw factory
you're basically taking raw factory materials and trying to live according
materials and trying to live according to them as opposed to assembling them,
to them as opposed to assembling them, making them into a set of experiences,
making them into a set of experiences, learning from them, growing from them,
learning from them, growing from them, you're not fully alive. You're subject
you're not fully alive. You're subject to something. You're subject to a crazy
to something. You're subject to a crazy machine all the time. And so that's a
machine all the time. And so that's a lot of what I write about is actually
lot of what I write about is actually how do you experience emotions more
how do you experience emotions more fully in the prefrontal cortex of your
fully in the prefrontal cortex of your brain? What are the techniques for doing
brain? What are the techniques for doing so? And when you're doing that, what is
so? And when you're doing that, what is the repertoire of reactions and
the repertoire of reactions and responses that you can bring to a highly
responses that you can bring to a highly volatile emotional state? Are there any
volatile emotional state? Are there any folks where, for example, the poet where
folks where, for example, the poet where you actually push them to be more in
you actually push them to be more in that limbic system or is it the same for
that limbic system or is it the same for everyone? Because the poet of course is
everyone? Because the poet of course is the one who's disproportionately down,
the one who's disproportionately down, right? These are the great artists. So
right? These are the great artists. So poets, there's interesting research
poets, there's interesting research that's parallel to this that doesn't use
that's parallel to this that doesn't use the same panis test, but it's pretty
the same panis test, but it's pretty provocative nonetheless. The people who
provocative nonetheless. The people who have a tendency toward depression, not
have a tendency toward depression, not bipolar, but depression, they tend to be
bipolar, but depression, they tend to be more creative, they're ruminators, and
more creative, they're ruminators, and they also tend to be romantics. And you
they also tend to be romantics. And you know, this follows a pattern. You've met
know, this follows a pattern. You've met people like this that have this pattern
people like this that have this pattern of romantic, creative, depressive,
of romantic, creative, depressive, poetic people.
poetic people. really interesting neuroscience research
really interesting neuroscience research suggests that there's a part of the
suggests that there's a part of the brain that's especially
brain that's especially active for these people. It's called a
active for these people. It's called a vententralateral prefrontal cortex. And
vententralateral prefrontal cortex. And this is the part of the brain that you
this is the part of the brain that you use a lot when you're ruminating on
use a lot when you're ruminating on something, which depressive people do is
something, which depressive people do is they think about the thing and think
they think about the thing and think about the thing. This is also what's
about the thing. This is also what's going on when you're in love with
going on when you're in love with somebody. You can't stop thinking it.
somebody. You can't stop thinking it. You're ruminating on another person.
You're ruminating on another person. This is the same thing that's going on
This is the same thing that's going on when you're working on a business plan
when you're working on a business plan or writing a symphony or actually
or writing a symphony or actually writing a poem. So that's what they're
writing a poem. So that's what they're really good at, but also what they're
really good at, but also what they're really bad at. They can't stop thinking
really bad at. They can't stop thinking about things which is good for them and
about things which is good for them and really bad for them. Their strength is
really bad for them. Their strength is their weakness. And Peter, this is the
their weakness. And Peter, this is the same thing across all the profiles. Your
same thing across all the profiles. Your strength is your weakness. Your weakness
strength is your weakness. Your weakness is your strength. Learn to manage it.
is your strength. Learn to manage it. Wire to the strengths, remediate the
Wire to the strengths, remediate the weaknesses, and complete yourself. So I
weaknesses, and complete yourself. So I encourage everybody to be more
encourage everybody to be more metacognitive. Everybody. So that you're
metacognitive. Everybody. So that you're a poet. You can be really, really
a poet. You can be really, really poetic, but it won't ruin your life. Do
poetic, but it won't ruin your life. Do we think that, and this is tangential
we think that, and this is tangential and maybe not relevant, but do we think
and maybe not relevant, but do we think that the most extreme form of greatness
that the most extreme form of greatness that we've seen, the most genius type of
that we've seen, the most genius type of phenomenon that we've seen as a species
phenomenon that we've seen as a species always come from extremes in these
always come from extremes in these categories? It's almost certainly not
categories? It's almost certainly not true. It's sort of a characture of what
true. It's sort of a characture of what we think to be true.
we think to be true. >> Yeah, for sure. And part of the reason
>> Yeah, for sure. And part of the reason is because those are the spectacular
is because those are the spectacular cases. You see somebody who's
cases. You see somebody who's unbelievably good at something and who's
unbelievably good at something and who's weird, you focus on their weirdness.
weird, you focus on their weirdness. There are tons of people who are
There are tons of people who are extremely accomplished and not that
extremely accomplished and not that weird. You don't have to be weird. I
weird. You don't have to be weird. I mean, it's the kind of thing where it's
mean, it's the kind of thing where it's like, yeah, I guess to be a great
like, yeah, I guess to be a great entrepreneur, you have to be the kind of
entrepreneur, you have to be the kind of person that Walter Isacson wants to
person that Walter Isacson wants to write a biography about. If Walter
write a biography about. If Walter Isacson is writing your biography, get
Isacson is writing your biography, get help. There are tons of people, very
help. There are tons of people, very successful entrepreneurs, artists,
successful entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, just people who excel, who
athletes, just people who excel, who have decent relationships and who are
have decent relationships and who are able to self-modderate and who don't
able to self-modderate and who don't abuse drugs and alcohol. Now, a lot of
abuse drugs and alcohol. Now, a lot of them do, and part of the reason is
them do, and part of the reason is because they have certain personality
because they have certain personality characteristics that go relatively
characteristics that go relatively unrediated. And we have people who are
unrediated. And we have people who are highly limbic. They tend to be
highly limbic. They tend to be successful in spite of their messy
successful in spite of their messy mental hygiene, not because of their
mental hygiene, not because of their messy mental hygiene. It's even better
messy mental hygiene. It's even better if you've got some of these
if you've got some of these characteristics and you're really
characteristics and you're really creative and really hardworking and
creative and really hardworking and really driven and you manage it. That's
really driven and you manage it. That's even better.
even better. >> So, as individuals now thinking about
>> So, as individuals now thinking about some of those things, I just based on my
some of those things, I just based on my own personal experience would agree that
own personal experience would agree that social media usually does not produce a
social media usually does not produce a feeling that is a positive one. It's
feeling that is a positive one. It's usually a negative one. If we're going
usually a negative one. If we're going to put on our metacognitive hats and
to put on our metacognitive hats and self-manage, if we think of ourselves as
self-manage, if we think of ourselves as capable to self-manage through
capable to self-manage through difficulty as opposed to saying, "Look,
difficulty as opposed to saying, "Look, we're all going to move to India. We're
we're all going to move to India. We're going to, you know, take up amongst
going to, you know, take up amongst tradition lessons or something, right?"
tradition lessons or something, right?" >> Again, most of us don't have that luxury
>> Again, most of us don't have that luxury and we still want to coexist in this
and we still want to coexist in this world. what are the steps we want to
world. what are the steps we want to take to minimize the damage of these
take to minimize the damage of these things and at the same time sort of try
things and at the same time sort of try to find this semblance of happiness. So
to find this semblance of happiness. So that's the reason I do my work is
that's the reason I do my work is precisely because greater happiness
precisely because greater happiness not perfect happiness that's not the
not perfect happiness that's not the goal. It's not even desirable. People
goal. It's not even desirable. People say I want to be happy. No you don't.
say I want to be happy. No you don't. Pure happiness that would mean the
Pure happiness that would mean the eradication of your negative feelings
eradication of your negative feelings and you'd be dead. That would be the
and you'd be dead. That would be the eradication of negative experiences. You
eradication of negative experiences. You wouldn't learn and grow. Well, also I
wouldn't learn and grow. Well, also I would argue we would get back to the
would argue we would get back to the same problem with satisfaction, wouldn't
same problem with satisfaction, wouldn't we?
we? >> For sure. I mean, it's impossible to
>> For sure. I mean, it's impossible to begin with. The point is that happiness
begin with. The point is that happiness is not a destination. It's a direction.
is not a destination. It's a direction. And we want to get happier. Oprah
And we want to get happier. Oprah Winfrey calls it happierness. That's the
Winfrey calls it happierness. That's the goal. It's a good neogism to actually
goal. It's a good neogism to actually get the point across. To do that, you
get the point across. To do that, you need information. That's why I teach
need information. That's why I teach about the science of happiness because
about the science of happiness because it's a super interesting body of
it's a super interesting body of knowledge. I write about it every week
knowledge. I write about it every week because it's fascinating. People like to
because it's fascinating. People like to learn about it. do the work to change
learn about it. do the work to change your habits and then you need to share
your habits and then you need to share with other people so it becomes
with other people so it becomes permanent in your consciousness. That's
permanent in your consciousness. That's really what it's all about. Everybody
really what it's all about. Everybody can do that. I'm dedicated to making an
can do that. I'm dedicated to making an entire generation of happiness afficados
entire generation of happiness afficados and teachers. That's what I want. I want
and teachers. That's what I want. I want a movement of people say my hobby is
a movement of people say my hobby is learning about happiness and in my job
learning about happiness and in my job I'm a happiness teacher. Whatever your
I'm a happiness teacher. Whatever your job is whether you're managing a family
job is whether you're managing a family or managing a company or just trying to
or managing a company or just trying to manage yourself is what I talk about.
manage yourself is what I talk about. And to do that you have to know the
And to do that you have to know the facts on this. There's certain things
facts on this. There's certain things you need to protect yourself from and
you need to protect yourself from and there's certain things you need to do.
there's certain things you need to do. You need aversion and you need approach.
You need aversion and you need approach. There are certain things you need to
There are certain things you need to approach. You need to take seriously
approach. You need to take seriously your spiritual life. You need to take it
your spiritual life. You need to take it seriously. Let's talk about that for the
seriously. Let's talk about that for the non-religious person. Most people
non-religious person. Most people listening to us are not religious. And
listening to us are not religious. And by the way, I think most people would
by the way, I think most people would look at someone like you and be a bit
look at someone like you and be a bit confused because on the one hand, you're
confused because on the one hand, you're a scientist. You're a serious
a scientist. You're a serious intellectual guy and yet you describe
intellectual guy and yet you describe yourself as having a very strong
yourself as having a very strong religious faith and yet you don't have a
religious faith and yet you don't have a hard time talking about things that
hard time talking about things that occurred hundreds of thousands of years
occurred hundreds of thousands of years ago and millions of years ago. In other
ago and millions of years ago. In other words, you don't have a difficult time
words, you don't have a difficult time reconciling science and faith. No, not
reconciling science and faith. No, not at all. And part of the reason for that
at all. And part of the reason for that is because faith and reason have to
is because faith and reason have to coexist in the same way that
coexist in the same way that understanding a Picasso painting and
understanding a Picasso painting and understanding Picasso the man are
understanding Picasso the man are utterly reconcilable but not the same
utterly reconcilable but not the same thing. The painter and the painting are
thing. The painter and the painting are not in conflict with each other. They're
not in conflict with each other. They're both important things to understand.
both important things to understand. >> But there are many religious people who
>> But there are many religious people who take a very literal view of, say, the
take a very literal view of, say, the Bible and would say, "Well, the earth is
Bible and would say, "Well, the earth is 6,000 years old or whatever.
6,000 years old or whatever. >> They need to study more science.
>> They need to study more science. >> They're taking things too literally.
>> They're taking things too literally. >> They're taking things not just too
>> They're taking things not just too literally. They're not understanding
literally. They're not understanding that there's a intellectual bifurcation
that there's a intellectual bifurcation between the concept of the creation, the
between the concept of the creation, the myth of how that actually creation takes
myth of how that actually creation takes place, which is the literalness that
place, which is the literalness that you're talking about, and then the
you're talking about, and then the evidence, the awe inspiring evidence of
evidence, the awe inspiring evidence of the creation itself. One of the reasons
the creation itself. One of the reasons I'm religious is because of science.
I'm religious is because of science. Every time I learn something new, I'm
Every time I learn something new, I'm like, "Oh, thank you. What a wonderful
like, "Oh, thank you. What a wonderful gift." It doesn't also freak me out that
gift." It doesn't also freak me out that I might be wrong. It doesn't freak me
I might be wrong. It doesn't freak me out that I might be wrong about the
out that I might be wrong about the science. It doesn't also freak me out
science. It doesn't also freak me out that I might be wrong about the
that I might be wrong about the religion. I don't think so. But you
religion. I don't think so. But you know, maybe that's okay. That's
know, maybe that's okay. That's absolutely okay.
absolutely okay. >> So if a person listening to this says,
>> So if a person listening to this says, "My view has always been those who have
"My view has always been those who have a religious view are more fortunate."
a religious view are more fortunate." And I especially think that in terms of
And I especially think that in terms of dealing with death. I think it's much
dealing with death. I think it's much easier to process death if you believe
easier to process death if you believe that there is a life after death.
that there is a life after death. >> There's meaning in a different
>> There's meaning in a different dimension,
dimension, >> right? Whereas if you really only think
>> right? Whereas if you really only think about this through the lens of
about this through the lens of biochemistry, it's a blank screen.
biochemistry, it's a blank screen. >> Well, that's because if you only think
>> Well, that's because if you only think of it in terms of biochemistry, death is
of it in terms of biochemistry, death is a what question. Whereas in a spiritual
a what question. Whereas in a spiritual dimension, death becomes a why question.
dimension, death becomes a why question. And those are different interrogatives
And those are different interrogatives that have different philosophical and
that have different philosophical and emotional content. Now, there's this
emotional content. Now, there's this area in between of spirituality, which
area in between of spirituality, which is not religion. If I were going to lump
is not religion. If I were going to lump myself into a category, it would
myself into a category, it would probably be around the idea that I find
probably be around the idea that I find enormous pleasure in nature. That is the
enormous pleasure in nature. That is the closest I suppose I get to religion.
closest I suppose I get to religion. >> That's a transcendent experience. And
>> That's a transcendent experience. And that's really what we're talking about.
that's really what we're talking about. >> It's why I live here. You can see where
>> It's why I live here. You can see where I live. I live in the middle of nowhere.
I live. I live in the middle of nowhere. >> So beautiful.
>> So beautiful. >> And it's why I have to be outside every
>> And it's why I have to be outside every single day.
single day. >> Yep. Yep. I get it. And that's very
>> Yep. Yep. I get it. And that's very common, by the way. A lot of people get
common, by the way. A lot of people get transcendence from nature. So what does
transcendence from nature. So what does a person do who lives in a very busy
a person do who lives in a very busy urban center where they are surrounded
urban center where they are surrounded by a wall of concrete all day every day?
by a wall of concrete all day every day? >> Well, if that turns out to be
>> Well, if that turns out to be destructive to your transcendence,
destructive to your transcendence, >> is that a reason to move?
>> is that a reason to move? >> Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. For some
>> Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. For some people, not everybody. I know some
people, not everybody. I know some people don't want to leave Manhattan.
people don't want to leave Manhattan. And part of the reason is because they
And part of the reason is because they get their transcendent from other
get their transcendent from other dimensions of life. Maybe they are
dimensions of life. Maybe they are religious. Maybe they're traditionally
religious. Maybe they're traditionally religious. Maybe they are serious
religious. Maybe they are serious meditators. Maybe they become completely
meditators. Maybe they become completely aruck from music or human genius. Again,
aruck from music or human genius. Again, it really gets back to transcending your
it really gets back to transcending your littleness, transcending that
littleness, transcending that transcendent experience. What it does is
transcendent experience. What it does is it gives you the same benefit as a
it gives you the same benefit as a religious journey.
religious journey. >> So basically what you're saying is
>> So basically what you're saying is >> big same happiness benefit.
>> big same happiness benefit. >> Yeah. We need to talk about something
>> Yeah. We need to talk about something much broader than religion in a formal
much broader than religion in a formal sense. And awe can be the religious
sense. And awe can be the religious belief. It could be an obsession or an
belief. It could be an obsession or an appreciation of great music or art. Yes.
appreciation of great music or art. Yes. >> Or meditation can be the place where you
>> Or meditation can be the place where you tap transcendence.
tap transcendence. >> Uh-huh. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, it's also
>> Uh-huh. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, it's also very convenient to not invent your own
very convenient to not invent your own physics on this. And so, the Catholic
physics on this. And so, the Catholic Church is really, really good for me.
Church is really, really good for me. And one of the things also is not what I
And one of the things also is not what I feel, it's what I've decided to do. This
feel, it's what I've decided to do. This is an important thing to understand
is an important thing to understand about transcendence. You don't feel
about transcendence. You don't feel transcendence all the time. You decide
transcendence all the time. You decide to experience transcendence and put
to experience transcendence and put yourself in the circumstances to
yourself in the circumstances to experience awe. I'm sure you go outside
experience awe. I'm sure you go outside and there's a lot on your mind. You've
and there's a lot on your mind. You've got a very busy and hectic and stressful
got a very busy and hectic and stressful life and you don't feel it. You don't
life and you don't feel it. You don't feel it every single day. Like I go to
feel it every single day. Like I go to mass every day. I don't feel it every
mass every day. I don't feel it every day. I wake up an atheist alive.
day. I wake up an atheist alive. >> And why do you do that?
>> And why do you do that? >> I do that because what's part of the
>> I do that because what's part of the protocol for living the life that I want
protocol for living the life that I want to live? I mean I get up at 4:45 like
to live? I mean I get up at 4:45 like you. I work out for an hour body. I go
you. I work out for an hour body. I go to mass soul, then I work. That's when
to mass soul, then I work. That's when my creativity is highest. Now, of
my creativity is highest. Now, of course, I'm also, you notice, I'm
course, I'm also, you notice, I'm optimizing my dopamine. I'm sucking as
optimizing my dopamine. I'm sucking as much dopamine into my prefrontal cortex,
much dopamine into my prefrontal cortex, which gives me creativity and focus for
which gives me creativity and focus for the 3 hours that I need to write. And
the 3 hours that I need to write. And that's a good motivation to do so. But I
that's a good motivation to do so. But I also want to optimize both body and soul
also want to optimize both body and soul at the very beginning of the day, so I'm
at the very beginning of the day, so I'm centered on the things that really
centered on the things that really matter to me. Notwithstanding how I
matter to me. Notwithstanding how I feel. I wake up at 4:45 in the morning.
feel. I wake up at 4:45 in the morning. I'm like, back day, I don't want to do
I'm like, back day, I don't want to do back day. I don't want to leg day. I
back day. I don't want to leg day. I don't want to do that, but I do it. I do
don't want to do that, but I do it. I do it. It's the discipline of the will that
it. It's the discipline of the will that in and of itself is so important. And
in and of itself is so important. And then I go to mass. I don't want to do it
then I go to mass. I don't want to do it a lot of days. I don't want to do it,
a lot of days. I don't want to do it, but that's not the point. Do you think
but that's not the point. Do you think that there is a deficit of that as well
that there is a deficit of that as well of that idea? So, for example, you
of that idea? So, for example, you alluded to marriage earlier, and anybody
alluded to marriage earlier, and anybody who's listening to this who's married,
who's listening to this who's married, especially who's been married for many,
especially who's been married for many, many years, they'll acknowledge that so
many years, they'll acknowledge that so much of the almost perverse joy of
much of the almost perverse joy of marriage, is that you make a lot of
marriage, is that you make a lot of sacrifices for another person and you
sacrifices for another person and you find yourself putting someone else ahead
find yourself putting someone else ahead of yourself. For me, that's a very hard
of yourself. For me, that's a very hard thing to do. Like I'm just so hardwired
thing to do. Like I'm just so hardwired to be such a selfish guy that it's
to be such a selfish guy that it's really a wonderful practice to do
really a wonderful practice to do something where I know like I'm going to
something where I know like I'm going to make my wife's coffee today because you
make my wife's coffee today because you know she would do the same for me. Well,
know she would do the same for me. Well, part of that is that you have discovered
part of that is that you have discovered and not enough people have that love is
and not enough people have that love is not a feeling either. Happiness is not a
not a feeling either. Happiness is not a feeling but love isn't either. Love is a
feeling but love isn't either. Love is a commitment. Martin Luther King one time
commitment. Martin Luther King one time he gave this very beautiful sermon on
he gave this very beautiful sermon on the most transgressive passage in the
the most transgressive passage in the Christian Bible which is Matthew 5:44
Christian Bible which is Matthew 5:44 love your enemies and he says Jesus says
love your enemies and he says Jesus says today I give you a new teaching you have
today I give you a new teaching you have heard that you should hate your enemies
heard that you should hate your enemies and love your friends I tell you love
and love your friends I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you says Jesus doesn't say to
persecute you says Jesus doesn't say to like your enemies because that's a
like your enemies because that's a sentimental thing to like is to feel to
sentimental thing to like is to feel to love is to decide this is what's going
love is to decide this is what's going on between you and your wife the
on between you and your wife the satisfaction action. The disciplining of
satisfaction action. The disciplining of your own will comes from the decision to
your own will comes from the decision to love her. That's the magic. That's the
love her. That's the magic. That's the magic in marriage. That's the magic in
magic in marriage. That's the magic in friendship. That's the magic that you
friendship. That's the magic that you can have in the relationship with your
can have in the relationship with your kids. Look, if it were all about your
kids. Look, if it were all about your feelings, hell, I'd be divorced. God
feelings, hell, I'd be divorced. God knows my wife would bail on me. I'm a
knows my wife would bail on me. I'm a pain being around me. She decides every
pain being around me. She decides every day to love me. Thomas Aquinus based on
day to love me. Thomas Aquinus based on Aristotle. Aristotle talked really
Aristotle. Aristotle talked really compellingly about love and friendship.
compellingly about love and friendship. Aquinus in 1265 writes the sum
Aquinus in 1265 writes the sum theological magisterial contribution to
theological magisterial contribution to philosophy. I mean he introduced he
philosophy. I mean he introduced he reintroduced Aristotle to the west.
reintroduced Aristotle to the west. Everybody was a platonist till Aquinas
Everybody was a platonist till Aquinas and he defined love as to will the good
and he defined love as to will the good of the other as other. When you're
of the other as other. When you're making your wife that cup of coffee
making your wife that cup of coffee notwithstanding your feelings, you're
notwithstanding your feelings, you're willing her good for her, not you. That
willing her good for her, not you. That discipline or the will to love another
discipline or the will to love another person like that, that decision to do so
person like that, that decision to do so is completely transformative. That's
is completely transformative. That's transcendent to the day-to-day
transcendent to the day-to-day experience. The animal path is, oh, I'm
experience. The animal path is, oh, I'm not going to make coffee. I don't feel
not going to make coffee. I don't feel like it. The divine path is to love her,
like it. The divine path is to love her, is to will her good as her. That's the
is to will her good as her. That's the human distinction. That's organized
human distinction. That's organized life.
life. So it really seems that that's almost a
So it really seems that that's almost a theme here of happiness that happiness
theme here of happiness that happiness is much more about deliberate decision
is much more about deliberate decision making, deliberate choices as opposed to
making, deliberate choices as opposed to reactive feelings, which that's
reactive feelings, which that's obviously the extent to which we've
obviously the extent to which we've discussed it. I think I like this thing
discussed it. I think I like this thing that Oprah said, not happiness, but
that Oprah said, not happiness, but >> happierness.
>> happierness. >> Happierness.
>> Happierness. >> The thing I like the most that she said
>> The thing I like the most that she said was, "Let's write a book." But totally,
was, "Let's write a book." But totally, she said, "Let's spread this idea to a
she said, "Let's spread this idea to a bunch of other people." And look, I've
bunch of other people." And look, I've been listening to your show for a long
been listening to your show for a long time. This is the salient theme. Take
time. This is the salient theme. Take charge, man. Take charge. Don't leave
charge, man. Take charge. Don't leave your health up to what feels good right
your health up to what feels good right now. Take charge of it. I mean, you're
now. Take charge of it. I mean, you're the boss. The startup is you. You're the
the boss. The startup is you. You're the entrepreneur. The guy in charge of the
entrepreneur. The guy in charge of the enterprise. You're the CEO. Treat it as
enterprise. You're the CEO. Treat it as such. The CEO doesn't do what feels good
such. The CEO doesn't do what feels good all the time. The CEO does what's right,
all the time. The CEO does what's right, notwithstanding her or his feelings. And
notwithstanding her or his feelings. And that's the secret of happiness is
that's the secret of happiness is treating your life like a startup. Your
treating your life like a startup. Your philosophy of health and longevity is my
philosophy of health and longevity is my philosophy of happiness because it's all
philosophy of happiness because it's all one thing. You know, when you talk about
one thing. You know, when you talk about better, happier years or health span,
better, happier years or health span, I'm talking about happy span. That's
I'm talking about happy span. That's what it comes down to. And you're just
what it comes down to. And you're just not going to do it by doing what feels
not going to do it by doing what feels good in the moment. You're not going to
good in the moment. You're not going to discipline the will sufficiently to be
discipline the will sufficiently to be able to make the decisions that lead you
able to make the decisions that lead you on this divine path that can give you
on this divine path that can give you this thing that you actually seek. Is it
this thing that you actually seek. Is it perfect? No. Can you learn and grow and
perfect? No. Can you learn and grow and have progress all throughout the
have progress all throughout the journey? Absolutely. Absolutely. So
journey? Absolutely. Absolutely. So finally, how would you think about the
finally, how would you think about the biomarkers of happiness? If we think
biomarkers of happiness? If we think about my world, we have so many
about my world, we have so many biomarkers. It's one of the things that
biomarkers. It's one of the things that makes our job relatively
makes our job relatively straightforward. We have blood-based
straightforward. We have blood-based biomarkers. We have biomarkers of
biomarkers. We have biomarkers of performance, your V2 max, strength, we
performance, your V2 max, strength, we can look at body composition, all of
can look at body composition, all of these things. If someone comes to you
these things. If someone comes to you and you were the doctor in this sense,
and you were the doctor in this sense, they want to obviously first have some
they want to obviously first have some sort of assessment of happiness and then
sort of assessment of happiness and then they want to be able to track their
they want to be able to track their progress. Is that a silly idea here
progress. Is that a silly idea here because it's so self-evident? No, it's
because it's so self-evident? No, it's not a silly idea at all. I thought about
not a silly idea at all. I thought about it so much and I've had dozens of
it so much and I've had dozens of entrepreneurs want to engineer the idea
entrepreneurs want to engineer the idea and appize it. The class Harvard, you
and appize it. The class Harvard, you got to be able to turn it into some sort
got to be able to turn it into some sort of a product. And the way that you would
of a product. And the way that you would do that is by having relatively
do that is by having relatively complicated but measurable phenomena
complicated but measurable phenomena that you could look at and get better
that you could look at and get better at. And that's a proxy marker for the
at. And that's a proxy marker for the underlying construct which is happiness.
underlying construct which is happiness. Here's the problem with that. Here's the
Here's the problem with that. Here's the fundamental problem. It's a different
fundamental problem. It's a different species of challenge. We talked about
species of challenge. We talked about this one time before. There's two types
this one time before. There's two types of problems in human life. There's
of problems in human life. There's complicated problems and complex
complicated problems and complex problems. And for those who didn't
problems. And for those who didn't actually listen to the last time that we
actually listen to the last time that we did our show your show together, the
did our show your show together, the complicated problems are really really
complicated problems are really really tricky and take a lot of computational
tricky and take a lot of computational horsepower and learning. But once you
horsepower and learning. But once you solve them, you can replicate the
solve them, you can replicate the solution with effortless ease forever.
solution with effortless ease forever. You can do the biomarkers.
You can do the biomarkers. Complex problems are incredibly easy to
Complex problems are incredibly easy to understand but impossible to solve.
understand but impossible to solve. Impossible to solve. There are too many
Impossible to solve. There are too many permutations of what can actually
permutations of what can actually happen. So you're like formula 1 racing.
happen. So you're like formula 1 racing. And so I'm going to set up this
And so I'm going to set up this unbelievable. I'm going to take a bunch
unbelievable. I'm going to take a bunch of Unix machines and I'm going to wire
of Unix machines and I'm going to wire them together and I'm going to, you
them together and I'm going to, you know, 250,000 lines of code and I'm
know, 250,000 lines of code and I'm going to simulate every F1 race for the
going to simulate every F1 race for the rest of the year. You're like, you're an
rest of the year. You're like, you're an idiot. Why? Because F1 is complex.
idiot. Why? Because F1 is complex. That's why it's interesting and you want
That's why it's interesting and you want to watch it. That's why it's so exciting
to watch it. That's why it's so exciting to watch a Formula 1 race because it's
to watch a Formula 1 race because it's complex. I know what winning looks like.
complex. I know what winning looks like. You cross the finish line before the
You cross the finish line before the other guys. It's the simplest thing in
other guys. It's the simplest thing in the world. But a million different
the world. But a million different things can happen. a quadrillion things
things can happen. a quadrillion things can actually happen. That's the fun of
can actually happen. That's the fun of it. All of life's joys are complex
it. All of life's joys are complex problems. Most of the solutions that we
problems. Most of the solutions that we get from technology and science are
get from technology and science are complicated solutions. The biggest
complicated solutions. The biggest problems that we have right now have to
problems that we have right now have to do with the fact that we want to solve
do with the fact that we want to solve our complex problems like love and we're
our complex problems like love and we're trying to do it with complicated
trying to do it with complicated solutions like Instagram. a complicated
solutions like Instagram. a complicated solutions to a complex problem will
solutions to a complex problem will always leave you cold and make you worse
always leave you cold and make you worse off. Basically, it's I'm going to get
off. Basically, it's I'm going to get rid of all the Formula 1 races because
rid of all the Formula 1 races because it's dangerous and I'm going to have
it's dangerous and I'm going to have nothing more than computer simulations
nothing more than computer simulations of it. It's like that's the worst thing
of it. It's like that's the worst thing I've ever heard. That's the dumbest
I've ever heard. That's the dumbest thing I've actually ever heard. So,
thing I've actually ever heard. So, that's the key thing for us to
that's the key thing for us to understand and that's the reason I can't
understand and that's the reason I can't appise this. Happiness is a complex and
appise this. Happiness is a complex and adaptive human phenomenon and you can
adaptive human phenomenon and you can only get it by living it and working on
only get it by living it and working on it and making progress and failing just
it and making progress and failing just like your marriage. I just described
like your marriage. I just described your marriage.
your marriage. >> In that sense, at least I get feedback
>> In that sense, at least I get feedback in my marriage because when I screw up
in my marriage because when I screw up and I apologize, I see that my wife
and I apologize, I see that my wife forgives me. When I make a mistake, I
forgives me. When I make a mistake, I feel the lenience and the love. When I
feel the lenience and the love. When I need the help, the help is there. So,
need the help, the help is there. So, indirectly, I'm getting really good
indirectly, I'm getting really good feedback. And conversely, if a person
feedback. And conversely, if a person was to take an honest assessment of
was to take an honest assessment of their marriage and realize like, we're
their marriage and realize like, we're two ships passing and we don't fight,
two ships passing and we don't fight, but we don't have anything in common. If
but we don't have anything in common. If they were thoughtful enough, they'd
they were thoughtful enough, they'd recognize things are not well. So,
recognize things are not well. So, they'd have a barometer there. Do you
they'd have a barometer there. Do you think that using others as a mirror is
think that using others as a mirror is the best way to get the true barometer
the best way to get the true barometer of happiness? Or do we rely on our own
of happiness? Or do we rely on our own internal assessment? We wind up with our
internal assessment? We wind up with our own internal assessment, but it's not
own internal assessment, but it's not good enough to have that be one single
good enough to have that be one single metric. How happy am I?
metric. How happy am I? We have three so far today in the
We have three so far today in the conversation. Levels of enjoyment,
conversation. Levels of enjoyment, satisfaction, meaning. We can know
satisfaction, meaning. We can know whether or not we have those things on
whether or not we have those things on the basis of the science that we've
the basis of the science that we've talked about and the ways that we can
talked about and the ways that we can get better at and practice it. The
get better at and practice it. The techniques for getting more of those
techniques for getting more of those things are faith, family, friends, and
things are faith, family, friends, and satisfying work. I break it down even
satisfying work. I break it down even further. By the way, I don't try to make
further. By the way, I don't try to make it complicated. is still complex, but I
it complicated. is still complex, but I have a spreadsheet that I keep on my own
have a spreadsheet that I keep on my own happiness that are the micronutrients
happiness that are the micronutrients behind the macronutrients, dozens of
behind the macronutrients, dozens of dimensions, and I'm rating myself. I
dimensions, and I'm rating myself. I weight those things according to my
weight those things according to my experience of how they feed into the
experience of how they feed into the macronutrients and then I have scores on
macronutrients and then I have scores on those dimensions and I want to make
those dimensions and I want to make progress every year. I do it on my
progress every year. I do it on my birthday and half birthday. My half
birthday and half birthday. My half birthday is coming up in November.
birthday is coming up in November. November 21st, my half birthday. And I'm
November 21st, my half birthday. And I'm going to fill out my spreadsheet and
going to fill out my spreadsheet and say, I'm not on pace to get the progress
say, I'm not on pace to get the progress that I had in my strategic plan for my
that I had in my strategic plan for my happiness for next May when my birthday
happiness for next May when my birthday comes around again. What are the things
comes around again. What are the things I need to actually touch up? So, what am
I need to actually touch up? So, what am I doing? I'm kind of doing a curve fit
I doing? I'm kind of doing a curve fit to the complex problem I'm trying to
to the complex problem I'm trying to solve with a little bit of a complicated
solve with a little bit of a complicated solution. I give all those dimensions to
solution. I give all those dimensions to my students and I say, "Look, do the
my students and I say, "Look, do the reading, do the work. You know, I've
reading, do the work. You know, I've read 10,000 articles about this, so you
read 10,000 articles about this, so you don't have to." But I do try to break it
don't have to." But I do try to break it down a little bit so that I can have a
down a little bit so that I can have a multi-dimensional problem. One of the
multi-dimensional problem. One of the things that we know with complex
things that we know with complex problems is the more multi-dimensionally
problems is the more multi-dimensionally you make it, the more likely you are to
you make it, the more likely you are to get better solutions. The worst thing
get better solutions. The worst thing that you can do is like, how do I feel
that you can do is like, how do I feel today? You're not going to make progress
today? You're not going to make progress under those circumstances.
under those circumstances. >> What are some of the micronutrients that
>> What are some of the micronutrients that go into this for you? It'll be the
go into this for you? It'll be the warmth of my marriage, the relationship
warmth of my marriage, the relationship with my kids, how well things are going
with my kids, how well things are going with respect to the value I'm trying to
with respect to the value I'm trying to create with my career, the stability
create with my career, the stability that I have in my friendships, the
that I have in my friendships, the degree to which I feel like I'm properly
degree to which I feel like I'm properly philanthropic, the interest I'm taking
philanthropic, the interest I'm taking in my professional life, the closeness
in my professional life, the closeness that I have with certain intimates in my
that I have with certain intimates in my life, the extent to which I'm avoiding
life, the extent to which I'm avoiding or finding conflict in my work
or finding conflict in my work relationships, all these things go into
relationships, all these things go into my spreadsheet because I know that they
my spreadsheet because I know that they really matter across these three
really matter across these three dimensions. The extent to which I'm
dimensions. The extent to which I'm enjoying my life over the course of each
enjoying my life over the course of each day and I do these particular ratings
day and I do these particular ratings and then I put them together with a
and then I put them together with a weighted sum across them and I've messed
weighted sum across them and I've messed with a weighted sum and I've messed with
with a weighted sum and I've messed with it and experimented with it until I
it and experimented with it until I said, "Yep, that seems about right. That
said, "Yep, that seems about right. That seems about right with respect to what
seems about right with respect to what I'm experiencing at this point in my
I'm experiencing at this point in my life." So you make it a
life." So you make it a multi-dimensional problem. It's a huge
multi-dimensional problem. It's a huge body of social science that talked about
body of social science that talked about imperfect linear models where you take
imperfect linear models where you take big problems and make them into a bunch
big problems and make them into a bunch of little tiny problems and that curve
of little tiny problems and that curve fits to the complex thing you're trying
fits to the complex thing you're trying to solve.
to solve. >> You evaluate that twice a year.
>> You evaluate that twice a year. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> And therefore, you can't have it be
>> And therefore, you can't have it be dependent on the technical noise of the
dependent on the technical noise of the day or the week. You're trying to answer
day or the week. You're trying to answer these questions through the lens of the
these questions through the lens of the last half of the year.
last half of the year. >> Yeah. And if I'm having like a big
>> Yeah. And if I'm having like a big conflict with my wife on my birthday, I
conflict with my wife on my birthday, I don't do it that day. Yeah. I don't do
don't do it that day. Yeah. I don't do it that way. I do because I don't want
it that way. I do because I don't want the noise is what it comes down to. And
the noise is what it comes down to. And if something really really great happens
if something really really great happens to me, the book is doing great, I don't
to me, the book is doing great, I don't answer it that day either because I
answer it that day either because I don't want my neurochemistry to be
don't want my neurochemistry to be affecting it unduly. Although at this
affecting it unduly. Although at this point in my life, I've been doing it for
point in my life, I've been doing it for 25 years. I'm pretty cold in
25 years. I'm pretty cold in calculating.
calculating. >> I think that would be a reasonable app
>> I think that would be a reasonable app to start with.
to start with. >> Could be. Could be. Yeah. And that's
>> Could be. Could be. Yeah. And that's very different than the biomarkers for
very different than the biomarkers for sure because I don't actually know what
sure because I don't actually know what you would look at. What are the
you would look at. What are the biomarkers? I want to make sure I don't
biomarkers? I want to make sure I don't have a problem with my cortisol. I want
have a problem with my cortisol. I want to make sure that my hormones are
to make sure that my hormones are balanced. I want to make sure that my
balanced. I want to make sure that my adrenal system is not
adrenal system is not >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. But when I went
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. But when I went biomarkers talking about Yeah. No, no,
biomarkers talking about Yeah. No, no, yeah. When I went biomarkers, I didn't
yeah. When I went biomarkers, I didn't mean bloodbased biomarkers. I mean
mean bloodbased biomarkers. I mean anything that is either subjective or
anything that is either subjective or objectively measurable that would serve
objectively measurable that would serve as a proxy for a dashboard of your
as a proxy for a dashboard of your happiness, health.
happiness, health. >> And in fact, I have that. It's
>> And in fact, I have that. It's imperfect. It's imperfect.
imperfect. It's imperfect. >> Any plans to share that to make that
>> Any plans to share that to make that something that others can use besides
something that others can use besides your students? It sounds like they have
your students? It sounds like they have access to this.
access to this. >> I should do that. I actually should do
>> I should do that. I actually should do that. That would be an interesting
that. That would be an interesting thing.
thing. >> I'll tell you the last thing I think
>> I'll tell you the last thing I think that's very powerful and worth talking
that's very powerful and worth talking about and I'm curious if you think that
about and I'm curious if you think that this is something valuable for everyone
this is something valuable for everyone or just a subset of people is less self.
or just a subset of people is less self. >> Yeah. The what?
>> Yeah. The what? >> Take away the mirrors.
>> Take away the mirrors. >> Oh yeah.
>> Oh yeah. >> Yeah. I I found that to be a very
>> Yeah. I I found that to be a very interesting discussion
interesting discussion >> because you even talked about that
>> because you even talked about that literally. Some people will literally
literally. Some people will literally minimize the view of themsel in a
minimize the view of themsel in a mirror. And then of course you talk
mirror. And then of course you talk about broader versions of that such as
about broader versions of that such as social media and things like that. Do
social media and things like that. Do you think everybody would benefit from
you think everybody would benefit from this? William James talked about the
this? William James talked about the eyes self versus the me self. You must
eyes self versus the me self. You must have both. When you're looking in the
have both. When you're looking in the mirror, you're two people. You're the
mirror, you're two people. You're the looker and the lookie. And you need both
looker and the lookie. And you need both because you need to be able to look to
because you need to be able to look to understand what's going on around you.
understand what's going on around you. But you need to have a reflection of
But you need to have a reflection of yourself to understand who you are. I
yourself to understand who you are. I need to see, but I need to be seen by me
need to see, but I need to be seen by me so I can understand my context. I can
so I can understand my context. I can understand my place in the world. If you
understand my place in the world. If you don't do that, you'll get run over by a
don't do that, you'll get run over by a car if you don't have the I self or
car if you don't have the I self or you'll have somebody kill you because
you'll have somebody kill you because you've offended them repeatedly because
you've offended them repeatedly because you don't understand the me self is the
you don't understand the me self is the way that this works out. The problem is
way that this works out. The problem is in our society it's all me self, no I
in our society it's all me self, no I self. Most people are not observing the
self. Most people are not observing the world very much at all. They're being
world very much at all. They're being observed and they're observing
observed and they're observing themselves. They're trying to be
themselves. They're trying to be observed and they're observing
observed and they're observing themselves. So social media is a classic
themselves. So social media is a classic case of this. Checking your
case of this. Checking your notifications is nothing more than a me
notifications is nothing more than a me selfobsession. What are they saying
selfobsession. What are they saying about me? What kind of impact am I
about me? What kind of impact am I having on other people? I get it why we
having on other people? I get it why we do it. We're evolved to want to
do it. We're evolved to want to understand where we are in the
understand where we are in the hierarchy. Social comparison, even envy
hierarchy. Social comparison, even envy or evolved phenomena because it helps
or evolved phenomena because it helps keep us alive and make progress. But
keep us alive and make progress. But it's misery when it takes over and when
it's misery when it takes over and when technology supercharges our ability to
technology supercharges our ability to be in the me self state. There are
be in the me self state. There are moments when you can be really confused
moments when you can be really confused about the self and the me self. One time
about the self and the me self. One time I was really thinking deeply about
I was really thinking deeply about something and I was kind of obsessed. My
something and I was kind of obsessed. My daughter and I were in the car and I put
daughter and I were in the car and I put gas in my car and I filled up the car
gas in my car and I filled up the car with gas. Took off from the gas station.
with gas. Took off from the gas station. I'm kind of lost in thought. And about a
I'm kind of lost in thought. And about a block later, I hear this weird ding,
block later, I hear this weird ding, getting
getting like, "What's going on? Somebody's
like, "What's going on? Somebody's dragging a muffler." And then I'm like
dragging a muffler." And then I'm like looking for somebody's dragging a
looking for somebody's dragging a muffler around me. And then I noticed
muffler around me. And then I noticed that cars are honking at me and pointing
that cars are honking at me and pointing at me. And I'm like, "What the hell?" So
at me. And I'm like, "What the hell?" So I stopped the car. It turns out I hadn't
I stopped the car. It turns out I hadn't pulled the hose out of the car, out of
pulled the hose out of the car, out of the pump. And I was dragging I'd pulled
the pump. And I was dragging I'd pulled it out of the pump and I was dragging
it out of the pump and I was dragging the gas pump down the road. Right. the
the gas pump down the road. Right. the hose and I had to go back to the gas
hose and I had to go back to the gas station. I found out how happy they are
station. I found out how happy they are when you do that, which is not, and how
when you do that, which is not, and how expensive it is when you have to replace
expensive it is when you have to replace part of a gas bomb. You know, it's
part of a gas bomb. You know, it's pretty bad. But the whole point was I
pretty bad. But the whole point was I was the I myself and the me self all at
was the I myself and the me self all at once. And it was this weird
once. And it was this weird disequilibrating experience. One of the
disequilibrating experience. One of the ways to get much happier is to be more
ways to get much happier is to be more in the eye myself and less in the me
in the eye myself and less in the me self state. Is to minimize the
self state. Is to minimize the reflection. is to think a lot less of
reflection. is to think a lot less of what other people are thinking and to
what other people are thinking and to observe yourself a lot less. And there
observe yourself a lot less. And there different ways to do that. So in the
different ways to do that. So in the book I talk about this guy I work with
book I talk about this guy I work with pretty closely who he was a fitness
pretty closely who he was a fitness influencer and a fitness model. I mean
influencer and a fitness model. I mean imagine that. I mean you're living by
imagine that. I mean you're living by your abs. What a way to live. If you're
your abs. What a way to live. If you're seeing lower abs and you're an adult
seeing lower abs and you're an adult that means you're never eating anything
that means you're never eating anything you like ever and you're not getting
you like ever and you're not getting enough enjoyment for your life, right?
enough enjoyment for your life, right? And he was miserable for 10 years. He
And he was miserable for 10 years. He didn't eat what he liked. He always had
didn't eat what he liked. He always had headaches. He didn't feel good. He
headaches. He didn't feel good. He didn't have normal relationships. And so
didn't have normal relationships. And so he decided he had to make a change in
he decided he had to make a change in his life. He wasn't living. So he
his life. He wasn't living. So he literally got rid of every mirror in his
literally got rid of every mirror in his apartment and showered in the dark for a
apartment and showered in the dark for a year. So he couldn't see his own abs.
year. So he couldn't see his own abs. And his life completely changed just on
And his life completely changed just on the basis of getting rid of those
the basis of getting rid of those mirrors. When people are miserable in my
mirrors. When people are miserable in my classes, I say take off number one, take
classes, I say take off number one, take the notifications off your social media.
the notifications off your social media. Turn off the notifications so you're not
Turn off the notifications so you're not getting notifications. Don't look at
getting notifications. Don't look at your mentions under any circumstances.
your mentions under any circumstances. Don't pay attention to that. And then
Don't pay attention to that. And then actually literally start getting rid of
actually literally start getting rid of some of your mirrors, your literal
some of your mirrors, your literal mirrors. And what you'll do is you'll
mirrors. And what you'll do is you'll get into more of a state of looking
get into more of a state of looking outward. And the more you look outward,
outward. And the more you look outward, the happier you'll be, the better off
the happier you'll be, the better off your life will be when you're walking
your life will be when you're walking around going, "Man, that's amazing." You
around going, "Man, that's amazing." You know what's not amazing? Me.
know what's not amazing? Me. >> Indeed. Arthur, what surprised you the
>> Indeed. Arthur, what surprised you the most when you set out to write this?
most when you set out to write this? You're writing a book on a topic that
You're writing a book on a topic that you've studied for decades. You've been
you've studied for decades. You've been writing column after column after column
writing column after column after column weekly in the Atlantic. You've written
weekly in the Atlantic. You've written other books that touch on similar
other books that touch on similar themes, but I have to believe that
themes, but I have to believe that there's something that you believe today
there's something that you believe today that you absolutely didn't before or
that you absolutely didn't before or vice versa.
vice versa. >> Yeah, I mean, I've changed my opinion
>> Yeah, I mean, I've changed my opinion about a lot of different things as
about a lot of different things as science has gotten clearer and my
science has gotten clearer and my knowledge has gotten deeper. a lot of
knowledge has gotten deeper. a lot of things that I would have thought and I
things that I would have thought and I could come up with a lot of little
could come up with a lot of little examples. Here's the biggie. My paradigm
examples. Here's the biggie. My paradigm has been shifted. I've have been
has been shifted. I've have been studying happiness for a long time. I
studying happiness for a long time. I wrote my first book on happiness in
wrote my first book on happiness in 2008, but it was kind of like a book on
2008, but it was kind of like a book on astronomy. It was observing happiness
astronomy. It was observing happiness from a distance. Who are the happy
from a distance. Who are the happy people? Who are the unhappy people? It
people? Who are the unhappy people? It never really occurred to me that with
never really occurred to me that with the science I could change my own life.
the science I could change my own life. And I'm not a fundamentally happy
And I'm not a fundamentally happy person. Mad scientists struggle. They
person. Mad scientists struggle. They just do because negative a effect, it
just do because negative a effect, it gets your attention so much more
gets your attention so much more strongly than positive a effect does. If
strongly than positive a effect does. If you're high positive and high negative,
you're high positive and high negative, you're going to feel on balance pretty
you're going to feel on balance pretty negative a lot. So, I always thought to
negative a lot. So, I always thought to myself, happiness is a really
myself, happiness is a really interesting thing, but it's not my lot.
interesting thing, but it's not my lot. It isn't my lot. I went through years
It isn't my lot. I went through years and years and years like that. And when
and years and years like that. And when I came back and started the new
I came back and started the new happiness projects, writing my column
happiness projects, writing my column and the books that I've written in the
and the books that I've written in the past couple of years, I said, "All
past couple of years, I said, "All right, let's see if that's true. I can't
right, let's see if that's true. I can't move the stars as an astronomer, but
move the stars as an astronomer, but maybe I can use the social science and
maybe I can use the social science and the neuroscience in ways where I can
the neuroscience in ways where I can with the knowledge change my habits and
with the knowledge change my habits and get happier. I kind of doubted it. I
get happier. I kind of doubted it. I sort of thought I couldn't and I did. I
sort of thought I couldn't and I did. I actually did. I changed my life. I'm
actually did. I changed my life. I'm usually 8 to nine weeks out on my column
usually 8 to nine weeks out on my column in the Atlantic because I'm trying the
in the Atlantic because I'm trying the things that I'm suggesting. I'm a lab
things that I'm suggesting. I'm a lab rat. I know you do this, too. You're not
rat. I know you do this, too. You're not going to suggest something to your
going to suggest something to your clients that you don't feel comfortable
clients that you don't feel comfortable with. Even as a human being, this is
with. Even as a human being, this is what I'm doing, too. And I'm taking
what I'm doing, too. And I'm taking constant updates. I take the tests with
constant updates. I take the tests with my students on positive and negative a
my students on positive and negative a effect and life satisfaction. My
effect and life satisfaction. My well-being has risen by 60% in the past
well-being has risen by 60% in the past four years. 60%. I mean, it was a pretty
four years. 60%. I mean, it was a pretty low base.
low base. It was a bad denominator, but it's been
It was a bad denominator, but it's been dramatic. And I didn't actually trust. I
dramatic. And I didn't actually trust. I didn't actually believe, but it's
didn't actually believe, but it's actually true. And anybody can do this.
actually true. And anybody can do this. >> It's a great message, Arthur, because
>> It's a great message, Arthur, because you haven't wrapped your identity up in
you haven't wrapped your identity up in being the happiest guy. Because if you
being the happiest guy. Because if you did, you'd feel like a hypocrite all day
did, you'd feel like a hypocrite all day long, right? You'd feel like any moment
long, right? You'd feel like any moment you didn't have that warm, fuzzy, happy
you didn't have that warm, fuzzy, happy feeling, you'd be like, "Oh my god, how
feeling, you'd be like, "Oh my god, how am I the guy that wrote the book on
am I the guy that wrote the book on happiness?" Yeah. And furthermore, I'd
happiness?" Yeah. And furthermore, I'd be faking it all the time. Be faking it.
be faking it all the time. Be faking it. And my wife would be, "Aren't you
And my wife would be, "Aren't you supposed to be happy all the time?"
supposed to be happy all the time?" and somebody sees me kind of grouchy in
and somebody sees me kind of grouchy in the airport and be like, "Man, that's
the airport and be like, "Man, that's very disillusioning."
very disillusioning." >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Well, it's funny when people see me eat
>> Well, it's funny when people see me eat a donut, they're like, "What?" And I go,
a donut, they're like, "What?" And I go, "Hey, read the book, man."
"Hey, read the book, man." >> I know.
>> I know. >> I didn't say don't eat a donut.
>> I didn't say don't eat a donut. >> I just said, "Don't eat 10 a day."
>> I just said, "Don't eat 10 a day." >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Well, Arthur, thanks so much for making
>> Well, Arthur, thanks so much for making time. I know your time is tight here in
time. I know your time is tight here in Austin, so I'm glad we had a chance to
Austin, so I'm glad we had a chance to sit down today.
sit down today. >> Thank you, Peter.
Thanks for listening to the best of Brooks on the drive. To listen back to
Brooks on the drive. To listen back to the full conversations with Arthur, head
the full conversations with Arthur, head to episode 226 and 280. Thanks for
to episode 226 and 280. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to
listening. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Drive. Head
this week's episode of The Drive. Head over to peterati.com/showotes
if you want to dig deeper into this episode. You can also find me on
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