0:01 I've been looking at the basic
0:03 neuroscience of these why questions that
0:05 you've been grappling with for decades
0:06 now. And there's all this correlation
0:09 between how much you use your devices.
0:11 So you use your devices to make your
0:12 life really efficient and you free up a
0:14 whole lot of time which you then waste
0:16 by distracting yourself with devices on
0:19 on trivialities and nonsense, right?
0:22 It's like and and and people are like thick.
0:22 thick.
0:25 I know. And it's like it's it's a self
0:27 licking ice cream cone is kind of kind
0:29 of how the thing works. And not very
0:33 surprisingly that you know happiness is
0:35 a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction
0:38 and meaning. There's no evidence that
0:40 people under 35 have lower levels of
0:42 enjoyment and satisfaction. But meaning
0:46 has cratered why? At some point in our
0:48 lives, every single one of us has asked
0:50 ourselves the question, can I be
0:54 happier? There are competing theories.
0:56 Some people think we have to learn to be
0:57 grateful for what we have. that's the
0:59 secret to happiness. Others think we
1:01 have to learn to change our lifestyle,
1:03 our habits, or our routines. That that's
1:06 the secret to happiness. Enter Arthur
1:09 Brooks. Arthur would challenge both
1:12 those theories. He has lived many lives
1:14 and made some remarkable career changes.
1:16 From French horn player to CEO of a
1:18 think tank with no think tank or
1:20 fundraising experience to best-selling
1:23 author. And through all the changes and
1:26 challenges, he has learned exactly what
1:29 it takes to be happy. In fact, his
1:31 insights are so good, he actually
1:33 teaches them in one of the most popular
1:35 classes at Harvard Business School, an
1:39 entire class on happiness. Arthur is one
1:41 of my favorite people to talk to. He's
1:43 fun, he's whips smart, he has a big
1:46 heart, and whenever I'm done talking to
1:51 him, I feel, well, happier. This is a
2:02 I'll be I'll be I'll be totally honest
2:07 with you, which is I use this podcast
2:09 um simply as an excuse to hang out hang
2:12 out with you because you're so busy.
2:13 You're so busy. The only way I can get
2:16 you on the phone is to schedule you for
2:18 a podcast and then we get to chat and
2:20 catch up. I still that's why I always
2:21 thought I was doing the podcast is to
2:24 get to you to get into to worm my way
2:25 into your Google calendar.
2:27 You and I have known each other a very
2:28 long time.
2:30 Uhhuh. Uhhuh.
2:32 Excellent AEI back then. One of my
2:34 favorite things about you
2:38 is you practice what you preach. And I
2:41 know that should be standard fair for
2:44 people who are out there teaching who or
2:45 who are out there writing philosophies
2:47 and theories about, you know, how to
2:49 live life,
2:51 etc. But you and I both know a lot of
2:54 people who give talks and write books on
2:56 living lifestyles that they don't live.
3:00 But you do the things you talk about and
3:02 write about. You do the things that you
3:04 teach in your happiness class. You do
3:06 the things in how you've reinvented your
3:09 own career that you wrote about in in
3:11 your book. How have you reinvented your
3:12 career this time?
3:13 You know, it's funny. And thank you, by
3:15 the way. It's like you're you're doing
3:16 the same thing, Simon. I've known you
3:19 for years. And I mean, I I read your
3:21 books before I knew you. And I started
3:24 with why had a huge impact on me. It had
3:25 a huge impact on me when I was still at
3:28 AEI. and it was operative in in helping
3:29 me understand the trajectory of my own
3:33 life as well. I had a real early in life
3:37 major major career change and you know
3:39 this but not everybody listening to this
3:40 is going to is going to have any
3:41 awareness of this. I was a classical
3:42 French horn player from the time I was
3:46 eight years old until I was 31. So I for
3:49 for 23 years that's all I did and I went
3:51 pro at 19 after you know first run at
3:52 college that didn't I mean I didn't want
3:54 to go to college I wanted to go pro. So,
3:56 I went pro at 19 and all the way through
3:59 my 20s, um, I toured playing chamber
4:02 music. I played two years with Charlie
4:04 Bird, the jazz guitar player. Then I
4:05 played a bunch of seasons in the Marcelo
4:08 orchestra in Spain. And and then I tried
4:10 to become a soloist, unsuccessfully. And
4:12 and the whole point is that by the end
4:14 of that, I had to do something else. And
4:16 so I had to retool my own professional
4:19 life. I had to reinvent myself, which I
4:22 did in my 30s, my early 30s. And I I
4:24 kind of figured out how to do it. I
4:26 figured out how to go from becoming a
4:27 classical French horn player to getting
4:29 a PhD and becoming a behavioral
4:30 scientist. And it was hard. That was a
4:33 hard one. All the changes after that
4:35 have been easier because I figured out
4:38 how to funge the best from my past life
4:40 into my next life. And this is something
4:41 I talk about an awful lot with my
4:43 students. My MBA students at Harvard.
4:45 They're going to have four distinctly
4:47 different careers if they follow the
4:49 norm. And that means that they're going
4:51 to have to understand that their career
4:52 is not a straight line. I mean, you
4:54 understand this. Careers are not a
4:56 stairstep straight line for most people.
4:57 They're more like a spiral where you
5:00 have 7 to 12 year mini careers of your
5:02 own imagination. And if you're too
5:04 paralyzed by fear and you don't know how
5:06 to reinvent yourself and you're not
5:07 willing to go backwards in terms of
5:10 money and power and prestige, you're
5:12 screwed. And you're screwed. You're not
5:14 going to be able to do it. I just got
5:17 lucky. I had to I had to change.
5:18 But this is this is really really
5:21 important because your your case is more
5:24 exaggerated than most right to go from
5:26 horn player to political scientist
5:29 pretty u
5:31 pretty big difference and most people's
5:33 deltas won't be that big which is why
5:35 your case is really important because if
5:37 if you can do it pretty much anybody
5:38 else can do it. I think where people get
5:40 stuck is they look at what their skill
5:42 set is. So in your case be like I know
5:44 how to play a horn. So they look to
5:47 reapply a skill set thinking that's
5:49 reinvention. So reapplying a skill set
5:51 of I instead of being a horn player in
5:52 an orchestra or you know with a with a
5:54 jazz guitarist maybe I I don't know
5:57 maybe I can do video game music you know
5:59 and it's it's the relication of skill
6:02 which they mistake for reinventing themselves.
6:02 themselves.
6:04 That's correct. There's that that the
6:06 problem with that is and there's a huge
6:07 behavioral science literature on this
6:09 that I didn't know until much later till
6:11 I became a behavioral scientist and I
6:13 started and I could look retrospectively
6:14 and understand what had happened to me
6:16 and then look prospectively at what the
6:18 next set of changes were going to be.
6:20 People have a tendency to say okay what
6:23 what have I already as you suggest
6:26 gained skill at and I I could be also
6:28 good at so I can hit the ground running.
6:29 Wrong question.
6:31 The right question is what am I most
6:34 interested in? What is my greatest area
6:37 of interest? That almost never fails.
6:39 But the most interesting thing to you is
6:43 a blend. So, so here here's the we have
6:46 intuition which is also known as gut aka
6:48 data. We have a lot of data because
6:49 we've all had a lot of experiences in
6:52 our lives. When anybody's facing an
6:54 opport a a new opportunity, a new
6:56 threshold, whether it's a marriage
6:58 proposal or moving to a new city or
7:00 having a new career or whatever it
7:02 happens to be, there's three sensations
7:04 that you're going to feel based on the
7:07 data inside the right hemisphere of your
7:09 brain. Sort of the episodic memory
7:11 beyond words. That's your gut. When you
7:13 feel like you have a gut feeling, that's
7:15 why your stomach feels that because your
7:17 stomach is actually on the left is is is
7:18 weighted to the left side of your body
7:19 which is controlled by the right
7:21 hemisphere. That's why we have that
7:22 emotional feeling.
7:25 Okay. So those three feelings when
7:26 you're facing an opportunity are
7:30 excitement, fear, and deadness, which is
7:31 that sense of emptiness. When you're
7:32 looking at an opportunity, it makes you
7:35 feel dead inside. Like I really should
7:37 get married to that woman, but it makes
7:39 me feel dead inside to imagine myself 80
7:41 years old with her. Right? that kind of
7:45 thing. The right that the right mix that
7:46 you should actually when you know it's
7:49 the right step to take is 80%
7:53 excitement, 20% fear, and 0% deadness.
7:54 That's the right combination where
7:58 you're most by the way, it's not 0% fear
8:00 because you might fail, but that's the
8:03 point. If it's zero%
8:04 totally and if there's no risk
8:05 associated with it, it's going to be
8:07 boring. You're gonna be boring. And and
8:09 you're explaining all you're explaining
8:11 almost everything worth doing. I mean
8:13 every entrepreneurial venture totally
8:15 you know has to be more excitement than
8:18 fear because the chances of you failing
8:21 or things going badly are very very high
8:23 and so you have to have the irrational
8:25 excitement to get over the fear to say
8:26 we're going to do this. It's not a
8:27 rational thing to do these
8:30 and and sometimes by the way it's a
8:31 little bit out of your control. When I
8:33 when I left being an academic, I became
8:35 a professor. And in the in the second
8:36 career, in the third career, I was the
8:38 president of a think tank. And I had
8:40 never had a single employee or raised a
8:42 single dollar. And I had to go start
8:44 raising $50 million a year. That's $250,000
8:46 $250,000
8:48 every business day of the year. And I
8:49 had raised zero dollars in my life. It
8:52 was a completely foolish decision on the
8:54 point of on the part of the board of
8:55 that organization to hire me into that
8:57 role. But they were out of time and out
8:58 of options. They're like, "Ah, what the
9:01 hell?" I think which is not a great
9:03 position to be in. And so so when I took
9:06 that job, it was 20% excitement and 80%
9:09 fear. And that's because it was just too
9:12 unknown. It was it was foolish in
9:15 retrospect. I got lucky in retrospect is
9:17 the way that worked out. Generally
9:18 speaking, if you're going to change jobs
9:20 or go back to school or marry that girl
9:24 or or move to Topeka, it should be 80%
9:27 excitement, 20% fear, and 0% business.
9:28 The other thing that I think is very
9:31 very important which is the the
9:33 willingness to go backwards and you you
9:36 touched upon this which is to lose money
9:39 lose lose what appears to be momentum
9:41 lose power. I think a lot of people
9:43 think that if you if you only maintain
9:45 forward momentum that's the only way to
9:47 advance but the reality is it's kind of
9:48 more like a slingshot which is at some
9:50 point you have to go back and then it
9:51 fires forward a lot faster than if you
9:53 were just walking the stone forwards.
9:55 Heck yeah. Absolutely. And and by the
9:57 way, your case study is a perfect
9:59 example of this. When you were starting
10:01 out, I mean, you're very wellknown, very
10:03 highly compensated public speaker. If
10:05 you want to get Simon Synynic, you got
10:07 to book him a year in advance and you
10:09 got to have some money in the bank
10:10 because that's a big part of how you
10:11 make your living. But also, you just
10:12 don't take anything. You got a lot of
10:15 stuff going on. Okay. I know your humble
10:18 origins on that cuz you told me when you
10:20 were starting out, you said, "I want to
10:21 do a lot of public speaking because I
10:23 have a lot of ideas and I want to share
10:26 them with the my fellow humans." You
10:28 actually said that you took every
10:31 opportunity you could possibly find to
10:33 talk about ideas in front of people. And
10:35 so six people would say, "Simon, can you
10:37 come to my apartment and talk to us
10:39 about whatever?" And you'd be, "Yes, I
10:41 will do that." You took every single
10:43 opportunity. And what that sounds an
10:46 awful lot like is using your precious
10:48 time with very little compensation. And
10:49 you have to be willing to do that
10:52 because you got to get in your reps. You
10:53 actually have to train yourself. You
10:55 have to go back to school. You got to
10:56 have the confidence in actually the
10:58 learning process. And and lots of people
11:00 do this. By the way, going backward,
11:01 there's nothing going backwards in this.
11:03 I talked to a lot of my students, for
11:06 example, 65% of my happiness students at
11:08 Harvard are women. 42% of the students,
11:09 the MBA students at Harvard are women,
11:11 but 65% because they're more interested
11:13 in happiness than the I mean, the guys
11:16 are across the hall in the supply chain
11:18 management elective or some damn thing,
11:19 I don't know,
11:20 success class,
11:21 something like that. And women are in
11:24 the life success class. And and one of
11:25 the things that I'll talk about is if
11:27 you're going to be a real spiral in your
11:28 career, you might come out and go work
11:30 for McKenzie. And then you might work
11:32 part-time for eight years while you're
11:34 raising your kids if you decide to have
11:36 kids. And then you might go and work for
11:38 a nonprofit. And after that you might go
11:40 and you know go back to school and do
11:44 something else. But the enterprise is
11:45 not the company you're working for, not
11:47 even the company you're starting. The
11:49 enterprise is your life. It's you
11:51 incorporated and you're the founder. You
11:54 better treat it as a startup. I I also I
11:55 think the concept of backwards is a
11:59 misnomer. Right. Right. Uh uh because
12:01 what it is is is education. It's
12:02 re-education. Like when you go to
12:05 school, you stop your life temporarily.
12:08 and you go to school, you know, uh, and,
12:11 um, I always, and I tell I tell young
12:13 people this who are, you know, I, for
12:14 example, one of the things I think is
12:16 wonderful about Europe, the Europeans is
12:17 they take a gap year between high school
12:19 and if they go to college or if they
12:22 start in the workforce and decade. Yeah.
12:23 Yeah.
12:24 And it's got nothing to do with
12:27 financial resources, you know. Well, I
12:28 mean, it does have something to do with
12:30 financial resources, which if if you
12:32 have to work, you go straight to work.
12:34 But but the point is is is that They're
12:36 not living the life of Riley in that in
12:37 that year off. They might actually go
12:40 volunteer or they might just travel a
12:41 little bit or they might go do a job
12:43 that just interests them that pays them
12:46 a living wage but um is not the thing
12:47 that they want to do for their career.
12:49 It's just something to to to to give
12:51 them a little bit of space for a year.
12:53 It's go go do something for a year
12:55 that's not your career, right? And then
12:58 I talk to young people in the States and
12:59 I'm like when they don't know what I
13:00 don't know what to do and I say why
13:02 don't you take a gap year. Why don't you
13:04 just go get a job where you're you're
13:07 you're teaching, you know, uh teach for
13:09 America or something like that or or if
13:10 you have the means to travel a little
13:13 bit, you know? And they all say the same
13:15 thing to me. I can't because I'll fall behind
13:16 behind
13:19 because I can't afford to take that year
13:21 off because everyone will get ahead. I'm
13:23 like, what what race are you in versus
13:24 everybody else that you're going to be
13:28 quote unquote behind? And the idea that
13:30 anytime you do anything that's not in
13:32 the planet is actually part of school
13:34 and and and like even people who like
13:36 take their first job, their entry- level
13:37 job or their second job or their third
13:39 job and like h this job isn't perfect
13:41 for me. My boss isn't great. It's not
13:42 toxic, you know, but it's just like I
13:44 just it's not my thing. I think I'm
13:45 going to quit. I'm like, you've only
13:46 been there two months. Like I know I
13:48 think I'm going to quit. I'm like, stay
13:50 longer and instead of treating it like
13:52 this is my career, treat it like school.
13:54 Go learn how not to lead from your boss.
13:57 you know, go to school every day
13:58 and your attitude is totally different
14:00 when you're coming to school versus
14:02 trying to make this a thing.
14:05 Yeah. Yeah. This is every every step
14:09 aside for me, even in my own career is
14:11 is going back to school.
14:12 Yeah. For sure. I mean, your whole life
14:14 is school is what it comes down to. And
14:15 especially if you love the process of
14:17 learning and if you love the process of
14:19 the process, which by the way, if you
14:21 don't, the whole idea of I'm going to
14:23 get behind suggests that you're in a
14:24 race towards something, which means
14:25 there's a finish line and that's what
14:27 you're looking forward to the most. And
14:28 that's the arrival fallacy, which I
14:29 probably read about for the first time
14:31 in one of your books.
14:33 The arrival fallacy is this
14:35 is this is this misapprehension that
14:38 since progress is sweet, that getting to
14:40 an ultimate goal is sweetest and that is
14:42 completely wrong. That's the
14:45 prescription for clinical depression is
14:47 I mean literally there's a there's a big
14:49 group of Olympic gold medalists that
14:50 have suffered a clinical depression
14:52 starting about a week after they won
14:54 their gold medal because they're they
14:55 don't understand how human emotion is
14:57 designed designed to give you a
14:59 brilliance and joy and then go back to
15:01 the baseline if you thought that winning
15:03 the gold after all that suffering was
15:04 going to keep you in a happy place for
15:05 the rest of your life. You don't
15:07 understand it. You don't understand how
15:08 humans are. Mother nature doesn't care
15:10 if you're happy. She just wants you to
15:14 win. And so the the divine force within
15:16 you is to live up to your own moral
15:18 aspirations and build your life in such
15:20 a way that the progress that you make
15:22 toward being a better person to creating
15:24 better things to lifting other people up
15:25 that's what gives you the inherent
15:27 satisfaction. So I tell my students this
15:28 all the time to get back to this point
15:30 that you have about people coming out of
15:32 school. A lot of young people listen to
15:33 this podcast
15:34 and when they're coming out of school
15:36 and you're giving this advice for a for
15:38 a gap year. That's great advice by the
15:41 way. It was a gift to me that I couldn't
15:43 continue in college, that I had done
15:46 everything wrong because I was able to
15:48 back up and assess what I was actually
15:50 trying to do with my life. You know, I
15:51 was the first person, you know, people
15:53 like, "Ah, I'm first person to go to
15:54 college in my family." I was the first
15:56 person not to get a PhD in my family,
15:58 you know, and so it was very
16:00 controversial when I when I told my
16:02 parents, "Yeah, I think I'm I think I'm
16:03 going to go on the road as a traveling
16:05 French horn player." Like, is that a
16:08 thing? Is that even a thing? My dad was
16:10 a college professor. His dad was a
16:12 college professor. A and it was it was
16:14 great because I actually by the time I
16:16 was in my late 20s, I'd grown up and and
16:17 that actually made me a better father.
16:19 By the way, I've got three adult kids.
16:21 My first kid comes out and go and and
16:23 went to Princeton at math and econ. Very
16:25 bright validictorian in his high school
16:28 class. His brother wasn't up for that.
16:31 His his brother was a different person.
16:33 And and you know, he's talking about
16:35 going to some college some I knew it was
16:37 going to be nothing more than a waste of
16:39 time and a bunch of partying, which is
16:41 what people do. I mean, they you by the
16:43 way, it's pretty stupid to send your kid
16:45 thousands of miles away from home to be
16:47 raised by other 18-year-olds. It's
16:49 pretty stupid. It's a pretty foolish
16:52 thing to do, right? And so, and and my
16:54 and my son Carlos, man, this is like
16:56 stupid times 10. So, I said, "No, like
16:58 you don't want to go to college, do
16:59 you?" He's like, "No, I don't, Dad. I
17:02 don't want to." I said, "Then don't go
17:03 get a job." And he and he found a job as
17:06 a dryland wheat farmer in Graangeville,
17:09 Idaho. Lived in the farmer's basement,
17:11 made a bunch of money for 15 months. And
17:12 then he joined the Marine Corps, became
17:14 a special operator, became a scout
17:16 sniper in the Marine Corps. He did that
17:19 for four years. By the time he got out
17:22 at 23, he was married and his wife was
17:24 pregnant. He's 25 now, working for a
17:27 construction company making bank. His
17:29 second son will be born in a month. and
17:31 he's gonna at some point go back to
17:33 college because he's going to be ready
17:34 is the whole point. Yeah.
17:36 And you know do something that he's
17:37 actually interested in that he wouldn't
17:39 have been interested in before. Your
17:41 point is incredibly well taken. Look, if
17:43 your life isn't being treated as an
17:45 adventure, as a pilgrimage, and as a
17:47 startup, you're doing it wrong. You
17:50 know, what about for adults? What about
17:53 for people who have, you know, they've
17:55 got some tenure, they've got some skill
17:56 set, they've got some experience, they
17:59 got 20 years, 10, 15, 20 years of career
18:00 under their belt. This is what I know
18:03 how to do. Sometimes they they leave
18:07 because they get bored. Sometimes they
18:09 are asked to leave because the company
18:10 doesn't exist anymore. They've been
18:12 replaced by someone something. The
18:14 company misses its projections. They get
18:16 laid off and now they're forced to
18:18 figure it out. How do you apply this
18:20 advice to somebody who who thinks they
18:21 have a path? So,
18:22 So,
18:23 who thinks they're on a path?
18:25 Yes. And so, there's a couple of
18:27 different possibilities in this case. In
18:28 the first case, there are some people
18:31 who who don't have any money and and
18:32 that's just like getting laid off and
18:34 they're really hard up and and that's
18:36 hard. I mean, that that means like find
18:39 a job, any job as fast as you can. And
18:40 I'm very very sympathetic to the
18:41 circumstances. There are a lot of people
18:43 like that in the United States. And when
18:45 we go into an economic dip, which
18:48 inevitably we will because we always
18:50 have, that that's going to be the case
18:51 for lots and lots of people. But you're
18:53 talking about a different case where
18:56 where people have have a little bit more
18:57 good fortune in their lives and they
18:59 have maybe a little bit more money and
19:01 they can sort of figure out how to
19:02 reinvent themselves even though they've
19:05 never done it before. And and that's a
19:07 that's a really exciting set of
19:09 circumstances. The reason is basically
19:11 this. You know Bruce Filer, right? Do
19:12 you know Bruce Filer? He's written a
19:14 whole bunch of books, but his his one of
19:16 his recent books was called Life is in
19:18 the Transitions. And it's a very nice
19:20 book where he talks about the fact, you
19:22 know, based on on pretty solid data that
19:25 people have a pretty substantial life
19:27 transition every 18 months and they have
19:29 what he calls a life quake every five
19:32 years. And a life quake is a huge change
19:35 in your life, usually uninvited and
19:38 therefore unwelcome. that that like you
19:40 know you got sick, somebody died, you
19:42 lost your job, something like that, like
19:44 something really bad happened or and not
19:46 necessarily bad, but something you
19:48 didn't you didn't want to change because
19:49 you didn't Yeah. you didn't expect it.
19:51 And he says and he finds and this is
19:52 really the the salient point of the book.
19:53 book.
19:55 In the big majority of the cases, like
19:58 more than 90% of the cases, people see
20:01 those life quakes in real time as
20:06 unwelcome and later as beneficial.
20:07 So this is super interesting because
20:09 what that is in my profession as a
20:10 behavioral scientist is called fading a
20:13 effect bias. So you have negativity bias
20:15 in the status quo because change itself
20:17 is really really uncomfortable and
20:19 change feels like risk and risk feels
20:21 like danger and that gets the lyic
20:24 system all revved up right now. But in
20:27 retrospect change feels like learning
20:29 because that's what it's left with. you
20:31 know, when most students,
20:34 you know, I I observe this having, you
20:35 know, been an academic now for a long
20:38 time. They're super super lonely and
20:40 therefore unhappy because they feel
20:42 isolated their first semester. But then
20:44 they remember that first semester
20:46 unbelievably fondly because of all the
20:48 new experiences that they had and the
20:51 new people that they met, which is a
20:52 source of learning. So in real time,
20:55 they're hating their lives. and when
20:56 they come back for their reunions in
20:58 five and 10 and 20 and 30 years, they
21:00 just spend the whole time laughing about
21:02 their first semester of college. And and
21:04 that's a really important case. And so
21:06 the key thing to remember is when you
21:09 are induced to make major life change as
21:11 an adult, you're in what's called a
21:14 liinal state, a phase of limonality,
21:17 which is to be between states. That's
21:19 the most fertile generative learning
21:21 period. And if you can remember that
21:23 notwithstanding your discomfort, you're
21:26 going to do a lot better. That's how you
21:29 reframe discomfort as excitement. I
21:31 is is is
21:33 reinvention only for those who can
21:34 afford it? No.
21:34 No.
21:36 I mean, you said it. You said like if
21:38 somebody loses a job
21:39 and they they need to just get a job
21:41 immediately, you know, but if you have
21:42 some means, you have the opportunity to.
21:45 So that seems unfair.
21:46 Yeah. No, it's true. It's actually and
21:48 and the reason I said that was to be
21:49 sympathetic to the people who are
21:52 involuntarily laid off and have a whole
21:53 lot of needs that they have to meet and
21:55 have fewer degrees of freedom in the
21:57 reinvention process as regards the labor
21:59 market. But everybody should see it in
22:00 this particular way. Look, a lot of
22:02 people who don't have any money, they
22:04 have a, you know, their marriage breaks
22:06 up, right? You know, that kind of thing.
22:08 That's a reinvention, too. A lot of
22:10 people, most people who get divorced
22:12 against their own will look back on it
22:15 years later and say that wasn't a bad
22:17 thing for me. I thought it was a bad
22:18 thing at the time, but it wasn't a bad
22:20 thing for me. So, to the extent that you
22:22 can see any changes your life in your
22:24 life as an opportunity for learning and
22:26 growth, you're going to be a lot better.
22:27 The other thing is this, you know, I I
22:29 talked to a lot of people who spend time
22:33 between jobs and careers a lot um and
22:36 more time than they want sometimes. And
22:38 that's an opportunity for for edifying
22:40 self-development that's not to be
22:43 missed. It's super important. So I
22:45 recommend to people all the time that
22:47 they walk a pilgrimage, which is what
22:48 people have done for thousands of years
22:50 in every major religious tradition. In
22:52 the Hindu tradition, in the Christian
22:54 tradition for sure, the Muslims, they
22:56 walk, you know, the Shinto, their Shinto
22:59 pilgrimages. And the whole point is when
23:01 there is time between things and you're
23:03 looking for what your next thing is,
23:06 make it into a physical metaphor. And
23:08 what what'll happen is you won't find
23:10 it. It will find you on the trail.
23:12 That's the ancient idea from that. And I
23:14 did that, by the way, when I you know, I
23:15 left the presidency of this big think
23:18 tank in Washington DC. And I didn't know
23:20 what I was going to do next exactly. I
23:21 know I was going to go to a university
23:23 and do what? I don't know. And so I
23:25 walked the community of Santiago across
23:28 northern Spain. And every day I prayed.
23:30 I said, "Lord, guide my path. Guide my
23:33 path." Just me and my wife worshiping
23:36 and walking and praying. And on the last
23:39 day entering Santiago de Compostella in
23:43 northern Spain, I was granted the
23:46 information just like the legend says.
23:48 It was to spend the rest of my life
23:50 lifting people up and bringing them
23:51 together in bonds of happiness and love
23:54 using science and ideas. and said, "All
23:56 right, game on."
23:59 Let's go back and talk about process. Yeah,
23:59 Yeah,
24:02 I think it is underappreciated.
24:04 I think we're so results obsessed, we
24:07 forget about the mechanisms and and and
24:10 steps to it to to getting to hopefully
24:12 what somebody would define as success.
24:16 And the the education comes in the
24:18 process, not in the outcome. The growth
24:19 comes in the process, not in the
24:26 outcome. the uh uh the wisdom comes in
24:28 the process, not in the outcome. And
24:30 And
24:32 and even and if I talk to people and I
24:34 say, you know, tell me about a time in
24:38 your life that you loved being a part of
24:40 some project or some event or something
24:41 like something that if if all the things
24:42 in your life were like this one thing,
24:45 you'd be the happiest person alive.
24:46 Almost always they tell me about
24:48 something that was not a commercial
24:50 success or didn't go well in the
24:54 outcome, but it was the process of of of
24:56 coming together with other people in
24:59 common cause that leaves them feeling
25:01 joy and fulfillment that they carry that
25:02 feeling with them for the rest of their
25:05 lives. But we for some re well I know
25:07 the reason but but we have seemingly
25:11 abandoned or uh devalued the value of process.
25:13 process.
25:14 Yeah. No, that's right. and and and it's
25:16 a very normal human thing. It's just
25:19 not, you know, the fault of capitalism.
25:20 It's mother nature. I mean, mother
25:23 nature says, um, since you enjoy
25:25 progress, you're progressoriented. We're
25:27 a progressoriented species. We want
25:28 today to be better than yesterday. We
25:30 want to get further down the trail today
25:33 than we did yesterday and the day before
25:36 that. Therefore, the airgo when we
25:38 arrive at the destination that that's
25:41 going to be bliss. Now, every major
25:44 religion and philosophical tradition
25:46 says that's wrong. From the Stoics to
25:49 the to the Tibetan Buddhists say that
25:51 that's actually wrong. There is an end
25:53 point in Tibetan Buddhism, which is to
25:54 break out of the constant cycle of birth
25:57 and rebirth and attain nirvana. But
25:59 short of that, man, it's not going to be
26:01 that great when you actually achieve a
26:03 particular thing, you're trying to
26:05 actually make progress in your life and
26:08 make progress in improving the world one
26:09 step at a time. And so the result of it
26:11 is that these all of these traditions
26:14 they come together around this concept
26:16 of how to make process the point which
26:19 is called intention without attachment.
26:20 And the whole point is you have to have
26:22 intention and intention means you have
26:23 to have a goal because you don't know
26:25 which direction you're going. You'll
26:28 wander in circles if you don't have a in
26:30 in sailing this is called the rum line.
26:34 The rum line is a straight uh uklidian
26:35 line between where you're starting and
26:38 where you want to end up. But you know
26:39 when you're setting out on a sailboat
26:40 that you're not going to be on that
26:41 straight line. You're going to get blown
26:45 off course. You might like Columbus wind
26:47 up in the wrong continent. You don't
26:50 know. But you got to have a rum line.
26:52 The whole point is not being attached to
26:53 the end of the rum line, but
26:54 understanding that the end of the rum
26:57 line gives you the rum line so that you
26:59 can make progress and have good process
27:00 all along the way. That's the whole
27:02 point of goals.
27:04 I I would I would push a little bit
27:06 there. You know, I agree with you that,
27:08 you know, since the dawn of humanity,
27:10 you know, we we're dopamine driven sort
27:12 of results driven animals. It's it's the
27:13 thing that mother nature, you know,
27:16 helps ensure our survival. I would argue
27:19 though that because technology
27:23 is so helpful that it shortens process
27:25 to such a degree that that's where the
27:28 devaluation happens. you know, it used
27:32 to be if you wanted to do calculations,
27:34 you had to you had to do it out on paper
27:36 because you didn't have a choice, you
27:37 know, and the and the technology just
27:39 makes it shorter and quicker. But
27:41 there's a point where we are now where
27:43 things are so quick and so short. And I
27:45 would argue that AI is making things
27:47 quicker and shorter as well, so as to
27:50 remove process, so as to remove I'm
27:53 going to write a blog right now. I'm
27:55 grateful for technology for fixing my
27:57 spelling or fixing my grammar. Love
28:00 that. Right? That that that condensing
28:02 is very helpful and I don't think quote
28:04 unquote does damage to process. But if
28:06 the machine is going to do the work for
28:10 me, I miss out on process in order to
28:12 achieve result. And what I'm missing out
28:15 is education, opportunity for wisdom,
28:16 opportunity for learning and
28:18 self-growth, for struggle, for
28:20 difficulty, you know, for all of these
28:22 things that are good for me, which I
28:26 would call process. And and in a it
28:28 because the the internet allows us to
28:30 measure everything immediately. We can
28:32 measure every like, every view, how many
28:34 minutes somebody is watching our video.
28:36 We can measure the efficacy of our
28:38 advertising in real time. You know, it's
28:40 not like old TV ads where you had to
28:42 wait six months to find out if anything
28:44 happened and then we still weren't 100%
28:45 sure it was the advertising that did it.
28:49 You know, uh like we used to say 50% of
28:50 advertising works. We just don't know
28:51 which 50%. Now we can say we know
28:54 exactly what's working. My point being
28:56 is the metrics obsessed society that
29:00 we've become, we've forgotten the value
29:02 of the part that's not measured or
29:04 easily measured, which is the value of
29:06 process or at least the measurement
29:09 isn't isn't isn't a is an is not an
29:11 affirming outcome.
29:12 Yeah. No, I agree with that. I mean,
29:16 it's we've lost the living part of life.
29:17 And I and I'll go a step further which
29:21 is which is AI
29:25 may destroy wisdom that pe you we
29:27 started talking about gut decisions that
29:31 gut decisions are our guts are are
29:35 educated they come from life experience
29:36 they come from things going right things
29:38 going wrong it's stored somewhere in the
29:40 liyic brain though we don't necessarily
29:42 have a conscious access to all of those
29:44 memories and experiences at all time but
29:46 but our minds do The liyic brain does
29:47 have access to it which is why you get
29:49 that gut decision. But if we keep
29:52 removing all the struggle, all the work,
29:54 all the the stuff that we have to do manually,
29:55 manually,
29:57 arguably you could live a life of 10
30:00 years and have a gut filled with, you
30:02 know, cobwebs and flies.
30:04 That's right. No, you actually haven't
30:07 put any volumes on the shelf of your
30:09 of your episodic memory in the
30:10 hippocampus. I mean, there's just like
30:12 nothing on those shelves except nonsense.
30:12 nonsense.
30:15 Process process fills the gut. Yeah.
30:16 Not the outcomes.
30:19 No, for sure. I mean, it's like so in
30:21 and the whole discussion that you've
30:24 been having for a long time and and and
30:26 me too about the whole why of life, the
30:29 why of life, it winds up not being
30:32 because I like the outcome. The why of
30:34 life is because I've been fully alive
30:36 during the process. And you know, that
30:38 is the whole, you know, that the key to
30:39 the treasure is the treasure, the
30:41 journey is the destination, etc. But
30:43 there's one wrinkle on this that I've
30:45 been thinking about a lot because I've
30:46 been looking at the basic neuroscience
30:48 of these why questions that you've been
30:50 grappling with for decades now. And
30:52 there's all this correlation between how
30:55 much you use your devices. So, so you
30:56 use your devices to make your life
30:58 really efficient and you free up a whole
31:00 lot of time which you then waste by
31:02 distracting yourself with devices on on
31:04 trivialities and nonsense,
31:06 right? It's like and and and people are
31:08 like thick.
31:09 I know. And it's like what? It's it's a
31:12 self-licking ice cream cone is kind of
31:14 kind of how the thing works. And and and
31:18 not very surprisingly that you know
31:21 happiness is a combination of enjoyment,
31:23 satisfaction, and meaning. There's no
31:25 evidence that people under 35 have lower
31:27 levels of enjoyment and satisfaction,
31:31 but meaning has cratered why. The why
31:33 question has cratered for people under
31:35 35. So I'm like, okay, what is it about
31:38 techn technology use and modern life
31:40 that has made that happen? It it's not
31:43 good enough to say the machines there.
31:45 There's something about the brain that's
31:47 being used differently. And the new
31:48 research, this actually comes from this
31:50 guy Ian McGillchrist. He's a
31:51 neuroscientist at Oxford and a
31:54 psychiatrist. He wrote the master in his
31:56 emissary that talks about hemispheric
31:57 lateralization where the right side of
32:01 the brain asks the why questions and the
32:04 left side of the brain asks and answers
32:06 the how and what questions. So the right
32:08 side of the brain is like here's the
32:10 meaning of life and the left side of the
32:12 brain goes out and does stuff. The
32:15 problem is that in modern life that is
32:16 not processor oriented, that is not
32:19 learning oriented, that is not mystery
32:21 oriented, everything's on the left
32:23 hemisphere of the brain and we have we
32:24 don't have access to the parts of our
32:26 brain that will address questions of
32:30 meaning. This is a huge crisis. And so
32:32 then the question becomes what do you
32:35 do? And so I'm thinking about I mean the
32:37 first the first prescription by the way
32:40 is to start with why. You know your big
32:42 why questions in all of your work it's
32:45 not like easy questions like you know
32:48 why is my phone sitting on this desk.
32:52 It's why questions like why am I alive
32:54 and and why would I be willing to give
32:58 my life which are complex questions that are
32:59 are
33:00 you can understand but never really
33:02 answered. The way the way I the way I
33:04 would frame it when I was first started
33:08 talking about the idea is I said um uh
33:09 why should I get out of bed this morning
33:11 and why should anyone care?
33:13 Yeah. Yeah. And that's what that is is
33:16 that's uh so so meaning or why has three
33:18 parts to it philosophically. Coherence,
33:20 purpose, and significance. Coherence is
33:22 why things happen the way they do.
33:24 Purpose is what are my goals and direction
33:26 direction
33:30 in life? And significance is why does it
33:32 matter? And so, you know, why should I
33:33 get out of bed and why should anybody
33:34 care? That's purpose and significance.
33:36 Those are the those are two of the three
33:38 aspects of meaning.
33:39 Yeah. The the one of the as we're
33:40 talking, one of the things that occurs
33:41 to me as we're talking about process
33:43 versus outcome and how it relates
33:46 directly to our ability to thrive and
33:48 find joy and happy. And I would even add
33:51 survives uh to that list. And I think of
33:53 prisoners of war
33:57 and the prisoners of war from Vietnam in
34:02 take, you know, the ones that their
34:04 their mindset was outcome.
34:08 I hope I get out by Christmas,
34:11 right? I I I they said, "I'm going to
34:12 get out by Christmas. I'm going to I'll
34:13 count the days until I get out by
34:15 Christmas." Okay. I really hope I get
34:17 out soon. I hope I see my family. this
34:20 idea of a of a deadline of a of a a
34:23 finishing line where this suffering will end.
34:24 end.
34:26 Whose paradox is that again? That's the
34:28 that's the
34:30 who's the par whose paradox the the
34:33 naval admiral uh who was imprisoned in
34:35 the Hanoi Hilton
34:36 not Stockdale was
34:37 Stockdale. It was a Stockdale paradox.
34:39 He was the vice presidential candidate
34:40 with Ross Perau.
34:43 That's right. In 1992 Adale. So So those guys
34:45 guys
34:48 often died actually. they they they just
34:50 couldn't hack it. Were the guys who uh
34:53 let go of outcome
34:57 and they just decided to uh embrace
35:00 process. So I I I I had Leopoldo Lopez
35:03 on the on the podcast. He was he's part
35:07 of the Venezuelan uh uh uh movement to
35:09 for democracy. He he lives in exile
35:12 right now. And um he was put in he was a
35:14 political prisoner uh for seven years
35:16 and held in solitary confinement for I
35:19 think four or five of them. And before
35:21 he he turned himself in. He knew he knew
35:22 this was a political thing. He knew that
35:25 they were after him. And um he was the
35:29 mayor of Karacas at the time. And uh he
35:31 prepared himself to go to jail knowing
35:33 that it was going to be awful and also
35:34 knowing that he didn't know when he was
35:37 going to get out. And he he said, "I
35:40 committed to three things. One, I was
35:41 going to every single day do something
35:44 to keep my body healthy. Two, I was
35:45 going to do something every day to keep
35:48 myself my my uh mentally uh healthy. So,
35:51 I would I would write, I would draw, I
35:53 would read. And the third thing I would
35:56 do is to keep myself spiritually
35:58 healthy. And he went to he he was a
36:00 lapsed Catholic and he went to his
36:02 priest to say, "I haven't prayed in a
36:05 long time. I'm going into jail. I I need
36:07 to know how to pray." And his priest
36:10 said most people pray incorrectly.
36:13 He says most people pray to get
36:16 something or to have something end some
36:18 sort of pain or suffering to end or to
36:20 have some sort of bonus or bounty.
36:23 Right? He says that is incorrect. He
36:25 says the correct way to pray is to be is
36:27 to pray for with gratitude just to be
36:30 grateful. That's it. And so every day
36:33 Leopoldo prayed with gratitude. Look how
36:35 beautiful the sun, the sky is today.
36:36 That I can see through the crack in my
36:39 window. Look how that I saw an eagle go
36:41 past my window today. How grateful am I?
36:43 How grateful that I have a family. I
36:44 don't know when I'm going to see them,
36:45 but how grateful that they are out there
36:46 for me. And that we had never had a
36:50 deadline on it. And he made it through.
36:51 He is one of the healthiest people
36:53 you'll ever meet mentally, physically,
36:57 spiritually. He has no PTSD whatsoever.
36:59 And he said he had other prisoners go
37:00 through there. The ones that had
37:02 deadlines, it broke them. It broke them
37:04 to this day. They are broken people.
37:05 Yeah. Yeah. And but this I've always
37:07 wanted to ask you this because about the
37:11 stocktale paradox. How how does this you
37:13 know I know you've thought about this. H
37:16 how is this related to optimism?
37:19 I mean you're a professional optimist
37:20 and optimist because this is the thing
37:22 about the stock paradox. When people
37:24 talk about this they say the optimists
37:26 died but that's not right is it?
37:29 That's not right. That's not right. I
37:32 think the hopeful died.
37:35 I hope that this will end soon.
37:37 I I hope to get out. Whether they talked
37:39 about it to end the suffering or to
37:42 regain the freedom doesn't matter. It's
37:45 when they put artificial finish lines
37:47 where you have no control over the
37:49 finish lines and then you hope for this
37:52 work of fiction to come true
37:54 and you're constantly disappointed. and
37:57 you're constantly disappointed and and
37:58 what you keep doing then what you keep
38:00 doing is moving the finish line. Okay,
38:02 this Christmas I didn't get out. Next
38:03 Christmas I'll get out, right? And you
38:05 just keep and then you apply that to
38:07 life. I'll be happy when I make my first
38:08 million. Okay, my second million. I'll
38:10 be happy when I get the promotion. Okay,
38:13 the second promotion. And it's it goes
38:14 directly to your work, which is the
38:15 finish lines come and go. You might have
38:18 a a thrill if something goes well.
38:21 That's that elation goes away. you know
38:23 that that high goes away pretty quickly
38:25 and then what we end up do is living a
38:28 life moving a finish line whereas what
38:30 Leapoldo did and and Admiral Stockdale did
38:31 did
38:34 was they embraced process in other words
38:38 they found joy in the in the mundane
38:40 they found joy in the daily they
38:42 appreciated the struggle they saw
38:44 themselves to your to use what we were
38:45 talking about before they saw their
38:48 struggle as education my body is getting
38:50 fitter from this exercise my mind is
38:52 getting keener this what I'm writing
38:54 what I'm reading is interesting
38:56 and they could have very difficult days
38:58 I'm sure they absolutely had days where
39:00 they were depressed but they embraced
39:03 process over hope for outcome my fear is
39:05 that with technology and especially the
39:09 rise of AI we are not talking about our
39:12 absolute complete abandonment of process
39:14 and if process is the thing that not
39:17 only teaches us fills us fulfills us and
39:20 makes us happy Then
39:22 what happens?
39:26 Yeah. What? Yeah. Then what happens is
39:29 that we our learning disappears. We've
39:31 outsourced our learning about what it
39:33 means to be fully human and to live a
39:35 good life. We've tried to outsource and
39:37 we wind up asking those particular
39:38 questions about a good life.
39:40 The idiocy becomes becomes real. The
39:42 idiocracy becomes real.
39:44 Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm afraid that's that's
39:46 that's the case. I'm afraid that that's
39:47 and that is increasingly the case. is
39:49 funny because one of the things that I
39:51 see among my students is that use Chad
39:53 GPT as a therapist. I mean they're
39:56 they're literally using Chad GPT to and
39:59 and Chad GPT not just Chat GPT AI is a
40:02 psychopath. AI is a dark triad. A dark
40:04 triad is a person who is high in
40:06 narcissism, mchavelianism and and traits
40:09 of psychopathy. And that's AI. And so
40:13 you're asking a true psychopath,
40:16 a dark triad to give you advice on how
40:18 to live a happier life. That's insane.
40:19 And it'll tell you everything you want
40:20 to hear, right? It's an affirmation machine
40:22 machine
40:23 for sure. That's a great question,
40:26 Simon. That's a brilliant question. You
40:27 you know, you really if look, if she's
40:30 toxic, it's her fault. It's not your
40:32 fault. You know, you should break up.
40:33 It's like I don't know, man. I keep
40:36 breaking up with just announcing I just
40:37 announced that they have programmed the
40:39 machine not to advise anybody to break
40:41 up with their partners like
40:43 Yeah, I know. I mean it's like
40:44 they had to put restrictions on the psychopath.
40:46 psychopath.
40:48 They tried to but the whole point is is
40:49 interesting because the guys at
40:51 Anthropic are trying to understand the
40:53 misalignment between what we really want
40:55 and what we inadvertently have asked the
40:57 machine. And so these these really
41:00 interesting new experiments have shown
41:02 that when you set it up to optimize an
41:05 email program and then in the email you
41:06 send emails to each other saying we
41:09 should disengage the AI the AI will
41:10 start playing dirty tricks. I mean
41:12 there's one simulation in which it
41:15 started blackmailing people on the email
41:17 chain about a extrammarital affair
41:18 saying yeah you can turn me off if you
41:20 want but this is going out to the whole
41:23 company. And uh in other words, and and
41:25 that's what happens when you that's what
41:29 that's what dark triads do. It's my way
41:32 and only my way. I'm willing to hurt you
41:34 and I feel no remorse. That's what it
41:36 means to be a dark triad. That that's it
41:37 explains AI to achieve. And you want
41:39 that for advice in your life about how
41:42 to get happier. Maybe many therapists
41:44 might be dark triads, too, but that's
41:47 not my point. If you can compress your
41:50 entire happiness class into a into a
41:52 into into a couple of bullets. Here's
41:54 the idea.
41:56 Happiness is a big problem in life
41:59 because people don't know what it is.
42:01 People think it's a feeling and it's
42:04 not. Feelings are evidence of happiness.
42:07 Happiness is a combination of three
42:10 things you can measure and study and get
42:13 better at. Those things are enjoyment,
42:16 satisfaction, and meaning.
42:19 And then only then can you actually come
42:21 to terms with the fact that unhappiness
42:24 isn't your enemy.
42:25 Because that's the process. That's part
42:27 of the process of enjoying your life and
42:29 getting real satisfaction after struggle
42:32 and finding meaning after the discomfort
42:34 that comes from everyday experiences.
42:36 And only then can you be fully alive.
42:39 This is this is this is a so this is
42:41 this is so important for for people to
42:44 remember. Right? We never learn anything
42:45 when things go well. We only learn
42:47 things when things go badly. Correct.
42:47 Correct.
42:51 Um uh we can have fun which I think is
42:53 different from enjoyment or satisfaction.
42:55 satisfaction. Right.
42:55 Right.
42:57 Uh um
42:58 well it's part of it's part of enjoyment.
42:58 enjoyment.
43:00 Part of enjoyment is enjoyment is
43:02 actually one of the component parts of
43:02 enjoyment. Yeah.
43:04 Fun is part of enjoyment but definitely
43:06 not satisfaction.
43:06 No. Correct.
43:08 I satisfaction
43:11 more says struggle is leis what leads to satisfaction.
43:11 satisfaction.
43:13 This goes back this goes back to
43:15 everything we're saying which is process
43:17 struggle you know all of these things
43:19 are actually thing that produce what we
43:21 would describe as the feeling of happiness.
43:23 happiness.
43:25 Yeah. Yeah. It's the feeling the
43:26 evidence of the evidence
43:27 the evidence of the happiness. You know,
43:30 Jung talked about the fact that that
43:32 unhappiness is so critically important
43:35 for well-being.
43:36 And this is one of the things that my
43:38 students most often get wrong to begin
43:39 with. They don't understand emotions.
43:42 Emotions are are are the universal
43:45 language to tell you what's actually
43:48 going on below your level of awareness.
43:50 Negative emotions, aka bad feelings,
43:51 tell you that they're you perceived a
43:53 threat and you should avoid it. And we
43:56 have different kinds of threats. Some
43:58 about losing people and things that you
43:59 love. That's sadness. Some about you
44:01 might be poisoned. That's disgust. Some
44:03 about things that might attack and hurt
44:05 you. That's fear and anger. And then
44:07 there's emotions that you want more of
44:10 like joy and interest and surprise. And
44:11 all those are are a perception that
44:14 something is a is a is a is an
44:15 opportunity and that you should approach
44:17 it. That's all it is. That's what
44:19 emotions are. And you know, and to have
44:21 good I just want to have good feelings.
44:22 I don't have bad feelings. You'd be dead
44:24 in a week without your so-called bad
44:25 feelings. And that means that you need
44:26 to be very appreciative. And it gets
44:29 back to the sense of gratitude that you
44:30 should be grateful for all of your
44:32 emotions. And so what I want to do with
44:34 my students and this full understanding
44:38 of the happiness is being fully alive.
44:40 Great St. Erynaeus in the 4th century.
44:42 So the glory of God is a person fully
44:45 alive, which is this Aristotilian notion
44:47 of Udimmonia, right? full light that
44:48 that you should be able to get up in the
44:51 morning and say and I I urge all of your
44:55 fans watching this now to do this to get
44:56 up tomorrow morning and the first thing
44:59 get on your knees and say I'm really
45:01 grateful for all the fun happy things
45:03 that are happen today and I'm also
45:05 really grateful for the stuff I don't
45:08 like that's going to happen today
45:10 because that's what's going to make me a
45:14 a more serious better educated more
45:16 complete person. So when it comes to the
45:19 suffering man bring it on then start I'
45:22 I've also found one's attitude towards
45:24 the unexpected
45:26 uh play significance into optimism and
45:28 ability to sort of appreciate and joy
45:30 and learn the lessons that when
45:31 something unexpected happens and I'm
45:32 talking like simple stuff it doesn't
45:34 have to be like major life things like
45:35 like you know something happens at work
45:39 or you know that that people go oh no
45:41 you know it this is not going according
45:43 to plan. Yeah, I know.
45:46 You know, right versus Oh,
45:48 okay. What's the opportunity we can find
45:49 in this?
45:51 This is weird. What's going on? I know.
45:51 Yeah. Yeah.
45:54 What's What's going on here? Like, oh, I
45:55 didn't expect that. What what can we can
45:57 we make something good out of that, you
46:00 know? And the the the the seeing and I
46:03 think it it I think that the quality
46:05 that underlies that reaction is
46:07 curiosity. That I think when you have
46:09 curiosity, when things don't go
46:10 according to plan, you're curious about
46:12 what happened. And I think when you lack
46:14 curiosity and things don't go according
46:17 to plan, you know, the plan is the
46:20 thing. Um, and I I I think so the
46:22 question is is can one cultivate
46:24 curiosity or is it something you're born
46:27 with or uh uh or you either have it or
46:29 you don't? There's there's literature on
46:32 this and most as most facets of our
46:35 positive and negative emotionality
46:38 um are between 40 and 80% genetic but
46:40 that means they're between 20 and 60%
46:43 environmental and environmental means if
46:45 we create the right environment we get
46:47 more or less of these things. Okay, so
46:48 that's really important. I mean your
46:51 personality and and and your affect
46:54 profile is mostly genetic but it's also
46:55 hugely environmental and you can do a lot.
46:56 lot.
46:57 So that that answers the question that
46:59 we can learn curiosity. So then it begs
47:00 the question how does one learn curiosity?
47:00 curiosity?
47:02 Well curiosity
47:05 is a a positive is related to positive
47:08 emotion through the channel of interest.
47:10 Interest is for sure a positive emotion.
47:12 Humans love to learn. Humans really love
47:14 to learn. And the only reason we don't
47:15 think we have to learn is because our
47:18 education system is so screwed up. I
47:20 mean, it's like we have this Bismar
47:22 German education system where you take
47:24 kids at age five and you sit them down
47:26 in groups of 30 and they go one year
47:28 after another all learning the same
47:30 thing at the same pace with the same
47:34 people of the same. It's just so boring
47:36 that it's just I hated every day of
47:39 school from kindergarten through my PhD.
47:41 I did not enjoy school and I didn't know
47:43 for years what it was. It was because it
47:45 was extinguishing interest. Yeah.
47:46 Yeah.
47:47 I love learning and I hate school. I'm
47:48 the same.
47:50 Yeah. I mean, it's like and learning is
47:52 the best because learning is is we're
47:54 evolved to learn more. You of course
47:55 you're going to get positive
47:57 emotionality from learning because your
47:59 ancestors, you know, the ancient cynics
48:02 on the African savannah. They were it's
48:04 like one of them found berries on a bush
48:06 and gazels around a watering hole and
48:08 said, "This is awesome." And that's why
48:10 they passed on their genes. And so they
48:12 got positive reinforcement and dopamine etc
48:13 etc
48:15 from from the learning process. And so
48:16 we still love
48:17 how do we teach curiosity? How do we
48:18 teach it? How do we teach curiosity?
48:21 We teach it by actually figuring out how
48:23 people learn best and then help them in
48:25 that lane to learn the things that
48:26 they're really interested in. So there's
48:28 a lot of there's a lot of research now
48:30 about neurode diversion people who have
48:40 ADHD. And what you learn when a one of
48:42 your kids is diagnosed with ADHD is that
48:44 it's mostly nonsense what they're
48:46 telling you. What they're what they're
48:49 have a hard time doing is sitting still
48:51 and suffering through the stuff that
48:54 they think is boring. They have a super
48:56 strength. ADHD kids have a super
48:57 strength in focusing on the things that
48:59 they think are interesting. Super
49:02 strength. So when my son Yeah. And when
49:04 my son Carlos, he became a sniper, you
49:06 know, he'd be like, "Yeah, Dad. I spent
49:11 six hours in a bush in 110 degree heat
49:13 and in in a forward operating base in
49:16 the United Arab Emirates and there was a
49:18 tarantula on my arm." And I'm like, "Oh,
49:20 it sounds awful." He says, "It was
49:22 awesome." And it's like, "This is the
49:24 kid who can't concentrate in school."
49:26 And so, you got to look for the super
49:28 the super strength, the super skill of
49:30 these kids. That's why the stakes are so
49:32 much higher with people with ADHD to
49:34 find that number one, what is the thing
49:36 that fascinates them? And number two,
49:38 how do they like to learn? And there's
49:40 lots of ways to do that. That's where
49:42 technology is a blessing and not a
49:44 curse. Because the technology that we
49:46 have today is not that it gives you the
49:48 right answer. It provides you with the
49:51 means to investigate what the answers
49:52 might be in your own learning style
49:54 better. In my case, that's where
49:56 teamwork mattered or it still matters.
49:58 like I have to be on a functional team
50:01 and like making a being part like being
50:04 whether formally or informally I have to
50:05 contribute to the the leading of that
50:07 team to help keep it functional because
50:10 if the team is not functional I'm
50:13 screwed because uh because if I'm not
50:17 interested in something I I just don't
50:18 do it. It's terrible. I'm not proud of
50:21 it. My whole life it's been you know
50:22 I've been accused of all kinds of things
50:24 like you're unreliable. Why don't you
50:25 get that done? it's because it's not
50:27 interesting. But if I'm on a team with
50:29 with with other people who find that
50:30 stuff interesting, we're like we're off
50:32 to the races. I just want people to
50:36 recognize that uh the way that everybody
50:39 tells us we have to succeed. Yeah.
50:39 Yeah.
50:42 I both on purpose and by accident done
50:44 the opposite and it's worked out okay.
50:48 Like I'm living proof that having a plan
50:49 doesn't I don't have one. I've never had
50:50 one. People like what are you going to
50:52 do in five years? I'm like I don't know.
50:53 like I how how the hell should I know
50:54 what's going to happen in five years and
50:56 I've got no plan. I've never had a a
50:58 plan, right? I'm living proof that you
51:02 don't need great grades in college,
51:06 right? My GPA was fine, right? Uh I'm
51:08 living proof that you don't have to be
51:12 uh a voracious reader. You know, my ADHD
51:14 I really struggled to read and you know,
51:15 I carried a lot of shame about this for
51:17 many years, but the fact that matters is
51:18 I've written more books than I've read.
51:21 That is a that is a true statement.
51:22 And I've started a lot of books. I like
51:25 the idea. I I wish I could read more
51:27 because I I'm so curious. I want to read
51:28 the books,
51:31 but I struggle. And same with Oh, what
51:33 about audio books? Nope. I I'll have to
51:35 listen to it six times because I get so
51:38 distracted. So, um, and so what I've
51:41 done is let go of how other people tell
51:44 me I have to learn and thank goodness
51:46 figured out how I learned, how I learn.
51:49 And so I hope that my entire sort of
51:51 career is a sigh of relief for people
51:53 who are struggling the way they've been
51:54 told they have to do things.
51:56 Yeah. No, that's right. And the basic
51:58 rules of how things are supposed to be
52:00 done is for the average person. And
52:01 there isn't an average person.
52:02 There's no average person.
52:04 There actually isn't an average person.
52:05 And I mean there's one person right in
52:07 the center of the the standard normal curve.
52:09 curve.
52:10 But we're all some weird thing. And the
52:12 whole point is that learning how you
52:14 learn, learning what's interesting to
52:15 you, building your own life, treating
52:18 your life as a as an enterprise in this
52:19 particular way is the way that we all
52:21 should be living is the is the bottom
52:23 line. And that's very processoriented
52:25 approach to life.
52:28 And that's where I I get to the that's
52:30 where I think we are which is I think
52:31 the conclusion I have from this
52:34 conversation which is success,
52:38 happiness, wisdom, gut,
52:40 all of that is learning to find joy in
52:43 process. Learning to find joy in the
52:46 doing. I mean it's I and it's so I it
52:49 sounds so hackneed. It sounds so so like
52:51 again like how many freaking different
52:53 ways it you said it before. not the
52:55 destination at the journey. Like
52:57 learning to let go of outcome. It's so
52:59 Buddhist and like like how many
53:01 philosophies for millennia have to
53:03 reinforce the same damn message over and
53:06 over again. And our job, your my job as
53:09 sort of social commentators is not to
53:12 remind people of of what people have
53:14 been saying for millennia. Our job is to
53:18 translate it into into words that that
53:20 resonate today. And that's one of the
53:22 reasons why start with why was a coup.
53:24 It's not that I was the first person to
53:26 start talking about, you know, me or
53:29 even meaning at work. It's that I found
53:31 a language that was right for the times.
53:35 I abandoned the old language, you know,
53:38 uh and and that's I think why I it it
53:40 allowed people who needed to listen to
53:42 listen. It was no longer preaching to
53:45 the converted. And so this idea of
53:48 process as opposed to the journey, which
53:50 sounds a little hippie- dippy, you know,
53:51 love the journey. It's like I want to
53:52 punch somebody in the face the next time
53:55 somebody tells me that, you know, but
53:57 but to appreciate the process, which
54:00 means learn to write your own blog, you
54:03 know, learn learn learn
54:05 to to have a difficult conversation with
54:07 somebody on your team or with a loved one
54:09 one
54:12 um without memorizing a script from chat GBT.
54:13 GBT.
54:17 Uh learn to sit in discomfort.
54:20 All of these things are it's just it's
54:21 called it's process. It's process of
54:23 work. It's process of life. It's process
54:26 of learning. Process is messy, ugly, and
54:28 very imperfect.
54:31 Yeah, that's for sure. Because it's
54:33 actually in real time.
54:34 It's actually in real time.
54:35 This is happening right now.
54:37 And and I guess I guess I guess this is
54:39 the point.
54:40 Be alive now.
54:41 Be alive now.
54:42 Don't be alive later.
54:44 What a
54:46 crazy. you. We We've all This is a great
54:48 place to This is a great place to end.
54:51 We've all been alive before. Uhhuh.
54:51 Uhhuh.
54:54 We can't plan to be alive
54:56 later. The only
54:58 might or might not be.
55:00 The only thing we can do is be alive
55:02 now. And how would you like to do that
55:03 right now?
55:05 That's right.
55:07 Well, I'm glad I'm alive right now with you.
55:08 you.
55:09 I'm glad I'm I'm alive with you right
55:12 now, too. I love you. you you you I've
55:14 always ended any conversation with you
55:17 smarter than I began. I love you and I
55:18 can't wait to see you in the same city
55:19 one day soon.
55:20 I love you too.
55:23 A bit of optimism is brought to you by
55:25 the Optimism Company and is lovingly
55:28 produced by our team Lindseay Garbinius
55:30 and Devon Johnson. If I was able to give
55:32 you any kind of insight or some
55:35 inspiration or made you smile, please
55:37 subscribe wherever you enjoy listening
55:39 to podcasts for more. And if you're
55:41 trying to get answers to a problem at
55:44 work or want to advance a dream, maybe I
55:47 can help. Simply go to simonsynic.com.
55:50 Until then, take care of yourself. Take
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