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