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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric, and this is next question. Today.

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Speaker 1: We're going to be exploring happiness because we seem to

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Speaker 1: be obsessed with that as a culture. Just look to

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Speaker 1: hire ed. Some of the most elite universities tout courses

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Speaker 1: on happiness, the science of it, the value of it,

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Speaker 1: the history and future of it. There are podcasts about happiness,

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Speaker 1: whole genres of earnest TV shows built to temporarily evoke it.

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at you, Ted Lasso. Why are we all

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Speaker 1: so smitten with happiness? Is it because the world is burning,

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Speaker 1: because we're doom scrolling, because the internet makes us want

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Speaker 1: what we can't have. Let's find out. My guest today

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Speaker 1: is none other than happiness expert and one of those

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Speaker 1: aforementioned happiness scholars, Arthur C. Brooks. Arthur also writes a

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Speaker 1: regular column for The Atlantic on happiness, and his most

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Speaker 1: recent book is called From Strength to Strength, Finding Success,

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Speaker 1: Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second half of Life.

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Speaker 1: Here's our conversation, with all due respect, Arthur, what makes you?

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Speaker 1: What what makes you qualified? And what makes you an

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Speaker 1: expert on happiness? Yeah? So, I I am a PhD

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Speaker 1: social scientist and I have studied behavioral economics and as

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Speaker 1: social psychological principles my entire career. I started off by

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Speaker 1: studying beauty and why people admire things, why people love

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Speaker 1: and are attracted to beauty. Later I was studying philanthropy

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Speaker 1: and sharitable giving, why people voluntarily serve other people, And

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Speaker 1: I kept finding that in those two areas, the tap

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Speaker 1: root was happiness. The tap root was trying to live

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Speaker 1: a better life. And so I thought to myself as

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Speaker 1: I as I got to the middle part of my career,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to study the main thing, the

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Speaker 1: main thing that everybody wants. You know, I have the

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Speaker 1: I have the skills to look at these things. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm trained and applied statistics and all of these things

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Speaker 1: that people suffer through and they're getting their PhDs. But

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Speaker 1: it's very easy to get kind of stuck, you know,

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Speaker 1: studying marginal things. And when I started talking about the

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Speaker 1: science of happiness, which there really is a huge science.

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Speaker 1: I'm really bringing in the neuroscience and the social science

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Speaker 1: and the philosophy of happiness, and and using my academic

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Speaker 1: skills to bring these things together, I found everybody wanted

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Speaker 1: to know more. And this is the magic part of

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Speaker 1: the Katie. You know, we're all we all have skills,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've all worked hard to be good at

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Speaker 1: what we're doing. The real question for us in our

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Speaker 1: careers is the why. And I got to the point

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Speaker 1: in my life when I said, you know what, the

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Speaker 1: why of my career is to lift people up and

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Speaker 1: bring them together. And the way that I can do

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Speaker 1: that is using my knowledge and my skills to help

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Speaker 1: them pursue their happiness. And so I decided I was

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Speaker 1: going to do that for the rest of my life.

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Speaker 1: Do you think happiness is the wrong word for what

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Speaker 1: we're all searching for? Because it can be so fleeting

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Speaker 1: and so elusive, and I'm not sure if it is

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Speaker 1: even accurate in terms of what you talk about in

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Speaker 1: your book, right, Yeah, I know. So that's actually that's

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Speaker 1: the first issue that I raised in my class. I

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Speaker 1: teach a class in the Science of Happiness at the

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Speaker 1: Harvard Business School and I have a hundred eight students

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Speaker 1: in about four hundred on the waiting list. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a class that obviously, hey, kids free candy.

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Speaker 1: I mean they I mean, happiness is something that they

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Speaker 1: think they want. And one of the the ways that

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Speaker 1: I reasons I use the word happiness is to bring

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Speaker 1: people in. And then when we're talking with more precision,

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Speaker 1: we boil it down a little bit more So on

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Speaker 1: the first day of class, I say, Okay, you spent

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Speaker 1: all your elective points to get into the happiness class.

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Speaker 1: You obviously must know what it is. So what is

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Speaker 1: it in a cold column, which is you know? You

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Speaker 1: go out and see you Okay, you know what's happiness?

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Speaker 1: And they'll say, that's the feeling I get when you know,

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Speaker 1: I see my family and Thanksgiving or something, and I'll

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Speaker 1: talk about their feelings, and I say, no, that's not right.

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Speaker 1: That's like saying that your Thanksgiving dinner is the smell

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Speaker 1: of the turkey. You wouldn't say that. I mean that

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Speaker 1: the smell of the turkey is evidence of Thanksgiving dinner,

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Speaker 1: and your feelings of happiness are evidence and stuff, something deeper,

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Speaker 1: more profound, a real phenomenon that you can study and

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Speaker 1: practice and share. And then we start to develop the

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Speaker 1: idea and the truth is that happiness is really a

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Speaker 1: combination of three things, as a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction,

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Speaker 1: and purpose. Those are the big three things that people

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Speaker 1: are looking for and the truth is you need all

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Speaker 1: kinds of experiences and emotions, You even need unhappiness to

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Speaker 1: get those things. You need a full life, fully alive,

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Speaker 1: and and the science actually brings out all those ideas.

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Speaker 1: So you're right, we got to get people's attention. But

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Speaker 1: happiness is a much deeper phenomenon than just hey, I

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Speaker 1: feel happy. I think of words like contentment, fulfillment, and

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Speaker 1: inner peace, even as happneyed as that phrases, when I

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Speaker 1: think about what one's goal should be. Right, So the

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Speaker 1: way to think about that, so contentment is really important.

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Speaker 1: That's part of satisfaction with life. And so the key

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Speaker 1: thing is that all the happiest people they haven't um

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Speaker 1: and think about it kind of like the macronutrients. You know,

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Speaker 1: when you say dinner is protein, carbohydrates and fat. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a clinical way to look at dinner.

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Speaker 1: It's not very romantic, but you know it's like, join

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Speaker 1: me for dinner of protein, carbohydrates and fat. It's not

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Speaker 1: that great. But the truth is, if you want to

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Speaker 1: be healthy, you need all those three things in balance

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Speaker 1: and abundance. Happiness basically as a way that we need

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Speaker 1: to understand how to enjoy our lives, you know, from

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Speaker 1: moment to moment, and which is not pleasure. It's it's

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Speaker 1: something much deeper, something much more human than than than pleasure.

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Speaker 1: And there's a whole science behind that. Satisfaction is is

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Speaker 1: the piece that you get when you you achieve something

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Speaker 1: that you've really worked for. That's the sense of contentment

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Speaker 1: with your life because you've met your goals. Now that

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Speaker 1: can be a curse to Yeah, we'll talk about that

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Speaker 1: later because I know I'm dying to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: Saction is a real killer, but it can be. But

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Speaker 1: then there's purpose and meaning and that's the that's really

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Speaker 1: the deepest of all. You know, what is my life

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Speaker 1: all about? You know how? What's the coherence? What's the

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Speaker 1: general direction of my life? Why am I alive? And

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Speaker 1: that takes a whole lot of work and a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of suffering for people to understand the answer to

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Speaker 1: that question, and nobody wants to suffer, and we don't

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Speaker 1: need to look for it. It It will, in point, in

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Speaker 1: fact find all of us. And so those three things altogether,

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Speaker 1: they encompassed so many things and so many skills, and

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Speaker 1: that's what's my privilege to write and teach, But I'm

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Speaker 1: curious what about our society today has made people have

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Speaker 1: this yearning to learn more, to do more. I think

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Speaker 1: if I told my parents when I was growing up, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I want to be happy, and what can

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Speaker 1: we do to be happy? I mean, it does sound

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Speaker 1: marginally or moderately, I guess self indulgent to say to

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Speaker 1: our parents generation. I think, but what is happening right

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Speaker 1: now in the culture where people need this and they

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Speaker 1: want it and they're yearning for it. Yeah. A couple

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Speaker 1: of different things have happened along the way. And I

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Speaker 1: ever remember I was having a conversation with my dad.

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Speaker 1: I changed careers. I was a classical musician for a

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Speaker 1: long time in my late twenties. I knew I was

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Speaker 1: going to have to change careers and I told my

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Speaker 1: dad I was going to do and he said, what

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Speaker 1: You're successful? Things are going well, he said, He said,

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Speaker 1: why do you want to do that? And I said, Dad,

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Speaker 1: I'm not happy? And he said, what makes you so special? Right? Totally? Totally, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I get it. Well, a couple of things have happened.

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Speaker 1: Number one is happiness as a science has really exploded.

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Speaker 1: And two generations ago, or even one generation ago, people

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Speaker 1: didn't realize that. They really thought it was a nice

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Speaker 1: to have, you know, good luck, live right, played by

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Speaker 1: the rules, try to get lucky, you know, when it

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Speaker 1: comes to happiness. And we actually know a lot more

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Speaker 1: than we did about that. In many ways, it follows

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Speaker 1: the advent of care for mental illness or for even

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Speaker 1: mood disorders, where you know, in nineteen fifty or even

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty, people just had to suffer, and now we

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Speaker 1: know that there's a lot that you can do. The

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Speaker 1: happiness science is not trying to get you from behind

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Speaker 1: the line of scrimmage to you know, functioning adequately. It's

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Speaker 1: going for you know, people who are functioning pretty well

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Speaker 1: to to be kind of fitness, you know, junkies. There's

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Speaker 1: sort of people who are in good health, but they

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Speaker 1: really want to work by going to the gym and

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Speaker 1: getting better at that. Another thing that my parents generation

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Speaker 1: thought was completely crazy. Here's the other problem. That's actually

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Speaker 1: why there's been such an explosion of interest. Happiness is declining.

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Speaker 1: We've seen actually happiness and decline since about and you know,

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Speaker 1: you and I were you know, as like young adults

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Speaker 1: and these and and you know, in those days and

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Speaker 1: and I mean, that's pretty extraordinary that it would be

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Speaker 1: declining at a time when income is going up, when

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Speaker 1: stand of living is going up, literacy is going up,

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Speaker 1: child mortality is going down. Most indicators of what a

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Speaker 1: good life is are going in one direction, but happiness

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Speaker 1: is going in the other directions. So you've got to

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Speaker 1: ask what's actually going on and when people are I mean,

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Speaker 1: you don't study air unless you don't have enough of it,

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Speaker 1: and so that's a little of what's happening to I think, well,

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Speaker 1: I thought that there were a lot of things that

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Speaker 1: weren't going up. You know, a lot of people, uh

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Speaker 1: younger generation don't feel that they'll be as successful as

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Speaker 1: their perrents. They I think, worry about climate change, They

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Speaker 1: worry about sort of the economy, there's so many They

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Speaker 1: worry about democracy. So are these things really as good

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Speaker 1: as you say they are? Well, part of the there

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Speaker 1: is the difference between things getting better and what we're

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Speaker 1: worried about, what we're worried about the future. And the

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Speaker 1: key thing that we all know from our own lives

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Speaker 1: is things can be pretty good, but if you're in

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Speaker 1: bad shape for your happiness, you're gonna be very worried

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Speaker 1: about the future, and you're only going to see the

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Speaker 1: negative side of everything. So this is a lot of

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Speaker 1: what we see. Look, there are concerns, there are all

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Speaker 1: kinds of things that we need to do differently to.

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Speaker 1: We do need to work on our democracy, we do

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Speaker 1: need to work on on all sorts of social issues

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Speaker 1: to make our world better. But when people are very

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Speaker 1: fired up, and quite frankly, there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: people that are our age that are trying to conscript

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Speaker 1: young people as kind of child soldiers into a culture

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Speaker 1: war and kind of a baby boit more culture are

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Speaker 1: on right and left. Let's make everybody is afraid and

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Speaker 1: angry as they can possibly be. But they're they're they're

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Speaker 1: willing to join up forces like that when the when

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Speaker 1: the happiness is too low, when people are in a

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Speaker 1: good place, they're less likely to say, look, I understand

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Speaker 1: there's problems, but life is pretty good. And when they

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Speaker 1: say no, everything's rotten, you know we're all going to

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Speaker 1: be in trouble. You know. The truth is that young

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Speaker 1: people today they have as much opportunity and actually more

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Speaker 1: prosperity than people have ever had before. But it's hard

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Speaker 1: to see the good things when you don't actually feel

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Speaker 1: the happiness in the in life around you. Well, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about that. Why is happiness on the decline? If

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Speaker 1: in fact things are pretty good and and the world

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Speaker 1: is helping along and things are as good as you

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Speaker 1: say they are, why his happiness declined. It's not as

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Speaker 1: if it's great for everybody. I mean, it's like, as

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Speaker 1: they say, your results may vary in almost anything, and

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Speaker 1: so there's some people who truly are suffering. And so

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Speaker 1: we don't want to make minimize that. Even if things

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Speaker 1: are going in the right direction in terms of trends,

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Speaker 1: we don't you know, individuals might have been having a

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Speaker 1: hard time and there's still lots to do. So we

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Speaker 1: have to emphasize the fact that things aren't perfect and

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Speaker 1: we all have an opportunity to make things better. So

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Speaker 1: that's really good. But what happens is when things are

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Speaker 1: on balance, pretty prosperous and pretty free, but we don't

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Speaker 1: see it. You have to look to other kinds of forces,

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Speaker 1: and what we find is basically that we have a

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Speaker 1: world that's been kind of torqued towards these idols that

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Speaker 1: a lot of young people are falling prey to. Now

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Speaker 1: one of the great blessings of people our age, Katie,

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Speaker 1: is that there was no social media when we were young,

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Speaker 1: and that means that we didn't have the kind of

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Speaker 1: social comparison pressures, we didn't have the kind of materialistic pressures.

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Speaker 1: We didn't have a sense that everybody's life was great

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Speaker 1: and ours wasn't so good. But that's a broader case

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Speaker 1: of people being induced towards these idols of money and

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Speaker 1: power and pleasure and and the admiration of strangers. Whereas

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Speaker 1: the one of the great things that we find in

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Speaker 1: the in the Science of Happiness says there's really four

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Speaker 1: big habits that the happiest people have that are that

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Speaker 1: are not consistent with those idols, and those are faith

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Speaker 1: or a life philosophy, or something that gives you a

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Speaker 1: sense of the why of life. It doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: be your traditional religious faith. It has to be something

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Speaker 1: that's bigger than you. Family life um, and you you

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Speaker 1: decide what family life means. But these are the ties

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Speaker 1: that bind and don't break, and often you don't choose,

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Speaker 1: and God knows you wouldn't in many cases. But there

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Speaker 1: are the people who take the two am phone call

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Speaker 1: friendship as in real friends not deal friends, and last

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Speaker 1: but not least, it's work where you can serve others.

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Speaker 1: And our our society is pushing people away from faith, family, friends,

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Speaker 1: and work and toward a kind of self worship around money, power, pleasure,

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Speaker 1: and and fame. And those are just unhealthy things. And

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Speaker 1: that's really what explains a good deal of why it's

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Speaker 1: so hard to just find happiness on your own. When

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Speaker 1: we come back, did you know living in a cultural

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Speaker 1: fear actually takes a toll on our happiness? Arthur Brooks

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Speaker 1: has the to dote right after this, you say, happy

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Speaker 1: people love people and use things. Unhappy people use people

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Speaker 1: and love things, which is basically their values and priorities

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Speaker 1: are clearly not in the right place. Yes, that that's

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Speaker 1: you know, that's a more concise way of saying. You know,

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Speaker 1: use people, love things, money, power, pleasure, and fame. Use things,

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Speaker 1: love people, faith, family, friends, and work that serves other

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Speaker 1: than social media. What do you think has caused a

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Speaker 1: decline in happiness? Is it loneliness and isolation? I know

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Speaker 1: that you started writing during the pandemic. You're column for

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Speaker 1: the Atlantic. Um, you know what other factors are contributing

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Speaker 1: to a decline of happiness. One is a big cultural

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Speaker 1: phenomen on that's very interesting that philosophers have been writing

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Speaker 1: about for many centuries, which is that you can get

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Speaker 1: a culture of fear. Now, fear and love are the

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Speaker 1: opposite emotions. We often think that hatred and love are opposites,

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Speaker 1: but hatred is a function of fear. And we find

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Speaker 1: when we look at the neuroscience of fear, it occupies

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Speaker 1: it's the most it's the most prominent negative basic emotion

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Speaker 1: produced by the limbic system of the brain. Everybody has

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Speaker 1: heard of the amygdala as the part of the brain

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Speaker 1: that actually the almond shape little things on either side

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Speaker 1: of your brain in the olympic system, that they stimulate

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Speaker 1: a lot of stress hormones, fight or flight or freeze.

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Speaker 1: And what they do is they dominate all of the emotions. Well,

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Speaker 1: the opposite most basic positive emotion is love. Fear and

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Speaker 1: love or opposites. And you can have either polarity in

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Speaker 1: a company or or a family or a whole country.

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Speaker 1: And we've been for quite a long time and a

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Speaker 1: fear polarity in our policy, in our culture, and that's

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Speaker 1: hugely problematic. Look, you and I, I mean, we're established,

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Speaker 1: you know, we have our families, there's a lot that

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Speaker 1: we can rely upon. But even people our age have

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Speaker 1: been falling prey to this. Young people, on your other hand,

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Speaker 1: they're quite vulnerable to the culture of fear and what

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Speaker 1: foments it. It's it's politicians that are you know, it's interesting.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell young people, you know, you are an unwilling

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Speaker 1: soldier if you hate because somebody's trying to tell you

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Speaker 1: that you must hate and you must be afraid. You

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Speaker 1: know that person does not have your best interests at heart.

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Speaker 1: They're profiting. You're not. As you know, I told us

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Speaker 1: in every university campus that I go to, don't be

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Speaker 1: a willing participant in the baby boomer culture war with

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Speaker 1: canceling people you disagree with, you know, with actually weakening

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Speaker 1: the fundamentals of our democracy. You know what you're doing

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Speaker 1: is you're standing up for somebody else's values and you're

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Speaker 1: falling prey to this fear. So fear in our culture

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Speaker 1: is one of the biggest problems that we have, and

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Speaker 1: it's especially affects young people. Well, I would say that

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Speaker 1: that cancel culture movement was born on college campuses, not

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Speaker 1: necessarily in the baby boomer generation, where people who Uh,

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Speaker 1: didn't agree with you basically were I mean, where there's

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Speaker 1: not a free and fair debate on all these issues

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Speaker 1: that that you're marginalized, canceled or whatever you want to

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Speaker 1: call it, um you know, really ostracized if you have

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Speaker 1: a different point of view. So I'm not sure I

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Speaker 1: agree with this baby boomer culture war that you ascribed to. Well,

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Speaker 1: what I find is is, you know, sitting on a

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Speaker 1: college campus that it's largely it's a lot of people

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Speaker 1: my age that have been promoting these ideas for a

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Speaker 1: very long time. And you know, and in creating the

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Speaker 1: environment where the people who are canceling are not the

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Speaker 1: people who are actually have been promoting these theories for

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Speaker 1: a long time, and these ideas took a long time

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Speaker 1: to take root. True. We go across generations in this

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Speaker 1: and the you know, councel culture, which by the way,

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Speaker 1: it transcends campuses. You know, it's interesting if you're if

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Speaker 1: you're somebody with very progressive politics and you're sitting in

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Speaker 1: an evangelical church for example, can so culture is going

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Speaker 1: to come for you too. If you're you know, if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to get ahead in in very populist, republican

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Speaker 1: circles and you have more moderate conservative viewpoints, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: find cancel culture as well. It's just really acute on

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Speaker 1: college campuses, and most ironic because this is supposed to

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Speaker 1: be the marketplace of ideas, you know, where all you're

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Speaker 1: not supposed to feel safe on a college campus. Intellectually,

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to be like, ah, I just heard something

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Speaker 1: I really disagree with and now I'm going to engage.

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Speaker 1: And that's it's it's especially troublesome when on a college campus.

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Speaker 1: We we will have this particular campus culture. But but

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Speaker 1: it's the young people that can actually solve this problem.

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Speaker 1: How do you fight against the forces of fear and hate?

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Speaker 1: Because I know that you write that happiness takes work,

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Speaker 1: right and discipline and focus. You can't expect it to

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Speaker 1: just happen. And so for us on a day to

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Speaker 1: day basis, how do we try to get out of

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Speaker 1: that kind of angry, enraged state that seems to be

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Speaker 1: part and parcel of our daily existence. Yeah, it's such

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Speaker 1: a great question, and and here's the good news. There's

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Speaker 1: actually a way to do this that all of us

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Speaker 1: can practice in our own lives, and we can do

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Speaker 1: it to to you know, make manifest in our country

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Speaker 1: and our make our world a little bit better. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a famous um you know, Bible versus says perfect

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Speaker 1: love drives out fear. But that's an ancient idea. Five

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Speaker 1: years before that was in you know, the New Testament

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Speaker 1: of the Bible. Lao Sue, you know, the founder of

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Speaker 1: Taoist philosophy said exactly the same thing. And what they

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Speaker 1: were talking about is what we have learned as social

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Speaker 1: scientists and and and people in the world of neuroscience

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Speaker 1: have found that these are neutralizing factors on each other.

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Speaker 1: That fear will neutralize love, but love will neutralize fear

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Speaker 1: as well. We don't have to fight against fear. We

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Speaker 1: simply need to have more love. All right, give me

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Speaker 1: an example, because this does sound sort of woo woo

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Speaker 1: to me, Arthur like, so, so play this out in

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Speaker 1: real time and real life. Yeah, So this is what

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Speaker 1: I do when I go on college campuses. I say, look,

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Speaker 1: do you want to do you want to weaken the

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Speaker 1: forces of fear in your life and on your campus.

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Speaker 1: You need to make friends with somebody with whom you disagree.

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Speaker 1: You need to go on social media and say five

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Speaker 1: loving things where other people are expressing, Hey, you got

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Speaker 1: to go out of your way like a missionary, bringing

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Speaker 1: love on purpose, even when it's uncomfortable. And then I

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Speaker 1: take it up a notch, right, because one of the

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Speaker 1: things that you see in a fear based culture very interestingly,

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Speaker 1: people in their twenties today are a third less likely

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Speaker 1: to say they're in love than you and I did

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Speaker 1: when we were that when we were at that age

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. So so what's up with that?

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Speaker 1: And the answer is fear is driving out love. So

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Speaker 1: what I do is I say, Okay, do you want

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Speaker 1: to treat your life like an entrepreneur, like a real startup,

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Speaker 1: then the currency of the explosion of wealth in your

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Speaker 1: life is actually love. And that means you need to

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Speaker 1: take a risk, just like an entrepreneur does. And so

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Speaker 1: all a sign him. I was doing a graduation speech

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Speaker 1: not long ago, and I said, here's your homework. Friends,

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Speaker 1: you've got two weeks. You need to go tell somebody

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Speaker 1: that you you have to say I love you. And

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Speaker 1: and again, maybe it's a family member with whom you

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Speaker 1: become a strange maybe some of you're secretly in love with.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's a friend and you just don't talk to

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Speaker 1: each other that way. If it's not uncomfortable and scary,

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Speaker 1: it's not entrepreneurial enough. And the crazy thing is I

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Speaker 1: get tons of feedback saying game changer, game changer in

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Speaker 1: my relationships, in my life, and in the lives of

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Speaker 1: the people that I'm touching. We need more people they're

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Speaker 1: willing to say, you know what, I love you. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's one thing to say to someone in your family

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Speaker 1: or your spouse or your friends who you don't see.

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Speaker 1: But what about someone who um is angry and mean

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Speaker 1: and throwing arrows and daggers into your heart? How do

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Speaker 1: you how do I do agree with you that that

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Speaker 1: comes from fear? This this anger comes from fear or hate.

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Speaker 1: But how do you neutralize that? So that's a that's

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Speaker 1: a very good question that Martin is the King answered,

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Speaker 1: and you give a very fam sermon in nineteen fifty seven.

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Speaker 1: So I want to turn your attention to this subject

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Speaker 1: loving your enemy. November seventeen, thank you for seven to

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Speaker 1: the Dexter Street Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama that urch DoD

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Speaker 1: that very famous sermon on on the Gospel of Matthew,

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Speaker 1: Chapter five, verse forty four. Famous one love your enemy

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Speaker 1: that we talked about. It is not merely an e

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Speaker 1: multiple loves, creative understanding, good wills alone. It is a

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Speaker 1: huge an individual because that's the question you're asking me, Katie,

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Speaker 1: how do you love your enemies? And here's what he said,

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Speaker 1: here's what Dr King said. Weird, right, Jesus didn't say

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Speaker 1: like your enemies, because to like is a sentimental something,

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Speaker 1: and there's lots of people we all don't like. Those

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Speaker 1: are the people insulting you on social media. Those are

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Speaker 1: the people who are wishing you ill. Those are people

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Speaker 1: who are unfair and uncivilized. I got it, I got

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Speaker 1: it in my If you've got them in your life,

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Speaker 1: everybody watching us or listening to us has them in

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Speaker 1: their lives. But to love is a decision, it's a commitment.

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Speaker 1: It's the only way that we can actually create some redemption.

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Speaker 1: So the famous philosopher Thomas Aquinas he said that to

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Speaker 1: love is to will the good of the other. He

428
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:21,400
Speaker 1: didn't say it feel anything. You can. You cannot make

429
00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 1: the decision to like somebody, But you can make the

430
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:27,199
Speaker 1: decision to love somebody, because that's an action and you

431
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:30,399
Speaker 1: have to act in a particular way. It's hard. This

432
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 1: is a hard teaching, but we're really up for it

433
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 1: because what you find and on all of the research

434
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,239
Speaker 1: on this is when people start to act out of

435
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 1: love even when they don't feel it, they actually start

436
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:44,199
Speaker 1: to do it on their own. The Dalai Lama one

437
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:46,399
Speaker 1: time told me, you know, I asked him, how do

438
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:48,880
Speaker 1: I love when I don't feel love? He basically told

439
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,800
Speaker 1: me to fake it, fake it till you make it.

440
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 1: The Dali Llama. Look, he's the world's most respected religious

441
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: figure and he's completely full of love. If the doll

442
00:22:57,840 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 1: A Lama says that we can fake it till we

443
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: make it and it comes to love, I gotta believe it.

444
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 1: After the Break, It's Striver's Anonymous Arthur shares how to

445
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,640
Speaker 1: break a striver's cycle and find a new kind of fulfillment.

446
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: That's right after this. I want to talk to you

447
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:31,359
Speaker 1: about your book because as a sixty five year old

448
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:36,639
Speaker 1: who has enjoyed some success in my life, I'm fascinated

449
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: about sort of how to continue to find fulfillment. And

450
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: I have the confession Arthur's I'm Katie and I'm a striver.

451
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 1: I know you are, and I am sort of the

452
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: quintessential person that you talk about in your book, someone

453
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 1: who always is looking for the next thing. And when

454
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: I saw you of that talking at the Aspen Ideas Festival,

455
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 1: I realize this is not all me. A lot of

456
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:11,880
Speaker 1: it is sort of my brain and dopamine and adrenaline

457
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:15,120
Speaker 1: that causes me to want more and more and more,

458
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 1: to keep succeeding, to keep striving, but to keep accomplishing, right,

459
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:25,239
Speaker 1: And it's striving me crazy. Yeah, I know, I know,

460
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 1: you and me both. I mean it's like, look, you've

461
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: had this legendary career which you continue to have and

462
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 1: and and everybody says, look, if I could be if

463
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 1: I could be half as successful as Katie Kuric, i'd

464
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 1: automatically be happy. But here's the thing, here's the crazy thing.

465
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:42,159
Speaker 1: Everybody thinks they want to be happy and successful, but

466
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: if they can only be one, they should be successful

467
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: because then the automatically be happy, and that is incorrect.

468
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,879
Speaker 1: On the contrary, if you're happy, you'll feel successful and

469
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: you get both. Here's the problem with that. Our world

470
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: doesn't do that. Remember, money power pleasure fame. Money power

471
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 1: pleasure fame is that it's it's and if you start

472
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 1: to get some success, your brain changes. A little bit

473
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: of brain science and and you've heard me talk about

474
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: this and and it's not very complicated, but it's worth

475
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: pointing out that when people are really addicted to success,

476
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: their brain does more or less the same thing as

477
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: when they're getting addicted to gambling or methamphetamine. You become

478
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: very good at producing dopamine, which is it's called a neuromodulator.

479
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 1: And what dopamine does is it doesn't give you a pleasure.

480
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 1: It gives you anticipation of a reward. That's why when

481
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 1: people get addicted to drugs or alcohol, or gambling or

482
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: pornography or any of these bad things that get take

483
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: over people's lives and hurt them, it's because they have

484
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: all this anticipation and they get craving. Now, when people

485
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: are really successful, money, power, pleasure, fame, their brain gives

486
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: them dopamine in anticipation of those rewards. And when you

487
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: get really good at it, because I don't know, just hypothetically,

488
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,680
Speaker 1: let's say you're Katie Kuric, Well, then guess what happens.

489
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: A little is not enough. Your threshold keeps getting more

490
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: and more and more and more. Right, the treadmill starts

491
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: going at terrifying speed. You call it the hedonic tread

492
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 1: now exactly right now. There's a process in the brain

493
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: called homeostasis. It's a complicated word with a simple idea.

494
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: That is to say, your brain resets, I'm gonna be

495
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: so happy when I get that car, I'm gonna be

496
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 1: so happy when I get that watch or that shirt,

497
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: of that relationship or that achievement. And then you reset

498
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: almost immediately. You think your brain tells you because mother

499
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 1: nature lies that you're going to actually be satisfied forever.

500
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: You're actually satisfied for a minute or maybe a week

501
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: or I don't know, ten days on the outside, and

502
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: then it's off to the races again. Run run, run,

503
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 1: run run. That's what we all have to dominate. And

504
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: people who have had a lot of success, that's great

505
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,919
Speaker 1: because these are the people. I mean, look, think of

506
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:45,719
Speaker 1: all the good things you've done for me, because I've

507
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: been watching you for your You've informed me, you've made

508
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: my life better. But that doesn't mean that along the

509
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 1: way that has made you happy. So what we all

510
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,360
Speaker 1: need to do with our own kind of success addiction

511
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: And nobody's watching you right now, nobody's gonna be watching

512
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 1: your show, who's not a little bit of a striver.

513
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: I know your audience that we all can actually dominate

514
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: the system by not going with the flow. Your brain says,

515
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: go more, do more, hit the lever, hit the lever,

516
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 1: get the cookie. You need to stand up to that

517
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 1: and behave in a different way. You need to do

518
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 1: the opposite thing. That's what the research says, and so

519
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 1: that's probably what we need to talk about. Right. What

520
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: is the opposite thing. The opposite thing is not to

521
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: have more. The opposite thing is to want less. Now,

522
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: I know it sounds weird, but here's the way to

523
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: think about it. Satisfaction finally scratching that itch, finally being

524
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 1: satisfied is not doesn't just come from having more, doing more,

525
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:45,120
Speaker 1: seeing more, getting more. It's what you have divided by

526
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: what you want. Everybody remembers a little tiny bit in

527
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: the recesses of their mind about their high school fractions,

528
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: and and you remember that if you've got halves divided

529
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:59,400
Speaker 1: by wants, there's two ways to increase that number. Increase

530
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: the have or decrease the wants. Here's the deal. We

531
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 1: actually have the power to want less. We don't have

532
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: to become a Buddhist monk. I mean, if you want to,

533
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: that's great. You know, go study in the cave, that's fantastic,

534
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: or go to a you know, hill land retreat. I've

535
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: done it. I recommend it. It's fantastic, But you don't

536
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: have to do it. The key thing is to think

537
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: about your wants, to not be managed by your wants.

538
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: I have a reverse bucket list. The bucket list is

539
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: all about hals. The reverse bucket list is all about

540
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: wants and what I do on my birthday, Katie, and

541
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: I recommend everybody is I make a list of all

542
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: my cravings. Oh, finally be happy if I have this.

543
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: I'll finally be happy. If my book sells this number

544
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: and I have or I do this thing on TV,

545
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: whatever it happens to be. Everybody's got their thing. I

546
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: get the car, I get whoever. You make a list

547
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: of all those cravings, and you say I might get

548
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: it and I might not. Easy come, easy go. That's

549
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: moved the appetite, the craving, the desire from your automatic

550
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: brain to your human brain to call the prefrontal cortex,

551
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: and there you can manage your cravings. If you're conscious

552
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: of them, you can manage them. It's not perfect, but

553
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: you'll be amazed at how much more satisfying you will

554
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 1: find ordinary life when you looking at the small things.

555
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: And look. I follow you on social media, and you

556
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: know you're you're putting on social media pictures from your garden.

557
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: I love that, like your flowers and your garden, Katie.

558
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: I love that it's so beautiful on Instagram that you

559
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: do that. That's you enjoying the small. Now to do

560
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 1: that more, you actually have to be conscious of your

561
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: worldly wants and manage them in that particular way. It's unnatural,

562
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: but we all can do it. It's interesting because you

563
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: talk about preparing for the second half of your life,

564
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: finding success, happiness and deep purpose in the second half

565
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: of your life is the subtitle from Strength to Strength,

566
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: And I think you posit that you really are your

567
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: most successful really by the time you're forty or say fifty,

568
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: that you have fluid into colligence then and then you

569
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: move to something called crystallized intelligence. Explain that Earth, because

570
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: I I know what you mean, but I think for

571
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: people who haven't read the book, explained what you mean. Yeah,

572
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: so there are two kinds of basic intelligence, and the

573
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 1: world tells you you get one big act. That's the

574
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 1: world tells you get really really good at what you do,

575
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: be really successful in what you do, and if you're lucky,

576
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: you can keep it going forever. You can't keep it

577
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: going forever. Now, if you're an athlete, you know that, right,

578
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:31,479
Speaker 1: if you're you know, you're Tom Brady, maybe you can

579
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: keep going forever. But the rest of us mortals can't keep,

580
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: you know, going, And and you know, I actually have

581
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: interviewed Olympic athletes and talk to people and they're they're

582
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 1: very much in touch with the fact that they can't

583
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: keep going on forever. But it's still really painful. Now.

584
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: The interesting thing that the research finds is that that

585
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: thinking professions, knowledge professions, whether you're a doctoral lawyer, or

586
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: financial professional or an electrician or lots of things, that

587
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: you tend to get better and better and better to

588
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: your twenties and thirties and then max out and then

589
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: you you're not quite as good as you used to be.

590
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: And that's what burn out actually comes from. You know,

591
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: your dentist who suddenly, weirdly at age forty five, says,

592
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna take Fridays off to golf. It's like,

593
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: what the heck you loved being a dentist. It's like,

594
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm just less interested. That's because your

595
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: dentist isn't progressing and can't quite put her finger on

596
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: why she's not as good at dentist. Thank you for

597
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: a woman. Yeah, I mean, it's like, my dentist is

598
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: a woman, and she's phenomenal. Right, I don't know if

599
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: she's actually I don't think she's forty five yet. But

600
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 1: the point is, I hope she reads my book. I'm

601
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 1: gonna take her copy. And so this is this is

602
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: an important thing to keep our to keep our eye on,

603
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: because a lot of people start panicking at this point

604
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: and think, oh, oh no, Well, the truth is, this

605
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: is the time to celebrate because there's another intelligence that

606
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: comes in behind it that's not about hard work and

607
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: focus and and you know, living on the edge of

608
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: the curve, innovative capacity, working memory, all the stuff that

609
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: made you good at what you did. It's about wisdom.

610
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: It's about knowledge about how to explain ideas is how

611
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:01,959
Speaker 1: to teach, is to go from innovator to instructor. And

612
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: everybody can do that in their own way. I've seen

613
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: you do this in your career. This is the most

614
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: interesting thing. What are you now, your teacher, this is

615
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: what we're doing. You're introducing your audience to big ideas

616
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: that can actually enrich them. What do you your your professor, Kuric,

617
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: you now this is You've naturally moved on to this

618
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: crystallized intelligence curve, and everybody can. There's a transformation if

619
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: you're willing to take it. The people who are unhappy

620
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: are living in the past. The people are happy, they

621
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: jump onto this wisdom curve. I'm gonna teach, I'm gonna

622
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: mentor I'm gonna lead teams. So if you're a sort

623
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: of entrepreneur, that's fluid intelligence. If you're a venture capitalist,

624
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: crystallized intelligence. If you're a star litigator, fluid, if you're

625
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,239
Speaker 1: a managing partner, crystallized You know, I used to do

626
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: highly mathematical research papers on my fluid intelligence curve. Now

627
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: I write for The Atlantic and I talked to you

628
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: crystallized intelligence, and I'm happy. I'm happy or than i've

629
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: ever been because I'm on the right curve. I think

630
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: about professional athletes, I think about CEOs, I think about honestly,

631
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: President Obama, Like, how do they shift from sort of

632
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: being in the epicenter, the white hot center of everything,

633
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 1: where they have huge responsibility and all lies are on

634
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: them and then shift into a different mode without feeling

635
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 1: that their best years are behind them, Because I I

636
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: do think about you know, like, how do people manage that? Yeah,

637
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: it's very hard. The more success you have, the harder

638
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: it is. And for a couple of different reasons, you're

639
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: not quite sure that second curve is there. I mean,

640
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: you're taking it on faith from a Harvard professor. That's

641
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,719
Speaker 1: one thing, actually jump in. That's something else. The second is,

642
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people just love that first curve.

643
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: And the reason they like it is because they get

644
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:57,959
Speaker 1: all these honors, They get all this they get all

645
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: this admiration, they get all this prestige from it. And

646
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: the more successful and famous you are, the harder it

647
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: is actually to say goodbye to those particular things. But

648
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,720
Speaker 1: the happy people are actually able to make that shift.

649
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: They have the presence of mind. Now. One of the

650
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: things that makes it much easier is they tend to

651
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: be accompanied by somebody who loves them. This is one

652
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: of the things that you actually find and so whether

653
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: it's a best friend, whether it's a spouse, whether it's

654
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: your your adult children. You need somebody who takes you

655
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: by the hand and says, you know what, and this

656
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 1: is you know, my wife did this for me. My

657
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: wife Ester we even already thirty one years now, and

658
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: and and you know, she said I was retiring. It

659
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: was a CEO, you know, but I did this research

660
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: and I had to I had to stop because I

661
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: saw the writing was on the wall. I was not

662
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: getting better at what I was doing. And so I said,

663
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 1: I gotta get on the second curve. I know it's

664
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: out there. And she took me by the hand and said,

665
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: it's okay. I love you. You're the father of my

666
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 1: children and the love of my life. And whether you're

667
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: successful in worldly terms or not, I love you all

668
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: the same. And that is so critically important because a

669
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,399
Speaker 1: lot of people were stuck on that fluid intelligence curve.

670
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: On that first curve, They're like, I'm nothing, I am dead.

671
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: If I'm not number one, if I'm not the striver,

672
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 1: if I'm not the homo economic aust you know, if

673
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 1: I'm not the hardest worker in the room. Right, you

674
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: need people who love you. That's really really critical. I'm

675
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: wondering though, if you're inadvertently contributing to the last acceptable

676
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: ism in society, and that's agis um. You know, I

677
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:30,319
Speaker 1: know that the CEO of Target just said, I'm sixty five,

678
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm not retiring UM And and I wonder if with

679
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: this second phase of life, if you're sort of saying

680
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: to the world, Arthur, you know, if you're not under fifty,

681
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 1: you you don't have fluid intelligence, you're not at the

682
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 1: top of your game. You need to go into this

683
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: second stage of life, and you need to leave leave,

684
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: leave the stage. I mean, do you think about that? Yeah?

685
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 1: I do. But you know what I actually I'm feathering

686
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 1: my own nest as I get older. I'm fifty eight

687
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 1: years old, and I want to be working for a

688
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: long time, but where I'm best suited to work. So

689
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: this is the key thing. Here's what I have this view, Katie.

690
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,280
Speaker 1: You know, one of I look at these Silicon Valley firms,

691
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 1: these tech firms and social media firms and all that,

692
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 1: and they're making all these errors that older executives to

693
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: shake their heads like how do they make that error?

694
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: The reason is because all fluid intelligence, no crystallized intelligence.

695
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,399
Speaker 1: In other words, it's all brains, no wisdom, and that's

696
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: a big problem because they're making all the mistakes that

697
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: that all the older guys and women they made a

698
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: thousand years ago and their careers. My view is that

699
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: we need way more people in positions of leadership or

700
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:45,879
Speaker 1: over seventy, that's my view, using their crystallized intelligence, not

701
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: relying on their fluid intelligence. You know, that's what we need.

702
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: I think every executive team, every C suite needs somebody

703
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:55,240
Speaker 1: over seventy, every marketing team, every product team, these social

704
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: media companies, they need old people who actually can say

705
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 1: and so my view is that no, on the contrary,

706
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: this is the permanent employment plan for us, as long

707
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: as we're actually doing it right and not trying to

708
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: live in the past. Is the way that it works.

709
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:11,759
Speaker 1: The impetus I guess for this book was when you

710
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 1: were sitting in an airplane and you were listening to

711
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: a really sad and upsetting conversation an older gentleman talking

712
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: to his wife saying, my life is over. I kind

713
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 1: of wish I were dead, and you take it from there. Yeah, so,

714
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of a tender point in

715
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: my life, you know, I had been running this thing

716
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,839
Speaker 1: tank in Washington, d C. It had been going really,

717
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: really well, but I was wondering, you know, what is

718
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:38,320
Speaker 1: the cadence of my own life? Where am I going?

719
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: Where does this I just do it again and do

720
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 1: it again and do it again and then stop, and

721
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,439
Speaker 1: they just hope for the best. And you know, hanging

722
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 1: around the house, I don't know, you know, ten years,

723
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: fifteen years from hours going to go. And I was

724
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 1: kind of contemplating that existentially, And when I heard this conversation,

725
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: I overheard it. Now, as a behavioral social scientist, my

726
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: laboratory is the overheard conversation. So for everybody watching and

727
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: listening to us right now, if you're behind me in

728
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 1: a Starbucks confessing that somebody broke your heart, keep your

729
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: voice down because I might write a book about it anyway.

730
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: So I I hear this conversation this couple behind me

731
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: on the plane in this key moment in my own life,

732
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: and you know, he's kind of mumbling, but here his

733
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: wife's saying, oh, don't say it would be better if

734
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: you were dead, And I'm like, holy moldy, I wasn't.

735
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: I'm not eavesdropping, but this is big and and and

736
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: and she's trying to console him, and he's really unconsolable

737
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 1: the fact that nobody cares about him, nobody's listening to him. Okay,

738
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: so we land at the air this is a night flight.

739
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,800
Speaker 1: We land at the airport at our destination. Everybody stands

740
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: up and the lights go on, and and we turn around.

741
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:38,479
Speaker 1: I wanted to see him. I just wanted to see

742
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 1: his face. And it was one of the most famous

743
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: successful men in the world. This is somebody that everybody knows.

744
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: Now why he's a hero from decades past. Is not

745
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:53,240
Speaker 1: some controversial actor you know, or you know, politician, No, no, no,

746
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: this is this is somebody who did big things that

747
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: we all admire, and and you know it's in his

748
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: late eighties and and and and he's he's confessing this thing.

749
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: So we're walking out of the airplane, and the pilot,

750
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: you know how, they all stand by the cockpit door

751
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 1: thing thanks for flying United folks, and he stops. The

752
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: guy who's right behind me. Blowing my mind at this

753
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: point because you know, the whole model of success is wrong.

754
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: If I could be half as successful as that guy,

755
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: I'd be automatically happy over the moon, right no wrong, okay.

756
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: So he sees the guy, the hero on the plane

757
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:25,239
Speaker 1: and he says, sir, you've been my hero since I

758
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: was a little boy. And I turned around and he's

759
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:31,919
Speaker 1: beaming with pride. And I asked myself, so which is it?

760
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 1: Is it this one or the one half an hour ago?

761
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, our model of success and

762
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 1: happiness is wrong. In truth, the data are very clear

763
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: that people who tend to be most disappointed with their

764
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 1: lives after seventy and eighty are the ones who are

765
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: most successful early on. And the reason is because they

766
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 1: can't live up to their own standards. They're addicted to success.

767
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: And now the party's over. And they if you look,

768
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: if you don't do anything with your life, you all

769
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: know when the party's over. But boy, oh boy, if

770
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: you do a lot, you're really going to know. And

771
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going in search of the secret to

772
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: be both successful and happy. And that's what this book is.

773
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 1: It's the book that I needed in my life. I

774
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: wrote it for you to um, I'm actually writing a

775
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,359
Speaker 1: book right now about the things I wish I knew

776
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: when I was twenty five, which is the science of happiness.

777
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:20,439
Speaker 1: For the young striver that's coming next. But I didn't

778
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: get that book because that book hadn't been written yet.

779
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 1: And I and I've really lived according to it. And

780
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: you can be successful and happy, but you can't leave

781
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: it up to chance. I mean, mother nature is not

782
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: going to take you in that direction. And so what

783
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: do you think the guy sitting behind you in the

784
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: airplane did wrong? What he was doing was he was

785
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: reliving past glory and wishing that he could keep that

786
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: alive forever. And it turns out that's very common. In

787
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: the book, I talked about the case of Charles Darwin,

788
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: you know, the great naturalist, and everybody knows what a hero,

789
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: what a great figure he was. He buried at Westminster

790
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: Abbey because he's such a national hero. He died an

791
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,360
Speaker 1: unhappy man, and the reason is because he kind of

792
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: got to the end of his fluid intelligence. He wanted

793
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 1: to stay on that curve. He never moved curves, and

794
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: he spent the last twenty five years of his life

795
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: kind of regretting the fact that he couldn't make any

796
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 1: more progress, and he didn't enjoy his research, and he

797
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 1: felt kind of washed up and kind of like a loser.

798
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: Charles Darwin, one of the greatest naturalist scientists who's ever lived,

799
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 1: died unhappy for the same reason that so many people do.

800
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: If I could talk to any of these people, I

801
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: would talk about the structure of the brain that how

802
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,319
Speaker 1: that the fluid intelligence goes to the crystallized intelligence, and

803
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: happiness is right in front of them if they're willing

804
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: to grab it and change their own lives. How do

805
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: they recognize or how does anyone recognize when it's time

806
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: to jump to the second curve that your fluid intelligence

807
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: is drying up and you need to go for the

808
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:54,319
Speaker 1: crystallized intelligence and you need to make that shift not

809
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: only in your head, but in your heart and your

810
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: habits to begin with. It's a really good idea to

811
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 1: to understand this before you need it, right, And not

812
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: all of us do. I mean, it's not all of

813
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: us have been able to have that, But you know

814
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,720
Speaker 1: everybody's listening to us who's thirty and as a striver

815
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 1: and you know who you are right to start thinking,

816
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 1: I'm doing this right now, and I'm in this is

817
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: a great party. But what only the crystallized version of

818
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: what I'm good at? What might it look like just

819
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: to kind of visualize a little bit because twenty years

820
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 1: from now you might want to be thinking about that.

821
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: You don't have to change careers necessarily, although that's not

822
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:31,319
Speaker 1: out of the question either, But what might it look like?

823
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: What's your flight of fancy? What would give you joy

824
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: to think about? This? Really a crystallized kind of kind

825
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 1: of skill, that's number one. But the key thing is

826
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: that that that that that people need to they'll see

827
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: that they're that the fluid intelligences decline way before anybody

828
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 1: else does, and the tell is burnout. That's the tell.

829
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: You know, when people start saying, I used to like

830
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:55,719
Speaker 1: this more than I than I do. Now this used

831
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 1: to excite me more than it does now, that means

832
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:02,720
Speaker 1: you're not making progress. People are wired for progress. Human

833
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: beings get no pleasure from the status quo. We're not

834
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: wired for It's very interesting, you know. One of the

835
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: things that I've studied is is you know diets, diets

836
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: have a failure rate, right, I mean, what industry can

837
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: continue to exist? It exists on hope, not results. Now,

838
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Dieting is pretty easy, but keeping weight

839
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: off is near impossible. The reason is because you're perfectly

840
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 1: willing to forego the food that you love as long

841
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: as the CD is going down, because you know that

842
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 1: the happiness from the scale going down is higher than

843
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,720
Speaker 1: the unhappiness from not eating scones or donuts or something

844
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: like that. But then when you reach your goal weight,

845
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: the reward is you never get to eat ever again

846
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: what you like. That's not a very nice reward, and

847
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: so people abandon the diet. That's all about progress. People

848
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: love progress, but the status quo is terrible. So you're

849
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 1: gonna notice, you know, maybe whatever happens to be, I

850
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: like it less. That's when it's time to start thinking

851
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: about the second curve. That's when it's trying to start

852
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: thinking about the reverse bucket list. So you're not adding adding,

853
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 1: adding adding, that's when it start. It's time to actually

854
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 1: think about who's going to hold me by the hand,

855
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: who is in part of my root system. That's when

856
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 1: it's time to start thinking what are the friendships that

857
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 1: I actually need? What are the spiritual relationships that I

858
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,799
Speaker 1: can actually cultivate? And if you do these things, so

859
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: I wrote the book, this could be the greatest, most

860
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: joyful adventure in life. This is the best time of life.

861
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: But if you don't do it. It's like walking through

862
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: a forest at night with no guide and no flashlight.

863
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: What are things every person can do to kind of

864
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: have a a more fulfilling, purposeful life, that that has

865
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 1: more love than fear, and that that that can just

866
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 1: sort of feed you in a way, the all with

867
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 1: all the right things and not all the wrong things. Yeah,

868
00:44:57,840 --> 00:44:59,800
Speaker 1: the couple of things to keep in mind the f

869
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 1: is that all these things that I write, all these

870
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: things that I teach, that I'm privileged to be able

871
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: to talk to you about, all these things are accessible

872
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: to everybody. You don't need to be a nerd with

873
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,720
Speaker 1: the PHDU teaches at Harvard to actually learn about these ideas.

874
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: I write about this in the Atlantic because I want

875
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: to bring these ideas to millions of people in relatively

876
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: non technical terms. You don't have to be a technical

877
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,240
Speaker 1: specialist to understand that. But you've got to do the work.

878
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: Wishing is not enough. Just wishing you were happier, we'll

879
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: make you unhappier because you'll focus on your unhappiness. But

880
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: if you do the work that's habits, not hacks, committing

881
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,399
Speaker 1: yourself to living in a better way, in a newer way.

882
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: This is magic. That's part one. Part two is this,

883
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 1: You've got to practice these things. You can't just learn

884
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: about these You gotta practice these things in your life.

885
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 1: You get, I get. I can teach you that gratitude

886
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:50,440
Speaker 1: is one of the greatest tricks. But it's not enough

887
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: for to be a trick. It's got to be a

888
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 1: way of life. And so practice these things and and

889
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: committing yourself to doing it is like going to the gym,

890
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 1: not once, it's going to the gym five days a week,

891
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: or alorities a week, or whatever happens to be, and

892
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: then you start to see a transformation. You enjoy it

893
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: and will last but not least, You've got to share

894
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 1: these ideas. Look, we've talked about a whole bunch of

895
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: science and very accessible terms. Here's what I would wish

896
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: that will really help a lot of people who are

897
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: watching us to make these ideas come to life. Find

898
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 1: three people that you love and and if you need

899
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 1: to watch our our conversation again and take notes and

900
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: go teach these things. You know what that'll do is

901
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: it will move them from an impression to the executive

902
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 1: center of your brain. You know, becoming a teacher is

903
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: the best possible way to absorb ideas. My father was

904
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: a mathematician. He said, I only understood math when I

905
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: had taught calculus fifty times, you know. And the truth is,

906
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,799
Speaker 1: we can all be happiness teachers. And the more that

907
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: we are bringing these secrets in a spirit of love

908
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: and sisterhood and brotherhood to everybody we possibly can, the

909
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: happier we're going to get. In other words, understand practice

910
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:56,879
Speaker 1: and share. A lot of this is in the book.

911
00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,720
Speaker 1: You talk about living in the present, but that takes

912
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: this a plant, you know, and I think you say,

913
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,280
Speaker 1: someone said we shouldn't be called homo sapiens, we should

914
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: be called homo prospective. That means we're always in the

915
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: future and we're not really present right now. Yeah, exactly.

916
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: And that takes, you know, take it takes a little

917
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: bit of effort. There's a whole mindfulness meditation movement going

918
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: on out there, but it really isn't that complicated. You

919
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: gotta you have to be alive now, you know, when

920
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: you're washing the dishes, say I'm washing the dishes now,

921
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: don't distract yourself from everything. When you're on the train,

922
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,720
Speaker 1: look out the window and actually be on the train

923
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:36,879
Speaker 1: at that particular moment. That's the real magic of mindfulness

924
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: that I've found, and it's really quite transformed my life.

925
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: Katie's when I found because I saw theoretically in the

926
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 1: literature is gonna make me happier, And now I do it.

927
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: I go on these walks for an hour with no devices,

928
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: and I smell the morning air and I stopped when

929
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: I look at flowers. I'm telling you, I mean, it's

930
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,359
Speaker 1: just it sounds so dumb. I'm a fifty eight year

931
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 1: old man, I should know this at this point. It's

932
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: just the best. When I read about that, I also thought, yes,

933
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,360
Speaker 1: I want to live in the moment, but I also

934
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: want to care about the future. I want to be

935
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: a concerned citizen who is focused on helping people preserve

936
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: the planet. So how do those things work in tandem.

937
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: You're much better at actually thinking clearly about a better

938
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 1: future when you're fully present right now. The reason is

939
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: because your love relationships blossom, you appreciate the things that

940
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: you're actually seeing. You don't have a full appreciation for

941
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: the people and the things around you unless you're fully

942
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: mindful right now, and as such, you won't be able

943
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: to create a future. You will be able to envision

944
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 1: a future that actually is better than the status quo.

945
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,279
Speaker 1: Here's the best news about being here now. It makes

946
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 1: you better in the future as well. A big thank

947
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:51,879
Speaker 1: you to my guests Arthur C. Brooks. You can find

948
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 1: many of his happiness insights at The Atlantic and go

949
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:58,759
Speaker 1: check out his book From Strength to Strength to start

950
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: living your best life now. Next Question with Katie Kurik

951
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Curic Media.

952
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 1: The executive producers Army, Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The

953
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:19,560
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements and

954
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: Adriana Fasio. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements.

955
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: For more information about today's episode, or to sign up

956
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie

957
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 1: Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie

958
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: Curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For

959
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,799
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I heart

960
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:43,399
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your

961
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:44,240
Speaker 1: favorite shows.