WEBVTT - Arthur C. Brooks 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.120 When one thinks of the Harvard Business School, one thinks 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:10.080 of strategy, investments, technology. But actually one of the most 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:13.720 popular professors of the Harvard Business School now is Arthur Brooks, 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.520 who teaches the course on Happiness. I had a chance 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:18.840 recently to sit down with Arthur to talk about how 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.720 he became a leading expert on happiness and how he 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.880 came to write a book on the subject with Oprah Winfrey. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.680 So you are a professor at Harvard and you're teaching, 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.280 among other things, happiness. Can you really teach happiness? Because 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.080 this happiness something you kind were born with or maybe 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:37.800 you acquire in life. But in a course, can you 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:39.559 really learn how to be happy? 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.000 Well, you can learn how to pursue happiness through basically 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.040 three mechanisms. Number One, you need to understand what it 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.519 is and what the science says about it, which is 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:50.839 contrary to a lot of what we hear growing up. 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.599 Most people have a lot of misconceptions about happiness. You 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.080 have to change some habits, change your life a little bit, 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:57.800 and then you have to teach it to other people 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.600 to become responsible for it, which is like anything else. 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:02.160 If you want to become a good golfer, you have 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.120 to understand golf. You have to play golf. And it's 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.200 even better if you explain golf to somebody and then 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:10.240 you that's the algorithm basically for getting better at any subject. 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.880 I suppose I am a grumpy person by nature? 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:14.039 Is this true? 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.200 Well, I'm just just assume I'm a grumpy person by nature. 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:18.039 Find you lovely? 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.520 Okay, And let's suppose I take your course. Am I 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.600 going to go from being grumpy to happy by virtual 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:25.400 of taking a course? 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.600 No? And this is really not just about emotional transformation. 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.360 One of the things that my students learn is emotional 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:35.959 self management. Emotions are are misunderstood by almost everybody. They 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.600 think about good feelings and bad feelings. There are no 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:43.440 such thing. Emotions are nothing more than reactions to stimuli 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.559 that we have sensed by our primitive brains turned into 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.520 the universal language of emotions. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:48.760 Fear. 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.280 Anger discussed sadness, interest, joy, etc. In the limbic system 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.480 of the brain to give us a signal about what's 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.720 going on. If you have particularly acute negative emotionality, which 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.880 is called negative aff high negative affect, and by the way, 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.240 people watching Bloomberg tend to have high negative affect. How 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.400 do I know this. Twenty five percent of the population 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.799 has especially high positive and negative effect. They're high affect people, 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.440 sixty five percent of CEOs and entrepreneurs. So this is 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.480 one of the things that a lot of people watching us. Yeah, 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.000 you're still going to be grumpy, but you're going to 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.880 understand the meaning of the grumpiness and use it to 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:23.640 learn and grow in life. 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.800 Is there anything more important in the end than happiness? 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:31.360 That's a debate that philosophers and scientists have been having 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.200 for millennia. As a matter of fact, him Aristotle talked 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.360 about that. Thomas Aquinas in twelve sixty five said, does 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.440 anybody desire anything other than happiness? I say that he 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.880 does not. But it depends on what happiness means. And 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.200 so if you're thinking about it as a positive feeling, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.000 then there are lots of things that are more important 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.040 than that, if you define it correctly. Maybe not. 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.200 In a sentence that's been called the most famous sentence 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.359 in the English language written by Thomas Jefferson and the 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:00.600 Declaration Deependance, he ends it by saying that what people 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.760 should want is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.560 He didn't really define happiness. But are you surprised or 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.119 are you surprised that he would put pursuit of happiness 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:11.800 is among the most important things in the world. 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.720 Is revolutionary. As a matter of fact, it's those words 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.280 were cribbed from the Virginia Declaration of Rights written by 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.320 George Mason some years earlier, and Mason talked about in 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:26.160 the Virginia Declaration about life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. Well, 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.280 almost certainly in a conversation with Benjamin Franklin. We don't 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:31.520 know for sure, but this is the supposition, because Benjamin 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.320 Franklin is behind all of this interesting and sort of 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.480 subversive language about the new American Republic. He's substituted in 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.200 this pursuit of happiness, in this idea that you are 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.880 the captain of your own destiny in this new nation. 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:47.400 You get to define what this means and then go 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.560 after it. And we're going to be about opportunity without 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.160 any guarantees. And by the way, that's the country I 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:53.840 still want to live in. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.240 One are the key elements to being happy? And I 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.520 suppose I'm a person who wants to be happy? What 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.800 are the key things that make somebody happy? 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.040 Stop thinking it's a feeling. It's not a feeling. People 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.120 will define it as I can't quite put words to it, 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.000 but I know and I feel it. No, you can't. 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.840 Feelings are evidence that your limbic system is working properly, 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:14.840 and you can have a lot of negative emotions and 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.480 be a very happy person. In the same way, by 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.480 the way that the smell of your turkey is not 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.520 your Thanksgiving dinner. Feelings are evidence of happiness. They are 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.360 not happiness itself, and so stop looking for feelings number one. 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.920 Number two, figure out what happiness actually is. So if 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:32.960 I say, what is your Thanksgiving dinner? There's lots of 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.880 ways to define that, but one way is protein, carbohydrates, 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.719 and fat. Those are macro nutrients. That's a decomposition of 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.880 all food for better longevity and health, which is another 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.400 big interest in area of research of mine. So what 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.200 are the macro nutrients of happiness? They are enjoyment, satisfaction, 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.200 and meaning. Those are the three things to pursue go. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.240 Through each one. Enjoyment. What does enjoyment mean? 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.280 Enjoyment is not pleasure. That's a big mistake that people 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.840 often make, which is just feeling good. That's a limbic phenomenon. 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.400 It's parts of your ventral tegmntal area and the ventral 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.080 stratum are tapped to make you feel good. That's not it. 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.840 If you're looking for that is your life's goal, you'll 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:12.479 wind up in rehab if you're lucky. What enjoyment is 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.000 is it takes pleasure. It adds two things to make 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.400 them fully conscious and mediated by the prefilled loal cortext 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.560 pleasure plus people plus memory. That's what you want, and 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:24.760 that's the kind of life you need. You need to 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:26.839 be able to manage your pleasures in a way that's 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.440 social and memorable so that you can have a life 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.159 that's in an ongoing way, something that you consider to 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.720 be enjoyable. That's the macroninturiant Number one, all right. Number 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.279 two is what satisfaction. Satisfaction is the joy that you 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:42.360 get from an accomplishment after struggle. You've struggled a lot. 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.000 I mean, you've had a lot of ups and downs 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.000 over the course of your career. But the great source 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.880 of satisfaction is after all that struggle. The sweetness came 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.320 with all the stuff that Carlisle's done, all the stuff 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.040 that this show has done. But if it actually had 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.320 been easy, it wouldn't be sweet, which is one of 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:58.560 the funny things about humanity. My dog doesn't want to 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:01.679 struggle for his rewards, eat lying down if he could. 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:03.839 We on the other hand, you know, when I go 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.040 to a great entrepreneur like you, and if I were 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.560 doing the interview and you were the interview e, and 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:10.880 I said, okay, tell me the secrets to all this, 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.080 you'd tell me hard things that had happened, and setbacks 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.159 that had happened, and disappointments that had happened. Because the hardness, 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.960 the difficulty, the suffering is actually part of the sweetness. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:19.560 That's satisfaction. 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.440 What's the third element, meaning, And that's the big one. 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.560 That's the next book that I'm writing. It's called The 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.960 Meaning of Your Life, the Finding Purpose in an age 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.360 of emptiness, because that's the crisis of today for particularly 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.400 for adults hundred thirty five, is that their life feels 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:37.960 empty and meaningless. And this is what lies behind the 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:38.960 mental health crisis. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.640 Now you've written that younger people today are not as 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.560 happy as their parents were. That's part because of social 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:48.640 media and things like that makes people isolated. 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.000 So it's a complicated thing. But there's basically a climate 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.280 and weather problem that we find and I don't mean 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.960 that literally. The climate of happiness is all about faith 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.400 and philosophy and life, about family, life, about friendship, and 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.640 about seeing your life as a calling. Your work is 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.480 a calling that is meaningful and serves other people, and 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:08.159 all of those have been in a client That's the 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.160 climate of happiness has been ticking down since about nineteen ninety. 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.800 Then the weather, the hurricanes, and happiness have been really threefold. 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.080 Number one was the advent of social media and screens 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.320 in everybody's lives in two thousand and eight, twenty nine, 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.560 twenty ten, which has done just raised absolute havoc in 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.520 the brains of everybody under thirty five years old. That's 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:29.560 what my New Meaning book is about, is about how 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.520 we use our brains differently, and it's vacating the parts 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.960 of our brain that we need to assess questions of meaning. 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.280 The second is polarization, where baby boomers have tried to 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.880 conscript young adults into their culture war, particularly on campuses. 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.760 You should feel aggrieved, You're a victim. Everybody's trying to 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.000 ruin the world. You need to be angry and afraid 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.320 and last but not least, of course, is what happened 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.560 with the really misbegotten reaction to the coronavirus epidemic, which 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.560 is to send everybody home, make sure that people don't 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:00.840 interact socially. And that was cat for happiness. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.480 And then you wrote a book on happiness. 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.640 During the coronavirus epidemic. It was it was my it 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:06.920 was my COVID project. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:08.880 That was Strength to Strength, from strength to. 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.880 Strength, which comes from the eighty fourth psalm Michel del 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.320 Kail and Hebrew, may you go from strength to strength, 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:15.800 which is an ancient Judaic blessing, of. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.880 Course, and it became a number one New York Times bestseller. 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:20.560 Yeah, that was unexpected. 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.080 So somebody calls you about this. She read the book 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.160 and said, why don't we do a book together. That 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:29.080 was Oprah Winfrey. 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:30.000 That was Oprah Winfrey. 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:31.160 Had you ever met her before? 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.160 No? No, no. And what happened was that she was 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.520 reading my column during the coronavirus epidemic every Thursday in 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.960 the Atlantic and she never left her place in Montecita, 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.240 California for a couple of years. But she was learning 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.320 and reading. She's a voracious reader. And she said she 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:46.959 was learning a lot from it. She wanted to meet 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:48.800 that guy. So when the book came out from Strength 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.040 to Strength in February of twenty twenty two, she literally 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.040 read it on the first day and called me, hell, oh, 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.120 this is Oprah Winfrey. And I said and I said, yeah, 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.360 and this is Batman. I mean, turned out it was 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:00.000 Oprah Winfrey. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:01.959 The book came out, and it also was a number 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.840 one New York Times bestseller. Yeah, and its title is. 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.280 It's Build the Life you want, The Art and Science 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:09.080 of getting Happier. 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.120 So you have another book coming out very shortly, probably 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.760 by the time this airs, it'll be out The Happiness Files. 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:15.520 What is that about? 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.640 That's an edited volume of my thirty five most popular 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.600 columns in the Atlantic about work and life. So the 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:23.880 whole idea it's being put out by the Harvard Business 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.040 Review Press, is that your life is a startup. That's 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.440 the most important enterprise. People think of a company as 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.440 a startup, but that's just an extension of who you 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.080 are as a person. It's a cultural phenomenon and a 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.440 behavioral phenomenon. As a matter of fact. The way to 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.000 think about it, if to live the best life, is 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:43.640 to say you, David incorporated your startup. The enterprise is 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.040 your life, and that means you need to take risk 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.840 appropriately and search and be in search of the true fortune, 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.280 which is love and happiness. If you treat it your 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.800 life like a startup, your life gets better and it 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.800 becomes more successful. And it's thirty five essays that talk 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.760 about exactly how to do that. Every chapter. It's intended 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:02.560 to be read over about a month, because it about 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.520 thirty five essays, and each chapter gives you the science, 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:07.320 the idea, and the science, and then it says, do 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.320 these three things, which is about behavioral change, all of them. 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.480 I have tried every column I write. I'm ten weeks 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.080 ahead on my Atlantic column, and I'm trying all the 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.679 things that I suggest to make sure that there's sound. 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:20.959 I'm my own guinea pig. And if it doesn't work, 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:22.320 I don't write it, I don't publish it. 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.080 How does somebody who's an expert on happiness grow into that? 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.440 Let's talk about your background for a moment. So where 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:28.960 were you born? 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:30.319 Spoke Anne Washington? 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.320 And what did your parents do? 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.640 My father was a lifelong college professor. He was a mathematician, 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.480 a PhD biostatistician, so he was a quant guy. 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:40.520 And your mother what did she do? 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:42.760 She was an artist. My mother was a good amateur 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.360 musician and serious about that, but really she was a 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.520 watercolorist of some renowned in the Pacific Northwest. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:51.400 And when you were growing up, did you say, I 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.080 want to be an expert on happiness or what did 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:54.040 you want to do as a boy? 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.199 I wanted to be the world's greatest front shorn player. 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.640 That's what I wanted. I was naturally good at music, 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:00.319 and I learned this by about the age of four. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.600 I learned to read music before I learned to read words, 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.040 and I had a natural aptitude for it. Started on 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.200 piano at four, after a little bit of violin, and 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:10.040 then by eight I started the French horn. I was 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.719 really good at it. I got a lot of acclamation, 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.080 I got some praise and appreciation from my parents, and 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.040 I realized I like getting attention from adults, positive attention 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:20.319 from adults. So I stuck with it. 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.040 And did people say, this guy is going to be 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:23.880 one of the great French horn players of all time. 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:28.320 Well, I certainly hoped so, and a lot of people 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.079 had a lot of faith that I had a tremendous 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.360 amount of potential so I was going to go to 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.319 conservatory and then go pro. That was the idea. 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:36.360 So you graduate from high school and you said to 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.319 your parents, I guess I'm not going to college. I'm 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.080 going to go be a French horn player. What did 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:41.840 your academic father say. 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:43.480 Well, I went to college for a year. I went 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:45.280 to the California Institute of the Arts. So I was 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.880 going to study with my teacher, somebody I had met 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.640 in previous summers, a great frenchhorn player, one of the 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.920 great soloists of the time. And it didn't really work out. 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.360 It turns out to the right strategy for college is 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.439 not to drop all your required classes. Tried to tell 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.760 my kids that at this point, but the result is 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.560 I was well dropped out, kicked out, splitting hairs at 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:07.720 this point. I made it ten months, all. 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:09.360 Right, you made it ten months. Then need to say 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:10.880 to your parents, guess what, I'm going to be a 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.199 French worn player for life. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.800 Yeah. So I was actually transferring to the Curtis Institute 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:16.760 of Music in Philadelphia, which is sort of the elite 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:18.679 music conservatory, and I was very very lucky to get 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:19.040 a spot. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:19.679 Great place. 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.000 It is a great place, and during the summer before 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:23.480 I was going to go there, I was playing at 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.720 the Marlborough Music Festival with Rudolph Serkin and some of 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:28.960 the great chamber musicians at the time, and I was 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.079 offered a job playing chamber music with a brass quintet 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.720 out of Maryland, and so I took the job instead 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.240 of going back to school and went pro nineteen. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.080 And then you ultimately moved to Spain. 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.000 Yeah, so I was on tour. I did that for 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.520 about six years, making very little money but having a 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.880 great time and learning a lot. I also toured for 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:47.360 a couple of years during that time with a great 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.280 jazz guitar player named Charlie Bird, who was, you know, 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.960 the original American originator of the bossa nova style, et cetera. 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.600 So I was on a concert tour playing chamber music 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:58.920 in the Burgundy region of France in the summer of 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.920 nineteen eighty eight and I met a girl who was 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.960 also was studying music and actually at a concert. I 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:06.680 was playing the concert and there was a girl in 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.560 the front row smiling at me, and I thought, well, 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.640 that's not normal. I should check that out. So afterward 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:13.719 I introduced myself. Turned out she didn't speak a word 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.240 of English, and she wasn't French. Turns out she was 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.439 Spanish Catalan as a matter of fact, from Barcelona. I 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.640 learned that not a word of English, we didn't know 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:23.719 a word in common. So I did the right thing 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.600 and asked her out. And how did you know if 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.240 she said yes? I well, because I got a translator 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:30.760 said yeah, she'd love to have dinner with you. And 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.000 so that was an odd dinner, full of gesticulations and 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.360 hand gestures, etc. But we were twenty four years old. 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.240 And then I went home and I called my dad 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:40.880 and I said, I think I met the girl I'm 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:44.440 going to marry. And he said, really, that's great, can't 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.240 wait to meet her. I said, I have some difficulties here. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.480 I mean, she doesn't speak a word of English, she 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.120 doesn't live in the United States, and she has no 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.440 idea we're going to get married. He said, well, you 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.320 better get a plan, son, and so I did. I 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.360 was living in New York at the time, barely making 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:01.679 against meet, and I started looking at different opportunities, and 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.800 through sheer serendipity, I was offered a couple of months 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.520 later a job in the Barcelona Symphony as the associate 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.160 principal French horn and I said, ah, sign from God. 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.000 I moved to Barcelona and worked on closing the deal. Still, 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.079 it took me two years to convince her though, David, So. 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.199 Did you get married two years later or something? Yeah? 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.040 Yeah, two years later. It took me. I was you know, 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:20.840 I had to work on it a long time. After all, 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.600 Europeans are very modern and they don't believe in marriage, 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.520 so it took it took a good deal of convincing. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.520 I should point out, you're still married to her. Yeah, 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:31.040 it is now married. 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.800 Thirty four, thirty four or parents of three in a 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:36.360 couple of months, grandparents of four. 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.320 Is having a relationship with another person more likely to 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.880 produce happiness or more likely to produce divorce? 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.960 Well, it it depends on the relationship. Your results may vary. 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:47.360 As they say in the in the you know, the 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.920 ads for financial products and pharmaceuticals. The truth is that 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:53.920 a good marriage is the single biggest predictor of the 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.640 happiest possible life. But a bad marriage works in the 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.320 other direction, to be sure, and so that's why it's 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.880 that's the most important investment decision anybody watching us will 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:03.240 ever make. 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:04.880 Where did you start teaching academically. 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.040 I started in Georgia State. So I finished my PhD 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.440 in nineteen ninety eight, and Georgia State University in Atlanta 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:11.600 was the first place that hired me, and I did 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:14.320 three years there, and then I moved to Syracuse, which 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:18.400 was in public policy, was and arguably still as the 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:19.680 top school in public policy. 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:21.480 In the company. Maxwell School, the Maxwell School exactly right, 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:22.720 So you teach there for ten years. 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.240 I taught there for I taught it, Georgia State for 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.320 three and Syracuse for seven and a half. 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.520 Seven okay, so ten years as an academic, ten and 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.040 a half years Maxwell. Then somebody decides to they want 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.320 you to be the head of AEI. But why would 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.240 you be qualified to be the head of the American 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:39.080 Enterprise SINS too? 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.400 I was not qualified and I was clearly not qualified 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:42.800 for that job, and it was I was sort of 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:44.640 the last chance saloon, I think, for the board of 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.560 directors that the American enterprisingers to do. At the time, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.280 I was a visiting scholar at AI, and I had 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.920 always aspired to do more. AI is the greatest thing 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.440 tank in America. It's based on the idea that the 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:56.640 free enterprise system has done more to lift people up 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.760 from the margins of society than any other single idea 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.280 in history, and that the United States at its best 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:04.200 is a gift to the world. 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:06.440 All Right, So you took that job, you became the CEO, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:07.480 and you stayed there for ten. 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.280 Years eleven almost a lot of ten and a half. 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.960 So after eleven years you say, Okay, I now want 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:13.840 to do something else. Why do you decide to do 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.000 something else after eleven years is going very well? 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.480 I had figured out by that time that my career 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.200 is best when I take it down to the studs 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.880 every decade and start again. That's when I'm most interested. 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.000 That's when I can funge the skills that i've as 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.960 a leader, as a professional, as a person in my soul. 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:29.440 I can take them to the next thing and do 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:30.840 really well with a lot of inspiration. 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.960 Most people, before they leave a job, they already have 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.760 another job lined up. Yeah, you left AI when you 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:39.560 were at the top of your game, but you didn't 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:40.480 have anything lined up. 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.840 Not really. I mean I had some ideas, maybe I'll 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.600 go back to academia. But the whole point is basically this. 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.280 I had a heart to heart conversation one of my 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.240 best friends is your partner Dan Dan Yellow at Carlisle 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.280 and I said to him, look, I'm feeling a little 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:54.880 I'm mitching a little bit. I'm thinking about new things. 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.720 And how do you think about your career as a CEO? 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.880 How do you think about finishing your career as a CEO? 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:02.920 I was fifty five years old, fifty four years old 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:04.480 at the time. And he said he thought about it, 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.399 and he said something very wise to me that's probably 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.360 useful for people watching us right now. He says, when 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.560