The Science of a Well-Lived Life: How to Create a Life That Feels as Good as It Looks

21:17She said, what do I do? I said, you don't need a professor to tell you what to do. Fix it with your husband. Exactly right. And go to the church. And she said, she said, I got it. I know. And I said, so why not? That's the important point, right? Because then she stopped. She thought for a long time. And this is what got me. She said, you know, I've always chosen to be special rather than happy. And I'm like, boom. And I'm like, okay, good. I wrote it down. But it was like, it's me too. It's me too. I mean, I'm telling you, I was a CEO through when my kids were growing up. You know how much I missed in that 14th hour in the office before the first hour with my kids?

21:53You know, it was just, and you know, they got, they got revenge on me. They grew up. Now, of course I'm getting the last laugh because I'm a grandfather now and I'm not missing that. But the whole point is that, that we, we will, because of our biology, the animal impulse is for specialness. And most people don't have the problem. I mean, most people are like, hey man, if I could have Emma's life, it would be a charm life, but I can't. So I guess I'm just going to go, you know, go to the park with my kid. Congratulations, you won. You won. You won, right? So therefore, everybody watching us who's going to do, who are going to do great things.

22:29I mean, this is like, this show is money in the bank. This is human capital development. That's really great. But remember that you have to do on purpose, but many people do just over the ordinary course of events. Right. You need the skills of being happy and not just special. And the skills of being happy take work like everything else that you're striving for. You have to pay attention to what the happiest people do naturally. You have to pay attention to that. That is your faith. That is your family. That is your friendship. That is working in things that don't necessarily compensate you to the max, but that actually create value in the universe with your life.

23:08Yeah. And that's the source of meaning. And I want you to talk because the book is so much, and the way that you frame this idea of meaning, will you just talk to me a little bit about that? Because I think there's so many people say, my life is devoid of meaning. I don't have meaning. And some people don't even know that they should be looking for meaning and how inextricably linked that is with happiness. I've been giving a test to my students, my 20-something-year-old students for a long time to see whether or not they have a meaning crisis. And this is really scientifically valid. It's a two-question exam.

23:42They're the best. I mean, I have this. And you've got it in there. It's one of the first things in the book that I was like, I need to get him to talk those two questions through. Yes, and the two questions that I ask my students. And the way to pass this test, and everybody watching us, I want everybody watching and listening to us to think about their answers to these questions. And the way you pass the exam is to have answers. And if you don't have answers, good. Now you know what to look for. Don't go looking for the meaning of life. Go looking for the answers to these two questions. Number one.

24:09why are you alive? Now that's like, that's too big, but it could be who created you or for what purpose. And the second is for what would you give your life right now? Give it all right now, happily walk away from your own life, give your life. You know, for some people, you and me, I know exactly what popped into your head is the four little ones, right? And for me, it's the four big ones with the five little ones. And you know, it's of course, but what else, you know, for your country, for your values, for your faith. And that's what everybody has to do, especially for any woman that's listening and for anyone that has dependents.

24:44You've got to go that one step further because it can't be just that. Just junior, right? Okay. So when I started giving this exam, 15 % of my students would fail and 85 % would pass. 15, 85. Okay. Okay. Started to rise. When? 2008. Now I've got the data. Yeah. Yeah. What happened in 2008? Like what did we all get in 2008, 2009? I don't know. The phone. Oh, the phone. The phone. It was when the iPhones first was delivered at the end of 2007. By 2009, we all had one. Now most of the world has one. So what we were distracted from figuring out or wanting to find out the meaning of our life? What the problem was, we stopped being able to even ask the questions.

25:23And that's what this book is about. Number one is we got a problem. Number two is what happened to our brains? And number three, most importantly, is how do we fix it? Because that's what we really want to know is how do we fix this? And what happened to our brains, we started using our brains differently. And this is a whole area of neuroscience. It's got a fancy title. It's called hemispheric lateralization. Okay. The left side of your brain does all the technology, does all the efficiency, does all the how-to and what of life. Running your business requires a lot of left hemisphere. How-to and what, how-to and what, how-to and what.

25:58But what makes you happy is the right side of your brain, which asks the why. The why is because I love my husband, because I love my kids, because I want to understand the divine, because I want to make the world a better place. Why? Why? And then how to and what to do that. And that's how your brain is supposed to work. Every time you open up your phone, you move to the left side of your brain. You don't even ask the why questions. That's the crisis. Now, the average American opens up her or his phone 205 times a day. I mean, it's just wild to think about. And the left side of the brain is just, the right side of the brain is quiet.

26:35And that's our problem. And that's why you say that we are in an era of emptiness. Exactly right. Because the right side of your brain makes you feel full of life. And when it's not on, you feel empty. You feel deadness. It's so funny because people are using Chad GPT for the best friend experience, for the girlfriend experience, God forbid, for a therapist. I mean, I keep getting kind of human-like conversations conversations, but I feel lonelier and lonelier because your brain knows you can simulate a lot. We're kind of living in the matrix, you know, fake work on the zoom screen, fake friends who are virtual people on social media.

27:13We've never met fake courting on the apps. Now the apps can be great, but get out in real life fast. Get out. Yeah. I'm actually a scientific advisor to Bumble right now because they're so dedicated to actually getting out fast in real life. You know, they're dedicated to the real human experience. But the whole fake accomplishment through gaming, it's all fake, fake, fake. It's the matrix, which is the left hemisphere of the brain. And you can't simulate meaning. But I'm really interested in this because I think post COVID, and I'm sure so many people say this to you, everybody feels like there are parts of retracting and being inside and having a convenient life that somehow feels better for them.

27:58Because I've spoken about this very, very openly and had some backlash as it pertains specifically to work culture and Zoom culture. But I also think having food delivered to your door and having to date online and reducing ourselves to these screen-only relationships is really damaging for us as humans. To see an efficiency move. And there's all kinds of efficiency moves. But don't people fight against you when you say that? Don't they say, but listen, I love that convenience and I love my house and I love my bed and I really enjoy, you know, not having to come into work and have, you know, toxic relationships.

28:35Like, isn't that what people kind of hit back at? Yeah, they do. That's what you said. Well, I mean, so I give a lot of advice to young people. I get a lot of unsolicited and I'm not a professional coach, but, you know, look, I can give a lot of advice. And so a lot of young guys are like, it's like I graduated from college, but I don't have any opportunities. I'm living with my mom. I'm smoking a lot of weed in the basement. You know, I can't find a job. I don't know, what do I do, professor? And I'm like, okay, tomorrow morning, get up, make your bed, brush your teeth, go look for a job. Don't look at any pornography.

29:04It's horrible for you. And by the way, go to the gym and lift some weights. I'm like, ah, you know, I get pushed back on that too. Why? Because it's not efficient. What's efficient? To not leave the house, to sit on the couch, to not exercise, to eat garbage. You know, there's a reason that you and I started the day today in the gym. I know you did, so did I. Yes, I did. I've been starting the day in the gym for 30 years, right? Until when I figured out in my early 30s, it's like, this is not going to end well. Like it's some exercise. But the whole point is it hurts. I don't do it because it feels good.

29:37I do it because it's what I need to do. Because I want to be fully alive. And that means doing the hard thing is what it comes down to. And doing the hard thing is getting out in real life with real people. Here's the rule. The little screen, it's not the enemy. And it's with us for good. But if it is substituting for in real life love, it's hurting you. It's hurting you. If it's a compliment to that because you're learning, loving and laughing, good. Great. But if it's a substitute for dating, if it's a substitute for friendship, if it's a substitute for calling your mom, it's going to hurt you.

30:12It's going to hurt your life. It's really going to hurt you. Talk to me a little bit about suffering because I do feel like some of the reluctance to meet people in person, to go out, to do the hard thing is because people want, you know, they're trying to preserve themselves. They don't want to meet somebody and get rejected. They don't want to make that call and feel like somebody's dodging them. But you talk about suffering in such an additive way in your book. And I want you to explain why suffering is necessary. Yeah. Suffering is one of the great right hemispheric experiences. You actually use the right half of your brain, the meaning half of your brain when you're suffering.

30:48That doesn't mean people need to go looking for suffering. My students will be like, professor, you're saying I got to go looking for suffering. I say, don't worry, it will find you. It always does. The whole question is, what do you do when it does? So the Buddhists have a formula for understanding suffering. Suffering equals pain multiplied by resistance to pain. Pain times resistance, that equals suffering. Pain is going to find you. Physical pain and mental pain. Your brain is built so you can feel pain. If you didn't, I mean, literally, what will happen if you don't feel physical pain? That's one of the characteristics of leprosy.

31:21and where your nerve endings are malfunctioning, such that you don't know when you've hurt yourself. That's a big problem. You have pain because it's protective. You have social pain so that you'll avoid being rejected. And mental pain is no joke. I mean, your brain is designed for this and you'd be dead in a week. Actually, if you felt no pain at all, you'd have no fear. You'd get hit by car. So thank God for actually negative emotions in this way. So it's going to happen. You don't need to go looking for it unless you're some sort of a weirdo, but it will find you. The question is, what do you do when it does find you?

31:53Now, there's certain cases where you try to mitigate the pain. My back hurts right now. And so I took 600 milligrams of ibuprofen because I want to be on point. I want to be with you completely right now. I'm thinking about my back, right? Okay, good. I tried to lower the pain. And there's sometimes when market conditions are such that it's not great for your company and you want to change the market conditions. So the pain to your employees and to your investors changes. It goes down. I got it. But you know, a lot of the time you can't. A lot of the time you can't. I mean, somebody that you love leaves you.

32:25Somebody that you love dies. What are you going to do? That's when you work on the resistance side. This is power now that we're talking about. Your suffering will decline if you lower your resistance to pain that you can't do anything about. Your life will be worse. Your suffering will go up if you try to resist pain that you can't actually avoid, is what it comes down to. You know, you see this all the time. My mother-in-law now, blessed memory. I loved her so much. I loved her like my own mother. I was so close to my mother-in-law in Spain and Barcelona. She died when she was 93. The last three years of her life, she was bedridden.

33:00Now, she was an active, active person. But lying in her bed, she was in tremendous physical pain. and she had this beatific expression, you know, that she was, she loved people, people continuing coming and going and the whole thing. And she was this big inspiration. Why? She was not suffering very much, despite the fact that her pain was high, but because her resistance was low. That's what it comes down. I mean, that's raising kids. Yeah. A lot, it's a lot about lowering your resistance to pain. That's what it comes about. And that's how we need to understand it. You want the suffering to be generative and help you find meaning, then say, my life's going to have pain.

33:35and I have a choice about how I'm going to react to that pain.

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36:05What do you say to someone who is genuinely unhappy because of their circumstances? And it's not something that they can change with mindset or a set of behaviors. It's like they are unhappy because of their job, because of a personal experience. What's your advice? So we have a tendency, it's called negativity bias. We're so funny as creatures, right? We focus on the negative because focusing on the negative in our lives is what's kept us alive. The trouble is that there's a portfolio of things going on in our life all the time. This is our relationships and our work and our money and our health and all that stuff that has our attention.

36:43One of those pixels is going to be blinking negative. It's going to be blinking red. There's nobody watching us right now, very few people watching us right now, where they're all blinking red, but probably nobody where it's all blinking green. Somebody's got that one thing, and your brain makes you pay attention to that one thing. That's what it comes down to. One of the techniques that you can use to override this, now pay attention, change it. I mean, to begin with, don't be out of control. Don't pay attention to the things you can't control. pay attention to the things that you can. So gratitude is an overriding mechanism in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

37:17And there's great studies on this. So I've actually assigned gratitude lists for years. And the way that you do this is on Sunday, write down the five things, Sunday evening, write on the five things you're most grateful for in your life. I don't care how stupid they are, but you write these things down. You know, my mom and I had a good conversation this week, you know, whatever it happens to be. I saw this beautiful sunset or something really profound, like, you know, God loves me. Good, write them down. Every day over the course of the week, look at each one of them each night for one minute each and meditate on it.

37:46On Sunday, update the list. The list might get longer. The list might change. You decide how it works. On average, at the end of 12 weeks, you'll be at least 15 % happier. But, and Arthur, I feel like everybody talks about a gratitude practice. Yes. I learned it as a kid from Oprah, like many people of my generation. And I've made it a part of my life forever and ever since. if you're not doing this right now, right? Really, if you're sitting there and you're like, I've listened to so many podcasts, I've heard so many experts, and they all say, you're really serious that it will make you 15 % happier after a couple of months.

38:21It's completely free. Now, the way that you actually get happier, by the way, is not just, you know, you watch a podcast and say, good idea, not good enough. You got to do it. That's the reason that people have a million self-improvement books and don't feel better because they have the epiphany. What you have to do is you need to understand the science. The science is super interesting, by the way. I just talked about the science. Number two, you need to change your practice. And then here's the killer. You got to go explain it to somebody else. The minute that you explain it to somebody else, you become in your mind and in their minds accountable to the practice.

38:51So before we get into the really big things, talk to me, aside from gratitude, about the daily habits that you have that have the single biggest impact on happiness. So the single biggest impact on happiness today is not going to be what it was when I was a kid. And the reason is because the iPhone wasn't in our lives. The single biggest thing that we can actually do is to corral our internet behavior in a healthier way. That's the single, that's the game changer for most people. That's the one thing, a little switch. That first hour. For most people, it's a big switch. Yeah. The first hour, the last hour, especially if you live with your beloved.

39:24Can I tell you how much I loved your love story and how you met your wife in the book? I mean, the idea, and this is, I mean, you should tell it because it's so beautiful, but I just found it magical that you would see somebody across a room, you're playing in an orchestra, and then you tell the rest. Yeah, sure. It's so off the topic, but it just was one of the parts in the book that I was like, oh, I just love this guy. Well, here's the reason that it's on the topic of meaning. Because romantic love is one of the best ways you can illuminate the right hemisphere of your brain. But I was, you know, a 24-year-old kid when I was a professional musician all the way through my 20s.

39:59I dropped out of college. I took a gap decade. And I went on the road and I was playing chamber music all over the place. And I was on a European concert tour. And I was at a concert and I was playing, it was in France, in Dijon, in the Burgundy region, France. And as I was playing, there's this girl, this beautiful girl, man, looking at me. And I'm like, gosh, I got to go talk to her afterward. Maybe she speaks English. No, no, no, not a word. I got to talk to her. Never so convenient. What I figured out through, you know, gesticulations and translation was that she was not French. She was Spanish, Catalan.

40:32She was from Barcelona. And so I did the only thing I could do, which is not, you know, a sensible person would walk away. I had a translator ask her out for me. And we went out on like three dates. And during that concert tour, I was there for a week. I was in Dijon for a week. I got home. I'm like, I can't get this girl out of my mind. So I called my dad. I said, dad, you know what? I think I met the girl I'm going to marry. And he's like, great. Let's meet her. I said, well, I got some problems. She doesn't live in the United States. She doesn't speak English. she told me she doesn't believe in marriage because she's European and so she has no idea that this is my plan and he says so what are you going to do and I said you know I think I'm going to move there and so I hatched this plan and I found a job in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and I quit my job in the States and I sold all my stuff and I moved to Barcelona and I moved there she's like she's so happy to see me and the whole thing and I said yeah I'm living here and she's like That's really weird.

41:32Weird. That's really weird. It took me two years to close the deal. Wow. It did take me two years to close the deal. But you really did happily ever after. You learned the language. Yeah. And you fell in love. And you have three kids together and five grandkids. And it's just 35 years later. Yeah, yeah. And this is really, I mean, it's like, nothing's perfect. Because, you know, the truth is anything that exists in the right hemisphere of your brain is super complex. Meaning these are problems that you'll understand and live with but never solve. the your business is a complicated problem your marriage is a complex problem you will never solve your marriage you're going to be arguing with your husband not all the time but you will have arguments and disagreements with him that feel like oh when you're 35 years married like me and and when you're god willing 65 years married before you he takes his dying breath as he looks upon his beloved but but that's the essence of what it means to be fully alive to not solve it but to actually live it.

42:28And that's really, really important. Everybody watch, almost everybody watching us, many of the people watching us and listening to us right now, they have that beloved, good. But many of the rest want that beloved. What are you looking at? What is that one flesh? That's not the person who has a certain set of characteristics in your dating profile. That's the person who will complete the right hemisphere of your brain. That's what you're looking for, the deep, deep friendship that you can't quite explain. And obviously not everybody has a significant other, but so much of what you talk about is human connection, is friendships.

43:01And I wonder why friendships become just so much harder when we get older. They get harder when we get older, but they get much, much harder in the age of technology where we're actually trying to mediate our relationships through screens. Your brain knows that it's not a real friend if it's not in person. Right. If it's never in person, for example. If it's never in person. If it's never in person. So you can have those relationships where, you know, most of my friends are in England, but you have to see those people. You got to see them. You have to keep it alive. Right, yeah. I mean, I'll talk to, and guys are, women are way better at friendship than men, by the way.

43:31The data on this are completely clear. Yes. Men are horrible at friendship. I mean, it's, oh, it's, it's, it's sad, actually. The extent to which I'll talk to guys and I'll say, of course I got a best friend. When's the last time you talked to them? Three months ago. No. I mean, my closest friends I talked to a lot. Yeah, you have, you have to. You know, my mother-in-law had a beautiful way of saying, you know, all relationships should give birth to something. You need new things. It can't always be about what happened 10 or 20 years ago. And to do that, you have to be together. You have to make new things happen.

44:05And that's a striver problem, too. So all the successful, ambitious, hardworking people, they're like, yeah, I got tons of friends. And all I was asking, yeah, really? Are they real friends or deal friends? Oh. Real and deal. We all know what that means, right? I mean, deal friends are super useful. There's nothing wrong with that. No, you've got to have some deal friends. I do business all the time. But you've really got to have real friends. Yeah, and real friends, you know what they are? They're useless. They're useless. I don't mean that in a bad way. Totally. That's what Aristotle called them.

44:31They're atelic, which means they don't have this utilitarian telos. They have nothing to give you. But I actually think - Except love. I really understand that because I always think that my realist friendships want nothing from me. Absolutely nothing. And that's how I judged my best friendships. I'm like, this person needs nothing from me. Right. They, you know, they're going to, what they're going to get from you is a sense of loving and being loved. Yeah. And that's it. That's what it comes down to. What do you actually believe about happiness that most people don't want to hear? Yeah. What most people don't want to hear is that happiness is not a destination.

45:07It's a direction. They want to be happy. You know, I say, what do you want? I want to be happy. What do you want for your kids? I want them to be happy. Well, I actually personally believe that you can be completely happy, but not in this life. I believe in this life you can't because there is true happiness that comes next. That's my belief. I'm a traditionally religious person, actually, right? Happiness isn't a place. It's not a destination in this life. Happiness is a direction. When you do the things you're supposed to do, paying attention to the enjoyment in your life and the satisfaction with your accomplishments, the meaning of your life, you'll get happier.

45:43So when I worked with Oprah, you read the book that I wrote with Oprah, and it was such a great experience. She's one of the few people who's exactly the same when you're having dinner alone as when she's in an arena of screaming fans. It's extraordinary. It's an extraordinary story. It's one of the reasons why she's so happy. So when we were cooking up this book that we wrote together, she said, so the goal isn't happiness, it's happier-ness, which is not a word, except now it is. Except now it is. I said, it's like Oprah Winfrey. She's so good. She took my whole, what it took me years to do in a PhD.

46:14She didn't like, you know, 45 seconds. She's like, I've got it. Okay, let's roll with that one. But it's an extraordinary way to think about it because so many people that achieve things, especially successful people, they get to the thing and then they immediately begin chasing the next thing. So why doesn't achievement stay with us for very long? Yeah, yeah. So this is the striver's curse. That, and the belief that when you finally get that thing that you'll be cosmically happy, that's called the arrival fallacy. Of course, it has a psychological name to it. And I've worked with Olympic athletes.

46:44They almost inevitably, if they win a gold medal, they suffer a clinical depression afterward. Wow. Because they've been looking for it and looking for it and looking for it. Here's a really funny thing about something that most people who are watching us have experienced over the course of their life. Dieting is a really funny thing because almost every diet works, but they almost all fail, right? And so about 80 % of diets fail insofar as people gain back everything they lost within a year. But almost every diet works so that the beginning of it, you lose pounds over the weeks and months. So what's the deal with that?

47:18And the answer is when you're on a diet, you're not eating the things that you like and you're making sacrifices, but you get this reward, which is that the scale goes down. It's really, really satisfying because we're made to make progress and we'd love the scoreboard, right? The trouble is when you hit your goal weight, you know what your reward is? You're never going to eat what you like every day for the rest of your life. Congratulations. and it's very unsatisfying. Some people are like, ah, it's no good. That's the arrival fallacy that when I hit my goal weight, everything is going to be so awesome.

47:44When I get that billion dollars, I'm going to feel it. Mick Jagger saying, I can't get no satisfaction, but I try and I try and it's actually wrong. If you couldn't get no satisfaction, you wouldn't try because you're an idiot. The problem is you can't keep no satisfaction. You believe that when you hit your goal, it'll feel wonderful forever, but it doesn't because you get these positive emotions and those are transient. Those go away. So the first thing a billionaire says when they earn their first billion is, huh, I thought it was going to be better. Maybe two billion. That's exactly what happened.

48:20I know, it's like, I thought I'd be so much happier when I had a boat. Yeah, but that's exactly what happens to people. It doesn't matter if it's a promotion, if it's whatever it is, you get there and you're like, oh.

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50:45I want to talk to you a little bit about money because I think for so long in my life, I was under the belief that the more money I had, the happier I would get. And I really wonder what the, I mean, to some degree it was like, not, not entirely untrue, but there's a point at which it doesn't work anymore. What's the science? I really want to know, like, what is the science. Does money actually make you happier? So here's a funny thing about that. So our brains don't know. I mean, there's a big difference between happiness and unhappiness. They're not opposites. They're actually processed in different parts of the brain.

51:20The emotions associated with happiness and unhappiness are in different hemispheres of the brain, as a matter of fact. We know this from all kinds of brain studies, et cetera. But we can't do the sums in our head. We think that well-being is kind of happiness minus unhappiness. And you notice, because you were raised without nice things, as they say, euphemistically. It's like, you don't want to say poor, but yeah. And I was raised, you know, it was very austere, right? What money does at low levels is it gets rid of the sources of unhappiness. Yes. And that's what happened to you is that you were freer and you were less worried and you had more ability to do a bunch of things that you needed to do so that you could avoid misery.

51:59And you weren't worried about healthcare. I mean, that's what it does. But at a very low level, you satiate that, but you keep looking for that feeling and people will chase that feeling. Like, oh man, I mean, when I went from earning$25 ,000 a year to$75 ,000 a year, I felt a lot better. So if I go from$250 ,000 a year to$750 ,000 a year, it should be great. And you're like, I got a kind of bigger apartment, you know, that's good. But the whole point is you chase and chase and chase and chase and chase. Now there's a loophole. I'll tell you how to buy happiness, no matter how much money you have.

52:35It's not buying stuff. What really will bring you happiness is experiences with the people that you love. Right? So if you're going to buy a beach house, only do it as bait for the people that you love to go there. Right? Second is buy time and spend it in edifying things, in prayer, in meditation, with the people that you love. Number three, give your money away. Give it to people and causes that you really care about. Number four, save for a better future. That's how you do it is experiences, time, philanthropy, and saving. Those are the four things that you can actually do that will reliably bring you more happiness.

53:14But your biology is like, no, I'll get more stuff. Get a Ferrari. Get a Ferrari. But it's so true because the minute you say that, I mean, I've made such a point of going off on these magical summers. And that's because I'm so aware as I approach 44 that my family's getting older. You're a kid. Time is so precious. A kid. I love that you say that. I'll let you say that. But, you know, it's like for me, that time is so precious. And to your point, experiences are worth it. Me going away with my kids and having a magical summer, that feels worth it. When you talk about time, I love that you say that because one of the biggest privileges of my life is having childcare.

53:57because when you have childcare, it affords you so much time with your kids when you'd otherwise be running errands and doing things that are less pleasurable. And so I love that idea that experiences and time is a great place to spend your money. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's lasting, right? And you're doing it right, by the way, because you can buy time and some people will buy time and they'll keep going to the store and have the time that they're buying by hiring somebody to take care of their kids. Oh, no, you're doing the opposite. You're doing the opposite. that you have to actually devote yourself to edifying things and to relationships.

54:30So you got to follow the rules. I mean, don't spend that hour that somebody is cutting your grass scrolling Instagram. No. Right, that's a mistake. But people do that all the time. It's like, ah, yeah, well, somebody's doing that thing for me. Somebody's cleaning my house. I'm going to go, you know, binge Netflix. That's not an edifying use of your time. I got nothing against binging Netflix, but a little goes a long way when it comes to happiness. I want to ask you just another money question because there are some ideas thrown around about how much money is enough money. And I was reading something the other day where it's like this kind of 75K figure, like this is the answer to what will create real happiness.

55:05Like, is there a real answer? So, yeah, I mean, that's like super contested in the literature. And what happened was, is these two economists, actually one psychologist and one economist at Princeton, Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman. Do you know them? Yeah, I mean, well, yeah. Daniel, we all read the book, right? Like he's the thinking fast and slow guy. So one has passed away, sadly, but, and, and, and they're both, you know, been great. Then they both won Nobel prizes. I mean, these are so great. And what they found is that there's a satiation point of, of wellbeing happens around$75 ,000. And of course your results may vary.

55:39I mean, you're living in LA. Yeah. So$75 ,000 in LA and in, in Wichita, those are, it's a different type of fish. But the truth is that what their point was that there's a satiation point in, your earning and it happens earlier than you think. Okay. Now later research says it's much higher, but here's the big point. It gets flat fast. It gets flat fast and it becomes a bad trade-off to trade away relationships, to trade away experiences for more money. And it happens earlier than you actually think. And so people shouldn't do that is what it comes down to. If you have this opportunity to work 80 hours a week instead of 50 hours a week, and so you can make twice as much money, but you're already really well off.

56:20And that's going to make you sacrifice time with your family. And you really care about your family, which you should, then don't do it. Then don't do it. That's what the happiness specialist says. And I know your brain is going to be like, yeah, but it's only four years. And I'm really, but you know what? Four years is a long time. Four years of love is a lot more valuable than four years of money. But Arthur, you're someone who, to your own point, you said to me when you came in here, It's like, you are a road warrior. You're out there. You've written all of these incredible books. As you said, you're like collecting professorships right now.

56:52You've got side hustle professorship. You know, it's like you, you, you do a lot. You are out and about. I'm assuming that you are making money. And I just wonder like, how do you, even for yourself, like, how do you say, do you know what? This is an opportunity that is right for me. This is an opportunity that's going to work with my happiness versus this is going to take away. because again, you're out and you're working and you're doing great things and you're very, very successful in your field. But I want to understand that decision-making process for everybody else. How do I eat my own cooking?

57:24Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do I actually follow my advice? Come on, are you happy? You must be so happy. Well, you know, the truth is that I study happiness, not because it's easy, but because it's hard for me because I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. And then I've talked about the fact that it was the 14th hour of the office instead of the first hour with my kids. I've screwed this up and I don't want to do that. One of the reasons I specialize in this is because I want this for my own life. If I had it really come in easy to me, my wife is much happier than me. You know, I'm like a four out of 10 on happiness.

57:52And she's like, yeah, she's an eight, eight and a half. And so she's like, why do you study happiness? It's so easy. I'm like, yeah. I mean, I'd study air if it were not available. And you study, you pay attention to the thing that you actually need. And my happiness is much better since I've been actually studying this. part of it is because when I teach this, I become, as we mentioned before, I become accountable to it. I mean, if somebody sees me all grumpy in an airport and they're like, that's the, that that happiness guy is on TV. That's no good. I mean, I will actually want to be, I want to be accountable to it.

58:23But the other thing is I actually set up protocols in my life. I want to do this work. I love my work. I'm so into it. It is a true source of happiness because I get to lift people up and bring them together. That's my mission in life is to bring people to higher levels of happiness and love using science and ideas. That's what I want to do with the rest of my life. But I have to keep in just front of mind that if this goes beyond certain limits, it's going to attenuate my ability to live according to my principles. So what does this mean? I do travel 48 weeks out of the year, but not all week.

58:58I'm home every weekend. There's probably four weekends a year that I'm not home. and two of those, my wife's with me, right? I go home to my family. I see them. I see my kids. I see my, every day that I'm home, I see my grandchildren because we all live close. We made a point of actually moving everybody to the same area so that we could have this compound. Some would say a cult. It's really important. I'm doing those things. When I'm in Northern Virginia where I live, I don't take dinners out. I don't take dinners out for business. I'm home for dinner every time I'm there. And we have to have these protocols in our life.

59:33And I know you have these protocols too. I mean, you could have somebody else take your kids to school, but we started this today after you took your kids to school. You personally took your students. It's the first day. But I mean, I bet it's, even if it's not the first day, I mean, it's important to you. And it's not, here's the thing, Emma, it's not cost-effective. If you look at it on the P &L side and what it actually, how it would, you know, how those minutes would be accounted for, but your heart knows it's right. And that's the important thing. You have to live according these particular principles.

1:00:03Everybody watching us, they want to grow and be you. Got it. That's good. But to grow up and be you is not fundamentally about the success of this business. It's about the startup that you've made of your life. Yes. These are the principles that they should actually follow. And then the success principles in the business will follow naturally upon those. So then tell me this, what should people start building today that's actually going to matter 20 years from now. Yeah. And so this is the columnist for the New York Times, my old friend, David Brooks. No relation. But we love David Brooks. Yeah, yeah.

1:00:38He's an old friend of mine. So he talks about eulogy virtues versus resume virtues. And he says, you know, when you're at your funeral, which, you know, who knows? Maybe it's 20 years from me now. I don't know. It's not going to be 20 years from you. You're going to be like... Who's that been? Listen, I reckon we'll all be fine. Yeah, whatever. I mean, whatever God gives you, you know, but you take it. The whole point is that some years from now, what are you building that will actually make sense? And I really honestly hope at my funeral, people aren't saying, you know, he had 5 million miles on Delta.

1:01:07It's so dumb. You know, they're not going to talk about how much time you spend at the office. Now, it's good to spend time at the office, but the point is what you're fundamentally building is the eulogy virtue, not the resume virtue. And so one of the things that I recommend that everybody think about is 20 years from now, what are people actually saying about you that you actually care about. And I know there's going to be on that list. It's going to be successful, admirable, you know, doing well in business. I get that. But rank the order of things that you want most to say. And I know everybody watching us is they're going to, people watching us, they're going to say, I want somebody to be saying, I love her because she's my wife and she's my soulmate.

1:01:48That's what you want them to be saying. That's number one. It's a lot more important than her business did, you know? And so if that's the case, then start investing in that now. Start investing in that emotionally, investing in your time in that right now. Take it as seriously as you're doing anything else. So how do we make sure that we're building the life that we want and not just a life that makes sense to anybody else that's watching it? We have to take an inventory of actually how we're spending our time and energy. We have to be honest with ourselves. It's very easy to not be honest. I mean, people lie all the time to each other, but they lie to themselves the most.

1:02:22I wonder why it's so easy to lie to yourself. Well, because it's actually, it's more convenient. You know, these convenient lies about, yeah, no, I don't drink that much because I know a bunch of people who drink more, right? You know, it's one of the things that we actually, for sure, I mean, because it's so, I mean, look, honesty is so inconvenient, but you know what? Honesty with yourself, that's the adventure. Right. Like all the ugly stuff you're looking at and you're like, bring it on. You know, that's tough, but that's so bracing. That's a cold plunge. But I have an exercise I take my students through to actually make sure that this can actually lead to some sort of strategy.

1:03:00And this comes up a lot with my MBA students because they're the business students. They can do this. You know, they're very organized. I say, okay, imagine you in five years. Forget the 20, just five years. So you're not on your deathbed. You're vital and alive. You'll be 49? Young. Yes. I know it doesn't sound young to you. Trust me, to me, that sounds young, Emma. I'm still a kid. and you say to yourself, that's a version of Emma that's 25 % happier than now. What does that mean? You kind of know how that feels, so don't worry about the quantification of that. 25 % happier. And there's three reasons that that version of you, five years from now, not tomorrow, is happier than, 25 % happier than now.

1:03:45And the three reasons, in order, in order, three changes. What are they? And I've given that test again and again and again to my students. So my average student is 28. So they're going to be 33. And that freaks them out. I'm going to be 33. Yeah. Just wait. All right. Number one, when they're being honest, is always their relationships. It's always their relationships. I've never had one say a million dollars a year. Never, never. They know they want to love and be loved. That's what they actually say. Number two, generally speaking, number two is something about their metaphysical life. It's something about their spirituality.

1:04:22It's a sense of their relationship to the divine, however they understand that idea. And then number three is their worldly success. And I say, okay, so, okay, what are you spending all your time on? Number three. Yeah. That's a problem. That's a problem. You can spend so much more organized time. Do you believe that anyone can make themselves happier? Everybody can do lots and lots of things to be happier tomorrow than they are today and happier in a year than they are right now. Anyone? Everybody. Every single person. That doesn't mean that everybody's going to be equally happy. And as we mentioned before, it doesn't mean they'll ever be cosmically happy, but they can be happier.

1:05:01Everybody can make progress. The happiest person in the world can make progress. The most miserable person in the world can make progress. And definitely all the rest of us who are watching this show and you and me in the middle. We can make progress. Absolutely. I mean, I'm telling you, when I read this book, I was like, there is so much here that I was like, this is how I live. This is who I am. These are the things. There's nothing here that you go, that feels really odd. I had no idea about that. But it is just a reprioritization. An all mushroom diet. No, that's not in there. It's like, it's all the stuff that you know, but put in a way so simply and so orderly and just a reframing of your priorities.

1:05:39Like, where are you spending your time? Yeah. What I try to do with the work is to back it up with enough science so people understand how they tick. I'm kind of the translator between the neuroscientists and the behavioral scientists and the people who are consuming it. But the whole point is that the science itself, when it's translated into ordinary terms, is super fascinating. How my brain works and I'm wonderfully made. It's a miracle. But then, okay, then do these five things, right? And then go teach it to somebody else. So if anybody from just from this conversation, whether they read the book or not, or any of my books or your books for that matter, whether they do or not, it's that they're going to learn a bunch of stuff.

1:06:16Go back, look at the timestamps and the show notes. Listen to this conversation again and write down the things that really strike you, right? And then commit yourself to doing the things that we're talking about. But most importantly, go be the teacher. And Arthur, they just must ask you because if anybody's listening, they want to become happy right now. They want it like in this moment. Where do you tell them to begin? I hear you. I know the technology piece. I know the phone. If you can come to terms with that and say, okay, I'm going to put some guardrails around this. I'm going to use my phone responsibly.

1:06:51I'm going to think about social media in a different way. Then what? What is the one place that you begin to become more happy? It has to do with the person that you love. You know, it's funny because a lot of your work is importantly talking about what you can do for yourself. And that's really important because your happiness is a gift to everybody else around you. and what you've correctly pointed out so many times is the secret to doing that is by loving someone else. If you've got that free hour, go love someone. What does that mean? You go serve them. You do an unbidden act of kindness. You call somebody that you love.

1:07:29You send five texts saying, I saw that thing and I admired it. And you give somebody this love. That's what to do. Your day changes. Your life changes. That's the hinge point in your life is when you put down the technology, which was hijacking your brain on the left side. And you move into the right hemisphere of deep love with another person that you gave. That's how you use that time. And can you not be happy if you don't love someone? You can't. Now, there are times when you're less loved. I get it. You can't. You can't. See, here's the thing. We're made to love and be loved. That's how we're made.

1:08:09You know, people, I was doing a show not long ago And they had this big philosophical question at the end. What is life? It's like, whoa. I mean, I could talk to you about the sperm and the egg. The mommy and the daddy loved each other very much. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I know the biology. We are made biologically, neuroscientifically, cosmically, spiritually, theologically, philosophically, all of it to love and be loved. And I've got a hundred ways this Sunday to show that with the research that you won't be happy unless you love others. unless you give people the opportunity to love you.

1:08:45And so therefore life is love. That's the currency of life itself. It's the beating heart of what life actually means. And when we lose that, when we distract ourselves from that by our wonderful specialness, we miss the very reason that we're alive in the first place. Life is love. Full stop. Two quick questions and then I'm going to let you go. I want to know if being known as the happiness expert has made it harder for you to express or just to like admit when you're unhappy. Yeah, yeah, no. So, and at the beginning, yeah. But one of the things that I found is that the greatest value that I can create is not talking about how I'm some great expert, but these are the problems that I have too.

1:09:28These are the problems that I actually have too. And what I'm doing is me-sert. Yes, yes. Not research. Yes, yes. And so no, it actually, it's much better at this point. It's actually a real person fully alive is what it comes down to. because that's the fun. I mean, that's the adventure. You know, I'm not studying something theoretical. On the contrary, I'm studying me and my family and my loved ones and my friends and the people that I get to work with. And that's really thrilling. What it's raised the stakes on is making sure that I'm living up to my own commitments. And that's been really, really good.

1:10:00No doubt. Arthur, what do you still aspire to do or to become? But the truth is that what I fundamentally aspire to are the things that actually will bring me a greater sense of bliss, closer to the time in which I'm edging up toward the ultimate happiness that I seek, which is at the end of my life. And that is being in greater touch with my faith as somebody who's closer to God. I want it. And that means I have to do the work that has a better relationship with my family, not good enough, a better relationship with my family, who is a better friend. And no joke, it's hard to be a good friend when you're busy all the time, right?

1:10:38and to actually serve other people deeply with my work. My aspiration is to become truly an elite athlete and faith family friends in a work that serves. And I try to make progress toward that every day. What a fucking great answer. That was a really good answer to that question. I'm going to take you to a quick rapid fire. Can't wait. All right. What is the place that you feel happiest? The place that I feel happiest is in the presence of my beloved wife. Oh, how lovely. So nice. What's your most prized possession? What's my most prized possession? It's hard. That's why. What is my most prized possession?

1:11:15I just don't care about anything. But that says everything. I don't care. If the house burned down, I'm like, is everybody out safe? Yeah. Is everybody out safe? It's something that I actually own. I'm not a very sentimental or retrospective person. You know, what's my most prized possession? My most prized possession is the rosary that my mother-in-law gave me before her life ended. I don't know. It's a pretty beautiful one, that. Is there an achievement that gave you less satisfaction than you expected? Yeah. Almost everything great that's happened to me in my career has given me less satisfaction than I expected.

1:11:54You know? I was like, wow! wow, you know, it's like number one for a week. And then it was some politician. So those ones, yeah, for sure. And you know how I, you know what I mean. I know it. And everybody watching is like, Emma just said, it doesn't matter. Let me try. Okay, you'll see. Go for it. It's so true. What's a book that changed your life? There are a bunch of them, but one book that really, really changed my life a lot and that I give away tons of copies of is a book by an anonymous Russian monk from the 19th century. This is really obscure. It's called The Way of a Pilgrim. And you know, I've read a lot of books.

1:12:33I mean, you might read lots of books, lots and lots and lots of books. This is a book and all it is, is this, it's about this pilgrim, this mendicant, this guy without shoes, walking around Siberia, saying one prayer, having adventures. And what it did is it showed me this thing, which is this, my life is a pilgrimage. And I'm just this shoeless guy walking around Siberia. And I need to be saying that prayer, whatever the prayer happens to be, whatever that means to me. And it means different things to different people. And what it did is to give me this understanding of intention without attachment.

1:13:08So the way of a pilgrim truly changed my life. Arthur, thank you so much for being here. It's a delight. It's just a joy to be here. What a delight. Thank you. Thank you. I loved having you. Oh, I loved it too. You're so wonderful. Thank you.

1:13:22If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Greed. Our executive producers are Ashley McShan, Derek Brown, and me. Executive producers from Odyssey are Asha Saluja and Leah Rees-Dennis. Producer, KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Shultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Phil Sweetek and Carlos Delgado.

1:14:01Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale. Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME. Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson-Rose, Tim Mecole, Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira. if you have questions for me you can dm me at aspire with emma greed greed is spelled g-r-e-d-e that's aspire a-s-p-i-r-e with emma greed or you can submit a question to me on my website emma