Authors in August: Arthur Brooks’s “Happiness Files”

20:53Staying with money, Arthur. Let me turn sideways and go down briefly a different path. Let's talk briefly about giving money away. Now, I think that there is, as you point out in the book, numerous places. It's just an inherently good thing for our souls, for our happiness, for others, for us to give. But selfishly, it really does reward us as the givers. And there was a little debate I had with Margaret in the car at one point about anonymous giving or not. Yeah. Anonymous giving is often held up as maybe the highest ideal, the ultimate way to give. But there was a little counter current at one point in our car where we started saying, but doesn't public generosity sometimes inspire others to donate?

21:39So when, if ever, should we let our left hand know what the right hand just gave?

21:44Arthur Brooks:Yeah, it's a good question. And I ran a nonprofit for a long time. Some of your listeners may know I was the president of the American Enterprise Institute. Our agenda was public policy that makes it easier to be Motley Fool subscribers. And it was really important because we believe in freedom and opportunity in the free enterprise system. And we believe in capitalism. And we believe in all these beautiful things, to be sure. And I would have these conversations with my donors because we were completely philanthropically funded. We raised about$50 million a year. But no money from any government in the world under any circumstances because I don't believe in that.

22:22Arthur Brooks:I don't believe that the government should be giving anything tanks any money for Pete's sake. It's not right because that's forcing taxpayers to fund somebody else's opinions. It's not right. But it was all philanthropically based. And I would go to my donors and I would say, you know, it might help your soul to get to heaven if nobody knows that you gave it. But it's going to help me to raise a lot more money if you do. Can I please put your name on this? And sometimes they'd say yes and sometimes they'd say no. And my wife and I, we give away 10 % of our income. That's a religious commitment for us.

22:54Arthur Brooks:But it also has been tremendously beneficial for us in how we see ourselves, how we understand our own values and ethics. And sometimes we do it publicly and sometimes we do it privately. And you have to, everybody has to make their own decisions about that and, and you know, how, how it's actually going to change your giving decisions. Maybe, maybe privately you give to one thing and publicly you give to something else. Most people, they don't give anonymously to their alma mater. They give publicly to their alma mater, but they give, you know, anonymously to the soup kitchen or something, because what are you going to do?

23:22Arthur Brooks:You're going to endow the soup kitchen. That looks weird. Yeah. Well, that doesn't, that is sort of the, and so people have to actually make these particular decisions. Now there's a whole ethos on this. I used to do research on this. I've written books on charitable giving. My first commercial book was in 2006. It was called Who Really Cares? And it was a book about who gives and who doesn't and who thinks they give but doesn't. And in America, it didn't make me a whole lot of friends, I have to say. President Bush liked it. Actually, it changed my life forever because President Bush told somebody he was reading it.

23:58Arthur Brooks:And suddenly, I was getting calls from the press all over the place and wound to briefing him in the White House. And it was really, it was a very, very interesting experience, I have to say. And, and, you know, it's, it's, it's a super important thing to be thinking about how we want to make our, our own particular and, and, and personal giving decisions. This is something I care an awful lot about, and all of us should make that decision as well. The one thing that I do recommend, however, is that, is that everybody give a substantial amount of money away every year and, and give sacrificially.

24:28Arthur Brooks:People say, give till it hurts. No, give till it feels good. And I'm finding that the feel good point just around 10%, I don't know, before taxes, after taxes, my dad used to give before taxes. And I said, dad, after taxes, why? And he's like, he's like, he's super religious. And he's like, just in case.

24:51Well, thank you for those insights. I had not read your 2006 book, but it sounds like one that would stand up to the test of time. It's a timeless question. I love the topic.

24:58Arthur Brooks:I think so. I think it's something we all really need to be thinking about and making sure that we're proactively – look, if people are interested enough in their money that they're listening to the Motley Fool podcast and subscribing to the literature and reading your books, which is good and they should, then they need to understand that the resources in our society are kind of like blood flow. Don't clamp it off, man. Don't let it coagulate. Keep it moving. And that means create jobs and opportunity and growth. Get out there. Hire somebody to do something for you. Give the money away to the things that you're passionate about.

25:33Arthur Brooks:Invest wisely and watch everybody get richer. That's what I'm all about. Love that kinetic energy. Beautifully said. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

26:10Arthur, part three of your book, Communicating and Connecting, sort of the organizing principle for those essays. I wanted to talk about criticism. Yeah. This was fun. You wrote, the key to criticizing to best effect is to remember the gift slash weapon rule. If I'm criticizing to help, I'm doing it right. If I'm doing it to harm, I'm doing it wrong.

26:34Arthur Brooks:Yeah, that's right. I mean, the whole point is with criticism is that your criticism should always be a gift. Your criticism should always be a favor that you're doing to someone. That doesn't mean they're going to like it. Not everybody likes every gift that you give them. For sure, you give people what they need. Now, if you're a good leader and you're an ethical person, not always exactly what they want. And again, I'm not giving advice. Folks, don't give your spouse a weed eater for Christmas or something. Even though you might need that, it could be misinterpreted. But my whole point is that when you're talking about criticism, it should be something where people actually can get better and or you're doing it for an organization or a society or something that actually needs a different kind of behavior.

27:18Arthur Brooks:So there's kind of, that's the rule of giving criticism is always as a gift, never as a weapon, never use it to harm. It might harm somebody, but that's not the point. Your point should be pure. Then the second thing to keep in mind is that you have to be able to take criticism. If you're going to give criticism, you got to take it. A lot of bosses are watching us here, you know, and a lot of bosses give a lot of criticism, but they don't like to take it. You like, you should be open to it. You should ask for it. You should be thankful for it. And the rule of that is non-defensiveness, complete vulnerability, being able to hear absolutely anything.

27:50Arthur Brooks:And that's hard, man. I mean, that's hard in your marriage, let alone hard inside your company, but don't be defensive and always make sure that you're seeking to help as opposed to harm and criticism will be a much smaller problem in your life. Both directions. Love it. And because we're all about having fun and you're great at making fun for us. Let's have a little bit of fun, Arthur. So we're going to role play very briefly. I'm going to be a boss and I'm going to speak in all the wrong ways to an employee who keeps missing deadlines. Okay. So first I'm going to give you my version. Then it'll take about a few sentences.

28:25Then maybe on the fly, could you provide a better version?

28:29Arthur Brooks:I'll give it a try. I've been a boss a long time and I messed this up a bunch of times. So let's see if I learn from my own mistakes. Here it goes. So I'm doing the opposite of everything that you wouldn't want to have happen when I say, and I quote, listen up. This is the third time you've blown a deadline. I'm frankly sick of cleaning up your messes and I don't care what your excuse is, but the rest of us are pulling your weight and it's embarrassing. Can't handle the schedule. Maybe you should look for a slower paced job though. I doubt you'd cut it there either. Just hit the dates. Dates I put on the calendar.

29:00Try not to drag the team down again.

29:02Arthur Brooks:That's actually pretty good, David. but i think it's the opposite of everything that you say about the care of the recipient of mine and respectful delivery and the list goes on yeah all of it all of it i mean the whole point is that you actually want better performance like if you don't want better performance then actually make the termination is the way that that works and then make the termination in the spirit that you should be terminating people which is okay this person is going to be more successful someplace else and so what am i going to do to make that so What am I going to do to satisfy two constraints?

29:33Arthur Brooks:Number one, what's best for us and what's best for them? Now, my job as a fiduciary of this company is to do primarily what's best for us, but secondarily what's best for them. And that does not mean being a jerk. That does not mean opening us up to a lawsuit and abusing another person and hurting another person's feelings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But if I don't want to make the termination, then my whole goal should be actually getting better performance. And fear never does that. What does that is what's called what Daniel Goldman in Leadership That Gets Results, he calls authoritative leadership.

30:07Arthur Brooks:That's not authoritarian leadership. That was the example you gave. Authoritative leadership says, look, here's the goal that we're all about. You, me, everybody here. Here's the role that you're playing in it. I want you to succeed. And there's a bunch of issues going on right now. I need to get to the bottom of what these issues are so that you can succeed more. Let's work on that together. Can we do that? And if the answer is, I don't think we can, then we got to go to the next stage, which is we got to find a better place for you. But if the answer is, yeah, I really, really want to, then you put the plan together.

30:41Arthur Brooks:And if it just doesn't absolutely work, you have to actually confront that with grace and with skill and with kindness. And most importantly, with compassion. One side note about this, David, you can go to the other extreme from the example that you gave, which by the way, I know you were role-playing. That's not real David for everybody listening. First time listeners, that's not David. But you can go to the other extreme. And one of the worst pathologies of ineffective bosses is excessive empathy when people are not performing. This happens a lot. Empathy is a real pathology of our time, as a matter of fact.

31:15Arthur Brooks:Now, don't anybody, like you're going to get a lot of notes on this, you know, Motley Fool, Motley Fool, endorses non-empathy. That's not what we're talking about here. But empathy is an insufficient skill. It means feeling somebody else's pain. And there's a reason that CEOs, they tend to become less empathetic as the years go by. It's because they actually can't feel everybody else's pain. They can't take that up on their own shoulders when they're actually trying to run a business. The right skill is compassion. Compassion is to understand what's going wrong, feeling the pain enough to actually absorb the situation, being able to form a plan, and the courage to carry it out no matter how much people don't like it, but in a spirit of love.

31:54Arthur Brooks:That's what compassionate leaders do. And there's never too much compassion. And that's what we should be aspiring to. Love it. Compassion greater than sign empathy. Earlier, Arthur, you said leaders should become happiness teachers. That's basically what you've been doing throughout our conversation together, teaching happiness. And just to close the loop on that in your book, you just mentioned to keep critical feedback in that first category where you're doing it right, you're doing so to help, you have a list because you're great at lists. A lot of your essays have lists of the three things or more you should do, but your list of five things, which I'm just going to put out really briefly, you already know this and you've already spoken to it, but the research tells us, you say, that there are five elements that make up good critical feedback.

32:38One, the care of the recipient in mind, you spoke to that. Two, respectful delivery. I think you were more respectful than I was. Three, good intentions. You really started there. Also, toward the purpose of the company and why we're there. Number four, pathway to improvement. Do you want to do this or not? And number five, appropriate targeting of the recipient's needs. What do you really need? What do we need from you? Let's create that win-win. So I really appreciate that point that you're making. Let's move on to part four of your book, Arthur, Balancing Work, Life, and Relationships. Now, in each of the parts of your book, there's five or six great independent thoughts.

33:15And each one was a column. Each one was worthy of reading, whether it was one year ago or five years ago. But the one I'm going to pull out here is midlife. So we're talking about a lot of us are at or near the middle of our tether, as it's sometimes been put. And you say that the second half of life in one of your essays should be subtraction, not addition. So as somebody who enjoys math, I like thinking in terms of symbols and how to think about things. So Arthur, let me start with a personal question for you, if you will. What have you chipped away professionally or personally since we last talked, which was two years ago, 2023?

33:54Arthur Brooks:You know, what I've tried to do is to look at the things in my life that are either obstructing my relationships at home and or things that are actually not critical to my mission, but were important to me in the past. So the way that I think about it is kind of chipping away at a block of marble to create a statue. It's not that the marble you're chipping away is evil. It's not bad. It's not defective. It's just not part of the statue is the way that that works. And so that's how I think about what my goals are more now at 61 compared to what I would have done when I was 31. When I was 31, I was sort of adding brushstrokes to a canvas to get a beautiful work of art.

34:32Arthur Brooks:Now I'm chipping away marble to get a beautiful work of art. doing less is actually a whole lot more so I can focus on the things that I really care about. So I have stopped doing things largely on weekends so I can be home with my family. So I can be home with my, my, I live with my, you know, a couple of my kids and grandkids. As a matter of fact, we have a big house in Northern Virginia. What a thing that is. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, I read my own research, David. I mean, that's a, that's a great way to, to increase your happiness is to have an extended family actually living together, but I gotta be with them.

35:04Arthur Brooks:I mean, look, I could, I got a thousand calls for speeches last year and I could be on the road seven days a week. And I'm a very undisciplined person inside my head because I want to say yes to absolutely everything. So the way that I've actually undertaken this of saying no more to things that are violating the rules of conduct, which is away on weekends and out at night when I'm at home, is that I have a layer of staff between me and the opportunities. And so I have people who are working with me and their whole job is making sure Arthur doesn't find out about somebody's invitation because they know if people can get to me, it's like balloon animals at your kid's birthday party in Fairbanks on a Sunday in February.

35:44Arthur Brooks:Yes, baby. Yes. I want to do that. Fairbanks. Fairbanks. Here we come. And, uh, and you know, my staff is like, don't, you know, no, this is not going to happen because we set up the rules and that's the way it's actually going to be. And so those are the kinds of things that I've actually been able to chip away. Now, again, why is it hard to do? Because I'm an earn everything kind of guy. It's like more points, more Arthur. But that's not right, man. That is not right. I don't have 40 years left of productive work. I have a movement that I'm trying to make and I have a life that I'm trying to lead at the same time, which means I need to make very careful decisions.

36:21Arthur Brooks:There's more chipping these days than brushstrokes. Really well said. And it takes us toward the end of your book. By the way, Arthur, we haven't even talked about this ahead of time, but you said yes last time. So I hope you'll play buy, sell, or hold with me in just a few minutes. Of course. Of course. I'll be sharing things that aren't stocks. I love that. I love that for last one. That was fantastic. Yeah. We're headed back there. But a few more questions just to close out for now, the discussion of your book, the final part of your book, part five, how you define success. Not how Arthur does necessarily.

36:54It's how you define success, dear reader, how you might want to think about defining success. You make a big point with your final chapter that most people think success leads to happiness. And we're all, if we can get that raise, we can get that spouse, we can get whatever it is, success, that will make us happy. And of course you make the timeless and important reversal to say, it's in fact managing our happiness that will lead to success. And I want you to speak about that if you want in a sec, but I actually wanted to go a little earlier than that in the section because your colleague, Teresa Amabile, and the progress principle and just understanding happy earnest with Oprah as opposed to happiness.

37:37I want to make sure, especially people who may not have read that book yet or heard our conversation the last couple of years, whether you would speak to happiness and progress.

37:46Arthur Brooks:Yeah, for sure. So I ask people all the time, What do you want? What do you want? Why are you coming to my talk? Why are you reading my book? Because I want to be happy. And I say, not sorry. Can't be done. Now, that might sound discouraging, but it's not. Life has all sorts of headwinds to happiness. There's negative emotions, fear, anger, disgust, sadness. Those things exist for a reason, David. If you didn't have those negative emotions, you'd be dead in a week. They exist to alert you to threats on the horizon. And by the way, they also cultivate a very rich life. It's very important that we understand those things.

38:17Arthur Brooks:We also have negative experiences. Look, if you're trying to get happier by investing your money, you're also going to have bad days in the stock market. It just doesn't go up every day. The market of life doesn't go up every day is the whole point. And so the result of it is that there are things that are going to make happiness more difficult. And so the result of that is that you can't be cosmically happy. That can't be your goal. That's an unreasonable goal. The goal is to make progress through learning, through habit change, through teaching. And you can do that by getting better at the skills of happiness, which is really what each one of the essays in this book is all about.

38:55Arthur Brooks:You read it, you put it into action, you make some goals, you make some commitments to your loved ones, and you won't be cosmically happy, but you will sure as heck be happier. Arthur, I know I'm speaking to a man of faith, a man of Christian faith. I'm curious whether you've developed any kind of view of heaven and what you think about when we think about the afterlife and what happiness might mean in some future state. It's confusing to me. Yeah, it is. It is confusing. And part of the reason is because it's something we can't know. You know, that knowledge about the creator is actually not something that we're given with our experience in the creation.

39:34If you're looking at Picasso's painting, you actually don't get any specific information about Picasso the man.

39:42Arthur Brooks:That's not the way that it works. But still, you know there is a Picasso the man because you're looking at a Picasso painting is the way that that works. There's lots of things that are unknowable, despite the fact that we have faith. And that's a very beautiful thing to have faith. So the question then, because what is the nature of God? What is the nature of the afterlife in heaven? And we don't know, but we have clues because those of us who have strong religious belief, and I'm including in this not just Christian people like us, but also Jews who are serious about their faith and Muslims and Hindus who have an intense love for the Godhead, for example.

40:17Arthur Brooks:One of the things that they all talk about is that God is generative. God is creative and God is love. God is the essence of love. So what's love? What's love? Love is to will the good of the other. That's how Aristotle defined it. That's how St. Thomas Aquinas defined it. It's not a feeling. The mistake that we make about happiness is thinking that it's a feeling. And that's confusing the smell of the turkey for the turkey itself. I honestly believe that thinking that we're going to feel some sort of wonderful thing by going to heaven, that misses the whole point. We will be living in love. Love is a decision, a decision that we made throughout our whole life.

40:54Arthur Brooks:And that has to be the most fulfilling thing of all. and that's the promise I'm going with. I mean, as Nixon said, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. And maybe one further cosmic question, a little bit easier maybe than the one I just asked. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. And then we're gonna play buy, sell or hold. I often hear words like hope and optimism tossed around and they sometimes have a technical definition different. Like I've heard, for example, optimism is when you think it's gonna work and the odds are on your side And hope is when you think it's going to work and the odds are not on your side.

41:30So there's a distinction that some would draw between optimism and hope. I'm wondering if you could help us understand the difference between happiness and joy. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

41:41Arthur Brooks:And that distinction between hope and optimism is really important because optimism is a prediction. Hope is a virtue. It says something can be done and I can do it. That's the reason that hope is a virtue in every religion and optimism is just a, is kind of how you are. or it's based on how well you assess probabilities, which is not obviously the same thing. Happiness and joy, very distinct and very important distinction here. Joy is a basic positive emotion. Joy is a sensation that actually comes from the fact that your brain is ascertained that something is an opportunity that you should approach.

42:19Arthur Brooks:That gives you this little burst of ebullience. Now that joy, that feeling of joy, which is largely comes from touching two parts of the limbic system of your brain, the ventral striatum and the ventral tegmental area. You can get that from your wife. Margaret says, David, I love you. Or you could get that from a big bump of cocaine. I'm not saying that you would do that, but my point is that the brain is a very thrifty organ and it will feel that joy from either one of those stimuli. Happiness isn't joy. Happiness is based on the skills of pursuing enjoyment, which has joy in it, satisfaction, which has to do with your accomplishments, and meaning, which is the coherence and purpose and significance of your life.

43:03Arthur Brooks:That's a big project. Happiness isn't a feeling. Happiness is a project. Happiness is something we get to work on. Sometimes you'll get joy. Sometimes you won't. But you'll always get the satisfaction that comes along with knowing that you're living the best life that you can possibly live. Thank you for that. And I do feel like I gave short shrift to progress earlier, Teresa Amabile's work. We probably won't spend time there. But the overall point that since her 2011 book, you referenced it, you're aware of it, is that so much of the joy comes from the journey and from the sense of making regular progress towards something.

43:41not this big, hairy, audacious goal that you set for yourself. And then as an Olympic skater, when you finally get the gold, you tell the media, I feel empty. I don't really know what to do now.

43:52Arthur Brooks:Yeah, yeah. I know that Scotty Scheffler, who just actually is the greatest golfer in the world, gave a very famous interview on this just the other day. And it's like, yeah, no, no. I mean, that's emptiness, man. And the real satisfaction comes when I go home and I spend time with my son. But if I'm linking my satisfaction in life to the achievement of winning a golf tournament, woe be unto me. And by the way, that's that's Teresa Mabale's work is so important because progress really is everything for Homo sapiens. But you got to pin your progress toward a goal, which is why the goal is really important.

44:24Arthur Brooks:The Buddhists have a really important concept about this, which is called intention without attachment. Intention sets a goal so you can make progress toward it. But you have to not be attached to the attainment of the goal. And that's the trick. That's the trick in life. I just want to do better. I want every day to be a little better than the last or at least, you know, on average, a little bit better. I want to be a better person. I want to be a better father and grandfather. I want to be, you know, better for society and a good citizen. And then, you know, good things are going to happen. I've got those particular goals.

44:55Arthur Brooks:But if they don't, you know, man, easy come, easy go. And that's the right way to live if you possibly can. I love it. It reminds me of another guest on this podcast some years ago, somebody I also deeply admire, Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired Magazine, chief maverick there. And he talks about, we're not living in a utopia, in case anybody didn't notice. We're also not living in a dystopia. We're living, in Kelly's words, in a protopia, which means there's just a tiny bit of infinitesimally small progress being made, not every single day, but most days. And so you only notice it when you look at the newspaper of the last 50 years.

45:33If you just saw the front page of the 50 year newspaper, it would be full of remarkable progress in a protopia.

45:39Arthur Brooks:Oh, for sure. And this is one of the things, human beings are wired toward resentment and hostility and suspicion. And that's why your ancestors, David, that they passed on their genes to you because they thought, because they were resentful creatures, which meant that they were vigilant about threats. But that's actually not entirely appropriate. That's just evolution. What's really more appropriate is gratitude. And we should be incredibly grateful. I mean, it's like I read the newspaper today and the only thing that left and right can agree on is that America is a crummy country in decline.

46:12Arthur Brooks:I'm sorry. I'm sorry, man. It's like there's a reason everybody still wants to come here. Yeah. You know, everybody's fighting to get into this country. And I am super grateful to be an American. I am super grateful for the free enterprise system, for all its flaws. I'm going to work for it and fight for it for the rest of my life because I mean, it's just it's just David. It's just so great. you you and many of us listening to you today i know there's a lot of head nodding across the fooliverse let's go now to buy sell or hold arthur brooks it's funny you mentioned gratitude because that's where generally i try with a softball for my first one so we're going to go there in a sec but just to remind these are not stocks but if each of these things were a stock would you be buying selling or holding and a few sentences as to why i think i've got seven queued up.

46:59You ready?

46:59Arthur Brooks:Yeah, yeah. And to begin with, let's reiterate, David, that neither of us is recommending to people that they actively manage their stock portfolios where they're buying and selling stuff every single day, right? We're not day traders even in happiness. That's right, because what we're about is investing. That's the word that's in my podcast title, which is the opposite, the antithesis of trading, which is what so much of the media coverage seems to be there to drive. So yes, my friend, you get it. And let's start. These are not, these are not stocks, but gratitude journals are practically a cliche in self-help circles now.

47:34And yet the science behind them, I don't think has gone away. Arthur Brooks, buy, sell, or hold practicing daily gratitude.

47:41Arthur Brooks:Hold. Interesting. Hold. You know what I want to buy. I'll tell you what I'm going to buy instead. Okay. Can I, can I add? Yes. This is a headline. I, it's that I want a failure and disappointment journal. And the reason is because we need to start profiting more from the misfortunes in our lives, from learning to love our lives more and to grow as human beings from our failures. And the way to do that is to write down something that really bums you out. Come back three weeks later and underneath it in your journal, write down what you learned from it. And three months later, come back and say how you benefited from it.

48:13Arthur Brooks:And if you start doing that, you will systematically start learning from your disappointments as opposed to simply trying to reinforce your gratitude. So hold your gratitude journal and add a disappointment journal. I love that. That is an awesome answer. It also reminds me, another friend of The Fool, past guest Dan Pink, his wonderful book, The Power of Regret. Let's feel regret. Let's express it. That's actually how we get better. All right, let's move on to number two. Arthur, a dream for many, financial freedom. For others, potentially an early exit from purpose. So buy, sell, or hold, gunning for retirement before age 40.

48:50Arthur Brooks:Sell. Why? Because the truth of the matter is that most people don't know how to retire. They don't know how to do it. Now, look, if you're an expert in retirement and you've got so much stuff that you just can't afford to keep working, more power to you. God bless you. I mean, if you've got 13 grandchildren to dandle on your knee, good, good, good. If you're building churches in Guatemala and you've got all this stuff going on, you just can't afford to keep working and you've got the means, great. But if you're only working because you want to stop working and you're thinking that not working as the be all and end all, oops, you're not going to like what you find.

49:25Arthur Brooks:A little golf goes a long way. Sell on early retirement. And I really appreciate that. And one of the major points you make in your book, actually, you're talking about as people approach retirement, your advice, probably research backed, is if you're going to go for therapy at any point in your life, maybe you should consider it before you retire so that you think about who you're going to be and what's really happening here ahead of time. Exactly right. Exactly right. Look, I got the data on the neurochemicals that actually change dramatically when you don't feel needed in the workplace anymore.

50:00Arthur Brooks:It's not pretty. I'm not going to have to rehearse any of that science. Suffice it to say that you better be ready. Number three, Zoom culture's future after the you're on mute era remote only work as a long-term happiness strategy buy sell or hold sell sell sell sell sell sell sell because no man i mean it's like people make i get it look there's seven percent of people that got happier during covid right and they're the cats the rest of us are the dogs and and the truth is that people who made convenience decisions for remote work, their life is more convenient to be sure, but they're not getting ahead in their careers.

50:41Arthur Brooks:And they're probably suffering for many of them are suffering from more loneliness than they think. And I know we're going to get letters. I know we're going to get letters, but I got the data and my cause is just sell on zoom work. Number four, there are now generative AI apps that endeavor to coach our emotions by seller hold the coming AI revolution, bringing net net happiness. Hmm. See, this is a hard one to answer. So sell if these things are substituting for real human interaction by if they're complementing actual human interaction. We're developing an AI app right now called Happiness Professor.

51:21Arthur Brooks:Happiness. And it's going to be a lot of - Is this you? Are you being embodied by AI? Do I get to get coached by you? You do. You do. Day or night. Day or night, David. But it's not a substitute for your actual human relationships. And we're not going to maximize time in app because one of the things we'll talk about is, okay, now turn off the app and go talk to Margaret. Yeah. Love it. Number five. It used to be you kept your relationship private. Now it's not official until it's optimized for Instagram. Arthur Brooks, buy, sell, or hold. Sharing the status of your love life online. time sell sell that it's not for anybody else's consumption when we're talking about sharing your relationships i'm only by when we're trying to inspire other people now maybe you can do that on instagram and that really depends on your motives most people are doing it because they want to get a little fomo in the lives of other people that's a really terrible motive for your happiness and their self a lot of selling it's the question asker maybe i brought i don't know did i bring danger in your book at one point you mentioned the benefit of a little bit of danger Oh, yeah.

52:24I'm going to buy danger. Jumping out of a plane, which you and I both have done as younger men, I believe. Yeah.

52:28Arthur Brooks:No, I did. Actually, it wasn't that much younger. It was my daughter's 18th birthday. Wow. That's all she wanted was to jump out of her plane with her old dad. And what am I going to say to that? I said, yes. I said, bye. Bye jumping out of planes if it's with your little girl. By the way, my little girl, who is four foot 11, is now a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. So she's kind of a daredevil. Incredible. In fact, I don't think she's the only Brooks next gen Marine, is she? She's not. I'm wearing a t-shirt. You and I are looking at each other, even though this is audio only for our audience, but for folks who can't see us, I'm wearing a Banshee t-shirt, which is the official name of the scout snipers of the U.S.

53:05Arthur Brooks:Marine Corps. Motto, suffer patiently, patiently suffer, because one of my kids is a scout sniper in the U.S. Marines as well. All right. Two more for you, Arthur. You've been very generous with your time. Thank you once again. Number six, number six, I'm hearing about this more and more these days. I personally have no intrinsic drive to do this, but there's some serious research, I think, and serious buzz around use of these things for mental health. Arthur, buy, sell, or hold psychedelics in mental health treatment. Yeah. I can't hold it because I don't have it is the whole point. I can't sell it because I don't have it and I'm not going to buy it.

53:45Arthur Brooks:And so I'm a little bit hard on this one. Now, again, very promising research, very promising research, but the research isn't there yet. And what we do know is that while it's promising, there's also a lot of danger. So here's what I recommend to people. Okay. Okay. It's, it's kind of the psychedelics are kind of the cryptocurrency of, uh, of, of the happiness world. Watch and wait, watch and wait. That's awesome. Yeah. That, that, that is a particularly, I truly have no interest, but some people, I mean, I could imagine how it could be amazing. And for some people it may be right. It might be.

54:18Arthur Brooks:Now, one of the things that we know is if you have any evidence of mental illness in your family, you should stay away. By the way, you should also stay away from cannabis and you should probably not even drink alcohol. Well, I do the latter. So there we go. Not to excess, not to excess. I know that's right. And I know one thing, Arthur, you're in better shape than I am. You're in fantastic shape. Hey, my kids are Marines. What am I going to do? I'm just, I'm just trying to keep up. And the last one for you, Arthur, let's go with Marcus Aurelius is back on the nightstand buy, sell, or hold Stoic Philosophy as a Daily Life Guide.

54:52Buy.

54:53Arthur Brooks:Buy it. Now, not just that, but this is a great input into our lifestyles. Go read, even if you don't read the original texts at first, go read Ryan Holiday's books. Ryan Holiday is the maximum exponent on Stoic Philosophy, and his stuff is just so very good. And you're going to see your life in a new way. You'll transcend your old way of life. And frankly, you're just going to feel better. So that's a buy. Arthur Brooks, thank you for bringing your trademark mix of data, wisdom, and contagious good cheer back to Rule Breaker Investing. Every time we talk, you give us practical ways to be a little smarter, a little happier, and yes, richer in the ways that matter most.

55:35So until our next conversation, Arthur, I want to wish you the very best with your book, The Happiness Files. All three adult Gardner kids are receiving a copy this August. keep leading the charge toward a world that measures success in love, meaning, and well-earned joy.

55:49Arthur Brooks:Thank you, David. And all of my kids are getting David Gardner's new book too, because I don't want him just to be richer in happiness. I want him to be richer in richness. Thank you, Arthur. Fool on.

56:13Arthur Brooks:Learn more about Rule Breaker Investing at rbi.fool.com.