596: Arthur Brooks - The Art & Science of Happiness, Defining Your Purpose, Working with Oprah, Living Authentically, and Building The Life You Want

25:00But I was curious for a guy like that who's built something from nothing, 1 ,000 people, right, responsible for those families' lives now because he employs them, made an insane amount of money, is going to stay on. And I think from strength to strength, as well as your most recent book on happiness could apply and could be helpful for a person like this. It's not necessarily relatable to most people, but he's a friend of mine. And I'm curious because I think it could apply even if we didn't sell our business and make 150 million bucks. When you hear about a story like that, and this person is definitely a striver, right?

25:33Has done it for 25 years and has built an amazing thing and now is still doing it, right? It's not an old guy. When you think about happiness, when you think about from going from strength to strength, when you think about like still striving, but also celebrating a little bit because of what you've accomplished, what would you say to a person like that? Well, a lot of these situations differ because circumstances differ with respect to people's age and how engaged they are in their work. but the story that you're telling me is the story of somebody who was not working for money the story you're telling me of somebody who was working out of passion and who wanted to be deeply deeply wanted to be successful and by the way thank god for that you know i mean thank god for the entrepreneurs who've done that that's why the free enterprise system is the marvel of the world and america's gift to the world make no mistake we should all be fighting for the free enterprise system.

26:25It's so morally beautiful, but it doesn't protect the individual. I'm not talking about the customer. I'm talking about it doesn't protect the entrepreneur because not because of the economy or because of marketing, because of capitalism, but because of our brains. Mother Nature has wired us to think that if you win in the market, you'll be happy. Why? Because Mother Nature only has two goals for Ryan and Arthur and your friend you're talking about, which is to survive and pass on your genes. And the way to survive and pass on your genes is to win with respect to resources like money and wealth, with position that has to do with power, with the admiration of strangers, with the ability to get people to follow you.

27:09And so you make the incorrect connection that if those things that I naturally want, if I get them, then I'm going to be happy because I want to be happy too. That's wrong. That's actually not right. And so it takes lots of introspection. Now, I work with people all the time. I work with retired athletes. I work with people who had fabulous careers in Hollywood and are stepping back because they were unhappy or because, you know, their marriages were melting down. And they feel hollow when they're no longer in the hunt. Now, let's talk about what happens there. When you're in the hunt and it's working, when you're getting kill after kill after you're dragging in a lot of gazelles.

27:47What that does is that gives you a neurochemical framework that says you're a winner. You know when you're a winner because you have to know where you are in human hierarchies. We're a kin-based hierarchical species. We're not going to get away from the brain that we built in the Pleistocene. And that leads to these neural modulators that tell us you're winning, you're winning, you're winning. And it's great. Once you've won and you're doing it just because it's kind of what I've always done, but you're not winning anymore. You already won. There's nothing else to win, at least for now. it changes your butt your your neurochemistry in ways that will will literally provoke a clinical depression and so i'll find these guys that you know they work at goldman sachs and they're making a you know just train loads of money and they're really successful and they retire at 49 with 400 million dollars and then within the first six months they have a deep tan and they're having an affair with their tennis coach and and their marriage is falling apart and they're like i don't know what i'm doing and and everybody's like congratulations they're like i don't know i've I feel like garbage.

28:46What's going on, man? I say serotonin. I can tell you what's going on. I could do, you know, I could scan your brain. I can tell you what's going on. But fundamentally, what's happened is that you, you, sorry, you won. And what that did was it made you feel irrelevant at that point. Okay. So here's the point. You can't get your relevance from getting back to the very adroit comment you made a minute ago, which was about extrinsic motivations, Extrinsic motivations are the rewards that come from the world. They come in four categories, money, power, pleasure, and fame. Fame also includes prestige or the admiration of other people.

29:23Those are the extrinsic rewards of life. Everything is related to those four rewards. If you're seeking your happiness through those rewards, you're going to be bitterly disappointed. They're not bad. They're just incomplete. You need to start looking for your happiness in faith or life philosophy if you're not religious. is family, friendship. And that means real friends, strivers, not deal friends. And every striver should know the difference. And last but not least, serving other people with the way you use your ideas and hard work and brilliance. Now, when you sell your company, it means you better have a basis of these other intrinsic rewards.

30:04You better have relationships on point. Don't sell your company if your relationships are not on point. And sooner or later, you're going to have to retire. So you got to get that together. And you have to find a way to continue to lift other people up with your work. That's what you need to do. And that's how I wind up coaching people with real life strategies, et cetera. I think it's really important, Arthur, to write down what you believe is your life purpose. And I think it was you were 55, or you could call it a mission statement. And you said, I dedicate my work to lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of love and happiness using science and ideas.

30:49And I think the critical part about a purpose or a life mission statement is that it involves positively impacting others. As you said, that's one of the ways to generate happiness is because sometimes when I'm not happy, it's because I'm too focused on myself. and not thinking about lifting others up, not being grateful for the good things, not trying to help others succeed. And my life's purpose, I sat down with a coach and actually mapped this out, is to inspire others to value and pursue excellence. To value, I think too many of us are okay with mediocrity. So I want to inspire people by my actions, by how I show up for you, to value and pursue excellence.

31:31Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better. Striver, right? But I think when I see that impacting others, whether it's through emails, off to the side of the stage after a speech, or people you see when you're together in person, friends, whatever, that is a – it's almost an intoxicating feeling because you see the impact you're having on other people and the potential ripple effect that has beyond just that individual you're talking to. And so that's why I think it is very useful to define, write down your life's purpose, why you're here, what you're striving to do. And it has to be something to do with positively impacting other people.

32:10I feel like that is your stuff, man. Like that is what you're all about. Totally. And it's the basic moral lesson you get from any major world religion, any nutritious life philosophy, and by the way, all of the best science on human motivation. Yet, here's the problem. We're not wired to do it. And the reason is because Mother Nature doesn't wire us to do the things that are in the long-term interest of our happiness because she doesn't care. She doesn't care. If you do what you're left to your devices to do, you're in trouble. You're absolutely in trouble. you're going to pursue pleasure. I say, that's what actually, here's how you figure out what you tend to do.

32:50Everybody tends to do something slightly different. I have my students at the Harvard Business School. I have only MBA. I only teach MBA students and I have 180 of them a year. I have 400 on the waiting list for this happiness class. And one of the things that I do is I play a game called what's my idol to find out what your primary extrinsic motivation is that you'll always chase when you're weak and that will always lead you to do things that you regret later. So the things that you regret that you've done always link back to your idol. So, so let's, you want to play what's my idol, right? I want to find that your idol.

33:26Let's do it. Let's do this. I got a little nervous for a second, dude. Okay. Come on, man. We're going to do this in front of 250 ,000 of our closest friends. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So remember the four, the four things, the four extrinsic motivations I talked about before, money, power, pleasure, and honor. Where honor means admiration or fame. If you're like an Instagram guy that's having a lot of followers, but for most people listening to us, it's not that. It's actually having the admiration of people who matter. Okay. So those are the things. Now I didn't make up that list.

33:56That list actually comes from Aristotle via St. Thomas Aquinas in the year 1265, who said that these are, in his view, these are the substitutes for God. They have God-like characteristics. They're so powerful, but they're not God. Okay. So now for me, studying neuroscience and social science, it's an exhaustive list of the basic extrinsic motivations that we get that leave us unsatisfied. And so these are the idols and that's why we play this game. Okay. Now I'm not going to ask you, which is your idol because that's too hard. It's also not accurate. Here's how you get at it think of the four okay you got them in your head money power pleasure honor okay you got to get rid of one okay now this is going to be the easiest question because this is the one you're really of the four you care about the least maybe you don't even like that much that you don't generally pursue kick one away power yeah how come i mean i can i can guess why but i want you to tell me

35:01um i i don't i don't know i this is not something i really strive for i i i need to think about this more but it's just the first one that came to mind of like i don't i mean i want to influence people in a positive way so like is that power like i don't know okay no okay power is you say jump they say how high right right like i don't i love like working on a team but i don't need to be in charge of the team. In fact, I want to work with people who I would want to work for more so, or at least work together. So power is like, I don't necessarily care. So answer me this. Why haven't you ever had a nine to five?

35:39I have had a nine to five. Well, why don't you have a nine to five? Why don't you strive for a nine to five? Oh, I enjoy agency over my calendar or what I get to do over having a conversation with Arthur Brooks whenever we can, you know, that type of thing. So you don't want anybody to have power over you. Right. Basically. And if you don't want anybody to have power over you, you don't want to have power over others unless you're a psychopath and you're not. So therefore, that's why power is the one that it's not that it's not an idol. It's actually an anti-idol. Okay. Now. Okay. So we got three left money, pleasure, and admiration or fame or prestige or honor.

36:19Okay. So you got to kick another one away and it's going to get harder. Which one do you get rid of next?

36:27Can you define pleasure for me real quick? I'm not saying that's the one I'm choosing. Feels good, baby. Feels good. Just an animal thing. Feels good. And it might be, you know, the compliments that you get. It might be a bump of cocaine. You choose your own pleasure. I'll remove money. All right. How come? I need enough of it to support my family. And I've learned that, like, lucky to also have a wife who doesn't need a ton of money. She's not a big spender. No, no, no. And grew up, you know, very, very modest. And I think is appreciates. We do well, but I would say that's probably next. Yeah.

37:07So you have probably figured out at this point, being financially independent, that money, there's not that much great stuff you can get with money. It's not that much fun. I mean, it's like first class is better than coach. Private is better than first class. But the higher up you go, the more marginal the differences are. Seven cars? No. It's just garage space. Having a huge staff? Are you kidding? What a headache. It's just an HR problem. And so this is a common thing. Yeah. Okay. But now it's getting hot in here, man, because you've got pleasure and you've got honor and you've got to get rid of one of them.

37:45That doesn't mean you never get it. It just means that it's not a pursuit anymore. So the honor thing, like I'm not a really – I'm actually a terrible Instagram influencer. I'm not one of those. I don't do that very well. I try to post learn-for-me content, not look-at-me content. But if you gain some prestige, you get a chance to really impact people in a positive way, which is my purpose for being here. So in a way, that's important. If you had to, as a basic pursuit, would you get rid of pleasure today or the eye of admiration of others? Well, so if you live by an intrinsic scoreboard, then you don't need the eyeballs and admiration of others, but the prestige can help you impact more people.

38:40So this is like a weird dichotomy. So what do you think about that? Because I've worked really hard. I've hired a coach. I've worked multiple people to define my core values, my purpose, the critical behaviors to be aligned with those core values, and to live them out to try to eliminate envy by working inward and working on myself as much as possible so that I could positively impact other people. So how does that apply to prestige and impacting others in a positive way? So that sounds to me like you've been able to take your idol and use it as a source of good, that your main idol and use it as a source of good, largely to use it as a source of good.

39:15But you understand here, that also means that in your weakest moments, that that's something you could easily chase. You don't sound to me like a pleasure guy at all. You don't sound to me like a guy who's like, are you kidding me? I'm going to kick back and I'm going to go floating across the pool instead of doing something on my business. No, no, no, no, no, dude, Stryver. And so what you've told me is that basically you understand the idol. You're managing it really well. You're using it as a source of good. But in your weak moments, that's the one you always have to watch because you want people to like Ryan.

39:53You want people to follow Ryan for the good of them, for the good of them. But also, there is a motivation behind that, and that's common. If it weren't common, Aristotle wouldn't have written about it. That's very common. And by the way, this is a very common thing. Me too. I hate power. I don't care about money. I was going to say, where are you? Oh, yeah. Okay, let's do you. It's me. You did me. The same? Exactly the same. Exactly the same. if I'm in my weakest moments I want this and so I try to use it as a force for good but the point is that when I'm not paying attention it can lead me astray it can betray me and that's the important thing to keep in mind because otherwise it'll be like oh yeah you know I'm not I'm not going to go for the maximum amount of money of course I'm not going to yay me but at the same time I want you know what I want people to like Arthur Brooks a little bit too much a little bit too much.

40:50And that's not a good motivation because that kind of leads you to shade the way you say things sometimes. And you got to watch that. I mean, I'm getting pretty good at it. You're obviously really good at it, but you're going to have to watch it always because it can get away from you. If Oprah Winfrey called me and said my stuff made her life a lot better and then said, hey, by the way, can I write a book with you? I mean, first of all, like fall over and not, and not, and be like, this is a prank call, but that actually happened to you. How does that not like make your head be so big? You can't walk out of that room.

41:26Well, to begin with, I'm married to a Spanish woman who's very good at reminding me that I'm not important, you know? And the second thing is that, that, you know, this is the basis of my religious faith is all glory to God, all glory to God. Any opportunity that I've got. It's because God wants me to do something with it. And that's a very good, and I have a sort of a series of checks and balances that lead to it because, I mean, there've been lots of times when I look at, by the way, people who are, who have a high honor motivation, they tend to be naturally envious. And that doesn't mean you're driven by envy, but you'll tend to look at somebody else and go, are you kidding me?

42:03That book was number one? That book was number one? You know, that kind of thing, right? Or that guy's show is the number one podcast? Are you putting me up? Oh, man, people are so stupid. That's a form of envy, right? But that's the second cousin to the honor motivation that we get, which is a pride problem. And so you need to have checks and balances for pride. You know, when the, none of us is a Roman emperor, but when the Roman emperors would be, you know, coming back to Rome after a victorious military campaign in Gaul, driving their captives before them down the streets of Rome, in their chariot, there would be a slave.

42:40And the slave had one job, which is to whisper, remember, you too are just a man like any other. And so it's important that you surround yourself because, you know, if you work hard, you play by the rules, you're smart, you have personal merit and responsibility, and you're a striver. I mean, welcome to America, baby. You're going to have success, not every single day, but you're going to enjoy the fruits of your labor because that's what free enterprise is dedicated to doing is to rewarding ryan hawk and you need the little guy behind you saying remember ryan you two are just a man and even better if it's you know the lord and your wife let's uh follow up on that though when it comes to writing with oprah like how did that whole thing come about i mean did she she contacted you and said i want to write a book together like how did this happen so yeah so um during the coronavirus epidemic, I started my column in the Atlantic, which comes out every Thursday morning on the Science of Happiness.

43:36And that was pursuant to starting my class at HBS, which started right before the coronavirus epidemic. So I was writing this column, it was getting a lot of readers. And when you have 500 ,000 readers a week, you don't know, you know who they are, you know, and it turned out that Oprah was a religious reader of the column while she was locked down in her place in California. She didn't leave her house in California once for her estate for two years, as a matter of fact. And it's a big place. It's a nice place. But still, I mean, everybody was locked down. I mean, it was locked down. And people were looking for ways to grow and to learn.

44:11And she's an incredibly well-balanced person who uses everything as an opportunity all the way throughout her life. And so she started reading my column and paying a whole lot of attention to it. And then when my book from Strength to Strength came out, and a poster of it right behind me, But you've read it. And she read it on the first day and called me up. This is Oprah Winfrey. And I'm like, yeah, this is Batman. It turned out, of course, it was Oprah Winfrey. It was The Voice. And she said, I read from strength to strength. And I read your columns. And we started talking about something we might do together.

44:42And we did her podcast, her Super Soul podcast, which is about books together. She's so brilliant and such a great reader. And she's so insightful. She was in that podcast quoting me from my book by memory. And, you know, yeah, she had read it once. It's amazing. And then we hit it off like a house on fire. I mean, she's awesome. We did a couple of other things. And then she said, what if, you know, I don't have a show. If I did, I'd have you on 30 times. I'd kind of launch you into the American discussion through the show. And I'm like, I mean, like Dr. Phil. Anyway, and she says, kind of. And I'm like, okay.

45:17And then she said, but I don't have a show. So how about if I host a book that we write together? So I'm kind of a host. and you're the guest and you're, you know, you're bringing all this expertise. And so we cooked it up. I went to her place and, and, uh, we spent a bunch of time together. And then I moved out to California for six weeks while I was writing a big part of the book and we were passing chapters back and forth. And, uh, that was the book build a life you want, which came out in, um, in September of 2023. What was it like? I mean, sending drafts back and forth with Oprah. I mean, she's right.

45:49She's smart. She's nice. She's, I mean, I've learned so much from Oprah. I got to tell you, as a happiness specialist, you know, one thing to read studies is something else to look at somebody who's literally one of the five most famous people in the world and who has equanimity. The reason being, by the way, she's the striver's striver. She has striven over the years is that she's the same person in every part of her life. The thing that really cognitively disequilibrates a striver when they start to see worldly success is they're a different person in public than they are in private. You're bifurcating your personality, which is something that's really deleterious to your mental health.

46:27And so what you'll find is that anxiety and depression come to people when they're trying to be one person in private and one person in public. And they'll get really stressed out in public as a result of not being who they are. And then they'll go home and kick the dog and yell at their spouse and wreck their marriage. So the way to actually be successful and be rewarded to be successful is to be the same person in public as you are in private. And Oprah literally does that. So I've worked with her in public. We've toured together. I've seen her since I was a young man in her public life. And I have spent time with her at just the two of us at dinner.

46:59She's the same person. She's literally the same person. It's the greatest integrity. And it is such an incredible gift that she has. And a gift that she gave to me to strive to be that kind of integrated person as well. I have just unvarnished admiration for Oprah Winfrey. Are you that way now too? or at least more so than you were prior to meeting her? I hope. I mean, you've asked me a lot of serious questions that I've tried to answer them with complete honesty. And part of the reason is because I have no reason. I mean, it's a big mistake for me to start putting on airs because what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a gap between who I am and who I appear to be.

47:41Oprah says, don't do it. Her life says - Don't put on what? I'm sorry, what did you say? Put on airs. I mean, to act like I'm something that I'm actually not. Okay, airs. Yeah. Okay. So how, but like, I think that's probably a common problem with people and it's maybe hard to get to that point. Maybe it takes years, life reps, experience, adversity, all of the above. What about for somebody who's a bit earlier in their life and they want to get to that point? I view it also as being very comfortable in your own skin. You know who you are. You've done self-reflective work that never stops. So you understand purpose, values, critical behaviors, alignment with all of that.

48:16So when you show up to a place, you just are you. It doesn't really matter who's there or what you're doing, what you're doing. You're just you. And I know a few of those people in my life, some who are really good at that and some who probably are not. And I feel like the ones who are good at it are in a constant state of being thoughtful people, of journaling, of being grateful, of thinking about who they are, their purpose and what they want to be. That's what seems to lead to that like contentness and comfort in their own skin. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree with that. And there's a hack. So if you're young and that's happening, I mean, a lot of people listening to us are very successful in their companies and rising in the ranks and they want to be one person at work and they find they're a different person at home.

49:01Don't lie ever. Don't lie ever. Don't lie. I mean, and if you feel like you have to lie about something, it means you've made a wrong decision. Rectify that decision. So that everything that you think and say could be aired in public. That means no secret life, no, nothing that you're hiding from your family, nothing that you're telling one group that you're not telling somebody else. And that's an incredible privilege to live that way. The way to do that is to live a life that's impeccable in both public and private and then never lie to anybody. The parenting advice for kids, like, you wanna know why it's good not to lie?

49:45because if you always tell the truth, then you never have to remember anything, right? You just say the truth. And it's funny the way to simplify it as if you're telling your nine-year-old. And these are conversations we have at home. It's like, if you just always tell the truth, you never have to remember anything. If you have random lies or random fake stories, like, oh, wait, what did I say? What do I have to remember? And that is exhausting. And that is a way to not live an authentic life. Absolutely. And it's also not a way to live a loving life toward yourself and other people. It's an act of profound disrespect to yourself to be prevaricating, to be saying things that aren't true.

50:21People lie for different reasons, of course. Some people lie to protect themselves. Some people lie to puff themselves up. And some people lie to protect others. Now, lying to protect others is kind of a special case, even as a biblical case. What should you do if the Gestapo shows up at your door and says, do you have Jews in the basement? And you do, right? And like, okay, I got it. Or if your wife says, does this make me look fat? Don't be an idiot, Ryan. I mean, I got it, right? But the really dangerous things are when we're allowing to protect ourselves or to puff ourselves up. That's hugely disrespectful to yourself and other people.

50:56It's an act of, it sabotages the love that you have for the world. By the way, though, Arthur, on the comment about the clothes, okay? So I've had this conversation. It's funny with how many people we've talked about, does this make me look fat? Okay. I think there is a way to be fully honest and not be a mean person, right? So it's, I like the other pants. I like the way you look in the other pants a little bit better. Yeah. I like that. And so I'm still honest and she knows that I'm going to also tell her the truth so that my words still mean something. Because if you lie to your spouse and you tell them like, no way, or even if they look better in something else, then they don't know if they can believe you.

51:40And I want her to always know that she can believe me. And that goes for other people too. But so it's like, I'm not going to lie, and I'm not going to be mean, but I will say like, I actually like, really like the other ones, the way you look and the other ones better. And I think that way you maintain credibility. This goes beyond just that conversation. It's a way to maintain credibility so that you can be honest with each other. Right. Yeah. I don't know if I look bad in something though. I want her to tell me the truth. Yeah, no, no, no, of course I understand that. And it's, it's funny because every, the dynamics of every marriage are different.

52:12You know, and my wife will say, how do I look at this? And I'll say, you look smoking hot. And she'll be like, liar. Wait, do you say it though? If she doesn't, or does she just always look? No, she, she always looks smoking hot. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm a shallow man, but yeah, but, you know, good for you. But it's also, it's a, it's really important to, I know it's like Like one of us aged a lot better than the other. Can I ask you a completely random question? I thought this the second we connected. Dude, you're jacked and in like really good shape. What do you do? Well, I work out every day and this is the key.

52:48So I do a lot of stuff with Peter Atiyah and a lot of people who are in the longevity and fitness space. Just because since I've been doing what I'm doing, I'm kind of like the happiness guy that goes on everybody else's fitness and personal development podcast. And so, you know, I can't look all dumpy when I'm getting on these particular podcasts to be perfectly vain about it. But more importantly, what I've learned over the years as a scientist is that the number one way that you can attenuate your unhappiness, taking care of your body won't help your happiness, but it will lower your unhappiness.

53:25And I have a very high negative affect level. The number one way that you can do that, the healthiest way that you can do that That is by beating yourself up every single day. Second, I'm always trying to work my brain chemistry optimally so that I have three hours a day of unmitigated creativity. And I know the way to do that. The best way to do that is to get up an hour and a half before dawn. That's called the Brahma Mahurta in Sanskrit, meaning the creator's time in Vedic wisdom. But modern neuroscience shows that if you get up while it's still dark, you're going to have greater creativity and focus for the rest of the day.

54:00Beat yourself up while not trying to tax your, you know, your cognitive abilities while doing it. In other words, don't listen to neuroscience lectures while you're lifting. Besides, you won't understand what's going on because every time your blood pressure fluctuates, you won't be able to understand what you're hearing. So lift, I'm talking about serious resistance training and high intensity cardio, you know, get with a trainer if you don't know how to do it and delay your caffeine consumption until after that. Then after that is when I do my prayers. I go to mass every day. I'm a Catholic.

54:29So I go to mass every day at 630 by 715. I'm home. Then I have a whole bunch of psychostimulant in terms of caffeine. And then I get three uninterrupted hours of pure creativity. So the reason that I try to stay in really good physical shape is number one, I know that that's the secret to maintaining a life with the lowest possible level of negative affect while not having unintended side effects that you get from workaholism or alcohol use. Second is I want maximum creativity and the best that I can actually get out of my brain. And so I have to sequence things in the right way. Wow. So you're just super intentional about your body and mind every day.

55:13It's ritualized. It's your routine. And it's amazing how that consistency of routine leads to sustained excellence over time. I know we've got to run in a second, but the other thing that, because some people say, oh my God, man, that would get old or I'd be tired of doing the same thing every day. But you also have moved a lot. When I was reading and learning more about you, you and your wife have like, let's go. You'll move. You'll leave the state. You'll go somewhere else. You'll live somewhere else. You've moved quite a bit. 20 times in 35 years. 20 times, like 20 moves in 35 years. Why do you guys move so much?

55:51We go when it's actually time to find new opportunities. And, you know, sometimes we'll go because, you know, for example, in 2019, I retired. I was a CEO. I'd lived in that place for 10 years. And then we moved to Boston because I became a professor at Harvard. And we had three moves in five years. You know, and sometimes it'll be to kind of keep the family more centrally located, for example. But the whole point is there's a reason for doing it. It's not just that the rent came due or I'm in the witness protection program. It has something that has more to do with there. There's a place that we feel like we need to be.

56:22And we're really good at moving. And I think this idea that some of the novelty helps you remember your life more. Matthew Dix talked about this in Homework for Life. You've got to document your days, but also the novelty. see Scott Belsky also on this podcast about creating time when there are memorable, different, or hard events. That helps you remember it more. Yeah. I mean, there's some cognitive theories that suggest that when you live in a particular place, you remember the first and last years very intensely, and all the years in the middle get kind of squished into one year. So I suppose is that the effect of elongating the cognitive impact of your life is maximized if you move every three years on average.

57:07I don't know. And we haven't given it that particular much thought. Now, there's a cost. There's a cost, which is that when you're not geographically located, there's a sense of not being anywhere. And that's real. My brother has lived in the town that we grew up in, about five blocks from the house that we grew up in, his whole adult life. And he likes his neighbors and he gets a lot of benefit from that. So you have to realize that there are benefits to it. And I like the cowboy lifestyle, man. Pull up stakes, go baby. And my wife is the same way, thank God. But it's not costless. Got you. One more thing before we run.

57:46You're meeting one of your students, okay? A graduate student at a big time university and they finish and they go out into the world and they're still not 100 % sure what they want to do, but they do want to leave a dent, right? A positive dent in the world. They want to make a difference in a good way. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person? So the, the, the two most important things to do to make a dent in it is number one, don't worry too much about the first thing that you're doing because you're going to change a lot, right? So that, that's, that's the predicate to it.

58:18You're like, I got to get the perfect first job. Got to get the perfect first job, right? Another thing is don't do something where you're sacrifice your ability to have relationships and so don't take 110 hours in an investment bank if you five years from now you think you want to have a wife and kids or a husband and kids and and by the way cheat code that's what you want that's what you want if you're actually going to be a happier person then when you're in a job the you're going to make the perfect job you're not going to find the perfect job and you're trying to do two things bring love to every relationship you possibly can number one number two be excellent be great at what you do great at what you do why because what will attract all the good things to the world to you is that you emanate love and you show excellence those are the two things people want to be around man it's not that they want to be around money and they want to be what all those worldly idols all they are are markers for the things that we're talking about.

59:19Go for the real things that will attract all of the blessings of the world to you, which is love and excellence. Love it, man. Oh my God, so good. Build the life you want, the art and science of getting happier. The book you wrote with Oprah, highly recommend. And then from Strength to Strength, you have more books too. But from Strength to Strength, finding success, happiness, and deep purpose in the second half of life, two of the most recent ones I've read that have impacted me the most and my friends, Arthur Brooks, dude. I really, really appreciate the work you put out in the world. It was awesome.

59:46I'm going to chance to talk with you. Thank you so much, man. Thank you, Ryan. Thanks for the work that you're doing, lifting people up. I really, I mean, you and I share a strong mission. Stay at it. Let's do it, man. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thanks. Bye.

1:00:00It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Arthur Brooks. A few takeaways from my notes, the four idols, money, power, pleasure and prestige slash fame. I was caught a little bit off guard, but enjoyed the fact that we talk through what mine are or what are my anti-idols and worked our way into understanding what's most important. I'd be curious to hear what yours are. Then converse that with the four things that bring contentment to your life, faith, family, friendship, and serving others.

1:00:44That goes, I think, along with defining your purpose, I believe that your purpose should always include how you want to positively impact and serve others. Mine is, quote, to inspire others to both value and pursue excellence. What is your purpose? And then misery comes from excessive autofocus. Never heard it that way before, but essentially misery comes when you're thinking too much about yourself, when you're too selfish, when you're not others oriented enough. We should be thinking more about how we can love, support, and help other people. Just like Arthur said at the end of our conversation, emanate love and show excellence in all that you do.

1:01:34So good. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Arthur Brooks. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and you subscribe to the show. You rate it, hopefully five stars, and you write a thoughtful review. By doing all of that, you are continually giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much.

1:02:06Talk to you soon. Can't wait.