The Diary of a CEOThe Happiness Expert: Single Friends Will Keep You Single & Obesity Is Contagious!
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,082 words- 0:00 – 2:13
Intro
- ABArthur Brooks
I take the same test year by year, and I am 60% happier than I was five years ago because I finally cracked the code. Okay, so- Arthur Brooks.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The world renowned social scientist.
- ABArthur Brooks
Harvard professor.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Best-selling author.
- ABArthur Brooks
Who teaches people how to live a better, happier life. I've studied the science of happiness, and I found that most of what society tells us is wrong. And we will go into all of this. For example, they found that happiness is about 50% genetic. Introverts tend to have more long-term happiness, and happiness is a mind virus. It will transmit from one person to another person to another person.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. They were looking at the trajectory of people's lives, measuring everything for many years, and they found obesity is contagious. When your friends get divorced, you're more likely to get divorced. But also when your friends get happy, you're more likely to get happy. The problem is happiness has been in decline since about 1990. One of the reasons is that we need struggle and suffering for us to actually get the joy that we seek. But we know that, for example, 95% of diets fail. It is the most unsuccessful industry in the world because the arrival fallacy that when I actually get rid of the belly fat, then I'm actually gonna have a more wonderful life. That's actually not true. You actually get more satisfaction from the progress.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, so if not a weight number or a financial number, what's a better, more realistic goal to set that has more chance of success to being happier?
- ABArthur Brooks
There are goals that actually do lead to the happiest life, and the more you have, the better off you are. The four goals that really matter are...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Quick one. This is really, really fascinating to me. On the back end of our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the subscribe button. I just wanted to ask you a favor. It helps this channel so much if you choose to su- subscribe. Helps us scale the guests, helps us scale the production, and it makes the show bigger. So if I could ask you for one favor, if you've watched the show before and you've enjoyed it and you like this episode that you're currently watching, could you please hit the subscribe button. Thank you so much, and I will repay that gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better and better and better and better. That is a promise I'm willing to make you. Do we have a deal? Arthur.
- ABArthur Brooks
Steve.
- 2:13 – 7:28
Are You a Professor of Happiness?
- ABArthur Brooks
- SBSteven Bartlett
What do you do?
- ABArthur Brooks
I am dedicated to lifting people up and bringing them together using the science and ideas around human happiness.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Where do you teach?
- ABArthur Brooks
I teach at Harvard University.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are you a professor of happiness?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
I'm a professor of leadership technically at the Harvard Kennedy School of the Harvard Business School, but my area is leadership and happiness. So I've studied the, the science of happiness, which is a huge growing field, multidimensional field across social psychology and neuroscience, behavioral economics, philosophy for a long time. And what I try to do is I bring it to future leaders in politics and policy, and especially business, and help them understand themselves as happiness teachers so they can be happier and they can be more successful and bring more happiness to the people they lead.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is the state of happiness? Can you quan- can we quantify that? Where we are in terms of our... Are we getting happier as a people or-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... more unhappy as a people?
- ABArthur Brooks
We can and we can't. So the United Nations and a lot of other places try to see the happiest country. You've seen those data a lot.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
The happiest countries, it's always Denmark. It's always the Nordic countries. Um, you can't do that. Uh, and that's like... The way that that happens is they go to 100 countries and they, they survey 1,000 people in each of the 100 countries and say, "How do you evaluate your life?" That's like asking people in every country how much you like the music in your country. And on the basis of the highest rankings internally, you say who has the best music. It doesn't really make sense. It's, you know, it's bad methodology. You can look at the average wellbeing across a population where people are having more or less the same experience. So I, I... Inside countries, inside communities, over time, I'm, I'm willing to look at that. And that shows that in most of the OECD countries, including the United States and UK, our countries, um, happiness has been in decline since about 1990.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Since about 1990?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Is that when you were born?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, '92.
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) It's not you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
It's us. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wh- what is, um... I always think when people commit their lives largely to a topic, that, that must have very personal roots with the individual.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What are your personal roots with the subject of happiness?
- ABArthur Brooks
It's hard for me. It's hard for me. I'm not a naturally happy person. I'm way below average in happiness. And at least 50% of that is genetic, by the way. So there's a lot of research looking at identical twins. There's a whole database of identical twins born between the mid-1930s and 1960s that were adopted into separate families at birth, then reunited as adults. This was not an experiment that was cooked up by some, you know, diabolical Harvard, you know, social scientist like me. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
It was, it happened naturally, just sort of over the course of events. And when they were reunited, they were given personality tests. You can see some of these meetings where they were reunited on, on YouTube and they're, they're wonderful. They're joyful and funny. You find that you have an identical twin you didn't know about and it's like finding all these commonalities. But of course, there's always a bunch of social scientists, you know, with, with clipboards, you know, annoying them, like me, you know, taking data. And so the personality tests all show that between 40 and 80% of your personality is genetic and the rest is environmental and experiential and circumstantial. But 80%, up to 80%, that's a lot. And that means your openness to experience, your conscientiousness as a person, your extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and, and happiness is about 50% genetic. Your mother literally made you unhappy, Steve.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm, I'm-
- ABArthur Brooks
Or happy. Your results may vary.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Was your household a happy place?
- 7:28 – 10:21
Is Hope Important to Be Happy?
- SBSteven Bartlett
people who have hope in their lives have greater chances of survival, whether it's with, when they're suffering with, you know, illnesses or... I often think about this sort of stereotype that when someone retires-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... or when they stop working-
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... or when their partner dies in old age, they might be, both of them might be 90 years old when one of the partners dies, it seems that the, the remaining, the surviving partner has months left sometimes, it's eerie.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's mostly true. The, the one that's not true (laughs) ... Here's, uh, this is depressing how, um, you know, that statistic, which is that if the husband dies, the wife is gonna be fine.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Widows are way happier than widowers. I told that to my wife and she's like, "Huh."
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) Um, w- widowers do really poorly, generally. Men do very poorly and part of the reason is because, ugh, these data are disputed but more or less they're, they're directionally correct. 60% of 60-year-old men say their best friend is their wife, 30% of their wives say their best friend is their husband.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Women have more relationships. They have closer, deeper love relationships with non-related kin and with the adult children typically than, than the, than the husband does. The husband's most intense companionate relationship typically is with the wife. And that's why th- that's an asymmetric stat.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm.
- ABArthur Brooks
I mean that's what the data say but yeah, for sure. I mean, back to the main point, hope is super critical.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On illness.
- ABArthur Brooks
On everything. I mean, hope actually affects all sorts of physiological processes and we know that when people lose hope, they give up and when they give up, they don't take care of themselves. They don't do what they need to do. They don't exercise like they should. They don't ... They're not as active. They're not talking to other people. Their minds are not stimulated. They don't eat right. They might use substances in ways that they shouldn't and all of those things compound, and so just at the physiological level you'd see that you'd be, you'd have degradation when there is no hope. And when you're 90, you can't afford it. Actually, I'm 59, I can't afford it either and neither can you at 31.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
We all need hope. This is huge. To the extent that you can actually bring hope to people by showing them they can do something as an agent in their own future, that's just giving them a longer, better, more successful life. Th- that's, that's what I wanna do with my work. You know, 'cause I've seen so much. I mean, si- since I've actually dedicated myself to this, I have very good protocols for measuring my own wellbeing and I don't game the numbers. I mean, I have... There, there's macronutrients to your happiness. You have to take the different elements. It's not a single measure thing. And there are micronutrients that you can aggregate up to it and I follow this, um, very carefully month by month by month, semester by semester, year by year, and I take the same tests as my students do every year, and I am 60% happier than I was five years ago because of my work.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because of the work that you've done on yourself
- 10:21 – 13:05
Follow the Science to Be Happy
- SBSteven Bartlett
or because of your work as a-
- ABArthur Brooks
Both because here's the deal, if you wanna be happier you need to understand the science, you need to apply it to your life, you need to share it with others 'cause you won't remember it and hold yourself accountable unless you're teaching it. That's why I teach people to be happiness teachers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Yeah. So, so my guess is... How long you been doing the podcast? Two years?
- SBSteven Bartlett
We launched on YouTube three years ago.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. It's, uh, it's probably having a big effect on your life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Huge.
- ABArthur Brooks
Because you're talking about these ideas and my guess is that you're, in your private life, you're talking about the ideas that you learned with other people-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
... and every time you share these ideas, you imprint them not just sort of, they're not just limbic phantasms, they become... You use them with the executive centers of your brain. Well, the more that you learn, the more you talk about what you learn, the better off you get. You're only talking about things that empower people and lift them up and make their lives better. These are the topics of what you do, right? Because you want people to be happier and more successful. That's the point of the show, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And that's how you're getting happier and more successful.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there research that shows this point of agency correlates to happiness and survival?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like longevity?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And so agency essentially means that the belief that you have control over your life and your future in essence.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, and that you're, there are things that you can do so that you're not helpless. Helplessness is the problem. This, this gets back to the work of Marty Seligman in the, in the late '60s and 19- early 1970s. He's the father of positive psychology. He created the whole field of positive psychology. He's a great mentor and hero to me. He's done so much for me and, and intellectually and in my career and as, as a friend and just as a person. And when he was doing his early work, he was doing animal studies and work on human beings to take away their agency. So he would do things like people would be, you know, putting nickels into a slot machine and they would figure out along the way that it didn't matter if they pulled the handle or not, that they were getting the same outcomes.... that he took away just little tiny bits of agency. He had dogs in boxes where the- they would shock the floors of the boxes. This is hard to get through internal review boards now- (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
... but they would, 'cause it seems cruel, it wasn't big shocks, but the whole point was that the dogs would, you know, step off the parts of the floor that were shocking them, but when they couldn't do that anymore, they would just like lie down and whimper on the shocking floor. They would give up. This is called learned helplessness. People will learn their helplessness when they realize that, when they, when they, or they figure out, or they conclude, or they're told by politicians and media and activists and everybody else, that there's nothing that they can do and they're a victim. When you take on the identity of victim, you learn your helplessness. And that will degrade your quality of life, make you less successful, less happy, and a lot of studies say that you'll, you won't even live as long.
- SBSteven Bartlett
This point of agency
- 13:05 – 18:05
Personal Responsibility
- SBSteven Bartlett
is so interesting. I, um, I had someone on the show, at the very beginning of the show, and he said that he basically crowdsources his book, a guy called Mo Gawdat, you might-
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... know the guy. Says he crowdsources his book and he gets 500 people to re-read-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to read his book before it comes out. And he goes, "When we got down to the part in my book about personal responsibility," he goes, "8% of people drop off the Google document."
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
'Cause they don't want to read it.
- ABArthur Brooks
Uh-huh. Yeah, no, that's the spinach. This, the, this, and- and it's interesting because I have this column that comes out every Thursday morning in The Atlantic, 12 or 1,300 words on the science of happiness, and about once every two or three months, I have a spinach column which says, "You want to be happy? Be humble. You want to be happy? Change your mind. You want to be happy? Don't tell somebody that if they disagree with you that they're stupid and evil. Listen. Listen more than you talk." You know, just what your grandmother told you, right? About how to be a successful person. But it's all about humanity, about humility, but these are hard things in a society where all of our biases are "I'm right, you're wrong. I don't want to listen, la la la la la, if it goes against my- my whatever ideological biases that I happen to have." And I'll write a spinach column and those are the ones that get way less re- (laughs) way fewer readers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you know what's interesting? I was, as you were speaking, I was thinking that nobody thinks they're a victim. They can spot victimhood in other people-
- ABArthur Brooks
Huh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... very successfully, but there's no one listening to this right now that would say, "I am a victim." (laughs) So how does one know-
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... (laughs) if they're a victim?
- ABArthur Brooks
Well, I mean, a lot of people will say, "I am a victim of these institutional biases."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
A lot of people will s- a lot of people really will say that. I mean, they- they will say that, "I'm a victim of capitalism."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Or, "I'm a victim of powerful people. I'm a victim of- of conspiracies that are hap- the- the deep state." Whatever it happens to be. A lot of people really will talk about it in that particular way, and that's sort of the problem. Now, of course, we're all victims of something.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
But we all have tons of power, and the really interesting thing in life is to show people the levels of power that they have, the levers of power that they have, that don't start with trying to change the outside world, that start with the inside of their heads. That's what I'm dedicated to doing is showing people that the hope that they should have comes from the- the leverage they have over their circumstances, which starts with what they thought they had the least control over, their emotions, their happiness, their wellbeing, the love that they experience because the commitments that they make. If you really want to have power, start with managing yourself, not trying to manage the outside world.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is happiness a choice?
- ABArthur Brooks
Happiness is unattainable because it's a direction, not a destination.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is being happier a choice?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yes. Being happier is a choice on the basis of the commitment that you are going to make in your life and in your relationships, in the way that you manage yourself, absolutely.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think there is a starting point to being happier?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, it actually starts with a, starts with, uh, recognizing that most of what society tells us about happiness is wrong.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's wrong?
- ABArthur Brooks
It's not a feeling. Happiness is not a feeling. On my first day of class, I have, you know, two sections of 90 MBA students at the Harvard Business School, and they're- they're taking this happiness, science of happiness seminar. I've got 400 on the waiting list. There's an illegal Zoom link they think I don't know about, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) It's the happiness class. It's super fun, I love it. I love my students, they're terrific. And the f- I cold called on them the first day by saying, you know, "What's happiness?" Like, "Pick one, two, three, ten. What's happiness?" They always say, "It's the feeling I get when I'm with the people that I love." Or, "It's how I feel when I'm doing what I enjoy." Feelings, feelings, feelings, feelings. I say, "Wrong." The biggest barrier to actually getting happier is believing that happiness is a feeling. It's not. It's, happiness is evidence, or feelings are evidence of happiness, like the smell of dinner is evidence of dinner. That's how to understand feelings. Now, feelings are really, really important. Your affect, your mood is critically important. But happiness is something a lot more tangible. You start getting happier, the beginning of happiness, of bi- of getting happier because true happiness is not the goal because you have to have negative emotions. Negative emotions keep you alive. Negative experiences make you learn and grow. So you don't want pure happiness this side of heaven. Hmm. Dangerous. You'd be dead quickly without a lot of unhappiness. But getting happier starts with this understanding that really what it is is the pursuit of three things, enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three macronutrients. So you and I are nutrition nerds, right? And what we all know, and I've heard people say on your show, is that most people get insufficient protein. And when you come to America, everybody eats way too many highly glycemic carbohydrates, right? Happiness is the same thing. We get the macronutrient profile wrong. We need more enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. We kn- we have to know how to get them in- in efficient and healthy ways.... and we need them in balance.
- 18:05 – 20:01
Enjoyment, Satisfaction, and Meaning
- SBSteven Bartlett
and meaning for me? What do-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. See, this is the problem, because a lot of people think they know what these things are, but they aren't. But this is the adventure, because once you kind of get into the details of this, then you've got real strategies for getting happier. The definition provides strategy. So let's start with enjoyment.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABArthur Brooks
Most people think it's the same as pleasure, but that's wrong. Pleasure is a limbic phenomenon. Now of course, you know this because you've had, we've had plenty of guests who have talked about the limbic system of the brain. That's the console of tissue deep inside the brain that's been evolving over the past 40 million years. It takes signals from the brain stem and other parts, rudimentary structures in the brain, it takes those signals about what's going on in the outside. In the limbic system, it translates them into information. All your emotions are is information. There's no such thing as good and bad feelings. Bad feelings, good feel- No. They're all good. They might be maladapted, but, but the point is positive and negative emotions keep you alive. You need especially the negative emotions. I talk about negative emotions all the time because they, survival is critical.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And so anger and sadness and fear and disgust, which are the big four negative emotions, these have kept you alive thousands and thousands and thousands of times. Really important. That information there then is relayed onto the neocortex of the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, the bumper of tissue right behind your forehead, where you can figure out, "What are these emotions? What do they mean? And how am I gonna react according to them?" Now, a lot of times these signals are all goofed up and, and we're, we're very reactive, which means that we're not letting our prefrontal cortex catch up with our limbic system, and that's a lot of the work that I do. But back to enjoyment. Enjoyment is not the same as pleasure, because pleasure is limbic. It's nothing more than a signal or the ventral striatum, the reward center of your brain is getting tapped in the limbic system, saying, "That thing is gonna be good for survival and passing on your genes. That's why it feels good. Go do it."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sex and sugar.
- ABArthur Brooks
Sex and
- 20:01 – 23:10
Addiction and Temporary Rewards
- ABArthur Brooks
sugar.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
Sex and sugar, and a lot ... And gambling, uh, which social media has a lot in common with slot machines and all these little things that get back to your primordial evolutionary past. I know you love the evolutionary biology and psychology, because this gives us so much information about who we are today. Look at the place to see and see yourself, kind of. And, and all of these things that give us pleasure, it's because they, they went back to survival and propagation of the species. So importantly, all those pleasure-filled things, if you pursue them, you're just sitting in your limbic system, and modern technology and society will engorge these things into incredibly unhealthy practices. So you get, you know, we have natural endorphins that make us feel good and, and help us when we actually get hurt so that we can get back to our cave, and of course, we've chemically altered them into fentanyl, which feels great until you die.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Fentanyl is not a big thing in the UK, but it's a huge thing here.
- ABArthur Brooks
Huge. I mean, we have 100,000 drug overdose deaths every year in the United States, mostly because of fentanyl. It's unbelievable. But that, but we have other versions of that. You know, we can have stochastic experiences, you know, things that, that, that happen occasionally and give us a reward when we, when something happens, um, not in predictably, but unpredictably. Uh, um, and so we make slot machines, and they give us all this, that, you know, tap into that, that brain chemistry. Or we wanna propagate the species and so we turn it into pornography, which is unbelievably powerful and dangerous for the brain, because it captures the brain and destroys relationships along the way. It's just fentanyl in its way, but all of these things are just pleasure, pleasure, ple- Anything that can be addictive, which pleasure-filled things typically can, if you, if you do them compulsively over and over and over again, it will make you less happy. But here's ... Now, when people ask me, "So does that mean I should never drink alcohol, I should never gamble?" No, no, no, no. You need to add two things to turn 'em into enjoyment. You need to add people and memory. Because if you add people and memory to something, then you're moving the experience into your prefrontal cortex. That's when it's fully human. That's when it's not an animal experience, it's a human experience, and that is a very important part of your happiness. And so the big question is if something's addictive, if you're doing it alone, you're probably doing it wrong.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about sex?
- ABArthur Brooks
That's pornography and masturbation is alone. And that's not good for you, is the whole point. That's ... I mean, again, reasonable people disagree, and some people would be like, "What's this guy talking about?" But the whole point is that, that the data on pornography are that it captures the brain, and ultimately it doesn't, on average, lead to happier lives, because it truncates the reproductive experience at the level of pleasure and doesn't take it all the way to enjoyment.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm. Interesting.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do ... Have you, have you studied porn much as a subject?
- ABArthur Brooks
It, sort of everybody in my field winds up there. It's not something that I focus that much on 'cause, you know, it's, focusing on the research on pornography makes you look a little creepy at age 59. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) It's not a good look.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How to explain it to your wife. Yeah. (laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
It's like, "So, so, so what do you study?" It's like, "Yeah." (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Interesting. So people and memory turn
- 23:10 – 28:32
How to Turn Pleasure into Happiness
- SBSteven Bartlett
pleasure into ...
- ABArthur Brooks
Enjoyment.
- SBSteven Bartlett
To enjoyment.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's right. So alcohol, add people and memory. You know, the Anheuser-Busch corporation doesn't put out advertisements of, you know, a dude alone in his apartment pounding a 12-pack.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's how a lot of people use the product.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
But that's, everybody knows that's an irresponsible, dangerous thing to do that can lead to alcoholism. What they show is the same guy with his brothers and friends, you know, clinking bottles together, having a great time. That is pleasure, alcohol, plus people, plus memory equals enjoyment, and that leads to happiness, because they wanna join their brand to happiness, not just to pure pleasure, and certainly not to addiction.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Same with like Coca-Cola. All the Coca-Cola ads are like the World Cup with your friends-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and in summer with your friends and outside.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. And that's actually less addictive. I mean, there are certain ... You know, the sugar and, and caffeine are certainly addictive. They don't have the same properties of, of brain capture in the same way for sure, because they don't, they don't stimulate as much dopamine.... as, as, uh, you know, something like alcohol does and, and so th- they're less likely to make you really addicted. But the whole point is that they're ... It, it does give you a little bit of pleasure, but it makes you way happier if you get to enjoyment and you only get that when you're doing it with people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Satisfaction.
- ABArthur Brooks
Satisfaction is the joy you get after struggle. You're an entrepreneur, you understand this one really well. You're good at deferring your gratification. All entrepreneurs are good... Successful entrepreneurs are good at deferring gratification, which means I'm gonna do this hard thing and it's gonna get big payoff, and that payoff is gonna be sweet. That's satisfaction. The... A, a really funny thing about humans is that we need struggle and suffering for us to actually get the joy that we seek, and that's a really important part of our happiness. So you find that people who are better at deferring their gratification get more satisfaction and they're happier. There's a lot of... Remember, you've heard about the marshmallow experiment?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
And, you know, people have debunked it, but they actually haven't. So the marshmallow experiment was taking place... It took place in the late '60s where Walter Mischel was a psychologist at Stanford out in Palo Alto. He had a, a, you know, a little, uh, a laboratory setup where he would come in and sit down on one side of a table and there was a kid on the other side of the table between four and eight years old, and in front of the kid was a marshmallow. And so he says to the kid, "Do you want the marshmallow?" The kid's like, "Yeah. Yeah." He says, "I tell you what, I have to go take a phone call in the back here, but when I come back, if the marshmallow's still there, I'll give you another one. Can you wait?" Every kid's like, "Yeah, totally, totally, totally worth it." He comes back five minutes later or so, 80% of the kids had eaten the marshmallow, 20% of the kids hadn't. Now, that's a lot. 80% of the kids could not defer their gratification. So the real question is, who's the 20%? It's Steve Bartlett. That, these are the people that went on to do distinguished things. They did better in school. They got better grades. They went on to have more job success. They had better relationships. That's what they found, that the most successful kids... Now, th- that, what people fight about now is why, whether it's nature or nurture, it's probably 50/50. Like everything else in life, it's both nature and nurture. But the bigger point is good things come to those who wait. And when you wait, you suffer, and you need that suffering as part of the basic satisfying experience. Now, the bigger problem with satisfaction is that Mother Nature has a big lie at the end of it. Mother Nature says, "If you get it, you're gonna love it forever."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And that's not true. See, the- the- the brain, the brain works emotionally and physically in, um, an environment of homeostasis. Homeostasis means that you always return to your baseline physiologically and emotionally because you can't stay in a s- in a, in, in an unusual physiological state. Unusual states are a reaction. You need to be ready to react. And so, you know, you step off the treadmill, your heart is elevated, your heart goes back to where it was so you're not dead in a week. The same thing is true for you emotionally. Something really good or bad happens to you, you think it's gonna last forever so that you have an incentive to avoid or approach the thing, but it doesn't last forever, does it? That's the problem. We actually think that if I get that billion dollars, it's gonna be really great, and the first thing that somebody who has a billion dollars says to her or himself is, "I guess I needed another billion," because of homeostasis. And that puts you on something called the hedonic treadmill, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. So that's the great conundrum of the striver, is that there's never enough, never enough, never enough. I deal with people all day long. I really specialize in people who are incredibly successful but not happy. And a lot of what I do is s- explain one simple equation that both explains that, but also gives you the solution, which is that your satisfaction doesn't come from all the things that you have. So have more is not the right strategy. Satisfaction is all the things you have divided by the things that you want, haves divided by wants. Successful people need to manage their wants even more than they need to manage their haves. They need to want less, and that's a whole kettle of fish. That's spirituality, that's discipline, that's fitness, that's diet, that's a whole lot of things that go into that, and that will help you actually get enduring satisfaction despite-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sounds like a contradiction though, doesn't it?
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- 28:32 – 34:48
Diets: How the Process Is More Important Than the End Goal
- ABArthur Brooks
- SBSteven Bartlett
It sounds like a contradiction to... That the striving and the struggle is gonna make me happy-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... but I should want less.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. What people actually who crack this code and, and a lot of, you know, Eastern traditions actually get into this, is not that striving is bad, but that striving in itself has an- has a, uh, a reward to it, that you ... that the process... And what you find out along the way is that what you wanted was not arrival, what you wanted was progress, and then you start to get the reward from the progress itself. There's a funny thing in the, in the research on dieting. We all know that it's the most expensive, unsuccessful industry in the world, right? 95% of diets fail, which means within a year, people have gained back all the weight that they've lost. But they're successful insofar as that almost everybody loses weight when they go on a diet. Here's the thing about diets. Every day you're willing to forego the food you like in exchange for the reward, which is the scale going down. When you hit your goal, it's gonna be so great. It's gonna be so great. You know what the reward is though? You never again get to eat the things that you like for the rest of your life. Congratulations.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Once you've got there. Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's why you fail. And the arrival fallacy, which is an identifiable phenomenon in my field, is that it's gonna be sweet when I get to the goal. It isn't. What you're gonna have is homeostasis when you get to your goal, frustration and disappointment. Therefore, you need to want less, you need to think about th- about... L- less about wanting these arrival experiences and get more satisfaction from the progress, from the journey. That's really what it comes down to. And people who crack that code over the course of self-discipline, self-understanding, self-management, they can actually experience remarkably higher satisfaction. The Dalai Lama, I've been working with the Dalai Lama closely for the past 11 years, and I asked him this question.... "How can I get lasting satisfaction?" And he said, "You need to want what you have, not to have what you want." And that's what it comes down to. It's the management of my wants, not my haves.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm. On that point, uh, we're at the time of year now where so many people are thinking about diets.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You mentioned that there. So for those people that are approaching that moment and they're, you know, they're gonna be setting their goals and stuff and all those kinds of things, what is a better goal to set, if not a weight number or a financial number or whatever? What's a better, more realistic, um, goal to set that has more chance of success?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Uh, it has to, it's- it's interesting because there are certain things that we can accumulate that won't homeostatically return us to the baseline, that won't throw us onto this hedonic treadmill over and over and over again. Those goals are the goals that actually do lead to the happiest life and the more you have, the better off you are. Or more actually is better. But they don't fall into the categories of money, power, pleasure and fame, which are the typical kinda goals that we get or related goals, like weight loss or, you know, whatever it happens to be. The four goals that really matter are faith, family, friendship, and work that serves others. Those are the four really great and transcendent goals that we can have. Now, there's nothing wrong with money or power or pleasure or fame. There's nothing wrong with those things, but only as intermediate goals to make it easier for us to pursue and accumulate deeper faith or philosophical life. I'm not talking about traditional religious faith necessarily. Better family relationships, which are very mystical, um, poorly understood, even in neuroscience in a lot of ways. Friendship, deep friendship, which is hard for a lot of people, especially successful people, and work that where you earn your success and serve other people. That's what it comes down to. So those are the right New Year's goals that we need. You know, this year, what am I gonna do? What am, how am I- how am I gonna grow closer to the divine? How am I gonna do that? This year what am I gonna do to draw closer to my family and to have a- a more intimate relationship with my family? How am I gonna have deeper friendships this year? And how am I gonna take my work and find it more meaningful and satisfying on the basis of serving other people? How am I gonna do that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is m- uh, uh, t-
- ABArthur Brooks
We haven't gotten to meaning yet.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. We haven't got to meaning yet. You said the word there, but- but I wanna make sure I close off on this point about a better goal, because there's still gonna be a huge group of people-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that go, "Listen, I get it, love it-"
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"... I believe it-"
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"... but I hate this belly fat."
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. I got it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And this belly fat yo-yos every year.
- ABArthur Brooks
No, I get it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I'm just saying-
- ABArthur Brooks
So those are intermediate goals and there's nothing wrong with those things. The problem is where they become satisfying and self-destructive is when that's the final goal, because by the time you get there, you think, "Why?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
"Why? That wasn't as meaningful as I thought. That wasn't as good as I thought." That's the arrival fallacy that when I actually get rid of the belly fat, then I'm actually gonna have somehow a more wonderful life. That's actually not true. The reason that you're doing that is because you wanna live longer with your spouse and see your, and- and, you know, dandle your 11 grandchildren on your knee. That's the reason you wanna do this, because you need to do it for some intrinsic reason, as opposed to an extrinsic reason having to do with, "People will love me more." I mean, it's amazing to me, 'cause I, you know, I'm, I do a lot of, you know, wellness and fitness and stuff as it interacts with happiness. I w- I work with a lot of people who are very big in the longevity community because I have sort of the happiness consult, the science of the happiness consult that I put into those things. And- and so I meet a lot of people that are really into the fitness part and- and the, what- what a lot of guys will tell me is that they'll have these fitness goals, like, "I'm gonna put on 15 pounds of muscle this year and I'm gonna get rid of all my belly fat and the whole thing." And- and by e- if they stick to it, by September or October, what they're finding is that, you know, they're not getting any more attention or compliments from women, but a lot of dudes are going, "Looking good, dude." (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
And they're like, "That's not what I wanted." (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- 34:48 – 38:13
What's a Good End Goal for Fitness?
- SBSteven Bartlett
it relates to fitness? Would it be something more centered on health?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Or self esteem?
- ABArthur Brooks
It is. It's something that's actually s- sustainable and having to do with health, also with happiness is the way that this works. So I work out 60 minutes a day. It's not because I'm vain. Look, I'm s- I got a face for radio, Steve. I mean, it's like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
You look good. I don't know what you're talking about.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. I know, but it's, uh, age adjusted, I look good. You know, this is the key.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think you look good, period. And I'm not-
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know-
- ABArthur Brooks
And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I've got a girlfriend, but-
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... credit where credit's due.
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) The, thank you, Steve. I appreciate that. But, uh, s- you made my week. See, this was my goal. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
But the reason that I do this is because I find that for me, that working out as much as I can is much harder than working out every day. Working out every day is much easier than working out as often as I can.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Amen. (laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. And practicing my religion every day is much easier than practicing my religion when it- when it comes naturally to me or when I find it convenient. Eating healthily is much easier when I do it every day. And so the result of that is that I find that with those particular routines, I program those things into my life and I'm a much happier guy. Look, it lowers my cortisol levels, which are naturally very high. I'm a very anxious person. Um, and- and I understand anxiety, I understand the cortisol production, I understand how to manage it, and- and this is one of my management techniques. Thing about fitness to understand is when I say it makes you happier, it actually doesn't. It lowers your unhappiness. Happiness and unhappiness largely... The experiences of happiness and unhappiness, which is to say posi- positive and negative affect, they're produced in different parts of the limbic system.... so you can both be very high happiness and very high unhappiness. I have tests for that, that I put my students through. You're probably somebody who experiences both very high positive affect and very high negative affect. We've only met, but my guess is that you're a mad scientist. That's the profile. And so what that means is you've got two strategies. You want to keep your positive affect high, and you want to manage your negative affect. And one of the best ways to manage your negative affect is physical exercise, vigorous physical exercise. Today, today for me was leg day. I hate leg day, but I feel pretty good right now. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, that makes sense. I, I've got an answer there f- that, that I, that I'm super clear on. Um, I should be aiming at the end goal of happiness ultimately, even if it r- the intermediary goals are things like belly fat and these short-term things that are measurements of my progress towards the bigger goal. And the real key here is consistency.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I, this was the big unlock for my whole fitness thing, 'cause I was that person, which will be 90% of people listening now, that made the goal every year that I was gonna go t- you know, change my life every year.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Never worked.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because I'm- I was aiming at getting a six-pack for summer, so when I arrived-
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... with a six-pack-
- ABArthur Brooks
And it worked.
- 38:13 – 43:48
The Why of Your Life
- SBSteven Bartlett
Meaning was the last of the three.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Meaning is the why of your life. This is the hardest for most people, especially young adults. This is really, really hard. So meaning is, is really a combination of three things. It's coherence, purpose, and significance. Coherence is things happen for a reason, and so a meaning in your life means you gotta have a theory about why things happen. Like, that's one damn thing after another. I mean, you gotta have some concept of why things happen. Purpose is my life has direction and has goals. That's what purpose really is. I'm going in this direction toward these things without getting stuck on the arrival fallacy. And the last but not least is significance, which is, it would matter if I weren't here. I'm significant. Those are the three parts of meaning in people's lives according to, you know, philosophers and social psychologists. So there's, uh, there's a test that I give my students that kind of encompass these, these three ideas so you can remember 'em into two questions, and you have a meaning crisis if you actually don't have answers to these questions that you believe. And there's no right answers. You just gotta have your answers. You wanna play?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
Here's the quiz. Question number one, why are you alive? You can answer that in terms of who created you or what you're on earth to do, or both.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Okay. So why am I alive? That's something that I get to answer every single day. I get to define that by what I chose to do this morning when I woke up.
- ABArthur Brooks
What was it?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I went to the gym.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I w- I was on the running machine-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... 'cause I know I've got a, um, not gonna be able to today, and then I came here and had this conversation with you.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. But why are you, why are you doing this conversation with me, Steve?
- SBSteven Bartlett
The ikigai theory comes to mind when you ask that, which is, it's incredibly selfish. I learned tr- a tremendous amount already just from this conversation.
- ABArthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I know that it pays, um, pays it forward to other people who are gonna, gonna learn from it as well, and that makes it feel worthwhile.
- ABArthur Brooks
So you said two things, fun and service.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right? Which is more important to you? Transcendentally, which is more important to you?
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's the service part.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'd say.
- ABArthur Brooks
Okay, good. We're getting someplace.
- SBSteven Bartlett
'Cause that gives me all my, that gives me all my-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... worth, right?
- ABArthur Brooks
But the more you focus on that, the better it gets.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
Now we uncovered that. So now thinking about that, you put the order of operations into the podcast and say did it, does it serve?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Is that guest gonna serve? Is this question gonna serve? Is this show gonna serve? Is this sponsor-
- 43:48 – 50:58
Finding Purpose and Link to Unhappiness
- SBSteven Bartlett
kids in particular messaging me on Instagram with the same question, which is... I think society, Instagram quotes, all of that stuff, has told them that they need to find their purpose. And it seems that they're in hunt of their purpose-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... like it's some Easter egg. Um, a- and you think about that phrase itself, "find your purpose," it comes loaded with two assumptions. Find, which means you've got to go search for it. And purpose, which is a singular word-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... means there's one of them somewhere. And the unhappiness that I sense because they are unable to find this Easter egg somewhere that they've been searching for causes them to feel all kinds of inadequacy. What do you say to that?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, well part of it is because that's the, what we call in, in business the go-find-a-rock theory of leadership, where the, the CEO says to an employee, "Go get me a rock." "Wait, what?" "Go get me a rock." "Okay." So you go outside and you bring a rock back in, and the boss says, "Wrong rock." That's not helpful, right? That's go find your purpose. That's the go-find-a-rock theory of leadership. It's like, "What rock? How... Where do I look?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
"The world is full of rocks." That's why you need to be a lot more specific in figuring out deeply why you believe you're walking the earth, why you actually are alive, besides just the mechanical, you know, explanation for what we understand in, you know, 10th grade biology. The real why, the deep why you're alive. And, and think really, I mean if with push came to shove, I would die for this. I actually would die for this thing. That's when you understand what your deepest values are. That's when you can actually write your mission statement. That's what it comes down to. And that's where... how people actually find as opposed to just platitudes on the internet of go find your purpose, as if... I mean, I, I spent a lot of time in Dharamsala, in, in the Himalayan foothills. This is where the Dalai Lama lives, in, in, um, in northern India. And, uh, well, I mean, and Dharamsala was a little village until the Dalai Lama went there about 1960 when he was exiled from China, when he was kicked out of Tibet. And now it's not a metropolis, but there's tons of people there. And there's a l- I mean, a lot of Westerners there. They're seekers. I'm a seeker, man.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm. Gosh, yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, I'm a seeker-
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm thought as well.
- ABArthur Brooks
... and so I'm gonna go to a place where I feel like there's a, a lot of positive spiritual energy. And don't get me wrong, I mean, I've, you know... I've studied meditation with the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Buddhist monks. I mean, it's like I'm, I'm a much better Catholic on the basis of this.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
I feel like I'm a, I'm a, I'm a deeper Christian on the basis of this. But the idea of just going some place and, and, and randomly looking, uh, uh, hoping that your purpose just hunts you down is misguided. You have to have a much better, more specific sense of what you're looking for. And these things, coherence, significance, and purpose as part of meaning are the way to do it. And those two questions are a good way at least to get started.
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's gonna be a huge gr- you know, group of people that are listening to this and thinking, "Do you know what? I don't have anything that I would die for, and I don't really know why I'm alive."
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"And that's just made me feel like-"
- ABArthur Brooks
That's hugely good news. It's incredibly good news, because that's the basis of your adventure is to find those things. 'Cause in point of fact, there are things out there. You just don't know them yet, and you haven't been looking for them. You've been... Who knows what you've been looking for? Like, maybe you've been looking for what I like, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why is that wrong?
- ABArthur Brooks
There's nothing wrong, but it's just not gonna find... it's not gonna be the secret of finding your meaning. You know, what I enjoy is a different pillar of happiness. A lot of people will say, "If I figure out what I enjoy, then I'll find my meaning." No, those are different... there's a different... You're over on that branch of the tree. You're trying to get over on this branch of the tree, different questions.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I'm that person. Say I'm that person now, and I don't have answers to either. You tell me it's, that's a great place to be 'cause it means the start of my adventure.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What do I do? Put my shoes on and leave the house? What, what...
- ABArthur Brooks
Jo- so there's a, a lot of different protocols you can actually start de- depending on where, where you are in your life. One of the things that I actually recommend is reading more. Not reading garbage and dumb stuff, not even reading the news. I put people on a protocol of 15 minutes a day of, of, of real reading. Actually, there's a three-part plan. You wanna hear the three-part plan to actually start figuring out the answers to these questions?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
You don't have to answer the questions directly, but number one is start thinking to yourself, "What do I think is right and wrong? What are my moral principles? What are my moral non-negotiables?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's the moral basis of living. It's the foundation of actually figuring out the answers to your questions.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So for me, that might be, I think, like free speech is important, for example.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- 50:58 – 1:00:14
The Power of Meditation
- SBSteven Bartlett
and agency. Because if I know that that is bad, but I can't seem to stop myself doing it-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I'm telling myself that I'm low agency and I'm helpless.
- ABArthur Brooks
I'm a victim of my own sin.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
I'm a victim of my own weakness. I'm a victim of my own impulses. And so this is one of the reasons that people will be like, "I hate how I eat."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
What are they actually saying? They're not saying that, "I, I hate..." You know, I mean, like I, I'm a sugar fiend. I love, I just can't get enough of it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
I don't drink alcohol, but I drink, I eat tons of sugar.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
I eat lots of sugar. I shouldn't do it. Now, it doesn't offend my sense of propriety, to be sure, right? But I could get to the point where I'm so unhealthy that I hate that about myself because I'm actually hurting myself, but I'm being controlled by my impulses. This getting in line with your own views and making a plan, and this is where the New Year's resolutions about taking off the weight actually m- makes sense, because it's not about the ab veins. It's about being morally consistent with your own view of the person that you want to be, is what this comes down. But you can't do it till you lay it out, until you actually put it in black and white. Write down your moral philosophy. I don't care how dumb it is. Write down your moral philosophy and say, make a plan to start living according to it. That's the base of the pyramid. There's two other parts, okay? The second part is a contemplative tradition, is contemplation. You need more contemplation so that you can experience transcendence. Now, there's a bunch of different ways to do this, right? Um, this is why everybody wants to do mindfulness meditation. That's all that is, is basically is sitting still without your phone and, and, and focusing on being alive. So, and there are a lot of ways to do it. There's informal ways to do it. My colleague Ellen Langer, have you had her on the show?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No.
- ABArthur Brooks
Super interesting person. She actually was the one who brought the concept of mindfulness to the West about 30 years ago.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- ABArthur Brooks
She wrote a book called Mindfulness. She's a, she was the first woman tenured in the psychology department at Harvard.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- ABArthur Brooks
She's phenomenal. And she's just absolutely first rate. And, and she says that mindfulness is best practiced if you're sitting on the train by putting away your phone, putting your hands in your lap, and looking out the window.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can they listen to this podcast while they do that? Because-
- ABArthur Brooks
No. (laughs) You should listen to the podcast, but not during those periods.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABArthur Brooks
And start with five minutes of a, of, of just simple contemplation of life. Now, there are other ways to do it. Prayer is a really good way to do it too. Religious traditions are excellent at doing it. But people in a distracted world don't do that at all. You need to be in your head. You need to stop distracting yourself and systematically stop distracting yourself, because in your default mode network, you'll actually start to think about things that actually matter, including the things that are in the fundamental moral basis that you've, that you've started to formulate. You need contemplation.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was thinking about this last night. I, I don't know why I was thinking about this, but this is how weird I am. I was thinking about why I don't pray anymore-
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... because I grew up in a Christian faith until the age of about 18. And we-
- ABArthur Brooks
Are you still a Christian?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And every time we had dinner for my whole childhood, the family sit around the table, one of us would ha- would pray, and we'd just be- basically give thanks for things we're, you know, grateful for.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- 1:00:14 – 1:04:49
Personality Types
- SBSteven Bartlett
a mad scientist earlier.
- ABArthur Brooks
I'd have to take the test. Did, did you take it?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think you, I think you nailed it.
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think you nailed it. (laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, most likely, yeah. It's a-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which is a, which appears in your book, in the, the section about the unique, n- sort of unique mix of, um, happiness, unhappiness, and you talk about this PANAS score system. What are these categories and why did you call me a mad scientist?
- ABArthur Brooks
So the PANAS test is in the book, and it's actually on the website, um, at arthurbrooks.com where anybody can take it for free. It's a, it's a personality test based on the intensity of your positive and negative affect, AKA mood.Everybody's got more or less the same emotions. Everybody feels joy and interest, and surprise, and anger, and sadness, and disgust, and- and- and fear. But we have them in different intensities depending on who we are. And there's really four kinds of people with these different intensities. There are some people that have very high affect. High positive affect, they have r- high highs and high negative affect, low lows. These are mad scientists. It's a quarter of the population. Now, by construction, it's a quarter of the population because it's above average on both.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Then there are people who are high highs and low lows. I mean, I should say that they have intense positive emotion but- but weak negative emotion, right? These are cheerleaders.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, so they have...
- ABArthur Brooks
They feel their positive affect very intensely and their negative affect very weakly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, okay, so they're like always happy.
- ABArthur Brooks
They're not always happy, but they tend to- they tend to be in a better mood-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABArthur Brooks
... and see the brighter side of things.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I know what you mean. Right.
- ABArthur Brooks
They tend to downgrade threats and think everything is gonna be okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's a quarter of the population.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And everybody wants to be that, by the way, but that's not necessarily the best way to be in. They don't make the best CEOs because they're- they have a hard time paying attention to threats, they don't want bad news, and they have a terrible time giving bad news or giving people bad evaluations. So working for a CEO who's a cheerleader is great for a minute, but then it starts to become very frustrating because you hear him telling the- a- the incompetent idiot in the cubicle next to you that- that she's doing an u- an unbelievably good job.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Ah, okay, those types.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right? And so you, I mean, you- you gotta be realistic to be a good CEO. I mean, you're an entrepreneur. You know perfectly there's lots of threats out there. You've got to take 'em seriously.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
So then there are people who are high negative, low positive. These are poets. These are people who, generally speaking, there's a place in the limbic system called the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. That's the part that makes you a ruminator. Ruminators are people who, this part of the brain is- is- part of the brain is dedicated to making you go (mimics engine revving) on problems and negative things and regret, and that, "I can't believe that I said that thing. I feel so stupid for saying that thing. And what does she really think of me?" Et cetera, et cetera. It's also the part of the brain that you use when you're highly creative.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Comedians? (laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. You know, I- I pal around with a guy named Rainn Wilson-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
... who was in the American version of The Office. He played Dwight.
- 1:04:49 – 1:08:21
Finding the Right Partner That Compliments You
- SBSteven Bartlett
I resonate with the most, and I do describe myself as being a bit intense.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
My team know me. I think I'm, I think I come across as a bit intense.
- ABArthur Brooks
What's your girlfriend?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm gonna say that she is a ch- cheerleader.
- ABArthur Brooks
Ah, I'm married to a cheerleader.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, really?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. And what you find is that cheerleaders, they can- they can have the best of times, but cheerleaders tend to be, struggle with the mad scientist.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
Right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sure.
- ABArthur Brooks
It's like, like, "Why, like, everything is so great for you. Why are you gloomy?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
You know? It's like, "Why can't you look on the bright side of things? Like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
... why are you grouchy all the time? What's wrong with you, Steve?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's like, there's a spelling mistake on our- (laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
I know. It's just-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like, why- why is that bothering you, like?
- ABArthur Brooks
Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. So that's- that's a classic thing. Everybody can be with everybody else, but the c- compliments are really important. The biggest mistake that people make in dating markets is they look for their- their op- they look for the- their- their doppelganger. They look for their clone. You shouldn't look for your clone. You should look for your compliment.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- ABArthur Brooks
Because you'll be happier when you complete each other. That's when people who complete each other, you find that very happy marriages often happen between an introvert and an extrovert if they learn to appreciate each other. So it's not, you know, hammer and tongs all the time for the differences. But when people... For example, one of the reasons that dating apps are so unsuccessful for giving people, you know, satisfactory dating experiences, people have more and more and more choice, but they're more likely to say they're not satisfied with the people they're dating and not attracted to the people that they're dating. It's because they'll set up a dating profile saying, "I vote this way. I like this music. I live here. I like these things. I want somebody with these preferences." And they get somebody who's their sibling, which is-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
... as my adult children will remind is, "Not hot."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
Difference is hot.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's so true, because I never would've said I want someone that is spiritual, um, that is really involved in spirituality and believes in things that you just can't see. My girlfriend believes in all the chakras and these energies-
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and she'll re- and she just believes in it all. And it's funny because I never would've said that's what I wanted, but I absolutely love it.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- 1:08:21 – 1:10:25
How Your Brain Works When You’re in Love
- ABArthur Brooks
I mean that somebody who's really in love, uh, has brain activity that looks an awful lot like a methamphetamine addict's brain scan. I mean, your brain is... If you're at a certain point in the falling in love process, your brain is captured. So I mean, at the beginning when people meet, there's a, there's a hormonal, um, reaction with testosterone and estrogen, which are, you know, sex hormones, obviously. And you know, when people see somebody who's really attractive, that's why they, they want to look attractive because that's the, that's the ignition mechanism that typically happens. After that, you see a big, uh, increase in, in noradrenaline, AKA nor- um, epinephrine and dopamine levels. So you have anticipation of reward and euphoria. That's sort of the second line of things that tend to happen in this chemical cascade that's going on when you're falling in love. After that, you see a dip in serotonin, which is really interesting. So serotonin we think about as the, as the neuromodulator of, of peace and happiness, which is what a lot of the psychiatric drugs are trying to manipulate when, when they feel that it's an imbalance. So people who are clinically depressed will often get selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, meaning that you maintain a higher level of serotonin. And that's all really controversial still, I mean, because we don't really understand it very well, but we do know that when people are falling in love that they're more likely to be ruminative and infatuated. Remember that part of the brain, the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex that does rumination?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yup.
- ABArthur Brooks
It'll be more active when serotonin is low. And so serotonin will be low so you start ruminating on the other person. That's when the infatuation part of the relationship really kicks in. And then you get to the point of attachment, which is, which is invol- which involves oxytocin, which is a neuropeptide that functions as a hormone that makes you attached to the other person, very profoundly attached to the other person, as intensely pleasurable. So it's like... (makes sound effects) And the longer you let it go, the harder it is for your brain not to be really, really captured. You wouldn't go to a methamphetamine addict and say, "Why did you buy methamphetamine? That's illegal." They'll be like, "Duh, I'm an a- I'm an addict. I'm a junkie." It's the same thing as when somebody's sleeping with a subordinate.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are people that are in love and
- 1:10:25 – 1:12:12
Does Being in Love Make Us Happier?
- SBSteven Bartlett
in relationships happier statistically?
- ABArthur Brooks
No, on the contrary, because being in love, especially in the early stages of being in love, is not associated with what we would associate with actual happiness. Because it has jealousy, tons of jealousy, which is, you know, the rumination part. When your serotonin levels are really low, it's hard for you to say, "Oh, it feels so great." You feel euphoric and you like it in its own way, but if you kept that, if you stayed in that stage, you'd go out of your mind and you'd be miserable because there's jealousy, there's surveillance behaviors are really common. And you know, there's no- nobody would say that when I'm surveilling my intimate partner, that's when I'm happiest. Nobody likes that, but, but people tend to do that because you're, there's, a lot of your brain is basically saying, "I'm trying to figure out if this is somebody who's going to betray me," back to evolution. Is this somebody who's going to wander off and raise somebody else's kids? Is this somebody who's going to be, when I don't know it, carrying somebody else's baby? Which is how men and women actually, they tend to express their sexual jealousy in those two... Interesting, there's a guy at, um, University of Texas at Austin that studies jealousy. The most jealousy provoking thing for men is an image of their intimate partner having sex with somebody else. For women, it's an image of their intimate partner saying, "I love you" to somebody else. And the reason is because traditionally or evolutionarily, women have to be worried that their partner is going to take, go take care of somebody else's children. And men have to be worried that they're not the actual father of the children, which according to some estimates is 15% of paternity which is misattributed worldwide.
Episode duration: 1:29:04
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode qRY-foz-ZAw
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome