EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,024 words- 0:00 – 2:40
Arthur Brooks
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
There are three macronutrients to the happiest life. The happiest people have enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three macronutrients. Now, that's important because it means you need to enjoy your life and, and you need to know the difference between enjoyment and pleasure [laughs] which many people don't. I mean, the pursuit of pleasure is not the secret to happiness. It's the secret to rehab. Satisfaction, which is the joy of an accomplishment or an activity after struggle, and last but not least is meaning, the why of your existence. The happiest people have a bead on those three things, and they pursue those three things really, really actively. Now, inside all three of those things, there's this funny thing called unhappiness.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Inside each of the macronutrients of happiness, you find discontent and frustration and a lot of suffering. If you spend your life, which many people do today, trying to avoid unhappiness, trying to avoid and eliminate suffering, they will paradoxically miss their own happiness.
- AHAndrew Huberman
[Instrumental music] Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Arthur Brooks. Arthur Brooks is a professor at Vanderbilt University and a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School. Today, we discuss what makes people truly happy and what this thing we call happiness is really all about. What I love about Arthur Brooks, and what you'll realize today, is that he looks to experimental data, philosophy, his and others' experiences to arrive at specific questions that you can ask yourself to determine what matters most to you and what stands in the way of you actually getting those things. In fact, I must say, this episode with Arthur Brooks is one of my favorite ever on the Huberman Lab Podcast. He is brutally honest, he's open, he's generous with knowledge that can help you, the listener, and he's incredibly humble. Thanks to Arthur, the conversation you're about to hear is one that I'm confident you'll want to think about, act on, and come back to periodically. I can say for myself with certainty that it's the conversation I wish I had heard long ago. Arthur doesn't have all the answers, nor does he claim to, but I do think he has a sort of hard-earned compass and a set of maps that we can all apply to have a much better, and indeed, a great life. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my conversation with Dr. Arthur Brooks.
- 2:40 – 4:18
Public Science Education
- AHAndrew Huberman
Dr. Arthur Brooks, welcome.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Thank you, Dr. Andrew Huberman.
- AHAndrew Huberman
[laughs] We only call each other doctor once at the beginning of this podcast.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm so happy you're here.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Me too.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, I consider you a friend.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And, um, before we became friends, uh, you were already my teacher. I, I was learning a ton from you. You have a, a ton of wisdom, and before you, like, step into your humble self and-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
[laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
... push it aside, I just really wanna highlight that because, um, there, there are a lot of people influencing, educating-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
[laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, advising, coaching, et cetera, but, uh, y- you represent, like, really the, the confluence of, of ideas and practices and wisdom in ways that I and, and people can really understand and benefit from. So really looking forward to-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Thank you
- AHAndrew Huberman
... having you here. Welcome.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Thank you likewise.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
I mean, what you've done over the past now five and a half years with this podcast-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Just about, yeah
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... you changed the whole way that educators can reach a lot of people. What we want as educators, science in the public interest, we wanna touch people's lives, we wanna lift them up and bling, bring them together using science, using ideas, and how? How? How do you do that? You show the way, because what you did was you started this podcast. Within six months it was a big deal, and what you showed was a whole generation of people, younger and older than you, I'm, I'm older than you, that this is something that people can do, that we can reach people. You made that possible. You made that possible for me. It was an incredible gift.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh, well, I'm honored, and, um, thank you. Um, I realize today that perhaps the toughest part about this conversation is gonna be make sure that I keep you focused on you a little bit.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You're so humble, and, uh, but I appreciate the kind words, and I consider us colleagues-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and friends. So
- 4:18 – 7:44
Happiness, Unhappiness, Tool: 3 Macronutrients of Happiness
- AHAndrew Huberman
you're known as, uh, the happiness guy.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know a lot about it, what it is and what it isn't.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So let's start with, um, first principles there that people can really wrap their head around and apply. Uh, what's the difference between unhappiness and happiness, or is that even the right model?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Most people start with the wrong model of what happiness actually is. So you can't define unhappiness until you can define happiness, and happiness is not what most people think. Most people conceive of happiness as a feeling, as, as an emotion, and that's quite wrong, in the same way that the smell of your turkey is not the same thing as your Thanksgiving dinner. The smell of the turkey is evidence of your Thanksgiving dinner, and the feelings of happiness are evidence of happiness. And w- when I first came into the field, I mean, I've been a behavioral scientist for 30 years, but I started specializing in the science of human happiness exclusively. I wrote the first book of mine on this in 2008, but, but I decided in 2019, after I took a hiatus from academia to go run a big think tank in Washington, D.C., that I was gonna specialize for the rest of my career in this thing that most people believe they wanted. I was gonna really make it, make it work. And it was, of course, happiness. People want to be happier, and the first thing that I realized is w- there wasn't a very good definition of happiness-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... which is so crazy, the thing that everybody wants, they can't quite define it. "Uh, I can't put words to it, but I know it when I feel it."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
This is what I would get when I would ask my classes, "So what do you think you're studying?" Or, "It's how I feel when I'm with the people that I love or, or, or doing the things that I enjoy." And I recognized that this would be completely inadequate in any other area of science. And so I went back to try to find the right metaphor, the right parallel field to define happiness, and I felt that the field of nutrition did it really well. By taking food and breaking it into macronutrients and micronutrients. So I asked myself, okay, what are the macronutrients of happiness? What are the fundamental elemental building blocks of happiness? And to figure that out, you go and you look at the people who have the highest life satisfaction that's measured in robust and proper ways, good construct validity, good science behind it. And what you find is, doing kind of a factor analysis, is that there are three macronutrients to the happiest life. The happiest people have enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three macronutrients. Now, that's important because it means you need to enjoy your life and, and you need to know the difference between enjoyment and pleasure [laughs] which many people don't. I mean, the pursuit of pleasure is not the secret to happiness. It's the secret to rehab, right? [laughs] And so, so you have to understand-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Amen
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... right?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Um, for sure. And, uh, um, a satisfaction, which is the joy of an accomplishment or an activity after struggle, and last but not least, is meaning. The why of your existence. The happiest people have a bead on those three things, and they pursue those three things really, really actively. Now, inside all three of those things, there's this funny thing called unhappiness.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Inside each of the macronutrients of happiness, you find discontent and frustration and a lot of suffering. And so the first, or I should say the second, uh, uh, misunderstanding about happiness is that it's incompatible with unhappiness. It's not. If you spend your life, which many people do today, trying to avoid unhappiness, trying to avoid and eliminate suffering, they will paradoxically miss their own happiness. So that's the first thing to understand.
- 7:44 – 17:35
#1: Enjoyment, Pleasure; Animal Impulses vs Moral Aspirations; Exercise
- AHAndrew Huberman
Could you drill a little bit deeper into enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And maybe just put some contour on each of those.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Sure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And we'll go back to unhappiness and suffering-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and how it relates to all three.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
For sure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
So, so enjoyment, um, is very much related to pleasure, but pleasure is fundamentally a limbic phenomenon. I mean, just if you, if you touch in experiments, you've done these, you've seen these experiments forever, the, the ventral striatum or the ventral tegmental area, you can get this inc- you can get the stimulation of these parts of the brain that will give you the sense of ebullience, the sense of, you know, immediate joy from anything from your girlfriend saying, "Andrew, I love you," or a big bump of cocaine. Not that you would. Because the brain is so unbelievably thrifty, right? That's not part of happiness.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
That's a phenomenon from sort of the Pleistocene brain-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... from something, the middle Pleistocene, what, 250,000 years ago-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hm
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... saying, "That's rewards you. Go get more of that"-
- AHAndrew Huberman
[laughs]
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... is kinda [laughs] what it comes down to. You don't wanna have that as your goal in life. I mean, like the hippies used to say, "If it feels good, do it." My dad said that's the end of America. [laughs] He was kinda right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I think your dad and my dad either were friends... I don't think we have the same dad, but, um-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
[laughs] Separated at birth
- AHAndrew Huberman
... yeah, my dad and I [laughs] yeah. No disrespect to the hippies, uh, but my dad had very clear thoughts about-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... how the children of people with that mindset were, um, at a disadvantage because of that message-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... specifically.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
What will happen, of course, very quickly is that your pleasures, which are fundamentally animal, I mean, your, your, your, your dog, your beautiful new dog, friendly new dog that I just met, he has a limbic system not that different than yours-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... and he feels emotions that are not that different than yours, right?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
I mean, the, there's, uh, he has amygdala, amygdalae, you know, he has a dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. He has a ventral striatum. I mean, he's got all these different parts and just kind of like we do, but he's not human because he's managed largely by these emotions.
- 17:35 – 20:41
Sponsors: OurPlace & Helix Sleep
- AHAndrew Huberman
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- 20:41 – 26:45
Positive Self-Reflection, Public Commitments & Declare Moral Aspiration
- AHAndrew Huberman
off. I've got this statement that, um, you just mentioned r- like ringing in my ears in, in the best way, which is that you're saying, uh, this moral aspiration piece is, uh, has a lot to do with or reflects doing, uh, what you want to see yourself doing. I really like that because I think for many people, um, they want to see themselves doing things that others would approve of. Right. And from a young age, we're told what we should do and why, right? You need to like get dressed up for this event, or you need to, you know, sit a certain way, eat a certain way, be polite and these things, which are all important parts of our training- Right ... as humans. Right. But there's something really special that happens when we s- uh, as you point out, when we see ourselves doing something- Right ... and it feels good and we... It's a positive self-reflection o- of a non-egotistical kind. Mm-hmm. Right? And I don't think we talk enough about this because there's so much out there now about how social media is all about comparisons, so people are showing other people, "Here's what I'm doing." Uh-huh. But there's a different version of that where somebody does something that they're proud of and puts it to the internet and they're seeing themselves do something that they're proud of doing. Right. And they get the feedback and, you know, provided that their ego is in check and they don't let the positive comments go to their head or set them up for disappointment when they don't get as many of them the next time [laughs] - Right ... are things that are wired into those reinforcement circuits. Right. I think that's great. Yeah. They're seeing themselves- Right ... exercising, oh, 'cause by the way, it could be painting, it could be time with family, it could be being in volunteer and service, and we tend to look at that stuff and say, "Oh, you know, they- they're just doing the display." So my- Mm-hmm ... question is to really get the ideal match between this, uh, animal impulse and, and moral aspirations piece that we see ourselves and experience ourselves doing what we want to see ourselves doing, and that we not share it, because I'm open to the idea that the sharing diminishes it somehow. It can. Um, yeah. It can. But fundamentally, I think it's actually quite important that you declare what your moral aspirations are. Mm-hmm. And part of the reason is because this gives you a commitment bias. Mm-hmm. So there's a lot of behavioral science about that, a lot of psychology that actually talks about commitments bias. When you say, "Here's the thing that I'm actually gonna do. I'm gonna finish my PhD," right? This is a big part of weddings. I- Yeah ... attended a lot of weddings- [laughs] ... and it's kind of an amazing- Yeah ... thing, this wedding ceremony. Yeah. Makes you path dependent towards your own aspirations. People stand up and give a bunch of really amazing promises- Right ... in front of all their friends- Right ... and then they get a bunch of gifts, and the, they're... I'm not cynical about this at all. Like from a reward pathway perspective- Right ... it's like you're rewarding the promises that they're making- Right ... in addition to the union that they're in right then. Right. A lot of the reward is like you're giving them things for their life going forward. Forward. Sadly, I have a number of friends who've been divorced and they, depending on how long ago the wedding was, they often feel quite sheepish about all the gifts. I know. Like what, they got all these gifts for- I know ... the promises they made. Now they've changed their mind. Right. Some cases broken those promises, but they've changed their mind.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? It's not till death do us part.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's now until it got inconvenient enough that we're gonna part ways. [laughs]
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right. [laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
And it's an incredible m- still occurring kind of ancient display of promising publicly, "I'm not going to quit."
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. No, totally.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
This is the, this is my person through thick and thin, through sickness and in health, and all the things that you actually talk about. You're actually talking ... I- in the, in the wedding promises, you're saying, "It's gonna suck sometimes." That's what you're saying. I mean, it's like richer and poorer.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And we're gonna stick this thing out despite the fact that we're, we're stating right up front that there's gonna be times of poverty, there's gonna be times of sickness, there's gonna be, there's gonna be trouble ahead. And that's basically saying that happiness has unhappiness in it. I'm defining happiness. How am I defining happiness? That I'm gonna get 80, 90 years, and as I take my dying breath, I'm gonna be looking ... I'm like Don Quixote, and this is my Dulcinea. And I'm gonna be l- I'm gonna be, uh, looking into her eyes as I, as I recite the holy scriptures and take my dying breath. That's basically what you're saying, and you're defining that as your bliss. I mean, if it weren't your bliss, you'd be like, "Well, why are you doing it?" I want it, because that's a good life. That's what you're stating. And you're, and, and you're laying out what actually happiness looks for. And you're saying it's gonna be full of unhappiness. That's what you're saying, and that's the thing for people to understand, that that's what it comes down to. When you are laying out publicly your moral commitments, when you're actually saying this, what you're saying is you're recognizing that happiness and unhappiness are intertwined, and you want the full ... You're li- you're basically saying, "Bring it on."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
It's like courage.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
It's a declaration of, of your independence from the world, and your dependence on each other. Which is a beautiful thing. It's what you do when you're publicly baptized as an adult. Any time that you're taken into a new religion, there's always these commitments about these moral aspirations that you're making, recognizing, yeah, sometimes this is gonna go contrary to my animal impulses, absolutely. And you know, this is one of the things that I love about sort of the modern internet culture. There's a lot to regret. There's a lot that you and I look at and we're like, "Oh, man," you know? [laughs] But the, the other thing I really, really like is this facilitated this wholesale movement of aspiration for excellence.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
A lot of people, they wanna be excellent.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
You know, it's like w- w- w- I mean, so this isn't just ... The Heroine Podcast is not just entertainment, high-class entertainment. People want an edge. They wanna know. You know, why, why, why are they so attracted to the protocols? Protocols toward what? Toward being better. They wanna be more successful. They wanna be better liked. They want things to go better for them. That's a, that's a human drive for excellence. And when people can finally make peace with the fact that your animal impulses will not gen- j- will not always and frequently not lead you to excellence, then you can finally be free.
- 26:45 – 34:02
Moral Differences, Politics
- AHAndrew Huberman
Do you think that a lot of the friction out there, um, politically, uh, socially, is basically about drawing the line between what is animal impulse and what is moral aspiration?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I mean, I don't wanna take us too far down the rabbit-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
No, tell me more. What do you mean?
- AHAndrew Huberman
I mean, some of the animal impulses are obvious, right?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, and they're all, for the neurobiologist we would say they're very, like, limbic hypothalamic-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... right? But, you know, some people would say, okay, like, here's the quote, unquote, "traditional model of marriage and, um, and morality."
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And some people would say, "Actually, we wanna kinda bend that a certain way where, um, people could have quote, unquote, 'unconventional relationships' or unconventional families or ... " I mean, I think everyone would agree that li- lying, cheating, and stealing is bad.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? But there's a, an attempt I think to draw a kinda jagged line between moral and immoral that, you know, s- certain things that are not o- of biblical traditional morality are okay because as long as they're done consensually and in the, and in the name of love.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? And we're not talking about breaking laws here.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
No, no.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Although some people really push this to the extreme, but that's not what I'm talking about.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
I know, I know. But that's, that's, that's marginal, right?
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I'm, and I'm, and I'm staying off pr- uh, specific issues not, not to be, like, politically careful here, but just because I feel like a lot of it is like where are we gonna draw the line between limbic and-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... higher order? In fact, it gets, it actually gets inverted where people will say, no, the, the more evolved way of thinking is past all that.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Where y- you can really get beyond this, this, this very, uh, you know, black and white morality and really say, "No, there's all sorts of versions of, of what-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, love, family, marriage, commitment, um, child rearing-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... could look like."
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Pontius Pilate, what is truth?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right. Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right? It's very post-modern.
- 34:02 – 41:47
Tool: Proper Leisure & Values; Enrichment
- AHAndrew Huberman
Let's talk a little bit about...
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
We've gone through one macronutrient.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right, one macronutrient.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
[laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
What exercises do you suggest to, um, students to start to explore their own relationship between animal impulse-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and moral aspiration?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. So one of the things that I talk about is, is how they understand leisure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
So leisure is what you do and they're not compensating you for in the time that's actually free. How you understand leisure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
So, and, and, and the, the greatest writer about this is Josef Pieper, the, the mid-20th century German philosopher. His most important book was Leisure: The Basis of Culture.
- AHAndrew Huberman
[laughs]
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
That's his mo- his most inflecting... It's actually a long essay.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
It's very, very beautiful. He says, "I can tell you everything you need to know about a culture by how they actually use leisure."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Interesting.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
He doesn't want to know what you do for money. He wants to know how you use your time when nobody's paying you. That's... 'Cause he says that's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Brilliant
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... what reflects who you actually are.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Brilliant.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right?
- AHAndrew Huberman
That's why I never liked the, oh, you can tell by the books on somebody's shelf.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
'Cause books on somebody's shelf doesn't mean they actually read those books, firstly.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
No, no. 'Cause they own those books.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right. Exactly.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
[laughs] Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That would-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Many people own my books who haven't read them. [laughs]
- 41:47 – 48:50
Deepening Relationships & Shared Suffering
- AHAndrew Huberman
pausing, um, because I, I have so many ... questions about this, but I wanna make sure we touch on the other macronutrients.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
'Cause otherwise I, I'm gonna, um, I'm gonna encourage you to give a, a tutorial on how to really, uh, maximize every single choice in-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... not just my life, but the listeners' lives.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
This is enjoyment protocols.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
We should have leisure protocols.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Absolutely.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Abso- You know, the, we all know that, like, one of the major pillars is social connection and relationships.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
But the idea that leisure is, is part of that-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... n- uh, as a substrate for enriching those is obvious once we hear it.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But it reframes everything. If, um, exercising with somebody, you know-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm-hmm
- AHAndrew Huberman
... turns out to be a way you deepen the relationship, which actually has been my experience with a lot of male friends, frankly.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, totally
- AHAndrew Huberman
... one of the best ways to get to know somebody in my experience is to have an intellectual conversation with them, like really deep dive with them.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Uh-huh
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or to go-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Lift
- AHAndrew Huberman
... do something difficult. Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
[laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, yeah. Rob, our produ- uh, my producer and close, close friend, he's sitting to my left right now, I mean, one of the first things we ever did was, like, go for a run where he kicked my butt. And I-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And by the way, a Vanderbilt graduate.
- 48:50 – 50:08
Sponsor: AG1
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 just launched their newest formulation, called AG1 Pro, and right now you can get an extra 20% off your first subscription. AG1 takes the clinically backed AG1 formula, which is a blend of vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens, and adds three important new ingredients: creatine monohydrate, calcium HMB, and zinc carnosine. It has five grams of creatine monohydrate to support muscle strength and performance, along with brain health, calcium HMB to support muscle recovery and reduce muscle breakdown, and zinc carnosine to support and improve the lining of your gut. Some of these ingredients I personally was already taking separate from the AG1 formula, so it's great to see all three of them now in the new AG1 Pro. As you may know, I've been taking AG1 every single day for about 14 years now. That means I discovered it and started taking it daily long before I even knew what a podcast was. I continue to take it and back it here on the podcast because it is an excellent formula, and it's now even better with the AG1 Pro formula. For a limited time, you can get an extra 20% off your first subscription to AG1 Pro by going to drinkag1.com/huberman and using the code BACK2ROUTINE, so that's with a numeral 2, BACK, numeral 2, ROUTINE. Just go to drinkag1.com/huberman.
- 50:08 – 56:32
#2: Satisfaction, Struggle & Purpose
- AHAndrew Huberman
So we have the second chapter in the book that maybe we write together.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Although you're the real writer. I confess I, I, I g- yet to decide I'm a writer. Which is-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
But you're good at what you do, man [laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh, thanks, man. Appreciate it. One will be- one chapter will be on leisure.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You've told us that how one spends their-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... leisure time is a, is a critical window into self, and-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, and the other, uh, would be to how to suffer more-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in, in pursuit of moral aspiration.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But also how to experience pleasure-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in pursuit of moral aspiration.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
For sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we've gotten through enjoyment.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. Let's, uh, uh, let's talk about, uh, satisfaction.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? Because, because it sounds similar, but it sounds, like, deeper, more pervasive-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... more, like, in, out of... D- define satisfaction.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. So I mean, again, and the, the, the definition, everything is in the definitions. And, and one of the problems with happiness is that everybody can... They define it in different ways, and et cetera.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
So I, I try to stay out of the linguistic wars.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And-
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's like consciousness.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. [laughs]
- 56:32 – 1:03:26
Struggle & Leisure, High Achievers; Happier with Age, Retirement
- AHAndrew Huberman
A few years ago, I was out a lot on the internet saying, you know, dopamine that comes without effort before it is, is very pernicious. And, um-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. So true
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I stand behind that. But some people, like, took the interpretation too far, i- in part in an attempt to malign me, which is fine. Like, you know, I'm out there.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
You're a public figure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know? Yeah, sure. That, that comes with the territory. But th- it, it, it sort of implied... I didn't have the language for it, but now I do thanks to you. It sort of implied that I don't believe in leisure.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I don't want to return us to the first macronutrient, um, in a way that distracts us, but I think this is appropriate now. So of course leisure is great, but I would say leisure is way better when you've been working hard. And, and so if you've been working hard towards something that has its own intrinsic reward, you, the work itself can become intrinsically rewarding, or not.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, there are a lot of things I did in graduate school that I absolutely loved the process.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And there were some of them that, like, the only word for it is it sucked.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It just, it sucked. All-nighters, like, two days recording experiments and, like, just, like, breathing all that isofluorine-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
I know
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in the room, and the... It was just, it was like, it sucked. But it... And it was awesome. But there are forms of leisure, like on those Fridays when we would finish those experiments, I would drive out to this, um, this f- this orchard outside of Davis where I did graduate school, to Winters, and I would just... This was before phones. I would just listen to music in-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... my car, and I just felt like, I felt like I'd been transported in time.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
That's right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I felt connected to all the people who had worked a hard week and then were just listening-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to music in their car.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And then eventually my girlfriend and I would drive out there, and now I could share that experience with her, and she was a scientist and working really, really hard too, um, arguably even harder than I was, uh, 'cause the experiment she was doing took, took a l- yet another level of, of, um, persistence that, really remarkable. So it's not that I'm saying that effort has to be there before dopamine is like, means you're a one-track, like, self-optimization junkie.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's just an important pie slice in-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in being a, like, a good human being-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in my opinion.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- 1:03:26 – 1:10:10
#3: Meaning, Regret, Idols
- AHAndrew Huberman
so many articles out there and websites and blogs that are like, "The six things that people say on their death bed."
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Nobody says, "I wish I worked more." Da, da, da.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I don't know. My dad, he's in his early 80s and he's still rocking, and he loves his work.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And he loves his wife.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And he loves his kids.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And he loves his coffee, and he loves his meditation.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And he loves life.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
He's a happy guy.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And he would say, like, work has been a... Like-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... he's giving, he's s- still working, consuming ideas, giving lectures. He, I think he would say he was really glad he worked as much as he did, not more than that.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But these lists to me are not useful, whether it's about work or whether it's about anything because the lists to me are really about the question when I look back on my life, I wanna be able to say blank.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, I feel like that analysis peeled back to, like, when I finish my college degree, I wanna be able to say-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... all right, that can inform some choices going forward, make good friends, got, enriched myself intellectually, et cetera, et cetera. Didn't, you know, got healthier as opposed to less healthy. You could do that, but w- it's not, I feel like it's the wrong question.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, it's the wrong thing. When I look back on my life, I went, like, how about now?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And the decisions you can make today-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... this week, this month, this year, 'cause that's how you end up in a place where, and let's face it, most likely those last moments, they could be very peaceful and beautiful. But you don't know.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- 1:10:10 – 1:11:20
Sponsor: David
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break to acknowledge one of our sponsors, David. David makes protein bars unlike any other. Their newest bar, the Bronze Bar, has 20 grams of protein, only 150 calories, and zero grams of sugar. I have to say, these are the best-tasting protein bars I've ever had, and I've tried a lot of protein bars over the years. These new David bars have a marshmallow base, and they're covered in chocolate coating, and they're absolutely incredible. I, of course, eat regular whole foods. I eat meat, chicken, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, et cetera, but I also make it a point to eat one or two David bars per day as a snack, which makes it easy to hit my protein goal of one gram of protein per pound of body weight, and that allows me to take in the protein I need without consuming excess calories. I love all the David Bronze Bar flavors, including Cookie Dough, Caramel Chocolate, Double Chocolate, Peanut Butter Chocolate. They all actually taste like candy bars. Again, they're amazing. But again, they have no sugar, and they have 20 grams of protein with just 150 calories. If you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com/huberman. Right now, David is offering a deal where if you buy four cartons, you get the fifth carton for free.
- 1:11:20 – 1:29:29
Regret, Tool: Identifying Your Idol, Four Idols
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
The way to know what your idol is, and again, what Aquinas suggests and what modern social science absolutely verifies, is that, again, nothing wrong with these things, but if you pursue this, y- this winds up being the source of your later bitterness and regret. The reason is because when you pursue these things, you're doing it at cost, and the cost is almost always love.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Love is the secret to happiness. To love and be loved is what we want, and when you pursue something that's not real, that's not alive, then you're, you're sacrificing opportunities to love and be loved, if you pursue it as a goal, per se. But when you know what your idol is, you'll still make mistakes. You're still gonna mess up. You're still gonna be miserable a lot, but y- you'll sometimes avoid the error, and which is incredibly powerful.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Great.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
So the way to play this game is to eliminate, because you always do elimination when you're trying to do these things.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
It's much more robust. It's actually better. Eliminate the idol that you don't have one by one by one. It's gonna get harder as we go along. It's gonna start off really, really easy. I can even make predictions about you-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... about what, what you would eliminate. But eliminate them until you, until you've got the last one, and that's the one that's most likely to beguile you and lead you down the wrong road. So money, resources, power, pleasure-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... fame, or adoration of other people. You- you're gonna get rid of one, and it's doesn't mean you don't have it, it just means you're the population average.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Get, get rid of one of those.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, if you got rid of money, for example, you say, "I don't care about it," that just means you're the most average American economically, which by world standards is unbelievable, and historical standards is fabulously wealthy. [laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
So you said it was money?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Power
- AHAndrew Huberman
... power.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Pleasure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And pleasure can also be comfort or security.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right? Right?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Or, and, and honor, which is prestige or fame or adoration or whatever it happens to be, or respect.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And power can be, uh, benevolent, too, right?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Totally.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
These all are... These all can be great-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Great. Yeah
- 1:29:29 – 1:35:50
Vices & Virtues, Resisting Vices & Pursuing Moral Aspirations
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
vices are our virtues.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
"When I'm weak, then I'm strong," said St. Paul the Apostle, "But also when I'm strong, then I'm weak."
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Our strengths and weaknesses are opposite sides of the same coin. The weakness that you have, the idol that you have, is also the opposite side of the greatest virtue that you possess. So that's one of the reasons that we shouldn't beat ourselves up about this.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
But we need to know what it actually is, because that's what will actually lead you astray a lot of the time.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Now, it's, it's completely different for me. I would kick out power first, control first. The second thing I'd get rid of is pleasure. I'm a protocols guy too. I'm very austere, right? I'm every day in the gym, and you know, I don't... I eat a very strict diet, and okay. The third thing I would get rid of is money, resources. It's not... I mean, and, and again, like, let's watch the comments light up. I got it.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
But what does that leave? That leaves honor.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And the truth is, I want people to love me. I want people to love me. I want this. It's so... Look, dude, I'm 62 years old, and I still want that.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It feels good when you, when you get that.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
It, but it's not even feeling good.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
It's like I'm not a human being, I'm a human doing.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
I'm trying to earn everybody's love. It's so dumb, and I recognize it. Now, that's power. Right there is power, because I know when I'm doing it, and, and, and I'm held accountable for it because my wife does not have this, absolutely have this, and she'll say, "You're doing that stupid thing again. You know, why, why would you marginalize the people that you actually love for the adoration of strangers, for Pete's sake? Why would you go do that thing that, that, you know, people really want you to do? You want it because you want people to appreciate you, is what it comes down to." And you, I say, "You're right," is the whole point. And the whole point is also that this is what I do for a living, this is what I study, and I'm weak a- and I'm frail in this particular right. And when I resist that idol, when I fight against that idol, then I choose the better path and I choose the space of moral aspiration. And that space of moral aspiration is to love and be loved. That's what the space of moral aspiration, that's where it actually takes me. To love and be loved, not by the strangers, not the prestige of the crowd, not the, the, the, the, the honor that comes from rising in the hierarchy. We're a tropical kin-based species hierarchically arranged. This, the animal impulse comes from rising in our band of 30 to 50 hunter gatherers at, you know, 250,000 [laughs] years ago.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
I mean, this is all biologically wired.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
But when I understand that, then I can actually do what the, what the, the, the, you know, that Dante in, in The Inferno, um, he, he talks, it's, it's arranged around the seven deadly sins. But he also talks about the seven, um, the heavenly virtues, you know? And so, so pride, humility, right? Envy, admiration is what it comes, you know, this. The, the heavenly virtue of this is, is, is the, of, of the four are what you really want, what you truly, deeply want in your soul. To love and be loved means that you're spending your time on your faith, the love of the divine, your family, the people that are biologically or by adoption related to you, your friends, the people that you actually choose, and serving the whole world through the way that you earn your daily bread, which is to earn your success through your work. Faith, family, friends, and work. And then only when you know that, ugh, that idol, ugh-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... you can pivot to the thing that, that your soul actually wants.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
The thing that you actually hunger for. And that's where real satisfaction comes in. That's where you gain the satisfaction that you always wanted.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Can I ask you a question about the adoration piece-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and applause-
- 1:35:50 – 1:44:43
Admiration & Unique Self-Expression; Heroes
- AHAndrew Huberman
I have a question about, um, who we, I don't want to say idolize, but among humans, can you name people, alive or dead, that, um, sort of embody Or collectively sort of embody who you aspire to be like, or do you not put humans in that category? Because one thing that I realize in this discussion around power, and I'm not trying to, uh, soften anything around that, is I've always had this list of people whose like careers and art and-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm
- AHAndrew Huberman
... music and stuff I really admire. And in looking over that list, y- I try and like sometimes see like the through lines.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I can tell you that almost all of them brought together unique things based on their past, their circumstances, et cetera, to, to like change the game.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, to me, that's the kind of the ultimate.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah. I know.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's like, it's like-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
In our business-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... people think differently. The paradigm change.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right? Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's, it's like to change the game.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, um, and it r- for me, this is a very important like time, space dilation where I can look back on the history of science and the couple of neurobiologists who were there at the beginning like-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... Ramon y Cajal. You'd say he changed the game 'cause he kinda like d- made the game.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
He created the game [laughs] basically, slicing up brains and understanding function. But like, but a few people came along, even in my career, in the time of, of my active lab career, and I was like, they really changed the game. And then I asked, I said, "Why did, how and why did they change the game?" And you realize that every technique is fleeting 'cause it gets replaced almost always.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? And so you start to realize that, oh, like, it was always this unique kind of like artist, scientist, poet intersection. And I realized like, oh, that, that's like, that's the thing.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
There's people that are like outside the box because they found a unique confluence of things.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Striving for that-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... is way more important to me than-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- 1:44:43 – 1:49:55
Teaching & Sharing Knowledge
- AHAndrew Huberman
you know, it, it occurs to me, like, you know, um, and maybe I'm a little bit bothered by this word power.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, no, and it's, so it's, it's, it's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I'm striving, and I'm striving for it to not be misconstrued
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... it's the language that's the problem
- AHAndrew Huberman
... but, but if, if I... No, no, no, no, I'm, I just, I mean, but, but I'm, I'm embracing it today.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, but what, to me, the ultimate win, I realized, um, a few moments ago, is, like, w- what I'm really trying to do in this podcast thing is I love learning.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And when I find something that I think can be of use to people-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, I teach it, because what's most satisfying to me is if people change their behavior and it leads them to a better place mentally, physically, or both.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? And then they also understand why it did that-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and then they pass it along.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, and, and there's no o- need for attribution in that.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
No.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? There's no need for attribution. And I hope that, like, I have a few friends who are actors, a few friends who are musicians, and I have to imagine that they love acting and playing music, and those sorts of people provide incredible enrichment to my life. I love music.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I love, uh, film and as a consumer. But I've heard them say things like, "Yeah, you know, like, you can transport somebody, you can inspire them."
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I think ultimately that's what it's about, is like, I think that we do e- at our best, I think we all wanna find the thing that we love to do, put it out there, and I think we have this sense that it w- that it could possibly ripple through time-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... without attribution. To me, that's, like, the ultimate power.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Totally.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Totally.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, and-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
I wanna create happiness teachers. I, I, I, I want people to go be teachers because that's leverage.
- 1:49:55 – 1:51:15
Sponsor: LMNT
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking LMNT makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an LMNT packet dissolved in it. I also drink LMNT dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. LMNT has a bunch of great-tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So if you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack.
- 1:51:15 – 1:58:26
Idols & Hedonic Treadmill, Addictive Behaviors & Quantification
- AHAndrew Huberman
So we got through-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
We got through [laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
... enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
We got through enjoyment and satisfaction, not meaning.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, we have not gotten all the way through meaning.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, we haven't got through meaning.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But, but we, um... So tell us more about meaning. So we got the idols.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah. We got the idols.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So those are the things to be aware of and kind of-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
That will block your satisfaction, that they promise satisfaction they don't deliver.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
They won't deliver the satisfaction that you seek, but y- but your brain tells you that they will. That will put you on what we in, in my community call the hedonic treadmill.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Hedonic j- simply means feelings or, or, or, or in your vernacular, you know, is activity of the limbic system. And, and the, the treadmill means that it, it, the he- the limbic system resets-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... because emotions are not there to give you a nice day.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
They give you a s- you know, set of signals about threats and opportunities so you can react, and they reset immediately.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
You always think they're gonna last forever, so you have an incentive to either avoid or approach things.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm. This is the, uh, you don't see it much anymore, but there used to be a, a bumper sticker [laughs] out there that said that the, the person who dies with the most toys wins.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's that one. Uh-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And-
- AHAndrew Huberman
... which reminds me about quantification. Can I share this with you?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please do.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's not, it's not, it's not my original idea.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
All right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But Anna Lembke, Dr. Anna Lembke at Stanford-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
She's been on... I've had her on my podcast and, and-
- 1:58:26 – 2:07:02
Life Meaning & Fundamental Experiences, Tool: Break Technology Addiction
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
the interesting part about this, Andrew. That function, that quantification function, that, that, the, the essentializing function of how much, that's what we're really good at using the left hemisphere of our brains. That's that whole theory of hemispheric lateralization that McGilchrist brought back. When I was a kid, there was right brain, left brain people. Right brain people are artsy and left brain people are analytical. That's not right. But the how to and what side requires hardcore quantification, and that's a f- fundamentally a left brain function.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
The right side, that's complicated. Those are complicated problems. Solvable, but complicated problems if you've got the data. The right side of the brain deals fundamentally more with complex questions which don't have quantifiable answers. All they have is understanding. All they have is intuition. That's the why side of your brain, not the how to and what side.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And that's where meaning resides, which is the last macronutrient of this. The right side of our brain, the, the, the, the, the love side, the meaning side, the God side, the, the complex side, all the problems that are most important to you but you'll never solve. I mean, my car is left hemisphere. My marriage is right hemisphere. I will never solve my marriage, never. I mean, before we stepped in here, my wife texted me, "Good luck. I love you." She does. I'm gonna call her later. She might be pissed off at me. I d- don't know. [laughs] I don't know. I've been married 35 years, Andrew. I don't know. I mean, she's Spanish, so it's really complex. But you get my point, right?
- AHAndrew Huberman
I do. [laughs]
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And, and [laughs] and ... But, but this is the thing, and this is the, this is the problem that we face. You need an integrated brain. You get two hemispheres for a reason, and a corpus callosum to, to connect between the two hemispheres. You get that because you've got the, the, "I'm gonna go to work, I'm gonna earn money. How to and what? Why? Because I love my family, because I wanna create value, because I wanna do something important in the world." Right hemisphere, left hemisphere, right hemisphere. And when that's cut off and when you're stuck in the left hemisphere w- for example, looking at your phone 205 times a day and taking, you know, an endless algorithm of useless information that's fed to you, then meaning will be absent because you can only assess it on the complex side, and that's the biggest problem we face. You wanna know the biggest crisis we face in happiness? It's meaning, and that's why. [laughs]
- AHAndrew Huberman
So how can somebody take steps to enrich the, um, the amount and the type of, and the array of meaning in the, in their life?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
You and I have done both a lot of work, um, in the world of addiction, personally and professionally, and addiction is unbelievably interesting. It's endlessly fascinating how the human brain is, is, is captured. And, and one of the things that you find is when people finally are not in the grip of addiction, there's three things that have to happen. Number one is they get pissed. That's what all addicts do. They, they, they get pissed and they rebel, and they're like, "No, no more." You ever seen, you know, in, in ... Y- you've seen people in 12 step programs and they're like ... They might laugh about the crazy things that happened to them, but they finally, they're just like, "No, no more. I'm not gonna put up with this anymore." You gotta get pissed and rebel. The second thing that they do is they actually, they understand something about the mechanism of becoming de-addicted, and that's different in different ways. You're addicted to gambling, you're addicted to pornography, if you're addicted to alcohol, you're addicted to drugs, there's different mechanisms for becoming de-addicted. And of course that's, that's very complicated and very, very hard, and it requires science and, you know, and, and, and, and clinical practice, et cetera, et cetera. But the last part is actually the most difficult, which is living in a new way, living with you, you know? It's like, it's ... One of the things that alcoholics always do, they always do this, is they move. They always move, and they're like, "Dude, if I move, I'm ... It's like all these losers that are around me, and I'm not gonna see any of those people, and I'm not gonna be living u- upstairs from a liquor store, and for God's sake, moving's gonna do the trick. I'm gonna change my circumstances." And of course it never works because the first thing that jumps outta your suitcase is you with your alcoholic brain. That's the problem. And so you have to learn to live with you, is the hard thing that actually comes from this. We are deeply, deeply, deeply addicted. We're deeply technologically addicted. We're hooked into this thing. We all know this. You've talked about it ad infinitum. So have I. Jon Haidt, who's been on your show, has talked about the, the affliction that we actually have. That's what we have to do. My work is fundamentally about how to rage against the machine, to get pissed off enough, and even more than that, it's fundamentally about how to live with you, how to live differently. 'Cause when you live with you, then you're in the right hemisphere of your brain, and you have to have right hemispheric experiences. Which by the way, my great-grandfather, Leroy Brooks, he was in the right hemisphere all day long. He spent all day looking at a mule's butt, and he never came home and said to my great-grandmother, "Honey, I had a panic attack behind a mule today." [laughs] No. And he also never said, "You know, my life is so boring." And, and part of the reason was because his brain wasn't broken. His brain was working the way it was actually supposed to. But that's not ordinary today. And so what we need to do, number one, is we need to break the cycle, and then we need to live in an old-fashioned way. That's what it comes down to. That's how we find the meaning in our lives. And, and breaking the cycle, by the way, I mean, we all know the research. You've had it on your show. I've taken huge amounts of knowledge from you-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... on this. You can break the cycle of, of technological addiction in your life simply by doing first hour of the day, last hour of the day, and meal times. Simply doing that. And there's tons of research that shows that in the neurocognitive programming that happens in your first hour awake, the relationship programming and the sleep architecture that you'll wire in the last hour of your day, and then, and then, and then the, the, the neuropeptides that you'll actually elicit by eating with other people without devices, your bra- your, your relationship to technology will change. But you gotta break the cycle, and there's tons of resources out there. How do you live in a different way? Well, how do people illuminate the right hemisphere of their brains? They, they, they ask ungoogleable questions.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hmm.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
[laughs] Right? Like, "Why am I alive? For what would I give my life?" You know, the deep philosophical questions, and that's what philosophy and spirituality and religion bring to you, is the deep questions that are fundamentally ungoogleable. And that's one of the reasons that the hemispheric lateralization literature shows that when you're, when you're in these spaces, that your right hemisphere is fundamentally illuminated. You can train a gorilla to answer all kinds of questions, but not ask interesting fundamental questions. That's humanity. That's godlike, is to ask questions. It's to fall in love is a right hemispheric experience. It's deep, deep mystery. It's like I ... That's the reason it's so scary. I don't know. I can't solve this problem. Somebody answer this question for me. No, man. You gotta live it. You gotta live it for the end of your days. That's why finding your calling, why you and I, we're, we have so much meaning through our work. It's 'cause we're living our calling. This is what we're meant to do. That's why a calling is what you're meant to do. It has the word meaning in it. That's why worshiping God, living in the, the luminescent divine, that's why trying to become a sannyasi, as the Indians would say, is so critically important. That's why beauty, moral beauty, artistic beauty, natural beauty, these are right hemispheric experiences. And that's why suffering is so important, because suffering helps you understand the meaning of your life, per se. Suffering is where everybody's like, when did you know who you really, really were? How did you know what you were made of? They'll tell you something bad. Oh, that week at the beach in Ibiza. [laughs] No. When my mom died, I loved her. When somebody left me at the altar, when I got fired, when I lost my business, God forbid, when I lost a child, people look back and they say, "That was the moment. That was when I knew." Why? Because that's when we were truly integrated. That's when we became integrated human beings. That's what it means to be fully alive, to find meaning, and ultimately, that is the path to happiness.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Let that sink in for people. That's the real wisdom. And I, I, I'm gonna stop you 'cause I know you're super humble and you're gonna pass it off onto someone else or something else, but, um, uh, you really have a gift, uh, and it c- it comes through-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Thank you, Andrew. That means a lot coming from you.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, you really do, because it like ... a lot of different ways people can say important things, but sometimes things just land, and they just need to sit for a sec, so.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, I have
- 2:07:02 – 2:12:20
Faith, Gradual Exploration, Desire for the Divine
- AHAndrew Huberman
some questions fr- that were prompted in your book.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But I wanna make sure that we return to this notion of faith.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's not something we talk a lot about on this podcast. I've talked about it as a guest on other podcasts, but, but-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. But you and I had a conversation about that, and I think probably by the time that this episode airs, that conversation at Stanford will also be public.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yes.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
And I recommend people watch it because that was v- really moving for me to have that conversation with you.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, same.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
To talk about your journey and, you know, the, the, the ... I mean, it's really easy to get into the, the physical fitness of life, but the metaphysical fitness of life is a different [laughs] different-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
... experience.
- AHAndrew Huberman
The real, like, eye-opener, the first one for me was, oh, like, striving for per- for perfection, it, it might be ... Perfection, in quotes, might be the goal, but, like, no one attains that. No human attains that. So be careful to not ask humans for answers that are not-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... possible to come from-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... human beings. And that's where that eventually moved to a, a, a real, a real faith, a belief in God, a, uh, a prayer practice that is, at least for me, it, it's, it's the most consistent feature of my life for the last now almost three years, and it's been interesting to be in a relationship where we like go on to church together and, and to pray together or to just pray with somebody, right?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And then when we parted ways at Stanford after the Veritas meeting, um, it, it was so interesting 'cause we said goodbye, we did the, the usual, like, hug, like, "See you soon, brother. Look me up if" ... And you said, "I'll pray for you," and you said, "And if you don't mind, pray for me, too." And I've been doing that. And it's, it's a ... Now, some people might hear this and be like, "Oh, boy, here we go," right?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Here we are, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
A couple of scientists talking about ... But if one just, like, entertains the possibility that maybe humans don't have all the answers-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... that's like a great vista to, like, skeptically look out.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That's kind of how I think it felt a whi- like-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... a couple of years ago. It's kinda like, yeah. And then, you know, over time I've migrated very far forward. But I think that the whole thing of being, um ... Like, faith, I realize, isn't this thing that one necessarily, especially like me, if you didn't grow up with a lot of it in your family-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... you don't just like run and fall-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- 2:12:20 – 2:18:18
Atheism, Death & Nonexistence; Practice Before Feeling
- AHAndrew Huberman
keeping with this analogy earlier about anorexia, uh, and I'm not trying to insult anyone here-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I'm also speaking about, well, you know, many, many people whom I deeply respect who will say, "I don't have that craving." I don't... They don't have that, that wish. They don't have that thirst.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I can imagine there are probably two responses to that. One is that, um, something has been, um, deftly slid in front of them to give them the illusion that they're getting that thing, but it's not that thing, right?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That they've made other aspects of life their, I don't wanna say their God, but it sort of filled in that, that hunger, thirst.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Maybe the terror, the terror of death.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
All that Ernest Becker stuff and yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or at the other extreme, it could be a sort of, um, spiritual anorexia, right?
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like, the circuits have... Like, l- let's give them some credit.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Maybe the circuits have actually modified-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to the point where the reward is in not wanting to satisfy the crave, the craving. 'Cause the brain will do this, too.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Mm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
This is what's so weird about these, uh, uh, reinforce... I- I prefer the word reinforcement to reward-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right. Right, right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... because it, it involves a, a... It's, it's, it's more, uh, accurate because it's about c- closing a loop with-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Right
- AHAndrew Huberman
... desire and behavior, reset, desire, behavior.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Whereas reward-
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
That's the wanting, learning, liking cycle.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- ABDr. Arthur Brooks
It's based on reinforcement.
Episode duration: 2:49:59
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