Modern Wisdom14 Habits for an Optimised Morning & Evening Routine - Arthur Brooks
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
115 min read · 23,093 words- 0:00 – 8:37
Is Wellbeing Built in the Body or the Mind?
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to well-being-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... what do you think contributes more, psychological elements or physical elements? Because we experience our well-being-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... psychologically-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... and, uh, but we experience everything psychologically.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Including our physical well-being.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to well-being, what contributes more, psychological or physical elements?
- ABArthur Brooks
The answer is yes. Because-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
... because psychology is biology. Fundamentally, psychology is biology.
- CWChris Williamson
What's that mean?
- ABArthur Brooks
That means that, that you're, you cannot disconnect from your brain. Now, p- perhaps there's some external consciousness that people are experiencing, but, but the truth of the matter is that the functioning of the limbic system of your brain, where you're having positive and negative emotions all day long, that's, that's, that's, that's biology. That's a part of the brain that was evolved between two and 40 million years ago as an alert system to what's going on outside of you. You perceive things, threats and opportunities, you react, your brain reacts with negative and positive emotions, which then give you a sense of being happy or unhappy at any, at any particular time.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And so that being the case, we should be very grateful for our negative emotions, but we also need to learn how to manage them. That's the great goal of life. That's the great goal of becoming a self-managing, self-leading person when you're in a state of suffering, to understand why that is, how it can be productive, what you can learn, and, and how you can manage it such that it doesn't dis- dysregulate you or ruin your complete quality of life.
- CWChris Williamson
So if psychology is biology, should we just attack the biology?
- ABArthur Brooks
Well, the way that we attack the biology is by understanding the psychology and actually acting in a different way.
- CWChris Williamson
Which really does sound like the human centipede.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, it really is. It really is. No, it's, uh, no, my whole philosophy is sort of a self-licking ice cream cone because no matter-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
... if you say biology, I say psychology. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
But, but the truth of the matter is that once, if you wanna become a happier person, the first thing you need to understand is the science, which is the reason that I teach the science of happiness to my students. I don't go in and teach woo-woo and say, "You know, here's, you know, why don't we all, uh, try to manifest some sort of happiness?" It's like, no, this is what's going on in your brain. When you're feeling sad, what's happening is that you've, the, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex of your limbic system is highly alerted to the fact that you're perceiving a loss, and that loss in your life of a person or something that you love is a very normal reaction. In the, in the ancestral environment where we lived in bands of 30 to 50 individuals, to be rejected, to have a breakup, to have a schism with somebody else in your band meant that you were at a, a real risk of walking the frozen tundra and dying alone. You need to be really averse to that. That's why you feel grief when you have a, when you're disconnected from somebody that you love, and you have a part of your brain that's evolved to make you feel that grief, and that's completely normal. That's the most normal thing that could possibly happen. And people find a lot of comfort in saying, "Oh, oh, there's nothing wrong with me. There's not something I need to cure. That's actually evidence that my brain is working the way that it should-"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
"... and I'm gonna be okay."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) .
- 8:37 – 18:30
Why Privilege Can Fuel Addiction
- CWChris Williamson
There was an interesting ... it might have even been one of yours. I don't think it was. M- I, I remember reading this really great article that explained some of the justifications for why drug use among children from, uh, wealthy families is higher than those from low income families.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You might think, well, maybe it's because they've got the money to access it, but that's, that's not right. Uh, maybe it's because they go to these sort of, like, posh parties when they're in their teenage years and everybody else has got access and they think that the rules don't apply to them, and like maybe a little bit. But the explanation that I thought was really, really great is that if you grow up as the child of somebody who has already set the bar incredibly high, the pressure that's on you to be able to beat your intergenerational competition theory-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... is un- u- unreal. It also explains one of the reasons I thought this was such a fucking great psychological explanation that I never heard of, the, uh, higher rates of admission for children from wealthy families into, uh, prestigious higher education institutions.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe it's because of the prep, maybe it's because of the, uh, access, maybe it's because of legacy admissions, maybe it's because, maybe it's because ... Or maybe it's because they are so fucking terrified of falling behind the standard that their parents set that they are prepared to drive themselves in a manner that somebody who doesn't have that degree of pressure over the top of them-
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... wouldn't.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Fear of failure.
- CWChris Williamson
I thought it was so f- I thought that those-
- ABArthur Brooks
Fear of failure.
- CWChris Williamson
... two explanations were just so correct.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. No, that's right. And, and there's almost certain ... So there's kind of two reasons. Uh, most of the literature is on alcohol, right? I mean, and in 20 years from now, we'll have more literature on cannabis, for example.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think we can, uh, uh, the rules of alcohol ported across onto cannabis relatively well?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Same thing, different-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. It's ... They're euphorics.
- CWChris Williamson
... delivery mechanism?
- ABArthur Brooks
They're self, they're self-medicating euphorics for the most part. Uh, there's kind of two kinds of people that get in trouble with alcohol, people who have trouble with boredom and people who have trouble with anxiety. So either you're a bored drunk or you're an anxious drunk. Those are the two problems that people have. And so, uh, a- and so this, the, the answer to th- these addiction problems are different in these two cases. If you're a, you're an alcoholic or you're drinking too much 'cause you're bored, you need to crowd out the, th- the drinking by doing something interesting. That's why you take a kid and, who's drinking a lot and partying a lot in high school, and make them do something unbelievably hard and interesting. And they'll be like, "I, I don't want to drink that much, 'cause drinking is not as good a party as whatever this thing is that I'm doing." Anxious drunks are a different problem, right? Because anxiety is so unbelievably effectively dealt with by alcohol. It is so incredibly efficacious, and that means you need to deal with anxiety in a proper way, and drugs and alcohol are not the way to do it. Workaholism is a terrible way to deal with your anxiety-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
... if you have a high, if you have high negative affect that's high
- CWChris Williamson
What's workaholism's, uh, point of intervention if, if the, uh, link between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... is being severed from alcohol? What is it that workaholism is doing at a biological level?
- ABArthur Brooks
Distraction. So the amygdala is funny. So with little kids, you're gonna see this when you have your children, that your, your two-year-old is going to be having a freakout, 'cause they're freaking out all the time. That's what two-year-olds do all the time, because they have a completely dysregulated amygdala.And, and so they're, you know, fearful and angry, and they get, you cut, cut the crusts off their little PB and J sandwich the wrong way, and they totally freak out. That's 'cause their amygdala lights up like a Christmas tree. Right? The way that you get them to not freak out... And young parents never figure this out. Right? They're gonna be like, "J- What? Use your words," or something like this. No, no, no. Distract them. Because the amygdala is in charge of... Distraction actually affects the amygdala. Attention is something that highly implicates the amygdala. So if you change their attentions, you deal with a little two-year-old and you're like, "Oh, oh, oh, do you see what I brought home from work today? I brought home something you really gotta see," and you pull something out of your briefcase.
- CWChris Williamson
Bullshit.
- ABArthur Brooks
Totally, 'cause they never figure it out.
- CWChris Williamson
'Cause they're an idiot.
- ABArthur Brooks
But what happens is that you, you, you, you stop the activity of the amygdala that's leading to the freak out, and you put it in true attention. So that's the, basically what's going on. You're distracting yourself through workaholism, through a, a reliable way to distract yourself.
- 18:30 – 35:51
The Key To Managing Yourself More Effectively
- CWChris Williamson
Do they, do most people not suffer from this? Is habituation to success not something that's kind of in for everybody? Is that not the whole game of happiness, the habituation thing?
- ABArthur Brooks
Um, habituation is success. It depends on what success means. If success means it's, it's really in these worldly terms of money, power, the admiration of strangers, it's very different than the success that people actually have in having a, a family life where, you know, your kids and your wife love you. And most people actually, they sense success along these ordinary lines, what, that success addict-
- CWChris Williamson
You think most people?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- ABArthur Brooks
They really do. And, and it's possible, and it's funny when you look at, you know, surveys of public opinion, people really admire the most worldly successful people to be sure. And they, they think, "Well, wouldn't that be great?" And they look on social media and they think, "Wouldn't that be great? But that's not my life, and so I guess I'm just gonna go to the park and play with my kid." And they're pretty happy as a result of that. I mean, there's an old axiom in my business which is, "Woe be to the man whose dreams come true. He will find he had the wrong dreams." Why? Because the dreams that come true, the dreams that come true that are... that people praise you for, that people envy you for, are the worldly idols. The worldly idols. That's what, that Aquinas talked about, the idols game of money, power, pleasure, and fame. Those are the four idols. And if you make them your instrument, those goals more than instrumentally, if you make these the ultimate goals of your life, you will find unhappiness. That's good modern social science, but it's as old as Aquinas who was lifting it from Aristotle. Those are the... As a matter of fact, I have a game I play with my students called What's My Idol. You wanna play?
- CWChris Williamson
Sure.
- ABArthur Brooks
Let's find out what Chris's idol is.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- ABArthur Brooks
Now, the way that this game works, and as psychologically you don't just say, "Pick one of the four." You eliminate the ones that it's not.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's how you get much better fidelity in anything like this. So Aquinas suggested and modern behavioral science validates the idea that, that we're attracted to four worldly things and they won't make us happy, but our animal impulse is that we need more, more and more. This is the hedonic treadmill of more, more, more. Money or resources, right? Power, which is influence over other people. It's not malevolent. It means that people do what you want them to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
You're the top dog. You're the king of the mambo.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Number three is pleasure. And pleasure manifests in different ways. For some people it's like feeling good, for some people it's comfort, and for some people it's security. Like, people who check their stock portfolio every day, they have a security idol-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
... which is in that pleasure. Like, that, it's the alleviation of discomfort.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And last is, is honor. Not in serving with honor. It means honor as the honor of the world. That means fame, prestige, admiration of other people.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Those are the four idols. And everybody has one in particular.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And when you know what it is, you'll say, "Oh, yeah, that's why I always do the things that I regret later."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
This will be the source of your future regret, if you know this gives you power.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Okay, so money, power, pleasure, and honor. You have to get rid of one, which means that not that you don't have it, what it means is that you have the population average in it, which for a super striver is torture, being normal. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) Who wants to be normal, right?
- 35:51 – 42:25
Rewiring Anxiety and Uncertainty
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about the anxiety and uncertainty thing-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... because it feels like that... Based on a lot of the people that I speak to, the, the hypervigilance that people have from maybe an uncertain atmosphere growing up-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... maybe communication wasn't super transparent, and they needed to be able to detect the micro-movements of exactly what was going on and read into sentences. Maybe love was contingent-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... on performance. Maybe their nervous system just didn't feel soothed, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. I think that that... Based on the conversations that I have at the live shows as well, the people that come up and do the meet and greet or the questions that I get that, that are done at the Q&As afterward, so many of them are basically around I...I really fucking struggle with the uncertainty of the future.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, uh, tolerating ambiguity, uncertainty-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... unpredictability feels like some weird personal curse.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. So, uncertainty is a problem. Risk isn't, by the way. Risk and uncertainty are different, and people use them interchangeably. Uncertainty means you don't know what might happen, so you can't assign probabilities, so you can't manage on- contingencies. Risk is that you know what might happen, so you can assign probabilities, so you can manage contingencies. That's the reason that people feel better when they buy insurance. Insurance is a happiness business. What it does is it converts uncertainty into risk, and it no longer-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
... becomes a source of misery.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's why anybody who buys an- a life insurance policy feels better after they do it, because they've just turned their uncertainty into risk. Uncertainty is a source of fear, and that stimulates the amygdala, because the amygdala says it makes you hypervigilant, and when there's a lot of uncertainty, you're more vigilant than you would have been otherwise, and that's a source of negative emotion. So you're feeling this constant sort of negative emotion.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is vigilance a source of negative emotion?
- ABArthur Brooks
Because you're vigilant against threat, and it's the possibility of threat. When you're, it's uncertain, it's funny because, you know, there, there's all kinds of uncertainty that we don't worry about at all, right? Uncertainty, like, things might be great. You're not worried about that. Right? It's, so it's funny because, you know, I do a lot of stuff on waiting. Waiting is a funny thing. There's waiting that's wonderful, that's like, I'm waiting for Christmas, and, and I... The reason that the Christmas lights go up in America after, after Halloween is because we want to savor the season longer because we want to wait longer, and that's positive. There are certain things that might happen and might not, and so they're, we're anxious about it but anxious in kind of a happy way, in an optimistic way. There are certain things that might go wrong and might be okay but might be terrible. That's like tests from the doctor.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And that's real anxiety. And then there's the one that you know it's going to be bad, and that's dread. And so there's a whole, there's a whole range of emotions that we have-
- CWChris Williamson
Suites of different-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uncertainties.
- ABArthur Brooks
When it, when it comes to, when it comes to waiting and uncertainty, for sure. So, when people say, you know, "I'm really worried about uncertainty," they're worried about threats, and threat vigilance is really part of human evolution. We're, we've, you know, the species has survived because of threat vigilance in the way that we're vigilant in the face of uncertainty. The problem is it's really dysregulated. It, it doesn't work the way it's supposed to. We're supposed to be occasionally really fearful and then have a sudden burst, the HPA axis goes bonkers, and we, we're going to start running and climb a tree. But that's supposed to be occasional and super, it's intense and, and, and not very frequent.
- CWChris Williamson
How... Just on that, how likely do you think it is that the ancestral evolutionary "zebras don't get ulcers" explanation for it comes and it goes and you (gibberish) -
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... shake it off. Do you think that that was ancestrally accurate? Do you think that that was like the-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... just the-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, I think it was. I don't think it, they, they didn't have Twitter, and so they weren't, you know, sitting around going, "I wonder if, I wonder how that tweet did. I wonder if I oughta-"
- 42:25 – 50:33
How Biology Affects Our Relationships
- CWChris Williamson
It, I mean, the pulsatile nature-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... of life-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... is, like, real interesting to me.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And the sort of flattening and the, the, the spreading of the curve.
- ABArthur Brooks
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
We've seen... There's a really great, um, demographer dude, Stephen J. Shaw. He's the best on the... As far as I can see, he's the best on the planet for birth rate decline.
- ABArthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
The best on the planet.
- ABArthur Brooks
He's a demographer?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. Be- I mean, he's a d- self-trained, but he's done it. He's been obsessing. Created the Birthgap documentary.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, Brad Wilcox is also fantastic on this one. Lyman Stone, also fantastic on this one.
- ABArthur Brooks
Nick Eberstadt? Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Nicholas Eberstadt and, and, uh, his wife as well, although she's a different beast.
- ABArthur Brooks
Married. She's-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
... unbelievable.
- CWChris Williamson
Fucking animal.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, I... Isn't it so fortunate we get to live in this time with all of these cool people growing up with great-
- ABArthur Brooks
It's great. It's unbelievable 'cause, you know, you live in the ideal world. And the ideal world is like an unbelievable smorgasbord.
- CWChris Williamson
Infinite. Anyway, he's got this idea about the flattening of the vitality curve. So, um, in the past, if you were 21 and you met a 21-year-old, the likelihood that they're ready to have kids right now is pretty high.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
As you flatten this curve, you can imagine that there is a, a, a left to right, there is a time, and then height is what proportion of the entire population is ready to go at that time.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You have both moved it rightward and you have-
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- 50:33 – 59:08
Why Growth Stems From Pain
- CWChris Williamson
I remember this Daniel Kahneman idea, I think it's so great. I wonder if you've ever used this, uh, analogy in your work. Imagine that you have a spring, and on both ends you're pulling the spring, and your goal is to get the midpoint of the spring to go in one direction.
- ABArthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
Now, you can either apply more pull-
- ABArthur Brooks
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
... to one end or you can reduce more pull from the other. And the difference, the thing that I thought was so clever about it was that if your solution is to hit the gas rather than to take your foot off the brake, yes, you move the center of the spring, but you have way more tension in the system.
- ABArthur Brooks
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I thought that w- it stuck with me. I think that's such a fucking-
- ABArthur Brooks
It's a nice analogy.
- CWChris Williamson
... great analogy because-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... as you pull more-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... yes, you're overriding it, and you are pulling it-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... through, but there's so much more tension in the system.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're having to work harder.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's why, you know, the, the Zen Buddhists, it's an attitude of non-resistance, an attitude of non-resistance. Look, when it comes to suffering in general, and this is a lot of what I write about now, and part of the reason is because the, the most important teacher of the meaning of your life is your suffering, the most important. And one of the greatest ways for you to miss the meaning of your life is for you to try to avoid your suffering.
- CWChris Williamson
Give me an example.
- ABArthur Brooks
So, nobody ever said, "I really figured out what I was made of that week at the beach in Ibiza." No. They talked about, "When my mom died, when I almost lost my business, when I flunked out of college, when I got really sick, when I was truly scared, and I made my way through it, when I understood, when I went through that suffering with my teacher about who I am as a person and the meaning of my life."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
What you find is that in large groups of people, you find that when you ask them to talk about the meaning of their life, they always talk about their terrible times, they always talk about their suffering. Always. That's the way it is. And if we have a culture that tries to get rid of pain, you have a culture that gets rid of meaning.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's not only get rid of pain, it's resist it, right?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, well, it's more resi- and more resistance is bad just as getting, as trying to lower pain is bad.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- ABArthur Brooks
So, you have a culture of that. That's what the therapy culture really is, the therap- the therapeutic culture is about getting rid of pain and, and not resisting anything, et cetera, et cetera. That's a really big problem because ultimately at the end of the day, what that is, is that's an, that's antithetical to finding the meaning of your life, to finding the significance, the purpose, and coherence of your life.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
So, what we need is we need a culture of the Spartan fight, as, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it. The, the best essay on this, by the way, you've read it, but everybody who watches Modern Wisdom needs to read Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841. It's like, read it tonight. It's an essay. It's like Ayn Rand but not creepy. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) I liked, uh, what else did I read recently? There's a, is there a Rilke poem on the shortness of life?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- 59:08 – 1:08:55
Designing the Optimal Morning Routine
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, okay. So t- take me through your... If you were to create an evidence-based morning routine-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... maximizing well-being-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... what would it look like?
- ABArthur Brooks
So I maximize both well-being and productivity. So f- this is really, really important because I have, I'm in a creative profession. I gotta write, think, speak, teach. I gotta work every day on, on k- having creative output because I have a weekly column and I write books and I have to give talks, et cetera, et cetera.
- CWChris Williamson
Your output's terrifying. Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
And, and it's, uh, and I have a podcast. I mean, it's like u- and it's, it takes a lot of work, you know, this whole thing. So I need to be super productive, and that means my brain has to be optimized for that, and I want to alleviate high levels of negative affect. So number one is the Brahma-muhurta, which is in Sanskrit means "the creator's time." That has been around for 6,000 years, and the whole idea is if you get up before dawn, you've already won the day because that actually gives you better concentration, better focus, and better creativity. If you get up when the sun is warm, you've already lost the first battle. And now, a lot of people are like, "Yeah, I'm a chronotype. I'm a night owl." No. I used to think I was a night owl too, too. I was actually just a musician who drank too much. Morning larks... The chronotype is probably 60% environmental and only about 40% genetic, so everybody can be a morning lark. It's harder for some. I never get up without an alarm clock ever, ever, ever, ever, and year after year after year, I still have to. I would sleep in if I could.
- CWChris Williamson
... but that's the first battle. And that's really a big swinger in, in improving your Yeah, you've really started off with a difficult one that, uh, especially if you're in summer somewhere and you think, "Oh, that's 4:30."
- ABArthur Brooks
I know. No, no, of course, if you're in Helsinki in July, you're not-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
... going to be able to do it because it's-
- CWChris Williamson
No sleep, at all.
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs) There's no sleep.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's right, you gotta get up. You gotta get up before you went to bed.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
Right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
So, I mean, your results may vary. You gotta, you gotta figure out how to... I mean, uh, you never make the perfect the enemy, the good on this. It's the second part of that is what you do first thing, and that's s- substantial physical activity. Exercise is really important. So a lot of guys will write to me, 22-year-old guys, graduated from college, feel aimless, don't know what to do, feel really depressed, living with mom, whatever. I say, "Okay, you don't have to go to the gym and pick up heavy things and do something insane, like your routine." I recommend getting up a half hour before dawn and walking for an hour without devices outside.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Walk. Not done on a treadmill, outside, hear the crunch of the gravel under your feet. No devices. This will give you a sense of transcendence. It will wake up the right hemisphere of your brain, which is what you need for a sense of meaning and mysticism. Um, it- it's import- I mean, it's great to listen to Modern Wisdom, but not during the walk. Right? And doing that while the sun comes up has special benefits. Huberman talks about that an awful lot, but this is very well studied, that this is really important.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so combine these two for me. If you're saying that it's great to pick up heavy things, and some people like to pick up heavy things, but you're also saying it's great to be out on a walk outside.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, it's-
- ABArthur Brooks
Those are incompatible unless you're working out outside.
- CWChris Williamson
I know.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right? And- and that's great if you can actually do that, if you've got an outdoor gym because, you know, you're- or you're-
- CWChris Williamson
Lift ATX, shout out Lift ATX in Austin, Texas. Everyone goes there.
- 1:08:55 – 1:18:49
The Physiology of Staying Fit as You Age
- CWChris Williamson
This is, uh, the happier and productive thing is, uh, an interesting non-trade off-
- ABArthur Brooks
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
... that you're making work. So it makes me think about (laughs) , uh, uh, varicocele surgery. So I'm gonna bring this back. Wait.
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so most interventions that increase testosterone decrease fertility.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
If you go on-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... TRT, if you start taking PEDs, uh, your fertility reliably drops.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Sperm count goes down.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right, right. Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
Motility, morphology also usually n- not, not too great. Uh, LH and FSH, like, (blows raspberry) just super suppressed.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But one of the few interventions that I know, which is varicocele surgery, which is to improve f- the, like, blood flow to testicles-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, makes both go up.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, they see a mean change, I think, 120 points on test-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is, you know, for a lot of guys now are gonna be between, like, 25 and maybe even, like, 50% or 40%, something like that. Uh, and you also see improvements in sperm count and-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... m- motility, morphology.
- ABArthur Brooks
Basically, it makes your boys younger.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. It makes everything work a little bit better.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
If you've got varicocele, obviously. Um, and it's w- this is one of those few interventions where having a bit more of a global perspective. So for instance, it's one of the reasons that we designed the Nootronic drink. It felt like when I was drinking energy drinks usually, like, I was borrowing health from tomorrow-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... for today.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- 1:18:49 – 1:24:31
Engineering the Optimal Evening Routine
- ABArthur Brooks
old.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. Okay, evening routine.
- ABArthur Brooks
So the evening routine is a little bit different, because what you want is mood management and sleep-It's not mood management or productivity. You want mood management in sleep. And so that's, uh, that's a slightly different routine. And that routine starts at dinner. And one of the mistakes that a lot of people make is that they eat dinner too late. And, you know, I lived in Spain for a long time. I've lived off and on in Spain for 35 years. And, dude, no. 10:00 PM, I'm sorry. I mean, it's like, oh, it's so great, the lifestyles. That's- that's unhealthy. I'm sorry. You know? It's like (Spanish) . It's like, in Spain, it's not good to do that. And so when we moved to the United States, that was a hard transition for my wife, who is from Barcelona.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that's interesting.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I've always thought that one of the, uh, worst incompatibilities that you could have with somebody that you loved was bedtimes.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You want to go to bed at 9:00 and they want to go to bed at 2:00.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, that would be difficult to navigate. I hadn't accounted for the fact that somebody could want to eat dinner at 6:00-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and somebody else could want to eat dinner at 10:00.
- ABArthur Brooks
Exactly right.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABArthur Brooks
And that was, that was, you know, we got through it, man. We've been married 34 years, but- but now we both eat at 6:00. And part of the reason is because, you know, we're in our 60s, and so we actually need an evening protocol that actually works. And we, and we have to get up early in the morning. She doesn't get up at 4:45, but she gets up at six o'clock. She sleeps more than I do. I need about six and a half hours of sleep. She needs closer to eight. So, uh, to- to actually be- have her- her, you know, biology working the way it's supposed to be working. So it starts at six o'clock. And what that means is, you know, your last protein-rich meal, really your last m- meal, should be a- a couple, three hours before you go to sleep, for all sorts of reasons that Rhonda Patrick talks about a lot, and a lot of people talk about that.
- CWChris Williamson
Three, two, one.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. So- and- and it shouldn't be your- your heaviest meal, and there's a lot of things that go into that. Now, having n- never any caffeine with dinner. Never drink any caffeine with dinner. I mean, you can actually get away with it better when you're younger. But let me tell you, Chris, when you're- when you're 61 like me, it's like I just looked at this. This is so delicious, what you gave me. It has 120 milligrams of caffeine in it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, just a little-
- ABArthur Brooks
I'll be up, like, cleaning the garage tonight or something.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, the fact that you opened it in the same room as yourself is
- ABArthur Brooks
I know, it's like, "I smelled that thing and now I'm gonna- I'm not- I'm not sleeping tonight." But it's- you become way more. You- the metabolism of caffeine changes a lot with age in- in almost everybody. So that's why benzodiazepine drugs is the same kind of thing, that you have to ch- you have to titrate what you use for, you know, for going to sleep or waking up very differently as you get older, and a lot of people will have insomnia when they're older because they're drinking an afternoon coffee and they don't realize that that's what's happening.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's a- that's a really common thing. So no caffeine. I recommend no alcohol in the evenings, for anybody, even for people who can drink appropriately, not doing that, because that will- that just messes up your sleep architecture. And the hardest one for me is sweets. I have a huge sweet tooth.
- CWChris Williamson
Me too.
- ABArthur Brooks
All former drinkers all love sweets.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- ABArthur Brooks
'Cause you metabolize them the same way. And the result of it is that I want-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's sedative, the big chunk of sugar is the same, like ah.
- ABArthur Brooks
So good. It's so good. But it's just not good for your sleep architecture, is the way that that works. Of the three, sweets are a little less bad than the other two, is what it comes down to. Then actually, um, walking right after you eat is really important. And so we walk 30 to 40 minutes after dinner every night.
- CWChris Williamson
So good.
- 1:24:31 – 1:29:45
Is There a Risk of Over-Optimising Wellbeing?
- CWChris Williamson
Is there a risk of people over-optimizing well-being to the point of neurosis?
- ABArthur Brooks
Oh, for sure. And that's the reason that, you know, wearables can be a real curse for a lot of people. What do you use for wearables?
- CWChris Williamson
Whoop.
- ABArthur Brooks
You use Whoop. That's great. Those guys Will, Will Ahmed has- it's a great company.
- CWChris Williamson
Sat in that seat.
- ABArthur Brooks
He's a- it's- he's a- it's- that's- he's a terrific entrepreneur. He's a great company.
- CWChris Williamson
Fantastic co- it's fantastic at what they do, but I understand the health anxiety thing for- for some people.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. And Oura, the same thing. Yeah. And so you have to be real- real cognizant of that. And some people, like my- my wife doesn't w- use her wearable when she's in bed.... because she doesn't want to know how many minutes she slept and how many minutes she was awake and what her sleep score is. She doesn't want those data. Her life is better when she doesn't have those data. So you gotta figure out how much data you need, and not to gorge on it in such a way that you become really, really neurotic. Some people are. And so I have to be, you know, pretty careful about that. But what I find is that when I take, I take the- the- the- the cognition, the- the conscient, the consciousness out of everything, and I just turn it into h- what I do when I wake up in the morning, what I do before I go to bed at night, that my life is better. Because I'm able to use the cycles. The-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you've got to system two, system one this, right?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You've got to go, "Okay..." And this is why, you know, when I first started the show, and it- it's one of the great things about having a- a ledger of proof of work-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... of where you were at, at what time, the first two or three years of the show was me being a productivity bro.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It was me talking about morning routines, and Peter C. Brown Make It Stick, Learning How to Learn-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... and Ebbinghaus' Forgetting Curves, and spaced repetition, and Anki note cards, and (stammers) like, fucking Evernote external brains. It was all that-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... because you have to go through this sort of big over-complicated, is the solution over here or over there, or is it this thing? And you go really hard and deep on this, and then you move on to the health and fitness thing, and then you move on to the, for me, the sort of relational thing, and then you move into the culture thing, and then my current era is like the emotions thing.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like the emotional part.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right, and-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm, like, trying to get below the neck.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's right. That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
And, the-
- ABArthur Brooks
But below the neck is still above the neck, 'cause psychology is biology.
- CWChris Williamson
All right. Fucking...
- ABArthur Brooks
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
All right, professor. Um, the realization is you're going to have to do a much more obsessive version of this first.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- 1:29:45 – 1:33:01
What Causes Us the Most Pain?
- CWChris Williamson
Talking earlier on about the, do people need more happiness, less unhappiness? What are the experiences in life that give people the most pain? What makes us miserable the fastest, reliably?
- ABArthur Brooks
Uh, is, uh, sadness is what is the- the hardest thing that people can actually bear.
- CWChris Williamson
And what's sadness?
- ABArthur Brooks
Sadness is the, uh, losing something or someone that you love. That's what, that's what gr- reliably brings you the most pain, is- is loss.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that grief?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. Well, grief is an extreme form of sadness.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- ABArthur Brooks
And, you know, that's the, when- when somebody's removed from your life, wha- that's the most pain that people actually go through. That's the negative emotion that's most intense. And part of the reason is because that is, on its face, the most catastrophic of the occurrences. That's why you're the most averse to it. That's why you have the most pain from it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
You know, there's a, this- this little place in your brain, this dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in your brain, that little thing in your limbic system, that gives you what's called affective pain. Pain has two parts, sensory and affective. Sensory pain is really the stimulus from the nerve endings, when you burn yourself on the stove or something, and that has to do with inflammation. Affective pain is where it hits your brain and you say, "I hate this."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
Right? So this, "Ouch, and I hate it." So when you physically hurt yourself, that's what happens.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a good distinction.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. And there's two parts, and it's, you know, it's, and working in different parts of your brain. So brai- the pain has two parts. When you have mental pain, like rejection or loss, that's only the affective component.And that's worse. That's worse. Now interestingly, acetaminophen, which you Brits call paracetamol, I think, that's Tylenol, that works on the affective component of pain. Whereas t- as Advil, you know, ibuprofen, that works on the sensory component of pain. So that lowers inflammation. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, they work on inflammation. Whereas Tylenol works on the affective component. Tylenol actually doesn't make you feel less pain, it just makes you care less.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that right?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah. That's why when you take Tylenol and, and ibuprofen, when you take acetaminophen and ibuprofen together, it's a potent thing. It works on the two parts of pain really effectively.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah. How interesting.
- ABArthur Brooks
And it's actually, that mix is better than opiates. That actually is more effective than opiate drugs in, in, in managing pain. But here's the point. When you're really, really, really sad, and there's a study of st- college students who are in bad breakups and, uh, and some of them get Tylenol and some of them don't. Those who take Tylenol, a course of Tylenol are about a third less heartbroken.
- CWChris Williamson
No way.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But you sh- did you not say earlier on that we want to embrace our suffering?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
We want to feel our suffering. Of course. Sad.
- ABArthur Brooks
What you want to do is manage it. And so that, so what you don't want to do is eradicate it, but there are times when it's good to manage it.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you know when it's time to manage it and when it's time to feel it?
- ABArthur Brooks
When you, when you, you w- you want to know when it's there, but you don't want it to actually interfere with your, your ability to live your life. That's usually the, the, at the therapeutic line where they, uh, they, when they talk ... And that's one of the reasons that over-the-counter analgesics are fine, but opiates are bad for most people.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
And one of the reasons that people will take opiates is be- they're trying to use them as an analgesic against the pain of life. Just the pain of life, the pain of life. And that's a really dangerous business.
- 1:33:01 – 1:39:57
The Neuroscience of Heartbreak
- CWChris Williamson
Why do breakups hurt so much?
- ABArthur Brooks
Because they're a signal to you that you're going to be cast out of your tribe and walk the savanna and die alone. That's a, it's, it's a, it's that you're going to die alone. That's when, that's why breakups hurt so much. Because they say, "There'll never be anybody for me. I'm incapable of falling in love." You catastrophize because your brain wants you to avoid that. Your brain wants you to not break up. And so it's going to make you feel like this is the end of the world, so that you won't break up. It's not the end of the world, but if you knew it wasn't the end of the world, you'd be like, "Whatever. Whatevs." That's why you won't leave a crummy relationship, because you're afraid... You're not afraid of the breakup, you're afraid of the pain from the breakup. You're not afraid of failing, you're afraid of how you'll feel about yourself if you fail. People are afraid of their emotions, they're not afraid of the catastrophes-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
... is what it comes down to, because the emotions are so aversive, and that's what they're evolved to do. So once you understand that and you're saying, "Look, this is a crummy relationship. This is an unhealthy relationship. This is not going anywhere. 10 years from now this is not going to be better than it is today. I've got to do that." And then with the knowledge this is going to hurt, but it's going to be temporary pain, and that's a normal biological process. You can handle it. That's how knowledge is power.
- CWChris Williamson
What, what happens in the brain when you put off the breakup? When you end up in a relationship with the relationship with the breakup-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and you're constantly ruminating and thinking and pushing off?
- ABArthur Brooks
That you're not getting ... You're actually ... The inevitable is still inevitable-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
... but you're just elongating the suffering that leads up to the inevitable.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's a problem. Now, if you don't know, you don't know is what it comes down to. But if you're trying to just avoid doing something that's difficult, firing that employee, saying that difficult thing, facing up to the fact that the business is not going well, then you're just going to suffer and suffer and suffer and suffer and suffer about it, and then the inevitable is going to happen. That's why the Band-Aid right off is usually the right approach.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
You know.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the gold standard for how people should deal with a breakup?
- ABArthur Brooks
So the gold standard, and there's a, there's a bunch of interesting protocols that actually show up in the literature, the breakup protocol. Um, there's a bunch of stuff to not do too. So there's two dos and there's two don'ts. Uh, number one is take some Tylenol (laughs) perhaps. Why not? I mean, it's, uh, don't, and obviously check with your physician. This is not medical advice on Modern Wisdom. But, um, but there are a lot of other things to do. One of the things that you find is that when people actually, they want to curl up and cocoon when they're in the midst of a breakup. Actually having more fun is really important. Distraction is extremely important. Distraction as something that you enjoy with people that you love is a critically important thing. Go ride your bike with your friends even though you don't want to. Doing that is a, a very effective way for you to actually start to heal. The second is to consider not the things that you're missing, but the things that you're not missing, is actually focus in a relationship. In every relationship, you broke up for a reason, right? If you have a breakup, you broke up for a reason. Focusing on what was good about it is actually going to prolong the grief. Focusing on the reason that you broke up is really, really important, because that actually aligns, that's metacognitive, that aligns your prefrontal cortex with your limbic system. Like, "I broke up for a reason. Why'd I break up? I broke up because this wasn't going to go any place, and here's the reason it wasn't going to go any place." And focus on that. You know, so if you're, if you know for women, for example, they get into these relationships with these terrible dark triad guys, narcissistic, Machiavellian psychopaths, which is, you know, by the way, 7% of the population, and you know, it's, it's your first husband, right? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- ABArthur Brooks
And focus on the, the reasons that you had to get away from that guy, not the reasons that you miss that guy. And last but not least, there's a really interesting study that actually talks about the effects of sad music. It's like you wouldn't put on a marching band after you, after you break up. Even the, um, you think, "Ah, that, that should improve my mood." The reason is that you don't... You're trying to, when you're sad, you're trying to understand your feelings. You're making a real effort to understand your emotions, and your emotions are very confusing to you in a period of high negative affect. And when you listen to n- uh, sad music, sad music literally, because it ef- it, it, it, it expands, it, um, it stimulates the right hemisphere of the brain where you process aesthetics, where you process beauty, it helps you to understand your emotions better than you did before. And understanding your emotions is part of the healing process.
- CWChris Williamson
So some Lewis Capaldi-... would be-
- ABArthur Brooks
Whatever your favorite sad song is, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So one thing that you said that was really interesting, this sort of, um, odd duality that people are in when they go through a breakup of prior to the breakup, thinking about all of the reasons that they should break up-
- ABArthur Brooks
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then as soon as the breakup is done, thinking about all of the reasons about why they shouldn't have broken up.
- ABArthur Brooks
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the switch that seems to be happening in lots of people's brains there?
- ABArthur Brooks
When, you know, when... Switch such that they actually pull the trigger?
- CWChris Williamson
No, the switch that prior to the thing, prior to the breakup, here are all of the things that-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... are bad.
- ABArthur Brooks
Because we focus on losses. 'Cause we're always focusing on losses because we're ungrateful
- 1:39:57 – 1:47:27
Has Modern Freedom Backfired on Happiness?
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think the modern freedom has made happiness harder, not easier?
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah, I do. I actually do. And I think that that's actually, uh, escalated a lot in the last 30 or 40 years, as a matter of fact. And that's, uh, the evidence of that is that in the UK and the United States that happiness has declined since about 1990. It's been consistently declining. And part of the reason is we make just tons of errors. I don't think, you know, I'm not, I'm not of the view that we have too much freedom or we have too much abundance or we have too much affluence. I think that we, what we have is a, is a tendency... Well, we have kind of a climate and a weather problem with happiness. The climate is that in modern society, we've gotten away from things that we took for granted, which are faith, family, friends, and work. Those are the four habits of the happiest people. They're serious about their faith or, or life philosophy, if they're not religious, they have serious family life, they have close friends, and they pay attention to the meaning of their work. And all those things have been in decline for the past 30 years. The weather problems are screens, hatred, political polarization, and COVID. Those are the three big storms of unhappiness that have come our way.
- CWChris Williamson
(sighs) Surprising that anybody's managed to make it through the last half decade. Their psychology and-
- ABArthur Brooks
But, you know, we do. I mean, we're tough, man. People are really, really tough. And the way that we do it, by the way, is by, by, by having personal, by having personal protocols that, that fight against those tendencies. Just say, okay, yeah, I mean the, that life is making it less likely for me to worship or practice philosophy of life. I'm being distracted constantly by these doodads and goo-gahs and stupid nonsense on the internet. No, I'm putting that down. I'm gonna study the Holy Book or whatever it happens to be. Yeah, I mean that life says that you're tied down, that you're losing your freedom if you get married and have kids. Wrong. Get married and have kids. It's one of the secret of happiness for most people. Most of the modern-
- CWChris Williamson
Get married to the right person-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... have kids with the right person.
- ABArthur Brooks
For sure. For sure. But it's interesting because-
- CWChris Williamson
The rest leads to disaster to do it with the wrong-
- ABArthur Brooks
Your show is, you know, the reason I always, I always like your show because modern wisdom actually is ancient wisdom.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-Hmm.
- ABArthur Brooks
That's the, that's the twist.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, the thing that's been fascinating about it is the mismatch-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... or as you would say in evolutionary psychology, the mismatch principle, that a lot of the systems that were built to protect us or keep us effective ancestrally are maladaptive-
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... in the modern environment that we-
- ABArthur Brooks
Or they're maladapted-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- ABArthur Brooks
... a lot of the time.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- ABArthur Brooks
So it's, you know, there's, there's, there's nothing wrong with resource cues and fertility cues. The problem is the way that we mal, they're maladapted in modern culture and the extent to which we believe the, the propaganda that they don't exist.
- CWChris Williamson
Did you ever look at Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's work?
- ABArthur Brooks
Oh, no.
- CWChris Williamson
So he is a, used to be a data scientist at Google. He wrote first book was Everybody Lies.
- ABArthur Brooks
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and then his next one was Don't Trust Your Gut.
- ABArthur Brooks
Oh yeah, I've seen that.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, Don't Trust Your Gut is fucking money. It is so... I can't believe that he managed to, like, he danced through a minefield of political incorrectness and just got away with it somehow.
- ABArthur Brooks
Yeah.
- 1:47:27 – 1:48:20
Where to Find Arthur
- CWChris Williamson
Heck yeah. Arthur Brooks, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, you're great. I love you to bits.
- ABArthur Brooks
Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
What should people got, what have you got going on at the moment?
- ABArthur Brooks
I got a big book coming out in March.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- ABArthur Brooks
Um, called The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. We gotta talk about that again.
- CWChris Williamson
Can't wait.
- ABArthur Brooks
Me too. Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
Wait, podcast. You've got a podcast.
- ABArthur Brooks
I got a podcast, yeah, sorry. Office Hours with Arthur Brooks. It's brand new. It's, um, doing really well.
- CWChris Williamson
It's crushing. It's absolutely crushing.
- ABArthur Brooks
It's, uh, it's super fun. I mean, it's like, um, I'm, it's a lecture. It's not, it's I'm, I'm talking about behavioral science and in front of a camera. It's cool.
- CWChris Williamson
Unreal. Appreciate you, man. Until next time.
- ABArthur Brooks
Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you very much for tuning in and congratulations for not being so TikTok-brained that you actually made it to the end of a full podcast. Hooray. Uh, maybe another podcast with the one and only Naval Radhakant would also be good for you to watch. That's right.
Episode duration: 1:48:20
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