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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

For People Feeling Behind In Life! - Find Purpose, Achieve Your Goals & Be Happy | Morgan Housel

When John D Rockefeller was asked how much money was enough, he famously replied, “Just a little bit more.” This quote is often used to illustrate our hard-to-shake view that money will solve all life’s problems.

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostMorgan HouselguestGreat Minds
Feb 28, 20241h 3mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 2:01

    Behavior beats knowledge: why finance and health both hinge on habits

    1. RC

      I wanted to start off with a quote from your first book. "Financial success is not a hard science. It's a soft skill. How you behave is more important than what you know." And Morgan, I'm a medical doctor. I've been practicing for over two decades, and the first thing I hear when I hear that phrase is that you could substitute the word financial for health, and it still makes sense.

    2. MH

      You took the words right out of my mouth, because that's usually the analogy that I use. It's more understandable for people if I say, if you were a doctor and you have a MD degree from Harvard, and you are a Nobel Prize-winning doctor, you know everything about medicine. You are a master of biology and chemistry, et cetera. But you're overweight, and you smoke, and you don't sleep, and you're stressed out, none of it matters. None of what you know matters. All that matters is how you behave. And I think that is very true in finance as well, and there are people who have PhDs in finance from Harvard, and they work-- they're partners at Goldman Sachs, whatever it would be. But they have no control over their sense of greed and fear, and they're not good at managing risk and uncertainty. They can't take a long-term mindset, and therefore, none of what they know matters. And the reverse of this is true as well. If you know nothing about medicine, you c- you have no idea what a cell is. You know nothing. But you eat a balanced diet, and you sleep eight hours a night, and you don't drink, and you don't smoke, and you're probably gonna do fine health-wise. And the same is true in finance, where if you know absolutely nothing about finance, but you're able to take a long-term mindset, you're able to just inve- save and invest consistently, you're gonna do not only okay, you're gonna do amazing. And there aren't many fields that are like that. Finance and health tend to be two where people who are very educated and have all the right connections very often do much poorer than people who have no education, no background, no experience.

  2. 2:01 – 5:56

    Why people chase “new” solutions: shortcuts, status, and expert incentives

    1. RC

      Yeah. It, it's absolutely fascinating. As I've been reading your first book and your brand-new one, Same as Ever, it strikes me that on the surface, at least the first book is about money. But to me, it's really about human behavior. It's about why do humans do certain things? Why do we act in certain ways? And as, as I say, it's, it's so fascinating for me, because so much of that is what I'm wrestling with at the moment as a doctor, which is this idea that people know the basics. The basics haven't changed in 50 years, right? Don't eat too much sugar. As you say, eat mostly real foods. Walk for 45 minutes a day. Sleep seven to eight hours a night. You do that, actually you're getting 80 to 90% of the way there with your health. But I sort of feel these days, and perhaps you could enlighten me if it's the same in finance, with health, there's always a temptation for there to be, well, what's new, right? What, what, what's the latest thing I can do for my health? It's like, guys, the stuff I was talking about five years ago, the stuff other people were talking about 50 years ago, the stuff traditional Chinese medics were talking about 2,000 years ago, and Ayurvedic doctors about how you live in harmony with the world around you and with your body, those principles haven't really changed that much, have they?

    2. MH

      And I think there's two things going on here, because it's the exact same in finance as, as it is with health. The first is the desire for a shortcut, for a hack. So if you say, you know, eat healthy food and, and sleep and don't drink, that actually takes a lot of effort, and you're removing things from people's lives that they want. Like, people wanna be able to eat Cheetos and drink tequila. But hey, if there's a pill or a supplement that I can take that will still make me healthy, that's what you want. Like, you want the shortcut to where you don't have to put any sacrifice into your lifestyle. Very similar in finance, where investing for the long term works. If you're just gonna, like, dollar cost average into basic index funds and hold them for 30 years, that works, and you'll build a lot of wealth. But it takes some sacrifice. It's boring. It can take a long time. And so in finance, people are like, "Well, what's the hack? How-- what, what's the day trading strategy that's gonna help me build with f- build wealth faster so I can do it not in 30 years? I want to do it in 30 weeks." And so they're always looking for a shortcut. The other thing that's going on here is that I think it's very common in an innocent way for people to associate those basics with a lack of education or experience. So if as a doctor you sat down with a patient and said, "Eat real food and sleep eight hours a night," that patient might say, "Is this doctor an idiot? Does he even know what he's talking about? That's what he's talking about? My, my eight-year-old could have told me that." And I think it's true in finance. If your financial advisor says, "Buy index funds and hold them for 30 years," it's easy for the client to say, "Does this guy even know what he's talking about? You, you could have, you could have learned that in four seconds on Google." And so people want their expert, who by and large they're paying a big fee and putting a lot of trust into, to know something that they don't. They want the expert to tell them something that they've never heard. And so in health, that might be, "Here's this crazy supplement you've never heard of. Here's this medicine you've never heard of." And in finance, it's, "Here's this amazing secret strategy that only the insiders have access to that I can tell you about." And that is very alluring to the customer. And I think very often, maybe this doesn't happen as much in health, but it happens very often in finance, the advisor, I think in an innocent way to justify the fees that they're charging, want to make it more complicated than they know it should be. The advisor in their heart knows that the advice should be simple, but you can't charge for simple advice. So the advisor goes out of their way to make it more complicated than it needs to be.

  3. 5:56 – 8:35

    Writing as self-understanding: money decisions are personal, not universal

    1. RC

      A lot of authors write the books that they need for themselves. So I'm interested, does that apply to you? And if so, what was the drive behind writing The Psychology of Money?

    2. MH

      Well, I, I always say that I write for an audience of one, which is me. I'm just writing for myself. I write about topics that I think are interesting, and I tell them in stories that I find appealing, and I really never think about the reader. I, I, I just wanna write things that I think are interesting, and then there's a leap of faith that maybe other people will find interesting as well. But you are absolutely right that within that process, because I'm writing for an audience of one, I'm trying to figure out my own problems. And I feel like in many ways I'm writing a diary or a journal where I think virtually every chapter in all of these books and every blog that I've ever written is trying to be introspective about myself.

    3. RC

      Hmm.

    4. MH

      Even if it's not me personally, it's the world in which I live in, my spot in my family, in my community, whatever it would be. I'm trying to make sense of it. And then if I can learn more about myself and then share that with other people, that's, that's the model that I've been doing for 18 years now as a writer. And so it's definitely an introspective experience. Part of this that I think it should be like that for everybody is because finance is so unique to the individual. There's no universal answer on what you should do. There's no universal formula that says everybody should do this. It just doesn't work that way. I think it's much more closer to, like, your taste in music or your taste in food-

    5. RC

      Mm-hmm

    6. MH

      ... where it's like if you say Italian food is the best and I say, "No, Mexican food is the best," neither one of us is right or wrong. It's just you like that and I like this, and it's the same in, in money. And so you have to go at it in an individual approach and just spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, so to speak, and saying, like, "What is best for my family?"

    7. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    8. MH

      "What's gonna make me happy?" And that might be very different from what makes you happy, not because one of us is smarter than one another, just because we're very different. And it's great that you are in a different country because this is very true across generations and across countries. What I have experienced as an American might be very different from what you've experienced in the UK-

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm

    10. MH

      ... which is different from what someone who's experienced in China or India or Africa. And because of that, we all have different social aspirations. We have a different view of risk. We have different, you know, just a view of how the financial world works. And because of that, we're never gonna come to the same answers on what's the right thing to do. So to answer your question, yes, this is... I'm just writing for myself. But I think everyone going down this path should take that more, like, innocently selfish approach to trying to figure out money.

  4. 8:35 – 11:31

    Lottery tickets as hope: empathy for “bad” financial decisions

    1. RC

      Yeah. I mean, in chapter one of your first book, you write about a topic that really speaks to this, I think, this idea that Americans spend more on lottery tickets than movies, video games, music, sporting events, and books combined. I was really quite surprised to read that. You then go on to explain how the lowest income households in the US on average spend $412 a year on lottery tickets, four times the amount of those in the highest income groups. And then you say 40% of Americans cannot come up with $400 in an emergency, which is to say that those buying $400 in lottery tickets are by and large the same people who say they couldn't come up with $400 in an emergency. It's really quite thought-provoking, that. Why did you include that story in your book?

    2. MH

      I include it because when I first read that statistic, I don't know, eight, 10 years ago, my first response, as many people's first response, was, "You can't even feed your family and you're buying scratcher tickets? How irresponsible could you be?" That was my initial reaction.

    3. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    4. MH

      And then I started pondering this. A lot of the lowest income Americans and people all over the world feel trapped in their situation. And unlike the privilege that you and I have of seeing a lot of upside potential in our careers and earning a good income, whatever it would be, they might feel trapped. And because of that, if their only sense of hope for getting out of the financial position that they're in is a lottery ticket, then that lottery ticket is the only tangible thing that they can hold that says, "I have a chance of getting out of this." It's the only thing that they can do in their career, in their minds maybe, that feels that gives them a sense of hope, and that hope might be worth the $400 a year that they're spending money on.

    5. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    6. MH

      And so it can... Like I, I'm not to say, I'm not saying it's right or it's justified, but there are a lot of things in life where my first reaction, maybe your first reaction-

    7. RC

      Mm-hmm

    8. MH

      ... is that's a bad decision. But then when you try to put yourself in their shoes, you're like, "I, I kinda understand it, and maybe if I were in your shoes, I would do the exact same thing." I had a conversation after I wrote this book, but with a friend who grew up in abject poverty. He was homeless for a lot of his childhood, and he told me a story that really resonated that ties into this. He said when he was growing up, he remembers times when he had no food in his fridge and his mom had $3 to her name. And he said, "Look, $3 will not fill the refrigerator. It's not gonna buy you any meaningful amount of food, but $3 will buy you a lottery ticket that gives you a chance of filling the refrigerator." So in that situation where literally she has hungry kids, she would go out and buy a lottery ticket, and at first blush that looks ridiculous. But actually when you try to understand the psychology of what that mother-

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm

    10. MH

      ... is in, you're like, "I kinda get it, and I might do the same if I were in that situation."

  5. 11:31 – 16:58

    Hope and control: what people will do to regain agency

    1. RC

      Yeah. For, for me, when I hear that, there's two big ideas or life philosophies that come up for me. One is this idea that if I was that other person, I'd be acting in exactly the same way as them.

    2. MH

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      Honestly, Morgan, I'm not exaggerating when I say that understanding, that deep, visceral understanding of that phrase, which has come to me in the last five years or so, has completely transformed how I interact with the world because- And, and I think we're seeing the polar opposite of that online where people are very, very judgemental, and they like to look down on others and judge others for their decisions. But ultimately, as you say, if you look into the psychology of who that person is, and you look at their childhood and their upbringing and the bullying experiences that they had and the friends that they had, well, it's almost inconceivable that you wouldn't have the same views about the world as them, right? So that's the first idea that comes up for me. But the second one is about this idea that you're buying hope. And we have this thing and, and, you know, I fall and pray to this i-in my life for sure, where you prioritize things that can be measured, right?

    4. MH

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      So what can be measured in the modern day? Well, it's money and job and, you know, all the, all the c- all the things we always talk about. But you can't really quantify hope, can you? So we can't see by our metrics why should somebody want to buy hope each week? I think we often undervalue things like that, don't we? And you could spread that out across so many different topics that we generally as a society are valuing things that we can measure. Whereas the realization I've come to in my life over the past few years is that the most important things, the things that truly make me happy and content, are things that you can't measure.

    6. MH

      Yes. And, like, how valuable is hope in your life? How much-- Like, if you did try to quantify it, and you can't, but if you tried, like, how important is it for you to wake up every morning and to know that your future with your family and in your career and in the, the country that you live in is going to be safe and prosperous and happy? I think you and I very likely have some sense of that. If we did not have that, what would we be willing to pay to get it back or to get a sliver of it? A lot. We'd be willing to pay a lot. But I think it plays into many different areas in life where gaining a sense of control and a sense of hope about your future, people are willing to move mountains and do nearly anything to get that. And if you don't have it in a natural sense from your career or your family, you will do things that might look crazy to you and I but actually make perfect sense to that individual.

    7. RC

      There's so much research, isn't there, that people who have a sense of control over their lives are happier, they're healthier. I think they move higher up the career ladder. They have better social relationships. It's, it's fundamental to who we are. We're always trying to get that sense of control, even though the world is fundamentally uncontrollable. The world will do its thing. But it's that sense of control we're looking for, isn't it? And I think Insane as Ever, there's-- I think that theme of control comes up quite a bit, doesn't it?

    8. MH

      Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so fundamental. If you were to make a list of, like, the psychological traits that lead to a happy life, and you can define happy in many different ways, of course, but a sense of agency in your life, a sense of control, that the future is not a black box. It's not a dark cliff that you're staring over. The future is in your control. That sense, whether you're accurate about that sense or not, is so fundamental to your lifetime wellbeing. And, you know, that can play out in many ways. Like a happy, healthy marriage is that. When you're very confident that you're gonna be married for the indefinite future, that's a sense of control. But also finance plays a huge role in this. Um, the ability to work where you want, with whom you want, for as long as you want is massive. Very-- Compare that to the person who says, "I hate my job. I have a long commute. I don't believe in my company, but I have to do this. I have to work in this job because I can't get another job, and if I quit this job, I can't, I can't pay my bills next week, so I have to do this." That, you have no control over that. And having a lot of money does not always mean that you have a lot of control. I think there are many CEOs who make, you know, fifteen million dollars per year who have no control over their lives. From six AM to midnight, they are scheduled every second of the day. They are beholden to various investor groups, labor groups, politicians, regulators. They actually have very little control over what they're doing. And at the same time, there are people who make way less money, very modest means, who have total control over their lives. They can do anything that they want. So this is not just a purely, uh, linear, if you have more money, you have more control. It really doesn't work like that. But having that sense of control, that the future is within your means, that the future is within-- that you have a lever to pull to control what happens next to you is absolu- It's one of the few, like, universal psychological traits that's gonna lead to happiness for more people around the world.

  6. 16:58 – 21:01

    Financial independence is a spectrum: savings as “claim checks” on your future

    1. RC

      For someone who's listening, Morgan, who says, "Yeah, that's me, you know. I, I don't like my job, and the only reason I'm in it is because it's the only job I can currently get, and it's what feeds my family and keeps a roof over their head and keeps the heating on in the winter," do you have any advice for that person?

    2. MH

      I would say financial independence is not binary. It's not either you are, you are, like, you can retire today or you're not independent. Every dollar that you save is a slice of the future that you own. It's a claim check on the future. And viewing it like that, like, even if you have a thousand dollars, a thousand pounds saved up, that might mean that you could quit your job, and you, you can pay your bills next week. You might be able to last a month or so to look for a new job. Even that small amount is a sense of independence. It's, it's a small nugget of independence. And when you view independence on a spectrum like that, then you view saving for the future in a different realm. I think there are a lot of people who say, "Why bother saving? Because even if I saved up five or ten thousand pounds, five or ten thousand dollars, it wouldn't make much difference." And I think the answer is, "Oh, yes, it absolutely would." And because think of the person who gets laid off from their job. Who, for whom next week they're gonna be in financial difficulty. They miss one paycheck, and they're in big trouble. That person has to go out and find the first job that they can get, whether or not they hate it, whether or not they're good at it, whether or not-

    3. RC

      Mm-hmm

    4. MH

      ... they like their boss. The person who has a little bit of savings can say, "I can spend two weeks looking for a job to find the one that's a little bit better." The person with moderate savings can say, "I can spend two or three months looking for a new job, and I'm really gonna f- um, w- I'm gonna wait for the one that I like." That is, just that spectrum of having to take the first job next week versus being able to wait a month or two is a massive sense of independence. So if you view independence as I could retire tomorrow, you're viewing it wrong. It's always on a spectrum, and every little bit of fi- of money that you save is more independence that you have relative to what you used to have.

    5. RC

      Yeah. You tell a powerful story about Derek Sivers in the book, don't you? Which I think really speaks to this because he, I think now from what I understand, is wealthy and, and doing well, but he defined when he felt wealthy or certainly when he felt rich at a much, much lower point, didn't he?

    6. MH

      Derek Sivers is an absolutely amazing human. He's so well-spoken-

    7. RC

      Yeah

    8. MH

      ... and he's so smart. He's an entrepreneur. And someone once asked him, they said, "Derek, tell me the story about how you got rich." And Derek told the story about how he saved up $20,000. And after that, like, he knew that he could, like, go out and live any life that he wanted. And the person said, "No, no, no. Tell me the story about how you sold your company for millions of dollars." And Derek said, "No, that was not when I got rich. I was rich when I had 20 grand 'cause I knew that I could go out and, like, be a musician and do whatever I want and pay my bills." And he said becoming a multimillionaire was just more money in the bank, but he felt rich at 20 grand. And I think that's, like, like, like, maybe he's, he's unique in that sense. Um, but I, I think that really gets to that point of independence is on a spectrum. And based off your philosophy, your mindset, and also your lifestyle, which was really important for him, you can gain a very strong sense of independence at a fairly low level of income. And I think a lot of people, particularly young people today, because of social media, have an inflated sense of what rich is. And I see this. My son, who's eight, who spends a lot of time watching, like, MrBeast and, like, those people on YouTube, his sense of rich is a private island and a Lamborghini and a private jet. And, you know, MrBeast gives away a million dollars to someone who just plays a silly little stunt for them. And versus when I was growing up in the '90s, rich people drove new pickup trucks, and poor people drove old pickup trucks. That was my, that was my spectrum of rich.

    9. RC

      Mm.

    10. MH

      And so I think young people today have a very inflated sense. Um, but just understanding that rich is a spectrum is, is so critical to, to being happy here.

  7. 21:01 – 23:41

    Why we think in extremes: social comparison inflates goals and kills motivation

    1. RC

      Yeah, such a powerful point. Again, we see a parallel in health, black or white thinking, right? It-- I'm either sleeping eight hours a night, or I don't need to bother, right? My four or five hours is absolutely fine. No. Actually, if you get 15 minutes more than you're currently getting, you know, you are gonna change your biochemistry. Your hormones are gonna be different. Your levels of inflammation are gonna be different, just 15 minutes more. It's not either you're the perfect sleeper or you don't need to worry about it. Why is it that humans fall into this trap, right? Black or white. I'm either financially independent and can retire tomorrow or I don't need to save. You know, why, why is it we do that, Morgan?

    2. MH

      I think we're, we're always creatures of social comparison, and who we compare ourselves to are not... We, we don't compare ourselves to someone who's 10% better than us, 10% healthier or 10% richer. We compare ourself to someone who is 100 times richer than us, to someone who is 100 times healthier than we are. So if you are overweight and unhealthy, you're probably not comparing yourself to someone who is merely moderately overweight. You're comparing yourself to a supermodel on Instagram.

    3. RC

      [laughs]

    4. MH

      And if you are poor, you're not comparing yourself to someone who is of modest means. You're comparing yourself to a billionaire.

    5. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    6. MH

      And because of that, like, our a- our, our goal setting becomes so inflated, and the problem with that is bec- you can become so, um, disillusioned with that. If you are overweight and your goal is to become a supermodel, you can come to the conclusion of, like, why bother? I, I'm never gonna get there-

    7. RC

      Mm

    8. MH

      ... so why bother doing anything? I might as well just wallow down here in my own self-pity. And I think the same thing happens in finance. If your net worth is $100 but you're comparing yourself to a billionaire, you might say, "Why even bother trying to get to $500? Why even bother trying to get to $1,000? It means nothing." And I think that's, that's the problem. And, and so, like, be very careful who your role models are. I think if you are someone of lower means financially, your role model should be someone who is just one notch higher than you. And that can be very powerful because there's so much evidence that achieving those goals is what's kee- is what keeps you going.

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    10. MH

      I mean, I'm, I'm a book author, and one of my things that I love to do is write short chapters because there's so much evidence that when someone finishes a chapter, when a reader finishes a chapter, they feel like they've accomplished something.

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    12. MH

      And they're like, "Yes, made it through the next one. Let's move on to the next chapter." Versus if they're, if they come across a very long chapter, they're like, "Ugh, this is gonna be a slog to get through." And so if your financial goal is like, "My net worth is $100. I wanna make it to 500," once you get there, you're like, "Hey, I did it. I did it. Like, I achieved my goal. Like, I got some momentum here." But if your goal is, "I wanna be a billionaire," you're gonna feel like, why even bother? The mountain is too high to climb.

  8. 23:41 – 29:03

    Success and the unseen: expectations, family reality, and careful admiration

    1. RC

      Yeah. It's interesting that comparison tends to exist no matter where we sit on the spectrum. So if there's an author looking at you, they're gonna go, "Wow, Morgan Housel sold," what is it? "4 million plus copies of your first book, now The Psychology of Money." Okay, that is a staggering amount of sales for one book. So the natural, um, tendency might be, oh, Morgan will be so delighted with that. It would have exceeded his wildest dreams. So I guess my question is 4 million is a lot of books, but of course there are authors like James Clear with Atomic Habits who-

    2. MH

      [laughs]

    3. RC

      ... who have sold more, right? So Yuval Noah Harari-

    4. MH

      Yeah

    5. RC

      ... who sold what, 20 million plus of Sapiens, right? So how, you know, I'm just interested for you, despite you having success, do you also suffer from comparison envy with, with other authors?

    6. MH

      James Clear is a good friend of mine, so I, I've teased him before that, like, he's, he, he's a good spot in my life because he's always just a reminder-

    7. RC

      [laughs]

    8. MH

      ... that I need to be humble about the success. James's first book, Atomic Habits, has sold more than 15 million copies.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. MH

      So whenever, whenever I'm around him it's always just like, "Hey, I think I'm doing well, but there's, there's somebody like this." And I actually just texted James this yesterday.

    11. RC

      Okay.

    12. MH

      My son reads, uh, a book, it's a very popular book series called Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

    13. RC

      Mm.

    14. MH

      And on the cover of Diary of a Wimpy Kid it says, "Over 250 million copies sold."

    15. RC

      [laughs]

    16. MH

      And I texted to James just like, "No matter where you are, somebody has sold more." And, and so, look, I, I would say rather than social comparison, I think I've done a pretty good job of being like, I, I admire the heck out of James and I'm so proud of him, but am I jealous of him? Do I envy him? N- not, not really. Um, or I would say not really at all. But I'd say rather than comparison, I think what happens is it's easy to look at someone who has achieved some sort of career success and think their life must be amazing. And if I had to look at my life before my first book, if I had to break my life into, like, 10 components, I don't know what those components would be, but just break it up into 10 components, I would say three of them have gotten better, uh, five of them have stayed the same, and two of them have gotten worse. Like i- i- if, if I were to look at my life, I would say, you know, like 20% of things have gotten better, th- 30% of things have gotten better. Most things have stayed the same and a couple things have gotten worse. The things that have gotten worse are my expectations and everybody else's expectations are so much higher now. So the bar for my future projects is just so impossibly high now that alm- I almost feel like no matter what I do in the future, people are gonna be unhappy with it because everything is compared to my first book. There's that element. But also I would say, like, look, when I get an update of how many books I've sold or I get a royalty check, does my four-year-old daughter care?

    17. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    18. MH

      Does she tell me how proud she is? No, she screams and says, "Daddy, get me more juice." [laughs] That kind of thing. So, like, there's always the seen versus the unseen, and when you're looking at a stranger you're only looking at the seen.

    19. RC

      Yeah.

    20. MH

      And you're like, "I, I might know your income and I might know this, but I don't know what's going on at home." And this is, this is not myself, but there are a lot of people for whom they have a lot of career success but they're in a very unhappy marriage.

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. MH

      Or they're struggling with their children. Or they're, they actually look... they have the amazing life, but they're actually very depressed and anxious, whatever it would be. So the seen versus the unseen, it's like the tip of the iceberg thing, is a, is a huge thing of be careful who you admire.

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. MH

      And the people who I admire the most in life, by and large, are not that successful in their career.

    25. RC

      Mm.

    26. MH

      Or maybe they have a modest amount of success in their career, but they have very happy marriages, they're very good parents. That's who I admire and look up to, and it's not necessarily income or statistics. It's those unseens that make the biggest difference in your life.

    27. RC

      I think if we think about it deeply, I think we kinda know good quality relationships are going to make us not only happier, healthier as well, actually. It's one of the best predictors of your longevity is the strength of your relationships. Yet a lot of us behave in ways that are completely alien to that, right? We think that, you know, a promotion, a better job, you know, a nicer hotel on holiday, a slightly nicer car, whatever it might be, we think those things are gonna make us happier and make our lives better. But time and time again we see that for many people at least, that's simply not the case. If you're enjoying this video, I think you are really going to enjoy my new book, Happy Mind, Happy Life: The New Science of Mental Wellbeing. I've been a practicing doctor for over 20 years now, and I can tell you there's a very strong link between happiness and health. Happier people are healthier, and they live longer. Now, happiness is actually a trainable skill that all of us can get better at once we know what to work on, and that's what my book is about, all the simple, free tools that you can use in your life to help you feel calmer, more content, more in control. Yes, happier, but also healthier. You can order the book right now. All you have to do is click the link in the description box below. So I guess I'm interested as to we can know that, but

  9. 29:03 – 32:30

    Status vs happiness, and what career success taught Morgan about his priorities

    1. RC

      do you have any guidance as to how people can actually try and apply that in their own lives?

    2. MH

      I, I think there's a lot of evidence that humans are wired to seek status and not happiness, and maybe from the, the crude math of evolution. Evolution doesn't care if you're happy.

    3. RC

      Mm.

    4. MH

      Evolution cares [laughs] that you, that you reproduce, and a lot of, a, a lot of that is, like, a competition for resources, and that's why we seek status, because it's a competition for resources. That's, like, the very crude version of why this might occur-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. MH

      ... is that people are wired to seek status and not happiness. I also think there is some maybe harsh reality here that on the nature-nurture spectrum, I think a lot of this leans towards nature. Some people are just wired to be content, and some people are not. Elon Musk gave this interview recently where he said, "You might think you wanna be me, the richest man in the world, but I'm telling you, you don't." And he said something along, I'm paraphrasing, but he's like, "It's a storm inside of my head. Like, it's a disaster up inside of this head." And I think a lot of people like that are wake up every morning tortured in, in, in, in, in a sense. And I think if you read the biographies of a lot of very successful individuals, they're tortured. And you might think from the outside, oh, I would love to be Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Dwight Eisenhower, like whoever it might be, and you read their biography and you're like, ah, it sounds actually terrible. That person was miserable. And so I think- Some people are just wired differently. And then I, like I know, I'm sure you know people who make a very modest income, and they're so happy. They're just, they're the best parents. They, they love their spouse more than anything, and I'm like, "That's, that's who I wanna be." But I think that person is wired very differently obviously than Elon Musk is.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. MH

      And so I think a lot of this is really nature/nurture. I always think about, it's actually been very, uh, enlightening for me in the past three years to have some element of career success with my first book, to put into such stark view that what makes me happy is, is my family, and my, my wife and my children, and not career.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. MH

      'Cause honestly, like am, like on net, am I happier today than I was four years ago? No. No. I think I'm probably, I'm, I think I'm moderately less anxious. I have c- less career anxiety, but I'm not happier. I don't wake up with a smile on my face more than I did back then. What made me happy then was my wife and kids.

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    12. MH

      And what makes me happy today is my wife and kids. That hasn't changed-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. MH

      ... whatsoever. So it's actually been so clear and enlightening to me to be like, if I wanna be happy in life, that's what I focus on.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. MH

      It's them. It's, [laughs] it's not selling more books. It's not trying to make more money. It's them. And the irony has been with my career, what has happened in the last three years is like now I travel a lot more for work to go speak about my book, which means less time with my wife-

    17. RC

      Yeah

    18. MH

      ... and kids. And it's like e- if there's, if anything, it's like, oh, I'm spending less time with them now than I did three years ago, and that's bad. So I think once you experience this, there's a great quote from Jim Carrey-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. MH

      ... where he says, "I wish everyone could be rich and famous for a day so that they could see it's not the solution to their problems."

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. MH

      And I think that's been, uh, you know, obviously a [laughs] on a very different degree than him, very enlightening for me for the last three years in a good humbling way to be like, no, what makes you happy is like, do, do you sleep well? Are you healthy? Actually, and also as I get a little bit older, I'm not in [laughs] you know, I, I just turned 40, and relative to my 20s I now know like I need to eat better and exercise more, and that's what's gonna keep me happy.

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. MH

      It's not selling more books. It's that.

  10. 32:30 – 37:20

    Can personality change? childhood adaptations, competitive drive, and control of time

    1. RC

      Yeah. It's interesting this whole nature/nurture conundrum. I believe that we can change so much of our personality. I believe that actually a lot of what we think is our personality is actually our adaptations to our childhood. So for example-

    2. MH

      Yeah

    3. RC

      ... I would say that the success I have had over the last five or six years actually as I reflect now has made me happier but not because of the success. It's made me happier because it's helped me realize that success and Instagram followers and book sales and podcast downloads don't actually make you happy. It's time with my wife. It's waking up with energy and vitality. It's being present with my children. It's taking time off every summer to go and explore the world with my family at the expense sometimes of career metrics that truly makes me happy. So it wasn't the success that made me happy, but it helped me realize that success doesn't make you happy. And so therefore I, I will be very grateful that I have it to have that realization. I feel that a lot of my wiring came from this feeling that I wasn't enough unless I succeeded. I've spoken about this-

    4. MH

      Yeah

    5. RC

      ... on the podcast before, but, uh, Morgan, just the top line summary is that I very much developed the impression when I was a kid that I was only loved when I was top of the class or I, I had full marks, okay? That wasn't my parents' intention to be really clear. They were just immigrants to the UK who wanted me not to face the same problems they faced, and so their way out of it for their children is for me to excel. Straight A student, go to a great university, become a doctor. You won't have any problems in life. So I get their rationale, but my rationale, my belief system was that I need to be successful. I need external validation in order to be happy. And over the last 5 or 10 years basically since my dad died, I've unpeeled a lot of those layers. I've figured out where they've come from. I've processed them, and now so much of my personality has changed. I used to be hypercompetitive. Now I'm not.

    6. MH

      Yeah.

    7. RC

      I used to think that I needed the success. Now I don't. You know, now I'm very, very clear. We talked about hidden costs. We've spoken about that already in this conversation. Like, it is so rare that you will be able to get me to go and do a talk at a weekend conference. Now yes, I have the luxury being able to say yes or no. Some people may not have that. I r- I, I totally acknowledge that. But now I will quantify, hold on, your kids are off. They're not at school at the weekends. So you traveling to London to go and give a one-hour talk, yes, it's a great cause. Yes, it will help lots of people. But I already do lots of things for other people in the week. I already do lots of great causes. I would rather spend those weekends with my wife and kids. So for me it's actually really helped my decision-making for the better. I don't know if any of that resonated with you at all.

    8. MH

      Definitely resonates, and thank you for sharing that story. I wonder though, and I don't know the answer to this, this is a legitimate question, if you are the oddball, so to speak, in your ability to change the personality that was ingrained in you as a child.

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    10. MH

      And I think most people would not be able to u- to overcome that. That's my suspicion. Maybe I, I'm completely unqualified to talk about this, but like I imagine your brain, your sense of risk and your sense of fear is wired during those years.

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    12. MH

      And you reach some sort of set point about how the world works that is extremely difficult to overcome as an adult.

    13. RC

      Yeah. It's really interesting. It's made me think, you know. I think one of the problems is, is that we don't believe it's possible, so we believe a lot of the time that-

    14. MH

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... who we are is who we have to stay, and I don't think it's always the case. And maybe if people Going back to first principles, had the belief system that actually it is possible to change certain elements of my personality, or maybe more people would start to investigate how they might be able to do that. But it's an interesting point to, to think about. In terms of practical exercises that I do, and then, you know, potentially it's one, if you're up for it, we could do it together, or you could certainly give me your answers to this if, if you, if you're game. Um, there's an exercise I, I, I wrote about in my last book, uh, called Write Your Own Happy Ending. And the reason I created this exercise is to really help people understand what really is important in life. Are you up for giving this a go, Morgan?

    16. MH

      I, I love it. I, I, I, I have a very similar philosophy, so I'm totally-

    17. RC

      Okay

    18. MH

      ... game for this.

  11. 37:20 – 41:05

    Reverse obituary: defining a life well-lived and aligning effort with values

    1. RC

      All right. So imagine you're on your deathbed right now. This is the last day of your life. Looking back on your life, what are three things you will want to have done?

    2. MH

      The way that I've heard it phrased is the reverse obituary. So like w- like what do you want your obituary to say?

    3. RC

      Mm.

    4. MH

      When people are like... Like let, let, let's assume that you're not on your deathbed, it's, it's, it's the day after and someone writes your obituary. In that scenario, what I would want my obituary to say is, "Morgan was a good father. He was a good spouse. He helped his community. He left the world a better place." But I think what is more powerful here is understanding what is not in there.

    5. RC

      [laughs]

    6. MH

      I would not give... I would not care in the slight. I don't want anyone to say, "Here's how much money Morgan made. Here's how many books he sold. Here's how big his house was."

    7. RC

      Mm.

    8. MH

      "Here's how many horsepower his car had." Everyone, I think most people intuitively understand those things do not matter. And what will matter to you in that obituary, what you want to say are these like intangible things, and it's a very clarifying exercise to understand what to put your effort into-

    9. RC

      Yeah

    10. MH

      ... for like what you want to achieve in life, because even in that situation where you're like, I wanted to say good father, husband, but how much of my effort is on those things versus how much of my effort is making more money and selling more books? It's actually be, be, like it's a very clear like, oh, I wanna go this way, but I'm spending all of my effort trying to go this way, and that's, that's been very extremely clarifying to me. The other thing I think about is not on my deathbed 50 years from now, but what if I were on my deathbed tomorrow? What regrets would I have?

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    12. MH

      That's, that's actually, that's very clarifying to me. And for a lot of people, it, it will be some form of, "I wish I had called this person. I have, I haven't connected with them in years."

    13. RC

      Mm.

    14. MH

      "I really should have. I wish I had forgiven this person. I wish I had, you know, had, had more grace in this situation." I think that it's... I, I think that's more powerful to assume that your deathbed is tomorrow.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. MH

      To be, be very grim about it, and to ask what would you regret? I, I'll tell you one element of this. In the financial sense, if I were on my deathbed tomorrow, I would have zero regrets for being a very frugal saver in my life, because I would take so much pleasure knowing that my wife and children are gonna be okay financially.

    17. RC

      Thank you for sharing. And yeah, I'd never heard that term reverse obituary, but, uh, I, I really, really like it. The, the second part of the exercise for me at least, is to bring it into the present and go, okay, so these are the three things you say you want to have done on your deathbed. So what are three, what I call happiness habits? What are three things you can do each week that are gonna ensure you get that happy ending that you've just defined that you want? And so for me, for example, you know, I think we all pretty much say the same things on our deathbed, right? So that, that... You, you ask this question to people, it's, it's all about relationships, about leaving the world a better place, and having time to do things you're passionate about. So for me, for example, on my fridge, I have written down three happiness habits, and it's simple stuff like, I wanna have five meals with my wife and kids each week where I'm completely undistracted. And, and the number five is important. I've specified, right? So I can measure, go, you know, oh, this week it was only four. Next week, I must be careful now that I'm not falling away in my priorities. Because I know if I do that each week, I'm spending quality time with them. I'm gonna get that deathbed's, uh, ending that I said I wanted. If I record an episode of my podcast each week, which I've been doing for six years, yeah, then I'm gonna be doing something that improves the lives of other people. If I can play my guitar or go for a run in nature each week, I've had a bit of time to, you know, pursue one of my passions. And I find it such a simple exercise that...

  12. 41:05 – 44:49

    Lessons from elders: regrets center on relationships, not earning more

    1. RC

      Because, you know, your, both your books are just so fantastic. They're really about human behavior to me. They're about this is the way the world works, right? I mean, you wrote in the, in the, in Same as Ever, I think it's in the chapter on freedom. You talk about this, this book, 30 Lessons for Living-

    2. MH

      Yeah

    3. RC

      ... where the author interviewed 1,000 elderly Americans, right? Maybe you could talk about some of the learnings, uh, from that book.

    4. MH

      Yeah. There's a gerontologist named Carl Pillimer who did this amazing study where he interviewed 1,000 elderly Americans. A lot of them were centenarians. And he just asked them, like the, the theme of his book, he just sat down and said, "Give me some advice on life. You've experienced more life than almost anyone. What's your advice?" And he has this part where he's talking about money, and he says, of the 1,000 people that he interviewed, not a single person looking back at their life said, "I wish I earned more money." Not a single person said, "I wish I worked harder." Not a single person said, "I wish I made more money than my, my neighbors or my siblings." Nobody. What virtually all of them said was, "I wish I spent more time with my kids. I wish I was nicer to, to people. I wish I forgave people more." That was universal. Money never even came up, and I think that is like, that's, that's pretty astounding to think, because if you look at the habits of people in between age 20 and 60, what is it? It's work, work, work, work, work. More money, more money, more money. And part of that I completely make sense as a-

    5. RC

      Yeah

    6. MH

      ... as a... You, you need to provide for your family, give them a great life. Of, like, of course. But it's astounding between what our habits are early in life versus what our regrets are later in life when we can look back with a greater sense of wisdom and more context of where all the pieces-

    7. RC

      Mm

    8. MH

      ... fell. So I, I think about that a lot, too, and that's why in this reverse obituary, if you think about it, like money is pro- is not gonna come up. Most people looking back on their own lives or other people looking back on your own lives are not gonna care about that. They're gonna care, like, were you a good person.

    9. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    10. MH

      And you see this a lot. Oh, I, I, I, I, I remember reading several years ago, and I, I don't know the person's name, it was not a famous person, but it was this incredibly shocking obituary along the lines of, "My dad was a terrible father, hated everybody, made a lot of money, but knocked everybody over. Nobody liked him. We didn't like him. Our mom didn't like him. We're glad he's gone, and he can take all of his money with him." And that, that, that was, that was the thrust of the obituary.

    11. RC

      Mm.

    12. MH

      And I remember reading that and being like, I think that's actually fairly common.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. MH

      I think there are a lot of wealthy people whose children are just waiting for them to die because the only goodness they provide in the world is the, is their bank account.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. MH

      They have no capacity for love or wisdom or humor, and I think that's really important. I think there's another element to this that's very important that I think about a lot, which is everybody in life just wants respect and admiration from, from different people, but everyone... Like, that's a very universal thing. I wanna be respected and admired, and I wanna be, have a signal that I am, like, I am needed in the world. And if you are not getting that sense of respect and admiration from your intelligence or your wisdom or your humor or your ability to love, your ability to help, if you can't get it from those, then a lot of people will seek it from, "Look at my fancy car."

    17. RC

      Mm.

    18. MH

      "Look at my fancy house." That's where they try to get their respect and admiration from, but they're doing it because they cannot get it from anywhere else. They're trying to fill a hole in their life.

    19. RC

      Yeah.

    20. MH

      So I think if you h- if you are gaining your respect and admiration from love, intelligence, wisdom, humor, then you feel like you don't need to f- to fill it with, "Look at my giant house and my flashy car."

    21. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    22. MH

      And so I think that, that, that plays a big role here.

  13. 44:49 – 47:55

    Respect, admiration, and the letter to his son: why stuff doesn’t deliver what people want

    1. RC

      One of the most striking things for me when, when reading your first two books, Morgan, was the quotes you would share from this letter that you wrote to your son after he was born. First of all, it's really interesting to me as a parent of two kids myself that you decided to write a letter to your son after he was born. So I'm interested as to what was the sentiment behind that. But certainly from what I've read, there were two passages you shared. The first one was, "You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house, but I'm telling you, you don't. What you want is respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does, especially from the people you want to respect and admire you." What led you to write that?

    2. MH

      I think it was just my own, my own experiences in life, that that's, that's really what it is. I mean, I've always thought in my life that, like... Well, it, it starts with the Warren Buffett definition of success, which he says is, "You are successful when the people who you want to love you do love you." And so I've often thought like, "Who, who do I want to love me?" For me, it's my parents, my wife, and my two kids. I want them to, I need them to love me. If any of them don't love me, there's, there's no amount of career success that's gonna lead to any amount of happiness in life. I need those, uh, you know, f- four people to, to love me in life. Then everyone else, like I... There, and then after that, there's maybe 20 people who I want to like me, and like 100 people who I want to, like, admire me, but after that, like, everything kind of falls away. And so I think really narrowing it down to those core people is important. And but then if you're like, okay, if you're driving a Lamborghini, by and large, you're trying to impress strangers who, like, you don't even care about their opinion. And like, by the way, they're not even, they're not thinking about you. And so that, I think that was really clarifying to me is like, is my wife and kids and parents gonna ad- mi- love me more if I have a fancy car? Of course not.

    3. RC

      Mm.

    4. MH

      Of course not. No, no way in the world they were. Will they love me more if I spend more time with them, if I'm kinder to them, if I help them more? Yes. Probably. [laughs] So, like, let's do that rather than-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. MH

      ... focusing on the fancy thing.

    7. RC

      Yeah. It's so fascinating. First of all, I th- I think it's important to acknowledge that depending on where you are in the world, depending on your current income and the pressures on you, yes, you may have to make certain decisions which may not be ideal, you know. So some people may have to work two or three jobs, and that may impact on their relationships at this moment in time. But I, I do still think the wider point applies because in Bronnie Ware's book, Five Regrets of the Dying, and the book you just shared about, you know, these life lessons from people towards the end of their life, these are people across all income spectrums, right? So these will have people-

    8. MH

      Yeah

    9. RC

      ... who earned a lot of money, people who didn't. But still, the kind of learnings [laughs] are pretty similar, aren't they?

  14. 47:55 – 57:41

    Role models, social media, and raising grounded kids: luck, risk, and what parents emphasize

    1. MH

      I, I remember reading this saying many years ago of, uh, David Cassidy, who was a, a, a very famous childhood s- star celebrity, um, who, who died a couple years ago, and allegedly his, his last words on his deathbed were, "So much wasted time." And I remember thinking like, c- can you imagine a worse feeling to have on your deathbed? Of looking back at your life and just thinking, "So much wasted time."

    2. RC

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    3. MH

      What's interesting is that this is someone for whom it's so easy to look up to them and being like, "What an amazing life."

    4. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    5. MH

      He was a childhood star, like girls throwing themselves at him. Probably made a ton of money, and he's looking back on his deathbed and being like, basically saying, "What a joke it was."

    6. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    7. MH

      And then I also, uh, did this math a couple months ago, where I looked at the top 10 richest men in the world. Cumulatively among them have 13 divorces among the top 10 richest men, and seven of the top 10 richest men have been divorced at least once. And that's a very small sample size. You can't really take a lot out of that, but for a statistic that is so fundamental to your lifetime happiness among a group of men who are so universally admired, I've often thought was very interesting. And, like, this gets back to the seen versus unseen as well. Like, be very careful measuring your role models, like-

    8. RC

      Yeah

    9. MH

      ... the quality of their life based on what you can see. There's some... There's... A- in every one of these cases, there's something going on behind the scenes that is gonna diminish the shiny star that you can see from the outside.

    10. RC

      Yeah. I'm, I'm so passionate about that as an idea. Uh, I really am. It's something I very much fallen prey to earlier on as a teenager in my life. You know, looking up to these, you know, these heroes, these icons, these rock gods. But as you get older, you realize, wait a minute, I don't know anything about them. I just know how they sing, how they play guitar, and what they're like on stage. I don't know what they're like as a husband, as a father, as a friend, as an employer. Yeah, I have no idea of that stuff, you know? So be very careful who you worship because you, you can't have one without having it all, right? You could... You know, there's so many examples. I spoke to, um, Jonny Wilkinson, you know, a World Cup winning rugby player, on this podcast a couple of years ago. Again, he, he realized his dreams when he was 22 or 23. He kicked the winning goal in the last minute of the World Cup final to give England the World Cup, but his life went downhill for the next 10 years because, you know, he achieved his dreams too early. He didn't know what to do next. Michael Phelps after the Olympics, you know-

    11. MH

      Yeah

    12. RC

      ... suffering with depression, suicide. We see this over and over again. Yet, as you say, with your kids growing up watching MrBeast, thinking that, "Hey, that looks like a pretty good life," you know, chucking out money to your buddies and taking them to islands or whatever. If that's how you're measuring yourself, I don't know, you could be in for a bit of a letdown. I mean, how do you think as a parent? You obviously write these letters to your kids. Has your son read that letter yet or is it for him when he's an adult? Um, firstly, and then secondly, have you thought about how you're going to try and, you know, insulate your children from the effects of social media and comparison and, you know, thinking that what MrBeast does is, you know, a reasonable form of success? Nothing against MrBeast, to be really, really clear. Just, he's just one person though, isn't he?

    13. MH

      Yeah. No, and, and yeah, I, I think MrBeast is actually a wonderful person.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. MH

      He's just inflated the as- the aspirations of an entire generation. Um, in terms of my, my children, I, I had a very enlightening conversation just a month or two ago with a guy who's about my age, whose father is a multibillionaire and has been for decades. So this guy who's my age grew up as a child of a billionaire with all of the trappings that come with it, private jets and mansions and, and everything comes with it, and he is incredibly grounded, down to earth, normal, sane, wise, everything, which in my mind is actually very rare-

    16. RC

      Mm-hmm

    17. MH

      ... to grow up in a situation that is so disconnected from the norm, but actually grow... and become an adult who really understands and is down to earth and humble. And I asked him like, h- how, like, how'd your parents do it? Like, how are you this humble and down to earth growing up like that? And he said something that was really interesting. He said, um, the reason a lot of rich kids grow up spoiled is because the parents are obsessed with money, and by the way, that's why the parents are rich to begin with. And so the kid grows up with the parents telling them nothing matters more than money. Money, money, money. And again, that's why the parents are rich, but the child grows up thinking that nothing else matters. And that's where the sense of superiority comes from. 'Cause if as a child you are told nothing matters more than money, and then you learn that you have more money than everybody else, you think, "I'm superior to everybody else." But this kid whose parents were billionaires said money honestly never really came up as a kid.

    18. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    19. MH

      He said they, they knew they had more than others, but we don't talk about it every day. But what their parents did talk about was like- How to be a good person, how to help other people, how to be a g- how to be a good spouse. It just, money just never came up. It was just not a topic of conversation. And so I think about that a lot. Like, even if you do have above average income, if you just don't really talk, if you just don't talk about it, you, you, you just go out of your way. Like, kids are very good at perceiving what you as parents are drilling into them as the most-

    20. RC

      Yeah

    21. MH

      ... important thing.

    22. RC

      Yeah.

    23. MH

      And if you're drilling into them that money is the most important thing, that's what they're gonna take away. And so I try to think about that a lot as a parent. But it's also very, very difficult to do because I think a lot of that, back to our conversation before, is nature/nurture. And maybe this guy who I talked to, the son of a billionaire, was just wired to be-

    24. RC

      Yeah

    25. MH

      ... humble and wise and down to Earth.

    26. RC

      Yeah.

    27. MH

      And ma- maybe that's the takeaway. So it's like, it's-

    28. RC

      It's tricky

    29. MH

      ... I, I think there's, there, there could be strategies to point you in the right direction, but at the end of the day, your, your kids are gonna be who they're gonna be.

    30. RC

      Yeah. The biggest thing I think I've learnt in parenting in, what, 13 and a half years now of being a dad, is that kids do what they see you do, not what you tell them to do. And so one of the things I try my very best at, I'm not perfect, but is I try and model the behaviors in front of them and around them that I hope they take on and, you know, and that generally is about being present, being kind to others, treating everyone with respect. In fact, the second part of that letter that you shared that you wrote to your son was this, "Some people are born into families that encourage education. Others are against it. Some are born into flourishing economies encouraging of entrepreneurship. Others are born into war and destitution. I want you to be successful, and I want you to earn it, but realize that not all success is due to hard work and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself." What a beautiful thing to write to your son.

  15. 57:41 – 1:03:10

    One financial message for everyone: needs vs wants, ‘just a little bit more,’ and being a 10

    1. RC

      Just moving on to finance for a moment. If someone's listening to this, Morgan, and let's think about three categories of people, right? Let's say someone is not earning very much at all. They struggle with money. They don't have much, and they're always looking to how they can get more so they can provide themselves and the family with security. So that's category one. Let's say category two is someone who's kinda doing okay but wants a bit more than they currently have, which may well also be everyone. [laughs] But let's just call it category two. Um, and then category three, let's say, is someone who is, you know, by most standards doing very well, is wealthy, and has enough. If you were to give one piece of financial advice to each of those three categories, do you know what it might be?

    2. MH

      [laughs] I think it might be the same to all of them.

    3. RC

      Really?

    4. MH

      Uh, s- just like what's gonna make you happy is, is by and large not the thing you think it's going to. And there's a, there's a great quote from, um, from an author who says something along the lines of, once you move past the element of needs, you need shelter, you need food, you need healthcare, you move on to figuring out what you want. Like, you move on to wants. And what we want, knowing what we want is much more difficult than knowing what we need. We are very-- we know what we need, and we, we... it's very difficult to know what you want. And I, I think that's, I think for all three of those groups who are just like, "Hey," like, "I, I'll bet I'll have a better life if I have this," by and large, like most people will revert to thinking about material goods. "If I have a bigger house, I will, I, I'll, I'll be happier. If I have a nicer car, I'll be happier." And no matter where you are on the income spectrum, that's what you're thinking. Even the very rich person is thinking like, "Oh, if I have..." Like, "I, I live in a mansion now, but if I have two mansions, I'll be happier." And, and for all of those people, I think they, there's a sense of fooling yourself. I think it gets back to humans are wired for status and not for happiness. We are always, no matter where we are in the income spectrum, no matter where we are in the material spectrum, the, the solution to our problems in our own minds is, "If I have a little bit more, it'll be better." And this has been true forever. John D Rockefeller was once asked when he was the richest man in the world, they said-- someone asked him, they said, "Mr. Rockefeller, how much money is enough?" And he said, "Just a little bit more." Uh, he said it tongue in cheek, but I think that's, that's true for everybody in every era, in every country, at every income level. And it's a, it's a difficult thing to wrap your head around. So I think my advice to all three of those groups would be to focus on what is actually gonna give you contentment and happiness in life, which is health, family, exercise, sleep, mental clarity, those kind of things.

    5. RC

      Yeah. Morgan, I love it. Reminds me of the, the quote I think about on most days from the Tao Te Ching, "True wealth is knowing what is enough." It's a question I'm constantly asking myself, "What is enough? What is enough?" And the more you ask it- I chatted to a friend of mine a few months ago. He said, "How are you doing? You a 10? I'm a 10." I'm like, "Yeah, mate, I honestly, I'm a 10 these days." Like I, I have everything I want in life, genuinely. And I couldn't say that a few years ago, but I genuinely believe that these days. I'm, I've, I'm happily married. I've got a fantastic relationship with my two kids. I see my mum most days. I get to see my friends, you know, on holiday, whatever it might be. I couldn't be any happier than I currently am today, and I certainly get that sense from you, Morgan, as well.

    6. MH

      Yeah. I think that's true for me most days. I think my entire life I've leaned towards an anxious personality and a worst case scenario thinker personality. I think that's just kind of who I am.

    7. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    8. MH

      I think I've become happier as I embrace it, that that's who I am, and just understanding. Like so much of meditation is not like fixing your thoughts, it's just identifying and being aware of them.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. MH

      So I think that's, that's, that's what's really been the, the case for me. But I, I, I, I feel like that a lot too, of just like I, I, I have a great marriage. I have a good relationship with my kids. There's a sense of like even on the days where you're don't feel like a 10, it's important to take a step back and be like, "Well, what would make you happy?" Because you, [laughs] you got a lot right now. You got a lot. Like, don't pretend that if you had X, Y, and Z you would be happier for on, on most days. Like for some people that would really be the case. But I just lean towards a level of anxiety that might be a little bit higher than most.

    11. RC

      Yeah. Morgan, it's been such a joy talking to you. Uh, I think, you know, your books are both absolutely fantastic. I think the new one, Same as Ever, if people just get it just for the list of questions at the back-

    12. MH

      [laughs]

    13. RC

      ... even that would totally transform their lives. I'm just looking at some of them. We didn't get time to go through them today, but, you know, you know, th- this one. Which of my current views would change if my incentives were different? That's such-

    14. MH

      Yeah

    15. RC

      ... a great question. How many things outside my control contributed to things I take credit for? Who do I look up to that is secretly miserable? I mean, there's about 20 questions there. So Morgan, I think you're doing great work. I think your work is about human behavior rather than money, and I think it applies to health as much as anything else. Thank you for making time to come on the show.

    16. MH

      Thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you. [upbeat music]

    17. RC

      If you enjoyed that conversation, I think you are really going to enjoy this one about how to achieve your full potential in life.

    18. MH

      We underestimate ourselves. People suffer from imposter syndrome, and they don't believe that they're capable of greater things. Why does that happen? It happens because we tend to judge our potential by our starting point.

Episode duration: 1:03:10

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