Live The Perfect Life, Using Data - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

There definitely is a relationship between money and happiness, but it's a pretty small one. So, like for example, doubling your income consistently has about the effect, same effect on unhappiness. So, going from $40,000 to $80,000 a year has the same effect of going from $4 million to $8 million a year. (laughs) So basically, you're in this kind of treadmill where you need to keep on raising it by more and more to get a happiness boost.

(wind blowing) Dude, your new book is absolutely awesome. This is, this is what people want someone that has access to loads of data to actually come up with and do. It's like, "Look, just, just tell me how I'm supposed to live my life, please."

(laughs)

"Can you just give me the Moneyball for my existence? That would be great. Thank you."

Yeah. That was the motivation for the book is that I l- it's legitimately the book I wanted to read because I'm obsessed with self-help. Like, it's a little embarrassing 'cause I'm supposed to be such an intellectual, and my, my bookshelves are just filled with self-help, like how to get more powerful, when I was single, how to date better, how to be happier, how to whatever. And I'm so frustrated 'cause I read all these books and I'm like, "I just don't belie-..." I'm like, "This isn't really based on very much." You, you just, like, had an idea and you just told me. It's not, like, up to the rigorous standards that I'd come to expect from, uh, you know, data analysis. So I'm kinda just like, "Okay. What would actually be, like, what if you just explored all the areas of life and just said what the data tells you on it?" And like y- you know, like, uh, I've also noticed that a lot of self-help books when they say they're evidence-based or, like, science-based, somebody just has a point they wanna make and they just Google some study that confirms it. (laughs) And, like, that's not how I wrote this book. I literally had no idea what I was saying on any of these topics. I'm like, "I don't know what I'm saying about dating. I don't know what I'm saying about entrepreneurship. I don't know what I'm saying about happiness." And I'm just, like, gonna find the best studies and the best data and the best whatever, and then, like, here, uh, that's what I'm saying now. So, yeah.

It does make other books feel, uh, in- inconsistent and insubstantial. You're like, "Hang on a second. What, what, what did you s- You just told me a nice story."

(laughs)

Like this is just, it's just a story that happens to fit some Eat, Pray, Love narrative that sounds nice.

I think it's right. I thought it w- I think it's also a misconception that people just wanna read stories. Like, that's kind of a, a, an idea that they tell authors, you know? You just tell stories, tell stories, tell stories. And, like, everybody who's read my book so far, which I'm just gonna say the... You're supposed to say the name a lot, Don't Trust Your Gut, (laughs) so people will remember it. But, uh, (laughs) everyone who's read my book has been like, "I've been enthralled by the tables and the charts," (laughs) which is, like, not... Again, that's not usually what you put in self-help books, like tables and charts. Uh-