Kind: captions
Language: en
now this is an interesting you know
Insight that that we we can take back to
ancient times but St Thomas aquinus in
1265 writes his Suma theologica this
seminal text of Western philosophy you
know forget the just the theology just
Western philosophy and in it he talks
about this very interesting thing he
says that that man mankind humankind
we'd say today has four Idols you pursue
everybody pursues one or more of four
idols and he calls them the substitutes
for God because his supposition is that
that we all want God but God is
extremely inconvenient a lot of
one-sided conversations and a ton of
rules so we look for substitutes that
have kind of these Divine
characteristics the problem is they're
180 degrees off God they are money power
pleasure and fame fame he says honor
which is has different connotations you
have a son who's a marine who serves
With Honor that's not what we mean we're
talking about admiration EnV the uh of
other people of you which is which is
people want that or or just Prestige or
maybe Fame you know some people actually
want to be famous but let's just call it
money power pleasure and fame everybody
you know I play this game what's my idol
and I'll ask people not what's your
actual Idol but what is not your idol
you know of these four money power
pleasure Fame what's the one that least
attracts you that you could get rid of
with total impunity you don't care and
then we'll we'll start eliminating and
we're gonna find your idol is the whole
thing now the interesting thing about
that is that what he says is not that
you'll go to hell if you do that he says
you'll be unhappy if you don't recognize
the idol if you don't recognize the
idols in your life the trouble is the
lyic system of your brain Mother Nature
that Tyrant tells you that you'll
actually be happy if you get your idol
as you chase it and you chase it you
can't quite figure out what you're going
to do if you get it like Tom's going to
get you know hundreds of millions of
billions of dollars what are you going
to do with that money that you would
actually like and you can't quite figure
out well yeah cuz if you if you
articulate it you know if I say you'll
buy a yacht and you're like I don't that
sounds like kind of a hassle to have a
yacht maybe it sounds good but not that
good right the real reason you want that
is because you want admiration because
you want the the validation of what it
represents of you to you you want to
this transference of social comparison
you've always done with other people you
want to actually feel the thing that you
felt for others about yourself that's
what the idol do that's the nasty
Switcheroo that's the that's the
despotism of this of of of mistaking the
intrinsic good for the instrumentality
that's why Thomas aquinus was so astute
in what he was talking about here so
when we play this game and we we we see
what is actually holding us back and you
experience this absolutely you were
chasing the thing chasing the thing and
chasing the thing getting more and more
and more miserable because you're
actually getting closer and closer to
your idol and realizing it will not
realize one single thing that you needed
for your own happiness it had no
intrinsic worth look there's the
anything thing about money by the way
the research on money is very clear that
it doesn't actually ever bring happiness
it lowers unhappiness which are
processed in different hemispheres of
the of the brain happiness and
unhappiness are not opposites they're
not they're different experiences and
what happens is at low levels money will
lower unhappiness so when I could
finally go to the dentist I felt better
the trouble is I don't know how to do
the sums inside my brain I just knew I
felt better and we always mistake lower
unhappiness for higher happiness and so
early on you're like well I went from
from you know $155,000 to $20,000 a year
and I felt better I actually felt better
about myself I was able to to eliminate
some of these sources of of you know
misery so I'm happier and so you get
into the pattern early on you wire your
brain when you're a young person working
your way up the ladder more money feel
better that means more happiness and you
realize that going from $250 $300,000 is
not doing it that because it's not big
enough jump apparently so you go and you
go and you go and you go and you go and
you're basically just chasing a lure
that's what you experienced and that's
why you're were miserable right because
you couldn't get there from here it's
interesting yes I put different words to
it and I'm curious to see what you think
about this so I think about it from an
evolutionary standpoint so we have
directives in our brain that there is
going to be a sense of disease if you
don't do certain things I think that
deep and profound unhappiness can come
from pursuing the wrong thing so that
you're spending your time doing things
that just they rob you of energy instead
of giving you energy but I also think
that people end up profoundly unhappy by
not doing things that nature wants them
to do right and I think one of the
things that nature wants us to do and so
just not doing it will be a problem is
work really hard to turn your potential
into skill set yeah and so if things
come easily to you even though you're on
top of the world and everybody else
admires you and wants to be you that
there will be a sense of disase for you
because you're not working hard it
doesn't feel meritorious yeah Nature has
to find a proxy right so nature wants
you to have children so it makes sure
that sex is intensely pleasurable but
that's really just a proxy for have kids
so that I find really interesting that
that nature is working in these weird
proxies so people end up like you think
you're supposed to do one thing chase
money power Fame whatever you're like
why does this suck but all of those
things actually do have utility and so
the thing with money is people are
always going to pursue it the thing with
Fame is people are always going to
pursue it why because it actually has
utility so money for instance is more
powerful than people think not less but
it isn't what you've been told so it's
never what myself and everyone else
included is trying to do is feel better
about themselves right it won't help
with that it cannot touch your
self-esteem and that's like the biggest
like mind [ __ ] ever your wife won't love
you
more your children won't respect you
more when you have more money exactly
more troubling you won't respect you
more yes which is ultimately the cuz
other people will like people treat me
differently because I have some micro
Fame and because that's actually
troubling too because when you know
somebody's instrumentalizing you when
you know somebody's objectifying you
because of this outside characteristic
it makes you profoundly uncomfortable
it's interesting people hate that you
know it's the one thing where we will
allow people to object ify us you're
welln you're successful and people will
be nice to you because of that and deep
down you know that they they they don't
love you and it's not how it plays out
in my head how does it play out in your
head that I have no ability to be
vulnerable around them oh I see for sure
but that's the same part of self that's
the same part of objectification you and
and if when you're objectified you can't
be a full person there's another
interesting thing that might actually
apply you're a creative you're
fundamentally a creative when you were
doing your work you were thrown off the
creative process now why is creativity
intensely pleasurable you get you've
read the work of mikai chent Mii the
great social psychologist who wrote a
book a very famous book called flow f l
w flow and what it talks about is how
minutes how hours turn to minutes of
sheer pleasure when you're in this Flow
State when you're doing something that
you can Master you you can it's not too
easy it it requires your ability but you
can Master it because of your skill
skill and you can get into this groove
creatives must create if creatives are
not creating they will be miserable
because they can't attain a flow State
it's very possible Tom that when you
were in this part of your career you
needed to create what you wanted to quit
and go to Greece to do creation you were
basically craving that it's like you had
no protein in your diet for a year or
something it's like I don't know I just
can't stop thinking about peanut butter
well cuz you were create you were you
were you were craving this macronutrient
in your psyche and and you were never
getting a Flow State and if you're
denied the flow state that uniquely
comes to you through creativity you're
going to you're going to be practically
suicidal yeah it was it was definitely a
rough period that's interesting I've
never thought about it as being
intrinsically a reflection of the
pleasurability of flow but you might be
right it's just I feel I feel alive that
is the right word I feel alive when I'm
creating I never happier than what I'm
creating it's amazing people who are
fundamentally creatives look same thing
you know when I retired as a CEO and I
came back back to writing speaking and
teaching um I'm a new man I'm a new man
for the past 3 years it's extraordinary
you said something a while ago I didn't
want to interrupt you but I want to go
back to it now you said you rediscovered
yourself yeah what does that mean like
you need a sense of identity is that a
core part of this like is when you say
you rediscovered is it a
self-narrative it's you you know who you
deeply are as a person you're acquainted
with yourself you're acquainted with
your true self and just as with people
who are around you you can you can
create a an identity that's actually not
authentic you can create an identity to
yourself that's not authentic you can be
giving yourself a self-narrative that's
not true to actually who you are as a
person what does it mean who you are
what you're good at what you love it
generally speaking has to do with being
in the zone of what you actually love to
do and what you appreciate most in your
life when you're in line with your own
values when you're living Accord to your
own value so Jung would have put it this
way Carl Yung his definition of his
understanding of Happiness was that you
need to understand your own values what
you value what you think is proper and
correct and moral and if you know what
that is and can articulate it and live
according to that you will be happy if
you do you agree with that I think it's
actually there's a lot of Truth to that
because you know you have to figure out
what you think what your model of the
world actually is what you think truth
is and then living in accord with your
own values with your own Integrity is is
really critically important because when
people live outside that Groove they're
they're never in equilibrium they're
just never the problem is that they're
not comfortable they're not comfortable
in their own skin and I've noticed this
you know I was working you know was it
was it was it was good being the
president of a th tank I was lucky to be
president of Think Tank I believed in
the work
but it wasn't who I was and so I was
kind of out of my groove for 10 years 10
and a half years and when I started
going when I went back to writing and
speaking and teaching and doing creative
work I
said that always who you were or was
that because you switched into Crystal
it's always who I was always a creating
you know as a kid I was painting and
writing and composing music and I just
always wanted to be I was creativity is
the most important thing in my life or
curiosity and creativity are the are the
most important thing that I can not the
most important thing in my life the most
important thing that I can do and when
I'm actually happiest and when I was
managing a large Workforce managing a
lot of creatives to their best selves I
mean it was they had certainly creative
moments to it to be sure but it wasn't
comfortable to me and when I my second
curve which was much more crystallized
intelligence is a lot also a lot more
creative so I was kind of out of
equilibrium for a long time during that
period as well which compounds the
problem of my declining fluid
intelligence also not being in a
creative role but it's just so much
better I mean I I teach you at a great
University which I love I write for a
magazine every week about things that
I'm really interested in I get to talk
to you about it this is well beats
working so true for some reason I was
just thinking today like
I was pacing listening to you and I was
like I'm technically working right now
weird I was like this is cool it is
super cool and you know there are people
that I've met it's interesting you know
I talk to lawyers who don't feel like
they're working I talk to and a guy
who's putting in cabinets in my house
and and he's super into putting in
cabinets he loves making cabinets he was
talking about all the details and he's
so proud of his work and I say do you do
you do you like like your work and he
said doesn't feel like work you know I
went on a fishing Expedition deep sea
fishing Expedition with my son Carlos we
we he loves to fish we go fishing and uh
and the guy says every morning I wake up
and he says today I'm going
fishing and so this is what we all need
to find I mean we need to each person
because we have the blessing of living
in an economy where you can do a lot of
different things um the problem is that
people Chas these extrinsic lures the
money power pleasure and fame and they
get out of the groove of what they're
supposed to do and then they wonder why
they're unhappy I want to go back to
Yung and this idea of values so as you
were saying it I was like yes part of me
agrees but then as I run the thought
experiment sort of check it against
other things um other people to see if
it holds up I feel like right now we're
living through maybe a weird moment or
maybe a completely normal moment in time
where people are using their values to
cudle each other and it doesn't when I
look at them it makes me deeply
uncomfortable and does not
resonate with how I think about values
so is this just a bastardization of the
word value or do the people that that on
either side of the aisle that are just
viciously going after each other right
do they really believe what they're
saying because it seems like a super
dark energy yeah so so this is a
variation on the theme they're the these
these are our people's True Values but
in a fear equilibrium where we're
culturally in a polarity of fear fear
and love are are cognitive and
philosophical opposites so fear is the
master emotion it occupies a part of the
lyic system called the amydala it
actually uses more brain tissue than any
other basic emotion because it's what
keeps you alive if it were not for fear
you would have been you know your
lineage would have died out hundreds of
thousands of years ago by being eaten by
a saber 2 tiger which weirdly you were
not afraid of and so so fear is really
important love is the opposite of fear
love will actually neutralize
inappropriate fear or excessive fear
fear will I did not see those opposites
coming yeah because we think of of love
and hatred but hatred is Downstream from
Fear hatred is always a byproduct of
fear Downstream from Fear so what
happens is I love the way you say that
like Ultra profound [ __ ] like yeah
obviously I have never thought of that
before and so and so when when when
people come to me and they have too much
fear the prescription is surround it
with more love Sur neutralize it with
greater amounts of love it's pH and it's
it's alkaline and a it if you on the
other hand if you're looking for more
love and you don't have enough love in
your life I'm going to ask you questions
about what you're afraid of because I'm
going to try to work on your fear God
damn yeah and so this is and this is how
we actually deal with if you have a fear
problem I'm going to work on the love
Dimension if you have a love problem I'm
going work on the fear Dimension okay so
now when all the way this all this comes
together ultimate in in our lives is we
have to figure out what the problem is
and what we have in our society today is
a fear polarity in ourl politics and our
ideology and our culture and what that
the way that manifests in our values is
we don't use our values which are
beautiful and good as a gift we use them
as a weapon now think how counter uh uh
effective that is how how how
destructive that actually is but when
you're in a fear polarity you're
actually through fear you're going to
use your own values antagonistically
toward other people which is incredibly
uh ineffective you're using coercion
instead of persuasion the point of
values and sharing your values is to
persuade each other that's the fruit of
the Enlightenment but it's also just you
know the basis of human nature if you
cudgle other people with your with your
with your values and use them as a
weapon there's z% chance you're going to
convince anybody of anything but you're
trying to use force zero so the problem
that we have is we could move from a
fear to a love polarity then people
would go back to using their values as a
gift we might we will disagree we will
disagree but disagreement is beautiful
it's the competition of ideas which is
fundamental to a free Society you and
your wife there are things you'll never
agree on and you will die married and in
love that's a you can live in permanent
harmony with somebody with whom you
disagree but only if you have a love
polarity in your life and you use your
values which are in contrast to the
other person's values as a gift and not
as a weapon what we see today in
politics on campuses in media is that
people are trying to kill each other
with their values you know you're a
traitor well you're a racist I mean that
the things that people are throwing at
each other is basically never going to
convince anybody of anything because
there's too much fear damn so what are
people afraid
of people are
afraid we we go through these these sort
of s waves of these cultural polarities
a lot
and emotional contagion is a very
profound thing facts yeah and so
emotional contagion is one in which it's
uh the the culture actually starts to
become in so when when I was a kid for
example growing up in the Pacific
Northwest um in the 1970s there was deep
fear of serial killers Cults remember a
fear-based polarity of of cult and and
what that that led to was
unbelievable um bitterness in politics
where left and right just as bad as
today or almost as bad as it is today um
between the Democrats and the
Republicans between the conservatives
and the Liberals and it all came from
the fear that had infected you know from
in the in the aftermath of Vietnam and
you know the the culture wars that were
going on and the and the the the Cold
War these were very it was a very
fear-based Society on the basis of this
there was a break in that but then you
know it comes back again is the whole
thing the the the opportunity for us as
social entrepreneurs the opportunity for
us is to is to change the polarity is to
encourage people to live by love to have
the courage of actually living by love
in a fear culture and and that's you
know you can fire people up with that
it's what does it mean how do you do
that you basically to make people commit
to only using their values as as a gift
to being around people who are different
than they are to listen to different
points of view to go to people that with
whom they would ordinarily not be in
communion and say I want you to know I
love you to say those incredibly
transgressive words this is the most
transgressive message in all of human
history is love your enemies pray for
those who persecute you that's the
gospel of St Matthew that changed life
on Earth actually is to say that led to
that concept led to the Western
Enlightenment which basically said we
don't have to use Force we can actually
live by
persuasion that was a profound
difference in the in the culture that
led to the progress that would create an
economy where Tom can become a
successful entrepreneur quite frankly
one thing leads to another but we're in
regress right now the fear polarity in
our culture is leading us we we're
devolving culturally because of this so
if we really want a better world I mean
I know I sound like a just like an
unrepentant hippie of which I've been
credibly
accused that we need we need love we
need to stand up to the people on our
own side whatever that side is and say I
refuse to hate I'm just I'm just not
going to do it I'm I'm done man I'm done
I love
you it's interesting so I can't
articulate it that cogently because I
probably haven't spent as much time
thinking about it as you but I've come
to a similar conclusion so what I've
been saying so I never thought that I
would ever utter a word that had
anything to do with the culture war and
then I started to really get freaked out
by watching people run in opposite
directions like just seemingly as fast
as I can CU you're not super political
right I'm not political in the slightest
I don't find politics interesting it
seems to encourage people to be divisive
right and and so my thing is to your
earlier point about you can be married
to somebody and love them deeply and
passionately and disagree about things
so in business as is true in marriage if
you both think alike one of you is not
necessary and the I heard the same thing
about so when when you really ask why
are there two parties which I'd never
stopped to contemplate that so Ray alio
says there are only so many human
personalities and that's why history
repeats over and over and over I thought
a that's really interesting yeah that
there only so many personality types and
that there are basically two big buckets
that you can break people into people
that are we'll call Compassion dominant
and people who are conscientious
dominant so not that they're exclusively
either but people who are like you can't
leave anybody behind and then people
over here are like you have to be
responsible for yourself right so it's
the sort of the liberal conservative
dichotomy that we often think about
popularly exactly and so that cool all
make sense and then in business I
watched this play out so I had two
partners previously
and there were times where they didn't
see eye to eye and I remember the
contribution I felt most strongly that I
had brought to the dynamic was I'm on
the outside going you're both
extraordinary so value each other for
being different like value that friction
right and that in the friction lies the
magic and that either one of you would
be a problem on your own but when you
have that counterveiling force it
actually creates something really
incredible but only if you respect the
other person's View and so then I
started going okay politically it's the
same thing whether you're conservative
or liberal it's like you have to respect
the friction you have to understand that
either one if we only had one spirals
into madness and it is only in the
friction I won't even say the balance
it's in the friction between the two
that you sharpen your ideas like a great
entrepreneur look the the prb Proverbs
say that iron sharpens iron I was giving
a talk to
the assembled members of the Republican
party on the house and the Senate side
the members of the House the members of
the Senate all Republicans in a retreat
some years ago and I said I asked how
many of you wish we lived in a one party
State no hands and no Hearts let's be
honest I said how many of you are
grateful that we live in a democracy
that has multiple parties or at least
two every hand goes up I said you just
told me you're grateful for the
Democratic party axiomatically I wasn't
trying to be tricky but it's actually
true if you're grateful that you can
that there that we live in a country
where we can actually have disagreement
without a knock in the night and the
Jack booted Thug You Are by a by
construction grateful for the people who
disagree with you look the the Yankees
are grateful for the Red Sox they don't
want to blow up the Red Sox bus on the
way to the game that's not how
competition Works competition requires
collaboration it requires rules it
requires respect you know I like the Red
Sox more than the Yankees but I want the
Yankees to show up with their best
pitching and beat them fair and
square I don't want them to Forfeit
that's actually there's no good in that
there's no good in that whatsoever and
remembering this is really really
critical you know the whole idea that
we're in right now and this is how the
fear-based polarity breaks down the iron
sharpens iron how it breaks down the
whole idea of competition it basically
says that do whatever you have to
because you know War I mean you scratch
of the eyes you know a knee to the groin
I don't actually care what happens in
politics because the biggest threat to
this country is my neighbor who votes
for the other party that is simple
Insanity that not to mention the fact
that that is factually incorrect you
know it's actually possible that
Vladimir Putin is going to bring this
country back together again it's
actually possible that somebody who's
you're people are you know looking at
like oh that's
non-democratic that's what that thing
means it's actually not the Democrats
right it's something else and that's one
of the reasons by the way that that
threat brings people together that
common enemy actually brings people
together the great the the the greatest
pity that I can imagine is that the
coronavirus epidemic didn't make us love
each other more for a minute though
didn't it feel like it was going to it
sure did it sure did except that we
politicized that because of the deep
fear in our country and the fact that we
have leaders that are encouraging us to
kill each other rhetorically that are
encouraging us for their own the outrage
industrial complex in media and politics
is trying to drive us apart the outrage
industrial complex I like that it's it's
an old play Eisenhower's military
industrial complex but the outrage
industrial complex remember you know
everybody's watching us now when you
hate somebody's profiting and not you
bottom line well said yeah no man that's
exactly how it feels yeah and it's crazy
and it's interesting so I'm definitely
not an unrepentant hippie or credibly
accused uh of being hippie I'm super
weirded out by that stuff but the only
thing I can think is that we have to
race to the middle and love each other
like that's it and love has been or even
not in the middle even just like stay in
the stay in the SS and still love each
other it's like keep your opinions
absolutely you know I I'm not saying get
rid of your opinions yeah yeah but I
mean the party that's closest to the
middle always gets elected n it's not
necessarily the case I mean we've been
kind of oscillating back and forth
between between political positions that
are actually not representative of the
middle and this is a different kind of
sort of a a it's a different political
Dynamic which you're kind of going rail
to rail and you're going rail to rail
because you know you basically cuz you
can have bashing
for example you can say that you know
given the fact that we we go between
parties might mean because people are so
close to the center or it might be
because you have two blocks that are
incredibly strong that are relatively
equal in power but very very different
than one another so this is the key the
key is basically either one can be fine
you can have very I mean I was had
dinner with a couple an older couple a
couple of weeks ago and the the the wife
is super liberal like pro-choice and the
Democrats all the way and the husband is
just he's just as rightwing as they get
I mean just very pro-life on abortion I
mean all these issues that down the line
what you'd expect from conservatives and
liberals and they're they've been
they've been married for 50 years and
they and it's like and and privately it
says gosh I admire her so much she's
just so wonderful in the whole thing and
and it reminded me that this is the key
thing that you can be in permanent
disagreement but in love equilibrium we
just have to be people that can do that
you know we've been convinced somehow by
people who are making money and getting
power and followers and their jollies
from our fighting that we have to that
we that we can't be around people
disagree with us yeah that's Insanity
that's a that's a that's quite frankly a
mistake and you know and you would not
be a successful entrepreneur if that had
been the case where everybody has to
agree because as you quite astutely
point out um you know if you surround
yourself with people just like you
you're not going to succeed I love the
idea of Lincoln's A Team of Rivals
exactly right getting people that think
differently getting people that push you
like in in business I will just tell you
right now if you don't have people that
are willing to tell you when you're
wrong you are [ __ ] at least so I going
back to my own insecurities I don't see
myself as smart enough to just run the
company by decree so I've had to create
a structure where people are not afraid
to speak to powert and because I have
not invested anything in my self-esteem
around being right I don't mind like hey
just tell me where I'm wrong I'm so like
obsessed with getting the result I don't
care if it's my idea I just need it to
be the right idea but man it's really
hard to get people in in a company
Dynamic where ultimately there's an
imbalance of power and of course I could
fire them at any second but they could
leave at any second which is equally
distressing for me except multiplied
they only have you know two people my
wife and I who co-founded the company to
worry about we have all 50 of them uh
you know to worry about so and if you're
a tyrant and they leave you're cooked
yeah no doubt yeah because it's hard to
find good people and the SEC to success
actually is a good team it actually is
good people it's interesting I do this
test for my students I teach this class
called leadership and happiness at the
Harvard Business School and I I take
them through a battery of personality
and happiness tests over the course of
the semester and the one they like best
is the positive affect negative aect
battery and what that is is is your
positive and negative affect emotion
levels and what they learn is that you
can be both very positive and negative
you can be a high happiness and a high
unhappiness person because you're a high
affect person and you can also be a low
unhappiness person but a low expression
of Happiness person you're a low affect
person you can be high positive low
negative that's the cheerleader you can
be low positive and high negative that's
the poet low low is the judge and high
high is you he's the mad scientist right
and what you need and what I show is
actually you know use using the you know
the research on this that you got to
figure out which one you are and you
must surround yourself with what you're
not the biggest predictor of success on
teams and entrepreneurial startups or
even established companies is making
sure that the CEO is not surrounding
herself or himself with people who have
the same affect profile and there's a
role for everybody there's a role for
The Poets there's a role for the judges
it interesting it's a guy who I it was
actually a woman in my class this year
and she's like I don't know if I can be
a successful business leader she's a
doctor um and she's getting her MBA
super high super striver super striver
she says I don't know you know if I I've
got this judge profile you know this low
low aect profile I don't I don't know I
said what' you do for a living before
this she say I was a surgeon I said
that's perfect I do not want a high AFF
effect surgeon you know somebody who
opens me up and says oh my God and so
there's a role for everybody and we
actually need that iron sharpening iron
on our teams and we need to Value it we
need to love it we need to actually
resist the tendency to want to surround
ourselves with people like us and this
is exactly what we're not doing in our
politics and our country is in Decline
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entrepreneurs who have made over $6
billion I also think we need to have a
distrust of ourselves that you're not
going to like those words but I am
skeptical enough of myself meaning that
I know I'm high high that I can get very
excited about something I know that
emotions make dots feel like they
connect that don't actually connect and
so it's like I have to make sure that I
seek that disconfirming evidence that I
don't think well I feel it and therefore
we all need to get behind this idea I'm
like no no no I tell people put on your
iCal hat like tell me where's the
problem yeah I completely agree with
that and you know you had Adam Grant on
the show no Adam Grant teaches it at
Wharton at you know at Penn as social
psychologist fantastic his newest book
is called think again which is exactly
the case that you're making he makes the
case that if you really want to be
successful don't trust you and it
doesn't mean that you can never trust
you but you know look for the the
evidence to the contrary look for ways
that where your confirmation bias is
probably leading you astray don't look
to feel good about yourself cuz you're
right on everything look you're wrong on
lots of stuff you just don't know on
what stuff yeah so help have people
around you who can and it's probably not
that fun to have somebody around you who
every single day says you're wrong in
every single thing you got to find some
sort of balance for Pete's sake and if
you're the boss you're probably right on
most things but do if you're if you're
wrong you should want to know first not
last if you want to be successful yeah
it's crazy to me how and I won't say
it's crazy I understand it when you are
right it feels good even now when I know
better it still feels good when I was
right yeah I just don't invest in that I
don't encourage that in myself I'm like
yo You' got to be careful with that yeah
but when people would actually rather
like they get angry when people point
out a flaw in the idea I'm like what are
you doing like that you are headed
towards an iceberg and you're actively
discouraging people from letting you
know yeah it's ego threat ego threat is
really deep for people who are living
their heads because they don't want
people to think they're incompetent the
failure's real totally the failure's
coming no no but they will they'll
they'll resist tooth and nail it's just
it's like you're trying to cut off my
finger by telling me my opinion was
wrong it's unbelievable how the
evolution has led us to this place you
want to be right you want to be right
because you feel like an almost physical
need to be right being contradicted um
is is socially painful and there's a um
the same part of the brain the anterior
singul of the brain processes both
physical and social pain that's crazy we
have a very practical brain a very
parsimonious brain and you know
stimulating the same part of the brain
so it's like you know being being told
you're wrong and being embarrassed for
something that you were wrong feels like
somebody punching you in the face to
your brain at least and so you'll resist
that because you're trying to protect
yourself it's deeply suboptimal and
dangerous you're right yeah if I could
just in fact my success is because I'm
not afraid to be embarrassed I never
like it it sucks every time but a
willingness to be embarrassed is how I
have learned yeah know and humility of
course is a great is one of the great
secrets of Happiness too that's
interesting why yeah humility is in is
because it gives you peace humility
allows you to relax because you're not
trying to protect something yeah you're
not actually trying to protect your
fortune you're not standing in front of
your stash of gold all the time you know
walking back and forth with a shotgun
you know you you could basically just
walk away and take it you know you can
you can relax into the reality of your
fallibility for for one and a lot of
people never quite and I'm sure that
people are listening to our words right
now and some people are going like
actually I think that might be true you
know I've never actually let down my
guard you know and once you actually get
into it's it's actually it's a very
interesting rhetorical habit when you're
having a conversation with your spouse
or your friend or your anyl interlocutor
of any kind and they make a good point
say
huh that's a really good point I think I
might be wrong I think I'm I think I
might be wrong now that's really hard
secret to marriage though it is oh man
God if you can do that it's amazing it
is amazing now part of the problem is
that you often don't think you're
wrong that is part of the problem yeah
and so you know being consiliary in a
way that that you know saying I think
I'm wrong when you actually aren't or or
or where truth is you just don't know
you just don't know I mean a lot of
marital Discord comes because you know
somebody's saying you got to do
something differently and you literally
don't know what to do you don't know
what to do I mean there were probably
times when you're miserable I'm just
going to guess in your work and you were
going a you were working 80 100 hours a
week and you're going in a million
different directions and your wife's say
you need to be happy you need to let
this go you need to do less and you're
like I don't know what to do less I I
don't know how to do less and that's
really tough because that's giving you
directions that you can't quite take and
a lot of marital Discord actually comes
down to that is directions you don't
know how to follow I'm really obsessed
with this idea that running in the back
of your mind are evolutionary algorithms
and there's no escaping them and so
there just certain things you are going
to have to do if you want
to I don't know if you're going to agree
with this framing but if you if you're
going to feel the way you want to feel
you must be aware of these algorithms
you must acknowledge them right so I've
always tried to migrate people away from
happiness not as you define it as the
smell of the turkey stop worrying about
the right exactly because they're so
transient corre and get to fulfillment
correct and fulfillment for me has a
formula be interested to see if you
agree with this um these are based on
what I consider the evolutionary
algorithms running in your mind that
there is no escape from so you are going
to have to work hard anything that comes
easily will just not it won't resonate
that's a satisfaction issue by the way
satisfaction is the joy that comes after
struggle that's what satisfaction is so
you get satisfaction always have to come
from struggle you have to do something
and it's the sense of earning something
so for example if if you you cheat on
the exam and you get an A there's no
satisfaction true but I feel deeply
satisfied after good sex do I feel like
I earned it I don't know I have not
investigated this feeling yeah but
that's that's actually that's that's not
satisfaction that's enjoyment is it
that's what you and satisfaction you
feel sexually satisfied well that's a
word that we use but it's different than
what we're talking about here so it's
again we're defining the terms of the
problem super important because you may
be about to have me separate two ideas
that because I don't have words for I
people talk about sexual satisfaction
where they're talking about sexual
enjoyment so enjoyment is a better word
you're done so when I am overcome with
desire the right way to think of it for
me is hunger it feels the same I've got
to have this thing I really want it
anticipatory chemicals oh my God and
then I get it and so like I'll
differentiate between masturbation and
sex when I masturbate necessarily feel
satisfied that's one of the things that
makes that such a whatever Pursuit
whereas when I have sex I feel satisfied
like there's some deeper thing in me and
and it it it is an extinguishing of The
Hunger but because I have oxytocin and
vasopressin it's like oh man I feel so
good so it's this combination of the
calming of that like seeking Behavior
with like and I feel so bonded and
connected to this person yeah this is
just terms so the way to think about it
in in this particular framework is
pleasure versus enjoyment got it okay so
pleasure is you know something that
pornography is associated with pleasure
um sexual activity in a in a in a parab
bonded relationship is is is is
associated with enjoyment because it has
people and memory and so one of the
things to keep in mind a strategy
especially for a lot of young people a
lot of young men is to is to do is if
you like something it's best if you're
not doing it alone because then you're
probably in stop it not necessarily this
is just kind of a rule of thumb this is
not this is not an iron law but it's a
rule of thumb doing it alone is
associated with pleasure so you know um
anheiser Bush doesn't do ads about beer
where they show a dude pounding a
12-pack alone in his apartment right why
not because that would be that would be
yeah because a lot of people use alcohol
for pleasure right which leads to
addiction and misery they talk they see
you know you me cracking open a Bud
Light and clink and talking about how
great it is and because we're friends
and we're making a memory and that's
enjoyment which is associated with
happiness so we have a we have a basic
idea of that the same thing is true with
the the example of sex that you talked
about a minute ago you can it can be
pleasure or it can be enjoyment and
everybody knows the difference between
sexual experiences that are pleasurable
or enjoyable enjoy enjoyment is the goal
because that's one of the macronutrients
of Happiness we talk about in term in
the terms that you define a satisfaction
but it's really a in in this terminology
and again you know you have to just
defining terms these are just words but
the concepts underlying them are are are
critical in the book you give a really
good example of pleasure without
enjoyment yeah uh which you mentioned
obliquely a minute ago but when you
think of a drug addict yeah they're
doing the drug right they're
theoretically getting the pleasure but
they're not getting any of the enjoyment
right they're getting tons of pleasure
it's because they're loading only on
pleasure but no enjoyment because it's
not social and it actually is not
engaging the prefrontal cortex and the
hippocampus to create memory and so you
you you will you simply will have a
transient experience and the transient
experience will be unsatisfying until
you'll hit the lever again and again and
again and again and it will lower your
quality of life so that's the key thing
if there's something you really really
love so for example I'll ask people will
talk about because I I've done a lot of
work on the on the the science of
addiction and it's a very interesting
subject people say how do you know if
you're addicted because these are
behavioral constructs you know you can't
take a blood test to know if you're if
you're an alcoholic if you're you know
so it's these are behavioral and the big
behavioral thing is do you prefer to
drink alone do you prefer to actually
become inebriated alone that means
you're looking for pleasure versus
enjoyment and that is a that that is has
a lot that will lead you more to
addiction more toward addiction and away
from happiness is the way that that
works that's the reason that people say
never drink alone they don't know what
they're saying is they're saying enjoy
it don't have it be a source of pleasure
because that's dangerous so that gives
you an idea so we've talked a little bit
about satisfaction talked a little bit
about enjoyment these are heavy heavy
topics in terms of the social science
and Neuroscience for sure and we haven't
even touched on meaning which is the
heaviest of them all which is the
hardest of them all so you can become an
a what I really want is I want people to
be to be obsessed with to have their
hobby be the science of happiness and
how they can get it and spread it CU
that would be a really meritorious
movement if people were like like yeah
more of the science more understanding
it I want to be excellent at this I want
to be most excellent my hobby is getting
better at happiness and it's changed my
life it's a good hobby it's really been
a good hobby for me I made it into a
career that you most certainly did um so
I want to close the loop on the
Fulfillment recipe and get your take on
that so uh you have to work really hard
because that's just nature ensures that
you're going to do that so that you're
out the hard things like getting a meal
protecting your family Etc uh to acquire
a set of skills right that's a big lean
on progress because I agree progress I
think is a foundational pillar of human
happiness right uh so you're going to
work really hard to gain a set of skills
that allow you to serve yourself and
others right and it needs to be in a way
that you find exciting so that to me is
those are the things that nature is
going to ensure that you do and if
you're the doing it for not only
yourself but others is the meaning
portion of this right
um why do is it that people never stop
to identify what gives them meaning is
it that they confuse meaning is that
they're stuck in the Mis sself why do so
few people so few people end up cracking
that code part of the reason is because
they're not specifically trying to find
meaning they don't make it a goal they
just they they a lot of people believe
that if I do what I'm really really good
at and I can be successful at that it's
going to give me a ton of meaning
automatically and that's not right like
anything else you have to do things on
purpose did you get meaning when you
were a classical musician no that was
the reason that's the reason I'm not a
classical could you have gotten meaning
out of it many people do but here's the
thing I I my my favorite composer is
Johan Sebastian Bach maybe the greatest
composer who ever lived it's great story
yeah I mean 1685 to 1750 20 kids he had
20 kids yeah he was a he was productive
as a composer and father was Catholic he
wasn't he was Lutheran but um but he was
I say that because I know you're
Catholic those listening you wonder why
I made a joke he was just a sexy
Lutheran but and and and
Bach was asked near the end of his life
why he wrote music at the why question
you know our our friend Simon cic was
talks about start with why and it's
fantastic I mean it's been because it
really is you people are going around
asking what and hoping to get the why
for free and Simon's entrepreneurial
twist is start with why and then the
what will come automatic and you'll be a
lot more satisfied because you'll find
the source of meaning so box why when he
was asked why do you write music was the
aim and Final End of all music is the
refreshment of the soul and the
glorification of God okay not bad not
bad at all but I read that in my late
20s when I was still I was in the
Barcelona Symphony in those days and it
a good job and it was you know I love
the music it's really into it it's kind
of a high Prestige job you know playing
the greatest it still sounds cool it
sounds cool sounds cool yeah but I
couldn't I couldn't answer like that I
couldn't answer like that I didn't feel
like I was refreshing Souls particularly
I certainly didn't feel like I was
glorifying God I was you built that in
though cuz this is one thing I always
think people think they're going to find
meaning it just wasn't my thing and so I
went in search of something where I
could answer my why question like
Bach I I became a social scientist that
was the thing that was it because you
know when I I because after that you
also you you go on to run the thing tank
after that right right yeah I got my PhD
I actually finished College a month
before my 30th birthday by
correspondence so this is not a typical
path to you know a professor ship at
Harvard obviously this is not typically
the way it gets done this a great
country isn't
it yeah um a kid from peup can do this
it's fantastic crazy I love that so um
and then I went and I I got so
interested when I was doing my my
bachelor's degree in the in human
behavior and the fact that you can model
it and you can study it that I I went
back and got my masters in PhD as a
social scientist as a quantitative
social scientist I was doing for a
living I was doing military operations
research at the Rand Corporation for you
know like secret stuff for the Air Force
and all that but you know using and you
felt the sense of meaning and all that I
was what I felt the sense of minan was I
was learning so much that was so
critically interesting and I had a
strong sense that I was going I was
learning how to a ask and answer
original questions about human behavior
they were going to push the boundary of
what we knew so that people's lives
could get better I had a very strong
sense that it was going to it was in the
offing it was going to take decades was
the part about so people's lives could
be better was that a critical part of
that it was a critical thing to earn my
success I needed to do something where
my work created value in my life and the
life of other people that's I think that
is so big and look you covered this in
the book so I know this isn't mysterious
to you but uh focusing outward like if
you want to be happy we don't need this
is me paraphrasing you again we don't
need self-care we need other care right
and I just have learned uh through
unfortunate trial and error that if I'm
doing something only for me it I'll run
ashore on the M me me problem totally
totally you get into the me self world
it's all me you know other care is i s
it's I'm going to look outward at what
other people need I'm going to be
thinking more about them which gets me
away from the the boring repetitive
tedium of the M me Me soundtrack to
begin with I mean it has I mean it's
just simple you're you're distracted
from the stuff that's so boring and yet
so um you look at so obsessively over
the course of your life so that's
critically important and you find I mean
again there's tons and tons of studies
that actually show that the more you
give the happier you get the more you
give the Richer you get the more you
give the better looking you are is it
it's a wonderful study it's all
perception so there's this one study
where These Guys these social
psychologists they they bring men it's a
men into the lab who are partnered it's
all heterosexual couples and they bring
them in some have been dating for 6
months and some have been married for 50
years and the the guys in white lab
codes and they say okay it's a simple
experiment I'm going to sir I'm going to
give you these coins put them in your
pocket you and your wife or girlfriend
you're going to walk down this little
path to that other building down there
and my colleague is going to interview
you and then you get to keep the money
that's it like okay so I walk down this
little path outside and there's an
Alleyway between the buildings and this
homeless guy comes ambling out of the
alley and panhandles the husband or
boyfriend he's a Confederate to the
experiment obviously he says hey you got
some change he does they know he does
cuz they put the money in his pocket and
he has to make a decision in front of
his wife on whether he's going to help
the homeless guy they get to the other
building and the first question in the
interview is did you help the homeless
guy how much did you give him and then
the second question is to the wife how
attractive do you find him right now the
more you support the homeless guy the
hotter she finds you that's so
interesting that's the reason on a first
date you're like I love Humanity I
support you know I build houses for the
poor I love dogs I love babies you're
trying to look like you know Albert
schwitzer on a first date that's
hilarious because you're more handsome
that is very interesting okay so um we
know that being outward focused is going
to be beneficial but you were talking
about um you needed to find the answer
to your why what is going to be that
thing that I could answer in the way
that Bach does I find in life basic
basically nobody finds that like that
that is so rare uh and when they do find
it it ends up being very transient so
how did you navigate because your for
people that don't know we we did another
interview which I highly encourage them
to go watch and so we covered this I
don't want to tread uh a ton of the same
ground but I think it's worth telling
people you've would you say that your
career has been spiral yeah for sure
okay you gave me the language mine has
for sure um I I it's interesting you
make me question whether that's just my
personality and was going to end up
there no matter what or if it really was
what I the story I've told myself my
entire life which is I did all of this
just to get into storytelling and I
needed to control the assets maybe maybe
we'll get into that those are that's
those are endogenous to each other yeah
maybe yeah but I what I want to know now
is did your why run out and that's why
you reinvented yourself did it just
migrate like how have you kept that
alive in your life I I took
opportunities that were put in my my
path that I thought were in line with
this vision of how I was trying to grow
so I had a intention but I didn't have
attachment so when I was a French horn
player leaving that becoming a social
scientist I I had an intention to do
this work on human behavior to as to
help myself and others to make life
better to increase love and happiness in
other people's lives but I was not
attached to what manifestation that was
going to take and that's what I urge all
young people to do to have a virtuous
beautiful intention with that attachment
with respect to the the expression that
it's going to take at any particular
time I taught for a number of years I
loved it super great then I thought I
should run something that I think is
going to be good for Humanity and for
society you know until I ran this think
tank this big think tank in Washington
DC had 300 employees mostly just raised
money I had to raise $50 million a year
to keep the doors open and it was a
thrilling experience it was exhausting
to be sure but what I was trying to do
was to use my background as a social
scientist to create better public policy
to hire really good people that was
going to to make the country and the
world Freer and better with an emphasis
on opportunity for people at the margins
of society which is what my Think Tank
was engaged in after about 10 years I
knew I was getting stale man I was
getting stale so I had the same
intention but I had no attachment to
Arthur Brooks president of the American
Enterprise Institute that was a that
would be a disordered attachment because
that's not who I am I'm Arthur Brooks
I'm a husband I'm a father I'm a child
of God and I am put on Earth to lift
people up in bonds of love and happiness
using science and ideas what's the next
assignment what's the next assignment
and the next assignment was to do what I
do now which is I have a company that
teach writ speaks and teaches widely and
does media on the science of Happiness
to popularize to see the world as a
classroom and an enormous course of
study of the science of Happiness to
lift people up and that you know so I
can write have I have column in the
Atlantic and I write books and I get to
talk to you and I get to travel and
speak I teach at Harvard and it's
phenomenal but that's no I'm not
attached because I know this is not the
last assignment I have intention but the
attachment no no no no no the attachment
is the killer of all these things and
and you too it's like next assignment
please but here's the direction we're
going in I need to do this thing this
thing is going to serve and when you're
really in the zone it's it's a thrill
it's a thrill you just can't get enough
of it when you're really in the zone too
but it's not because you're going for
the thrill it's because you're going for
the value you want the you want to hit
that vein of value right and when you
run that vein out then you go look for
you dig a new mind what does it mean to
run the vein out though so
um okay how pure was your move into the
the think tank because you talk about
idols I've listened to enough of your
content I know what your idol is uh I
think we share an idol um
so I I nothing is either good or bad but
thinking makes it so yeah so I don't
know that having an idol is bad I have a
feeling that it's Nature's way of
getting us moving and making us an
active species and it is how use it for
great good right exactly but if it's the
end goal if an idol of money or power or
pleasure or fame is the end goal will be
unto you and we be under the world but
if it's an intermediate goal to lifting
people up and bringing them together if
you can use the prestige that you have
in your job and the admiration of other
people to get them interested in
something that's truly generative and
good and improve their lives which by
the way you're doing with a show right I
mean you got lots of prestige you're
famous guy but you're using it so that
people will watch it and change their
lives so if this is the end goal it's a
problem if it's an intermediate goal
then it's good I want to uh restate this
in my language to see if I really
understand this okay okay so the Mis
self is getting caught up in my emotions
I'm confusing the emotion for
the perception of the emotion so knowing
that in the brain pain and suffering are
two separate spaces knowing literally
two different regions of the brain not
making that up for people listening uh
and then uh in meditation I am to your
point earlier about uh the bitter coffee
there's a difference between um my knee
hurts and witnessing that I'm having a
sensation in my knee that one might AR
my KNE hurts versus I don't like how my
knee feels that's really the big
difference because you know it's my knee
hurts it's that's a statement of fact
right right it's a signal and the one
last thing I'll wrap on that to see if I
really get this so uh Victor Frankle
talked about the gap between stimulus
and response now for people that haven't
heard that name he was in a
concentration camp lost his wife mom dad
I mean just unimaginable
and came out of it psychiatrist came out
or actually I think aist and he was a
psychiatrist and and a psychoanalyst
okay which is an interesting combination
very interesting writes a book about
that time basically saying if you could
find meaning in your suffering that you
could make it but if you lost that sense
he was like you could literally predict
when somebody would die because once
they gave up and they could no longer
associate meaning with why they were
going through the suffering that was it
right and so that idea of there's this
gap between stimulus and response and
you get to decide how you interpret that
thing is everything right is that what
you're talking about when that Gap goes
away You're now in me territory yeah so
so there's there's so much in this and
and you know we've referred to the you
know the new book and there's the whole
front part of this new book is emotional
self-management based on the science of
how your brain gives you signals that
are called emotions getting away from
the idea that bad emotions are
unfortunate we should get rid of them
and or that unhappiness for the is bad
and we should get rid of it so
understanding the science of how this
works and what these things are for and
then being able to learn grow and manage
the feelings that we want such that we
can adapt best to the current world and
we can make growth toward happier that's
that's the whole front part of this book
the back half is okay now that you've
done that build the life you want build
the life you want co-authored with Oprah
Winfrey exactly right exactly right book
by the way I'm glad you like it thank
you it's um it was a joy to write it
it's a joy writing a book with Ora
Winfrey too what an experience it was
really an interesting experience to and
and recording the book the audio book
too because you keep thinking oh I know
that
voice not mine so um so emotional
self-management comes down to number one
understanding that emotions that you
have are not just nice to have and bad
to have all they are are signals they're
like a machine the machine of your brain
perceives outside stimuli and turns it
into a universal Lang anguage that can
that can send signals to the neocortex
of your brain the out outside wrinkly
area of your brain especially the
prefrontal cortex which is the most
modern part of the human brain to send
it signals so that you can decide how to
react according to them and it doesn't
matter what language you speak or where
you grow up you everybody gets the same
signals they get the basic emotions of
Joy Of Interest which are the two
positive basic emotions the negative
emotions which doesn't mean that they're
bad just means that they're negative
anger disgust sadness fear and all those
things are then Blended together into
these complex emotions so anger and
disgust you blend them together you get
contempt which is the conviction of the
worthlessness of something so it's this
multiplicity of emotions that we get
they exist to send signals Universal
signals and then we get to decide how to
react here's the problem most people
don't take that opportunity most people
take their emotions as given regret them
like them and act according to them
without doing that last trick that last
entrepreneurial trick which is deciding
how to react you get to decide this is
Victor frankl's point the book is man
search for meaning and what he learned
in the concentration camp was that all
these bad things are happening and good
things happen in life you decide how
you're going to react to these things
that's the ultimate entrepreneurial task
of human life is deciding how you're
going to use the resources under your
control and the first set of resources
you get are your emotions okay so the
time between the stimulus and response
the time between the the emotions and
the reactions that you decide that's the
Gap that Victor Frankle is talking about
you want that to be as wide as possible
that's why every time you have an
emotion the most important thing to do
is to not react is to get is to practice
not reacting when you feel something
good or bad wait tell tell me why
because this is where I see people get
lost all the time they trust their
emotions they think their emotions are
right they are a map of reality and that
if you feel angry you should act angry
yeah and that's that's that's that's a
great way to live an unhappy life and
make other people unhappy around you I
agree so violently I can't even tell you
yeah yeah and think about all the times
when you're building your companies that
that you you felt something negative and
if you just yelled at you snapped at
somebody or said that was on your mind
you would have done catastrophic brain
damage to your company it would have
been terrible and instead or you get
that email you know you get an email and
it's like I want I want to I want to
answer right now don't never answer a
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just have it automat as a matter of fact
have somebody who's managing your email
for you so you don't see them how often
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about it but you can't answer it because
it disappears from your inbox for 24
hours make a deal with somebody why
because you want to you want to your
your your prefrontal cortex to be in
charge you don't want your lyic system
to be in charge it's a 2-year-old you
know when kids when you have little kids
and you know I have I have grown kids
but now I have grandchildren and and
they they yell and and what you tell
little kids always is use your words
what you're telling them is put more
time between stimulus and response and
choose the response that you want you're
not going to say that to a little kid
you're going to say something that's
truncated like use your words and and
people who are reactive what we say as
social scientists we call them limic
people because they're they're acting
according to their limic system this is
the most
unrepresented should you buy something
with it what should you do that that's
what good entrepreneurs do with their
lives but that's how we need to see our
emotion so that's the most important
point now what you do in that Gap is
called metacognition and this is word
gets really really interesting in that
Gap the best thing that you can possibly
do is to think about the emotions that
you're feeling what they mean and how
best to use them so that and and this is
this is really the engagement of
prefrontal Cortex that's what meditation
practices tell you to do this is what
prayer helps you to do this is what
walking in nature helps you to do so all
these metacognitive practices this is
what therapy is supposed to do too by
the way it's supposed to give you
expertise in expanding that
Gap then on top of that there's all of
these ideas that you can use once you
you've got this time you can make these
decisions you can you can substitute
emotions you can say that's not the
right emotion here's a better emotion
you can literally do that how's that not
just faking it it's not it's what is so
so for example um I work um I've talked
a lot and and I've been ping around
lately with you know rain Wilson who's
the you know actor from The Office on
the show he's terrific and and we grew
up he grew up in Ballard yeah yeah and
so five miles away from me is the just
same ages me he was a classical musician
just like I was I didn't know him but we
have parall he play like bassoon or
something he played the bassoon I play
the French horn we probably over laugh
an all state band or something as we
were kids but we have the same childhood
basically and so it's interesting and so
we really connect on this but for
example he talks about the fact that
most uh he believes that most comedians
suffer from depression and one of the
reasons they're such good comedians is
because they choose the substitute
emotion when they're feeling sadness of
humor which is also an appropriate
response to things that are making you
sad you make them into a joke and people
think of it as a defense mechanism no
it's an emotional
substitution you it's the when you drink
coffee the the the caffeine molecule it
looks just like the adenosine molecule
which is a neurom modulator that that is
inhibitory it makes you feel tired it
goes into the slot into the neuro the
receptor for the adenosine and so you
don't get adenosine that's what makes
you feel peppy it blocks
the thing that makes you feel tired
that's how caffeine Works emotional
substitution works in the same way the
humor molecule goes into the sadness
receptor but you can't do that unless
you're taking time you cannot do that
unless you actually expand the time
between stimulus and response until you
understand exactly how the science works
and and getting as much time as you
possibly can was that the angle that you
took to understand the science or did
you come at it from a God says that this
is the way to go about life I'm a
scientist you know and one of the
reasons that I am religious is because
of my because what I've learned
intellectually so for me that was the
the thing that freed me as well was so
I'm call it 22 I am very unhappy like
really scary sliding towards depression
unhappy and I started reading about the
brain now I don't remember what gave me
that impulse it was probably something I
learned in college plus dosm whatever
but it like really made me think about
the way the brain worked and I reading
about how brain plasticity was this
hotly debated thing and maybe you really
could teach an old dog new tricks and
one day I just decided I'm going to act
as if brain plasticity is real right and
then the more studies came out that
showed that it really was real like the
more I felt like I could grab a hold of
that but it was it was a science based
Insight that allowed me to really change
the tenor of my entire life for sure for
sure I mean it's interesting because
people back when
when I was a kid I'm you know 10 years
old little 10 years older than you and
when I was a kid or even when people
were older who than me were coming
through that the whole idea was that
biology is just psychology you know that
you can you can think bad things away
and that was supposed to be really
incredibly empowering now really what we
believe with the Advent of you know the
advances Neuroscience you know as a
social scientist I have to know tons of
Neuroscience teaching happiness is 30%
Neuroscience what I teach I'm talking
about the brain constantly it's much
much more the case we believe that
psychology is actually biology and and
that sounds like it's not empowering
like this is all determined emping it's
super empowering because once you
actually understand the process you can
intervene in the process I talked to
Young Executives for example I say one
of the biggest threats to your career is
an inappropriate sexual relationship in
the workplace that's so hilarious to me
it's and and and so he say so let's
understand how this is going to work and
you can psychologize it and say you know
you need to and get get therapy no no no
no no what happens is the first thing
when you have a when you have attraction
towards somebody who's a potential
romantic partner there's the first thing
that happens is sex hormones with
testosterone and estrogen and in in
combination in both males and females
this is happening the second thing that
happens in the neurochemical Cascade of
falling in love is there's an up um and
there's a an increase in neopine phrine
and dopamine so that you get the sense
of euphoria and anticipation the third
thing that happens is a drop in
serotonin
now what happens when serotonin drop in
serotonin when serotonin drops it makes
you ruminate that's the reason it's
associated with clinical depression
because of the rumination procedure it's
it's a there's a part of the brain
called the ventrolateral prefrontal
cortex which is incredibly active when
you're ruminating it it's one of the
things when you're ruminating on a
business plan on an opera on a poem on
somebody who's rejected you on you know
so it's it's it's you see it incredibly
active in depression and creativity and
falling in love all of these things that
all have rumination you know iterative
rumination involved in it so it all is
involved with a drop in serotonin which
is why you don't want to have that early
stages of falling in love for the rest
of your life because you'll want to die
oh and then and then the last you'll
want to die the early stages of Love
made me feel like I'd never get anything
done again yeah yeah it makes you feel
out of control your brain looks
suspiciously like an MRI in the brain of
a a methamphetamine addict you know
that's how it felt I legitimately felt
like I was on drugs and then the tide
the warm tide that comes in of the
increases in oxytocin which is a bonding
neuropeptide that functions it's
reciprocated you you well I mean what it
happens when you have eye contact with
somebody in a love connection and eye
contact so you're both getting it the
the biggest bolus that you get of that
is when you first lay eyes on on eye
contact with your newborn baby really
yeah it's just like Fourth of July in
your head but anyway so it's 1 2 3 4
that's the neurochemical Cascade and the
reason I bring this up is when I'm
talking to young people in business I
say if you do not intervene early enough
in this neurochemical Cascade you're
going to be in trouble because it'll be
out of control it'll be like you know no
breaks on the roller
coaster and then he was like I have this
incredible career and this incredible
job I don't know what happened we slept
together and now I'm fired and you see
it all the time like Harvard Business
School case study uh what happened well
they let the neurochemical Cascade go
too long and you have to intervene
number one don't put yourself in a
position where you go to step two don't
put yourself in a position where you go
to step three what are you doing you're
managing your brain and if you don't
know the brain science you can't do that
that's why this stuff is so incredibly
empowering and when you read that stuff
for the first time you're like oh I
something I can do here now there's
something I can use this it's not just
psychology now it's something that's
more tangible than that because the the
Grandeur of this entire experience has a
biological basis and one that I can
understand and one I can I can actually
manage yeah for me being able to picture
the thing that helps a lot yeah once I
could understand um the myelination
process I was like okay now I get why
this is something I need to repeat once
I understood that the the brain is a
caloric hog and from an evolutionary
standpoint that means anything that you
do repeatedly it's going to hardwire
just to make it more efficient and so
all of that coming together really
allowed me to begin to improve your
habits because your habits what they
were doing was improving the management
of the organ and and that was affecting
your psychology and your Effectiveness
and your happiness and and the whole you
know the progress that you're making in
your life that's why in the information
is so critically important that's why it
can be so lifechanging to learn science
actually for sure so what are then the
habits of happiness or maybe a better
way this is a language you use in the
book the
macronutrients of Happiness like what
are those things that we want to begin
building our lives around if we really
want to thrive so people define
happiness in a lot of different ways but
the biggest mistake that people make
make is thinking that it's a feeling
that happiness is a feeling oo it's not
a feeling happiness has no happiness has
feelings associated with it okay but to
say that my Thanksgiving turkey has a
smell is different than saying that the
smell of the turkey is the Thanksgiving
dinner right so that's a really big
distinction that it's important to make
so your Thanksgiving dinner is protein
carbohydrates and fat that's literally
what your Thanksgiving dinner is it also
has a delicious smell that attracts you
to it and that you want and if it didn't
have that or had the wrong smell it
smelled like you were you know
microwaving trash when you walked into
Mom's house for Thanksgiving you'd be
like something's wrong here so but
getting past the feelings on happiness
is what will set you free to be able to
manage it appropriately why do so many
people feel lost and unhappy and what
can they do about it people feel lost
and unhappy is basically part of what it
means to be human and there's a there's
an irony in the having the big brains
that we do we developed the a very large
human brain over the past 40 million
years for all kinds of reasons I mean
it's the it's it gives us a it's our
genetic advantage that we could say it
gives us help it's our survival we're
not fast you know we're not very good
climbers you know we don't have a lot of
hair on our bodies but we got big these
got these big prefrontal cortex of the
brain the problem with that is that we
can understand ourselves we're the only
species as far as we know that knows
that you know Tom knows he's going to
die for example you can understand the
nature of your own existence but you you
can't actually make your own existence
work in a fundamentally different way
and so knowing yourself that the essence
of Consciousness is one that that gives
you incredible transcendental
information but at the same time it
programs in a whole lot of misery so for
for example you know we have a tendency
to to our our genetic proclivities Force
us to chase money and power and
admiration and pleasure because those
are the things that help you pass on
your genes you get more animal skins and
and flints and buffalo jerky in your
cave and you're going to have more mates
basically and so mother nature wants you
to do that but it's not going to make
you happy and you think that you want to
be happy the big prefrontal cortex says
I want to be happy because you're so
conscious but the things that will help
you pass on your jeans are not the
things that are going to make you happy
Mother Nature doesn't care if you're
happy and that's why it's so much more
work if it if you live by if it feels
good do it you're going to be a you're
going to be a
mess weird but so true so I had a
realization a long time ago I'm very
grateful that this happened early it was
of course born of misery but I became so
profoundly unhappy chasing money I used
to show up every day saying I am here to
get rich and that provided me a lot of
energy so as a child of the'80s growing
up in Tacoma so and I really grew up on
the edge of Tacoma it's probably more
accurate even though my address really
was Tacoma it's more accurate to say I
grew up in pup yeah P the fair was oh
yes the Western Washington State Fair
now the Washington State Fair that is
all accurate and I it felt almost Rural
and so I felt like I was living in the
middle of nowhere and John Hughes films
showed me sort of this upper middle
class Chicago suburb and I was obsessed
with getting a big house and so I used
to tell everybody I'm going to get rich
I'm going to get rich and my family was
like and I had friends that like and I
could literally walk to a trailer park
it was like that kind of part of Tacoma
and so my family who were all sort of
blue collar just thought that was
hilarious and they're like yeah right
and but that I was really obsessed and
so I um were you good student were you I
was but I was cheating so I was really I
did very well in high school from
cheating and then in college Lally from
cheating yeah yeah like I was Charming
yeah so I could get away with murder
whether incredibly clever oh that's
interesting my identity is not that of
someone who was clever so it was was
very much somebody who was Charming so I
could make people laugh yeah and so I
could get away with things whether that
was asking my friends to let me
literally take the test off of their
desk and put it on mine so I could show
my work right but of course I was
showing their work uh but when I got to
college and I'm not even sure what gave
me this ins it but I was like I'm going
to be spending a lot of money taking on
a lot of debt I should actually learn
what I'm here to learn so I set a mantra
to myself sink or swim a or F I won't
cheat not even once and so and I ended
up doing very well in fact I did better
in college than I did in high school
were you happy in college I was I was it
when I graduated though I was like I'll
never go back I'm not one of those
people was like oh I'm gonna get a
master's and then a PhD I was like get
me the [ __ ] out of here but it was was
filmed so it was amazing yeah and you
were living by the dictates of your own
Integrity you were a man fully alive yes
you were not shading the truth very true
he's very important and this is what's
you know this is there there's a famous
speech by you know an and and I can't
remember who it was the guy who went on
to become the president of the
University of Texas who gave became
famous because he gave a an a a a a
commencement speech that was about make
your bed if you want to actually get
your life on track start by making your
bed what that was was uh to ask people
to become men and women of integrity and
that means even when nobody's looking at
your bed make your bed because you're a
person of Integrity you went to college
and you said to yourself I'm going to be
a person of Integrity I am not going to
do that thing because that thing is not
the right thing and so doing you ordered
your mind in a different way it's really
interesting so I wish that my life was
like a straight trajectory after that
but it becomes the darkest period of my
life becomes right after college when I
feel lost I feel feel hopeless I have no
sense of how I'm going to put things
together that was a really scary time
because when you don't feel that you can
affect the change that you want it
really for me any well let's go back to
what you said at the beginning so I call
that the directives of evolution so if
you think of ai ai has to be given
instructions you have to want a high
score or you have to want to stay within
the lanes of your car whatever and
humans as nature AI need directives and
so like you said get a mate that's
definitely one of them and man I really
hope at some point later in the
conversation after we've really g into
your book we get to the fact that people
are 30% less likely to get laid now
which is absolutely [ __ ] terrifying
to me um I have the solution for greater
happiness on college campuses really
it's more love yeah now what do you mean
by that though I mean actually more
relationships more romantic
relationships this would actually solve
a lot of the misery college campuses
today actually is I mean what were you
trying to do in college you probably
wanted to fall in love right oh no so I
I didn't so I had a girlfriend at the
very beginning of college like the first
few weeks who ID met in high school
right and I broke up with her and re
decided that to get into film school I
had to really buckle down and I wasn't
going to date I wasn't going to party I
wasn't going to drink I wasn't going to
do drugs and so I effectively locked
myself in a room for four years to get
good at film making so it was a very a
different of experience to a lot of
people but now I want to I want to get
people back to your book because it is
absolutely life-changing so I would show
up every day trying to get rich that was
my whole shtick as an entrepreneur yep
and then because I wanted to build a
studio right became profoundly unhappy
pursuing that and the lesson that I
ultimately ended up learning was that
all that matters in life is how you feel
about yourself when you're by yourself
and so meaning and purpose matter and so
I had better figure out that money
wasn't going to bring me happiness I was
living the cliche and so I needed to
attach meaning and purpose to what I was
how did you figure that out that money
was not going to bring you happy so so
on paper I was worth more money than I'd
ever been worth so I was making more
than I'd ever made I was making like
maybe 80 85,000 something like that
which for me that was at the time that
was a lot of money and on paper I was
worth about million dollar so I was like
okay theoretically and paper money is
very different than real money but on
paper I was worth millions of dollars
and I was still profoundly unhappy so I
like and did you think what did you
think if I'm get like see your your lyic
system of your brain is saying Tom go
for the money then you'll be happy so
what did you imagine was going to happen
to you if you had a bunch of money that
would actually make you happy or did you
actually form an image at all you just
thought that if I had more money I'm
going to mysteriously be happy yes then
once I wasn't I asked myself maybe the
right question which is what did yeah
what did I think was going to happen and
I realized that I thought I would feel
about myself the way that I felt about
other people when that had money when I
looked at them yes and I admired them so
social comp got it and you would
actually so social comparison LED you to
the admiration of other people who had
been successful so therefore you would
have that a sort of an admiration of
yourself yes and that self admiration
would have been the Genesis of your of
your newfound happiness on the basis of
your money and if I were as able to
articulate that to myself as you were
just now I could myself a lot of
struggle but uh I couldn't either at 22
but yeah reading your book really began
to bring home this idea that there
are two different types of intelligence
and so at the time I'm haunted by this
idea genius is a young man's game I feel
like a really late bloomer I end up
spending all this time chasing money not
I take this huge break from pursuing my
passion and building that skill set so
now I really feel like I'm behind the
eightball and my whole life has felt
like that and reading your book and the
whole punchline of there's these two
grand movements in your life and if you
understand them then you really can
avoid this decline in misery right you
open your book with a story that I will
never forget and when I put the book
down I was like running around the
office like telling anybody who would
listen that story if you don't mind yeah
walk people through the
airplane 10 years ago I was the
president of a think tank in Washington
DC and I was having
these profoundly disturbing thoughts am
I on the right track where does this
lead what is my goal but you're really
successful at this point yeah I mean
successful for you know for
entrepreneurs in Southern California you
know what do successful mean to be the
president of a think tank in Washington
DC maybe not so much but everybody's got
a dream it's a great country isn't it
and I was the president of a of a big
prominent think tank in Washington DC
and I was in my late 40s that was more
or less the same age that you are right
now I was looking at my life saying okay
buddy what's the end game and look I had
done resech I'm a social scientist I do
work on human behavior and I had never
really trained these tools on myself and
I I was really disturbed by this because
I didn't actually see what the future
could actually bring that would be
better or I would be happier
and as I was kind of going through this
I was doing what I always did which is
basically fly around and ask people for
money I was a nonprofit organization I
had to raise $50 million a year and I
was giving 175 speeches a year which is
super fun I love Jes yeah yeah and so
it's like running for the Senate and
never getting elected basically which is
you know for running for the Senate
that's probably the best thing so you
don't have to be a senator and as I was
thinking about this kind of an
existential crisis you know what am I
what path am I on what I'm supposed to
do I mean some of that was evident I was
I have a family I'm in love with my wife
I I I love my kids but I didn't have an
understanding of the the course of my
life I mean my religious life is figured
out but I don't understand what I'm
supposed to be doing what is Arthur
Brook supposed to be doing such that I
can be happier as a person and frankly I
wasn't very happy for lots of reasons
that anybody can understand I mean and
and I heard a conversation behind me on
a plane one night that changed my entire
Direction it was a couple and I could it
was night time like about 11:00 at night
and I so it was dark and so people were
doing what people do on airplanes at
11:00 at night you know they're drinking
or they're or they're watching a movie
or they're sleeping but I could hear a
couple talking and I could tell it was a
man and a woman I could tell by their
voices that they were elderly clearly
old and I suppose that they were
probably married based on their
conversation I couldn't quite make out
the husband's words cuz he was sort of
mumbling but the wife's voice was very
penetrating was coming through the
chairs and she's he mumbles and he she
she says uh don't don't say it would be
better if you were dead and then he
mumbles some more and she says it's not
true that nobody remembers you it's not
true that nobody appreciates you anymore
and I'm thinking this is a guy who holy
cow he's he's not he's not a big shot
he's not an entrepreneur he's not you
know he's not somebody who lived up to
his own expectations got the he got the
experience or the education or the job
that he wanted and now life is kind of
over and he's disappointed and that
makes sense or it made sense to me
because look if you're a big shot then
you're going to die happy
huh and the lights go on at the end of
the flight an hour later or so and I'm
kind of curious It's not PRI intin but
look you know this is my laboratory as a
social scientist it is an overheard
conversation perhaps and and so I turn
around and it's one of the most famous
men in the world this is somebody who's
going to do 10 times as much with his
life as I ever am he's Rich he's famous
he's universally admired he's not
controversial for stuff that he did many
many years ago and I thought to myself
my whole model is wrong the problem that
I have the direction that I'm going is
incorrect because my model of of of
satisfaction is wrong here's the model
the world tells you here the the lyic
system of your brain the ancient part of
your brain that was extent a million
years ago and all of marketing and
entertainment which is a a a distributed
digital limic system says work hard make
money be successful be admired be envied
Bank it die happy and it's wrong and and
you know in your heart it's wrong
because you're always asking yourself
hey Tom what have you done for me lately
that's what your mind is asking you it's
not good enough that you founded a
company a long time ago and it made a
bunch of money it's not good enough we
we need to excel we need to achieve we
need to create value that's how we're
created as people and this guy was
blowing away the the world's Theory of
Happiness of satisfaction and I said to
myself I don't want to be explaining to
my wife Esther on a plane 30 years from
now 40 years from now I might as well be
dead and so I set myself to crack the
code what can I do and by the way the
data are very clear that the people who
have the earliest success the
mindblowing success they're the most
likely to be unsatisfied with their
lives at the end of their lives the
story that you tell about Darwin was
unnerving he could have been the man on
the plane Charles Darwin who is on
anybody's list of the three greatest
scientists of all time he was the Talk
of the Town his name Rings through the
anals of History man he's a hero this is
I think I may have been even more struck
by the Darwin confession many many
people who we rever today who had early
astonishing
success they died unhappy but we don't
record that we record their success not
the unhappiness with their life later on
Charles Darwin had his greatest
successes starting when he was 27 years
old we all know that he visited the
Galapagos Islands on the on the Voyage
of the begle which is a fiveyear sailing
Voyage around the world to collect
plants and animals send them back to
England he was getting quite famous in
his absence but when he got back he
drops this intellectual atomic bomb
which is the ideas that led to his
theory of natural selection AKA
Evolution and for 30 years I mean he was
I mean he's Rich he was famous he was
the man but then his progress stopped it
stopped because he didn't have the
mathematical ability to keep up with his
own research his research passed him by
technically and there was a there was
actually an advance that he needed that
today we call genetics that he couldn't
understand he was written in German he
didn't study German he was a bad student
he didn't do his mathematics homework he
never learned very much about statistics
and so the result was that he was left
in the dust which happens to people in
their 40s and at most most their early
50s based on their early success and he
spent the last 20 years of his life
complaining about the disappointing I
mean he wrote 11 books after that point
but they all sort of derivative they're
like straw and he said I don't have the
energy to do any work that I really find
satisfying to his friends and you know
he died disappointed he died sad the
great maybe the greatest naturalist of
all time died sad he could have been the
man on the plane and this is not what
the world tells you the world says bust
your pick get as as early as you can get
bet 10,000 hours man kill it kill it
Bank it you know and but if if if so
what you know the the cinon of Happiness
Excellence retire at 40 well how many
people do you know who've done that
who've actually gotten happier who
retired at 40 I know none the point is
that's not how human endeavor actually
works and so we need a better model and
I saw that I did the research and I said
time to build a better model that
actually describes the Dynamics of human
experience that actually digs into what
actually brings us happiness and that's
what my research is about that's what
I'm dedicating the rest of my life to
exploring all right so to put a fine
point on it the punchline ends up being
there's two kinds of intelligence so
type one is fluid sort of raw
intelligence it's Darwin's genius was
fluid intelligence it's Innovative
capacity it's what made tomt which is
your indefatigable energy your focus
your ability to get better and better to
be the ninja in your particular field
which gets better and better through
your 20 it sounds sexy even as you're
saying it that that's what I find so
horrifying that's hustle culture man
hustle culture rewards that and by the
way and it's been an awesome ride oh and
it's super addictive it's super it
actually works in the same dopamine
Pathways as you know methamphetamines
and alcohol yes it is my one addiction
success addiction yeah it's a killer and
you you I write about it in the book
about the success addiction that
virtually all entrepreneurs virtually
all Strivers have you can be you know
the ace electrician and have a success
addiction because we are wired to want
to be excellent and to be admired which
leads you to get better and better and
better at what you do using what we've
identified is what psychologists have
identified for a long time now as fluid
intelligence your the structure of your
brain lends itself to just incredible
energy and focus and to get better and
better and better as an individual at
solving any problem faster than others
the problem is this is the problem that
led to Darwin's misery and so many
others it peaks in your late 30s or
early 40s and then it declines and then
it declines faster and if you try to
keep your groove you're going to ride
that thing to the basement and you're
going to be the man of the plane you're
going to be Darwin you're going to be
bitter and unhappy and most people think
they get one curve that's the bad news
the good news is that's not your only
curve you have a second curve that comes
in behind it which is not your fluid
intelligence which goes up Peaks comes
down it's your crystallized intelligence
your wisdom which doesn't have fast
working memory the Innovative capacity
is not as good but it's your ability to
identify patterns to use the information
in your environment like having the New
York Public Library at your disposal it
takes a while to get the information
like I can't remember that thing because
it's on the fourth floor back in the
stacks I got to send my guy to get it
but it's in there and you can use this
information to be a teacher to be a
historian to have actual wisdom that's
what you get better at through your 40s
and 50s and you can stay high in your
60s and 70s and Beyond that's your true
success curve as you get older the key
is you got to walk from fluid
intelligence over to crystallized
intellig you got to walk from the Star
litigator to the managing partner from
the from the Innovative startup
entrepreneur to the venture capitalist
from the from the mathematical
researcher to the professor those are
the different curves you got to go from
one to the other and if you're stuck on
the first and if that's your vision of
your own greatness and you can't be
thrown off that you'll be chasing that
for the rest of your life even though
it's just it's in it's in the basement
and you can't get it back so there are
some people that can wake themselves up
out of the Matrix other people that must
be awoken I do fear sometimes that I
need to be awoken uh but you woke
yourself up I'm so curious so you're
doing your thing you're very successful
and I don't know maybe and I guess we
should tell people that you started out
as a musician yeah a French horn player
nonetheless very specific yes and very
esoteric and made a living as a
professional French horn
player if I'm not mistaken exactly right
all right so you're killing that game
but you realize that you're declining do
you think that going on that is what
allowed you to then consciously step
away while it seems like you were still
in your Prime as the leader the
president of this Think Tank I got very
lucky I got very lucky that I failed my
first career and after having a lot of
success I went into early Decline and
out of desperation to support my family
and to have a future out of my 20s I had
to change gears I didn't have a college
education I dropped out of college you
know dropped out kicked out splitting
hairs when I was 19 um I and I went on
the road as a as a musician what that's
my parents call it the Gap my Gap decade
right which you can imagine how fun that
was for them and you know kind of made a
living kind of made my rent you know but
I was I was living my best life because
I was a young guy I didn't have health
insurance I didn't go to the dentist for
six years at one point which I'm still
paying for
and but like I've told friends I um I
never missed a day without cigarettes so
you know you you've figure out what my
priorities were at that particular point
in my life and fortunately I gave that
up a long time ago but I was going into
decline as a French horn player and
things that used to be easy became hard
and things that were hard became
impossible and I saw the writing on the
wall I saw a lot of older classical
musicians who were deeply alcoholic and
unhappy and had been good and now
weren't and didn't have the respect of
the younger people that were having a
harder time making a living and I
thought look I'm barely making a living
now I'm ambitious and it's going well I
mean look I was in the Barcelona
Symphony so I was making a middle class
living and that's a good Orchestra but I
knew that I couldn't keep it up and so I
I had to change just by necessity I had
to change and I went back to college got
my college degree by
correspondence um and at 31 left to
start my PhD that by the way that's not
just an arbitrary thing that's the
family business my father was a college
professor my grandfather was a college
professor so I knew that business more
better than any other I know how to do a
PhD my father was working on his PhD
even when I was a kid so I saw that
whole process that wasn't foreign or
exotic to me at all and I knew what
professors do for a living and I said
okay I can do that because I know that I
was VE I was very ashamed I was just I
felt horrible about myself that I had
that I I had failed at this thing that
was everything to me I mean I there were
I would have just as soon died than to
not be a French horn player because
there was nothing else but I didn't die
and I couldn't die because I was a
married man I was in love with my wife
and and you know we were going to have
kids kids and what what was I going to
do I mean you were you honest with her
about what you're going through at that
point yeah yeah she knew well she knew
full well I mean she knows me I'm an
open world I'm an open book with her and
U I mean she's also
smart and you know we she she knows me
super well in no small part because when
we were dating um we didn't speak the
same language and we spoke
rudimentary amounts of the same language
for the entire first year of our
marriage oh you got to know each other
you get to know each other in a in a
deep human way when you actually can't
talk cuz you can't
lie I recommend this to everybody that's
really unexpected yeah yeah how did you
fall in love if you guys weren't
speaking the same you saw her I was 24
she's a rock and roll singer from
Barcelona she's beautiful and she's
lovely and she's kind and she's smart
and weirdly she liked me and so um and I
threw in big time I moved to Barcelona
to try to convince her to marry me
without speaking a word of the same
language this is what entrepreneurs do
right this is the ultimate
entrepreneurial experience is to give
away your heart and and to take a chance
that's what young people today they're
so non-entrepreneurial if they're
unwilling to fall in love because that I
mean forget the companies forget the
money forget all the cool stuff that you
and I been able to do professionally
fall in love that's
entrepreneurship right that's the big
bad I've never heard anybody describe it
like that entreprene risk-taking like
why do you entrepreneurship is taking a
big risk in in in looking for major
rewards for explosive returns I'm not
going to tell you how to denominate
those returns it's faith in resources
that you don't already have in hand
these are the characteristics of the
entrepreneur when I was writing a
textbook on entrepreneurship I was
looking at that I'm saying it's a it's a
big mistake to talk about this in terms
of money we should be talking about this
in terms of love because that's the
currency of life and when a whole
generation of young people are miserable
because they're comfortable putting
millions of people people's dollars at
risk to start a company but they're
unwilling to go bankrupt in their
relationships they're unwilling to have
somebody crush them by breaking up with
them they're just not very
entrepreneurial that's the problem we
have people who are too
non-entrepreneurial which is one of the
reasons that we have too few people who
are in love today as far as I'm
concerned so that was the thing man I
took that I jumped I did that I did that
and that that was actually very good
because that gave me a lot of confidence
that I could conquer my fear I could
take a risk I mean look it was it was a
very low chance that this was going to
work out and we're going to learn each
other's language and she's going to
realize I'm a hopeless stooge or
something or we're not going to love
each other or something and we just
celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary
congratulations we have three adult
children incredible it's amazing so so
that was we know each other deeply
deeply deeply she knows all of my
nonsense because she knows it without
the words you can shade all kinds of
Truth with with words you can't when
it's just your heart you're just a heart
tohe
heart and that's really unexpected
that's very intriguing to me I would
because I have leaned on language so
heavily in my life in fact if there's
anything so I once went live for for 24
hours as a thing like to celebrate
hitting a certain number on Facebook I
don't even remember now what number but
went live for 24 hours and then
literally I that morning or the next
afternoon whatever I flew to London and
then uh I did an event with no
microphone and I spoke for nine hours so
at the end of that something happened to
my my vocal cords and I was having a
hard time talking and I could feel like
my throat would click it was so
distressing go to a therapist they stick
a camera down my throat the whole nine
like trying to figure out what did I do
and I start really worrying what does my
life look like if I can't speak yeah and
that was the first time where I was like
whoa like imagine losing that thing that
made you you and I've always been highly
verbal that was always the thing that I
could terrible at math got horrendous
SAT scores but I'm highly verbal you're
extremely expressive you're extremely
expressive I will give you that I'll
take that it's absolutely true so and I
thought o God what happens if I lose my
voice so I can't imagine trying to court
the woman who is now my wife almost 20
years uh without my voice that's
interesting that and and me too look I
mean I talk for a living I literally I
mean blah blah blah that's what I do for
a living did it not hit you then that
like oh God I'm taking away my
superpower well super I was I was a
French horn player okay so you guys
connect over music yeah well we were at
a music festival in France in dong in
France that's how you met yeah and I was
on tour and she was
studying and she was studying with a
teacher an American teacher there and we
met at this music festival and and and
we were playing music and that's what
you did and so that that made it a
little bit easier I mean we were less
reliant on on talking yeah than than
than I am
today yeah that's awesome yeah yeah for
sure and so that was you know when I
went into the client as a musician she
was right there to be helpful and she
gave me she gave me the courage yeah was
she warm about it or was she super warm
she said I was deeply unhappy because I
was in Decline look humans are not
intended to decline decline is hugely
painful because happiness comes from
progress unhappiness comes from regress
and when you feel that something is
harder than it used to be so it's
interesting you know you see this the
decline of the fluid intelligence care
we just talked about if you're really a
striver um and that's who I'm working
with I'm working with people want to
make the most with their lives you if
you look if you never do anything with
your life you're not going to know it's
over you're not going to have this big
crisis at the end of your life it's
because you never did anything and I was
like I watched a lot of TV awesome it's
like and I can still do that don't you
think their whole life is a crisis not
really no actually no no not
really yeah know for sure I mean well
here's the thing it depends on what you
mean by happiness and what a good life
is you know I want my life as a striver
but I also recognize that it's not
normal in many ways to strive not to
strive to the extent that you have but
is that what you mean by it's not normal
yeah and it it creates problems I mean
you you you re hell on yourself y when
you're actually doing the stuff that
you've done and there's a lot of ways
you could have had a much easier life a
much more relaxing life a life with
greater peace yeah for sure so that's
all I mean it's it's not a very profound
point in that way but when I you know
when I was when things were going poorly
and I was deeply unhappy cuz I was in a
state of regress my wife said you're
unhappy you just need to quit and I said
that's insane I mean like one can't just
walk away but of course and she said yes
you can absolutely you can do anything
you want I said we'll be poor she said
we're already
poor you know how do you know you it's
it's you know multiplying by zero is
still zero and uh and so we did we just
we we bailed you know we went to we left
Barcelona we moved to boka Ron Florida
where nobody knew us I took a pretty
easy teaching job and I started studying
by correspondence at night nobody knew I
was doing it she had a minimum wage job
she spoke very poor English had not
graduated from high school um and so was
learning English and making you know six
bucks an hour or whatever it was and I
was getting paid to teach the French
horn while secretly working on my
bachelor's degree at night to build my
to to rebuild the person that I was and
then finished that went on to and
started my PhD which is what I really
thought I needed to do and that took me
a little I came here to Los Angeles as a
matter of fact in studyed the Rand
graduate school in Santa Monica and then
I learned a new trade I learned I
actually learned who I was as a person
again for the first time but it was like
four years of you know it was weird I
couldn't I remember trying to sign a
check during that time and I couldn't
replicate my own
signature and it turns out that that's
actually quite frequent when people in
this period of liminality between faces
of their life that their handwriting
will change what yeah yeah it's actually
a common occurrence I didn't gnomes like
I'm trying to send a check for the bank
sorry Mr Brooks this is not the right
signature is it is it because there's a
subconscious part of you that's like I'm
not that person anymore it's I don't
it's it's not well understood but
there's a the the neurophysiology of a
lot of this stuff is we're just starting
to understand there's no doubt something
that where these things are connected
where your sense of yourself is somehow
connected to to you know these motor
skills in a particular way I couldn't
replicate my own signature sufficiently
I got like rejected Ed by the bank for
cashing a check into my own account at
one point I'm like my my my early
dementia I mean what early stage
something what's going on here and what
it was was I was in this profound state
of liminality which in retrospect was
this just fertile period you know I tell
the story in the book is a place that
you and I both know as Pacific Northwest
guys there's a place called Lincoln city
in Oregon that's you're near just north
of Newport and I used to go there
because my aunt was the receptionist aot
tell and she had she lived in a trailer
near the beach and it was like this
Bliss I used to go there and I remember
the first time I was trying to fish off
the rocks in in Lincoln City Oregon I
was catching nothing this old guy lives
in a shack is watching me and he comes
up he says kid I've been I've been
watching you you know today he'd be
arrested but and and I said he said
you're not catching anything right I
said no he says cuz you're doing it
wrong you can't catch any fish unless
it's a falling tide that's when the tide
is going out very quickly rushing out
between the rocks and I'm like well all
the fish are gone right he says no no no
you'll see it's stirring up the Plankton
the fish go crazy it's happening in 45
minutes he has his fishing pole we throw
our we throw our lines in and we're
pulling them out by you know by the tens
it's
unbelievable and and afterward he's
feeling sort of philosophical he lights
up a cigarette on the Rocks I'm 11 or
something and he says Hey kid you know
during a falling tide you can only make
one mistake I said what's that he said
not having your line in the water and I
have learned this that the time between
the tides of your life the falling TI of
your life looks like you're losing
everything get your line in the water
because that's the most fertile period
of your life so what does it mean to
have your line in the water you must try
new things you must be fully Alive you
must try everything you possibly can you
must need you to Define Fully Alive to
be to to wake up each day and to live
that day full of possibility not to
nurse your wounds not to waste your time
not to try to do things that you used to
do to be fully Alive is to be live to
the new set of experiences that's that's
coming across the
transom that's super important because
during this time of luminal there by the
way there's a lot of research on this
this is not just an anecdote about you
know this kid fishing in Oregon this is
there's a lot of research that shows
that this time between periods in your
life which there's a guy named Bruce
filer who's who writes a book about
Transitions and he said during these
life Quakes you know if your if your
spouse just left you that's a fertile
period for you to learn new things if
you you know you've lost somebody to
death if you've if you're if you're
going through chemotherapy for example
this is and you and you're very afraid
through a pandemic for example for
example if you during the
pandemic many people find that despite
the fact that they hated and were
insecure and it was horrible that their
lives transformed for the good that in
terms of what we're talking about here
the two curves fluid and crystallized
intelligence that period between the two
where you're you're inclining in one and
the other's increasing but you don't
know how to get on it or even what it
means that's your most fertile period
That's when things are can be absolutely
magic they're not going to be fun you
might not be happy but that's when magic
can happen and the thing I try to
convince everybody is look somebody
that's had the kind of success that most
people only dream
of nothing has come close to giving me
as much joy fulfillment anything
protection from the downside all of it
other than my marriage my marriage is
the thing that I protect most fiercely I
am not worried about losing my money I'm
not worried about losing uh accolades I
am terrified of losing my wife yeah yeah
and and and mark can have a horrible day
and you don't like it but your wife is
really mad at you and you're bummed yeah
yeah even even if you know she's not
going to divorce you you're bummed
because you don't want the person you
love the most to be upset with you you
want her to be happy with you cuz what's
happened it's basically like your stock
market radically tank
the stock market of what really matters
in your life is the way that that works
out it's actually a really interesting
way to think about it okay so if that is
the thing if that's the thing that's
going to really the thing that we're
pursuing is love and a bunch of
different guyses but the relationship
that's going to be most important to us
is the relationship with our spouse how
do we do that well and let's start at
the beginning so one thing you've said
is delete your dating apps yeah yeah or
there there are some people who you know
wind up meeting their partner and
getting married based on dating apps but
dating apps the evidence suggests that
it's making dating harder actually why
would be true because it's making it
harder to find somebody with you with
whom you can have the complex connection
that's appropriate for a couple
different reasons number one is the
Paradox of choice so dating apps give
you too much choice and so what that
means is that there's always something
better so are you saying subtle yeah
yeah well part of the reason is because
you're not going to find the perfect
person you're going to make the perfect
relationship o That's Rel work you know
people think I'm going to
find I mean magical thinking is a huge
problem love at first sight doesn't
exist and soulmates don't exist right I
mean I I believe that God wants me to be
with my wife but that's an entirely
different thing than saying that there
was this there was one woman in the
world and she lived in Barcelona and she
was a little girl and I was growing up
in Seattle and the No No No
circumstances were such that I met the
person that was going one of the people
that could have been perfect for me if I
worked to make it perfect and your wife
is cool with that framing yeah because
she knows that that's what God wants us
to she you know we believe that this is
what God wants us to do God puts people
together and then puts a lot in our
hands we have free will and we have to
you know part of making Cosmic
love-based progress is the things that
we do in our relationship this is the
way that we work out the stuff of love
in life is is not it's all perfect then
you're in heaven automatically well
boring that's boring no no no progress
man and you got to make prog one of the
ways you make progress is the imperfect
that you make as perfect as you can
using your imperfect tools and that's
the that's the exciting Adventure that
is a a romantic relationship and if and
if you start off with the idea there's
always something better because of
magical thinking and I'm going to find
the perfect one if I keep swiping right
or left or whatever it is what is it
left or right I don't know I've never
used them that's right CU we you and I
have been married men for a long time
but that I'm 21 you're how many years 32
man it's impressive 32 yeah
congratulations I am in awe of that my
wife's like it's like 10 minutes
underwater that's good I know I like
it's like being married to an oldtime
comedian from the cat skills it's nice
except she's Spanish yeah Spanish Jackie
Mason anyway it's a good reference that
no one in the audience got but that's
okay Google him anyway so he's probably
on YouTube yeah uh black and white maybe
yeah yes Jesus so that's number one the
second reason however is that that it
and again I'm not down on dating apps
I'm just not I'm not down I'm not down
with how people use them typically use
them feels like you're caveat I am
caveat for sure because there's nothing
that's good or bad but that thinking
makes it so exactly right and so the big
thinking error in apps is finding
somebody who's who's completely
compatible with us the technology
enables compatibility the the technology
is enables you to find comp to find
people who are more and more and more
compatible that you couldn't on the on
the human Market
and so that matchmakers your parents
wouldn't find for you or certainly blind
dates or somebody you meet in a bar you
just you know it's a crap shoot for
compatibility which is actually what you
need we're too compatible this is
something that most people don't
understand that sounds crazy yeah I know
and so it but but people will sort on
their political views and their likes
and their dislikes and you know physical
characteristics what you find is that
people that match up on compatibility ex
you know um ex Ane a priori in the
dating Market they even look alike right
and and and that's a problem you know
it's basically you wind up looking for
somebody who's effectively your sibling
which as my adult kids say is not hot
that's not hot not hot not hot and so
when people are looking for excess
compatibility they like the person less
they find them less attractive what you
need is a base of compatibility which is
lower than you think and then tons of
complimentarity which is interesting and
sexy okay you want difference yes aged
not opposit opposites don't attract
where do you want want you're now
confusing me where do you want things to
be where do you want to be compatible
you need Basics on non-negotiable values
preach right no non-negotiable values
negotiable values doesn't matter people
think that too many values are
non-negotiable that are actually
negotiable politics shouldn't be in
there you should not sort on politics
now 71% of political liberals say they
won't date a conservative 41% of
conservatives say they won't date a
liberal which just shows that
conservatives have lower standards
politically than liberals and or maybe
it's men versus women or something like
that I know I got to look into the data
more but the whole point is that that
that's a that's that's a ridiculous
barrier that's a ridiculous barrier
that's just that's basically like
classifying being a Democrat or
Republican like being Jewish or Catholic
or atheist it's interesting man like
this is one area where I'm with you in
the abstract but political stuff's
gotten so weird people are so devout
about it that that isn't interesting
I don't want to be like even even I try
not to be dogmatic but even if I were
I'm not being dogmatic if they're
dogmatic like that's not interesting to
me yeah I get it and one of the best
ways actually is what what I recommend
to my students for example is that they
don't talk at all about politics for
four dayses to see if yeah yeah to
have until we get into that exactly
right so you don't actually so the Dogma
or something and if you can start to
fall in love suddenly less dogmatic yeah
you're less dogmatic about politics and
the person you're falling in love with
when they say something that you would
have previously thought was a
non-starter was a deal breaker it no
longer is are you and your wife
politically aligned kind of now just
because we've been together for so long
but you weren't in the beginning no she
was Spanish I mean she was brought
up you know a hard red atheist family
you know really really you know it's
like complete socialists you know they
were on the losing side of the Spanish
Civil War and they were all atheist she
hadn't been to church since her first
communion and interesting I quietly
assumed that was the first thing you
guys bonded over oh no way that was just
like that was a 10-year project for me
wow totally 10year project for me was
just but you know she when I met her
she's like no I don't believe in
marriage that's an Antiquated
institution doesn't make sense we'll see
we'll see I mean and I moved to
Barcelona to try to convince her to
marry me how long were you guys together
before you got married uh it well I
hoped that it would be very short but it
took me two years to close the deal okay
from Meet to married no from from moving
to marriage okay how long from Meet to
mared three so we were apart for a year
and I was you know right and she didn't
speak any English I didn't speak any
Spanish or Calon and and so I thought
I'm GNA the only I had a premonition I
mean I I met her for a week and I told
my dad I think I think I'm going to
marry this girl whoa he's like can't
wait to meet her I got some problems and
she doesn't uh speak English shees live
in the United States and she doesn't
believe in marriage but I think I think
it's surmountable other than that yeah
and uh and so you know we kind of stayed
in touch for a year and then I'm I quit
my job and I moved to Barcelona took a
job in the Barcelona Symphony because I
had this I had this very strong sense
and by the way maybe it didn't work out
it was an entrepreneurial thing to do
and I was 24 and it was okay and I
worked on it and worked on it learned
the language um and we were in love and
when I was 26 and I said we have to get
married you have to marry me she said
yes and you know and then little by
little by and you come together see the
couples change people change over the
course of their lives and couples change
together and the couples that don't do
well change apart because the don't
change together there's too much pride
is what comes from it so what'll happen
is tons of difference at the very
beginning lots of love glue glues you
together and then you start to change
together the ultimate goal by the way
for a marriage relationship that lasts
tons of passion we talked about the
neurochemical Cascade of falling at love
of you know love addiction but within
five years what you need to be left with
is what we call companionate love your
goal within five years to be is to be
best friends with a person that's your
goal there's lots of passion and
companion at love that also sounds not
hot you know here's my companion Mrs
Brooks you know no companion love is
this is the person that you'll be
looking into her eyes on your dying day
and that who knows all your secrets with
whom you can be truly yourself who
really has your best interests at heart
that's what companion at love is and not
every relationship can get to that but
that's the go what do you think that
what's the importance of keeping sex
alive because that's the that's the a a
physical bond that is the most intimate
understanding of the of your
relationships it's an expression of your
great greatest intimacy it's also it's
also super fun yeah A and B yeah so I
make but you can have sex with people
you're not in love with you know people
do that all the time too Carfax it's way
way way more satisfying when it's in the
expression of your greatest intimacy
that's why the happiest people have one
sexual partner in a in a given year it
doesn't mean one in your whole life
interesting it means one there's
actually been a study on that a study on
that using the General Social Survey of
the University of Chicago yep is that to
me that just sounds like a proxy for
committed relationship yeah it it is and
and the greatest expression of the deep
deep deep intimacy and commitment is is
usually sex because when people ask Lisa
and I like what's the secret to a long
marriage we always say like one of our
top things obviously communicate but
have a lot of sex like you don't want to
become roommates right and there is
something also and I don't know what you
think about this but there's something
about there's a an electricity to
Crossing that line and there's one
person that you cross that line with and
not having that like one for that just
entire part of your life to die and for
you to never have that thing H there's
tons of oxytocin that happens during
sexual activity that you don't get
otherwise as well and that bonds you
together again and again look there are
other ways to get it too by the way so
sex is not the only way people often ask
is it bad that couples fight and the
answer is it's bad when they don't and I
mean some people fight a lot some people
fight a little my wife wife and I fight
a lot we fight a lot we have a lot of
arguments a lot Spanish because yeah I
mean for them it's just a form of
communication you know and there's
nothing that's not on the surface and
and so that was hard the first five to
10 years I was very agre you're not
built like that I'm American you know we
didn't do that growing up in the Pacific
Northwest did we I mean it was like I
yeah that was not learning to fight well
was a big thing I had to learn but the
key is about about that couples that
never never never fight they're missing
out on some of the greatest sorts of of
intimacy because the friction is there
and saying things you that you think
that you weren't saying before I heard
you say this before will you take a
second to say that very clearly the the
idea of of intimacy through fighting
yeah people often say it's so weird you
know after we have a big fight then we
then we make love as if it were make
done that I never do that are are you in
the mood for sex after you've been in a
fight well it depends on how the fight
resolves but the whole point is that a
lot of people do that and the reason is
because they're raw and intimate in
their communication sometimes for the
first time in a long time okay for the
first time in a long time so if you're
the kind of couple that has a you're not
seeing each other very much because
you're working really hard and you're on
the road and and you're not talking
about things and a lot of tension is
building up and and then finally you
have a knockdown drag out fight and
you're saying things that you think that
that that are deeply intimate that are
your deepest feelings that you would
never say at work because you don't have
the kind of relationship with other
people you don't want to demoralize them
you don't have trust you have enough
trust and you say things that might be
they might be cutting they might be
wounding but they're deeply intimate you
have a an intimate Bond you have a a a
spiritual bond with that other person
because of the intimacy of the
communication even though it was
wounding that's really interesting so I
will say this I have had moments where I
was completely uninterested in sex until
we had I would even necessarily say
fight because fight implies that it's
like really fiery
um there was one big disagreement that
my wife and I got into and it was really
interesting the when we when I brought
up the thing we happened to be in a
swimming pool and so my wife likes me to
hold her and walk her around the pool
and it ended up being this amazing way
to have this argument because it was
really like hey I've been meaning to say
this thing for a few days now here's how
this thing made me feel like let's
really get into it and we couldn't see
each other's eyes and it made it way
easier to have the conversation so we
were like cheek to cheek but we couldn't
see each other's eyes so there it just
became easier to like get those things
off of our chest it was really wonderful
but I and so I didn't want to have sex
until we had that conversation but it
wasn't like I'm going to run you
upstairs and like I've never had that
response like I don't people are
different for sure but it's important
that you have those relationship moments
and those might be as bonding your
fights might be as bonding for you when
done well are you yeah for sure and
there's technique Techni talk to me
about so so my guess is that you're in a
21-year marriage and you're going to be
married till you die yes you're going to
die yes I mean until death to you part
for sure MH and um so my guess is I
could probably write a script for your
fights based on that and when when
something's not right the the accusation
is that we are having a problem mhm now
when you look at a couple that's tenuous
and have really having trouble and
really in danger it's like you're doing
something and it makes me feel a
particular way so important super
important and just changing the language
because language change has very strong
cognitive impact so if you you want your
fights to be you're going to fight and
it's important that you relate to each
other and you're honest with each other
but you want it to stop actually
creating so much brain damage just
change the just change the the pronouns
that's the first thing to do is to
change the pronouns in the fights don't
say I and you start saying we and us we
and us we have we have to do this thing
I mean when whenever we do this thing we
have a problem and and you'll find your
stumbling across it at the very
beginning you'll find because it's
because and you did this we had this
problem we had this breakdown
communication because then you're trying
to solve a problem together and it's a
joint problem you're trying to solve and
when you solve it you've made progress
together as opposed to I won and you
lost that's really super important and
just using different pronouns starts it
can actually repair a multitude of
problems my wife and I do and this has
been really powerful for us is we talk
in insecurities when we get into an
argument yeah so if one of us is getting
angry it's like we have a shared
understanding if you're angry it's
because you're insecurity has been
tripped so confess like what's the
insecurity what's the thing that's
bothering you so that you can get off of
the surface level argument which is
usually very fruitless and you can get
down into
you fin the milk without talking to me
and it makes me feel unseen whatever and
once you get down there like ooh whoa
why is that making you feel unseen and
also that the person isn't just I have
an insecurity you triggered it shame on
you it's like okay I have an obligation
to work on my insecurities you have an
obligation to care enough about me that
you want to know but I can't just be
like you have to deal with it I have an
insecurity and you better tread around
forever you're doing a lot right I can
tell you that and this is one of the
reasons that you you you state so openly
that your marriage is the most important
thing in your life it's it's the central
institution of your life I mean like
this goes all bust and and by the way
this is going to go bust it's all going
to go bust yeah right but the one thing
on your deathbed is Lisa I mean here's
the problem one of you is going to die
first yes although if you ask my wife
she really wants us to die
simultaneously yes that would be like
she's like I don't care if I die in a PL
class as long as you're next to me and
I'm like what what you talking about why
are we both going down like if I have to
die in a plane crash I want you to be
safe on the ground she's like no way I'd
want to be with
you so yeah that she says it out of love
though so it's you actually laugh about
it totally get not like I sure hope you
die in a plane crash with me yeah no I
get it it's a it's but but that's a you
know this is is an issue right because
that you will be separated yeah the data
say that except under the oddest of
circumstances you'll be separated y but
what typically happens is really really
happy couples except under conditions of
bad luck they tend to live long time
have a long marriage and one of them
dies and then the other dies it's crazy
man uhhuh uhhuh because you have a joint
life you have a joint life together the
Enterprise it's the the startup it's a
you're
co-founders the other thing that's
really interesting too is that the a lot
of the relationships that do best are
startups not
mergers that's interesting tell me more
meaning second marriage no well I mean
second marriages are sometimes they're
really great but the the marriages that
that have the greatest likelihood of
success they're entered into earlier
when you're both in life startup mode as
opposed to I got my law degree and you
got your PhD and you got your startup
and I got my startup and I think we're
and we have separate bank accounts and
now now let's have a merger startups are
more successful than mergers there's dat
and oh yeah and the worst of course are
hostile takeovers or Acquisitions but
you know wow okay so no you can have a
merger that works but you got to go into
it with your eyes open and make it as as
much of a startup as you can make and
that was I don't recommend subra bank
accounts I don't recommend it really
yeah there's huge data showing that
couples are more successful when they
have joint bank accounts interesting let
me run something by you so when Lisa and
I first got together um we had enough
difference in values that it was I
looked at the things that she spent
money on and I thought they were dumb
she looked at the things I spent money
on she thought they were dumb so what we
did was we said bills are joint but
spending is separate and so we put our
money together and then we each had the
exact same amount to spend yeah and at
the time so when we got married she
certainly had more money than me because
I was just absolutely broken in debt uh
but then when we got married I was the
only one with a job and the one insight
and I wish I could track back to where I
got this but I was like this because
this is all prefunctional internet the
internet existed but nobody was really
using it for much um and I said okay
look we're going to come together but
the we are in this together so whatever
money I earn it really is half yours
right and so we're going to take care of
all the bills together we'll have the
separate spending accounts um and really
have looked at everything in that way
like when we started impact Theory um
the lawyers were like who's going to own
51% and I was like what are you talking
about and they said you can't be 50/50
that's the ultimate divorce Nightmare
and so my wife was like you're obviously
going to work more than me like you take
the 51% she's like I don't have any
problem with that whatsoever and I was
like Over My Dead Body I was like I need
you to know to the core of your
existence this company whatever if
something goes wrong with us I have a
problem if we're in a position where I'm
like thank God I have 51% I've already
lost everything so right 50/50 you're
saying is impact theory is an extension
of Tom and so therefore my life is 50/50
with you so axiomatically impact theory
is 50/50 nice and really what I wanted
to say was impact theory is an extension
of Tom and Lisa right this is a thing we
are doing together and even if we
weren't I mean I suppose at that point I
wouldn't have thought about it but like
if my wife betrayed me I'd still give
her half my [ __ ] M just be like you love
her yeah yeah not only that I don't know
who I would have become had I not in a
startup with her you're not prey at all
and all you were doing is avoiding
fights by you know having separate
allowances yes it's not the same thing I
mean it's just that's just that's just
prudent is the way that it works out
it's like yeah we we're going to tend to
fight over this and and you know we
don't want me to accidentally take all
the spending on you know giant chest
pieces or you know or you know Batman
statues or something video games that
was video games whatever the thing
happens to be and so let's let's you
know make it so this we just avoid a
fight let's just simply avoid a fight
and that way you can I can laugh at the
way you spend your money you can laugh
at the way I spend my money instead of
feeling a source of resentment but
basically saying my money your money my
account your account my property your
property that's problematic from the
very beginning because what you're
basically is you're planning for is the
disillusion you're planning for the I
mean it's a
union and you know the union of this is
to say that we're I mean it's biblically
it's a a man shall leave his parents and
and cleave to his wife it's one flesh I
mean the whole in in religious
Traditions divorce is supposed to be
like cutting off your arm it's supposed
to be that kind of a I mean I get I get
it it happens sometimes I get it I you
know I live in the real world it happens
sometimes but for when you're doing it
from a startup you can't you don't
really understand yourself without Lisa
like who's Tom I don't know alone
literally yeah that's the thing now not
everybody can have that you know and I'm
not saying people shouldn't not
everybody can can be held to these
standards because of the the the reality
of things that have happened in their
lives and you know I talked to people
who have been the victims of abuse and
and addiction and criminal behavior and
all of this and and they have a need for
love in their life and they get married
again and they have an established life
and it doesn't have these per per
perfect standards social science gives
you the the ideal circumstances but not
the only circumstances and so here's the
key when the circumstances are not ideal
you have to work consciously with your
eyes open to make them as ideal as you
can so if you've got a merger on your
hands got a merger on your hands good
you can make that work too but make it
as as start upy as you can yeah the
thing I would encourage people is to
understand that their the reason a
startup works is for a set of principles
if you understand the principles and can
apply them later in life so be it one of
them is going to be being open to being
Changed by the relationship going into
it and knowing we are creating a union
and in doing that like what are the ways
that we have to move and to dance in
this thing in order to make it work and
then a big part of it especially if
you're older is understanding that
selection is 80% of the battle like if
you select poorly you're going to be in
dire circumstances they they are I mean
again without magical thinking without
thinking there is one soul M so Choose
Wisely I believe in soulmates I don't
believe in love First Sight I'm just
saying that if for instance you said
earlier you have to grow together as a
couple now the amount of all the things
that we talked about here emotional
stability getting that right knowing how
to fight well like I mean there's just a
laundry list of Happiness things right
that if you get right you will be way
primed way marri knowledge is power in
your relationships and your work in your
spiritual life knowledge is power and
and again it it all goes back to I know
people who you know say yeah we knew
each other for a week and we got married
in Vegas it's like that's Folly yeah
that's just Serendipity that it that's
just doesn't make sense on the other
hand you know when somebody says I say
how long youve been dating that girl
it's like eight years like no yeah no no
um and and you know what's the right
amount of time this is what this is a
question of credential judgment too you
know my oldest son met his wife now wife
when he was 24 early
24 they dated for six months they were
engaged for six months they got married
a year after they started dating their
first child was born N9 months later I
mean that's called the 669 Cadence in
Catholic Life by the way six really
that's a thing that's a thing six months
dating 6 months engaged N9 months till
the first baby I mean it's not it's not
that we recommend this it's just but it
worked out really really well because
that was enough time but it wasn't too
much right you know it wasn't the kind
of thing where I don't know why don't we
live together for you know 50 years
before we decided whether or not to get
married that's that's not the right
thing either so you know credential
judgment is is is and it's the same
thing with a startup by the way I don't
know I think I need a little bit more
experience so when I was writing my
dissertation I would see these guys and
you know I was doing my PhD but like I
got to read a couple more books like
write your
dissertation pop the question after a
certain point but not on the first date
yeah I I didn't have any trouble with
that so for me when I met Lisa I did not
think I was going to get married and
then old were I was 24 mhm and when we
started dating um probably about three
months in something 3 four months in
something like that I realized oh [ __ ]
like I'm in love with her and then I was
like okay well I'm either never getting
married or I'm marrying this woman yeah
and so I proposed at eight months and we
had spent some of those eight months
apart it wasn't even like we were living
together for 8 months or anything cuz
she was in England and then I was ready
to get married right away I was like
what's it take to get married about
three months and she's like you are
having a laugh she's like no way this is
going to take like a year to plan this
wedding so we ended up being together
for about 18 months by the time we got
married but uh good good by today
standards that's fast and and by today's
standards you were young yeah um and
again Society Chang in different ways
but some of these some of these
principles don't change I don't know if
any of the principles change that's the
thing like circumstances do but
principles don't yeah so how do you how
do people grow together like what is the
key there part of it is understanding
that you have a you you you are stronger
when you are together and that one of
the cues for you to change is the other
person changing so not PE people who
struggle they think the cue for me to do
something different in my life is I feel
differently about something one of the
accus for you to do something
differently in your your life is that
your spouse starts to think feel
differently about that you have to take
on the characteristics of the other
person as if they were inside you you
know so you find for example that your
spouse is on a spiritual journey starts
to find stirrings of spirituality that's
a cue for you to do that too that's a
cue for you to do that too and to do
that sincerely as well and again people
say well you're losing your
individuality and the whole thing yep
that's exactly right yep yeah you're
sublimating the individuality on these
things to have greater strength in the
Union right so that you can have a
greater multiplicity of experiences
across the two of you
greater adventure and excitement across
the two of you is the way that that
works and sometimes it's hard for people
because they feel that they're the the
senior partner in the relationship
doesn't that's not the secret to a
successful marriage now there are social
scientists that have very heterodox
views on this there's a guy named Eli
finl at Northwestern um a psychologist
who's written about marriage and he says
that one of the reasons that marriage is
so hard today is because we we expect
too much from it he says you know we
expect your best friend and your your
one and only lover and your business
partner and the person who helps you
raise your kids and the only person to
who who knows your secrets and it's like
it's too much pressure for one
relationship that was distributed across
10 people until about the 19th century
or the 20th century and but in the time
of the Romantic Era
uh where in when when romance took on
its modern connotations which is it's
everything it's magic it's a you know
it's a it simulates the relationship
with God even some of the language that
we've used in this conversation that
then it took on too much pressure and he
recommends in his book about this that
and in his work and his his very
interesting research that yet yet you
ease off on the throttle a little bit
that you don't expect your wife to be
your best friend necessarily he even
suggests that some couples do better
when they're not the only exclusive
sexual partner I disagree with that say
w I disagree with that I don't think
that I don't think the data support that
I mean again as they say in finance your
results May differ right but they
certainly don't in my case are yours
yeah that uh that one I can't imagine
having unshared sexual experience the
only thing that I can imagine is if yay
if you're like sharing something by all
means but when people go off I just
don't see how that works and I certainly
don't see how it works if you invite
another person into the stable pair bond
like whoa I know and there's actually
you as an evolution guy you'll you
really really like this literature that
talks about why it screws up
relationships so there's a guy at
University of Texas that does work on
Jealousy on The evolutionary basis of
jealousy and he had this hypothesis that
men are more jealous of sexual
infidelity and women are more jealous of
emotional infidelity Y and so what he
does is he finds that that that women in
relationships they will forgive their
husbands for sexual Discretions but not
for falling in love with another woman
and a man if if if your wife says I know
I mean yeah I had an affair all that but
it was only because I felt like I was
falling in love the sex was terrible
you'll be like I I forgive you yeah yeah
I forgive you it's so asymmetrically
weird and the reason for this from an
evolutionary basis is that males have to
be really Vigilant about making sure
they're not in intently raising The
Offspring of another male yeah and women
have to be very Vigilant to make sure
that the provider and defender of the
family doesn't stray and take and defend
and provide for another family and
another another female's Offspring and
so that's why the the jealousy is going
to work in that particular way but no
matter what I'm telling you if you have
if you have an open marriage somebody's
going to fall in love you know and and
there's all kinds of stuff that can that
can go wrong on that so that's not I
mean again it's like different social
scientist disagree on that but I think
my reading of the data and my Prudential
judgment not just my Catholicism suggest
that's not a wise course of action for
most I'm a big believer I I think you're
right about that I'm a big believer in
what I call frame of reference so your
frame of reference are your set of
beliefs and your values right there's
other things at the fringes but that's
the core of it and it will make all the
difference it's not what happens it's
how you perceive what happens just going
back to Victor Victor Frankle So to that
point you said guys have to be really
hyper prototec that they're not raising
somebody else's kid but you adopted a
kid right and so that to me speaks to
frame of reference so and I've heard you
say that you have every bit of love for
your adopted daughter that you have for
your biological kids which I have no
reason to believe is not true so what
did you do to your frame of reference in
order to be able to welcome her and even
though we would both agree that from an
evolutionary standpoint that doesn't
make sense yeah it well yeah from an
evolutionary standpoint it actually
might make sense from an evolutionary
standpoint because if you if there's an
orphan even in nature will be aded by by
nonhuman mammals will adopt orphans as
their own and sometimes it will be even
a mistake so you see a the the cuckoo
bird will actually lay its eggs in the
nest of other birds and then the egg
knock the eggs out of the nest of the
other of the of the birds the that have
the nest and then the cuckoo will hatch
and be taken care of by the surrogate
mother the unknowing comes from yeah
exactly right and then of course the
cuckoo is twice the size the regular
bird so it's hilarious because you know
the the the the bab bird is gig I know
it's the funniest thing so so there
there is some evolutionary basis for
that in the case of not raising somebody
else's Offspring per se but raising an
orphan and bringing the child into your
own family and one of the things that
you find is that the my experience but
also the research shows that the
oxytocin release for an adopted child is
just as high as it is for a biological
child so you basically know that this is
my child you lay eyes on that child and
it's Fourth of July all over his Roman
candles in your head and and it is
forever and so it's funny because you
don't actually know till you do it it's
all a theory oh yeah no you know the
bond with the adopted child will be just
as much as with the biological child
it's it's it's weird because
intellectually it's a it's a stronger
bond in some ways because it's this this
election it's this human will on top of
the neurophysiology of of human
connection on top of it it's really
something I have to say it's funny it's
funny but it's just deep deep deep deep
love and for both both both kinds of
kids I've heard you say you were no
longer making progress when you were a
French horn player and that's what made
you want to leave that I'm wondering if
you felt like you were no longer making
progress in the think tank and that's
why you wanted to leave that like is
that the moment where we all go oh
that's my cue now to find that next
assignment that's what we should use as
a Quee the natural Cadence of you know
the value that you're creating you don't
very very few people get to create more
and more and more value in one exact
thing over the course of their lives and
we have an economy that accommodates
change so it's really incumbent upon us
to have our anten eye up and pay
attention to that because we want to be
able to create that value and be open to
the next assignment so yeah I mean my
motives are never pure because you know
I'm just a guy and but I do have a
process of discernment every philosoph
opical and religious tradition has a
process of discernment discernment is
when you don't know what to do how you
figure it out this is hard you know the
decision-making process and so I'll have
students are like I don't know should I
do a startup or go work in Investment
Banking or should I marry this person or
not or should I go to law school or stay
at work or or some some things are even
more personal and and and delicate and
difficult but at any particular time a
third of the people who are watching us
are agonizing over a particular decision
so the question is how do you make these
difficult decisions and every
philosophical tradition has a process on
how to make a decision and here's the
key thing that they all have in common
you got to do the work and to do the
work means you need to think about it it
doesn't mean you need to think about a
particular thing you need to think about
that decision process every day what are
you thinking about so when I have
students said haven't even begun this
process I'll say Okay 15 minutes a day I
want you to start by sitting alone at
your desk no music no phone is not there
write lists of things you like you got
to start getting in touch with the
things that are attractive to you
because some people are completely even
divorced from that they have no they're
so far away from being able to discern
what they want to do that they don't
even know what they like and so just
starting to write places I've gone that
I really enjoyed and not because you're
deciding where to go next but just
because you're trying to get that in
order in your head what are the things
that are attractive to me what are the
things that I actually like um I'll tell
people that they have they should to be
thinking about just the process to let
the discernment happen you have to be
very quiet and very concerted in the
effort to do so to walk for an hour
before Dawn every day with no devices
and to do that so people who are really
religious I'll say 15 minutes a day
praying about this to be given the
discernment to be given proper
discernment 15 minutes a day on your
knees so and or meditation practice
there's lots of ways to do what the
difference between prayer and meditation
is there one well there's lotss of forms
of prayer and lots of forms of
meditation so there's a lot of
meditation techniques single point
meditation analytical meditation um uh
meditation of compassion all different
sort of in the mahay tradition are you
trying to make your best case to God or
are you just repeating an idea in your
head like please grant me the
discernment to understand what I should
do in this moment so there are different
ways to do it there are different forms
of prayer even Christian prayer even
Catholic prayer which is what I engage
in so every night I pray 25 minutes
which called the rosary a
thousand-year-old meditative prayer
before I go to sleep every night and
that's a repeated prayer and that it's a
thing that you repeat while you're
meditating on particular Mysteries that
happened in biblical tradition and what
are you doing you're focusing you're
you're seeing your life through the lens
of these great stories and what that
does is helps you understand yourself
better and all kinds of insight Insight
comes to you over the context of do
that's process that's a kind of a
centering prayer there are other prayers
that are called uh you know mental
prayer which the Buddhists call
analytical meditation the Dal Lama wakes
up every morning and the first two hours
are analytical meditation where he'll
just think deeply about a passage in
tibetan Buddhist scripture he's thinking
about it he's not reading it he's
written down a few lines and he's
looking at it and thinking about it for
two hours he gu 88 and he's doing that
for the first two hours of every day
that's analytical meditation that's not
just like looking at a flame or doing
Soul cycle or something that's not he's
and that's that's also meditation
incredibly important mental prayer is
the same thing where you'll read a
passage of scripture whether your
scripture is the the sutas or the New
Testament or whatever your thing is and
you read it and you say and and you say
what is this meaning to me where am I in
this how is this impacting my life two
sentences 15 minutes more it's crazy how
much Insight you can actually get from
that there's compassionate meditation or
compassionate prayer where you you bring
into your mind the people that are
giving you struggle and you think about
you visual ize good things happening to
them and you ask God or you ask the
cosmos that good things that that
blessings be rained down upon them and
you change the nature of your
orientation toward them the biggest
reason that you have enmity with other
people is because of your enmity toward
them not theirs toward you typically and
you can literally change that and this
is one of the techniques for doing so so
different kinds of prayer and meditation
they have different functions but we
have to use them as such and not just be
kind of like all right like like a
little kid like
God I have sure hope I get an A on that
exam can you please help me get an A on
that exam you have to be a grownup about
this stuff and it's super exciting and
it so that's the process of discernment
when you're trying to figure out what to
do is you have to concentrate on it the
the ancient Greeks called it
sunus um in the Pali Buddhist tradition
in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition it's
called p and in this discernment of
spirits in ignatian Catholic
spirituality every tradition has it
where you're focused on it focused on it
focused on it for a particular period of
time if you do the work where you're
focused on the decision looking for the
insight for 15 minutes a day for two
months you'll have Clarity that's the
guarantee it's amazing but the reason
that people can't get clarity is because
they don't do the work they don't do the
analysis yeah for sure um okay uh walk
me through the idols what what are the
idols and how do we use them well
instead of being used by them so this is
a tradition that comes from um
neoplatonism s from Plato as best stated
by his great pupil Aristotle and then
translated into the Islamic Jewish and
Christian traditions in the Middle Ages
so avaros who is the you know the the
the Muslim philosopher from from from
southern Spain um uh uh mosha B Mamon
mades and Thomas aquinus so these are
the you know St thasus these are the
great figures of this and they really
they they translated AR
and is saying the Aristotle was the
greatest of all the social scientists I
mean to to I realize I'm cheapening
Aristotle in this way by saying but it's
it's kind of a conceit that everybody
you love is like Tom you're a great
social scientist that's like the
ultimate compliment from a social
scientist so by the way you're very good
social scientist so kind and he and so
for example aquinus said that there's
four substitutes for God that he he
believed as did avaros and and mes and
all of
the monotheistic religious leaders that
what we ultimately want is God now
atheists watching us or agnostic
disagree with that but we all want
something can you define what that means
then to Define to want God yeah cuz I I
have a feeling even atheists want a
thing to fit that god-shaped hole but
I've never taken the time for myself to
Define what the god-shaped hole is so
I'd love to know so this is the thing
for
example you're looking for something
that's defined by your craving you know
when you're when you're really really
hungry it it proves the existence of
food when you're really really horny it
proves the existence of sexes right and
so when you really really are
seeking the complex Singularity the
source of all Truth The Cosmic Oneness
is proof that it exists but what is it
but what is it okay so that's what
different Traditions have been trying to
explain for the longest time this is
really interesting though by the way I
don't want to just let that rle pass
hunger is the proof that there is food
the desire for sex is the proof that
there is sex the desire for evidence
that there is sex it's it's not a proof
in the classical sense but it's evidence
that it exists evidence and so it would
be really really really weird if you had
a craving for something and the object
of the craving didn't exist it doesn't
really make sense yeah and so if you
have a craving for the Oneness Arthur
Brooks this is good yeah and this is by
the way this is one of the reasons that
when all of the conversations that we're
having about AI they're misguided AI
can't give us what we want it can't
because all it does is gives us
complicating engineering solutions for a
Similac for the thing that we're for a
simulation for the thing that we really
really want which is a different species
of problem you know what we really want
is the is the object of all the
complexity of the universe complexity is
simple to understand and impossible to
solve complication is hard to solve but
possible all of the reasons that all
these things that we do in Tech that are
that promise everything and deliver
nothing but loneliness the reason is
because they're comp complicated
solutions to complex needs love is
complex it's very easy to understand and
impossible to figure out your cat is
complex very simple but impossible to
know what it's going to do all the
things we really want in life all of our
deep desires are complex all of our
Solutions are complicated and we're
we're throwing complicated Solutions at
complex problems and we're not getting
happier and so the only way that we can
do this is to take quiet time in
contemplation of the complex that's the
solution now are you going to find it no
no but it's just like happiness you're
not going to find it you're going to
make progress toward it the goal the the
the the the metaphysical goal the
transcendental goal of a spiritual or
philosophical life is the approach to
the complex Oneness to the ultimate
truth that We crave and you got to do
the work stop distracting yourself with
social media stop distracting Yourself
by saying if I make the money then
everything will be okay or if I have the
prestige and this gets us back to the
idols aquinus said that we crave God but
we but God is complex and hard to
understand and has all kinds of Demands
and and winds us up in all sorts of
one-sided conversations
and and so we take a complicated
solution to the complex problem and
things that are kind of Godlike you know
social media is kind of social life like
which is why when we're lonely we'll
binge it but it doesn't help and the the
social media equivalent for what we want
in God according to aquinus is four-fold
money power pleasure and Honor by which
he meant fame or admiration or Prestige
that's what he said that the four things
and those are the idols and everybody's
got their Idol that when they're not on
their game looking for the cosmic
Oneness despite the fact that they'll
never find it they'll say okay fine I'm
tired I'm going to go do that thing
that's a that's a simulation for it and
it always runs you in the wrong
direction it runs you in the wrong
direction and only when you know what
your idol is can you actually manage
yourself so you say I'm doing that again
I'm doing that again I'm looking for
money again when what I really wanted
was love I'm looking for admiration
again when what I really wanted was
Enlightenment because you didn't want to
do the work for enlightenment so you
went and did the easy thing which was
getting the idol so is is Enlightenment
a standin for God yeah yeah yeah I mean
the whole the whole point is that these
are Enlightenment is
something Enlightenment would
be what Christians or Muslims would call
the beatific Vision which is to lay
finally Lay Your Eyes on the face of God
which is actual truth if you're a
Buddhist it means because you finally
understand you're sitting under the bod
tree and you you finally this you
finally get it is what it comes to you
know we in the monotheistic traditions
we don't believe you get it on this side
of death Buddhists think that you
actually can achieve it but be that as
it may I mean I don't know I have my
hypothesis but I am I do know that we're
all move we all need to move toward it
we all need to do the work toward it and
getting it getting the AI is not going
to do it anymore than Facebook that
you're linking because I don't think of
AI as
God but I hear a lot of people talk
about that that it will end up being
Godlike so it's interesting if they
really
are looking for that in AI I think what
I'm trying to fill the whole Godlike
hole with it is all I'm saying so I I
will grant you that for anybody doing
that that would be a tremendous mistake
and I'll give you my thesis on what I
think all this is in a second but AI I
think for me anyway it is it is to
finally get answers to the complex which
may be your entire definition of God
that's an that's an exercise and
futility that's interesting I don't know
that I would agree with that so I feel
like and look I don't have uh the data
that I have to back up the following is
is merely physics right as we that's not
bad grow huh well we don't understand
physics simple physics the the reason I
bring that up is because as we strip
layers off that onion it unlocks things
that we couldn't do before right and all
of us grown up in a world where
einsteinian einsteinian whichever way
you would say that physics already exist
yeah and not realizing that before that
it was Newtonian physics and that the
shift between the two unlocked the
modern world right and you know we think
of him as just sort of this crazy-haired
guy and we forget that so many of the
things that we rely on in the modern
world required us to understand that
breakthrough but it isn't the universal
principle yet we haven't gotten there we
haven't got higs bll on which will which
will show which will render Einstein and
physics obsolete in all kinds of ways
fingers crossed so as we begin to unlock
these things and truly understand them
it it really does open up Avenues of um
technology now one has to be careful not
to view technology as a God but if we
can use AI to either augment our own
intelligence or for it to itself be
intelligent now I'm wildly conflicted
about AI let me be abundantly clear we
deploying it as fast as I can the same
time I'm terrified uh but I want those
answers have real world implications
that's the moral of my story yeah yeah
yeah for sure absolutely they do but the
point is that they that Ai and all of
these particular tools they solve a
different species of problem yeah they
are not going to answer the God they're
not going to because they can't and the
whole idea is that there's always this
concept that we could understand
everything if we had sufficient
computational horsepower MH but that's
not right because you can't solve comp
complex problems which are
mathematically different than
complicated problems yes give me an
example of so for people that don't know
you did Applied Mathematics for a while
so this is not me asking some random guy
off the street give me an example of a
complex and a complicated problem yes
because in math the only thing I can
think of because I am wildly ignorant I
would like to be abundantly clear but
from my just not knowing math at all
perspective the only category of thing
in math that I know as being complex
would be something like the uh PI right
so Pi is uh if yosa Bach is correct
better understood as a function rather
than a number because you can never know
the final digit of pi it's a
relationship interesting yeah it's a
relationship but but so I'll give you an
example of two is that complex yeah well
it's a good question whether or not it's
complex or I think about it in a
slightly different way so I'll give you
an example that might um that might make
it clearer so a complicated problem is
one that has you know 75
equations and 75 unknowns it's a highly
dimensional mathematical problem that it
would just take tons of computational
horsepower to to to figure out but there
is a solution designing a jet engine um
is an incredibly complicated problem
making a toaster is a complicated
problem you know if you try to do one
out in your garage with you know stuff
that's sitting around your house you'll
probably burn your house down if you try
to make toast with it it's a very
complicated thing to do but once you do
it you can do it over and over and over
again with all complete accuracy that's
a these are comple complicated problems
a complex problem is a football game a
football game is a complicated problem
where I don't care how good your
computer is you're not going to be able
to tell me the outcome because it has
it's complex it's complex it's a I think
I misspoke you said complicated ones and
complex ones but complex it's a complex
problem a complex problem is incredibly
simple to understand the outcome you
know the Patriots score higher than the
Broncos that's uh you know the natural
natural order of things that they that
it's just one team has a higher score
than the other and wins very simple
incredibly simple um but it's
unbelievably the permutations are so
vast that you can't you can't simulate
it you can't and you don't think that's
knowable with enough computation it's
not knowable with enough computation but
actually and even if that one turns out
to be that turns out to be not a complex
problem but a complicated problem there
are complex problems like the problem of
love the problem of Love is very simple
and yet it's not something that you can
simulate in any real way and some people
will say well you have your AI
girlfriend that's a that's a you've
you've cracked the code of love no you
haven't there's no there's nobody
watching us right now is like yeah AI
girlfriend just is good no no AI
girlfriend a substitute because I can't
get the real thing is what it would come
down to that's the difference between
pornography and and and and sex with
your wife all right when two smart
people who are well-meaning think the
other person is crazy you know they have
different Bas assumptions so to me that
sounds crazy uh and the reason is that I
believe we're in a deterministic
universe I'm guessing you do not I don't
believe we're in a deterministic
universe I believe we're in a stochastic
Universe okay Define stochastic
stochastic means there's Randomness in
the universe my father was a
biostatistician a PhD biostatistician
and he was a devout Christian I said
what gives dad you know I'm an
adolescent what gives and he said you
don't understand he said you know what
Miracles are and and I said what he said
events that are five standard deviations
of away from the me they're way out on
the tales of the of the of the curves
you know the greatest gift that God ever
gave the world was was a distribution a
random distribution of events he
believed and I think it's actually more
than plausible I think it's most likely
that the universe is actually has
Randomness in it which means it cannot
be you can't get to a single point on
most of the or any of the complex
problems you can't and so you can
simulate a kind of a version of a curve
fit but you can't actually get
underneath them and simulate them
properly because we have a stochastic
universe and we live with deterministic
brains our brains say that this happens
to this and this happens to this we have
a supercomputer that's good enough we
can figure out all how it all hangs
together and that's the the supposition
behind einsteinian physics or or or
Newtonian physics that these are that
there's a deterministic structure
underneath that we're we're simulating
we're doing the best that we can to put
a model on top it's a map but that's
actually probably not the way that the
Universe works and if that's the case
and if we have a craving for the source
of that then it's some thing some one
some entity that can be the the the
origin of that complexity per se what is
it what is it you know it's like maybe
my model which is yeah I got the Bible
and I got God and I got that whole thing
maybe that's nuts maybe it's nuts but
it's it's a
hypothesis and it says that we can't get
it from the stuff we can't get it from
the stuff you can only get it by looking
for it looking for the true thing and
that's the reason I think that really
great intellectual life requires that we
have both a an intellectual Pursuit and
a spiritual Pursuit and that we need to
undertake these things in parallel I
think that's the only responsible course
of action what's happening when you're
looking for it like I can give you I I
don't know that Buddhists would agree
with this but I think they would uh what
you're getting by looking at it in a
Buddhist or looking for it in a Buddhist
tradition is you're getting out from
under the illusion of uh perception if
that that's definitely a western look at
it uh but that feels pretty accurate um
that's a good way of explaining it
that's a good way of explaining Buddhist
thinking on it that you're no longer
bound by the
Illusions What What In the language that
we're developing here you're no longer
bound by your models you're actually
able to see the road as opposed to
staring at the map M all the time it's
like you know when we're looking at that
we got our devices we're looking at the
GPS if you just stare at the GPS you're
going to crash in your car you're
actually driving on a road in real
physical life but you're more and more
and more divorced from that when you're
stuck with the with the with the models
and those are the illusions that they
would say that you're trying to free
yourself from by actually imbibing some
of the the oxygen in the in real life
around you okay so if that's the
Buddhist take on it what is the Catholic
take on it the Catholic take on it is
very similar which is that there is
underlying reality but that underlying
reality is not always
apparent and for all sorts of reasons I
and that the underlying reality is um
made by God and yeah it is the realm of
God and that we're not we just don't
have the capacity or the you know the
preparation to be able to experience now
Plato talked about this he was
pre-christian Plato talked about this
about the his analogy in of the the
Shadows on the cave wall the closest
that we can get to actually seeing
what's going on is the shadows of what's
going on behind the fire in the cave
wall um the a lot of the the German
philosophers from the 17th and 18th
centuries and 19th centuries would talk
about this too so the schopenhauer for
example Arthur schopenhauer obviously
one of the greatest early 19th century
mid 19th century philosophers would talk
about villa which was you know the sense
of will that the reality exists but we
can't see it because we're just not comp
ENT and we're trying to put One Foot In
Front Of Another and so we create an an
edifice that that allows us to live but
we can't actually see the reality that's
the complex reality is happening behind
it all the time what do you think these
guys were struggling with and maybe
you're from your perspective the obvious
answer is just God but I don't know if
it's just God that's a word for it they
were struggling for something they had a
craving because here here is the modern
take on that uh you're in a simulation
right now some people believe you're in
a literal computer simulation and other
people like me I don't necessarily have
evidence that you're in an actual
computer simulation but I do have
evidence that your brain is simulating
reality as a way so that you can grapple
with it because instead of seeing blue
if you just saw the number of photons in
a given wavelength that are reflecting
off that surface and into your eye it's
so complicated so your brain is just
taking this incredibly complex Universe
which by the way for people that don't
know the human uh our ability to
perceive the actual electromagnetic
spectrum is
0.35% yeah so you're like way way less
than half a tons of dimensionality
doesn't exist there's tons of things we
can't see so we we've taken this
gigantic we know there things we can't
see yeah for sure and we boil it down
into something that is just an absolute
sliver of the reality so okay in a
modern context I get it but like what
were they coming up against in whatever
20 years ago when Plato is describing
the Shadows on the cave wall what is he
grappling with like it's as far as I can
tell he's he's getting underneath like
realizing oh my perceptions do not
equate to reality and once you accept
that like everything begins to unwind
well it doesn't begin to unwind it
begins to free you to this understanding
that you're that you begin to see it's
Illusions you begin to see that you are
living in a world of Illusion now how
was this
the the we can militate against that by
saying it's all of in a simulation and
part of the simulation is that we're
simulated the simulation creates the
illusion that there is something bigger
even though there isn't but that's just
explaining something away so in a
philosophical basis the way I talk about
this with my students I say okay we got
three we got three choices three doors
to go through Monty this is you know for
those of that's the the Monty Hall game
in economics is based on let's make deal
this old game show that was on when I
was a kid right and you get the the the
contestants would have to choose one of
these three doors and then the door
would open up and it would turn out you
got a car or you got a living room set
or you got a goat yeah or something like
that so there's three there's basically
three choices about about how you're
going to see the the existence of of an
underlying reality that you can or
cannot perceive and you can or cannot
get closer to and make progress toward
it has to do with the two concepts of
essence and existence
We believe We all believe that we exist
I mean you can relax that by saying it's
a simulation we don't actually exist I
don't know but let's leave that for a
moment and let's just say that we all
agree that there's existence what we
don't agree on is the the nature of
essence essence is meaning so I'm alive
and my life has meaning okay now the the
the the traditional philosophical
understanding the platonic understanding
of this the ancient Greek understanding
of this the Christian
Jewish um Hindu
um Muslim for sure understanding of this
is that Essence precedes existence let's
think about that for a second the
meaning of your life existed before you
were born your job is to live up to that
meaning to find that meaning and live up
to that meaning it existed it's a cosmic
thing that's what comes from the cosmic
Oneness the modern existentialist view
modern philosophy a lot of it would say
that that existence precedes essence
you're born without meaning you have to
invent meaning the best you can good
luck that's SRA like go sit in a French
cafe and smoke filterless cigarettes and
feel depressed as existence precedes
essence now the third the middle way the
most depressing way is the nian way
which is the nihilistic way that says
existence exists and Essence doesn't
there is no meaning the only responsible
course of action in a life is to give up
on Essence there is no meaning stop
looking for God stop looking for
enlightenment stop looking for all of it
that craving you couldn't apply meaning
he said there is no meaning there is no
meaning life has no meaning so you can't
apply because the first one is there is
no meaning but you can apply meaning
that there no the first one is that
there is meaning you need to find it and
live up to it the second is that there
is no meaning until you create it and
the last is that there is no meaning got
it and you can keep looking for it and
you can keep trying to create it but
that's childish Let It Go Let It Go that
that's nihilism that's why we call you
know somebody who's nihilistic somebody
who believes that there is no meaning
and nothing matters that's the reason we
call it that in the popular vernacular
so these are the kind of the three
choices that we have to walk through
most for most of all of existence of
humanity it's been door number one which
is that there is Essence and then we
experience existence and the whole point
of life is to figure out and pursue
Essence and responsible and and in a way
that's generative and meaningful and
that's what we're trying to do that's
that's what I think is most compelling I
think that's the most compelling view I
don't I don't know the truth you know
and and by the way when I've talked to
Sam Harris about this he agrees with me
that there's things that we don't see
that there is Essence that we we can
only barely
perceive and and all of the things that
I talk about from Catholicism to the
stochastic nature of the statistical set
of circumstances which we find ourselves
from the science to the religion is my
understanding my best understanding my
fumbling around in the dark and looking
at Shadows on the cave wall for what I'm
trying to do to to find the essence that
will give me meaning give meaning to my
existence that's the point of my life
it's very interesting so uh it goes back
to what are we grappling with here so uh
I'm going to Define my version of what I
think the god-shaped hole is and I'm
going to put it in the context of the
language we've been using here so CU I
come at everything from an evolutionary
lens and I'm very much of the good lens
by the way it really helps you
understand a lot it has been very
helpful evolutionary psychology is just
the best it's bizarrely controversial
which I will never understand but uh
nonetheless it has been extremely useful
in my life so I come at it from that so
I'm like okay if we do have this hole
and it is um a yearning and that
yearning is evidence that there is
something what what is the nature of the
yearning and what is the thing that I'm
yearning for right and again using the
language of this conversation um I have
a feeling that humans have a um a very
intrinsic evolutionarily derived desire
to kneel before
something and now the question becomes
okay if you have this push to kneel
before something why what what is the
evolutionary advantage to those that
kneel before the thing and the best
answer that I can come up with is that
you need to get out of the me self and
you need to get into the I self and you
need to create that distance and by
kneeling before something by put making
something bigger than you now one you're
just you are in the habit of living your
life in service of something Beyond
yourself right I don't think but this is
definitely just ignorance you will help
me here I don't think that any of the
world's lasting religions would compel
you to serve anything other than ah this
will be interesting I actually don't
know the answer to this question I will
be very shocked if you tell me that any
lasting religion has asked people to
serve anything other than either
Humanity itself or a God that loves
humanity is
there no doubt there are no doubt there
are religions that that but there I
guess but you stipulated lasting
religions yeah CU I don't see how that
would be beneficial cuz what ultimately
what I'm saying is the proxy the
god-shaped hole is actually a desire to
serve your fellow man because that's
going to be the thing that keeps you
alive because you're way better off
coming together as a group evolutionary
yes is my gut and then religion like the
specific whether oral or written
tradition is the thing that allowed
humans to come together in gigantic
swaths in a way that no other species no
other creature not ants nothing can come
together in the flexible fashion that we
can by using ideas right of religion
like those just give you an instant bond
and I'm willing to kill for and die for
this thing that we have in common yeah
yeah so it's
um I also have a huge amount of time and
admiration for evolutionary psychology
but it's totally descriptive and it's
not it's it's neither prescriptive nor
deterministic so I don't believe that
the evolutionary psychology of the
things that actually set out our
impulses and imperatives that they that
they prescribe neur proscribe particular
Behavior I think that we have choices
way beyond our Evolution so let me give
an example um we talked about Mother
Nature she has really two goals for you
and all of evolutionary psychology comes
down to survival and and Gene Gene
propagation that's what all of you know
the The evolutionary psychologists and
evolutionary biologists they say that
all that the that that any organism
exists for is to survive long enough to
pass on his genes and so it all comes
down to that but virtually everybody
believes that we can short circuit that
and make decisions that go beyond that
we can do all and so people will say
okay well you laid down your life for a
stranger but that was because you had
some evolutionary impulse to behave in
an altruistic way that that dates back
to a time when that would have been
better for your tribe etc etc etc I
think that the better explanation for
that is the animal path versus the
Divine path the animal path is incred
powerful it's a it's a wonderful model
for understanding why most things happen
and why we have the impulses that we do
but the most interesting questions of
the Divine path where we actually make
decisions that are that that go beyond
the what our evolutionary Evolution
would suggest is the best path for us
that go beyond the things that we want
to do that that that help us to
understand that there could actually be
something bigger and and this is the
really unique thing about the human
species is that we can make this
election between Divine and animal
Divine and animal and every day is this
election between Divine and animal and
in fact to look for the source of the
complex Oneness in a world of complex
Ingenuity a comp complicated Ingenuity
that's to choose the Divine path
ultimately the Divine path over the
animal path in the biggest way so not
everybody agrees with me a lot of really
smart people disagree with me and say
all the things that we actually do they
still come back to evolution even if
they don't look like this is an
evolutionarily Adaptive thing to do it
it sort of is you just need a more
complicated understanding of The
evolutionary impulse I just agree I
think that there's man evolutionary
biology it just puts us on this track
and makes us act in particular ways yeah
we got all these habits the things that
we want to do and then we can decide not
to do them because we want something
higher because we're called to something
higher because we have a a dim
perception of something that's bigger
that something that's better that we're
drawn ont and that's the the the Oneness
that we're distracted from when we're
basically just sitting on the animal
path and doing money power pleasure fame
money power pleasure Fame and so instead
of getting on our knees and
contemplating the the nature of
Enlightenment we'll you know scroll
Instagram that's interesting so as
somebody who believes that you can't be
enlightened prior to death um what is it
about the contemplation of that knowing
you will never be a able to actually
understand it what is it about the
contemplation that makes your life
better I presume progress the progress
principle you're getting closer you're
getting closer and why not why would God
want it such that you can't attain
Enlightenment because well according to
Christian yeah the theology I so this
becomes a theological question it's
because ultimately it's the relationship
the beic vision is the relationship with
God him him or herself and you know that
the way that the Hindus talk about this
by the way is that the transmigration of
the Soul
occurs as people are getting closer and
closer to Enlightenment at which point
the soul will be reabsorbed into the
godhead so the idea of the soul for
Hindus is that your soul Tom's soul is a
little chip of God comes down enters a
human being corrupted by circumstance
Etc becomes perfected over a 100 or a
thousand lifetimes and is reabsorbed
into the godhead and the ultimate goal
of to stop samsara the endless cycle of
birth and rebirth is to be reabsorbed
into God is the way that so their their
understanding of this is actually easier
to understand weirdly than just I got to
see God awesome you know I don't know
it's but it's all basically saying the
same thing getting closer getting closer
making progress this is the goal in life
this is the impulse and how do we do
that all kinds of ways that our lives
are generative and help us do that you
know as as silly as you know doing a
podcast starting a business all these
things they help other people they help
us understand understand ourselves they
make life they they lessen the burden
for our brothers and sisters in
particular ways this is the reason that
it's so profoundly unsatisfying for you
to do something it's all me me me me me
as opposed to others others others and
ultimately you get the juice of of the
of these generative things of these
creative things that you're doing when
it when it really does lighten the load
and and improve the lives of other
people because that's the process of
getting closer the process of getting
closer and the physical manifestations
of the things that we do every day and
it gets better and we hope and again
this is one Theory my whole religion I
might be completely off base I mean I
can't say because I have no data I can
only hypothesize at this point faith is
belief without data is belief without
evidence it's it's not set a set of
non-testable hypothesis is what it comes
down to and it's just that the progress
per say is the point of what we're
trying to do on Earth that's what the C
certainly the doy Lama would say about
the you know the from Life To Life
toward Enlightenment that's what the
Hindus would say about the
transmigration of the soul for the
reabsorption of the godhead that's what
Hindus or that's what Buddhist sorry uh
Muslims and Christians would say about
trying to actually go to live in heaven
with God but it's all saying the same
thing fundamentally about the progress
the the progress is the point of
life I don't know why at this point in
my life this has become such a
fascinating question you're right on
schedule by the way yeah no no seriously
because what you what you you throw off
Superstition and you you look for the
pure oxygen of Enlightenment and what
looks like you know Jesus and Santa
Claus what's the difference you know
when you're 20 when you're 50 you're
going ah big
difference yeah it's interesting there
is um there's something about the way
that the world is moving so my goal in
life is to in a really practical way
help people um live a life
live a life of fulfillment and I I never
quite know how to put words to it it
fulfillment survives grief and so I'm
trying to um I have thought a lot about
in my own life and have found tremendous
easing of suffering in recognizing what
I call that there is an evolutionary
impulse to get me to do the things that
will uh align myself with having kids
that survive long enough to have kids
right and so while I don't have to do
that literally M I have to understand
what the algorithms are that are running
in my mind to make that happen and um
the more I explore this space of like
how one clicks into fulfillment I do
find myself grappling with it as you get
under perception and you really start to
say okay what what is the Bedrock here
um it does become I'll say quasi
religious because I don't find myself
going oh I'm getting closer and closer
to God that isn't what it feels like
from my perspective from my perspective
it feels like there is ground truth and
you can get closer to it and the more
you understand how the illusion is
created the less you are trapped by it
and the less you are trapped by The
Matrix to use a very uh fun word
evocative way of thinking about it it's
one of the most profound movies for the
past 30 years notwithstanding the
cinematography it has to do with the it
has to do with the concepts underneath
it 100% it for me it is the most useful
metaphor for the human existence and so
once I understand how the Matrix works
then I start seeing it in everything I
start seeing it in um politics which is
not something I thought I would ever
engage with I start seeing it in the
culture War another thing I never
thought I would would engage with but as
I I forget what this is a reference to
this is a a an allusion to something as
I set aside childish things I really
come to realize that you just quoted St
Paul is that what it is that's hilarious
I can't even tell you where from but uh
that you begin to realize oh this is one
problem yeah and once you understand
it's one problem that manifests in all
these weird ways helping people get
deeper on that ladder because helping
people get deeper on that ladder uh
becomes is is very meaningful to me it's
obviously also self- serving in that the
deeper on the lad I go the more grounded
I feel the more more I feel resilient to
the slings and arrows of Life the more I
feel like facing death isn't scary um
just all the things all the
things but I
am I don't know what to make of the fact
that when I started all of this it was a
lot easier to have conversations about
think like this act like this uh and
then finding people wouldn't do it and
every time I tried to scratch as to okay
where were all my own Hang-Ups that it
has led to me circling around this
problem of the god-shaped hole over and
over and over it's uh very fascinating
yeah no it is and this
is me psychologists and sociologists
have found that pattern that it tends to
occur particularly with people who are
who live in their heads people who are
questioners that they start asking
bigger and deeper questions and the
answers that typically come to them even
with a with the with the greatest
horsepower that the world can provide
doesn't give them the truth that they
seek it just doesn't give you full
flavor it doesn't give you you get lots
of interesting Solutions like yeah I I
got a good morning routine you know it's
really good ice bath you know workout
whatever happens it's just not good but
it's not the thing that I'm seeking you
keep finding answers to questions that
you weren't asking and you're not
finding the solutions to the questions
that you really were asking that are in
coate you know you don't even know quite
how to put words to these questions
because the complex is so hard to
apprehend that you don't even you can't
even you don't even know the questions
let alone the answers but that's what
you're grappling toward and that's I
believe that's what humans are grappling
toward that's what aquinus was saying
that we all want the thing but we like
all right I'll take the substitute all
right I'll take the substitute and
people start to freak out about dying if
they've been taking the substitute the
counterfeit money power pleasure Fame
their whole life because they're running
out of time and they haven't made any
progress because they've been you know
eating non-nutritious
food and not getting and they're
starving to death and and it's just they
get people get into a panic in their
life and they realize they get into this
deep
existential dread this onwe that comes
from you know the depression of the
world that comes because there aren't
any answers and maybe n was right and
and they were just looking in the wrong
place so that's what I see and I'm I'm
I'm endlessly interested in an
enthusiastic about the about the promise
of AI but I'm not kidding myself for a
second to think that it's going to
answer the real questions that I have
and that real people have and the Really
the real things that people want it's
funny because you know the one thing
that we really all want we don't have
the technology for and we're not getting
closer to it you know the the the
happiness that everybody really wants
it's not sold on the Internet it's not
provided by the government you know
we've got lunar Landers and Tik Tok
videos and you name it we can invent any
anything the Ingenuity is almost
boundless but we're not getting closer
to the thing that we want because the
Ingenuity is being deployed toward
complicated ends as opposed to the
answers to complex problems we're
answering the wrong set of questions is
what it comes down to and that's why you
can find people who have everything in
the world and are still miserable they
because they couldn't get it there they
couldn't buy what they wanted in that
store it's the way that it works
interesting the dolly llama and I had a
conversation about this CU he and I
worked together in various projects for
last 11 years wow and we had this
conversation about he says you know he's
musing this one point when the doll Lama
Muses you listen it's like it's funny
because you know that you you westerners
you know you've done everything to
create economic value and tremendous
businesses and incredible wealth and
it's so wonderful to give people all
this opportunity so they don't starve to
death and you know the world is richer
and all that but but you spent no time
actually trying to understand the nature
of what really matters the most he says
we're poorer yeah our societies are
poorer in the East but we spent all our
time and all our Ingenuity trying to get
the source of pure
truth did they make any more progress
than we did I'm not sure but also it's
interesting because a lot of Buddhists
will look at Christianity and they'll be
like yeah yeah we used to believe that
4,000 years ago that's a that's a a
rudimentary theological
technology you're on the right road but
you're way way back compared to where we
were yeah we used to have a guy yeah we
type of guy you know and the whole thing
as opposed to these are different
religions trying to get the same ideas
in different ways they think there's a
natural progression of Enlightenment
that happens to people and societies and
we're thousands of years behind where
they are despite the despite the fact
that we're hundreds of years ahead
economically or thousands of years
behind in terms of spiritual
enlightenment complex versus complicated
same idea H I don't know if it's
true that is the question uhhuh all
right let's reground this for a second
so this is gotten pretty heavy man i'
I've never had a conversation like this
before yeah this is uh in in media this
is amazing oh thank you yeah um assuming
that the audience is still with us let's
uh let's reground this so in the book
you talk about um what it is exactly
that people need to um come back
together so you talk about the four
pillars to build the life you want right
um what are those four pillars and if I
can contextualize this why does modern
technology seem to move us in the exact
opposite direction yeah so what we want
is love that's what we want um and and
and once again the world gives us
complicated things we want complex
things love is complex how do you get
love love of the Divine or love of you
know truth love of your family love with
friendship the the the point of
intersection between family and
friendship is romantic love so that
crosses both those categories and love
of everybody is instantiated in the way
you earn your daily bread which is work
so the way that we needed the portfolio
the pillars or the Investment Portfolio
for happiness that we all need is to
spend every day thinking about the way
that we're going to make progress in our
faith or philosophy whether it's
religious or not Family Life friendship
real friends not deal friends you know
in the modern world gives us lots of
deal friends but not very many real
friends which are you know real friends
deal friends are are useful to us real
friends are
useless that's and that's why we don't
spend a lot of time on them and then
work that serves is what it comes down
to so those are the silos those are the
deposits those are the accounts that we
need to put investment in every single
day and if we don't we're going to be
we're going to be missing things we're
we're going to we're not going to be as
happy as we could be and we're not going
to be building a stable steady um
happiness that will that will improve
our lives and help us make progress as
we go through life so those are the four
things it's just a very practical matter
um I set people on I can actually set up
a course of action most people watching
us
are very good at working nobody's
watching impact Theory who's a total
slacker it's like yeah I don't think I'm
just G to sit around all day but I'm
watch impact Theory no you want to be
better at what you do so everybody
watching us has got his work is pretty
on point and okay and it's creating
value and it's cool stuff generally
speaking it's going to be cool stuff
you're you know you've got a cool stuff
audience
good but are you working on your
philosophical life are you reading the
stoics are you walking in nature without
devices are you studying the work of yan
Sabastian Bach are you engaged in
meditation practice are you practicing
the religion of your youth you need to
do something like that every day I I
recommend at least 15 minutes of wisdom
reading every day stuff you don't need
to read but you you're Soul needs it 15
minutes a day and I have a whole you
know list of books that I recommend TOS
out a couple well toss out a couple um
depending on what what what tradition
you want to start in you know somebody
who is interested in all eastern and
western and very questioning and open to
all different IDE I would I would
recommend the way of a pilgrim which is
written by an anonymous Russian Orthodox
monk in the 19th century way of a
pilgrim the way of a pilgrim and what he
is he's just walking around Russia
having Adventures saying one prayer over
and over and over again it's a
meditative book you're reading it it's
just like the more you read it turns
into a page Turner it's the most boring
book ever and turns into a page Turner
Zen In The Art of archery which actually
explains Zen through the activity of
archery Through The Eyes of a Westerner
so that's a very good way to begin to
understand Zen thinking Zen is the most
ey self thing ever because it's nothing
more than an attitude of observation
that's what Zen really is it's a
stripped thing compared compared to
Tibetan Buddhism all the Buddhists are
going to you know put in the comment
section how crazy and wrong and
wrongheaded I am on that um I would
recommend the miracle of mindfulness by
tick notan which talks about what is
mindfulness it's being alive right now
and how you can actually do that and
there's countless numbers of these
things and there's any number that we
could if you want if you want fiction
that falls into this category as dov's
brothers Kaz off that is the most
spiritual and intellectually
psychologically Rich book I've ever read
hm DVI is philosophy right so it's kind
of like people were reading Atlas
Shrugged because they wanted they wanted
objectivist philosophy in the form of a
novel if you
want the essence of the search for the
complex Oneness in the force of in the
form of a novel Brothers karamazov by by
Fodor do of G great so there the reading
second thing is family life again we
talked about that before there's one
reason to have Schism in your family
that's abuse everything else requires
work the big reason that people drift
away from their families is because
they're just just lazy they're just lazy
they just like I got to call Mom I was
when the last time I saw mom do the work
it takes two to tango like if the person
is just not investing like you're you're
trying to engage with your mom and oh my
God yeah I know but the the point is
that generally speaking it's an
iterative process where you don't and
she doesn't and you don't and she
doesn't and you don't and she doesn't
it's got to get restarted and doing the
work actually the even the one even even
unilateral work even one-sided work is
incredibly enriching for your happiness
because the part about relationships
that's best is the giving is not the
getting it's better if you're giving and
getting I get it I mean there's an
equation it's a dynamic situation but
even if you don't it's better to do it
than not to do it friendship is
critically important real friends not
deal friends and that means the work
that you have to do is not pecuniary I
have people I work with who are real
friends but they started as real friends
and we just look for an excuse to spend
more time together and that's how they
became deal friends too but the whole
point is you know the people that you
grew up with often people went they went
to college with if they went to college
and you know I have a son in the
military and his buddies in the military
they're his real friends I mean they've
literally saved his life and and he
can't lose touch with those people I
guess that's the ultimate deal right is
saving is saving your life and then and
then last but not least at least making
sure that your work serves others and
you earn your success and that you're
working to make sure if you're an
entrepreneur or a CEO like you're me
that you're the people who work for you
can earn their success and serve others
because they deserve to earn their
success and serve others and that's in
the hands of the boss to a very large
extent that's the that's the portfolio
and are you and either you're doing
those things every day or you're not
either you did your reading and called
Mom and your best friend or you didn't
right and every day that you don't
you're just you're you're you're
weakening the pillars of your happiness
you're you're getting you're getting
less competent in the serious business
of building your life check out my
intense conversation with Patrick B
David about masculinity to truly be free
you have to be strong enough to control
your own life and many men today simply
do not qualify many of you have been
told the pursuit of power is disgusting
you shouldn't do it many of you don't
even have a clear definition of what it
means