And so like when your dentist starts taking Fridays off, that means that he's on the bad part of his fluid intelligence curve. Choose the Activism That Wont Make You Miserable, Loving Others in a Life of Happiness, Influence, and Purpose. Is it the right one? Dont worry. Connect With Peter onTwitter,Instagram,FacebookandYouTube. Mohamed Younis 16:36 And within a week of that, where he was devastated and he thought My life is over, I will never be the same again, he was with his daughter. It's the best data-gathering organization in America. Its easy to get trapped in a cycle of working more and more hours, chasing more and more money, in the hopes of getting happier. So there was an ancient Greek school that said that the secret of happiness is just as many well, good feelings as you can get. The problem is it peaks in your late 30s or early 40s and starts to decline, because of the structure of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Look, if you don't do anything with your life, you won't know when it's over. Arthur Brooks 11:18 But there's no 401(k) for happiness. However, we know that to understand happiness, we must also understand unhappiness, as these virtues often come through pain and suffering. People dont even know sometimes. I mean, do I keep doing what I was doing and hoping that I'm going to get the right result by sheer serendipity? I describe happiness as more of the way that you would take apart a meal. Well, I figured I'm supposed to be the guy to make the 401(k) plan for happiness. This is somebody whos unsatisfied. I look forward to it. Its not just with things like sweaters. What does desire look like for me? We feel like its almost a selfish act. When I ask in surveysyou know, large-scale surveys or experiments using human subjectsWhat brings happiness and purpose to life?, people always talk about the most painful parts of their lives. And actually, they should be thinking about trying to figure out what they want. Oh, there might be an advantage there. I'm Mohamed Younis, and this is Gallup: reporting on the will of the people since the 1930s. And I'll also tell listeners the, one of the really cool things about this book are all of the stories you tell about these famous people -- musicians, scientists -- that you never, I never really knew. I mean, this is the key to a real full life. And then what happens for them is the more that you kind of go into their mindset that they start to see something new, that they start to say, Well, actually, I have this really great partner, and I have this really great job. But then there are a lot of buts with that. English is very impoverished when it comes to love. How are we creating our own suffering? When I do that work -- and I've given it to all of my graduate students at Harvard too, I love the, I love it. Satisfaction is the reward when you meet a goal. And if you can't really get to that next curve, it's not like your life is horrible, but you live in this postclimactic phase of your life where you always think back to like, Oh, remember the time I was killing it and, you know, whatever the -- talk to us about that. In our work, we've written together, and he always says to me, "Remember, you are one in 7 billion." Maybe they dont. In this episode, Arthur and Ceci discuss the good and bad side of neophilia, the love of new things. So if they present to Lori Gottlieb and say, Im not having any fun or I dont have enough enjoyment in life, the first assignment is not to have fun. Brooks: Thats really interesting, because one of the things that I talk about an awful lot in the study of discernmentwhich is a part of every philosophical and major religious tradition, from Buddhism to Judaism to Christianity and even stoicismis that discernment is actually not about What should I do? Discernment is about What do I want? Its finding the nature of your own desire. I laughed. Gottlieb: Well, this is kind of like a chicken-or-the-egg thing. And they were playing a game, and he laughed. Analyze and improve the experiences across your employee life cycle, so your people and organization can thrive. Change in your life is inevitable, but suffering is not. That's a, that's, I'm really happy about that. And love is happiness, and that's what we need. And quite frankly, that's the stuff that I think about the most too. Brooks: One of the things thats so interesting when you talk to older people who are happy and wellwhen you talk to those people, what you find is that they suffered a lot. Thank you for tuning in. Through in-depth stories from a wide range of characters from people who tried to stop the attack to those who took part hosts Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz explore the ongoing effort to bring autocracy to America, the lasting damage that effort is doing to our democracy, and the fate of our attempts to combat those anti-democratic forces. Arthur Brooks has a confession to make: "I'm not a very naturally happy person." He tells me this one May morning in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, thirty miles south of San. And then you'll put yourself into proper perspective, and only the transcendental path will do that. And like many people, I spent months alone in my apartment, so it was just really lonely. And you talked a little bit about how spirituality a lot of times will kind of come back in our lives at this turn in our lives, wherever it is, to make the turn from these curves. Arthur Brooks 12:42 It's pleasure plus elevation plus cultivation of our true human experience. Were lucky enough to be in a school where we wear masks. But also just to live a full life, it's really important that we have all of these different experiences. You know, on social media it looks like everybodys having just a great time. Gottlieb: Right. From Strength to Strength shows you how to accept the gifts of the second half of life with grace, joy, and ever-deepening purpose. It actually helped her to get ahead. Mohamed Younis 02:58 And, and she is my guru And she's the, my guru, I hope, is the person on whom I will lay my eyes as I take my dying breath and to whom this book and all my work is dedicated. I tell new recruits that more often than not, when you have good music going, some good Mexican food for lunch, and you get into a rhythm with the rest of the guys, our job can feel a little Zen-like. That crystallized intelligence is not innovative capacity, it's not focus, it's not working memory, it's not all that stuff. They feel like its kind of like a taboo. Arthur Brooks is a Harvard professor, PhD social scientist, #1 bestselling author, and columnist at The Atlantic who specializes in using the highest levels of science and philosophy to provide people with actionable strategies to live their best lives. It was like, Oh, Im so behind; look at what everybody else is doing. Or Look at that person. Is there ever too much of a good thing when it comes to new experiences? Like, what was that part of me that could do that, even though the rest of me felt dead?. That hour and a half could have been spent doing something that would have actually brought them joy. Mohamed Younis 19:36 And if you, Mohamed, as you say, What should I invest in to make sure I can retire securely? I mean, happiness has a lot of feelings attached to it, and feelings are really important. Brooks: And theres one clarification you made thats incredibly important that I want to underline for everybody listening. And then youre never satisfied with what you have anyway. That's Arthur Brooks on his latest book, From Strength to Strength. Mohamed Younis 25:02 It just is, right? Even though, of course, pain is inevitable. No matter whether its at work or in our families or in our social circles or whatever it is. I talk an awful lot about the, even the dimension of happiness, which is enjoyment. And so, and every profession has these two curves in it that you can exploit. Brooks: There was a famous interview of Stephen Colbert by Anderson Cooper, where Stephen Colbert talks about the most painful time in his life, when his father and one of his siblings were killed in a plane crash. But if you do a lot, man, you're gonna come down, it's gonna, it's gonna be really, really lousy. And, you know, that's pretty life ruining, pretty terrible advice, quite frankly. Arthur C. Brooks and BJ Miller, a palliative-care physician, explore the difference between "necessary" and "unnecessary" suffering, and the paradoxical realities of human joy. You know, she leads me in paths of righteousness; she takes me to Catholic mass every day. When somebody presents with the dissatisfaction dilemma, what do you tell them? That's what that means. How Not to Be Your Own Worst Enemy. And, and he, he goes up the ladder -- at the top are the people which he calls the "perfect friendships," or the "friendships of virtue." Learn how to develop and engage employees to create an exceptional workplace and boost your business outcomes. Yeah, so spirituality is really important to me in my life. If youre anxious, what is causing the anxiety? And the same thing is true with people who are deeply, deeply addicted in their work relationships. Getting to be in front of the students again makes me feel truly like myself again, something that I really havent felt in a long time. You also mentioned your conversation with your son about this concept of a "real friend" or a "deal friend," which I loved. Enjoy the view of earth from outer space. Brooks: Isnt that beautiful, Lori? In the same way, something thats a really delicious dessert actually has salt in it. Its telling you something about your life. He's not drilling the wrong tooth, he's just not making progress. It's your ability to, it's your wisdom curve, it's your ability to teach, your ability to take facts and recognize patterns and put them together into coherent stories. You want to be happy. But it's needed. And the reason for that is that happiness is really a combination of three things: enjoyment of life, satisfaction and purpose, life's purpose. And I think that the grief is a sign of how much love there was with the person who is no longer there, right? Understand the culture you have, define the one you want and make your organizational identity a competitive advantage. They go from being the star litigator, the cowboy, the ninja to being the managing partner who's, who's acquiring and recognizing talent and telling people what to do, telling people actually what, where they should be pointed. And I see people, I meet people who are my age, I'm in my late 50s now, and they're trying to live in the past. I do find enjoyment as pleasure plus elevation. We are so hesitant to look at our desire. Does the future seem grim? And its easy to burn out chasing it, and inventing more and more wants, Can money buy happiness? And he talks about how grateful he is even for that experience, because of the sacredness of every moment of his life, including the pain. Host Kelsey McKinney discusses reader-submitted comedic gossip with guests, diving into the lives and decisions of complete strangers. If it feels bad, treat it immediately." So, if you mute the pain, you mute the joy. And the lowest part is this transactional philia -- the business, the "deal friends" that we have. But you took us to a place where pain, life crisis and suffering really plays an important role in bridging that curve for a lot of us, not for all of us. This is the Libby episode in season one. But I dont think that you need to have some kind of tragedy. In this episode, Arthur and Ceci discuss the good and bad side of neophilia, the love of new things. Together, they share some insights from the world of design to help you build a life of happiness and meaning. And it seems to me that that is the essence of how you find your meaning and the essence of how you understand who you are as a person according to what you just told me, right? So thats where I want to start. And one of the things he does is he creates a kind of a ladder of happiness that comes from different kinds of love. Its not the absence of feelings. He didn't have the presence of mind to do it. And the ancient Greek actually had different words for love that meant different things. Arthur Brooks 00:31 Many people think it has to be this big epic thing. But there, if you have a model like that today, it would be, "If it feels bad, make it stop. Thanks to the whole Gallup gang for incredible work that you're doing making -- life better for lots and lots and lots of people. Gottlieb: Yeah, absolutely. Because January 6th wasn't the end of the story, January 6th was just a practice run.
Follow Will Be Wild wherever you get your podcasts, or you can listen early on Amazon Music or early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. And I thought it was great that you got so deep into like our weaknesses and how they can actually be a bridge. One of the things that really hit me in between the eyes when I was reading the book is how a lot of guys are lonely and don't have friendships.