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- [00:02]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Travel has always been where I feel most curious and most alive. It's where GOOP began, in the little details of beautiful places, thoughtful hosts, and experiences that stayed with me long after I returned home. It's also why I think hosting on Airbnb makes so much sense. Your home could be that place for someone else. Hosting on Airbnb is a great way to make the most of your time away. It's a wonderful option if you have extra space, own a seasonal home, or tend to travel at the same time every year. Hosting is incredibly flexible. You set the dates, welcome guests on your terms, and create memorable stays that reflect the warmth and uniqueness you seek in your own travels. If you've ever thought about hosting, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host.
- [01:00]
Arthur Brooks
When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas.
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Gwyneth Paltrow
To the culture, you get criticized. You do. Yeah. Did you hear about that?
- [01:08]
Arthur Brooks
I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected, and we made it the one. In the sort of longing kind of.
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Gwyneth Paltrow
View of love, people understand each other as.
- [01:18]
Arthur Brooks
As if by magic.
- [01:19]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be.
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Arthur Brooks
Addictive if there's an emptiness in that.
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Gwyneth Paltrow
Person that needs to be filled.
- [01:26]
Arthur Brooks
I now know that nobody changes until.
- [01:30]
Gwyneth Paltrow
They change their energy.
- [01:31]
Arthur Brooks
And when you change your energy, you change your life.
- [01:34]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the GOOP Podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers here to start conversations. Because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. Welcome to the GOOP Podcast. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow, and today I am joined by Arthur Brooks, a social scientist, bestselling author, and what many call the professor of happiness at Harvard. Arthur's work explores what it really takes to live a meaningful life, from the habits that lead to lasting joy to the neuroscience of love and connection. Today, we're talking about the science of falling in love, how our brains are wired for connection, why modern dating can feel so unfulfilling, and how to build relationships that actually last. Welcome to the GOOP Podcast, Arthur Brooks. Thank you.
- [02:40]
Arthur Brooks
Thank you, Gwyneth. Delighted to be with you. My favorite subject, love and happiness.
- [02:44]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Yeah, you know, obviously you've done some amazing interviews and podcasts, and your. Your work is so obviously well researched and then so oft quoted, et cetera. So we, we were thinking about, you know, what is an area that we can really pick your brain on. And so we were, we were thinking about love in the vein of happiness because I think it's sort of a slice of the pie that I don't know, really. It amplifies happiness, right? I mean, how important is. I guess I'd like to start with how important romantic love is in happiness.
- [03:23]
Arthur Brooks
It's a great question, and it's something that my students are intensely interested in. I teach graduate students, so my average student age is 28. I teach MBA students at the Harvard Business School. So you'd think they'd be just like tough as nails. They want the same thing as everybody else. They want to fall in love and stay in love. That's actually the number one popular module in the seminar that I teach at HBS is called falling in love and staying in Love. They would stay on that topic the whole semester and during office hours. That's what they want to know about. Because I say, imagine yourself in five years and you're 25% happier than you are now. What are the number one and two things in your life that are different than they are right now? And it's always about love and relationships. It's not about money and career, money and career, like 4 and 5. It's love, relationships, kids, marriage, you know, some faith. That's the stuff that they care about, which is all these love issues. So the answer to your question is. Go ahead.
- [04:22]
Gwyneth Paltrow
No, I was just going to say, which is sort of like what people say, you know, on their deathbed, that the topics that people are most interested in.
- [04:29]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, totally. It's like on my deathbed, I'll be like, I was a 5 million mile flyer on Delta. No, you know, that's not going to be it, actually. I hope that's really, really not even true. But to answer your question directly, like with data, so I'll be a total social scientist. Here is. There's a study called the Harvard Study of Adult Development that started collecting data in the late 30s for students actually at Harvard. At the time, JFK was in the study, Ben Bradley. And then they matched it up with people who didn't go to college. And then they added spouses and kids. And so it became very. It became a good sample of people all across in different walks of life. They've been following those same people since the late 1930s. Most of them have died. But what they know is what you did all throughout your life that predicted that you were going to be happy and healthy when you were old. It's like a crystal ball. Gwyneth. It's unbelievable. It's so unbelievably powerful. And what they found was there's certain stuff that's pretty obvious. Diet, exercise are really important. Drinking and smoking. Don't do it is what it comes down to. I mean, don't take euphorics, don't do stuff that's neurotoxic, don't eat like a maniac, walk every day. All the stuff you'd understand. But then the last three are more interesting that predict happiness and health. Number one is having a good way to deal with life's downs. And you have to have a. Yeah, you have to be good at something. The whole point is you need skills that you develop in dealing in your own way. So for some people, it's prayer. Some people it's meditation. Some people it's therapy. Get good at it. The next thing. Yeah, exactly. Super important because you're not going to be like, dabbling around and then hoping for the best. Because life, man, life is hard. Life is hard for every person on the planet. That's it. And like I tell my students, look, if you're not sad and anxious when you're studying at Harvard, then you need therapy, right? I mean, and then the next thing is you got to learn. You need to be a learner. The kind of person who's learned. Like, I mean, I know that you're super passionate about knowledge and you read all the time. And so learning, learning, learning, learning, learning is a lifelong strategy for health and happiness. And the last one is the most important. Number seven clears the decks, which is love. That the happiest people have a really stable romantic relationship or super close friendships, and ideally both. But if you don't have either, sorry, that's just. It's. There's nobody who's all alone. Really, really all alone. I mean, you can be in a crowd and be all alone. As you know, there are a lot of lonely famous people and it's, you know, I have a lot of friends who are really, really well known and they don't have. They don't. They don't have really close friends or, you know, a strong marriage. That's what's to work on. And so romantic love for most people is at the center of that. Not everybody. It doesn't work out for everybody. But for most people, it's a divine connection of best friendship in the context of romance. That is your best insurance policy.
- [07:38]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So, you know, for certain people, right, there are kind of like fundamental wiring Ups that happen in childhood that make it really hard for them to sustain long term relationships. Either because, you know, they're inculcated with this idea that, you know, their arousal template or whatever is like not good for them. Right. Like they're expressing a bad relationship with a parent in the wrong choice or you know, or they have their own stuff. So how when people come to you and express that they want love and they understand that it's a key component in long term happiness. But how do you suggest people get out of their own way in order to find love like that or accept love like that?
- [08:25]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, for sure. So some people, it's harder. You know, the truth is the best, the best thing that can happen to you for having a, you know, a really good, stable, healthy marriage is having had parents who had one. But duh, I mean like that's, that's almost, you know. And the reason for that is because it gives you kind of a limbic wiring, a tendency toward it. In other words, your emotional understanding of it below your level of consciousness and awareness is really healthy. But not everybody has that. Fortunately you don't have to have that, but you have to have a technique. You have to have a skill that in my business you called metacognition. Metacognition is understanding and managing your own emotions, understanding what your natural emotional proclivities are. What will happen is, for example, if you had a really stressful childhood, or by the way, if your mother was really stressed out when she was pregnant with you, you're going to be a stressed out little kid and turn into a stressed out adult. That's just the way it is. And the reason for that probably has to do with the environment, the in utero environment of stress hormones. And so the result of that is that that's you. I mean, that's the way it is. And that's a super strength in a certain way because really anxious people do amazing things. Really, really amazing things. So anybody who's watching or listening to us right now is like, I got anxiety. It's like, sorry. But also congratulations. Because anxious people do incredible things. Most amazing things in the world have been done by anxious people. But it's also really hard.
- [09:55]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Why is that? It's because. Is it because there's something underneath the anxiety, like, you know, self esteem issues that drive the person to achieve or it's a restlessness or a. Like why is that that anxious people achieve so much?
- [10:12]
Arthur Brooks
It's discomfort, it's discomfort. Now anxiety is actually unfocused fear. So Fear is a natural, ancestral limbic phenomenon. It's like a twig snaps behind you and you take off and run because it might be a leopard who wants to make you his lunch. That's normal. It's supposed to be episodic and very intense. And anxiety is one in which you've got this constant little drip of stress hormones. So you're really on edge and is very unfocused. What really successful people are able to do is not get rid of their anxiety, but they're able to focus their anxiety by understanding the source of their fear and then harness it. And that requires this technique called metacognition, which is understanding your limbic system, understanding your emotions. And this gets us back to the anxiety that a lot of people have or the stress or the trouble that people have because of the relationships that they witnessed early in life. You know, so if your parents broke up and, or you know, your dad took off with another woman or something like that, that's very, very hard. By the way, that situation where dad takes off with somebody else, that's hardest on boys. That's really, really hard on boys. And so if that happened and a lot of guys watching us, that happened. Women are better with that because they're more cognitively and emotionally flexible than men typically. And so they can get around that. My wife comes from a broken home. I mean, her dad took off when she was a little kid and she's fine. I mean, she's very self aware and we've been married 34 years and she's not like always worried that I'm going to bail at any given moment. So the important thing, however, is understanding. This is who I am, this is what happened. I'm aware of it. And I'm not programmed to be completely paranoid and have an orientation toward the, the catastrophes in my personal relationship. I am the engineer of this thing. I'm in charge of this thing. And those are the techniques that get back to what we talked about before. Prayer, journaling, meditation, therapy, if that's your thing.
- [12:15]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So do you use all of those tools yourself yet?
- [12:20]
Arthur Brooks
Not all of those tools. I'm very big on prayer and meditation and it's something real long term. I'm a practicing Catholic, which is the most meditative probably of the, of the Christian traditions. And so I go to Mass every day, I pray my rosary a lot. I've also studied vipassana meditation with, and I've spent a lot of time with the Dalai Lama at his monastery in Dharamsala. And I've studied meditation with. With the Tibetan Buddhists. So, you know, I've used a lot of sort of mixed techniques in my own life for, For. For medical. I mean, I want to be closer to God too, don't get me wrong. I don't just use it transactionally. It's like, yeah, prayer, awesome for me. No, I mean, I'm trying to lift up the whole world too, of course. But it's been very, very effective for me because I'm a super anxious guy. I'm like, super. Which is one of the reasons that I, you know, you and I, before we went on the air, we were talking about the fact that I used to be a professional French horn player. And from there to scientist at Harvard is not exactly the most linear path.
- [13:20]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Well, let's talk about that path for a minute. I would love to know how that path on. Revealed itself to you.
- [13:28]
Arthur Brooks
I mean, when you were a little kid, you knew you're going to be an artist, right?
- [13:32]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Yes.
- [13:33]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. I mean, it was just. Was it a foregone conclusion? It's just. And it was your choice you wanted to do, I suppose, Right?
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Gwyneth Paltrow
It was a foregone conclusion. I knew it in my bones. I knew I could see what was going to. As weird as it sounds to say out loud, like I could see the certain things that were going to happen to me in my artistic life. Like it was just a fait accompli as far as I was concerned.
- [13:57]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, that's. That's beautiful too. And, and in. In a weird way, it's a curse because it's kind of this path dependency in your life, but it's beautiful at the same time because it gives you a confidence, kind of a quiet confidence in what you're doing, but also a passion for what you're doing. And I had the same thing. When I was four, I started the violin. When I was five, I started the piano. At eight, I started the French horn. And it stuck because I was really good at it. My mother was a painter. We had a lot of artists and academics in the family. And I was going to be the world's greatest French horn player. That's. That was what I was going to be as far as I was. And I didn't make it, by the way, but I. When I was 19, I went. I went to CalArts, actually, when I was. When I was 18 and dropped out. Kicked out. Splitting hairs. You know, it's pretty hard to get kicked out of CalArts, you know. This is the California Institute of the Arts. As Gwyneth knows we both have tons of friends who, you know, went there. And I went on the road, I played chamber music for while and then I joined the Barcelona Orchestra and, and I did that all the way through my 20s. I didn't go to college until it was in my late 20s, but that's because that was my passion. Music was everything to me. And when I went to college to just see what else there was out there, what really grabbed me was this psychology, behavioral economics, the whole study of human beings, that's what really fascinated me. And, and I changed course because I just got so interested in something else, I have to say. But I was really, really into it from the time I little kid. Wow.
- [15:26]
Gwyneth Paltrow
And so neuroscience then turned into you. What, what was the. How did you sort of make the turn into the study of, of happiness?
- [15:36]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, I was, I did my PhD in my. In my early 30s, I finished in my mid-30s and I came out and I was studying beauty and art because that was my background and philanthropy and why people gave charitably. I was really studying love. And the tap root of all that stuff is the quest for human happiness. People do the things they do because they want to be happier and they want to have more love in their lives. That's just what they want. And I thought, you know, I got to study that. That's the thing I got to study. So I started about 30 years ago, started doing studies on human happiness and then I left for a while. I went and ran a big think tank in Washington D.C. for 11 years as CEO, which was hard because I wanted to be in the ideas game. And when I finally came back, I retired from that, you know, my mid-50s, so it wasn't exactly retirement. And I came back and I went to Harvard and started teaching this thing again. And that's when it really blew up because I started an organization dedicated to the propagation of the science of happiness in the public interest. So not just stuff you can't understand like academics do. It was really for, you know, talking like we're talking right now, nobody is listening to us going, what are they saying? It's too esoteric. No, no, everybody can understand that. And that's what I'm dedicated to doing. I want a movement of people fascinated with the science of happiness.
- [16:57]
Gwyneth Paltrow
It's interesting too because for so many people it feels so elusive, especially in this day and age. I wonder, like, how is. Has it always. Has man always had a struggle with attaining happiness? Are we living in a particularly difficult era with, you know, the advent of Social media and these other things that turn us sort of inward in a weird way, and also relying too much on the external in a weird way. Like, I know a lot of people who are really struggling to find a baseline of contentment.
- [17:32]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, for sure. The answer is number one. Both yes. People have always been in the search for happiness, and it's always been elusive. And also it's gotten harder. There's a reason for this. We have a tendency to think as humans that this thing that we want, with enough knowledge and enough genius, we can crack it, that we can solve the problem. Kind of like we can solve the problem for how to get rid of a headache or how to lower your hemoglobin A1C or find a pizza at 10:00pm I mean, those are complicated problems, but they're solvable problems. To make a toaster is a complicated problem that we've totally solved. You've got one in your kitchen and don't build one yourself. It's too complicated. You'll burn your house down. But you get my point. The problem is that it's not that happiness is a different species of challenge that we have. The things we really care about are not those complicated problems. The things we care about in life are what we call complex problems. It's a subtle difference, but it's important. Complicated problems are super hard to solve, but once you solve them, it's done. Complex problems are super easy to understand, but you can't solve them. So love is a complex problem. I get it. My wife loves me, but I don't know, when I get home today, she might be mad at me. And the reason is because after 34 years, I still haven't solved my marriage. It's an amazing thing. Happiness is a complex problem. The meaning of life is the ultimate complex problem. I get it, I get it. I understand it. But I can't do it. And that's because complex problems, this is the life. In life, you don't solve them, you live them. You don't answer the question. You understand the question. And in understanding the question, then you're fully alive. See, it's the ongoing challenge. We don't get happy. We learn how to be happier with the ups and downs and ordinary suffering of life. And that's the art, not just the science of becoming a happier person.
- [19:40]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So there is this common denominator in humanity, this desire to be happy. And yet it's a universal struggle, right? Sort of like the, the first rule in, in Buddhism or in any of these practices, right? It's like it's an axiom that to live is to suffer. So I'm. I'm curious, given your that interesting, I don't know, intersection, I guess, of Catholicism and Vipassana. Like, have you. What do you interpret the. The purpose of life is, you know, like that tensegrity between living and searching for happiness and living in that, you know, holding that complex, un understandable universe. Like, what are we doing here?
- [20:35]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, I know. And you know the meaning of life. I mean, I'm writing a book right now that's coming out next April called the meaning of your life, seeking deep purpose in an age of emptiness, which gets that second part of what you described before, the fact that we're intermediate in your relationship with technology. We're trying to turn all of our complex problems into complicated problems and we're not successful and we're getting more and more frustrated and lonely as a result of it. So the reason I'm writing about that is because it's so incredibly important, not that we figure it out definitively, but that we're living in a space where the meaning of our lives can reveal itself to us. The purpose of life is, and this is a very vipassana. I know you've studied Buddhism yourself. There's a concept for those of us who are watching us right now that they may not be familiar with in Buddhism, in vipassana meditation, for example, called intention without attachment. And that means you have to have a concept of what you're moving toward without an attachment to that particular result. So if you basically say, when I get to happiness, then I'll have it and then I'll know. Wrong. You need to be moving toward greater bliss, moving toward greater love without attachment to any particular results. That's a super important way to live. And that means you need to be able to articulate in some way, shape or form the intention while being able to let go of the attachment. You know, you wanted to be an actress, and when you were a little kid, I'm sure you're like, it'd be awesome to be a really successful actress. You are, but you didn't know. It is the whole point. To be a happy person with a passion for film and TV and theater means to love the thing and to love the process and to love the intention without being freaked out when things don't go your way. And even for you as a successful person, things don't go your way every day. There are things that you want, you don't get. People probably don't realize that, but that's the essence of life itself. So for me, the way that I think about it as a fundamentally spiritual person is I think, okay, what do I want? What is the purpose that I'm driving toward? And the answer is this. I'm spending my life, and I will spend the rest of my life lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love, using science and ideas. That's my purpose. That's what I'm moving toward. And some days it's awesome. I'm talking to Gwyneth Paltrow today. This is a great day. And some days it's like I'm stuck at an airport, but it's, you know, it's probably tomorrow, but that's the intention. And when I can get rid of the attachment, while I maintain the intention, I can move down the line with greater progress toward the complex end that is the, the mystery and the beauty of the life that I'm trying to build.
- [23:30]
Gwyneth Paltrow
That's so beautiful. And then. So what about. How do you rationalize the suffering part? Like, do you. Do you believe that. That suffering is a fundamental part of, like, the, you know, the, the, the. The pressure that turns the coal into diamond? Like, is that because it is. And life is so hard, no matter who we are or what the circumstances are, like, it always will reveal itself to be incredibly difficult, full of suffering. Not every day, of course. Some days are incredible. And. But do you, do you sort of. Do you regard the suffering in any particular way, like in a teaching capacity or anything?
- [24:13]
Arthur Brooks
I do. And this is a way where I'm more Western than Buddhist, as a matter of fact. So the Buddhists, you know, the first. You referred to this a minute ago. The first noble truth of Buddhism is called dukkha in Sanskrit. And it's. Life is suffering. Literally. Although the word suffering, it's actually, it's not the right translation. It's probably life is dissatisfaction because we always have these sticky cravings. And the whole point is to get rid of your cravings, to get rid of your attachments. That's the whole sort of the meta narrative of what they talk about. And a little bit more of a sort of a holistic Western sort of Judeo Christian tradition. Suffering is integral to the learning that we need now to begin with, as a scientist by background. Now you're not, you know, my students, I always talk about how their suffering is sacred. And they'll be like, hey, professor, do I got to go looking for suffering? And say, don't worry, it will find you. Just stay in one place and it's going to find you probably within an hour, something is going to bum you out. And part of the reason for that is you have negative emotions for a reason. Negative emotions only 4. Fear, anger, disgust, and sadness. And we all have them. And those are indicators that your limbic system is telling you that there's a threat on the horizon. There's something that you don't like that's not really good for your gene propagation or for your survival or whatever, and so that tells you to avoid it. That's all negative emotions are for. But there's also negative experiences that we all have. Negative encounters with other people, things that we don't like being rejected from, the things that we actually want. And those are part of an ordinary life because we have to live together in society. And. And those are super important because this is where it really gets to a more Western perspective. If you don't have those things, you're not going to learn and grow. You're just not. Happiness requires that you forego pleasure all the time to get to a deeper enjoyment of things. Happiness requires that you have deep satisfaction. That requires that you delay your gratifications. Happiness requires that you find meaning, and meaning comes from suffering. You know, I'm sure if we dig into the things that have happened in your life that you don't like, that these are the learning experiences that have made you into the person that you are today. Is that fair to say?
- [26:26]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Very.
- [26:27]
Arthur Brooks
And so here's sort of the Catholic Buddhist master technique. And this is what I try to do every morning is in my prayer in the morning, I say thank you for the beautiful, fun things I'm going to get to do today. But thank you also for the suffering and thank you for the difficult things that are going to happen this day, because I know that these are for a divine purpose. These are going to make me the person that I am supposed to be. And without them, I would be lost.
- [26:57]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So when something befalls you that's difficult or causes suffering, do you have like a quick facility with the tool in the moment to. To sort of catch it? Like, how, how does that look? How does that go internally for you?
- [27:15]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah. And I'm a very lucky person insofar as that. You know, the great. I mean, the huge tragedies of. I've never lost a child, for example, and I've worked with a lot of people who've lost a child. And, you know, I lost my parents, for example, and people, you know, my own age who I was very close to, of course. But that's a unique kind of tragedy. That's a different species of tragedy. That's the kind of tragedy that. That leads to deep grief. And grief actually has a neurobiological basis to it. There's a part in your brain that makes you feel sadness from losing something or someone that you deeply love. And the reason that we have that part of our brain, it's called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Why would you have it? And the answer is, because we need to not want to lose things that we love. In the ancestral environment, losing relationships would mean walking the frozen tundra and dying alone. It's like, that's no good. And so you have this natural defense mechanism against the behaviors that would make you lose your spouse, lose your friends, lose your employer, whatever it happens to be. But it happens. And when it happens on the level of something as deeply unnatural, or so it seems like losing a child, that's when you have this deep kind of grief and you heal. What you find is that most people, when they have that, they get what's called post traumatic grief growth. 90% of people who have these bad tragedies, they wind up years later saying, of course I wish it didn't happen, but I'm a stronger, more spiritual, more aligned person as a result of that. And there are ways to hasten the healing, for sure. I talk about that a lot. You know, the, the, the. When people lose a child, they heal faster. When they help other people who've lost children because they transcend their own grief by helping other people with theirs, which is a fundamental of human life, you want to feel better, go help somebody is what it comes down to. Right. So that's something. And understanding that is really important to me. But for me also, it's understanding that I can offer these things up in a spiritual way. This is something that Jews and Christians and Muslims have always done and all the great monotheistic traditions have always done, is to offer up these ideas. I offer up my suffering for the sufferings of others. I offer up this suffering so I can better understand the suffering of my sisters and brothers around the world to make radical solidarity with other people. Thank you for making me closer to other people who are suffering even more than me. And that's been helpful for me. And I hope that when real suffering befalls me, and it will, that I can actually turn to that.
- [29:52]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Right. I suppose there are sort of micro sufferings and then. And macro sufferings.
- [29:58]
Arthur Brooks
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Micro sufferings are all the things that are happening during the course of the day. I didn't like that, you know something, I didn't like that. I didn't like the thing that that happened or something is just troubling you. About 17% of the average person's day is in negative emotion. And about 33% of your day is in mixed emotional states, meaning that you're kind of okay, okay, it's all good, it's all good, it's all good. But it's punctuated by something that you're worried about, something that's bothering you in a little bit. Like I don't like that conversation I had with my spouse or something's. I'm kind of worried about my 22 year old kid, you know, that kind of thing. You have a, you know, your kids are younger than mine in general, but my kids are 27, 25 and 22. So I have grandkids. I'm worried about my grandkids, whatever, you know, I mean. And that punctuates the equilibrium of your reverie, of your bliss. That's life. That's life. That's. And, and the more that you understand that's not a pathology. You're not broken. If you didn't have that, you wouldn't be normal. And, and, and it's, it's, it's okay. It's okay.
- [31:06]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So then 50 of the time are we in, in happiness?
- [31:11]
Arthur Brooks
So about. Yeah. So it, again, your results may vary. So you know, because it's normal, but you're normal. And you know, here's the weird thing. People believe that if you're really, really famous and successful, then you don't have bad days. That is insanity. That is the craziest thing. And the reason is because we believe that if you get worldly success, money, power, pleasure, fame, then happiness comes for free. That's exactly wrong. Some of the unhappiest people that you and I know are extremely famous. The way to get enough success is by shooting toward happiness is the way that, that works 42% of the time. To answer your question, we're in a positive state. We're in a positive emotional state. But that doesn't mean like hooray. No, no. It just means it's all good. See, positive emotional states are like your car idling at a light. Negative emotional states are when you're like flooring it. And so that's why you notice negative more than you understand positive. Because noticing negative emotion means giddy app. You got to get up and run in the ancestral environment. And so they Got to punctuate anything. Fear, for example, is, will clear the decks. When something makes you afraid, like you saw something, you know, somebody's like, I can only, I know what it is for me. You know, somebody's like, hey, you know, the New York Times is writing an article about your work. It's like great. And for you it's like, hey, there's a big feature on you and variety. It's like, that's great. Is it great? And it's, it's, it's normal like that. And that's kind of how it's supposed to work. Your negative emotions are supposed to be way more intense than your negative emotions.
- [33:02]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So we're wired to orient around happiness and we spread like ideally you spend more. I mean, of course we're always going to have intrusive thoughts and we're always going to have. And just because of the, the nature of the world and how, how people are like, you know, and it was interesting what you were saying. I, I do think that especially now, although I'm sure like Marcus Aurelius who was famous in his time, had the same kind of stuff. But I do think that externally society values this fame and notoriety and you know, this idea that comes. I think there's something actually some kind of relief, you know, because for people to think about, oh, if I just, you know, had X, then my, my life would, would feel like Y. Because the truth of the matter is it's, it's like it can be having success, having those sort of worldly trappings, like, can actually be so isolating and demoralizing and when you, when you reach some kind of pinnacle and you're supposed to be happy and you're, and you're not, right? When that's not the outcome, which has happened to me a number of times in my life, like I, I think I thrived out of, you know, out of having anxiety and having low self esteem and all the things and thinking, you know, if I just cross this particular finish line, I'm going to be a whole person. Which never, which just didn't happen. In fact, it made it worse.
- [34:44]
Arthur Brooks
Truly. And you know, there's one thing to point out about that. So people who are one of the great, I mean there's a, there's a lot to love about having a great career. You and I both know. I mean it's fantastic. And you and I are both really grateful for good things that have happened to us, to be sure. But almost everybody who has outsized success has a pathology and that Pathology is called the success addiction. A success addiction, the way that it works typically is when you're a little kid, you get the attention of adults. When you do something extraordinary, you get a little pat on the head and that wires your brain. And so by the time, and if you, and if, if, God forbid, you're famous before your brain is fully developed, so in human females is about the age of 21, then you're going to have a brain that looks a little like an adolescent methamphetamine addict brain, which is to say that you get especially high amounts of dopamine when you get these worldly successes. This turns you into a workaholic. This tends you, turns you into somebody who is self objectifying, by which I mean I am a success machine. And you learn that you get love when you do incredible things. Now the real pathology of this is that you start to try to earn other people's love. This is a real problem in relationships of especially successful people is that they're like, I'm trying to earn my wife's love. It's like, did I earn it yet? It's like, but you can't earn love. Real love can't be earned. Real love is a grace. It's a free gift, freely given. And the more you try to earn it, the more you devalue it by turning it from an intrinsic thing into an extrinsic thing. There's all this literature about there about when you take kids and they're playing with toys in the lab and having a great old time. And then you say, if you go play with your favorite toy, I'll give you a cookie. They don't want to play with the toy as much because you valued the fun in terms of a cookie. And so when with your spouse, you say, I'm trying to earn your love, you've devalued the love. And that's what success addicts do again and again. And they suffer a lot as a result of it. They suffer a lot. And I mean, it's so funny because then what happens is the horizon, the horizon keeps moving of what success actually means. Did I earn it? Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Because you can't, you can't get there. I mean, I have this great friend, he doesn't mind if I tell this because he actually has told this story and I put it in writing. A really great friend of mine, you probably know Rainn Wilson, right? From the office.
- [37:13]
Gwyneth Paltrow
I mean, I don't know him, but I know who he is.
- [37:15]
Arthur Brooks
It's Great. Yeah. We grew up about five miles apart from each other in Seattle, and we're about the same age. We actually didn't know each other as kids, but we bonded overall, like watching the same TV shows on the same stations as Gilligan's island in the afternoon and that kind of stuff on Channel 11 in Seattle. Anyway, and Rain, he says, like when he was doing the Office, I mean, he was, the people were shouting I love you from passing cars. And this after a long time of trying to become a successful actor. And then he's like, the whole time he's in the Office, he's like, how come I didn't win an Emmy? Of course, because that's human nature. And the fact is he's very self aware. He's extremely self aware. But he suffered as a result of the fact that all humans suffer in this way. And then civilians outside the business will be like, you ingrate. Well, guess what? We're made for ingratitude. We're made for resentment. We have literally brains wired to be resentful and not to be grateful, because resentment keeps you alive. Gratitude's nice to have.
- [38:16]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Oh my gosh, that's so interesting.
- [38:18]
Arthur Brooks
And that's why you have to be a spiritual being. That's why you have to, that's why you have to reach for the divine that, because you have to override your natural animal tendencies so that you can become the person that you're supposed to be, truly lifting yourself and other people up and not be become a victim of your resentment. And that's what Rain has done. He's super spiritual. He's, you know, he's a deeply religious guy. He has a great meditation practice. He has and now really, really healthy relationships, including a few weird former French horn playing behavioral science friends like me.
- [38:52]
Gwyneth Paltrow
That's hilarious. So let's, let's go into the romantic love part just for a minute because you obviously focus on this and kind of the brain science, the neurochemical processes behind a lot of this stuff, which I find so interesting. And one of the things in that I heard you talk about when I was researching was that you've got, well, you talk about these, you know, there's the initial attraction that's fueled by sex hormones. Right. Then euphoria. Then I was really, I didn't know about the drop in serotonin, which causes an obsessive fixation. So I, I, I really want to ask you about that.
- [39:35]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- [39:35]
Gwyneth Paltrow
And then pair bonding through oxytocin and a hormone I had never heard of.
- [39:41]
Arthur Brooks
Called vasopressin yeah, vasopressin. That's more of a. Men have more vasopressin and women have more oxytocin. But we both have both. Yeah. Is this neural hormone that makes men be, be defenders. It's like, I'll. Okay. It's like, I love you so much, I'll fight a tiger for you. I don't know why, but four weeks ago I wouldn't have, but now I will. Right. And that's. So that's how vasopressant. Whereas oxytocin is more sort of nesting. It's more bonding around the nurturing. It's also called the love molecule. It's when you've had your kids and you, you fall in love with a newborn baby when you first make eye contact kind of thing. So women have about four times as much oxytocin as men. Men have a lot of it too. You know, I have kids and grandkids and I'm in love. But, but, but it's, it's, it's. Anyway, so that's, that's that fourth stage. Yeah.
- [40:28]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Okay, so the initial attraction part, I understand that's. But there's a neurochemical process that happens when you meet somebody that you're attracted to.
- [40:37]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah, this is the thing. But there's a guy named David Buss who's an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin. He's, he'd be a great guest, by the way, because his stuff is mind blowingly interesting. On, on, you know, in 140 societies, what are the top three things that men find. Find attractive in women? What are the top three things that women find attractive in men? And they're not the same, but they're all the same across societies because it comes from the, you know, the ancestral environment when the brain was really created and, you know, what we're actually looking for and the different roles that we have in, you know, having kids and being pregnant and taking care of babies and et cetera, all that sort of stuff. And, you know, all this stuff, for example, what. Women need to be adored by a husband in lots of ways and men really need to be admired by their wives. And, and again, it sounds like. So it's not sexist. All that's basically saying is that, that if you want to be a successful husband, you got two jobs, be admirable and adore her. And it's like, it's weirdly simple, but it's hard. Anyway, so all that stuff is what David Buss gets into. So I don't take credit for his work. I just a huge admirer of his work. So the. The first stage is attraction. And that's why people want to be attractive to each other. That's why people want to look good. And even when you're not on the market, you still want to look good because you have these impulses that are sort of wired into you, and that's healthy, and that's fine. If you've made the commitment not to stray, it's still okay to look good, because that's a normal thing. Even if you're not trying to attract another partner, a new mate. The second stage kicks in really quickly, and that's the stage of anticipation, of reward and euphoria. So it's like, I just got a text from her. Wow. It's like you get tons of texts every day. Why are you freaking out over text? Because you get two catecholamines, two neurotransmitters in really, really heavy succession with each other, which is norepinephrine. It's a stress hormone. And that gives you a feeling of euphoria. And then the anticipation of reward, of something coming as dopamine, meaning any little thing that you're looking forward to has huge significance, like even a text. And the reason that you're doing this is because you want to ramp up. Ramp up the bonding. This is how we're evolved. Then within a couple of weeks, it goes to this interesting third phase, which is that your serotonin levels, that's another neurotransmitter. Everybody knows what it is now because it's involved with clinical depression. It dips. And you're like, what? I'm depressed? Yep, yep. Falling in love is like depression. And the reason is because there's a. A part of the. And this, again, this is. Neuroscientists disagree on everything. So I'm just sort of taking the predominant view here. There's a thing in your brain called a ventral lateral prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that helps you ruminate on stuff. It's your ruminating organ. And when you're ruminating, for you, for example, if you're ruminating on a creative project, which no doubt you do, it's like, can't get it out of my mind. That's your ventral lateral prefrontal cortex. If you're clinically depressed, you're ruminating on sadness and how dumb you are, and regret. That's your same part of your brain. And when you're ruminating on another person, like you're losing your mind and you sent a hundred texts in the last hour like an idiot. You're not an idiot. It's just that your serotonin is in the tank and your ventral lateral prefrontal cortex. Now, that's the reason that depressive people, they also tend to be romantics and poetic. They tend to be artistic. And that's why when you think of the poetry, you think of somebody who's really romantic and depressed. That's why. Same part of the brain. And that's also one of the reasons that some research suggests that when you increase your serotonin levels, like with SSRI drugs, Prozac, et cetera, that it feels harder to fall in love. And that's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you still can, but the whole point is that you're messed with your brain hormones or your brain chemistry and funny things. Again, all. All of this is contested, but the point about the serotonin part kind of isn't. We know that that's actually kind of what's happening and that. And so you look at the brains of people who are depressed and people who are like, deeply falling in love, they kind of look the same.
- [44:49]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Oh, my gosh, that's so fascinating.
- [44:52]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah.
- [44:54]
Gwyneth Paltrow
So. So you say that like now we're living in, like this hookup culture and where, where people are skipping some of these steps can. What did you mean by that? And you sort of advise caution against that.
- [45:10]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah, sure. Because what happens is again, the fourth stage that we talked about kind of as the first one was the oxytocin and vasopressin. You want to get to true bonding. You want. I mean, deep love is called companionate love, where it's your. You're sleeping with your best friend. It's just the best. And that's the kind of bliss that you get for. For a long term, pair bond. Pair bond mating. It's like how social scientists talk. It's so not romantic. It's like, I'd like you to meet Mrs. Brooks, my pair bond mate. You know, it's like, that's. But. But that's what you want to get to. And the problem is in hookup culture, you're going, one, two, one, two, one, 2, one, two. You need to go, one, two, three, four, stop. That's what the greatest happiness comes from, is getting to four and stopping. That's the greatest happiness. That's the greatest source of happiness, single source of happiness that most people have in. And if you're going, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1,2, sometimes something's wrong, sometimes there's a trauma you need to deal with, but it isn't normal, and it is a pathology that needs to be dealt with. Another problem, we got this kind of bifurcated culture among people in the 20s where you've got hookup culture, but then you also have celibate culture. You find that people in their 20s today are about a third less likely to be in love as people were when you and I were in our twenties. Yeah. They're less likely to get married, they're less likely to cohabitate. They're having less sex than people ever have since we've been keeping records. So you got like whole groups that are not even initiating the process and. Whole groups.
- [46:42]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Why? Why?
- [46:44]
Arthur Brooks
Well, that's a good question. I read about that a lot. Two big problems are dating apps and pornography. Huge, huge things that are interrupting the neurochemical process in a big way. I mean, dating apps are great for some people, but the truth is that they make you curate what you're looking for to something that looks just like you, which is not hot. Right. I mean, we're narcissists, right? And it's like, I want somebody who votes like, I do and, you know, like, likes Austin and listens to the same kind of music and thinks Sriracha is a personality and, you know, or whatever. And the result is that you're looking for somebody just like your essence of hotness is complementarity. You want somebody who's like, enough. The same. Like, same religion, whatever your thing is, but just different enough to be interesting. And there's a lot of neurobiology why we want difference. There's a ton of neurobiology that cites why we want that kind of difference. Because we're ascertaining how people can. We can have really successful kids and people who are just like us, have the same immunological profile. And so you judge with personality. If somebody's a lot like you biologically and you want really different biology, really different biology now, I mean, go join the Peace Corps and go to a part of the world you've never been in and get married, that might be a great strategy.
- [48:13]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Right? Sort of the opposite of like the old royal strategy, right? Where they.
- [48:17]
Arthur Brooks
Oh, my God, totally. And they didn't like each other. They didn't. I mean, those old marriages, you look back on it historically, they weren't attracted to each other at all because, you know, they were marrying their cousin or something. I married a girl who literally didn't speak a word of the same language with me. And I just like totally fell in love with a girl. I didn't speak a word of English. I didn't speak any of her. She spoke a lot of romance languages. I spoke none at the time. And I literally quit my job and moved to Spain and went on thinking, I bet I could learn that language. I bet I could close that deal.
- [48:54]
Gwyneth Paltrow
And you did. You did.
- [48:55]
Arthur Brooks
I did. It worked out. I mean, and you know, three kids and four grandkids later, Amazing.
- [49:00]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Unbelievable. So, so in I think, you know, I mean it just obviously anecdotally, but also you say that a long term relationship is a great marker for life, life, happiness. So how is that something that you know? Because it's interesting. Like in my, my life, for example, like in, in my, my first marriage, I felt like I was very much doing the thing which you described a few minutes ago. Right. Like I was in that feedback loop of, I kept having to earn, of telling myself I had to earn love. And which is something that I also learned through a childh. Anyway, you're not my therapist, so I.
- [49:51]
Arthur Brooks
Don'T do clinical work. But you know, I have friends.
- [49:58]
Gwyneth Paltrow
In, in my second marriage, you know, it's been really interesting. Like the pair bonding, you know, phrase or whatever you call it, it's like that, that resonates so deeply with me. Like I feel, even though it's not the most romantic of all phrases, like I do feel bonded. Like I feel like I'm in the right pairing and I feel extremely bonded. And I, I, I am deprogramming myself to think that I have to earn love all the time. And so, but some, some relationships, it feels really hard to maintain physical and emotional intimacy and, and love, especially past that first phase, certain relationships, it feels a little bit more intuitively there. But how, how, like, how important is it that to sustain that closeness and what are the sort of tools to do that?
- [50:55]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. So to begin with it, you're absolutely on the right track. You can't, you know, it's funny because it's easy to see somebody like you as somebody who doesn't need anybody's adoration because you have the world's adoration. That's wrong. That's wrong. I mean, you know, people shouting I love you from passing cars is no substitute for what you want, which is the one person saying, I would fight a tiger for you. I would die for you. I'm blind to everybody in the world but you. That's how adoration works. And you absolutely need that. And you can't earn that. You can't earn it. And the more you try, the worse it gets. And people who are very successful almost always learn that the hard way. And you learned that the hard way, right? Is what it comes down to. But it also requires that you be in an environment where adoration is kind of the coin of the realm, as is admiration, which men need. And men almost never figure out that they can't earn their wife's true admiration by dragging bigger and bigger gazelles into the cave, right? It's like it just. We don't need more gazelles. You know, it's like, how about another billion dollars and no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not the source of my admiration. My admiration is the moral admiration that I have for you as a person. And you working 100, you know, 90 hours a week or something is not going to get it done. So the point is that you've gotten a cognizance of that. And then being very explicit about that is really important. It's like, I, I, you know, we need an environment of respect, admiration and adoration. The real key to this for couples that are long term, because it's hard, you know, I mean, you're working and occupied with lots of things and it's just life, you know, I mean, in relationships and living with another person is very tricky business is realizing that this is not just an earthly thing that marriage is. It's a very mysterious phenomenon. It's very, it's very, very powerful. And many of the most successful couples, whether they're traditionally religious or not, they see their marriage as an antenna to the divine. So this is how it works. Hindus talk about this a lot. But, you know, Catholics and Muslims talk about this a lot. My marriage is the way that I understand in an earthly way, God's love for me. God's love for me comes through him. God's love for him comes through me. When I'm not giving the love that he needs, I'm denying him the love of the divine, which really, really ups the stakes. But it's also the kind of thing where you're going to want to practice your meditation, your spiritual practices, your religion together. And that's a key thing. Really successful pair bonds. They have a. And again, it doesn't have to be the kind of traditional religion that I practice. I like mine. I recommend it to everybody. It's awesome. But my wife and I go to mass together every day. That's how we start. When I'm in town, I'm on the road about 50% of the time. And when I'm home, we go to Mass at 6:30 every morning. We did this morning.
- [54:01]
Gwyneth Paltrow
You get up and go physically somewhere.
- [54:03]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I get up real early because I have a whole morning happiness protocol that I practice, which is really, really important. So I get up at 4:30, I work out from 4:45 to 5:45. And then from 6:30 to 7 I go to mass with her because the antenna is up. You know, it's like we have to connect in this spiritual way. But there's lots of ways to do that that don't involve the Catholic Church necessarily. But it's very important to understand that you are in a very. In the act of saying, we're married. This is a permanent deal, that you become one in a very divine and very important way and practice it. I mean, you're both, you're individuals. I got it. You know, but the whole point is that this fusion between the two, this spiritual fusion between the souls and seeing it that way as opposed to, ah, man, this is not working out. You know, we're quarreling a lot. Of course you're quarreling a lot. That's part of the spiritual fusion is that friction that we actually see as well. But then it has meaning.
- [55:08]
Gwyneth Paltrow
That is so incredibly beautiful. I, and I, I find that it's really nice to hear, I don't know, somebody articulate it like that, like that, that marriage is, you know, this fusion, this very soulful, purposeful, divine thing that happens between, between two people who have made that commitment. And I noticed too, like every day, every week, every year, like the, the commitment is, I think what, what grows out of the commitment inspires me so much. Like the, the sense of the, like the broader sense of, of ease that you have. Right. Just knowing you have your, your person and they, they are there for you no matter what happens. And that there's this, I don't know, it's, it's. It also feels quite mysterious, you know, this entity that exists between two people that you make together. It's really beautiful to hear you talk about that.
- [56:12]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. You know, it's funny. Romantic love in particular gives us the most intense kind of love besides divine love that we experience. It's largely a phenomenon not to, you know, to degrade it in any way biologically, but it largely occurs in the, in the, the half of your brain that processes all mysterious phenomena. The right hemisphere of the brain is the hemisphere that actually doesn't process language. It processes the most important Deep commands, the purpose and meaning of life, or right hemisphere phenomenon. And that's where you understand the nature of your marriage. And that's why it's so hard. I mean, like, love poetry is great, but it doesn't quite get at it, you know, and love songs are popular, but they also, they kind of leave you. No, that's not it. That's because you know it. The left side of your brain, actually, that's where the speech centers are. It's called the Broca's area in the Wernicke's area, that's where you form words and write poetry and, you know, you write a script and you learn your lines. That's all on the left side of your brain. But the love for your husband, it's over here. It's on the mystery side. And I believe that the divine gives us that mystery side so that we can live in that mystery. And to the extent that we don't, that we say, okay, I got to solve my marriage. I got to go figure it out. I got to go talk to a therapist who's going to give me the five techniques for figuring it out. That's all good, but you're not going to train the right side of your brain. That's a side that has to be lived every single day.
- [57:50]
Gwyneth Paltrow
What is your theory on. On. Because my husband has a theory that the only way that you get to kind of what you're talking about, this like, incredibly bonded, you know, mysterious, wonderful, expansive thing between two people is to, is to have a monogamous relationship. He feels like, you know, you, you, you choose to, to bond with one person and do that with only one person, and then the cascading down of all, you know, there's like this downstream impact of making that commitment. Do you feel that that's right. Do you, or do you feel that people can experience this, like, outside of a monogamous relationship?
- [58:34]
Arthur Brooks
It's, it's a, that's a real hard question. It's a deep question, and I do have my views on it. So to begin with, neuroscientists, they debate this. And part of the reason is because there are lots of species that truly are monogamous and many species that aren't. And so the question is, and are.
- [58:50]
Gwyneth Paltrow
We or aren't we? What are we?
- [58:51]
Arthur Brooks
That's the thing. And people argue it both ways. So non human primates typically aren't, but many other species typically are. So, and then you have to look back on what most societies are and what most social constructions are. So you have some that are, they're not non monogamous. And so you'll find is there, you really don't find any societies that say it's okay to sleep with anybody. There are some people who say you can have multiple spouses, but you can't sleep with somebody who's not one of your spouses and you can't sleep with somebody else's spouse. No societies think that that stuff is okay. So adultery in some way, shape or form is prohibited in basically every culture. Most societies, however, say that monogamy, one to one, is the arrangement to which we tend. Now, now we get into the philosophy and the, and sort of the spirituality behind it.
- [59:46]
Gwyneth Paltrow
My own point before we go there, is that, is that true that we do, we tend as human beings, we tend toward monogamy?
- [59:53]
Arthur Brooks
The huge majority of people do. The huge people do. Now that said, we have urges that go outside that, lots and lots of urges that go outside that. Because, you know, like, we are who we are, right? It's like, ah, she's pretty. And without the strictures of kind of culture and morality and norms and all this kind of stuff, it's easy that people can actually learn. But here's the thing to keep in mind. There's nobody who ever said, you know, I was super, super, super in love with that guy and it was awesome that he slept with my sister. Nobody's ever said that. Like, nobody ever. And so that's a tell. That's a tell right, right there. And what you find is that most societies, they accept divorce, but they don't accept adultery. That about 97% of people who are not religious say that adultery is wrong. So it's not the Ten Commandments, it's something deeper than the Ten Commandments. So there's something in the ancestral environment of the wiring of the brain that says that that's not right. And then you get into this whole idea of how can you establish the divine connection? And this is what almost every religion has said, that the divine connection comes from the 1. Comes from the One, because that's God's representative in your life. And, and you know, and that's what I believe. That's what I believe. I mean, that's like, that's. I'm gonna, as I take my dying breath, I'm gonna be laying my eyes on my beloved. As I say, as I, as I recite the holy scriptures, I'll be saying, thank you, Lord, that's a good thing.
- [61:25]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Oh, that's a. I mean, how can we even there's nothing else to say. That's the perfect way to end our hour together. Oh, my gosh. You've given me, like, I don't. It's. It's. It's so wonderful to have a. A conversation with a teacher or professor like you who, I don't know, can really crystallize, like, an undefined feeling or, you know, like a sentiment or a philosophy. I haven't even put, like, thoughts or words to it yet until this conversation with you today. So thank you so much for that.
- [61:58]
Arthur Brooks
Thank you, Gwyneth.
- [62:03]
Gwyneth Paltrow
Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.