Harvard Professor: 4 Secrets to a Happy Marriage (Backed by Neuroscience)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Jefferson Fisher Podcast

Episode: Harvard Happiness Professor: Do You Know the Meaning of Your Life?
Date: March 31, 2026
Guest: Arthur Brooks, Harvard behavioral scientist and happiness expert
Host: Jefferson Fisher

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Overview

This episode features an in-depth, candid conversation between Jefferson Fisher and Arthur Brooks, the Harvard professor renowned for his research on happiness and meaning. The two explore science-backed wisdom for thriving in marriage, overcoming imposter syndrome, battling loneliness and addiction to busyness, and, most importantly, discovering the meaning of life in a tech-saturated age. Arthur’s upcoming book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, serves as a springboard for insights on faith, relationships, family, struggle, suffering, and communication. The dialogue is packed with actionable advice, personal anecdotes, and practical strategies for living with intention and connection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Science of Lasting Marriage: Four Habits for Deeper Love

Timestamps: 02:45–09:40

• Peak Marriage Dissatisfaction: “Discontent peaks at five years and then declines. The reason is because the couples that stay together, they learn how to stay together.” (Arthur Brooks, 03:19)
• Four Neuroscience-backed Habits:
  • Look Each Other in the Eyes: Couples often stop maintaining eye contact, which diminishes the oxytocin bond (06:01). “I’m going to make a note that every time I’m talking to her, which is every day… I’m just going to look at her in the eyes… She’s going to be like, ‘I don’t know why, but I feel so much closer to you.’” (Arthur Brooks, 06:16–06:23)
  • Always Be Touching (ABT): Spontaneous, non-sexual touch maintains emotional bonds and triggers vasopressin and oxytocin (06:24–07:19).
  • Have More Fun, Rehearse Fewer Grievances: “Fun will outrank grievance almost every time...that’s why date night is critically important.” (Arthur Brooks, 07:20–08:28)
  • Pray Together: “Praying together is the single most intimate thing you can actually do together, is talking to God. The divine is our uniting force.” (Arthur Brooks, 08:29–09:12)
• Summary: Lasting marriages are built through deliberate habits of connection, not just sentiment.

2. Communication, Gender, and Meaning

Timestamps: 11:05–15:25

• Emotional Intelligence Differences: Women’s brains are better equipped for questions of “why” and meaning. Men operate more with “how” and “what” (11:33–12:41).
• Marriage and Career: “When you win, she wins. And when she wins, you win… You need a collaborative relationship.” (Arthur Brooks, 15:57–16:28)

Notable Moments:

• On masculinity and loneliness: “Men over 30 who have never been either married or partnered seriously have a 1 in 3 chance of substance use disorder.” (Arthur Brooks, 14:14)
• On faith and marriage: “For the vast majority of people, the way they understand God is through the love of their spouse.” (Arthur Brooks, 09:40)

3. The Roots of Desire: Evolution, Biology & Modern Love

Timestamps: 16:41–20:37

• Evolutionary Cues: Men and women are subconsciously attracted to cues (resource, fertility/adornment) rooted in survival and reproductive needs.
• Practical Tip: “The happiest marriages are the ones where you would fight a tiger for her… and she is amazed that that is the biggest gazelle anyone’s dragged into the cave.” (Arthur Brooks, 20:00–20:23)

4. Happiness, Genetics, and Habits

Timestamps: 38:46–48:52

• Half of Happiness is Genetic: “About half [your happiness] is your mom’s fault.” (Arthur Brooks, 39:31–39:58)
• Change is Possible: Genetics might be 50% of your disposition, but the rest is shaped by environment and habits. “If you know yourself, you got power, you can manage your genetic through your habits.” (Arthur Brooks, 45:09–45:38)
• Happiness Skills: “If you want to get really good at something… learn about it, do it a lot, and teach it.” (Arthur Brooks, 41:42–42:58)

5. The Crisis of Meaning in the Digital Age

Timestamps: 53:38–57:15

• Three Macronutrients of Happiness: Enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning.
• Current Crisis: Meaning deficits have exploded since 2008, especially among the privileged and highly educated, driven by “grind” and constant digital distraction.
• “Affliction of the privileged”: “People who are earning more money struggle more with meaning than people who make less money.” (Arthur Brooks, 55:20–55:22)

6. The “Doom Loop” and Digital Addiction

Timestamps: 57:16–63:06

• Addiction Mechanics: Technology and social media exploit the same dopamine pathways as substances. The “doom loop” is using something to fix a feeling that the substance itself intensifies.
• Boredom Is Essential: “Detox yourself and allow yourself to be bored. That’s how you start to get clean.” (Arthur Brooks, 61:25–61:32)

7. Never Waste Your Struggle: Suffering, Faith, and the Search for Meaning

Timestamps: 64:28–75:12

• Struggle as Catalyst: “Unhappiness is not the absence of happiness… all our emotions exist for a reason, and the saddest times… is when you learn the most.” (Arthur Brooks, 64:36–65:54)
• Suffering Formula: “Suffering equals pain multiplied by your resistance to the pain... The right way to do it is to lower your resistance.” (Arthur Brooks, 67:53–68:33)
• Faith/Life Practice: Use gratitude for both joy and adversity as a daily affirmation to grow (72:27–72:53).

8. Imposter Syndrome, Self-Management, and Personality Growth

Timestamps: 77:33–87:40

• Intention without Attachment: “You need a goal. But you can’t be happy unless you detach yourself from actually attaining that...” (Arthur Brooks, 77:58–79:13)
• Aging and Emotional Mastery: Emotional self-management and personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness) generally improve with age. “80-year-olds are way happier than 30-year-olds.” (Arthur Brooks, 82:22)
• Imposter Syndrome: “You get more comfortable with the discomfort as you get older. Just stay humble and say, ‘I don’t know everything.’” (Arthur Brooks, 86:31–86:53)

9. The Dark Triad and Safeguarding Relationships

Timestamps: 88:11–90:44

• Dark Triad Traits: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy—“If you’re worried about it, you’re not [part of it].” (Arthur Brooks, 88:01–88:02)
• Practical Resources: Arthur provides free online tests for self-assessment at arthurbrooks.com.

10. Expect Change, Not Routine—Navigating Family Life

Timestamps: 91:38–94:32

• Routine vs. Adventure: “The only thing you can count on is change. One partner tends to crave routine, the other craves adventure. We’re supposed to complete each other, not copy each other.” (Arthur Brooks, 91:38–94:30)

11. The Conversation That Changed Everything

Timestamps: 94:34–98:39

• Arthur recounts overhearing a conversation on a plane: a world-renowned figure confiding to his wife that he felt forgotten and wished he were dead, despite a monumental life. This moment profoundly shifted Arthur’s own ambitions:
  “I don’t want to be having that conversation with you on a plane in 40 years... I dedicated my life [after that] to lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love for [God’s] will, using science and ideas.” (Arthur Brooks, 97:00–98:28)

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Memorable Quotes

• On Intimacy:
  “People will sleep with strangers, but they won’t pray in front of their spouse… prayer is more intimate than sex.”
  — Arthur Brooks (10:39)

• On Boredom:
  “Boredom is a good thing—if you want to access meaning and mystery, you have to get bored so your mind can wander.”
  — Arthur Brooks (31:46–32:32)

• On Suffering:
  “If you try to eliminate your unhappiness, you will accidentally eliminate your happiness.”
  — Arthur Brooks (66:28)

• On Intention vs. Attachment:
  “You need a goal. But you can’t be happy unless you detach yourself from actually attaining that.”
  — Arthur Brooks (77:58–79:13)

• On Aging:
  “80-year-olds are much happier than 30-year-olds. Emotional self-management gets easier, and your personality gets better.”
  — Arthur Brooks (82:22–84:28)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment/Insight | |--------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 02:45–09:40 | Four keys to lasting marriage | | 16:41–20:37 | Evolution, attraction, and psychological cues | | 38:46–48:52 | Genetic roots of happiness and building habits | | 53:38–57:15 | The rise of meaning crisis in the digital age | | 57:16–63:06 | Doom loops, boredom, and digital detox | | 64:28–75:12 | Suffering, surrender, and the meaning of pain | | 77:33–79:13 | Intention, attachment, and productive conversation| | 86:31–86:53 | Imposter syndrome and comfort with uncertainty | | 88:11–90:44 | The “dark triad” and relational self-protection | | 94:34–98:39 | The life-altering overheard conversation |

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Connection and meaning are found in the midst of struggle and real conversation—by choosing honesty, boredom, faith, and intentionality.
• Lasting marriage is built through small, daily acts (eye contact, touch, shared faith, fun) and not by default.
• True happiness isn’t a feeling, but the result of habits and willful acts—enjoyment, satisfaction, and above all, meaning.
• The search for meaning is more urgent than ever in an age of distraction; reclaim it by detoxing, seeking deep relationships, practicing surrender, and embracing the “why” of your existence.
• Lean into discomfort—imposter syndrome, struggle, and change signal growth, not disaster.
• Life is stochastic—not routine. Lasting peace comes not from things going as planned, but from understanding and accepting change together.

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Explore more from Arthur Brooks:
Take the happiness scale and explore free resources at arthurbrooks.com
Look for his new book: The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness

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Transcript

[Jefferson Fisher]

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stock the fridge for tip off with a variety of non alcoholic craft styles available at your local grocery store or [e-mail] you can near beer fit for all times have you ever questioned the meaning of your life? Well, today I am talking with none other than Arthur Brooks. You know him as the happiness expert. He is a behavioral scientist at the Harvard University, has his own lab. He is one of the best people I've ever met and this is only the beginning of the year. He has a book called the Meaning of your Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. You'll find the links down in the show notes. This book is releasing very soon. It's already on sale. I can tell you one of these this conversation is probably one of the most meaningful I've had because of the topics we went into. He's somebody that's almost double my age and so we get to dive into topics and lessons about marriage and faith and family and imposter syndrome and why you should be bored, why boredom is a good thing. You should be probably bored. More often. We dive into these things and what's best is he gets to use a lot of the science and research that he already used. This is a conversation that you're really going to get a whole lot of value from. You're going to want to make sure and listen. This is the Jefferson Fisher podcast where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. Wherever you're listening. Same as always. I'm going to ask right now that you find wherever you're listening and press the button. Subscribe. If you're watching it, listening to it, it's totally for free and what it does is it really helps me and my family and it tells the platform that what you're listening to is good stuff. And that's my promise. If you listen and subscribe to these podcast episodes, I'm going to make you a better communicator and in turn hopefully have a better life. My conversation with Arthur was deep and way more than I ever expected. I know you're really going to like it, so enjoy the conversation. But you have you always been and lived in Virginia area?

[Arthur Brooks]

No, no, I grew up in Seattle, I would say.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I thought you were in Seattle area.

[Arthur Brooks]

Grew up in Seattle. I've moved 20 times in the past 30. I've been married 34 years. We moved 20 times together. Every place, man. We lived in Atlanta, we lived in LA, we lived in Syracuse for seven years.

[Jefferson Fisher]

20 times.

[Arthur Brooks]

20 times. We lived in Barcelona for. Off and on for years and years. Yeah. We can't. I'm in the witness protection front.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, you might as well be. So with that, like, you moving all these other places and here you've been

[Arthur Brooks]

married, we'd say 30, 34 years.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. So then what's, what's. Give me some wisdom.

[Arthur Brooks]

What motivates that or what wisdom do you want actually recording? You want to talk about. Want to talk about how to fall in love and stay in love?

[Jefferson Fisher]

No, it's. It's. I'm. You know, I. We move, oddly enough. We move like every three years.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And so. And we've been married, it'll be 15 years this. You know, so still less than five years.

[Arthur Brooks]

On your way up. Once you're past five.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Five is the. Is the witching year.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Five is the witching year. I thought it was seven.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's the old seven year itch. But it's actually the data say five.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Really?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's a discontent peaks at five and then declines. And the reason is because the couples that stay together, they learn how to stay together. They learn actually how to make each other better and not how to make each other worse. You're making each other worse for the first five years, typically.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Because you're just like daggers drawn. This competition and the kids are getting between you, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then after that, it's. It's the couples that stay together, they're like, look, they look into the kids and they're like, it's us against them.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Exactly. I feel like it gets to a point where it's like, hey, look. Okay, I'm not that great.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You know.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. No, what happens is that couples that really stay together after about five years, typically the reason they start getting a lot happier after five years is, number one, that they bring more positivity to each other as opposed to bringing more negativity to each other, number one. And number two is they tend to get more religious together. And so couples that get more religious at the same time, they get happier and happier and happier.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I've seen that about people. Couples who pray together.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. So I can give you the. If you want, we can do it on the Show. But the sort of.

[Jefferson Fisher]

We're just rolling. We're already going.

[Arthur Brooks]

Are we doing. Are we rolling? Okay. The four secrets to.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Don't even worry about, like, the four

[Arthur Brooks]

secrets to either saving your marriage or actually having a happier marriage and based on neuroscience. So, number one is when you're. So you've been married 15 years, it's very easy because you're distracted. I mean, like, it's like your life is changing really fast. You're like, I don't know what's going on, man. Like, I blew up on Instagram. It was not on my bingo card. But you're distracted. And you're a lawyer and you're doing a podcast and you're doing. You have, like, nine jobs.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And your wife's super busy because she's practicing law. And how many children do you have?

[Jefferson Fisher]

We have two.

[Arthur Brooks]

And you're raising two kids.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And it feels they're in a certain age, so it feels like 20. Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It feels like you have five kids.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. So the first thing that. The first bad habit you get into is that, believe it or not, simple. You stop looking at each other in the eyes when you're talking. The number one way to rekindle your marriage is every time you're looking at her, you're staring her in the eyes. Now, women have three times, times as much oxytocin as men, which is a neuropeptide in the brain of human bonding. And the reason is because they bond to an infant with eye contact while nursing. And so when a baby is nursing with his mom, her mom, the baby is staring into the mother's eyes, and they're both just like this bonding neuropeptide that functions as a hormone, oxytocin. But the whole point is that you get that with anybody who you love when your friends, your parents, your kids, and especially your soulmate. This is how you take somebody who you're not related to and make them into kids. Women need more than men, and so men, they forget to look at their wives in the eyes when they talk to them. Now, when you first were falling in love with her, you're like staring into her eyes, Right. And you stop doing that. And that's what a lot of couples do. And so you basically, I'm going to make a note that every time I'm talking to her, which is every day, and before we go to bed at night, I'm just going to look at her in the eyes. That's all I'm going to do. She's Going to be like, I don't know why, but I feel so much closer to you. That's why. Because you're creating the neurochemical milieu for her to feel the love that she needs. That's number one. Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

All right.

[Arthur Brooks]

Number one.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'm just soaking it up.

[Arthur Brooks]

You don't even have to tell her.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Number two is something that. It's actually more important for women, but for men, too, is always be touching is abt. The ABT rules. Always be touching. That's more important for women to spontaneously touch their husbands. I'm not talking about sexual touch. I'm talking about just touch. So when you're in church, she's holding your hand. When you're watching tv, she's holding your hand. She's always touching you. And men really, really, really need that a lot. Yes, men need the touch. Men need the physical touch. When you're walking together, she slips her hand through your arm like that, and you feel like you're seven feet tall.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's why. That's actually. You're getting some. A neuropeptide called vasopressin. That gives it like. I'm the defender.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

But also, I'm. I'm. She. She loves me. She loves me. She depends on me. She's. She's holding on to me. She's holding on to me. And so that's number two. Always be touching abt. And couples, you know, they're married for a long time, they stop touching. You know, they're like walking together, hands in their pockets.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

You know, they're watching tv. They're on opposite sides of the couch. Nope. And when you're in bed together before you go to sleep and you're talking, looking each other in the eyes, just hold hands. Just hold hands. Number three is stop rehearsing your grievances, which, of course, there's plenty. Because you're living in captivity with another person. It's hard. And start having more fun, because fun will outrank grievance almost every time. And there could be grievances like, my husband is a philanderer. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about not abuse or disloyalty or abandonment, but ordinary things of annoyance that come into a relationship. That's like the stuff that's on the beach that you can't see when the tide is in. And then when the tide goes out, that's all you can see. And so you got to make the tide come back in again. That's Fun. Having more fun, more positive emotion as opposed to rehearsing negative emotion. So we're going bike rides together. We do stuff. What do we like to do together? Telling more jokes to each other. Actually doing more stuff together. That's why date night is so critically important, especially when you've got kids doing more stuff together that you both like. And you know, sometimes it'll be like, she likes it and he doesn't like. One thing that all wives don't know is that their husbands don't want to go apple picking.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, right.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's like, no more apple picking. But. But there is stuff that you do like to do together. And every couple does that. Do more of that. And the last is praying together. Praying together is super important. Not. Not everybody's religious. So, you know, maybe it's meditating together. Another way that you can do this is like reading to each other. So read to each other like in bed. So you're reading to her and she's reading to you. It has a really very strong brain to brain coupling effect. But praying together is the single most intimate thing you can actually do together, is talking to God. And the reason is because what you're saying is we are united with the divine. The divine is our uniting force. It's like two keys on a nuclear sub to launch the missiles. Yeah, that's like your marriage becomes an antenna to the divine when you do that.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I can tell when in my own marriage, Sierra feels way more connected when we share. We might be on a walk after dropping off the kids or something. And I share what God's doing in my life and she shares what God's doing in her life or what she's reading. And that super good. Oh, my goodness. It draws a different kind of connection in a way that just watching a show together could never.

[Arthur Brooks]

Nothing, there's nothing like it. And it's a very important thing that people in a religion, religious marriage, they will acknowledge that what makes their marriage stronger is that their spouse is not number one, that God is number one. God is number one. And you bring me to my number one. And my best way to get to my number one is you. And when you're not giving me my love, when you're not giving me your love, I'm not feeling God's love. See, this is the reason that in every religion, marriage is divine. Marriage is considered to be a divine institution because for the vast majority of people, the way they understand God is through the love of their spouse. And so then you realize it's like this is a big obligation to be married. When I'm not loving her actively, I'm denying her the experience of God's love. And that's not right.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right?

[Arthur Brooks]

That's not right. The best way to experience that every day is actually praying and seeing your spouse talking to her. Number one, is super heavy. Oh, yeah, it's super deep. And it's, like, way more intimate than, like, sex.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

I mean, people will sleep with strangers, but they won't pray in front of their spouse.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Isn't that funny?

[Arthur Brooks]

Isn't it funny? And that's because prayer is more intimate than sex.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I also find that there will be. When you have these kind of conversations, you realize that there are thoughts, like, for, I'll speak for me. There are thoughts that she's having that are way deeper than my thoughts. And so sometimes I'm like, I gotta get my stuff together. Like, she's thinking deep, and I'm thinking only two layers.

[Arthur Brooks]

I know. It's funny because part of it is that one of the things that women don't understand about, you know, men, because you'll be silent and in thought, and she'll be like, what's he thinking about? He's probably thinking about some other woman. He's probably thinking, he doesn't love me so much. And you're thinking about, how big would a bear have to be for me to beat that bear. Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'm serious. She'll ask me, she'll go, what are you thinking about While we were driving? And I was like, honestly, I was looking at that sign, I thought that l kind of looked a little funny. And I was like, I wouldn't have that L on that logo, like.

[Arthur Brooks]

And she was like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, I was like. I was thinking about if I got a racing stripe on the car, you know, what would it actually look? Something completely trivial. We're very simple. Men are actually emotionally simpler, as a general rule, than women are. And so when they talk deep, deeply about things like what we're talking about, here's the meaning of life. Women are actually. They have more talent at understanding the meaning of life than men do. And part of that is just the way that their brains work differently. Women have more developed right hemispheres of the brain of their brains. The right hemisphere is the hemisphere where you apprehend meaning and mystery. The left hemisphere is where think about how big the bear would have to be or how to actually create an app that will find you the closest pizza at 10pm to distract problems, technical problems, how to and what, how to and what Questions of the left hemisphere, why? Questions of the right hemisphere, the deep why questions. And women have generally. I mean, not all. I mean, your results may differ. This is the general class of population that women have a more developed right hemisphere. And so it's really interesting that they're like, why aren't you thinking about this? Why aren't you thinking about these emotionally important things? Like, I don't know.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

And how old are your kids?

[Jefferson Fisher]

They're six and eight.

[Arthur Brooks]

They're six and eight boys, so my

[Jefferson Fisher]

boys, eight girls, six.

[Arthur Brooks]

Okay. So when you're, you're going to see this in, in let's say in about seven years. So you'll ask your daughter and it's like, honey, how do you feel about that thing that happened at school today? Buckle up because you're going to get an hour long discussion.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right, right.

[Arthur Brooks]

If you ask your son about his emotions, he'll be like, like, what do you. I don't know, he'll be like eyeing the exits not because didn't want to talk about it, but because you asked him an unanswerable question. Because he's sitting on the left hemisphere and she's sitting in the right hemisphere.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, I saw this. I forgot which comedian I saw do this, but it was a, it was a story about. He had just gotten a text from a friend and he said, oh, hey, you know, Rob's been in an accident and his daughter's like, oh, well, is he okay? And he's like, well, I don't know. I just got it kind of. Yeah. Was it Foxworthy or on that tour?

[Arthur Brooks]

I think it was. And you know, he talked.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

She's been in a big accident and keep him in your prayers.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's right. That's right.

[Arthur Brooks]

She wants to know exactly. It's true.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And he's like. She's like, is he okay or are they all right? Do you know what hospital he's in? He's like, I don't know. I got like every.

[Arthur Brooks]

I know the same answer again and again and again. Yeah. Yeah. It's like men are simple in this way, but the whole point is that we complete each other. Yeah, we complete each other hemispherically is the whole point. And that's a very, that's a very beautiful thing.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. I don't. We'd be in a bad state without it. I really do without.

[Arthur Brooks]

Without women.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think like you said, it's not a good thing for men to be alone.

[Arthur Brooks]

Men who there's one statistic that often comes up in my business, which is that that men over 30 who have never been either married or partnered seriously have a 1 in 3 chance of substance use disorder.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Really?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And men just can't. They don't do very well out, you know, they don't do very well alone. It's like in the Bible says in Genesis, man is not meant to be alone.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like he's going to blow himself

[Arthur Brooks]

up or drive off.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Exactly, exactly. I'm like, it makes me laugh every time because I read it and I'm like, I think that's the only time I've seen in the Bible where a guy's like, you know what? Not the best idea for this guy to be alone.

[Arthur Brooks]

This is going to end poorly.

[Jefferson Fisher]

We need to get him something.

[Arthur Brooks]

No, it's like, you know, somebody was going to help him get his act together.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right. And I mean, Sierra is. She thinks so much more depth and also can show emotion a lot better. And I find there are times in conflict, in arguments, I have a hard time showing emotion. Even if I'm feeling it, I have a hard time expressing it. So it's like this, you know, this limited effectivity where it's like, I have thoughts, but all she's seeing is stoic.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's actually happening is you're thinking more analytically because you're dealing with problems on the what and how to side, which is the left side of your brain. And she's thinking about the deep why. And the deep why has a level of emotional depth. And again, you need both. You actually need both. That's why couples are such a great team when they're working together and when they don't work together because they're competing as opposed to collaborating, that's when things fall apart. And that's why divorces start to peak at five years.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Do you think that who you're married to also affects your career a lot?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, a lot. I mean, one of the things that's really bad is when couples are competing professionally with each other. And the way that you compete is you'll say something like, I took care of the kids yesterday. Today's your turn. It's like, no, that's the wrong way of seeing things, obviously. And the truth is that the couples that are the strongest are. When you win, she wins. And when she wins, you win, as opposed to when he won. That means I didn't. And that's not. That's obviously the Wrong vantage that you want for. You need a collaborative relationship. You want a competent, talented relationship. Yeah, for sure.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, I can definitely see where at times where it's. Whose job is more important.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Well, okay, well, I have this on tomorrow night. And you have that. Well, look my stuff. And you start competing in a way that's gonna.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, that's problematic. Bad. It's a really, really problematic thing for sure. And you know, the truth is that there are issues like that. And fairness is really important. Respect is really important to be sure. But you know, also men and women do best when they recognize that they have significant differences that are evolved differences. Our brains are in the current state as of about 250,000 years ago at the beginning of the late Pleistocene period. And that's when human beings lived in bands of 30 to 50 individuals that were kin based and hierarchical. That's how all human beings lived. And our brains are intrinsically, they're built to live under those circumstances. Which explains a lot of the weird things that people actually do. It's like, why do we care so much about social comparison? Well, because we want to rise, rise hierarchically in the band. Why do we go insane on social media? Why would you check your mentions and drive yourself completely crazy? Because you're trying to rise in a band of 30 people, but you've expanded that to 300 million people or something and you can't cope with that cognitively. But there are other things as well. So for example, biological females have a big investment in rearing children that we don't have. Men don't have, at least not biologically. The deed is done in a couple of minutes as opposed to it takes nine months. And then you're, you know, you have to be responsible for the care of the child. So the result of it is that women are a lot more interested in the resource cues and the commitment cues of a mate. That's why when women are interested in men, fundamentally they're most attracted toward resource cues. Now, if you don't have any resources because you're young and poor, that means potential resources. Why it's good to have muscles. Yeah, that's the reason that young guys want to have a lot of muscles is because what they're showing is that they'll be able to kill an animal and push a plow when they get older. They don't know why they want to have musc muscles is the whole point is. And then later on they peacock with a rented Ferrari driving down the boulevard in Miami beach because they want to attract girls. But they don't know exactly why they do that, because they want to show they have resources. And that's the reason that pathologies go into these relationships, too. Or you're 58 years old and you're still trying to bring home as much money as possible because you're showing resource cues to your wife. And Your wife is 58 years old and getting a lot of cosmetic surgery. So she'll show fitness cues, she'll show fertility cues. So that's what men are attracted to, is fertility cues. Fertility cues are hips to waist ratio, which actually shows how fit you are to have babies and whether or not you're pregnant. That is like the length of the hair and whether it's shiny because that shows whether or not that you're healthy. The whiteness of the teeth and the whiteness of the eyes. Men notice this without noticing it. They don't know. They notice this. But these are fitness or these are fertility kids.

[Jefferson Fisher]

How interesting.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's what happens. And so the result of that is that you can use this in a very good and holy way without being like, okay, I'm just, you know, look, I'm just an animal, right? I gotta go for the youngest possible girl. That's just stupid. You're gonna be married to your wife forever. But giving her, not inducing her to try to exhibit fertility cues forever, if that's unhealthy and her not to force you toward resource cues. On the contrary, just give her what she needs and have her give you what you need. What she needs to be adored.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yes.

[Arthur Brooks]

Adore her. And what you need is to be admired. Now, respect, of course, there's table stakes. Love, respect. These are table stakes. But the whole point is, the happiest marriages are the ones where you would fight a tiger for her with your hands and only her. And she is amazed that that is the biggest gazelle that anybody's ever dragged into the cave.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right? Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

You're so big and strong, it's going to feed our family for two weeks. And those are the happiest marriages.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'll tell her. Typically, I was like, look, if you just. Just touch me and tell me I'm

[Arthur Brooks]

awesome, like, that's really how amazing I am.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's all I really need.

[Arthur Brooks]

Because you know it's true.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, you know it's true. We say that as a joke, but it's always like, hey, look, that's all. You can make me super happy by just saying that.

[Arthur Brooks]

So for dudes, I mean, who don't can't quite figure out relationships. And my average student is 28 years old. I mean, I've got MBA students at Harvard. They're, you know, they've mastered business, they're going to make a lot of money and they're going to be really successful. But romance can be utterly baffling because nobody teaches you about that. There's some simple rules. Number one is adore her. I don't care how you feel right now. Adore her.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Number two is be admirable because it's hard for her to admire you when you're not admirable. When you're looking at pornography or you're gaming all night or you're smoking weed, that's not admirable. And everybody knows that. That might be fun for some people, but it's not admirable when you're not true to your word, when you're disloyal, when you're unkind to other people. Not admirable. And so what does it mean to be admirable and say it's like, who would I admire? How would I admire my dad, for example? I'm going to be that. And so be at. Adore her no matter how you feel. Adore her, because that's an action and a decision. And be admirable and you'll be fine.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Is that how you said you've been married 34 years, move 20 times?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Would you say the adoration being admirable? Is that the constant, you know, no matter where you're moving and when I'm

[Arthur Brooks]

screwing up because I'm too busy, because I'm preoccupied. I do adore her, but she doesn't see it. That's the problem. The number one way she's going to feel it is when I stare into her eyes. And that's how it ties back to the four fundamental rules of how to save. The protocols for saving relationships is that the act of adoration is like when you adore somebody, you're staring into their eyes. I mean, it's like. It's like she's awesome. And that shows. You're everything, baby.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You're everything.

[Arthur Brooks]

So that's actually how she sees it and how she perceives it neurochemically.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You said something a second ago that got my attention. You said that when you mess up and you're busy. So how does busyness kill connection, especially in communication?

[Arthur Brooks]

It distracts you from the more important things. So that's the whole thing. Stephen Covey used to talk about urgency and importance. So he would Say that you attend to the urgent, but you neglect, like, the important. And we all have urgent and important things in life, and urgent things distract you and the important things must get done, but you can actually put them off. And, you know, just like your soulmate, she's not going to, like, you screw up and you come home a little bit late or you're a little bit snippy with her, or, you know, you're kind of a grump. She's not going to divorce you for that.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's your, Your marriage is way more important than your job. I mean, I know I can do. I can. Yeah, I know you agree, right? It's way more important. Right. But it's not more urgent than your job sometimes. And so urgent things are like pecking at you and they're harassing you all the time. And when your whole life is a series of urgent things, you're going to neglect the important things. And that's why we actually do the things that we don't want to do. We get into trouble.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I find that when I have some of the hardest conversations with people and my community is really around communication and conversations, that the whole same for you.

[Arthur Brooks]

I mean, you're. I mean, that's, that's. You didn't know. You're going to be on the map of popular culture by doing what you do really, really well.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Thank you. No, you have no clue.

[Arthur Brooks]

Talking and arguing and helping people understand and being persuasive.

[Jefferson Fisher]

No clue. And I still want to talk to you about imposter syndrome.

[Arthur Brooks]

We can get there in the age of the Internet.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Exactly.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It's that I find that usually the. It corresponds at the heart of the conversation, but to have with somebody, the deeper we seem to connect. In other words, if I'm going through something really hard with somebody, that we come out of it somehow closer when I wasn't expecting that, and I was curious if there was any science of what you do at Harvard and happiness that might lead to say, hey, these are some things that unlock that depth of connection when you choose to say the hard thing.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, it can. And part of the reason is because you're actually digging into these big, more meaningful things. So, for example, one of the best ways for you to make friends quickly, when you move to a new place and you and I have some experience in this, we move right along.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It's hard to make friends as an adult.

[Arthur Brooks]

Pretend you've been there for 10 years. Pretend you've already been there for 10 years. And that means two weeks after you get there, you start inviting people over to your house. Don't wait for them to invite them. And that's after one month. Start a Bible study at your house. Start a book club. Whatever your thing is, do that. Right. And when you have people over, don't waste time on the nonsense. Go straight to the. Go deep or go home. Right. And so ask questions. Like, when you're having dinner with somebody and you're always like, what are you most afraid of?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, that kind of stuff.

[Arthur Brooks]

That kind of stuff. You know, it's what it comes. And some people can't handle it. I mean, it's like, this is one of the things that I'm married to a Spaniard. And so they're not afraid of deep conversations. Yeah. From Barcelona. And a lot of Americans, like, it doesn't feel polite in the whole thing, but it's like. Like, if you're uncomfortable. Okay, sorry. But we don't want shallow connections. We only want deep connections because life is short. I don't know. I mean, I'm five years away from when my dad died. I'm already five years after when my mother became demented. I don't know how long life is going to last. I'm not going to waste any time. I'm going to talk to you. We're going to talk about real things. We're not going to talk about. So how many draft picks you think The Seahawks? No, I mean, I realize I love the Seahawks, but for sure.

[Jefferson Fisher]

No, I find that I absolutely resonate with that, especially at this time of my life where if. If I can't go deep with you. Sorry. Like, I'm. You're. You're nice. I'll give you a hand. Yeah, but it's. But that's. You're just not gonna be my person, and I'm not gonna be. And so I find that when I was younger, I wanted as many friends as possible.

[Arthur Brooks]

Now, because you're super extrovert, right?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yes, that. That too. But it's like you. You. I thought at least the more friends you made, that's a good thing. But I find now I really just want a small collection. And what you said a minute ago struck me because one of the very good friends that I have here, first time, my first conversation with him, we start talking, and he was just out of the blue, he's like, so, how's your church life? How's your marriage? And I was like, what? Who asked me that? I haven't been asked that. And I can't. I can't tell you when. Usually it's like, oh, what do you do? Have you, you know, you check the news and it's like, wait, okay, now I can actually open up and now I can talk. And it's like, you somehow the more I. We have self disclosure.

[Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And you disclose and we disclose.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Oh, we can be real now. And now we can actually have a bond. And I think a lot of. I think a lot of people struggle with that.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, honesty is a form of love is what it comes down to. And like, and again, if there's something you're really ashamed of, you're probably not going to disclose it. Right. It's like, yeah, can we talk about my shoplifting habit? I mean, it's like that, right?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

On the other hand, look, most of us are married and guess what? My annoyances at home are the most common things in the world. So it's one of the things I was talking about with my class. I teach this class on the science of happiness in the MBA program and it's super popular because it's about the business of living your life and living your life in a businesslike way. Right. Like finding the love of your life with the same seriousness as you would set up a private equity fund or something. I mean, walk through it. Here's what the science says. And one of the things I was talking about are the things in families that everybody thinks is uniquely unfortunate. And so there's the first line of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The truth is, every unhappy family is alike. We all have the same problems. And I give an example that 11% of mothers between 65 and 75 is completely estranged with one of their adult children. 11%. Every single one of those mothers feels uniquely unfortunate and doesn't want to talk about it.

[Jefferson Fisher]

In therapy, they say terminally unique.

[Arthur Brooks]

Terminally unique.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. Everybody who goes into therapy or rehab, you think you're terminally unique. Nobody else can and be like me. And you realize.

[Arthur Brooks]

And if you're not a special, I mean, it's like all your problems are the same as anybody else's problems.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's aaa. I mean, it's getting together, recovery communities. That's exactly right. You realize. No, you all have the same.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. By the way, it's 26% of fathers.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's crazy.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's 26% of fathers. 38% of adults listening to us right now is completely estranged from one direct family.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Member that I can attest to. There are lots of people who come into the community and listen to our content, and they are estranged from at least one person in their life.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's horrible. And they feel like they're the only ones. And so when you're talking to somebody, don't never be afraid to go deep for precisely the thing that you're talking about, because human connection is what it's all about. Now, again, there are certain things you might not want to divulge because they're embarrassing to you or they might incriminate you in some way. But the truth of the matter is that there's nothing strange about these unfortunate experiences.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I like that. I like asking the deep question because it truly is. When I choose to say, you know what? I'm going to talk to that person. And I'm not going to sugarcoat a thing. When they ask, how are you doing? How are the kids?

[Arthur Brooks]

You want to know?

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'm going to. That's what I say. I'll start talking and I'll tell them, hey, you asked.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

So your life has changed a lot in the last five years, right? Is that fair to say?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, that's fair to say.

[Arthur Brooks]

What are you most afraid of?

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'm. Right now, I'm most afraid of that I am not devoting enough time to making sure that I can be as present as humanly possible with my kids here.

[Arthur Brooks]

And your wife. Yeah. And with God.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And God. Yeah. There's a lot of time where it's. I. I read this book. I really like it. It's the ruthless elimination of hurry. Oh, nice.

[Arthur Brooks]

John.

[Jefferson Fisher]

John. Mark Comer is his name. If you've read. Okay, there's him. John Ortberg. These two. Two authors are really like. And it's about how, you know, the instruction is you. The instruction was to lie. He lays me down in green pastures, Right. It's not. He signs me up for a half marathon. You know, it's not like, how do I just rest and not find ways. I'm just hurrying all the time. And I talked about this. You and I were saying how we just. You will talk about things that are in your OR lectures. And I talk to alone and myself in my camera. And one of the things I was really struggling with is how much hurry and busy just creep. They just. They creep into everything. And then I. I get to where it. It just has a way of shutting me off if I don't. I know you. You talk about be bored, you know, finding ways to just sit because it's not enough. Now it's if I'm in a waiting room at a doctor doctor, if I have to wait 10 seconds for a light to change or it's that constant. You say the left brain, right brain.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, but it's really, it's. Yeah. And this is in. Buddhists call it the monkey mind. But the whole point is that we've eradicated boredom with anti boredom devices and it's made our brains work wrong. And that's the reason we can't find the meaning of life, because we've actually induced ourselves to sit permanently in the left hemisphere, which is the how to and what. But that's what technology does. And the why questions become impossible to access because we're literally geographically in the wrong part of our brain to address these why to address the big why questions of our lives. And you need more space, you need more time, and you need more relationships. Now, it's an interesting thing, however, that you talk about. You're most afraid that by taking all the opportunities that you're taking that are coming at you constantly, that you're neglecting the things that actually matter the most. I get it, I get it. And what that is, is that's, you know, Mother Nature who doesn't care if you're happy, just wants you to be successful. Mother Nature wants you to grab the worldly rewards, money, power, pleasure, fame. Mother Nature wants you. And so those proclivities, what they do is they pull you away from, you know, you already told me the source of your bliss. The source of your bliss is your faith and your family and your friendship and doing things that actually serve other people. But Mother Nature says money, power, pleasure, fame. And that's a problem because mother Nature doesn't care if you're happy. She just wants you to be special. And people will, they will sacrifice their happiness to be special all day long. But most people have an advantage over you, however, which is they don't have that many opportunities to be special.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'm with you. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And so when you're offered these opportunities, what will happen is that you will walk yourself. You have the danger of walking yourself into deep unhappiness simply by doing what you have the impulse to do. The impulse to do like, I gotta take that opportunity, it's gonna be a pity. I'll regret it if I don't take that opportunity. And living in a mindful way on the basis of what your faith tells you is more important and what your heart says is true. Yeah, it's a real danger and me too.

[Jefferson Fisher]

This podcast is sponsored by you know it, Cozy Earth. I love Cozy Earth because of all of their products are not only soft and feel like a big warm blanket hugging you, they're also top tier quality and they stand behind the product. Now I just got done seeing some family this past weekend and we were all staying at my brother's house and my mom came out all ready for bed and guess what? She was wearing her cozy earth pajamas that I gave here. Now I have known this woman my entire life. Of course I have never seen her this crazy about some pajamas. They're made out of bamboo and it's a whole set and she cannot wait for me to get her more cozy earth pajamas. It's now become a thing and kind of an inside joke in my family about how much he loves these. So if you know somebody in your life who loves pajamas, before they go to bed and they want something that feels nice and cool and temperature breathing, cozy earth pajamas are what you want. And also they have 100 night risk free trial. So you can't beat that. Go to cozier.com Jefferson use the code Jefferson and get up to 20 20% off. That's cozyearth.com Jefferson and you can use the code Jefferson to get up to 20 off. And now let's keep going on the episode. I've always been the type. I've always been ambitious.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm a father that was been special.

[Jefferson Fisher]

No, I've always been ambitious.

[Arthur Brooks]

Since you were a kid?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Probably. Yes. I'm the oldest of four. Probably. I've probably fallen right into the category of.

[Arthur Brooks]

And your parents are alive. Yeah. And they're a good relationship with your mom and dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

They're coming this evening.

[Arthur Brooks]

Oh, that's great. Is your dad a lawyer?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, dad's an attorney.

[Arthur Brooks]

When you were a kid, did you often feel like you got a lot of attention when you brought home a good report card or six years?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, yeah, it was. You were a representative of the whole family.

[Arthur Brooks]

So high achieving kids, their parents are awesome. Of course the problem that a lot of high achieving kids have is that they deduce something that's not true, which is that love is earned and love isn't earned. Love is a free gift, freely given. It's a grace. You know, you can't earn God's love. You can't earn your wife's love. You can't. And if you try to earn her love, you'll drive her away, which is the paradox of that. And so what strivers and super achievers have they weirdly keep being successful? Like, I'm a successful lawyer and I don't know, I was successful on Instagram and I'm a successful podcaster. What's going on? And the answer is, and to a certain extent, that a lot of real strivers, they're trying to earn love. They're trying to. It's like, what's enough? Am I lovable yet?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. What's enough?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And of course, there is no enough.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Do you find that there is a balance or a middle ground for people who are listening right now and they're ambitious to say you can have ambition and be happy versus ambition and be empty?

[Arthur Brooks]

For sure. You need the ambition for the right thing and you need to. What are your ultimate versus your intermediate goals? There's nothing wrong with money. I'm a capitalist, baby. I believe in the free enterprise system. Look, the free enterprise system is literally what's wiped out poverty around the world. And it's the only force that ever has is people lifting themselves up. 80% of world poverty has been eradicated since I was a kid. Nobody knows that it's the capitalist system that did that. It's not the UN or the International Monetary Fund. No, man. It's markets spreading around the world. That's America's gift to the world is the free enterprise system for sure. But you can't be animated by the currency of that system, which is money. The currency of your life that matters is love and happiness. That's what the enterprise, the startup of Jefferson Inc. Is, is love and happiness. And you have to be able to get those currencies. Now, money, fine. Power, if you're using it for good ends, great fame, terrific. If you're refracting people's admiration for you toward things that matter, like love and God. And the things, if they look at your life and they're like, I really admire him. He's awesome. He's awesome. And he's a big Christian. Good. And they go for that and their life gets better. That's terrific. But those are only ever intermediate. Go become your goals per se. You'll never have enough. It'll be like drinking seawater. The more you drink, the thirstier you get. Those simply have to be intermediate goals to get to the things that matter the most, which are your faith and your family and your friendship and the way that you serve the world through the way that you earn your daily bread.

[Jefferson Fisher]

How do you find? Yeah, daily bread. So good. How do you find? Because you've written how many books?

[Arthur Brooks]

It sort of depends. Good books or books.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, I mean, I know. So let's just put it this way. Your book is endorsed by Oprah and the Dalai Lama. Let's go with that. Okay.

[Arthur Brooks]

You teach your class at Harvard, Inner peace.

[Jefferson Fisher]

There we go. I can't wait. And you teach your class at Harvard on happiness. And so I've always, it's at least true for me for the people who find that passion that they like to talk about, and they stuck to it. And yours is happiness that either came at it from great personal struggle and personal pain or they just made it up.

[Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You know, and so, and so I, I, I find that with everybody you see on it, it takes nobody. There are people who say therapist things that aren't a therapist people you talk about legal things that don't, you know. And so here you are, a behavioral scientist that talks about happiness. And there's plenty of people who are spouting happiness juice, and they're not, they don't know anything about it. So, like how with your wife, your kids, and I think you have three kids.

[Arthur Brooks]

Three kids and four grandsons.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's awesome.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. If you lived all these places, and now here you are at a place you probably never thought you'd be when you were back playing the French horn.

[Arthur Brooks]

No.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And so if you told me that, I would have said you were on drugs.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right, Exactly. And so it's like, how is that happiness, that journey, gotten there?

[Arthur Brooks]

So the reason I study happiness is because it's what I want. And it's not easy for me. It's not the easiest thing. Now, half of your happiness is genetics. So in other words, your baseline level of, well, being, about half of it is your mom's fault. And we know this from identical. And dads and grandma and grandpa, of course, the identical twins separated at birth and adopted into separate families. That's a great, great natural experiment using pretty easy statistical methods to find out what part of your personality, including your happiness, your natural happiness level, not just with, with circumstances, but generally how much of it is, is in your genes and how much of it is circumstantial and or environmental. And it's about half. And I have gloomy genes.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Gloomy jeans.

[Arthur Brooks]

I got gloomy genes. You know, I had, you know, my, you know, my parents suffered a lot. They suffered a lot with, you know, problems and, and issues and, and, and I got to, I got to a, you know, my life wasn't where I wanted it to be, you know, and things had gone great because I'm very special.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Very special.

[Arthur Brooks]

You know, I, you know, run. I've been as chief executive of a company, and my academic career had gone well. Even my musical career went well. Part of that was because I'm a super striver. I want to win. I want to win. I want to win. And I. Every 10 years or so, I'd take my career down to the studs and start again on a new thing and see if I could win that. Yeah, So I didn't, you know, playing the symphony orchestra to really. Well, go back to graduate school, become an academic, do that, go back, be a CEO, that. And by the end of that last one, my wife said, esther, she said, because she loves me. I don't know why. And she said, you know, you need to solve your problem. Like, what are you talking about? She said, you need to be happier. And I said, what do you suggest? What do you suggest, honey? And she said, don't you have a PhD? Why don't you use it for something useful? And so I. I actually dedicated myself to cracking the code on this. And cracking the code on anything is basically on any skill is kind of three steps. You know, if you want to become a really good golfer, you better learn about golf. You better golf a lot. And if you really want to be good, you better teach somebody to golf.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Let's put it in terms of communication. Somebody wants to be a good communicator.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, you want to be a good communicator. Watch a ton of people's speeches, give a ton of speeches and teach people how to be good speakers. That's how you become a great communicator. If you want to be a surgeon, you watch a bunch of surgeries, you do a bunch of surgeries, and you teach a bunch of surgeries. That's literally the method at the Harvard Medical School for becoming a teacher is watch one, do one, teach one. That's what they call it. That's how you get good at something. And I've seen. My dad was a brilliant mathematician who's a mathematics professor, and I saw him giving these incredible calculus lectures. And I was, how do you know that? He says, because I'd done a lot of problems and I've learned about it, and I've been living with it for 40 years, and I've taught this class 100 times. That's how you get really, really good at something. I know that for a fact. I'm an old school educator. And I said, happiness Works the same way. I know it works the same way. So I dedicated myself full time. I mean, I'd done the behavioral science. I'd written about happiness in the past, but I said, okay, from now on until I die, I am going to study the science of happiness, including the neuroscience and behavioral correlates and the philosophy, put it all together. I'm going to change the way that I live, and I'm going to bring it to as many people as I possibly can, because I'm a selfish man and I want to be happier. And that was the genesis of this.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's what I. What you said stuck with me. And it was because I needed to get better at it, like. And that right there has so much truth.

[Arthur Brooks]

Were you always a silver tongue devil?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Probably not, you know, but I've always been. Been a talker. That I know. But I grew up around the corner.

[Arthur Brooks]

You could have been a carny. You could have been, like an auctioneer.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. I could give you the best stuffed toy ever, you know, But I've always grown up around the courtroom.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And so that gives you a lot of different elements of how juries react and how courtroom, bailiff, judge, court reporter, everybody. And that's influenced me. But what you said definitely stuck is why'd you go here? It's because I need to get better at it. And so there's. There's so much of that, that when we pick these little things that it's. I forget what it is. There's like that saying of those that can't do teach or something like that. It's like, if I have a problem with it, you start talking about it. You naturally start talking about those who

[Arthur Brooks]

want to do teach. It's the kind of thing where a lot of people will say, why should I take advice on how to drink responsibly from a former alcoholic? That's exactly whose advice you should take. Because he wanted to stop drinking abusively. And so he learned what he needed to do, he practiced it, and now he's sharing it.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's expertise.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's how expertise works. You should always go to a former drunk if you don't want to be drunk.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's what it comes down to. That's really what. And so that's what everybody's got in common, is they're sharing this thing that they're doing because they want to be better at that thing.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. And I know I want to bring that back to this busyness element of what things that you want to work on. And I like that you talked about gloomy genes, like there are people listening. They might have gloomy genes. There are people who are more predisposed to certain.

[Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Or is that. Is that what you think?

[Arthur Brooks]

Absolutely.

[Jefferson Fisher]

More predisposed to a certain behavior, mentality.

[Arthur Brooks]

Most of most things are genetic. Much of what we do is genetic. Right?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. I never thought of it that way. Somebody's more predisposed to be difficult or

[Arthur Brooks]

stubborn or.50% of your tendency to be a drunk is genetic.50%. But if you came to me and it's like, arthur, I'm in trouble. Both my parents drink too much, and all four of my grandparents are like, my granddads were bootleggers, I'm doomed. I'm saying, no, no, no, no, no. Because that's only 50%. The other 50% is your habits. And I've got this super habit that can turn your genetics for drinking down dessert. Zero. It's called not drinking. And so if you know yourself, you got power, you can manage your genetic through your habits.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yes.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's a beautiful thing. It's an incredible thing. I teach happiness because when you have the skills, you can win and your life is richer and better. And then the best part of all is you become a happiness teacher. This is how we change the world, right? I mean, this is why you're doing your stuff, because you want people actually to learn how what you teach them can enrich their lives. And you want them to pass it on.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right? Yeah. Yeah. I truly believe a better world begins with a better conversation. That's what I say. But I've never thought about it as genes of things you're predisposed to. And so if it's like you're listening, you're going, I don't know, am I predisposed? I'd say, first look to your parents. Do you have a mom or a dad? That seems to be way more difficult in conversation. Or somebody who's always a victim or like, hello, you are going to have those genes in you. Maybe you're not the victim all the time, but you still have those in you.

[Arthur Brooks]

And the environment matters, too. I mean, if your parents are really difficult and they're all screaming at each other, or if you're. Let's just say that you're struggling with your marriage and you're arguing with your spouse all the time and you're yelling at each other and that kind of stuff. Okay, let's figure out how I got into the situation. Part of it is the nature of my marriage that I need to change. But part of it is probably what I saw, and part of it is who I am. And none of that can't be changed. All of that can be changed. But it starts with knowledge and commitment. That's really what it comes down to. And that's what's so beautiful about human existence. You know, we have this thing, the most modern part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is 30% of our brain by weight, this console of tissue right behind our forehead, that's like, that's the supercomputer, that's the C suite. That's the managing partner is sitting up there. Right. Is right there. And that's where you actually get the data that's coming to like your emotional data, the limbic system, which is ancient, between 2 and 40 million years old, that creates your emotions. And all your emotions are signals about what's going on around you. You perceive a threat, you get negative emot. You get negative bad feelings, so called bad feelings. You perceive an opportunity like mates or calories or something, you get positive emotion. Right? And what that does is those positive emotions are signals to you that something's up and that you should act. But your prefrontal cortex, the C suite, is where the CEO of your brain's like, okay, I'm not going to do this. Okay, I'm going to do that. That's what it comes down to. And that's how we need to actually treat our emotional lives. And the things that are coming at us all the time is nothing more than signals. And that we get to make decisions. Now that prefrontal cortex is amazing because your dog can't do that. Your dog gets the emotional signals and then acts according to animal instinct. We have animal instincts too, but because of the complexity and size of our prefrontal cortex, we also have moral aspirations. So we get this like emotional signal. It's like you're mad. So the dog would like bite some bite the postman or something like that, and you're mad. So you're going to yell at your spouse.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

But you can actually do things like wait and think and use technique such as counting to 10, for example, or 100, depending on how bad the conversation is. You can journal, you can go away and come back later and you can decide, I'm going to live in the space of my moral aspirations. I'm not going to live in the space of my animal impulses. That's a miracle.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. Amen. That is a miracle. I know that often, like I think in my own life. There are things I do and say. I'll be like, dang, that was my day. Like, I just know as soon as I did it. Or my, my sister, I'll call her. And she sounds identical to my mom. And there's so much that is, who is this? I know there'll be times. Yeah, well, it's like, is that mom? And I, I catch myself second guessing. And so I find that so much of how I respond, even to my kids, I'll be like, oh my gosh, that was my mom. And so much of it is just passed down. And so we mirror how we saw arguments. Because I had friends who had a best friend when I was like in first grade. And I'll never forget, I'm eating Cheerios at his house after spending the night. And his parents go at it. I mean, I mean, she is screaming, he's screaming. And I am like, just mortified.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Because you've never seen, you'll never think of these people, adults like that talking about to each other.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I've never seen that before. And I was mortified. I mean, I was just frozen. And my friend is. He didn't even look up from a cereal. I mean, he's just eating like it was no problem. And so it's just another Saturday morning. It's just another Saturday morning. And how many people. And they argue how they saw their parents argue or they experience.

[Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Jefferson Fisher]

There's some people who, it's like they can't feel love unless you're in an argument and a fight. Like that's the way that they have to experience that. And so, so it's just so funny to me. It really struck a chord with me of so many times we're predisposed to.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, predisposed toward because of environment or because of genetics. But none of that is deterministic. None of that is path dependent. And that's not path dependent creatures. We're just not. I mean, it might be harder. I mean, you might have a bad temper. I mean, I can actually, you know, there's a lot of research on people who, you know, when they yell, when they're angry, those people have a large, physically, many times have a physically larger amygdala. You know what the amygdala is? That's a part of the limbic system. It's shaped like an almond. It's a bilateral organ. Amygdala means almond in Latin. And the left and right do slightly different things. It doesn't matter. They're about fear and anger. And it's physically larger, they activate faster, and they make you more reactive. They make you more emotionally reactive. Negatively, in the case of something makes you angry, you get angry fast. You jump, man. And so if you know that, then you got to do more work. But you got to know. Know it. You got to know it. You're not like, that's who I am.

[Jefferson Fisher]

No. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's what my tendency is to be, but that's not who I want to be.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You put this in your book. This is. And you're gonna have to forgive me on the title. You. You broke down the happiness of these four macronutrients.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And the three macros. The three macros, the protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. Tell me.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah. The enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three macronutrients of. Of happiness. They're. The four happiness habits are different. That's faith, family, friends, and work. Yeah. Faith, family, friends, and work. So those are the habits of the people who have the most happiness.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And you. What I liked so much about that book was that you said happiness is not some feeling. There are things that you have to do as an act of will.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Like you have to actually make the decision to step into it completely rather than just go, well, I hope that

[Arthur Brooks]

this is so many things that we. We chalk up to feelings, because we're all about feelings in our culture. And so people think, I'll ask my students, what's love? And it's like, it's how I feel about it. No, to love, according to Thomas Aquinas, and this is Aristotelian thinking, this goes way back, is to will the good of the other. And it has nothing to do with feelings. To like somebody is sentimental, but to love somebody is a decision. That's what it comes down to. That's how you stay married, by the way, because you love them, notwithstanding your feelings. If love were a feeling, I was. I wouldn't have been married 34 years. I wouldn't have been married 34 minutes. Because that's probably when we had our first big argument. I'm married to a Spaniard. They know how to fight, man. That's like a form of communication in Spain is all out war. So that's really, really important thing to keep in mind. And happiness, too. It's not a feeling. Happiness has feelings attached to it. It's not like the smell of your turkey is evidence of your Thanksgiving dinner. Your happy feelings are evidence of happiness. And if you want to get happier, you better know the macronutrients. Are. Are just like, if you want to cook dinner, it's going to be worth anything. You need to know, actually, what goes into the dinner. Protein, carbohydrates and fat, plus ingredients and spices and all the different things the way that you know how to cook. And so what I teach my students is how to enjoy their lives, how to take satisfaction in their accomplishments and activities, and how to find the meaning of life. And that's what the new book is about. Because the big crisis for my students and almost everybody else in America today is that they don't know the meaning of their life.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I would probably venture that's something that's been around for a while, but I don't know if it's ever been as bad as it was.

[Arthur Brooks]

Oh, it's much worse. It's much, much worse. I wouldn't have written this book 20 years ago. I wouldn't have written this book. I started thinking about this subject in about 2015 is when I started seeing the crisis and the data. And then I started interviewing young people in particular. And what you found was, after 2008, there was a progressive explosion of people saying, I don't know the meaning of my life. I don't know if my life has meaning for the first time. For the first time. There's only been like, 5% of the population that would say that. Yeah, I've never seen it.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It took off.

[Arthur Brooks]

It took off after 2008.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I want to. First, I want to understand the doom loop that you talk about in your book, which is fantastic. And then the other element of this that I'm going to want to bring it back to is, can somebody. Have you seen the big lebag?

[Arthur Brooks]

Okay.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Like, just the dude. He's just, you know, there. The people that seem to not be these big striders.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Strivers.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Versus the people that actually are like, these people are. Don't struggle as much with the meaning of life. I feel like. And the ones that are ambitious try to be super successful. They're the ones that struggle so much with what's the meaning of life.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's the meaning of life. It's funny, isn't it? Yeah, it's really funny. And you wouldn't think that, you know, when I do these interviews with young people, you find that college graduates and people who are doing really well, they'll often say, I have everything and I feel nothing, and they're really guilty about it. And what you find is that college graduates struggle more with meaning than people who didn't go to college. People who are earning more money struggle more with meaning than people who make less money. That we find it's an affliction of the privileged.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Affliction of the privileged.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's actually the psychogenic epidemic that's your most likely to catch the disease when you have this. And the reason for this is actually that our culture of grinding and hustle, and most notably, where the tip of the spear is a constant use of technology, it induces strivers to use their brains in exactly the wrong way. So when you think about it, it's like your great grandfather, he was using his brain the way it was supposed to be used. He never came home. And where was he? In Texas someplace?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, he never came home. Was he in farmland? Farmer?

[Jefferson Fisher]

No, he's an attorney. He's a judge.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, let's go back and tell. There was a farmer who would never have come home and said, honey, I had a panic attack behind the mule today.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Oh.

[Arthur Brooks]

And the reason was because his brain was working the way it was supposed to, because he wasn't constantly plugged in to the technology and to the technologized culture. We've moved all of our brain activity to the wonder and the mystery and the meaning and the mind wandering behind the mule. Life was pretty boring from moment to moment, but life in general was pretty darn interesting. Today, life from moment to moment is never boring, but life overall is pretty boring for a lot of young people today. You know, you get to the end of the day and you don't even remember what podcasts you listen to or what YouTube shorts you watched. You were never bored for a single second, but you're like, that was boring.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And. And you can get to the end of a year and go like, I don't know how I spent that year. The time just slipped by. And that's the great irony. The reason is neurophysiology. The reason is biological, is the fact that we're using our brains in the wrong way. And what we need to do is to get back to the right side of our brain. This book is a six point plan to relearn the meaning of your life in six months to get out of the doom loop. It's completely science backed. It's like if you do these things, you do these six things in six months, you'll know the meaning of your life and your life will never be the same.

[Jefferson Fisher]

The ones that stuck out to me the most was when you look at this element of boredom.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

All right.

[Arthur Brooks]

Getting bored is one of them. Yeah. It's Actually part of the first part about getting clean.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Oh, clean, clean.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, but we're deeply, deeply addicted. Yeah. We need to detox. And so when you talk about a doom loop, all addictions work in the same way, where what you're doing to alleviate a problem is actually creating the problem. That's how doom loops work. And so alcoholics, for example, you've met a lot of alcoholics in your life, not out. We all have, you know, we've all known a lot of drunks. And I don't drink at all. Right. Because I've got a lot of it in my family. And it's just like it doesn't. I know where it goes.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. The pain you want to avoid is the pain that you're causing.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. But the pain you're trying to avoid is either. Is almost always either boredom or anxiety. So people who are bored make their own party inside their head. People who are anxious, they will actually put out the storm. And alcohol is really interesting as a drug. It's incredibly effective at cutting the connection between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. So the amygdala, remember, is the part of the limbic system that gives you fear and anger and anxiety is unfocused fear. Those activity of the amygdala, you can't quite right. And then your prefrontal cortex says you're super stressed out. You can cut that connection. So you'll be experiencing a lot of anxiety in your limbic system, but you don't know it because the connection has been cut. Alcohol does. Does that. Alcohol just shuts it off. Shuts off the connection, not the anxiety. The trouble is the anxiety is still there and comes back to your consciousness with a vengeance the next day. So if you're. And if you're. Especially if you're bored and anxious, it's a really big problem. But this is one of the reasons, by the way, that people who are above average income have a greater propensity toward alcohol abuse than people who are below average income. People don't know that. The reason is because people are above average. They're not in a ditch. You know, they can actually, they have the. The kind of life where they can hide it better. But the truth is that you're more likely if you have a higher paying job and you have more education and you're working long hours, you're in danger for alcoholism. You're in. Is as sure as we're sitting here, everybody listening to us, that's working 70 hours a week. They're like no more 100. Because you're an associated law firm. Like, you're in danger for alcohol, alcoholism. You are. And so you have to take care of. This is what it comes down to. If you treat with alcoholism, if you treat with alcohol, the next day, you're going to be more stressed out. You're going to feel more anxiety the next day. And that's the doom loop.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

You actually alleviated pain, and it came back. And that's going to lead to escalation. And escalation has to do with. It actually leads to more and more dependence. And that's even before there's addiction, just dependence. It's like, I just don't. I can't get through. I can't get through this unless I'm drinking alcohol is the whole point. Even before physical addiction. And so that's how every doom loop works. Okay, now back to the current culture, which is a technologized culture, and people are very, very addicted to their machines. It's used as the same neurochemical pathways for every addiction. It involves dopamine, which is the neuromodulator of wanting, learning, and liking. And so nature put dopamine in our brain so that we get this little reward when something goes right and we like it, so that we'll do it again. You find berries on a bush 250,000 years ago, and you're like, that's great. The real reward is not the berries. It's how it made you feel. And you induced yourself to go back there the next day. You learned. It's how you learn stuff. That's how you learn to do things that are rewarding. The problem is, that's also how you learn to go to Vegas and gamble away your paycheck. That's how you learn to actually look compulsively at pornography on the Internet. All these things work the same. Dopamine pathways, alcohol, and also the Internet.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I've always thought that. Or let me rephrase that. I know my own life. I get in the biggest amount of trouble. Trouble when I'm bored.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Like it's. And what you're also saying. Yeah, yeah. But it's. It's not just when I'm bored. It's when I'm alone, when I. I have nothing. I'm choosing not to have some kind of positive outlet.

[Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And it's. It's going. Going back to. It's not good for him to be alone.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And so is to me, what you're saying is be bored.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Because all of these distractions of screens and busyness is keeping you from higher level thinking.

[Arthur Brooks]

Detox yourself and allow yourself to be bored. That's actually how you start to get clean. And then there's the whole set of plans on how you need to live differently. But the very beginning is I can't tell you to get new friends and find a better job. If you've been addicted to alcohol, the first thing you have to do is get you de addicted to alcohol. And so the two big parts are, number one, you need to get mad about the fact that you've been hooked on these technologies and you're frittering away your time and you're distracting yourself from things that really matter and, and you're hopelessly bored with your life. But you can't stop scrolling social media. You can't stop. And that's because your brain has become dependent on these impulses is what it comes down to. You should be mad about that because that's the first thing that every former drinker does is they're like, I'm not going to put up with this anymore. I will not have this thing enslave me anymore. The second thing you need to do is actually take detox steps. You need protocols for detoxing and you, you're not going to throw your phone in the ocean, but you can use it in a responsible way. And this book lays out the steps on actually how you can detox from your phone in a way where you're using technology responsibly and it's not managing you anymore. It's just very simple stuff that you can actually do. Once you institute these policies in your life, your relationship with your phone is going to change. And then last but not least, you need to actually induce boredom so your brain can start working in the right way again. You can turn on the default mode network, which is the structures in your brain that illuminate that let you mind wandering wonder, consider questions of meaning that that great great, great, great, great grandpa did naturally, without even having to think about it.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about mill. Now listen to me when I talk to you about this. It has become a staple of our kitchen. We love our mill. My kids love our mill. And I'm going to tell you exactly the reason why. MILL is the odorless, effortless, fully automated food recycling recycler that handles the cleanup after dinner is over. Now why we love it so much in our house right now, especially my daughter, she's into Cooking. And when I say cooking, she likes to make eggs. She finds any reason, even during the day, doesn't matter the morning, to fix eggs. And so it's a very entry level way for her to cook. She has become the rule enforcer that instead of putting eggs in the trash can, we put eggs in the mill. And you can just put eggshells. Not just eggshells. You can put just about anything you think of, anything that you would scrape into the trash can, you can put into the mill. And it turns it into dry shelf stable grounds, which is incredible. And our kids love it. It's really a surprise product. We did not expect to love mill as much as we do, but we do. It has been incredible and I can't imagine having a kitchen without it. You can try mill risk free for 90 days and get $75 [e-mail] Jefferson use code Jefferson at checkout. That's $75 [e-mail] jefferson use code jefferson. And now back to the episode. There is a part in your book that I really adore.

[Arthur Brooks]

What's that?

[Jefferson Fisher]

And that is you say, never waste your struggle.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Why? Why should we never waste our struggle?

[Arthur Brooks]

So that there's a basic scientific point, but a lot of it's really, it comes down to a lot of us who have religious convictions will understand naturally as well. So unhappiness, which is different than happiness, it's not the absence of happiness. Happiness and unhappiness, which are usually registered through emotions that we feel, all of our emotions exist for a reason. Your negative emotions exist to give you alarms about what's going on in the outside world. And if you didn't have them, you get run over by a car immediately. You need fear, you need anger, you need disgust, you need sadness, you need these negative emotions. But they're largely processed in the right hemisphere of the brain, which is the same part of the brain where you assess mystery and meaning. And that's one of the reasons that people will say, I found the meaning of my life. When I had cancer, I found a great deal of the meaning of my life. I understood the meaning of my life more when I lost my mom, when I lost my business. The saddest times, the most difficult times in people's lives is when they learn the most. This is also the reason that you and I as Christian men, that we worship a man who's suffering and dying. The meaning of my life is my relationship with God. This is the central part of the meaning of my life. And I worship a God. Made manifestation in humanity suffering and dying on a device of torture. That's super heavy.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It's very heavy.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's crazy. By worldly standards. By human standards.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

How can I understand the meaning of my life by looking at Jesus hanging on the cross? Yeah, we're coming to Easter, baby, right?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

We're in Lent right now. But that's what we need to contemplate. Because suffering, because death, because struggle, because pain, they're central to the experience of understanding who we are as people. And when we try to eradicate those experiences, experiences will be unto us what we will be eradicating is the central component of the happiness that we seek. If you try to eliminate your unhappiness, you will accidentally eliminate your happiness.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Oh, that's a good way to put it. I find that when people hit their rock bottom, it's usually the first time they start looking up. I know and I know I feel I've had rock bottom, and I feel almost.

[Arthur Brooks]

Have you?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've had times where I, I, I don't think I could. Could have gone any lower than where I was. And let me tell you that.

[Arthur Brooks]

And you're 38 years old.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, I'll. I'm 37. I'll be 30 this year. And, and there's.

[Arthur Brooks]

So probably I'll have another one, I'm sure. Well, probably the worst thing in your life hasn't happened yet.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, probably. So.

[Arthur Brooks]

Sorry. Don't be to scare you.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Can't wait. Can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. Let me tell you, it was enough for me if it wasn't rock bottom.

[Arthur Brooks]

It was hard. Super hard. It was on the bottom third of that, you know. Know.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Well, I. I learned that if my day doesn't start with surrender.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It's never going to go well. You know, it, it has to have this daily. So how does that show up in conversation? That means. All right, you want to tell me I'm wrong. All right.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's okay.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You know, you want to cut me off and merge right in front of me. You know what? Go right ahead. It's like if. And it's not a place of being deferential.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It's to me, a higher presence of just being in awe of I can exist and still feel like I'm every bit as present as I can be.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. So there's a formula for what you just said.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Oh, good. I hope you'd have.

[Arthur Brooks]

You spoke it very eloquently. And the formula actually comes from a lot of different philosophical traditions, but here's how the Buddhists put it. But it's completely consistent with our Christian faith, too. And any real philosophy. Suffering and pain are not the same thing. Pain happens to you because things happen to you. You know, pain, physical pain, which we call sensory pain, you put your hand on a hot stove, you break your arm. That's inflammation and nerve endings, and it's processed in a certain part of the brain. Affective pain is the second part where you're like, I don't like that. That's a different part of the brain is actually where that happens called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, in case you're keeping score at home, kids. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And. And so pain happens to you all the time, and you need pain because if you don't have pain, you're in trouble. Pain is a signal that something isn't right and that something is a threat and that something needs to change. That's why you have that signal. But suffering is not the same thing. Suffering equals pain multiplied by your resistance to the pain. And so suffering, it isn't optional, but you've got a slider bar. Now, the thing that a lot of people get wrong, especially when they're young, is when they're suffering, they think that they need to lower the pain. Pain. And sometimes you can't. The right way to do it is to lower your resistance. Because when you lower the resistance, your suffering goes down. Even if your pain is high, when you know you're in the zone of living the way you're supposed to live, when you're getting toward the enlightenment that you actually seek, it's because your pain is sky high, but your suffering isn't. And that means you're actually not afraid of the pain and that you're accepting it a lot. And so something happens to you. And the little tiny thing, which is like, he cuts you off and you're like, okay, that's non resistance. You just practice non resistance. So when you go through your lowest time and in the stock market, it's interesting what happens when the stock market's really going south. Like a bad recession. Stock market's going down by 40%. You know, when it's about to turn around again. The tell is what stock traders call the puke. Now, the puke is when institutional investors, they can't stand it anymore, and they sell and they sell. And when the institutional investors, they do the puke, when they sell, it's about to turn back up again, traditionally. So what happens is that surrender, that's like Stock market, surrender. And so when you're at the lowest point in your life and you do the puke, what you do from then on is like, okay, yeah, okay. And that's what you learn from pain. What you learn from pain is how to suffer less because you start working the other way lever. And that's a source of meaning.

[Jefferson Fisher]

It doesn't make the pain any less.

[Arthur Brooks]

No, no. Because the pain is the pain, man.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Well, agree. And also when you say you're lowering your resistance, you're accepting more pain.

[Arthur Brooks]

Totally. And there's sometimes, I mean, we're in the serious season of Lent and I'm a Catholic and we practice Lent. We know how to do Lent, maybe. And we bring on pain such that we can get better at non resistance to it. And people think about that's crazy. You know, the monks, they'll be flagellating themselves or wearing a hair shirt. But you know, we do this all the time. You know, I go. You go to the gym every day. So do you.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's not because it feels good. What am I doing? I'm practicing non resistance to pain that I myself am inviting. I like the benefit from it, but I'm learning about life. This is one of the reasons that I'll tell young guys, go to the gym, go to the gym. Because the gym. In the gym you will learn about life. In the gym you will learn about the relationship between pain which is under your. I mean, pain which is not under your control. In this case, it actually is involved, invited. But through your non resistance to it, your acceptance of it, your embrace of it, your love of it. Then the suffering actually becomes something that you can. That something that you can live with because it is under your control. That's a very important metaphor for how we're trying to live. It gets much harder when it's like when the pain comes because your wife leaves you or because your bank, your, your, your, your. Somebody.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Somebody died.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, yeah, somebody died something. You're the victim of a horrible crime, whatever it happens to be.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

But in point of fact, what you learned from your lowest hour was the great message of the cross.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, Amen to that.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I find that it is definitely the more that that's what the verses like hit me of the. The less I am, the more he is like. It's it that. It's a great way of maybe the words humbling. It's continuing to make sure that you like. It's a daily bread type of mindset to have.

[Arthur Brooks]

No, absolutely, absolutely. And you know there's an affirmation that I ask my students to recite, which is at the beginning of the day to say, you know, I'm really grateful for all the beautiful things that are going to happen this day because everybody knows gratitude is good. All the beautiful things, all the fun things, all the flowers, all the butterflies, all the kisses. And I'm also grateful for the trouble I'm going to face this day because that's the source of my learning and growth. Bring it on.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's the way to start the day really is joy. Yeah, it's really interesting. And there's a famous book by Alphonsus Liguori, who's a saint in the Catholic Church, a 17th century Catholic saint and he wrote a book called Uniformity with God's Will. And so the thing about pain is that suffering, suffering is a mystery, right. There's a mysterious element, the book of Jude, Job is all about. The punchline of the book of Job is that a righteous man suffers and he interrogates God and God says it's a mystery, it's beyond you.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right?

[Arthur Brooks]

It's actually beyond you.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Which is a relief.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, for sure. And you find there's a lot of literature out there about people who've had very deep meta normal experiences which is, or you know, what they would call paranormal really meta normal experiences where they felt like they were in the presence of God, like near death experiences. What they all say is that they understand suffering for the first time because that's the first time they do the puke on their, on the understanding the nature of the mystery of their suffering. I don't get it and I can't get it. But the one thing I know is that God is good. Yeah, even when things are horrible, God is good. And I can't explain why that is. Now that's a very. Right hemispheric experience of mystery and meaning. You're not going to get it if you're on the Internet, right? You're not going to get it if you're on AI. You can't get it if you're on AI. But that's a really important thing to keep in mind, mind is that the deep mystery of this is the essence of actually trying. Well, how we're trying to live our lives is what it comes down to. And life gets more beautiful, not less, not less when instead of fighting against your pain, fighting against your suffering, which people are actually doing all day long, you go to campus counseling service and you say, I'm feeling sad and anxious. About school and they're like, we got to fix that, man. If you're one of my students and you're not sad and anxious, you need therapy, man, because it's a part of life is what it comes down to. And that's what we need to understand to find life's deepest meaning and in point of fact, to be fully alive. So this is what Alphonso's Liguori talks about, that uniformity with God's will. This is what the elite athletes of meaning actually have in common. They don't just say, I accept this, they say, I want this. See, that's a desire to make your will unique, uniform with the divine will is to say, I'm not just going to accept that, I'm going to love it. And man, I'm still not there. I'm still not there.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Well, I find that in like Paul says, well, I'm weak, he's strong. And there's this whole thing also in recovery circles of that's part of the 12 steps is a higher power. One of the first things that you do because your best thinking is what got you there, right? You said, say, you said a minute ago of how you just have to choose not to do that. You know, the other 50%, man, there's so many people I know listening. That's like, if I could, I would. I know sometimes I wish I could just have the. Be so noble as to confess all of my problems. But sometimes the secret has to be shown, right?

[Arthur Brooks]

And, and because you need stronger, stronger stuff.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's exactly, yeah. That there is something greater than me. Before we keep going, I want to tell you about zocdoc. I don't know about you, but sometimes there's just a big hurdle for me to book a doctor's appointment. Doesn't matter. Any health professional. We've been trying to find a dermatologist for a while, trying to find a new dentist for a while and it's just, it becomes such a hassle, right? And the biggest question is who's in network, who's out of network with your health insurance, whether you're moved to a new place or you're changing jobs or whatever. And it's also, also just a pain to try and book it. It becomes this insurmountable task and I can certainly relate to that. That's where ZocDoc helps people just like you and just like me. It is a free app and free website whose sole goal is to connect you to in house providers and find you doctors and health Professionals that you love, people who take care of you and best of all, they help you book the actual appointments, which is incredible. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments appointments that's speaking to me directly. And go to Zocdoc.com Jefferson to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That is z o c-o c.com jefferson and now back to the episode when I'm in some of the best conversations with people. It's when I have surrendered what the outcome will be and knowing that if I can, what you said in a sense of the suffering of lowering my resistance in conversation to accept it is what it will be. But that doesn't have to affect my belief, the better I walk away from that conversation.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, I know, I know. That's intention without attachment. That's another Buddhist idea. I quote a lot of Buddhism, even though I'm like a serious Catholic. A lot of people Buddhism for a Catholic there. But that's intention without attachment, which means that you have a particular intention but you don't have an attachment to the outcome. You need a kind of a Euclidean straight line towards something. Or you can't make an argument. You can't take on a project.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You need a goal.

[Arthur Brooks]

You can't go on a voyage unless you know in principle where you want to go. But you can't be happy unless you detach yourself from actually attaining that. Which is exactly what you described said, right? I mean I have a conversation with somebody and are making an argument for some something but and I have to make it coherent to make it work. I got to have intention. But you can't be happy if you're attached to actually winning that thing. This is what it comes about. So if you're having an argument with your spouse, then it's productive argument. It's not a nasty argument with it. You should have intention about the point that you're trying to make, but non attachment to actually who wins the argument when it comes to this extraordinary success that you're having in this moment in time in your own career that you didn't anticipate. You have an intention of reaching more people with a podcast and with social media and with your speaking events without an attachment to what that actually means. You put a book out into the world, you have an intention to make it popular and have a lot of people read it, but without the attachment of number one on the New York Times bestseller list. And that's. Dude, that's hard to do. That's hard to do. That's because we're better at attachment than we are. Intention. And so the people who are most miserable and can't find meaning, they're super attached to things, but they don't even have an intent. So they have too much attachment and not enough intention.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's so good.

[Arthur Brooks]

We need more intention and less attachment. That's hard.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I want to take us now to this aspect of leaning into imposter syndrome.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, you got a little of that these days.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. I don't know who does it. I don't know who does it.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, as you get older, it's different, you'll see.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Tell me.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, emotional self management gets much easier and your personality changes as you get older. And this is not just from experience. This is. As a researcher, I say this, but also from experience. Because I'm not 37 anymore. I remember being 37, feels like nine minutes ago, but I'm 61.

[Jefferson Fisher]

What age do you see yourself like when you look in the mirror, when people ask you how old you are, what's the age you first go to?

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, it sort of depends. I'm in better physical shape than when I was in my 20s, so I feel better now. It's not because I was horribly out of shape, but I kind of smoked, I drank a lot, and I was a musician, and I just didn't take care of myself. And now I take really, really good care of myself. My emotional acuity and my intellectual acumen are higher in a lot of ways than they were because I'm a more linear thinker. I'm also working all day long to get points across in ways that I hope people can understand. Even though I'm an academic, I'm trying not to bury everybody under a bunch of, of, you know, incomprehensible. Science is, is. Is how this works. And so the truth of the matter is that I see myself as a lot younger because I'm better at certain things than I was when I was younger.

[Jefferson Fisher]

My dad. My dad will always say, I'll look in the mirror and say, who's that old man?

[Arthur Brooks]

I know, but that's when I look in the mirror, is when I actually see it. Because I don't look like I'm 37 anymore. If I were, if I. If, you know, if I were actually 37 and I looked like this, you'd be like, yeah, right now. If I told you I was 82 and I look like this, you'd be like, great.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

So it's all relative is kind of the way that this where I actually. The appreciation That I have for getting older is number one, I'm way more emotionally self managing than I was in the past. And that's actually one of the tricks of happiness of older people. Older people tend to be happier than younger people after the early 50s. So happiness tends to decline through your 30s and 40s a little bit. Don't worry just a little. I mean it's a kiss, it bottoms out and you're. Yeah, it's your kids, kids. But also because you're not very self managing emotionally and you're experiencing these things and you feel like you're like a shopping cart in a shopping cart going down a hill a lot of the time. In your early 50s things start to turn around. Not coincidentally is when your kids move out. But you tend to get much happier in your 50s and 60s. And part of the reason is because you understand what negative emotion means better. So for example, you know, if somebody you know cusses at you out the window of a car and insults you when you're 30, it's, you're like, and you stew on it. You're mad about that.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And, and you don't know that that's not a permanent state of affairs. As far as, you know, as far as your limbic system is concerned, you're going to be mad about that in two weeks. Now you kind of, you sort of intellectually know it won't, but that's kind of how it feels.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

When you're sick, 60, you think to yourself you're insulted in the same way, but you think to yourself, I'm completely sure that an hour from now I'm not going to care about that. So I'm going to get a head start and not care. Now that's why 80 year olds are much happier than 30 year olds. 80 year olds are happier than 30 year olds, they just are. The second reason is because your personality gets better. By better I mean I'm like, these are claims that are, are sort of unambiguous. Your personality has five dimensions. Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Right. And so the way that you remember that is ocean.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Okay.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's like O, C E A nice. Your openness to experience, it tends to go down and it kind of, it sort of stays where it is and that's not really a big driver on your happiness. So some people are more open to experience, some people are less open to experience. But it's not like being more open to experience is going to make you uniformly happier.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'm with you.

[Arthur Brooks]

Some people are just more conservative than others.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And does that. Does that have an impact on our kind of the default on imposter syndrome?

[Arthur Brooks]

Not necessarily. What is it? What it does is it affects your. Your willingness and ability to take on new things. So you're super open to experience.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Okay.

[Arthur Brooks]

Your person is very open to experience, which means that you're going to go from being a lawyer to being. I don't know, what the heck are you, like, Instagram influencer or something like that at age 37? It's like, that's weird. And that's because you're open to experience. You have a high level of openness.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Great.

[Arthur Brooks]

Conscientiousness is correlated with happiness. Extroversion is correlated with happiness. Agreeableness is correlated with happiness. Neuroticism is inversely correlated with happiness. And all those personality characteristics, they go in the right direction. As you get older, you tend to be more conscientious, you tend to be more assertive, you tend to be more agreeable because being disagreeable has a terrible cost benefit ratio. It's like being disagreeable to your waiter is so dumb. And it's all. It's just impulse control. And your neuroticism goes way down. So people are significantly less depressed and anxious when they're older than they were when they were younger.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's funny, because I'll tell you, I know some older people who have no problem. Problem telling somebody what they think.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, they're assertive.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Well, they'll also. And they can also be. So imagine how disagreeable they were when they were 30.

[Jefferson Fisher]

No joke. Yeah. I mean, I've seen people run somebody up one side and down the other.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. No, there are certain things that will. Will make people buck these trends. And so certain people that have real personality pathologies can become more like that.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And. And they're being old. Strips off the filters.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's what it is. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

And especially if you're old and rich.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

You know, money makes you more of who you are. So if you're a kind and happy person, money will make you kinder and happier. And if you're a gloomy old, you know, miser, it'll make you worse.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

So there's certain things that come into this that monkey up the picture. Now when it comes to imposter syndrome, you become more comfortable with the fact that you're out in front of your headlights. So here's the thing. When you're sharing ideas on a big public stage, like you like me. You're out in front of your headlights a lot.

[Jefferson Fisher]

A lot.

[Arthur Brooks]

And people don't know it. They're like, oh, Jefferson, he's like, you know, he's a big lawyer and he knows how to make these incredible arguments, and he knows. But you're like, I kind of know. Yeah, I kind of know. I mean, it sounds right to me, and it's worked for me, and I hope it works for you, but it's not like I've got, you know, 500 studies showing this. And even if you did, you still, like. I kind of know. Know there's nothing provable. Right. And for me, you know, in my work, I can't just hide behind a bunch of studies because I have to triangulate into ordinary life. I'm trying to take real science and say, this study shows this and this study shows that, and no study shows the answer to your question. But I'm going to triangulate to it because it makes logical sense based on what we studied in other areas. That's beyond my headlights, for sure. And it requires a whole lot of humility, but also it imposes a sense of being an imposter, an intellectual imposter. Imposter. You don't want to get in trouble. You don't want to misguide people, you know? Yeah, that's what it comes down to. You get more comfortable with the discomfort as you get older.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Is that what it is?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. Yeah. And so what it comes down to is like, yeah, I don't know everything. I just. I don't know everything. And I'm probably wrong on certain things, but this is how it seems to me.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. Okay. Well, that makes me feel better.

[Arthur Brooks]

I know it's weird and hard to a certain extent, but it's normal and funny.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. You should say, lean into it.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You know, it's like you have to kind of have this.

[Arthur Brooks]

Stay humble.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Just stay humble and say. And like, you do a YouTube video and somebody points at an error, the first thing you say is, good point.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right?

[Arthur Brooks]

Good point.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

You know, one of the. Because it is. If it is a good point, you say, that's a good. Even if they're like, you jerk, you idiot.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. I usually say, it's a good take,

[Arthur Brooks]

a good take, good take. I mean, it's like. But people make very good points when I. When there's certain times when I will. Because I'm speaking. Speaking.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

When I'll make a point with a little more force than is warranted by the evidence, you know, that's one of the things that we do. We're not shading the truth at all. But it's basically like, this happens like this. And it's like this usually happens like this under these circumstances.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Ah, okay.

[Arthur Brooks]

And so. But you're too categorical about it. Somebody will point that out. Yeah, but there was a 19, you know, or a 2013 study that said. And it's like. Yeah, good point.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right?

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, good point. Good point.

[Jefferson Fisher]

And I know you've. You talked too, about, like, the dark triad.

[Arthur Brooks]

Oh, yeah. Right. And how that, like, they're not good at us.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

And so it, like, they don't have imposter syndrome.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. And so that's what I'm. I. When I came across that body of work of yours, I. I had to. I had to, like, go for a walk of, like. I want to make sure that you're not. I'm doing everything.

[Arthur Brooks]

If you're worried about it. You're not.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Okay. All right, good.

[Arthur Brooks]

No, there's a test on my watch website, by the way. I've got a whole battery of tests that people can actually take about, you know, their affect profile and their general happiness level.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Okay.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's called the happiness scale, but I actually tell them.

[Jefferson Fisher]

What's your website?

[Arthur Brooks]

Arthurbrooks.com.

[Jefferson Fisher]

perfect.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. And. And people can go there and take a test and see, you know, their dark triad characteristics or the person they're dating, which is really important, especially for women, because women are magnetized to dark triads. There are. There's a category of men that's really good at looking like they're falling in love when they're actually not.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Can you tell, like, for.

[Arthur Brooks]

I should define dark triad?

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah. For the listener. Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah. The dark triad is a combination of three personality characteristics. Narcissism, it's all about me. Machiavellianism, which is I'm willing to hurt you to serve my ends. And psychopathy. Psychopathic traits, which is if I hurt you, I don't feel remorse or empathy for you at all. Those are the three traits. And when it's all about me, I'm willing to hurt you, and I don't care. That's super dangerous. Dangerous. Now, it can be really mild. Like, you're just above the average across these three. But people who do fulfill these characteristics are 1 in 14. It's 7% of the population. It's a lot. I would say that's a lot. That's a lot. Everybody who's listening to us right now or watching us right now has encountered A dark triad. And that was a weird thing where somebody became a friend a little too fast and then betrayed you.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

It's a boyfriend that acted like he was like, love bombed you like crazy. Crazy. And then he emptied your bank account and used you and abandoned you. Or if you had the bad luck of actually marrying that guy, he cheated on you, you know, over and over and over again. It's everybody's first husband.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, yeah. Especially.

[Arthur Brooks]

Right.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Their ex.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, exactly. Or you worked for one who, who was very abusive and exploitative and. And took credit for your work. You know, that kind of thing is actually what they do all the time. You see him in certain areas of business. There's a lot of. A lot in politics. You see a lot in show business. No doubt. There are plenty of lawyers who are dark triads. Sure. Right. Not very many CEOs because CEOs have to do repeat business.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I would say surgeons.

[Arthur Brooks]

Surgeons are funny because they have an affect profile of being very, very low affect. Like, very low affect. So jet pilots and. And surgeons. But there could be. I don't know. I've never done dark triad tests on these guys.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I've definitely deposed another number of doctors who kind of have this God complex. And I don't know if it's because they cut on people or.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, it might be. It might be. What kind of lawyers do you think are most likely to be dark triads? Would be personal injury lawyers.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'd say personal injury attorneys would probably be one. And then I would also say, like, the corporate banking is the ones I

[Arthur Brooks]

would do because they're most likely to want to really, really get bad guys out of trouble.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, like this, like the white collar crime attorneys. Well, I definitely say that it's somewhere in law. All over the place. I want to. I want to ask you this last question. And it's. It's one that's personal for me and my family. We're always in this season as young kids, and I know other people listening have young kids or grandparents or grandkids. And Sierra, my wife, her thing is, like, she wants to have a routine routine. And we're just in this stage where every week is different. And she always says, once this happens, we're going to settle into a routine. Once this is over, things are going to calm down. And my position is, no, this is just life. This is this. There is no like. And so I'm curious what kind of either research or thoughts that. Has been married for 34 years. What have you seen?

[Arthur Brooks]

The only thing you can count on is change. Yeah, that's really what it comes down to for sure. Now, routine actually does get easier the older your kids are, because you can actually get into a more stable. Stable routine, for sure. But one of the things that you find typically in couples is that one partner doesn't want routine. One partner is actually incredibly allergic to routine. It's probably you.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, probably you.

[Arthur Brooks]

Because, you know, you're probably an adventure freak. You're probably somebody who needs a lot of stimulus because you're highly open to experience. And people who are open to experience, they don't like routines that much. It's like, you probably like traveling. You probably like seeing things. I mean, I get it. It's just like hotel.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I'm just not big on structure. She really likes structure. And I don't find structure to be helpful.

[Arthur Brooks]

And different people like it in different amounts. And that's just. Those are personality differences is what it comes down to. And so the whole point is you need to be really, really open about that, such that you're getting what you need and she's getting what she needs and she's not expecting things. So that the big danger on this is that you keep making promises you can't keep because you don't want to keep them. So the typical thing where because your life, by the way, I can see the crystal ball. It's going to get crazier, not less crazy. No, it is. I mean, you're going to do one weird thing after another, and you're going to be successful at it. Right? Is what it's going to come down to. And you're going to be saying, honey, no, I promise you, it's just this book release. I promise you, it's just this one speaking tour. And I would love for you to come with, with me, but I promise you it's not going to be like this. This is especially busy time. That's what adventure junkies always tell their spouse. It's an especially busy time. And then we can really, you know, we can settle down to the life that we've always talked about. We can have more of the structure. We can have more of this routine. And you're kind of convincing yourself of something that's not the truth, and she will believe you. And then that thing is always out of reach. You can't manage somebody's expectations towards something that's never going to come true. That'll become a constant source of bitterness. And so it's worth two things doing you as a bunny who's an openness person is to say, number one, honey, I can't stop. I can't stop. I need to stop more. I need you to help me. I need you to help me. I need you to help me to be more like you. And I'm not going to be like you. It's always going to be a little bit crazier. It's always going to be, be a little bit more. It's always going to be a little more. There's a word in statistics called stochastic that means it's like.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Arthur Brooks]

The stochastic process is one that's, has a lot of randomness in it. Right. There's a lot of adventure in it. I'm not going to be, I, I, I don't, but I don't know how to stop. And left to my devices, it's going to be a problem for me and it's going to be a problem for you. So I need you to help me. You need you to understand me. I need you to help me.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, that's a real conversation.

[Arthur Brooks]

That's why God put her in that's why God put her in your life.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, no doubt.

[Arthur Brooks]

Because we're supposed to complete each other. We're not supposed to copy each other.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Yeah, that's the kind of, that's real conversation.

[Arthur Brooks]

Yeah, man.

[Jefferson Fisher]

I want to ask you a question I always ask every, every guest and, and take all the time you need. What is one conversation that you can remember that has changed the direction of your life?

[Arthur Brooks]

A conversation that changed the course of my life was not one that I had, but it was one that I witnessed. Witnessed. I wrote this book called From Strength to Strength. And I tell the story at the beginning of that book because it was the reason I wrote that book. And that book was really a turning point in my life based on that conversation. I was on a plane, which I was on a plane flying from LA to Washington. And it was nighttime. It wasn't a night flight, but it was like 11 o' clock at night and it was dark. And I heard a conversation behind me in the row, right behind, behind me. And I could tell by their voices, it was a man and a woman. I could tell by their voices that they were old, not just elderly, old, 80s. And I figured they were a married couple. And I couldn't quite make out his words. It was kind of mumbling, but her words were really clear and her voice was penetrating and coming right through the seats. So I heard. And then she said, oh, don't say it would be Better if you were doing dead. And then I heard. And she says, it's not true that nobody cares about you and nobody loves you anymore that nobody remembers you. It's not true. You know, I'm a behavioral scientist, so I'm putting, you know, a story together in my head, and I figure, this is a guy who's in his 80s and time's almost up, and he didn't have the life that he wanted. He's not you. He didn't take a bite out of life, man. And he didn't actually build the career that he wanted. He didn't take every opportunity. And now it's too late. And the world passed him by and forgotten. He probably was never remembered in the first place. And they finished their conversation, and at the end of the flight, which is an hour later or so, the lights went on and everybody stood up. And I wanted to get a look at the old man. That his loving wife had just been telling him convenient lies. And it was one of the most famous men in the world. World.

[Jefferson Fisher]

No way.

[Arthur Brooks]

This is somebody that everybody watching and listening to us right now knows. Not personally, but he's so famous for what he did. And this guy is not just some actor or politician. This is somebody with a small group of dedicated individuals in the 1960s, 1970s changed the course of history.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Wow.

[Arthur Brooks]

And I heard him telling his wife that he might as well be dead because nobody remembers him. Because the good days were in the past, passed, and they never came back. And at that time, I was the CEO of a company, and I didn't know what my future was. And I went home and I said to my wife, honey, I had this experience, and I told her about it. She said, who was it? And I told her. She says, huh? I said, yeah, huh? And I said, I don't want to be having that conversation with you on a plane in 40 years.

[Jefferson Fisher]

Right.

[Arthur Brooks]

I don't want to be having or 30 years. I guess I was in my early 50s at that time. That guy was probably in his early 80s. I don't want to be having that conversation with you. I need to find a way to structure the rest of my life so that when things actually end, I can be at peace, so I can understand the structure of what my life is supposed to be so I can live according to God's will without always wishing that it were something that could be better, that could be bigger, could be more special, as opposed to me being healthy, happy. And that's the beginning of why I'm doing what I'M doing right now.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's awesome.

[Arthur Brooks]

I dedicated my life. Subsequent to that, I went on a long pilgrimage, a walking pilgrimage across northern Spain to find the answer to the question on how to do it. I'm Catholic. That's what we do, long walks, pilgrimage. And I decided, I think God told me that I was going to spend the rest of my life lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love for his will, using science and ideas. And I was. Subsequent to that conversation. I was that plane.

[Jefferson Fisher]

That's, that's how you know if you're one of his. You love one another. Absolutely. Well, have you enjoyed our conversation?

[Arthur Brooks]

I've loved it. Thank you. You're good at what you do, man. You are good at what you do.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You too. I really appreciate it.

[Arthur Brooks]

Thanks for coming. God bless you.

[Jefferson Fisher]

You too, man.

[Arthur Brooks]

Thanks.