You want to be happy. Yeah, I want to be happy, too. You can't be sorry. So, I play a game with my students at Harvard University. Want to play What's My Idol? I want to find out what Sarah's idol is.
So, there's four possibilities. Money, pleasure, third is power, and last is fame. It's really, really useful for young people like you in particular to say, am I doing my best for myself?
Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor, PhD, social scientist, and columnist for The Atlantic.
So, how should we be them and like be observing ourselves? I would actually recommend having fewer mirrors in your house, taking the apps off your phone. Then the third thing is to practice something that's more transcendent where you're standing in awe of something greater than yourself.
You keep a journal of your failures and disappointments.
But not the things that go right.
Well, the failure journal is actually a lot more effective exercise for your own happiness. You start to look at the failures and disappointments from before and you start looking forward to writing them down because these have become generative and they become generative because they were explicit. This is self-management. This is management over your whole life.
Uh-huh. My favorite topic. Never waste your suffering from a breakup. Love is a problem you can't solve.
It's only something you can live and understand deeply through experience. We do have actual love protocols that are based on science.
This is a science-based approach to maintaining love in a relationship that's long-term. These are people who want to stay in love.
So guys, I have written a book and I've just heard it's a Sunday Times bestseller, which is very exciting. Now, it's called Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard because truly that is the reason why I really started this show. Healthy really shouldn't be this hard. And the one thing that I found from all the years of being in the well-being space and working as a nutritionist and interviewing incredible people is that there is one vital step that is missing in our health information: us and ourselves and being self-compassionate. Treating ourselves as we would a best friend seems to be fully overlooked and maybe even seen as soft. But this book is going to help you re-explore that and realize there is so much science behind just how we think shapes every cell in our body, shapes our physiology, how we metabolize food, how we respond to food, and even the choices that we make. So if you want to know more, this book quite literally might change your life. So head to the show notes where I'll put the link. You can head to Amazon or any good bookstore and you will be able to buy Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard. And if you do, I'd love to know what you think. Arthur.
Sarah, I feel like you had a whole podcast before you even started.
Yeah, I know. The best parts are always before you start rolling, right?
But maybe the parts you'd have to edit too much.
A lot of my life just unfolded.
During this, by the way, I think it's very relatable to many people.
What is relatable is this: the meaning of your life? And I thought I can't talk about this without actually asking you, have you found the meaning of your life?
I'm in the process of finding the meaning of my life. Finding the meaning of your life is a pilgrimage because your life is a pilgrimage. We're an ambulatory species. We're a walking species. It's funny because, you know, if you look at Homo sapiens from 250,000 years ago, the hunting advantage was not that we're fast or they were strong. It's that you can literally walk a gazelle to death. If you can actually track it, you can walk. You can walk 14, 15, 16 miles and you'll find it worn out. And the whole point is that we're born to walk. We think when we walk and life is a metaphor for a long walk. If you want to find something, just start walking.
Basically going through your life and having openness to what you're actually looking for. So back to your question, have I found the meaning of my life yet? No, because I haven't finished walking. It's unfolding for me. I have an aperture of openness to actually finding what it is. And this book, The Meaning of Your Life, is actually how to open yourself up to letting that meaning find you.
Wow. The word pilgrimage to me also just feels like a lot of purposeful walk.
Yeah, it is. Pilgrimages are funny because every major religion actually has literal pilgrimages. Catholics walk the Camino de Santiago or walk to Jerusalem. The Hindus walk to Mathura which is in Uttar Pradesh in the Hindi heartland. There are pilgrimages in Japan. There are pilgrimages all over the world. And what pilgrims find is that they go with an intention to walk towards something sacred. And what they find is that as they get blisters and they get tired and it's repetitive, that the openness that that exhaustion brings actually allows the aperture of their mind, soul, heart such that the meaning, whatever they're seeking, can find them. And I've actually experienced this firsthand. I've literally walked pilgrimages and in 2019 and 2021, I walked the Camino to Santiago across northern Spain because I wanted to find, I wanted to be on the road to the meaning of my life. I needed it, too. I mean, I only write books about things I need.
Yeah. I mean, it's not research. It's sort of me-search. And I did find that I was looking for this core mission that could push me forward to what I was trying to do as a scientist, by the way. Not, I mean, this is my toolkit. I got my PhD 30 years ago, dedicated myself to doing something good for humanity, but I didn't know what it was. I was very at loose ends in 2019. And I walked the Camino with faith that it would find me. And sure enough, as I entered the city of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain on the last day, it was almost as if the divine were speaking to me that what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life is lift people up and bring them together in bonds of happiness and love using science and ideas. And that's what I've done ever since.
It's a big word, meaning, isn't it?
Like, I don't know. Starting off, I was trying to think about how I started this conversation because I'm like, do I go straight in on such a big complex topic?
Yeah. Like what's the meaning of meaning?
What's the meaning of meaning? And we could go round and round in circles on this, right? Similar to...
But we do look at that. I mean, social scientists actually have looked at that and the way that you sort out the meaning of meaning is by talking to a lot of people who have a strong understanding, a sense of the meaning of their life and you ask them questions about these big whys and what their answers actually are. So if something is too big, you decompose it. If any problem in your life is too big, you have to decompose it. If you're like, I feel really sad and depressed, well, take apart the different parts of your life. My love life, my family life, my friendships, my work, take them apart one by one by one. That's the decomposition. It's the standard technique for solving a big complicated problem. This is decomposition. So, when it comes to meaning, which is the biggest hairy problem out there, you have to decompose it. And the meaning of life can be decomposed into three big why questions. Those big why questions are number one, the coherence question. Why do things happen the way they do? You know, it's like there's stuff happening all the time. If it's all just random, that's a... you have to have a theory of why things happen the way that they do. Maybe it's a religious belief. Maybe it's a scientific belief. For me, it's both. I'm both religious and scientific. If you don't believe in either one of those things, maybe you'll, as they say, do your own research on the internet and believe that it's shadowy conspirators. Conspiracy theories are just a cry for meaning. That's all they are.
Oh, for sure. People who are going down the rabbit hole of exotic conspiracy theories, they're sad. They don't have a sense of meaning. They don't have any coherence, and so they're trying to find it.
Do you think AI is making us more meaningless then?
Oh, for sure. Absolutely.
Thinking about going down an AI rabbit hole.
It's breaking our brains. So, neurophysiologically, AI and just in general what we're doing with screens. And that's a lot of my research is the neuroscience of how screens are making it harder to find meaning. So that's coherence. The second is purpose. Why am I doing all this stuff that I'm doing? I mean the worst days when you're writing your big bestseller. Congratulations by the way.
You'd be like, why am I doing this? You know, that existential crisis that you feel, why am I doing this and I hate my book. It's like writing a book for our viewers who have never written one. By the way folks, good move. The world doesn't need more books. It's like Sarah and Arthur wrote the last two books. It's like the process of death and dying. Yeah.
You know that old book about death and dying by Elisabeth Kübler...
And there's these stages like denial, rage, bargaining. You're working with your publisher.
But that's this sense of purpose like why am I doing what I'm doing? And those moments are really, really hard.
You have to have an idea. Why am I doing what I'm doing? And last but not least, there's significance. And that's the biggie. Why does my life matter and to whom? And if you're like, I don't know, or no one, that's a big problem. And so those are the three big questions. Don't go try to find meaning. Examine the three questions of why, and then you'll be on the right track through that decomposition. That's what a lot of my work does with young people.
I attended TED earlier this year, and I found myself in conversations with the founders of Nord. You've probably seen me wear something on my wrist, and lots of you have messaged me asking me what this is. It looks like a classic watch, but it's actually quietly tracking something much more meaningful: your autonomic nervous system. This is the system that governs everything from how you respond, from excitement to anxiety, calm to overwhelm. Most wearables just give you a score. But if you're anything like me, that score can sometimes make you feel worse, like you're already behind before your day even begins. Nord works differently. There is no judgment, and there is no dopamine-chasing dashboard. It simply reflects what your body is already experiencing and also helps you notice what it might be missing. It gives you a minute-by-minute timeline of your stress responses and your recovery. The recovery is the most important part and is the part that no one talks about and it is often the most revealing marker of our long-term health. In just 5 days, it calibrates your body and it builds your personal health fingerprint. You can try for free now for 30 days and if you use the code LWBW, you can also get 15% off. If you want to understand your body not just through performance but through self-awareness, then this is where I'd begin.
What about, I mean I read in here about, and I'm not going to be able to say the German philosopher's name very well. Frederick Nze.
There we go. Kind of got there. German philosopher from the 19th century where he says there's no essence to life so the secret is to have fun and not worry about it too much. You know, I think about this, about what are some people's thoughts that we overthink meaning because I think you and I are going to be very similar in this. You know, my brain can be like a journalist, right? And I'm constantly trying to figure out the next move or the meaning, the philosophy. Like for me, I always want more information. Does it lead to maybe more meaning? I don't know. This podcast has given me that. It's given me this insane vehicle of knowledge, right? But then sometimes I'm thinking, am I overthinking this whole thing?
Yeah. So, there's an old quote that is attributed to Einstein, which doesn't mean that it's by Einstein. It just means that it's all over the internet. And the quote from Einstein, which actually he could have said because he did believe this, is that many people read too many books. Now he would have said this before the age of the internet and he would have been amazed by the flood of information that actually comes at people. A lot of people believe that the input of information is a substitute for actual learning and understanding and that's actually one of the reasons that a lot of people feel so depressed and anxious and aimless is because they're being flooded with information that they didn't invite and they have no way of using it. So there's a theory of learning anything which is that if you want to learn something deeply, whether it's the meaning of your life or learning how to play golf, it really takes three steps. The first is to get a bunch of information. The second is to use that information and the third is to share that information. So if you go to a medical school and you want to become a surgeon, the way that you do it, as they say in medical school, is to watch one, do one, and teach one. That's how you actually become a surgeon. The problem in modern life with this, with the small screens that we're anesthetizing ourselves with uninvited information that's being fed to us algorithmically, is that we're being flooded with step one. We don't get to step two and forget about step three because it's going in one ear and out the other. And all this is just sort of rhetorical drugs and alcohol. That's the problem. So, it's super fun to learn, learn, learn, but it becomes almost like a vice. You know, people will say they'll kind of know everything in the world, but they won't use it. So, you and I are kind of in the self-improvement business. I mean, not to denigrate what we're doing. I mean, we do science and...
Yeah. Yeah. But it's science-based for sure.
The problem with self-improvement is it's all about epiphanies and teaching people things without helping them actually adopt the lifestyle, change their habits, and it doesn't actually prepare them to go share it with other people where it becomes permanent in their own minds and brains and hearts. So that's the way to do it. Ration the information to the stuff that you can really find useful and good. Make a commitment to using it in your life and always be looking for ways, if it's good, to share it with other people. Then you'll be responsible to it and it will be useful to you and it'll change your life.
Also though, I think the sharing with other people is like the most critical part, right? Because I know that for me I get way better self-worth when I give back to people. Like to me that is, you know, when I left my first career as a model I went and set up a not-for-profit organization.
I had no idea I did that because I hated myself. Well, most people... self-worth... looking in the mirror full-time for a job. I mean...
That's brutal. I mean, I have the data on that, by the way.
Oh, there's actual studies on this. And I started looking into this because I had a PT. This guy was a PT because my back hurts a lot.
And he was helping me and he's just a wonderful guy. I mean, he's just loving and empathetic and interesting. And I said, it's like, you've got these incredible talents. I was like, 'How did you get into this line of work where you help people at such a deep and intuitive level, acupuncture and PT, etc. Is this your first job?' He said, 'No, no, no, no. I was a fitness influencer.' And I'm like, 'Tell me more because I'm a behavioral scientist, you know. I got to know. I got to know.' And he says, 'Oh, yeah.' You know, he was on all over social media basically showing his abs on social media. That was his gig and selling supplements and exercise programs. And I said, 'How was this?' He says, 'Horrible.' He said, 'I didn't eat what I want ever for 10 years. I didn't have proper relationships. I was just worried about the lighting in the photo shoot, how it was going to actually make my muscles look. It was just misery until I realized this was very dark.' And he didn't know any of the science, but absolutely the case. Literally the more you look in the mirror, the unhappier you will be. And that's a philosophical principle, but it's a scientific principle as well.
Data. There's studies showing that when you look in the mirror, you will become less happy. And the more you look at the mirror, the unhappier you will become. And so this guy, he figured it out himself. Here's what he did. He got off all his social media. He quit. He enrolled in PT school. He took every mirror out of his apartment and he showered in the dark for a year so he couldn't see his abs.
And he saved his soul. So he didn't know the data but I have the studies and the studies are really, really clear. Now that's what William James talks about, the difference between the I-self and the me-self. So you were stuck in the me-self as a model and you walked into the I-self which is the grandeur and the beauty, the moral beauty of what the world could be when you were observing it as opposed to observing you. And so everybody wants to, you know, look at themselves because mother nature doesn't care if you're happy.
No, no. I mean, we do all kinds of things that make ourselves unhappy.
She wants us to be, you know, more attractive to the opposite sex, for example, because, you know, pleasure-seeking brain. Yeah. Yeah.
So, you're responsible for your moral actions and your decisions and being at war with yourself.
That's what you found. So, you were just like my PT.
Yeah. You probably didn't take the mirror out of your apartment.
I'm now thinking about how many mirrors I have in my... I mean I don't actually really look in the mirror that often, but I mean I was judged for 10 years on what I looked like every...
You had to look at your photos and...
But you know what I now say? So the world that I lived in back then which was a long time ago was very insular. Like only a small proportion of people got to experience that intensity. Now everyone does on social media.
It's like everybody's a model. Everyone's a model. I could be a model.
Oh, you know, your whole life is like...
I'm like, don't do it. Don't put yourself through it. But I felt, I mean, I got paid for how I look, but I felt the worst I've ever felt.
Absolutely. No, no, no, no. It's completely consistent with the research and this is a perfect case. And what you think you want will actually bring you your worst nightmare. Woe under the person whose dreams come true and had the wrong dreams.
So, how should we be them and like be observing ourselves every day? I mean, I don't know if I want to shower in the dark, but apart from when I'm going to bed because that will help my sleep, but apart from that, like how do we...
How do you take the mirrors out of your life in a practical way without being really, really impractical about it? I would actually recommend having fewer mirrors in your house. One in the bathroom, one in your closet so you can make sure that your shirt's not on backwards, whatever. Something like that. Number two is turn off your notifications on social media so you're not actually, what are people saying about me? I mean being more careful about that. As a matter of fact, I recommend taking the apps off your phone. And so if you're using social media for professional reasons, which you have to do and I have to do that, too, because that's the modern storefront when we want to help people. We want to reach people. And if you're not using social media, well, sorry, you're in the stone age. But you don't actually have to be looking at what people are saying about you. You know that, so you have to have a real sense of self-discipline about it. Then the third thing is to practice something that's more transcendent, to have a serious practice in your life where you're standing in awe of something greater than yourself. Now maybe that's...
My friend Ryan Holiday. Have you had him on your show before? You know he's the world's leading expert in the popularization of stoicism.
Stoicism is standing in awe of something amazing. Kind of looking down at your own life from 30,000 ft instead of right up against it. Mhm.
Maybe that's walking before dawn without devices. That's called the Brahma Muhurta. That's what I do.
Yeah. Which is the best. No devices and as the sun comes up, right? Which has nice neurobiological properties. But beyond that, I mean, it's like it has...
And that's why in India, they've been talking about that for 6,000 years. Muhurta means the creator's time in Sanskrit. As a matter of fact, maybe it's listening and studying the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest composer who's ever lived. Learning about it, saying, 'How is it that he wrote that thing?' Maybe because you're standing in awe. Maybe that's a meditation practice or maybe, I mean I'm a Catholic. I go to mass every day. It's self-defense. You know, I need to stand in awe of the divine. That's what we all need such that we don't get caught in the vortex of me-worship. Mother nature will put you right in that. You know, it's like that formula the world gives you that promises happiness but delivers misery, which is love things, use people, worship yourself. That's the formula from the world. Use people, love things...
Like the equation to unhappiness.
Exactly right. But, you know, here's the thing. Bad things that are really pervasive look like good things. It's almost like a decoy, right? So, all you have to do is change the verbs and the nouns and you can turn that into the formula that does bring happiness, which is use things with joy and abundance, but don't love them. Love is only for people. Love people and worship the divine. That's how you stand in awe. That's the secret to a happier life. That's if we practice that, we've just moved some verbs around and then we do it right.
And take the 'I' out of the center of it.
I mean, this is also the thing that I have with, you know, I know that we're both in the personal development, self-development, scientific field of it, but I think we also be so careful about the messaging around it because so often sometimes that can be shifted into the 'I' so much more than the 'we' or the other. And then it can become very like self-fulfilling.
Oh, for sure. And it's so interesting because, you know, in the world of self-development, people are looking for something better. And they know that if they make progress in their own life, it will be really fulfilling because we're made for progress. But then the problem becomes they become more and more self-referential in the middle of that. And a lot of people think so, for example, if you're coming out of a bad relationship, right? And what do men do when they come out of a bad relationship? Let me quiz you on that. What do men typically do when they come out of a bad relationship? No. The first thing they do is they go to the gym.
Yeah. No, they should have gone to the gym when they were still in the relationship.
Men tend to want to get in shape.
Oh, they become very busy.
I mean, it's effectively they want to become a better version of themselves, right? They want to make progress in their life and the early flush of that is they get tons of satisfaction from it because they make progress. The problem is they're not making progress towards something meaningful. They're making progress toward a kind of self-referential kind of auto-worship, right? And it goes to that last and most diabolical of that first formula, which is worship yourself. And then people really get into trouble like my PT who wound up, you know, posting shirtless pictures of himself all day on Instagram to try to sell protein or something.
I think that is just probably for me in the sense of meaning that feels like one of the most important answers for me is about not about self-worship. It's about worshiping with others, alongside other people. Right. That's like a really big one.
The opposite to that is emptiness.
But that's on the other end of the spectrum.
That's also such a hard one to distinguish because I think it connects... emptiness connects to loneliness for me.
Right. You know when you can be in a crowd of people but you feel very empty inside, very lonely, right?
Why is it that sometimes we can build the life that we think we wanted yet still feel quite empty?
The reason is because we isolate ourselves is because when you're only focusing on yourself as opposed to other people, you are alone. You're alone. And it's funny because really lonely people, they often have very big jobs. I know a lot of lonely famous people. I know a lot of lonely powerful people, a lot of lonely rich people. And they're never by themselves, but it's all deal friendships. It's not real friendships. And the reason is because it's me, me, me. And by the way, they might not even be egotistical people, but the problem is that everybody else is saying... and so now you're well known and so you go to the airport and people are telling you how great it is and your brain is going to break because of that. I mean, your brain won't work right as a result of that because your interiority will actually start to become referential to what other people are thinking of you. So, you're thinking of you and wondering what other people are thinking of you, it'll drive you almost quite literally insane, as a matter of fact. And so, a lot of people who are, you know, successful and enviable and the kind of lives that we think we want because, you know, we're naturally attuned to the idols of life, money, power, pleasure, and fame. Those are the big four. That's what our genetics say will give us a better life because they're going to give you more resources and more mates etc. That's not what we want. That's not actually going to bring us happiness at all. There's nothing wrong with those things unless they become a goal. If they become a goal in life, money... and by the way here's an interesting thing. Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas in 1265 in the Summa Theologiae. I mean, this is a long time ago in the 13th century. He posited that those are the four idols in life and everybody follows one. And it turns out that modern neuroscience and social sciences said he's exactly right. So, I play a game with my students. My students are, you know, they're going to be the masters of the universe. They're the MBA students at Harvard University. And they're going to have these big jobs and I say, 'You have an idol. Do you know what it is?' They're like, 'Okay, let's test.' It's called What's My Idol? It's a game. It's a game show. What's My Idol? And if you can identify your idol, then you will see it next time you're pursuing it and you have power and you have a shot at actually not doing things that you will later regret. You want to play?
Want to play What's My Idol? Want to find out what Sarah's idol is?
Ready to go? Okay, let's go.
I have one small ask while you're watching the show. If you're enjoying it, please hit subscribe on whichever platform you're listening on. This really, really helps the show more than you can realize. It helps people that have never listened to the show before come across it and see all the incredible episodes that we have with the amazing guests. So, if there's one small favor today, if you're not already a subscriber, please do subscribe.
What's My Idol? So, there's four possibilities and this is a pretty exhaustive list. Money, wealth, resources, you know, however you denominate those resources. Two, pleasure. Pleasure has three kind of variants. One is feeling good, right? Like the hippies, right? But it can also be comfort or security. Those are also in the pleasure idol. So, a lot of people my age, so I'm as old as your parents, and a lot of people my age will say, um, well, you know, like feeling good all the time, you know, like, oh yeah, how often you check your stock portfolio? If it's every day, that's a security idol and that's pleasure. Okay. Comfort is... Yeah. Yeah. I know you're not like, you know, smoking weed and, you know, and being irresponsible. Is it hard for you to get out of bed in the morning? That's a comfort idol.
So, and again, I'm not judging. I'm just... we have to recognize this in ourselves. Third is power. Power isn't a bad thing. Like, you know, a dictator. It means persuasive capacity over other people. You get to call the shots. Now, power can be incredibly virtuous. It can also be terrible. But the point is if you want to be in charge, if you really, really want to be in charge and you want other people to know that you're in charge, that's a power idol. And last is fame. Fame is funny because, you know, there's all this internet fame, but that's actually not how most people find it. I mean, there's a think tank in the States called Consensus, and they ask people about what they want and what they think that other people want. Most people think that everybody wants to be famous. Most people don't want to be famous as traditionally understood, like recognized on the street. But fame takes other forms like prestige, being praised for what you do. Social status for sure, prestige, adoration of other people. In the worst case, the adoration of strangers becomes almost a religion. And your brain will do that where you actually don't feel alive unless people that you don't even know are clapping.
Yeah. Yeah. That happens all the time to performers. That's a really dangerous situation. Okay. So, those are the four idols. And here's how we find out what Sarah is. I'm not going to ask you what it is because who knows? I'm going to ask you what it's not. Let's start taking the ones away that you don't care about. Now, if you take one away, it doesn't mean you don't have it at all. It just means you have the population average. So, for example, if you say money, that doesn't mean you're poor. It just means you're the average citizen in the United Kingdom, which for an idol is torture. Being average is the worst if it's your idol. Okay? So, that's how we know. And for sure, there's one that you care about least. And then we're going to start eliminating until we find the one that you just can't eliminate.
And that's your idol. So, okay, you got the four right in your head. Which one do you get rid of? You got to get rid of what?
Fame. Really? So what that means is you have the exact amount of fame, notoriety, prestige as the average citizen in this country.
Okay. That's fine for you.
That means you walk down the street, nobody recognizes you, right? That's great. I mean, that's... It sounds to me you'd actually like that.
I had to get out of that from when I was younger.
Yeah. So there's no merit actually because you actually like it. And what we do is we're so prideful about the idols we don't have. Oh, I don't care about money. Well, then I'm sorry. There's no virtue in that. But anyway, I get it. And so you experienced it and it was obnoxious to you, right?
Sorry, you're doing it again.
Oh, that's right. No, I don't care at all. Anybody... I think I'm going to put up my bestselling book so we can have a discussion about this.
You know how hard it is to sell a book.
No, I know. I know. But the whole point is if you really, really, really didn't care about it at all...
You wouldn't be actually doing something for mass market and having a podcast.
Right. So, we'd want to dig a little bit deeper. There are... and again, there's nothing bad about this. This is just how we're wired, right?
Okay. So, let's take it on its face, but I would want if we had, you know...
I thought this is a psychoanalyst session.
Is there a couch? So, anyway, I'm sorry our time is up, but next week, you know...
Thanks Arthur. You've been great.
So, you got to get rid of the next one. Now, I'm not completely sure about the fame part, but I'll take it at face value for the moment. What's the second one you get rid of? What you have left is money, power, and pleasure.
I think I connect to the pleasure one quite a lot.
So, but don't think about what it is. Think about what it isn't. So, because we're eliminating...
Yeah. You have to get rid of one of these things to go to the population average.
Yeah. Okay. So, you have the average UK citizen, which apparently is getting worse as the years go by. Prices are going up much faster than wages and have been for a long time. Sorry. You know, you can move to the States.
Are you guys much better over there? Where are we?
It's pretty good. Our mutual friend Chris Williamson will tell you that it's much better. My former Brit.
I think he's still a Brit for sure, but you can get an entrepreneur visa.
Okay. Anyway, well, that's a different issue. It's like...
You're already going to marry me off into the States. So, fine.
Okay guys. Right into the show. It's not a raffle. It really is going to be based on merit. Okay. So, money, right? I mean, and did you grow up with means?
Average middle class? Upper middle class?
No, probably. I would say we're middle class now, but as I was growing up, probably low to middle class.
Okay. So, that actually makes sense. And part of the reason is the people who have the money idol, they generally speaking grew up either poor or rich. And one of the reasons is if you grow up poor and that deprivation mentality creates a lot of fear because you know what it was actually like. And if you grow up rich then it's like I don't know who I am and I don't want to feel like a loser compared to my dad or my mom. I mean that sort of thing. So it actually sort of makes sense that you grew up in a prosperous developed country not wanting for anything. You went to school and had your caloric needs met, went to the dentist when you needed to etc etc. Good. Very normal. So now we got power and pleasure left.
Which one do you get rid of? You like being in charge, don't you?
Yeah. And you like feeling good.
But you got to get rid of one of them, right? I'm talking about the thing that's most likely to change your actions and lead you to make decisions that you later regret. So that's why we're looking for the one. Not to say that you don't care about more than one.
So which one do I connect to the least of those two?
If you had to get rid of one because you're hanging on to one. Yeah. Okay. And look, I can tell. Look, you eat healthy, you stay in shape, those are ascetic things. Those are, you know, those are hard, especially in a world of abundance. Those things are actually hard to do. So, you're in the gym an hour a day and you probably get a gram of protein per pound of body weight and you're doing all that stuff, right? I mean, that's like not easy.
And like I have enough cake, said Sarah.
No. Right. And of course, we'd want to dig in on the comfort.
I had your drink when we came in.
Uh-huh. I know. But comfort and security, we'd want to dig into to make sure. We'd want to make sure that that's the case, right? Um, but I believe you.
And what that means is you really need to be in charge. And so, we'd want to dig in on the extent to which you felt out of control in your life at different times. Now, you were a model. So, talk about out of control.
I mean, that was... Yeah. Completely out of control.
And how horrible it was to feel out of control a lot of times in your life. A lot of people who were addicted to drugs and alcohol, they'll have a power idol later because of the personal control they want to exert. But any kind of a thing where you felt like your fate was in other people's hands, that's going to leave a mark, a little bit of scarring, but also, you know, there's a lot of good that you can do with it. There's nothing wrong with having influence. The problem is when it becomes the goal, the influence per se, then you'll cut corners in your own life. You'll cut corners in your relationships. Not that you'd cut corners ethically, but you'll...
Do things that you know, you'll sacrifice love sometimes for it. And that's super important to understand. And now we know now. You'll see it when you're saying, 'Yeah, I'm being kind of controlling here.'
Have you just driven away any man that will ever take me?
No, because you're self-aware, right? No. The guy who comes in through this podcast is going to be like, 'Sarah, remember that?' You know, so this is important. And all of us, by the way, all of us, by the way, mine, for sure. I mean, I would number one, I would get rid of power. I used to be a CEO.
I hated it. I hated it. People call me boss, and it felt boss. It felt passive aggressive. It wasn't, but it bugged me. I'm very non-hierarchical. I'm very flat in my understanding. I want everybody the same. Everybody the same. I'm sort of naturally communist despite the fact that I'm an unbridled, rock-ribbed capitalist.
I want capitalism for everybody except me. So, and the second I would get, you know, money, it's not that interesting, right? It's just not that interesting as long as your material needs are met, which means the mean is fine.
I'm very ascetic. I mean, I go to the gym, been going to the gym every day for decades. I mean, I'm really serious about actually these types of things that you write about and that I write about. But that leaves something, and that kind of gets back to my weakness, which is I want people to love me. I want people to love me. It's so dumb. Sarah, I'm 62 years old and I still want strangers to clap for me. It's pathetic, actually.
Where does that come from?
So where it comes from, basically people who have the fame idol or who have the adoration idol, typically they're strivers and they do something super well. Right. And that pathology of looking for that, where you want to be rewarded for what you do well by the adoration of people who actually don't care about you.
That's real pathology, of course, that generally comes from childhood. So real strivers are super good at something and they figure out that adults only give them love and attention when they do a thing, and they conclude that love is earned. Love isn't earned. Love can't be earned. If you're with a boyfriend and he makes you earn his love, he actually literally doesn't love you. Because true love is a free gift freely given, especially on your worst day. That's how you know.
On your worst day. Now, one of the ways that boyfriends and girlfriends will test each other is by being difficult so they can see whether or not they're actually loved or whether or not the other person is trying to earn their love.
So people be like really moody with their partner. That's just a test.
That's generally speaking a test to see if you love me on my worst day.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And your worst day is today.
So the problem with that is when your brain is synaptically really plastic, like your kid pre-adolescence, you'll wire that idea in and you'll only get neurochemical rewards when you're doing something kind of extraordinary and you're getting applause for it, you're getting approbation and praise for it. And that was me. I was a little kid. I was the best musician you ever heard.
I started violin at four. I started piano at five. I started the French horn at eight.
Welcome to America. We can any kind of.
I know. And I was just like a really, really, really good French horn player. I went pro at 19. I spent my 20s, a lot of it, playing in the Barcelona City Orchestra. And I wanted to be the world's greatest French horn player. Isn't that the most American thing you've ever heard?
It's such an American thing. It's such living the American dream right there.
I know. It's like you define it, you do it. So, but the result of it was when I was a kid, I got all this attention for it. And I've been striving and searching for that the rest of my life. Now, the point is it's fine. I'm okay. I've got a great life because I know it. Because I know it. And my wife was responsible for keeping me in line. It's like, 'You're doing that dumb thing again.' You know? It's like, 'Wait a second, you're going to literally leave town on the kids' birthdays to go give a speech someplace for a few thousand people who don't know you.' I'm like, 'Yeah, of course.'
I need to hear it. I need to hear it. See, I flip mine from what you've said to my one being. I mean, it's interesting because Nir Eyal said like perfectionism doesn't believe in, but as in that I have that kind of everything needs to be perfect.
You know, the strong thing, it's that I think that's where mine comes from.
That it manifests in all sorts of different ways. But if you know the pathology, you're fine.
I write a book about self-compassion.
Yeah. But you don't need 13 years of therapy. I mean, this is the most amazing thing. All that trauma stuff is very overblown. We all have issues. We got like my kids say, 'Yeah, we all have issues.' Yeah, of course we do. And that's why we're human. And manage yourself. Know yourself and manage yourself is what it comes down to. So beautiful that we can actually do this. It's so awesome that we can fix ourselves in this way. But you got to know, you got to pay attention to it.
You've also got to be vulnerable, right?
You have to be honest, actually. And honesty starts at home. Most people are going through life lying to themselves, right? You got to be honest with yourself. And honesty about yourself is not, 'I'm honestly looking at all of my virtues.' No, you honestly look at your weaknesses. And that's bracing and it's powerful and it's great. It's actually a pleasure.
Yeah. Can we trick ourselves into thinking we're being honest about these things and actually not being, because that's the thing I find quite interesting.
Oh yeah. We're great liars. Fantastic liars. We lie to other people and we lie to ourselves constantly. This is the thing that I think we'll lie to ourselves into thinking, and it's funny because the permutations of this are vast. People will often lie to themselves to think that they're victims of something that they're actually not, or be aggrieved about something that they're actually not because they've been convinced by somebody else and there's some sort of status that comes from victimhood. I mean, we'll even lie about lying about lying.
I mean, you get lost in where you are. That's exhausting.
Oh completely. You're lost in the woods. Yeah. Exactly right. This is one of the reasons once again that transcendence, standing in awe of something greater than yourself, is clarifying and that we need it.
I mean, it's so, I mean, it's one whole chapter in your book is called transcendence.
You know, I've read the book.
I know, I'm pretty... What chapter is it, Sarah?
It's near the end. It's after the love one.
Uhhuh. It's after the love one. Well done. Okay.
See, I know. I know where I am. So help me with something. The arrival fallacy.
Yeah. Yeah. Ah, yeah. So, remember we talked about progress and we talked about purpose. Purpose is the why question. Why am I doing what I'm doing? That actually serves this visceral human need to make progress. We're not made to arrive. We're made to make progress. Now, there's big theological implications to this, by the way, in every religion. I'll give you an example.
You want to be happy. I want to be happy too. You can't be. Sorry. Right. I'm a happy... happiness is fleeting. Well, I'm a happiness scientist and I know that you couldn't be happy if you were happy all the time. It would mean you'd be bereft of negative emotionality, which would leave you vulnerable to all sorts of problems. I mean, you'd get wiped out. You'd get eaten by a saber-tooth tiger because you wouldn't feel fear. You'd eat something poisonous because you wouldn't feel disgusted. I mean, you'd be void of negative emotions, which make you unhappy because they're supposed to. You wouldn't have negative experiences, meaning you're actually not walking around in the world. I mean, that's just life, humans, etc., etc.
But we want to be happy. We want to be happy and we deep down think that we can actually be happy. So, think about what that actually is saying. We have this vision of actual unremitting happiness and we want it even though intellectually we know we can't get it. Now, philosophers say, and it's a good definition of evidence that something exists, is hunger for it. So, evidence that water exists is thirst. Evidence that food exists is hunger. Evidence that pure happiness does exist is our desire for pure happiness. It's just not in this earth and in this life.
That's evidence of heaven for some people. Some theologians will say evidence it does exist, just not in this life. That's why you strive for it and you want it and you work for greater virtue and you work for greater love because you get a little taste of it. You make a little bit of progress toward it and then one day, when this earthly coil is finished, that you will experience it. Unremitting joy and the beatific vision of the Godhead, or depending on what religion you're talking about, sucked back into the cosmic consciousness, whatever your thing is. But that's interesting because that suggests that there is this thing. The problem is when we actually think that we will get unremitting joy, this gets back to your question here and now, by doing something, by satisfying a need, by winning the race, that's a mistake. That's called the arrival fallacy.
You're making progress and it's awesome. But so therefore the joy that you get from making progress every day suggests to your brain that when you actually get to the finish line, then it'll be perfect forever. You'll get that happiness that you seek. But it's not true. I mean, good old Mick Jagger saying, 'I can't get no satisfaction.' He should have sung, 'I can't keep no satisfaction.' That's why I keep trying. If he had taken my class, he would have had different lyrics to that song.
So, how do we think about a goal then? Because I'll talk you through this with me. I wrote this book. Took very, very... That's a big goal.
Yeah. Right. Kind of eight years into it.
Eight years into it. This is your thinking of the past decade.
Yeah. Right. And the pressure to make it a success. I put a lot of pressure on myself. Right. There's my goal, right? And it's from the moment that I started thinking about it to the very end. Now it's out in the world and I'm proud of it. But I felt weird after.
Yes. So what did you feel after?
Mhm. So we could just explain this neurochemically. Of course. There's a chemical in our brain that we all know about called dopamine. And we think of it as a pleasure molecule. It's not. What it is, it gives you wanting and learning and liking. It gives you anticipation of reward. Something that you like happens that you didn't anticipate. And it gives you this little burst of euphoria. That's dopamine making you learn about that thing. So you'll do it again.
Now, next time when you go do it again, if it's not as good as you thought, you'll get less dopamine. You won't like how that feels. And so you'll learn not to do it. If you get even more than the first time, you'll get even more dopamine. You'll keep doing it. That's how people get addicted to drugs and alcohol. And that's why they have to escalate so they get more and more of the chemical. That's the way that this works. Okay. So the way for us to think about arriving is that we want to get as much of this as we possibly can. But when we do get it, because we like what happened, like my book got published and it made the Sunday Times bestseller list.
That chemical can't hang around forever. It can't. If it did, you'd literally be driven insane. You would be in an institution in one week if that dopamine... As a matter of fact, that's one of the neurochemical definitions of psychosis. People who are experiencing psychosis.
Is that why our phones are driving us insane? Because it's the constant dopamine, right?
So if there's too much dopamine in the substance of your brain, that would be a pathology. So you have a neurochemical pathology. You'll have to take a dopamine suppressant so that you don't hallucinate and behave psychotically. Okay? So you don't want that reward. Trust me. Right?
So actually it's quite healthy.
It's totally healthy. But what that means is once you get to that thing, then you're going to come back off that particular high and you're not going to like how that feels because you believed that when you actually got that reward, it was going to be the culmination of all of these little tiny dopamine hits as you made progress toward the goal. You hit the goal and you're like, 'Now it's going to be great forever. Why do I feel empty? Why am I crying in my room?'
Do you know this feeling?
I've written 16 books, Sarah. Right. And here's the worst part. This is not your last book. Let me tell you what's coming. This isn't your next book. You're going to be like, 'If I make the Sunday Times bestseller list, I'm just going to feel okay.' Next time I got to be number one on the New York Times, on the Sunday Times bestseller list. And if it's like, what's the highest one right now?
You know the number right now. Don't lie to me. You know the number.
Seven. So next time he comes in at eight, you're like, 'Loser. You suck.' Say in the mirror, I know. Trust me, I know. Right. It's even worse. So, a friend of mine, he said that he always dreamed about being number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and he got it. He's like, 'This is so awesome.' And the next week, Trump's kid was number one. And he simultaneously was disappointed and realized the absurdity of his life's goal. It was like the myth of Sisyphus or something. It's a Greek tragedy in a nutshell. But it all has this neurochemical basis and that's how the rival fallacy works. And so you have to understand, I'm made for progress. I'm made for progress.
So it's about progress of goals, not the end goal.
Yeah. And here's how the Buddhists talk about it. They've got it best. Intention without attachment. This is what you want. Intention without attachment to the goal. So you said, 'Good.'
But does that then make us less driven?
It won't make you any less driven. Trust me, I got data on you.
You see me trying to negotiate.
But you can't. It won't make you less driven. Strivers, as Taylor Swift could have sung, 'Strive is going to strive.' Strivers are just going to strive. I'm not going to turn you into a slacker. I could say go slack and you'd be like, 'Can't do it. Can't be done.' You're a driven person. That's in your genome. That's how your brain is wired. I'm not worried about that. But you do need a little bit more Buddhism. You do need a little bit less attachment. Plenty of intention, less attachment. The problem in a lot of our lives is that we're all attachment and we're weak in intention. And that's a life of kind of disappointment.
So, but you can be really, really fulfilled if you say, 'I intend to do this big thing and I have decided, I have made a pact with myself and the heavens that no matter how it turns out, it's going to be okay. No matter how this turns out, it's going to be okay. It's the divine will how this thing turns out. But I've run the race. I've absolutely done my best.' And what's really, really useful for young people like you in particular is to ask yourself, to interrogate yourself: Am I doing my best or not? Am I doing my best or not? And am I doing my best for my publisher? Am I doing my best for myself? Am I doing everything that I possibly can that makes sense, that's ethical and sane? And if the answer is yes, you'll be at peace.
Do you know what I loved about your book? You keep a journal of your failures and disappointments. But not the things that go right. Why?
Well, the failure journal is actually a lot more effective exercise for your own happiness and progress in life. And it winds up actually raising your well-being more. So, good. Count your blessings. I mean, and I do. I mean, I pay attention to the things. I have gratitude lists that I keep and I assign gratitude lists to my students. The five things that you write down on Sunday that you're most grateful for. My mom is healthy. You know, the national team won in the World Cup, you know, whatever. Or whatever your thing is, no matter how dumb it is, it doesn't really matter. And then I look at it each day over the course of the week for a couple of minutes before I go to sleep. And I update it on Sundays. And by the way, if you do that, on average, you'll be 12% happier after 10 weeks. Gratitude's great. Gratitude's awesome. It fights against the negativity bias of the human brain.
That negativity bias exists because negativity keeps you alive, keeps your head on a swivel, right? But it's maladapted because we're not in that much danger anymore, right? There's not something sneaking around, snake in a cave. I mean, we're pretty good about that now.
But what really will help you out, that's even less natural, is actually focusing on your failures and disappointments. So, I keep a journal and I recommend my students do as well. The failure and disappointment journal is every time something kind of significant comes down the pike that bugs you, no matter how wonderful and magical your life looks like. So, a lot of people are watching who are big fans of yours and like, 'If I could have Sarah's life, I would be completely happy.' And you're like, 'No, no, no, no, no. Spend a day in here and you'll see.' Because everybody's the same.
Everyone's the same, right? And you're grateful, I know, for all the good things, but you're not happier, per se. So, when something bad happens in Sarah's life, you write it down. Now, in your journal, I recommend actually pencil and paper because it has cognitive impacts that are more profound and enduring than typing it into your phone. But whatever works, leave two lines under it and then set an alarm to come back to it. Come back to it after two or three weeks to the first line that you left blank under it and write down something you learned over that period because of the disappointment. And then come back after about two more months and write down something good that happened because of that disappointment. Okay?
Now, you're always writing things down. And sometimes you'll have like three or four of these things with the blanks under them because you're going through kind of a tough time. But once you've got a lot of things in this journal, you're going to start looking at the things above and you're going to say, 'Yeah, every time something bad happens, I learn something and something good happens as a result.' Not better than the bad thing necessarily. Doesn't mean you'll say, 'Sure, I'm glad mom died.' No. But you will learn something. You will learn, for example, about the decisions that mom... let's say mom does die because mom's going to die. And when it happens, when my parents died, I remember thinking, what did I write down? In the first line, I wrote down, this is making me think about my own life and how many Thanksgivings I have left with the people that I love. And it's making me think about the passage of time. And I'm learning a lot.
Then I came back to it later and I said, 'What good came from that? I'm closer to my brother. I love my brother and I was closer to my brother as a result of that.' And then as that starts to fill out, you start to look at the failures and disappointments from before and you start looking forward to writing them down because these have become generative and they become generative because they were explicit. This is self-management. This is management over your whole life instead of just like, 'That sucked. Let me try to forget that by having a couple of drinks or hanging out with my friends.' And your friends are going to be like, 'It's okay, Sarah. He was a jerk. He was no good for you anyway, so just move on.' No.
No. I mean, you're going to move on, but move on with power.
Because I say, 'What I learned, he did this and this and this. That wasn't a good thing. What was the good thing that came from it?' Now I'm free and I'm meeting new people. That's a classic case of what happens after a breakup. Never waste your suffering from a breakup.
Yeah. How important is that to learn? Let's get to love.
Uhhuh. My favorite topic. My next book is called Falling in Love and Staying in Love. It's coming out in two years.
This is what people... My students would have me on this topic the whole semester.
Yeah. My average age student is 28 and they're really good at business and they're baffled by love.
I think everyone's baffled by love.
Yeah. I mean, and part of the reason is because business is a left hemispheric phenomenon. It's analytical and love is a problem you can't solve.
It's not a solvable problem. It's only something you can live and understand deeply through experience. And people who are highly analytical, they struggle with the problems you can't solve. My car is... this is hemispheric lateralization, meaning the two sides of the brain do different things. The great neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist, who'd be a good person for the show, actually from Oxford. He's an emeritus professor at Oxford. He lives some place way up on an island, so he might be hard to get.
I think it's like 13 hours from London for him. But you know, the left hemisphere deals with these complicated analytical problems like my car, but the right hemisphere of the brain deals with these creative and these mystical problems that don't have solutions like my marriage. I've been married 35 years and I thank you. I have not solved my marriage. I will never solve my marriage because it's not a solvable problem.
It's why I love my marriage because it's dynamic and it's human and it's changing. And I'll call her when we're done and she might be super happy and she might be really mad at me. I don't know. I don't know, Sarah. I mean, I know if my car is going to work, but I don't know if my marriage is going to work this afternoon because it's a living thing.
But you've stayed married for 35 years. So, what's the secret to that?
Yeah. What's the secret to that? Oh, that's an easy one. That's like two sentences. So, but part of it is actually treating it like a complex problem, not like a complicated problem. It's like fostering it as something that you actually live with, as something truly beautiful and dynamic itself. That's what it really comes down to. And one of the problems that we have today and one of the reasons that dating and love are getting more and more difficult for young people is they're trying to treat it like an analytical problem, largely through algorithms, through the way that they use apps, for example, which is a different kind of problem.
It's like basically I want a cat because I want companionship and it's alive. Here's a mechanical cat. I don't want that. Why not? It's better. It doesn't go to the bathroom, you know? It doesn't tear up your couch. It's a mechanical cat. It looks just like a cat. Like it's not alive, right?
That's... Yeah. Exactly. Right. And so how do we maintain that? We're conscious of it. Now we do have actual love protocols that are based on science. You want the love protocols? So this is a science-based approach to maintaining love in a relationship that's long-term. Okay.
Okay. This isn't the absence of abuse or abandonment or big structural issues. These are people who want to stay in love.
So, my wife and I, we work with couples who are about to get married. We work with couples who have long been married. We do retreats for people who want to stay in love. And there's a lot of things that you can actually do to fall back in love and stay in love. Let's start with the neurochemistry. When couples are in love, they have a huge exchange of a neuropeptide called oxytocin. You've probably heard of this. It's a neuropeptide that functions as a hormone in the brain. Now, human beings have a lot of this to bond to each other, you know. So, when you have a baby and the baby's nursing, you'll see the baby will stare into your eyes while it's nursing. It's a little tiny baby. And when you do that, there's a huge amount of bonding oxytocin exchange like the Fourth of July. It's intensely pleasurable.
You really, really need it. Now, this is how you know that somebody's your kin. Okay. And so lovers will do this because you're supposed to be attracted to somebody who's not physiologically related to you, who's not genetically related to you, for the health of your offspring. But we're not in the ancestral environment, we're suspicious of people who are not genetically related to us. And so we adopt them. And the way that we adopt them is with oxytocin exchange.
Now, so when you get married, how do you get that? Well, lots of ways, touch, for example, but another way you get that is with eye contact. By looking at each other deeply in the eyes. And when you're falling in love and you're sitting across from each other on the first date at the restaurant, you're like, 'I feel like this conversation is really interesting. We really have this deep connection.' And it's just because you're going oxytocin. You're like, 'This actually might be my family member, aka my husband.'
Yeah, first date. I mean, first date. First date. Boom. You get a lot of oxytocin exchange on this. Okay, couples fall out of that. So they'll be married.
It's like the honeymoon period, right? You go.
But it's even longer, you know, but five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. They might not have looked deeply into each other's eyes for a long time.
Well, because life passes. And so now women have three times as much oxytocin as men, which means that women need this more than men do to fill their proper oxytocin levels.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Mhm. So, one of the things that I recommend, especially to husbands, boyfriends, is every time she's talking to you, stare at her in the eyes and she'll be after two weeks like, 'I don't know why, but I feel a lot closer to you.' And she'll never figure it out unless she listens to a really popular podcast. So, the cat's out of the bag. So, number one is eye contact.
Number two is touch. Men need more touch than women do, especially nonsexual touch.
Yeah. So there's vasopressin, which is a cousin neuropeptide.
Men have more than women.
Wow. And you get it from touch. Now when you're with your beloved and you hook your arm into his as you're walking down the street, he gets like seven feet tall. Vasopressin makes you want to defend your tribe. It makes you want to protect your beloved. It makes you feel strong and capable. And the way that you get that is when she holds your hand. That's how you get it. And so every time you're sitting together, ladies, touch his hand. Hold his hand. When you're in the movie theater, hold his hand. Touch. Touch. Touch. Touch. Now, some guys like it less and some guys like it more, but they all need it more than they think. Nonsexual touch, right?
Number three, have more fun together. One of the problems that couples who are in trouble, one of the problems is that they're trying to solve their problems and all they talk about is their problems, right? I mean, you don't go to a marriage counselor and say, 'We're here just to let you know that it's just going great,' right? You don't go to the cardiologist and say, 'Your ticker, I'm fine, so good. I'm just here to tell you, doc.' I mean, that's not what you do. You go there because you got a problem. And so you talk about your problems and pretty soon a lot of couples, they'll get in kind of this, 'Let's talk about our problems again. Talk about our problems again.' They forget to have fun. I mean, fun is the basis of the relationship, per se.
I think we forget about that in all elements of our life.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Uhhuh.
