Modern Wisdom - #474 - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz - How To Live The Perfect Life, Using Data

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a data scientist, economist and author. Imagine if you had access to millions of data points which tell you exactly what makes people happy, or makes people attracted to you, or what actually influences your child's outcomes in life, or the most reliable way to become rich. Well Seth did, and he wrote a book with all his findings in it. Expect to learn how you can conduct a survey to test different appearance styles to find out which is best for you, what personality traits result in the happiest relationships, which activities which make you most and least happy, the secret industries of people who become rich in America, how to hack luck using data and much more... Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get 2 weeks free access to Wondrium by going to https://www.wondrium.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 15% discount on Upgraded Formulas Test Kit at https://upgradedformulas.com/ (use code: MW15) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Buy Don't Trust Your Gut - https://amzn.to/3PkKXyU Follow Seth on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SethS_D  Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Seth Stevens-Davidowitz. He's a data scientist, economist, and an author. Imagine if you had access to millions of data points, which tell you exactly what makes people happy, or makes people attracted to you, or what actually influences your child's outcomes in life, or the most reliable way to become rich. Well, Seth did, and then he wrote a book about it with all of his findings in. Expect to learn how you can conduct a survey to test different appearance styles to find out which is the best for you, which personality traits result in the happiest relationships, what activities will make you the most and least happy, the secret industries of people

who become rich in America, how to hack luck using data and much more. This episode is absolutely awesome. I love when people find a way to cut through all of the rhetoric and stories and narrative and just give you the date. Just tell you what you need to do. You want to be happy? These are the things you should do and these are the things you should avoid. You want to be attractive? You want to find a partner that you're going to love for a while? You want to become rich? You want to become famous? This is what people who have done it did. And you can take that as you wish. It's so cool. The book is awesome. If you enjoyed it, it's linked in the show notes below. Don't trust your gut. Go and buy it.

It's a great guy and this book's phenomenal. Don't trust your gut, go buy it, set a great guy, and this book is absolutely awesome. This is what people want, someone that has access to loads of data to actually come up with and do. It's like, look, just tell me how I'm supposed to live my life, please. Can you just give me the money ball for my existence? That would be great. Thank you. Yeah, that was the motivation for the book is that I, it's originally the book I wanted to read because I'm obsessed with self-help. It's all embarrassing because I'm supposed to be such an

intellectual and my, my bookshelves are just filled with self-help, like how to get more powerful when I was single, how to date better, how to be happier, how to whatever. And I'm so frustrated because I read all these books and I'm like, I just don't believe, I'm like this isn't really based on very much, you just like had an idea and just told me it's not like up to the rigorous standards that I'd come to expects from, you know, data analysis. So I'm kind of just like, okay, what would actually be, what have you just explored all the areas of life, and just said what the data tells you on it?

And I've also noticed that a lot of self-help books, when they say they're evidence-based or science-based, somebody just has a point they want to make, and they just Google some study that confirms it. And that's not how I wrote this book. I literally had no idea what I was saying on any of these topics. I'm like, I don't know what I'm saying about dating. I know I'm saying about entrepreneurship. I don't know what I'm saying about happiness. And I'm just like going to find the best

studies and the best data and the best whatever. And then like, here, that's what I'm saying now. So yeah. Yeah, it does make other books feel In In consistent and in substantial you're like hang on a second What what what did you see you just told me a nice story? But this is just it's just a story that happens to fit some eat prey love Narrative that sounds nice I Think it's right. I thought I think it's also a misconception that people just want to read

stories. That's kind of an idea that they tell authors. You know, you just tell stories, tell stories, tell stories. And like everybody who's read my book so far, which I'm just going to say that you're supposed to say the name a lot, don't trust your gut. Some people remember it. But everyone who's read my book has been like, I've been enthralled by the tables and the charts. Oh, it's just like, not again, that's not usually what you put in self-help books like tables and charts. Dude, suggest by a nice bar chart. That's what people needed. I think people are like, people are like coming back with like very subtle points. Like, the, you know, I love it. I'm like, wow, the closest everybody was reading the book was actually the tables and charts and figures.

And I'm like, oh, I think there were misconceptions about, like the, about the audience for books and what they actually want. And I think people do want things that are a little meteor and a little more substantial and like a little more, you know, data driven. So I think a big reason for that is because it is quite counter to much of what gets put out there.

There's a guy called Stephen Kotler, who runs the flow research collective, and he looks at the science of getting your body into a flow state, but he looks at it from a biological level, right? This isn't a philosophical level, this isn't how it contributes to your meaning. It's what is the actual brain

wave state you're supposed to be in? What does this mean for your heart rate? What does this mean for your respiratory rate? What does this mean for your average body temperature? What are the exercises and the strategies that you can do to influence yourself to move you toward that side? And you're like, it felt me to you as a really nice way to put it. You're reading this book and you're like, yeah, there's something firm for me to press up against here. And I think that I think that finding something firm as in the data is a good place to look. So you decided off the back of said book

to do a nerdy makeover, a data driven makeover. I'm not falling the advice though because I'm dear cider, which I'm dear cider is that you can't see far away. So yeah, so I did this analysis. There's all this evidence. I didn't know about it until I started researching this book on how much your looks influence your success in life. So like it's really depressing and dark.

Like they show pictures of two candidates, gubernatorial election senate candidates, and they're like, which one looks more competent? And this research by this guy, Alex, is told off and others. And 70% of the elections they can predict just based on the candidate who people said look more competent wins.

And it's just like, that is so depressing. Like, we're all in high school basically. We can't, we've never escaped high school. And then he's on studies like who rises at the top of the military? Is people just look dominant? And they're like, oh, there've been studies that people who look baby faced,

like are more likely to get off their crop, like not be convicted of the crime. You're kidding me. Because I was just like, no, yeah, no, not, come on, not that guy. And I'm just like, are you kidding me? I was getting angry and angry there. But then I'm like, wait a second, there was this other study where they said that the

same person can be rated very differently based on like little changes they make. So I'm like, wait a second, it such as whining about how like, you know, unfair it is, you got to take advantage of this. You got to like find your best look. And I use this tool. Yeah, it's a, probably the world's nerdiest makeover. Face app is this, like app, everyone can play around with it. You can kind of change around what apps when I have glasses, what happens, when I have long long hair what happens when I have a beard what happens When I have a mustache go tea you can just change everything about you and then I Ask people to rate like how I look how competent I looked in these different things

I use this service the best way to do it now is a site I didn't know about photo-feeler.com anyone could do this like you can just match what I did So you go to face app you create different version yourself You go to photo-feeler.com and you can get ratings on them on how you look on various dimensions. And then for me, there are these really clear patterns that everyone rated me way more competent when I had a beard and had glasses. I was just like stark, it was like striking the lesson, striking the day and everything else they did did better like, uh-oh, you can add like a smile Different smiles no difference. Different types of glasses no real difference like

Even when I shaved my head it wasn't even that much worse Which I may be heading towards because I'm going bald So that was encouraging. I'm like thank god I'm like one of them like a six on confidence and then let the shape to add. I'm like a two I'm then I'm really screwed because baldness is coming fast for me. So, or I guess if I based on that, then I would have got it like a hair transplant. I guess. But I'm just like, oh, there are these two things, glasses and beard and they're just

the huge difference makers for me. Why did you want to optimize for competence? Well, I say because like, I tested a few of them and they were all, they're all pretty highly correlated. So like, I said, now that I'm happily in a, if I was single, I'd go attractiveness 100%. I think I didn't go for attractiveness too because I was too scared of the results.

I'm like, what happens if I put it in there and I was like, you're 0.1, I'm like, what happens if I put it in there? And I was like, you're 0.1. And I'm like, oh god, I'm going to really get in my head. Whereas I'm confidence, maybe I'll do a little better. I look a little nerdy. Everyone will be like, you're confident. But I think I focused on confidence more, because I'm happy in a relationship.

I feel like I don't really need to win over people of the track to this. And then I was talking to someone, Steven Levit, the co-author of Freakonomics. And I told him this and he's like, no, no, that is your first mistake. You always need to keep the attract that is high for your partner. Don't get lazy on the attraction this front just because you're in a relationship. But it was like, it's clear to me that I really think everyone can do this.

Like, initially, I had to use these tools. I didn't know about PhotoFeeler. I just found out about that recently. But literally FaceApp plus PhotoFeeler, anybody could do what I did, really, really simply. And PhotoFeeler also does a whole bunch of different traits. So they do competence and smart and all kinds of different things. You get it back really quickly. So I bet you everybody will find out these little things like I did.

Like it's just be earning glasses are like the game changers. Oh, you think that's for everybody that all of the women should have be earning glasses as well. That's just the universal panacea across the board that every woman get yourself a. No, I think the point is that it's like the point is they're obviously going to be individual variation. That's why you got to do the study. So there are some people that are going to do well. I think glasses and competence may be pretty close to universal.

We are just so tricked by glasses. And everybody just looks smarter when they have a pair of glasses on. But, you know, but like beard, I think, there's something about my face that I think is just like, a beard, like kind of, I have like a full mouth, I think a beard kind of covers it. There are some like men, particularly that beard are just like very good on, like James Hardin, the basketball player.

I'm always like, why is this guy this crazy beard? Then I saw pictures before he had a beard and he's like missing a chin. Have you seen, do you know, Kazmat Chimayev, do you know who that is? I was like, why is this guy this crazy beard? That I saw pictures before he had a beard and he's like missing a chain. And my phone. Have you seen, do you know, Kazmat Chimayev? Do you know who that is? No. So he is one of these,

he's an absolute animal in the middleweight division in the UFC. And this guy, there's multiple series of videos talking about how he's a legitimate psychopath on YouTube. And he's, like everyone loves him for the fact that he's just ready to go at all times. And if you want to go and have a laugh, Google, Kazmat Shemayev without a beard, and he's missing a chin. There is no chin there. It is simply a beard growing out from his neck.

And you're like, fuck, he's so much more intimidating with a beard than without one. So he's optimizing for intimidation. You were optimizing for competence. Absolutely. But when I did attractiveness, beard was got me a higher score as well. So I think their competence and attractiveness are very highly correlated. Usually, the things usually like a look is better on like every front. It's not like there's, you're usually not trading off like, you know,

one or the other. Usually like, there's a look for you. I think it's pretty clear that glasses and beard is my, is my look. What were the big lessons that you learned from data about being successful in dating then? There are like a lot of different lessons. One of them is from, I love this. People may have heard of it, but if you haven't, you need to know it. Christian Rodder wrote this excellent book, Data Clism, and he made the point that the most successful data are like,

the very most successful data are exactly who you'd expect. They're like Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman, just beautiful people and they just get like, it's depressing how much better they do than the average person. But then like they're these daters that do shockingly well and they're people with extreme looks, like people who shave their head,

like what, heterosexual women who shave their head or have crazy glasses or blue hair or all these things. And the point is, in dating, you want to be polarizing. So if you're Brad Pitt or Natalie Portman, you just want to be yourself and not scare anybody, just like play a very safe, let the goodies flood to you. But if you are not Natalie Portman or Brad Pitt or you're not like, eventually the most attractive person, you gotta kind of lean into some extreme version yourself.

And then some people will be totally turned off, but some people will be really into you. And that's kind of what's, that's all it matters. You just need some people to be really into you. And I kind of did that in my old life because I think it's not kind of surprise anybody that like I'm pretty nerdy I mean anybody read Don't Trust Your God would be like this guy's pretty nerdy like There's this one study where they list the happy it they have a chart with the happy it how much happiness every activity

Gives people and I literally ordered an iPhone Case with that chart on it so I can look at at the data and I've decided what to do. Things, so I'm like the nerdy, I'm maybe one of the nerdyest people, you know, anybody's countered. And I think when I was single, like a lot of nerds, I'm like, well, what do I do to, you know, I'm heterosexual to attract women? And I'm like, okay, well, I gotta, you know, tone it down.

Be less nerdy, be, you know, like, you know, get rid of the glasses, get,'m like, okay, well, I gotta tone it down. Be less nerdy, be, get rid of the glasses, get like, stop talking about the charts and the tables and the bath and learn, talk more about what you're taught that the average woman is into. And I think the data suggests the exact opposite. Like, nerdy it up, go all in on who you are, and then you'll just be polarizing. But you don't, in dating, you don't want to be like average to people.

You want to be like the extreme, something that's the most appealing. Well, because you're not optimizing for total area under the curve, are you? You only need a couple of winners. And yeah, and exactly, and you know, well, I like only need a couple of winners. And yeah, and exactly. And no, I like I think a couple of winners. I have a variety. Right? I'm a novice. So I was just like for one winner. But, but I, yeah, and my girlfriend, literally, she was talking to her friends and they're like, what's your type? And everyone's going through their type, like told Ark and Handsome this that.

And she's like, my type is nerdy. And like, that was her type. And she's not even that nerdy yourself or type was nerdy. And then, you know, and here I am, if I had not played off my nerdy-ness, I wouldn't have had a chance. And I think the thing that the other big dating thing is you've got to put yourself out there way more. So they've done these studies on like what happens when people have different attractiveness or desirability ratings, message someone else on an online dating site.

So like what happens when a one message is 10 on an online dating site. And before I saw the data, I'm like, this is a blood bath. This is like a one ask out a 10, I mean, or an investment 10, we're talking about like a one in a million, a one in a billion, like, come on. Like that's not gonna happen. And the data says for a heterosexual man,

one ask out a heterosexual 10, it's like 14%. And for a heterosexual woman asking out a one asking, going after a heterosexual man, it's like 30%. So like when you actually do the math, the key to getting, like if you want to date out of your league, which I don't necessarily recommend, because I also have a section how physical, conventional tractors is most overvalued thing in the day market. But let's be honest, everybody is curious, how can I date someone who is way more beautiful

or way more desirable than me. And I think it's a combination of being an extreme version of yourself and then asking tons of people out. Because if you have a 14% chance on one go then you actually do the math If you ask like 30 people out you have like a 98% chance So like all you got to do is just keep on going after and a lot of people are gonna be like no, no, no, no, no, no and eventually You're gonna get your your yes, and then there yeah, there are other things I could keep going They're what what was the insight around physical attractiveness and happiness?

Yeah, so they've done studies of like 11,000 couples and they tried to predict what predicts romantic happiness. So Samantha Joel led this study. And it's like a revolutionary study of romantic happiness. They use machine learning models. There are 86 scientists studying it. Like 11,000 couples, they had hundreds of variables like anything you could consider a test. And the first thing is it's very hard in general

to predict who's happy. Like the predictive models are just way worse than you might imagine. It's not like predicting, I don't know, predicting like the weather tomorrow or something. It's like predicting the weather in like three years. Like it's harder than you'd guess. But that said, the things that do have at least some predictive power, whether I'm happy

with someone else, whether I would pretty good person have someone else. The qualities, the other person that seem to have some predictive power are like these psychological variables, so secure attachment style, growth mindset, conscientiousness, satisfaction with life, kind of like good psychological variables, and the things that don't have, that have like basically no predictive power are a lot of superficial things. So conventional attractiveness, the height of your partner, the particular occupation of your partner, many things like that. So all of the things that online apps optimize for on the front end, yeah. So like, so yeah, so it's, I think like the major insight from the data on dating and romance is there's just a total disconnect

between what people are trying to like what people are swiping for or trying to date and what actually makes people happy you know will people change based on knowing that I don't know I think it may be coded in our DNA that were drawn to beauty and height and status. But if you can, I really too recommend overruling some of those instincts because they're really not a path to lots of happiness. The other thing is, the competition for these traits is so enormous that like even if you win over someone, like if you win over someone who is this great beauty or a woman, everybody will every woman's, I think the data is 85% of women or I don't remember the exact

number have like six footer above on bumble or whatever it is it's something to think is only 14% of men in the US. Yeah and it's like and like uh so the competition for these people are wrote are is rocious and you have to think that if you first of all if you try to take these people you may spend a huge percent of your life single and complaining that you're single. They can think a lot of people who are perpetually single, they're trying to date the small number of people that everybody is trying to date.

And number two, if you do win them over, you may find that they are like that there's a reason that they are single, even though they have all these traits that everybody is desiring. So maybe their psychological traits are a little bit, some part. I would love to see, I would love to see the physical characteristics mapped with the psychological traits.

You know, what are the correlates between our taller people on average, more conscientious, some more industrious, or more balanced? Because that would be fascinating to see, because it could be, it actually could be that in order to be with someone who's hot, you need to sacrifice being with someone who's psychologically, it's probably not likely, right? They're probably pretty just randomly spread,

but that could be the case. I think if you're not hot and you want to date someone hot, then you probably do have the sacrifice. Yeah. So if you're like, if you're hot yourself, then you're probably like, okay, it's probably it's somewhat of a market. You're probably in better, in better. You can always date across and down.

Yeah. Well, the interesting thing there is what you're kind of saying is similar to what John Burgier says in Make the First Move, where it's not lowering your standards, it's changing what your standards consist of, because what you're saying is that what you think your standards should be aren't what they should be. You're optimizing for the wrong parameters. What you're optimizing for is something like height and job title and a bunch of things which aren't going to impact the thing that you ultimately want, which is long-term relationship happiness, what you need to do is reset that. And by doing that, you actually

open up an entire new market, which is less competitive, potentially untapped and significantly more linear between where you are and where you want to be in terms of happiness. Yeah, but nobody wants to hear that advice. significantly more linear between where you are and where you want to be in terms of happiness. Yeah, but nobody wants to hear that advice. Shit, it's shit dating advice. How do I get the hot person? That's how do I get the how do I get the fitties? I told you the way to get the hot person is to be an extreme version yourself and ask out lots of people. And the other thing I didn't say is take advantage of similarity. So, people are incredibly drawn,

this is also shown in dating apps, to people who are similar themselves. Like, on every trait you can imagine, so race people are drawn to, people are similar themselves, religion, like height, height, to some degree, even like college, people don't just wanna date someone

of a similar education level, they like show a bonus to someone who went to their exact same university, even if it's like relative to someone, in a similar rank university, that there's, and then, oh, my favorite example of this, is we're 11.3% more likely on online dating apps to match with someone who shares our initials. Which is so ridiculous. Like, come on, initials, like sharing your initials is not the path to long-term happiness. But so I think there's a lot of irrational now being that, but you can take advantage of that in that try.

Like if you share your initials with someone, definitely ask them out because you have this bonus. All right. You've got like the multiplier. That's the 11.4% multiplier on that. Oh, well, she's a, she's a nine out of 10, but she does have my initials. So if I take that, she's actually only re, she's like a, a parameter adjusted eight and a half with one

we account for the name bias. But yeah, and I think I learned this in my single life where I am Jewish and, but I'm not religious at all. And I always pride myself on not caring about religion, like I would be happy to date somebody of any religious background, any cultural background, whatever, it's not something that I view is very, very important to me. But I did kind of notice that the quality of my dates were always higher with the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community because of this similarity bias.

So even if I don't care, like even if it's not a preference for me, I can take advantage of the fact that it's a preference for other people. And I should probably be more likely to go to like a singles event for Jewish people than a singles event for non-Jewish people. Because in the non-Jewish singles event, I'm going to be a five or whatever, but Jewish. But Jewish privilege, man. Jewish privilege in the Jewish. I know what you mean. It's Chinese privilege in the Chinese event.

It's Asian privilege in that, yeah, I understand., and it's like it's true for Asian males as well They're I talk about that. There's a huge prejudice against Asian males and online dating But there's much less prep prejudice from Asian woman in this in this group. So yeah, it's a privilege that like You know, yeah again my major advice is care less about these superficial things. I just try to find someone who's like really nice and can make you happy. And if you can get to that mindset, you're going to find dating way, way easier. But if you want to date like a hot person, then you have to use all these strategies and everything that I think are justified in the data.

Use your privilege is one of them. What about what makes people happy then? You looked at that. Yeah, so what makes people happy, I've read like a thousand studies on happiness. And a lot of them, even ones that are really famous, I'm like, these studies aren't that good. They like interview like 100 undergraduate students. And they're like, so what makes you happy? I'm like, how should I know that these 100 undergrad students or anything like anybody else, you're not like doing experiments?

It's just was very underwhelming. But there are these new projects, which are really cool. They're called Experience Sampling Projects. And they basically ping people on their smartphones. And they say, what are you doing? Who are you with and how happy are you? And they built a data set of like three million happy points. The biggest one, mapiness.

George McHarran, Suzanne Abrado, three million data points. And there are all these cool sites that I got so excited, because I just, as I said, very, very dirty. So I'd like rewound these studies. They're like people are happier. The same person do the same activities. Same people are happier when they're in nature by a lake, where they're happier when their environment is beautiful, where they're happiest, going for a hike, or having sex as the number one happy activity. And I'm kind of like, I was telling my friends this because working on the chapter, I'm like, you know, did you hear about this cool study?

And they're like, do we need scientists to tell us this? Like, that's so obvious. Like all these things that you're saying are painfully obvious. And I think there's profundity in the obviousness of the research on happiness, which is that the things that make you happy, like if you look, I have the happiness activity chart from Alex Price and George McArin in one of my, and that's what I recommend people get as an iPhone case or hang it on your wall or whatever. And you look at that chart, it's almost like a chart from our hunter gathered days. It's like people are happy, like, you

know, yeah, having sex, taking walks, hunting and fishing, gardening, like just like these very outdoors simple activities and the things that are really low are these like very modern things like waiting on a line, dealing with a bureaucracy, working, internet, social media, very, very low computer games, really, really low when you actually ping people how happy are they, very, very low computer games, really, really low when you actually ping people how happy are they they rank very low I think it's good to keep in mind like the simplicity of the things that make people happy and if you're not happy Oh, I end the book. I say what's the data-driven answer to life? Based on these three million, you know, happiness points and and all this this new data

And I go the data-driven answer to life is to be with your love on an 80 degree and sunny day overlooking a beautiful body of water having sex. And like, which is, okay, not rocket science. It's not like they, you know, scientists have found some like gel you put on yourself or some website you visit that's like the cure to happiness. It's these very old-fashioned simple things. And I do recommend to people

who are not happy, like think about how far your life is from those simple things that from the data driven answer to life. So like how much time are you spending in nature? How much time are you spending on the internet in comparison? How much time are you spending in nature? How much time are you spending on the internet and comparison? How much time are you spending with the people that make you're happier, friends and romantic partners? And like, everybody else just doesn't make you happy. You had a list of underrated activities,

the things that tend to make people happier than they'd predict. Exhibitions, museums, libraries, sports, and exercise, drinking alcohol, gardening and shopping or errands. And then the overrated activities that make people less happy than they think, sleeping, resting, relaxing, computer games, watching TV,

eating and browsing the internet, I'm surprised, and I was really surprised when I looked at the list of activities, that playing with pets wasn't higher. It's like maybe 15, I think, but dude, if you put a dog in this room, I'm not doing anything for the rest of the day. Like, that's me, that's me in the dog. Someone, oh, you want to have some sex?

It's like, no, sorry, I'm with the dog at the moment. So again, there's individual variation in this. They're having sex with the person that, no, don't do that. So drinking alcohol was an interesting one. And I think that you talk about this. It's not necessarily just about what the activity does, but it's about what you're doing while you're in the activity, right? So drinking alcohol is often associated.

It's socializing, you're spending time with friends, you're having a conversation. Maybe you're also at a show or a comedy event or watching a gig or something like that. Yeah, I mean, drinking alcohol, what you're getting with the pet example is there probably or a comedy event or watching a gig or something like that? Yeah, I mean, Dr. Galkal, what you're getting with the Penn example is there probably is individual variation in these, and you don't have to. Although I think a danger with happiness is we exaggerate how much individual variation there is. So there have been studies where they've compared introverts and extroverts and they say how much happier they are when they're by themselves or with other people and both introverts and extroverts get the exact same boost from being with other people

than being by themselves. Even though you ask introverts, they're like, yeah, yeah, you know, I really like being by myself, I really like being by myself. So I think there's a danger. Like I'd be, I'd be a little wary if I were you. Like I'd ask you to actually track your happiness and see if you're getting as much happiness from pets as you might think, because I think we do tell ourselves these stories that are not always correct and that we're like unique. So I don't know.

I think there's also different time stem with pets. So sometimes like, it was just like, you know, like, yeah, like petting them, playing catch with them. That's one thing, if you're cleaning up their craft. I know, it's gotta be spread across time, right? One thing that I thought that was interesting, is there a tension between happiness and meaning? So there's this Roy Balmai study paper that you've probably read about the tension that

you have between these two different things. And there's a lot of things that we can do in the moment, which makes us feel happy, sort of more on the hedonic side. But long term doesn't necessarily create meaning. Did you think about this? I did. I think, yeah, you know, like for example, work scores very low on happiness. And I think, you know, I don't know the answer from that is just quit your job and yeah, I don't, and you

know, the study that I reference, mappiness, isn't following people over three years and being like, you know, you see kind of the moment, happiness, and you don't necessarily see as much the long-term things. I do think it's just, I think from these studies, you just can dodge yourself a little bit in the direction of things that make people happy. That's kind of wise, without sacrificing everything that's meaningful to you.

So don't, if you read So don't, you know, if you read, you know, my don't trust your God or you read these studies, I don't, and then, yeah, you immediately quit your job and move to a lake. Like, I'd be like, that may be taking the advice a little too. Seriously, I think more clearly, but anybody who reads these studies and then the next weekend is deciding between sitting at home and playing computer games or going for a walk with your friends by the water. And it is kind of uncertain. Like I'd really recommend you went with your friends on the walk by the water just based

on the data. So. What did social media use due to people's happiness? You looked at that in depth. friends on the walk by the water just based on the data. What did social media use due to people's happiness? You looked at that in depth. Yeah, yeah. So in the mapiness study, the single, there are 26 leisure activities. The single lowest scoring leisure activity

is using social media, which already says, wow, that's probably not so good for you. And there was a famous randomized controlled trial where they paid people to stop using Facebook. They randomly paid a group of people to stop using Facebook. And they reported a enormous decline in depressive symptoms. So I think there really is pretty,

it's almost a cliche to say it, but there really is evidence that social media can make people miserable. For the obvious reason that it makes you feel like crap about your life. You know, if you're seeing on Facebook, like the curate version of everybody else's life, I actually, my first book, Everybody Lies, I talk a lot about that. And the difference between like social media and real life and Google searches and on social media when people describe their husbands, it's my husband is the best, the greatest, so cute and adorable. And that's like public everyone's seeing it. And when it's not when they're searching my husband is, it's like my husband is a jerk annoying mean like a totally different

You don't have sex with me not having sex with me. Yeah, so There's so like social media like it's a cliche to say it, but it's just so true. It really is a dangerous Game to play from from a happiness perspective. Why do you think it is that was so bad at working at what makes us happy? Well, I think the world's trying to trick us. Like, there are people, I mean, social media, we're up against forces more powerful than we are, which are doing all these A, B tests

to try to make the most addictive products possible. And like, you know, I talk about money and happiness. And there definitely is a relationship between money and happiness, but it's a pretty small one. So for example, there's a study by Matthew Killing's worth doubling your income consistently has about the same effect on happiness. So going from $40,000 to $80,000 a year

has the same effect of going from $4,000,000 to $8,000 a year. Has the same effect of going from, you know, like, so basically you're in this kind of treadmill where you need to keep on raising it by more and more to get a happiness boost. Now of course, like, I sound like a conspiracyist, and these ideas are almost so cliché, but they're just true. Advertisements don't want you to think that money doesn't matter.

They want you to think that you need the fanciest products. So, they're kind of telling you brainwash you a little bit on the things that will make you happy that they're also good studies that the purchase is that make people happy. And it's very rarely stuff. It's usually vacations travel gives the biggest boost to happiness when you kind of ask people what are you doing and how happy you are and what product are you using. The only products that really are giving people happiness or trips, and other experiences frequently with their romantic partner, their friends.

It's like museums, tours, stuff like that. Yeah, so things like that could legitimately give you happy spoons. They're usually not even that expensive, but when people are using a fancy new electronic or wearing in our body suit, they're not really getting a big happiness boost. So I think that's an example, why are we wrong? Well, our body probably spends more time advertising than the Grand Canyon does. So, if you turn on the TV,

you're not really seeing many advertisements, have you thought of taking a camping trip in the Grand Canyon with your friends? Because Grand Canyon is a non-profit, they're not even making money. So it's, it's, they're, yeah, so I think we're getting kind of the wrong messages about the path to happiness. What is it, there was that famous study that said above $70,000 a year, money has no impact on happiness. What is it? There was that famous study that said above $70,000 a year, money has no impact on happiness. It seems like what you're saying here is that that's bullshit. It's not true, but it's true in that the effects level off a lot. So it's not literally true

that you reach $75,000, then money doesn't improve things at all. But going from $40,000 to $80,000 is the same as going from $80,000 to $160,000. So it is leveling off. It doesn't level off to zero. There is also some evidence that once you reach about $8 million, you also get a boost. And I think the reason for that is that then you're reaching a point and I've started, since I've moved to New York, I've met a lot of people in that camp of $8 million and well beyond.

And I think they're at a level where they literally have everything taken care of them for them. And you see the happiness activity chart that I include in Don't Trust Your God. And like there are all these miserable activities, you know, standing on lines, work, housework, housework. Like they really don't make people happy. And when you reach $8 billion in debt worth or beyond, you don't have to spend much your life doing those things. That's the point at which the driver or the assistant can stand in line for you when the chef can cook you breakfast when the housekeeper can clean up. Blah blah. Yeah, and then you really can't spend most of your life just by a beach having sex.

In 80 degree weather. All right, so talking about people that have stupid amounts of wealth, what's the best way to become rich? So I actually, there's this study I read. Again, most times I read a study, I'm just like, that's like, I don't believe the study or I'm like, it's like, they make these subtle points. You know, like, if you read any study, like usually they're just like making these very subtle interactions, like the theoretical point that only the research you care about. But in case you read a sentence to the study that kind of blows your mind and as read the study is from the entire universe of taxpayers, American taxpayers, and they analyze who's

in the top 0.1% so it's people making $1.5 million a year. So these are people approaching the level where you can't actually just be happy with how much money you have. And they said that the typical rich American is the owner of a regional business such as an auto dealership or beverage distributor. And I read that, I'm just like, what?

Like, who thinks of an auto dealer owner? Like auto dealers are just like these annoying, like people with greasy suits who try to sell us like things we don't need. You're not really thinking of them as like rich people and then beverage is just weird. I didn't even know what that was. And it turns out that, so like the likely,

so there are a couple of voices. One is you have to own something to get rich by and large. So like if you look at the richest Americans, members of the top point, 1%, I think about 84% of them are making their money primarily by owning something, not by paying paid a salary. So there are some people who are just like get paid a ton of money by- Superstar lawyers maybe or stuff like that. Yeah, occasionally, but usually if people are owning something. And then you want to have some sort of, and then you want to go in a good field.

So there are all these fields that are awful. They've done studies of the quickest field businesses that go out of the field where the business goes out of Business quickest and like number one was record store the average record store last 2.5 years In comparison the average debt to this office last 19.5 years and basically the problem is everybody wants to own a record store There are all these movies made about record stores Like they're been a whole bunch of record store movies I think probably every time some that movie comes out everyone's like I'm gonna quit my a whole bunch of record store movies. I think probably every time some that movie comes out, everyone's like, I'm going to quit my job and start a record store.

And it's just like not a good path and like toy stores and awful business, clothing stores, awful business. There's some other ones. But then there are things you basically want to local, you want to local monopoly where like so auto dealerships They're they have like legal protections where you kind of have franchise rights to service a particular car company in your local region And that's a big advantage in business if you have legal protections about against some random person coming in and stealing your business. I think you can't really read this, that and say, okay, now I'll just start a local deal.

Now I'll just start an auto dealership because the whole point of auto dealerships is you're not allowed to start a new one and compete with these people. But I think you want to be thinking that principle of like what's my local monopoly that allows me to avoid someone just stealing my entire business or offering a lower price or anything. And even I talk about in the book that independent creatives may be a better bet than I had thought being kind of like what you're doing, like a podcast host or what I'm doing a writer. And there are like a surprise, I was surprised by how many people are entering the top 1%

or even the top 0.1% as independent creatives. It's still a long shot, most people aren't. But it's not like as big a long shot as I thought, and I think the reason for that is you have a local monopoly. So like, if Chris, as you're building your brand, you build a fan base. And then like, everybody, I could be on 20 different podcasts. Well, your fans are going to listen to your podcast and watch. I, you can ask me the same questions. You could be like, someone else could be, you know, should I play with my pet or have sex and the exact same questions, but you're going to have an edge because you've built a fan base. And similarly, you know,

I've read some books and people, I already have like people who liked everybody's lies my first book and now they're going to give me kind of the benefit of it down and Don't trust your guts. You have you do have this kind of a little bit of a boat as a creative that Like I think it's a better business than like pest control or something Yeah, well record so yeah, but like even even some boring businesses like pest control The data says like basically nobody's getting rich from pest control businesses. And the problem with being in the pest control business is you don't, there's no way to build a local monopoly.

Like, you're basically competing against everybody and everybody's just Googling for pest control. And you have to, any profit you have, you're gonna give away and ads on Google to try to get higher up on the list. Like, nobody's like, you know, there's no name in pest control or there's no, there's no legal protection. I really like Seth's, Seth's pest control because of the personality that he brings when

he's getting rid of my cockroaches. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody. Yeah. Nobody. And like, you don't even have that many repeat customers anyway. So there's just like not.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard to escape the perfect competition that field. So like the same perfect competition, you either need like a legal protection, a legal protection like auto-dustio ships have, you need like some sort of personal contacts being like really deep in a field or you need like a fan base. What I think adds. Yeah, it's a unique way to imprint a difficult to replicate competitive advantage. And you see this with PT's.

So my old housemate, Lewis, is PT. And he moved, I think, to two or three different gyms in the time that he was living with me. And these gyms were three miles to one of them and then another five miles to a different one in around the city. And I was like, dude, there is a... I felt really bad. I was like, what if you lose these all of his clients? Tons of his clients stayed with him.

Like, hang on a second, you're talking about someone maybe adding two hours a week onto their commute, just to go and train with you two or three times. And people were prepared to go. Brand new facility, different gym, different place, different parking, different route. And they stuck with them because it's a very personal experience, right? People aren't, you're not just being competed out of the market with this very transactional sort of

pest control, get rid of my cockroaches thing. It's something very, very specific. Speaking of online coaching, what was that analysis about the best way to sell a product online if you were doing like a seminar or something? Yeah, they did an analysis of like a, is it called Amazon Live where they, where people are kind of making a pitch just try to sell their product. It was a really amazing study.

They used artificial intelligence to translate all the pitches into like the facial expression. They analyzed the facial expression of everyone making their pitch and they had all kinds of other data about the pitch and they knew how much of the product actually sold and they found that the best way to sell your product is basically a poker face. So like if you're angry or like depressed or like sad or like, you know, then like yeah, everyone's just like, I don't want to watch this person. But too many people selling their products have smiles,

like these goofy smiles on their face, and are too excited, and that actually backsfires. There's like this sweet spot where you're not showing too much happiness or too much sadness of poker face. I think they say, the authors of the study say, having a poker face instead of a smile is about twice as valuable as free shipping.

So which is kind of counterintuitive, you don't really think, I think everybody's instinct is really excited for what you have. I think the study didn't get into the nitty gritty. I'm sure if you had the poker face for an hour, everyone would be like, show me a smile, lighten up, relax, show some happiness. But it does show the danger that there is a danger in selling things of being too excited by your product and kind of being a little more even killed. And honest can help. What about some of the myths to do with entrepreneurial success? Oh, yeah.

So entrepreneurial success. There's this famous idea that entrepreneurs are young. So like Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook when he was 19. Steve Jobs was 20, started Apple, Bill Gates 19, we started Microsoft. These are kind of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world. And I think people think they're also the most famous entrepreneurs featured in the media. So they've done studies of the entrepreneurs in magazines and like the median age is 27 or something.

So people just love telling the stories of these young people. When you actually look at the data of the entire universe of entrepreneurs, the average successful entrepreneur is 42. stories of these young people, when you actually look at the data of the entire universe of entrepreneurs, the average successful entrepreneur is 42, and the odds of an entrepreneur succeeding increase until the age of 60, which shocks me. You don't think of a 60-year-old, like that's the total opposite of a successful entrepreneur. And like what it turns out is there's pretty much a formula for being a successful entrepreneur. You just get really deep into the nitty gritty of a field for many, many years, and then you branch out on your own when you're ready, which again goes against a lot of stereotypes.

A lot of stereotypes like just come from the outside knowing nothing when you're 18. It's not true. Like, if you want to be an entrepreneur, the best path is like take it slow. Understand about a field. Work as an employee, prove your worth as an employee, and then like learn something. You'll learn something very particular about that field and you really know what to do when you're ready.

So. Well, yeah, it's such a compelling narrative that outside is edge, right? The Elon Musk, he never did a thing before. So from first principles, he's gonna do whatever. And you go, well, yeah, but the guys that Elon got to design batteries have probably spent their entire lives designing batteries.

You know, he didn't get some dude that did woodwork for the last 20 years. And you talk about Paul Graham as well, and that was the marginal edge or something as well? Yeah, power the marginal. Paul Graham, I'm a huge Paul Graham family, this essay, like that's advantage to being a bad employee, because if you're a good employee,

you're not going to fit in an entrepreneurship. And it's not true in the data at all. The best entrepreneurs earn in the 99.9 percent tile of income before they start their business. So, I think a problem with understanding how the world works is like some ideas are almost too compelling that they fool us like we want them to believe we want to believe them too much So everybody wants to believe that you know, oh tomorrow I can just like wake up and design a new car You know design some new chemical that's gonna do something really wild or you know They're all kinds of examples you can imagine and it's kind of like that's not really how the world works And it's dangerous to think the world works there

because I think a lot of people screw up their lives based on some of these ideas. That's much less compelling though, right? Think about how sticky some of these stories are. The stickiness of the story about the average age of a founder and entrepreneur in Silicon Valley is 27 and a half years old or something, that's just so much more worthy of being pushed around than it's you mid 40s, because that's

what everybody would have thought. You talk about this, you say it's the counter-incheuative narrative. Yeah. It's so bizarre. Think about the fact that the thing that everybody expects to be the case, work hard in one field, get unbelievable specific knowledge, then branch out on your own once you've got to the complete top having been a very good employee

and wait, wait a long time until you've got tons of experience. Like the fact that the media has managed to convince us that that is now a revolutionary story. So yeah. We were the idiots. But, but, yeah, I yeah, but I think like, Lissar says podcasts,

like you can overrule that. Like I think when people have seen that, they've been like, oh yeah, like they've made different decisions based on that. And you can just look at these charts. And it's like something about looking at these charts just clears away the noise a little bit. Where I'm just like, okay, like now I,

I know that I'm just being misled by the media and I'm gonna just look at these charts and remind myself when I get these one-off stories that are, you know, like men to confuse me and so sticky. So I think you can, I agree that it's like, it's harder to get these ideas out out there, but I think a lot of people have told me from reading that section that they are like

adopting more of that mindset. They're not gonna quit their job tomorrow and try to do something they've never tried before. And some of them are using this in optimistic way, where there are a lot of people who are 45 years old, they've been an employee their entire life, and they've had success in that field, but they're just like, it's too late.

Like entrepreneurs are, you know, do it in their dorm. 20 years younger than me, yeah, exactly. Yeah, like, how am I gonna compete against all these young ins? And I think they'll be particularly drawn to this idea because now they can be like, well, now I gotta think about, do I wanna go off on my own and start my own business?

How can people hack look? Yeah, so there are all these studies. The best way to learn about luck is the art world because the art world is so much luck. There are all these depressing studies of what it takes to like, of like what, why a particular piece of art is really successful. There's so much randomness in it.

But, there are also these patterns that allow people to kind of allow these random opportunities to come to them. So, for example, there have been studies that the quantity of art of art someone makes is a massive predictor of how successful they are. So just putting a lot of work out in the world is like a massive predictor of success. And why is that?

But because there's so much randomness in what particular work catches on, you just kind of kind of flood the market and let luck fight you. You know, if it's, if there's, if every piece of which piece wins is luck, then I wanna be the one with a thousand pieces, not 10 pieces, right? Because I have a hundred more opportunities to get lucky. And that's been found in many, many fields, this idea of kind of just putting more work into the world and allowing yourself to get more lucky,

applying to more jobs, asking more people out in dating. Like, just, yeah, it's a crap shoot, but when it's a crap shoot, you want more lottery tickets. And the other thing that's been found, which is really cool, in a study of a whole bunch of painters, they're trying to predict what painter might rise to the top. And they're like, the biggest predictor by far is how they present their work. And the ones who don't make it

present their work to the same place, the same gallery over and over again. And the ones who do, they're like bumblebees. They're just like constantly, they're just like traveling everywhere. I'll present there, I'll present there, I'll present there. Like anyone who'll have them, they go, and occasionally they just stumble on some big break.

And that's pretty profound. I think a lot of people make the mistake of just not exposing themselves widely enough to it and exposing yourself widely can dramatically increase your chances of getting that lucky break. I was going to say, what do you think's the lesson for people that aren't artists? I think there's probably a lot of similarity in that the mistake of the artists who are presenting in the same gallery over and over again is they already didn't get the break there. So don't assume if you haven't gone your break there, then you're going to get it next year or two years of three years. So kind of stagnating in a place where you're not rising

or not, where nothing much good is happening. You got to kind of, particularly when you're young, you got to travel more widely to find a break, I would say, it would be less than I take from it. And like traveling to places where you're more likely to get your break as well. You know, like many of the artists who did get their break were presenting in countries that aren't known for discovering artists and similarly

many computer, computer tech people aren't in Silicon Valley that that may be you know a mistake going to place, going to the place where you're more likely to get a break I think can be a mistake going to the place where you're more likely to get a break I think can be very valuable. What was that thing that you learned about the Mona Lisa? Oh yeah, the Mona Lisa, I didn't realize this, I read a book, Vanished Smile, that the Mona Lisa was just an ordinary painting, but then there was like this heist and everybody was trying to understand what happened why the Mona Lisa was stolen and it was like a worldwide phenomenon. People thought Pablo Picasso had stolen it.

People thought JP Morgan had stolen it. It turned out to just be like a low level in boy and stolen it. It was underwhelming, but the Heist gave it so much attention that now it was the most famous painting. So everyone thinks the Mona Lisa is the best painting, but it's so much attention that now it was the most famous painting. So we everyone thinks the model is the best painting, but it's not really. It's just happened to be the painting that got stolen. Stolen in the right place at the right time.

Yeah, but the point of that is if you have a thousand paintings, you have more chances for one of them to be stolen. You know, like it's it's pretty it's pretty clear that just working forever to get your one piece exactly right is not the best strategy. Having lots of thesis and then allowing one of them to get lucky is a better strategy. Does that famous photography class study that was done on this as well, right, that two groups were split up? One was told to take as many photos as they wanted and then to submit one at the end, the other group was told that they needed to work on one shot for the entirety of the

course. When you compare them at the end, the group that's taken a ton of shots has just iterated so much more effectively. And yeah, the learning by doing thing ties back into what we were saying before about working hard and deep, one particular field, sticking at it for a long time, like the unsexy stuff. What was that thing you looked at, how do you become a good athlete if you don't have the genetics to be one? Yeah, it was just, I was obsessed with sports, I still am obsessed with sports,

but I was interested in, but I had no talent. I didn't have no talent, I was a, I rose to be an okay high school baseball player, but like I didn't have talent it was also just as in a county where there were no good baseball players. The lofty was like, yeah, I was very, very far from being a great player. But there's actually, there's actually an interesting way to think about genetics, the genetic edge in sports, which is, like, if something's really genetic, there are lots of identical twins, because

identical twins share 100% of their genes. So there are going to be a lot more identical twins in that sport than even fraternal twins or just normal brothers or sisters. So like basketball is dominated by identical twins. I know it's gonna have a big Stanford basketball tag and we like sock for 10 years and then we recruit a set of identical, seven-foot identical twins and we're great again.

So it was the college twins first and that was the Lopez twins. It's like, it works predictably. It saves our basketball program. And in the course of basketball, it's just like dominated to a degree very, very few other sports are by identical twins, which shows that basketball is incredibly genetic, in part because height is one of the most genetic traits, and each inch doubles your chances of making the NBA, which is really cool.

Like actually, like a six, one person has twice the chance of a six foot person, and then a six, nine person has twice the chance of a six, eight person, a seven, two person has twice the chance of seven, one person, like throughout the distribution. Let's go to tail off at some point. Or else? Well, we don't know.

There's not a big enough sample for like eight foot. Yeah, it probably does, because I think like, beyond a certain point, it's usually a disease, which massively lowers your coordination. So like a thyroid problem. People like where it's 75 or above frequently, it's a thyroid, a large thyroid issue that leads to that level growth. But then there are certain sports like, they're not as exciting as being a basketball player, but like a question is them and diving. I have a little chart of them, but where there's like never there've never been identical twin Olympic diving and a question athletes. And

if you actually do the math, it's pretty clear that that means that the genetics just aren't that big a factor in those sports, which is why a lot of rich people kind of had kids like me who want to be athletes, they're like, yeah, go into a question and so, and you can become a great equestrian athlete. It's totally true. There's very little to it. We know that you're not built for athletics, so let's try and weasel you into something. But yeah, diving is interesting one too, because Adam Grant, the professor at Warden, who's written a lot of popular bit books, he became a very talented diver.

And his coaches told him exactly what the data says. That if you're a nerdy, he wants to be a basketball basketball player and they're like, you're not talented enough, but you are very disciplined and hardworking and passionate, so diving is a good sport for you. And the data totally justifies that, that's really where you want to put your energy. What did you learn about parenting? That was so, this was something that I'd seen previously in a discussion, and then to have it brought up in the data again was so, this was something that I'd seen previously in a discussion and then to have it brought up in the data again was so interesting. Yeah, so the overall effects of parents are like ways less than

everybody thinks. And the size of that are twins and adoptees. So if you like see identical twins adopted by different parents, they turn out shockingly similar and then, uh, and then, uh, people adopted to the same parents end up not that similar at all. But then, so like, uh, so, uh, parents in general matter very, very little, but there is evidence that the neighborhood you live in matters a lot Basically, they've looked at tax records and compared and and people who grow up in certain neighborhoods just do way better and they done all this clever math to prove that

It's really causally certain neighborhoods are making them better and the big predictor of that interestingly is The adults in that neighborhood so like adults that fill out a lot of census forms. If you like live on a block with adults that fill out a lot of census forms, your kids way more likely to have good outcomes. And you're kind of like, what the hell is, like that's the randomest thing in the world. It's basically like good, responsible adults. Similarly, if girls move to neighborhoods with lots of female scientists, they're more likely to come scientists themselves. So like one of the

lessons I took from the data is you can outsource parenting a little bit. Like when you tell your kids to do something, they're just gonna probably rebel against you because you know, a lot of people think their parents are like the least cool people on the planet. But your friends, they're going to think they're pretty cool, probably. Like, if I think of my parents' friends, all of them, like, yeah, those are, you know, their periods where I thought my dad was pathetic and the biggest loser and whatever, but his friends are always like, yeah, they're awesome.

So basically, you just got to pick friends that you want your kids to turn out to be like and put them in front of your kids. And then you may be shocked by how much of an impact these people are having on your kids. It's so interesting the fact that the people that you live next door to a potentially going to have a bigger impact on your children than you do. Yeah, yeah, it's weird. It's wild. Not even their kids, right? Not even that it's not don't worry about

Oh, well such and such his son is a he's a bit of a naughty boy and he doesn't really listen in class And it's like yeah, but his dad's cool as fucking. He's a millionaire. Go like just let little Timmy go and play with him a lot Yeah, reminds me of I don't know if you saw the book uh If you read the book rich dad poor dad. Yeah, by Robert K. Asagi. Yeah, that's exactly that. That his life was transformed by meeting this guy who he thought was way cooler than his dad. Could it not be like cool dad uncool dad? That might just be it. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and then like that transformed his life instead of kind of this traditional narrow path that he thought he was supposed to take of getting a lot of college degrees and like working for the government, he wants to become an entrepreneur like his rich dad, his friend's dad. So I didn't think about that. Well, what about if his dad had been the rich dad and his friend's dad had been the poor dad, Robert would have probably grown up to be poor because he would have listened to the wrong person. Yeah. Yeah. person. Yeah.

It's interesting to think about. I mean, I don't know. It can exaggerate the extent to this. Some parents definitely do have big impacts on their kids. Sometimes kids do think their parents are really cool, but I think the parents are polarizing figures for kids, whereas the neighbor is tend to be universally kind of cool. Like now even looking back on it, like the parents in my neighborhood who I know weren't cool,

like when I was a kid I thought they were really cool and cooler than my dad. Like, you know, like one guy who's just such a show off, he wasn't even a good basketball player, but he just like constantly be dribbling the ball between his legs and doing like weird moves. And I'm like now looking on it, I'm like, that guy was pathetic, like trying to impress 10-year-olds with his terrible basketball moves. But the time I'm like, this guy's amazing. Maybe that's why I wanted to be a basketball player, because I grew up near this guy.

It's the lame basketball guy. What was that thing about the odds of becoming a celebrity? Yeah, just that there are more independent artists in the top one percent of earners than I would have guessed because it does offer this local monopoly and trying to become an independent, like trying to be a podcast host or a writer or things like that, if you're young and you're willing to do the things that hack your hack luck to your advantage, maybe not a crazy path. So, yeah. Seth Stevens, Davidowitz, ladies and gentlemen, if people want to keep up to date with what

it is that you're doing, why should they go? Well, definitely, by Don't Trust Your God. And then, by website is setthsd.com. I love it, man. I appreciate your work I like the fact that someone who has the data science chops to be able to ask all of the big questions that we want Has decided to go and troll through whatever a thousand Academic papers and a ton of data to do the book is brilliant everyone should go and check it out It'll be linked in the show notes below and looking forward to seeing what you do next

Thanks Chris.