The Bossticks - Arthur Brooks On The Science Of Happiness, Emotional Well-Being, & Setting Boundaries For A Better Life

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

#859: Join us as we sit down with Arthur Brooks – Harvard professor, best-selling author, & leading happiness expert who helps people build more meaningful, purpose-driven lives. From his early career as a classical musician to becoming one of the most sought-after voices on emotional well-being, Arthur shares the science-backed tools & personal insights that can help anyone build a life filled with joy, connection, & fulfillment. He blends science with soul – using research, real-life stories, & timeless wisdom to help people build lives they actually want. Whether he's teaching at Harvard, writing for The Atlantic, or co-authoring books with Oprah, Arthur's work is all about one thing: helping you thrive. In this episode, Arthur dives into the science of happiness, unpacks practical strategies for emotional regulation, breaks down the impact of success addiction, shares tips for deepening marriage & relationship dynamics, emphasizes the importance of boundaries with technology, & explores how real human connection enhances our well-being.   To Watch the Show click HERE   For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM   To connect with Arthur Brooks click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE   To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE   Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE   Head to our ShopMy page HERE and LTK page HERE to find all of the products mentioned in each episode.   Get your burning questions featured on the show! Leave the Him & Her Show a voicemail at [phone].   To learn more about Arthur Brooks and read more into his studies visit https://arthurbrooks.com.    Visit c1p.org to donate to the Community First Project, a mission to make communities safer by ensuring the quality & integrity of our nation's law enforcement agencies.   This episode is sponsored by Smart Mouth Never have bad breath again! Find SmartMouth at Walgreens, Walmart, and Amazon or visit http://smartmouth.com/skinny to snag a special discount on your next SmartMouth purchase.   This episode is sponsored by Jenni Kayne Go to http://jennikayne.com and use the code SKINNY15 to get 15% off.    This episode is sponsored by Astral House Marg Summer is here!!! Time to stock up! Go to http://astraltequila.com to find Astral near you - and don't forget the limes! Please Enjoy Responsibly. Do not forward to anyone under 21. ASTRAL Tequila. 40% Alc/Vol. Diageo, New York, NY.   This episode is sponsored by Fora Travel So whether you're looking to plan a trip or build a business planning trips - http://visitforatravel.com/skinny and let them know you came from SKINNY to learn what it means to travel, upgraded.   This episode is sponsored by Just Thrive Visit https://justthrivehealth.com/discount/TSC and use promo code TSC for 20% off your first order.  Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Skinny Confidential, Him and Her show. In a world that's more connected than ever, why do so many of us? us feel so disconnected, from our purpose, our partners, even ourselves. Today we're joined by Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor, bestselling author, and happiness scientist, who's here to break down why true happiness isn't what we've been told, why love is more of a skill than a feeling, and how to find deep purpose even when life feels like a scrolling blur. Whether you're struggling with anxiety, craving deeper connection, or just want more joy in your everyday life, this episode

will change how you think. With that, let's dive in with one of the greats, Arthur Brooks. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. First, Arthur, welcome to this show. I am so excited to have you on. We've been trying to lock you down for a while, man. No, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. And congratulations on touching so many people so positively with your show.

Thank you. That's very, very nice. We're going to hop right into it. Let's do it. You've spent decades studying happiness. Mm-hmm. Tell us the science to happiness in the simplest, most digestible terms. What does it actually mean to be happy?

So let's start by the biggest mistake people make. Because look, if it were simple, everybody'd have it, we wouldn't have to, I wouldn't have to write books about it. I wouldn't have to teach classes on the science of happiness. It's the thing everybody wants. So it's weird why people don't have more of it. The biggest reason people aren't happier is because they don't know what it is and they think it's something it's not.

Most people think that happiness is a feeling. They say, I want to feel happy. And they think that happiness actually is an emotion. not. Happiness and feelings are related to each other because feelings are evidence of happiness. Like the smell of dinner is not the dinner. It's evidence of dinner. That's your happy feelings. Don't go for the smell. Go for the dinner. That's number one. So then you have to know what the dinner is. And it's really like dinner. It's like macronutrients, protein carbohydrates and fat. Happiness is three things. There's three things you need to dedicate yourself to that you can

study scientifically and we all kind of understand. Enjoyment, satisfaction. and meaning. That's happiness. If that's and the goal is don't, I'm going to be happy today. No, no, no, no. The goal is I'm going to enjoy my life more. I'm going to take more satisfaction with my in my accomplishments. And I'm going to look for the why of my existence. Those are the big three. Those are the goals in life. If Thomas Jefferson had taken my class at Harvard, he wouldn't have talked about the pursuit of happiness. He would have talked about the pursuit of enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. Actually, he wouldn't have. But anyway. Is that why so many high achievers when they achieve end up unhappy because they lose the meaning and they lose the enjoyment of life after

that? Well, part of the whole problem with high achievers and and a lack of happiness, there's a whole literature on that. And that's really, really interesting. They become success addicted. And so they're actually not thinking about enjoyment of their life or taking satisfaction with their accomplishments and doing the ordinary things that would bring you meaning to be sure. What they're thinking about is trying to get the next neurochemical fix from winning. It's like hit the lever, get the win, get the win, get the win. And they're on a wheel, this, this, this treadmill of I got to get more wins. I got to get more money. I got to get more power. I got to get more success. I got to get more Instagram followers, whatever it is. And that success addiction actually has its base in their neurochemistry. We actually have literature with research on this now. And you look at a success addicted person's brain downstream from which you find workaholism. Workaholism is a secondary addiction to success addiction. And their brains look like methamphetamine addicts. Usually, by the way, they have the same kind of childhood where they come home with a good report card or do well in sports and their parents go, that's so great. And they get all of their rewards from adults when they achieve things.

And this is really problematic. This is why you shouldn't tell your kids that they're great when they get A's. You should compliment them when they work hard and they're virtuous. Thank you, Mom, for never giving me any compliments. See how lucky you are. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Is there something in the success,

a thing that you just shared that has to do with experience stretching. So like, for instance, like, let's say you get 100 Instagram followers and you're so happy and you're so excited about it. And then then you want 200 and then you get 200. And then you want a thousand and you get a thousand. And it's like the experience is constantly stretched until the thing that made you happy actually makes you sad. Yeah. So that's tolerance. And that's just that has to do with a neurotransmitter called dopamine. We've all heard of dopamine. Dopamine lies behind. all the things that you learn how to do and also behind your addictions. So what happens is, you know, in the ancient brain, you'd get rewarded for finding gazelles at a

watering hole or something like that. And it would give you this neurochemical reward. And so you'd want to go back. And if you, when you go back, you find the same number of gazelles, no extra dopamine. But if you go back and you find more gazelles, there's more dopamine. And so that's the reason we escalate in everything. You escalate and you're drinking. You escalate and you're gambling. You escalate and you're fooling around. All the stuff that you do, and that's why you escalate in what the wins have to be. If you just get another 100 Instagram followers today, it's like any loser can get that.

Well, that was just yesterday's win, and that's giving you a little bit of a neurochemical penalty for not actually getting more, more, more, more, more. So how do you fight that? Part of it is that you have to know what's going on. Knowledge is power. The reason I teach courses on the signs of happiness is because all the stuff that I'm talking about

is activity, neurochemical activity, and activity in the limbic system of the brain. That's this console of tissue super ancient between 2 and 40 million years old. And that's what creates emotions automatically to give you information about what's going on around you. That's all emotions are. They're not there to give you a good day. They're to tell you what's going on so you know how to react to something like that. And if you're acting according to your emotions, you'll be managed by your desires and you'll be subjugated.

You'll get addicted. But if you actually experience emotional information in the human part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, that stuff in the very front of your head, your executive center, then you can say, oh, oh, that's that old desire. Oh, that's funny. I feel disappointed about something that would have thrilled me last year. Isn't that funny? And you can have control, but you have to understand it. That's why I teach the science of it, not just because it's interesting, but because I want to get people managerial control over their own brains. If I ask you guys this, I'm curious to know both of your answers and really curious to know yours. Is this a guy question? No, I'm just, I just want to know

maybe there's differences between you guys. What's what makes you happy? Like what makes little things, big things, what makes you happy? I want to know what he says. You want me to go first? Yeah. I better be first on the list, motherfucker. My wife makes me the happiest. No, I think like what what makes, like the happiest moments for me is like it's, it's moments that actually maybe don't look so meaningful on paper. It's just like time when I'm sitting with my children like this morning I was coloring with her and I see her laugh and I was like, oh, it's just like so innocent. Like, you know, I'm not going to lie, like I am an overachieve, right? Like I wouldn't do what I did if I didn't.

Over time, I think maybe without even recognizing, maybe reading for some of your work, I realize that I can't always be chasing because I recognize I was on that flywheel. It's called the hedonic treadmill. I was on that. I've been on that treadmill. I have to get myself off of it. But like honestly, what makes me happy in life is those little moments, like time with the kids, time when I see them growing, time when I look back to like, oh, I've built

a stable life that's comfortable to live. in and enjoy, that kind of stuff. But I'm also like a pretty content and happy person by nature. I don't slip too deep into status or depression too often. So, I don't know. Yeah. So these are great answers because they're consistent with what we know about happiness. And the truth is that we're that the sources of happiness are the same for almost everybody.

The trouble is that we don't know what they are. And we think that the things that will bring us happiness don't and vice versa. So here's what we think. If I'm really successful, and worldly terms, happiness will come for free. The sources of worldly success are, in order, money, power, pleasure, and fame. Those are the big four. And fame means prestige or the admiration of others.

Most people don't want to be internet famous, but they want to be well known and liked by the right people. And those are evolutionary, by the way, because we're a kin-based hierarchical species, us homo sapiens. We live in these little kin groups and you want to rise in the kin group. So anything that gives you more access to resources is going to give you more status. And so you want more status. And so you think, if I get more status, man, I have more resources.

I have more mates. I'll be happier. But Mother Nature doesn't care about your happiness. She just cares about your evolutionary success. And so you make the mistake of thinking, if I follow my impulses, I'll be happier, right? And so that's not, and that's actually not right. But that's not what brings us happiness. Okay.

So the happiness investment plan, the happiness 401K, is putting a deposit each day in your faith or life philosophy, why things happen the way that they do, that will zoom you out from your ordinary, tedious existence and think about the big things in life, your family life, your friendship, and the apex of both friendship and family life's spouse. This is the reason that marriage is the single biggest predictor of happiness.

Is a good marriage is the single biggest predictor because at the very top of both, it's your best friend and your family, all in one handy-dandy package. Michael's so blessed. Wow. So much. He must be so happy.

Is a bad marriage the exact opposite and the greatest predictor of unhappiness? No, it's not the exact opposite, but it's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. And part of it is just such a disappointment because it's supposed to bring you so much happiness. And so the idea, you know, a tense marriage really is a bad thing for your, for your, it is a bad thing for your happiness for sure. And one of the things that I work on a lot with, you know, I work with couples all the

time about how to take a tense marriage and turn it into a better marriage because that's one of the single best ways that you can actually raise happiness in your life and the last thing is your work and your work and again the the fruit of your labor is not money power and and and honor and fame the fruit of your work is serving others and feeling like you're earning your success by creating value that's what it comes down to how do you take a tense marriage and turn it to a happy marriage what's the what's the recipe for that well there's a lot of patterns that you actually see intense marriages. And most tense marriages just have to do with bad habits and laziness. So, for example, when a couple's on their way to divorce court, typically what they say, they have this thing that

we call in psychology motive attribution asymmetry. Sounds really, really fancy. It's a very simple idea, because that's what we do in academia, is take a simple idea and put big words around and get tenure, right? So motive attribution asymmetry is when two sides to a conflict, both think I'm the one who loves, but that other person is the one who hates. And so what you find is when a couple's on their way to getting divorced, she'll say, no, I still love him. Look, I still love him, but he hates me. And he'll be like, are you kidding me?

You should see how she treats me. She hates me. I love her, but she hates me. Well, that's a mistake. And so it turns out that because both sides can't simultaneously love and hate, usually both sides are mistaken. And the problem is the way that they interact with each other. So John and Julie Gottman, I'm sure you know.

Have you had it on your show before? No, who's that? The Gottman Marriage Lab at University of Washington? No, I don't know. They're awesome. And the Gottman's show that when people treat each other with contempt, eye-rolling, sarcasm, dismissal, that the other partner perceives hatred, even though the partner who's doing it is not intending to display hatred.

And so I still love her, but she rolls her eyes every time I say something like that. And their communication gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. That's problem number one, miscommunication. Problem number two is that they don't engage the neurochemistry. that's unique to marriages. Now, there's a bonding hormone in the brain, they've all heard of, called oxytocin. That's the love molecule.

And we've evolved this so that we know our kin. And when we're with our people, it gives us intense pleasure. When you had your children and when you have more children, I hope you have many more children. Oh, my God. That when you lay your eyes on them for the first time, both of you, by the way, you get this explosion of oxytocin in your brains, like the 4th of July.

And evolutionary biologists say that that's so you don't, leave the baby on the bus or, you know, something. But the truth of the matter is, that's how you, that's when that person becomes your kid. And a squalling infant who has no idea who you are, you'd die for that person. It's so weird. I cried both times instantly. It's amazing.

That's why. That's why. So here's the thing. You get eye contact, oh, you get, sorry, you get oxytocin through eye contact and touch. That's really how you get it. And so the number one way to save a marriage is two rules. When you're together, you're touching. And when you're talking, you're staring at each other in the eyes.

I completely agree, which is why when someone's on their cell phone, it's dismissive and you don't have that eye contact. And just if you're like need a refresh. It's just crazy to even think. If you need a refresh, my love language is touch. So I'm right on track. Always holding hands. Do you know what she does though? I love holding hands.

Why aren't we holding hands? We won't get into love languages here. Because she tries to take all five of the love languages. No, touch is my number number one. Okay. but she literally tries to commandeer all five and say that they're all. But touch is really important. And eye contact is important too.

Super important because eye contact is when, and long periods of eye contact is nourishing for, it stimulates tons of oxytocin. In strangers too, by the way, when you're having a, that's one of the reasons that Zoom work is so deleterious to mental health because you don't get enough oxytocin. That's why social media is such a bad way to communicate with other people because you don't get eye contact in touch in person. especially spouses, especially people who are in a permanent, as we say in social science, permanent pair bond mating that you need to be always talking to each other, straighten the

eyes and more time than you think. By the way, a 22-second hug gives you your maximum oxytocin release. Get the timer out. I'm going to play this clip every morning. I had a question on something you touched on earlier, which is sometimes people think there's like this idea of happiness, It needs to look a certain way. I have a very close friend who had his parents split when he was young. But while they were together, they were super intimate in front of him. Not nothing sexual, but just like always touchy feel of it. But it was a very toxic relationship that exploded in ways.

Now in his life later, and we've talked about this, if he gets in a relationship and it's not that explosive touchy feeling from the beginning, he deems that to be not a, you know, not a successful relationship. Like that's not what a relationship should look like. And what I pointed out to him is like, well, maybe you have this idea of what it should feel like, but maybe it shouldn't feel like, does that happen commonly in relationships or dating or marriages? Yeah. So one of the reasons that you find that divorce, for example, it appears to be epigenetic.

And so far as it kind of passes down through the generations is because you, you mimic what you see. We're mimetic and we mimic particularly what we see in our parents. So people ask me all the time, you know, how do I, how do I teach my kid to, you know, be a decent person? How do I raise my kid in the faith? These are kinds of questions. It doesn't matter what you tell them. All that matters is what they see. Be the person you want your kid to become.

If you want your kid to grow up and be religious in your religion, no Sundays off or whatever your religion happens to be. If you want your kid to grow up and not be a problem drinker, never have your child see you drink problematically. I mean, that's the key because all that matters is what they see and they record these things. I mean, this is just imprinted and there's a ton of data on this. So the same thing is true with, you know, with toxic patterns is what we see. If your parents are behaving toxicly and you see it, you'll imprint that. If they do something that represents what a good marriage or a functional relationship is all about, you'll do that and you'll be looking for that as well.

Now, that's not destiny. So, you know, for example, my parents had a very good marriage. They loved each other. They died young. They had tons of health problems. You know, they died in their 60s and one in early 70s, one in mid-60s. And it was very sad and all that. but they had a wonderful marriage.

They loved each other. And my dad was completely loyal to my mom, completely unfailingly loyal to my mom. And that's what I saw. And that's what marriage actually means to me. My wife grew up in a broken home. Her dad took off when she was little and it was sad and it was hard. And, but she said, I don't want that. She was conscious about that.

So there's something about it. The more, this is called metacognition. In other words, don't be guided by these patterns and these emotions. be conscious of these things and say, this is the one I'm going to leave behind. And so think about your childhood and say, not that one. I don't want this one, yes, that one, no. And you can actually, you can break the patterns, but you have to be really conscious and self-managing.

How do people sabotage their happiness within a relationship? Well, they do all the time because they, a lot of it has to do with kind of bad habits. You know, they'll fall away from something like this. And then they just don't, they kind of don't know how to get back. Like they've wandered into the woods and lost their path and they don't know how to get back. Some of it is bad habits that we talked about in the way that they communicate with each other. So they'll be treating each other with contempt and then imprinting on the other person hatred that doesn't exist. Sometimes it's just neglect is what it comes down to.

And then, of course, there's some really interesting sort of male-female differences that we see. So you want to break it down to kind of its evolutionary basics. If men only could get one thing, it would be admiration. And if women could only get one thing, it's adoration. What's adoration? Explain that. Adoration is, I'm so crazy about you. I would, I'm so crazy about you. And only you that if a tiger is coming in here, I will, I will sacrifice my life right now, baby.

You're everything to me. So it's like being desired. Yeah. And it's being desired, but it's being, it's being, it's being completely loved. Above all. Above all. Above all. That's adoration.

And there's a reason. There's an evolutionary reason for that. I mean, it's like, there's a big commitment in caring and caring and caring for children. You know, you need a partner who's going to be who's going to be all there and all in, whereas you need to be rewarded for getting that gazelle and dragging it into the cave. And so that's how evolution actually creates these patterns in our own lives. And so the way that it's seen today, this is called the adoration, admiration dichotomy, where what happens in a marriage is that women inadvertently don't give men the one thing

they really, really need. And men stop giving women the way. one thing that they need. So what will make a marriage really fall apart is when he's not adoring her and or she's not admiring him. Wow. That is really important. Let's talk more about that. And super important because when guys ask my, so I have more women in my audience than men because I talk about these kinds of issues, right? I'm not talking about, you know, how to get your bench press up or, you know, what supplements you should actually take. I know, man. You look pretty strong. You look like you. Alpha granddad. You hit the weight. Anyway, so that's, is that a thing?

Anyway, but when guys ask, it's like, what's the secret to a successful relationship or to doing well in my relationship, falling in love, staying in love, attracting the right person. Number one, adore her. Number two, be admirable because she's not going to admire you if you're not admirable. She's not going to admire you if you're 11 hours a day playing video games. Right. She's not going to admire you if you look at pornography. She's not going to admire you if you're not getting a job. I mean, duh, I mean, this stuff is all pretty basic. Be admirable and adore her.

Then the next question is, what if I don't feel it? Fake it. Because that's actually how you do anything. You're not going to be relying on your feelings. That is the limbic system is being influenced by all sorts of external factors. Adore her because that's been your decision to do so. Smart mouth. It's the only mouthwash is scientifically proven to eliminate and prevent bad breath for 24 hours with just two rinses a day.

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Please enjoy responsibly. I've seen you talk about the in love and connection that it's actually a decision and not a feeling. I think that's what you're talking about right now. To love is to will the good of another person as that other person. To will has nothing to do with how you feel in any given moment. And the more you will it, the more you'll feel it. So here's the deal.

You know, there's like, if love were a feeling, I wouldn't have been married 34 years. I wouldn't have been married 34 minutes. You know, it's like we fight every single day. We fought every day for 34 years because we're. Same. Yeah, I mean, my wife is Spanish. There are quarrels of people. You must be Spanish.

You guys like it. He's looking. But you know what? I will tell you, this morning you did a call in front of me. And what did I say to you? I'm telling you a little trick. She admired the way I handled the call. A big time.

I said that was amazing. She doesn't see me on those calls at all. And if you take a call and you neglect her for a minute, she will not feel adored at that moment because she won't be the apple of your eye. She won't be the center of your existence. Don't worry. I have happened and puffed threat. So I should have held her hand and be like, close the fucking deal, Jim.

Yeah, you could hold my hand. Now, you, of course, you need admiration and you need adoration to be sure. But this is this. And again, you don't want to be reductive. about it and people are different. Everybody's different. You know, as different levels, and as they say in finance, your results may vary, but probably not that much. And so these are the patterns to actually keep in mind. So what are the counterproductive things that actually people do is that she admires him a little less or neglects the admiration for him. And then he adores her

a little less or stops acting in an adoring way that he actually should. And then she admires him less. And he adores her less than we go down and we go down and we go down and we don't know what happened or marriage. So if I'm feeling annoyed, I need to tell him you need to adore me more. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you need to be adored more, it's like this is one of the things that guys need to hear too, because guys, you know, it's one of the things that one of the patterns that actually goes into marital conflict is that she's not just mad that he did something. She's extra mad that he didn't know that she felt that she was mad because he didn't do something. It's not that hard, guys. Well, we, okay, let me play the devil's advocate. It's like a fucking meme. The problem is not that

you did that, but you didn't know how much it hurt me. You know, it's like, if you, if you really loved me, you'd know why I'm mad. So, so we spent time talking about what the men need to do, but from your experience, what can a woman do to be more adored? To be more, it's, well, number one is to admire more because that turns on the adoration process. I mean, there's nothing that will melt a guy. Like, that is the biggest gazelle that you've ever drug into this cave. You are so big and strong. That's going to feed our family for two weeks. That's awesome. I feel like I do I not do that. Do you feel like I don't admire you?

I feel like I feel like we're in a good spot. No, we do. But not, by the way, not. You got blood on the cave floor from the gazelle again. You forgot that part. Sometimes you do that part. Yeah. That's normal.

I mean, I get blood on the floor. I mean, you can't get blood on the floor. But that's the whole thing. And vice versa. Men in general, I think every, I mean, some maybe not. But I don't think any man likes to be complained to. or at about their behavior, even when it's wrong. It's a big turnoff.

And listen, I'm not defending men. Many of us need to clean up our act. But nobody likes to hear, and I'm going to use this term, like bitching from their Well, it's the opposite of admiration. Yeah. That's negative admiration. You don't like a little bitching every once in a while? Well, I deserve it a lot.

I'm aware of that. But the whole point is you got to have the ratio right. So back to the stuff, the research from John and Julie Gottman, they talk about making sure that you've got a five to one ratio of praise to criticism. And so that's, and that turns out to be the magic ratio that they found in their, in their research. And again, it probably depends. It's one of the interesting things is in different cultures, no doubt it matters. So there's a study on East Asia. How many, how much criticism at work versus praise at work do you need to actually be happy in your job? It's like five to one in America and two to one in Japan or something like that because they have more emotional fortitude.

My husband's a fourth Japanese and his mom's half. There you go. So I told that's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Well, I made that joke about my mom. But by the way, I'm American, so I need five to one. Yeah.

But your marriage needs five to one. Your marriage needs five to one. So this is the thing. It's okay to criticize, but make sure that there's five compliments about how awesome and great and strong and big and beautiful and handsome he is. For H1, like, dude, the blood on the cave. And it's like, please. We will practice tonight. This is a all-time job.

Yeah, totally. And by the like, five to one. Five to one. By the one, I adore you, I adore you, I adore you, I adore you, I adore you. And by the way, you were late last night. But then does that make it, I'm imagining? Any time you speak to you now, I'm going to say, five to one. By the one, baby.

Have you done your five? But when you said it that way, when you told Gray, great, great, great, by the way, you were late, right away, I was instantly more receptive to being like, you know, maybe I was late. Yeah, totally. You know what I mean? Absolutely. By the way, if you actually make a note of it, and there are counselors that will make their couples, write the things down in a notebook. So you have to write down the thing that's bugging you about the other person. But then you have to write down five positive, beautiful things first and say those things first.

And by the time you get to number six, which is a criticism, you're not feeling it anymore. You might not even get to it. Do you do this with your wife at home? Well, we're real conscious of this. We're conscious of these things. And part of it is that we do, you know, together, we do talks for couples that are in marriage prep. They're engaged. And, you know, this is through the Catholic Church.

You know, if you're going to get married by a priest, you have to go to marriage prep. It's the rule. And they don't want to. They do not want it. They're just like dragging in there. And so I talk about science and she talks about, she does stuff on this theology and we try to make it funny. We try to make it interesting.

But when you're teaching this stuff, you hold yourself to a higher standard. You know, when you talk to them about how jealousy works, jealousy is super interesting, you know, between men and women and why, how it's different and how it manifests itself. When you talk about admiration and adoration like we just talked about, you're just more conscious of it. So the result is that it really, it really helps our marriage a lot. How does jealousy work?

Jealousy is different between men and women. Women are a lot more emotionally jealous and men are a lot more physically jealous. So men are a lot more paranoid about their partner in a physical relationship with another woman. And women are a lot more worried about their partner in an emotional relationship with another man, woman. Person, whatever. That's really important because basically, and this is actually worked from a guy, right here in Austin, who teaches at UT Austin. He's an evolutionary psychologist named David Buss. I actually don't know him, but I've cited his work a hundred times. He's great. And he shows that

the thing that drives women bonkers is the image of their partner saying, I love you to another woman. And what drives men bonkers is the idea of their partner in a sexual situation with a man. And that's evolutionary, right? Because if you're a man 250,000 years ago in the place Eistocene, there's no genetic testing. You got to know that you're raising your own offspring. And if you're a woman, you've got to be confident that this guy here is not going to take off and raise somebody else's family. That's why emotional physical is the way that this works. But once again, it all kind of makes sense.

But we got to understand this about our partners. Look, we're in these permanent pair bonds. We're in love relationships till death to us part, man. The last person that he's going to lay his eyes on is he takes his dying breath is your beautiful face. that's the goal. That's it. Bless. If I go first.

Well, how have you said? Yeah, I might want to go first. I'll go a week before. Speaking of destinations, you've said humans are meant for progress, not arrival. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, that gets back to the whole thing about strivers, struggling. You know, strivers are all about winning, and winning is all about arriving. And arriving is not about the inherent satisfaction you get with progress from day to day to day.

But life is about progress. Humans need to make progress. That's what makes them happy. There's a very interesting thing that shows that there's a tendency for Olympic athletes when they win a gold medal to suffer a clinical depression in the month after they win. The reason is because making progress toward the medal is so satisfying. There's so much sacrifice that goes into it. It's so satisfying.

But then they get there, they're like, it's going to be heaven. And it's just another day. And that is unbelievably disappointing. So there's an interesting body of literature about why is weight loss is so unsuccessful. It's like it has a 95% failure rate. Now with the new drugs, who knows? But all diets work. No fat works.

No carbs. Works. Intermittent fasting works because it'll make progress toward the goal. The problem is when you hit your goal, your reward is never getting to eat what you like ever again for the rest of your life. Congratulations. And that's unbelievably disappointing. It's super satisfying to see the scale go down.

But then when you hit your goal, you think it's going to be great for the rest of your life and it's just another day. But you don't get to eat what you like. And that's why diets fail. That's called the arrival fallacy. So how do you get somebody that's on, let's even take a weight loss journey to keep up with those habits without being disappointed and unhappy like this? You have to learn to love the way that you're living. You have to learn to love the new way of life. Most people will treat a diet like torture.

I hate this. I can't have a cake. I'm always hungry. And if you're in a punitive diet where you're always hungry, you're not going to learn to love it. But, you know, so, so we all go to the gym every day. I mean, going to the gym every day is the kind of thing that you do. The way that you stay in the gym is by loving the gym.

It's like, I want to go to the gym every day. And it's not just because it's not vanity. I mean, my case, are you kidding? That ship has sailed. But I do love actually how it feels to, I love how it feels to lift weights. Isn't this how addiction works? Like with, for instance, with stopping to drink, you have to fall in love with how your life is sober, right? Is it the same

kind of thing? That's why you don't quit drinking. That's why you put something else in its place. Right. That's why, you know, drinking or any addiction is a relationship. You have a relationship with a substance or the behavior. It's a love relationship. That's why there's a very famous book about alcoholism called drinking, a love story. Why? Because that feels like the primary love relationship in your life, which is why it ruins your marriage is because you love the booze more than you love your spouse and you'll be in it's people will love their phones more than love their spouse they love Vegas more than they love their spouse that's how addiction works is the whole thing you need a better love relationship so if you just stop drinking and quite a try to white knuckle it for the

rest of your life in the in the literature that's called the dry drunk syndrome so in other words you're angry and you're bereft and you're lonely and you're you know you're you're you're terrible to be around and the whole thing is because you're you're basically you know the love of your life just left and and nobody else came. You can't do it that way. It's all about substitution. We just looked at each other and laughed because we have a close friend who just was did like this, he took a lot of time up alcohol and he was white knuckling the whole

time. And he was not fun to be around. I was like, literally call me when you're talking. I know. He's like, what? I'm not that bad. I'm like, oh, man.

I know. And you have to actually say, you know, it's funny. I mean, I used to smoke. I was a smoker for a long time. And through my 20s, I was a musician, classical musician all the way through my 20s. I smoked in. And I remember when I remember when I, quit. I'm like, the first thing I noticed, besides having the monkey on my back and, you know,

like life had no meaning because I just wanted a cigarette so bad, I had way too much time on my hands. I was like, it's like had time on my, as I never knew what to do with myself. And this was before there were phones, you know, and so I was just, I was living in Barcelona at the time and I'd be like, what do I do? I mean, all my friends are outside smoking and I'm just sitting here like an idiot. And the point is I didn't actually prepare to get off the smokes by doing something instead of it. So did you replace it with something? Yeah, I started walking. I started walking, walking, walking.

Every time I wanted a cigarette, I would get up and go walk around the block. And I was saying, it's a beautiful day. And I would notice the sunshine. I hear the birds chirping. And it improved my quality of life. But I put something in that slot and it got much better. Do you miss it now or do you not even think about it? It's only been 35 years.

So yeah. You still miss it or you don't? You still miss it. I do. Oh my God. I do. Really? Yeah.

I quit drinking 23 years ago. And yeah, that too. You miss it. Like every day? Yeah. Yeah. I think about those things every day. Huh.

I mean, it's not ruining my quality of life. It's not like I'm not white knuckling it. But yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah. But you replaced it with other things. Mostly. I mean, yeah.

I mean, you know, an obsessive approach to my work, perhaps. And I have to be careful about that because workholism actually is a pathology and it is a love relationship when you fall in love with your work you're going to have an affair with your work and that's going to crowd out your marriage and relationship with your kids and your friendships and you've got to be really careful about that and that's downstream from success addiction which is neurochemically how you're getting your rewards by winning it sounds like you think the marriage is the most important relationship though yeah out of all of them yes when anything that crowds that out and impacts that needs to be examined it

must be examined and eliminated. Anything that's crowding out the love. If you're married, which most people have a vocation to marriage, you have to take care of that. You won't be happy if it's not healthy. Yeah, do you know, like, it's interesting to hear you talk, because a lot of what you're saying as it's registered in my mind,

is being just aware of your feelings in each of these situations as they present. And like being conscious that, oh, you're maybe chasing work too hard. That's right. That's metacognition. Because we all have stuff going on, man. And the whole idea of trying to eliminate all of these sources of distractions, no, no. I mean, life has suffering, life has distraction, life has problems. We got pathologies.

We're broken in different ways. We all have different traumas. Be aware of it. Say, I'm not going to eliminate that. I'm going to learn and grow from it. I'm okay. I'm a human being on the face of the earth. But I have to be conscious of these things.

So the whole point is manage your feelings so they don't manage you. Meditation has really helped me become a happier person. Have you seen that in your studies? Yeah, that's a classic technique of metacognition. So emotions occur in the limbic system of the brain, right? Your executive center is the prefrontal cortex of your brain. Your limbic system is unbelievably fast. You get your emotions in fractions of a second, but you know what's going on in seconds.

So if you're crossing the street and a car is coming toward you, it will cross, it'll come across the occipital lobe, the visual cortex of your brain. It'll light up a part of your limbic system called the amygdala. That will then send a signal through your pituitary glands down to your adrenal glands. And it'll spit out a stress hormone in 74 milliseconds that will make you jump out of the way. That's three seconds before your prefrontal cortex has said, that car almost hit me. So that's the fast part. So in order for you to have managerial self-control, when you have emotions, you've got to slow them down by examining them.

That's what meditation does. You're examining what's going on. It's like, Lauren's feeling a little sad today. You know, it's funny because so many things are going right in Lauren's life and she should be grateful, but she feels a little sad today. That could be for many different things. Something's bothering Lauren about work and there was a little argument over dinner last night. But, you know, I think it really was because she didn't sleep well last night.

That's metacognition. And that's what actually happens, especially in vipasana meditation, which is an insight form meditation. Prayers of petitioner great for this. When you're offering things up saying, Lord, help me with this. You can't actually pray in your limbic system. You're praying in your prefrontal cortex. Journaling is phenomenal because when you're holding a pencil and writing down your emotions, you've moved them to the right part of your brain to experience and manage them. Travel agents are back. Seriously. And Fora is the modern travel agency. I'm all about a modern travel agency. It makes planning and traveling stress-free with no extra cost to you.

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So join us in this crucial mission. Visit c1p.org today to learn how you can help make a difference. Again, if you can, go do your part and make a contribution at c1p.org. My friend was like, I can't meditate. How do you sit still for so long? And I said, think of it like a strategy session with yourself. Like sitting in silence and not thinking about anything to me, that's not realistic. So like I switched the like brand of meditation for me and that's when it clicked for me is it is a self reflection strategy session where I can figure out, okay, I didn't sleep all last night.

It gives me more context. It's non-judgmental observation. Yeah. This is the key thing. Now if you're if you're if you're thinking about yourself going, I shouldn't be. I shouldn't have done that. No. You say she's feeling a little sad and angry today.

Isn't that interesting? Non-judgmentally observation as if you were a third person. That's how insight meditation works. It's a great technique because now your prefrontal cortex, that's your, the C-suite of your brain is in charge and that's who should be in charge. Okay. You're a spiritual person. Have you seen in your studies a correlation between spiritual people and happiness? And does it increase, decrease, stay the same? A ton increase. So spirituality or life philosophy or organized religion, they all have much the same effect on happiness. And again, anybody is listening to us. who's really religious, they'll be like, what? I'm not saying it doesn't matter.

Because I'm not saying what's right metaphysically or cosmically. I'm not going to say what's right. That's above my pay grade. I have my opinions. Everybody's got their opinions. But I do know for happiness, anything that gets you out of your groove, there's this, the psycho drama of your life is like, my job, my car, my food, my shows, my career, me, me, it's just, it's like watching the same episode of the same sitcom over and over.

It's just so boring and terrifying and terrible. and you need something that zooms you out. So I do a lot of work over the last 11 years, 12 years now with the Dalai Lama. And so I go there, I go there every year. We do conferences together. We've written together. He's really affected my life an awful lot. I'm sure.

It's just a very beautiful, very beautiful friendship, very beautiful relationship. And last April when I was there, his monastery in Darm Sala in the Himalayan foothills. It's a beautiful place. And he told me about this photograph that he once saw that affected him a lot. I said, what was it? I photographed the effects it all. It was called the Earth below, and we've all seen it.

It was before you were born. I was a little kid, I don't remember it. It was in 1969 when the lunar lander took a picture of the Earth from the moon. And so you can see, it's like you can see the surface of the moon a little bit, and you see this blue orb. That's the Earth. And it went back to Earth, and this was like blew everybody's mind because nobody had ever seen a picture of the Earth, not from the Earth.

And it looks insignificant. And he said, he saw that and said, I'm so small. Yeah. And he said, it made me so happy that I'm so small. And that's the reason that at my university consistently, one of the classes that brings the most happiness, you know what it is? Astronomy. Mom.

Astronomy. And the reason is because they go to that class and they're like, I'm little. This doesn't matter. You know, my boyfriend and I were not getting along. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'm worried about getting a job. It doesn't matter.

Because I'm just a speck, on a speck, on a speck, on a speck. And that kind of zooming out is unbelievably helpful to people. And that's what all of the things do, whether it's walking in the forest without your devices, whether it's studying the greatest music ever written, whether it's your Vapasana meditation, whether it's my, I go to mass every day. I mean, that's that you got to have something, man. Is that way if you're unhappy and you travel a far distance, you feel the same way because you realize that the world is so much bigger?

Is that part of it? Yeah, it's so much bigger. And you'll also find that you have relief from the psychodrama because you're so far away from it. Is this why there's all this stuff about meditating on your death too? Because it makes you feel like so small. That's helpful. That's a really good thing to do. The other good thing about meditating on your death, that's called a Maran Asati. That's a Theravada Buddhist meditation. A nine part meditation where you're contemplating, you know, I just died. Now I'm a bloated corpse. Now I'm starting to decay. So it sounds really horrible. But that's exposure therapy to something that is inevitable,

but scary. Yeah. So the human brain is capable of understanding that you're physically going to die, but the human brain literally can't conceive of non-existence. Huh. Those are two different things. Death and non-existence are two different things. That's how religion comes in because death, religion says you're going to die, but you're not going to stop existing. That's so you untangle that. But for people who don't actually believe that, they can become very afraid of death because of the non-existence part, which is weird and freaky and what does it mean? And when you focus on it, you stop being afraid of it. Like anything else. If you're afraid of snakes, go look at snakes. If you're afraid of planes, go look at planes. Because that's called exposure

therapy. And it makes the scary thing ordinary. I'm scared of needles and IVs. Yeah. And so the way to actually get over that is to not dread the occasional IV. And next one's coming in a couple of months for you, right? Oh, well, you just reminded me. I forgot about that. It's, Lori, you're going to have a lot on your mind. You're going to be pretty distracted from it at that point, right? Oh, I forgot about the idea. Besides the big one, which is the epidural, you won't see it. Yeah, the epidural doesn't bother me as much as the IB. Because you don't see it, because at least with the epidural, you get something out of it. That's right. You get high. I know. I know. I know. It looked, it was, it was so effective when my mom's having your kids.

I got one too. Ah, did you really? No. No. I was going to say, geez, maybe I'll give one to Michael. Before you go, how can people from a micro level be happier every day when they're, addicted to their devices. Yeah. So there's a couple of different things to think about. But to begin with, you have to be conscious of the fact that your devices are not making you happy. Your devices don't bring happiness.

You're doing that because you're addicted. And that's a really important thing. It's actually activating a dopaminergic pathway system in your brain the same way that slot machines do, the same way that a lot of drugs and alcohol will. It's just, and what will happen is it's like, why do you check your phone when you're at the light? You're checking your phone when you're at the light because something in your brain said, I need the hit. You know there's nothing interesting there. There's never anything interesting

there on social media, but you look at it because you're compulsively doing that because the dopamine in your brain is going, click. So should you have specific boundaries around it? So the way to do that is to actually have protocols. This all comes down to protocols. So for example, don't look at your phone for the first hour that you're awake. Love it. Now so and if you get up, I get up real early. So for the first hour, now that often means don't use your phone when you're in the gym. Now that has a has a side benefit. I know people are like, what? That is a side bet. People are listening to us in the gym right now. So they have a... Well, if you're listening to us, definitely keep using it in the show. I know. The side benefit of that is that actually, you've ever noticed that

when you're in the shower, you have your best ideas? Yeah. There's a reason for that. Because you're meditating life. Your phone's not in there. Yeah. And believe it or not, your iPhone is okay in a shower, but you don't take it in the shower. And so what's happening is you're turning out a part of your brain called the default mode network. That makes your mind wander, and it makes you more creative and you'll come up with ideas. That's why I like to clean. Yeah. Okay.

So but don't use a phone and make sure you're not listening to anything. Yeah. No, I like. And if you work out, it's like an hour long shower and you're going to have your best ideas when you're under the bar. It's a great tip. It's unbelievable. It's so fruitful. If you're trying to solve a problem, go to the gym, do resistance training or zone two cardio without devices.

You're going to solve your problem is what it comes down to it. And some people haven't done in the years. Okay. First hour of the day, last hour of the day. No devices. Devices downstairs. You go upstairs. You go to bed.

No devices in the bedroom. I love it. No devices at the dinner table during meal time. That's the second one. Okay. That's really important. No devices in the classroom. There's not a school in America that should allow any personal devices.

I agree. That should be executive orders galore from every governor in America that. Didn't some governors start doing that? A bunch half. And my thing is, if we're going to allow cell phones in classes or when you're supposed to be learning or like, a little kid is on an iPad, then let's just, let's just get margaritas in the class. Give them a margarita. It's the same type of distraction. And if you're going to drive on your cell phone, to me, that's the same as drinking and driving. It's actually more dangerous.

I'm actually more dangerous. I honestly think the new drinking and driving is being on your cell phone. And same with class. You might as well sit and have a margarita than be in class. What's the point? And the last thing to do is to actually take a fast each year to go on a, I go on a silent retreat every year. Amazing. How long? Silent spiritual retreat, four to five days. Can I come next time? Yeah, it's great. Although it's all, it's only men, it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's all only men, but anyway, the whole point is that you don't talk at all. Amazing. You're totally silent and there's no devices and you're praying. Other people talk. You'll be listening to them, perhaps, but you're quiet. You're in your head. And when you get out of that, do you just have 20,000 ideas?

It's so much better. Yeah. And so, your life's, so the first day, there's like kids screaming in your head. And by the second day, you're starting to calm down. And by the third day, you're like, this is good. By the fourth day, you're thinking, I wish this were 40 days longer. Can you imagine if you went to a silent retreat with me? I don't think you could. Well, it's actually, it's better if couples don't do that because they'll just talk to each other the whole time. Okay. I've done a retreat with my wife. I've done a couple's retreat with my wife. Was she quiet the whole time? No, we weren't. It wasn't a silent retreat. It was actually a retreat where we were working together. And it was just like no devices. And it was so good for the marriage. It's so good for

your brain too. Yeah, the whole thing. And if you're actually becoming more metacognitively aware and happier and more focused and less addicted together, that's a really important thing. And one more thing, by the way, with this metacognition, with the meditation or whatever you do, when you do it jointly, then it's more powerful when the two of you are doing it together. So I'll talk to couples that are, you know, religious, for example, and I say, how often you pray together? Like, what? What? Praying together or meditating together is one of the most intimate things that you can do. It's more intimate than sleeping together. It's praying together.

It's like, really? That's like bearing your whole soul. But you'll solve these problems like wiring your batteries together as pure power. It's like a frequency. It's unbelievable. I love this episode.

I learned so much. I have so much to implement into... We have a lot to work. Open invite anytime you want. Thank you. Anytime. Where can everyone find you? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. All my stuff is at Arthur Brooks.com. I have a column of the Atlantic that comes out every Thursday morning on the Science of Happiness. My latest book is called Build the Life You Want that I wrote with Oprah Winfrey. It came out last year. Is that the one you would start with if you were going to recommend?

That's the basic science of happiness. I have a new one coming out in a year called the meaning of your life. How to find deep purpose in an age of emptiness. I insist that you come back on when that's coming back. Because I have a hundred more question. I hope I have a hundred more answers, but I love being with you. Thank you. Thank you, Arthur.

Thanks for what you on. Thank you, Arthur.