0:00

There is a whole constellation of

0:02

knowledge. I know one

0:04

millionth of what I could potentially

0:06

know. And that not only inspires

0:09

me, oftentimes when I'm about

0:11

to leave on vacation, I argue that one of the most

0:13

difficult decisions I have to make is deciding

0:16

which book or two books to bring

0:18

on vacation.

0:22

Hello, everybody. You are listening or watching

0:25

Chatting with Candice. If you want to support

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0:49

a single episode because you'll miss out on guests like

0:52

we have today.

0:52

This one is a... Oh

0:56

my gosh, it's such a treat. I have been waiting to get

0:58

this guest scheduled for a while. He is a repeat

1:01

guest. We had to get our timing right. He

1:03

has a new book coming out. Dr. Gadzad,

1:06

he wrote the parasitic mind best selling

1:08

book. This new one, which I'm sure will

1:10

be best selling as well, is The Sad Truth

1:12

About Happiness. Eight secrets for

1:15

leading a good life.

1:16

It is incredible. It talks about

1:19

mindset, pleasure, happiness,

1:22

how to pick the right mate, how to pick

1:24

the right job. It's truly

1:26

incredible. I think it's going to help

1:28

everyone be that much happier. Maybe

1:31

it's the secret sauce that you have been

1:33

missing. And if you feel like

1:35

you could be 1% happier, 10% happier or more, please check

1:39

out this book. You can get it. It's linked below. Amazon,

1:42

anywhere that you get books. And before we jump

1:44

into the episode, I wanted to read a quote

1:47

by my teacher, Dr. Carlos

1:50

Waters. And it's funny because he just had this really

1:52

long conversation that he is,

1:54

was doing and it was on happiness.

1:57

I felt like it was relevant to the show.

1:59

And a lot of it overlapped with Dr.

2:02

Gadsad's work. And I just thought we'd talk

2:05

about serendipity in the podcast,

2:07

and this is just a moment of serendipity that I wanted

2:09

to honor. Understanding our

2:11

true self is a crucial aspect of experiencing

2:14

genuine happiness. Our sense of

2:16

identity is often shaped by the external

2:18

influences, such as social expectations,

2:21

cultural conditioning, and the roles we

2:23

play in our relationships.

2:25

However, true happiness lies in connecting

2:27

with our authentic self. The essence

2:30

of who we are beyond the external constructs.

2:33

It involves exploring our values, passions,

2:36

strengths, and deepest desires.

2:38

When we align our lives with our authentic self,

2:41

we experience a profound sense of purpose,

2:43

meaning, and fulfillment.

2:45

This journey of self-discovery requires

2:47

self-reflection, introspection, and

2:49

willingness to let go of societal masks

2:52

and conditioning.

2:53

And I think that was amazing,

2:56

and you'll see how it's relevant, especially

2:58

after you check out the Gads book, so please

3:00

enjoy the conversation

3:02

with Dr. Gadsat. You're

3:04

back again. I'm so excited. I've been

3:06

eagerly waiting to have you on for round

3:09

two, and I know my people were pitching

3:11

you, so we had to wait for the timing of this new

3:13

book, which congratulations on the launch.

3:15

Thank you so much. I'm equally excited to

3:17

be with you, Cadis, and I'm

3:19

sorry that I wasn't able to do

3:21

it. You were gracious enough to invite me to

3:24

come and do it in person. Hopefully, maybe round

3:26

three, we can do that, but

3:28

for now, we'll have to settle for remotely. I'd

3:30

love to. You know what they're actually saying is Wilmington is

3:33

supposed to be the new Austin, so

3:35

I'm just ahead of the game

3:37

here. It's beautiful. It's not as hot.

3:40

We have beaches, so maybe next time

3:42

that you're going on Rogan, you can make a pit stop

3:44

on the East Coast.

3:45

Well, I'm going in exactly a week, so

3:48

I'm going to have to be probably the next time after that,

3:50

but yes. Yeah, the next time. Yeah,

3:53

you're a serial guest on there, which

3:55

I am. I am. I'm fortunate enough to be so.

3:57

Yes, thank you. What's interesting?

3:59

thinking of the last time we talked and we were talking

4:02

about what is a honey badger.

4:04

And in my mind, it was honey badger

4:07

to this happiness project, which I think

4:09

is so amazing. What

4:12

inspired you to show

4:14

like the softer side or

4:16

this lighter side

4:18

and going into happiness instead of the like this more,

4:21

I

4:22

don't know, the honey badger side.

4:24

Right. There's more sort of more combative

4:26

issues, right? You have to, by the very nature

4:29

of my last book, you're taking on

4:31

ideas, you're taking on people's belief systems.

4:33

And so by its very nature, it's going to be a bit

4:36

darker. But that's

4:38

a great question. Thank you. And I actually discussed

4:40

it briefly in the first chapter of the forthcoming

4:42

book. So I received tons

4:44

of feedback from my

4:48

platform, from the people who follow me

4:50

saying, hey, how do you always

4:52

seem to have a twinkle in your eye?

4:54

You're always smiling. You're always joking.

4:57

You take on all these serious issues. What's

4:59

your secret, professor? So that was the

5:01

first thing that compelled me to write this book.

5:03

And secondly, I noticed that oftentimes

5:06

I don't really operate too much in prescriptive

5:09

world. What I mean by that is here are

5:11

the seven steps to lose weight. Here

5:13

are the three steps to make

5:15

your spouse happy. That's

5:17

never been the ecosystem that I've

5:20

inhabited because as a professor, I'm

5:22

much more in descriptive world. I

5:24

want to describe why people do the things that they do.

5:27

But often I found that when I put out

5:29

some advice, some unsolicited advice,

5:32

that would be the stuff that would receive the

5:34

greatest amount of feedback from people.

5:37

So for example, to the

5:39

earlier point that we mentioned about Joe Rogan, of

5:41

all the times I've been on Joe Rogan, probably the

5:44

singular snippet

5:45

that received the most attention is when

5:48

Joe asked me, so what was your secret

5:50

to becoming trim again? I

5:53

lost a lot of weight.

5:54

So then that got me thinking,

5:57

maybe I can have the audacity

5:59

to ask. actually put together a book

6:01

where I can guarantee you that

6:04

reading my book will assure

6:06

you to be happy, but I can hopefully

6:09

increase your probability of being

6:11

happy by adopting certain mindsets and so

6:13

on. And so I said, you know what, I'm going to throw my ring

6:16

into it. I wrote a book that was about

6:18

negative mindsets. The last book, let's

6:20

now complete the circle by talking about

6:22

positive mindsets.

6:24

I love that. I think a lot of people,

6:26

probably friends within our ecosystem

6:29

could use this because you have a huge social

6:31

following and you engage

6:33

a lot, but the difference that I see between you and

6:35

some other people that we may know

6:37

is like you do have this lightheartedness

6:40

about you and you are happy.

6:42

You

6:44

can objectively see that and then other people you see that

6:46

it's draining them. So how do you not

6:48

take things personally? Because people

6:50

will block you. People will say nasty

6:53

things. How do you protect your space?

6:55

So I do think an

6:58

element of that is just your personhood.

7:00

It's just the unique genes that you have

7:02

that make up who you are. And at the start of

7:04

the book, I basically argue that,

7:06

well, I cite research that says that about 50% of

7:10

our happiness stems from our genes. But

7:13

of course, the good news, that means there's still 50% up

7:16

for grabs. So what are some things that we can do

7:18

that can, wherever we are on the happiness

7:21

set score, we can improve on.

7:23

And so for me, from an environmental

7:26

perspective, I think having grown

7:28

up through some of the horrors of my

7:30

childhood, the Lebanese Civil War and so

7:32

on, I'm always able to contextualize

7:36

anything that I'm going through, that I'm feeling

7:38

anguish about

7:40

in light of what could have been given

7:42

what I went through in the Lebanese Civil War. So I'll give you

7:45

a minor example

7:47

that highlights this.

7:48

So as I was about to embark on

7:51

the media tour to promote my

7:53

book, you wake up, you're anxious,

7:56

I have to travel here, I have to travel there, I've got a

7:58

million shows to do.

7:59

And so you can easily allow that stress

8:02

to take over. And then right away, I kind

8:04

of thought to myself, are

8:06

you really complaining and whining

8:09

to yourself that you're going to be speaking

8:11

to all kinds of interesting people who actually

8:13

have given you their forum to speak

8:16

and because you're going to promote a

8:18

book that hopefully is going to do well, snap

8:20

out of it. And so I think by always

8:22

contextualizing whatever is upsetting

8:24

you in light of the bigger picture,

8:26

it can hopefully ground you back to reality.

8:28

So I would assume that's a muscle that you have

8:30

to work because it's not going to be reflexive

8:33

initially. So some people tend to be stuck

8:35

on this lower,

8:37

like if you've see like these arcs, kind of like a graph

8:39

where it's sneaking up and down, if you're at this high

8:41

point, it's very easy to have gratitude and appreciate

8:44

everything that's going well for you. But

8:46

if you're stuck in this rut, then all you

8:48

see is the negative. So it's really hard to kind

8:50

of have that upward spiral moment or

8:53

to train your brain to do it. Do

8:55

you have steps for that? Or is it just awareness

8:57

and interjecting?

8:58

Well, certainly awareness, but I also

9:00

think if you view whatever

9:03

thing that you're trying to achieve at its

9:05

end point, then oftentimes it could become daunting.

9:07

But if you simply atomize

9:10

it to let me win today,

9:12

so what do I mean by that? Let's take, for example, the weight loss

9:15

thing, right? If I had started,

9:17

which I have done in the past and say, you know, I probably

9:21

could afford to lose 50, 60, 70 pounds, I'm

9:24

never going to get there. Well, I've

9:27

already lost. I'm at the bottom of

9:29

the curve, as you said. But if I say

9:31

every single day, there are three

9:34

possibilities that could happen as relating

9:36

to my weight.

9:37

My weight can stay the same. It can

9:40

go down that day, or it can go up

9:42

that day. How about I just make sure

9:44

that on every single day, however

9:47

little amount,

9:48

it's always that I weigh less today,

9:50

even if the scale can't pick it up, right?

9:53

Well, guess what? I win today, I

9:55

win tomorrow, I win the next day, I

9:58

win for six months, and suddenly I get...

9:59

on the scale,

10:01

holy moly, I haven't been that way since 2001. And

10:03

so I think

10:04

that there are

10:07

ways by which we can contextualize

10:10

what the ultimate summit is

10:12

in smaller steps to at least make

10:15

it more digestible. And if you do that, I think

10:17

you're more likely to succeed.

10:18

So I guess we should also go back

10:20

and define happiness. So what does

10:22

happiness mean to you? Because I think especially

10:25

in the West that there is a lot of confusion

10:27

as to what happiness is.

10:28

Yeah, sure. That's a great question. So of course,

10:31

in the academic literature, there are all kinds of debates

10:33

about the difference between happiness

10:35

and contentment and wellbeing. And

10:39

some people, of course, also confuse sort of short

10:41

term dopamine hits, you know,

10:43

pleasure stuff. Yeah. You know,

10:46

eating a juicy burger makes me happy.

10:50

Watching a spicy

10:52

movie might tickle your sexual

10:54

appetite, whatever.

10:56

That's not what I mean. I'm talking really, if we're going to

10:58

use sort of an endocrinological framework,

11:01

I'm talking about the serotonin

11:03

system. I'm talking about contentment. I'm talking

11:05

about existential happiness. Do I wake

11:08

up on any given day and say,

11:10

I'm really great. I have a great life. Of course,

11:12

there are all kinds of things that piss me off

11:14

and, and, you know, stress me, but

11:17

am I at a place that makes that

11:19

I'm happy? And so it's in that sort of grand

11:21

existential sense. Do I wake up in the morning

11:24

and rub my hands for all

11:26

of the opportunity? I'm going to get to speak to Candace

11:28

today, and I've got this, and then I'm speaking to a graduate

11:31

student about some interesting project. So

11:33

it's in that existential sense that

11:35

I mean happiness. So more internal and external,

11:37

because I think that's a lot too, is we conflate

11:40

pleasure with happiness. So it's these

11:43

things that you're seeking that give you

11:45

like a rush, you know, like that's happiness.

11:47

If I'm not constantly feeling those fireworks with

11:49

my partner, then I'm no longer in love.

11:52

So you feel all of these external things and

11:54

that's how you're measuring it instead of just being whole

11:56

on the inside. So it's this constant chase

11:58

and then you're never going to be.

11:59

satisfied. It's like that old Japanese,

12:03

like the hungry ghost, right? Where they have the big bellies

12:05

and the long necks and it's just like never, never, never

12:08

enough. So where, how do

12:10

you go about, I guess, like feeling

12:12

that wholeness in this world where

12:15

we're constantly almost being forced to wear

12:17

a mask to go along to get along where

12:19

you feel like you might not be able to share who

12:21

you authentically are or you're

12:24

not experienced alignment. It's like, if

12:26

you don't know who you are, to start

12:28

with, how do you experience that happiness?

12:30

So there are several threads that I can take

12:32

there. Let me start with the last thing that you mentioned where you

12:34

talked about authenticity and knowing who

12:36

you are. So I talk in the book about

12:38

the Delphic maxim that the ancient Greeks

12:41

had, were very aware of, which is know

12:43

thyself, right? And I specifically

12:45

talk about authenticity and realness.

12:47

And I don't just mean realness in

12:49

the sense of, you know, in, in, in a

12:52

one on one dynamic, are you someone who's

12:54

real, who's authentic?

12:55

Although I do mean that,

12:56

but I mean, in a grander sense,

12:59

existential authenticity. So

13:01

example, if,

13:03

you know, one of the things I talk about in the book is that at the end

13:05

of your life, if you can look back at your life and

13:08

have as few regrets as possible, then all

13:10

other things equal, you're, you're likely going to

13:12

be

13:13

in a happy state. Right now,

13:15

let's link that to existential authenticity.

13:18

If I decided to become a pediatrician,

13:20

because my dad is a pediatrician and his dad

13:22

was a pediatrician, and I know that that's a safe,

13:25

respectable career, I

13:28

might

13:28

go ahead and become a pediatrician, but I've always

13:30

wanted to be a ceramic artist.

13:33

And so when I'm sitting at 80, I say, you know, I,

13:35

yes, I've been very successful and I've now

13:37

closed my medical practice and people respect

13:39

me,

13:40

but that's not existential authenticity,

13:42

because really what I wanted to do was something

13:44

completely different. I wanted to instantiate my

13:47

artistic side, I was very interested in the arts,

13:49

but I never did it because whatever people

13:51

didn't respect it, my parents didn't appreciate

13:53

it and so on.

13:54

So I think it's very, very difficult

13:56

to be truly in a meaningful way,

13:59

happy if you you're not existentially

14:01

authentic. Now that of course I'm

14:04

authentic to a fault in that I'm

14:07

oftentimes unable to modulate

14:10

my interventions on social media because

14:13

I just can't put up with bullshit right so

14:16

I recently had a tiff with a guy

14:18

on social media who has a very big

14:20

platform people had said to me oh you should look

14:22

into this guy you should get on his show then

14:24

I looked at his stuff I didn't really know who he was and

14:27

then I found that some of

14:29

the the full bullshit that he was

14:31

peddling was really annoying so I at that

14:33

point I could have done one of two things I could say

14:36

I've got a book coming out that

14:39

pragmatically speaking let me not go

14:42

after this guy because I can

14:44

benefit from getting on this platform but

14:46

then that would make me feel in the

14:49

internal voice of my head inauthentic

14:51

and so I said

14:53

I'm going for it I'm going to criticize

14:55

him now I didn't do it in any mean

14:57

way I wasn't trying to insult

15:00

him but I wasn't able to modulate

15:02

what I thought would be appropriate in terms

15:04

of defending the truth

15:06

and so like most things

15:08

in life and I that's actually a topic

15:11

of one of my chapters in the book

15:12

I talked about you know everything in moderation which

15:15

the ancient Greeks were already well aware of so

15:17

I call this the inverted U too little of something

15:19

is not good too much of something is not good

15:21

and much of

15:23

the optimal place

15:25

that we need to be is in the middle sweet spot the

15:28

Buddha called it the middle way Aristotle

15:31

called it the golden mean and so

15:34

like most things in life if you're perhaps

15:37

too authentic and that you never

15:39

hold your tongue that's not good if you never

15:41

speak your mind that's not good

15:43

and the truth lays or the optimal thing

15:45

lays somewhere in the middle so how do you calibrate

15:48

that sweet spot especially when it comes to

15:50

the truth how much truth is too much truth

15:52

because

15:52

I find myself in a very similar

15:55

predicament often especially in real

15:57

exchanges or someone will do or say something that

15:59

I think is just nonsense. And

16:02

I just, without, there's almost

16:04

no, like there's no stop. It's

16:06

just thought and out. Because it's

16:08

just so out, something will be so outrageous, especially

16:10

if it's around the parenting or kids, and I just see

16:12

bad behavior, I'm like shut that down immediately.

16:15

I did it to a really, really old friend,

16:18

and it didn't land well.

16:20

And it still is kind of a little bit thorny.

16:23

So

16:24

is there such thing as too much truth? So

16:27

the way that I would answer that is to draw

16:29

on two distinct ethical

16:32

systems, which actually I don't

16:34

spend much time discussing in this book, but I certainly

16:36

do in the, in my last book, The Parasitic Mind,

16:39

where I talk about the enthalogical ethics

16:41

versus consequentialist ethics. So

16:44

consequentialist ethics would be where

16:46

you might massage the truth because

16:49

the consequences of telling the truth are

16:51

not necessarily worth it. So

16:53

I always give the example, because

16:55

it's a humorous but true one, if

16:57

you want to have a long lasting marriage

16:59

and you hear the question, do I look fat in

17:01

those genes, please put on the consequentialist

17:04

hat.

17:05

Because it may be worthwhile to assuage

17:08

the feelings of your partner and say, no, you

17:10

look beautiful.

17:12

On the other hand, when

17:14

it comes to the pursuit of science,

17:16

the pursuit and defense of

17:19

first principles that define a

17:21

society, well, then there is

17:24

no,

17:24

I believe in free speech, but,

17:27

if you use the qualifier, but, then

17:29

you're violating a deontological

17:32

principle. Deontological means an

17:34

absolute truth, right? So

17:36

presumption of innocence within the judicial

17:39

system is a deontological principle.

17:41

So once someone says, yes, yes, I believe

17:44

in presumption of innocence, but not for

17:46

Brett Kavanaugh, because he's a serial gang

17:48

rapist, well, then you are violating a deontological

17:51

principle. So to your question,

17:53

I would say,

17:55

the way that I'm able to know whether

17:57

I should modulate my tongue

17:59

or not, is whether it's deontological

18:01

or consequentialist. If it's consequentialist,

18:03

I'll modulate my time. If it's deontological,

18:06

fasten your seatbelts.

18:08

Okay. Yeah, that's really helpful. Is

18:10

it the same with, I guess we kind of talked about

18:12

it with authentic expression because obviously,

18:15

you

18:15

don't want to have unbridled rage.

18:17

You can't just go express yourself and punch

18:20

somebody, so you do have to modulate that.

18:22

So

18:23

I guess tying it back to the guy that wanted

18:25

to work with pottery, it's that

18:28

you have all this programming and some of it's

18:32

not

18:33

meant to mess you up as... We

18:35

always mess up as parents. No one's going to be a perfect parent.

18:37

So sometimes you put programming in there that you don't even

18:40

know you're doing. You're not going to make any money with

18:42

making stupid pots. Go be a

18:44

pediatrician. And

18:47

that can do a lot of harm because you have this

18:49

other person that's really living out

18:51

of alignment and they might seek a life partner

18:53

that's out of alignment and they get married and

18:56

then they're in a horrible marriage and it just kind of

18:58

starts to just build and build and build into this

19:00

mountain of sadness and...

19:03

Like being

19:03

a counterfeit life, essentially.

19:05

Right. So how do

19:07

you pragmatically go

19:09

throughout the day? Yes, I have responsibilities,

19:12

I have bills, I do operate

19:14

in this 3D world, but I also have passions.

19:16

So is it that you do your day job and then

19:19

focus on your passions at night? How do you

19:21

not kill your spirit?

19:23

Yeah, that's another great question. So

19:26

let me tie it to... In one of the

19:28

early chapters, I talk about the two fundamental decisions

19:31

that are likely to impart

19:34

upon you the greatest amount of misery or greatest

19:36

amount of happiness as a function of whether you make

19:38

the right choices or not. And decision one,

19:40

which eventually, if you want, we can drill down

19:42

on, is

19:43

choosing the right spouse and

19:45

then of relevance to your question, choosing

19:48

the right profession. And

19:49

what I argue in the book is that

19:51

all other things equal,

19:53

choosing a profession

19:56

that allows you to instantiate your creative

19:58

impulse is probably...

19:59

the best way to find a profession

20:02

that grants you purpose and meaning. That's not

20:04

the only way, but it's certainly one that's

20:06

almost by definition like it does. Now,

20:09

I can create it many ways. I create by

20:11

creating online

20:12

content as a podcaster. I

20:15

can do it by being a chef. I literally

20:17

create culinary art that

20:20

allows people to share an experience that

20:22

didn't exist before I created that dish.

20:24

I can be an architect and create. I could

20:26

be a stand-up comic and create material

20:29

that jokes that no one has heard before. I

20:31

could be an author. I could be a professor. So there are many

20:33

ways by which I can

20:35

engage my creative

20:37

impulse. Now, so to your point

20:39

though, as do I wait till

20:41

after hours to pursue those things? It

20:45

might be that pragmatically, I've always wanted

20:47

to be an artist, but for whatever reason, I haven't been

20:49

able to instantiate that and I've become an insurance

20:52

adjuster. And

20:53

I think without being a denigrating

20:55

insurance adjuster as we need them, it's probably

20:57

not a job that

20:59

allows my creative impulse to be instantiated.

21:01

It's probably not the job that

21:02

gives me purpose and meaning. But

21:04

what about at night when instead

21:07

of watching four hours of

21:09

television, I sign up at the local

21:11

adult learning center to take the pottery

21:13

courses that I've always wanted to take.

21:16

So yes, in an ideal world, if

21:18

my day-to-day job is one

21:20

that

21:21

allows me to immerse myself in play and

21:23

in creativity and so on, that's great. But

21:25

if I can't do that for whatever pragmatic

21:28

reasons and obstacles that have come my way,

21:30

then there are certainly a slew of decisions

21:33

that I can make that would allow me to

21:35

go after those needs

21:37

without it being my profession.

21:39

So I want

21:42

to circle back to choosing the right

21:44

mate. Do you know who Paul Dolan is? It

21:47

rings a bell. Tell me more about him. So Paul

21:50

Dolan was looking at some marital studies

21:52

and he interpreted them in a way, and I

21:54

don't know if it was intentional or not because I'm

21:56

not Paul Dolan, but he interpreted

21:59

it in such a way

21:59

that marriage makes women

22:02

miserable. And it's beneficial

22:04

for men only. And this idea of having kids

22:06

actually makes women more miserable so childless

22:09

women are happier. But I

22:11

guess the way that the data was

22:13

presented, it was like, is your husband

22:16

out or has your husband left? And it

22:18

wasn't identified like, did he leave the

22:20

kitchen? Are you alone or did he physically

22:23

leave the house and you are separated? So

22:25

kind of a big thing to decipher between,

22:28

he did not. So literally

22:29

the women he was talking

22:32

to were estranged from their spouse.

22:34

So of course they're going to report dissatisfaction

22:37

and raise levels of unhappiness. But

22:39

he took it as like this feminist movement,

22:42

be independent, you don't need kids and you don't need a

22:45

man. And when it comes to the

22:47

child studies or like childless

22:50

studies, I'm sure you know that, like

22:52

they are particularly looking at like in

22:55

the throes of the newborn baby stage.

22:57

And they're like, of course, you know, these parents are unhappy,

22:59

don't have kids. Well,

22:59

they scale out to when the

23:02

adults are, you know, in their forties and fifties and actually

23:05

they surpass the people that don't

23:07

have kids. So it almost seems like

23:09

the sneaky way that people are purposefully

23:11

misinterpreting data to

23:14

maybe suit some kind of agenda, some

23:16

kind of feminist agenda, some kind of childless agenda,

23:18

I'm not really sure.

23:20

So I'm not sure that I can speak

23:22

specifically to the Paul Dolan studies

23:24

that you referenced, but maybe

23:26

I can put the more general

23:29

question in an evolutionary framework. And I think

23:31

last time that I was on your show, we probably covered

23:34

some evolutionary themes. So,

23:36

you know, humans are in

23:38

a conundrum in that we both have

23:41

the deep desire to engage in

23:43

long-term coupling

23:44

because we are a bi-parental species. I

23:46

mean, by definition, biologically, men,

23:49

human males

23:50

are some of the best dads in the animal

23:52

kingdom. And that we certainly do

23:55

stick around and invest a lot more than just

23:57

copulation.

23:58

And so we are a bi-parental species.

23:59

So it makes perfect evolutionary sense for

24:02

us to develop the emotional bonding

24:04

system of romantic love because

24:07

we need to stick together for long enough to see our

24:09

children get to sexual maturity.

24:12

But of course, as you also know

24:14

very well, Candice,

24:16

we have evolved a desire

24:18

for variety seeking. And actually I have

24:20

a whole chapter in my forthcoming book

24:22

on variety seeking

24:24

as a pathway to happiness. I talk about

24:27

many different forms of variety

24:29

seeking, food variety seeking, exercise

24:31

variety seeking, sexual variety seeking,

24:34

intellectual variety seeking.

24:36

And so humans are really

24:38

in a Darwinian conundrum because from

24:40

this side of my brain or mouth, I

24:43

completely want to bond to this one woman

24:45

and be faithful to her.

24:47

But I also from this side of my mouth

24:49

or brain see all sorts of beautiful

24:51

women that I really would love

24:53

to

24:54

have an intimate encounter with. Now

24:56

there is no sort of absolute

24:58

prescriptive remedy

25:01

to that.

25:02

We also have evolved the moral

25:04

compass that allows us to assuage

25:06

many of our Darwinian

25:09

instincts. If I've made a commitment to someone

25:11

for a monogamous union and I feel that

25:14

if I were to violate that, that would be a betrayal

25:16

of our trust,

25:17

then notwithstanding the fact that I would look

25:19

at tons of women and say, oh my goodness, she

25:22

is so gorgeous. That's

25:24

the price that I have to pay to be true

25:26

to my monogamous union. So all

25:29

other things equal though, I would say that the

25:31

research shows that marriage

25:34

does correlate with happiness.

25:37

It's not a massive effect, but it certainly

25:40

does correlate. So

25:42

all other things equal, certainly having

25:44

a good partner is very important. That's

25:47

why to our earlier question, when I said

25:49

that there are two important decisions,

25:53

Again, there is no singular recipe

25:55

for how to know who's going

25:57

to be your optimal spouse, certain

26:00

general guidelines that we can use to

26:03

decide that. So for example, there are two conflicting

26:06

maxims when it comes to mate

26:09

choice. One is birds of a feather flock

26:11

together, the other one is opposites

26:13

attract. And it may

26:15

or may not surprise you Candace to know that the research

26:18

overwhelmingly supports birds

26:21

of a feather flock together, at least for long-term

26:24

success of a marriage. So I'm not talking.

26:26

So for a short-term dalliance

26:28

opposites attract might actually be optimal.

26:31

I may be sexually shy and introverted,

26:34

you may be sexually

26:36

adventurous and extroverted, and

26:38

therefore you bring me out of my shell and that

26:40

actually might

26:42

permit me to have a much better experience.

26:44

But for long-term happiness in

26:46

a relationship, a sortative

26:49

mating, and now you might say, well birds

26:51

of a feather flock together on which feathers?

26:54

Here we're talking about

26:56

shared belief systems,

26:58

shared life mindsets, shared

27:01

attitudes towards important values.

27:03

It's much more choose someone who's similar

27:06

to you. In those regards, right?

27:08

So could it possibly that the opposites

27:10

attract is more your temperament,

27:12

so introvert versus out extrovert,

27:15

and then also like maybe risk seeking behavior

27:18

or I don't

27:18

know, like

27:20

maybe just like more inconsequential things

27:23

when it comes down to virtues and like what

27:25

you would build a family upon, like those things

27:27

need to be in alignment, but the other things can

27:29

be different.

27:30

Although just not to get too much

27:32

into the trees, but if you said, let's say risk

27:34

taking, that

27:37

could overlap with some general

27:40

life goals. So for example, I want to

27:42

be very much risk aversive and

27:44

safe for our future.

27:46

You are very much of a risk seeker.

27:48

You live for the day.

27:50

That might cause some problems

27:52

in our relationship, but if you just mean risk

27:54

seeking and that you want to go bungee jumping,

27:57

whereas I'm incredibly safe and everything.

27:59

do then I think that might be a complementary.

28:02

So it depends what you mean by risk. Yes,

28:05

that's definitely my dynamic. So my

28:07

husband was just at Abundance 360. It's

28:10

like this Peter Diamanda's

28:12

conference and he won one of those

28:14

zero gravity

28:16

plane rides and he's doing it and

28:18

he's like, do you want to go with me? And I

28:21

immediately have a panic attack. We're laying in

28:23

bed while he asks me and I just get quiet

28:25

and he feels my whole body contracting and I'm

28:27

getting nauseous and I'm like, I do not want to

28:29

go, but he invited me. What do I do? And

28:31

he goes, I just met to Florida and then

28:34

like, I'll go up and then we'll hang out.

28:36

I was like, thank God, I have

28:38

zero interest in that. I don't

28:40

even want to watch you. Just make sure that they

28:42

take a video and record it. And I hope that you have

28:44

fun because we are so different in

28:46

that regard. I want to keep my feet on the ground

28:48

and he wants to go to outer space. So not

28:50

why I share your your thippeness

28:53

because while I may be an intellectual

28:56

risk taker and that I, I speak

28:58

my mind, I publish papers that

29:00

many other academics wouldn't dare do

29:03

and so on. When it comes to some

29:05

of that physicality, so for example, Heights stuff,

29:08

you know,

29:09

yeah, I'm with you. I get vertigo and

29:11

I turn into a little girl.

29:13

They act, I don't know what I was listening to, but they actually

29:16

said that kind of risk taking, whether it's moral

29:19

or like societal cultural

29:21

risk taking, like intellectual risk taking is

29:23

actually the rarest form of bravery.

29:26

Like doing like the real

29:27

typically bravado stuff like, you know, the

29:29

people that are doing the skyscraper bungee, whatever,

29:32

like what you would think of as risk taking. That's

29:34

actually more common, but it's a lot more rare to

29:36

like say the truth or stand up or risk

29:38

social

29:39

isolation or what have you from being honest.

29:42

So well, I'll take that as a compliment.

29:44

Take that as a compliment. I won't feel so bad

29:47

about not having jumped off some of the 40 foot

29:50

cliffs that I saw others jumping when we

29:52

were just on vacation, my family

29:55

and I in Portugal,

29:56

we're in the Algarve, which is in Southern Europe,

29:59

which is very normal.

29:59

for having these really majestic

30:02

cliffs that you could jump into this

30:04

glorious water. Now I jumped off two levels

30:07

of cliffs, which I thought was pretty impressive,

30:09

but then I would see these other guys, typically much

30:11

younger, jumping off these insane,

30:14

I mean, I couldn't even stand there and they're

30:16

jumping off as if it's like they're eating broccoli.

30:19

And so it makes me feel better to know that

30:22

that's very frequent form of risk that that's good.

30:25

Yes. Yes. Now

30:27

that trip sounded amazing. I was so tired on your podcast

30:29

about being open and serendipity.

30:32

I was listening. It was so cool. I

30:34

felt like I was there with you. I was just finished up

30:36

and this is like a, to speak on serendipity.

30:39

I just finished up a podcast with RFK

30:42

and he was talking about serendipity and he said

30:45

his interpretation of it, it's God

30:47

tapping you on the shoulder and saying like I'm here.

30:50

And then you tell your story about serendipity,

30:52

which is like the next podcast I listened to and

30:55

how I know, right? And it was like, this is

30:57

serendipity happening. And you talk

30:59

about this story about just like being open

31:02

and then that's when like these really cool moments

31:04

happen for you and you had this man approach you

31:06

and ask you like, what is the secret to happiness

31:09

as you have this book on happiness coming out?

31:11

And you're like, you can't write this stuff. You

31:13

really can't. And I think that there

31:15

is something saying like

31:16

when you're just like vibrating at a specific level,

31:18

when you're truly happy, you become a magnet.

31:21

People are gravitated towards you and they want to know

31:23

more about you and they find you curious and interesting

31:26

versus people that are just like so emotionally closed

31:29

off. You just feel that. So I thought that

31:31

was really cool.

31:31

Thank you for mentioning

31:33

that. Just before

31:36

coming on your lovely show, so

31:38

I had done a show myself

31:40

on my channel

31:42

and then I had about 45 minutes. I

31:44

said, so I asked my wife, do you want to

31:46

go for a walk? And so we

31:48

ran into a neighbor

31:51

who's an older gentleman. He has some

31:53

health issues. He's walking

31:55

with a walker. So we stopped for a

31:57

few minutes to chat with him.

31:59

And he.

31:59

just said he goes you know I love running into

32:02

you guys you you you both always

32:04

seem so happy and so you're

32:06

exactly right I mean you really either exude

32:08

that or not and

32:10

now I'm starting even though I'm

32:12

supposed to be scientifically minded as

32:14

I say these things I feel like

32:16

I need to touch wood I certainly I suddenly

32:19

turn into a superstitious person because

32:21

you know in Lebanese culture there's this idea

32:24

of the evil eye right when you say some when

32:26

you say something like oh I'm so happy

32:29

now watch when someone looks at you and you

32:31

know jinx you so even someone

32:33

who is supposedly scientifically trained can't

32:35

help but

32:36

look for the wood to touch as I tell these

32:38

stories well you could have both right

32:40

I think what do they say it's the ego and

32:43

like critical thinking makes a great

32:46

what is I just listened to it basically

32:49

it makes a terrible master it's it's very

32:51

useful don't throw it out with the bathwater but

32:53

also to not like disconnect from

32:55

like your heart space or from like seeking

32:58

spirituality or God or whatever it is so like

33:00

to have both of them where the people that

33:02

are all the way on the other side in the spiritual

33:05

world kind of cast out

33:07

being an intellectual or being articulate or

33:09

critical thing they're like no that's just of this

33:12

world and that's useless and it's figuring

33:14

out like again that golden

33:16

ratio or that happy middle for

33:18

for both of it

33:19

yeah that makes perfect and to tie

33:21

what you just said to the story that

33:23

you were kind enough to share about the gentleman that I ran into

33:26

in Portugal

33:28

that interaction for

33:30

me was a an instantiation

33:33

of divinity right because again

33:35

it depends what

33:37

you know how you conceptualize what what

33:39

the divine is right

33:40

the fact that there could be such

33:43

a magical moment that was unexpected

33:45

that's divine right and so and

33:48

I talk about this very briefly in the book when

33:50

I'm

33:51

discussing various correlates to

33:53

happiness in one of the early chapters and at

33:56

one point I talked about the the link between

33:58

religiosity and happiness

33:59

And I then explained that

34:01

the research shows that there is a

34:04

moderate correlation between being

34:07

religious and happy. But then I didn't

34:09

want people who were not religious

34:11

to walk away saying, well,

34:13

there's a strike against me. I'm not religious. Because

34:16

if you define that sense of

34:18

grandeur as something more than

34:20

simply couched within a religious

34:23

narrative,

34:24

then you can find these divine moments

34:26

and all sorts of things. When I look at, I

34:28

mean, they've passed away now, we're thinking of getting

34:30

the next generation of Belgian shepherds. But

34:32

when I would interact with my Belgian

34:34

shepherds,

34:36

I don't think that God or the

34:38

cosmos can create, in my view, a

34:40

more perfect creature, right? They're

34:43

loyal, they're protective, they're playful,

34:45

they're, I mean, they exude every

34:48

or they exhibit every one of the noble

34:50

qualities that most of us could never

34:52

hope to acquire. And

34:54

so I can find divinity in all sorts of

34:56

things without necessarily couching it within

34:59

a supernatural framework. Have you seen those most

35:01

recent pictures from the James Webb

35:03

Telescope, where

35:04

it shows all of the different galaxies?

35:07

I

35:07

mean, just a few snippets of them on

35:10

Twitter, but not systematically. But I go

35:12

ahead. Oh, my gosh,

35:15

I was looking at this picture. And again, my husband

35:17

shows me or like, like presents all

35:19

this stuff to me as I'm about to go to bed, and then

35:21

I just can't sleep. And he thinks it's hysterical.

35:24

But he shows me this picture, and it's just all

35:26

of these different galaxies, like so many that

35:28

it looks like the night sky, like what you would

35:30

look and see all of these stars, like they're just galaxies.

35:33

So you see that, and you're like, how

35:35

do

35:36

you look at that and know that you are one in

35:39

infinite, infinity when it comes to that,

35:41

and you think you know anything, or you feel

35:43

like you've got it figured out, or you think you are

35:45

as big as it gets? How do you possibly

35:48

think that? And like, so to people

35:50

that don't have any spiritual inkling, I'm like,

35:52

I feel like we're just wired for that. Like

35:55

we're wired to know that there's something

35:57

bigger and whatever that however

35:59

you transmit.

35:59

that or translate that into whatever

36:02

that looks like for you is another thing. But you're just

36:04

like

36:04

this inner knowing that there is something bigger.

36:07

Right? And I think that that ties

36:09

into purpose.

36:10

Absolutely. And I can even

36:12

take that example that you said and

36:15

rather than explore at the cosmological

36:17

level, which for most brains is difficult to comprehend.

36:21

Let's bring it down to the study that I'm in right now

36:23

as you're taping. You can't see it in the shot,

36:25

but I have this huge collection

36:28

within my personal library of books that

36:30

I've yet to read. And it's

36:32

that that allows me to be quite epistemologically

36:35

humble, even though I may know quite

36:38

a lot as

36:39

the fact that I'm a professor who spent my whole life and

36:41

navigating ideas. The

36:44

fact that I'm

36:46

knowledgeable allows me to

36:48

know how little that I know, because

36:50

there's so much. So to use your cosmological

36:53

analogy, there is a whole constellation

36:55

of knowledge.

36:57

I know one millionth of

36:59

what I could potentially know. And that

37:01

not only inspires me oftentimes

37:05

when I'm about to leave on vacation, I argue that one of the

37:07

most difficult decisions I have to make is deciding

37:10

which book or two books to bring

37:12

on vacation. And usually my

37:14

wife will tell me,

37:16

start that decision process early,

37:18

because I go through this whole choice paralysis

37:20

where I'm just standing like a zombie in front

37:22

of all the books that I've yet to read. And I can't

37:25

make my mind up. And oh, by the way,

37:27

I'm supposed to be an expert in the psychology

37:30

of decision making, and I'm completely

37:32

on the choice paralysis.

37:34

So yes, it's always nice and humbling to

37:37

realize that you're a very, very small spec

37:39

in this greater universe. So

37:42

is that kind of what you mean by your pushback

37:44

on the spice of life as

37:47

variety is too much, can

37:49

be overwhelming?

37:50

I mean, certainly that. There

37:52

what I'm arguing actually is that depending

37:55

on the domain, the pursuit of

37:57

variety might be a good thing or a bad

37:59

thing.

37:59

thing. So in a sense,

38:01

a lot of the stuff in my book can be frustrating

38:04

to people, but

38:06

though I'm honest, in other words, many

38:08

quote self-help books are read

38:10

my book and I guarantee you

38:12

a Ferrari and your wife having 20,000

38:15

orgasms every time you look at her.

38:18

Those are false promissory stuff.

38:20

Well, I'm a lot more honest

38:22

and humble in what I'm saying, which is if

38:24

you read my book, I could simply offer

38:26

you some statistical likelihood

38:28

that you're more likely to be happy. So

38:31

to the point about variety,

38:33

there is no rule that says across

38:35

every possible domain and every setting,

38:38

more variety is better. To our earlier

38:40

point about sexual variety seeking,

38:42

if you're in a committed monogamous union,

38:45

notwithstanding your desire to engage

38:47

in

38:48

multiple matings, you may

38:50

want to

38:51

reel that in.

38:53

But for example, intellectual variety seeking,

38:55

since that's probably the thing that's

38:57

closest to my professional heart.

39:00

I argue that

39:02

it's a very, very poor way

39:04

to live life by always being a stay

39:06

in your lane person. So let's take an academia.

39:09

In

39:10

academia, the

39:12

reward systems are set

39:14

up for you to be a

39:16

hyper specialist because

39:19

they are only seven other people

39:21

that know about anything that you're talking about.

39:23

And so by becoming a greater hyper

39:25

specialist, that's where you can make a contribution. And

39:28

of course, there's some value to that. If you're

39:30

going to contribute to a particular scientific literature,

39:33

you have to be an expert in it.

39:34

But the biggest

39:37

breakthroughs in science come usually

39:39

at the intersections of disciplines.

39:41

So the mapping of the human genome

39:44

required people in many distinct

39:46

disciplines to put their collective

39:49

IQ together to be able to crack

39:51

some of the, in this case, the code of our

39:53

existence. Right.

39:54

And so I argue that life is

39:57

too short to only navigate through

39:59

the same and

39:59

intellectual journey on every

40:02

day and yet most of my

40:04

academic colleagues are

40:05

completely stay in your lane professors

40:08

and now they're staying your lane professors in many ways.

40:10

They only publish on a

40:13

single topic so I am

40:16

You know a emotions researcher.

40:18

So I only do that. I only publish

40:20

in these four psychology journals

40:22

I only write peer-reviewed

40:25

journals because that's what's

40:27

rewarded in academia Now look

40:30

at my career. It's been the exact

40:32

opposite. I have published Countless

40:35

academic papers and top journals,

40:37

but I also wrote books when it

40:39

was frowned upon to write books

40:41

You should only publish peer-reviewed papers. I

40:43

also I wrote academic books and trade

40:47

books meaning for the general public. Well that

40:49

was viewed as a selling out I

40:52

Started a show and a podcast

40:54

when very few people in general had shows

40:56

let alone professors that was viewed

40:59

as not serious right I

41:00

Go on Joe Rogan

41:03

from a very long time ago as I

41:05

discussed in my previous book when

41:07

I was invited to Stanford in 2017 my

41:10

host looked at my connection

41:12

with Joe Rogan with great derision, you know, we don't

41:14

do that at Stanford,

41:16

right? so to me I

41:19

have been enriched in an incalculable

41:23

number of ways by having

41:25

pursued variety seeking

41:27

within my profession within my Intellectual

41:30

pursuits and it's a real shame to always

41:33

go to the same, you

41:34

know one trick pony life is too short

41:36

for that That's so interesting now because I feel

41:39

I don't know maybe it's different You can tell

41:41

me from your experience But do you feel like it's

41:43

more widely accepted now to be able to be

41:46

a whole person and express yourself fully

41:48

like be an author Go on podcasts

41:50

as an academic you're saying. Yeah, yeah So,

41:53

you know as you probably know

41:56

when you talk about diffusion of innovations, there

41:58

are the the innovation then

42:00

the early adopters, then the late

42:03

adopters, then the laggard, right? Who's the

42:05

last person to get a cell,

42:07

an iPhone? Who's the last person to have

42:09

purchased a

42:10

microwave, right? Well,

42:13

regrettably, academia

42:16

are

42:16

very much at the laggard

42:19

end of things in that it takes them

42:21

a long time to accept radical

42:24

new ways of being, right? And

42:26

so to your question,

42:28

I used to get a lot of the derision

42:30

from, oh, you know, you're a sellout by speaking

42:33

to the great unwashed to the rubes, right?

42:36

Why aren't you only talking to fancy professors

42:39

at Harvard? Well, now the same

42:41

schools that used to look at my stuff with derision,

42:43

when I go visit them and give a talk, they say,

42:46

tell me, how did you become so

42:48

popular? Now they see it

42:50

as a positive thing, whereas 10 years

42:52

ago,

42:53

it was viewed as a sellout. So I think

42:56

to your point,

42:57

you know, they are changing, but it's a

42:59

very, very slow change

43:01

and it requires someone

43:03

who has a, I don't give an F attitude

43:06

to serve as the agent of innovation, right? I

43:08

didn't care whether they

43:11

appreciated it or respected it or

43:13

not. I just had to be authentic.

43:16

And so going on the Joe Rogan show

43:18

and speaking for three hours and having 20 million

43:21

people listen to my ideas seemed

43:23

like a really good idea because I have

43:26

been in business of creating knowledge

43:28

and spreading knowledge. What better way

43:30

to spread knowledge than on the number one show

43:32

in the world? Are you really going to

43:35

pull the elitist card on me

43:37

and say, I should only publish in a journal

43:39

that's, if I'm lucky, I don't

43:41

know if you know this guys, but you know, the

43:43

average academic paper will be cited

43:46

zero times zero, right?

43:49

Now if your paper is cited

43:51

a hundred times in 10

43:53

years from now, that's considered a highly

43:56

successful impactful academic

43:58

paper. Well how long?

44:00

I'm sure that within the first minute of our chat

44:02

here, we're going to get a lot more than a hundred people

44:05

listening to us. And again, I'm not comparing it. I know it's

44:07

they're different things. Publishing in a peer-reviewed

44:09

journal is different than going on a popular podcast

44:12

show. But

44:13

there is room for all of these things. It's not

44:15

an exclusive either or. I could be

44:17

a serious academic and appear

44:19

on all sorts of popular shows. So

44:22

how do you see education changing,

44:24

especially with everything becoming more

44:26

democratized and open source? And I

44:29

feel like a lot of people are doing either

44:31

continued continued education or

44:34

like a lot of what they're learning or experiencing

44:37

novelty is through books or podcasts or

44:39

YouTube shows, things like that. Substack

44:41

like a lot of people aren't spending crazy

44:43

amounts of money to go to school anymore.

44:46

Look, I don't think. Look,

44:48

I wrote parasitic mind to describe how

44:51

universities served as the, you

44:53

know,

44:54

spawners of all of these dreadful ideas.

44:57

So I have a lot of critical positions

44:59

regarding the university ecosystem. But

45:02

I'm also, I think, wise

45:04

enough to know that, you know, universities are not

45:07

going to go away. There are many

45:09

forms of research that require

45:11

the infrastructure of a university to be able

45:13

to pull it off. So I don't think universities

45:16

are going to go away. But to your point, I

45:18

think now we do have a democratization

45:21

of knowledge. Right. I could go on

45:23

YouTube if I want to find out

45:25

who is the.

45:26

The world leader, when it

45:28

comes to Epictetus, I could sit down and

45:31

consume 10

45:32

hours from their lecture. Well,

45:34

certainly when I was a student and probably

45:36

when you were a student, that didn't seem

45:39

like it would be possible. So I could now

45:41

put together a survey,

45:43

a buffet of leading thinkers

45:46

in any field that I might be interested in

45:49

from the most esoteric to the most popular.

45:51

And I will have access to that. So I say, look,

45:54

it's again, it's not an either

45:56

or. I think universities are here to stay, although

45:59

I do think. that

46:00

they truly have been taken over by

46:02

these dreadful ideas

46:04

out hopefully we can fix them and

46:06

boy

46:07

it's great to live in a world where i can

46:10

go and listen to great thinkers

46:12

at where's point twenty years ago i would have had

46:14

to pay a lot of money to be able to go to a lecture but

46:17

both are viable ways of learning

46:18

i wanted because i know i know you are

46:20

a very busy man and i deadly

46:23

wanted to get into regret is that was sent

46:25

over and then i also think it's such an interesting

46:28

topic is it it leaves people very

46:30

charge will do you personally have

46:32

any regrets do you feel like everyone has

46:34

something that they regret and then how

46:36

do you go about moving past

46:38

it

46:39

right thank you for the great question thrive a whole

46:41

chapter on regret and

46:43

the way that i started the chopper as

46:45

by citing your eyes

46:48

it's sort of the organizing framework of

46:50

the work of one of my former psychology

46:53

professors and my phd where

46:54

his name is thomas gill of age and he

46:56

pioneered

46:58

the psychology of regret by looking at

47:01

the two fundamental sources

47:03

of regret regret due

47:05

to action and regret due

47:07

to an so regret do

47:09

the actual would be i regret that i

47:11

cheated on my wife and that brought brought the

47:13

end of our family in our marriage regret

47:15

due to inaction i regret

47:18

that i never pursued my artistic

47:20

interests and i became a pediatrician well

47:23

it turns out canvas that over the long run

47:26

at the greatest looming regret

47:28

that people have i typically those

47:30

of inaction right and

47:32

so ah yes i wish

47:35

i would have done dish so the load the

47:37

road that was not travel right now

47:41

if i'm eighty five and i'm

47:43

looking bad i said i i wish

47:45

that i had you

47:46

know become our and be

47:48

a player while there is nothing that i

47:50

can do to fix that regret because i'm

47:52

too old and too short

47:55

to have ever been and and be a player but

47:57

the one i but as a as

47:59

an hour optimistic bent on this difficult

48:02

issue, there are many forms of regret

48:05

that even late in life

48:07

we can do something about. And

48:09

I give

48:10

several such examples which I'll share with

48:12

you now and then I'll give,

48:13

I'll answer your question about my own personal regrets. So

48:17

I give two examples in the book of

48:19

regrets that were alleviated

48:22

very very late in life by two

48:25

separate individuals. So

48:26

story one, this gentleman who

48:29

graduated with a PhD at my

48:31

university where I'm currently a professor. So

48:34

this was in the mid-90s

48:36

whether he finished his PhD, but he was a someone

48:39

he was a an individual who

48:41

left Germany prior

48:43

to the start of World War II

48:46

as a young person, moved

48:48

to Canada and just

48:50

life circumstances did not allow him to

48:53

pursue his education. He'd always wanted

48:55

to go to university and so on.

48:57

Fast forward several decades. He's

48:59

now retired.

49:01

He's in his 60s and he says look

49:03

I'm young enough at this point,

49:05

still young enough. I still have vigor.

49:07

Why don't I now go back and get

49:10

my undergraduate? He's in his 60s, right?

49:13

The average student is 20 and

49:15

so he goes

49:16

to my university, gets

49:19

an undergraduate degree,

49:20

finishes, I don't remember the exact age, but in his

49:22

70s. He says well, hey look, I'm still

49:25

I still got vigor. I'm still

49:27

you know ready to go.

49:30

Pursues and a master's completes

49:32

his master's. Now he's in his 80s

49:35

and then I remember I think it was in 1996 and

49:38

the university newspaper, the

49:42

cover on the cover of the newspaper

49:44

was finally a doctor

49:46

at 91. And

49:48

at the time I think he was maybe the oldest

49:51

recipient of a PhD in Canada or something

49:54

that effect.

49:55

Within a year he passes away.

49:57

Now talk about purity. That person,

50:00

not pursue his PhD because

50:03

he was going to go on the academic

50:05

job market. He did it for the most

50:08

of pure reasons, which is just the

50:10

sheer love of knowledge, right?

50:13

Sophia, love of knowledge. So that's story

50:15

one. Story two, I actually

50:17

had this gentleman on my show last year,

50:21

Memfret Steiner. He

50:24

got his MD, medical degree,

50:27

in 1955, I think. He

50:31

had gone into medicine because his parents

50:33

had said, no, you have to do something

50:36

practical, something respectable. His

50:38

love was physics, but

50:40

physics, that's not a practical

50:43

thing.

50:43

And so he became a physician. Then

50:46

he specialized in

50:48

hematology,

50:49

picked up along the way

50:52

in 1967, a PhD in biochemistry,

50:55

had a full

50:57

career as a medical

51:00

specialist. And then in

51:02

his 80s, decided that

51:05

he wanted to instantiate the pursuit

51:07

of his original love in physics, started

51:09

getting a degree in physics,

51:11

finished with a PhD in physics

51:14

at Brown University at the age of 89.

51:17

So now imagine these two stories I just

51:20

told you, Candice,

51:21

when a student comes into my office

51:24

during office hours and they're 28 years old

51:27

and they tell me, well, I feel though

51:30

I'm too old professor to do my MBA.

51:32

And then I say, sit down. I'm going to

51:35

tell you a story.

51:36

And then you can see the power of that

51:38

story because I say, so do you still think you're

51:40

too old? And so I think that for

51:42

many regrets, unfortunately, time

51:44

has passed us by, the opportunity has passed us, but

51:47

so many regrets, we can still do

51:49

something about them.

51:50

Now, as far as my personal regrets, I

51:52

really have a singular one that

51:54

haunts me. So

51:57

I was always talented

51:59

and talented.

51:59

two things in life. I was a very good

52:02

soccer player

52:03

and I was very

52:05

studious guy. I loved books, I

52:07

loved learning, which is very strange

52:09

mix in that usually you're brawny or you're

52:12

brainy.

52:13

I happen to have been fortunate enough to have

52:15

both. And so I always thought that I would be a professional

52:17

soccer player and then I would go on and

52:20

develop, become an academic.

52:22

And at the age of 17, I had a very

52:24

serious injury in

52:26

Canadian championships

52:27

that put an end to my soccer

52:30

career. But I think that even if that

52:32

injury had not happened,

52:34

I did not grow up in an environment

52:36

that would have been conducive to increasing

52:39

my chances of becoming a soccer player. Number one, because

52:41

my family did not support that at all. You

52:44

have a brain. Why would you waste time kicking

52:46

a ball? But I grew up in

52:48

Canada where in the early

52:51

80s, it wasn't very,

52:53

very common for Canadians to be scouts

52:55

at the top European teams, although I

52:57

was on the path to having that happen.

53:00

And so whenever a

53:02

the World Cup comes around and I see

53:05

the majesty of that tournament, I'm

53:08

always filled a lot of regret at the fact

53:10

that I wasn't able to instantiate my soccer

53:12

career. So that's probably the only regret I have.

53:15

Now, to her credit, Megan Kelly,

53:17

I shared that regret with her once on her show.

53:19

And I actually mentioned this in the book, and she's

53:21

like, kind of snap out of it. You

53:23

shouldn't regret that. You've had a lot

53:26

more influence in your life by having become

53:28

an academic. You've made a difference.

53:30

So

53:31

enough. Don't regret that. So that's

53:33

it. Yeah, it sounds like no matter what, you were destined

53:35

to have an audience. I

53:38

guess so. Right. Yeah. I'm

53:41

a performer, whether it be on

53:43

the soccer pitch or as

53:45

an orator.