0:02

I'm

0:07

Dave Rubin

0:07

and joining me today is an evolutionary

0:10

behavioral scientist, an

0:12

author of the brand new book, The

0:15

Sad Truth About Happiness,

0:17

and possibly, just possibly,

0:20

the most time returning

0:23

Rubin Report guest,

0:25

my old friend Gad Sad. Welcome back to

0:27

the Rubin Report. Oh, Dave, so

0:29

happy to be back, although I'm a bit dismayed that

0:31

it's not sure whether I'm the most frequent

0:33

of Gad. Please check and get back to me

0:35

with those stats. Gad, my team,

0:38

I have a very crack team here. They're

0:40

working overtime to try to figure this out.

0:43

Right now, we know that it is either

0:45

you,

0:46

Jordan Peterson, or Douglas Murray.

0:48

There's a little murkiness

0:51

around Jordan because I've done so many other things

0:53

with him that we sometimes count as shows. Sometimes

0:56

we don't, but I will say without question, you

0:59

were the first ever guest on the Rubin

1:01

Report, the first time I ever did a full

1:03

one-on-one in-studio sit-down

1:06

with another human being back in

1:08

September of 2015. It

1:12

was a test show, but I counted as the first show.

1:14

It was with Gad Sad.

1:16

Eight years ago, I can't believe it. My

1:18

goodness. Man, we were kids. You remember

1:20

that? We were kids, and

1:22

I was fatter. I

1:25

said to you right before we connected that

1:27

you're half the man you used to be, but I guess

1:30

that's a little ... Why don't we start with that? Because

1:32

mostly people tune in to you on this show to

1:34

talk about your tan and what you've been doing lately

1:36

to get that beautiful Lebanese bronze,

1:39

but also you've lost a bunch of weight. You're always

1:41

a happy guy. That's what the book is

1:43

about. By the way, I should note, I have

1:45

the uncorrected proof here, so I don't know if you

1:48

added any additional happiness

1:50

quotas or anything. This is

1:52

the final one. It's a bit more glocky

1:54

looking, yeah. But

1:56

talk to me about how the tan and the

1:58

weight loss are connected. to this whole thing. And then

2:01

we'll get on to everything else. That's

2:03

a wonderful way to start the conversation. So the tan

2:05

comes from my having just returned

2:08

from Portugal with

2:10

my family. And so there's

2:12

all kinds of happiness to unpack there. Number

2:15

one, having a great spouse with

2:17

whom you can spend your life

2:19

with. I actually discussed this in quite

2:22

a bit of detail in the book. So,

2:24

and you've met her, you know, on numerous occasions.

2:28

Having great children. I know that you recently

2:31

became a double twice

2:32

father. So you must now

2:34

finally understand what it means to have

2:37

this unconditional obsessive

2:39

love for those

2:42

carrying your genes into the next generation.

2:45

And regarding the weight, I actually discussed that

2:47

in the book when I'm discussing the

2:50

importance of persistence,

2:53

resilience. There's nothing magical

2:55

about how I lost about 86 pounds.

2:58

I think from my heaviest weight to my lightest,

3:01

I dropped 86 pounds. And I did it

3:03

by repeatedly making

3:06

the right decision on a daily basis,

3:08

right? So it's little steps. What

3:11

is the secret? Well, number one, I walk

3:14

between 15 to 20,000 steps a day. Now

3:17

the walking could be on a stationary bike. It

3:19

could be on elliptical. It could be literally walking

3:21

outside, but I have my phone with me so

3:24

that it's tracking every single step that I take

3:26

all day. No matter how I feel,

3:28

I have to reach 15 to 20,000 steps.

3:31

But of course, as you and probably most

3:33

of your listeners know, much of your

3:35

weight loss or weight maintenance comes

3:37

from what goes into this gluttonous hole.

3:41

It's about 90% of your weight loss is

3:43

going to come from what you eat. And so what

3:46

I try to do basically is

3:49

hover around 15 to 1700 calories a day. The

3:53

way that I know that is because my lovely

3:56

spouse and a very Gestapo,

3:58

Nazi-like way, track of every

4:01

single thing that goes into my mouth. And

4:03

so at the end of the day, she'll tell me, you know, you're

4:05

at 1,638 calories, don't

4:08

have any more snacks. And so by being,

4:11

you know, having

4:13

to, you know, be accountable

4:16

to number one, my steps, number two

4:18

to my daily calories, bit

4:20

by bit, I woke up one day, 18 months

4:22

later, as you said, half the man that I was.

4:24

And so that there's no secret, it's just hard

4:27

work and persistence. So obviously

4:29

we'll dive into

4:29

a bunch of the bullet points of

4:32

the book and all that. But I have to say, since we've

4:34

been doing this, since 2018, a lot

4:36

has changed in this world, politically,

4:39

culturally, everything else. You are

4:41

still in Canada, I know. I've

4:43

been trying to get you to these great United

4:46

States, preferably to the free state of Florida

4:48

for quite some time. Hasn't happened just

4:50

yet. But I thought maybe we could

4:52

talk a little bit about just how much

4:55

sort of culturally and socially

4:57

has changed. And that in many ways, these

4:59

were the exact

5:01

things that we were talking about back

5:03

in 2015 and the years since. Whether

5:06

you look now at the gender stuff, or the neo-racism

5:09

stuff, all the woke stuff that everyone talks about. A

5:11

lot of us, I would say me, you, Jordan,

5:13

Douglas, who I mentioned before, we were sort

5:16

of all warning about a lot

5:18

of these things. I can't tell how happy

5:20

should it make me that we were right about

5:22

this stuff. Well, of course,

5:25

it's- Mr. Happiness?

5:27

That's right. It's natural to

5:29

have a bit of an ego in that you

5:32

don't want to be gleeful, but you are the person.

5:34

And when I say you, meaning all the people that you just

5:36

mentioned, we are sitting in the back

5:38

of the room with our hands folded saying,

5:40

hey, I told you so. Not that

5:42

you wish to be gleeful about that, but

5:46

it is frankly frustrating because

5:48

had many people been, you

5:50

know, heeded our warnings, maybe

5:52

we wouldn't have gone down the abyss of infinite

5:54

lunacy to the extent that we have.

5:57

But look, life is autocorrective. science

6:00

is auto-corrective, bad ideas come

6:02

and go. And so taking

6:04

the point that we mentioned earlier about persistence and

6:06

weight loss, we remain persistent,

6:08

we remain committed to spreading

6:11

good ideas and hopefully there'll be an auto-correction

6:13

and these ridiculous ideas will be

6:16

in the dustbin of history.

6:18

I often ask you privately, but I'll ask

6:20

you publicly also, what does keep

6:22

you in Canada at this point? I ask this to basically

6:24

all my Canadian

6:26

guests because obviously

6:28

Canada has a lot of

6:30

problems and you've had

6:33

frozen bank accounts, not you personally as

6:35

far as I know, but I mean there have been frozen bank accounts. The

6:37

onslaught against free speech, against

6:39

the ability for people to go to church. Trudeau's

6:42

government for some reason still continues

6:44

to this day. I mean, what really keeps

6:46

a guy like you that cares so deeply about these

6:49

issues, you're now living in a place

6:51

that in many ways is, as far as a Western

6:53

country,

6:54

completely at odds with what

6:56

I know your beliefs are. Yeah, no, thank

6:58

you for that question. It's even worse

7:00

in Quebec than the rest of Canada, right? You can

7:02

be in Alberta and it's slightly

7:06

or a lot more, you know, less socialist

7:08

than Quebec. So I'm truly in the

7:10

worst possible place. What keeps me there,

7:13

Frank, I mean, there are two things. Number one, many

7:16

of the family members of both my wife

7:18

and I are in Montreal. And

7:20

since we have young children, that's always something

7:23

that's going to make it more difficult to extricate

7:25

yourself from, you know, the extended family.

7:28

But frankly, probably the number, not probably,

7:30

definitely the number one reason is that I'm a tenured

7:33

professor, right? And so in academia,

7:36

it takes, you know, it's very, very

7:38

difficult to get a job

7:40

as a professor. You could be the

7:42

most accomplished professor for you

7:44

to move from one

7:45

place to another requires

7:48

that, you know, a million things

7:50

fall into place, right? Now, when

7:52

you're tenured,

7:54

that's the ultimate, you know, protection,

7:56

right? I mean, the only thing that has allowed me to survive.

7:59

you know, the fact that I take the positions that I do

8:02

is precisely the protection of tenure.

8:04

And so to now walk away

8:07

from that without having the security

8:10

of a tenured professorship elsewhere is

8:12

very, very difficult to do, right? So, you

8:15

know, I've always talked about what

8:17

would be the amount of money that would

8:20

permit me to have an exit strategy

8:22

out of Quebec. And again, I think

8:24

that if we didn't have young children, then

8:27

that amount of money would be much lesser

8:30

in order to exit. So because of having

8:32

young children, because we have a lot of family

8:34

in Montreal, and because I'm a tenured

8:36

professor, that's what's kept me here. But

8:38

believe me, even later today, it

8:41

might interest you to know without giving too many details,

8:43

I am speaking to a

8:46

college or university in Florida precisely

8:49

to see if there's a way for me to be closer

8:51

to you. So let's... Well, I am very,

8:54

very happy to hear that. Do you think

8:56

Canada has hit peak lunacy yet, or

8:58

do you sense that it's still going to get worse?

9:00

Because I'm seeing some level of pushback now,

9:03

not just from you, but even some of the truckers.

9:06

And I had Tamara Leishon, who is one of

9:08

the lead trucker people, like there is

9:10

a new

9:11

pushback against some of the craziness, I think.

9:14

So I do see that the

9:16

the the promulgators of

9:18

the parasitic ideas are still

9:21

hanging in, and if if anything, they're only

9:23

getting worse. I think where the improvement that

9:25

you are mentioning is coming from is

9:28

the response to the lunacy. And

9:30

so you are right that a greater

9:32

number of voices in all sorts of settings

9:35

are starting to find their spines,

9:37

find their testicular fortitude.

9:39

So that makes you feel good.

9:42

But it moves so slowly, right?

9:44

It has taken many of the people

9:46

that you've been talking about a decade,

9:49

two decades, I mean, especially since I'm in

9:51

the academic ecosystem, I've

9:53

been warning about these parasitic ideas

9:55

for several decades, let alone 2014

9:57

and 2015. Remember

10:00

that my area of scientific

10:02

inquiry is applying evolutionary biology

10:05

and evolutionary psychology and understanding

10:07

human behavior. And so a lot of these parasitic

10:09

ideas, the rejection of biology, the

10:12

rejection of sex differences, existed

10:15

within my scientific pursuits

10:18

before they had entered the culture wars.

10:20

And so yes, there is improvement, but

10:23

there's a lot more work to be done.

10:25

Yeah, absolutely. All right, now to

10:27

the book, because happiness is a big topic.

10:30

And I was thinking, as I was flipping through it

10:32

before, there's something interesting about writing a book about

10:34

happiness, because it puts a lot of pressure

10:36

on the author, sort of the way I always

10:39

felt that Jordan was under a lot of pressure

10:41

by writing 12 rules for life, because

10:43

man, if he broke one of those rules, then

10:46

why would you wanna buy this book? And

10:48

to Jordan's credit, people always ask me, I never

10:50

saw him break a rule. I really, in all the years I've known

10:52

him, I've never seen him do it, but at a

10:54

happiness level, to say I'm going

10:57

to be the guy that's gonna tell people how

10:59

to be happy,

11:00

it's a lot of pressure. Now

11:02

I know you very well, and you're happy

11:04

and smiley, and you love your wife and your kids

11:06

and all that stuff, but

11:08

how much work in a life that's been fairly

11:11

complex and had its share of tragedy actually,

11:13

was it to get to that place and then to say, oh,

11:16

I can be a expert on this?

11:18

Well, thank you, that's a fantastic

11:20

question. So maybe I'll start by explaining

11:23

how I came to write a book on happiness.

11:25

If you would have asked me five years ago, was

11:28

that within my radar, I would have said no. What

11:30

led me to, and I actually discussed this in the

11:32

first chapter of the book, is that I

11:34

noticed that in my social engagements,

11:37

some of the most

11:39

powerful responses that I would

11:41

receive from people is when I offered

11:43

some prescriptive advice, right? Typically

11:46

I operate, as a behavioral scientist,

11:48

I operate in descriptive world. I just describe

11:51

why do people do what they do without

11:54

saying this is what you should do. That was

11:56

very much more the purview of, as

11:58

you mentioned, Jordan Peterson. especially

12:00

because he's a clinical psychologist. So he's helping

12:03

people don't do this pattern, follow this pattern.

12:05

Right. But then when I noticed how

12:08

much people would respond favorably

12:10

to,

12:11

you know, some, you know, 100 character

12:15

thing that I put up on Twitter, and then they're

12:17

saying, my God, that's changed my life. And I would say,

12:19

really, that struck me as a rather banal,

12:22

obvious point to make. And

12:24

then so people would write to me and say, you always,

12:26

even though you're dealing with such serious issues,

12:28

you always seem to be playful, and there's always a

12:31

twinkle in your eye, and you're always happy.

12:33

What's the secret professor? And so I said, you

12:35

know what, why don't I take because parasitic

12:38

mind, the previous book was about negative

12:41

mindset, parasitic ideas

12:43

that infect your brain. I thought,

12:45

well, why don't I now complete the story and talk

12:47

about, you know, winning mindsets, optimal

12:51

choices that you can make. But to your point, though,

12:54

I had the epistemic humility, hopefully

12:56

in writing this book, not to guarantee

12:59

you or if you implement these, I

13:01

guarantee you'll be happy. All I can say

13:04

is that statistically speaking,

13:05

if you were to implement

13:07

these or adopt these mindsets, it

13:10

increases the probability of you being

13:12

happy.

13:13

Let me ask you,

13:15

as a man of science, as you

13:17

know, I have two young boys here, and they're

13:19

only two months apart, but Justin,

13:21

who's my oldest, this kid came

13:24

out into this world with a smile

13:27

on his face and a zest for

13:29

life, and I'm going to get everything.

13:32

And Luke came out much more. I'm

13:35

going to look you up and down. I'm

13:37

going to figure out what's going on here. Think

13:39

about it. And to me, so

13:42

much of that

13:43

now spending so much time with them as I do

13:45

seems hardwired. The either

13:49

not I don't want to say desire for happiness, but the predetermination

13:51

or something that would lead someone to be just

13:54

smiling all the time versus someone

13:56

that runs a little bit cooler. How

13:58

do you factor that into?

13:59

You know, what makes them unhappy? That's

14:02

the question. About 50% of

14:05

differences across people in terms

14:08

of their happiness

14:10

stems from genes. So at

14:12

first glance you might say, oh, so it's hardwired

14:15

in my genes. No, because that means

14:17

there's 50% up for grabs.

14:19

So

14:20

Justin is born with the sun-ear

14:22

disposition. So in a sense, a climbing-mount

14:26

happiness, he's starting off

14:28

ahead. But if he then, with the 50% that's

14:32

left up for grabs, if he

14:34

then adopts mindsets

14:37

and takes decisions throughout his life that

14:39

don't optimize happiness, it's very likely,

14:42

it's Luke the second one? Luke.

14:45

It's very well possible that Luke

14:48

can overshoot him in happiness. So

14:50

I say that right off the bat. It's

14:52

obviously clear that some of us wake

14:55

up in the morning with a completely

14:57

different

14:58

daily disposition than someone who's

15:00

more sullen and so on. But again,

15:02

that's good news. 50% is

15:05

up for you to change. And so it's

15:08

exactly what you're saying, yes. It's funny because even watching

15:10

them, it took Luke a little bit longer to start

15:12

crawling. And then the second he started crawling,

15:14

I noticed he started smiling more. And it was

15:17

almost as if he wasn't that happy

15:19

because he was kind of stuck. And then once

15:21

he started moving, then he allowed a

15:23

little happiness to get in there. But let's talk about,

15:25

since we've mentioned Jordan a couple of times, one of the things

15:27

that he talks a lot about

15:28

that I think has helped a lot

15:30

of people is that your goal shouldn't

15:32

be happiness. Your goal should be purpose.

15:36

First off, I sense you agree with that,

15:38

but can you explain how do you meld

15:40

those things and what do you see as

15:42

the difference of those things? Yeah. So

15:44

in the last chapter of my

15:47

forthcoming happiness book, I have a quote

15:50

by Victor Frankel where he

15:52

basically says, don't pursue

15:54

directly success. It is

15:57

something that comes as a consequence.

15:58

And I use that because because I argue

16:00

that I completely analogize that

16:03

to happiness, and hence I agree with Jordan.

16:06

Happiness should be something that

16:08

results from you having adopted

16:11

the right mindsets, the

16:13

right decisions. And so I

16:15

think you mentioned purpose and meaning. So in one

16:17

of the chapters where I talk about the two

16:19

decisions that are most likely

16:21

to impart either a great amount of misery or

16:23

a great amount of happiness to you, I

16:25

say that the choice of spouse that you

16:28

choose

16:29

and the choice of profession that

16:31

you choose are the ones that are going

16:33

to do that, either make you more miserable

16:35

or happier. And

16:37

to Jordan's point about purpose, I

16:41

wake up every day with sort of

16:43

a gleeful, I'm rubbing my hands together

16:45

in anticipation because my job

16:48

brings me great purpose

16:50

and meaning. Today I'm gonna talk with Dave

16:53

Rubin, later I'm gonna meet a graduate student,

16:55

then I'm gonna speak to a college in Florida,

16:57

then I'm gonna put up a sad truth. I'm

16:59

constantly in creative mode. So

17:02

that's actually something I talk about in the book, that the

17:04

surest way to find

17:07

purpose and meaning, irrespective of which profession

17:09

you follow, is to instantiate

17:11

your creative impulse. Now that's a very broad

17:14

statement because I could be a chef and

17:16

be creative, I could be an architect,

17:18

I could be a stand-up comic creating

17:21

new material, I could be a podcaster,

17:23

I could be an author and a professor, but

17:25

all other things equal, if you immerse

17:28

yourself in the creative impulse,

17:30

you're more likely to find purpose and meaning. Very

17:32

few

17:33

insurance adjusters probably

17:35

wake up and say,

17:37

thank God I'm an insurance adjuster,

17:39

I find such purpose and meaning doing that. So what

17:42

do you do for that person? So for the person

17:44

that's an insurance adjuster that's watching this right now,

17:46

that it's a mundane activity,

17:48

let's say,

17:50

they might have the great spouse, they might be

17:52

making a decent living, but the day-to-day

17:54

thing, and I'm sure there are some insurance adjusters who

17:56

absolutely freaking love it, but whatever

17:59

that job is, that.

17:59

whatever we're talking about there. What do you say

18:02

to that person?

18:03

Yeah, fantastic. So they're having the levers all

18:05

day.

18:06

So in a sense,

18:08

it relates to some of the other prescriptions

18:11

that I have in the book. So I argue, for example, that

18:13

I have a whole chapter titled

18:15

Life as a Playground, right? Meaning

18:18

that immerse yourself in endless

18:20

play, even when pursuing very serious

18:23

things. So science, the pursuit of science,

18:25

is the ultimate form of intellectual

18:28

play, right? Because when you're putting together, I'm

18:30

gonna come to the insurance adjuster in a second. When you're

18:32

putting together a puzzle of a thousand

18:34

piece puzzle, you're trying to make all

18:36

these pieces fit. Well, that's what science

18:39

is, right? There's a bunch of variables out there and

18:41

I'm trying to find which one causes which

18:43

other one, which one correlates to the other or is

18:45

unrelated to the other. So it's a form of

18:47

orgiastic cerebral play. So

18:50

to the insurance

18:52

adjuster, I say that perhaps

18:55

your job doesn't allow you that

18:58

creative play pursuit, but

19:00

then at night, when you finish

19:02

your job, rather than watching

19:05

television for the next five hours,

19:07

maybe sign up for that ceramics

19:09

class that you had always wanted to take. In

19:11

other words, there is still a way for

19:14

me to pursue my creative impulse,

19:16

to immerse myself in play, even

19:19

though my profession doesn't

19:20

afford me those opportunities.

19:23

What would you say to the person

19:25

that's struggling? And I think this is probably for,

19:27

mostly for the generation or the

19:29

several generations now behind the two

19:31

of us, who are struggling

19:34

between the balance between pleasure and

19:36

happiness, meaning they've grown up

19:38

where you can watch porn all day long, you

19:40

can play video games all day long, you

19:42

can indulge in whatever it is that you like

19:44

to do all day long, basically at your phone,

19:47

as opposed to getting to the

19:49

purpose that'll bring you the happiness. And

19:52

I think a huge

19:53

amount of people are struggling with that balance.

19:56

So if I were to answer that using

19:59

an endocrinology... framework, I would say

20:01

in a sense your question can be reframed

20:04

as the difference between dopamine and serotonin,

20:06

right? The dopamine hits,

20:08

caters to my pleasure center. So

20:10

the porn or the juicy burger is

20:13

a one-time hit, but that's

20:15

not existential bliss, right?

20:18

That's not right. So, but when I sit down

20:20

and I say, I am genuinely

20:22

a happy person. I've got a great

20:25

family. I love my children. I've got

20:27

great friends. I can text Dave

20:29

Rubin in a second. He's going to respond. You

20:32

know, I, I, I read books all day.

20:34

I am existentially happy. So I

20:36

think it's really the difference between

20:38

short-term hits of dopamine

20:41

and long-term serotonin contentment,

20:44

which by the way, is something that we can also

20:47

relate

20:48

when you're choosing your partner, right?

20:50

Many people will confuse, you

20:53

know, lust and the hormones, the

20:55

neuroanatomy of lust. That's

20:57

going to fade. I don't care whether

21:00

you're married to a Greek God, Adonis

21:02

or Beyonce, you know, there's

21:04

the old expression, show me a gorgeous

21:06

woman and I'll show you a guy who's tired

21:08

of

21:09

having sex with her. That also speaks

21:12

to the reality that there is a huge

21:14

tedium that sets in if all you

21:17

are pursuing is short-term pleasure. But

21:19

on the other hand, for me to be able

21:21

to go for a walk with my wife

21:24

and, you

21:24

know, have fun and joke around

21:27

and so on, that's contentment.

21:29

So that's, I think, the difference between the two.

21:31

Do you think a lot of people don't know what they want

21:33

in a spouse, partly for what you're saying, that they're

21:36

just looking for either the sexiest person or whatever,

21:38

that they just have no idea what

21:40

their actual, uh, what

21:42

the lanes are, what the barriers are. So

21:44

for example, did you see the story just in

21:46

the last week or so about Jonah Hill sending

21:49

these texts to his girlfriend? Did you happen

21:51

to see this story? Yeah, so he sent out what I

21:53

thought were fairly, uh,

21:55

well said, controlled

21:57

statements about what his expectations in

21:59

a relationship.

21:59

where don't party with

22:02

your girlfriends, you know,

22:04

don't send out naked pictures, like some basic

22:06

stuff. And then he said, hey, if this doesn't work

22:09

for you, I'm not the right guy. Now, of course, everyone calls

22:11

him a misogynist and then, you know,

22:13

all the press is going after him. But I thought, how

22:15

impressive, there's someone actually

22:17

saying what they want.

22:19

Yes. And not apologizing for it.

22:22

So two things I'll say. So you probably

22:24

know the

22:25

Delphic maxim,

22:27

which is know thyself. So that speaks

22:29

to your point, right? Because he knows

22:31

what's going to be his

22:34

trajectory of happiness. And

22:36

he's saying, this is what I expect. And that could only

22:38

happen if I know myself. But if

22:41

I'm going to put the more general point in a scientific

22:43

framework, there are two, when it comes

22:45

to the evolutionary mechanisms of

22:47

human mating, there are two competing, if

22:50

you like, maxims. There is the birds

22:53

of a feather flock together, and there

22:55

is the opposites attract. Well,

22:57

it may interest your audience to know that

22:59

the overwhelming consensus

23:02

in the scientific literature for

23:04

long-term happiness of a union

23:07

is birds of a feather flock together. Oh,

23:09

interesting. I would have said it the other way.

23:11

Wow.

23:13

I'll tell you where you might be right. If

23:15

you said the excitement

23:17

of a short-term dalliance, right?

23:19

Let's go behind the shed and let's

23:22

have some, you know, dopamine hits,

23:24

metaphorically speaking. Then if I

23:27

am someone who is restrained,

23:29

who's sexually shy, who's introverted,

23:32

and you're the opposite, you bring me out

23:34

of my shell, those things, those opposites

23:37

might attract, and I might actually come

23:39

away a lot more enriched by the

23:41

fact that we're different. But for long-term

23:44

union, if we share values, if

23:47

we share life goals, if

23:49

we share belief systems, it's

23:51

astoundingly more likely that we'll

23:53

be happy. So what

23:54

Jonah Hill was doing was being

23:57

a perfect Darwinian being and recognizing

23:59

that that he wants someone who shares

24:01

his values. There's nothing wrong with that.

24:04

Right, I wonder if in some ways there's sort of

24:06

like a big picture, little picture version

24:08

of that, because I always find like, if I was to look

24:10

at me and David for example, we really agree on

24:12

all the big picture stuff of what we've

24:14

wanted out of life and built things together and

24:17

that's why, thankfully it

24:19

knock on wood, it's worked and it's growing and all that. But

24:22

we're very different in another, we're

24:24

opposites when it comes to attention to detail,

24:26

organization, all of those things. So

24:28

I guess there's probably a couple different layers

24:31

of all of those things. That's why when I was referring

24:33

to birds of a feather flock together, I

24:35

specifically said what those

24:38

criteria are that we should match on.

24:41

We're not trying to match on our eye color,

24:43

we're not trying to match on the morphology

24:46

of our faces.

24:47

It's life goals, it's life mindsets,

24:50

it's belief systems. That's what we're talking

24:52

about, birds of a feather flock together. Incidentally

24:54

on physicality by the way, there

24:56

is one trait that

24:59

we also have assortative mating and

25:01

that's on height. So that if

25:03

you look at naturally occurring couples,

25:07

I'm talking about heterosexual couples but

25:09

we could easily extend it to same sex couples. There

25:13

was a study that was done with 720 actual couples, one

25:18

of which, one out of 720, that

25:21

it violate the

25:24

assortative cue of male

25:26

should be taller than female. So

25:29

that's a very important cue. The only

25:32

true. Well, this doesn't bode

25:34

well for say Ben Shapiro.

25:37

Oh, his wife is taller? I'm not

25:39

sure exactly, but I'm just trying to think

25:41

of somebody that's not known as very tall.

25:43

I'm not exactly breaking the seven foot

25:46

mark, but I'm taller than my wife.

25:48

That's the most important thing. So in

25:50

other words,

25:51

it's not so much that men

25:53

have to be taller than six feet.

25:56

I mean, yeah, that's nice, but it's that

25:59

you serve. don't want to be with someone

26:01

who is taller than you. And

26:03

that's why if you're a tall,

26:06

educated woman, your chances

26:09

of finding a right man are really

26:11

precipitously decreased. Because if you're

26:14

a six foot two woman, you're

26:16

very unlikely to want a shorter guy, while

26:18

there are very fewer men who are six foot three and

26:20

more. Now if you're very educated

26:23

as a woman, you almost never want

26:25

someone who is of lesser educational

26:27

status. So now you have to find a six

26:30

foot four PhD. Good luck with that.

26:33

What do you make of how people now

26:36

go about finding that spouse? Where

26:38

everybody's flipping on apps and doing all that

26:40

stuff. Where we've sort of atomized all

26:43

of the traits that you might

26:44

actually have to in the old days go out with somebody

26:47

and figure out. Now by the

26:49

time you sit down with them at that restaurant,

26:51

you know what movies they like. You know what

26:53

music they like. You found out all of

26:56

these quirks. So we've compartmentalized

26:59

all of these things that are about the exploration,

27:01

right?

27:02

Right. And actually I've done several,

27:04

I've published several academic

27:06

studies looking at

27:08

sex differences in information

27:11

search within the mating domain. Right. And

27:14

what I have found, and even

27:16

in an online medium using actual,

27:18

you know, computer software to track how

27:20

many pieces of information you look at. So

27:22

here's an interesting piece of information. When

27:25

it comes to rejection data, what

27:27

I mean by rejection data, I mean how

27:30

much information do men and women

27:32

need to look at before they've

27:34

seen enough to reject potential

27:37

suitors? Well, women

27:39

require a lot less evidence

27:42

to reject mates.

27:43

On the other hand, when it comes to choosing

27:46

data, meaning when have I looked at

27:48

enough information to now be satisfied

27:51

that I'm ready to choose

27:53

whomever, then women

27:55

search for more information. Now that makes perfect

27:57

evolutionary sense because there's the

27:59

something called the parental investment

28:02

theory, which basically argues that

28:04

if you want to understand which of the two

28:06

sexes in a species is going to

28:08

be more sexually choosy, you have

28:10

to look at which of the two sexes

28:13

has the the the

28:15

greater amount of minimal parental obligatory

28:18

investment. And for most species,

28:20

it is females who have them the

28:22

greater minimal parental investment. Therefore,

28:25

it looms much larger for them to make

28:28

an erroneous mate search. That's why they

28:30

have to be more judicious in their mate searches.

28:32

So there's a great song by the way from the 70s. You

28:34

might know it. Carl,

28:37

why do the girls get all

28:39

prettier at closing time or something? Do

28:41

you know that song? I'm not totally sure.

28:44

We'll

28:44

see if we can grab a little sample. Actually,

28:47

it was what led to an act to a study.

28:49

I think it was a 1975 country song.

28:53

Basically what it

28:55

was arguing, if I couch it in evolutionary

28:57

language, that, you know, men,

29:00

when they go to the bar at 10 at night, they

29:03

only want to have sex with a supermodel. At 12

29:06

o'clock, she can be at seven on 10

29:09

at three o'clock in the morning, as long

29:11

as she doesn't have a tail and horns

29:13

and she still has a pulse, we're good to go.

29:16

Meaning that men relax

29:18

their threshold of acceptability as

29:21

the night of loneliness looms

29:23

in the background. But you don't see that

29:26

the other way around, right? There is no song that's

29:28

been written called, don't the guys get

29:30

more handsome

29:30

near closing time because

29:32

the fact of making a wrong choice loom

29:35

as large, whether it's at 10 in the morning

29:37

or three in the afternoon or three

29:39

in the morning for women. And so I

29:42

discuss all of these things actually in the happiness

29:44

book when it comes to mate search.

29:47

Are you surprised how many

29:49

people are not happy? I mean,

29:51

you know, we've been blessed to travel in

29:53

some pretty great circles and, you know, I know

29:55

plenty of people that I think are at least roughly

29:58

happy or trying to do something decent.

29:59

but I know a decent amount of miserable

30:02

people that have an awful lot in terms of

30:04

what you would think are the pieces that

30:06

make you happy.

30:07

Oh, you're absolutely right. I mean,

30:10

we see it on Twitter, right? I mean, I was away

30:12

for 16 days in Portugal. And

30:15

so I only posted beach photos. I

30:19

didn't weigh in on anything. So I was still posting

30:21

things, but never checking anything. And

30:24

I didn't check what my blood pressure

30:26

was pre-imposed, but I'm almost

30:29

certain there was a huge

30:31

improvement because I wasn't exposed

30:34

to the endless misery of people,

30:36

right? And you know me well,

30:38

Dave, even when I'm going after someone,

30:40

even when I am insulting them

30:43

in some spicy way, I

30:45

always do it, I hope so, with

30:48

a playful mindset. So it does actually

30:51

amaze me that people can be so miserable. Now, I

30:53

wonder, and

30:54

here I'm speculating, but I

30:56

think there is value in what I'm saying here. I

30:59

wonder if the fact that I

31:01

had my childhood

31:03

history, I mean, you know it,

31:05

but maybe some of you are listed, right? I'm a product

31:08

of the Lebanese Civil War.

31:11

So notwithstanding that I have a sunny

31:13

disposition, the fact that I've

31:15

seen some of the truly horrible

31:19

things of life, maybe that even

31:21

adds to my ability to be happy.

31:23

Because every time I

31:26

find the reason to be pissed off at something,

31:28

I can easily insert that voice in

31:30

my head that says,

31:32

you could have not gotten out of Lebanon

31:35

in 1975. So why don't you

31:37

stop your whining? This is my internal voice.

31:40

And just go out there and appreciate life. So

31:42

I think in some interesting

31:44

way, the fact that I've had to

31:46

face these anti-fragile stressors

31:49

in my childhood allows me

31:51

to be that much happier in my day

31:54

and maybe those Twitter miserable people, they

31:56

need to go to Raqqa, Syria

31:59

and see how people...

31:59

people live there and then maybe there won't be such

32:02

miserable cretins. What advice

32:04

would you give for people on the social media front in

32:06

that regard? You know I do my August off the grid,

32:08

which this will be my seventh year of doing it.

32:11

I think it actually is

32:13

one of the things that has kept me happy, insane,

32:15

and clear-minded throughout all this and I

32:17

didn't lose my mind during COVID and I didn't

32:19

lose my mind during Trump or any

32:22

of those, well, I guess that's for other people to judge, but ballpark,

32:24

I think. I kind of made it out okay. But

32:27

that social media, which of course, the word social's

32:29

in there, we're social creatures. It's designed to make

32:32

us social, but it actually seemingly

32:34

made us more antisocial, more

32:37

neurotic and fearful

32:39

of strangers and all sorts of stuff.

32:42

Well, maybe I could answer

32:45

this by drawing an analogy.

32:49

You know, we are a storytelling animal, so we often learn best

32:51

not by having sort of academic, abstract

32:54

ideas, but by contextualizing

32:57

it with a story. So to those

32:59

social media, you know, sullen

33:01

folks, listen to these two stories.

33:03

So in the last chapter

33:06

of the SAC truth about happiness, I

33:08

discussed two powerful

33:10

stories that capture

33:12

the mindset that is the antithesis

33:15

of those people on social media. So two stories.

33:18

Number one, arguably

33:20

the most incredible

33:22

conversation I've had on my show, and that's

33:24

saying a lot because just like you, I've had, I've

33:26

been fortunate enough to speak to all sorts of incredible

33:29

people, is a gentleman by the name of

33:31

David McCallum, whom you probably don't

33:33

know who that is. David McCallum is

33:35

someone who spent 29 years in prison for

33:39

a murder that he was eventually exonerated.

33:42

I think he went into prison at 17 years

33:44

old,

33:45

and he came out well

33:47

into his 40s. And as

33:49

we were chatting on the show,

33:52

I looked at him and you can go watch our

33:54

chat. It's really quite powerful. I

33:57

said to him, you know, I'm amazed, David.

33:59

I mean, you must be a reincarnation of Buddha

34:02

because I'm amazed that you're not filled

34:05

with vengefulness, with

34:07

vindictiveness, with anger. You're

34:09

a much better man than I am because if I

34:12

had been in your position and if 30, 29 years

34:15

had been stolen from me, I would wanna

34:18

burn the world down. And then his

34:20

answer, so to speak to those social

34:22

media, people who go crazy about

34:24

every little thing, he said, I have

34:27

a sister who's been bedridden

34:29

with cerebral

34:29

palsy for much

34:32

of her life. And yet she still

34:34

finds time to smile and be

34:36

grateful for what she has. And so

34:39

viewed from that perspective, I don't really

34:41

have much to be angry about. I mean, that's an incredibly

34:44

powerful story. Second guy that I'll

34:46

tell you about is a

34:48

gentleman whom I met. So when I was

34:50

a professor at University of California, Irvine,

34:53

I was sitting at a cafe in

34:55

Newport Beach, working on some

34:58

paper, whatever, and I had a whole bunch of books

35:00

all over the table. And this gentleman comes

35:03

up, says, oh, your lovely collection

35:05

of books you've got here. Do you mind if I sit with you and

35:07

chat? It turned out that he was a PhD

35:10

student at UC Irvine, completing

35:13

his doctoral dissertation on

35:15

studying homelessness. He

35:17

had immersed himself within the homeless

35:19

community to learn more about

35:22

sort of their ecosystem. And eventually

35:24

he became homeless himself. And

35:28

he was a wealthy Persian guy. So he came

35:30

from money,

35:30

he had a lot of money. And then several

35:32

years later, he became a homeless guy. Well,

35:35

I tracked him down. There's an article

35:37

that I cite in the book from 2011. So

35:39

this is about 10 years after we had met,

35:42

where someone is asking him, are

35:44

you happy? Are you sad? How

35:46

do you deal with what's happened in your life? And

35:49

his answer again

35:50

is a good answer to those social media

35:52

sullen people. He said, I've

35:54

got access to a gym where I can

35:56

keep my body healthy. I've got

35:59

access to...

35:59

to the Newport Beach Library

36:02

so I can keep my mind nourished.

36:05

I've got nothing to be angry or

36:07

sad about. Those are powerful

36:10

stories. So to those people who go crazy

36:12

about Trump and so on, there is such

36:15

a bigger world out there.

36:16

There is such misery out there, be

36:19

grateful.

36:20

Can I tell you something that just popped in my head as you

36:22

were telling that story? I have not thought about this for

36:24

probably 20 years. I'm not kidding you. When

36:26

I was in my mid-20s

36:29

and I was messed up because I was closeted

36:31

and struggling, stand up, and

36:33

I had no money, all of that stuff, I used to

36:36

stand on the corners in Times Square handing out tickets

36:38

to get people to come to the shows. That's how you get stage

36:41

time.

36:41

And there was this homeless guy out there, his name

36:43

was Charlie, because he was always panhandling

36:46

while we were handing out tickets. And I always used to think it's kind of funny.

36:48

I'm basically doing the same thing as a homeless guy. But

36:51

Charlie had the biggest freaking smile on

36:53

his face all the time, which I very specifically remember

36:55

because his teeth were horribly mangled and everything

36:57

else, but always was smiling, joking

36:59

around with everybody. He had a very funny sign about

37:02

how he was gonna, he said, I'm not

37:04

gonna bullshit ya, I'm just gonna spend the money

37:06

on booze and weed, but come on, why not? And

37:09

he was just funny. And I remember thinking that

37:11

homeless man is happier than me. And

37:13

that is one of the things that started turning me around

37:15

because I thought I have every opportunity in this

37:17

world. This guy has none.

37:19

And I truly have not thought about that

37:21

for 20-some-odd years and that just sparked out of me. I'm

37:23

glad that it triggered that. Look, right

37:26

now I'm going, I've started my big tour

37:28

for this media thing for the book.

37:31

And so, you know, this weekend I was

37:33

looking at my entire schedule. I thought, oh

37:35

my God, I've got to travel here. I got to do

37:37

this. And then I stopped.

37:39

I said, am I really whining about

37:42

the fact that I've got all these opportunities

37:45

and I have a book coming out?

37:47

F off, Gad Sag. And

37:50

so if you've got that internal voice

37:53

of authenticity, you're always able

37:55

to snap yourself back into the

37:58

right mindset.

37:59

Yeah, what are some of the other tricks

38:02

that people can use if they're really in a funk?

38:04

You know, when somebody, when you're in those

38:07

moments in life that you're just tripped up, family

38:09

problems, money problems, you're

38:11

doing the job you don't wanna do, like the whole thing

38:14

seems like it's off. You have some tricks

38:16

that can kinda just get someone going because it

38:18

seems like that first step

38:19

is off in the biggest hurdle. I actually, so

38:22

I have a whole chapter, so it speaks

38:24

partially to the question you're asking. I

38:26

have a whole chapter on sort of how

38:29

can you minimize regret

38:31

in life? Because regret in a sense

38:34

is that existential, you

38:36

know, voice that keeps coming in your head, that

38:39

makes you think, what if, what if I'd done this? What

38:41

if I'd done that, right? And so many of

38:43

us think that opportunities

38:46

for happiness have passed us by. We're

38:48

too old to be,

38:49

let's say I know that you love the NBA.

38:52

Well, that is true, that is objectively

38:54

true. It would be silly for you

38:57

or I to think

38:59

about being NBA stars, although

39:02

you have seen some of my three point shots, so

39:04

maybe I can still make it. Plus,

39:06

we have had some good back and forth.

39:09

That's right, that's right. But no, but seriously,

39:11

there are many cases where

39:14

that sense of I can't get

39:17

out of this funk

39:18

is sort of a deterministic

39:21

doom, whereas in reality, you've placed

39:23

this restriction in your, so let me

39:25

give you two, again, two examples.

39:28

Example one, this

39:31

is from in the book. There's a gentleman

39:33

who left pre

39:35

Nazi Germany. He was a Jewish guy, left

39:38

and came to Canada, had always wanted

39:40

to study and get a university

39:42

education, but

39:44

life circumstances didn't allow him to. He

39:46

comes to Canada as a young kid, goes

39:49

to work, has a successful career, retires

39:53

in his sixties.

39:54

Now he's in his sixties, right? I

39:57

mean, average undergrad is 20, 19. He

40:00

says, you know what, I'm now, I'm of good

40:02

mind. I have time. Why don't I

40:04

sign up? He actually went to the university that I

40:06

work with at, and he said,

40:09

why don't I sign up and take some undergraduate courses?

40:11

Lo and behold, a few years later, he finishes his

40:13

undergrad. Then he says, hey, I'm still young.

40:16

I'm now in my 70s. Why don't I pursue

40:18

my master's degree? Finishes it.

40:21

And then in his 80s starts

40:23

his PhD. And I remember this was

40:25

in 1996. It was very early

40:27

in my academic career.

40:29

The university newspaper had

40:32

the title, something like finally a doctor

40:34

at 91. And so he finishes his PhD

40:37

and within a year, he passes away. So

40:39

he could have easily said,

40:41

you know, I missed my opportunity to

40:43

study. Well, no, you had an opportunity

40:45

to do it and you did it. Second example, I

40:48

just had this guy last year on my show.

40:51

This is a physician who got,

40:53

I think, his medical degree at University of

40:55

Vienna in 1955. Then

40:58

while he was training to be a hematologist

41:01

as a specialist, picked up a PhD

41:04

in 1967. You weren't born

41:06

yet. I was two years old, two and a half years

41:08

old. But he had always wanted to

41:10

be a physicist. His real love

41:13

was physics. But his family

41:15

had told him, Jewish guy, you have to do

41:17

something practical, become a physician,

41:19

blah, blah, blah. And he did it.

41:21

At the age of 89, he completed a second

41:24

PhD in

41:27

physics at Brown University. So

41:29

why am I telling you these, again, these stories? Because

41:32

oftentimes we're in a funk because

41:34

we place these arbitrary

41:37

illusionary barriers in our minds.

41:39

Yes, we can be future NBA stars.

41:42

We're too old for that. We can't be ballerinas.

41:44

We're not gonna be maestro violinists. But

41:46

for many other things that would make us happy,

41:49

it's only our inner voice that's stopping

41:51

us from doing it. So get off the couch and

41:53

go do it. Can you be

41:55

too happy, do you think? I mean, we all know

41:57

the person that just kind of lives in the clouds.

41:59

that may be smiling all the time, but really

42:02

isn't on the ball or

42:04

basically isn't on planet earth. Lex

42:07

Friedman, sorry, I had something stuck in my,

42:09

well, he's not really, not that I wanted to

42:11

talk about him, but I argue

42:13

he engages in full happiness, right?

42:16

He's always, I love you, you love

42:18

me, let's hug. I think that- What

42:20

was his tweet a couple of weeks ago that everybody

42:22

went crazy on? I think you really nailed him on.

42:24

Wasn't there something not too long ago? I

42:27

don't care whether you call

42:29

yourself male or female, I

42:31

care about what your character

42:34

is or something like that. And that

42:36

pissed me

42:36

off. Now again, people think when I go after

42:38

someone, I'm trying to be me, I'm not.

42:40

And that's because there's a part of me that's

42:43

a dogged defender of truth. And actually

42:45

I

42:45

talk about this in the book, that existential

42:49

authenticity is a sure pathway

42:51

to happiness, right? I

42:54

present myself to the world as though

42:56

I'm 18 feet tall because I'm always

42:58

authentic. I really know my

43:01

qualities, I know my faults, I don't

43:03

modulate anything. And so there are no

43:05

fissures in my personhood. And that's

43:07

why I then can feel comfortable

43:09

in any setting because I've got nothing to, I

43:11

don't have to retain lies. For

43:14

better or worse, here I am.

43:15

And what I was pissed with Lex

43:18

is that, as you

43:19

know, I didn't know who Lex was frankly, but then

43:21

people said, oh, you should go on his show. That's how

43:23

I started getting to know him. And then I would see

43:26

all this inane bullshit that he

43:28

would consistently post. And it just

43:30

pissed me off. So in his case, I

43:32

don't know if he's being real or not, he has

43:35

gone into the

43:36

extra happiness because not everything

43:39

in life is about hugging and happiness, right?

43:41

I mean, that's a false

43:44

narrative and that's why I tried to go after

43:46

him. And now to his lack

43:48

of credit, he always says, oh,

43:51

I always am willing to learn from anyone and speak

43:53

to anyone. First thing he does is he blocks

43:55

me. What a schmuck.

43:58

So you can be happy. and still think someone's

44:01

a schmuck, that's good. That should definitely-

44:03

Exactly right. And by the way, to that

44:06

point, people often say to me, oh,

44:08

when they meet me, oh, you seem

44:10

so much nicer and friendlier than

44:12

on social media. No, because

44:15

this is called situational specificity,

44:18

right? If you attack me in an alley,

44:21

I might be violent because you're trying to mug

44:24

me. That's not because I'm dispositionally

44:26

violent. It's because I act differently

44:28

when I'm tucking my children to bed and

44:31

when I'm being mugged in an alley. So

44:33

when I am being mugged by assholes

44:35

on social media, I act in a

44:37

spicier manner, not because I'm not happy

44:39

or I'm mean, it's because different

44:42

strategies require different approaches, I

44:44

mean, or different contexts.

44:46

So you're a little happier when you're basically

44:49

putting your kids to sleep than you are when you're being

44:52

mugged. I just wanna make sure I got that one, Cleo.

44:55

That is a correct statement, indeed.

44:57

What about the things that people

45:00

at least get the temporary happiness

45:02

on, whether it might be the booze

45:05

or the extra indulgence in food or

45:08

whatever they might be smoking or the other

45:10

stuff?

45:11

Completely fleeting. So I talk about in

45:13

the book as someone

45:16

who studies consumer psychology, right? So I wanted

45:18

to link it to some of my own interests.

45:20

So there's been now several studies

45:22

that have looked at whether spending

45:25

money

45:26

on material possessions, so

45:28

that speaks to kind of your point, right? Should I get the next

45:30

Prada bag or the really cool Gucci

45:33

or the Maserati? Whether spend,

45:35

what brings you greater long-term

45:37

happiness? The spending on

45:41

material possessions or on experiences.

45:44

And overwhelmingly, repeatedly,

45:46

the research shows that for long-term

45:49

enduring happiness, living a

45:51

life of rich experiences is

45:54

going to bring you a lot more bang for the buck

45:56

than if you spend it on a Ferrari. And

45:58

I know this from personal experience.

45:59

because one of my brothers who

46:02

until recently lived in Southern California and

46:04

was very, very wealthy during the

46:07

dot-com era, he had not one,

46:09

not two, but three Ferraris. He had

46:11

an Austin Martin Lagunda. He had also,

46:13

he was a collector of conspicuous

46:16

consumption goods.

46:18

I hate to say it and I don't say this with any

46:20

glee.

46:22

I don't think today he's happy, right?

46:24

Whereas I never drove a Ferrari.

46:26

I never had access to a Ferrari, but later

46:29

today, my children are going to come and

46:31

are going to say, oh, how was your chat with Dave Rubin?

46:34

That moment right there is probably,

46:37

makes me wealthier than all of his Ferraris

46:39

put together.

46:41

When you get to the happiness part, so

46:43

the place that you're basically at in your life

46:45

at this moment, do

46:48

you have to keep doing work to sustain it? Or

46:50

at that point, if you feel like you got it right,

46:52

you can just kind of ride it out. I mean, do you feel like there

46:54

are things on the horizon beyond you have to keep doing

46:57

your work, keep maintaining that good relationship?

46:59

Is there anything else you gotta do to really keep pushing forward?

47:02

Well, I think, yeah, amazing question. I think

47:05

you have to keep implementing those

47:07

strategies that ensure that you are

47:10

going to remain happy. If I

47:12

were to analogize it, if I now

47:14

get off my very obsessive

47:17

weight concerns,

47:20

it won't take me long before we get

47:23

two times GATT again, right? In

47:25

other words, it won't take, I mean, literally.

47:28

I have to say, I have to say, GATT,

47:30

two times weight GATT, pretty happy. He

47:32

was pretty happy as far as I can tell. I was pretty happy,

47:35

although my blood pressure was not as happy.

47:38

Although my physician was not as happy

47:40

with me. So again, I think from the perspective

47:43

of extending my happiness as far as I can

47:45

go, literally in terms of life expectancy,

47:48

and contrary to what Professor Dr.

47:50

Lizzo tells us, you

47:53

know what I'm talking about, right? Yes, I got

47:55

it, Lizzo. She's, they're

47:58

fortifying the stage.

47:59

find the stage and she argues that

48:02

you know stop talking about this nonsense

48:04

about health being related to your

48:06

weight that's just a construct.

48:10

My life expectancy, knock on wood,

48:12

is hopefully going to you know drastically

48:14

increase by virtue of you

48:17

know my having now been be

48:19

at the right weight but I have to always be

48:22

careful right and so to your

48:24

point about happiness I don't think you can

48:26

get to mount happiness to the summit

48:28

and say I've done it all now let me

48:31

take crystal meth and I will continue

48:33

to be happy. You still have to work on your

48:35

relationships, you still have to be playful,

48:37

you still have to nourish your mind, all those things

48:40

are perpetual pursuits.

48:42

Dad watch very closely the screen

48:44

right now because I'm gonna wink at you as I

48:46

ask you this question. Can

48:48

you mindfully meditate yourself

48:51

into happiness? Some

48:55

of the audience will know what I just asked

48:57

and some will not it's okay. Yes

49:00

as a matter of fact so in one of the chapters

49:03

I'm gonna come to your mindful meditation in

49:05

a second. In one of the chapters

49:07

I talk about the fundamentally

49:11

most powerful law in nature which

49:13

is what I call the inverted U curve.

49:16

Inverted U which the ancient Greeks

49:18

already knew about

49:19

is too little of something is not

49:22

good, too much of something is not good

49:24

and the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle which

49:26

Aristotle referred to as the golden mean

49:29

which Buddha referred to as the middle way, Maimonides

49:32

referred to it and so in that chapter

49:35

I demonstrate that across

49:38

a bewildering number of contexts

49:40

that inverted U applies including

49:44

to mindful meditation meaning

49:46

that if you never are mindful

49:49

in terms of meditating or taking a deep breath

49:51

or something it's not good but doing

49:53

it too much it's not good and actually that

49:55

speaks to a tweet that I

49:58

think Elon Musk...

49:59

that sent to that person

50:02

in question saying, so and so,

50:04

there is such a thing as too much meditation.

50:06

So that exactly speaks to your point. Always

50:09

find the middle way, the sweet spot, you'll

50:11

be happier.

50:13

Get, I have to say, one of my great joys

50:15

in life is that I think I found the spouse

50:17

I was supposed to find. We'll put that one aside,

50:20

but the other one that I'm doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing, and

50:23

that it has allowed me to have friendships like I

50:25

have with you, because we've done this, it seems like

50:27

a long time, but it ain't that long,

50:30

but we both somehow still

50:33

managed to do this with a smile on our face and

50:35

to traverse some new ground, and

50:37

that's why it's a pleasure always talking to you, my

50:40

friend. You're at the light, big e-hug, and

50:42

I hope to see you in Florida soon.

50:45

What else can I offer you? Freedom,

50:47

low taxes, the weather's great,

50:50

you'll keep the tan. I mean, what am I doing here?

50:52

You're okay with sweating. Give

50:54

me some tenure to replace

50:57

my tenured professorship. Give

51:00

me tenure or give me death. That could

51:02

be your next book. The

51:04

book is, Happiness, Eight Secrets for

51:06

Leading the Good Life. Gad

51:09

Sad is leading a good life. Good to see you, my friend. Thank

51:12

you, Dave. So good to talk to you, cheers.

51:14

Thank you, Dave. So good to talk to you, cheers. Thanks

51:16

for tuning into The Rubin

51:19

Report. Don't

51:23

forget to review, share, and subscribe

51:25

to this podcast. If you're looking for early

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