YouSaid · the spoken record

Arthur C. Brooks

lines on the record: 236
first: 2023-09-11
most recent: 2023-09-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Then I imagine going to the neurologist. The neurologist saying, well, I think you need to come into my office. And then I imagine myself telling my kids, the future is going to be rough. And then I imagine my work slipping away. My inability to have this kind of conversation, to write a book, to share an idea, to help somebody with these ideas. And then I imagined myself not remembering what I don't remember. I imagine being beloved Son of God with no memory at all. Now it's heavy, right?”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And my mother was showing signs of dementia in her early 50s. And she was quite demented by the time she was my age and it runs in families. It's genetic. It doesn't mean I'm going to get the bullet. It doesn't mean I'm not being morbid about it. I'm not being fatalistic about it. Probably the odds are in my favor, but I'm just terrified of that. And when I recognize that, I realized I need Marinasati meditation on that. And that's what I contemplate. I'll take two minutes and I'll think My memory's failing and I don't know why”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, because you know what Arthur Brooks is? Gray matter. Look, I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I'm not the cleverest guy in the world. But I make my living and I support my family and I understand me in terms of my ideas. Literally my company is called ACB Ideas. It was very revealing to me when I contemplated the fact that, did you say ACB? Yeah, it's my Arthur Charles Brown. Oh, shit.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Such that they can be liberated from any fear of physical death. Only then can they be fully alive. That's an important insight from Theravada Buddhism. That's a meditation called Maranasati. The Maranasati death meditation. Now when I read that, I thought it was interesting, but I thought it's a good thing to do because, you know, I shouldn't be making all of these decisions about when I'm old and when I'm retired and when I die and what's going to happen and call the lawyer and all that. I want to be free from all that stuff by understanding that life and death are in a very real way an illusion, particularly because I believe in eternal life. But I have a death fear. You know what I'm afraid of? You know my death fear?”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fully alive until we actually face the death that really matters to us. This is an insight that actually comes from the Theravada Buddhists across the southern tier of Asia, from Thailand and Myanmar to Vietnam and parts of Malaysia. And the Theravada in Sri Lanka in particular. So the Theravada Buddhist monasteries, often you'll go in and you'll see photos of cadavers in different states of decomposition. It's super, super macabre. I mean, you're like, What are these dudes all about here? And what they do is that usually there will be nine, nine states of decomposition photos bodies decomposing, falling apart, bones, bloated corpses. And they stand in front of each one and they say, that is me. And then they move to the next one after contemplating and saying, and that is me. And what are they doing? They're familiarizing themselves with the truth of their future.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most people watching us are not afraid of death. Not pathologically afraid of death. Only about 20% of the population is pathologically afraid of death. And I bet you that it's less than 1% of Tim Ferris' followers because people watching this are in control of their lives and they understand the contours of their lives and they're looking at the truth of their lives. But they have a death fear. The death fear isn't physical death. And this is a problem for some people it's irrelevance. For some people it's being forgotten. For a lot of your listeners, it's failure. Just straight on failure because they're strivers, they're achievers. Everybody has a deaf fear. And what is it? It's an ego threat. It's a threat to who you see as yourself. If Tim Ferris's Tim Ferrisness is threatened, that will provoke a panic in you because that's the ultimate death of who you see yourself. The way to get over that, and by the way, you have to get over that. We all have to get over that or we won't be.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And focus on the other person, the deep dip in serotonin, your serotonin dips. Why? Because you want to ruminate on that person using the good old ventral lateral prefrontal cortex. That's the reason that falling in love is an awful lot, like being clinically depressed. So you're both addicted to meth and depressed at the same time. That's what falling in love is like. And then you're going to get that big dose of oxytocin, which is the neuropeptide that links you to the other person in this almost magical, confusing way. Man, that's just too much. You don't want that for the rest of your life.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. But when you ask people, what do you want your relationship to look like in five years? They have kind of this magical notion of an ongoing passion. And that's the wrong goal. The right goal is what is called companionate love. You want to be best friends in five years. Five years to best friends. That's the goal. And if you write it out and if you actually make it the goal and then you have interim steps and a strategic plan, you might just get there. But if you're like, yeah, no, no, no. It's like if the magic feels like the magic's gone, obviously there's something wrong with our love. No, best friends who were married, they're going to have plenty of passion, but you can't live like that. Look, the neurophysiological cascade of the experience of falling in love is unbelievably intense. It's 4th of July in your head. The bolus of testosterone and estrogen at the very beginning of the relationship, massive increases in neuropinephrine and dopamine that give you euphoria and concentration.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know, man. Complementarity. Yeah, maybe. It's like you've been in prison? I haven't. We complete each other. Early whatever I've been.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The gaps in each other in a kind of a divine and cosmic way. That's how I always kind of felt. I felt like my wife was, you know, I don't believe in magical thinking on this. Magical thinking is a big problem because soulmates don't exist and there's no such thing as love at first sight. But I always do feel like my wife, Esther, was, she was picked for me. She was really picked for me. And because of the difference as much as anything else. I mean, she completes me. She makes me a better man. She knows when I'm going after the idol. She knows she can see it going after the Lord. She can see it. She's like, right? And that's 32 years of experience together, but it's also the deep complementarity that came because I was born in a particular time and I accidentally had this kind of experience. And that's what we need. When I ask people”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're looking for a sibling. And, you know, and as my adult kids would say, that's not hot. The truth is we're way too compatible and we're sorting on compatibility with these technological means. And the biggest problem with dating today is we're less and less attracted to people. We're less and less attracted because they're too much like us. We need more complementarity and less compatibility. That can be in the old days used to say opposites attract. It's not true. But you need a baseline of compatibility. But on top of that, you need difference. Difference is hot. Difference is fun. Difference is an adventure. And you're just not going to find it because nobody's going to swipe on you. Quite frankly, if you're the other party, you know, a lot of people curate on language and culture and race. It's insanity. You know, that's the reason that good old fashioned human people who say they could fall in love. When you talk about people who fix you up on a blind date or the old-fashioned mashmakers, they're always looking about complementarity. This introvert and this extrovert can fill in.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, right. But the bigger problem actually comes because we're looking for the wrong thing in a partner. The data suggests that what everybody wants in a partner that they can curate carefully because of the online presence, because of the platforms, is they want compatibility. And they look for compatibility with sameness to them. I like this kind of food. You do too. Great. I vote like this. You do too. Great. On this religion or on no religion. I grew up here. I went to college. Where did you go to college, et cetera?”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I can have to take your word for it. But I mean, that's certainly true. That's in the data. Well, I'm saying not outside.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where you give two groups the treatment and control social science experiments, two groups, different car buying experten, where the first buys their car and there's no refund and there's no returns and the other side can return it for any reason in the next six months and the first group is much happier with their car because they're not thinking about it again and again and again. There's no more swiping on their car purchase. And so the same thing is when it's very easy to have a lot of selection, it gets much, much harder to attain satisfaction”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Me too, Brute. It's just a lot of DHT, man. Anyway, so one of the guardrails, what are the mistakes that we make? You know, what's actually making it harder? And there's a lot of things that go into it. The fact that we're using tech where we would have used humans is deeply problematic. I mean, the fact that we have so much deal flow is making it harder. The paradox of choice is a real thing, better, better, better, better, better. I mean, there's a ton of research on this, by the way, Timmy. I mean, you've seen some of this research, for example, on car purchases.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was unbelievable. And so then I started going bald and getting more and more bald, and my brother, my older brother, he's very judgmental about me. He's funny. He loves me. But he says, you deserve it because of the life you've led.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But even then, the modern world is encroaching on that. And if you look at the comparison between in the 80s when I was in my 20s or the 90s when you were in your 20s. Sorry, I didn't mean to shock you with that. Oh, that's okay. Yeah, I know. It's much, much, much harder.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, for sure. For sure, absolutely. Because not only is it something that we all want that everybody wants, it's something that's getting harder.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, I think about this an awful lot because this is the number one topic in my science of happiness class at HBS that they want to know about.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is that progress? It sounds like progress. If you hug me, I feel like That's a little too vile to the lamb. Ba fighting under a blanket. I don't know.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Turns out the French store was the least of it. In those days, six foot two and 142 pounds. My wife said that it was like...”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No idea. Yeah, yeah. Nobody does for sure. I mean, but it has a long tradition. And she comes from a hard red communist atheist family. So suffice it to say that our background is a little bit different. I mean, again, she was beautiful and smart and funny, and I was in love. And I just love Will out. Love Will out. And it finally, at the end of two years, I just finally, I said, I got down on one knee. And I said, are you ready to change your mind? She said, yes.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't realize that because I mean, that sounds like a big Catholic country. It's a post-Christian country. 3% of the population of Barcelona ever goes to mass. 3%.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get out. It's not like I was some weird stalker. She really was in love with me and she wanted to be with me. But, you know, nobody in her family was married. I mean, this is not what you do in Barcelona.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How did this wore down? You just wore down. So, you know, we were, you know, Limited Barcelona and she was in love with me. And so she's not like.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I wanted to go see if I could close that deal, if I could change her philosophy of marriage. It took me two years, but I closed the deal. And 32 years later, we have three adult kids and one grandson. And I'm still in love.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Barcel Barcelona. And he said, great, let's meet her. And I said, I got problems. Problem number one is that she doesn't live in the United States. Problem number two is she doesn't speak a word of English. Problem number three is that she made me aware that she doesn't believe in marriage because she thinks it's an anachronistic institution and she's never going to get married.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Divorce, which actually comes from Latin, to try to get me to understand this point anyway. So it was a comedy of errors. And we went out to dinner and we went on some dates. And I left after a week and I went home and I called my dad in Seattle. I grew up in Seattle. I was living in New York at the time. I said, Dad.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are you single? I mean, this is like this basic. Are you single? And she says, yes, I'm divorced. I'm like, I'm not down with that. But what she meant was I just broke up with my boyfriend, but she couldn't come up with any Latin-based words besides.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I was 24 years old, I was on a concert tour and I was making my living as a classical French horn player. I was on a concert tour in the Burgundy region of France. Up going from town to town playing concerts. And I was staying at this school, I don't know, it's just where we were housed during this, you know, we were going out from there. And at the same time, there was a music festival going on. And there were musicians from all over Europe that were studying at this music festival. And I was at this concert playing at this very school and playing, you know, playing my horn, looking out in the audience. And there was this girl smiling at me in the front row, beautiful girl smiling at me, just gorgeous. And, you know, I'm a red-blooded 24-year-old dude. And I'm like, obviously, I'm going to make a mental note to go talk to her, you know? So I go to talk to her later and I find out two things. Number one, she's not French, even though I was in France. And number two, that she doesn't speak a single word of English. And it was hard because I was trying to talk to her in, you know, monosyllabic grunts and fruitless search for cognates. And I said,”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My goal. Yeah, that's not. I'm not insanity. So, okay. I rest my case. Insane. Insane man on the podcast. Deeply unbalanced guest joins Tim Ferris”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so this gets back to the issue at hand. And the reason I did that little prelude is because I don't want anybody to think that my screws are too loose.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's the question, right? The answers are. Really tricky, but the one answer that's not right is don't put it at risk. Don't put it at risk. Right.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you're hard away. So, and the reason I believe this is because, you know, I've always had this sense that part of the journey of life is just like getting in it, getting in it. And, you know, entrepreneurs talk a lot about putting capital at risk and talking about money. How boring. The real capital of the enterprise, the startup of Tim Ferriss's life, because this is the ultimate enterprise. I mean, the enterprise is not the podcast and the books and the company, that's not it. Those are manifestations of Tim Ferris Inc. of you. The enterprise is you and the currency of you is not money. It's love and happiness. That's your currency. So how are you going to put that at risk for explosive tectonic inflecting returns? What are you going to do to put it at risk?”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Back in the playfield town. One of the things that I teach my students at HBS is that I would never invest in the firm of an entrepreneur who is unwilling to give her or his heart away because that's the single most risky entrepreneurial thing that you can do putting every bit of capital at risk. If you're not willing to give your heart away, I'm not going to put my money in your fund. Now.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Should we put our money where our mouth is? By the way, she had also been having dreams about a little girl who was abandoned dreams and dreams and dreams at night.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She came to it because I was saying, you know, you get a lot more benefits when you turn the whole dial on one person's life as opposed to just sprinkling destroying dollar bills at a helicopter. Yeah, she's like, she's basically like, okay, buddy. Really? Really? I mean, it's like, I know you got this interesting research, you know, fancy social scientist guy. Let's see.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“By concentrating on turning the whole dial in one person's life. And there's an old Talmudic phrase from the book of Sanhedrin that says, in every man is the whole world. In other words, turn the dial for one person, you've turned the dial for all of humanity because it's really had an impact. I remember telling my wife about that. It's like, yeah, I've got these data that when you really help one person instead of a little bit for a lot really anonymously, you can get all these benefits. She's like, this is years ago. This is maybe 20 years ago now. And she's like. Don't we adopt a baby? And I'm like, it's only a book, man. But we did. We actually did. It was. Totally life changing. So that's how you give. You got to do the work and think about it and put your heart into it. Can you say more about how did it?”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we know the people and we do the work. So it's not just anybody. We get a letter in the mail and we respond with a big check. It's like, huh, that seems worthy. No, we actually do the work. And part of it is because I teach one of the classes I teach at Harvard is on nonprofit management. And so I have a kind of a strong background in whether it's a reputable cause and what to look for and to measuring the effectiveness of an organization. So I do the work. I do the background work. I see what kind of overhead rates that they're using, how they're using their money. A lot has to do with if I like the mission. Sometimes if it's going to be a substantial amount of money, I get to know the people and the organization. And it has to be something that I think is going to change people's lives for the better. Now, I've actually changed my view on this a little bit because early on we'd write a lot of little checks, lots and lots and lots of little checks to great organizations. And then I found that you can have a lot more effect on your own well-being. And again, this is kind of selfish, but in your own well-being,”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I do think it is a tithe, but I really think of it as a privilege. I think of it a lot less as a duty and a lot more as a privilege. My wife and I, we just look forward to it. And then we have a process in our family of, you know, should we give money to this? Should we give money to that? Usually we give something kind of a big bolus one year and then smaller gifts to things that are ongoing sources of support that we really believe in.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have to tread into these waters, but I think it would be very helpful for people, and I'm very curious. I'm happy to reciprocate all. So, yeah.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. And the reason I initially got into happiness in the first place, besides wanting to be happy, was that I found that the more people gave, the happier they got.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Buy time. Buy time, but use the time correctly. If you have the money and you're cutting your lawn and you don't like cutting your lawn, improve GDP, hire a guy. Now, a lot of Americans don't like to do that because they have this kind of this weird reverse classist sense. Well, let me tell you, there's a lot of people who are making more money than you cutting lawns and running a gardening service. Spread the love. Give somebody a job and then use the time correctly. Don't fritter away your time scrolling social media in the house, in the air conditioning. No, no, no, no. Use the time specifically for something. Ideally with somebody doing something that you enjoy, and that will truly buy happiness. And last but not least, give your money away to somebody who needs it, who deserves it, and a cause that truly inspires you, something you really, really believe in. I've studied philanthropy long before I studied happiness. I was, you know, an academic beavering away in obscurity writing books on...”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But there are three ways you can by happiness according to Willens and Norton, my colleagues at HBS you can buy experiences. This is critically important because what do experiences where you buy happiness really have in common? You add money, which is sort of my pleasure, but the really important parts are the people in the memory. People in memory are always part of experiences. Okay, now sometimes you want to do things alone, but generally speaking, the greatest happiness comes because it enhances love in your life. The best way to improve love in your life, if you want your love life with your partner to get better, go away together. Go away together. That's always the best way to do. Or stay home together, but turn off the phone. In other words, get an experience with the person that you love. That's a great way to spend money because it will reliably, unless you waste it, do something stupid. Like, I'm going to have a bender in Vegas. And then get blackout drunk and sit in front of the slot machine. That's not the”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I felt a lot better. And I thought, Money does buy happiness. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Money lowers unhappiness when you move out of deprivation. That's it. And so what happens is I made the mental link between feeling, getting money and feeling better. And people do that and they chase that feeling for the rest of their life. Because you're doing sums in your head of well-being as happiness and unhappiness and all that. You can't tell the difference when you're just rolling through your life. And early on, you felt a lot better. That's all you know when you had more money. And so you want that feeling and you chase the feeling. You chase the high. You chase the early hits like drugs, like any other drugs in this way. So that doesn't work.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the point is that when I was Breakfast of Champions. Yeah, man. Beard, cigarettes, pizza. You know, I was living in Washington Heights in those days. And when I was 25, I took a job in the Barcelona Orchestra. I moved to Barcelona had benefits. I had Benny's man. And I went to the dentist and he filled 10 cavities.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If inflation adjusted, or your results may vary, or whatever it is. But the whole point is you just don't get happier and happier and happier as millions. The reason, by the way, that we think that is an illusion that comes from our experience. Most people have less than they perceive that they need when they're young. And the result of it is that a lot of people and a lot of people listening to us, they suffer a lack of meeting some basic needs. When I was 19 to 25, I was too poor for six years to go to the dentist for six years. No, of course, I don't think I ever went a date without cigarettes. So I guess it was priorities.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rolled through that fast just a second ago, but it turns out there's a ton of research on this. My colleague Mike Norton and Norton and Ashley Willens at the Harvard Business School, they've done this exhaustive research on how to buy happiness, how to buy happiness, right? Okay, Mother Nature says get more stuff. Why? Because satisfaction comes from having more. What's the strategy for life? More. Mother Nature tells you that she lies. Lies and lies and laughs at you. That's not the strategy. You need to buy enough, but no possession will do anything beyond bringing you out of misery. That's the reason that the studies, you know, the famous Kahneman and Dieton study from Princeton shows that happiness flattens out after $75,000 a year. And, you know, Matt Killingsworth at Penn actually reran the data and finds that it's higher, but it still flattens out.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you are. Brothers Caramas, I've buy Fyodor Dostevsky. If you like fiction, stop wasting your time on trivialities. Go get the brothers K. Why? Because it's a deeply awe-inspiring experience about the human condition and the absurdity of it. It's beautiful. Get the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, who, by the way, a world historical figure because he was a Roman emperor. Nobody remembers that practically a single thing that happened as Roman Emperor. We remember what was written in his private diary.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's really the point. It's not just a question of minimizing your problems. It's also minimizing the scale of your hopes and dreams and opportunities and recognizing that What really matters, you're in that to be sure, but you're one part of that. It's okay. It's all okay. The great is just okay and the bad is okay too. And, you know, that's so deeply comforting and it leads to so many improvements in mental health. Just don't know how you can put one foot in front of the other without doing something like this every day. Now, people often ask, okay, how do I get started? How do I get started? Read 15 minutes a day. Pick up the brother's K.”
2023-09-11 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #692: Arthur C. Brooks — How to Be Happy, Reverse Bucket Lists, The Four False Idols, Muscular Philosophies, Practical Inoculation Against the Darkness, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT