[Music] well hey you guys I am so excited about today's show because whenever I have guests it's always fun to have a conversation but specifically with topics that selfishly I'm interested in so today I have Dr Arthur Brooks and he's joining us he's an author a speaker a Harvard Professor a social scientist the list just goes on and on so welcome thanks Rachel great to be with you I know thanks for being here looking forward to it so great okay so give us just a little context of you just your history what caused you to do what you do in the world today because you you're doing a lot and you're making an incredible impact honestly with the content that you're writing your articles everything it's amazing yeah I've been working for the last five years exclusively on the science of happiness and bringing it to the most people I possibly can and and that's because I you know some years ago when I stepped down from a CEO job that I had working in public policy I went back to my roots as a behavioral scientist so I was an academic for many years and I thought I want to go back to Academia but I want to use it in a way that I can lift people up and bring them together in bonds of happiness and love this is my goal in life but I want to use science and ideas and so that's what I've been all about it's kind of a movement of using Cutting Edge social science and Neuroscience to help people live their best lives yeah and which I think is so fascinating that's why I like all of your content because it's it's it's proving the point that you can have like these emotions like right of of gratitude or contentment or you're you're feeling a certain way or loneliness right on the other side you're feeling these things and then when you pair it with the brain when you pair it with with actual science and fact I think it just gives like the validity to know no this is real stuff this isn't just like this madeup kind of woo woo thing up in the air right yeah it's real and you're seeing it you know right as a scientist oh yeah for sure and as a matter of fact I started doing a lot of this because I wanted to have a better life personally I started to to use my academic background in science to see whether or not I could engineer my own life in a better way so I could be a better person I could be a better husband and father now grandfather how I could bring ideas to people in a more effective way and I turned it into it first I turned it into a class I teach it at the Harvard Business School I turned it into a class on the signs of happiness and it was very successful because people were were saying to work for that a really long waiting list and then I started writing about it in the Atlantic which is the magazine and every Thursday morning 1300 words on the signs of happiness and got a big audience because people were finding it was helping their lives and I thought huh I got to find ways through you know great means of dissemination like this to get it to you know the audiences of people that can use science but they didn't know that in a way that can manage their own happiness in a more effective way and bring more happiness to others see here's the deal the secret to happiness is becoming a happiness teacher and so my goal is empowering people to understand their own happiness yeah you know within the bounds of what's possible I'm not trying to make it so that people never feel unhappy on the contrary because being alive means having you know NE negative experiences and emotions yes yes to not pathologize their unhappiness but to manage it effectively and then to bring more happiness to others that's how a movement really works so good because some of the stuff you talk about too which money like the whole like well does money buy happiness right like that's always like the question I feel like and what we talk about on this show so much is getting to a place of peace with your money because a lot of people feel that stress and that anxiety constantly just from the the Tactical side right they don't have the money to pay the bills and all that so getting people to this place but then I also think that there's this like imaginative world that I feel like we we see maybe through social media or things that we've heard in the past that we think if I could just have X amount of money everything would be okay right and I talk a lot of on this show is that you know you could still make a huge income and still be as terrible with money as you are today it's just more magnified right um and that the happiness doesn't necessarily come but you talk about the five areas of what you can do with money right and that some actually will bring you some happiness on how you spend it or use it and then there's some that one that doesn't one will you walk through that and one thing that you said that's really important which is that you can have a lot of money and still be crummy with money the reason is because money makes you more of who you are that's right anything of these world's rewards Fame makes you more of who you are good or bad yes power makes you more of who you are good or bad and getting rich I mean great congratulations you hit the lottery but in real life because the lottery is actually awful you but you earned a lot of money that's great but it's going to make you more of who you are so you better understand money you better understand how it works in your life and your happiness and the character of who you are in the process totally you need to work on you not not it's just like if I have more money it's going to solve the problems no no no no no totally now and again we're not talking about living in a country where people are dying of starvation yes we're talking thank God we live in America I am so grateful to live in a country where we have the high class problems that we have when it comes to run money today and I and and I I literally in my prayers I'm very thankful every day I live in this country because my problems are so much better yeah than than if we were having starvation issues totally okay so our high class problem is what do you do with money such that it you're not fooled and that you can actually become happier in how you use it there's five things you can do you can buy stuff you can buy experiences right you can buy time by paying people to do things you can give it away and you can save it those are literally exhaustive list of things that you can do with money there's lots and lots of work by social psychologists on what brings happiness and what doesn't yeah first of all what does your brain want you to do now mother nature programs into you that you need to survive pass on your genes and rise in hierarchy that's what Mother Nature has programmed into your caveman brain to do and the way that you do that ordinarily is by showing that you have excess resources why does somebody want five watches that dude's got five watches he would make a good mate so people are signaling in sort of the and that it's wild that it's even just and who we are as people right it makes you feel crazy way and Men especially will do this so women too but the whole point is we want to show that we have excess resources for all of these weird reasons that are that we don't even understand very much and so the result is that we make this we make this this mistake of thinking if we buy more stuff that looks kind of cool that we'll be happier that's wrong why because Mother Nature doesn't care if you're happy she doesn't care the four ways to get happier consistently are using your resources within responsibility to get experiences and have those experiences with people you love yeah okay number two it's not Disney role will make you happy but Disney role with people you love will make you happy if you if you can afford it and you don't put it on the credit card sure thank you because I'm going to get to that number two is is buying time yeah but spending it not scrolling Instagram but spending it meaningfully in you know you know reading your Bible going for a walk spending it with people you love yep that's how you spend the time use the time in a way that fortifies you that's good too cuz I think that's conv because there can be a sense of okay I'll just you know um pass on this responsibility to X Y and Z to be able to like free up there you know some some of my time and then you watch TV what do you do mindlessly yeah it's not it's not benefiting you at all as a matter of fact you'll be happier mowing your own lawn then you will be watching mindless television yes yes so don't buy the time by paying somebody and then and then waste your time on the contrary think if I'm not spending the time mowing the lawn what am I going to be doing and then make the commitment and do it so good yeah next is giving the money away giving the money away consistently makes people happier healthier there's even research that shows that when you give money away people think you're better looking really yeah I I got on this yeah so so when when spouses see their spouse behaving charitably philanthropically it's more attractive especially women see men who behave philanthropically as physically more attractive interesting news you can use guys that's right it's very exciting news uh again give me some some of the research behind this cuz we talk about this is why I love having you here because some of the things that we you know talk about on the show again it's through experience but it doesn't have the layered education that you're bringing to the conversation it follows common sense so the G yeah and the giving part I mean even on our budgeting app it's always it's the first thing it's the first thing we tell people to do is you give you save then you pay bills right um because giving the way I've always seen it and experienced it is it it is it does create this Joy of this selflessness in life where it's like not all about you you're actually looking up and seeing what can I contribute to the world right so there there's joy in that but what's the like what's the what's the psychology yeah I'm curious the answer is that when you witness yourself solving problems you have greater agency you have great you're you're a person who's more effective and so there's all these data that show that if you give more one year you make way more than that back about $3.65 for every dollar you give away in the next year now again your results May Vary you got to give something that you really believe in you don't just burn the money with some CA and you got to do the work to make sure that you're passionate about it but the point is the more you give the more evidence that you have that you're a giving person that you're an effective person that you can afford to do it it's a it's a gutsy decision right and you know my dad you know my my my parents never made it out of L middle class but my dad never missed his tithe my dad never missed his tithe and I it's funny because when I became an economist you know I I remember asking my dad you know it's just about this tithing you know cuz I was doing work on it I'm doing work on the behavior and and and the effects I said do you give before or after taxes and my dad's like before taxes I'm like Dad come on I mean it's it's it's a you know a render under Caesar but what's left and because he was a serious Christian guy yeah I said why and he said just in case just in case just to cover cover every every base that I need my dad was a scientist and so he was thinking about the probabilities that even in heaven but the bottom line is it was very empowering to my parents and they cared about it and it was it was good for them so good and then the last is saving the money yeah and saving brings huge amounts of Happiness hu why because it's making progress humans are wired for Progress when you're saving you're making progress now some people become pathological about it I know rich people who are who still beavering away money at 80 years old right so like what's for the balance of that not being a hoarder like a scarcity mindset right like what what what do you see of that balance of like there is a level of saving that creates happiness right probably at a level of security in the progress and seeing that number grow but yet how do you balance that well the truth is that most people are not gonna have that problem that's a very rare thing so I find you know rich people who are misers you know the eban are Scrooge effect I don't see that very often but sometimes you know I work with very successful people have to say look you're putting money away at such an extent that you're not going to spend it because you don't know how to spend money you hate to spend money it's become pathological you're going to mess up your kids y this is going to mess up your kids because your adult kids are going to get you know 10 or $15 million each and that's just it's not right because you earned your success and it's the source of your incredible satisfaction and you're not letting them earn their success why are you taking away that satisfaction from your kids so I have to have that kind of that Dutch uncle talk with but most people I mean most people watching us they're like yeah it would be nice to have that problem high class problem most people the problem is that they think they're going to get more satisfaction from immediate consumption and debt the spending and the debt is incredibly bad for your happiness I mean I've got tons of data that show that the the feeling of helplessness and the the regress that happens when you're actually paying off Consumer Debt is way way way outweighing the the satisfaction you could get from anything you buy right now think about it interesting um you know I look at car loans terrible for happiness terrible for happiness student loans it can go either way when they're too large or you don't finish your degree big problem mortgages can be fine but but here's the thing if you pay off your mortgage you will get a happiness bump like you can't imagine totally so most people have to borrow to buy their home okay that's not a diler is terrible thing right but if you can pay it off you're going to love that but credit card debt it's crazy now the special case I had to put groceries on my credit card I had to pay a bill with a credit card okay those are special cases right that's not the vast majority of cases the vast majority of cases are I wanted that thing it's a lifestyle level live don't do it don't because you're going behind the line of scrimmage and you're going to have to come back and that's going to wreck your happiness all the way that's what's so fascinating too is because again not having the um not having me the science like all behind it all but but talking to people are there I'm like they I mean doing this for 10 15 years I'm like the house thing even right I mean the argument is constant why would you ever pay off your mortgage if you have a 2.3% you could be making 10% and the spread's 8% you could be making more money you know smart and I'm like but there's something about it when you own you have autonomy over your life there there's something that occurs within you within your spirit in your soul uh that is different but you now have sciencey science to prove it very satisfying I mean I think you know I see people who they live in in in in in places where housing values are going through the roof and they start using their house like an ATM machine yeah and they start by owing $80,000 and you know 10 years later they owe $250,000 and the argument is yeah but my house is worth $500,000 but no no no no no what we care about is not these these you know cold Financial calculations about what looks good on the spreadsheet that's right it's the person it's a human you it's you does somebody own does somebody have a claim on you or not you know it's incredibly freeing to have nobody have a claim on you totally I mean look we're Americans we demand Freedom right that's right that's right except all in this one this one area yeah oh thank you so much I so enjoy again all the work you're doing I mean truly there is there is something about this like maybe the time we are in the year even but there's like wrestle lessness that I feel within people and people like you just bring a level of calm and peace and I thanks for all you do for setting people free thank you yeah thank you so much okay where can everyone find you Arthur brooks.com okay and your books everything's there books well yeah you can find out about you go on Amazon you can find my books or in the Atlantic every Thursday morning I write about the signs of happiness but it's all there on Arthur brs.com on stop shopping so great guys make sure to check out everything he's doing follow him and again uh getting these tidbits of of Life honestly that brings a level of peace and control so thanks again thanks all right you guys if you enjoyed this conversation then I highly recommend you also check out what it actually costs to live in America today remember you guys to take control of your money and create a life you love
