{"id":12133,"date":"2025-12-24T20:32:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T00:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-arthur-brooks-finding-the-meaning-of-your-life-the-poets-protocol-the-holy-half-hour-and-why-your-suffering-is-sacred-841\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T20:32:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T00:32:19","slug":"the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-arthur-brooks-finding-the-meaning-of-your-life-the-poets-protocol-the-holy-half-hour-and-why-your-suffering-is-sacred-841","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-arthur-brooks-finding-the-meaning-of-your-life-the-poets-protocol-the-holy-half-hour-and-why-your-suffering-is-sacred-841\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Arthur Brooks \u2014 Finding The Meaning of Your Life, The Poet\u2019s Protocol, The Holy Half-Hour, and Why Your Suffering is Sacred (#841)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Please enjoy this transcript of <a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2025\/12\/23\/arthur-brooks-meaning\/\">my interview with Arthur Brooks<\/a>\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/arthurbrooks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">@arthurbrooks<\/a>), a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses on leadership and happiness.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2025\/12\/23\/arthur-brooks-meaning\/\"><strong>Full bio<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2025\/12\/23\/arthur-brooks-meaning\/#:~:text=SELECTED%20LINKS%20FROM%20THE%20EPISODE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Products, resources, and people mentioned in the interview<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2025\/12\/24\/arthur-brooks-meaning-transcript\/#arthur-brooks-legal-conditions-transcript\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Legal conditions\/copyright information<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"podcast-player\">\n<div class=\"podcast-player-inner-wrap\">\n<p>Arthur Brooks \u2014 Finding The Meaning of Your Life, The Poet&#8217;s Protocol, The Holy Half-Hour, and Why Your Suffering is Sacred<\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.art19.com\/shows\/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba\/episodes\/f346c827-70fc-4ead-aab1-d408c6f2ed78\/embed?type=micro\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 30px; border: 0 none;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional podcast platforms<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Listen to this episode on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/841-arthur-brooks-finding-the-meaning-of-your-life\/id863897795?i=1000742516494\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/3qRWSWE9kcrQt0Cvy4Q9V2?si=a_0sWOd9RZeMeXv-aBRVEA\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/+AAKebsJLvHI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Overcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcastaddict.com\/podcast\/2031148#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Podcast Addict<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/timferriss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pocket Casts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/castbox.fm\/channel\/id1059468?country=us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Castbox<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/music.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLuu6fDad2eJyWPm9dQfuorm2uuYHBZDCB\">YouTube Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/9814f3cc-1dc5-4003-b816-44a8eb6bf666\/the-tim-ferriss-show\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.audible.com\/podcast\/The-Tim-Ferriss-Show\/B08K58QX5W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Audible<\/a>, or on your favorite podcast platform.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Arthur Brooks, we meet again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Nice to see you, Tim.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Nice to see you. Glad to see the vascularity in your arms is still visible even through the long sleeve shirt.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. Because every woman wants a vascular man.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You know, I only take my cues from the internet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Exactly. My wife, every day, she says, \u201cI love you. You\u2019re so vascular.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I could really take this a lot of directions, but I\u2019m going to take a hard left from vascularity, and I\u2019m going to try to pronounce \u2014 Brahma Murta?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Brahma Muhurta.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. Brahma Muhurta. And the reason I\u2019m bringing this up is because I want to offer some candy, much like maybe an E.T., putting the Reese\u2019s little pieces on the floor to lure E.T. out. I want to bring my listeners and diehards into the conversation with a morning routine. And we\u2019ll talk about evening routines at the end as bookmarks, and then we\u2019re going to dive into all sorts of stuff. But what is Brahma Muhurta, and could you describe your personal morning routine?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I do have a very strong and very disciplined morning routine. And I studied love and happiness. So it\u2019s not as if I\u2019m going deep into the physiology of actually how I can have the best amount of muscle mass and minimum amount of body fat. I want to have more love and happiness in my life, and it\u2019s not easy. So I\u2019m a specialist in human happiness because it\u2019s hard for me. And that\u2019s the first thing to \u2014 I know everybody who does research on happiness in the psychology, behavioral science world, they\u2019re doing it for a reason.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s sort of \u201cme-search\u201d more than research. But one of the things that I\u2019ve found is that discipline and an understanding of your own human physiology, the biology and neuroscience, is critical for actually becoming a happier person. I have a morning routine that I dedicate to being both more productive and having higher wellbeing. I\u2019m managing mood, because high negative affect is characteristic of my personality, and I also need to be really productive, because the morning hours are when you\u2019re most productive, especially in creative stuff. Almost everybody experiences this.<\/p>\n<p>And that starts with what you just mentioned, which is called the Brahma Muhurta. And I\u2019ve studied a lot in India. I go to India every year. I have spiritual teachers, but also, I\u2019m very interested in behavioral science in the Vedic tradition. They came to a lot of truths way before Western social science actually came upon this, and one of the ideas was Brahma Muhurta, which in Sanskrit means the creator\u2019s time.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a Muhurta is 48 minutes long. So two Muhurtas, the Brahma Muhurta, is an hour and 36 minutes before dawn. And the whole idea, going back thousands of years, is you get up an hour and 36 minutes before dawn and you\u2019ll be more creative, more in touch with the divine, more productive and happier.<\/p>\n<p>This was always the contention. So of course, it\u2019s been put to the test in modern behavioral science research, and sure enough. And we don\u2019t know if it\u2019s two Muhurtas is the right number of Muhurtas, but the whole point is, getting up before dawn has incredible impacts on productivity, focus, concentration, and happiness. If you\u2019re getting up when the sun is warm, you\u2019ve lost the first battle for mood management and productivity is what it comes down to. So my days always start before dawn. Now, I usually set the clock for 4:30 in the morning, which is a lot before dawn in \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Who knew that Jocko Willink was such a fan of Vedic traditions? He also wakes up at 4:30. Please continue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>4:30 is a good time for a lot of different reasons. You try to retrofit your schedule the way you need to do, for sure. And that\u2019s a long time before dawn in the winter, and not that long before dawn in the summer. And our listeners in Helsinki are like, \u201cWhat do I do in July?\u201d I mean, okay, you have to tailor the routines to what you\u2019re doing, but it\u2019s very clear that this is good for productivity and very good for happiness. And then the most important thing is what do you do right after that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. What do you do?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I pick up heavy things and run around.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What does it look like?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Well, the most important room in my house is the gym. And I\u2019ve always had a good gym in my house, down in the basement of my house. Now, down in the basement of my house is also living one of my kids and his wife and their two sons, so I have to be real quiet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So lift heavy things that are quiet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I can\u2019t be clanking around down there, because I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t want to wake up my grandchildren. But I do, generally speaking, two-thirds resistance, one-third Zone 2, but I tailor that to what my day is going to look like. So if I have a sedentary day, I\u2019ll do more Zone 2 to start the day. And if I know I\u2019m walking around, I\u2019m walking around campus or whatever I have to do, I know I\u2019m going to be walking seven or 10 miles that day, I\u2019ll do all resistance. And so that really depends. Or if I\u2019m going on a hike with my wife on Saturday or something. But that\u2019s seven days a week. I do an hour in the gym seven days a week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What would the, let\u2019s just say, prototypical two-thirds resistance, one-third Zone 2, or whatever the ratio might look like as a template, what would that look like? What type of exercises? Free weights, equipment, kettlebells? What type of Zone 2 do you like? Because for instance, like with Zone 2, it\u2019s like, I travel a lot. Stationary bikes can be a real hassle because of the fitting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But then, all right, maybe you use a treadmill with an incline with a rucksack or something like that. I\u2019d just love to know the specifics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, for sure. I\u2019m very old school. And my resistance training, actually, I learned the routines that I do when I was in my 30s. I really started lifting when I was in my 30s. And my dad died and I changed a lot of the things in my life. I quit drinking alcohol in my 30s, and I did a lot of things differently than I hadn\u2019t done before, because I wanted to not have the future that I saw in the windshield of my life.<\/p>\n<p>And one of the things that I did was, I started getting serious about my fitness and going to the gym. And I thought to myself, what\u2019s my goal? My goal is not to turn into a statue and be admired. I mean, I\u2019d been married for a long time at that point. I mean, that was sort of done. And besides, my wife doesn\u2019t care. She just wants me to be happy and healthy.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to be doing that in my 70s. I wanted to be healthy in my 70s. I wanted to be hanging out with my wife and dandling my 11th grandchild on my knee when I was 78 years old. So what I did was, I\u2019ve always been on tour. I\u2019ve always traveled constantly all throughout my career. Every city I\u2019d go to, I\u2019d find the oldest iron gym I could find. Why? Because that\u2019s where the old dudes train. That\u2019s where the shredded guys train. And now I\u2019m the old guy. So my wife says that sleeping with me is like holding a leather sack of ropes, which I think is a compliment. I\u2019m not sure. But I\u2019ve been married decades, Tim, decades. But I would go to these iron gyms \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s better than a leather sack of lard, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, for sure. For sure. It\u2019s like, ropes. And so, I\u2019d go to these gyms for 78-year-old guys who are completely shredded. They look like old roosters. And they\u2019re working out, and I would say, \u201cTeach me. Teach me, maestro, sensei. Teach me what you do.\u201d And they would give me this advice, and I followed that advice assiduously. And so what it is is, I\u2019m old school. Push, pull, legs. Don\u2019t use a bar.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And is it push, pull, legs every workout?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, it\u2019s push, pull, legs on different days.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Got it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So it\u2019s not a pure bro split, but it\u2019s near on. Making sure that you\u2019re not getting heroic with the amount of weight. You\u2019re making sure that you\u2019re using dumbbells and not bars, because you can get full range of motion, but you\u2019re super careful about your joints. If you have any pain in your joints, you back off. You do, for volume, you do more reps as opposed to more weight, and always be doing it that way, and dial it down, the actual weight, dialing up the reps as you get older.<\/p>\n<p>And these are these basic ideas. So it\u2019s push, pull, legs. And then I\u2019m doing usually somewhere between 20 minutes and 40 minutes of Zone 2 cardio, which I have an elliptical machine, because it\u2019s super easy on the joints. And every place, every hotel\u2019s got an elliptical machine. I\u2019ve got a nice elliptical machine at home, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n<p>And this is an hour. A lot of the time I\u2019m doing it without headphones. It\u2019s important because you need to concentrate for \u2014 to begin with, that\u2019s your most creative time. That\u2019s like taking an hour-long shower. You get your best ideas if you work out without headphones. There\u2019s a lot of good neuroscience on that, as well. And that\u2019s 4:45 to 5:45 in the morning every single day. That\u2019s the one thing I can really count on that\u2019s always going to be good. Always going to be good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Do you record your workouts?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Like, videotape my workouts?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>No. In any type of workout journal, or is it so intuitive at this point that you\u2019re like, I really know, since I\u2019m using dumbbells and dumbbells should be consistent from place to place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I can tell you what I did on this day in 2001.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Meaning you remember it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No. Meaning it\u2019s written down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. It\u2019s like, wait a sec.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, no, no, no. I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There\u2019s some people who are like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Some sort of a <em>Rain Man<\/em> deal? Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, for instance, people you wouldn\u2019t expect. Arnold Schwarzenegger loves chess, and when I first interviewed him, I was talking to his right hand man and he said, \u201cOh, he plays chess daily with X number of people over the course of a week or two, and he keeps track of every game and every score in his head.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s amazing. So no, I\u2019m not doing that, but I can tell you, I mean, I have journals that go back. I write it down. And so, I know what\u2019s on what day and what I did. There\u2019s a whole lot of things that I keep records of, for sure, just so I understand my own progress in life, making sure I\u2019m not making regress in life. And for some reason, I got into the pattern of writing down every single workout going back until, back to my 30s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019m the same.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And now I\u2019m 61 years old. So that\u2019s a lot of date books.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, I have workouts going back to 16, and I still have all them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Just to keep them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I don\u2019t know why I keep them, but I have them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I can tell you behaviorally why people do that. I mean, what you want is record of progress, because that\u2019s one of the great secrets to human happiness. You never arrive. Arrival gives you almost nothing, but it\u2019s progress toward the goal. And this is a record of Tim\u2019s progress going all the way back to 16. It\u2019s evidence that you\u2019re a better man than when you were 16 years old. Let\u2019s hope.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Certainly not as strong as I was when I was in my 20s, but still Zone 2.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. Not dying.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Things like this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, it\u2019s fantastic. And it\u2019s really a great way to start the day, and there\u2019s a lot of research, once again, on this is especially important for mood management. So half of the population is above average in negative affect. Negative affect is strong negative manifestation of mood. And obviously, if it\u2019s the median, half has to be above that and half has to be below. And I\u2019m way above average in negative affect.I\u2019m above average in positive affect, too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, me too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. I mean, you\u2019re a mad scientist, which is typically \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m a poet. We talked about this last time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Oh, we did this. You are a poet. So you\u2019re below average positive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Below average positive. High peak negative.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>High peak negative. So I\u2019m at the 90th percentile in negative mood. And there are ways, typical ways that people self-manage negative mood that are really, really bad for you, like drugs and alcohol, like internet use, like pornography. Horrible negative mood management. Workaholism, awful. People distract themselves because the amygdala of the brain is what largely manages fear and anger, but the amygdala also manages attention. And so if you can distract yourself with something you can count on, like your work, what you\u2019re effectively doing is you\u2019re managing your anger and fear by redirecting the activity of the amygdala.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sounds right. Checks out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, but there\u2019s good ways to do it, like you\u2019re working, like developing your spirituality and picking up heavy things and running around.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So we\u2019re going to stick on the heavy things for a second here, as well as the elliptical.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Because we\u2019re not even done with that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>We\u2019re not even done. So we have the waking early, let\u2019s call it 4:30. For me, early, 7:30 this morning, I was very pleased with myself after arriving from travel at close to midnight.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Hey, that\u2019s 4:30 on the West Coast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly, exactly. It\u2019s 4:30 somewhere. And we\u2019ve covered that briefly. For Zone 2, are you wearing a heart rate monitor? Are you doing the talk test? How are you tracking?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Talk test.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Talk test.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s a talk test. It\u2019s just keeping it as simple as possible. I tend to go insane if I\u2019m over-measured. And so, that\u2019s one of the reasons I use very, very simple biometrics and very simple health monitoring. I\u2019m going to need to move up to something better at some point, but if I get too much data, I\u2019m in trouble.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I mean, it\u2019s like having seven different drafts of a piece of writing you\u2019re working on. Now what do you do? I mean, in a sense, there\u2019s data, and then there\u2019s information which you need to analyze. So there is a point of diminishing returns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>PREROLL<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Talk test, for people, just very briefly. Peter Attia has videos on this of himself on a stationary bike, demonstrating it on social media if you want to try to find them. But in effect, and please tell me if I\u2019m off base with you approach it, you are able to, while you\u2019re in this Zone 2 on, say, an elliptical, stationary bike, treadmill, you\u2019re able to speak or have a conversation with very short sentences, but you don\u2019t really want to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Right. That\u2019s exactly right. Zone 3, you\u2019re too out of breath to have a normal conversation. Zone 4, you\u2019re gasping for air. So I mean, Zone 1 is just, you\u2019re strolling, is kind of what it comes down to. And your heart rate to be in the Zone 2 is usually around 120 beats per minute. And I\u2019ll also do some periods of some intervals in that. I\u2019ll do two or three intervals during a half hour Zone 2 cardio session. So I\u2019ll take it up to 160 beats per minute for a full minute, then bring it back. I\u2019ll do some of that HIIT training while I\u2019m doing it. But 120 beats per minute is a really, really easy thing to ascertain, because I\u2019m an old musician. That\u2019s the speed of a Sousa march.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>A what?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>A Sousa march. That\u2019s 120 beats per minute. That\u2019s how you know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, when you put out your elliptical e-course, I think this is the lead in-music.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s my bump music, man.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. Actually, before we get to after the exercise, for folks who might be interested in really diving into this, number one, Peter has a lot on it. Number two, if you want to get nerdy, the Morpheus device has been recommended to me by folks like Andy Galpin and others. There are other options, but that seems to be a pretty good device. So in terms of developing, if you\u2019re not a former French horn player, the intuition of what is 120 or 130 beats per minute, you can do, much like I\u2019ve already done with, say, glucose readings or ketone readings, I know where I am, but I\u2019m not yet there with heart rate. The Morpheus is a nice tool for learning what it feels like to be at 120, versus 130, versus whatever it might be.<\/p>\n<p>All right, you have your workout. After the workout, what is your morning routine?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I get cleaned up, then I go to mass. I\u2019m a Catholic. I go to mass every day. And that\u2019s the experience of transcendence, which, my path is not the only path, to say, \u201cEverybody\u2019s got to go to mass!\u201d And that\u2019s not going to be effective, because that\u2019s not for everybody. But there is a period of reflection and transcendence that\u2019s very, very important for not just mood management, for productivity that\u2019s going to follow. And there\u2019s a lot of neuroscience behind why that is effective.<\/p>\n<p>But for me, it\u2019s also an opportunity, because my wife gets up at six. And when I\u2019m home \u2014 I\u2019m home about half the time, I\u2019m on tour, about half the time I\u2019m home. But I\u2019m home every week. So I don\u2019t go on tour for months at a time. I go on tour for days at a time. Which means that I\u2019ve always got a flight home and that\u2019s inconvenient, but that\u2019s actually part of my life protocols, is making sure I spend every single weekend at home. I\u2019m out maybe four weekends a year. And so that means I have lots of days at home. I have at least three or four mornings at home, and we start the day at 6:30 mass, the two of us do. That\u2019s very important for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How long is mass?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Half an hour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Daily mass is half an hour. Sunday mass is an hour, but daily mass is half an hour. During the week, after 30 minutes, no souls are saved. According to science, no. So we do that, and that\u2019s a period of prayer and reflection. Some people prefer Vipassana meditation. Our friend Ryan Holiday does a lot with actually studying the Stoic philosophers, but you need what the ancients would call the holy hour. And they would be a full hour. For me, it\u2019s the holy half hour. And that really works. And it\u2019s really good for my relationship, and it\u2019s very good for, it\u2019s incredibly good for focus and concentration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So I want to bookmark, just to give a shameless plug for our first conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>For people who are like, \u201cOh, yeah, okay. Well, I didn\u2019t grow up Catholic.\u201d You didn\u2019t grow up Catholic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I didn\u2019t grow up Catholic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Your parents thought that your conversion was an act of youthful rebellion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Which it might\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It might\u2019ve been, but it stuck.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Fair is fair.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But it stuck.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So if you want the backstory, including some wild stories, then listen to our first conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So I\u2019m basically the equivalent of like a freaked out hippie who went to India and got converted and practiced an exotic religion for the rest of my life. But my exotic religion is Catholicism.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, depending on where you start, it\u2019s pretty exotic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. So you have the holy half hour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, our routines have a lot of similarities, although the flavors are slightly different. We could talk about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Probably the neurophysiological effects are the same.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Very, very similar, I would imagine. So after the holy half hour, what happens?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>After the holy half hour, now I\u2019ve taken no nutrition except for salty water with some high dose, I take high dose creatine hydrate with my workout drink.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What\u2019s high dose?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>High dose for me is 15 to 20 grams a day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That is a lot. Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. So the first five is for muscle protein synthesis or volumization of muscles, which is really good for your workout. The other is for this just exploding area of research on the biological benefits of it, the neurobiological benefits of it. And for me, that\u2019s really, really important, because I\u2019m a crummy sleeper. And Rhonda Patrick has done a lot of stuff on how creatine is really good when you don\u2019t sleep.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also really good because I\u2019m trying to bank, neurologically, four hours of concentration, and it\u2019s mostly creativity. So I have to set myself up for optimal creativity, and that\u2019s one of the best ways to do it. That\u2019s the best supplement that I\u2019ve been able to find that affects my creativity later on in the morning. So I\u2019m adding that to my pre-workout drink. I\u2019m taking no caffeine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>This is important. I don\u2019t take any caffeine to wake up. Huberman\u2019s right on this. And this is very contested in the literature, about A2A adenosine and how caffeine blocks adenosine receptors. But I really believe, and Huberman believes this, but I find this the most compelling explanation and it absolutely works for me. I don\u2019t use caffeine to wake up. I use caffeine to focus. Because what I want is, I actually want circulating adenosine to metabolize and to clear endogenously. And I want lots and lots of clarity, plenty of open parking spots for the adenosine receptors, that I can then fill two to three hours after I wake up with caffeine. And this will give me, this is just modafinil. At this point, this is just vacuuming. This is going to vacuum \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Be careful with actual modafinil, kiddos.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, no, I know. I\u2019m saying like that. So it\u2019s vacuuming the dopamine into the prefrontal cortex. So what ADHD drugs do is that they keep more dopamine in the synapse, especially in the prefrontal cortex, such that you can focus, you have more concentration and you have more creativity. And caffeine is great for this. A lot of people like nicotine. I don\u2019t like nicotine only because I was hopelessly addicted to cigarettes early on in my life. All the way through my 20s, I was a smoker, and I don\u2019t want \u2014 I mean, I blew it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, a lot of people are step by step blowing it also, with first microdosing nicotine, and then lo and behold, since it\u2019s sort of dance partners in addictive potential with heroin, then those micro doses become something along the line of mezzodoses, and then before you know it, you\u2019re addicted to nicotine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Pretty soon it\u2019s all nicotine, all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And caffeine is highly addictive as well, but as a psychostimulant, it\u2019s better studied. It\u2019s much, much easier to self-manage. I get usually about 380 milligrams of caffeine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, that\u2019s decent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s decent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Holy cow. All right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s a venti dark roast from Starbucks. I grew up in Seattletown.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, 380. For a lot of people, if you have moderately strong coffee, that\u2019s going to be almost four cups of coffee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s power.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s 20 ounces of good \u2014 and again, the darker roasts have less caffeine, but I like them better because I grew up on the north side of Queen Ann Hill in Seattle when there was one Starbucks. And so I\u2019ve been doing that since I was in eighth grade.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. So you have the holy half hour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And then after the holy half hour, you haven\u2019t had any caffeine up to that point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And now it\u2019s 7:15 in the morning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So I\u2019m back from mass.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Now what do you do?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I brew the coffee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And I know how to brew coffee.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Now, do you have the 380 in a megadose, or is that titrated over time?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, that\u2019s in a megadose that usually it takes me about 45 minutes to drink.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, my God.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Half an hour to 45 minutes to drink. I know. Well, part of it is I\u2019ve got this grizzled adrenal system. My HPA axis is like, it\u2019s like a building falling down at this point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You just have to donkey kick your adrenals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay, got it. So then you brew the coffee and sit down to \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Then I make my first nutrition of the day. And the first nutrition of the day is 60 to 70 grams of protein. And protein is really important, especially with a tryptophan-rich source of protein for mood management. And I\u2019m not going to eat, and I\u2019m not eating a turkey leg or something like that. I\u2019m not like Henry VIII for that. It\u2019s mostly whey protein powder mixed in with non-fat, unflavored Greek yogurt, which is great. And there\u2019s so many \u2014 and it\u2019s like, anymore, I just read that the three most, the fastest growing foods in America today are cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and whey protein powder. Which is extraordinary, extraordinary when you think about it. But you and I got to this much earlier, back when it was harder to find Greek yogurt. And I put a little artificial sweetener in it, because I\u2019m not afraid of artificial sweetener. And I get more micronutrients in it with putting in walnuts and blueberries and things that actually give me the micronutrients that I need.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, I\u2019ve also taken a multivitamin at this point. I take a multivitamin everyday. I\u2019ve been taking a multivitamin for decade after decade after decade. And there\u2019s these papers that were coming out five years ago saying that they\u2019re not only ineffective, they\u2019re bad for you. That\u2019s all been overtaken by events, and the newer research actually says it has neurocognitive protective benefits. Take your multivitamins. And there are a lot of ways to do it. Sometimes I\u2019ll take a good multivitamin in the morning. Sometimes I wait later in the day and take AG1. But you need a good multivitamin. Almost everybody does.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So a few \u2014 not persnickety, but detail questions, because that\u2019s how my mind operates. Why no fat Greek yogurt instead of something with fat?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And fat would be better for me, to be sure. It\u2019s that the fat bothers my stomach. So just, I don\u2019t like it. It fills me up too much. It\u2019s hard to get to 65 grams of protein when you\u2019ve got that much fat in the yogurt, because you\u2019re just going to be just falling asleep. I only do that because it\u2019s uncomfortable to have the fat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Got it. And I\u2019ll add just a footnote for some people listening will say, wait a second, I thought you could only absorb 30 grams of protein at a sitting. That is not quite \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s old school research.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. It is somewhere between an old wives tale and just a statement that has been repeated so much that it\u2019s taken to be true, but it\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And in fact, there is, or I should say there are some data to suggest that as you get older, you actually absorb protein more effectively in a larger bolus, meaning more protein at fewer sittings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Right, that\u2019s correct. And I\u2019m completely persuaded by the research. And over the years, I\u2019ve experimented a lot with that in my diet, just in the protocols of my eating. And what I\u2019ve found over the past five years in particular is that I\u2019m most comfortable, because I\u2019m naturally genetically really lean. I\u2019m most comfortable when I\u2019m sub-10 body fat.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, me too. I\u2019m kidding.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>But it\u2019s just because of my genetics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019ve been trying to get there since I was 14.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Well, if the genetics don\u2019t want it, then they\u2019re going to go against it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019ve got to battle dwarf genetics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, man, if I had your frame, I mean, I would love that. I would be able to lift heavy. But the way to do that for me is to stay at 200 grams of protein a day. So to keep moderate calories in 200 grams of protein a day, and then I can keep my body fat where I want it, where I feel really good, and I\u2019m never hungry. And that\u2019s the way to do it, is a really protein-rich diet. And of course, now popular culture is catching up with what we\u2019ve known scientifically for a pretty long time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So you get your colossus of caffeine that can follow the holy half hour, just to keep up with the narration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And not everybody has to drink 380 milligrams of caffeine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You have your 60 to 70 grams of protein as described, and then you are sitting down to write. What are you doing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, then I can sit down and write. If I\u2019m at home, then I sit down to write. And there\u2019s no distractions. I mean, there\u2019s no meetings, there\u2019s no Zoom. I mean, if the President of the United States or the Pope calls, there\u2019ll be a morning meeting, but that\u2019s kind of it. And I\u2019ve got a very quiet place. I\u2019m not looking at email. I\u2019m not answering text messages. I\u2019m not reading the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>. And to do this, when I set myself up this way, I get four hours of productivity, and that\u2019s very unusual. If you\u2019re doing things the old-fashioned way, you\u2019re getting up when the sun is warm and you\u2019re having the nice big, three espressos to try to wake up, and you\u2019re not optimizing your brain chemistry appropriately, you\u2019ll get two hours of creativity, max.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Max.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And that\u2019s why Hemingway used to write for two hours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I was just going to bring up Hemingway, also because he would leave things unfinished. He would basically end mid-paragraph so that he had momentum in starting the following day. And I suppose my question is, in a world of ubiquitous interruption and notification, where you have iMessage on your computer, you have ChatGPT, you have research that you might do concurrently with your writing, there are different ways to approach writing, how do you set yourself up, say, the day before, such that you can sit down without interruption, or self-interruption, for four hours and write?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>To begin with, you need to know what you\u2019re going to do the next day, the day before. You need to make a list of the things you\u2019re going to do, in priority order. And the priority order is not what you like the most, but what actually requires the most concentration and creativity. So the thing that you need to hit immediately, which will be the last 10 percent of that page you were writing. That\u2019s a really good protocol to procrastinate that last 10 percent, because your most creative, most productive, your best quality stuff is first. And so, you want to leave It lasts to be the first the next day. And that way you\u2019ve got consistent creativity. If I\u2019m writing a column, for example, and I\u2019m on deadline every single week for a column, and it\u2019s 1,200 words a week of science about human happiness \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sounds stressful. Sounds like a way to make yourself unhappy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, no, I\u2019m hunted. But doing that, if I sit down and write it, the kicker is always going to be worse than the lead. And so, the kicker is always the first thing in the morning, some day. So the kicker is as good as the lead, or better, because I\u2019m leaving it so that my brain chemistry is optimized to the product that I\u2019m trying to create.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That was a very good protocol from Hemingway. His problem was, he was a drunk. And when you\u2019re a drunk, what you\u2019re doing is you\u2019re borrowing tomorrow\u2019s dopamine tonight.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, you\u2019re borrowing, as a friend of mine put it also, you\u2019re borrowing happiness from tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. And the reason is because your dopamine is going to be below the baseline and you\u2019re going to have anhedonia in the morning. Anhedonia is the characteristic of clinical depression, which is a deficit of dopamine, meaning an inability to feel pleasure, and is below the baseline when you\u2019re hungover, below the baseline when you\u2019ve popped it really hard and you\u2019re getting the trough the next day. So if you drink at night, and if you want to be productive the next morning, this morning starts last night, and it starts by going to bed at a reasonable time sober, which we\u2019ll probably get to at the end of this conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So that\u2019s why he had two hours of productivity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I\u2019m going to bed sober.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, also because if you need any \u2014 and this is my kind of repeated realization that should be top of mind all the time, which is if you wear an Oura Ring, a Whoop band, the one conclusion that you will come to over and over again is if you drink before bed, even a few hours before bed, your sleep is garbage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Your sleep architecture is so messy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s just \u2014 and for me now, for whatever reason at this age, I\u2019m 48, even one \u2014 I had one martini with my brother. I don\u2019t see him that much. We went out to a nice speakeasy, I had a drink, and just shattered my sleep. It was shocking to me. Kind of embarrassing, honestly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>The older you get, the older you get. And the truth is that young people are figuring out what people my age didn\u2019t when I was \u2014 I mean, I drank very heavily in my 20s and 30s. It\u2019s what we did. I was a musician. It\u2019s what we did. We knew it wasn\u2019t good for us, but the truth of the matter is that all euphorics, if it\u2019s euphoric, if it gets you buzzed, it\u2019s neurotoxic. And you have to be careful applying neurotoxic substances to yourself, because you\u2019re going to pay a price for that.<\/p>\n<p>Now, there\u2019s a cost\/benefit analysis to anything. I don\u2019t drive the safest car. I don\u2019t drive a car that if it crashes, I will be completely safe no matter what. I drive something I like. I\u2019m making a cost\/benefit analysis. But the truth is that many people are not \u2014 they think it\u2019s costless to get buzzed. It\u2019s not. It just isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So, your routine, I\u2019ll just pause us there, is very, very similar to mine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Tell me more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, right now I\u2019m day three of segueing into ketosis. We\u2019re always producing ketones, but I\u2019m probably, just because I\u2019ve done this a lot, I\u2019m probably at right now 1.2 millimolars in terms of blood concentration of beta-hydroxybutyrate after \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You like ketosis? You like how it feels?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I love how it feels in terms of mental acuity. I also, because I have neurodegenerative diseases in my family, and metabolic dysfunction, see doing, let\u2019s just call it four to six weeks of nutritional ketosis once, or twice a year to appear to be very cheap insurance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Oh, what\u2019s your APOE profile?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>APOE3-4.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You\u2019re 3-4?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, 3-4.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And there are other risk factors. I also have relatives who are 3-3, but nonetheless developed early Alzheimer\u2019s. So, I\u2019m like, \u201cYeah, you know what? I like how I feel. I need less sleep when I\u2019m in ketosis.\u201d I naturally wake up very, very alert, which is unusual for me. So I wanted to mention that first just to set the stage in a way. So I, for decades, did minimum 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. I still think that is a great option. For me now, for a host of reasons that I could get into, but I\u2019ll keep it simple. I almost always do intermittent fasting where I am fasting until 2:00, or 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. But when I wake up, like this morning, I woke up at 7:30, and I was preparing for this conversation. So, I wanted to block out a few hours to do that.<\/p>\n<p>But woke up, had, now this is mildly stimulating, but I wanted to have a little bit because I\u2019m also jet lagged, and arrived at around midnight last night. Had some cacao with a little bit of cacao butter mixed in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Nice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Just enough under three grams of net carbs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Because you\u2019re keeping your net carbs to 30 a day probably, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m keeping my net grams to, for me personally, right now under 10 grams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Under 10. That\u2019ll get you into ketosis fast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Under 10, yeah. Especially if I am already adapted to intermittent fasting so that I\u2019m doing 16 to 18 hours of fasting with a short six to eight hour window of eating. Once you get to 16 to 18 hours, especially if you\u2019re doing some exercise, let\u2019s just say in the morning, or any other point, you\u2019re depleting your liver glycogen, and you\u2019re going to get into the habit. Your metabolic machinery will develop the habit, and the capability of producing ketones even when you are eating carbohydrates in that limited window of eating. So \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And you don\u2019t take exogenous ketones?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I will occasionally on a day like today, because I know that I\u2019m on effectively, let\u2019s call it day two, and a half of segueing into ketosis. I think my natural production is roughly where I mentioned. My natural production right now is probably around 0.9. I took, let me just back up. So, I wake up at 7:30, I have the cacao plus some cacao butter. Then I sit in a \u2014 I have a hot tub. This is like one of my indulgences. It\u2019s not actually that expensive, but I sit in a hot tub, and I meditated for 10 minutes with an app, The Way app. Henry Shukman is my spirit animal. Amazing. Mindfulness\/Zen-focused practice. Did that 10 minutes, that\u2019s it. Got out. It is pretty chilly right now in Austin. Gets down to, I think last night it was 37 low, got into my pool for a few minutes, and got out, cold shower, came back in, and then sat down, and this was my kind of deep work prep. No interruptions. Then \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>There\u2019s non-trivial similarity to what I\u2019m trying to do neurocognitively.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly. And then on the way here, about 15 minutes prior to arriving, knowing my start time, there were a few other bells and whistles that I threw in nutritionally in terms of supplements, and so on earlier in the morning, but had one nitro code cold brew from Starbucks, and about 15 milliliters of exogenous ketones. In this case, it\u2019s BHB bonded to one three butane dial, which I do have some reservations about. Long-term chronic use I think could be liver toxic, but I\u2019m doing it very intermittently. And so for the, let\u2019s just call it four days of segue into nutritional ketosis, I will use exogenous ketones sometimes as a boost, and that\u2019s it. So that was the moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And it\u2019s working great for you. And here\u2019s the big takeaway, I think. You got to that through experimentation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You didn\u2019t get that by getting it off the internet. You learned a lot about these different variety of protocols, and you tailored it, and tried it, and over a number of years came upon what worked best for you. And that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019ve done, too. And everybody watching needs to treat their life like a lab. Experimentation is king. And so information, experimentation is the precursor to good experimentation is information, is scientific information. And then it\u2019s getting experience through the experimentation, and figuring out what your own protocol actually is because as they say in the ads, your results may differ.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, right. Exactly. And so for me, if I\u2019m weight training, I will typically weight train late afternoon. That\u2019s just always been my preference. But if we had not had this podcast today, I would have done Zone 2 training.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>In the morning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right, exactly. So, after the meditation \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Before you eat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Before I use \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You like fasted cardio?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>After the meditation, I do like fasted cardio.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I do, too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Especially when I\u2019m trying to get into ketosis, or intermittent fasting, because it\u2019ll help me deplete the glycogen, stored glycogen at a faster rate. If it is too high, just for people who may be interested in intermittent fasting, or ketosis, if the exertion level is too high, or if it is resistance training, sometimes it will spike glucose in such a way that makes it a little counterproductive if you\u2019re trying to get into ketosis. So, the zones \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Because your stress hormones are \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you\u2019re already going to have increased cortisol in the morning. You need that to wake up. And also with caffeine, oftentimes you\u2019ll see a pretty noticeable spike in glucose. So I try not to compound it by doing the weight training in the morning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>At this point in the cycle of getting into ketosis, do you have headaches?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I had a mild headache yesterday. I will say that the biggest cheat for me in terms of getting into ketosis quickly, and relatively painlessly is training my body to intermittent fast, intermittently fast. And I have been in ketosis dozens of times in my life, and I\u2019ve done extended periods, six months in ketosis, and so on, particularly when I was actually training for sports, which seems counterintuitive, but I was doing something called the cyclical ketogenic diet, which is really interesting. When I was training for the National Chinese Kickboxing Championships in \u201999, that was an amazing system for cutting weight, getting lean, but also maintaining, or adding some muscle mass. In any case, people can look it up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You\u2019re just confusing your system in a cycle, right? You\u2019re staying out of equilibrium in a way, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019re definitely doing that. What you\u2019re doing with the CKD, people can look it up. There are many people who\u2019ve pioneered this. Mauro Di Pasquale with the anabolic diet. There are different names for it. Dan Duchaine way back in the day also talked about this, but you are providing a short window once a week where you are, in my case, doing a glycogen depletion weight training workout, and then you are spiking the hell out of your carbohydrate intake for, let\u2019s call it 15 hours, something like that. And you are really piling in carbohydrate, and you are leveraging insulin as a storage hormone, and anabolic signaling sort of pathway to ensure that you can pack on some muscle while you are in, on average, ketotic state, which is very, very hard to do otherwise. So, that was, I don\u2019t do that anymore because it\u2019s just too much brain damage, frankly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Well, that\u2019s a lot to think about. That becomes a full-time job. The protocol becomes the full-time job.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, which is not the point. In my case, I\u2019m sure, in your case, it\u2019s like the protocol is in service of life. Life is not in service of the protocol.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>The protocol is supposed to work for you. You\u2019re not supposed to work for your protocol.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I mean, we\u2019re not going to belabor this point, but in a world, and people, there\u2019s a great Chuck Palahniuk quote that I don\u2019t want to get wrong. People can look it up, but basically says, \u201cBig Brother isn\u2019t watching you. He\u2019s entertaining you. Entertaining you to death,\u201d and just talking about the sort of modern digital ecosystem, and the role of technology, et cetera. But suffice to say, if you can single task for four hours from a competitive advantage perspective, like you\u2019re \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Not using pharmaceutical grade psychostimulants?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019re in an elite group.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You\u2019re an absolute elite group, and you absolutely can do it with proper health, and exercise disciplines.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And also, I\u2019ll just say to your point, managing the physiology, had a great conversation with Dave Baszucki recently, who\u2019s the co-founder, and CEO of Roblox, and he, and his wife are the largest, well, their foundation is the largest funder of metabolic psychiatry research, including ketogenic therapy, which includes Chris Palmer at Harvard, and \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That stuff\u2019s super interesting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Ketosis for me, it is like taking modafinil, and all of the kind of short-term powerful but long-term penalty drugs that I\u2019ve tested over time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Have you ever taken a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, an SSRI?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I have never taken one for antidepression. I have taken what is similar. It\u2019s not exactly an SSRI, but I have used Trazodone for sleep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Oh, Trazodone is a monocyclic, right? It\u2019s a really early, early generation antidepressant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It is effectively a failed antidepressant because it put people to sleep that was repurposed as a sleep drug is my understanding.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Like Unisom was supposed to make you not sneeze, and doxylamine succinate actually was supposed to make you, was an antihistamine that was repurposed as a sleeping pill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, there you go. So, that is it. But why do you ask about SSRI?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>The reason I ask that is because a lot of people will say that they find that a proper keto diet is better than an SSRI too, for the serotonin effects.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, yeah. I mean, if you look at, people should look up Chris Palmer. I had a conversation with him as well, but for mood stabilization, mood elevation, but not in a peak, and trough type of way, I have found nothing better than the ketogenic diet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s interesting. So, for mood management, this is fundamental for you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It is. It is without exception the number one with no close second.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So poets, take note.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, poets take note. And maybe you should just \u2014 we have to revisit this. People are like, \u201cWhat is this math scientist poet stuff?\u201d You want to just explain what we\u2019re talking about?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So there are four affect profiles, and affect profiles mean the intensity of your negative, and positive emotion. You\u2019re born with this. So, there are times in your life when you have more positive emotionality, or more intense negative emotionality, depending on circumstances, but this is your baseline state. You can be above average positive, and above average intensity, negative emotion. Those are the mad scientists. That\u2019s me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You have high highs, and low lows.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I\u2019m all about it\u2019s great, or it sucks. And it\u2019s impossible to be married to a mad scientist. My wife reminded me of that this morning. There\u2019s you can be above average positive, and below average intensity negative. These are cheerleaders. These are the happiest people. They have some weaknesses. They tend to be bad bosses because they won\u2019t accept bad news, and they can\u2019t give criticism. Like no bad vibes, man. There are some people who are low, low. They\u2019re just low affect people. These are the judges. They make really good surgeons. You don\u2019t want somebody to cut you open, and go, \u201cOh, my God!\u201d That\u2019s not what you want. You want somebody who\u2019s going to be like, \u201cEh, I can take that out.\u201d Or nuclear power reactor operators, or something who are really calm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Low low means low positive, low negative.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Low positive, low negative.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Got it. Their side wave is flatter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>They\u2019re steady, man. I mean, they\u2019re not freaking out about anything. And then there are those who are low intensity, positive emotion, but high intensity, negative emotion. And these are the poets. And the poets are the most interesting. And the reason is because they tend to be the most creative, and most romantic. And part of that is because there\u2019s this research, all neuroscience research is contested. I should preface this, but there\u2019s a part of the limbic system called the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex that is involved in your rumination when you\u2019re depressed. Ruminative depression, ruminative sad depression is a heavy activity of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. You also use it when you\u2019re ruminating on a business plan, or writing a symphony, and when you\u2019re ruminating on another person, because you\u2019re falling in love, and that\u2019s why poets tend to be depressive, creative, and romantic. Tim Ferriss, my friends, this is Tim Ferriss.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s me in a nutshell.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. And so the whole point is that you need, no matter who you are, you need to appropriately manage your mood. The essence of self-management is mood management starts with knowledge about who you are. And people can go to my website, and take a test, and figure out who they are, which profile you are. And then you got to figure out what you need to do in mood management. Do you need to elevate positive emotion, or do you need to manage? You don\u2019t need to eliminate negative emotion. You don\u2019t want to do that. You\u2019ll be dead in a week. Negative emotion is really important for protection, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, but you want to manage it so it\u2019s not dysregulating. So, it\u2019s not exaggerated. And there are lots of techniques for doing it, but you got to know what your bigger challenge is by knowing yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Then you can proceed to some of these protocols that we\u2019re talking about here for appropriate mood management based on your challenges is how it works. For you, it\u2019s managing positive up, and managing negative down. And ketosis is really, really good for both.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I would say for folks who may fit the poet profile, or who are curious about my personal experience that repeatedly, I mean, I\u2019ve done this now dozens of times. It is very consistent. It completely removes the lowest 50 percent of my negative, and bumps my positive baseline up 20 percent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>This is really interesting, because this might be the poet\u2019s protocol. Ketosis might be the poet\u2019s protocol. For me, it\u2019s what I eat, how I self-administer caffeine, and it\u2019s actually how I do my exercise. When I\u2019m super fasted, first thing in the morning is incredibly efficacious for managing down my negative affect without accidentally managing down my positive affect.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I want to point out another thing about your protocol, which is by having caffeine later, this is my experience, because I love caffeine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I love stimulants.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I have to be very careful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>If I start later, guess what? What an incredible sleight of hand trick. I consume less. Why? Because I started later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Right. And no crash.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. And so I will start later, and your total caffeine will be less. Why is this relevant? Because the half life of caffeine is very long. And if you have too much caffeine early in the day, even if you stop by noon, it will still impact your sleep, sleep architecture, and so on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. And the older you get, so the half life, the metabolism of caffeine, it changes over the course of your life, and the half life extends. One of the things that I find for friends of mine who are like me in their 60s, and they\u2019ll be like, \u201cI\u2019m sleeping. I sleep like crap because I\u2019m old.\u201d It\u2019s like, probably because you have an espresso after lunch. And when you were 30, you could metabolize the caffeine effectively. The half life was probably eight hours, and now it\u2019s probably 14 hours. And it\u2019s still in your system bothering you when you\u2019re trying to go to sleep at night. Take out that after lunch espresso, move your caffeine, stop drinking caffeine after 8:00, or 9:00 in the morning. It\u2019s like magic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, it is incredible. I\u2019ve actually, I reserve coffee, caffeine like a nitro cold brew for days like today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And then otherwise I\u2019m using yerba mate, or cacao, or pure tea, or some combination thereof.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You like yerba mate? You like what it makes you feel?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s very smooth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s a smooth buzz, as we used to say in high school.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It really is the smoothest of the smooth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s just also the most inconvenient. I like to drink it the Argentine way with the sipping \u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>The wood cup, and the metal straw that gets really hot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly. Yeah. Which is probably a great way to give yourself throat cancer, side note, or mouth cancer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>We\u2019ll find out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But, yeah, we\u2019ll find out. Track the Argies, people are looking at that very closely. All right. We probably should talk about the meaning of life, small topic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s just a little thing. It\u2019s what I\u2019ve been thinking about for five years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I want to know why, after your many books, author of 15 books, right? You have <em>Build the Life You Want<\/em>, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, <em>From Strength to Strength<\/em>, which was my first introduction to your books, which is an exceptional book, <em>Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life<\/em>. And now <em>The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness<\/em>. Why write this book?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So, when I came back to academia, I was gone for a long time. I\u2019m sort of a lifelong \u2014 I\u2019m a third generation academic, actually. My dad was a professor. His father was a professor. This is the vortex of life. I tried to escape it by being in music all the way through my 20s, but it sucked me in. And so this was my natural habitat, but I left for almost 11 years, because I was the CEO of a big think tank in Washington DC called the American Enterprise Institute. And when I was gone, I wasn\u2019t paying attention to academia. I left at the end of 2008. I came back in 2019. My memory of my academic experience, going back intergenerationally, is the happiest place in the world. Everybody has the best time in college. They make all their friends. They get a bunch of adventures.<\/p>\n<p>They get exposed to weird new ways of thinking. People loved college. And most people say I was happier in college than when I left college. I come back in 2019, and it\u2019s like the plague had gone through my village. It was completely different. And in point of fact, clinical depression among adults under 30, especially highly educated adults under 30, college graduates, especially the elite colleges, had tripled. Clinical depression up by 3X anxiety, generalized anxiety, 2X. And it\u2019s not because of a lack of therapy. On the contrary, the number of therapists has gone up by about 4X. And so something\u2019s not working. This is what we call in my business as a psychogenic epidemic, which is a simple idea with fancy words because that\u2019s how we get tenured.<\/p>\n<p>And what it means is there\u2019s something that\u2019s contagious, and creates suffering, and has no biological origin, no known biological origin. That\u2019s a psychogenic epidemic. So, eating disorders, and cutting, and many things, they\u2019ll spread around, create tons of misery, but they\u2019re not biological in origin. And so those are harder nuts to crack. The depression anxiety epidemics that we see today are psychogenic. And so we need to understand what\u2019s behind them. So, when I see the data, and I set about my research agenda saying, \u201cOkay, what\u2019s going on?\u201d And that\u2019s a kind of a Sherlock Holmes, kind of a forensic behavioral science experiment. And that\u2019s kind of how I do my work. That\u2019s the most interesting things to do is to figure out this mystery using the tools, or my stock, and trade. I suffered through to get my PhD, applying them a little bit. And one of the things that I do is I just start talking to people, and doing a content analysis of what they tell me, and see the words that start to pop up.<\/p>\n<p>Those are the clues, because the words will start popping up. And when you do that, the word that kept popping up again, and again, and again was, \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m meant to do. My life feels meaningless.\u201d And sure enough, when you do the survey work, and ask people if their life feels meaningless, that\u2019s the predictor of depression, and anxiety. And so we have lots, and lots of data out there. I mean, lots of pop arguments about why so many young people are depressed today. And people my age are like, because they\u2019re entitled babies, and they\u2019re not tough enough. And people who are my kids\u2019 age who are in their 20s, they\u2019ll say it\u2019s because boomers wrecked everything, and made houses too expensive, and spoiled the environment, or something. But people have been saying that stuff forever. There\u2019s nothing new about that. These psychological effects that we\u2019re seeing are new.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re really, really a new thing. So, that\u2019s not it. Or there\u2019s a lot of people, and you\u2019ve talked a lot on your show about technology, and a lot of people say that technology is screwing us up, and technology really has a big role in what I found, but the problem is not the technology per se, but what we\u2019re not getting because of the technology, is what we\u2019re actually missing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. It\u2019s what it\u2019s displacing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>What is it actually that we want that we\u2019re not getting? When you have somebody who is deeply malnourished, you don\u2019t talk about what\u2019s actually creating the malnutrition. You might, that\u2019s important, but what they\u2019re not getting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. It\u2019s like, okay, you\u2019re eating all carbohydrates.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, it\u2019s like \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s not that carbohydrates are inherently bad, but the dose makes the poison. And by virtue of only eating carbohydrates, you\u2019re not getting any amino acids that you eat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>But the problem is the protein you\u2019re not getting for Pete\u2019s sake is what it comes down to. So, I wanted to find the protein that was underneath this whole thing. And the content analysis of these interviews is like, what I\u2019m meant to do, life feels meaningless. I don\u2019t know the meaning of life. I\u2019m like, \u201cThat\u2019s too big.\u201d That\u2019s too big. That\u2019s like a big philosophical thing, but I couldn\u2019t avoid it, is what it came down to. So, over the past five years, I\u2019ve been writing a book about, okay, what is the meaning of life? Where do you find it, and how do you have to live differently so that you can actually find it in modern life? And that\u2019s what this book is. And the most interesting part of this was people say, where do you find the meaning of life? Church, the beach, Italy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Italy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And it turns out that we \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s Trenton, New Jersey. No offense to Trenton. I\u2019ve spent a lot of time there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Seattle, my hometown. We know where you go to find it, and then you have to do certain things. I\u2019m a very protocols guy. And so what this book is, the six protocols for once you know where the meaning of your life is, what you have to do to go there, and get it is what it comes about. So, the beginning of the book is, okay, what\u2019s the meaning of meaning? Because it\u2019s too big.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. It is big. It\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s too big. The second is where do you find it? And the third thing is how do you have to live differently? That\u2019s what this book is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, let\u2019s start with definitions. That\u2019s how I like to roll.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, I know. And that\u2019s the most important thing that scientists almost never do. Throw out a term, and then not define it. So the meaning of life has been discussed forever, but the best philosophical, and psychological definitions, they disassemble it into its component parts. So, the way that you, and I have talked about happiness in the past is that happiness is a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. So, meaning is a macronutrient of happiness. And when that\u2019s missing, that\u2019s why you have a happiness problem. So, that\u2019s the beginning of this whole thing. Meaning in turn has macronutrients, has component parts to it as well. Psychologists will refer to them as coherence, purpose, and significance. Coherence is why things happen the way they do. You have to have a theory of why things happen the way they do, or you won\u2019t know the meaning of your life. Now for some \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Meaning how life, or why life unfolds for you \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Things are happening all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 the way it unfolds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, things are happening. It\u2019s like why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So, is that picking \u2014 I don\u2019t want to dislocate the sharing of the three.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, no, it\u2019s important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But just to, maybe we\u2019ll come back to it. Is that coming up with, or adopting a story that is enabling?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. It\u2019s adopting a story that actually explains things so that life is not inherently random.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. But it doesn\u2019t need to be objectively accurate when explaining.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, no. It\u2019s just a \u2014 it\u2019s your way of seeing things. It\u2019s your understanding of the world. It\u2019s putting things in context, and so things kind of make sense. Otherwise, it\u2019s this random walk through life, which is sort of a definition of meaninglessness. For some people, the model, which is an imperfect model at best, but it\u2019s a model nonetheless, it\u2019s a physics that explains that is religion. For some people, it\u2019s pure on science. For some people, it\u2019s conspiracy theories, why things happen the way they do. But those are different sort of models that explain this. Now, you can also have a hybrid model, which I do. Religion, and science, and all this kind of good stuff, but you got to do the work to figure out the physics of that, why things happen the way they do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So, coherence \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s coherent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 is figuring out why do things happen in my life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Why do things happen the way they do? Why are things happening all the time? The second is purpose. And people often think purpose, and meaning are the same thing. They\u2019re not. Purpose is a subcomponent of meaning, and it is, why am I doing what I\u2019m doing? Why am I doing all these weird things every single day? And that has to do with goals, and direction. If you don\u2019t have goals, and direction in your life, everybody has said this. I mean, there\u2019s like Napoleon Hill said this, and Dale Carnegie said this. You\u2019ve got to have an endpoint. In Spanish, there\u2019s a great word called el rumbo. Rumbo means \u2014 in English, it doesn\u2019t have a lot of significance.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a navigational term that means rhumb line, which is where you\u2019re going. It\u2019s the Euclidian path from where you are to where you\u2019re going. And you have to have a rhumb line if you\u2019re going to make any progress, you\u2019re going to have any goals in any direction, it\u2019s what you need to have. It doesn\u2019t mean that you have to be linearly making progress, but you have to have an idea of what that line might be. That\u2019s el rumbo.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Even if the endpoint changes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Exactly. And so that\u2019s why you need an intention, and that\u2019s what purpose is all about. Why am I doing what I\u2019m doing? It\u2019s the second why question. The why part is really important, as we\u2019ll see in a second. The third is significance, which is why does my life matter? Why does my life matter? And if the answer is it doesn\u2019t, that\u2019s a problem, or I don\u2019t know, that\u2019s not good enough. People need to have a concept of why your life matters. And the great ways of answering that question are having kids, and being married, and believing that God loves you, and all kinds of ways to have that significance question answered. So, in my work in the book, there\u2019s a test on where you are in the journey to answering those questions, how close you are, how much you\u2019re looking. And so that\u2019s presence, and search. If you\u2019re looking, looking, looking, you\u2019re a searcher, you\u2019re a total seeker. So, your search score is going to be through the roof. Now where you are \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>My finding score may not be as high.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Well, the presence, that\u2019s presence, right? And what happens over the course of life is that people who search more, their presence score tends to go up, but it might not be that high. So, my presence score is very moderate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Could you explain this just one more time for me?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Could you just start that over?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. So there\u2019s two ways to kind of measure where you are in this journey of finding meaning, of searching, and finding for meaning. The two ways to do it are what\u2019s called search, and presence. Search is how intensively you\u2019re looking to answer these why questions. Why do things happen the way they do? Why am I doing what I\u2019m doing, and why does my life matter? And that\u2019s search. And some people are intent seekers like you, Tim, you\u2019re an intense seeker. This show is an exercise in search, right? And part of it is because this is not just a new hack for getting better biceps. This is a new way of trying to understand why we\u2019re alive. That\u2019s what the show is, kind of the theme of the show. It\u2019s why I listen to the show. This is why I learned things, because I\u2019m a seeker too. But then how successful you are is your presence score. Search, and presence. Presence is, ah, I have answers that are satisfactory to me. As you get older, if you seek, your presence scores should go up. And mine certainly has.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So, is a presence just to \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>The presence of meaning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 make sure I\u2019m understanding. One is seeking an answer. And then presence is accepting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Is having something that\u2019s satisfactory.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. Got it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Is having satisfactory. Now there\u2019s some people who have sky high present scores, and really low search scores. Those are people who like those fortunate individuals who are born going, \u201cYep, I know. I know. I don\u2019t need to learn. I don\u2019t need to \u2014 I\u2019m not going to leave my hometown. Why am I going to leave my hometown? It\u2019s awesome here. What do we need to do? I\u2019m going to marry my high school sweetheart. I\u2019m going to work in my daddy\u2019s business, and I\u2019m going to go to the church I grew up in.\u201d And they\u2019re very, very stable. We think of these as conservative individuals. Dispositional conservatives, they tend to have low search, and high presence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. And to be clear, this is not \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>This is not political.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 political.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It might be, but that\u2019s not really the point. I\u2019m talking about dispositional conservatism is conserving good things that preceded you. And why are they good things? Because they give you a meaning of life is kind of what it comes down to. On the other hand, you might be somebody who\u2019s a seeker, seeker, seeker, seeker, seeker. And you don\u2019t find it very much. And I\u2019m very moderate in presence. It\u2019s higher than it used to be. My presence of meaning was in the cellar when I was in my 20s for sure. And in my 60s is much, much higher for sure.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s still not \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What do you attribute the improvement to?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>As being alive, and actually searching a lot, and looking at data, and optimizing, and trying to live a life on purpose, is self-managing. I mean, I\u2019m a behavioral scientist because I want answers, and I want answers for me. And so if I basically \u2014 I\u2019m looking for the biggest questions to answer, to at least address the biggest questions of my life, that\u2019s why I do what I do for a living. I mean, my life is an experiment, and a pure on revolving adventure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So, I\u2019m curious if I can just interject for a second about the present piece specifically, because I think many people listening to the show will self-identify as seekers, but there are traps along the way as you identify as a seeker.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And I talk about these in the book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I\u2019ll just tell one quick anecdote, and then I\u2019d love to hear how you have improved, or whether it\u2019s just been maybe not a passive, but something that has unfolded for you, the presence piece specifically. I remember talking to a very, very experienced psychedelic therapy facilitator who\u2019s been doing it for many decades, thousands, and thousands of different people in sessions. And they told me a story, which they said is common, and becoming more common, that people will come in, and after their session, they\u2019ll say, \u201cYeah, I was experiencing so much joy, this beautiful light, this love in this session, but I kept wondering when I was going to do the real work, like when I was going to do the hard work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And the way the facilitator explained it was in a sense, more and more so she\u2019s running into people who are in pursuit of this durable contentment, satisfaction, joy. But when they experience it in these sessions, they\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll get this out of the way so I can do the hard work to reach the joy.\u201d But they\u2019re just pushing aside all the joy as they continue their endless seeking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>They\u2019re just not going to take yes for an answer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. So I\u2019m wondering how you learn to take yes as an answer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. So it\u2019s not easy because when you\u2019re a chronic seeker, there\u2019s always something more. There\u2019s always something new. And you can\u2019t be there yet. And so the answer to this actually comes, I have two of my kids are Marines. And so I have one enlisted Marine. I have one officer in the Marine Corps. And my daughter\u2019s a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. And right now she\u2019s at Quantico and she\u2019s going through the basic school, getting ready to do her MOS. She wants to be a signals intelligence officer. My son was enlisted, he was a scout sniper. He was in a scout sniper platoon out of Camp Pendleton. And that\u2019s a super interesting and dangerous job. And as a non-commissioned officer, he led a lot of guys. What they train Marines to do in leadership is to get to 80 percent knowledge and then choose and stop looking. Now that\u2019s really, really important because you\u2019re going to be paralyzed if you\u2019re trying to get to 100 percent knowledge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019re never going to have complete information.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Which is what the pure seeker mentality does. If you want to seek and get higher presence, you need to go to 80 percent. Now, how do you get to 80 percent? You get to 80 percent by saying, \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure this is right. And this is right enough that I\u2019m going to turn my attention to another dimension on this.\u201d And that means, friends, if you\u2019re in love, you should get married. That\u2019s what that means.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That means if you\u2019re in love and you know each other and you think that within three to five years, you really could be best friends. And you have a certain stability of values. Stop looking. Get married. Why? Because the longer you don\u2019t get married, the longer you\u2019re in search for your soulmate, the more you\u2019re putting off the best thing in your life. You\u2019re postponing the best thing in your life. Marriage is the best thing in life for most people. I mean, a bad marriage is the worst thing in life. But for most people, this is for men and women, all this fiction about the fact that marriage is good for men, but bad for women, it\u2019s all nonsense. Brad Wilcox\u2019s research at Virginia is completely clear on this. It\u2019s better for everybody. Being in love and living with the person with whom you\u2019re in love for the rest of your life is great. But you\u2019re not going to get that if you\u2019re trying to get to 99 percent awareness, if you\u2019re going to search all the way to the point, because you\u2019ll never get that.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re going to have an argument, you\u2019re going to have a disagreement, you\u2019re going to have doubts, you\u2019re going to digest something in a weird way and think maybe I\u2019m not in love. And the same thing is true with your faith. What am I going to practice? Get to 80 percent awareness and choose, and then decide that that\u2019s what you\u2019re actually going to do. Use the marine rule of leadership and then the search can actually lead to presence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. This is all interesting terrain, which is why I was looking forward to this conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s a lot. And of course, as I said before we started recording, I was like, \u201cWe are not going to suffer from a lack of topics to talk about.\u201d I want to come back to the coherence, purpose, significance, macronutrients of meaning for a moment. Just in quick review, coherence, why do things happen in my life? Having a story for that that you commit to in a sense. Why am I doing what I\u2019m doing? That\u2019s purpose. And then why does my life matter? Significance. Looking at my peer group, my friends, a lot of people in my audience, it seems like number three, why does my life matter, is where people struggle the most, a lot of them. In part, we can talk about the dozens of factors at play I\u2019m sure, but for some people, and I have some thoughts on this, but for some younger people, it\u2019s I don\u2019t know what to do because AI is going to take all the jobs and I don\u2019t know, therefore, how my contributions will matter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I will become less significant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I will become less significant. The climate is irretrievably fucked, which I don\u2019t actually believe is the case, but a lot of damage \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>They have certainly heard that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 a lot of damage has been done.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>They\u2019ve been taught that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Nuclear armageddon, that is actually on the list of existential threats, one of the scary ones, in my opinion. Therefore, I don\u2019t know how to conclude that my life matters. How did you personally arrive at an answer to this question or how do you suggest people explore unpacking that? I have some thoughts. I\u2019ll just, rather than burying the lead, I\u2019ll just throw it out there, which is take the time to not just study people who do huge things in short periods of time, but also study people who commit to things that take longer than their lifetimes, like scientists, like people \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Clergy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Clergy. By simply extending the time horizon, the spectrum of options opens up quite a bit, but I would love to hear you explain it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s a very good point. That\u2019s a very good point. But there\u2019s a compatible point with that, which is stop looking for your significance at the macro level, start looking at the micro level, which is your love relationships around you. This is where people feel significance. People feel significance by having children. People feel significance by getting married.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Or adopting children.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Or adopting children as I did. And I did both. We did it by markets and by biology. And people feel significance by working through their religious tendencies to try to understand their relationship with the divine. This is how most people find significance. You don\u2019t find significance by getting a million Instagram followers. You will never find significance by doing that, but that\u2019s indeed what we\u2019re encouraged to do. You won\u2019t find significance by an adequate kind of stable significance by being the world\u2019s greatest angry activist. And that\u2019s the cult that\u2019s actually going on on college campuses all the time, the cult of activism, which is kind of a substitute religion. Significance comes from love. Love is the essence of significance and it\u2019s whom I love and who loves me. That\u2019s what it comes down to. And if the answer is my spouse, my children, my parents, my friends, my creator, those are the big answers that people actually get, but you got to do the work. You got to make the commitments and do the work. And a lot of people today, one of the things that I actually find in this book is that a lot of young people today don\u2019t have those micro commitments and they\u2019re trying to establish macro significance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Macro.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Which is a big problem. You\u2019re chasing your tail. It\u2019s unstable and it\u2019s probably not even real in a lot of cases.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You mentioned something in passing that I think is really important, at least I\u2019ve come to believe it\u2019s helpful to at least try to unpack each person for themselves. Substitute for religion. So you mentioned this cult of the angry activist. And activism has its place for sure. There are certain things that you can \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Of course. I\u2019m glad we\u2019ve got civil rights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 harness anger for. But over the long term, it\u2019s not a clean fuel. So this substitute for religion, there\u2019s a place called El Arroyo here, which is famous for its signs that it puts out front. There are books that collect these now. I think it\u2019s called El Arroyo here in Austin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Arroyo means the brook, means the stream.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly. Exactly. Like [foreign language] for people who might have spent time in Mexico.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Nice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s a long one. Anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>By the way, Arroyo as a surname in English is Brooks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, yeah, there you go. Look at that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah. In German it\u2019s Bach.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>As a former musician, I say, \u201cCoincidence?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So the reason I bring up this joint in Austin is because they have these signs out front that are very funny that have been collected in books since. Like, \u201cWhat if soy milk is just milk introducing itself in Spanish?\u201d Very funny stuff. They put a lot of them up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Soy milk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And one of them is, \u201cIf someone is vegan and does CrossFit, which do they tell you about first?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Which I thought was pretty good. And this ties into, I believe it was something David Foster Wallace said, tragic character, brilliant on so many levels, but in effect, and people could track this down, I put in my newsletter at one point, but that we all worship something and task number one is figuring out what you worship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s his I think his graduation speech.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Where he talked about that, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. So if it\u2019s not religion, it\u2019s going to be something else. Is it money? Is it fame? We talked about this a bit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>We did the four idols last time we talked. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>We did. Right. Exactly. Pleasure, that\u2019s where I landed, for better and for worse. And I\u2019m wondering, it seems to me that religion, belief in the divine, might be another way to put it, is almost genetically programmed in humans. I mean, it is \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s an anthropological empirical regularity. So what we find is that anthropologists, including paleoanthropologists, find there\u2019s no civilization that they\u2019ve ever encountered that doesn\u2019t worship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>There are individuals who don\u2019t worship, but there are no cultures that don\u2019t have religious foundation to them. We\u2019re built for that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So if we\u2019re looking at taking a closer look at that, if people want to make the implicit explicit, the subconscious conscious, which I think is really important because folks are gravitating to these pseudo religions, whether it\u2019s CrossFit, veganism, ketogenic \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Harvard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 Bitcoin, you name it. Harvard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Famous university.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. Whatever it might be. So trying to put that on one\u2019s radar I think is helpful. But then the question is, okay, if this is hardwired, if this might actually be a constitutional psychological requirement, how do you satisfy that requirement if you are not going to adopt an organized religion?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. So I\u2019ve looked a lot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>This is a quest for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, I hear you. I completely hear you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>This is very present for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I feel a lot of people \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I feel like I made a lot of progress for myself, but I\u2019d love to hear you talk about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So this is a question of not of religion, but of transcendence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly. Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Transcendence is the phenomenon in which we move from the me self to the I self in the words of William James, the father of psychology. The I self is looking out and including looking up and standing in awe. The me self is looking in the mirror and thinking about yourself. What we need to actually find meaning, to find significance paradoxically is to look less at ourselves. Significance, the sense of significance comes from being \u2014 this is really paradoxical and yet everybody will understand it when I say it. To be significant, to feel significance, you need to be less significant, you need to make yourself less significant. Now, I had this experience where at my university, the most popular class arguably is astronomy one. And they\u2019re not astronomers. I mean, they\u2019re like English majors and business majors, et cetera. And they love the astronomy class. They flock to it. There\u2019s lines for the astronomy class. And so I finally ask a student like, \u201cWhy do you love that astronomy one class so much?\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cI don\u2019t know. But like I go into the morning, Thursday morning at nine o\u2019clock and it\u2019s a 90-minute class and I\u2019m bummed out because I just had an argument with my mom and I think I\u2019m breaking up with my boyfriend and I got a B on a test,\u201d which at Harvard is like the end of the world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019re excommunicated from the church of Harvard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>\u201cI go in at 9:00 and at 10:30 I come out and I say, \u201cI\u2019m a speck on a speck on a speck and I\u2019m at peace.\u201d That\u2019s transcendence. That\u2019s what it is, it\u2019s to stand in awe. Have you had Dacher Keltner on your show before?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>No.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>He\u2019s one of the great psychologists of our time. He teaches at Berkeley. And he has a book called <em>Awe<\/em>, A-W-E.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I thought I recognized the name because I was just reading that book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s a great book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I was just reading that book just a few months ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s transcendence, it\u2019s to stand in awe in the I self looking out in awe of the universe, things bigger than you. And there\u2019s two dimensions of transcendence. The first is to transcend upward and the other is to transcend outward. Which is why worship of the divine, spiritual and religious experiences do this and also service to others, that\u2019s why they both have this kind of transcendent metaphysical experience that people actually get. And that\u2019s why when you see moral beauty, somebody serving somebody else, it gives you that \u2014 Rhett Diessner, the psychologist, who, by the way, is Rainn Wilson\u2019s uncle. Yeah. The world\u2019s leading expert in moral elevation and the physiological impact of moral elevation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Rainn is very philosophical also.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>He\u2019s great. He\u2019s a great friend. We\u2019re great friends. We grew up five miles apart from each other in Seattle at the same age. We didn\u2019t know each other as kids.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Small, small world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>But we bonded over watching <em>Gilligan\u2019s Island<\/em> on Channel 11 when we were in fifth grade or something. And it\u2019s really important to keep in mind that there are ways to transcend. And there\u2019s some really well established ways to do it. I go to mass every day. It\u2019s a venerable way to experience transcendence. And there are other ways to experience transcendence. Now, I\u2019m not going to speak to the metaphysics of who\u2019s cosmically right. That\u2019s a completely different conversation. I don\u2019t know. But I do know when it comes to transcendence, because that\u2019s research that I\u2019ve done. And Lisa Miller has done that. She teaches at Columbia. She does neuroscience and social psychology at Columbia. She\u2019s the world\u2019s leading expert on how the brain requires transcendence, how you get experiences that are completely inaccessible unless you experience transcendence. Lots of ways to do it. Study the stoics and live according to their dictates. Walk the Brahma Muhurta, an hour in the morning without devices. Starting before dawn, practice Vipassana meditation. Listen to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and stand in awe of the greatest composer who ever lived. Or go to mass.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. I wanted to tee this up. I didn\u2019t know what your answer was going to be. But this is an area, it is one of a few areas that have been of greatest interest and focus for me for the last, well, one could argue since 2000 probably 12, but it might even predate that, particularly I would say in the last five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And for people who are interested in digging into this, and I suggest that almost everyone should be very deeply interested, you mentioned the book <em>Awe<\/em>. There\u2019s also some fantastic writing and articles out of Johns Hopkins related to awe. And if awe seems too abstract, I mean, you could think of it as wonder. You could think of it also as self-transcendence. And I\u2019m going to be shooting myself in the foot a little bit because I just wrote 10 pages on this that I need to refine before putting it on my blog. But people think of Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs as a pyramid. And at the top you have self-actualization. In fact, the pyramid and that strict hierarchy were created by consultants and other people who commercialized the writings of Maslow who later revised that to have self-transcendence \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>At the top.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 at the top.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>At the top. But he talked about it much later in his career too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Much later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Because he got more religious as he got older. People get more religious as they get older. They believe less in Santa Claus and more in God as they get older.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>They believe more in death too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah. And life is messy and they come to terms with that. And Scott Barry Kaufman talks a lot about this, the guy who is sort of the master of the Dark Triad and a lot of pathologies, but he\u2019s also really good on how \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I have to ask about the Dark Triad.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Oh, yeah. I\u2019ve written a lot about the Dark Triad.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sounds like a great fantasy novel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s like anybody who wants to know that, that\u2019s your first husband. Anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. I\u2019m going to have to leave that alone. I\u2019m going to resist the temptation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>But next time on the show.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Just for a second.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So this is important because self-transcendence is something that tends to happen a little bit later, but it\u2019s not incompatible with lower order needs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Do you mind if I just play for a second?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Please. Because I think this is the point you\u2019re driving at, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Let me ride the ketones and caffeine for a moment here. All right. So the awe, self-transcendence, wonder, it seems perhaps abstracted, might seem hand wavy for people who\u2019ve already achieved success. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true at all. And in fact, the happiest people, happy isn\u2019t exactly the right word, but the people who seem most at peace, calmest, with regular joy in their lives, good relationships, all have regular doses of self-transcendence. Whether they are wilderness guides who do not make very much money, but they\u2019re spending a lot of time in nature, a lot of time with their loved ones, a lot of time in expansive landscapes, whether those are musicians and poets who have figured out how to kind of ride the lightning without suffering too much from the low lows, there are regular ways to do this and I cannot recommend strongly enough some form of meditative practice, whether that is prayer with your rosary. Our friend travels with the rosary and also with blood flow restriction cuffs, but that\u2019s a story for another time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I\u2019m not doing blood flow restriction with a rosary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>No, exactly. Right. I mean, you could. I guess that could be interesting. Maybe that\u2019s the next niche on your Instagram feed. But the reason that I bring up meditation is because I think one of the easiest paths to self-transcendence and to significance in your life is training your awareness so that the mundane becomes miraculous. And when you start to recognize how fucking unbelievably insane it is that we are even conscious to begin with having this experience, and you start to notice how incredible the little things are, which require you to not be distracted, requires you to breathe and pay attention, it\u2019s not that complicated, it can be challenging, then you start to perceive almost everything as significant without focusing on establishing your own significance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>True. Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I have just found that to be such an unburdening when you realize that you can do things and should do things that help you feel like you are contributing, that help you feel like you\u2019re having an impact on something other than yourself, whether it\u2019s someone or something, but that in fact, self-help, self-development can really be a sort of exercise in self-obsession.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Totally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And therein lies the seeds of misery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, for sure. For sure. It\u2019s me, me, me, me, me. And your point about paying attention to what would ordinarily be thought of as mundane, my father, who is a lifelong Christian, he always said, \u201cPeople talk about the miracle of walking on water. You know what the real miracle is? Water.\u201d And another point based on what you just said, which is really important, is self-transcendence is really great, being more in the I self, but you also need to do the work to be less in the me self. And that means getting rid of the mirrors in your life. We have way too many mirrors. I had a guy who worked on my back. He was a guy who worked on Tom Brady\u2019s back in Boston. So he\u2019s the best guy. If Tom Brady \u2014 and so he was phenomenal. And I asked him, \u201cWhat did you do before you were this incredible acupuncturist and great physical therapist?\u201d And he said, \u201cI used to be a fitness influencer.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cDude, tell me more. What\u2019s this life all about?\u201d And as a social scientist, I was really interested.<\/p>\n<p>And he would take off his shirt and be on social media and show his abs and then sell supplements or something. And I said, \u201cHow was it?\u201d He says, \u201cAwful. I didn\u2019t eat what I wanted for 10 years. I was so lonely. It was so awful. And I was so ill.\u201d And I said, \u201cSo how\u2019d you get out of it? How\u2019d you cure yourself?\u201d And he said, \u201cI decided, I said I had enough. I got rid of my social media. I took every mirror out of my house, all of them, bathroom, every one. And then I showered in the dark for a year, so I couldn\u2019t see my abs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, the cross we bear.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>No, but that\u2019s like the most Tim Ferriss thing ever is the I self protocol. And he said he was cured. So not just serving other people more, worshiping more, whatever happens to be, but also militating against the me self. And that\u2019s not just physical mirrors, it\u2019s the notifications on your social media. There\u2019s lots and lots of metaphorical mirrors that are making you miserable all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So what are other ways of facilitating self-transcendence? And I, for instance, I\u2019ve interviewed BJ Miller, who\u2019s a hospice care physician. I interviewed him a long time ago. And he talked about, for instance, at the end of life, some of the most meaningful experiences were not these deep conversations about the meaning of it all necessarily, but like baking cookies together. He talked about introducing people who are weeks or months from dying to art.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Right. Right. Because he wants to induce a flow state.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about. One of the great things about transcendence is \u2014 so Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who wrote the great book <em>Flow<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, that\u2019s how you pronounce his name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Csikszentmihalyi. Yeah, that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>A lot of consonants.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s tough, man. That\u2019s a tough name. He talked about the fact that you have a transcendent experience when you\u2019re in a state that is the state of self-forgetting. That\u2019s what flow is. It\u2019s intensely pleasurable for any of us at any particular time. And so we established the first way is worship or meditation. The second is service to others. But the third is really is total absorption, is total absorption in the kind of thing that you do. Which by the way, is one of the reasons not to wear headphones when you\u2019re working out. One of the reasons to be fully there when you\u2019re working out, to establish a mind-muscle connection when you\u2019re working out. It might sound trite, but it really is because you should be able to attain something of a flow state when you\u2019re working out. Otherwise, it\u2019s an hour of misery that you\u2019re going to want to distract yourself from. So what, so you\u2019ve got better calves? It\u2019s just so dumb, which is the ultimate me self kind of experience.<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s really the third way to do it, is find your thing, is what it comes down to. And by the way, my protocols lead up to four hours of writing. That four hours goes by in minutes because it\u2019s a flow state and I\u2019m having a transcendent experience. I\u2019m in an I self transcendent experience. It\u2019s not me. It\u2019s like some other guy\u2019s writing this thing. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. Clickety, clickety, clickety, click. And before I know it, my wife says, \u201cYou want lunch?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Nature seems like another option. It\u2019s so simple. Just walk barefoot outside for a few minutes. Look, if it\u2019s two feet of snow, it might be harder. But to the extent that you can, try to get your feet on the ground. Beauty. I mean, beauty, what an interesting bizarre thing in and of itself. I actually wanted to look semi-professional as I try to on occasion. And instead of holding loose paper, I was going to bring a clipboard. Couldn\u2019t find a clipboard. So I was like, \u201cWell, I\u2019m going to bring a book.\u201d And I thought, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever seen this particular artist, but I wanted to pass to you. Have you ever seen Andy Goldsworthy?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I\u2019ve heard of this, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. So this is \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Using pure nature.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>This is Andy Goldsworthy: <em>A Collaboration with Nature<\/em>. Everybody should get this book. But just check out some of the images in there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>This is the idea of beauty of working with nature as opposed to against it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s using natural found objects, whether trees, leaves \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>A circle of dandelions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 ice crystals, a circle of dandelions. It is the most mind-boggling kind of \u2014 if James Turrell were to only work with organic materials outside of a hobbit house, what would they look like? They\u2019re just absolutely entrancing, would be the word I would use. And so this is the book I want to use as my clipboard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I like it. And this is of course transcendent. This is at the essence of using human ingenuity in a flight of fancy. This is pure harmony between who we are and what we\u2019re meant to be. I love it. I love it. And this is harder and harder to do in an environment in which we\u2019re living in the simulation. This is life out of the simulation, effectively. This is who I am, but outside of the matrix, which is why it\u2019s so striking and strange.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So tell me more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>So the transcendent experience is the one thing, the one place that they don\u2019t happen is an assimilated experience of human life. Fundamentally, transcendent experiences require being fully alive. There\u2019s the great fourth century sage and saint, Saint Irenaeus, who\u2019s one of these guys where, I mean, today it\u2019s pretty costless to be religious like me. In those days, you might get your head cut off. And so he was doing a lot of deep thinking. And he said, \u201cThe glory of God is a man fully alive.\u201d And it wasn\u2019t a gendered comment. A person fully alive is the glory of God.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So then the real question is, what does it mean for me to be fully alive? And I ask my students, are you fully alive when you get up and the first thing you do is you pick up your phone, which is by the side of your bed, and check in with a universe that\u2019s being mediated through the small screen. And then you do your work on the Zoom and then your friends are on social media and your dating is on the app and your progress is made through your score on your gaming and your relationships are stripped of their humanity because you\u2019re looking at pornography. Are you or are you not fully alive? And if the answer is you\u2019re not fully alive, the reason for that is because you\u2019re living a simulated life. And a simulated life just, Tim, isn\u2019t beautiful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And a simulated life means you\u2019re cosplaying life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s right. And this is one of the things that I found in my interviews for this book as well. I kept hearing meaning, meaning, meaning, meaning, meaning, but you\u2019re talking to a lot of 27 and 28-year-olds and their affect is very flat because they\u2019re telling you the same story over and over again. And this is where the penny dropped. This guy says, 27-year-old guy, he said, \u201cI really do feel like I\u2019m not living a real life. I really feel like I\u2019m living in a simulation every day. And I don\u2019t know how to break out because my job is fully remote, because I can\u2019t meet women on the corner and say,\u201d like Bill Ackman said on social media the other day, he said, \u201cMen should come up to women and say, \u2018I would like to meet you.\u2019\u201d What does that mean? And watch them run in terror.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd because my friends really are virtual friends, because my sense of achievement really is what I can actually do with this gaming experience or whatever it happens to be that I\u2019ve gotten really good at. How am I supposed to do that? I don\u2019t know how to break out of this. But I know it\u2019s not right. I know something\u2019s not right.\u201d Here\u2019s the funny thing. Your brain, you can kind of be fooled. The Turing test can be passed with respect to the kind of experience you think you\u2019re having, but then there\u2019s a deep knowing. You can\u2019t simulate the meaning of your life. You can only live the meaning of your life. A simulation is a complicated simulacrum for the complex experiences of human life. And that\u2019s a non-trivial use of language.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>This is pops over dinner, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Exactly. A complicated problem is that which is very, very hard to solve, but once you solve it, it\u2019s static and you can do it again and again and again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Engineering problem.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It\u2019s an engineering problem. It\u2019s a how and what problem. Complex problems are super easy to understand and impossible to solve. And I\u2019ll give you an example. Making a jet engine is a complicated problem. We didn\u2019t do it for a long time. Making a toaster is a complicated problem. I mean, I defy you to build your own toaster with stuff in here. You\u2019ll burn your house down if you\u2019re trying to make your own toaster. It\u2019s a complicated problem. My marriage is a complex problem. I understand what it means to love and be loved. I understand. I can\u2019t put it into words. I\u2019m not Pablo Neruda. But I understand what it means to love and be loved. But I will never solve my marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Tim, I mean, this morning before we started, Ester texted me, \u201cI love you,\u201d and she does. And when we finish, I\u2019m going to turn my phone back on again, she might be pissed off at me. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. And part of this is because she\u2019s Spanish and that adds a layer of complexity in and of itself. But that\u2019s the point of my marriage. The things I care about in life are complex. They\u2019re not solvable. They\u2019re only livable. And so if I take a complicated simulacrum of anything, I\u2019m doing it wrong because I\u2019m not going to be satisfied and my brain\u2019s going to know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How much of the malaise associated with the feeling of being in a simulacrum is resolved just by having more in person human interactions? Because the older I get, and maybe this is just the path of people as they age, I don\u2019t know, but I have one foot in the cutting edge, bleeding edge technology. I\u2019m fascinated by the latest advancements in you name it, doesn\u2019t matter, but I\u2019m very involved.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>AI, neuroscience, biologics, all of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. Right. The last 24 hours, I\u2019ve had conversations with three or four scientists all at the cutting edge of different fields. I love it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Me too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Simultaneously, I feel like we should pay attention. And this is, I guess, I\u2019m not borrowing, but certainly I\u2019m in lockstep with Nassim Taleb on this, which is paying attention to things that have persisted for very, very long periods of time. And also paying attention to evolutionary biology. It\u2019s like we are evolved to be very social creatures moving through physical space together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Full stop. And if you take that away \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>If you take one or the other away, you\u2019re in trouble.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019re in big trouble. And you don\u2019t have to understand all the myriad mechanisms by which this and that happens and 15 different hormones interact to produce some type of subjective experience. It\u2019s like if we have evolved with these things as constants over millennia upon millennia, maybe it\u2019s a good idea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, that\u2019s right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Keep them as regular ingredients in your daily experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>We know why. We know why the need exists. We know exactly. Neuroscientists know exactly what you\u2019re talking about. And this is the theory of hemispheric lateralization. Again, very simple idea with complicated words for tenure. This is the theory that\u2019s being most popularized right now, but probably the most visionary cutting edge neuroscientist living today is Iain McGilchrist at Oxford.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, smart.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>He wrote <em>The Master and His Emissary<\/em> back in 2010. And <em>The Master and His Emissary<\/em> talks about the fact that the two hemispheres of the brain do many things the same, but fundamentally they get your two needs, which is to figure stuff out, to dominate world\u2019s problems, to make progress, and to feel fully alive by being a beloved person. Why? We have two hemispheres of the brain that do those complicated things. That\u2019s the left hemisphere. How and what? And the complex things, which is the why questions, that\u2019s the right hemisphere of the brain. All of the mystery, the meaning, the love, the happiness, that\u2019s processed in the right hemisphere of the brain. And how you go out and do stuff is in the left hemisphere. The problem is modern life. This gets into the meaning crisis, has pushed us all into the left hemisphere of our brain and slammed shut the door to the right.<\/p>\n<p>Everything that we\u2019re doing from workaholism to hustle culture, to making sure that people don\u2019t study humanities, they only study STEM. And most especially to the simulacrum, the technologized simulacrum for ordinary life, that\u2019s all left hemisphere. And if you\u2019re on the left hemisphere, you\u2019re going to know how and what, and how and what and how and what, and you\u2019re going to be bereft of why, including the big why questions, which make up <em>the meaning of your life<\/em>. And so the solution, where is meaning to be found? It\u2019s the right hemisphere of your brain. How do you open it up? That\u2019s the meaning protocols. And it really comes down to these very simple ideas that we\u2019ve already been exploring. And it comes down to this. There\u2019s something that I promise you that great-grandfather Ferriss never said to your great-grandmother, which was, \u201cHoney, I had a panic attack behind the mule today.\u201d And the reason is because it wasn\u2019t a thing.<\/p>\n<p>And the reason is his brain was working the way it was supposed to work. His life was pretty boring, and it was boring from day to day, objectively boring, but he never said my childhood was boring. And his right hemisphere was exercise as well as his left hemisphere. And the result is he didn\u2019t have flooding of the HPA axis. He wasn\u2019t morbidly depressed for no apparent reason. He didn\u2019t live in a world of affluence and yet feel like he was experiencing nothing. And the reason is his brain was working the way it was supposed to work. This was not a policy problem.<\/p>\n<p>This was a neurophysiological problem that he didn\u2019t have and that we have actually today. And so the result is we have to live in an extraordinary way that was ordinary 100 years ago. The simulation we really need is the old-fashioned life is what comes about because almost all of the things that I talk about in my research that people can experience if they actually put some work into it is to open up the right hemisphere of the brain and do what was absolutely ordinary not that long ago, three generations ago, as a matter of fact.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah, complicated versus complex. I like the distinction. And also having just come back, I\u2019ll just brief aside, every year I do this past year review, I\u2019m going to be doing that in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Me too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Look at my top relationships, top defined as dear, close relationships that are reliably nourishing for everybody involved and energizing. And then I book time in the next year, more time with all those people. I established these relationships and then I book more time with them in the subsequent year. And often with extended trips, I just came back from a trip with a number of my very close friends. And I look at some of the basics and I think it\u2019s replicable where three days into it, granted these are my close friends. But I challenge anyone, if you put in 20,000 steps a day and you compliment, let\u2019s just say, two of your close friends and three strangers and tell me by the end of the week that you don\u2019t feel better, right? There\u2019s simplicity right \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And check your phone only 10 times.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right on the other side. And if you do those things, by the way, you\u2019ll probably be checking your phone a lot less, hopefully. I want to touch on something because I know we, as expected, are going to run out of time before we run out of topics to talk about, but I\u2019ll let you pick where you want to go first. So there\u2019s a line here that I have, or it\u2019s more phrasing that I want to hear you expand on. Your suffering is sacred. And then there is a line here, which is treat your life like a pilgrimage that opens your mind and heart so life\u2019s meaning can find you. So those are both interesting to me. Your suffering is sacred and so that life\u2019s meaning can find you. Because most people think of themselves as going out to find meaning if they think about it at all. So dealer\u2019s choice, which one would you like to \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>We\u2019ll start with suffering, because suffering is the big, most misunderstood thing in most of modern life. We have an eliminationist strategy toward especially mental suffering. We see big increases in depression and anxiety. And if you go to campus counseling at any university and you\u2019re going to say, \u201cI feel sad and anxious.\u201d They go, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to fix that.\u201d Well, probably you can have some therapy, there might be some psychiatric medications involved. And I had nothing against therapy or psychiatric medications to save the lives of people in my family. But the truth of the matter is that suffering per se is life itself.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, that\u2019s the first noble truth of dukkha, right? But it also suggests that you have a working limbic system, which is your alarm system for threats in the environment. Negative emotion exists as a threat system, as a threat alarm system. And negative experiences is the only way that you learn. There\u2019s a reason that great philosophers always say that suffering is your teacher, because suffering is the ultimate complex right hemisphere experience that teaches you about the meaning of your life. And if you try to eliminate your suffering, you will inadvertently eliminate meaning. That\u2019s what will happen. The worst mistake that people can make is trying not to suffer. I still tell my students, these are MBA students at Harvard. I say, \u201cYou\u2019re studying at Harvard University, getting your MBAs. If you\u2019re not sad and anxious, you need therapy. Something\u2019s wrong with you if you\u2019re actually not suffering.\u201d So the real question is, how can you learn and grow from it? The math that Buddhists have about suffering is this following. Suffering equals pain multiplied by resistance, pain times resistance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And it\u2019s really important because what we know about that is that people are trying to lower their suffering by lowering their level of pain. And what they should be doing is actually understanding and putting into proper context and proportion their suffering by lowering their level of resistance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Resistance. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s what it comes down to. And every good athlete understands that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And by the way, just very quickly, the meditation that I was describing and recommending is effectively that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s lowering your resistance to everything that you would be inclined to resist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And my students have a little mantra they start at the beginning of the day and say, \u201cI am truly grateful for the pleasant things that are going to happen this day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the Psalms, \u201cThis is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I\u2019m also truly grateful for the troubles I\u2019m going to face because my learning and growth will come from these troubles, bring them on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s this bracing. And I say this every day because I\u2019m going to suffer today. And Tim, you\u2019re going to suffer today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And if you try to eliminate that suffering, all you\u2019re trying to do is lower your pain level to ephemerally and artificially and ineffectually lower your suffering.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And that Psalm might as well have been also put right next to Marcus Aurelius meditations. I mean, it\u2019s \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Absolutely. I mean, Christian thinking is heavily influenced by the Stoics. They were contemporaneous. This is why they sound so familiar to each other. And the whole idea is like, you got a choice. You can learn and grow from your suffering or you can try to avoid your suffering and have the same amount of suffering and not learn and grow. What do you choose? And that\u2019s what it comes down to. So that\u2019s the most difficult lesson, but the most bracing and empowering lesson about how to find meaning in your life is to lean into your suffering and you will find your meaning. And that\u2019s what Grandpa Ferriss had to do because he had no choice. He had no therapist. He didn\u2019t even have Advil. And so that\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Then the second point that you made, the second question you asked is, okay, when you\u2019re in search to get presence, you\u2019re in search, search, search, search. There\u2019s a mistake that people commonly make, was thinking, if I search enough, I\u2019m going to find. Seek and you shall find. Knock on the door shall be open unto you. But the process is a little bit counterintuitive and different. Every religious tradition has a protocol for finding truth and that is to make a pilgrimage in which point it is revealed that your truth finds you. Now there\u2019s a lot of ways that that\u2019s described in the Bhagavad Gita where going to the birthplace of the Lord Krishna in Mathura, in the Hindi heartland, in Christianity for the community of the Santiago, which I\u2019ve walked twice across the ancient root of 1,100 years old, doing the Hajj, if you\u2019re a Muslim. What you find is that when you make a pilgrimage, that\u2019s a metaphor for your life.<\/p>\n<p>And the end of the pilgrimage is the metaphor of the ultimate goal of life, which in Abrahamic religions is heaven, right? And it\u2019s the end of samsara and the karmic religions or whatever it happens to be, is they\u2019re reuniting with a Godhead in the Hindu body of religions. But the bottom line is that what\u2019s most important is actually what\u2019s happening to you in the process of this pilgrimage. And what actually happens to you neurobiologically is that you beat yourself to the point that you have an open aperture so that you\u2019re no longer in a defensive crouch such that you\u2019re weak. You weaken yourself on purpose. This is why you walk 25 kilometers a day and you\u2019re walking on blisters and you\u2019re actually inducing this amount of pain.<\/p>\n<p>And I remember this the first time I walked my Camino, I was in a liminal space in my career. I just stepped down as the CEO of this big think tank. And I didn\u2019t know what I was going to do. I mean, I was 55 years old and I was spent, dude, I was out of gas. I was burnt out. I\u2019d been working 80 hours a week. I missed a lot of my kids growing up. I\u2019d made mistakes, right? They stuck with me by the grace of God. And I was walking the Camino day after day after day. I was praying. I was tired and I was in pain. And when I entered into Santiago de Compostela, this medieval city in Northern Spain and I saw the cathedral, I realized that my mission was to spend the rest of my life lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love, using science and ideas to be a scientist in the public interest, but for love and happiness. And I didn\u2019t find that. It found me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Question, how did that appear? Was it drop by drop? Was it a Japanese breakfast on a silver platter in your mind? I mean, did it all come at once or was it bits and pieces that you slowly were able to weave together?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>It was bit by bit because it\u2019s not this epiphany. It\u2019s not like falling off my horse on the road to Damascus and in a temporary blindness, which is probably temporal epilepsy in the case of St. Paul, but it was a realization. It was a realization. It was something that had already existed out there, right? And it felt like it came to me little by little, particularly over the last couple of days, the last couple of days of the pilgrimage. It was, \u201cWhat am I supposed to do?\u201d I\u2019m supposed to return to my roots as a scientist and to use that as missionary work for greater love and happiness. To get into the mission field as a behavioral scientist, going back to the roots of what I\u2019ve actually learned. Why? What do I want? For me and for everybody, I want more love. I want more happiness. I want more meaning. That\u2019s what I want for me and for everybody because that\u2019s the sustenance of actually what we need.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Did that want come into high resolution in part because of the nature of that particular pilgrimage, the religious connotations and the prayer along the way? Or do you think that that was already just a little beneath the surface and waiting to come out and it would have come out in a different environment, the different context?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s a good question. It\u2019s an empirical question. But I will say that all of the components of the pilgrimage, not to be metaphysical about it, not to be mystical about it at all, all the components of a pilgrimage, which is the physical difficulty, the strain that actually comes from it, the intense effort that you\u2019re making while away from these technological distractions, the work that I\u2019m doing on my relationship with God and my wife, with whom I\u2019m holding her hand and praying the rosary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You did the pilgrimage with your wife?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah. And I would\u2019ve done 33 days except she\u2019s like, no. So we did the last eight. And all of these things turn out to be the ways that you open the vault of the right hemisphere of your brain, where the mysticism is actually found, the mystical side of your brain, which I believe God creates for a reason. But it might just be nature and it might just be a coincidence. But the bottom line is you must open that door and all the things you do in a pilgrimage open that door.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And also, if it is nature, it serves some very important, at least from an evolutionary perspective, function.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, when we look back at just the history of science, but just to take a slight digression, at all the many things that we thought were junk DNA, all the many things that we thought were vestigial, all the many things that we thought were just leftover and nature forgot to get rid of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Male nipples.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Male nipples, I still don\u2019t have a great explanation or a great use for. I mean, maybe I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll get some suggestions on X.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Let\u2019s watch the comments, Tim let\u2019s watch the comments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. The comments, I\u2019m sure will have plenty of suggestions. But I mean, it\u2019s half your brain, right? So along with the \u2014 everyone needs whatever, eight glasses of water a day and can only have 30 grams of protein at a given sitting. We only use 10 percent of our brain, not true. We use all of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>True. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that was a thing when I was a kid in the \u201970s.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, if you could get access to the other 90 percent and then a science fiction story will have you, the person who knows how to use the other 90 percent, can fly or something.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So gaining, really embracing and fully utilizing that right hemisphere characterized the capacities that you\u2019re mentioning are \u2014 I have just found it to be such an incredible unlock for me in so many ways. And just to deepen the somatosensory and psychological texture of life, you really need that right side, and at least as you\u2019re describing it. And \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I\u2019ve seen this in your work, by the way. So I\u2019ve been very aware and familiar with your work for a long time. And the typical algorithm for people who are seekers is to start on the left side, and then they find their way to the right. You become more spiritual, more mystical, more cosmic in your outlook as you\u2019ve gotten older. And so you wouldn\u2019t write <em>The 4-Hour Body<\/em> the same way today. I\u2019m sure you wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>No. I stand by all of the tactical stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I love it. I love it. I read that book. I\u2019ve just really enjoyed it. I mean, I learned a lot from it, but it\u2019s a very left brain approach. And you realized in your own life, as people generally do, that you needed the right hemisphere as well. And so that\u2019s why you talk about it\u2019s like, why is Tim getting all mystical again? No, no, no. He\u2019s actually moving hemispherically into the full brain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, also it\u2019s like the how-to, the technician\u2019s side, the engineering problem of, let\u2019s just call it self-improvement. Whether that\u2019s physical, cognitive, psycho-emotional, what is that in service of? For most people, if they ask why a few times, they\u2019re trying to improve their quality of life and the quality of the lives around them they care most for. To do that, you need to do things like distinguish between the me self and the I self. Anthony de Mello has a lot of really good writing on this as well. You need to lower resistance, right? Which you could think of as also paying very close attention to the serenity prayer or stoicism or fill in the blank.<\/p>\n<p>And there\u2019s something to be said, I think, when I also have conversations with some of the most, as far as I can tell, at peace, reconciled, but yet still productive in the world, people. Whether that\u2019s Henry Shukman, who I mentioned, or the Jack Kornfields or CEOs who also pay attention to these things. They are all reading and learning from people, whether it\u2019s the Christian mystics, whether it\u2019s Rumi, so Sufi mysticism. You go down the line, it\u2019s all the same thing. Zen Buddhism, when I check my wifi connection, I always go to dailyzen.com and occasionally you find something that\u2019s pretty interesting. They\u2019re all talking about the same stuff. Maybe we should take a gander.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And to put a point on what you just said, the meaning of life comes from the right hemisphere of your brain, and you can\u2019t get to the right by going further and further left.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>No. No, no, no.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>That\u2019s probably a political point too. I\u2019m not sure. But this is a problem that a lot of people have. They want more and more and more. I mean, I\u2019ve got protocols. I got protocols up the wazoo, man. But protocols aren\u2019t it. What they can do is they can facilitate \u2014 it\u2019s the same thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>People ask me all the time, how is AI going to interact with happiness? The answer is that AI is an adjunct to the left hemisphere of your brain. The way that it can bring you happiness is that if you do left brain things with it, thus freeing up a whole bunch of time that you then use to deepen your relationships in real life with real people. That\u2019s an algorithm right there, man.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>The way that you won\u2019t get it is if you try to use it as an adjunct to the right hemisphere of your brain by making it your love or friend or therapist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Or if you use it to do certain things more quickly so that you can simply consume the free time you\u2019ve created with more left dominant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>By frittering away your time on Instagram.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Which is what I predict most people will do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, exactly right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So the idea of this \u2014 the era of leisure time is, on its face, pretty ridiculous because that\u2019s been predicted with every advance in technology, but \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Exactly. And we started off by talking about the technology that I use, which is my morning protocol. The morning protocol, per se, is not the secret of happiness. It instantiates. It enables. What it is an architecture such that I can actually have the freedom to live in the right hemisphere of my brain and find the meaning of my life. That\u2019s what all of these protocols are. That\u2019s why blood flow restriction is a left brain protocol. But the reason that you do anything like that is because ultimately what you want is more freedom in a way, more freedom to spend it in what really matters most in your life, which is more love. It\u2019s more love, it\u2019s more meaning, it\u2019s more significance, it\u2019s more coherence, it\u2019s more purpose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So I want to end where I promised we would end. And <em>The Meaning of Your Life<\/em>, this is the new book, <em>Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness<\/em>. I love your writing. I love your thinking. People should absolutely check out the book. I need to ask you briefly about a specific element of your evening routine and wind down. And that is personal evening reading. What do you read before you go to bed?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Before I go to bed, I read something that\u2019s not trying to educate me better. But trying to be generative to me. I want to use \u2014 and again, this is very left brain thinking. I want my sleep to be concentrated in the hemisphere of my brain that\u2019ll bring me the most meaning. And what you read before you sleep will actually stimulate the part of your brain that you\u2019re going to use most while you sleep. It\u2019s one of the reasons that if you want to remember something, read about it right before you go to sleep and you\u2019ll actually remember it, but you won\u2019t learn something you don\u2019t know, but you will remember something better. That\u2019s the reason that I read the Psalms. Actually, I like to have the Psalms read to me in a feminine Spanish accent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sounds great. Sign me up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I read love poetry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Do you have any favorite Psalms? And then love poetry, what are we talking?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Well, actually we are talking about Neruda. The greatest love poet ever. The Chilean love poet in Spanish, which, pronounced in Spanish from your beloved, is like a narcotic and yet it won\u2019t ruin your life. The Psalm, Psalm 121. Any of the Psalms actually, because they have a different flavor as you work your way through them. The first Psalm is like a tree planted by streams of water who prospers in all that he does. The idea of God\u2019s promise and love for you, Tim, and that promise and absorbing that promise of the intense love for you, which is the essence of significance at the metaphysical level and absorbing that and having it read to you, or reading it or having it read to you is so significant. That\u2019s a beautiful thing to do and that\u2019s a great part of the evening protocol. The evening protocol is happiness and better sleep, deeper love, generativity in the nighttime hours. Which, by the way, for me, are a torment. I\u2019m a terrible sleeper. I\u2019m terrible. And you can\u2019t get the machine off, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Machine. Are you talking about \u2014 you can\u2019t get the machine \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>There\u2019s no off switch.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right, the off switch. I\u2019ve become much, much better at it, much better. But that has, for my entire life, been the \u2014 ruminative challenge is that I laid down to go to sleep and my mind is like, \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting all day to tell you so many things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>I know. I know. \u201cThere\u2019s some things we need to discuss here. This is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly. \u201cYou\u2019re probably wondering why I gathered you here today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Exactly right. \u201cThe boss has something on his mind.\u201d I know. I know. And when your spouse, your partner is a good sleeper, that can be really problematic because then they\u2019ll have a heavy conversation with you and then go \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, yeah, no, that\u2019s a no fly zone. That\u2019s verboden.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks:<\/strong> That\u2019s my wife.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, that is verboden.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Part of the protocol, this is really important for everybody watching us who doesn\u2019t sleep alone, is actually the oxytocin protocol. Which is, as we all know, the love molecule, the bonding neuropeptide that functions as a hormone in the brain. Women have three times as much as men. Side note, here\u2019s how you fix every marriage. You do four things. Number one, you have more fun together as opposed to rehearsing grievance. More fun, less grievance. Therapy is like grievance, grievance, grievance. And have more fun together. Number two.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And how long have you been married?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>34 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Second is pray together because the fusion, one flesh is the fusion of the right hemispheres of your brains. This is the goal. If you get married, Tim, the goal is to fuse your right hemispheres. And the best way to do that is by meditating together, is by praying together, is by doing right hemisphere activity together. The third protocol is to make eye contact whenever you talk. Never be talking without making eye contact. Way more important for your wife than it is for you. Way more important because she gets three times as much oxytocin, which means she\u2019s better at bonding, but it also means that she\u2019s better at starving, when she\u2019s not getting enough oxytocin.<\/p>\n<p>And eye contact from the beloved, which is when you have eye contact with a newborn baby, oxytocin is like the 4th of July inside your head, which is why you wouldn\u2019t leave the baby on the bus because suddenly the baby\u2019s kin, right? It\u2019s an evolved phenomenon. And last but not least is remember ABT, always be touching, always be touching, always be touching. More important for men than for women, as a matter of fact. That\u2019s why when you\u2019re with your beloved and she hooks her arm into your arm while you\u2019re walking down the street and you\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m big and strong.\u201d Why? Because that\u2019s super important. So the last thing before you go to bed, when you\u2019re reading to each other or when you\u2019re talking, go five minutes earlier to bed, five minutes earlier to bed and stare at each other.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s scary, it\u2019s like \u2014 the eyes, according to St. Paul, are the windows to the soul, and that\u2019s when you know you really feel it. And biologically, the reason is because oxytocin is just like old faithful for her. She will love you more if you have 5 to 10 minutes of intense eye contact before you go to sleep while you\u2019re holding hands under the covers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And by the way, for anyone who has not tried this \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You\u2019ve done this, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I have done this. 5 to 10 minutes is so long.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s a really long time \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Oh, it\u2019s intense. Here\u2019s an exer \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You could start lower, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>You can start lower, but here\u2019s the most intense exercise you can do. If you want the break glass plan for fixing your relationship, right? Here\u2019s what you do. You stand in front of each other, staring at each other in the eyes, silent, and you hold your arms out to the side like in an iron cross holding hands like this for eight minutes. And so what\u2019s going on here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Is this for the Shaolin Monk therapy school?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It\u2019s super painful. And it\u2019s going to be more painful for you because after about four minutes, you\u2019re holding her arms up, right? So there\u2019s like five pound weights in each hand. And so you\u2019re in intense excruciating pain while having your soul opened with a crowbar.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And this is intense there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did you arrive at this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Well, I\u2019ve experimented with this and also I read the research, right? And I participate in the research. I\u2019ve actually done this a number of times. There\u2019s a number of religious traditions that will do exercises actually that are like this. I did one in Spain last year and it\u2019s called Proyecto Amor Conyugal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And that\u2019s the Marital Love Project. It\u2019s a very big deal across Spain. It\u2019s not in English yet. And so it was in a little retreat center outside Madrid. And we were seeing \u2014 Because my wife and I, we do a lot of talks together and we counsel couples that are engaged, et cetera. This is our side hustle, right? It\u2019s helping people fall in love and stay in love. And so we were just like, \u201cWhat\u2019s this method everybody\u2019s so crazy about?\u201d We were doing stuff like this and it was like, Holy mackerel. I mean, because they don\u2019t know how much neuroscience they\u2019re actually doing. There\u2019s somebody who came up with this and said, \u201cI wonder if this works.\u201d It\u2019s like, it\u2019s really, really heavy. It\u2019s just top-notch neuroscience matched up with \u2014 it\u2019s as left and right brain as you can get.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Wow. Cool. And also, not yet in English, that sounds like a job for Arthur Brooks and some AI tool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>And Ester Brooks, who\u2019s like \u2014 she\u2019s the spiritual leader in our family.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, there you go. Job for Ester, who wouldn\u2019t need the AI. Arthur, always so much fun to spend time together. Thank you for taking the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Thank you, Tim.\u00a0 Thank you for what you\u2019re bringing into the world. Even when I\u2019m not in person, I\u2019m with you virtually and you enrich my life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, thanks, man. This is, boy, talk about lucky timing. All the serendipity required to end up with this job, remarkable. And I get to spend time with people like yourself. The Meaning of Your Life, folks, check it out. You can get it everywhere books are sold. And people can find you at arthurbrooks.com on all the socials.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Presumably, is there anything else you would like to share? Anything else you\u2019d like to say or request to my audience? Anything at all before we wind to a close?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>If you don\u2019t know what to do today and meaning feels out of reach, turn off your device and go love somebody. And it doesn\u2019t really matter how you feel because love is an act. It\u2019s a commitment. It\u2019s a decision. And you\u2019ll lift up yourself and that person in a little bit of the whole world. Happiness is love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Boom. I think that is a perfect place to end. And folks will link to everything as usual tim.blog\/podcast. Go love somebody, including yourself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur C. Brooks: <\/strong>Right on.<strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>See you next time. Thanks for tuning in.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"arthur-brooks-legal-conditions-transcript\">DUE TO SOME HEADACHES IN THE PAST, PLEASE NOTE LEGAL CONDITIONS: <\/h3>\n<p><em>Tim Ferriss owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as his right of publicity. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WHAT YOU\u2019RE WELCOME TO DO:<\/em> <em>You are welcome to share the below transcript (up to 500 words but not more) in media articles (e.g., <\/em>The New York Times<em>, <\/em>LA Times<em>, <\/em>The Guardian<em>), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Medium), and\/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to \u201cThe Tim Ferriss Show\u201d and link back to the tim.blog\/podcast URL. For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript per the above.<\/em> <\/p>\n<p><em>WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED:<\/em> <em>No one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use Tim Ferriss\u2019 name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another\u2019s products or services. For the sake of clarity, media outlets are permitted to use photos of Tim Ferriss from <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>the media room on tim.blog<\/em><\/a><em> or (obviously) license photos of Tim Ferriss from Getty Images, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Arthur Brooks\u00a0(@arthurbrooks), a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, where he teaches [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}