How to live an asymmetric life

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
If you're ambitious, you've heard a thousand tips on how to live a happier, better life. Forget all of them. I grew up in a blue collar family, and today I know lots of different billionaires. I've met thousands of successful founders, and I've hired hundreds of people. And across all of those lives, I've spotted patterns in the people who are most happy. But instead of giving you another list on how to live well, I'm going to invert it. Here are five guaranteed ways to live a miserable life. Do the opposite, you might actually live a good one.
Step number one, don't have a best friend. If you want to be miserable, tons and tons of acquaintances will do just fine. One of my favorite philosophers to read about is Aristotle. And he broke friendships into three different types. The first is utility. And these are friends where you get something out of them. For example, money, favors, connections. Basically, once the usefulness ends, so does the friendship. This is sort of like coworkers. The second is pleasure. And these are friends that exist just for fun. You get together, you party, you have a good time. And then once that ends, you're done. It's basically like when you were three years old and you play with another friend. Once the play date is over, the friendship is over. And finally, virtue. These are the rarest and most valuable. These are people who you admire. And they admire you back. And they make each other feel better. And you stick with them no matter what. In modern terms, they're your best friends. If you want to have a great life, focus on that last category. The good news, according to Aristotle, is that you only need one to three best friends. I've got three. It's Jack, Ramone and Neville. If you ever seen that movie The Town where Ben Affleck, he goes into his buddy's room and he says, I need your help. We're going to hurt someone. And I can't tell you what it is. And you can never ask about it. And then the guy responds with, sounds good. Whose car are we going to take? That's Ramone. I've got one of those friends. A grown man calling another grown man his best friends. And me telling them I love them. Make fun of me all you want. But knowing that these guys have my back and have my best interest in mind, it makes me sleep like a baby. Now I want to show you a study that proves my point. So for the last 85 years, Harvard has been running this study, which is now the longest study of adult life ever done. And they tracked hundreds of people from youth all the way to old age. The Atlantic, they put together a 15,000 word article all about this study. It's a wonderful article, but I'm going to save you the time and tell you exactly what the results were. After decades of data, the number one predictor of long-term health and happiness, it was not money, it wasn't fame, it wasn't power, it wasn't even exercise. It was the quality of close relationships. They found that what protects you is having a few people, even just one, one person who you can count on through thick or thin. In other words, a BFF, baby. Step number two for living a miserable life, don't decide. Spend tons of time planning and thinking and very little time doing. Miserable people are indecisive, and if you want to join them, don't commit to anything. Stay in research mode forever. Careers, where you live, who you want to date, just keep on shopping. Let me tell you a story about Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert is a psychologist who's the goat on studying happiness. He's got this amazing book called Stumbling on Happiness. My favorite part from his book is an experiment where he went to a college campus and he selected two groups of students. Now, both groups, he let them come and select a piece of artwork that they could hang in their dorm room. Except here's the difference. Group 1, they were allowed to come in a week later and swap out their art if they were unhappy with their original pick. Group 2 was locked in. Whatever they picked, they had to keep. Now, here's the results. Group 1, the group that was allowed to change out their art if they were unhappy with them, they were less and less happy with the art that they picked over time because they kept wondering, did they choose wrong? Group 2, the ones that had to be locked in to the ones that they originally picked, they actually got happier when they measured them over time or over the trailing handful of months. They convinced themselves that they loved the piece of art that they picked. The takeaway is once we're locked into a decision, the brain makes peace with the decision. It literally manufactures happiness. Happy people take more action while other miserable people wait for the right decision.