The Hard Truth About Success, Family & Love | PBD Podcast #853

Arthur C. Brooks (0:00)

Professors are really bad at brainwashing students.

Patrick Bet-David (0:02)

Really?

Arthur C. Brooks (0:02)

Yeah, we're the only parents.

SPEAKER_3 (0:04)

This is great news for a lot of parents.

Arthur C. Brooks (0:05)

Parents are really good at brainwashing their kids.

Patrick Bet-David (0:07)

So you don't think professors have as much influence over politics than parents?

Arthur C. Brooks (0:11)

No, and I got the data on that. I have the data on that.

Patrick Bet-David (0:13)

I got a question for you about happiness. Zhang Ziyi, old philosopher, said, happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. Do you agree with that?

Arthur C. Brooks (0:23)

Successful people are all anxious. That's what they all have in common. They're all anxious. They're anxiety junkies, as a matter of fact.

Patrick Bet-David (0:31)

What is the risk of never getting married, never having kids?

Arthur C. Brooks (0:36)

Love is entrepreneurship.

It's the ultimate putting capital at risk. Yeah, risk somebody's money. Boring. Putting your heart at risk? Now we're talking.

Patrick Bet-David (0:47)

What are five, ten books you recommend somebody to read to get their mind in the right place with their career?

Arthur C. Brooks (0:52)

He was the one who gave me the best advice about how to be a conservative in academia. You need to be twice as productive as the liberals and four times as nice.

And then you'll be fine.

Patrick Bet-David (1:01)

What is the greatest high you ever had in your life? You think about that moment, you think about that experience, you're like, I will never forget that.

Arthur C. Brooks (1:07)

These are these epiphanies, these moments that I don't have to earn love. These are the moments that I realize that I'm enough.

Patrick Bet-David (1:16)

What doesn't matter to you at this phase that mattered at 40?

Arthur C. Brooks (1:19)

This is why we're the dominant species. We can be retrospective, thinking about the past and learning from mistakes. We can be prospective, thinking about the future, practicing future scenarios and working for future success. Or we can be mindful, right here, right now.

I have the four protocols that I give couples that have been either newly together or long married, that will neurochemically solidify those tendencies. Do you want to know the four protocols?

Patrick Bet-David (1:50)

So, I'm going to ask you an indirect way of helping our guys, our production team that works so hard, get a raise. Do you want to help them get a raise? This is how you can help us out.

49% of you watch our podcasts, that our editors work so hard. Producers, cutters, all of them, our production team, 32 of them that work here, they work very, very hard to deliver good quality to you. If you enjoy our show and you want to help this thing get bigger so we can take our talent that we have in-house to support this production all the time and maybe even give them a raise, then please subscribe to the channel that allows us to get more viewership and indirectly, it makes bigger opportunities for our current team that we have. Thank you so much. And to be loved. That's the secret to happiness.

Arthur C. Brooks (2:34)

Secret to happiness.

Patrick Bet-David (2:35)

All right.

Arthur C. Brooks (2:35)

And the best way to do that is to get married and have babies.

Patrick Bet-David (2:38)

Well, by the way, just so you guys know, we've been doing a podcast for 10, 15 minutes. We should have recorded the first 15 minutes because that was great.

My history with you is I was introduced to a book you wrote many years ago called Road to Freedom. Read it, gave it to all my guys in my office. I said, you got to read this because you broke down capitalism in a very logical way that wasn't too much. And it was common sense. A lot of good stats in there. And then two months ago, I'm going to the UFC fight at the White House, whatever, two or three months ago. I'm on the flight. Alex Spyro and I are having a conversation together. I don't know if you know Alex is. And he says, you know, out of all the books I've read in my life, there's only one book you need to read. I said, Alex, I read a lot. What's this one book? He says, at our age, he's in his 40s as well, he says, you have to read from strength to strength. So I'm on the flight. I ordered a book. I go through the whole thing. You know, I don't do the audio.