March 20, 2019 • 35 mins
Tech entrepreneur Mo Gawdat, driven by the unimaginable loss of his son, is on a mission to share his formula for achieving sustainable happiness with one billion people.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our world needs a utah, and I tried so hard
to tell myself, don't be stupid. You know, it's impossible
to fix the world. It's actually really straightforward. I'm asking
only for two values to change. I'm asking for people
to prioritize their happiness and invest in finding a happier life.
(00:20):
And I'm asking for the compassion to make two other
people happy two more. Welcome to you Turns, the podcast
where we talk about all things change, a major life
(00:42):
shifts and positive transformation. I'm Lisa Oz and I am
Jail Herzig, and our conversation today got me thinking about
the things that make me happy, kind of the simple
things um and you'll hear from our guests that just
making a list of them is very powerful thing to do.
So I kind of started to do that and it
(01:03):
was it was really interesting, like things wound up on
my list, like sitting on the floor with my morning coffee.
Why I sit on the floor, I don't really know,
but that's how that's how I do it, and that's
what makes me happy. Drinking a glass of wine while
I make dinner. What's what's on your list? Weirdly, both
of those involved consuming beverages. You know me, it's all
(01:26):
about the caffeine and the cocktails. Um. The first thing
comes to mind is hearing mourning doves. I don't know why.
That makes me really happy. Um. And going outside when
it's cold at night and having a really clear open sky.
So the some two of my things. But it's a
beautiful thing. Yours are beautiful too. And nothing like a
(01:48):
nice cocktail or a cup of coffee. Um. Our guest today, though,
is going to help us be happy all the time. Um.
He's the former chief business officer for Google X and
he is the best selling author of Solve for Happy,
Engineering Your Path to Joy. Mokaw Dot is with us today.
(02:10):
Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you
so much for having me. We've been trying to organize
this for a while and now it is happening. So
our first question today is happiness. You define it differently
from other people, and you have a formula for happiness,
which is crazy a formula, Um, it sounds like a
(02:31):
math equation. Can you spell out the formula so we
can be happy all the time. Yeah, you're you're setting
me up for a big target. I actually think we
can be happy a lot more often, and and it
actually is that predictable. There is a formula for happiness
and unhappiness, and you know, in a in a very
interesting way. The way I developed that was simply, like
(02:52):
you know, a scientist in a lab, I took as
many data points of points in my life where I
felt happy like you did on your happy list, coffee
on the floor in the morning, and you know, tried
to find, as you know, what is common across all
of those. And what's common is very straightforward. Happiness happens
not when certain events in our life happen, but when
(03:14):
life seems to be going our way. It's it's not
it's not the fact that you know, coffee in itself
or sitting on on the floor in itself would make
us happy or unhappy. It would make some of us
happy and some of us not. It would make the
ones who want to sit on the floor and have
coffee in the morning happy. When when that happens, we
(03:34):
feel happy. And so the equation is very straightforward. The
equation is happiness is equal to or greater than the
difference between the events of your life, or at least
your perception of the events of your life, and your
expectations of how life should behave and so that comparison,
it's not rain and itself doesn't make us happy or unhappy.
(03:55):
Rain makes us happy when we want rain to water
our plant makes us unhappy when we want to sta
And so it's that comparison between them that makes us
happy or unhappy. And once you see that, happiness becomes
a lot more predictably. Okay, So I have to say,
call me dance that formula. It took me a little
while to wrap my head around it, and I had
(04:15):
to kind of run it through some hypothetical can you
can you do that for me? Like let's say I'm
starting a new job, Okay, And so my perception of
that job is going to be a certain way, depending
on perhaps how negatively or positively I view the things
that happened to me on my in my first month.
(04:37):
And my happiness level is those perceptions minus whatever my
expectations were, right. Have I got this right? So if
my expectations were high, sky high, I'm going to be
blissful every day. I'm gonna wonderful, meaningful things to do
every every moment that I'm there, and I'm inclined to
(04:57):
feel disappointed in what actually happened tends and I'm going
to be very unhappy because there's going to be a
huge delta. Absolutely, absolutely, So what happens there is not
only is it about how sometimes unrealistic our expectations are,
but it's also about how we actually perceive the actual events.
(05:18):
I mean, I can almost guarantee you that on your
next job, your boss is going to be annoying. Right,
This is what bosses are all about, right, So you
know they're supposed to be annoying. They become bosses because
they're annoying. I mean, I hope I wasn't an annoying
boss when I when I ran big businesses, but the
majority are now. If if your expectation is that life
is going to somehow bless you with that, you know
(05:40):
ten percent of bosses that are incredible, you're setting your
expectation in the wrong place. If your expectation is it's
likely that my boss is going to be demanding, and
I need to learn the skills of how to deal
with the demanding boss so that I can manage to
achieve in my life, then perfect you you're on the
right track. There are there are easier examples to understand
(06:01):
the equation though, So you know, the one I like
most is nature. So so you know when we sit
in nature, and we're always happy in nature, almost everyone,
I rarely ever other than maybe people who are a
little scared of of of being out in nature. So
so you know, why does nature make us happy? It
makes us happy because no one ever sat in front
(06:22):
of a tree that was a little a little crooked
and said, now, that's not how it's supposed to be.
Trees are supposed to be ninety degrees vertical. You know,
if if you start to look at it this way,
you feel unhappy. But we all are expecting nature to
be a little unexpected to be a little you know,
out of shape, and that's the beauty of nature. No
one ever sits in front of the ocean and goes like,
(06:44):
I love the view, but can someone mute the south right?
So you know, when when you think about it, those
those things match our expectations of how they should be,
even if they're not perfect all the time. And that's
why we feel happy when we with that. The only thing, though,
is that from the way you're describing it, it it sounds
(07:04):
a little bit like do you know the character or
and Winnie the Pool, who is always like, oh, it's
a terrible day. So if if you're a pessimist and
you expect, oh, work is going to be a drag today.
Oh you know, my boss is going to be rude
to me. Oh my husband's gonna ignore me. If you
set yourself up as thinking everything is gonna be bad,
then you won't be disappointed. So that that's don't not
(07:27):
going to make you happy. So, first of all, how
many years do you know, because there are quite a
few in our modern world today we're actually trained, trained
to look for everything that's wrong. It's actually really really shocking.
But yes, there are two ways to look at this.
One of them is believe it or not mathematically aspert
(07:48):
the equation. But in reality, if your expectations are low,
you're actually bound to be happier. So you know, you
go to Africa or to India where people don't have
as much abundance as you know we we have the
luxury of having in the West. You know, if if
you give someone a ball of rice, they're happy, right.
They don't want to have fries on the side, they
(08:10):
don't want to have a drink, they don't want it
to be hot all the time. They don't want the
waiter to treat them incredibly well and so on. Why
because their expectations is that actually to eat today is
a good thing. And so when you compare, you actually
look at those places in the world, you know, Latin America, Africa, India,
and there are some of the happiest people on earth,
even though their life is a lot more difficult than ours,
(08:33):
because their expectations of life are say, a little modest
than ours, and so as a result, they can find
happiness that way. The other side of you or however,
is not looking. It's not it's not expecting things to
be to be bad. It's looking for what's bad about everything.
So that's actually looking on the events side of the equation,
(08:53):
and you know, giving you know, you see people in
the big cities of the US sitting in an air conditioned,
fancy car, stuck in traffic and complaining, right, they tend
to look for the for the thing that's wrong with
this situation, which is I'm stuck in traffic. They forget
everything that's right about the situation, the situation which is
(09:15):
I am in an air conditioned car, I can afford
that car. I live in a big city. You know,
I have had an education, perhaps that got me there.
All of those things are suddenly forgotten because they're looking
for that one thing that is wrong with every situation.
And of course humans are capable. If you look for it,
you're going to find it. And there is always something
wrong with everything. Life is not perfect in any way.
(09:36):
So you can actually achieve the amazing, you know, Joinnes's
Book of World Records record and be happy and be
unhappy all the time, not because your life is wrong
in any way, but because you choose to find what's
wrong with your life, and you know in every instance.
So what you're talking about in terms of that level
(10:00):
of sort of appreciation and measuring the good and the
bad and seeing that, clearly it takes some pretty strong
mental control. Do you or do you do you feel
like you um consciously are guiding your thoughts. Of course
you do. But towards that appreciation, of course you do.
(10:22):
But but you will be surprised what it takes. It
takes a really bad toothache. Okay, so yesterday, you know,
I did implants like ten ten days ago, and yesterday
I woke up with extruciating toothache like it was. Don't
be sorry. You know what happens to all of us.
Life is sometimes full of things we don't like right
(10:45):
and and you know what the moment where the dentist
did something and it got adjusted and the pain got
went away that one moment you have life and everything
in it like in that one moment you realize that
just one drop of pain in your life, your life
wouldn't be as amazing as you you know, as you
(11:08):
as you want it to be. But but you may
your life might not be as amazing as you want
it to be. But just taking away that pain and
you realize, oh my god, I'm the most fortunate person
on earth. That peace or having no pain, you know,
it's it's in soul for happy. I talk about something
that I call looking down. Unfortunately, the way we were
(11:30):
raised in our Western societies to be ambitious made us
constantly compare upwards. You will always look at the person
that has a little more than you, that is slightly
thinner than you, that made a little more money than you,
that is, you know, whatever, that has a taller you know, partner,
a shorter partner, whatever it is, you will always look
(11:53):
up and compare if we look down. Trust me, if
you have a device on which you can listen to
this podcast, you're one of the luckiest one percent of
the world. Honestly, you know, the reality is we have
so much and even even though there will always be
harshness in life, we're probably not the ones being the
(12:13):
harshest treated in life. When we come back, we're going
to dig deeper into happiness with Mo Gauda. Before the break,
we were talking about happiness with Mo Gauda, and this
(12:38):
podcast is really about personal transformation and and you turns
and how life, either through our own choice or through
circumstances beyond our control, sometimes changes our course. UM. I
want to dip in a little bit into your personal story, um,
and both on how you came up with this formula
(13:00):
for happiness and how your life events have put it
to the test. Yeah. Yeah, life, life is all all
U turns. Some are a little sharper than others. I
think I was always reasonably successful. I mean, let's not
say always. I was born in Egypt, I was raised
(13:22):
in Egypt, educated in public schools in Egypt, and then
somehow life blessed me with fortune beyond compare. I had
everything anyone would ever wish for. I was a director
at age twenty nine. I was printing money in the
stock market. It was really unbelievably unexpected for me, and
(13:42):
I was miserable. So so from the time when I
was um, you know, young and growing up in Egypt
and didn't have much. I mean I had a wonderful parents,
had wonder of parents, but but wasn't really rich or
successful in any way. And I was the happiest person
you can ever find. Mind to age twenty nine, I'm
(14:03):
you know, everything that everyone strives to be and completely depressed.
And I had to take I think what was probably
the most important you turn in my life. You know, Um,
I am my daughter A at the time, who is
the sunshine itself, like she is full of energy, fun, love,
and you know, she's amazing, and she always wanted the
(14:24):
family to be happy, and I was the grumpy executive,
was always wanting everything to happen and you know the
way I want. And and somehow I could see for
the first time in a s I s how my
grumpiness was really really affecting her. And I remember vividly
the day where I looked at myself in the mirror,
and I know it's the wrong safe thing to say,
but at the time I said, I hate you. I
(14:46):
don't want that person in our life anymore, and I
want you to do something about it, okay. And it
took me a long time. It took me twelve years
of research. The first four years of research about happiness
I couldn't find and I couldn't get it. I couldn't
understand the single word because the way the literature about
happiness is written is either spiritual or you know, in
(15:09):
terms of you know, put in practice like say m
or meditate or and I couldn't get any of that,
and so I had to research it my way, which
was an engineering approach, highly um you know, systemic, highly
um logical approach to a topic that's normally not viewed
that way. I was supported in that quest by my
(15:31):
wonderful Sonali, who instinctively, I think he understood happiness at heart.
He you know, he was always happy. And I would
go to him and tell him what I find found
out in my research, and he would look at me,
you know, like kindly, as he always did, ask me
a couple of questions just to entertain me. Honestly, and
(15:53):
then and then you know, when I answered, he would say,
I'm so proud of you, Papa, you figured it out.
That's amazing. This how we you know, people with hearts
understand it. Don't get me wrong, I have a big heart.
Actually I'm midway between IQ and i Q. But the
moment he knew how to tease, you know, But we
(16:13):
also people with people who have to be successful in
the modern world, we rely a lot more on our
i Q. We we become more left brained by training.
And so between us we developed that model, and the
model worked. You know, I could find happiness a lot
more often, and and as a result, you know, somehow
I think life was preparing me for what must have
(16:36):
been I think the biggest you turn of anyone I know.
You know, when July Ali unfortunately was diagnosed with a
very simple surgical operation. He he was you know, prescribed
and epenductomy, and five things went wrong in a row.
So the doctors simply um made five mistakes that were
(17:00):
all preventable, they were all correctable, and somehow they just
you know, all five of them after each other ended
up taking Ali's life. And how old was he when
he died, and he was a beautiful, handsome, smart, successful
twenty one and a half years old, like truly the
(17:21):
pride of of any parent. He he had that incredible hug.
You know, I I hugged him right before he went
into the operating room. And I can tell you that
point truly was the high point of my life. You know.
I looked at him and I said, that's it, Like
(17:42):
life is worth living. Ali was also my best friend,
so so he you know, if you, if you, and
he was my coach. I think I said that many times.
He had that wisdom to him that was very, very unusual.
At age sixteen, I used to say, when I grow older,
I want to become like Ali. Yeah, and I'm trying still,
(18:07):
believe it or not, I still am trying to become
like Ali. I think. I think what happened was a
shock to any parent, to any family. It probably is
the hardest thing you ever have to do. Even even today,
as you can see five almost five years later, I
simply feel a physical part of my heart missing it.
(18:28):
There is a physical pain associated with with talking about Alien.
All of you guys want to talk about him all
the time. It's it is, it's I'm sorry, and I
can imagine. I mean, I think, listen, I have have
huge limps in our throat just listening to you. I'll
tell you, despite the pain, I have come to realize
(18:49):
that there is an inspiration that comes with the story
that I think the world needs to understand. And and
you know what happened, of course afterwards, many people know,
is that seventeen days after Ali's death, after seventeen days
of applying the model and actually finding total peace, we
were so peaceful that people would come to his memorial crying.
We would be the ones comforting them. We would be
(19:12):
the ones hugging them and explaining them, you know what
we understand about death and life and about happiness. And
you could see physically see them smiling and laughing and
hugging each other. And it wasn't incredible, you know, memorial
of an incredible young man. And after that, seventeen days later,
I started to write, and I wrote a book that
(19:32):
became an international bestseller in thirty one languages. But the
book wasn't the topic at all. The book, to me,
was an attempt to fulfill what I, for some reason
considered was the target that Ali gave me. Before he died.
So four days after he died, I came to me
and said, Ali had a dream two weeks ago, and
he only told me about it. And his dream was
(19:54):
I dreamt I was everywhere and part of everyone, and
and you know, he basically told her. And then when
I woke up, I felt that it was so wonderful
that I didn't want to be part of this physical
form anymore. And and in my in my in my
(20:17):
executive approach to life, I took this as a court.
I took it as a target. I said, if I
can share with the world what Ali has taught me
about happiness, then perhaps I can. I can make him,
through six degrees of separation, part of everyone. And so
I set out to write what I learned, of course,
(20:38):
also in concern that I would forget it and return
to unhappiness. And and somehow it worked, you know, like
the alchemist says, when you when you know your life's purpose,
that the universe conspires to make it happen. And so
the universe conspired. We we set up an initial target
of ten million happy we got at in eight weeks.
(21:01):
These are people that got the message and took action.
And how do you measure that I measure. So the
message I try to send to people is very straightforward
that happiness is your birth right. It's not as complicated
as people make it look. And if you work on it,
if you work at it like fitness, you will achieve it, okay.
And my attempt of that message is to tell people,
(21:24):
so work at it. So I I ask for one
of two actions. Either invest in your own happiness, which
basically means go out there, watch a video, read a book,
watch your documentary, sit with people that make you happier,
or teach you about happiness. Or or if you're already happy,
then help us make others happy by sharing the message,
(21:45):
by paying it forward. And I what I ask people
to do is as a very simple you know, I
call it an inverted or a positive Ponzi scheme, which
basically is, you know, if if every one of us,
if every one of us learns something about happiness and
teaches to people who will teach to people through the
exponential doubling function, within five years, we will be a
(22:06):
billion happy people and and and a billion happy is
the target we said to ourselves. And we're working at
it as a small team, perhaps to tell you that
losing Ali was the biggest was the biggest you turn
in my life. You know, I left Google a year
after the book came out, and they dictator basically dedicated
(22:30):
everything I own and all the time. I have to
do this for the simple reason that it's surprisingly working.
Ninety six depending on the format in which they deliver
they received the method, will say it absolutely changed my life,
not because I've invented something like incredibly different, but because
(22:53):
I'm a left brainer talking to the modern world human
who understand logic, uh before they understand the emotions. So
I start from our logic to get to our hearts.
When we come back, we're going to dig deeper into
happiness and logic. We've been talking with Mo gau Dot
(23:23):
about happiness and the greatest challenge I can see to happiness,
which is the loss of a child. Um Mo, you're
a scientist, You're an engineer your work. You worked at
Google X for most of your career. You have a
scientist brain, and yet you have a very profoundly spiritual
(23:48):
approach in your quest for one billion happy And I
think in the way that you have um transformed your
personal deep suffering into something positive for the world. How
do you reconcile that science, brain and these spiritual sprain
(24:09):
that that most people think are mutually incompatible. They're one
and the same. They really are. It's the scientific method
has hijackedives. It's it's as simple as that. The scientific
method told us that unless we can observe it, we
we cannot measure it. And unless and unless we can
(24:29):
measure it, it's not science. But how how many things
could we not observe fifty years ago that we can
observe today? And what constitutes the the you know, the
instrument with which we observe you know, does our hearts
you know include is it? Is it included in those instruments?
(24:50):
You know? Can we observe love or can we actually
feel it? And I think everyone, including the scientists that
will tell us that spirituality doesn't existence doesn't make sense,
also feel love? So how can they explain that? In
my In my approach, I I'm I'm reasonably spiritual. I
would say reasonably religious as well. Uh, not to a
(25:13):
single religion, but to every beautiful core I found in
every religion everywhere in the world. But I am also
a scientist, and I tried to look at those topics
from a scientific point of view, and you will be amazed.
You know, how science proves to a great extent what
we understand in spirituality. You know, in in when we
(25:35):
talk about mindfulness and presence and being in the here
and now. You can explain this from a spiritual point
of view, can or you can simply just dive deep
into the theory of relativity, space, time continuum and understand
from Einstein how time slices make it real that the
only time you will ever have access to across the
arrow of time is the slice of now right, And
(25:56):
and it doesn't you know, it's it's not it's not
in scientific to to to understand for example, that, um,
you know, spirituality will tell you that you should probably
not try to over control your life, but also chaos
theory tells you that an an entropy tells you exactly
the same. It's it's been funny how we've sort of
(26:19):
created two camps, the camp of scientists that don't want
to listen to spiritual people and the camp of spirituality
that doesn't want to even you know, sometimes acknowledge the
findings of science, while they're exactly one and the same.
I try to apply a very solid So actually, in
solve for Happy, I'm one of my you know, sort
of instructions to my editors was very straightforward. If it's
(26:42):
not proven by science, we're not going to talk about it, okay,
And you know, nothing out there will be will be
explained in a way where people say science contradicts that.
And we have three hundred and sixty five pages of
happiness that that are within that framework. Right, So I
know it's a it's a huge question to ask because
(27:03):
that was there are packed three sixty pages. But can
you just lay out for us the most important principles
that you're asking people consider and self are happy? That's
actually very simple. Happiness is not as complicated as we
make it, you know, And I think that's if people
understand that, they'll start working at it. I start with
(27:26):
a very simple assumption that you can observe with sixteen
minutes of research on the internet, search for laughing babies,
and you will realize that we were all born happy. Okay, Yeah,
so we were born happy in the you know, when
we when our basic needs are met, when our you know,
when we're fed, safe, loved, and you know, there is
no need for us to be unhappy. Our default setting
(27:48):
as humans is happy. That's number one. Number two is uh.
We become unhappy because of conditioning. We become unhappy because
of beliefs, because of expectations, because of societal obligations that
move us out of that unhappiness, out of that happiness,
into a state of unhappiness. Believe it or not, that
(28:08):
state of unhappiness is the only exception to the norm.
So the reality is happiness simply is the absence of unhappiness. Okay,
you look at that little child. The child is happy
until a diaper gets wet. When the diaper gets wet,
that the child cries. You change the diaper, the child
goes back to happiness. And the absence of a reason
(28:31):
for a child to be unhappy, the default setting of
the child is happy. And your inner child is exactly
like that. In the absence of a reason for you
to be unhappy, your default state is happy. Now, the
reasons for unhappiness, they simply mess up our solution of
the happiness equation. So happiness is a comparison between events
(28:53):
and expectations. Events of our life mostly should meet our expectations,
but we often find that not to be true simply
because when we solve the equation wrong, what I attempt
to do and solve for happy is to say, six
grand illusions and seven blind spots, which are truly the
(29:15):
way we perceive and engage with the world, are making
us solve the equation wrong. So six grand illusions. One
of my favorite and my biggest illusions for a very
long time was the illusion of control. I thought that
I can control everything because I'm an executive who is
paid to control everything. When you see through the illusion,
(29:38):
you realize that through entropy, through the work of in
Parliament Black Swan's through you know, understanding butterfly effects, there
is zero control. We can only attempt control, but life
itself is constantly attempting to go to get out of control.
When you see that, you start to realize that the
only two things you can actually control and life are
(30:00):
your actions and your attitude. And with that, when you
have an extruciating toothache like I did yesterday, you don't
complain about life. You don't complain about traffic. You just
simply drive as as diligently as you can towards the dentist.
But as simple as that, okay, And why while it hurts,
it doesn't make me unhappy. I don't turn it into drama.
(30:24):
It's just hurts, and I keep it at that. So
so that's one of the grand illusions. There are six
of those. The illusion of thought, the illusion of of self,
the illusion of knowledge, the illusion of time control, and fear. Okay,
if you can see the reality of the illusion, I
don't even need to teach you any practices. Once you
(30:44):
see the reality of the illusion, it goes away. If
you do that, your expectations will be set better. Then
there are seven blind spots. These are not mistakes in
the design of our brain. They're the exact features of
the design of our brain. Because our brains are a
survival machine, they are concerned first and foremost, for foremost
(31:05):
with keeping us alive. Right, And so what do they do.
They look for everything that is wrong, because what's right doesn't,
you know, constitute a threat to you. So they're constantly
trying to look for whatever is wrong your your you know,
your partner could be the sweetest person ever, but comes
home from work on Friday feeling a little you know, stressed,
(31:27):
doesn't say the right things, or doesn't behave the right way,
and you're our brains are able to filter the last
week or the last seventeen years of a relationship and
focus on what on that one day, when one minute
or one hour and say he's cheating on me. So helpful,
So helpful that brain of ours. So yeah. And so
(31:47):
what I actually tell people is fix the six blinds
and six grand illusions plus the six grand illusions, fixed
the six blind spots, and you will find happiness a
lot more often, because our life is not that bad anyway.
When you do that long enough, then there are what
I call the five ultimate truths. People who navigate life
with the truth realize that we get dental pain every
(32:11):
now and then. We you know, I always use the
example of the opposite poles of a magnet attract, and
that has never upset anyone right when they attract. We
never complain about it. We just expected because it's the truth.
Even if our finger is squeezed between them. We don't
blame life for it, you understand. And so it's six
seven five that's the model. Find this. You know, which
(32:33):
of the sixth grand illusion is your biggest, which of
the seven blind spots is your biggest? And which truth
can you count on your truths might be different than mine,
and navigate life that way. You will find happiness a
lot more of well, mo I know, speaking for Jill
and myself, I know we've found more happiness just from
being in your presence. So thank you so much for
being here with us today. Thank you. Yes, and and
(32:56):
to all of our listeners, do what we're gonna do.
Join them movement at hashtag one billion Happy hold on,
don't don't close yet, because this is the most important
topic to talk about. Our whole world needs a U turn.
I don't I know, I know that, you know that,
I know that everyone listening to us. Look at how
(33:17):
depression is at an all time high, suicide is at
an all time high. You know, the sales of antidepressants
are eighteen billion dollars. One of of every four Americans
is taking antidepressants. Now they think about the realities of
what we're doing to our environment, what we're doing to
each other. Our world needs a U turn. And I
(33:39):
tried so hard to tell myself, don't be stupid. You
know it's impossible to fix the world. It's actually really straightforward.
I'm asking only for two values to change. I'm asking
for people to prioritize their happiness and invest in finding
a happier life. And I'm asking for the compassion to
make two other people happy too. More. Okay, if you're
(34:01):
generously twenty people happy, if you're like you, ladies, you're
going to make a few hundred thousand happy, hopefully through
this podcast. And what I'm trying to say is it's
no longer acceptable to be either. It's no longer acceptable
for any of us to sit in there and watch
the way the world is shifting today and say policymakers
(34:22):
should change or internet companies should change. The only one
that really needs to change is me. I need to
prioritize my happiness and make others happy. And I definitely
think this is the Utah. I think it's about time,
because I don't think our world has the sustainability to
go much longer with our current behavior as humans, you know,
(34:43):
without retaliating a little bit. Thank you very very powerful.
It could not agree with you more stirring stuff mouth.
Thank you very very much, and thanks to our our
wonderful producer, Alicia Heyward for helping us put today together.
Go join the movement hashtag one billion happy. It will
make you better. It will make the world better and
(35:05):
let us know. Connect with us at You Turned podcast.
Let us know how you're happier because we want to
hear
Our world needs a utah, and I tried so hard
to tell myself, don't be stupid. You know, it's impossible
to fix the world. It's actually really straightforward. I'm asking
only for two values to change. I'm asking for people
to prioritize their happiness and invest in finding a happier life.
(00:20):
And I'm asking for the compassion to make two other
people happy two more. Welcome to you Turns, the podcast
where we talk about all things change, a major life
(00:42):
shifts and positive transformation. I'm Lisa Oz and I am
Jail Herzig, and our conversation today got me thinking about
the things that make me happy, kind of the simple
things um and you'll hear from our guests that just
making a list of them is very powerful thing to do.
So I kind of started to do that and it
(01:03):
was it was really interesting, like things wound up on
my list, like sitting on the floor with my morning coffee.
Why I sit on the floor, I don't really know,
but that's how that's how I do it, and that's
what makes me happy. Drinking a glass of wine while
I make dinner. What's what's on your list? Weirdly, both
of those involved consuming beverages. You know me, it's all
(01:26):
about the caffeine and the cocktails. Um. The first thing
comes to mind is hearing mourning doves. I don't know why.
That makes me really happy. Um. And going outside when
it's cold at night and having a really clear open sky.
So the some two of my things. But it's a
beautiful thing. Yours are beautiful too. And nothing like a
(01:48):
nice cocktail or a cup of coffee. Um. Our guest today, though,
is going to help us be happy all the time. Um.
He's the former chief business officer for Google X and
he is the best selling author of Solve for Happy,
Engineering Your Path to Joy. Mokaw Dot is with us today.
(02:10):
Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you
so much for having me. We've been trying to organize
this for a while and now it is happening. So
our first question today is happiness. You define it differently
from other people, and you have a formula for happiness,
which is crazy a formula, Um, it sounds like a
(02:31):
math equation. Can you spell out the formula so we
can be happy all the time. Yeah, you're you're setting
me up for a big target. I actually think we
can be happy a lot more often, and and it
actually is that predictable. There is a formula for happiness
and unhappiness, and you know, in a in a very
interesting way. The way I developed that was simply, like
(02:52):
you know, a scientist in a lab, I took as
many data points of points in my life where I
felt happy like you did on your happy list, coffee
on the floor in the morning, and you know, tried
to find, as you know, what is common across all
of those. And what's common is very straightforward. Happiness happens
not when certain events in our life happen, but when
(03:14):
life seems to be going our way. It's it's not
it's not the fact that you know, coffee in itself
or sitting on on the floor in itself would make
us happy or unhappy. It would make some of us
happy and some of us not. It would make the
ones who want to sit on the floor and have
coffee in the morning happy. When when that happens, we
(03:34):
feel happy. And so the equation is very straightforward. The
equation is happiness is equal to or greater than the
difference between the events of your life, or at least
your perception of the events of your life, and your
expectations of how life should behave and so that comparison,
it's not rain and itself doesn't make us happy or unhappy.
(03:55):
Rain makes us happy when we want rain to water
our plant makes us unhappy when we want to sta
And so it's that comparison between them that makes us
happy or unhappy. And once you see that, happiness becomes
a lot more predictably. Okay, So I have to say,
call me dance that formula. It took me a little
while to wrap my head around it, and I had
(04:15):
to kind of run it through some hypothetical can you
can you do that for me? Like let's say I'm
starting a new job, Okay, And so my perception of
that job is going to be a certain way, depending
on perhaps how negatively or positively I view the things
that happened to me on my in my first month.
(04:37):
And my happiness level is those perceptions minus whatever my
expectations were, right. Have I got this right? So if
my expectations were high, sky high, I'm going to be
blissful every day. I'm gonna wonderful, meaningful things to do
every every moment that I'm there, and I'm inclined to
(04:57):
feel disappointed in what actually happened tends and I'm going
to be very unhappy because there's going to be a
huge delta. Absolutely, absolutely, So what happens there is not
only is it about how sometimes unrealistic our expectations are,
but it's also about how we actually perceive the actual events.
(05:18):
I mean, I can almost guarantee you that on your
next job, your boss is going to be annoying. Right,
This is what bosses are all about, right, So you
know they're supposed to be annoying. They become bosses because
they're annoying. I mean, I hope I wasn't an annoying
boss when I when I ran big businesses, but the
majority are now. If if your expectation is that life
is going to somehow bless you with that, you know
(05:40):
ten percent of bosses that are incredible, you're setting your
expectation in the wrong place. If your expectation is it's
likely that my boss is going to be demanding, and
I need to learn the skills of how to deal
with the demanding boss so that I can manage to
achieve in my life, then perfect you you're on the
right track. There are there are easier examples to understand
(06:01):
the equation though, So you know, the one I like
most is nature. So so you know when we sit
in nature, and we're always happy in nature, almost everyone,
I rarely ever other than maybe people who are a
little scared of of of being out in nature. So
so you know, why does nature make us happy? It
makes us happy because no one ever sat in front
(06:22):
of a tree that was a little a little crooked
and said, now, that's not how it's supposed to be.
Trees are supposed to be ninety degrees vertical. You know,
if if you start to look at it this way,
you feel unhappy. But we all are expecting nature to
be a little unexpected to be a little you know,
out of shape, and that's the beauty of nature. No
one ever sits in front of the ocean and goes like,
(06:44):
I love the view, but can someone mute the south right?
So you know, when when you think about it, those
those things match our expectations of how they should be,
even if they're not perfect all the time. And that's
why we feel happy when we with that. The only thing, though,
is that from the way you're describing it, it it sounds
(07:04):
a little bit like do you know the character or
and Winnie the Pool, who is always like, oh, it's
a terrible day. So if if you're a pessimist and
you expect, oh, work is going to be a drag today.
Oh you know, my boss is going to be rude
to me. Oh my husband's gonna ignore me. If you
set yourself up as thinking everything is gonna be bad,
then you won't be disappointed. So that that's don't not
(07:27):
going to make you happy. So, first of all, how
many years do you know, because there are quite a
few in our modern world today we're actually trained, trained
to look for everything that's wrong. It's actually really really shocking.
But yes, there are two ways to look at this.
One of them is believe it or not mathematically aspert
(07:48):
the equation. But in reality, if your expectations are low,
you're actually bound to be happier. So you know, you
go to Africa or to India where people don't have
as much abundance as you know we we have the
luxury of having in the West. You know, if if
you give someone a ball of rice, they're happy, right.
They don't want to have fries on the side, they
(08:10):
don't want to have a drink, they don't want it
to be hot all the time. They don't want the
waiter to treat them incredibly well and so on. Why
because their expectations is that actually to eat today is
a good thing. And so when you compare, you actually
look at those places in the world, you know, Latin America, Africa, India,
and there are some of the happiest people on earth,
even though their life is a lot more difficult than ours,
(08:33):
because their expectations of life are say, a little modest
than ours, and so as a result, they can find
happiness that way. The other side of you or however,
is not looking. It's not it's not expecting things to
be to be bad. It's looking for what's bad about everything.
So that's actually looking on the events side of the equation,
(08:53):
and you know, giving you know, you see people in
the big cities of the US sitting in an air conditioned,
fancy car, stuck in traffic and complaining, right, they tend
to look for the for the thing that's wrong with
this situation, which is I'm stuck in traffic. They forget
everything that's right about the situation, the situation which is
(09:15):
I am in an air conditioned car, I can afford
that car. I live in a big city. You know,
I have had an education, perhaps that got me there.
All of those things are suddenly forgotten because they're looking
for that one thing that is wrong with every situation.
And of course humans are capable. If you look for it,
you're going to find it. And there is always something
wrong with everything. Life is not perfect in any way.
(09:36):
So you can actually achieve the amazing, you know, Joinnes's
Book of World Records record and be happy and be
unhappy all the time, not because your life is wrong
in any way, but because you choose to find what's
wrong with your life, and you know in every instance.
So what you're talking about in terms of that level
(10:00):
of sort of appreciation and measuring the good and the
bad and seeing that, clearly it takes some pretty strong
mental control. Do you or do you do you feel
like you um consciously are guiding your thoughts. Of course
you do. But towards that appreciation, of course you do.
(10:22):
But but you will be surprised what it takes. It
takes a really bad toothache. Okay, so yesterday, you know,
I did implants like ten ten days ago, and yesterday
I woke up with extruciating toothache like it was. Don't
be sorry. You know what happens to all of us.
Life is sometimes full of things we don't like right
(10:45):
and and you know what the moment where the dentist
did something and it got adjusted and the pain got
went away that one moment you have life and everything
in it like in that one moment you realize that
just one drop of pain in your life, your life
wouldn't be as amazing as you you know, as you
(11:08):
as you want it to be. But but you may
your life might not be as amazing as you want
it to be. But just taking away that pain and
you realize, oh my god, I'm the most fortunate person
on earth. That peace or having no pain, you know,
it's it's in soul for happy. I talk about something
that I call looking down. Unfortunately, the way we were
(11:30):
raised in our Western societies to be ambitious made us
constantly compare upwards. You will always look at the person
that has a little more than you, that is slightly
thinner than you, that made a little more money than you,
that is, you know, whatever, that has a taller you know, partner,
a shorter partner, whatever it is, you will always look
(11:53):
up and compare if we look down. Trust me, if
you have a device on which you can listen to
this podcast, you're one of the luckiest one percent of
the world. Honestly, you know, the reality is we have
so much and even even though there will always be
harshness in life, we're probably not the ones being the
(12:13):
harshest treated in life. When we come back, we're going
to dig deeper into happiness with Mo Gauda. Before the break,
we were talking about happiness with Mo Gauda, and this
(12:38):
podcast is really about personal transformation and and you turns
and how life, either through our own choice or through
circumstances beyond our control, sometimes changes our course. UM. I
want to dip in a little bit into your personal story, um,
and both on how you came up with this formula
(13:00):
for happiness and how your life events have put it
to the test. Yeah. Yeah, life, life is all all
U turns. Some are a little sharper than others. I
think I was always reasonably successful. I mean, let's not
say always. I was born in Egypt, I was raised
(13:22):
in Egypt, educated in public schools in Egypt, and then
somehow life blessed me with fortune beyond compare. I had
everything anyone would ever wish for. I was a director
at age twenty nine. I was printing money in the
stock market. It was really unbelievably unexpected for me, and
(13:42):
I was miserable. So so from the time when I
was um, you know, young and growing up in Egypt
and didn't have much. I mean I had a wonderful parents,
had wonder of parents, but but wasn't really rich or
successful in any way. And I was the happiest person
you can ever find. Mind to age twenty nine, I'm
(14:03):
you know, everything that everyone strives to be and completely depressed.
And I had to take I think what was probably
the most important you turn in my life. You know, Um,
I am my daughter A at the time, who is
the sunshine itself, like she is full of energy, fun, love,
and you know, she's amazing, and she always wanted the
(14:24):
family to be happy, and I was the grumpy executive,
was always wanting everything to happen and you know the
way I want. And and somehow I could see for
the first time in a s I s how my
grumpiness was really really affecting her. And I remember vividly
the day where I looked at myself in the mirror,
and I know it's the wrong safe thing to say,
but at the time I said, I hate you. I
(14:46):
don't want that person in our life anymore, and I
want you to do something about it, okay. And it
took me a long time. It took me twelve years
of research. The first four years of research about happiness
I couldn't find and I couldn't get it. I couldn't
understand the single word because the way the literature about
happiness is written is either spiritual or you know, in
(15:09):
terms of you know, put in practice like say m
or meditate or and I couldn't get any of that,
and so I had to research it my way, which
was an engineering approach, highly um you know, systemic, highly
um logical approach to a topic that's normally not viewed
that way. I was supported in that quest by my
(15:31):
wonderful Sonali, who instinctively, I think he understood happiness at heart.
He you know, he was always happy. And I would
go to him and tell him what I find found
out in my research, and he would look at me,
you know, like kindly, as he always did, ask me
a couple of questions just to entertain me. Honestly, and
(15:53):
then and then you know, when I answered, he would say,
I'm so proud of you, Papa, you figured it out.
That's amazing. This how we you know, people with hearts
understand it. Don't get me wrong, I have a big heart.
Actually I'm midway between IQ and i Q. But the
moment he knew how to tease, you know, But we
(16:13):
also people with people who have to be successful in
the modern world, we rely a lot more on our
i Q. We we become more left brained by training.
And so between us we developed that model, and the
model worked. You know, I could find happiness a lot
more often, and and as a result, you know, somehow
I think life was preparing me for what must have
(16:36):
been I think the biggest you turn of anyone I know.
You know, when July Ali unfortunately was diagnosed with a
very simple surgical operation. He he was you know, prescribed
and epenductomy, and five things went wrong in a row.
So the doctors simply um made five mistakes that were
(17:00):
all preventable, they were all correctable, and somehow they just
you know, all five of them after each other ended
up taking Ali's life. And how old was he when
he died, and he was a beautiful, handsome, smart, successful
twenty one and a half years old, like truly the
(17:21):
pride of of any parent. He he had that incredible hug.
You know, I I hugged him right before he went
into the operating room. And I can tell you that
point truly was the high point of my life. You know.
I looked at him and I said, that's it, Like
(17:42):
life is worth living. Ali was also my best friend,
so so he you know, if you, if you, and
he was my coach. I think I said that many times.
He had that wisdom to him that was very, very unusual.
At age sixteen, I used to say, when I grow older,
I want to become like Ali. Yeah, and I'm trying still,
(18:07):
believe it or not, I still am trying to become
like Ali. I think. I think what happened was a
shock to any parent, to any family. It probably is
the hardest thing you ever have to do. Even even today,
as you can see five almost five years later, I
simply feel a physical part of my heart missing it.
(18:28):
There is a physical pain associated with with talking about Alien.
All of you guys want to talk about him all
the time. It's it is, it's I'm sorry, and I
can imagine. I mean, I think, listen, I have have
huge limps in our throat just listening to you. I'll
tell you, despite the pain, I have come to realize
(18:49):
that there is an inspiration that comes with the story
that I think the world needs to understand. And and
you know what happened, of course afterwards, many people know,
is that seventeen days after Ali's death, after seventeen days
of applying the model and actually finding total peace, we
were so peaceful that people would come to his memorial crying.
We would be the ones comforting them. We would be
(19:12):
the ones hugging them and explaining them, you know what
we understand about death and life and about happiness. And
you could see physically see them smiling and laughing and
hugging each other. And it wasn't incredible, you know, memorial
of an incredible young man. And after that, seventeen days later,
I started to write, and I wrote a book that
(19:32):
became an international bestseller in thirty one languages. But the
book wasn't the topic at all. The book, to me,
was an attempt to fulfill what I, for some reason
considered was the target that Ali gave me. Before he died.
So four days after he died, I came to me
and said, Ali had a dream two weeks ago, and
he only told me about it. And his dream was
(19:54):
I dreamt I was everywhere and part of everyone, and
and you know, he basically told her. And then when
I woke up, I felt that it was so wonderful
that I didn't want to be part of this physical
form anymore. And and in my in my in my
(20:17):
executive approach to life, I took this as a court.
I took it as a target. I said, if I
can share with the world what Ali has taught me
about happiness, then perhaps I can. I can make him,
through six degrees of separation, part of everyone. And so
I set out to write what I learned, of course,
(20:38):
also in concern that I would forget it and return
to unhappiness. And and somehow it worked, you know, like
the alchemist says, when you when you know your life's purpose,
that the universe conspires to make it happen. And so
the universe conspired. We we set up an initial target
of ten million happy we got at in eight weeks.
(21:01):
These are people that got the message and took action.
And how do you measure that I measure. So the
message I try to send to people is very straightforward
that happiness is your birth right. It's not as complicated
as people make it look. And if you work on it,
if you work at it like fitness, you will achieve it, okay.
And my attempt of that message is to tell people,
(21:24):
so work at it. So I I ask for one
of two actions. Either invest in your own happiness, which
basically means go out there, watch a video, read a book,
watch your documentary, sit with people that make you happier,
or teach you about happiness. Or or if you're already happy,
then help us make others happy by sharing the message,
(21:45):
by paying it forward. And I what I ask people
to do is as a very simple you know, I
call it an inverted or a positive Ponzi scheme, which
basically is, you know, if if every one of us,
if every one of us learns something about happiness and
teaches to people who will teach to people through the
exponential doubling function, within five years, we will be a
(22:06):
billion happy people and and and a billion happy is
the target we said to ourselves. And we're working at
it as a small team, perhaps to tell you that
losing Ali was the biggest was the biggest you turn
in my life. You know, I left Google a year
after the book came out, and they dictator basically dedicated
(22:30):
everything I own and all the time. I have to
do this for the simple reason that it's surprisingly working.
Ninety six depending on the format in which they deliver
they received the method, will say it absolutely changed my life,
not because I've invented something like incredibly different, but because
(22:53):
I'm a left brainer talking to the modern world human
who understand logic, uh before they understand the emotions. So
I start from our logic to get to our hearts.
When we come back, we're going to dig deeper into
happiness and logic. We've been talking with Mo gau Dot
(23:23):
about happiness and the greatest challenge I can see to happiness,
which is the loss of a child. Um Mo, you're
a scientist, You're an engineer your work. You worked at
Google X for most of your career. You have a
scientist brain, and yet you have a very profoundly spiritual
(23:48):
approach in your quest for one billion happy And I
think in the way that you have um transformed your
personal deep suffering into something positive for the world. How
do you reconcile that science, brain and these spiritual sprain
(24:09):
that that most people think are mutually incompatible. They're one
and the same. They really are. It's the scientific method
has hijackedives. It's it's as simple as that. The scientific
method told us that unless we can observe it, we
we cannot measure it. And unless and unless we can
(24:29):
measure it, it's not science. But how how many things
could we not observe fifty years ago that we can
observe today? And what constitutes the the you know, the
instrument with which we observe you know, does our hearts
you know include is it? Is it included in those instruments?
(24:50):
You know? Can we observe love or can we actually
feel it? And I think everyone, including the scientists that
will tell us that spirituality doesn't existence doesn't make sense,
also feel love? So how can they explain that? In
my In my approach, I I'm I'm reasonably spiritual. I
would say reasonably religious as well. Uh, not to a
(25:13):
single religion, but to every beautiful core I found in
every religion everywhere in the world. But I am also
a scientist, and I tried to look at those topics
from a scientific point of view, and you will be amazed.
You know, how science proves to a great extent what
we understand in spirituality. You know, in in when we
(25:35):
talk about mindfulness and presence and being in the here
and now. You can explain this from a spiritual point
of view, can or you can simply just dive deep
into the theory of relativity, space, time continuum and understand
from Einstein how time slices make it real that the
only time you will ever have access to across the
arrow of time is the slice of now right, And
(25:56):
and it doesn't you know, it's it's not it's not
in scientific to to to understand for example, that, um,
you know, spirituality will tell you that you should probably
not try to over control your life, but also chaos
theory tells you that an an entropy tells you exactly
the same. It's it's been funny how we've sort of
(26:19):
created two camps, the camp of scientists that don't want
to listen to spiritual people and the camp of spirituality
that doesn't want to even you know, sometimes acknowledge the
findings of science, while they're exactly one and the same.
I try to apply a very solid So actually, in
solve for Happy, I'm one of my you know, sort
of instructions to my editors was very straightforward. If it's
(26:42):
not proven by science, we're not going to talk about it, okay,
And you know, nothing out there will be will be
explained in a way where people say science contradicts that.
And we have three hundred and sixty five pages of
happiness that that are within that framework. Right, So I
know it's a it's a huge question to ask because
(27:03):
that was there are packed three sixty pages. But can
you just lay out for us the most important principles
that you're asking people consider and self are happy? That's
actually very simple. Happiness is not as complicated as we
make it, you know, And I think that's if people
understand that, they'll start working at it. I start with
(27:26):
a very simple assumption that you can observe with sixteen
minutes of research on the internet, search for laughing babies,
and you will realize that we were all born happy. Okay, Yeah,
so we were born happy in the you know, when
we when our basic needs are met, when our you know,
when we're fed, safe, loved, and you know, there is
no need for us to be unhappy. Our default setting
(27:48):
as humans is happy. That's number one. Number two is uh.
We become unhappy because of conditioning. We become unhappy because
of beliefs, because of expectations, because of societal obligations that
move us out of that unhappiness, out of that happiness,
into a state of unhappiness. Believe it or not, that
(28:08):
state of unhappiness is the only exception to the norm.
So the reality is happiness simply is the absence of unhappiness. Okay,
you look at that little child. The child is happy
until a diaper gets wet. When the diaper gets wet,
that the child cries. You change the diaper, the child
goes back to happiness. And the absence of a reason
(28:31):
for a child to be unhappy, the default setting of
the child is happy. And your inner child is exactly
like that. In the absence of a reason for you
to be unhappy, your default state is happy. Now, the
reasons for unhappiness, they simply mess up our solution of
the happiness equation. So happiness is a comparison between events
(28:53):
and expectations. Events of our life mostly should meet our expectations,
but we often find that not to be true simply
because when we solve the equation wrong, what I attempt
to do and solve for happy is to say, six
grand illusions and seven blind spots, which are truly the
(29:15):
way we perceive and engage with the world, are making
us solve the equation wrong. So six grand illusions. One
of my favorite and my biggest illusions for a very
long time was the illusion of control. I thought that
I can control everything because I'm an executive who is
paid to control everything. When you see through the illusion,
(29:38):
you realize that through entropy, through the work of in
Parliament Black Swan's through you know, understanding butterfly effects, there
is zero control. We can only attempt control, but life
itself is constantly attempting to go to get out of control.
When you see that, you start to realize that the
only two things you can actually control and life are
(30:00):
your actions and your attitude. And with that, when you
have an extruciating toothache like I did yesterday, you don't
complain about life. You don't complain about traffic. You just
simply drive as as diligently as you can towards the dentist.
But as simple as that, okay, And why while it hurts,
it doesn't make me unhappy. I don't turn it into drama.
(30:24):
It's just hurts, and I keep it at that. So
so that's one of the grand illusions. There are six
of those. The illusion of thought, the illusion of of self,
the illusion of knowledge, the illusion of time control, and fear. Okay,
if you can see the reality of the illusion, I
don't even need to teach you any practices. Once you
(30:44):
see the reality of the illusion, it goes away. If
you do that, your expectations will be set better. Then
there are seven blind spots. These are not mistakes in
the design of our brain. They're the exact features of
the design of our brain. Because our brains are a
survival machine, they are concerned first and foremost, for foremost
(31:05):
with keeping us alive. Right, And so what do they do.
They look for everything that is wrong, because what's right doesn't,
you know, constitute a threat to you. So they're constantly
trying to look for whatever is wrong your your you know,
your partner could be the sweetest person ever, but comes
home from work on Friday feeling a little you know, stressed,
(31:27):
doesn't say the right things, or doesn't behave the right way,
and you're our brains are able to filter the last
week or the last seventeen years of a relationship and
focus on what on that one day, when one minute
or one hour and say he's cheating on me. So helpful,
So helpful that brain of ours. So yeah. And so
(31:47):
what I actually tell people is fix the six blinds
and six grand illusions plus the six grand illusions, fixed
the six blind spots, and you will find happiness a
lot more often, because our life is not that bad anyway.
When you do that long enough, then there are what
I call the five ultimate truths. People who navigate life
with the truth realize that we get dental pain every
(32:11):
now and then. We you know, I always use the
example of the opposite poles of a magnet attract, and
that has never upset anyone right when they attract. We
never complain about it. We just expected because it's the truth.
Even if our finger is squeezed between them. We don't
blame life for it, you understand. And so it's six
seven five that's the model. Find this. You know, which
(32:33):
of the sixth grand illusion is your biggest, which of
the seven blind spots is your biggest? And which truth
can you count on your truths might be different than mine,
and navigate life that way. You will find happiness a
lot more of well, mo I know, speaking for Jill
and myself, I know we've found more happiness just from
being in your presence. So thank you so much for
being here with us today. Thank you. Yes, and and
(32:56):
to all of our listeners, do what we're gonna do.
Join them movement at hashtag one billion Happy hold on,
don't don't close yet, because this is the most important
topic to talk about. Our whole world needs a U turn.
I don't I know, I know that, you know that,
I know that everyone listening to us. Look at how
(33:17):
depression is at an all time high, suicide is at
an all time high. You know, the sales of antidepressants
are eighteen billion dollars. One of of every four Americans
is taking antidepressants. Now they think about the realities of
what we're doing to our environment, what we're doing to
each other. Our world needs a U turn. And I
(33:39):
tried so hard to tell myself, don't be stupid. You
know it's impossible to fix the world. It's actually really straightforward.
I'm asking only for two values to change. I'm asking
for people to prioritize their happiness and invest in finding
a happier life. And I'm asking for the compassion to
make two other people happy too. More. Okay, if you're
(34:01):
generously twenty people happy, if you're like you, ladies, you're
going to make a few hundred thousand happy, hopefully through
this podcast. And what I'm trying to say is it's
no longer acceptable to be either. It's no longer acceptable
for any of us to sit in there and watch
the way the world is shifting today and say policymakers
(34:22):
should change or internet companies should change. The only one
that really needs to change is me. I need to
prioritize my happiness and make others happy. And I definitely
think this is the Utah. I think it's about time,
because I don't think our world has the sustainability to
go much longer with our current behavior as humans, you know,
(34:43):
without retaliating a little bit. Thank you very very powerful.
It could not agree with you more stirring stuff mouth.
Thank you very very much, and thanks to our our
wonderful producer, Alicia Heyward for helping us put today together.
Go join the movement hashtag one billion happy. It will
make you better. It will make the world better and
(35:05):
let us know. Connect with us at You Turned podcast.
Let us know how you're happier because we want to
hear
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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