Neil Pasricha, THE HAPPINESS EQUATION
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:12]This episode is brought to you by Boombox Gifts.
[0:15]Memory boxes filled with personal messages and photos from friends and family for your next
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[0:22]I am so excited to be interviewing Neil Pastrieta, who is the number one New York Times
[0:27]bestselling author of the Book of Awesome series, which has spent five years on bestseller
[0:32]list and has sold over a million copies.
[0:34]He has also written the number one international bestseller, The Happiness Equation,
[0:39]one nothing, plus do anything, equals have everything.
[0:42]Andy's written a children's book called Awesome is Everywhere.
[0:45]One of the most popular TED speakers of all time, Neil is a frequent keynote speaker,
[0:48]and the director of the Institute for Global Happiness.
[0:51]With degrees from Queens College and Harvard Business School, Neil currently lives with
[0:55]his wife and sons in Toronto.
[0:57]Welcome, Neil.
[0:58]Thanks for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[1:00]Thanks for having me, Zibi.
[1:02]This is seriously such a treat as I was going through all the materials.
[1:05]I was like, I don't even know how to come up with the questions.
[1:08]There's so many things I wanted to argue about.
[1:10]So let's just start first with your book, The Happiness Equation.
[1:14]One nothing and do nothing equals have everything, which is your science-based, obviously.
[1:18]You know, this approach to happiness using positive psychology studies.
[1:22]I was actually a psych major, so this is particularly interesting to me.
[1:26]So you've basically answered the question, what's the secret of happiness?
[1:29]And you have nine major secrets, and in that many other secrets.
[1:33]So that's enough of me talking.
[1:34]You tell me what the secret to happiness is.
[1:37]Well, the whole story is because your mom of four, right?
[1:39]I am a mom of four.
[1:40]Your mom of four.
[1:41]So I was a dad of zero when my wife lastly and I were coming home from our honeymoon.
[1:47]And literally on the plane, she's like, I don't feel well, I'm not feeling good.
[1:50]So we do a layover scheduled layover for six hours in Malaysia.
[1:55]She finds a pharmacy, she finds a place to lie down, we get back on the plane, it's
[1:58]a 12 hour flight home on the airplane.
[2:01]She goes to the little tiny bathroom.
[2:03]She goes back to our seats and she says, I'm pregnant, so she bought the pregnancy test
[2:08]in the airport pharmacy, did the pregnancy test in the airplane bathroom, and told
[2:14]me she was pregnant at like a 50,000 feet above sea level.
[2:17]Now, why do I tell you that story?
[2:19]Because when I landed home in Toronto as a father of zero, we just got married.
[2:25]I was like, oh, oh my gosh, I'm going to be a dad in nine months.
[2:27]So I then spent the next nine months writing a 300 page letter to my unborn child on how
[2:33]to live a happy life.
[2:35]And so the happiness equation that book you just showed me with your hand is that letter,
[2:41]which is why I don't know if you've noticed, you probably didn't because most people don't.
[2:44]Then on the copyright library of Congress page in like 2.5, I even have a little note hidden
[2:49]in there that says to my baby, I wanted you to have this in case they didn't have a chance
[2:52]to tell you, love that.
[2:53]Oh, that's so sweet.
[2:55]So then you said like, well, what's the, so that's like, I should, I'll use that.
[2:58]I did not even write a post it to any of my four kids before they were born.
[3:02]No, I feel terrible.
[3:04]No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I also like submitted it to a publisher and like
[3:07]they printed it as a book and I am a writer.
[3:09]So I'm like, yeah, like that is why I wrote it.
[3:13]And then of course I'm like, yes, and I'm like, I'm going to like, I'm going to publish
[3:16]it.
[3:17]So here I am actually maybe I'm exploding my children and you're actually just like, you
[3:20]know, not exploiting your kids the way I was.
[3:23]And so what's the secret happiness?
[3:24]Okay, honestly, my parents are in like your parents, like everyone's parents were li,
[3:28]they're liars.
[3:29]Everyone's parents in the whole world are liars because you know what they say?
[3:31]When we were kids, they say, if you do great work, then you'll have a big success and
[3:35]then you'll be happy.
[3:37]Common parental wisdom.
[3:38]If you study really hard, then you get good grades.
[3:39]And if you're East India and like, I am, you'll become a doctor, right?
[3:43]Or similarly, if anyone's in a career right now, it's like, work really hard, then you
[3:47]get a promotion, then you'll be happy.
[3:48]And when I tell people this, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, my parents are that to me.
[3:51]But I'm like, and don't you say that to your kids?
[3:53]They're like, no, no, no way.
[3:54]I'm like, you don't say try to get into a good school.
[3:56]We want you to get a good job.
[3:58]We want you to say, of course you do.
[4:00]Every parent says that to their kids, but after reviewing over 300 positive psychology studies
[4:06]to write the book, I can now tell you without a shadow of a doubt that that model is fundamentally
[4:11]reversed.
[4:12]Okay.
[4:13]So actually, we shouldn't tell our kids, great work leads to big success leads to being
[4:19]happy.
[4:20]We should say being happy leads to doing great work, which leads to the big success.
[4:27]All the research supports this.
[4:29]What happens when you're happy and you walk into a workplace or you walk into a classroom,
[4:33]you're more productive, you're more creative, you have higher sales, you literally everything
[4:37]goes up.
[4:38]And what happens if you're operating like that?
[4:39]Well, guess what?
[4:40]You're more likely to get promoted.
[4:42]You live a lot longer, like every, again, all the success stuff goes up.
[4:46]So the fundamental thesis of the happiness equation, the book, is a reversal of that,
[4:52]unfortunately, totally incorrect parental wisdom.
[4:55]Excellent.
[4:56]Oh, it's good to see that it's turned on its head.
[4:58]My son the other day, he's in fifth grade and he's like, well, he like puts his head in
[5:02]his hand.
[5:03]He's like, you think my shot at Princeton is over and I was like, oh my gosh, maybe I need
[5:10]to take out a private school in New York.
[5:11]Yeah.
[5:12]It's like you're a lot of...
[5:13]You've got too much pressure.
[5:14]It is a lot of pressure.
[5:15]It is a lot of pressure.
[5:17]That's funny.
[5:18]Well, aside from turning it on its head, you had so much other really amazing advice
[5:22]from tiny actionable steps, like taking three walks a day and just, it was such a great
[5:28]manual for figuring out how to do that first part of your equation better.
[5:32]So anyway, as you know, it's an awesome book, Speaking of Awesome.
[5:35]So your book series, the books of awesome, incorporate so many everyday reasons to be happy.
[5:41]Some of my favorites from your book were bakery air, finding a mixtape from your ex,
[5:46]untangling a really big nut.
[5:47]I'm going to say particularly in a necklace because it was like driving bananas.
[5:51]Ooh, yeah.
[5:52]I can picture like the tiny coiled gold chains.
[5:54]Oh my gosh.
[5:55]That's like the bane of rain systems.
[5:56]Just barely nudges out headphones.
[5:58]Yeah, it's like pushed the F's, my gosh.
[6:01]And solving the wheel of fortune puzzle.
[6:02]I think Jeffrey, I think calling out Jeopardy Answers in a taxi TV is also high on
[6:06]my list.
[6:07]Oh, my ex.
[6:08]Dix it to those.
[6:09]Yeah.
[6:11]So I read that you started the whole blog when Adam, a place of sadness, really, that one
[6:18]of you tell me how that came about and how it launched this entire enterprise of books
[6:21]of awesome and journals of awesome and everything else.
[6:24]Enterprise.
[6:25]That's funny.
[6:26]Yeah.
[6:27]So I just told you the story about how unless they got married, she told me she was pregnant
[6:28]on the plane.
[6:30]But if you go back kind of just over five years before that, actually what happened is
[6:34]my wife who I was married to, not lastly, told me she was not in love with me anymore,
[6:40]which was a total shock.
[6:41]We just bought a house.
[6:42]We're playing to have kids.
[6:43]Oh, my God.
[6:44]And that happened just a few days before my closest friend took his own life.
[6:49]And I know that he had suffered from mental illness, one in four of us do anxiety rates
[6:53]or increasing loneliness rates or increasing.
[6:55]We know all this stuff.
[6:56]But I was just like, I'd love to talk to him on the phone the night before.
[6:59]And so these two things happen all at once.
[7:01]And I'm suddenly trying to sell my house, trying to process the divorce, trying to write
[7:04]a eulogy.
[7:05]I've lost 40 pounds due to stress.
[7:08]Every work is like, you look great because that's what we say to people that suddenly
[7:13]look like they lost weight.
[7:16]And I felt terrible.
[7:18]And so one day I got home from work and I went on Google and I literally typed in how
[7:21]to start a blog and click the I'm feeling lucky button.
[7:24]And I started a blog called 1000awesomethings.com where I decided for a thousand straight
[7:30]weekdays, I was going to write about bakery air or putting warm underwear on right from
[7:37]the dryer or getting called up to the dinner buffet first set of wedding or flipping to
[7:41]the coast out of the pillow in the middle of the night.
[7:43]And as you know from reading the book of awesome, sometimes it's like one sentence and
[7:46]sometimes it's like 1200 words.
[7:48]It depends.
[7:49]Old dangerous playground equipment.
[7:51]That's 1200 words.
[7:52]I got a lot to say about hot slides and like, you know, real dangerous equipment.
[7:56]So I did that every single day for four years.
[7:59]The blog, you know, one one the it sounds so crazy weird to say this, but it won the best
[8:04]blog in the world award at the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which
[8:08]I bet you haven't heard of because no one has, but I won this twice in a row.
[8:11]And then when you win something like that, just everyone then all the literary agents
[8:14]and stuff said, oh, well, you know, it's someone else said, you're good.
[8:18]So I guess we should write a book about you.
[8:20]So then the book deals and stuff came and that's where you got the book of awesome, the
[8:23]book of even more awesome, the book of holiday awesome five calendars of awesome two
[8:26]journals of awesome in the app.
[8:28]Click here to buy and no, you know, imitation gruel like Rusty the Clown.
[8:33]I know that 10 orphans can't tell the difference.
[8:37]And you also wrote a children's book with my kids love.
[8:42]I got to tell them everywhere.
[8:44]And literally.
[8:45]So I'm used to, I got into these books that you have to shake like press here, whatever.
[8:50]Yeah.
[8:51]You're about the top of that.
[8:52]Exactly.
[8:53]All that stuff.
[8:54]And you're about like took that one step forward where you're zooming with your fingers
[8:57]if it's like an iPad, which the kids loved.
[8:59]And then like, I was like, I feel like I'm on candid cameras and I had to pick up the
[9:03]book when you said like dive into the ocean.
[9:05]I'm like, okay, I think we're going like this and I think that my daughter takes the
[9:10]books.
[9:11]She jumps under.
[9:12]Anyway, I love that like even a book you turn on its head and somehow make the experience
[9:16]just like a little more memorable and fun.
[9:20]So how did you come up with that?
[9:21]Well, this is so funny.
[9:22]You say this because I love how we're jumping all over timeline wise.
[9:25]So we kind of started in like, you know, Neil's kind of gets married again and that's
[9:29]what the happiness you've had comes from.
[9:30]Then we went back five years before where I got divorced and I lost my close friend and
[9:34]I'm writing on awesome things to cheer myself up.
[9:36]And then flash forward now to when we, let's you know, I have our first child.
[9:41]Okay.
[9:42]We now have three boys by the way.
[9:43]Oh.
[9:44]Five years old.
[9:45]Okay.
[9:46]As of the time of recording this.
[9:47]So we had our first child and I'm like, oh, little kids like, you know, my son loves
[9:52]a rain and like everyone else is like put on a hat, put on raincoats, cover yourself
[9:57]with an umbrella.
[9:58]And he literally is one of the.
[10:00]It's favorite things. He loves rain. He loves, he loves feeling it on his face. And I realized
[10:04]as an adult, I'm like, oh my gosh, like I haven't felt rain on my face on purpose. Since
[10:11]I can remember, you know, like it's like been over 30 years since I can remember feeling
[10:16]rain on my face. So why do I tell you that story? Because I was like, we're trying to teach
[10:21]adults how to meditate because anxiety is skyrocketing, depression is skyrocketing, loneliness
[10:28]suicide rates are skyrocketing. And we're like, hey, everyone, ignore the barrage of annoying ads
[10:33]and clickbait that is firing at you from every TV screen in the corner of every elevator all day.
[10:39]And why don't you just close your eyes and do some deep breathing for five minutes? We're trying
[10:42]to teach adults this stuff. Meanwhile, I'm looking at my kid and I'm like, oh my gosh, how
[10:47]all of everyone who is a parent knows this. My kid's doing it. They're literally already accomplishing
[10:53]the ultimate Buddhist meditation standing outside staring at the sky, letting the rain fall on
[10:59]you and smiling. You did it. So the purpose of my children's book, which is called awesome is
[11:04]everywhere is to help teach adults or children who have forgotten how to do this five minute
[11:12]sort of guided meditation to re expose their senses to the simple things around you. The reader
[11:17]begins in outer space. As you said, you tap the earth, you therefore turn the page and zoom in.
[11:22]You tap the earth, you zoom in again. Your turns out you're going to West Africa. You tap it
[11:26]again. You're going a little deeper. You get all the way down to like sea level. Then you flip
[11:30]the book over your head. You go underwater. So I'm saying, hold your breath and you come back up
[11:34]and I'm like, touch the sand tap the sand. You go down to the sand on like a microscopic level
[11:38]and then you eventually shake the book and zoom all the way back out. And how did this come about?
[11:43]Well, that's the story of why I wrote it. But more interestingly, maybe kind of for your kind of
[11:48]of bookish type audience is like, this is good like maybe warning tale for anyone that wants
[11:52]to write a kids book. I signed that contract that said, Neil will do a kids book for like,
[11:56]I won't say which publisher but a big publisher in New York. And then they said, okay, we got
[12:01]your kids book outline done. It's going to be like $6.99. We're going to print it on like,
[12:06]you know, newsprint and how about crossword puzzles and stickers. And I was like, that's
[12:10]what I want to do. They're like, well, that's what we want to do. I'm like, I want like a $22
[12:14]full color hardcover. Yeah. So we had a huge fight and ended up breaking the contract. And I
[12:21]actually did the book I wanted to do on my own. And the first once I had done it, like I partnered
[12:26]with an animation studio, we bought our own photographs. We hired someone with like a camera in
[12:31]the Caribbean to take pictures for us. Like, literally, I did all that work. And then guess what,
[12:36]then the publishers came back and said, Oh, we'd like that. So we'll buy that. And that's why it's
[12:40]come out from, you know, paying when publishing. But it's just a war. All I'm saying is do what
[12:45]you want. You know, otherwise the market will just tell you to make something that's crappy.
[12:51]I feel like that's in part taking your own advice that you have throughout the books, right? Like,
[12:54]do what you love, you know, kind of like, and you do you and then see what happens afterward.
[12:58]The cliche that you'll never regret, you'll never regret doing the right thing even if it doesn't
[13:03]turn out well. But you might regret doing the wrong thing even if it does turn out well.
[13:09]All right. I'm going to think about that for a little bit.
[13:10]You'll have to do one. The fact that you did it for the wrong reasons. If I had made a 679
[13:15]crossword puzzle and stick or filled book that sold a million copies, it would still be
[13:18]lying at me that the kids book I want to do never got made. Whereas the fact that I made this book
[13:23]that was the way I want to and by the way, they tell me it's the world's first ever interactive
[13:28]hyper realistic book in the world for sure ever. Yeah. Yeah. I got a partner with this cool
[13:32]animation studio that works for the Discovery channel. I got to have fun with it. And did it sell
[13:37]a million copies? No. But I can't tell you how happy I am with with what came out. It's a product
[13:42]that I'm very happy with. So what's that worth? You know what I mean? Right. Well, I feel like it could be
[13:47]a whole thing. You can zoom into anywhere you want. I mean, you could make many of these. But
[13:52]that's here. I don't think you have trouble figuring out new ideas and marketing. So I'll just
[13:57]let that. I should think of I get asked to do a sequel. But I feel like ideas are cheap. You know,
[14:03]I had too many things. I'm sure everyone's like this. But I'm like, oh, I want to do this. I want
[14:07]to do that. But then it's like, which one of those things do you want to spend a year of your
[14:11]life on? Well, that's a much harder question. That's true. Okay. Let's talk about your podcast,
[14:18]three books with Neil Pestricut. And it's so great. You've been entertaining amazing guests and
[14:24]you're trying to cover a thousand books. Is that right? You do three books at a time. Tell me how
[14:28]you came up with this idea and your progress on this. My podcast is, my podcast is a good example
[14:35]of me just being crazy. So number I told you, I did that blog called 1000awesomethings.com. Well,
[14:41]it got popular, right? Like it won some awards and ended up getting like over 50 million
[14:45]hits or whatever. And for a long time, I always thought people like, what's the secret of success?
[14:49]Where'd you get the good idea? I was like, it's not a good idea. Everyone writes down stuff they like.
[14:54]I'll like, you know, and they're like, well, why was your blog so popular? And I always thought it
[14:58]was, oh, it's the awesome things. And then I realized later, honestly, because it's actually the
[15:03]thousand because it was finite. The last day wrote my blog, I had 50,000 hits, but I had to stop
[15:09]because I promise everyone I was laying in and do a thousand. When you make something
[15:13]finite in these days, it becomes more valuable. And the reason I believe that is because we live
[15:19]in an era of infinite choice now. So the fact that you could do anything in the world
[15:25]makes us trust the fact that you don't do many things. In fact, you could do anything,
[15:30]makes us trust the fact that you don't do many things. That's why we like buying cookies from
[15:34]the guy that just sells cookies in them all. We don't want to go to the gigantic place that has
[15:39]everything because we don't know if you're really good at cookies. It's every gone by,
[15:42]walk by a restaurant where it's like, they have great Caribbean food and Chinese food. And
[15:46]America, you're like, well, I don't try that place. I want to go to just the tie place.
[15:51]So I decided to copy my own model with the podcast. I was like, oh, I did a thousand
[15:55]awesome things. Let me try to find the world's 1000 most formative books. How would you go about
[16:01]doing that? Well, there are books that she already printed saying like 1000 best books to read
[16:06]before you die. Blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, every time I pick up one of those books in the
[16:10]books or to be, I'm like, you know, who the heck are you? Like, why should I believe your opinion?
[16:16]And so my idea is I've decided to interview 333 of the world's most interesting and inspiring
[16:24]people I can find. I've promised myself that I will publish one new chapter of my show on the
[16:29]exact minute of every single new moon and full moon for 333 straight lunar cycles, which takes me
[16:38]all the way up to September 1st, 2013 at 552 in the morning, which will be my last full moon. I'm
[16:43]literally having all planned out. And I know because I said I'm crazy. And then of course what
[16:48]happens in between each each chapter? Well, that's the two weeks where I get the guests three books.
[16:52]I literally read all three books. I fly to them. So next week I'm flying to New York to interview
[16:57]Malcolm Gladwell. I fly to him. I sit down with them. And then I say, Oh, Malcolm, I read the blind
[17:01]side by Michael Lewis, which by the way, spoiler alert is one of his three books. It's in my head
[17:06]because I just finished reading it. And I say, well, here's what I picked out of this and tell me how
[17:11]affected your life and why should everybody read it and who would this be good for? And we open it up.
[17:15]But well, one day I'll do Malcolm Gladwell. Okay, the greatest thought leader alive or whatever.
[17:20]The next day I'll also do the world's greatest Uber driver, a guy with a 4.99 rating and 5,000 rides
[17:27]who, by the way, is a fascinating interview. And as always, I did it in person. I did it in the back
[17:33]of his Uber, you know, it was a $95 ride, but it was worth it. It was worth it for the
[17:38]amazing recording. I flew down to Key West and I interviewed Judy Bloom, which, by the way,
[17:42]I don't know if you know this. Judy Bloom, who's 81, runs a bookstore. You knew that because you
[17:48]run a book spot. Like most people are like, what do you mean she runs a bookstore? I'm like,
[17:50]no, she stands at the cashier. Like she stands at the cash register. She's like, can I help you?
[17:56]And you don't even realize like that's Judy Bloom. That's the bookseller at books and books
[18:03]in Key West, Florida for anyone listening that's on a cruise ship right now or is driving around
[18:07]Florida. Go to Key West, Florida. Get Judy Bloom to tell you a book she will happily do it.
[18:11]And so why am I doing this? Why am I crazy enough to do this? Because I genuinely want to
[18:17]read the thousand most formative books in the world. And I believe there's many problems with the
[18:22]book industry. I believe. But one of the biggest is they print too many books. In English alone,
[18:28]500,000 new books are published by the big five publishers a year, another 500,000 by a self
[18:34]publishing. And if you do the math, there's over 200 million books available on Amazon. So I'm
[18:40]like you, like your show, like we're always looking for ways to, you know, in an era of infinite choice,
[18:48]trust someone's curated lists that we can sign on to. And I don't trust Amazon. Like when I
[18:55]see an algorithm that tells me what to read, I don't trust it because I know they're getting paid
[19:00]to tell me stuff. Okay, I went on like a gigantic rant there, but that's the premise behind my
[19:04]podcast three books. I love that. That's so cool. Now I'm going to be like looking in the back of
[19:09]all the tax he is seeing. It's like you're going to be popping up interviewing different tax
[19:13]drivers and you never know every now. It's looking for interesting people. That's the thing,
[19:18]you know, like it's not about fame. Right. I sat beside a guy on a plane recently who's a son of
[19:25]like he's a gigantic rapper. And I looked him up and he's like five million followers in Instagram
[19:29]blah blah. And like I made, you know, I traded phone numbers with this guy who's coming to Toronto.
[19:32]I said, who do you hang out with him twice? I don't know anyone. Just Drake. It's like, okay.
[19:37]But then I was like, I said, this guy might be good for my podcast. I was like, oh,
[19:40]do you read books? Are you like a book lover? He's like, nope. And I'm like, damn, that guy is not
[19:45]qualified to be on my show. Whereas as I met these two Mormon missionaries or two teenage boys or
[19:49]both 18 years old away from their family for two years on a Mormon mission. Of course I met them
[19:54]because they like, like that's their job is to knock on people's doors. I started talking to them. I'm
[19:58]like, wow, that's a fact.
[20:00]It's an eating point of view.
[20:02]So I interviewed them, and guess what their number
[20:04]one most formative book was?
[20:05]The Bible?
[20:06]No, the book of Mormon.
[20:07]Oh, the book of Mormon.
[20:08]LAUGHTER
[20:11]But I knew nothing about it, so it was a great conversation.
[20:14]I felt like the dumbest person alive
[20:16]asking them about it, but it's a good way to learn.
[20:19]And it's a great play.
[20:20]I don't know.
[20:20]You've seen it.
[20:21]Oh, like the South Park, the guys said.
[20:24]The book of Mormon is a treat.
[20:25]Toronto now, I should go see it.
[20:26]I haven't seen it yet.
[20:27]It's worth going to.
[20:28]It's good.
[20:29]You wrote an essay, which I want to plaster
[20:34]in my, you know, around my office,
[20:36]got eight ways to read a lot more books this year.
[20:39]Because I feel like people are constantly asking me,
[20:40]like, when do you read books?
[20:42]Because like you, I read about 100 books last year.
[20:44]I've been reading more and more now
[20:45]that I've been doing the podcast.
[20:47]And I've just somehow managed to fit it in.
[20:49]And then it like builds on itself.
[20:51]Like you were saying in your article,
[20:52]it's like the more you read,
[20:53]the more you get hooked on it.
[20:55]So what do you think are some of the,
[20:57]well, first of all, you said,
[20:58]today's world is designed for shallow skimming
[21:01]rather than deep diving and that negatively impacts
[21:04]how you read.
[21:04]So talk to me a little bit about that.
[21:06]Well, yeah, it's so true.
[21:07]I mean, we are, our most base level,
[21:10]like brain activities are being manipulated by cell phones,
[21:15]social media, the dopamine hits that we get.
[21:17]Whenever you look at your cell phone and it says,
[21:19]oh, there's 14 unread emails.
[21:20]Oh, three red on red text messages.
[21:22]Oh, seven notifications on Instagram.
[21:24]And, and there's a reason why all those apps,
[21:26]by the way, fly in and fly out and are multiple colors
[21:30]is because it mimics,
[21:31]it's not that the people designed them are like,
[21:33]you know, like some evil genius petting a cat
[21:35]that says like, oh, which is,
[21:36]which is kind of like torture people with these devices,
[21:39]but literally the way programming and algorithm works
[21:42]is you keep going and tell people,
[21:43]click, right?
[21:45]So the problem is if you look around your own life,
[21:49]that's what I'm talking to myself,
[21:51]I was like, oh wait a minute,
[21:52]I have two newspaper subscriptions
[21:54]which tell me a surface level view
[21:56]of some random stuff every day.
[21:57]I have five magazine subscriptions.
[22:00]Hmm.
[22:01]I'm like, what if I canceled all those?
[22:03]Like, I literally, all of them.
[22:05]And I just read books.
[22:06]Well, then at the end of 10 years,
[22:08]I'll have a bookshelf full of books,
[22:12]full of knowledge that's in my brain,
[22:15]with sure beats the pile of old, near times.
[22:18]You know, who cares about a fire that happened 20 years ago?
[22:21]I mean, it's just, I had to sound,
[22:23]I don't mean to sound cynical,
[22:24]but it's more like, you could care about it,
[22:26]because you will get a dopamine hit
[22:28]and it's really nice to know what's going on,
[22:30]but the chances in the seven billion person world
[22:32]that something disastrous is gonna happen
[22:34]every 10 seconds is very high.
[22:35]So do you want to pay attention to that?
[22:37]Sure, go ahead.
[22:39]But if you decide to change your mind
[22:41]to books, the benefits will far outweigh that.
[22:44]And so once I realized that,
[22:46]and I made that big decision, it's a big decision,
[22:48]by the way, I was a news junkie,
[22:49]like I was the guy who read,
[22:50]I had two newspapers subscriptions, like who does that?
[22:53]That's three.
[22:53]I have three to three.
[22:55]Right, okay, so you're like, you're like a better or worse
[22:58]than I was okay, but like for me, it was like,
[23:00]okay, I made that decision, then I'm like,
[23:02]what else can I do?
[23:02]And then I was like, oh, I got addicted,
[23:04]that's what formed the article.
[23:05]So yeah, link to the article,
[23:07]I can send it to you, whatever you want.
[23:08]It's on Harvard Business Review.
[23:09]It's like, move your TV to the basement,
[23:11]move your book shift to the front door,
[23:12]like simple little design stuff like that.
[23:14]Oh, here's one, tell everyone what you're reading
[23:18]and do it in a formal way.
[23:20]So I started a book club,
[23:21]which is really just an email list,
[23:23]because everyone's like, you should build an email list.
[23:24]I was like, I don't have anyone.
[23:26]And they're like, well, what do you wanna write about?
[23:27]I was like, I don't know, I wanna tell people
[23:29]what books I'm reading every month.
[23:31]Now it's over like something like 30, 35,000 people.
[23:34]Come on.
[23:35]Right, but the reason I tell you that number
[23:36]isn't to say, oh, wow, look at me.
[23:38]It's to say, I have pressure now every month
[23:41]to tell 35,000 people, which books I read.
[23:45]And so if it's getting close to the end of the month,
[23:47]Zibi, and I have two books read,
[23:48]I'm gonna be like, oh my gosh, I gotta read three books this week.
[23:50]Although, as I'm too embarrassed,
[23:52]to tell people that I kinda had it off month.
[23:54]So I now have applied pressure to myself.
[23:58]And you can do this via, you know,
[23:59]but if you need some help with that pressure,
[24:02]I would be happy to write your mailing list for you
[24:05]with books that I'm reading.
[24:07]You do, why don't we have a guest post
[24:09]or cause you also have a regular list.
[24:12]I do.
[24:13]So why don't we put that, I'm happy to put that in there.
[24:15]I love to.
[24:15]Awesome, that'd be fun.
[24:16]And that's in my next book club,
[24:18]my next monthly book club, I can say,
[24:20]I love to do this and just say like,
[24:21]cause I always try to point people at other ones.
[24:23]The only one I really know that does is Ryan Holliday.
[24:26]And I guess Bill Gates, if he counts,
[24:28]but he's like Bill Gates,
[24:29]but he does have a book club and Reese Witherspoon.
[24:32]Okay, I guess there's a few.
[24:33]But I'm like, I'd rather recommend yours.
[24:35]Thank you.
[24:36]Yeah.
[24:37]I don't think that's Reese Witherspoon's
[24:39]picture and daughter of perspicks, maybe I do.
[24:41]By the way, I have to,
[24:43]I feel like I have to defend newspapers here for a minute
[24:46]because anytime I don't read them,
[24:49]because I like save them for a couple of days
[24:51]and sometimes I read like 12 newspapers at once,
[24:54]like fast, fast, fast.
[24:56]Like not read, I guess skim is a better word.
[24:58]I think it's, you get so much information doing that
[25:02]and then ripping out the things that are valuable
[25:05]and not going online.
[25:06]Like I think that's another,
[25:08]now you're kidding out reading.
[25:09]Like I've cut out news websites.
[25:12]Like I don't ever go online.
[25:14]I stopped on my alerts.
[25:16]Sometimes when I'm really behind on the paper,
[25:18]I was like, what do you mean?
[25:19]Like what happened in whatever?
[25:21]And it can be embarrassing because I can be behind,
[25:24]but I still would rather get my news reading than online.
[25:28]Well, this is actually totally related to the point
[25:30]we were talking about earlier, but finite over infinite,
[25:32]because I was saying 1,000 awesome things is better
[25:34]than unlimited awesome things.
[25:36]I was saying 1,000 former books is better than unlimited
[25:38]and less supply books.
[25:39]You're saying a finite news paper with an end page
[25:43]is better than the unlimited incessant feed
[25:46]of never ending this that comes online.
[25:48]So we're saying the same thing.
[25:50]Yeah, that's true.
[25:50]You just came up with a system that works for you
[25:52]and my system had to be like total obliteration,
[25:54]otherwise I would not read any books.
[25:56]I probably don't read anywhere close to as fast as you.
[25:58]Yeah, I've realized I read really quickly,
[26:00]which is helpful I guess, but.
[26:02]I also like the fact that you say that
[26:03]that I read quickly.
[26:04]Well, it seems like everyone that reads fast,
[26:06]like I probably do too now, is always like,
[26:09]oh no, I don't really read fat.
[26:11]I'm like, you're like, of course you do.
[26:12]You read a hundred books a year.
[26:14]Of course you read fast.
[26:15]Yeah.
[26:16]And you're reading 12 newspapers in a pile.
[26:18]Yeah, I guess, I mean, I'm not bragging about it.
[26:22]I don't have a value on if it's good or bad.
[26:24]It's just, I think that's just what, you know.
[26:27]So like choosing to read slow,
[26:30]depending on what it is.
[26:31]Like do you savor anything?
[26:34]Some of the more literary novels I'll go through
[26:38]and it's like sentenced by sentence.
[26:39]Some are beautiful and I'll reread them.
[26:42]Or anything I find interesting, I kind of dug
[26:44]here the page and then I always go back over it.
[26:47]And if I can remember what I found interesting
[26:49]the first time, then it's important.
[26:52]Right.
[26:53]Well, I think that's why I was asking,
[26:54]because I interviewed for chapter 15
[26:56]of three books.
[26:57]I interviewed Mitch Alba who wrote Tuesday with Maury.
[26:59]And he was telling me that he's 60 something now.
[27:01]He was, and he's got a new book out.
[27:03]The next person you meet in heaven.
[27:05]And he, I was like, what are you doing?
[27:06]Like what are you trying to do now, Mitch?
[27:08]And he was like, you know what?
[27:09]First you find purpose, then you find style,
[27:12]and then you find beauty.
[27:14]And he's like, now it's all about for me it's about beauty.
[27:16]I'm trying to put out a beautiful piece of writing.
[27:18]He, one of his books was gilly at, okay?
[27:20]Like it was just like, well, I think Obama's favorite book
[27:23]or something, right?
[27:23]I've never read it.
[27:24]But I like David Mitchell and David Mitchell to me
[27:27]is like a very literary literary fiction writer.
[27:31]He wrote Cloud Atlas and when I'm reading David Mitchell,
[27:34]I gotta tell you, I'm not reading fast.
[27:36]I'm reading very slow because his sentences are like,
[27:39]they're like magical little or derves.
[27:42]So I purposely slowed myself down to really savor.
[27:46]And, you know, the way you would savor a bite of chocolate
[27:50]or something like that.
[27:51]I also do that quickly.
[27:53]That's what I was trying to ask you.
[27:56]That's funny, but that's also why on my podcast,
[27:59]at least I can't do that many literary novels.
[28:02]Like that's why I mix it up.
[28:03]I could never do too literally.
[28:05]No, it was the week they take forever.
[28:08]All so resting with the opus reach up.
[28:10]Yeah, there you go.
[28:11]And you have an audiobook called How to Get Back Up,
[28:16]which when I first read it, I was like,
[28:18]I thought you were saying how to get back up.
[28:20]Like how to get support, but you meant how to get back up,
[28:23]which I realized once I started listening.
[28:25]But anyway, so-
[28:26]You read so fast.
[28:27]You read the two words together.
[28:29]So you released that as an audiobook first.
[28:32]This is right.
[28:33]Now you're writing it.
[28:34]So tell me about this a little bit too.
[28:36]Yeah, so basically what's happening in the world right now
[28:38]is you probably know is everyone's trying to buy original content.
[28:44]So Netflix started this terrible, maybe positive.
[28:47]I don't know if it's good or bad.
[28:49]Thing where they bought House of Cards.
[28:52]And then no one else has House of Cards.
[28:54]So if you want to watch House of Cards,
[28:55]you have to use Netflix, right?
[28:57]And everyone took everyone a while,
[28:58]but everyone's like, wait a minute.
[29:00]If you just buy your own content,
[29:02]and it's good, then you have to come to our platform.
[29:04]Why am I telling you this?
[29:05]Because Audible is in one of these arms races right now
[29:08]as the largest audiobook company.
[29:10]So they're approaching authors like me,
[29:12]luckily, and I think tons of others,
[29:14]like I think Michael Lewis has an Audible original
[29:16]and Adam Grant has an Audible original.
[29:18]And like who doesn't?
[29:19]They're just, they're kind of becoming content hounds.
[29:23]And so I was approached and someone said,
[29:26]they said, like, what do you want to write about?
[29:29]And I was like, honestly, the thing I want to write about
[29:32]is a memoir.
[29:33]I want to write my life story.
[29:34]It was like my family history.
[29:36]They had my mom, you know, kind of fled East Africa
[29:39]while a dictator was ruling, you know,
[29:41]my dad's from a very poor, like I was passionate about it
[29:44]and they're like, cool, write it.
[29:46]So I did.
[29:47]And it's how to get back up.
[29:50]I purposely paused.
[29:52]And that's the memory.
[29:53]And I got to read it in the sound booth
[29:54]and my dad came down and he was, he's like,
[29:56]oh, there's a cameo in there.
[29:57]And it was just like, honestly, a lot of.
[30:00]fun. And now you say, are you writing it? Okay, here's what happened. So then Simon and
[30:05]Schuster bought the rights of the book after. And they were like, we can't sell this. This
[30:09]isn't a book. This is like a memoir. I was like, yeah, but they're like, you're not famous.
[30:14]Like we want to read like Clinton's memoir, not like Neil Passerichas. Now who's Neil
[30:19]Passericha? So I was like, well, you know, what about like Mary Carr or she wrote the
[30:23]Liars Club? They're like, well, they're like, well, that's like one of the million. So I'm
[30:27]like, well, what do people want? They're like, they want what you wrote with the
[30:30]happy situation. Like a cogent, a sort of coagulated little little package with thoughts and
[30:36]wisdom and a little mom. So I totally, completely forever have changed that book. It is now completely
[30:43]mutin. Mutin, what's the word? Marf. You did? Um, in mutated. Thank you into something totally
[30:50]different. The new book is coming out on November 5th of this year. It's called You Are Awesome.
[30:57]Nine secrets to building resilience and living an intentional life. I guess the original yogurt culture
[31:07]is that memoir, it has evolved into something wholly different and unique, the totally different
[31:12]structure, a totally different framing and to book them very proud of and it's very excited for,
[31:17]but it bears no resemblance to the thing, the audible thing. This is part of what happens in publishing.
[31:22]It's like every time you go through a step, it's like the whole thing changes.
[31:25]The resilience book sounds fantastic, but I would rather read the memoir, but not have it be an
[31:31]audiobook. So what do you do for people like that? Like, I don't want to listen, but I want to read that.
[31:35]Like, do you have a copy? I'll email you the word. I guess I just wondering what audible
[31:45]was doing in that case. Like, audible should, well, anyway, they obviously they've done a good job.
[31:50]Audible should start a print publishing unit. Readable? Readable exactly. I'll call them next.
[31:57]I know where I was at a time. Talk to me for two seconds about the Institute for Global Happiness.
[32:02]How awesome is that?
[32:04]Okay. Here's why I started the Institute for Global Happiness. Anyone listening, if you want,
[32:07]by the way, if you want to email me, all my content, everything's at globalhappiness.org.
[32:11]Okay. So I always tell people, it's just Neil at globalhappiness.org. I always love hearing from
[32:16]people that listen to podcasts. But anyway, it turns out that we're not that happy. Okay. Let's
[32:22]start with that. Even though we live in the most abundant time ever in human civilization,
[32:26]we live longer than ever, we are healthier than ever, we're more educated than ever, ever.
[32:30]I mean, ever in history and than ever now. But we're not that happy.
[32:38]Loneliness rates have doubled. 40% of us live alone. Anxiety rates now one in three
[32:44]college students have clinical anxiety. One in three. You kidding me? One in four of us have mental
[32:48]illness. Suicide rates are rising. What's going on? And so I look into the research and I discover
[32:54]that it turns out that the place that we are the unhappiest also happens to be the place that we
[33:00]are spending the most time. This is considered in research like a very unsettling fact. Again,
[33:05]I discovered that the place we are the unhappiest is also the same place that we're spending the
[33:11]most time. And it is work. It's work for the vast majority of people. It's work. Only 8% of people
[33:19]according to Gallup are engaged in their jobs. Okay. So the Institute for Global Happies is meant
[33:24]to give free resources, free tools, free, like it's all free. You don't charge for nothing,
[33:29]anything on that. The only thing we charge for in there is me flying to you to give a speech.
[33:33]And me flying to you to give a speech pays for everything else. Right? Because that's expensive,
[33:38]but there's only one of me. But if I fly to you to give a speech and you pay me,
[33:41]that's why the websites free, the resources are free, the articles are free, the mailing list is
[33:44]free, everything's free. We're giving people tools inside companies to help increase happiness
[33:50]in the workplace. That's the entire air mission and purpose. It's so cool. I love it.
[33:55]So any advice to aspiring authors? Oh my gosh. So many thoughts. The biggest piece of advice I
[34:03]will ever give is also secret number nine from the happiness equation. Because I had a bit of a
[34:10]when I wrote that book because the book of awesome was just like all dangerous playground equipment,
[34:15]warm underwear, cold side of the pillow. Like it was just like stuff. And then the happy
[34:19]equation, I'm like, I'm an authoritative figure. I'm like telling you what to do. And I'm like the whole
[34:23]time I'm doing that. I don't know if you can tell my writing style. Like I'm uncomfortable with that.
[34:26]So my very last, because I'm like, who am I to tell you what to do? There's the guru model presupposes
[34:33]that you are walking up to a guru for advice. And that's the problem. You actually need to come up
[34:38]with the change for yourself in order for it to be effective, right? So the guru model is a
[34:42]sabotage of itself. So I decided in the last secret of the happiness equation, which is the advice
[34:47]I'm going to give you now to make the final secret, don't take advice. I found an amazing quote from
[34:54]the 1800s by Charles Varele that says, when we seek advice, we are really seeking an alibi.
[35:01]When you're asking, when you're fifth grader is saying, I won't get into Princeton. What
[35:05]he's actually saying is, is it okay if I don't or is it okay if I do, he's seeking to confirm
[35:10]something inside himself that he may or may not already believe. Have you ever asked somebody,
[35:14]oh, where should I live or what should I wish that work? Like they're going to tell you where
[35:19]they should work or where they should live or at least through their brain and their lens.
[35:23]So you're just hoping that it agrees with the thing inside you. The answers are all inside you,
[35:28]whether you were a writer, whether you are doing something totally different and you just happen
[35:32]to stumble upon this podcast or you're interested in becoming a writer, forget what anyone
[35:36]else says. And that's really hard because everyone else is going to tell you stuff. The market
[35:42]will show you what's on the best analyst and you'll think that's the kind of book you need to
[35:44]write. The publishers will have success with one format and they think your books should be that
[35:48]size and that color. You know, after the subtler I'm not giving that came out, I bleed myself there.
[35:54]Guess what? Every book was orange and every book had the effort on the cover for the next year.
[35:58]That is taking advice. Don't take advice is people that puncture the sort of homogeneous nature of
[36:06]everything with their own clear and independent thoughts that will always do better in the long
[36:11]one because at least if it's not successful, you can be happy knowing that you held your integrity
[36:15]and you did what mattered to you. Neil, are you happy? I'm like totally happy. I mean,
[36:22]I have bad days. I will yell out my kids and I feel like a bad dad. I will get into a fight with my
[36:27]wife. I will hit traffic. But the person I was 10 years ago when I was starting to seek how to find
[36:34]happiness, like by writing this little blog, has totally evolved in someone else. Is am I perfect?
[36:40]No. Is it a practice? Yes. It's like when you're done yoga and at the very end, they're like,
[36:46]thank you for your practice. They don't say, nice downward dog. You win. You're done. They always
[36:52]thank you for your practice. Happiness is a practice. It's something you're always working towards
[36:57]and never quite there. So I feel like I'm well on my way, but I'm sure I have lots and lots to go.
[37:04]Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on mom. So I have time to read books.
[37:08]I didn't even say this at the beginning. I totally relate to the title because my wife is a mom.
[37:12]It doesn't have time to read books. It's tough. All right. Well, thank you so much.
[37:17]Thanks, Ruby. Okay. Take care.