The Meaning of Your Life with Arthur Brooks: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness

does your life feel meaningless? The answer, yes, that's a meaning crisis.

“What's meaning? Where do you find it? How do you live differently? What's going wrong?”

The happiest people are practicing four things every day. They are. Do you know the meaning of your life? Do you feel a true sense of purpose? Is this something you've been searching for, but perhaps are struggling with? If so, you're not alone. Millions of people, in fact, describe this feeling of a growing sense of emptiness or lack of significance.

And if you can relate and if you want more meaning and fulfillment in your life, then today's episode is for you. Arthur C. Brooks is a Harvard professor, PhD social scientist, and number one best-selling author of multiple books whose specializes in using the highest levels of science and philosophy to provide people with actionable strategies to live their best lives right now.

And in his brand new book, it's called The Meaning of Your Life. He leans on cutting-edge science and grateful philosophers to give us a blueprint that he says will help even the most skeptical person find a life of spiritual transcendence. Passionate love and true calling. Yes, please. Arthur speaks to audiences around the world about human happiness,

and he's flown across country to be here in person with you and me today. I am so excited for this conversation. And whether today you're listening for yourself or because someone you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Cranley Michelle Podcast family. Thank you so much for being here.

You haven't done this already. Can you take a second and click the follow or subscribe button

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It really truly means the world to me. And also, you can get more inspiration for free right now from me to you. Just join my newsletter community at JamieCranleyment.com. And this incredible episode today is not just for you and me. Please share this with every single person that you know who may need some inspiration

or to find meaning in their life today. Because what you're about to hear can truly impact mine, yours and their lives to you. Welcome, Jamie Cranley Michelle. Oprah, how have you defied the odds? Her show is unlike any I've ever done.

A revelation. When you listen, it feels like a hug. First lady Michelle Obama, Jamie, you are going so deep.

I have never had this in-depth conversation.

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and know you are enough. Welcome to the Jamie Cranley Michelle. Jamie Cranley, my name is Renee. Everybody needs Jamie Cranley, my life. Jamie Cranley, my life.

Jamie, you're so inspiring. Jamie Cranley, my... Are there Brooks? Welcome to the Jamie Cranley Michelle. Thank you, Jamie.

It's so great to be with you. Two Seattle kids together, huh? Yes, yes. And we both have roots to Montecito, I learned. Uh-huh.

Yeah, my dad went to high school. It sounded like our high school and they lived in Montecito. But that was way before my time. Before your time. Yeah.

It's wild. You know, I live in Santa Barbara, Montecito area now. And I was adopted. I didn't know this my whole life. I learned at age 27.

But long story short, my birth mom was actually a student at UCSB. Really?

“And she had me in secret, you know, and then placed me in adoption.”

And she worked down the street actually from where I live as a lifeguard. And it's kind of wild that my whole life went in a whole different area than I end up back here. Getting here. All roads lead to Montecito. I think so.

I think so. I spent summers a lot here actually when I was a kid. We would come down here. My dad would take doctoral classes when he's working on his PhD at UCSB. As a matter of fact.

So a lot of my summer memories are from here too.

And your is a third generation academic.

I know your ambition and a whole bunch of other things. My dad might say that's that's the family business. You know, the Gambinos do mob stuff. Yeah. You know, the Roth child do banking stuff.

Well, the Brooks is do academic stuff. You do academics. Well, we are all benefiting from that and blessed from that.

You've co-written a book with Oprah.

You are, you know, you teach the top class at Harvard on happiness. And so many people. I feel grateful to get so many messages and emails and DMs from people every day.

“And one of the biggest questions is like, how do I find my purpose?”

But also, how do I find happiness? And why right now? Why are so many people unhappy? Right. That's a big problem that we actually see.

And it's been growing. You know, it's almost done. You'd say it's sort of a climate and a weather problem for happiness. Or the climate is sort of the general conditions of happiness have been in a client. And then there have been some big storms along the way.

So it's been since about 1990.

General happiness has been ticking down in the United States and many other countries around the world. And the general reason for that is that the happiest people are practicing for things every day. They're paying attention to their faith or life philosophy or spirituality. They're paying attention to their family life. They're paying attention to their friendships.

And they're looking for work that's meaningful and serves other people. And all four of those things have been gradually decline. And so that's kind of a sickness, a climatic problem for happiness. And then there's been three big storms that have had sort of a down draft on happiness. Number one was when everybody got on small screens.

And that was 2008, 2009 when screen-based life and apps became ubiquitous. And that pulled us apart from each other. There was COVID, of course. Everybody went home and skyrocketing rates of depression anxiety.

And then of course there's the whole climate of politics in this country, which has been extremely polarizing.

And we're being told by activists and politicians that if your brother-in-law or your aunt doesn't vote like you, you got to stop talking to them. And that's just terrible advice that's leading to tremendous amounts of unhappiness as well. And so these are the things that I'm trying to combat in my work and bring people back to bonds and happiness and love using science and ideas. That's my life's mission.

“For me, that's a huge opportunity because I get to live what God put me on earth to do, I think.”

And would you say that we have a growing crisis of meaning? Yeah, for sure. And this is what I saw when I came back to teaching, I left teaching for 11 years in the middle of my career. And I went to run a big Think Tank non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., and I came back in 2019. So I was gone from 2008 to 2019.

And it was not the same place that I left that I came back to. When I left in 2008, universities were happier than the rest of the world. You're falling in love, you're making your friends, you're learning interesting things. And I came back in 2019 and there were very high rates of depression, loneliness and anxiety. And people studying at universities were unhappier than the rest of the population.

And I'm like, now I'm trained as a behavioral scientist. So this is my Sherlock Holmes moment. Like, what's going on? And I started working on that. And this book, this new book, the meaning of your life, is the culmination of that.

Because the number one predictor of depression and anxiety for adults under 30 is the answer to the question. Does your life feel meaningless? The answer, yes. That went up, it exactly the same rates as people feeling depressed anxious and lonely. And that's what predicts it the best. So that's a meaning crisis.

And that's a whole point what a kettle of fish. What's meaning? Where do you find it? How do you live differently? What's going wrong? And the answer, well, that's the book. I mean, the six ways that you do find it and to establish the sense of meaning in your life in six months.

That's at least that's the proposition. Yeah, well, I've read the book covered cover the meaning of your life. And if you're just tuning in right now, and you're like so many of us, or maybe you're like a sense of emptiness, or you're a seeker of meaning all the time, or you're like, you know, I really don't know the meaning of my life is meaning the same thing as purpose.

And how do I feel more fulfilled and happy? There's so many questions that so many of us have. And I'm so excited for your book. And by the way, if you're just tuning in right now, you're listening or watching. I mean, Arthur, grab your copy right now.

The meaning of life can get anywhere books are sold. Yeah. And also the audio version. A lot of Wilson, I love to listen when I'm just like doing a morning walk. I'll read it. I'll read it to anybody.

Yes, well, it's so good. And it's so important off the top. The question. Yeah. So what if you want to know, Arthur Brooks,

what is the meaning of life? Where do you find it?

“How do you have to live differently so you can find it in modern life?”

Yeah, exactly right. And it really starts with an even more fundamental question, which people sort of assume they know, but they don't, which is what's happiness. You know, when my last book that I wrote with Oprah Winfrey, our mutual, beautiful friend, that has that defines happiness in a way that people find very counterintuitive. A lot of people think that happiness is a feeling.

And they're looking for a feeling. We're a very feelings-based culture. And to look for happiness as a feeling is to really go after a vapor. Happiness and feelings are related, but the feelings of happiness are related to happiness like the smell of your turkey is related to your dinner.

It's evidence of the dinner. So don't go looking for feelings. You need something more tangible.

“The happiness has macro nutrients, sort of the protein, carbohydrates, and fat of happiness are enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning.”

Those are the three things that people need to look at.

And when I talk to somebody for the first time, where I'm coaching somebody, I'm working with an executive or whatever,

all look into their lives to see where they're weak. It's kind of like looking at their nutrition. So yeah, you're eating too many carbohydrates, you need more protein. And I can find that are pretty quickly. I have diagnostic tests for that.

Many people don't have enough enjoyment. They don't enjoy their lives enough. They're super hard workers, or they're not taking satisfaction in their accomplishments. Because they don't know what they're doing with their life. But most frequently, with young adults in particular, they don't know the why of their lives.

They don't know why they're on earth. They have no sense of that. And that's the big crisis that I find here, the big blockage for people today. And not just young adults. A lot of people in my age, too, are struggling with the why questions.

Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why does my life matter? Why are things happening all around me? Those are the why questions of meaning. And when I start seeing those things, wow, boy, do I know that I'm going to have a problem on my hands?

Which is an opportunity to get better if we know what we're doing? And so can you talk about meaning, purpose, and significance? Yeah, so meaning, it's, you know, to say what's the meaning of eyes too big? Yeah. You know what's to?

He's got to go sit in the mouth of a cave and ask a guru in Himalayas or something. It was the meaning of life. It's like a New Yorker cartoon practically. You need to break it down. All big problems can be broken down into smaller problems.

You know, it's one of the things when I talk to people about how to fix their marriages. Yeah. That you break it into smaller problems and have smaller tasks. And when you do that, you can repair almost any marriage. But not when you say, I'm unhappy in my marriage.

That's too big. That's too big. The same thing is true with meaning.

“That the whole of the meaning of life is too big a question.”

It's really three smaller questions.

The first is why are things happening the way they're happening?

That's coherence. That's the sense of coherence. And maybe your answer to that is because that's what God wants. Or maybe it's because that's what science dictates. Some people really go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.

A lot of people do that today. That's a that's a hunger for meaning is what that is because they're trying to look for an answer to the question of why are things happening the way that they are. So when you have somebody in your family who's just just really nutty on conspiracy theories, don't yell at them or send them articles and say, do your homework idiot. That's that's really counterproductive.

They're looking for a sense of coherence. Give them a better way to find coherence. Talk to them about science, talk to them about your faith. Talk to them about spirituality. Different ways to find coherence.

That's number one. Number two is purpose. And purpose is not the same thing as meaning. It's part of meaning. Purpose is the why am I doing what I'm doing.

Where am I going with my life? What are my goals? What's my direction? If you don't have that, you're going to be going in circles. You're really going in circles.

This is one of the reasons that people have purpose. When they know that they've got this big goal, when you think back on your own life, I mean, you've had this legendary life of an entrepreneur. But there was purpose. You were going in a particular direction.

And you were driven and driven. And that was really helpful for you to find meaning.

“It wasn't the meaning of my life is having a successful cosmetic company.”

No. The meaning of your life has purpose where you're going in a particular direction. And you know you're creating value. The third is the third is significance. Why does my life matter?

And to whom? And it was like, I don't know why. And it's not meaningful to anybody. It's not significant to anybody. You're going to be in trouble. So that's why when people get deeply involved in their faith,

they have a much better sense of meaning because you're significant to God. That's when they have a good relationship with their family and friends. Meaning becomes clearer because love is part of significance. And those are the three things we need to look at.

The problem is those are hard to find for a lot of people in modern life today.

And they're going about trying to find these in the wrong way. Hmm. Can you say more about that? Yeah. So life changed quite significantly over the past 20 years,

especially for young adults. Insofar as life is very technology based. One of the things that's different from when I was a kid, a young adult. And the young adult lives of my adult children. Yes.

Is that they suppose that there's an answer to every question that they can find by using technology. As a matter of fact, if you can't Google it, it's not a real question. But the big questions in life you can't Google. Hmm. Like why am I alive?

For what would I give my life? I defy anybody to put that into a Google search bar or into a chat GPT and get an answer that means anything. Chat GPT can't tell you what you'd give your life for. That's something you have to live with. That's a meaning question.

The result of it is that a lot of young people today, they live only in the space of questions that they can answer online.

And that is literally using their brain in the wrong way.

Our brain has two sides to it. The right side and the left side. That's a big fancy neuroscience theory called hemispheric lateralization. You got to have a fancy word for it.

“That's how we get tenure in my business.”

The right side of your brain answers these deals with the complex questions of mystery and meaning and love and happiness the life and life. The left side figures out complicated stuff. Like how do I create an app that will find the a pizza place that's open at 10 p.m. Or how do I design a jet engine or for that matter? Where do I go to find a better toaster?

Those are all left brain questions. But modern life is trying to make everything into the left brain. It's trying to make us technologically savvy enough to answer any question. And that's locking down the right side. The mystery and the meaning side of life.

The love side of life. Where you're looking for the cosmic understanding of why life matters. You're not going to solve that problem. All the problems you're really care about in life. You can't solve.

You can only live with. You know, it's like I've been married 34 years.

I've never solved my marriage.

I just live with my marriage. And that's why I love my marriage. But if I were trying to solve it with this app or that technology or, you know, this algorithm, it would be a complete failure because it would never fit. I would never be living right now in love.

Which is what my right brain allows me to do unless I lock it down and neglect it. That's what's happening. I have friends that literally do not see their therapist anymore. And they use AI or GTPT for their marriage therapy. To big mistake.

Can you talk about this? This is so good. You know, we're talking before we've been started this conversation. And I was like, "Oh, I've got to get this on here." This is so good because it can you talk about how if we start only living in our left brain.

And our technology and the way we live our lives is there. And then we stop accessing our right brain, the right side of our brain. What happens? And does that prevent us from finding meaning? Meaning?

But also does that prevent us from being in love? Yeah. And feeling a sense of connection with the divine and feeling like that fulfillment and feeling period. No, you got it.

You got it. It is the answer to that. People ask me all the time. How will AI affect my happiness? Because I'm a happiness specialist.

And I say, "Well, it depends." We need a pause for a super brief break. And while we do, take a moment to share this episode with every single person that you know who this could inspire because this conversation can truly be the words and inspiration they need to hear today to keep going.

“To remember that they matter and to feel less alone and more enough, more connected, more inspired and more worthy.”

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And now more of this incredible conversation together.

People ask me all the time how will AI affect my happiness because I'm a happiness specialist and I say well it depends. If you're using AI to solve complicated tasks and is freeing up a bunch of time in your life and you're using that time to go spend time with people. You love two thumbs up. But if you're using it as a substitute for the people that you love and who understand you and who are making a real human connection with you, you're going to be in trouble. If you're trying to use AI as your best friend or as your lover or as your therapist, that's not going to get the job done.

You might fool you but your brain knows.

What that's doing is it's simulating real life, you know, and the most popular movie in 1999 was the matrix. And that was all about this crazy science fiction story of an artificial intelligence that's taking the energy away from human beings and putting them in a simulation so they won't complain. Basically the plot of the matrix. Jamie were in the matrix. It's happening to us right now. People are spending all day long simulating a real life. They get up and check their messages and they go to work on zoom and they're dating on an app and their friends are online and they're gaming to get a sense of accomplishment and it's a simulation.

That's all left brain and there's one thing that you can't simulate and that's the meaning of your life. The things that mean something to your lover relationships and the sense of the divine, you can't simulate that. And so what will happen is you get more and more depressed, more and more lonely, more and more anxious and you don't know why. The reason is because you're literally using your brain wrong and everybody watching it's like, yes, yes, it feels like a simulation. It's not your fault. The matrix is all around us. What we have to do is to break out and this book is the manuals. The hand book is how to break out of the matrix and get to the right side of your brain.

It's so good. It's so good. It's so true. And it's so easy. So addicting to just be on your phone to look at it first thing the morning to look at the latest funny thing your friend just sent you to me just like on and on and on and on and on. And one of the things I love that I find really really fascinating that you talk about, too, is that people are trying to search for meaning and macro things, fame or likes and followers or activism even you say. Not realizing that meaning can come from the micro thing.

Yeah, and meaning largely does come from these micro things. And so when it's missing you look for something somebody's offering you this and you take it and offering you that. And it says, if you vote this way, you'll feel better if you get angry and martian demonstration against something else that everything will be okay. No, no, no, no, the problem is you're not you're not in your native habitat, you're not you're stuck outside the place where you need to be. You're not home.

“You're only home on the right side. And so you need to live differently. You need to live in a whole passion way.”

Yeah, on the right side. I'm talking about politically. Yeah, yeah. And what you say more about about this because when you talk about the micro right to find meaning and how most meaning is found in the micro. Right. What the micro is because this is something everyone can do right now, right in your life and it's thinking about the little things in your life that really are the life in your life.

You know, honey, I had a panic attack behind the mule today. It wasn't a thing. It wasn't a thing at all. His brain was working the way it was supposed to and by the way, his his day to day life was probably pretty boring, but at the end of his life he didn't say my life was boring.

“And in contrast with today with a lot of young people who are never bored moment to moment their never bored, but their life is boring.”

Why is that that you're never bored in the micro moments, but you're completely bored when you look at the tatality of your life, which is exactly the opposite of the way that's supposed to work.

And if you're not alive, like, right here right now, I mean, one of the reasons that this conversation doesn't work the same way if it's virtual. I mean, it's okay, but this is better because I'm looking in your in your eyes. I can see it was a real person across for me. And that's a that's a very important thing for us to understand that we're we're having an experience that's that's where we're we're communicating with the right hemispheres of our brain right now, which is why we're able to talk about meaning in understanding each other.

And that's what we need more of in life. They're big sort of a six big ways to set up the micro moments in your life to fight back to break out of the matrix actually before you do that, however. You got to get clean because you're probably addicted. Now I'm not a militant about about technology. I'm not some sort of a lullite or I have a phone like you. I'm on social media because I'm trying to bring beautiful messages of love and happiness and hope to people on social media.

But we have to be able to use it in the right way so that we manage it and it doesn't manage us.

And it's just so addicting. I was sharing with you right before we started that this morning. I was thinking about your work a lot of course and this morning my husband and I have this conversation. And I realized most of our conversations he's looking at his phone sometimes I'm looking at my phone trying to I'm that's our that's our connection. And it's like oh okay we're sort of like in the left brain and we're you know but we're not in that.

“You're not making a right brain connection with the person with whom you should have you know it's like they they many religious traditions talk about a married couple being one flesh.”

And that's easy to sort of understand necessarily but what that's really talking about the one flesh is the two right brains working together. That's the it's the uplink between the two brains that's a that's an antenna to the divine. That's why the most profound connection somebody has in a spiritual sense is when they're with their soul mate. But it won't happen if you're actually cutting those neurophysiological connections by using the devices because when you're both on the left side of your brains.

It's just technology you know you're missing these opportunities and so I talk an awful lot with my classes about how these connections actually get made between people.

“Very specifically it's super important and and we were talking offline before about about these ideas that I have that the what the science says about how to repair any marriage.”

And it starts by looking at each other in the eyes when you talk every time that's more important for women than for men and guys don't know this. But it like why she's so mad at me because you're not looking at her in the eyes and she gets three times as much oxytocin as you. With eye contact women produce more oxytocin than men and the reason is because we're a women are evolved to make an immediate connection with a newborn infant. And you're looking into out when you're nursing a baby the baby looks at you in in the eyes and this is like oxytocin.

It's a neuropeptide and it's the it's a bonding hormone that's my baby that's my baby and the baby's going that's my mom and that's my mom. Men get a third as much which is still significant right and the number one way that you get it is married couple. Is by staring at each other in the eyes when you're talking and so I'll say to guys who say that my wife's really unhappy with me. I feel like we're getting we're we're separating from each other. We're not close. I say okay number one thing never have a conversation with her in the kitchen or wherever you are especially when you lie down at night.

Is staring each other when you're talking just look at her in the eyes every single time you're talking and she'll just be weirdly happier as she want to why is what it comes down to do now on the other side for him.

What he needs is to be touched more when you're next to him always be touching ABT always be touching this is when he's producing more vasopressin which is another another hormone.

But that's his like I'm big and strong and so if you're walking together and you link your arm in his he feels like he's giant. And and and that's more important to me as it turns out so it's number one eye contact in every conversation and ABT always be touching this solves so many problems and marriages. And and this is something that we can actually get that where you use the science what we're talking about here you'll weirdly have a sense of meaning in your marriage and you won't know why because the mysterious side of your brain is working.

Often don't know they need that but they really really need that from their wise. It's super important actually and that will make him way way way way more connected. But he has to do his part to which is the icon contact the eye contact. Yeah, so good. I think so many people are having as over with a big aha moments right now because it's so easy for neither of those things to be happening.

Totally totally and then what happens is you kind of fall fall out of the rhythm of what a really that's very those things are super easy to do when you're first in love.

Because you want to stare into each other's eyes all the time and you're touching all the time, but you don't realize that what that's doing is bonding you to each other with oxytocin or vasopressin and various other neurochemistry that's going on.

“But you have to do it manually because life gets busy, you've got a bunch of kids and you're running a business and everybody's traveling and everybody's nutty and did you pick up the kids and that that that on.”

Did you go grocery shopping? Ah, the dishwasher didn't get emptied. That means you have to have these interventions that are on purpose living on purpose to illuminate the parts of your brain that that are necessary for the constant connection. And also you're just addicted to technology, even you have time and that'll shut down the oxytocin pump just just like that. It's a matter of fact when you're eating, which is one of the the phone free zones is meals should be if the if your phone is on the table and you're not even looking at it and it's face down when you look at it, it'll cut off your oxytocin flow.

Yeah, because you're thinking your brain just went to your notifications or your text messages or whatever it happened to be and you're no longer mentally and you know you're no longer neurologically linked to your partner. No longer getting the divine antenna. So if you're in this conversation at dinner with your partner or even a great friend about something that's and and maybe you're you know feeling like some type of divine inspiration and you're and maybe in your right side of your brain, but then you go down and you look at your phone.

“You're done. You're not for about your go or the left. So if you did the first thing that people need to do understanding and again this is not all about technology is also just like the philosophy of how we live.”

Which is I got to solve every complicated problem, everything is a complicated problem to solve. It's the the technologized culture, the hustle culture just lends itself to this is just the technologies the tip of the spear.

But the first thing we need to do is to get clean from that and that starts with tech free times one of which is meals always meals never eat with a phone on the table.

The two other tech free times, by the way, to solve this problem because you know we're not going to be free of technology. I mean, it's just that's I mean, that's like saying, you know, if you have trouble with junk food stop eating, that's bad advice it's impossible advice. The two other times were the first hour when you wake up in the last hour if we go to sleep and and that means don't look at the phone for the first hour, which is super hard my students are like I use it as an alarm clock and I say, well, there's also a thing you could buy for five bucks on Amazon and wake you up like like the old days.

But what will happen is you can program your brain in the first hour not to be super I mean reliant on the dopamine and you know the the neurochemistry is being stimulated by looking at the phone.

If you just that first hour, really important is especially if you walk in the morning without your phone, try it.

And the last hour of the day gets you actually ready to sleep without the out without the phone and so lock it and a closet.

“You know, a time lock if you have to but I have a closet in my house that I put it in it's not the same floor as I sleep on.”

And and I've gotten so out of the habit of looking at it at night that even if it is next to my bed because I'm on the road I am using it as an alarm clock in a pinch I never look at it because I don't think of it anymore. It's really changed my habits and improve my life a lot. So I want to dive into and you know the meaning of your life with your book. I'm so excited for everyone to get this in their hands because I can't even tell you and I would I would put myself in this boat that there's times where I'm like I think I'm supposed to be more fulfilled.

And that's what I'm supposed to be. And I've I've grown to understand a lot of things with some of the concepts you share that I'm excited to dive into. Everyone listening for myself, you know, a lot of us are like, oh, I feel like there's more and I don't know what that more is and something is missing and we're constantly seeking and I love how you break this down so I'm excited to dive into this. Yeah, anyone listening that's like, I accomplished the thing but then I still feel not fulfilled and and it is is is is is it ever enough and my ever enough.

All these questions first and just a couple real foundational things which is do we all and I know meaning and purpose are different. Do we all have do you believe we all have a purpose or multiple purposes and our lives.

You know, if you're a very, really religious person you might say my goals to get to have it and that's a good one and that'll be your whole life and that's phenomenal but there lots of little goals too and that's a beautiful thing as well.

“It keeps you going in in a particular direction it allows you to see whether or not you're making progress and we're progress oriented creatures you know that's how human beings are designed.”

The problem is when you have a big, big goal and you think that your happiness is going to come from an earthly goal that you know it's if it when my book is published then I'm going to be really really happy you're going to be disappointed.

I've actually done a lot of work with athletes and you know Olympic athletes they typically suffer from a clinical depression in the months after they win a gold medal.

And the reason for that is because all the progress in going to the Olympics is really satisfying because you're making progress toward a particular goal and you imagine in your head that if you get there and you win. Then it'll be bliss that hangs around forever but that's not how the brain works the brain produces emotions as information about what's going on outside.

“You know things that rewards and punishments and things that you should approach or avoid it's not there to give you a permanently happy day.”

That's not what emotions are for and when you don't it's very disappointing which is why they go into a funk and that's why they get depressed is a matter of fact.

That's called the arrival fallacy and so one of the things I work with people on is how to have good goals that change in their healthy and you're making progress and they're helping other people but. Being kind of you know, depock choper talks about this is intention without attachment and that's a hard thing to achieve but if you have a good sort of supernatural understanding of your life and and you're looking for deep meaning you can do it. Intention of that attachment. So for someone that says you know. Oh my dream is like I would feel better once I hit my goal weight or once I got the 2.5 kids or the white picket fence or I remember after my first book.

Believe it came out and I got I was like a three or four months after the launch and I got a cough from the publisher and they're like we're just checking in to see how are you like how are you.

And I was like what do you mean I come great I'm like are you happy like you know all the things of course, you know that they're like no, no, no, the book's great like the book you know because everyone's like they're happy it's on New York times they're happy it's selling. But they're like how are you yeah, can they know they're authors yeah and I'm like what do you mean they said well a lot of times authors work so hard for so long you put a few put five years into the meaning of your life like years into into this work and then it comes out and they said sometimes the book launches like you're shot out of a cannon and then their authors going to be depressed.

And I was like oh, like astronaut like Olympic athletes, but also you know so many people I know of how these experiences really think well once I get married then everything's we've got or once I get that promotion at work or once I have this number in my bank account then you arrive at it and you still feel like oh that didn't solve on my problem. I don't still feel fulfilled and a lot of people then go oh, why just to raise the bar I need to I need a bigger number in my bank account or I need I need to have six pack gaps not for whatever it might be.

And so can you talk about that because I'm actually fascinated by this idea of is it good to feel like okay I've arrived I'm convinced or is it good to constantly be in pursuit in pursuit is actually how you find meaning. Arriving is not the secret of meaning is absolutely not the secret of meaning and people that they imagine that all become clear ahead of close friend very very wealthy guy. Significant older than me and and when he was younger he struggled a lot with this business big entrepreneur.

I asked him when you thought about being rich how did you think your life was going to change and he thought about it and he said. We need a pause for a super brief break and while we do take a moment to share this episode with every single person that you know who this could inspire.

“Because this conversation can truly be the words and inspiration they need to hear today to keep going to remember that they matter and to feel less alone and more enough more connected more inspired and more worthy.”

Who you spend time around is so important as energy is contagious and so is self-belief and I love to hang out with you even more especially if you can use an extra dose of inspiration. Which is exactly why I've created my free weekly newsletter that's also a love letter to you delivered straight to your inbox each and every Tuesday morning from me. If you haven't signed up to make sure that you get it each week, just go to jameekerlima.com to make sure you're on the list and you'll get your one on one with Jamie weekly newsletter and get ready to believe in you.

Subscribe at jameekerlima.com or in the link in the show notes. I am so excited for this book. You know what? Because it's going to save so deep. It's been so cool.

“Where the your new beautiful book, where do you get this book?”

This book? I'm telling you. It's a book that can change anybody's life who picks it up. Anybody who's ever felt that they were not good enough didn't measure up. Something's missing in your life.

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Very very wealthy guy. Significant and older than me. And when he was younger he struggled a lot with this business. Big entrepreneur. I asked him when you thought about being rich.

How did you think your life was going to change? And he thought about it. And he said, "I guess I thought that if I got rich, my wife would love me." And I said, "What happened?" And he said, "She didn't."

He's divorced. And I said, "What would have made your life love you?" And he said, "Ping attention to her when I was building my business." See, this is the thing. The goals are small goals around real things with real people in love.

You know, you find, for example, that a lot of people think that if they want to lose a lot of weight, because it's so common in the United States. And if they hit their goal weight, then something really amazing is going to feel good about themselves. People are going to notice them more. People are going to treat them better.

And it's going to be this beautiful ongoing thing. And what you find is they hit their goal weight.

And the reward is never getting to eat.

Which you like ever again for the rest of your life. Which is not that great. And so about 30% of people in very stringent diets wind up with an eating disorder. Because they want to keep going. Because they want to keep this feeling of progress going.

You need micro goals that are actually progress in a particular direction. But fundamentally, the goals that we need to have are not about these things. They're about faith and family and friendship. And working in ways that actually creates value in the lives of other people. Those goals that we talked about a little bit earlier.

Those are the goals that really matter. Those are the things that bring meaning. And I just want to recap. So macro goals. Oh, I want to have this huge career. This big number in the bank account or this many followers on social media. Or, or, or, or, or, you know, be a well-known activist.

Or do all these things macro goals. Uh, uh, you know, you're saying typically you don't bring you fulfilment.

Once you achieve them. They're just idols.

“Which is how do I strengthen love with my friend or partner? How do I deepen my faith?”

How, you know, do I feel of service? Like things like that, right? Micro goals are where we find meaning. And I think that when you're saying to the arrival, the arrival thing. And so, you know, I had someone who I think is a genius and really, really smart.

So when I respect very, very much, she told me that, um, one of the things I'm getting very wrong in life

is that I never, I'm constantly, she's just said you think you're a climber.

You think you're a hiker on the mountain constantly trying to. And but you, you're at the top. You're at the top. You've got to just enjoy it. You're at the top. And, you know, because they have questions all the time, like, do I work harder to make this show twice a week? And so I want to do why I do live events that is speaking on everyone else's stages.

Do I, all these things and and and and in the past, I would trade on my time for building the biggest company. I could possibly build and and and I struggle with that idea. Okay, should I be like, okay, I've arrived. Let me just be and enjoy it all. That's hard to do for the driver, Jamie.

Yeah, that's what you've done first. Yeah, right.

“So and not everybody struggles with this.”

And so funny thing, it's like, it's it's strivers like you. Like us like a lot of people watching us struggle with things that are hard to understand for people who don't. Who haven't had the same kind of child. Typically a striver has a child that looks like the following. You're really good as stuff.

You're good student. You're maybe a good athlete, maybe a good musician. And you notice that you get attention and you get affection from you get affirmation from adults. When you do things, you bring home straight as a report card. You get first share in your orchestra, you meet picture on the baseball team, whatever happens to be.

And you're little brain wires. It's in a highly plastic state and it wires in this conclusion. I am lovable when I earn things. That's and and you become a human doing not a human being. That is almost like getting famous when you're 15 years old, which is super dangerous.

It's super dangerous because you're going to get your sense of reward from doing things that are excellent. And you'll chase and chase and chase that behavior. That leads to self-objectification. That leads to success addiction. That leads to work a hallism.

That leads to never enough.

And I wind up with super successful executives and you know, famous actors and athletes that I work with all the time. And I have to teach them how to be alive. Teach them how that that you know, it's not it's not next year, man. It's not next year.

You don't have to look for the next audacious goal so you can actually feel alive. Your lovable love is a free gift, freely given. It's a grace. Love isn't something you earn. You can't you literally can't earn love.

And one of the reasons that a lot of marriages fail with super strivers is because they're trying to earn each other's love. You know, it's I'm in a men often will work themselves to death and and wonder why they're driving their wife away. Because they're actually trying to earn their love and what they're doing is alienating them. Women will do the same thing who are very entrepreneurial. They'll be looking for the kind of beauty that would be characteristic of a 21 year old when they're 51 years old.

And working for that and working and trying so very hard to do that. And they don't understand that they're they're they're losing the sense of meaning that they should be enjoying.

“But that's because that's how they were raised.”

And that's one of the that's why I call it the strivers curse. And that's what everybody watching us like if you're falling prey to the strivers curse. Well, that's why I write my book.

Yes, if you're in a cheaper a striver and you have that like it's never enough is ever enough.

What do you do? Yeah, well, and it's easy to say just go become a slacker, but that's not going to work because I know strivers. The strivers are going to strive. Yeah. I could tell strivers are going to slackers.

They never would. I remember a guy came to me. I was a classical musician all the way through my 20s. And I was super ambitious classical musician. I wanted to be the best French horn player in the world.

And I was on my way. I thought it turns out I wasn't and I had to change course and get into a new line of work when I was 31 years old. It was very disappointed and very hard. But in my mid 20s, I was so I was on the wheel man. I was working.

I was going to and and I met this guy. He says, dude, you really got to relax. He's from California of course. Dude, you really got to relax. You know what you should do?

You should take a year off. Come with me. I have a I have a surf shop on the beach in San Diego. And and you really learned how to live. And I thought, that's a nightmare.

That's a complete nightmare to me. Why? Because my life would never need sense of direction to it. But it was misattributed. And so what I needed to do,

I learned and I've only learned as an adult. And one of the things I talk about in this book, I need to live more like my great grandfather.

I need to ask big questions that are not tied to technology.

I need to find a sense of service and what I'm doing for other people is opposed to the glory that can actually might bring to me. I need to understand the nature of what it means to suffer. I need to I need to to enjoy a little bit of more beauty in my life. And I need to do those things on purpose.

So strivers need to do on purpose. What everybody else does naturally and turn that into a project.

“And is it dangerous and any way to get to I arrived?”

Like I've arrived. Yeah, because you're not going to arrive. There's no arrival.

There's no arrival from that.

There are certain things that we can actually do in bonds of love and which their moments and our lives that are especially meaningful. But you don't say when your baby is born. That's it. No, that's the beginning.

Yeah. That's the beginning. That's the commencement error. So when you graduate from college is called commencement and that seems like the end. That's beginning because commencement means literally the word means beginning.

Your wedding day is the beginning. That's the problem with destination weddings. Destination weddings are statistically less likely to succeed. The marriage is less likely to succeed. And the reason for that in no small part is that your wedding is not a destination.

That's the launch pad. It doesn't matter what you say to each other and you're wedding day.

“What matters is what you say to each other every day for the rest of for the next 65 years.”

God gives you this really long and happy marriage is what it comes down to. And so that's the way to think about it. It's all of these these points. You know, the book came out. Well, that's the beginning of being able to go talk about the wonderful things in this book.

My baby is born. That's the beginning of a beautiful life together as a family. I just got married. I got the razor promotion. My company went to IPO.

Great. It's a big opportunity to do something new. That's the starting point, not the ending point. Mmm. So good.

Okay. Can you talk about and you know, with your new book, the meaning of your life, which if you are just tuning in to us and listening to this right now, I want you to go pick up your copy because it's so good. You can get anywhere books are sold. You can listen to it on audible. And it's just I feel like it speaks so well to every person no matter where they're at in their life.

But also there's a whole lot of people who are like, oh my gosh, the world is changing so rapidly the geopolitical climate AI technology. Like stuff's just I have so many friends that don't know how the heck are they supposed to parent right now. What do they do? They don't want to hold their kids back. They don't want to not.

They're feeling more empty than ever. They're a lot of college kids as you know better than anyone on the planet are just feeling depressed feeling like not hopeful, not excited. There's just so much going on and I feel like this book, the meaning of your life by Arthur Brooks is going to speak to everyone of you listening right now. No matter what you're what's going on in your life because all of us are like, oh wow, well this hasn't happened before in so many ways, right? These are new dynamics in life and and you know and so many people are asking those big questions and we're just at the start of the impact of what AI is going to do in terms of impact on jobs impact on the economy impact on entire industry.

Right, there's a lot of people that maybe haven't even embarked fully on their journey of what's the meaning of my life and they're sort of maybe misguided in thinking their purpose is as long as they have a job and they have a part and that's all going to shift for so many people. And so I think this book is is just the timing of it, the relevancy of it and the billions of reps you put in in your entire career helping so many people find happiness and discover that now. Now to talk about the meaning of your life and a moment and a day and age and 2026 right?

And how to live differently is the whole point is how to live differently because you know if we just go with the flow you know then we will spend all day online then we will be living in the simulation then we will be thinking that we can ask any question to AI and it will give us the information that we seek and and so we need to go back and live in a kind of a new old fashioned way then there's this book is there's six things to do I mean people need instructions I do I need instructions so I went and I looked at you know what will make your brain work the way it's supposed to work.

“What are the tangible things you need to do and pay attention to and really six things and and when you do these six things in six months you'll be living in your life.”

Six things in six months and you'll be living in different life. This conversation with Arthur Brooks it's so incredible we made it into more than one part and if you want to dive deeper and to how to truly discover your purpose and feel a sense of fulfillment and greater meaning in your life.

You are not going to want to miss this incredible part two of our conversation with Arthur Brooks that's coming up in the next episode of the Jamie Kernley Michelle.

Remember this episode not just for you and me please share this with every single person you know because it can impact and change their life to and if you love today is conversation please click the follow or subscribe button on the app that you're listening to it on or watching it on.

Someone who's been searching for meaning or maybe just kind of feeling a little bit empty and needs that boost of purpose.

“You can also post the episode and share it with others online in your community who just might need the words and tools and lessons in this conversation today.”

You never know whose life you're meant to change by sharing this episode.

And thank you so much for joining me today before you go I want to share some words with you that couldn't be more true. You right now exactly as you are are enough and fully worthy.

“You're worthy of your greatest hopes, your wildest dreams and all the unconditional love in the world and it's an honor to welcome you to each and every episode of Jamie Kernley Michelle here.”

I hope you'll come as you are heal where you need blossom what you choose journey toward your calling and stay as long as you like because you belong here.

You are worthy you are loved you are love and I love you and I cannot wait to join you on the next episode of the Jamie Kernley Michelle. In life you don't sort the level of your hopes and dreams you stay stuck at the level of your self worth. When you build yourself worth you change your entire life and that's exactly why I wrote my new book worthy how to believe you are enough and transform your life for you. If you have some self doubt to destroy and a destiny to fulfill worthy is for you. In worthy you'll learn proven tools and simple steps that bring life changing results like how to get unstuck from the things holding you back.

Build and shakeable self love unlearn the lies that lead to self doubt and embrace the truths that wake up worthiness. Overcome limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome. Achieve your hopes and dreams by believing you are worthy of them and so much more. Are you ready to unleash your greatness and step into the person you are born to be.

Imagine a life with zero self doubt and unshakeable self worth. Get your copy of worthy plus some amazing thank you bonus gifts for you at worthybook.com or the link in the show notes below.

“Imagine what you do if you fully believed in you. It's time to find out with worthy who you spend time around is so important as energy is contagious and so is self belief.”

And I love to hang out with you even more especially if you can use an extra dose of inspiration which is exactly why I've created my free weekly newsletter that's also a love letter to you delivered straight to your inbox from me. If you haven't signed up to make sure that you get it each week, just go to jameikernlima.com to make sure you're on the list and you'll get your one on one with Jamie weekly newsletter and get ready to believe in you. If you're tired of hearing the bad news every single day and need some inspiration, some tips, tools, joy and love hitting your inbox, I'm your girl subscribe at jameikernlima.com or in the link in the show notes.

And please note I'm not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician professional coach psychotherapist or other qualified professional.