We Question Dr. Arthur Brooks on the Secret to Happiness

💻 Shape what comes next for Smart Money Happy Hour by participating in our Spring 2026 audience study! It’s not every day that we get to grab a drink with a Harvard professor, bestselling author and happiness expert. Dr. Arthur Brooks is here to talk money, life, faith and so much more. Next Steps: 🎙️ Catch our episode Questioning “Life” Choices With Ken Coleman (“Would You Rather” Edition) 🍸 Follow Smart Money Happy Hour on TikTok: @smartmoneyhappyhour 📱 Submit a Guilty As Charged question for Rachel and George! Leave us a voicemail with your question at 877-306-1517 or send a DM to @rachelcruze or @georgekamel on Instagram! Be sure to type “GUILTY?” at the top of your message so we don’t miss it. 💵 Create a free budget and find more margin with EveryDollar. 📖 Check out Dr. Arthur Brooks’ new book, The Meaning of Your Life. Connect With Our Sponsors: Check out the FAIRWINDS Credit Union exclusive account bundle. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Get 20% off with code SMARTMONEY at Cozy Earth. Today’s Happy Hour Special: 🥂 Electrolyte Mockarita Recipe by: Cocktails with Val 2.5 ounces coconut water 1.5 ounces fresh orange juice 1 ounce lime juice 1 ounce agave 1 pinch of salt Instructions: Add coconut water, fresh orange juice, lime juice, agave, and a pinch of salt to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake to combine all ingredients. Pour over glass filled with ice. Add an orange wedge as optional garnish. Serve and enjoy! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05George Kamel?

  A Harvard professor, a bestselling author, and a happiness expert walk into a bar. Just kidding, it's all one person. We are joined today by the one and only Dr. Arthur Brooks.

• 0:14Rachel Cruze?

  I think it's kind of a scam.

• 0:15Speaker 02

  What, dentists? We are in the South, aren't we?

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Reader love poetry tonight.

• 0:22George Kamel?

  I don't know if I can Google that on a work computer. Love poetry to read at bedtime. What are the other ways that people can increase happiness in their lives?

• 0:31Speaker 02

  How else do you buy happiness? Number one, it's really simple.

• 0:40Rachel Cruze?

  Hey guys, I'm Rachel Cruz.

• 0:42George Kamel?

  I'm George Kamel.

• 0:44Speaker 02

  And I'm Arthur Brooks.

• 0:44Rachel Cruze?

  And this is Smart Money Happy Hour. Cheers, Arthur.

• 0:53Rachel Cruze?

  We got a healthy mocktail for you.

• 0:55George Kamel?

  It's so healthy. This is the most boring drink we've had on the show.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  Salty, salty, salty.

• 1:00Rachel Cruze?

  Good, you got a little rim.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm feeling more energetic as we speak.

• 1:03Rachel Cruze?

  I'm so glad. Well, this is the show where two friends who happen to be money experts talk about what you're talking about. So everything from pop culture, current events, and money.

• 1:11George Kamel?

  And today we are sipping on a very exciting electrolyte mocktail.

• 1:15Rachel Cruze?

  It's actually delicious.

• 1:16George Kamel?

  Don't go running for the recipe, kids. We're going to give you our rating and reveal the cost per glass at the end of the episode, so stick around for that.

• 1:23Rachel Cruze?

  All right, so today we obviously have a special guest on. Arthur Brooks is with us. Thanks for being here.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  I love being here, thank you.

• 1:29Rachel Cruze?

  You've done the gamut of Ramsey stuff. I feel like you've been on our shows and everything, and we thought if we can rope you into Smart Money Happy Hour, it's the most fun. It's the most fun you're gonna have today.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  So I've heard.

• 1:40George Kamel?

  Loosen up, man.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm just like, I'm super stressed out.

• 1:45George Kamel?

  I've never seen you stressed. I'd like to see it, to be honest.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  No, inside, I'm just tightly wound.

• 1:50George Kamel?

  Balls. Well, you teach on the science of happiness, how to cultivate it, how to sustain it, and this podcast just so happens to be called Smart Money Happy Hour.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 1:59George Kamel?

  And I feel like we have not brought the happy as much as we should.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:02George Kamel?

  This feels serendipitous that you're here today.

• 2:04Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, we're excited. Okay, so before we dive in to a lot of the stuff, we have a quick quiz that we want to know. Your money tendencies, okay? And just rapid fire.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:12Rachel Cruze?

  Are you a spender or a saver?

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Saver.

• 2:14Rachel Cruze?

  Nerd or free spirit?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Uh, nerdish free spirit.

• 2:19Rachel Cruze?

  Okay. Uh, when you buy things, would you rather buy experiences or items?

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Experiences.

• 2:24Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, I know what you're saying. Uh, quality or quantity?

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Quality.

• 2:28Rachel Cruze?

  Uh, safety or status?

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Safety.

• 2:31Rachel Cruze?

  Uh, abundance or scarcity mindset?

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Abundance.

• 2:35Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, when you're giving, are you more of a spontaneous giver or a pre-planned giver?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Pre-planned.

• 2:40Rachel Cruze?

  Alright.

• 2:40George Kamel?

  He nailed it.

• 2:42Rachel Cruze?

  He knows himself.

• 2:42George Kamel?

  There's no right answers and yet he got them all right.

• 2:44Rachel Cruze?

  That's how, that's the way we should all live.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  It's because I watch your show.

• 2:48George Kamel?

  Gosh. Keep watching our channel, you'll get there one day.

• 2:52Rachel Cruze?

  That's good, that's good. Arthur, you, you've done a lot in your career. Higher ed is your, I guess, the first main thing?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  It's kind of my home, it's sort of my platform, although it's not how I started out. I started out as a classical musician. I left college at nineteen, um, at the invitation of the college.

• 3:08Rachel Cruze?

  Okay. The invitation of the college.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  They invited me to pursue my, my success elsewhere. Yeah.

• 3:14Rachel Cruze?

  Why? What were you, what was the?

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Not taking my required classes. I had got to stop taking my required classes and instead I was studying North Indian classical drumming and Indonesian dance. And it turns out that that's not the secret to success in college.

• 3:27Rachel Cruze?

  Because you just like were really interested in that?

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Because I'm a nerd free spirit.

• 3:31Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  You know, and so I was doing that. All, all I really wanted to do is to play the French horn professionally. And that's all I wanted to do since I was nine years old. I wanted to be the world's greatest French horn player. And, and college was just, it was just a complete distraction. And so I was...

• 3:45Rachel Cruze?

  And your parents made you go, was it a parental thing?

• 3:47Speaker 02

  My dad was a college professor. His dad was a college professor.

• 3:50Rachel Cruze?

  Oh my gosh.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we're, I'm with, this is the family business, is what it was. And so that's what everybody did. It was weird. I mean, for the longest time, I wasn't just the first one who hadn't gone to college. I was the first one who didn't have a PhD for, for a long time. I know, and, and but, and...

• 4:05George Kamel?

  You rebellious French horn player, you.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so I had a gap decade. And I, and I went on the road. A lot of it was in Barcelona playing in the symphony. And so I went really well, but, and, but by my late twenties, it was, I was married and starting my family.

• 4:16George Kamel?

  Is that where you met your wife?

• 4:17Speaker 02

  No, I actually went there, uh, chasing my wife. I met my wife on a concert tour in, in the Burgundy region, France. Today it would be like a restraining order, be a whole thing. It would be on the internet, it would be bad.

• 4:28Rachel Cruze?

  In Barcelona.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  But in 1988, it turns out that guys could get away with that. No, I met, we met at a music festival in France where she was studying as a student and I was on tour. And she didn't speak a word of English and I didn't speak a word of Spanish.

• 4:41Rachel Cruze?

  No way.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Or Catalan, which are her two languages. And, and we went out on a few dates and I went home, told my dad I'd met the woman I was gonna marry. And he's like, great, let's meet her. And I said, I got some problems. She doesn't live in the United States. She doesn't speak English. She doesn't know we're gonna get married. And so, one thing led to another. I went and I visited and I, I, I got a job in Barcelona in the orchestra where she lived and I moved there. So I sold everything I owned.

• 5:09Rachel Cruze?

  Are you fluent in Spanish now?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  I am now, yeah. Cause we've been married for 34 years and, and our, our language at home is this, is this weird Spanglish mix.

• 5:16Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  With a lot of Catalan thrown in. Catalan is another language, is a completely different language. So I've had to learn both of those. And, and the result is that, you know, 34 later, years later, our, our, our communication has marginally improved.

• 5:30Rachel Cruze?

  It's happened. Okay, so you did all that and then decided to go back to school?

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I was in my late twenties, I did my, well, I did my bachelor's degree, I did my bachelor's degree first and I didn't have any money, cause I was still a musician. And it was a nice thing to do for a living, but it's not exactly lucrative. So, and I wasn't going into debt, no way, no how. So I went to correspondence school. Which in those days was like a fax machine and textbooks.

• 5:53Rachel Cruze?

  Sure.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  There was no online.

• 5:55Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  To speak of when I was doing that. And that was in 1989, 1990. Mostly 1991, 1992 was when I was doing all that stuff. When I was 20, actually 27, 28. I graduated a month before my 30th birthday.

• 6:08Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Graduation day, I got my, my diploma in the mail. And I was living in Florida by that point. We had left Barcelona and I was teaching in a music conservatory in Florida and it's graduation day and I got my diploma. And I kind of patted out to the mailbox and it, it had the, the thing that said, do not fold. And it was folded.

• 6:24Rachel Cruze?

  Oh no. This is like sad diploma.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  College life.

• 6:29George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 6:29Rachel Cruze?

  It's like that bit.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  And then I went, got a master's degree in person at the local state university. And then I, then I left music at 31 and started my PhD.

• 6:37Rachel Cruze?

  Okay. And you got your PhD in?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  In public policy analysis with my fields were applied microeconomics and mathematical modeling. I took a complete.

• 6:45Rachel Cruze?

  So, so you go from there, but then now you are a, yeah, I don't even know what you just said. Everyone's like laughing after, after you just said all that.

• 6:52George Kamel?

  Rachel, we don't have time to get into it. Just think Pythagorean theorem.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:55Rachel Cruze?

  Pythagorean.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  Technical stuff, technical stuff.

• 6:59George Kamel?

  And then, yeah, you made a pivot into behavioral science, social science.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. And my PhD was really, I was really a bit, I was doing behavioral economics, meaning that I'm really interested in how people behave and why they do. That's super interesting to me. So the first thing I started doing research on, after I finished my PhD, I took a teaching position at Georgia State. And then after three years moved to Syracuse, which is a really great school in public policy. But I was doing the behavioral elements behind why people give to charity and why people do weird things with their money. I was always interested in why people do weird stuff for their money.

• 7:30Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Like give it away for nothing. Why do they do that? I wanted to know why that is. And so I wrote about philanthropy and charity and love and generosity and beauty.

• 7:40Rachel Cruze?

  Out of that, did you find the, the most happy people?

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 7:44Rachel Cruze?

  While you were studying that?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  For sure. Not only that, I found that when people who give the most to charity, they're happiest, they're healthiest, they get the richest and they're the best looking.

• 7:54Rachel Cruze?

  No.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  No, I tell you, there's a study, this is a great study.

• 7:57Rachel Cruze?

  We're both givers.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  I know.

• 7:58George Kamel?

  I'm three out of four.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  It's a wonderful study. It's, here's how they conducted the study, these behavioral scientists in, in England. They, they have that, you know, the couples, they recruited couples, some of them have been dating for, you know, six months, some have been married for 50 years. And they would come in and they would meet the psychologists that were doing this study and they would say, very simple study. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a pocketful of change, sir. And the two of you need to walk down this little path to this other building and my colleague is waiting for you there. And, and he's gonna ask you a couple of questions and you get to keep the money. And they're like, ooh, simple.

• 8:27Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Turns out it's more complicated than that. They just don't know. They're walking on this path and there's an alleyway where a homeless guy comes wandering out and, and stops the couple. And he says, you got some change? He does. They know that. It's part of the experiment. Turns out the homeless guy is a confederate to the, to the experimenters. He's collaborating with them. And then he goes, they go to the other building and the psychologist waiting for them. He first asks the man, did you give the homeless guy money? How much? And then he turns to the wife and says, how much do you like him right now? And it turns out, the more he gave to the homeless man, the hotter she finds him.

• 9:01Rachel Cruze?

  The more attractive.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. News you can use.

• 9:04Rachel Cruze?

  There you go. That's good dating advice.

• 9:06George Kamel?

  You gotta find me a couple homeless guys now.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  And by the way.

• 9:09George Kamel?

  My wife to find me more attractive.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  I know. But the ROI on charitable giving is unbelievable too. So as an economist, I took a big, big interest in the fact that you give a dollar, on average, a year later, you earn $3.75 more. It's an unbelievable investment. And the reason is because you build your self-efficacy. You see yourself as a problem solver. You have more confidence. You become more effective in the way that you earn your living when you give money away.

• 9:36Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  And so it's just an incredible strategy for becoming the person you want to be.

• 9:40Rachel Cruze?

  Is the generosity piece.

• 9:42George Kamel?

  Wealth hack, give more.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Totally. And it's one of the ways that you can use your money, and it's one of the ways you'll get happier too. So happiness, health, the whole deal.

• 9:49George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  So that's what I was interested in.

• 9:50George Kamel?

  What are the other ways that people can increase happiness in their lives as it connects to money?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  As with money, yeah. How else do you buy happiness? So I started off with this, give your money away, you're buying happiness. But there are three other ways to buy happiness. One is to buy experiences and spend the time with the people you love, right? Not excessively, so you're going into debt. More on that in a second. The second is to buy time and spend the time in things where you're learning or loving. Learning and loving, right? And that means working on yourself, having edifying experiences, spending time in prayer, connecting to God, or spending time with people that you love. It doesn't count if you hire somebody to cut your yard and you're inside scrolling Instagram.

• 10:31Rachel Cruze?

  Yep.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  That's not a net positive. And the third way is to save your money. Saving money is unbelievably good for happiness because you're preparing for the future and you're creating intergenerational wealth. It's like a better life for you in the future, which is wonderful for happiness, and a better life for your kids, and nothing feels better than that.

• 10:48Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Now, the problem is, there's one more way to use your money, which is buying stuff, and that doesn't bring happiness. And that's what everybody does. That's what everybody does. They want that so much that they'll actually go into debt to buy stuff.

• 11:01Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  And that actually brings you negative happiness. Debt on consumption always brings misery. Always.

• 11:08Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, we say that a lot, honestly.

• 11:10George Kamel?

  They don't listen to us, but they listen to our science shows.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Study show.

• 11:14Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, our PhD friend over here.

• 11:18Rachel Cruze?

  What is the science behind that? Because we know, I mean, and we've read the studies of stress goes up. We know even from a spiritual perspective that it usually has a negative effect on someone. But when you're looking at the actual science of the person.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Why is it happening? Yeah, why is it happening? So it has everything to do with the fact that we make, we, why do we make the mistake? And then why is it that the, that the, the progress that we make through saving actually leads to happiness? The mistake that we always make is called the arrival fallacy. If I get to this point, if I have this stuff, if I experience these things, I will have arrived. And the positive affect, the positive mood that I get from that's going to stick around. Now, your brain is not made to give you a permanent positive mood. Your emotions exist to accommodate you to the situation at hand. Positive emotions say something good has happened, do more. Negative emotions say there's a threat, avoid it. That's all emotions are for. That's all they're for. They're just signals about what's going on around you. And you can't keep an emotional state.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  If you did, you wouldn't be prepared for the next set of circumstances. You'd be like, oh, if something good happened, I'm going to remain in this glow. And then a saber-toothed tiger will sneak up behind you and you'll be his lunch. And that's, you know, that's all she wrote. And so that's not supposed to happen. But you fool yourself into thinking that. Mother nature doesn't want you to figure that out, so you keep striving. Cause then you say, okay, if the next thing happens, and then you stay in the hunt for the next good thing. That's why a billionaire, the first thing they think is, I mean, that feeling didn't stick around as long as I thought. I guess I need another billion. That's called the hedonic treadmill in my business. Hedonic means feelings and the treadmill is you never get there.

• 12:50Rachel Cruze?

  You're in the same place, still stationary.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Now, what brings happiness is not the arrival fallacy. That's what brings unhappiness. What brings it is called the progress principle. And that means we're made for forward progress. We want to make progress in our lives. That's the reason that all diets work, but they never last. Because everybody thinks if the scale goes down, it'll be great. And when the scale gets to its ultimate number, it'll be bliss. And what happens is your reward for hitting your target weight is you never get to eat what you like ever again for the rest of your life. Congratulations.

• 13:20Rachel Cruze?

  I enjoy it.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 13:22George Kamel?

  Which is how people see the Ramsey plan. We go, hey, cut it out for now and one day you can live like no one else. And they go, well, Dave said, I can't eat out ever again. Like, no, we never said that. So it's a little different than dieting with the money stuff, but it's the same correlation.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  It's the same basic behavioral set of principles. Progress is what brings happiness. Oh, by the way, with really strong diets, when people do hit their target weight, 30% develop an eating disorder because they want to keep the progress going.

• 13:47Rachel Cruze?

  They want it to be there.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  And so they go past their target weight and they become unhealthy.

• 13:50Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  It becomes a pathology, as a matter of fact. So that's a really important point. So the whole point is life requires goals and direction, and that's the essence of purpose. Purpose is part of meaning and meaning is part of happiness. So that's how we actually have to think about all these things in life. And, and the reason that we're, that we get this wrong with respect to our money is that because we don't realize that saving and making a better life for ourselves and for our kids is the progress principle. And, and going and buying an expensive truck right now with a thousand dollar a month payment is the arrival fallacy.

• 14:21Rachel Cruze?

  Yep.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  And that's what people actually get wrong.

• 14:23Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. And they stay in the cycle, to your point, about the consumerism.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  I guess I needed more.

• 14:28Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  I guess I needed a better truck. I guess I needed a better house. I guess I needed a more lavish vacation than I could afford.

• 14:34Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah. So what do you do with the phrase, agree or disagree, that money can buy happiness, money can't buy happiness? How would you sum up the subject of money when it comes to money?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  So money won't buy happiness, but what money will do if you use it properly is it'll allow you to order your life in such a way that you actually, that happiness finds you.

• 14:51Rachel Cruze?

  That you enjoy it.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  So it's a real complicated way of saying, yeah, money can buy happiness, but you have to do it right. You have to spend it right.

• 14:56Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, because when you hear that money can buy happiness, money, I think, in that phrase, especially in today's world, equates to stuff.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:03Rachel Cruze?

  That if I just had more money.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:05Rachel Cruze?

  A bigger house, a nicer car, I'll be happy, right?

• 15:08Speaker 02

  And that's quite wrong.

• 15:09Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. It's the complete, it's the complete opposite.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly right. Now, by the way, what money can do is it can eliminate tons of sources of unhappiness when you're at a very low level. And this is one of the reasons that we, that we make this error in our lives with money. Usually when people are very young. That they have less, less, you know, financial success, so they have less material wealth. And often they're, they're facing certain sources of deprivation. You get out of college, you have a low paying job, and you've got 65 roommates and, and in a crummy apartment and the whole thing. And, and the, the truth is that a little bit of money actually does eliminate sources of unhappiness. And your brain doesn't distinguish between less unhappy and more happy. Those are actually happening in different parts of the brain. Happiness and unhappiness are not opposites.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Neurocognitively, they're distinct phenomena, as a matter of fact. But you can't net that out. So you're like, I feel better. I feel better. So therefore, money makes me feel better. I remember that.

• 16:02Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  You know, I didn't go to the dentist once between the ages of 19 and 25 because I didn't have any money. And I needed to go to the dentist. And when I finally, at 25, had a job in the symphony in Barcelona, and I had benefits, and I went to the dentist, and he filled 12 cavities.

• 16:16Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, no.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  And I felt better, right? Now, to be honest, I don't think I went a whole, a day during that period without a cigarette, so.

• 16:23Rachel Cruze?

  So that may have eaten the enamel.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry, I don't smoke anymore. But, you know.

• 16:28Rachel Cruze?

  I don't go to the dentist.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, so.

• 16:30George Kamel?

  It all evens out.

• 16:31Rachel Cruze?

  I really don't. I think it's kind of a scam.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  What, dentist? We are in the south, aren't we?

• 16:39Rachel Cruze?

  I went every year and they're like, looks good, looks good. I'm like, what are you really doing that? I'm like, two years, like, you look good. I think it's more hereditary.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  Well, it's all, it's, yeah, there's also making your, your teeth feel smooth on your tongue, and you're going like, yeah, my, my teeth are healthy though.

• 16:51George Kamel?

  Got them soft teeth.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  So that's, but that's the, that's, you know, the whole thing. You know, when, when, when you're young, you're eliminating sources of unhappiness, and you search for that feeling of feeling better with a little bit more money, even though you've gotten to pass the point where that's not going to work anymore. And people chase, chase, chase, chase that feeling for the rest of their lives. So, wow, man, I went from $25,000 a year to $75,000 a year, and I felt a lot better. So therefore, if I go from $700,000 a year to $750,000 a year, it's going to be awesome. And it's indistinguishable, except your life gets more complicated because you've got more junk in your life.

• 17:25Rachel Cruze?

  The more stuff you've got to be managing.

• 17:27George Kamel?

  It's that lifestyle creep.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  I love this, by the way. I love this.

• 17:29Rachel Cruze?

  It's delicious with a little bit of that salt rim.

• 17:32George Kamel?

  We'll get back to the conversation in just a sec. But first, do you realize that your personal info is floating out there on the internet unchecked? That's a problem.

• 17:40Rachel Cruze?

  It is because people that you don't want are out there and they're going to gather your info and then sell it to spammers and scammers and then more of your information's out there and you could get scammed. So Delete Me goes in and removes your information that is online and we love them for this.

• 17:59George Kamel?

  And there's a spectrum from annoying spam to real financial risk and Delete Me will help take care of all of that by scanning hundreds of data broker sites and removing your info and sending you a custom report to show you what they've done and how much time they've saved you.

• 18:11Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, they are an incredible team of actual, real people going in and doing this. And I'm telling you, when your information is removed online, you just sleep better at night. There's more peace of mind knowing that it's not floating around. I mean, this is one of the biggest risks, I think, for us in the world we live in today.

• 18:28George Kamel?

  In the digital age.

• 18:29Rachel Cruze?

  In the digital age. So make sure to check out Delete Me and go to joindelete.me/smartmoney and sign up because it is a wonderful subscription.

• 18:38George Kamel?

  Yeah, and you'll get 20% off their annual plans just for going there. So we'll drop a link to the description as well. Take control of your digital privacy and you'll sleep better at night.

• 18:47Rachel Cruze?

  Yep, here's the rest of our conversation with Arthur Brooks. Okay, so we went on Instagram, George and I did, and we're like, hey, Arthur Brooks is coming on. I got multiple DMs that people were so pumped you were coming on. They're like, what a great combo. I said, I know. Okay, so here were some questions they asked, okay? Question number one, what are practical steps I can take to feel more hopeful in life?

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so hope is, um, hope is not the same thing as optimism. And that's a very important distinction. People use them as if they're synonyms. Optimism is just prediction. To be optimistic is like, everything's gonna be okay. It might not be. Hope is to take an active role in making things better. Hope is to say, something can be done and I can do it. To feel more hopeful is to do more.

• 19:31Rachel Cruze?

  It's action oriented.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  To change the odds.

• 19:34Rachel Cruze?

  Uh, where optimism's like, it'll be fine. And there's like a passivity to it.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Get to work.

• 19:38George Kamel?

  Well, there's that old quote, the harder I work, the luckier I get.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  It's weird. It's weird how that actually works. And so, and so the whole point is, you know, for example, you know, I don't, I went to the doctor and the doctor said, ah, you know, your LDL cholesterol's through the roof and the whole thing and. Things don't turn around. I mean, you're gonna have, we've got some serious issues on our hands where the odds are much higher than they should be for heart attack and stroke, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, you can basically say, everything I think is gonna be okay. I need somebody who's gonna help me be optimistic about this. Or, you can start doing things right.

• 20:09Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  You can actually start eating better. You can start going to the gym. You can actually start paying more attention to the things that will turn that around. The hopeful strategy is the active strategy.

• 20:17Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  This is the whole thing with your finances, for example. You can be optimistic that, you know, bad things won't happen to you despite the fact that you're incredibly financially precarious and making dumb decisions. And some people do get lucky in their businesses, right?

• 20:30Rachel Cruze?

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Some people get really, really lucky. Don't worry. Don't, don't try to rely on luck. Actually do things differently. Hope is taking things into your own hands. That's why, by the way, it's a theological virtue.

• 20:42Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  So St. Paul talked about faith, hope, and love. That these are the theological virtues that people are supposed to display, and they'll have a better life and a happier life if they're faith, if they're faithful. Doesn't care, I don't care how you feel. If you feel faith right now, man, that's what you're digesting or something, man.

• 21:01Rachel Cruze?

  Totally.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Be faithful.

• 21:03Rachel Cruze?

  But it's the action.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Be faithful to your spouse. Be faithful to your God. Be faithful to your business. Be faithful to your family. Be hopeful. Take matters into your own hands to change the odds, if those odds can be changed. And of course, be loving, notwithstanding how you feel, because love isn't a feeling any more than faith.

• 21:21Rachel Cruze?

  You know, it's funny, I was with Dr. John Zaloni this weekend. We had a conference, and there was a question that we got from the audience. And my go-to sometimes with some, especially the marital questions, I'm like, you need to go see a therapist. Like, you really gotta dig in. Like, there's eight layers there that y'all really need to work on. And John said, and I'm sure he says this a lot, it just maybe caught me, but he, he said, I want you to start, it was about yelling. They would, the way their arguments, how they would escalate. And I went inner child. I'm like, what was the six year old doing? You know what I mean? I do. I'm like, I went to like, how was your childhood? All of it. And, and I remember John saying like, um, something along the lines of you have to start practicing, like today, today, you have to start actually doing the practice.

• 22:04Rachel Cruze?

  Cause when you actually start doing actions of change, and yes, the therapy route's great, like understanding you and all of it's great, but the simple actions, the small actions you take, even chemically in your brain, you start to change when you, you know what I mean? I guess it's creating new habits, like whatever, whatever it is. But when he said that, I thought, that's so, I'm like, duh, of course. But there's something so powerful that we have the ability to change. I think sometimes even as people of faith, it's like, I'll just pray about it. I'll just pray about it. I'm not gonna do anything else. I'm just gonna pray about it. And you're like, you have to participate in redemption.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  That's not a hopeful thing to do if you're not participating.

• 22:37Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, you have to participate and in your life. So even someone's like, how do I become more hopeful? I love your answer because I'm like, yeah, there's an action that has to be happening.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  John is very solid on this. And actually I've been thinking, I mean, a lot of, a lot of my work these days, because I've done, ever since I've been back in academia, I left academia for 11 years to run a company. And since I came back, the world has changed in the world of behavioral science. It's become way more biological. And so I've had to retrain in a lot of neuroscience over the past seven years. And it's really changed the nature of my work. So the result is I now have more biological, uh, protocols for, for solving a lot of the problems that we're talking about here. And so to the point that you're actually making, I have a four-part protocol for changing your brain in a way that will fix your marriage. You want to hear it? Yes. Don't leave us hanging. You're married people.

• 23:25Rachel Cruze?

  You're on the edge of our seats.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  This is based on, on the best neuroscience about how couples can actually link to each other in a way that they used to and why they fell in love, and they can remember it. Now, this is not a substitute for fixing things. This is not a substitute for getting rid of verbal abuse, et cetera, et cetera. But these things will go a super long way. Number one, it's really simple. When you're speaking, look at each other in the eyes. Now, the reason for this is because we have a neuropeptide in the brain called oxytocin that's stimulated with the people that we love through eye contact. Touch and that's what couples stop doing. So they bond to each other as kin. So when you marry somebody, that's not somebody you're related to ideally. You know, this is somebody who's not related to you, but you make them into kin.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  And the way that you do that is by bonding to that person neurochemically. It's the same way that you bond instantaneously with your baby. When your first baby was born and when a baby nurses, there's eye contact between the infant and the mother and both get tons of oxytocin. And that's how they're bonding to each other. It's like 4th of July.

• 24:26Rachel Cruze?

  Tell me this, is there, is there science between of women actually have higher levels of oxytocin?

• 24:33Speaker 02

  3X.

• 24:33Rachel Cruze?

  Through contact, eye contact, and then men is physical?

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. So men get more vasopressin. Well done, well done. And actually you're anticipating the second part. But women have three times as much oxytocin, meaning that one of the biggest mistakes that guys make is not realizing that they're starving their wives when they're not looking at them in the eyes. And sometimes it'll be like nine years since they've actually looked at them in the eyes when they talk. So guys will be doing all kinds of stuff.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  I was saying, so the first thing I'll say is just stare at her, not like a psychopath, but if you have to, like a psychopath. When you're talking to her and she's weirdly going to start feeling better about your marriage. Promise you guaranteed, right? She will be like, I feel like I'm falling back in love.

• 25:13Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Second is touch. The, the rule is ABT, always be touching, always be touching. Couples stop touching, you know, and guys need this anymore.

• 25:22Rachel Cruze?

  You can't just make out, Arthur.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 25:24Rachel Cruze?

  When you're married.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's if you're women, wives, when you're walking out with your husbands, link your arm inside his. And he'll be like seven feet tall. That why? Because he's actually, oh, this vasopressin in his brain, the neural peptide.

• 25:38George Kamel?

  I would take six feet, just to be honest, Arthur.

• 25:42George Kamel?

  Like seven feet.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  I'm shrinking to six feet.

• 25:46Rachel Cruze?

  That is so funny because for a lot of men, yeah, they'll even say like the love language, whatever they say, physical touch, but it's not sex. Like that's what wins. He's like, it's not that. He's like, I just, and he'll say, he'll say it to me, Arthur, sometimes, can I just have a hug?

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:56Rachel Cruze?

  He does. He just is like, I just want to be, and I'm like, yeah, so it's so.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Hold his hand. When you're in church, hold his hand. When you're sitting, when you're watching TV, hold his hand. It's like just touch, touch, touch. And some guys, you know, they're more, they're more or less, but men.

• 26:11Rachel Cruze?

  They love it.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Their soulmates to be touching them and they want it to be initiated by her. Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch. And a lot of women are like, yeah, she just wants sex all the time.

• 26:20Rachel Cruze?

  But they don't. That's the thing. Yes.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  I mean, of course they do, but that's not, it's not the same thing.

• 26:24Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Okay, that's actually not part of the, sex is not one of the four steps, believe it or not. So we got eye contact? Eye contact and ABT. Okay. ABT, ABT. Number three is fun. Now, when you're going for couples therapy, one of the problems with couples therapy is that you rehearse grievances. That's what you're talking about. It's like, and so if you have a glass of water, which is your marriage, and then you have got a teaspoonful of dirt, which is your problems, when you go to the therapist, like, and then it's like, you're not getting the dirt out of there, when it's actually all stirred up in there, again and again and again and again and again. Fun is like pouring a pitcher of water on top of that glass. And the first thing that's actually gonna come out, the physics of this is really interesting, the dirt will come out and you'll have clean water. Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Fun is way, way, way more important than a lot of grievances. So, you know, there's grievances when you're first together, but you're still in love. But it's like the tide is in, you can't see all the junk on the beach. Mm-hmm. And then the tide goes out. And then all you can see is the junk on the beach. Bring the tide back in. And the way that you do that is by doing things that you both really enjoy, that elicit a lot of positive affect, a lot of interest and a lot of joy and a lot of surprise, as opposed to focusing on fear, anger, disgust and sadness. Yeah. And those little irritations. So you gotta fix problems, but more important, you gotta have more fun. More positive as opposed to simply getting rid of the negative. Yes. Last but not least is praying together. Mm-hmm. That's the most intimate thing that couples can do, and they usually don't.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  I know couples, old Catholic couples have been together for 50 years, and they don't pray in front of each other because it's too intimate, it's like too embarrassing. It's like, you guys are like 19 kids. You've done lots of intimate things, right? But you don't pray? Yeah. You don't talk to the Lord together? What's the dealio? And the answer is because it's like, it's like looking into the sun, you know? It's just so intimate to talk about, to talk to the Lord together. And that's really the essence of what it means to have three to be married. You know, and the most intimate marriages are those which the couples, they see their marriage as an antenna to God. And that's what they realize when couples start praying together. And again, secular people are watching us too, and there's data that show that meditation,

• 28:35Speaker 02

  or even reading to each other does a lot of this.

• 28:37Rachel Cruze?

  But something higher than you.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Something higher than you that you're connecting to. And what you realize is that when you don't love your wife, you're denying her God's love. Because your love is the channel through which God expresses his love to her, and that's why you're married. That's what it means to be free to get married. And that's just, it's a Rubicon that you cross in your marriage. And when you can actually say to each other, "You're not number one. You're not number one. The reason I can still love you, and the reason I love you so much is because you're not number one. Because God's number one." And you're not going to find that when you're not praying together. You're not going to find that when you're not the two keys that turn on the antenna to the divine. That's a real game changer.

• 29:18George Kamel?

  So I'm writing this down. I gotta stare into her eyes, hold her hands while praying to her, and then give money to her.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  You have to stare into her eyes, she has to hold your hand.

• 29:25George Kamel?

  Okay, got it.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  More fun together and say your prayers together tonight.

• 29:29George Kamel?

  That's impressive, and it's simple. Those are simple things. I thought you were going to give us some real hard homework here.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  No, no. But, simple, but not easy.

• 29:36George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Because of the thing, it's real easy to neglect these things. It's like, ah, we're watching TV, and we're a little too tired, and da-da, you know. There's all kinds of adjuncts to this, too. I mean, it's like, read, read, read her love poetry tonight in bed while you're holding hands, before you go to sleep and staring into each other.

• 29:53George Kamel?

  I don't know if I can Google that on a work computer. Love poetry to read at bedtime.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. And by the way, don't look at a screen while you're doing it.

• 29:59George Kamel?

  That's the problem, too. Print it out, old school.

• 30:01Rachel Cruze?

  I love it.

• 30:02George Kamel?

  That's good.

• 30:03Rachel Cruze?

  So good. All right, I know you're loving our conversation with Arthur, so are we, and we're about to get back to it. But first, we want to talk about partnering with a bank that is actually for you, and that is where Fairwin's Credit Union comes in.

• 30:15George Kamel?

  Yeah, we always talk about giving every dollar a job, and Fairwin's makes it easy, especially on the savings side. We talk about sinking funds and saving up for the vacation, or the car, or the maintenance for the house, and you can do all of that with Fairwin's by making up to Ten savings accounts, all within the same portal.

• 30:33Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, right there. And you guys, their online portal, like the the experience with their online banking is unmatched. It is incredible. And their customer service is even better. If you have any questions or concerns, you can call them because they are right there, just a phone call away if you need them. And the fact that they have the heart to support you financially, meaning that they are cheering you on, they are for you. Where a lot of banks are literally just selling you tons of products for them to make more money off of you. But Fairwins is different. They are for you. So open up your smart bundle today because you will get a checking account with the Fairwins Dead as Normal B Weir debit card, which we love.

• 31:13George Kamel?

  So good.

• 31:14Rachel Cruze?

  So good. And then, of course, your high-yield savings account and then other accounts that you can have, just like you were saying, up to 10 accounts you can have with them.

• 31:21George Kamel?

  It's super simple. And again, the customer service is unmatched. They called me after I made an account. I was confused. I was like, is there fraud on my account? They're like, no, just checking in. I was like, oh, my gosh.

• 31:31George Kamel?

  This is a friend I didn't know I needed. So go check it out. Get that smart bundle for free. Go to fairwins.org/Ramsey to sign up today or click the link in the description. All right, back to our conversation.

• 31:42Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, question number two. What's one thing in culture that we should be talking about and paying more attention to in 2026?

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the meaning of life. And that's really what I've been writing about for the past five years. So the big book that I've got coming out at the end of March is called The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness. And that's a big change. You know, if this were 25 years ago, I wouldn't be writing a book about the meaning of life because there wasn't a change in the perception of life's meaning. But suddenly, quite suddenly, after 2008, there was an explosion of this crisis of meaninglessness. So people ask all the time, what lies behind the increases in depression and anxiety and loneliness and self-harm and addiction for people under 35? The number one predictor is saying that my life feels meaningless. And the reason for this, by the way, is because increasingly, we're all living in a simulation. It's not real life. I mean, look, if you roll out of bed and the first thing you do is you

• 32:34Speaker 02

  look at your phone, that's a simulation for actual contact with human beings. And then you go to work on Zoom and your friends are on Instagram and you're dating on an app and your sense of achievement is coming through gaming. You're living in the matrix, man.

• 32:49Rachel Cruze?

  So interesting.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  And there's one thing you can't simulate, which is the meaning of your life. Now, this book talks an awful lot about how we use our brains wrong. Meaning is ascertained in the right hemisphere of the brain. Technology and analytics and the grind of work and the modern, and most of modern life is on the left side of the brain. And if you're spending your whole life, hours and hours a day on the left side of your brain, you literally are in the wrong part of your brain to even ask the questions of meaning.

• 33:17Rachel Cruze?

  And so that creates the anxiety, depression, all of that.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  That creates meaninglessness.

• 33:20Rachel Cruze?

  Where the right side, what helps heal that?

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Exactly right. So, this book is a six-part plan in six months to find the meaning of your life. And it talks, it starts by getting clean, by detoxing from the technological addictions that are afflicting us, and then actually living in a kind of a new old fashioned way, looking at the parts of life that will illuminate the right side of your brain. That's the big question people should be asking.

• 33:40George Kamel?

  I've seen a lot of, I'm gonna call it financial nihilism, of just, there's no point, the rich people bought Park Place, we lost the Monopoly game, let's just flip the board. There's a lot of that happening, a lot of cynicism toward the financial world. You know, from people who are going, I'll never get ahead, I'll never own a house, you'll never own anything, you'll never be happy.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Let's go be socialist now, or something.

• 34:00George Kamel?

  So yeah, how do you approach that person? If you're talking to me, I'm that 24-year-old who thinks that way. How do you get out of that?

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, part of the reason is because we have, it's like, it's funny, you know, economists always talk about the Consumer Price Index, right? And the problem with the Consumer Price Index, it's the way that they calculate it, it's a bundle of goods that people actually used in the old days.

• 34:20Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Right? And so you're, it's like, how much for, you know, a toaster or something, you know, whoever. And some of the stuff is relevant. I guess toasters are relevant, TVs are relevant.

• 34:31George Kamel?

  How often are people buying toasters?

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Not that often, because they're like cheap and reliable is the whole point. The problem with the CPI is it's not great for measuring inflation because it's an old basket of goods. And the truth is that the way that we understand our own prosperity is by looking at an old basket of goods. And you say, okay, how do I know I'm prosperous? I can buy the same stuff that my parents did and more. Well, the truth is that things change in life and I get it. I mean, it's like, it's great to be able to buy a house, I suppose, but that's not a deal breaker. It isn't a deal breaker. Plus, if your parents actually got a big run up in their house value and they were wealthier as a result of that, you were probably brought up under circumstances where you think being poor actually isn't poor at all. And so you hold yourself to ridiculous standards under the circumstances.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  We need to update our understanding what a prosperous life is all about, what a successful life is actually all about. Young people today have way more freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom of all kinds of things that their parents didn't have, as a matter of fact. And that's a form of wealth. That's a way that they're actually richer than their parents are. They need to update their views on what it means to be a person who's fully alive and really prosperous, as opposed to, I can't buy the house I grew up in. Okay, well, that's just a, that's a, an element, that's a, an artifact of the fact that cultures and economies change.

• 35:49George Kamel?

  So how, what is a healthier scoreboard for people versus just money or how are my parents doing or the guy on Instagram?

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and to be sure, some people are not going to be as wealthy as their parents. But other people are going to be wealthier than their parents and be, and able to do all kinds of things their parents couldn't do. Like go see things, like going to Bali. Your parents didn't go to Bali and you're going to be able to go to Bali, right? And your parents are like, kids these days, they're so lucky. And you're like, parents these days, they owned a house. I mean, everybody's resentful of everybody else is the way to think about it. The way to think about this is to set appropriate goals for the person that you actually want to be. You know, to think about yourself in five years, and I have this exercise I have with my students. So my students are MBA students at Harvard. They're gonna do super well. The average salary coming out of MBA program at Harvard, I think is $210,000 a year. It's good money.

• 36:39George Kamel?

  Not too shabby.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  And it's gonna go up. And it's not like $210,000 a year and going down. No. I mean, no.

• 36:45George Kamel?

  That's, that's the base.

• 36:46Speaker 02

  That's the base. And then it goes up from there and, and that has all kinds of good things about it, but all sorts of bad things because they become, they can become success addicted and workaholic and, and all sorts of things. That's what I work on with them. But I say, look. If you want to be a really successful person, think about yourself five years from now and imagine yourself with 25% higher level of well-being. And you know what that feels like. You know what that means. Okay, we don't have to get into the numbers. You're significantly happier. Put in order, one, two, and three, the changes from now that are responsible for that increase in your well-being. Every single one of them talks about family as number one. And they all say the same thing. I want to be married and have kids. I want to be married and have kids. Like, okay, what's number two?

• 37:30Speaker 02

  A lot of them say, I really want to have my, my faith and spiritual life worked out. I want to have a philosophy of life that really makes sense to me. I want to reconnect with my faith. I want to find faith for the first time. A lot of them put that as number two. And their career is always number three. And I'm like, okay, what are you spending all your time on? They're like, number three, aha, be more business-like about number one and two. Start actually working on number one and two, and then we'll put together protocols so that number one actually can be number one, and, and real science-based protocols for number two as well. And that's what my class, I teach a class called Leadership and Happiness, which is about how to treat your life like an enterprise and not just your business. That's how to be prosperous.

• 38:08George Kamel?

  Are those the main areas you should focus on outside of just, you know, money goals?

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:12George Kamel?

  You've got family, faith, obviously your career, that has meaning as well, and friendship?

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Faith, family, friendship, and work are, are the four big pillars of the happiest life. Those are the practices. And the reason is because those are the things that prop up what happiness is macronutrients. Happiness is kind of like food. It has macronutrients and micronutrients. The, the macronutrients are enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the things to be paying attention to. And the micronutrients are all kinds of things like your, you know, your family life and your marriage and your financial health and all these kinds of things that actually feed into it. And you have to be paying attention to both, just like you do with your own health. Am I getting, you know, enough D3 with K2 in my diet? But at the same time, am I getting enough protein and micro, macro, et cetera, et cetera? And that's what I'm kind of working with.

• 39:00Rachel Cruze?

  You know, you know, George.

• 39:01George Kamel?

  You lost me.

• 39:02Rachel Cruze?

  Macros and micro.

• 39:03George Kamel?

  K2. No, I get my protein.

• 39:05Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, I haven't been in college. It's been 15 years. But do they still sign up online for their classes?

• 39:11Speaker 02

  I don't know. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not doing the science. I just lecturing.

• 39:14Rachel Cruze?

  I imagine, because this is what I went through last week to get my girls in this one camp that I'm obsessed with here locally. And it's so hard to get into because it's really small. So you gotta be up at 6:30 and you gotta be refreshing your browser. I had my computer and my phone to do both, to get them both signed up. And I only got one signed up because it filled up so fast. Is that how your class is? Are they like sitting there waiting for registration? Do you know what I mean? And Arthur, they're like, get in Dr. Brooks's class.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  I usually have about 400 in the waiting list for the happiness class.

• 39:41Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, that's what I thought.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  I have two sections of 90 and about 400 in the waiting list.

• 39:44Rachel Cruze?

  And you all get this for free, this content for free. The professor's here.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's, and my students are awesome. And so I have a lot of visitors. So I take visitor, a reservation system for visitors.

• 39:53George Kamel?

  So I can like audit your class?

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Well, they have to be related to my students.

• 39:57Rachel Cruze?

  You have to be an enrolled student.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  At one point, there was an illegal Zoom link. They thought I was not aware of. And it was the COVID link.

• 40:04Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, no.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  For the kids on COVID, you're not supposed to come to class when you got COVID. For the obvious reasons.

• 40:08Rachel Cruze?

  So people were giving out the links to watch the class?

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I was like, there's like 135 people on the COVID link. I'm like, that, those are, those people in Europe, you know, what's going on with the COVID link?

• 40:17Rachel Cruze?

  So funny. Just give them the content if they want it that bad. Let them have the invasion.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  That's why I'm here. My real apostle is public education for this stuff.

• 40:26Rachel Cruze?

  So our conversation with Arthur Brooks, it just makes me feel so good. I just, I love him. And what also makes me feel good, George, is all the luxurious products of Cozy Earth. Cozy Earth has everything from bedding to loungewear. I mean, it is, it is unmatched what they have because their quality of products as well is just, it is, it's unbelievable.

• 40:49George Kamel?

  I can't help stock up. I, because I realized once I ran out of my Cozy Earth socks, I was like, now I have to go back to my peasant socks. I want my Cozy Earth socks. So now I need one for every day of the week. Their men's everywhere pant is fantastic. The sleep sets for the ladies. I've got the clogs. I was Cozy Earthed out this weekend and I looked down and didn't even realize it.

• 41:09Rachel Cruze?

  And you had all Cozy Earth on?

• 41:10George Kamel?

  Yes.

• 41:11Rachel Cruze?

  I'm telling you, it is, it is so good. In fact, I had to give a gift recently. Where did I go? CozyEarth.com because I thought, I'm gonna bless these people with it. Amazing products that I love from Cozy Earth. So make sure to check it out. Again, it is quality products. Everything from their bedding to their clothes. All of it is fantastic. So go to cozylearth.com/smartmoney at 20% off and use code SMARTMONEY in checkout and enjoy the great discount too, because you are not going to regret anything you buy from Cozy Earth.

• 41:42George Kamel?

  The only thing I love more than luxurious goods is a discount on luxurious goods.

• 41:47Rachel Cruze?

  That's it. It's even better. Even better. All right. Back to our conversation with Arthur. All right. This question was interesting. How do I relate to or show interest in others if I'm extremely shy? Personality question.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. I get that. And I do a lot of work on the personality correlates of happiness. So personality, human personality, there's been a lot of work on this. So introversion, extroversion. Actually, that was a concept that was introduced largely by Carl Jung, you know, the great Swiss psychiatrist and colleague and disciple of Sigmund Freud, but much better, much greater, much greater. And because today, we still study a lot of Jung.

• 42:22George Kamel?

  It's not called the Jung slip. It's called the Freudian slip.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  I know. The Jungian slip. And we got some other Jungian, good Jungian stuff out there. But the whole concept of extroversion is Jungian, actually. This was then accompanied by four other personality characteristics. So the five elements of personality, and the way that you can remember this is with the acronym OCEAN. Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. So those are the five elements. And they're, all of them are between 40 and 80% genetic, which means

• 42:52Rachel Cruze?

  No way.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Between 40 and 80% genetic, meaning that they're only between 2 and 60% environmental. And there's disagreement in the literature about how much it is, but everybody knows it's super genetic. So if you have two introverted parents, the likelihood is you're going to be introverted, is the way that it actually works.

• 43:08Rachel Cruze?

  We have friends like that. You can tell a family, crazy, chaotic family, because the parents are just wild. And it's just like it is. And then you go to a home and everything's silent, and they're very like calm people. And you're like, oh, yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So in my family of five, Um, two of our, so me and my wife, actually now it's a family of 11 because two of my kids are married and the two married kids have two kids each. And so in three and a half years, we went from five to 11. Wow. So fun. It's like a population explosion. Oh, it's the best. And we live together in the same house, two of the families, actually, which is really good. So we have two biological sons and one adopted daughter. So that's how it's set up. And, and in a way, my adopted daughter, she's 22 now. She's a chip off the old block. She's studied neuroscience and psychology in college. She's phenomenal. She's a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps now. She's, she's awesome. But she's an introvert and she's the only introvert, you know, so it's like four dogs and a cat.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Growing up. And, and so this is an interesting thing. And so for her, it was always this question, the question that you're asking is how do you connect to people? And one of the reasons she studied psychology was to really understand this question and because that's what she and I talk about all day long is the behavioral science behind these types of things. And the answer is that, that it's not as natural or easy, but metacognitively, you can actually do this. In other words, don't let your, your limbic system, your, your emotional console manage you. Understand the emotions that you're actually having that are driving you toward a particular type of behavior and then decide how you want to react. And, and that's really important to be metacognitive about it. Now, to be sure, to connect other people with introverts,

• 44:44Speaker 02

  they're going to do so on a smaller scale, but on a deeper scale. Introverts, they tend to have fewer friends, but better friendships. Yep. Extroverts are always looking for fresh meat. And it's like, who's new? New and exciting. Who's new? It's like an MLM, just like let's add them to the pipeline. I know. I'm like at the 96th percentile in extroversion and you know, it's unbearable. Um, it says, this is not a flex. And, and but what I've found is that my daughter will have a few friends that she really cares about. She really cares about deeply, but metacognitively, she's had to get out of her comfort zone because she's commanding Marines. And so what she has to do is she's taking care of people and people's lives in her hands. And so the result of it is that she has learned how to be a successful, happy introvert.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  And when she needs to, how to act like an extrovert. And that's strength.

• 45:32Rachel Cruze?

  That's interesting.

• 45:33George Kamel?

  So do you find that extroverts are happier in general versus introverts having a harder time?

• 45:39Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask that. Is it the more open you are, the more conscious, like, does that mean you have a happier life?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  For sure. So happiness is the way that it's so happiness is positively correlated with openness, positively with conscientiousness, with extroversion, with agreeableness, and negatively correlated with neuroticism.

• 45:58George Kamel?

  I was gonna ask about that last one. I was like, I got a lot of neuroticism. And I was like, I guess I'm super happy. This is great.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  No, no, sorry. So it's like, and when neuroticism is, I mean, that's just an old idea. A neurotic, according to Freud, is what we would call today, somebody who's got a non-trivial amount of depression and anxiety. And so somebody who's really, really neurotic would have clinical depression and generalized anxiety is kind of how that works. And if not, or you could actually be somebody who bounces around a lot, which is clinically, that would be bipolar disorder, or subclinically is called hypomania. A lot of really successful people. Most successful people are hypomanic.

• 46:34George Kamel?

  See Rachel?

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:37Rachel Cruze?

  George, that's George.

• 46:38George Kamel?

  No, that's good. That's, well, I have a lot.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  You can be really successful and not as happy because you're highly hypomanic.

• 46:43George Kamel?

  Is there a lot of just like you're in your head, overthinking, you know?

• 46:46Speaker 02

  Well, that's, that's a, that's a classic. So being in your head and overthinking is called rumination. Rumination is, it comes from the Latin ruminare, which means to chew the cud. That's what rumination actually is. And so what's actually happening in the brain is that rumination, most neuroscientists believe it's an activation of a thing in your brain, a little organ in your brain, a suborgan called the ventralateral prefrontal cortex. It's part of your limbic system. It's your onboard hardware for ruminating. Regret, regret, I'm so stupid. I can't believe I said that, blah, blah, blah. But the reason for that, the reason that that has actually been evolved is so you can learn. So you can ruminate on something because you're figuring it out.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  The reason that people are probably the best explanation for why people are still depressed. It seems like that would be like weeded out over the last 250,000 years of sexual selection or something like that is because the brain is like something bad happened. You need to figure it out and the way you're going to figure it out is by doing the work. And the way you do the work is by activating the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex to make it so you can't stop thinking about it. Now, this can really obstruct your quality of life, which means that there's certain things that we can do that will lower the activity in the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex like keeping more serotonin in the synapse with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, AKA Prozac.

• 48:06Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  So one of the things that it does is it lowers the levels of rumination. But here's the interesting thing. Rumination is also what we do when we're doing something super creative like creating a business plan, writing a poem.

• 48:17Rachel Cruze?

  So it takes that down.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  It's also what you're doing when you're falling in love. So the third neurochemical step in falling in love is this big dip in serotonin. And that's when you're ruminating on the other person like can't stop thinking about her, can't stop thinking about her. She sent me a text, I don't know if the wording was just right and I don't know and I'm feeling so insecure and so I act, what an idiot, I just sent 10 voicemails, I'm seeing something so needy. And that's the reason you're bonding to the other person by ruminating on the other person.

• 48:45Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Which is why people who are depressive, melancholic, they also tend to be creative and romantic.

• 48:51Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, it is. It's like the Enneagram fours that just like live in there like.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  That's why. And it's also why some people report, and this is contested, that when they're taking serotonin drugs that will keep more serotonin in the synapse, that they feel less, they're less ruminative in their sadness, but they feel less creative and they feel less romantic love.

• 49:09Rachel Cruze?

  Yep.

• 49:11George Kamel?

  Fascinating.

• 49:12Rachel Cruze?

  Choose a battle, right?

• 49:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that doesn't mean, by the way, take your meds, folks. Take your meds. I'm not saying that if you want to follow up, you gotta go off your meds. It just means you gotta know what's going on and understand why this is happening, why you're feeling the way that you do.

• 49:25Rachel Cruze?

  Oh my gosh. Some of these episodes are gonna replay myself.

• 49:29George Kamel?

  Yeah, I was surprised you weren't writing that down.

• 49:31Rachel Cruze?

  Take notes. It's so good.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Are you a melancholic, Rachel?

• 49:34Rachel Cruze?

  No.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  No, you're not melancholic?

• 49:36Rachel Cruze?

  I'm pretty happy.

• 49:36George Kamel?

  She avoids sadness actively.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  What, so, so...

• 49:41Rachel Cruze?

  I avoid sadness.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  I would guess...

• 49:42George Kamel?

  You're a sadness avoider.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  There's a, I have a test on my, I have a test on my website called the happiness scale that everybody can take. And one of the things that will show you is your affect profile to see the intensity of your positive and negative emotionality.

• 49:55Rachel Cruze?

  Okay.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  And a quarter of the population is above average in positive emotion, but also above average in negative emotion. That's called the mad scientist profile.

• 50:04George Kamel?

  Six extremes on both sides.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  I would bet that's you. I would bet that you feel things really deeply. My guess is that you feel...

• 50:10Rachel Cruze?

  I do, if I let myself.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  But you feel intense happiness and intense sadness, is my guess.

• 50:15Rachel Cruze?

  Yes.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  So that would be the mad scientist. And by the way, most successful entrepreneurs and CEOs are mad scientists.

• 50:22George Kamel?

  Point four, Rachel.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Which one are you? So there's other, there's three others. One is the cheerleader, which is intense happiness and low intensity negativity. One is the judge, which is a low affect person, sober, unflappable. That's low intensity positive and negative.

• 50:39George Kamel?

  I think I'm pretty flappable.

• 50:42George Kamel?

  Easily flapped.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  Got some flaps over there?

• 50:44George Kamel?

  Yeah. Very irritable.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  And last but not least is the poet, which is the person who's a real melancholic, high negative intensity but low positive intensity.

• 50:52George Kamel?

  Oh.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  These tend to be the most creative people.

• 50:55Rachel Cruze?

  What are you?

• 50:55George Kamel?

  I guess I'm probably more mad scientist out of all of those.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  I bet you are too. I bet that, you know, professional radio show hosts tend to be mad scientists. Because you gotta be into it, man. You gotta be into it.

• 51:07George Kamel?

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  You gotta react emotionally, because if you don't...

• 51:10George Kamel?

  You're a psychopath.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Well, not only, well, I mean, actually, if you can, turn it on like a switch and, and look into a camera like I'm doing right now, pretending you're talking to an actual person, believe it or not, the ability to communicate with an inanimate object is a characteristic of sociopathy.

• 51:26Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, geez.

• 51:27George Kamel?

  There you go, guys. I'm learning a lot about myself. Didn't expect to be psycho analyzed on Smart Money Happy Hour.

• 51:32Rachel Cruze?

  Oh my gosh. Okay, before we spill the tea on our guilty as charged segments, we are gonna rate our drink, George and Arthur, what do you give it?

• 51:40Speaker 02

  I give this a solid seven and a half. I like it a lot.

• 51:43George Kamel?

  Nice. This is the electrolyte mocktail. Arthur's, I think, is sans orange juice. Is that correct? Let me tell you what's in it, Rachel, because you're probably wondering. It's got coconut water, fresh orange juice, lime juice, agave, and a pinch of salt.

• 51:57Rachel Cruze?

  Mmm.

• 51:57George Kamel?

  It's always gotta be a pinch.

• 51:58Rachel Cruze?

  I'm going nine. I, I love a salt rum. I love a salt rum. Yeah, for a mocktail.

• 52:03George Kamel?

  This is really nice. I want to be in like Meekin' nose right now.

• 52:07Rachel Cruze?

  And the fact that it has electrolytes in it.

• 52:09George Kamel?

  Yeah, it's healthy. I would prefer to spike it, but you know, it's, it's early in the day. So I'm going, I'm going nine out of 10.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Drinking before noon here, I don't know.

• 52:16George Kamel?

  Nine out of 10 on a mocktail is pretty good for me.

• 52:18Rachel Cruze?

  Yes. Some of our mocktails are nine.

• 52:21George Kamel?

  Okay. We have extremes in the mocktails. It's either a negative four or a 10.

• 52:25Rachel Cruze?

  It's usually pretty good, or they're just horrible.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Do you like the bitter mocktails?

• 52:29George Kamel?

  I like it bitter.

• 52:30Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, he likes a bitter. I don't like a bitter. And I don't like a ginger. Don't get me a ginger beer.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  I like it burns you.

• 52:35Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, I don't like it.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:36George Kamel?

  Feel the burn.

• 52:37Rachel Cruze?

  Not good.

• 52:38George Kamel?

  The cost is a dollar eighty-five cents per drink. If you want to make this at home, not bad. The recipe's in the show notes, so click there and give it a try this weekend. The kids are invited on this one.

• 52:48Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, the kids can drink it. They can drink it. All right, now it's time for guilty as charged. This is where we ask each other a guilty as charged question every week, and if we're guilty, we take a sip. All right.

• 52:58George Kamel?

  You're, you're gonna be a part of this, Arthur.

• 53:00Rachel Cruze?

  Arthur and George, you ready?

• 53:02George Kamel?

  Yep.

• 53:02Rachel Cruze?

  Have you ever hopped on a trendy bandwagon and then totally bailed? What's a bandwagon you've jumped on and then you said, never mind?

• 53:11George Kamel?

  I did, uh, well, I tried a new thing and it didn't work for me. And so I got these ads, because I like Huberman. I, you know, watch a lot of his content. And I got this ad from AG1 for their new sleep powder called AGZ.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  AGZ.

• 53:25George Kamel?

  And I tried it out. I was like, I'm gonna get on this bandwagon. Huberman's pushing it. It's gotta be amazing. And so I tried it, did not work for me, and then I...

• 53:34Rachel Cruze?

  George is a terrible sleeper.

• 53:34George Kamel?

  But here's what happened. The next box showed up. Because it's a subscription and I didn't know how to cancel it.

• 53:41Rachel Cruze?

  Oh no.

• 53:41George Kamel?

  So it charged me like ninety dollars for it. No, I got the box. So I got the product to go with it, but and I'll, I'll keep sticking with it. It's long. It's lengthy, a lot of trademark proprietary ingredients.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Proprietary ingredients, yeah.

• 53:53George Kamel?

  Um, but it seemed, it seemed like clean ingredients. Yeah, no melatonin, theanine, ashwagandha. I don't know what else. You, you can look at the ingredient list and tell me.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would look at the ingredient list. Yeah, for sure.

• 54:04George Kamel?

  But it didn't work for me.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  The key one for you is going to be magnesium glycinate.

• 54:07George Kamel?

  Which I take every night.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:09George Kamel?

  Shout out to magnesium glycinate. Not a lot of love for that on the show.

• 54:14George Kamel?

  Okay, so that's mine. I, I hopped on the bandwagon. No, no shade to Huberman. It's a great product.

• 54:19Rachel Cruze?

  I'll go health too. I, I was on the cold plunge bandwagon for, for about seven months consistently. I mean, I, and I hate being cold. And I think I did it more as a challenge to myself, just to be like, I can do this. But we bought a whole one. I mean, the whole thing, y'all. And I just, I'm done. Actually, I read something that for women, it ages you faster.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Well, because it spikes cortisol. And that's not what you want.

• 54:40Rachel Cruze?

  Yeah, no. I don't, don't lower my cortisol.

• 54:43George Kamel?

  What's your take on the cold plunges? Are we out of cold plunges?

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Science isn't there. I think the science isn't there to support it. I think saunas, saunas are absolutely, absolutely beneficial.

• 54:51Rachel Cruze?

  Tell me this. Okay, I do. We got an infrared sauna and I, and my husband, I will give him credit. He doesn't spend a lot of money, but when he buys something, he buys like the nice thing. Like, so he bought, um, an infrared, like a light, sunlightened infrared sauna. And, and I was like, oh my, that's a lot, you know, whatever. But he did it probably two years ago and I, and I use it. I use it this probably five times a week. For twenty-five ish minutes. And I have, knock on wood, I don't get sick anymore. Like I've not been sick in a, in, in a while. Is that related?

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Probably. It's probably related.

• 55:26Rachel Cruze?

  Because the infrared, right? That it like your body mimics the fever.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  Related and that the research actually isn't there on that, but a lot of people report that. But many, many other benefits. It's super well studied. Sauna's great for you.

• 55:37George Kamel?

  All right. It's your turn, Arthur.

• 55:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, what have I done?

• 55:39George Kamel?

  What's your bandwagon that you regret?

• 55:41Speaker 02

  You know, I can think back to all kinds of bandwagons over the years, I have to say, but I remember, you know, being a musician, there were a lot of musical band. bandwagons that I would actually try to get on over the years.

• 55:51Rachel Cruze?

  Oh, like the type of music or something?

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, the type of music and it would it actually never stick. But I can actually look back on, you know, the on the music collection I would have in the past. And it would be, you know, really actually mortifying. And especially because it sort of looked like the people that were making that particular music. So if you look back in those particular years, it looks like I'm trying to like. Who's the French horn player who thinks he's in Duran Duran or something like that? And that's what I'm, you know.

• 56:16George Kamel?

  Would you call Indonesian dance a bandwagon?

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Not so much. Well, I mean, it certainly was a fad that was flying around that hippie community that I was trying to study and ensure it didn't last.

• 56:26Rachel Cruze?

  In his, in his groups, yes.

• 56:27George Kamel?

  Bring it back.

• 56:28Rachel Cruze?

  In his groups, yes. Oh, so good.

• 56:30George Kamel?

  You can start a bandwagon now.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  I didn't have a good bandwagon, but I try not to actually fall into a lot of the health bandwagon stuff because what I'm the first thing it'll actually do is do the research.

• 56:38Rachel Cruze?

  Yes, we need to, any, any new thing, I'm gonna just text Arthur.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  Just text me and I'll look it up.

• 56:44Rachel Cruze?

  Should have done that about cold clenching.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, consensus AI, which is every researcher's research assistant using this is what we all use, the AI we all use.

• 56:51George Kamel?

  Oh, see, that's what I thought. I think doctors now are just using AI. And I'm like, well, I can do this at home.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  No, for academic researchers, it's amazing.

• 56:59Rachel Cruze?

  You get all of the info.

• 56:59George Kamel?

  If you know what you're doing.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:01Rachel Cruze?

  All right, you guys. Well, if you have a guilty charge question for us, make sure to DM us at Rachel Cruiser, at George Kamel. We get them. We appreciate them. Thank you. Thank you. Arthur, it's been so fun.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 57:12Rachel Cruze?

  Thank you for being on.

• 57:14George Kamel?

  Very excited about your new book, The Meaning of Your Life. You guys can check it out. TheMeaningOfYourLife.com. Pump for you.

• 57:20Rachel Cruze?

  March 31st.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  March 31st, on the 27th.

• 57:23Rachel Cruze?

  So depending on when you're watching this or listening to this.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  We'll be having a big virtual event, worldwide virtual event with a whole bunch of cool people. Oprah's part of it and Hoda Kotb is going to be there with me and Maria Shriver and, and Dan Buettner and my great friend, Ray Wilson will be with me. I pal around with Ray Wilson a lot.

• 57:40George Kamel?

  Old Dwight.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  And it's fantastic. And then we'll have.

• 57:42Rachel Cruze?

  Podcasts.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's great. And we'll have, you know, a few hundred thousand of our closest friends talking about the meaning of life and sharing ideas completely free.

• 57:50George Kamel?

  I like free. I'll be there.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Friday, March 27th.

• 57:53Rachel Cruze?

  Okay, guys, make sure to check out and everything that Arthur's doing is just as you, as you know, if you've stayed this long.

• 57:58George Kamel?

  If you don't love him at this point, what are you doing here?

• 58:00Rachel Cruze?

  It's incredible. Absolutely incredible. Yep. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to check out our episode, Questioning Life Choices with Ken Coleman. That is coming up next. Make sure to like and subscribe and we'll see you guys next Thursday on an all new episode of Smart Money Happy Hour. Cheers. Cheers.