Live The Perfect Life, Using Data - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a data scientist, economist and author. Imagine if you had access to millions of data points which tell you exactly what makes people happy, or makes people attracted to you, or what actually influences your child's outcomes in life, or the most reliable way to become rich. Well Seth did, and he wrote a book with all his findings in it. Expect to learn how you can conduct a survey to test different appearance styles to find out which is best for you, what personality traits result in the happiest relationships, which activities which make you most and least happy, the secret industries of people who become rich in America, how to hack luck using data and much more... Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get 2 weeks free access to Wondrium by going to https://www.wondrium.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 15% discount on Upgraded Formulas Test Kit at https://upgradedformulas.com/ (use code: MW15) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Buy Don't Trust Your Gut - https://amzn.to/3PkKXyU Follow Seth on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SethS_D Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #datascience #happiness #dating - 00:00 Intro 00:25 Seth’s New Book 04:25 How Appearance Influences Success 10:50 Insights from Dating Data 15:58 Physical Attractiveness & Happiness 24:22 Data on What Makes People Happy 38:00 Best Ways to Become Rich 44:58 Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur 52:00 How to Hack Luck 1:00:35 Data on Parenting 1:05:27 Where to Find Seth - Join the Modern Wisdom Community on Locals - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Listen to all episodes on audio: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

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

• 0:00Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  There definitely is a relationship between money and happiness, but it's a pretty small one. So like, for example, doubling your income consistently has about the same effect on happiness. So going from forty thousand to eighty thousand dollars a year has the same effect of going from four million to eight million dollars a year. So basically, you're in this kind of treadmill where you need to keep on raising it by more and more to get a happiness boost.

• 0:25Chris Williamson?

  Dude, your new book is absolutely awesome. This is, this is what people want. Someone that has access to loads of data to actually come up with and do. It's like, look, just, just tell me how I'm supposed to live my life, please. Can you just give me the money ball for my existence? That would be great. Thank you.

• 0:43Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, that was the motivation for the book is that I, it's legitimately the book I wanted to read because I'm obsessed with self-help. Like, it's a little embarrassing because I'm supposed to be such an intellectual. And my, my bookshelves are just filled with self-help. Like, how to get more powerful, when I was single, how to date better, how to be happier, how to whatever. And I'm so frustrated because I read all these books and I'm like, I just don't believe, I'm like, this isn't really based on very much. You just like had an idea and you just told me. It's not like up to the rigorous standards that I'd come to expect from, you know, data analysis. So I'm kind of just like, okay, what would actually be like? What if you just explored all the areas of life and just said what the data tells you on it?

• 1:27Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And like, you know, like, I've also noticed that a lot of self-help books, when they say they're evidence-based or like science-based, somebody just has a point they want to make and they just Google some study that confirms it. And like, that's not how I wrote this book. I literally had no idea what I was saying on any of these topics. I'm like, I don't know what I'm saying about dating. I don't know what I'm saying about entrepreneurship. I don't know what I'm saying about happiness. And I'm just like going to find the best studies and the best data and the best whatever. And then like, here, that's what I'm saying now. So, yeah.

• 1:56Chris Williamson?

  It does make other books feel...

• 2:02Chris Williamson?

  Inconsistent and insubstantial. You're like, hang on a second. What did you say? You just told me a nice story. But this is just, it's just a story that happens to fit some eat, pray, love narrative that sounds nice.

• 2:19Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I think it's right. I thought, I think it's also a misconception that people just want to read stories. Like, that's kind of a, an idea that they tell authors, you know, you just tell stories, tell stories, tell stories. And like, everybody who's read my book so far, which I'm just gonna say that, you're supposed to say the name a lot, don't trust your gut, some people remember it. But everyone who's read my book has been like, I've been enthralled by the tables and the charts. Which is like, not, again, that's not usually what you put in self-help books, like tables and charts.

• 2:48Chris Williamson?

  Dude's seduced by a nice bar chart. That's what, that's what people needed, needed more of.

• 2:53Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I think people are like, people are like, coming back with like, very subtle points, like the, you know, where I'm like, wow. The closest everybody was reading the book was actually the tables and charts and, and figures. And I'm like, oh. I think, I think there were misconceptions about, like, the, about the audience for books and what they actually want. And I think people do want things that are a little meatier and a little more substantial and like, a little more, you know, data-driven, so.

• 3:18Chris Williamson?

  I think a big reason for that is because it is quite counter to much of what gets put out there. There's a guy called Stephen Kotler, who runs the Flow Research Collective, and he looks at the science of getting your body into a flow state. But he looks at it from a biological level, right? This isn't a philosophical level. This isn't how it contributes to your meaning. It's what is the actual brainwave state you're supposed to be in? What does this mean for your heart rate? What does this mean for your respiratory rate? What does this mean for your average body temperature? What are the exercises and the strategies that you can do to influence yourself, to move you toward that? And you're like, it felt, meaty is a really nice way to put it. You're reading this book and you're like, yeah, there's something firm for me to press up against here.

• 4:00Chris Williamson?

  And I think, I think that finding something firm, as in the data, is a good place to, to look. So you decided, off the back of said book, to do a nerdy makeover, a data-driven makeover?

• 4:16Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I'm not following the advice though, because I'm too, I'm nearsider, which, well, nearsider is that you can't see far away. So, yeah, so I did this analysis. There's all this evidence, I didn't know about it until I started researching this book, on how much your looks influence your success in life. So like, it's really depressing and dark. Like, they show pictures of two candidates, you know, gubernatorial election, senate candidates, and they're like, "Which one looks more competent?" And this research by this guy Alex Todorov and others, and 70% of the elections, they can predict, just based on the candidate who people said looked more competent, wins. And it's just like, that is so depressing, like,

• 4:59Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  we're all in high school, basically. We can't, we've never escaped high school. And they've done studies like, "Who rises to the top of the military?" It's people who just look dominant. And they're like, "Oh, there've been studies that baby, that people who look baby-faced, like, are more likely to get off their crime, like, not be convicted of the crime."

• 5:18Chris Williamson?

  You're kidding me.

• 5:18Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Because I was like, "No, yeah, no, not, come on, not that guy."

• 5:23Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And I'm just like, "Are you kidding me?" I was reading this, I was getting like, angrier and angrier. But then I'm like, "Wait a second." There was this other study, where they said that the same person can be rated very differently, based on like, little changes they make. So I'm like, "Wait a second." Instead of just whining about how like, you know, unfair it is, you gotta take advantage of this. You gotta like, find your best look. And I use this tool, yeah, it's the nerd, probably the world's nerdiest makeover. FaceApp is this like, app. Everyone can play around with it. You can kind of change around, what happens when I have glasses? What happens when I have long hair? What happens when I have a beard? What happens when I have a mustache, goatee? You can just change everything about you. And then I ask people to rate like, how I look,

• 6:08Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  how competent I looked in these different things. I use this service. The best way to do it now is a site I didn't know about, photofeeler.com. Anyone could do this. Like, you can just match what I did. So you go to FaceApp, you create different versions of yourself. You go to photofeeler.com, and you can get ratings on them, on how you look on various dimensions. And then for me, there were these like, really clear patterns that everyone rated me way more competent when I had a beard and had glasses. And it was just like stark, it was like striking the glass and anything, striking the day and everything else I did, did matter like, uh, uh, you can add like a, a smile, uh, different smiles, no difference, different types of glasses, no real difference, like,

• 6:47Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  uh, even when I shaved my head, it wasn't even that much worse, uh, which I may be heading towards because I'm going bald, so that was encouraging. I'm like, thank God. I'm like, what if I'm like a six on competence and then with the shaved head, I'm like a two, then I'm really screwed because baldness is coming fast for me. Uh, so, or I guess if I, based on that, then I would have gotten like a hair transplant, I guess, uh, but I'm just like, oh, there are these two things, glasses and beard, and they're just the huge difference makers for me.

• 7:15Chris Williamson?

  Why did you want to, why did you want to optimize for competence?

• 7:20Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Well, I say because like, uh, I, I, I tested a few of them and they were all, they're all pretty highly correlated. So like, I said, now that I'm happily in a, if I was single, I'd go attractiveness 100%. I think I didn't go for attractiveness too, because I was too scared of the results. I'm like, what happens if I put it in there and everyone's like, Euro 0.1? I'm like, oh God, I'm gonna really get in my head. Whereas like I'm confidence, maybe like I'll do a little better. I look a little nerdy. Everyone will be like, you're, you're confident. But I think, uh, you know, I, I did, I focused on competence more because I'm in a, happily in a relationship. I feel like I don't really need to win over, you know, people with attractiveness. And then I was talking to someone, uh, Steven Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics,

• 8:05Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  and I told him this and he's like, no, no, that is your first mistake. You always need to keep the attractiveness high if you're a partner. Don't get, don't, don't get, uh, you know, lazy on the attractiveness front just because you're in a relationship. Uh, but it was like, it was, it's very clear, I really think everyone can do this. Like initially I had to use these tools because I didn't know about PhotoFeeler. I just found out about that recently. But literally FaceApp plus PhotoFeeler, anybody could do what I did, like really, really simply. And PhotoFeeler also does a whole bunch of different traits. So they do competence and smart and like all kinds of different things. You get it back really quickly. So I bet you everybody will find out these little things like I did, like it's just beard and glasses are like the game changers.

• 8:47Chris Williamson?

  Oh, you think that's for everybody? That all of the women should have beard and glasses as well? That's just a universal panacea across the board that every woman get yourself a beard?

• 8:57Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  No, I think the point is that it's like, the point is there are obviously going to be individual variation. That's why you got to do the study. So there are some people that are going to do well. You know, I think glasses and competence may be pretty close to universal. Uh, we are just so tricked by glasses. And like, everybody just looks smarter when they have a pair of glasses on. Uh, but, uh, you know, but like beard, I think there's something about my face that I think is just like a beard, like kinda, I have like a full mouth. I think a beard kinda covers it. There are some like men particularly that beards are just like very good on, like James Harden, the basketball player. I'm always like, why is this guy this crazy beard? Then I saw pictures before he had a beard and he's like missing a chin.

• 9:40Chris Williamson?

  Dude, have you seen, do you know Kazmat Chimaev? Do you know who that is?

• 9:44Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Uh.

• 9:45Chris Williamson?

  Uh, so he is one of these, he's an absolute animal in the middleweight division in the UFC. And this guy is, there's multiple series of videos talking about how he's a legitimate psychopath on YouTube with, and he's like, everyone loves him for the fact that he's just ready to go at all times. And if you want to go and have a laugh, Google Kazmat Chimaev without a beard and it is, he is missing a chin. There is no chin there. It is, it is simply a beard growing out from his neck. And you're like, fuck dude, he's so much more intimidating with a beard than without one. So he's optimizing for intimidation. You were optimizing for competence.

• 10:23Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Competence.

• 10:23Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely.

• 10:24Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  But when I did attract in this beard was, got me a higher score as well. So I think there, there competence and attractiveness are very highly correlated. Uh, usually the things, usually like a look is better on, on like every front. It's not like there's, you're, you're usually not trading off like, you know, one or the other. Usually like there's a look for you. I think it's pretty clear that glasses and, and beard is my, uh, is my look. Uh.

• 10:50Chris Williamson?

  What were the big lessons that you learned from data about being successful in dating then?

• 10:57Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  There are like a lot of different lessons. There are, okay, so one of them is from, I love this, people may have heard of it, but I, if you haven't, you need to know it. Christian Rutter wrote this excellent book, Datoclism, and he made the point that the most successful daters are like, the very most successful daters are exactly who you'd expect. They're like Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman, just beautiful people, and they just get like, it's depressing how much better they do than the average person. Like, but then like there are these, there are these daters that do shockingly well, and they're people with extreme looks, like people who shave their head,

• 11:37Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  like heterosexual women who shave their head, or have crazy glasses, or blue hair, or all these things. And the point is, in dating, you want to be polarizing. So if you're Brad Pitt or Natalie Portman, you just want to be yourself and not scare anybody, just like play it very safe, let the goodies flood to you. But if you are not Natalie Portman or Brad Pitt, or you're not like conventionally the most attractive person, you gotta kind of lean into some extreme version of yourself, and then some people will be totally turned off, but some people will be really into you. And that's kind of what's, that's all that matters. You just need some people who are really into you. And I kind of did that in my old life, because I think it's not going to surprise anybody that,

• 12:22Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  like, I'm pretty nerdy. I mean, anybody read Don't Trust Your God would be like, this guy's pretty nerdy, like. There's this one study where they list the happiest, they have a chart with the happiest, how much happiness every activity gives people, and I literally ordered an iPhone case with that chart on it, so I can look at the data when I'm deciding what to do with things. So I'm like the nerdiest, like I'm maybe one of the nerdiest people, you know, anybody's encountered. And I think when I was single, like a lot of nerds, I'm like, well, what do I do to, you know, I'm heterosexual to, you know, attract women, and...

• 12:57Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I'm like, okay, well, I gotta, you know, tone it down, be less nerdy, be, you know, like, you know, get rid of the glasses, get, get like, you know, stop talking about the charts and the tables and the bath and like, you know, learn, talk more about what you're taught that the average woman is into. And I think the data suggests the exact opposite, like nerd it up, go all in on who you are, and then you'll just be polarizing. But you don't, in dating, you don't want to be like average to people. You want to be like the extreme, something that's the most, the most appealing.

• 13:33Chris Williamson?

  Well, because you're not optimizing for total area under the curve, are you? You only need a couple of winners.

• 13:39Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And, yeah, and exactly, and, no, I like how you think a couple of winners.

• 13:44Chris Williamson?

  Well, you've got to have a variety, right?

• 13:46Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I'm monogamous, so I just look for one winner, but, uh, but I, yeah, and my girlfriend, literally, she was talking to her friends, and they're like, what's your type? And everyone's going through their type, like tall, dark, and handsome, this, that. And she's like, my type is nerdy. Like, that was her type. And she's not even that nerdy herself, her type was nerdy, and then, you know, and here I am. If I had not played off my nerdiness, I wouldn't have had a chance. And I think the, the thing that, the other big dating thing is you've got to put yourself out there way more. So they've done these studies on like, what happens when people of different attractiveness

• 14:29Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  or desirability ratings message someone else on an online dating site? So like, what happens when a one messages a 10 on an online dating site? And before I saw the data, I'm like, this is a bloodbath. This is like a one asking out of 10, I mean, or a message of 10, we're talking about like a one in a million, a one in a billion, like, come on, like, that's not going to happen. And the data says for a heterosexual man, one asking out a heterosexual 10, it's like 14%. And for a heterosexual woman asking out a one, going after a heterosexual man, it's like 30%. So like, when you actually do the math...

• 15:11Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  The key to getting like if you if you want to date out of your league, which I don't necessarily recommend because I was having a section how physical conventional attractive is most overvalued thing in the in the dating market, but let's be honest, everybody's trying to like everybody is curious, how can I date someone who's way more beautiful or way more desirable than me? And I think it's a combination of being an extreme version of yourself and then asking tons of people out. Because like if you have a 14% chance on one go, then you actually do the math, if you ask like 30 people out, you have like a 98% chance. So like all you got to do is just keep on going after it and a lot of people are gonna be like, no, no, no, no, no. And eventually you're gonna get your your yes.

• 15:55Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And then there are, yeah, there are other things, I could keep going.

• 15:58Chris Williamson?

  Well, what was the insight around physical attractiveness and happiness?

• 16:02Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, so they've done studies of like 11,000 couples and they tried to predict what predicts romantic happiness. So Samantha Joel led this study and it's like the big, it's like a revolutionary study of romantic happiness. They use machine learning models, there are 86 scientists studying it, like 11,000 couples, they had hundreds of variables, like anything you could consider a test. And the first thing is it's very hard in general to predict who's happy, like the predictive models are just way worse than you might imagine. It's not like predicting, I don't know, predicting like the weather tomorrow or something. It's like predicting the weather in like three years. Like it's it's it's harder than you'd than you'd guess.

• 16:47Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  But that said, the things that that do have at least some predictive power, whether I'm happy with someone else, whether a particular person has someone else, the qualities, the other person that seem to have some predictive power are like these psychological variables. So secure attachment style, growth mindset, conscientiousness, satisfaction with life, kind of like good psychological variables. And the things that don't have, that have like basically no predictive power are a lot of superficial things, so conventional attractiveness.

• 17:20Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  The height of your partner, the particular occupation of your partner, many things like that.

• 17:26Chris Williamson?

  So all of the things that online apps optimize for on the front end, yeah.

• 17:31Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, so like, so, yeah, so it, I think like the major insight from the data on dating and romance is there's just a total disconnect between what people are trying to, like what people are swiping for or trying to date and what actually makes people happy. You know, will people change based on knowing that? I don't know. I think it may be code in our DNA that we're drawn to, like beauty and, you know, height and status.

• 18:03Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  But like, if you can, I really do recommend overruling some of those instincts because they're really not a path to long-term happiness. And like, the other thing is, you have to think is that the competition for these traits is so enormous that like, even if you win over someone, like, if you, if you win over someone who is this, you know, great beauty or a woman, every woman, I think the data is 85% of women, or I don't remember the exact number, have like six footer above on Bumble, or whatever it is, it's some insane number.

• 18:42Chris Williamson?

  I think it's only 14% of men in the US.

• 18:46Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, yeah, and it's like, and like, so the competition for these people is ferocious. And you have to think that if you, first of all, if you try to date these people, you may spend a huge percent of your life single and complaining that you're single. Like, I think a lot of people who are perpetually single, they're trying to date the small number of people that everybody's trying to date. And number two, if you do win them over, you may find that they are like that. There's a reason that they were single, even though they have all these traits that everybody's desiring. So maybe their psychological traits are a little bit subpar.

• 19:28Chris Williamson?

  I would love to see, I would love to see the physical characteristics mapped with the psychological traits. You know, what are the correlates between are taller people on average, more conscientious or more industrious or more balanced? Cause that would be fascinating to see. Cause it could be, it actually could be that in order to be with someone who's hot, you need to sacrifice being with someone who's psychologically, it's probably not likely, right? They're probably pretty just randomly spread, but that could be the case.

• 19:59Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I think if you're not hot and you want to date someone hot, then you probably do have to sacrifice. You know, if you're like, if you're hot yourself, then you're probably like, okay, you probably, you know, it's probably, it's somewhat of a market. You're probably in better, in better.

• 20:13Chris Williamson?

  You can always date across and down. Yeah. Well, the, the interesting thing there is what, what you're kind of saying is similar to what John Berger says in Make the First Move, where it's, it's, it's not lowering your standards, it's changing what your standards consist of. Because what you're saying is that what you think your standards should be, aren't what they should be. You're optimizing for the wrong parameters. What you're optimizing for is something like height and job title and a bunch of things which aren't going to impact the thing that you ultimately want, which is long-term relationship happiness. What you need to do is reset that. And by doing that, you actually open up an entire new market, which is less competitive, potentially untapped, and significantly more linear between

• 20:58Chris Williamson?

  where you are and where you want to be in terms of happiness.

• 21:01Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, but nobody wants to hear that advice.

• 21:03Chris Williamson?

  Shit, shit dating advice. How do I get the hot person? How do I get the, how do I get the fitting?

• 21:08Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Which I told you, the way to get the hot person is to be an extreme version of yourself and ask out lots of people. And the, oh, the other thing I didn't say is take advantage of similarity.

• 21:20Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  So, uh, people are incredibly drawn, this is also shown in dating apps, to people who are similar to themselves. Like, on every trait you can imagine, so race, people are drawn to people who are similar to themselves, uh, religion, uh, like height to some degree, uh, even like college. People don't just want to date someone of a similar education level. They like show a bonus to someone who went to their exact same university, uh, even if it's like relative to someone in a similar ranked university. Uh, that, you know, there's, and then, oh, my favorite example of this is we're 11.3% more likely on online dating apps to match with someone who shares our initials.

• 22:05Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Uh, which is so ridiculous, like, come on, initials, like, sharing your initials is not the path to long-term happiness. But, so I think there's a lot of irrationality in that, but you can take advantage of that. In that, try, like, if you share your initials with someone, definitely ask them out, because you have this bonus.

• 22:27Chris Williamson?

  Oh, right, you've got like the multiplier, that's the 11.4% multiplier on that. Oh, well, she's a, she's a nine out of 10, but she does have my initials, so if I take that, she's actually only, she's like a, a parameter-adjusted eight and a half with, when we account for the, the name bias.

• 22:44Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  But yeah, and I think I learned this in my single life, where I am Jewish, and, but I'm, I'm not religious at all, and I always pride myself on not caring about, uh, religion. Like, I would be happy to date somebody of any religious background, any cultural background, whatever. It's not something that I view as very, very important to me. But I did kind of notice that the quality of my dates were always higher with the Jewish community than the non-Jewish community because of this similarity bias. So even if I don't care, like, even if it's not a preference for me, I can take advantage of the fact that it's a preference for other people, and I should probably be more likely to go to like a singles event for Jewish people than a singles event for non-Jewish people,

• 23:27Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  because in the non-Jewish singles event, I'm gonna be a five or whatever, but the Jewish singles event, I'm a seven.

• 23:33Chris Williamson?

  Jewish privilege, man, Jewish privilege in the Jewish event, I know what you mean. It's Chinese privilege in the Chinese event, it's Asian privilege in the, yeah, I understand.

• 23:41Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And it's like, it's true for Asian males as well. There, I talk about the, there's a huge prejudice against Asian males in online dating, uh, but there's much less prejudice from Asian women in this, in this group. So yeah, it's, it's a privilege that, like, you know, yeah, again, my major advice is care less about these superficial things. I just try to find someone who's like really nice and can make you happy. And if you can get to that mindset, you're gonna find dating way, way easier. Uh, but if you wanna date like a hot person, then you have to use all these strategies and, and everything that I think are justified. The data, use your privilege, uh, is, is one of them.

• 24:23Chris Williamson?

  What about what makes people happy then? You looked at that.

• 24:27Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, so, uh, what makes people happy? I, I, there's, I, I've read like a thousand studies on happiness. And a lot of them, even ones that are really famous, I'm like, these studies aren't that good. They, they like interview like a hundred undergraduate students and they're like, so what makes you happy? I'm like, like, how, how should I know that these hundred undergrad students are anything like anybody else? You, you're not like doing experiments. It's just was very underwhelming. But there are these new projects which are really cool. They're called experience sampling projects. And they basically ping people on their smartphones and they say, who, what are you doing? Who are you with and how happy are you? And they built a data set of like three billion happy points.

• 25:11Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  The biggest one, mappiness, George McCarron, Suzanne Avrato, three million happy, uh, data points. And there are all these cool sites. I got so excited because I just, as I said, very, very nerdy. So I'd like read one of these studies. They're like, people are happier, the same person do the same activity, same people are happier when they're in nature by a lake, where they're happier when their environment is beautiful, where their happiest going for a hike or having sex is the number one happy activity. And I'm kinda like, I was telling my friends this because I was working on the, the chapter and I'm like, you know, did you hear about this cool study? And they're like, do we need scientists to tell us this? Like, that's so obvious. Like, all these things that you're saying are

• 25:51Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  painfully obvious. And I think there's profundity in the obviousness of the research on happiness, uh, which is that The things that make you happy, like if you look, I have the happiness activity chart from Alex Bryson and George McCarron in one of my, and that's what I recommend people get as an iPhone case or hang it on your wall or whatever. And you look at that chart, it's almost like a chart from our hunter-gatherer days. It's like, people are happy, like, you know, having sex, taking walks, hunting and fishing, gardening, like, just like these very outdoors, simple activities. And the things that are really low are these like very modern things, like waiting on

• 26:31Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  a line, dealing with a bureaucracy, working, internet, social media, very, very low, computer games, really, really low. When you actually ping people, how happy are they? They rank very low. So I think it's good to keep in mind, like, the simplicity of the things that make people happy. And if you're not happy, oh, I end the book, I say, what's the data-driven answer to life? Based on these 3 million, you know, happiness points and all this new data. And I go, the data-driven answer to life is to be with your love on an 80-degree and sunny day, overlooking a beautiful body of water, having sex. And like, which is, okay, not rocket science.

• 27:13Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  It's not like they, you know, scientists have found some like gel you put on yourself or some website you visit that's like the cure to happiness. It's these very old-fashioned, simple things. And I do recommend to people who are not happy, like, think about how far your life is from that, those simple things that, from the data-driven answer to life. So like, how much time are you spending in nature? How much time are you spending on the internet in comparison? How much time are you spending with, the people that make you happy are friends and romantic partners, and like, everybody else just doesn't make you happy.

• 27:49Chris Williamson?

  You had a, you had a list of underrated activities, the things that tend to make people happier than they'd predict. Exhibitions, museums, libraries, sports and exercise, drinking alcohol, gardening and shopping or errands. And then the overrated activities that make people less happy than they think. Sleeping, resting, relaxing, computer games, watching TV, eating and browsing the internet. I'm surprised, and I was really surprised when I looked at the list of activities, that playing with pets wasn't higher. It's like maybe 15, I think, but dude, if you put a dog in this room, I'm not doing anything for the rest of the day. Like, that's me, that's me and the dog. Someone, oh, you wanna have some sex? It's like, no, sorry, I'm with the dog at the moment. So, again, there's individual variation in this.

• 28:33Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Wait, having?

• 28:34Chris Williamson?

  Having sex with the person, no, don't do that. So, drinking alcohol was an interesting one, and I think that you talk about this. It's not necessarily just about what the activity does, but it's about what you're doing while you're in the activity, right? So, drinking alcohol is often associated, it's socializing, you're spending time with friends, you're having a conversation. Maybe you're also at a show or a comedy event or watching a gig or something like that.

• 29:01Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, drinking alcohol, what you're getting with the pet example is there probably is individual variation in these and you don't have to. Although I think a danger with happiness is we exaggerate how much individual variation there is. So, there have been studies where they've compared introverts and extroverts. And they say how much happier they are when they're by themselves or with other people. And both introverts and extroverts get the exact same boost from being with other people than being by themselves. Even though if you ask introverts, they're like, yeah, yeah, you know, I really like being by myself, I really like being by myself. So, I think there's a danger, like, I'd be, I'd be a little wary if I were you.

• 29:40Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Like, I'd ask you to actually track your happiness and see if you're getting as much happiness from pets as you might think. Because I think we do tell ourselves these stories, tell ourselves these stories that are not always correct. And that we're like unique and, so I, I, I don't know. I, I mean, yeah, I, I think there's also different time stamp with pets. So, sometimes like, if you're just like. You know, like, yeah, like petting them, playing catch with them, that's one thing. If you're cleaning up their crap.

• 30:12Chris Williamson?

  Well, you've got, it's got to be spread across time, right? One thing I thought that was interesting, is there a tension between happiness and meaning? So there's this Roy Baumeister study, a paper that you've probably read about the tension that you have between these two different things. And there's a lot of things that we can do in the moment, which makes us feel happy, sort of more on the hedonic side, but long term doesn't necessarily create meaning. Did you think about this?

• 30:36Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I did, like, I think, uh, yeah, you know, like, for example, work scores very low on happiness. And I think, you know, I don't know, the answer from that is just quit your job and, yeah.

• 30:47Chris Williamson?

  Live in nature.

• 30:48Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Okay, so, live in, yeah, I don't, I don't, and, and, you know, the, the study that I, that I referenced, mappiness, uh, isn't following people over three years and being like, you know, you, you see kind of the in the moment happiness and you don't necessarily see as much the, uh, you know, the long term things. I do think it's just, it's just, you can, I think from these studies, you just can nudge yourself a little bit, uh, in the direction of things that make people happy. That, that's kind of wise without sacrificing everything that's meaningful to you. So don't, you know, uh, you know, if you, if you, if you read, uh, you know, my, don't trust your God, or you read these studies, uh, I don't, and, and then, yeah, you immediately quit your job and move to a lake.

• 31:32Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Like, I'd be like, that may be taking the advice a little too, uh, seriously. I, you know, I, I think, think more clearly, but anybody who reads these studies and then the next weekend is deciding between sitting at home and playing computer games, or going for a walk with your friends by the water, and, and is kind of uncertain, like, I'd really recommend you went with your friends on the walk by the water, uh, just based on the data, so.

• 32:01Chris Williamson?

  What did social media use do to people's happiness? You looked at that in depth.

• 32:05Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, yeah, so, so there, so, of, in the mappiness study, the single, there are 26 leisure activities, the single lowest scoring leisure activity is using social media.

• 32:18Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Which already says, wow, that's probably not so good for you. And there have been, there was a famous randomized controlled trial where they paid people to stop using Facebook. They randomly paid a group of people to stop using Facebook and they reported enormous decline in depressive symptoms. So I think there really is pretty, it's almost a cliche to say it, but there really is evidence that social media can make people miserable for the obvious reason that it's, makes you feel like crap about your life. You, you know, if you're seeing on Facebook, like the curated version of everybody else's life.

• 32:58Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I actually, in my first book, Everybody Lies, I talk a lot about that and the difference between like social media and real life and Google searches. And on social media, when people describe their husbands, it's my husband is the best, the greatest, so cute and adorable. And that's like public, everyone's seeing it. And when it's, when they're searching, my husband is, it's like, my husband is a jerk, annoying, mean. Like a totally different view of marriage.

• 33:24Chris Williamson?

  Not having sex with me.

• 33:26Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Not having sex with me, yeah. So there's, so like social media, like it's a cliche to say it, but it's just so true. It really is a dangerous game to play from, from a happiness perspective.

• 33:40Chris Williamson?

  Why do you think it is that we're so bad at working out what makes us happy?

• 33:45Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Well, I think the world's trying to trick us. Like there are people, I mean, social media, we're up against forces more powerful than we are, which are doing all these A B tests to try to make the most addictive products possible. And like, you know, I talk about money and happiness and there definitely is a relationship between money and happiness, but it's a pretty small one. So like, for example, there's a study by Matthew Killingsworth. Doubling your income consistently has about the same effect on happiness. So going from forty thousand to eighty thousand dollars a year has the same effect of going from four million to eight million dollars a year.

• 34:25Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Has the same effect of going from, you know, like, so basically you're in this kind of treadmill where you need to keep on raising it by more and more to get a happiness boost. Now, of course, like I sound like a conspiracy theorist and these ideas are almost so cliched, but they're just true. You know, advertisements don't want you to think that money doesn't matter. They want you to think that you need, you know, you need the fanciest products. And so they're kind of, they're, they're, they're kind of telling you, brainwashing you a little bit on the things that, that will make you happy that, you know, there, there also been studies that the purchases that make people happy and it's very rarely stuff.

• 35:08Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  It's usually vacations, travel gives the biggest boost to happiness. When you kind of ask people, what are you doing and, and how happy you are and, and what, what product are you using? The only products that really are giving people happiness are trips and other experiences, frequently with their romantic partner or their friends.

• 35:26Chris Williamson?

  Like museums, tours, stuff like that.

• 35:29Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah. So, so things like that could legitimately give you a happy boost. They're, they're usually not even that expensive, but when people are using a fancy new electronic or, you know, wearing an Armani suit, they're not really getting a big happiness boost. So I think that's an example. Why are we wrong? Well, like Armani probably spends more time advertising than like, than the Grand Canyon does. So, you know, like, yeah, if you turn on the TV, you're not really seeing many advertisements. Have you thought of taking a camping trip in the Grand Canyon with your friends? Because Grand Canyon is a nonprofit. They're not even making money.

• 36:07Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  So it's, it's, it's, they're, they're, yeah. So I think we're getting kind of the wrong messages about the path to happiness.

• 36:18Chris Williamson?

  What is it? There was that famous study that said above $70,000 a year, money has no impact on happiness. It seems like what you're saying here is that that's bullshit.

• 36:29Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  It's not true, but it's it's it's true in that the effects level off a lot. So it's not literally true that you reach seventy five thousand dollars, then money doesn't improve things at all. Uh, but going from, uh, you know, forty thousand to eighty thousand is the same as going from eighty thousand to one hundred and sixty thousand. So it's it it does it it is leveling off. It's just it doesn't level off to zero. There is also some evidence that like, once you reach about eight million dollars, you also get a boost. Uh, and I think the

• 37:03Chris Williamson?

  What's that?

• 37:04Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I think the reason for that is that then you're reaching a point. And I I've started since I moved to New York, I've met a lot of people in that camp of eight million dollars and well beyond. Uh, and I think they're at a level where they literally have everything taken care of them for them. And you see the happiness activity chart, uh, that that I include in Don't Trust Your Gut. And like, there are all these miserable activities, you know, standing on lines, uh, working.

• 37:33Chris Williamson?

  Housework.

• 37:34Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Uh, housework, like they really don't make people happy. And when you reach eight billion dollars, uh, net worth or beyond, you don't have to spend much of your life doing those things.

• 37:44Chris Williamson?

  That's the point at which the driver or the assistant can stand in line for you when the chef can cook you breakfast, when the housekeeper can clean up, blah, blah.

• 37:53Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, and then you really can spend most of your life just by a beach having sex.

• 37:58Chris Williamson?

  In eighty eighty degree weather. All right, so talking about people that have stupid amounts of wealth, what's the best way to become rich?

• 38:06Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  So I actually, there's this study I read. Again, most times I read a study, I'm just like, that's like, I don't believe the study or I'm like, it's like they make these subtle points. You know, like, if you read any academic study, like usually they're just like making these very subtle interactions, like theoretical point that only the research you care about. But occasionally you read a a sentence in a study that kind of blows your mind. And I was reading a study, it's from the entire universe of taxpayers, American taxpayers. And they analyzed who's in the top point one percent. So it's people making, uh, one point five million dollars a year. So these are people approaching the level where you can actually just be happy with how much money you have.

• 38:45Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And they said that the typical rich American is the owner of a regional business, such as an auto dealership or beverage distributor.

• 38:56Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And I read that, I'm just like, what? Like, who thinks of an auto dealer owner? Like, auto dealers are just like these annoying, like, people with greasy suits who try to sell us, like, things we don't need. You're not really thinking of them as, like,

• 39:10Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  rich people, and then beverage distributor, I didn't even know what that was. Uh, and it turns out that, uh, so like, the, the, the likely, so there are a couple of points this. One is you have to own something to get rich by and large. So like, if you look at the richest Americans, members of the top point one percent, I think about eighty-four percent of them are making their money primarily by owning something, not by paying pay to salary. So there are some people who are just like, get paid a ton of money.

• 39:39Chris Williamson?

  Superstar lawyers, maybe, or stuff like that.

• 39:41Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, occasionally, but usually it's people are owning something. Uh, and then you wanna have, like, some sort of a good, and then you wanna go in a good field. So there are all these fields that are awful. Uh, they've done studies, the quickest field businesses, like, that go out of, the, the business, the field where the business goes out of, uh, business quickest. And like, number one was record store. Uh, the average record store lasts two point five years. Uh, in comparison, the average dentist's office lasts nineteen point five years. And basically, the problem is, everybody wants to own a record store. And there, there are all these movies made about record stores. Uh, like, there have been a whole bunch of record store movies. I think probably every time some, that movie comes out, everyone's like, I'm gonna quit my job and start a record store.

• 40:25Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And it's just like, not a good path, and, uh, like, toy store is an awful business, clothing store is awful business. Uh, uh, uh, so, there's some other ones, and, but then there are things, you basically want a local, you want a local monopoly, where like, so auto dealerships, they're, they have like, legal protections, where you kinda have franchise rights to service a particular, uh, car company in your local region. And that's a big advantage in business, if you have legal protections about, or against some random person coming in and stealing your business. And I think, now, so I think you can't really read this, this, that and say, okay, now I'll just start a local dealer, or I'll, now I'll just start an auto dealership,

• 41:09Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  because the whole point of auto dealerships is you're not allowed to start a new one and compete with these, these people. Uh, but- I think you want to be thinking in that principle of like, what's my local monopoly? That allows like, that allows me to avoid someone just, you know, stealing my entire business or offering a lower price or anything. And even I talk about in the book that like independent creatives may be a better bet than I had thought, being kind of like what you're doing, like a podcast host, or what I'm doing, a writer. And it's, there are like a surprise, I was surprised by how many people are entering the top 1% or even the top 0.1% as independent

• 41:54Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  creatives. It's still a long shot. Most people aren't. But it's not like as big a long shot as I thought. And I think the reason for that is you have a local monopoly. So like, if, Chris, you know, as you're building your brand, you build a fan base. And then like, everybody, I could be on 20 different podcasts, well, your fans are gonna listen to your podcast and watch, I, you could ask me the same questions. You could be like, someone else could be, you know, should I play with my pet or have sex? And the exact same questions, but you're gonna have an edge because you've built a fan base. And similarly, you know, I've written some books and people, I already have, like, people who bought Liked Everybody Lies, my first book,

• 42:38Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  and now they're gonna give me kind of the benefit of the doubt in Don't Trust Your Guts. You have, you do have this kind of a little bit of a boat as a creative that, like, I think it's a better business than like pest control or something.

• 42:53Chris Williamson?

  Or a record store.

• 42:55Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, well, record store, yeah, but like even, even some boring businesses like pest control, the data says like, basically, nobody's getting rich from pest control businesses. And the problem with being in the pest control business is you don't, you're, there's no way to build a local monopoly. Like, you're basically competing against everybody and everybody's just Googling for pest control. And you have to, any profit you have, you're gonna give away in ads. On Google to try to get higher up on the list like nobody's like, you know, there's no name in pest control or there's no, there's no legal protection.

• 43:26Chris Williamson?

  I really like Seth's, Seth's pest control because of the personality that he brings when he's getting rid of my cockroaches.

• 43:32Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, nobody, yeah, nobody and act like you don't even have, have that many repeat customers anyway. So there's just like not.

• 43:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:40Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  It's really hard to escape the perfect competition that field. So like to see perfect competition, you either need like a legal protection, a legal protection, like all of these dealerships have, you need like some sort of personal contacts being like really deep in a field or you need like a fan base and a brand.

• 43:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's a unique way to imprint a difficult to replicate competitive advantage. And you see this with PTs. So my old housemate, Lewis is PT and he moved, I think to two or three different gyms in the time that he was living with me. And these gyms were three miles to one of them and then another five miles to a different one and around the city. And I was like, dude, there is, I felt really bad. I was like, what if he loses all of his clients? Tons of his clients stayed with him. Now, hang in a second. You're talking about someone maybe adding two hours a week onto their commute just to go and train with you two or three times. And people were prepared to go, brand new facility, different gym, different place, different parking, different route.

• 44:43Chris Williamson?

  And they stuck with him because it's a very personal experience, right? People aren't, you're not just being competed out of the market with this very transactional sort of pest control, get rid of my cockroaches thing. It's something very, very specific. Speaking of online coaching, what was that analysis about the best way to sell a product online? If you were doing like a seminar or something?

• 45:06Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, they did an analysis of like, is it called Amazon Live? Where they, where people are kind of making a pitch to try to sell their product. And it was a really amazing study. They used artificial intelligence to translate all the pitches into like the facial expression. They, they analyzed the facial expression of everyone making their pitch and they had all kinds of other data about the pitch. And they knew how much of the product actually sold. And they found that the best way to sell your product. Is basically a poker face. So like if you're angry or like depressed or like sad or like, you know, then like, yeah, everyone's just like, I don't want to watch this person. But too many people selling their products have smiles, like these goofy smiles on their face and are too excited and that actually backfires.

• 45:50Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  So there's like this sweet spot where you're not showing too much happiness or too much sadness, a poker face. I think they say, the authors of the study say, having a poker face instead of a smile is about twice as valuable as free shipping.

• 46:07Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  So, uh, which is, which is kind of counterintuitive. You don't really think like, uh, you know, I think everybody's instinct is be like really excited for what you have. And I, I think there, you know, the, the study didn't get into like the, the nitty gritty. I'm sure if you were, had the poker face for like an hour, everyone would be like, show me a smile, like lighten up, relax, show some happiness. But it does show the danger, that there is a danger in selling things of being too excited by your product and kind of being a little more even keeled, uh, and, and honest, uh, can, uh, can help.

• 46:39Chris Williamson?

  What about some of the myths to do with entrepreneurial success?

• 46:43Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Oh, yeah. So entrepreneurial success, there's this famous idea that entrepreneurs are young. So like Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook when he was 19. Uh, Steve Jobs was 20, started Apple, uh, Bill Gates, 19, they started Microsoft. These are kind of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world. And I think people think, uh, they're also the most famous entrepreneurs featured in the media. So they've done studies of the entrepreneurs in magazines and like the median age is 27 or something. So people just love telling the stories of these young people. When you actually look at the data of the entire universe of entrepreneurs, uh, the

• 47:21Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  average successful entrepreneur is 42 and the odds of an entrepreneur succeeding increase until the age of 60. They, which shocks me, like you don't think of a 60 year old, like that's the, the total opposite of a successful entrepreneur. And the other, and like what it turns out is there's pretty much a formula for being a successful entrepreneur. You just get really deep into the nitty gritty of a field for many, many years and then you branch out on your own when you're ready, uh, which again goes against a lot of stereotypes. A lot of stereotypes like just come from the outside, knowing nothing when you're 18 and it's not true. Like if you want to be an entrepreneur, the best path is like, take it slow.

• 48:04Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Learn about a field, work as an employee, prove your worth as an employee, and then like learn some, you'll learn something very particular about that field and you really know what to do when you're ready, so.

• 48:17Chris Williamson?

  Well, yeah, it's such a compelling narrative that outside is edge, right? The Elon Musk, he never did a thing before, so from first principles, he's gonna do whatever. And you go, well, yeah, but the guys that Elon got to design batteries have probably spent their entire lives designing batteries. You know, he didn't get, he didn't get some dude that did woodwork for the last, for the last 20 years. And you talk, you talk about Paul Graham as well, and that, what is it, the marginal, marginal edge or something as well?

• 48:48Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, power of the marginal. Paul Graham had this essay, and I'm a huge Paul Graham fan, but this essay like, that's advantage to being a bad employee, because if you're a good employee, you're not gonna fit in an entrepreneurship. And it's not true in the data at all. The best entrepreneurs like earn in the 99.9 percentile of income before they start their business. Uh, so, uh, like I think a problem, a problem with understanding how the world works is like, some ideas are almost too compelling that they fool us. Like, we want them to believe, we want to believe them too much. Everybody wants to believe that, you know, oh, tomorrow I can just like,

• 49:27Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  wake up and design a new car, uh, you know, design some new chemical that's gonna do something really wild or, uh, you know, there are all kinds of examples you could imagine, and it's kind of like, that's not really how the world works. Uh, and it's, it's dangerous to think the world works there, because I think a lot of people screw up their lives. Uh, you know, based on some of these ideas.

• 49:49Chris Williamson?

  That's, it's much less compelling though, right? Think about how sticky some of these stories are. This, the stickiness of the story about the average age of a founder and an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley is 27 and a half years old or something. But that's so much more worthy of being pushed around than it's your mid 40s, because that's what everybody would have thought. You talk about this, you say it's the, the counter, counterintuitive narrative, and it's so bizarre. Think about the fact that the thing that everybody expects to be the case, work hard in one field, get unbelievable specific knowledge, then branch out on your own. Once you've got to the complete top, having been a very good employee and wait, wait a long time until you've got tons of experience.

• 50:30Chris Williamson?

  Like the fact that the media has managed to convince us that that is now a revolutionary story. It's like, we were the idiots.

• 50:40Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  But, but, but yeah, I think, but I think like listeners to this podcast, like you can overrule that. Like I think when people have seen that, they've been like, oh yeah, like they've made different decisions based on that. And you can just look at these charts and it's like something about looking at these charts just clears away the noise a little bit. Where I'm just like, okay, like now I, I know that I'm just being misled by the media and I'm going to just look at these charts and remind myself. When I get these one-off stories that are, you know, like meant to confuse me and so sticky. So I think you can, I, I agree that it's like, it's harder to get these ideas out, out there. But I think a lot of people have told me from reading that section

• 51:23Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  that they are like adopting more of that mindset. They're not going to quit their job tomorrow and try to do something they've never tried before. And some of them are using this in optimistic way where there are a lot of people who are 45 years old. They've been an employee their entire life and they've had success in that field, but they're just like, I'm too, it's too late. Like entrepreneurs are, you know, do it in their dorm room.

• 51:46Chris Williamson?

  Younger than me. Yeah, exactly.

• 51:47Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, like how am I going to compete against all these youngins? And I think they'll be particularly drawn to this idea because now they can be like, well, now I got to think about, do I want to go off on my own and start my own business?

• 52:00Chris Williamson?

  How can people hack luck?

• 52:03Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah. So there are all these studies, the, the best way to learn about luck is the art world. Because the art world is so much luck. Like there are all these, like these depressing studies of what it takes to like, of like, what, why a particular piece of art is really successful. There's so much randomness in it. But.

• 52:27Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  There are also these patterns that allow people to kind of allow these random opportunities to come to them. So for example, there have been studies that the quantity of art someone makes is a massive predictor of how successful they are. So just putting a lot of work out in the world is like a massive predictor of success. And why is that? Well, because there's so much randomness in what particular work catches on, you've just got to kind of flood the market and let luck find you. You know, if it's, if there's, if every piece, which piece wins is luck, then I want to be the one with a thousand pieces, not 10

• 53:06Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  pieces, right? Because I have, you know, 100 more opportunities to get lucky. And that's been found in many, many fields, this idea of kind of just putting more work into the world and allowing yourself to get more lucky, applying to more jobs, asking more people out, in dating. Like just, yeah, it's a crapshoot, but when it's a crapshoot, you want more lottery tickets. And the other thing that's been found, which is really cool, in a study of a whole bunch of painters, they were trying to predict what painter rises to the top. And they're like, the biggest predictor by far is how they present their work. And the ones who don't make it, present their work to the same place, the same gallery

• 53:48Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  over and over again. And the ones who do, they're like bumblebees. They're just like constantly, they're just like traveling everywhere. I'll present there, I'll present there, I'll present there. Like, anyone will have them. They go, and occasionally they just stumble on some big break. And that's pretty profound. I think a lot of people make the mistake of just, like, not exposing themselves widely enough. And exposing yourself widely can dramatically increase your chances of getting that lucky break.

• 54:17Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna say, what do you think's the lesson for people that aren't artists?

• 54:22Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I think there's probably a lot of similarity in that the mistake of the artists who are presenting in the same gallery over and over again is they already didn't get the break there. So don't assume if you haven't gotten your break there, then you're gonna get it next year, or two years, or three years. So kind of stagnating in a place where you're not rising, or not, where nothing much good is happening. You gotta kind of, particularly when you're young, you gotta travel more widely to find, to find a break, I would say. It would be the lesson I take from it. And like, traveling to places where you're more likely to get your break as well. You know, like, many of the artists who didn't get their break were presenting in countries

• 55:05Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  that aren't known for discovering artists. And similarly, many, you know, computer, compute tech people aren't in Silicon Valley. That may be, you know, a mistake. Going to, going to the place where you're more likely to get a break, I think can be very valuable.

• 55:22Chris Williamson?

  What was that thing that you learned about the Mona Lisa?

• 55:26Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Oh yeah, that the Mona Lisa, I didn't realize this. I read a book, Van Eschmile, that the Mona Lisa was just an ordinary painting, but then there was like, this heist, and everybody was trying to understand what happened, why the Mona Lisa was stolen, and it was like a worldwide phenomenon. People, like, people thought Pablo Picasso had stolen it, people thought J.P. Morgan had stolen it. It turned out to just be like a low-level employee had stolen it. It was underwhelming. But the heist gave it so much attention that now it was the most famous painting. So we, everyone thinks the Mona Lisa is the best painting, but it's not really. It's just happened to be the painting that got stolen.

• 56:07Chris Williamson?

  Stolen in the right place at the right time.

• 56:09Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, but the point of that is, if you have a thousand paintings, you have more chances for one of them to be stolen.

• 56:17Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  You know, like it's it's pretty it's pretty clear that just working forever to get your one piece exactly right is not the best strategy. Having lots of pieces and then allowing one of them to get lucky is a better strategy.

• 56:29Chris Williamson?

  There's that famous photography class study that was done on this as well, right? That two groups were split up. One was told to take as many photos as they wanted and then to submit one at the end. The other group was told that they needed to work on one shot for the entirety of the course. When you compare them at the end, the group that's taken a ton of shots is just iterated so much more effectively. And yeah, the learning by doing thing ties back into what we were saying before about working hard and deep, one particular field, sticking at it for a long time, like the unsexy stuff. What was that thing you looked at? How to become a good athlete if you don't have the genetics to be one?

• 57:06Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, it was just I I was obsessed with sports. I still am obsessed with sports, but I was interested, but I had no I had no talent. I didn't have no talent. I was a I I rose to be an okay high school baseball player, but like I I didn't have it was also just in a county where there were no good baseball players.

• 57:26Chris Williamson?

  The lofty heights of a small town high school baseball player.

• 57:32Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I was very far from being a great a great player, but there's actually there's actually an interesting way to think about genetics, the genetic edge in sports, which is like if something's really genetic, there are lots of identical twins because identical twins share 100% of their genes. So there can be a lot more identical twins in that sport than even like fraternal twins or just normal brothers or sisters. So like basketball is dominated by identical twins. I know it's because I'm a big Stanford basketball fan and we like sock for 10 years and then we recruit a set of seven foot identical twins and we're great again. So it was the Collins twins first, then it was the Lopez twins.

• 58:13Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  It's like it's it's it works predictably. It saves our our basketball program. And in the course of basketball, there it's just like dominated to a degree very, very few other sports are by identical twins, which shows that basketball is incredibly genetic, in part because height is one of the most genetic traits and each inch doubles your chances of making the NBA.

• 58:38Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Which is really cool, like actually like a six one person has twice the chance of a six foot person and then a six nine person has twice the chance of a six eight person, a seven two person has twice the chance of seven one person like throughout the distribution.

• 58:50Chris Williamson?

  That's got to tail off at some point or else.

• 58:52Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Well, we don't, we don't know. There's not a big enough sample for like eight foot. It, yeah, it, it probably does because I think like beyond a certain point, it's usually a disease which massively lowers your coordination. So like a thyroid problem, people like were seven, five or above frequently. It's a, a thyroid, a lark, a thyroid issue that leads to that level of growth. But then there are certain sports like, they're not as exciting as being a basketball player, but like equestrianism and diving, we have a whole chart of them, but where there, there's like never, there have never been identical twin Olympic diving

• 59:34Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  and equestrian athletes. And if you actually do the math, it's pretty clear that that means that the genetics just aren't that big a factor in those sports, which is why a lot of rich people kind of who had kids like me who want to be athletes are like, yeah, go into equestrianism and you can become a great equestrian athlete. And it's totally true. There's very little.

• 59:55Chris Williamson?

  We know, we know that you're not built for athletics. So let's try and weasel you into something.

• 1:00:01Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  But yeah, diving is an interesting one too, because Adam Grant, the professor at Warden, who's written a lot of popular books, he became a very talented diver and his coaches told him exactly what the data says that like if you're nerdy, he wants to be a basketball player and they're like, you're not talented enough, but you are very disciplined and hardworking and passionate. So diving is a good sport for you. And the data totally, you know, totally justifies that, that that's really where you want to put your energy.

• 1:00:34Chris Williamson?

  What did you learn about parenting? That was so, this was something that I'd, I'd seen previously in a discussion and then to have it brought up in the data again was so interesting.

• 1:00:44Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah. So the overall effects of parents are like ways less than everybody thinks. And the, the size of that are twins and adoptees. So if you like see, you know, identical twins adopted by different parents, they turn out shockingly similar and then, and then.

• 1:01:07Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  People adopted to the same parents end up not that similar at all. But then, so like, so parents in general matter very, very little. But there is evidence that the neighborhood you live in matters a lot. Basically, they've looked at tax records and compared. And people who grow up in certain neighborhoods just do way better. And they've done all this clever math to prove that it's really causally certain neighborhoods are making them better. And the big predictor of that, interestingly, is the adults in that neighborhood. So like adults that fill out a lot of census forms. If you like live on a block with adults that live, fill out a lot of census forms, your kid's way more likely to have good outcomes.

• 1:01:51Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  And you're kind of like, what the hell? Like, that's the randomest thing in the world. It's basically like good, responsible adults. Similarly, if girls move to neighborhoods with lots of female scientists, they're more likely to become scientists themselves. So like one of the lessons I took from the data is you can outsource parenting a little bit. Like when you tell your kids to do something, they're just going to probably rebel against you. Because, you know, a lot of people think their parents are like the least cool people on the planet. But your friends, they're going to think they're pretty cool, probably. Like, if I think of my parents' friends, all of them, like, yeah, those are, you know, there are periods where I thought my dad was pathetic and the biggest loser and whatever. But his friends are always like, yeah, they're awesome.

• 1:02:37Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  So basically, you just gotta, you just gotta pick friends that you want your kids to turn out to be like and put them in front of your kids. And then you may be shocked by how much of an impact these people are having on your kids.

• 1:02:49Chris Williamson?

  It's so interesting, the fact that the people that you live next door to are potentially going to have a bigger impact on your children than you do.

• 1:02:56Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's weird.

• 1:02:58Chris Williamson?

  It's wild. Not even their kids, right? Not even that, it's not, don't worry about, oh, well, such and such's son is a, he's a bit of a naughty boy and he doesn't really listen in class. And it's like, yeah, but his dad's cool as fuck and he's a millionaire. You're like, just let little Timmy go and play with him a lot.

• 1:03:15Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, reminds me of, I don't know if you saw the book, if you read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad?

• 1:03:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, by Robert Kiyosaki.

• 1:03:22Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, yeah, that's exactly that, that his life was transformed by meeting this guy who he thought was way cooler than his dad.

• 1:03:29Chris Williamson?

  Could it not be like cool dad, uncool dad? That might just be it.

• 1:03:33Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and then like that transformed his life. But instead of kind of this traditional narrow path that he thought he was supposed to take of getting a lot of college degrees and like working for the government, he wanted to become an entrepreneur like his, his rich dad, his friend's dad. So I didn't think about that.

• 1:03:51Chris Williamson?

  Well, what about, what about if his dad had been the rich dad and his friend's dad had been the poor dad, Robert would have probably grown up to be poor because he would have listened to the wrong person.

• 1:04:00Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to think about. I mean, that, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It's, you can't exaggerate the extent to this. You know, some parents definitely do have big impacts on their kids. And sometimes kids do think their parents are really cool. But I think, you know, that I think the parents are polarizing figures for kids, whereas like the neighbors tend to be universally kind of cool. Like now, even looking back on it, like the parents in my neighborhood who I know weren't cool, like when I was a kid, I thought they were really cool and cooler than my dad. Like, you know, like one guy, he was just such a show off. He wasn't even a good basketball player, but he just like constantly be dribbling the ball between his legs and doing like weird moves. And I'm like, now looking back on it, I'm like, that guy was pathetic,

• 1:04:44Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  like trying to impress 10 year olds with his terrible basketball moves. But at the time, I'm like, this guy's amazing. Maybe that's why I wanted to be a basketball player because I grew up near this guy.

• 1:04:52Chris Williamson?

  This lame basketball guy. What was it? What was that thing about the odds of becoming a celebrity?

• 1:05:00Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  Yeah, just that there are more independent artists in the top 1% of earners than I would have guessed, because it does offer this local monopoly. And trying to become an independent, like trying to be a podcast host or a writer or things like that, if you're young and you're willing to do the things that hack your, hack luck to your advantage, maybe not a crazy path. So, yeah.

• 1:05:27Chris Williamson?

  Seth Stephens Davidowitz, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to keep up to date with what it is that you're doing, where should they go?

• 1:05:33Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I'll definitely buy Don't Trust Your Gut. And then my website is sethsd.com.

• 1:05:40Chris Williamson?

  I love it, man. I appreciate your work. I like the fact that someone who has the data science chops to be able to ask all of the big questions that we want has decided to go and troll through whatever 1,000 academic papers and a ton of data to do it. The book's brilliant. Everyone should go and check it out. It'll be linked in the show notes below. And looking forward to seeing what you do next.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  Thanks, Chris. Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:06:17Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:06:24Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17.9 to mid without parent.