Episode 643 Scott Adams: How to be Happy, Chexit, Bedbugs, Perdue Pharma, Omar
Date: 2019-08-28 | Duration: 33:00
Topics
BIG persuasion error by President Trump, NO bedbugs in Doral Omar alleged affair…who cares? Purdue Pharma possible 10-12 BILLION dollar Opiod settlement Israel’s impressive anti-drone technology Google moving Pixel smartphone production OUT OF CHINA Happiness is a chemical state, NOT a mental process Whiteboard: Happiness Link to Happiness Whiteboard image: http://www.scottadamssays.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Episode-643-Whiteboard.jpeg Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still/dp/1591847745/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DVSPV4DUT242&keywords=scott+adams+how+to+fail+at+almost+everything+and+still+win+big&qid=1567006645&s=gateway&sprefix=Scott+Adams%2C+how+%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-1
Rough Transcript
This is an auto-generated transcript and may contain errors.
Transcript
[0:09]
hey everybody yeah it’s time for coffee with Scott Adams as luck would have it that’s me and you already know who you are so put us all together and it would be almost time for the simultaneous set it’s a wonderful ceremony in which your dopamine gets spiked and you’ll be happy all day I’ll teach you some more tricks for happiness in a moment but first prepare for the simultaneous up you’re going to need a couple more glasses tying the chalice tankard a thermos flask you can’t be the vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the simultaneous it oh yeah oh yeah that’s good we’re going to talk about some stuff in the news and then I’m gonna teach you how to be happy actually literally teach you how to be happy in a way that’s
[1:10]
you how to be happy in a way that’s pretty easy to do many of you will find your life entirely changed after today actually literally a lot of the people who are watching this live I don’t know what percentage but some percentage of you your entire life will change in the next few minutes so wait for that but first some things in the news I was feeling grateful that an tyfa exists today because even though anti-fog doesn’t have a central leadership they are organized in the sense that they communicate and that’s going to be very important if we ever have an actual fascist takeover of the government so you’ve got this anti-fascist group and they communicate so they can coordinate and then you might have a fascist government some day it might be a fascist government that tries to take power in the United States so it’s going
[2:11]
power in the United States so it’s going to be really good to have all the Anti Fog Fog people coordinated so that when the time comes for action they can all get out of the way so that the Republicans who have firearms can take care of the fascists I think that’s going to be useful because the last thing you want is to send your anti file with their clubs and masks after the government it’s just not going to go well but if we had an actual fascist takeover you would want antifa to efficiently get out of the way because the serious firearms would come out they would be owned mostly by Republicans and Republicans would take care of business now not a Republican I’m just saying that if you had let’s say a fascism problem and he needed to take care of it
[3:11]
take care of it who would you want to do it a Republican with a gun a truck and an American flag or an anti-fog member with a mask and a club and maybe he takes uber which one do you want one of those groups just needs to get out of the way as quickly as possible so I’m glad that antiphon is so well organized President Trump made one of the biggest persuasion mistakes I think that I’ve ever seen certainly biggest one I’ve ever seen from Trump and it’s a pretty big one and it was the issue of the bedbugs so you know the story New York Times writer breast stevens was called a bedbug by some college professor and then press stevens went after him and complained to the guy’s boss and i don’t i don’t care
[4:12]
the guy’s boss and i don’t i don’t care about any of that but just know that there’s a story about the New York Times has some bedbugs in the office and pres Stevens got pulled into this because somebody called him a bedbug Trump who is no fan of pres Stevens way and does this tweet in which he says there are no bedbugs at his Doral Country Club as had been reported in the past but that Brett Stevens is full of them now that is a huge huge persuasion mistake very untypical for those of you who say hey you’re always saying the president does the right stuff all the time I don’t I don’t that just is not a true statement I quite often will criticize him for various things this one’s really sticks out here’s why well it was clever and sort of funny well what’s funny the the president’s
[5:14]
well what’s funny the the president’s tweet so that part’s good it’s clapper it’s funny he called that an enemy we enjoyed the show but what he did was he he raised in our consciousness a story that I don’t think any of us knew I mean some of you might have known that there was some story about one one bungalow and one person who may have had some bedbugs by now of course it’s taken care of it’s nothing to worry about so there wasn’t an actual problem and the president is claiming there was no problem which you know I don’t know how technically accurate that is but I’m sure there’s no problem now so at the moment Doral is I’m sure completely fine why in the world would you make make the public put that thought in their head and and pair the name of your resort with a specific kind of a problem that you wouldn’t want anybody to be thinking about so it was a just a horrendous
[6:15]
about so it was a just a horrendous persuasion mistake all right you’ve seen the stories about Minnesota Democrat representative Elon Oumar she’s denying allegations of an affair with a married Washington DC consultant I don’t care I don’t care why is that a story well can we just stop making stories about people having sex with the wrong people could we just stop you know what is my opinion of Elon omar’s fitness for a government based on her you know alleged sexual activities I don’t care I just don’t care so there’s that all right wouldn’t you love to see some kind of a browser add-on that whenever you’re reading a news article it adds a credibility score
[7:18]
news article it adds a credibility score now of course there’s a question of who gets to decide on the credibility but I think you could work that out so imagine every time you saw a story it was like a credibility B+ put on the source or maybe even the writer that would be helpful how about this browser add-on that whenever you’re reading a story of a certain topic and it’s within a news silo that it automatically gives you links to the other story from opposing political view so in other words if you’re reading a fox news story about whatever rush inclusion that there’s also a link prominently shown to go see what the other people say about the same story wouldn’t that be useful somebody was saying don’t add credibility scores but I believe there might be a way to do that that doesn’t offend people but you wouldn’t have to do that you could just show both stories and let people decide
[8:19]
show both stories and let people decide somebody says all sides calm does that I don’t think they do that with a I’ll have to look into that I don’t want to say what they do or don’t do but maybe that’s a thing that could happen I was thinking that the social media platforms would like it because it could potentially double their traffic if people are used to staying in their silo and only reading the one news story on the one topic from their one source wouldn’t it double the traffic if they saw a Provident links to another competing story they might click them so I think the social media platforms would like it Purdue Pharma is the latest to get in trouble for opioid addiction responsibility shall we say in the there’s reports that they’re negotiating a ten to twelve billion dollar settlement it’s a private company and they’re accused of pushing opioids on the country what I like about the story
[9:22]
the country what I like about the story is simply that the the United States the government and the legal system has decided that the opioid problem is a big deal and and we’re gonna go at it from every possible angle I like that so we got that priority right I got a question for you is the wall being built does anybody know if the wall is being built because they’re pretty sure if I if I want to see it in they would say no there’s no wall being built there’s just some existing wall being you know fixed up which is just normal business but if you went to Fox News would they say that walls being built like crazy look at all this wall can you believe that the simplest story you could ever imagine is there a wall being built doesn’t that
[10:22]
there a wall being built doesn’t that seem like that’s a yes/no question is there a wall being built but I think there is right it feels like there’s a wall getting built I think there is there’s a story about Israel developing anti drone technology apparently they have some kind of technology that can electronically take control of up to 200 drones coming toward them in a swarm think about that a swarm of drones all programmed to attack in Israel has some technology that can just take over the brains of all the drones tell them information about where it came from which is not good for the people who said it and land them safely and take control of them I don’t know how well that works but it’s impressive and it might be good news I noticed that Google is moving production of its pixel smartphone out of China and to Vietnam that’s a pretty
[11:25]
of China and to Vietnam that’s a pretty big deal Google being a big company moving the production out of China I wonder how many others will do the same I’ve been reading some stories about China’s intentions in the world and you’ve probably seen that too I don’t know what to believe so the the story that you were seeing a lot is that the Chinese leadership has an explicit plan to weaken and if not destroy the United States in every way possible from fentanyl to trade to building up their military to dirty tricks I guess cyber stuff is that real is it because I don’t really know it feels like the sort of thing that could easily not be real and by that I mean I know that there are books talking about China’s total war strategy but does that mean everybody who is important in the
[12:25]
mean everybody who is important in the government including President Xi buys into the idea that China should be weakening the United States in every possible way do that maybe I don’t know I don’t know we’re certainly hearing that from there’s a I just tweeted around to interview Kyle bass is doing with some Chinese dissenter who’s who got away and he predicted somebody getting killed in China correctly you know he said that guy’s gonna get murdered by the government and he was dead of the year so he’s got some credibility I just don’t know what is real I don’t know if anybody does it makes me wonder so there’s not much news today so that’s the danger so I wanted to teach you had to be happy I’ve spent my life trying to turn it into a formula had to be happy and I did that my book had a
[13:26]
be happy and I did that my book had a fail in almost everything and still win big but I’m gonna give you the the quicker synopsis for those who you who don’t know how to be happy and as obvious as this will be in some of you for many of you this will be the first time you’ve ever seen it and explained this way let me explain happiness so happiness here’s at the top that’s your goal we’d all like to be happy in order to be happy there are three chemicals in your body in your brain that need to be at the right level now I’m going to grossly oversimplify the chemical nature of human beings there are certainly lots more than three chemicals involved in keeping you happy but as a general statement if these three are where they need to be you’re probably gonna be happy unless there’s some terrible problem in your life that you know is unsolvable so did I spell serotonin room
[14:28]
so did I spell serotonin room I may have spelled it wrong tell me if I spelled that wrong anyway so these chemicals can be boosted through lifestyle if you don’t know that you don’t understand how happiness works most people that I talk to you are under the mistaken impression the happiness is something you can think your way into in other words if you put some happy thoughts in your head or or you don’t have any problems or where there’s somehow a mental process your happiness is not a mental process if you think it is you can’t help yourself you’re going to be lost forever so whether you have a mental problem that keeps you low in these things which is typical you know depression anxiety OCD there are a number of mental conditions which which are at least associated with
[15:30]
are at least associated with lower levels of these things if you treat happiness as a physical process the end result of which is you feel happy then you have a mechanism to do something about if you think it’s a mental process there’s nothing you can do about it you are a victim of your environment but if you understand that you can do things in your life that will boost these chemicals and then these chemicals in turn will make you feel good then you have a mechanism and for each of these things let me explain these things so oxytocin is the chemical that makes you feel connected to people makes you feel in love makes you feel bonded and that’s mostly from social interaction especially touch you can get it from sex hugging I think you can get it from your pets you know playing with your cat or your dog and you can get it from a massage yeah and children can get it from their their parents from them
[16:32]
it from their their parents from them touch but these other things dopamine and serotonin are sort of lifestyle related and if you get a system for all of this stuff the system for your diet and exercise and sleep you’re going to have a lot more of it how many people do you know who believe they’re unhappy but all they’re doing is they’re doing this stuff wrong they’re doing the they’re doing the lifestyle stuff wrong and they think hey I’m unhappy there’s something wrong with the way I’m thinking there’s something wrong with my brain probably not there’s probably and when I say probably I’m gonna say 80% of the time for 80% of you the feeling of not being happy or fulfilled all of those feelings or because you don’t have a system in place to work toward improving these over time so for diet for example I talked about this in my book had it failed almost everything and still win big it should be a lifelong process of
[17:33]
big it should be a lifelong process of learning about diet and experimenting with what works for you in my case if I eat if I eat too many bad carbs if I need too many bad Erbs I’m unhappy every frickin time every time if I if I have a burrito for lunch the rest of the day I’m not happy because my energy will crash and I can’t be happy when I have yes a sugar crash so learn about diet by making you the lifelong system to chip away at it an experiment learn that protein is good for you learn that simple carbs are bad for you always always don’t have cheat days if you have a cheat day you don’t understand how anything works there’s a longer explanation for that but don’t have a cheat day exercise again my book added fail teaches you how to create habits and how to organize
[18:36]
to create habits and how to organize your life so it’s more likely that you’ll do something active every day doesn’t matter what you do but be active every day you will find that if you get exercise right most of your days are better everybody who has an exercise routine will confirm what I’m saying on days that you exercise you feel happier it’s pretty much a one-to-one thing so learn to do that get enough sleep a lot of people think that sleep is somehow out of their control sleep is something you absolutely control now again these are 80% true statements 20% of the people may have some medical problem they’ve got something that needs to deal with but for 80% of us go to bed the same time wake up the same same time every day don’t put your you know don’t watch TV and dad don’t do things that get you excited don’t watch a scary movie before you go to bed you know there are some
[19:37]
you go to bed you know there are some very basic things which all you’d have to do is Google some articles about how to sleep follow the follow the steps there aren’t that many of them every article on how to sleep would be pretty similar learn a system for sleep if you’re the kind of person who likes to stay up really late on weekends but then during the week you’ve got to go back to your you know your eight to five life you’re just killing yourself you don’t have much chance of being happy if you think that you can mess with your sleep and still be happy you can’t you can have a good evening but you’re awake is not going to be happy make sure you get some nature there’s you know meaning get outside Sun is important but it seems to be important here to your chemistry to just interact with nature so get out of the house get around some trees get around some grass that helps do what you can to improve your social life I recommend the Dale Carnegie method of learning how to talk to people learning
[20:39]
learning how to talk to people learning how to be good to people here’s the big trick for a good social life you ready I don’t believe it’s hard for me to believe I have to tell you this but probably the vast majority of you don’t know what I’m gonna say next and it will change your life you ready if you don’t have a good social life that’s your fault totally it’s your fault because you don’t know the technique having a good social life is technique now I can’t get into all of it it the Dale Carnegie courses will teach you but you should know how to talk to strangers you should know how to talk to people and have good conversations but the main thing you need to do to have a good socialize is give more than you get that’s it think you generously and people will say well that’s somebody I want to hang around with that person just asked me if they could do me a favor I barely know that’s somebody you
[21:41]
favor I barely know that’s somebody you want to spend some time with invite people to your place set up an outing yourself buy somebody lunch solve a problem for somebody offer to help alright social life is completely under your control stop thinking that people will like you for who you are on the inside nobody cares who you are on the inside they can’t see it they can’t see the inside of you they know they only know what you do they can’t read your mind so do things that are generous if you do that you will have a social life might not be the first day but you’re gonna have one so get out in the real world get involved in some some groups where there are people go make yourself a solution life I find that as useful to have a purpose in life a purpose the best way to find one is to be useful to
[22:42]
best way to find one is to be useful to society and to other people if what you’re doing all day is good for no one but you you will not feel like you have a purpose and that will eat at your chemical state it will decrease your you’re happy chemicals so find a purpose it’s easy to find the purpose figure out what you’re good at or at least you can become good at and you’re willing to do then try it if it doesn’t work try something else you’ve watched me most of you watch me try to be useful for the blight Authority bill Paul T’s thing trying to clean up the inner cities as well as built all these philanthropic efforts I’ve been trying to be supportive of that and a number of other things I try to be helpful on those things give me meaning when I’m when I’m what I have quiet moments I think about those things because I say
[23:43]
think about those things because I say to myself yeah I’m doing stuff that might not help I don’t know if it’ll make a big difference but at least I’m doing things that make sense could work or part of a solution perhaps a little bit helpful in these different ways somebody says loving your family correct you could build a sense of purpose around your family now there’s a trap there because that usually means around your children because the children leave eventually so you want to be able to find ways to you know find meaning that are not dependent on one or two people I also find that when I’m learning and and growing in other words I’m getting better at something I feel more fulfilled and my body chemistry feels better so it doesn’t matter what you’re learning or growing at could be your career could be something useful in some other way and it could be just learning the things that you need to take care of yourself could be just learning that but
[24:43]
yourself could be just learning that but build your talent stack add talents all the time you should never be here’s my advice you should never be in a state of not learning period now you might be so busy they have to reduce the time that you’re spending learning something to a small part of your day that would be normal but never have a day where you didn’t learn something you can Google something you can read an article you can talk to somebody who knows more than you do you can use my app interface but I went up and call an expert to learn something you needed to know but try to learn something every day you will be amazed what that does to you you’ll have a sense of moving in the right direction all right so in summary happiness is not some internal mental process that you can just think your way to a better happiness it is a chemical state if you get your body chemistry right mostly these three chemicals are
[25:45]
right mostly these three chemicals are the ones you hear about you will have a feeling of contentment and happiness to get those chemicals right science is very clear what works gotta get your diet right your exercise your sleep got to get out in nature touch some people improve your social life avoid stress I didn’t talk about this one but it’s obvious I do not watch movies that are dramas I do not watch movies that are scary or have bad endings I won’t even watch a comedy if it has a bad ending I don’t I don’t expose myself to fiction which is negative because even if you think you’re entertained and you are you’re adding stress to your life you just don’t know it I avoid stressful people you are toxic I’m just not going to talk to you again that’s it do I feel bad when I cut people out of my life and I don’t talk to them again a little bit but not as bad as I feel when
[26:47]
little bit but not as bad as I feel when I’m with them the horror is spending time with toxic people the horror is not the embarrassment or the discomfort or the awkwardness of getting rid of them you have to get rid of toxic people and learn and grow and that will give you a purpose if you’re being useful to the world yeah the news can be quite toxic as well I’m addicted to the news at the moment because a lot of the Trump news is entertaining it’s literally funny and nobody’s getting hurt most of the time sometimes it you know D falls into bad stuff do I make an exception for Game of Thrones yeah I kinda do I do but when I watch Game of Thrones I don’t feel tension or stress it’s well-made and it’s funny and it takes me into a different world and it doesn’t seem like a real world so I don’t take
[27:49]
seem like a real world so I don’t take that too seriously I would say if you’re watching Lord of the Rings which you would say is a drama action a lot of people getting killed Lord of the Rings is just sort of a fantasy fun things so I wouldn’t worry about that I would never watch a Quentin Tarantino movie again I’ve watched his movies and they just make me feel bad period they’re well made apparently Quentin Tarantino is an amazing filmmaker all the critics agree but a lot of his films make me feel bad so I don’t watch them same with Spielberg Spielberg is on the top of my list of directors to avoid now if he does a comedy movie or you know something light-hearted that would certainly watch that because he’s a great filmmaker but if he does something like you know everything about the Holocaust for example shouldn’t lers list it’s gonna be so well made that it brings you into this horrible world and it’s like you you you were there I’m still scarred
[28:52]
you you you were there I’m still scarred by movies I’ve seen years ago and some of them are Spielberg’s so that’s your happiness formula the main point is to understand that it’s a chemical reaction and that you control your chemistry by your lifestyle and specifically you can develop systems over time where maybe you don’t know too much of that diet but you can learn it don’t know too much about exercise or systems you can learn it and that just changed some percentage of some percentage of those watching this their lives just completely changed I guarantee you now I don’t know what percentage it is it could be one percent could be ten percent could be thirty percent but for a lot of you your your life just completely changed because for the first time you’re seeing a completely practical path to get from
[29:53]
completely practical path to get from wherever you are to how you want to feel and and once you see that this works and the only way to see it is to actually practice it start paying attention to your diet your sleep and your exercise and also your touch and your nature to start paying attention to what you did that day and then pay attention to how you feel about your day once you notice there’s a one-to-one correlation between doing those things right that get your chemistry right and having a good day you’re all set that’s that’s what you need you need that realization to make it real and you have to do it and try it to be able to actually feel that it makes a difference all right I’m just looking at your your comments now I I hear every day from people who say their
[30:56]
hear every day from people who say their life was completely transformed by thinking of their life in terms of systems versus goals the goal would be to be happy but how Wow you need a system to get there so as soon as you remember that the goal doesn’t tell you how to get there the systems do then you’ve got a you’ve got a formula for working your way through life to a better solution all right I will I’ll take a picture of the whiteboard here I will put that that will be part of the the YouTube posting so everything I do here in periscope gets posted on YouTube within a few hours and will post the photo on this it’ll be at that real coffee with Scott Adams on YouTube somebody says isn’t it true that some people don’t need daily relations well there are people who are introverts I would consider myself one
[31:56]
introverts I would consider myself one of them people who find that spending a lot of time with other people can be draining other people find that spending a lot of time with other people can be more fulfilling and energizing but even if you’re an introvert you you can’t escape nature’s requirements in other words your your chemical situation it has a lot in common with somebody who’s not in insurance and so even introverts do need even the introverted do need human contact they just need less of it and a certain kind and they’ve got to control it a little better than other people I will put the photo of this on the blog so that will be part of the process my blog is moved to at Scott and says calm alright somebody says make that segment its own YouTube video please maybe I’ll think about that but that’s all for today and I will talk to you all later