Why do men fall into the trap of being a provider first? (2:22)
   The power and value of adoption. (6:42)
   The different kinds of fatherhood. (11:54)
   How dopamine lies behind all addiction. (17:32)
   The dangers of pornography for young men. (22:24)
   The three macronutrients to happiness. (28:12)
   The cult of youth. (31:07)
   The secrets of a successful marriage. (36:06)
   Tactical methods to improve your happiness. (39:40)
   Why men become men when they become fathers. (47:25)
   Loving people is different than using them. (49:22)
   Educators rather than influencers. (53:03)
   The importance of having a transcendental practice. (55:23)
   Electing the hard thing because you chose the divine path. (58:25)
   The problem with being an activist rather than a volunteer. (1:00:51)
   The love vs. fear polarity. (1:05:44)
   Managing the pain so it’s no longer managing you. (1:09:00)
   Experience and reps matter. (1:17:26)
   Gambling is an interesting dopamine phenomenon. (1:20:07)
   Entrepreneurial orientation spectrum. (1:22:30)
   The five dimensions of human personality. (1:29:25)
   The “I” self vs. the “me” self. (1:33:36)
   Life is a pilgrimage. (1:40:38)
   Related Links/Products Mentioned
   Exclusively for Mind Pump listeners join IHP and Equi.life for 2 full days of live exhibitions, inspiring keynote discussions, and engaging expert panels The Reimagining Health Summit on October 12-13 in Fort Lauderdale, FL. **Code MINDPUMP for $100 off at checkout**
   June Promotion: MAPS Cardio | Summer Shredded Bundle | Bikini Bundle 50% off! **Code JUNE50 at checkout**
   The two faces of oxytocin - American Psychological Association (APA)
   From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life – Book by Arthur C. Brooks
    Marriage Is a Team Sport, Not a Competition - The Atlantic
    How Wanting Less Leads to Satisfaction - The Atlantic
    Choose the Activism That Won't Make You Miserable
    Oprah teams with Arthur C. Brooks on book about happiness
    Research: Why Immigrants Are More Likely to Become Entrepreneurs
    How to Be Less Self-Centered - The Atlantic
    What Is Metacognition? How Does It Help Us Think?
    How to Stop Freaking Out - The Atlantic
    How to Hike the Camino de Santiago - Uncommon Path  
   Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube
   Mind Pump Free Resources
   Featured Guest/People Mentioned
   Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks) Instagram
   Oprah (@oprah) Instagram
 

    

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only 1 place to go.

With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews.

You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast.

This is easily 1 of my favorite episodes.

I had my friend, mentor, and 1 of the smartest, best people I've ever met my entire life on this episode, Arthur C.

He's an expert on what makes humans happy.

He's a Harvard professor, a genuinely amazing good person.

He speaks all around the world talking about the things that actually have been shown in science, scientifically studied to make us happier, to make us better people, to make us better parents.

In fact, that's what we talk about in today's episode.

This is probably going to be 1 that you're going to want to listen to at least 2 or 3 times.

1 of my favorite episodes, Arthur Brooks.

By the way, you can find Arthur on Instagram, at Arthur C.

And right now, they're putting together a summit.

It's called the Reimagining Health Summit.

So what you could do is you could join them and EquiLife for 2 full days of live exhibitions, keynote discussions, and engaging expert panels.

This summit is happening October 12th to the 13th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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You'll be learning about hormones, Alzheimer's, cognitive improvements, biohacking, breathwork, emotional release, psychology, exercise, gut health, holistic dentistry, weight loss mindset, skin aging and rejuvenation, and much more.

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You have 2 days left for these program sales.

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All of them 50% off, all of them ending in 48 hours.

So if you're interested, just click on the link at the top of the description below.

You know, when people ask us who some of our favorite guests are or favorite people, your name always comes up.

And I've told you this before, I don't know if I've said this on air, you're a mentor to me without knowing it.

So I literally try to emulate all the things you do.

And we haven't talked about fatherhood with you on the show.

We do, we talk offline about the importance of this.

We do, and I think you're an exceptional father, the way you talk about your kids.

Yeah, well, part of it is I'm not responsible.

It kind of sounds like the best part of fatherhood without the responsibility for it.

So it's too early to tell what the results are.

He's affectionate and engaged and loving it and having a great time.

I have to, I think he, so far, he seems like a better father than I was.

And I remember when we first had our first child.

We were living in Santa Monica in those days, and I was working on my PhD, and I was just so stressed out.

And 3 weeks into my son being born, I'm just, I'm going back to work.

I gotta go back to work, gotta go back to work.

He has a much better sense of what his true holy vocation is, which is fatherhood first, then I'm a husband, and then I do a thing for work.

I did with my, cause I have 4, I have 2 older ones and then 2 younger ones in this big gap.

And I thought that was my value, was work.

What's the dangers or the negatives, I guess, of that?

Well, we fall into that because, I mean, there's nature and there's the nurture debate about all that.

It's absolutely the case that men in general, they see themselves as providers and hunters.

What does it mean to be a good father when you're a provider,

But the younger you are, the less likely you are to be sophisticated about those things.

And it's nice to see my son acting like an older dad, even though he's actually pretty young dad, 25.

Do you think that's what it is then is if we have, if we were to have kids younger, that the typical thing is that you just default to provide.

supposed to the bare minimum I'm supposed to do that.

So Even though there's a whole other things I should probably do as a father, I'm going to at least execute that.

Well, you're providing for the material needs of your family and you need to provide for more than that, than the material needs of your family.

Now remember that most men when they're 25 years old are not making bank.

You know, and My son's a math teacher in a Catholic school.

But he has a good, healthy, rounded out sense of what being a provider really means.

I frankly didn't, because I was just in this panic.

I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to provide for my family.

I was afraid that I was just going to screw up somehow.

And so it was just work, work, work, more, more, more, more.

So I don't want to make it look like I was some sort of a martyr.

A lot of what we learn is from our own fathers about how to be dads.

Like, so that's kind of how I, you know, I thought, okay, what I do is I work and then I hug and kiss my kids and play with them on the weekend.

Yeah, yeah, that certainly was the case for my dad, just like that, except for the hugging and kissing on the weekend,

So I'm a generation or half a generation above you guys.

And so my dad was a generation and a half older than you guys are and certainly older than your dads.

And I asked him 1 time, I said, dad, why'd you have kids?

If I don't want the answers, I shouldn't ask the questions.

She said, oh, yeah, I wanted to have more and all that.

So we have 2 biological kids and we have 1 adopted daughter.

My middle son, who is also married, is 23.

So Jessica and I have talked about, and sometimes I'm like, why are we doing this?

We're crazy, but we've talked about, what if we had another 1, right?

They see my hair falling out every single day.

hair, I could be president of the United States.

Listen, I have, that's because I had a lot to start with trust me give you another week But you know we talked about adopting and you know It's value and all that and what if you don't mind me asking what made you adopt rather than having

So I was studying at the time, I was doing research as a social scientist on the effects of serving others.

So that was a key area I was doing research on when I was teaching at Syracuse.

It's what happens to you neurophysiologically when you're behaving charitably.

And I asked this question in my research, what's the difference between doing a little for a lot of people, like writing a check to a charity, or doing everything for 1 person?

The data are like, you do everything for 1 person, you get much happier, much happier.

You get richer, happier, healthier, the whole deal.

If you turn the whole dial on a person's I will go Home and I tell my wife I was writing it up for a book and and she says interesting She Interesting says why don't we do more of that?

She says Why don't we adopt a baby and I'm like, it's only a book And she turns out had been having this dream It's a weird dream.

She's having a dream about a little girl that had been abandoned in a park,

She kept having this dream again and again.

We start the process, because she had me dead to rights.

And when she brings it up, I'm going to be like, no?

And so we start the process of a foreign adoption with this Chinese children adoption agency.

And the Chinese government matches us up with an infant, at this point not an infant anymore 15 months at this point And they give us the background and she'd been abandoned in a park What you kidding at 12 hours old was found on a park bench at 1 a.m.

after the dream I'm totally months later months months months.

well I mean it was yeah, and so I went by myself She was not as my wife's not a citizen at the time.

The first time I ever had a dad that had gone and independently done the adoption because my wife was taking care of our boys.

And so she couldn't go by herself because she couldn't execute the adoption as a foreign national.

And So for weeks, I was there by myself in China, and I picked up my daughter Marina, and she was 16 months old at the time, very disoriented, very malnourished, and the whole deal.

And we still have this weird, mystical bond, as if I had gone through labor.

And she was the, I was the first person she ever met.

I was her, you know, she doesn't remember because she was only 16 months old, but she has this, we have this bond.

We have this, it's as if we've been together for all eternity.

I was in, I was on tour, speaking to her in Spain last week and I

saw the picture you posted with her Yeah, yeah, that's my baby.

Yeah She's studying in Spain at the University of Navarre and Pamplona.

Yeah, so that's except that's a I did not know that story Yeah, yeah, incredible.

Yeah, it's super heavy And it's just the most amazing thing.

Anybody who thinks, you know, people will often ask, you know, do you get the same neuro physiological connection to your child if your child was adopted?

And what that is is really asking about a neuropeptide that functions as a hormone in the brain called oxytocin.

What it does is it bonds you through eye contact and touch to your friends, to your family members, and especially to your children.

And when you first lay eyes on your newborn infant, it's like the 4th of July inside your head.

You would die for the squalling, disoriented infant.

So I mean, evolutionary biologists say that so you don't leave your baby on the bus.

I mean, it's like it's, and so the question was, for the longest time, do you get the same oxytocin levels with an adopted child?

And I remember when I walked into, you know, when they're matching up these orphans with their adoptive parents, you walk into this room and they call out your name and they put this baby in your arms who doesn't know you.

And she grabs onto my shirt and just looks up at me in my eyes in her little, you know, eyes into mine.

And it was like this exact same sensation is when I helped deliver my own sons, my own biological sons.

So I experienced something with each kid that was a little different.

I'd love your, just from a neuro, I guess biological standpoint.

I noticed like with my oldest, when my, at the time my ex-wife was pregnant, it was like this concept, because I'm not connected to the baby.

And then when he comes out, it like hits me,

With each successive child, the connection happens faster and faster to the point where my fourth 1, the minute my wife said I'm pregnant, immediately I felt this connection to this.

But is it because I've done it before and I know what to expect?

It's hard to say actually, but probably you were at a point in your life early on where you were less connected Because of what was actually what was going on in your life.

I mean, I'm I know because I'm a fan so this is my favorite podcast and so I But at the same time you're older and you're more dialed in to what the experience can actually be.

So this is 1 of the things that people actually tell me.

So I'm Catholic, so I know a lot of these big Catholic families, 6, 7, 10, 11 kids.

And what they'll all say is, man, I wish I were the father with my first child that I was with my 10th.

Like I, the way I'm with my youngest kids and my older ones, I'm like, man, I was not as great.

be a combination of both maturity and practice, which is obviously on the later ones.

So you're wiser, more life experience, And then you've done this before.

See all Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth transcripts on Applepodcasts

2107: The Science of Becoming a Better & Happier Parent