The Algebra of Happiness Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning

Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at the New York Stern School of Business and host of the 'Pivot' podcast about technology and business. He is also the best-selling author of books such as, 'The Algebra of Happiness', 'The Four', and 'The Algebra of Wealth'.

in your book the algebra of happiness the third section is about health ... you said the most common trait among CEOs is that they exercise regularly and it's a great antidepressant.

Oh, there's not a moment I go without his influence. I think I carry it with me. I carry the algebra of happiness on me every day. I read it. I quote it like the Bible.

When I was researching my book, The Algebra of Happiness, trying to understand happiness as it relates to societies, the happiest societies, seven of the 10 happiest countries are in Northern Europe. And happiness is not only a function of what you have and your relationships. The number one thing is deep and meaningful relationships, but also an absence of fear of something being taken from you or an absence of fear of something terrible happening creates happiness. And that's something that many Europeans have or an absence of that unfortunately we have is that if you find out your wife in America, if you find out your wife has lung cancer, there's probably a one in three chance you've also found out you're going bankrupt.

And by the way, speaking of rankings, hold on. Apple created a new category called News Commentary and who was number one for a good 36 hours last week? You and I.

And by the way, speaking of rankings, hold on. Apple created a new category called News Commentary and who was number one for a good 36 hours last week? You and I. That's right. It's not one dog. It's not one cat. It's a kennel and it's the best kennel in the world. Okay. That's right. Number one. That's our tire now.

I'm on a ton of podcasts. I'm on all the touchy feeling once now because of this book, Algebra of Happiness, number 13 on Apple Hardcover Nonfiction by Angry Depressed, professors with erectile dysfunction.

It was a nice book party for the algebra of happiness.

But you had a rant. You ranted in front of the power elite of Washington.

And then you talked about happiness, how they can be happy, which was...

Angry to press professor on happiness.

I felt very American and I felt loved and affirmed, which I need all of those things.

Read Scott Galloway's book. It's called The Algebra of Happiness.

Number three on Amazon as of today.

One behind Melinda Gates. Cure malaria, curing malaria, blah, blah, blah. Let me talk about happiness.

No, no, I'm sorry. Number 30. I'm number 30 on Amazon.

I'm number 30. But anyway, I always turn this back to me.

Everybody got by the Algebra of Happiness by Scott Galloway.

Oprah called my new book, The Algebra of Happiness, a wonder, a wondrously weird collection of short stories.

We got your book, The Algebra of Happiness.

He's the best selling author of many books including, The Algebra of Happiness, Post Corona, and his latest book, which is called Adrift: America in 100 Charts.

Yesterday I discovered two of my books, The Algebra of Happiness and The Four have been used without my approval to feed generative AI.

The algebra of happiness continues to have a profound effect on me. I listen to it every year, I gift it, and I even wrote my first Amazon review to help spread the wisdom.

Algebra of Happiness: just book it.

Just book it.

Just book it.

But trust me on this, just book it.

Four to 14 are the magic years.

the coronavirus pandemic changed a hell of a lot since you wrote the algebra of happiness which was 20 early 2019 I think if memory serves yeah that's you mentioned that the pandemic will accelerate changes already in the making yeah

our previous episode was got incredibly popular we will link to that in the show notes as well so if you liked scot on this episode definitely check out our previous episode which focused on things like relationships why you should invest early and invest often that's true for money and relationships he talks about living a good healthy sane happy life in many ways the book he wrote for that episode is called the algebra of happiness highly recommended a really easy read and some simple advice that really could and probably will change your life that is if you apply it

if you don't work like non-stop in your 20s and 30s and stop worrying about work, life balance, there's a pretty good chance you'll just never be successful economically.

all these there's all this whole sort of cult of the entrepreneur right now where everyone's like, I work from home and I'm a consultant in gig economy and I'm an influencer and it's like okay cool and there's people on the hustle for that.

He's just like yeah that's not real, it's just not. He's very few outliers can do that assume you are not one of those people because the statistics are not on your side.

I loved the book, I loved that episode I could have gone on for another hour.

Scott Galloway wrote about this in his book The Algebra of Happiness about when his mother was dying also I believe of cancer a lot of people came to visit and he stayed with her and it was just the most amazing time and he really remembers it well.

if you don't work like non-stop in your 20s and 30s and stop worrying about work, life balance, there's a pretty good chance you'll just never be successful economically.

I read the algebra of happiness from cover to cover because it's a really great easy read and of course we'll link to it in the show notes as we do with every book.

And we'll throw your sort of synopsis video in bedded in the show notes as well but one thing that really stands out that you're certainly not trying to hide in the book is you kind of showed up to school smoked a lot of pod as college students do got a 2.27 GPA went to business school and then started a bunch of companies and had a lot of great success and now you're a professor at Stern business in New York.

The book title is the algebra of happiness

Scott this has been great is there anything that I haven't asked you that you want to make sure you deliver well people often asking the book about the book was there a you know what is the key to happiness and the answer is there is no silver bullet but there is a best practice and it comes from the Harvard Grant study which is the largest study on longitudinal happiness ever undertaken and they looked at 400 men age 19 and tracked them from 1929 until they died most of them died about 75 years later I think the last one died when he was 94 maybe 104 anyways the study survived four principal scientists they kept having to swap out the principal scientists because they kept dying and they measured everything from their food intake the job they had the relationships where they lived there's zip code type of job and then query them frequently on their levels of satisfaction and happiness and then trying to correlate what were the drivers of happiness and unhappiness and what they found was that simply put that the strength and depth of your relationships were really the key to happiness at work do you feel respected and you feel admired and do you respect and admire other people with your friends do you feel a sense of camaraderie and joy and just as importantly do you know they feel a sense of joy and camaraderie from you and then with your family do you feel a sense of love and support and again just as importantly do you know that they feel a sense of love and support from you and it has this academic study has the most wonderful opening line of any academic study in history and they summarize a 400 page report in the first sentence they say happiness is love full stop so the depth and number of relationships across work family and friends is really the best practice around happiness

the coronavirus pandemic changed a hell of a lot since you wrote the algebra of happiness which was 20 early 2019 I think if memory serves yeah that's you mentioned that the pandemic will accelerate changes already in the making yeah

when we talked about the algebra of happiness yeah we were talking about income and salaries and you'd said one of the most important things people can do is move to cities

our previous episode was got incredibly popular we will link to that in the show notes as well so if you liked scot on this episode definitely check out our previous episode which focused on things like relationships why you should invest early and invest often that's true for money and relationships he talks about living a good healthy sane happy life in many ways the book he wrote for that episode is called the algebra of happiness highly recommended a really easy read and some simple advice that really could and probably will change your life that is if you apply it

if you don't work like non-stop in your 20s and 30s and stop worrying about work, life balance, there's a pretty good chance you'll just never be successful economically.

all these there's all this whole sort of cult of the entrepreneur right now where everyone's like, I work from home and I'm a consultant in gig economy and I'm an influencer and it's like okay cool and there's people on the hustle for that.

He's just like yeah that's not real, it's just not. He's very few outliers can do that assume you are not one of those people because the statistics are not on your side.

I loved the book, I loved that episode I could have gone on for another hour.

I read the algebra of happiness from cover to cover because it's a really great easy read.

One thing that really stands out that you're certainly not trying to hide in the book is you kind of showed up to school smoked a lot of pot as college students do got a 2.27 GPA went to business school and then started a bunch of companies and had a lot of great success and now you're a professor at Stern business in New York.

And he just kept delivering the whole time I'm like texting you on slacks and okay gold gold yeah yeah what I love is he's not afraid to be like hey by the way this thing you saw in Instagram is BS or like you're not going to be able to not bust your ass during your 20s and 30s if you want to be successful later like that's just how this works for 99% of people

I wish he was there for me in my 20s I really do because I went the complete opposite I listened to all the BS and now it's just like okay I got a slog back up that hill if I had to listen to him I mean such a better place so oh so good stuff.

The book title is the algebra of happiness

He also has one called The Algebra of Happiness. I would say those two things are related, right? The purpose of wealth is to facilitate happiness.

He also has one called The Algebra of Happiness. I would say those two things are related, right? The purpose of wealth is to facilitate happiness.

The ultimate gift is a signed book of the Algebra of Happiness by Professor Scott Galloway.