Arthur Brooks

But he wanted the next one to be number one too.

Actually, it's more tyrannical than that.

Because if your next one doesn't make number one, now you used to be great.

And there's almost nothing worse than that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I wanted to do a show at one point where I talked to a producer about the idea of a TV show called I Used to Be Famous, where I, as a behavioral scientist, will go talk to people who are living relatively ordinary lives, and they used to be famous.

Some are happy, some are not.

Some are addicts, some are crazy.

Some are normally married.

Yeah.

Right?

Although it's pretty interesting when you hear about people who are living, who are much, much, much happier than they were in the limelight.

You know, when people are living ordinary lives and they used to be really famous and people go, oh, I remember he was so-and-so in the Partridge family or something.

Now he's got a happy marriage and four kids and he works for a cardboard box company or something.

Yeah.

There are three big why questions that constitute meaning.

This actually comes from the work of Michael Steger, who's a really good social psychologist in Colorado.

And he has the three parts, the three elements of meaning, which are called coherence, purpose, and significance.

And there are three why questions.

Number one is you have to have an answer to the question, you know, why are things happening the way they are in my life?