Derek Thompson

And now I'll experience an arch where through flows that untraveled world whose margin fades forever as we move.

And all my experience just shapes the things I haven't done.

But if we remember the idea that our valleys can be as sharp as our mountaintops, I think that's a level

principled to carry forward.

Last question, how does happiness fit into this?

Is happiness an important part of excellence?

Is it something that emerges from excellence?

Is it an ingredient?

How do you think about it?

Well, I grew up in a pretty secular family, and the last time I prayed before I embarked on this line of research that I've been steeped in the past six years, the only time before that that I ever prayed was when I was six years old.

And I remember my family had been in the country for only three years, and in very short order, they got scammed out of basically every penny they had by some...

some scam artist american who took advantage of a new immigrant family that barely spoke the language and my family was in a really tough situation and i remember going outside before anyone else woke up in the morning and i would lay on my driveway and i would look up at the sky and i would have a conversation with this voice that i called god and um it was very comforting at the time i distinctly remember that

But then as I got older, I thought, well, if I can't prove that I'm talking to anybody, if nobody's listening, what's the point?

Why am I doing this?

And I didn't pray again for decades until I started this line of research, which became my book, Beyond Belief.

And I kept coming across the power of prayer, how people who pray live longer, they have more friends, they make more money, they contribute more to their community.

All these great things happen to people who pray.

But I thought that was kind of inaccessible to me because I didn't have a particular faith.

I didn't have a conviction in the supernatural.

And so I just thought that was off limits to me.