Morgan Housel

It's like what the location is doing for you.

So the question of will a big house make you happier?

It will to the extent that it makes it easier to have your friends and family over because your friends and family are the ones who are actually making you happy.

And so the answer can be, will a nice house make you happy?

The answer can be yes, if you're using it for the right reasons.

There was this article in the New York Times, this is probably 10 or 15 years ago.

And the article said, two things happened to Julia Roberts this week.

One, she won the Academy Award.

And two, she found out her husband was cheating on her.

And so the column said, pop quiz, did Julia Roberts have a good week?

And it's like, you'd be a fool to say yes.

It was probably the worst week of her life, I imagine.

Yeah.

But what we see from the outside was...

dolled up in a beautiful dress accepting the highest honor of her career and saying like wow that must be an amazing but he gets back to once you see the full picture you're like nah it's not as easy as it seems you say on page 23 of your book a quote that I loved show off the inside of your house not the outside right because the inside of your house are what your friends and your family are seeing

I think if there is a formula that I lay out in the book and I make the point that like there's no formula for how to spend money.

But if I did try to make a formula for a pretty good life and this extends way outside of money, the formula for a pretty good life is independence plus purpose.

If you want to say like, how can I be a happy person?

You need to be independent.

You need to be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it with whom you want to do it with.