#76 – The Data-Driven Path to Happiness, Wealth, and Retirement

Wes Moss [00:01:23]:
You’re going to love Seth. He’s actually a very funny, cool guy. He’s an author, a data scientist, and he’s a speaker who studies what we can learn from tons of anonymous data. Big data. He wrote a book in 2017 called Everybody Lies. It ended up being a New York Times bestseller and Economist Book of the Year. He’s an Op Ed writer for the New York Times. He’s worked as a visiting lecturer at the Wharton School.

Wes Moss [00:01:52]:
He even spent time within the belly of the beast as a data scientist for Google. Also has a BA in Philosophy from Stanford and a PhD in Economics from Harvard. He’s a Jersey guy, and maybe that explains his love and fandom for the Knicks, the Mets and the jets, which probably makes his Google results full of disappointing sports updates. So to really understand what motivates humans, it’s not the answer the search engines give us. True data is found in the questions that are asked. Seth, I don’t know exactly where to start here, but I. I guess if we sum up your work and your latest first of all, let’s just start with this. Everybody Lies is your very popular book.

Wes Moss [00:02:39]:
And essentially what I’ve gathered from all of this is that you’re able to figure out why we are lying by figuring out what people are really searching for. So maybe just explain to our audience here before we get into happiness, before we get into retirement, talk to me about your data science.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:03:00]:
Yes, that was my first book called Everybody Lies and it was how you can use the Internet to see who we really are and A lot of it was analyzing aggregate anonymous Google search data. And the idea is that people are really, really honest. So, you know, there’s some dark topics where if you ask people in a survey, you know, are you racist? Nobody’s like, yeah, yeah, of course I’m racist. They’d say, they’d say, no, of course not. And then, but then if you analyze Google searches, you see, oh, these are the parts of the country that have the highest racism or questions about sexuality or, you know, dark but important topics. Child abuse, abortion, do it yourself abortions. There are all these topics where people are typing on Google what they’re really interested, really thinking. And you know, by analyzing the anonymous aggregate data, you kind of get a better, more accurate view of humankind than we’ve ever had before.

Wes Moss [00:03:48]:
Well, let’s get some examples of this. And I don’t know if these are all. You’re looking at big data now and this is important to you. This is just anonymous data, right? Are you able to tell us just about that for a second? Are you able to just aggregate? Is this, do you have to be working for a search place or.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:04:05]:
You can a lot of it. So Google Trends is a tool that, that sells, available to anybody and you can see kind of where and when searches are most are made. And it’s a tool, it’s still underutilized, it’s used more and more. When I first started, like, I, I give a lot of lectures, a speaker around, around the country, around the world, I first started describing Google Trends, I was like, what the hell is that? And now, you know, at least 60, 70% of people at least heard of Google Trends. I think a lot of people aren’t using it as much as maybe they could be.

Wes Moss [00:04:35]:
And again, it’s just taking the raw big data and seeing what people care about, what people are searching for.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:04:42]:
Yeah, exactly.

Wes Moss [00:04:43]:
Then how do you back into things like climate being a factor in, let’s say, depression. The thought around, when do you get hooked on your favorite baseball team? Like what ages do you get hooked? And that’s. Let me start with that one just for a second because that’s fascinating to me because I live in a melting pot city, Atlanta. You, you ha. You don’t have the strongest pro sport loyalty here. I think it’s because it’s a newer, younger city where people have been moving and moving and moving. So you’re coming from New Jersey or Pennsylvania for me. And you grew up kind of an Eagles fan, kind of a Phillies fan, but you don’t hate the Brave.

Wes Moss [00:05:25]:
So, Wendy, do you ever switch over? The answer is not really. And then I see my kids. I got four boys, and they’re all very into sports. I find that they’re. They’re kind of into like 10 different teams because they like one player from this team. And I don’t see any real heavy loyalty in pro sports when it comes to my kids. So tell me about when you get hooked on a team.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:05:47]:
Yeah, so this is a study actually using Facebook data, likes of different teams. And you see that kind of the teams get a big bump among males. If they were good when males were about eight years old, that’s the biggest bump. So, you know, the. The Mets, my team, they wanted two championships, 1969 and 1986. And they have the most fans. 1977 and 1994, kind of when people were. Sorry, they both fans among men born 1961 and 1978, kind of.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:06:28]:
Those boys were 8 years old when the Mets won championship. And you see that kind of throughout teams that if the team’s really good at 8 years old among boys, they kind of win them for life. Now, I haven’t seen how’s that, how that’s changed. You might. You might be correct. I’ve heard that there is some evidence that younger generations, the idea of a favorite team is kind of passe, which is shocking to me. You know, that’s kind of a big part of my childhood was finding my teams. And I think, you know, people are moving away from that model.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:06:56]:
Maybe everyone’s so into fantasy sports now, so it’s much more about the players and. And the players all move around so much.

Wes Moss [00:07:04]:
Yeah, I think that’s. That’s interesting point you make is that you’re right. They’re into the players because they do care about their fantasy teams, which is really just about what player does what, not so much about a particular team. And here in Atlanta, the Falcons went to the Super Bowl. My kids were in that sweet spot. You know, they were 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. And the Falcons lost the Super Bowl. And it was very depressing.

Wes Moss [00:07:28]:
It was like. Because we grabbed it out of the jaws of victory and the jaws of defeat, whatever that is, because we almost. We were about to win the super bowl, and then we let it go to the Patriots in the last. You know, we just. It was a disaster, and it almost crushed my children’s loyalty to them, maybe forever.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:07:44]:
Oh, cry. Yeah, I don’t know. I can relate. The Knicks lost A championship in 1994 against the Houston Rockets. And I still think that may have been the darkest day of my life. Like that Game seven, which, you know, all the things that have happened since then, they don’t really quite compare. You know, that. That childhood brain.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:08:01]:
But I don’t think it turned me against the team, so I don’t know.

Wes Moss [00:08:04]:
So what about this. So let’s talk about. This is interesting. You do a lot of studies around depression in different states, how it’s treated, and then just the thought around climate as a factor in depression. So how are you figuring that out throughout?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:08:16]:
Well, it just is very clear, the Google search data that warm climates, I mean, it’s not so shocking, but the magnitude of it is pretty unbelievable that warm climates just have way lower levels of depression in winter months. You know, in Hawaii versus Chicago, you know, the depression rates might be similar in the summer months, but in the winter, it’s just the roof in Chicago and much lower in Hawaii. So that’s kind of the value of these big, huge data sets. And other scholars have found similar things looking around the world, kind of the. Just how much climate seems to play a role in depression. And definitely something to think about. If you do suffer from depression, should you be escaping those cold winter months if you, if you live in a colder climate?

Wes Moss [00:08:58]:
Yeah, it’s more than just a passing good idea. It’s. It’s a very real clinical thing for a lot of people.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:09:06]:
Yeah, it’s a seasonal affective disorder. But the magnitude of it kind of did surprise me where I think I said that, you know, if you look at kind of just the data, it seems being in a warmer climate of the winter months may be twice as effective as antidepressants for fighting depression. So. And it’s, it’s not something that, you know, a lot of people think about. I actually have suffered from depression a lot, and I live in New York, and I’ve been kind of down this winter and I’ve taken two trips. I went to the Caribbean and then I went to Florida. And I did notice, like, oh, my mood’s a lot better when I’m around sunshine and warmth. But I don’t.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:09:41]:
Like, I haven’t made any drastic decisions like, well, maybe I should be in a climate like this more regularly.

Wes Moss [00:09:48]:
Yeah, you need to listen to your own data.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:09:49]:
I guess it is hard. You know, I have a whole second book, don’t trust your gut. And I just present all this data on kind of how you should make the biggest decisions in life and, you know, what career you should pick and how you can be happier. And everyone’s always like, you know, so how have you changed your life based on this data? And I, I kind of sometimes exaggerate the extent to which I’ve made life changes because I find it just so hard even when you know the data, you know that it’s good to escape a winter, a bad winter climate, or you know, that, you know it the importance of socializing for, for happiness or you know that, you know, being an entrepreneur is a better path to wealth than being an employee. And you know all these things and yet, you know, you’re, it’s so hard to act on them for me and I think for a lot of people.

Wes Moss [00:10:40]:
Well, let’s just go right into that. I want to talk about don’t trust your gut. And I think you say that we, we make all these major life decisions flying very blind, I guess, or we’re using our, our gut. How so tell me more about that.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:10:54]:
Well, I just think of, I, I reflected back on my old life and you know, I’m a data scientist. I’ve written out two books on data science. I have a PhD basically in data science. I worked at Google as a data scientist. I’m not saying that to brag. I’m just saying the contrast between all. So much of my life has been devoted to data and the way I make decisions was really striking to me that I just never like it was, I was single for, for, you know, many years. I’m not single now, but when I was single I was never like, let me look at the data on what I should look for in a partner or let me look at the data and how I can date better.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:11:29]:
I just never. And that’s bizarre because I’m a data scientist. I believe so much in data. Like, why do I not do that and think about my happiness? You know, very rarely was I consulting charts and data and what things would make me happy, happier, how I picked a career. It was basically just totally random. I wasn’t looking at data on what careers make the best, you know, financial offer the best financial opportunities or the best happiness or any of those questions. And you know, I figured if I’m not using data, then most other people must not be using data as well. And I’m going to just spend a few years looking at the data on some of these big questions that every, pretty much everybody face at some point.

Wes Moss [00:12:11]:
Let’s start with relationships. And I know you talk a lot about, I guess, the science behind finding somebody that is the right match. Clearly most of us do not do this and it Sounds like, I don’t know if you see yourself longer term being, well, an advocate to say, look, please listen to the data and implement it in your life. Tell us about dating and relationships and what are we looking for in partners if we would just follow the data.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:12:37]:
Well, I’ll tell you what Dave says and I think you’ll understand why this one is a particularly hard one to follow. But the data basically says that all of us are looking for the wrong things in terms of long term happiness because you know, where many of us. If you look at the data from online dating sites, what are people drawn to? Well, you know, everyone’s draw. Most people are drawn to hot people. That’s kind of the number one predictor of dating success. Someone who’s physically conventional.

Wes Moss [00:13:02]:
Can you define that for our audience? When you say hot, what does that mean?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:13:05]:
I think most people know it when they see it, but.

Wes Moss [00:13:08]:
Right, okay, cool.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:13:09]:
It’s, it’s if, if you ask people to rate someone 1 to 10, you know, the SC researchers have said rate these people 1 to 10, you know, on attractiveness and the tens are just going to get way more messages than the fives, the fours, threes, you know, although, yeah, I’ll get more to that in a bit. But so, you know, okay, conventionally attractive people, tall people, tall men, you know, heights, such a huge advantage in, in, in, in males, men in certain occupations, women find more attractive. Lawyers, firemen, even controlling for income, certain occupations do better than like accountants do tend to do very, very bad in, in online dating on average. And not, not that accountant can’t do well, but those are the averages. You know, people in hospitality, males in hospitality do, do really bad. So, so we’re looking for all these things. Oh, race, it’s, it’s not talked about. There’s almost more evidence for racism in dating than any other arena of life, I would argue.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:14:18]:
Whoa, there’s.

Wes Moss [00:14:19]:
How, how so?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:14:20]:
Well, there’s just overwhelming evidence that certain groups, Asian males and African American women in particular, just are way less likely to get responses. And online dating sites, it’s, it’s pretty that you know and you could correct for other factors like the income that people have and stuff. Still, racial dynamics play a big role in how many messages people receive or how likely their messages are to be responded to. So we’re looking for all these things. Then you, and that’s been proven with dating sites and then data from dating sites and you compare that to what actually makes people happy. Well, there have been big studies using machine learning models, 11,000 couples. And it basically shows that everything we look for has just about dope predictive power for long term relationship happiness. So people who end up with someone hotter, like I didn’t know, I’m like, maybe you get, have a hot wife, a hot husband, like you’re going to have more wild sex, you’re going to be, you’re going to feel good every time you bring them to a party.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:15:18]:
You’re going to be happy in a relationship. But there’s basically no correlation between how hot your spouse is and how happy you are in your relationship. Similarly, how tall your spouse is, what occupation they’re in.

Wes Moss [00:15:30]:
So, so again, none of those things do correlate to happiness at all.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:15:34]:
None of the things and the things that do, like yeah, what does it’s these, is these psychological traits. Like you know those psychological quizzes for me, my girl, my romantic partners are always giving me these psychological tests like do you have, you know, what kind of attachment style are you? And I’m always like this is so annoying. I just want to watch, you know, a baseball game like let me do something else with my time. And it turns out these are like the only things that predict romantic happiness. So if your partner has something called a secure attachment style, which I didn’t even know what that meant but you know, you can take a test online and see or you can give a potential partner more, more relevantly a test and people have secure attachment styles kind of the way they relate to other people, probably due to childhood, that does increase your chance of being happiness. People are more conscientious, people have a growth mindset. People are more satisfied with life. So we over massively overvalue these superficial traits.

Wes Moss [00:16:35]:
And I think money and looks, right? Dating is money and looks which mean nothing long term, very little.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:16:42]:
Long term money does have a tiny bit but very, very little. And then the things and we really undervalue these psychological traits.

Wes Moss [00:16:52]:
More with Seth Stevens Davidowitz straight ahead. Hi, it’s Wes Moss. May’s mayhem is behind us and June is in full bloom. Spring brings milestones like graduations, weddings and even new homes. It’s also a time when you might be thinking about retirement. If that’s you, visit our team at Capital Investment Advisors. We’ll work with you to craft an income focused portfolio to designed to deliver a reliable paycheck in retirement. Get started@yourwealth.com that’s y o u r wealth.com all right, so when it comes to success or people achieving success, where what do we learn about that who ends up successful? What does the data science say around that? And by the way, what do you think? How do you measure that? You just talking about income or.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:17:46]:
Yeah, there are many ways and data science will tell different things on different measures. And you know, then there’s a question, does success make people happy? Which is a whole other question that data can help us on. But there’s sentence really stuck out to me that the typical member of a top 1%, kind of the typical richest American is the owner of a regional business such as an auto dealership or beverage distributor. And that’s kind of not how we usually think of a rich person. I mean, we usually think rich person like Hollywood athlete, financier, maybe startup founder. And definitely there are lots of those in rich people, particularly if you get to, you know, billionaire status, they’re going to be dominant. But if you get to just not, not just, but you know, the very healthy people making like one and a half million dollars a year at least, it’s kind of dominated by this, these small business owners frequently in very boring fields like I find boring, you don’t have to find boring like auto dealerships or beverage distribution. And frequently it’s, it’s fields that have some sort of protection against competition.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:18:59]:
So auto dealerships and beverage distributors are kind of protected local monopolies and other fields have their own ways to kind of give you a little protection. So you kind of got to find this niche, unsexy area that has some sort of protection and then you’re just crushing it, making a couple million bucks a year, living the dream. And it’s, it’s, it’s not the path most people, when you say, you know, I want to be rich, you know, you move to Hollywood to be an actor, you move to Silicon Valley to start your company, you move to Wall street to be. Yeah, to Wall street to go into finance. And definitely those are options. But, and most people aren’t like, you know, let me get into the auto dealership business or the beverage distribution business or you know, some of these other businesses that really are allow you to crush it.

Wes Moss [00:19:42]:
Yeah, it sounds like that wouldn’t even work on a dating profile. Beverage distribution, what industry are you in? Yeah, I’m going to put them over there with the accountants.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:19:51]:
Yeah, well, if you’re a beverage beauty or maybe you just have to put like your income like right there, just be like $2 million a year beverage.

Wes Moss [00:19:58]:
Distributor, you have, you have data around making us a good parent. And I don’t even know how you, how do we even measure. What do you say is good? How do you even measure that?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:20:10]:
Yeah. So that’s another area where I, you know, there’s obviously a lot of different measure measures, but one of the things that’s surprising in the data is how little overall parents matter. So you would think, I think most parents. I’m not a parent, but also, I just want to apologize. I wasn’t dissing the accountants or the ones on the 1 to 10 scale or the shorter guys. I’m just presenting the data.

Wes Moss [00:20:33]:
No, that’s. I, I always say that when I have. I’d say, listen, it’s not that there’s anything wrong against this group. That group, I’m like, I. We have happy and unhappy retiree traits.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:20:42]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:20:42]:
One of them, I think one of them showed up on the unhappy retiree list, was hunting. And I remember, like, getting real feedback, like, that’s, you know.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:20:51]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:20:52]:
And I was like, no, no, no. I always say data. I tell what I think. The data.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:20:56]:
Yeah. I’m just.

Wes Moss [00:20:57]:
Nobody’s gonna blame you.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:20:59]:
So anyway, so the first thing in parenting, yeah. The data on parenting is that the overall effects of parents, the way they study this is adoptees. So sometimes people are. There are these adoption programs where it’s kind of randomly determined what who ends up. Who your parent ends up being. And it turns out kind of parents matter overall to much less than just about everybody thinks on most dimensions. Income, education. There are a few things you can influence.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:21:26]:
One of the things you can influence most actually is how your kids think of you. Do they think they had good parents? So you can’t change how educated they are, how rich they are, how happy they are. But you can change, you know, how they think of you, which is something that is pretty valuable to most, to most parents. But so, you know, some of the big things, again, education, income, happiness. Parents don’t really influence things. Values. Parents aren’t having a huge impact. All these decisions we sweat about.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:21:56]:
When you actually look at the overall effect, the effect just isn’t that big. That said, there is one decision that parents make that may have a disproportionate impact, and that’s where parents raise their kids. There’s all this research again from tax data, which is just becoming available to researchers, that where kids grow up just can dramatically impact any outcome we. We can measure in tax data. So how educated they are, how rich they are, whether they, you know, have. Have kids. As a teenager, a neighborhood really does matter for parents. And what is it about a good neighborhood? Like why are certain.

Wes Moss [00:22:37]:
Yeah.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:22:37]:
What is that really good?

Wes Moss [00:22:38]:
Yeah. How do you measure that? Or like what’s good?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:22:41]:
Yeah. We can also compare it to other facts about the neighborhood. And turns out a lot of the things you think might really matter. So, you know, great schools or a booming economy, those don’t really matter a lot that much at all. The things that really seem to matter are quality, the qualities of the people in the neighborhood do people are 2% of two parent homes, a percent of people with college degrees, percent of people return their census forms. A very, very random measure. But it seems to be something about adult role models giving your kids good adult role models. And there’s actually also studies that if you have a daughter, if you raise her around a lot of female scientists, she’s more likely to become a female, a scientist herself when she grows up.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:23:33]:
So I think we don’t think how much the other adults are exposing our kids to, are impacting them and, you know, how they turn out, you know, and even if, you know, apart from the actual place you live, the city you live, the block you live, who are you exposing your kids to? Like, are these people you want them to turn out to be? I think one, one kind of thing. One of the reasons that parenting is overrated but neighborhoods are underrated is kids have complicated views about their parents. So sometimes kids think their parents are the coolest people. Sometimes kids think their parents are the, the least cool people, the people they don’t want to be, the people they want to rebel against. But neighborhoods, kids tend to think they’re pretty cool regardless. So they may rebel against you, but they’re not necessarily going to rebel against the other people you expose them to. So I kind of recommend outsourcing parents parenting a little bit. Expose your kids to people you want them to turn into.

Wes Moss [00:24:33]:
Parenting is overrated. Neighborhoods are underrated. I’m. I’m going to take that as probably the favorite thing I’ve heard in a long time. That. Yeah. And that is true. I do think I think about it.

Wes Moss [00:24:47]:
Huh. Yeah. I’m thinking back as I’m thinking back to when I was a kid, how much did I consider or look at and judge my parents on their friends? And I guess thinking back now, I don’t have ever thought of it that way, but I guess, yeah, it is, it is important. It’s a big deal.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:25:06]:
Yeah. I mean, the exposure, which are their careers. You might see someone who, you know is a beverage distributor and they’re crushing it and they’re like, have this great life, you’re like, oh, I want to be a beverage distributor. You know, there are all kinds of ways it can play out, right?

Wes Moss [00:25:22]:
So yeah, yeah, I think that that is interesting. That makes a ton of sense. I think it was my, my Little league. One of my little league baseball coaches who I always looked at as rich because we used to go over to his pool and like, after games, he’s the only guy with a big pool and he would pay for hamburgers. I always thought, wow, he’s giving everybody hamburgers. And hot. Like, this guy’s gotta be rich. And you know what? He was a small business owner.

Wes Moss [00:25:48]:
He had an insurance agency in southeastern rural Pennsylvania and probably made an absolute killing. He had like a cool truck. I remember he’d drive that, this giant F350 truck. He’s got this great. You know what? And that’s maybe why I wanted to become an entrepreneur. It’s, it’s not an insignificant thing for me to remember in my mid to late 40s relative to when I was like 7.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:26:13]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:26:13]:
And I still remember that maybe it had an impact. All right, what about. And this goes back to. I want to go back to success and then happiness for just a second. Is it, is it mostly because you’re a data guy, you can’t, you’re not really defining what success is. Is it, Are we pretty much having to look at income data here or is there any other measure of success?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:26:33]:
I mean, yeah, sometimes. Like, one thing I think about as a data scientist is you go to war with the army you got, not the army you want. Like as Rumfeld said in Iraq, you know, you go to war with the data you got. And, you know, there are great data sets that compare, you know, every kid in the United States to how happy they ended up. You know, the data sets that have every kid in the United States are administrative data sets from the irs. You know, income, education, marriage. So obviously would be great to also measure happiness on, you know, that dimension. How much does a neighborhood impact adult happiness? Because I think obviously money is not in education.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:27:14]:
Aren’t the only things that matter. But on that question, there isn’t data.

Wes Moss [00:27:18]:
So how many people read the books they buy?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:27:24]:
Very low. That’s a study by Jordan Ellenberg where he analyzed Kindle data and how often people make it to the end of books. And for non fiction books, like the books I read science books, pop science books. You know, the numbers are 3%, 5%, 7%. It actually motivated me. My first book, Everybody Lies, I was struggling so much on the conclusion I want a perfect conclusion and as you know, torturing myself, taking walks, showers, everything, you know, what’s inclusion that I read that Jordan Ellenberg study. I go, oh, effort, I don’t care. I’ll just, you know, phone it in because nobody’s reading anyway.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:28:05]:
You know, I, I, the hard work’s behind me. So that allowed me to done three.

Wes Moss [00:28:10]:
Only 3% of it now. What about in a, in a fiction?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:28:14]:
So some of the, yeah, some of the, you know, some of the addictive, you know, romance fiction can be 70, 80%. So some of those can be, can be a lot higher.

Wes Moss [00:28:25]:
Okay. Yeah. Have you ever done studies around the romance and fiction novels that, that I’ve seen for my entire life, but I’ve never know who actually reads them. Are those a thing? It’s just somebody must read them.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:28:38]:
Yeah, I mean I, I, I don’t know the demographics. I could guess them. I haven’t seen the, the demographics. But you know, there’s probably a lot of deception about what books people are reading. A lot of people probably aren’t, are a little embarrassed. I’ve done some work on that. But you know, if you look on social media and what people report their reading, it’s always intellectual stuff. It’s you know, the Atlantic and you know, non fiction books.

Wes Moss [00:29:02]:
Danny Con, the Economist.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:29:04]:
Yeah, then, and then if you look at what actually people are actually reading, like the sales data, it’s National Inquirer and romance novels. So you know, I think people are embarrassed by their taste for those that material.

Wes Moss [00:29:16]:
Yeah. I, I don’t see how people don’t want to, want to read your two books. Everybody lies and, and don’t trust your gut. I, you know, I didn’t ask you this. Maybe it’s rhetorical but what’s your explanation around why everybody lies and do they, do they really, does everybody really lie about everything or just like a few things?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:29:33]:
I mean I think there’s part of the reason we lie is it’s not, it can help us advance. There’s a strategic element to lying. So you know, if you, if you’re on a dating site and you know, you exaggerate your income or your height or you minimize your age and you know, those can allow you to get more dates. The lie might eventually be uncovered. But if you’re, you know. Yeah, you know, a lot of lying people lie in their resume and, or shade the truth. You know, you don’t want to say nobody on their resume is like, yeah, I wasn’t a great employee there. You know, I I, it wasn’t my best work.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:30:14]:
I, I didn’t do much. I slacked off. I was on social media much of the day. Everyone lists all their, you know, grand accomplishments. I think that’s probably smart. So there is some, some, some sense in which lying makes some sense and does serve a strategic purpose. I think we also lie to ourselves a little bit. There’s, there’s a great line from George Costanza and Seinfeld’s where he said, it’s not a lie if you believe it.

Wes Moss [00:30:41]:
So is that credited to Costanza?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:30:44]:
Yeah, I think it’s Costanza line. And I think that kind of shows that there’s value in. If you, if you lie to yourself, then you’ll be more convincing to other people. So if you think of yourself, I would. You know, there are These studies that 90% of engineers think they’re above average engineers, which is, you know, only 50% can be impossible. Yeah, it’s impossible. But maybe it’s good to think you’re an above average engineer because then you’re. When you’re applying to a new job and you’re trying to impress a new potential boss, you’ll be more, you know, persuasive in your claim that you’re a great engineer rather than real, you know, more realistic assessment.

Wes Moss [00:31:27]:
Parental concerns, sons versus daughters.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:31:31]:
Oh, yeah, that’s just Google search data where parents are much more likely to ask if their son is a genius or is gifted, and they’re much more likely to ask if their daughter is overweight or unattractive. It’s, it’s much more, Much more intrigued by the intellectual potential of their sons and much more concerned about the physical appearance of their daughters.

Wes Moss [00:31:54]:
And that’s, again, that’s just, that’s seeing what people are caring about. That’s. You would never, you’d never read that in a parenting book.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:32:00]:
Well, and that might be. Parents may be lying to themselves. They may not think they might have a son and search, is my son a genius? And think if they had a daughter, they’d ask the same question. But the aggregate data says that that’s probably not true.

Wes Moss [00:32:14]:
So maybe we’ll, we’ll wrap it up here. If you were to what, in your opinion, if you were able to wave a magic wand and actually listen to your data. I’m sorry, enact or act on your data. You’re approaching retirement. You’re somebody in the, you know, you’re 60 and you’re getting ready to retire. What data would you encourage them to really look, Take a hard look. At what matters. You talked about what matters when we pick a spouse even though we don’t look at it.

Wes Moss [00:32:44]:
What matters for the 60 year old American to have an awesome retirement?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz [00:32:49]:
I would say your relationships with other people are the biggest predictor of happiness and the time you spend with other people. So put much of your energy into close friends, romantic partner and enjoying your time with them by the water. By the water.

Wes Moss [00:33:06]:
Awesome. If our time today with Seth bubbled up any questions about retirement and how you’re getting ready or preparing for retirement, our team is here throughout the week. You can find us@your wealth.com that’s why have a wonderful rest of your day.

Mallory Boggs (Disclaimer) [00:33:29]:
This is provided as a resource for informational purposes and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations. This information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. The mention of any company is provided to you for informational purposes and and as an example only, and is not to be considered investment advice or recommendation or an endorsement of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee offered that investment, return, yield or performance will be achieved. The information provided is strictly an opinion and for informational purposes only, and it is not known whether the strategies will be successful. There are many aspects and criteria that must be examined and considered before investing.

Mallory Boggs (Disclaimer) [00:34:17]:
This information is not intended to and should not form a primary basis for any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal, tax or investment advisor before making any investment, tax, estate or financial planning considerations or decisions. Investment decisions should not be made solely based on information contained herein.

Call in with your financial questions for our team to answer: 800-805-6301

Join other happy retirees on our Retire Sooner Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/retiresoonerpodcast

This information is provided to you as a resource for educational purposes and as an example only and is not to be considered investment advice or recommendation or an endorsement of any particular security.  Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee offered that investment return, yield, or performance will be achieved.  There will be periods of performance fluctuations, including periods of negative returns and periods where dividends will not be paid.  Past performance is not indicative of future results when considering any investment vehicle. The mention of any specific security should not be inferred as having been successful or responsible for any investor achieving their investment goals.  Additionally, the mention of any specific security is not to infer investment success of the security or of any portfolio.  A reader may request a list of all recommendations made by Capital Investment Advisors within the immediately preceding period of one year upon written request to Capital Investment Advisors.  It is not known whether any investor holding the mentioned securities have achieved their investment goals or experienced appreciation of their portfolio.  This information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. This information is not intended to, and should not, form a primary basis for any investment decision that you may make. Always consult your own legal, tax, or investment advisor before making any investment/tax/estate/financial planning considerations or decisions.