 Right, but what are the consequences of all those actions ultimately? Are they good for you? Are they really selfish? Not in the long term not if you think about the entire life. I'm you know I'm assuming you get the cocaine example, you know Maybe somebody will challenge me on that one But I'm assuming cocaine is bad for you for the long over the length of your life You we've got some probably a physiologist here who could who could prove that But think of the lying example, right? I like the I like I like the whole idea of lying because people associate selfishness with lying, right? Selfishness just means doing whatever it takes to get what you want which includes lying right lying is is Almost people do it all the time unfortunately, but think about whether you really get anything from lying, you know Let's take let's say Boone made off everybody. No, Boone made a fist. I mean, I'm assuming you do anybody not know But he made of basically was a I see a somebody doesn't know so Bernie made of basically had a pyramid scheme going Where he would you know, I could tell you guys I'll get you 20% return a year And you give me all your money and I basically I don't do anything with the money or I spend it Do I I just stick it in the bank and then what I do is I but but you guys want 20% right? You want the money back? So I go to another group and say I'll give you 20% a year and then they give me their money And I give it to you and you got your 20% now that group has to be bigger than your group, right? Why is that because there's to be your group plus 20%? So how am I gonna? How am I gonna pay them back? Well, I'm gonna have to find another group that's even bigger and Use their money to pay those guys back now by this point Everybody in the marketplace knows that I can give 20% returns and everybody's excited to give me their money And now money's just flooding in and I can give everybody whatever they want For a while, right until what happens? Until I run out of money run out of people to con and then I've promised them a huge amount of return Because now remember it's grown and grown and grown and I can't pay them back A bunny made up did this on the largest scale in human history. He basically ended up losing people 50 billion dollars Because I'm also spending some of this money is it's coming in right? I'm buying nice cars nice boats vacation homes doing now that all that up this other guy this Rick I think his Rick Stanford just went to jail for like life for doing a similar thing So this is happens, right? Now people say booty made up for selfish and by the way made up was unique One of the things unique about him is he actually did this with his best buddies, right? He did this to his friends Now made up was caught and has gone to jail What's interesting about the story is the people who turn made off and where his sons who were in the business with him? They they called the police, right? The other interesting aspect of it is about a year after he was arrested exactly exactly a year after he's arrested one of his sons committed suicide Nobody in this family talks to him anymore. He's sitting in jail and as miserable as you'd expect him to be in jail Bernie made off has said That he is happier in jail than he was before he was caught because cheating people sucks It destroys you it destroys your soul. It is destroys your ability to function in the world. Why? Because if our rational faculty if our minds are the tools by which we survive Lying cheating means distorting reality reality is the facts that we need so think about this You know, there's a saying in computers junk in junk out When you lie when you cheat you're feeding the machinery of your mind with junk and the junk out is usually a feeling of frustration fear guilt misery Nobody that I know nobody that I know who is who is a regular liar or cheetah has has any I odor of happiness in their life They are miserable human beings The key to happiness is staying connected to reality is making the machine that makes it possible for you to achieve What you do as efficient and as productive as possible again You guys think about making your muscles as efficient as possible, right now think of your mind as another muscle How do I make it as efficient as productive as possible? You don't do stuff that you know will rip your muscles to shreds Lying cheating rips the muscle up here to shreds You can't do it. You can't do it. You cannot gain anything from it long-term short-term Yeah, sure short-term you'll get the money and you can spend it on a nice yacht But it's gonna go just like that It's just a little bit more on on lying, you know In my age, I'm quite a bit older than you guys I find it very difficult to remember anything like what I did you asked me what I did a couple of days ago I'd really find it hard to remember what I did, right? So I find it I find it hard to remember what actually happened If I lie I now have to and this will happen all of you right as you get older You'll find it more and more difficult to remember actually what happens But if I lie about something that happened I have to remember now two different things two distinct things actually it's more than two but at least two right after I remember what happened and I have to remember my lie and I have to remember who I told what to right who I told what happened and who I told the lie to and What is likely to be happened to me given my state of lack of memory? I'm gonna trip up I'm gonna screw up and what are the consequence of that? You know the consequence of that in business is simple if you lie in business Nobody trusts you you're gonna lose you're gonna lose a lot of money in life It's the same thing try having a relationship with somebody and Establishing their relationships on lies doesn't last Lying doesn't work on top of that our brain our machinery here Likes to integrate things it likes to connect things and I've got the set of facts that really happened the set of falsehoods That I lied about my brain wants to make those two wants to connect them and Soon enough people who lie all the time can't tell the difference between what they lie and what they tell the truth It's unbelievable. It's destructive So our perception of what selfishness is Line-cheating stealing being a Wim worship are going by emotions are just wrong Those people are not selfish We need a new word Those people are self-destructive They're not self-less, but they're self-destructive. They're destroying themselves You don't want to do that. You don't want to be self-destructive. You want to be self-building self-creating You want to be happy you want to be successful to do that you have to stick to this notion of thinking Okay, now You know we could go we could talk about this topic for days. I would recommend that you guys Read there's a book called the virtue of selfishness by iron end that I would recommend It talks about these principles in more details it talks about Beyond kind of the being rational not lying not cheating what are the other principles and I'm just gonna give you a quick quick overview of some of these One of the things necessary for human happiness One of the things necessary for human happiness Is self-esteem and I know you've probably heard a lot about self-esteem and you probably at school They had self-esteem and all this stuff, but what is self-esteem? Self-esteem is a certain sense of confidence a certain sense of Ability that you have about your own life about your ability to succeed about pursuing challenges and goals Without that sense you cannot ever achieve happiness You will always undercut yourself You have to you you will never challenge yourself. You need to have the confidence in yourself to be able to challenge yourself It's a sense of all being about yourself. It's a sense that you are worthy That's what self-esteem is now where the self-esteem come from Now we're taught that self-esteem comes from getting a ribbon in school, right? And the more ribbons we give to more people the more people will have self-esteem Self-esteem comes from patting people in the back, right? No Self-esteem doesn't come from other people. Nobody can give you self-esteem Self-esteem comes from you Self-esteem comes from you setting goals and achieving them and when you achieve them patting yourself on the back Acknowledging your own success Acknowledging the fact that you've made an achievement that you've done something special That's where self-esteem comes from and self-esteem is crucial Crucial for the idea of happiness Now what activity in life do you think? Generates the most self-esteem where you're gonna get the self-esteem from where is it that you're gonna be challenged? Where is it that you're gonna be pushed? Where is it that you're gonna have this opportunity to pat yourself on the back? It's primarily Where you spend are going to spend whether you like it or not and I encourage you to like it Where are you gonna spend most of your time? Which is at work? Which is doing stuff creating stuff so I Want to I want to talk just a little bit and then I'll end about the virtues of work and having a career and taking that career seriously and Not just going to work for the sake of going to work not doing work that you don't like But finding work that you love Finding work you're passionate about and going to work because you love it and you want to do it and it's exciting to me This is the most important decision. You're making life Because the fact is that whoever you marry or whatever hobbies you have or however much weightlifting you do or everything You're gonna spend a majority of your life at work You want to make it count you want to make it good you want to make it fun you want That's not always gonna be fun, right? I mean the challenges, but you want to make it something that you are passionate about don't settle just like I Would say don't settle for a relationship. That's just there blur, right? Don't settle for a job. That's just er Find something that really excites you and then challenge yourself and push yourself and Achieve stuff and when you achieve stuff recognize the fact that you've achieved it and don't wait for your boss to recognize it I mean what external people think of you is not that important in life the most important thing in life is what you think of yourself It's a patch yourself on the shoulder go out for a nice meal celebrate Build that self-esteem Build that confidence that you can attain stuff that you can build stuff that you can make something of your own life And if you do that systematically over life if you find something that you're passionate excited about if you pursue it if you achieve stuff That's what's gonna build this sense of happiness and success and prosperity