Welcome to the happiness

the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. When I was younger, I had the goal of running in one marathon.

I've never been a fan of long distance running,

but I wanted to run at least one marathon, so I did. It was the LA Marathon. I definitely

didn't send any records, but I'm glad I did it, though I only did it once. Once was definitely enough for me. But because the LA

marathon was such a big marathon, I think there were 20,000 people running

with me. When the race started, Muhammad Ali, remember the very famous boxer,

was standing there waving in everyone. It was really nice to see him, though I doubt

he had any idea who I was amongst those 20,000.

Well if you don't know much about Muhammad Ali, you probably know he was a

boxer and he was a really good boxer.

At one point he was the world champ.

Well, when I was in college my very first year,

I decided to try boxing.

So I took it up and learned how to box a little bit and had one fight and that was enough. I survived but barely.

Now let me paint a story that never would have happened.

Imagine when Muhammad Ali was a world champ at his peak and I had taken my few lessons at boxing

if I had gotten in a ring with him. How long do you think I would have lasted? A second?

Maybe a little longer if I could have avoided his punches, but it would have been avoidance not engaging. If I had engaged, I would have been avoidance, not engaging.

If I had engaged, I would have been toast.

I think this is very clear, mostly because he had trained and trained really well and got excellent at boxing.

And though there are different degrees of boxing level,

...