37 - Alain de Botton

Paul McKenna's Positivity Podcast

Global

Society & Culture, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 766 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2019

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We always ponder what we think the meaning of life is, but philosopher Alain de Botton has the answer to this in this week's episode of the Positivity Podcast. Alain joins Paul to talk about our ideas of love and connection, what behaviours we should adopt to gain the most out of life, and how being at one with nature can bring you a sense of calm and collectedness. He also shares what he does to keep himself positive, what it means to be human, and the importance of connection to turn a stranger into a friend. The Positivity Podcast is sees Paul McKenna interview some of the world's most interesting people. From film stars, to entrepreneurs and entertainers, you'll learn the tips and tricks that the best in the business use to stay positive. You can hear more from Alain on his YouTube Channel, The School of Life: https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel/featured Don't forget to rate and subscribe to the podcast and share your best bits from the episode online. Paul McKenna Twitter: @ImPaulMcKenna Paul McKenna Instagram: @IamPaulMcKenna

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a global, original podcast.
0:02.7	Paul McKenna's positivity podcast.
0:06.1	Hello, this is Paul McKenna, and welcome to the positivity podcast.
0:10.1	My objective is to interview the most interesting people in the world,
0:13.5	and in the next 30 minutes, get insights and even discover how it is that they do what they do,
0:18.7	what makes them unique and fascinating, their success
0:21.8	mindset, and certainly what keeps them positive.
0:27.0	My guest today is an internationally known philosopher and best-selling author. His popular
0:32.4	YouTube channel, The School of Life, which has been described as the world's classroom, is regularly
0:36.7	watched by millions of people all over the planet. I'm talking today with Alan de Botton.
0:41.7	In love, there's this very unhelpful idea that a true lover can sort of guess what's going on
0:46.7	in your mind, and they just can't. We live on a planet of seven billion idiots. There is no other
0:52.9	option for a human being other than to be an idiot.
0:55.5	And if at the end of the day you can go to sleep thinking I've made somebody's life incrementally,
1:00.1	slightly happier, that is the greatest kind of gift.
1:03.6	Often one part of the mind is trying to communicate a message to the other in a very confused way,
1:07.3	but it's trying to get a message across. If you can sit with the emotion, lie in the bath, go for a walk in nature, take a long train journey and try and decode it. It's got things to tell you.
1:16.6	Hello. Hello. Thank you so much. How would you describe what it is that you do?
1:31.0	Well, broadly speaking, together with colleagues at the School of Life, we're interested in mental wellness.
1:36.1	And so by definition, we're looking at the causes of mental unwellness.
1:40.3	One of the chief things that we promote is self-knowledge. It sounds weird, but most of us don't have easy access to the contents of our own minds.
1:48.7	We are foreigners inside our own heads, if you like.
	...

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