How to take control of your happiness, with Mo Gawdat

Conversations of Inspiration

Holly Tucker MBE

Education, Society & Culture, Entrepreneurship, Self-improvement, Business, Personal Journals

5.0 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2022

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mo Gawdat had it all. An illustrious 30 year career in tech, serving as the Chief Business Officer of Google X, all the money he needed and more, and was happily married with two children. However despite his many riches, he never felt completely satisfied. Fascinated by his lack of fulfilment and with his passion for technology, Mo began building an algorithm for happiness.

Then, after the sudden and devastating loss of his son Ali, Mo turned to his calculation for happiness to make it through the darkest period of his life, and soon swore to honour Ali’s death, by helping one billion people to become happier.

Now a best selling author and public speaker, Mo’s expertise on achieving happiness is captivating, as he shares his theory that we are all born with happiness as our ‘default state’, but it is the circumstances or choices we make whilst growing up that create unhappiness from within.

Mo also discusses his second area of expertise — the rise of Artificial Intelligence — and how by just 2029, the smartest being on planet earth won’t be a human. A topic that can often be difficult to comprehend, Mo explains what AI is, and most importantly why we must learn to coexist alongside it.

Discussing the art of practising gratitude, accepting grief and also revealing his secret formula of how to unlock a life that is 99% joyful, this truly is an unmissable episode, which Holly swears has already completely changed her life.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you might also enjoy Holly’s episode with Asma Khan, founder of The Darjeeling Express.

This Conversations of Inspiration podcast episode is brought to you with support from Adobe Express.

Enjoying listening to these unfiltered chats? Subscribe to Holly’s weekly newsletters on our website, where she shares small business inspiration of all kinds, exclusive nuggets of wisdom from her and her guests, plus offers, creative ideas and topical, 'ungoogleable' business advice.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Are you ready to have your mind completely blown?
0:04.4	Today I'm speaking to Mo Gaudet who is now my official life guru.
0:12.2	He's also an entrepreneur, former chief business officer of Google,
0:16.4	author, speaker and just, yeah, someone who has changed my life.
0:24.0	Get ready to listen. It's an hour and a half, but it's an hour and a half that will
0:28.5	potentially change your life for the better. It's going to make you question a lot of things
0:34.2	that you think you definitely know. It's going to potentially allow you to relax,
0:42.4	maybe even consider life and all of its ups and downs as a game, and he speaks about that
0:50.5	at the end to his letter to his younger self. It's a conversation that is going to stay with me
0:57.6	for the rest of time. Make sure you have your tissues as rather emotional in this one,
1:04.1	and you'll understand why when you listen. And Mo, if you're listening, thank you for one of
1:09.6	the most precious moments, and I will be referring back to your words, to your books,
1:16.1	and for the rest of time. Enjoy everyone.
1:19.6	I'm Holly Tucker, and welcome to Conversations of Inspiration. Back in 2006, I founded
1:33.7	Not on the High Street from my kitchen table, and since then, I've gone on to launch Holly and Co.
1:39.7	I'm the UK ambassador of creative small businesses, and I believe that having a business doing
1:45.3	what you love is the key to a happy fulfilled life. My dream is to help everybody start theirs.
1:52.4	I'm here to offer advice, inspiration, wisdom and encouragement, and in my view,
1:58.5	the best way to do this is by sharing stories. So I've reached out to my favourite small businesses,
2:05.5	entrepreneurs, and those who simply inspire me and ask them to share theirs.
2:11.5	With thanks to Adobe, who've helped bring this podcast to life?
2:15.7	Here are my Conversations of Inspiration.
	...

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