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A Bit of Optimism

Your Unhappy Brain Needs Some Assistance with happiness expert Mo Gawdat

A Bit of Optimism

The Optimism Company from Simon Sinek

Education, Business, Self-improvement, Careers

4.82.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2025

⏱️ 93 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Happiness is a choice. But it’s not always an easy choice to make. Mo Gawdat had to face an impossible choice. Before he was a bestselling author and podcast host, Mo worked a lucrative career as Chief Business Officer at Google X. He reached the heights of business influence and amassed a fortune by 29. And yet, he was miserable. It was only after the tragic death of his 21-year-old son Ali that Mo was forced to confront the truth. Mo now dedicates his life, work, and research to figuring out how human beings can be happier, and he’s on a mission to make 1 billion people happy. He sat down with me to share what he’s learned – that happiness is both a choice and our default setting, how to trick our brains out of survival mode, and why the happiest emotions we feel are rooted in the present, not the past or future. This…is A Bit of Optimism. To learn more about Mo and his work, check out:mogawdat.com

Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is brought to you by True Classic.

0:02.2

I wear their t-shirts and have long before they became a sponsor.

0:06.3

And it's really cool to see how their company is growing.

0:09.1

Can you share some of the things that you've learned about this happiness practice?

0:13.5

If you understand that your default setting is happy, then there is nothing you need to bring from

0:19.2

outside you to find happiness.

0:20.8

You need to remove shit to be happy.

0:23.2

And that negation strategy is quite an interesting one.

0:26.2

Oh, that's good.

0:27.0

This is so actionable.

0:28.2

I love this, which is it's the reversed of what most people do,

0:30.7

which is they make a list of the things that they think will bring them happiness.

0:33.2

But what you do is remove make the list of the things that are causing you stress and you go about removing them.

0:39.8

You remove the unhappy.

0:40.5

It's a removal process, not an ad.

0:42.3

And there is a reason for that.

0:43.3

So good.

0:45.3

Being happy is a choice.

0:48.1

But that doesn't mean it's an easy choice.

0:51.6

Mo Goudat had to face that choice under the most excruciating of circumstances.

0:57.0

After the tragic death of his 21-year-old son, Ali, Mo was forced to contemplate how being

1:02.6

happy could even be a possibility. After a meteoric and lucrative career as chief business

...

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