Investing in Happiness

Money has the unique ability to move economic value through time; money made from work done today can be used to fund spending in the future. Time and money are both finite resources that we have to make allocation decisions about on a daily basis. There is no objectively optimal way to allocate time and money, but I am going to argue that for human investors these decisions should be anchored in the objective of living a happy life, so we need to know where happiness comes from.

Timestamps:
0:00 How much is enough?
1:03 What is Happiness?
4:04 PERMA and Well-Being
6:22 Time, money, and happiness
9:48 Spending money for happiness
11:42 The Four Cs
13:13 Setting anti-goals and the Five Factors of Well-Being

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Sources in order of mention

Rational Reminder Podcast episodes mentioned:

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[BenFelixCSI]

Timestamps:
0:00 How much is enough?
1:03 What is Happiness?
4:04 PERMA and Well-Being
6:22 Time, money, and happiness
9:48 Spending money for happiness
11:42 The Four Cs
13:13 Setting anti-goals and the Five Factors of Well-Being

[oriolrodriguezigonzalez]

I think this video should deserve +100M views. It depicts life’s rules in 10min

[Azngurli]

Thank you, for not purely focusing on the investing machine, but instead on our happiness and well-being. There is definitely a need to balance the two.

[CaseyBurnsInvesting]

Real wealth is your time. If your economic activity and investment strategy is robbing you of all of your time, you are not wealthy.

[andreasb.]

the amount of quotes an research he goes through is astonishing for a 15 minutes video, nice work mate, thanks for that

[siddhantdeshmukh]

Just to summarise :
Valuing time over money,
Engaging in smaller but frequent chunks of leisure,
Finding flow,
Strong relationships,
Spending money on experiences rather than things,
Spending on other people and most importantly dont judge your future self try to live in the present.

[artifaxiom]

"...we need to know how to find a good life. Fortunately, there is a substantial body of academic literature on this topic."
Perhaps the most Ben Felix thing ever said. And I love it.

[renemulder]

I can't like this video enough. It's a fantastic description of the questions I have been asking myself after achieving my goals and setting new ones each one further and higher.

[Aktof]

I really enjoy your videos -- thank you for making them.

[crankymillennial]

Keep coming back to rewatch this every now and then, one of the best videos on YouTube

[DekarNL]

Using empirical data to tackle problems, not only for investing but life, is very satisfying and gives me a great feeling. I am doing the right things in life.

[CanadianFinanceSimplified]

Another masterpiece from a YouTuber that has actually changed my life.

[zLiNNecLan]

Congratulations Ben for offering a unique product through your videos. It’s original, unique and personal. Your ideas are very well reasoned and backed by independent research which is something rare in today’s world. I really take a lot of pleasure listening to your ideas and I can see that I’m not alone in the comment section. Each video must be a huge time commitment but what I can tell you from an audience perspective and as someone that don’t usually comment on youtube, your content is different and innovative. Thank you and continue sharing your perspectives!

Jeffery.

[danielt]

This man is a Goat. Setting anti-goals and working backwards from what you don’t want in your life is a great way to escape misery and unhappiness.

[dpinedoblog]

This video is fantastic. So much research and depth here. Thank you for this and I hope it gets the views it deserves.

[SeanSurajJeremiah]

The mention of a Five-Factor Model without the mention of Fama & French was unexpected!

[benjaminadams_]

It’s so satisfying when you discover a channel and find yourself over the course of the next couple weeks binging every video posted 🙏🙏

[orel]

Ben, thank you for this important video. It can become far too easy to focus on money management and long term goals, and forget that the real goal ultimately is happiness. Invest wisely, in yourself, and your future.

[ok]

as someone in the field of psychology, this was one of the best videos i’ve seen from a financial pov. thank you, ben.

[alankoslowski]

This episode really hits home for me. I'm getting really burned out on my job, but the pay and benefits make it difficult to leave. As a consequence, I'm more focused on retiring than the present. This reminds me that I need to consider reducing my hours or finding a more enjoyable job instead.