Name: How to stop chasing status with Alain de Botton and RaQuel Hopkins | ReThinking with Adam Grant
Uploaded: 2026-01-06T16:57:05.000Z
Duration: 35 min 28 s
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Adverbs of degree

If you're going to be an elitist, please could you be an elitist about the really important things, you know, which is, is someone kind, is someone nice, is their soul open, are they thoughtful?

And maybe we can afford to pass judgment, as it were, on where people are according to this scale of values.

Raquel, I think you might be our first guest co host.

Raquel, tell me first why this bald man made the top of your list.

I think I was reading about the intellectual elite and he spoke about how knowledge is not being used in the most effective to what effective way today.

And that really caught my attention because I thought about how information and knowledge should be used or can be used, and it's to help people live better and meaningful lives.

And I think that that resonates with me when I talk about mental health in general.

And I like the whole concept of school of life and integrating wisdom back into society.

Your life's work just narrated back to you.

So, yes, I started the School of life together with colleagues many years ago and 15 more years ago, and the idea was to try and find a home for a word which sounds really strange, but wisdom in relation to many of life's challenges, chiefly in the emotional arena, could we try and capture some of the wisdom that's out there and diffuse it effectively?

So is there a particular lesson that you've found counterintuitive when trying to think about inculcating wisdom?

You know, if you embark on a relationship, let's say, and you're aware of that, the person you're with is going to be really, really imperfect.

They're going to let you down, they're going to madden you at points.

At some points you'll wish you never met them, and yet they may still be absolutely a really good person for you.

That could be a very sound basis to embark on a relationship with someone.

A lot of the reason why we suffer is we suffer twice, we suffer because things don't go our way, and then we suffer a second time because we think they should have done.

And to remove certain beliefs and the inevitability of, you know, things being wonderful can really alleviate, you know, people's sense of having been singled out for punishment.

I think so many of us are suffering inside very lonely way, thinking, what's wrong with me?

I don't see any evidence around me for the level of self doubt.

Anxiety, suffering, unkindness that I experience, what's gone wrong with my life.

And so often you just want to say to this person, welcome to the human experience.

And so we've got this notion of normality that is not normal and we suffer from it.

And we think we're the only ones when we're in fact in a vast majority.

So we're far lonelier than we ever deserve to be because we don't really know the reality of others.

Even in an age that's so hyper connected and that's so big on the transfer of information, there is still an enormous mystery about what it is to be human and an enormous editing about what a decent life will inevitably involve.

You refer to this modern myth as a lot of us believe that we deserve happiness.

And it seems, I mean, it seems like such a generous idea.

But you know, partly it's also the effort that's required to achieve it.

I mean, it's like saying everybody can play the violin.

And that's technically true, they can, but they're going to have to work very hard at it, needs to be quite lucky, et cetera.

So we underestimate the effort that's required.

Ilan, what you were describing as the suffering twice problem of, you know, things didn't go the way I wanted.

And then I'm upset also about the fact that I'm upset when I see people fall into that trap.

It just seems like a self inflicted wound.

You're taking the, whatever small amount of suffering you've encountered and then you're magnifying it and choosing to suffer.

About your past suffering, what do you do if not everything is as beautiful as, you know, it was promised?

So rage, Rage is often the result of high ideals.

And you know, if you look at the United States now, it's such a paradoxical country, wildly successful in all sorts of ways in all sorts of areas, and also widely rageful and full of disappointment and pockets of anger and fury that are sometimes hard for others to understand.

I think they are part and parcel of the same thing.

If you tell people everybody has the right to happiness, it's beautiful.

But boy, oh boy, you can have some trouble on Your hands as well.

I mean, happiness is something that lasts for 15 minutes.

Beyond that, you've got the next problem on your hands.

The statement rage is the result of high ideals is very powerful, as I think about it.

I think you're saying it's not the ideals themselves, but it's the gap between the ideals and reality that causes the reaction.

And is the reaction rage or is it outrage?

Outrage at somebody else's rage and rage at your own ideals being trampled upon.

But high emotion as opposed to, you know, adaptive strategies.

I mean, let's hear it for an unusual word, melancholy.

It's one of my favorite words, melancholy.

Melancholy is situated somewhere between, you know, happiness and tragedy.

You know, it's like, I'm aware that life's got a lot of suffering in it, but I can smile as well.

I've certainly, you know, and No1Over40 is going to escape that, or at least that possibility.

Yeah, so one of the big questions is, what are you going to do with your grief?

How do we mourn properly when things go wrong?

When you say melancholy, I can't help but think of Lincoln, who was probably the most famous, quote, unquote, victim of it.

And it was clearly, if you read his journal entries, it was very unpleasant for him.

He did not enjoy the state of melancholy, but he did extraordinary things for his country and the world.

And I can only imagine if, you know, if Lincoln was.

Raquel, pathologizing, as you describe his melancholy and spending several hours a day in therapy, that might have inhibited his ability to be of service as he was.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How to stop chasing status with Alain de Botton and RaQuel Hopkins | ReThinking with Adam Grant

anxiety

mindset

sophisticated

mental