00:00:00.320Hi everybody, this is Ghat Saad. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to read for you a passage from my 2023 book, The Sad Truth About Happiness.
00:00:12.420And in one of the earlier chapters, I talk about the two life decisions that are going to either impart great happiness or great misery upon you,
00:00:21.020depending on whether you make the right choices, and that's choosing the right spouse and choosing the right job or profession.
00:00:27.420and so in the section where i talk about uh you know choosing the the right spouse i have a section
00:00:34.520titled how i met my wife and i'd like to read it for you because something recently happened that
00:00:40.080even makes that story infinitely more magical so get ready i met my wife nearly 23 years ago now
00:00:48.02026 years ago through the magic of life's serendipity i was at the gym doing some weight
00:00:53.240training when an individual greeted me with a hey professor another gentleman within earshot asked if
00:00:59.980I was truly a professor and if so in what field he told me that he was the founder and CEO of a
00:01:05.560direct marketing firm and was looking for business related in-house education for his executives he
00:01:11.560asked if I would develop a six-week course covering topics like advertising decision making
00:01:16.700consumer behavior and so on we came to an agreement and shortly thereafter I arrived at his company's
00:01:23.220headquarters. A beautiful woman with a radiant smile met me at the elevator and asked if I was
00:01:29.420Professor Saad, and then she led me to the room where my seminars would be held. The second or
00:01:36.420third week of the course, I was stricken with a nasty bout of bronchitis. During a break, the
00:01:40.720woman who had greeted me at the elevator and who was one of my students, executive students in that
00:01:46.220course, brought me a cup of hot tea. Now, I thought she was not only beautiful, but caring and
00:01:51.640consider it now why am i reading you that story itself is incredible in that it really is the
00:01:57.480serendipity of life you somebody says hello to me hey professor someone else hears that he turns out
00:02:02.920to be the owner of a company he invites me to do some in-house executive education the woman who
00:02:08.700greets me at that elevator door turns out to eventually be my future wife well recently we
00:02:16.060went to the u.s consulate in montreal for our final process to receive our uh you know uh visa
00:02:27.160to the united states and the exact place where the consulate was is exactly literally the same
00:02:36.900elevator you get up i mean it was configured differently but it's the exact same place
00:02:42.060where my wife and I met it was no longer a marketing company it was now the U.S. consulate
00:02:48.000unbelievable so we started our lives together there and now we're starting a new life together