What Do Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Joe Rogan Have in Common？ (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_762)
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Summary
What do Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Joe Rogan have in common? Is there a singular trait that makes them similar to each other? And if so, what is that trait? And what is it called?
Transcript
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Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for coming. I always think that I'm going to prep these,
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you know, promote them way ahead of time, but I always operate on sort of the impulse
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of whenever the spirit moves me to decide to do something. So today I wanted to talk
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about the title of my spaces is, What do Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Joe Rogan have in
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common? And actually, I wish there was a way for me to look at what you guys might be writing here,
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but maybe in the, I guess there is a chat here that I can look at, but I'm afraid to touch anything
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and screw things up. So I'm not going to touch anything. Maybe in the thread, you can guess
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what is the single word that I might use that is similar to those three. I mean, you could say,
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obviously, oh, they're all male. You could say they're all rich, but obviously that's not what
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I mean. So what is there, if there is a singular trait or a set of traits that make them similar
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to each other, what might that trait be? And here, before I get going, I want to discuss something
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from multivariate statistics, which exactly addresses this type of question. So suppose,
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for example, you're a politician, and you can break up the world into those who voted for you
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and those who didn't vote for you. And so now you'd like to identify what are the predictors
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that discriminate between those who said yes to you and those who didn't. Or think about if you're a
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company. There are people who never tried your product. There are people who periodically try your
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product. And there are people who are very much brand loyal to you. And so there are three types
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of consumers. And you'd like to identify what are the predictors that can help you predict into which
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camp each of the consumers would fall into. The never tried your product, sometimes try your product,
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or always have your product. So the multivariate statistical technique that achieves that is called
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discriminant analysis. And it is a very, very powerful statistical technique that occurs not only in
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marketing and economics, but in political theory and any place where you need to find predictors that
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help you discriminate between membership in two groups. Now, in this case, I'm looking for a single
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trait that might help us predict whether you will belong in the Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Joe Rogan
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book or camp. And so here, rather than saying what it is, and then sort of just explaining it, I'm going
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to read for you and you're going to get it once I read this section from my happiness book, you're
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obviously going to understand what that word is. By the way, if you if you want to guess what that word is,
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what that trait is, please write it in the thread of where I announced just to see how many people
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actually guess it. So it's just one word. What is the singular trait that makes Elon Musk, Donald
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Trump, and Joe Rogan similar? And it may not be a a the only trait, but it's certainly I think one that
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clearly predicts a lot of their success. So for example, you might say, oh, they're all intelligent,
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or they all went to university, but although they didn't, right? Joe, I don't think he finished
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university. So what is that singular trait? So now I'm going to read for you from page 169
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of my happiness book, The Sad Truth About Happiness. So bear with me. I think it's a fun read. So it'll be
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about maybe four pages. And then I'll come and say more about it. But I think it's worth reading
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that. Okay, last chance to lock in your guests about what the the trait is. Because once I read
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the the the the heading of that section, you will know what it is. All right, you ready? This is I'm
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going to give you five seconds. Five, four, three, two, one. All right. So here's what the title of the
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section is authenticity as protection against existential threat. So now I'm reading straight
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from my book at the bottom of 169. Because truth and freedom are the two driving ideals of my life,
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there are few personal traits that I despise more than inauthenticity. Inauthentic people embody
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falsehoods and tell many lies. And this violates my love for truth. An authentic person has only one
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script to remember the one that corresponds to his true self. And thus, he can live freely and
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honestly. When I watch Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris in their public lives, I'm struck by the
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extent to which they exude an aura of falsity. Boy, was that ever prophetic. Because I mean, I this book
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came out well before Kamala, you know, was running for president. So let me read that sentence again.
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When I watch Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris in their public lives, I am struck by the extent to
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which they exude an aura of falsity. There is nothing natural about them. Everything is strained,
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fake, and phony. This is sinister on multiple levels. It signals to the world that the fraudster
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is unsure about her real self. And as such, she must constantly construct a new personhood
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for the situation at hand. Now, this, I'm not reading now. I'm adding my own commentary now. I'll go back
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to reading the thing. Think about the accents that Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton use. How
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cringeworthy it is when, you know, they suddenly become a Southern Baptist. Suddenly, they become a,
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you know, Martin Luther King. Then they become, yeah, man, bomba plot. Yes, that's true champion,
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Jamaica, right? Suddenly, they become Rastafari. Then they become, you know, whatever, all the
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different, you know, morning is cometh or whatever Baptist bullshit she does when she goes to, I think,
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Detroit, right? That's falsity, right? Now, look at Donald Trump. Whether you like him or don't like
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him, he's exactly the same guy. He's speaking at a black function. He speaks the same. He's speaking
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in front of rich hedge fund guys, white guys. He's the same. He speaks in front of Hispanics. He's
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the same. Why? Because he just presents himself to the world and says, this is who I am. Some people
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will like it. Some people won't. But everyone should love the fact that he's authentic. All right,
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let's go on. Oh, I actually mentioned that here. So who would, who could forget the false
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accents that Hillary Clinton would affect as a function of the audience that she was addressing
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or the cackling of Kamala Harris whenever she asked an uncomfortable, she's asked an uncomfortable
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question or her infamously bizarre interaction with children, some of whom were child actors
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about the wonders of space research. She advised them that one could see the craters of the moon
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with their own eyes. Wow. So I can see the moon, the stars and the sun simply by looking up at the
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sky and staring at these cosmic realities with my own eyes. Wondrous. I would much rather interact
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with an authentic person whose character traits I might find disagreeable, like Donald Trump,
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than an inauthentic person who reeks of duplicity, but is otherwise, quote, nice, like Kamala Harris.
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Remember, I wrote this well before this election happened, right? Authentic people are honest with
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themselves and with those around them. They navigate the world with a honey badger's, quote,
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I don't give a fuck attitude. Authentic people never equivocate on their positions to please or
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placate the crowd. Instead, they tell it like it is whilst being unconcerned about how others might view
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them. Authentic people are confident in part because they are honest. They are comfortable in their own skin
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because they do not desire to dissimulate. They do not pretend to be someone other than themselves.
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Under pressure, they do not assume the fetal position or prevaricate. They do not sit on the
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fence when a decision has to be made. They do what they think is right, work to achieve a good result,
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and accept that they have agency to shape their own lives. Hence, they are much more likely to be happy
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individuals. A central feature of personal authenticity is realness or genuineness. One
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is real if there is a congruency between one's internal feelings and overt behaviors, even if such
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genuineness yields negative personal or social outcomes. While being real can at times carry
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negative consequences, this form of personal authenticity is associated with greater psychological
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health and well-being across a broad range of measures. Being authentic is negatively correlated
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with neuroticism and depression, but positively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness.
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If you are true to your personhood, you minimize the chances of future regret, for you have removed
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any incongruency between your internal thoughts and feelings and your external actions. It is perhaps not
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surprising then that authenticity is correlated with life satisfaction and well-being.
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So now look at the clip. Now I'll go back to reading from the book, but now I'm just going to make a few
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comments. If you saw the clip that just came out of Kamala Harris, I could only get to, I think,
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two minutes and four seconds. I think the full clip was about nine minutes. I just couldn't stomach it
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anymore. So if anybody has been able to beat my record of two minutes and four seconds, kudos to
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you. It's unbelievable, right? You can see how she's an empty shell of a person. That's why she couldn't
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do Joe Rogan, right? Because to go on Joe Rogan, if you're inauthentic, boy, it's going to come out in
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five seconds because you're sitting there. Your soul is exposed. He's going to bring up a million
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things. If you can't, you know, present your authentic self, it's going to take three seconds
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for everything to fall apart. That's why she wasn't able to do it. On the other hand, Trump, I mean,
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I'm not saying that Trump is a mixture of Darwin, Newton, and Epictetus, but he's authentic. You want
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to talk about football? He will. You want to talk about how beautiful women are? Okay, let's talk
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about that. He's a real human being. Whether you like him or not, that's not the point. He's authentic,
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okay? So I'll come back to the similarities, how each, you know, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Joe
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Rogan are authentic in their own ways when I finish reading this section. So I'm continuing now. I'm on
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page 171 of The Sad Truth About Happiness. Please consider buying it. It's really, truly,
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a super fun, I mean, and of course, deep book. Many philosophers have written about the concept
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of personal authenticity, including Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul
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Sartre. But perhaps the best advice comes from the ancient Greek adage, know thyself. Students often
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seek my advice about their career paths. Often they think in terms of market opportunities. Quote,
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Professor Saad, should I study big data analytics? I hear the market is hot for this expertise. Close
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quote. As a business school professor, I fully appreciate the importance of identifying and
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exploiting untapped market niches. But this cannot be the sole means by which one makes crucial
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educational and career decisions. If you wish to live an existentially authentic life, you must look
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within and ask which career path is best aligned with your true self. Failure to engage in this
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calculus is what leads us, is what leads to regret later in life. Market conditions might suggest
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that it is a good idea to become a chartered accountant. But if your main interest in life
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is art and architecture, then you might regret spending 40 years as a tax accountant, notwithstanding
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the fact that some accountants are true, quote, artists and their ability to skirt the tax code
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legally. When we study regret, we often see that it lies in the discrepancy between one's actual self,
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tax accountant, and ideal self, architect, or between one's actual self and odd self, a feeling
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that one should be better, more honest, more kindly. It turns out that the most frequent regrets
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correspond to discrepancies between a person's actual and ideal self. The smaller the discrepancy
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between your actual and ideal self, the more existentially happy you will be. Being genuine
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can lead to professional success. I have hosted hundreds of guests on my show The Sad Truth, with
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the great majority of whom are highly accomplished individuals. They come from a broad range of
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backgrounds, jobs, and professions, and they are radically different from one another in countless
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ways. And yet, the common thread is that they all have interesting things to say, and I'm lucky
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enough to be the host who can orchestrate a fascinating dialogue. I have been successful in
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this role because I am an authentic person. Being authentic serves as a disarming quality because it
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immediately puts the other person at ease. The guests can relax and know that they need not be on
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psychological guard, for their interlocutor is genuine. Of all my guests, few have been as
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beguilingly charming as the journalist and attorney, Megan Kelly. During our chat, we were discussing
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things that we might have regretted in our lives. To her credit, she stated that there were few if
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any things that she regretted because any experience she had, even if it ended badly, allowed her to
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grow as an individual. Fair enough. I then proceeded to share my regret that my career has been hampered
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by an inability to compromise my professional principles, actions, or speech for careerist reasons.
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She replied that my open and frank manner is precisely what made me attractive to so many
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people. In other words, rather than regretting any elements of my authentic self, I should embrace them
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for they have brought me great rewards. Since we are both no-nonsense honey badgers, it is perhaps not
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surprising that she would appreciate those uncompromising qualities in me.
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I'll stop here for now. I mean, this section goes on. It's really good. I hope that you'll read the
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whole thing, but I mean, you get the general idea. Look, there are two elements of authenticity. There's
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sort of existential authenticity, right? Live a life that is authentic. Don't become a pediatrician
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because your mom and dad thought that you should become a pediatrician because you will end up having
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a midlife crisis when you look back and say, I never wanted to be a physician and certainly be
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surrounded by kids with colds. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a, whatever, a film critic.
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So that's, that, that deals with existential authenticity. But here I'm talking about personal
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authenticity. And so now let me come back to the title of today's X Spaces, which is Elon Musk,
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Donald Trump, and Joe Rogan are incredibly authentic, right? Now, I've never had the pleasure of meeting
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Donald Trump. Although next week I am going to Mar-a-Lago. So we'll see what happens. I've been
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invited to a make education great event, a great again event. So that, that should be fun. Maybe we'll
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get a chance to hang out. We'll see. But I have met Joe many, many times. I've been on his show many
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times, I think 10 times now. We've had a chance to, you know, talk both online and offline. And I mean,
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he's just, he's exactly the guy you would think he is. There's no pretense. There's no falsity. There's
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no nonsense. You, you get exactly what, what you expect. And one of the reasons why I think I've been
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able to, to build the audience that I have is, you know, I'm authentic, right? I don't modulate. I
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don't bullshit. I don't, there's no fakeness in me. There's no falsity. And in my conversation with
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Megan that I just read to you, you know, I was like, oh, you know, I wish I played the game better
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so that at least, and, but then I realized that she's exactly right. I can't play the game because
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if I, if I played the falsity game, if I modulated, then I wouldn't have been Gadsad. That's,
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that's what, for better or worse, that's what people find, uh, allows them to trust me because
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they know I'm going to tell it like it is. And so, uh, you know, I'm happy that I am who I am.
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I know that at the end of the night, when I put my head on the pillow, if I feel like I was in any
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way inauthentic, I'd feel as though I'm fraudulent. And that's something that I couldn't live with.
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Now, I've also had a pleasure of meeting Elon. I went to his house. We spent almost four hours
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together. What was amazing is I'm sitting here and I'm meeting, you know, the richest man
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arguably in the history of the world. I don't think there's ever been someone who's wealthier,
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right? He could be, he could have been arrogant, dismissive, so none of that, zero. The way we
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started communicating even before we, you know, we, we, we met and so on. It's very natural,
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zero pretense, zero obnoxiousness, zero signaling. He doesn't have to signal, right? So he presents
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himself as he is. I present my, the conversation that we had for, you know, it was, I think I got
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to his house maybe around 10 o'clock at night and left very, very late. And I mean, we talked
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professional stuff. We talked very intimate, personal stuff. And this was the first time we
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were meeting in person. We had communicated before, as you know, we had done an X basis together.
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We had emailed each other, we had texted and so on. But it's as if two people who already
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had a history with each other are able to sit down. Now, why is that? What, what allowed
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that to happen? There's no protocol. There's no falsity. There's no signaling. It's just,
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I mean, literally, I remember I got there and just like, we literally hugged it out, sat next
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to each other and just engage in this absolutely brilliant conversation, right? That's why Elon
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Musk is who he is. I mean, of course, he's a visionary. Of course, he's got testicular fortitude.
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Of course, he doesn't care what people think. He'll do what he thinks is right. What, what
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will, you know, what, what is the right thing to do? Of course, he's got all those qualities
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and traits, but he's authentic. Now, I've met a million academics who are a thousand times less
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accomplished than, than Elon. And I can't stomach to even sit with them at dinner. Why? Because
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they reek of falsity. They reek of trying, of insecurity, trying to signal which paper they
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just published in what journal and so on and so forth, right? You meet Joe Rogan, he's just
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a lovely guy. You sit down and you're both real and you just get along. You meet Elon,
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same thing. Now, Donald Trump, I haven't had a chance to meet him, but I suspect that, you
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know, that's why he resonates with people. Even though he's a billionaire, right? All of
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the working class people say, wait a second, I, I see myself in this guy. He doesn't talk
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down to me. He doesn't think I'm a pleb or a rube or garbage or deplorable or the great
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unwashed. He's just authentic, right? And so, of course, he's a honey badger. Look at all the
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things that were thrown at him. So, so Joe Rogan, Elon, and Donald Trump are all honey badgers. They
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all have great courage. I mean, Donald Trump gets shot in the head and the first thing he's saying
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is fight, fight, fight. I mean, that's going to go as an iconic historic moment. But today, I'm just
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focusing on authenticity. I spoke to Trump's team before he, you know, before the election and
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we had talked about him coming on my show and they had said, yeah, we're very interested in having
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come on your show. But then, of course, they, you know, they ran out of time and they've got a million
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things that they're doing. And of course, once he had gone on Joe Rogan, then I can understand
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pragmatically why they might say, okay, well, we, we, we hit now the biggest show. We, you know,
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we don't need to do necessarily other ones. Of course, I was disappointed that we didn't get a
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chance to, to chat, but I understood the, you know, there's a calculus, there's, there's a limited time.
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But when I was communicating with one of his advisors and he had said to me, you know, so what,
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what would be the angle? How would you want to do this? What I pitched to him is exactly
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of relevance to what we're talking about today, which is, I said, look, I think that a lot of
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the people who dislike Donald Trump, dislike him for cosmetic reasons, dislike him for
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peripheral cues, right? Like the, the thing that I've always explained, getting drunk by smelling
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the cork of the wine bottle. Oh, I hate Donald Trump. He's vulgar. He's cantankerous. He's brash.
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But I said, if, if I think you give him a chance to sit down on a long form, you know, platform,
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like I had seen him on Greg Gutfeld. Uh, and I can't remember the other one. I saw him in one
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other place. Uh, then you'll see, like, as long as he's not sucking up all the air in the room,
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then you'll see that he, you know, he can roll with it. He, he's, he's funny. He can be actually
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self-deprecating in a, in a Trumpian way. And I think that a lot of people who otherwise might not
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like him for those affective reasons will come around. And if I may say, I think that's exactly
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what happened when he went on Joe Rogan's show, right? Because all of the people who would have
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been, uh, you know, on the, on the fence, listen to this guy who goes on for three hours. Joe doesn't
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allow, you know, here are the questions you could ask and here are the things you can ask me or not
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say, so you have to come ready to expose yourself fully expose your soul because in a three hour
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conversation, a lot is going to come out. And certainly if, if there is falsity, it's going to
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come out and it didn't come out because he was authentic. And I bet you that that had, I mean, I
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can't say quantitatively how much effect it had on the final result, but I bet a lot of people who
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were on the fence said, wait a second. And I've been, I've been sold a, a, a, a bad, uh, bill of
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goods. I think this guy's cool. I think this guy is fun. I think this guy, yeah, he's a rare, irreverent.
00:23:20.680
Yes. He could be a bit full of himself, but I think I could, I might want to have a beer with this
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guy. I'm going for this guy. Now imagine what happened to Kamala Harris. She reeks of falsity
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because there's no personhood. She can't present a real, a self because there is no self. She's
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empty. She's vacuous. So, you know, for all of their other qualities, right? That trait of being
00:23:49.280
authentic, my God, it is so powerful. And, you know, one of the things that I remember when I was,
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you know, in elementary school and in high school, you know, how they, they'd always be clicks,
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right? You know, there's, you know, this exit in high school, this, this door, this is where we
00:24:10.360
used to call them the stoners, right? The guys, you know, who smoke up, right? Uh, or the, the rockers.
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And this group is where the, the jocks hang, hang out. And this, this area is where the, the nerds hang
00:24:21.800
out. Well, guess what? I could navigate across all of those groups and I was appreciated and liked and
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had friends amongst all of these groups. I wasn't cliquish. Why? Because I was authentic. I was
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friendly to everybody. I was nice to everybody. I never demeaned anyone. I mean, yes, I was very good
00:24:44.060
in school so I can hang out with the nerds. I was the king of the nerds in that sense. I was the big
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soccer player. So of course the, the athlete types respected me, but irrespective of what,
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whichever talents you may or may not have, the fact that you just presented yourself in a poised,
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authentic manner makes people attracted to you. And so now, of course, the next question is, can,
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can this is, you know, the old nature versus nurture question, you know, are people, uh, largely
00:25:17.880
born authentic or can you teach authenticity? Well, like most things in life, I think, you know,
00:25:26.740
there's an interaction, there's a bit of both, but, uh, and so I think there is a nature element
00:25:34.100
whereby just some people are much more confident, have a better sense of self-esteem, have well-articulated
00:25:41.720
positions so they can present themselves to the world authentically. But I do think that there are
00:25:46.400
possibly ways by which, you know, you can't take, you can't take Kamala Harris and suddenly make her go
00:25:54.180
through, you know, three weeks of seminars with Professor Gadsad and she'll come out as the most
00:26:00.480
authentic person. I mean, you can't do that. But within the margins, I think you could, it's kind of
00:26:05.960
like a radio dial, right? The radio dial is set somewhere, but you could move it a bit to the left
00:26:10.780
or to the right. Just like when you think about, say, you know, how do you score on introversion or
00:26:16.300
extroversion? Well, there are innate differences. I may score higher on extroversion and you may score
00:26:23.760
higher on introversion, but it also interacts with situations. There might be situations that you place
00:26:29.440
me in where just the dynamics of the situation, you know, forces me to be a bit more, uh, introverted
00:26:36.660
and others. And so nothing is absolutely cast in stone when it comes to, you know, these, these
00:26:43.120
personal qualities and personal traits. So there you have it, folks. Uh, I mean, what, what, what brought
00:26:50.320
this up for me was when I saw today, um, that, you know, that clip with, uh, with Kamala, it just,
00:26:58.880
and what amazes me is the lack of self-awareness. I mean, not just of her,
00:27:06.660
her, her lack of self-awareness, but she must have people who are advising her who thought,
00:27:12.900
you know what, release this clip. And this is going to be a good thing. You know, I always tell
00:27:18.540
people for any, you know, behavioral pattern we engage in, let's say I'm trying to lose weight this
00:27:24.880
week. Uh, you know, at the end of the week, based on the decisions that I've made in terms of my food
00:27:32.440
and exercise, only one of three things can happen to my weight, right? We can all agree on that.
00:27:36.060
There's, there's only three possibilities. My weight either goes up, my weight does not change
00:27:41.700
one milli ounce, or my weight goes down. There's no other possibility, right? And so for every action,
00:27:49.180
I could say, well, what is the probability that that action will result in state one,
00:27:55.180
state two, or state three? And so when, when she's releasing that clip, who is saying,
00:28:02.160
yes, yes, yes, do this. Demonstrate that you're somewhat drunk, you're, you're, you're, you're
00:28:09.180
engaging in this complete, you know, woke, platitudinous language. You know, you all have power. I believe in
00:28:17.980
you. Don't let anybody tell you, you don't have power. You have a, I mean, stuff that's so
00:28:24.220
inauthentic. So, it just rings so fast that you really feel like uncomfortable listening to it.
00:28:31.180
But because the people that she's around have existed in this completely parallel universe,
00:28:39.160
they're unable to do the auto correction that says, hey, wait a sec, wait a second. This,
00:28:44.540
I don't think this is going to go as well as, you know, you think it might go. So, there you have
00:28:51.600
it, folks. To the best of your abilities, always be authentic, always be. Now, by the way, again,
00:28:57.600
let me just mention this. Authentic doesn't mean that you never necessarily bite your tongue,
00:29:05.880
right? Remember, I've talked in the past about consequential versus deontological ethics,
00:29:13.240
right? And deontological ethics is absolute statements, right? It is never okay to lie.
00:29:18.080
That would be deontological. Consequentials would be, it's okay to lie if I spare someone's feelings.
00:29:24.480
So, if I go to a dinner with a host and they presented me with food that absolutely sucked,
00:29:33.400
that was just an affront to the dignity of hospitality, and they say, so, did you enjoy your
00:29:39.440
food? I'm not going to go, oh, well, dear so-and-so, this is arguably the shittiest dinner I've ever had
00:29:46.400
in my life, and you absolutely are a degenerate when it comes to your ability to be a hospitable
00:29:53.840
host, right? I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say, oh, thank you. That was really lovely. It was
00:29:58.000
nice meeting you now. Was I not telling the full absolute truth? Yes, of course, but that's,
00:30:04.360
it's natural. We're a social species. We want to protect the feelings of someone else. We have to
00:30:10.520
be gracious. We have to be poised. So, being authentic doesn't mean that you are a brash brute
00:30:19.340
that just, you know, you're a bull in a china shop. It means that the way that you present yourself to
00:30:25.720
the world, it just has a realness to it, right? You know, my daughter can tell if something is
00:30:34.640
bothering me. It's as if she has like an x-ray machine. She could read any micro cue on my face.
00:30:43.320
She'll come up to me and say, well, what's bothering you, Dad? I say, oh, nothing. She goes,
00:30:46.800
I can tell what's bothering you. Well, that's because I wear my emotions on my sleeve. You know
00:30:52.640
exactly if I'm happy. You know if I'm concerned about something. You know, I don't, I'm just
00:30:58.380
authentic in every possible way in my personal life. If I'm interacting with my Belgian shepherds,
00:31:04.320
if I'm interacting on Joe Rogan or with Elon Musk, it doesn't matter. I'm lecturing. I always present
00:31:11.380
myself to the world as is, and hopefully people will appreciate it. So, there you go, people. The
00:31:17.140
virtues of authenticity. Certainly, the ancient Greeks knew all about it. I wish you all a great
00:31:23.020
day. Thank you so much for joining me on short notice. If you wish to support in any way, you can
00:31:28.220
sign up for my exclusive content. So, for example, I might decide now to go and put links to papers on
00:31:35.560
authenticity, academic papers. You'll only get that if you sign up for the equivalent of the price of a
00:31:42.060
latte per month. Thank you so much, folks, and I'll talk to you soon. Cheers, everybody.