Dr. Paul Zak - Full Episode

===

[00:00:00]

soleil-rain_2_09-06-2024_142132: Hi Adam,

adam-manilla_1_09-06-2024_132133: Hey, Soleil.

_1_08-08-2024_161639: Hi, Jenny,

jenny_1_08-08-2024_181638: Hello.

Soleil: Hi, Linda.

Linda Melone: How are you, Soleil?

Soleil: Hi, Erika.

Erika Manilla: Hello.

video1817824343: Hi, Eddie. How are you doing today? I'm doing good. And you

Speaker 3: Hey there. Welcome to the Sweat Strategy and Success podcast.

This is the go-to resource for anybody wanting to become the best version of themselves, both personally and professionally.

Speaker 3: I'm sole rain a marketer and passionate storyteller,

and my mission is to share the untapped stories of brilliant minds, shaping business, embracing creativity, and living up to their highest potential. Originally, I started this podcast to improve my storytelling skills and shared the incredible stories I was finding with others.

And the longer I've created this and the more I have loved sharing these stories with you all, I have decided to turn on ads as it supports me and my dream to continue to bring you inspiring stories and actionable strategies for cultivating a healthier, more fulfilling lifestyle. If you enjoy these episodes and you really wanna find a way to help me on this endeavor, please follow this podcast on your favorite podcast [00:01:00] listening platform.

Give it a rating and share this with your friends and family. Thanks for listening, and let's get into it.

Speaker 5: I spent a lot of time throughout the week creating content, and before I started using Descript, I would spend hours of time making the smallest adjustments to make sure it all looks smooth.

Now, Descript does all of that hard work for me. Descript is an AI powered, fully featured, end to end video editor That allows you to edit your videos like you would a Word document. It creates short form clips, removes filler words, and makes your audio sound like you were inside a professional studio.

Download Descript today by using the link in the description of this episode to get started.

Just one more quick note before we get started. At some points during the episode, you may realize that my voice has a small echo to it. I didn't realize that there was an issue with the microphone and unfortunately until after we recorded, but this is still a wonderful episode. I'm super excited for you to learn from Dr.

Paul's, [00:02:00] Zach and his work on oxytocin. So go ahead, listen, sorry in advance, but it's going to be a wonderful episode and let's get into it.

Soleil: Dr. Paul Zak is a pioneering neuroscientist, author, and entrepreneur who has spent over two decades uncovering how the brain drives trust, happiness, and human connection. Known for discovering Oxytocin's role in empathy and morality. Paul has applied neuroscience to everything from startups, to storytelling and to leadership and love.

He has even been called Dr. Love. His latest work with Immersion and the six apps shows how tracking high value emotional moments can help us thrive, turning brain science into a daily

Paul Zak: group

Soleil: blueprint for a happier life. Dr. Paul Zak, thank you so much for joining me. I wanna dive straight into who you are and what you're all about.

So before you became the oxytocin guy, what kind of kid were you?

Paul Zak: you? Oh, that's a good [00:03:00] question. I would say very curious. Um, I had three sisters and no brothers, and so my father and I, who's an engineer, would spend time in the garage just building stuff. And, uh, he worked at uc, Santa Barbara, and he would, I would go into his lab and he'd just show me how to use a machine and say, you can't break it, just play with it.

So, um, I think I had this great gift of curiosity that was nurtured by my parents. Um, and I have a lot of energy, so I don't need to sleep much and I can just, I like doing lots. I love being busy and just getting stuff done.

Soleil: That's great. I am the opposite. So I have five brothers and no sisters, and I know for a fact that that has turned me into the person that I am today. What has having three sisters taught you about life?

Paul Zak: I, I'm great with women, honestly, like even in high school and the boys are like, oh my God, I can't talk to, I'm like, it's just a girl I can spend my whole life around girls and solay. I have the gift of being a girl dad, so I got two girl children at [00:04:00] home

Soleil: Awesome.

Paul Zak: So it's my blessing and my curse to spend my life around females.

Soleil: Wonderful. Well, my, my blessing is that I can be rambunctious and exciting and I can do all the stuff that my brothers can do. I can throw my elbows around if I need to, and my

Paul Zak: my

Soleil: curse is also probably that I can throw my elbows around if I, if I have to, which means I have been put in that situation before.

Paul Zak: Uh.

Soleil: Yeah. Uhhuh, was there anything that pulled you toward understanding the human brain and behavior as a kid?

Paul Zak: That's a great question. I think a martian and so I'm always trying to figure out what the humans are doing. I think they're totally fascinating species. You've seen the humans, they are really weird, right? Like I've worked with monkeys and I've worked with rats, but humans are really complicated. Um, there's this saying that all research is me search. So it could be that I [00:05:00] studied social behaviors 'cause my own shortcomings, uh, someone else have to fill that in. But I really love the humans. I'd love to study them and maybe it's my way of trying to understand myself, but I certainly applied all the science I did to myself and I think I've become a better human because of the insights I've had into these workings of the human social emotional system.

Soleil: Yeah, that's great. And you know, the, the work that we do so often intertwines with how we view ourselves and what our own personal story is. And that's why I love talking about these questions when, when we first, you know, start off this podcast because it gives insight and it helps people connect right to who you are and what is in their own personal story that they can connect to.

And I know when it comes to, you know, learning about the brain and learning about behavior and wanting to look at it, you know, from a, from a, what did you say? Me search point of view. That's what I love about this [00:06:00] podcast is it's kind of like a me search kind of thing too. You know, I'm here, I'm learning about you, and I'm hoping that this can go into other people and that they can kind of do their own research by, by listening to this podcast.

And I'm, I'm curious about, you know. The first time you felt the rush of discovering something truly new about human nature within your me search.

Paul Zak: Um, I have so many, uh, examples, but I really, uh, as an undergraduate at San Diego State University, um, I was putting myself through school. I had, my parents had no money, so I got a research job, uh, working with a mathematical biologist and, and.

Okay. we're doing mathematics and we discovered something about a class of mathematics that nobody cares about now that has to do with e coli growth, the way you e coli grow and divide. was developed by a famous mathematician named, um, oiler in like the 1750s and we were using this thing and then we developed some theorems and it was like a total rush [00:07:00] to go Oler, who's one of the top five mathematicians that ever lived.

Like he can only figure out part of how these. This mathematics works. And we actually extended that a little bit and ended up publishing it. And like, holy crap, like, like that's a, a, you know, a finding that will always exist in the world because it's a theorem. It's un under these conditions. It's always true, useful. And that really got me hooked on doing research. Like, oh, this is really interesting. I mean, I think for humans, you know, the oxytocin work, which was very risky. Um, no one was doing this in the late nineties. No one did. oxytocin, like many neurochemicals, they work in the brain, also work in the peripheral nervous system. Oxytocin comes from Greek for fast birth. It contracts the uterus to push out babies, uh, in mammals and facilitates milk, milk flow, um, for breastfeeding. Uh, no one looked at the brain effects of oxytocin in humans. They had looked at it in animals by drilling holes in people's brain, well, animals', brains.

I [00:08:00] just knew. about the humans that drilling a hole into your skull to measure oxytocin was just not gonna work. So because of my curiosity, I thought, well, I can develop some kind of protocol to measure acute brain oxytocin release in humans that doesn't involve drills and won't hurt people. Too much involves needles. But um, you know, you have, once you develop a tool, you can ask a lot of interesting questions. So I think the work I've done has been successful for two reasons. One, I'm curious and I'm happy to be wrong. I'd love being when you're wrong, you learn something and we kill lots of projects that are just don't work out. and I think I've also been really good at building teams in retrospect. So my lab, all the people who've gone through my lab have been, most of 'em have been just amazing. And my company immersion neuroscience, I'm sort of good at picking the people who are gonna compliment what I'm doing. So everything I've said, so partially I. I never did any of that by myself. It was all other than maybe that [00:09:00] theorem I mentioned. But, um, you know, um, all that was done in a team with amazing team members who make me look good as the team leader. But honestly, lots and lots of people helped out.

Soleil: I would love to dive a little bit deeper about your, you know, the discovery of what you have coined the moral molecule, and you kind of started talking a little bit about it in there, but what made you at first curious about the moral molecule?

Paul Zak: Yeah. Uh, boy, now I have to get on the couch. You're a good therapist. Um, I think, you know, is one of the deep questions in human beings. I'm gonna give you the dishonest answer first, then I'll give you the honest answer.

Soleil: Wonderful.

Paul Zak: answer is. The book of Genesis, good and evil Can and Abel, I mean, the good and evil question is a really deep question and bad behavior. It turns out it's very easy to study. You can induce bad behavior in a lab or observe it. We see it all the time. What about good behavior? What about people who, I was at the grocery store yesterday and [00:10:00] I returned my shopping cart and I saw someone just leave their cart in the middle, like blocking a parking spot.

And I'm like, that's not, that's not good behavior. There's not that much parking. Just put your fricking cart away. I didn't say anything. 'cause you know, whatever, I don't want to have a fight with some dude. But I was just thinking like, that's kind of bad behavior. But we see a lot of good behavior when no one's looking. People help each other out. The source of, that's really interesting. And um, that kind of led to many, many research studies. So that's the dishonest answer. You want the honest answer?

Soleil: Hmm. Yes.

Paul Zak: Uh, a lot of is driven by my mom. So my mother, before she was my mother was a Catholic nun. She quit being a nun because the convent she was in was too liberal for her in 1955 when they could only talk one hour a day.

And you know, like it was so extreme. So instead she started to, you know, quit, meet a guy, have some kids, and then experiment on her own children on this very [00:11:00] black and white view of good and bad. because she was the mom and she theology, you know, she was the absolute ruler, and I just rejected that.

I think there's a lot of gray space. every culture in the world agrees that murder is wrong, but there are exceptions. Soldiers at war can kill other soldiers. That's morally acceptable. We, we as a society or most societies agree on that. You can't kill civilians or you try to avoid killing civilians, right? That's not morally acceptable. Um, so I. That's, those are gray spaces, right? Um, if you were trying to murder my children or steal my children, I'm gonna hurt you and I might kill you. Completely acceptable. Everyone understands that. That's basically biology. I mean, it's not even a legal issue. So I think we have to be, have a much more nuanced view human nature.

And if, if I've learned anything in 25 years of running experiments on humans [00:12:00] and studying their brain activity, it's that humans are gonna be inconsistent, right? So we have good days and bad days for reasons we don't even understand. You're tired, you are hungry, your feet hurt. burns a ton of bandwidth in your brain that away from being kind, being generous, being grateful. and so I don't expect people around me be consistent. I like them not to be evil, but people are gonna be inconsistent. The people who, who work in my company, they're gonna have some bad days. They're gonna be cranky with me sometimes. They're not bad people, having bad days and they don't know they're having a bad day because their brain's just adapting to their environment. So we see this with patients with dementia. We see this in psychiatric patients whom I've worked with a lot and see become really, really tolerant. Like, Hey, there's a guy with a bad brain, schizophrenia, or he hasn't slept, or, um, it's okay. And, and by the way, my brain's gonna be bad if I haven't slept or, or [00:13:00] I have, I haven't eaten in 15 hours or whatever that is. Um, so people around me should be tolerant of me and I won't always be perfect. It's okay. perfect. It makes life interesting.

Soleil: That's true. And so after your childhood. Being told that the world is more black and white. You decided to dive even deeper into that, and you started researching oxytocin. Could you tell me more about the journey of when you decided to start researching that and the research that you have done? I.

Paul Zak: Yeah, so in, in many laboratories, you run multiple research programs at once. 'cause some stuff doesn't work out or you lose funding or whatever. And so I was also doing research as I started looking at why people behave nicely with each other. I was also doing research on parental investments in children. So we know that, outcomes are largely [00:14:00] driven by how much energy their parents, you know, put into raising them. Give them love, give them food, give them opportunities. so why does that vary? What's, what's the source of that? So I've been working on that for a while, um, to explain you different, different outcome levels. Um, of children and I was on going to a conference up near Tahoe on a shuttle bus to some, you know, ski resort in the summer. 'cause it's cheap 'cause academics have no money. I was sitting next to an anthropologist named Helen Fisher, became a dear friend and recently passed away and I missed her terribly. there was a bunch of mountain bikers and me and Helen. And so I could, I didn't know her at the time, but I could, she was dressed nice. I could, like, you must be going to my conference again, talking to people, right? So just reaching out. And so we started chatting and I told her what I was working on and she goes, oh, have you heard of Oxytocin?

No, never heard of it. It wasn't in my area of stuff I studied. [00:15:00] um, she goes, oh, that, that's this infant. The investments in children and mammals, um, is, uh, OC is kinda this motivator. when you hear a a, you know, an infant cry. Um, mothers will release oxytocin. It motivates them to care for 'em. Like, oh, that's interesting. But I'd also been working on things like trust and cooperation, and I immediately saw from the animal literature, 'cause there was no human literature, oh, here's the, the mechanism I've been looking for, to understand why you would ever trust a stranger in a tangible way. Why you would cooperate when you could screw someone over. what we found in that work, just to summarize it, is that have a very strong default behavior to trust other people and to cooperate with other people. And I think that's one of the secrets to our success as a species, is that you can plot me in wherever, put me in an office building with a bunch people we never met, we'll just all get along.

We're like, oh, we're okay this week we're working on this project together, so I'm gonna be coming to your office for the next five [00:16:00] days. Cool. My name's Paul and whatever, or I, I mentioned, um, in our earlier segment, I'm gonna Africa a couple months. I've been in Africa a couple times, so I don't, I don't know the people I'm going to.

I don't, you know, I don't know anything. They probably speak a different language. Some of them probably speak English. And so yeah, I'm gonna be in Uganda for 10 days. How's that gonna work? It doesn't work for our closest genetic relatives like chimpanzees. You, you take two chimps from different troops when together they will kill each other. But we don't do that. So we have a different mechanism. And so by searching the oxytocin was that mechanism, and it turned out to be a big part of that cooperative impulse. Um, I think it really had a profound impact on how we understand human nature. There's famous saying that nature is right in tooth and claw, right?

We'll, we should just get all the resources and steal from other people. People almost never do that. They return their shopping carts even though they don't have to. [00:17:00] It's expected, it's a nice thing to do. It makes society work better. And so what is that? Mechanism that tells us that. So in many experiments we run, you can be, no one's even looking.

You can be bad as you want, and people still are really nice to each other. That's weird to me. Again, if red is tooth and claw, red is tooth and claw, why would you not? When there's, we do experiments a lot of times with money to quantify the degree of trust or cooperation. There's money on the table and you can either take it or share it to the other person. Almost everybody will share it, and the people who

Soleil: Hmm.

Paul Zak: share it are very interesting too. And that's worth knowing.

Soleil: Yeah.

Paul Zak: If

Soleil: have done some studies around what you just mentioned, money, putting it on a table and sharing it with others. Would you mind going over that study that you had done where you had asked people to dub of their money and give it to the next person?

Paul Zak: Yeah, so actually it's, it's not on the table and we never let you

Soleil: I.

Paul Zak: at that other person. It's not by computer because there's so much good behavior actually in [00:18:00] these kinda laboratory studies and we've done it now in the field, lots of places as well, that we actually have exchanged by computer.

Don't let people talk to, it's hard for me to be really mean to you if I'm looking at you or talk, even if I don't know you. It's just, uh, we have long memories and we talk to each other. So I'm like, if I did something bad to ULA and you know, you tell your friends, oh, that Paul's, that guy's awful. You should avoid, you know, so much reasons why we're nice. Yeah, so we, we, we borrow this protocol from a Nobel Price winner in economics named Vernon Smith. His, his lab developed, uh, to quantify trust and trustworthiness. And the way it works is you, um, are recruited for this experiment. You get $10 for showing up. see these computer stations, they have partitions.

No one can see what you're doing. You have a secret number to hide your identity, then everyone gets the same instruction. There's zero deception. Um, I think that people have to deceive, people in experiments have small brains. I'm interested in decision making as a way to [00:19:00] quantify the varieties of the human experience.

I don't wanna confuse you or lie to you. That just seems wrong from a science perspective, and I think ethically wrong. So we never lie to people. Um, anyway, uh, so they all get the same instructions. They can ask questions, and here's the task. One of those people in the, in the, sorry. Sorry. You pair with another people in the lab.

Person in the lab. You don't know who that person is. You can't see them, you can't talk to them, and you're gonna make a single decision. Each says, Hey, you're matched with another person in the lab. You all have the same instructions. You all have $10. One of you two gets randomly chosen to be the first decision maker. That person gets a prompt by computer saying your decision maker won. You can take some of your $10 and ship it to the other person you've been matched to. Again, you can't see or talk to the other person. Whatever comes outta your account gets tripled in the other person's account. I. And then when you do that, make that decision, the other person, uh, gets a prompt saying, guy one sent you, let's say $15.

He sent, he took five out of his account. It tripled in your account to be 15. [00:20:00] like we ran these original experiments at UCLA and we found that people could not add 15 plus 10 ' cause, you know, UCLA students. so then we reminded them, we changed the software to say, guy one sent you $15. You, you have $10 already in your account, so you have $25.

Do you wanna send some amount back to that first person? Whatever you send back comes outta your account. One to one is not tripled again. And so what Verna Smith showed is that that first transfer from person one to person two is a measure of trust. It's not, it's not altruism. I'm just saying, Hey dude, you understand the rules of this exchange? I'm signaling to you, I'm trusting that you're going to. Do the right thing because the pie's gonna grow and you're gonna share some of that JE back with me. then guy two is a measure that the amount he or she returns is a measure of trustworthiness, right? Like, Hey, you trusted me. You don't know me, but you're really nice to me.

Gave me this big gift. I'm gonna send some amount back to you. And so it's a way to quantify trust trustworthiness. So [00:21:00] to make it even more compelling in my experiments, I'm taking blood from people before and after they make their decisions. So they're literally making decisions with blood money. What we found was that if you're a decision maker to the more money you receive, the more your brain release oxytocin, and the more oxytocin you release, the more money you reciprocated back to guy one, even though you could keep it all right?

And the standard view in experimental economics is that I call this caveman economics. Me, like money me, keep money. Money good, right? But almost nobody does that. And so now we found this brain mechanism that explains why. Even though in general money is good, so is cooperation why we would do this. And then lastly, just to finish that point, we measured, uh, nine other neurochemicals besides oxytocin because nothing in the brain works, uh, independently.

And we looked at interactive effects and none of those had an effect. But oxytocin, that, how do we know for sure that it causes this? We developed a protocol to shoot oxytocin, stic oxytocin into the people's [00:22:00] brains safely, the nose. It'll get into your brain so we can hit you with a bunch of oxytocin and then rerun that experiment.

And sure enough, we can cause people to be more trusting, uh, in that case.

Soleil: Wow. That's so interesting. And I remember you talking about this in one of your previous talks and something that I found so interesting that you talked about when in regards to trust, is that you found that it isn't just personal, but it can actually also predict national prosperity.

Paul Zak: Can

Soleil: Can you explain what makes a high trust society thrive?

Paul Zak: Right. So we think about a bunch of humans and they're gonna have frictions because they're having bad days or they have bad personalities. Um, like your brother Ben, who's such a jerk, I don't even know making this up now. Um, but some people just are, are disagreeable or whatever.

So there's obviously always frictions. And so what we found is in societies in which trust is high, it's like a lubricant. So once I have less friction between the [00:23:00] humans, the humans do what humans want to do, which is cooperate and trade with each other. When you have trade, you create wealth. Right.

There's a always a surplus from trade. You're winning and I'm winning. And if that company makes profit, then I'm generating wealth in that economy. So we found that what's called generalized trust, the, the likelihood that two randomly chosen people in the country would trust each other, is among the strongest predictors social scientists have ever found to explain why countries are rich or poor. think, for example, these very high trust countries like the Nordic countries, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, extremely high trust, they've been rich for almost a thousand years. First of all, it's cold. You gotta, you really gotta cooperate when it's cold. And you know, you may not have food, you gotta store food over the winter and all that. ethically, um, homogeneous. Uh, they have high incomes. Uh, they speak the same language. They, by and large have the same, at least default religion, even though a lot of Europeans are not that religious. So they're, they're very homogeneous [00:24:00] on multiple dimensions. So it's easier for me to trust someone who looks like me, talks like me, 'cause I probably know people like them, or I'm probably related to them. So I have an appointment in medical school in Denmark, so every other year I go there for about a month. you've been to Denmark, there's like four last names, right? There's almost no immigration and they're all cousins. So, yeah. Is it, is it hard to trust your cousin? No. Sure It's my cousin. If he screws me over, well, I know someone that knows him.

One degree of separation for everybody in Denmark, honestly. So if I'm in a more diverse country like or like, um, Argentina or um, Nigeria where we've done field research, you have whole different, uh, communities that are largely separate from each other. And so generalized trust, the ability to trade with lots of people and create wealth is reduced in these countries because you have more in-group trust.

I'm just gonna trade with, with the people I know, but I'm not gonna trade outside in general because the government, uh, ability to, to enforce contracts is also very weak in a lot of these [00:25:00] developing countries.

Soleil: I am interested in, into how Oxy, the work that you did with Oxy, oxytocin, and Truss had led into the work that you're doing now with six

Paul Zak: So there's a little story there too, if I may.

Soleil: Yes, please.

Paul Zak: So, um, you're much too young. But, uh, there was this event in 2001 called nine 11. Uh, I was traveling that day. It was brutal.

I mean, I wasn't on one of those planes obviously, but it was very stressful day. And so it was kind of all hands, hands on deck. The US was being attacked I started 10 days after nine 11, I was in DC and I started doing work, uh, with the Department of Defense help identify, uh, terrorist threats. And so for many, many years, my lab funded in various ways to help out with the War on terror. one of the things that we did was to, or we were tasked to, or we are contracted to identify. Combinations of brain [00:26:00] signals that would accurately and consistently predict what people would do after a message. the idea was to equip soldiers with this new superpower called persuasion, right? We can, first of all, let's try to use words for than weapons before we, you know, get people, figure out that people are not cooperating with us, number one and number two, um, it's just, it's scalable, right?

If I can be on Voice of America radio or send out pamphlets or emails and say, Hey, you know, tell us where the bad guys are and we'll come take 'em out of your village and we'll leave and you'll be happy. And you'll be safe. That's a much better approach than sending in, you know, a hundred Marines with guns blazing and putting people's lives at risk who are innocent. So what we found was, and we had obviously had a hypothesis about oxytocin might be part of this, uh, network that allows us to persuade other people. And that persuasion on storytelling. It's based on conveying information a way that says that it's important. not talking in a monotone, having [00:27:00] energy, being excited. So essentially allowed us to find this network, which I've called immersion, which accounts is how the brain values social emotional experiences and high value experiences are acted on and remembered. So it's like the brain goes, holy crap, uh, iPods the best thing since like, oh my gosh, I gotta buy 'em, right?

It's that kind of energetic ability to influence others. And again, for listeners, influence is what social creatures do. Stop. Full stop. Ants are social. They influence their other, the other ants, they use pheromones. These are social, they influence others. do it largely with language and, and paralinguistic things.

I'm losing my hands. I'm the tone of my voice changes, right? It's not just the words I'm saying, it's how I'm saying it. So, um. Once we found this network in the brain of called immersion, you have so many interesting questions to ask. do 80% of movies lose money? For the past 30 years we've [00:28:00] been making movies for over a hundred years.

How do we not know that? I don't know. The next Marvel movie is just gonna be a dog. do filmmakers not know that was 'cause they're guessing, they're using their well-refined intuition, but they don't actually know the response to the audience. Well, we can now measure that. Um, why do most, um, by some estimates, 90% of advertising has no effect on sales, 90%. And yet these big ad agencies, um, you know, charge a lot of money to make these ads. So some of the largest ad agencies now use our technology to actually measure and improve content they're creating. Not to manipulate people, you can say no, they're, you're not under any duress to buy Huggies, particularly if you have, don't have an infinite home. But if you're gonna talk about Huggies, you might as well convey it in the most effective way, right? Like. Why be a dous? So anyway, um, and then that led us right into, um, measuring, um, what people do to thrive

Soleil: and

was this [00:29:00] work that you did for six before or after you started jumping out of planes and drawing blood at weddings and going to Puff Guinea and all this work?

Paul Zak: work so you're leaning to a much deeper question, which is the hell's wrong with you?

Um, so, um, by personality and by training, I'm a skeptic about everything, right? Science is about skepticism and you don't believe anything till it's been replicated many times by other people. so as I started running these experiments in my laboratory, um, I really gotta worry that this would not generalize.

So I'm using convenient. Study subjects, which are primarily students. Sometimes we got, you know, free roaming adults. and then I started getting, you know, I got kind of famous and I got invited to run these crazy field experiments, like what's happening at a wedding, like why do people cry? What do we even have weddings?

So that seems like oxytocin might be involved. And it [00:30:00] was, I was asked to, uh, participate in a show on human evolution by N-H-K-T-V in Japan. And we went like, what is the least developed area on the planet? we went to the rainforest of Papua New Guinea where you have these isolated tribes of individuals and there snow, running water, no electricity.

And I really want to know what's happening when they work together jointly. Is it, is there an oxytocin story there? And again, it's not oxytocin alone, but largely it's an oxytocin story. So we're measuring other things as well because again, in, in the, in my village in Papua New Guinea, not necessarily no running water, no electricity, no bathrooms. Most of these people had never been to a doctor or dentist before. So we brought in generators. There's a lot electricity I brought in generators to, to run centrifuge and took their blood before and after they had ceremonies. the term of bar for this is ecologically valid experiments. Um, I really want to know whether what I was finding in the lab translated into, you know, IRL in real life. [00:31:00] Um, and some experiments you only run on yourself like jumping outta an airplane. Well, I did that for a TV show, but it, it's such a good gig. I've done it, uh, five times now and taken my blood before and after.

Soleil: awesome.

Paul Zak: But you can't, I can't force anyone else to do that because it's, it's

Soleil: Yes.

Paul Zak: wrong. But I'm like, oh yeah, that's, and I have a, I'm a tall person, so I have a fear of heights because, uh, moderate fear of heights.

'cause my center of gravity is real high. So I'm unstable. So interestingly for listeners, perhaps. My brain adapted. Um, first of all, I love skydiving now. It's so much fun. And my fear of heights went away at, I don't know, age 45, the first time I went skydiving. And I have so much fun now going skydiving.

And I've done this for TV a bunch of times, uh, as well. And you know, I take my blood all the time myself because we have to test assays and people think it's gross. But anyway, there for listeners, you can Google my name and skydive and some videos will come up. Um, anyway, you

Soleil: That's great.

Paul Zak: sticking a needle in my arm, but I do that all the time anyway, so it's no big deal.

But now I think, you know, with wearable technologies, once, once they talk about ecological validity, know, I can only measure [00:32:00] oxytocin and is related neurochemicals before and after with a blood draw. Great for field studies, but it only gives me before and after measure. So we worked really hard starting around 2012 or so to develop wearable technology so I can measure these effects in the brain continuously without poking people with needles, even though I do enjoy that.

Soleil: Yeah. Yeah. Tell me more about that. Tell me, I would love to dive deeper into the work that you did in order to make it wearable, because I think the, the piece.

Paul Zak: piece

Soleil: Of the work that you've done that is so intriguing to me right now is being able to measure, um, these high value moments that we'll talk about a little bit later on the podcast and how that can, you know, make you a happier person.

Can I say happier? Is that the right, right word here? Um, but I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into how you were able to translate the work that you were doing by first drawing blood before and after, into being able to measure it on a wearable [00:33:00] technology.

Paul Zak: Yeah, it's a multi-step method, so at least in my lab, uh, we really like to start with blood because it's very concrete.

Either there was a change in oxytocin or a change in cortisol, or there wasn't. And and does that change associated with a, with the behavior we're trying to understand? So neuro chemicals are changing all the time, and some of that's just random crapola. Doesn't relate to what, what the behavior that we're trying to understand. So with this work with the Department of Defense and, and other agencies, you know, with maybe with three letters, um, we had to make something that was field deployable by soldiers. And so when we know where the neurochemicals are, we know where the receptors for those live, both in the brain, but also in the peripheral nervous system. So we can optimize using, you know, a hundred thousand dollars machines picking up data up to a thousand times a second coming outta your brain. So cool. So lots of data really becomes a data science problem. And then we basically winnowed down, starting with about 140 different signals, um, that we measured, [00:34:00] windowed those down and then, uh, into ones that predicted behaviors that we were interested in, like influence. And then lastly took those signals, those native. frequency neurologic signals and can involve them in a way to make a new measure of called immersion that is a sort of a summary measure and, and is designed to very accurately predict outcomes. So this immersion network in the brain we can use to predict individual and population behaviors consistently with over 90% accuracy. Whether a movie makes money, whether an ad, uh, sells more cars, whether, um, remember a lesson that you had in school. I mean, it's very, very accurate because again, what is valued is what is done. And so by having this valuation network, you can do that. Okay? Finally, you have a hundred thousand machines, I still don't have ecological validity I'm a skeptic, in a lab.

These are expensive machines. We ship 'em around the country and run studies. But what about real humans? So were experimenting with wearables like [00:35:00] smart watches and fitness wearables for a lot of years, 20 years ago. Not very good compared to a medical grade machine. this Apple watch that I'm wearing. the, um, heart rate more than 0.9, almost perfect correlation with a medical grade electrocardiogram. I mean, it's a really good

Soleil: Wow.

Paul Zak: and, and the whoop is very good and so is Samsung Galaxy a lot less of really good devices. So because I'm a prediction guy, like, oh, let's write software that lets us pull data from the brain's output file the cranial nerves. And then if I take a time series of heart rate, I actually can transform that into this immersion network, which is living driven primarily by dopamine and oxytocin. Lots of too much information there, but in general, shockingly, your brain's connected to a body and we ran studies using pharmaceuticals and this trace out the pathways from the subtle changes in the cranial nerves to this network in the brain.

And so we know causally that when we see this [00:36:00] big spike in this network of called immersion, that that organism really values that experience. And if you have enough of those high value experiences, you're really thriving, you're growing, and yet consciously, we're not aware of this, so we need technology.

Soleil: Hmm. Was there any moment at this time of discovering, you know, the, not discovering the transition of these, doing these big machines to the wearables that shook your confidence in your work? Or did it ever strengthen your clarity around it?

Paul Zak: What a great science question. Um, every day I am vacillating from depression to euphoria because the only way you make progress probably in anything, but certainly in science is to try new things.

And a lot of us fail, we tried a ton of stuff that didn't work, um, and it's really depressing or something [00:37:00] that works and it stops working or we find a bug in the software or, One of the most exciting things that we've done in the last five years is take this high frequency, one second frequency data that we're collecting over, weeks or months, and use, uh, machine learning models to pull out the non-linearities in these data. And then we have published research that show that this immersion data stream can identify not only your mood and your energy, with 99% accuracy. do that with around 90% accuracy, two days. So two days from now, if I have your data, if I'm on data on you, I can tell you in two days if you'd be happy or sad.

If you have high energy or low energy. That's wild. You don't even know that, right? Without the technology, you wouldn't be able to know. So think about how valuable that is in terms of planning your day or looking at people who have consistently very low mood and energy. We call that [00:38:00] depression. So now we have a, a, a preventive indicator of depression that never existed before. Um, all from your neurophysiology. So I think the, the vistas are wide open. Um, I wanna retire solei. I am tired, but I can't now. I'm on a mission to bring, um, our ability to measure and help people cure their lives for greater happiness to the entire world. I, I have modest goals in my life. I want a billion people to use our free app in the next three years. So,

Soleil: modest.

Paul Zak: let's just. a goal. It's six. High value moment today is gonna be different for every person. And let's have a language to talk about mental health in a non-car way. And I never use the word mental health. I talk about emotional fitness, mental health. Sounds like I'm sick, I'm, I'm wacko.

Something's wrong with me. But we can build up our emotional fitness just like we build up our physical fitness. We have a simple free tool to do it. And I don't care if we make money under it or not, to be honest. I just want people to be able to understand themselves [00:39:00] and those around them. You can share your data with people you trust, other people.

So now I can see if your brother really likes you or not, uh, when he is with you. And you know, I can sort of think about how to be a better human essentially.

Soleil: we've talked about all this science behind oxytocin and the work that you've done and trust and how it's all kind of led up to this moment of you creating six and these emotional, um, these value, these high value moments throughout your day. And we talk specifically about how to do this in the exclusive episode of the podcast, but in.

Your work that you're doing right now, if you had advice for people who want to live more, like live happier lives and more valuable lives via what you know about oxytocin and the work that you're doing with six, what advice would you give to them?

Paul Zak: I think it's very simple. Invest in relationships. So re recent research out of Oxford University showed that about 50% of people's happiness is due to [00:40:00] having a rich social network. That's interesting, but not useful at all. What does rich mean? It's not defined, with six, the brain is evaluating the richness, the value of these experiences by having a piece of technology that says, oh, these are the richest relationships you have, and you can invest more in them. So it's just like, um, anything you do, you know, you, you have to invest to get a return. And so to have your dear friends, your family members, um, who really, truly care about you, um, you have to sustain that relationship. You have to do nice things for them. You can't just take, take, take. You've gotta give as well.

Soleil: Yeah. I know you also said that a simple way to boost oxytocin as well as through a hug. Is that correct?

Paul Zak: Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, there's some urban myth about 20 seconds. No, a short hug is, is great. for [00:41:00] people who are lonely. Dogs are fabulous. We br dogs to be like perfect humans. So. Petting a dog.

We've done research on dogs and cats, by the way. And, you know, find some of that's online as well. Uh, we did a show for the BBC on which pet is better and you can guess the

Soleil: Oh, no.

Paul Zak: Um, and so, yeah, so you know, if, because the brain's adaptive, if you have a dog, you're petting that dog, you have a relationship with that dog, which is normal.

And it can help people who are lonely or people in the autism spectrum to, to build up those brain, uh, abilities to now connect a little better to people. So I moved recently, you know, I moved near you in San Diego recently. I mean, I didn't move because you were here. I, we just met. But, um, we both live in the San Diego County area and I have a dog.

And so I walk my dog twice a day, like a normal human. And I met every one of my neighbors, you know, within a month. I knew everybody's name. 'cause everyone wants to talk to a guy with a dog, right? So,

Soleil: Yeah.

Paul Zak: and, and of course the dog was a great companion. So anyway, there's a lot of hacks you can do. [00:42:00] That's a little bit, not quite as much.

Soleil: Yeah, I was recently listening to another podcast as well. If it isn't something, if it, if it isn't obvious that it's something that I'm interested in. But I was listening to another podcast the other day. Um. On a podcast, it's called Ologies. Have you ever heard of Ologies before? Oh, it's a wonderful podcast that talks about all the different kinds of science ologies, essentially.

But

Paul Zak: But

Soleil: one was talking about why it's important for people to have hobbies, um, and the science around, you know, having a hobby and why it's important for medical professionals nowadays to not just talk about, oh, if you are depressed, you need SSRIs. If that's like the

Paul Zak: right

Soleil: thing that you have access to, then yeah, maybe you should get put onto an SSRI.

But maybe there's some things that we can do before that, right? And so this person was talking about. Joining an [00:43:00] art class, getting out into your community, just doing things that have brought you joy and things that have, you know, you can go back as a kid. Like what did, what brought you joy as a kid and how can you apply that to your life today to have more joyful experiences and that directly correlates to the work that you're doing.

And the reason why I really wanna share this with people is because if you can find the things that are important and fulfilling to you throughout the day, you're going to be a happier person. Not just like, it's not woo woo, it's science, it's you are, you know, you're a neuroscientist who has discovered directly the oxytocin is doing this for people.

And so I'm just curious about your thoughts about our healthcare right now and how people can live healthier lives so they don't have to be going into the doctor all the time and they can live, you know, more fulfilling lives essentially.

Paul Zak: Well, I a hundred percent agree with you, Solay. So it's so [00:44:00] nice when we work with veterans and first responders, um, it's not, let's, about cops. Cops. If you've ever been with cops, it's gonna be boring, boring, boring. Wow. Something crazy happening. Boring, boring, boring, boring, right? So they're gonna get some key moments because those key moments may not be happy. They may be someone shooting at you or you're chasing a car, but they're valuable that you have to be on. So your brain's gonna get turned on. And, and it is good for you to, as we said, to have those challenges. But when I work with them, I always say, you've gotta make sure you're getting key moments outside of work, You, you, as you said, you need some kind of advocation. You need to be able to give energy to your family, to your friends. So all of the activities you mentioned to joining our class, they're all social. So now I'm a cop, but I really like, um, painting. So I joined a painting class, And what do I do? I get to hang out, not talk about cop stuff, just talk about my life. I make some friends and it's super important. And the [00:45:00] interesting thing is that any stage of life, you can build new and strong friendships. So since my kids now are at college, I have finally, for the first time in 24 years, I have time to actually have hobbies. it was weird because my children used to be my hobby, and now I'm like this great group of guy friends and we do crazy stuff on the weekends and get dirty and have fun out in the hills.

And you know, it's just like we have so much fun together. These guys have become really good friends in the last, you know, five years because we've done so many things together. So. Um, talk about investing in relationships. I'm totally with you. The SSRI is the cheap way. But find something you love doing. How do you know? We'll, sample things. So you don't necessarily need the six half. I mean, that'll help you as well. But, you know, sign up, take golf lessons, take tennis lessons, take those are all social, right? So you join a tennis [00:46:00] club, take a couple lessons from the pro, and then you find some people that like to play tennis, and now you got a normal tennis date.

And then what happens after your tennis date? Well, we're gonna play in the morning. Let's go. So when I train with my friends out in the mountains, we get up like four in the morning, we go train up in the mountains, then we go to Starbucks, we have coffee, we talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And then, you know, I spend six hours with these guys and for me. For everybody. But for me, I like getting dirty, but also under stress, you build stronger relationships. So if we're doing hard work training in the mountains, people get hurt. Sometimes you gotta count on other people, you've gotta have, you know, people have been, been hurt, you know, not really badly, but recently, badly.

So I gotta depend on these. I, I can't hike out now this my ankle. I need someone to help me. And so, you know, having that dependence on someone else and see them perform well under, um, under stress, um, is pretty amazing. So I, yeah, I, I've been injured a couple times and my buddies are [00:47:00] there. And luckily most of my friends are physicians, so, you know, they're I'm picking the right friends. But yeah, I, I got

Soleil: Yeah, you.

Paul Zak: Yeah, you are, I don't know, I don't know. A couple years ago I got injured pretty badly and um, yeah, these guys are like, right there, got me help and I, I recovered and I was able to get out. But, you know, it was, it was. for a bit. So then you, you know, I really appreciate them and hopefully I've reciprocated in some way.

So investing in relationships, but yeah, let's Six is a preclinical solution. It shows you the things you love doing, do more of those things. It tells you the people that give you the most value, hang out with them more, right? So I think it's a great way to avoid those depressive symptoms. Um, and in our published research, as I said, we can identify depressive symptoms with 98% accuracy. So great. What do I do with that? Well, the app will tell you, even if you only had one key moment a day or two, just keep doing those things, do more of those things. If, if your brain loves them and it helps you [00:48:00] improve your mood, do those things.

Soleil: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And we talked

Paul Zak: about this like

Soleil: just very quickly before this podcast has started, but the effects of people, especially my age, but you know, all of everybody alive right now, essentially just being on their phones all day, you know? And that social isolation that happens when you're on your phone all day.

And I don't know if you've done research around, I. The effects of, you know, those high, like those high value moments throughout your day. Um, but I doubt they happen very often when you're sitting on your phone.

Paul Zak: you know, solay, this is what's beautiful about research is that our guests about something that's happening is different than what's really happening.

So I'm with you. I believed that we did this research pre COVID, by the way, on I. Video conferencing on tweeting, literally tweeting out texts, right? [00:49:00] we find that people get between 50 and 80% of the immersion for online interactions as in person, even if they're online in asynchronous, like tweeting.

Soleil: Wow, that's so

Paul Zak: that surprising? So I'd like to say social media bad. Stay

Soleil: Yeah.

Paul Zak: But if you think of the same thing, like something that should we reveal our secret solei to the, to the listening audience? You and I are both terrible movie criers. So yes,

Soleil: Yes.

Paul Zak: neurologically, that's super weird, right? Like you're in a movie, you're cognitively intact, you know, these are paid actors, you know, it's a fictional story.

But at the end of the movie, when the boy dies or the dog dies or whatever, people cry.

Soleil: Mm-hmm.

Paul Zak: sensitive we are to social information. So whether that social information comes from a movie, from this kind of video conference we're having from your phone, it's actually not that bad. gonna see if I got a key moment from you.

Not yet today.

Soleil: God darn it.

Paul Zak: you after all. Uh, [00:50:00] but you know, this, this is not as good as I person. Imagine if we're in person,

Soleil: Mm-hmm.

Paul Zak: you a hug some favors for hugging people. We would chitchat more. We'd have a cup of coffee, right? It's, it's a different experience. It even from a neuroscience perspective, I'm getting so many more signals in my brain about you.

I'm getting smell, I'm getting touch, I'm getting, um, uh, you know, the way you're moving. I'm getting so much more information. So it's just more bandwidth hitting the brain. More likely to have a key moment. So, person, yes, better, you know, FaceTime, beautiful conferencing not a bad substitute.

Soleil: Yeah. Uh, well that's, that's wonderful to hear too, especially for people who do experience social isolation, um, especially during COVID and stuff like that. I mean, that's a great example of when people were feeling very socially isolated, and it's wonderful to hear that we can still have those key moments by reaching out to people who we love, even if it is over FaceTime

Paul Zak: FaceTime.

And I'm, I'm

Soleil: it's a [00:51:00] wonder

Paul Zak: I'm getting a key moment talking to you. It's, it's awesome. Right? I was teasing you.

Soleil: good.

Paul Zak: Yeah. So I'm an introvert. I think you're an extrovert. I'm an introvert. Um, I have to work a little harder to generate those key moments because it's not so natural for me to just connect to people.

So I just. Again, take my own research seriously. So I just focused on talking to people. I went grocery shopping yesterday and at Walmart. And a checkout person, right? Not the checkout person. The person who checks your receipt against your, your cart.

Soleil: Oh yes.

Paul Zak: Poor woman was having the worst, I dunno what was happening with her.

She was just frowning. She didn't say anything to me. I, and I was just trying to make her happy. And I'm like, oh, all of my stuff is stolen. You should check it. not a sm That's funny. Come

Soleil: Hello? I.

Paul Zak: I just, I just actually travel yesterday, so I was actually dressed nicely. I wasn't wearing crappy clothes like I am now.

But no smile. And I said, relax, life is fun. Just, just enjoy yourself. Try to have fun today. And this poor girl was just having a bad day. I don't [00:52:00] know why. Um, but you know, I wouldn't have done that before I'd done this research. Like, I'm just gonna have fun and play with people and have a nice time. And if I make 'em happy, awesome.

If I don't, I still amuse myself. So that's okay too.

Soleil: Yeah. It almost sounds like a theme that we can take away from this whole experience is to just like not be so serious all the time, you know, and to enjoy the experience with others. Is it, does that sound like a, does that resonate with you?

Paul Zak: Yeah. Don't take things so seriously.

It's not that big of a deal. You know, we're on this side of the earth, we're only here for about whatever, 80 or 90 years. Um, I'm trying to enjoy as much as possible. Yeah. I think people get stressed out. I agree. But thriving is about leaning into those challenges and going, Hey, car broke down the freeway.

That sucks. All right. gonna help me. This is gonna be interesting. And have I have a crazy story. Right. So, um, you know, you didn't die. Even when I get injured, [00:53:00] I kind of like it now because, you know, I'm older and like I did something real. Yeah. I was up there and I got injured and my doctor friends had to help me and, uh, you know, I got a great story. You know, I don't wanna get killed, but Yeah.

Soleil: Yeah. And to your point from earlier as well, you know, if my car breaks down on the freeway, but my car breaks down on the freeway either to or from my art class, or I used to love snorkeling, right? Like in San Diego, especially in La Jolla. So I would go and I would go snorkeling if my car broke down on the way home from snorkeling, I'd be much happier about that experience.

Like, or it would be a much better experience for me because

Paul Zak: fun.

Soleil: had a great experience. Yeah. I just did something fun. So, and, and you know, like that, that sense of not taking things so seriously can be improved by you being with others and by you going out. And so it's all very connected it seems like.

Is that true?

Paul Zak: Yeah. So there's science behind [00:54:00] this that we are the sum, essentially the five closest people to us. So if you're on people who are unhappy, who are stressed out, who are neurotic, it lowers your mood level.

It's just like, 'cause you absorb some of their, their, um, their mood. And we've shown in published research that immersion these positive emotional states are also contagious, right? So I wanna be around people who are doing cool stuff, who are happy, who, you know, make my life valuable, who care about me and I care about them. Um, and also meeting new people. So again, the brain adapts to the stuff you're doing all the time. So you again, kind of force yourself to do slightly more things. You saying hi. Like, when I, I do a lot of hiking. I have a, a rule that I like rules because, you know, then you just do it all the time. I just say hi to everybody. I walk by. First of all, I'm a big guy, 6 4, 200 pounds. I could look scary to some people. I just say hello to everybody, a smile and say hello. And I don't know. It's a nice rule.

Soleil: Yeah, that is great. Girl.

Paul Zak: nice to

Soleil: I, I have a wonderful game for [00:55:00] you to play. Next time you're hiking as well. It's, um, the, the a, b, C game, but while you're hiking, so every time you pass someone, you have to think of a sentence to start, but it has to start with the letter that is coming after, right? So if you're starting at a and you're walking past somebody, you can say something like, all right, you're doing a good job.

You know, and then the next person you see is B. So boy, it's hot outside today, and the next person you see is C.

Paul Zak: I'm gonna

Soleil: That's a great game, right? And then you just keep going all the way into the hit C, Uhhuh, all.

Paul Zak: for, you know, two, three hours. Yeah.

You could do the alphabet twice if you see enough people. Oh, I love it. Thanks Solay. I love this so much.

Soleil: Yeah, and I, you know, I love that too. I mean, like I told you, you know, I'm, I'm a people person and so I love being able to go out and just get to know people and just get little laughs out of people throughout the day because, you know, life can be fucking hard as it is, you know? And so how can [00:56:00] we live based off of your experience?

How can we build just even the tiniest bits of like happy moments throughout our day? Is that something that's social? If somebody doesn't have the time to go out to an art class, what do they need

Paul Zak: do they

Soleil: to be doing to build even the smallest bits of happy moments throughout their day?

Paul Zak: Yeah, so I, again, I'm a rule guy 'cause I'm a math guy. So, um, I have a simple rule and I call that rule love. Plus I try to make every interaction I have with other people, add love to the world. So when I go to sleep at night, I try to reflect and go, oh, was every interaction I had adding positive energy or love to the world?

Or did I remove love from the world? Was I unhappy or nasty? Or ungrateful? And so if I think about, or if we think about love, how, how do you get someone to love you? You have to love them first, right? Right. Love is reciprocal. And so if I show love to other individuals that often, care, we use whatever words you want, but it could be care or gratitude, then [00:57:00] generally they reciprocate that with you.

And if they don't, you're like, okay, well I was nice to them. I don't know why you're having a bad day. there's this quote from the Dalai Lama that I really like who said, uh, he said that not only should we tolerate difficult people, we should celebrate them because they give us a chance to practice true compassion. so when I see someone like this poor woman at Walmart's having a bad day, I try to be compassionate. I try to give them a little extra love, a little extra care. Um, think, oh, you're. I'm sorry you're suffering for some level, because of me, but I'm gonna try to cheer you up a little bit and, um, you know, I'm not giving you the keys to my car.

I mean, that's not appropriate. But, um, I can be happy. I can be joyful and I can live in that happy quadrant and that makes me feel like I'm being doing a little bit good for the world.

Soleil: Yeah, if, if you yourself can, you know, live a little bit of a happier day, then maybe you can make somebody else's, you know, life a little bit more happier, [00:58:00] you know, a hundred percent.

Paul Zak: so let's be

Soleil: Mm-hmm.

Paul Zak: with the positive emotions. Right. And yeah, we all have bad days and that's okay. We're all, you're allowed, you're totally allowed to have a bad day, but you're around people who are constantly unhappy and cranky, gonna absorb that. It's just, it's hard not to.

Soleil: Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining me on this podcast. I'm gonna start wrapping it up. I do have one more question for you to kind of wrap up our time here. What does human flourishing mean to you now, and how do you personally try to live?

Paul Zak: A great question. I don't have a great answer. I think flourishing, thriving, the Greeks had this word, They all involve doing, not just being, but doing. I think this notion of finding new people, finding new challenges, having new experiences is the essence of flourishing. [00:59:00] And when we, it's all, it's all uncomfortable. And that's the. The sort of paradox of this, if I wanna be a happier person, I have to sort of stress myself to do something new and different. and often that involves other people. So those who wanna live longer, happier, healthier lives, you gotta put yourself out there. Again, I'm kind of back to love, right? You can't find love unless you give love. You can't. You have to allow yourself to fall in love, even though that person may not love you back. So I think to thrive, you have to put yourself out there into new experiences and then try them. Some are not gonna work for you, and that's okay. The art class, I didn't like it, but maybe the tennis I did.

And so, um, I think it's, it's really being passionately engaged in every activity you do.

Soleil: Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Paul, Zak, for joining me on this podcast today. I have personally learned so much, and I just loved hearing about your story and the work [01:00:00] that you have done, so thank you again for joining me. It was wonderful.

Paul Zak: You are lovely. Thank you, Solay.

Soleil: You are welcome.

Paul Zak: welcome.

Soleil: Bye-bye.

Speaker 4: Thank you again for listening to this episode of Sweat Strategy and Success. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow on your favorite podcast listening platform, give it a rating and share with your friends and family. Make sure to make it back here next Wednesday. See you soon.