So dopamine is really the hormone that makes you get things done.

It turns on all the learning centers of your brain. That's the primary one that people say makes you happy, but there are other hormones that are actors in there. There’s one thing that I’ll warn you about dopamine, it is very addictive.  You know when people do cocaine and things like that, they get an initial high from dopamine when they do the cocaine the first time, but why do people get addicted? Because they want to try it again and again and again.

When you artificially create these hormones to go on, you never get the same high. So they're chasing that initial high that they never get, but when you do it naturally, you can get it again and again, but it’s addictive just like the cocaine.

So when I tell that, I’ll tell you some of the things that drive that. When you look at things like your cell phone.

How many people take their cell phone to the bed with them? Almost the entire room, right?

Some other things that do it, we talked about cocaine, cigarettes, alcohol, gambling can stimulate it.  

The reason that we have dopamine though, it's about getting things done. It's really about us moving towards a goal.  Dopamine is something that you can get by yourself and it's really interesting, it’s very visual how dopamine works.

Dr. King was a real one who understood the value of people really seeing things. Now he didn’t have a PowerPoint presentation when he did the, not “I Have a Plan” speech, but “I Have a Dream” speech. He said I can envision little black slave children sitting next to little white children.  You can visualize, that. You don't need a PowerPoint, but you can visualize it. Stimulating dopamine, making people want to move towards that same goal that he has.

Why was it developed for us anthropologically?

If you look back fifty thousand years ago when we were living as tribes, it was about getting us to eat. So somebody said eating is a good habit, well, we need to eat to nourish ourselves and stay alive. So we would see an apple tree and a little dopamine would be secreted. As we got closer to the apple tree, more and more, and when we eat the apple, the most dopamine is secreted, so we want to continue to eat. So that’s what dopamine is about.