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DB Dialogues: Adam Adatto Sandel on Happiness in Action

Brett McKay's avatar
Brett McKay
Feb 11, 2026
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Adam Adatto Sandel holds the Guinness World Record for the most pull-ups in one minute.

He’s also a philosopher and a law professor at UMass.

This unusual combination — extraordinary physical achievement paired with deep engagement with classical thought — animates his book Happiness in Action: A Philosopher’s Guide to the Good Life, which argues that modern life’s relentless goal orientation leaves us chronically unfulfilled. The solution that Adam — known as “Professor Pull-ups” — suggests isn’t to abandon goals entirely but to recover something the ancient Greeks understood: that the deepest satisfaction comes not from achieving outcomes but from the quality of activity itself.

Adam and I talked about that and much more, including why philosophy became future-obsessed, the virtue of self-possession, Aristotle’s idea of the “great-souled man,” the essence of friendship, and Adam’s criticisms of Stoicism.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In your book, you contrast two approaches to activity: goal orientation versus doing something for its own sake. Most people in 21st century America are relentlessly goal-oriented — career goals, fitness goals, money goals.

But you point out something most of us have experienced: you accomplish the goal, you think you’re going to feel amazing, maybe you do for about four seconds, and then you’re right back where you started. Why does goal orientation leave us feeling empty?

Well, first of all, I love the way you posed the question. When we think of goal-oriented activity, effort, striving, we tend to think of failure. What if I come up short? But the way you put the question gets at the real heart of the matter: What if I win? What if I succeed, and I still feel empty?

So what’s missing?

I think it gets down to the story you can tell behind the pursuit of the goal. What is it that made that activity meaningful — not just the result, the trophy, the prize, the personal best, but what was it in the pursuit of that goal that taught you something about yourself that you can take away to the next battle you fight, the next difficulty you confront?

Because if you don’t have that, the goal is very fleeting. It’s a number. It’s a trophy you hold in your hand. Yeah, you celebrate maybe for an evening, have a celebratory drink, hang out with your friends, and then you’re asking yourself: what now? But if you have a narrative behind it that you carry forward — I think that’s really the key to meaning.

How has modern philosophy pushed us toward this goal orientation?

Philosophy itself in modern times becomes goal oriented, and that’s almost what defines modern philosophy, in contrast to ancient philosophy. Ancient philosophy was very much a response to wonder, a response to beauty, a response to some event that struck you and pulled you in and demanded to be brought to expression.

Modern philosophy, by contrast, is defined by a kind of faith in the ability to eliminate suffering from the human condition, the conquest of nature through technology and the elimination of social injustice, the creation of the ideal utopian society. Those two goals define modern philosophy, which means philosophy becomes forward-looking, futuristic, treating the here and now as something that will soon be passed, bygone, transcended, replaced by a better tomorrow.

Marx captures this beautifully in that famous line: “Philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it.” This activist stance of changing the world, replacing today with an infinitely better tomorrow, defines modern philosophy.

So how did the ancient Greeks think about activity in relation to the good life?

It was goal-oriented, but not primarily goal-oriented. That’s the difference. When you were debating whether to go to war in the assembly in ancient Athens, yes, you might be trying to decide something. But what Aristotle shows is that it wasn’t primarily goal-oriented. What mattered more was virtue, developing the capacity to think, reason, deliberate with your fellow citizens, to enter their perspective and try to persuade them.

The practice of rhetoric, persuasion, practical wisdom was more important than the end result. This notion of self-development, the cultivation of virtues — that’s what made you truly human. That’s how the ancient Greeks understood the relation of activity to the good life.

The Greeks had this concept of eudaimonia — flourishing. How does activity relate to that?

Activity was of the essence of flourishing. The word eudaimonia captures this beautifully. We translate it as happiness in English, but it really means having a good demon by your side. For Greeks, demons weren’t devilish creatures but guardian spirits. In the Greek religious tradition, you were allotted one at birth. They would shepherd you through life.

The interesting thing is you could listen to the demon or not, but you didn’t choose the one you got. So there was this connection between happiness and chance, happiness and fortune, which is preserved in the root of the English word happiness, which is happenstance. The Greeks understood happiness very much as relating to fortune, but also to being on a certain path, being active, following that spirit, responding to it.

Aristotle also talks about enérgeia. What is that?

Enérgeia means in the midst of something — while you’re doing it, while it’s unfolding. The contrast is to potential — you’re not doing it, but you have the potential to do it. I like to think of being in the flow. Sports provide a great example. You’re in the midst of a tennis match or playing basketball, and there is no distinction between you and the ball, you and your teammates. It’s all one flow of activity. Aristotle says that being in the flow is of the essence of happiness — fully engaged, fully present, but in a way that’s active.

You’ve written about taking joy in doing an activity for itself and not to be goal oriented. This is interesting coming from someone who holds world records for pull-ups. Achieving world records seems like a goal-oriented activity. Was doing a certain number of pull-ups a goal you set out to achieve, or did the record just happen because you really liked to do pull-ups and were good at them?

It was some of both. I always loved pull-ups. I got into working out way back in high school to get better at baseball — to throw harder, maybe hit a home run, because I was always one of the smallest kids on my team. Then in college I started working out every day with my roommate. He came from a basketball background, and we really didn’t have a goal other than to push ourselves to get stronger, more athletic, bigger. We did it every day, six days a week.

I discovered later that I was quite good at pull-ups. This was much later, maybe about fifteen years ago. I liked it and developed a sense of pride in being the top pull-up person. I guess you could say that was goal-oriented. But it was always something I loved doing for its own sake. If you told me I wouldn’t be number one on the leaderboard or wouldn’t set a Guinness World Record later on, I would’ve kept doing it.

How do you balance needing goal orientation to get things done with doing things for their own sake?

There are goals that are just daily necessities — like shopping for groceries. Those you budget in and plan out so you can achieve them while freeing up time for the things you like to do for their own sake.

But the trickier case is keeping the goal-oriented attitude in check when it comes to things we love. There’s always a tendency — whether it’s athletics, art, even going on a weekend hike — to turn it into something goal-oriented instead of taking joy in the thing itself. Like snapping a photo at the top of the mountain to post on Instagram instead of enjoying every step of the trek as an adventure — a possibility of encountering something unexpected.

With the Guinness World Records, I do feel the pressure because I’m going for a record. The competition is very stiff. I can get caught up in it — analyzing opponents, seeing what they’re doing, getting too hung up on whether I’m in line to hit the number I need. But what I try to remind myself is: you’re not going to do this forever, and records are going to come and go. If you love something, you should want somebody else to do even better at it, because that’s what brings the activity to its highest expression.

If you see yourself more as exemplifying an activity you love and putting it out there at the highest possible level for somebody else to take up and maybe take it higher than you, I think that’s beautiful.

You write about “self-possession” as a key virtue to develop to become the kind of person who does things for the sake of themselves. What do you mean by that?

Most people equate it with self-confidence. Think of Don Draper from Mad Men: a dapper, suave ad exec who’s good at making a pitch, who isn’t easily fazed. There’s something to that. But self-possession goes beyond that. It has to do with having a sense of self, remaining who you are, knowing who you are, knowing where your commitments lie, who has your back, whose back you have, throughout all of life’s twists and turns.

You see the contrast with Don Draper. He’s self-confident for sure in a particular domain, but when he leaves the bright lights of Madison Avenue, his life spirals out of control — a free fall of alcoholism, women, failed marriages, attempts at personal renewal that never quite succeed. Self-possession would be the ability to have a sense of self that you stand by throughout your entire day and throughout your entire life.

It’s a combination of tenacious commitment and open-mindedness, the spirit of adventure. Knowing where your loyalties stand, but also: bring it on. Throw something at me, life, because I’ll be able to handle it.

You argue that Aristotle’s “great-souled man” captures this idea. Who was the great-souled man?

He meant standing up for yourself but not insisting on honor when it’s denied to you. A kind of elevated perspective where you have so much confidence in what you do that you aren’t dissuaded, discouraged, made resentful when challenged.

Aristotle says the great-souled man has a slow way of moving, a deep voice, a steady pace of speech. What’s that about?

Not rushing around all the time. Not many things for the great-souled man are of ultimate importance. What most people rush around for — being a little late, missing the train, being perfectly punctual — most of the time that’s not make or break. The great-souled man knows when it is make or break, but most of the time it’s about your own dignity, walking at a reasonable pace, not being harried, not getting too worked up about things people tend to get worked up about in day-to-day life.

The great-souled man also has a sense of his own judgment. What did Aristotle think judgment meant, and how does it relate to self-possession?

Thinking about things for yourself. Independence of mind. Ultimately deciding for yourself, not letting experts step in to decide for you when the question isn’t one of expertise.

I think especially in our lives today, this rings true. We’re confronted with experts of all kinds — sports and nutrition, health experts, doctors, researchers, therapists for our emotional wellbeing. People who have degrees, credentials, who have been trained in various methods that purport to provide a better answer than one could figure out on their own.

Of course, expert knowledge is really important. If you break a bone, you want to go get it fixed by a doctor. You don’t want to try to do it yourself. However, we tend to trust expertise far too much. For example, after the doctor puts the cast on your broken arm, they may say, “Okay, well, lay off skateboarding for X amount of time.”

That, strictly speaking, is not a medical judgment. That has to do with how to balance risk with something you love doing. That’s a personal decision. A doctor could very well, if he’s a good person attuned to your lifestyle, help you deliberate about that. But the problem is when we begin to trust experts naively, just taking their word verbatim because we don’t want the responsibility ourselves. It’s a way of shifting responsibility to somebody else, almost. If something goes bad, you can say, “Well, the expert told me to do it.” You don’t take responsibility for it.

But for Aristotle, what’s essential to greatness of soul is to take responsibility for your own actions, because that’s really what it means to live a life that’s your own. That’s what brings you happiness. If you just follow the advice of experts, you’re being pulled around by forces that aren’t necessarily your own.

Friendship is another activity you can do for its own sake. How does that differ from how most people view friendship today?

A lot of people confuse friendship with alliance. An ally is somebody who helps you in that goal-oriented pursuit, but the friendship only lasts to the extent you’re still working on that goal. Once you’ve achieved it — built the bridge, whatever — the people disperse. You don’t see them anymore if it’s only an alliance.

Friendship for its own sake means you have a shared history of learning together in each other’s company, facing life together, shared hardship and overcoming, and trust that develops throughout that. Of the essence of friendship is mutual empowerment and understanding. In the moment, when you’re having a discussion with your friend, working out some idea or training together, it’s not just that you’re focused on a goal — you’re developing yourselves and your ability to know yourselves and strike balances.

One thing many overlook is that to be a good friend, you have to be critical — of course, in a sympathetic way with your friend’s best interest in mind. But you can’t just be a yes man. Friendship for its own sake has to do with that combination of sympathy and criticism that you only develop through coming to know each other over time.

Modern philosophers like Hume, Hobbes, and Adam Smith were suspicious of the classical idea of friendship. They argued it’s good to have friends nearby, but better to think of yourself as a friend to all of humanity — to be cosmopolitan.

Right. This idea that friendship is really just about love of humanity. What I think that misses is that we only come to appreciate humanity through actually engaging with people. You can’t really sympathize with someone on the other side of the world unless you can imagine them potentially being brought into your circle of friends.

When we speak of things essential to human beings — the capacity to think, to reason, to express emotions — all of that gets worked out primarily in our day-to-day lives with those closest to us. Unless we have that direct interaction with those close to us, with our friends, we won’t even be able to recognize or appreciate it in those who are farther from us. Reason, speech, language, emotional connection — these aren’t things you can observe from afar and appreciate. You have to first learn them up close.

You’re critical of Stoicism, which has become incredibly popular. Why does its approach fall short?

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