How To Find Purpose In An Age Of Emptiness with Arthur Brooks #675

Arthur Brooks (0:01)

Everybody wants to be happy and we don't know how to do it. This is the thing, you don't try to get happiness. If you try to get happiness, you're gonna be in trouble.

You do the things that you need such that happiness happens to you. Work to enjoy your life, try to get more satisfaction, and search for the why of your existence.

Dr Rangan Chatterjee (0:19)

Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More.

Hey guys, it is so good to be back. I really hope you've had a relaxing summer. I have had the most wonderful few weeks, spending loads of time with my family. I've experienced many internal breakthroughs, which I can't wait to share with you over the coming months. Of course, here we are at the start of a brand new season of my podcast. I have got some absolutely fantastic conversations lined up for you over the coming weeks and months. So let's get started with episode 675

Why does struggling for something make it more satisfying? And why can getting what you want leave you feeling flat? Well, in this week's episode, I sit down with Arthur Brooks, one of the world's leading voices on the science of happiness for a conversation that might just change how you feel about your life. Arthur is a professor at Vanderbilt University, senior fellow of Harvard Business School and bestselling author of multiple books, including his very latest, The Meaning Of Your Life. In our conversation, Arthur shares what he calls his three macronutrients of a happy life, enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. We discuss the genetics of happiness, the concept of earned success and the difference between enjoyment and pleasure. We also explore the importance of leisure time, solitude and self-transcendence. And along the way, Arthur shares some personal reflections on his own marriage, his relationship with his children, and the moments where he got things wrong and had to find his way back. We also discuss goals and why reaching them tends not to deliver the lasting happiness we expect, and relationships where the research shows that the healthiest marriages are not the ones with the least conflict, but the ones with the most honesty. This is a warm, personal and uplifting conversation that I'm pretty sure will leave you with a deeper understanding of what it means to live a happy and contented life.

Arthur, you're probably one of the most prominent voices globally talking about happiness. Where have you learnt the most about happiness from? Is it the scientific research, your religion or your wife?

Arthur Brooks (3:16)

So, I've learnt different things from those three sources. I've been married a long time, been married 35 years. I have a very happy marriage, a very high conflict, high honesty, happy marriage to a Spaniard.

And the truth is that I needed more happiness information in spite of the fact that I have a happy marriage. And I realised this not that long ago, about seven years ago. Now, I'm trained as a behavioural scientist. I got my PhD almost 30 years ago, as a matter of fact. But in the middle of my academic career, I left to run a company.

And for 11 years, I was a CEO of a big non-profit in Washington, DC. And I was very unhappy by the end of it.

I couldn't find the sense of meaning in my life. And I was very, very stressed out, et cetera. And I realised that despite the fact that all of the things in my life were technically on point, I have a happy marriage, I'm serious about my faith, et cetera, I have great kids, I make a good living, that I was doing a lot of things wrong and I needed to get on point. I needed to get my happiness protocols on point. So I quit, I walked away, and I dedicated myself to actually being more serious about the science of happiness that I could bring to other people starting, well, really with myself. And I began teaching that. And what I have found is this combination of the right conditions in your life, but also doing things on purpose quite correctly that actually will come together to make the happiest possible person. You can have a super happy marriage and be an unhappy person is the bottom line, if you're doing a lot of other things wrong.

Dr Rangan Chatterjee (4:41)

Yeah.

One of the things that I've been thinking a lot about recently is that there are happy people out there who don't need a framework for happiness, right? So in your book on happiness, you have this beautiful framework, these three macronutrients that are required, right? Enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. In my book on happiness, I create this framework, which is alignment, contentment and control. We can talk about that and compare and contrast shortly. But I also have to acknowledge that there are so many people out there, living in many countries around the world who are probably naturally happy, and their culture and maybe even their religion leads to them doing the practices that we talk about, without them needing an expert telling them how to do it.