Revisited: Your Instincts Know What You Want with Happiness Expert Arthur Brooks

Arthur Brooks (0:00)

I've been looking at the basic neuroscience of these why questions that you've been grappling with for decades now. And there's all this correlation between how much you use your devices. So you use your devices to make your life really efficient, and you free up a whole lot of time, which you didn't waste by distracting yourself with devices on on trivialities and nonsense, right? It's like, and if you were like, the irony is thick.

I know, and it's like, it's a self-licking ice cream cone is kind of how the thing works. And not very surprisingly, that, you know, happiness is a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. There's no evidence that people under 35 have lower levels of enjoyment and satisfaction, but meaning has cratered.

Simon Sinek (0:43)

Why? At some point in our lives, every single one of us has asked ourselves the question, can I be happier?

There are competing theories. Some people think we have to learn to be grateful for what we have. That's the secret to happiness. Others think we have to learn to change our lifestyle, our habits or our routines, that that's the secret to happiness. Enter Arthur Brooks. Arthur would challenge both those theories. He has lived many lives and made some remarkable career changes, from French porn player to CEO of a think tank with no think tank or fundraising experience to bestselling author. And through all the changes and challenges, he has learned exactly what it takes to be happy. In fact, his insights are so good, he actually teaches them in one of the most popular classes at Harvard Business School, an entire class on happiness. Arthur is one of my favorite people to talk to. He's fun, he's whip smart, he has a big heart, and whenever I'm done talking to him, I feel, well, happier.

This is A Bit of Optimism.

I'll be totally honest with you, which is I use this podcast simply as an excuse to hang out with you. Because you're so busy, you're so busy, the only way I can get you on the phone is to schedule you for a podcast and then we get to catch up.

Arthur Brooks (2:19)

That's why I always thought I was doing the podcast, is to get to you, to get into you, to worm my way into your Google calendar.

Simon Sinek (2:25)

You and I have known each other a very long time.

Arthur Brooks (2:28)

Uh-huh. Years and years and years.

Simon Sinek (2:29)

You used to live in ADI back then. One of my favorite things about you is you practice what you preach.

I know that should be standard fare for people who are out there teaching, or who are out there writing philosophies and theories about how to live life, etc. But you and I both know a lot of people who give talks and write books on living lifestyles that they don't live. But you do the things you talk about and write about. You do the things that you teach in your happiness class. You do the things in how you reinvented your own career that you wrote about in your book. How have you reinvented your career this time?

Arthur Brooks (3:12)

You know, it's funny and thank you by the way. It's like you're doing the same thing, Simon. I've known you for years. And I mean, I read your books before I knew you.

And Start With Why had a huge impact on me. It had a huge impact on me when I was still at AEI. And it was operative and helping me understand the trajectory of my own life as well. I had a real early in life major, major career change.

And you know this, but not everybody listening to this is going to have any awareness of this. I was a classical French horn player from the time I was 8 years old until I was 31 So I for 23 years, that's all I did. And I went pro at 19 after a first run at college that didn't, I mean, I didn't want to go to college. I wanted to go pro. So I went pro at 19

And all the way through my 20s, I toured playing chamber music. I played two years with Charlie Bird, the jazz guitar player. Then I played a bunch of seasons in the Barcelona Orchestra in Spain.

And then I tried to become a soloist unsuccessfully. And the whole point is that by the end of that, I had to do something else. And so I had to retool my own professional life. I had to reinvent myself, which I did in my 30s, my early 30s. And I kind of figured out how to do it. I figured out how to go from becoming a classical French horn player to getting a PhD and becoming a behavioral scientist. And it was hard. That was a hard one. All the changes after that have been easier because I figured out how to funge the best from my past life and my next life. And this is something I talk about an awful lot with my students, my MBA students at Harvard. They're going to have four distinctly different careers if they follow the norm. And that means that they're going to have to understand that their career is not a straight line. I mean, you understand this. Careers are not a stair-step straight line for most people. They're more like a spiral where you have seven to 12 year mini careers of your own imagination. And if you're too paralyzed by fear and you don't know how to reinvent yourself, and you're not willing to go backwards in terms of money and power and prestige, you're screwed. And you're screwed. You're not going to be able to do it. I just got lucky. I had to change. I had to figure out how to do that.