The Science Of Building The Life You Want | Arthur Brooks

Dan Harris (0:02)

Hello, welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. All of us, every living being is trying to get happier, but often we go about it in the wrong way. We look for happiness in the wrong places. My guest today is here to talk about a book he co-authored with Oprah Winfrey about, as he says, how to build the life you want right now without waiting for the world to change first. Arthur Brooks is a great guest, fascinating guy.

We like him so much. He's been on the show several times, most recently in April of this year. This particular conversation, the one you're about to hear, first aired back in 2024 when his book with Oprah was released. Just a little bit more about Arthur before we dive in here. He's a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School. In this interview, he does a lot of myth busting around happiness. He talks about what he says are the three macronutrients of happiness. We talk about the perils of pursuing pleasure, how to be effectively and wisely ambitious, how to ascertain if you have meaning in your life, how to manage your emotions, and the difference between healthy and unhealthy envy. Again, Arthur's book co-authored with Oprah Winfrey is called Build The Life You Want. We'll be talking to Arthur Brooks coming up after this.

Arthur Brooks, welcome back to the show.

Arthur Brooks (1:19)

Hi Dan, nice to see you and talk to you. It's been, I don't know, a few months.

Dan Harris (1:24)

Let's just say too long.

Arthur Brooks (1:26)

Yeah, that's it.

I agree with that, I agree with that. But I'm obviously up to date with all the great stuff you're doing with your enterprise. Congratulations, you're bringing a lot of people to a lot more happiness. I'd love to see it.

Dan Harris (1:38)

Thank you. Thank you and congratulations to you on this not so new but new-ish book. It seems to be doing really well.

I'm very excited to dive into it today.

Arthur Brooks (1:48)

Thanks. Yeah, I know it's been a thrill. It's been an interesting experience. The first book I've co-authored in decades, as a matter of fact.

Dan Harris (1:56)

Yeah, and you had an obscure co-author that you're really kind of giving her a shot at the limelight. I don't know how you found it in your heart to have the generosity to bring Oprah on board.

Arthur Brooks (2:09)

Well, Dan, that's how I was raised.

Dan Harris (2:19)

How was she as a co-author? Was she sort of like picking apart your sentences or was she pretty relaxed?

Arthur Brooks (2:25)

She's pretty relaxed. I mean, the way that the co-authorship worked is, I mean, the book was her idea. The book wasn't my idea at all. She read my last book that you and I talked about on your show, called From Strength to Strength, and she also reads my call on The Atlantic. And she called me and she said, Hey, this is Oprah. And I'm like, yeah, this is Batman. But it was Oprah. I mean, it was the voice, right? And I didn't know her at all. But as you know, when you're doing something that has a public audience, who knows who's listening or reading. And she said, you know, just read From Strength to Strength. Why don't you come on my show? I went on her podcast. We were like a house on fire, exactly the same basic mission, lift people up and bring them together using ideas. But we have different ways of doing it. She introduces ideas and people to her public, whereas I am the ideas, or at least I'm the guy who's supposed to be processing the ideas. I was trained as a scientist to do exactly that. And she said, you know, if I still had my show, she says, you know, I used to have a show, right? I said, yes, I'm aware.

I'm aware.

She's lovely because she doesn't assume anything. And she says, if I had my show, I'd have you on as an expert on the science of happiness 30 times, and then you'd have your own following. She said, but you know, I don't have a show anymore. I'm just doing different things and sort of in the same vein. What if we did a book that I kind of hosted? And I said, interesting idea. And so that's kind of how the book works, where she weaves in and out of the chapters and the science and she puts in her own stories and says things about her own life, just like she would have hosted me had I been on the Oprah Winfrey show.