The Science of Happiness: Arthur Brooks on Building a Fulfilling Life

Michael Gervais (0:00)

What if the pursuit of happiness is making us miserable? Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. Today, I'm really excited to welcome Dr. Arthur Brooks to the show. Arthur is a Harvard professor, bestselling author, and one of the world's leading voices on happiness. But as you'll hear, the path of happiness might not be exactly what you think it is. Whether you're a high-performance seeking more fulfillment, or simply looking to understand happiness from a deeper perspective, this conversation offers a powerful roadmap for living fully. So with that, let's dive right into this conversation with Dr. Arthur Brooks.

I am so stoked to sit with you, to have this conversation. I've been reading your work for a long time.

Arthur Brooks (1:02)

Thank you.

Michael Gervais (1:02)

Yeah.

Arthur Brooks (1:02)

Thank you. I love the show, and I'm really honored to be here.

Michael Gervais (1:05)

Awesome. That works, doesn't it? So the...

Arthur Brooks (1:10)

Long time listener, first time guest.

Michael Gervais (1:11)

Is that right?

Arthur Brooks (1:12)

Yeah. I mean, it's like your show is in all the places I want to be.

Michael Gervais (1:16)

Oh, that's fun.

Arthur Brooks (1:17)

Because people who are high performers, they want the best information, and this is the best information. This is what you're dedicated to doing. So thank you.

Michael Gervais (1:24)

Yeah. Thank you very much. That's a great way to start this conversation. Because you've done two things exceptionally well that I'm fascinated by. The way you've designed your life, and I'll start with this basic idea that I think we all want to live a great life.

Arthur Brooks (1:42)

Yeah.

Michael Gervais (1:43)

I don't know anyone that says, I want a miserable, below satisfaction way of living.

You've organically lived that way, and now you're talking about it, using science in an applied way to help others. You have something that I think is incredibly powerful, and I want to open that up and celebrate and understand how you've done it, and where it's gone sideways for you, and what we all can learn to be a little bit better. Let's first start by your path.

Arthur Brooks (2:18)

You don't have a normal path. It's not the most traditional path to being an academic.

Michael Gervais (2:22)

No. At one of the greatest, if not the greatest institution on the planet.

Arthur Brooks (2:26)

So we say.

Michael Gervais (2:27)

So we say in Boston.

Arthur Brooks (2:29)

So it says in the brochure. Okay.

Michael Gervais (2:33)

So Harvard Business School is a very special place.

Arthur Brooks (2:37)

It's a wonderful place. It lives up to its reputation, I think.

Michael Gervais (2:40)

So let's go back though. How did this thing start? Because you got to academics late.

Arthur Brooks (2:45)

Super late. So I come from an academic family. My grandfather was an academic. My father was a biostatistician, very brilliant scientist, and I was determined not to take that path. So I was a musician from the time I was a little kid. I was talented first as a violinist, then as a pianist, then at eight I started the French horn and that really captured my imagination because I was good at it and it was fun. That's all I did. That's really all I wanted to do. I was completely driven to be the world's greatest French horn player from the time I was nine, ten years old, no joke.

Michael Gervais (3:16)

You remember that.

Arthur Brooks (3:16)

Oh yeah.

Michael Gervais (3:17)

That type of orientation.

Arthur Brooks (3:18)

I don't only remember it, so does everybody else around me. I was going to be the world's greatest French horn player as far as I was concerned. I was practicing hours and hours and hours a day. I was taking every competition and belonging to every ensemble that I possibly could.

Michael Gervais (3:30)

Why?

Arthur Brooks (3:31)

I don't know. Because people are driven to greatness, because people are driven to significance. We want to be somebody.

Look, humans are made to be excellent. We are not made to be mediocre. A lot of people are mediocre because the world says, take it easy. The world says, cut the corner, whatever it happens to be, or there's bad luck, or pathology, or whatever it happens to be. But we're not made to be mediocre. If you've got the opportunity, take it. I did. That's all I wanted to do. Now, there was a piece missing that I didn't know at the time. But as a teenager, I was good and getting better. And all I wanted to do was go pro. And I did when I was 19 I spent a little over a semester in college at CalArts, California Institute of the Arts, which is a freaky place here. That's a wild place not far from where we are here. Yeah.