Arthur Brooks: The Science of Happiness

Arthur’s Personal Journey

• Studied economics for his bachelor’s degree 
  • Took an economics class and was hooked by the ability to analyze behavior and generate information
• Completed a one-​​year master’s degree in economics 
  • Left music to pursue a PhD in quantitative policy analysis
• Worked as a military operations research analyst for the RAND Corporation 
  • Developed early artificial intelligence algorithms for large-​​scale combat simulations
• Spent 10 years as a professor at Georgia State University and Syracuse University 
  • Focused on highly technical, mathematically complex research
• Became CEO of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) for 11 years 
  • Noticed a shift in his skills, becoming a better teacher and synthesizer of ideas but less innovative
  • Explored research on fluid and crystallized intelligence to understand and optimize his strengths

Strength to Strength

• Book by Arthur exploring the shift in intelligence as people age 
  • Based on research from social psychologists in the 1960s and 70s
  • Fluid intelligence peaks in late 30s, while crystallized intelligence improves with age
  • Understanding this shift can help individuals optimize their strengths and adapt to changes in their abilities
    Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
• >Fluid intelligence: peaks in 20s and 30s, then declines 
  • Involves problem-​​solving, creativity, and learning new things
• Crystallized intelligence: peaks in 40s, 50s, and 60s, stays high in 70s and 80s 
  • Involves teaching capacity, explaining, pattern recognition, and managing others

Arthur’s Personal Experience

• Felt existential crisis as a CEO, unsure of end goal
• Overheard an older, famous man expressing regret and unhappiness on a plane
• Inspired Arthur to research how to avoid similar feelings of regret in the future

Defining Happiness

• Happiness is not just a feeling, but evidence of happiness
• Three dimensions of happiness: enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose 
  • Enjoyment: pleasure plus elevation, creating lasting memories
  • Satisfaction: joy and reward for a job well done and goals met
  • Purpose: meaning in life, answering questions like “Why were you born?” and “For what are you willing to die?”

Arthur’s Work on Happiness

• Teaches a semester-​​long class at Harvard Business School on happiness
• Focuses on finding balance and abundance in the three dimensions of happiness
• Helps clients identify and address areas where they may lack purpose or meaning in their lives
  Purpose and Happiness
• Having a purpose in life is important for happiness 
  • Transcendental understanding of life: understanding something bigger than oneself
  • Focusing on oneself can lead to unhappiness
• Importance of family and kids in providing purpose 
  • Fear of aging and kids leaving the house
  • Transition to an empty nest can be difficult

Relationships and Happiness

• Importance of a strong partnership in marriage 
  • Goal of marriage should be friendship
  • Couples should have common interests beyond their children
• Loneliness vs. solitude 
  • Loneliness can occur within a relationship
  • Solitude can be beneficial and not lonely
• Importance of close, personal, lifelong friends 
  • Necessary for those without a spouse or partner
  • Men often struggle with maintaining real friendships

Aristotle’s Levels of Friendship

• Friendships of transaction 
  • Lowest level of friendship
  • Based on mutual benefit or work relationships
• Friendships of admiration or beauty 
  • Based on admiration for each other’s qualities
• Perfect friendship or friendship of virtue 
  • Inherently satisfying
  • Revolves around a shared interest or activity
    Men and Deep Friendships
• Men often struggle with forming deep friendships 
  • Generational differences and traditional social circumstances contribute to this
  • Men often focus on work and family, leaving little time for friendships
• Women tend to be better at forming and maintaining friendships 
  • Often more involved in children’s lives and social circles
  • Develop the skill of friendship over time

Rebuilding Friendships in Later Life

• It’s possible to learn and improve social skills at any age 
  • Requires commitment and effort
  • Must be open to vulnerability and taking an interest in others
• Building friendships takes time and practice 
  • Start by making yourself available and engaging with others
  • Develop genuine interest in other people’s lives

Satisfaction as a Component of Happiness

• Satisfaction is fleeting but necessary for happiness 
  • Achieving goals and experiencing rewards brings joy
  • Dopamine, the anticipation of reward, drives us to seek satisfaction
• Homeostasis brings us back to our emotional baseline 
  • Necessary for being ready for the next set of circumstances
  • Prevents us from becoming too focused on past achievements
• Balancing satisfaction with other components of happiness is crucial 
  • A life without moments of satisfaction is dull and gray
  • Recognize the fleeting nature of satisfaction and focus on other aspects of happiness
    Exercise for Happiness and Success
• Imagine yourself in 5 years 
  • In good health and working hard
  • Happy
• List the top 5 things in your life that explain why you’re happy 
  • Focus on intrinsic motivations (relationships, love) rather than extrinsic motivations (money, power, pleasure, fame)
• Create a strategic plan for managing the top 3 things on the list 
  • Prioritize relationships, marriage, spiritual growth, relationships with children and parents
  • Focus on improving these areas today, rather than waiting for external achievements

Hardwired for Money, Power, Pleasure, and Fame

• Evolutionary psychology suggests we are hardwired for these motivations 
  • They provide fitness in the mating market
  • Mother Nature wants us to pass on our genes, not necessarily be happy
• Following “if it feels good, do it” can lead to fleeting rewards and an inability to find enduring satisfaction 
  • Need to take charge of your own life and focus on what truly brings happiness

Happiness vs. Worldly Success

• People who are highly successful in worldly terms (money, power, fame) often make sacrifices in their own happiness 
  • They make cost-​​benefit calculations that are not in their happiness favor
• To find a balance between happiness and success, it’s important to prioritize intrinsic motivations and relationships over extrinsic motivations and achievements
  Success Addiction and the Mortality Paradox
• Success addiction is similar to other behavioral addictions 
  • People sacrifice happiness for success
  • Driven by dopamine system
• Workaholism is an ancillary addiction to success addiction 
  • Payoff is promotion, raise, compliments, adulation on social media
• Many great innovators, composers, and creative intellects sacrificed their happiness for their work 
  • Literature shows that depressives tend to be disproportionately creative
• However, misery is not inevitable 
  • Can be successful and happy by detaching from ego and focusing on serving others
  • Example: Johann Sebastian Bach

The Mortality Paradox

• Humans can intellectually understand that they will die, but cannot conceive of not existing 
  • Creates fear, uncertainty, and discomfort
• People try to resolve this paradox by either denying death or trying to understand/​​apprehend the concept of not existing 
  • Many philosophies and religions address this issue
• Love and fear are opposites 
  • Focusing on love can help alleviate fears related to the mortality paradox
    Fear, Love, and Happiness
• Fear and love are opposites 
  • Philosophical principle from Lao Tzu and St. John the Apostle
  • Neurocognitive regularity in the brain
• Love is the “nuclear fuel rods” of happiness 
  • Strong relationships are key to happiness
• Hatred is downstream from fear 
  • To understand lack of love, examine fears
  • To reduce fear, cultivate more love and relationships

Death Fears and Mortality Paradox

• Everyone has a death fear 
  • Fear of becoming irrelevant, forgotten, or experiencing cognitive decline
• Identifying and confronting death fears is important for happiness 
  • Requires serious reflection and self-awareness

Exposure Therapy and Meditation

• Theravada Buddhism’s Marna Sati meditation 
  • Nine-​​part death meditation to confront and accept mortality
  • Exposure therapy to reduce fear and anxiety
• Exercise for confronting death fears 
  • Reflect on personal fears (e.g., failure, cognitive decline)
  • Create a meditation or exposure therapy exercise to face these fears
  • Repeat the exercise as needed to reduce fear and anxiety

Optimal Dose of Exposure

• Varies from person to person 
  • Some may require more frequent or intense exposure
  • Others may experience lasting effects after a few exposures
• Approach exposure therapy gradually and thoughtfully 
  • In the case of fear of dogs, introduce the dog slowly and allow time for adjustment

Implementing Exposure Therapy

• Use meditation or visualization to confront fears 
  • In the case of the monastery, they use pictures of decaying corpses
  • For personal fears, create a detailed and vivid mental image of the fear and walk through the emotional experience of it
  • Repeat the exercise as needed to reduce fear and anxiety
    Monks and Death Meditation
• Monks meditate on death, contemplating their own mortality 
• Helps to overcome fear and become familiar with the idea of death
• Can be applied to any personal fear or obstacle

Contemplating Failure

• Students encouraged to contemplate failure for 2 minutes each day for 3 weeks
• Helps to overcome fear of failure quickly

Four Ashramas (Stages) of Life in Vedic Philosophy

1. Brahmacharya (0–25 years): Student life, learning and absorbing knowledge
2. Grihasta (25–50 years): Householder phase, career, marriage, children, worldly rewards
3. Vanaprasta (50–75 years): Retiring into the forest, focusing on teaching and others’ success
4. Sanyasa (75+ years): Dedicated to spiritual enlightenment

Transitioning Between Ashramas

• The second adolescence is the difficulty of transitioning from Grihasta to Vanaprasta
• Requires wanting less, chipping away, and creating a reverse bucket list

Advice for Those Struggling with Happiness

• Focus on love, faith, family, friendship, and service to others
• Moving forward into the bonds of love rather than trying to go back in time

Difficulty of Changing Hedonic Treadmill

• Changing habits like sleep, exercise, and diet can be difficult but solvable
• Adjusting the hedonic treadmill and decreasing wants is more challenging
• May be due to the nature of complicated problems in mathematics and life
  Complex vs. Complicated Problems
• Complex problems:
  • High number of permutations, difficult to solve
  • Examples: human life, love, relationships
  • Cannot be solved with simple engineering solutions
• Complicated problems:
  • Require computational horsepower to solve
  • Once solved, can be replicated with great accuracy
  • Examples: creating a jet engine, building a toaster

Technology and Complex Problems

• Tech companies often try to solve complex problems with complicated solutions 
  • Example: using Facebook to combat loneliness
  • This approach is insufficient and does not address the true nature of complex problems

Coping with Complex Problems

• People may resort to material possessions or superficial achievements to cope with complex problems 
  • Example: buying a boat or seeking more success to compensate for loneliness
  • This approach does not truly solve the problem and can lead to heartbreak and dissatisfaction

Appreciation for Complex Problem Explanation

• Arthur’s explanation of complex vs. complicated problems is considered helpful and insightful
• Peter expresses gratitude for the conversation and looks forward to future discussions