The Art and Science of Happiness | Arthur Brooks | TEDxKC
Arthur Brooks
- Author of Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier with co-author Oprah Winfrey
- Engages audience with bold, clear, and actionable ideas in a format that is thought-provoking, unconventional, uplifting and most of all, useful.
- Works with private companies, universities, public agencies, and community organizations to raise well-being
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Arthur C. Brooks is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Public and Nonprofit Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses on leadership, happiness, and social entrepreneurship. He is also a columnist at The Atlantic, where he writes the popular “How to Build a Life” column. Brooks is the author of 13 books, including the 2022 #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life and the recently released Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier with co-author Oprah Winfrey available September 2023. He speaks to audiences all around the world about human happiness, and works to raise well-being within private companies, universities, public agencies, and community organizations.
Brooks began his career as a classical French hornist, leaving college at 19, touring and recording in the United States and Spain. In his late twenties, while still performing, he returned to school, earning a BA through distance learning. At 31, he left music and earned an MPhil and PhD in public policy analysis from the Rand Graduate School, during which time he worked as an analyst for the Rand Corporation’s Project Air Force, performing military operations research analysis. Brooks then spent the next 10 years as a university professor, primarily at Syracuse University, where he taught economics and nonprofit management, and published 60 peer-reviewed articles and several books, including the textbook “Social Entrepreneurship” (2008). In 2009, Brooks became the president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, DC, one of the world’s most influential think tanks. Over the following decade, he was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 World’s Greatest Leaders” and was awarded seven honorary doctorates.
Originally from Seattle, Brooks currently lives outside Boston, with his wife Ester Munt-Brooks, who is a native of Barcelona. They have three adult children: Joaquim, Carlos, and Marina.
Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier. Arthur C. Brooks invites you to begin a journey toward greater happiness no matter how challenging your circumstances. Drawing on cutting-edge science and years of helping people translate ideas into action, Brooks shows you how to improve your life right now instead of waiting for the outside world to change.
With insight, compassion, and hope, Brooks reveals how the tools of emotional self-management can change your life―immediately. He recommends practical, research-based practices to build the four pillars of happiness: family, friendship, work, and faith. And along the way, he shares hard-earned wisdom from his own life and career as well as the witness of regular people whose lives are joyful despite setbacks and hardship.
Moving from Strength to Strength in Work, Life, & Happiness. It is an almost inevitable—and, to many of us, frightening—fact that our professional abilities decline as we age. As leaders, how can we prepare for the changes that come later in life, and how can we structure our lives in a way that uncovers new strengths and leads to lasting happiness?
Blending the latest in behavioral social science research, ancient wisdom, and historical analysis, Professor Arthur Brooks will reveal how effectiveness and wellbeing at all stages of life come not from holding on to past achievements, but from cultivating new habits and a different understanding of success and fulfillment.
Leadership and Happiness. Most people think success is the key to happiness, but they are wrong. Happiness is the key to success. According to research, to be successful in life, one should understand happiness and manage to it—our own and others’. Unfortunately, most people have to learn this fact through hard experience. Happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks believes that behind this problem lies an enormous opportunity for businesses to improve happiness practices internally, thus raising workplace engagement, facilitating recruitment, and increasing retention and productivity. Indeed, companies can establish a culture of meaning, purpose, and life satisfaction–and can thus prosper in highly-competitive labor markets where culture and quality of life are so critical.
Love Your Enemies. America is afflicted with a "culture of contempt," says Brooks. It is increasingly common for people to view those who disagree with them as worthless, instead of just misguided or incorrect. This is fomented by an “outrage industrial complex” in media and politics. Through ancient wisdom and cutting-edge behavioral science, Brooks provides a roadmap to the prosperity that comes when we choose to love one another – gaining strength from our differences.
Your Happiness 401k. Well-being is like a retirement account: The sooner you invest, the greater your returns will be. Exploring the expanding science of happiness, Professor Brooks shares specific investments you can make based on the best research, trends in social science, positive psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy to help people live a more purposeful life, full of long-lasting enjoyment and satisfaction.
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