Producers' Pick | Arthur Brooks: Finding Success & Happiness in the Second Half of Life

Oh that makes you think this is the Brian kill me to go back everybody join me now as Arthur Brooks owes of having him on Harvard Prof., and the Lenox happiness columnist Annie and a best-selling author of this latest book you love is from strength to strength funds success, happiness and deep purpose. In the second half of life or the welcome back right now. Are you when you start thinking big picture like this instead of getting involved in the next political campaign or the next plot for a political platform like a short right in and what happened what you know and you know before I started taking a part of running a think tank in Washington DC which was a thrill it was great in America. The template that you and I really like what I started thinking to myself what I want to do the last few decades of my career mantras I want to dedicate it to lifting people up and bringing them together. I teach a class on Harvard unhappiness. I write about it in the Atlantic in his new book is is really about how each of us to make the investments in our lives so that we can get happier as we get older, practically guaranteed to be get happier as we get older enough of the guidebook on how to do a bit so he so based on science and for example the pilots they want to teach the Civil War.

I would have to sit there and read everything I could set up a curriculum around it, but I knew exactly where to go. This written material.

How do you research something as as amorphous as happiness based on neuroscience client and or the last 30 years is been an explosion in defiance of the understanding of human happiness.

A lot of it based on the question of the proposed by Aristotle in the Bible, but most of it is really looking at the data on the happiest people what they do and what they don't do what I find are the big seven practices of the people who get happier as they get older and a lot of it really counterintuitive to think that I get a lot of stuff to make a lot of money if I'm super successful will be satisfied on Holderness completely wrong. Turns out that a lot of people who would have the strivers they work as hard as they can win their career and they tend to be really disappointed really unhappy so I talked about the seven big investment that each person needs to make an earlier start the better. It is visible for people 25 and 45 or 65, but you could remarkably change the odds of getting happier as you age so you give me an idea of the seven people to be asking the first big one is that everybody think they get one kind of success occurred in their life and making money or getting on talking about doing well in your life whether the well in your job or in your community or whatever to and there is one big successfully get better and better. What you do with your 20s and 30s, but that can't afford to decline little, but you can lose your original a lot of things that you do in your 40s and 50s, you're still your physical time when you get a second success currently are better at new things in your 50s and 60s pioneer 70s and 80s, and that's what I called the teaching curve. Now there's a lot of science on the first local fluid intelligence you're really solving problems, you can work harder than other people. The second curve is your crystallized intelligence, courage or wisdom curve. You're much better teacher your better mentor. You're a better team leader in the later part of your career.

So redesigning your life around what you're really good at is the first habit I go through all of the specifics on exactly how each one of us can identify the skills and double-barreled skills you get older as though I know if he was you study famous people you mentioned things like Charles Darwin a box and very successful impactful people that people always know their names through generations and about the commonality between people that are happy with their truck drivers or their CEOs of major corporations. While that thing is pretty interesting. Another a lot of drivers support the family heart etc. but everybody follows the same trajectory of what you're good at early is not what you're good at later. So there's some life skills but the really happiest people that they develop as well. One of them is that they develop the root system of the life people are unhappy with their older real friends deal. People of them worked with people like I know people who can help them professionally happy when they're older.

They cultivated a few really deep friendships. That's number one. The second thing of all the happy people do all the data it's really clear. They stopped building up all the stuff and possessions in the kind of work relationships and the proceeds in their life and they start taking things away. Later in the second half of the likely think of your life. Kind of an empty canvas that you're filling up with pain, but in the second half of your life you get a think of yourself as canvas sculpture chipping away your success to make it really beautiful chipping away all the parts of you that aren't really central happy people build up in the first half of the life and take away in the second half of the life.

These are the kind of things that I talk about in the book that are all doing early earlier we start the better off we are to discover about this, even before you decide to be a professor, and in and teaches level courses you explore. This move some of your revelation for you personally want one of them is that I was actually falling prey to something that happened to a lot of strivers love hard workers that are listening to us right now once again about being rich, not about being famous, being a striver in your life, we tend to fall prey to Empire was falling prey to what's called the success addiction. I worked really really hard but really what I was doing them getting all my awards for outside validation.

Good job your deal working harder getting a raise, getting a promotion getting that the admiration of other people and that what that's doing is working the part of the brain neurotransmitter called dopamine enough behind all the cigarettes or alcohol or gambling or stuff like pornography. This is what actually making people addicted dopamine. If you get all of your validation older thrilled all your little satisfaction from some people will warning you for what you do you become a success addict and I was like on the most successful guy in the world, for Pete's sake. I felt terrible constant stream of validation and seeing this with other people and seeing where it leads to really bad place.

I had to get out that wheel and point it really helped me a lot and know that knowledge Brian about yourself and your happiness. Knowledge is power and this is a book about knowledge to give power to people of that age. Fox News senior meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the dancing podcast on FOXNews.com where ever you listen to your podcast and don't forget to spread the sunshine. Very interesting are the bricks or guests are there a couple of things. Now we should see the pandemic most uninteresting thing for your book because most successful people that are success addicts had to get off the stage, then to put the Internet down we know you could go to work knowing there was nobody network with. There's nobody to look for the nobody was hiring.

They told you to go home told you get on soon put an Academy can really shine there. So what do you think that did especially on in the Ivy League schools like yours.

They told all the students to go home right immediately told you couldn't ask for everything so will find that it does put a new wrinkle into your into your book and really what it did for something really good and something really bad. I felt we look back on it, we say it that that you know we say that was really kind of completely unfortunate a lot of people got into a pretty interesting space.

They got in kind of a tenderness that the contemplation they start asking big questions about himself. Anytime you start questioning the nature of your life.

The nature of your own desire. That's a really really good thing. Remember, the only startup that matters.

The only enterprise that really matters if you are controlling the enterprise of your own life story to pay deep attention to what you want your desires will you work with others. That's great. The bad thing is that people still are much lonelier than they think there's a major wave of mental problems of mood disorders of depression, anxiety, coming toward this country like a tidal wave part of the reason is because a lot of people still afraid to go back to work. It will impede the executive function of our brains. People are quite lonely and depressed threefold increase in depressive symptoms. So the good thing is that people are looking and am internally looking in the interior life. The bad thing is that there still really suffering a lot and that's one of the big reasons I wrote this book. This book will provide relief very interesting to Brooks in his book is now out from strength to strength by the success happiness D purpose in the second half your life a fascinating topic. I think that everyone can really jump into, but he also wrote a column about regret, which is a subset of what you're talking about so I people have regrets. He can't get over how to turn the page you say you should not run from regret that you know you asked people and they did studies about how often do you think about the mistake she made a request you have what you think the right balance is and how could regret not be a bad thing yet. I don't know regret tattooed on their body, while not wanting to be stuck in the past and feeling bad about things of the treated people who have the regret they don't learn from their mistakes. The reasonable regret is an evolutionary thing you gotta learn you gotta get better but here's the point. If regret is weighing you down, ruminating on being depressed about something about doing it wrong. Basically when you regret something which is normal.

You need to write it down. You need to what we call metacognitive movements of the front of your brain where you can manage it so it doesn't manage you write it down. What did I do wrong. What did I learn from it. How like to move forward in doing that you will really free yourself, you will no longer be changeable regret bringing you down for the same time. Don't learn about the right balance defined your students are receptive. Do you have these elite students even to get you know accepted to Harvard, what is it like teaching them in the open to this.

I think he needs this topic are they like you give me the physics giving the science to show me business.

Another great I can't shock classical leadership and happiness of the Harvard school two sections of 90 students and a lot of students on the waiting class and the reason is because they want real life built on how they can maintain themselves as they actually go through life and really really quite good.

Managing businesses and taking risk appropriately talk to them about that.

Number one, two and three in importance on the life to build relationships cut out close friendships how to look forward to a romance in the life that can be really, really meaningful so that's what they're interested and they have an acute sense that they need to learn this in their digging in their great. I have to say my MBA students cover just one report and one teacher, Brian, all of us should be happiness teachers key point of the book from strength to strength to read the book and I think go teach other people. You are now the happiness professor is not just me. I tell my students that as well.

They get credit final credit in the class for setting up a class outside the classroom.

People who didn't get in. They take my PowerPoint slide they download them put their name on them and re-create the lectures appointed passing on happiness you want to be happier. Love more and make other people happy about the beautiful secret. I guess a lot I do in the last question a lot of people going back in the workforce. They all of a sudden realize you don't see this self-image to their work safety.

Kind of like having control their schedule. Maybe there's some things built up in money they receive that they don't have to get back in defining a new balance. Whatever their answer is in finding a new balance. He might be listening to us right now. Would you say to people who got off the pandemic treadmill, and don't get back on while I understand are basically two types of situations and circumstances. One is the date there a little bit afraid to go back and you are a person at home stay at home. Ask yourself, is it possible that I'm lonelier than I think. Is it possible that it's actually quite important for me to have an opposite signal strategy and it's actually important for me to go on to get out there. Ask yourself that honestly for other people are actually doing kind of a good thing which is leaving things behind that stop during the pandemic that they didn't like and that's really good to the truth of the matter is, the world is not going to go back to the way that it was all of us to have more more flexibility in the workplace and working at a distance much more than we did in the past.

That's fine, but you gotta take care of yourself only to the extent that it serves you. If you need to be more with people you take that in your own hand because of basically the inertia of staying at home, you must must actually fight that you can actually have the love in the context of the people that you physically need to. Brooks thinks of us, congratulations on this from strength to strength. Appreciate Arthur Bell talk to you soon. Thanks Ryan go pick up that book now. Let me look at you won't have any regrets about that. Just subscribe and listen to the federal prosecutor and four terms US Congress, and Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind punch list.com