<p><a href="https://peterattiamd.com/arthurbrooks/?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=221010-pod-arthurbrooks&utm_content=221010-pod-arthurbrooks-podfeed"> View the Show Notes Page for This Episode</a></p> <p><a href="https://peterattiamd.com/subscribe/?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=221010-pod-arthurbrooks&utm_content=221010-pod-arthurbrooks-podfeed"> Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content</a></p> <p><a href="https://peterattiamd.com/newsletter/?utm_source=podcast-feed&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=221010-pod-arthurbrooks&utm_content=221010-pod-arthurbrooks-podfeed"> Sign Up to Receive Peter's Weekly Newsletter</a></p> <p>Arthur Brooks is a social scientist, professor at Harvard University, a columnist for The Atlantic, and the bestselling author of From Strength to Strength. In this episode, Arthur explains how intelligence changes as we get older, and how to take advantage of this to maximize our happiness and success. He distills truths about the meaning of happiness and its three main components: enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. He goes into detail about many of the keys to a happy life, including the importance of cultivating virtuous relationships. On the flip side, Arthur warns of the dangers of social comparison, "success addition," and the four worldly idols—money, fame, power, and pleasure—that drive many of us. Additionally, Arthur provides examples of exercises that can guide one in the right direction, overcome fear, and cultivate habits that can lead to a happier life.</p> <p>We discuss:</p> <ul> <li>Insights from Arthur's career as a professional French horn player [2:15];</li> <li>A radical shift away from music to a Ph.D. in quantitative policy [12:00];</li> <li>Personal experience with shifting intelligence: fluid vs. crystallized intelligence [16:45];</li> <li>An epiphany from a chance encounter on an airplane that shaped Arthur's thinking [22:00];</li> <li>The three main "macronutrients" of happiness [25:00];</li> <li>Exploring the "purpose" component of happiness [29:00];</li> <li>The importance of having a partner and true friendships [32:00];</li> <li>The makeup of a true friendship, and why men tend to struggle with making real friends [36:45];</li> <li>The "satisfaction" component of happiness and the importance of "wants management" [42:15];</li> <li>The tyranny of social comparison [47:45];</li> <li>Insights into happiness through Chinese art, and the concept of a "reverse bucket list" [51:45];</li> <li>An exercise demonstrating the importance of relationships with others and the need to work on them [55:30];</li> <li>The four main idols that drive us: money, fame, power, and pleasure [1:01:15];</li> <li>Success addiction, workaholism, and their detriment to happiness [1:04:00];</li> <li>A radical approach to overcome fear—the antithesis to love and happiness [1:14:00];</li> <li>Ancient Hindu advice for the perfect life [1:26:30];</li> <li>The end result of getting caught in the 4 idols [1:31:45];</li> <li>The complexity of happiness [1:33:30]; and</li> <li>More.</li> </ul> <p>Connect With Peter on <a href="https://twitter.com/PeterAttiaMD">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/peterattiamd/">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/peterattiamd/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8kGsMa0LygSX9nkBcBH1Sg">YouTube</a></p>
Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Love for Happiness
Cultivate strong, real love relationships (romantic, family, and friendships) throughout your life, as longitudinal data indicates that “happiness is love” and these relationships are the common factor among truly happy older individuals.
2. Balance Happiness Macronutrients
Actively cultivate enjoyment (pleasure plus elevation), satisfaction (reward for goals met), and purpose (meaning in life) in abundance and balance, as these three “macronutrients” are essential for true happiness.
3. Prioritize Spousal Friendship
Build a deep, companionate friendship with your spouse, ideally becoming best friends, as this partnership is more indicative of long-term happiness than solely relying on relationships with children, especially as they leave home.
4. Build Deep, Lifelong Friendships
Actively cultivate “perfect friendships” with people who know your secrets and would take your 2 a.m. call, as these intrinsically satisfying relationships are crucial for happiness and support, particularly in later life.
5. Cultivate Transcendental Purpose
Develop an understanding of life that is bigger than yourself, focusing outward rather than on self-centered concerns, to gain peace, perspective, and relief, which is key to a happy life.
6. Implement Wants Management Strategy
Actively manage your desires (the denominator in the satisfaction equation: “what you have divided by what you want”) rather than constantly seeking more, to increase overall satisfaction and prevent the “hedonic treadmill.”
7. Develop a Reverse Bucket List
Create a “reverse bucket list” of worldly cravings and ambitions, then make a conscious commitment to detach from attachment to these items, effectively chipping away at extraneous desires and managing your wants.
8. Strategically Prioritize Relationships
Envision your future happy self and identify the top drivers of that happiness (likely relationships); then, strategically and aggressively manage these relationships rather than leaving them to chance or focusing disproportionately on achievements.
9. Serve Others for Happy Success
Pursue ambition and success, but detach from worldly idols (money, power, fame) by focusing on using your success in service of other people, which allows you to be both highly successful and genuinely happy.
10. Recognize and Address Success Addiction
Be aware that prioritizing worldly success (money, power, fame) can become an addiction, leading to systematic sacrifices of personal happiness, similar to other behavioral addictions.
11. Embrace Life’s Evolving Stages
Understand and embrace the natural transitions of life’s stages (ashramas), especially moving from the “householder” phase (Grihastha) around age 50 into “retiring into the forest” (Vana Prastha), shifting focus from personal success to teaching and serving others.
12. Train for Later Life Enlightenment
Recognize that achieving spiritual and intellectual fulfillment in old age (sannyasa) requires dedicated, long-term training, by focusing on transcendental and other-focused pursuits in the preceding life stage (Vana Prastha).
13. Identify and Confront Death Fear
Identify your personal “death fear” (e.g., fear of failure, cognitive decline, irrelevance) as it stems from the mortality paradox, which can terrorize and paralyze you.
14. Practice Exposure Therapy for Fears
Engage in a form of “exposure therapy” by contemplating your specific death fear through a structured meditation or reflection, repeatedly walking yourself through the emotional experience until its terror becomes familiar and diminishes.
15. Actively Learn and Practice Friendship
Recognize that friendship is a skill that atrophies without practice; actively make yourself available and vulnerable, spend time with others, and show genuine interest in their lives to build and maintain real friendships.
16. Develop Shared Interests with Partner
Cultivate common interests and philosophical journeys with your spouse beyond just your children, to prevent loneliness within the relationship and maintain a deep connection as your kids grow up and move out.
17. Cultivate Love to Neutralize Fear
Understand that love and fear are opposites, and actively cultivating love and strong relationships can neutralize fear and its negative impacts on your emotions and well-being.