The Shocking Lessons He Teaches His Harvard Students | Arthur Brooks
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How does AI affect happiness?
People ask all the time about AI, you know, how will AI affect happiness? And the answer is, well, a lot of people are using it as their friend, lover, or therapist, which is exactly wrong. Look, there's one thing in life you can't simulate, which is meaning.
Welcome back to the Checkup Podcast. Today's guest is Arthur Brooks, behavioral scientist, Harvard Business School professor, and one of the sharpest minds on what actually makes people happy.
He's also the author of a new book called- finding purpose in an age of emptiness.
Which is available for pre-order now. This guy is a quote machine. For example, did you know that heavier men are happier on average?
It's not because of the food gentlemanly paunch.
How about that liberal women tend to be sadder than their conservative counterparts? Why is that? We cover it and so much more, including whether I should keep participating in these Jubilee debates, the male loneliness epidemic, and how to treat my teenage patients who believe in nihilism. There's seriously something in this episode for everyone. Huge thanks to Microsoft Dragon Copilot for sponsoring this video. You spent a lot of time talking to people who are brilliant, successful, wealthy. What's been your take on their mental health state in terms of happiness and negative feelings, perhaps?
It's mixed. Okay. And it's one of the things I tell my students. My students are master's students at the Harvard Business School. They start with a misapprehension about happiness, about well-being. They think that if they achieve worldly success, then happiness comes for free, that it comes automatically. And I tell them on the first day of class, here's how it works. Shoot for happiness. And by the way, this is going to create panic for all strivers watching this. Shoot for happiness, and then you will be successful enough. And they go, because of that last word. Because of that last word. Because enough is antithetical to what we're trying to do in the hustle culture, in the culture of pure work excellence.
And so the result of it is that many of my students do fine. But the ones who do fine are the ones that actually do shoot for happiness. And the ones who don't do well, not just my students, but strivers in general, the ultra successful people, they, they're looking for happiness as a result of worldly success. And that's a mistake.
Yeah. You know what I see even with podcast guests that I've spoken with who are incredibly wealthy. I remember you probably don't know the name. KSI is a famous YouTuber in the UK, uh, boxer, uh, part owner of Prime Energy Drink and Hydrating Drink. And we're talking about financial success and explaining how that ultimately does not make you happier. And he made a good point that it's always the wealthy people complaining about money not making them happier. So it comes off disingenuous to the general public. Is there some hypocrisy there? Once you have it, you don't care about it, but you don't have it, you want it.
Yeah, well, the general reaction is, let me try, right? And there's something to that, to be sure. There's this assumption that if you have more resources, because mother nature endows you with this tendency to want resources, We want resources because mother nature wants us to be able to pass on our genes and not starve, survive another season. But mother nature doesn't care about our happiness. We have this kind of cross circuit in our happiness. We have these animal impulses and we think if we meet all these animal impulses, then the thing that we really want, which is happiness, will actually come to us. That's not right. What will come to us is indeed more mating partners and more stuff and more hierarchy, more place in the hierarchy.
But we won't actually get happier. And so the result is that we assume that we just needed more. That's called the hedonic treadmill, the more, more, more. You homeostatically go back to your emotional baseline very quickly. And that is to say you're happy because something good happens to you in worldly terms.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How does AI affect happiness?
0:00–5:58
2
What misconceptions do Harvard students have about happiness?
5:58–9:09
3
Why do successful people often feel unhappy?
9:09–9:31
4
What is the relationship between happiness and worldly success?
9:31–1:04:18
5
How can we improve the doctor-patient relationship?
1:04:18–1:05:36
6
What are the implications of AI on healthcare trust?
1:05:36–1:06:54
7
How does societal perception of happiness impact mental health?
1:06:54–1:08:29
8
What role does love play in our lives according to the guests?
1:08:29–1:59:51
Speakers
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