From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Arthur Brooks: Saving America From A "Deficit Of Love"

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Sean and Rachel are joined by Professor and New York Times Bestselling Author Arthur Brooks as they discuss the science behind happiness and why the nation is facing what Arthur calls a "deficit of love." Arthur explains why politics is not as important as people think when it comes to finding love and how faith can impact happiness. Later, Arthur details his experience co-writing his new book Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier with Oprah Winfrey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife,

Rachel Campos Duffy. Sean, it's so great to be back. And we're talking about a subject that everybody wants, happiness. And so we're bringing in a friend of ours. What a great guy, Arthur Brooks. He has a new book out and it's called, I want to make sure I get the title exactly right. Build the Life You Want, The Art and Science of Getting Happier. Arthur Brooks, welcome to the kitchen table. We appreciate you joining us. Well, thank you. And it's nice to see both of you. I haven't seen you in person in a couple of years, as a matter of fact. Yeah. It's been a while. It's been a while. Next time you come to the kitchen table, you got to bring the beautiful Esther with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She'd love it. And she would love it. It's a good thing to get out of the Eastern corridor from time to time, I have to say.

Yes. I doubt about that. Absolutely. Well, listen, this is such an interesting topic and it's such a great collaboration, you and Oprah working together. And so what is the secret to happiness? You're, you're putting science behind it. We talk a lot about it, by the way, Arthur, on the show, things that we think make people happy, but let's talk about your book and why you, what you've learned through the science of happiness. Yeah. I mean, I dedicated myself when I left my last job. I was the president of a big think tank in Washington, D.C. But I'm trained as a social scientist.

You know, my PhD is in behavioral economics, as a matter of fact. And so, you know, I study human behavior. And I thought, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? Well, you know, I want to be happy and I want to bring more happiness to other people. I want to lift people up and bring them together. But I'm a social scientist, meaning that I'm not going to just do, you know, I want to be happy and I want to bring more happiness to other people. I want to lift people up and bring them together. But I'm a social scientist, meaning that I'm not going to just do, you know, internet nostrums. One weird trick to try to get happier. I'm going to actually use my training.

And so when I left Washington, D.C., and I took a professorship at Harvard University, I said, I'm going to study seriously this and bring it to the largest audience possible. I started writing a column on the science of happiness in the Atlantic and reading and speaking about it all over the place. And I wound up working with Oprah Winfrey and we published this book for ordinary people to understand this basic science of happiness. And it starts with the biggest mistake that people make. The biggest reason people are not as happy as they could be is because they think happiness is a feeling and happiness isn't a feeling. Feelings are evidence of happiness, just like the smell of the turkey is evidence of your

Thanksgiving dinner. It's not the same thing as your Thanksgiving dinner. Your happiness is a combination of enjoyment of your life, satisfaction with your accomplishments and the meaning that you get in your life. And the whole book is about how to get those three things in higher amounts without trying to fool yourself into thinking you'll never be unhappy again. So, Arthur, when we look at, and in your book you talk about, you know, real connections, real lifelong friendships, real relationships. And, you know, today we have the internet, so much social interaction on apps, social media platforms. And there's a lot of connection. There's a lot of, you know,

friends that people have, a lot of conversations that they have back and forth, a lot of liking of different commentary. But the more we look at those kind of interactions, the more we see people becoming less happy and more unhappy. Right. Right. No, that's true. And the truth of the matter is that happiness has been in decline in the United States for a number of decades. It's mostly sort of the climate of people declining in their faith, declining in their family connections, declining in the number of real friendships that they have, kind of a dysfunctional relationship they have with work. But then there were these storms. So that's kind of the climate of happiness. And there's kind of the weather of happiness. The big storm in happiness that pushed us down was the advent of social media and the use of screens. This was really horrible.

One of the things that we talk a lot about in the book is the brain science of human connection. There's a hormone that we produce in our brains called oxytocin. It's a neuropeptide that functions like a hormone. It's human connection. Now, you two have a bunch of kids and you remember when each child is born and you have eye contact with your newborn baby for the first time, it's like the 4th of July inside your head. That's oxytocin. Evolutionary biologists say that's so we bond to the baby and don't leave the baby on the bus or something like that. But the truth is it's actually magic. I think it's the hand of God giving us this connection to the people that we love the most, our family members,

our closest friends. You only get it from eye contact and touch. When you're really lonely, you look for it in other places like social media, like screens, but that's like getting all of your meals at fast food joints. It's like eating three meals a day at 7-Eleven. I mean, at fast food joints. It's like eating three meals a day at 7-Eleven. I mean, it'll satisfy your hunger a little bit, but you'll become really malnourished really quickly. So that's why people who binge on social media, they get lonelier and lonelier and lonelier. And that's one of the big sources of our unhappiness in this country and around the world. Yeah, there's no question, especially with teenagers, that there's an addiction. I am guilty of it myself. Sometimes Sean gets so mad at me because I, you know, I consume so much media on my phone because that's how I pretty

much read articles. I don't have a laptop, so it's always on my phone. And I try and tell Sean that there's no one I'd rather scroll next to, but that doesn't seem to satisfy him. So, yeah, we all have to work at that. When I read your book and everything that you're putting forward, you had these 11 principles. And I thought it was interesting because when I looked at the principles, to me, at their core, they sounded very Catholic. And I don't know if Oprah approves, but it's definitely, to me, a lot of it at its core is very Catholic. This idea that, you know, when there's negative things that happen, I mean, as Catholics, we believe you're a Catholic, that suffering is part of life, that we actually learn from that. suffering is part of life, that we actually learn from that. Talk to me about those principles and how much of your own experience as a Catholic man and a devout Catholic man from a Catholic family had played into some of these lessons. Well, a lot. My Catholic faith is at the center of my life, is the most important thing in my life. But this is a book really based on social science, and it turns out not very coincidentally that the Christian life is very, when it's pursued

seriously as a matter of the person that people that we're trying to be, it's really very, very good for happiness, which is good news, I have to say. And one of the big things that you just brought up that's critical for us to understand, look, I told you that the first big mistake that people make is thinking that happiness is a feeling. The second big mistake that they make is thinking that happiness is a destination, that you can be ultimately happy. You can't be, because that would be eradicating bad feelings and bad experiences. And suffering is a normal part of life. Unhappiness is a very important part of life, partly because negative emotions keep us alive.

And if we're afraid sometimes of things that are threats, and we get rid of all those things, we'll be eaten by a tiger in two seconds or run over by a car in modern life or whatever it happens to be. But it's also that we need negative experiences to teach us about our own resiliency, to teach us about who we are as people. And, you know, we understand that as Christian people, you know, the people who are watching us or from other good, you know, very, you know, pro-social religious backgrounds or even secular backgrounds, They know perfectly. They need to have suffering so that they can be fully alive as people. So one of the things that I urge my students at Harvard, because I teach a big class at the Harvard Business School in the science of happiness, don't be afraid of unhappiness. Don't believe that if you're

feeling unhappy, something's wrong with you. It means something's right with you. If you were never unhappy, then you need therapy, quite frankly. Then you actually need to seek help immediately if you're happy all the time. It means something's actually wrong and you won't find the meaning in your life that will actually reward you for the rest of your life. Unhappiness is not the enemy. It's like when we talk about people who say, we never fight in marriages and they always end up divorced because that's part of it. You're never, it's not bliss all the time, right? And life is not bliss all the time to your point, Arthur. But in the book, it seems like there's a lot of internal strategies of how we deal with

unhappiness, how we look at it on a spiritual path, how we try to share happiness with the rest of the world. But is there a hand in glove of the choices that we make in our life, whether we go to church, whether we get involved in our community, whether we get off of social media, and then how we respond to the unhappiness or the troubles that come into our life? Are those things tied together, Arthur, the choices we make, but also how we view the things that happen to us in our life and how we address them. Yeah, for sure. The way that Oprah and I have set up this book is the first part of the book is about emotional self-management. You need to understand the

science of what's going on between your ears so that your feelings are not managing you, that you can actually manage your feelings. And with just a few ideas and a little bit of practice, everybody can get better at that. People are so mystified about what's going on. And when you do, you find you have tons of time. You're not scrolling social media nearly as much as you were. There's no more shopping therapy because you're not distracting yourself from your discomfort when you can manage yourself. And then you're free to actually pursue the sources of real happiness, to pursue the habits of the happiest people, your happiness 401k plan, to put the investments in those accounts. And those accounts are very simple. There's really only four, your faith, your family,

your friendship, and your work that serves other people. You're less distracted from all the dumb stuff, the outrage on television, the politics, the social media, the cancel culture, you know, all the, you know, the social comparison, the cancel culture, you know, all the social comparison, all that ridiculous stuff. That's all it is doing is numbing you because you're so uncomfortable with your emotions. And then you can put a deposit in your faith account and call your mother and actually develop your friendships and gear your work towards serving other people. And you will get happier. towards serving other people and you will get happier. So I'm fascinated by you having a happiness course at Harvard. And I want to ask you what you're seeing in this generation and what, what are their troubles in finding happiness? What are the things they hope to get out of this course? I had an opportunity to speak once to Sean's kindergarten teacher.

And I've also enjoyed speaking ever since that time. I've enjoyed speaking to older teachers who have seen young kids through the generations. And they all tell me the same thing, Arthur. They say that, and this was even before, you know, I think social media, you know, I think that's such an obvious thing, but they just said they're so lonely. They're so sad. They come to school with so many problems that other generations didn't have. And so much of that, I mean, it just, it breaks my heart when they tell me these things. And so much of it is because of the breakdown of the family that these children just want their moms and dad.

And so whether their parents are working too hard so they don't actually see their parents because then after school, they go to aftercare. And then by the time they get home and they eat, they're in bed, they really don't get much parent time or there's divorce and a lot of pain and dysfunction. There are kindergartners that are coming to school in a way that kindergartner teachers didn't recognize 30, 40 years ago. It's fascinating and sad. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, my students are by and large in their

mid-20s, but I'm dealing with people all over the country. I'm doing 175 talks a year outside of the classroom, you know, and I'm writing books and talking to all different generations. And the biggest problem that we have is the same for everybody, for kids, for adolescents, for 20-somethings, millennials, all the way up to, you know, I'm the last year of the baby boom, you know, the last surviving gasp of the baby boom. And it's the same thing for people who are my age as well, that there is a deficit of love is what it comes down to. That's why you notice that the four happiness habits,

the 401k, faith, family, friends, and work, they're all different aspects of human love that are in decline. Love of the divine, love of your family, love of your friends, your real friends. And by the way, the apex of friendship and family life is spousal love. There's nothing more magical than that. I mean, the two of you, I'm sure you fight like cats and dogs. So Esther and I do too. She's Spanish, I know. She's Spanish, I know. There's no way around it. It's just basic communication. It's a form of love. He's yelling. It's love.

I try and tell him that too, Arthur. I know. I know. The first five years were tricky, but 32 years in, I think we're good to go. And then there's, of course, love for everybody. I mean, the two of you, what you're doing, what you've done in public life, but now in the media, this is a gift of love to other people. Every time you go on the air, it's an opportunity to send a love note to the people out there as you earn your daily bread, as you sanctify your daily work.

It's really, really important that we think about this. And our culture is militating against this. And part of the reason is because we have a minority of leaders in this country that's feeding off hatred. They are. They want to drive us apart. They want us to be at each other's throats because that gets clicks and links and viewers and money and followers and just jollies from people. But remember, when we don't love, when we hate, somebody else is profiting. And it's time for us to have, quite frankly, I'm going to sound like, you know, the Berkeley 1968 Summer of Love hippie, but we need a rebellion of love in this country.

love hippie, but we need a rebellion of love in this country. It's time for young people to say no more. And that's what my students say. They're in the class because they're like, give me a better way, man, because this cancel culture nonsense, all it's doing is making me unhappy. All this politics and stupidity. I don't care if it's the right or the left. It's no good. We'll have more of this conversation after this. From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to Fox News Podcasts dot com. And Arthur, I think it's

a really good point. So what I found is, again, there are the the the view that Americans have of where this country should go is very, very different. There's not a lot of common ground. That's true. And I think we have a long history of this, of debating policies and direction. And I think that's a good thing. The problem that I saw when I was in Congress, and I got to get to know you and you're at AEI, which you did a great job as the head of AEI, was that instead of debating ideas

and issues and fighting over those things, we started to make it personal. So I use the example of Maxine Waters, who is very liberal. She's a congresswoman from California. We don't agree on anything. But I kind of considered her a friend. I got along with her really well. I didn't have to hate Maxine Waters because I really disliked her ideas. I actually could like her and dislike her ideas. I didn't make it personal. And I think when people start to hate, it becomes a it becomes a state of mind. You start to hate a whole bunch of things as opposed to going. I don't like the idea, but I can see the goodness in that person. opposed to going, I don't like the idea, but I can see the goodness in that person. I can see that she comes from a good place. I don't agree with it, but she's trying to do what she thinks is best. Yeah. The amazing thing to a lot of young people today is when you say something radical, like you can actually fall in love with and marry somebody from the other political party. We've done a lot of shows on this, Arthur. We're going to have to come to a disagreement on that. No, I want to just make the case.

I'm going to have to face you on that. Make the case. Yeah, well, the problem with it is... You're just trying to go after me. Okay, here, let's hear what you say, Arthur. No, no, but it's... See, what happened is that you find, if you go back to 1960,

only 6% of parents cared about the political party of the spouse of their child. 6%. Now it's 60%. 70% of dating profiles contain information suggesting that a person would not date a person of the other party. Why? Because politics has become a cult in this country. People are actually getting their identity from politics. You shouldn't, you know, you're not your opinions. I got my opinions. I'm a political conservative.

This is well known. You know, I'm, you know, the full spectrum, just like you, just like the two of you, we agree on everything. I'm sure. But the truth of the matter is it doesn't matter. My parents, they were super liberal. My whole family were super liberal. They were great family, great people. They brought me up with all the values that matter for, you know, the idea that everybody in the world is my sister or brother, that I'm going to be a Christian until my dying day, that the last breath I take, I'll be looking at the, you know, the wife of decades after decade, after decade, after decade. I mean, this is the stuff that really matters. And yeah, yeah. They thought taxes should be higher than me. Yeah, I got it. You know, but I'm not talking about taxes though. It's not taxing. You're an economist. So you think like that, but I, what, well, you go ahead,

Sean. I was going to say, well, if you, if you want to marry someone and I get, I hope that you're right. Cause I think that would be great. I'd like to live in that world again. I want to be wrong, but when there's a disagreement on are there more than two genders and should kids transition or what's the history of America? Are we fundamentally bad and racist or, you know, were we flawed, but we strive to be better? I think what we do with crime, I mean, I think there's some fundamental issues that if you don't agree on those basic concepts of life, I think that can rip people apart. And I hear now more, I hear now more from

people that a lot of liberals are like, if you support Donald Trump, need not apply. And I hear that less from conservatives. But how do you how do you, you know, need not apply. And I hear that less from conservatives. But how do you how do you come together on the fundamentals? Should we really care if Rachel thinks there's 10 sexes and I think there's two? Can we still love each other? I think so. But it has permeated every aspect of life today, which means that's going to overcome. You know, I think she's a beautiful woman and she's really nice and she's a great cook and, you know, good mother. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's sort of, Sean, it depends on

how important those things are to you. You know, if you put too much emphasis on those things, absolutely. So you find, by the way, the dating profile literature is really interesting. 71% of liberals won't date a conservative. 41% of conservatives won't date a liberal. That's right. Yeah, and the reason for that is actually it's women versus men, and it just shows that men have lower standards, apparently. Our turn. But the important thing for us to remember is that, you know,

I know tons of couples that differ on abortion. I know tons of couples that differ on it. And the reason is because their love and their family life and their religious belief transcends the importance of that as an issue. They're willing to say, this is my view, but I might be wrong. And I love you more than I care about that policy. And that's the most important thing as far as I'm concerned. And we've got to get back to the relative importance of these things, even when there's major disagreements. Okay, so we've done a lot of podcasts, Arthur, on dating and love and marriage. It's sort

of like our little space too. And so here's my thought on it. So first of all, I think politics reflect values. So for me, as a Christian Catholic woman who also takes her faith very seriously, an issue like abortion, it would be very hard for me to be married to somebody who didn't believe that the child growing inside of my womb was a real human being and that other children deserve a right to live. Super fundamental. And so so that's that's a big thing. I think values politics matter. I think in the 1980s, I think there's a lot more overlap of ideas and thoughts and politics. And I think, and of course, I bring my bias to this.

I think that liberals have become so radical that even Democrats don't even recognize them. So I think things have gotten off the rails to a point where I don't think there's a lot of that space. And I think marriage is so important. And there's so many other things to fight about that I want to have, you know, I think you should find as much in common as possible to start your marriage. And that means, you know, faith first and foremost, of course. But then I think, you know, because politics has become such, I mean, it's interesting you say this. What I want to ask you about the kids in your class, because so many young people I find are so intolerant and so many of them tend to be more left leaning. It doesn't surprise me, by the way, that more conservatives are willing to marry or date liberals than liberals to conservatives. And I and I and I don't say that with glee at all. It makes me sad.

But so that's my theory on it. Yeah. Well, you know, the truth is complex in this cases of, you know, the students. And one of the things that I tell them is that they've been led astray into thinking that they need commonality, lots of commonality.

The research shows that you need a baseline on values like you're talking about. It's lower than you think. That baseline is lower than you think. And then a successful marriage is based on complementarity. I mean, look at the two of you. I mean, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, Rachel, you're not a Wisconsinite from your background. I mean, there's no, you know, and I married somebody from halfway across the world who literally didn't speak English when we met. We spoke no words in common. The truth is that the happiest marriages have a baseline of commonality, a baseline of common values, and then tons of complementarity, tons of differences.

That's what the happiest marriages are based on. And what you find is in the culture today is that young people are being told they need to find somebody who's their sibling, which, as my adult kids would say, is not hot. That's one of the biggest reasons that young people today are loveless. And we find that people in their 20s are about 50% less likely to be married than they were when I got married in the 90s. They're about 50% less likely to be cohabitating. They're even less likely to say that they're in love, about a third less likely to say they're in love. And a big reason for that is that they're not as attracted to each other.

And the reason they're less attracted to each other is because they're looking at a picture in the mirror. You got to look for somebody who's really different than you. So what I tell my students, by the way, is I say, don't put anything about politics in your dating profile. I mean, actually find somebody to set you up. That's more important, but if you can't agree with that, a hundred percent, you got a human because humans are really good at setting you up with somebody who's your match, who's your compliment is that alike enough and then different enough.

But if you do your dating profile, then take all the politics out and put a moratorium on it so that you're not actually going to talk about politics until the fourth date. By then, there's a neurochemical cascade in your brain that's making you fall in love if you're still dating after four dates and it will be less important. That will actually take its natural place in the progression of importance in your life

because your brain chemistry is going to be taken over. But Arthur, if that's the people that we deal with, we're like, listen, politics is a secondary issue. There's all these other things that are more important to me in my life. I can find someone that agrees with those things with me on. I think that could actually work. And I think the problem that Rachel and I talk about is the politics has become so important. And I hope that your students listen to you and go, you can find commonality and love outside of politics.

And if they listen, that's wonderful. You know, what I love about, and I think you've talked about this since you're at AEI, and I've thought about Arthur Brooks a lot in my life as I've thought about gratitude. I mean, that we have air to breathe, that I have a roof over my head, that I'm not hungry right now. There are simple things that I can be grateful for. And an attitude of gratitude, which Rachel says to the kids all the time, I have an attitude of gratitude. When you're grateful, all of a sudden your perspective on life can kind of change. And I love that you always talk about gratitude because everybody, that you're alive, you should be grateful for, that You can always find something to be grateful for.

And I love that that's always part of what you talk about. And you talk about that in your book as well. Yeah. There's almost nothing. It'll make you more grateful than your mom telling you to be grateful. However, you know, African children who haven't eaten, you know, we all do that. We can't help it. But we see poverty. I grew up in the third world. I know what it looks like, and I can't understand why they're so entitled. No, I know. They're like, okay, mom, send my sandwich to Africa. Yeah. But, you know, you're making this really important point, and this is one of the things that we talk about an awful lot. Human beings are evolved to look at the negative.

That's called the negativity bias. It's literally a phenomenon that's a force of nature because negative emotions keep you alive. Threats, the perception of threats actually keep you alive. You have more brain tissue dedicated to negative emotions than to positive emotions. You know, when you're in a room full of people, a sweet smile from across the room is pleasant. A negative face frowning at you from across the room might be your demise outside, you know, on the street if you're not paying attention to it. So that's why the human brain is evolved to have negative emotions and look at the negative side of things, but it's

maladapted. You know, today we have the same basic ideas or emotions about Twitter that we do about being cast out of our tribe and wandering the frozen tundra by ourselves. You know, Twitter, it ain't the tundra. And so we need to actually intervene in this process and make conscious attempts to have strategies to override these natural tendencies. And one of them is counting our blessings is what it comes down to. So I ask my students to make a gratitude list on Sunday nights at the beginning of the semester. And they write down the five things they're most grateful for. I don't even care if they're stupid. My team won. I ate a piece of pie, whatever it happens to be.

Maybe very profound, the Lord loves me, whatever it is. And then look at it every night over the course of the week, update it every Sunday, and by the end of 10 weeks, they are on average 12% happier, because they've been overriding their negativity bias systematically. This is something that Oprah and I, in the book, we call emotional substitution. It's like drinking coffee, which blocks the adenosine molecules in your brain,

is you choose an emotion that's more appropriate to your circumstances. And when you do that, you have an amazing effect. The other thing is when you feel resentful or sad, making a joke, that's a classic way of doing it as well. When you're feeling pessimistic, say something that's hopeful. There's so many ways that you can use emotional caffeine, emotional substitution to change your point of view. Yeah. You said something earlier that really resonated with me as a fellow Catholic, and you said sanctify your work. I wonder if you could expound on that, because that meant a lot to me when I was an at home mom for 14 years. Yeah. And you don't get a lot of kudos. I get, you know, people tell me how great I am on TV.

They also say a lot of negative stuff to me, but I can handle all that. And I love the praise. But when you're an at home mom, for example, you don't get praise except for Sean, who is always so wonderful and always came home and thanked me for being an at-home mom when I did do that. But, you know, I had to learn to sanctify my work and to say, you know, wiping a mouth, tying a shoe, you know, cutting an apple, that I was doing this for God, that my little kids were like Jesus, you know, and I was doing it for them. But that's easier to do as a Catholic. We live in a secular world, and I would guess most of your students, for example, don't have that kind of background. Talk to me about sanctifying work in a secular world. I mean, that's what, you know, Mother Teresa always talked

about, that life is full of little things with great love yeah do small things with great love i think yeah it's really really important point of course and you know so for catholics or for christian people for religious people in general you can put a supernatural you understand that there is a supernatural dimension to everything that you're yes right i mean what are we trying to do i, your children are literally the poor people who are closest to you every day. So as you did for the least of these, you did for these, my brothers and sisters. I mean, this is Matthew 25, 44 is no joke when it comes to raising little kids. They're poor. They got nothing. They know how to do nothing. They're completely vulnerable. And so you're serving the

poor when you're raising your children, even if you're- Charity starts at home, Arthur. I think that's another Mother Teresa thing. Yeah, for sure. And so that's a really important thing to keep in mind. But even for people who are not, that don't have this overtly supernatural dimension in their life, as a social scientist, I will tell you that when you dedicate everything to the spirit of love to other people, when you offer things up, when you're earning your success in the context of serving other people, and there's so many ways to do it. I talk to people all day long who will say, my job is boring. I feel like it doesn't matter.

I'm sitting in a cubicle doing something that any, I'm a drone. I feel like it's insignificant. And I'll say, you know how to inject a supernatural dimension into your work? Go to the break room, get a fresh cup of coffee and bring it to the person in the next cubicle when they didn't even ask for it and say, you know what? You look like you could use a fresh cup of coffee. And watch the look in their eyes. It'll be like, what just happened? What that was, was a little moment of grace. And what you become is the guy or the girl who does that. You're the person who

actually does that thing. And pretty soon you're going to not going to be able to stop doing that. You're going to be the person who is, how can I help? How can I help? It's just acts of kindness, acts of love. And you'll weirdly start loving your job more. Arthur, one last question before you go. Obviously you are right of center. Yeah. Politically. where you go, obviously you are right of center. Oprah is left of center politically. I wouldn't have put you two as dance partners on a book, but here you and Oprah are writing a book together, which is again, maybe the message of the book in your point of view, which is we can all love and see common ground together. And especially on happiness, it's a human condition. Tell me just

real quick how it was to write the book with Oprah. It was a great experience. And, you know, I got to know her because she's been following my work for a long time. She reads my column in The Atlantic. She read my last book, which is called From Strength to Strength. And I went on her podcast, Super Soul. And we just really hit it off because we have this, you know, basically my mission in life is to lift people up in the spirit of love and happiness and bringing them together. That's my mission. And I have a particular way of doing it as a social scientist. And she's been trying to do that through her work in the mass media for a really long time. And she suggested, why don't we do something together? And I said, heck, yeah. I mean, I didn't believe it when she first called. She said, this is Oprah Winfrey. And I'm like, yeah, and this is Batman. Yeah.

But it was a wonderful collaboration. I've gotten to know her and she's become, you know, somebody I really admire a lot as a person and knowing her as a friend now. And it's been a wonderful collaboration, I have to say. So it's, it was super fun. You know, we text all the time about how the book is doing and you know, you never know. We write a book together right now. It's number one in the New York times bestseller list, a book on happiness. My friends, there's hope. Yeah, it definitely speaks to what people are desire in life. We all want to be happy.

I love that you're collaborating. I love seeing these ideas, which I know are grounded so much in our common faith, being, you know, out there in the culture for all to use and improve their lives. You've been a great example out in the world. And I just love that you're doing this. And that's why we wanted to have you on. And we just wish you all the luck with this and with your beautiful family and your new grandbaby. And again, the book is Build the Life You Want, The Art and Science of Getting Happier. Arthur Brooks. That's a lot of pressure to write that book at home.

And then every time you're not happy, everyone's like, why aren't you happy? I know. Now I'm in the airport. I better not have anybody see me being unhappy. That's all I can say. This is a great gift for Christmas too. So if you want a Christmas season,

give this book to everyone you know, because we all want to be happy. It is the aspired human condition. Arthur Brooks, always a pleasure. Thank be happy. It is the Aspired Human Condition. Arthur Brooks, always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us at the kitchen table. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. God bless both of you. God bless your whole family. And you know, all my best from my beautiful wife, Esther, to the two of you. All right. Right back at you. Bye. We'll have more of this conversation after this. I gotta tell you, Rachel, I enjoyed the conversation

with Arthur and got to know him when he was at AEI, when I was in Congress. And this is a theme he has always had in life of studying happiness. And I think when you see more Americans becoming unhappy, it's a great space to play and to go, what did we do 100, 250 years ago where people were happy? They had less money. They worked really hard back then, but they were happier. And so what can we learn? Yeah. Real skill sets to make people happier if they employ them in their life. Yeah. It's an incredible topic because as we said, everyone wants it. You know, there's some things we didn't get to get to with him that I thought

were really important. He talked about conflict, especially in relation in relation to families and marriages and how you should not avoid conflict. And and he talked about family. I mean, like, for example, I brought up, you know, talking to kindergarten teachers for that kind of generational perspective of where kids were at and like the kind of problems that six-year-olds are experiencing at home. I mean, that they never had, you know, back in the seventies and sixties, for example, or set our eighties, even this sort of the, the idea that we say we value families, we talk about families, but everything in our culture is set at everything from like easy divorces to, you know, the kind of language. I mean, frankly, let's be honest, that kind of, you know, people like Oprah bring up

sometimes, which is like, that's toxic. You know, you're toxic. So I can't, you know, you know, I need to get that out of toxicity out of my life. Well, sometimes that's your sister, you know, and you got to work it out. Um, so I think that, you know, by the way, it's not my sister. I love my sister, but me and my sister argue and fight and work things out. Just like you and I argue and fight things out. And I think when you don't value family, when, when everything seems so, whether it's marriage or family ties seems like optional and transitional and not permanent, I think that's one of the things that happens. And like when you realize that, you know, no matter

what happens, no matter how many fights we're in, no matter how angry you are at me, no matter how angry I am at you, we're here together forever. It changes the way you argue. It changes the way you're going to approach things. And it goes for every relationship in your family, whether it's with your kids or your parents. I just think that if we could get family right, and frankly, I'm sorry, government has done a lot to ruin families. And so that's just sort of what I took away a little bit reading his book. So it comes down to people sometimes think that money can make you happy or fame can make you happy. Now, I do think money can help you be happy because you may

be able to do the things that Arthur Brooks talks about in his book. If you use it for those purposes. But money itself doesn't make you happy. Fame does not make you happy. Actually, you see people who are rich and famous oftentimes not happy at all. They're some of the most miserable people you'll ever meet, and their lives are disasters. And so when he was talking about family and friends and faith and a purpose in your work are the four things, I look at that and go, you know, family and friends and faith and a purpose in your work are the four things. I look at that and go, you know, I left Congress. And again, we left because we had the baby with Valentina and Downs and a heart condition.

And nine kids. That was a tough job. It's a lot. But again, I always said that I was a U.S. congressman and I couldn't change that much. The greatest impact and the greatest happiness that I have in my.S. congressman and I couldn't change that much. The greatest impact and the greatest happiness that I have in my life is my family, is my relationship with you. And if you're doing things that are taking you away from your family and your relationship with your kids and your spouse, your faith, that's a problem. And you're probably not going to be

happy. I do think also the issue of faith. People have, and you made this point, are falling away from their faith. Right. People are going to church. And maybe it's simple. Try to get a friend, a real friend that you're humble with. He talks about humility and friendship, which is true. Go to church and try to be nice to your spouse and your kids or to your parents and build

out those relationships. You know, Sean, there's nothing more humbling than knowing that you're not the most important person, because there's God, right? I mean, just getting that relationship in order is super important. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, the only requirement to become a Christian is to know that there's a God and that you're a sinner. That's right.

And that enough, you know, if you really take that seriously, if you really take that in, that becomes, that's a real path to happen. And he said that at the beginning. beginning, he said, it's not coincidental that if you live a devout, you know, Christian life, Christian life, if you take the Christian life seriously, it does lead to happiness. And all the data proves that. All the data shows that. I mean, that's why they say conservatives are more, I don't think it's a political thing. I think it has a lot more to do with conservatives and their faith life than I think it has to do with politics. You know, we had that disagreement. I stand by my I stand by it.

You know, Arthur Brooks may have some PhDs and, you know, after his name. But I stand by that at this point in politics, at this point, as you said, Sean, the divide is so huge between where left and right is. And it has so much to do with values. Politics reflects values. It would be very hard for me to have a happy marriage and have that same commonality that one would need to get through life with somebody who didn't respect life. That's just for me. It's too much.

It's too much to overcome. Now, maybe if he was ambivalentent he said he was pro-choice but he didn't really know you know and i could tell that he just didn't know and i could you know help educate him and maybe if we had a baby together he would actually see it's a baby that would be one thing but to me uh that would be really hard to overcome. Yeah. And I think what if what Arthur was saying is the ideal world in which you would live, where politics would be secondary or third in these these common themes that you could build a relationship on were primary, that might be possible today. That's not possible because politics has been self-defining. Right. It defines who people are. Maybe we wish it wasn't that way, but it is.

And again, I think whether it's abortion or there's, you know, 100 genders and you can be a fuzzy and whatever these genders are versus someone who's like there's only two genders. I mean, it's pretty hard to to reconcile that relationship. Do you remember what he said it was so interesting and i and and you guys went off on a different subject and i was so we'll just bring it up now but he was saying you know you need to have enough differences so that there's attraction right he kind of mentioned that he said in a different way but essentially said what you don't want to it's not hot to marry your sister right right? Because she's so much like you. So you want these differences. The main difference between you and me, and he brought up Wisconsin. I'm not trying to argue with Arthur. I love him to death.

But he brought up, well, you're not from Wisconsin. That's true. I'm not from Wisconsin. But the main difference between you and me is that you're a man and I'm a woman. And we bring that to our marriage all the time in the way we view things, in the way we approach problems, in the way we approach anything in life. And so I think, frankly, that when he talked about the Harvard students being, you know, trying to find happiness and they don't have love lives. I think it's because so many of the women want their men to be like women.

They want these beta men. Let men be men. Let women be women. And I bet that we would find more commonality and more attraction and more love in the world. Am I crazy? No, you're not.

I think you're crazy. I wanted to be with Arthur, but you guys went off on a different subject. What I love is that Arthur is having these classes at Harvard. I do. I love that. Arthur might get mad at me for saying this, but maybe it's a little subversive, right? There's all this progressive liberal stuff.

And you have this guy coming in who's a right-of-center guy who's like, listen, let the politics go. Talk about what makes you happy. And he starts to talk about happiness. Let the politics go. Talk about what makes you happy. And he starts to talk about happiness. And maybe there's a slight rewiring of brains at those kids in Harvard who have been indoctrinated for so long. They come to his course. Maybe they're like, huh, maybe this guy makes some sense. And maybe Arthur Brooks can save Harvard. One man by himself could save America. You know what the secret sauce to Arthur is? Arthur was a liberal. Arthur was a liberal. And so he knows how they think. It's a little bit like Donald Trump. If I told him that, he probably wouldn't like that.

But, you know, liberals know liberals. He was a liberal and he did this study on charity and on people's psychology and also the economy, the economics behind charity. And he found that liberals talk a big game about helping others. And yet it was conservatives that were the most generous with their money, which, by the way, on Fox and Friends, I see it all the time. We can put up a picture of somebody in need. And that day, I mean, I can't even tell you how many people. Do you know how much money will Cain raise for Maui through our viewers? That's just through our viewers. $2.5 million. That's amazing.

It's amazing. We have the most generous, amazing audience. And it is obviously a conservative audience. And when you took Valentina to the Downs. To the Navarro Farms, which, by the way, I'll say it was in it's in Illinois, like outside of Chicago. It's called Navarro Farms. It was a farm for basically Down syndrome. Yeah, for Down syndrome. I did a story on I went to this farm and here's what they do with with with Down syndrome teens because they age out of so many

of the programs after high school. And there's not a lot for them sometimes. And so it was like a social. Anyway, I went, I took Valentina. I went to their Christmas party that they had $100,000 or more later. That is how generous conservatives are. And so anyway, Arthur Brooks wrote that first book and it was, you know, somebody finally, and he didn't expect that conclusion, I think, which is what's so interesting. And then he slowly had this transformation where he became more of a conservative and he wrote about the conservative heart. He had a famous book about the conservative heart. And now he's teaming up with Oprah.

I think it's wonderful. I sell a lot of books. Oprah sells books. You know, what's interesting, too, is we all have feelings on politics. We have feelings about happiness, what makes you happy. And he said this at the start of the interview. He said, you know, I'm a social scientist at heart. And I wrap it around economics.

It's economics and social science together. And he's actually looking at data. Yeah. He's trying to take data and the science to go, these are the things that you can do to make yourself... He's not a guru that's got a pair of Birkenstocks on or writing a philosophy book. No, he's actually studying it. And by the way, the themes through the years of studying that he's done are consistent with a lot of the themes he's brought up in the past. Because these are human traits

of things that make you happy. Again, your family, your friends, your faith and purpose in your work. And you can find purpose in your work. Do those things. Can I read you what he says, Sean, about this is the way, because his book is like,

here's what happiness is, here's what it's not. And then it's like, here's how you can build a life of, that you want of purpose and happiness. He has 11 principles. He says, happiness, as he mentioned before, is a direction, not a destination. Unhappiness is not your enemy. Choose your reactions, not your emotions. That's a really hard one for a Hispanic to do. You can substitute the emotion you want for the one you feel. Focus less on yourself. Talked about that. Your family problems can save your family. I wish we'd asked him about that. You know what? I'm going to have him on Fox and Friends. I'm going to ask him about that.

We'll start by. But you know what? That actually, oh my gosh, that's the story of your family. When your brother Timmy was going through rehab and the whole family went to therapy and it ended up saving your family in many ways. It was really good for that family. And that incident, I always give Timmy credit for making our marriage better

because you ended up- The benefit of all. The benefit of all the things that your parents went through and it's helped our marriage. So wow, I'm gonna read that again. Your family problems can save your family. Powerful. Look for real friends, not deal friends. Your work can be love made visible. That's, we talked about that sanctifying your work. Find your spiritual path. Talked about that. Become a happiness teacher, which is that example he gave

of the guy who goes to the break room. He doesn't find purpose a happiness teacher, which is that example he gave of the guy who goes to the break room. He doesn't find purpose in his work, but he just goes and gets a coffee and gives it to his friend next door in the cubicle. And that kind of bringing levity and light and love into all the work you do. I really, truly believe in that. And remember, happiness is love in action. Again, that's another Mother Teresa. I feel like Arthur Brooks was going into the Teresa vault, Mother Teresa vault, because it's full of stuff. She says, do small things with great love. Charity begins in the home.

Happiness is love in action. What book did you read? And I think maybe I'm getting this wrong, that you told me about the guy that was in the concentration camp where he was in. Oh. And he was laying bricks, being worked to death. Yeah. And he decided that, you know what, I'm going to, I'm working how many hours a day, I'm going to be the best bricklayer that I can be.

His name is Victor. I get the name. It's Man's Search for Meaning. It's a wonderful book. Our son was reading it. I decided to read it with him. And yeah, I mean, if you can find your dignity, love and even happiness, even moments of happiness that you can hold on to in a concentration camp. And forced labor. And forced labor. What the heck can we, people who become bitter about what they have to do and are just focused on the injustice of what's happening to

them. And we've all had injustice too. Obviously that's about the apex of injustice that you could face, right? Being put in a concentration camp because of your faith and your religion and who you are and immutable characteristics, that's the worst. But that is what Arthur's talking about. You're right. You're right. That's a great book. And life.

Thanks for bringing it up. Yeah, listen, I appreciate Arthur joining us and unpacking the book. Again, a book with Oprah Winfrey. If you don't have it, get it. Yeah. And if you want to give gifts for Christmas, I think it's a great gift because we all strive to be happy. And some tools that Arthur lays out will help with that. And again, he is a happy warrior himself. He is a happy warrior. He's always been a happy warrior. So listen, thank you for joining us at the Kitchen Table. If you like our podcast,

you can rate, review, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can get us at foxnewspodcast.com. Please subscribe. You get a notice every time our podcast drops Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And in about a month's time, we're going five days a week. So we can't wait for that. And until next time, we'll see you later. Bye, everybody. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.