Arthur Brooks (@arthurbrooks) is a professor on the Harvard Kennedy College and the Harvard Enterprise College, the place he teaches programs on management and happiness. He’s additionally the host of the weekly podcast Workplace Hours with Arthur Brooks and a columnist at The Atlantic, the place he writes the favored weekly “Learn how to Construct a Life” column.
Brooks is the creator of 15 books, together with the #1 New York Instances bestsellers, Construct the Life You Need, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, and From Energy to Energy: Discovering Success, Happiness, and Deep Goal within the Second Half of Life. His subsequent guide, The Which means of Your Life: Discovering Goal in an Age of Vacancy, shall be launched on March 31, 2026.
Please take pleasure in!
This episode is dropped at you by:
- Humann’s SuperBeets Sport for endurance and restoration
- Monarch monitor, price range, plan, and do extra together with your cash
- AG1 all-in-one dietary complement
- Coyote the cardboard sport, which I co-created with Exploding Kittens
Arthur Brooks — Discovering The Which means of Your Life, The Poet’s Protocol, The Holy Half-Hour, and Why Your Struggling is Sacred
Further podcast platforms
Hearken to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or in your favourite podcast platform.
Transcripts
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Join with Arthur Brooks:
Web site | Twitter | Fb | Instagram | TikTok
Arthur’s Earlier Look
Featured Sources
Books
Ideas
Dietary supplements
Instruments & Gadgets
Individuals
Movies & Tv Reveals
TIMESTAMPS
- [00:00:00] Begin.
- [00:02:33] The vascular Arthur Brooks returns.
- [00:03:07] Brahmamuhurta and why Arthur research happiness.
- [00:06:20] Arthur’s morning exercise protocol.
- [00:09:58] Why Arthur does Zone 2 cardio with out headphones.
- [00:10:38] Quantifying progress as the key to happiness.
- [00:20:50] Put up-workout holy half-hour.
- [00:22:25] Creatine, caffeine technique, and 60-70 grams of protein for breakfast.
- [00:29:50] 4 hours of distraction-free deep work and Hemingway’s protocol.
- [00:32:21] Alcohol kills sleep to borrow happiness from tomorrow.
- [00:34:36] My ketosis, intermittent fasting, and morning protocol.
- [00:39:34] Experimentation is king.
- [00:46:29] David Baszucki, metabolic psychiatry, and ketosis: the poet’s protocol.
- [00:48:20] 4 have an effect on profiles: mad scientists, cheerleaders, judges, and poets.
- [00:54:13] Why Arthur was moved to write down The Which means of Your Life.
- [00:55:52] Psychogenic epidemic: know-how isn’t the issue, it’s what we’re not getting.
- [00:59:33] Macronutrients of that means: coherence, function, significance.
- [01:03:38] Search vs. presence and the lure for seekers.
- [01:07:53] Marine rule: get to 80 p.c and select.
- [01:12:07] Significance at micro, not macro degree; cult of activism as substitute faith.
- [01:17:22] Transcendence: from me self to I self; Harvard’s Astronomy 101.
- [01:19:35] Two dimensions of transcendence: upward (worship) and outward (service).
- [01:21:48] Maslow revised: coaching consciousness so the mundane turns into miraculous.
- [01:28:45] Move state as self-forgetting; magnificence as transcendence.
- [01:32:12] Residing within the simulation: sophisticated vs. advanced issues.
- [01:37:55] Left hemisphere vs. proper hemisphere.
- [01:42:18] Your struggling is sacred: ache occasions resistance.
- [01:46:30] Pilgrimage as metaphor.
- [01:55:42] AI as left-brain adjunct.
- [01:57:18] Arthur’s night protocol: Psalms and Neruda.
- [02:00:13] The oxytocin protocol for marriage, break glass plan.
- [02:04:31] Happiness is love and different parting ideas.
ARTHUR BROOKS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW
“I’m a specialist in human happiness as a result of it’s laborious for me.”
— Arthur Brooks
“In case you’re getting up when the solar is heat, you’ve misplaced the primary battle for temper administration and productiveness is what it comes right down to.”
— Arthur Brooks
“You by no means arrive. Arrival provides you nearly nothing, however it’s progress towards the aim.”
— Arthur Brooks
“I’m principally the equal of a freaked-out hippie who went to India and bought transformed and practiced an unique faith for the remainder of my life. However my unique faith is Catholicism.”
— Arthur Brooks
“You’ll be able to’t simulate the that means of your life. You’ll be able to solely reside the that means of your life.”
— Arthur Brooks
“In case you don’t know what to do right now and that means feels out of attain, flip off your machine and go love any person. And it doesn’t actually matter how you are feeling as a result of love is an act. It’s a dedication. It’s a call. And also you’ll elevate up your self and that particular person in a bit of little bit of the entire world. Happiness is love.”
— Arthur Brooks
This episode is dropped at you by Monarch! Conventional budgeting apps may also help, however they don’t examine to the whole monetary command middle you get with this episode’s sponsor, Monarch. Monarch was named The Wall Road Journal’s Greatest Budgeting App of 2025, and it’s the top-recommended private finance app by customers and consultants, with greater than 30,000 5-star critiques. Get management of your total funds with Monarch. Use code TIM at monarchmoney.com/Tim for half off your first yr.
This episode is dropped at you by Humann! I first discovered about Humann’s endurance method, SuperBeets Sport, a decade in the past from a pal who’s a multiple-time world champion. Greater than 160 skilled sports activities groups and faculty sports activities applications use SuperBeets Sport by Humann. Humann’s personal scientific research reveal as much as an 18% improve in exercise endurance. They’ve additionally proven a 7% enchancment in lactate threshold and quicker restoration throughout HIIT intervals. The method is NSF Licensed for Sport and makes use of concentrated beetroot powder with clinically-studied dietary nitrates to gas nitric oxide manufacturing and energy blood move. Get 15% off your first order of SuperBeets Sport. First-time subscribers additionally obtain a FREE month’s provide of sugar-free Humann Tart Cherry Gummies to help restoration and wholesome inflammatory response.
This episode is dropped at you by AG1! I get requested on a regular basis, “In case you might use just one complement, what would it not be?” My reply is often AG1, my all-in-one dietary insurance coverage. I really helpful it in The 4-Hour Physique in 2010 and didn’t receives a commission to take action. And proper now, if you first subscribe to AG1, you’ll get an AG1 Welcome Package, a bottle of Vitamin D3+K2, a Morning Individual hat, AND you’ll get to attempt every new taste of AG1 and their new sleep complement, AGZ. That’s $126 in free presents for brand spanking new subscribers! Go to DrinkAG1.com/Tim to assert this particular provide right now
Need to hear the final time Arthur was on the present? Hearken to our dialog right here, by which we mentioned reverse bucket lists, the 4 false idols (cash, energy, fame, and pleasure), Buddhist and Stoic practices for managing detrimental have an effect on, dying meditation, how bodily health buys much less unhappiness, discovering that means and function, the three macronutrients of happiness, and far more.