What is happiness not? What do people get wrong about happiness?

The number one reason that people aren't happier than they are is because they have the wrong definition.

They think it's a feeling. It's not a feeling. It has emotions attached to it.

Joy and happiness are not the same thing.

Arthur Brooks. Arthur Brooks is a Harvard professor, best-selling author, and one of the world's leading experts on happiness and purpose. With decades of research into human behavior, leadership, and fulfillment,

he's helped millions reframe success and find meaning in their lives. We only have had the data

and the neuroscience that can get behind it relatively recently. This is compounded by the fact

that Mother Nature doesn't care if you're happy at all. So if you follow your impulses, you're going to feel miserable a lot of the time. The human brain says you want really four things.

Money, power, pleasure, and honor. And this all comes from evolutionary proclivities. So the result of

it is that you think, if I live up to those impulses, then I'm automatically going to be happy,

but that's a cross-circuit. His insights have shaped global conversations from boardrooms to TED

stages, and today he's here to share the science of living a better life. You can live the life

that you want, but if your goal is the money, you'll never be happy. You actually have to work

for the happiness while you do beautiful big things.

Happiness is love. If you don't know what to do, make the decision to love.

Arthur, I'm really excited you're here. I want to kick this off in a sort of simple way because you talk about happiness, you teach about happiness, but just in a very, very short sentence, what is happiness not?

What do people get wrong about happiness?

That's a smart question because the number one reason that people aren't happier than they are

is because they have the wrong definition. They think happiness is something that it's

not, specifically. They think it's a feeling when I ask my students on the first day of class,

because after that they know. But I lead them down kind of

the primrose path. I say, what do you think you're studying? Kids, they're not kids. They're 28 years old. They're MBA students at Harvard. And I say, what do you think you're studying? What's happiness? And they say, well, I can't quite put it into words, but I know it when I feel it. or it's how I feel when I'm with the people that I love, and I say wrong.

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