I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of

the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.

Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right

now.

So Arthur Brooks, it is my great pleasure to meet you. I am such a huge fan of yours. I

wait every week for your column in the Atlantic on how to build a life to drop. And I just

think it's such a fantastic title. And everything you've said about building a life, growing

into happiness, letting go, surrendering, it's just like you are my people. You are a member

of my tribe of happiness. I adore and admire and respect you so much.

Thank you Oprah. Likewise, you've for so many years you've brought love and happiness

to millions of people. You've been an example of all of us. And I have to tell you that

when I dedicated my work as a social scientist, to lifting people up and bringing them together,

I was thinking of you because you've done exactly the same thing with your career. And

all of us can be apostles for happiness and love in our own way. You've done that.

I did not know that I was even on your mind, but thank you so much. So you started the

column during the pandemic of how to build a life. What was the inspiration and the intention?

Well, I started the column during during the pandemic because I noticed that a lot of

people were talking not about how the pandemic was an opportunity for us to learn about ourselves.

But just as a sheer unmitigated problem. And one of the things that I love about being

an American is that we're such entrepreneurs. And what entrepreneurs do is that when other

people see tragedies and problems, they always look for the opportunity that's inside of

it. But people weren't doing that. I thought, wow, this is a huge opportunity for us to

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