Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Arthur Brooks.

Arthur is a social scientist, author, and public intellectual, known for his work on happiness,

leadership, and public policy. He served as the president of the American Enterprise Institute

from 2009 to 2019. And before entering the world of public policy, he was, like me, a professional

musician, in his case, a classical French horn player. He's currently a professor at Harvard,

where he teaches courses on leadership and happiness. In this episode, we talk about what social

science can tell us about happiness. We talk about global poverty.

And Arthur gives me a public therapy session, which was sort of terrifying, but also pretty

interesting. So without further ado, Arthur Brooks.

Arthur Brooks, thanks so much for coming on my show.

Thank you.

Great to be with you, Coleman.

So I've been following you for a long time.

You're one of the leading researchers on happiness, global poverty.

I would say human progress over the long run.

These are themes you've been talking about for years.

And the interesting part about your story is that like me, you came from the music world. And not just dabbling.

We were both professional musicians that made a transition

to the public policy space, which is pretty rare.

Yeah, that's not the typical.

You later in life than me, and you played French horn, right?

Yeah, I was a French horn player until I was 31.

...