A Conversation with Arthur Brooks on Global Prosperity | Middle East and Africa Summit 2024

Summit Context and Opening Remarks

• The 6th Annual Milken Institute Middle East and Africa Summit focuses on the theme "investing in a shared future" and building strategies for finance, health, global growth, and philanthropy.
• The opening session emphasizes collaboration over geopolitical discord, framing the challenge as a "wii game" requiring joint investment and innovation.
• The lunch program features a two-part agenda: a session on "Wealth to Well-Being" with Arthur Brooks, followed by a discussion on storytelling with Edward Norton and Eli Saab, Jr.
• The Milken Institute acknowledges strategic partners and underwriters for 2024, including media partners and organizations supporting global work.

The Science of Happiness: Macronutrients and Wealth

• Arthur Brooks, a Harvard Kennedy School professor, defines happiness as a science-based concept derived from neuroscience and behavioral science rather than intuition.
• Happiness requires three "macronutrients": enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning; a deficit in any area leads to an incomplete life.
• Evolutionary psychology suggests that while the accumulation of resources aids survival and gene propagation, it does not inherently produce happiness, which transcends basic biological imperatives.
• Wealth, power, position, and fame serve as effective intermediate goals but fail as end goals for achieving happiness.

The Four Habits of the Happiest People

• The most consistent predictors of happiness are faith, family, friendship, and work.
• Faith (broadly defined to include philosophy, art, nature, or meditation) provides a necessary perspective that transcends daily routines and the self-centered "psychodrama."
• Family relationships are identified as critical; polarized political environments have caused one in six Americans to cease speaking to a family member, a trend described as "insane" and avoidable.
• Friendship is distinguished by the presence of "real friends" who offer unconditional love (being "useless" in a transactional sense) rather than "deal friends" who are only valuable for utility.
• Work generates joy only when it involves earning success through merit-based recognition and serving others, rather than through money, title, or prestige.
• Brooks argues that merit-based systems are superior to loyalty or tenure-based systems because they foster morale and happiness by ensuring individuals see the value they create.
• Service to others is identified as a primary driver of dignity, specifically through parenting and professional roles where reliance by others is evident.

Philanthropy, Relationships, and Social Media

• Four specific spending behaviors reliably increase happiness: buying experiences with loved ones, buying time for family or introspection, accumulating wealth through saving (rather than consuming), and engaging in philanthropy.
• Field studies indicate that giving money away causally leads to increased happiness, better health, and higher future earnings, particularly for young adults who allocate 10% of income to charity.
• A specific behavioral study found that men who donated money to a stranger were perceived as more attractive by their wives, linking philanthropy directly to relationship satisfaction.
• The happiest marriages are characterized by a specific dynamic where the husband feels admired and the wife feels adored, rooted in evolutionary psychology and investment in family life.
• Social media is strongly correlated with rising depression and anxiety, particularly in individuals aged 20 to early 30s.
• Social media acts as a detriment to happiness when it substitutes for in-person relationships; it is beneficial only when used to complement face-to-face interaction.
• Brooks recommends a maximum of 30 minutes of social media use per day in a single block to prevent mind-wandering suppression.
• The suppression of the brain's "default mode network" (activated during boredom) by social media prevents the contemplation of life's meaning, contributing to mental health issues.
• Active boredom, such as walking or driving without audio stimulation, is recommended to re-engage the default mode network and facilitate deep existential questioning.
• Meaning is cultivated by asking deep, unanswerable questions like "Why am I alive?" and "For what am I willing to die?", often requiring isolation or challenging experiences like military service.

The Aquinas Test and Personal Mission

• Brooks applies the "Aquinas Test," derived from Aristotle and Abrahamic thinkers (Maimonides, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas), to identify personal idols: money, power, pleasure, and fame.
• The test requires individuals to determine which of the four idols they could live without to identify their primary weakness and avoid future ethical or life regrets.
• In the session, Brooks identified fame/honor as his primary weakness, noting a tendency to be a "pleaser" who desires public approval of his work.
• Brooks stated his personal mission statement: "To spend the rest of my life lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love using science and ideas."
• Brooks teaches a Harvard class on "Leadership and Happiness," training executives to become "happiness teachers" to propagate these scientific principles within their organizations.
• The session concluded with a call for leaders to update and memorize their personal mission statements to align their careers with the ultimate enterprise of their own lives.