Name: Bestselling author Arthur C. Brooks gives tips for happiness in 2026
Uploaded: 2026-01-06T16:02:42.543Z
Duration: 4 min 28 s
Description: Bestselling author Arthur C. Brooks, a Harvard professor and social scientist who teaches the science of happiness, speaks about resetting for 2026 and creating positive goals.

Bestselling author Arthur C. Brooks, a Harvard professor and social scientist who teaches the science of happiness, speaks about resetting for 2026 and creating positive goals.

Arthur C. Brooks, a bestselling author and Harvard professor specializing in the science of happiness, has joined CBS News as a contributor and The Free Press as a columnist. He will write a weekly column titled 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' focusing on practical, science-based strategies to improve well-being.

Brooks advises making positive resolutions, such as starting healthy habits, rather than focusing on stopping negative behaviors. He explains that while genetics account for about half of a person's happiness, the other half can be improved through intentional actions and good habits, which he aims to share with a broad audience.

Bestselling author Arthur C. Brooks gives tips for happiness in 2026

We have a very special guest for our talk of the table, best-selling author Arthur C. Brooks. That's hard. Author Arthur. Yeah, that's hard. He is a Harvard professor and social scientist who teaches the science of happiness. It is a science this morning. We are announcing, and we're so excited, that Brooks is joining CBS News as a contributor and joining the Free Press as a columnist, where he'll be writing a weekly column called The Pursuit of Happiness. CBS News and the Free Press are both owned by Paramount Skydance. Arthur, good morning. Good morning, nice to meet you. Adriana, he's part of the family. Yes, he is. Welcome back to the family. Yeah, I know, so happy about that. It felt like he was part of the family this whole time, but now it's official. It's official. So for 2026, people are making resolutions. They are. You say, don't resolve to be happier, resolve to be less unhappy. Well, that's what a lot of people do. They make their New Year's resolutions about stopping something. I want to stop eating this. I want to stop scrolling on that, whatever it happens to be. But that's actually the wrong approach. One of the reasons that New Year's resolutions tend to fail is because they're negative. You want to make a positive resolution so you can actually become happier as opposed to just not less unhappy. And that means doing something like, I'm not going to stop eating junk food. I'm going to start eating good food. I'm not going to stop scrolling at night. I'm going to take a good book to bed. Ah, I got you. And that will give you more success. Framing it differently. That's the kind of science of happiness that we'll be bringing every week to the Free Press and here to CBS, is news that people can actually use and live a better life. But I like what you said, too, in your first column. You said, getting happier is a skill like any other. You give the analogy about being a doctor. Yeah, no, exactly right. Because I didn't know you could make yourself, I didn't know it was a skill. I just think either you are or you're not a happy person. That's right. And a lot of people get it wrong. They think that happiness is a feeling and they're hoping for better feelings. Well, that's not how feelings work. Feelings, emotions, they exist to actually give you alerts and warnings about what's going on around you. You need to make the decision to live in a different way if you want to be a happier person. You want to take control over it. And that's something you can very much get better at. That's why I've devoted my life to the science of happiness for that reason. But even your own wife says that you were not a happy person. That's why I devoted my life to it. But that surprises me, because I would have thought that that would be your skill set. You said, but even you were not, were you a cranky Yankee type person? What were you and how did you turn it around for yourself? Just kind of a gloomy guy. I grew up in Seattle, Washington. It's sort of cloudy out there. Hey, I know what that's like as a guy that grew up there. There you go. The perpetual rain and clouds just hanging over you. Yeah, maybe that was my excuse, but the whole point is, I married a Spaniard. My wife's from Barcelona. She's a sunny person. She's a nine out of 10 on happiness. And I was a good old three. And finally, I got my PhD as a behavioral scientist years and years ago. And finally, about seven years ago, she said, why don't you study yourself, Einstein? Why don't you actually use the happiness science? And I'm telling you, it works. I developed a method based on the neuroscience and behavioral science around happiness. And my happiness went up by 60%. That's what we want to bring to the world here. So let's talk about that, because some people might be sitting at home saying, you're either happy or you're not. It's not rocket science. Now, it may not be rocket science, but it is science, though. It's science. And you say that there are people that are genetically predisposed to being happy? Like, how did you find out that information? So half of your happiness is actually genetic. How you wake up in the morning. Some people wake up and they go, like Gail, it's a great day. And some people like me, they wake up and they go, ugh, gratitude. You know? Force it. And we know that's half genetic based on studies of identical twins that were separated at birth and reunited as adults. We know that about half of your personality is genetic, but the other half is what you can work on with good habits. And I'm all about the good habits. The things that you can actually do. So for me, I better get the habits right. And that's what I'm trying to bring to the widest group of people that I possibly can. So what should we expect once a week from you? We're gonna be learning about all the different aspects of how relationships can make us happier, how habits can make us happier, how work. Can jobs make you happier? Well, jobs won't make you happy, but your attitude toward them can make you happier. And here's the hack. Here's the cheat code. It's not about money. It's not about position. It's not about prestige. It's about earning your success with your hard work and serving other people to the extent that you believe that you're serving other people. And I've got seven ways in the work that I do to make any job into a service job. Oh, wow. I love that. We appreciate that. Phone number, Arthur Brooks. Arthur Brooks, thank you so much. We appreciate you. And welcome to the family. Thank you. That's right, and check out his columns at The Free Press.

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