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Build the Life You Want

Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey on the science of getting happier

Written with the Harvard social scientist Arthur Brooks after Winfrey approached him during the pandemic. The argument: happiness is a set of skills rather than a fixed trait, and how you react to a bad hand is something you can work on without waiting for the hand to change. Brooks supplies the research on emotional self-management and the pillars of family, friendship, work and faith. Winfrey supplies the case histories, several of them her own.

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  • Oprah WinfreyRecommends

    Talk show host and producer · The Oprah Winfrey Show

    She contacted the Harvard happiness researcher Arthur Brooks during the pandemic and proposed writing it together. The pitch is that happiness runs on knowledge rather than willpower, and that your reaction to a bad hand is something you get to choose. Her own site carries the introduction.

    Source: Oprah.com: Read an Excerpt from Build the Life You Want

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Book entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.