(TOMS RIVER, NJ) -- How does happiness change over a lifetime and how can we get happier as we age? It’s probably safe to say that everyone would like the answer to that question.
Harvard professor and author Arthur C. Brooks reveals the answers to these questions by exploring the advances in behavioral economics and social psychology, ancient wisdom, art and music on Thursday, May 6 at 12:30pm in a virtual presentation at Ocean County College’s Grunin Center. The event, About the Pursuit of Happiness and True Success, is free; pre-registration is required.
Based on his popular column in The Atlantic, “How to Build a Life,” and his documentary “The Pursuit,” Brooks extracts life lessons that can immediately help us pursue happiness, forge stronger relationships and build more meaningful lives.
“To pursue the happiness within our reach, we do best to pour ourselves into faith, family, community and meaningful work,” Brooks says. “Further, we need to share it with others with joy and confidence.”
Audiences will take home tangible lessons on how they can immediately become happier and more successful people.
Arthur C. Brooks is the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. Before joining the Harvard faculty in July of 2019, he served for 10 years as president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the world’s leading think tanks.
Brooks is the author of 11 books, including the national bestsellers “Love Your Enemies” (2019), “The Conservative Heart” (2015), and “The Road to Freedom” (2012). He is also a columnist for The Atlantic, host of the podcast “The Art of Happiness with Arthur Brooks,” and subject of the 2019 documentary film “The Pursuit,” which Variety named as one of the “Best Documentaries on Netflix” in August 2019. He gives more than 100 speeches per year around the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Brooks began his career as a classical French hornist, leaving college at 19, touring and recording with the Annapolis Brass Quintet and later the City Orchestra of Barcelona. In his late twenties, while still performing, he returned to school, earning a B.A. through distance learning at Thomas Edison State College, and then an M.A. in economics from Florida Atlantic University. At 31, he left music and earned an MPhil and Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the Rand Graduate School, during which time he worked as an analyst for the Rand Corporation’s Project Air Force.
Brooks then spent 10 years as a university professor, becoming a full professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in his seventh year out of graduate school and occupying the Louis A. Bantle Chair in Business and Government. During this decade, Brooks published 60 peer-reviewed articles and several books, including the textbook “Social Entrepreneurship” (2008).
In 2009, Brooks became the 11th president of AEI, also holding the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Free Enterprise. Under his leadership, the Institute more than doubled its annual revenues, deepened its outreach to leaders across the ideological spectrum, and expanded its research portfolio to include work on poverty, happiness and human potential. During this period, he was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 World’s Greatest Leaders” and was awarded six honorary doctorates.
Originally from Seattle, Brooks currently lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with his wife Ester Munt-Brooks, a native of Barcelona. They have three children, Joaquim, Carlos and Marina.
This event is sponsored by the Blauvelt Speaker Series, which is funded in part by the generosity of the late Bradford Thomas & Eleanor G. Blauvelt and The Wintrode Family Foundation.
