The energy in the room was palpable! J _(name)_ looked out at the crowd and smiled. “So, you’re here because you want to build a life.” He continued, “That’s great because a life well-lived is what The Art of Manliness is all about. I’m going to show you how to build a life that embodies the virtues and values that will make you a happier and more successful man. Whether your dream is building a business or starting a family, there are three key ingredients that are necessary for achieving these…”
We all want to change the world and find purpose in what we do. We also have bills to pay and mouths to feed – usually our own, if not some other hungry mouth as well. This reality can sometimes lead us to worry that our lives don’t really matter. It’s worth remembering, though, that the life of a quiet individual doing work that matters only to their community may be more meaningful than a life spent making money to the masses.
Arthur Brooks is a best-selling author, a leading social scientist, and President of the American Enterprise Institute. He has written five books and has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and National Public Radio. He was named one of the 25 most influential conservatives in the nation by Time magazine in 2009.
Brooks is also a public speaker who regularly addresses groups on the topics of happiness and public policy. He has spoken at events for Fortune 500 companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft as well as non-profits like The Heritage Foundation, National Rifle Association and United Way Worldwide. Arthur has been featured at events hosted by The White House, U.S. Capitol Building, U.S. Supreme Court Building, World Bank Headquarters and dozens of other well-known institutions throughout his career as an author and speaker (see below).
Arthur Brooks is a best-selling author, president of the American Enterprise Institute and one of the nation’s most respected political thinkers. He is also an accomplished musician who plays piano, saxophone and flute.
Brooks has written four books: The Conservative Heart, Gross National Happiness, Who Really Cares and his latest, The Road to Freedom. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Politico Magazine and USA Today among other publications.
He was born in North Carolina and raised in South Carolina by parents who owned a small furniture store in Charleston. After graduating from Duke University with degrees in history and political science, he spent 15 years working as a journalist at newspapers including The Wall Street Journal editorial page, where he served as deputy editor from 1997 until 2003.
In 2005 he founded AEI’s New York office as its first Douglas B. Rasmussen Fellow for Economic Policy Studies and later became the institute’s vice president for policy research before assuming his current role as president in 2013
Arthur Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The Road to Freedom.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.
You can’t build a life on someone else’s vision. You have to build it on your own.
This is why the idea of happiness is so important, particularly when it comes to freedom and politics.
Happiness is our greatest source of meaning, purpose and motivation — which are all things we need to live free, productive lives.
I recently wrote a book called “The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise,” in which I lay out my case for why free enterprise is better than any other economic system at creating prosperity and lifting people out of poverty. But even if you don’t agree with that conclusion, I think there’s one thing we can all agree on: When people are happy and fulfilled in their lives, they’re more likely to be good citizens who support freedom-oriented policies than when they’re unhappy and frustrated with their lives.
Arthur C. Brooks is the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. He is also a New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning professor of public administration at Syracuse University.
Brooks’ latest book, “The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise,” offers a roadmap for conservatives to win the battle for free enterprise. The book is a distillation of his more than 20 years’ experience as an analyst and observer of politics, economics and culture in America.
In it, he lays out four principles that can help conservatives win the fight for free enterprise:
1) Conservatives must change their rhetoric on poverty if they want to win over voters who are not part of their base; 2) Conservatives need to stop talking about what they’re against and start talking about what they’re for; 3) Conservatives must make sure that everyone has access to opportunity if they want everyone to succeed; 4) Conservatives need to be honest about who wins when government gets bigger — government employees and those who rely on government assistance.
The book outlines ten principles for building a life that will make you happy.
The first principle is to build your life around three core values: faith, family and career. Brooks believes that these three things come before any other priority in your life. He argues that if we don’t have our priorities right then we will never be truly happy. However, he also says that these three things cannot be separated from each other and should work together as part of our lives.
The second principle is to do what you do well and enjoy it as much as possible. Brooks argues that people spend too much time doing things they hate or don’t like doing instead of doing what they love and enjoy most. He gives the example of his wife who wanted to be a teacher but ended up working at a bank because it paid more than teaching did; however, she always regretted not being able to teach because she loved it so much.
The third principle is to invest in yourself by getting an education; however, this does not mean going back to university for another degree, as this would not give him any additional skills or knowledge that would benefit him in his current position at work. Instead he wants to learn about leadership which he can apply