Happiness Tips
The happiest and most successful lives are built the same way great companies are—through courage, confidence, and a willingness to take calculated risks, according to Arthur Brooks, a social scientist and professor at Harvard University.
Those who are afraid to take risks can do the necessary research and soul-searching to nurture and develop their ability to take “big leaps of faith,” Brooks wrote in his latest book, The Happiness Files.
The key, according to Brooks, is to think like an entrepreneur and treat your life like a startup.
“If you treat your life the way a great entrepreneur treats an exciting startup enterprise, your life will be happier, more meaningful, and more successful than it otherwise would be,” wrote Brooks, who teaches classes on the subject of happiness at Harvard.
Starting a new business involves inherent risk, and most startups fail. However, the courage and confidence you need to start a new venture lead to financial rewards, more control over your career, and personal fulfillment, if it succeeds, Brooks pointed out.
The same principle applies beyond entrepreneurship. According to Brooks, people must be “willing to take and manage appropriate risks in an effort to build a life of outsized rewards.”
Brooks recommends imagining all of the possible positive and negative outcomes of your risky decision. Then do your homework—just as a prospective entrepreneur researches market and consumer trends—and weigh the risk against the reward.
Brooks believes that by doing your research, making a plan, and carefully considering a risky decision before ultimately taking the leap, you can boost your happiness and confidence.
“You’ll bask in the satisfaction of tackling a new challenge, whether it ultimately succeeds or not,” Brooks wrote. “If you want to raise your happiness by taking a risk, you need to do it right, and not just by acting on impulse. Making a plan allows you to savor the person you want to become—a person who does a hard thing of her own volition, precisely because it is hard.”
Grandmothers Share Recipes and Tips on Happiness
Author Anastasia Miari sought to create something special for her new cookbook, Mediterranea, which features Mediterranean cuisine. Rather than simply researching popular recipes, she traveled around the entire Mediterranean basin and found 100 grandmothers who allowed her to cook with them. She traveled to Italy, Greece, Spain, southern France, the Levant, North Africa, and the Balkans. Mirari found that a key to their happiness and well-being was cooking, eating, and sharing food with others.
In an article for Condé Nast Traveler, Miari said she not only received “incredible recipes perfected over a lifetime” but also insightful lessons on living a happy and meaningful life.
When it came to cooking, Miari learned that grandmothers had a “zero-waste” policy—no foods were thrown away but “recycled” into something else. For instance, Miari’s own Yiayia (Greek for “grandmother”) did not throw out food, she said. Instead, in one example, her Yiayia used her plastic feta tubs as lunch boxes to put leftovers in that her grandchildren could take home.
Miari was also amazed by the nonnas’ creative ability to turn leftovers into something new. Miari described how a grandmother in Selcuk, a market town in southern Turkey, reused the leftover green ends of spring onions she used in wild greens and cheesy borek fingers as a base for her fried eggs with sumac.
“This was a revelation—she had created an entirely new (and delicious) dish from the off-cuts of another,” Miari wrote.
While the produce in “Nonna food” bursts with freshness and flavor, Miari pointed out that the real secret behind the Mediterranean diet is the simple lifestyle that accompanies the food.
As Miari sat sipping sweet tea and eating sweet biscuits with one nonna in her garden, “lush with the scent of citrus and jasmine,” the grandmother explained that “simplicity, above all else, was the key to living a happy and long life.”
While the lessons may be simple, they are powerful when applied, Miari emphasized.
“No matter your age, move your body, swim in all seasons, and walk in nature, even when your knees creak,” Miari advised. “Surround yourself with friends and connect with your neighbors and elderly family members. Share food. Eat a little of what you fancy and for goodness’ sake, nap more.”
Author Learns Simple Rules To Achieve Happiness
Gretchen Rubin, author of the bestseller, The Happiness Project, said she spent 12 years studying happiness and human nature for a living. During this time, Rubin said she learned lessons on how to create a happier, more meaningful, and confident life—lessons she wished she had learned earlier.
Many of her “Secrets of Adulthood” can be summarized in a single brief line. She shared some of her transformative and insightful lessons in an article for CNBC Make It:
1. Accept yourself, and expect more from yourself. To be happier, aim to cultivate self-compassion and acknowledge the natural limits of your personality. In addition, strive to grow, stretch, and push yourself beyond your comfort zone.
2. Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.
In her case, Rubin said she procrastinates by doing unnecessary research. “It may look like work, but if it’s not actually helping me achieve my work aims, I’m goofing off,” she wrote.
3. What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.
4. A strong voice both repels and attracts.
As a writer, Rubin said she frequently reminds herself of this truth: “If I aim to be so mild that no one can disagree with my conclusions or object to my style, my work will be featureless and boring.”
5. Perfectionism is driven not by high standards but by anxiety.
6. To respect us, people must first notice us; we can’t earn trust and admiration from the sidelines. “Many people are puzzled when their efforts aren’t recognized; the problem is that no one knows what they’re doing,” she wrote.
7. If we’re not failing, we’re not trying hard enough.
8. Before declaring that something is superficial, unhealthy, inefficient, dangerous, disgusting, or immoral, we should consider: Maybe this just doesn’t suit my taste.
9. The sharing of tasks often leads to the shirking of tasks.
10. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started. Once, Rubin said she felt overwhelmed for a week because she put off writing an email that, “in the end, took me 20 seconds to draft.”
11. It’s easier to change our surroundings and our schedules than to change ourselves. Rubin believes you shouldn’t become someone you’re not. She wrote,” Instead of trying to become a marathoner who works slowly and steadily toward a deadline, embrace your sprinter nature and the fact that you do your best work when you’re racing to meet a deadline.”
12. The bird, the bee, and the bat all fly, but they use different wings. “Nothing is a one-size-fits-all!” Rubin says. “Use the approach and the tools that work best for you.”
Source Links:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/harvard-expert-arthur-brooks-top-tip-for-happier-more-successful-life.html
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/what-100-mediterranean-grandmothers-shared-about-leading-happy-lives
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/10/i-study-happiness-for-a-living-use-these-short-little-reminders-to-be-happier-more-confident-every-day.html
