Brooks has been a professional musician, the president of a think tank, and a university professor. For much of his twenties, he lived in Spain and played French horn with the City Orchestra of Barcelona, concurrently earning his bachelor’s in economics via distance learning at Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey. At 31, he ended his music career and enrolled in graduate school, obtaining a Master of Philosophy and doctorate in public policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School in California.

Brooks worked as a professor at Georgia State University and Syracuse University, becoming a full professor in 2006. In 2009, he left academia to become the president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a think tank in Washington, DC, that focuses on political, economic, and social issues. In 2019, he left that position to become a professor at Harvard University. At the time that this guide was written in January 2023, Brooks is the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School. He is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates.

Since 2020, Brooks has been a columnist for Atlantic magazine, writing on topics of happiness and meaning.