[MUSIC PLAYING]
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN: Thank you
very much for inviting me over
to Google.
This is like coming
back home for me
because I got my PhD at
NYU, not so far from here.
I used to come over to
Chelsea to go for a run
and generally hang out.
And I see that it's really
kind of different now.
Lots of new things.
But it's nice to come back.
So I have about 50 minutes.
And in these 50 minutes,
I want to really focus
on three big questions,
which I think will
be of interest to you guys.
It's of interest to
most people in the world
because most people are
interested in happiness.
And after that, we'll
take the questions.
The three topics I
want to talk about
are-- one is something called
the functionality of happiness.
And I'll define what that means
and talk a little bit about it.
The second question is the
definition and measurement
of happiness.
And the third question
is, what does it
take to lead a happy and
fulfilling life, which is,
of course, the big question.
Everyone's really interested
in knowing the answers to that.
But I think it's important to
start with some setup topics,
and one of those setup topics
is functionality of happiness.
Most of us think of happiness
as being a very important goal.
And there have been some
surveys done around the world.
One survey looked at, I think,
about 10,000 respondents
from 48 different countries.
And these respondents had to
rate different life goals--
making money, being successful,
being smart, being close
to god--
all right-- happiness.
And happiness came out as
number one in the survey.
More important than making
money, more important
than being smart and
successful, et cetera.
On par with it was
relationships--
maintaining good relationships.
But it's very, very important.
Happiness is important.
And the reason
why it's important
is because it just
feels good, right?
I mean, you don't have to
explain why it's important.
It's just nice to feel happy.
It's axiomatic almost.
But what the research in
the last about 15, 20 years
has discovered is that it's
also useful to be happy.
So I'm going to talk about
three ways in which it's
useful to be happy.
One way is that happier
people are healthier.
Happier people have better
functioning immune systems,
better functioning
cardiovascular systems,
better functioning
respiratory systems.
So you tend to live
longer if you're happier.
In the context of
work, what that means
is that you tend
to show up for work
more often if you're happier.
There was a study
done where they
looked at happy and unhappy
employees in the United States.
And the happier employees
showed up for work
16 more days in a year.
I don't know how it's at Google.
Maybe you guys get a
little more vacation time
than most other people get.
But on average, people get
about two weeks off in the US,
which is 10 working days.
If you are unhappy, you're
taking another 1 and 1/2 times
that to be missing from work.
That's a significant amount.
I'll give you a synopsis
of a brief study done
on happiness and longevity.
This was done with nuns up in
a monastery in Massachusetts.
This is a 100-year-old study.
They looked at these
nuns' whole life.
They categorized these nuns into
the happy nuns, medium happy
nuns, and unhappy nuns.
And the way they did it was by
looking at the journal entries
that these nuns had made when
they entered the monastery.
It was mandatory to
maintain a journal.
And so everybody's
happiness was recorded when
they entered the monastery.
And the happy nuns had
written things like, oh, I'm
so happy to be here.
This is where I wanted
to be since there
was an eight-year-old
girl, and I'm
one with god, with my sisters,
doing the kinds of things
I wanted to do,
eating healthy food,
listening to these
spiritually uplifting talks,
and so on and so forth.
The unhappy nuns said
things like, this
is kind of boring out here.
Life out there is a
little more exciting.
But I don't know,
I'm stuck here.
I don't really know how to make
my way through life outside.
It's too chaotic out there.
But this is not nice.
I mean this is boring.
But anyway, I'll just bide
my time here-- that kind
of a thing.
Medium happy nuns
were in between.
And they looked at how long
these nuns ended up living.
On average, these nuns ended
up living about 85 years old.
So that's a lot.
That's six, seven,
eight years more
than the average American lives.
So if your only aim is to
live a really long life,
then you might want to
consider becoming a nun.
But the really big
theme-- interesting theme
that emerged from this was
that the happiest group of nuns
outlived the least happy group
of nuns by a whopping 11 years.
11 years-- that's a huge amount.
If you think about
some things that
have a negative effect
on our longevity
like smoking a whole
pack of cigarettes a day
is going to rob you of
three years of your life.
Drinking a whole bottle of
whiskey every single day--
I don't know if
anyone does that.
[LAUGHTER]
Will kill you about
seven years earlier.
So happiness is smoking plus
drinking plus another year.
You can look at it that way.
I know that one of you is from
the McCombs School of Business.
And some of my
students there asked me
at this point, Professor
Raj-- a tentative hand goes up
and says, I derive
a lot of happiness
from smoking and drinking.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't know if you can
really be sustainably happy
drinking one whole bottle
of whiskey every day
and smoking a whole
pack of cigarettes.
The next day you do pay for it.
That's been my
experience at least.
So anyway, so it
doesn't work that way.
But anyway, so the
idea is that happiness
is important for
health, and that's
important in
organizational contexts
because that means
that you're going
to show up for work more often.
Happier people are
more collegial.
That's another reason why
happiness is functional.
If you ask yourself
this question,
who would I rather
team up with, somebody
who is happy, supportive,
optimistic, resilient, hopeful,
sees the lighter side of
things, builds on your ideas
rather than shooting it
down right off the bat, et
cetera, or somebody who is a
wet blanket, who is pessimistic
and is generally negative?
Obviously, you'd rather team up
with somebody who's positive.
And I think our instinct
is that that is going
to be more productive for me.
Not just it's going to be
more emotionally palatable.
It's also going to be
professionally more
productive to team
up with somebody
who is positive and happy.
And that's, in fact, being
shown in the research as well.
Happier teams outperform less
happy teams, particularly
in the long run.
You might be able to rely
on some of the adrenaline,
and insecurity and
negativity to get
work done in the short term.
But in the long
term, happier people,
happier teams are
more productive.
A third way in which
happiness is functional
is that happier people
individually-- not in teams--
individually they're
more creative
and they're more objective.
I have a study on objectivity--
happiness and objectively.
Happier people are more capable
of taking in negative feedback.
And it makes sense.
If you're unhappy,
your immediate concern
is how do I get out of this?
How do I--
I'm in a hole, how
do I get out of this?
So they want to take care
of their own emotionality.
They want to get to
a state of neutrality
at least before they can
really look at the world
and say, OK, what
are the problems?
How can I tackle them?
Their negativity is a big
problem for them at that point.
But if you're happy,
you're much more
likely to rise up, and
look at the long term,
and look at what's good for
you, good for the planet,
and so on and so forth.
And that's been shown
in the research as well.
There is a researcher,
in particular,
at the University
of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill by the name
of Barbara Fredrickson.
She's got a theory called
broaden and build theory.
Broaden and build theory.
And what she argues is,
particularly in the long run,
if you're consistently
happy, you're
more likely to have a lot
more tools in your toolkit
so to speak and you're
broader in your approach.
And the way it
works is like this--
so imagine that
you're on vacation--
let's say you land
up in Mumbai, India.
Anybody been to India?
OK, lots of hands.
You're there and let's say
that it's been a great flight,
you got upgraded to business
class, you slept well,
and you had a pleasant
conversation with the person
next to you-- whatever.
You're feeling fresh.
You land in India and
you're not jet-lagged.
That's one scenario.
In another scenario,
everything went bad.
You missed your flight.
And you land in India,
and the bags got lost
and you're now going to have
to wait for another half
a day or something before the
bags show up at your hotel.
And the hotel tells you,
no, we can't check you
in because the
rooms are all gone.
And you're feeling-- you have
a headache too on top of it.
So in which of
these two scenarios
are you more likely
to be exploratory?
You look at a cute
little Queen Street
and you look at all the shops.
Oh, wow, they're selling
rugs, how beautiful.
When are you more
likely to venture
down that alley, and look at all
the things on offer and sample
them?
Obviously, when you're
in a positive mood.
So that's what's called
a broadening aspect
of positivity.
When you are negative, you're
more narrow in your focus.
There was a "Time" magazine
cover in 2003 or 2004
that had a side by side
picture of a happy brain
and a stressed-out brain.
An fMRI image of a happy brain
and a stressed-out brain.
And the happy brain
was lit up all around.
Lit up-- what I mean by that
is that all parts of the brain
were active.
Oxygen was flowing to
all parts of the brain.
The unhappy brain-- only what's
called the limbic system,
the oldest part of our
brain that we borrowed
from our reptilian ancestors.
The limbic system is
very good at making
black or white decisions.
Should I fight?
Should I flee?
Those kind of decisions
you're probably
better off being stressed out.
That's your job if
you're in the military
and you have to figure out
should I fight, should I run.
You're better off being
stressed out perhaps.
But what this "Time"
magazine article--
what it talked about was
that when you're happier,
all parts of your
brain are active.
It's almost like a physical
metaphor for this idea
that you're able to draw
from all your experiences
in order to come to a decision
when you're in a happy mood.
So if your job involves
making subtle decisions,
making decisions in teams,
convincing other people,
those are pretty creative tasks.
They call for a lot in order
to persuade other people and so
on.
You're much better off
being a happier person
than being an unhappy person.
You're more creative and
you're more objective.
So you put all this
together, happier people
are more healthy, show
up for work more often.
They're more collegial,
perform better in teams.
They're more creative.
They're more objective.
You would expect that happier
people earn more money.
Do you think that's true?
Indeed, it turns out happier
people earn more money.
On average, happier
people earn about 32%
more than less happy people.
There was a study done
in which they followed
these undergraduate students
over a period of 60 years
and they measured
their happiness first
when they entered the
undergraduate college.
And I'll talk about happiness
measurement in a little bit.
And they looked at
how much they earned.
They divided these students
based on their happiness levels
into five quintiles--
five 20% groups.
And the most happy quintile,
the most happy 20%,
earned 32% more than the
least happy quintile.
So those of you who
are parents, we often
worry about this idea of we
want our kids to be successful.
Of course, we want
them to be happy.
But we want them
to be successful
and we think that success is
going to lead to happiness.
So that's why we want
them to be successful.
In fact, I think
there's more evidence
for the diverse
direction of causality.
That happiness is a more
reliable determinant of success
than is success a
determinant of happiness.
In fact, success can often
undermine your happiness
for a variety of reasons.
And there's an excellent
book on the topic,
happened to be written by me.
[LAUGHTER]
And the book is titled,
"If You're So Smart,
Why Aren't You Happy?"
It's meant for people who are
achievement-oriented like you
guys, but sometimes we let
our smartness and our success
come in the way of our
own happiness, which
is like shooting
ourselves in the foot.
We want success because
it's going to make us happy,
we think.
But then we end up
adopting a certain set
of mindsets and things like that
that undermine our happiness.
So that's one big topic I wanted
to talk about-- functionality
of happiness.
If you have any questions,
if they are clarification
questions, please ask them now.
Otherwise, save
them till the end.
I'd be happy to answer them.
Second big topic-- measurement
and definition of happiness.
So let me talk about
definition of happiness.
A lot of people object
to the term happiness,
including Barbara
Fredrickson that I
talked about some time
back-- this broaden and build
theory person.
So she prefers the
word positivity
because she thinks
happiness is too frivolous.
It's that smiley face.
That's like pretending
as if you're happy,
or at best it's going
to be ephemeral,
it's not going to last
for a very long time.
She'd much rather
have something that's
more long-lasting, like
fulfillment, or meaning,
or peace, or tranquility,
contentment and so on.
I'm using happiness
here as a short word
to represent all
of these things.
So think of happiness
in my parlance
as an umbrella term that
captures not just pleasure,
which we know is temporary.
When you eat something good,
for example-- things like that.
But also positivity--
all the positive emotions
that you can think
of, like love,
and tranquility, peace, humor,
laughter, interest, awe,
gratitude, hope, serenity.
There's like maybe 20 of those.
So all of those but
also some things
that are actually a
little more complex.
So meaning-- let's talk about
this thing called meaning.
What I refer to as meaning
is the satisfaction
you derive from doing
good to other people.
I think that everybody
in this world,
most human beings, unless you're
a sociopath or a psychopath,
actually, you're going
to derive positivity
from helping other people.
And we know this
from our experience
with our own immediate kith
and kin, our own family,
our own close friends.
But our capacity to be
nice to other people
is actually universal,
I would say.
And it's partly because
of our hard-wiring.
We have something
called mirror neurons
which help us put ourselves
in other people's shoes.
If you think about it,
it's actually strange
that you walk into
a movie theater
and you watch to people who
you did not know from Adam, who
you know are acting out roles--
it's not even their real life.
And you watch that and you
get so moved that you come out
all teary-eyed.
They are so much in love.
They had so much opposition.
But in the end, they
overcame all that.
And now they're together.
And you want to be that agent
of goodness and kindness
after you see a movie like that.
So that feeling of
love that you see
is because of those
mirror neurons.
It's an artificial setup.
You know that going in and yet
you can't help but be moved.
That's because of
mirror neurons.
That's a hint at our capacity
for being loving, kind,
generous, and so on.
And that feeling
that you experience
when you see two
other people being
nice to each other and
that feeling of warmth--
warm, fuzzy feeling--
that's called elevation.
It's called elevation.
And often it's
associated with behaviors
that you might think are not
really indicative of happiness.
You might actually
be tearing up.
You might actually have
a lump in your throat.
You might be breathing
a little bit heavily.
To an external observer, you
might not look very happy.
But inside you know that
this is a nice feeling.
It's a warm feeling.
This is a feeling
of expansiveness.
This is a feeling of wanting
to do good to the world.
That's in a huge
category of happiness
for us this thing
called meaning--
that I'm going to
call meaning-- which
is being nice to
other people makes
you feel really expansive,
makes you feel really good.
And sometimes in the process
of being nice to other people,
you might have to go through
displeasure or unhappiness
or yourself.
For example, there
was a time when
this thing happened
that I was with my son
at an airport in India.
And it was 3:00 AM and
flights had gotten canceled.
And we were both really hungry
and we went to this cafeteria.
There was just one samosa left.
And I was super hungry,
but he was hungry too.
And I bought it and
I gave it to him.
And I was actually happy
seeing him be happy.
Even though I'd
extended my displeasure,
it made me happier
at a higher level.
So I'm deriving
meaning out of this act
even though it's
prolonging my displeasure.
There's also another
category called--
what I call purpose--
which is doing something that's
so intrinsically motivating
for you that you
lose track of time.
You get so involved in the
activity, so immersed in it,
that you lose all
self-consciousness.
That you and the
activity become one.
You might look at the watch
after three hours of doing that
and say, wow, like
three hours passed by.
How did it-- how
did that happen?
So these are called flow states.
And they evoke a huge
sense of purpose in us.
So when I talk
about happiness, I'm
talking about not just
pleasure, not just positivity,
I'm also talking about
meaning and purpose.
And in particular, it turns
out meaning and purpose
are super important if you
want to be happy at work.
Obviously pleasure is
important, but pleasure can't
last for a very long time.
Positive emotions are
important, but they
tend to have a
shorter shelf-life
as well, especially things
like hubristic pride
that you get from comparing
yourself to other people
and thinking you're
superior to them.
That doesn't last very long.
But meaning and purpose
has the potential
to last a really long time.
And so if you are hoping to be
happy at work on a sustained
basis, then you need to
focus on meaning and purpose,
it turns out.
So I talked about this
idea that I want to--
I'd like to cover a little bit
on the topic of measurement
of happiness.
So in the research,
people recognize
the difference between
pleasure and positivity, which
tends to not last very long,
and purpose and meaning
that tends to be more
sustained, more long-lasting.
And so they measured
two kinds of happiness.
One is called
experienced happiness,
which is what you're
going through right now.
And they also measured what's
called reflective happiness,
which is all things considered
if I were to take a step back
on my life, even though I might
be suffering from a headache
right now, somebody
might have shouted at me,
I might be stressed out because
I missed a train or whatever,
but overall, all
things considered,
is my life going in
the right direction?
Are my career prospects good?
Do I have enough
of a bank balance?
Do I have good relationships
with people who matter?
That's called
experienced happiness.
And it turns out it's
experienced happiness,
which is a bigger predictor
of all these things
that I talked about earlier--
better health, better
teamwork, and creativity,
and objectivity and so on.
So it's very important to focus
on both meaning and purpose,
but not, of course, sacrifice
pleasure and positivity.
Those are important too.
But if you had to
choose between them,
I'd rather that you choose
meaning and purpose rather than
those two.
All right.
So with that setup, let me
talk about the big question,
which is what does
it take to lead
a happy and fulfilling life?
And this is a question that
has, of course, been very, very
important for eons.
The Buddha famously
left his kingdom
in order to search the
answer for this question.
Aristotle has been
interested in it.
You name it.
Everyone's been
interested in it.
I think we live in a
very, very lucky time
now, because in the
last about 20 years,
there's been concerted
effort to figure out
the answer to that
question, particularly
in this field called
positive psychology.
Right now we have
over 100,000 papers
that have been written
on the topic of what
leads to happiness.
And so we can say that we have
a lot of scientific evidence
and backing for many of
the conclusions that have
been derived from the research.
So I have about 20 minutes
to talk to you about a topic
that I spend typically
40 hours talking
about in my regular
semester-long classes.
So this is going to be a very
high level bird's eye picture
that I'm going to give you.
So I would say if you look
at the research on the topic
and you take a step
back, you would conclude
that five things are very,
very important if you
want to be happy in life.
The very first thing is that
your basic needs are met.
This is a no-brainer, of course.
That if you don't have an idea
of where your next meal is
going to come from, if you
don't have enough money
to pay for medical needs, if you
don't have money to buy a home
or rent a home to have
a roof over your head,
if you don't have
money for clothing,
basic things,
transportation, education,
you're not going to be happy.
Lots of evidence for this.
If you look at the poorest
countries in the world,
they tend to be
countries in which
a huge critical mass
of people are suffering
from lack of basic needs.
If you look at the happiest
countries in the world, which
tend to be the Scandinavian
countries, most of the people
there have access
to all basic needs.
And that's a big reason why
they are the happiest countries
in the world.
I'm not necessarily
recommending that we
move to a socialist system,
but if you can somehow
cater to a large majority
of people's basic needs,
then you'd boost the happiness
of the citizens of the country.
The second thing that's
very, very important--
you all look like your basic
needs are more than covered.
So I'm going to move on to
the other four determinants.
The middle three determinants--
I refer to them with a mnemonic.
I'm from the business
school, the McCombs
School of Business in
University of Texas at Austin.
So the mnemonic is MBA.
I jokingly say you need
an MBA to be happy.
[LAUGHTER]
But here the MBA is not
what you think it is.
The M refers to Mastery.
It refers to this idea that
you can't really be happy--
solidly happy--
unless you feel, you
know what, I'm really
good at doing this one thing.
Maybe I'm not quite
a master at it,
but I'm progressing
towards mastery.
I'm making strides
on everyday basis.
Slowly, but surely, I'm
becoming better and better
at doing this one thing.
Now, what that one
thing is, is going
to differ by people
depending on your interests,
depending on your education,
opportunities, and so on.
But you need to have
something that you're good at.
And I would say that it would
be a huge shame if you're not
progressing towards
mastery at work.
Why do I say this?
I say this because we spend
about 80,000 to 100,000
of our life at
work, which is twice
the amount of time
of our waking life
that we spend in
our personal life.
Think about it.
We actually spend
more time-- twice
more time with our
colleagues and co-workers,
and yes, our bosses, than we do
with our family, and our pets
and kids.
So that's a huge amount of time.
And this is the context--
work is the context in which
you're actually incentivized
and given resources--
there's no conflict
of interest here--
to progress towards mastery.
You're given money,
you're given training,
you're given resources,
time, help, support, in order
to become better at what you
do, more skilled at what you do.
So if you're not progressing
towards mastery at work,
then you are really sacrificing
a huge source of happiness.
Why is this mastery important?
It turns out it's important
for a variety of reasons.
We get to experience
these flow states
that I talked about where
we lose track of time
and that turns out to be
very, very meaningful.
One of the big reasons
why it's meaningful
is because when you experience
flow states on a regular basis,
you have the answer to one
of life's biggest questions,
which is what is
my purpose in life?
What is my purpose in life?
Why was I put on Earth for, not
what is the purpose of life.
That's a different question.
But what is my purpose in life?
You know the answer
to this question
if you're progressing
towards mastery
and if you're
experiencing flow states.
Another reason flow states
and mastery is important
is because other
people like you more
when you're good
at doing something,
particularly if
you're humble about it
and you're not bragging, and
chest thumping and all that.
So lots of reasons why mastery
is very, very important
and lots of studies show that.
That's M.
B is Belonging.
Belonging refers to this idea
that you have at least one
really deep connection
with someone or the other.
There was a study done
and the eventual paper
was called "Very Happy People."
So not a very scientific
name for a study.
And they looked at the top
10% of the happiest people
in the study among
the participants.
And these people,
these happiest 10%
had a variety of characteristics
that were highly correlated--
significantly
correlated, I should say.
They tended to live in
smaller cities like Austin
rather than bigger
cities like New York.
They tended to be, believe
it or not, more religious
than less religious.
But they also tended to--
if they were religious,
they tended to believe--
the happier people tended
to believe in a loving god
as opposed to a punitive god.
So maybe spiritual
is a better word.
They tended to be more
extroverted rather
than introverted.
And so there were lots
of things that were
correlated with being happier--
real correlations.
But there was one trait
that every single last one
of the top 10% of
the people had.
So it is no longer now a
statistical correlation.
It was 100%.
You had to have this
quality if you belonged--
if you were to belong to the
top 10% of the happiest people.
And this quality was that
every last one of them
had at least one really
intimate relationship.
Someone that they
could fully depend on,
they could call this
person up if they ever
ran into any emergency,
and that person
would have no
hesitation in jumping
to this person's rescue.
They could let their hair
down, be themselves, not
fear that they would
be judged, et cetera.
So you need to
ask yourself, do I
have such a person in my life?
Again, I mean, maybe
it's ideal if that person
were to be your spouse
given the amount of time
that we spend with our spouses.
But 80% of the people who
had that kind of relationship
actually named a same-gender
friend rather than
their spouse.
So friends are very, very
important it turns out.
There's a line from the
paper that I've actually
memorized because I
think it really captures
the essence of that finding.
And the line is, "If you
aspire to belong to the very
happiest group of people--
if you aspire to belong to the
very happiest group of people,
then having a sense of
intimacy is no longer a luxury.
It's a necessity."
"Having a sense of intimacy
is no longer a luxury.
It's a necessity."
So you need to ask yourself,
is that true for me?
And if you do want to be
in the happiest group,
then you need to have
that sense of intimacy.
The opposite of
that is loneliness.
If you're lonely, you don't even
have even a single person to--
forget about intimacy--
to even understand you,
to even hang out
with you, to go out
and have a drink with you, to
go and share a dinner with you
and so on.
And loneliness is one of the
biggest epidemics in the United
States right now.
I don't know if
you guys know this.
There's a very good book
that came out on the topic
about four years back.
If you think you
might be lonely or you
know somebody who is
lonely, I would highly
recommend this book.
It's called "Loneliness,"
by a guy called Cacioppo--
John Cacioppo.
All right.
So I talked about M,
mastery, B, belonging.
And before that, I
talked about basic needs.
We want to think about happiness
as a mansion or a palace.
You can think of basic
needs as the foundation.
You need-- without that, forget
about building a mansion.
You need that as a foundation.
And then comes mastery
which is a pillar.
Almost like a Greek,
Roman, or whatever.
A big, fat pillar.
And then the second
one is belonging,
which I talked about.
The third one is autonomy,
which is freedom,
which is control, which is
leading the life that you
want to lead.
This is where money
comes in so handy,
because if you have
a lot of money,
then you can do the
things you want to do.
You can live in the kind of
house you want to live in.
You can decorate
like you want to.
You can go on vacations.
You can eat the kind
of food you want to,
and so on and so forth.
You can free up time too.
You can outsource the chores
that you don't like to do.
That's where money
comes in handy.
But money only takes you so far.
Now, I'll give you some evidence
of the importance of autonomy.
I'm going to talk about two
studies, one done with rats.
And this study-- in
this study, the rats
were divided into three groups.
Two groups of rats
got to do coke--
not Pepsi-Co Coke, cocaine coke.
[LAUGHTER]
And one group was
the control group
of rats that did
not get to do coke.
They were all lab rats
living out their lives
in the cages in a lab.
Now, I'm against animal
studies, by the way.
But this study we learned
something important, which
is why I am talking about it.
So the two groups of
rats that got to do coke,
they were different in one way.
One group-- let's
call it group A--
had control over when and
how much coke they did.
Group B, on the
other hand, did not
have control over these things.
So every rat in group B was
tethered to a rat in group A.
And whenever the partner in
group A decided to do coke,
at that very moment, this
rat which was paired up
with this rat in
group B would also
get the coke in
the same quantity.
All right.
So this rat in
group B might have
been ready to go to sleep,
or have a chat with a friend,
or eat, or what have
you, and all of a sudden
it would be high
without knowing why,
because its partner
in group A decided
to get high at that point.
All right.
Was it clear?
So they looked-- two themes
emerged from the study.
The first theme is that
doing drugs is bad for you.
[LAUGHTER]
Doing hard drugs is bad for you.
You're going to die
an earlier death.
All right.
So the control group
of rats outlived
the experimental group.
But the second
theme that emerged,
which is the more important
one, the one which
is more insightful is that
even if you do something that's
bad for you, it's better to have
control over when and how much
you do it.
So the groups in--
the rats in group
A which had control
over when and how
much coke they did,
outlived the rats in group B.
Another study that I want
to very quickly talk about
was done with human beings.
1977 is when it came
out-- the paper.
They went to his old
age home and they
divided the residents of the
old age home into two groups.
One group of these
old age home residents
had control over seemingly
trivial decisions.
What movies to watch
over the weekend?
What plants to
grow in the rooms?
Two very, very trivial
decisions you might think.
Not to do-- nothing to do
with medical attention,
and who gets to visit them,
and so on and so forth.
Those are much more
important decisions.
Very trivial decisions.
So one group got control
over which movies to watch.
And you have to remember,
the 1970s, there's no iPad.
Things were in black
and white back then.
People-- I'm just kidding
about the black and white.
We still had color.
But people would
watch these movies
in a common room like this.
It would be screened
on a big screen.
Everybody would be together
in this big room and watch it.
So you had to actually make
a choice of which movies
to watch.
It wasn't the case
that you had an iPad,
you can just press the
movie and watch it.
So it was in a group decision.
And the group that got to
make the decision may choose,
let's say, "Dumb and
Dumber" or some movie
like that and the other--
everyone else had to watch it.
And also, similarly, the plant.
One group had a choice.
I want to grow a cactus.
I want to grow this or that.
And the other group
was just given a plant.
This is the plant
you're going to grow.
They came back a
year and a half later
and every three
months in between
and measured the psychological
stress and happiness
levels of these old
age home residents.
And they were completely
taken aback by the results.
The group that had control
over these trivial decisions
reported significantly
higher levels of happiness
and lower levels of stress
than did the other group.
And not just that.
The mortality rate in the
group that did not have control
was twice that of the
group that had control.
Now, even in the group that
had control, 15% of them
had passed away in
1 and 1/2 years,
which you might think is high.
Which is high really
for the average person,
but remember this
was an old age home.
They were living out the last
few years of their lives.
But in the group that
did not have control,
it was as high as 30%.
And they were surprised
by these results
so they replicated it in
another country-- in the United
Kingdom-- and found
the same results.
All right.
So if you have old
people living with you,
it's very important to give
them a sense of autonomy,
a sense of freedom, because it
can be a huge source of stress.
They are already losing autonomy
over their physical body.
Incontinence and things
like that might happen.
But on top of
that, if they don't
have psychological
autonomy, that
can really be really detrimental
to their psychological health.
All right.
So I talked about
basic needs, MBA.
I want to talk about the
last thing for about five,
seven minutes, and then I'm
going to take questions.
I'm going to ask
Ahsan, my partner.
We just launched a course
literally three days back
on edX.
Are you guys familiar with edX--
Coursera edX.
It's a free course.
It's called "Happier
Employees and Return
On Investment" course.
Because a lot of people
think happiness is a luxury,
but it actually has huge
impact on your bottom line
as well, which is why
we want to promote it.
It's totally free for
you guys to take it,
unless you want a certificate.
If you want a certificate,
then you pay $49.
But if you're really
interested in the topic,
I really urge you to take it.
Even if I say so myself, I think
it's a well-produced course.
It's pretty good.
And he's done an excellent
job with the website.
He's going to show you a
couple of features of it
in just a minute.
All right.
So let me talk about
the last thing.
It's called abundance culture--
abundance mindset when it
comes to an individual, which
is a huge determinant
of happiness.
So I characterize the
mindset that people have
as coming in two main flavors.
I call it as abundance
mindset and scarcity mindset.
A person with a scarcity
mindset believes deep down
that life is a zero-sum game.
For me to win, somebody
else has to lose.
Because they operate
with that assumption,
they tend to display
a few characteristics.
They tend to be
more self-centered.
They tend to be more vigilant,
untrusting of other people,
a kind of holding mentality,
very vigilant, and so on and so
forth.
The person with an
abundance mindset,
by contrast, feels
that everybody can win.
My success doesn't have to
come at a cost to your success.
In fact, if you're in
the same organization,
then my success will actually
boost your chances of success.
Everybody's boats gets
lifted up by the tide
kind of an attitude.
So an abundance-minded
person is like somebody
who's going through life as
if it were a rock concert.
Have you been to Austin
City Limits, anybody?
If you've been to it,
then it's like being
at Austin City Limits.
If you're there, and you're
watching a band play,
and you look at the other person
and they're going like yeah.
You won't go like, how
come this person is happy?
How come I'm not happy?
You're going yeah,
yeah, that's awesome.
I mean, so basically
it's a little bit
of this emotional
contagion that goes on.
That positivity flows
from other people to you
rather than making
you feel threatened
by other people's successes.
So no prizes for guessing
which of these two mindsets
is better for your happiness.
Obviously, it's the
abundance mindset.
But what's really
surprising to a lot
of people is that the abundance
mindset is also better for you
for your success--
your chances of
conventional success.
You're not only
likely to be happier.
You're likely to
earn more money,
make more progress
in your career,
and achieve more status,
and so on and so forth.
Why is that?
So if you want to
explore this topic,
I recommend this book
called "Give and Take"
by Adam Grant, who talks about
three categories of people--
givers, matchers, and takers.
Givers are
abundance-minded people.
Takers are
scarcity-minded people.
Matchers are most of us most of
the time who are a mix of both.
And what he finds is that
givers rise up to the top.
There's a disproportional
representation
of givers at the very
top of organizations.
And we think that in order
to rise to the very top,
you have to be a
bit of an asshole.
You have to be willing to
tread on other people's toes,
and be unethical, and cut
corners, and be self-centered,
be a little bit
Machiavellian even, mean.
But it turns out
that's not true.
It might have been true in the
past, maybe in military setups
and so on.
But in the kind of
world we live in,
we inhabit, in the kind
of jobs that we hold,
it turns out that
you're much better
off being an
abundance-minded giver
than to be a
scarcity-minded taker.
I can't walk you through all the
logic of why that's the case,
but just to give you a short
synopsis of the reasons why
it's because people
remember what you did
and how you made them feel.
And so you build for
yourself pools of goodwill
if you're consistently
operating from abundance
than if you're operating
from scarcity and people
remember it.
And so when it comes time for
you to be promoted, et cetera,
they will come and support you.
So it's because of that network
that you create for yourself
in a highly
interconnected world,
that abundance-minded
people have
a higher chance of success.
Two things that I'm going
end with-- actually,
I'll end with one thing and then
I'll ask Ahsan to come over.
And hopefully, the second
thing that I want to talk about
will come up in the
Q&A. The one thing
that I'll end with is that I
often get asked this question.
Which of these five determinants
that you've talked about--
the basic needs, an MBA,
and then abundance mindset--
is the most important?
And I say it's probably
the abundance mindset.
I'll tell you why.
Because you could
have everything
that you ever needed in life.
Basic needs are
more than fulfilled.
Huge amounts of progression
towards mastery.
You are an acknowledged leader
of your domain or your field.
You have lots of fame.
You have lots of belonging.
You have autonomy,
everything going on.
But if you have a scarcity
narrative in your head,
you're not going to be happy.
There was a study
that came out in 2014.
It was summarized in
the "Atlantic Magazine."
And you can Google it.
It's called, "Secret
Fears of the Super Rich."
"Secret Fears of
the Super Rich."
In order to be a
participant in that study,
you needed to have
$25 million invested
in various financial
instruments, hedge funds,
and so on and so forth.
This is not counting your
mansion, and your yacht,
and your car, and your
house, and everything.
$25 million-- solid
money invested in things.
And many of them had more.
This was the minimum
qualification
to enter as a
participant in the study.
And they asked them, what
are your biggest fears?
We all look at you and think
you must be supremely--
you can do whatever you want.
You must be ecstatic.
Every day must be like yay.
[LAUGHTER]
So they said, no, no,
no, to the contrary.
And their two biggest fears--
one of them was justifiable,
I think, is that
they were worried
about what would
happen to the money
when the children
took over the money.
They thought that the children
were spoiled brats, which
they probably were.
But the second fear was
really mind-blowing is
that they thought they
did not have enough money.
They felt insecure about the
amount of money that they had.
And it's easy for us to
point fingers at them
and say, they're hugely selfish,
narcissistic, et cetera.
But really, I mean,
they were people like us
before they got--
had the money.
And so something about
money makes you--
it corrupts you.
So you got to be
watchful for it.
And that's a huge topic.
And the opposite of that
example is also true.
These are people whose life
circumstances are characterized
by huge amounts of abundance and
they have a scarcity narrative
in their head.
There's the other extreme,
which is nothing--
they have nothing and yet
have an abundance narrative
in their head.
This is-- there was
a movie called--
documentary called "Happy."
I'd highly recommend it.
I think it's
available on Netflix.
You can watch it.
It begins with
scenes from Kolkata
where they're interviewing
these slum dwellers who
are rickshaw pullers.
They're not even like
rickshaw drivers with a cycle.
They're actually
literally pulling
people running around
the streets of Kolkata.
They have blisters
on their feet,
wearing tattered clothes,
blood, et cetera, sometimes
on their feet.
Very, very poor.
And they still seem
to be quite happy.
If not happy, at least content.
So the researchers
are flummoxed.
And they ask them, how can
you afford to be happy?
We look at you and we think
you must be miserable,
but you seem to be OK.
And they say it's
because god is bountiful.
Whenever we need anything,
we just go to our neighbors.
We ask them for some
salt or sugar or whatever
it is that we're missing.
And if they have it,
they give it to us.
And when they don't
have it, it's still OK.
So what if you go
hungry for a meal.
We know that we're going to
get another meal a little
bit later down the road.
So they have a narrative
of abundance in their head
even though their
life circumstances
are characterized by scarcity.
So no prizes for guessing
which of these two groups
needs antidepressants, sleeping
pills merely to fall asleep,
and so on.
So even if you have
everything, if you
don't have an abundance
mindset, you're
probably not going
to be very happy.
So that's why I think that
the abundance mindset is
more important than
the other things.
Thank you very much guys.
I really appreciate
you listening to me.
[APPLAUSE]
So we started about
five minutes late.
Can we go five minutes over?
So I'm going to invite
Ahsan over here,
and he's going to
very quickly walk you
through a couple of things on
the website that he's built.
He's really a whiz kid, I think.
And he's actually used a
Google platform, right?
AHSAN VENCY: Yeah,
it's called Angular.
So we used the
platform to develop
the front end of the
website which is right here.
So the website's called
A Heroic Journey,
named after the course.
The two main things that
you can do on the website
are-- there are
different happiness
activities you can do.
And then there are different
scales you can take.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
And the reason
why it's called
Heroic-- the course--
is because "Happier
Employees and Return
On Investment Course."
H-E-R-O-I-C.
[LAUGHTER]
AHSAN VENCY: So he's
a marketing professor,
so he put that
together really well.
So on the scales, you have these
different scales you can take.
And here is what we
call the BAMBA elements
that Raj talked about.
And then you have the
happiness, SEM and productivity.
And after you take scales,
you can see your results.
And on this results graph,
you can see your happiness
at work, SEM and
productivity over time
over these different dates.
So what I actually did is I did
an experiment with myself based
off the research Raj had.
And his research shows
that happiness at work
leads to greater SEM.
SEM is greater Satisfaction,
Engagement, and Morale.
And greater SEM leads
to greater productivity.
So this is a little
more concrete proof
that happiness at work leads to
greater productivity overall.
And you can see how your
different scores are
fluctuating over time and how
they correlate with each other.
Another cool feature is you
have these BAMBA pentagons.
And you can see how you're
doing in the different domains.
As you can see for me, autonomy
and mastery are really high,
but belongingness is
actually pretty low.
And one struggle that I had
there is I was too autonomous.
I was wanting my freedom too
much that I was sacrificing
intimate relationships.
And these are all things you
can do with just analysis.
And the website does it for you.
It gives you a
chart, you see it,
you see where the
results are lacking
or where you're doing well.
And then you can make
inferences from it
yourself instead of having to
track everything on your own.
So that's one feature
is the scales.
After you take the scales,
you can see your results
on a graph.
Another feature is that we have
different various happiness
activities.
My personal favorite one is
the first one-- journaling--
which is the foundational
happiness activity.
And what you can do is after
you set up your journal,
you can make an entry and then
you can view your progress.
Here you can see all
your previous entries
that you've made, order them
by day or happiness score.
Another thing you can do is you
can see your happiness graph.
So when you make
an entry, you'll
enter how happy you
were for that day.
And then we will track it for
you and put it on a graph.
My favorite thing to
do is looking at it
on days of the week.
So you can see Mondays
and Tuesdays are actually
very high.
And then there's just
a huge dip Wednesday.
[LAUGHTER]
So I was really wondering
why does this happen.
If I go back to my entries
and I sort by happiness,
I see productive, nonstop work.
So I was just working
nonstop Mondays and Tuesdays
and that's why I was so happy.
I was really productive
Mondays and Tuesdays.
The flip side to
that comes on you
see Wednesdays are burned out,
drained, and stuff like that.
Because I was working so
hard Mondays and Tuesdays,
I was completely
drained Wednesdays.
So really connecting my
happiness to something.
Why am I happier certain days?
Why am I not happy certain days?
Helps me-- that reflection
helps me sustain my happiness.
Because I'm knowing why
the results are happening
the way they are, and that's
the best way to sustain anything
is knowing why it
occurs the way it does.
So all the happiness activities
are meant to do that.
You can set up the
activity, make an entry,
and then view your progress
to see how you're progressing
in the various
domains of happiness
and get real-time
feedback for yourself.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Thank you, Ahsan.
It was awesome.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER: So if you guys
have any questions,
please put your hands up.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
This gentleman here.
Oops.
AUDIENCE: Hi, thanks for coming.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Yeah, of course.
AUDIENCE: How would you
go about conditioning
your abundance mindset?
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
So this is the topic
that I wanted to cover.
I'm really happy that you
asked me this question.
AUDIENCE: And on a
daily basis, too.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Yes, of course.
I see that you're carrying
a notebook with you.
Is that a journal?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Great that you
carry your journal with you,
because I carry a journal.
Do you journal every day?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Wonderful.
So I don't know if you do
this too-- and if you do this,
then you're already
doing one thing that's
very, very important.
It's called the three
good things exercise.
And every single
day, if you just
make a note of three
good things that
happened to me in
the journal, that's
going to instill a sense
of abundance in you.
Obviously, if you're
doing it every day,
then it's not going to be
big, good things like I
got a raise today, I got
a job at Google today,
I met my soulmate today.
Hopefully that doesn't
happen every day, right?
[LAUGHTER]
So it's going to be
small, good things.
Like I got a nice parking spot.
And sometimes I
actually can flip it.
Even if I did not get
a good parking spot--
I got a parking spot way away
from where I want to go--
I turn it into a good thing.
Because then I say, oh, you know
what, I got a bad parking spot.
But the good thing
out of it is that I
managed to get a little
closer to my 10,000 steps
goal for today.
I just walked a little bit more.
This is very, very
important to do
because we are hardwired
to have what researchers
call negativity dominance.
We are hardwired to
pay more attention
to negative things
that are happening
in the environment because
of our genetic hard-wiring.
Back in the savannas of
Africa, 2,000 years back,
it was those people who noticed
the negative things that
actually had a higher
chance of surviving.
If you were positive,
and you only looked
at juicy low-hanging
fruit and forgot
to look at the tiger in
the corner of your eye,
you might get eaten alive.
Those people did not produce
kids because they died early.
We are the offsprings
of people who
had a survival mindset,
who were very negative,
who paid attention.
But now it's actually
working against us.
The game has changed.
We are not in the
game for surviving.
Correct me if I'm
wrong, but none of you
is being chased by
tigers and lions
and bears-- whatever--
and marauding
tribes waiting to kill you,
and take your grain and women.
That's not happening
anymore-- or men.
So in this new world,
what's important
is to recognize that we are
in the game of not surviving.
We are in the game of thriving.
And when you want
to thrive, it's
better to be happy,
positive, and have, in fact,
a positivity dominance.
Now, it's going to be
very difficult to get rid
of the hard-wiring and replace
it with positivity dominance.
But at the very least, if you
can have the pendulum swing
from all the way negative
to being somewhat positive,
then you'll see
a huge difference
in your happiness levels and
your abundance orientation.
That's one thing that
I would recommend.
Second thing is to not
spend more than two hours
on your social media every day.
It's a huge source
of negativity,
because everyone's putting
their best pictures and so
on on social media.
And you look at it and you think
your life sucks in comparison
to their life.
Even though consciously you
recognize that everyone's
doing it, they're putting
their best pictures and so on,
to your subconscious
mind, it looks at it
and can't help but
compare and say
that I don't look that good.
That person's the same
age as me and they look
far fitter or better, and they
have better spouses, more happy
families or what have you.
So that's the second thing
that I would recommend.
The third thing-- which is
tough to do in New York,
but you have Central
Park-- is to go out
into nature, particularly
to cell phone
dead zones and internet
dead zones if you can.
Maybe once a month--
something like this-- just
go out into the wilderness.
It turns out that it's
hugely reaffirming
to be out in nature for
your abundance mindset.
Don't spend too much time with
scarcity-oriented colleagues
or people.
Spend more time with
abundance-oriented stimuli.
Watch movies that are more
uplifting and elevation
evoking rather than
movies that stoke
your desire for taking revenge.
Stuff like that.
It's really, I mean--
what you expose yourself to has
a huge impact on how you think.
That's the crux of it.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Yeah, of course.
Yes, sir.
AUDIENCE: Thank
you for the talk.
So what I wanted to
ask about was related
to happiness and success.
Is there such a thing as
being too happy, in the sense
that I mean I read maybe some
papers on and off about--
once you're really
happy and content,
it's like you don't
really have that need
to go out and find
something better.
You're not like I'm not in
the place that I want to be,
I want to be somewhere better.
But maybe that-- it
can cause your drive.
[INAUDIBLE]
So what are your
thoughts on that?
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN: Right.
So there is a paper on--
where they look at a range of
happiness from one to seven.
And they looked at productivity
at various levels of happiness.
And it is true that if you are--
I think that study, if
I remember correctly,
they actually had
a nine-point scale.
So all the way from
one to an eight,
it actually increased,
increased, increased.
And then maybe after seven, it
held steady-- seven and eight.
But nine actually
went down a little bit
in terms of productivity.
So if you're ecstatic
every single day,
maybe that's not super
good for your productivity.
Not that it went down
such a low amount
that you were now back to being
a one in terms of productivity.
It was more like you were
at a level of six or a seven
rather than at an
eight or a nine--
or an eight.
But what they did also find
is that those very, very happy
people still had very
good relationships.
So if you look at productivity
in terms of work productivity,
there was a little bit of a
dip at the very highest levels
of happiness.
But in terms of
your relationships,
it was increasing all the way--
all the way to the very top.
And that counts for something.
So yeah, at very high
levels of ecstasy,
it can come in the way.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Hey.
Great talk, by the way.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: So you
mentioned that having
control over small
things in your life
makes you happy, right?
So but what about the
decision-making fatigue?
So sometimes it puts a lot of
stress making small decisions
and you don't want--
figure out for me, please.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN: Yeah,
I mean, one thing to do
is to decide, OK, which are
the big priorities in my life?
And I'm not going to-- have you
read that book by Mark Manson,
"The Subtle Art
of Not Giving a--"
AUDIENCE: Yes.
[LAUGHTER]
And the other one is
"Stumbling on Happiness."
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
"Stumbling on Happiness."
AUDIENCE: They actually
had a study on--
about art students.
And they had to--
one of them had
to keep the painting they draw.
And one of them had a
choice to exchange it.
And the ones that had the
choice to exchange it,
they were not happy
because they were thinking,
oh, maybe the other
one is better.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN: Right.
So there is a concept
called hyper-choice.
So if you have too many
choices, then it can actually
lower your happiness levels
because you're not sure
if you picked the right
one, the one that's closest
to your ideal point, and so on.
So in some ways, it can be a
curse to have too many choices.
So you might want to
avoid that situation.
I think the important
thing there is not
to be what's called a maximizer
and be a satisficer instead.
So maximizer is somebody
who in every situation
is trying to improve
it even further.
So it's good to be a maximizer
if you're in customer service
or in marketing, and
you're constantly
trying to come up with a
better product and so on, which
might be your job.
But if that maximizer
tendency is also
something that manifests
itself in other contexts--
let's say that you
go to a wedding
and you ask yourself, why
am I sitting at this table?
Can I get a little bit
closer to the bride?
Or why am I being served
a little bit later?
There's a little bit of a spot
on this napkin here and so on.
So in some situations,
it's better
to be what's called
a satisficer.
A satisficer is
somebody who sets up
a certain level of
aspiration or wanting a goal.
And then as soon as the first
option exceeds that level,
they just say I'm
happy with this,
I'll just take this,
rather than looking
at further and
further improvements
to every situation.
So that's a good thing to adopt.
I'm not saying that
you should get rid
of the maximizer tendency.
It's useful in some contexts.
But you have to be in control
of which of these two tendencies
you're displaying in any moment
rather than that tendency
controlling you as a
default, if that makes sense.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Thank you.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN: Yes.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
I was wondering for the
pillars that you mentioned,
have there been findings on
maybe their relative importance
for introverts versus
extroverts, maybe
different prioritization.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
That's a good question.
So I don't think that there is
a difference between introverts
and extroverts-- not that
there's been a whole lot
of study on that--
on the five BAMBA elements.
I think it's equally
important for all of them.
When it comes to
belonging, though, I
think introverts and extroverts
require it to the same extent,
I think.
But they just require
it in different ways.
For extroverts--
and one of the ways
to think about the
difference is extroverts
are people that actually
get energized when they're
in the company of other people.
I'm an extrovert.
If I'm feeling low,
I would actually
go out and seek out company.
Introverts are the opposite.
It drains them of
energy when they go out.
But both sets of people need
at least one really intimate
relationship.
So that part is
the same for both.
It's not as if the introverts
are happy just by themselves.
They also need that.
Just that maybe they need
it in smaller doses, or just
a few people are good enough
for them rather than extroverts
wanting a bigger circle.
That would be the difference.
Yes.
This gentleman here.
AUDIENCE: Do I need the
mic if I'm right here?
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
Yeah, sure.
But the people in
the back-- yeah.
AUDIENCE: So you
mentioned at some point
that very successful
people tend to be
givers rather than takers.
And I was just wondering--
you said that it also
it's counter-intuitive
that very successful
people are givers.
But does that hold true for
people at the very highest
upper echelons of
society, like CEOs
of super large online
retail stores where you can
get two-day shipping and such?
[LAUGHTER]
Would you say that
they also abide--
are they also givers or does
it cut off at a certain point?
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
That's a good question.
And I'm somewhat
surprised that you
didn't mention orange-haired
gentlemen who fire people.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: He was next.
[LAUGHTER]
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN:
He was next on your list.
Yeah, so this is where
I think that you really
need to think about--
the social sciences are
a little bit different
from the natural sciences.
Social sciences you're
going to get correlations.
You're not going to get absolute
100% confirm relationships.
Like in physics, if you throw
a stone at a certain rate,
from a certain
height, and so on,
you can predict its
trajectory and so on.
With human beings,
you can't do that.
So there will surely
be lots of examples
that are counterexamples to
the things that I talked about.
So you have to look
at the correlations
and whether they are
statistically significant
and so on.
And I would say that even at
the level of the highest CEO
levels, you will find that this
generally tends to hold true.
This is Adam Grant's
thesis at least.
And I'm not obviously as much
of an expert on this topic
as he is.
But I defer to him, and
you'd have to read the book.
And he doesn't necessarily
only look at CEOs.
He looks at relative success.
People who are higher
versus lower at all levels.
And what he finds is that
you're more likely to rise up
if you're a giver than a taker.
I'll just leave it at that.
Thank you.
All right.
I think we are done, right?
SPEAKER: Yeah, we're on time.
Thank you so much,
Professor Raj for the talk.
RAJAGOPAL RAGHUNATHAN: Yeah.
Thank you.
I really appreciate it, guys.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER: Thank you,
everyone, for coming.
