I mention I've traveled to now over 50
countries over the past seven years
studying happiness which is is great and
one things I realized very quickly was
that everyone had a different definition
of happiness that what they thought
would create happiness the triggers for
happiness so we seem to be different
based upon different cultures different
individuals even at the same
organization so if you can't define it
maybe you can't study it and if you
can't study it then we can't have things
like positive psychology they're looking
at how do we raise levels of happiness
for other people part of what we found
is that even though everyone in this
room and everyone watching has different
definitions of happiness that if I ask
you on a scale of one to ten how happy
you felt over the past two weeks most of
us can kind of put ourselves on that
spectrum we can put ourselves somewhere
on that on that that range what we found
is that even though that's a subjective
experience if I go into a hospital and
with a broken arm there's no pain meter
they can hook me up to that
automatically means that you know I'm
experiencing an 8 out of 10 on a pain
scale the same thing is true with
happiness that we treat people based
upon the pain that they actually
experience and we can actually study
people based upon their subjective
subjective experience of happiness that
they're experiencing in the world but
part of what I'm hoping to do and part
of the reason I wanted to come to talk
with you is that what I'd love for us to
do is to help the world redefine what
happiness actually means because I think
that there's a lot of confusion about
what happiness actually is and if we do
come up with a definition that's
aspirational maybe we can start a
movement not only within our schools and
in our families but in our companies
worldwide there's a lot of articles that
are coming out right now talking about
how having a happy life and having a
meaningful life that a meaningful life
is so much better than having a happy
life in terms of the levels of happiness
of healthy experience in the long run I
think those studies while while
well-meaning or actually leading us
astray
because I think it's impossible for us
to sustain happiness without meaning and
as soon as we start to try to define
happiness our life without having
meaning all we're talking about is
pleasure and pleasure is very short
right we could put chocolate bars in
front of each of you and then you know
we that we'd be done in terms of our
happiness somebody like wait was that
option this morning I didn't even know
if that would be an option but part of
Google is always know exactly exactly
you've got pleasure at your fingertips
but that doesn't necessarily mean either
you automatically have happiness at your
fingertips because happiness the way
that we are hoping to start to redefine
this for the world
is to not have happiness be pleasure
that's very short-term and we get
addicted to it we were talking about
that this morning if happiness is just a
pleasure it becomes a trap right so that
if I'm not feeling pleasure right now
well then I must not be happy then I'm
not going to keep working at this or I'm
not going to keep trying because this is
too difficult now what I'm interested in
is how do we redefine happiness to be
what that's I stole this definition from
the ancient Greeks how do we get
happiness become the joy that we feel
striving for our potential and I love
this definition I was at the Divinity
School before getting into studying
positive psychology and I was studying
Christian and Buddhist ethics because I
was interested in how does the beliefs
you have about the world change the
actions you decide to do within that
world and one things that I loved about
this definition when I saw it is it
changes the way that we pursue happiness
because if happiness is just pleasure we
have to keep running after it very
quickly and we know it's not going to
last
but if how if happiness is joy joy is
something we can feel in the ups and
downs of our life it's something we can
experience even when things are not
pleasurable when you're working on a
very difficult project when you're going
for a difficult run or when you're
biking in to work and it's a really long
bike ride whatever is that you're
experiencing even childbirth right it's
not a pleasurable experience all the
time but you can actually feel joy in
the midst of that what I want people to
do is to recognize and to actually seek
out that joy which I know is one of your
pet projects as well is how do you seek
joy but joy that's connected to growth
because if happiness is actually
disconnected from growth it turns out we
stagnate and our happiness goes away
pretty quickly I love playing video
games and I love them and their very
high levels of pleasure and
and I'm ok at them but in terms of
long-term meaning there's not too much
for me in my life now for some people
there's a lot of meaning in video games
but for me not so much so if I keep
doing it even though I'm having pleasure
that pleasure actually dissipates after
a while because I'm not actually
pursuing any of my potential except
within that one domain the thing I love
about joy did we experience striving
towards our potential is that potential
could be anything it could be as a as an
entrepreneur as a business leader it
could be as us you know as a lover as a
son as a daughter as a human being and
the more that we actually strive towards
that potential that's where people
experience that greater levels of
happiness and allows us to stop making
that disjunct between happiness and
success because I was out in Indonesia
and I was speaking out at one of the
factories there and one of the managers
came up to me said this talk on
happiness might work at places like
Google or might work in places in
America but seriously actually our
problem in our country is not people are
unhappy of work our problem is sometimes
that people are way too happy because
they come into work I had this guy come
into work three hours late today and
he's like hey I tried to yell at him and
he was like what are you doing you know
let's just relax and just enjoy
ourselves and I was like that guy didn't
make me happy at all but what he's
talking about there is not happiness
right that short-term pleasure the guy
decided to stay home that morning and
didn't do the work that he was supposed
to be doing but if that's what it is
then long-term his levels of happiness
are actually going to decrease he's
never gonna get to see what his
potential was within that organization
he might not get to see what his
potential was in terms of applying his
self control and his behavior to his
task so what well we want people to do
is to recognize that that's that's
actually that's more on the side it can
be more on the side of apathy right that
if I think the opposite of happiness is
not unhappiness the opposite of
happiness is is apathy which is the loss
of joy that we feel within our lives
because if you think about it
unhappiness can sometimes make us break
up with people we shouldn't be dating or
unhappiness can cause us to move to do
different jobs or it can cause us to
want to get better grades in school
unhappiness can be very helpful what I
think becomes the problem is is when we
lost that when we've lost that joint our
life we lose that joy striving towards
our potential so I think that there's a
revolution inside
if we can help people realize that
happiness is joy that we feel on the way
to our potential some amazing things
start to change
fascinating.i is especially fascinating
in the context of some one of your
teachings from the previous book which I
thought was groundbreaking and when I
first read it I was really impressed
which is in your previous book it which
is the happiness advantage you talked
about the relationship between happiness
and success and you put it on the head
and I know it's on his head right the
reverse of what everybody else was
thinking yeah which is everybody was
thinking that if you are successful
you'd be happy which is basically the
premise of Asian parenting but what you
say and I agree with you
Easter is the reverse is that happiness
brings about success so can you talk
more about it sure so you guys might
have heard the the Battle Hymn of the
tiger mother book that came out about
Tiger parenting which is the the the
style of parenting you're describing
which is I'm gonna make you I'm gonna
push you so hard right now and you're
gonna hate me for it but when you're
successful when you're off at Harvard
you're Stanford when you've got a good
job then you're gonna be happier and it
turns out that that formula which
undergirds like our managing styles that
most companies are our learning styles
or personal development styles it's it's
scientifically broken and backwards for
two reasons the the first reason is that
every time your brain has a success and
you've experiences everyone this room's
experiences every time your brain has a
success your brain just changes the
goalposts of what success looks like for
you almost immediately you got good
grades in school don't get excited yet
because now you need to get into better
schools you got into a better school
don't get excited there because then you
have to get a job you don't even have a
job yet right so you have to get that
internship and job you hit your sales
target we raised your sales target right
yeah double growth earnings last year
that's phenomenal that means we can
double the growth again this year and
that's not the problem we want to see
what your brain is capable we want
growth to improve we want to see sales
improve all these different types of
things the problem is where happiness
comes in that formula because if
happiness comes after success which is a
moving target the brain never gets there
for very long right but if you flip
around we can raise your success rates
your entire
we can raise your income we don't
actually do this we watch people whose
success rates rise that'd be very hard
for us to do we watch people whose
success rates rise dramatically and
their happiness levels
flatline they actually don't move so as
you're sick of success rises in your
life your happiness levels will actually
remain about the same but flip around
the formula if you can get people to
deepen the social connection they feel
the meaning embedded in their
relationships that breadth and depth of
their relationships if you change and
raise their levels of optimism if you
get people to see stress as a challenge
instead of as a threat when our brain is
positive first every single educational
outcome and business outcome we can test
for rises dramatically and our success
rates rise so raise success rates
happiness flatlines but raise levels of
happiness with inside organizations and
schools and their success rates rise
dramatically which is which is
phenomenal cuz if we're not you know I I
had the opportunity to I'd spent 12
years at Harvard first as an
undergraduate and then I was a Divinity
School and then I was a Teaching Fellow
there and while I was there you know
like when I first got into Harvard I
applied on a dare right so I didn't
expect to get in we didn't have any
money for college so but I got a Navy
ROTC scholarship which allowed me to go
there through MIT and so I found myself
in classrooms full of people who are
incredibly smart and you know we're just
amazing and I remember that could have
felt bad about myself like the mistake
but I remember just sitting there
thinking this is amazing to get how
opportunity like like this morning to
get to spend time with all these
incredibly brilliant and and motivated
people and you can look around and for
some of the many of you I know some of
you from Harvard actually that you could
look around and you could see the
students who saw their education as a
privilege right that they saw what they
were doing as an opportunity and they
invested in completely different ways
they take classes that they get a bad
grade in like an a-minus
just because they wanted to learn or
they get involved with us no issue
that's like a agency exactly
I like that I'm just kidding the bubbles
that you know we have people that would
like ride the bench on a sport for four
three years just so they can make
friends and those are the people who
love their time there and actually one
of our studies we found that those are
the people who give the most in alumni
donations back to the school later on
which is why Harvard got interested in
happiness in the first place but but
afterwards I got the opportunity to live
and to stay at Harvard I knew that if I
left they won't let me back in and so I
stayed there for the next eight years
and I lived in the dorms with the
freshmen as a proctor there and harver
invited me to do that I didn't just stay
in the dorm I wasn't that guy who just
say he's in the freshman dorms meeting
people but most of it so what it meant
was I could watch these students
transition to high school to college and
what I saw very quickly was no matter
how happy they were getting into that
school two weeks later many of them the
brains were not focused on the privilege
of being there or even fully focused on
their philosophy or physics their brains
were scattered thinking about the
competition the workload the stresses
the hassles and complaints and very
quickly what was promised to create
great happiness wasn't 80 percent of
Harvard students according to the
Crimson poll that they'd have eighty
percent of them report experiencing
depression that sometime during the four
years they're in a study that came out
in 2003 by the University Health
Services they measured 2000 the six down
to six thousand undergraduates found
that 10 percent of them had contemplated
suicide at some point during their time
there which was extraordinarily high and
I know that these are statistics but
those are human beings and it was
heartbreaking watching some of these
students and some of the people that we
know lose that connection the meaning
and habit and it happy meaning in their
life and the potential that they had one
of the studies that I got to do early on
was I looked at 1600 Harvard students to
find out who rises to the top if you
have people that are extremely
intelligent extremely successful
ambitious who rises the top in terms of
their happiness and success and I looked
at everything I looked at what grades
they got in school you know I got I
looked at their familial income we
looked at SAT scores before getting into
school we looked at number of friends on
Facebook we looked at a number of
romantic partners that they'd had which
by the way
is they've dated less than one person on
average for their entire four years of
college which is engineering media
possibly it was lower than any school we
saw so far it was actually 0.5 sexual
partners per Harvard student engineering
yeah which I only mentioned cuz I don't
even know what that statistic means
right point five we were always taught
to round out but whether they might be
possibly thought probably
you
