Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness | Video on TED.com

Srikumar Rao: Plug into your hard-wired happiness | Video on TED.com

Does your blood sing with happiness as you wake in the morning? Can you drop to your knees in gratitude at all the blessings you're experiencing right now? If you're not this damn radiant, well, Professor Rao, from Columbia University, says you are wasting your life!

Because, guess what, your life is perfect. I know, I know...you're thinking, Stella, what are you on? But I agree with the dude. I'm not a complete master...but I'd say I'm getting there, and Rao is one of the reasons why.

Here's what Rao recommends:

Don't invest in the outcome, invest in the process. Do all you can to achieve your goal, but don't put your happiness on the line if you don't succeed. We've been taught that happiness happens when we achieve or get what it is we desire. But success is completely out of your control. The only thing you control is the process, the path towards your goal.

Watch out for the "If ______ (fill in the blank), then I'll be happy." This is the flawed model we've been trained on. Rao believes that if you can't find passion within yourself NOW, then no job, opportunity, person, or thing will do the trick. Everything you need to be happy, is within you, NOW.

Much love,
S

Synthesizing Happiness

Here Dan Gilbert, Harvard Prof, discusses how we synthesize happiness. We CAN make happiness and the kind we make is equally as good as the kind that we kind of stumble upon. The very commodity we chase, is one we can manufacture from within. Fascinating stuff and great news!

He also shares some cool studies about choice. Our "creating happiness" button only goes on when we have no other choice than to accept the cards we're dealt. Given the opportunity to reverse a decision, or to choose differently, can actually leave you unsatisfied in the long run.

This flies in the face of our assumptions about freedom of choice as a good thing. Intuitively, as consumers, I think we're all beginning to feel this truth. Personally, I'm tired of standing in the grocery store stumped over which toilet paper to buy. That's why brands who curate our decision making process are cashing out!

Think of Chipotle (which I just had for lunch). It's a simple as 1, 2, and 3. Or Amazon, which smartly suggests, "customers who bought what you just did, also like this..." Consider how you can make the lives around you more rich by curating and simplifying options for others. It takes so much damn energy to make a decision - so there is a lot of VALUE (be it emotional or monetary) that you can provide by taking decision making work out of whatever is at hand. For business owners, consider how you can taste match your customers' needs and lesson the choices they have to make. For employees, give your boss less options and a clear recommendation. For friends, narrow dinner options down to 3 cuisines instead of "what do you feel like eating?"

Softy shmofty: Happiness is hardcore!

Let me just set the record straight with just a few good factoids here about happiness:

1. Happier people LIVE longer and healthier lives
In a study with over 2,800 men age 65 and older, those who tested higher on positive emotion were HALF as likely to DIE and HALF as likely to experience disease (hello?!?).

2. Happier people make more money and set bigger goals
In a study with 272 people, happier people received better evaluations from supervisors and higher pay. In another study, both children and adults who were induced into positive moods (by watching happy movies or looking at positive images) selected higher goals, performed better, and persisted longer than those who were not in a good mood.

3. Happier people have more fulfilling relationships
In a study with 222 college students, those who were considered "very happy" spent the least time alone, the most time socializing, and were rated to be in fulfilling relationships by their friends and self.

4. Happier people have better sex
Yes, it's true! There are studies that support this. But damn, I can't remember where I read it...so I'll get back to you on this one if you're interested.

5. Happier people are happy!
This is the funniest thing of all. That I feel compelled to write a blog that DEFENDS HAPPINESS! Sometimes I tell people I study happiness and they look at me like "what? ha." People...WTF. Experiencing happiness is what makes life worth living. Somehow we forget that. We forget that our mission in life should be to make ourselves happy. Some think that pursuing happiness is selfish. Some think it's impractical. Some think it's soft. But it's not. And best of all, when you're happy - you make the world happier. You make others happier.

Here are two of my fave quotes on that:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
-- Howard Thurman, Dean of Theology and the chapels at Howard and Boston universities for more than two decades, and in 1944 helped found the first racially integrated, multicultural church in the United States.

"When you find your piece in the puzzle, you enable 10,000 others to find theirs." T Harv Eker


With much love,
Stella


Sources: For more great studies and info, read Martin Seligman's book, Authentic Happiness. He's coming out with an evolved theory on positive psychology - but this book still holds major gems on the science of happiness.