Being Happier at Work

AI is transforming the world. And it starts with the right compute. ARM is the AI compute platform trusted by global leaders. Proudly NASDAQ listed, built for the future. Visit arm.com discover. Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Greene. Carmine hi Michael. Today I'm talking with Emma Seppala, Science Director of Stanford's center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. She's the author of the brand new book the Happiness how to apply the science of happiness to accelerate your success. Emma, thank you so much for talking with us today.

Oh, you're more than welcome. I'm happy to be here.

So I thought we should just start by talking about how you define success in the purposes of the book. Because you started I thought was really interesting with a quote from late poet Maya Angelou, who actually was one of my all time favorite interviews that we've done on the Ideacast. That was a few years ago but she stuck out in my mind and the quote you start with is success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it. So was that kind of your working definition for success in the book or did you have a different way of thinking about it? And does money come into it at all?

Well, the way that I am presenting it in the book, which is really what I found in the research, is that there is a way for you to be to maximize your potential, to be as successful as you possibly can be. And that way is really to maximize your own happiness and well being.

And that's interesting because I feel like there is a sense to which you need a certain amount of money to make that happen. But really your book is sort of about finding inner success, I would say like a point at which you feel content as opposed to sort of the trappings of success that so many of us associate with that term.

This is true. And success is going to look different for different people. So if you're a ballerina, money may not be your measure of success, it may be making it to a certain level of performance. For example, same thing with your in the military. You know you're going to be successful as judged by something other than your salary. But you know what I'm talking about in the happiness track is that most people have the misconception that in order to be successful they have to sacrifice their well being now with the idea that success will lead to happiness later. But I'm hoping that the book will provide some relief to people because what research is actually showing is that if you really take care of your own well being, you will actually be more resilient to stress. You'll be more creative and innovative, able to think outside the box. You'll have better relationships with your colleagues, with your managers, with your clients. And you'll have better help and possibly even greater longevity. So there's a lot to be said for the need to really take care of yourself rather than, you know, sacrificing yourself in your quest for success.

Well, and we're starting to get into a little bit, I think, how you define happiness, but I want to sort of tackle that definition head on as well because I think sometimes in the popular press you see sort of pushback against happiness. Scientists and researchers using the term happiness because it's sort of like that's not a scientific term, you know, but. But yet that's the word most of us use. It's the word you use in this book. Tell me a little bit about why, as someone who is totally scientist and is like familiar with all of this, why you claim that word happiness is.

Definitely a simplistic word. And in a lot of ways it's a catch all term. And it certainly can sound overly simplistic, not just as a scientist, but in general, because we all have periods of suffering in our lives that's pretty much inevitable. And what I'm suggesting here is not that we walk around with a big smile on our face at all times. I'm just sharing the science that persuasively demonstrates that if we can prioritize ourselves, taking care of ourselves in the form of taking time off, being kind to ourselves, building positive relationships, we're actually going to be more resilient to the stresses of life and it's going to give you an edge career wise. So, so it's a win, win again, we don't have to sacrifice ourselves to be successful. On the contrary, you'll be more successful if you don't.

I want to also ask you a little bit about the intensity of the feelings we're talking about here, because that's not something that we think about a lot. But you have a really great section in the book where you talk about high intensity versus low intensity emotions. And that is something that has not gotten as much attention as say, you know, positive versus negative feelings. Why is it so important to think about the intensity of the feelings as well?

When you ask Americans how they define happiness, they're going to define it in high intensity terms such as excited, elated, and those are the kinds of terms we use every day to describe Our enthusiasm about things. But if you look at Eastern societies, for example, East Asian societies, you'll find that they define happiness very differently. They define them with low intensity emotions such as calm and contentment. For example. We also value, so we value high intensity positive emotions. We also value high intensity negative emotions. Many people thrive on stress. And so in a sense there's this addiction to a high intensity experience, whether it's positive or negative. So not to say that there's anything wrong with feeling excited. I mean, that's a wonderful feeling. Same with stress. You know, sometimes just that little extra stress is going to help you get through your deadline. But, but if these things are chronic, what you're doing is you're exhausting your physiology because your physiology is always in a state of high adrenaline, whether it's for a positive experience or a negative experience, whether it's excitement or stress. And so what we're doing here is unwittingly completely depleting ourselves. So what I'm proposing in the happiness track is that you learn to manage your energy and stamina and teaching some ways in which you can retain your energy by not always living in a high intensity mode, but rather reserving those high intensity experiences for times when you really need them. And that will help a lot with preventing burnout. And most importantly, you'll be able to save precious mental energy for the tasks that need it most.

Well, and it's interesting because I think as we're chatting here about stress and burnout, I'm thinking how many pieces I've read over the years that will say in order to become happier at work, you have to minimize these things like stress and burnout. And it just, it's sort of just occurring to me right now as we're talking that your book is a little bit different. It's not just about minimizing the bads, it's about getting more of the goods. Yeah. How do you sort of advise people think about both tactics to minimize stress and burnout, but also actual, like positive things you can do to be happier, not just minimizing stress.

What we know is that just as we're built for fight or flight, we are also built to relax and restore ourselves. There are two systems in our body. One is the sympathetic nervous system, which is again, that which gears us up for fight or flight, helps make our attention and our memory really acute, helps boost our immune system so that we can be resilient if we were to get wounded in certain stressful experiences, for example. But at the same time, we have the parasympathetic nervous system, which we're supposed to tap into right after a stressful episode, which helps the body to recover and helps the body to strengthen itself up again. And what we end up doing a lot is just living in sympathetic activation mode all the time. Which is why you're also seeing that people have huge sleep problems. They don't even know how to relax anymore. In fact, just as people are depending on substances to get themselves really motivated and a little anxious in the morning to get going like coffee, well, then what happens at the end of the day is people are relying on alcohol because that's the only way that they can relax. But what I'm trying to share with people is that we have the innate ability to relax and to calm our physiology. And. And if we work on that. And again, it's not a lot of work, it's very natural. For example, breathing exercises are something that are very effective very quickly. You can actually train your nervous system to relax more quickly, to tap into that parasympathetic nervous system as easily as you do into the sympathetic nervous system. And what happens with that is that you become more resilient. You can be in the same stressful situation, but you're not going to be as impacted, you're not going to be as harmed by your health, your well being, et cetera. Your thinking is going to stay clear and you'll stay calmer.

Hmm. So I'm interested. You've mentioned the breathing exercises a couple times, and I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about these breathing exercises. Is there one in particular that you could describe, you know, that, you know, so people can try this at home?

Absolutely. I mean, the simplest thing that we know is that, you know, your heart increases, heart rate increases when you breathe in, and it decreases when you breathe out. So lengthening your exhales start to really start to calm you down. So that's the easy thing you can do even if you're in a board meeting or, you know, talking to. In a stressful situation, when you're talking to someone, nobody needs to notice what you're doing. You're simply exhaling for a longer period of time. The other thing we know is that breathing deeply also will help calm you down. And doing that, you know, it's something you can do in the morning for five minutes. Really, it's so easy. Set a timer and you kind of set the tone for the day. And it's also something you can do anytime, anywhere when you're in the car. In a traffic jam, wherever it is. And that can really start to slow everything down a little bit.

Okay, great. Thank you. I wanted to ask you also about self compassion. I hear from a lot of people, like our readers, you know, successful, ambitious people, that they will do the breathing stuff, they will try mindfulness, you know, they will do a lot of these things. But what they have the hardest time with is really getting a better relationship with that inner critic. I think a lot of people credit their inner critic with really being able to motivate them and help them. And they'll say things like, well, I have high standards, you know, but I'm not harder on anyone else than I am on myself. Almost as a point of pride. And you really, in the book talk about why that's not helpful. And so could you just talk us through some of that?

Absolutely. I mean, whether we're high power executives or stay at home moms. I think self criticism is a tendency that many people struggle with, women in particular, actually. And we do believe that self criticism pushes us to perform better and to live up to higher standards. But actually, self criticism is basically self sabotage. Research shows that it keeps you focused on what's wrong with you rather than what's right, thereby decreasing your confidence. It also makes you afraid of failure, which when you live and work with a fear of failure, it hurts your performance, makes you give up more easily, make poorer decisions, and basically less likely to try new things. And it also makes you less resilient in the face of failure and less likely to learn and grow from your mistakes. So self criticism is actually not helpful at all. Self compassion sounds like a really soft term, but it actually is an incredible approach to yourself because it really does boost your potential for success. So by self compassion, I mean treating yourself as you would a friend. So let's say one of your friends fails, makes a mistake and comes to you. What are you going to say? You're probably not going to say things that are going to be destructive to that person. You're probably going to encourage them. You're going to remind them, everybody makes mistakes, it's no big deal. And you're going to be more gentle with them. And so treating yourself that way, research shows, leads to greater happiness, less anxiety and depression than self criticism, better health, lower stress, better emotional intelligence and relationships with other people, more motivation, willpower, greater perspective. And again, that resilience helps you bounce back in the face of mistakes and you're more likely to grow from your experiences. And so it has tremendous value for.

People you Know, Emma, as you're sort of talking about the world of work here, I'm reminded of a number of the articles that you've written for HBR over the years about the power of positivity in the workplace and how it really leads to higher engagement and better corporate returns and all kinds of good business outcomes, not just interpersonal outcomes. And I guess I'm just wondering if there is so much evidence out there that this really works and has a business bottom line benefit as well as interpersonal benefits. How come these myths of overwork and stress and kind of like how come these myths persist? How come we're still sort of bumbling along, sort of making a hash of this?

Well, in some ways we are tied to very outdated theories, maybe starting with survival of the fittest, which, you know, people attribute to Darwin, but Darwin actually never said such a thing. The term was actually coined by someone who wanted to justify social hierarchies and therefore adapted Darwin's findings to this idea. But Darwin was more likely to say, actually those people who were more likely to survive among our ancestors were those who really thrived with communities that were characterized by what he called sympathy. But unfortunately, in our current day and age, in workplaces, there's this idea that a cutthroat, dog eat dog kind of atmosphere is really the only way to go. You've got to push everyone out of the way. You've got to get ahead. But this is an outdated view, and I talk about this in my book as well. But workplaces that are characterized by this kind of culture are not workplaces whose employees will remain. There's probably places that have very high turnover and there are places that also see a lot of costs related to stress and other such things. So again, there are a lot of workplaces that are thriving and they are places of high turnover. Perhaps they hire very young people and they know that they're only going to keep them for a short duration of time, for example. But what we know is that for an organization to thrive over the long term, you really need to take care of your employees and also to inspire them. So we're talking here that the leadership really has to be committed to a workplace that's characterized by strong human values.

Great, thank you. I agree. Anything else that you would give people advice on what to go home and do differently today?

Absolutely. And this is one that can seem hard, but it's actually the easiest thing in the world is to do more of nothing. And research shows that CEOs currently value creativity above all other skills in their employees. Yet research also shows that there's currently a creativity crisis, with creativity scores dropping dramatically among younger people entering the workforce. So where does creativity come from? You know, the buzzwords of like innovation and disruption and so forth. That's all about creativity. That's all about being able to see something other people don't see, to be able to think outside the box. And what we know from research on creativity is that creativity does not come when you are in an overly focused, overly stressed mental state. Creativity comes when you're not doing something. Focused. Creativity emerges when you're idle, when you're having fun. Maybe you're running in the park with your dog, playing with your child. Creativity comes when you're in the shower. That's the proverbial idea in the shower. And it's absolutely true. Creativity emerges right before sleep, when you're in that space where you're not quite awake, not quite asleep, when you're in that dreamy, daydreamy sort of space. And so I hope this gives people an excuse to not feel guilty when they take time off, because it's only by taking time off, by diversifying your experiences, by making room in your life to play and have some fun, that you're actually going to start to see things differently and that you're going to come up with your most breakthrough genius ideas.

That is really inspiring and uplifting. Thank you so much, Emma.

You're welcome.

That was Stanford's Emma Seppala. The book is the Happiness Track. For more of Emma's writing, go to hbr.org.