This spoken YouTube segment argues that the common belief "success leads to happiness" is incorrect. Using empirical examples (tenure decisions studied by Daniel Gilbert and lottery winners) the speaker shows success produces only transient happiness, while research (cited: Sonia Lyubomirsky and others) indicates that increased happiness predicts greater success—higher income, better performance, improved health—and benefits organizations through creativity, engagement, and retention. The segment also describes a virtuous upward spiral: happier people help others more, which in turn increases their own happiness, framing happiness as an investment with individual, organizational, and societal payoffs.
Chapters
The mental model that most people have is that success leads to happiness. They see success as the cause and happiness as the effect. More generally, they believe that the path to the happily ever after is through the attainment of a desired goal. Most people in this case, are wrong. Not a little wrong, but very wrong. There is a substantial body of research on the subject that demonstrates that attaining a goal, achieving success, does not lead to lasting fulfillment. Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert, for example, studied professors who were just about to hear from the universities whether or not they received tenure. In other words, whether they would be granted lifetime employment with benefits, or whether they'd be fired and have to look for a job elsewhere. Getting tenure for most university faculty members constituted a major life goal, a clear mark of success. Not surprisingly, most professors believed that getting tenure would lead to lasting happiness, whereas not getting tenure would devastate them for a very long time. It turned out, though, that those who received tenure, though ecstatic initially, only enjoyed a temporary spike in their levels of happiness. Within a few months, they were back where they started, as happy or as unhappy as they were before receiving tenure. Those who did not receive tenure were very unhappy initially, but their unhappiness as a result of their disappointment only lasted a a short time. Soon they were as happy or as unhappy as they were before they received the bad news. Other research shows that even winning the lottery, becoming an overnight millionaire, only leads to a short lived high soon after the win. The winners are as happy or as unhappy as they were before they struck it rich. But while research and most of our personal experiences clearly demonstrate that success does not lead to happiness, that the mental model that most of us have is wrong, the opposite relationship between the two variables is correct. If you increase your levels of happiness, you increase the likelihood that you will succeed. This is a very important finding, turning the cause and effect relationship on its head and correcting the misperception that so many people have. Research by psychologist Sonia Lyubomirsky and others shows how happiness leads to higher income, better performance in school and at work, and improved mental and physical health. Organizations that invest in their employees well being benefit from higher levels of creativity and productivity, deeper engagement at work, and increased retention. Whether for the individual or for an organization, investing in happiness makes sense. In other words, happiness pays. When we increase our levels of happiness, we simultaneously increase our concern for others and our desire to help others. And then, as we help others and contribute to their happiness, our own happiness increases. There is thus a virtuous upward spiral between our own happiness and that of others. The happier we become, the more we are likely to help others become happier. And the more we help others become happier, the happier we become. Going back to our question, why should we pursue happiness? The answer is that it benefits us as individuals. It benefits those we interact with. It contributes to our organizations and ultimately to a better world. Sam.
