Vishen Lakhiani argues happiness isn't the goal. Instead, practice "blissipline": nurturing positive emotions without forcing happiness or denying sadness. Research shows a higher ratio of positive to overall thoughts improves work performance, but melancholy and grief are valid states worth keeping.
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We still hear people talking about, I just want to be happy. Well, my goal is to be happy. Is happiness in your eyes still a goal? Is it a pursuit? Is it a byproduct? What is happiness? What's Vishen's take on that?
So happiness is not the goal at all. In fact, happiness is not even what we care about. What we're looking at is a concept called blissipline. Blissipline is not being happy. It's not forcing yourself to be happy. Life. Look, I am a person who can be prone to depression. It's actually in my DNA. Wow. I never did. You can measure these things now with DNA and I've been in depression in my life. I'm also a person who is prone to melancholy. Melancholy is when I want to, when it typically it happens when it's raining, I want to sit by the fire, listen to sad music and just be by myself. And I like that. I'm not happy. Neither am I sad or depressed. I'm just melancholy. And it's a beautiful feeling. And we all feel that sometimes. If you've ever seen the Pixar movie Inside out, it shows that sadness can be a superpower. You can be sad when you miss someone. You can be sad when you're grieving. There's a beautiful quote from the Disney show WandaVision. What is grief but love persisting? The goal isn't to push away sadness, rather the goal is this, is to remember this. When we are showing up with people, when we are showing up at work, the thing that matters is the concept of blissipline and that is having the discipline to ensure that you are, you are nurturing your positive emotions. Now, positive emotions doesn't mean you're fake happy. Positive emotions mean that even if you're sad, you can observe it. Like I love that quote. What is grief but love persisting? Because if you're grieving someone, that's a beautiful emotion. You can grieve someone who has left your life, but you're not beating yourself out of it. So you're still in a way blissful. Now why is this important? There's a study called PQ and there's a book about it by Shajat Sharmin. And PQ means positivity quotient. It's your ratio of good thoughts versus overall thoughts. Now what they find is that the higher your pq, the better you function at your job, the better you function at your work. We spend 70% of our work, of our waking hours on our work. And so if we can practice discipline and elevate our PQ we get more done. We are happier as we work. The quality of our work is better. But you know the studies on PQ fascinate me. They found that the number one thing that determines how well a team functions is their PQ is what is the ratio of positive emotions within the team and between the members of this team. And so if we can train for blissipline, if we can put ourselves in these blissful states we simply do better. Now one of the most beautiful things I read was in the book Titan. It's the biography of John D. Rockefeller. He was the richest man who ever lived and at the age of 83 John D. Rockefeller wrote a beautiful poem that illustrates this idea of blissipline. He said I was early thought to work as well as play. My life has been one long happy holiday full of work, full of play and I left the worry along the way and God was good to me every day.
