TED_Script

==

the_secret_of_happying_working

{
}
note :

in every single company that I've worked with,

getting them to write down three new things that they're grateful for

for 21 days in a row, three new things each day.

And at the end of that,

their brain starts to retain a pattern

of scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.

Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours

allows your brain to relive it.

Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters.

We find that meditation allows your brain

==

Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive,

has two functions.

Not only does it make you happier,

it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain

allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.


If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present,

then our brains work even more successfully

as we're able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.


But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order.

If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present,

then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage,

which is your brain at positive

performs significantly better

than it does at negative, neutral or stressed.

Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise.

undergirds

wellness week : 健康周

75 percent of job successes

are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support

and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.


is that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels,

when in reality, if I know everything about your external world,

90 percent of your long-term happiness

is predicted not by the external world,

but by the way your brain processes the world.


See what we're finding is it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us,

but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.

And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness,

we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

ready for a cavalry charge.
differing
clumsy

land with crash

waht had befallen my fallen sister

for which I have yet to be thanked,

this wail of pain and suffering and surprise

 outliers

Now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sister would want more

than not to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister,

but Amy the special unicorn.

vanguard
o

"How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?"

scientists change the answer to "How fast does the average child

learn how to read in that classroom?"

either depressed or you have a disorder

resiliency

====

When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old,

we were playing on top of a bunk bed.

I was two years older than my sister at the time --

I mean, I'm two years older than her now --

but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do,

and I wanted to play war.

So we were up on top of our bunk beds.

And on one side of the bunk bed,

I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry.

And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies

ready for a cavalry charge.

There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon,

but since my sister is not here with us today,

let me tell you the true story --

(Laughter) --

which is my sister's a little bit on the clumsy side.

Somehow, without any help or push from her older brother at all,

suddenly Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed

and landed with this crash on the floor.

Now I nervously peered over the side of the bed

to see what had befallen my fallen sister

and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees

on all fours on the ground.

I was nervous because my parents had charged me

with making sure that my sister and I

played as safely and as quietly as possible.

And seeing as how I had accidentally broken Amy's arm

just one week before ...

(Laughter)

... heroically pushing her out of the way

of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet,

(Laughter)

for which I have yet to be thanked,

I was trying as hard as I could --

she didn't even see it coming --

I was trying as hard as I could to be on my best behavior.

And I saw my sister's face,

this wail of pain and suffering and surprise

threatening to erupt from her mouth and threatening to wake

my parents from the long winter's nap for which they had settled.

So I did the only thing

my little frantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy.

And if you have children, you've seen this hundreds of times before.

I said, "Amy, Amy, wait. Don't cry. Don't cry.

Did you see how you landed?

No human lands on all fours like that.

Amy, I think this means you're a unicorn."

(Laughter)

Now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sister would want more

than not to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister,

but Amy the special unicorn.

Of course, this was an option that was open to her brain at no point in the past.

And you could see how my poor, manipulated sister faced conflict,

as her little brain attempted to devote resources

to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise

she just experienced,

or contemplating her new-found identity as a unicorn.

And the latter won out.

Instead of crying, instead of ceasing our play,

instead of waking my parents,

with all the negative consequences that would have ensued for me,

instead a smile spread across her face

and she scrambled right back up onto the bunk bed with all the grace of a baby unicorn ...

(Laughter)

... with one broken leg.

What we stumbled across

at this tender age of just five and seven --

we had no idea at the time --

was something that was going be at the vanguard of a scientific revolution

occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain.

What we had stumbled across is something called positive psychology,

which is the reason that I'm here today

and the reason that I wake up every morning.

When I first started talking about this research

outside of academia, out with companies and schools,

the very first thing they said to never do

is to start your talk with a graph.

The very first thing I want to do is start my talk with a graph.

This graph looks boring,

but this graph is the reason I get excited and wake up every morning.

And this graph doesn't even mean anything; it's fake data.

What we found is --

(Laughter)

If I got this data back studying you here in the room, I would be thrilled,

because there's very clearly a trend that's going on there,

and that means that I can get published,

which is all that really matters.

The fact that there's one weird red dot that's up above the curve,

there's one weirdo in the room --

I know who you are, I saw you earlier --

that's no problem.

That's no problem, as most of you know,

because I can just delete that dot.

I can delete that dot because that's clearly a measurement error.

And we know that's a measurement error

because it's messing up my data.

So one of the very first things we teach people

in economics and statistics and business and psychology courses

is how, in a statistically valid way, do we eliminate the weirdos.

How do we eliminate the outliers

so we can find the line of best fit?

Which is fantastic if I'm trying to find out

how many Advil the average person should be taking -- two.

But if I'm interested in potential, if I'm interested in your potential,

or for happiness or productivity

or energy or creativity,

what we're doing is we're creating the cult of the average with science.

If I asked a question like,

"How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?"

scientists change the answer to "How fast does the average child

learn how to read in that classroom?"

and then we tailor the class right towards the average.

Now if you fall below the average on this curve,

then psychologists get thrilled,

because that means you're either depressed or you have a disorder,

or hopefully both.

We're hoping for both because our business model is,

if you come into a therapy session with one problem,


so you keep coming back over and over again.

We'll go back into your childhood if necessary,

but eventually what we want to do is make you normal again.

But normal is merely average.

And what I posit and what positive psychology posits

is that if we study what is merely average,

we will remain merely average.

Then instead of deleting those positive outliers,

what I intentionally do is come into a population like this one

and say, why?

Why is it that some of you are so high above the curve

in terms of your intellectual ability, athletic ability, musical ability,

creativity, energy levels,

your resiliency in the face of challenge, your sense of humor?

Whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you.

Because maybe we can glean information --

not just how to move people up to the average,

but how we can move the entire average up

in our companies and schools worldwide.

The reason this graph is important to me

is, when I turn on the news, it seems like the majority of the information

is not positive, in fact it's negative.

Most of it's about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters.

And very quickly, my brain starts to think

that's the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world.

What that's doing is creating something

called the medical school syndrome --

which, if you know people who've been to medical school,

during the first year of medical training,

as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases that could happen,

suddenly you realize you have all of them.

I have a brother in-law named Bobo -- which is a whole other story.

Bobo married Amy the unicorn.

Bobo called me on the phone

from Yale Medical School,

and Bobo said, "Shawn, I have leprosy."

(Laughter)

Which, even at Yale, is extraordinarily rare.

But I had no idea how to console poor Bobo

because he had just gotten over an entire week of menopause.

(Laughter)

See what we're finding is it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us,

but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.

And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness,

we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

When I applied to Harvard, I applied on a dare.

I didn't expect to get in, and my family had no money for college.

When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they allowed me to go.

Suddenly, something that wasn't even a possibility became a reality.

When I went there, I assumed everyone else would see it as a privilege as well,

that they'd be excited to be there.

Even if you're in a classroom full of people smarter than you,

you'd be happy just to be in that classroom, which is what I felt.

But what I found there

is, while some people experience that,

when I graduated after my four years

and then spent the next eight years living in the dorms with the students --

Harvard asked me to; I wasn't that guy.

(Laughter)

I was an officer of Harvard to counsel students through the difficult four years.

And what I found in my research and my teaching

is that these students, no matter how happy they were

with their original success of getting into the school,

two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there,

nor on their philosophy or their physics.

Their brain was focused on the competition, the workload,

the hassles, the stresses, the complaints.

When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall,

which is where my friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up --

I know some of you have heard of it.

When they'd come to visit me, they'd look around,

they'd say, "This freshman dining hall looks like something

out of Hogwart's from the movie "Harry Potter," which it does.

This is Hogwart's from the movie "Harry Potter" and that's Harvard.

And when they see this,

they say, "Shawn, why do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard?

Seriously, what does a Harvard student possibly have

to be unhappy about?"

Embedded within that question

is the key to understanding the science of happiness.

Because what that question assumes

is that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels,

when in reality, if I know everything about your external world,

90 percent of your long-term happiness

is predicted not by the external world,

but by the way your brain processes the world.

And if we change it,

if we change our formula for happiness and success,

what we can do is change the way

that we can then affect reality.

What we found is that only 25 percent of job successes

are predicted by I.Q.

75 percent of job successes

are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support

and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.

I talked to a boarding school up in New England, probably the most prestigious boarding school,

and they said, "We already know that.

So every year, instead of just teaching our students, we also have a wellness week.

And we're so excited. Monday night we have the world's leading expert

coming in to speak about adolescent depression.

Tuesday night it's school violence and bullying.

Wednesday night is eating disorders.

Thursday night is elicit drug use.

And Friday night we're trying to decide between risky sex or happiness."

(Laughter)

I said, "That's most people's Friday nights."

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Which I'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all.

Silence on the phone.

And into the silence, I said, "I'd be happy to speak at your school,

but just so you know, that's not a wellness week, that's a sickness week.

What you've done is you've outlined all the negative things that can happen,

but not talked about the positive."

The absence of disease is not health.

Here's how we get to health:

We need to reverse the formula for happiness and success.

In the last three years, I've traveled to 45 different countries,

working with schools and companies

in the midst of an economic downturn.

And what I found is that most companies and schools

follow a formula for success, which is this:

If I work harder, I'll be more successful.

And if I'm more successful, then I'll be happier.

That undergirds most of our parenting styles, our managing styles,

the way that we motivate our behavior.

And the problem is it's scientifically broken and backwards for two reasons.

First, every time your brain has a success,

you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like.

You got good grades, now you have to get better grades,

you got into a good school and after you get into a better school,

you got a good job, now you have to get a better job,

you hit your sales target, we're going to change your sales target.

And if happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there.

What we've done is we've pushed happiness

over the cognitive horizon as a society.

And that's because we think we have to be successful,

then we'll be happier.

But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order.

If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present,

then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage,

which is your brain at positive

performs significantly better

than it does at negative, neutral or stressed.

Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise.

In fact, what we've found

is that every single business outcome improves.

Your brain at positive is 31 percent more productive

than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed.

Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate

at coming up with the correct diagnosis

when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed.

Which means we can reverse the formula.

If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present,

then our brains work even more successfully

as we're able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.

What we need to be able to do is to reverse this formula

so we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of.

Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive,

has two functions.

Not only does it make you happier,

it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain

allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.

We've found that there are ways that you can train your brain

to be able to become more positive.


we can actually rewire your brain,

allowing your brain to actually work

more optimistically and more successfully.

We've done these things in research now

in every single company that I've worked with,

getting them to write down three new things that they're grateful for

for 21 days in a row, three new things each day.

And at the end of that,

their brain starts to retain a pattern

of scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.

Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours

allows your brain to relive it.

Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters.

We find that meditation allows your brain

to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been creating

by trying to do multiple tasks at once

and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand.

And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness.

We get people, when they open up their inbox,

to write one positive email

praising or thanking somebody in their social support network.

And by doing these activities

and by training your brain just like we train our bodies,

what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success,

and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity,

but create a real revolution.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)


==
shawn_the_secret_of_happy_working

1
00:00:00,015 --> 00:00:03,015
When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old,

2
00:00:03,015 --> 00:00:06,015
we were playing on top of a bunk bed.

3
00:00:06,015 --> 00:00:08,015
I was two years older than my sister at the time --

4
00:00:08,015 --> 00:00:11,015
I mean, I'm two years older than her now --

5
00:00:11,015 --> 00:00:14,015
but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do,

6
00:00:14,015 --> 00:00:16,015
and I wanted to play war.

7
00:00:16,015 --> 00:00:18,015
So we were up on top of our bunk beds.

8
00:00:18,015 --> 00:00:20,015
And on one side of the bunk bed,

9
00:00:20,015 --> 00:00:22,015
I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry.

10
00:00:22,015 --> 00:00:25,015
And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies

11
00:00:25,015 --> 00:00:27,015
ready for a cavalry charge.

12
00:00:27,015 --> 00:00:29,015
There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon,

13
00:00:29,015 --> 00:00:32,015
but since my sister is not here with us today,

14
00:00:32,015 --> 00:00:34,015
let me tell you the true story --

15
00:00:34,015 --> 00:00:36,015
(Laughter) --

16
00:00:36,015 --> 00:00:38,015
which is my sister's a little bit on the clumsy side.

17
00:00:38,015 --> 00:00:41,015
Somehow, without any help or push from her older brother at all,

18
00:00:41,015 --> 00:00:43,015
suddenly Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed

19
00:00:43,015 --> 00:00:45,015
and landed with this crash on the floor.

20
00:00:45,015 --> 00:00:47,015
Now I nervously peered over the side of the bed

21
00:00:47,015 --> 00:00:50,015
to see what had befallen my fallen sister

22
00:00:50,015 --> 00:00:52,015
and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees

23
00:00:52,015 --> 00:00:54,015
on all fours on the ground.

24
00:00:54,015 --> 00:00:56,015
I was nervous because my parents had charged me

25
00:00:56,015 --> 00:00:58,015
with making sure that my sister and I

26
00:00:58,015 --> 00:01:01,015
played as safely and as quietly as possible.

27
00:01:01,015 --> 00:01:04,015
And seeing as how I had accidentally broken Amy's arm

28
00:01:04,015 --> 00:01:06,015
just one week before ...

29
00:01:06,015 --> 00:01:10,015
(Laughter)

30
00:01:10,015 --> 00:01:12,015
... heroically pushing her out of the way

31
00:01:12,015 --> 00:01:15,015
of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet,

32
00:01:15,015 --> 00:01:17,015
(Laughter)

33
00:01:17,015 --> 00:01:19,015
for which I have yet to be thanked,

34
00:01:19,015 --> 00:01:21,015
I was trying as hard as I could --

35
00:01:21,015 --> 00:01:23,015
she didn't even see it coming --

36
00:01:23,015 --> 00:01:25,015
I was trying as hard as I could to be on my best behavior.

37
00:01:25,015 --> 00:01:27,015
And I saw my sister's face,

38
00:01:27,015 --> 00:01:29,015
this wail of pain and suffering and surprise

39
00:01:29,015 --> 00:01:31,015
threatening to erupt from her mouth and threatening to wake

40
00:01:31,015 --> 00:01:34,015
my parents from the long winter's nap for which they had settled.

41
00:01:34,015 --> 00:01:36,015
So I did the only thing

42
00:01:36,015 --> 00:01:39,015
my little frantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy.

43
00:01:39,015 --> 00:01:41,015
And if you have children, you've seen this hundreds of times before.

44
00:01:41,015 --> 00:01:43,015
I said, "Amy, Amy, wait. Don't cry. Don't cry.

45
00:01:43,015 --> 00:01:45,015
Did you see how you landed?

46
00:01:45,015 --> 00:01:48,015
No human lands on all fours like that.

47
00:01:48,015 --> 00:01:51,015
Amy, I think this means you're a unicorn."

48
00:01:51,015 --> 00:01:54,015
(Laughter)

49
00:01:54,015 --> 00:01:57,015
Now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sister would want more

50
00:01:57,015 --> 00:01:59,015
than not to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister,

51
00:01:59,015 --> 00:02:01,015
but Amy the special unicorn.

52
00:02:01,015 --> 00:02:04,015
Of course, this was an option that was open to her brain at no point in the past.

53
00:02:04,015 --> 00:02:07,015
And you could see how my poor, manipulated sister faced conflict,

54
00:02:07,015 --> 00:02:09,015
as her little brain attempted to devote resources

55
00:02:09,015 --> 00:02:11,015
to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise

56
00:02:11,015 --> 00:02:13,015
she just experienced,

57
00:02:13,015 --> 00:02:15,015
or contemplating her new-found identity as a unicorn.

58
00:02:15,015 --> 00:02:17,015
And the latter won out.

59
00:02:17,015 --> 00:02:19,015
Instead of crying, instead of ceasing our play,

60
00:02:19,015 --> 00:02:21,015
instead of waking my parents,

61
00:02:21,015 --> 00:02:23,015
with all the negative consequences that would have ensued for me,

62
00:02:23,015 --> 00:02:25,015
instead a smile spread across her face

63
00:02:25,015 --> 00:02:28,015
and she scrambled right back up onto the bunk bed with all the grace of a baby unicorn ...

64
00:02:28,015 --> 00:02:30,015
(Laughter)

65
00:02:30,015 --> 00:02:32,015
... with one broken leg.

66
00:02:32,015 --> 00:02:34,015
What we stumbled across

67
00:02:34,015 --> 00:02:36,015
at this tender age of just five and seven --

68
00:02:36,015 --> 00:02:38,015
we had no idea at the time --

69
00:02:38,015 --> 00:02:41,015
was something that was going be at the vanguard of a scientific revolution

70
00:02:41,015 --> 00:02:44,015
occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain.

71
00:02:44,015 --> 00:02:47,015
What we had stumbled across is something called positive psychology,

72
00:02:47,015 --> 00:02:49,015
which is the reason that I'm here today

73
00:02:49,015 --> 00:02:51,015
and the reason that I wake up every morning.

74
00:02:51,015 --> 00:02:53,015
When I first started talking about this research

75
00:02:53,015 --> 00:02:55,015
outside of academia, out with companies and schools,

76
00:02:55,015 --> 00:02:57,015
the very first thing they said to never do

77
00:02:57,015 --> 00:02:59,015
is to start your talk with a graph.

78
00:02:59,015 --> 00:03:01,015
The very first thing I want to do is start my talk with a graph.

79
00:03:01,015 --> 00:03:03,015
This graph looks boring,

80
00:03:03,015 --> 00:03:05,015
but this graph is the reason I get excited and wake up every morning.

81
00:03:05,015 --> 00:03:07,015
And this graph doesn't even mean anything; it's fake data.

82
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What we found is --

83
00:03:09,015 --> 00:03:13,015
(Laughter)

84
00:03:13,015 --> 00:03:16,015
If I got this data back studying you here in the room, I would be thrilled,

85
00:03:16,015 --> 00:03:18,015
because there's very clearly a trend that's going on there,

86
00:03:18,015 --> 00:03:20,015
and that means that I can get published,

87
00:03:20,015 --> 00:03:22,015
which is all that really matters.

88
00:03:22,015 --> 00:03:24,015
The fact that there's one weird red dot that's up above the curve,

89
00:03:24,015 --> 00:03:26,015
there's one weirdo in the room --

90
00:03:26,015 --> 00:03:29,015
I know who you are, I saw you earlier --

91
00:03:29,015 --> 00:03:31,015
that's no problem.

92
00:03:31,015 --> 00:03:33,015
That's no problem, as most of you know,

93
00:03:33,015 --> 00:03:35,015
because I can just delete that dot.

94
00:03:35,015 --> 00:03:37,015
I can delete that dot because that's clearly a measurement error.

95
00:03:37,015 --> 00:03:39,015
And we know that's a measurement error

96
00:03:39,015 --> 00:03:42,015
because it's messing up my data.

97
00:03:42,015 --> 00:03:44,015
So one of the very first things we teach people

98
00:03:44,015 --> 00:03:47,015
in economics and statistics and business and psychology courses

99
00:03:47,015 --> 00:03:50,015
is how, in a statistically valid way, do we eliminate the weirdos.

100
00:03:50,015 --> 00:03:52,015
How do we eliminate the outliers

101
00:03:52,015 --> 00:03:54,015
so we can find the line of best fit?

102
00:03:54,015 --> 00:03:56,015
Which is fantastic if I'm trying to find out

103
00:03:56,015 --> 00:03:59,015
how many Advil the average person should be taking -- two.

104
00:03:59,015 --> 00:04:01,015
But if I'm interested in potential, if I'm interested in your potential,

105
00:04:01,015 --> 00:04:03,015
or for happiness or productivity

106
00:04:03,015 --> 00:04:05,015
or energy or creativity,

107
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what we're doing is we're creating the cult of the average with science.

108
00:04:07,015 --> 00:04:09,015
If I asked a question like,

109
00:04:09,015 --> 00:04:11,015
"How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?"

110
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scientists change the answer to "How fast does the average child

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learn how to read in that classroom?"

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and then we tailor the class right towards the average.

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Now if you fall below the average on this curve,

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then psychologists get thrilled,

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because that means you're either depressed or you have a disorder,

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or hopefully both.

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We're hoping for both because our business model is,

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if you come into a therapy session with one problem,

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we want to make sure you leave knowing you have 10,

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so you keep coming back over and over again.

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We'll go back into your childhood if necessary,

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but eventually what we want to do is make you normal again.

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But normal is merely average.

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And what I posit and what positive psychology posits

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is that if we study what is merely average,

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we will remain merely average.

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Then instead of deleting those positive outliers,

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what I intentionally do is come into a population like this one

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and say, why?

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Why is it that some of you are so high above the curve

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in terms of your intellectual ability, athletic ability, musical ability,

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creativity, energy levels,

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your resiliency in the face of challenge, your sense of humor?

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Whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you.

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Because maybe we can glean information --

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not just how to move people up to the average,

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but how we can move the entire average up

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in our companies and schools worldwide.

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The reason this graph is important to me

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is, when I turn on the news, it seems like the majority of the information

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is not positive, in fact it's negative.

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Most of it's about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters.

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And very quickly, my brain starts to think

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that's the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world.

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What that's doing is creating something

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called the medical school syndrome --

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which, if you know people who've been to medical school,

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during the first year of medical training,

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as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases that could happen,

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suddenly you realize you have all of them.

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I have a brother in-law named Bobo -- which is a whole other story.

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Bobo married Amy the unicorn.

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Bobo called me on the phone

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from Yale Medical School,

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and Bobo said, "Shawn, I have leprosy."

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(Laughter)

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Which, even at Yale, is extraordinarily rare.

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But I had no idea how to console poor Bobo

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because he had just gotten over an entire week of menopause.

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(Laughter)

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See what we're finding is it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us,

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but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.

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And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness,

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we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

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When I applied to Harvard, I applied on a dare.

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I didn't expect to get in, and my family had no money for college.

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When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they allowed me to go.

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Suddenly, something that wasn't even a possibility became a reality.

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When I went there, I assumed everyone else would see it as a privilege as well,

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that they'd be excited to be there.

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Even if you're in a classroom full of people smarter than you,

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you'd be happy just to be in that classroom, which is what I felt.

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But what I found there

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is, while some people experience that,

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when I graduated after my four years

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and then spent the next eight years living in the dorms with the students --

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Harvard asked me to; I wasn't that guy.

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(Laughter)

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I was an officer of Harvard to counsel students through the difficult four years.

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And what I found in my research and my teaching

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is that these students, no matter how happy they were

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with their original success of getting into the school,

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two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there,

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nor on their philosophy or their physics.

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Their brain was focused on the competition, the workload,

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the hassles, the stresses, the complaints.

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When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall,

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which is where my friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up --

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I know some of you have heard of it.

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When they'd come to visit me, they'd look around,

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they'd say, "This freshman dining hall looks like something

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out of Hogwart's from the movie "Harry Potter," which it does.

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This is Hogwart's from the movie "Harry Potter" and that's Harvard.

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And when they see this,

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they say, "Shawn, why do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard?

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Seriously, what does a Harvard student possibly have

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to be unhappy about?"

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Embedded within that question

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is the key to understanding the science of happiness.

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Because what that question assumes

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is that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels,

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when in reality, if I know everything about your external world,

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I can only predict 10 percent of your long-term happiness.

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90 percent of your long-term happiness

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is predicted not by the external world,

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but by the way your brain processes the world.

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And if we change it,

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if we change our formula for happiness and success,

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what we can do is change the way

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that we can then affect reality.

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What we found is that only 25 percent of job successes

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are predicted by I.Q.

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75 percent of job successes

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are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support

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and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.

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I talked to a boarding school up in New England, probably the most prestigious boarding school,

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and they said, "We already know that.

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So every year, instead of just teaching our students, we also have a wellness week.

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And we're so excited. Monday night we have the world's leading expert

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coming in to speak about adolescent depression.

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Tuesday night it's school violence and bullying.

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Wednesday night is eating disorders.

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Thursday night is elicit drug use.

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And Friday night we're trying to decide between risky sex or happiness."

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(Laughter)

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I said, "That's most people's Friday nights."

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Which I'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all.

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Silence on the phone.

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And into the silence, I said, "I'd be happy to speak at your school,

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but just so you know, that's not a wellness week, that's a sickness week.

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What you've done is you've outlined all the negative things that can happen,

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but not talked about the positive."

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The absence of disease is not health.

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Here's how we get to health:

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We need to reverse the formula for happiness and success.

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In the last three years, I've traveled to 45 different countries,

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working with schools and companies

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in the midst of an economic downturn.

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And what I found is that most companies and schools

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follow a formula for success, which is this:

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If I work harder, I'll be more successful.

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And if I'm more successful, then I'll be happier.

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That undergirds most of our parenting styles, our managing styles,

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the way that we motivate our behavior.

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And the problem is it's scientifically broken and backwards for two reasons.

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First, every time your brain has a success,

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you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like.

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You got good grades, now you have to get better grades,

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you got into a good school and after you get into a better school,

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you got a good job, now you have to get a better job,

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you hit your sales target, we're going to change your sales target.

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And if happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there.

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What we've done is we've pushed happiness

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over the cognitive horizon as a society.

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And that's because we think we have to be successful,

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then we'll be happier.

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But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order.

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If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present,

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then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage,

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which is your brain at positive

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performs significantly better

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than it does at negative, neutral or stressed.

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Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise.

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In fact, what we've found

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is that every single business outcome improves.

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Your brain at positive is 31 percent more productive

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than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed.

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You're 37 percent better at sales.

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Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate

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at coming up with the correct diagnosis

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when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed.

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Which means we can reverse the formula.

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If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present,

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then our brains work even more successfully

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as we're able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.

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What we need to be able to do is to reverse this formula

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so we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of.

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Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive,

281
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has two functions.

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Not only does it make you happier,

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it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain

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allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.

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We've found that there are ways that you can train your brain

286
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to be able to become more positive.

287
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In just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in a row,

288
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we can actually rewire your brain,

289
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allowing your brain to actually work

290
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more optimistically and more successfully.

291
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We've done these things in research now

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in every single company that I've worked with,

293
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getting them to write down three new things that they're grateful for

294
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for 21 days in a row, three new things each day.

295
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And at the end of that,

296
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their brain starts to retain a pattern

297
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of scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.

298
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Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours

299
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allows your brain to relive it.

300
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Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters.

301
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We find that meditation allows your brain

302
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to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been creating

303
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by trying to do multiple tasks at once

304
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and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand.

305
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And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness.

306
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We get people, when they open up their inbox,

307
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to write one positive email

308
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praising or thanking somebody in their social support network.

309
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And by doing these activities

310
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and by training your brain just like we train our bodies,

311
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what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success,

312
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and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity,

313
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but create a real revolution.

314
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Thank you very much.

315
00:11:57,015 --> 00:12:00,015
(Applause)

==

Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.
Grit is having stamina.
Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out,
not just for the week, not just for the month,
but for years, and working really hard
to make that future a reality.

is something called "growth mindset."
學習的能力，不是固定的

===

When I was 27 years old,

I left a very demanding job in management consulting

for a job that was even more demanding: teaching.

I went to teach seventh graders math

in the New York City public schools.

And like any teacher, I made quizzes and tests.

I gave out homework assignments.

When the work came back, I calculated grades.

What struck me was that I.Q. was not the only difference

between my best and my worst students.

Some of my strongest performers

did not have stratospheric I.Q. scores.

Some of my smartest kids weren't doing so well.

And that got me thinking.

The kinds of things you need to learn in seventh grade math,

sure, they're hard: ratios, decimals,

the area of a parallelogram.

But these concepts are not impossible,

and I was firmly convinced that every one of my students

could learn the material

if they worked hard and long enough.

After several more years of teaching,

I came to the conclusion that what we need in education

is a much better understanding of students and learning

from a motivational perspective,

from a psychological perspective.

In education, the one thing we know how to measure best

is I.Q., but what if doing well in school and in life

depends on much more

than your ability to learn quickly and easily?

So I left the classroom,

and I went to graduate school to become a psychologist.

I started studying kids and adults

in all kinds of super challenging settings,

and in every study my question was,

who is successful here and why?

My research team and I went to West Point Military Academy.

We tried to predict which cadets

would stay in military training and which would drop out.

We went to the National Spelling Bee

and tried to predict which children would advance

farthest in competition.

We studied rookie teachers

working in really tough neighborhoods, asking

which teachers are still going to be here in teaching

by the end of the school year,

and of those, who will be the most effective

at improving learning outcomes for their students?

We partnered with private companies, asking,

which of these salespeople is going to keep their jobs?

And who's going to earn the most money?

In all those very different contexts,

one characteristic emerged

as a significant predictor of success.

And it wasn't social intelligence.

It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't I.Q.

It was grit.

Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.

Grit is having stamina.

Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out,

not just for the week, not just for the month,

but for years, and working really hard

to make that future a reality.

Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint.

A few years ago, I started studying grit

in the Chicago public schools.

I asked thousands of high school juniors

to take grit questionnaires,

and then waited around more than a year

to see who would graduate.

Turns out that grittier kids

were significantly more likely to graduate,

even when I matched them on every characteristic I could measure,

things like family income,

standardized achievement test scores,

even how safe kids felt when they were at school.

So it's not just at West Point or the National Spelling Bee

that grit matters. It's also in school,

especially for kids at risk for dropping out.

To me, the most shocking thing about grit

is how little we know,

how little science knows, about building it.

Every day, parents and teachers ask me,

"How do I build grit in kids?

What do I do to teach kids a solid work ethic?

How do I keep them motivated for the long run?"

The honest answer is, I don't know. (Laughter)

What I do know is that talent doesn't make you gritty.

Our data show very clearly

that there are many talented individuals

who simply do not follow through on their commitments.

In fact, in our data, grit is usually unrelated

or even inversely related to measures of talent.

So far, the best idea I've heard about building grit in kids

is something called "growth mindset."

This is an idea developed at Stanford University

by Carol Dweck, and it is the belief

that the ability to learn is not fixed,

that it can change with your effort.
Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids read and learn

about the brain and how it changes and grows

in response to challenge,

they're much more likely to persevere when they fail,

because they don't believe that failure

is a permanent condition.

So growth mindset is a great idea for building grit.

But we need more.

And that's where I'm going to end my remarks,

because that's where we are.

That's the work that stands before us.

We need to take our best ideas, our strongest intuitions,

and we need to test them.

We need to measure whether we've been successful,

and we have to be willing to fail, to be wrong,

to start over again with lessons learned.

In other words, we need to be gritty

about getting our kids grittier.

Thank you.

(Applause)