Obtaining Happiness

Obtaining Happiness A Report from Silicon Valley
By MAX BARNES

Every year, people from all over the world flock to Silicon Valley – the world’s cradle of innovation – seeking to create something impactful out of the endless opportunity present in such tiny corner of our world. While some seek fortune and others seek fame, most Silicon Valley pioneers desire to make a lasting impact on the world around them.

In order to help strengthen their corporate mindset and culture, many successful Silicon Valley firms offer valuable opportunities for their employees. On one particular sultry summer Friday deep in the heart of Silicon Valley, over one hundred entrepreneurs crowded into a small conference room at GSVlabs to acquire something far more valuable than riches: personal enlightenment.

GSVlabs – an innovation centre and startup incubator – hosted Shantanu Nagarkatti  --or Dr N as his friends know him by -- to hear his insights on attaining an elusive treasure craved by all humankind: lifelong happiness.

From a historical perspective, happiness was merely just an absence of pain or stress. However, that definition is quite limited. It doesn’t include an actual enjoyment of life. Dr N explained that obtaining persistent happiness in our lives takes constant hard work; not in the sense of career duties or manual labour, but a strenuous effort to contradict a natural negativity bias hardwired in each of our brains.

The intersection between entrepreneurship and happiness may seem inconsequential, but when studies show that entrepreneurs are prone to higher levels of depression, it gives one pause. One may wonder how can it be that so many brilliant entrepreneurs have an increased risk to suffer from a life-crippling condition? Sure, every entrepreneur is infected with the extreme stress that comes with starting a business, but who in this day and age isn’t stressed?

Dr N’s teachings highlighted some important truths about stress that we all experience in addition to sharing with us some useful tricks to manage a natural negativity bias that lingers in each of us. By prevailing over the natural stress prevalent in human nature we can further increase our happiness, productivity, and our effectiveness.

Everyone that lives on this big blue planet of ours experiences his own daily stresses; that obvious fact alone should demonstrate that stress is just a natural part of life. Stress, and therefore the unhappiness that is often associated with being “stressed”, will always be present in our lives. It’s almost as if humans are cursed with a constant stress that always seems dilute and diminish the happiness we feel.

In fact, that thought is exactly what Dr N confirmed for the audience at GSVlabs. Over the course of history, the human mind slowly evolved in order to overcome daily stressful challenges. Our cave-dwelling ancestors experienced things we can’t even imagine and while we no longer have to worry about many of the regular difficulties they dealt with, we still all face different kinds of problems each day. Now in the modern age, our brain needs a software update. We are still built to stress over things most of us don’t need to stress over. Instead of stressing over survival that our brain is built for, survival stress drips down into our daily lives causing us to feel more anxious than need-be.

This might sound strange at first, but the logic behind it makes sense. Survival means overcoming constant difficulties and in order to do that effectively, our ancestors needed to be able to distinguish between threats and non-threats. Being hyper-aware of potential problems is what kept you alive while ignorant bliss led to death. Our ancestors needed to be constantly hyper-aware of potential dangers, which lead our brains developing a negativity bias to force our brains to seek out potential problems in order to avoid them.

Enter the modern age. We are no longer running away from lions and eating bark. Now we receive emails 24/7 and have complex projects to complete.  Stress has evolved along with humankind. The first step in solving any problem is first admitting there is one. Acknowledging that our own human hardwiring perceives many things in a negative light can grant us the strength to intervene in our own lives on our own terms. We can help ourselves overcome the frustrating daily stresses that can hinder our focus and progress and the only way to do that is by identifying and recognising that fact.

There is a certain comfort in knowing why some of us may always seem a little more on edge than usual. It’s just how humans are wired. Entrepreneurs have one of the most difficult jobs in the world and knowing that humans are wired to subconsciously seek out daily problems and issues allows one to take a deep breath, relax, and focus. Stress and worrying is natural. It’s just our brain in default mode; this is where our mind wanders in and out of the past, subconsciously looking for potential problems and identifying areas where we might be under threat. By focusing on the present and not letting the stress creep in, we can keep ourselves in an attentive mode rather than slip back into the natural default mode.

By explaining some simple truths about happiness and our own nature, Dr N has taken us on journey toward obtaining personal enlightenment and true happiness. An important fact to remember is that happiness is a complex concept that has many layers, like onions. Dr N told us that Martin Seligman classified the three levels of happiness as: the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life.

The pleasant life is the first “level” of happiness and the most common form of happiness people focus on. Fine wine, good food, driving nice cars, enjoying luxury…everything that provides a sensual pleasure can be considered apart of the pleasant life. A lot of people focus on this type of happiness and this type alone, and the problem is that the pleasant life isn’t sustainable. The pleasant life doesn’t last, it’s fleeting, and after about six months you will begin to feel a drain in your overall happiness. You can try and replenish your happiness by buying more things, but one should heed the law of diminishing returns. The more you try to fill up your personal happiness with the pleasant life, the less satisfied and happy you will feel in the long run. Research shows that obtaining material goods (e.g. buying a private jet) only gives you about six months of contentment before that feeling will begin to diminish.

Rather than focusing on the hedonistic pleasant life, Dr N explains that to move upward and onward into the good life, one should focus on strengthening the areas where you have talent and align them with yours passions and the work you do everyday. The good life provides a sense of fulfillment that in turn makes it easier to focus on your work. When the challenges of work match your ability and talents, you move into a state that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi terms ‘Flow”. In this state of Flow, you are temporarily lost in your work. You remain oblivious of time, your physical needs, and your sense of self.

Dr N affirmed that when one engages in the good life, temporary forgetfulness of self, emotional baggage from the past and worries about the future and their mind is fully attentive to the task at hand.  This turns work into a meditation. It’s a healthy cycle that is built on having a focused mind, tough inner-will, and the desire to improve and change.

Lastly, and most importantly, Dr N explained how to obtain true life-long happiness. To enter the meaningful life, you must work for a purpose higher than yourself so you can transcend your sense of self. The essence of the meaningful life is forgetting oneself so the focus becomes the work that needs to get done rather than the individual. Dr N explained that if you go down this path, then it becomes significantly easier to touch lives and hearts with the work you are doing, which in turn will make you and others happier.

To silence the mind is very hard work, but not all-hard work will silence the mind. Instead of trying to brutally force yourself to improve, Dr N suggests trying a few simple tricks to do every day for a couple of minutes as soon as you wake up in the morning. Dr N calls them “brain rewiring interventions”; there are seven of them and you do one each day of the week in the morning and evening.  These interventions are the research work of Amit Sood, MD, at The Mayo Clinic. They help counter the negative energy that is associated with the daily stress we are hardwired to endure; the only cure for stressful despair is action. So each morning start off strong by contemplating each intervention.

Day of the Week

Intervention

For Entrepreneurs

Monday

Gratitude

Think of 5 people you are grateful for in your life and take a minute to think about how you are grateful for them in your life.

Tuesday

Compassion

Think of the people you love in your life and remember why you love them. Think of the people in your life who you don’t like and show them compassion.

Wednesday

Acceptance

Accept yourself for your faults. None of us are perfect. Acceptance leads to improvement.

Thursday

Find Meaning

Find meaning throughout your day. Perhaps the Cosmos is trying to show you a sign?

Friday

Forgiveness

Forgive your enemies, for they are in pain too. Forgive those you love, nobody is perfect. Forgive yourself, everyone makes mistakes.

Saturday

Celebration

Celebrate a great week! What are the highlights?

Sunday

Reflection

Remember the pros and cons of the previous week. What can you do to prepare for a successful week?

Silicon Valley is the epicentre of world-changing breakthroughs and the entrepreneurial pioneers of today should heed Dr N’s valuable guidance. One can only make a meaningful difference and fix what is wrong with this world when one is happy. By overcoming our natural negativity bias and rewiring our own brains to focus on the present we can begin to make meaningful changes in not just our own lives, but the in the world around us. Happiness and moral integrity doesn’t just impact the person’s daily life; it permeates organisations that play on the world stage.