Shawn Achor - the happy secret to better work
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 Iplayed 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."
Now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sister would want morethan 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 --
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 errorbecause 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, we want to make sure you leave knowing you have 10, 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 somethingcalled 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.
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, I can only predict 10 percent of your long-term happiness. 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.You're 37 percent better at sales. 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. In just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in a row, 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.
(Applause)
在我七歲，我妹妹才五歲時 有一天我們在雙層床的上舖玩 那時候我比我妹妹大兩歲 -- 我想，我現在還是比她大兩歲 -- 也就是說在當時，她要跟著我做我想做的事 而我想玩打仗 所以我們爬到上舖 在雙層床的這一邊 放著我所有的特種部隊士兵及武器 在另一邊則是我妹妹的各式彩虹小馬 準備好要衝鋒陷陣
那天下午到底發生了什麼事其實是各說各話 但是既然我妹妹不在場 就讓我告訴你真實的情況（笑聲） 當時我妹妹正節節敗退 不知為何，她哥哥我既沒幫她也沒有推她 愛咪突然就從上舖消失了 砰的一聲摔在地板上 我很緊張的探頭往下看 到底是什麼東西讓我妹妹成了墜落天使 我看到我妹妹趴在地上，五體投地的樣子 痛的不得了
我好緊張，因為我的父母才命令我 一定要確保我妹妹及我 在玩耍時盡量保持安全、安靜 因為我上星期才不小心 摔斷了愛咪的手臂 ... （笑聲） ... 因為我耍英雄把她推開 為了要閃一顆想像的狙擊手子彈 （笑聲） 她還沒為這件事道謝過 我盡全力 -- 她根本沒看到那顆子彈 -- 我盡全力要當乖小孩
所以我看到我妹妹 又驚又痛哭喪著臉 威脅著要嚎啕大哭，把爸媽 從深冬的午睡吵醒，他們才剛剛睡著 所以我試圖用我慌亂的七歲小腦袋 能想到的唯一方法來扭轉情勢 如果你有孩子，你一定看過幾百次這種場面 我說：「愛咪，愛咪，等等，不哭，不哭， 妳知道妳怎麼著地的嗎？ 沒有人是四腳著地的喔！ 愛咪，我想你一定是獨角獸。」
那當然是哄騙，因為在這世界上我妹妹 絕不想做痛痛的五歲小妹妹愛咪 寧願當特別的獨角獸愛咪 當然，之前她從沒想過這個選擇 然後你想像一下，我可憐又被耍了的妹妹一臉掙扎 她的小腦袋一方面要處理 她剛剛才經歷的 疼痛與驚嚇 又要思索著她剛剛才發現的獨角獸新身分 而後者贏了 所以她不但沒哭，沒有停止玩耍 也沒有吵醒我的父母 所有可能發生在我身上的負面後果都沒有發生 反而臉上展開微笑 然後以小獨角獸的翩翩姿態爬回雙層床去 ... （笑聲） ... 用她摔斷的腿
在我們五歲及七歲這樣的稚齡 所經歷到的這個偶發事件 -- 我們那時並不了解 -- 其實是科學革命的先鋒 二十年後人類的確以這種方法探討腦部 這個偶然的經歷被稱作正向心理學 這是我今天站在這裡的原因 也是我每天早上能醒來的原因
當我第一次對著非學術機構 就是對公司及學校談論這個研究主題時 大家都說絕對不要 一開始就分析圖表 但我還是要從一張圖表開始這個主題 這張圖看起來很枯燥乏味 但這張圖正是我每天早上能興奮的起床的原因 這張表沒有任何意義；上面的數據是假的 我們發現 --
如果這張圖是我研究在場各位的結果，我會很激動 因為這張圖的趨勢非常明顯 代表著我可以發表這個研究結果 而發表結果是我做研究最主要的原因 但有一個怪怪的小紅點在曲線的上方也就是說這個講座裡有個怪胎 -- 我知道你是誰，我剛剛看到你了 -- 但沒關係 真的沒關係，大部份的人都知道這不影響 因為我只要把這個點刪去就好 我可以刪掉它，很明顯它是個測量偏誤 它會被判讀是個測量偏誤 歸因於它讓我的數據很難看
所以在經濟學、統計學、商業學 及心理學課程裡，我們教大家的第一件事 就是如何在統計容許範圍內，把怪怪的數據刪掉 如何刪去範圍外的數據 讓我們找到一條最好的曲線？ 這個方法非常神奇，因為我能藉此方法研究得知 一個人吃Advil止痛藥的劑量是兩顆為最佳 但如果我想研究的是人的潛力 或是幸福程度、生產力、 活力、創造力 這種科學方法創造出我們對平均數的一種迷思
如果我想研究： 「在課堂裡，一個學童多快可以學會閱讀？」 科學家會把問題改成「在課堂裡，平均一個學童 多快可以學會閱讀？」 然後我們會盡力研究出一個平均值 如果你的學習速度在平均數以下 心理學家會很興奮 因為那意味著，你要麼患有憂鬱症，或是某種障礙 或最好是兩者都有 我們希望看到兩者都有，因為我們的商業模式是 如果你因為某種問題去找心理師治療 我們確定你離開的時候，知道自己的病情非常嚴重 這樣你才會一直回診 如果有必要，我們會追溯到你的童年， 不過最終目的，是要讓你再恢復正常 但所謂的正常，就是回到平均值
而從正向心理學的角度來看 如果我們一直研究平均現象 我們就會一直維持在平均現象裡 所以我沒有刪去那些平均線上方的值 我盡量在取樣時找平均線之上的人 而且問為什麼？ 為什麼有些人他們的 智力、運動力、音感 創造力、活動力 面對挑戰的恢復力、甚至幽默感都能遠高於一般平均？ 不管這人在哪一方面很強，我就想研究這種人，而不是刪去這個數據 因為也許我們可以從這些數據中發現一些東西 我們應該想，該如何把人往平均值以上推升 甚至該想，要如何把全球的 學校或企業都往上提高一個檔次。
這張圖對我之所以很重要 是因為當我打開電視看新聞，似乎大部份的資訊 都不是正面的報導，實際是負面居多 大多在報謀殺、貪腐、疾病、天災 很快地，我的腦袋就會認為 這就是目前世界上負面與正面事件的比例 這種現象就是 所謂醫學院症候群 就是如果你認識在讀醫學院的人 通常在他們實習的第一年 讀遍了所有醫學症狀及疾病的清單後 會突然發現自己每個症狀都有
我的妹夫名叫波波–這個名字的來源可以另外講一個故事 波波娶了我的獨角獸妹妹愛咪 有一天波波從耶魯的醫學院 打電話給我 波波說：「紹恩，我得了痲瘋病。」 （笑聲） 這種病在耶魯非常罕見 但是我真不知道要怎麼安慰波波 因為他才從一整個星期的停經症狀中恢復過來
當我申請哈佛就讀時，我其實是冒險一試 我不期望他們會接受我，我家也沒錢讓我讀大學 直到二個星期後我得到了軍方的獎學金，他們就讓我去了 突然，一件原本不可能的事成真了 當我入學時，我以為我的同學都會把能進哈佛當成殊榮 他們應該會很高興能入學 即使你整班的同學都比你聰明 你都該為了能在這個班而高興，至少我是這麼覺得的 但是我發現 雖然有些人的確這麼想 四年後當我大學畢業 然後又花了八年的時間跟學生們住在宿舍 -- 是哈佛要我住的；我不是那個郵包炸彈客 （笑聲） 哈佛聘雇我當指導老師，幫助學生度過這困難的四年我在我的研究及教學中發現 不管這些學生原本 對能成功入學這件事有多高興 入學二個星期後他們腦子專注的事，既不是這件殊榮 也不是哲學課或物理課 他們的腦子專注於競爭、工作量 麻煩、壓力、抱怨
當我第一次到那裡，我走進大一宿舍的餐廳 那時從我老家德州維克市來的朋友們--- 也許有些人聽過這事 他們到餐廳來找我，並環顧著餐廳 他們說：「這個大一餐廳看起來好像 電影哈利波特的霍格華茲。」的確如此。 這是電影哈利波特的霍格華茲，而這是哈佛 我的朋友看看這個地方 都說，「紹恩，你為什麼要在哈佛浪費時間研究快樂？ 說真的，有什麼事會讓這些哈佛學生 不快樂啊？」
這個問題隱藏著 瞭解快樂這門科學的關鍵 因為這個問題預設了某個前提 就是我們幸福的程度，可以由我們的外在環境來預測 可是事實是，就算我知道你外在環境的一切 我也只能預測你10%的長期幸福程度 另外的90% 不能以外在環境預測 是取決於你的腦子如何看待這個環境 如果我們改變它 如果我們改變幸福及成功的公式 改變思考方式 就可以改變現實 我們發現只有25%的工作成就 可以用智商來預測 另外要預測75%的工作成就 就看你的樂觀程度，你的社交圈 還有你能不能把壓力當作挑戰，而不是威脅
我跟新英格蘭州的一間寄宿學校談過，這所學校大概是最有名的寄宿學校 他們說：「我們早就知道了 所以每年我們除了教學外，還有一個健康周活動 我們非常興奮。星期一晚上我們請了世界領先的專家 來談談青少年期的憂鬱 星期二晚上是有關學校暴力及罷凌的問題 星期三晚上則是飲食障礙 星期四晚上談毒品誘惑 星期五晚上討論危險性行為與快樂的抉擇。」（笑聲） 我說：「大部份人的星期五晚上都是這樣的。」 （笑聲） （鼓掌） 我很高興你們喜歡這個笑話，但是他們不喜歡 電話的那一頭默不作聲 為了打破僵局，我說：「我很高興能在你的學校演講 不過你知道，那不是健康周，那簡直是疾病周 你所做的其實是強調所有可能發生的負面東西 但是都沒有提到正向的東西。」
沒有病並不代表健康 以下是我們得到健康的方法 我們必須把幸福及成功的公式反過來寫 過去三年，經濟正不景氣的時候 我到過45個不同的國家 跟學校及公司合作 我發現大部份的公司及學校 都遵照一個成功公式，就是 如果我更努力工作，我就會更成功 如果我更成功，我就會更快樂 這是我們的教養態度及管理模式的根本 是我們激勵自己表現更好的方法
問題是，這不合科學且倒行逆施，兩個理由 第一，你的腦子每經歷一次成功 你就把你期望的成功目標更改一次 你過去成績不錯，現在你要更好 你進了一所好學校，下一所學校就要更好你得了一個好工作，下一個工作要更好 你銷售成績亮點，我們就要提高你的銷售額目標 如果幸福快樂是在成功的另一端，你的腦子永遠得不到這個感覺 我們的社會集體意識，把幸福快樂 推到認知水平線的另一端 因為我們以為必須先成功 才會比較幸福
但其實我們的腦子是以相反的方式在運作的 如果你可以提升一個人目前的積極程度 那麼他的腦子會經歷我們稱之為"快樂優勢"的感覺 就是當你的腦部處於積極狀態 會比消極時、中立時或者處在壓力時 顯著表現更好 你的理解力提升，你的創造力增加，你的活動力也升高 事實上我們發現 每一種業務成效都進步了 你的創造力在你的腦部處於積極狀態時， 會比處於消極、中立，或者有壓力時，提高31% 銷售量提高37% 醫師如果感覺積極時， 會比處於消極、中立，或者有壓力時， 看診速度快19%，接下來的診斷也更精準 所以說我們要把公式反過來寫 如果我們可以找到讓當下就很積極的方法 那麼我們的腦子就會更靈活 我們就可以更努力、更快的工作，而且更明智
我們需要想辦法把公式反過來寫 我們才能開始想像我們的腦子到底能做到什麼地步 因為在你感覺積極時，多巴胺會大量湧入你的身體裡 而多巴胺有兩種功能 它不但讓你感覺更快樂 它還會把你腦內所有的學習中心打開 讓你能以不同的方法適應這個世界
我們發現有方法可以訓練你的腦部 讓它能變的更積極 只要每天兩分鐘連續做21天 我們確實可以讓你的腦子重新連結 讓你的腦部運作 更樂觀更成功 目前我們在每一個與我合作的公司以練習這件事做研究 讓他們的員工寫下3件他們感激的事 每天3件新事，連續21天 計劃終了時 他們的腦部開始記住這個模式 先從正面掃描世界，而不是先看負面
