- Money can actually buy happiness
but only about 10% of it.
If you tell me how much money you make
I can tell you how happy you are gonna be in your life
but only by 10%
because the other 90% of happiness
is related to how you process the world around you
and your genetic makeup,
which means that 90% is up to you.
[upbeat music]
Hi, I am Amy Blankson,
I'm the founder and CEO of Fearless Positivity,
I research the intersection of happiness,
technology and wellbeing.
And today I'm here to debunk some myths
that we've all heard and believe about happiness.
You either have happiness or you don't.
It turns out that some people
are actually born happier than other people.
Some people are born predisposed
to be more satisfied than other people.
And some people have a harder time
finding that level of satisfaction.
Researchers found that only 10% of your happiness
is due to your environment,
the other 90% is due to your genes
and your perception of the world.
The key here is that
it doesn't have to be the end of the story,
despite your genes, we all have the capacity
to increase our happiness levels
and to practice happiness overall.
Happiness looks the same around the world.
Happiness takes on a different sense of meaning
in context of the cultures around the world.
If you're a scientist
and you're trying to study and measure happiness,
we actually look at something called subjective wellbeing
which is the metric being used
to measure happiness on a global scale,
through the UN global happiness report.
The UN global happiness report comes out every year
reporting on the happiest countries in the world.
And every year consistently
the Scandinavian countries top the list.
The question is,
why do these countries
consistently show up as happier than others?
What makes them happier countries?
If you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
you know that shelter and food
are the bedrock of being able
to reach a level of self actualization in your life.
So, having those taken care of
and provided by those countries
enables individuals to pursue other passions
that help them to move up the triangle for happiness,
but other countries that maybe are not as wealthy
also top the list.
What's interesting is that
a number of countries who have high levels of social support
have been indicated to be some of the happier countries.
So if we're looking for a culture
that is going to embrace
and to create a global level of happiness,
the fastest way to get there
is by providing social support to those around you.
There's power in positive thinking.
Happiness is actually something that you can get better at,
We've learned from scientists over the past two decades
from the field of positive psychology
that our mind has incredible power to change our scenarios
and our life situations,
and we can begin to train our brains
to think this way by doing a series of exercises
that I call the J-GAME.
It's a cheesy pneumonic that I used to remember,
journaling, gratitude, acts of kindness,
meditation, and exercise,
the J-GAME.
When I talk about journaling,
we're talking about taking two minutes
to write down the most meaningful moment
in the last 24 hours of your life.
What were you doing?
Who were you with?
And why was it so meaningful?
In doing so your brain begins to relive
the most meaningful moment of the last 24 hours
helping you to actually re-experience that
because your brain can't tell the difference
between visualization and actual experience,
and as a result we find that
your brain begins to relive this moment
and feel a double sense of happiness.
The second habit is G,
G for gratitude.
What we're trying to do with gratitude
is to retrain the neural pathways in your brain
to begin to develop a new reflex
in how you're seeing and thinking about the world.
We can't be both positive and negative at the same time.
So when your brain is practicing
scanning your environment for positive things
your brain can't literally look
for all the negative things at the same moment,
you're beginning to all of a sudden
find new ways to scan your environment for the good
and over time this becomes a reflexive habit
that changes your outlook on life.
The third habit is A for acts of kindness.
I recommend you take two minutes a day
to thank or praise somebody in your social support network,
you can do so by text, by phone, in person
or even in handwritten letter.
But what happens when you send a quick message to somebody
saying thank you for something that you've done,
all of a sudden you create a positive feedback loop
that not only makes the other person feel happier
but it also makes you feel happier,
and so you begin to create a virtuous cycle.
M for meditation.
I recommend you take two minutes a day
to simply watch your breath go in
[inhales deeply] and out.
When you meditate other people around you
pick up the benefits of your meditation
even if they don't know you're meditating.
This comes back to something called the mirror neuron effect
and then mirror neuron effect
is an incredibly powerful response
based on the fact that humans
are wirelessly connected to one another.
The last habit is exercise.
Exercise is a bit of a starter drug.
I recommend that individuals pick one of these five habits
to try for 21 days in your life.
This is up to you and you can get better at happiness
if you make happiness into a work ethic.
Success leads to happiness.
Researchers have since found
that the exact opposite is true.
Happiness leads to success.
We keep thinking,
I'll be happy when,
I'll be happy when I get good grades,
or I'll be happy when I get into college,
and then you get into college
and suddenly you need to get a job,
and then you need to get a promotion
and then you need to buy a house,
and each time happiness
gets pushed over the cognitive horizon
and your brain never actually
gets to that feeling of happiness.
The reason why is because we're after
perhaps the wrong things.
When we look after success
as something that leads to greater happiness,
we're constantly looking for external validation
for our overall happiness,
but if we can positively identify the correct things
that actually drive meaning and satisfaction
on a deeper level
then we're actually moving towards being the person
that we want to be.
Those are the things that create
long-term satisfaction and happiness.
Money can't buy happiness.
Money can actually buy happiness,
but only about 10% of it.
If you tell me how much money you make
I can tell you how happy you are gonna be in your life,
but only by 10%,
because the other 90% of happiness
is related to how you process the world around you
and your genetic makeup,
which means that 90% is up to you.
So no matter how many houses you buy,
how many planes you own,
it won't necessarily impact your happiness,
and in fact, it might have a decreasing effect.
Research finds the individuals who are more wealthy
actually reach a point
at which their happiness begins to decline
with increasing money.
We find that there's the law
of diminishing returns in economics that says that
there is a benefit to things like money
for a certain amount of time
and then after a certain point there's a steep drop off.
Social media makes us unhappy,
many individuals feel as though social media
is making us less happy overall
by creating levels of social comparison,
creating an increasing cyber bullying
and leading to a lot of insecurities about privacy,
but social media is not to blame,
it's about how we use it.
Challenges of social media
is a level of social comparison,
always looking to other individuals
in your immediate environment
who perhaps are living a better life
or their lives seemingly are perfect,
but when we look at our own lives
we start to wonder
maybe I should be doing something different
and you feel less satisfied.
The fastest way to make someone less happy
is to compare them to someone else.
We often say that comparison is the thief of joy.
So looking at social media,
the key is to be able to limit the amount of time
and exposure to social media
that actually benefits you,
that helps you feel connected,
and the moment at which you begin
to find yourself comparing to somebody else
to step away and maybe even if you need to
take a digital detox.
Thanks so much for tuning in today.
My goal is to leave you feeling empowered
and to know that you can make a difference
in your happiness levels,
that it is within reach
and that you can become a best version of yourself
by striving after your potential.
Good luck.