Happiness

Sustained happiness over time comes from growth and contribution, from continually improving our own skills and then using those skills to benefit others.

  • Happiness is a secret of the evolutionary success of humans. We are sensitized to relationships with others and to the probability of success of different paths (links between where we are and where we want to be).
  • Hormone levels rise and fall, so happiness comes and goes.
  • The specifics of happiness are different person to person but everyone falls within spectrums of ‘stability & variety’ and ‘connection & significance.’ Everyone benefits from growth and contribution.
  • The secret to prolonged happiness is continually working on getting better and continually working to help others. The “continually” part is a critical portion of sustained happiness.

References:

Theme: Livelihoods of the Future

What are we going to do? To support our families? To support our communities? To be happy?

  • What will our roles be?
  • What should we teach our kids?
  • What Happens at 50?

“Over the past two decades, the U.S. labor market has undergone a quiet transformation, as companies increasingly forgo full-time employees and fill positions with independent contractors, on-call workers or temps—what economists have called “alternative work arrangements” or the “contingent workforce.”

The Real Future of Work

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/04/future-work-independent-contractors-alternative-work-arrangements-216212


“The predestined, blue-collar lifestyle that Bruce Springsteen sang about in Darkness on the Edge of Town is already a thing of the past, and it will only grow smaller in our rear-view mirrors as we approach 2040. Soon, the world of the large central firm and steady, predictable work will exist only in museums.”

The Next American Economy


“Traditional work is dying.”

5 Major Ways Freelancers Will Change The Economy By 2040 | Fast Company | Business + Innovation


The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the total number of new business startups and business closures per year — the birth and death rates of American companies — have crossed for the first time since the measurement began. I am referring to employer businesses, those with one or more employees”

American Entrepreneurship: Dead or Alive?

Anthony Robbins on Emotions and Decisions

Needs (Target)

  • Certainty vs Variety
  • Significance vs Connection
  • Growth
  • Contribution

Beliefs (Attitudes towards (X) are the map)

  • People are (People)
  • Life is (Events / Setbacks / Responsibility)
  • I am (Work/ Bias for Action / Commitment)

Values (Boundaries)


“when it comes to fulfillment — that’s an art. The reason is, it’s about appreciation and contribution. You can only feel so much by yourself.”


Transcript of “Why we do what we do”

Highlights:

“I’m the “why” guy. I want to know why you do what you do.”

“I believe that the invisible force of internal drive, activated, is the most important thing.”

“You don’t work in your self-interest all the time, because when emotion comes into it, the wiring changes in the way it functions.”

“hopefully we can not just understand other people more, but appreciate them more, and create the kinds of connections that can stop some of the challenges that we face today.”

“What makes the difference in the quality of people’s lives?”

“I’m also looking to see what is shaping the person’s ability to contribute, to do something beyond themselves.”

“the science of achievement, which almost everyone here has mastered amazingly. “How do you take the invisible and make it visible,””

“Once you know the game, you just up the ante,”

“when it comes to fulfillment — that’s an art. The reason is, it’s about appreciation and contribution. You can only feel so much by yourself.”

“Those people very often — you know some of them — end up the rest of their life with all this love, education, money and background going in and out of rehab.”

“The defining factor is never resources; it’s resourcefulness.”

“If you’re creative, playful, fun enough, can you get through to anybody,”

“If you don’t have the money, but you’re creative and determined, you find the way. This is the ultimate resource”

“What will you focus on?”

“you must give it a meaning, and that meaning produces emotion”

“Is God punishing me or rewarding me, or is this the roll of the dice?”

“An emotion creates what we’re going to do, or the action.”

“When a woman stands up and says, “No, I won’t go to the back of the bus.” She didn’t just affect her life. That decision shaped our culture.”

“emotional fitness, psychological strength.”

“In my lab, I’ve had three million people from 80 countries over the last 29 years. And after a while, patterns become obvious.”

“Two invisible forces. Very quickly. One: state.”

“Your model of the world is what shapes you long term. Your model of the world is the filter.”

“It’s made up of three parts. First, what’s your target? What are you after?”

“It’s needs we have. I believe there are six human needs. Second, once you know what the target that’s driving you is and you uncover it for the truth — you don’t form it — then you find out what’s your map, what’s the belief systems that tell you how to get those needs.”

“Some people think the way to get them is to destroy the world, some people, to build, create something, love someone. There’s the fuel you pick.”

“six needs”

“First one: certainty. These are not goals or desires, these are universal. Everyone needs certainty they can avoid pain and at least be comfortable.”

“Now, how do you get it? Control everybody? Develop a skill? Give up? Smoke a cigarette? And if you got totally certain, ironically, even though we need that — you’re not certain about your health, or your children, or money. If you’re not sure the ceiling will hold up, you won’t listen to any speaker.”

“second human need, which is uncertainty. We need variety. We need surprise.”

“Third human need, critical: significance. We all need to feel important, special, unique.”

“The fastest way to do this, if you have no background, no culture, no belief and resources or resourcefulness, is violence.”

“You can get significance a million ways, but to be significant, you’ve got to be unique and different.”

“connection and love, fourth need.”

“We all want it; most settle for connection, love’s too scary.”

“These first four needs, every human finds a way to meet.”

“I call the first four needs the needs of the personality. The last two are the needs of the spirit.”

“this is where fulfillment comes. You won’t get it from the first four”

“number five, you must grow”

“I believe the reason we grow is so we have something to give of value.”

“the sixth need is to contribute beyond ourselves.”

“the secret to living is giving”

“life is not about me, it’s about we.”

“if strangers care about me and my family, I care about them. I’m going to do something to make a difference.”

“I’m proud of human beings because they get excited to contribute once they’ve had the chance to experience it, not talk about it.”

“The target that shapes you”

“We have the same needs. But are you a certainty freak, is that what you value most, or uncertainty?”

“Are you driven by significance or love? We all need all six, but what your lead system is tilts you in a different direction. And as you move in a direction, you have a destination or destiny.”

“The second piece is the map. The operating system tells you how to get there,”

“there are seven different beliefs; I can’t go through them, because I’m done.”

“The last piece is emotion.”

“Imagine if your beliefs guarantee you can never get to where you want to go.”

“There are 6,000 emotions that we have words for in the English language, which is just a linguistic representation that changes by language. But if your dominant emotions — If I have 20,000 people or 1,000 and I have them write down all the emotions that they experience in an average week, and I give them as long as they need, and on one side they write empowering emotions, the other’s disempowering, guess how many emotions they experience? Less than 12. And half of those make them feel like shit. They have six good feelings. Happy, happy, excited, oh shit, frustrated, frustrated, overwhelmed, depressed.”

“How many of you know somebody who, no matter what happens, finds a way to get pissed off?”

“Or no matter what happens, they find a way to be happy or excited”

“if strangers care about me and my family, I care about them.”

“One financial trader, woman made of steel, bawling — 30 friends crossing off that all died. And I said, “What are we going to focus on? What does this mean and what are we going to do?””

“if you didn’t lose somebody today, your focus is going to be how to serve somebody else.”

“Guilty people got guilty, sad people got sad”

“an indirect negotiation. Jewish man with family in the occupied territory, someone in New York who would have died if he was at work that day, and this man who wanted to be a terrorist”

“the two of them not only came together and changed their beliefs and models of the world, but worked together to bring, for almost four years now, through various mosques and synagogues, the idea of how to create peace.”

“My invitation to you is: explore your web, the web in here — the needs, the beliefs, the emotions that are controlling you, for two reasons: so there’s more of you to give, and achieve, too, but I mean give, because that’s what’s going to fill you up. And secondly, so you can appreciate — not just understand, that’s intellectual, that’s the mind, but appreciate what’s driving other people”