Category Archives: Leadership Coaching

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Expert advice will give you a brain freeze

It turns out that getting expert advice literally shuts out brain down, and it can prevent us from making a truly informed decision.  This fact is important to know when you seek expert advice.

1. Don’t rely on a single expert’s advice, get a second or even a third opinion.

2. Do your own research and determine your potential decision options BEFORE you meet with an expert.

I would have loved to not only know of this research but to also really absorb and embrace its truth before some key experiences in my life with “experts” in fields outside of my expertise.  Yes even doctors can fall into this trap of trusting advice from other “experts”, and I can vividly remember several incidences in which my brain shut down/shut off because I was with an “expert”

Expert Advice Shuts Your Brain Down Article

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What is the question that will change your day?

The other night working in the Emergency Department I was dog tired as I picked up a chart of a patient to see.  After I obtained the pertinent medical information from this patient, I then asked my 94 year old patient, “Where were you during world war 2?”

He proceeded to share a little known story about his time working with General Patton.  The patient told me that even his own grandkids don’t ask nor seem interested in his life experiences.  It was an interesting and amazing patient interaction.  I left that conversation so energized that the last 2 hours of my shift flew by.

Reflecting on this event, reminds me of the power of our ability to choose what perspective we will be in and what powerful question we can ask of ourselves and others.  Perspective: It is amazing to me how quickly I can shift from ‘dog tired’ perspective to ‘wow what an incredible patient and story’ perspective–shifting from falling asleep to being fully awake–better than any cup of caffeine!  Question: It is fun and shocking the power of a question to shift our thoughts and energy levels.  I recently asked at a dinner party: What do you crave?  This one question made for a deep and meaningful and laughter filled discussion.

What is the question that you could ask at work and at home that would energize or change your day for the better?

 

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The Sage & The Saboteur: How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs

Do you remember the old cartoons that depicted an angel and a devil on each of your shoulders?  Well it turns out that we have a Sage and the Saboteur in our brains.  The Saboteur is a ‘voice’ or thoughts and feelings that was adaptive in our early development and when we were being chased by Saber Tooth Tigers.  It is an early warning ‘voice’ that may say early on in our lives, “Don’t even try to jump that fence because if you do, you will break your leg.”  However, this ‘voice’ grows up with us and becomes our limiting beliefs voice.  It begins to tell us, “You are not enough.” and “You are a failure.” and “You will never amount to anything.”  Ever heard that voice?  I certainly have, and I continue to hear it AND listen to it.

The other ‘voice’ is that of the Sage.  It tells us things like, “You are enough.” and “It is possible.” and “You can do it.”  It turns out that if we train ourselves to listen to this ‘voice’, our brain runs/functions much better in fact studies have shown over 30-40% better!  When we listen to this positive Sage ‘voice’, our brains are flooded with dopamine and serotonin–chemicals that immediately enhance our brains learning centers allowing us to think more quickly and creatively, solve problems better and see and create new ways of doing things.

If you are like me, you hear the ‘voice’ of the saboteur more than the Sage.  And if you are not hearing the saboteur, it means that you have not become aware of it or it is doing a great job of tricking you into believing that it is speaking the truth
or at least speaking things that are helping you.  The saboteur may have convinced you that without it’s advice you would make stupid choices or become lazy, but nothing is further from the truth.  The saboteur ‘voice’ that says, “Now, that was a stupid thing to do.” often will continue that mantra over and over again creating more sleeplessness and more anxiety whereas the Sage’s approach might be to say, “So you made a mistake, to err is human, and this mistake could be made into an opportunity depending on how you react to it.”

Ok. Interesting.  Now what.  The key to weakening The saboteur ‘voice’ (note: most of us have multiple Saboteur ‘voices’ such as a judger and a pleaser and a controller etc.) is:
1. Don’t fight them/it
2. Simply observe and notice the saboteur thoughts and feelings when they arise
3. Tag or label these thoughts or feelings every time you notice them (some who are in training against the saboteur will keep a journal or jot down a quick note when they notice the saboteur thoughts and feelings aka ‘voice’)

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50 No’s & 5 Yes’s: How to Treat Overwhelm?

Overwhelm is a HOT topic.  We all feel overwhelmed at some time in our lives.  Our To-Do lists are stuffed to the gills, and we walk around in a To-Do list haze so overwhelmed that we are so busy listening to the tape playing in our heads of what we need To-Do instead of capturing all the amazing things happening all around us.

Solutions?  Burn the To-Do list?  Maybe.

1. Practice Present Perfect: Our brains are designed to be in the present moment, but our To-Do lists and overwhelm feelings and thoughts are predominantly in the future.  The studies show that by not being focused in the present our brainsare much less efficient so the overwhelm and To-Do lists are actually making us less productive.  How do we practice being more present?  Keep a 3×5 card in your pocket or jot down notes in your smartphone when you are in a moment that you have lost track of time in.  These moments of flow are the present moments that bathe our brain in the chemicals that make us more efficient, more productive, and are the antidote for overwhelm.

2. Purpose:  It is easy to live in the land of overwhelm when we lose site of our purpose.  When was the last time you were truly thrilled? What was your most recent peak experience?  Tapping into these moments will help you focus on doing the things that you were made to do.  The things that you were made to do are those things that thrill you.  Get in touch with your thrilling moments and you will begin to get in touch with your Yes’s.  Now list the 1-5 things that you most love to do at work, at home, etc.  This is your YES list.   These are the To-Do items that you were designed to Do and Be with.

3. Prioritize:  Starting with No’s leads to less overwhelm and more YES.  I recently challenged one of my clients to put together a list of 50 No’s.  50 items that he is going to say no to.  What is on our list of No’s?  Which of these No’s are you going to commit to?  I would love to say No to checking my email on my smartphone when out to dinner…..The NO list is the list that frees us up to say YES.

 

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Is Life and The People In It Passing You By?

So often I live my life like the guy in this video.  Rushing around to get done all my to do’s while

not taking notice of those around me, not connecting, and not taking in all that is available in the moments.

This video reminds me to slow down and be mindful of those around me and to stop and take in each and every moment as if it were our last.

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The Gecko & The Geek

Our brain is often at war with itself.  The primitive emotional centers (The Gecko) vs. the advanced intellectual centers (The Geek). The Gecko gets us in trouble because it’s only capacity is to react whereas the Geek thinks, then reacts.

The Geko takes over when we are feeling stressed or out of control, and it reacts with fight or flight.  Unfortunately, This does not happen consciously, and The Gecko causes us not to think straight, react instead of act, fight first ask questions later, and put our foot in our mouth.  When stresses pile up and we feel out of control, the Gecko shows up, and we become less productive, effective, and lose our decision-making abilities.  In fact, scientific studies have shown that when we experience too much stress and overwhelm, our performance tanks.  Stressful things like financial loss are actually processed in the same area of the brain that responds to mortal danger aka The Gecko area.  We have all learned often the hard way that we make horrible decisions when we are under financial stress or any type of stress.

 

How can we be more Geek and less Gecko?

  1. Self-awareness.  Studies show that when you put people under high levels of stress, those who are quickest to recover are those who can identify how they are feeling and express their feelings into words.  Scientists, using brain scans, confirm that people who talk about and/or write about their feelings at the time they are experiencing negative emotions immediately over come these negative thoughts and feelings which improves their well-being and enhances their decision making skills.
  2. Make 2 lists: things you have control over and things that you don’t.  Burn the list that you have no control over–they are out of your control! And focus on the areas that you have control over.  So no news is good news after all.  I have made it a habit of not reading the newspaper and watching the news on TV because it only stresses me out.  Now I know why it stresses me out, and why it has been scientifically shown to be counterproductive.  It fills my brain with things that I have no control over allowing my Gecko to run wild.  So maybe we should change the phrase “G.I.G.O” from Garbage In Garbage Out to Garbage In Gecko Out.
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Being Realistic is Over-rated

“Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity…The moment you decide to be realistic you can pretty much guarantee that is what will happen…”-Will Smith

Is anyone else tired of being realistic?  A saboteur (or gremlin) is a self limiting voice that whispers into our mind.  The saboteur is the voice that “shoulds” on us.  It tells us what we should do not what we can be.

Realistic is the penultimate saboteur.  I can hear the voice: “You will never be able to do that, be realistic.”

Let us today press pause on that voice, and listen to the other voice-the voice that speaks to our heart and soul.  The voice that says, “You can do it!”

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The Number One Sign of a True Leader

My 9 year old son asked my wife if he could leave the school auditorium during a lecture on classical music appreciation to play with his friends.  My wife said, “No you need to stay for the lecture.”  My son disobeyed her and went outside to play with his friends, and he got caught and admonished by one of the teachers.

My wife has told him that he now must go today to appologize to the teacher admitting to her that he was wrong and that he is sorry.

You should see the tears that came from this.  He is very upset.  But this is a life lesson: Admit when you are wrong and say you are sorry.

I was reminded of Eisenhower’s letter and Lincoln’s humility.  Eisenhower when he was the commander of the allied forces held in his coat pocket a letter addressed to the troops and to the world admitting that he was entirely to blame for the failure of D-Day invasion (obviously he never had to send it).  Lincoln was always ready and willing to admit his failures and mistakes.

The #1 sign of a true leader is humility which shows itself by admitting when you are wrong and being willing to say we are sorry.

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Eugene Walter Egan December 15, 1930-February 4, 2012

One of my very closest friends lost his dad in February.  I have enclosed a brief part of his dad’s obituary in this post.  I had the honor and privilege to meet his dad.  He was an amazing man.  The 2 areas of his life that my friend shared at his funeral were: Face and Hands.

Face: His dad had this incredible gift of face time.  When he looked at you face to face, you knew that you were all that mattered at that time and in that space.  What an incredible message for all of us to stop and remember EVERY time we meet someone.  Face to Face, Undivided attention, Smile, Presence.

Hands: His dad had a warm and inviting hand shake, and he could build, fix, and do almost anything with his hands.  He told one of his granddaughters: “It doesn’t have to be easy.  It just has to be possible.”  He lived this out.  He was able to do almost anything and solve almost any problem with his hands.

I am so blessed to have my friend who has inherited Eugene Walter Egan’s gifts of Face Time and Hands that can do anything.

“Gene was a lover of sports and a longtime softball player, most recently playing on several senior softball teams at Elings Park. He was renowned for his inventive mind and can-do attitude: Gene could create a solution for anything with items on hand, often using astonishing materials. He was active in his community, with a never failing response to anyone in need. Gene loved to travel and visit with his friends and extended family, always passionate about spreading love and his zest for life to others. He was blessed with the gift of making every person feel special and was so generous with family, friends and neighbors. His welcoming smile, his sense of humor and his positive spirit will be greatly missed. ’nuff said.”

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Work Life Balance vs. Well Being

This article points out that well being is more important measure than work life balance.  If we have great work life balance but we hate our work and our life, then even though we have work life balance, we are miserable.  We need to look to well being: finding ways to be happy and content in our work and our life.

Why Work-Life Balance Isn’t Balanced

It’s necessary, but not sufficient. Here’s why focusing on wellbeing makes more sense.

by Yamini Tandon

Sheela was doing well in her job. She had an eight-hour workday, great friends, a supportive family, good health, and she was paid well. Everyone around her thought she was happy and lived an ideal life.

Sheela was well-compensated and appeared to have time to balance her career and personal life. But she was struggling.

But Sheela’s life was actually a mess. Her overly aggressive boss thought nothing of shouting at her in front of her colleagues. Though Sheela was a good performer, she was constantly anxious about the next time her supervisor would berate her. Though she was expected to work eight-hour days, her boss would call her at any time of the day or night.

Sheela began to dread hearing her cellphone ring and was so worried all the time that she couldn’t even sleep. She fretted that her colleagues and friends would lose respect for her, and she lost so much confidence that she couldn’t handle even the simplest of social interactions. Sheela began to spend less time with her friends and family, where she would have to put up a brave face, and instead devoted more hours to work, where she could worry freely, obsessing over every detail of her job to the point of compulsiveness.

By most traditional measures of work-life balance, Sheela was doing quite well. She was handsomely compensated for an eight-hour workday, and she appeared to have enough free time to balance her career and personal life. But in reality, Sheela was struggling. What’s more, her frustrations would not be picked up by conventional measures of wellbeing, because those measures don’t take into account the quality of people’s experiences, nor do they incorporate people’s own evaluations of their lives. Instead, those measures rely on factors like income and number of hours worked, under the assumption that these factors determine the quality of people’s lives.

Beyond work-life balance

When the idea of work-life balance was first introduced, it was a revolutionary concept. In the 18thand 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution and its resulting shift to manufacturing work made it possible for employers to require workers to labor longer hours than ever before in human history. In some industries, people toiled 14 to 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week.

As researchers began to study the impact that these long hours had on stress levels, health, and family life, the idea of work-life balance gained currency, and many countries began to legislate limits to the workweek. Most developed nations now mandate 40-46 working hours per week, with a minimum of two weeks per year of holiday/vacation.

The concept of work-life balance has been instrumental in influencing these changes and bringing about an improvement in the quality of life that is assumed to accompany shorter working hours. But the concept is useful only up to a point. Globalization has undermined the relevance of reducing worker hours to achieve work-life balance and has revealed limitations; the most significant is that at some point, limiting hours further is just not sustainable.

France has mandated a 35-hour workweek, for example. But what can the country do next? The workweek can’t be reduced indefinitely, as this has implications for a country’s economic viability and competitiveness. In a globalized world, if workers in one country are unwilling to work for economically viable hours, then businesses will migrate to a country where they are willing to do so. In countries such as India and Pakistan, workers are motivated to work 10- to 12-hour workdays — and this is unlikely to change soon due to the large number of workers willing to do so to move up the economic ladder.

Another problem with the concept of work-life balance is that it takes the number of working hours into account but not the quality of the working experience. A person may spend 35 hours a week at work, but if that worker, like Sheela, has an abrasive manager or is in a highly stressful job or one that is not suited to her natural talents, then those manageable work hours are unlikely to enhance her quality of life. Conversely, a person may choose to work long hours because it allows her to progress in her career or to build a social system at work.

Thus, the assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty. Other factors, such as social support, health, safety, and job fit, contribute greatly to the quality of a person’s life. Since the concept of work-life balance doesn’t take into account these significant factors, it does not provide direction as to how people can actually improve the quality of their lives, except for reducing the hours spent at work. As such, it is not actionable.

The assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty

How we think about and experience our lives

A more comprehensive concept — one that’s more appropriate for the 21st-century economy — is that of wellbeing, which includes factors that contribute to our experiences and our perception of our lives. Until recently, wellbeing has been seen as an esoteric concept that is difficult to define and quantify. It is most commonly understood as relating to wealth or health, perhaps because of the ease with which these things can be measured.

One reason that wellbeing has been difficult to define is that it means different things to different people depending on what they consider important. To one person, it may mean prosperity or wealth; to another, it may mean values or community involvement or the realization of one’s potential. This is why wellbeing should be measured at the individual level, though it may be aggregated for organizations, communities, and nations. And any measure of wellbeing must be broad enough to incorporate an individual’s own choices and purpose in life while being specific enough to be compared and aggregated to facilitate action that can improve it.

Gallup has developed a wellbeing metric that includes the five key elements of wellbeing: Career, Social, Financial, Physical, and Community. These five distinct factors emerged from research that Gallup conducted across countries, languages, and vastly different life situations. Because these elements of wellbeing are universal, they can be measured and reported on for individuals, organizations, cities, countries, and regions around the world.

Because Gallup’s wellbeing assessment measures these elements individually in addition to yielding an overall score, it is actionable: The assessment gives individuals, organizations, cities, and countries the ability to manage wellbeing by undertaking actions to improve it. If an individual has relatively low Social Wellbeing, for example, she would do well to focus her efforts on improving interpersonal relationships with friends and family.

This can be managed over time. As her Social Wellbeing increases, she may choose to concentrate on Career Wellbeing, for instance, or choose to address both elements by spending time socializing with colleagues and making friends at work. In this way, wellbeing can be measured and managed comprehensively at the individual, as well as government, state, city, or corporate levels, by taking its various components and their interactions into account.

Conventional metrics such as employment status, income, educational level, hours worked, and women’s participation in the workforce are necessary to understand an economy, but they are insufficient when it comes to understanding and evaluating overall life satisfaction. Unless we begin to use a metric of a life well-lived — as measured by one’s own experiences and evaluation — people like Sheela will continue to be under the radar, aware that something is amiss, but without an idea why or what to do about it.

The Five Essential Elements of WellbeingFor more than 50 years, Gallup scientists have been exploring the demands of a life well-lived. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, Gallup has uncovered the common elements of wellbeing that transcend countries and cultures. This research revealed the universal elements of wellbeing that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. They represent five broad categories that are essential to most people:

  • Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time — or simply liking what you do every day
  • Social Wellbeing: having strong relationships and love in your life
  • Financial Wellbeing: effectively managing your economic life
  • Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis
  • Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live
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What Do You Want Your Button to Say?

One of my friends and partners took apart his Staples “That was Easy” button and rewired it to say a special statement to one of his sons.  I LOVE his creativity, but unfortunately it sounded like a lot of work.

It made me think of what I would have the button say to me if I could rewire it.  Answer: The minions laughter from Despicable Me movie.  Why you ask? Because I specialize in Reserved calm, leading from my mind rather than from my heart… The laughter button would remind me to laugh more.  BTW-I downloaded the minions laughter ring tone and whenever my kids call from home, my cell phone plays the laughter and makes me laugh out loud!

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Knowing the Language of Appreciation

I had a fascinating conversation with a USC Business School Professor last week.  He pointed out that only 37% of employees feel appreciated at their job, and the majority don’t trust their leaders.  What would a world look like where employee’s felt truly appreciated?
Are these employees being shown appreciation, but it isn’t landing?  What do you need to hear to feel appreciated?  It is different for different people.  I feel appreciated when I am verbally affirmed, but my bride feels appreciated when I give her my undivided attention.
So maybe these employees are being appreciated, but they are not feeling appreciated??  How could we better learn how to show our appreciation in the “language” that would be heard by our employees, co-workers, spouses, kids?  Curious?  I have some GREAT ideas on how to REALLY show those around you that you appreciate them.  Email me if you are interested!

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The Power of the Halo Effect & Perception

In 1946, Solomon Asch did an experiment in which he created 2 lists of attributes that describe an individual.  After 2 separate groups of people were given either list A or list B, they were given an additional list of attributes and instructed to indicate other qualities an individual might have.  The 2 lists had the same attributes: intelligent, skillful, industrious, determined, practical, and cautious. However list A had one additional attribute: warm, and list B had the additional attribute: cold.

Based on these 2 attributes, each group selected different lists of attributes for the individuals.  List A with the warm attribute chose additional attributes of happy, good-natured, generous, humorous, wise, etc. while List B with the cold attribute chose additional attributes of serious, strong, reliable, persistent, etc.

Other research has confirmed this amazing finding of human perception.   The conclusions to these experiments are as follows:

Perceptions are colored by small pieces of information, which may or may not be correct.

Initial impressions are used to create an overall view of a person.  Knowing a few things, we then fill in the missing pieces in our minds.

We do not form an overall view of someone by painstakingly assembling all of the pieces.

Certain characteristics or attributes are consistently linked together.

Attributes are clustered into various dimension in the minds of most people.

WOW! I am SO thankful that I am an ER doctor as one of my careers.   I get plenty of opportunities to meet total strangers and continue to work on my ability to given them the proper first impression of who I truly am.

I had NO idea that our first impressions are based on so little and often incorrect information, and our perceptions are formed with so little information.

This is further evidence that perception and perspective work in coaching is so life changing because so much of who we are and who we can become is painted by our perceptions, our perspectives, and those around us.

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3 Keys to Great Leadership

by Justin Menkes 

Based on your experience, what traits are needed for a federal leader to be successful?

 There are three attributes that I think best enable a leader to maximize the efforts of the 21st century workforce: realistic optimism, subservience to purpose and finding order in chaos.

What is realistic optimism?

Realistic optimism is especially important for a federal workforce. I think that if you’re going to lead people, you can’t sit there and tell them, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

When you look at poor performing or inept leaders, you find they are often incredibly optimistic. The difference is that they have blind optimism. So, if you say, “We will conquer all. The obstacles and adversities you’re discussing are not important for you to worry about because we’re going to win anyway,” you’ll lose them.

But those with realistic optimism are the ones that say, “These are the challenges that we face and these are some of our proposed solutions. None of us is sure what the final solutions to each problem will look like, but here are our contingency plans for trying to address them. And, I do believe that together, as a group, we’re going to meet our challenges. I have no doubt about it.” That is what it looks like to express realistic optimism.

What about subservience to purpose?

Today, a paycheck is not enough. Workers have to get out of bed every morning believing in what they’re doing. They have to believe that their presence and the activities that they perform on any given day will make positive, meaningful impacts on the world.

Southwest Airlines is a great example. Their people outperform competitors on every metric of productivity that exists. They believe that not only the rich should be able to fly in this country. So they’re going to get those airplanes off the ground on time and as inexpensively as possible, because they believe that that’s an important mission for America. This sense of purpose has lasted since Herb Kelleher founded the airline 35 years ago.

Explain bringing order to chaos.

Finding order in chaos is critical. Leaders cannot throw up their hands and give up. In many ways, today’s workforce has fallen behind in this area. It’s not being trained to find joy in the pressure-filled situations that we face. In the world and the economy today, there is more unfamiliar than familiar. So, you’ve got to get comfortable with it.

The best example of this is A.G. Lafley at Proctor and Gamble. Before he retired, he was in Brazil watching housewives do their laundry in the bayous. When I asked him why, he said that his company had introduced a laundry detergent that should have been hugely popular among this particular Brazilian population. The detergent required no rinse cycle for clothes to be clean, [but] nobody wanted to buy it. Ultimately, what he found out was that the detergent didn’t make suds. As soon as they added suds, the women felt like the product was working. They started using the detergent and the product became a huge hit.

How can current senior federal leaders cultivate these three attributes in their emerging executives?

There are some wonderful things they can do. One of the great teachers of realist optimism is David Novak at Yum Brands. One of the things he’s done is use catch phrases. He found that when people are not taking responsibility or accountability for their actions, being realistic but optimistic is achievable.

He introduced this phrase called ‘victimitis.’ So whenever people would say, “Oh, it’s not my fault,” or attempt to defend their bad actions, all of their colleagues would say, “Victimitis, victimitis!”

Part of what he did was about building a culture and giving people tools they can effectively use — and in some places, playfully use. We need to remind ourselves that our destinies are in some ways beyond our control, but that our day-to-day, work-to-work, minute-to-minute experiences are still very much under our control.

As a leader, if you’re sitting there having to block Internet sites on your employees’ computers, you’ve already lost the battle. You have to have them be interested and motivated to do their work without you looking over their shoulders.

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Happiness is Friends & Just Enough Money by Jennifer Robison

The search to define happiness has consumed a lot of human energy. Until recently, we’ve had little to show for it — some songs, a few poems, and a Charles Schulz cartoon about happiness being a warm puppy — but nothing of much practical use.
The best life evaluations come from people who went to college, got married, and have good jobs.
To get practical results, you need scientists. Fortunately, two of the best are now on the case: Angus Deaton, Ph.D., a renowned economist, and Daniel Kahneman, Ph.D., a Nobel prize-winning psychologist, both from Princeton University. Dispensing with romantic imagery, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman looked for happiness in numbers. More specifically, they analyzed responses to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (GHWBI), a daily survey that asks roughly 1,000 U.S. residents a battery of questions about their wellbeing.
After analyzing more than 450,000 GHWBI responses from 2008 and 2009, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman found that happiness is actually the result of the fulfillment of two abstract psychological states — emotional wellbeing and life evaluation. The finding is important because it offered the researchers a new and more useful way of looking at happiness.
“What did we get from these data? Everything,” says Dr. Deaton. “The GHWBI asks clear questions about life evaluation as well as emotional wellbeing. These data are just terrific in permitting research that was not really possible before.”
Evaluation and emotion
The difference between life evaluation and emotional wellbeing is vital, though the two are related. “Nobody claims that the two dimensions are independent,” says Dr. Kahneman. “They’re clearly distinct dimensions that are correlated. But they have somewhat different determinants. What improves people’s emotional wellbeing is different from what it takes to make them say that they’re satisfied with their life.”
In other words, life evaluation and emotional wellbeing refer to different feelings. Life evaluation requires a long view of a person’s overall life. Though life evaluation is colored by the day’s emotions, Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton’s GHWBI research shows that people evaluate their lives based on a retrospective of their achievements. If they’ve accomplished the goals they’ve set, are financially secure, and are emotionally fulfilled, they’re more likely to have a high evaluation of their life.
And research shows that the more conventional the goals, the better the life evaluation. Dr. Kahneman notes that the best life evaluations come from people who went to college, got married, and have good jobs; other studies show that people who wanted to be performing artists when they were 18 but didn’t end up to be were generally very dissatisfied with their lives at age 45. “Having goals that you can meet is essential to life satisfaction,” says Dr. Kahneman. “Setting goals that you’re not going to meet sets you up for failure.”
Emotional wellbeing reflects a much shorter view and refers to the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday experience. If the day’s experience is negative, emotional wellbeing will take a hit. That said, people with good emotional wellbeing seem to get it through social contact.
“Emotional happiness is primarily social,” says Dr. Kahneman. “The very best thing that can happen to people is to spend time with other people they like. That is when they are happiest, and so, without question, this is a major story. We find loneliness is a terrible thing. So is extreme poverty. But loneliness, regardless of how rich you are, is a very bad thing.”
But the research also indicates that you won’t become happy merely by socializing with your best friends and achieving your goals. You also need $75,000.
The magic number: $75,000
Of all the important and interesting findings Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton’s research has uncovered, the most reported finding is that people with an annual household income of $75,000 are about as happy as anyone gets. More specifically, those with annual household incomes below $75,000 give lower responses to both life evaluation and emotional wellbeing questions. But people with an annual household income of more than $75,000 don’t have commensurately higher levels of emotional wellbeing, even though their life evaluation rating continues to increase.
This finding holds true even where living isn’t cheap. “When we mention $75,000, the question I always get is, ‘What about New York City?'” says Dr. Kahneman. True, $75,000 won’t go very far in big cities like New York, London, or Singapore, and it makes sense that a high cost of living will make even large sums feel puny. “Our finding indicates that $75,000 is the limit even in large expensive cities,” says Dr. Kahneman. “So, though there may be places in which happiness levels off at a lower income, $75,000 is the sufficiency point in the most expensive places.”
Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman are not certain why, but the data are clear: Even in high-cost cities, incomes over $75,000 don’t correlate to greater happiness. They think this is because even in expensive places, $75,000 is enough to live on while allowing for emotionally rich — and enriching — social experiences. Some places such as New York may be expensive precisely because they are such great places to live, says Dr. Deaton, because their terrific amenities may offset the higher cost of living there.

“No matter where you live, your emotional wellbeing is as good as it’s going to get at $75,000,” says Dr. Deaton, “and money’s not going to make it any better beyond that point. It’s like you hit some sort of ceiling, and you can’t get emotional wellbeing much higher just by having more money.”
Your emotional life depends primarily on your relationships with people.
Emotional wellbeing may not improve with additional money, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman think, because of several factors. One is that humans adapt quickly to the things money can buy. A mansion is a thrill the first month you live in it, but it’s just a house the second.
Moreover, other research suggests that wealthy people don’t take as much pleasure in actual pleasure as do poor people. In one test, social researchers primed some test subjects to feel rich and found that the “wealthy” subjects didn’t enjoy luxury chocolate as much as the control group, the “non-wealthy,” did.
And Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton believe that when it comes to the very wealthy with high life satisfaction, their evaluations may be influenced more by keeping score than by purchasing power. If life evaluation is based on reviewing how much progress people have made in their lives, money may become a marker of success.
“Not having enough money to live a decent life really gets in the way of doing the ordinary things that make people happy,” says Dr. Deaton. “What might create your emotional wellbeing is spending time with your friends, and if your income is below $75,000, you may not have the money to do it. But for life evaluation, money represents a sense of achievement. And that just keeps on going up when you have more money.”
Stressing the subject
So people who have achieved their goals, who spend a lot of time with friends, and who make a lot of money have the most life satisfaction, while those who earn at least $75,000 a year have the greatest emotional wellbeing. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t stressed. The GHWBI data show that college graduates report more stress than people without college degrees, and Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton say that stress levels are generally higher in wealthy countries.
The GHWBI data also showed that most Americans are happy and satisfied with their lives — 85% reported a lot of happiness, enjoyment, and smiling; 24% reported sadness or worry; and 39% reported stress. Comparing the U.S. life evaluation scores with data available from about 150 other countries through the Gallup World Poll, the U.S. ranks fairly high. The only nations with higher scores are the Scandinavian countries, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and New Zealand.
However, while Americans come in near the top for life evaluation and do well on wellbeing, they’re also among the most stressed. U.S. stress levels are the fifth highest when compared to data from other countries in the Gallup World Poll.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2010 poverty level for a family of four was a long way from $75,000 at $22,314 — and 15.3% of Americans earned that much or less. “It is worse to be alone, it is worse to be divorced, it is worse to be unemployed, and it is worse to be sick if you’re poor, and you get less benefit from the things that create emotional wellbeing,” says Dr. Kahneman. “There are huge emotional costs to poverty.”
And poor people are hardly carefree — in fact, the researchers found that the poor report more stress than the economically comfortable. They also don’t gain the benefit of stress alleviation on weekends, as do their better-off counterparts. And Dr. Deaton notes that there’s a big difference between the stress associated with success and the stress caused by constant deprivation.
But the data show that money doesn’t alleviate stress in the same way it alleviates unhappiness. In fact, money may go hand in hand with stress among high-earning people. “I think stress sometimes goes with success,” says Dr. Deaton. “America is a very rich, busy, striving country, and that may be associated with stress. But we sort of like it.”
With a little help from your friends
Dr. Kahneman says some studies show that while warm puppies really can improve emotional wellbeing, your emotional life depends primarily on your relationships with people. “I’d feel embarrassed to give that as advice — ‘improve your relationships.’ But obviously if people are going to get happier, it’s going to come to that,” he says.
There is one thing, however, left to mention in this discussion of happiness — individual temperament. Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton’s research, and that of others, clearly indicates that some people are just born happier, or “sunnier,” as Dr. Deaton calls them. Their emotional wellbeing will always be higher than everyone else’s.
That’s not to suggest that those who aren’t “sunny” are doomed to lives of misery. Even the most pessimistic, grumpy-by-nature people can find solace in Dr. Deaton’s statement: “It may be that we’re not designed for happiness.” And what is it we were designed for? “To avoid getting eaten by predators,” says Dr. Deaton. “If nothing eats you today, you ought to be happy. At least it’s a start.”