There are a lot of options for this fill-in-the-blank, and if I’m being honest, I’ve probably made several claims to that effect with things like relationships, intention, learning, etc.

But I’ll throw my hat in the ring for another one here today and give you a brief guide on how to develop it.

Emotional Intelligence

The simplest way to understand this is to think about IQ as your intellectual processing power. EQ is your ability to understand and manage your emotions and recognize and influence the emotions of others.

Here’s a visual for that from Dan Goleman, who developed this concept.

As it relates to happiness, think about what we’re saying here. If you have the ability to, in almost every given moment, recognize the emotional state you’re in and then regulate that emotional state to move yourself to a more productive and/or pleasant state, you essentially have happiness under control. Obviously, there are some caveats, such as bad things happening, financial hardship, health issues, etc.

But if, in any given moment, happiness is essentially your state of being and you have the ability to observe and influence your state of being, then voilà.

So here’s the simplest way I can teach emotional intelligence: you have to understand where you are on the map and then move yourself to different positions on the map.

When I say map, I mean something I’m about to show you. Every psychological state essentially exists on this XY graph.

You can think of it this way: Is it positive, as in pleasant, or negative, as in unpleasant? Is it high-energy or low-energy?

So, for example, a high-energy, negative state might be anger or something similar, and a low-energy, positive state might be contentment or relaxation.

So all you need to do for step one is recognize where you and others are at any given moment on that map.

Once you have your coordinates, so to speak, you can then, from that place of awareness, change your mind or body to move toward a new position on the map.

If you’re in the low-energy, negative place corresponding to a sad or depressed state, you need to move up and to the right. You can do that by jumping up and down, smiling, thinking about something you’re excited about, watching a funny video, etc.

If you’re in the high-energy, negative place corresponding to rage, you need to move down and to the right. You can take a few deep breaths with long exhales, do some slow stretching, list five things you’re thankful for, imagine a beautiful, peaceful, still lake, or say a prayer.

So there are hundreds of strategies you can use to change your psychological state, most of which, again, involve changing your focus (mind) or physiology (body).

I’ll keep this as a short thought and leave it at a high level. Happiness is not just something that happens to you, but it’s also something that is up to you.

By developing your emotional intelligence, you can self-direct your emotional context and influence the emotional context of others. All you really need to do is practice locating yourself on the emotional map and then charting a new, more pleasant and productive course.

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson

“The issue is not that productivity is bad. Most of us need the satisfaction of doing useful work. The problem comes when productivity becomes the only way we know how to measure whether a day has mattered.” — Dr. Robert Waldinger

This quote reminded me of my experience with what I call “productivity anxiety”—a sense that my fundamental orientation and way of operating in life is to get things done efficiently.

Oliver Burkeman explains it well when he refers to “productivity debt.”

Many people (by which I mean me) seem to feel as if they start off each morning in a kind of “productivity debt,” which they must struggle to pay off through the day, in hopes of reaching a zero balance by the time evening comes. Few things feel more basic to my experience of adulthood than this vague sense that I’m falling behind and need to claw my way back up to some minimum standard of output. It’s as if I need to justify my existence by staying “on top of things” in order to stave off some ill-defined catastrophe that might otherwise come crashing down upon my head.

And make no mistake: paying off your imaginary productivity debt completely—in other words, working so hard and so efficiently that you no longer feel like you’re falling behind—is literally impossible, not just grueling and unpleasant. In the modern world of work, there’s no limit to the number of emails you might receive, the demands your boss might make, the ambitions you might have for your career, etcetera—so there’s no reason to believe you’ll ever get to the end of them.

So I’d encourage you to practice what Swami Kripalu refers to as the highest spiritual practice: self-observation without judgment.

To what extent are you optimizing your life equation for efficient task completion versus something else? To what extent do you feel a subtle (or not-so-subtle), gnawing, anxious tug imbued with guilt to be more productive? To what extent do you feel psychologically at rest only when you’ve paid off your so-called productivity debt?

If you feel this rings true, here is a musing on reworking this perspective…

I remember standing at the overlook on my morning walk around sunrise last summer.

I heard what sounded like splashing. I saw two deer—a mother and child—running around. At first, I thought something had scared them off. But they kept zig-zagging back and forth across the edge of the big puddle in which they had been splashing.

Then they started to run out in a circle and come pouncing into the puddle, turning in circles as they kicked up water. It became clear that they were playing—they were dancing their dance, stomping the water-covered floor just like kids jumping in puddles.

And that is a moment frozen in my mind. Can I be that way? Can I live that way? Deer are fighting for their lives every day. I have no such narrow margin to worry about. No matter what happens (with a few apocalyptic exceptions), I will be fed, sheltered, and, frankly, rich by the world’s standards.

So why can’t I play like these deer?

I’m reminded of two other Zen teachings.

One day, the monk who was taking care of the temple said to Yakusan, “You haven’t given a lecture for a long time, and the monks want to hear you. Please give us a lecture today.”

So Yakusan had a monk hit the bell to call everyone to the lecture hall. Then Yakusan entered and took the teacher’s seat. He sat for a while without saying anything, and then he left and went back to his room.

In Zen fashion, I’ll leave that story for you to ponder rather than attempt an explanation.

In a related passage, we hear a term called “the life of yusan gansui,” which means the life of strolling about mountains and waters. That feels like a brief yet powerful phrase — strolling through life.

This doesn’t mean no activity or refusing to do what you need or want to do. But what if you were to honor your calendar and to-do list in a way that felt like strolling through the mountains and wandering by the streams? What if you were to go through life more like these deer? And what if you measured the quality of your days less by productivity debt and more by having a good day?

(And if you figure out those “what-if” questions, please let me know, because I do not have the answer yet!)

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson

Even just like 10 lifetimes ago (depending on where you lived), it would be pretty darn common, on any given day, to get attacked, robbed, stabbed, murdered, or other similar misfortune.

Actually think about it.

You could get attacked by an animal or a rogue group of criminals and there would be pretty much nothing you could do. Similarly, you could break your leg or get a minor infection and instead of a few weeks of inconvenience, you’d basically suffer for a few months then die.

In short, the past must have sucked!

So bringing this back to happiness, here’s a 1-3 minute thing you can do every day to feel better… Think about the fact that you’re not living in the past.

Is your bed more comfortable than the ground?

Is your TV more entertaining than a fire?

Is your standard of living better than a peasant or caveman?

Of course I’m not saying this is the grail of happiness that’ll make all your problems go away.

But it helps to have perspective. If you were talking to your great-great-great (to the power of 10) grandparents living in the pre-colonized United States, the stresses they faced would have been things like starvation, attacks from other tribes, trying not to freeze to death, etc.

Meanwhile you’re stressed out because you can’t stay on top of your email and there was construction on the highway. Come off it! (That’s mostly a shot at myself but sorry if it applies to you too).

So as you go through your workday or face some personal inconveniences or feel otherwise anxious, think about putting yourself back into the shoes of someone from a few thousand years ago.

That’s one way to reset your happiness expectations.

your happiness nerd,

Jackson

If you’re like most people, it’s probably in the seven-to-eight range. Or, if you’re like me (you overachiever, you), it might be a nine or ten.

I have good news and bad news.

One study asked thousands of Americans about their stress levels. Researchers then followed up with them to see who became sick and who died.

Fun!

As you may have expected—this is the bad news I mentioned—those who experienced more stress had worse health and a higher risk of death from all causes.

But here’s the interesting part…

Researchers also asked people whether they thought stress was bad for them. The pattern I mentioned above — that more stress leads to worse health and a shorter life—was only true for people who believed stress was bad for them!

In other words, it’s not just stress, but your perspective on stress, that may shape how it affects your happiness.

This insight is backed by compelling research from Dr. Alia Crum.

To understand the power of perspective, let’s start with the milkshake study. Dr. Crum had two groups of people: one was told they were getting a delicious, unhealthy milkshake-style smoothie, while the other was told they were getting a healthy fitness smoothie. Afterward, each group was asked how much they enjoyed the drink and how full they felt. Researchers even measured hormones related to hunger to identify differences in their physiological responses to the meal.

As you may have expected, people who thought they had received the decadent milkshake said they enjoyed it more and felt fuller. Their hormone levels — including ghrelin — also indicated that they felt more satiated.

Here’s the catch: it was the same milkshake.

Our perspective on events can fundamentally shape how we respond to them, even at the physiological level. Now, let’s apply that idea to stress.

Dr. Crum would set up experiences that were maximally stress-inducing (more fun!). For example, participants might have to stand in front of a group and solve mental math problems out loud.

Other experiments involved longer-term scenarios in which people dealt with stress in settings such as the workplace.

In each case, one group would be shown a “stress is debilitating” presentation explaining how stress makes you less effective, makes you sick, and undermines your ability to be effective and healthy.

The other group received a “stress is enhancing” presentation explaining that, while large amounts of stress can be toxic, stress can also make you more focused and alert and improve your performance.

Across different studies, people with a stress-is-enhancing mindset responded better— both physically and mentally — to stressful environments.

So, this is not to say that you need to actively seek out a lot more stress. It’s simply to say that a new perspective on the stress you already encounter — assuming it is not chronic or traumatic — may help you be happier and healthier.

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson

Reference: Crum AJ, Salovey P, Achor S. Rethinking stress: the role of mindsets in determining the stress response. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2013 Apr;104(4):716-33. doi: 10.1037/a0031201. Epub 2013 Feb 25. PMID: 23437923.

The student suggested that they go on a picnic. But the mentor was so busy that days and weeks and months went by.

So the student suggested again – “how about that picnic?”

“Oh yeah, yeah…” said his mentor “we’ll get around to that in a couple weeks…”
A few more months went by.

On this day the two were walking back from town. As they crossed through the center street there was a long line of people dressed in black marching along carrying a coffin behind them. The mentor couldn’t quite see what was going on, so he asked the student.

And he said, “it looks like they’re having a picnic.”

What’s your picnic?

When I sit down to write I always try to think of this question: what’s the most important thing I can share right now with respect to happiness?

Once I decided to ask one of my Zen teachers that question: what’s the most important thing for happiness.

His answer surprised me: Letting go.

In this case, letting go is not just giving up or saying “F it, doesn’t matter.” It’s more like letting go of the orientation towards life as something that is always a doing. It’s so easy to live your life as if it’s preparation for something else. You’re on your way there. You’re preparing for the weekend then preparing for the week. Everything is an activity to complete something.

What if we were – sometimes – able to operate from a mode of not going anywhere or getting something done?

As Suzuki Roshi said, your life is not preparation for something else. This is it. This doesn’t necessarily mean you just sit around all day. It’s more like letting go of completion or achievement in the act of the doing. It’s letting go of the outcome. It’s maybe even not giving a sh*t (but in a Zen enlightened way).

As Matsuo Bashō, in the Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Interior), wrote every day is a journey, and the journey itself home.

your happiness nerd,

Jackson K.

Today, I’m no longer fat but I’m still an idiot (you can laugh at that).

Anyway, I’m not sure what caused that tendency, as I had pretty normal, supportive parents. I seem to have a naturally aggressive temper when it comes to competitiveness and my own failure. I rarely get so upset with others.

But even today, I have this self-directed rage when it comes to mistakes. And I still have my moments. A few years ago, I was hanging out with my cousin, who has been close with me since we were five. He spilled something, looked over at me, laughed, and started to fake hit himself, calling himself a fat, stupid idiot.

We had a good laugh about that, but since then, it’s become sort of a psychological tool for me. When I fail, forget something, or make a stupid mistake, I notice that same internal rage and resentment storming up. But then, most of the time, I catch it and label it as “the fat, stupid idiot.” Sometimes I’ll even chuckle to myself as I picture hitting myself and smashing my helmet or ripping my batting gloves (from my Little League baseball days).

Now, having studied various modes of psychology, I see there’s something to this.

Cognitive behavioral therapy essentially consists of identifying cognitive distortions (poor ways of perception and thinking that undermine happiness) so you can dispute them and shape a new approach to your inner world and outer response.

Psychoanalysis has you look back over your past to identify ways in which elements of your psychology undermine your well-being today, and then you work to reshape those patterns.

There are more behavioral psychology models, like competing response theory. Focus on identifying triggers for detrimental habits and then inserting new responses. For instance, keep an index card. Every time you go to bite your nails, take out the card and write down what you felt. Then rub your hands together or jump up and down or do some other stimulation and check it off on the card. Slowly, you rewire the habit.

Many others, like compassionate inquiry, the Hoffman process, and family psychology, challenge you to look back at your upbringing for unhelpful coping tendencies that don’t serve you well today. You label them and then take steps to reprogram them.

So, pretty much all you’re doing in any of these cases is what I accidentally started doing with my “fat, stupid idiot” bit. You’re bringing awareness to a pattern — a constellation of interrelated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You identify or label it. Then, from that place of awareness, you can recondition or establish a new pattern. Over time, you repattern your psychology.

So, try this exercise: identify your favorite flavor of suffering or your most common unhelpful pattern. That is your version of the “fat, stupid idiot” pattern.

Is it a tendency to repress yourself, withdraw due to anxiety, or be a people-pleaser that leads to stress? Whatever it is, give it a label so that whenever it arises, it evokes awareness.

Step two is designing a new, intentional pattern to plug in there.

Another one of my favorites is whenever I’m feeling anxious and tense about getting things done, I think of people on farms in Africa or in factories in China working much harder than me. I exhale and say to myself, “So much time and so little to do.”

Let’s see if over the next week you can identify a pattern, label it, and then do something wacky, funny, or at least intentional to repattern it.

If I see you out there laughing hysterically as you hit yourself in the head and call yourself a fat, stupid idiot, I will know that you read this essay!

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson (thin, stupid idiot)

Imagine it’s around the year 1900.

An old Italian economist, named Vilfredo Pareto, is relaxing in his garden. And today he noted something curious. He has 10 plants that have produced about 50 peas. But about 40 of the peas have come from just two of the plants while the other 8 plants barely produced any peas.

He observed this pattern several more times. So, he decided to bring this line of thinking, comparing the distribution of inputs to outputs, into his field. In almost an identical distribution, he found that about 20% of the population in Italy owned 80% of the land. He found that in Britain about 25% of taxpayers accounted for 75% of tax revenue. In the modern world, it looks more like the top 8% own about 85% of total wealth (that’s from Credit Suisse in 2013, estimates vary).

It’s important to note that the distribution is not always 80 to 20 and it need not sum to 100.

For example, it may be that 15% of drivers cause 97% of wrecks. It may be that 5% of your clients contribute 70% of your revenue. It may be that 1% of TV shows get 85% of the viewership.

This concept would go on to be called by several names: the Pareto Principle, the Trivial Many and Vital Few, and the 80/20 Rule (amongst others). It’s now an established concept in fields ranging from economics to management to chaos theory and physics. But what can this do for you?

You tell me...

If you examine your work and life you may find the following to be true. Do approximately 20% of people, situations, or inconveniences contribute 80% of your stress?

Does approximately 20% of your time in a given week contribute 80% of your enjoyment?

Can you identify a few recurring things that lead to the vast majority of the problems in your workplace?

And if you look back over the last few months can you identify just a few things you did or focused on that had the most outsized impact?

The point is, you can apply this way of thinking to better understand your work and life so as to minimize unhappiness and maximize happiness.

your happiness nerd,

Jackson K.

PS I recommend The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch.

Well, how do we effectively pursue, or perhaps cultivate, happiness?

It starts with this (spoiler alert): you’re going to die.

Yes, you.

(Also, can you tell I’ve been working on my writing hooks?)

In all seriousness, I can pretty much guarantee that in the next 100 years, this will be the case.

I start here because I’ve come to believe that acknowledging death — and even contemplating it from time to time — helps you live with far more clarity and intention. In this writing, I’ll explain why, and how it fits into a life operating system that takes about 5-10 minutes a day.

So, why start here?

Let me introduce you to a woman named Bronnie Ware. Around the year 2000, she took a job as a palliative care nurse helping people in their final days of life. Over eight years, she built relationships and had many conversations, seeking to understand the state of mind and wisdom these people had to share.

One day in 2009, she decided to write a blog post about something on her mind. She noticed the same handful of regrets consistently expressed by these people in their final days.

The post went viral, and a few years later, she published her book on the top regrets of the dying. Here they are, in my own words:

• I wish I had been true to myself.

• I wish I had not worked so much.

• I wish I had not lost touch with friends.

• I wish I had allowed myself to be happy and to express what I really felt.

Can you see yourself regretting anything similar?

This is a powerful exercise because it helps you identify which traps to avoid and how to start living right now.

That said, research shows we naturally avoid considering our mortality. To that point, a 2019 study had an experiment in which people viewed videos of faces, including their own, morphing into other faces over six seconds. The participants were to press a button when they felt that the face had changed to another person’s. Appearing over the faces were various words with death-related connotations. When one saw his or her own face with a death word, they pressed the button sooner, suggesting that participants wanted to avoid associating death with themselves.

It’s worth overcoming this natural avoidance because this sort of death reflection is step one in a 3-step happiness scorecard process: a “life operating system” so to speak.

Step 1: Imagine

You are time-traveling to yourself in your 80s. From that vantage point, you look back on your life right now. What advice do you have for your current self? What might you regret in terms of the decisions you’re making or how you’re spending your time?

It may help to think about the core components of your life quality, which I define as physical, mental, and relationship health.

Stay in that state of mind as your older self for one more moment. When you look back on the story of your life, what needs to be true for you to feel extremely satisfied with it?

Great, take some notes on this, because you now have a vision.

Step 2: Ground

Ground this vision into your day-to-day life. Here’s how: turn your insights from Step 1 into 5-10 daily questions. Create a scorecard, either on paper or digitally.

On the left, list your 5 to 10 short reflection questions. On the right, create a box where you can score yourself with a simple yes/no or good/bad.

For example: Today, did I spend time on X? Did I do a good job letting go of the little things? Did I train my body? Did I train my mind? Did I do something to nurture a relationship? Did I work on something meaningful? Did I spend too much time distracted? Did I lose my temper?

These can be whatever you want, but they should tie back to the insight you had earlier about what is most important to you.

Now, at the end of each week, you will review that scorecard.

Step 3: Review

Put 15 minutes on your calendar at the end of each week to review how you did.

Here’s a neat discovery I made the other day: there are only five things you can do regarding anything in life. Start, stop, increase, decrease, or sustain (no change).

Look back at your scorecard and ask yourself: do I need to start, stop, increase, decrease, or sustain any elements of my life? What do I need to do to be better next week?

Simply repeat this process for the rest of your life...

This system takes your vision down to the ground level of day-to-day life, continually checking and adjusting. Weeks on track turn into months on track, which turn into years on track, which ultimately turns into living your life on purpose — and avoiding Bronnie‘s list of regrets.

Build the life you want one day at a time, and don’t fall off the beam. You won’t be perfect, but you gotta start somewhere.

Imagine. Ground. Review. Repeat.

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson K

The answer: drugs and alcohol.

(Just kidding.)

In this article, I share three tools to manage your mind that are more concrete and effective than positive thinking.

Imagine. You’re anxious and discouraged because you’re not following through on commitments you’ve made to yourself that are needed to reach your goals. So you say to yourself again and again, “I am the best. I have it all. I am amazing…”

What does your mind say?

“Shut up! You haven’t done crap. What are you talking about?”

Then you’re thinking, wait — why isn’t this working? Your positive thinking is now causing negative thinking. You’re stressed about your stress.

Meanwhile, you haven’t really changed how you relate to yourself or the processing of your perceptions. So, instead, try these mind tools.

1. Act your way into thinking (instead of thinking about acting).

2. Try the Lo-Me-Hi frames so that you see reality as it is (but not worse than it is).

3. Use the self-parenting dynamic.

You’re more likely to act yourself into a new way of thinking than think yourself into a new way of acting.

You can sit around and think and think and think — but the moment you act, it’s real. You need proof. It’s hard to change the mind with the mind, so focus on changing action to change the mind.

For example, when seeking confidence, thinking “be more confident” is less effective than smiling and approaching the situation without hesitation (pretending to be certain). And when seeking composure, thinking “calm down, calm down” is less effective than doing three physiological sighs (google it).

The same holds true for the long term. If you want to be more disciplined, more positive, more social, more spiritual, etc., you are far more likely to make progress by acting a whole bunch than you are by thinking.

Do one thing that makes you uncomfortable every day (discipline). Give one compliment every day (positive). Call/text a friend every day (social). Go for a walk in the woods every day and go to church weekly (spiritual). In each of these cases, acting will change your way of thinking more than thinking will.

As James Clear put it, “choose who you want to be and prove it to yourself with small wins.”

Use the Lo-Me-Hi approach to see reality as it is (but not worse than it is).

Psychologists say explanatory style — e.g., how you explain events — shapes your pessimism versus optimism. In my experience watching my mind, we tend to default to some way-off-track explanations when things happen to us (especially anything emotional).

So try explaining it through three lenses. Lo is the worst possible explanation. Anything bad that happens is because you’re a fat stupid idiot and you deserve it (fun!).

Hi is the ridiculously delusional explanation: that beautiful girl ignored my texts and it’s not because she’s engaged and out of my league, it’s because I am so freaking attractive and cool that I probably scared her off.

Then once you have gotten a good laugh at your own thinking, come back to Me — try to shoot the gap with an explanation that is a bit more aligned with reality.

This helps you to observe your own distorted thinking and renew some sanity.

Try to relate to yourself (your mind) as a parent.

I was coaching a top sales performer. He was hammering himself for getting distracted and not setting boundaries and not being good enough. So, I asked him to think for a second how he would coach, motivate, and discipline his kids?

What if you were to relate to yourself that way in terms of your self-management?

Think about it, even if you don’t have kids, you’ll get it. Imagine your daughter strikes out in her softball game. Do you say, “you dumbsh— why don’t you try opening your eyes next time?!”

Probably not. Now, if you know she didn’t practice at all, you may still challenge her and create discipline. But you are doing it from a place of belief, love, and support. It’s not about pure positivity; it’s high challenge and high support. It’s a loving discipline grounded in unconditional care and respect. That’s unique to parenting.

Contrast that with how we (including myself) normally relate to ourselves (especially when it comes to doing something better).

If you really want a more effective relationship with yourself, be a parent to your mind.

Act your way into thinking. Use Lo-Me-Hi to evoke awareness of your own processing pattern. And bring the loving discipline of a good parent to your mind. Use these tools to navigate your mind a bit more skillfully.

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson K

I also did a reread this year of Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

It’s a gem — both entertaining and instructive. If you’re looking for personal change or to lead change in an organization, I recommend it. You’ll learn the neuroscience by and application of real change.

yrs

Jackson K.

• Remember Charles Duhigg’s Lisa – focus on one transformational keystone habit. For Lisa she set an emotionally compelling future vision to hike through the desert. So, she felt she had to finally quit smoking. This led her to start eating a little healthier, then exercising sometimes. And after a couple years she had lost sixty pounds, run a marathon, and earned her first stable job. The one new habit replaced old ones creating a “keystone” — one habit that has a ripple effect on many other areas.

• Eugene, the amnesia victim, could walk around the block and make himself breakfast because our habits are hard wired into the basal ganglia with no or minimal thinking required.

• Pepsodent is the secret. Before the “tingling” sensation in toothpaste, no one brushed. You must create a craving to drive the cue, routine, reward loop of a habit. You have a simple, obvious cue then a well defined reward, sometimes delivered intermittently, that will code the routine into a habit.

• The key is to preserve the old cue and reward, to the extent possible, but change the routine. For example, AA works by shifting routines for cues and rewards around feelings and drinking.

• Try competing response theory. For example, take an index card and make a checkmark and a note every time you experience a certain craving. Then after that’s done for a few days, replace your current routine with some other stimulation (e.g. instead of checking social media, go for a 7 minute walk). Make a star each time you successfully override the old habit with a new one. This essentially works on building awareness and recognition first, so that you can then reshape your response.

Read more

David Allen said “the mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

Einstein said “the mind is used to think, pen and paper is used to write things down that we need to remember.”

I’ve come to believe the biggest source of stress and burnout is not even always necessarily the amount of work tasks. But it’s the cognitive load of keeping all of it in your head.

Imagine you have 100 pounds of dirt that you need to move from one end of a field to another. You can try piling it all into your arms or in your pockets or carrying it on your back in a big sack. That’s gonna be a lot of work. Alternatively, you can take a small handful. Run it to one of the field would run it back and do that a million times. An ideal alternative would be to use a wheelbarrow to bring the loads of dirt to the under end of the field. Think about what you’re doing you’re moving the same amount the same distance, but you’re using an external tool to bear the load.

Now apply that thinking to the cognitive load of all your various tasks. You need to build a personal operating system (pOS) that gets things out of your head and into a usable rhythm that will help you shift from reactive to proactive work. If you feel yourself overwhelmed, and putting out fires all day, unable to focus on the long-term strategic things that really matter, this is for you.

Here it is as in the simplest form possible. You need a project / priorities list for bigger ongoing initiatives and goals. You need an actions list of single concrete steps. And you need a waiting for list which is where you capture things that you are waiting on from others.

At the end of each workday (or later in the evening) take 15 minutes blocked on your calendar. During that time you’re going to look at these lists. Then you’re going to pick the 3-5 most important things you need to do the next day. Then you’re going to estimate how long each one will take leaving at least a 15 minute cushion because we have a tendency to underestimate things. Then put those into your calendar as appointments with yourself. Caution here, do not give yourself seven hours worth of pre-planned tasks. That is unrealistic.

The idea here is maybe the first 3-5 hours of your day will be proactively planned leaving sufficient white space to react to unexpected and urgent things that come up later on. Now, here is the beauty of the system, when your workday starts instead of feeling scattered and overwhelmed with 1 million different things to choose from and incoming things to react to. You honor the commitment you made to yourself to work on the three most important things. Then if you get through them and still have white space, the beauty of it is, you can look back at your list of priorities and actions and identify what is most important for you to do.

This creates a personal operating system instead of keeping everything in your head.

You can of course extend a couple additional life or well-being related tasks such as “go for a walk after work” or “call my friend Josh”.

Try this out and let me know what you think!

Or… You can reply or go here to meet with me and talk through it because I’m turning this into my first signature coaching program: » Personal Operating System «

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson K.

Why this book?

Well, there's compelling research I've shared before that relationships really are the most important variable for your quality of life. So, it's not a big leap to say a book that makes you immensely more effective in dealing with people would be essential reading when it comes to happiness.

This book, more than anything else, helped reform me from a stubborn, argumentative, a**hole to a relatively tolerable social companion (although I still relapse on occasion).

Please enjoy this shorthand notes summary of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People…

Above all else…

1. Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain. Consider all the criminals who thought they were in the right. Consider lessons from Lincoln and Franklin. And remember the father forgets. Dr. Johnson says “God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?”

2. Give honest and sincere appreciation. The deepest desire is to be important. Charles Schwab, the first man to make a $1 million salary as the president US Steel said, “I consider my ability to arise enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticism from superiors… I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.”

3. Instill in the other person an eager want. Henry Ford said, “If there is one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person‘s point of view and see things from that person‘s angle, as well as from your own.”

Win friends.

1. Become genuinely interested in other people. Remember the chain stored debate — a salesman who hated chainstores ended up selling a national account by going to their owner and listening to him defend their merits. Dogs are the greatest teachers of this.

2. Smile. This can transform your day.

3. Know their name. A person’s name is to them the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Remember the Pullman Palace car company example from Andrew Carnegie.

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Here are the summary notes from my reread of Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s one of the classics in my “happiness library” as ultimately happiness (in its many forms) is an output that comes from lifestyle ingredients. And your lifestyle is essentially a culmination of your habits.

Although — yes to the counterpoint — that sometimes awful sh*t happens to you too.

What’s one habit you can create or eliminate for your happiness?

yrs,

Jackson K.

• What if you got 1% happier every day? In about 75 days you’d be twice as happy…

• The secret to so much of life is compounding. Can one dollar make you rich? Can one night of not brushing your teeth make them fall out? The answer, somewhat paradoxically, is yes.

• Focus on your trajectory more than your results.

• Cancer spends 80% of its life dormant and Bamboo is invisible for five years. Momentum builds up then it hits a threshold of visibility, like ice melting at 32°.

• Focus on systems (inputs) more than goals (outputs).

• Change will flow from identity (beliefs, world, views, self image, judgments, etc.) to behaviors (systems) to results. Right now, decide who you want to be and prove it with your habits.

• Cue leads to craving leads to response leads to rewards then repeat — that’s a habit.

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We’ll cover the science in a moment. But consider this – it’s a Sunday afternoon and you’re out on a beautiful fall hike with some friends or family by the lake. You take a seat by the edge of the water and take in the sun, breeze, and blue sky. How are you feeling at that moment?

There are exceptions to the rule. But odds are you feel pretty darn good, or at the very least, alright. But alright in the real sense, as in “all is right.”

I often wonder, is our increasing separation from nature the problem – so to speak?

Perhaps a lack of connection to nature is responsible, at least in part, for our present-day issues with chronic illness and mental health issues.

In Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature, Micah Mortali argues that a disconnect from nature is a disconnect from our nature. It may be that much of this sort of psychological discomfort is born out of a desire to get out of the world of abstraction and mental over-stimulation and into the embodied experience of being interwoven with the natural world.

He uses terms like inter-species loneliness, ecological boredom, and life force deficit to describe the impact of the lost connection with nature. In my words, it’s the “SeaWorld Effect.” There are many stories of the highly intelligent orca whale captured to live out its life in a small, artificial pool forced to entertain crowds. Most of these stories go on with the whales beginning to exhibit psychosis, depression, and their fins becoming so atrophied that it flops over to one side. In some cases, the whales resort to ramming themselves headlong into the walls of the enclosure or lashing out violently against their trainers.

Now, at this point, you may be thinking – “depressed whales, ecological boredom, and – did he just say life force?”

I’m not going to argue that this last paragraph is a totally scientific presentation (although there’s research to come). But it is worth considering the old Yogi Berra saying – “you can observe a lot by watching.”

We are not separate from nature; we come from nature. We are nature. For 99.5% of our species’ history, we lived embedded in the natural world. We actively participated in the community of species in our ecosystems, we were constantly engaged in tasks that were tangible, and easy to get absorbed in: hunting, trapping, foraging (as opposed to staring at spreadsheets). And the natural world was the driving force of our daily life, social life, and spiritual life.

So, like the proverbial “fish out of water” – isn’t it quite possible that this disconnect can lead to what we can only refer to as “nature deficit disorder” with symptoms such as longing, loneliness, boredom, angst, and feeling like we’ve lost touch with the sort of life force?

In Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology Theodore Roszak makes this same case. Roszak writes – “What the modern cultural environment has required of us is an enormous extroversion of attention and energy for the purpose of reshaping the Earth into a global industrial economy. For two centuries we have been subordinating the planet and our deepest personal needs to that project. This great act of collective alienation, I have suggested, lies at the root of both the environmental crisis and individual neurosis. In some way, at some point, a change of direction, a therapeutic turning inward, had to take place within a culture as maniacally driven as ours has been by the need to achieve and conquer.”

Suffice to say there’s an argument to be made for looking to the natural world when it comes to understanding what is not going so well and what could make us healthier. That’s where the research comes in.

There is an emerging arrow of research suggesting that nature can heal and sustain when it comes to well-being.

Forest bathing, also known as Shinrin-yoku or forest therapy, has been extensively examined in scientific literature for its role in enhancing both physical and psychological health. A meta-analysis conducted in 2017, which reviewed 64 papers, found that forest-based interventions benefit cardiovascular health, bolster the immune system, and improve mental health by alleviating stress, depression, anxiety, and negative emotions. (1)

A 2022 meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found that forest therapy produced a significant reduction in symptoms of depression. (2) Another meta-analysis from the same year reported large and statistically significant improvements in mental health, particularly for anxiety and depression outcomes. (3)

Additionally, a 2019 meta-analysis focusing on cortisol – a biomarker of stress – found that forest bathing significantly lowered salivary cortisol levels compared to urban control settings, suggesting a robust short-term stress reduction effect. (4) A further review of urban residents, pooling 21 studies on blood pressure and 13 on cortisol, confirmed that forest therapy significantly reduces both blood pressure and stress, though results showed considerable variability. (5)

Taken together, the evidence suggests that nature immersion, particularly through forest-based activities, can act as a non-pharmacological intervention to support well-being. These interventions yield measurable psychological benefits like improved mood and reduced anxiety and depression as well as physiological gains like lowered stress hormones and enhanced cardiovascular function.

That said, researchers emphasize that differences in intervention type, duration, participant characteristics, and environmental context contribute to differences in outcomes. This underscores the need for more standardized, rigorously designed trials. But the existing body of research strongly supports nature as a reliable pathway to improved happiness and health.

For a deeper look into the research literature, visit: anft.earth/research/.

Application: Practices for Connecting with Nature

Again, drawing from Micah Mortali’s work in Rewilding, these are 10 steps to incorporate the natural world into your mindfulness, spiritual, or health practice.

If you live in a rural area, consider a short daily practice. If your location or schedule does not permit, start with a couple hours per week in a green space.

1. Intimacy – Get to know the land through first-hand experience. Simply spending time in a natural environment consistently can deepen your connection to nature.

2. Centering – Try to slow down, limit distractions, and give yourself permission to be without having to do anything.

3. Breathing – Practice some form of conscious breathing to reconnect with the present. The simplest practice is “breathing in I, know I am breathing in; breathing out, I know I am breathing out.”

4. Gratitude – Adopt an attitude of thankfulness for this moment, this experience, and this opportunity to be at home in nature.

5. Embodiment – Consider some intentional movements or warm ups to get out of your head (thoughts) and into your body and senses. You can gently circle your neck followed by your shoulders, arms, torso twists, hip circles, knee circles, then rolling your ankles. Smile.

6. “Fox Walk” – Try mindful walking. Imagine creeping through the forest like a mountain lion or fox. Feel into each and every step. Notice your body and surroundings as you go. Try it barefoot if able.

7. Sensory Expansion – There is an Eastern term called “samyama” which is a psychological state of absorption. It feels as though you have sort of dissolved into the present moment. Tap into the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations around you.

8. Sit Spot – Find a spot to sit down on the ground, on a log, on a bench, etc., and just sit as you savor the nature around you.

9. Bush Craft – As you go deeper into nature-related practices consider adopting a craft or hobby like woodworking, building shelters, fire making, etc.

10. Fire Circle – Get outdoors in this intentional style with a group of family or friends. Sit in a circle and enjoy one another’s company.

In summary, get outside. Bring intention to your time in nature – to rest, recover, and reconnect with your experience of the natural world. You’ll be happy you did.

1. Song, C., Ikei, H., & Miyazaki, Y. (2016). Physiological effects of nature therapy: A review of the research in Japan. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 13(8), 781.

2. Hansen, M. M., Jones, R., & Tocchini, K. (2017). Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) and nature therapy: A state-of-the-art review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(8), 851.

3. Kotera, Y., Richardson, M., & Sheffield, D. (2022). Effects of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) and nature therapy on mental health: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 934441.

4. Antonelli, M., Barbieri, G., & Donelli, D. (2019). Effects of forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) on levels of cortisol as a stress biomarker: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Biometeorology, 63(8), 1117–1134.

5. Song, Y., et al. (2022). The effects of forest therapy on blood pressure and stress hormone levels in urban residents: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15), 9203.

“On my appointment to the Dept. of Sociology established at the University of Bielefeld in 1969, I was asked what research projects I had running. My project was, and ever since has been, the theory of society; term: thirty years; costs: none.” — Niklas Luhmann

As I set out to create this resource, my project has been, and will continue to be, the theory of happiness; term: lifetime; costs: (almost) none.

Here’s the key question behind this work: why?

What a sophisticated question… Why do we do what we do? Why do we want what we want? Why are we here?

Well, maybe that why question is pretty important after all.

I suggest that the “answer” is always happiness.

In some way, shape, or form, we want things because we think they will make us feel good, avoid feeling pain, or survive (you can’t be happy if you’re dead). We do things to pursue these wants or to avoid the things we don’t want. We are here to survive which consists of avoiding danger and suffering (for the most part) and moving towards positive outcomes.

In other words, it’s all about happiness. No, this doesn’t necessarily mean highs and goofy smiles all the time. There is a place for sacrifice, meaning, and discipline in all this (more on that later).

But the point of this initial commentary is to say, of all the things to study, this seems to be life’s most important subject. For if you have mastery of anything else — business, biology, physics, music, etc. — but not happiness, then you will always need something more. But if you have mastery of happiness, then you will need nothing.

This resource is inspired by the Personal MBA and the Andy M. notes system. My goal is to create an encyclopedic scaffolding to capture the “how of happiness”.

I hope this work serves you well…

Jackson K.

Overview

Biology (Physical Health)

Psychology (Mental Health)

Relationships (Social Health)

Work & Money

Miscellaneous

TBD…

When Nicholas said this, he was talking about refining your intellectual perspective as you become a writer. He didn’t realize he stumbled upon some brilliant life advice.

Most people don’t appreciate the full meaning of our species’ name: Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Homo Sapien means “knowing man” or “wise man.” So homo sapiens sapiens is something like “man who knows he knows” or “man aware of being aware.”

This is called metacognition – awareness, observation, and understanding of one’s own cognitive processes. This is important because it helps us to identify and subsequently exert more control over the psychological states that we inhabit.

To this point, Buddhism has a useful bit of terminology. I read that in many Buddhist-influenced languages (like Tibetan), they often don’t have words equivalent to what we would call “emotion” or “thought”. Instead they have a term that is something like “mental formation.” This is an occurrence or manifestation of mindstuff so to speak. It acknowledges that pretty much every thought is imbued with emotion and every emotion imbued with thought. The modern psychological counterpart to this parlance is what we might call mental patterns.

Psychologist Dick Schwartz explains mental patterns are more than just thoughts; they are “discrete clusters of related mental processes” that link together memories, emotions, perceptions, and behaviors.

These mental formations and mental patterns that create our perception are not so easy to control or shut off. So the important thing is to be able to step back and hold them in awareness. Another meditation analogy is the mindstuff being a waterfall and this awareness being the small space behind the waterfall.

Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh shares a story about the importance of bringing awareness to these perceptions.

There was a young married couple in Vietnam who just had a baby.

Sadly, the husband was drafted and had to serve for three years. When he came back from the war he was so happy to be reunited with his beloved. She greeted him at the door with their young child in her arms. They were full of love and happiness.

That day they went to the market. While they were there, the dad was surprised because his young child would not call him “dad”. The child said, “You are not my dad. My dad comes home every night. He sits with mom on the bed and they cry together. Then when mom lies down they lie down together.”

In just that moment, the dad’s heart sank to his shoes. He was in disbelief. He did not talk to his wife.

They returned home from the market and he would not even look at her. They never spoke. He left home and drowned his sorrows at the bar.

And on the fourth day, overwhelmed with grief, his wife threw herself into the river.

When he heard the news he returned home that night. He lit a lamp in his child’s room. The child shouted out – “there, there is my dad!” and pointed to the shadow on the wall.

“Dad comes home every night. He sits with mom on the bed and they cry together. Then when mom lies down they lie down together.”

This illustrates the suffering that can come from failing to see mental formations and patterns for what they are: creations of the mind.

Thich Nhat Hanh claims that the Buddha said to ask yourself, “Are you sure of your perceptions?” He suggests you write it down on a card and post it somewhere where you see it every day.

As is often the case, I find it interesting that modern psychology aligns with this ancient contemplative practice.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a form of psychological treatment that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug use problems, marital problems, eating disorders, and severe mental illness. (1) Many studies suggest CBT leads to improvement in functioning and quality of life – in many cases it is as effective as, or more effective than, other forms of therapy or psychiatric medications.

The first principle of CBT is psychological problems are based, at least in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking that lead to learned patterns of unhelpful behavior. These biases and faults in our thinking are called cognitive distortions. So treatment usually consists of efforts to identify and reconcile cognitive distortions. Recall, thinking about your thinking as I shared at the outset. The key is learning to recognize one’s cognitive distortions, reevaluate them in light of reality, and reshape them as needed to move forward.

So it goes that if we can identify cognitive distortions, we are on our way to more happiness.

It turns out there are many universal cognitive distortions: common mental formations and patterns that cause you to perceive reality inaccurately. To that end I’ll present to you a brief “glossary of misery” – the most common cognitive distortions to look out for. This comes from David Burns, MD – a renowned expert on mental health treatment. (2)

1. Jumping to Conclusions – You assume something negative or positive without real evidence. This distortion comes in two common forms:

   1. Mind-Reading: You assume you know what others are thinking or feeling.

      1. Negative Example: You’re at a party feeling shy and think, “Everyone can tell how awkward I am. They’re judging me.”

      2. Positive Example: You assume a relationship is going great, even though the other person is secretly frustrated or pulling away.

   2. Fortune-Telling: You predict the future as if it’s guaranteed.

      1. Negative Example: “I’ll bomb my presentation. I just know I’ll freeze up.”

      2. Positive Example: “I’ll just have one drink or one cookie — I can stop there.” But your past behavior shows you usually don’t.
         

2. All-or-Nothing Thinking – You view situations in extreme, black-and-white categories. There’s no room for nuance or “gray areas.”

   1. Negative Example: “I missed one deadline — I’m a total failure at my job.”

   2. Positive Example: “I nailed that project — I’m unstoppable!” You may feel superior or inferior in ways that aren’t realistic or sustainable.
      

3. Overgeneralization – You draw sweeping conclusions based on a single event. One bad moment becomes a sign of an ongoing pattern.

   1. Negative Example: “They didn’t text back — nobody ever likes me. I’m always getting ignored.”

   2. Positive Example: You feel good for a few days and think, “I’m finally cured! I’ll feel this way forever.” You ignore the ups and downs of real life.
      

4. Labeling – Instead of describing behavior, you assign global, negative or positive labels to yourself or others.

   1. Negative Example: “I gave into temptation — I’m a loser with no discipline.”

   2. Positive Example: “I won that board game — I’m such a genius!” This may sound harmless, but it can lead to issues with egotism.
      

5. Emotional Reasoning – You treat your feelings as evidence for the truth. But feelings are often based on distorted thoughts, not reality.

   1. Negative Example: “I feel hopeless — that must mean things really are hopeless.”

   2. Positive Example: “I feel lucky — I just know I’m going to win big tonight at the casino.” Emotions drive your assessments instead of facts.
      

6. Should Statements – You push yourself or others with rigid expectations and rules. These “shoulds” often lead to guilt, resentment, or frustration.

   1. Self-Directed Shoulds

      1. Negative Example: “I should be more productive — what’s wrong with me?”

      2. Positive Example: “I deserve a drink — I’ve had a hard day.” You justify indulgence as a reward, even if it backfires.

   2. Other-Directed Shoulds:

      1. Negative Example: “That guy shouldn’t cut me off in traffic! I’ll show him.”

      2. Positive Example: “People should see things my way — I have the right values.”

   3. World-Directed Shoulds:

      1. Negative Example: “It shouldn’t be raining — this ruins everything.”

      2. Positive Example: “The world should work how I expect it to.”
         

7. Discounting the Facts – You dismiss evidence that doesn’t support your belief, whether it’s good or bad.

   1. Negative Example: You receive a compliment and think, “They’re just being nice — they don’t mean it.”

   2. Positive Example: “I’ll only have one bite” — even though this story has never ended with just one bite.
      

8. Magnification and Minimization – You blow things out of proportion or shrink them down inappropriately.

   1. Negative Example: Looking at your to-do list, you think, “This is impossible! I’ll never get it done.” Everything feels overwhelming.

   2. Positive Example: When tempted to eat ice cream while dieting, you think, “This will taste amazing — totally worth it.” You minimize the guilt and discomfort that usually follow.
      

9. Mental Filter – You fixate on one aspect of reality, good or bad, and ignore the rest.

   1. Negative Example: A speaker receives 99 compliments and one critique. They obsess over the single negative comment and ignore the good.

   2. Positive Example: “This person I have a crush on is so perfect,” you overlook some potential problematic parts of the relationship.
      

10. Blame – You assign fault entirely to yourself or someone else, overlooking complexity.

    1. Negative Example (Self-Blame): “It’s all my fault. I mess everything up.” You punish yourself instead of solving the problem.

    2. Positive Example (Other-Blame): “This fight is all their fault — I did nothing wrong.” You feel like the victim and don’t take accountability for your part.

Use your metacognition to bring awareness to your mental formations and patterns, looking out for the common cognitive distortions. Can you notice any of them at play?

Practice this, and you may find more peace of mind and peace from mind.

1. American Psychological Association. (n.d.). What is cognitive behavioral therapy?

2. Find his work at FeelingGood.com

This refers to a state that is not necessarily “good or bad” but more a feeling of absorption. When you become one with your activity, time slips away, and you lose your sense of “self” – this is flow.

And it seems this, too, brings happiness…

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist who pioneered the concept of flow states. (1)

He grew up in war-torn Europe, where he observed that many adults were unable to live meaningful, happy lives after losing their jobs, homes, and security during World War II. This early experience led him to ask what makes life worth living. He explored philosophy, religion, and the arts but eventually discovered psychology, almost by accident, after attending a lecture by Carl Jung in Switzerland.

Early in his research, he made a surprising discovery. While material wealth has dramatically increased in the U.S. since the 1950s, levels of happiness have not. Once basic needs are met, further material gain does not seem to significantly increase well-being. Realizing this, Csikszentmihalyi turned his research toward moments in everyday life when people feel truly happy. He began by interviewing creative professionals – composers, artists, scientists, etc. – who described moments of deep engagement in their work. Their testimonies didn’t highlight fame or fortune but emphasized that the activity itself felt intrinsically meaningful and satisfying.

He found that during these moments, people often described a feeling of “ecstasy” – not in the euphoric sense, but in the original Greek meaning: stepping outside oneself.

This led him to outline the concept of the flow state – an immersive state wherein one dissolves into their present activity. When in flow, attention is so fully absorbed in the activity that you lose awareness of time, self, and even bodily needs. The composer he interviewed said it felt as if his hand moved by itself as he led the orchestra. Csikszentmihalyi explains this neurologically: our brain can only process about 110 bits of information per second, so when we’re deeply focused, there’s simply no bandwidth left to be self-conscious.

Flow isn’t limited to artists. Athletes, executives, writers, monks, and even friends in good conversation may experience similar states. Across professions and cultures, Csikszentmihalyi found that flow arises when seven conditions are met:

1. intense focus (often leading to an altered perception of time),

2. a merging of action and awareness,

3. loss of self-consciousness,

4. a sense of control,

5. clear goals,

6. immediate feedback,

7. and a balance between challenge and skill.

Think of playing your favorite sport against a gold medalist or a 5-year-old (neither is very engaging). But if you have the right balance, you are getting immediate feedback (based on the score and the movements of the other player). You have clear goals (e.g., score points), a sense of control, loss of self-consciousness (e.g., you’re focused on hitting the ball), and a merging of action and awareness with intense focus. Finally, the activity is rewarding in and of itself.

He suggests that one path to happiness is structuring more of daily life so it falls within the “flow channel.” This requires increasing our skills or taking on greater challenges so that our attention is fully engaged. It may also mean setting aside time for creative works, hobbies, and activities that pull you into a state of absorption.

1. See his TED talk: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004, February). Flow, the secret to happiness

“The truth is what works.” — William James

I’m not going to tell you which religion, faith, or spirituality is right for you. But I will tell you, to maximize happiness, you should have some.

If you’re skeptical, please read on.

Research reporting from the Harvard Human Flourishing Program makes a compelling case for the role of faith in happiness.

Large longitudinal studies suggest that religious service attendance has numerous positive effects on well-being such as reductions in all-cause mortality, depression, suicide, and more. (1)

These findings are supported by several meta-analyses including a 2022 project by researchers at the Human Flourishing Program and the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion at Harvard, under the leadership of Dr. Tracy Balboni. Their systematic review of the relationship between religion and health was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It showed religious participation was beneficial with respect to longevity, depression, suicide, smoking, drug use, alcohol abuse, and various aspects of quality of life and well-being. (2)

Beyond this research, we can look to some more anecdotal accounts from giants of psychology who seem to have observed a similar picture. In How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie cited psychologists Carl Jung and William James as advocates for faith, spirituality, or religion in the good life.

William James said that “faith is one of the forces by which men live.” In his Varieties of Religious Experience he proposes that believing in something, especially one’s ability to achieve a difficult task, can actually help make it true. He believed that faith can motivate individuals to take action, persevere through challenges, and, in doing so, create the very outcomes they envisioned. He also argued that faith, particularly religious faith, could be a powerful motivator for ethical and moral action.

Above all, he ascribed a pragmatic value to faith, spirituality, and religious practice: that it is not necessarily an end in itself (although, if you are a devout believer, it may be), but it is an end to something else: namely, a better life. James observed that it bore beneficial “fruits” – like sense of purpose, contentment, resilience in suffering, and a greater tendency for moral action.

Along those same lines, Carl Jung observed that he had treated hundreds of patients for psychological issues, and the common root of their pathology was lacking a spiritual or religious orientation towards the world. And the common denominator of all those who made a recovery was adopting such an orientation.

So, again, I do not want to prescribe to you a certain religion, creed, or tradition. Our discussion simply centers on research and expert experience that suggest that religion is a useful “tool” in cultivating happiness.

So perhaps “tool” is a good word. I don’t say that in a condescending way. But in the same way that a business philosophy can be a tool for navigating an economic environment. Or the same way a map can help you arrive at a destination. Perhaps a religion, spiritual tradition, or sort of faith can be a psychological buffer and – especially if you have some organized, faith-based community around it – a relationship-building mechanism to promote a better life.

In today’s world, many of us de facto worship cultural values, political ideals, and what we see as objective facts. For many, money, power, status, political dogma, etc. have become their religion.

David Foster Wallace illustrates this point brilliantly in This is Water.

[I]n the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.

The problem is these secular ideals, as David Foster Wallace points out, often lead us down fruitless rabbit holes, and they don’t have a lot to say about how we should behave or our place in the universe. Perhaps our sort of “secular toolkit” is incomplete.

When it comes to a religious, spiritual, or faith-based orientation, we need not know completely why or how it works, simply that it does. But I wager there are some real practical, tangible mechanisms at work here.

First, faith may help you to bear the burdens of life. Rather than you shouldering the weight of suffering yourself, it gives you a broader psychological base to find meaning in it, fight through it, or come to peace with it. In many cases it gives you a sense of relief in turning over those burdens to some greater operative force.

Secondly, humans are meant for connection. On a practical level, faith-based communities and institutions create a pretext of shared values and activities to promote social connection. Even if you just went to a weekly AA meeting or a happiness book club once per week, there is some value in simply having the structured facilitation of social connect. Further, if you are in touch with a greater being of the universe you will have a means of overcoming loneliness and the fear that comes from the absurdity of contemplating being alone in the infinite expanse of space. There is no need to feel alone when you are one with “God”, “the creator”, “the essence”, “divine love”, or whatever you wish to call it.

Finally, I reckon humans are the only living beings that are able to thoroughly conceptualize the future and the concept of self-identity. This gives us the uniquely terrible privilege of being acutely aware of our own mortality. How can one cope with such an absurd predicament as being alive, aware of being alive, and aware that this aliveness will soon end? It is like a fish trapped in a small puddle under the bright sun. Faith in some divine order may offer a way of coping with this.

To close, I’ll offer a broader perspective on faith. If you have the faith of your youth or some tradition (Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto, etc.) that is all well and good. I encourage you to practice it with sincerity and within an organized community of some sort.

If not, perhaps you can carve out some philosophy or thesis that fulfills the following requirements:

• (I) you have trust in some higher order power that helps you to cope with lived experiences and feel at peace with your mortality and the many inherent absurdities of the human experience

• (II) you have some shared identity and structure to facilitate quality social connection

• (III) you have some system for morality and ethical action including what you de facto “worship” and ascribe value to in your daily life

You may consider the universe itself as your God. Or perhaps to you the laws of mathematics or physics have some divine power in them. Or maybe deep ecology which ascribes almost a spiritual bent to our place on planet earth.

I’ll leave you with a final thought from Suzuki Roshi who offers a beautiful passage in Zen Mind Beginners Mind. He talks about believing in nothing.

I found out that it’s necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. We have to believe in something which has no form, or no color. Something that exists before any form and colors appear. This is a very important point. Whatever we believe in – whatever god we believe in – when we become attached to it, it means our belief is based on a more or less self-centered idea. If so, it takes time to acquire -- to attain perfect belief, or perfect faith in it. But if you are always prepared for accepting everything which we see is appearing from nothing, and we think there is some reason why some form or color or phenomenal existence appears, then, at that moment, we have perfect composure.

Ultimately, we have all come out of nothing. Infinite forms come out of the vast darkness of space to manifest galaxies. The carbon atoms that compose our bodies were born in the hearts of stars billions of years ago. The words that you’re reading now flowed out of the emptiness of my mind and are now a flashing into your consciousness – reaching out across time and space.

Perhaps you can touch the inherent mysticism, grace, or wonder of beingness. Perhaps the universe itself has some element of what we may call divine or God. And considering this, know that you are the universe too. What else could you be?

You are the universe experiencing itself. And that insight alone may be what faith is all about.

1. Sacks, C. A., et al. (2016). Association between religious service attendance and lower suicide rates among U.S. women. JAMA Internal Medicine, 176(8), 1219–1220. | Kim, E. S., & Kawachi, I. (2016). Perceived neighborhood social cohesion and preventive healthcare use. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 50(6), 876–885. | VanderWeele, T. J., Li, S., Tsai, A. C., & Kawachi, I. (2016). Association between religious service attendance and lower depression among U.S. women. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(8), 845–851. | Stavrova, O. (2020). Religious attendance and physical health: Evidence from a longitudinal study of middle-aged and older Europeans. International Journal of Epidemiology, 49(6), 2030–2038.

2. Balboni, T. A., VanderWeele, T. J., Doan‑Soares, S. D., Long, K. N. G., Ferrell, B. R., Fitchett, G., … Koh, H. K. (2022, July 12). Spirituality in serious illness and health: A systematic review and expert consensus. JAMA, 328(2), 184–197.

This time period includes…

• living with Zen monks for four months

• creating the world’s first major in happiness

• teaching the first course on happiness at the University of Alabama

• teaching thousands of people about happiness from elite special forces operators to high schoolers, truck drivers, and lawyers

• and taking in 1000s of hours of books, articles, lectures, and courses

Below you’ll find an excerpt and a link to order the book — if the spirit moves you!

Prologue: A Short Introduction to a Short Book

The world probably doesn’t need another book on happiness, so I decided to write one.

What a brilliant opening line that is! Let me explain. In the last 20 years there has been an explosion of scientific research into happiness and a simultaneous, much much larger, explosion of random hacks’ and gurus’ two cents on happiness.

In fact, there are ~ 20,000 results on Amazon with Happiness as a keyword or part of the title.

What you have here is the world’s shortest book on happiness.

You can look it up in the Guinness Book of World Records and the Global Institute of Research and Publications (GIRP). I’m kidding – GIRP is an institution that I made up and Guinness has more important things to verify like most piercings (Elaine Davidson, lifetime total of 4,225) and fastest time to assemble a Mr. Potato Head while blindfolded (9.27 seconds by Lim Kai Yi).

My intention is to take my last five years of immersive study of happiness and give you the essential “stuff” as it were, in as few words as possible.

This study included creating the world’s first major in Happiness through an interdisciplinary bachelor’s program at the University of Alabama; reading 100s of books and countless other articles and research papers, winning a lightbulb research grant, teaching the first course on happiness in school history, living for four months as a Zen monk, building well-being and culture change programs for the US military, and speaking and consulting on employee happiness for 100s of associations and companies across North America.

This earned me the title of “happiness nerd” by an unassuming Canadian radio host who didn’t know what else to call me. I have not since found a better title.

That said, I don’t plan to invite you to my “cult of the expert” – I consider myself to be a student – a lifelong student of happiness. My invitation is that you’ll join me as a student and take a brief (but thorough) study of life’s most important subject: Happiness.

Let’s start there: why is happiness life’s most important subject?…

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The Secret to Happiness…

In keeping with the spirit of this book I thought I’d try to give you the secret to happiness in the first couple pages. I came across this story while living at the Zen monastery. If you find this valuable, you may want to read the rest of this book…

A young monk set out to learn the secret of Happiness from the wisest Zen master in the land. He traveled for weeks, crossing mountains and streams, until he reached a great temple.

Upon arriving he found a vibrant scene: monks sweeping the halls, visitors sharing tea and stories, birds singing in the garden, and the fragrance of fresh incense drifting through the air.

The Zen master was speaking calmly with a group of guests, and the young seeker had to wait for three hours before being granted an audience.

When at last he sat before the master, he explained why he had come. The master listened kindly but said that now was not the right moment to teach him about Happiness.

Instead, he handed the seeker a pair of chopsticks. Between them, he delicately placed a single grain of rice.

“Explore the temple and come back in a few hours” said the master. “But I ask one thing of you: do not drop this grain of rice.”

The young seeker bowed and set off, eyes fixed on the chopsticks. He moved carefully along stone paths, through breezeways and halls, up and down the steps, never looking away from the grain of rice. After some time, he returned to the master.

“So,” asked the master, “did you see the rock garden raked just this morning? Did you see the painted scrolls in the hall of ancestors? Did you hear the wind chime in the cedar tree?”

The seeker blushed. He had seen none of these things. His only thought had been not to drop the grain of rice.

“Then go again,” said the master gently. “But this time, notice the world unfolding around you in all its grace and wonder.”

Feeling calmer, the seeker bowed once more and walked again through the temple. This time he noticed the beauty around him—the care in the arrangement of flowers, the slow ripple of waves in the pond, the way the light filtered through old wooden beams. When he returned, his eyes shone with wonder, and he eagerly described what he had seen.

The master smiled, but said, “And the grain of rice?”

Looking down, the seeker saw his chopsticks were empty.

“That,” said the Zen master, “is the only teaching I have for you. The way of Happiness is to experience the beauty of the world in this moment — without ever forgetting the grain of rice between your chopsticks.”

This represents the nonduality of happiness. Can you work towards happiness tomorrow without sacrificing your happiness today? Can you live with the intention to build the life you want but pay attention to the life you have? Can you progress towards the destination that matters most to you: your life tasks – and still savor the journey?

This is the way of Happiness.

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Order a copy in print, digital, or audio: https://a.co/d/01KDpYTW

“Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.” – Hunter S. Thompson

What leads to happiness at work?

This is a big question to unpack, and it overlaps significantly with the psychology section covered before – particularly the part on meaning and achievement. Further, the relationships section we’ve covered applies duly to your work life. But given work plays such a prominent role in modern life, I wanted to share a model that applies specifically to the workplace.

“Follow your passion” is probably bad advice. I first read this in the work of computer science professor turned productivity expert Cal Newport. He makes his case through the lens of Steve Jobs. You probably think Steve was passionate about technology and innovation. But his early life suggests this was not necessarily the case. He studied dance and history at a liberal arts college and bummed around studying Eastern mysticism. In the end, he tried to make a couple thousand bucks flipping switchboards as a side hustle. Thus, he stumbled upon the opportunity to start a company based on the idea that computers would become household appliances. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Cal’s research into what passionate people do for a living suggests this is more common. One begins seeking and learning by doing (as opposed to identifying one’s passion in the abstract) and eventually develops a valuable skill. This skill is then used as leverage to create ideal circumstances.

The problem with passion is illustrated by a survey given by psychologist Robert Vallerand to 549 Canadian college students in 2002. Many didn’t have a clear “passion,” and only 4% of them had a passion that related to a career field. The number one passion in the group was hockey. Planning to become an NHL player is not a great career plan.

So, I – and Cal Newport – suggest a better approach is identifying ideal circumstances for happy-making work and doing what you can to develop your skillset and align your profession with that.

Likely the most established construct of job satisfaction is Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

SDT is about autonomy, competency, and relatedness. This means having flexibility and ownership over your work and success, the capacity to make an impact and experience growth, and feeling trust and connection to those you serve in your work.

So, perhaps Cal’s advice is astute for most of us: don’t follow your passion. Become “so good they can’t ignore you,” and use that “career capital” to create a work life that has ideal circumstances.

Before I totally throw away the “follow your bliss” mentality, though, I’ll share a slightly more nuanced perspective. If you have a passion that is economically viable, then by all means pursue it. If you have that calling but it is not economically viable, then embrace a career that maximizes your free time so you can do more of that thing.

Otherwise, consider trying to maximize the circumstances above: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Instead of thinking, “How much money can I make?” think, “What is the path with the most autonomy, competence, and relatedness that I can take to get the amount of money I need?”

One of my favorite career stories is a healthcare consultant who, every time he was due for a raise, just asked for the same percent reduced hours (e.g., instead of a 10% raise, how about 10% fewer hours). He now makes a good chunk of coin working remotely 3–4 hours per day on specialized internal projects that he finds interesting. See what he did there? He traded money for autonomy (more free time), competence (choosing his specialization of interest), and relatedness (working with an internal team instead of new clients every month).

Another example is a friend of a friend who loves to write poetry. He could have slogged along trying to become a full-time professional poet in 2025 (a feat that is, I assume, impossible). Or he could have sold out and given it up. Instead, he works as a high-level freelance corporate lawyer part-time and spends about 15-20 hours per week writing poems on his own terms.

So, consider grounding your big career decisions using the SDT scorecard…

• Will this work arrangement afford me freedom and flexibility? Will I get ownership over results as opposed to being micromanaged? Give it a 1 to 10 for Autonomy.

• Will this work arrangement align with what I’m good at and lead to tangible impact? Will I grow and develop in it? Give it a 1 to 10 for Competence.

• Will this work arrangement involve people who are trusting, caring, and social? Will I feel I am of service? Give it a 1 to 10 for Relatedness.

• Will this work arrangement give me the compensation and benefits I desire? Give it a 1 to 10 for compensation.

• (Add any other factors you want to score.)

Aim for jobs that are above a 28, and try to continuously make that number go up. Then, for example, once you get really high up on, say, two of the categories – you have great friends at work and they pay you a ton – you can start to focus on the other variables. Could you work from home two days per week for more autonomy? Could you jump into a new functional area that would allow you to grow and have more of an impact? And so on.

Of course, navigating your working life will be much messier than this. But at least you have a frame of reference now. And if you don’t have the means to approach your career or work from this orientation, then consider job crafting.

This is not my concept; there’s some really excellent research on this, particularly from the University of Michigan. (1)

You can, with or without the direction of management, craft or tailor your job to better align with your interests and design your job to support your own flourishing.

This is where you can take SDT and weave it into your work. Job crafting empowers you to proactively adjust your tasks, relationships, and perceptions of work to better align with your personal strengths, values, and interests. Research shows this self-initiated customization leads to significant increases in engagement, job satisfaction, resilience, and overall well-being. Field experiments – such as tech-company workshops – demonstrate that those who engage in job crafting are rated by peers and managers as notably happier and more effective.

An important caveat here – there are limits. If I’m working in data entry, I can’t suddenly say I’m going to stop taking orders and go try to figure something out in the warehouse. You certainly can have those conversations, but job crafting is more subtle.

There are three subcategories of job crafting:
1. Task crafting
2. Relational crafting
3. Cognitive crafting

Task crafting is about identifying certain tasks that you can do more of or less of – within reason – that support your skills and interests. For example, if you’re on a marketing team and part of your role includes both event planning and writing email campaigns, and you love writing, you might ask to do more of that and less of the event planning.

Relational crafting is about changing how you relate to people. If you enjoy mentorship, maybe you take on more of a mentor role. If you like educating people and you’re in customer service, maybe you shift how you interact with clients – moving from just providing service to actually teaching them how to get more value out of your product. You’re still meeting your responsibilities, but you’re framing them in a way that’s more meaningful to you.

Cognitive crafting is about shifting how you mentally relate to your work. For example, my business partner Paul had a client at a pulp and paper manufacturer. Their product was this gross, white, papery substance. But it turned out that substance was used in diapers and medical devices. So, they ran an internal campaign showing the end users – babies and patients – and helped the employees see the purpose behind their work. That’s cognitive crafting: reframing your mindset about what you do and why it matters.

By sitting down with (or without) your manager and starting to think about how you can craft your tasks, relationships, and cognitive perspective on work, you can try to cultivate more competence, relatedness, and autonomy in your working life.

Imagine you’re a truck driver – this is probably the hardest possible job to craft given it is highly regulated and pretty monotonous. But let’s say you decide to get more relatedness, feel more competent, and have more flexibility. Maybe you offer to help with training new drivers as a way to get more social time; in doing this, you also get to choose when you drive solo or with a new driver, which increases your autonomy; and you do some cognitive crafting to reframe your work from driving to helping mentor someone.

This process is not like simply flipping a switch to get your dream job – but it makes a difference. Use job crafting (cognitive, relational, and task) to tailor your job to increase your satisfaction. And pursue the circumstances – relatedness, competence, and autonomy – that make for more happiness at work.

1. Berg, J. M., Dutton, J. E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2008). What is Job Crafting and Why Does It Matter? Center for Positive Organizations, University of Michigan.