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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#161

Post by jorisboris »

andruby wrote: post #136
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

That sounds like someone that has confidence and curiosity. In Dutch we have a word "relativeren" which I think loosely translates to "being able to put things in perspective". I think that is a really important super power. It has helped me immensely whenever things got bad, or I got into a depressing mood. I'm not sure how you can "grow" these attributes, but I'm willing to say that travelling, seeing the world, di…

And realising we're all going to die one day.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#162

Post by pjc50 »

mellavora wrote: post #152
nine_k wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it like this: A lot of resource —> happiness. A lot of resource —> energy for curiosity. A lot of resource —> energy and time for high achievement at work. So happiness is a correlate for staying in high-resource state in a stable manner, which correlates with high achievement, the quality employers seek. Immediately one can consider a trap of unhappiness, similar to the trap of poverty: being worried makes you…

You had me agreeing with you there until you recommended highly addictive drugs with questionable benefit as the primary intervention.

They're not addictive unless you also count insulin as "addictive", in that if people who need it stop getting their symptoms come back. shrug

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#163

Post by throwaway874653 »

suction wrote: post #150
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

This is exactly what i feel but did not thought about until i read the post. Is there a name for this pheneomeon. Dejavu is kind of tangential to this.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#164

Post by themacguffinman »

lnsru wrote: post #68
neilv wrote: post #53

> 1. Measure happiness in both employees and job candidates. In many ways, “hiring the happy” requires a bit of perspective. While we do not believe that happiness should be placed ahead of the knowledge, skills, or talent needed for a job, we conservatively advocate using measures of happiness and optimism as discriminators, or tiebreakers, because the risks are low and the benefits could be important. How is instit…

The funny thing is that I went to all job interviews, because I wasn’t happy with my job/unemployment at the time. I have no idea how to fake here more happiness. Currently I am unhappy with technical level at the company and future salary development, but I can’t tell this directly anyway. I guess I need to learn the ritual how to produce right answers.

Say that you're looking for new opportunities and imply that you're currently happy (or at least not unhappy) but you could be even happier at this exciting new company. See, you're not an unhappy person looking to be happy, no one has time for those people, you're a happy person looking to be ecstatic. Positive spin~

Sometimes, people really are just looking for a change and new opportunities, it's not always spin. That plausibility is what makes it the perfect spin.

(I take no responsibility for the potentially terrible career advice I'm giving)

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#165

Post by mellavora »

artemonster wrote: post #63

Was anyone in a position when they had everything: good job, good wife, good health and still were deeply unhappy, without purpose? What did you do to solve it?

I've been in the "have everything" position (by you def) and also deeply unhappy for long periods of my life.

There is a difference between "deeply unhappy" and "without purpose", though the second can lead to the first.

I "solved" it by living for duty rather than happiness.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#166

Post by vijucat »

hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

Amazing anecdote! I'm envious of such folks.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#169

Post by louis___ »

midjji wrote: post #141

There is no doubt in my mind that happiness predicts and causes success. A simple predictor of long term success for everywhere I have worked is mean loud laughs - whining. An old psych study claims that one year after some great or terrible event, winning the lottery, or breaking your back. People are roughly as happy on average as they were before the event. It makes sense in many ways, happiness does not seem to c…

I'd suggest you try meditation. It does not bring you instant happiness, but slowly brings about a sense of wisdom and peace that really resembles long-term happiness
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