Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

sloanreview.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 477 posts

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#241

Post by lr4444lr »

nine_k wrote: post #143
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…

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 would think, reading what you wrote, that when we walk into ghetto elementary schools that we see little kids sitting there dull, insipid, and sullen who don't do well on basic tests of learning, (even if perhaps they aren't well taught how to read). This would be a completely false assumption.

There are plenty of people with hereditary wealth who are otherwise very ordinary, and not particularly happy, too.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#242

Post by ajuc »

suction wrote: post #160
pyb wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point. Are people successful because they are happy, or vice versa?

Secure situations make successful people. Children raised in well-off households with no financial worries do better in school and later in their careers, on average. Sure, you get the rich kid wasting their life on parties or drugs, or the poor kid beating the odds by hard work and determination, but those are outliers. That's why there are so many of these characters in literature, movies, and TV - they're not the…

The mechanism is:

- a rich kid wastes 3 years on drugs and partying, gets caught once or twice, gets bailed by parents, moves on to do something productive

- a poor kid wastes 1 year on drugs and partying, gets caught once, it snowballs from there, recovery is very hard if at all possible

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#243

Post by lupire »

montebicyclelo wrote: post #60

> we suggest that leaders follow the science and take a structured approach to hiring for, promoting, and developing employee happiness > Measure happiness in both employees and job candidates. > we conservatively advocate using measures of happiness and optimism as discriminators, or tiebreakers, because the risks are low and the benefits could be important. Good luck getting a job, unhappy people… I don’t think the…

My old boss said he used to ask people in interviews if they were "lucky" people, until he decided it was too risky on a religious discrimination basis. "Lucky" is approximately the same as "happy" here.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#245

Post by lowercased »

drra wrote: post #186
nicoburns wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know plenty of people who will say "you know what, I'm out" despite living paycheck to paycheck, or maybe having 1 or 2 months living expenses saved up. They're just open to the risk of going with the flow, and confident they'll find something to keep them going. They tend to be a lot happier than those I know who are focussed on money and career. This doesn't work if you're literally struggling to make ends meet t…

It works if you don't have many responsibilities. I recently lost my only source of income and that became crippling to my overall performance when it comes to side projects that could eventually replace that source. It was really surprising since I expected to head full forward with my projects. It used to be the case when I was a student capable of living on a shoestring budget.

> It works if you don't have many responsibilities.

Yep. Single person with minimal responsibilities has more freedom/flexibility than someone with a family (for example) - kids/spouse mean your time is not just your own, and your decisions have direct (often immediate) impacts on those around you.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#246

Post by lowercased »

raxxorrax wrote: post #209
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…

Cannot really confirm this from my experience. Have worked with a lot of very unhappy geniuses. Perhaps not really unhappy, but not particularly happy either. But performance can mean something different. I think the study source is questionable as well. Perhaps the soldiers were happier because they got acknowledgement for their work? Most intellectuals don't get noticed because they are positively beaming, even if…

> But maybe they do perform well.

More likely it's "well enough", and that matches the needs of most organizations just fine.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#247

Post by adwn »

newaccount74 wrote: post #227
adwn wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's an argument for a proper social safety net, as implemented in many European countries. Most fulltime jobs pay better than a UBI ever could, so if you have a job, a) either your standard of living is so high that a change to UBI-only would be very disruptive and you'd still be worried about losing your job, b) or your standard of living is so low that you'd quickly accumulate enough of a financial buffer th…

The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though. At least here in Austria they make you jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to get assistance. There's not a single type of assistance you get, there's like 10 different things you can apply for, they all have different preconditions and navigating them is almost a full time job. And before people take a job, they have to think about which aid…

> The "social security net" we have in Europe isn't perfect, though.

You're comparing the imperfect reality of an actual situation (unemployment benefits) against the utopian fantasy of an imagined best case scenario (UBI) – of course the imagined scenario will come out on top. The real result of a UBI will almost certainly look less rosy than the picture you paint, just like every other plan once it gets implemented. For example, this:

> noone would be jealous that you are freeloading because everyone gets UBI

would likely be wrong, because people would instead be jealous because you're "freeloading" by not working and therefore not paying taxes. Other ways a UBI could conceivably be bad or even worse than the current status quo:

* Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line.

* Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs (like disabilities), so you'll again need a bureaucracy to deal with those cases.

* If the UBI is independent of local cost-of-living, it'll most likely be too low to survive on it in high COL areas, like most large cities. If it's dependent on COL, the exact implementation won't please everyone.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#248

Post by lokalfarm »

0F wrote: post #214

Reading these comments is forehead slap inducing. People think that just because something is mental that it has to do with your mindset, your parents, your this your that. When a dude can run faster than other people, it’s written off as genetics. When someone is resilient to depression, it’s anything other than genetics. Both cases are the same: it’s just biological. I’ve been suffering super hard with depression r…

Showing you some love... Keep fighting the good fight =]

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#249

Post by wtetzner »

scotty79 wrote: post #174
suction wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe growing up with this kind of money has that effect, but not acquiring it midlife. I got the money to get out and that's exactly what I did. I got out of everything. I'm not any more open than I was and I'm not happier. I just feel more secure and comfortable.

They mentioned they were happier having enough money to get out, but not actually getting out. Maybe that’s the difference? Just knowing it’s an option?

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#250

Post by its_bbq »

sdevonoes wrote: post #130
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…

> The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. I would add: and the ability to share that enthusiasm with others. I consider myself a very average person, but from time to time I do experience what I have highlighted from your paragraph. Most often than not, I keep that enthusiasm to myself. I don't have the ability to share it with others, and when I try, it's not like you have described it…

It goes deeper though -- sharing happiness with others is one of the most crucial parts of sustaining happiness. It literally will make you happier and also surrounded by happier people, creating a virtuous cycle of happiness.
Post reply on HN