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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#261

Post by lnsru »

themacguffinman wrote: post #164
lnsru wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Thanks. This is a good one! Maybe after 5 years in one place I will get different question set than during my job hoping period.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#262

Post by danielovichdk »

nicbou wrote: post #202
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…

I can confirm. Stepping off the treadmill - or just slowing it down - gives you so much more space to be curious. It's not just a matter of precariousness. You just have a lot more time and energy for these things. You can always sleep a bit longer, or delay work to follow an impulse with your full energy. There's always time for projects, even if they're not part of some hustle. It's an incredible privilege. Forget…

Just have to reply to this, so I can find your comment in my own comments. We'll put and I am trying to love like this for myself. Thx

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#263

Post by bko »

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…

> 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.

This is bleak way of looking at things. There's one thing to have f-u money but there's another base level of security that lets you leave a job or group and move on without too much disruption. Marriage helps there too. I'm nowhere near "secure for life" money, but if I was truly unhappy with my job I'd leave and find something else in a month or two. Around a quarter of people who left their jobs in the US don't have a new role lined up and turnover otherwise is pretty high telling me people do have a choice. [0]

> When I was in the comfortable situation, I was carefree and open to pursue ideas and projects brought to me which I knew were stupid and prone to fail. My colleagues loved it, of course.

I've found the reverse. When I was most carefree and comfortable as a child and young adult, I didn't pursue ideas or projects. I didn't do much of anything. I watched TV and hung out with friends. I went through the motions at work. Only later when I had actual responsibilities and had a partner did I get ambitious and pursued more ambitious projects. "Worrying" about making it is what gets me up in the morning and keeps me motivated and feel like I have a purpose

[0] https://time.com/charter/6138353/new-rules-of-quitting/

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#264

Post by huachimingo »

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 would say a common problem with his attitude is that some people can become bored very quickly. Why give facts nobody asked? Why talk about those things if you are not an expert?

Then he unlearns that optimism because he is alone and loses that "happy" attitude.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#265

Post by cplusplusfellow »

adwn wrote: post #247
newaccount74 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

By far this is the easiest to predict, but least likely to be addressed (by the proponents) concern I have with UBI.

A social safety net shouldn’t be a hammock, as it is said. I’m concerned with AI and what happens when it’s pointless to hire people because a $100k robot can do the same work as 3 of them and do so 20 hours a day. By then UBI may be our answer. But it doesn’t seem so now.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#266

Post by IggleSniggle »

arbuge wrote: post #256
zrail wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to spend my days being a gentleman scientist and a student of the arts. I want my best work to follow my morning tea in the garden, and I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. Atop a healthy and happy family, this is all I want from life. I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it.

> I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. >> I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it. I'd argue this already exists. We're on it right now...

Yup, this is exactly what brings me to HN day after day.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#267

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

allisdust wrote: post #111
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…

Soon to be launched on leet code : Coaching sessions on how to convey (fake) happiness effectively. How do the authors separate out the causation part? May be the top performers are happy because they are performing well? Will they retain their happiness if lets say, they are thrown in something with stack ranking like Amazon. How about something like on calls? How happy are they going to be if their nights are conti…

Work Units whose happiness is below 3.0 must attend mandatory 6:30 AM Joy Sessions.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#268

Post by sethammons »

lexapro wrote: post #232
sethammons wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met people who laugh and smile about hardships and I have met people who are sour about unequivocally positive situations. I don't think happiness is a destination, it is a path. The happy person is happy to have chosen to turn right and to have had the opportunity to so. The unhappy person is still unhappy that they have not yet found what they are looking for. That is the decision

>The unhappy person is still unhappy that they have not yet found what they are looking for. >That is the decision What is the decision exactly? If unhappy people could just choose to be happy instead, they would.

Let's make sure we are talking about the same thing. I don't mean the fleeting joy of a pop cycle on a hot summer day when you were twelve and the cutie you have a crush on smiled at you. I'm talking about a general disposition. A "happy person."

It is the way one looks at and approaches the problems and/or situations. You can choose to change how you approach the problem and you can choose what you find rewarding in that problem and the approach. You can also choose to focus on what you've yet to attain.

In our little parable here, the unhappy person is still unhappy that they have not yet found what they are looking for. We are getting terribly abstract now. But they could instead focus on what traction they have gained, they could "enjoy the art of the search," or whatever else they choose to put value on. But it comes down to what they value.

Talks and whole books are written on this and I wont be able to do them justice. This mental outlook thing extends to depression. See CBT, Congnitive Behavioral Therapy, which reduces depression by changing how you think about things. One could choose to apply those techniques.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#269

Post by AlchemistCamp »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #102
sdoering wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can loose your job in Germany. But definitely not as easy as for example in the US. Companies need valid reasons for letting people go. And then it doesn't work like: You are fired - this is your last paycheck (only in really, really extreme cases like you stealing from your employer or punching him in the face kind of reasons). Then there is the fact that for a time after being let go you receive a relevant…

What many outsiders don't know is that those protections you talk about don't apply much to your average Berlin startup where expats come exiting to kick back and relax and get shocked when they get ground up to a pulp in overtime.

How does that work? Are there weaker protections for foreign labor, or is it something startup-related?

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#270

Post by frostwarrior »

otikik wrote: post #148
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…

A lot of chronically unhappy people are adept at masking - faking they are happy and/or neurotypical. Especially so when they are aware that they are being tested for it. It's quite possible that a percentage of the top performers referenced on the original article are just doing that.

People tend to have an overly optimistic image of what it means to be neurotypical.

Neurotypical people are not the extremely successful, always-happy, super charismatic elite. That's the 99% percentile. They are as outliers as the most unhappy and miserable of the people.

Neurotypical is about the norm. If you have your set of problems but you don't need to take psychiatric drugs to deal with them, then you are neurotypical. And that's it.

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