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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

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361–370 of 477 posts

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#361
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…

Change your environment. Move to another country and reinvent your identity. This can change your mindset. I think the misnomer is that mindset can be changed by willpower alone. They are wrong.

Soldiers in the Vietnam war all did heroin. When they returned to the US people thought we'd have a heroin epidemic. Turns out the change in environment rewired there brains. Try it.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

A lot of this “choosing to be happy” as the way you describe it though is merely self-deception/lying-to-oneself.

If I’m starving - I have every right to be upset. Yet in your mind - I should just learn to enjoy the search for food (even if it doesn’t exist) rather than being upset that I’m literally dying.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#363
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…

You sound like the motivation behind social security and UBI are different.

It's nice to present a clean (modeled) plan, but it's something different when it hits reality. Social security now, is what UBI will look like a few decades down the road.

Somebody will find a way to exploit UBI and that hole gets patched, then there's another patch and another. Not to speak of how different political ideologies will apply their own modifications to previously established laws

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#365
post #349
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of experience pushing forward stuff with wife / kids. One must learn to delegate. Yes you can do "programming whatever", but you don't have the time. If you believe in the project, allocate.... $100,$500,$1k a month for a few months (whatever is your threshold) and outsource! It doesn't need to be in "expensive React with microservices".... you can do v1 in Laravel and a purchased template. (as example).…

This advice used to work years ago but user expectations have risen massively and you can no longer get away with a shitty cookie cutter MVP. You must do the big work upfront and come out very polished out of the gate, or else users will sense you don’t really have much skin in the game and not bother investing time in your niche project. This often means you must leverage the latest and greatest tech to get an edge,…

If the value proposition is common, then yes it is hard. If it is novel, then no.

Agree design is much more important than before. But you can still pay a designer $1k or less and it looks pretty nice. Maybe not "uniquely different", but nice.

Agree the days of "simply put it up and get users" is probably gone. One has to work it, which is what distinguishes a project from a business. Developers may be good at one, but not both.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#366

I’ve noticed my most successful friends are also my happiest friends, and vice versa. I never knew if it was correlation or causation, but I generally find I am happier myself and perform better if I surround myself with other people like that. Negativity is contagious, so I try to avoid it.

> Negativity is contagious, so I try to avoid it.

Positivity is contagious too! I had a co-worker who just exuded genuine positivity, and he was a joy to be around and I couldn't help being in a more positive mood myself.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#367

> 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…

I also thought the analogy between the military and businesses by mere dint of workforce and asset sizes was incredibly weak.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#368

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…

You sound like the motivation behind social security and UBI are different. It's nice to present a clean (modeled) plan, but it's something different when it hits reality. Social security now, is what UBI will look like a few decades down the road. Somebody will find a way to exploit UBI and that hole gets patched, then there's another patch and another. Not to speak of how different political ideologies will apply t…

Confused. If the income is universal (the 'U' in UBI) then what possible hack is there? That's the entire point really. Its why you can get rid of the bureaucracy, since there are no rules to exploit.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#369
post #202

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…

Almost everytime I have a three day weekend I find that third day so enjoyable. My life feels better overall and it carries into the week. Literally having one more day off per week changes my mood drastically. I'm prioritizing a four day work week whenever I look for my next job because of this.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#370

> We first asked them to rate their well-being — their happiness, if you will — along with their optimism, and then tracked which soldiers later received awards based on their job performance. I'm curious to dig into the paper more because at first glance, I feel somewhat confused they seem to say happiness and well-being and optimism are all essentially the same thing. Again, maybe their paper doesn't say that and i…

or is it other way around? i.e. High performers are happier and more optimistic. So cause and affect is reversed

I'm not sure if your comment was in response to my comment, as I was trying to say that I believe happiness != well being != optimism.
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