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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#381

Post by sanderjd »

pjc50 wrote: post #138
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…

This is literally just emotional labor: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5ea9f140-f722-4214-bb... > we conservatively advocate using measures of happiness and optimism as discriminators So the job goes to the people who, in the eyes of the interviewer, can best fake happiness. The more desperate you are for the job for economic reasons, the more pressure on you to fake it convincingly. Big bright but not desper…

I think a lot of your points are good ones, but I wonder why you're so convinced it has to be fake emotions? It is not outlandish to think a person would have real gratitude for someone or three good things that happened in a day or strengths they can apply in new ways.

I share your sense that forcing employees to do these exercises is pretty gross, but these are not exercises that would be difficult or which I would balk at in my own private life. Not all emotion is fake...

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#382

Post by goatsi »

wppick wrote: post #378
nicbou wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about the Victorian period made this possible? Seems strange that we have so much more wealth and efficiencies now (even just refrigeration/freezers as one example) yet seem to have gone backwards in this regard. What could be the underlying cause of this?

It was only possible in the Victorian period for the wealthy elite. If you were born into a family that owned vast swaths of land or used to run slave plantations in the Caribbean you were set for life and could devote your life to less crude pursuits than the gain of capital. You would also have a ready built network of others with similar wealth and social expectations.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#383

Post by [deleted] »

Jasper_ wrote: post #379
wppick wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the Victorian period made this possible? Seems strange that we have so much more wealth and efficiencies now (even just refrigeration/freezers as one example) yet seem to have gone backwards in this regard. What could be the underlying cause of this?

The few people with the wealth to be able to live this lifestyle are the ones who left enough records to read about. The commoners definitely existed, they just didn't leave records, or the ones they did leave weren't preserved, or the ones that were, common folk don't study or read about. That's all. In another 1,000 years, think about who around you right now might have the chance to be remembered. Someone like Bez…

[deleted]

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#385

Post by journey_16162 »

Yeah it is, because it sucks you in. I'm working hard, I have not achieved any significant success yet, but I really love the whole lifestyle of work, work, work. And it's a mish mash, sometimes I get to work on really interesting stuff, sometimes it's super boring, but I learned to appreciate even the boring. Or learn to appreciate pain that comes from doing the same boring thing over and over. I'm big on Zen practice. This is the key for me. I do 40 - 60 min of formal practice every day and I try to put it in other activities, including work. I even have a journal were I measure my mental state based on various objective criteria - i.e. what was my body awareness when I was working - this is somehow makes me love it, and especially the boring stuff, because then it's not only about doing the work, but training my mental state while doing the work.

Because the key thing is, and that's the whole reason I write this message, is that if you learn to love something as boring as sitting still or walking circles around the room, and seeing how there's an endless potential for improvement on such a simple thing, you will see that everything is interesting. That kind of engagement can be developed.

And I'm talking about engagement, yes. Engagement equals happiness.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#386

Post by adwn »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #368
todorus wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If the income is universal (the 'U' in UBI)

Will residents without citizenship receive the UBI? If yes, how long do they have to reside to be eligible? Will expats with citizenship receive the UBI? Will children receive the full UBI starting at birth? If not, when will they? Is it an abrupt step (if yes, at what age?), or is it gradual?

There are many subtleties to the meaning of "universal". And that's just what I've come up with in 2 minutes...

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#387

Post by maximus-decimus »

sethammons wrote: post #194
artemonster wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just a load of shit, I am so tired of this toxic positivity. Of course its a choice in the first place, but choice is not what brings you there. You need to choose right turn, yes, yes! But you have to walk the path towards the destination and that is a whole different story. If all you postulate that it is enough just to make the right turn, then… ah, whatever.

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

I'm usually happy during the day and groggy and depressive at night when I'm tired. Being happy being a path doesn't mean you get to pick the path you're on.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#388

Post by 988747 »

adwn wrote: post #315
jklinger410 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of what you posted is serious criticism of UBI. > Prices rise due to increased consumer spending capability, to the point where you have to work again to get above the poverty line. Governments will respond to economic factors that diminish purchasing power in order to maintain the effectiveness of UBI, as a part of UBI. > Any realistic UBI is too low for people with special needs Diminished support for disabled…

> Governments will respond to economic factors that diminish purchasing power in order to maintain the effectiveness of UBI, as a part of UBI. How? Using which political, economic, and financial tools? And what will be the side effects of those policies? That's exactly the point I was making: UBI proponents assume a downright utopian best-case scenario where everything works as planned (even though those plans are va…

>> How? Using which political, economic, and financial tools? And what will be the side effects of those policies?

There's a simple answer for that: please look at communist Poland 1980-1989 - trying to counter raising prices with government intervention leads to supply crisis (since production is not economically viable anymore). Imagine all stores having nothing to sell, literally empty shelves, forcing common people to fight for scrapes.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#389

Post by jl2718 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #198
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 think it's the curiosity. I know one guy who rushed through bachelor, master, and a PhD in mathematics in like half the regular time without ever breaking a sweat. Sometimes, you'd meet him in the cafeteria reading research papers for fun. You could mention any topic, and he'd know something related that one time he was super curious about and he spent an evening reading through Wikipedia. He's like a sponge who so…

What if you’re exactly like this guy, but with a small fraction of his raw intelligence? Does that work out or just annoy people? Asking for a friend…

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#390

Post by matheusmoreira »

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.

Antidepressants are proven as a treatment against depression. They're not without risk but the benefits far outweigh them.
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