The Happiness Advantage Summary

• The rulling powers continue to tell us that if we just put our nose to the grindstone and work hard now, we will be successful, and therefore happier, in some distant future.
•  As we work towards our goals, happiness is either irrelevant or an easily dispensable luxury or a reward only to be won after a lifetime of toil.
• Some even treat it as a weakness, a sign that we're not working hard enough.

• According to Einstein's Special Theory of Rulativity, many of the seemingly inviolable laws of the universe become altered based on the observer.
• While we of course can't change reality through sheer force of will alone, we can use our brain to change how we process the world.
• Brains are like single processors capable of devoting only a finite amount of resources to experiencing the world.

• Obviously, there are people for whom this positivity come more naturally.
• While we each have a happiness baseline that we fluctuate arround on a daily basis, with concerted effort, we can raise that baseline permanently so that even when we are going up and down, we are doing so at a higher level.

If success causes happiness, then every employee who gets a promotion, every student who receives an acceptance letter, everyone who has ever accomplished a goal of any kind should be happy. But with each victory, our goalposts of success keep getting pushed further and further out.

The formula is broken because it is backward. The relationship between success and happiness works the other way around; happiness is the precursor to success. Happiness, optimism and a positive mindset makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative, and productive, which drives performance upward.

1. Happiness is not just a mood - it's work ethic.
2. By changing our reaction to every action, we can change our viewpoint to process the world.
3. Try to scan for positive - You'll be able to experience happiness, gratitude, and optimism.
4. Take Failure as an opportunity to grow.
5. The most successful people, in work and in life, believe that their actions have a direct effect on their outcomes. 

We think the happiness equation looks like this

Work Hard -> Success -> Happiness

But in reality:

Happiness + Positive Mindset -> Success

'Waiting to be happy limits our brain potential for success, whereas cultivating positive positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative & productive which drives performance upward. '

Most people think that if they simply work harder, then they'll be more successful. And if they're more successful, then they'll also be happier. 

The problem is that this logic is scientifically broken and backward. 

Every time your brain has a success, you change the goalpost of what success looked like. You got 50 followers, now you want 100. You got 100, now you want 200.

So, if success is a prerequisite to happiness and the goalpost of success keeps moving, then your brain will never get there.

When your brain conceives of family dinner as a waste of time, it wont be able to reap its inherent benefits.

Conceive free time as a chance to learn and practice new things, recharge batteries and connect with others - you will be able to leverage the power of that rest time and return stronger than before.

Success is not about never falling down or even simply about falling down and getting back up over and over.

Shawn Achor, happiness researcher and author of "The Happines Advantage", says the practice of gratitude at all ages can increase energy and sleep quality. Happiness doesn't have to depend on our genes or environment because being happy is a choice.

Achor advises us to take two minutes a day to think about three new things we are grateful for and why. Better yet, we just write it all down so we can look back at it at the end of the week. "This will train your brain to be more optimistic," says Achor.

Achor advises us to write an email or message of praise and thanks to a different person every day. However, write in the form of a short message without too much ado. According to him, this way can change the level of happiness and our social relationships that have a good impact on health.

Success does not bring happiness but Happiness brings Success 😊