This is how to build a happy life. The Atlantic's podcast on all things happiness.
I'm Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor and happiness correspondent at The Atlantic.
People like to complain about their jobs and there's a lot in popular culture about people
having terrible bosses. But it's amazing to me when I look at the data on work satisfaction
and how it's actually gone up over the last few years. As I've written about my column
at The Atlantic, Gallup asks a sample of American adults, kind of a loaded question.
How much do you like your job? The portion of Americans who say they are completely
satisfied at work has risen dramatically over the past two decades from 41% in 2001 to 55% in 2019.
In 2020, despite the fact that millions of Americans had shifted to remote work, still 89%
said that they were either completely or somewhat satisfied. That's great news.
But there's bad news too. For better or for worse, people spend their time in most of their
mental energy at work. Now let's think about what we've tackled on this show so far. We've
talked about emotional management and mindfulness with Dan Harris managing your emotions so they
don't manage you. We've talked about the importance of relationships and friendships and reorganizing
our priorities to ensure that we live a people-centric life with Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General.
We've talked about avoiding self-objectification or the idea that you are your job or you are a
particular role in life. We talked about that with Dr. Shafali. But what about the thing that most
often distracts us from all these projects? Work. Well, this time on How to Build a Happy Life,
working toward happiness with happier days at work.
The purpose in having that higher meaning of doing something that's beyond yourself is what makes
us as individuals have this more sustainable form of happiness. So I really wanted to take that
concept from what it means for an individual to the workplace.
Jen Lim is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happiness, a company redesigning
workplace organization around positive psychology. Jen's mission is to embed happiness and humanity
in all workplaces from the individual to the institutional level. Delivering happiness applies
science-based happiness research to help companies improve their corporate strategy and their
company culture, which all begins with individuals showing up to work with their most authentic selves.
Jen co-founded Delivering Happiness with the late Tony Shea, who also was the famous entrepreneur
behind Zappos and who wrote the book called Delivering Happiness, which was a huge bestseller.
Tony passed away in 2020, sadly, and this was a tragedy for a lot of people including Jen,
but he continues to be an inspiration to her and to many other people around the world.
And this is funny to say, right? There was a demand for happiness in the world, so the company
essentially evolved to adapt to what that meant. And for us, we're focused on workplace happiness.
And what scientific happiness means using that research and academics around all that
body of work of positive psychology, and actually how do you make your practical and technical
in the workplace? So essentially, from some ways, we're consulting company, but I'd rather see
us as part coach part consulting, so we call ourselves coach-sultans in terms of what we put out in
the world. And it's not just the inspirational stuff that's important, but that's short lived,
and that's kind of a raw rot, keynote, or workshop, but we're all about systemic change.
And making sure that we embed these kind of practices and behaviorally, so that companies can
actually not just be quote unquote happier from sustainable basis, but also realize the results
from an ROI perspective. So in terms of retention, attraction of the right people, and especially
right now, as we see, the great resignation, it just seems like more than ever, it's important
to have these things embedded in how we actually grow companies for the long term.
So it's been pretty cool to see how this whole lofty and rainbows and unicorns happiness thing
has actually landed in a universal way. Congratulations. So the question before we talk about the results
that can actually come from this is, what do you mean by systemic change with happiness?
What does that actually look like? These moments when we go to an event or we go to a conference,
or we see an amazing keynote speak, we just get that fleeting high based on the science of happiness.
It's a pleasure point, and it hits certain parts of our body, but then it falls really quickly.
Systemic stuff comes in the very non-sexy, very non-glamorous side of organ design. Basically,
how do you design the organization in a way that these kind of things are not just nice words
on the wall, like, oh, this is our purpose, and these are our values, but actually embedded into
how we recognize people, how we reward them, how we incentivize them, and to the point of hiring
and firing based on it, so that even if they're like, you know, a rock star kind of like performer,
in whatever they do, if they're actually not living up to those values of what they believe in,
and then it doesn't become systemic. So without divulging any confidentiality, obviously,
giving an example of going into a company, finding something that's a real barrier to the happiness
of the company, and therefore the performance of the company quite frankly, and some changes
systemically that you've made that's resulted in greater happiness of the employees and executives,
and then the kind of results that you'd see. The one that's precious in my mind, especially because
so many companies are going through so many changes, and what we have to do in the last 18 months of
really evaluating ourselves as companies in terms of business 101, how are we going to adapt
and pivot to all these economic changes around us, and then of course we have added the pandemic
and social unrest, and like, you know, going down the line of all these factors, external factors
that we couldn't control. My freshest example is Starbucks, so we were there for years, and then
it was like we're just about to go into this huge project that they've never really done before,
because Howard Schultz was always the leader, like, you know, he's super iconic. To his credit,
he did a lot of stuff in this brain, that whole culture, Italian culture, coffee culture,
into American society, and then his leaving and having a new leadership team, new CEO,
they are like, like, how do we exist for another 50 years? So we were about to embark on this whole
vision project. What is Starbucks today? How do we make them more current? I don't know, can I
cut on the third? Is this not really that- You can say anything you want. You know, when the pandemic
should hit the fan, as we know, like, when it should, it's the fan for an individual, the true
character of that person shows. And I believe that of companies as well. So basically, they're
triaging at the same time of saying, wait, who are we and what do we stand for? And this was most
interesting to me because, you know, here's the company that's been known for their brand, and known
for being purpose driven for so long, and rightfully so. So that was really interesting to see how
these concepts of what does it mean to actually live up to that mission statement again? What does
it mean to actually live by the values that we stayed on the wall? It was really- I hope
it's to see how people when they are actually led by that statement of that purpose and that mission,
how they all can just leave all the other baggage behind, all the politics behind, and say,
actually, yes, this is what we're here for. And to see that company pivot in a way, and they're
already going along those lines, but saying, hey, we have to triage because we want to take care
of our people, take care of our bristas, take care of, like, basically, the community because they
have a hand in a role in that given they're, you know, around the world. But at the same time, they
actually aligned more than ever as a leadership team. And they knew it's because they were not just
speaking to the mission of the company. They're speaking to their purpose of themselves,
because I think everyone around that time, and even more so, as time goes on in this next phase,
of COVID, are just asking those questions, like, why am I waking up again, and going to this job,
or, you know, why am I spending every minute of this day, you know, towards this activity,
or role, or event, or, you know, and it sounds like, you know, purpose and value,
it sounds just like, whatever that means. But when you get alignment around that,
you can see the scale of how the impact can be, because as the outcome of that, in addition to
triaging, what they did for their people and customers, and especially their partners, they call
it their employees, they launched this whole other program of what their next 50 years will be,
which is, is not just profit positive, and they've been doing amazingly well in that space.
But it's also people positive, and planet positive. So they basically put themselves on the line
and say, hey, we're going to be accountable for this. I think it's a big lesson learned to see
what can happen when big shifts happen in the world. So talk to me a little bit more. So what you're
saying is a very bold thing, because this is not just about companies, and I want all of our listeners
to understand, the Gen Lim is talking about the secret of happiness for all of us as well.
So she said, the happiness comes when you know who you are, you know what you want to be,
and you live according to it. That's as true for a company as it is for a person.
What are the values of an organization, which are most correlated with happiness?
The way we go about it is that we're not here to twist people's arms and say, hey, you got to be
happy now. Look what you have. Be grateful. Do your gratitude journal and all those things.
That's not how it works. Happiness is pushing on a string, right? I mean it.
So I think the values that correlate best to happiness and again, going back to the scientific side,
so we call them levers. So basically, these are little handles that we have across
of what we can do to increase our happiness. And that's a sense of autonomy, control,
call it freedom, sense of progress, my learning, my growing. Do I have a growth mindset?
I feel like I'm at developing in any and all ways of life, not just work.
Connection, and this one's a big one, and it's not just about connectedness anymore, but,
you know, belonging is kind of this buzzword that's going on now with what that means. And
having a sense of not just being invited to the dance or being allowed to dance, but just being
able to dance however the way you want and being accepted for that and then actually having a turn
at the DJ. These definitions of like these values are expanding all the time, especially after
2020 and making it more current in what we can do now to make them real.
Okay, back to Jen, limit a second. But right now, let's talk a little bit about business plans.
By that, I don't mean business plans for actual businesses. I mean plans for the business of
your life. When you're going to work, when you're taking your whole self to work,
when you're trying to be a happier person in your work, you need something like a little
business plan for your life. A business plan, it has the answer to four basic questions.
What am I doing? Who am I doing it for? How am I doing it? And most importantly, why am I doing it?
Why am I doing this thing? Maybe you're thinking to yourself, how do I find that why?
That's the hardest question, isn't it? Well, good news. There's somebody who's thought not a lot
about that that can help. His name is Simon Sinek. You may have heard of him because he's wrote a
bestselling book called Start With Why. That's about how you can find your why. I sat down with Simon
and he gave me some great ideas on how each one of us can do it.
I've never defined myself by what I do. I define myself by why I do it.
Start with why it is something I live every day of my life and have since I first articulated the
concept. Why is this deep-seated purpose cause or belief? It's the sum total of how we were raised
and the lessons we learned as kids that made us who we are. It's sort of the core of our personality.
It is unchangeable and fully formed by the time we're probably in our mid to late teens. In other
words, you are who you are. An understanding that deep core of what inspires you and makes you who
you are is the value you provide to the world as well. It's the reason your friends love you.
It's the reason your colleagues trust you. It's the reason clients are drawn to you. It's being your
true self in how you show up in the world and in your work and it feels really good.
What the process is of uncovering one's why is to go through a rational process.
So we identify stories and experiences from your life in which we can discern patterns and that
pattern is the why. It's kind of an amazing thing and then the opportunity is to do it on purpose,
to live with purpose on purpose as opposed to what most of us do which is to live with purpose by
accident. The reason most people struggle with it is because they start with the question,
what do I want to be or what do I want to do? It's not that it doesn't exist. It's like love, right?
It's hard to put into words our feelings for another person so we use metaphors and analogies.
Human brains have an easier time talking about stuff and things because they're easy to see and
understand than the ethereal. Simon Sinek makes a really important point which is that it sounds easy
to come up with your why but it's really hard. You know it when you see it but you can't really
describe it. It's an interesting problem isn't it? So I decided that the best way for me to be able
to really put my finger on it so that I could pursue my why most effectively. I was going to stop
trying to say it and I was just going to try to, I was going to walk it into existence. In the middle
of 2019 when I left my job at the end of June I got on a plane and I went to Spain. I was going to
walk the community of Santiago which is a walk across northern Spain. It's a pilgrimage that people
make basically because they want to find the why of their life either for religious or non-religious
reasons when they want to walk the why into their lives and that's exactly what I did day after day,
hour after hour asking for my why and when I finished weirdly I knew it had gone from my feet into
my brain and then it was on my tongue. The why of my life is to lift people up and bring them together.
It worked for me and it can work for you too but you got to do the work.
And now back to Jen Lim.
Going back to that sense of purpose we could talk about all this all we want from an organizational
standpoint but unless we as individuals can actually ground ourselves in our own purpose
in our own values and define it for ourselves first. When I never stepped into that work hat on,
is it really the same hat that I'm wearing in my life and what's most meaningful to me?
There's a reason why people are quitting their jobs most of them without even knowing
whether their next step is going to be. And so I think that most important part of being
our individual self whether CEO or frontliner is really getting real with that and revisiting
those kinds of concepts of like how am I going to lead people and even if I'm not a CEO,
how am I going to be a leader of myself at work in a life? So there's two big points that I want
our listeners to pay attention to that Jen has just raised. They're super important really,
really profound points. Number one is that the happiness values, the happiness levers that are
the difference between a company that's bringing happiness and is not, they're all about people.
They're all about the values that are going to serve the people, actualize people inside
the organization, being autonomy progress and connection of having work being affirming
force in your life. In other words, work should be something that brings happiness to your life,
is it was the unhappiness in your life and the two characteristics of work that will bring
happiness to your life are earning your success, which is accomplishment, autonomy progress,
and a sense that you're serving other people. Okay, that's the first big thing. The values of a
company that are going to bring happiness and create more success for the company are all about
values that you bring for the people in your world. Let's call that Jen's truth number one.
Jen's truth number two is for leaders is put your own oxygen mask on first.
People ask me all the time. You teach happiness at Harvard and you write about it in the Atlantic
and all that. You must be the happiest guy in the world. It's like, what are you talking about?
If I were the happiest guy in the world, I wouldn't be writing about it and look, I'm looking for it.
Research the effort of trying to get my oxygen mask on is actually delivering to others. This is
the point and this is what you're actually trying to bring to leaders. Isn't that right, Jen?
Totally spot on. I get all geeked out on this stuff. When it all boils down to this,
how do we actually bring that into a practical way of living life? One of the things that I thought
was really interesting during the research of the book was I didn't know that Maso actually added
another, basically, pyramid level on top of self-actualization. It's basically before he passed away,
he realized that it's not actually self-actualization. At the top, it's actually transcendence.
Transcendence is when you're actually providing and helping others self-actualize too.
A quick side note to our listeners here. Jen is talking about Maso's hierarchy of needs,
which is a kind of a famous model based on the work of the social psychologist Abraham Maslow
from the 1940s. He believed that the basis needs that we have are for food and shelter and
security. If we get those, we move on to higher needs, like love and companionship, but at the very
top, if we can get through all those other things, we get to these higher, higher, higher order needs,
like self-actualization. And then as Jen just told us, at the very highest level, transcendence.
So give us some worst practices. What are the toxic companies? What are the ones that have one
foot on a banana peel and the other one in the grave? What do they look like with respect to their
workplace happiness practices? I'm going to caveat this because behind every
tainted brand, there are really good people in it. Because sometimes we kind of cast brands as like,
oh, everyone in there must be like, why would they choose to work there? So what first comes to
mind? And this is different now because there's a new CEO, but so Uber has to come to mind of what was
probably a poster child of toxic culture. I'm not trying to throw a trap set of the bus,
because I know him, and I've seen him grow over the years. I would say that their culture was
already not established or grounded in values to begin with or a purpose other than what they were
seeking at that time. By the way, for those who weren't following Uber's founder and CEO
Travis Kaloneck, ran the company and ran into problems having to do with workplace culture.
So what did you see? I mean, people talk about bro culture in Silicon Valley. They talk about
excessively long work hours, the inability to get any sort of work life balance. People talk
about the fact that they were never really appreciated, never really noticed. Other people would
steal, take credit for their work, not necessarily Uber, but at many companies that are noted to have
toxic cultures. You as a happiness expert in the corporate context, what are you going to look out
for? There are leaders that I've met along the way and worked with actually that are just trying
to check off a box. They're saying, oh, this is important now. We need to actually prioritize
people and actually make it known that we want to focus on culture. So let's invest in that and
say we got it done. Number one is being able to hold up the mirror and truly reflect on what is it
that you're doing? That is not just self actualization in your own right, but helping other people.
And depending how you answer that, then that will answer that question of what are the indicators
of a toxic culture? Number one, are people walking the talk? Are people being consistent in living up
to what you believe your values to be? And it's not just values either. It's actually defining
specific behaviors. Another poster child of what went wrong and runs one of their top values
was integrity. We all know where that went. So it's kind of like, well, how do you define integrity?
It's like, oh, well, I'm just going to like, I'm going to earn all this money for myself.
This is where the systemic change makes me the geek about how that you embed this stuff.
So being able to look whether or not people are actually living accordingly to what you think your
values are and how you define them and how you find your behaviors by them, that's I think the
biggest indicator of whether or not you're going in the right direction. And one of our metrics is
it's not just retention or attraction, but it's also hell happier people. And now more than ever,
it's not just the rainbows and unicorns like, you know, happy hours and raises the extrinsic stuff,
as you know, it's the intrinsic stuff. And being able to have those honest and open conversations
that bring up tensions and bring up the state of where we are like mentally or emotionally,
you know, all these factors that were taboo, not, you know, just even 10 years ago, but now it's just
like, hey, we have to talk about this stuff. And so, you know, one of the things that we know,
for example, is if you want to be the happiest possible person and you need to be thinking not about
money, power, pleasure and fame, you need to be thinking about faith, family, friendship,
and work in which you earn your success and your serve others. So when I am looking to talk into
an executive, you're telling me, if I'm going to go on, I'm going to coach an executive. And that
executive is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want a culture in which people can can live up to their
transcendental values and they have friends here and they have time off for their family.
And they understand that their work is a place where they can be realizing serve others. But I'm
really personally about money, power, pleasure and fame. You're like ding, ding, ding, ding,
red lights on the dashboard. That inconsistency per se will be perceived immediately. And no
matter what you say, it simply will not work. Is that it is that a true statement?
It could work for a lot of short term gain. It won't work for the long term gain. And it won't
work when the future of work is basically, well, we're living it now. Like we didn't know until
the pandemic social unrest and global recession came. Oh, we're actually living it now. So what does
that mean? Well, we have to adapt as companies, as people. And if companies don't adapt,
they're not going to be around. And then all of a sudden, it becomes, unfortunately, this sort of
survival mentality and this sort of like scarcity mentality. And at the end of the day, if we are
comfortable living that kind of life and having those kind of priorities where it was
ex-strenching of the money title status and grow, grow, grow, buy, buy, that's up to us for us to
live and die by. But I think there's been a huge reckoning of leaders that are not, are more vulnerable
and not as fearful of going down deep into, you know, whatever happened, those traumas that
happened in childhood or, you know, upbringing and etc, etc. That's when it gets real. And then
that's when you truly see the impact. We the time that we have left, I want to talk about your
new book. And it's got a pretty interesting title, Beyond Happiness. Jen, is there something
beyond happiness? You're killing me. Coming from you Arthur, that's kind of a big question. Like,
really? You don't think so. But what we're doing of course is that we're, we got to define happiness
now and then we got to say it was more important than happiness. So take us there.
So my history background is like, delivering happiness, lunch set with Tony,
running the company. And it was going well. I mean, the whole concepts that were born out of the
like scientific levers of happiness and all that, it works. But in the last several years,
it just started feeling like there's something more here that I'm missing. And so I started like,
you know, I'm petri-dishing on myself and just kind of like doing my social scientist thing
and with clients and just being real like, wait, there's something else here. And I realized like,
so our, one of our models is like me, we community, and then me, it starts with the me,
in the middle, then it kind of ripples to the we, and then to the community, which is our
customers, partners, and vendors and ecosystem. So what I realized is that unless we start with the
me first, then the other stuff can't really actually fully, you know, get to the potential. Then,
2020 happened. And all of a sudden, these like, these hypotheses and things that we were working
with CEOs that were checking off the box and then realized, you know what, holy shit, this was that,
this was about me. And then they realized, oh, this is what we're going to do. We're not going to
do this just for the company. We're going to do this for our community. We're going to do this
for our country like, we need to be real with ourselves. So that was the light bulb of what's
beyond it. Because I think from a societal level, we have automatic connotations of what we think
happiness to be. But then unless we dig a little deeper and realizing that we learn as much of
ourselves from our highs and our lows, the build up of all these events of 2020 and then the passing
of Tony in November, that I just, you know, as I was processing his passing and as I was processing
what I wanted to really try to capture, it had to be something beyond. And you can look at it
in very different ways. And I guess I'm making it ambiguous and purposefully because there's a
spiritual element here of what truly is beyond. And then there's a practical, you know, here we are
level in life of what can we create and understand and be real with, celebrating our highs and
and also really getting real with our with our lows.
Hmm. This book is, you know, going from delivering happiness to beyond happiness is kind of the
move from self-actualization to transcendence and Jen Lim's life. It sounds like to me.
A person fully alive is a person who's really living everything and that's that's the essence
of transcendence. This is a book that digs in, isn't it? And digs into your own personal journey
to be fully alive, isn't it? It is. Yeah. And I think people might be surprised when they actually
read it. They're like, wait, I thought this is a rather happiness. You know, like beyond part is
like there's something more to that. And by digging deep into that within ourselves,
freaking suck that it had to happen in that way with what happened with Tony in 2020 and all those
things. But and now I feel that this is squarely where I was trying to get to of like as you're
describing it, living fully, living fully in a way that you know what we're all going to have
freaking crappy days. But we all know how to have those days and how are we going to be more human
about it? And being able to say, you know, just be gentle with ourselves say what's going on?
Like it's okay. Just in a mode or just asking your coworker like, hey, you're right.
I think that you are saying something that's even deeper than it's okay if it's not all right.
I think that you're saying it's actually part of the deal and it's a good thing because you're not
getting a full experience. You're getting the two-dimensional version. You're getting the cardboard
cut out, the cartoon. If we're really staying on the positive, we're not staying on the fully
alive part. And it's hard, you know, holding bad feelings close to you. I can only imagine when
you went through you were very close to Tony. The lowest moments of my life before Tony passed was
when my dad passed 18 years ago. And this was before delivering happiness was born. But that was
a moment where I got laid off, 9-11, you know, my dad, cancer, all those things. And that really
put me to this place where what you're speaking of is that fullness and wholeness. And it's taken
all these years. I would say just up until like four or five years ago, then I realized and I
started reading more about grief and the beauty of grief. And being able to understand that and
the more I read about it, the more I tapped into that side of acceptance and sitting with it.
But until you experience and feel it and actually understand how that works within our life and
our emotions and our psyche and our spirit, that's a whole other thing. You're talking about the
sacredness of suffering, which of course is as ancient as any wisdom tradition and any serious
religion that has ever existed. Part of this book is to get us back to that place. There's so many
things of ancient religions, our ritual, sense of rituals that are lost. There was a place for a
reason why we have funerals. There's a place in reason why there's like for some, you know,
cultures, the morning period is for an extended period of time. It's not just a funeral service.
And I think that, okay, let's update that down and actually be able to speak about this,
especially with all the loss that we felt. I'm not talking for me, like everyone in the world felt
and make this not something that we want to shy away from or don't want to face when that day
comes for us, but actually embrace it in a way that that's how we live full of lives.
What a wonderful integration of delivering happiness and going beyond to
the essence of being fully alive. What a gift you've given us. Thank you, Jen.
Thank you, Arthur. Thank you for all those great questions, too.
As a happiness researcher, people are always my subdued of choice. We put out a call to action
for our listeners to answer this question. When is the last time you remember being truly happy?
Hello, this is Brother Joe Trout, and coming to you from Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois,
just outside Chicago. Actually, just last night, I was pondering this question at the last
of feeling really happy. I had worked an incredibly long day. I'm a high school morality teacher,
and then a cross-country coach, so and part of a religious community. So I got up for prayer.
At 630 was off to school, worked in 11-hour day, and then came back home for prayer and community
time, and then spent another two hours doing research for my classes. The end of it, I was dead tired,
and out of nowhere just had this overwhelming sense of how wonderful it was, how great it was
that I got to do something meaningful all day. You know, a lot of people think of trying to
teach morality to teenagers is some horrible job that they just want to do whatever they want,
but it's not true at all. They're deeply invested in the question of how to live a rich,
meaningful life. It's exhausting at times, but it's fun. You know, teachers, we don't see the fruit
of our work all the time. We often are left hoping, but I just, at a certain level, don't really care.
I enjoy it, and I see what they're doing now, and I hope they'll turn out well. I don't,
I don't know what more I could ask for.
Today's exercise is called turning your job into your mission. That sounds pretty bold, doesn't it?
There's the old story about somebody who's walking down the street, and he sees somebody who's
putting one brick on top of another, and he asks him, so what are you doing? He said, well,
obviously, I'm just laying bricks. There's a guy next to him doing the same thing, and so he says
to him, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm building a wall. There's a third guy doing the same
thing, and he says, what are you doing? And he said, I'm building a cathedral. So what's your answer?
Are you laying bricks? You're building a cathedral. If you want your job to be a mission,
you need to do two things, and this is where the exercise comes in. The two things that take a
job and make it into a mission, that make it truly meaningful, now and going forward in the future,
are earning your success and serving others. Now I'm going to talk about how you do each one.
Earning your success is the opposite of what the great social psychologist Martin Seligman calls
learning your helplessness, and his research, he's found that learned helplessness occurs when
people feel like they don't have any control that no matter what they do doesn't really affect the
outcome. It's actually really clear in the research that is correlated with depression and
anxiety. The opposite of learned helplessness for you, you just feel helpless. You're not going
to do anything. You're not going to put any special effort forward. You're certainly not going to
like what you're doing. The opposite is earned success, where you're creating value with your work.
To do that, you need a feeling of accomplishment and a path forward. So ask yourself this in your work.
What am I doing? What am I accomplishing and what is my path forward? Now I realize that this can
be hard to do depending on your job. For example, let's just say you're you're an insurance agent.
It's easy to be thinking, well I'm trying to sell people insurance and they don't necessarily want
it. I feel like I'm trying to get people to eat their rustle sprouts because it's a responsible
thing to do. I guess that's helping them, but on a lot of days you probably feel like you're an
annoyance. Well, let's think a little bit deeper. I've done a little research on that very industry.
Insurance is truly a happiness engine for people because it takes uncertainty and takes fear out
of people's lives. Go forward every single day saying I'm going to remove fear from somebody's life
today so that that person can feel free to earn their success and so that they can without fear
serve other people. That's a beautiful thing to do and you can do that and you can find that kind of
link in any job that you have that's honest and that end point of fact is serving your values.
If you think where what you're doing is leading you and how it's creating value and how the value
you're going to create is going to build on the value you're currently creating. You'll be building
a cathedral. That's earning your success. Write it down, make a plan, see what it looks like over
the next 10 or 15 years. The second is that your job can't be about you primarily, not even
that often. You need to serve other people. Think to yourself, who am I serving? I know it can be
circuitous. I know it can be hard. I know it can be hard to imagine who it might possibly be and
on some days it's really really frustrating. But in some way shape performs something that you're
doing should be able in your mind to get to somebody who needs you, somebody with less power than
you, somebody who will benefit, maybe benefit greatly from your work. Think of that person.
Dedicate your work to that person and watch your satisfaction grow.
That's all for this week's episode of How to Build a Happy Life. This episode was produced by me,
Rebecca Rashid, and hosted by Arthur Brooks, editing by AC Valdez, fact check by NL Varado.
Our engineer is Michael Rayfield.
