Moment 100 - A Neuroscientist Explains The Surprising Way To Be Happy TODAY!: Tali Sharot

What is the optimism bias? This is overestimating the good things that will happen in your future, despite all the evidence that may go against it. This is a systematic mistake that we all make as we always expect the future to be better than it ends up being and we underestimate the negatives that could happen. However, in this moment Dr. Tali Sharot discusses how the optimism bias can be a positive as our expectations of future happiness affect our happiness right now, it can motivate you to try harder to make this a reality. As Dr. Sharot says, “what we believe in our mind, changes the way we behave and the way we behave in the world changes the world”. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/PVr36vSM2xb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  The optimism bias, from what I understood, is that bias to believing that the future will be good? Is that accurate or is that inaccurate?

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, kind of. So optimism on its own.

• 0:14Steven Bartlett?

  You're agreeing with me even though I'm wrong?

• 0:16Speaker 01

  No, you're not wrong. I think what you mean is right.

• 0:18Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  I'll just give you the scientific definition. So optimism is believing that positive things will happen. The optimism bias means that you believe these optimistic things, these good things will happen, but the evidence suggests otherwise. So it's actually a mistake, right? The optimism bias, so usually we define it as overestimating the likelihood of positive events happening. So you're overestimating, how much money am I going to get with my first job when I leave graduate school, right? Or overestimating like how long my marriage will last and so on. So overestimating the positive in light of the evidence that is in front of us and underestimating

• 1:04Speaker 01

  the likelihood of negative events happening. So I'm underestimating my likelihood of getting COVID, of getting cancer, of being in a car accident, going bankrupt, whatever it is, based on whatever evidence is there. So optimism bias doesn't mean mistakes. So the word bias means a systematic mistake. So obviously, when we think about the future, we can't be right most of the time because the future is uncertain and we don't know what's going to happen. So we're going to be wrong a lot of times when we predict the future. But the optimism bias means that the mistakes that we make tend to systematically be that we expect it to be better than it ends up being. So that's basically optimism bias, right? I expect it to be better than it ends up being, which sounds like a bad thing, but

• 1:49Speaker 01

  it's not necessarily so. I mean, the word bias, people usually, because it is a mistake, people usually think that that means it's not a good thing, but it's not necessarily so. It can actually have both positive and negative outcomes to it. So if you think about the positive, if I expect good things in my future, specifically good things, even though I'm overestimating the likelihood of these things happening, even if I think, oh, I'm going to make 1 million in the next year, and of course, that's way more than I'm going to. But that then motivates you, right? So having these positive expectations motivates you to try harder. It's a bit like, I think I'm going to get the gold. I'm more likely to get the silver. So that's kind of the idea.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  And it also enhances your happiness and well being, right? Because how you're feeling now is a lot to do, not necessarily with what you're doing at the moment, but what you think you'll be doing later, right? How you're feeling now is like, okay, you might maybe feeling nice talking here. But a lot of it is, what do I think I'm going to do later on this evening, next week, next month, in a year? Our expectations of where we will be in the future affects our happiness today, right? And so if I have these positive expectations of the future, even if they're not going to happen, they make me happier today. This is why there's a really cool study that was done at Harvard, where they were asking people who are about to go on vacation, how happy they were every day before vacation and have every day during vacation

• 3:17Speaker 01

  and every day after vacation for a week. So a week before vacation every day, a week during vacation every day, a week after vacation every day. So what was the happiest day, do you think?

• 3:27Steven Bartlett?

  The day before they went.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Right, exactly, right. The day before vacation, they were still in the office, like working on the computers. But on their mind, they were already on vacation. And in their mind, it was wonderful. And when they went on vacation, it was good, but it wasn't as good as it was in their minds the day before. So it's the anticipation of these goods. So it's an optimism bias because they thought the vacation is going to be better than what it ended up being. But that brought them the happiness beforehand, right? And also probably enhanced the likelihood that they will go on vacation, which is a good thing as well.

• 3:57Steven Bartlett?

  So does that mean that we should, in our relationships, in our teams, etc., we should try and give people things to look forward to?

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that there's two things. You kind of want things in the diary, right? So having a vacation in the diary that's going to happen in a month makes you happy today. So whatever it is, whatever you're doing for that matters to your team. Have what I call anticipatory events, right? Things that they could look forward to that will make them happy today. But also, I think, you know, a lot of times I do motivate my team by telling them that I think this project is going to work really well. I mean, even I think it's worked pretty well, but I might like exaggerate a little bit because, you know, that enhances motivation and who knows, you know, maybe it will work even better than I expected.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  So it's good to kind of enhance kind of the the expectations and also to have these things that people can look forward to. And of course, it works the other way. So also, if you're dreading something that's going to happen tomorrow, next week, right? You have to go to the dentist or whatever bad thing is happening is gonna get there and that it's going to affect your mood today. So dread of things in the future and anticipation of the good stuff is all affecting how we feel at the moment.

• 5:13Steven Bartlett?

  How contagious is optimism and conversely pessimism in like in life generally? If I'm around a group of pessimists or I'm around a group of optimists, what kind of contagious impact is there on on me?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, any emotion is contagious. Anything sadness, anxiety, joy, everything is contagious, fear. And it happens really, really fast and in an unconscious way, right? It could be even like you're sitting in in the tube and someone in front of you is looking fearful. You straight away will will feel fearful yourself. First of all, you will mimic the expression of the person that's in front of you without noticing it. So if you look fearful, I'm going to start mimicking the same facial expressions. Yeah. And that facial expression will make me feel fearful, right? Because our brain is learning from how our face, right? There's it's a signal and it goes both ways. It's like a feedback loop.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  And there's a good reason for it because if someone is afraid, there might be something dangerous around us. So I should.

• 6:16Steven Bartlett?

  We've seen the monkeys in the David Attenborough documentary. That start, they they know that they know that the other monkeys are taking a cue from them. So they fake fear. So they go, ah, ah. And then when all the monkeys run off, they go and get the food.

• 6:30Steven Bartlett?

  Because they've like they've like got to level two where they realize that they're all taking cues from each other. And I remember that documentary thinking, wow, like, you know, because all the monkeys would run the minute one monkey made a reaction. And that's pretty much what you're describing there, right?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And it works for good things as well. If someone looks excited, you're like, you will feel excited as well. You don't know why, but if they're excited, there might be something good around, right?

• 6:50Steven Bartlett?

  Is this why people yawn together? I was thinking about yawns are contagious.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  It's just mimicking. We do facial expressions. We mimic any kind of facial expression and bodily expressions as well. Yeah, I'm trying not to now. But, but okay, so why is this really important to think about? Because let's say you want to, you're managing your team. If you're stressful and you're going to start like, I don't know, even like shouting or raising your voice, or they're going to get more stressed as well. Right? So it's, it's, it's true. It's a bit like the monkeys. You can actually change at least how you look in terms of the emotions. You need to think about what is my, what emotion am I conveying? Because the emotion that you are conveying is going to then affect how people

• 7:33Speaker 01

  around you feel. So there's a little bit of kind of emotional control that is helpful to.

• 7:42Steven Bartlett?

  You mentioned that you kind of, you might exaggerate a little bit, the belief in a positive outcome to your team members. And I think that's.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  And I hope they're not listening.

• 7:51Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. Well, I think we all do sometimes. I mean, I usually believe it because I think I have a bit of a bias, optimism bias myself. But that's in part because of, I guess, chapter three in the optimism bias, where you talk about how self fulfilling optimism is. And there were some really, really staggering statistical sort of studies and experiments that have been done to prove that optimism really is a self fulfilling thing. And it kind of, kind of makes me think about this concept of manifestation. People always talk about manifestation. And it seems that it's, in my mind, always been this kind of pseudo sciencey, you just think about something and then it happens. What's your view on manifestation? Is it true?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's not magic. It's not that I'm thinking something in my mind and the waves are going to change what happens in the world. The reason, if you believe something, the likely they will happen is higher, is because you then change your actions. Right? You think. I think, you know, my startup is going to really succeed. And that then changes your actions. You're more likely to go out there and tell other people. Right? So if you think it's going to succeed, you're more likely to convey that information to investors and so on. They can see your, your kind of confidence. They'll be more likely to invest in you. Right? You put more time in, you put more effort in. And that's why it can have an effect on the, the outcomes.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  So it's not kind of a magic kind of thing. It's just that what we believe in our mind changes the way we behave. And the way we behave in the world changes the world. So that's, that's why that is.