Pod Insights The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett Moment 153: Happiness Engineer Explains The Exact Formula For Happiness: Mo Gowdat About this episode In this moment, former chief business officer for Google X and bestselling author, Mo Gawdat, discusses the happiness equation. According to Mo, we don’t realise that happiness is actually very predictable, so much so that it can actually be put into a mathematical equation. Mo says the formula for happiness is: your perception of the events of your life minus your expectations of how life should be. This means, that it’s not specific events that cause happiness, but it is the comparison between the event and the expectation you have in your mind of how your life should be going. As a result happiness is all about perception, which means you have the ability to control your happiness and it becomes a choice that you decide.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Steven Bartlett? So what is the cause of unhappiness as you see it? Especially if you're building sort of machine learning applications that are gonna, you know, solve, you know, make people arrive at contentment or happiness in a personalized way, we must be able to know what's causing this lack of happiness.
0:17 Mo Gawdat? Allow me a bit of time to explain it because it's simple when we get it, but it's not simple to get to it. So happiness is very predictable, okay? If you look back at any point in your life where you ever felt happy, there is one commonality across all of those moments that can actually be documented in a mathematical equation, okay? You've never felt happy because of a specific event in your life, okay? Take for example rain. Rain doesn't make you happy or unhappy. There is no inherent value of happiness in rain, okay? Rain makes you happy when you want to water your plants and it makes you unhappy when you want a sunbath, right?
0:56 Mo Gawdat? And so it's not just the event, rain, it's the comparison between the event and an expectation in your mind of how life should be, okay? If you're worried about your plants, then life should be generous to me and get me rain so I can water the plants. And if life does that, then life meets your expectations and you're happy, okay? And so happiness in that sense becomes equal to or greater than, so it's really mathematics, that your perception of the events of your life minus your expectations of how life should be, okay? And apply that to anything, apply that to anything. So, you know, my favorite example is nature. We're all happy in nature. Why are we all happy in nature?
1:37 Mo Gawdat? I mean, you go out there and there are ants and there are flies and, you know, trees are crooked and there are, you know, shrubs everywhere and bushes and it's just really not that hedged and organized, but that's what we expect. So you know, nature's chaos is what we expect nature to be. And so we feel happy. You know, nobody ever sits in front of the ocean and says, I like the view, but please mute the sound. Okay, you just take it. You know, it's, it's the monotonous sound and the view and the wind and, and the sun and the whole experience. Right? And because of that, happiness becomes very different than what was defined to us. Okay?
2:21 Mo Gawdat? What was defined to us is that happiness is found in a gathering at the pub or a party or a, you know, an activity or some kind of pleasure or fun or elation or whatever that is. That's not at all true. These, I, I call these the state of escape. Okay? Happiness, as per the definition of the happiness equation is events equal to or beating expectations. Life going my way. Okay? And so basically happiness is that calm and peacefulness you feel when you're okay with life as it is. It doesn't really matter what life is. Okay? What matters is that you can be okay with it. Right? So, so you take, you know, the, any example, huh?
3:02 Mo Gawdat? If your boss is annoying and your expectation is, yeah, bosses are annoying. This is what life is about. They become bosses because they're annoying. Right? And, and so if, if that's your expectation, you're gonna look at it and go like, yeah, I need to learn the skill of managing annoying bosses. Okay? And if that's the case, then you're not gonna be upset about it.
3:25 Mo Gawdat? Similarly, anything else, huh? If you look at it, then it's not just the event. It's your perception of the event. So you have a, a, something to influence. It's not just the event, huh? Your partner might say something hurtful on Friday at 4:00 P. M. That's the event. My partner said something hurtful. At Sunday morning, you tell yourself, he or she doesn't love me anymore. Okay? That's your perception of the event. That's not actually the event. The event is something hurtful was said. But your perception of the event is your work, is your, is your brain adding color to it. And then you compare that to your expectations. Right? You compared my boss is annoying to my boss shouldn't be annoying. Where did you get that from? Right? So we blur the happiness equation.
4:10 Mo Gawdat? We break the happiness equation because of what I call the six and seven. Okay, six grand illusions and seven blind spots. Which are, the six grand illusions are basically, uh, call them pathways that the modern world teaches us to navigate the modern world, that are illusions, are not true. Okay, uh, take for example, control. Everyone knows that to succeed in the modern world, you have to learn to control certain events. Right? So you start to believe that the way to succeed in life is to control everything. But the truth is, even if you go down to the basics of physics, that we never are in control.
4:50 Mo Gawdat? That the absolute design of nature itself, of the universe itself, is entropy and chaos. Right? That's the actual design. And so if you try to control it, you're bound to be disappointed. A lot of events are gonna miss your expectations. Okay? And yes, I'm not saying don't control anything at all, but start to understand that you're, you're gonna be selective because you have a finite amount of effort. And by the way, even if you're selective and you, you try to control everything, sometimes things will fall out of control. Okay? And that should be your expectation. Once you get that right, that was one, that was my biggest illusion. Okay? I'm a mathematician, I'm a software developer, I am a physicist, I am an engineer,
5:35 Mo Gawdat? and I'm a senior executive, it doesn't get worse than that. Okay? I'm like the worst, absolute the worst. I used to give my wonderful wife, I swear to you, Stephen, don't judge me. I used to give her a spreadsheet that would tell her when to wash the colors and when to wash the whites based on our average consumption as a family to save the environment. And poor Nibel would, would actually smile at me and say, sure baby, I will use this.
6:02 Mo Gawdat? Of course, and ignores the hell out of me because that's how crazy you can be when it comes to control. Now, these are the illusions. If you live your life through the illusion of control, good luck finding happiness. So six grand illusions, the illusion of, of thought, the illusion, the illusion of self, the illusion of knowledge, the illusion of time, control and fear. Okay? Now... That's one side, and that disrupts your your entire view of what to expect from life, because you're expecting life to behave through a lens of a lens of an illusion. The other side of it is what I call seven blind spots. Okay, and the seven blind spots are not really defects in your brain. As a matter of fact, they are the very design of your brain.
6:47 Mo Gawdat? Okay, your brain is designed to tell you what's wrong. Okay, it's not designed to, you know, if a tiger shows up right here now, my brain has no use whatsoever in telling me, oh, my God, look how majestic that animal is. Right? Yeah, it's a beautiful animal, but my brain will say, we're gonna die. Okay, and we're gonna die is the idea that basically makes our our our our brain constantly look for what's wrong, blur the events of life. You ask a mother and and she will say, oh, my daughter's been sick all winter. Now, she just had two episodes of flu, three days each. But to the to the caring heart of a mother, that needs to be exaggerated to
7:30 Mo Gawdat? the exaggeration is one of the blind spots. Your your brain is trying to get you to take action, so it pushes you. It pushes you by exaggerating the event a little bit, so that you jump in and take action. And accordingly, the event you're comparing to, you're comparing the wrong event to the wrong expectation, and the happiness equation falls apart.
7:49 Steven Bartlett? Under all of this, you're inferring something which I think will annoy a lot of people. And that is that happiness is a choice.
7:56 Mo Gawdat? Oh, totally.
7:57 Steven Bartlett? And that you you you can choose to be happy.
8:00 Mo Gawdat? Totally.
8:00 Steven Bartlett? And that if you're unhappy, and really, for many circumstances in our life, day to day, in work, in love, in relationships, personal responsibility is the is the answer.
8:10 Mo Gawdat? And entirely on you.
8:12 Steven Bartlett? And a lack thereof is the cause.
8:13 Mo Gawdat? Absolutely. You know what you just did? You've just lost us eighty eight percent of the audience.
8:18 Steven Bartlett? I know. Do you know why I know? Because I did a tweet one day about this. And what my tweet was. There's like a, I guess, a mental model, but there's a reframing that can, I think, has brought me happiness, which is when something happens to me, I, I used to, like many people say, X thing that happened has pissed me off.
8:36 Mo Gawdat? Yeah.
8:37 Steven Bartlett? And just by changing that sentence to, I've pissed myself off because of X thing.
8:41 Mo Gawdat? Absolutely.
8:42 Steven Bartlett? And I tweeted that and I was like, try it, just like reframe it and take personal responsibility for how you're feeling. And in the comments section, everyone was like, nope.
8:52 Mo Gawdat? Yep.
8:53 Steven Bartlett? People don't like the idea that they have control over their emotional responses.
8:57 Mo Gawdat? So when I, when I wrote, so when I wrote, when I write books in general, I write them, I write them like software. So I issue a beta version, okay, and I get 270 people. I don't know why 270.
9:06 Steven Bartlett? I heard, that's fascinating.
9:07 Mo Gawdat? Yeah, I get 270 people to read it on Google Docs. So I give them editor privileges so they can actually edit the text, right? And then something fascinating happens. They, they edit the text and then others edit what they edited. Okay. And there is a conversation happening and basically it takes the book to its best possible version, if you want. In Solve for Happy, I had a sentence on page 11 that basically said exactly what you said. Happiness is a choice. Okay. And at that page, I lost 8% of the readers. Okay. And, you know, I looked into the information that they gave me about themselves, the early readers, and the eight, most of the 8% that left were already in depression. Okay.
9:52 Mo Gawdat? And to tell someone, it's your responsibility to get yourself out of this horrible place that you're in is quite disturbing because we like the idea of saying, no, no, hold on, no, it's not me. Life is treating me really badly. That's why I'm not happy. Okay. I can't do anything about it. Life took my son, you know, life took my son. I have the right to be unhappy. Yes, life took your son, that's true, and you have the right to be unhappy, but you're never going to get out of unhappiness if you wait for life to bring him back or you wait for life to correct its action. Okay. The only way you can come out of unhappiness is if you choose and say, okay, it's going to be a long journey, it's going to take a lot of time. Okay. And I'm going to try and try and try, but I'll get there.
10:37 Mo Gawdat? And, and neuroplasticity proves that. Neuroplasticity basically tells you that if you just run a happiness kind of activity once a day, every day your brain will be better at it. And I mean, please don't get me wrong, but what do most of us do every day? We watch negative news, we swipe on toxic positivity, and we're just drowning ourselves in negativity. And then what happens? What happens is we become really good at being negative. We become really good at finding what's wrong with life. Become very good at, you know, getting pissed off with the Prime Minister. Right? Because it's an activity we do on daily basis. So your brain goes like, this must be important for her or him. Okay, I'm just gonna make sure I have the neurons aligned around that.
11:20 Mo Gawdat? And so you're basically, we're basically configuring our brains to be unhappy. I have not watched a horror movie for fifteen years. Really? Yeah, you know what that means? I have not had a nightmare for fifteen years. Not a single one. Okay, I have not watched a violent movie unless really badly recommended to me because it has a good message in it. Hmm? And I watch Michael McIntyre every night before I sleep. I love Michael McIntyre. Who's gonna get me to say hi to Michael McIntyre? But think about that practice, huh? My brain before I go to sleep, hmm, is laughing. Is laughing. That's a choice. That's a choice.
12:00 Mo Gawdat? Hmm? And that is the kind of neuroplasticity that we need to shift. You know, if you go to the gym and lift weights every day, you're gonna look like a triangle. If you squat every day, you're gonna look like a pear. Okay? The same is happening inside your brain, you just don't see it. If you're constantly watching, you know, news media, right? You're literally building your muscles that are concerned and are, you know, critical and are worried about the world, when in reality, most of the time, you can't do anything about it. Like, okay, so I'll give you a very strange example. When I was locked down, first lockdown, I was in London. Second lockdown, I was in Canada.
12:44 Mo Gawdat? Okay? As the lockdown was approaching, I stopped watching news after April 2020. Zero news. Okay? And by the time I was in Montreal, someone texted me and said, hey, by the way, did you know we're going to Code Red tomorrow? I said, yeah, what's Code Red? She said, all restaurants are closed, you wear a mask everywhere. I said, good. That's it. That's all the news I needed to know. Really, okay? People would go like, no, how come? You need to know the numbers and the statistics and the death rate and they're... No, I don't, okay? Someone else is doing this. And by the way, if I know it and I don't like it and I don't believe in what they're doing, I'm gonna be locked down anyway. So can I waste my time or actually utilize my time in building a podcast that becomes
13:29 Mo Gawdat? one of the top half percent of all podcasts globally? Isn't that a better use of my life than just watching the news and, you know, creating that illusion for myself that I can actually influence anything when in reality? So, you know, I normally advise people and say, look, if you've been following a certain topic for the last two months and have not been able to influence the decision on that topic for the last two months, you're useless. So stop watching that topic, okay? And start choosing topics that you can champion, okay? One or two, because you're human, you're not, you know, you're not Superman. Find one or two real, you know, purposes that you actually care about
14:11 Mo Gawdat? and try to learn enough about them, enough depth about them to influence them. That's the way to make the world better. That's the way to make your life better. And yeah, climate change is really something very important, but it's not on my agenda. I don't work on climate change. I work on happiness. That's my part of life, okay? Someone else I trust will be working on climate change, which I believe is as important, if not more important. But it's not mine. I don't need to watch everything about it, okay? And concern myself about it all the time. I need to be updated. I need to do my part by really changing my habits as a human. But that's it. That's as far as I go.
14:50 Steven Bartlett? There's something in there which is clearly a theme in, I think, three topics we've touched on. The passing of your son, you know, you talked there about COVID and other elements, which is this theme of like radical acceptance.
15:01 Mo Gawdat? Oh, absolutely.
15:02 Steven Bartlett? Like instant radical acceptance.
15:04 Mo Gawdat? Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is what I call the Jedi Master level of happiness. So there are three levels of happiness, right? The, you know, if you, if you really think about it, I call it the happiness flow chart. Events are gonna piss you off. It's just the truth. If you can manage to acknowledge your emotion and say, oh, my God, I feel so... Am I angry? Is this anger? I mean, is this, is this what I'm feeling? And then, and then you take that feeling and you say to yourself, okay, interesting. I am angry. I need to do something about it. I will give you three steps. Okay? The beginner's level is ask yourself if what you're thinking is true. Your partner said something hurtful on Friday.
15:47 Mo Gawdat? Your thought is he or she doesn't love me anymore. Okay? Ask yourself if that thought is true. If it isn't, drop it. There is no point to be unhappy. If it is, then let's go to the black belt level of unhappiness, which is can I do something about it? That's the second question. Is it true is question one? Can I do something about it is question two, right? And honestly, by the way, it doesn't take more than two seconds to feel the emotion. Ask yourself if it's true and then go to, to, to, to, can I do something about it? And if yes, then do it. What are you waiting for? Text him or text her and say, baby, can we please talk over dinner? What you said on Friday hurt me. Okay? Instead of just banging your head against the table, hoping that they will find out and come and say, oh, I'm so sorry.
16:31 Mo Gawdat? You know, I, I, I was teaching. This story really hurts me. I, I was teaching, you know, when, before lockdown, I, I taught a lot of people in workshops and seminars, more than 20,000 people. One, one day, one of them comes to me in the first break and says, what are you talking about? What do you mean happiness is a choice? You have no idea what happened to me. Okay? And I said, okay? And she said, when I was 17. She was 74 at the time. Can you believe that? 57 years of holding on to one thought hitting her head against the wall. Right? And I hugged her. I hugged her, I cried, and I said, did it work? Did all of that work? Or was the better thought? Hmm?
17:16 Mo Gawdat? Okay, it was horrible. But can I do something about it? Okay? And that's question number two. That's black belt. Sometimes, however, there's nothing you can do about it. Whatever she experienced could be irreversible. What I have experienced, the loss of Ali, is irreversible. There is nothing you can do about it. Okay? And I'm not asking everyone to get there quickly. But the Jedi Master level of happiness is to say, "Okay. It happened, and I have no choice to change it. There is nothing I can do to fix it. So can I accept it? But not surrender and lie down and, you know, and die. Accept it and then start to do something to make my life better despite its presence? Or maybe because of its presence? Okay?
18:01 Mo Gawdat? Can I accept that Ali died? Hmm? And start to spread his message? So that my life and the life of others become better? Can I accept that I'm locked down? And start my podcast? So that I can use the time where I'm not traveling? Can I do that? I call that committed acceptance. Okay? And it's very simple. If you commit and accept to... If you accept things you can't change and commit to make your life better despite of or because of their presence? Nothing can beat you. Nothing can beat you. And yeah, does it... Is it horrible that I actually managed to move on and, you know, not hit my head against the wall for 27 years? Does that say I don't love Ali? What are you talking about? I adore Ali.
18:44 Mo Gawdat? I cry about missing him still today. Right? It's not that... There is nothing to prove in that. Hmm? What I can prove is I love him so much? Hmm? That I actually dedicate my life to spreading his message. That's so much better? Hmm? Than sitting there and saying, "Ah, life hit me. I don't like life." Right? That's a six-year-old attitude, honestly. Okay? Adults will say, "Okay." And especially business people, I mean, your audiences, huh? The market changes all the time. Do you sit down and go like, "Ah, I lost another deal?" Or do you just get up and say, "Why did we lose this deal? What can we do about it?" Right? And if there is something wrong with the product, can we change the product? Right?
19:31 Steven Bartlett? Well, you talked to there about business in particular rings very, very true because in business and you've been, you know, very successful entrepreneur yourself and worked with teams, you'll get people who are high in defaulting to logic in moments of chaos and also default to personal responsibility and those that don't.
19:50 Mo Gawdat? Yeah.
19:50 Steven Bartlett? And the outcomes of both groups are quite predictable.
19:53 Mo Gawdat? Very different, very different. And actually, this, this approach of is it true, can I do something about it? Can I accept it and, and, and commit? I learned that in business. Okay. So I've spent most of my, my career, I was managing managers. And what do managers do? They open your door and they sit down and complain. Okay. And after a while, it becomes too much. So my attitude was very straightforward. I would give them 10 minutes to vent, then 10 minutes to ask them, is this true? Okay. Is there anything you're missing? Is, is the legal team also nice, not just making your life miserable? Right? Have, have you seen evidence that they've helped you before? So, you know, is it true? And then I go like, so now, great, last 10 minutes of the meeting, what are we going to do about it?
20:38 Mo Gawdat? Are we going to be able to, to, to improve it, fix it? Or are we going to accept it and do something despite its presence? And it's a very simple business approach. Now, most of us do that in business, but when it comes to our personal life, we don't do that. And interestingly, most of us, by the way, who do that in business are very successful in business and most of us who do that in life are very successful in life. It's not just happy. It makes us, it makes us successful because it doesn't waste our cycles on things that are not necessary. So if you can do it at work, do it at home, do it in your life, do it in your relationships. It's really a very straightforward flow chart.
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