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Why You're Not Happy and What To Do About It

2022-08-12 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, Mo Gawdat · recording, 14:30 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Mindset, motivation and happiness · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present, His own numbers, His medical past

Drawing on his Deep Dive interview with Mo Gawdat, Ali argues that happiness is partly a choice, explains why the idea is hard to accept (the negativity bias and an external locus of control) and gives five ways to become happier: the happiness equation, the look-down principle, the rule of nine positive things, happiness over joy and pleasure, and journey before destination.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Mo Gawdat on losing his son, and what the video will cover

  • ★★ Mo Gawdat says the modern world mixes happiness up with what he calls weapons of mass distraction (joy, pleasure, fun, entertainment, excitement), which are not genuine happiness. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Mo Gawdat says his son died because of a medical error: five mistakes in a very simple surgical operation. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Ali says Mo Gawdat lost his son Ali in 2014 and has since made it his mission to understand how happiness works and to make one billion people happier. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Ali says he has struggled a lot to find happiness day to day: we end up chasing money, fame, status, success and prestige, thinking they will make us happier, which is not really the path to true happiness and fulfilment. — 00:00:29

00:01:28 — Happiness is a choice: the incremental bit

  • ★★ When Ali first heard that happiness is a choice, part of him felt it was wrong to say so: what about people who suffered child abuse, live in poverty, or whose circumstances mean they cannot possibly be happy? — 00:01:28
  • ★★★ Mo Gawdat: Asked by Ali, Mo Gawdat says absolute happiness is not a choice and nobody is always happy; after chronic pain, abuse or losing someone you love, happiness is not as easy to find. — 00:01:28
  • ★★★ Mo Gawdat says that after losing his child he may never return to absolute happiness, but he has the choice to make life slightly better, and slightly better again: that incremental bit is a choice. — 00:02:17

00:02:46 — Why we struggle to accept it: the negativity bias and the locus of control

  • ★★ Ali gives the negativity bias as the first reason many of us reject the idea that happiness is a choice: the brain evolved to watch for threats, so we attend far more to negative events and conclude happiness is outside our control. — 00:02:46
  • ★★ Mo Gawdat says most of us live our whole life on solid ground: the baseline of life is okay, and negative events are dips out of it before we return to the baseline. — 00:03:15

00:04:13 — Tip one: the happiness equation, expectations and ambition

  • ★★ Ali's second reason is the locus of control: people raised with an external locus of control, who feel external circumstances dictate their lives, tend to think happiness cannot possibly be a choice. — 00:04:13

  • ★★★ Ali's first practical way to become happier is Mo Gawdat's happiness equation from Solve for Happy: happiness equals reality minus expectations, and since we can do little about reality, we can lower our expectations. — 00:04:13

    “happiness equals reality minus expectations”

  • ★★ Mo Gawdat says that if your target is happiness, lower expectations will make you happier, like friends of his who left fast-paced lives for the Dominican Republic and are unhappy only when there is not enough wind to kitesurf. — 00:05:08

  • ★★ Mo Gawdat: If your target is success and impact on life, Mo Gawdat says, you need to go the opposite way, with ambition. — 00:05:34
  • ★★ Mo Gawdat wrote Solve for Happy with the mission of making 10 million people happy; that happened very quickly, so his team set the target at a billion. — 00:05:34
  • ★★★ Mo Gawdat says the problem with the modern world is that we were told success is more important than happiness, or leads to it, and that is not true: successful, rich and famous people can be miserable, so success does not always lead to happiness. — 00:06:29
  • ★★★ Mo Gawdat: Between low and high expectations Mo Gawdat aims for a realistic expectation, an ambition higher than it, and contentment when life sometimes misses even that expectation, to get the best of both worlds. — 00:07:05
  • ★★★ To reconcile happiness now with striving, Ali keeps zero expectations of how a video performs or whether a new thing succeeds, while still having goals and trying not to tie his ego to the outcome. (hedged) — 00:08:01

00:08:24 — Tip two: the look-down principle

  • ★★ As an example of looking up, Ali compares himself with bigger YouTubers: he has 3 million subscribers, while Marques Brownlee has 15 million. — 00:08:30 · Marques Brownlee
  • ★★ Mo Gawdat says we always compare upward (a Mercedes against a Ferrari, a bus against a Mercedes), but you can always look down. — 00:08:30
  • ★★★ Ali's second tip is Mo Gawdat's look-down principle: instead of comparing yourself with those above you, appreciate where you are compared with where you were before, measuring the gain rather than the gap. — 00:08:59 · choose to be satisfied
  • ★★★ Mo Gawdat: About a year after his son Ali died, Mo Gawdat realised that Ali had also lived and enriched their lives for 21 and a half years: the mind asks how life could take a son and forgets that life gave him. — 00:09:28

00:09:55 — Tip three: the rule of nine positive things

  • ★★ Mo Gawdat says that, given the choice, he would not avoid the pain of losing his son by never having had him: he would take the pain ten times. — 00:09:55
  • ★★★ Ali's third tip is Mo Gawdat's rule of nine positive things against the brain's negativity bias: whenever you are upset about something, try to find nine positive things about the situation. — 00:09:55
  • ★★ Mo Gawdat says the brain left uncontrolled looks for what is wrong but can be instructed like a computer: when his brain tells him something is wrong, he asks it for nine other good things about the situation. — 00:10:35

00:10:50 — Tip four: happiness is different from joy and pleasure

  • ★★★ Ali's fourth tip: happiness, as Mo Gawdat defines it, is a general contentment with life as a whole, so invest in health, relationships, purpose, a fulfilling career and autonomy at work rather than in short-term pleasures. — 00:10:50

00:11:33 — Tip five: journey before destination, and Mo's books

  • ★★★ Ali's fifth tip is journey before destination: focus on the present moment instead of an "I will be happy when" milestone such as "I will be happy once I graduate med school and become a doctor"; that is usually not the case, and happiness is usually found in the present. — 00:11:33 · journey before destination
  • ★★ From a podcast episode of Lewis Howes with Alex Hormozi, Ali takes the idea that at 20 you want to be a millionaire and as a millionaire you wish you were 20, so we should appreciate the present moment more. — 00:12:02
  • ★★ To anyone interested in happiness Ali highly recommends Mo Gawdat's first book, Solve for Happy, on the happiness equation, and his new book, That Little Voice in Your Head. — 00:12:02

00:12:31 — Audible sponsor read, the Stormlight Archive and the Deep Dive episode with Mo

  • ★ Ali recommends the audiobook of The Way of Kings, the first Stormlight Archive book by Brandon Sanderson, to everyone: every person he has recommended it to has messaged him that it is amazing. — 00:13:01 · The Stormlight Archive, Brandon Sanderson
  • ★★ Ali's full conversation with Mo Gawdat is an episode of his Deep Dive podcast, on the Deep Dive YouTube channel and podcast platforms. — 00:13:59 · Deep Dive

Threads in this video

  • restate · How do you become happier? — Mo Gawdat says that after losing his child he may never return to absolute happiness, but he has the choice to make life slightly better, and slightly better again: that incremental bit is a choice. (00:02:17)
  • refine · How do you become happier? — Ali's fourth tip: happiness, as Mo Gawdat defines it, is a general contentment with life as a whole, so invest in health, relationships, purpose, a fulfilling career and autonomy at work rather than in short-term pleasures. (00:10:50)
  • restate · How do you become happier? — Ali's fifth tip is journey before destination: focus on the present moment instead of an "I will be happy when" milestone such as "I will be happy once I graduate med school and become a doctor"; that is usually not the case, and happiness is usually found in the present. (00:11:33)
  • refine · Should you set goals, and how? — To reconcile happiness now with striving, Ali keeps zero expectations of how a video performs or whether a new thing succeeds, while still having goals and trying not to tie his ego to the outcome. (00:08:01)
  • restate · How do you handle criticism and comparing yourself with others? — Mo Gawdat says we always compare upward (a Mercedes against a Ferrari, a bus against a Mercedes), but you can always look down. (00:08:30)
  • restate · How do you handle criticism and comparing yourself with others? — Ali's second tip is Mo Gawdat's look-down principle: instead of comparing yourself with those above you, appreciate where you are compared with where you were before, measuring the gain rather than the gap. (00:08:59)
  • progress update · Ali promises to keep recommending fantasy audiobooks on the channel (2020) — Ali recommends the audiobook of The Way of Kings, the first Stormlight Archive book by Brandon Sanderson, to everyone: every person he has recommended it to has messaged him that it is amazing. (00:13:01)
  • milestone · Ali's interview podcast with entrepreneurs and creators (2021) — Ali's full conversation with Mo Gawdat is an episode of his Deep Dive podcast, on the Deep Dive YouTube channel and podcast platforms. (00:13:59)
  • restate · Should you set goals, and how? — Between low and high expectations Mo Gawdat aims for a realistic expectation, an ambition higher than it, and contentment when life sometimes misses even that expectation, to get the best of both worlds. (00:07:05)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: happiness equation · Mo Gawdat · Solve for Happy

Also: People: Alex Hormozi · Brandon Sanderson · Lewis Howes · Marques Brownlee

Projects: Deep Dive

Works: That Little Voice in Your Head · The Stormlight Archive · The Way of Kings · Words of Radiance

Concepts: choose to be satisfied · journey before destination · locus of control · negativity bias

Products: Audible

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