TED Talk: The Happy Secret to Better Work

In this talk, Shawn Achor explains the happy secrets to better work in a funny and entertaining presentation. In his talk, he explained how society wants everyone of a certain standard, and if you don't reach it, you are automatically deemed a failure.

I came across this comic years ago and it is really relevant to this talk.


In the comic, a man is asking 6 different animals, to climb a tree as a "fair selection". But is it really fair? All of these animals have different abilities so if not all of them manage to climb the tree, does that mean that they are less skilled? And for the monkey, that manages to climb the tree, does that mean he is remarkably talented? Or does that simply mean that he can climb a tree. As for the fish, it is a totally unfair test for it as it is not even a land animal.

However, that is the sad cult of the average. Society wants us all to be average. All the same.

He then went on to talk about happiness in life. How we think that if we study hard, get good grades, we can get good jobs with good pay and that is a good life.

But what if all these aren't enough? What if you get a good grade but you want better grades? Get a good job but you want a better job with a better pay? It just means we will only be satisfied for a short time before we start chasing for better things.

So how can we be happy in that case?

This is where he shares the secret with us.

"90% of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world but by the way your brain processes the world. And if we change it, if we change our formula for happiness and success, what we can do is change the way that we can then affect reality."