Is Happiness Greater Than Expectations?

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Happiness is greater than ar equal to events minus expectations. If your target in life is to be happy, then your lower expectations will make you happier. The problem of the modern world is that we believe success is more important than happiness. Great success doesn't always lead to happiness. I need an ambitious than tha ambition that is higher than the realistic expectation. And sometimes even my content expectation might be missed. In that case, i'm getting a real tic expectation and a high ambition while trying to be successful at the same time.

If you take control over your brain, you can do anything - but what’s the formula?

Some moments in life fundamentally change the way you think about the world - that’s what this conversation with Mo Gawdat did for me and what I’m certain it will do for you too.

Mo is the former Chief Business Officer of Google X, Google's moonshot factory of innovation, a prolific researcher and writer on the topic of happiness and has an incredibly touching story.

In 2014, Mo lost his son Ali unexpectedly during a routine medical procedure. Days after, Mo set off on a mission to solve one of the biggest problems of our time, by pouring his research into the international best selling book, ‘Solve For Happy: Engineer Your Path To Joy’ - the audiobook brought me to tears.

#OneBillionHappy is his moonshot attempt to honour Ali by spreading the message that happiness can be learned and shared with one simple technique: the happiness equation.

For the next 90 minutes I ask you to forget everything you’ve learned about happiness from the modern world until now. In the episode we talk about a lot of things, things that may sit uncomfortably with some people, but also have the potential to be truly life changing.

00:00 Intro
2:16 Writing a book about happiness after losing your son
07:37 Battling the negativity bias instinct
10:42 Is happiness a choice?
19:59 The difference between happiness and fun
31:07 Understanding the happiness equation and unhappiness
39:23 Do lower expectations make us happier?
43:01 How should we manage ambitions?
57:00 You are born a millionaire
01:01:31 Is solve for happy the domain of the privileged?
01:09:00 Relationships: life is a question of context
01:15:22 Feminine vs masculine energy

🔔 Sign up to Cohort 6 of my Part-Time YouTuber Academy: https://academy.aliabdaal.com/

🔗 CONNECT WITH MO

🎥 YouTube Channel
🐦 Twitter
📸 Instagram
💻 Website
🎙 Slo Mo Podcast
😊 Solve For Happy: Engineer Your Path To Joy
🗣 That Little Voice In Your Head

🔗 CONNECT WITH ALI
🎥 YouTube Channel
🐦 Twitter
📸 Instagram
💻 Website
👥 Linkedin

Find the show notes and the transcript on the website: https://aliabdaal.com/podcast/