You Hit $5M, Then $10M. Why It Never Feels Like Enough (& What Actually Does)

Tal Ben-Shahar (0:00)

The biggest misconception is that success will lead to happiness. I always thought that success led to happiness. And what I realized is that it's the other way around. You increase levels of happiness even by a little bit.

You become more creative and more innovative. You become more engaged, more productive. Companies that enhance levels of well-being of their employees actually perform better.

So, there's a direct relationship between well-being and profit margins.

Tommy Mello (0:33)

Today I got Tal Ben-Shahar with me. Some fun facts about Tal is he taught the most popular course in Harvard's history, 1400 students, Israel's youngest ever national squash champion at the age of 16

Trained with World Squash Champion, Mr. Conn at 17 I'm just going to say that because that's a tough name. Created the world's first masters and PhD in Happiness Studies.

Featured on 60 Minutes Daily Show, CNN, PBS, and Mel Robbins, who I'm a big fan of, carries a podcast pad, carries a pocket pad everywhere for his daily Gratitude Journal. I love it, man. Tal, I'm really excited because I'm a business guy. 20 years in, we'll do 410 million this year. And every day I'm searching for the next thing as a normal entrepreneur. And, you know, they say more money, more problems. I agree with that. And a lot of people, they're always saying these things like, when this happens, I'll be happy. When this happens, when I get in shape, when I go on that trip. And I think that's more of the entrepreneurial thing. But I guess, let's just start out by telling us your life story and just who you are, what got you into the study of happiness?

Tal Ben-Shahar (1:57)

Yeah. So what got me to the study of happiness is actually my own unhappiness.

So I was an undergraduate at Harvard studying computer science. And I found myself in my second year doing very well academically, doing well in athletics, I played squash, doing quite well socially, and yet being very unhappy. And Tommy, it didn't make sense to me, because everything that I had learned until that point told me that in order to be happy, you have to succeed. You know, I have to check a few boxes, which I did. And then, you know, happiness would find its way to me. That wasn't the case. I was, you know, not depressed, but I was very unhappy. And I remember one very cold Boston morning, going to my academic advisor, my sophomore year, going to my academic advisor and telling her that I'm switching majors. And she said, what to? And I said, well, I'm leaving computer science, moving over to philosophy and psychology. And she said, why? And I said, because I have two questions. First question, why aren't I happy? Second question, how can I become happier?

And these are the questions that have guided me for over 30 years now.

Tommy Mello (3:18)

Yeah, well, I think this is probably going to be one of the best podcasts ever because I think, like I was explaining earlier, that we think these things are going to make us happy, like doing more, getting in better shape, making more friends, becoming greater, especially social media makes it really tough because we see the best in everybody's life and their acting and only recording the great moments. When you won Israel's National Championship at 16, and you said you were only happy for about three hours, and then it just went away.

Tal Ben-Shahar (3:51)

Tell me about that. Yeah, so that was actually my first encounter with, or my first recognition that something was off. So I had trained very hard from the age of 11, basically the age of six or seven, and I decided that I wanted to be a professional athlete. Sports was my life. At about the age of eight, I stopped growing, so I gave up the basketball dream, even though I'm watching the next Jaylen Bronson now, and I'm saying, well, maybe.

But so I started playing squash, and I dedicated everything to it. I mean, hours and hours and hours a day, sacrifice, and I wasn't happy, not because of the sacrifice, just because I was constantly stressed, because I just didn't find the groove, I guess. It was all done for a purpose, and the purpose was winning a championship. But what kept me going was the belief, the deep belief that when I win, then I'll be happy.

Eventually I did win, and I was extremely happy for a few hours. Then back to step one. Again, the same stress, the same pressure, only this time saying, well, it's not enough that I won the Israeli national championship, now I have to be the world champion. Again, then I went off and turned pro, and played with the world champion. I never became a world champion, but I did win tournaments, and the same pattern continued. I was extremely happy for a few hours, sometimes days, and then back to step one.