Business Book Club: Happy-Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine
I've set myself a goal to read one self-development book per month. To make sure I really reflect on what I'm reading I'm going to extract the wisdom from the best business and personal development books and share it with you.
First up, Derren Brown: Happy (why more or less everything is absolutely fine).
It was the best of years it was the worst of years. No, I'm not attempting some awful reboot of Charles Dickens (what's with the reboot trend anyway?) It’s a description of my 2017. It's featured the lowest lows and also the highest highs life can bestow upon a person. Perhaps that's why I pre-ordered Derren Brown's Happy: Why Everything Is More or Less Absolutely Fine. Or maybe it's because I like Derren’s other publications. Either way, I wasn't prepared for the read ahead. It's quite a departure from books like Trick of the Mind. A much harder read, but I stuck with it and I have to say that so much of what he has written has stuck with me. It's certainly helped me process my annus horribilis/annus mirabilis.
The book:
Designed to be an antidote to trite self-help books this is a long read, 528 pages. It has three sections:
- Beginnings: about the stories we tell ourselves, self-help, the problem with believing in yourself, goal setting and wanting.
- Solutions: living a considered life, the two selves, fame, regaining authorship of your stories, a brief history of happiness and dealing with emotions such as control, anger and hurt.
- Happy endings: fear of dying, how to die well, the afterlife, regrets, living in the now.
I don't have time to read 528 pages, how do I achieve happiness?
There are dozens and dozens of valuable messages I took from the book. Below is a summary of the most useful, you can find out even more in the video at the bottom of the page.
It’s not the event itself but the meaning we take from it that troubles us.
Derren starts the book with a beautiful piece about the stories we tell ourselves about the things that happen to us in our lives. Honestly, if you bought the book, read only this section and took it to heart it would be well worth the money and you'd spend your life being ten times happier.
The key message here, and of the book in general, is that it is not life’s events that upset us but the story we tell ourselves about those events. Have you ever noticed two people fail at something and notice that one may conclude that they are no good and should give up, but the other takes it as a sign to try harder?
Think of anything that has happened to you recently and think of all the possible stories you can tell yourself about that event. Get creative, list even the most ridiculous ones. There are loads of possibilities but you chose one in particular. Does that story help or hinder you? Do you choose to keep replaying that story in your head on repeat? What does that story say about you? You can choose a different story if you want to. By simply acknowledging that there are other possible stories, you can begin to feel better about things that trouble you.
Self-help doesn’t always help
YouTube is full of videos of internet millionaires telling you that you can make a million dollars if you just get off your bum and work for it. Amazon has a seemingly unending range of self-help books on every imaginable topic. Surely this is a good thing, right? Not necessarily; the self-help industry, rather than building us up, can actually damage our confidence.
We are told, “you can do anything you set your mind to”, leading us to believe that success is entirely down to our own endeavours. This means that when we fail to get the success we were promised we blame ourselves. We are led to believe that it’s because we didn’t want it enough, we didn’t work hard enough or we weren’t good enough in general. In reality, fortune plays a huge part. All great success involves an element of luck, as does a lot of failure. We can take responsibility for our actions whilst accepting that some things are simply out of our control, no matter how badly we want something.
Space and Time
This won't be for everyone as it all gets a bit wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff (Dr Who reference for those who don’t know).
It involves a thought exercise whereby you view your life all at once. Think of a problem you have, then try viewing your life as one long timeline like a worm with baby at one end and an old person at the other. Rather than focusing on the small cross section of your life you are experiencing now, view the whole thing at once. It helps to realise that whatever is preoccupying our thoughts now is just a very small slice of our entire existence. This allows us to see our challenges from a different perspective and perhaps realise that our problems are not as big as we allow ourselves to believe.
Career and Work
I loved this bit. If you’ve ever gone from being employed to self-employed or if you simply reject the idea of a career, you will too.
Derren describes the ‘Career Story’ as a script that is handed to us from our parents and other authority figures. One that is established early with the challenges, passages, aims and endings all worked out for us. From the script we learn what will make us worthwhile, loved and happy. As we grow the script becomes insufficient for us and by the time we realise this we are often mid-life and feel it would be too risky to change. These and other scripts may lead us to shut off what we really need, causing us to be unhappy and dissatisfied with life.
As with the career story I have realised that we also have some rather unhelpful approaches to the subject of work. Employment is no longer a means to an end, (as it used to be many years ago) it’s now supposed to be a source of happiness in itself. As Derren explains: "To be unhappy in ones work today is often seen as having taken a serious wrong turning in life. Often it is not our work but what we do in leisure time which gives us a true sense of worth”.
This really resonates with me as a freelancer. I have come to realise that the career is a myth, and your job or salary are not a reflection of your worth. What you do really isn’t important, most of us don’t realise how tied up our worth is with our work. This sounds obvious, but if you’ve ever been disgruntled at the outcome of an annual review or a paltry offer of payment for work, you’ll realise just how true this is. I have many favourite quotes from the book, but if I could take one and make it into a banner it would be:
“In the meantime we can stop asking people what they do for a living and recognise it for the meaningless and frequently discouraging enquiry that it is”
Lower your expectations
Derren tells the story of a friend who was renovating a house and got angry at being let down by contractors. He asks:
"Who said the builders would stick to their word, who assured you call centre workers would do anything else but stick to the script. Or that the note they made on your account would be read by the next person? And if they did what's to say they wouldn’t make a mistake or something else would stop it happening".
He shares a qualification that a group of philosophers called the Stoics used to use when making plans; "exceptio" or “unless it doesn’t work out”.
People WILL be disappointing, life WILL throw up unexpected barriers. This isn’t about lowering standards or sucking the joy out of future plans, just understanding many elements of life land outside our control and that by setting this expectation we can avoid a lot of anger and hurt. There can sometimes be so much pressure to 'think positively' that we can deny ourselves a source of happiness that comes from understanding that it's natural to face bumps in the road.
So did the my learning help with my emotional year?
Yes, it gave me perspective on my troubles. Highlighting how nothing is permanent helped me appreciate what I have and getting my expectations in check meant I don't feel hard done by. I've learnt that we shouldn't take bad things so personally.
Last year I heard people say “I’m so glad 2016 is over” as if the year itself was the source of life's troubles. Am I having a bad year??? No, I’ve had some sad things happen and some awesome things happen. I’m not telling myself the story of the crappy year. I choose to tell myself that life is precious. Life is full of wonderful people, sights and experiences and we must be grateful for them and embrace them while we have them. Nothing is promised to us forever and understanding this helps me focus on enjoying what I have even more.
Now you could say, “but that's happy clappy nonsense” and you know what? Maybe I’m wrong, maybe you’d be right but my story feels amazing and that’s really all that counts. Yes, my story genuinely makes me happy, so that's one I'll keep repeating to myself.
What should I read next?
Have you read the book? What did you think?
What shall I read next? If you have any recommendations let me know below or via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn
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