to start collecting debts, my father was buoyed by the idea

that he knew I would just come back with a high quality job.

I'd come back and be a doctor or a lawyer or a banker.

And when I came back from college and told them,

Dad, I want to study the science of happiness, he sat me down.

And he said, Sean, I just want to let

you know that the average scientific journal article is

only read on average by seven people total, which

is incredibly depressing research-- statistic for us

researchers to hear.

Because we know that that statistic also

includes our moms.

So we're down to six people that read

these studies, which is a tragedy.

Because I believe that research is

the key to bridging the gaps that we're hearing about what

we've been learning about in terms of theory

and what we've been seeing applied in practice.

My very first talk was out at a large Swiss bank

at the beginning of the banking class.

And when I was introduced, I was introduced by a senior level

leader there who was asked by HR to introduce me.

And he did not want to do so.

And instead of reading my bio, he

said, well, we don't have bonuses for everyone,

but here's a talk on happiness from a guy from America.

You can imagine the cold response as the tech team

unfortunately in the back turned on the "Don't Worry, Be Happy"

theme music as I walked up from the back of the room.

But within 10 minutes of talking to them,

as I start talking about research that was directly

aimed at how we can actually get people to believe

that their behavior matters again, to restart forward

progress in the midst of a challenge,

you could see people start to pick up their pens

and start to take notes that they

wanted to bring back to their teams.

Seven years later, earlier this year,

I was out at the Pentagon.

I was invited to give a talk there on happiness.

And I was brought into a room full of senior level leaders--

people that were leaders of NATO forces in Afghanistan and Iraq,

who were Special Forces.

And I did the bravest thing I think I've ever done.

I started a talk at the Pentagon with a story

about a unicorn, which if you see my TED Talk,

you know what I'm talking about.

But afterwards, one of the senior leaders came up to me

and said, Sean, 10 years ago, we could not

have had a talk on happiness at the Pentagon.

And I think he's right.

That's where I want to start my talk today.

Because I believe we're at the midst of twin revolutions.

Of course, we're sitting in the heart

of the technological revolution that we already know about.

But we're also realizing that while technology can increase

productivity, we're also finding that we

can't increase the amount of workload and stress

and strain on the same individual

and still hope to maintain those same levels of productivity

and profitability.

The second realization and revolution

will be the idea that we can increase productivity

by increasing optimal human flourishing.

And that's what I want to talk about today

about that research.

We were asked to talk about one thing that

was-- they were going to put it out there

that there was going to start debate.

And what I would like argue is that you are not just

your genes and your environment-- that

scientifically, happiness can be a choice.

But it's a choice that we can influence

through our organizations.

And when we do so, it becomes the greatest

competitive advantage in the modern economy.

This is my third time out speaking at Google.

One of the times I came here was with Ming Tan

to do a Google Talk.

And while I was talking to them, I

started noticing all these comparisons

between what we saw at Google and what

I was seeing during my 12 years at Harvard.

For example, when I talk to my friends from Waco, Texas

where I grow up about going off to Harvard,

they say, why would you study happiness there?

They seem to have everything-- opportunities, resources,

wealth, and successes.

And when I was at Google, I was talking to people

and I asked them if they walked around

in a constant state of ecstasy.

And one of the women in the accounting department

said with-- sheepishly-- that she actually

felt very frustrated sometimes on Fridays because she would

see the line for the free sushi and it was way too long.

How is she expected to be productive

when the line is that long?

I ask you.

But what I started realizing what--

it wasn't about the external world

that causes people to become happier.

And that's not what causes Google

to be so successful as Lazlo was mentioning earlier.

What I want to talk about is what I was seeing at Harvard.

One of the very first studies I did

was a study of 1600 Harvard students.

I was looking to see, can you predict,

in a population that's very intelligent, very successful,

very creative, who will rise to the top in terms of levels

of happiness and success while they're there?

I looked at everything.

We asked their familial income, their SAT scores.

We looked at their GPA.

We looked at a number of clubs that they were involved in.

We found out their number of romantic relationships, which

we found at Harvard was, on average, less than one

per Harvard student, which is why many people come out

to Stanford.

And we found it was 0.5 sexual partners per Harvard student,

which I only mention because I still

have no idea what that statistic even means.

We were always taught to round up.

But 0.5 sexual partners with the equivalent of second base.

And it was useless information to us.

But imagine a student who, ever since they were a one-year-old,

was placed into a crib wearing a onesie that you can buy

at the bookstore that says, bound for Harvard,

and maybe a cute little Yale had in case something terrible

happened.

And ever since they were in pre-K school

which they got into four years before they were conceived,

they were the top 1% of their class--

junior high, high school, standardized test, top 1%.

They walk into Harvard and they have a terrible realization,

one that many people when they come to Google have as well.

They suddenly realize that 50% of them are now below average.

To put it more poignantly, when I talk to these students,

I said it seems based on my research that 99% of you

will not graduate in the top 1%, which they don't find

that funny either.

But the reason that's interesting

is they've decided to pin their levels of happiness

on their future success which is related to something small,

like grades, which if you know the statistics on grades,

I can roll a pair of dice and that's

equally predictive of your future job income

as your college GPA actually is.

But they consign 99% to unhappiness.

And the top 1% when we study them

is actually not that happy either.

The system is broken.

It's based upon a flawed system of happiness and success--

a formula for it which is the heart of my research.

What I do is I study what I believe

to be one of the fundamental problems that's

causing us to limit both our happiness and success

with an organization.

And it's a formula we get there.

And it's the way that we manage, the way that we parent,

and it's the way that we do self-development.

Most people follow the formula, which is if you work harder,

you're going to be more successful.

As soon as you achieve these goals,

think how happy you're going to be.

Think how often we do that.

Soon as I finish this project, I'll be happier.

Soon as I finish this presentation,

then I'm going to feel happier.

As soon as I finish all this travel, then I'll feel happier.

As soon as I get into the right school, I'll feel happier.

Soon as I get the right job, I'll feel happier.

But what we notice is that formula

which undergirds most of our parenting styles

in organizations is scientifically broken

and backwards for two reasons.

The first reason is, every time your brain has had a success

in the past, what have you done?

You've change the goal post of what success

looked like almost immediately.

You got good grades in school?

Don't get excited yet.

You don't even have a job.

You get a job.

That's great, you have a job.

But now you have to hit your sales target.

Well, you hit your sales target.

That's great.

But we're going to raise your sales

target for the next quarter, right?

So in each moment, we want to see sales rise.

We want to see growth and improvement.

We want to see grades improve.

That's not the problem.

The problem is where happiness lies

in the formula for our managing our organizations

and for ourselves.

What we've found is that if happiness

is on the opposite side of success,

you've pushed it over the cognitive horizon.

Your brain never quite gets there

because it's a moving target.

But flip around the formula.

If you cause people to invest in their social support networks,

deepen their social support networks,

raise their levels of optimism, and change the way that they

view stress from a threat to a challenge,

it turns out every single business and educational

outcome we know how to test for rises dramatically.

We find that productivity rises 31%

when people move from a neutral state to a positive state.

We find that sales rise by 37% cross industry.

We found similar to the research you've

found in the great book "Give and Take" by Adam Grant,

we know that if you provide social support at work,

you're 40% more likely to receive a promotion

over the next two year period of time.

We know that you live longer.

Your symptoms are less acute.

We find that you stay at organizations even longer.

All of that information is great.

But the problem is that if you try

to raise your levels of success rate for the rest of your life

and you're successful at that, your happiness levels flatline.

They don't move.

Flip around the formula, if we find

some way of investing in our engagement levels at work,

if you've read Dan Ping's fabulous book "Drive",

if you've been looking at ways to deepen social connection,

if we could change the way we view stress,

suddenly a different picture emerges.

That's what I wanted to talk to you about.

Because what works really well in the laboratory

sometimes doesn't work out in the messiness of life.

So since I've spent my time at Harvard,

I left in the middle of the banking crisis

to try and figure out how we could apply this research out

within the real world.

And a lot of the work I'm going to talk about

is at organizations.

But I've also traveled to 51 countries working with farmers

in Zimbabwe that lost their land, working

with children at St. Jude Children's Hospital trying