Learning to see things grey

Moving abroad helped me learn a lot about myself. I never knew how binary I was in some of my behaviors and perspectives until my international work environment made me aware of it.

One of the key things I learned about myself was that too often, I would see situations as either black or white. Things were either going well or going badly. I was either moving ahead in my career or falling behind. A person would either like me or simply be uninterested. Once a friend jokingly said I would be a "man of extremes". At first it sounded like a nice comment – if not even a compliment – but over time I saw that thinking and acting in extremes was hurting me more than helping me succeed in life. Especially outside the workplace. 

Turns out that life is full of grey situations. Life is full of uncertainty. Full of situations that are neither "Yes" nor "No", but subject to one of the endless variables in that grey area between black and white. As humans, we are limited by our subjective perspectives (which I consider strongly influenced by our experience, education and our personality — aspects that evolve over time). Given this limitation, not everything can fit into one of our neat little boxes that we have in our minds and with which we would like to interpret all the situations we encounter in our lives. 

Most recently, I applied to several MBA programs in the US. I was extremely fortunate that my top school invited me to interviews. So three weeks later I was anxiously waiting to hear back whether I was accepted or rejected. That's all I was expecting in that moment .. it was either going to be a Yes or a No. I opened up the notification message just to find out that I was waitlisted. Wait.. what!? I had no idea what that even meant. The only boxes in my head were "In" or "Out". Out of a sudden, I was thrown at this vast area of uncertainty. Having to wait, having to accept that I had done my best and that the final outcome would not be in my control anymore.

These types of grey areas can be quite unpredictable, confusing and seem unfair. Also, they come in all shapes and forms – they won't be always as definite as "Yes", "No" or "Maybe". To illustrate what I mean, just take 3 real physical items that you'd call white. Put them next to each other. You will see that these three items have different shades of white. Same thing if you take three physical items that you'd consider black. 

There are areas in which the range of shades of grey is far too vast to comprehend easily with the minds we have. Relationships between two people being one of them. In the business world for example, you will often find linearity in relationships of cause and effect. Example: You do a marketing campaign and your sales numbers increase (A led to B). In relationships though, you see B but it's extremely difficult to pinpoint A. Very often, there is no such thing as A, but B was caused by a multitude of factors that you can't even think of. There is this huge grey area in between what happens and what caused that event.  

This is more what situations in the real world look like. There are different types of Yes. There are different types of No. And in between, there is a multitude of situations that only reflect reality and the uncertainty we have to embrace in life. The more complex our world becomes (which it does), the more important it will be to learn to see things grey and to deal with it. A situation can be "just ok". Your career might find itself in a phase of stagnation. And the person that likes you, that person might just not be ready yet. Put aside your black and white thinking and learn to see things in different shades of grey. 

Change remains the only constant in life

I remember how I was once sitting in a talk by designer Steve Allen. He has been a designer for many years and was talking about how his designs had changed over the years. In that moment, I remembered those embarrassing moments when you come across Facebook pictures from 5+ years ago and just think yourself: "Oh dang... how could I have possibly worn this?". Even David Beckham commented recently that he regrets some of the haircuts he had in the past. Isn't that an interesting phenomenon? If that's the way how we think of the past, it also means that in the future we will potentially react to today's fashion, haircut, taste, preferences, etc. the same way how we react today about the past. 

Needless to say, that got me thinking a bit. Looking back, I would confidently say that I went through a lot of changes in my life, values, taste and personality. Looking forward though, I would rather say that my current life, values taste and personality are quite developed and won't change that much anymore. But isn't that what I used to say 10 years ago? And wouldn't I say the very same thing in 10 years as well?

Turns out that some proper research has been done about it. Psychologist Dan Gilbert gives this really interesting TED talk about the phenomenon that we think that our current state is close to a "final state" of who we are going to be until the rest of our lives – which is actually not the case. In his talk he demonstrates that while we acknowledge the change we went through in the past, we have a hard time imagining and visualizing the change we will go through in the future. Example: a group of 28 year old people and a group of 38 year old people is being asked to rate i) how much they changed over the past 10 years and how much they think they will change over the next 10 years. Turns out that the 28 year olds predicted less change for their next 10 years than the 38 year olds reported for their past 10 years. This pattern was analyzed for age groups from 18 to 68 (always with 10 years of difference) and you can see below how stark the difference was between the change that was predicted vs. reported. 

While this feels like an interesting research finding, it also bears a lot of meaning for the way how we make decisions in our lives. At any point in our lives, we seem to be thinking that we are close to what our final state is going to be. Turns out that this is not true. That's why making decisions for life is such a tricky thing. Many people say you should get married as late as possible because the later you do, the less change you will go through with your partner (and thus the lower the risk of divorce). As a matter of fact, change does slow down with age, but it is a constant, perpetual thing. Getting married later will therefore never remove the risk but only lower it.

At the end of all, it's important to recognize the importance and power of time throughout our lives. Time is what changes our preferences, taste, priorities, values and personality. While we appreciate this fact, we only seem to do so in hindsight. Looking back, we acknowledge the change we have been through, but looking forward, we have a hard time imagining how time will alter our beliefs and values. The challenge is to accept our current being not as the final state, but as a work in progress. We are not finished the way we are today. The person you are today is going to go through (almost) as many changes as the version of you from 10 years ago. Same applies to the version of you in 10 years time. After all, changes is the only constant in our lives. 

Because in the end, everything is going to be just all fine.

I happen to be sitting on a flight from Frankfurt to London while writing this post. I just spent the past weekend in both Frankfurt and my former university town, Oestrich-Winkel, which had been the center of my life for 3 years. I came here to celebrate the wedding of two close friends who met during those 3 years. To sum it up: it was tremendously beautiful and also nostalgic at times. I met so many people whom I had not seen for almost 5 years, reconnected with dear friends, got to know many new faces – just the perfect wedding weekend with tons of sun, chatting, dancing and celebrating. At some point we had a break in the wedding agenda, so my friend and I took a cab and drove to our old campus to revisit it for the first time since our graduation in the summer of 2009. 

Similarly to how it occurs in movies, we were sitting on the stairs that led down to the campus and reflected over our pasts. I remember vividly what my life was like back then. I was so stressed out about so many things; insecure about myself and in a lot of doubt about my future. Upon graduation, my life progressed really fast: I got a job with Google and moved abroad. I immersed into a completely new world and was thrown into adult life (the post-college adult life this is). Sure, I didn’t leave behind all of my worries, but I certainly didn’t look back very often. So sitting there on campus allowed me to make an easy comparison between what things were like back then and today. 

Did all my worries disappear? No, they didn’t. Do I now worry about things that I couldn’t even think of back then? You bet I do. Still, looking back and comparing what my world and mindset were like 5 years ago with what they are now, made me realize one important thing. Namely that in the end, everything is going to just all fine. What sounds like solacing, is certainly more than just that. Most of the things I was worried about in life back then turned out to be all fine in the end. And even if those things didn’t work out, better things came out of them eventually. So I ask myself: If the things that were on my mind 5 years ago are not important anymore today, will the things from today be important then in 5 years? 

In the grand scheme of things, life evolves in a cyclic pattern. There are ups and downs just like any cyclical movement, but the overall direction points to the upper right corner. Every down-phase is followed by an up-phase. Yet over time, the down-phases help us build resistance so each following “down” will hit us less harshly. As humans, we tend to strengthen over time. We tend to see things easier and we learn to cope with the “downs” of our lives. Yes, they still hit us hard, but we learn to stand up faster after each time we have been knocked down on the ground. 

Coming back to my own comparison, I was easily reminded of the sentence that says: "Everything will be all right in the end If it's not all right then it s not the end”. Some people might look at it and say it’s a circular statement – with no beginning or end – that is hard to rationalize, but I’m a big believer of it (mostly because it turned out to be true so often in my life). The beauty of understanding the cyclical life pattern I mentioned before is that every time things are not going that well in life, you have to know and believe that better things will come; that there will be sunshine after the rain. As a dear friend of mine said to me the other day: “every time when things don’t go well for me, I get quite excited actually. I know it’s just another down-phase that will be followed by a great high. I know it’s just temporary and that chances are that things won’t get worse than that but that there are good things looming on the horizon”. 

Knowing this is one thing, believing it is a completely different thing. So while I’m sitting in the airplane looking outside the window, I reflect over all the things that are on my mind right now. I think of my emotional ordeals, of my personal disappointments and of my professional pressures. If I just looked at them as they are, I would be scared and intimidated by their sheer size and gravity. All I would want to do is to surrender to them. But that's now how life is supposed to work nor is the perspective that would allow me to go through life at ease. What I do instead is to take a step back. I detach myself from those fears and disappointments – I zoom out. And instead of just seeing a down-phase of my curve of life, I see that this is just a temporary state and that it will be followed by good times. I even zoom out more and see that there will be more down-phases along the way, but that they are all less grave than this. I put my current situation into context and I realize that what keeps me up at night tonight, will probably not even exist in my life anymore in 5 years. In the grand scheme of things, everything is going to be just all fine in the end. 

Actually, turns out that you *do* only live once...

I was in a furniture store in Hayes Valley this weekend and noticed how there was a "store in store" concept in the back of it. A woman named Joan was running that place and we started talking about her art work which was actually wordart. I noticed how some letters were arranged as the #yolo hashtag and I ended up explaining to her what a hashtag actually is (she was in her 50s). As I continued my stroll through Hayes Valles, I couldn't stop thinking about the hashtag and what it has come to mean over the past few years since it spread all over. 

The phrase #yolo has achieved high popularity in youth culture over the years. Urban Dictionary entries date back to 2004, but only in 2011 it was highly popularized through the Drake song "The Motto". However, according to Wikipedia, variations of the phrase have been in use for over 100 years, including as far back as (the German equivalent of) "one lives but once in the world" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1774. 

Nowadays it's mostly known as a popular Twitter hashtag, an acronym that is used on merchandise worn by teenagers and as the "newest acronym you'll love to hate" (Huffington Post). Too often you see young people behaving recklessly and justifying it with the phrase that "you only live once". However, as much as there is criticism around this acronym, I can't stop to find appreciation for it.

As a matter of fact, you do live only once and you really only have one single shot at this thing called life. I'm 27 years old now and I think back of how I started my work career in Dublin back when I was 22. I think of all the years in between, the 23, the 24, the 25 and 26 and I realize that all these years are gone. They are over. I will never be 22 again. Nor 25. And soon enough, my 27 will be over, too. I look back on all these years that passed and can't help myself but to understand that this thing called life is going by very fast. Too fast. Wasn't it just last week when I failed my driver's test? Wasn't it yesterday when I surprised my dad for his 70th birthday? 

Understanding that our beautiful lives have an expiration date is extremely important. It's important because it can be the biggest motivator in your life. Here at work we have an internal site that shows all the Googlers that left the company with interesting data on what teams they were on and after how long they were with the company. Sometimes a colleague or friend would go into the system and also attach that person's farewell email. Since that is not often the case, I always become curious to read the farewell notes to see what people do once they leave the company. I remember how I saw this guy who left Google after just a year and saw that there was a farewell note. As I was reading through it, I noticed that he didn't leave Google, but that he passed away unexpectedly. Upon further research, I saw that the guy was just 29 years old and that one month prior to his death he was diagnosed with blood cancer. I was speechless.

That was truly a moment that made me realize a lot of things. This guys was certainly all healthy and then – boom – out of nowhere had to deal with something like blood cancer at the age of 29. I couldn't help myself but to think that fate could happen to me as well. Look at all those people who develop cancer in their 40s, that die in a car accident at 50 or don't even get beyond their 60s. All these people were certainly living a carefree life just like myself until something completely unexpected happened to them. 

So on the one hand I look back on my life and realize how time is running out and then I look into the future and realize that there is absolutely no guarantee that I would make it to the 60-, 70- or 80-year mark. There is simply no guarantee. And while this is a very daunting realization, it is SUCH a motivator to really maximize your life. One of the common questions I ask myself is: "Omid, when was the last time you did something for the first time?". Whenever I feel I don't have a good answer to it, I feel motivated to go out and try new things. Similar story when I see myself contemplating things like "should I go to Coachella?" or "should I buy that furniture?". Yes, these are investments and I might run short of money on another front, but then I tell myself that "I only live once" and that the richer I design this year of my life, the happier I will be once I look back on it from the future. 

As humans, we tend to get stuck in the moments we are in and therefore often lose sight of the big picture. We are worried about the importance of the project we are working on this week, while we forget that our entire career will go for more than 40 years. That's ±2,000 times that project. The same applies to life. Sometimes we lose ourselves in small annoyances while we lose sight of the fact that if everything goes well, we will have somewhere around 80 years that you can design and shape. 80 amazing years that you can use to experience the world and to make it a better place. 

I don't support stupid behavior, but I do support looking at your life, telling yourself that #yolo, and to go out there and do something that is outside your comfort zone, something that excites you, something you have dreamed about, or simply something that you are afraid of. The experiences you gather are all things that no one can ever take away from you. In fact, you will be taking them with you into your grave (sounds harsh, but think about it). 

So yes, you only live once. And you owe it to yourself to really make it the best, most vibrant, most beautiful life you could possible create for yourself. 

Optimism as a Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Last week I was fortunate to participate in a class called "Optimism at Work" by Dr. Laura Delizonna, a professor at Stanford University and the founder of the Choosing Happiness project. I took plenty of notes but also did some further research for this post.

While there is certainly not a single definition of what optimism actually means, I feel there are many descriptions of what it means to be an optimist. An optimist is someone who generally has a positive outlook on life. He looks over the horizon and senses good things to come. When facing a challenge, the optimist would find the cracks in the wall of the impossible. An optimist has the ability to create a sense of control over the circumstances of the situations he is in. And even in the case of a setback, he would conclude that it's not the end of things. If something didn't go well on one day, he believes that things will be better the next day. To say it in one of my favorite quotes, the optimist believes that:  

Everything will be OK in the end, if it's not OK, it's not the end – Fernando Sabino

"But what about real challenges?" you might wonder... well, optimism is not naivety. Being optimist does not mean you can overlook limitations, but it means you are open to the possibilities and you have the determination to give your best, even if you fail. Something that Laura mentioned in that session was that optimists and pessimists are equally good at facing the problem, however, their response and approach to it differs. It’s the power of perspective. 

Laura started the session with a really nice quote from the movie Apollo 13 movie which was a good example of the power of perspective: 

Director: This could be the worst disaster NASA's ever faced.              
Gene: With all due respect, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour.

And while I was learning more and more about optimism, I started to wonder if an optimistic attitude could really influence the outcome. So I dug deeper and came across a phenomenon that is called "the optimism bias", an overly optimistic assessment of our own personal future (there is a good TED talk on this by Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist). A simple example is that you are getting married and you know that ≈40% of marriages end up in divorce, that's 2 out of 5. But if someone asked you on the day of your wedding, you would estimate your own likelihood of divorce at 0%. Alternatively, if you ask a group of people to assess how interesting, honest or modest they are, almost all would rate themselves above the average ... something that is statistically impossible, because we can't all be better than everyone else. However, if we believe we are better than the person next to us, then this means that we are probably gonna end up putting in the extra effort that will make us more likely to get that promotion, remain married, etc.

To link it back, the optimist expects more good things to happen to him. All that anticipation influences his attitude towards the challenges he will come across and enhance his wellbeing. As a result, optimism changes subjective reality. The way we expect the world to be, changes the way we see it. It acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the end, optimism is not only related to success, it leads to success. 

Are You Going to be a Player or a Victim?

The other day my colleague and I were talking about a person in our company who we felt was receiving preferred treatment. While I agreed with the notion, it felt uncomfortable to talk about that person in such a way. Not only because that person is a friend of mine, but also because I didn't like the victim perspective we were assuming in that moment. So I asked my colleague: "Do we really want to be like those people who are frustrated and talk behind another person's back?". We both agreed that we didn't. 

It was a simple question, but it made me think. Most importantly though, it reminded me of a Leadership Training I went to in Sydney last year as part of which we learned about the "Player vs. Victim" dogma. In summary, the Player/Victim principle is about how you respond to the circumstances in your life. When running late to a meeting, most people know how to blame external factors ("my previous meeting went over" .... "I was stuck in traffic") as opposed to take responsibility for their actions ("my previous meeting went over and I decided to stay" ... "I underestimated the traffic but should have known better"). 

The concept here is fairly simple. As a player, you take responsibility for the situations you are in. As the word responsibility already indicates, you have "response ability". You pay attention to the factors that you can influence and you do your best to affect the results. In moments of failure, the Player perspective is the only one that will allow you to learn from your mistakes and to become better. Why? Because you take responsibility for the outcome and don't blame the circumstances of your life. It's a self-empowering perspective that can get you far – very far – in both work and life... especially in life.

The Victim might say that a situation is hopeless. The Player will look at it and say he hasn't found a solution yet. The Victim will think himself that someone should take the first step, the Player is determined to pioneer ahead. The Victim will complain that he doesn't have time for a certain thing. The Player will admit that he has different priorities. The Victim will say he has to leave. The Player makes clear he wants to leave.  

You will come across so many situations in your life when things will just not go according to plan... From the sales quota that you won't hit to your dream business school that will reject you. From the promotion that you won't get to the beautiful date that won't work out. All these things happen but it will be up to you to decide how you deal with them.

Do you want to be the person who turns sour and depressed? Do you want to be the person who will blame the situation and claim that life is so unfair? When people ask you how you are doing, will you say "I'm ok" and subtly want them to ask what's going on so they can pity you?

... OR do you want to be the person who comes out of the situation stronger and wiser? The person who will look back and say "it didn't work the way I wanted but that's ok because life has better things planned for me!". 

"Life never goes according to plan. That's okay, because often our plans are much smaller than life intends. Probably EASIER, but smaller" — Stacey T. Hunt

So the next time you lose a deal, will you blame the customer or will you look at your own behavior and see where and when you could have effected a different outcome? The next time you get rejected by someone or something, do you dwell in despair or do you decide to that this is the beginning of something much better to come? 

Be the Player. The decision is yours. 

My Cultural Takeaways after 3 Years in the US

Note: While this is primarily a blog about positivity, I will occasionally write about other topics that I feel passionate about (Leadership, Cultures, Tech, Education, etc.).

People often ask me for my take on the US. "What do you think of America?", "How does it compare to the other places you have lived in?". It's been now ±3 years since I moved here and as someone who is passionate about cultures and diversity, I think a lot about the similarities and differences of the environments I'm in.

The other day I finished re-reading one of my favorite books called "The Culture Code" by Clotaire Rapaille. It's a thought-provoking book about cultures and how they function. Many of my own takeaways about the American culture which I'd like to share with you have been influenced by his writing. To say it very clearly: I love living here in the US and I'm fascinated by all of its cultural differences and particularities. So by no means is this post meant to criticize or badmouth the culture of this great country. I invite you to discuss this topic with me and I ask you to not take offense in the generalizations that I'm making.  

America — A culture stuck in adolescence

When people ask me to how the US differs from Europe, I can't think of a better explanation than to describe the US as an adolescent and Europe as an adult. The adolescent culture is characterized by certain traits that I find recurring in the US: overstating the "now", disregarding authority, a fascination with extremes and a constant need for exploration. 

All of us go through adolescence at some point in our lives – a time of rebellion and detachment. If you look at most cultures of the Old World, especially in Western Europe, at some point they acted out their rebellion by killing their kings (f. ex. the French beheaded King Louis XVI and the English killed King Charles I). They fought authority and liberated themselves from it which always constituted a fundamental act of identity building. The US, however, never had to kill its king to become who it is today. As a result, this rebellion period never ended. In fact, it was continuously fed and fostered by more rebels joining as immigrants (if leaving behind your home country is no act of rebellion, I don't know what rebellion is). 

Adolescent misdemeanor on the political stage

The adolescent behavior of challenging authority is fairly visible in the recent, political history of this country. Just like adolescents, the US often feels it knows more than its elders. You would rarely see the US consult France, Germany or England over foreign policy, would you? Rather than learning from others, the US prefers to go ahead by itself (f. ex. the Iraq war without the authorization of the UN) and make its own mistakes as opposed to learn form the mistakes that others did.

As a teen, encouraged by all the things I was not allowed to do, I had a juvenile desire to break the rules – play with fire if you want. The recent revelations coming from Wikileaks or Edward Snowden have shown that the US has been behaving exactly like that. The NSA affair feels like a modern version of going through your older brother's personal items or reading your sister's diary. 

Modern Day Adolescence

To little surprise, the US is generally good at exporting the trademarks of adolescence: Fast Food, blue jeans, Nike shoes, Disney, loud and violent movies among many other things. It's a culture that never wants to grow up but remain eternally adolescent. Automobiles and Electronic Equipment are referred to as "toys" and as an elder you would still refer to your date as your "girlfriend". 

Also, the US has never really produced a world-renowned composer of classic music (after all, it's mostly adults who listen to classic music) but when you think of the music of teenagers – Rock, Pop or Hip-Hop – you can find it all around the globe. You go to Philadelphia and the most famous statue in the entire city is not a philosopher, scientist, marshal or any other historical figure, but it's the fictional movie character Rocky Balboa played by action star Sylvester Stallone. This reminds me too much of teenagers putting up celebrity posters in their rooms.

What we do is a reflection of what we are

It has always been a fascination to me how many Americans describe things as "the best" and "most amazing thing ever... EVER!!!". But in the end this is just a reflection of its cultural identity. If it's not the best, it's simply not worth pursuing. It's all about the extremes. 

This extreme behavior is also visible among adults in the US. Take Tom Cruise for example. A few years ago he was invited to the Oprah Winfrey Show and started jumping around on her couch shouting how much he loves Katie Holmes – just like a teenager in love. Take Bill Clinton, the perfectly adolescent president who cheats on his wife with his intern, in office, and then lies under oath – what drama! And you thought rebellious immigrants wouldn't adopt this behavior? Think again. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's former governor, has a tank and invites you to go "crush things" with him. But no one personified the eternal adolescent better than Michael Jackson... a grown-up who continued to sleep in the same bed with children – simply refusing the reality of his age.

Why Leadership needs Empathy

In my past four and a half years I have been very lucky to have had a wide range of managers. If I count the number of managers and their managers (with whom I also interacted), I count about 7 different people. That's 7 different management styles that I was fortunate to witness and to deal with! 

And while I know that four and a half years are maybe just 10% of the years that I will be spending at work throughout my entire life, I already look back on some lessons that have strongly influenced my understanding of leadership and the way how I interact with others (at work and beyond). Let me start with a story.

Before I joined Google in Dublin back in 2009, I had already absolved about 5 different internships, most of which took place in German work environments. I say German, because I perceived those environments to be very structured, hierarchical and traditional – some of the characteristics "Germany" is known for. But when I then had my very first career development conversation with my manager, maybe one month into my employment, he said something that made my jaw drop: "Omid, I want you to get to such a level in the next 18 months that at least three other teams come and make you an offer – from inside or outside of Google ". Wait, what? Ok, he wanted me to grow and perform... but he wanted other teams to make me offers? And potentially see me leave? "Why would he want that?!" I thought. 

What looked contradictory to me, turned out to be a very empathy-driven approach to leadership. My manager truly cared about me as a person more than he did about me as an employee. Something I saw in him and in some of the managers I had afterwards was that they really put people first. They understood that employment was more than a job and that it was part of my self-fulfillment process. They understood that they could only get me to perform at my best and thus have me help the team achieve its goals if they helped me achieve my personal mid-to-long-term objectives. They didn't care about policies or what they were "supposed to do", they cared about me.

At Google, this type of leadership is facilitated by something called PDP (Personal Development Plan) which you compose with your managers and as part of which you define personal goals such as "I want to work on more projects with the Marketing team" or "I want to develop my analytical skills by participating in Courses X,Y and Z". But it's one thing to have a manager who does that as part of his job duties and it's another thing to have a manager who makes you understand that he puts your personal goals first. 

With that approach, he completely gained my trust. Knowing that my manager truly cared about me and my personal interests made me even say things like: "I don't know what is best .. I trust you to make the best decision for me". I felt I had a supporter and advocate who often knew better what was good for me than I knew myself. Of course he would do his best to help me achieve those goals within the big scheme of things (i.e. the team's goals as well as the team's realm of possibilities), but he was not scared to see me leave.

These managers that I had were not short-sighted and just focused on goals, but they understood that helping me realize myself would only reflect positively on them in the long-run. Up until this day I walk through my organization and talk about them as my biggest mentors and supporters. I unintentionally contribute to that aura of theirs that helps them get things done in the organization. 

The common wisdom is that a manager would not want you to leave. I mean, why would he want to invest in you, teach you, have you grow and then see you leave? Actually, that's something I see a lot with the companies I work with in Latin America. Employee fluctuation is one of the biggest business risks a company faces. Very often, the business owners are very afraid to invest in their people or to promote them. They are afraid because they would have to pay them extra money and potentially see them leave because with a promotion, those employees could negotiate better offers from other companies. Changing their mindset turned out to be extremely difficult for me. One powerful story that I often shared with them was: 

CFO asks CEO: "What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave us?" 

CEO: 'What happens if we don't, and they stay?"

Coming back to my own experiences, I came to understand the importance of putting the personal interests of the employee first. You cannot stop someone from leaving. In the end, they will all leave ... so why not i) help them achieve their personal objectives and simultaneously ii) make them give 110% while they work for you because they feel they are on the right path of self realization? 

This by the way reminds me of a really interesting business practice that Zappos has! Zappos hires new employees, it puts them through an intensive four-week training program, immersing them in the company's culture, strategy, and processes. Then, about one week in, Zappos makes what it calls "The Offer," telling newbies, "If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you have worked, plus a $3,000 bonus."... talk about sifting chaff from the wheat. 

This is how I came to experience how an empathy-driven approach to leadership could differentiate a good manager from a great manager. I saw how truly caring about someone as a person could unlock an infinite amount of trust and authenticity. It could tear down walls of fear and bridge oceans of uncertainty. Seeing how my manager wanted the best for me was my biggest motivation to exceed his expectations day after day after day. 

Is there a Limit to Happiness?

One of the most fascinating economic theories I learned during my undergrad degree was the theory of 'negative marginal returns'. The example we used in class was that if you are hungry and you eat a banana, you will feel saturation. But once you eat your 10th consecutive banana, that saturation might turn into stomach ache. So there is a point at which each additional unit will not cause a positive return (saturation) but a negative return (stomach pain). 

As I have been thinking and theorizing about the topic of happiness over the past months and years, I have always wondered if there is such a negative marginal return on happiness as well. If you are unhappy and something good happens to you, you then – ideally – feel happier. But what if so many (too many?) good things happen to you that with each additional positive experience you make, your happiness doesn't increase, but decreases? Is there such thing as a maximum point of happiness that should ideally not be exceeded because it might lead to unhappiness? Surprisingly, these recent thoughts reminded me of a post I once made on Facebook.

I was complimented today for being happy. That made me even happier. Now I’m in a vicious circle of happiness.

Back then, I called it a "vicious cycle of happiness". While this was all meant as a joke, the word vicious does indeed have a negative connotation. This only reminded me again of the possibility that there is a maximum point of happiness that should not be surpassed. You might now wonder how the heck someone could be too happy? Well, allow me to share one of my own stories which has made me reflect and look into this topic. 

I have always considered myself very fortunate for this life that I'm living. I have had a lot of great opportunities and a lot of good things happened to me along the way (*knockonwood*). At the same time, I have often asked myself the simple question "Why me?". I hear about other people's suffering, pain, loss and dilemmas and I wonder how some live lives of joy while others have to go through difficult times. 

It was a few months ago when I was in New York to run the marathon. It was the weekend before the race and all my college friends were in town to do a little reunion weekend. They flew in from the farthest places just for us to be together. We joked, we dined, we partied, we chatted, ... it was the perfect weekend and I was incredibly happy to be spending time with them. The weekend had come to an end and I was sitting in the subway heading home after a stroll through the city by myself when this daunting feeling of  took over. I felt that things were just too good to be true. Not that I wouldn't believe the goodness, but that I would start to feel bad for it. Out of a sudden, I felt guilt, not happiness, for all the good things in my life. That was the first time I realized that there might be a limit to happiness. I don't know if there is any science to it or if I'm just an outlier here, but it was an important realization that I made that day. 

While this feeling has come up quite a few times ever since, I have learned how to cope with it. Every time this feeling of guilt comes up, I try to convert it into a feeling of responsibility. I have come to believe that people with opportunities, people who are capable of experiencing deep and profound joy, people who have the means to achieve great things, that these people also have the responsibility – if not even obligation – to fully maximize these opportunities and to contribute to the world they are part of. There are so many people out there that suffer from depression and so many others who are poverty-stricken or subject to other afflications. If you are one of the lucky ones who is employed, has access to education, a roof on top of your head and a somewhat unworried life (yes, everyone has his/her struggles, but let's put our #firstworldproblems aside), then you, too, have the responsibility to make this world a better place for those who are not that lucky. 

Coming back to the initial idea of this post, I wonder if there is any scientific evidence for such a negative return on happiness. In my case it was a sense of guilt. Others might experience a different range of emotions as a result of excessive joy and happiness. I look forward to learning and sharing more about this topic with you.  

Build an Aura that Radiates Positivity

Student life wasn't always easy for me. Our university was located in a very small town of only ±10,000 inhabitants and even the university itself was quite small with only ±220 students each year. As a result, I ended up living in this microcosm that was filled with the joys and suffers of being a 20-ish-years-young student: exam pressure, grades, parties, classes, heartbreaks, trying to find summer internships, comparing yourself with others, etc. 

I remember how I would drive to class from my apartment and stop at a bakery to get breakfast each morning. It was a daily routine that I did without thinking too much: park the car, walk in, get your breakfast, leave for class. This routine then once changed through a simple comment that one of the sales ladies made: "A smile would look good on you". At first I didn't understand, but upon asking, she told me that I would always come in lost in thought and with a busy mind. It was a just a comment, but it made me very reflective. From that day on, I entered and left that bakery with a big smile on my face and I could clearly see how delighted she was that I had taken to heart what she had told me. 

While this was just a little event in my life, it made me realize one important thing about interacting with others. Namely, that every person has an aura. It's the distinctive atmosphere or quality that surrounds you as a person. This aura that we all have influences the way how others perceive us and how we make others feel. In fact, this aura is often a reflection of the thoughts you have on your mind. Think of your friends – I'm sure there is that one person who is 'always' smiling .. one that is 'always' happy .. or one that is 'always' the naysayer in the group. These impressions that you take aware are the impressions that their auras convey.

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” — Gautama Buddha

I think most people read this and could simply agree that this is true. But there is a big difference between agreeing with something and fully internalizing it. In this particular case, it's tremendously important to understand the impact you can have on others by the thoughts you have on your mind. The expressions "infectious smile" or "contagious energy" are quite powerful and real phenomenons. They express that your smile, your attitude, your thoughts can have a positive impact on others. 

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” — Gautama Buddha

For myself, I have come to realize the importance of radiating positivity. For the people around me, I aspire to be a source of inspiration and energy. This goal influences my thoughts and the way how I encounter people. In return, it influences their perception of me and the impact I can have on them. I think of my attitude, my smile, my actions, my words, my empathy and my interactions as my tools to make a positive impact on others. 

In his book "Search Inside Yourself", Meng considers meditation as the best way possible to achieve such state of mind. He promotes this specific idea which I think very much reflects the notion of having an aura that radiates such positivity.

"Imagine whenever you meet anybody, your habitual, instinctive first thought is, I wish for this person to be happy. Having such habits changes everything at work, because this sincere goodwill is picked up unconsciously by others." — Chade-Meng Tan

I encourage you to make an experiment that turned out to be very useful and insightful for me: the next time you approach someone – be it the unknown girl/boy at the club, your manager at work, the bored government employee at the DMV – put a big and lasting smile on your face and just see how the person reacts. It is tremendously hard for someone to ignore the smile you throw at them. With that smile, you set the tone for the entire conversation. In fact, you influence what that person does next and the choices they make. Secret tip: It works really well for me trying to get business class upgrades ;).