so that when you go home tonight you can start living a happier life

and you can start sharing with more people so that they can have

a happier life too. So let's start with what we know about happiness.

There have been hundreds, literally hundreds, of studies

by economists and social scientists and psychologists about happiness,

hundreds over the past thirty and forty years. And basically they all start by

asking the question: who's happy?

In the United States we know that all the way back to the 1970s a

very stable proportion of the population is very happy.

About a third of Americans say anonymously

and in accurate tests an accurate surveys that they're very happy people.

Okay, we have no reason to doubt that this is true. A little over fifty percent say

they're somewhat happy,

about 10 to 15 percent of the population is chronically depressed and say they're

not very happy.

Okay now, that's actually not the most interesting question. The most

interesting question is what brings happiness.

And we know the answer to that too. It's three things,

three things bring happiness: genetics,

big life events, and choices.

And I'm going to tell you about all three, starting with genetics.

Now, a few years ago social scientists at the University of Minnesota

constructed a wonderful database that included seventy five pairs of identical

twins born between the mid-1930s and the mid 1950s.

Now they were separated at birth and adopted by separate families.

It's like a social scientist's dream it's almost as if the government had done this.

And at age 40 they were reunited and they were given a personality test, so

they were asked about the things that were going on their lives and the way that they

viewed their lives.

This is really interesting because you've got DNA carbon copies

of each other and they have different upbringings so you can net out the parts

that are nature and the parts that are nurture, statistically, and what did they find?

They found that 48 percent of their happiness is genetic. As a matter of fact they found that more

of their personality was genetic than they ever understood before. Forty percent of

how you vote is genetic

forty percent of how you worship is genetic, so

this explains some things. Do you have someone in your life who is

chronically happy? Do you have a coworker who's happy all the time?

It's very irritating, by the way, and so it sometimes you wonder, that person is

just happy all the time.

What are they doing right? What's their secret? Their secret is

their DNA. Are you a grumpy person are you

dark and brooding. It's your DNA it's not your fault, you have lousy parents

is basically what it comes down to. So if that's the case

does it really matter what we do? The answer is yeah because if half of it is taken away

from you you better get the other half right.

Now forty-percent is genetic but there are other innate qualities, other innate

characteristics that are really important,

the most interesting of which is gender.

Who's happier, men or women? The answer is women.

Most studies, the overwhelming majority of studies, find that women are happier

than men and always have been.

Okay I mean it's too bad guys but I studied this myself and I find the same

thing. I've looked at the happiness of men and women by marital status.

K and what do we find? Married women are happier than married men,

single women are happier than single men, widowed women are way happier than widowed men.

What's so funny about that?

I told that one to my wife

and she says, "Oh, no kidding."

In general women are happier than men.

Here's another interesting mystery: what's the average

unhappiest age in a man's life? I'd heard about this phenomenon forever, so have you,

this is the male mid-life crisis, right? When do you think it is?

70, 17

That doesn't count, only grown ups. 45

45 it's 45 that is exactly right. 45 is the average unhappiest age in a man's life.

And it goes something like this:

the trajectory of life for men is interesting and

sometimes a little sad. See, when you're in your twenties

and thirties the life recipe is actually kind of simple.

Life is like a super highway when you're in your twenties and thirties

if you want to get ahead and you want to have a better life and you want to be happier and more successful

just hit the gas. Just look for more money

and look for a better career and look for more promotions and it's simple.

The problem is on the superhighway guys get to age 45

and a bunch of them stop and they say

"I think I'm on the road. I don't want to be on the superhighway, but

I can't stop because I've got the house payment and I've got all this stuff.

It's hard, I'll get hit or get in an accident if I stop, it'll be bad

if I stop, a whole lot of guys find.

Now, ok, next question: what do they want?

Staying on the same metaphor, what they want is to be on another road

that they picked themselves they want to be on a little dirt road

with a motorcycle on it where the driver is not wearing a helmet.

That's what they want so who's the guy on the motorcycle because the secret to happiness

is being the guy on a motorcycle without the helmet. So I want to know who he is.

Tell me about it. I know who he is. He is me.

And I'll tell you how it works. When I was 19,

I dropped out of college. Dropped out, kicked out,

splitting hairs.

I ran off to play music for a living.

I was a French horn player, that was all I wanted to do. I wound up in the Barcelona symphony

by my my late twenties. It was great, I love the music, I still love the music,

it's the best music ever written. Seems like a dream, right?

But I got a glimpse of my forty five year old self.

I got to look in the crystal ball, it was all the guys working with me,

who were usually 20-30 years older than me, who around 45 had

kind of lost their happiness and now they were drinking a little too much and their

marriages weren't so good and they didn't like the music so much.

And I said I don't want to be those guys, so I got lucky.

Because I saw it and I hatched a plan, I hatched a plan to

to escape and I decided to go back to college.

And I called my dad and I said, "Dad I got big news! I'm going to quit music.

I'm going to go back to college. I'm going to study, I don't know, literature, physics,

poetry, or economics or something. It's going to be great.

I'm going to use my brain. My dad said

"What are you talking about? You started a family,

you're doing fine, it's very irresponsible to just

quit when you're in your late twenties, why?"

I said, "Dad, because I'm not happy.

And I don't think I'm going to be happy.

And there's a long pause and he says "So what makes you so special?"

Today I'm doing what I love. Today I'm doing what I feel like I'm called to do.

Today my job is to talk to you about how to have a happier life.

What a miracle. Now it's not good enough for people to accidentally find the way

we need to find it on purpose. Okay so innate differences:

genetics, forty-eight percent. The next big one

is big life events. This is what you think really drives your happiness.

You want to be happy? Go for your goals. You got these big goals in life and avoid

the bad stuff, right?

You think about it all the time. If only I can graduate from college with a good

enough GPA to get a good job, then I'll be happy,

right? If only I get into law school then I'll be happy if only that girl will marry me

then I'll be happy, and if I don't get sick I won't be unhappy,

right? If I don't have an accident I won't be unhappy. We think

in this way we are very goal-oriented creatures.

Now how much of our life happiness at any particular point

comes from the big things good and bad? Answer is

forty-percent. That's a lot. It seems like you're absolutely right to be chasing the big

thing in any particular moment, trying to avoid the big bad thing

at any particular moment but that's wrong. It's forty percent

but I'm going to tell you why not to chase it.

Two reasons: number one is we're very bad

at getting the things that we're seeking, the big goals that we're seeking,

but more importantly the big things never last.

How long will your mood be improved if you get that dream house?

Six months. If I double your pay, how long

will it improve your mood? Up to six months, no more.

No matter what you do it's going to wear off, the big stuff wears off.

But the costs of doing these big things last forever.

Don't chase the big thing. There's one study that really points this out.

The most interesting study I've ever seen.

From 1978 actually it's an old study, but it's still classic.

And it compares two groups of people: quadriplegics,

and people who win the lottery. What do these people have in common?

A huge punctuation to the equilibrium BOM

bad or good right? Now quadriplegics

six months after their accidents, on average, their happiness has returned

almost to its level prior to their accident.

That's what the study shows. Now not all the way but almost all the way.

See how durable we are? Six months later they would they still say I would do almost anything

to get to be able to control my arms and legs to not be confined to a wheelchair,

but their happiness is something that is innate,

and has to do with other forces. Okay, that's fine study number one,

number two is lottery winners. This one's actually even a little bit more interesting.

Six months after you hit the lottery the average lottery winner

has permanent baseline happiness levels that are slightly

below where they were the day before they bought the ticket.

Literally the best thing that can happen to you when you buy a lottery ticket

is that you don't win. Why? We know this too.

It's because they've blown their circuits. The little things in life

don't make them happy. Think about what is going to make you happy this weekend.

Hanging out with loved ones, it's doing the things that

give you a little bit of gratification with the people who make you happy.

You're going to watch some sports,

you probably go out to dinner, you're going to be around people who you're

comfortable with and you're going to joke around, have a great time.

Turns out people who win the lottery don't get that anymore. All of their hobbies

are dross their friendships are all different they don't enjoy the little

things they used to enjoy anymore.

So they go in search for more flavor. The truth is

if you want to be happy, don't spend your time obsessing about the great big splash.

What you need are habits that will give you the highest likelihood of getting that

forty percent

that will drive these events most likely into your life

and drive the bad things out of your life in a regular

framework as a regular type of discipline.

So what are these lifestyle elements?

And this brings us to the last 12 percent remember forty-eight is genetics,

40 percent is events, you got 12 percent left, that 12 percent you have left

are under your control.

And if you do the things you need to do to get the maximum from the 12 percent

you're also going to raise the likelihood of getting the forty percent because this

gives you the best lifestyle to give you the best luck.

So what we need to know now are the things and there are four of them,

that will give you the 12 percent. And this is where the knowledge is power.

This is where you get to walk out of here ready

to invest in your happiness portfolio and be a happier person starting tonight.

Here's the good news: simple, available to everybody,

and easy to understand. Here are the four: faith,

family, community, and work.

Those are your big four. That's your happiness portfolio.

Don't waste your time on other stuff. Because if you do, you're going to be going in the wrong

direction. Family, I mean

I'm sorry, faith is pretty obvious. The interior life, I'm not going to tell you which faith,

but thinking about the transcendental, thinking about the things that are not

of this world, and

incorporating them into your life. Family, having solid family relationships, these

are the things that can't and shouldn't go away.

Community is a little bit more complicated, the elements of community are

cultivating important friendships

and being charitable in your community being a charitable person toward others.