Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

by Eric Barker

In a piece for the New York Times, Dan Coyle revealed the edge Robič had over his competition that rendered him the greatest rider ever in the Race Across America: His insanity.

Aren't we all at a socially acceptable level of insanity? Being mediocre and yet content of it, is to a degree hard/insane as well.

We spend too much time trying to be “good” when good is often merely average. To be great we must be different. And that doesn’t come from trying to follow society’s vision of what is best, because society doesn’t always know what it needs. More often being the best means just being the best version of you. As John Stuart Mill remarked, “That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of our time.”

When you take a job take a long look at the people you’re going to be working with—because the odds are you’re going to become like them; they are not going to become like you. You can’t change them. If it doesn’t fit who you are, it’s not going to work.

Studies show that your boss has a much larger effect on your happiness and success than the company at large.

What Viktor Frankl realized was that in the most awful place on Earth, the people who kept going despite the horrors were the ones who had meaning in their lives: A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”

Famed researcher Walter Mischel credits his success to a Yiddish word his grandmother taught him: sitzfleisch. It means “buttocks.” As in “Put your butt in that chair and work on what’s important.” So what’s the first step? Know your number-one priority. Then start quitting stuff that isn’t as important and see what happens. You’ll learn really fast if something really is more essential than you thought.

Oettingen pulled together a simple system for you to do this called WOOP. (Yeah, the formal term is “mental contrasting” but, c’mon. Who wouldn’t rather say “WOOP”?) WOOP—wish, outcome, obstacle, plan—is applicable to most any of your goals, from career to relationships to exercise and weight loss.

Clinical psychologist and workplace consultant Al Bernstein says, “You can’t not play politics; you can only play them badly . . . the only place where relationships don’t matter is on a desert island far away from the rest of the world.”

Harvard researcher Shawn Achor found that the workers least likely to develop workplace friendships were also the least likely to get promoted. (Feel free to read that sentence a few hundred more times so it sinks in.)

Tim Kreider got stabbed in the throat while on vacation. The knife sunk in two millimeters from his carotid artery, which he describes as the difference between being “flown home in the cargo hold instead of in coach.” He lived. And for the next year nothing could upset him. He just felt so lucky to be alive. Being stabbed in the throat turned the volume down on everything negative. “That’s supposed to bother me? I’ve been stabbed in the throat!” Then hedonic adaptation set in. He found himself getting frustrated by little things again—traffic, computer problems. Once again, he took being alive for granted. Just like we all do. Tim then came up with a little solution. He makes sure to celebrate his “stabbiversary” every year, to remind himself how lucky he is. And that’s what you need to do. Making time to feel gratitude for what you have undoes the “hedonic adaptation.” And what’s the best way to do this? Thank the people around you. Relationships are the key to happiness, and taking the time to say “thanks” renews that feeling of being blessed.

As George Bernard Shaw said, “The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.”

This phenomenon of neglecting family for one’s passion isn’t the least bit new. The ancient Romans had an expression, “libri aut liberi,” which translates to “books or children.” If you’re very serious about creating things, you sacrifice family.

Robert Epstein surveyed thirty thousand people in thirty countries and found that the most effective method for reducing stress was having a plan. When we think about obstacles ahead of time and consider how to overcome them, we feel in control.

A good way to deal with the busy work is in “batches.” Rather than reactively living in your inbox, schedule a few intervals when you process emails, return phone calls, and shuffle the papers that need shuffling. After that session is over, turn off notifications, silence the phone, and get back to important stuff. Three batches a day works for me, but a job that requires frequent interaction may need more.