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

by Eric Barker

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.

Sometimes the mere appearance of confidence can be the difference between winning and losing.

On the flip side, a study titled “Self-Esteem and Earnings” showed that your level of confidence is at least as important as how smart you are when it comes to how much money you end up making.

As we talked about earlier, just speaking first and often—very confident behavior—makes others perceive you as a leader.

A study from the University of California at Berkeley found that displaying overconfidence makes others feel you’re both competent and higher in status. (On a lighter note, another study showed that wearing glasses does make people think you’re smarter—though less attractive.) When it comes to leadership, researcher Chiara Amati puts it bluntly: “Faking it seems, to a degree, to just be part of good people management.” Jeffrey Pfeffer agrees: “The secret of leadership was the ability to play a role, to pretend, to be skilled in the theatrical arts . . . To come across effectively, we need to master how to convey

The Dunning-Kruger effect is this odd phenomenon of people with the least experience being the

Often in life, it’s better to be a little unsure.

To be the very best at anything, you will need to be your harshest critic, and that is

It was depressed people who saw the world more accurately.

Bosses who show vulnerability and underrate themselves are the most popular.

You’ve heard both sides: Overconfidence makes you feel good, gives you grit, and impresses others—but can also make you an arrogant jerk who alienates people, doesn’t improve, and possibly loses everything because of denial.

“Who is the only person in your life who is available 24/7 to provide you with care and kindness? You.”

taking the time to jot down nice thoughts to yourself, how you’re a fallible human and how you can see problems without turning them into emotional disasters, made people feel better and increased self-compassion.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

“People who wish to do so must organize their whole lives around a single enterprise. They must be monomaniacs, even megalomaniacs, about their pursuits. They must start early, labor continuously, and never give up the cause. Success is not for the lazy, procrastinating, or mercurial.” (Does that mean it’s a good thing that I’m writing these lines at 3:25 A.M.?) If

one of the top five regrets of people on their deathbed is “I wish I didn’t work so hard.”

“Those who stayed very involved in meaningful careers and worked the hardest, lived the longest.” Meaningful work means doing something that’s (a) important to you and (b) something you’re good at.

“The more hours per day Americans get to use their strengths to do what they do best, the less likely they are to report experiencing worry, stress, anger, sadness, or physical pain.”

“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

Parenthood is certainly stressful. It can be difficult. For some people it’s a full-time job. But nobody seriously says “All that parenting is going to kill you. You should stop doing it.”

Sometimes it feels like it’s going to kill you, sure, but it’s the most meaningful thing in most people’s lives, and the challenge just makes the rewards that much sweeter. A career you love is no different.

If a meaningful career boosts longevity, what kills you so...

The unhappiness effects of unemployment might be even worse.

Getting married makes you happier, but in a few years most people return to their prior level of satisfaction.

Retiring is associated with cognitive decline, heart disease, and cancer. Those effects weren’t due to aging but because people stop being active and engaged.

wish I’d had the courage to live a

life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Career was a solid number two, right behind education and ahead of relationships.

If you’re very serious about creating things, you sacrifice family.

What was number four in that list of biggest regrets of the dying? “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

Every hour at work is an hour you’re not with friends and family. Is this really necessary to be successful at a global scale? Sadly, it may be.

least with men, marriage has a noticeably negative effect on output among scientists, authors, jazz musicians, painters, and even criminals. The author of the study, Satoshi Kanazawa writes, “Scientists rather quickly desist after their marriage, while unmarried scientists continue to make great scientific contributions later in their lives.”

All of this is if you have your ultim...

burnout occurs when we’re not right for the job we’re in.

Burnout is the result of a pessimistic attitude toward your job. This isn’t getting me anywhere. I can’t handle this. It’s never going to get any better.

So while obsessive work may be necessary for the heights of success, it doesn’t lead to a fulfilling, balanced life.

If we do want to achieve success and don’t want to be cut off from friends and family or suffer the depression of burnout, can less really be more? Can we have fun and be successful or is that just a pipe dream?

We’re more likely to have faith in the people we joke around with.

money and promotions weren’t nearly as important to people as working somewhere fun.

Why are showers so powerful? They’re relaxing. Remember, Archimedes didn’t have his “Eureka” moment at the office. He was enjoying a nice warm bath at the time.

“It turns out that most people are productive in the first two hours of the morning. Not

How else does resting and having some fun help? Naps are short so let’s go big: vacations.

A German study of teachers showed that taking a two-week vacation increased work engagement and decreased burnout for up to a month.

“Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.”

Most studies in the past have shown adults to be happier than younger people. Not anymore. Since 2010, people under thirty are happier than previous generations of young people. But people over thirty aren’t as happy as people in their age group used to be. Why might this be? Researcher Jean Twenge explained:

In the modern era, the standards of success have gotten absurd. They’re not difficult to reach; they’re impossible. TV shows you twenty-something Silicon Valley billionaires. Think you’re good at something? There’s someone on the Internet who is better, works less, and is happier. They have nice teeth too.

“Right now, there’s no aspiration to be middle class. Everyone wants to be at the top.” We probably have far more now than we ever had in the past, but we’re probably not much happier. And instinctively we think the problem can still be fixed by more. More money. More food. More things. Just more.

“What makes me feel good” there’s no finish line. It’s a pie-eating contest and first prize is more pie.

We love choices and the twenty-first century has given us nearly infinite choices. With technology, we now always have the choice to be working. The office doors don’t close at five P.M. anymore. Every minute we spend with friends or playing with our kids is a minute we could be working. So every moment is a decision. That decision didn’t exist in the past. But having it in the back of our heads all the time is enormously stressful.

These days, when you come home, your work comes with you. In fact, no matter where you go, your work comes with you. You’re at a ballgame, your work is in your pocket, right? What that means is not necessarily you want to work all the time but you have to make a decision not to work. There’s no constraint. “Should I play with my kid or should I answer these emails?” That was not an issue thirty years ago. You’re home; of course you play with your kid. No decision. Now there’s a decision to be made. Technology has increased choices dramatically in good and bad ways. Remember that study of the top six percent of earners? “Seventy-two percent said that technology helps them do their jobs well, fifty-nine percent said that it lengthens their working day, and sixty-four percent noted its encroachment on family time.” During Leslie Perlow’s research, one executive looked at his smartphone and said, “I love the thing and I hate it at the same time. The reason I love it is that it gives me so much power. And the reason I hate it is that it has so much power over me.”