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

by Eric Barker

Spending 5 percent of your time trying new things, knowing you will quit most of them, can lead to great opportunities. (And not all of them need to involve concussions.)

WOOP—wish, outcome, obstacle, plan—is applicable to most any of your goals, from career to relationships to exercise and weight loss.

Being a little pessimistic at times keeps us honest. But when the risks are very low (which is true, frankly, for most things) or when the payoffs are very high (such as a career you might want to devote your life to) optimism is the way to go. It’s a balance. A balance that with practice you can find.

Whether an introvert or an extrovert is the better leader depends on whom they are leading. When employees are passive, the social, energetic extroverts really shine. However, when you’re dealing with very motivated workers, introverts do better because they know how to listen, help, and get out of the way.

Remember, the rule of thumb is simple when making friends: be socially optimistic. Assume other people will like you and they probably will.

Stop thinking about what you’re going to say next and focus on what they’re saying right now.

Get-togethers like these are also passive ways to change yourself for the better. Remember how Mom said to stay away from that kid who kept getting detention? Or she told you “Why can’t you hang out with that nice girl who gets all A’s?” Mom was right.

Why are mentors so important? You don’t have time to make all the mistakes yourself, and of course making those mistakes can mean failure.

Mentors make learning fun. They add a relationship to the stress and help you overcome the frustration while pushing you to be your best.

Not only should you care about your mentors; the mentors who really make you succeed need to care about you.

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

So if you’ve got the skills, don’t just think about who can help you. Think about whom you can help.

When we make it win-or-lose, everyone loses.

Research from neuroscience confirms this. When people are riled up about something and you show them evidence that conflicts with what they believe, what does an MRI scan show? The areas of their brain associated with logic literally shut down.

Don’t get angry.

“The CEO who misleads others in public may eventually mislead himself in private.”

Incompetence is a problem that inexperienced people have, and all things being equal, we don’t entrust inexperienced people with all that much power or authority. Overconfidence is usually the mistake of experts, and we do give them a lot of power and authority.

People who aren’t that experienced in a field don’t have the knowledge to properly evaluate how easy or hard something in that arena might be.

Self-compassion does too, but without all the negatives: “Research suggests that self-compassion is strongly related to psychological wellbeing, including increased happiness, optimism, personal initiative, and connectedness, as well as decreased anxiety, depression, neurotic perfectionism, and rumination.”

To always feel like you’re awesome you need to either divorce yourself from reality or be on a treadmill of constantly proving your value.

Not to mention relentlessly proving yourself is exhausting and unsettling. Self-compassion lets you see the facts and accept that you’re not perfect.

Seek situations that challenge you to keep yourself humble. Strive to keep an open mind instead of assuming you already know the answer. Be nice. Don’t end up as an emperor in your own mind.

As always, pick the right pond. G. Richard Shell of Wharton said that surrounding yourself with those who believe in you can lead to “transferred expectations” and a self-fulfilling prophecy, which increases confidence.

Harshly judging yourself as good or bad, as immediately successful or unsuccessful, is very black and white and narrow-minded. To achieve wisdom, you need a little more flexibility, acceptance, and the learning that comes with growth. Think about the wisest people you’ve known. Were they full of bluster and hubris? Or utterly without confidence? They were probably calm and understanding, forgiving and less judgmental.

“The top 10 percent of workers produce 80 percent more than the average, and 700 percent more than the bottom 10 percent.”

“It turns out that most people are productive in the first two hours of the morning. Not immediately after waking, but if you get up at 7 you’ll be most productive from around 8 to 10:30.” Don’t waste them being exhausted and cranky.

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

The problem is that in the quest for “What makes me feel good” there’s no finish line. It’s a pie-eating contest and first prize is more pie. These expectations make it harder to achieve the goals we naturally inherit from our surroundings, but that’s not the worst part. In today’s world, it’s all our fault. Or at least it feels like it.

We work harder but feel worse because everything is being judged, constantly.

The attitude being First I’ll work a job I hate and make a lot of money and then I’ll have a family and then I’ll do what I want and be happy. This doesn’t work with relationships, though.

“We are always getting ready to live, but never living.”

You need a personal definition of success. Looking around you to see if you’re succeeding is no longer a realistic option. Trying to be a relative success compared to others is dangerous. This means your level of effort and investment is determined by theirs, which keeps you running full speed all the time to keep up.

Barry Schwartz says that what we often fail to realize is those constraints are welcome. They make decisions easier. They make life simpler. They make it “not your fault.” So they make us happier. We believe these constraints are ultimately worth the trade-off.

Nobel Prize–winner Herbert Simon, who created the idea of maximizing and satisficing, said that in the end, when you calculate all factors of stress, results, and effort, satisficing is actually the method that maximizes.

Want work–life balance? Then remember what Barry Schwartz told me: “Good enough is almost always good enough.”

Proactive employees who have plans, ask about priorities, and try to head off problems are valuable. The people the boss has to come to after the fact to correct errors are the real difficult ones. And when you produce results, you’ll get more latitude. More latitude means more freedom and control to execute your plan. Handle it right and it’s an upward spiral for everyone.

What was fascinating was that increasing people’s free time had no effect on their happiness, but scheduling that time in advance made all the difference.

By taking some time to plan, you can make it much more likely you’ll really have fun instead of being a couch potato.

“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.”

Whether it’s arguments with your spouse or the last lines of a Hollywood movie, endings matter. So take the time to end the day well. Those last moments at the office every day loom large in terms of how you feel about your job.

What’s the most important thing to remember when it comes to success? One word: alignment. Success is not the result of any single quality; it’s about alignment between who you are and where you choose to be.

achievement, significance, happiness, and legacy.

The big four

Pick the right pond. Find a job that leverages your intensifiers. Create a story that keeps you going. Make little bets that expand your horizons. Use WOOP to turn your dreams into realities. What’s the most important type of alignment? Being connected to a group of friends and loved ones who help you become the person you want to be.

“The only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”