The midlife crisis.
Is this a real thing? >> Yeah, absolutely.
It is well known that.
Stress is the.
Peaks in your midlife and happiness.
Um goes down in your midlife.
Suicide, for example, peaks especially for male.
Um in midlife. Definitely like something that we should think of and notice.
Um, and we don't really know for sure why it happens, but one thing that happens in midlife is that you have.
A lot of stressors coming your way.
Um, so we're talking about 40s and 50s.
So you have you might need you have little kids that you need to take care of.
Maybe you have elderly parents that you're worried about.
Uh, professional life has a lot of stressors in midlife.
So that's really a time where we see the midlife crisis.
But one thing that we think is that perhaps this is also a time that you're not progressing as much,.
Right? So kind of in your.
20s and so on, you learn a lot, you gain skills,.
You get to perhaps a good position,.
And then it's sort of plateauing,.
Right? For a lot of people, it can kind of plateau in midlife.
Perhaps they have a good job, right?
But they're kind of stuck. They're not really moving as much.
They're not learning as much, less variety, right?
Things are a little bit more routine.
And that could be one reason.
Why happiness.
Is relatively low in midlife.
It's also hard to see like what is next sometimes,.
Right? While you're climbing up, it's you're kind of well, this is my goal, but once you get there, it's a little.
Bit disappointing to some extent, even if you've done really well, right?
Because as we talked before, one thing that is really important for our happiness is kind of us believing.
That we have something to gain, something to go forward to.
Now, why does then happiness go back up after midlife, right?
So, we don't know. But here's one speculation.
That at at a certain point in time,.
Uh maybe you're retiring,.
Then actually life changes again,.
Right? In an odd way, there can actually be more variety and ch in change and learning.
You need to learn how to live life again.
>> with this new context of not going to work every day, you know, and you might make decisions, all sorts of.
Decisions of what to do with your time which will require you.
To learn again.
>> When you get to sort of say 40, 40, 50 years old, you're.
Probably in a relationship.
>> which you've been in for a while.
>> There's not that there's not that pursuit.
Your job, your career, your profession, your identity, your geography, your house, friendship circles are probably all well established at that point.
>> And your.
Hypothesis is that the lack of forward motion.
And the abundance of routine.
Means that you lose something.
In life. >> Yeah. So things are less new, right?
New. It's kind of same same.
>> Imagine the best day of your life.
You wake up in the morning and you eat like the best breakfast that you can think of, right?
Choose. And then you.
You interact with the people that you love the most and you go do the best activity like what you want and.
You see your favorite movie. So the whole day is your favorite favorite favorite things.
Really great.
And then you wake up the same the next day and you do the same.
And then you wake up this next day and you do the same.
Right? A week in a few weeks in the best day of your life just doesn't elicit as much joy.
Right? And also.
There's nothing to learn anymore.
So even if you're living your absolute best life,.
If it is the same again and again and again and again,.
It will eventually.
Be a little bit even depressing,.
I would say. >> So that's.
By definition not our best life,.
>> right? So So then it is what is our best life?
But I think when people think about.
What my best life is, what they're thinking about is I want that great house, right?
I want that great partner. I want money or you know, and then you can get all of these things, but if.
They remain constant,.
That's just not going to be your best life.
And you can engineer this. I mean, even if it's like midlife and everything is set and you're in one house and.
So on, for example, you can go take a course, learn something new, right?
A new field that is not your own.
You can go a new sport, right?
There's things that you could do.
Go visit places that you haven't been.
Try to um make connections with people that are a bit different from your regular.
Crowd that you're interacting with. It's a little bit hard to do because it's going to require effort.
The easiest thing to do is just continue.
Same same same. >> We assume that happiness will be derived from.
Us. Um.
I almost don't know how to say this like from us being on autopilot like if we do what society said you.
Work a job you get a partner.
You create a house.
We assume that will lead to happiness but what you're.
Saying is the research shows that we actually need to keep almost dismantling or disrupting our own experience to to find.
Happiness or to be happy. I guess we can't find happiness we be happy.
Yeah, did a whole bunch of surveys to figure out what are the factors that are most associated with people's happiness.
And then number one was meaning,.
Right? People who could say I have meaning in my life.
That was number one. Number two was control.
People who felt they have control over their life.
Um and I don't remember what number income was, but it wasn't especially high.
Or I think social, so social connections was really high as well, right?
So a lot of these things were these psychological things, not necessarily.
Material things that really induced.
Uh people's happiness.
And satisfaction from their life.
Somewhat linked to that, studies show that after getting married, people report to being happier on average.
Yet about 2 years after their honeymoon period, happiness levels tend to be.
The same as their pre-marriage levels.
>> Yeah. So this is a well-known what's called the hedonic treadmill.
>> Oh yeah. So the hydonic treadmill means that we sort of have a baseline level of happiness.
Which is determined a lot is genetic.
It might be determined by early childhood experiences.
And we can move from that baseline.
We can go up if something good happens.
Maybe you have a good relationship, marriage, uh you get a promotion.
It can go down if something bad happens even bereavement.
But it turns out that it in most cases you climb back.
To your baseline.
Level of happiness.
So these things they can go up and they can down and then you kind of adapt,.
Right? Um and.
You end up.
Trying you know and this goes back to this idea that we're trying to get all these things.
We think of once I get this promotion then I will be really happy and then you get the promotion and it's.
Great but then after a while you just go back to your baseline.
Now on on one hand this actually is not a bad thing because.
Imagine you get your first entry-level job.
And people are really happy with their first entry-level job.
Great. But imagine I just continue being really happy with my first entry-level job, right?
I won't be motivated.
To move forward, right?
>> So this is why habituation is there because it's moving us forward as an individual and and as a society.
On the other hand, it also reduces our joy.
Um, and it also sometimes causes us not to see some of the bad things around us because we habituate to that.
As well.
Another reason why habituation is important is for your mental health, right?
And that's kind of related to what we just talked about where bad things happen and slowly slowly slowly we adapt and.
We go back to baseline. We are able to recover, right?
It's kind of our superpower,.
Our.
Im immense ability.
To just bounce back for most individuals.
And what's interesting is that you actually see that people with depression,.
They habituate much slower.
So there's a great study that was conducted in the University of Florida by a professor Aaron Heler.
Where he had students.
Um who just got exam results.
And he asked them how they were feeling and then he asked them how they were feeling after every 45 minutes for.
The whole day. And what he found is when people got bad results they were feeling bad, right?
They're not happy. And that's true for people who never had depression.
Episodes in their life and people who were experiencing depression or had depression before.
So everyone was feeling bad at the beginning.
Those people who did not have any history of depression, they slowly slowly slowly started feeling better from this bad grade.
Those with depression also started feeling better but much slower.
Right? So in other words, depression is related.
To.
Slower habituation,.
Slower recovery.
From negative events in your life.
And one reason.
We think this is is because depression is related to.
Going over these bad events in your mind again and again.
Not letting go, right? You're kind of like chewing over them again and again and again.
And that is something that is preventing you from recovering.
And bouncing back.
From these um aversive events.
If um habituation.
Is.
Causes us to.
Lose the joy of our current situation,.
Then how come as you say in chapter 2, the chapter about variety, you say that up to 40% of employees resign.
Within the first 6 months of their new job?
You'd think their new job would bring them joy because it was different, but up to 40% of employees resign within the.
First six months. So new things.
Can bring us joy because they're different.
However, at the same time, and this kind of goes back to the vacation example that I gave you, which was people.
Are not the happiest when they just get to the resort.
It takes them time, right? It takes them 43 hours to get to the peak joy.
Why? Because they still need the time to adapt, right?
They need to unpack. They need to get used to this new routine.
Same thing with a new job, for example.
So on one hand.
Getting a new job you're going to learn things and that's great and eventually it will get you joy but when you.
F when you're there for the first day or the first few days there's a lot of getting used to things around.
You right you need to like figure who's who right who's on top who's in the bottom like where is the cafeteria.
What am I going to eat there's so many different things that you need to figure out it can be stressful it.
Can be overwhelming.
And you often want to just like run back to your old life, run back to your new job and do a.
U-turn.
And the problem is that often people don't predict this.
They can't see ahead, right? They think it's like, well, I'm unhappy.
With my new job on my first day or my second day or even the first week.
That means that this is not a good job for me.
You know, perhaps it's not a good job for you or perhaps you just need to allow it some time to adapt.
So, you know, my recommendation is.
Whatever it is that you're trying that's new.
It can also be something like a new relationship, right?
Give it some time because you're going to have to get used to the things that are also not great.
You will also get things you get used to things are great, but you have to get used to those things that.
Are not great. And then after a while, you won't see them anymore,.
Right? So, not going to affect you as much.
So, give it time. Now, if you gave it time.
And still you're unhappy, sure.
>> Yeah. make a change. >> There's a clear message in here for managers, employees, CEOs, founders about how to keep their.
Team motivated and engaged.
And the message that I'm hearing is the importance in creating variety in their work.
Because I always think in businesses I'm involved in, if someone's doing the same thing for like 12 months,.
We're going to have a have to have a conversation within the next three months because they will typically come to me.
And say like.
Something's not something's not right. And it's typically that people need a bit of variety in their work.
I guess because that gives it a little kick of meaning.
Again,.
You know, I I think I've always hypothesized that people need like five things to really like their jobs.
Number one is a sense of forward motion towards a a goal.
So that's progress. I guess feeling like you're going make making forward motion.
Number two, challenge.
They need to be like sufficiently challenged.
Not too challenged because then there's lots of issues.
Underchallenged lots of issues. Lose motivation like in game psychology.
Number three is control and autonomy.
So feeling like you've got control over your life, your work.
Number four is meaning in the work you're doing, subjective meaning.
Jack's reason for doing this podcast will be entirely different from someone else in the team, for example.
And then the last one is working in like a supportive group of people.
>> There's a lot of studies about this that.
You want a situation where.
You're learning something because if you're learning nothing,.
People are not engaged, right? But if it's like so difficult that you can't learn, right, people aren't happy as well.
So you have to be like in this the spot in the middle, right?
That's a sweet spot. And again, it's different for everyone, right?
Where it's not too easy, but it's not too difficult.
So you have something to learn, but you're still progressing.
And that's very important. There's a great study showing that if you put people in a room and there's absolutely nothing for.
Them to do except to shock themselves,.
They will shock themselves.
Like little shock. I don't mean you know um this this paper was actually in science a few years ago.
So meaning that.
Boredom.
Can be so aversive to people they would actually prefer physical pain.
Than to just not do anything at all.
So that's on the one hand and then of course on the other hand is when you're sitting in in a you.
Know in a class or you're listening to a lecture and you have no idea what's it's too much right because you.
Haven't gotten there. Maybe you'll take the steps.
Eventually, you'll get there. But >> but you know, you started off by saying for employees, you need to kind of change,.
Right? Give them different projects and so on.
And what's interesting, not only will they enjoy it more, they're more likely to get to creative solutions.
Start with the fact that what what has been found is that people who habituate slower.
Are more creative.
Um, so there's different ways to measure how fast you habituate.
What they did in this study is that they had a sound the same sound again and again and again and they.
Measured skin conductance.
Which shows um so it is how aroused you are when you're aroused.
You sweat more >>.
Okay >> and that is measured by the skin conductance right and so when there's like a sound there's a response so.
If a sound is the same sound again and again and again most people habituate there's no longer response you know long.
Skin conductance but for some people they continue responding.
Right because they're not habituating. And what was found is those those people who continue responding, those were the people who already.
Showed creativity in their life. They had a patent under their name.
They had an exhibition in an art gallery.
They had a book that they wrote.
They had um got prizes for.
Innovative work.
And the question is why is that?
And I think the reason is that.
Because of habituation, we filter a lot of information, right?
And.
You know, it makes sense. Information is not important.
But if you don't habituate, you're going to have a lot of bits of information in your mind simmering.
Objects,.
Sounds, bits and pieces of knowledge that are not important on their own, but they're just going to stay in your mind.
They're going to simmer and once in a while.
They will create something new.
>> And that's where innovation comes in.
And really, if you think about the most creative solutions that people.
Come up with, it's usually they take something from one field,.
Something really boring, unimportant,.
Mundane,.
And that bit of mundane piece of information.
Then solves a problem in this other completely different field.
And or there's like this part of knowledge here that is.
Boring and this other part of knowledge in this other field that also seems very mundane but you put them together and.
Suddenly you create something that is really really interesting.
Uh and creative right I mean often you see for example.
People taking what they know from biology.
Which you know on its own doesn't seem so important but then they take that and they use it to solve a.
Problem in a different field, technology.
For.
Example, right? That is like the most creative solutions.
So how do we facilitate that?
How do we facilitate disabituation in order to enhance creativity?
And the answer is change. Changing your environment.
And it could be simple things.
There's studies showing that if you just change your environment, let's say you're working in the office for a few hours and.
You go work for in a coffee shop for a few hours, right?
That change can actually also enhance creativity.
Um you're sitting and working and then you're going out and walking or going out for a run.
Um studies show for the first six minutes you're going to be more creative and also vice versa.
So if you were out walking out running and then you come back and you sit in your office.
For the next six minutes you're going to be more creative.
Now six minutes may sound like that's not a lot of time but sometimes it's just enough.
For you to get the aha moment.
I can remember.
Those instances where I came up with an idea that would then change my course of research for a long time.
Those ideas that were really important.
So if I think about these examples like one example was I was in the office trying to solve this problem and.
I couldn't find a solution. And so I decided to go to the gym and then so I walked to the gym.
And then before while I was walking while I was getting to the gym that's when you know the solution came about.
And I remember like calling my student and like sharing that and that would then change years of what we we were.
Going to do right so just all I did was changed my physical activity.
Changed just my physical surrounding and that's exactly what these studies.
Show.
Um or another example was again I was in my office and I took a break and I was reading the New.
York Times science section. So, not hugely different but still different, right?
And then I read something about monkeys and I do humans and that again that was ooh that.
An idea came about by taking a break and doing something that was a little bit different.
And I think every single example of this, it's always like that.
>> It's never me.
Trying to think of something new, me trying to find a solution.
Always doing something else which then something unusual not something that I do like 90% of the time.
In a day and that doing those times is when these kind of new ideas came about.
>> you know the brain generally having spent so much time studying it what are the the fundamental surprises you've come to.
Learn about humans that you think most people just don't understand or agree with like the things that we don't want to.
Believe about ourselves that are unfortunately true.
>> things that are unfortunately true.
>> I see this. I read this throughout your work.
Things where you go, humans wouldn't say they're like that if you ask them, but clearly they are because of the research,.
>> right? Yeah. I mean, it is true that we're not conscious of most of these kind of systematic mistakes that we.
Make and the biases that we have.
For example, I mean, maybe our belief system is a great example.
Of why we believe what we believe.
I think that if you'd ask people,.
Why do you believe a certain thing?
They would probably give you some kind of rational explanation,.
Right?
I believe.
This thing because, you know, here's all the evidence and so forth.
But in fact most of the times the reason we believe something is that we were brought up in an environment where.
That belief was a popular one or people around us believe it or we've heard it again and again.
You know one interesting thing is this is a huge effect where people are are not aware of it.
As long as you hear something um repeatedly.
Even twice.
The likelihood that you believe it.
Goes way up versus something that you hear once.
It's called the illusurary truth effect.
You just there's so many studies showing this.
You let people you you tell people something twice, they don't remember that they've heard it twice and they're going to believe.
It way more than something that they just heard once.
Um the reason for this is that the brain process information that it's heard before less,.
Okay. So let's say I tell you that um.
A shrimp's heart is in its head, right?
So when you hear that, that sounds really surprising and your brain takes a lot of resources to process this.
You might think about the last time I ate a shrimp.
Um, right? Or just imagine the shrimp's heart is in his head.
But the second time I'm going to tell you this, a shrimp's heart is in his head, your brain's not going to.
Process this at much, right? And the third time, it's not going to process it at all.
Now,.
When.
Your brain takes less effort in processing things,.
That causes.
Um a signal of familiarity.
And as a result, we're more likely to believe something.
When something requires less effort and less energy to process, we believe it more.
>>.
Interesting. >> So, anything that you hear again and again and again, as you hear it more and more and more,.
It takes less energy to process.
And if it takes less energy to process, our brain then concludes that is likely true.
And for good reason because most of the time when you hear something again and again, most of the time it's true.
So if you heard something from, you know, your aunt and then you heard it from your friend and then you heard.
It from your doctor,.
Why do all good people tell you all these things?
Because on average it's true. But sometimes.
It's not going to be true, right?
It's going to be false beliefs.
>> If you love the D CEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor.
Become part of the 15%.
Of the viewers on this channel that have hit the subscribe button.