Happiness Advantage Principle 2

PRINCIPLE #2

The Fulcrum and The Lever - Changing Your Performance by Changing Your Mindset

When I was seven years old, my sister Amy and I were playing on the top of our bunk beds, GI Joes and soldiers on my side of the top bunk against all her My Little Ponies and unicorns on the other side. My sister got a little too excited and, without any help from me, fell off the top bunk. I heard a crash on the floor and I nervously peered over the side of the bed to see what had befallen my fallen sibling. 

Amy had landed on the floor on her hands and knees, on all fours. I looked at my sister’s face and noticed that a wail of pain and suffering was about to erupt from her mouth, threatening to wake my parents from their rest. Crisis is the mother of all invention, so I did the only thing my frantic little seven-year-old brain could think to do. “Amy, wait! Wait. Did you see how you landed? No human lands on all fours like that. You . . . you’re a unicorn!”

The wail froze in my sister’s throat, as confusion took over her face. You could see the conflict in her eyes as her brain tried to decide whether to focus on the physical pain she was feeling or her excitement about her newfound identity as a unicorn. The latter won out. 

My sister and I had no idea that what we stumbled across at the tender age of five and seven would be at the vanguard of a scientific revolution occurring two decades later. Because our brain’s resources are limited, we are left with a choice: to use those finite resources to see only pain, negativity, stress, and uncertainty, or to use those resources to look at things through a lens of gratitude, hope, resilience, optimism, and meaning. 

In other words, while we of course can’t change reality through sheer force of will alone, we can use our brain to change how we process the world, and that in turn changes how we react to it.

The Archimedean Formula

Take, for example, a seesaw. If two boys, each weighing 100 pounds, sit the same distance from the fulcrum on opposing seesaw seats, they will balance each other (until they start wiggling). Now imagine two boys, one weighing 100 pounds and the other 150 pounds, in the same situation. The smaller boy is going to hang in the air until the larger one either pushes off with his feet from the ground or (as boys sometimes do) jumps off and lets his smaller companion crash earthward.

But what if we move the fulcrum? The closer we move the center point, the fulcrum, toward the heavier boy, the easier he is to lift. If we keep moving the fulcrum in that direction, eventually the lighter boy will effectively weigh more than his big-boned buddy. In other words, by shifting this point around which energy is applied, we can effectively turn the seesaw from a balancing scale into a powerful lever. 

What I realized is that our brains work in precisely the same way. Our power to maximize our potential is based on two important things: (1) the length of the lever - how much potential power and possibility we believe we have, and (2) the position of our fulcrum - the mindset with which we generate the power to change. 

Simply put, by changing the fulcrum of our mindset and lengthening our lever of possibility, we change what is possible. It’s not the weight of the world that determines what we can accomplish. It is our fulcrum and lever. 

Move the Fulcrum, Change Reality

According to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, many of the seemingly inviolable laws of the universe become altered based on the observer. As a result, some amazing impossibilities in a seemingly “objective and fixed” world suddenly became possible. For example, take only two people, one standing still, and the other traveling close to the speed of light. Common sense tells you that both will age at the same rate, but in fact, the person remaining still ages faster because time dilates with motion, relative from the stationary observer. In other words, time, once thought to be fixed and immutable, is actually relative to motion. According to Einstein, everything from length to distance to time is relative. 

Relativity doesn’t end with mere physics. Every second of our own experience has to be measured through a relative and subjective brain. In other words, “reality” is merely our brain’s relative understanding of the world based on where and how we are observing it. Most important, we can change this perspective at any moment, and by doing so change our experience of the world around us. This is what I mean by moving our fulcrum. Essentially, our mindset, and in turn our experience of the world, is never set in stone, but constantly in a flux. 

Singing Executives Experiment

I looked out at the 70 managing and executive directors who had assembled for my talk at UBS in Stamford, Connecticut. Their company was suffering massive restructuring and layoffs, legal battles, and a share price 80 percent off its high. And there I stood, asking this room full of battle-weary bankers to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” over and over again in their heads. 

My instructions were simple: “Close your eyes and start singing the song in your head. When you get to the end, start again. Keep going until I say ‘Stop’.” They did as they were told, though occasionally, the more cynical executives would peek to make sure I wasn’t fooling with them or clandestinely wiring up electric shocks. Finally, I told everyone to stop, open their eyes, and write down how long they thought the experiment had lasted, in minutes and seconds. One man guessed it had been two minutes, while another was sure it had been four. A woman in the back of the room guessed 45 seconds. There were 70 people in the room, and I heard 70 different answers, ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. 

I have done this experiment in nearly 40 countries, and every time I conduct it, I hear a tremendous range in answers. The point, of course, is that what feels like the blink of an eye to some can feel like an eternity to others. Depending on their mindset, each person experiences the objective reality of time differently. Perhaps those who think the song (or the exercise, or both) is stupid and boring, and are impatient to get back to work, tend to make longer guesses, while those who are interested and engaged in the talk or simply enjoy the brief period of relaxation tend to guess the time as being shorter. As we all know, time flies when you’re having fun.

Mindset doesn’t just change how we feel about an experience - it actually changes the objective results of that experience. 

More Than 24 Hours In A Day?

Given what we now know about the relative nature of time, ask yourself: How much more efficient and productive (not to mention happy) could you be if you changed the way you viewed the hours in your workday? In a scenario where reality can be experienced any number of ways depending on where you put your fulcrum, the question becomes not “why are there only 24 hours in a day?” but “how can I use my relative experience of the workday to my best advantage?”

The most successful people adopt a mindset that not only makes their workdays more bearable, but also helps them work longer, harder, and faster than their peers. In essence, these people use their positive mindsets to gain control (relatively speaking) of time itself. For them, 24/7 is only an objective clock-calendar measurement: They take the same units of time given to everyone and use their mindset to become more efficient and productive. 

As we learned in the last chapter, allowing ourselves to engage in activities we enjoy can actually greatly enhance our performance at work. But simply doing them is not enough to get results. 

The Lever Of Possibility 

Just as your mindset about your work affects your performance, so too does your mindset about your own ability. What I mean is that the more you believe in your ability to succeed, the more likely it is that you will. 

Studies show that simply believing we can bring about positive change in our lives increases motivation and job performance; that success, in essence, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. More important, our beliefs about our abilities are not necessarily innate, but can change, as our mindset is almost always in flux. 

Leveraging Intelligence

More important still than believing in your own abilities is believing that you can improve these abilities. Those with a “fixed mindset” believe that their capabilities are already set, while those with a “growth mindset” believe that they can enhance their basic qualities through effort. Beliefs are so powerful because they dictate our efforts and actions. 

As we have seen, a few choice words can alter a person’s mindset, which in turn can alter their accomplishments. All it took for the hotel maids to lose weight was a short talk about how physically active they were. All it took for the Asian women to excel on a math test was a researcher reminding them of their innate intelligence. These studies show how mindset can affect performance, but also how we can affect the mindset of others. Sometimes a few key words here and there can make all the difference. 

Imagine then, the power we all have to influence the performance of those around us, positively or negatively. How many well-meaning managers shoot themselves in the foot when they similarly remind those under them at work of their weaknesses? Conversely, as we’ve seen, when a manager openly expresses his faith in an employee’s skill, he doesn’t just improve the mood and motivation; he actually improves the likelihood of succeeding.

The Pygmalion Effect

According to the Roman poet Ovid, the sculptor Pygmalion could look at a piece of marble and see the sculpture trapped inside of it. In particular, Pygmalion had a vision of his ideal, the zenith of all of his hopes and desires - a woman he named Galatea. One day, he began to chisel the marble, crafting it to his vision. When he was finished, he stepped back and looked at his work. It was beautiful. Galatea was more than just a woman: The statue represented every hope, every dream, every possibility, every meaning-beauty itself. Inevitably, Pygmalion fell in love. 

Now, Pygmalion was no fool. He was not in love with a stone woman; he was in love with the possibility of his ideal coming to life. So he asked the goddess of love, Venus, if she would grant him one wish and make his ideal a reality. And so she did, at least according to the myth.

Now fast-forward to the twentieth century, to one of the most well-known psychology experiments ever performed. A team of researchers led by Robert Rosenthal went into an elementary school and administered intelligence tests to the students. The researchers then told the teachers in each of the classrooms which students - say, Sam, Sally, and Sarah - the data had identified as academic superstars, the ones with the greatest potential for growth. They asked the teachers not to mention the results of the study to the students, and not to spend any more or less time with them. (And, in fact, the teachers were warned they would be observed to

make sure they did not.) At the end of the year, the students were tested again, and indeed, Sam, Sally, and Sarah posted off-the-chart intellectual ability.

This would be a predictable story, except for an O. Henry-type twist at the end. When Sam, Sally, and Sarah had been tested at the beginning of the experiment, they were found to be absolutely, wonderfully ordinary. The researchers had randomly picked their names and then lied to the teachers about their ability. But after the experiment, they had in fact turned into academic superstars. So what caused these ordinary students to become extraordinary? The belief the teachers had in the students’ potential had been unwittingly and nonverbally communicated. More important, these nonverbal messages were then digested by the students and transformed into reality. 

This phenomenon is called the Pygmalion Effect: when our belief in another person’s potential brings that potential to life. The expectations we have about our children, co-workers, and spouses - whether or not they are ever voiced - can make that expectation a reality. 

Naturally, the Pygmalion Effect can be a very powerful tool in business. So if you are a leader, whether of 3 people or 300, remember that the power to affect results rests not just in who’s on your team, but how you leverage your team. Ask yourself these questions: (1) Do I believe that the intelligence and skills of my employees are not fixed, but can be improved with effort?; (2) Do I believe that my employees want to make that effort, just as they want to find meaning and fulfillment in their jobs?; and (3) How am I conveying these beliefs in my daily words and actions?

Stay tuned as we dive into Principle #3 of The Happiness Advantage next week!