The Puzzle of Motivation — Dan Pink

00:15When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old,

00:18we were playing on top of a bunk bed.

00:21I was two years older than my sister at the time --

00:24I mean, I'm two years older than her now --

00:26but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do,

00:29and I wanted to play war.

00:31So we were up on top of our bunk beds.

00:33And on one side of the bunk bed,

00:35I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry.

00:38And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies

00:41ready for a cavalry charge.

00:42There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon,

00:45but since my sister is not here with us today,

00:48let me tell you the true story --

00:50(Laughter)

00:51which is my sister's a little on the clumsy side.

00:53Somehow, without any help or push from her older brother at all,

00:56Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed

00:59and landed with this crash on the floor.

01:01I nervously peered over the side of the bed

01:03to see what had befallen my fallen sister

01:05and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees

01:08on all fours on the ground.

01:09I was nervous because my parents had charged me

01:12with making sure that my sister and I

01:13played as safely and as quietly as possible.

01:16And seeing as how I had accidentally broken Amy's arm

01:19just one week before --

01:21(Laughter)

01:25(Laughter ends)

01:26heroically pushing her out of the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet,

01:31(Laughter)

01:33for which I have yet to be thanked, I was trying as hard as I could --

01:37she didn't even see it coming --

01:38I was trying hard to be on my best behavior.

01:41And I saw my sister's face,

01:42this wail of pain and suffering and surprise

01:44threatening to erupt from her mouth and wake my parents

01:47from the long winter's nap for which they had settled.

01:50So I did the only thing

01:51my frantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy.

01:54And if you have children, you've seen this hundreds of times.

01:57I said, "Amy, wait. Don't cry. Did you see how you landed?

02:00No human lands on all fours like that.

02:03Amy, I think this means you're a unicorn."

02:06(Laughter)

02:09Now, that was cheating,

02:10because there was nothing she would want more

02:12than not to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister,

02:15but Amy the special unicorn.

02:17Of course, this option was open to her brain

02:19at no point in the past.

02:20And you could see how my poor, manipulated sister faced conflict,

02:23as her little brain attempted to devote resources

02:25to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise she just experienced,

02:29or contemplating her new-found identity as a unicorn.

02:31And the latter won.

02:32Instead of crying or ceasing our play,

02:34instead of waking my parents,

02:36with all the negative consequences for me,

02:38a smile spread across her face

02:40and she scrambled back up onto the bunk bed

02:42with all the grace of a baby unicorn --

02:44(Laughter)

02:46with one broken leg.

02:48What we stumbled across

02:49at this tender age of just five and seven --

02:51we had no idea at the time --

02:53was was going be at the vanguard of a scientific revolution

02:56occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain.

03:00We had stumbled across something called positive psychology,

03:03which is the reason I'm here today

03:04and the reason that I wake up every morning.

03:07When I started talking about this research

03:09outside of academia, with companies and schools,

03:11the first thing they said to never do is to start with a graph.

03:14The first thing I want to do is start with a graph.

03:16This graph looks boring,

03:18but it is the reason I get excited and wake up every morning.

03:21And this graph doesn't even mean anything; it's fake data.

03:24What we found is --

03:25(Laughter)

03:28If I got this data studying you, I would be thrilled,

03:31because there's a trend there,

03:33and that means that I can get published,

03:35which is all that really matters.

03:37There is one weird red dot above the curve,

03:39there's one weirdo in the room --

03:41I know who you are, I saw you earlier --

03:44that's no problem.

03:46That's no problem, as most of you know, because I can just delete that dot.

03:50I can delete that dot because that's clearly a measurement error.

03:53And we know that's a measurement error because it's messing up my data.

03:56(Laughter)

03:57So one of the first things we teach people

04:00in economics, statistics, business and psychology courses

04:02is how, in a statistically valid way, do we eliminate the weirdos.

04:06How do we eliminate the outliers so we can find the line of best fit?

04:09Which is fantastic if I'm trying to find out

04:11how many Advil the average person should be taking -- two.

04:14But if I'm interested in your potential,

04:17or for happiness or productivity or energy or creativity,

04:20we're creating the cult of the average with science.

04:22If I asked a question like,

04:24"How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?"

04:26scientists change the answer to

04:28"How fast does the average child learn how to read in that classroom?"

04:31and we tailor the class towards the average.

04:34If you fall below the average,

04:35then psychologists get thrilled,

04:37because that means you're depressed or have a disorder,

04:40or hopefully both.

04:41We're hoping for both because our business model is,

04:43if you come into a therapy session with one problem,

04:46we want to make sure you leave knowing you have ten,

04:48so you keep coming back.

04:49We'll go back into your childhood if necessary,

04:52but eventually we want to make you normal again.

04:54But normal is merely average.

04:55And positive psychology posits that if we study what is merely average,

04:59we will remain merely average.

05:01Then instead of deleting those positive outliers,

05:04what I intentionally do is come into a population like this one

05:07and say, why?

05:08Why are some of you high above the curve

05:10in terms of intellectual, athletic, musical ability,

05:12creativity, energy levels,

05:13resiliency in the face of challenge, sense of humor?

05:16Whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you.

05:20Because maybe we can glean information,

05:21not just how to move people up to the average,

05:24but move the entire average up in our companies and schools worldwide.

05:27The reason this graph is important to me

05:29is, on the news, the majority of the information is not positive.

05:32in fact it's negative.

05:33Most of it's about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters.

05:36And very quickly, my brain starts to think

05:39that's the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world.

05:42This creates "the medical school syndrome."

05:44During the first year of medical training,

05:46as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases,

05:50suddenly you realize you have all of them.

05:52(Laughter)

05:53I have a brother in-law named Bobo, which is a whole other story.

05:56Bobo married Amy the unicorn.

05:58Bobo called me on the phone --

06:00(Laughter)

06:02from Yale Medical School,

06:04and Bobo said, "Shawn, I have leprosy."

06:06(Laughter)

06:08Which, even at Yale, is extraordinarily rare.

06:10But I had no idea how to console poor Bobo

06:13because he had just gotten over an entire week of menopause.

06:16(Laughter)

06:17We're finding it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us,

06:20but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.

06:24And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness,

06:27we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

06:31I applied to Harvard on a dare.

06:32I didn't expect to get in, and my family had no money for college.

06:35When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they let me go.

06:38Something that wasn't even a possibility became a reality.

06:41I assumed everyone there would see it as a privilege as well,

06:44that they'd be excited to be there.

06:46Even in a classroom full of people smarter than you,

06:48I felt you'd be happy just to be in that classroom.

06:51But what I found is, while some people experience that,

06:54when I graduated after my four years

06:55and then spent the next eight years living in the dorms with the students --

06:59Harvard asked me to; I wasn't that guy.

07:01(Laughter)

07:03I was an officer to counsel students through the difficult four years.

07:06And in my research and my teaching,

07:08I found that these students, no matter how happy they were

07:11with their original success of getting into the school,

07:13two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there,

07:17nor on their philosophy or physics,

07:19but on the competition, the workload,

07:21the hassles, stresses, complaints.

07:22When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall,

07:26which is where my friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up --

07:29I know some of you know this.

07:31When they'd visit, they'd look around,

07:32and say, "This dining hall looks like something out of Hogwart's."

07:36It does, because that was Hogwart's and that's Harvard.

07:38And when they see this,

07:39they say, "Why do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard?

07:43What does a Harvard student possibly have to be unhappy about?"

07:46Embedded within that question

07:47is the key to understanding the science of happiness.

07:50Because what that question assumes

07:52is that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels,

07:55when in reality, if I know everything about your external world,

07:58I can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness.

08:0090 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world,

08:04but by the way your brain processes the world.

08:06And if we change it,

08:07if we change our formula for happiness and success,

08:10we can change the way that we can then affect reality.

08:13What we found is that only 25% of job successes are predicted by IQ,

08:1775 percent of job successes

08:19are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support

08:22and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.

08:25I talked to a New England boarding school, probably the most prestigious one,

08:29and they said, "We already know that.

08:31So every year, instead of just teaching our students, we have a wellness week.

08:34And we're so excited. Monday night we have the world's leading expert

08:38will speak about adolescent depression.

08:39Tuesday night it's school violence and bullying.

08:42Wednesday night is eating disorders.

08:44Thursday night is illicit drug use.

08:45And Friday night we're trying to decide between risky sex or happiness."

08:49(Laughter)

08:50I said, "That's most people's Friday nights."

08:52(Laughter)

08:55(Applause)

08:58Which I'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all.

09:01Silence on the phone.

09:02And into the silence, I said, "I'd be happy to speak at your school,

09:05but that's not a wellness week, that's a sickness week.

09:08You've outlined all the negative things that can happen,

09:10but not talked about the positive."

09:12The absence of disease is not health.

09:14Here's how we get to health:

09:15We need to reverse the formula for happiness and success.

09:18In the last three years, I've traveled to 45 countries,

09:21working with schools and companies in the midst of an economic downturn.

09:24And I found that most companies and schools

09:26follow a formula for success, which is this:

09:29If I work harder, I'll be more successful.

09:31And if I'm more successful, then I'll be happier.

09:33That undergirds most of our parenting and managing styles,

09:36the way that we motivate our behavior.

09:38And the problem is it's scientifically broken and backwards for two reasons.

09:41Every time your brain has a success,

09:43you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like.

09:46You got good grades, now you have to get better grades,

09:49you got into a good school and after you get into a better one,

09:52you got a good job, now you have to get a better job,

09:54you hit your sales target, we're going to change it.

09:57And if happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there.

10:01We've pushed happiness over the cognitive horizon, as a society.

10:04And that's because we think we have to be successful,

10:06then we'll be happier.

10:07But our brains work in the opposite order.

10:10If you can raise somebody's level of positivity in the present,

10:13then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage,

10:16which is your brain at positive performs significantly better

10:19than at negative, neutral or stressed.

10:21Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise.

10:24In fact, we've found that every single business outcome improves.

10:27Your brain at positive is 31% more productive

10:29than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed.

10:32You're 37% better at sales.

10:33Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate

10:35at coming up with the correct diagnosis

10:37when positive instead of negative, neutral or stressed.

10:40Which means we can reverse the formula.

10:42If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present,

10:45then our brains work even more successfully

10:47as we're able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.

10:50We need to be able to reverse this formula

10:52so we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of.

10:55Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you're positive,

10:58has two functions.

10:59Not only does it make you happier,

11:01it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain

11:04allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.

11:06We've found there are ways that you can train your brain

11:09to be able to become more positive.

11:11In just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in a row,

11:14we can actually rewire your brain,

11:15allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more successfully.

11:19We've done these things in research now

11:21in every company that I've worked with,

11:23getting them to write down three new things that they're grateful for

11:27for 21 days in a row, three new things each day.

11:29And at the end of that,

11:30their brain starts to retain a pattern

11:32of scanning the world not for the negative, but for the positive first.

11:35Journaling about one positive experience you've had over the past 24 hours

11:39allows your brain to relive it.

11:41Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters.

11:43We find that meditation allows your brain

11:45to get over the cultural ADHD that we've been creating

11:48by trying to do multiple tasks at once

11:50and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand.

11:52And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness.

11:56We get people, when they open up their inbox,

11:58to write one positive email

11:59praising or thanking somebody in their support network.

12:02And by doing these activities

12:03and by training your brain just like we train our bodies,

12:06what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success,

12:10and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity,

12:12but a real revolution.

12:13Thank you very much.

12:14(Applause)