Schools & Spiral Knowledge

Dear Happiness & Leadership Community,

Have you ever taken a class in Math or History? What about on Relationships? Parenting? or Happiness? These are the questions that Tal Ben-Shahar asks when he meets students for the first time. Everyone raises their hands to the first question and hardly any hands go up for the other questions.

When parents are asked what they must want for their children, the universal response is, "I just want my children to be happy." Then why isn’t happiness taught in schools? Tal introduced his ground breaking Positive Psychology 1504 class at Harvard nearly 20 years ago that started to change this.

My column this week concludes our conversation with Tal and students from his landmark Harvard course, Adriana Cosgriff and Tim McLoughlin. We learn that teaching mental wellness in schools can help so many issues - from bullying and violence to physical health and human productivity.

Corporate leaders are also now taking responsibility for increasing the wellbeing of their employees. October 10th is World Mental Health Day. An important component of well-being is having the opportunity to earn your success through your work. I am excited to be working with clients' employees around the world on this goal!

The Venn Diagram

Tal had a significant influence on the career path for both Tim and Adriana.?

Adriana vividly remembered the class where Tal showed a Venn diagram encouraging his class to determine where their passions, purpose, and strengths overlapped.? The day that Tal put up the research that showed above a certain threshold, income doesn’t have an impact on happiness, it was as if an elephant had been lifted off her chest.? She didn’t partake in on campus recruiting, choosing instead to listen to what she learned in Tal’s class which allowed her to chart her own path.? She admits it was? scary to go against the current and join a scrappy non profit consulting company, but it planted the seed for what she is doing today, running her own non profit consulting company.

Permission to be Human

Tal’s mantra of giving yourself the “permission to be human” impacted Tim.? Leading up to Harvard, he and his classmates felt the pressure to not allow any mistakes; a slip up on grades or SAT could mess up their chances of getting into Harvard.? Tal taught his students to understand you can have flaws and to allow mistakes.? It is ok to feel overwhelmed. Humans are not perfect.

Before for Tim, it was “I have to do this work.” Tim then changed his perspective to “I have the privilege to do this work.” He converted his perspective to “I want to.”? Including his work now as managing partner of Cofounders Capital, “I get to and want to do this work.”?? While he was taking Tal’s class, he started to think about where his talent, passion, and purpose intersect and together with a friend, wrote a business plan focusing on what he wanted to do, was good at doing, and could have an impact. The focus?? A youth hockey training company in Raleigh.? With classmates going into investment banking and consulting, he initially thought “this is not a worthy job of a Harvard graduate.” He thought back to Tal’s class and what he learned, and decided to move forward. It wasn’t about hockey, it was about building self-esteem.

Spiral Theory of Knowledge

Tal introduced the concept of the spiral theory of knowledge, that understanding is not linear, rather years later, we often grasp at a higher level something that we learned years earlier. As our conversation played out, Adriana had revelations as she listened to Tim speaking about his career journey, which she saw in hers also. We understand at a different level something that happened when we were in school. As we reflect on experiences, our thinking on a subject can shift from early adulthood to later as a senior.

I caught up yesterday with Marc Belton , my sponsor at General Mills where I worked over three decades ago. He suggested reading Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor. I told him I had years ago for a class, and would relisten to it. I started to last night, and find I am picking up different points. I realized this is what Tal meant through grasping concepts at a higher level. There is benefit in rereading a good book again, years later.

In anticipation of our conversation with Tal, Tim reread one of Tal's books and rewatched a couple of the 1504 lectures. In reflecting back on what he took away from studying with Tal, Tim said that over the years, he realized that he has learned to meet people where they are. What we thought was a big deal earlier, may not be so now. What we focused on as a child or in college can change once we begin our careers. And certainly what we consider to be important changes as we rise up the ranks.? Tal said that the spiral theory of knowledge speaks to where our insights meet us.? This can be different as a parent of teenagers versus as an empty nester.?

I remember when a product manager I had hired years earlier wrote me a thank you note years later, as a new executive. She now understood the pressures I was under as a member of the company’s leadership team, and appreciated the decisions I had made that she had once questioned.

Happiness Schools

Now that the science of positive psychology is available, Tal advocates for introducing the science of well-being into K-12. He believes it should be taught alongside the existing subjects and that the content can reinforce each other. This will help our performance at school, the workplace and in life.? Beyond making us feel better, it will help improve our health while reducing bullying and violence.

Tim is now teaching hockey to 80 youngsters including his own - he is figuring out the constant balance between being too hard and too easy.? He sees that parents often err on too? easy to give their children immediate satisfaction.? He is striving instead to make it hard, but not impossible. So that the children earn what they achieve.?

In their new book, Arthur Brooks and Oprah, take this concept and apply to finding happiness in your job; they espouse this happens when you earn your success.

When does Good Stress turn into Bad Stress?

The number one reason companies reach out to Tal for consulting services is stress.? Stress levels were extremely high in 2018-19, skyrocketed during COVID and remain high today.

In our conversation, he shared these important take-aways:

• Stress in and of itself is not a problem. In strength training, we create physical stress in order to strengthen our muscles. The problem begins when you don't have recovery - when you lift more and more and get injured.
• The same is true psychologically.? Stress (e.g. hardships, failure) makes us tougher.? It is good for children to struggle, that is how they grow stronger. The problem is when there is no recovery. Just as in strength training, not having rest days results in injury.? With too much work stress, you also burn out instead of build up.
• We, as a society, do not have enough recovery time.

Are you building in time for your teams to recover between sprints?

Next week: How can we bless stress??

I will discuss how we can change our perception of stress, and share the work of Tal’s former teaching assistant, Alia Crum. Like Tim, Alia played ice hockey at Harvard and was a classmate of Adriana with the same major. Now a psychology professor at Stanford, Alia is the principal investigator of the Stanford Mind and Body Lab.?

I will also share research from Harvard Business School Professor Alison Woods Brooks and a strategy to turn stress into a force for good.

About Grace Ueng

Grace is a strategy consultant,? leadership coach and human performance expert with Savvy Growth. Her company offers workshops to move teams forward: Savvy's Seven: What You Will Learn.

Transformative companies hire Grace to deliver her HappinessWorks? program to boost performance.

Join her Happiness & Leadership community and learn to be a happier and better leader: click here

If you'd like to watch my conversation with Tal, Adriana, and Tim, sharing: