Archives for May 2014

In my study of the daily habits of the rich and poor I found that 72% of the wealthy volunteer five or more hours per month. And they teach this Rich Habit to their children. There are a number of reasons the wealthy volunteer including: giving back to the community, to meet new people, to grow stronger relationships, as well as business networking motivations, but one byproduct of volunteering is that volunteers derive an emotional satisfaction in helping others inside and outside their community. Volunteering is a happiness activity. I discovered from my research that wealthy individuals engage in more happiness activities than others and it is the frequency of these happiness activities that create an overall feeling of happiness. Rich or poor, if you want to increase your overall happiness you need to engage in more happiness activities in life. You need to make happiness a habit.

In my five-year study, 93% of the wealthy who had mentors attributed their wealth to their mentors. This is an eye opening statistic because it trumpets the financial importance of finding a mentor in life. Those that do find a mentor, realize great success in life.

Mentorship is a two-way street. The benefits accrue on both sides. Mentors learn from those they mentor, they create devoted, cult-like followers, they benefit financially (mentors and their mentees typically work together) but more importantly, the act of mentoring others is a happiness activity. It creates happiness for both parties.

Happiness is a habit. There are certain Happiness Habits successful people practice almost every day. I touched on a few last week (Practiced Optimism and Living in the Moment). This week I’m going to shine a light on some of the others. Today’s Happiness Habit involves conquering fear. Fear holds you back from taking on new challenges in life. It sidelines most of us for most of our lives. What to do about it? This week do one thing that scares you, big or small. Spend the entire week overcoming just one fear. Overcoming fear will alter your thinking. It will reprogram your mind from negative to positive. It will increase your level of confidence. Doing something that scares your will take you out of your comfort zone and make you anxious and nervous. It will also exhilarate you. Human beings were not intended to be slaves to our fears. Our core fears reside in the limbic system portion of our brains. The neocortex, the most recent evolutionary portion of our brain, has the ability to consciously overcome our fears. When you take on a fear, both parts of the brain begin to compete against each other. The neocortex is far superior in terms of size. It has billions more neurons than the limbic system. It can easily overcome any fear. So go out this week and scare yourself. Become the master of fear and not its slave.

In my study I found that successful, wealthy people were happier than everyone else because they make a habit of happiness. One of the happiness habits they practice is living in the moment. But what does living in the moment really mean? Have you ever been at a party, fun event or family gathering and your mind was elsewhere, thinking about work, projects that need to get done, issues you have with people, worrying over your finances, bills, etc.? What a waste of a good happiness event. Living in the moment means clearing your mind of all thoughts and enjoying the moment, enjoying the present. When you live in the moment you create a happiness event. When you allow other thoughts to interfere with a happiness event, you lose that happiness event forever. The key to overall happiness in life is accumulating more happiness events. You do this by thinking about nothing but the present. You do this by living in the moment.

Optimism isn’t something you are born with. It needs to be a routine; it needs to become a daily habit. Successful people understand this. They practice optimistic thinking every day. It’s part of their daily routine. Some of the tools they use include:

• Daily Meditation – 2-5 minutes each day morning and night. They visualize realizing their dreams and goals. They see themselves living their new future life.
• Vision Boards – 5-10 pictures of the things they want in their life. These pictures are taped onto cardboard, scroll on their desktop or posted where they can view them every day.
• Daily Affirmations – Various affirmations are repeated every day. These represent short statements of affirming the realization of their dreams and goals.
• Cancel – Any time some negative thought or emotion enters their mind they immediately recognize it and cancel it from their mind before it takes root.
• Script Their Future Life – Successful people write out a few paragraphs of what their future, ideal life is. They read this script at least once a week. This script keeps them focused on the big picture and keeps them in a positive mindset.

Children pick up and emulate the habits, behaviors and emotions of their parents. Children raised by parents with a positive mindset, good habits and good behaviors will mirror these parent traits well into their adult lives. Most of the successful, wealthy people in my five-year study had these traits. Most of the poor had a negative mindset, bad habits and bad behavior.

There is some science to this. The cingulate cortex is part of our limbic system; the second oldest part of our brain.  The cingulate cortex harbors  something called “mirror neurons” in the brains of all children to help them better survive by mirroring their parents. This mirror neuron physiology has been with humans for millions of years. This mirror neural physiology is why it is critical for parents to express positive emotions and positive behavior almost from the very moment of the birth of their children. Repeated exposure to these good traits will transform these mirror neurons into habits that will stay with children for most of their adult lives. The byproduct will be children who grow up to be happy and successful in life.

The book, The How of Happiness (http://www.amazon.com/The-How-Happiness-Approach-Getting/dp/0143114956), sites various studies on happiness. One such study determined the following:

• 50% of Happiness is Gene-Based
• 40% of Happiness is Activity-Based
• 10% of Happiness is Circumstance-Based

Your genetic makeup determines your “happiness baseline”. This is the baseline you revert to before and after happiness events and unhappiness events. This baseline is the reason why buying mega-mansions, expensive cars, jewelry etc. do not create long-term happiness. It is also the reason why events in your life that make you unhappy, such as the loss of a loved one, divorce, and failure do not create long-term unhappiness. Eventually everyone reverts back to their genetic happiness baseline.

The only way increase happiness, then, is to increase the number of happiness events in your life by engaging in activities that create happiness and in changing your financial circumstances. These two variable are the reason why the wealthy are happier than everyone else. They engage in activities that create more happiness events and that change their financial circumstances in life. By increasing the number of happiness events and your financial circumstances, you will increase your overall happiness in life.