Rethinking the Formula for Success and Happiness by Charles Black MD

TEDx Durango, November 2019

I want to invite you to rethink the relationship between success and happiness.

I was taught; you work hard, become successful and then you get to be happy. 

But I’m going to invite you to turn this formula around.

The problem with the formula hard work —> Success —> Happiness, is that happiness is always one success away.  We think, “When I get a promotion, then I’ll be happy.”  But then it is a bigger house, a newer car, a sailing yacht.  

The happiness is always one success away.

Hard work leads to success, which leads to more hard work, which leads to success and the expectation of more hard work.

The linear formula becomes a cycle where each success leads to the expectation of more hard work.  And the happiness gets squeezed out. 

I followed the first formula for years and by most measures I was a successful surgeon poised to one day be President of the Hospital Medical Staff.  I had a thriving medical practice, the nice house, the new car, and even the sailing yacht.  But I was caught in a paradox, the more success I achieved, the less happy I became.  

Here is what I looked like at that time.

Would you take health advice from this person?

My focus on success made me unhealthy, unhappy and obese.  If you asked me at the time, I would have told you that I was “burned out.”  But the truth is that burnout is just a euphemism Professionals when they don’t want to admit they’re depressed.  

I may have been professionally respected and monetarily wealthy, but I was physically and emotionally bankrupt. 

The old formula of hard work, success, happiness, was not working for me.  If I wanted to be happy, I needed to start making happiness a priority in my life. But that proved to be a lot harder than it sounds.  You see, I had a secret fear that was holding me back.  I was afraid of happiness.  Afraid that if I became happy, I would lose my edge.  I believed that dissatisfaction insulated me from complacency, and that I could not be both good at my job and happy.

I had to ask, is it possible to find a version of happiness that keeps you doing good work?

A German poet once said that the ignorant men ask questions, that wise men answered a thousand years ago.  

Turns out my question had been answered by a wise man 2000 years ago.  Guess I’m an especially slow learner.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle told us, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

Ok.  So, Aristotle clearly thought happiness was important.  And over 2000 years later we are still talking about him, so I think it’s safe to assume that he wasn’t a slacker.

But what is happiness?

Aristotle told us that happiness is “… virtuous activity of the soul.”

“… Virtues activity of the soul.”  

I don’t know about you, but I tend to equate happy with fun and virtue does not sound like fun to me.  How can living with virtue lead to a happy life?  

Let’s look at what Aristotle meant when he said virtue.

Virtue is a value put into action.

Value + Action —> Virtue  

Add several virtues together and you get a character. 

Value + Action —> Virtue

Value + Action —> Virtue

Value + Action —> Virtue

                  Character  

A character that you define.  And when you define your own character, you take control of your life.

So, I decided to take back control of my life, but first I needed to ask myself what I valued.  For a week, I carried a 3×5 inch notecard everywhere I went, and jotted down anything that occurred to me.  After a week do you know what I had.  One very messy notecard.  Both sides.  I’m an overachiever.

When Aristotle did this, he got twelve virtue that included things like Courage, Temperance, Truthfulness, justice.

Well…  I’m no Aristotle.  I narrowed my list down to my five top values; Family, Fitness, Being Outdoors, love of learning and appreciation of beauty.

But these were little more than words on a notecard.  They were not virtues because I was not putting those values into action.   

If I wanted to be happy, I needed to start putting my values into action.

Are you putting your values into action?

Let’s try a thought experiment.  Think about the things that are most important to you.  Now imagine I am going to follow you around for a day and observe everything you do.  At the end of the day, I will make a list of what I think your values are based on your actions.  Will my written list match the one in your head?  If not, then there will be tension in your life.

That tension is like two hands connected by a rubber band.  One hand is your values and the other hand is what you actually do each day.  The further your values and actions are apart, the more tension there is in your life and the more energy it takes to maintain that divide. To live a happy life, we need to remove that tension by bringing our values and action into alignment.  We need to live with virtue.

In my case that meant I had to give up a lot of the things that had previously defined my success.  For example, I gave up hospital meetings so I could be home for meals with my family.  That move took me off the track of success as in one day becoming the President of the Medical Staff, but it brought me into alignment with what I valued most, my family. 

Ok, giving up boring meeting to spend time with my family, that’s easy.  

You can do this in things that might not sound so easy, for example exercise.  When I decided to do something about my weight can you guess what I did?  It is what everyone does today when they are looking for a solution to their problem……  I googled it.  And I found several experts that promised quick and easy solutions.  But none of them worked for me because they had me doing unnatural activities in an artificial environment like my basement or the gym.  But, in addition to fitness, one of my values is being outdoors, so I started taking walks outdoors.  I found that if I went a little farther or a little faster, I got to see more.  To my surprise I was eventually running outdoors. 

I let my value lead me and because I was enjoying the process, the work did not seem like work, and the success — well the success — came unexpectedly and in some surprising ways.

In 2018, I completed the Imogen Pass Run.  A 17.1 mile run from the town of Ouray Colorado (7810 feet of elevation) to Telluride Colorado — seen here — (elevation 8750), by going over 13,000 feet Imogen pass.

Quite an improvement for a guy who used to get winded just walking up a flight of stairs.

Was training for Imogene always easy, No.  Was running the Imogene always fun. Definitely not.  It is a steep, rough, rutted route through rapidly changing elevations and weather that does not care one bit about you or what you want.  And that is a big part of what makes it satisfying to do.  A good life is not necessarily an easy life.  It is the hard parts that challenge our commitment to our values and test our virtue.  And meeting that challenge gave me a sense of satisfaction, because I had done more than climb a mountain, I had overcome the obstacles in my life that had been keeping me from becoming the person I was meant to be.

My focus on self-improvement had produced some impressive changes, but   Self-improvement can be too small a goal and can easily be warped into self-involvement and self-aggrandizement.  To live a virtues life we need to take it one step farther.  We need to turn our values into actions in pursuit of a better character, but then we need to give that better character away in service to others.

I think of it like a painter.  Working in their studio they turn their values into actions, but they don’t fully earn the title of artist until they share the results with others.  A virtues person is the same.

When I applied this lesson to my career, I learned that I could be of service to othering in a more profound way.  I had been tried to see my job as the removal of diseased organs and repair injuries.  But I came to see that my calling is the alleviation of suffering and the that suffering is more than physical pain and that it affects more than just the person who is ill.  So, I endeavor to give them the gift of my presence to all my patients and their families. I found that striating from a place of values and happiness, I do my work better.

So, I would like to propose a new formula for a good life

Move from the pursuit of success to living from your values.  Let your values lead you, then you will find that you enjoy the process and the work doesn’t feel like hard work at all.  It feels like good work, and trust that the success will blossoms naturally and in surprising ways.