I often get asked how I’ve made the career decisions that I’ve made, and I recently realized that these two posts share a significant chunk of the ideas that have shaped my own perspective:
If you read these pieces, it may be helpful to keep in mind the actual careers that these folks have chosen—Paul as a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and cofounder of a startup accelerator; Tim as a “writer-ish guy”—as well as the privileges that may have allowed these folks to think in the way that they do. Some aspects of their thinking might feel more or less relevant to your circumstances.
Two years ago, considering my personal brand was a helpful method for understanding who I want to be and become. As I begin a new chapter of active collaboration with others, I reflect again on who I want to be when I’m interacting with folks.
How do I want others to perceive me?
She is a vibrant force upon the world
Creative — She keeps coming up with amazing / interesting ideas
Individual — She has a clear and unique artistic voice
Ambitious — She sets high standards—and meets them
She creates work that makes me feel things
Insightful — She knows how to get to the heart of a thing
Empathic — She really understands people; she really understands me
Effective — She oozes competence; she is highly articulate
I like working with her
Kind — She cares about me as a human; I feel good about myself when I work with her
Honest — She unflinchingly chooses to make our work better
Learning — She listens, learns, and adapts
A few “how” keywords: Caring, Vulnerable, Intentional, Proactive, Generous
While exploring my relationship with music this year, I’ve thought often about the alignment/misalignment of the value you create, the money you make by creating value for others, and the time you spend creating value.
In my teenage years, I was convinced that the optimal relationship among these three ideas was to specialize in creating one type of value for the world, to only choose a type of value that people would pay money for, and to spend all of your time devoted to creating that one type of value. My mother, a passionate venture capitalist, had taken such a route for her own life. She would often tell my brother and me how much she loved her work, and she encouraged us to pursue what we love and make that our life’s work.
With time and different life experiences, I’ve realized that this framework doesn’t fit the place where I currently am in life. For one, I have learned that I want to create multiple types of value – I want to do work that makes a difference, and I want to support and enjoy time with the people I love, and I like having hobbies outside of my primary work. For another, I’ve learned that value and money are not always simultaneous, and that it’s possible to create significant value without making huge profits.
In the music industry, the contrast is stark. I’ve been moved to tears time and again by powerful songs and pieces, indicating just how powerful the value of music can be, yet I candidly don’t pay for most of my music, because most of it is available for free online. (I do contribute to specific artists, but the number is few, and the bar is high.)
Nine months into this exploration, I know for sure that there is something in the space of music, stories, and people that is the value I want to create. I also know that my technical academic background and work experience is in high demand and low supply, and that using those skills is a much straighter path to supporting myself financially, at least until I grow my creative skills further. So it looks like the value I create, the money I make, and the time I spend will continue to be misaligned for awhile.
Thank you to Nick for introducing me to Dana Fonteneau’s work and perspective, which inspired me to write this post.
Will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?
We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
Thank you to Tanay for inspiring this post.
EDIT (2023-03-20): It’s interesting to revisit this post knowing what I know now about how Bezos has chosen to use his power and personal fortune. I still resonate deeply with the questions he has posed, but have to keep in mind that perhaps Bezos himself has not lived up to his own original intentions.
Many of our strategies for happiness come from anecdotal evidence from our own lives or from friends’ recommendations. What happens when we apply a scientific lens to the art of striving for happiness?
Approach 1: Chemical Analysis
Scientific studies demonstrate that 1) the presence or absence of specific chemicals corresponds with different emotional states, and 2) actions can change the presence or absence of such chemicals. Based on my hacky research,* here are some actions you can take that have been shown to positively affect your happiness chemicals:
Made by the author with draw.io
*Researching these chemicals was more complicated than I expected. Many popular media articles reference these chemicals but don’t cite sources for their statements. I opted neither to rely on these articles, nor to do a rigorous review of the scientific literature; rather, I looked to make claims substantiated by at least one or two reasonably reputable sources, such as abstracts of peer-reviewed scientific papers or articles from well-respected scientific news outlets, to form these conclusions.
Endorphins
Humans knew about opium & morphine before we knew anything about endorphins. “Endorphin” is a portmanteau of “endogenous” and “morphine,” meaning morphine that originates internally.1
Endorphins work by binding to opioid receptors that 1) cause a cascade of interactions that inhibits the release of a key pain transmission protein, and 2) release a neurotransmitter that results in excess dopamine.2
Exercise is commonly linked to higher endorphin levels. Contrary to popular belief, however, endorphins are probably not responsible for “runner’s high.” Endorphins have been shown to take more than an hour to increase, and have also been shown not to cross the blood-brain barrier, making it unlikely that they are responsible for exercise euphoria.3, 4
Researchers suggest that laughing causes endorphins to increase because your abs get exhausted. Your body may actually be trying to lower the perceived ab pain from laughing.5
I already knew that eating chocolate makes me happy, but apparently it’s not just the taste – eating chocolate triggers the release of endorphins, too.6
Dopamine
Dopamine enhances our expectations of pleasure.7 When faced with the choice of a low-effort low-value reward vs. a high-effort high-value reward, higher dopamine levels make you more likely to choose the higher-effort and higher-value reward.8
Dopamine also has been shown to improve working memory and better selection of goal-directed actions (i.e. focus).9
Pleasurable experiences like food and sex cause dopamine hits.10“Peak emotional moments” in music— and even the mere anticipation of those moments — also trigger dopamine release.11 You are then motivated to repeat the behaviors that led to those rewards.
There aren’t specific scientific studies for this, but a lot of popular media articles suggest that you can game your own dopamine systems by accomplishing smaller tasks or breaking down a large goal into small pieces in order to trigger smaller dopamine hits along the way.
Beware: Dopamine is addictive. Also, know that more dopamine is not by itself sufficient for more motivation; dopamine needs specifically to be increased in the reward & motivation center of your brain in order to motivate you. “Slackers” also have elevated dopamine levels, just in other areas of their brain.12 While not backed by scientific literature, my guess is that dopamine reinforces past behaviors, and you have to be careful to only reinforce the behaviors you want to keep.
Serotonin
Serotonin has been shown to have a bounty of positive effects: biasing people toward having more positive emotional responses to situations (rather than directly affecting mood), reducing aggression and increasing desire for cooperation and good will toward others, and engendering “a calm yet focused mental outlook.”13, 14, 15
Thinking of happy or successful memories, experiencing social success or high social status, exposing oneself to bright light, eating carbs, drinking alcohol non-chronically, and exercising have all been shown to boost serotonin levels.16, 17, 18
Popular media often seems to indicate that low serotonin levels cause depression, and that increasing serotonin levels can thus cure depression. However, this claim has not been clearly substantiated. What we do know is that impairing serotonin function can sometimes cause clinical depression, low serotonin function may impair recovery from depression, and serotonin-based drugs do bias people toward more positive emotional responses (as mentioned above).19
Oxytocin
Originally perceived only as a facilitating hormone for labor and breastfeeding, oxytocin has since been embraced by popular media as the “cuddle hormone.” Increased dosage of the drug has been found to increase trust in games, improve monetary generosity, improve people’s ability to infer emotional state from subtle expressions, increase time spent gazing at a face’s eye region, and make happy faces more memorable.20, 21, 22, 23, 24
Oxytocin appears to promote monogamy for people in monogamous relationships: it leads men in relationships to avoid approaching single women, and leads people to perceive their partner’s touch as especially pleasant while perceiving a stranger’s touch as especially diminished in quality.25, 26
Oxytocin may also drive conformity. People with additional oxytocin are more likely to follow a charismatic leader, and are more likely to promote the in-group over the out-group.27, 28
Frequently hugging your partner, orgasming, getting a massage, and petting your dog have all been shown to increase oxytocin levels.29, 30, 31, 32 Singing lessons and improvised singing have been shown to increase oxytocin levels as well.33, 34
Contrary to what many popular media articles say, I have found no evidence that hugging or touching someone who is not your partner increases oxytocin levels. Nor have I found any evidence that giving gifts or money will increase your oxytocin levels; I have only seen studies showing that people with high oxytocin levels are more generous. This is not to say that hugs and generous gifts are a bad idea or that they won’t make you happy, just that I have not found a peer-reviewed study demonstrating that these activities will naturally increase your oxytocin levels.
A few other chemicals that affect happiness that I won’t go into at this time: adrenaline & noradrenaline, cortisol, endocannabinoids, GABA…
Approach 2: The Scientific Method
The scientific method is the process by which humanity aims to get to an accurate representation of the world. Very briefly, the idea is that when you go about looking for answers in the world, you should 1) form a hypothesis or prediction for how the world works, 2) run experiments testing that hypothesis, and 3) analyze the results in order to draw conclusions. If your experiments aren’t conclusive, you go back to the drawing board, modify your original hypothesis, and the cycle begins again.
It turns out you can apply this to life, too. Basically, 1) write down a hypothesis about what makes you happy, 2) try doing those things, and then 3) analyze how you felt about doing them and decide whether you want to keep doing them.
This is, of course, an oversimplified approach:
Some things require expertise or time before becoming likable. We often like things more after we understand them or have become good at doing them, and building skill and understanding takes time. You’ll need to be thoughtful about how you set up your “experiment” to account for that.
This approach is also somewhat biased toward valuing in-the-moment happiness while you’re doing the work over the retrospective happiness you gain after hitting a milestone or accomplishment. Again, experiment design, particularly the length and ending conditions of the experiment, is key.
Finally, your preferences and values will change over time. You may not like Brussels sprouts today, but you might change your mind in five years. You might enjoy working on engaging assignments at work today, but decide in a few years that you want to do work with a stronger social impact mission, even if it’s less interesting day-to-day. There’s not much you can do here, other than allowing yourself to edit what you know about yourself as time goes by, and acknowledging that some experimental results won’t apply forever.
There will be times when we’re actively running experiments, are impatient to know the results, and need to counsel ourselves to stay the course. But if you don’t currently have a promising active experiment, instead of allowing indecision about your life direction to freeze your activity, try coming up with a possible career path you could be interested in, and figure out a way that you can validate whether you would actually enjoy having that career. Can you talk with 5 people in career x about what their days are like and what they love and hate about their work? What is a side project version of career x you can take on? You need to actually run experiments in order to learn more about yourself and the world. If you don’t know what you want, try something.
aperçu /ˌapɛːˈsjuː/ noun. A comment or brief reference that makes an illuminating or entertaining point. From French, past participle of apercevoir ‘perceive’.
One of the most powerful lessons on teamwork that I learned while working at Dropbox is that a team’s default norms and tools have a *huge* effect on how connected and productive people are. When you use tools designed to promote transparent, collaborative behavior, there can be a real and substantial effect on how people work together. Even a single product feature can play a part in shaping a team’s culture for the better.
It turns out technology isn’t just about making things faster or making processes simpler. Technology can help people feel empowered to take action and move forward. Technology can help people feel confident about the work that they’ve done. Technology can help people stay accountable to their teammates. And technology can help people feel recognized for the great work that they do every day.
I’m so proud of the amazing people that worked on viewer info. Thank you all!
I like this Euler diagram because it elucidates different types of “lack” that we might feel in what we do every day. My peers who work in the technology, finance, and professional services industries tend to speak of having “Satisfaction, but feeling of uselessness” or “Comfortable, but feeling of emptiness.” Musician friends speak of “Delight and fullness, but no wealth.”
A personal growth plan is a document that helps you figure out your personal and professional goals, map out the path to get there, and ask for support from the people around you. In a personal growth plan, you set aside the objectives and plans at your current jobs and engagements, focusing instead on yourself and your career development.
For me, seeing consistencies and changes in my personal growth plan gave me the clarity I needed to decide to focus my next year on growing as a creative musician. My first personal growth plan a year ago was centered on how I could succeed as a product manager. My second personal growth plan a year later helped me see that although my short-term goals had changed, my long-term goals hadn’t. I had stronger ambitions for how people would perceive me than I had earlier dared to express. And my increasing desire to explore music wasn’t necessarily just a fluke or a hobby; it was actually deeply enmeshed in my desire to create experiences that move and matter.
I never fully finished my second personal growth plan. What’s below are the key pieces I had written when I paused, realized that I knew enough that I wanted to direct my life differently, and began to take action.
At the end of the day, I’m incredibly fortunate to have had options. I considered continuing to explore my musical side with 10-20 hours a week, as I was already doing, and to see if anything took off before I took more drastic action. I realized, though, that I could give myself the luxury of a year to focus on exploring music with much more of my time and energy, and learn more about myself sooner. I decided to take that path. We’ll see how it goes!
Personal brand I want to be known for…
Creating experiences that genuinely move and matter to people “Wow. That was a powerful experience.”“Listening to that gave me the chills.”“I felt like I was floating.” “Her subtleties transform what could be cliche into something beautifully nuanced and breathtaking.” “Her work made me think about my life and relationships differently.”
Leading toward ambitious goals with both inspiring vision and practical execution “She helped us believe that we could achieve this crazy awesome goal by showing us how awesome it would be. By introducing X, Y, and Z, she then directly helped us to reach that goal.” “She oozes competence.”“I can always rely on her.”“I’m excited to follow her lead.”
Caring deeply about helping people achieve their goals “I faced an important life problem, and she helped me figure it out.” “She helped me get that opportunity. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.” “I know and feel that she truly cares about helping me achieve my goals and dreams.”
Expressing authentic vulnerability and passionate joy “Her self is evident in her work.” “She shares her true self with me. I know that I can trust her with my real thoughts and feelings.” “She looks really happy and engaged right now. You can tell that she’s totally in her element.”
Long-term objectives Years and years from now, I want to…
Continue building close relationships and a caring family
Do work that helps people become more confident, caring, and thoughtful
Create, direct, and perform beautiful, moving music
Short term objectives
In the next 6–12 months, I want to…
unfinished
Goals(6–12 months)
Can be product, career, personal, skill development, etc
Skills/Experiences
What steps must I take in the next 6–12 months to achieve this goal?
