Take note, because they can be taught and
learned and, though they may seem like
ordinary characteristics, as Ben Shahar
says, “they produce extra-ordinary results”.
Many of these jewels are found within
Ben Shahar’s Maytiv programme, which
operates in 50 Israeli schools as well as at
schools throughout the world. His programme has been proven to reduce vio-
Learning to be happy
What if there were habits we could acquire
to make us happier and, as a result, enable
us to perform better and achieve more?
I By Robert Sussman
We are bombarded from all sides with the
message: hard work leads to success and
once we become successful, then we’ll be
happy. But more than thousands of scientific studies and a decade of groundbreaking research in the fields of positive psychology and neuroscience show the relationship actually works entirely in the reverse: happiness is the precursor to success – not the result. As best-selling author of The Happiness Advantage, Shawn
Achor, puts it: “Waiting to be happy limits our brain’s potential for success,
12 JEWISH LIFE n ISSUE 85
whereas cultivating positive brains makes
us more motivated, efficient, resilient,
creative, and productive, which drives
performance upward.”
How many times have we heard it expressed that some people are just “born
cynical” or “wired to be unhappy” and
that “you can’t teach an old dog new
tricks” – in other words, that potential is
something fixed by biology and that
once our brain reaches a certain age, it
can’t be changed. Wrong again. “Brain
change, once thought impossible, is now
lence in schools. The 30-hour course run
by the teachers themselves is designed to
teach children resilience and emotional
intelligence, with happiness, morality, integrity, kindness and success at its core.
Here’s hoping South Africa’s Jewish day
schools will be next on the list of schools
to be transformed by the powerful positive psychology of Dr Tal Ben Shahar.
a well-known fact, one that is supported
by some of the most rigorous and cutting-edge research in neuroscience… We
still don’t know the limits of our brain’s
enormous potential to grow and adapt to
changing circumstances. All we know is
that this kind of change is possible.”
One of the experiences that profoundly
changed Achor was a visit to South Africa,
during which he visited a school in Soweto and, in an effort to bond with the children there who came from vastly different backgrounds from his own, asked:
“Who likes to do homework?” He wasn’t
prepared for the response – 95% of the
children raised their hands, while smiling
enthusiastically. The person who had
brought Achor to Soweto explained the
peculiarity: “They see schoolwork as a
privilege,” he replied, “one that many of
their parents did not have.”
It was then that Achor realised “just
how much our interpretation of reality
changes our experience of that reality”.
What we believe can actually have concrete, measurable, physical effects on the
things we do. Achor tells of an experiment that involved the cleaning staff of
several hotels. Half of the employees were
told that their regular work regimen – the
ordinary cleaning, vacuuming, dusting,
mopping, etc, – was actually comparable
to a cardio workout and they were told
just how many calories they were burning
as a result of their daily routine. The other half of the cleaning staff, who didn’t receive this news, served as the control
group. After several weeks, those who had
been primed to think of their work as exercise actually lost weight and – amazingly – even saw their cholesterol drop.
“These individuals had not done any more
work, nor had they exercised any more
than the control group. The only difference was in how their brains conceived of
photograph: BIGSTOCKPHOTO.COM
some succeed?” Instead of seeing the successes as freaks or anomalies, they sought
to identify a pattern, a common thread,
and then replicate that recipe in programmes across the globe, programmes
that would finally work.
Here, then, are the ‘superpowers’ identified by researchers studying teens that
thrive when all around them are failing.