A year into the pandemic, Chopra reads the world through the stages of grief. Grief is what happens when people lose something they assumed was normal, and he sees populations stuck in the early stages of it.
The stage he argues for is acceptance of the facts as they are, not as anyone wishes them to be. From acceptance, in his account, comes peace, then meaning, then purpose.
Key findings
- His verdict on established companies is blunt. Most, he says, are dinosaurs with a traditional Wall Street mentality, operating from fear and greed and under severe stress.
- The energy, in his view, is with entrepreneurs rather than large companies, and he expects them to disrupt the incumbents unless the incumbents follow what they are doing.
- A survey of investors, employees, employers and customers found that the most successful companies were those most aware of the wellbeing of their employees.
- He describes the effect as a full circle. Happy employees translate into happy customers, happy customers into happy investors, and happy investors into happy employers.
- He is skeptical of stated commitments. Some companies are acting because of public relations and fear of being left out, and have not worked out the mechanisms or found the right leaders.
What he means by wellbeing at work
The wellbeing questions he asks are specific: whether the employee uses their strengths, whether they feel acknowledged and taken care of, and whether their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing matters to the company.
His instruction to leaders follows from that: focus on employees, their wellbeing, purpose, mission and strengths, and create an ecosystem where they find fulfillment in the work.
For teams that have not met in person for a year, he suggests working on four things: attention, meaning deep listening; affection, meaning reassurance that you are there; appreciation, meaning noticing each person’s strength; and some degree of acceptance of the situation as it is.
Where he thinks the new businesses are
The first area is the convergence of information technologies, including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and augmented reality, with an innovation lab building algorithms that read facial micro expressions, eye movements, mood and voice tone and correlate them with heart rate variability, blood pressure and immune function.
The second is food, combining work on the microbiome and planetary genetic information with precision fermentation, so that protein production does not require killing an animal. His point is that the world currently eats a handful of proteins while the genetic information in soil offers vastly more.
The others are transportation and energy, including generating energy from waves, particles and gravity.
He calls the mechanism emergence. It happens when maximum diversity of talent, race, gender and education meets shared vision, complementary strengths, emotional and spiritual connection, and technology.
The happiness formula
He sets out happiness as a sum of three parts: a set point in the brain, conditions of living, and voluntary choices.
The set point accounts for about half of daily experience and is formed in childhood. Unhappy people see only problems and happy people see only opportunities, whatever the situation.
He argues the set point can be moved by asking one question repeatedly: what is the opportunity.
Financial conditions account for roughly 15 percent. A lottery win is exciting, plateaus within six months, and is back to the set point within a year. Very rich and very poor people are both unhappy because both think about money constantly, and confusing net worth with self-worth is what he calls the biggest cause of unhappiness.
Health, technology and the seven pillars
He argues that gene editing will help only a small share of people, because most chronic disease traces back to lifestyle: lack of sleep, lack of stress management, lack of exercise and mind-body coordination, unhealthy relationships and emotional turbulence, and disconnection from biological rhythms.
Nutrition and spiritual wellbeing complete what he calls the seven pillars of wellbeing, which he codified into algorithms for a digital coaching service.
The service he describes is personal and continuous, offering care that is personalized, predictable and preventive and that requires the participant’s own involvement.
Purpose, and what responsibility means
His own practice begins with four daily intentions: a joyful energetic body, love and compassion in the heart, a clear and creative mind, and lightness without worry.
He says he has no goals, only a formula of love and action. Love without action is irrelevant, and action without love is meaningless.
Purpose, for him, comes from service. He locates meaning and purpose in asking how he can help and what his deepest desire is, and says everything organizes itself from there.
He ends on the word responsibility, which he reads literally as the ability to respond. The more creative you are in your ability to respond, the happier you will be.
Scope and limitations
This is one person’s view expressed in conversation. The company survey he cites was run by a non-profit he co-founded, and the health and technology claims are his own rather than reviewed research.
Source
This page summarises Humanizing Growth Series: Deepak Chopra, by Marc de Swaan Arons, Deepak Chopra, 2021.