The Key Ingredient For A Successful Life Isn’t Wealth - It’s Happiness

Everyone focuses on money. Making more money. And people who work like this, inevitably burn out. They become unhappy and disillusioned with life. It doesn’t have to be that way. Money and wealth are NOT the secrets to a successful life.

High Performance And Happiness

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Harald Harung, Associate Professor at Oslo and Akershus University College in Norway for my 2018 documentary Make Me A Leader.

His research, in collaboration with Dr. Fred Travis from Maharishi University, has led to some profound and groundbreaking realisations. Dr. Harung’s message is loud and clear, and may not be surprising in the fact that; the basis of a successful life is not money or prestige, it is happiness. 

What is profound is the realisation that the active ingredient in happiness and performance is the holistic measure of higher mind-brain development. Dr Harung’s research focused on mind-brain development, shows that developing your mind and your brain will transform the way you perceive yourself, others around you, and your environment. 

Having a high brain integration results in greater moral reasoning and creativity, higher emotional stability, more openness to experience, and lower levels of anxiety.

He also shared with me that the benefit of an integrated brain goes beyond the benefit for the individual. By leaders raising their consciousness, they also elevate the consciousness of the organisation. 

“The world is rapidly moving toward a real-time reality where responses are instantaneous or at least almost instantaneous. With this accelerating transformation to higher levels of competency and speed, higher mind-brain development is becoming increasingly essential for high performance and happiness. In other words, we, as humans, are creating an advanced society that requires us to substantially refine our brain and mind.”

Dr. Harald Harung

3 Ways To Enhance Mind-Brain Development 

According to Dr. Harung, the 3 key ways to increase mind-brain development include: 

• Physical Exercise
• Music / visual arts
• Meditation

Being physically active is crucial for our mental and physical health. Music, dancing, painting or other forms of artistic expression stimulate our mind and our creativity. Music, especially if we play it, can increase our learning ability.

The practice of meditation, especially transcendental meditation, provides multiple benefits including: increased consciousness, reduced anxiety and stress, increased ability to learn and remember and faster information processing, all of which allow us to enjoy a richer life, with better performance and greater happiness. 

Research and technology will continue to march on, and our understanding of the mind and brain will only increase. Humans have tremendous potential, and Dr. Harung predicts that instead of money being the primary focus for organisations, it will soon be people. Companies that keep the mindsets of the past and focus only on money will eventually die off. 

In Dr. Harung’s opinion, the future of leadership development is a basic shift from having and doing - to being. We have to learn to develop who we are.