Mark: The single biggest lie we're told about success is that it will make you happy. The science says that's completely backward. In fact, chasing success might be the very thing ensuring you never get it. Michelle: Whoa, that's a bold way to start. You’re basically saying my entire life plan might be flawed. The whole "work hard now, be happy later" model? Mark: According to a growing body of research, yes, it's fundamentally broken. It’s a radical idea, and it’s the core of a fascinating book we’re diving into today: Stop Chasing the Future by Nataly Kogan. Michelle: Nataly Kogan. And she has a great story about this, right? I remember reading something about her time as an intern in Paris that really shaped her thinking. Mark: Exactly. It’s the perfect entry point. During college, she interned at a major newspaper in Paris. She ran between two floors to get the paper out by dawn. The second floor had the American editors—tense, quiet, stressed, eating pizza hunched over their desks. Michelle: Sounds like every office I've ever worked in. Mark: Right? But then she’d go down to the basement, where the French press workers were. They were also on a tight deadline, but their space was festive. They had wine, cheese, bread. They were laughing and joking. Both groups were working towards the exact same goal, but one was burned out and miserable, and the other was happy and thriving. Michelle: And both got the newspaper out on time. Mark: Both got the newspaper out. That experience became a cornerstone for her work, making her ask that crucial question: why do we automatically assume that stress and misery are the required price of admission for success?

Michelle: That is such a powerful question. Because we absolutely do. We celebrate burnout as a badge of honor. So what does Kogan say is the alternative? Mark: Well, the first step is to recognize the trap itself. She argues that decades of research show happiness isn't the outcome of success, but its precursor. A happy, engaged brain is more creative, more resilient, and more productive. The chase for future happiness is what she calls the "hamster racetrack." Michelle: The hamster racetrack. I think my paws are tired just hearing that phrase. It’s so painfully relatable. Mark: She illustrates this with the story of a student named Jackie at Stanford. Jackie was a superstar—founded a non-profit, got national recognition, straight A's. She got into her dream school, and what happened when she got there? The pressure just intensified. Everyone around her was on the same frantic mission to accumulate more achievements, more accolades. Michelle: It’s that feeling of, "I've reached the goal, so I need a new, bigger goal immediately." Mark: Precisely. Jackie described it as feeling like she was on a hamster racetrack. And Kogan gives this phenomenon a name that’s become quite well-known: the "Stanford Duck Syndrome." Michelle: The Stanford Duck Syndrome? Okay, you have to explain that one. Mark: It’s the perfect metaphor. You see a duck gliding gracefully across the water, looking completely calm and composed. But underneath the surface, its feet are paddling frantically, desperately, just to stay afloat. It’s like the perfect Instagram feed of life—effortless on the surface, but chaotic and exhausting underneath. Michelle: That is brilliant. It’s the performance of success. But hold on, Mark. Isn't this a bit of a privileged problem? I mean, worrying about being too successful at Stanford… does this really apply to the rest of us who are just trying to pay the bills? Mark: That's the critical question, and Kogan addresses it head-on. This isn't just an elite problem; it's a cultural one. She cites some staggering data. A Regus Group study found 58 percent of Americans say their stress is rising. The cost of anxiety to the nation is over 42 billion dollars a year. And a Gallup study found that 70 percent of American employees are either unengaged or actively disengaged at work, costing the economy hundreds of billions. This isn't a Stanford problem; it's a modern work culture problem. Michelle: So the frantic paddling is happening everywhere, not just in Palo Alto. Mark: Everywhere. And it reminds me of that classic parable Kogan uses—the one about the investment banker and the fisherman. The banker is on vacation in a small Mexican village and sees a fisherman pull in a few big fish. The banker, being a banker, immediately starts optimizing. Michelle: Of course he does. "You should fish longer, buy a bigger boat, hire a crew..." Mark: Exactly. "Then you can open a cannery, control the distribution, move to New York City, and list your company on the stock exchange! You'll be a millionaire!" The fisherman listens patiently and then asks, "And then what?" Michelle: And then what? Mark: The banker says, "Well, then you can retire! Move to a small coastal village where you can sleep in late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll into the village in the evenings to sip wine and play guitar with your friends." Michelle: Oh, wow. The punchline just lands itself. The fisherman is already living the life the banker is promising him after decades of frantic work. Mark: He’s already there. We get so caught up in the chase that we forget the end goal is to be happy. We're paddling furiously toward a shore we might already be standing on.

Michelle: Okay, I'm convinced. The chase is the problem. The duck is paddling, the hamster is running, the banker is making spreadsheets. But it feels impossible to just… stop. The world keeps demanding more. So what's the actual alternative? How do you step off the wheel? Mark: This is where the book pivots from diagnosis to prescription. Kogan says we need to "step out of overdrive." The key is to shift our focus from managing time to managing energy. And the most crucial form of energy is our own resilience. Michelle: Resilience. That's a word we hear a lot, but what does it actually mean in this context? Mark: Kogan makes a great distinction. She says short-term stress can actually be good for us. It can sharpen our focus and boost our immune system. The problem is chronic stress—the state of constant, low-grade "threat" that comes from living in overdrive. That’s what depletes our energy, impairs our thinking, and makes us sick. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a stressful event quickly, to return to our calm baseline. Michelle: So it’s not about avoiding stress, but about getting better and faster at recovering from it. Like a physiological muscle. Mark: That's the perfect way to put it. And the book has one of the most powerful stories I've ever read about this in action. It’s about a Marine Corps officer named Jake Dobberke, who was serving in Afghanistan. Michelle: Okay, I'm listening. Mark: Jake was in the last vehicle of a convoy when his MRAP—a heavily armored vehicle—rolled over an IED. The explosion was massive, and his legs were severely injured. He was in an extreme, life-or-death situation, losing a lot of blood. Michelle: I can't even imagine the panic. Mark: But here's the thing. In his training, Jake had learned a technique called "tactical breathing." And in that moment of chaos, he remembered it. He started doing these slow, controlled breaths. It allowed him to stay calm enough to check on his fellow Marines, to send out a distress signal, and, crucially, to tourniquet his own legs. He later said that if he hadn't used that breathing technique to stay calm, he would have gone into shock and bled out before help arrived. Michelle: Wow. That's… that's incredible. He literally breathed his way through a life-threatening catastrophe. It saved his life. Mark: It absolutely did. And that’s the ultimate proof of concept. Our breath is a direct remote control for our nervous system. It can pull us out of that fight-or-flight overdrive and back into a state of calm and control. Michelle: That's an amazing survival story. But how does that translate to my daily 'crisis' of an overflowing inbox and back-to-back meetings? What does 'tactical breathing' look like in an office instead of a warzone? Mark: It's much simpler than you'd think. Kogan suggests a very basic exercise. You can do it right now. Just sit up straight, and breathe in slowly through your nose for a count of four, and then breathe out even more slowly through your mouth for a count of six. Michelle: In for four, out for six. Mark: That's it. The longer exhale is key. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is basically the body's "brake pedal." It tells your brain and body that the threat has passed and it's safe to calm down. Doing that just three or four times can interrupt the stress cycle and bring you back to that calm baseline Jake found. It’s a micro-tool for building that macro-skill of resilience.

Michelle: So it's not about needing to go on a week-long meditation retreat, though that's probably nice. It's about these tiny, deliberate moments of hitting the physiological brake pedal throughout the day. Mark: Exactly. It’s about building the muscle of recovery. And that connects everything we've talked about. First, we have to see the trap—that the cultural script of chasing future success is a flawed strategy that leads to burnout. The duck looks calm, but it's exhausted. Michelle: Right, we have to realize we're the duck. Mark: We have to realize we're the duck! And once we see that, we need a practical tool to pull us back to the present, to stop the frantic paddling. The book argues that our breath is the most powerful, immediate anchor we have. It’s not about grand, life-altering gestures; it’s about managing our own physiology, moment by moment. Michelle: And that's where real, sustainable success comes from. Not from more hustle, but from more calm. It’s such a powerful reframe. Mark: It really is. It’s a message we're seeing more and more in the field of positive psychology, from researchers like Emma Seppälä at Yale to many others. There's a growing scientific consensus that this old, industrial-age model of "suffer now for success later" is just bad science. Our brains simply work better when we're not in a constant state of threat. Michelle: I love that. It feels so much more manageable. So for everyone listening who feels like they're on that hamster wheel, maybe the first step isn't to try and run faster. Maybe it's just to… take a breath. In for four, out for six. Mark: That's the perfect takeaway. And we'd love to hear from you. What's one small thing you do to step off the treadmill during a crazy day? A two-minute walk? A song you listen to? Share your thoughts with us and the Aibrary community on our social channels. We could all use some new ideas. Michelle: This is Aibrary, Mark: signing off.