We just got into 500 Startups!

But the thing you should know is – four months ago, we applied and didn’t get in. Heck – we applied to them all – 500 Startups, YC, Techstars, AngelPad.

We got rejected from all of them.

You know what sucked? I knew a lot of friends who got in. And no one wants to feel inferior to their friends. But I found out something I didn’t know before – many friends whom I’d assumed got in the first time – confided in me that it was their 2nd, 3rd, 4th time applying.

When someone tells you no, what they really mean is – not yet. We got in the second time because they saw the progress we’d made.

A lot of first-time founders apply, get rejected, and then think that’s that. But it’s not such a binary thing. You know who else get rejected their first time? Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox.

We don’t hear about that side much though, because everyone is supposed to be crushing it all the time.

“How’s your startup doing?”

“Oh we’re crushing it,” we’re supposed to say with a smile, trying to ignore the knot in our gut.

But stories of struggle are just as important as stories of success. So I’ve kept a video diary since the first line of code was written. Every moment where I questioned how we would make money, where I felt exhausted, where I wondered how the heck we were going to make it work – it’s here.

Of course it’s going to be hard. Of course we’re going to feel stressed. But at the end of the day, we get to try and make our dream a reality. We’re very lucky to be able to do that.

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“If I had known you would become pregnant, I wouldn’t have invested in your company.”

This is what an investor said to Michelle Crosby, Founder/CEO of WeVorce.

Her response: “What do you mean?”

Immediately the investor realized what he said and apologized for being an asshole.

—-
That was one of the interesting stories from the YC Female Founders conference I went to today.

An hour after leaving the conference, I hopped on a phone call for work. This guy was describing to me what a pain his new employees were, bickering with each other. He told them to “stop behaving like a bunch of women” and then kept rambling to me.

I stopped him and said: “So you said that your employees are behaving like a bunch of women. What do you mean?”

Immediately he apologized, said it was the wrong choice of words, and said he meant to say “stop behaving like a bunch of children.”

Haha. What a magic phrase: “What do you mean?”
Next time someone is being an asshole, try it out

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I’ve gotten everything I have because I was rejected.

My senior year of high school, every day I’d run to the mailbox. I was waiting to hear back from my dream college. I was so excited when the envelope finally came. I ripped it open, my heart pounding.

It was a rejection letter. I was devastated. I asked them if there was anything I could do to change their minds. Sorry, they said. There’s no waitlist and no appeals process.

But I really wanted in. So I redid my resume and essays, made a glossy brochure, and made them a video about me.

They reversed their decision.

By rejecting me at first, college admissions taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. It doesn’t matter if you’re told no. Everything’s negotiable.

Do everything in your power to change their minds
If you really want this job, the first question you should ask yourself is: Did I do everything possible to get the job?

If the answer is no — congratulations! Time for the fun part.

Do everything in your power to change their minds. If you really want this job, put in 100 hours to get it.

You might think putting in this kind of effort is overkill. But you’ve probably spent 100 hours working on something for a job you already have. Why not do it for a job you really want?

What would 100 hours look like? You can do a lot with it. Get creative. Trying to get a web designer position? Give their existing website a facelift. Marketing position? Put together a marketing plan or a concept for a viral video. Don’t wait until you’re hired to show them you can do the job. Show them when you apply. You are going to run circles around all the other candidates sending in their paltry resumes and cover letters.

Do something that makes you a stronger candidate not only for this employer, but for others too. That way if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted your time. If you redesign a site or make a creative video, that’s a piece you can put in your portfolio to show the next company.

Ask them why they rejected you. If they give you reasons, brainstorm ways to demonstrate how you can overcome them.

It can be tempting not to try your hardest
If you don’t try your hardest, you always get to fall on a safety net:

“Well I didn’t get it, but it’s not like I tried that hard anyway.”

Your safety net is holding you back.

Yes, failure is hard to take. Rejection is tough to stomach. But better to try your damnedest and fail than to hold back and always wonder what if. The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.

100 hours doesn’t always work
I wanted a job at Evernote, and I wanted it bad.

So I put in my 100 hours. I made a custom resume that I illustrated with little Evernote-style animals. I got out my guitar and sang a song about why I wanted to work there. I designed a custom iPhone app for them.

It wasn’t enough. I didn’t get the job.

You know what sucked? There was nothing left for me to do. No fight left for me to fight. My friends told me I’d find another job. But I didn’t want another job, I wanted that job.

Life is funny, though. Pretty soon after, I discovered a new startup, Exec. And I wanted Exec so bad. I put in my 100 hours. This time, I got the job.

Now I get it. Evernote was right to reject me.

They could see what I couldn’t see at the time — that I was not right for their company. Evernote has several hundred employees. But I like to do a wide variety of things and not be confined to one role — I belong at a smaller company.

I love Evernote and still use it every day. I’ve met many employees and they’re good folks. But the best thing Evernote could do for me was reject me. It gave me the freedom to find Exec, which was a much better fit for my skills and personality.

If you give it your all but still get rejected, be proud. Be proud, not ashamed. You had the balls to try your hardest — fear of failure be damned.

Consider this: what you think is a dream job might not be so great after all. You’re an outsider looking in, and you don’t actually know what it’s like to work there day by day. The company might be able to see something you can’t — that you wouldn’t actually be happy there. Have faith that rejecting you was for the best.

And show the next company why they’d be damn lucky to have you.

–
If you’re serious about committing every day to your job search, you might enjoy a project I’m running to keep you motivated: a 100 day challenge.

Say hi at @karenxcheng

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I am selfish.

100 days ago I got an email from a lady who had seen my viral dance video. I got lots of emails from people who wanted to learn to dance but that’s not what she wanted. She had multiple sclerosis and what she wanted was to walk again.

So I taught her how to use Dropbox (the very first version of 100 was files in Dropbox folders) and she started taking videos of herself learning to walk every day.

Today is day 100 and you can see she’s made a lot of progress.

When people ask me why I made the dance video I say it’s because I wanted people to see the invisible hard work behind talent. And that is true but you know why else I made it?

Because I am selfish.

I knew if I could make it go viral it would give me opportunity – as a dancer, as a writer, as a speaker.

And when I had the idea for 100 I said I wanted to build it because I wanted to help all these people. And that is true but you know why else I wanted to make it?

Because I am selfish.

You know what one of my hidden motivations was? I thought it’d be cool to write a book one day and I felt like a viral dance video wasn’t substantial enough material. But something like 100 – ohhh that would be good, that would be big, that would give me enough material for a book and I could become a nice published author.

Well it’s been one month since Finbarr and I launched 100. It’s been stressful and I feel burnt out and it’s tiring be constantly on.

And I wasn’t even going to admit that because potential investors will look for cracks and weaknesses and no doubt they are reading this very sentence right now. And they don’t like to smell weaknesses on a founder. Especially not a female one.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that ripping your weaknesses open for everyone to see is where you can draw your greatest strength. If you try to hide it, you give it power. But drag it out in the daylight and you will be liberated.

I am selfish.

But now I can see that 100 is bigger than me and it is bigger than a viral video and it is bigger than a book. If we do this right, it’s going to be the thing every person learning a musical instrument turns to. Every person learning a language. A sport. Every tinkerer toiling away on their side project. Every scared soul starting a business. Every teacher and every student. Every parent recording every child growing up – learning to talk, learning to walk. It will give people confidence, it will give people an army of others who support them, and it will give them belief in themselves.

How someone as selfish as me could create something that could affect so many people and make a real, practical, positive difference in the world – I don’t know. We have a long, long way to go. But we’re gonna make it happen.

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I never thought I’d be on TV.

I’d always wondered — how do they pick guests? Is it scripted? How is taping different than what you see on TV?

Last week I got to be a guest on The Queen Latifah Show. A couple things surprised me — I’ll share what I learned.

How they pick guests
A few months ago, I made a dance video that went viral (3 million views). Several national TV shows contacted me within a few days — it was a pretty whirlwind exciting time.

The best I understand it, these shows have assistant producers who scout the internet for interesting stories and viral videos. When they find it, they’ll reach out to you and talk to you on the phone.

If you agree to do it, the assistant producer will then pitch the idea to the executive producer. If you get the go-ahead, they’ll slot you in for a time. There’s a lot of back and forth though. I talked to several shows and sometimes they’d be totally interested in you one day and then drop you the next.

All daytime shows want what they call an exclusive. This doesn’t mean you agree to do only their show — it just means you agree to appear on their show first. But since everyone wants an exclusive, once you appear on one show, you can’t go on others.

How they do hair and makeup
They asked me to come fully dressed, made up, and ready to go. They’d do the finishing touches. They asked me to bring a couple different options to wear. Nothing all black or all white (I’ve heard it’s hard to light for) and no text or logos (darn! I was hoping to promote my startup).

They had a hair stylist and make-up artist do their magic on me. In person I didn’t think it looked that great, but when I watched it back on TV I was surprised. I don’t know what lighting voodoo they did but I definitely looked better on TV than I did in person!

How they write the script
When she’s hosting the show, Queen Latifah reads off a teleprompter. It makes sense — it’s way too much to memorize every day. Still, this surprised me because of how naturally she did it. I could never tell from just watching.

They prepared all the questions for me in advance, and the producer practiced with me backstage before I went on. They didn’t ask me to read off of cue cards though — they let me answer the questions naturally.

How taping works
They tape a few days before they air, so it’s like they’re always living in the future. “Happy Friday!” — when it’s actually Tuesday.

Something interesting I didn’t expect was that they don’t tape in the same order they air. So when I was waiting backstage to go on, Queen Latifah was wrapping up the show “and that’s our show, happy Thanksgiving!”

And they taped my segment after that — which was the first segment to air. It seems like a lot to keep track of. I guess actors have to do this too. Mad respect to them.

The whole experience was a lot less nerve-wracking than I thought. I think because it wasn’t live, that took the pressure off. I knew if something went wrong they could always re-record. And that they did — they re-recorded part of the segment at the end when the camera couldn’t get a clear shot of Queen Latifah because of where I was standing.

Overall, I was just really impressed by how they ran everything. They were extremely organized and treated me well. So many things could go wrong — a guest could get sick, or miss their flight. They have to fill each day, every day, with interesting content. They work around the clock — I got texts from the assistant producer from early in the morning until late at night.

Sometimes we founders like to think we work the hardest. And it’s true that building a company is a lot of hard work. But every time I’m exposed to a new world I see that they work just as hard — maybe harder. Dancers, lawyers, musicians, bankers, maids, make-up artists, writers, producers, TV hosts. It doesn’t matter the profession, the top of every field works their butts off.

I love seeing how things work behind-the-scenes and that’s why we’re making 100.

Questions? Say hi @karenxcheng

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Why is this news?

Well, it’s not supposed to be. News is when so-and-so raised a $15 million round from Sequoia-this or Andreessen-that.

Yesterday, we had an interview with Y-Combinator for our video startup, 100. We just had a pretty good launch earlier in the week. My co-founder Finbarr is more reserved than I am – he doesn’t like to count his chickens before they hatch. But me, I had practically made myself a chicken sandwich. We’d get in for sure!

A little embarrassing to admit, but I’d already started writing my self-congratulatory Facebook status in my head. “So excited to announce that 100 has been accepted into the next batch of Y-Combinator,” I’d say.

Then at 8pm: we got our rejection email.

Ugh.

Here’s the Facebook status that went out instead:

So excited to announce that we had our YC interview today and
…didn’t get in.

You only hear about people when they succeed huh? I’m way guilty of this too. Only posting the good news on Facebook. Painting an artificially glossy version of my life.

But I better start practicing what I preach. Show my mistakes. Don’t be ashamed of failure. Be proud I tried my hardest. Fall 7 times, get up 8.

YC gave us some good, actionable feedback in their rejection email. They even challenged us to prove them wrong. I appreciate that.

Challenge accepted.

Then a cool thing started happening. One by one, people left comments about how they’d failed before. Joel Gascoigne from Buffer wrote how they didn’t get into YC – they didn’t even get an interview. People told me about other YC founders who didn’t get in on their first try. Drew Houston from Dropbox is one of them.

Overall, Silicon Valley is pretty good about embracing failure. Here, it’s not taboo to say you started a business and it failed. I don’t know anywhere else like that.

But that’s easy to forget when we see shiny headlines on TechCrunch. We’re only seeing a brief moment of glory. We don’t see the self doubt, the lost sleep. The dozens – sometimes hundreds – of rejections from investors.

We’re good at embracing failure – but we could be better. Do the scarier thing. When we stop hiding our failure, we stop fearing it.

The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.

- Stephen McCranie

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I’m terrified of driving.

I’ve never driven a car by myself. I’ve never owned a car. I’m a grown adult and I live in America.

I’m scared of sitting in the driver’s seat. Just the thought of putting my hands on the leathery steering wheel makes my palms sweat.

I’m scared of fulfilling the stereotype that Asian women are terrible drivers.

I’m scared of trying to change lanes, while I twist my neck around to try and see the cars behind me whizzing by at a gajillion miles an hour.

I’m scared of getting into a car accident. Especially one that leaves me paralyzed for life.

I couldn’t drive in high school, so I didn’t have a social life.

I couldn’t drive to my first job after college, so I lived near bus stops instead.

I can’t drive today, so when I go grocery shopping, I can only get what I can carry on the bus. I love Costco but I can’t go there because I can’t drive.

I can’t just go wherever I want to go. Instead I look up bus directions first and hope the bus goes there. Because if it doesn’t, then I can’t go.

I’m 26 and I can’t drive. I can dance, I can juggle, I can even ride the unicycle. But I can’t drive.

I decided to move to LA because there’s a lot of opportunity there. To become a better dancer, to take film classes, to start my company. But you can’t get by without a car in LA, as I’ve been told by pretty much everyone.

So I thought, maybe I should just not go to LA.

Yeah. I almost didn’t move to a city full of opportunity, because I can’t drive and I’m too scared to learn.

Sad, huh?

This is getting ridiculous. This stops now.

Time to grow up and be an adult. Time to face the day I’ve dreaded all my life. I’m terrified, but also excited about the freedom I’ll have once I have my new driving superpowers.

I start driving lessons today.

I’m 26, and I’m learning to drive!

——

If you’re ready to conquer your fear (of anything, not just driving), you might be interested in a motivational experiment I’m running called 100.

Thanks to my friends and family who have given me many lifts over the years. Thanks to Nikita Fallon, Lynn Tao, Mary Tao, Amy Lin, and my parents for relentlessly pushing me to learn to drive, despite my stubborn protests.

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I almost didn’t write this post.

Because I wanted to keep the magic behind my viral video to myself. Because of my ego. Because I would have loved to brag that I just sat back and it took off on its own. But that’s not what happened.

I did a ton of marketing, and it started long before the video was released. Going viral was not an accident — it was work.

I tried a lot of things. This is what worked for me.

1. Don’t be “too good” for marketing
I almost didn’t put together a marketing plan. Because what if I did all this marketing, and then the video still flopped? That would’ve been embarrassing. Then I realized how stupid that was.

It’s better to try your damnedest and fail than to hold back and always wonder what if.

If you put all this effort into your video, why would you rely on luck for the last leg? Swallow your pride. Give your work a fighting chance. Put together a marketing plan. This article will show you how.

2. Understand how things go viral on the internet

You see videos on YouTube with millions of views and you wonder — where did they all come from?

Here’s how my video, Girl Learns to Dance in a Year went viral:

Day One: 80k views
First, I posted to Facebook/Twitter, and submitted it to social news sites like Reddit and Hacker News. I personally asked many of my friends to share it. I tweeted it at well-known dancers. I emailed bloggers who had covered other viral dance videos.
Of all the things I tried, Reddit paid off. It got to the top of the GetMotivated subreddit. I did this by following the advice in this article.

Day Two: 800k views
Bloggers who had seen it on Reddit the day before started publishing articles about it. First Kottke. Then blogs like Mashable, Jezebel, and Huffington Post.

Blogs drove a ton of traffic. Each blog is a giant marketing engine with millions of readers and twitter followers. It’s in their interest to get the article as many views as possible, because each view is an ad they can serve up. Understand how the money flows. It’s all about clicks and advertising dollars.

Day Three: 1.8 million views
It made the YouTube frontpage. I’m not sure how it got there, but I suspect the blogs were sending it so much traffic that YouTube’s algorithms picked up on it.

Try many things. You only need one of them to pay off in order for your video to go viral. For me, that thing was Reddit. Your thing might be different. Your goal is to get major blogs to write you up, because their marketing power is ridiculous.

3. Release on Monday or Tuesday
People watch YouTube videos when they’re at work. They read the news at work. Release your video on Monday or Tuesday to give it the whole week to gain momentum. Weekends are speed bumps.

I chose Tuesday because people are busy catching up with email on Monday. I got lucky with the timing because there wasn’t any major breaking news that day. Releasing on a slow news day will help you.

Mind your holidays, too. Don’t release when people are not at the office.

4. Figure out who has a stake in your video
If your video takes off, who are all the people and companies who might want a piece of the action? These people can help market you.

My YouTube description was full of links to possible sponsors — to the Lululemon and American Apparel clothes I was wearing. To the Lift app I used to track my dancing. To the BART train station I danced at. To the music I danced to. They’re all things I genuinely believe in, so I was happy to send traffic their way.

I contacted all these companies and asked them to share the video. Some of them shared, some of them didn’t. Try them all.

5. None of this matters if your video isn’t good
You can get your friends to share. But only the strength of the content can get their friends to share. If you are serious about making good content, read Made to Stick.

Why will people share your video? People share things when they feel emotion. What emotion will your viewers feel?

Some emotions spread better than others. Emotions that spread: awe, excitement, amusement, anger, anxiety. Emotions that don’t: contentment, sadness.

6. Tell a story
I’m a decent dancer for a year of practice but I’m nothing compared to the pros. There are thousands of dancers way more talented whose videos didn’t go viral.

Girl Learns to Dance in a Year went viral because it wasn’t just another dance video with cool moves and cool camera angles. It wasn’t about how good the dancing was. It was about how awkward I was when I started, and how I got better with practice.

And it’s not just a story about dancing. It’s about having a dream and not knowing how to get there — but starting anyway.

People want stories. That’s what all TV, movies, and books are. Tell a story.

7. Make your video shorter
The first thing people do when they play a video is check to see how long it is. It helps them decide whether to watch it. 10 minutes: forget it. 2 minutes: I’ll give it a shot. 30 seconds: Heck, might as well.

Make your video as short as possible while still keeping the heart of the story. The editor and I literally spent hours shaving off seconds to get the video down to 1 minute 51 seconds.

Short videos spread better.

8. Write a viral title
Here’s a quick test. How would you finish this sentence:

Hey did you see the video of __________

Fill in the blank. That’s your title.

Here’s a bad title: My Journey of Dance, a Year of Movement

Better: I Learned to Dance in a Year

Even better: Girl Learns to Dance in a Year

Best: Girl Learns to Dance in a Year (TIME LAPSE)

9. Know what you’re willing to compromise
What are you willing to do for views? Are you willing to compromise on your beliefs? If so, which ones?

I made a compromise. I believe that grown women should not be referred to as girls. Then I named the video Girl Learns to Dance in a Year. It rolls off the tongue better than Woman Learns to Dance in a Year. I had decided I could live with that compromise.

I almost named the video Asian Girl Learns to Dance in a Year. I’m really glad I didn’t do that.

You have to decide what you can live with and what you can’t. Figure this out before you release because once you hit publish, you can’t take it back.

10. What to do once you go viral
People will criticize your work. This is good because it gets them talking. There are lots of comments about how I’m a terrible dancer, or how I got worse on Day 365. People left racist and sexist comments. They even debated the definition of time lapse. Try not to let all this get to you. Controversy is good.

Viral videos have a short shelf life. You have 15 minutes of fame, and your job is to open as many doors as possible in those 15 minutes. Create as many opportunities as you can. Ironically, the week I released the video, I barely danced at all. I didn’t go out and celebrate. I went home and responded to as many emails and tweets as I could.

Make sure the media can get a hold of you, and it’s not hard to find your email address. Media interview requests will start coming in. Accept them. National TV may contact you. Feed the media beast.

Know where you want to direct your traffic. I linked to my blog, website, and Twitter from the video. They were all ready to go. One thing I messed up was I didn’t have an email signup form ready on the Dance In A Year website. I’ve fixed that now, lesson learned. Be prepared.

Why I did it
I wanted people to see the video because it represents what I believe in.

When you watch a professional perform, you’re seeing them at their moment of glory. It’s intimidating because you don’t see how you could ever get to where they are. You don’t see the moment they started, when they were a beginner just like you. I wanted people to see the beginning.

The best response to the video has been all the people who reached out to me, newly inspired to learn. Learn dance. Learn guitar, Korean, beatboxing, drawing, parkour. That brings me a lot more fulfillment than the video view count numbers.

After hearing from so many people, I’m now working on a site for anyone to make their own learning time-lapse videos: 100. I’m really excited to see other people level themselves up in all sorts of skills.

None of this might have happened if I had decided to sit back and just hope it went viral.

—

Thanks to Cedric Dahl, Alex Debelov, Nikolay Valtchanov, Lynn Tao, and Orion Hombrebueno for marketing help and advice for the video.

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Are you sure you want more discipline? Because maybe instead, you should quit. Wait — I’m telling you to give up?

Yeah. It’s okay to quit.

Yo-Yo Ma’s first instrument wasn’t cello. He actually started with violin — and he wasn’t good at it. So he quit violin and picked up cello instead.

Maybe you’re like Yo-Yo Ma, and you just haven’t found your cello yet.

It’s okay to quit.

People think I have a lot of discipline because I danced every day for 365 days in a row. But the truth is, I have no discipline. I never did anything else for 365 days before. Dance was different because I loved it the most.

When you find something you’re truly passionate about, it will prioritize itself. You’ve heard the advice before: do what you love.

But what if you don’t know what you love? What if you’re not one of those people who has always known what they’re meant to do? How can you find your cello?

The good news is it’s not magic, and it’s not luck either. And just because you’re an adult, it’s not too late to start.

How to find your cello
Try everything. Be curious, ask questions. Let yourself be pulled in weird and interesting directions. Let your friends drag you to that thing you’re not so sure about. Go to a real bookstore. Sign up for an art class, a cycling class, an improv class. Bring a friend. When your friend bails, show up to class anyway.

I’ve tried a lot of things — and quit just about as many. Piano. Guitar. Singing. Cello. My band. My job at Microsoft. Juggling. Card tricks. Unicycling. Programming. Tae Kwon Do. Judo. Swimming. Origami.

Dancing was just another thing I tried. It stuck because I loved it the most.

Think about your job or hobby. Are you doing it because you really, truly love it? Or because it’s what you’ve always known?

But I can’t afford to quit
Okay, so you can quit your hobby. But what if you can’t afford to quit your job?

I felt that way at my old job. Two years into working at Microsoft Excel, I realized I was in the wrong career. I didn’t want to project manage anymore — I wanted to be a designer. But I had no design skills, and I didn’t want to go back to school. Going $100k in debt was not feasible, and 3 years is too long to wait for your dream.

So I taught myself — everyday I would do my day job in record time and rush home to learn design. I hacked together my piecemeal design education in 6 months. I did not feel ready but I started the job search anyway. I was a lot less experienced than others, so I had to get creative to set myself apart. After getting rejected a few times, I got the job as Exec’s designer.

It’s scary to quit. You can’t always do it immediately. If you can’t quit yet, start investing in yourself right now. Don’t wait to go find your cello. Start playing. Keep going until you can afford to quit.

It’s okay to quit.

–If you’re ready to start finding your cello, you may be interested in a motivational experiment I’m running: 100.

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You know the feeling. When it hurts to see other people succeed. When you read articles about Mark Zuckerberg, the world’s youngest billionaire. When you watch some freak child prodigy playing piano like a mini Mozart. When your friend gets that thing you wanted for yourself.

I used to feel this way all the time. It was exhausting to live in a world where I was constantly jealous of everyone else. I didn’t want to be this way, but I couldn’t help it. When other people did well, it made me feel inadequate. I was obsessed with success.

Today, I don’t get jealous anymore. Okay – I do still feel jealous sometimes. But for the most part, I am genuinely happy for other people when I see them do well.

What changed?

I learned one thing – how happiness works. Turns out, people are really bad at figuring out what makes them happy. We think we’ll be happy if only. If only we get that job promotion. If only our longtime crush would date us. If only we had a bigger house, a better car. That’s not how happiness works at all, though.

Sure, these things give us a short-term boost in happiness. But they don’t affect long-term happiness. We quickly adjust to the new normal and start wanting more. Lottery winners surveyed a year later aren’t any happier. The reverse is true too – if you got into an accident and became paralyzed, miraculously your happiness will return to about the same level a year later.

Humans are biologically programmed to be resilient to hardships, but it’s the same trait that leaves us perpetually wanting more. It’s crazy, I’ve noticed that the people who most frequently post about their glamorous lives on Facebook are sometimes the most miserable inside.

Circumstances (like wealth and relationship status) make up only 10% of your happiness. Of the other 90%, about half is genetics. Some people are wired to be happier than others – it’s in their brain chemistry.

But the other half is completely within your power to change: it’s your mindset and how you choose to spend your time. Appreciating what you have. Taking the time to have meaningful relationships with friends and family. Helping others. This isn’t new age-y stuff. This is cold, hard, science.

Once I realized this, I could stop wanting things that other people had. I finally understood that their achievements and possessions weren’t the keys to their happiness. I could get my own happiness just by changing my mindset and behavior.

A lot of my friends are entrepreneurs, and I frequently get asked why I don’t start a company. I’d always thought the pinnacle definition of success would be to create a big-shot company. As someone who used to be obsessed with success, the entrepreneurial dream was certainly seductive.

But I haven’t started a company because I don’t think it will make me happy. Some people love it, and building a company makes them happy. But that’s not me. What makes me happy is learning and having fun. Designing is fun, and dancing is fun. The hours I spend doing these things aren’t work. They’re play. Because I’m having fun, it’s easy to go all in. And going all in makes you a lot more likely to succeed.

Do you want to be happy, or do you want to be successful? If you choose happiness, then you can have both.

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