Why happy people attract good things — do you believe in karma? Do you believe that good always comes back around? Or do you believe in chance and the harshness of fate?
Whatever your personal view — there are certain connections between happiness and achieving success (not just professional success) that create a kind of loop in our lives, tilting the scales of reality in our favor.
(Infographic: Happiness = success = happiness etc.)
In this article I’m looking at how happiness actually influences circumstances. (For more on happiness itself — link.)
I’ve observed this very clearly in my own life — but it became a universal pattern when I started noticing it while traveling, meeting people on the other side of the world. Both those who were benefiting from it — and those who, unfortunately, managed to turn even the best opportunities against themselves.
You’re Happy — You’re More Open, You Share Good Energy
What do you feel when a barista at a coffee shop is genuinely smiling, actually interested in how you’re doing? A lot of people will tell you that one sincere smile from a stranger — or a brief interaction with them — can make their whole day.
Doesn’t that make you more likely to return the gesture? To go back?
So why not be the one who opens that loop?
(Of course — intention matters a lot here. More on that — link.)
You’re Happy — You Attract the Right People
After what was, in many ways, a demanding first day in Hong Kong — one of the highest bars in the world, three men at the next table started talking to me. They’d arranged to meet there for the evening.
The conversation was remarkable — partly because each of them turned out to be from a different continent.
Eventually they showed me a few spots in another part of the city, we exchanged contacts, and for the rest of my two weeks there I had genuinely great people around me. Beyond being incredible guides to the best locations and the kind of controversial clubs that give you real experience (the kind you can’t replicate or copy), they also brought a lot of interesting perspective — both on life and professionally. And honestly — they were the ones who kept initiating contact, keeping it alive — even though beyond good conversation, they got nothing out of it.
One of them put it well before I left: “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way — you just have this lightness and enthusiasm about you. I felt it when we met at the bar. I don’t come across it often, despite knowing a lot of people. You can just feel it in your energy.”
He was someone who both broadened my professional horizons and became a solid contact — a must on any future visit to that city.
Draw your own conclusions. 😊
You’re Happy — You See More Clearly, Your Intuition Sharpens
Stress makes us stop thinking logically. And the opposite is also true — feeling happy gives you energy that, combined with a sense of calm, produces a remarkable clarity of mind.
Think about it:
When does your project move forward? When do ideas come? When do you connect the dots and actually feel motivated to act?
What state tends to come before that?
You’re Happy — You See Setbacks as Strength
Back to Hong Kong. My first day there would have been, for many people, a sign they’d chosen the wrong destination entirely.
Anyone with a tendency to see their life as one long string of failures (more on that in another article) would have described it like this: a series of misfortunes — a long delayed flight, cold and crowded on arrival, Google Maps completely useless in this city, accommodation issues and conditions nothing like what was advertised, attempts to work in an overcrowded McDonald’s — everything going wrong.
And here’s the most important thing — every single detail of that “terrible day” is essentially true. But I didn’t experience it that way for a single moment.
I was laughing internally at the absurdity of it all. At how challenges like these reveal the reality of a place built on a completely different logic — multilevel, labyrinthine, where street-level access for pedestrians sometimes simply doesn’t exist.
And because of that mindset — physically exhausted and dirty after that whole day — I still had the energy to go to one of the highest bars in the world that evening. Which turned out to be exactly where I met the people who gave me so much. And what they pointed to was precisely that lightness and joy — which somehow, after that whole day, they still noticed:D
To sum up simply: happiness is not a reward for good circumstances.
It’s the condition that creates them.
That’s how the loop forms — the one that genuinely works in our favor. It makes good things happen. And the less favorable things? We give them less attention — or we pull out of them whatever good we can. And keep going.
