Name: That Little Voice in Your Head
Rating: 4.5 (360 reviews)
Author: Mo Gawdat

What’s in it for me? Learn from a top computer scientist how to reprogram your brain for a happier life.

Think back to your earliest memories. Can you recall being a child, free of responsibilities, expectations, and other pressures? Oh, to be that happy again!

Did you know we can reset and retrain our brains to our “default state” of happiness?

That’s a guiding principle for former Google X top executive and computer scientist Mo Gawdat, who studies and promotes the concept of happiness, including his third best seller, That Little Voice in Your Head. In it, he offers a “user’s manual” for our brains, which includes many exercises for preventive maintenance and debugging issues to achieve a happy state.

Gawdat combines his experience in computer science with neuroscience research to lay out a model of the brain and its functions like one would, with a computer and its software. He adds many personal insights and anecdotes for relatability and relevance – chief among them the death of his son, Ali, which inspired him to refocus his life’s work on helping people find happiness. He even founded a movement called One Billion Happy. Perhaps you’ll be one of those one billion after finishing this Blink – or at least be on your way toward it.

Gawdat asserts that the key to happiness is a better understanding of the parts of the brain’s operating system and the programs it runs – or rather, our thoughts and what causes them. With that, you can accurately identify when and where to intervene and make adjustments. While we’ll only cover parts of Gawdat’s user’s manual, you’ll get insights and exercises you can put to work immediately.

Grab a pen and paper or your notes app. You’ll need them for a few quick exercises we’ll do as we go.

Let’s take a look at your operating system.

You control your thoughts – which do not define you

Before we go any farther, there’s one concept you must accept: You are in control of your brain just as you are a computer, and that includes the messages it sends. The essence of “you” is more than just your thoughts.

While Gawdat credits the brain with being a marvelous machine, he says it’s like any other organ in the body in that it processes and produces things. Just as the lungs take oxygen from the air and expel carbon dioxide, the brain takes input and produces thoughts. Now, you don’t think of “yourself” as carbon dioxide, do you? The same should go for thoughts.

While we are making sure you separate your identity from your brain’s byproducts, also consider this: You can observe your thoughts. So, if you were merely your thoughts and nothing more, there would be no need for an internal voice to communicate anything — you’d already know. To Gawdat, it’s more proof that while the brain is critically important, it’s not all of you.

This leads to the hopeful conclusion that you have power over your thoughts. That little voice in your head? Well, you don't have to do anything it says. You can choose not to listen to it at all! Better yet, you can train it to think in ways that bring happiness to you and, potentially, the whole world.

Feeling empowered? Great. As promised, we’ll start with the top-level operations of our brains, so you can begin to identify what needs attention. Gawdat starts with a basic concept — an operational diagram — of how all computational systems operate. While he expands on it with a model that’s more complex, we’ll stick with the simple one to keep things brief.

First, we have inputs. They account for all the information that you put into a system. Next are processes, which describe what a system does with its inputs. Finally, there are outputs — whatever those inputs and processes produce.

If you are looking for happiness in life, then it’s likely you aren’t entirely pleased with your output. You may have tried a few things in your processes with no big improvements. With a computer, that would be like updating software, yet the machine still runs slowly. For you, maybe you’ve picked up meditating or established an exercise routine yet still are not feeling it, much less seeing results. Don’t worry. We’re getting there.

Let’s start at the beginning of the operational diagram to consider what may be happening with your inputs. Here’s a quick exercise to prime your mind. Take five minutes in a quiet spot and reflect on the past week. Jot down everything you can recall hearing, seeing, experiencing, or even feeling. and any thoughts you may have had about them. That’s it!

Keep your list. You’ll want to return to it after we look at the various things happening in your brain that can cause trouble.

Start troubleshooting the four reasons our brains can cause unhappiness

Count down from four slowly. Four. Three. Two. One.

Gawdat says there are four main reasons our brains can cause unhappiness, and understanding them will help you troubleshoot when it happens. The countdown also helps you to remember the details of each. There are four types of faulty inputs, three defense mechanisms, two “polarities,” and one bad type of thought.

Use questioning and new habits to debug your brain

We just covered the four main reasons your brain can make you unhappy, complete with a handy countdown to call them up as needed. Remember “4, 3, 2, 1” every time you sense a problem in your operating system.

To counter them, Gawdat offers many exercises for awareness and to reprogram your mind for better outputs.

Optimize your brain, and have a positive impact on the world, through useful thinking

When you think of someone achieving the ultimate state of bliss, your mind may go to a Zen Buddhist monk who has mastered the practice of meditation and quieting the mind. While that is a good example, it’s not practical for most of us to dedicate several hours a day to traditional meditation as monks do. Plus, it isn’t the only way to happiness.

Meditation is a useful tool to calm the mind and stop rumination, which we now know is a leading cause of unhappiness. But what do you do when you simply can’t shut out the world for extended periods of time?

Key ideas in That Little Voice in Your Head

What is That Little Voice in Your Head about?

That Little Voice in Your Head (2022) is a guide to understanding and optimizing your brain so you can live a happier life, using concepts from computer science and neuroscience to map the mind as an operating system. It includes many simple exercises to help you take control of your brain, thoughts, and emotions to reshape your own experience and positively affect the lives of others.

About the Author

Mo Gawdat is the former chief business officer for Google X, an entrepreneur, and three-time best-selling author. His other titles include Solve for Happy and Scary Smart. He is the founder of “One Billion Happy,” a movement to help one billion people achieve happiness, He hosts a top-ranked podcast, Slo Mo, in which he and other thought leaders discuss mental health, happiness, and where these human qualities intersect with rapid AI development.