The Yacht Race: Why Even the Super-Rich Fall For the Myth that More Money Equals More Happiness.

If even billionaires get the blues when they compare themselves to richer peers, maybe we should challenge our belief that money always increases wellbeing.

People are normally pretty receptive to the scientific findings I share in my class and on my podcast. Even when the results of a particular study conflict with people’s intuitions about what makes for a happy life – my audience is usually willing to hear me out and trust what the research says. 

Except, that is, when it comes to the findings that money doesn’t play as big of a role in our happiness as we think. 

Now, let’s be clear... it’s not that money doesn’t buy you happiness. Having a higher salary definitely can improve your wellbeing if you’re living in poverty – but the research shows that once you reach a certain income level, any additional money you receive doesn’t greatly increase your mood or reduce your stress. 

(According to 2010 research by the Nobel Prize winners Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, after reaching a household income of $75,000, getting more money won’t improve your emotional wellbeing. That's around the US median household income.) 

I’ve come to realize that this isn’t a message that people like to hear. My students often email to query these findings, wondering if there’s some loophole or exception. My podcast listeners leave rude comments and reviews - saying I’m an idiot. Even some of my friends push back on this idea – telling me that $75k is nowhere near enough to live a happy life. 

And I get it. The idea that great wealth must be linked to happiness is pretty pervasive in our culture. 

When I was growing up people dreamed of becoming a millionaire – thinking it would solve all their problems and allow them to live a blissful life. Today, people want to be billionaires – assuming they’d be happier living on a whole private island rather than in a mere beachfront mansion. 

But those top 0.003% - the ultra-high-net-worth individuals - aren’t necessarily any happier than the rest of us.

There’s lots to unpack about why that’s the case – but here I want to look at just one aspect of the disconnect between money and happiness, and it’s related to last week’s article about how we compare ourselves to others. 

Now, I don’t hang around posh marinas and I know next to nothing about boats – so I figured a million dollars would probably get you a yacht that was pretty much top of the line. 

But the recent impounding of superyachts belonging to Russia’s mega-rich oligarchs (as part of economic sanctions following the horrific invasion of Ukraine) has taught me more about fancy boats than I ever wanted to know. 

I recently read about the 157-foot “Lady Anastasia,” which is now being held in a Spanish port, and figured that must be one of the biggest private boats out there. But then I saw reports of the impounded 240-foot “Axioma” and its estimated $75m price tag, and figured that’s got to be the height of yacht glory.

But then followed stories about the seizure of boats worth $100m… then $600m… and finally the impounding of a yacht so big that it wouldn’t even fit inside a football stadium: the Dilbar, which looks like a floating town and is rumored to cost as much as $750m. 

Each craft in the news dwarfed the one before. The Axioma made the Lady Anastasia look like a row boat… and the Dilbar towers over them both.

It all reminded me of a conversation I had with Clay Cockerall, a psychotherapist who counsels the super-rich. He hears a lot about the woes of yacht envy. He told me that ultra-high-net-worth individuals also fall for the myth that ever extra dollar will bring them greater joy – and that if they aren’t happy, it must mean they don’t have enough money yet. 

“I've worked with people who've had $50m and they say: ‘Yeah, but I really can't do everything that I want.’ One guy had $500m but had a sense that: ‘Once I hit that billion, that's when things really change.’”

On top of all the other problems great wealth can bring, Clay says that the ultra-rich often find themselves cut off from the vast majority of people. They hang around with other wealthy people – and can’t help but compare their own fortunes to those of their friends and rivals.

“It gets to be like a scorecard with your peers,” says Clay. 

Can you imagine how the owner of the Lady Anastasia would have felt if the hulking Dilbar docked alongside – blotting out the sun? What had seemed like the height of sailing luxury would quickly be overshadowed. 

“Sometimes we compare downward … [but] there's a pronounced tendency we have to make upward comparisons in all areas of life,” the University of North Carolina psychologist Keith Payne said on a great episode of Hidden Brain. 

“Upward social comparisons feel terrible,” Keith says.

Keith's the author of "The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects The Way We Live, Think, And Die”, which suggests a way out of this pervasive kind of social comparison: “Instead of just thinking about … people who have more than us, we can remind ourselves that there are a lot of people around who have less than us.”

But the strong bias we have to equate amassing money and possessions with gaining greater happiness makes me worry that not many Russian oligarchs will be heeding Keith’s advice. 

Like many of us, I’d be willing to bet when faced with mega-yachts like the Dilbar they would simply mutter… “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” 

But they'd be wrong. 

Stay well and stay happy,

Laurie