How Did Obama "Barack" America?

Though happiness.

Strategists, pundants, politicians, and even the President-Elect himself will espouse different theories for why the United States elected Barack Obama our 44th president. Sure Obama might be dismissed simply as “the right man at the right time.” He talks about empowering the lower and middle classes, ending the war in Iraq, investing in the creation of a green economy, making education work, and leading collectively and with compassion at a time when America and much of the world is a bleeping mess. But I have been sharing these same notions with my clients, friends, and family longer than Senator Obama has been in the Senate. So what gives?

Let me go down in the annals declaring it was Obama’s contagious enthusiasm and his performance of psychological wealth that catapulted him from obscurity to worldwide intrigue (quite like another eloquent community organizer from Nazareth a few thousand years before him).

In their groundbreaking book, Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, father and son positive psychology duo Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener make the case for why it pays to exchange the pursuit of financial wealth for psychological wealth. They define the latter as “the experience of well-being and a high quality of life…. The experience that our life is excellent- that we are living in a rewarding, engaged, meaningful, and enjoyable way.” According to Diener and Biswas-Diener, psychologically wealthy people perform better, do more creative work, earn the most respect and status, surround themselves with nutritious people (the latter is actually leadership coach and trainer Steve Barberio’s phrasing), partake in some religious or spiritual practice, and play to their strengths on a regular basis.

Our President-Elect is the living incarnation of a man engaged in purposeful and rewarding work, relationships, and spiritual life. America sees this and hopes that by embracing Obama we are embracing the possibility that we may have access to at least a piece of the optimism that seems so easy for him to embody. Each time Senator McCain, Governor Palin, or other critics of Obama’s politics of hope attacked him, he just smiled bigger, breathed more deeply, spoke more eloquently, and as a result, invested more and more of us overworked and generally under-inspired saps in working for his election.

Obama has made activism sexy to millennials, gen-xers, baby boomers, and matures in a way no other American could by understanding that at the end of the day, Americans don’t want a president we can belly up with to a bar. We want someone who makes us feel good about our values, our work, our families, our future, and ourselves. While we may tune in to reality TV and pour over trashy gossip mags to get the latest scoop on celebrities gone crazy, we don’t want self-indulgent, unhappy, and insecure folks calling the shots from the White House. We’re equally as tired of angry, overzealous, power-loving leaders. We want someone who is a mirror for the kind of person we aspire to be: happy, humble, and engaged 24-7 in a purpose-driven life.