Cheer your brain in 90 seconds: Ex-Google executive shares Harvard expert's hack to beat stress and find happiness

Mo Gawdat, who once served as the chief business officer at Google X — Google’s moonshot innovation lab — has spent over two decades analyzing happiness through a mix of logic, philosophy, neuroscience, and lived experience. One of his most powerful discoveries, he recently said on the High Performance podcast, is what he calls the “90-second rule” — a simple mental habit that could dramatically shift how we process negative emotions.

In 2014, Gawdat’s world came crashing down when his 21-year-old son, Ali, passed away due to medical negligence during a routine appendix surgery. The devastating blow would be enough to leave anyone broken, but Gawdat chose to channel his grief differently. Seventeen days after the tragedy, he began writing Solve for Happy, a book that would go on to become a global bestseller on the science of happiness. It was his way of honoring Ali, and a promise to share what he had learned about living meaningfully despite suffering.

The 90-Second Rule
The rule is rooted in neuroscience. Gawdat credits Harvard-trained brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor, who found that when we feel stress or anger, the chemical storm — involving hormones like cortisol and adrenaline — usually flushes out of the body in about 90 seconds. After that, we’re essentially replaying the emotional loop in our heads.

“But then what happens is, you run the thought in your head again, and you renew your 90 seconds,” Gawdat explained. “While in reality, what you get after those 90 seconds is a buffer ... [which] allows you to say, ‘Now, what am I going to do?’”

In other words, we extend suffering by reliving painful thoughts over and over. Gawdat encourages using that 90-second biological window to fully feel the emotion — and then decide to move on.

Everyday Example, Everyday Escape
Picture this: you're cut off in traffic. Your blood boils, you mutter some choice words, maybe slam the horn. Most people let that irritation simmer for hours — retelling the story, replaying the moment. But what if, as Gawdat suggests, you simply took a deep breath, blasted your favorite song, and focused on something else instead?

The 90-second rule doesn’t mean suppressing emotion — it’s about honoring your reaction, but refusing to be trapped by it.

Three Questions That Can Break the Loop
To reinforce the habit, Gawdat relies on three powerful questions that serve as a mental audit during moments of distress:

• Is it true?
• Can I do something about it?
• Can I accept it and move forward despite it?

“Ninety percent of the things that make us unhappy are not even true,” he told High Performance. He gives a relatable example — a partner says something hurtful, and suddenly your mind spirals into believing they no longer love you. But often, it’s just an emotional misfire. If the answer to the first question is no, he says, let it go. If it’s yes, move to the next. And if there’s nothing you can do, accept it — not passively, but with “committed acceptance,” a term he uses to describe intentional action despite circumstances.

Building a Habit for Happiness
Of course, forming a habit like this doesn’t happen overnight. A 2009 study by researcher Phillippa Lally found that it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to develop a new behavior, depending on the person. But Gawdat believes that even being aware of how we respond to difficulty is a crucial first step.

“Life doesn’t give a s--- about you,” he said bluntly in another interview on Simon Sinek’s A Bit of Optimism podcast. “It’s your choice how you react to every one of [life’s challenges]… It’s your choice to set your expectations realistically.”

For Gawdat, life is not about avoiding pain — it’s about learning to live with it, think through it, and choose joy anyway.

The key to happiness isn’t to chase happiness. It’s to REMOVE unhappiness. 🙂

Credits: Simon Sinek & Mo Gawdat pic.twitter.com/xrKoYAYxD8

— Alvin Foo (@alvinfoo) June 25, 2025

Who Is Mo Gawdat?
Mo Gawdat is not just a tech executive and author, he’s one of today’s leading voices on emotional intelligence in the age of AI and hyper-productivity. After stepping down from Google X in 2018, he authored multiple books including Solve for Happy, Scary Smart, That Little Voice in Your Head, and Unstressable. Across all his work, a central message remains: You may not control what happens to you, but you can absolutely control what happens next.

So the next time you’re hit by life’s curveballs, remember the rule. You’ve got 90 seconds to feel it. After that, it’s your move.