The Secret To Fulfillment

0:04This is the Ed Milet Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. As you know, I'm now starting to answer questions on our Thursday releases that you can submit on Instagram at Ed Milet, and I'm going to answer your questions on topics you would like me to cover on the show. These shows on Thursdays, you'll hear them whenever, but they come out on Thursdays, 15 to 25, 30 minutes every single week. In addition to the interviews, the conversations that I do on Tuesdays that are about an hour long, we're now releasing these in addition. Fastest growing show in the world because it changes people's lives.

0:34And so this week, one of the questions that I got was, Ed, do you have any strategies that you can suggest to me on how I can improve the overall quality of my life, including gratitude? And by the way, everyone's asking these things that I don't hear from everybody else. And so I want to give you some things that you're not going to hear from everybody else. So listen, I want you to write this topic down. I want you to write this word down, observer. the quality of your life will increase dramatically if you begin to believe and act like an observer in your life. I want you to think about that just for a second.

1:10Observe really means to notice or perceive. One of the reasons we lack such gratitude or even happiness in our life is it's all happening so fast. And so we've lost sensory acuity in our life. What it means is that there's just information and stuff happening all the time. we're busy, our phone, our laptop, our computer, our TV, our Netflix, the meetings we have, the calls we have, our family, the obligations, the travel, whatever it might be, work. We just don't have time to observe. And so everything just happens quickly and we don't get any of the juice out of our life. And as a result, that's very difficult to be grateful.

1:45One of the ways that I define myself now is I'm an observer. What I mean by that is I'm an observation. I'm in my life as a participant is going to get pretty deep. I'm in my life as a participant every single day. I'm in my meetings. I have my phone calls. I have my family. I have my workouts. I have my dreams and the things I'm achieving. But if you're not careful, all the speed of that, all the busyness of that, you don't see anything. You don't feel anything. You don't experience anything in any depth. The depth of experience is the quality of our life. And so, I don't know, maybe about a decade ago, and probably a lot more about five years ago, I started to call myself to myself, I'm an observer of my own life.

2:30I'm an observer of humanity. I'm an observer of other people's lives. And so the more I started to condition myself to be more observational, to notice more, to perceive more, maybe I even slowed down just a little bit. The depth of the gratitude in my life, the depth of my ability to make decisions, my discernment, my intuition, frankly, my intellect, I have tapped into a superpower by becoming more observational. I'm going to give you examples and the teachings in a second. It's also caused me to be more grateful, more present, more peaceful, yet at the same time when I need to be even more intense and competitive than I've ever been before.

3:21That's because I'm in my life. Most people are just in their life. And they never are aware of it. They never observe it. Observation causes awareness. The happiest people, and by the way, the people that I love to be around the most in my life, are the most self-aware. I think it's one of the reasons I love stand-up comedians so much, so many of them are my friends, because they're so funny because they're so self-aware. They also, many of them use observational comedy. They observe things about life that we miss every single day. And then when they point it out, it's funny. Am I right? That's the only thing.

3:57Really, most comedy, a lot of comedy observations, like, well, we just miss it, but it's there. And so when a comedian tells us a joke about something, we go, or even don't take a comedian. Take in your religious services. Any of you that practice, your pastor or priest or rabbi or whatever it might be, will point something out. And it's something that you should be seeing and observing every day in your life, but you just miss. And then when they point it out, you go, yeah, that's obvious. So I want to talk to you a little bit about this for a minute. Number one, start to show more respect for people.

4:29What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is put your phone down. When someone walks in a room, put your phone down. When you go to dinner or lunch with them, don't put it on the table. Put it in your bag. Put it in your purse. Put it in your lap. Leave it in the car. This forces you to become more observational and present with people. And when you do that, it changes your life. So I become observational of these various things. I'm going to teach you how to do it. God's stuff. I observe God's stuff more into a level of depth that I never did. And this is going to sound hokey, but I'm going to give you some insights in it.

5:07I spend more time when I go outside and I hold my gaze at God's beauty longer. It's not that you don't walk outside and see a beautiful field or a stream or even a building that one of God's creatures as an architect created, but you hold it quickly. I've started to observe. This may sound really weird, but I did this this morning. I walked out behind my house. There's an ocean out there, which I can observe God's beauty there, but I did something much more simple. There's a, like, I wish I could show you. Well, I kind of could. I don't know if you guys can see that right out there. If you're watching on YouTube, there's like a garden above my water feature there.

5:41And I just walked out there and I sat there for a few minutes and I just stared at one leaf on one tree. And I kind of forced myself to observe it longer than I might. Just one leaf. I narrowed my focus down to one leaf and the nuances of it and the crevices. And I started to notice the different color in it and where it was cracked in one place. And I held that gaze for a good minute. Very different than normal. Oh, there's a tree. And then I moved to another one, another tree with a different leaf on it. I spent some time observing it. I was much more present with myself, much more present. I then walked back in the house and my family was having breakfast.

6:27Instantaneously, I was more present. And when I walked in, I paused for a second and I held the gaze and I watched my family and the beauty of them. My precious son's home from college. so was my daughter. They were both actually in the kitchen at the same time. They said, hey, what's going on, guys? I stopped. I just held a gaze. It's my only son. It's my only little girl. And I watched them for a little bit. And I appreciated them for a little bit. I let myself feel love for them just for a little bit. Just for a little bit. It filled me with gratitude. So I'm grateful for that. There's all these things around us all the time that if we just held the gaze a little longer and stopped looking around, not just put our phone down, that's basic.

7:23It just became fully present with a leaf, with a building, with a water feature, with a piece of... I do this lately where I stare at my hand and I just notice things about me that I've never noticed before. You know, most of you aren't familiar with your own hand. If I showed you your hand in a picture of the inside of your hand, you're probably not even familiar with where the lines are. I think that's my hand. I'm not sure it's my hand. If I don't even know that about me, what else don't I know about me? That's a pretty basic thing. I've been so busy, man, my gosh, I went decades and never even looked at my own hand.

8:03I mean, I see I have a hand, but you know what I mean. That depth of observation causes you, by the way, to vibrate much faster at a higher frequency. It causes you to have more gratitude and appreciation. It causes you to be more present with other people. I'm going to tell you right now, your decision-making, your thought processes, your ability to control your emotions are exponentially connected to your ability to observe and be present. And this is a skill. It is a talent. And it is not easy. I want to also tell you what I observe that's changed my life. I take time every day now to observe my breathing.

8:40You take for granted your breathing every single day. But if it stops right now, you end. It's probably something to pay attention to. So if I can get quiet and just pay attention to my breathing and hear myself and feel myself breathe, I'm much more self-connected. I'm much more grateful. I'm much more centered. I'm much smarter instantly. instantly, I'm stronger and smarter and more present. If you can't be present with yourself, you have no way in the world of being present with other people. You're like, hey, man, I'm busy. Number one thing in business, ability to build rapport and connect with people.

9:18If you can't connect and build rapport and connect with yourself, you can't do it with other people. People say to me all the time, your interviews are just different. In fact, Ed, I see some guests on one show, I see them on yours. It's a completely different conversation. Why is that? I think it's my ability to be present with them and connect with them because I'm connected with myself. So I ask a smarter question in the moment. I can feel something and energy from them that others don't feel and they feel from me. Now that makes a good podcast, but it also makes a good sales person. It also makes a good mother.

9:53It also makes a good everything. And so it's something that I really work on. So I perceive God's stuff. Art, I perceive. Architecture. My breathing is a huge one. Just for today, give yourself a gift. Just for a second right now.

10:15Feel yourself breathe. Remember that guy? Remember her? She's been there all the time. You. Busy you. Distracted you. She's been there all the time. Pay a little more attention to her. Pay a little bit more attention to him. It'll help you pay attention to everybody else. She's with you all the time. He's always been there. There's only been two constants in your entire life, God and you. How much attention do you pay to each of you? You got to give yourself that gift. It's why you're not happy. It's why you're not more productive. It's why you're not more influential. It's why you're not richer.

11:10It's why you don't have the emotions you want. It's why you don't have the body you want. It's why you don't have the things you want. Whatever the things are that you're lacking, it comes down to self-awareness, presence, and connection with oneself and one's maker. I pay attention to humanity. One thing I do a little bit more of than I've ever done in my life is when I walk into places, I observe people. I observe people. I walk into a restaurant. I'll watch until they come up to me. I'll watch people. And even when they do come up to me while they're talking, I observe them. I'm present with them.

11:42I look at their face. I wonder what their story is. I wonder what their history is. I love to people watch when I'm not noticed and I'm alone in an airport or somewhere. And I love just to watch God's creations, these precious humans. I know this may sound hokey, but I do it a lot. And I pray for them. People walk by me on the street. If they don't recognize me, I'll peace be with you. I just have that thought. This connects me to people. This gives me gratitude and depth. I don't want to be a one-dimensional human being. I want to have multiple dimensions and experience multiple emotions. And the way I do that is I observe.

12:22It sounds corny, but I love if there's stars out at night just to observe and take the time and notice them. You've all done this once or twice in your life, and it's just felt good. You can give yourself the gift of that every single day. Something I do kind of semi-regularly is I just look at me in the mirror and notice things about me that are aging or that have changed. But I like being present with me. It makes me more comfortable with me. I never liked myself before. I never liked myself. I built muscles on my body and made millions of dollars and knew famous people and did all these things to sort of hide from me.

13:02that's not a way to live. Pay attention to your breathing. Pay attention to people. Pay attention to humanity. Pay attention to God's stuff. Pay attention to people. Give them the respect. Show up on time. Show up early. Hold your gaze with someone longer when you see them. Hey, man, how are you? You know what you do? Hey, man, how are you? And hold the gaze a little longer. Hi, sister. I love you when you walk into your office just hold the gaze a little longer ask the question and listen just another tick how are you no man how are you see the difference how you doing buddy alright my man hey man how are you hold the gaze and listen it's good stuff It's how I sold so much.

14:02It's how I got so rich. It's not why I did it. It's why I got the biggest podcast. It's why people think I'm the best or one of the best speakers in the world. So if you're thinking, hey, man, this is FooFoo, this is business too. How are you? You okay? What's going on? What do you got that you're excited about? And listen. And here's a biggie. This was a hard one for me. Hold the hug longer when you see somebody. Hold the hug. Let me give you some data. After six seconds in a hug, the brain starts to release oxytocin and serotonin. Before that, it doesn't. So if I hug you, hey, what's up? Right?

14:46Or hey, it's nothing. If you hold a hug for six seconds, your brain now floods, starts to release, by the way, serotonin and oxytocin into both of you. Oxytocin, you're getting pleasure from that. People get addicted to this. You're getting pleasure from that. It also increases your immune system and reduces depression. If you can hold the hug for 10 seconds, you get what they call a serotonin oxy flood. A flood. So you're not only giving yourself that gift if you can do it, but you're giving yourself the gift to other people. What I'm basically saying here on everything is, if you could just hold the gaze a little longer, If you could pay attention to your breathing a little more, if you could just take a flower or a book or your hand or something and just get present with it and notice the different things, become an observer and noticer of things.

15:37If when you hug somebody, all the data tells us, hug it for six seconds, you both get the gift. You wait. If you do four seconds, you don't get any of it. Hold it for two more seconds. And you get this flood of oxytocin and serotonin. That's just one of God's greatest gifts. It's basically the gratitude chemical. if you want more gratitude. And so I know this is not stuff you think, wow, man, my tattoo jacked up, you know, super rich guy that's podcasting. Let's do it. Now he's talking about holding hugs longer and looking at flowers and staring at his hand and paying attention to his breathing.

16:11And yeah, because the question was, Ed, what is something that I can do to have more happiness, success, and gratitude that most people never talk about? So I could give you the normal list that everybody else talks about that I've talked about, or I could start on Thursdays to give you stuff you don't hear anywhere in the world. And it's this. And so, and that's why right now I can shift gears and get super intense because I'm fully present. I'm fully self-aware in the moment. Doesn't mean I always am, but it's helped me control my emotions. It's helped me control my thinking, my intellect, my relationships, all of it.

16:46And overall, be a more blissful, peaceful human being, a more connected one. If you really want to know the truth, it's so many of you pray every single day, but you're just checking the box. Can you be present in that moment and have an appreciation and gratitude for this beautiful time you're connecting with your maker? In my case, my savior. Can you just get a little bit more of the juice? Because here's what you're thinking. I'll get around to that, man. That's cool. I'll get around to that once I'm successful. I'm telling you, you won't be successful if you don't. You won't be. These are the things that have taken an average ordinary man like me and built a pretty good life.

17:27I don't have bad days. I have ups and downs. I have emotions. I'm human. I think I pretty much share that on Instagram all the time. I want to experience the bad emotions. Whatever you think is bad. I don't think there are good or bad emotions. They're just our emotions, right? I want to have all of them. I want to be present for them. I want to observe them. I want to be aware of them. I don't want to just go through my life busy, grabbing, accumulating stuff and thinking someday when I'm old, I'll get around to it. And what I found out was I started doing this young and that's how I got all the stuff.

18:05But at the same time, you can't love yourself if you don't know yourself and you can't know yourself if you don't spend any time with yourself. And so you got to spend some time. game. Man, it's such a great gift just to walk outside and go, what can I observe? Or even in your office, what can I observe? You know, before I started this Zoom, I'm like, I want to make sure the background's together. This is a true thing. I want to make sure the background's together. I've done a million Zooms from where I am. Can I tell you something? I started this and I went, what is that belt buckle? If you're on audio, it doesn't matter.

18:39What is that belt buckle? Oh my gosh. That's when I won that golf tournament with Milt Walker. Do you know how many Zooms I've done? And that thing's been there the whole time. I've never noticed it once. It's right in my spatial awareness and I haven't noticed it. What does that say? Right? So then I got up and before this, we started and I'm like, I stared at the belt buckle and I'm like, oh, Wyatt Earp. I remember that term. And then there's a sign that we won it. And they put this thing on our locker. And I remember the shot I hit to the 18th green. that was a crazy good seven iron I hit. And then Miltie had to make the putt from like six, eight feet.

19:16And he drained the putt and we jumped up and down and hugged. Everyone cheered and we won this golf tournament. It took me all the way back to that moment of total bliss. And it's only because I noticed it finally. But guess what that did for me? Then I'm like, crap, man, that was a victory. I win stuff. I'm a winner. Forgot we won that sucker, man. I've been winning stuff forever, right? And it changed my state. and it reminded me I win. It reminded me I'm supposed to win. It reminds me good things happen to me. Because quite frankly, this morning, a bunch of bad things happened. And I had to record two podcasts today.

19:51And I sat in here for like an hour before I recorded the first one thinking, how can I deliver? Man, I just don't have the juice today. I don't know that I want to do it. Someone wants me to talk about gratitude on a day where my day just started out crappy. And it was one small observation of the belt buckle over my head on Zoom that I didn't just take note of. I got up and looked at it. And it took me into that moment. And it completely shifted me. Something that simple. So observation changes everything in your life. And let's go back to that golf shot I hit. You know what required me to hit that golf shot at that time?

20:31I mean, I'm not a great golfer. This is just a golf tournament. But you know why I had the capacity to hit that golf shirt? My best golf shot under that most pressure? Because I was fully in that moment. I had fully appreciated that moment. And I took it all in. By the way, I can tell you, because I remember before I hit the shot, I was debating, is it a six or a seven? I threw the grass up in the air. And I can tell you right now, I can see that grass kind of just dropped down right onto my shirt and didn't blow over me. I can see those blades of grass right now. I remember going, no, the wind's not blowing that bad.

21:04I think I can hit seven. And I remember I stepped back. I took one practice swing. I had a bad back then. I was like, my back feels pretty good. And I got over that shot fully present, fully in the moment. My golf ball says max out on it. And the M was facing me. And I remember, just keep your eye on the M. Hit the M. I noticed the smallest possible observation. and right when i hit that thing i knew it was clear anybody had a good golf show gave that compression sound i'm like that's a good one that was a good one and there was about 100 people 150 people gathered around the green and i remember when it landed must have been a good one milty he goes i mean that's a good one right remember all the way back to that moment that moment and just a nothing golf tournament it's just a simple example of observation, being fully present, controlling and paying attention to my breathing, by the way, in that moment too, and then executing.

22:03All the way back, I don't know what that was, 15 years ago, I've done probably 2 ,000 Zooms in this seat and never noticed that belt buckle sitting right up there until today. Because I'm an observer and I wasn't having a great day, I turn and look, there's the belt buckle and I'm like I'm going to go observe more of it I'm going to take the nuance and the detail not a glance I'm going to hold the gaze a little longer and as I held that belt buckle up to me and I looked at it it took me right back into that moment of when we won completely changed my state that's why this stuff matters so hold the hug a little longer give people the respect to showing up notice and perceive a little bit more pay attention to your breathing.

22:48Notice God's stuff. Notice architecture. Notice people. Notice humanity. Hold the gaze. Take in more detail. Get more of the juice. And all of the juice you want in your life of the other things are much more likely to happen as a result. So I hope this helped you today. It went a little longer than I intended to. I really care about you. I probably don't say that enough. I care about your life. I care about you making a difference. I care about you being blissful. I want your family to be happy and successful, and I want you to live your dreams. And if I have any role in that, one millionth of 1%, it's the honor of my lifetime.

23:24That's why I do this work. That's why I'm here with you today. If you want to pay me back, share this episode with somebody. That's all I ask. Pay it forward. Let's spread the word. I'll see you next week, everybody. God bless you. Max out. This is The Ed Milad Show.