#122: Happiness...

0:00I used to think that my happiness was tied to the amount of progression that I was making. So I always found myself when I was progressing so much, I was more happy. And I thought that was a positive thing because if I wasn't happy, it was a good reminder that I wasn't progressing, which meant I need to strive for more progression so that I can finally be happy. And I remember sitting down with Toby Pierce and he humbled me and said, that's a very slippery slope. it's a very bad place to be and i proceeded to ask why and he said something quite profound he said when you're on your way to mastery which is what progress is doing you're progressing towards a particular goal when you're on your way towards mastery the closer you get to it the harder it is to progress you can imagine like there's a hundred pieces of information that you can build which gets you to mastery.

1:04And the first 90 % you can kind of obtain in, say, two years, but to get the remaining 10 % to achieve mastery might take you a decade. The progression starts like this, and then it starts to plateau. So if your happiness is tied to the amount that you're progressing, but the goal is mastery. The closer you get towards mastery, the less happy you're going to be. And I just went, oh shit. My whole view is skewed. My whole view on happiness is so skewed. And then to my surprise, well, not really, I found out that that was quite a normal lens for people. People thought it was a good thing that their happiness was tied to progression.

1:53It got me thinking on happiness. What actually is happiness? And why is it this thing that we should be striving towards? And what is the thing that makes us happy? So then what I did was I went, okay, let's get inventory of all of the moments where I was the most happy. I feel like that's a good place to start. If I can identify the moments in my life where I was the most happy, then maybe that would give me an idea on how I actually got to that state of happiness. So I looked back and I thought about all of the things that I've done in my life and all the moments that I drew on that I remember, that I smile about when I think about.

2:38And a couple of things came to mind. But the underlying thing in every single moment that I was the most happy, every single memory that I look back on and smile. I was the most present. When I was the most present, I was the happiest. And, you know, I've interviewed countless billionaires, countless celebrities, and massive names on my show. And from interviewing them and understanding happiness and where their happy places are as well, a common denominator that I've found is presence. whenever they can access the most amount of presents they're the most happy so then the thing on top of that is does materialistic things make you more present does a fancy handbag make you more present does a nice car make you more present does money and the dollar signs in your bank account make you more present, potentially to some degree.

3:43But when we're looking back at our life and all the things that are our most fondest memories, does it have anything to do with any of those things? No. When I go back and I think about some of the most amazing times over the past six months, frankly, the most amazing times are the ones that were spent with people that I love and care about deeply. And when we were doing next to nothing, those are the times I draw on when I'm sitting by a lake with my best friend, when I'm, you know, hugging someone on the couch that I'm in love with, or, you know, when I'm on a run and I'm experiencing something with a sunrise or I go for a swim in the ocean, all of these things are the things I draw on.

4:35You know, when I give my dad a surprise holiday and I see him start crying because he hasn't traveled very much, all of these things are the things that really bring me happiness. And so the thing that it made me do is it made me dive deeper on my goals and what I'm trying to achieve. And then I asked myself the question, do I actually want the life that's on the other side of this striving? do i actually want the outcome of what i'm doing and let me tell you for a lot of the things i did but there was also things that i i didn't want and um and that's why i've deep dove on happiness and we're gonna talk solely on happiness today but let's bring up this money piece is that the thing that makes me happy?

5:30No. Does it help contribute to my happiness? Yes. And I actually wrote a piece on it that I'm going to read to you. Did money buy me happiness? Money didn't buy me happiness. It bought me silence. The kind that comes when I stopped needing to impress. It didn't make me louder. It made me clearer. I stopped explaining myself because I no longer needed to be understood. It's not about the things it bought. It's about the weight it took off. The pressure to please, the urge to play small, the habit of pretending. And now I speak my truth. And it's not to be heard, but because it's mine. I stop chasing approval.

6:20I don't flinch at judgment because if they walk away and everyone leaves me, I'll still eat. I'll still sleep. I'll still rise. Money didn't change me. It gave me permission to finally be me. So when we assess happiness, I think it's important to talk on money. And the reason for this. There's a lot of people listening to a podcast and a talk on happiness are probably high achievers. They probably want a great life. They probably want an abundance in their life. And money's a key pillar of that. It's one of the key commodities that we transact in in the world. So in order to live a fruitful life, we can't disregard the fact that money is important a lot of the time.

7:07But when we understand why we're making the money, it's really important. Because if your money is sacrificing the happiness, then it's not worth it. So a lot of the time we can chase money for external things and it actually won't bring us more happiness, which is what we actually want. It won't bring us more peace, more joy, more fulfillment because we're chasing money and earning money for the wrong reasons. And so I think money is an important piece. For me, the freedom that money gave me is that it gave me the permission to be me it gave me this sense of i know who i am and i'm okay if you don't and i think before i had any money what it did was i felt the need to show up in a way that wasn't me because i was scared of getting left or scared of not having people in my life to lean on.

8:12The money allowed me to truly be who I am. And so now that I know that, my whole concept around money has changed. Making a billion dollars doesn't excite me. But being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and support the people around me and spend time with whoever I want is the thing that excited me about money. when I look back at all of the moments where I was most happy you know another common denominator that I had in all of those times I wasn't alone I was with people that I love so connection is the key to happiness because connection helps you be more present which presence is the key to happiness for me I spend a lot of time alone and it's by design it's by choice but when I think about it I am not happiest when I'm alone I'm happiest when I'm with people that I love so then the question then becomes why do I want to spend so much time alone why do I isolate myself so much when I know that connection is the key to more happiness so we go down another rabbit hole sometimes we need to spend enough time alone so we really know who we are so that then when we show up with the people around us we're showing up in our truest version of ourself when we don't spend time in solitude we blend into everyone else that we're around you know that saying whether some of the people that we hang around it's true so if you don't hang around with yourself in solitude enough of course you're not going to be yourself because at this point you're just blending into everyone that you're around so the solitude's important but recognize that we can't use the solitude as a cope we can't use the solitude as a runaway scheme but we need the solitude to really deep dive and understand who we are so when we show up with people around us we're showing up in the truest version of ourself i think i i wrestle with this a little bit i wrestle with wanting to be alone all the time and i question whether i am i'm like coping from something or i'm not wanting to be around people for a certain reason maybe that i haven't discovered yet and so i do question that but I don't know if I'm alone in saying this I I love being around people but it takes me a lot to be around people I've gotten so comfortable being by myself that I really enjoy just being alone but then I have this yearning for connection at the same time it's like a wrestle where I I want to be with people but I I don't at the same time so I say no a lot of the time when going to hang out with people um in fact for the most part i say no what really excites me is is one-on-one time really like spending time with one or two people and that's it so whether it's a romantic partner a woman that i have in my life i'm seeing a lady at the moment and like any moment i get to just spend time with her i absolutely love or whether it's with some of my best friends like sam or hunter i will happily go and spend time with them but when it becomes a group thing i like repel it i don't know what that is i don't know if there's an insecurity there i don't know if there's a a uh like a a part of me that i'm I'm not wanting to show up in that way but what I bring it back to all the time is like I just don't need to prove myself I don't need to like explain myself to anyone I never want to and so when I go to a group setting a lot of the time there's new people and I just can't be asked so then I result in not even going at all and when we tie this back into happiness I get the most happy and I'm the most present when I'm with people that I truly love.

12:46And so perhaps it's like this polarity of cherishing relationships with few as opposed to having connection with many. So deep connection with few over shallow connection with many is probably the approach that I'm having. I meet someone that I gravitate towards so much that I really want to be around and I will invest so much time, energy into that person. Romantically, platonically, I'll give them all my all. I will help them wherever I can, buy them whatever I want, be kind, respectful, introduce them to anyone that I think is going to be beneficial for them and I want to give them my all. But the people that don't fit in that, it's like I just don't want them even near me.

13:30It's this weird polarity. but I guess it's something that I'm working on drop a comment down below if you are resonating with any of this if you feel like you are wrestling with this nature where you love being alone but you also love connection so there's a yearning for connection and sometimes you feel lonely and you feel like you don't have anyone around you but then you're doing it by design as well. Let me know if anyone else feels that. But I truly believe that connection is the key to happiness. It's the key to presence, which then can unlock more happiness. And it's definitely something that I'm working on.

14:12One thing that I find absolutely strips away your happiness is expectations. So I learned this the hard way. You know, when I started out in business, when I started with my first relationship, when I moved to a new city or I wanted to move to a new city, what I did was I set these massive expectations on what something was going to be like. Then I got there or I experienced that thing or I met this person or I made this money or I started this business. And guess what? The reality didn't meet the expectation. And I realized this key thing. When your expectation's here and your reality is here, the gap between that's disappointment.

14:57And so when you set all these massive expectations on the life you want to live, the dream partner that you want to have, the place you want to be in, the money you want to make, the houses you want to sell, whatever it might be, when you set all these massive expectations, most of the time it doesn't go to plan. How often do your plans come to life to a T on how you planned them? Not very often. So if you know that, that it doesn't happen very often, if you set expectations, you were guaranteed to be disappointed. I learned to stop setting expectations. In order to achieve more happiness, I had to stop setting expectations.

15:38I kept setting these expectations. Then reality would slam me in the face and remind me that, hey, you shouldn't have set them because now even though this thing is great, it's not as good as your expectations. So you are humbled right now. You don't feel good. You don't have a smile. You have more of a frown. And it's just not valuable. It's not a productive lens to live in. And so the realization there is less expectation equals more happiness. You want more happiness, throw your expectations in the bin. I don't like to have any expectations now. When I launch a business, yeah, I have goals, but I'm fully detached from the outcome.

16:16because I know that when I attach myself to an outcome that's not yet happened yet, how do I know that's going to happen? And even if it does happen, if I expect it, then the outcome is just going to be normal. So I'm not even going to feel good about it anyway. The only way that I can feel good about an outcome if I set expectations on that outcome is if the outcome exceeds my expectation because expectation or below is just normal or disappointed.

16:48so there's no value in an expectation think about all of the relationships that you have in your life when you set expectations on what they can do for you and they don't meet it how do you feel or when you set expectations on what they should do for you and then they meet it how do you feel it's just it's just a nothingness it's either nothingness or disappointment So what value does that lens have at all in your life? It has no value at all in your life. This is why I think the tipping system in America is so skewed. In hospitality, they expect you to tip. So regardless of whether the service is good or bad, they expect you to tip.

17:32So when you leave a tip, they're not even happy. And if you don't leave a tip, they're mad at you. They'll probably spit in your meal. So now all of a sudden, even though the service is not great, they expect a tip. They're never happy. Do you ever see a waiter happy with a tip when they're watching you press the tip button? Never, ever. If you go to Australia, people are stoked. Sometimes they don't even let you tip. But they are stoked if you tip them. That's because they don't have expectations for tips. Now I get the hospitality in America. They don't pay their staff very well. So they kind of rely on tips.

18:17I get that. It's capitalistic. It's perfect. Fits America to a T. But in Australia, there's no expectation. They love a tip. So how can you apply that to everything in your life? Expectation will dissolve all your happiness. And I don't know about you. I don't really want my happiness dissolved. I think when I think about happiness and I unpack what it actually is, Imangaji said a great thing a while ago. He said, happiness is a combination of peace, joy, and fulfillment. So can you access peace? Are you joyful? Do you have a smile? And are you being fulfilled? So does your life overall feel fulfilling?

19:09do you have joy? Are you happy about the thing? And are you at peace?

19:18If I'm not at peace, I'm not really that happy. You know, if I'm not enjoying the thing, I'm not really that happy. If something's hard, I get out the other side and I'm joyful that the heart is finished and there's happiness there. but in the mud, I'm not that happy. But maybe there's a way that we can access happiness in all of the good and all of the bad. You know, I talk about this stoic approach all the time of Ryan Holiday, the obstacle is the way, the only way to access the light is to go through the dark. And you know, we talk about this yin and yang, this polarity between good and bad and how without without bad, there's no good.

20:06And I think that's so true. I think a big thing about how I'm able to access the level of peace that I have right now is because of all the lows I went through. And, you know, I had a blessed upbringing. My parents are the most amazing people in the world. They looked after me. All of my pain's been self-inflicted. I put my back against the wall so many times on my own accord. I went through the suffering myself. My parents were the most amazing for me. And so I was blessed with a great upbringing, but I was also blessed that I had the courage to put myself in the mud a couple of times because now like being in negative debt was so great for me because I don't really fear going down to zero now.

20:52And I do apologize in advance for my future wife because my risk tolerance is through the roof and so you know when I when I when I settle down with a wife and kids obviously that's going to change but like if Matthew McConaughey called me up tomorrow and he said hey I want to I want to come on your podcast we need to do a cinema production need to go drop a hundred thousand dollars and go to Cape Town to record with him in a mansion and have a cinema team there to do it I would just do it and um and I don't have like a, I don't care. Like, am I going to get a hundred grand return from that episode?

21:31Maybe not, but I trust that it'll all work out. And so like, I'm blessed for all of the low times because it's allowed me to enjoy so much more now. I can literally sit with my best friend and we both have zero dollars in our bank and we could laugh. And I know we could because we laughed when we had negative. So if we laughed when we had negative, we could laugh when we have positive. or we can laugh when we're at zero. And I know that. And so the obstacle is the way. Happiness does come a lot easier when you've gone through more pain together. If you look at like the Tate brothers, Andrew Tate, Tristan Tate, for example, those guys could literally laugh and have so much joy from not a lot of things because they were in a prison cell together.

22:25like genuinely they could laugh and have joy in something that's like so randomly nothing because of what they've been through together below below and they've been through these low times um i've spoken about this a little bit but the the polarity between the low and the high with someone dictates how strong the connection is. A lot of the time, if you look at the strongest connections that you have in your life, they're the ones that you've experienced lows and highs with. They're not just ones that you've had only highs with. They're the ones that you've experienced lows and highs because the polarity strengthens the connection.

23:08So if we tie this back into happiness and connection being the key to happiness, the way that we build stronger a connection is to go through experiences with that person, both low and high experiences. So when we can experience low and high together, it strengthens. So if we want more happiness, we need to go through more experiences with someone else because connection is the key to happiness. So we need to go through more experience with someone else, both high and low. and so if we want to go through low we should take more risks because not all the time it's going to win so then actually taking more risk leads to more happiness because taking more risks means that you're going to step outside your comfort zone more you're more likely to fail and then you're more likely to have low times to look back on when you're in the high times which makes the high times even greater.

24:08So if the key to happiness is presence, and the key to access presence is to be with someone that you love and connect with, but the way you can connect with someone is to experience things with them, both high and low, the way we experience low times together is by going through more risk. then the actual answer to more happiness is to take risks with people that you care about in your life and overcome the low times that you're inevitably going to that you're inevitably going to get put in because of taking those risks huh that's that's interesting so now risk is the thing that unlocks more happiness.

25:00Where's the line then? There has to be a line here where you can get addicted to taking risks. And then what happens is you're forever putting your back against the wall and you're forever going to be in a state of stress and it becomes counterproductive because you get addicted to the risk-taking. So you never have access to peace because you're constantly putting your back against the wall. You might be fulfilled, but you're not going to have access to peace. So then you're not going to be happy. So maybe for me, if I'm thinking about my journey now, maybe what it is, is going through enough low so that most of the things in your life that are perceived to be bad by most people, you don't perceive to be bad because you've gone through enough flow, but you've also realized that you've actually gone through enough mud now that you don't need to be putting yourself in mud all the time in order to appreciate the things that you have in your life because you've already got enough comparison points in your life to compare to so that you can find joy in life easy now.

26:11Maybe that's what it is.

26:16sometimes i i i smile and i laugh about where my mind goes at times because like i have a few notes here but i have no idea what i'm talking about the title of this podcast is called happiness and i'm just letting my mind wander on the thought of happiness you see connection is is really important for happiness but my new routine involves a lot of solitude been getting up at 4 a.m in the mornings and i've been reading and writing and i go out there and i sit by the fire as the sun's rising like three or four hours after the i think the sun rises at like 7 a.m i get up at four so like three hours of sitting over on my lounge or sitting at my desk and writing.

27:10I then walk out and I sit by the fire and I watch the sunrise a few hours later and I drink a cup of coffee. And these are some of my favorite parts of the day. I might walk down to the beach and go for a swim. I'm here living in Malibu now. and all of these things are like key highlights of my day and they're alone but in reflection I think the only reason I'm able to do this now is because I've got to a level where I don't feel the need to please anything or please anyone and then on top of that these hours alone

27:57intentionally they allow me to show up as the best version of myself to the people around me so i look at this camera right now and i'm treating everyone here like the people around me i want to show up in the best version of me to the hundreds of thousands of people tuning in because I know that if I show up as the best version of me, they can be impacted by what I'm saying and who I am. So I do little things like I laid down on that couch and I did a breath work. I did 10 minutes of breathing before I pressed play. And I did that so I can show up as the best version of me. I can be present. I can be here.

28:41And I know I'm going to watch back this. I'm going to be a harsh critic. There's going to be things that I want to improve on. There's going to be things that I enjoyed. There's going to be moments that I'm proud of because I've come a long way. And there's also going to be moments where I go, Chris, we need to cut that out. We need to start better here. We need to do more here. And I think that's okay because it's critical. It means I care. But I think being able to do this time, solitude, in the mornings, in quiet, in the silence, and then do things like this where I'm serving the world. After I turn these off and I finish up my work and I go up to Hunter's house tonight and I hang out with him and we cook up some steaks together as boys and I speak to someone on the phone and I connect with my family, maybe call my mom, I know that I'm going to be able to be fully present with those people, which is the thing that's going to access the most amount of happiness.

29:39I know I'm going to be able to do that because I've showed up for me and I've served for others already beforehand. So maybe that's the fulfillment piece. Maybe that's the peace and the fulfillment piece in that trifecta of happiness, the peace, joy, fulfillment. Maybe the peace aspect is those few hours in the morning that is quiet and calm. And maybe that's the fulfillment aspect of serving to others, of showing up to you guys, listening to this right now. And then by doing those things, I'm able to access the joy of spending time and connecting with the people that I care about most. And because of that, I've ticked the box of all three in one day, which unlocks that overarching term that we all want, happiness.

30:36Maybe that's the secret. If we can show up in service of others, we unlock fulfillment. If we can show up for ourself in silence with no distraction, we unlock peace. And then after we've done that, we can show up with others and be fully present, knowing that we've fulfilled ourselves and we've had peace and we've had time to show up for ourselves so that then we can show up with everyone else with the utmost presence. and then that unlocks happiness. I think we're getting somewhere here. I think we're unlocking happiness more here. I like where this is going. So then the next piece is where does stress lie into this?

31:19I feel people are always so stressed. And I have moments where I am quite stressed. Recently, I haven't been quite stressed. And when I think about where stress comes from, there's two things that come to my mind straight away. You're lacking clarity as the first thing. You're lacking clarity on everything. And what that does is it fogs your vision and makes you stressed. That's definitely a pillar of stress. The other thing that comes to my mind is you've overflowed your plate. You've said yes to too many things. That's where I get stressed. when I'm trying to pour my cup into all these things.

32:05I've got so many projects. My mind's bouncing from idea to idea, thing to thing, moment to moment, task to task. Stress comes from that. But I think the thing that trumps all of that is when you're spending time doing things you don't want to do to please people you don't even care about, to get paid something that you're not even worth. That's where stress comes. I saw this quote, you're not stressed because you're doing too much. You're stressed because you're doing too little of what makes you feel most alive. You're spending the hours that you have in your day on things that you don't want to do.

32:51You're spending hours of your day doing things that make you want to go lay on a couch, not run on a treadmill. They don't inspire you, they drain you. That's where the stress comes. You know, I can have a full plate, but if I'm inspired by everything that I'm doing, I want to have a full plate. I don't want to sleep. I want to delegate my sleep. When I'm fully inspired, I can spring out of bed in the morning. Damn, I don't even need an alarm. When I'm inspired with everything that I'm doing, life becomes very exciting. I can be busy, but it doesn't mean that I'm stressed. Stress comes from doing too little of what makes you feel most alive.

33:40So maybe there's an inventory check that you should do. What are the things in my life that make me feel more alive? What are the things that make me light up, that give me a little bit of a spring in my step when I'm hopping into my car or I'm opening the front door, I'm sitting down at my desk? What are the things that make me tap my feet on the ground a couple more times? What makes me smile? What lights me up? Do more of that. Because I tell you, if you do more of that, stress will dissolve. And when stress dissolves, you can show up as the best version of you and then that whole thing can come to life ultimately accessing more presence to then be more happy the thing that i'm just pondering on right now is is i'm saying that i'm most present when i'm with someone that i i love and when i'm with people that i care about do i access true presence when I'm alone.

34:56I would say that I do, but it's fleeting. Because my mind bounces around all the time. Like I can be on a walk by myself, but I'm thinking. I can look at the trees. I can look at the flowers. I can say hello to the neighbor. But really, I'm still not like truly present. the moments where i'm truly present is when i look at the clock and four hours have gone by when i only thought one hour had that's true presence where you lose track of time and it's very rare that i lose track of time when i'm by myself it can't happen don't get me wrong maybe that's when i'm in my flow state when i'm writing or something i can lose track of time but when i draw back on the moments where i am most present most of the time it's when I'm with other people.