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Glenn Mattson
Building Blocks of Success. Welcome back to season four, Episode Eight. Today we're going to be talking about this crazy thing called happiness. Today we're going to embark on a journey to really explore one of the most essential components, I think, of a fulfilling and happy life, right, which is this term called happiness. So, let's get ready to dive into the intricacies of happiness, and the impact that has on our personal and business lives, and how this is a crazy ironic scenario where sometimes the more we try to be happy, the less we are calm. Listen in as we take his journey about happiness in season four, episode eight.
Glenn Mattson
You know, we all have a bucket list that hopefully all of you have that you're trying to accomplish. My wife, Heather, who's a massive introvert, one of her bucket lists is to go on a yoga retreat. She just went through a grueling exercise of over eight or nine months, many, many, many, many weekends, studying and passing her yoga, one of her yoga certifications for what's called 26 and two, which is Bircham yoga or hot yoga. Now, one of the things that's on her bucket list is to have the capacity to go on a yoga retreat. So, a little while back, she had the opportunity to go on one and she was going with many people from her class in the studios that she goes to. So off to Costa Rica, we go for a yoga retreat, she is exceedingly excited about practicing yoga every morning at 7 am and every evening at 5 pm. Having a really clean lifestyle for a good solid week and just relaxing. As we got there, in Costa Rica, it was very, very, very hot. There's no way you can work at the retreat. There's no cell site. There's no Wi-Fi, it's fantastic, actually, in some respects, but not having any electricity to have a see we've made it a little interesting. Now, they have electricity but our unit, our cabana didn't have the fan working when we first got there. So, it was it was hot.
Glenn Mattson
The very first night when we got there, we all came together in the yoga studio, which is a relatively large room, with really high ceilings, obviously all enclosed in screen, that's where they practiced yoga. Everyone got together and made a big circle, and it was a very large group about 30 of us. The three questions were who are you? What do you do? And what are you hoping to get out of the week? Why are you here, in essence? So, everyone's going around the room introducing themselves and stating what they do. Which I find kind of funny to begin with because telling us what you do is only an American thing. You go to Europe, and they really don't spend much time on what you do. They want to know more about you. As they went around the room, one of the things they found really interesting was more than 80% of the people in one form or fashion, were looking for happiness. What they were trying to accomplish in the retreat was to find happiness. Again, so many different words. I sat back and I said to myself, “That's an interesting thing. How many of us who are listening in right now, sit back and say to ourselves, my goal is to be happy?” My end objective is happiness. That's what we have as our objectives.
Glenn Mattson
So, I want to spend a couple of minutes on this thing I call the happiness obsession and what that means. If you ever noticed how our society is honestly obsessed with the pursuit of happiness, you look everywhere books, seminars, TV, oh my God, look at social media. Everything promises to unlock the secret of the external blast, right? But here's the crazy thing. I want everyone to realize this. The more you chase happiness, the more you pursue happiness as an objective, the further it slips away. That is interesting. The more we pursue something as an end result, the more it moves away from us. It really comes down to many as we start to think about pulling back the onion, you do it differently in the 50s and 60s, very different in the 30s than it is now with regards to happiness. The cultural pressures around us to be happy are insane right now. Everything is about being happy. That's the ultimate goal in life. But what if I told you that this relentless pursuit of happiness might actually make you unhappy? Let me say it again. What would happen if I told you that the relentless pursuit of happiness might actually make you less happy? Despite all the best efforts, the more we strive for happiness, the more dissatisfied we are with ourselves. Deep down inside, like we're missing something and disconnected. It's time we start looking at, what are we doing, why are we doing it, and what are we setting ourselves up for? For many of us, it’s failure.
Glenn Mattson
If you look at social media feeds, for goodness’ sake, we're comparing our lives to other individuals, and you realize that many of those other individuals have a lousy life and they're just carefully curating highlights of their lives. So, they put them together. So, it looks like it's special. The pressure to be happy is all over the place. It's suffocating. It's leaving an enormous amount of people inadequate, and depressed. I just want to make sure you're getting this. I know, I've said it four times, and I'm gonna say it 10,000 times more often, is that research is going to show you the more you prioritize and pursue happiness as an objective, the less likely you're going to get there. It's an ironic situation. Let me give it to you again. The more you prioritize, and pursue happiness, the end gains as the objective as the purpose, the reason as the as the Shangri-La, the less likelihood you're ever going to get it. Hmm, interesting.
Glenn Mattson
So, what is success? I think if you look at the East and the West, we probably look at it a little differently in some perspective. Look, the American dream, I still think is one of the greatest things ever. You have the capacity to become whatever you deem passable, right? The American dream: work hard, and everything can be doable. But when we start looking at our philosophies, in terms of Western and Eastern philosophies in thinking and looking at the world, a lot of Western cultures are really around inequality equated with external happiness, external achievements and possessions, and things that you get, because you are successful, therefore will make you happy. Right? When I get that new car, I'll be happy. When I can finally get that big TV, I'm going to be happy. Once they finally get out of this lousy town and move into that town, I'm going to be happy. Once I get out of this community college and go to that school, I'm going to be much happier.
Glenn Mattson 08:56
Right, the more we have, the more we have around us, the better places we live, the nicer cars we drive, the happier I'm going to be. The reality is that again, true happiness is not in what we have. True happiness is not about what's around you. True happiness is not where you put your arms out to the left and the right you make a rotation and everything you touch is what makes you happy. Happiness is who you are. Happiness is when everything else is gone, and you're there by yourself. How do you feel when you're naked and everything's ripped apart? And it's gone? How do you feel? Of course, some people don't have any money and are unhappy. There are plenty of people with money. Tons of those who are not happy. Please do not get me wrong, I'm not telling you that money isn't nice. I want you to realize though that true happiness does not lie within what we have. It lies in who we are. So Eastern philosophy teaches that happiness stems from really inner peace and harmony, inner peace and harmony with ourselves, and our peace and harmony with our world. Right, instead of chasing after materialistic things only, they also emphasize the importance of mastering one's mind. That's through meditation that's having the, the profound shift of dues and timing and in, you know, understanding where you are, what time it is, and what you are, right, which I'll talk about in a couple of minutes. So, happiness is inside the skin, not outside the skin. Remember, happiness is not an external thing, Happiness doesn't come from your roles. Happiness comes from your identity, and your identity bleeds into your roles, happiness in your roles doesn't bleed into your identity. That's a short lift.
Glenn Mattson
See, it's kind of crazy. Once we really truly understand the inside, and I'm talking about your naked body versus the clothes you wear, right? The clothes you wear, or the roles that you have. That could be a dad, a mom, a sister, or a brother doesn't make a difference. All the different roles, you have jobs that you have. The naked body is who you are inside and every single day, within hours of every day, the external changes constantly, and your roles change constantly. Could be a cold, call it and you're qualified and you're a coach, and you're a mentor, and you're a friend. They're all changing. What's the one thing that's consistent? It's the you, you the inside. If you're not happy with yourself on the inside, how do you think you're going to gain happiness on the outside?
Glenn Mattson
The outside comes and goes, it changes like the wind. When we start to prioritize and even cultivate our inner happiness, some really remarkable things start to happen, believe it or not, we become a lot more curious. We actually start to live with fewer fence posts. Fence posts are the things that we put up around us that tell us we can't do things. So, curiosity creates less fence posts, less fence posts, and really starts to have us be more focused on where we are now, not where we should be. It teaches us resiliency; it teaches us to live in the present moment. Instead of constantly trying to figure out how to get to the next goal. Enjoy where you are, you have to realize that the journey of life is the destination the destination is not the end game. So, if you think that all your goals are just the destinations and getting there is just crazy activity on the way there you're gonna miss all the beauty of life. Getting to the top of the mountain isn't the objective, it's enjoying the walk on the way to the top of the mountain. Understand where you are, and understand the surroundings around you.
Glenn Mattson
See when we're generally when we are generally happy with ourselves inside. We are much better in we are much better equipped; we are much better able to handle, we can deal with setbacks, failures, rejection, and criticism. So, it's interesting when we're generally happy when we're in a good spot, we can deal with a lot of negative stuff, and we do it pretty darn good. Is it exciting that way? So, I want to share with you this Eastern or Western philosophy. We get this thing called the happiness paradox that's coming around the happiness paradox which basically says that, again all this research shows the same thing; we become less happy the more we have happiness as a priority. So, I want to ask you something, instead of happiness being the objective. You're saying, “Okay, I want to achieve happiness.” Well, happiness is again, something you are. So, the paradox is look, you have to realize I'm a super high overachiever. I love goals. I love planning the goals, I love to-do’s, I love accomplishing the to-do’s, knocking them down and doing more and getting better, etc., etc. I get it, but I want you to realize something.
Glenn Mattson
This is really, really important because this is the happiness paradox is that if we prioritize and pursue happiness as our sole objective, it ain't going to happen. The reality is we put so much pressure on ourselves to be happy all the time that we're almost never happy. We set ourselves up for disappointment and frustration. We say things like, I'm awful, or I'm not a good person or I'm a failure because versus I failed that. Again, we compare ourselves to these, these other people that we see aren't even real for the most part. The pursuit of happiness becomes this relentless cycle of chasing after something that just, it always seems, it's out of reach. So instead of fixating on happiness as the end goal, shift, shift your mind to gratitude to resiliency, and more importantly being present. If you actually stopped thinking about yesterday, stop worrying about tomorrow, and actually be in the present moment.
Glenn Mattson
So, when we start looking at success and what it can be, we lose sight of where we are, we lose sight of the meanings that were in that we lose sight of the experiences that we're having. That is where happiness comes in. Happiness is having the ability to live in the present moment and not always thinking about tomorrow. Happiness is accepting where you are, versus having a massive critical parent coulda, shoulda, woulda I'd have some of you try this. When you drive home tonight, turn off your radio. I was saying this to someone in a different podcast about a year ago, I had a situation with my car and my mechanic who was quite childish, but something happened with my car and the mechanic would fix it. I wouldn't pay him to fix it, blah blah blah blah. So, I basically went for a while without my radio, and only going to tell you how long I went. After a while, I didn't even really care anymore. I didn't want the radio. When I got it fixed, I actually went for an entire year without listening to my radio. Now I'm driving, three, four or five hours sometimes going places, no radio. I'd have each of you try to actually start to live in the present moment. Don't listen to the radio, listen to the cars, you drive home. Listen to your breathing. Start to listen to where you are and start to think about your day.
Glenn Mattson
One of the things that moves away from happiness is we're always focused on the results of tomorrow. By focusing on the results of tomorrow, we can never live in the world of today. Living in the world that today is what teaches you happiness. Being present is happiness. Yeah, you could be better tomorrow. Yeah, you need to get better at your phone calls. That's all true. But just because you have to get better doesn't mean that you're bad. Also doesn't mean that you can't be happy. Listen, you're listening to someone who is an off-the-chart overachiever. I'm off the chart controller. I'm a person who works really hard at goals, has plans, and does my to-do’s. Can I tell you that in my pursuit of happiness, I remember my coach telling me once he goes, do you realize that your airplanes especially that you ride the small private jets and private planes, when they crash? Do you realize that 90% of them are on full throttle? What that means is, as they crash, they are actually giving it all the juice they have, and they crash.
Glenn Mattson
Another amazing thing that I've found is dealing with a lot of coaching clients and executives and again overachievers that many of them will say, well, I'm doing it for my family, I'm doing it for my spouse, I'm doing it for my kids. Yet, they come home one day, and the house is completely empty. Everyone left. They put their arms up in the air and they go I don't know why, I'm everything I'm doing is for them.
Glenn Mattson
Do your people want to be around you? Does your family want to be around you? They could choose to be with you or be by themselves or do something else, what would they choose, or you would be someone you want to be around? If you have an edge, a chip on your shoulder, you're always expecting high results from everyone and you're never happy. There's all this physiology and health that goes into it and the chemical reactions inside your body. I just wanted to do a podcast and the fact that all these individuals, not all excuse me, a fair amount of these individuals were seeking happiness as an end objective. It got me to start thinking and listening to other people. I'm listening to others inside of coaching sessions and one-on-ones and training and it seems like happiness now is our objective. Our objective, our outside resources, our objective, our lagging indicators are results of dollars, objectives, successes, sales, whatever those may be. I want you to realize the pursuit to get to it is where you have to be present. If you're not present in the moment, how do you expect to enjoy the journey? If you're just saying I don't care about the journey to get me to my end game, you're going to miss everything.
Glenn Mattson
Remember, a long time ago, we were at Lake George in New York, and we had a pretty good hike to go. We had to get up to the top. Then we had to turn around and come all the way back down. We had dinner. So, in my head, all right, two hours up, an hour to hang out, two hours down. We got a lot of hoping to go inside the first 45 minutes we've traveled maybe about 600 yards. We have miles to go. The time period I have in my head is off. We're behind schedule. We're never going to make it up. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Come on. Come on, come on. There's my daughter trying to take pictures, my son adventuring off in the woods, everyone's having a good time. Besides me. I'm the one pulling everyone and pushing everyone to get them up the hill. When we finally get to the top, it's an absolutely gorgeous scene up there. The gorgeous sun's coming down or above the tree lines. I mean, it's what movies are made of. What's the only thing I can think of in my head? Oh my god, we got to get back down, and within an hour, maybe we can do it if we jog. Now, by the way, we didn't have a timeframe to get down there. We didn't have reservations to go to anything. It's just sometimes we have these objectives, and we push people through the process to get to the objective, but the problem is we're not enjoying it. There's no fun if we just sat down and enjoyed the walk, looked at the trees where the moss was and how the water line came down when they had rain, etc. actually enjoy it and remember it and have an experience with it. So, I asked you for all my overachievers out there.
Glenn Mattson
Ask yourself three questions, Socrates. First one is where are you? The second one is what time is it? Third question is who are you? Your answers always are where are you? Here? What time is it now? What are you in the moment? Team, stop worrying about tomorrow. Cherish today. Start to have happiness as a byproduct of your internals not as a quest. Be happy. Be happy on your way to your objectives. Look forward to another Building Blocks of Success soon.
Glenn Mattson
This is the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.
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