Ep 666 | How to Grade Your Happiness and Take Action

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. What's your happiness score right now? What's your happiness score on a scale from 1 to 10? 1 being you are at the lowest point of your life, the lowest you could possibly be, 10 being you are soaring at an extreme level. Now, if your answer was a 7, so 1 to 10, you said 7, guess what? You are in fact in the majority. We've been talking a lot about Jesse Itzler as of late, and I recently reread his "Living with Monks" book. And in that book, he tells a story about how he once asked a room of highly successful CEOs that same very question. What, you know, what's your happiness score? And almost everyone, people with the money and the status, businesses, the families, almost everyone had a 7 or lower as their grade. They weren't necessarily miserable, but they weren't ecstatic. They were just okay. They were just fine. And I think that's the trap. I think fine is the most dangerous place that you can live because it doesn't create any sort of urgency to change. Now, we've been on this Jesse Itzler kick, and if you remember, Jesse's an entrepreneur and this ultra-marathoner, and he's the author of the book I just mentioned, "Living with the Monks," and that was a follow-up book to "Living with a Seal," another fantastic one. He's done a lot of stuff, this guy. What he found wasn't some mystical secret, in my opinion. I think it was pretty darn simple, something that most of us already know, you know, or maybe thought of, and that's specifically what makes us happy. We also know, we likely know what makes us miserable. However, we don't double down on what makes us happy, or we certainly don't act on maybe what makes us miserable. See, the monks had taught Jesse that happiness isn't found through addition. It's actually found through subtraction. Removing distractions, removing those overcommitments or that noise, removing Comparison. It actually kind of ties out uniquely to something I said earlier today to a group when I was talking about wealth building, of all things. I said my definition of wealth used to be freedom to, like freedom to go do this or freedom to go do that. That would be addition. My new definition of wealth is instead freedom from, freedom from stress, freedom from responsibility, freedom from commitment. That's subtraction. Well, same thing goes with your happiness. Happiness is less about chasing what's missing, and it's more about eliminating what's maybe in the way. So while, while training for a run, a race, Jesse was on a run, and he imagined this idea of the happiness scale, like a, like a weight scale or an IQ test. You know, we measure everything else, our body fat, our net worth, our performance, but we don't tend to measure happiness. So, we started asking audiences to rate their lives from 1 to 10. And most people, even the most successful people, would land at a 7 or thereabout. I think that tells you something, that we're really good at achievement, but we're maybe not as good at fulfillment. And then, Jesse asked, "Well, why not treat happiness like a skill?" Why not identify the factors that lower your score and then systematically remove those factors? He called this exercise grading your happiness. In other words, a 10 might mean that nothing's missing, but a 1 means you're deeply stuck. Here's the catch though. You can't raise your score without first identifying what's dragging it down. So, he'd say, if your happiness grade is a B, well, what keeps it from being an A? And when you answer that, you're not searching for meaning, you're just diagnosing obstacles. So, if you're sitting at, call it a 7, some people would say, well, the 7 is pretty good. I would say, well, let me get this straight. A 7 in school would be a C minus. A 6 would be a D, a 5 would be an F. I don't think you'd be okay with a 5 or 6 at a minimum, maybe even a 7 in school. So why accept it in terms of your happiness? But if you're sitting at a 7 and you eliminated one thing that's leading to less happiness in your world, well, maybe you go from a 7 to an 8. And you eliminate one more major thing that's creating unhappiness in your world and you go from an 8 to a 9. That's what Jesse is really talking about, diagnosing those obstacles. So in the monastery, Jesse learned to ask two simple questions. What makes me happy? Number one. And number two, what makes me unhappy? And that's it. Happiness is subtraction, removing the clutter from your mind and your calendar and your relationships. So he began, or he learned to begin to stop glorifying this concept of busy. That so many of us entrepreneurs latch onto. He challenged himself to identify the 3 things that are most responsible for unhappiness. And then just remove one of them. Maybe it's a draining relationship. Maybe it's a toxic client. Maybe it's social media. Or maybe it's always saying yes when you mean no. The monks in the book that Jesse wrote, the monks' wisdom was clear. When you remove what keeps you from being happy, what's left is actually happiness. We think we need to add maybe one more, more wins, more money, more recognition, when in reality we need to remove what's suffocating the joy that's already there. So, I want you to apply this framework today. Let's turn this into a no days off practice, something that you can do right now. Step 1, grade yourself. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, where are you? Don't overthink this, just give me a gut answer. Now, step 2, I want you to identify the gap. I want you to ask, what would have to change for me to go up just 1 point? I think this makes it actionable and it makes it immediate. You're not trying to be, you know, a perfect 10. You're not trying to be the Dalai Lama. You're trying to move from, call it a 6 to a 7 or a 7 to an 8. So what would have to change for me to go up just 1 point? Now, step 3, I want you to write 2 lists. I want you to write down what makes me happy. And then I want you to write down what makes me unhappy. Maybe the happy list includes time with family, exercise, being outdoors, creating. And the hap— unhappy list, maybe that includes certain meetings or relationships, certain habits, certain commitments. So, you've got your two lists. Step 4, I want you to subtract one thing. Subtract one thing. Pick a single item from the unhappy list and remove it right now. At least this week, cancel the meeting, delete the app, and, you know, a draining conversation pattern, reclaim 30 minutes for something that's more meaningful. I would bet that you'd feel it immediately. I would bet you feel it immediately because happiness rises not from doing more, but from caring less. So when the monks asked Jesse, are you happy? It wasn't a rhetorical question. It was a diagnostic. I don't think the monks in the book were chasing bliss. They were aiming to really protect peace. So, here's your question today. If your happiness were a school grade, what's keeping it from being an A? Remove one thing, feel the lift that you'll get from that, and then repeat. No Days Off, as you know, if you've been listening to the No Days Off podcast for a while, it's not about grinding yourself into exhaustion. It's about stripping away everything that keeps you from being alive and being focused and being fulfilled. So, I would ask, what's that one thing that you might be able to attract, you know, subtract, I'm sorry, today? And in doing so, create a slight bit more happiness in your world. That's all I have for you today in the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.