Motivation Mashup: How to Create LONG LASTING Friendships!

Hey, everybody, it's Brendon Burchard. Welcome to a special edition of Growth Day. I'm really excited to talk about this month's topic, which is how do you create remarkable and long lasting friendships? And I'm talking about the kind of friendships that you love, the friendships that bring you alive, that bring you that connection, that help life feel more even meaningful, that help you progress and feel supported, help help you be seen, help you feel a true connection with not just others, but with humanity. Because the people around you are awesome. And when the people around you are awesome, you know, you feel better about life. But we also went through this crazy last 18 months where so many people were isolated, where we had so much turmoil, so much conflict, so much just uncertainty and fear in the world, where I really believe friendships really elevated. And you could see whether or not you had great friends throughout this pandemic or you didn't. You were able to see whether or not you got the support that you needed, whether or not you were able to maintain your sense of vibrancy in some of those times of aloneness, whether or not you had people who cheered you on when you decided to make a transition, start something new, or the kids left the house, or you got sick or something was going on that was difficult in your life. We look to our friends and I think that this is a very undervalued conversation in mental health. So much about the mental health conversation is appropriately about self awareness, is it's about mindfulness, it's about taking care of our stressors. And a lot of it is that solo work that we all have to do for self mastery. But I can tell you that, you know, the great universities of the world, the psychology department is right near the sociology department because they go together like we are social beings. And when you lose that social connection with the world, which usually starts through lack of disciplined habits with your friends, then suddenly life loses its color. And I think this is so important. You're going to hear me talk about friendship today in a way you probably haven't heard before very much from what we would call a high performance psychology perspective. And I think you're going to love this. So if you've been struggling with friendships in your lifetime, not either having enough friends or not having the quality of friends that you've always wanted, this is a serious conversation today. I can't imagine a time, at least in my life so far, where friendships were so incredibly important. I get to share some of the things that really have worked, not just in my Life and my friendships. But in studying this, work deeply over the years in recognizing how many people are entrepreneurs, high achievers, people who are trying to make great impact in the world. You're here today, and sometimes that journey can feel very lonely. Or when you get to the top, it can feel lonely, they say. And I'm like, I kind of believe what my friend Brian Tracy and mentor said to me one time. He said, if it's lonely at the top, you did it wrong. I thought, whoo, that's good. That's good. Because maybe sometimes we value today progress. We value today getting things done. We value that top mountain of achievement. And then we look around and go, oh, nobody really knows me. I don't feel a connection to others. Yeah, I got the thing, the house, the car, the bank account, the accolades, the Instagram page. And all of a sudden, though, something's missing. And friendship is one of the greatest vehicles to the real psychology of well being that we talk about here at Growth Day. I'm going to share with you a secret today, just a simple phrase. You're going to go, oh, my gosh, that's why my friendships aren't going right. So you're going to love this session. I say that triangle, right, of well being that we talk about Growth Day aliveness is one of the things we all want after you had everything else. Right. Another thing we want is connection. We're not after casual friendships here today. We're at, like, how do I create authentic, deep, trusting, vulnerable, fun, real relationships? Because how many of you have ever had friendships that turned out to be fake? You thought you had a good friendship and that thing turned out to be not so good or poisonous or, you know, somebody, like, they weren't loyal to you as a friend or they lied to you or something went wrong. You thought, how could that happen in that relationship? And I always tell, like, friendships are a science of relationship. It's about how you create relationship with others. And I'm going to give you again a phrase that will really help you with this today. And then if it's true that we want aliveness and connection in this triangle, nothing that we want is meaning. Well, meaning isn't achieved just by living your purpose each day in your own head. Meaning is achieved through a social relationship network. My sense of meaning is, do I feel connected to the world? And the world isn't an abstract thing. It's not like I feel connected to the oak tree. It's like, no, I mean, did I feel, did you make your difference in the World that's going to be served and answered through your social impact, your relationships with others. And I have to tell you, after I've been coaching people for 20 years of my life now, and a lot of people have one friend. You know, in the United States, unfortunately, the number of people with three good friends has declined over the decades. You're like, three good friends. Oh, we got to talk about that. Because some people stumble into friendships or hope for friendships, just like some people hope to have a loving relationship, just like some people hope to have a good job, just like some people hope that, you know, they get healthier. And then there's strivers who take life a little bit by the reins and say, no, no, no, let me architect that, Let me build that. And I'll give you my own examples today of where I sucked at friendships and I had to learn how do you do them and how do you create them? And once you know how to create and craft them, life really opens up for you, and it becomes not just more alive and connected, but more meaningful. Like, a sense of meaning happens when we have a tapestry of social relationships that are real and impactful. And then, of course, in the middle of that triangle, you always see me draw out growth. Your friends should be lifting you up, not pushing you down. Your friends should be inspiring you to get better. Your friends should have your back, but also be willing to challenge your face. You know, I'm saying, like, your friends are and should be one of your primary growth drivers in life. Most people choose ambitious goals to be their growth driver. Oh, I'm going to do something that's hard, or I'm going to try to achieve this amazing thing. I'm going to try to become a millionaire or make this difference or build this company or, you know, have this type of family, and it's this external climb, this thing they're trying to achieve. And too many people forget. It's like, actually, one of the best drivers of growth isn't your job, isn't your goals, it's your friendship circle. And when your friendship circles make you a more alive, deeper, caring, thoughtful, authentic person in the world, I'm telling you what, Guess what? At work, you're better. At home, you're better. Your art gets better, your sense of life lifts. Let me share with you what I really believe to be the two central problems of friendship. Okay, the two central problems of friendship. The first one is a failure of each of our own. I'm just taking this on myself as well. It's like, we fail in Life to realize most of our friendships were assigned not aligned. Most of our friendships were assigned not aligned. What I mean by that is many of our friendships happen because group assignment, right? Think about it. Some of your best friends, where did you meet them? School, your neighborhood, some other affiliation, maybe at work, maybe in a group that you joined. So it was like, oh, we showed up somewhere, or we were assigned somewhere and there was that girl who sat next to me in class. We became friends. Or oh, I worked with this person at work. We were co workers, we became friends. And these are kind of like assigned friends. And I know that sounds really weird to say, so bear with me a little bit. I don't mean that the manager like you're going to be friends here. What I mean is because of your group, your affiliation or where you were, you kind of met people there. And by default, by you being a good person or communicating or doing stuff with them, you kind of became friends versus, that's like an assigned friend. It's like, oh, because we were here, we became friends versus an aligned friend, which is, oh, I'm an adult now. What are the types of friends that I want to create that align with my passion, my dreams, my lifestyle, my values, my beliefs, the things that I want of life and let me go get them, not let them fall into my lap. Which brings up the second designation. And this is hard to say to people. And if you're in a place where you feel lonely in your life or you feel like you don't have great friendships, I promise this will be so helpful for you today to even know how your own brain thinks. And many of us. And I was this way probably all the way throughout high school, even I never. And this is the second problem of friendships. I never made the deliberate choice to have remarkable friendships. I kind of ended up with friends. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Who's like, ended up with friends if you kind of just ended up with like this person? It was kind of my friend. One of my buddies goes. He goes, I don't want no rando friends. And it was like random. Now, I love random. I love the universe, I love God, I love coincidence. Listen, I read the Celestine Prophecy. People are glowing out there for me. I believe in that coincidence stuff. But I can also share with you, like, if you just allow randomness in your life all the time, you'll always feel a sense of mediocrity too. We have to stretch. We have to choose our life and to choose our life, we have to be Deliberate and go, what kind of life do I want? I would like you to learn to architect your, your ideal friendships. And can you get all of them? And will all your friendships be perfect? I'm not that guy. I'm not here to promise everything's going to be sweet and perfect and peaches in life. I am here to suggest though that if you haven't deliberately chosen the types of friendships that you want, that's a problem, especially if you're an adult. Right. And that's the thing is we're just, we're not encouraged to do that. Think about, think about how much time people were feeding your ears with the idea you had to be really thoughtful about the career you choose. How many of you ever had more people tell you more times about. Be so thoughtful about the school you choose, the career you choose, but no one ever said as much. Be very thoughtful about the friends and the friendships that you build. And that's why we have a lot of high achieving people who are lonely their whole life. Think about your career. What are you going to be one day? Very rarely. What's the type of social network you're going to build around you? What's the type of friendships you're going to architect? What are you going to be proud of in terms of your friends in the future? What do you want your friends to achieve? What do you want your friends to experience in life? Not just what they give you, but what are you going to give out too? What kind of friendship do you want to create and experience? How do you want your friends to actually interact with one another? Have you thought about that? We spend so much time. If you're a parent and you have two kids, you're so worried about how they interact, right? I know people who've never even thought, how do I want my friends to interact? I mean, they might think, you know what, we shouldn't put them in a room at a party because they have this history, that background. But very few people are like, I'm gonna actually teach my friends how to be friends with one another. Now, I know some of you might be, this guy sounds like a control freak. I'm like, I am, but I'm a happy one. You know what I'm saying? I think this is such an important area to architect. Most friends have never talked about how to be friends. They just go, you want to go to lunch, they go to lunch. They talk about the weather, the waiter, the food, what's going on? They leave and there's no architecting. There's No, I think of, like, social systems are things that can be shaped. You all think, like at work, right? How much we talk about at work, building a culture. More books and more people have spent time on this conversation of building culture at work and never the culture of a friendship. Isn't that weird? I don't know where along the line we lost the conversation and the desire to choose to build awesome friendships. And a culture of friendship, meaning not just friends. Most people think of, I want a friend, right? When you're in high school, you just want a friend, right? You're just like. At least I was. Can I get one? You know, it's like you worry about having friendships when you grow up, and usually that means you think. And we're all trained this way, especially in Western cultures. We're taught to have a friend and we think in a very individualistic mode. I and this person are in relationship, and then you have another friend. I and this person are in relationship. And maybe you go out and you try to get them together and we have a party. But even at the party, it's individual nodes. Me, that friend and this friend. And I don't get trained, as I'm getting older, to think as a systems social architect. Oh, wow. Look at all these nodes, if you will, these friends. If I like each of these people and have relationship with each people, why don't in some way, I weave them together and create a tapestry of friendship where I'm actually connecting the dots and creating a culture of friendship. See, we don't think like that, do we? I was a very, kind of solitary child. I was kind of in my own little world. I don't know about you all, but I was definitely, you know, much. I would be like an introverted kind of child. I kind of kept to myself. I like to play with my toys kind of by myself. In elementary school, from what I can remember, I was kind of solo. Brendan. I didn't see social systems right. I was in a class with kids and a teacher, and I had a relationship with the teacher, and I had a relationship with this person, that person or not. But I couldn't see the class. I couldn't say, oh, you know, like, this group is kind of like this. Instead, it was just like, she likes me or she doesn't. Teachers like that. I didn't see the system. Today I'd like you to try to see the system a little bit. See the system of the friendships you've built in your life. See the system at play, at work. See the system of Your culture or your nonprofit or your company, when you can start seeing a bigger picture and get out of your head a little bit now, something happens. There's connection. There's community. See, everyone says, I want community. I'm like, well, you can't be an individualistic person in the community forever. You have to elevate to seeing the system. If you never be a community member or an effective one or a helpful one, if you can't get out of your head, well, I'm saying that not as judgment to you. That was me. So there's no judgment here. If you don't have friends, I'm like, I'm telling you my story, too. I was a solo person. I was in my own head. I couldn't see the class. I couldn't see the system. And so I felt apart. And because I felt apart, and I couldn't see what was happening, and I didn't know how to engage. I was lonely. And then when I finally made a connection with a friend, that friend became my life. Later on, that perpetuated into. You know, some of you guys know my story of my first breakup with my high school sweetheart. I was destroyed because that was my one person, right? That was my one node in the world. And then when that relationship fell apart, I fell apart and became depressed and suicidal. And so how we relate with one or multiple people can completely shape our mental health. I know you already know that. And so I had to learn, like, wow, one. I don't want to ever be dependent on one friend. I want to build a support system. You ever heard that language before? No one says, go build a supporter. I want you to listen to the language of successful people. When successful people are speaking, they never tell you, go build a supporter. They say, go build what? A support system. A support network. Oh, I got to get out of single node thinking. A node is a one individual unit. And I got to get into the system. I got to stop thinking, does Sally at the class next, does she like me? And if she likes me, my whole life is good or bad or ruined. And I got to go. There's a class here. There's an energy, a vibe, a spirit. There's rules and norms. There's a culture here that is happening. How do I want to participate in this? And how do I want this culture to happen, too? In ways that I can affect? What do they want? And we all have to start thinking about that more In a society in which we're supposedly connected, but we've actually become individual nodes in the Network.

This has been so powerful. When you've shared this on our morning show, and I just want to share it with everyone here. A lot of people are showing up here going, okay, like, it's been a hard 14 months and, you know, struggling with self doubt, struggling all the things. And some people have goals that they're trying to figure out with their career and all the other stuff, but then there's also a thing called feelings.

Goals.

Yes, feelings. Goals. Right. So many of you guys, this is going to be new for a lot of people. This is newer for me in my own life, frankly. Right. Because, you know, all my years of working as a Denny's waitress, trying to all the jobs, and then all the years of rejection with my business, when I finally got, you know, when we were finally getting momentum, I didn't feel the day. I just drove as hard as I could. And. And one of the things Brendan has shared so much about and I would love for you to share with everyone live right now is, yeah, you can have goals in your fitness journey and in your career and all these things, but what about goals for your feelings, for how you feel and how you feel the day? Can you share?

Yes.

This is so powerful.

I remember the first time I said this to her, feel the day. And she's like, right. And we just, we had this huge great talk about. Because what happens is sometimes you're taking care of the kids, you're going through your life, you're doing the projects, you have the to do lists, and you're just going, going, going. And you finished the day. You didn't even feel the day. There's no reverence for life. There's no love, there's no heart, there's no spirit, no flow, no connection, no creative pop. And it's not because it wasn't there. You just, like blew through the day. You bullied the hours, I call it. And there was no moment of a pit stop to give prayer or meditation or gratitude or a second to go, like, how am I feeling? Am I experiencing the energy that I want to experience in life? And that's, again, we generate that. But feeling the day I. I found the most successful people in the world. I remember we drew this out. I went to Jamie's house almost two years ago, I think now.

Yeah.

And we were talking about successful people. And they're drawing this little triangle and what everybody wants after they've gotten everything, after you hit your goals, you made the money, you feel like your family needs. What you want is you want to feel the day more you want greater depth in your relationship, like deeper relationships, deeper commitment, deeper meaning. Right. We all want those things. And then we also want to know that we're leaving some kind of legacy or contribution, what I call meaningful pursuits. And I think feeling the day should be in your top one or two priorities every day. The whole mindfulness movement is really architected to. I want to feel the day. I want to feel presence. Right. I want to feel the energy, I want to feel the spirit. I want a self awareness or consciousness. It's a different feeling of the day versus just like powering through or caffeinating through it all and just blunting it out. We want you to have those sensations of beauty and honor and respect and depth every day. We want you to feel joy and reverence every day. She knows I probably say reverence every morning show because I'm so happy. Who feels so happy to be alive? I'm so happy to be alive. I'm so happy to be with this woman. I'm so happy with this team and you all guys. It's amazing. It's a gift.

Yeah. You know, I love that so much. And I, and even Ed Mylett was sharing a little bit about that idea of, you know, setting goals also for feeling the day and then also like, how do. What are feelings we want in our life? And I think you just named a big one too, which is presence. I think that it's been so easy, especially last 14 months to like disconnect and just try to numb out and try to surf Instagram or watch the news or all the things. Right. And so many people are saying that's really taken a toll on them, that they feel their own light dimming when they do that. And you know, I started the morning off by talking about how that light is still inside of you. That light in every single one of us. Right. A lot of people nodding. It's still inside of you right now. And I think part of igniting it is learning to feel the day. Right. So what are, what are just a few just simple tips people can do who are like, Brendan, how do I feel the day?

I feel nothing. Part of it. Recognize your overall emotional feeling. Every day is usually a 72 hour after effect of how you moved, breathed, slept and ate in the last 72 hours. It really is like, it's a cumulative effect. Especially the last 72 hours have a lot to do with your emotional world. So that's why having good habits on a consistent basis, like you might, you might listen if you want to have a cheat day. That's okay. But that's why they call it a cheat day. You eat bad for one day, but then look, number two and number three, if you get back on the train, you start feeling good again, right? So it's okay to have one day off. But I think the most important thing for feeling of the day is you need to have pit stops throughout the day. You need to have moments that you purposely take every day throughout the day to reconnect with spirit, soul, energy, or even just to breathe, Mom. Like, just to take a beat. Close your eyes. Like I do that. I'll stand. Like, I do this every hour. Okay, I'll stand up. Sorry for the camera, guys. I'll stand. Every hour, I stand up. You've been asking me to demonstrate.

Yes, demonstrate.

I will stand up. I will close my eyes. Because a lot of your fatigue is visual fatigue, and that visual fatigue is causing a lot of neurological fatigue. So closing your eyes, especially since we're all these devices. Close your eyes. I stand, I bounce in place, I swing my arms, I take 10 deep breaths like this, 10 deep breaths like that every hour, and it re energizes my body and my brain, and it's a little pit stop. And now my mental focus is back. When I open my eyes, I go, what's my intention for this next hour? And that little pit stop makes me go longer. Just like a race car, it can go around the whole race, but it doesn't. It takes the pit stops to tune it up so it can go longer and faster and win the race. You need a little more pit stops to tune your mind up, amp up your emotions, reconnect with the heart or the spirit or the soul. And if you are just grinding all day, that is not. There's no pit stops. That's the equation for burnout.

Yeah. Well, so many people feeling burnt out, right? People that aren't leaving their home because of the pandemic, but just so burnt out and so overwhelmed. And one thing you shared that I want to make sure everyone caught is the idea of visual fatigue, because that was a huge aha moment that I had with you on the morning show just in the past few weeks. I thought you guys. We implemented this at IT Cosmetics. We grew to over a thousand employees, and we would start ending meetings, like, five minutes before the hour instead of just back to back to back meetings. Right? Because the idea that you can get up and just walk around and move your body, but one of the things you brought. Brought up is I learned I was doing them wrong because I was like walking and moving, but still engaged. I would take meetings in the hallway, walking, or I would check my email on that five minute break. Right. And can you just quickly share the idea that when you do take a pit stop, when you do take that five minutes. Right. And this is hard for a lot of people, but the idea is when you take that five minutes, the other 55. Right. Or you take the 10 minutes, the other 50 are so much more alive. Yes, they're so much more alive. So people that say, oh, I can't afford to do that. No, no, no, you're so much more alive than those other 50. But I was doing it wrong because I wasn't actually resting my mind. And you talk about the power of like visual fatigue. If you take a break and you're scrolling Instagram or emails, that's not a break, that's exhaustion.

Right. Scrolling is just exhausting your brain even more and more and more and more. It's engaging it, but it's exhausting, exhausting it more and more and more. And so it's like this. You cannot possibly hope the burnout will end if you don't more consistently recharge. But we grew up on a century old model that, oh, we'll get to recharge when we retire. We'll get to recharge, you know, two weeks out of the year when we have vacation. It's why people are miserable, because the burnout is real, because they don't recharge. One day I'll recharge. The spa day. Or you know, a year from. No, no, no. The world's largest study of productivity that's ever been done, found out the most productive people in the world who also reported high levels of happiness. They took a break on average every 52 minutes. Largest study ever done. Every 52 minutes. They took a break. Did they need a break? No, they're recharging. If you're crashing at 2 and 3 o' clock in the afternoon every day, it's time to take a hint. You need to recharge and at like 10:30, 11:30 or 1:30 to prevent the crash. That happens two or three. The crashes happen because the recharges are not happening. And so the burnout will always be there. And I always say, make sure you don't blame the burnout on anybody. Please don't blame your burnout on your kids. That's not fair to them. Don't blame your burnout on the team. Blame the burnout on either ambition that is unmet with players planning or just not taking care of and prioritizing your self care or your well being, you know, take care of you so you have the energy to serve at your highest levels. I think that is something we call alignment. This is going to be a conversation about overall life happiness, not just like in the moment, you know, happiness. Because in the moment of happiness, I mean, we can all kind of get that bottle of wine, bag of chips, maybe just me. But I think, you know, finding pleasure or joy or in the moment happiness, we can get there. We'll talk about that a little bit. But I want to talk about the big picture. How do we know what will give you enduring happiness? Happiness that you'll self report throughout your lifespan that yeah, I have a happy life. It's different than sometimes just in the moment happiness. It has to last longer. And so what psychologists have done is basically broken it up and said, you know, people who are happy over the long term, they tend to look at their lives in very specific ways and here's how they tend to do it. They tend to break up their life. They look at their past, they're happy with their past, they're happy with their present, and they're happy with where they're going. So they kind of break it up into time zones, right? Past, present and future. And here's what we found in each of those areas. If you look at your past in this specific way, you'll be more happy. If you look at your present in the specific way, you'll be happier. And if you look at your future in this specific way, you'll be happier over the long term. So let's start with your past. Okay? Most people who are unhappy over the quality of their life over the long term, it's because something in the past, they're really hung up on it. They consistently battle it, blame it, are angry about it, are bitter against it. Those who are happy, they don't have that negative emotional range about their entire past. It's not to say that there might not be some things in the past that you can't be unhappy about or some things that happened that you were upset about because you know what happened to all of us. But those who make it out and have a joyful life, here's what they tend to do when they look to the past, the first thing they tend to do is accept it. They're like, the past is the past, it did pass and here we are today. They don't make everything okay. They don't try to validate it. They don't try to say, well, that was supposed to happen. They just go, I got it. The past happened. I have to accept what happened because I can't change it now. I can change how I perceive it, but things happened. I'm going to accept that the past happened for. For some type of reason, or if anything, maybe I don't ascribe a higher reason to it, but I'm going to say, in general, I'm good with the past. It happened. Today's a new day, and they accept the reality that that time period, that situation, that person, that thing that they didn't like, it's not here anymore. So they can't keep living there. They have to accept that today is the today. All of that is gone. Today they can choose a different life, as we'll talk about. So they accept the past. But here's the thing. They go beyond just acceptance. And this is really important because I think people forget this all the time. It's not just about, like, accepting the past. Okay, that's fine. No, happy people, they generate memories of fondness on a continual basis. They relive the past. Not the negative things, but the positive memories. They think about it, honey, you remember that one vacation we took? And they talk about it today. Hey, do you remember when you were a kid and that funny thing happened? And they relive the positive. They have. Happy people have a sense of nostalgia about the positive things of the past, and they remember that and their connection to that is more than towards the negative things. And so here's a question to see if you're happy with your family, with your friends, those around you. Are you often reliving positive memories? They tell positive, nostalgic stories about the past without apology. They're not living there. They're not trying to go back and relive the glory days. They're just honoring and appreciating that those days even happened for them. They have a deep sense of fondness and, yes, gratitude to the beautiful moments and memories and people and experiences they got to have. And so I know that might sound almost too easy to say because, you know, maybe in the past you went through some traumatic stuff, some very difficult moments happened. But by and large, if you can finally get to a point where today you go, okay, I don't have to be cool with everything that happened, but I accept the past. I'm cool. It's over. I am cool today. And I like these little moments. And I'm going to choose to focus and remember Those and bring them up to people, talk about those things, Then I'll feel better about the past. And if you feel better about the past, you have a more solid foundation, a much easier time finding happiness today. Today. If you want to feel happy today, there's two things we know without question will get you to higher levels of happiness. Number one, connection. Connection, that is you deciding to connect to the moment. That means being present and connecting to other people. You know, they've done a lot of those end of life studies to see what makes people happy. And you see over and over and over again it's the quality of their relationships. And so if you want to be happy today, put more emotional connection into your relationships. And I say that not philosophically, I mean, like have that intention. Like, I'm going to put good energy into this relationship today. I'm going to put good energy into my kid today. Even if they were a jerk yesterday, I accept it. Kind of cute today. I'm going to just put good energy, good vibes into this relationship today. Because if I do that, I'll feel better. If you're doing work and you don't even like the work, but at least you'll engage with it. You'll connect to the work. Like you'll force yourself to be there, be present, be in it. You'll feel happier. The second thing today that you can do so easy is increase your appreciation. Almost in every psychological study ever done, those who had more gratitude reported greater happiness. The way that you get gratitude is you appreciate things. So let's just jump right to that. Start appreciating things better. Appreciate your house today, you know, appreciate that maybe you got a car. Appreciate that you had somebody in the house with you today who loved you. Or appreciate the fact that you have opportunities that all around the world people would just beg for that billions of people don't have the opportunities that you do. I know we're all in a big rush. I'm guilty sometimes too of going through things as fast as I can because I got one thing, I got to go on another thing, another thing. But you know what? I found I'm most unhappy in life when that's what I'm doing. I'm just going on one thing to the next thing, to next thing, to next thing and the next thing and not feeling what I'm doing, not really connecting it and not appreciating it like I'm right now. I shared with you earlier, as I'm filming this course, I'm writing a book and there's days when I'm miserable about the book, and those days I'm miserable about the book are those days that I forget to connect with the material. And worse, I forget to appreciate the fact that I have the blessing to get to work on a book. I forget to appreciate how far I've come as a writer. I forget to appreciate the time that my team has set up to protect my ability to write. I forget to appreciate that God has given me a voice and I get to share that. And so I share with you that the most important thing you can do today, like, stop thinking that stuff will give you happiness. Stop thinking that you'll achieve something today that will give you happiness. The only thing that's gonna give you happiness today, connection and appreciation. So connect to the moment, Connect to other people by putting positive energy. Remember, bring the joy. And then appreciate the little things, all the little goofy things throughout the day. Appreciate the opportunities that you have. You'll start to feel much happier. I promise you. Those are easy, quick wins in the moment. And then what we know for people who have the highest ranking of happiness, they look to the future in a unique way. And there's two elements there that they're usually looking towards. One, they're enthusiastic about something in the future. They're not optimistic. Optimistic would mean, you know, I believe stuff in general from today will turn out well. I believe that tomorrow is going to be good. Happy people are enthusiastic about something specific tomorrow or in the future. Very specific. They like. They're enthusiastic about getting to do that project or complete that project. They're enthusiastic about that wedding coming up. They're enthusiastic about. About that thing going to come out. There's something they look for. It's very specific. It's not a general optimism, though, that also has been shown very, very high in correlation to happiness, one of the highest rankings being optimistic, thinking things will turn out well. But really happy people, when they talk about the future, there's something specific they're excited about. So I ask you, what could you be excited about for tomorrow? What's hanging out there that you haven't allowed yourself to believe in and get stirred up about? Because, you know, we're so scared of being disappointed that we destroy our happiness. We say, I don't want to get enthusiastic because it might not go well. And so we cage ourselves into an unsatisfying life. If you want to be happy again, you have to open yourself again to the idea that things can be great. You got to open yourself again to that hope, that optimism you got to open up yourself again to the possibility, yeah, you might be disappointed. But here's the thing I always tell people. What would you rather experience? A life in which you don't do anything and you never look forward to anything because you're scared of disappointment, which, by the way, means you are continually living in disappointment. Or you say, you know what? I look forward that. I think that could happen. I'm going to go for it. You do take action, but at least if you do get disappointed, the whole time you are taking action, you are developing competency, knowledge, skill, ability, talent, mastery. So even if you got disappointed, you know what the disappointment came as? It came at the very end as a sudden surprise. I'd rather have disappointment come at the very end as a sudden surprise than every single day of fear and disappointment and living in that terror that I'm going to be disappointed and doing nothing with myself. Don't know about you, but that's how I feel. So first, enthusiasm for a situation, something specific. It's so important. And then that next part about looking at the future is they have a sense of positive legacy they have made up in their mind, and that's all they've done. They've made it up because you and I, we can't read the future. We have no idea. But they've made up in their mind this story about their life having meaning and specifically a legacy. They see looking into the future. They can see the legacy of their children. They can see the legacy of their business. They can see the legacy of the love that they created. They can see something. They can see that they are going to leave some type of mark or some type of relationship or some type of situation where the world is better because they tried, because they showed up. And maybe you don't know what your legacy is, but you know what? You're never going to suddenly realize it's not just going to happen. You have to make it up. So if you're not happy today, start making up stories about what you can be excited about tomorrow and about what mark you might leave. The difference you might leave. Even if you don't know exactly what it is, you don't have to have precision about these things. But in general, when you cast your eyes into the future, you go, mm, that's gonna be good. This can be your day for personal growth. This can be that day you committed to and you remember, you go, that was the day I got myself a community. I got better coaches. I committed to making my life the absolute best that I could. This is that day. Make today your growth day. 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