How To Be Happy

And whatever that storm is for you, you have to have that compelling future and you have to stay steadfast and realize if you go back to where you were, you'll get more of what you used to have. What's the difference between fulfillment and success or lots of money and happiness? Success and money without fulfillment and happiness is the most shallow place you could ever live on this earth. Right? And I share with my kids that nothing. I believe happiness comes from stretching ourselves. And I think we all have to be hungry for what's next. You hear a million times, if you're not climbing, you're sliding. If you're not growing, you're dying. I know that I get to appreciate and love life so much. Of course you want to be passionate about what you do, you want to have, you want to look into a bigger future, you want a compelling future. But the fact of the matter is our growth comes from stretching, conquering our fears, right? We all know that our next level lives on the other side of the thing we fear the most. And I think when you take on things that are fearful, you, you move forward courageously even though you're scared to death. Courage isn't a lack of fear. Courage is you're moving forward because you're afraid anyway. And during that journey, during that taking that courageous action, during the failure, during the time when your friends and family think you're a nut job or you should be happy with what you have, or that job that you have is you should just stay there because that's what the norm wants. When you step outside of that, when you fail a little, when you stretch yourself, it's those moments that you stop and turn around and realize that you took uncomfortable action. You moved forward when there was no sign of evolving as a man, as a woman, as a husband, as a wife, as a father, as a leader. And I think at this phase of my life, I see that all the uncomfortableness that allowed me to get here was actually the thing that built my character. You got to hear this. Most everybody listening right now. You've already surpassed the goals or dreams that you had for yourself when you were a kid. Even if you're not as far along as you think you would have been, I guarantee if you went back to your 17 year old self and shared where you are, the things you've accomplished, the things you've done, the places you travel, the success you have, you're like, oh my God, we did all that. So when I say stretch, it doesn't mean that you haven't Already done it. You've done it a million times. But here's the thing. When you stretch, when you get to a point where you think you've arrived or your brain thinks we've got here, I think that's the part where people get lost because it's like, what's my purpose? Why am I here? What to do next? I picture what was a lighthouse for, right? That was either to guide the ships to stay away from a certain area, or to bring the ships in when it was foggy and the ships were out catching fish and you'd see a light tower and you know the man that's in the light tower and it's there for a purpose. It was a guide. Well, I have a light tower in my head and what I say is for me, that is my compelling future. Like my light tower. What am I driving for? Why do I still get up? Why do I still wake up at 5:30? I don't have to work anymore. I feel blessed. To say that from where I came from means a lot. It's not being braggadocious. It's like, I could quit, but what would be left? We grow. We find happiness and joy under that stretching, right? If we're going to use that core or use that as our model. But think about this. If you've already reached your lighthouse, if it was out in front of you and you got the relationship, you found the money, you got the job, you built the career, you raised amazing children, you're standing right next to your lighthouse, you're there and you don't know what to do. What I always think about on a regular basis, I know I'm using a simple analogy, is you got to take the lighthouse and you got to carry and put it 100 yards in front of you at all times in life, because you need to be going towards that, you got to be working to get there. Now, here's the thing. What you have to realize is your goals. And I know I'm telling you stuff a lot of times you already know. I want to be a reminder service today. But the goals you had in your 20s, what success meant for you, was completely different in your 30s. And what goals and what desires you had in your 30s are different than 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s. So we have to recalculate what success means to us. We have to throw away what doesn't serve us anymore. Recalculate what success is. Attach it to that lighthouse and put it out 100 yards and fight for it like you fought for your first relationship. I fight to get to that lighthouse like I'm broke, like I'm in a bad relationship, like my kids are all hosed up like I do. I don't look at I'm a good dad. I look at it like, if I don't become a better dad tomorrow, are my kids going to live fulfilled lives? I don't have an Instagram marriage. I'm in love with my wife. I fall in love with her more every day. I'd rather get shot in the head than be unfaithful to my wife. She's my everything. But if I just keep her as the lighthouse right next to me, I will take it for granted. I won't keep that spark. When I walk in a room, my wife looks at me like I'm the hottest guy on the planet, that she's not seen a man in 10 years. Still to this day, I get chills as I'm telling you, I walk in a room, my wife makes me feel so amazing, guys, if you've never felt that, work hard for it. I. It's like I'm candy to her. I don't even know why sometimes, like, babe, you're so beautiful. But I love it so much that I don't take it for granted. I stick it out that relationship. I put it 100 yards out. And every day I'm fighting to be a better man. How do I listen more? How do I live into her heart? How do I support her as a mom or support in the business that she has? But I do that with business, too. If I've accomplished this, and I want to tell you, in my 20s, I ran away from a really. I didn't have money. My mom worked three jobs to make shit. I lived in a bathroom for a while with my dad. I was running away from pain. I was disturbed with inaction. I was disturbed the way my parents lived. And I ran away from that. I'm not running away from pain anymore. I'm financially, I'm fine. So why do I still get up and fight? Because now I've taken that lighthouse and for me personally is I want to serve people at the highest level. I want to contribute to this earth. I want to help people that might be just need a hand up, not a handout. I want to partner with great people and be friends. Ed and Tony Robbins and great people like that to really impact the world. I'll probably give most of my money to charity, so I'm not fighting for another dollar. But I've moved the Lighthouse in my head, I'm like, how do I help impact 100 million lives? And I fight for it like it's not going to happen. So that might be a crazy analogy, but I move the lighthouse to be a better dad. I move the lighthouse to be a better husband. And I wake up every day like, damn, I got a lot of ground to make up. That lighthouse is freaking two miles out. I know you've heard everything I'm sharing. You've heard, I get it. But maybe hear it through a different lens. I think a lot of this they have not heard through hear it through a different lens. The liberating thing in my life is when I took total responsibility for everything. For my success in my business, but my failures, success in my marriage. Failure in a marriage, right. I did go through a divorce and I never wanted to, but there were mistakes made and I modeled habits of my father. And here's what I know is when you blame others, you never give yourself the opportunity to mature and grow. Because if I would have brought the same man to this relationship with Lisa, I would have the same outcome with Lisa as I did with a previous marriage. And here's what I know is I knew I couldn't bring me. I had to bring a next level version of me. So when I went through a divorce and it was truly painful, it brought up childhood memories. I mean, I had anxiety attacks for the first time in my entire life and I had to go back and do therapy where I had to go hug my 6 year old self when he was scared about mom and dad fighting so crazy and breaking windows and burning like crazy stuff. I had to go work on that kid. And I realized that in my first marriage, I looked at it through the lens of kind of like my dad did. If it worked, great. If it didn't, I'll go do my own thing. If I don't have a connection here, I'll find a connection someplace else. I tried to live a congruent life and I live congruent in a lot of ways. In my previous relationship, I wasn't congruent. I look like I had a good relationship. Everything looked fine from the outside. I. So I was congruent in every area of my life. But I wasn't in my relationship because I was unhappy. Listen, let's just say it like it is. The things you do when no one's watching is really who you are. You're not who you are in front of your friends. You're not who you are in front of your parents. Or your children, or who you are at church, or who you are at the country club when you're having a couple scotches, or who you are at the nightclub when you let your hair down and go wild. None of those are who we are. We put on a different Persona for each one of those situations. Really who we are is when no one's watching. What are our habits? What are our decisions? What are the things that we do? It's like someone saying they want to start a business. They tell everybody, want to start a business. But when no one's watching, they're binging out on Netflix complaining about rich people, right? Or saying they want a good relationship. But when no one's watching, you're on the phone texting someone you met two years ago or five years ago, Right? And my congruency in my relationship wasn't there. And there's a million reasons for it. Could be her, could be me, could be us. We ended up being great friends and she's still a dear friend and we have the best relationship and co parents on the planet. And co parent amazing. But when that relationship ended, Ed, I had to look in the mirror and say, if I bring this guy, it doesn't matter if I meet the perfect woman who's beautiful inside and out. If I bring this guy, I'm six months, six days, six years away from the same crap happening again. And I had to really evaluate the man I was. And I took again. Once you take complete ownership. And I could digress a million ways, but I really feel the world has evolved. We're pointing fingers. It's the president. No, it's the previous president. No, it's the current president. No, it's the liberals. No, it's the conservatives. It's the Democrats. It's the foreign agency. It's China. There's a million things it could be. I don't know. And I'm not giving judgment other than we can always point the finger. But I've never grown as much. I think all of us can agree until you point the finger at the guy in the mirror. And before I met my wife, instead of trying to meet the perfect woman, I was just trying to figure out how I could be a better human. And when that happened, when I decided that in every area of my life and I am far from perfect, just like there's none of us perfect. But what I decided and said is I want to be a man, that if my children found a way to have a private secret video on me 24 hours a day, and they could watch that when they're older, when I'm dead and gone, and they go, wow. They could either go, wow, he was a good dad. But when no one was watching my dad, oh, my God, do you believe he did that? And he did that. I would love for my kids to watch that video and go, wow, dad was the same whether people were watching or not. And when I took that to my heart, I want you to hear that. Like, think about that. Think about if your kids could see a video of you when no one's watching. And maybe that's not what you want, but that was my desire because I wanted real love in my life or none. When I went through a divorce, Ed, I was either like, I'm going to be the best version of me and I'm going to attract that other half, or I'm going to be a kick ass single dad for the next 30 years. That's the way I looked at it. And I have to tell you, I brought a better version of me, or I created a better version and I attracted the love of my life. And we've been together years, four or five years now, and it literally grows better, stronger every single day. And again, I keep moving that lighthouse to say, how can I light this woman up more? How can I make her more attracted to me? How can I make it so our intimacy is off the chart? How can I surprise her? How can I make. You know, Tony Robbins? I love when he used to say, if you treated the end of a relationship like the beginning, there'd be no end. Right? I love that saying. So for me, my lighthouse in my relationship is how do I treat this. Like I met this hot, beautiful, amazing, successful woman three weeks ago and I'm trying to impress her. Here's what I know what happens sometimes. I'll tell you what I did for a decade. If we're going to talk about relationships, I'll be completely transparent. I thought about leaving my relationship every day of my life for five years. It was almost the first thing I thought about every day. Not because she's a bad human in any way. It just wasn't the right fit. I'm not an advocate of divorce, but it just didn't fit. But here's what I did. For years, I was financially successful at the time. I thought I was the best dad possible, even though I wasn't showing them the best example. But I thought, I'm an engaged father. I coach little League, coach softball. I'm there. I bring them to school, make them lunches. Love them to death. I'm a great leader to my team. I'm a good friend to people who need me. So my relationship's off and I'm not congruent. I should be freaking fortunate. So who gets it all? This is what I remember. Oh, you want it all, Dean. You want love and congruency and a good dad and financially free. And I remember just thinking, stop being greedy if your relationship doesn't work. I wasn't facing something because it was scary to me. It was scary. Leaving my kids and not thinking of. Thinking of not being with my kids every single day was like a shot in the gut. And I just ignored it and avoided it. And it grew. It grew to where I didn't become the man that I was supposed to be. Listen, whatever you believe in, God, the universe. I believe in God. And I believe God has created you to be bigger, better, and stronger than you currently are. No matter where you are in your life, God wants you to be the woman you were meant to be, the man you were meant to be. And if you believe in karma, whatever your beliefs are, you are meant to be more. And when you let one of those areas build, it doesn't go away. I don't care how much I try to push it down on the inside. It just kept growing. And you feel that you're looking away from it, even though it's there. And I want you to think about this when you have to. Some things are difficult. You might have to face a change of a business, a change of a business partner, change of a job, change in a relationship. The thing that you've been avoiding is growing, even though you think it's not. And it's like, got roots, and the roots are creeping over into all areas of your life, and you don't know. And you're working harder, stronger, faster to overcome this, and you think you're conquering it. If you're in a relationship, that's not good. And maybe you go to the strip club or you text on your phone or you do something and you think you're fulfilling it, you're not. You're just letting the roots grow in deeper and stronger. And you're working twice as hard to be successful and you don't even realize it. And here's the way I looked at it when I decided, or we decided to get a divorce. And you can use this analogy. You can tell I got some silly analogies. You can use this in any area of your life. Picture your ship is in a bay. It's calm, the water's calm. There's other great ships in the bay. The weather's kind of beautiful. It's kind of nice. But you know, you're not meant to be in that bay. But, man, it just has all the signs where you're supposed to be there. But the only way out of that bay is you got to sail your ship through the storm that's out in the ocean, and you're watching the storm, and you're watching how turbulent it is, and you're not even sure because you've never navigated that territory. You don't have a map because you've never been there. You've never experienced it. And the way I looked at it when I was going through a divorce is I was so scared for my kids. Not me being alone, but scared on how that would work out with my kids, that a lot of times I put my ship in the storm, it got bumpy, and I went back to the bay. And I'll tell you, when I finally said, I can't be the man. I'm supposed to be staying in this harbor, even though it's pretty and there's great people around, and it's going through that storm, going through the changes, the navigating of new territory. You're mapping out new territory on the fly, and your ship's going down, and you want to turn back 100 times. But there's this moment, and it happened to me when I went through a divorce. There was this moment where I didn't know if I could take it, and I was scared for my kids, and I was having anxiety attacks. But I want to share with you. There was this moment that my ship landed on the other side of the storm, and it was over. And I was a different human. I was a different man. I looked through a different lens. I had a new map, and I realized I wasn't meant for that other bay. Yes, it was safe. Yes, it was okay. But listen, at the end of our lives, do we want to be okay? Right? And when I got to the other side, it was this fresh start. I found a way to be friends with my ex. I found a way for my kids to be safe. I found a way to replace quantity with quality. With my children, I found a way to be a better version of me and attract Lisa in my life. And when those roots were gone, this is what I want to share with all of you for that one area of your life that you know what I'm talking about. As you're hearing this, you're picturing it and you're going, wow, nobody really knows that I do that when no one's watching. Nobody knows that I'd like to fix that. No one knows that. I kind of BS everybody else and say I'm working on it, but I'm not. I want to tell you, when they go away, your sailboat turns into a ship with five engines on it. Like my life exponentially grew. I became a better dad, a better leader, a better friend. I had more compassion, had more empathy. I replaced anger with compassion. And things just. I just became a different person. I mean, I think I was a good man 10 years ago, but I wouldn't recognize him. I'm not the same human today that allowed me to go faster. And I just encourage you. You've heard this before, but your next level lives on the thing, on the other side of the thing. You're avoiding all of us. We get to learn from each other and listen to each other. And I'll go listen to a podcast when I need a little. I'll listen to a little Ed Mylett or watch it. But what drives me to fix those pieces, guys, and I want you to hear this. The business that you want to scale, start the relationship you want to fix or end the parenting style that you've gone so long doing it one way, you think it's too late, and you got to fight for it. It's worth the fight, whatever it is the fight. I just want to tell you, I picture I've always pictured being at the end of my life and having a conversation with God, and he said, how did it go? Right? Always picture that. And I always have the fear of going, well, you know, I was in a good relationship, right? Or things were okay. You know, I was great at my business, great at impacting lives, and I did this, and I was a good dad. What about your relationship? It was okay. I picture saying that to someone where we have this creation given to us, this opportunity, and I feel like this inner disappointment where I'd want to scream and go, you know what? Damn it, can I do that over? And you don't get that chance. You don't get that chance. Like, you don't get a do over and you'd want to. So I put those emotions of my future back on me. Things you've again already heard. And I think I heard this from you, Ed, or someone, but I heard someone put that on a whole other level. Could you imagine if God pulled out his iPhone and said, ed, I appreciate all you've done and you've served and you give in that one area of life. Can I play a quick video of the man you could have been? I want to share this with you guys, and I hope it's relating to where you are in your life right now. If you're looking for what's going to drive you, what's going to take you to the next level, how do you move your lighthouse out, how do you wake up compelled again, not just want to chill. And how do you find that thrive, that energy, that zest for life again? I just want to share with you that you can't. I forgot I got off on it. But if you played the video of your life and you wanted to do over. I'm trying to get back to what I was saying. Oh, this is what I wanted to say. If I didn't sail my ship out of that harbor, that safe harbor, and go through. I'm not. I'm understating what I went through. I don't take aspirin. When I was going through a divorce, worrying about my kids, I was popping Xanax three days a week because I couldn't control my anxiety. I was drinking a glass of wine five nights a week because I couldn't put myself to sleep. So I'm understating how bad I was for a short period of time. When I was in the middle of that storm, I thought of turning back because I felt so crappy about myself and worried about my kids so much. But I want to tell you, on the other side, I never would have experienced what real love could be like. I have love in a way that I wish it for every single one of you. There's nothing I can even share that compares to having a true soulmate that's got your back, that supports you and loves you, and you feel the same where you don't keep score and you got each other's back. I never would have experienced that if I didn't go through the storm and whatever that storm is for you. You have to have that compelling future and you have to stay steadfast and realize if you go back to where you were, you'll get more of what you used to have. Hey, it's Dean. I want to jump in here real quick and just say, if you're like me and you're always looking for the competitive edge, the way to take your success strategies, your success habits, your mindset to a whole other level, to bust imposter syndrome, to bust procrastination, to be confident, to move forward, then I'm going to encourage you to go to ASF.comASF.com that stands for the Accelerated Success Formula. It's a brand new course we just got done with, or I got done with. It is my absolute best favorite personal development success course I've ever created in my life. You're going to freak out when you see what we created. I'd love to invite you to go check it out. Go to the page asf.com see all the details. 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