Zendaya's Advice on Finding True Happiness | Stop Chasing for Others

Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is focus on happiness. Over to you, Zendaya.

I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going. I wake up every morning.

Well, the best thing I've learned and advice I could give maybe my younger self is really to focus on happiness. You know, happiness is the key because There's so many people that you see either in this industry or just in life in general that are going through their days and may have everything they could ever want, but they're not happy, you know? So you have to focus on what makes you happy and make decisions in your career, in your life that make you happy. And so I've been trying to do that, and it's working, you know? And saying no to things that are negative and saying no to things that you don't want to do, you know? So I think that that's my biggest piece of advice. Something I do, or I try to do every day, is I try to make someone, whether it be in my team or my life or whatever, just happy. Or I try to make them feel good or feel comfortable or feel loved, whatever it may be. It could be the littlest thing. It could be just saying, "Oh, you look really pretty today." Or it could be something even smaller than that or something bigger than that. You know, it doesn't really matter, but it's just making a conscious effort to make someone feel good. And that could be a stranger, or it could be your mom, you know.

I think this is a really important message. I don't think entrepreneurs focus on happiness enough, and I think when I am most creative, when I'm in the zone the most, when I'm working on things that have the biggest returns, it's when I'm happiest. I thrive when I'm happy. I do my best work when I'm happy. And so I think it's important to try to be there as much as possible. Now, the next question which becomes harder is, well, how do you, how do you stay happy? How do you get happy and how do you stay there? And we've done entire videos just on that, but I think the answer ultimately comes down to self-acceptance. I think the more that you love yourself and accept yourself for who you are, and not just accept it to be like, yeah, yeah, well, that's all I'm ever gonna be, but like, love yourself. I love these things about myself. This thing that everybody thinks I'm crazy about, like, "Ah, he's crazy 'cause he does that." I love that about myself. When you love yourself, then what happens is you stop doing things because of other people. You stop chasing something because you wanna look good for somebody else, because you wanna just beat that person, because you wanna please somebody else. The less you care about other people's opinions, opinions and judgments and expectations. The less you care about that stuff and the more you focus on yourself and what makes you come alive and what you want to do and be willing to shield yourself. It doesn't have to be in an arrogant way. Like, you don't have to put somebody down when they have expectations of you, right? When they think you should be doing that and you say, well, who are you to tell me that, right? You don't have to put them down. But it also doesn't have to impact you, you know. I love that you guys all have different opinions on what I should do, on what I should wear, on where I should go, and what my goal should be. I love that it always, for the most part, comes from a place of love. It's like, what you would do if you were in my position. But at the same time, I'm not doing this because you guys want me to. I'm doing the thing that I want to do that makes me happy. And when you love yourself, when you accept yourself and love yourself, then it makes you happier. At least it makes me happier. And so I'd strongly encourage you to examine the work that you're doing. Why are you taking on this project or going down that path? Who are you doing it for? Are you doing it just for somebody else? Are you doing it because you don't want to look bad in front of somebody else? Are you doing it because you're just trying to to, you know, boost your ego up or to have a great picture that you can post on Facebook or Instagram? Are you doing it because your parents want you to do it or because you're just trying to beat somebody else? Or are you doing it because you have the fire to do it? You're doing it because you need to express yourself and you gotta let this thing come out. I'd strongly encourage you to examine the reasons why you're doing the work. And if too many of your projects are outward-focused, instead of I love doing this, then you're not really going to be happy and you're not really going to create something amazing. So flip the switch, make for yourself, and be happy. So the question of the day today is, are you happy? Are you happy with the work that you're doing? Leave it in the comments below. I'm going to join in the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to Luke Marcus John Kroeger. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really, really means a lot to me. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. And I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going. For those of you who want to learn a little bit more about how to focus on happiness, here are some extra bonus clips. Hope you enjoy.

You want the flashy things until, you know, you grow older, you know, as an adult, and you be able to understand yourself a little bit more. I learned that them things didn't make me happy, you know. I learned that, you know, really money really don't make me— I'm learning that now, you know. That's not really my, um, my peace of mind, having money, you know. That's something I learned this year. And years before that, I learned that, you know, jewelry and all that stuff, it really make me happy. And when you learn that, you'll be able to grow, grow more as a person. You know, what makes me happy is really challenging myself and knowing that I defeated my last goal, you know, and took myself to the next level as a better person.

What's success anyway? Is success about making the most money? No, not—

no.

Money, for the most part, turns people into jerks. If you do become rich, the University Fundraising and Development Office will certainly want to stay in touch with you. And if you give enough money, you'll get your name on a plaque above the dirty laundry bin here in the men's locker room. But that still doesn't make you a great person, and it definitely doesn't mean anyone will like you. I mean, don't get me wrong, as I mentioned before, you're never gonna feel richer than when you've paid off those credit cards and student loans. But after that, money tends to be pretty unfulfilling. Almost all the people I know who've made a lot of money, they turn into that guy All right, well, you know the guy who pops his collar, and if he— and if it were up to him and he were wearing two shirts, he could pop both collars. That's the guy. So how will we know when we've done it right? What's the ultimate measure of success then? What's the key to success? Well, in my experience, quite simply, success is happiness. It all comes down to happiness. And I definitely don't mean that happiness that you feel when the Gophers take over on downs in their own red zone, as great as that feels. I mean that happiness that quite literally fills your lungs. The kind of happiness that makes a noise. It announces its arrival with a deep inhale and a deep exhale.

Ahh.

That happiness. You know that happiness, right? That happiness is success because it turns out happy people get jobs. Happy people create. Happy people win. Happy people fall in love and raise families. They lead and change the world. Happy people get what they want because often happy people are the ones who realize they don't actually need much more than they already have, and they appreciate what they've got. Happy people are contagious.

She's worried about the rent, okay?

She's a single mother.

She's worried about her kid.

Don't worry about the rent shit. You know, nothing you can do about the rent and worrying about it. That ain't gonna get you no rent. Presence and happiness get you rent. Money can't make you happy, but happy can make you money. So be happy. Go out in the world. Look, the story of the guy in the shanty house, he rolls over in the morning, meditates, goes out into the world, says, damn, I'm gonna have to get some bread and water before the whole shit go down, before I get back in that bed. But in the meantime, be nice to all my neighbors in the shanty village. Everybody is suffering in what everyone else calls extreme poverty, but he's happy. He doesn't have a poverty mindset. Nor is he worried about that bread and water. They gonna give me some motherfuckin' bread. I ain't gonna worry about that shit 'cause I'm that dude. He walks out smiling, confident, comfortable. He gets what he needs. He says, Yogananda would say, God will provide, but really, you know, God is working to get, and it shows up. He gets his bread and water. He makes everybody happy. Everybody makes him happy. He lays in the bed. Next nigga, he wakes up. He's got, you know, $36 billion in the bank. He gets up, the stock market goes up, he says, "Oh, shit!" He gets some coke and some alcohol, he gets happy, he's all excited, I'm exploding, I'm making more money, more money, more money. Oh, shit, it crashed, oh, shit, more cocaine, more alcohol, oh, shit, I'm fucked up, I'm fucked up. His heart goes up and down, and he dies at 40. The shanty house guy lives to 100. If he had the other guy's diet, not the diet the other guy took, but the other guy's opportunity for a greater diet, the guy, In the shanty house, would have made $120,000. But, you know, made $100,000. This guy died at 40. That's the reality of our— you know, our happiness is up to us. You know, our relationship with the world is up to us. Our anxiety is controlled or given to us by us.

What Seneca is saying is he's not— and all the Stoics are not saying, like, you can't be wealthy, you can't be successful, you can't go out and do things. What they're saying is that you can't, you can't be dependent on these things. Like he's saying, like, wealth is nice if you have it, but if you make your personal happiness dependent on having this money, that's bad because it's not in your control, right? The economy could melt down at any moment, or your house could burn down, or you could lose your job. And if you have equated wealth with personal happiness, now your personal happiness is outside of your control. And so Stoicism is about control in that sense. How do you, how do you make the distinction between externals and internals and focus most of your energy on internals? Having externals is nice, but sort of what they would say is that understand that they are yours in trust, which means that they could leave you at any moment. And a lot of the Stoic exercises are sort of about practicing not having those things. So Seneca was famous. One day a month, he would practice being poor. So he would wear crappy clothes, and he would not eat at his house, and he would sleep outside. And he would just— I mean, it's, I think, more now a metaphor than anything else. But the idea is we're so afraid of these things, so we don't think about them, and therefore we're not prepared for them. And then it makes them much scarier, and we dread them that much more. Even though if you looked at it really objectively, it's really not that bad.

I had a dream to come to Barcelona. But afterwards, I'm thinking maybe you should keep your dream instead of making it come true. Because that dream could almost— not almost— could have not destroyed me, but make it difficult for me. And the first 6 months, fantastic. I had a fantastic time. I had a very good relationship with Guardiola. I wanted to learn the Barcelona way of playing. It went good the first 6 months. After that, something happened that I still don't have answers for, which maybe I will never know. I mean, if somebody has a problem with me, should come to me and we resolve it, whatever the problem is, like a man. Because it was ridiculous. You don't talk to the player, the player is looking for answers. At that moment, I was not happy. And I said, I have to choose. Either I stay, win everything, but I will not be happy, or I go to somewhere else. And that is what happened. I went to Milan. My joy came back for playing football. I did a good job. I won the Scudetto immediately. I won the Supercoppa. Everybody was happy, and they were like appreciating me for playing there.