The Happiness Paradox: When We Don’t Feel What We “Should” Feel

You see, we tend to tie our self worth to our productivity, to our output, and we kind of always are thinking that happiness will come if we just achieve just a little bit more. If I just start another business, if I just do another podcast. The irony here is that happiness is often already present in our lives. People just don't stop long enough to actually notice that it's freaking here. Which goes back to the beginning of our conversation that you were having. And I'm like, sometimes we just need to realize, like, we're doing way better than we thought we were and we're actually happy if we just shut our dang brains off. But, Liz, I think there's one other thing I want to mention here, and that is, again, the external pressure for high achievers in that whole not social comparison, but just comparison comes into play. We as high achievers are usually surrounded by other successful humans, and that makes it way easier for us to minimize our own accomplishments. I'll never be Gary Vee. I'll never be Jay Shetty. When. When everyone around you is winning, it's tough not to feel like you need to do more, which can then again overshadow the happiness that you've actually learned. And sometimes you just have to realize, the only thing I can be is the best. George B. Thomas.

Welcome back to Beyond. You'd default. I'm your host, Liz Moorhead, and as always, I am joined by one of my favorite humans on the planet, George B. Thomas. How the heck are you this morning, Liz?

I am doing absolutely wonderful. I'm super excited to be having this conversation with you. My brain goes in so many directions. When you kind of slid this across the digital desk, if you will, I think it will add a ton of value to those who maybe fall prey to the thing that we're going to talk about today.

I am so excited to hear you say that because you and I do a lot of work together to plan out these episodes, and often, you know, we're operating from the framework that is the beating heart of the beyond, your default journey. And that's the superhuman framework. And I wanted to have a conversation. I wanted us to revisit one of the pillars, happiness, but from a very specific perspective, the happiness paradox, which is the title of this episode. And I remember your face went, what's that?

Yeah.

What does that even mean? And just I appreciate, as always, the trust you have in me when it's like I have something specific I want to bring to the table today. But before we get into that, what's your Highlight and your lowlight from the weekend.

Here's what's funny, Liz. On a side tangent of, like, being uber human centric and creating the superhuman framework, I'm also, for the last two years, quietly been becoming an AI nerd. And so it's funny you mentioned my face when you said the happiness paradox, because my highlight this weekend was sitting on my back porch and ChatGPT released their new AI voice assistant, where you can talk to it, like, have a conversation with it. And Liz, I sat on my back porch and I said, what is the happiness paradox? And then it told me what it was and. And I said, why is the happiness paradox a thing that humans struggle with? And it told me what it told me. And I kept asking it different directions and going deeper, and it was like having my own little happiness paradox consultant that was like talking me through the understanding of, like, where you were coming from. And there were so many times where I was like, oh, this is why I think this way.

Oh, this.

This is why I do that thing. And so being able to take what at first sounds like this complex thing, the happiness paradox, and, like, be able to have it simplified down and then understand, oh, I know how we can run with this episode. I get why we're creating this piece of content that for me was like, oh, this is awesome.

I do love for a second, though, that there's always like a. I trust Liz. You weren't as overt as with the self care episode when you're like, so this is what we're doing, huh?

Well, so, first of all, I know the self care thing literally was rooted in the fact that I historically suck at self care. The happiness paradox was more of a. I'm intrigued because I remember having multiple conversations with different humans of it ending up with them not being able to tell me what makes them happy, which is a totally kind of sideways or know, cousin to this conversation a little bit. So. So there's that, but the. The low light for me, and it's not much of a low light. Like, I really can't complain, but my wife and daughters were gone again. Well, for four days. They were doing another dog show, which they're crushing these dog shows, by the way. I'm so proud of them. Like, seeing Facebook and like, these blue ribbons and purple ribbons and all the colors of the ribbons that they're getting. And just the fact that they can have this journey and go have fun and do something that they love. By the way, that's not my lowlight that they're on. This Jo doing the things that they love. My lowlight was that they weren't at home. Therefore, it was like me and Noah and we had to fend for ourselves and basically be bachelors and watch other dogs that were still here. And so I probably watched way too much Netflix because I got sucked in by, dare I say, on this podcast, Fear of the Walking Dead. And I was like, oh my God, this is so bad, but so good in so many ways. And so I could have probably been more productive. But as I say that, I realized that I did that and also sent you 14 ebooks over the weekend. Anyway, I don't know. I need help, ladies and gentlemen, I need help.

I mean, it's good. Every time you send me something, a content strategist gets its wings. So, you know, I. It's fine for me. I'm good. My highlight and low light. So my highlight last weekend was actually the culmination of a highlight of the entire week. So last week I went up to house sit for some friends in Windsor, Connecticut, and I made the conscious decision of I'm not going to see anybody while I'm up there. I am going to disconnect, I am going to refocus. And I wasn't sure if I needed a reset on my life in some sort of significant way or just some sort of circling of the wagons to make sure that we were moving in the right direction. And I spent all last week, in addition to doing all of my work and all of that good stuff, reorganizing and restructuring kind of the operating system I used to run my life. And I feel absolutely incredible. It was funny, I'd say probably a year or so ago, if you had asked me to spend a week by myself intentionally, I would have felt fear of abandonment, fear of loneliness creeping in, you know, all of the fears that I think that can become quite natural if you are going through any sort of divorce like I was going through or other things. But instead I remember going through last week going, okay, these are the things that need to change. These are the things that are doing better. Overall, it was just a really satisfying weekend where it was less about, let me try to architect a brand new life with a whole new set of habits and things that I will never be able to keep up with because you shouldn't make massive, drastic life change. And instead it felt like we're fixing refinement. Instead, it felt like recognition of how far I had come. And that felt really amazing. So when I got back here yesterday, I looked at my, my Apartment and my studio. Like, okay, so these are the things that need to change to support the changes that I now want to make. I strongly recommend this to anybody to just take some time away. And I didn't do it as a vacation. I'm a busy gal. You know, you don't have to drop off the face of the earth and become a monk for a week. As much as that would be nice.

That's not always sounds actually really good right now.

Sound sounds great in theory, not always practical. But I thought this is actually a good exercise of when to do it. How can I evolve my life in a way while I'm still living the life while I'm still, you know, so I'm making more realistic decisions. The low light.

Well, wait, before you, before you go to the low light, I want to say, first of all, I commend you for taking the time to do that. And I think it's absolutely amazing that you had this kind of mindset of refinement. Because so many times in my life I've like, let's blow this up. And sometimes your life doesn't need that. Even though sometimes that's how we're programmed. So the fact that you took time to do this and it was a mindset of refinement, I'm super excited for you.

Oh, absolutely. It was about, do I have these systems in place to live the life that I want? Because in many ways I am. But I could feel. I'm starting to feel some friction around the edges. Right. My sleep schedule wasn't quite where I wanted it to be. My workout schedule is good, but I'm constantly kind of moving it around. How am I keeping track of certain things? Do I have my own self care routines down path?

Yeah.

You know, I used to do a ton of self reflection and journaling that had become fundamentally absent. I've brought that back. So when we do our next work in progress check. Which is surprisingly not too far away. I'll talk a little bit more about this because there are certain things I'm going to commit to for a month that I'm testing out just to see how they feel. But yeah, I'm really excited.

Are we really close to like another therapy couch session closest?

Yeah, we do it every 20 episodes and we're on 56.

Wow.

Yeah, so far.

Okay, I'll start to brace myself.

Yeah, it's okay. I'll start to brace myself too. We've both gotten pretty good at our little excavations.

Let me throw a couple digital punches across the microphone.

Low Light was I got to spend the night in Mount Laurel, New Jersey's finest Econo launch.

Oh, nice.

I had to make a responsible decision. So when I was on my way back from Connecticut, there was a big accident that ended up making it super late when I was getting back. And I was just about to hit Delaware. And once he hit Delaware. Yeah, like, Maryland's not too far away. It's not too bad. But I was starting to feel it behind my eyes. I'm like, I could make it, but this will be heck on earth. And I'm like, oh, look, there's a. There's an exit with lots of lodgings. And I ended up in the world's finest Econo lodge. And I'm like, you know what? At least it'll be cold in here. It was cold with a knocking air conditioner.

But you know what?

It's one of those things where it's like, the mattress was probably about three matchbooks thick. We did what we had to do.

You probably wanted to levitate over it anyway, in general.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was kind of funny. And I was like, you know, I'm just gonna fall asleep to Matlock and just hope for the best. Got up the next morning, got my crappy feet, free coffee downstairs, but hey, it was free. And then got right back on the road, you know, and if that's the low light, that's kind of funny. So I'll take it.

Yeah, without a doubt. There's much worse that could be happening.

I have a more interesting story that's going to intro us into our conversation about the happiness paradox today. Okay, so I had a very funny conversation with a friend of mine last week. She had just recently started dating this guy maybe about a month or so ago. And they're the same kind of weirdo. They're absolutely perfect for each other.

I know people, you know, and the.

Thing is, is that she and I are quite similar. Her background, relationship wise, has not historically been the best. It's been a bit painful in different ways. So her experience with happy, healthy relationships is, you know, on the. On the minimal side. Right. She and I were having a conversation on the phone last week, and she's like, I just feel terrible. I'm like, well, what's wrong? Did something happen? We'll call. We'll call him. Mike. Did something happen with Mike? Just. No, he's great. I just can't shake this horrible feeling right now. And Mike, for his work, spends a few days a week in a different place and then travels back home. It's just part of his job. And I said, well, wait a minute, hold on. We'll call her Susie. Susie. Question. Do you just miss him? And she went, oh, God. Is that what this feeling is? This is terrible. Why do we want this? We had a good laugh about it because she was sitting there feeling like, oh my gosh, if I'm feeling this way, it must be terrible. She didn't know how to name the feeling. And then when she put a name to it, she realized, I just miss him. And I'm like, that's a happy thing. And it got me thinking about this idea of happiness, right? And what happiness looks like, what it feels like doing the work of what. How to define what makes us happy, what it means to find it and experience it and cultivate it. But I've noticed that there's something that I'm sure, maybe there's a different name for it, but I like to call it the happiness paradox. Those moments where we don't feel the happiness, even when we finally achieve whatever that thing is that will genuinely make us feel happy. And we know it's here, it is defined. And these things that are, quote, making us happy aren't of the harmful or self destructive variety. Right. We've called out that we want a happy, healthy relationship where we could be vulnerable and feel supportive. And it's a partnership and it arrives and we know it. We get that dream job, we start achieving real professional or personal success. Right? But then the feelings and the facts don't align.

Yeah.

Like you might struggle to trust or feel comfortable in that new, healthy relationship. Like my friend Susie. You may get the success you want, but then you might feel overwhelmed or even fearful of the success. And that's something a lot of people talk about, fear of success, despite it being something positive that you've worked for. Or sometimes the thing actually shows up and you don't even realize it's there. You don't see it. So someone might be so used to negativity or disappointment that they fail to notice that the good thing they want has shown up. And it's this weird thing, right? Because we expect, you know, we did all that conversation in the Happiness the Happiness podcast when we initially discussed this pillar. I think we have this expectation that when we get the things that we want, we get the things that are going to make us happy. We're going to meet those moments of joy with joy. We're going to meet those moments of joy with open arms and excitement. But oftentimes there is a dissonance there is a disconnect, and we don't always feel the happiness we expect to feel when we reach our goals, which is what I wanted to talk to you about today.

Yeah.

And how we navigate those paradoxical experiences.

Yeah, it's. It's interesting because a couple things like shoot to my brain as you're kind of getting into this. Like, the amount of humans that I've seen self sabotage. The amount of humans that I've seen, by the way, myself included, where you set a goal, and then right as or right before you are about to achieve that goal, you set a new goal that's further or farther. And so you don't pause for the success or the joy. Anyway, there's. There's so many things that we just kind of do, because I think we don't take time to think about this part of the conversation of happiness that we're going to have to today.

So, George, when I ask you if you've ever had an experience like this, I'm gonna guess the answer is yes.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So one of the things. And I'll. I'll just kind of talk about my professional life for a second. One of the things that I had said in, like, 2012 is I want to speak on the inbound stage now. I meant on the main stage, but even just speaking at inbound is a little bit of a big deal. And so in 2016, I actually got to speak at inbound for the first time. It was a breakout session, but I didn't know what was next, and therefore, I wasn't able to enjoy the fact that this was happening. And I even kind of by default, moved it to, well, it's not the main stage. It's just a breakout. And so I should have been happy in that moment. But I found multiple ways to set or align to a different goal or to brush off the fact that it was kind of happening. And so I could rinse and repeat this for probably multiple things in my career, but also, like, multiple things in my personal life. I think it's something, Liz, that everybody ends up kind of falling prey to because it's a little bit of a. I feel like sometimes it's a sneak attack, a psychological sneak attack that we do to ourselves.

I will say, hearing you immediately go, oh, God, yeah, makes me feel better.

Yeah.

Yeah. So over the past year, I've done a lot of work to deconstruct and rebuild. We don't need to go down that path again. But it's something I've talked about in detail through the course of this podcast. And one of the reasons I actually wanted to take this past week to do exactly what I said I did during the introduction when we were talking about our weekend was because a few weeks ago, I woke up and realized I had been telling myself the wrong story. You know, I had been feeling a bit adrift. Right. You know, I'm. I'm going to be 42 this later this month. Yeah. I'm not living in the big house like I used to be dating. What is that like? No, thank you.

I don't even want to think about that.

But I was sitting around kind of poo pooing my own life, and then I was. I was sitting on the edge of my bed and I actually thought to myself, I wish I could talk to George, but it's like 4 in the morning. I know.

Yeah.

Don't call me.

Probably don't call me.

I'm not going to call. Not go do that. Not go do that. I'm like, we're friends. But, like, we're not 4am in the morning friends unless something is actually broken. We're not. We're not having existential conversations about life at 4am if they could easily be held.

If there's an emergency, call me. If it's like, if it can wait, let's make it wait.

No, because a few weeks ago, as you know, and I mentioned on the show, like, I had a bit of a health scare.

Yeah.

And it kind of knocked a bit of sense into me. And I was sitting on the edge of my bed. I went, wait a minute. Let me describe my circumstances as if I'm talking to somebody else. I'm living in an incredible studio apartment in the middle of the historic district of Annapolis. My neighbors are artists. My hallways are filled with canvases of art. I meet people in the hallway. So I never thought I would meet before. Artists, musicians. If I want to go anywhere or see people, I just walk downstairs to my favorite coffee house and I meet new people there. I take daily walks by the U.S. naval Academy. I work for myself and I'm successful at doing so. I would love to have someone in my life, but I do not need someone.

Yeah.

I get to travel. I get to have incredible experiences. So let me get this straight. What exactly am I upset about? Because on paper, this is the thing I said. I wanted my freedom. And so when I think about why I did what I did last week, it's like, because I woke up and realized, oh, this is the life we're Here. We made it. We did it. But I had to do that work to retell the story. So here's my question to you. What do you think contributes to that kind of disconnect between achieving the success, achieving the things that we want, and then actually feeling it when it gets there?

Yeah. So before I answer that, I want to just say that what you did, I would suggest that any of the listeners and even myself take time to do that. Because, Liz, I'll be honest with you. There are many days that I wake up and I say, why am I doing this? I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing it right. Like, I could be doing it better. And then I have moments where I'll be like, on a podcast or something, and somebody will say something like, dude, people want to be you. And I'm like, wait, no, nobody wants to be me. And then they're like, no, seriously, like, you have the life it jukes me into. Like, dude, why are you freaking doing that to yourself anyway? And I say all of that humbly because I have to remind myself, Liz, you're reminding me right now on this podcast that I have a pretty spectacular life. Like, we've arrived at a pretty fun and interesting place. And so all of that to say, I fall prey to this more than some might think. And I think a big part of this disconnect is the difference between external and internal motivation. And I've battled with this. I literally have a saying that I say because I'm trying to program my brain when I'm saying it, but. But we humans, we often kind of equate success with external achievements, like getting a promotion. By the way, when you own your own company, you can't lean on, I'm going to get a promotion. It just not coming that you can earn more money again, when you own your own business, you can earn more money, but most of the time, you're probably going to try to put it back into the business or the humans that are actually helping you grow that business. So that's weird. Or gaining recognition. And by the way, once you gain recognition, you realize that, sure, it's good to be known, but what does that even mean for you? And how are you going to leverage it in the world that you're trying to navigate? So although those things can provide this, like, temporary high, but they don't fulfill our need as humans for this deeper personal growth, this deeper connection, this deeper purpose. Which, by the way, is why purpose is one of the four cornerstones of the superhuman framework. But Real happiness comes from this intrinsic value like meaningful relationships or finding purpose or simply enjoying what we do. Again, I talk about going to play instead of going to work because I always want to enjoy what I'm doing. When we focus too much on the external validation of those things, I think we as humans lose sight of this internal drivers that actually create the lasting joy, a level deeper than happiness that we're all seeking. And listen, this is why I always talk about again, because it's the programing statement for me that I'm trying to lean into, almost eradicate. The conversation that we're having today is I'm chasing significance versus success, meaning I'm chasing internals versus externals. And so some of the times I think this ends up being a thing that we battle with because we often have this disconnect because our values don't align with what we're chasing. Like we go after things that society says are successful, money or prestige without actually taking the time, kind of like you did and asking if those things, those externals align with what we actually give to craps about what we care about. And when we do achieve those things, by the way, those, hey, if you do this, it's going to mean this about you. They can feel really empty because they don't connect with our deeper desire for creativity, connection or meaning. And it's literally like we've been climbing a mountain only to realize it wasn't the mountain we wanted to climb. And how much energy and time did we waste climbing that mountain? I mean, no wonder we feel unfulfilled even after reaching big milestones. They're the wrong dang milestones. And Liz, something that is real interesting too, where my brain goes here, we have to talk about this comparison culture that we live in. Especially in this, you know, teenage years, maybe 20s social media age, it feels like. And this is one of the reasons why I try to stay off of social media as much as, as possible. While I don't have a problem paying my daughter, as, you know, money to do social, while I even love the idea of embracing HubSpot's new AI agent for social media, because when I think about what it does, it bombards me with other people's highlight reels. I don't, I don't know if you have the same thing. I don't know if the listeners deal with this, but it's like feel great about what you've accomplished for a second because then you scroll through your feed and suddenly you see someone with a bigger house, you see somebody With a better vacation, you see somebody with more likes. What you don't see is the debt that they went in to actually get that house or go on that vacation. But your brain doesn't work that way. You see these highlight reels and you're like, oh, my life sucks. And like, rationally we know it's just a curated version of their life. It's what they want everybody to think or believe. But. But emotionally, like, it hits hard and suddenly we feel like we're not enough. Which is a terrible place to be in when you're trying to not be stuck and you're trying to live a life beyond your default. This comparison culture, Liz, can drive us to chase goals that might not even make us happy. The big house, the being married, the whatever, like the thing, right? Just because we feel like we need to keep up with the highlight reels of those humans that we see, frankly, it's freaking exhausting. And for me personally, I don't know about you lizard listeners, it leaves us kind of disconnected from our own sense of fulfillment. But Liz, I'm curious from your side of the fence, like, what are your thoughts on. On this?

I want to co sign on everything you just said because I think, you know, this is something I've written about in the newsletter before, beyond your default.com/forward/newsletter. But this idea of do you. Are you chasing what you actually want or what you think you should want? Because I was the girl living in a big half million dollar house in the nice neighborhood with all the things and the dogs and the big backyard and miserable, was unhappy. The call was coming from inside the house.

Yeah.

And there was this moment where my ex husband and I and we've actually been able to find a way to stay friends. It's been kind of interesting as we've gone through this process, but that is.

Not my story with my ex. But go ahead.

There was this moment before everything kind of fell apart. And I was just sitting outside in our backyard and I just blurted out, why does it feel like no one's lived here in a really long time? And he without thinking, said, because I'm not sure anybody has. And it kind of freaked us both out and we just kind of both walked away. And that's what happens. You end up with good people in situations that become toxic, that calcify. And sometimes that happens on an individual level where we chase the things that we think we're supposed to want and we check all the boxes. And for some reason, the more happy boxes we check the unhappier we get. So that's one piece of it. But then there are the experiences where you are actually getting the thing that is aligned with you and you still reject it, like a bad organ transplant, if you even recognize it at all. For example, let's say you want to have a romantic relationship where you get to show up and it's healthy and it's vulnerable and it has all of these elements that you want. If vulnerability has been something you have struggled with in the past, meaning you haven't felt something safe to be vulnerable in the past, which is why you want to be with a partner who makes you feel psychologically safe, you know what's going to happen. You're going to try to kill the baby. You are going to have a fight or flight response. Because that happiness, my friends, is identified by reflex, by your subconscious and your psychology as a threat. So, for example, let's say we're going to use air quotes. Hypothetically, you are someone who wants that, but you had to acknowledge yourself, hey, Liz, why did you stay? And it's because I was in a position where I didn't have to be vulnerable, which meant even when things were at their worst, I had a measure of safety and security because of the home life I grew up in. There is a level of threat and fear that comes with actually being vulnerable with another person. So we have to understand that we're going to have those moments where we're going to be met with the thing that we want, want. But our programming is to initially kill the baby. This is a threat. I understand this intellectually is what's going to make you happy, but this is, this is too much.

I think there's an added like double click into that of like, why are you there? Why did you stay? Because we also go like, well, if I don't, they'll judge me. Who are they? Like, it depends on your life and who you immediately think of. But to be honest with you, they probably won't. And they probably will. But they will also probably show up in a way of like, we wonder why you were doing that anyway.

Oh, as someone who just went through that, I will be perfectly honest with you and say there will be people who judge you. But then you learn that is more like if I'm sitting there telling you I am unhappy, in fact, I'm pretty sure no one is winning in this situation, that this is a really well packaged disaster. Do you really want to give up the house? Do you really want to. It actually became nothing about feelings or the person it was. We have everything that you want. So those are connections that quite frankly, okay, go off, be free. So there's that piece of it. But then there's also. Even if you're willing to let it in, well, what if I break it? What if I mess it up? Am I deserving of this? All of these stories come in because we are putting ourselves in a position to experience something wholly new and unknown. And our subconscious and that fleshy paperweight in our brain is desperately trying to keep us safe from re experiencing pain, harm. So we may experience programming that runs counter to what we believe is logical. I get the happy relationship. I should just be happy. And then if you're programmed this way, you. I had to sit down on the edge of my bed after a. An experience of my whole life may be about to change in a very negative way. From a health perspective. Thank goodness it did not.

Yeah.

To realize my feelings were clouding my judgment of the facts. I was telling myself the worst story possible about my circumstances until I realized, liz, you chucklehead, this is what you want. It's not just what you thought you wanted. This is what you want and is actually good for you. And that veil of self deception lifted. Nothing changed about my circumstances. But what will happen is when you are deeply afraid. If there's something around, the experience that you're having is pushing you into a comfort zone where you have to release control, where you have to actually leap into the unknown and really do it. Don't just do the Instagram version of it where you are living a life that is different than anything you had ever planned. You have to accept the fact that some of that is just going to feel uncomfortable. That means you're going to start telling yourself these negative stories. Yeah, those are some of my thoughts that I want to add on to what you're talking about because you're absolutely right. The way we are taught to think about what happiness is, I think often contributes to this feeling of disconnect. Right, because say that, that thing like, how many times have you and I heard stories of somebody getting this opportunity that they really want, but they think of it negatively because they're worried about what other people might think. Whether that's personal, professional, romantic. This guy is perfect to me. What from? What will my parents think? Well, I really want this job, but I don't know. You know, like all of these things where it's like, man, we live in a society that preaches individualism and chasing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but only Under a specific set of conditions. I don't think so.

The pursuit of happiness, by the way, be careful with that, because it's the pursuit of happiness that actually creates the happiness paradox.

Oh.

Like, sometimes you just have to realize, like, being happy is being able to just sit in it, not chase it. Like, so many times you. Like if you try to chase a butterfly, it's almost impossible, but if you just sit there many times, it'll just land on you. Anyway, I'll quit waxing philosophical. Like, it's hard to achieve, but it's a magic place when you get there is not giving two craps what they think and giving all the craps about what you think.

I want it say yes, and it's a genuine yes and not one of those yes ands where you can tell somebody watched it.

So it's not a but.

It's not a but. Yeah, it's a yes, and it is not giving a crap what other people think. Giving a crap what you think, but also being mindful of. Like, there are some people like George, I give a crap what you think. Like, not. You're not going to be in the room for every single one of my decisions. But it's okay to give a crap about what the right people think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very good. Very good point to add in there.

But you have to learn yourself first, though. Like, I can't, to be very clear, and why it's a genuine yes. And I had a disagreement with a friend of mine recently who was, quite frankly, very hurt that I. You knew I had been moving back to Maryland for months.

Yeah.

Many of the people in Connecticut did not. In fact, there was one person who I waited to tell very late. Well, he and I finally had a conversation about it. And I said, two things are true. I recognize exactly where you're coming from. And let me explain why this happened. I spent almost two decades or more programming myself to make decisions based on what other people think.

Yes.

To the point where I would look in the mirror and not know if I was wearing an outfit, if it's because I actually liked it or if it's because I thought I was who I was supposed to be or all of these different things. Like, I literally did not know who I was or what I wanted. And I said, in hindsight, what I did was kind of an overcorrection, but I needed everybody out of the room while I made a decision. And I had to be very careful about who I told and when because I needed to not walk away feeling Like I was doing something wrong. Doing something I was. Right.

Yep.

And you were one of the last people I told because you mean so much to me and I was so worried about what was going to happen. We're fine now.

Yeah.

And he ended up understanding. But to your point, this is why it's a yes. And if you have historically been a people pleaser to the point of self destruction, where you look in the mirror and you're like, is this my beautiful life? Is this my beautiful house? Like that talking head song. But like, in the worst way possible. You kind of have to relearn how to make promises to yourself that you actually want to keep and understand why you're making the decision that you want to make. Then you get to decide about whose opinions you care about. But you have to learn to repair that relationship with yourself first. Yeah, I want to dig into a very specific segment of the population, you know, the population who tends to listen to this episode. We got our. Our high achievers, right? Our people who like the idea of a growth mindset. But if you listen to our growth mindset episode in the healthy way, not in the toxic, self destructive way, why do you think we see this a lot with high achievers who sometimes struggle to recognize or embrace their own happiness when it arrives because everybody succumbs to this. But man, when we're in our groups of people, all of us are happy and not happy at the same time. It is wild to me.

I'm going to do my best to answer this question. Like, I'm not talking about myself. See, high achievers, we, I, they struggle with embracing my. Our happiness.

Friends, Romans, fellow failing country.

Because we're always chasing the next big thing. Liz, like, success is often for high achievers, a moving target. Once we reach a goal or get very, very close to a goal, instead of taking time to celebrate it, we have already moved on to the next one. I mean, I talked about my inbound story at the beginning of this podcast. Like, I was already on to a next thing. I can even say this about, like, the money that I've earned over the years. Like, I'll be happy when I make 60,000. All sudden in 2013, when I worked for Marcus Sheridan, that was happening. I'll be happy when I make 125,000. When we got acquired by Impact brand and design, that was happening, but it wasn't. I just kept moving it or like, and there's so much that we do this in our life. Like, this mindset makes it hard to slow down and appreciate the moment. Because in our minds, in their minds, in my mind, there's always something more to accomplish, the next big thing. I also think that, and I'm phoning this, this one in for a friend. Perfectionism plays a significant role here. As high achievers, we set these incredibly high standards, not just for others, but for ourselves. Even when we reach important milestones, we tend to downplay the success or allow ourselves to zero in on what didn't go perfectly. Liz, I'm just a guy. I say this. I'm just a guy because of this thing that I'm talking about right now. Like, it creates a situation where nothing is ever good enough, making it challenging to feel the happiness, the joy that should come from the success, success or successes that are happening to these high achievers, that there's also, again, talking about everybody except for myself. Not really. There's also like a fear that if we stop to relish our achievements, we'll lose the momentum and fall behind. Falling behind is one of my biggest fears. You see, we tend to tie our self worth to our productivity, to our output. And we kind of always are thinking that happiness will come if we just achieve just a little bit more. If I just start another business, if I just do another podcast. The irony here is that happiness is often already present in our lives. People just don't stop long enough to actually notice that it's freaking here. Which goes back to the beginning of our conversation that you were having. And I'm like, sometimes we just need to realize, like we're doing way better than we thought we were and we're actually happy if we just shut our dang brains off. But Liz, I think there's one other thing I want to mention here, and that is again, the external pressure for high achievers in that whole not social comparison, but just comparison comes into play. We as high achievers are usually surrounded by other successful humans and that makes it way easier for us to minimize our own accomplishments. I'll never be Gary Vee. I'll never be Jay Shetty. When, when everyone around you is winning, it's tough not to feel like you need to do more, which can then again overshadow the happiness that you've actually learned. And sometimes you just have to realize the only thing I can be is the best. George B. Thomas. Liz, what do you have brewing in the cranium of yours? I saw you like have a visceral response. Response to a couple of the things that I said.

Yeah. Particularly the idea of, do you have to go Build something wholly new, or do you already have that opportunity you're looking for in your front yard? Right. It's this idea of, I think this is something we also come to. Do you actually need a new car? Do you just need to take the car you have for a car wash and maybe give it a little tune up? Do you already have the tools that you already need? Do you actually have to have something fresh and wholly new? I was thinking about it, an experience I had actually around the work that we do with beyond, you'd default. And, you know, it's. You know, I've always wanted to be a writer. This is the personal growth area, is something I've always really worked hard in. And I remember before we started doing beyond, you'd default. I just kept feeling like I have to create this wholly new thing. And then it turned out the opportunity was something already in my backyard. And that ended up. And I think we expect these things to show up and just be massive and grand when really the great works that we will ever create are the ones that begin in our own garden, not in the gardens found somewhere else.

Yes. Yeah.

You know, you may bring the flowers from your own garden into someone else's, but the strongest crops we will ever till and cultivate will be our own.

I love that so much. And Liz, it's funny not to interrupt you, but you're literally unlocking something in my brain. I jokingly said at the beginning of this episode, Yeah, I sent one, Liz, 14 ebooks over the weekend. And my brain wants to say that that was nothing, it was no big deal. But as I hear you talking, my brain goes, do you not realize the massive boulder that you just lifted so that in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, you'll be able to throw it into the pond of life? And do you not understand the tsunami that is about to take place? And I would say, no, at the moment I didn't, but in the moment of our conversation, I do. And so sometimes it. Because we become so good at something, because we streamline as high achievers the processes, sometimes we feel like it's not that big a deal when actually we are doing herculean efforts to mere mortal humans who look and go, how are they doing all of that? Yet we're here going, ah, that was nothing.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. The other piece of it too, I will say that jumps out of my mind about High Achiever specifically is, let's face it, kittens, we're control freaks. We don't want to.

You're obviously talking about anybody but me. Right?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Okay, here's the thing. We say things like, oh, I know the outcome I want to achieve. I don't care how we get there or what it looks like.

Wrong.

But that's human nature. Right?

Get out of my head.

I know it's this thing of. All I want is to have, let's just say happy, successful, healthy relationship with someone who is emotionally available.

Yeah, we.

There's passion, there's mutual attraction, there's trust, there's humor, there's longevity. There's all of the things that make it a long term partnership. Right. But he has to be exactly this height. We have to meet this way. We cannot meet that way. What do you mean he's not here yet? Of course we're going to meet naturally and organically. Is he here yet? You know, like it's. And that's just like a very basic example. But I want to leave a ding in the universe. I want to do X, Y, Z, whatever that ends up looking like I'm okay with. I know these things come about organically. So here's the 18,000 step plan. If we don't follow this exactly to the leather, I don't care what the outcome looks like, we will have failed. Right. We get very hung up on, you know, because you and I have talked about, you believe in the power of prayer. So do I. Some people call that actual prayer and a connection with God. Some people call that more kind of like manifestation. And some people just call that agency. I sit down and decide what I want. I understand that if I act in certain ways that are accordance with what I actually want, it will show up. It will just happen. Whether that's the flying spaghetti monster, God, the universe, or just our secular abilities to be free will wielding humans. Yeah, right. But we get way too hung up on the how we get way too hung up on it has to look exactly like this or it's not the thing. Right. If you had told me last year to design what a free life looked like, it would not be this.

Yeah.

It would not be this. It would be wildly different and probably not as free. Because I didn't know how to define free. I didn't know what that actually meant. You know, when you, when you try to define these things within an inch of their lives and then control things with such a grasp. Right. It's a clenched fist. And when you have your fist clenched around an opportunity, you will never give it the oxygen to take a true shape. You will always be restricting it to be A very specific form. It also doesn't allow any room for your wants and desires to evolve.

Yeah, it's interesting because as you're talking about that I, I'm just being real. I actually think I don't do that. I think I am actually good on that level. Could I be better? Yes. But I give things a lot of room to breathe and a lot of room to like pivot or transition into spaces or places they need to be. But I do agree with you that I have seen so many. I'm thinking of an actual friend. We'll call him Keith. That's not his name, but we've literally had conversations of like, bro, you got to let go and let God, brother. Like you can't, you can't control every frickin piece of your business and your life and your wife and your kid. Like, dude, you're going to have an aneurysm. Like chill out Keith. And. But he's a high achiever and he falls in line to that thing of like, well, so tight, so clenched.

Well, because in order to let go, it's not just the simple act of release, it's the not so simple act of acknowledging what it is. You're actually afraid of facts. Because if you let go of something, sometimes something isn't going to expand, right? Something isn't going to grow into something bigger or more beautiful. Sometimes you have to contend with the fact that when you let go of something, you're going to realize the only reason it was there was because you were clinging to it and it has been gone for ages. If it was ever there to begin with. And those. I had an experience like that, quite frankly about a month or so ago, I said what would happen if I just let go? And I knew, I knew the moment I let go my worst fears were going to be confirmed. It was a relationship that was only there because I was holding on. And the moment I released, it didn't disappear, it was already gone.

Yep.

But you know what? That was a gut punch I needed to take because it left room for other things. Like those are the things we have to do. We oftentimes, we, we have these exertions of control in our lives because we believe that if we are not hyper focused on every element, it's not going to show up. Dude, you know What? Humans are 100% bad at almost all the time predicting the future. We never 100% get it right.

See, I'm so glad I bought that crystal ball at the flea market like five years ago. I've been killing it, man. I've been killing like, you're like the.

Guy who bought Apple stock at 85 rude.

I know, right? So I don't have a crystal ball. I'm joking, people.

So there are lots of different ways, obviously, that this type of happiness paradox can manifest itself. But I would be curious, in your experience, how can someone reframe their mindset or approach when they experience that disconnect between their feelings and the happiness or success that's sitting right in front of them?

Yeah. And again, I'm going to try to talk through this piece like I've got this all figured out, but I don't. Liz, when, when this question came through, I had to really sit down and think about this one. But I think one of the most powerful ways to reframe, and I think that's a key word right there, the mindset, when you feel that disconnect is to practice presence. We humans are often future focused, always thinking about the next goal. But happiness lives in the present. So if we try to make it a habit to pause and really take in like the current achievement or achievements that are taking place. And when I say pause, what I, what I want you to do is reflect on how far you've come. As you know, I have this whiteboard and I, I refuse to erase it because it says I've come a long way since 2013 and I have daily when I walk in and out of this office, I can reflect on how far I've come. What mechanism do you listeners do you live, Liz, have in your life where you can see how far you've come from where you started? I mean, it might seem simple, but taking that moment or those moments to appreciate the journey, they can bring great joy. One of the things I love is getting on podcast as being interviewed and being able to tell the story of the journey because it is a manufactured reflection of all of the things that have been freaking amazing that I probably didn't pay attention to as I was going through it, but have to pay attention to it as I tell the stories. Redefining success on your own terms is another thing that I think is key. We kind of alluded to this earlier of like comparison, but what, what does success look like in your terms instead of measuring it by external matters? Years ago I started to say this and I just still don't care titles. I don't give a two squats about CEO cmo. At one of my jobs, I was an inbound evangelist. What is that? Even I don't nobody can tell you what it is, but that was my title right now. My title. Even though owner of, like, multiple companies. It's like chief HubSpot helper. Okay.

My favorite minus content therapist, I think.

Yeah, I don't care about titles. Another one is money. I have this really weird mindset towards money now where it's less of that I want it or need it, but more of it's just a resource to do things that need to be done inside the business and inside of life. And. And so for you, you have to stop and think about what success means at a deeper level. It might mean for you building meaningful relationships. It might mean for you finding balance. That's a key part for myself. Like, I am always trying to figure out, find ways. And I like the word integration better than I like balance, but that's probably because I'm also partnered. But finding that integration to work and personal and. And family and the enjoyment of success, but finding balance or, you know, growing in a way that matters to you, whatever that is. When you align your goals, your true goals, with what genuinely fulfills you, happiness becomes part of success, not something that we're chasing after. Like, and I said, when you said the words, because I'm. I know where they come from. I know it's our forefathers. But the pursuit of happiness might be like, the worst thing that we've ever been told or that we think. Because again, I don't like this idea of chasing it. But the thing that I want to put the stake in the ground right here is like, there's been so many conversations I've had with people, and I'd be like, so what makes you happy? And their response is like, I don't know. You have to take time, sit by the tree in a field, wherever, and understand, like, what makes me happy. And once you know that, then the magic becomes not. Forgetting to celebrate the small wins alongside the big wins. We humans, I am talking about myself, we often jump from one goal to the next without pause. We don't recognize the success of the smaller steps. We don't realize those smaller steps were probably herculean steps, to be honest with you. And if we do pause, if we do think, if we do allow ourselves to add up the success metrics that truly matter to us. And again, in a healthy way, that doesn't become egotistical or narcissistic, but is at least a balance of a true sense of what we're doing and who we are. This gets us to a sense of fulfillment. It's the 1% better. It's about enjoying the daily progress, not just waiting around for the big moments. Not just waiting around for the big moments. Liz. Liz, do you have any like bonus thoughts, tips, other conversations we need to have here?

Yeah, I would say a couple of things. First of all, number one, maybe I'm only speaking for me, but at least in my experience, I don't consider a happy thing to have arrived until I feel it. I think I, for a really long time in my programming had it as well. Happiness is something you feel, so until I feel it, I'm not happy. And that's not necessarily the case depending on your programming, right? We've spent a lot of time talking about the fact that like sometimes you can have the thing you want sitting right in front of you and you're just like, what are you? Why are you here? I don't like you. You make me feel uncomfortable, right? So I think sometimes we have to acknowledge that when we get those things that we want, it's not necessarily going to elicit the feeling response that we expect. So to use your feelings always as the trigger response, it's not always going to be accurate. The other thing I will say are a few things. One, allow yourself to have complex feelings, right? Because if you are chasing after things that you will genuinely make you happy, these are not self destructive things. These are not things society are telling you should, should want, right? You may have complex feelings about it because going against the grain of society or going against the grain of what you have decided to do for yourself and your whole life may bring up complicated feelings at first as you experience something new, as you step into genuinely unknown spaces, as you put yourself in a position of having to learn new things to not totally always be the expert, right? Often happiness brings with it a sense of new opportunity, which means we are going to have to learn how to be in that healthy relationship, how to run that new business, how to speak on bigger stages, how to promote a book alongside doing whatever it is within your business, right? You are going to experience complex feelings. Don't throw toxic positivity at it. Allow yourself to feel exactly what it is that you're feeling. And approaching your feelings from a place of curiosity rather than judgment. Perfect example. I had a disagreement with a friend months ago. I was kind of pissy in my head about it, in my, in my head. And he's like, all right, let's go ahead and plan our annual brewery trip. And in my head I'm like, I don't want to do that that's the last thing I want to do. I want to see you. You're a butt head. But intellectually, I earmarked that feeling and went, you are being a child. Make the plans. And then when you've cooled off a little bit, let's ask ourselves what this feeling was trying to tell us. Don't judge yourself for having feelings. Say, well, what is this feeling? Why is it here? Where does it come from? Does it actually have a name? There's this really interesting activity I've been doing over the past few weeks where I have this app where it will prompt you and they'll say, well, what are you feeling? Positive, neutral or negative? And then they'll say, okay, so what is this positive feeling? Name it. What is this neutral feeling? Name it. And I was surprised. One of the positive feelings, Well, I just feel happy. It's like, well, no, actually, I feel trusting. Well, why do I feel trusting? Naming our feelings, sometimes being curious about them without judgment can often really help us understand where we are and why we're feeling the way we're feeling. And then finally, I haven't mentioned this as something you should do in a while, which means it's time for me to bring it up. Kittens. If you have trauma that is making it hard for you to be happy or trusting or vulnerable, go to therapy, meet with a professional. Sometimes there is no growth mindset worksheet in the world that is going to take the place of the fact that maybe you have trust issues because of stuff that happened a long time ago. I am doing all of this work on my own. I'm doing all of my growth mindset work on my own. I have my apps, I have my systems, I have all these different things I'm doing. And then twice a month I meet with somebody because, like, childhood was not fun. My parents taught me some really messed up things about love and relationships and not being there for people, which makes it really hard for me to feel safe in emotionally vulnerable situations, which, by.

The way, I'll just throw out. You could have had the best childhood on the planet. Life is still going to life. It's not a bad thing to have somebody to be able to talk to about it knowing that it's just not going to go anywhere else. Like, right, Sometimes we don't have that friend, therefore it's time to air quotes, hire a friend that we can freaking. Just unpack some of the ish that we go through or the ish that people put us through just so we can show up A little bit better each and every day.

I love that because I consider my therapist like a strategic advisor.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, I just need an expert third party opinion. For example, the same reason why people hire me, because I am a niche expert in the field of content.

Yeah.

Sometimes I need a niche expert in the area of what is happening in my brain and why. Right. Like there are times where you know is okay and it is what needs to be done. Right. So it is this blend of reframing the stories that we tell ourselves, understanding the feelings mix that may actually come up when you are presented with wholly new opportunities of happiness. But sometimes it's also just acknowledging our story and acknowledging that sometimes we just need to talk through a few things, that it's not about a worksheet. It's about working with somebody who is built to handle these types of things. What strategies can high achievers use to prevent that kind of burnout or dissatisfaction when those external accomplishments don't align with their feelings of happiness?

Yeah, I mean, burnout. It is a huge issue. Especially when we kind of like we've talked here, we get caught up on our goals, we forget we're human beings. We try to treat ourselves like we're machines and we're not. So many of us, we sacrifice sleep, we sacrifice joy, some of us even sacrifice relationships for this word that is success. And we do this because we tell ourselves that we'll rest after the next milestone or I'll sleep when I'm dead. I hate that phrase, by the way. The unfortunate thing about I'll rest after the next milestone is that you're just gonna make sure there's another milestone and before we know it, we're burned out. And suddenly success feels like more of a burden than a win. I don't know if you're in that place now, if you've been in that place historically, but I hope that you're not in that place in the future. Because when success feels more like a burden, we have climbed the wrong mountain, we have unpacked the wrong box. We are in the wrong place. And. And so, Liz, to answer your question, like something that's been huge for me, and again, I know I've talked about a couple times the whole play, pray, make their day thing, but when I talk about that, part of what I'm talking about is this practicing gratitude just again, for all the small things, for all the big things, for all the things. Like when you're like, I am grateful that I woke up this morning. I'm grateful that I can breathe right now. I'm grateful that we have X, Y, Z, A, B, C. That's a game changer in preventing burnout. We humans. And if we're still going in that, like, tight vertical of high achievers now, I'll just say humans, we overlook our accomplishments many times because we're focused on the next challenge. And so this idea of daily gratitude practice, whether it be in the morning or whether it be in the evening when you lay your head in bed, to recognize what you've already achieved and appreciate the journey, not just the destination, is, is a huge thing, like celebrating that progress instead of celebrating the results. There's a big difference there. Progress versus results. Often us humans, we only celebrate when we hit those big goals, which leaves us feeling like we're never doing enough. And so these small wins, this incremental progress, it comes, creates a sense of ongoing momentum and satisfaction, which helps prevent this burnout. Because now we're like stopping at a gas station and filling up every so often instead of trying to drive clear across the United States or whatever country you're in before you actually refuel. Remembering that your work should connect to something bigger, I think is huge too. External rewards. Again, people have heard on this podcast if they've been listening for any length of time, like the Ripples, right? And if I tie this, remembering that your work should connect to something bigger, I also go to the superhuman framework and the fact that it's not coincidence that the four cornerstones are love, purpose, passion, and persistence. Like that's something bigger. It there's not a mistake. It wasn't mistake that one of the ten h pillars is holiness. It's about something bigger. When. When we tie our efforts to a sense of purpose, whether it's helping others, it's making an impact or. Or aligning with your values, you have this ability to then create a deeper fulfillment that keeps you grounded even when external success doesn't quite align with the internal happiness. But at least you're grounded in those moments. So that's kind of how I try to unpack it, how I play with this kind of concept, and definitely why those pieces of the superhuman framework have been built, especially around this topic of, like, burnout and filling up your tank along the way. So, Liz, we've had a huge journey here around the happiness paradox. So what's the one thing that you hope the listeners take away from today's conversation?

Mine is very simple. If you related to any of the stuff that we Talked about today, 1. You are not a weirdo and you're not broken and you're not alone. This is way more common than you think it is. This whole conversation was not oriented around the idea of fixing you. You are wonderful just as you are. And this is about bringing recognition to that. George, what about you?

Yeah. My one thing is be able to answer the question, what makes me happy? And when you can truly answer the question, what makes me happy? Then the next thing that I want you to do is not just chase it. Sure, there's going to be hard work, you're going to have to put things in place. But the first thing I want you to do is I want you to sit in it. I want you to imagine it, I want you to believe it. Because if you can manufacture it in your mind and you can marinate on it and you can see it, then once you're doing the work, once you're taking the steps, once you're manufacturing the journey, you've mentally kind of been there. You mentally kind of understand what you need, where to go, what to do. But it is less of a chase, it's more of an understanding. And then when you get to it, just enjoy it. Because trust me, it won't be too long. Knowing you, knowing me, before we set back out on another journey to reach a point beyond your default.