Stop saying 'I'll finally be happy when' (it's ruining your life)

Welcome to the Inner Circle. Here with Kevin Dahlstrom, I'm Mike Brown. And every week, we break apart one big question. And this week is one of my favorite topics. I think it's the 5 most insidious words in the English language, which is, "I'll finally be happy when." We spend so much time putting off our life in service of some goal, imagining that when we finally reach that finish line, it's going to make us feel complete. So, that's what I want to dive into today. Kevin, how do you take the those words and how do you think about this question?

Yeah, this is what I, I've called some way someday thinking. And you know, the problem with someday thinking is that someday never comes. And, um, I give, this is one of the topics I talk about when I give my How to Build a Kick-Ass Life talk, which I think you've seen. And I tell this story that was very impactful for me. When I was young, I used to visit my aunt and uncle who lived in a small town in South Texas. My uncle owned, um, a gas station. He literally pumped the gas himself. It was a solo operation, worked every day, 7 days a week. At their house, they had these 5-gallon glass, uh, jugs we're all familiar with. And, um, they had 2 or 3 of these jugs that were, um, full to the top with change, with nickels, dimes, quarters, whatever. And it, it was the change that, um, that my uncle would collect when people paid for gas. You know, this was back in the day when people actually paid cash, cash for gas. And, um, they always said that, um, that money in those jugs was for a trip to Hawaii. You know, they were of minimal means. They probably honestly never traveled outside the state of Texas. And their dream trip was to go to Hawaii someday. As a kid, those jugs just fascinated me because it seemed like an infinite amount of money. Uh, and then fast forward a bunch of years and, you know, sadly, um, my uncle in his early 50s, uh, died from cancer. And I remember going back to their house after the funeral and I peeked inside their bedroom and I saw those jugs and I still get, I come to tears almost every time I tell this story because it's such a sad thing. To me, it's like the ultimate illustration of, you know, someday never comes. You know, they, they probably had enough money in those jugs. I think it was thousands of dollars that they could have done a trip to Hawaii or somewhere, but they didn't. And someday never came for, for my uncle. And so that's a powerful example for me. And, you know, um, uh, of like basically the, the old adage of living in the present.

Yeah, I mean, I'm passionate enough about this subject that I wrote an entire book about it coming out later this summer called Be Rich Now. And this is the fundamental premise. My favorite quote on this topic is from Pema Chödrön from, from my most gifted book, When Things Fall Apart, which is, there's no such thing as the future. There is only now. And when the future comes, it comes as now. And this is You know, the future is a fairy tale, only exists in our mind. When I think about balancing the future with the present, right? Like if we're too present-focused with our actions, like that results in hedonism. It's fun for a little while, right? If I'm living paycheck to paycheck, YOLOing my way through life, like that's fun. But at some point, I got to take care of future me, right? So I have to balance my present actions with taking care of my future self. But I think the trap is in delaying happiness or imagining that I can't be complete or fulfilled or insert emotion here until I reach those things. And, you know, you and I have both stood at the top of our own proverbial mountains, whatever that means. And the view up there is empty. I mean, that's, that's the bottom line, right? Like, like the day after I sold my company, I woke up horrified to find out I was still the same person as I was the day before. And that's when the real work starts, I think, is, you know, I hope everyone at some point achieves a monster goal that they've set for themselves. But the punchline is, is it— it doesn't make you happy.

Yeah. One of my very favorite quotes is from the great American writer and poet Annie Dillard. Who says, um, everybody has great days. It's great lives that are hard to come by. And, and it seems like a really kind of simple quote, and it is, but it's really profound the more you think about it, because, you know, we tend to think of a great life as a bunch of just peak experiences strung together, like a hot date, an exotic vacation, a big win at work, selling your company, whatever. And if I could just get enough of that, that's gonna make a great life. And it actually turns out That's not what makes a great life. As you realized when you sold your company, that feeling is fleeting. It's an ephemeral experience. And there you are, right? Wherever you go, there you are. And so for me, the big epiphany for me was that, um, a great life is built on the mundane. It's like the simple joy, finding simple joy in the things you do every day and really crafting your life. Around having a great life every day. And to your point, like, doesn't mean you can just like satisfy your every, you know, little, little whim and urge. It's not just about a life of leisure. You know, humans still need to work. We need to do hard things. But within each of those things you do, you need to be able to find joy.

You know, when I think about— and so an exercise I love is at the top of the page, put, "I'll finally be happy when," and then just start listing out all of the places you imagine you're going to be more happy, right? One that comes up for almost everybody, I think, regardless of net worth, is when I have more money, when I sell my company, when I, you know, my— when my ship comes in. And for me, I have an investment that's about to pay out, and I have definitely been anticipating the day when that cash flow starts to come in. But the question is, what is the feeling I'm actually chasing? And for me, that feeling is ease, right? Removal of friction. Like, having more cash flow coming in does actually allow this ease. And I think the critical distinction is I can desire ease without making it conditional for my happiness, right? I can, I can both imagine that, yes, my life will be better when I have this extra amount of cash flow coming in because it will it will remove some of the friction or remove, you know, some of the tightness around money. But that's not a conditional, that's not a condition for happiness. Like happiness is going and tucking my daughter into bed every single night and being totally present with her. I don't need one more dollar to do that.

Yeah. And I think it's also important to interrogate the stated desire. I have a little exercise that I call "To What End?" where you ask somebody like, You know, what's your goal in life? Well, I want to be worth $20 million. And you just keep asking to what end until you actually get to the right answer. So, okay, you want to be worth $20 million to what end? Well, I'd like to, um, be able to control my time. To what end? Well, because, you know, I'm really into sailing and I'd like to go, you know, spend, spend more time sailing. To what end? Well, I just want to feel free. You know, like, and whatever, that's just a, a kind of a stream of consciousness example. But what you're trying to get is a feeling, and maybe you don't even need the $20 million to experience that feeling. That was actually a very profound thing for me because, you know, I'm, I am like in a very tangible way, an example of someone who stepped off the hamster wheel. You know, I quit my corporate job, walked away from a very large concrete sum of money. Um, because I realized that the feeling that I want to have every day doesn't require all that money. And, you know, you have an exercise called the perfect day. I have one called the ideal end state. That's really powerful for uncovering that. You basically say like, what does your perfect day look like? And when you put things down on paper, it's always interesting and revealing and eye-opening because you look back at the list and you realize like most people in their ideal day, don't list a bunch of like, I want to go sit courtside at a Lakers game. I want to drive my Ferrari around. Yeah. It's not stuff like that. It's stuff like, I want to hang out with my family and friends. I want to get outside and do cool stuff. You know, that's what people are looking for. And you don't have to wait till someday to do that. In many cases, there's a way you can find a way to do that.

Now that's the punchline to both of our exercises is when people do them, they look at it and they go, Oh, no, I can do most of this stuff for free. And look, there are, you know, there are some things that require more money, but, but most of the things that bring us meaning and purpose in life are free. And, you know, family is, I think, the most immediate example for most of us. I mean, that's, that's the fulfilling part. And yet we delay our happiness, we, you know, sacrifice our time, you know, and the greatest excuse in the world is I'm doing this for my family. But if you ask your family whether they'd rather— would they rather be worth more or have you home for dinner, we all know what your kids are going to say.

Yeah, it's funny that we're discussing this topic today because just this morning I had coffee with someone who reached out to me through X, who you actually know this guy. He reached out to you about coaching, by the way. And, and he's my age exactly. He's 55 years old. He's made some movement toward the life that he wants. He's like, he's done the X, he's done the ideal end state. He understands what it is. He's done some things. But he's still electing to remain on the hamster wheel and he's trying to make, um, trying to kind of live, um, you know, two lives at once. And I told him, um, and he, he took it really well. I said, look, you know, you're trying to stay on the hamster wheel and have complete control of your time and live this life. And ultimately money is not the limiting factor for you. It's fear. Like you've got to actually just make the leap. So I think there's some component of this, like, someday thinking that is like, sometimes you just do have to make the leap.

Yeah. I mean, this is, um, coaching is an interesting profession because, uh, you know, when I dive in, dive in with folks, a lot of what I do is like unwind stories and childhood traumas and all of these things that perpetuate the someday thinking. But ultimately at the end of the, like the end of the day, the answer is often just stop it. Like you can just stop that right now. And it's really helpful to have the insight of where it came from and where these patterns were created. And all of that, it's valid work. And I think it needs to be done. But at some point, you've got to make the decision. All of this stuff happened to me. And today, I'm going to choose happiness. Today, I'm going to choose to be okay. And there's always a leap. There's always a leap and a letting go to just say, you know what, like, yeah, all this all this stuff happened, but today's the day. I'm going to be okay moving forward.

One way that you can kind of, um, do a trial run and hedge yourself a little bit is something, um, that, you know, our friend Paul Miller talks about a lot, which is the power of sabbaticals. You know, sabbatical is a way to say, look, I'm going to take 3 months, 6 months, I'm going to put my normal life on hold, and I'm going to see what it feels like to live this other life. In 90% of cases, it's transformational for folks. Um, Paul points out that You know, it's crazy that a 3-month sabbatical would represent about 1% of the span of your career. And it's something that can be saved for the same way you save for a car or a down payment on a house or a college education or whatever. Yet almost nobody does it. Um, and so I always recommend to people, you know, plan for it, but try a sabbatical and that might be the thing you need to just feel, oh, It's not as scary as I thought to live this life. And man, I don't think I can ever go back.

And the reality is there's very few sliding door or, you know, one-way doors in life. And another one I talk about often is moving to a new city. People are like, oh, I don't know if I'm going to like it. If you don't like it, you can move back.

Yes.

Right. But it's so much better to try it and find out that you don't like it. And then, you know, you don't have to live with the regret going, oh, I wonder what it would have been like.

Right?

And we, we tend to make things one-way decisions, very myopically, without actually looking at it and go, oh no, I can actually just unwind this. If I quit my job and take this 3-month sabbatical, if I was really great at my job, like chances are they'll take me back or I'll find an equivalent job somewhere else.

1000%. I mean, that is probably, in my opinion, the most important thing people could take away from this little 15-minute episode is that there are very few decisions in life that are one way. Almost all of them can be reversed. And the one that you mentioned is the one that triggers the most fear of all, which is moving to another place. For some reason, you know, when people are unhappy in their career, they'll typically— they're willing to make change. Like they'll get another job, they'll find a new role, whatever. Same with relationships. Eventually they'll make change. There's this one thing around where you live, and I preach about this a lot, that triggers every fear in our minds. But, but it's also reversible. If you go somewhere, you know, I preach a lot about going and finding your happy place and going and living there. If you go and try it, it doesn't work out. Guess what? It's, it's a pain, but you can move back and it's no harm done. And now you know.

Kevin, if someone's listening right now and they're going, oh man, I'm, I've been doing that. I've been saying, I'll finally be happy when finally be happy when I sell my company, finally be happy, you know, when I find a new partner or whatever it is, like, what, what's your advice?

You know, whether you do the Mike Brown perfect day exercise or my ideal end state, I think it always starts with trying to figure out what you really want out of life. And, you know, the thing I always say about my ideal end state exercise is, you know, it's just a bulleted list of um, what your, um, your ideal state of being would be. It's not, it's not a bucket list or list of goals or accomplishments. It's like, what do I, how do I want to live day to day? Like on my list is things like get lots of sunshine every day, train toward climbing 5.14, work on creative projects with, with my, my kids, things like that. Um, and then identify the gaps. Like what is keeping me from being there today? Is it, is it really money? Or is that a lie I'm telling myself? Is it the place I live that's keeping me from it? And then I think you've, you've just got to take a hard look in the mirror and say, look, if I can't say I want this, but not take any actions to get there. I don't know. Do you have any, do you have a different spin on that?

Yeah. I mean, number one is I think, uh, identifying conditions versus preferences, right? So there are some conditional things that are barriers to happiness. One, health. Right? It's really hard to be happy in a health crisis, acute financial crisis, like it's really tough to be genuinely happy when you're facing bankruptcy or some major monumental event. Like there are, you know, a few untenable situations that are true barriers to happiness. So I'm not trying to suggest just be happy when you're facing some major crisis. That's not the answer here. But the reality is most of our list are preferences. Most of it is when I have six-pack abs, you know, when I have $1 million, when I have the Ferrari, when I have, you know, those things are all preferences. And I think it's important to note, like, it's okay to have desires. It's not okay to be ruled by those desires or to place our happiness or the present moment on this conditional achievement of these desires. And so the balance for me, the middle way, if you will, is saying, "Yes, I have these desires and I can imagine that things might be slightly better when I hit these desires." But, it's not conditional to being in the present moment and looking around and waking up with gratitude and saying, "Yeah, I'm on the path and I'm doing the things in service of hitting these desires and these preferences, but they're not keeping me from experiencing life to the fullest in this moment." Yes, powerful.

Yeah. I mean, the last thing I'd say on this is You know, to get the life you want is probably going to require some degree of bold change. You're gonna have to make bold moves. And, you know, um, the best way to kind of get past that fear, in my opinion, is probably talk to a bunch of people who have done it. You know, you and I have devoted our lives to studying this issue, and over the years I've talked to probably over 100 people who have made bold moves, whether it's in their career, relationships, where they live, just kind of rebooting their life in general. And I have yet to meet someone who regrets it, even if things didn't work out exactly as they had hoped, because at least they made a directional move. And yeah, maybe there's a couple roadblocks along the way, or things don't go exactly as planned, but things have a funny way of working out when you, when you make bold moves for the right reasons.

One of the ideas that I love is like, we'll never make a change until the pain of staying the same outweighs the perceived pain of change. But most of us are actually not willing to acknowledge the cost of staying the same, right? We'd actually rather dance with the devil we know and go, "Yeah, this isn't ideal, but I'd much rather do this than actually take this bold leap." What it often comes down to is acute pain versus dull pain, right? Most of us are used to the dull pain of staying the same, but we fear the acute pain. And yes, moving to a new city sucks for the first 6 months. You don't know anybody, you have to find a new grocery store, all, you know, all of these, these things. But it will relieve the dull, sustained pain of, of never knowing.

Yeah, well, um, bottom line is don't be a victim to someday thinking, you know. Define what you want and be willing to make the bold moves to get there.

Tell yourself the truth, right? Like the first step in all of this that most of us, you and I talk about so often, is honesty with self. Like, let's, let's get honest about the cost of staying the same.

Amen. Good chat, brother.

All right. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you guys next time.

Yep.