Simple Ways to Be HAPPIER Today

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This is the Chase Sapphire Lounge in Boston. Logan, you got clam chowder in New York, dirty martini over 1300 airport lounges in one car that you win Chase Sapphire Reserve now even more rewarding. Learn more@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JP Morgan Chase bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval. Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. If you're out there and you love this podcast, send me a text message right now. 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. If you live in the United States or Canada, I'll send you text messages, inspirational text messages sporadically throughout the week to brighten up your day. Today we're going to be talking about how to be happier, and I really want you to think about this for a second. What do you want? Like, what do you want? Like, sure, you can want love and you can want money and you can want success and achievements and goals accomplished and all of those things. But truly, like, what do you want behind it all? I think the main thing that we all want is we all just want to be happy. We all just want more peace. But if you really think about it, like, what is happiness? The best real definitions I've kind of find is from a man that I follow named Naval Ravikant. And he says peace is happiness at rest and happiness is peace in motion. And when we're calm, we're happy. And when we're happy, we're at peace. And so I'M going to use the two words happiness and peace interchangeably in today's episode. But don't we all just want to be happy? You know, you could want cool stuff and all of those things, but really you think that, oh, once I get this thing, then I'll be happy. But really what you want is you just want to be happy. You just want to be at peace. But what does being happy actually mean? I think everyone knows what it feels like, but we might have trouble grasping what it is or putting it into words. It's kind of like, it's kind of like grabbing water. Like it's almost impossible. Like what? How do you actually define what happiness is? Well, I know what happiness is not and I know what the barrier to happiness is. I've read a lot of psychology books in my life. I've read a lot of self help books in my life. I've read a lot of spiritual books in my life. And one thing that I've found that is a common thing that is said or brought up in some sort of way is that our main barrier to happiness in our lives is desire. Desire is the feeling that something is missing or that something should be different. You need something else to make you happy. I need this thing to make me happy. I need this thing to make me calm. I need this thing to be peaceful. I need this person to stop doing that thing to make me calm. I need this person to stop doing that to be peaceful, whatever it might be. And until you get that thing or until you get life to be the way that you want it to be, you have this internal feeling that you will not be right. And so another quote that Naval says is desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. Let me say that again. Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. When you want something, you're basically making a deal with yourself to be unhappy until you get it is what it means. And each want, each desire is a choice to be unhappy. I think the biggest mistake that we make is thinking that we'll be happy if we get certain things. We'll be happy when I buy that car, we'll be happy when I make that amount of money. We'll be happy when I get that relationship. We're hooked on wanting things. We live in a society of more. We live in a society of wanting more things. We're hooked on the idea that something outside of us will make us happy. But that's A lie. Not having that thing is not the problem. Not being happy is not the problem. Your desire for things to be different than they are is the problem. And I am working at this as much as anybody. I've just got a little bit more awareness now, but I'm working at this really hard. This is, like, one of the things I've been working on the past two years. The hardest is to stop wanting, to stop desiring, to stop thinking that happiness is something that needs to happen outside of me for me to feel it after. And the crazy part is that we're creating the desire. You know, you think, I won't be happy until I get this thing or until I won't be happy until they act differently. I desire to have something or I desire for something to be different than it is. So the craziest part is that the only problem in your life is that you're creating problems. So we create the problem, and that's the problem. And it took me, like, 35 years to learn this and, like, to really get it. Deep down in my bones, you feel happy. When you don't feel like something is missing in your life. You feel happy. You feel at peace. When you don't feel like something is missing in your life. We often think, oh, I need this, I need that, or I need something to change. It could be wanting a new car or a house or a vacation or relationship. Or it could be wanting someone in your life to be different or wanting them to act different. Well, I would be happier if they stopped doing this to me. They're not the problem. Not having that thing is not the problem. You and your thoughts are the problem. Your thoughts of wanting something, of desiring something, we're stuck wanting. And when we feel like we have everything that we need, when we are grateful for everything that we have, we stop worrying about the past. We stop worrying about the future. And that's when we feel at peace. That's when we feel happy, is when we are here and we are present and in the moment. Think about that for just a quick second. Not wanting things, not desiring something to be different creates more peace internally. Being here in this present moment with no desire to have something different, for the world to be different, for somebody else to be different. Sitting here with no desires in this moment is what creates peace internally. And that is not easy to do. You know, when you reach a point, that point of calm and quiet inside, to me, that's where you start to feel peace. That's where you start to feel happiness. To me, happiness isn't about having good thoughts or having bad thoughts or not having bad thoughts. It's not about people in your life not dying or things not changing. It's about not wanting things to be different than they currently are. If I don't want something to be different than it currently is in this moment right now, then I can find peace. It's about finding gratitude right now, no matter what. And there's a quote by Rabbi Schittztel, and I hope I'm saying that correctly because I might be saying that wrong. And he says, happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have. So happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have, being grateful for what it is that you currently have. The less that I want, the more that I can accept things as they are. The more that I accept, the less that my mind races. And the less that my mind races, the more that I'm at peace. And we will be right back. Teachers are deep into new units this time of year, IXL lets kids practice the exact skills they're learning in class to helping lessons stick and boosting confidence. Heading toward the spring, IXL is an award winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills, or reviewing science concepts. 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Looking outside of ourselves for anything that's a mistake and anything that we want to be different. Happiness, all of that is internal. Took me a long time to learn this. And it's something that I'm really trying to get better at and I am not that good at still. I'm getting a little bit better, but I'm still not that great because I had like 35 years before this of programming, of wanting something to be different, of desire of change, of wanting something, whatever it might be. And so I have something I'm really trying to work and I want you just to kind of open your mind up to it as well, which is like, yeah, I do kind of put myself into my own suffering. Like, we keep thinking that we'll be happy when we get this or we get that or when things will be different and that's the mistake that we keep making over and over again. Believing something out there, out in the world will forever make us happy. And that's a lie. Happiness is only an internal job. Nothing else can make you happy. No one else can make you happy. Maybe for a second, but then you're going to go back to the way that you've always felt. When you want something, you're basically agreeing to be unhappy until you get it. And so we want things all day, and then we wonder why we're not happy. And then we see ads about a new thing that just came out. And now I've got to get this thing, and I research about this thing and I've got this internal feeling of like, oh, my God, I should buy this thing. And then I won't feel good until I get that thing. Well, that's what ads are designed to do. Ads are designed to exploit the human desire system, to exploit your hardware that you were born with, to want more, for things to be different. You're not good enough until you get that. Happiness comes from inside of us, not outside of us. Sadness, stress, unrest, all of that comes from inside of us as well, not outside of us. And happiness is a choice, but it's also a skill set. It's a skill that you develop. And developing any skill set in the world takes time. And it takes attention. It takes your time and your attention to be happier, to want less, to be grateful, to be in the moment. Now, I can already hear people out there getting pissed when I say that happiness is a choice. I put a reel up a couple years ago, and the very first line that I said was, happiness is a choice, so you have to make it. And people got fucking pissed, like, so mad. Like they were just sending me DMs. Well, you don't know about my life. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know what's happening around me. You don't know where I come from. You don't know this, you don't know that. It's like, let me make it stupid simple, okay? Like, let me just make life as stupid simple as I possibly can. You're born, right? If you're listening to this podcast, you were born at one point in time. We're all born into this world. We all have all kinds of experiences. We see things, we hear things, we feel things. And then we die. That's life at its simplest form. We're born, things happen, we die. Is that correct? Yeah, that's basically the simplest form of what life is. How we interpret all of those experiences that happen to us between birth and death, how we interpret it is up to us. We get to choose. And how you interpret it is going to dictate whether you're happy and you're at peace, or if you're stressed, if there's something wrong, if you feel mad all the time, pissed, sad, emotional, whatever it might be. So it's not about what happens to you, it's how you interpret what happens to you. And you can choose to be happy. You can. And the best part is if you believe happiness is a choice, you can start working on it. Because if you believe happiness is a choice, that's the only way that you now have control over your life. If you say no, happiness isn't a choice. It's based off of what happens to me and what other people say to me. Well, then you're not in control of your life. You're at the whim of what happens around you and what people say to you that are around you. You can decide from this moment on that nothing outside of you can control your emotions. I am going to control my emotions. I'm going to control my desires. I'm going to control what I want, what I don't want. I'm going to be the one that's in the driver's seat of my life from now on. Don't expect life to be a certain way. Life is just life. And when you understand this, there's no reason to be happy or sad. Things happen. And I'm going to try my best to be happy and at peace no matter what happens to me. When you stop feeling like something's missing, you're at peace. When you don't want things to be different, you're at peace. It doesn't mean that you can't evolve. It doesn't mean that you don't change things and you just stay in the same position your entire life. You can keep evolving, you can keep accomplishing things. But what it comes down to is how I react to the world around me. Don't worry about how things should be. Instead, focus on your own experience and what you can create. And so let's talk about peace just a little bit more, okay? Real happiness comes from being at peace. Like internal peace, calm. The feeling of which I think most people in this world want more of just that feeling of just like a deep sigh. I want more of that. Most of the time, happiness and peace come from accepting things as they are. Not changing, not I'm not going to be happy until it's different. Not changing what's happening around us, changing the people around us, changing the circumstances. It's accepting things as they are. Acceptance is the key. Acceptance is the doorway to your peace and your happiness. It's about being more present. It's about allowing ourselves to be comfortable being present. When you're comfortable being present, peace basically just walks in the door. You know, we all want moments that make us feel alive and make us feel present, don't we? Like, we all want to travel and see an amazing sunset. We want to go see, you know, whatever it might be, whatever crazy things that happen. We might want to go over and see stuff happen in Rome, and we want to watch the sunset in Tuscany, and we want to watch Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. We want to have all of those exciting things, those amazing experiences bring us to the present moment. Like, if you think about the most amazing experience of your life or the things that you're trying to go for, it's things that bring you into this present moment. Amazing experiences, travel, being with people that you love, watching your team win the championship. But wanting those moments, wanting, desiring, I won't be happy until I get those. Is actually what pulls us away from the present moment. It's kind of crazy when you actually sit and think about it. We want things that make us feel present, but the wanting of those things steals our presence. It's like this weird conundrum. It's really interesting when you find deep truths in life, they're almost always a paradox. It's like, we want. If you have your team win the championship, you're so present in the moment, you're not thinking about anything else, and you feel alive and you feel amazing because you're 100% in this present moment. And so we want things that make us feel present, but the wanting of those things steals our presence. And so presence is really what we want. Presence is really what we're trying to work towards. We're always chasing the next thing, the next and the next and the next, and, oh, I got to buy this thing. And you buy that thing, and now you want to buy the next thing. This constant chasing is what makes a lot of people anxious. And so I've been recommending it a lot recently in the past year to you guys, to my friends. Be bored more. Be okay with being bored. Change your mindset from. Change your wording from boredom. Instead of saying, I'm bored, say I'm relaxing, and see how that changes your mind. The same way that you can't work out all day long because your body's gonna tire. Your body needs rest, your body needs relaxation in order for it to grow muscles and for you to get stronger. And so I've been trying to make myself bored, quote, unquote, bored a lot lately. Yesterday, a couple days ago, actually, it was at this point, I meditated, I made coffee, and I just sat on my couch looking outside for, like 30 minutes. I wasn't on my phone, I wasn't listening to music. I wasn't reading a book. I was just trying to sit and get my body. That's been 38 years of go, go, go, go, go, go, go to just chill for a minute. Try sitting without doing anything, not reading, not listening to music, not listening to this podcast. It's hard, isn't it? Because we've trained ourselves to be go, go, go, go, go. And we're always anxious about doing something, and we feel like, oh, I've got to be productive. I've got to be doing the next thing. If you look at societies, I grew up in America, we are a go, go, go nation. Like, it's. We're. We're always moving, we're always going to. If you look at the societies that are the happiest, the nations that are the happiest, they're the ones that they don't live to work, they work to live. And so when we have this go, go, go, go, go, it creates this feeling of, like, anxiety within us. And this anxiety can make us really unhappy. It steals our peace. And so it's just our thoughts running in our head constantly. We have to do more, we have to go more. And we often feel troubled about this, and we can't, because of the fact that we're so troubled with it, we can't sit alone quietly because that's when the thoughts really come in. And so I really want you to start to think about this and to realize, like, all of the problems in the world. There's a great quote that says, all the problems in the world come. I'm really butchering this. All of the problems in the world comes from man's inability to sit alone in a room by himself. All of the problems in the world come from our inability to sit. Sit alone in a room by herself. And so if you can have more peace, if you want more peace, if you want more happiness, try to start desiring less. It doesn't mean that you just resign and just sit on the couch and play video games all day and that's going to create the life that you want. But it's like, how can I just be at peace more within myself? How can I find more gratitude for already have? How can I keep evolving and I can keep creating more and I can keep doing more? That's fine. But how can I just try to remove a little bit more desire from my life every single day? And with that, you'll have more happiness and you'll have more peace. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at robdial Junior R O B D I A L J R and if you want to work with me a little bit deeper than just the podcast, check out this thing I have called Mindset Mentor. Plus, you can get all the information that you need@mindsetmentor.com, once again, mindsetmentor.com and with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day. Okay, got it. All right, so building a portfolio with Fidelity Basket Portfolios is kind of like making a sandwich. It's as simple as picking your stocks and ETFs, sort of like your meats and other topics, and managing it as one big juicy investment. Now that's pretty good. Learn more@fidelity.com baskets Investing involves risks, including risk of loss. 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