The Truth About Happiness
4 Dec 2023 · 23 min
In this episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast, host Rob Dial explores the fundamental difference between pleasure and happiness, arguing that true happiness is rooted in inner peace rather than external gratification. He critiques the common belief that money, status, or material possessions bring lasting joy, sharing personal observations and anecdotes about successful people who still feel empty despite wealth. Dial then outlines a systematic approach to uncovering and eliminating the various "peace thieves" that undermine happiness. He categorizes these thieves into external sources (toxic people, living environments, news and social media, job dissatisfaction, cultural and societal pressures) and internal sources (negative self‑talk, excessive worry, guilt, shame). Throughout the monologue he offers practical steps—such as unfollowing harmful social media accounts, decluttering relationships, reassessing living situations, and cultivating mindful self‑dialogue—to protect and restore peace. The episode is interspersed with several commercial ad reads, but the core narrative remains a motivational guide for listeners to identify, confront, and remove obstacles to inner peace, thereby achieving lasting happiness.
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Welcome to Today' welcome to this episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast, the number one mindset podcast in the entire world. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast and you live in the United States or Canada, go ahead and text me right now. 1-512-580-9305 and I will text you and add you to my inspirational text message group. I'll send you text messages videos randomly throughout the week just to get you going on your way. Once again, it's 512-580-9305. Today we're going to be talking about the Truth About Happiness. Wouldn't it be nice just to wake up and just be happy, have freedom from the voice that's inside of your head, from the people that are around you, that are driving you crazy and just wake up and just feel happy every day until the day that you die? Wouldn't it be nice. What does that sound like? That sounds like it'd be like heaven on earth, right? I heard. You know, and I really think about it a lot where it's like, what is it that makes us happy? And it seems like we're always searching for something outside of ourself to make us happy, right? And what we do is we, more than anything else, we don't really search for happiness. We think that we're searching for happiness. We think that we're going out there and we're trying to find happiness. But a lot of times when you go out there and you're trying to say, you know, what would make me happy? If I had more money. If I had more money and I could go travel and I could buy things that I want, and I could, you know, get a nice car and I could get a nice house, then I'd be happier. And if I had more money or if I had other people's approval, that would make me happier. And so we get a nice card. So people think that we're awesome and we feel better about ourselves for just a little while. And then after the car loses its luster, we feel exactly the same. And so then sometimes people want to buy things. Sometimes people want to drink, they want to do drugs, they want to have sex, they want to do all of these different things, searching for happiness more than anything else. And really what we do is we're not really searching for happiness in those. In those instances, what we're doing is
we're searching for pleasure.
So if we're out there and we're drinking and doing drugs and having sex and, you know, trying to buy a nice car so we have other people's approval and we're trying to make more money. What we're doing is we're searching for pleasure, and pleasure is not happiness. So that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because happiness is not pleasure. Happiness is really more than anything else, is peace. If you wake up and you're happy, usually you wake up and you're in a sense of calmness, peace, and you're just chill. You're good throughout the day. You feel really good. And then you realize that more than anything else, that a lot of. And for me, I'm speaking for myself, but for years when I was on this, like, mad hunt just to make money and be successful, make honey, make money and be successful, I thought that all that stuff would make me happy. And I think a lot of people get to this point where they. They climb this Mountain of success and money. And then they realize that they still feel like the same fucking person at the top of that mountain. You might climb the mountain and now you're at the top of the mountain, but you know, you still feel just exactly the same as you did. You just might be in a nicer car, nicer house, nicer clothes, more jewelry, whatever. It might be, you know, in a different country because you can travel, but you still feel exactly the same underneath the surface. I think, honestly, and I've had conversations with a lot of very successful people around this, I think this is why a lot of very successful people, they get to be very successful and then they either get into full on depression or, or some people become successful and then they kill themselves is because they actually thought that making money would make them feel better. But in reality it doesn't make them feel any different. They just happen to have more digits in a bank account, more digits and more digits that are inside of their screen. Whenever they go onto bankofamerica.com, whatever it might be, they realize that none of those things actually make us happy. Money does not buy happiness. People always debate, does money buy happiness? No, because happiness is not pleasure. Happiness comes from peace. Happiness is a byproduct of peace, of fulfillment. And so the only problems that money solves is money problems. Money cannot buy peace. Money can buy a bunch of shit. It can take you to a different country, it can be fun, you can have fun with money, but it's not going to buy you happiness. It's not going to buy you peace. You can move, you know, you could become the richest person on earth and you could move into the mountains, away from everyone and everything that drives you crazy. Then you can have the biggest, nicest house, the nicest things, and you still realize that you don't have peace inside of your own mind. Your mind is still as crazy as it was when you were poor and now you're just rich and pissed off. So if that's the case, all of those things that we think will buy us happiness, which really all they do is just buy us pleasure or get us pleasure, what will make us happier then? If that stuff doesn't make us happy, what makes us happy? And really what it comes down to is peace. Peace. Other people won't make you happy. Other things outside of you won't make you happy. New cars, clothes, house, traveling, they won't make you happy. The only thing that can make you happy is you. And so you can make yourself happy, but you can also start to realize that whatever is disturbing your peace is also getting in the way of your happiness. And that's really what you have to start to look at. And what I really want you to start to look at through today's episode is what is in the way of my peace. What externally outside of me is in the way of my peace, and what internally inside of me is in the way of my peace. At the beginning of the year, we tend to think more about our habits and reflect on things we do every day.
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because if I can get to the root of that piece, the root of my happiness, I will feel much better. And so we must figure out what's in the way of your piece. And so I want you to ask yourself this question and just see what comes up for you. What is stealing my peace? What is it for you? What is it that's stealing your peace? What is it that makes you feel less happy that's driving you a little bit crazy? And then what I want you to do as we go through today's episode, I'm gonna give you a bunch of different examples, is as you start to identify things in your life that are in the way of your peace, that are stealing your peace from you, you, you need to have laser like focus to either avoid those things or get rid of those things that steal your peace. So what's stealing your peace? Let's talk about people. For instance, there's other people in your life that could be stealing your peace. Are there people that are in your life stealing your peace? Are there people who are toxic in your life that just because of the fact that they've been around in your life for a while, you feel like you have to keep them around because they're part of your history. You feel like they have to be part of your future. That's not necessarily the case. Sometimes people's time with you is over. And if they're toxic, if they talk down to you, if they make you feel worse about yourself, if they question your self worth, they're probably stealing your peace in some sort of way or they're making it harder for you to find that peace. Could you find peace and still be around a shitty person? Sure you could. But it makes it a lot easier if you can just get rid of that person, right? And so I want you to look around. I want you to think of your environment. I want you to ask yourself, are there people in my life that are making it harder for my life to be peaceful? And if there are, you need to either spend less time with them, you need to avoid them, or you need to make the tough decision to just release them in your life. Okay? That's one thing that can be stealing your peace. What's another thing that could be stealing your peace? What goes on in your head? That's another thing. Are there things that you think that steal your peace? Are there ways that you talk to yourself that steal your peace? Because what you think in your head is actually going to be the main thing that's gonna be stealing your peace more than anything else. It's like an immediate thing that pops into my head is I listened to a lot of Ram Dass. And Ram Dass always says he realized that it was really hard for him to find peace when he went to New York City because it was just so crazy all the time. And he realized that if he was really going to work on himself, he needed to actually move there and be there to try to find his peace. Now, you have to realize that could steal your peace being around that. But really what it comes down to is the challenge that you want to have for yourself. And so when you start to think about the things that go on inside of your head, are there certain narratives that go on inside of your head that make you less peaceful? Are there ways that you speak to yourself that make you less peaceful? I am more concerned, to be honest with you, with what goes on in your head more than I am concerned with what you do every single day. Because if I can figure out what's going on in your head, like when I work with clients, it's always what's going on in your head more than anything else, because that is stealing people's peace more than anything else. What's going on in your head? Are you worrying too much? Are you constantly worrying all of the time? Because we worry, and we think that if we worry that we. We somehow are in control of this thing that we worry about. Like, worrying gives us a false sense of control. That's not true at all in any sort of way. So are you worrying too much about stuff that could be coming up in your future? Do you stress too much? What are you worrying about? What are you stressing about? Do you look at yourself in the mirror and you guilt yourself and you shame yourself for not being where you want to be in life yet for not having the body that you want, for screwing up and not waking up on time today. A lot of times the main thing that's stealing your peace is the way that you speak to yourself. So are you doing that? Are you worrying too much? Are you stressing too much? Are you talking down to yourself? Are you shaming yourself? Are you guilting yourself? How do you speak to yourself?
Okay, that's one thing to ask yourself.
Is there maybe a narrative, a story or a way that I speak to myself in my head that's stealing my peace?
Probably is.
What else? How about the place that you live? Is the place that you live the area you live stealing your piece? Well, let's talk about first the actual place that you live in. You know, if you live in a house and you're have, you have three roommates and maybe you're a really clean person and these people are dirty and they're up late at night and it makes it harder for you to have the life that you want. To wake up early, to be clean, to have a morning routine, have really good sleep. Yeah. There's a chance that where you live might actually be the problem. The house that you live in could be the problem, but also the could the city that you live in could be a problem as well for you. And once again, like I said with Ram Dass, like you can obviously move to a city that challenges you, but let's just make it a little bit easier on ourselves. Let's get some low hanging fruit. Maybe there's a city, maybe you still live in the same city that you grew up in. There's a part of you, it's like, I got to get out of this frickin city. Okay, maybe you need to move cities. You don't have to do it today, you have to it tomorrow, but maybe you could do it the next year. Maybe the place that you live in is stealing your peace. Maybe the news is stealing your peace. The news is stealing peace for so many people nowadays. Maybe you're seeing too much news and you're starting to see what's going on and the news is forcing a narrative down your head and you're seeing all the bad that's happening in the world. You're seeing all of the diseases that could be popping up in the future or new variants of things that could be popping up or whatever it might be that's happening. And I don't know what's happening in the news because I don't watch the news, but whatever it might be, the news could be stealing your piece. There was a couple years ago, probably back in. It's back in 2012, about early 2021, I walked into a paint store to go get some paint because we were painting our garage and I was sitting there and I was waiting for them to make the paint. And they had a TV show that was on and it was. What's the best way to describe it? It was a talk show that had a very specific narrative that it wanted to push across. And this was early 2021, and they were trying to push this narrative hardcore. And they were showing a whole bunch of things that were happening in other places. And all of it, whatever it was, I'm going to be as vague as I possib. Cause politics is the last thing that I want to talk about. And I noticed myself for about two minutes watching this news, this talk show that was basically up as I was waiting for my paint to be made. And I left and I got in my car and I felt like shit. And I realized, damn, I really watched like two minutes of that show and I get in my car and I feel like shit. Some people keep the news on all day long at their job or at their house or whatever it might be. So sometimes the news might be stealing your peace. And, you know, for some of you guys, for a lot of people out there, social media is fucking destroying your peace. The people that you follow is destroying your peace. You know what I would recommend is if you want to be on Instagram, you want to be on Facebook, I would recommend that you go through all the people that you follow and you unfollow as many people as you possibly can. I have unfollowed in the past couple weeks, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people on Instagram. Why? Because I realized that just seeing their stories makes me feel different. And I don't want to, you know, seeing what they're saying and this, the. The stuff that they're pushing or not pushing or acting and whatever, you know, doom and gloom, all of these things. I'm like, I gotta unfollow these people. I feel like shit just by watching people's stories. When you follow somebody on. On social media, you're basically deciding that you're going to allow that person to be part of your future thoughts about yourself in the world. So you've got to be very clear of who you want to follow and who you don't want to follow. Facebook, a couple Years ago, I unfriended like 3,000 people because I was like, what's the point? These people? Yeah, I've known them. Ten years ago, I knew them. But I'm just going to unfollow people, and I'm going to be very clear about who I want to follow and how these people are basically going to be molding my mindset in the future. And so think about that. Think about the people that you follow on Instagram and, you know, the news that you're. That you have as well. It's like, I saw a quote one time that said some poor phoneless fool is probably sitting next to a waterfall totally unaware of how angry or scared he's supposed to be. It's like ignorance is bliss sometimes. Being away from unfollowing as many people as possible and not being around as many people as possible, and then also not watching the news, it's like your ignorance makes your life so much better. Not having to see whatever the people are doing in their lives. Do you really care what someone else is doing in their life? Just unfollow. See you later. What about the job that you work? The job that you work could be stealing your peace. If you're waking up every single day and you're working a job that maybe you don't even hate, maybe it's okay, but it's just an unfulfilling job and it's not doing anything for the world or doing anything for yourself, just forcing yourself to that might be stealing your peace in some sort of way. So maybe not having enough downtime, maybe working too much of your job and not doing. You know, when they say you're burnt out, usually burnt out does it. Being burnt out doesn't come. Come from working too much. Usually being burnt out comes from doing too little of what you enjoy. And so maybe you need to do more of what you enjoy. Another thing that could be stealing your peace, cultural and societal pressures and expectations. You know, maybe your culture, your parents, the people that you surround yourself with, have very specific expectations and pressures that they put on you, and you feel like you need to meet those pressures and expectation that they have for you. Yeah, maybe you're taking on their beliefs and their expectations and you're putting it on yourself. Can you remove yourself from culture and societal pressures? I had a conversation with my wife years ago, and she was talking about, hey, like, it's unfair because men can look any way that they want to and women have to look this way. And I was like, well, do they
have to look that way, or is
that just a narrative that you have taken on? And she was like, no, we have to look this way. And I was like, do you, like, are there women who. Who don't dress up? Are there women who don't have to wear makeup? And really, what it comes down to is. Is not making yourself a victim of cultural and societal pressures and expectations. But if you decide that you want to partake in your societal pressures and stuff, it is your decision to do so, not a victim of it. So if it's like we were talking about makeup, like, us, and what I was saying is, like, yeah, if, you know, don't say that you have to wear it because you don't have to wear it. But if you decide to wear it, say that you decide to wear it because that makes you. That takes you from being a victim to putting you into a place of power, and it's your decision. And so maybe there's, you know, societal pressures, there's cultural pressures and expectations that you're just like, you know what? I want to remove myself from this. Maybe you have parents that were in the. In the military. Like, I've seen a lot of people whose parents are in the military, and they're really freaking hard on them.
You.
You can remove yourself from those expectations and. And those pressures that your parents put on you, and it's not easy necessarily to do, but it's a decision where you go, I no longer want to partake in this. And really, what it comes down to is you have to have a really low tolerance for things that steal your peace. If you want to be happier, you've got to get rid of the shit that steals your peace. It's not easy at first, but it becomes easier and easier because what you're doing is you're actually building your life the way that you want to be. You're building your story the way that you want to be. And your peace is so important to you, and you protect it so much, you say, I am going to protect my peace at all costs. Anyone, Anything, any thought that gets in the way of my peace needs to be out of my life. And I will not surround myself or put myself in a situation where my peace can be stolen. And if you do that, lo and behold, you wake up and you'll just start to be happier and happier every single day. That's the truth behind happiness. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at robdialjr. R O B D I A L J R and with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.
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