What If This Is As Good As It Gets? - Learning the Art of Contentment vs. Complacency
In this inaugural episode of the "Rise and Thrive" series, Shawn Ellis explores the question "What if this is as good as it gets?" as a gateway to understanding the art of contentment and distinguishing it from complacency. He begins by framing the challenge of thriving amid uncertainty and the cultural pressure of New Year resolutions. Ellis shares a personal narrative about setting a focused goal, only to have a family medical crisis force him to pivot, teaching him the value of flexibility. He cites research showing that higher happiness correlates with better business outcomes—sales, productivity, promotions, health, and longevity—arguing that contentment fuels performance. A historical parable about an exiled community instructed to build a life where they are, reinforces the idea that meaning can be found in the present moment. Ellis then delivers seven actionable steps to cultivate contentment: stop comparing to others, stop comparing to imagined timelines, practice gratitude lists, celebrate progress over outcomes, shift focus from what's missing to what's present, stay present instead of ruminating on past or future, and consciously choose a feeling to nurture now. Throughout, he emphasizes that recognizing the present as "good enough" can free individuals from endless striving, while still allowing future growth. The episode ends with a call to reflect on the question, share experiences, and prepare for the next session on making life even better.
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Hello my friend and welcome to This Moment Matters. I'm Shawn Ellis and today we are kicking off a new series called Rise and Thrive. How do you rise up in the face of constant uncertainty and change and overwhelm and the accelerating pace of life and work? Everything that we're dealing with today, how do you rise up under that and shift from just surviving, just getting through it, to actually thriving in the midst of it, to living a life of joy and meaning and fulfillment and peace and everything you want. How do you do that? How do you rise and thrive? That's what this series is going to be all about, and I am so glad you're here. And today's session is titled "What if this is as good as it gets?" What if this is as good as it gets?? And I figured that's a good title to start with because for one thing, it's been a while since I've done a series like this. So hey, this might be as good as it gets right here. Let's see how this goes. But more than that, I actually, I love starting with that question at this time of year because this time of year everybody's been talking about goals and resolutions and how do you make this the best year ever. And I I'm all for that. I want this to be your best year ever. I want it to be my best year ever. But I think we've got to start with that question, "What if this is as good as it gets?" Which is a question, by the way, nobody wants to ask at this time of year. You might already be thinking, "Shawn, this sucks. If this is as good as it gets, I want no part of this. I'm out." But I hope you'll stick with me because what we're going to be talking about really today is the art of contentment. Contentment. And contentment, by the way, is not the same as complacency. This is not about settling, and we'll talk more about that. We're going to be talking about the art of contentment and why is that so mat— why is that so important? And why does that actually— why is that a critical foundation to get you to wherever you want to go? Because in the next session, we're going to shift back to, you know, what we might like to talk about this time of the year, which is, you know, How can it get even better than this? But today we're going to talk about what if this is as good as it gets? And what I hope you'll find as we ask that question, we really dig deep and learn what that question means. What I hope you'll find in the midst of that is freedom and peace and gratitude and just something beautiful that is right here, right now. Because what happens when we set out into a new year, anytime we make some new goals or new plans, then we're like, let's imagine you're here and we set this goal over here and we think, well, I want to get there. Like, I am here and I want to get there. And we focus so much on there that we lose sight of being here. And, you know, this time of year I think back to about 6, I guess it was 6 years ago, I was going into a new year and my word for that year was focus and I had a big plan for what I wanted to do to make some shifts in my business and focus was my word. I'm not going to let anything distract me. I'm not going to get off course. I even enrolled with a coach who had a game plan. He said, "If you follow this plan, I guarantee for— if you follow this plan for the course of the year, I guarantee you'll hit the outcome you're looking for." I thought, "Man, I'm focused. I've got a plan. I've got a coach. I've got a guarantee. What more could you want? How could this possibly go wrong?" You probably know where this is going. If you've seen me speak, I share this story when I speak. For about the first month of the year, everything was going great. I was working on this new plan, going through the program, making progress. Then, about a month into the year, there was a family medical crisis that came up that totally turned everything upside down. And all of a sudden, this new plan was out the window, and I found myself only being able to work 3 to 4 hours a day while I was kind of shifting to more of a role of a caregiver and taking care of my young son. And that went on, and over the course of the year, I realized at one point, I was like, man, I think I picked the wrong F-word for this year, like flexibility. That's the word I should have picked. And I really learned the power of flexibility that year. And recently, actually just last year, I was at an event where a futurist was speaking and I heard him say, "The future will punish certainty but will reward clarity." In other words, we've got to be clear on where we're going, but we've got to be flexible in how we get there. Because I guarantee you there's going to be stuff that comes up this year that you didn't expect, stuff that I and not expecting that— there's no way we can plan for it because we make our goals and we make our resolutions like in a vacuum. Like if everything was perfect, then of course, yes, this is what I want to make happen. This is what I'm going to make happen. You've probably seen the statistics. I think it's something like 8% of people achieve their goals that they set at the beginning of the year, and 80% of resolutions fail. People who set their resolutions, 80% of them don't. Don't make it there. So again, whatever the numbers are, either way, the odds are not in your favor. And you know this, right? I'm sure you've set some resolutions in the past or some goals and you didn't quite get there. And, and you know, that's okay. It's— that's not the problem. The problem is that if we get so locked in on the outcome, so attached to the outcome, so fixated on this goal that we're aiming for, then if we fall short of that, then we find ourselves disappointed, frustrated, exhausted. What it does, if we're setting out for this year like if we've got to hit this mark for this year to be meaningful, for this year to be a success, then we set out and we're chasing, we're striving, we're racing, pushing, forcing, fighting to get there and it's just exhausting. And then again, if we don't get there, then we come up unfulfilled. So I'm not telling you to not set goals. I'm not telling you to not set resolutions. I actually don't, it's not really What I've found to be more valuable for me is to think about what are my values and what are my intentions, what is my vision, so I do have a direction I'm headed in, but I don't set it so much to an outcome. And we'll talk about next week, we'll talk about how, you know, setting your goals, you might actually be selling yourself short because there might even be more possibilities than what you know. So, but that's just me. If you set goals and resolutions, That's great. If we're at this stage, you know, a few days into the new year, if the resolutions are already off the table, well, great. Well, here's the perfect message for you. What if this is as good as it gets? What that question is, you know, at first, if your life conditions are not really great right now, if the circumstances are not what you want them to be, then that question could sound awful. It might be, again, like, oh man, this No way! Like, I want no part of this. Like, I'm checking out. If this is as good as it gets, like, I'm out of here. But the reason that question is so important is because life happens here. Like, this is it. This moment is all that we're promised. So if we're setting our sights on something in the future, like, if that's what we have to hit in order to be happy, you know, to feel satisfied, to feel fulfilled, filled, we're setting ourselves up for failure. Because, you know, not only is it unlikely that you'll actually hit that mark, but what we know is that when we set that goalpost out there, like, this is what I'm aiming for, what happens so often? Let's say you do hit it. By the time you hit it, are you going to be fully satisfied at that point? Are you going to think, you know what, maybe that's not as good as I thought it would be. I think I can do even better. And we just keep moving that goalpost further and further out into the future. So we just keep moving our marker for happiness further out, and then we just live our life in this state of being discontent, being unsatisfied, unfulfilled, unhappy. So what if this is as good as it gets is an invitation to look around you right here, right now, and see, you know, what can I be grateful for right now in the midst of all this? Like, I see everything that's missing right now. I see everything that I want to accomplish, everything that isn't the way I want want it to be. But in the midst of all that, what could you find that is actually something you can be grateful for in this moment? Because you see, if you're breathing right now— take a breath— if you're breathing right now, this moment is a gift. You and I have the gift of being alive in this moment. And whatever the circumstances are, whatever the conditions are, you know, there may be challenges all around you. And believe me, I say all this not from a place of like, it's easy when you're hearing somebody speaking like this and you think, well, sure, easy for you to say. But I promise you, this comes from a place of having lived as a survivor for like more than a decade where I was just getting by. My sights were always on something else. Like, if this happens, when this happens, then life will be good. And it's just a setup to live life waiting and hoping and praying and just kind of feeling unsettled and uneasy, waiting for things to turn around. And I lived there for more than a decade, and I've been through challenges in relationships and finances, as I mentioned, you know, family health crises and career and work and business, all these kind of things. Both on the personal front and the professional front. But what I learned is when we say, "What if this is as good as it gets?" It's a reminder to take a look around and see what can we be grateful for now. And Shawn Ellis has done a lot of research in the link between happiness and performance, especially in the workplace. And what we know, what Shawn has found in his research, and lots of others have done research that backs this up, up. But when we're happier, we actually perform better. When you feel better, you do better. And I do have, I do have these notes. I know that I've got these here. So let me just kind of share some of these statistics with you. This is based on some of Shawn Ellis's findings. He said every single business outcome improves when you improve your positivity, when there's more positivity in this moment. And by the way, if maybe you're not in business, maybe you're in education or in healthcare, or maybe you're, you know, a stay-at-home parent. Well, that is your profession. Whatever it is that you're doing, that you're dedicating yourself to, all the outcomes improve the happier you are. So check this out. What research has shown is that sales rise by 37%, productivity rises by 31%, the likelihood of a promotion rises by 40%, And the list goes on, not to mention that we live longer, we're healthier, stress levels go down. The happier we are, the better we feel, the better everything is. So if you live your life like always aiming for that goal that's out there and that makes you feel anxious or uneasy or whatever it may be, stressed out, is that going to allow you to perform at your best, to have your best chance to get there? Because we know that to get there, we have to be here, right? Because here is the only place we ever are. We're always in this moment. So if we can't learn to be happy here, then odds are you're not going to be happy even if you do get there. But if you can be— learn— if you can learn to be happy and be satisfied and be content right here in this moment, then imagine how amazing it will be when circumstances actually do change. And what I'll promise you is that when you bring more happiness into this moment, when you're vibrating at a different frequency— you've been around people, right, where they just, like, there's just something light and bright about them, there's this positive feel, and you just want to be around them. And then on the other hand, you've been around those people where it's like, just when their presence is there, you just feel like, oh my gosh, like the energy in this room just took a hit. And it's, you know, because they're just in the state of uneasiness or dis-ease or unhappiness, or they're stressed out or whatever it is, whatever it may be. So what if this is as good as it gets? What freedom could you find? Like, if this was it? And let me give you— well, I'm going to do a couple of things. First, I want to tell you a story, just a brief story. About a group of people who really kind of live this out. What if this is as good as it gets in some really difficult circumstances? And then I'm going to give you 7 practical steps. So if you want to improve or live, practice this art of contentment, I'll give you 7 practical steps you can do that right here. Because I know, what if this is as good as it gets? It's a little abstract, so I'm going to give you some practical application for that. But first of all, let me tell you, there's a story of a group of people, this, this culture, society, group of people about 2,600 years ago. And they were cast out of their homeland. They were sent into exile and they were, you know, into enemy territory. And they were told, this is where you're going to live for 70 years. And as you can imagine, that was not, that was not good news. That did not feel good. Like, imagine if you got cast out of your home. Cast out of everything that's comfortable to you, like your work, your family, your comfort zone, the town or city where you live, your neighborhood. Like, you're cast out. And not only are you cast out, like, it's not going to go from where you are, where, okay, I know this place, it's pretty good, and I'll go to another place and I'll adapt. But no, like, you're being cast out into enemy territory, or a place where you would never want to be there, totally foreign That's where they were sent. They were told, you know, you're going to be there for 70 years. And can you imagine, like, if you were told that, if you were, if you knew that you're going to be cast out and you're going to be there for 70 years, what would you do for those 70 years? Would you think, all right, well, I guess this is kind of, it's going to suck for 70 years. Let me just try to get through it. Let me just survive. We'll get on the other side of it. And then we'll be back, everything will be okay. That could be our tendency right now. 70 years, that's a long time, but what if it was like 2 years or 3 years, 5 years? Like maybe it's in your current job, you think, all right, well, I just gotta, gotta suck it up for a couple years or 5 years or whatever it may be. Like, I know this is one of those seasons of life where it's going to be tough, let me just get through it, right? Does that relate, resonate? Well, what they were told, they got this message from their god and their God said to them, "No, what I want you to do, build houses, make homes here, plant gardens and eat of the food, get married, have children, tell your children to have children." In other words, here you are in this place that is not, it's not the Promised Land. It's not where you would want to be. It's not what's familiar to you. It's not what you would consider to be desirable. It's the exact opposite of that. But the instruction was, "Live here." Because right here, right where you are, this is life. And I promise you, even if this part of life you're thinking like, "It looks like it's just a stepping stone. Like, I don't see anything meaningful here. Like, I just can't wait to get through this." But I promise you, this is a meaningful moment, and this is a meaningful season. Because you can't get to where you want to go without first being here. And who knows where we'll end up? Like, I don't know what's going to happen over the course of this year. I don't know what's going to happen over the course of this day. So what if this is as good as it gets? If it is, then there's freedom, you know, because that means I don't have to be constantly looking over the horizon. It's like, okay, this This is it. I can live here. Let me show up and let me bring my best right here. So let me share with you 7 practical steps to help you put this into practice. And as we continue in this series to Rise and Thrive, this is going to be our model. I'll share with you sort of a key principle or idea, but then I always want to give you some practical steps so you can apply this. And not that you have to do all 7 of these. So maybe, you know, get out a pen and paper or take notes and, you know, write down, jot down whatever resonates with you. What is one, even just one of these practices that can make a difference in your life? But here we go, 7 steps to cultivate contentment right here, right where you are. Number 1 is to stop comparing to others. And comparison kills, doesn't it? Stop comparing to others because if this is as good as it gets, like, okay, well, you know, whatever, like they've got their thing. And by the way, like one reason comparison is so dangerous is not only because it sets us up to want, you know, want whatever, what somebody else has, and, you know, want those conditions, but we can't see the circumstances there. What looks good on the surface, we don't even know what's going on there. So comparison, like we don't have the full picture to even be able to compare, because if you could see the full picture, you might think, ah, never mind, I don't think so. But stop comparing. Just be here now. Be present with what you've got. This is your life. This is your moment. How can you make the most of it? How can you bring your best right here, not comparing to others? So number 1, stop comparing to others. Number 2, stop comparing to where you thought you should be. You ever do that? Like, you look at your life and think, man, I thought I would be a lot further along by now. You ever think that? I've heard that from so many people and I've thought that myself. You know, I'm 43 years old and I know people who are 23 who seem to be further along than I am, you know, in different places in their life, career, relationship, whatever it is. And I think, you know, even look at myself, like, I pretty much started my life over at 40 years old. I thought, "Man, I never thought I would be doing this." Like, I thought I would be somewhere else by here. I should be somewhere else. I should have this figured out by now. No, stop comparing yourself to what you thought you should be because this is where you are. And I promise you, this is exactly where you should be. Now, I didn't say you should stay here. And again, next week we're going to talk about where do you go from here? How do we make this even better? How could this get even better? But this is where you are. So stop comparing to where you thought you should be. Because when you do that, that takes you out of this moment. Number 3, make a list. What can you be grateful for? What is one thing you can be grateful for? Can you list 3 things, 5 things? What can you be grateful for? There's so much we take for granted. Like right now, here I am in this climate-controlled, safe place, this home. I can be grateful for this. And, you know, if not that, then I'm breathing. Like, I can be grateful for that. I'm glad I'm on this side of the ground, right? Like, what can you be grateful for? Make a list of what you can be grateful for, because I promise you, the way our brains are wired, it's so easy to identify and focus on everything that's wrong, everything that is not what you want it to be. We've got to be very intentional about identifying what we're grateful for and spending time focusing on that and really feeling that sense of gratitude. Number 4: Celebrate progress, not just outcomes. You see, again, we're wired to, to celebrate outcomes. Like, when I get there, that's when I'll be happy, that's when I will have made it. But you know what, how long does that last actually when you get there? Because as I said before, like, when you get there, a lot of times we, we We totally missed the fact that we got there because we forgot that that was our "there," but then by the time we got there, get there, we've got another "there." So we keep moving, you know, we keep setting our sights further and further ahead. So for one thing, we may miss the outcome altogether, but even if we don't miss it, it happens in an instant and then, then what? What's next, right? You set your sights on another outcome. Learn to celebrate progress, not just outcomes. Like, don't look at how far you have to go or how far short you are of your goal. Even at this time of year, it may look like, wow, that is so far out there. But just think, how far have you come to be here, to even be in the place where you could set that as a goal? How far have you come? Are you like— look around your life right now. Do you have some things in your life right now that you think, wow, man, I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I've got this. Maybe it's not even external. Maybe it's internal, it's thoughts, it's perspective, it's inner strength, it's compassion, it's wisdom. How much progress have you made? Because sometimes we look around and we think, like, you know, you look at the bank account, you look at your relationship, you look at your job, you look at your home, and you think, wow, this is not where I thought I would be. But look how far you've come, both in terms of what you can see and in what you can't Celebrate your progress, not just outcome. Maybe you want to take a moment now and just, you know, write a sentence, write a paragraph about how far you've come from where you started. Number 5: Shift your focus from what's missing to what's present. And this sort of goes hand in hand with, with listing what you're grateful for. But again, it's just learning to shift your attention from from what is missing, which is always what's going to grab our attention, to shift your attention from what's missing to what is present. Just make a list of what you have, not what you don't have, but what you have in this moment. Yeah, I'm not in the relationship I want to be, but what do you have? Maybe are you more in touch with yourself than you used to be? You know, my family dynamic, my family is not what I want it to be. You know, like, I don't have any kids yet, or what— there's— I want one more kid, whatever it is, thinking like, I know, I know the next marker that I want to hit. But what do you have right now? Maybe even financially, it's, you know, I look at my bank account, like, ah, there's not enough money there. You know, can you learn to say, like, like, I only have— shift from saying I only have Do I have enough? Because I've been through some really hard financial times. Some of you may know, like, I had to file bankruptcy at one point not that long ago, and I just wasn't able to pay the bills. And it would be easy in that to look and say, well, I didn't have enough, but I'm still here. Like, I made it. Like, you're still here. You may not have as much as you want to have. This is not your final destination. But shift from saying, "I have enough," because when we go through life, we say, "I only have this much time. I only have this much money. I only have these many years left in my life." Whatever it is, like, "only, only, only," it sets us up to live life from a viewpoint of scarcity. What if you could shift and live life from a viewpoint of abundance? "I always have enough." Like, yeah, I look around, it's not ideal, but I have enough. I am here. So that's number 5. Number 6 is to be present, not consumed with replaying the past or worrying about the future. Again, something that's so easy for us. What if this is as good as it gets? That's an invitation to be present in this moment. You see, what we're so good at is looking at the past and thinking, man, if only I had done that differently, if only this hadn't unfolded that way, if I had said something differently, if I had said yes to that or no to that, whatever it may be. We replay the events of the past. Or then we, you know, we think about the future. Maybe we're fantasizing about how amazing that will be. Or maybe we're worried about, you know, what is the future going to hold? How am I ever going to get there? But that worrying about the past doesn't change it, and worrying about the future doesn't change it. The only place we can change anything is right here in this moment. So be present. Shift from your— bring your attention out of the past into the present, out of the future into the present. This is where life happens. This is where the magic happens. Be present. And number 7 is to ask, what could I be happy about right now if I wanted to be? See, at the beginning of the year, we set goals, we set resolutions, It's not even necessarily about that thing that we want to achieve. See, a lot of times we get caught up in, in the vehicle. In other words, like, what we're aiming for is a feeling. Like, we feel like that'll make us feel happy, that'll, that'll make me feel fulfilled, that will make me feel worthy, that will make me feel complete, whatever it may be. It's a feeling we're aiming for. That is something we value. But we, we get caught up in the vehicle and thinking, that is the vehicle that will allow me to have that feeling, that is the vehicle that will allow me to experience what I value? So can you shift from focusing on the vehicle to focusing on the values? What is it? If you wanted to be happy right now, what could I be happy about right now if I wanted to be? Or maybe if happy is not your target, what is, what is it that you're aiming for? Do you want to feel peace? Do you want to feel a sense of adventure, a sense of security? What is it? You want to feel a sense of recognition? Maybe replace that like, if I wanted to feel recognition right now, where could I find that feeling? How could I cultivate that feeling? And maybe nobody else— like, it looks like nobody notices me, but you can recognize yourself. And again, celebrating progress is a way to do that. Wow, look at me! Look how far I've come! This is amazing! But whatever it is, what could I be happy about right now if I wanted to be? These are just some subtle shifts you can make in this moment, and that's why the signature phrase over all this is "this moment matters." You can transform your life experience in this very moment. You make these subtle shifts and you can transform your experience in this moment. That's what the art of contentment is really about. It's learning to say that, you know, my happiness is not dependent on external circumstances. It's not dependent on conditions. Being content is not the same as being complacent. If you're complacent, it's like you look around and none of this is what I want it to be. I don't like it. I'm not happy here, but I mean, what's the use? What can I do about it? And so you just give up. And complacency means you just kind of— you just settle for it. See, that would be saying like, this is as good as it gets. So I might as well stop. What if this is as good as it gets is an invitation to be present, to be grateful. It's a path to freedom. Like, there is no tension, there is no stress trying to get from here to there. No, I am here and I'm gonna make the most of it. And then next time we'll talk about how does it get even better than this, because there is really something special up ahead. But what we've got right now is is this moment. And I thank you for sharing this moment with me. Hope you found something to be meaningful that you can take with you and use. And as you go through the day, ask that question: What if this is as good as it gets? What would you do if it was? And share a comment. Feel free to comment and let me know what— how this resonates with you, how you can apply this, what feelings this brings up to you. Maybe an example of a time where you were able to apply this. But thank you so much for being here, and I'll see you next time as we continue this series to Rise and Thrive.
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