Ep #43 | I'm Successful - Why Aren't I Happy?

There are so many books out there that teach you how to be successful. And yet on the other side of it, it isn't this golden land that we're promised. But if you're feeling them and you're going through them, they're pretty intense.

As you climb up the ladder of success, it does get lonelier at the top.

I have everything I ever wanted, but I feel empty on the inside.

I noticed this when I first decided to move away from the people I regularly hung out with and become an entrepreneur. The first thing I heard was, you're crazy, that that idea is never going to work. I had to go through the loneliness of that build up stage. And when I hit that mark where I finally had money and I had a successful company, the loneliness didn't stop.

You can never have enough of what you don't really need.

It seems that I could in a way no longer relate to certain people from my past. And this isn't just true for me. 50% of American CEOs, for example, report loneliness. The higher you climb, the more you have to be aware of its detrimental effects and the more you have to have habits in your life to push back and overcome. Not just loneliness, but sadness, emptiness, all of these things that can really hit you.

We feel guilty. Everyone's admiring us for what we've done and we don't feel we've done very much.

Now I overcame that hump and I want to make sure that other people who go through this path don't face a similar challenge. Which is why I'm so excited to have Rich Litvin joining us today. He is one of the best high performance coaches I've ever encountered in my life and he's a regular on the mindvalley stage all around the world.

And so when I work with high performers, I know that very often what got them here won't get them there. And their logical thinking based on what they've done until now needs to be messed with. And I get paid to mess with people's thinking. When you're the most interesting person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

He's the author of the book the Prosperous Coach. He has a background in behavioral physiology and psychology, and he has a master's degree in educational effectiveness and improvement. Please welcome on set Rich Litvin.

Thanks, man. Hi, Vishen. Let me give you some context about who I am and what I do. First of all, I like to joke that I get paid a lot of money to mess with people's thinking and I work with Extraordinary people. I've got a client right now who's just had a business valued at a billion dollars. I've got a client who's raising $100 million to change the future of work. I've got a client who's the former chief marketing officer for Harley Davidson, and I've got a client who's a former Navy seal. So I couldn't be better at what they do than them. They're the best in the world at what they do. I don't have to be as a coach. What I do is I get paid to mess with their thinking. And so let me illustrate that with a story. We assume that success and creativity are the result of logical straight line thinking. But that's not always the case. Take the rear view mirror in your car. Back in 1911, a man named Ray Haroun wanted to race in the Indianapolis 500. It was the first speedway race in the United States. Now, Ray was more of a mechanic than a driver. And back then, he came up with two innovations. The first one was that he decided, unlike all the other racing cars, he designed a racing car that only had one seat. You see, most all racing cars at the time had two seats, one for the driver, one for the mechanic. The mechanic was there to either fix the car when it broke down, but also to look around the car and see the vehicles that were overtaking or behind them. To literally save their lives. Ray decided to create a car called the Marmon Wasp. This car, on the day that it entered the race, shocked all the other drivers because he only had one seat. And they all complained if he didn't have a passenger who was able to look around and see what was going on, he could crash and kill someone. Well, that's when Ray showed them his second innovation. On the dashboard in front of the steering wheel were four metal legs and a big clanky mirror. And he said, well, now I can see all around me and so there'll be no accidents. Well, they couldn't really argue with that, so they let the race go on. Now, Ray raced at about 75 miles an hour on average around that speedway track, which was pretty fast in 2011, but still not as fast as the other drivers. Here's the thing. Ray came in about half a mile in front of every other driver. He won the race. You see, at that time, changing tires wasn't like it is in Formula One today. It was a slow and clunky process. Ray only needed to change the tyres in his car four times. His nearest competitor 14 times he came in half a mile ahead of anybody else in that race. He won that race alone, without anyone next to him. And the next day, all the newspapers printed the news about this device on the dashboard. But they didn't have a name for it, so they called it a seeing without turning. And soon everybody wanted one. Everybody wanted a seeing without turning on their car. And in this day and age, every vehicle has a seeing without turning. We call it a rear view mirror. And every racing car to this day has a single person in it. But it was only when he retired that Ray was interviewed and he admitted, you know what? That speedway track was so bumpy that in that mirror, I. I couldn't see a damn thing. But that wasn't the purpose of the mirror. The mirror wasn't designed to help him see what was around him. It was designed to allow him to only have a single person in the car because the car would be lighter, it would need less tire changes, and he could potentially win that race, which he did. So we look at that mirror today and we assume it was designed as a safety device, and it wasn't. And the problem with creativity and success is it doesn't always work in straight lines. But we want to look at what others have done and see if we can model them. And so when I work with high performers, I know that very often what got them here won't get them there. And their logical thinking based on what they've done until now needs to be messed with. And I get paid to mess with people's thinking.

That's amazing. I love that story. So how are you going to mess with our thinking today?

Well, let's have a look at some of these traps. Everyone wants the trappings of success. Hopefully one day I'll have the money, the recognition, the fame, the audience. But there are traps in success. And I wanted to illustrate three of them with three counterintuitive truths. So let me bring them out one at a time. The first is the isolation trap. I hear this a lot from my clients. I'm not lonely, but I feel very alone. It's something that happens to us as we become more and more successful. We can outgrow our community. And then there comes a moment initially where we. We know we've outgrown our community, but we don't want to leave them behind. But there does come a point where you have to be willing to up level the game that you play. So here's the counterintuitive truth. When you're the most interesting person in the room. You're in the wrong room. We so often crave to be in the room with the kind of people that will take us to the next level. Let me illustrate that with a story. One of my clients a number of years ago was a former Navy bomb disposal expert. He'd served in Afghanistan. He'd done things that I couldn't imagine. And he said to me that when I served, what I knew is I had a team of people I trusted so much that if we were going through that doorway, literally my life was in their hands. And I had absolute confidence and trust in who they were and what they would do. But when he left service, military service, he lived in a world where he didn't have people who played that kind of game any longer. He felt incredibly lonely. He met other military veterans who at the same time would feel this sense of, there's something missing deeply. So we crave to be in these rooms where we would fit in. Actually, that's no longer your job. Your job is to keep seeking out a room where you don't feel you fit in. So when I look back at my life, Vishen, I realize for over 20 years, I've curated talent hotbeds. 20 plus years ago, I was a high school teacher, and I always wanted to learn, to grow, to challenge myself. And I read about Sigmund Freud, and Sigmund Freud had created something he called the Wednesday nightclub. And when he died, all of the therapists and psychotherapists who'd been learning with him and from him, it was a completely new field at that time credited the Wednesday nightclub with the best personal growth and professional development they'd ever experienced. And his proteges came on to grow that field of psychotherapy. I heard this idea about the Wednesday night club, and as a teacher in 1997 or so, I created my version of that. Every Wednesday night, I'd get together with teachers who wanted to learn and grow. We had no money for this. We had just a group of people who wanted to learn and push and stretch themselves. And we would come in week after week and challenge each other. Fast forward another 10 years or so. I moved to LA, and at the time, I was working with a lot of very powerful women. And my wife's a very powerful woman. I knew I needed a men's group. I wanted to curate a group of powerful men. I didn't want to lead it. That's my day job. I wanted a group of men who met me and challenged me. And for 10 years, this group of men met with one another One of them is now one of the leaders at NASA. One of them created a wolf sanctuary and trains veterans and ex offenders and disaffected teenagers using these 50 wolves. One of them trains millionaires and billionaires to be philanthropists. This group of men, we challenge and stretch one another. And I do it myself now I have a group called 4pc, a community of leaders and coaches. That premise of when you're the most interesting person in the room, you're in the wrong room is the sign for you to either go out and find or do I did do what I did and create the community that stretches you and grows you.

And I love that advice. So let's look at how you can apply that in your life. What Rich is saying is that we have the ability to be proactive and to go forth and create our own group. There are many words for these type of groups. Words like mastermind, a curated community. You'll find these groups all around the world. So I started joining several of these, these groups. When I felt that, that sense of loneliness and I tried out different groups in some groups, I felt I didn't fit in. I left. That's perfectly okay. When I was first in the Internet marketing industry, learning how to build a webpage and write copy, I joined an Internet marketing group. As my business soared, I realized I was the most successful person in that group. So I quit and I joined a group on Necker island, meeting with Richard Branson and these were guys who had $10 million companies. When my company went beyond that, I quit and I now look, join groups with people who are looking at managing 50 to $100 million companies. It is perfectly okay and fair to join a group. Leave, join, leave. But never, ever, ever join a group where you're the most successful and most fascinating person. So the first key lesson over there is that loneliness is going to come to you as you climb the ladder. The good thing to know is that if you're a CEO and you're lonely, or you're a highly successful scientist and you're lonely, or you're the head of your engineering department and you're lonely, There are other CEOs, there are other scientists, there are other heads of engineering departments feeling the same way. You can seek them out and you'd.

Be surprised how quickly that will grow. You don't have to know these people to start with. I didn't. You start off with the most interesting people you know, and then you say to them, who's the most interesting person you know? And interesting people, dinners we never got past the working title. Has been such a fun way to expand my community.

That's so funny. I do the same thing, and I invited you to one two weeks ago. I call it the gathering.

Yes.

And it's a gathering of fascinating people. And I've met so many really cool friends from my gatherings, which I do all around the world in exactly the same way. I ask the people I assemble to bring other people in. Let's go on to the next mental model.

This is the imposter trap. What I hear a lot from my clients, who are extremely high performers, is everyone around me admires me for what I do, but on the inside, I feel lazy. What it speaks to is what I see in really top performers. And what I help my clients to do is. Is to move further and further into what I call their zone of genius. That thing you do extraordinarily well that when you do it, it feels effortless. The trap we get caught in is the one you just described. We feel guilty. Everyone's admiring us for what we've done, and we don't feel we've done very much. The mission is to do more and more of that, to move deeper and deeper into that. My wife's a jazz singer. She's an amazing performer. She used to come home from a gig, and I'd say, how was it? And she'd say, it was awful. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, I got this line wrong. This word was in the wrong place. This note was wrong. And I realized I was asking the wrong question when I say to her, what did they think of it? And she'd go, oh. I got a standing ovation. They loved it. The challenge. Another challenge of being a high performer is you're hypercritical. You're looking for those tiny things that should have been done differently. And so I call this the fraudulence paradox. We have this hope and desire that one day will no longer feel like a fraud. I was in a mastermind group myself once, and I went there for the first time, and there's 10 of us sitting around a table, and we were asked to introduce ourselves, and I was the third one around. And the first two people, one at a time, got up and introduced themselves to the room, and their bio was amazing. I was in awe of what they'd accomplished, and it was like they'd honed this speech, and I was thinking, oh, my God, I haven't prepared anything, and I don't My accomplishments compared to theirs. I was feeling like a fraud. What am I doing here when the only person in that room that I Knew who'd written 30 books was super successful? Interrupted before I could stand. She said, I'm really sorry. I've got to interrupt. I've got to say something. She said, you two were amazing. Your stories are incredible. You've been so successful. The speech you gave was amazing. It was like you prepared it for years, and I feel like a fraud. I've got nothing to share. And yet I knew she was the one I was in awe of because she was so successful. My wish for you is that sense of feeling like a fraud never goes away. It relates to the first challenge we talked about putting yourselves in more and more interesting rooms with more and more fascinating people. This idea that one day I'll no longer feel like a fraud. While it's what most people are craving, what I hope for you is that you continue to feel like that as time goes on because you keep putting yourself in positions where you're surrounded by extraordinary people.

Oh, I like that. So are there any practices that we can do to help us move there? You've given us a beautiful model of reality. I would love to know a specific practice, such as the idea of organizing that dinner for fascinating people.

Yeah. I'll give you two tools. The first one, I'll start with a story. So Warren Buffett one day was. Was walking around his property when he bumped into his pilot, and he started chatting, and he realized, oh, my God, you know what? I haven't really served you powerfully enough. Ten years you've been working for me, and you're still here in the same job. Would you like some help from me to really grow even more than you've done so far? And the pilot said, yeah, absolutely, Mr. Buffett. Of course I would. Well, I'll tell you what to do. Go home and make a list of the top 25 things you'd love to do in your life. Okay, Mr. Buffett, I'll do that. Comes back a day or two later, and Warren Buffett sees him and says, did you do the list? I got it. Here it is. Here's my top 25 things I want to accomplish in my life. Buffett says, well, okay, so now what I'd like you to do is identify out of that list, the top five. Come back to me when you've got your top five. A day or so later, he comes back and says, look, these are my top five. Well, what are you going to do about the other 20? Says Buffett. The pilot pauses for a second and says, well, I guess I'll work on them on weekends and on the evenings and in my spare time. And Buffett looks him in the eyes and says, no, that's your first mistake. Everything else on that list just became your avoid at all costs list. So avoid at all costs list. If you want to be working in your zone of genius, you have to identify not just the things that you're not good at, but the things that you're extraordinarily good at. And yet they're not your zone of genius. Your willingness to say no to anything that's on your avoid at all cost list and particularly your zone of excellence. And the universe is challenging because it will commit to pulling you back into your zone of excellence. And your job as a really high performer is to say no so that you can thrive in your zone of genius.

Now, there's a very important element here that I want to bring in. Many people watching work in companies and you have a specific job, right? And I noticed this a lot with the 300 or so people who work at Mindvalley. Most people think that if you stay in your zone of genius, you're going to improve this way, right? A straight line moving upwards. It doesn't. There's a beautiful book out called Mastery that says that it's more like a series of steps. You shoot up, then you plateau for a moment. You shoot up, then you plateau or stagnate. You shoot up, then you plateau or stagnate.

It steps.

But what happens is when we're in that stagnation point, many people I see, at least in my company, go, oh God, I'm not growing. I want to try a different thing. So the UX designer wants to try graphic design. The graphic designer wants to go into front end development of a webpage. But when this happens, they forget that it's a step. And if they just stay with their zone of genius, they're going to level up. But often they switch. And when you switch, you become a generalist. And in the world of business, the world of careers, generalists don't make as much as specialists. So I think that's an important lesson there to everyone watching this episode as well, in terms of how to progress in your career path.

That book's by George Leonard. It's called just called Mastery. It's a great book. So George Leonard was a fighter pilot in World War II, and he came back after the war and realized in combat there's such camaraderie, there's such a sense of mission. There's such a sense of purpose, there's such a sense of being alive. What if we could tap into that after or without combat and the risk of dying. He created something called the samurai game. And I've played this a number of times and I'm about to take my community through it a third time in a couple of weeks time. So the samurai game, it's experiential so I can't speak to what happens in it. But it's the most powerful way to get a group of people together and have them experience living on the edge, facing challenges, pushing themselves beyond their capacity and seeing how they show up as a leader in a very high stakes situation where they're not at risk of dying. So let me finish that idea of the imposter trap with the counterintuitive truth that lies behind it. The opposite of success isn't failure, it's mediocrity. The opposite of success isn't failure, it's mediocrity. Successful people aren't afraid of failure. In fact, it's one of the only ways to become successful, to keep taking risks and failing along the journey. But at some point what I see in really successful people is there's a sense of, there's something missing. And so what I tap into at that point is what's the legacy you want to leave? What's the contribution you want to make? And I've witnessed that in you with Mindvalley, seeing the difference you want to make across the planet right now, from growing one of the most successful companies in personal growth across the planet to a company that's changing the education system around the world. The you're a man who's on mission around leaving a legacy. That's the other side of success.

Thank you. Now let's go to that third mental model.

The third trap is the emptiness trap. I have everything I ever wanted, but I feel empty on the inside. I've heard this numerous times from the kind of people I work with. I see a knowing smile over there. So I was speaking to a man who said to me, I've just sold my business for eight figures and I was about to start to build my second one when I remembered I only started the first one because I wasn't happy and I'm still not happy. And we don't know this because all the books out there are about how to become successful. And this is what I see, the work that I do with extraordinary top performers, that these are the things they'll share if they're with Someone who they can trust. And sometimes there are communities we can be in. Well, we can share that more publicly that we talked about at the beginning. Here's the counterintuitive truth behind the emptiness trap. And I'll have to say this one twice. So it goes in. You can never have enough of what you don't really need. You can never have enough of what you don't really need. We're chasing fame, success, recognition, money, yachts, cars, homes, and yet we get them and there's something missing. So we chase the next one. I know someone who continues to buy more and more expensive watches, more and more expensive yachts, and it doesn't feed him, but he can't see it, so he's still on this chase. You can never have enough of what you don't really need. So I'm going to take a risk right now and do something personal with you. I remember the first time we had a conversation where I created a safe enough space that you opened up with me and you shared about the stories of your mother and father. But what I heard is that you saw your mom and the challenges she went through as a teacher. And I saw back then that your desire was going to be bigger than this personal growth company because you wanted to make a difference for teachers and the children that they taught. That's why you were driven. And whilst you may have made money and had success along the way, they were just side effects. You were driven to make a difference for people like your mother. Is that. Am I close? Is that.

Yeah. My mom was a public school teacher. I think it's no coincidence that I.

Run an education company and we have to catch why we're doing something or we get this level of success and we feel empty. There's something missing on the inside. I'll give you a couple of tools. When someone comes to me and says, hey, I want to build this business. I want to grow my company, I want to have my team perform at a higher level. I practice a tool that was created in Toyota many years ago. It's called the five whys. And I asked them, why? Why do you want to do that? Well, I want to have this company because then I can make a difference. I want to have this company because then I can make a lot of money. Well, why? What would that do for you? What would that give you that you don't already have? Well, if I had a lot of money, I could finally have the homes I want to have. I could take care of my children.

Why?

What would that do for you, give you that you don't already have. We get down deep enough and it turns out that they're still trying to prove themselves to their father from 30 years before. And then I want to find out, well, how can we handle that one? And then it might turn out that you're going to build that company anyway. Chances are they will. But if we don't catch why they're really doing it, they're going to build that and be frustrated, be bored, quit, move on. That's what I want to get to. The five whys. Exercise is a really powerful way to go deep with anyone you manage with anyone in your team, with yourself, if you have a vision for something you want to create. Next to check in. Why are you really doing this?

I love that. I love that. Is there. Could you take our audience through that five why process right now? It would be really useful if you could guide them through it.

I can. And the edgy piece is the only way to do it is to make it real. So are you open to doing that with me in this room?

I'm totally open to doing that with you if it'll serve the audience, yeah.

Well, let's find out. Let's play. What are you up to right now? What do you want to create right now? What's next for you? That's edgy, that's exciting.

So one of the things that's really, really, really major for me is that I want to change the way people function at work. I recently came across this company with hundreds of thousands of employees. And they care deeply about their employees. But you know, they had a situation where in the past one month, several of these employees, out of several hundred thousand, one or two of them had taken their own lives. And this is devastating. And work, if you look at all the studies around the world, work. 87% of people around the world are disengaged from work, yet we spend 70% of our waking hours in a job. The next big area I want to expand mindvalley into is to help help replenish work, to make work a place where we can truly be human. So we can give the best to the company, but also we can become our best selves. And companies, I believe are going to evolve to fill the next levels of Maslow's pyramid. Governments provide us with the bottom levels of Maslow's pyramid. Safety, food, clothing, you know, a place to stay, a safe nation. But governments don't provide us love and belonging. They don't provide us self actualization, they don't provide us, meaning they don't provide us esteem. Companies do. And what I want to do is create a new type of vision for how workplaces give to their employees, because I think we need this to make a better world.

That was beautiful. That was powerful. And that's the first level you can tell. Vision's really thought about this a lot, and it means something. But I want to go deeper. So why? What would be the benefit of doing that? What's the difference that would make? Why is this important to your vision?

Because I see human beings all around the world living under their potential. I look at my own country where I was born, Malaysia. Reports just came out where Malaysia is now the fattest country in Asia. I have friends in Malaysia just a few years older than me who died in their sleep because their heart gave way, because they were clinically obese. I don't want to see that happening to people. And I'm using my own country as an example. But all across the world, you have these. These situations. In America, it's. It's the opioid crisis. In certain countries, it's addiction. And I believe human beings should be living up to their full potential. I believe the answer lies in personal growth. Right? Not in our education system, which is very obsolete, but in personal growth, in the stuff that we teach here at Mindvalley. Now, what is the best vehicle to get these ideas out? It is the corporation. It is the business. So what I'm trying to do is simultaneously help human beings, billions of them across the world, realize who they really are by creating companies across the world that employ people and creating companies that become spaces of healing and personal evolution.

So why is it important to you that this message can impact people like them?

Because I've been saved by personal growth. My life could be so different right now if I hadn't started going into longevity, fitness, meditation, all of these things that school never bothered to teach me. I could be broke, I could be sickly, I could be miserable. But I live a really incredible life. But it was deliberately designed that way. And I think everyone should have access to the education to allow them to design their lives that way.

Because if they don't get that, what's on the other side of that?

What's on the other side of that is a wasted human life and ultimately.

A life of stagnation and ultimately possibly death and tragic circumstances.

Right.

Why is it important to you to have that education system?

Because if you look at the world today, I believe we're going through an existential Crisis for the first time. I don't know if our children are going to inherit a world better off than what we have today because of global warming, because of the way exponential technology is going to disrupt jobs and schools and everything around us because of the rise of right wing nationalist politicians. There's so much stupidity and wastage happening in the world today. I think when people go through personal growth, one of the key things that happens is their hearts expand to encompass all of the human species.

This is a little challenging with Vishen because he's such a great teacher that he's teaching at the very same time as he's sharing this. So watch what I do next. Here's where I felt moved because I'm a dad. We've got kids almost the same age. I had tears almost come to my eyes that thought of, oh my God, there's nothing I want more for my kids than to have a great future. And the thought that the world they live in is being impacted, the environment that they live in, the fact that they are likely to have less money, less potential for success, that their lives could be in danger. You know, God forbid one of our children may not go on this path that we're on. That moves me. Why is it important for you that your children understand this?

Sorry, that last question lost me. Why is it important for me that my children understand this? Or why is it important that I leave a better world for my children?

So don't cut that out from the edit. This is important. It lost him because he wasn't able to teach in that moment. And so we're getting to the third or fourth why in this moment, you trickster. This is getting to.

So why is it important for my children to understand?

This is because I'm less interested in that question. Here's what I'm hearing. Because whilst the five Whys is an important exercise, we don't need to stay with it to the fifth why? What I'm hearing is that underneath what you do, you know, if you don't do this, lives will be. People will literally die.

Yes.

And children like our kids have a future that could be tragic, could go tragically wrong. That's what I'm hearing about while you're doing this.

Exactly.

And that's why you do this exercise, to find out what moves that person's spirit that's going to have nothing stop them. When Vishen began, it was a very inspiring speech and talk. This is what he's doing it for. The difference he wants to make in organizations at the Heart of it. He's had friends who've lost lives. He's concerned to create a future where his children. Where my children, where your children can live a life that many of us have access to until now and may be lost because of what's happening in the world today. So it's in this place of stillness, where there's not many words for vision, that we get to the heart of what moves his heart. And that's the power of this exercise. And it's a little bit artificial because we're doing it on camera. But here, in this moment where you're quieter and stiller, this is it. This is what you're doing it for. This is why he's willing to wake up.

And so by understanding, understanding our deep why, what does that give us?

It gives us a reason. This is why you're willing to wake up early. It's why you're willing to call your team to do things that no other team could do. It's why you're willing to grow your company and stretch yourself, put your business on the line, put your work on the line, your reputation on the line. I watch you stand up in social media and speak your truth to the world. I'm in awe of it. I get afraid at times of speaking some of my truths out in the world. I'm in awe of what you do. And at the heart of it, I understand why. Because what he does is going to change people's lives. It's going to save people's lives. That's why you're willing to take a stand.

Love it. Love it. Thank you guys for joining us. Thank you, Rich.

Thanks, Vishen.