The Dangerous Weapon You Use Against Yourself | Ed Mylett

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Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Edmai Let show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back to Max out everybody. I'm Ed Mylett. And today's program I think is going to go a long way to help you find more happiness and more leverage to go become successful simultaneously. So we're going to talk today about comparison and how it affects our happiness level and how it can affect our drive level. Comparison in every area of our life can either be used as a weapon to create complete unhappiness in our life or it can be utilized as a catalyst to help us succeed at the highest of levels. I want you to remember something. One is the pathway to unhappiness. I'm telling you that in every area of your life where you find unhappiness, you will find comparison. In fact, the antithesis to that is also true. When there is no comparison, you cannot create unhappiness in your life. That's a pretty bold and powerful statement, but it's true. We only feel unhappy in our lives when we compare something to maybe something in our life that was a different time. Maybe perhaps when we were wealthier or in a different relationship or we were healthier and some level. Comparing our current conditions to previous ones, that comparison is what creates the unhappiness. It's actually not the condition itself. Or perhaps you're in a relationship where you compare it to a previous relationship you had and how they treated or how you felt at that time. Perhaps you compare this time in your life just to a simply a different time. That comparison will always create unhappiness in your life. If you can remove yourself from comparing both yourself to a previous time in your life, a previous condition, a previous situation, or even comparing yourself to other people in your life, this is a recipe and a formula for unhappiness. Every single time in your life where you're experiencing unhappiness, you are doing a comparison to something. It's the contradiction between your current situation, current relationship, current body, current finances, current anything, and something exterior. Either a previous time in your life, a previous person in your life, or you comparing yours to someone else's, it is an insidious disease that so many people in society suffer from today, particularly because of the advent of social media. We watch someone's video of what they're doing on a Friday night and it's not what they're doing that makes us unhappy. It's comparing what they're doing to what we're doing that makes us unhappy. It's seeing people laughing in jovial or jet setting or seeming to be having a great time compared to what we're doing and that creates unhappiness. It's not the success of people you know that's making you unhappy. It's your comparing your situation to the success they're having that creates unhappiness in your life. For those of you that are struggling and saying, one of the things I suffer from is I'm just not very happy very often. I can tell you that that presence of unhappiness, you will always link to a comparison of some sort, either in your own life or in other people's lives. Just being aware of that fact and stopping the comparison, embracing this moment, embracing this time, knowing that you can't go back to that previous time, knowing that you can't be in somebody else's life. You're not going to have that other body right now and so if you're looking to be happier, I can promise you, the number one key that I would give you is to stop the comparison game. You say, well, that's not completely true. I mean, what if someone passes away? That makes me unhappy. There's no comparison there. Let's take the most extreme example. Or when someone's sick in my family, someone in my family's got a really bad illness, that makes me unhappy. That's not a comparison. In fact, it is. The fact of the matter is that when someone gets sick in your family or passes away, what you do in your mind is you compare it to when they were healthy. So that comparison of, I wish they were healthier again, that is a comparison between the previous situation and the current condition. If someone passes away, it's comparing the time that you had them. That's why people say if I could just have one more moment with them. If I could just have another conversation, it's comparing it to when you had the moment. It's comparing it to when you had the conversation. So those are extreme examples. But if we reduce it all the way down to anything right now in your life that you say it brings me unhappiness, there's no joy there. There's a comparison happening that's not serving you. It's so important to take a look at it because I really believe most people think, and I've covered this before from a different angle, that if I can just change my exterior circumstances, I will be happier. And that's because they're comparing their current circumstances to someone else. That would be like somebody sitting in their home who's unhappy in their current home. And saying what I'm going to do is I'm going to rearrange the house, and then I'll be happier. So they rearrange the exterior furniture, the exterior conditions of the house. And then when they sit back down, they're still unhappy. So they go, okay, well I'll do is I'll rearrange the exterior of the house again or the interior but they fix it again and they're still unhappy. The reason that's so important is when you accept the fact that it's not the external conditions of your life that create happiness. What creates happiness in our life is realizing that we are not our possessions. We are not our titles. We are not our recognition. We are not our accolades. We are not our popularity. That we're perfect as we are. We're perfect as we are. Then we begin to accept ourselves and love ourselves as we are, as when we find true happiness. But comparing yourself to another time where maybe you had more recognition, you had a better title, you had more influence, will always lead you to a pathway of unhappiness. Now, I'm not talking about self love and the sense that you just accept everything in your life and you sit around. What I'm suggesting to you is happiness and success are often two different things. Happiness comes from acceptance. Happiness comes from surrender and loving ourselves as we are. Because if we're think we're just going to rearrange the furniture and then we're happier, we still live in the house that is us. We are still housed our souls, our hearts and our minds are still housed in the same home, which is our body. And if we can't begin to love it without the comparison of some change, we're never going to love it. We will always be trying to exchange the furniture of our life. We'll always be trying to change the exterior. So many of you achievers are listening this right now and you're nodding and you're saying, my gosh, that's why I'm never happy. I'm always thinking if I could just exchange the furniture. If I could just change the external conditions, then I'll be happy. Then I'll be happy. Then I'll be happy. And every time you switch the furniture, every time you change the conditions of your life, you find yourself very short term finding happiness. And then right back to the unhappy state, that's because you keep comparing your situation to someone else's. No matter how good yours is, you have to compare it to someone else. Someone else's recognition. Someone else's well. Someone else's supposed happiness. Someone else's relationship. Someone else's body. Someone else's confidence. And that comparison is flooding you with unhappiness, no matter how good or how bad the external conditions of our lives are. Now having said that, we've now found a formula heavenly that we know when we compare to something, it creates unhappiness in us. This is a key to success now. So we know to find happiness in our lives, we have to stop comparing. However, when there's an area we know we must change. Stay with me here. When there's an area we know we must change. Now we use comparison as a weapon to our advantage. Because most people are motivated by avoiding pain, right? That's their motivation to avoid unhappiness. And so I use comparison as a weapon, as a catalyst to get leverage on myself to change. So I'm very conscious when I'm feeling unhappiness in an area that I'm not conscious of changing, to not do comparison. But when it's an area I must change, I do use comparison as my own weapon to get leverage. Because the gateway to get people saving all the time, how do I get leverage? How do I get drive? How do I get that avoiding pain thing? Comparison, comparison. So it's a two-edge sword. We use it against ourselves, too often in our life that gives us misery and unhappiness and takes our bliss away. And not enough of us leverage the power of unhappiness using comparison to our advantage. For a perfect example. But now I'm not in the physical shape that I want to be. I am comparing myself to the previous fit version of me. And this discomfort, this dislike, this pain, this unhappiness that I'm flooding myself with by using the weapon of comparison in my advantage is a catalyst to get me going forward. I shared a story on social media the other day. I was at the gym and I was working out and already not feeling great about how I've looked. I've had enough people comment, man, that you're looking. When you're a fit person or if you're a male and you're kind of a bodybuilder, whatever, you have muscle on your body. When people see you, they haven't seen you for a long time, they'll say things like, do you, hey, you're looking pretty lean. Look like you're slimming down. That's not what you want to say to someone who's sort of muscular, right? And that's usually code for, you don't look as good. You're shrinking, right? And so I've been here and that lately from people I had a good friend of mine hugged me the other day and he's like, well, I can get my arms all the way around your back. He used to have these huge lats. I couldn't even get my arms around your arms were so big, too. Like, wow. So I'm working out at the gym and a young man's behind me and I hear him say, hey, hey, and I finally lift my earphones off and he says, Mr. Mylet, would you please get out of the way so I can look at myself in the mirror when I'm working out? I'm not kidding you. And I looked back at him and I went, are you crazy? I won't even give you the words that I really said to him, right? And I just will leave it at that. So he let, I let him know that that wasn't an appropriate thing to say to me. But what I did is I used it as leverage when I left there. I'm like, my gosh, two years ago, no one would want me to get out of the way. No one would talk to me like that. But right now I look so average or bad. He's like, get out of the way so I can look at somebody who's really jacked up and fit, right? And I'm leveraging that comparison to what I used to look like to my advantage that's causing me to eat cleaner. I'm telling you, since that's happened, every meal that's been put in front of me, I think about in slow motion. I could see the slow motion. Him telling me to get out of the way and me feeling like the most out of shape, not fit human being on earth. And what I was doing was comparing myself to the two-year-old go version of me when I was much bigger and that comparison is giving me leverage. Okay? And so I will use leverage to get me to do things. I will let people see, a lot of people say that would knock a lot of people down. But that's not what it did to me. It gave me fuel to my fire. The winners use fuel to their fire. They'll use comparison as a weapon. When I see people succeeding in different areas, I don't use the comparison of them doing it to great unhappiness with me. I will use it tactically in specific situations to cause me to want to move away from how I feel about that comparison. Either on my previous body, my previous wealth, my previous energy, my previous influence, Mike, my cameraman, and I were just talking today outside. And I said to him, you know, I used to be better speaker than I am now. And I said, man, if you'd have seen me years ago, you'd have seen the energy I brought, how dynamic I was, how articulate I was compared to this version of me now. And the reason I'm doing that is I want to get better as a speaker. I'm using that comparison. It makes, it gives me pain and unhappiness to think about the kind of communicator I am now, compared to how I viewed the previous situation. So I compared it to give me leverage to improve, to make it a catalyst to change. I understand when to use comparison and when not to. When I want to create a situation of change, I will leverage comparison to my advantage. When I want to create a situation of bliss and happiness and I'm feeling unhappy in an area, I just always evaluate what I'm comparing at that time. And I remove the comparison and it creates a happy situation. Remember this, when there's no comparison, there's always happiness where there is no comparison. Unhappiness cannot exist. Comparison and unhappiness only coexist together. And so I will only leverage this very dangerous thing called comparison. When it's an area, I must change in my life to get leverage. For those of you that want to create change, it's okay to leverage it from time to time. But when you become addicted to the mechanism of comparison to get you going, to competing to get you going all the time, when you're always competing against others, always comparing with others, people say, well, there's a difference between competing and comparing. Truthfully not much. And the fact of the matter is to compete against somebody you are typically comparing where you are to them. It's not necessarily a bad thing. But when you leverage that mechanism over and over, it's a pathway to unhappiness. When a woman goes out in the evening and she's feeling great about how she looks that evening, and she walks in and she immediately compares herself to the other people in the room, she will inevitably find a woman that she thinks is more attractive than her. And it steals your unhappiness for the entire evening. Men, same thing. Where maybe you've had some financial success and you're proud and you've gone out and you're whatever, your new car or your new suit or you've got a new watch on or whatever, you're just feeling good about yourself. And then immediately when you go out, you begin to compare yourself to other men or other people. And what it will do is immediately steal all your joy. Or if you're a couple and you're having a beautiful date night and you happen to observe, you're comparing to other couples in the restaurant, for example. And there's just some couple who's more affectionate or holding hands differently or he open the door for her and you immediately steal your joy and create unhappiness for the evening. When you compare the treatment of your partner and the relationship to how your girlfriends, husband or boyfriend treats them, or if you're a male in a relationship and you compare it to how one of your friends' wives or girlfriends treats them, you've immediately created a formula for unhappiness. You will never win the comparison game. If your outcome is happiness, you will win the comparison game if your outcome is change or pain avoidance. So you got to get clear on what your outcomes are. There's areas of your life where comparison should never exist. And in most times, that's your relationships with other people. Don't compare to a previous time in your relationship because it'll create unhappiness. Don't compare to other relationships or other people. So I understand in my life where to use this weapon and where to put it down. And if you want to create more bliss, if you want to create more connection in your life, you need to learn to put the weapon, the very dangerous weapon, the very insidious weapon of comparison down most of the time. And only pick it up where you want massive change. And the truth of the matter is there's probably one or two areas of your life at any given time that you're really working on changing and you can harness the power of the comparative relationship to your advantage there. But what vast majority of us do, and I know this from my own experience is we're always in comparison mode. We're comparing our home, our relationship, our fitness, our happiness, our strength, our energy, our looks, our brains, our accolades, our achievements to other people all the time. And we wonder why we live unhappy almost all of the time. It's because you're always comparing. You lose that every single time. You think, well, no, sometimes I compare it. I'm ahead. It's not how your brain works. Your brain is eventually looking for the person that you lose to. Your brain is eventually going to find the better looking, funnier, wealthier, fitter, happier, better relationship having person to wire you for pain. It's a part of our brain that was wired all the way back for survival mode in order to keep us functioning. The reason that this is so important is we both have two parts of ourselves. We have a higher self than what I'd call a lower self. And it's okay to live in both those places, but most happy people live in their higher self state, the vast majority of the time. The higher self state is very inward. They're focused on themselves. They're focused on creating bliss and happiness. And the only thing that they ever focus on outside of there is their spirituality, the universe, their God, their connection with something bigger than them. Our lower self is always external. But we need to have that lower self because that lower self is that catalyst that gets us to move, that lower self does compete, that lower self does compare. It's a matter of having a life of both of success and fulfillment. Happiness and achievement. Happiness is achieved in the higher self by not comparing and not going external, not thinking the external furniture or life or external people or comparing outside of ourselves or comparing to a different time outside of ourselves. That person right there that doesn't do that, they end up living very happily. The person who achieves leverages the lower self by competing and comparing when needed. And remember this also, the more we begin to learn about ourselves is always a win. The more we have a breakthrough in a discovery, there's probably some things I've said today that have made you think. There's probably some things you're evaluating and seeing in yourself that maybe you were blind to before. And just that discovery is a win. The more we begin to evaluate and discover what our thoughts really are, what our behaviors seem to be, our habits and our patterns. The more we become self-aware, the more we have the capacity to live as the higher self. And the more powerful it is when we leverage the lower self and we leverage comparison. And so don't beat yourself up over what I've covered today. Self-awareness and self-discovery is what life's all about. And it's a win, even if you discover something about yourself you're not proud of, even if you discover something about yourself that you wish didn't exist or that you wanted to change. That's discovery. That awareness is 80% of the step to changing it. And so give yourself some credit today for being aware, for being honest. Often times when content like this is covered, people sort of like to check the box of who they'd like to be and that it doesn't apply, as opposed to who they really are. The truth is everybody listening to this and the man speaking this to you is too often in the lower self, too often creating unhappiness in our lives, including me by comparison to previous times, other people, other conditions in our lives. And so today my challenge to you is to live as the higher self, to create more happiness with less comparison, to only leverage it when needed, but leverage it to achieve, but to find happiness will always found in the higher self where we're not looking outside. You can probably tell by the way I've delivered this to you today that it's something that I'm working on myself. Self-awareness, self-discovery, self-improvement, and achievement are an ongoing process that never ends as we try to max out our lives. It's not something we figure out and now we've got it. There's always another level of awareness, of discovery, of performance that we can find in our lives and if today helps you do that just a little bit, an extra discovery, a little bit more awareness, maybe something you would teach to someone else. If it was just a little bit of a breakthrough, then today was progress and it was for me just to be covering it. Before we start, I love when you guys send messages out on social media about the show and lately, been getting a few of these messages about my wardrobe. I was wearing this sweater, this tan sweater, and I kept getting all these messages from guys going, where did you get that sweater, bro? So I'm gonna tell you where I got it. I got it at Quince. A well-built wardrobe is about pieces that work together and they hold up over time. 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The times you're deep into your flow and the absolute last thing you need is an auto update throwing off your momentum. That's why Del builds tech that adapts to the way you actually work. Built with long lasting battery so you're not scrambling for the closest outlet and built in intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. They don't build tech for techsake. They build it for you. Find technology built for the way you work at Dell.com slash XPS. Built for you. Start the interview with my next guest. Just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Awesome this day right now. It's lady to my left. I'm working so hard to get her on my show. This is Rachel Hollis, everybody. For those of you that don't know who she has been living under a rock. I'm going to give her a proper introduction. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited. Oh my gosh. I'm so oh my gosh. Of course. This is like a dream. It's going to be awesome. Yes. So this lady, if you don't know her or something wrong with you, but I'll give her the proper introduction. So she's written six books. Her six one has gone crazy and has made her a rock star literally in the personal development world. She has a number one podcast in the world right now. Her book is blowing up. She's a sought after speaker. She's got more speaking days than she knows what to do with right now. And she's really making a difference in the world. She's changing the world. She's the new face of personal development. She is, I'm just going to tell you, there's just not enough women in this space. And then one comes along. It doesn't just kind of get into the space, but just literally dominates it and takes it over like you have. And so I have so many questions to ask you because our phone conversations have been so beautiful. Yeah. Because you're so self-aware and honest. And I think that's what's made you resonate with so many women and men in the space. Because I want everyone to listen to this because I know the women right now are going thank you for having her. And we've got your full attention. But I want the men to know something. There's not that many people in the personal development space where their content alters and moves me. And you do that for me. And so, man, you got a lot to listen to today as well. And this lady has my full and complete endorsement. Okay. I want you. There's so sweet. Thank you. I also want you to know something everybody that one of the reasons I do this show and then I'm so important to me that you were here today is I just don't I think the world is more divided, more divisive and more angry than it's ever been. And there needs to be a force for good in the world. And I think that force for good is real people. It's a grassroots movement. It's entrepreneurs. It's mothers. It's fathers. It's good people say, hey, we love each other. We don't agree on everything. But we love each other. We're all put here as the foundation of our faith is that we're all brothers and sisters, right? And so we're here to help one another. And that's what this is doing today. You said something the antidote of that in girl wash your face, which if you've not gotten this book, men and women both go get this book. It's it's it's I probably never read a book so quickly. One thing about the book that's really interesting I wanted to tell you too is that usually when I have a book I highlight the parts that I like and this book was so good that I probably should have highlighted the parts that weren't meaningful to me because there's so much just highlighter all over the book. It's really true. It's just like every page and just like thank you. One thing you say and there's you say and this is true for all of us we need to drop that she's a comparison is the death of joy. And the only person you need to be better than is the one you were yesterday. So speak to that just for a second. Well this is a massive I don't know if men experiences with this a massive problem with women is they are constantly comparing themselves to her life, to her Instagram feed, to her kids, to her marriage. They're comparing their real life to someone else's highlight reel. Sheesh. And so they are forever coming up lacking. They forever feel like they're not enough. And I get it because the times that you tend to compare yourself are when you are most insecure about something. So you're like well I'm not sure how to do this. I'll look outside myself to find the answer. I always talk about when I was a new mom that that was when I was most insecure. And so I would look at Pinterest. I would look at magazines. I would try and see like how does celebrity moms do it. And then I would just cry in a puddle on the ground because I couldn't get it together. I'm like oh she's got six pack abs with a two month old baby. And I'm still in the jeans that I was wearing you know at nine months. So comparison is the death of joy. And not only does it kill your joy it kills your motivation. It kills your energy. Your desire to move forward. It makes you more insecure. And so I'm like put your head down. It's like a math test in eighth grade. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Like focus here. Stop looking at what everyone else is doing. Stop paying attention to her life and live your own. Yes. You have like start in this space. The only person you have to be better than is who you were yesterday. So good. That is my that's my why. That's my that is what I am on earth. Like what is my greatest value in the world is I want to be a better version of myself every day. I might not always get there. But every day I'm striving on to be a better mom and wife and leader and teacher and writer and everything. It's like man whatever you're doing. Do is unto the Lord like every day I'm trying to be better. And so like it doesn't matter if I'm not as great as 50 million other people as long as like am I better than I was yesterday. Yeah. What what coach and advice you're you're special. Like this you're special. What you're doing is special and so good. Along those lines, I'm asking you some things people wouldn't ask you. Yeah. Life's changed for you. Right. And I think anytime people listen to this maybe you step to a new level or a new space. Yeah. Do you have any you talk about anxiety earlier? I know the answer. This is what I'm trying to answer for them. But do you still find yourself with anxiety about the next level, the next space? Oh yeah. Also there's some pressure I think sometimes I've I've stepped out. I don't want to fall either. So speak to that for those there's different people to different levels but there are people who are like I've got to a new level. I got to a new promotion or I had started a business. There's something new and then that extra can I think anxiety can hit. Are you experiencing any of that? Yeah. So well I'll tell like this is such an incredible story and like a brag on who you are in your heart. But after the the book surpassed everything. And I for months after it came out really struggled. It was very overwhelming for me and I if you can't tell I'm a fixer. Yeah. And I don't like to live in a state of any kind of suffering. So for months I'm I'm struggling and I can't get past it and I write every book and I'm listening to pot and trying to everything and I can't and it was something you said on your podcast one day that really resonated with me. And it was like it was the answer to prayer. After months of searching you said something like like with professional athletes you had coached that there comes up a time in their lives and careers where the success surpasses the vision that they had for themselves. And they will unintentionally start to self sabotage because they're so uncomfortable with where they are and that was me. And I was like holy crap. Yeah. And it was as simple as you were like dream of bigger vision. Yeah. That's right. You need a bigger vision. Yeah. So that was such a gift. Yeah. But navigating this has been has been a lot. Yeah. And it does feel like holy smokes. This is a lot of responsibility and I do now I have worked my butt off to get here. Yes. But I also believe God gave me this platform. Both of them. And so that is a massive responsibility and I want to do that well. Yes. So yeah. It's a lot to navigate. And I want to acknowledge that you're the right person and you were chosen to do this and you are special like your whole existence has prepared you for this moment. Like I really believe that about you. And one of the other things I've told you is that I also want to help you. Like I I also think the other thing when you step into that new space is to dream that bigger vision and also to seek out and surround yourself with people who are going to support you and believe in you and push you and hold you accountable and don't be afraid to ask for their help. People like me. People like you at the right time. We want to be there for you. I want to help you create this change because you're pioneering your trailblazing like in in five years and in 10 years there are going to be other they're not going to be another you but they're going to be other women in this space creating a movement making a difference. But you're really doing it right now right. I'm so I'm so proud of you and yeah. And people today are seeing why. Like you're just a reservoir of real miss but also like real depth, real information. This content you don't hear other places. And so that was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Welcome back to the show everybody. I have to tell you something. Today is a topic I've wanted to discuss on the show since it's started. And I've been looking for an expert. I've been looking for the right person to deliver this information. Today's topic is happiness and well-being. Longivity of your life is well because they're correlated. And there is a study that is called the adult development the study of adult development which is these single most fascinating study of my lifetime. I can't even believe the study exists. I literally can't it's fascinating what they've been able to do here. And the man who was the current director of that study is my guest here today. He's also among many of his accomplishments. He's the professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. So he must know a little bit about what he's talking about right. And we're going to talk today about the all-time amazing study 85 years long by the way guys almost on happiness with real evidence. This stuff is not going to be a pinion. This is evidentiary information. So Robert Waldinger welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I'm really glad to be here. You have to start out and take your time please by explaining the study first of all because it's mind blowing what the four directors, I think it's been four directors of the study if I'm correct. What has been able to happen in tracking these people? Who they are? How it started? Let's elaborate on that first. Sure. So the study started in 1938. And it is the longest study of the same people across time that's ever been done. 724 original people then brought in spouses, brought in children. So now we have two generations over 2,000 people who've been studied year after year for their whole lives. And that's what's so unusual. Most research gets done in snapshots just taking a snapshot today of something. And so what's rare is that the study has continued. Usually studies close down because too many people drop out. Do you want me to tell you a little bit about what's in the study? Well, I see. Yeah, the first thing I think is first because it's two very different groups of people that you studied these men. I think it's important to know the backgrounds of the people that were studied. So that the information's applicable to the people listening or watching. Absolutely. So started out with one very privileged group and one very underprivileged group. The privilege group was a group of Harvard College sophomores, 19-year-old guys who their deans thought were fine upstanding young men. And they want it was a study of sort of normal development from adolescence into young adulthood. So, you know, of course, if you want to study normal development, you study all white guys from Harvard. So we're possibly having to explain to NIH why they should still fund us. And then the other study was started at Harvard Law School. And it was a study of juvenile delinquency, but it was a study of how some children from Boston's poorest and most troubled families, how those kids were able to stay on good developmental paths and not get into trouble. And so it was a study of thriving, but a study of children who were born with so many strikes against them. The fascinating part is some of those neighborhoods are where I was born. And so what's what drew me to this study is because I'm at a stage of my life now where I do interact with people that have come from privileged backgrounds in their life. And obviously I have some privilege based on my ethnicity, et cetera. But to interact with different people, and I've always had this fascination to people from these wealthy backgrounds or privileged backgrounds end up being happier than people from a not-so privileged background or a neighborhood like where I grew up. And the data is doing this spoiler or not. Yeah, let's do this spoiler first. And then we're going to talk about what actually leads to real happiness, everybody, today. But spoiler alert is what? I'm really open to knowing myself. Okay, the spoiler is that the well-to-do privileged people were not on average happier than the inner city underprivileged group. No different. Well, no different though. So the underprivileged group wasn't necessarily happier than the privileged group either, though, correct? That's correct. That's correct. And then, you know, there was variation. We had some really happy people in both groups, some really unhappy people in both groups and everything in between. Okay, so one last thing I want everybody to understand, and we're going to get to the data, because listen, ultimately the game of life, I had a situation happen. I'll share this with you several years ago. I've had the good fortune of building wealth in my life and I was building this very beautiful mansion, the first one I ever built. And it was a very stressful day and I was, you know, bad mood and I was angry. And I walked into what was the kitchen of this home that was being built for me, really angry with the contractor and life. And, you know, you just all about me in the moment. And as I walked in, the gentleman that were working on my kitchen, the finished carpenters were all people from Mexico, men from Mexico. And they had their mariachi music playing and they were dancing and singing and doing work that they were excellent at doing and loving their craft and being good at it and enjoying the company and the other relationships of the other men that were working with them. And I remember watching them thinking they're not making any money. They're sending most of this money back home to their family just to survive. Frankly, probably most of them aren't even in our country legally at the time. And I remember thinking to myself, if the game of life is happiness, they're winning and I'm losing. And it was a really watershed moment for me in my life that I think this work really points to as well. And so that's why your work matters so much to me. One last thing I want to have them understand too is the nature of the study everybody. I'll let you elaborate. But this is not just about sending somebody a survey and they answer it back. The some of the intimacy of even the connections that you have with these people in their homes even. So elaborate on that so they know the depth of the study. Oh yeah. So when they came into the study, you know, all boys and young men, workers went to their homes, interviewed their parents, wrote notes about what was being served for dinner, what the disciplinary style was, all those things. And then elaborate medical exams of the young men, psychological exams. And then as they went through their lives, we began to bring online different methods of studying well-being. So, audio taping them, video taping them, talking to their partners about their biggest fears. We drew blood for DNA, which I think is so cool because in 1938, DNA wasn't even imagined. And here we were studying it, putting people in the MRI scanner and scanning their brains while we showed them different pictures. We brought them into our laboratory and deliberately stressed them out and then saw how they recovered from stress. So all of this as different angles on the same big question about what makes people thrive as they go through life. How do you measure happiness? That was the last thing I wanted to understand. How do you know if they're happy? So, you know how when you're doing something that's good for you and then you stop doing it, all of a sudden you feel what the heck changed. So here's what happened to me. I've been feeling great for like a year and a half. It's because I've been on IMAIT. Then we moved to our place in Maine and I didn't bring my supplement with me. So if you've been looking for something easy to stick with that actually makes you feel better, this might be it for me. It absolutely is something I rely on and I notice when I missed a few days. So give your body what it deserves with IMAIT. Go to IMAITHealth.com slash ed and use code ed for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sashes plus 10% off your order. So seriously this is one of those offers you're going to wish you jumped on sooner. That's IMAIT.com slash ed and use code ed for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sashes plus 10% off your order at IMAITHealth.com slash ed code ed. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. So you know we talk a lot on the show often about health and energy, vitality, strength, wellness. You know when it comes down to more than anything I found out after about a thousand interviews. Food like what you're putting in your body. You cannot out train a bad diet. What it really comes down to is what you're eating and you know what we all want to eat home cooked food. That's why I love hello fresh and it's delicious food like I I've never had any more healthy food in my life that tastes this good. They got 35 high quality protein, different meals. You got GLP one friendly ones. You got Mediterranean. They got all wholesome ingredients. None of the bad stuff that you put in food. But the other thing that I like about them is you know what you can get seafood on there now for no upcharge. There's three times the amount of seafood on there. My favorite by the way is the ribeye. So go to hello fresh.com slash my let 10 FM to get 10 free meals plus a freeze willing knife which is a hundred and forty four dollar value on your third box offer valuable supplies last free meals applied as discount on first box new subscribers only varies by plan. Well we asked people that that's one way but you know we had people who said they were happy but didn't look happy. So we asked other people do you think your partners happy do you think your dad's happy you know do so we asked that we also videotape them like having an argument with their partners and then watch like how angry did they get was their affection still there so we we did all kinds of things as a way to get at happiness from different angles. It's amazing you guys I told you all so here we go now we're going to get into and now we've laid the groundwork. So what's it turn out let's just let's not complete spoiler alert because there's so many layers to this. What makes one happy is it the pursuit of a goal is it wealth achievement religion what are the things that you found make somebody happy. Yeah well we found that it wasn't those things so it wasn't well it was not achievement it wasn't fame and we had people who had all those things in our study some other people you know we had John F. Kennedy we had Ben Ben Bradley long time editor of the Washington Post and I can only tell you those names because they talked about it themselves otherwise we protect everybody's privacy but wealth fame achievement didn't do it religion didn't do it now what that means is it didn't mean that they made you unhappy it meant that wealth fame high achievement religion are simply different from well-being different from happiness okay now that said what that means is we have famous people who were happy famous people who were unhappy all the way down the line right now that said what we also know is that having your basic material needs met is crucial to your happiness so interesting but when they do studies of this they they've studied well how much does your happiness go up as you make more money and what they find is that your happiness does go up until you reach about $75,000 a year annual household income this is a few years ago in the U.S. but basically to have your basic needs met and then after that as you make more and more money you know up to $75 million you know yeah a billion your happiness doesn't go up much a little bit not really very much interesting and that's important I like the distinction you made it what is important too is that happiness is an emotion so as your wealth goes up you may potentially be able to contribute more give more there's things of that nature protect people so there's not that there aren't positive emotions achieved correlated with achievement or wealth but happiness turns out not to be one of them well you know and let me call if I doubt a little bit Ed because because it's important like it so getting up the edge of achievement so the ultimate achievement what the Nobel Prize doesn't make you happier or less happy but doing work that's meaningful to you that does make you happy that is a source of fulfillment okay so it's not the badge itself but doing the work so let's say you know you're bringing a lot of ideas to to a lot of people and I expect that means something to you I expect you care about that you're right and we think of that as a source of well-being a source of happiness well I think it's correlated to where you're going though I think contribution involves something in life which is other human beings and so the nature of your work is so profound because if people can really understand this they can link it back to the contributions and achievements of their life because they involve where you believe real wealth comes from after this study which is where I want you to really elaborate on this because I think everyone is to hear this this is it guys like this is a moment in many of your lives where it's going to confirm with you intuitively probably what you already probably think but maybe needs confirmation and maybe needs more intention a little bit more focus I think sometimes I think I'm going to be more intentional about getting more money or I'm going to be more intentional about getting a bigger house or getting this promotion and when I get there then I'm going to be happier than I am now and we put our intentions there potentially most of our lives and many of the people in the study missing the very thing that would have brought them the emotion everyone on earth wants more of they you don't want the jet you want the jet because you think it'll make you happier you don't want to be fit and super ripped and attractive you think it'll make you happier and so what we're really seeking that conversation behind everything in my opinion is we want to be happier and and so what is that thing you you go ahead and elaborate well that thing is our relationships with other people yeah what we found studying these thousands of lives is that the people who had the warmest connections with other people and who made that a priority in their lives they were happiest as they went through their lives but also they stayed healthiest and they live longer interesting and that's the thing actually we didn't believe that when we started to find it in the 1980s our data began to show this and we thought oh this might be a fluke this might not be real and then other studies began to find the same thing because the question was I mean it stands to reason I'll be happier if I have happy relationships but how could good relationships make it less likely that you get coronary artery disease or type 2 diabetes or arthritis like how could that be so now we've been spending the last 10 years in our lab and many other labs have been studying this trying to understand how do relationships actually get into your body and shape your physiology and so that's what we're studying is it the amount of relationships you have or the quality of the ones that you maintain in your life it's not the amount so there's no set number like one of the things we know is that we're all like some of us are introverts shall I some of us are extroverts no nothing wrong with being shy and we know that that introverts want fewer people in their lives that being with a lot of people is exhausting for introverts and that's perfectly healthy and normal so there's no set number of friends or connections you should have what we do believe is that everybody needs at least one or two relationships that where they feel like this person will be there for me if I really need them that what at one point we asked our original participants we said who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared list everybody and most of our folks could list you know several people but some of them could not list anyone and some of those people were married and they couldn't list anyone no way wow yeah so we think that everybody whether you're shy or a party animal you need at least one or two people who are your go-to safety net people that was a great conversation and if you want to hear the full interview be sure to follow the Edmai Let show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes now on with the show there's something unique about you Ed that's no one else and I'm not saying this because you're here I don't think I've said this to anyone on the show there's someone unique about you that I don't think I've ever experienced around anyone else there's an essence there's a presence there's a power a command an authority a humble confidence there's like this essence about you thank you and I'm really curious what do you think made you you what were the elements growing up that made you all the things you are now was it the you know pre-13 kind of everything that happened with your parents was it stuffed more from school was it a relationship that really kind of flipped these things on for you what were the elements early on that made you this commanding time presence today well thank you for that I thank you that's nice to hear I am because by the way I love people that have that combo like I love people a lot of self-confidence a lot of humility because if people a lot of humility that have no self-confident kind of dragging them through life as a friend someone with all their self-confidence no humility they're gonna burn out they're gonna make them state they're not curious they don't grow I think that I think even the reason I'm in the personal development space why do I believe so much the people can change I watch my dad do it and then in my case I had to learn these things man to be like a baseline functioning person so my default personality is insecure even today even today come on very much very much how is that default you wake up and you say I'm a nobody or what's the lack this I'm fooling everybody really they if they really knew you know pretty some imposter syndrome mixed with just like tremendous I was bullied as a kid my dad was an alcoholic I wasn't a real big guy the only thing I wasn't good in school the only I was good at was sports a lot like with you you were great athlete so my default is tons of insecurity so that's probably never gonna go away the humility part so the part that I've worked on really hard is the self-confidence part and so I've got all the stuff in the book on those tips and what have I done to build it because I had to get there just to get to baseline and then I'm like this stuff works what if I refined it and made it my own and started to build these other strategies and stuff so the confidence part is the thing I'm always gonna have to work on even today even with all the success and the you know the massive show and the big businesses and all the homes and everything that people see yeah what else do you need though to feel more calm I don't need other things it's an internal game I don't need other stuff in other words the the stuff is really fleeting in temporary so I don't need another you know about an island lately you know that right like I bought this island it didn't give me they didn't make me more confident it just was something that I've always wanted to be able to do but I I it's not stuff what needs to happen for me is that I'm most confident when I'm living in my intention which is to serve which is to like help other people when I'm not doing that Wayne Dyer when I met him really really young told me you're gonna change the world at my let and I'm like and he then even I'm sure he said this to a lot of people but he would complimented me I met him on a beach we watched the sun come on and Maui and Maui he always running on the victory live yeah I was running on the beach we were like I never met him incredible so we became a dear friend of mine but I'm running you know you get up before the sun comes up I'm running on this I'd won this incentive trip and there's this bald dude running towards me with this hairy back I'll never forget this sweaty hairy back and it was so long ago because I had a Sony Walk man on wow and he had one and he ran by me I go that was Wayne Dyer and I said doctor Dyer you change my life and he had this deep voice like mine and he pulls it and he goes well I doubt that wow and he goes I bet you changed your life but he goes how did I help you and then he walked towards me and we lit I get emotional like God's been so good to me we sat on this beach together and watched the sun come up for about an hour and a half and about an hour into it he goes you're gonna change the world and I'm sure he said this to a lot of people and he's like and it's you're very talented brilliant you're good communicator you know and he goes and that's not the reason why and he was writing a book at that time called the Power of Intention. That's great book great book incredible book and he goes you really intend to help people and he goes all these things with your father and your upbringing and all that ed he goes that's all made you and he goes you have such a heart to want to help people and he goes would you do me a favor if we never meet again and we ended up meeting many times I said yeah he said never link your confidence to your ability because I know you struggle with your confidence if it's predicated on your abilities or your achievements you're always going to be chasing it he goes but if you'd link your confidence to your intentions man do you have beautiful intentions and that is something I knew about me I know I have a good heart and I've never forgotten that so when I do a podcast or a speech I just connect to my intent you know and it's it's been the one thing that's brought me confidence because if you said hey you gotta be confident because you're great or you got a house or you have a plane I go yeah but yeah but but if you go you gotta be confident because you have beautiful intentions to help you by go mm-hmm my my my thalisty might be right yeah yeah and that's where my confidence comes so as an athlete I gained confidence from results from actually getting the result of becoming better yeah that's why I'm waiting at it right I was not good and then I put in the effort yeah and all the mistakes or the failures of the feedback while I actually call it gave me the lessons and taught me how to get better to accomplish the result that I was looking for actually the goal win the game or just improve my abilities so I'm here you say link also link confidence to intention some people say link it to the effort right like the effort that you show up that you just keep showing up and others talk about the results yeah should we be thinking about it there's two I have a whole I've the whole I called the holy trilogy in the book of self confidence what is this but I the the confidence trilogy is faith have confidence so if you're a person of faith no matter what you believe in amazing to me how people believe in energy quantum energy or they believe in their Christian like me I believe in both by the way yeah but whatever their their faith is that they have it on Sunday they have it in Bible study or they have it when they get together with their friends or when they meditate but somehow when they walk into a business meeting they're alone so why are you alone then but you're not alone these other times so I'm never alone so that's number one number two is my intention and third is my associations change my confidence but here's the biggie if you don't have self confidence here's what you have you have a really bad reputation with yourself yes you have built a habit of not keeping the promises you make to yourself we've all heard this before but there's a level I've a book chapter in the book called one more standard here's how I built what I would call almost superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity think about that superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity and it's exactly what you just said it's an effort play if you don't have self confidence you've never kept the promises you make to yourself check that box if you have self confidence you've started to keep the promises you make yourself if you want to have superhuman self confidence you keep the promises you make to yourself and one more so if I'm going to get up and I'm going to work out I'm going to do 10 reps in the gym I do one more I'm going to do 45 minutes on the treadmill I do one more if I want to make 10 contacts in a day I do that and one more but I'm going to tell my daughter I love her every day I'm going to do that and one more and so that higher stand because in life we don't get our goals we get our standards long term and so if your standard is one more starts what starts to happen is you go I'm willing to do things other people are willing to do and I combine that that I have great faith great associations and I intend to help people this is a formula to build wonderful self-confidence and never lack humility when you have it so when did you learn this one more mindset was this from your dad or the honor was this from my dad so we talked about this you know a little bit earlier but my dad had these a couple theories you would always say to me and so one was when he got sober he gave it one more try he was going to stay sober one day at a time and then my dad I there's no dreaming in my house there's no like my jet you know I've been blessed like multiple airplanes right in my life my jet was in almost walking distance of my dad's house he's never been on any of the wow and I would say to my dad I was hey let's go play golf in Maui let's go there's these great golf courses in the ocean and my dad would say well why would I go all the way to Maui to play golf with my favorite person my son when we can play here in Chino it's not about there I want to be with my son so this my family had none of that stuff but my dad knew I was a dreamer and my dad would always say you know I was one decision away from changing my life the whole time one choice and he'd say Eddie you're not as far away from these dreams as you think you are and I'd say really dad and he'd go no you're actually a lot closer than you think but because you think it's so far away you behave in accordance with that belief system and it always keeps it that far away from you so how do we bring our dreams closer to us the first thing is that's a great question the first thing is you need to believe and know that you're one decision one relationship one meeting one book one thought one something away from a completely different life and when you know that when you then you begin to look for them and so in the second chapter of the book I have a thing in the book called the Matrix and your Matrix is your reticular activating system in your brain it's the filter for your entire life okay and this filter reveals to you the world that's in front of you again example of it is I just I like what Musk is doing so I just bought a Tesla I drove it here you do model X everybody got a plate okay wow a lot it's a good one nice and so about this plaid and all of a sudden man everywhere I go there's Teslas you know that's all right I'm like whoa I see that's the other way three lanes over other side right freaking Tesla this is crazy they were always there yeah why did I see them before because they weren't part of my RAS so the key thing I teach you in the book how to slow down time and create the matrix of your life when you make the Teslas of your life those relationships those meetings those thoughts those encounters you can very easily do this but there's a process of repeated visualization you do that's not complicated it's chapter two of the book and it will shift you the other component to I have a chapter in the book called become an impossibility thinker and a possibility achiever here's how most people's frameworks they don't have an RAS program they're not intentional so they keep getting if them things most important you are your worries fears anxieties problems bills you will continue to have people places and things revealed to you that confirm it and if you operate out of your memory and your history if this is your pattern your framework you will continue to find those things you need to learn to operate out of your imagination in your dreams this is a different framework for life imagination is different than dreaming imagination causes you to create dreams and thoughts that never happen when you imagine something you create a space once you have a thought this is powerful when you have a thought you create a space that did not exist in the world before you had that thought and that space is now exists and the way your brain works and your life works and the universe works is it tries to furnish that space whether it's a negative or a positive thought it starts to hear things it wouldn't hear that's why like when you're in a crowded room and they say Lewis you can hear Lewis auditorily over all the noise why it's in your RAS so why you see the Tesla okay so if the key thing is being able to operate on this imagination why is imagination so important when you were a child three four five years old you were probably happier than you are right now why two reasons A you were closer to God you had just been with God more recently and two you operated out of your imagination you did not operate out of a history in a memory because you didn't have one and slowly over time by the time you were 10 11 12 years old loving people installed their limiting thoughts and beliefs their software into you because most things in life are caught not taught you catch them wow and so now you're starting to operate of history and memory and you repeat it in your RAS begins to see the things that reinforce that history and memory and so you basically have the same life over and over again with a different cast of characters in a different environment but the same emotions you have the same emotional home my dad used to say to me every call grow till the day I he died and I'm 50 years old he blah blah blah whatever time last thing you would always say to me be careful be careful and I go careful with what I don't know I never knew but what is that programming from the time your eight years old be careful hey go to school be careful so with that they're operating out of this fear thing right all right and you be careful you be careful but don't make this RAS don't take that business is don't start a podcast don't get on that stage and speak don't do this don't do that you say that to an already unconfident insecure person he meant it lovingly by the time I'm 50 worth hundreds of millions dollars be careful he didn't even know he was saying it to me but what was he doing he was installing God bless him his limiting beliefs into me as a little boy so a lot of these things that you believe you were defenseless when you started to believe them they were installed in you by loving people who were around you right and even though your life may look differently your emotional home the four five six emotions you experienced pretty regularly might be really familiar from your parents one or two of them right and so you need to look at your emotional home what's your most powerful emotion and the emotion that you wish you could let go of love is the most powerful emotion in the world we will all do everything for love if there were more love in the world the way we treat one another the way we express our thoughts you know you'll do anything for love right so love is by far my most powerful emotion it's like like I love you then like when I just saw you we didn't just like people we didn't just hug for like one second yeah and you do this better than I do the whole people I make it uncomfortable because I just want to hug and love our people but it's not uncomfortable bro right because the reason you're so successful is you truly do love people yeah and you come from that place and I know we're bigger dudes and like like that's a beautiful expression of a man a real man is capable of real love that's the sign of real strength so that's the most powerful one and then for me I know the emotion that I wish I didn't have it's chaos really I how often do you experience chaos less because I'm aware of it but I'm going to tell you all the time till about five years ago even when we first met why I used to I used to even say this man I operate great under chaos man you should see me operate under chaos most people can't handle chaos right calm under pressure well the reason for that was I grew up in an alcoholic home so I'm very familiar with chaos it became a very familiar emotion and what we do is we gravitate towards the familiar emotions in our life even if they're not ones that serve us and I don't think there's negative or positive emotions I say this in the book they're just are yes fear isn't negative it fear and abundance is negative but some fear being afraid to do this podcast they to some extent causes us to prepare so a dose of it's it was given to us in the caveman day so T-rex didn't need us right so some fear is good some anxiety is okay some frustration some anger is appropriate it's to the dosage level and we get these four or five of them for me some chaos is okay it's fun it's exciting it's exhilarating right but getting it every day every week every month all the time and so how do you get rid of it well one way you get rid of it is just being awareness when you have an awareness of a thought it loses its impact and power over you it almost becomes like this I'll do it like I'm doing it again aren't I I'm doing the chaos everything's great right now the houses are paid off my kids are happy married do a great woman got great friends I'm doing the chaos thing again aren't you dummy you're doing it again and it kind of loses its power over you so I have a chapter in the book called one more emotion and how to take an inventory of the emotions you have and so yeah man mine's definitely love and the one I don't want is chaos because chaos causes me to act out of anger and frustration it can depress me and your intentions are not going to be as I guess you're it's a gateway emotion chaos is my gateway emotion to the ones I don't want chaos gives me stress chaos gives me anger chaos gives me frustration chaos gives me fear so it's a gateway what is the result when you create from that space of chaos it's funny I've been I have found the ability to externally create something pretty productive right but stay with me on this but the process and getting there is destructive the process and getting there is not beautiful and I used to think a lot of success before senior way to get the results almost through force yeah you know and the and I still do it sometimes I'm thinking of a situation this week or I did it and I used to think well that's a superpower though because I've created all these external look what I made look what I did yeah and I'm doing it because of that the truth is I did it in spite of it you did and there's a lot of things in our lives that we have linked to our formula our recipe of success that we hold on to that you've done in spite of those things not because of those things so you're 51 now 51 when you were 40 on a scale of one to 10 of that the self-confident happiness joy scale 10 being like you loved yourself fully or peaceful you had an abundant mindset you were had inner peace you know joy one being you hated yourself you were miserable you're in chaos 24-7 where were you on that scale at 40 okay the real answer is probably a three okay of happiness uh and but if you met me I could convince you that it was probably an eight that you were super happy and you had it probably a three and since your father passing where you now probably in nine really yeah and I no longer feel the need to convince you because I've learned that this has already existed within me I didn't have to go get it I just had to allow myself to experience it and it took me a long time to treat myself in such a way that I allowed myself to feel these things that I've always been there I had them when I was a little baby boy I just lost them along the way in these patterns and programs that were installed in me and my experiences and I got to share something with you brother that just don't I wrote this whole book and uh two weeks go ahead this I just this is just for me and you but everybody can hear it sure and it I've always tried to disqualify myself I've always you're not this it always shocks people even people that know me really well they're like not you I have that but there's no way you have right yeah you're too confident too talented too well and I don't know that I'm too talented but I think I can fake it pretty well and um I disqualify myself because you know the truth is that maybe for a while everything that I got that was loved when I was a child only came when I achieved something so I started to conflate early on in my life recognition and significance with love in other words my dad would love me if I had the home run my dad would love me if I get straight A's and so then when I would feel these things but something really amate and also like I'm really big it holding myself I love to beat myself up with mistakes I've made I did this I did that I should have done this I didn't do that and I've always thought these mistakes these weaknesses of mine disqualify me for me and happy or helping people and this amazing breakthrough the one decision that changed my family forever is my dad's decision to get sober and it changed my family forever I'm talking to you because my dad made that decision and I've always been so proud of my dad for that but this is just two weeks ago three fifteen in the morning I wake up I'm crying and I wake Kristiana up I go babe someone helped a dad and she went what honey I said someone helps dad she was what do you mean I said babe I never thought about this and my dad's darkest worst moment of his life and some coffee shop or some room somewhere some precious soul helped my dad reached out to him talked to him talked to him and got him sober wow and I said babe that's not the powerful part and I have no idea where this person is but I wonder if they know the difference they made in Max and Bella's my children's lives or your life where the millions of people I've helped that one decision they made and she goes oh my gosh I said I never thought about this beautiful human being always gave the credit to my dad but some stranger helped him and I said babe this is the bananas part do you know what qualified them to help my dad their messed up life well they were an alcoholic they were a drug addict little did that person know the things they were the most ashamed of the biggest mistakes of their lives when they were using drugs and drinking and stealing that was qualifying them to change my dad's life and all of us we run around carrying these bags of I'm not qualified because I made this mistake I had this bankruptcy this relationship didn't work I did this thing you don't know about I'm so ashamed of that's why you're qualified that's the thing that qualifies you the human this in you you are the only human being with your combination of gifts that you were given whatever they are and your experience and real human beings help real human beings by being vulnerable and transparent saying I know where you are I've messed up worse I've made greater mistakes I felt worse I know that depression I know that anxiety I know that shame I know what that feels like that beautiful soul who was a drug addict and alcoholic they didn't know all those mistakes they're making were leading them out of their heart and they finally got to a point where their intention was to help my father in the lowest moment of his life they change my dad's life and their change mine and maybe me and you were changing a few today because of that person's mess it's crazy is that crazy that's amazing I know I know I love them and thank them that's amazing man very short intermission here folks I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far don't forget to follow the show on apple and Spotify links are in the show notes now onto our next guest welcome back to the show everybody I have a man here who's become such a dear friend of mine and a trusted advisor I've only had one other person on the show three times so you are now breaking a record brother you are a ratings machine but more importantly you uh bring such value every time you're here and when we're done talking every single time we've done this I go oh my gosh this is going to get millions of downloads because it made me better and every time I'm with you I feel better I smile more I feel better about myself and I learn things about how to win how to succeed how to persevere so Dean Grasio see welcome back to the show my brother so good to be here and I have to tell you the best you're the most gracious host ever and to this day still are two podcasts yep every day I send you some of you every day I'm like best podcast ever best and I'm I've been on a lot and it's because you're so gracious because you care so much and the reason people are following you and listening and I know I'm I'm speaking for the people listening is because they know you care thank you they know that you have me here for a third time not for any other reason except you think it will bring more value yeah and I hope I hope I don't let everybody down and you got a lot of options you're here with us it'll bring more value to them and and that's I love your success I love how your book is crushing it thank you the world needs more it there's a lot of talk and personal about breaking patterns I talk about all the time you do Tony does there's also a lot of power in leveraging them and this idea there's two things that are going to move every human being deans told you it's either to avoid paying moving from pain or to gain pleasure absolutely and usually most human beings I think in general pain avoidance is the stronger of the mechanism but it works for both people you need to know which one moves you so you've already said yours is pain avoidance yep right so is mine the truth is I've become a pretty big dreamer visionary guy but I wasn't yeah it took me a long time to get there a long time to get there and the fact is I only really got really good at that after certain dreams were achieved but why I had to figure out which one moves me more okay avoiding pain moves me more even to this day why it's more familiar to me yeah I grew up in pain so go take a look at the video of your life did you grow up in a really beautiful environment with lots of love and dreams and bliss and all this great stuff maybe your mover is more bling dreams and bliss if you grew up in some pain chaos angst fear anxiety stress that's probably your pattern and instead of trying to spend all your life breaking that pattern there's parts of it you need to break your behavior from it but the mechanism itself for change for me is pain and pain avoidance I'm familiar with lots of pain and so to this day why do I prepare for speeches or podcasts of things so bad is it because I want the pleasure of a great podcast yeah that's there you don't want to screw up I don't want to screw up yeah I don't want to make a mistake I don't want it not to be good why do I work so hard is to make difference in the world obviously you I don't think anybody listening would know the kind of work you put in it seriously I don't think they know that you started at 3 30 gonna do four podcasts that you're gonna jump you're gonna go take a suit you're gonna go do an event tonight you're gonna get up in the morning fly someplace I don't think anybody realize it are you doing that because you want to sell more books are you doing it because you don't want to sell just one I'm doing it because I don't want to just sell one right right now now you've evolved because you know every time a book gets in someone hand you get to change your life I do so just nail that I was gonna say the other part of it is impact right so you know the impact yeah but you're not saying but I know for a fact you're getting up tomorrow morning subconsciously yes not saying I'm getting up tomorrow because I don't want to you're getting up subconsciously because you don't want to fail I don't pain hurts it's a major and everybody told us we weren't gonna make it and our parents probably thought we weren't gonna make it and all that kind of stuff it's a major driver and by the way my impact stay with me on this because I know you're this way too because you grew up in pain the impact I make still comes from pain meaning this I know so many people are in pain and because I connect with their pain their lack of belief in themselves they're feeling invisible they're hurting right now they want to be happier that connection of pain is still the impact I want to make so a lot of it is connected somehow to me in my life and it is for you to it's like one is avoiding the pain of failing or not being successful or not ending up in heaven which is that picture of who I'm capable of becoming like do I really want to just get to heaven or is it the pain of not becoming that man it's both but also even the impact part where I go I want to make an impact in people's lives is because I connect with pain I connect with the discomfort and you want to get it out of that I want to get out of them yeah so that's a major driver for me is pain and I know my map and I know my pattern and that's why so many athletes by the way when their careers over they have a very difficult time one their identity was tied to their athleticism but also there's no pain to avoid anymore now they're getting pat on the back you were great I loved your games there's no pain to avoid there's nothing to feel so I gotta think you're that way too I am and and the only reason I share that is because I hope you don't use pain to be successful for the rest of your life but you can use it as that launching pad yeah it's a leverage and you can use as a launching pad to start the business to show up for the challenge to play full out to do something uncomfortable right the the term I've been using since covid is we all that take need to take more uncomfortable action did it surprise you that I said I don't want to just sell one book or did you think that's what I was gonna say I knew that you're gonna say okay yeah because it's me right I play like I'm 10 points down Tony and I are doing this challenge right we're gonna put a million people in it that's the goal last year we put 900 thousand in right and it changed a million people's lives right this year I I attack this head as if two people are gonna show up because I know if you show up I know the end result I saw hundreds of thousands of comments a day of like oh my god I didn't know it was gonna be like this oh my god I love you Tony I love you Dean I love you thank you thank you and you know that driver just like the comment I see the comments coming in for your book you want to sell another 200 thousand copies in the next two weeks so you can help people I will play like I'm 10 points down through this entire challenge I will rehearse I've already watched the last two years that we did this I watch what Tony did I watch what I did he's doing the same thing we're prepping if people are gonna show up even we want to deliver something that's transformational but I'm gonna look through the lens of not wanting to fail still because that's how that's this I'm avoiding the pain of it not working at the level of the impact that I want to make right and and I know we went down a couple different rabbit holes but I just want to give people permission today heading into a recession heading into a shifting world again I hope it doesn't but it looks like an economic winters here I'm gonna tell you to use whatever leverage you can use to move just move in a direction investigate look where the puck is going look for something different explore question every story that comes into your head know your enemy that story that's already screwed you over and cost you too much you know that how do you shift that story how do you barricade it how do you not let it in how do you talk to someone like whatever you got to do I just believe this is an crucial time I do too and people's lives I think that what you do the next there's this analogy and anti-aging Davidson Claire Dr. Davidson Claire's been on my show a few times and he goes hey if you can get to like 75 in this day and age you're probably going to live to 100 if you can get to 75 and in the world today I really believe that if you can get this next two years nailed yeah you've got 20 year type multipliers of wealth bliss and happiness in your life if you can get the but if you don't these next two years I think the difficulty of getting there is magnified by a huge factor I think right now's a chance to get way ahead that same analogy to get to 75 gets you to 100 think if you can get these next two years just momentum it'll make millions of dollars but you just get momentum you get in your groove you get moving but if you stay stagnant and other couple years you don't get something going the longer you do that it's harder to get that sucker going again and I feel like it'll be much harder those people to get moving now they get by the way it might evolve you may start marketing one thing right now and it evolves into something else over time but you've got to get in motion right now do you agree with that oh true story yeah I heard somebody say it's a strategic byproduct how many times in life have we had a goal and when we have the nerve to go after the goal we find something that's a strategic byproduct the goal it's way bigger way bigger you never thought you'd have one the top podcast in the world on top books in the world it's a strategic byproduct of you going all in on your businesses want to impact other great point that's a great point so know that when whether it's God the universe rewards you for just having the nerve to go after it and usually your goal you're something so much bigger or something different that actually aligns with you yeah there's a couple things I think as we as we're at this point in the podcast I want to say this is a couple things if you're gonna protect yourself build a mode build a mode on your emotions and what I'd say is the news is gonna get worse that's a fact conversations with your negative friends is gonna get worse that's a fact I would say if you really want to stop dabbling you know it's somebody who said they want to lose weight but when no one's watching they're eating the wrong food or someone says they want to start the business but when no one's watching they're binging out on Netflix you know if you're that person and I'm not knocking if that's who you are enjoy it live it but don't say you want it don't talk out of two sides of your mouth like either go all in burn the boats and do it or just accept the life that you have like I hate to be real but you can't lose weight and not work out and eat bad like it just doesn't where you can't make more money have edged life or someone else's life that you see you can't have that without putting the work in so if you're gonna put the work in you have to have the mindset to be committed and dedicated to it right we have to be disciplined yeah what rob's discipline is lack of confidence insecurity uncertainty whatever word you want to use so here's what I'm gonna share what are the things that make you uncertain or lack of confidence I would build a moat around those things if there's certain people in your life that are gonna make you feel insecure believe me it's gonna feel worse during a recession and tough time spend less time with them or find a way to be a mirror or be a teflon if watching the news whether it's CNN or MSNBC or Fox whatever one you want to watch if when you watch the news you get frustrated you get scared you get uncertain you get pissed off stop watching the news you need that energy for you so what I'd say is I would figure out the things that rob your confidence and rob your certainty and this is gonna sound like oh Dean's really smart is do less of those like especially over this next year you want like you want to take a challenge go on a 30 day news diet don't talk about it don't watch the news don't talk and spend 100% of that energy on you 2.0 spent take the next 30 days and do not surf the internet all of you are getting sucked into let me just see what Ed my let did and an hour later like oh my god I just burned an hour online right I would say just find the things avoid the things that rob your confidence don't talk to the negative people that are hurting you don't focus on your weaknesses identify who your villain is who that inner that inner story that's already cost you too much and protect yourself against it investigate to where the puck is going you do those things in this time you're ahead of 95% of the world and they're simple that's not I didn't give you a business plan I gave you just the the foundation of of what can make you thrive in the shifting time when I hear you say all those things I think about energy I think about do things that preserve and increase your energy and don't deplete them so if there's people around you that rob your energy you gotta reduce it if there's things you're doing that take your energy whether it's worry fear surfing the internet watching news those other things energy you know and we all talk about I don't know who's first at it or whatever but energy is influence we've talked about this a lot Tony talks about it a lot you do I do an energy is also the most important commodity you can possibly have in your life and you're going to watch a bunch of people whether you call it words thoughts etc you're going to watch a lot of people starting now through the next two or three years of their lives you're going to watch their energy change yeah you're going to watch their vibrational frequency shrink you're going to watch them shrink and that's in common upon you to feed your energy right now that's podcast that's books that's events that's a challenge like what you're doing right now with Tony you got to feed your energy highest energy wins highest energy will win and though amen to that and I'm going to tell you everyone's energy is going to evolve and change it is difficult when everyone's thriving why everyone's energy is pretty damn good high energy will stand out now positive energy optimistic energy movement energy is momentum energy is going to stand out more than ever and you're going to see energy change in your investments in your mindset in your businesses all over the place so I want one shift at the end because it's it's for me and I told you when we were getting ready to do this I said I want to ask you this is seems uncorrelated but it's not it's totally correlated because it comes from a pain point from you and it comes from a place of of a sanctuary that can preserve and increase energy which is personal relationships and so particularly your marriage to Lisa so you've been honest on my show before and by the way this is completely correlated to everything we said because you said on the show before in the past hey man first time around probably didn't have that thing wired the right way yeah at some point I knew I wasn't probably with the right person for me wonderful person but not right person for me I wasn't a world class husband yep you you said this before and you are a world class husband to Lisa in fact it is when I think of you by the way you're easily one of the most brilliant business minds I've ever met you are probably the best marketing mind I know and you're a very diverse man between your understanding of real estate human dynamics interpersonal relationships energy influence I mean all the different business markets that you're in you're a very unique man and I you know I hold you in the highest regard you're one of the few people on the earth that I call for council in certain areas so obviously same to you brother thank you and of all that I don't admire you anywhere nearly as much for those things as I do for the kind of husband and father that you are and I think one of the I think you show me the quality of your relationships I think Tony was the first to say that I'll show you the quality of your life you have such a massive high quality of life and I believe that's because of your relationship with Lisa and your children why is it so good in other words what's been the key from you going to be in not very good husband the first time around to like if I think of the list of the best husbands I know that have the best real intimate loving real real that perfect yeah relationships with people I don't know that you don't occur first on my list you know maybe there's two or three people that all come up at the same time but you come up on that list what's been the key for that and how important is it to your your outward success and business because it's a correlation from when you met her to millions of millions more dollars in your bank account too it is and and I have to thank you for saying that and you're so kind it is why your your podcast does so great to you truly serve from your heart and thank you for the kind words my wife's going to listen to this podcast is it smile on your year she loves your brother she's she's been jeering on your podcast right now good I'll tell you first first thing I'll share just like a business is if you have the nerve to recognize that the reason your business might not have worked or your marriage might not have worked or your relationship might work if you're if you have the self-awareness and the nerve to look in the mirror and say it was probably you even if it wasn't all you but if you have the nerve to say that I remember going through divorce and freaking out because and I won't go deep on this because I think I shared it on previous one but I was freaking out for my kids because I was a child of divorce and I didn't want them to feel you know you know you know you get it right so I was freaking out about that and then I remember thinking myself I wrote down a list of what was unacceptable in a new relationship what what could not be and what could be and I'm like on my could list ed was I need someone that that loves a crazy entrepreneur that's into health is in the personal growth someone who will love my children as if they're their own that's that's a task for a step person step right and I broke down this long list of all the things that were a must and something hit me in that list and I'm like damn I have nerve to ask for that right right and in a moment I recognize that for me to attract that I had to become a better man it had nothing to do with finding the perfect woman I had to be the better man to attract that type of woman and I worked on me I got a love coach I I unlocked the you know hold them back the full extent of love and all the things we could share but here's what I would say when it comes to relationships just this you know advice only for a guy that knows he messed up in the past but I am in the greatest relationship my life is imagine never keeping the couple of things that came out of what I realized imagine never keeping score in a relationship imagine having the nerve and the confidence to just go I'm going to be the best version of me and I hope I get it back and not say you know I've been I've been doing I watch relationships unravel when someone says the husband says I work my tail off I provide for her she doesn't have to worry about anything she doesn't pay the bill she has someone to clean her house she does all this and I come home and and she's you know no dinner keeping score right you're keeping score and when you start keeping score soon as you start keeping score and it's not even how do you go to bed that night and be intimate how do you how do you have passionate connection if you're keeping score and thinking I'm doing more than her or or I'm taking care of the house he has no idea what it's like to to juggle two kids and take care of all this stuff and he's out flying around having fun do you know he's working but at least he gets to be out I'm stuck in the house man there's the intimacy's gone right and then once the intimacy's gone then people start thinking man someone else would love the way I work someone else the way I take care of things right so one is not keeping score here's the toughest one that's big here's the toughest one imagine I know this is going to sound crazy and something you're gonna be like yeah whatever dreamer imagine feeling love when you give it rather than when you receive it I fell in love with making my wife feel loved I love for that woman to look at me and she like there's five people in the room and she looks over and I'm staring at her like she's like I just saw her for the first time and she catches me and I watch her flake we've been together five and a half years I could stare at my wife when she doesn't realize that if she catches me her cheeks will get red like she gets nervous even to the and she's like like what are you looking at what do you look at and show come on she's like you right I found oh I took me years I found a way to feel love when I make her feel loved so I don't need her to love me back but the but here's the thing right because I don't keep score my wife tries to outdo me because I give I feel love when I give her love she tries to give me more love right and I know maybe that takes the right partner and you might be thinking yourself yeah Dean you found the right partner I would say I have an amazing woman but also know that I did all the opposite crap and the and the previous one and and this is I'm gonna steal this from Tony one of the best advice I ever heard was imagine if you treated the end of relationship like the beginning would there actually be an end you remember in the beginning of a relationship you're like everything's bliss and you're all in and you're listening eye contact and you wouldn't dare look at your phone at dinner and now you're three years in and at dinner she wants to tell you about what happened with the kids thing you're like yeah let me just what was that hold on babe let me just look at my phone one second would you have ever done that in the first week of your relationship around a first date and that just that hit me and people a lot of times will ask me is like I don't know where my relationship is I'm like what if for the next 90 days you just went all in and pretended like you guys just met and you were dating again to end in 90 days you might have a completely different situation that's so good yeah it's so good you're so good I don't know bed your business life having that part of it not even a question like the funny part is so many people say to me what happened to you like four years ago man you just got more dynamic you're more confident on stage it was definitely that because the last thing I'll say is on this is I had more I've had more success than I could have ever dreamed possible a good zillion times more than what my dreams were I have two I now three and a fourth on the way but I had two amazing children that were just humble and sweet and and kind and my business is thriving and good friends but I didn't have love in my life and I didn't have connection and I wasn't a good husband right because I wasn't happy and I probably when you're incongruent when not all things in your life are lined up I never could understood the power that while I was in it I just said no I should be happy no my relationship isn't great but we co-parent good and we got great kids and the business is good and we got the great house I just wasn't in alignment I was kind of living a lie and when I finally shed that and now I get to be the man like and I know you know me but man imagine the wish that if anybody put a hidden camera on you for a week and then your wife your friends and the world could watch and go wow same guy on camera same guy on the podcast same guy with no one was watching that congruency has taken the restrictions off my business is doubled my life is double my happiness is double I've attracted dear people in my life like you and other people because I think that I just get to be me at all times beautiful brother gosh it's so good I got one last question for you and I want you to answer this in an all sincerity I know you always do but this is a biggie is it all it's cracked up to be let me tell you what I mean by it you know having a loving relationship becoming a wealthy man you know making the contribution you make is a tremendous amount of work and there's going to be a season in in one's life where it's not all those things and you're going to be working and working and working and there's this part when you're doing it you're like is it even really worth it is it even really worth it because I think oftentimes we've all met that one rich person who's also miserable which there's a lot of them they get a lot of money and you're like I don't even want to be like them you know I was a server as a bus boy at the whole in Chalada in Diamond bar when I was in high school in college and it seemed like a lot of the guys with money that came in were the bigger jerks and it started to make me think I don't even know if that's worth it you know and the reason that it seemed like the because the real rich guys didn't act like rich guys yeah so when they'd come in I didn't know it was that guy but I went through a phase of my life that I think because you're on the other side it's easy to forget but I think there's a lot of people that are considering coming to this challenge considering changing their life they're considering it and then there is a part of them where they're like I don't know if it's worth it so I'm being I'm going to answer this honestly is it or is it different than you thought it would be getting to this other side you're on the other side you don't feel like you are but you are you're very wealthy you've got a beautiful family you know you make a difference the world you got rich friendships your life's not perfect every day the day of life can be really difficult for all of us but was it worth it and what's it feel like to get to the other side sell us the dream or the nightmare of it yeah um beyond worth it but questioning it I've questioned it on and off since the beginning and there are only moments of questioning it when and then you get clarity and realize the other side so here's what I'd say is if someone's listening to you Ed what you've done and I want to say this publicly what you've done so elegantly to help the world see is that your visibility your notoriety your your podcast being the top podcast your book people get to see someone who's been wealthy or is wealthy and also an amazing human being and success without fulfillment success without joy success without balance is probably the broken you could be so here's what I'd say where I'm fortunate is I started working on me at the same time I was working on making money and I think that is the gift I would I would love to share with all of you I believe all of you every single one of you has the has the opportunity to make unlimited amount of money I know that sounds it's easy like yeah it's easy for you to say now Dean but believe me if Ed can make it Dean can make it we all have this amazing opportunity but I'd say work on you as much as you work on marketing as much as you work on sales because when you find that harmonious balance and you know we both I you probably too I've been off I've had more money than emotional intelligence and right and that's not a cool thing and there's some people have great emotional intelligence but they can't make any choices no like they want to do more they want to donate more they want to travel more they want to retire their husband so they yes to stop working this crappy job so they have the emotional intelligence but they don't have the money to give them the freedom that harmonious balance of two I mean it's the greatest gift you could give anyone it's why it's why we're doing a free challenge it's why Tony listen you don't have to work Tony doesn't have to work I'm blessed I know it sounds like hey we're a bunch of rich people it's not that like I'm working harder now than I've ever worked in my life and I have more now than I've ever had in my life because I want other people to see that you can have this rich balance where you can have I mean I just got here I don't want to get a spoiler alert but I just I just got to meet your kids for the first time yeah right I met your wife a bunch of times I got to see your kids and and watching that you get to bring this family that you shifted this generation you have two humble children it it will you will always question it problems will never go away one thing I want to say you will just get better at handling bigger problems you want to make more handle bigger problems right so you will handle problems more you will get you will turn into someone who wants the bigger problems because you know there's a bigger paycheck on the other side of bigger you solve a bigger problem you get paid more right so problems won't go away I'll tell you that you'll just handle a more like you said in your book and like Jim Rowan said for things to get better you got to get better right so you'll get better at doing those things you will have times where you question it but every day in my life I wake up and I'm so effing grateful that I get the freedom to do what I want to do to coach little league to drive my kids to school to do what I want when I want to do it and that's that's the ultimate freedom and I would die for it it great answer I'm so proud of you you