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we believe health is the foundation that unlocks freedom the freedom to live fully to be an asset and not a burden and to chase what truly matters through daily practices and proven frameworks we are here to help you build deep health find lasting peace and live with your heart on fire Welcome to the Chase Hello and welcome back to the show Hello, Ben How the heck are you?
Doing great Thanks, Patrick It's good to see you We are going to dive back into our conversation We're in the middle of a three -part At least a three -part conversation About distractions Specifically distractions that are keeping us from being healthy Being happy and living with our hearts on fire We're going to get into that We're going to talk about happiness today Our previous episode was on health So if you missed that, go back and check it Before we jump in, though And this is as much for my own curiosity as perhaps other folks.
You just posted something the other day, maybe even yesterday from when we were recording this.
You just hiked up Mount Washington with some friends.
I would love to know about it because that sounds really fun.
Oh, cool. Okay, so if we let on in the Northeast, Mount Washington, it's the highest peak on the East Coast, which compared to the...
Everywhere else in the country is not...
Well, let's just say everywhere else in the country.
Compared to the big mountains, it's not...
It's like 6 ,300 feet, right?
But it is the place of the highest recorded winds ever recorded by man in the world at 230 miles an hour or something like that.
So it's known for like this kind of New England, the weather can change in a beat.
And we certainly had that.
We had amazing, amazing weather, and then it was thundering, and then the clouds would kind of spill over and roll in.
There'd be bright sunshine again.
It was kind of wild.
But the super cool part was, you know, it was a multi -day.
We took two days up there.
We stayed overnight up there.
It was just there was nobody else.
We hiked midweek. So there's nobody else on the mountain.
Literally in an eight -hour hike, we saw five other people.
And when we stayed overnight, we didn't see another person, which was awesome.
It was just amazing.
And I went up with a couple of just really good dudes.
One's my best friend, Derek, who we talked about probably on the show.
i'm not sure uh my brother and and another new friend to the to the mix as well equally good dude and i think the best part was yeah the physicality and yeah the nature but honestly it was the the male connection right which i don't think is built into us as the default we're not supposed to have the feelings and we're not supposed to share and if you show vulnerability at all it's exposing weakness and it was just awesome to be up there with a couple other guys that were the exact opposite it's taken me 48 years to learn how to become vulnerable with people but it's if it's increa incredibly
empowering and uh seeing it modeled by two other really really successful, really strong men gives you a sense of permission that this is a safe place to do that.
So we were able to just kind of crack through the facade and not feel subconscious about talking about things that guys probably don't normally talk about.
Certainly relationships Relationships with our spouses and the way we grew up with learning disabilities, addictions, and a whole bunch of other stuff that, you know, when you come out of that, you feel freer and lighter.
it was I as a part of this ongoing conversation that we have on this show a couple times a week you know if I think it's a really big part of what we're trying to do in terms of chasing what truly matters is being really intentional about seeking out the kind of people that that, that you can truly connect with.
It is a powerful thing to find the people that you can uplevel those conversations and connections with.
And I feel grateful and blessed to be able to do it, particularly in that setting.
It was great. Really cool.
Thank you for sharing that.
That's great. And that is not too much of a tangent from, I think what we're going to talk about, especially that stuff you were talking about towards the end there.
So we are going to talk going to talk about distractions keeping us from happiness.
As I said at the top, this is part of a longer conversation we're having about the key distractions or the big distractions that are keeping us from health, happiness, and living with our hearts on fire.
We're going to talk about happiness today.
Our last episode, as I mentioned, was all about health.
We talked about three distractions keeping us from health, the law of quick fixes, social environmental influences, and obsession with outcomes.
This time around, we're going to talk about the four idols, internal psychological traps, and surrendering to other people's priorities.
Before we get into that, I want to do a quick reminder as to what we mean when we say distractions.
And we talked about this a little bit at the top of our last episode.
So I'll go, we won't do the full thing this time.
But when we say distractions, what they're best understood as is the unnecessary or misdirected inputs, behaviors or mindsets or environmental factors that divert our resources away from the fundamentals that create lasting well being.
And each one of these distractions can be explored as a thief of time, energy attention and money one that substitutes business or anxiety or superficiality for the deeper work of cultivating health happiness and living with our hearts on fire mmm so good Patrick cool so today we're gonna talk about distractions keeping us from happiness again I said this or I don't go quick for idols internal psychological traps and surrendering to other people's priorities the first one the four idols money power pleasure and and prestige.
The pursuit of wealth, social status, and transient pleasures, and external validations, fame, or attention, are all marketed as paths to happiness.
But in reality, they substitute superficial highs for lasting fulfillment.
These distractions are amplified by consumer culture and social media, which encourage comparison, envy, and constant striving for more.
And I do just want to give credit.
The four idols, you and I first talked about that in a conversation we had about a book called build the life you want by arthur brooks and oprah winfrey and i'm just going to read the bit from that book that is referenced to the four idols because it gives enough context for us to dive in and this is again from the book the 13th century philosopher thomas aquinas listed what he called idols that occupy our days and waste our lives money power prestige and pleasure these idols all stand in the way of enjoyment satisfaction and purpose so why do we pursue them the same reason we always do self
-destructive of things when we are unhappy but unable to change our circumstances distraction the four idols are distractions to numb us to emotional circumstances we dislike and feel we can't control so with all that what are your first thoughts here whoa well that's that's a that's a yeah it's a lot and that's a it's a really uh unambiguous way that arthur brooks kind of of lays that out.
It sounds dangerous.
I kind of actually like that.
Okay. So we chase these things, money, power, prestige, pleasure.
And there's a difference between achievement.
There's a difference between accumulation.
accumulation. There's a difference between accolades and awards.
And there's a difference between hedonic pleasure and true fulfillment and joy.
And I think that's what we need to kind of pull apart a little bit is this separation because people go, no, like when I get a raise, I feel great.
We're not debating that.
It's not like, you know, when you're partying with your friends, it's fun.
Not debating that. When you do things that when you get a new position at work, You get more power and more prestige.
Not debating that doesn't feel good.
But it's fleeting and not lasting, which means that it's not true happiness.
I think understanding this difference between what creates pleasure and what creates true lasting joy, fulfillment, and quote happiness is really important.
Because right when I lay those things out, people are like, no, I'd still chase those things.
But if you kind of think of it in terms of a heroin addict chasing the next high, then you can see how detrimental these things might be.
The heroin addict wants the next high because it creates these moments of pleasure, these moments of hedonic joy, which is not beneficial in the long term, as opposed to somebody who is grinding away as a fill in the blank, as an entrepreneur, as trying to build something meaningful and powerful, as somebody that is trying to start a nonprofit.
profit, somebody that is raising infant twins.
Those are all in the moment, not necessarily pleasure, but they're the ones that create true fulfillment.
And what we want to do is not be distracted by these idols.
They're counterfeit currency.
They're not real. They are the dopamine mean hits that leave you actually empty on the other side, looking for the next hit as opposed to the things that create real actual meaning.
So what we want to do is not get distracted, but do the next.
I like what you said is, I forget if it's his quote or yours, but do the necessary deep work, right?
And one of the key words there is work.
Like it takes It takes efforts.
It takes intentionality.
What we don't want to do is chase things that are the end based.
What we want to chase things is that are values based.
It's not what can I get?
It's who can I become?
And when you flip those things in terms of like trying to climb the ranks to just try to build your character, then we're starting to build actual happiness.
because you're those things are almost synonymous it's there's a really cool quote I think I don't remember who it is but it's the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul looking back at the that quote I read from the build the life you want before idols are distractions that numb us to emotional circumstances we dislike and feel we can't control it's really interesting interesting about that is, you know, one thing that we talk about fairly, fairly frequently is this idea of the mindset continuum, from victim all the way up to warrior and with stops from pessimism, optimism and realism.
And it strikes me just looking at that just that single idea, the four idols are distractions that numb us from emotional circumstances we dislike, which is to say, we are unwilling to be the realist in that in that scenario.
And we are we are going to, instead of seeing the world as it is, we are going to chase something that we believe will make the world what we want it to be.
And that distinction between what is and what we want, we often live in the gap between those things.
And what we can put in between those gaps is this, I love this, what you said, with the counterfeit currency of money, power, pleasure, and prestige, because we feel like that's going to close the gap between the world and what we we want the world to be.
But it's fleeting. It's like grabbing a cloud.
It's not ultimately going to be there when we hope it's there.
Yeah. There are a lot of people that have achieved a lot of amazing things that are still not ultimately happy.
There's this great quote again.
I'm trying, I wish I could give credit to where, how many things have you, oh, this is Chris Williamson.
Shout out to Chris.
And he's probably quoting somebody else, right?
I'm sure he is. But how many things have you achieved already that you said would make you happy?
Yep. Right. I'm sure I'm butchering the quote, he's gonna say that's close enough, you know, but he has an English accent.
So it's gonna sound way better.
Yeah. But that's the thing is like you said that when you got this that you would be be happy.
When you, when you got to college, when you graduate college, when you got the car, when you got the job, when you got the house, when you get the wife, when you get the kids, when you retire, when you, and you kind of see like you're, this is not the way we, we do it.
We, as a species, we just adapt to our new and to go, okay, next goalposts moved.
They would just move down the horizon, we're always going to push it out there.
There's, you know, I've been, I never thought I would have the level of material success that I've had.
It doesn't mean that I stopped chasing it though.
It's like, I know this is this thing inside of me that I, if I, you know, to my 25 year old self, when I was, you know, driving from house to house doing personal training saying Like, hey, when you're in your mid 40s, this is what your situation is going to look like.
I'd be like, oh, my God.
Like, that's crazy.
That's you're never kind of like that doesn't make you happy.
It's just not the way it goes.
And, you know, Naval Ravikant has a really good kind of framework for this, which is we like to play these games and we play two games.
one is wealth games and the other is status games and the wealth games are actually kind of new to us as a species because for a very very long time there was no accumulation of wealth you could only have what you could carry on your back because you need to follow the Buffalo right you need to be able to carry or so much food because it's gonna go back exactly right so as we were hunter -gatherer societies, there was no wealth because you couldn't store anything.
That's changed where now you can play a wealth game.
Forever there has been status games.
Status games are the hierarchical place you rank inside of the tribe.
Are you the chief? Do you get the best cut of meat and mate?
Or are you the weakest where you have to take what's left over?
over. That's the reason that we seek out power, prestige, and fame and recognition, because it's been built into our DNA to chase those things.
You're more likely to survive.
Exactly right. You're more likely to survive if people have your backs, if you have more power, if you have more of a tribe, if you have more support, if more people look to you as a leader and so on, maybe until they think of you as the ultimate leader and they want to knock you off.
But it is important for us to recognize where these things come from.
Naval's take on this, and by the way, I'm a really big Naval Ravikant fan.
I think one of his, The Almanac of Naval Ravikant is one of the cooler books you can read.
His take is if you're going to choose one of the two, play a wealth game.
Not to say that money's bad because it's not, right?
Money can give you lots of opportunities and freedom.
So play the wealth game.
game and what's really cool is you can play the wealth game without playing the status game.
And I think that's a really kind of cool place to be is, yeah, try to become more chance of survival, right?
If you have back in the day, if you had a whole bunch of smoked meat and a bunch of canned food that would last you for the entire winter and you had a staff of people working for you on your land and you owned 10 acres, the chances of your survival went up.
And that's cool. That's not a bad thing to chase.
We seem to be cautious of the fact that happiness does not rise linearly with wealth.
And as we kind of chase that game saying, I'm going to be happier when I get to that, that's not the case because it's not the equal.
There is a case to be made though that if I'm using my wealth to have the opportunity to enhance connections, to be able to have greater experiences, to get better health, to buy back some time.
If you're using it for those reasons, not to get the sports car, right?
Not to be accessible.
So you can drive around downtown Miami and people turn their heads at you.
Not for that purpose, but for the purpose that, hey, I'm going to invite my four best friends to go have a weekend in Bali and we're going to go windsurfing, kitesurfing and meet this meditation guru.
And that is a good use of wealth because it's going to enhance the actual experiences of your life.
So, wealth games over status games, for sure.
Yeah. I also like the idea of broadening the definition of wealth to not just financial wealth, which, of course, yes, but also time wealth and relational wealth and all these other degree or other contexts where wealth is an abundance, right?
And playing a wealth game but recognizing that wealth is deeper than just a bank account.
Yeah. Yep. Yep. That goes into the, I forget who wrote it, but the book like Today We Are Rich. That's where I got the have -tos versus get -tos.
Oh, cool. I read it like 20 years ago.
But the idea is today, this guy grew up in most circumstances would have been, I don't think poverty, but certainly lower income.
But his mom would say to him every day, today, we are rich. And she would list out the things why they're rich, because it's not just the number of zeros in the bank account it's your relationships it's what you can do with your time and so on yep it reminds me of that we did a hopper talk and i'm not going to remember the person who it was but we talked it was a happiness is a two by two matrix where it's what you have or what you want and what you have what you want what you don't want but what you sorry yeah what you you get it right it's what you want but don't have makes you unhappy what you
want but have makes you happy what you don't want and don't have makes you happy happy but that's not at the fourth quad that's the fourth quadrant which you don't have and don't want is infinite and that's where we should be spending our time that's where we should be spending our attention on all the things that we don't want that we do not have the if we can get our mindset around how big a bucket that is it makes everything else pale in comparison when you recognize well i don't want to be sick and i'm not sick when i don't i don't want my kids to be struggling and they're not struggling right
i don't want i don't want a house with a leaky roof i do not have a house with a leaky roof right when you actually start to work through that thought experiment you start to realize how tangible happiness could be if only we looked at it the right way.
I think that gets us into our next one, right, because it has a lot to do with expectations.
Yep. Let's do it. The second one, internal psychological traps, judgment, expectations, and ego.
Much of what keeps us from happiness is internal self -judgment, unrealistic expectations, and ego -driven narratives.
Judgment manifests as negative self -talk and limiting beliefs.
I can't do that because for example, while expectations create a gap between reality and how we think things should be.
Ego meanwhile acts as an overprotective filter, either inflating our sense of importance or making us defensive, thus blocking growth and connection.
These mental habits distract from presence, gratitude, and the ability to appreciate what is rather than what might be.
So what this is, it's right in that kind of title, but that like the internal psychological psychological traps right whereas the other one is kind of looking outside yep and saying you know if i got more money if i had a better job if i had a bigger house this is kind of that realization that the the real battle is not external the real battle is between your ears and that's you kind of alluded to this in the previous with the Four Idols, most unhappiness is just the inability to accept reality.
And that's where we get into like that kind of framework of the different mindsets.
As you said, like, you know, if we could not wish for our realities to change, but just to accept them, you know, and what people, that's what a victim is.
A victim cannot cannot accept the reality.
And this sounds weird, but victims have huge egos, but they just do it in a different way.
An ego, what it is, remember, it's this way to make yourself feel important.
And you can make yourself feel important by going, look how the world doesn't understand me.
Look how the world is unfair, unjust. See, it's not my fault.
It's the world. And again, what you're doing is you're looking outside.
The difference between the victim all the way over to the warrior is literally that.
The victim looks outwardly and goes, look at all of the things out there.
there whereas the warrior looks internally and goes how can I internally I'm sure it's not about the outside world how can I internally better myself it's about the inward Focus versus outward Focus we've said this before but instead of pointing fingers it's about pulling thumbs you're trying to work on your own character your own resilience your own humility your own own willingness just to accept and not try to force change the world that's you know there's that saying which we've talked about before it comes from mo got it and it's a solve for happy which is formulaic he's the guy that worked for Google
whatever I Google and imagination like just go and invent big huge amazing things and he took an engineers a software engineers approach this and tried to algorithmically solve for happiness.
And his contention is happiness is reality minus expectations.
Meaning that if your expectations were higher than your reality is right now, you're going to be unhappy.
So this is not a matter of people hear this, they go, okay, so just like no goals, no, No, it's not that at all.
It's about just truly accepting reality instead of going like, why can't it be like this?
Why is Donald Trump president?
Why is COVID happening?
Why does my coworker keep doing this?
Why is my boss acting that way?
How come my kids dot, dot, dot?
When you do that, you are literally putting yourself in a state that you are unable to bring your best self.
This is like when you think about like flow states and Steven Kotler was on the show before and he's done a lot to kind of move this forward. A flow state is when you are open minded.
You're just like the reality which you're presented is just you accept.
You don't try to – you're just flowing.
It's like a river going down.
The river doesn't try to change anything.
It just adapts to the topography.
It just does its thing.
And because of that, it flows beautifully and flows fast and it flows the way it's supposed to and it does its best thing.
What we don't want to do is try to work on changing – it's about acceptance.
And that's really why the realist is the step before the warriors because the first thing we have to do before we can even do the inward work is accept our situations, accept reality for what it is.
That doesn't mean don't try.
I think that's what people also miss is like, so if my flight is delayed, I should just sit there and accept that and take it.
It's instead of like, you know, going up to the debt ticket agent and trying to do it, I should just accept that there's nothing I can do.
And this guy has no. But if you go up to them in a non, I'm going to say non calm state, the chances of you having a positive outcome are much less than if you go up there, be able to present the very best version of yourself.
When you go, hey, this might work.
This might not. And I'm okay with that.
Michael Jordan, right?
Why would I even worry about missing a shot I haven't taken yet?
Meaning no anxiety, no stress, no limiters.
I can just truly bring all of my best self to this.
This is where your creativity, this is where your true connection, this is where the best version of you kind of pours through.
Shakespeare has said expectation is the root of all heartache.
Theodore Roosevelt has one, which is – I think a lot of people have heard this one, but especially now with all social media, comparison is the thief of all joy.
Mm -hmm. So if we are able to kind of recognize that what we're doing between this judgment, between the ego, between these expectations is just really putting ourselves in a non -optimal state, what that's doing is it's stealing us away from our happiness.
Those are really big, big much quieter distractions.
I think that's a big thing that you kind of laid out in the beginning.
We talked about in the last episode you know distractions usually come in really loud forms and you know when they're happening.
Judgment, expectations, egos are these quiet silent killers that'll keep us from becoming our best self.
If we can learn to kind of live with navigate your ego.
If you think of your ego as something that needs, the words that come to mind is like to be tamed, but it's not even that.
Your ego is trying to search for, it wants to feel important.
But the more that we kind of like not feed that, not feed that false self, honestly, is what it is.
Epictetus has the ego is the false self and it's born of fear and distraction.
So the more that we can kind of like not feed that, the more our true authentic best self can come to life.
You think of this in terms of relationships that we have, you know, with significant others, with parents, with kids, like with your kids, a lot of the frustration that comes about when your kids aren't listening to you is not them at all it's about you not being able to feel good about the way that you're parenting them if you kind of go like check that i'm not going to feed that part of it i'm truly just gonna have this moment with them in the best possible way with the long -term approach not the short term that's going to to feel good in the moment which is probably losing my shit but really
kind of try to keep this in terms of like hey this isn't about satisfying that thing inside of me this is about how do i develop them and build trust in this relationship it that's where the long -term happiness comes from because now you start to feel better about yourself and the way you can navigate the world regardless of the circumstances around you.
I've been thinking about this one a lot, this judgment, expectations and ego.
Both my boys are playing baseball now.
And so we're spending a lot of time at the baseball field at the town baseball field.
And so we've got, you know, games a couple of times a week.
And one of the things I'm noticing as my oldest is a little bit older now.
And now they're they're like they're playing baseball now, whereas when they're younger, it's kind of like it's baseball, but you could barely call it baseball.
ball but kids t -ball is like one of the most entertaining things ever oh my god i've joked but not but but i i mean it seriously but i i say it as a joke which is like everybody should instead of going to therapy should just spend an afternoon watching kids play t -ball and you will be happier for it wow but my point is though i've been with my older son he's playing he's eight he's playing with eight nine and ten year olds so their kids are like they care about baseball and their parents care about their kid playing baseball and i stand i stand there on on the sidelines and I listen to parents
talking to themselves and parents yelling at their kids and it's and I get it like I understand I have the same sort of impulses to be like no do this don't do that so pay attention but the number of parents I've heard talking negatively about their kid how their kid's not paying attention how their kid doesn't get it how the kid should have done done this instead of that.
And it's remarkable how most people don't seem to understand how miserable it's making them and how miserable it's making their kids at the same time, how much joy there could be in watching your, your kid play baseball or softball or fill in the blank sport and how you steal that happiness from everybody involved and around you by judging judging the kid for not doing what you want them to do for expecting them as an eight -year -old to play like a 15 -year -old for the ego of what does this say about me as a parent, if my kid doesn't do this or can't do that or failed here.
And it's hard to watch, but I also understand it.
I also understand where it's coming from.
And it's interesting to hear once you hear it, like so many things, once you are aware of it, how you can identify it.
And you can start to see the ramifications of that as it plays out, as it develops downstream.
Yeah, man. There's that kind of like duality, which is a really powerful, really dangerously powerful one of that.
All three of those things kind of put...
You're explaining all three of those things kind of manifesting themselves in that one example, right?
Judgment brings about shame.
It's like, I should be farther along, right?
Right. My kid should be farther along.
My kid should be better and acting better.
And you're judging.
Meanwhile, different kids just develop at different times.
It's like we've talked about this before, but, you know, you know, Derek, I mentioned before, was a really high level youth hockey coach. And some of the parents would be like, what is the deal with my kid?
How come he can't figure out what offsides are?
And like I try to explain to him, and the parents would be like irate with their kids and like yelling from the stands and yelling when they get off the ice and walking over to the bench and talking them over.
And Derek's like really grounded, really centered.
He's like, listen, when he's 14, he's not going to know.
He'll know what offsides are.
These are like seven, eight -year -olds.
It's like just different kids are going to get this at different times.
And that goes the same thing, how much pressure we put on.
My kid's not on. on the growth chart right so I'm going to give them a bunch of hormones and a bunch of growth stuff to try to get them on the growth chart meanwhile it's like different kids grow at different times my kid's not talking yet all the other kids are talking my kid's not reading yet other kids are reading the Scandinavian countries a lot of them don't even go to school until they're eight years old meanwhile we're like freaking out what's happening at age four Because in preschool, they're missing up their B's and their D's in the alphabet.
It's like the amount of pressure that we put on this, it all goes into this expectation, right, which is just resentment waiting to happen, right?
Which resentment, that causes suffering.
It's the judgment. It's the shame.
It's that I shouldn't be here.
I should be farther along.
And I'm not immune to this, right?
Right. I, I, I've worked in a gym and I've been to the CrossFit games.
I've owned a gym for 20 years and I see other like ripped up people on Instagram and I'm like, how come I don't have a body like that?
Right. It's like, and no one's immune to this stuff.
Like I should be farther along.
Like, how come they can do this?
And how come I have a hard time with it?
It's like, and then they becomes this, this whole thing is underneath the umbrella of the ego, which is i need to feel important which obsesses over image over truth and it's obsesses over image at the expense of peace that's what the ego is doing is we have to recognize that the goal is not your perfect unique little snowflake and everyone needs to recognize how amazing it is it is truly the goal is peace of mind.
And we stop feeding the ego.
That is a child having a tantrum.
And the worst way to deal with a child that's having a tantrum is try to tell them to calm down.
The best way to get a raging toddler to calm down is to ignore them.
So this is where kind of the antidote to these internal ones is twofold.
And they kind of go, they're kind of answer the opposite of what might be thinking of what they are.
And it is first just to let go.
As you said, you're the parent on the sideline, right?
It's like, just let them be kids.
Just let them have the experience of playing.
Let them make the mistakes and then give yourself that same grace when you're at work.
Like just Just let go a little bit.
And then when you combine that idea of instead of trying to hold onto the rope, Michael Singer stuff, right?
He says you're tug -of -warring against the entire University of...
He's from Florida, so he goes, you're trying to play tug -of -war with the entire University of Florida football team and you're trying to win this thing.
You're trying to win when instead what you should be doing is like, Luke, let go of the rope.
and what happens when you do that i'm using his when it happens when you do that is the fight's over the struggle's over the ego let's go if you can do that and not only let go of the rope but also kind of what we talked about we're exploring the chatting about the mount washington thing is if you can be vulnerable and actually this is what kills the ego vulnerability kills kills your ego because you go, and here's all my weak spots.
And the ego goes like, no, because what you're doing is going like, Hey, and this is the thing that the ego is trying to hide.
Yeah. Acknowledge it.
Yeah. And you just acknowledge it.
And that's what creates true connection.
I, it's the biggest thing I've learned from my wife is she's so open.
You know, she has a blog called HB, Heather Bergeron, unfiltered.
Like she just is so unfiltered.
she's so open you the moment you meet her like immediately within five minutes you're like okay so we're gonna be best friends so much room for activities so it's this is the way to allow people in to create connection with people and i i wish it's the thing that i knew if i if i had a you know a chance to talk to my younger self that you always get that kind of like what that question If you go back to your 8 -year -old self, your 18 -year -old self, your 28 -year -old self, what is the thing that you tell them?
I would go be vulnerable.
Like share your weaknesses.
When you try to be perfect, when you try to hide things, when you try to – all you're doing is putting space between you and other people.
And I think that between Heather and being a dad and surrounding myself with some really awesome people, that's been the biggest lesson I probably learned in the last 10 years.
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that aren't truly their own or get swept up in status games, comparison, and the priorities of others.
This external focus distracts from the work of clarifying and pursuing what genuinely matters to us, leading to chronic dissatisfaction and a lack of meaning.
This one, just as a callback to an episode we did, we did an episode in October all about the five regrets of the dying.
It's called Cultivating Courage and Minimizing Regrets.
I just want to give them again because I do think it speaks to this quite strongly.
So here are the five regrets of the dying.
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life others expected of me.
Number two, I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Number three, I wish I'd have the courage to express my feelings.
Number four, I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends.
And number five, I wish that I'd let myself be happy.
Yeah, so that's from, I think his name is Bronnie Ware.
And that number one, yep.
The number one is I wish I had the courage to live life on my terms, right?
I'm paraphrasing. True to myself and not what other people want.
That's the number one, like how crazy is that?
That's the number one regret of dying people is that they didn't live in authentic life.
Instead they lived on, which we talk a lot about on here is like they They live on – because it's hearts on fire type stuff.
But they live by default.
They live by what society, what culture, what their parents, what school or what social media and Instagram are telling them are the most important things instead of truly doing what sets their hearts on fire.
Or even better than that, instead of living – they're living by default instead of by design, right?
Right. We need to. Is that the name of Arthur Brooks?
Design your life. Was that it?
There is another life you want.
There is another book called Designing Your Life, which I remember the author, but a professor at Middlebury gave me, which is also really cool design.
It's written by truly designers.
And it's all about being really, really intentional with what you want to do instead of just, hey, mom said, go to private school.
Mom said, go to Ivy League.
Mom said, get a job at Goldman Sachs.
mom said marry the girl and get the white picket fence mom said get a raise right i'm using mom as a you can fill in the other points there right yeah right but it's instead having the courage yep right and that's why one of these things is you said like doing the deep work it's about it's about your character which takes courage to do this there is you kind of even said like we're playing the status games we're kind of rolling Going back to that.
That's what this is again.
We're kind of going, how can I get more respect?
How can I get more attention?
How can I get more prestige and power?
And the way I'm going to do that is by becoming a doctor, becoming a lawyer.
Not because I'm passionate about it, but because those are really well -respected, in air quotes, right?
Really well -respected professions.
That's a distraction from happiness.
this. We want to make sure we're doing what sets us on fire.
It's not your, you know, it's not chasing the career.
It's not chasing the degrees.
It's not chasing your body image.
It is truly what you find fulfillment.
And I think what you said there as well, which I really liked is the doing the, I forget how you said it, but the clarity of finding the clarity of what truly matters.
That's kind of the lead up into our show, right?
It's like chase what truly matters.
So it's another one that's kind of this quiet distraction that if we don't do the intentional deep work, we're going to be default.
We're going to be on autopilot and we're not going to be in control.
And what we want to do is make sure that we're taking control of the very few things that we actually do control.
And while you can't control most of the circumstances in your life, we're also not trees.
So if you want something to change, we can go and change it.
A tree cannot. If you want to go and become a meditation teacher in Costa Rica, because you've done the deep work to know, not because you're avoiding something, not because you're trying to remove yourself from something and that's an escape and another distraction, but because you believe that that is the thing that will ultimately fill you and you're scared to do that because of the ramifications or downstream effects and symptoms of what might come about from other people's judgments, go do that thing.
Like, be brave. Have the courage.
I've been thinking about this whole conversation, and we touched on it a little bit with the four idols one, which is this idea that there was a time when these things kept us alive.
They kept us in the tribe.
That's right. They kept us alive.
Yeah. And as we go through each one of these, I think even from a pop psychology standpoint, which is basically where I come from everything, I can see why all of these things exist in our heads and between our ears.
The pursuit of money and power and prestige keeps us alive, keeps us safe, keeps us in the tribe.
Judging ourselves, expecting things, keeps us safe.
It keeps us within the context of what we know will allow us to get to the next day and the day after that.
Other people's priorities and social pressures keep us in the tribe.
Social pressures could be, hey, you don't steal the food when we come back from a hunt.
Because I know if I steal all the food after you come back from a hunt, I will either be killed or I will be executed.
the tribe needs you to go get firewood.
I know you want to be the artist. We don't need another artist. Go get firewood.
So I think one of the, and I, what you said was like this idea of design, not default.
Really what we're saying is like, we've got to recognize that our brains have not evolved nearly as fast, nearly as fast as the culture in which those brains find themselves.
And so when we talk about this idea of like, of knowing what matters, of chasing what what matters, it's really removing as much as we can, as much as is feasible and realistic, like removing all of the old architecture that did at one point keep our ancestors alive and safe and able to pass their genes on to the next generation.
We've got to be able to strip as much of that architecture away from ourselves so that we can then build something in its place.
But we need to first recognize that, oh, there's all this stuff up here that isn't serving me very well.
It's mal adapted to the world that I find myself in.
So let me pull this down.
Let me pull this down.
Let me move this over here.
Let me build something in its place that doesn't currently exist. That's the process of the design.
That's the design process versus the default, which is like, I guess this is where I live.
And let's see how this goes.
And that's the hard part is it's the it's the work of ripping things down that aren't serving us and building something up in their place that's the work that's the courage that we need to have to do the work because what you're saying is i don't want i don't want to be like this i want to be like that and so in order to get there has to we have to go through this whole process of knocking down to build up and that's really hard and that's really scary and that can feel isolating Isolating.
Yeah, it's isolating because as you said, it's, it's going against the kind of our, our built -in biology, right?
And it's one of the way you frame that up is spot on, which is, yes, this is hardwired.
It's just, it's hardwired, but it also doesn't serve us because we're not looking for survival at this point.
Yep. Survival, the path to survival and the path to happiness are not the same road.
Yep. And once we've kind of established those, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, once we have food, shelter, safety, then it becomes, you know, kind of moving up and looking for the next thing of like looking for community and belonging.
Then it's about looking for the next thing of getting to the point of self -actualization which is happiness if we stay in the default program we won't achieve it because we're going to end up being distracted by these the survival software that's built into us you know so we need to do then is replace the the idols right replace the money prestige power with values right we need to replace the judgments with curiosity we need to replace the the ego with vulnerability we need to start creating better acceptance rather than expectations and the replace those borrowed goals right those things that are being
like pushed on to us with our own vision and that's why when we talk about this framework and we've talked about this a few times but it always starts starts with values and vision.
Like we need that first. Like what's the ends?
You got to begin with the end in mind.
I think too much of us are operating in the default, which is playing these games, right?
Which are going to push us off on the wrong path.
And we're going to go, go, go.
And the kind of stair -step dopamine approach is going to give us this false sense like we're on the right track.
track because wow, now I'm making more money and I'm getting more risks, you know, what looks like respect and I'm getting more when actually, unless we do that deep, meaningful work to clarify what our vision and values are, which is really what this conversation has been about for the last 10 years is really like chase what truly matters.
We're trying to say that what really matters is peace of mind.
That's kind of the end thing that we're actually looking for is if your mind can become like a still pond, right?
That's really a nice place to be.
If you're on a raft on still water, that's pretty phenomenal.
That's amazing. What most of us have in our minds is this tumultuous, rough ocean where we're getting sprayed and we're wet and we're cold.
And we try to solve this thing by just like paddling harder and making a bigger mess of the whole thing.
If we want to be able to have that stillness, that calmness, that peace of mind, it starts with first understanding that is the end goal.
Then what we can do is kind of work our way backwards from that and go like, well, what's the things we want?
Well, to me, it's the next thing we want is freedom.
And that's freedom to's and freedom from's.
Right. Freedom to do what we want.
Freedom to have meaningful relationships.
Freedom to do things that make us feel fulfilled and freedom from disease, freedom from decrepitude, freedom from oppression, freedom from all these other things.
How do we get that?
I think the best path framework we've come up with is these five factors.
That's the framework to freedom, which leads to, and it means if you have physicality from training, if you are healthy, if you have strong connections, if you have peace of working on a warrior mindset, that's the thing that's going to not let outside circumstances, outside pressures, outside society, outside a kid at t -ball game, kind of rattle you and get your mind distorted.
Like we, we have to recognize that it takes efforts.
It takes attention.
Your words are like own your attention.
We always say time is the most valuable thing, but Naval Ravikant, you know, kind of dispelled that as well as like, no, you can have, you spend time with your family, But if you're on your phone with them at dinner, that's not worthwhile because you're not giving them attention.
So where's our attention going?
Is our attention going towards these distractions or is it going truly the meaningful things that are going to take us one step closer to our ultimate goals?
You know, happiness is not something that's just there.
Happiness comes from actions.
We have to take the actions to get there.
there i think most people think that happiness is a default it's just a state and that's not the case happiness is the result of actions that we take meaningfully and intentionally those are our distractions keeping us from happiness we talked about the four idols of money power pleasure and prestige internal psychological traps like judgment expectations and ego and finally surrendering to other people's priorities and social pressures Thank you very much for tuning into the show.
Make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening or watching so you do not miss another episode.
For more frameworks and daily practices, visit chasingexcellence .email.
And don't forget to tap the link in the show notes for today's full listener guide, where we break down the key ideas and provide actionable steps to help you put them into practice.
Until next time, keep building health, finding freedom, and living with your heart on fire.
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