173. Be Happy First, Then Pursue Your Dreams

Be happy first, then pursue your dreams. Over my years on this planet, I've met so many people who are looking for the fulfillment of their dreams or the achievement of their goals to bring them happiness. They're waiting for some sort of relationship, some sort of accomplishment in the sports world or the arts world, or maybe they're waiting to make a certain amount of money or live in a certain part of the world, whatever it might be, all of those things are great. If those are natural desires for you to grow and learn, pursue those, but be happy first. There's no rule that says that we have to base our happiness on external circumstances.

I remember years ago reading a lot of the work of Dr. Deepak Chopra, and he would talk about the difference between internal reference points of happiness and approval and external reference points. And the short version of it is, when we are counting on an internal reference point, we have a lot more control over that, a lot more say over that. When we're counting on external reference points, such as a possession, a thing, the approval of a person, a relationship with a person, something in the outside world, we have less control, and that's more likely to lead us to not be able to be happy. Dr.

Chopper also talks about the concept of bliss, and he talks about the idea of bliss being this default state of happiness. So not I'm happy because something happened, but I'm happy just because. And so if our default can be something that's happy, we're more likely to be okay with things that don't go our way. So there's this perhaps kind of funny thing called RBF. If you don't know what it is, look it up.

And a lot of people are talking about that as, oh gosh, that's what a person looks like. And it's kind of like this way of what's a person's default look is. It kind of like whatever it might be? Or just as you see people as they get older, and sometimes people seem to have this perpetual or this permanent frown on their face. And I haven't studied the science from this, but I've always wondered, is that what their face was like most of the time, and is that just what their muscles have gotten used to?

And if you're familiar with RBF, that's really the theory or the hypothesis behind it. And so if you want to have a happy resting face, then a lot of this is going to be about just being happy before anything else happens, before any external, before any goal, before any relationship, before any of your sports teams win the championships or whatever it might be. And that's not to say we don't pursue our goals. We absolutely do pursue our goals. We absolutely hustle, we absolutely put everything we have into this, and yet we do that first.

Coming in happy with our cup full. We bring happiness to our work, we bring inspiration to our work, we bring joy to our work. And with that we can then impact and light up the people around us. Rather than coming to our work, hoping to get something from it, and looking at a bunch of other people that are all pulling everybody, hoping to get something, be that person that comes in and brings and gives. And if initially you find that the people around you are not really willing to reciprocate and they're only taking well, then eventually you find other people.

But ultimately you want to be around people that have batteries included. That's a phrase I learned from Dan Sullivan. He says you want to work with people that have batteries already included. You know, when you buy toys and sometimes they say batteries not included. You want to have people with batteries included.

And you want to be one of those people and you attract one of those people the same way it said in romantic relationships, if you want to find Mr. Right or Miss right. You want to find Mrs. Right because she's Mrs. But if you want to find Miss Right, then you want to be the type of person they're looking for.

Not changing who you are, not compromising who you are, but being that. And again, being happy, being full, being in a place where you're whole and bringing that to your business, your work, your life, your relationships, is a much stronger way to do things. So again, bring happiness. Be happy first and then pursue your goals and your dreams. And that way, the entire way, the entire journey, you'll be happy, or at least as happy as possible.

And when you achieve your goals, you'll also be grateful that you achieve those. But it won't be this huge let down once you've either not achieved your goal or sometimes just as similarly achieved the goal and then come down off the mountain. I hope this serves you as always, look forward to helping you impact more people with your work and your mission and your message and make more money and do that with more leverage, with less effort, with less struggle, so you can better enjoy your life outside work, your family, your friends, your freedom and your life. Thanks so much for listening.