Neil Pasricha
The Happiness Equation
EPISODE 195
What is the formula for a happy life? Neil Pasricha's, The Happiness Equation is a book that will change how you think about pretty much everything—your time, your career, your relationships, your family, and, ultimately, of course, your happiness. Neil Pasricha is a Harvard MBA, a New York Times–bestselling author of the Book of Awesome series and a Walmart executive.
After selling more than a million copies of the Book of Awesome series, wherein he observed the everyday things he thought were awesome, he now shifts his focus to the practicalities of living an awesome life.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, what you do are in harmony”
INTRO
Neil intros the book on BT Network by discussing what drove him to write it
Application of awesome (4m43)
WANT NOTHING
Neil discusses his top 3 tips to start with a happy mindset
Neil Pasricha on the simplest things you can do to be happier
DO ANYTHING
Brian from Optimize talks about freedom and preserving your time
Time block (1m41)
HAVE EVERYTHING
Brian from Optimize talks about doing it
Do Circle (2m18
OUTRO
Neil on CityTV closes the show by hitting us with some hard facts on happiness
Overvalue yourself (2m25)
READING:
The Happiness Equation: Neil Pasricha
If you would prefer a short summary of the book you can find it here on Blinkist.
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 195. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Good
Morning, Mike. I'm feeling pretty darn energetic as well as some might say happy as we reach another classic book within our new happiness series.
I'm pretty excited to dig in. How are you finding the series so far?
Mike I'm actually learning a ton in this series, but I think listening to you, Mark, it sounds like you may have found it. A secret formula, perhaps an equation. Yes,
That's right off the back of our explorations and adventures into Dan Harris, TA Ben Shaha as well as last week's episode on the Dalai Lama today, listeners and subscribers, we are digging into Neil Pasricha, reaching the happiness equation.
Now, Mike, this is a pretty interesting addition. To our happiness series, this book by Neil, who, by the way, has authored about nine books. Several online journals. Interestingly, in this book, the happiness equation was originally written as a love letter to his unborn son.
As to how to live a happy life. And it's the result of a huge amount of searching and research that Neil did for over a decade into the wisdom of many different people. So as I'm thinking about this show and our happiness series, what perfect moments, and now step into like you say, a little bit of a formula or a little bit of an equation and really find out.
How do we become happy? What do you reckon? Does this feel like a good addition to the moonshots
library? Not only is it a good addition to our library market? I actually feel that this is perhaps the most comprehensive playbook operating manual for happiness that we've had yet on this series or the other gurus, superstars and authors that we have learned from so far have given us different angles, different looks at happiness.
And. I think Neil, he's really giving us not only this great equation, but nine secrets to happiness, which after this show will no longer be a secret mark, because all you moonshots will be doing them left right. And center. I think this arche typically classically breaks down really.
Amorphous subject. And what we're going to reveal is through all these clips, there's some big ahas in how we need to think and work on happiness, but also some real practical things you can not do to make happiness, something that you are hoping for. When you've got a little bit more gray hair and you're semi-retired, but we want to invert that future and bring it right into the present.
And I think that's what's on offer with the work of Neil and his book, the happiness equation. So mark, having painted this L. Where do we turn next on this adventure? Do you think we're ready to unleash the happiness equation on our listeners?
Look, I think you've done the perfect setup, Mike, but I think there's one that's even better for our listeners and members.
And that's actually hearing from the author himself, Neil introducing the book to you and I, as well as all our Moonshot's family and really discussing what, not only drove him to write the book, but also how to apply. Awesomeness, the happiness equation is a book that will change how you think about everything, your time, your career, your relationships, your family, and ultimately of.
Your happiness, please welcome the pied Piper of all things. Awesome. And now happy to reach a bestselling all Time, you've done it again with this one. We're all on that. Universal quest. How did you go for the book of awesome, which did so well? Yeah. To this because books of awesome stem from a dark time in your life, it did.
And then my wife told me she was pregnant. Flight home from our honeymoon. And when I landed home in Toronto, I said the same thing as a lot of parents do, which is I want my child to be happy. Yeah. And so I couldn't find an action book, like a manual, on how you actually get there. So I started writing a 300 page word document as a letter to my onboard child.
And that letter is out. Now as the happiness E equation, it really is the letter I wrote to my son.
I was reading it this week and the thing I love is its really digestible chapters. So you say you actually encourage people, read it in different places. Yeah. How come well,
because your brain is stimulated by different atmospheres and environments.
If you crank it all out on one flight, that's great. But if you take it with you to the park, if you have it in your bag, some people have written reviews online, indigo CA saying, I'm gonna take it with me to the bathroom. You know what I mean? Everyone's got a different place and different places and times can provoke different thoughts and differences.
Sensory
memories, right? Yeah. So one thing that you do is you talk about this equation and oftentimes we say study hard, plus get good grades. Equals happiness. Yeah. You believe we should start with happiness. And it's what?
How . Exactly. Everyone goes, grows up thinking that, it's true.
My parents are immigrants. They said, study hard, get good grades, be happy, work, really hard. Get promot. Be happy, but if you actually be happy first, if you choose to be happy, then you do great work. You're more productive, you're more creative. And then you have big success later. So you're asking me, how do you be happy first?
Yeah, there's a whole bunch of exercises that are proven to work. You can journal for 20 minutes at the end of the day, about one positive thing. You had happened that day. You can go into a brisk 20 minute walk. You can write down five gratitudes. You can close your eyes and meditate for a few. Little simple things like that are proven to spend just 20 minutes a day and increase your happiness over time.
Yes. You talk about that. The habits the habit forming. Exactly. So if it's seven straight days, I just do it. I walked 20 minutes a day for seven straight days. I can do it in another sentence. Exactly. All of a sudden you've built this really good habit because you know what? Tina, everyone thinks motivation causes action.
Actually, what we found is that. Action causes motivation. Yeah. There's a principle in here on how I couldn't learn. I didn't know how to swim, eventually when I just forced myself to sign up, I think I can. And then I want to do it. It's the same with any fear you have in your life. Yeah. And you say that 10% talk about when you talk about 10% is what's given to us versus how we.
See the world. We have a lot of flexibility there. Yeah. People will say what if I can't be happy? I'm just not now what? And the truth of the matter is science suggests that only 10% of our happiness is based on our circumstances more than four times greater than that. As a result of our intentional activities, meaning no matter who wins the US election, you can actually control your happiness more.
Going on a walk, having a good dinner with your family, writing down five grandkids or going around the table and just saying, Hey, what was the highlight of everybody's day? Yeah. As simple as that. And you
mentioned also a chapter about the blue zones and centennials yeah. And studying, how are these people living to be a hundred hundred, one, 102 it's something called. Ikigai.
What is Ikigai? The dream we all have that is completely wrong is retirement. We all wanna retire, but truthfully it's the totally backwards concept. The healthiest societies in the world. Like those of Okinawa in Japan have no word for retirement at all. Instead they have a word called icky guy.
Iki G I, which means the reason you get up in the morning, what is your purpose? If you don't know where you're going, you won't know how to get there. A big source of our happiness is our work and work gives us so much. It gives us social structure, stimulation, and story. And as a result, we become richer and we feel happier.
So many incredible tips. And I know you are now committing your life to all things happiness. You've created your own Institute.
The Institute for global happiness, working to increase happiness in organizations. We found that the place people spend most of our time at work is a, also a big place where people can improve their happiness around the world.
So it's true. I'm lucky
enough to have my passion be my job, but listen, I had the crappy jobs where you had to do it because you had to do it. A lot of people have no choice and they hate their work life. How do you get happiness? If you feel like you have no choice, but to do what you're doing
right now?
You have to think about, do I have friends at work? Am I getting social fulfillment? Do I have stimulation? Am I always learning something new? And do I believe in this story, do I believe in the big picture mission of the place I'm at, you have to have those things in order to feel happy doing it.
Yeah. And you
can make change bit by bit, even if you're stuck in that situation now to get
out of
it. Mark, that may have been just such a big clip. I think we could just spend the rest of the show, unpacking that clip from Neil. That was epic. Wasn't it? Yeah.
He obviously not only introduces what led him to write the book.
The happiness equation which as we've heard was a kind of love letter to his unborn son. But also he's really calling out along with the presenter from BT channel, is this being manual or a playbook or a set of actionable steps that we can all bear in mind as. Open our eyes every morning.
And we go out with intention into our day's happiness. Isn't something that we're racing towards. I think this is quite a big reveal and a big build for me, Mike, as somebody who certainly grew up with the idea of, let's say reaching the point of buying a nice car and then being happy or getting into a nice house and being happy.
It was always happy at the end of this equation, this series of actions. I certainly was one of those people. And I think this is a really interesting build, similar to what we heard. Last week with the dial Lama, how happiness is a muscle that you should work on. And over time it kinda gets stronger and stronger.
I think the same penny drop moment or aha moment for me is happening right now with Neil, which is happiness should be the thing that you begin with and that you have as an intention, because then it can lead you to so many other things and moments of enjoyment within your day.
Like I said, there's a lot to unpack here so you're absolutely right. Bringing happiness forward. I love this idea. I love the idea that you don't have to defer it. And I think this works beautifully with the idea in Tim Ferris's book, the four hour work week, which is why you would defer life work like a dog till you're like 60 defer friendships and health.
And then with this idea of now I've got all this money, but you're not well, and you don't have any friends cuz you didn't invest in either. I think this really parallels. I think this idea that he mentioned in that clip, mark, that actually you do control upwards of 90% of your happiness, right? That's within your circle of control.
And so it's a choice to build the actions and the habits. Everyone is happier. You don't have to sit there. At your desk wondering if one day I'll reach the summit of the mountain, the happiness mountain. No, you can just go out and do it. And this bias towards action is something as well, mark, that he mentioned in a clip.
This is another big moonshot topic, having a bias towards action, getting it done. And the fact that you can start by doing things to bring you happiness, and it won't be easy. But you can crack on and build these habits. It's James' clear atomic habits, the intersections we're seeing already, we've only had one clip mark, and we're already referencing the entire moonshots library.
Yeah. Oh my gosh. Neil, what have you done here? Look, I think this is setting us up for an action pack show. In fact, what we're going to do, mark is we're gonna. The equation that we mentioned has it right there on the cover of the book. Want nothing plus do anything equals, have everything. And there's a whole set of ideas under that.
You could say it is a bit like pursuing contentment and freedom, and then happiness will come. We're gonna show you how to do it. We're gonna talk about how we, in our humble little ways, attempt to build these habits too. And together we can learn out loud and unpack the happiness equation. And I think this is exactly what we're about on this show, learning out loud, doing it together, and the people who are doing it the most.
Are in fact our members aren't they? Oh I couldn't agree more, Mike. So as tradition dictates going out, giving you all a lunar power dose of good karma, as well as the moonshots family. Thank you, goes out to Dan D Bob Niles, John Terry, Nile Moline, Ken, and. Marja and Connor, Rodrigo and Yasmine. Lisa Sid, Mr.
Bonk and Maria Paul and Berg, cowman and David, Joe, and crystal Evo and Christian hurricane brain, Sam Kelly, Barbara, Bob, Andre, and Matthew, Eric and Abby Hoi and Joshua, Chris and Kobe, Damien Deborah Gavin. Lasse Tracy, Steve Craig and Lauren. Javier Daniel, Andrew, Ravi, and ive. Maybe I've got closer to pronouncing that name right this week.
Mike I think Mark, were you gonna take you for a Dutch course? I need to get more Dutch as we would say a learn the less Is avert fun. He will now become the most famous moonshot member. Yes. That's it true? What is usually your strength is your phonetics and linguistics avert Julio Dunkel. It is great to see people joining us and mark we're gonna have to get you on a Dutch course.
Are you ready for that? I am. I am. After we finish the happiness series, I'll get into it. I'll book myself in for a bit of linguistics. Education. very good. Very good. Listen, thank you to our members. We are deeply appreciative of your support. We also really do admire and respect the fact that you guys stick around every month for your lunar powered dose of.
Good karma, moonshot, karma, so that you can shoot for the moon and do your very best. Thank you so much for your support. It helps us pay for all the bills that we get. And as I always mentioned, the more popular our show becomes the more expensive it gets for us because our hosting provider loves to send us very big bills for all the hosting costs.
So we really do. Appreciate your support because you see value in the value that we're creating. And we love the fact that we can do this all together and learn out loud together. Now it wouldn't be a moonshot show. If we didn't dive into throwing ourselves into formulas, habits and frameworks, and boy marks, we'd have a good one here.
In fact, we're gonna start with this first big pillar. What Neil. Past three, two calls in the happiness equation, the one, nothing bucket, he's got three secrets in that. And of course we picked the one that we think is the big power idea. And it's this real notion of being happy first. So let's have a listen to Neil, the author talking about.
Happiness. What are the simplest things I can do to be happy? Here's my first question. Do you have an hour? Can you gimme an hour? No. This YouTube video is not gonna be an hour long. I'm just gonna give you three things that each take 20 minutes. If you can do them for an hour, I guarantee that an hour from now, you are gonna feel in a better mood.
All three things are simple. They are easy and they will get this done. Number one, get outside and go on a brisk 20 minute nature walk. Okay. A research report from Michael BA. Publishing the journal of psychosomatic medicine showed that brisk nature walks actually perform antidepressants and more interestingly, the combination of antidepressants and nature walks, I'm saying just the walking alone outperforms the other two.
So first thing you gotta do is put on your running shoes, go outside, find a forest, find some trees and just walk around. Okay. Preferably with no lawnmower in the background for yourself. Number two, when you get home, that's 20 minutes, you got 20 more minutes. I want you to do the 20. Do you play? This means you get a pen or a pencil.
You get us on paper and you journal for 20 minutes about one highlight of your day earlier this day, or from yesterday, you say, Hey, it was so great. I was out in the park, the lawnmower drove far away. The sound went down, whatever you want, just write it down because you know what happened? Your mind has something called the visual cortex in it.
There's an area in it called area 17. When the lawnmower drives away, that area lights up. When I write about the lawnmower, driving away that. Lights up again. When I read my own journal about the lawnmower driving away, that area lights up a third time. That's why I call it the 20 minute replay, because you are replying to yourself the highlights of your day, by the way, research on journaling was done by slasher and Penta baker down at the university of Texas.
And they found that couples in a relationship were 50% more likely to stay together in their relationship if they simply journaled for two weeks. Okay. Number three, now you're 40 minutes deep. Now you got 20 minutes left. Here's my final piece of homework for you. Read 20 pages of fiction, read 20 pages of fiction, according to a 2011 report in the annual review of psychology reading fiction fires your mirror neurons.
Yeah. I'm using neuroscience to answer all this stuff for you guys today because you know what? You gotta use the latest research in order, prove this to your left brain self. Okay. You don't think that reading 20 pages out of 50, you think I don't have time for that? I don't get it. Let's read. Are you there? God, it's me Margaret by Judy bloom.
Yes, you do. You need time. You need to make the time. Cause it'll make you feel better when you're lying in bed with Margaret talking to God, you feel like you're there. Those mirror neurons fire. If you're reading the boys on the boat, you're a boy in the boat. If you're reading Hamilton, you feel like Hamilton.
So we know from the research that empathy, compassion, sympathy, and understanding in yourself all increases. Our reader lives a thousand lies before he dies. Anne who never reads lives. Only one 20 pages of fiction takes you into another life. And it absolves you a little bit and it makes you worry less about your own problems to summarize.
Go on a breast 20 minute nature walk, do a 20 minute replay of journaling about something awesome in your day. And finally read 20 pages of fiction. If you can do those three things in one hour, come talk to me, leave me a comment at the end. Tell me how you feel. I guarantee you, you will. Better and you will feel happier.
Boom, Mike. Look, Neil's done our job for us. Three such practical tips that are so easy, I would argue to inject into our lives and
you can do them right now. Huh?
You could do them, right? Maybe not right now, cuz we want, obviously, our listeners to finish the podcast to finish the podcast unless you're doing the 20 minute walk section.
Of course that's fine. But for me, I really think that I should actually go back to Robin Sharma's 5:00 AM club. Oh
totally. I was having the same thought, like he has a different system for. Three things in an hour, Neil has the same, but of the three walk journals and reading fiction, which one do you do the most?
And which one is, are you doing the least? I think the one thing I do the most is walking, getting outside, which is great. As we've talked about on the show before, the idea of daily exercise for me is pretty essential. Not necessarily because I'm a gym nut, but more because it just helps me think.
It helps me clear my head as well as appreci. The I guess the outside living within Sydney, then I do a fair amount of journaling. This idea of reflection, this idea of replay. I think that's a nice build. Isn't it? The idea of not only comparing everything in your head onto a piece of paper, but actually reliving, maybe joyful moments as you're writing them down.
Wasn't it good to hear the science behind that and how relieving it helps you? Feel that emotion again and how good that is for you?
I never really thought about it like that. Even when we were digging into Matthew McConaughey's green lights and he. As we remember he was reliving those big moments when he was reflecting and rereading his journal.
I think where we're hearing, what we're hearing from Neil is actually a build on the idea or the value of journaling. Once we hear about that science and the couples staying together, 50% more because they just journal for a couple of weeks together. This idea of. Seeing real scientific benefit behind a fairly simple act of journaling is not necessarily something that I think we've come into.
So that's a great build, but I actually really like this addition of the read fiction, Mike, I think this idea of living maybe a thousand lives. Rather than just your own, because you're living through fiction. I think that, again, that's a nice, lovely little build as I consider this idea of happiness.
And you know what I do read fiction almost daily. But not because of the reasons. That Neil mentions there, but simply because I do it at the end of the day, in the evening, before I go to sleep. And I've always found that if I read something work related, it gets me thinking about work and then I become restless and I want to jump on it and work on it.
So my, the really funny thing about my habit is I deliberately read. Anything and everything except anything work related. Yeah. So I won't even read things about productivity late at night, because that'll just get me too excited about being productive. So I'm really delighted to hear that there's actually some deeper reasons for that.
And, mark, it is, it's really quite a wonderful experience to read fiction at night before you go to bed, because it takes you to another world and you. Creates just some separation and it makes, for me, it just sets the scene perfectly to go to sleep. Frankly I'm hooked on all three markers and there, I know they're a huge part of my day.
I think that the underrated Fact is that if you do each of these three things, you can start with 10 minutes of walking, 10 minutes of journaling, and 10 minutes of reading. But there really is some truth to doing them every day in there, there is like we, we learned about the compound effect from James clear in atomic habits.
But I. I, I want to know what's your experience been making these things religious for you? Like every single day? What benefit has it brought you and how do you make sure you do it every day?
I think the beneficial. That I see from exactly like you say I would certainly reference James clear here as well, this compound interest.
And it's very much something that I think we were, again, referencing going back to Dai Lama, the idea of your concept of happiness. Maybe it's like a muscle and your gratitude. Compounds and gets bigger. The more and more you reflect on something, that you feel G gratitude towards. Let's say it's a blue sky.
The more you notice and have gratitude for the blue sky, the more happy you feel next time you see it because you are building it up. So I really like this idea of gratitude specifically. Maybe I'm biased because. Halfway through a happiness series, but that's something I've been working on for a while.
And it's quite fascinating to see the effect it does have by just something that we've probably referenced on the show many times, and a lot of moonshots that we've covered have maybe referenced the idea of gratitude. You were talking about Tim Ferris earlier and it's something that I think I can definitely see having a build.
And becoming maybe a little bit more noticeable every time I do it. And the way that I encourage myself to do it is again, the listeners and members are probably bored of us saying it, Mike, but it's to-do lists. And specifically it's the software Todoist whereby I'll get a daily reminder to go through exercise or notice something around me or pick up the phone and call a loved one, whatever it might be.
It's something that after a while becomes something that you don't really need the list for anymore. It just becomes a habit. Doesn't it? You do it a number of times and slowly yeah. Starts to become more regular. How about.
I definitely try to get things journaling. I always front load into the morning and read in the end and I always try to walk or run before 11:00 AM.
That's how it plays out for me. Interesting thing. Anytime after lunch, I forget that just running is just not happening for me. So I 'll take a walk. I love a really practical way to incorporate walking if you have a good enough cell connection, if you have a call where you can just take it walking, you get a two for one dam.
Yeah. You
get your exercise and you're a little bit more productive doing your job. Yeah,
That's true. So I think you're right. Allocating These as daily todos. I literally have had 30 minutes of exercise, either walking or running in my to-do list as a daily thing, seven days a week, four years and years.
And I live by it. And there are times when I know I've got busy mornings and things. Like I can find myself at four going, oh my gosh, I still haven't walked. Oh yeah. So it is building this system with your, to dos, but also looking at the day parts. And really I think you have to be really tough on yourself.
That I would say these three things, not just the pursuit of happiness, but just feeling good in yourself. I like what I would categorize as non-negotiables. Yeah.
They're essential. Aren't they, in my life there's certainly things that I need to do. Maybe not necessarily specifically in order to feel happy, like you say, I think happiness in, in, in that case is almost a.
A happy accident, maybe , it's something to just get me in the frame of working efficiently and thinking efficiently. And happiness, I think maybe is actually although maybe not the intention, but it's certainly the outcome and that's therefore, what makes you maybe a little bit of a better leader, better partner?
Whatever it might be. I think That's true. So what we've done now, Is we've really addressed the first part of Neil's equation. Haven't we got nothing correct.
That's right. Which I think in itself is as we heard from Neil earlier the other way round, instead of working towards happiness, look at this, we're only halfway through the show, Mike, and we've already given away the answer
Yeah but it's a big one. Make happiness a priority today, make this moment a happy moment. Don't defer it because you'll always be chasing that. But mark, what comes next? If we've got nothing right. Be happy right now. Be content at this moment. What comes next?
Yeah, if we are content in this moment, and as we heard from Tal Ben, Shaha working on your own, happiness is not a selfish act.
You're doing it for yourself. What then comes next within NEPA Reach's happiness equation is the idea of doing anything, Mike, and I think similar to what you were saying earlier, if you've got your first part of the want, nothing helping us all achieve and notice, and maybe being a little bit more content.
The do anything space within this equation is really more about this idea of freedom and what we're gonna hear next from our next speaker, actually, Mike, within the show is a little guy that our members and subscribers have heard from before, which is Brian from optimize. And Brian is now going to help us really understand this concept of freedom and how we can preserve our time with a little action called time block.
Second big idea is to add one hour to your day. How do you add an hour to your day? Neil tells us to block access to you. In another episode on procrastination, we talked about the fact that simply removing email notifications and not distracting yourself with those email notifications would actually add an hour of time.
No, it was a month to your year. This is what these guys, the experts in procrastination said, you'd add a month to your year. If you simply removed email notifications, that's crazy. Add an hour to your day and you add 250 hours of the course of a year. That's over six. Again, how do you block access to you?
Too many people are constantly available from anyone at any time via any medium. You can text me. You can email me, you can call me on this number or that number. You can do whatever you wanna do. Get in touch with me. I'm always available. When you're always available and you don't block access to your mind, you can't get any deep work done, Cal Newport style, right?
You need to create those time blocks, where people can't get in touch with you. And as you do that, You're going to do better quality work and a higher quantity of work he talks about. And we talk about it a little bit more in the note, having a bell that people can ring, if you really need someone, if someone really needs to get in touch with you fine, they can do this one way to get in touch with you.
But you don't have an infinite number of ways. So think about that. Create those deep work time blocks by blocking access to you. And you're gonna boost the number of hours you have in a day. Neil also talks about the myth of multitasking. Won't go off on that right now.
So true. The myth of multitasking, but talk about bringing back one of the classic moonshot practices, which is time blocking, like owning your calendar and there is nothing better than taking something that's really important and feeling.
A bit frustrated cuz you can't get to it today, but the release comes when you plan it for tomorrow or the day after. And you can be good with the fact that something important has been planned into your calendar. If you wanna learn more about doing that, you need to get into the Eisenhower matrix, which we've studied a fair bit.
So head over to moonshots.ao, check it all out. We've got lots there on the eyes inhow matrix, but. If you want to have space if you don't block your calendar, lots of things are gonna sneak in there. Particularly if you're working with a team, right? All these calls start appearing in your calendar.
And then the other thing is that you are also competing for your attention. Notifications are flying in left, right and center. So either you are gonna be bashed around by notifications and hundreds of calls. Or you are gonna take control of the situation. And I think that's how you get some freedom.
You dictate the terms, not others. It's very in line with what we learn from Cal Newport and a world without email. Isn't
it totally is. And I think the build that Brian is helping us understand from Neil pest Reach's work is how connected. The idea of happiness is to feel overwhelmed, distracted.
We've heard about the value of digital minimalism and time blocking from Cal Newport. And I think the great build that I'm seeing here is if you want to be more efficient and do a higher quantity of work, but also a better quality of work compare, mentalizing your day. Taking ownership and prioritizing it and preserving your time is a way to do that.
But I like the addition of, and if you do this, you will be happier because you'll be maybe more relaxed and you'll feel that the output. That you are creating for your team or your business is a lot higher. You'll be more patient, if I've got slack messages or text messages, phone calls, calendar invites, I'm therefore gonna be distracted.
And let's say I'm simultaneously looking into a show on Neil PK. We're pulling together the moonshot show. If I've got all these things going on, what's naturally gonna happen. Or the quality of work will go down and that'll make me unhappy because I want the quantity or sorry, the quality of the work that I create to be as good as I can.
Exactly. And I love that connection and that build that we're now hearing from something that. We've uncovered or discovered before and now seeing it connected into this realm of happiness again, yes. Is such a valuable build I'd say.
Yeah I can only encourage all of our listeners to, get into some time blocking, allocating time in your agenda and the best thing to do.
As I've found every Monday, look at your calendar and claim time that is allocated to your priorities. So if you need to work on a report block that time, like nine o'clock Monday morning, you need to be blocking that time for the rest of the week. What gets a little bit next level is if you do reflect on your midterm calendar, so I'm talking.
Over the coming weeks or months. One of the things that I do is I write down the key dates for the coming two months for myself, particularly with travel, social commitments or big deliverables or. Events that I'm involved in. And that helps me block out time cuz I'm like, Ooh, I might need time to prepare, work on things, travel time, all of those sorts of things, all those things that you tend to forget about.
And then you realize, oh, I've planned a call when I need to be traveling all of those sorts of things. Know that freedom comes from taking control of your space, be that as a calendar where you're gonna be the effort, the time, the allocation, the preparation for things like carve things out in that calendar and good things will happen.
And mark, I tell you who else has got good things happening for them? Is Alan B 73 from Canada, cuz you know what he did mark. He went into his apple podcast app and he left us a very nice note.
Isn't that amazing, Mike, the fact that we can hear from you, our listeners, every single time you leave us a rating or a review, including a B 73, who's calling out the podcast is inspirational, brings to mind best practices and cutting edge ideas that we can start implementing L and B.
You are totally right. That's exactly the intention and objective we have here. On the moonshot show and for listeners who are dialing in every single week, please hop along to your podcast app of choice, whether it's Spotify or apple podcast or any of the other multitudes out there and leave us a review because it really does make a difference.
Doesn't it, Mike? It really does. And it doesn't matter where you are. We've got Roro cocoa from France, leave us a review. Lofi from Vietnam also left us a review. So it doesn't matter where you are on this wonderful planet. You can learn out loud together. You can leave us a rating or review. It really helps people discover the show.
We're very grateful for it. When our listeners and members get in there and give us a thumbs up, give us a five star leave. A rating or a review. And if you wanna take things next level, you can certainly start by reviewing or rating our show. The other thing you can do is you can get into the do circle, which is something that is essential for happiness,
the do circle.
So most people, when they think of motivation, think of it along these lines, they think that it needs to go, okay I can do, I think I can do something. And then in order for me to actually do it, I also need to want to do it. And then if those two things are in place, I will do it. This is how I certainly often think about motivation.
I need to think I can do it. I need to wanna do it. And then boom, I get to doing it. He says that's one way to do it, but a much more effective way to do it is to make the,
do a circle. So rather
than think you need to go through this equation, why don't you just do it? And then as you do it, you get a deeper belief that you can do it, and you create a momentum such that you want to do it.
The due circle, starting with the do, rather than think you need to have these things in place first.
And what's funny is
the day that I got this book and the day after I got this book and I was reading it, I took a break to interview tall, Ben Shahar, tall. Ben Shahar is one of my favorite teachers. One of the world's leading positive psychologists.
And he has a great idea on dealing with procrastination called the five minute takeoff. So I asked him about that and it's basically the due circle. And he said, look, He's a professional writer, basically he's a teacher and he writes and he loves to write. But most morning he says he doesn't feel like it.
He doesn't want to write in the morning. But that doesn't matter. He knows because he's a scientist studying these things that feelings often follow behaviors that by taking action, you actually feel inspired even if you didn't feel inspired in the beginning. So this is the whole Chuck close inspiration is for amateurs.
The professional gets this due circle and they just do it. And when you do it, Neil goes back to his favorite physicist, right? Sir, Isaac Newton, first law, right? Is an object in motion tends to stay in motion. When you start doing something there's a momentum that's created and the positive feelings follow you, engaging in the behavior.
So remember if you're telling yourself, you need to feel like you can do it, you need to really want to do it in order to do it. You can flip that around, just do it. And then you're gonna have a growing sense of being able to do it and wanting to do it, et C.
I love this idea, Mike of the do circle or as Brian references, Taren SHA ha's five minute takeoff.
I think the do circle for me is a, an easier, visualization this. Constantly feeding itself, process whereby if I start to do something, I'm then inspired to do it again. And again, going back to the James clear work that we were referencing earlier with the 1% better, as well as a Tomic habits.
I think this is again, really feeding that fire. Isn't it. If you can just start to do something with a little bit of intention, let's say it's noticing. That you're feeling happy, or you have gratitude for something. If you start to kick it off, gradually the momentum will build and it'll become easier and easier over time.
And again, it's going back to this equation. Isn't it. You don't reach the end and hang up your coat and say all I'm done. It can go back and feed itself. I think it's such a, an interesting visual.
First of all, It just made me think we actually have on our future show list coming up soon.
A Isaac Newton show, nonetheless. Huh?
I know I couldn't. We have placed that clip from Brian.
Anymore now let's so let's get into this. I cannot tell you how many times in my younger years, I. Allowed fear of failure or self doubt, stop me from even attempting things. That feeling of, oh, I'll never be any good.
Or the goal is too big and I cannot stress how much I work on this bias towards action. A big theme that's coming from Neil's book actually. Starting small is the best way to do it. I mentioned earlier you want a journal? Just write one word. We've talked about this before. Haven't we mark. If you're not much of a writer and you want a journal, just say.
Answer this question. How do I feel now in this moment? One word. And what's the bet mark, pretty soon. You'll say actually I got more to say than just the one word, right?
Yeah. Yeah. It's similar to Neil's advice about the 20 minutes at a time. If you are starting to, let's say, read for 20 minutes, you might realize actually I'm getting quite a lot of value outta this.
I might carry. And again, this comes back to this idea of the do circle. Doesn't it. If you have that bias towards action and you start to just do something, whether it's one word or one minute of an activity, a positive activity a day, then gradually you start to appreciate, Hey, this easy, that a really fun or B, this is easy.
You're then going to, at least in, in my experience, Mike, going to create more of a pattern to follow it because you get something out of it. It's exactly the same experience that I had with journaling. It was a bit of a struggle at the beginning. I was overthinking it. Yeah. I was thinking too much about what I was writing.
What did I want it to be? Dear journal. This is what I did today, or was it something that I wanted to become a bestselling book in 30 years time, I was in too much of my head gradually over time though, maybe it was as quick as a couple of days or maybe a week or two. I started to get into the swing of it.
So to speak. I started to just immediately pick up the pen and just start writing rather than sitting back thinking, what should I write? And it became quite easy and in it, because of it became, let's say easy or less frictional, I then enjoyed it a lot more. And then it became a lot more. Of a habit because that bias towards action had encouraged me just to, to pick up the pen one day and just start doing it.
Was that a similar experience to yourself? I know you've been journeying for a long
time. Yeah. And I see that pattern in a lot, mark. Like I'm always like break things into small things and just start. And it's amazing. How I still have to go, no, Mike, you don't need to think about it anymore.
Just do it, Mike. And I think just propelling yourself and just being ready to say, okay, let's see where this takes me. Try and what's so good is once you have been on a path of mastery, One time in one part of your life, then you can always then go. It basically starts have a go try experiment, start building habits, gradually increase over time, build the confidence, reflect on what's working, reflect on.
What's not working and, change and adapt. To me that seems to be like this due circle is build momentum through starting small and growing from there. This to me. It's not just an equation for happiness. It's life itself, isn't it?
Yeah, exactly. And it's funny. I think the blocker that a lot of us have to action.
The thing that we don't want to begin exposing ourselves to is the fear of not being happy with the end result. Isn't it? Whether let's, again, going back to the idea of journaling, what's it gonna be? Do I want it to eventually be reread and. It reminds me very much of Elizabeth Gilbert with big magic, the idea of creativity instead of constantly overthinking or worrying about what it is that you're gonna go and create instead, just enjoy that journey and enjoy the fact that nobody else has done it like you have and whatever you create will be valuable to you.
Yes, even if it's just an experience. And I think that's the thing, as I'm thinking about happiness, as well as the actions, and these is very action, heavy equation from Neil PCHA is rather than worrying about where it is that you are going to lead again, similar to where Neil goes. You actually start with that end result, which you're trying to achieve.
Happiness. And then you can enjoy that process and that journey that you go on in order to get, as he calls out, have everything because. By that point, you are more comfortable with what it is that you are trying to maybe achieve what it is that you are trying to keep within your do circle.
You're more considerate around how you respect your time. And it does, it just begins with that acceptance and ownership that you just gotta start today and see where it leads you.
I think mark that we are in a war. Each and every one of us and the war Wein is with self doubt with our egos with fear and what we continually learn, whether it's the pursuit of happiness with Neil PK, whether it's the pursuit of doing.
Uncommon things with David. Gogans what we have to realize is that so much of the battle is in our minds that is stopping us from going out in the world and doing the things and being the best version of ourself. And I think that if we can do anything for each other and for our listeners, mark is to make a, make everybody aware that it begins with.
The choice to not accept fear and self doubt as a default, but rather to accept they are conditions that we can overcome. And I believe what we are seeing here as we think about happiness is that we can actually find that happiness in our day with those small things, those walks, those that journal.
All those sorts of things that can bring us happiness in the, now it is a choice to go and make those happen. It's a choice to prioritize them. And I think all of this is a different way of saving that you need to get yourself, if you wanna make. The people around you, right? If you wanna take care of them, support them, help them have fun with them.
Enjoy life with them. You need to focus on getting yourself, and that is conditioning yourself to get out there, get through the self doubt the little whispers and the little words, the fear of failure. Get through all of that and just have a go. Make the best version of yourself, just 1% better every single day And if you just keep on that, you will truly go places and to bring this all together, let's have a listen now to Neil Pacha talking about. Of evaluating yourself. What's
the Ikea wardrobe kind of manual, how do you make this happen in your life? And so in the book, they have all kinds of secrets, things like going on three 20 minute walks a week, doing some meditation, a journaling practice, they're simple, but as you pointed out, we're all too busy these days.
So the book doesn't offer new age wisdom. It offers age old wisdom. It's things that we all know. But we just don't do. And the whole goal of the book is to get people to start practicing some of the simple things that are proven to drive your
happiness. Okay. So some of those things, and we are in the middle of tough times here in our province and speaking to an audience who could have those concerns while money is stressing me out, or , unemployment things like this.
So it is really. The 20 minute walks the meditation. Sure. Are those really gonna change people's
lives? I do have another secret in the book called how to make more money than a Harvard MBA. Harvard MBA makes a graduating salary of $120,000. People get very obsessed with these numbers, but I do a little, a bit of math and I compare the Harvard MBA salary to a teacher and to an assistant retail manager.
And it turns out all three. Pay $28 per hour. When you do the math, Harvard MBA works way more hours. They don't have time to spend it with their kids or time to shovel their own driveway or time to watch their garden come up in the spring, which I know will happen eventually, sometime around soon. So it's like the point is to overvalue yourself.
Okay. I know the economy's in a hard place, but. Think about your time, know that it's the precious, most precious resource of all the richest man in the world. Can't buy more time. So how do you overvalue yourself to make sure you're doing something you actually love
and the richest man in the world can't necessarily buy happiness or contentment, as you mentioned.
Yep. Now it was really, it was your son. You mentioned to me during the break as well that your wife revealed too, that you were going to be having a baby on your honeymoon, which is so exciting on the plane. Now, is this something. Really changed you. Yeah. He seemed to have had this positive attitude
for a long time.
Oh, thank you for saying that. My parents were immigrants to Canada. My mom is from Kenya. My dad is from India. I feel lucky that as a child, like a lot of people, I got to grow up under the sense of wonder that an immigrant has in this new country, when they went skiing for the first time, it was my first time.
Yeah. When we went canoeing for the first time, it was my first time. And so I got that awe and wonder for the world around. I have another secret on remembering the lottery and appreciating how much we already have. Just the fact that we are alive, that we get to live in Canada, that we have our health that we have, so much going for us is something that I try to appreciate every day.
It's not always easy. But it can be done. Yes.
Wow. Mike that's Neil. PCHA bringing at home for us within the happiness equation of show 195. Neil's touching upon the value that I think we have started to uncover. And dive into in today's episode around these different practices. And for me, he's really specifying in that clip, this idea of respecting or valuing or overvaluing as he calls it your time that you have available in order to.
Enjoy yourself in to be the best version of yourself, with others, with your colleagues, with your family, with your friends and this connection. He's he calls up about the the Harvard and versus teacher salaries, I think is quite an interesting one because it, I, and I, the reason why I think it's quite interesting is just the let's call it the avoidance of ego.
I. Instead of trying to be orientated around doing something that you are. You are feeding your ego with, I think, where he is calling out there. And obviously it's quite a quick little clip. He's specifying respect the time that you have and enjoy it no matter what, because at the end of the day, it all works out in the end.
We're all human. The Darai Lama was saying. So just enjoy the time that you do have, because at some. That time will we'll run out, unfortunately.
The reminder for me is every day, every hour matters and. Cherish it, and there's a great Steve jobs quote which has been paraphrased by many others, which is live every day.
Like it's your last right? And that's certainly a very good way to prioritize the things you're going to do make sure it counts, quality time with friends be present at the dinner table. With family, those sorts of things really putting a value on yourself and going out and giving yourself a chance to shine in this world.
Don't accept terms that are not healthy. If you are a slave to your job, that doesn't bring you fulfillment and satisfaction and you spend 40, 50, 60 hours a week doing that. How can that be a good thing? How can that right.
And the truth is as I think we're uncovering on the happiness series is there's only one person who can call this out or who can stop it, or, and
it's a choice.
It's a choice. It's an outcome that you wait around for, right? No.
It's something you have to, all of us have to proactively take ownership of right here right now, because it will have an effect in the long run. It will have an effect on the way that we manage others on the way that we prioritize our work on the hours that we spend doing it by something as simple as, prioritizing your week ahead.
Turning off notifications, maybe those random acts of kindness as the Dar Lama was teaching us last week as well. Yeah. All these things add into Neil's equation,
don't they? They certainly do. And out of these three elements of the equation and these nine steps or secrets which of the mark from Neil pastor Reach's book, the happiness equation, which one is getting some extra examination from.
I th it's a, really, this one's a really tough one, Mike, because we've got to a point of the happiness series where we are bridging mindset, as well as habits and adoption. And there's so many little steps or practices in here that, I really celebrate through the moonshot show already, but actually the big reveal or new way of thinking for me from today is actually the starting with happiness.
So be happy first. Yeah. Which is in his first contentment space of the equation won nothing.
What have I need? Yeah. I like that one. I think the space thing, I think I've the last three or four years have been so busy and dense finding some freedom and creating spaces getting my attention.
Geez. I. Big homework list, mark, but it was a good one. So I wanna say thank you to you mark for joining me on this adventure and thank you to you, our listeners, and especially to our members here on show 195 of the moonshots podcast, where we studied the happiness equation by Neil percher. And boy, did we get a three part equation?
We got. Secrets. And it all started with this idea of don't defer happiness practice, the happiness equation right here, and right now, and it starts with wanting nothing. And we got some great tips for contentment, walking, journally, reading some fiction too. Then the second part, do anything. It's all about freedom.
Preserve your time and calendar block, that thing, protect it. And the third part is have everything. And there's so much inside of that, but you can start with your due circle and you will find some happiness. And this is all coming from this mindset of overvaluing yourself, be the best version of yourself so that you can go out in the world and actually help others be the best version of themselves too.
And I tell you what, that is, what we are all about. On the moonshots podcast. That's a wrap.