#334 - 7 Principles for a Happier Life (Part 7)

0:00If you listen to yesterday's episode all the way to the end, then you heard the special announcement that Nick and I have just launched our first physical product ever. And we're honestly a little bit nervous about it. We have no idea what to expect from launching this thing, but it is the world's simplest gratitude journal. It is called one good thing a day. And we created this thing to scratch our own itch. We have been trying to stick to a gratitude practice for a very long time because we know the power of training our brains to focus on the good that's already in our lives every single day. But we have just found that every single practice that we try is just way too complicated. And that simplification was necessary. So we went out and created our own journal where it's really simple. All you got to do is write one good thing that happened to you that day. And it's so simple that you actually stuck to it. Like I've been sticking to it for a few months now and I can actually see how much it's been rewiring my brain to focus on the good that's already in my life. And as a high achiever, I really desperately needed to.

1:00So if you want to buy one, we are extending the sale that we announced yesterday for world gratitude day where we were offering 21% off. We are extending it for the entire week. We're making it gratitude week. So you can get a special discount right now at onegoodjournal.com. We will once again link it in the show notes all week long. And we hope you check it out. I think you'll really like it. Yeah. Stay grateful. Peace. Happy Tuesday. Back to day seven and the final day of happiness advantage week. Today we're talking about one of the biggest things that can make us happier and why we tend to push it away when we need it most. Like this beautiful. So at this point in the series, you know that Sean Ager went to Harvard. I think we've said it for a physical episode so far. And when he went to Harvard, he noticed another very interesting pattern. And this one is one that I can definitely relate to as a high achiever.

2:03He noticed that when these kids got really, really stressed when there were too many exams on the line and papers do when it just felt like there's no way they can handle this workload instead of reaching out to other people when they actually needed them most, what they would do is become complete hermits and just work even harder, lose less sleep and just lock themselves in a room and basically completely shut out everyone and everything so that they can hunker down and get all of this work that they needed to get done. Yeah, done. But he realized the thing that they most needed to do was the thing that they were avoid, which is connection with other people actually increases your brain's ability to produce positive thoughts to get the results that you want. It's a thing and to handle the stress and thing clearly. And so this is leading us to the seventh and final principle in the series, which is Nick. Always make time for your family and friends, no matter what. And I think what you're saying is so freaking true and we both been guilty of this so many

3:05times as entrepreneurs like when we think, oh, we got to put our heads down now. You know, we went away on vacation. Now we got to get back to the grind and just everyone has to like just basically disappear from our lives for a little bit until we can get this train up and running. Well, just this morning I told you I said you haven't answered anyone's text message to literally just this morning over the last three days since we've gone back from vacation. Nick and I have been in put in about three group texts with three different people making plans, trying to figure out when we're going to hang out next. And Nick has just been completely radio silent. And I said to him this morning, yo, you're literally just not answering people. And what was your response? I just can't engage people right now. Exactly. So you're guilty of it literally as we speak. 100% I admitted it openly. I'm not coming at you. I'm just telling you you're guilty of it right now. So what are you going to do? That's why we make this podcast. It's not because we are on a high horse and we have it all figured out. It's because when this episode comes out in three weeks, I hope that I have finally taken my own advice here and started to make time for the friends and answer all those unread

4:09messages on my phone. Why is this lesson so important? Because when you're stressed out, the truth of the matter is you need to feel a connection to other people who can make that stress feel worth it. That's what I, you know what it reminds me of? You remember the on ramp study that we found recently where like basically they had people stare up at this really steep hill and they had them predict how steep they thought this hill was. And when they were standing next to a friend, they are consistently predicting that this hill was significantly less steep. So just by standing next to a friend, your brain sees the challenges ahead as less problematic, less challenging just to have someone buy your side. It makes life easier. It's so great to have someone buy your side and I can't tell you how many times I've been in that overwhelmed state where it just feels like there's too much to do and not enough time and financial stress and work stress. And then I have one night out with my friends or with you or with my wife and everything just feels like, oh wow, this is what life is like.

5:11Yeah, it's like you cut your snap back to reality like what am I doing? Why am I so locked into this shit to the point where I forget that life is so much more than this thing. Like life is so much bigger than this. So it goes back to our friend Robert Wildinger, right? He wrote the book The Good Life and it's the longest running study on happiness also out of Harvard and it's gone on for over 90 years now, I think close to 90 years. And basically the conclusion of this study was basically the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. Yeah. And you know what I've always found that when I do have those night outs, those nights out, I should say paradoxically, the next day I show up to work and it's like a solution will show up because I was able to like snap out of this matrix that I was in because you could get tunnel vision to the point where your brain literally can't even see solutions because all it sees is problems. It gets so overwhelmed in this own little hermit crab zone that it's like, oh, I just got a go go go go go go go. It's like having blinders on your brain literally can't find out the solutions that it needs

6:13and you convince yourself, just keep going, keep going, keep going, but you're just wasting time. And if you can have the discipline to take that step back to go and remember what's really important, which are the people in your life and take that break and let your mind relax. And when you come back to those problems that obviously are not going away, perspective, it allows you to step outside the problem for a second. No. So you're a family and friends about some of the things you're going through and sometimes just getting that out is all you need to really go back and figure out the solution you were looking for the first place, 100%. So what's the call to action here, Mike? All right. So the call to action for today is going to be extremely simple. We want to finish the challenge off with something that is highly actionable. And so we're going to end it with a simple challenge. Think of one person in your life that you are super grateful to have in your life. Preferably someone that you have not reached out to in a while, an old friend, someone that you connect with every so often, but not every single day. So not like your partner or like someone that you speak to every day, but someone that

7:15you speak to once in a while, but you're still every time you connect with this person, it's like the fireworks go back off and it's like you never even stopped connecting. It's just right away. Boom. Connection happens again. Reach out to that person and let them know that you're grateful for them. And if you have the kuhunas, go and actually phone call them. And if you have even more kuhunas, go and set up an actual in person session with them and actually spend time with them and reconnect with them. And you'll see how important it is to connect with the people that you love. I love them. I think that's a great way to end this happiness, advantage, we hope that you can pull something from this seven day series that makes your life happier in some way, shape, perform. We love you. Thanks for hanging out with us and stay tuned for another three part series.