Du hast die Ziele erreicht, die dich glücklich machen sollten

0:00This is probably one of the heaviest hammer blows I think for today. This next one, [laughter] this is a real hammer. >> Anger tweeting. Great. >> No, it's not. It's an existential one. >> Oh, fun. >> You've already achieved goals you said would make you happy. >> Yeah. >> You've already achieved goals you said would make you happy. Alex's notes to self, right? [laughter] >> [gasps]

0:24>> Um because we all know the happiness formula which is um when this happens I'll be happy, right? When X I'll be happy or if X I'll be happy. Um and so we you know I I've set up that equation. I'm sure I know you've never set up this equation for yourself in your life, but you know I I've set that up and I think that just serves as as my my biggest reminder. Um but it's also why I probably am a pretty existential nihilist overall. Um because I I've had so much evidence that none of those things quote brought me joy, but the things that we were talking earlier about anticipation being kind of the hot button on pleasure.

1:01>> Y >> I feel like the hot button on joy for me is what I'm doing right now. So like I haven't done the event yet, right? I haven't I haven't given the presentation, but when I'm in the rocky cut scene of like of beating I'm not going to say beating the cow carcass. I'll say it. [laughter] Um I'm trying to avoid certain words. Anyways, um that when I'm when I'm when I'm when I'm putting that work in and doing the reps, like that's when I'm actually my most in flow and enjoying myself the most. And so it's actually a lie that I've been telling myself that like once the presentation goes well, I'll feel good because in some ways now I feel like when the presentation happens, I'll be disappointed because I won't get to do this anymore. I'll have to find something else to pick as a target so that I can get back into my Rocky cut scene. And so I think that that that has taken some time and I've gotten better at it. I really do think I've gotten a lot better at it. Um at least recognizing because the more the more times I've I've had W's and then realized that right afterwards I felt nothing. I had to think back of like what are the things that I enjoyed most in my life and it's always in pursuit.

2:06And I'm like well then why don't I set something really big really far so I can be in pursuit for the longest period of time possible. And that's where I think a lot of people from the outside, you know, they cast their expectations of life onto me and say, "I wouldn't live my life that way. You're always you're always working. You're always doing these things." But it's like, I'm actually always spending my time in pursuit because in pursuit is my button for enjoyment.

2:29>> Well, what about if it wasn't achieving the thing at the end? If the reason that you set yourself goals is exclusively to motivate yourself to enjoy the route toward those goals. And I know that it's not the destination, it's the journey is kind of cliche. And I think this is is slightly subtly different, which is that it's actually about setting the destination. Without the destination, you wouldn't do the journey. Yeah.

2:56>> Like the way that you set goals and then achieve them and the the dopamine and the the trigger that you get. Um I often think about the balance between like serotonin Chris and dopamine Chris. And I >> I don't even know the difference between those. other words, it's like am I feeling sort of lovey and present and and and wanting to connect with people or am I driving toward a thing because I have a goal that's in front of me. And I'm very sort of dopamine Chris a lot [laughter] of the time. Um but I genuinely think that

3:23>> if you remind yourself >> these are the golden years. >> Yeah. >> Like this right now. >> Yeah. >> This when you look back >> these will be the golden years, right? When I had my health, I had my full mental capacity. I had control of my bladder. I had all of the money that I needed to do the things that I wanted to crush it with my friends to fly around America and film these podcasts or to launch this book that I spend all of this time on. And you can even see it in the micro. You can even see it when you look back on stuff that you've done in your day-to-day business or when you what you did at university.

3:58>> What were the times that you enjoyed? Was it when success success came to you easily? Or was it when you stayed up and ordered Dominoes because you had that project that needed to be in at 6:00 in the morning and you ran an allnighter and and John slept under the the table and and everybody ordered monsters and then the next morning we got it done. >> What was good about that? Was it when you submitted it or was it the dominoes and the 3:00 a.m. sleep under the table? Because I'm pretty sure it's that.

4:24>> I love this as a side note. Um, but one of the things that really motivates me or one of my most powerful motivational frames is thinking about the person that I want to become as the destination. And thinking like I want to be bulletproof. I want to be bulletproof in these ways. I want to be bulletproof in my marriage. I want to be bulletproof in my business, etc. And I think about that man, whoever I want him to be. Like we said, hell is when you look at who you could have been and realize that you're not that person.

4:57And then I think, if I were to make that man, what would I put that man through to make him who he is? Like, it wouldn't be easy times. It wouldn't be quick wins. It wouldn't even be easy wins. It would be the the toil and the struggle of achieving and reaching for things that are right out of grasp that are right above my threshold and continuing to do that to like lift the weight to build the muscle to break it down and do it over and over again because like that's what creates the character traits that are the man that I want to be. And so when I'm going through those like really harder times I like to think of like looking in my mental mirror of like I'm making you. I'm not there yet, but I'm making you. And that has helped me get through some of the harder times.

5:45And from a gratitude perspective, my my most powerful frame for gratitude has been thinking about my 85-year-old self, waking up as my 30-year-old self and all of a sudden looking at Ila and be like, "Man, I remember when we were this young." And then looking out the window and being like, "Man, you know, Vegas wasn't even developed. Like, there's no flying cars yet. Like, man, they were still used gas. like this is so cool. And I get out of bed and I'm like, man, my elbows don't hurt, my knees don't hurt, right? Cuz I'm thinking about what my 85-year-old self would think. And you know, we're talking about whatever. But it it it it allows me to enjoy the mundane in a way that I know that I would give everything that I had when I was 85 to enjoy again. And it's just it's a it's a trippy frame, but like if you can think like what would 85 85year-old me would be like, I'm just not my body doesn't hurt. You know what I mean? Like I actually have energy. Like I can think clearly. I don't have brain fog cuz I'm 85, right?

6:38And that has been probably my single most powerful frame on feeling grateful and allowed me to feel more present at times when I start like when I start to feel like I'm going through the motions and just like clicking in the routine and just like day after day after day and they feel the same. That's been my biggest slowdown where I can pull the resins and be like just and mind you it lasts a few minutes but when I think back on the days where I where I use that frame the part of the day that I remember is just the few minutes that I use it. So, I did this episode with Sam Harris. A lot of people have problems with Sam Harris.

7:09>> I found the time that I spend with him unbelievably enjoyable. I sat opposite him and a couple of times caught myself thinking, I am having so much fun doing this. And he said this thing and I really wish that I'd asked him another question. I should email him about it. um I was talking about presence and and the importance of presence and you could use it as a proxy for gratitude >> and he said that really what you're aiming to do is find small moments in the day when you just open up and realize what's happening

7:42>> right >> Conor McGregor won the featherweight title twice because he won the interim >> because Aldo was injured right >> and then he won against Aldo And somebody asked him, "What are you going to do differently this time again before the Aldo fight that you didn't do against the in the Mendes fight?" He says, "This time I'm going to be present." And there's this photo of him and he stood >> Yeah. >> like this at the weigh-in and you've got this entire

8:10>> Yeah. >> stadium in front of him and he stood like that. He said the first time he did it, he couldn't remember it because he was just >> Yeah. >> drowning in the in in what was next. >> Yeah. And what I really loved that Sam said, and I think that, you know, you look at somebody that's a master meditator or you set yourself high bars for what it means to be mindful and you realize that you can be present with a sip of a coffee. Okay, I can be present with this one sip of a coffee and then it like sand in your hands or like trying to remember a dream, it just evaporates, right?

8:42>> Okay. Well, what if your goal was just to try and get five of those a day? >> Yeah. >> What if that was it? What if being mindful was just five moments when you allow yourself to be where your feet are, where your feet are underneath you? >> And then what if you tried to just string like two of those together five times a day? Like just this first sip and then as I put it down the view out of the window. Oh my god, like that's two things in one. And then I can do that five times. And it it if I'd asked him, I would have said really is the path to just increase the frequency of the times that you are where your feet are underneath you.

9:20>> Uh and one other cue that I love that I got from an embodiment coach is the times when you see in your peripheral vision, you're looking and the way that our vision actually works, you're focused so heavily on what's directly in front of you. If there's ever a time when you see what's out here, >> you realize that you it's impossible to see all of that and not be in the present moment because you've naturally just opened yourself up. And I love that cue. So during the times when I'm doing things like that Sam episode, I'm like the next question and there's millions of people watching and all this stuff and there's this guy in front of me and he's super smart or whatever.

9:54[sighs] This is [ __ ] cool. Just that one moment and that when I look back on that episode, that's what I enjoyed. That's what I enjoyed about it. So, I think that being where your feet are underneath you and allowing yourself to open up and stringing those together largely allows you to enjoy being whilst you're in the process of becoming. It's also interesting those moments you can capture a moment independent from your surroundings because a lot of times those moments you're not thinking about the goal that you have the meeting that you have the the prep that you have to do for some talk or some podcast or whatever it is and I can't remember where I heard this but they were talking about Gladiator the movie and the film opens with this like little bird on a bow right with like the the leaves and whatnot and then they zoom out from that little bird on the on the on the bow and it's this disgusting war scene, right? And so it's kind of like micro macro micro um of how no matter how tough whatever the moment that you're going through is, if you can just take a picture of the corner of the room and look at the beauty in that, right, of being present in that moment, even if it's the suffering, right? Like you get punched and you're spitting blood out, but it's like this moment that you capture, then all of a sudden like everything fades away and you are present. And so it can take this what would be a brutal war scene of death and dismemberment and the thing that makes it memorable is the zooming in on a detail. Yeah.

11:31>> And so it's like if we're going if you feel like you're going through life too fast, it's like just look for a detail. >> Real quick, if you're a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So my team and I put together the $100 million scaling road map, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly where they got stuck and how they got past it. And so we broke it into these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at and the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources, and finance. And so no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it. And so I'd like to give you this thing absolutely free. You can go to acquisition.comroadmap, plug in your business information, and if you want us to actually help you deconstrain the business and you're trying to scale, we'd love to help you out on the thank you page. You can just book a call with my team and we will look at the business, see if we can help. And if we can, we'll invite you out to Vegas and we'll do this in person live.