A Bit of Optimism - Revisited: Your Unhappy Brain Needs Some Assistance with Happiness Expert Mo Gawdat

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Team Simon here! Thank you for being part of such an incredible year—and for helping us grow the podcast through your support, sharing it with others, and showing up week after week. We love seeing your comments and hearing what resonates with you.A Bit of Optimism returns on January 27, 2026, with brand-new episodes we think you’re really going to enjoy. Until then, we’re revisiting a few of our favorite moments from the past year.We’re kicking things off with one of our most popular episodes—the conversation we filmed in London with Mo Gawdat. As a “Happiness Expert,” Mo teaches us that happiness is a choice, even if it’s not always an easy choice to make.Mo had to face an impossible choice. Before he was a bestselling author and podcast host, Mo worked a lucrative career as Chief Business Officer at Google X. He reached the heights of business influence and amassed a fortune by 29. And yet, he was miserable. It was only after the tragic death of his 21-year-old son Ali that Mo was forced to confront the truth.Mo now dedicates his life, work, and research to figuring out how human beings can be happier, and he’s on a mission to make 1 billion people happy. He shares what he’s learned – that happiness is both a choice and our default setting, how to trick our brains out of survival mode, and why the happiest emotions we feel are rooted in the present, not the past or future.This… is A Bit of Optimism.---------------------------To learn more about Mo and his work, check out: https://www.mogawdat.com/ 

Can you share some of the things that you've learned about this happiness practice? If you understand that your default setting is happy, then there is nothing you need to bring from outside you to find happiness. You need to remove shit to be happy. And that negation strategy is quite an interesting one. Oh, that's good. This is so actionable. I love this, which is it's the reversed of what most people do,

which is they make a list of the things that they think will bring them happiness. But what you do is remove the unhappiness. Is you make the list of the things that are causing you stress and you go about removing them. You remove that. It's a removal process, not an adding process. And there is a reason for that. So good.

Being happy is a choice. But that doesn't mean it's an easy choice. Mo Gowdat had to face that choice under the most excruciating of circumstances after the tragic death of his 21-year-old son, Allie. Mo was forced to contemplate how being happy could even be a possibility. After a meteoric and lucrative career

as chief business officer at Google X. He had all the money and all the power, but he was miserable. It sounds strange to say, but it took the death of his son to teach him how to find happiness. Now a best-selling author, Moe has dedicated his work to figuring out where true happiness comes from. And it starts with a powerful truth. Happiness isn't something we find. It's something we practice by choosing joy, even when life hurts. This is a bit of optimism.

You are living proof at an extreme level that human beings can hold two opposite feelings at the same time. Oh, wow. Are we starting that deep? Yes, sorry. That's actually... Yeah, I shouldn't start that deep, should I? I went straight in.

We don't have to start there. No, no, we start anywhere, but I was thinking about this. When I was, when I was learning about you, you know, yeah, we could talk about tech and how you and all this. But, but at the end of the day, one of the, I learned this during lockdown. Yeah. You know, because my business was thrown into chaos. I know. And secretly, I was loving it because I like, I like, I like, I like chaos.

Yeah. Because there's creativity and chaos. And I was having fun. Yeah. And I had tremendous guilt that I was having fun. And I didn't tell anybody I was having fun. because I was also mourning the insanity and the loss and death and fear. And I had, I struggled with those opposing feelings, guilt for having fun and yet having real

sadness. And I learned during lockdown during COVID era, I learned that human beings can hold to sometimes opposing feelings at the same time. It's the design of the universe, my friend. It is the uncertainty principle at its best. I think the idea of paradoxical existence is probably one of the least celebrated forms of intelligence, which I tend to believe is a bit more associated with the feminine. You know, those who associate with the feminine will be a little more comfortable with looking you in the eyes

and say, I love you, but I fucking hate you at the same time. You know that feeling? I've heard that said to me. And it's actually, it holds true, huh? Yeah. And, you know, and it goes deep into, you know, situations where people would want to believe that one side is right and the other is wrong when everyone is wrong

or that one side is wrong and the other is right when everyone's right. And, you know, and it is quite a, it's quite a frond upon, let's say, a view in the business world because you need certainty and data to be able to make a decision and back it up and say, I made it because of this. Yeah. And but it is important because life is not that straightforward. Yeah. At the risk of going too deep too soon.

No, go for it. Let's back up a second. And because you and I know what we're talking about, but people on the other end may not know what we're talking about. How are you at an extreme level hold two feeling simultaneously? Unbelievable loss and unbelievable discovery. Yeah. Is that fair to put it that way? It would be at the time, it would be quite challenging to call it a loss now, honestly.

Yeah. So Ali Habibi, I have Ali and Aya, my son and my daughter. And Ali was that one of those people that, you know, sort of overwhelmingly make you love them. Like this is you know those people it's like you're trying to find something that sort of like breaks it a little bit. Yeah. But he had, you know, when he was in his early teens, Ali, most of his photographs with his friends. He would be standing in the middle and like six girls from this side and two boys and five girls on the other side holding him, you know, like literally reaching out. He had this incredible, incredible presence to him.

and and then he leaves and you know he he he he leaves our world because of a a medical malpractice basically simplest simplest and and and and and the and and the and the and the shock because he he was studying in northeastern in boston at the time and he had you know he had the band and they were touring the u.s in summer and then he texts in may and says, hey, guys, I feel obligated, I'm verbatim to come and see you before the tour. And so we say, of course, Habibu book his tickets. A, and my daughter was studying in Canada was coming as well.

I took a couple of weeks off as if almost I knew, I don't know. And then he gets an appendix inflammation, the simplest surgery ever. And the surgeon does five mistakes in Europe. every one of them fixable. Every one of them avoidable to start. And he fixes three of them wrong. So it's malpractice on top of malpractice.

Yeah, I mean, it took me quite a bit of time not to rage. Because also rage wouldn't have brought Ali back if you think about it. But anyway, four hours later, Ali is no longer with us. And you and I know that, you know, if you sort of are paid your whole life to fix problems. And so you have that mentality that everything's fixable if you put enough bandwidth to it. Not death, no. And suddenly you're faced for the very first time with something that really stops you in your tracks. And my daughter and Ali were, Aya and Ali were very close.

So that's the age difference one and a half one one one and a bit yeah one and four months or something like that and he was quite a yeah honestly he was the masculine figure in her life I was running around like a typical businessman closing billion dollar deals and you know celebrating my ego and and and he he would call her every single day literally Boston and Montreal not very far yeah and he would go visit a her every like really he was the father figure if you want yeah uh two weeks before he dies he he uh he tells her that he had a dream uh that he was everywhere and part of everyone which uh which if you understand spiritually of course i understand that now but you know if you understand if you have a spiritual inclination being outside space time in your non-physical form gets lends you the ability to be everywhere and part of everyone but that's not how i understood it then i was then chief business officer of google x i had previously been the vice president of emerging markets at google for seven years so i had basically opened most of

google's businesses worldwide and and and so i knew how to make and something everywhere and and part of everyone if you want. And so my, the, the message in my mind and my heart really was blurred. I heard her say everywhere and part of everyone and I thought of it as a target. And so I basically, seriously, and it's so weird because all I could hear myself saying

is of course, Habibi, consider it done. If that's your wish. It's a business plan. It's a business plan. Yeah. And my devious plan, interestingly, I mean, If you know the story before, I was the typical success story.

I was filthy rich by age 29. And I had this very unusual math skill. And I was a software developer. And like Malcolm Gladwell would say the, you know, in outliers right place at the right time. So my peak was when the internet started, I coded. at the time, 1996, a bit of a crawler,

like the Google crawlers afterwards, where I would go across the internet, find news about stocks. And I would wake up every morning at 6 a.m. with buy and sell recommendations and print money on demand. It was really, really successful. And I don't know if I call that success now, but let's call it rich.

Yeah, yeah. And so the more you, you succeed and realize that this is not what you want, the more depressed you become. And so I was clinically depressed, everything. I had a beautiful wife, two wonderful kids, you know, massive home with the garden and swimming pool and, you know, cars and everything you want.

And of course, when you're depressed, you try and you're rich, you pour money on the problem, but you know, money doesn't solve the problem, So you become more desperate if you want. It's like, this is not solvable. And at the time, who helped me, Ali and A. So Ali was this wise little Zen monk. Yeah, it was really, really unbelievable.

He would talk to him since maybe age six or seven. And he would literally sit there silently, looking at you, very curious. And then asks you a couple of questions, almost like, you know, to entertain you. It's like, yeah, you know, I'm interested. I'm interested. And then eventually says something like, well, you could have asked me, right?

And then he would repeat what I said, blending a bit of heart in it, which I'm the algorithm guy. Yeah. And says it in eight words. And I go like, holy damn, like this is it. Okay. So through my depression, if you want, I learned quite a bit with Ali. And so when he died, my way of meeting the target, if you want, was. I'm gonna take what we discussed and put it in a book.

And if I can get to 10 million people and then 72 years later through six degrees of separation, my calculation would be that tiny bit of his essence would be everywhere and part of everyone. Weird as it sounds. And so 17 days after he dies, I'm sitting down to write about happiness. And...

Do you, do you, do you, weep while you're writing about happiness? I weep almost once a week now, but then I think I stopped once a week. It is, it's not, you know, I think people can recognize from the bold head and the voice and the beard that I'm a manly man, but, you know, I have to say emotions have been,

we didn't give them time in, in this very fast-paced modern world. I have so many questions. There's so much, here's the, here's the struggle with your message, if I can put it that way. Which is, we know these tropes.

Money can't buy happiness. Yeah. We know it. We know the number of wealthy people who come on and say, but you have to stand, it didn't make me happy. We know the importance of feelings even when we try and resist them.

Like a lot of these things are known. And yet, with all that knowledge, people still perceive that money will buy them happiness and they still pursue riches versus fulfillment or joy, that we still think we can rationalize, our way through relationships or explain our way through relationships or business plan our way through our emotions, right? And, you know, and I guess the question I'm getting at is, you know, how much are you and I

preaching to the converted? How much are people listening to this? And it's only the ones who've made the conversion, made the discovery, or are predisposed to it. I mean, you talked about these. you said you said right at the beginning you know women are better at nuance women are better at paradox and two feelings simultaneously it's more quote unquote traditionally masculine to want exactness and clarity in black and white yeah separation uh you know do we find ourselves

preaching to the converted how do we find language that somebody who knows all of the tropes says, okay, you've made me curious at least. Well, I think the challenge is it's a lot more nuanced than the simple slogans. Nothing you and I can explain or anyone, for that matter, is it can be summed in one sentence. One sentences are made for Instagram, right? You know, while money most of the time doesn't buy you happiness,

poverty buys your unhappiness. And, you know, the research will tell you that if you're unable to make ends meet, basically, if your income is less than the average income of the place you live in, then it's hard to find happiness. Can I question that? I know, does poverty buy unhappiness? Is that true? Or is it that we know that up until a certain income, that when you gain money, it actually does, happiness. Correct. Right. It's not the opposite. It's not that poverty makes. I was going to come

to that. Yeah. Poverty doesn't necessarily make you unhappy. Because some of the poorest right. Yes. People in the world are the happy. You know, travel to South Africa, sorry, to Africa or to South America. Yeah. And man, it's like if we're fed today, we're going to dance and love our heads. And their lives are difficult. We have to confuse, we cannot confuse struggle and happiness. But you see, then you once again, is our life easy? Our lives are easy. Easy on some fronts, but the mental... We don't worry about food. Yeah, exactly. For the most part, yeah, right? But then what do we do? We create, you know, mental tigers in our heads and we run them over and over until they, they make us miserable, right? We, we read too much news. We worry about

the stock market. We do, you know, I'm not, what I'm trying to say is there is so many levels of There is no answer that says money does not buy you happiness. Right, right. It's your happiness. The answer is very straightforward, huh? What is enough? Yeah. Okay.

And, you know, I am today, and it's really this is where people struggle. I'm only giggling because literally last night I was having this conversation with a friend where the richer somebody is, the more they're concerned about their taxes. Correct. Right?

The richest people I know will live in places they don't want to live. And when you ask them, why do you live there? They say taxes. I've never heard of anyone going bankrupt paying taxes. Right? Yeah. You have to make money to pay taxes. And it's the ungodly rich where if you took away, by the way, and it's only on income.

It's not on assets. Yeah. Right. So they only pay it once when they get that windfall and that's it, you know? But I just find that funny because you're hyperoptimized. Right. And interestingly, of course, I mean, again, for everyone listening, paying taxes is a problem of privilege. So let's not compare that to people who are hungry or in a war zone or whatever.

Right. But the reality is that for everyone, their problems are as far stretching as they barely can handle. So I'll give you my own example. Yeah, yeah. Because of my Eastern upbringing and my traditional spirituality, if you want, and because of a very weird thing that I did early in my life around what I call the mathematics of the divine, I tend to strongly believe that this is not the end of life, right? That we live here, that, you know, death is the opposite of birth.

It's not the opposite of life, right? Right or wrong. Well, let's say that again. That's quite profound. Death is the opposite of birth. It is not the opposite of life. If life was a video game, you come to this level of the game

through a portal called birth and you leave this level of the game through a portal called death. And the game continues way long before and long after. Right. And, you know, we can get into the mathematics of that if you want,

but irrelevant. For me, that means that the loss of Ali is a tiny bit more tolerable than someone else who doesn't have that belief. Right? And so accordingly, when I look at my, you know, my, my, my tendency to find certainty, I have absolutely zero certainty that I'll finish this interview.

But I have a 100% certainty that sooner or later I'll be where he is, right? And if that is my mindset, then my, the weight of the problem is slightly different for me. And it's quite interesting. Ali Habibi, he had a tattoo on his back. But he never showed me. Interesting. He had it when he was 16. And he went back to his mom and said, you know,

I'm so upset that I used Papa's money to get it. But, you know, when I get to pay him back, I'll show it to him, right? When it's his. Yeah. So, I mean, like, why are you so nice, you little? Anyway. Anyway, so he sits up on the operating table before he walks in, before they push him in, and it shows. And it says the gravity of the battle means nothing to those at peace.

Wow. And it's the very last message. How old was he? He was 21 and a half when he left. I mean 21 and a half to have, and he put that on his body when he was 16. When he was 60, it's almost as if he was plotting a very complex plan to make us love him and then You know, literally. The gravity of the battle means nothing to those who have peace.

At peace, yeah. And it is quite, you know, quite the message you need when he leaves four hours later. But it's also almost as if we settled all our debt to each other. Now, that concept of those at peace is very different between you and I and everyone. I am probably 10% of how rich I used to be. okay but I'm filthy rich compared to my current needs

which is quite interesting because there were times where I had so much money and I you know had to to pour it into my depression okay or pour it into places

that I was told I need to pour it into and spend days of my week worrying about those places right when in reality I need a this is I think now about $14 or something. I have maybe 14 of those a year. Do the math, right?

And, and, you know, I still earn shitloads of money that I, you know, I'm not bragging or anything that I don't spend on myself, okay? Spend on so many other people that need it way more than me. And it's an interesting way to find happiness, by the way. Did you do that before? Did that come after?

I did that quite a bit of my life, but I became quite extreme. to the point that, you know, business people like you would think of me as completely mad. First of all, your first mistake is thinking that I'm a business person. Okay, so good. And your second mistake, thinking that I would think that was mad. Yeah. I think part of the joy of making money is to give it away is to share it, is to give it away.

And it's really funny, you know, I, I, um. And to give it away not for tax purposes. And not to give it away for tax purposes, right. Yeah. The, the, um, it's a very funny thing. It goes back to masculine feminine. unavoidable, right? I meet men who have some sort of exit or liquidity event or whatever. The stock price goes up and they find themselves extremely wealthy and they leave their job and you ask them,

what do you do now? And invariably they say, I'm an investor. I'm an investor. So you made shit tons of money and your goal now is to make more money, right? And I meet women who have some sort of liquidity event and you ask them, what do you do? And they say, I'm a philanthropist. Now, the philanthropists are of course investing. And the investors are of course doing philanthropy. But what's so interesting is where they put the priority, that one puts the priority on the giving and the other one puts the priority on the taking. And I find that fascinating. And then I talked to very, I had this conversation with somebody who's who's got more money than any one person needs in multiple lifetimes. And I was talking to him about philanthropy. And he almost got

angry at some of my questions. He says, you don't understand how difficult it is to give money away. And I'm thinking, I don't know. I can do some damage, you know. And I give money away the way I give to somebody on the street. I put a few dollars in the cup and I go on, I walk on with my day. I don't worry. Is he going to waste it? Is it going to go to the things that I want it to go to, you take a risk. And sometimes it'll go well and sometimes it won't, but it's it's it's gone. It's a portfolio approach. It's a portfolio approach. And whereas I think it's, I think it's less than a portfolio approach. It's a trust approach. Whereas this guy, I was talking to him and he was saying, well, you know, you can't just give money. You have to put

boundaries and you have to, how do I know they're not going to waste it? And he's treating it like like an investment in some sorts, which is he wants to pour over the the management. of the company and make sure that they're not destroying his investment. And my attitude is if there's a dance company I want to give to, I give them a bunch of money with no restrictions. I don't think they're going to like run off to Rio and that's it. They're gone. Where the hell are they? They close the dance company and they're living in Fiji, right? I'm fairly confident that if I'm giving to them, they're going to want to make art. Yeah. And if I'm going to give to a, you know, a researcher, they're going to want to find a cure. Like, and I don't need to put restrictions.

And I find, again, the ultra-wealthy put all these guardrails and they want reports back. And look, some of it's going to go badly and some of it's going to be mismanaged. A hundred percent true. But on balance, if you're giving to good people who are trying to do good things, they'll do good with the money you give them. Or at least they'll try really, really hard to do that. Money is just a symbol. It is what it represents to you, right? And so you'll find that someone who comes from poverty, for example, if he's, you know, $100 million worth.

Those $100 million to him represent a risk, right? And I know many people who are like that. If you come from poverty, there is no way you can stop and tell yourself, am I now safe? Yeah. Okay. If you come from, you know, a teenage years where you were the slightly chubby, maybe, you know, bullied a little bit child,

then money to you is in your face. Right. If you're the one that, you know, struggled to, because you were the geek and, you know, the bad boys were getting the girls and, you know, you're, you're now a founder of a tech startup, money to you represents more girls. Right. Right. And the whole idea is that for most people, as I said, we struggle to find, to define the context. Yeah. And specifically when the seasons change. Yeah.

Right. So, so, you know, when, when you're running and your method of acquiring money is being very precise about every calculation and every cent, you know, you may become a multi-zillionaire and still go to the supermarket and go like, oh, they're ripping me off on two cents. I'm going to walk to the next one, right? While some others would simply say, well, you know what, two cents is not a big deal for me, but also, by the way, next time I'll go to the next one. Yeah. Right. And while others will, simply say, hey, you know what, I don't care. I'm so rich and famous now. I don't care about the two cents. And each of those approaches can be judged by us because we're not them, right? But the trick is to ask yourself, where am I? Where am I in terms of why do I do what I want to do? And I think I learned this in my MBA. I had a professor of operations management. who worked at Chrysler in the 70s. Back in the day. Yeah, and he basically was, you know,

talking about operations and when the Japanese entered the American market and how, you know, they started to optimize everything. Like, you know, instead of this nut and bolt having four turns to be locked, let's make it three turns. And, you know, now we've shaved off a quarter of a second. And then he basically would go like,

but then the Japanese replaced, the board with a clip. And so it doesn't even take a fraction of a second, okay? And he started to talk about why were we doing the things that we were doing, okay? And I think that applies to life in such a massive way. Each and every one of us, if we really sit down, and I do that on Saturdays,

to observe the seasons of your life, that you're not that teenager that was bullied anymore, or that you're not that, you know, young business that was, you know, trying to prove as you were quickly acquiring and learning the three-letter acronyms in the company when you walked in to try and appear that you know more than you don't, more than you actually do. And I think that the trick is you fail, you fail to observe that something has changed. This is good. You're talking about going to the cause rather than the symptom, right? I mean, that's what this is. I mean, you might know this story. Again, it goes back

to the sort of the, when the Japanese started sort of overtaking the American market. and the Toyota Way. And of course, just as a quick aside, the Americans completely most understood the Toyota Way. First of all, we called it Lean. No, no. It's not about efficiency. It's about improvement.

Those are not the same things. The Jet, the Toyota Way is about constant improvement. It was always constant improvement. And we made it about efficiency. And that's why Lean doesn't really work in America because we don't really get it. We think it's a calculation. And it's about process.

It's your point. It's about root. And there's this one of the stories that I love, is some American car executives went and toured a Japanese car factory. And, you know, cars are basically made the same way. And at the end, the Americans were confused. Because on the American assembly line, there's a guy at the very end with a little rubber mallet who just make sure the doors. Yeah.

This guy is not at the end. Right? And there's no mallet guy. And the Americans say, where's the guy with the mallet? And the Japanese are like, what do you mean the guy with the mallet? Like, well, how do you make sure the doors fit? And the Japanese say, we design them to fit. If they didn't fit, it's not the problem for the end.

It's the problem for the beginning. 100%. You know? And that's exactly what you're talking about, which is when we are struggling with something, we so often treat the symptoms, which is why we throw money at things or why we become hedonists or whatever the thing is. Right? We treat the superficial. And yet, and I love this, I want to learn more about the Saturday practice you have where you sit, it sounds like, you sit and go to the beginning and say, what's the root cause of this, let me deal with that.

And maybe that root cause is me, you know, which is I was, whatever it is, the chubby kid who was bullied in school, I have to deal with my issues. Yeah. It's me. 100%. So what is your Saturday practice?

Saturday really matters, believe it or not. So most Saturdays, my alarm clock is set to 2 p.m. Doesn't matter when I wake up, but I am in reflection mode until 2 p.m. right and and i reflect on a lot of things like simple exercises are you alone yeah 100% so you're you're a little bit walled off until 2 o'clock yeah so i'm completely alone no interaction with time pieces so i don't know what time it is no interaction with the internet no interaction with news uh you know i'm not checking my whatsapp i'm completely with my little

remarkable or paper and pen and you know and basically thinking okay and there are lots of things that I do repetitively, okay? For example, I do a stress, you know, stock taking, basically. I write down everything that stressed me the week before. And I basically scratch out the shit that I don't want to stress me the next week. For example? You know, this annoying friend that's constantly negative will probably receive a text saying, hey, can we make our interactions a little more positive or maybe make them less?

So you're going through the things that are causing you stress and you address them? address them one by one, right? And again, you know, we think that life should be stressful, especially busy ones because, you know, it's a trophy and, you know, and unstressable my... Well, how else, if we don't suffer stress, how else will we become obsessed with our whoops and our longevity practice? Exactly, exactly, exactly.

And then we measure everything, right? You know, you have a... I used to have all of those measurement devices, right? I see you still have... No, I don't. No, no, it hasn't been charged for two years. Is that true? It's... It was given to me as a gift, and I, it's more sentimental than anything else, but the, yeah, you see, that's that one point.

Yeah, I know I wear it. And the people from aura, it's embarrassing. You know, they reached out and said, oh, we see Simon wears an oaring. And, and we were like, no, don't know, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, no. But you see, I can't help. How do I speak about this? It's dead. I don't even know where the charger is. I know the guys from Whoop very well. And I think there is a use to it, you know, in terms of learning things about yourself that you may not be aware of. They're fun for a week. I think they're really fun for the first week.

Or as long as they're needed. Or as long as they're needed. But then you need to notice the context change. It's like, you know, I used to use something called my fitness pad, obsessively. measuring every calorie that I eat, right? After a while, you sort of know that this is a bit too much, this is a bit too little, you know, and after a while, you know, you're much younger than I am, but after a while you go like, and that little belly, it's cute.

I'm happy with this, right? And honestly, and you see, once again, when I was in my teens, 20s, I was obsessed with my shape and my, right? When I was in my 20s, I started to be more obsessed with the health of my brain. and how much I read every day, right? And then when I'm in my 50s, I'm really obsessed about, I'm actually undergoing a season change as we speak, right?

So, you know, we said Saturday practice stress is part of it, but also that reflection of what do I want? What do I want is so interesting. It goes back to the question I was asking before. Why does it take loss? Why does it take tragedy? Why does it take sadness? Why does it take age for us to come to these?

conclusions, why can't people in their 20s and 30s live the life? Allie did. Yeah. That's the irony of this. Oh my God. This magical little child, he did. What did he have from six, from, from his, his whole life, it sounds like, his whole short life. His whole life. He lived the life that you have learned to live in your 50s that took tragedy to get you here. Tragedy is an interesting one. You have to, you know, you have to make an or pain pain i call it a nudge a nudge yeah a nudge is um you know when you when you you're half american half british so you know both right in in you know in in america if a road is a little sloping upwards right and you're walking that road that basically is what needs what america so celebratory of grit right you need to try harder okay you come in

into the UK and it's all roundabouts, right? And the idea is you get into a roundabout. And sometimes you get in and you want to go out on the third exit, but life closes that exit, right? And so you keep turning in the roundabout, insisting to hit the third exit, but life is telling you, hey, you know, the force is open, can you try that?

And you keep saying, no, I'm going to, you know, go around and around and around until the third one is open for me, because you're so stubbornly preoccupied by your current season, right? Life is telling you change of season, new exit, new life, new exploration, new experiences, right? And it's so interesting that when we continue to resist, life goes like, fourth? Do you want to go from the fourth? Like, see, fourth?

And you don't, so it not just the hell out of you. It gives you, it literally shoulders you out through a loss, through pain, through depression, through burnout through, right? I love all of this. And you're talking about serendipity. You're talking about open-mindedness. You're talking about what happens when the plan doesn't go according to plan, which is, by the way, always. You know?

What's the joke? You know, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Yeah, exactly. You know, what I'm with you, but I'll go back to the original question, which is, why does it take loss, heartache, pain, hurt, age, time, to learn these lessons. And we know that that's not empirical because we knew that we know that Ali didn't have any of those things to come to his magical disposition. What was it about this teenager who had such clarity of life and a calmness that was so attractive to people? It made him so loved and lovable. What is it? Why does it take? You see what I'm trying to get to,

which is how can young people learn the lessons that we, like, look, there's a good, you wrote a book about happiness because I have to believe in some part of you, you said, I don't want other people to go through what I've gone through to learn the lessons I've learned. So I'm going to write them down so you can learn the lessons without. But the question I get most, believe it or not,

is why is your mission one billion happy, not seven billion happy or eight billion happy? Interesting question, right? Honestly, because when you really think about it, and simply because I find that happiness is a choice. Yeah. Okay? You know, I can tell you what works.

You can lead the horse to water. Yeah. You can lead the horse to water, but they're going to have to choose it. And it's foolhardy to say everybody. And it's so arrogant to believe that everyone would make that choice. I mean, when I go and speak in France or in Poland, I kid you not. The first question I get at the end of the session is, well, we get the logic is works. You know, but why, why happiness?

And I'm like, seriously? Seriously, people go like, happiness is a sign of weakness. We're supposed to be here, you know, fighting it out. Okay. And I, you know, it's- But you don't question that. You don't argue with them.

It's their choice. If you, if they- You shrug your shoulders and say- They can't make the choice. Live your life. Yeah. You know, I simply- You're not there to convince anybody.

Exactly. I simply say, well, if, you know, I'm here to teach the technique if you so choose right but that also applies to management and leadership yeah okay it also applies to war and peace unfortunately there are there is you know for some of us there is one a an arrogance that what you know is is true and two a refusal to uh to to to to see the world from any other perspective okay and and you know three interestingly the drive to live based on that lack of awareness okay i don't remember who was it jack welsh or

someone that used to say uh you know you hire people for three things their passion and and their energy and their uh intentions or something like that if the third is wrong that first two will kill you right uh you know basically basically if people have the intention to walk into a company and i hired people like that in my life before where they're only objective is I'm going to play politics and backstab everyone and go up the ladder, right? With energy and passion. And they're very intelligent and energetic and passionate and so on.

They'll use their intelligence and their passion and, you know, not benefit anyone at all. Okay. And I think what we humans do in life is we do that to ourselves. We are told at a point in time that a lot of money and a Ferrari is something that you need to have. Yeah. Right?

And some of us, you know, get, to question that like Ali, okay, who's very reflective and, you know, who would look at things and go like, I really don't want a Ferrari. And I actually, you know, when Ali graduated, I was a freaking spoiled rich brat. Yeah.

And I love that boy. So I said, Habibi, do you want the car to go to university and, you know, I have many pick anyone you want or why don't I buy you a Porsche 9-11? Yeah. Right. And I, you know, I don't regret saying that now, because I matured, right?

But I love him and I have the money, so why not? Yeah. And he would go like, Papa, but how would my friends feel about that? Yeah. But I'm, you know, it's not something I'm passionate about. Yeah. But it's not something that represents me. Maybe if you're so generous, maybe I can take one of the four by four

so I can put the band gear in it, right? And it is quite interesting that he had the awareness of who he is. Yeah. Okay. And he had the willingness when I insisted many times for him to drive my fancy cars, okay, to, to, to, and, and take his friends along. And then his friends would go like, oh my God. And he goes like, I just didn't feel any difference, right?

He had the willingness to sit with himself and say, this is not what I want from life. And the season I'm going through now, after 58 years of success, okay, takes you quite a bit of courage to say, yeah, I have top a few things. And there are a few things I've never experienced. And there are a few things I'd love to enjoy. And there are a few things that I need to learn. Right. And unless you sit down and find that, you're going to be the same until you're gone. There's a guest I had on the podcast named Angela Trimber. We haven't aired her episode yet. But one of the things she talks about is absolutely amazing. She had breast cancer. Yeah. And it was treated.

Yeah. And everybody who had breast cancer, the other women who had it, who came to and said, it comes back in two years. And so she suddenly had this horrible fear that it's going to come back in two years. And she talks about it as this kind of magical gift. Because, you know, when you're told you've got, you know, three months to live, you go bucket list. You empty the bank account.

You travel the world. You go full bucket list. If you're told you have five years to live, 10 years to live, you're like, eh, I'll put it off. I got time. Let's see. Yeah. We'll see. But two years was sort of this magical period because it was not enough that she could be complacent, but it was enough that there was some urgency, but not bucket list urgency, the responsible urgency. Yeah. And she just had this assumption that it's going to come back and she's going to die in two years. And she started making choices. She waited the way that we, she started. of living her life is I've only got two years to live. Yeah. What do I want to do this or that? Yeah. And it gave her a confidence in a direction of life.

It never came back. But she continues to live her life with this idea that two years. And I thought that was such an amazing number. You know, because people like, live your life like it's your last day. No, don't do that. Don't, don't do that. Yeah. I call that compartment too, you know, live it like it's your last day and live it like you have 10 years to go.

Yeah. I, it's interesting. Last year was a very challenging year for me. January, I lost my sister. And then my sister-in-law, but she really is my sister. You know, I met her for the first time when I was a young teen. And she really, truly was a sister to me. Then, you know, she had a heart attack next to my brother's bed who was suffering with cancer.

Two months later, he was cured from cancer, but still left our wife. world he had an unexpected answer and then two months later i lost my mom which you know you sort of you sort of think that you've now you know become strong enough after losing ali and then life goes like no hold on i i can i'll prove you wrong i can show you i can show you variety and so i'm sitting with one of my best friends Alexandra and alexandra is serbian so she's very direct yeah okay Okay, a wonderful young lady who is so honest, so kind. You know, we love each other for, you know, 13 years, friends and so on. And so I'm sitting there with my philosophical face on saying,

you see how vulnerable life is? And she goes like, you're going to be fine. You're not going to die. And I'm like, what? And she goes like, you're doing good in the world. The world benefits from you. You're probably going to live a little longer. It's like, Alex, you don't know that.

And as I'm trying to explain, if you know or you don't with my philosophical face, she says, but I can guarantee you, you have a few, you know, I have very few good years in you. I was like, what? And she said, you know those road trips that you always talk to me about? Well, I can tell you, you have seven to nine years where you can take a long one in whichever car you want. And if you want to take it in a sports car, probably three years. So chop, chop, very, very eye-opening.

I'll tell you, I'll tell you that. I mean, truth is, I was, I lived so many lives, Simon. It's just scary when you really think about it. But, you know, I'm Egyptian born and raised in Egypt, public school, public university in Egypt. You know, I shouldn't have become the chief business officer of Google X. If you take any mathematical probabilities, it's close to impossible. And yet I lived and I lived a rich life and I lived a simple life.

and I've, you know, I've, I've lived months of my year, years of my life where at the end of the month, you know, we could barely make ends meet. And, you know, it is, I lived. And somehow, in all of those lives, if you, if you remember the only thing that you, we started the conversation with, was when life was interestingly engaging. I don't want to call it challenging. It's interestingly engaging, where you sit,

down and you go like how can I make this go the furthest for me and those are that I love okay and and I think the challenge is with experience over the years fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer things stress you fewer and fewer and fewer things challenge you okay you know just because you've been you've it's familiar yeah like like oh this again I know this one I have seen this one uh you know this one is different, but it's the same fabric. At least I know how to manage my emotions about it and so on and so forth. And the trick is, when it doesn't become challenges, in challenging, you start to get into those mind-generated, you know, depression causing.

Right? It's not chemical. It's sort of self-imposed. It's incessant thinking. It's mind-racing, yeah, yeah, yeah. And your incessant thoughts start to take you into all those sorts of scenarios that actually have no bound anymore because they're not even bound by the physical rules anymore.

And that kind of experience is what I call a problem of privilege. Right? And when you have problems of privilege, that actually is the sign that tells you, hold on. You know, life is actually really good. I am really blessed. What do I want with my life? What do I want the next five years to look like?

Do I want to do more of the same, get more of the same green back that I don't even know. It's just sitting in the bank somewhere that I will never spend just to tell my friends that I made another deal, okay? Do I want to give it away to people and see the joy? I mean, just for everyone listening to us,

your coffee can feed the family in Africa. Right. I'm not talking about the very famous and rich who spend, you know, a few hundred thousand on their vacation, right? That few hundred thousand can save a village in Africa. And yes, I know, actually one of the things I've started to see recently, you know, I know that it's actually very difficult for us to imagine that those in Africa are humans too or those in the Middle East are humans too or those in Russia, Ukraine are humans too, right? And because we are so used to our own life getting into our cars in the morning and just going through what we believe is life okay and one of the things i've started to see that is really thrilling my heart is finally

the middle east is starting to show beautiful dances and music instead of angry save us okay so in the you know i don't know if you've seen in the last few days uh the lebanese posts are all about the the rockets flying overhead while they're dancing in parties and laughing and you know saying life is amazing right they've been bombed themselves a few days back and they're like yeah it's you know some of us are lost some of us are not and we will live right and I think that idea of can we look at each other and say honestly another Ferrari is not going to be a big deal I but we're still circling the wagons here, which is that they have been bummed and they have had to face their own mortality for them to say, but let us, let us dance. And so again, I'm going back. And maybe

the answer is, you can learn some from reading a book. You can learn some from listening to a podcast. Maybe a friend will say something to you that will give you a new perspective. But maybe you have to be punched in the face. All I can guarantee you is if you don't, if you don't wait until you're punched in the face and you change, you may not be punched in the face. So it's like insurance. Yeah. So I remember that I wanted to write Soul for Happy, my first book. I wanted to write it in 2011, okay? But I was chief business officer of Google. Too busy. Yeah. And, you know, I sit down and I start writing on a flight and then I go, I land on the other side and I have all of those deals and all of those clients and all of those meetings and all right. And I delay it and delay it and delay it. And life

keeps saying, write it. It's a good book. Write it. It's a good book. Right it. It's a good book. until I, you know, I don't. I'm circling the roundabout. So it goes like, okay, you know what, Ali's leaving. You know. Now write the book. Now write the freaking book. Yeah.

Right. What else do you need? And, you know, I know for a fact in my heart, that maybe if I had written it, he wouldn't have had to leave. Yeah, because you wouldn't have had to learn the lesson. Because you wouldn't have, and that's very arrogant, by the way, because it's his life, not mine. But I can, I can tell you that, again, it's quite complicated.

I've had a very, enlightening experience when I was 26, I had a near-death experience, right? Went all the way through that same exact description that I've never read before, but went all the way through the tunnel, if you want, the light, okay? Found myself in that peace and tranquility

and truly, and, you know, as the kind souls, as they describe in near-death experiences, were walking in my direction, I was like, yeah, right, they brought me back and I was really angry with the doctor. Like, I was really angry, like, why? This is so lovely over there, right?

And, you know, it seems to me in my unproven philosophy from that experience that we sort of always, all of us get asked if it's time to leave. But you didn't learn your lesson. Something about me changed, but I didn't learn my lesson, right? Can you share some of the things

that you've learned about the, is happiness practice that people can implement? Look, happiness to me is... I like the... I mean, I think, look, you said it, which is happiness is a choice. So number one is you have to choose that you want to be happy, right?

So happiness is a choice and happiness is your default setting is the most important to assumptions if you want to look at them that way. So I understand this. Every child is born happy, right? So your default operating system is happy. Of course, you know,

some children may be exposed to violence when they're in the womb. Sure, sure. So, but if you're... All things being equal. Oh, yeah, exactly. If you're just coming out of the box, you know, unboxing a child,

the child's default setting is happy, right? Right. It cries when it has any reason to cry. Right. Okay. Feed it and it will go back to happy, you know, playing with their toes, looking at the ceiling and that's it, right?

You were that child too. And then, and then as you went on through life, do you remember Super Tramp? Of course. Oh, yeah. In English. Oh, I know Super Tram.

Yeah. So. Breakfast in America is one of the great all-time songs. 100%. 100%. And Roger Hutchson is an amazing artist. So they had the logical song. Remember the logical song?

Yeah, of course. When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful. When I was young, it seemed like life was so wonderful. There you go. Yeah. And so basically. In the depths of my depression years, I'm sitting in a cafe in Seattle.

I remember vividly I was working at Microsoft at the time. And, you know, must have been on a walkman or like a disc man or something. And I'm listening. And then this song comes along and comes on. And it says when I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful. All the birds on the trees were singing so happily.

And then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical, cynical, critical, and so on, right? And that's the story of your life, right? Basically, life as a child, when you don't overthink things, you're happy. Okay? And then you start to become cynical and critical, and you sort of learn to succeed in life, and we humans are very capable. You tell me the target is to succeed, they go like, yeah, absolutely.

And most of us remember that, huh? that probably into your 20s, you were not that upset with anything. This generation is because of the amount of negativity we pour on them. So if you understand that your default setting is happy, then there is nothing you need to bring from outside you to find happiness. You need to remove shit to be happy. Okay? And that negation strategy is quite an interesting one.

So that's good. Yeah. So I'm sitting there. I basically take the rest of the day off. And I start to look back at the things that, you know, I'm like, yeah, when I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful. So I keep going back.

When I was 18, I was happy. When I was 16, I was happy. When I was four, I was happy. When I was two, I was happy. There were things that upset that happiness, but I went back to me. But this goes back to, I love this, right? And this is so actionable.

I love this, which is it's the reverse. of what most people do, which is they make a list of the things that they think will bring them happiness. But what you do is remove the unhappiness. Is you make the list of the things that are causing you stress and you go about removing them.

You remove the unhappiness. It's a removal process, not an adding process. And there is a reason for that. So good. There is a reason for that, okay? Nothing ever from outside you. This is, you know, rule number two or assumption number two, huh?

Nothing from outside you will bring you happiness. Why? Because nothing has an inherent value of happiness within it. Right. Take anything in life. you know, rain, okay? Rain cannot make you happy or unhappy. Right, right?

If it's your ex-girlfriend's wedding, it makes you happy. There's no such thing as bad where they're just inappropriate clothing. Oh yeah, no inappropriate intention, desires, right? So if, you know, if you want a classic car, I love to restore classics and I lose money on them all the time. You know, if you want a classic car to make money on it,

you're gonna be unhappy all the time. If you want a classic car because you love the art of restoring it, you'll be happy, right? If you want a classic car because you want to drive all the time without breaking, you'll be unhappy, right? And everything else, if you want rain, rain makes you happy. If you don't want rain, rain makes you unhappy. So mathematically, that means the equation is not one parameter.

It's not what life gives you. Yeah, okay? It's what life gives you in comparison to what you want life to give you. And so I wrote that in Soul for Happy, very clear, straightforward. I said your happiness is equal to or greater than the difference between the events of your life

and your expectations of how life should. Say that again slowly. Your happiness is equal to or greater than the difference between the events of your life or more accurately your perception of the events of your life and your hopes and desires and wishes of how life should be. oh so good right now take that and apply to every moment in your life you felt unhappy yeah okay it wasn't because life was wrong it was because life was not what you wanted to be you know what that is yeah

that's a six year old behavior okay yeah it's like mommy i want ice cream right it's not the right it's not the right time for ice cream mommy doesn't have the time or you didn't have lunch yet or whatever right but you want ice cream and for some reason when you come cried enough as a child, when you were miserable enough as a child, ice cream showed up or mommy tapped you on the back and said, come on, baby, right? And we continue to do this,

somehow expecting that life when we are upset is going to go like, yeah, okay, fine, here's your ice cream, right? Now, here's the trick. Life doesn't give a shit about you, okay? Life simply is there to say, look, there will be a series of events. some of them are easy some of them are tough some of them are enjoyable some of them you learn from okay

and it's your choice how to react to every one of them it's your it's your choice to uh to choose your perception of the event and it's your choice um to set your expectations realistically so you get stuck in traffic you can choose a perception that says i hate this this is annoying this is wasting two of my precious moments, okay, I will be late to my event. Everything is, you know, is miserable. Or you can say, oh my God, I'm in a car. Oh my God, I'm in a city. Oh my God, there are no bombs on top of me. Oh my God, I'm, you know, I am. This is the worst thing that's happening to me. Life is good. 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. 100%. If this is the worst that's happening to me, okay, you know, It's a nice little, it's a hack because I know that when things go wrong for me, like somebody, I'm in a restaurant that bring me the wrong meal. I mean, you know, whatever it is, stupid shit, right? I know like, you know, and because we're all assholes to some degree, you know, the blood starts to boil over stupid stuff. And I say out loud to the person who's very often apologetic or something, don't worry, you know, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And I always say, if this is the worst thing that happens to me all week, I'm way ahead of the game. Your hotel room's not ready. I mean, who gives a shit, right?

the stuff that drives us nuts. Saying it out loud to someone, it's not really for them, it's for you. This is the worst thing that happens to me all week, I'm ahead of the game, you know? And immediately, immediately, you relax. And by the way, and by the way, it is a, it's a very actionable meaning, you know,

if you hear your brain saying, this is shit, okay? Ask your, this is, by the way, your brain's tendency because your brain is a survival machine. We use it to invent iPhones, right? But it is first and foremost a survival machine. It wants to know what's wrong with life so that it can work on it, right? Because what's wrong is what makes you unsafe, right?

So when your brain tells you, as per its nature, you know, this, you know, the traffic is shit, okay? Ask it and say, what's good about the traffic, right? What is good about this? And it will comply. First, it will say, yeah, and London taxis are, Now, I asked you what is good about this, okay? And if you insist, so my, my practices, I used to...

I can listen to Super Tramp. Exactly, a lot of... Or I can sing it in my head. My practice used to be, you know, for every negative thing that my brain gives me. Yeah. Okay? It is obliged to give me a good one.

So you play the game. It's like, okay, it's a zero sum. If you're giving me negative, I want positive. Play, 100%. Now, but then I realized that my brain is quite a coward. Right? So I started to, for every negative thing that it gives me, asking for nine.

Nine good. Yeah, because that's the nature of life. By the way, if you take the mathematics of life, how often do we suffer earthquakes as compared to how often do we walk on solid grounds? Right. Okay? How often do you get sick as compared to, you know,

unfortunately some of us are maybe chronically sick for a wrong time, but for the majority of humanity how often are we sick as compared to how often are we healthy right right in reality it's not even one to nine it's one to probably 99 right okay and and then that's irrelevant by the way which strata of the society you're in yeah that's everyone okay as everyone if you're if I'll tell you a very interesting thought process to understand if if life is a survival is all about a survival approach and you're able to sit in that car and tell you're yourself, you know, I'm going to be late for my event.

So a future event and torture yourself with it. Or sit in that car and say, I'm stupid to live in this city or I should have left 10 minutes earlier. So a past event to torture yourself with. You know what that means? It means from a survival mechanism point of view, there is no tiger attacking. Yeah.

Okay. Because if there was an actual threat, if there was actually something wrong with this moment, that in itself would take your mind away from all of those stupid thoughts. You would focus on the tiger. So the fact that you're thinking those negative thoughts is in itself evidence

that right now is okay. How do little things factor in? Because I know one of the things that I do is I do this consciously, which is I try and pay attention to little things and it's to the point now where it's almost automatic. And when I say little things, I mean like you have no idea how small, right?

like making breakfast in the morning, right? The sounds of putting the coffee in the coffee pot and filling up the jug and putting it on the coffee machine and the clinks and the clanks and the drags and the swishes, I'm really present and attuned that I'm not just going through the motions of making coffee, but I'm paying attention as if it's a choreography

as if it's a piece of dance. You have found the secret to life. And these, I mean, I'm making coffee in the morning something I do every single day and I find joy in the... Not every day, because then it'll become mundane, right? Because I'm trying to avoid the mundane. But every now and then, I'll pay so much attention.

And I smile. I smile. You have found the secret to life. Do you have the same coffee every day? Yeah. No, I never do that. You mix it up? Yeah.

So every morning, before I make coffee, I spend 10 minutes trying to feel what I feel today and accordingly which coffee I want. I make coffee coffee. I have the same coffee every day. I have optimism coffee because I love it. And I made it.

But I make it differently. There you go. So it'll be the same coffee, but sometimes I'll put it in the drip coffee. Sometimes I'll sort of let it. Oh, right. Yeah, exactly. So I have different.

Same beans. A cafe press. Yeah. And I don't know why. It tastes slightly different. It does. But sometimes it's just the thing that I feel like doing.

100%. Now, so I say you found the secret to life. Why? Because think about it this way, huh? We said, now is always amazing. The problem with our, most of our unhappiness comes from that incessant thinking. Yeah.

Okay, that idea of living in the past or the future. Now, there is an interesting exercise people need to think about. Take any emotion, and it's a very good exercise to reflect on with yourself. Take any emotion, you feel the emotion right now. but the emotion has a temporal anchor, right? The anger, regret, for example, is anchored in the past.

It's about something that happened in the past. Right. Fear or anxiety is about anchored in the future. Right. If you write them all down, you'll find that the majority of the emotions that make you feel negative are anchored in the past and the future.

Right. And the majority of the emotions that make you feel positive are in the present. Right. Right. Calm is in the present. You know, excitement is in the present and so on and so forth. Right.

Now, it's quite interesting because past and future don't exist. Right. Past and future are neural constructs that you create within your own head. You cannot give them life unless you create them inside your own head. Okay. When yesterday happened, you called it today. When tomorrow eventually happens, you're going to call it today. You're always in the present.

You're always in now, yeah. Right? Now, here's the trick. The trick is if you get yourself to that presence, to be here and now here and now most of the time there's absolutely nothing wrong

unless you're in a war zone unless you have a chronic pain unless you have a you know you're going through a tough period of your time physically or whatever most of the time there's nothing more. And even in those periods

there's moments of rest and respite. 100% okay and I'll come to that in a minute but think about it this way now is always amazing the idea of bringing yourself to the now is always bringing yourself

away from the incessant thinking that's creating madness within your head. It's really important also, which is you're not saying this takes, you know, we're not saying you need a meditation practice and you're not even advocating that somebody spend every Saturday

until 2 p.m. You know, you're not advocating any of that. You know, I mean, it's helpful. Meditation is... Like all of these things are helpful, but for anybody who rolls their eyes and be like, oh, I don't have time to... You don't, it's okay.

It's fine. Look, if you don't have time, then you probably need the meditation to learn to do it, right? But the trick is this. And I, you know, because of my work, many of the top meditation teachers and Buddhist monks and so on are my friends. And they will always tell you, meditation is like going to the gym. It's not like carrying something heavy. This is, you prepare by going to the gym so that your mind learns how to focus on the present moment. Yeah. But meditation

is not the objective in itself. It's the practice. It's the practice, right? But here's the trick. Have you ever felt that oh shit it's june right yeah right like and then we say my god this year is going fast my god my god it's nearly over yeah if you ever thought why that is i guess because i'm too busy yeah correct no too busy is it's a very interesting explanation so i found and i did that 2018 was i when i was when i started to see this and i apply it and i can guarantee you the last seven years of my life have been way longer than the previous 51 because you're because you're because you have to understand that you're slowing down you're only aware of the time you live and if you're if your if your day is filled with a calendar that's back to back to back to back and you're

always in the day is over and you're always in your head so even even if your day is filled with a calendar that's back to back but this conversation I will remember forever right because I'm fully present in I'm listening to you, you're contributing, I, you're listening to me, you know, the, the sensations of being a little hot outside, but we're still okay. And if you completely bring yourself to this, time continues to stretch. So every minute that you live fully, okay, is a minute that registers as a moment of life. Every minute you live inside your head is a moment you'll never remember. One of the things that's really helped me is, and it took a while to shed the guilt of

of wanting time to myself, right? Because we're in a hyper-productive, you know, you've got to, if you're not using your time to make something, do something, achieve something, hit some sort of, then you're a loser, right?

And I would sometimes wake up pretty early on a weekend and I would sit in bed till noon. And I'm, I mean, like, so I woke about eight. And I'm talking about like, maybe I read the newspaper, maybe I played a game.

Did the crossword puzzle, played some games, maybe I made a phone call. I would sometimes go downstairs, cup of coffee and get back into bed. And when people be like, what'd you do today? Because it was like two o'clock and I met somebody for, you know, for brunch or something. I'm like, and I was, I'd be like, I sat in bed. And they're like, what a waste of a day. They would say to me. Seriously. I know. And then I got to the, and I would have this guilt. And I got to the point where I was like, you know what,

it's my life. It's my morning. It's my weekend. I'm allowed to do whatever I want. And if I choose to set in bed all morning and do something completely that the world would judge as unproductive, so be it. And I got to tell you, I love sitting in bed doing nothing all morning. I love it. I'll give you to it. And so what? Or I could go do something, but it's like my activity is to be in bed. What is that song? Today I'm just not doing anything, right? The activity of doing the... Nothing. Well, where nothing is the thing.

Yeah. So I do 40 days of silence every year. So I just go somewhere in a row. All in a row. Because I could probably do 40 days of silence if you added up my whole life. So you're amortized over the course of my life. I've definitely...

I dare you. I'm daryly about like 27 days. I dare you if you try it. Don't do the monk thing. Don't go to a monastery where they wake you up at 4 a.m. I go to a beautiful nature place. You know,

converted barn somewhere and you know whatever right and uh i'm not very strict about it i listen to music i don't listen to lyrics right i don't follow up on the internet and i allow myself paper and pen and i write okay believe it nor or not almost every single year i've done the whole 40 days i wrote at least seven chapters of a book okay and it happens in a very unusual way the first week but most people can't take 40 days off of life everyone can No, everyone can. Everyone can, but not in the same... They could take a weekend, maybe.

I was going to say, not in the same consecutive way, right, right. So, you know, people almost always dare me and say, I'm so busy, okay? I'm really sorry, I'm so busy. And I go like, but cold play is going to be available next week. Do you want tickets? And they'll go like, yeah, totally. No problem whatsoever. Okay?

It goes back to intentions. I have no time until I want to make time. Exactly. Okay, so what you're saying is find a reasonable amount of time that is reasonable for whatever the life. So I suggest to people, I suggest to people what I call the mini silent retreats, which is my Saturdays. Okay, perfect. You set your alarm until to 2 or 3 p.m. and you have a half a day to yourself. Totally legit, because that scares a lot of people to hear.

Of course. I have to be quiet and not engage with anybody from the time I wake up until 2 p.m. The minute you do that, you engage with who? Your brain. Right. And your brain attacks you, right? And the whole idea is, so I call it Meet Becky. So one of my famous techniques is I call my brain a third party name.

Yeah. Right. So Becky was the most annoying girl in school. Right. So literally, you know, you know, those people that walk to you all the time and just say annoying things. Yeah. And then walk away with no solutions.

Yeah. Right. That's your brain. It's like, it's just, by the way, you're fat. Why brain? Why did you say this? Right. And the trick here is when you restrict Becky,

when you restrict your brain, your brain pushes harder. It's a bit like that friend that takes you at 7 a.m. and goes like, hey, I have this great idea. Call me. And you're sleep at 7, right? Or you're doing something.

And then by 9 a.m., they've texted you 60 times. And you go like, hey, I'm walking to a meeting. Can I text you back at 10.30? And they'll say, yeah, fine, no problem whatsoever. That's your brain. So what I do is I go to my,

my brain and I go like, hey, by the way, part of Saturday, tell me all the shit that's going on. Tell me everything that's going on up there. I just love this practice. I've tried it in a mini way. So I heard Matt Walker, who's the sleep expert. Yeah. And when he talks about, because I struggle with my brain racing at, like, I'm totally relaxed, not thinking about anything. The minute I turn out the lights on my head is in the pillow, okay, game on, right? And I can lie awake for hours and just over and over and I know like don't worry you'll deal with this tomorrow you can't fix it now it doesn't matter I can't turn it off then I heard him say and I tried it which is just write it down exactly and so like I keep a little red flashlight that next to my

bed so it doesn't ruin my night vision and I have a little pad and pen and all of the thoughts whatever they are just write them down and it is incredible how well it works it all just stops It all just stops. And I even like tried to trick myself where I wrote them down that I tried to force myself to think of those same things again and it couldn't.

The brain couldn't do it. The minute they were written down and I realize it's spinning not because I'm actually thinking it's spinning because it wants to me to remember these things. But if I write them down, it says, I'm good, go ahead and go ahead

and get them sleep. I go even further. And so the fact that you're doing this, I've done it in a mini practice. You're doing much larger. It works. so well. And it's funny, so, so there are two rules to meet Becky. Rule number one is you take every thought that your brain tells you, okay? You write it down and you dismiss it. Basically,

you, you know, hey, you know, you sit down and you go like, okay, go ahead, tell me. And it will say, yeah, I don't believe that thing that Simon said. And you go like, okay, you don't believe this, that Simon said. What else? And you keep asking the question, what else? With one rule that no idea is repeated twice okay so you know 25 ideas later your brain goes and by the way i don't agree with what simon said brain you said that before right right and i guarantee you so i do i normally do that practice for 20 minutes again on a timer timers are very useful to tell you not just when something ends but by when it will end so that you don't end it before oh you have you have to fill the time you have to fill the time so you can set a timer of like 20 30 minutes i understand and

and you're not getting up. I do that when I write. So when I write, I write in 44 minutes and 11 second sessions. I don't know why, but I love those numbers. And so I set 44 minutes on my timer. And as long as the alarm didn't go off, I will not get up, even if I'm not writing. Right.

So I understand that. It's a time to tell you to stop. It's also a time to tell you when not, that you have to keep going. It's clever. It's clever. So you set your timer to 20 minutes and you get your brain to tell you, hey, I don't like what Simon said.

I like what Jackie said. I, you know, you're fat, you're short, whatever, okay? And it keeps telling you that stuff and you just take it one by one until it starts up to repeat itself. So when you call it out on repeating itself, I guarantee you, just try it once, normally around minute 11 or so. You go like, so what else? And your brain goes like, that's it really.

And it completely runs out of ideas. I promise you this is as close to heaven as you will ever get. Total silence. It's not you're trying to stop your brain through meditation. It's got nothing else. It said everything. And you have now a rule that it cannot say them again. Right.

My God, it is heaven. Right? Oh, I'm doing it. Yeah. And then suddenly, a few minutes later, it starts to tell you nice things. Like, oh, that's really nice. It's run out of crap. So it just ran out of crap.

It basically is struggling for your attack. attention, okay, and you're not doing anything about its thoughts, so it's afraid you're going to die. So it just constantly tries to tell you, give me more of that, okay? Give me more airtime, give me more attention, give me, I'm telling you, you know, they're going to kill all of us. It's fine, they are going to kill all of us. Okay?

Now, the rest of the practice is actually quite interesting. So I normally spend the next 20 minutes looking at what I wrote down, and you will laugh out loud, like literally, you look at some of those and go like, that is ridiculous. like how can you even think this and you know you visibly scratch it out and so you get the dopamine hit of accomplishment by scratching out the negativity as well and also you remind your brain

so that when it brings it up again you go like but we scratch that one out right right and then the ones that you need to do something about put an action plan next to it right and somehow that one practice if you do that once every Saturday I love this it really changes everything I'm doing it yeah 100% I'm doing it

but you see again It goes back to that whole idea. I'll be in bed all morning. So I got plenty of time to do it. But what I was trying to say with my silent retreats is really interesting, huh? You become more productive with silence sometimes. Yeah.

You become more productive by doing nothing sometimes. Okay? Well, I also, I learned the value of negative space. And as a creative person, but this is everybody. It's not just creative people, it's everybody, which is, you know, I learned this a million years ago, which is our conscious brains

have access to the equivalent of about three feet of information around us and our subconscious brains have the equivalent have access to the equivalent of about 11 acres of information around us. So when we engage our rational brains, when we weigh the pros and cons, when we access our expertise

and we quote unquote think about a problem, we've got three feet of information. But when you quote unquote let go, your mind wonders. Now, you're not quote unquote thinking, but your mind is ruminating. Your subconscious brain is ruminating, which is why we find solutions in the shower,

when we go for a run, when we're driving in the car and we go for a walk, and you're not actively thinking. And so the value of the brainstorming session is not to solve the problem, it's to ask the question. Correct. And so, but the problem is, is we've eliminated negative space. So when you're sitting on the subway going to work, I'm on the phone.

Correct. When I'm sitting on the toilet, I'm on the phone. Correct. When I'm walking from here to there. I want to see, but yes. I mean, we're all guilty of it, right? When one is sitting on the toilet. It's not me.

Like, I mean, and I catch myself doing it. I'm walking from here to there down the street. 100%. And I'm looking to. down. And it occurred to me just today coming to the studio. I like walked a full block without looking up. I'm like, I could have walked into a freaking pole that I wouldn't have known. Yeah. You know? But the point is, is I now work to add negative space. Yeah. So I'll put in my calendar, do nothing. I used to have that. That was very well known about me in Google X.

Because we had, all of our offices were glass, basically. Yeah. So people would walk by me. And I'm sitting in that glass cube. No phone, nothing on the screen, not talking to a anyone. And do nothing doesn't literally mean do nothing. It's your, I could go for a walk, I can watch a movie. Exactly. I can watch TV. The point is, it's, it's, it's scheduled, quote unquote, unproductive time as other people would define productivity. Yeah, this is the most productive time. And so, and what I'm just allowing my brain to do is wonder. 100%. W-A and W-O. Yeah. To wonder and to wonder. 100%. You know? And because I, as a, as a person who loves ideas, I won't have ideas if I'm thinking the whole time.

And there are, exactly. So I, as a creative person, which is ironic. Okay. As a creative, so I finish Google X 2018, Sol for Happy is now

an international bestseller. Like by then it was half a million copies or something. Amazing. And now I'm like running my one billion happy mission, literally like an executive. Of course. But that's not a good thing, is it? It's not at all, right?

And then someday, sometime in 2019, I text my team and I go like, guys, the season has changed, right? I'm not an executive anymore. I'm now a creative person that wakes up frequently at 3 a.m. Inspired to write something. But this is interesting, right?

Which is you're now on the happiness mission, except you're treating it like an executive, and I know people who, you know, they run businesses about, you know, meditation or, and yet they're stressed out. And like the irony of all of these people like eat meeting who have these missions and yet they are feeling the opposite of what they're espousing. Yeah. And so how can you run your business more like a philosophical practice and

rather like than a business? Because you yourself know. It's an interesting thought, which is more, which moves the macro target to a micro target. So think about this. I can only do the absolute best that I can do every day. And if I direct, know where I'm heading, by adding those days up, I'll get as far as I can say. So can I push you a little bit? Of course. What if there's no target? There is no target.

There is an inspiration, aspiration meaning one billion happy, I'm not going to, I'm never going to make it. And you're not really counting because there's no way to count. There are ways to count because the mission is actually determined very clearly. We're not measuring video views. We would have achieved a billion happy a long time ago. We're measuring people that get the message and then take an action, an action that is. calculate that number? You can estimate, right? They either take an action by going and watching

other videos. So I convinced you that you need to be happy so you start to look for other videos about happiness, or you take an action by watching the video and forwarding it. So you believe others will be happy, right? Not great, right? I mean, forwarding it, boy, this guy's an idiot. And you calculated that as a win. Maybe. I did not go to that level of integrity and probably quite a few of them. But here's the trick. I don't measure that anymore. Why?

Because for a fact, I know that I'm not going to get to a billion happy. But that a billion happy might happen after I die. Right? And the trick here is what, if I can generate one more piece of content today, or I can, if I can, it's about momentum.

It's not about targets. Exactly. It's about constantly moving in the right direction at the best of your capabilities. I mean, there's so many little things that I've been learning. So, you know, I think of business more like exercise than I do like a project. Exactly. You know, which is you trust in the process and you'll get into shape.

Just keep, just keep doing it and you'll get into shape. Don't worry about it. 100%. And you may get, you may get into shape a week later. And it might be quick. It might be slow. And sometimes you go and sometimes it goes in. But you just keep your head down and just keep doing the thing. You know, and John Burke who was on our, was a guest who's the CEO of Trek bicycles. He talks about Nick Sabins. Just play to play the play to perfection. Yeah. Just do the thing you've been practicing and do it really well, and the score will take care of itself. And what you need to do is occasionally, frequently, if you can,

sit down and review the direction. Am I doing this right? You know, am I putting my effort? That's it, right? So, for example, I... The score to me is something that you look up every now and then, as you said, directionally, it's like, am I heading in the... Like the periscope.

Yeah. You know, because if a submarine's under the ocean and the captain says, go do north, a submarine doesn't go to north. It zigzags. Correct. But every now and then, they have to look at some sort of... navigational aid or pop up on with a periscope and be like, yeah, we're basically in course, keep going.

And by the way, ask the captain if North is still where we want to go. Right, right. And I think that's the trick. Like, you take my social media presence, for example. Yeah. At the beginning, I'm a very introverted person. I don't want to be seen on social media. I ignored it completely.

Then someone said, you're never going to achieve anything unless you're on social media. So I put my head behind it and I get to a few hundred thousand followers. And then suddenly I realize, I really hate this shit. Okay. And honestly, and I'm, you know, I'm very old. open with myself. I hate this shit. And so if I do this and it drains me, that's not good for the mission. So I realized at the point in I'm around 2020, I said, look, I'm going to be on Simon's platform. Yeah. And interestingly, I have maybe total of 400,000 followers on all platforms.

Big number, by the way, I should celebrate, but I get tens of millions of video views on your platform on, you know, Stevens, I know you met Stephen, right, you know, on others. And I'm there delivering the message, not to my credit, not to my, like, I'm not going to make ad monies on it. I'm never, I was never about ad monies anyway. Sure, sure. And I think that constant change of direction telling yourself, I'm putting half a day, you know, of every day behind social media, I'm going to change that. The difference is you've moved from being target driven to mission driven. It's a massive difference. I mean, that's basically what's happened. But But shouldn't we all be?

I mean, yes. I've kind of made a career out of that. 100%. There's so mind-boggling that people think that by focusing on making a little more money next month, you're going to be successful. Larry Page used to, you call it the toothbrush. Yeah, the toothbrush test. And you would go to Larry and you would go like,

look, if you find a problem and solve it really well and keep doing it over and over and over, you're going to make a lot of money. It's not making money that is the target or it's not the promotion that's the target. It's, I am doing the absolute best I can and it's eventually going to pay out. Well, I could talk to you forever.

But we have to, I have to stop, which is a shame. Let's go, let's go for lunch or something. 100%. I wish I had got to meet Ali. Thank you. you have by saying that send him a happy wish please you would have loved him honestly i mean i'm struck by a 16 year old getting that tattoo i'm struck by a teenager saying i don't want the thing i'm struck by uh i think you knew all the lessons before he left this earth and it

they he already taught you everything before it's sounds like it's quite weird actually so you we used to play video games together and ali of course was legendary i'm now quite serious but at the time i was sort of like heroic if you want and and he would teach me he would go like no no no no no do you know do you know that trick and so on but then sometimes during a mission ali would go you know sometimes you're in a mission and it's so difficult that one of us has to walk in, you know, kill 80% of the enemies, but get shot. And then the other one, the silly one, would walk in and do the easy job. I think that's exactly what happened.

He came, he taught me. And then at a point in time, he had to leave for the mission to actually be finished. And sometimes I think about how, you know, when you asked me at the very beginning, you said is you know you said this tragic loss and i and i said i'm not sure i can call it a loss anymore because there was a point in time where i realized that if you knew ali and you know if he was walking into the intensive care room or the operating room or whatever and i had told him ali by the way if you choose to live we will have amazing times together if you choose to die 50 million people will find happiness you would have said

tell me right now. And with the certainty that both of us are meeting again, I have to say this has been a hell of a game. One that's worthwhile, if you ask me. We have a word in English for the person who runs in to take care of 80% of it that needs to be done, knowing that the person gets the glory on the other end, who finishes the mission. We have a word for the hero.

Oh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Unsung. I hope to get no credit at all, as a matter of fact. One billion happy, we're a tiny team for people. The mission statement is very clear. We want to get a million people to champion a billion happy. I want to spend every dollar I've ever earned,

and then we want to be completely forgotten. Yeah. Okay, which I think is the most difficult part of the strategy, if you ask me. This is why we're trying to try. trying not to be on our own social media, or trying to be everywhere else. And imagine if I finish my life a billionaire.

Imagine if Ali, Ali's already finished his life a millionaire. Multi-millionaire. Unbelievable. Well, thanks for coming on. I so appreciate it. Thanks for having me. It's wonderful to meet you finally. A bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company.

Lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford and Devin Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts, and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simonc.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.