Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 085. Why Chasing Happiness is Recipe for DISASTER (Do this instead)

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

I've seen countless people fall into the "Be Happy" Trap. This is happening because many "Positive Thinking" Fanyboys tell people they must be happy 24/7/365 to have a fulfilling life. But the people who always try to be happy are often the unhappiest people I've met. In this episode of the Bedros Keuilian Show, I share why chasing happiness can be a recipe for disaster. And what to do to live a fulfilled, purpose-driven, and resilient life. REGISTER FOR THE LEGACY TRIBE Get the Life, Money, Meaning & Impact You Deserve https://bedroskeuilian.com/legacytribe SUBSCRIBE TO DOMINATION DOWNLOAD A Weekly Newsletter to Help You Dominate in Business & Life https://bedroskeuilian.com/ JOIN MY FREE 6-WEEK CHALLENGE: Transform into a Purpose-Driven Man https://bedroskeuilian.com/challenge TruLean Supplements | https://www.trulean.com/pages/bedros Get 50% Off Trulean Subscribe & Save Bundle Use Code: BEDROS Few Will Hunt Apparel | https://fewwillhunt.com/ Get 20% Off Your Entire Order Use Code: BEDROS BECOME A MODERN DAY KNIGHT: Join the MDK Project https://www.themdkproject.com/ STAY CONNECTED: Website | https://bedroskeuilian.com/ Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/ LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilian Twitter | https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian

Never chase happiness directly, chase happiness indirectly by doing all the things that are going to serve you. Welcome to the Bedroft's Koolian show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Dead people do not experience sadness, adversity, setbacks, or any of those bad emotions because, well, they're dead. The rest of us, on the other hand, we have to experience all those things, and that is by design. Guys, welcome to the Bedros-Colian show. I'm Bedros-Colian, and today we're going to talk about forgetting happiness and instead focusing on this thing that I'm going to share with you.

Listen, I read a lot of books, especially where fulfillment and happiness, purpose, and meaning are concerned. And it's not lost on me that there's proven science and studies that show that people who are actually underpinning their lives with the search of happiness as their core are some of the saddest people because life unfortunately can't always give you happiness because if it did then it would be some level of bliss you'd be in heaven the world would be perfect and we know that the world is far from perfect in fact we live in a very imperfect world and those people out there who are looking for happiness well if they're always looking for happiness and happiness is the main and ultimate goal that they want, like the primary goal that they want, what is up happening

is they end up creating a recipe for disaster because they're going to be let down, right? And so then what do we do if we are not able to find direct happiness? No, believe it or not, you don't want direct happiness. What you want to do is you want to find a level of resiliency. And one of the books that I read some time ago by an author named Nassim Talbed, The book was written, I think, in 2012. I read it in 2013 or 14. The book's called Anti-Fragile. And the really crux of it is, if you can make yourself anti-fragile, you will find yourself

developing resiliency and having fulfillment, even when happiness is not on the menu, right? And is that a cool thing? Because think about this. Last September, my mom passed away. I was definitely not happy, but I was still living a life of fulfillment because of the work that I do, the charities that I serve, the companies that I run, the people that I work with. I had fulfillment while I definitely had an absence of happiness because my mom passed away, right? And so if I'm always in a place of searching for happiness, it is almost a recipe for disaster, for defeat, for being let down. And I think that's what many people do.

you're searching for happiness in a person or you're searching for happiness in a career, you're searching for happiness in a business that you start. If you're searching for happiness in any one thing or in any one area, you will be disappointed. And the reason that's important for you to understand is because fulfillment is what you're after. And so how do we get to fulfillment? That is the magical word here, right? Well, we have to become anti-fragile. We have to become resilient. And there's so many great authors out there that have written books on happiness, the science of happiness and why we have to become anti-fragile, we have to become resilient, and what it takes to become resilient. So let's talk about that for a moment. When you are resilient,

this means that you have been tested, tested, and retested in life. Now, sadly, too many people bubble wrap themselves, always play it safe. They don't take a lot of risks and they don't want to put their, stick their neck out. And so they kind of stay, well, fragile, the opposite of anti-fragile. And if you are fragile, that means that you are emotionally limping along in life. You are mentally weak. And if something unfavorable happens and life is very dynamic and something unfavorable is guaranteed to happen to you several times in life, then you will fall apart. So if you've got an emotional limp, you're mentally weak and you're just kind of feeling like, gosh, I don't have have the mental and emotional fortitude to carry on, you feel hopeless is because you are a fragile

human being. And I'm not here picking on you guys. I'm letting you know that maybe your mom and dad and school teachers, grandma, grandpa have bubble wrapped you and, you know, try to keep you safe for far too long. Now, I'm not saying that you should go do something unsafe, but I am saying that science and studies continue to point out, and some great psychologists continue to point out that happiness should not be our direct goal. Happiness should be your indirect goal. Happiness as an indirect goal is a byproduct of having resiliency, fulfillment, meaning, purpose, significance, right?

And so when you understand that, you go, holy hell, I've been missing out. I've been looking for happiness as my direct goal in life when in reality, I can't have it. And here's what happens to people who are always looking for happiness as a direct goal in life. when the inevitable happens, in my case my mom died or you get an injury and you can't work out consistently and you've tied happiness to working out consistently or to making money or to having this companion in your life, right? And then they leave you or they die or you, whatever, something happens. Well, guess what? The people who have tied their happiness, like their state to direct happiness, they end up resorting to vices. Now they go to alcohol, food, weed,

vape, pornography, television, food, anything that will mask the pain and keep them from having to experience the pain. When in reality, we know that to be anti-fragile, as the author says, means we must develop resiliency. And resiliency means we must be tested, broken and remended, broken and remanded. Understand that you're not like a champagne glass where. if I took a champagne glass and I just grabbed it and I squished it with my hand, it would break. And I'd be hard pressed to ever put it back together again in its most perfect form, right?

The human body and the human mind is very different than champagne glass. See, champagne glass is fragile and there's no way to make it anti-fragile. Resistance, as in crushing it, will actually break it permanently and I can never put it back together again. But the human body and the human mind and the human spirit and human emotions are developed, stronger, more resilient, more capable each time you deal with stress, trauma, adversity, setbacks, failure, loss, sadness. And so if you can actually develop this muscle of embracing adversity, hardship, sadness,

and realizing that it serves as a purpose, it serves a purpose in your life, it serves as resistance to build your mental, emotional muscles, then you go, holy hell, this is an opportunity for me. Like, it was hard, but I saw my mom's death as an opportunity for me to become even more mentally and emotionally tougher, to become the type of person who can speak out against Alzheimer's and educate people that dementia and Alzheimer's disease is really a type 3 diabetes.

It's really what it is. It's a byproduct of a very poor diet, a high sugar diet and inactivity in terms of lifestyle, compounded over time. There's a massive likelihood of people who would not have the Alzheimer's disease if they were able to control their diet and their activity over the long haul, right? I do believe my mom was one of them. And so I realized that the sadness and the loss of my mom is a opportunity for me to build resiliency. Hey guys, quick interruption to the Bedrose-Culian show.

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Now, back to the show. And so since we looked at champagne glass and we're like, all right, if a champagne glass, if I drop it, it'll break and I can never put it back together. If I smash it, it'll break. I could never put it back together. Then what about the human psyche? What about the human body? What about the human mind?

Well, let's use this as an example. Your muscles, right? You go to the gym. You work out. You do pull-ups. you push-ups, you bench, deadlift, squat, you do all these things. And each time you do it and you do it consistently, what happens? Your muscles get stronger, more resilient, bigger.

You can do more sets, more reps. They can deal with the lactic acid build up even more, right? Same thing with your cardiovascular system. If you start walking and then jogging and then running and then going for long distance, your cardiorespiratory system begins to build up and becomes more resilient, more anti-fragile, right? Your bones as you begin to lift weights and move things as the bones that are connected to tendons and those tendons are connected to muscles, right? Muscles get stronger.

The tendons get stronger. They force the bones to become more minerally dense. Your bones become stronger, more dense. You become anti-fragile so that when you're old and you slip and fall, you don't break your hip like grandma does, right? Because grandma had a history of not working out. Grandma had bones that were made of like fucking Faberjee eggs. Grandma had very weak and porous bones. You know better.

You know that I can actually lift weights and use resistance and strengthen my body and mind, my bones and muscles and become anti-fragile and resilient. But resistance is what you're missing. And when you play life too safe, when you're always not taking the risk, not putting your neck out there, not creating the content, not going to the gym, not trying to deal with the stuff. Instead, instead you're kind of bearing your head in the sand and ignoring and avoiding the work that you need to do and hoping that this thing that's happening in your life,

this disaster just goes away. That doesn't make you resilient anymore. That does the opposite. It makes you weak. It makes you fragile. It makes you soft, emotionally, mentally and physically. And each time you get weaker and softer, it's easier. to then avoid the work and have a life of mediocrity,

of like having an average life. And I share this with you because the people who play life safe end up regretting life in the long haul, right? And the people who are chasing happiness indirectly by realizing that, wait, I have to do something that gives me a sense of meaning and purpose. I have to do something that keeps my body fit and strong. I have to do something that keeps my mind sharp and creative.

I have to do something that gets me in line with people who I love and respect and want to spend time with, right? And those people, of course they get rejected. They get hurt by the people they're with. Of course you're going to get an injury in the gym. Does that mean that you shouldn't go back to the gym? No, you should. You should because you're still building resiliency.

You're building muscle. You're building stronger connective tissue. You're building stronger cardiovascular system. You're building stronger bones. Right? Your mitochondria and yourselves are active and they're like, dude, we can give you so much fucking energy. You can go do what the fuck you want in life.

versus sitting around, scrolling to social media, playing video games, eating haphazardly, skipping your workouts, not getting any sunlight, not putting yourself around any people who love you and you want to love them up. And then all of a sudden you'd go like, oh, something happened and you fall apart. And you're like, oh man, this was the worst fucking day, week, month, year, 10 years of my life. I can't tell you how many times I see that in the YouTube comments when people go, oh, man, this has been like an eight year streak. And I was like, fuck bro like eight years of hardship like life is no one's life should be that hard unless you avoided doing hard stuff and you became soft and fragile and now you don't know how to cope with life and that's

really what it's about it is about coping with life there's a term that psychologists call ptg post-traumatic growth now we've all heard of post-traumatic disorder right PTSD PTSD obviously is something happens and now you have like this post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, post-traumatic growth is after some traumatic event happens, adversity, hardship. And by the way, we create a traumatic event in our body all the time. When you go to the gym and you have a badass workout, like all of a sudden you're sore for the next two or three days, guess what that is? You have created trauma. You have created trauma. Post-traumatic growth then happens where your body begins to heal those muscles because you

tore the muscles down in the gym. This is why you're sore. You've got microsky tears in your muscles. If you're eating higher proteins, you're getting your carbs and fats and you're getting rest, your body heals itself. Post-traumatic growth develops and you build stronger muscles. You have more resiliency in your tendons and ligaments, connective tissue. You have stronger bones over time. And that is a damn good thing, right? So if we know that post-traumatic growth happens in a gym, then we know that post-traumatic growth happens psychologically and mentally as well. If I deal with hardship in my business, if I deal with hardship in my relationships, and I actually face those hardships, go head on and not try and avoid them, escape from them using vices,

hide from them, pretend they're not there. If I actually go head on and try and address those things, yes, initially it's post-traumatic stress, right? A post-traumatic issue, stress happens. But if when I go to address them and work through them and heal through them, then it's post-traumatic growth and that's what you're looking for. And so where are the areas that you want to focus on? I'm going to share that with you in just a moment. The areas that you want to focus on are spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational, and emotional, right? Think about that.

If you can begin to do hard things and test yourself spiritually, physically, intellectually, be challenged relationally and of course emotionally you become anti-fragile you become resilient because each time you are tested more growth takes place in your brain neuroplasticity takes place no difference than your muscles growing you can actually grow your brain neuroplasticity you become better more effective more efficient at what you're doing right there's a there's a great psychologist and author his name is dr tal benshar and dr benshar and dr bencher literally made it his business to study happiness. And he swears up and down and the studies that he has put out prove that

searching for direct happiness is the fastest way to actually get depressed, sad, and let down. In fact, he says, indirectly finding happiness through spiritual growth, through physical development, right? Changing your body, getting fit, getting active, like feeling good about yourself, intellectual growth, like challenging your brain, your mind, your creativity, relationships, being in relationships where you are stimulated, you are loved, you are able to give love back, and then of course emotional depth, right?

Being emotionally challenged, having emotional growth, developing emotional discipline. These are the things that create this happiness that can never be defeated. Because you will have moments in life when mom and dad die, when you get into a car accident, when the economy crashes. Unfortunately, people leave us. You know, businesses go under. We lose our job. Like bad things are guaranteed to happen.

But those bad things are not guaranteed to steal your fulfillment. But they are guaranteed to steal your happiness. And if you are looking for direct happiness, you will be disappointed. If you are looking for indirect happiness by pouring into yourself spiritually, physically, intellectually, intellectually, relationally, and. emotionally, you realize, holy hell. I am a resilient motherfucker. So then, what is the thing that I want to share with you? I've shared this with you on a previous podcast, and I want to share this with you again. And that is the orchid and the weed. Now, we all know that the orchid is pretty. Like,

if you're going to go to someone's house and you're going to, you know, maybe go to a cocktail party at their house, you're like, oh, what should we bring them? You stop at a flower shop at a grocery store and you buy this beautiful orchid, right? And you show up to their house and you're like, hey, we got you guys a plant. It's an orchid. Look how pretty it is. And it's in a little pot. And it's got those little sticks.

And they use little hair clips to pin the orchid to those little sticks. It's beautiful. It's nice. But guess what? The orchid is one of the most fragile plants on the face of the earth. Like if it gets too much sun, the orchid dies. Too much water, the orchid dies.

If the orchid gets put in a area where there's other plants, the orchid dies. The orchid is very fragile. Yes, it's pretty, but it's very fragile. And I don't want you to be one of those pretty bitches who have no anti-fragility to you where you're pretty but shallow and broken. I want you to be fucking savage and hard

and I want you to get after life because the weed, not the weedy weed weed that you smoke, but the weed that grows through the cracks of asphalt. I've seen weed grow through the side of a telephone pole. Like you can't kill this garden weed. You can go find any kind of weed killer that you want at Home Depot or Lowe's and spray that weed down. Within a couple weeks, that fucking weed is back. And you can pluck it out and within a couple weeks that weed is back.

Why? Because it is anti-fragile. It is resilient. It will keep coming back stronger. True. It's not pretty. I don't want to be pretty. I want to be resilient.

I want to say this is where I plan on growing and hell or high water. You can spray me. You can pull me out. You can stomp on me. You can make it cold or hot or drought or there could be a flood and I will continue to grow. That is the weed. But everybody seems to want to lean towards being a fucking orchid in life. And what they don't realize is when you're an orchid, you are fragile, you are soft,

you are weak, you have an emotional limp, you are mentally just giving up in life. You feel hopeless, right? So in a perfect world, if I had it my way, you would see yourself as the everyday garden weed. resilient, strong, capable, and able to handle any kind of adversity. And if you're able to do that, then you are a fulfilled little fucker, right? The weed is a fulfilled little fucker. And guess what? The weed is not happy when it gets pulled out, but it's still fulfilled because, guess what,

motherfucker? It's like, I'm coming back in two weeks. And then Homeboy goes to Home Depot and Lowe's and comes back and sprays that weed. The weed is like, oh shit, you're killing me. This doesn't taste good. The weed dies only to come back in a tree. couple weeks because guess what motherfucker I wasn't happy when you killed me but I'm fulfilled because I came back because this is where I belong running your fucking

sidewalk right on your pool deck and take that like that's the mindset you want you want the mindset of a fucking weed and not one of the orchid where the orchid has to have like this perfect temperature perfect amount of humidity perfect amount of sun can't have any other plants around it otherwise poof it dies you get what I'm saying right never chase happiness directly chase happiness indirectly by doing All the things that are going to serve you, spiritually, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and relationally. And if you were able to do those things and not just hide from them, escape from them, use vices and drugs and alcohol and pornography to be able to, you know, escape your realities, but instead face everything head on and problem solve. Each time you problem solve, that is the resistance, just like in a gym and you build your muscles.

All the problem solving that you do in your life is the resistance that you use to build yourself, mentally and emotionally, and then you become a very anti-fragile, ironically, and happy and fulfilled, purpose-driven human. And that is what I want for you. Guys and gals, remember, Bedroskooling alive happening September 13th and 14th in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona, go to bedroskooling.com forward slash live. And also, if you are in Australia and you want to come see me July 18th, 19th, and 20th of this year, then I want you to go to bedrosk cooling.com, find my Australian tour, Rise to Greatness, July 18th, 19th, 20th, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney. I will be out there in beautiful Australia and I will be delivering the thunder.

Finally, remember this, that averages the enemy, that success is your responsibility, and change can take place in an instant if you are willing to flip the switch. I'll see you next time. What's the difference between me and you? When Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental.