The School of Greatness - 467 The Happiness Equation with Mo Gawdat

Episode Date: April 5, 2017

"If you don't know what happiness is, how do you expect to find it?" - Mo Gawdat If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/467

This is episode number 467 with Google X's Mo Gadet. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone. If you're looking to find out the equation to happiness, then look no further. Today we have on Mo Gadet, who joined Google in 2007.

He managed Google's business in over 50 countries and focusing on his biggest passion, emerging markets, and the vast degree of diversity and challenges they face. Now, over the years, Mo has started close to half of Google's operations worldwide. And in 2013, Mo joined Google X and is now chief business officer of that department. He's also a serial entrepreneur who's co-founded more than 15 businesses in his career. He actively serves as the board member of several technology, health and fitness, and consumer goods startups, as well as several government technology and innovation brands in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. And in the last 10 years, he has made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with thousands of people in more than 100 countries.

And his new book is called Solve for Happy. And he was faced with his biggest challenge a few years ago when he lost his son. And he talks about if the equation for happiness works even in the biggest tragedies that we may face. And what we cover today are what most unhappy people have in common and the easy way to fix this. Mo's happiness equation that works for every situation. You're going to learn this very quickly. Also, how to handle missed expectations. The difference between pain and suffering,

and the six grand illusions that make us suffer, and how to get around them. This is a powerful episode. And again, it's solving something that so many of us are striving for on a daily basis, how to be happier. And a lot of people say that happiness is their definition of greatness. And if it's something that so many people are searching for, why is it so hard for us to have and to create for ourselves? And Mo says that there's an equation, and that's what we're covering today. So without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into this with the one, the only Mo Gaudet.

All right, welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Mo Gaudet in the house. Good to see you, my man. My fellow handball player, which I just found out he did handball in Egypt, was on the Egyptian national team or in the pool for a little bit. And you've got a book out called Solve for Happy, which is engineer your path to joy. And I'm very excited about this one. Make sure you guys check it out. And you are solving happiness from an engineering standpoint, right? Not from like a spiritual yoga standpoint, but more kind of like a hacking happiness is what I'm understanding, right? Not from like a spiritual yoga standpoint, but more kind of like

a hacking happiness is what I'm understanding, right? I don't use the word hacking. I actually don't use any of the brands at all. So no meditation, no soul, no spirit, no body, no mindfulness. I try not to use those brands if you want, because in an interesting way, I feel that they've become a tiny bit diluted, maybe a lot. As a matter of fact, I think, I think we take something like mindfulness, and we try to brand it in the modern way. You know, to try and tell people, okay, here is something that you can cut and, you know, fit within a specific, you know, view and do it every time. It's much deeper than that. And it's much bigger than that. So this is an illogical view of happiness, if you want. And, you know, a methodology

that is repeatable, and scalable, like an engineering model, that resulted not, of course, it borrowed from a lot of the ancient, you know, studies of happiness of the, you know, from the, from the spirituality, and sometimes from the, from the spirituality, and sometimes from religions, and so on, it doesn't associate with them. But it borrowed a lot more from an engineering methodology to things, a proper definition of a problem statement, a proper algorithm and an equation for what you're trying to solve for. And then from that, you can, you know, if you have an equation for happiness, you can start to see what's wrong. What's missing in the equation.

Absolutely. Right. And so a very, very deliberate analytical approach to the problem. I like it. Yeah. Because there's lots of books out there on happiness. Absolutely. That have, you know, kind of taken over the world by storm because I think so many people are suffering.

Some people, so many people aren't fulfilled in their lives and in their work and in their relationships and their health and all these different areas, right? Absolutely. And why did you want to start on this journey? What was it for you? Were you suffering? Did you go through some type of experience? I mean, who doesn't? I say I'm one of the modern day warriors, like you and I, the people that go through the modern world and try to succeed and, you know, they start to acquire things and, you know, get to a certain position or status in life and so on. And, you know, in my early years, even though I'm Egyptian and, you know, educated in public schools and public universities in Egypt, I must be the luckiest person you will ever meet. You know, somehow fortune always blessed me. And at a very young age, I was given so much. I mean,

I was given almost everything that we always work a lifetime for, money, cars, toys. I had an amazing family, a wonderful wife, two incredible kids. And the more I was given, the more unhappy I became, which was- The more you're given, the more unhappy you became. Absolutely. So you could... Why? Yeah, exactly. And you really need to start asking yourself that, right? There is a point in time where you go through life and say, you know, when I get this or when I achieve that or I'm recognized as this, I will be happy, right? And isn't this the promise we've always been given, right? You know, I don't know about your mother, but my mother always told me, hey, work hard for a few years, and then, you know, study hard for a few more, and then, you know, you will reach success. And at a point in time, when you've reached success, you're going to find happiness. And how often do

you see that happening, right? We all go through life,, you know, you can see some of the most successful people out there swimming in money, recognized like, you know, stars and miserable, right? And so, you know, in a very interesting way, I realized that as an engineer, to me, that meant that, you know, this machine was doing well, right? This machine came out of the box and it worked well and it was happy. And then the more it engaged into the real world, the more it became unhappy. Something broke, almost as if either parts of the machine were not working anymore, or maybe, you know, maybe it's not in a proper environment anymore. Like, you know, a sports car. I'm not a sports car by any means.

But, you know, imagine if I'm a sports car and I'm, you know, off-road in the desert, I will get stuck. Right? And so when you realize that, you say, okay. So as an engineer, you would say, let me unassemble this machine. See what went wrong. Okay? Let me understand which parts of this machine are not fit for the new environment. Or what part of the new environment is drowning those parts of the machine. Okay. Let me understand which parts of this machine are not fit for the new environment or what part of the new environment is drowning this, those parts of the machine and put it back

together in a way that works. Sure. Sure. Wow. So you work at something called Google X and what is that? X is the, you know, is the, if you want the innovation factory of Google. So, you know, one, of course, innovation happens everywhere in Google. But X is very well known for things that are outside the core, you know, part of Google. So things like self-driving cars or Project Loon that, you know, is aiming to connect the whole world through an internet network of balloons and so on. Wow. And, yeah, and it's different. I told you I was lucky. So, you know, I ran the business side of that

for the last three and a half years and I'm now actually on sabbatical. So you're not there right now. Yeah, I got the exceptional approval because Google is an incredible place to take a six-month sabbatical to focus on this mission. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. So what we do in Google X is we launch what we call moonshots.

Moonshots are attempts at solving major problems in the world in a very unconventional way, right? So, you know, we're aiming not to have an incremental impact on the Internet through Project Loon, We're aiming not to have an incremental impact on the Internet through Project Loon, but to completely revamp or reinvent the Internet so that there is coverage everywhere there is air. Right. That's a very different approach. It's almost looking at the Internet as a human right. OK, and those moonshots, they require that you do things very differently. that you do things very differently. And so when I spoke to Astro, our CEO, and Sergey and others in the organization, I basically said, I have a personal moonshot. And my personal moonshot is I have this repeatable model that I think would help the modern world

find happiness. And happiness is an epidemic. Billions of people are, even though I think humanity is at one of its best eras ever, billions of people are unhappy. So I'm focusing for six months entirely on trying to make 10 million people happy. Who are the people that are

the most unhappy in the world? I tend to believe the thinkers. The more we think beyond the truth of life, the more unhappy we become. Surprisingly, it's, you know, most of the people that you will meet in your life here in LA have an okay life.

I mean... Very good life. Sorry to say that. Beverly Hills. You were just telling me about your trip to Ghana. I mean, very good life. Sorry to say that. Beverly Hills. You were just telling me about your trip to Ghana. I mean, this is, well,

if you want to know how bad life can be. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Just, just go and take a look, you know, as you know,

Louis CK on one of his, of his standups, you know, he basically says, sometimes we don't have problems. So we invent stuff to be upset about. Right. And he and he goes like you know there are parts of the world where uh you you know our problem today is they're going to chop all our heads off right that's a real problem yes it's it's not as bad as you know having to choose a language on the atm machine or that you know it's

raining a little too much today absolutely it. And so we, you know, we look at life in very interesting ways. We think about life in a way, in my view, that causes a lot of suffering. And that's actually the core of my model, right? The core of my model is that if you really understand happiness, you know, let me take a step back. So when I was searching for happiness, I was very unhappy even though I was successful. And then as an engineer, I realized that, okay, I would never find what I'm looking for unless I define it properly, right? What happiness is. What happiness is.

What's the equation to happiness, right? And you'll be surprised. Most people don't know what it is for What happiness is. What's the equation to happiness, right? Yeah. And you'll be surprised. Most people don't know what it is for them. Absolutely. And they keep searching and searching, but they're not sure. They think maybe this will be it, this will be it, this will be it. But then it's like, oh, I got that and I'm still not happy. Exactly.

Still not enough. Exactly. Still not enough. And so if you don't know what it is, how do you expect to find it? Is your happiness the next iPhone or is your happiness a nice trip with your partner? But you get that. And once you get it, it's almost as if the goal has moved a little further. It's like, okay, let me find the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

And so I went reading for a while. I went on reading for a while. I couldn't find a common definition. We all know happiness is that wonderful feeling like I, you know, I'm okay with this. I want to keep this, right? But what triggers that happiness? And so I found a million definitions. You know, some people will say, ah, when you meditate, you're happy.

When my daughter smiles, I'm happy. When I'm having a good cup of coffee, I'm happy, right? It doesn't really matter what it is. There needs to be an algorithm. And so I did what an engineer would do. I started to capture as many arbitrary data points as I could of instances when I felt happy. I asked people around me what instances made them happy. And I plotted that on a chart and I tried to find a line, an equation, you know, to fit a line that basically describes what happiness is.

You know, to fit a line that basically describes what happiness is. And my discovery was very straightforward, that you feel happy when the events of your life seem to be meeting your expectations of how life should behave. Okay? Regardless of what your expectations are, how realistic or unrealistic they are. Regardless of how generous or harsh, you know, the events in your life are. If the events of your life meet your expectations, you're happy. If the events of your life miss your expectations, you're unhappy. It's as simple as that.

So have very low expectations. Of course, all achievers will come up and say, absolutely, I found the answer. If I have low expectations, I'm happy. And I'm sorry to disappoint you. Yes, this will work. It's true. We were just in Guatemala a couple weeks ago building schools as well. But when I'm in Ghana or Guatemala and the people that literally have nothing,

they're living on the dirt with a little roof, you know, hut roof. And no internet, no toys. It's just like they have friends and they have the outdoor space to run around in. They're happy. Absolutely. They're not the outdoor space to run around in. They're happy. Absolutely. They're not expecting something crazy to happen. Absolutely. They don't get a lot of money and then it's taken from them.

They're just happy with what they have. They don't want the iPhone 7. No, they don't need it. They don't care that much. They don't have shoes. They're just like, oh, it's a swimming pool. And of course, they're also blessed with the concept of gratitude. So if you give them a bowl of rice, they're like, wow, that's amazing. You know, even if the waiter is a tiny bit late, that's fine.

We don't think through that. But I also am a businessman, right? As I say, I'm a modern day warrior who believes very strongly that we are all here for a reason, right? So we're supposed to be here to make a difference to the world, right? If you have low expectations, yes, I guarantee you, you will be happy, okay? But you will be mediocre in life, right? You won't create much. Yeah, and you won't achieve that mission that you're here for. You know, there is something that you're supposed

to deliver to humanity or to being in general, right? And so I say, you know, set realistic, even stretching expectations, okay? But the trick is, how do you behave when those expectations are missed? And that really is where the whole suffering cycle, you know, begins. So, you know, I, you know, I wanted to come here, you know here and visit you. And so that's a six hours flight. That's my expectation, right? I was in New York, all right? If I'm an hour late on the runway,

how do I react to that, okay? Should I set my expectations as I walk to the airport that it's gonna be 10 hours so that when I get there in six, I'm happy? No, I want it to be six. But what happens is when we, when our expectations are missed, a cycle of what we call, what I call incessant thinking, chatter, brain chatter happens in your head. Okay. That basically starts to make you feel lousy about life yet has no impact on the real world whatsoever. Okay. So you would sit

there in the airplane, maybe waiting on the runway and saying, Oh my God, I'm never going to fly Delta again. You know, I'm, you know, I'm flying is just killing me. It's never going to work for me. Oh, I should have chosen another time. Oh, you know, what will happen if I get there and, you know, I run, I don't find taxis because it's too late. Or, oh, you know, what will happen if I get there and, you know, I run, I don't find taxis because it's too late. Or, oh, you know, I planned for six hours. Now it's going to be seven. I'm going to feel hungry. I don't know whatever weird crap that comes into our heads, right? And that goes over and over in our heads and has no impact whatsoever on the real world other than making you suffer. How smart is that?

Not smart at all. Right? So the issue is not how you set your expectations. The issue is how we handle missed expectations through life. That's one thing. The other thing is, I'm sorry to say, but often we are 20 minutes late taking off. And often we end up landing on time, right? Right.

So the reality is, you know, you're setting your expectations in a way that is realistic, but you're also not looking at the event in reality as it is. And this is where all of the unhappiness starts to come in. in reality as it is. And this is where all of the unhappiness starts to come in. So when did you start this journey of like wanting to find the equation? I think it was 2001. I was a day trader at the time. The market was collapsing. I was making a ton of money. And, you know, on top of my normal job as a director in a big consumer goods company and everything was fine. And somehow I was, you know, every day that passed, I was unhappy. And, you know, and so I being a Middle Eastern, you know, therapy is not an option.

Macho men, we have no issues. Right. And so I had to secretively start to read myself out of the problem. I read everything I could get my hands on. I mean, I had that habit my whole life where, you know, how we go to the gym an hour a day. I also went to the, you know, brain gym an hour a day. So the first thing I did every day of my life was reading, right? The first thing I did every day of my life was reading.

It was reading, right? And so I read, you know, incessantly, if you want, about the topic of happiness. I read almost for nine years on nothing else. I stopped reading on economics and finance and business and leadership and all of the stuff that makes us succeed in the world. Simply because, hey, it doesn't seem that success in the world is leading me to where I need to be. Okay. Um, and, uh, and you know, I think what happened was, um, I was being trained if you want. Uh, so, so for, um, around 2009, I became a lot more okay with life. You know, I'm again, I'm a Middle Eastern, post 9-11. I came to the US once a month for many, many years. And so it would, you know, from Dubai to

here, it would take 12-14 hours, and then four more hours in Homeland Security with a silly smile on my face. Nothing could dent my happiness. Okay, I was okay. it seemed you know you know you win a deal you lose a deal you know you you know your car gets scratched your whatever spouses are a little upset today ups and downs of life and I would have that weird smile like you know nothing good I somehow found a way to just go through with a repeatable model that gets me back to happiness. And then, of course, in 2014, as I share in the book, it was the ultimate test, if you want. So of the biggest gifts I've ever been given was my wonderful son, Ali. Ali was not the usual child at all.

He rarely ever cried. He rarely ever frowned. I actually don't recall Ali ever frowning in my face, believe it or not. Really? Yeah, it's like a really, I remember, I remember vividly the one time we really disagreed and argued was when he was making a choice on university, where, you know, that one argument, two and a half minutes later, I went back and apologized. You know, he was that sweet. He was so honest, so wise that, you know, by age 18, I started to go to him all the time and ask for his advice. Yeah, not my bosses, not my friends anymore. I recall vividly that I went to one of my friends at the time and I said, when I grow up, I want to be like Ali. You know, he was that wise. And Ali was my friend. We played video games together. We played music together. He was super funny. So, you know, we joked a lot

together, watched a lot of comedy together, had all the, you know, the best of a relationship, if you want. And Ali was a student in Northeastern University in 2014, came to visit us in Dubai in July and, you know, unexpected actually. So he just picked up the phone a couple of weeks earlier and said, hey guys, I really, really feel like I want to see you. Unfortunately, as life sometimes doesn't go the way you want it to, unfortunately, as life sometimes doesn't go the way you want it to, Ali had an acute belly pain and was diagnosed with an appendectomy, which truly is the simplest operation on the face of planet Earth.

Appendix. Yeah, appendix inflammation. And so they basically put in an endoscopy and then blow a little bit of CO2 and then cut it and just take it out. It's literally a few minutes operation. Unfortunately, the surgeon punctured his main blood vessel and exploded it with the CO2 that they... And then they made, you know, five mistakes in a row where, you know, a few, maybe a few hours later, Ali was no longer with us. And as you can imagine, you would have every reason on earth to literally collapse.

I mean, no one would have blamed me if I closed my door and cried for the rest of my life and decayed. No one would say that's wrong. You know, if you knew him, you would understand. But somehow we were okay. Somehow, I wouldn't say we were happy, don't get me wrong. There is a tremendous pain that comes with the loss of a child. I wish that for nobody.

I don't even wish it for my enemies, to be honest. I don't have enemies, and I'm lucky. But it is so painful painful and it lasts. Yet, while the pain was there, there was no suffering. And there is a difference between them. So we were not angry at the world. We were not blaming ourselves for taking him to that hospital. We were not, you know, wondering if life will end, if, you know,

we should shoot the doctor, you know, we were peaceful and calm, which by the way, truly is the definition of happiness, just that peace and calm of, I'm okay with life as it is. Okay. And so, and so when, when my friend started to come over and see, you know, to his memorial, his memorial had more than a thousand people show up, you know, and they would come in crying. We would hug them. We would tell them our view of life and death. And we would tell them our view of happiness and what can be done in this situation. And they would smile and walk around laughing, telling stories of Ali. If you didn't know what was going on,

you would show up and think that it was his birthday or something, right? And so every one of my friends told me, you should write that down. You know, that's something that you absolutely should share. He surprisingly, even though it was a total surprise for us to lose him, I think he knew he was going. Really? Yeah. There were so many signs. He spoke to every one of his friends for like six weeks before about what happens to us when we die. And he started to talk to his sister about so many things related to death. But the one thing that really stuck with me very strongly was that two days, literally two days before he left, we went out for lunch, you know, the whole family.

And Ali sat there and he didn't talk much in general. And, you know, for that time, he spoke extensively for maybe 40 minutes. He would look at each of us for 10 minutes, tell us how much he loved us, you know, how much he appreciated having us in his life, how much, you know, impact we had on his life. He made us feel amazing. I, you know, and, and then he would look at each of us and say,

I know this sounds weird coming from your son and all, but you know, and unsolicited, but there is one thing I want you to do. And from me, he said, well, very proud of all that you're doing, you know, to make the world a better place. And Google does make the world a better place. But I want you to rely on your heart a little more. Don't ever stop working, but try to work on things that have more heart in them. And so it seemed to be a perfect fit when, you know, when he left, when all of that happened, I sat down, I started to write non-stop Louis non-stop four and a half months I couldn't stop and sometimes I could I felt that I

wasn't the one writing to be honest and until this came out so so this is for him really you know the the whole the whole journey I think is for him amazing wow what do you think is the biggest lesson your son taught you Ali had yeah I'm I'm a I'm a TED talk kind of guy right you know I I dream of changing the world in a in a you know like a laptop for every child or we're gonna end hunger or we're going to end hunger or we're going to end poverty. That was the way I thought about it. And Ali was almost, he wanted to change the world. He always told me, look, Papa, I appreciate how passionate you are, but you can only change your little world. And sometimes your little world could be one person. And if you change that one person,

then the universe somehow will expand your responsibility so they become two and if you do well then they'll become seven and if you do well they'll become a thousand and maybe 10 million right and to me that completely flipped my approach to life completely it was no longer you know the big slideware approach to changing the world if you ask me yeah it was it was his way his way was anything that will ever cross my path will get my absolute passion absolute presence absolute attention and the best that i can do the best i can contribute and with that he was so loved he was so he actually made so much difference as a young man that he was just by making sure that every instance every single person that crossed his path got the best he could give wow how did he become so wise

how do we how do we sometimes become so unwise I think is the question I don't know the answer to that to be honest I think we were born with a default setting that is that is fit for the world and then we grow out

of it is what happens Ali had a few experiences as a young child that made him not grow out of his nature if you want you know he he didn't associate very much with the concept of ego of being accepted for something that he's not for fit for pretending to fit in and you know when you stay true to your to your nature I think we all have inside us a lot more than what we actually use yeah for sure yeah wow so what how did the uh the equation the test the greatest test you had a few years ago

do you feel like you were able to use the equation? So it's much more than the equation. Of course, you can apply the equation here and say events of life and expectations, right? Ali dies. Ali dies. Does that mean life has missed my expectations? And I know this will sound harsh, but you know what? You will die. And I will die.

And everyone who's watching this will die. And it's what you will die and i will die and everyone who's watching this will die and it's not it's not a defect in the game it's the way the game is played right some of us will say yeah but i'm not ready to die yet okay and some of us may be ready some of us you know if you're a video gamer like i am you'd understand that if you're done with the level objective if you collected the tools and the coins that you need, you might as well move on. Yeah. Right?

And so is Ali's death unexpected? Unfortunately not. I picked up the phone when Ali left and I called my brother who's a very famous surgeon and I said, Khaled, is this possible? Is this even, you you know does this even happen and he says well yeah you know it's a very very tiny probability but because we do hundreds of millions of those operations every year it does happen it happens not in the tens not in the

thousands but in the tens of thousands of the You know, if medical malpractice is the third largest reason for death in the United States. Oh my goodness. We just, and in countries like Ghana or India or, you know, other places where malpractice litigation is not that, you know, widely applied,

it's even worse. So does Ali's death miss expectations? No, it's even worse. So does Ali's death miss expectations? No, it's harsh. It is very, very, very painful, right? But it doesn't miss expectations. Now, this should take us into... So the equation holds true. Now, you need to understand the difference between,

you know, which what really helped me is to understand the difference between the pain and suffering. There are two human conditions. There is a condition that is, you know, either physical or, or, or emotional pain. That's actually useful. That is, you know, and I, and even if not useful, it's unavoidable. You, you cut your finger. Okay. You will feel the pain. You will take your hand away and the pain will continue for a day or two because your brain is saying, don't hit anything with this, don't put it under cold water or hot water or whatever, just protect it, right? And even though you hate that feeling, it's so

useful to keep you alive, okay? Emotional pain is the same, right? Emotional pain is, you know, if we're talking now and I say something rude to you, I get the emotional pain of like, whoops, I, you know, I feel bad about this and I say, I'm sorry. It's good. It's not too bad, right? Suffering, on the other hand, is when we take that emotional pain, is when we take the emotional pain and just start to apply it over and over, as if we are generating pain on demand through thoughts in our incessant part of our brain right so ali died there is nothing i can do to bring him back okay but i could adopt the thought of you shouldn't have driven him to that hospital you should have

driven him to another hospital you shouldn't have driven him to that hospital. You should have driven him to another hospital. You shouldn't have driven him to that hospital. I can say that 14 million times. Yeah. Will it bring Ali back? No. It won't bring Ali back. Will it make any difference to the world? It won't make any difference to the real world. The only difference it will make is it will torture me. Yeah. You'll suffer. You'll suffer. Now, here is the interesting thing. You know, we've been talking for some time now, and you've instructed your brain to focus on the words I tell you, right? Did your brain say, no, no, no, I'm just going to think about lunch?

No, right? Have you ever told your brain to raise your right arm, and your brain said, I don't feel like it today? The brain says, yes, sir. Right arm it is. Right arm it is. Your brain will always do what you instructed it to do, other than that one instance of incessant thought where it will say, hey, you know what? I'm the boss. I know what I'm doing. I'm just going to kill us for a while. Why? Right? And I know, I'm just going to kill us for a while.

Why? Right? And I know, you know, it sounds unfeeling almost. No, no, no, no. The pain is there. The pain is going to last. But I won't let the suffering happen. So when I start to think about the loss of Ali, instead of saying, okay, you know, let me just torture me for another hour. You know, it's a good time to do that.

I feel bad for myself. I feel bad for myself and feel like the victim. I say, no, you know what? I'm going to remember all the wonderful times we had together. I'm going to be super grateful for the fact that he came. I had 21 and a half amazing years with that boy, right? I was blessed with one of the best people I've ever met. So I can think about that, right?

And more importantly, I reset. I say, okay, you know what, life? It seems that we're restarting a new level here and Ali is not in it and there is nothing I can do to put him in it. So can I at least reset that level and do the best I can with it? Would this level be better with 10 million happy people? Would this level be better with 10 million people sending Ali a happy wish and hoping that he's happy wherever he is now? Would this level be better if he's looking down at me and saying, hey, I'm proud of you, Papa. And you're following your heart. And you're following your heart.

It wouldn't bring him back. It wouldn't take away the pain. But it would make it a tiny bit better. And I think that's really, I think, the deliberate approach to finding happiness. Yeah, and you're not going to, you know, I'm sure you have thoughts of them, you know, a thousand times a day. Every hour of every day. And there's going to be pain in some of those thoughts. But if you just, you know, sit in the pain forever, you're not going to be productive or anything.

You're not going to be useful to the world. Or for him. Or for myself. Exactly. Your family or anything else. So, and what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, the pain may stay around for a long time for people when something bad happens or you're frustrated, you miss expectations, whether it be small or big, but we don't have to sit in it for a long time and suffer, but it may keep coming back, the pain, but we don't need to sit in the suffering. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Now the reason why we suffer though is so interesting. Again, if you think of the machine that has broke, right? What broke in the machine is really

interesting. To engage in the modern world, what we do is we learn to navigate certain concepts in an effective way that makes us successful. But those concepts are not in any way relevant to what they really are. I call them illusions. So there are six grand illusions of the modern world that we think are something. We apply everything according to our thought of them. And it makes us successful, but it makes us constantly suffer, right? If you start to bust those illusions, see things for what they really are, your happiness equation is going to be solved correctly much more frequently than not. Right. What are those six things? So six grand illusions. Thought is an illusion.

Let's me define what an illusion is. An illusion is not something that doesn't exist. It's something that exists in a form that's different than what you think it exists in. So thought is an illusion. In the Western world, we say, I think, therefore I am, while the truth is I am, therefore my brain thinks. And we can talk about that in detail if you want. Self is an illusion. And the illusion of self is multi layers, you know, including layers that are so entrenched in us, like the layer of ego, right? That I, it's not only who I am, but who I appear to be to myself and then who I want to appear to be to everyone else. And then my profile on LinkedIn and my profile on Facebook, right?

There is all of those layers of masks, if you want, that we wear. But there is also the illusion of what I call entitlement, the illusion of our place in the world. We somehow think that we are worthy of the attention of the universe. And again, we can talk about that. There is the illusion of knowledge. One of my favorite of all illusions is that we actually think we know yeah i'm just going to leave it at that believe it or not we actually think we know of the entire universe and everything in it we think that

we know you know we actually think that what we know is accurate even though every day of your life what you knew was revisited right okay uh there is the what people say is impossible becomes possible absolutely and you know when we we you know growing up i was told that the tiniest uh subatomic particle is an electron come on like you know it's like are you kidding me that and they insisted when you asked them never no one ever admitted and said no no no the tiniest we could see is an electron they said no it's the tiniest it doesn't get smaller than that right and and and so many of those and knowledge uh you know truly is the the the protector of all illusions if you want because the illusion of knowledge is

the protector of all illusions because then you actually tend to believe that the others are true because it's what you know okay there is the illusion of time, my favorite of all of them. And again, a topic that I've dedicated a ton of time for. A ton of time for. Because with time, we learn to be punctual. We learn to be effective. We learn to be productive. But time isn't.

Nobody actually knows what time is. We're measuring something you know and when the clock ticks we respond but we have no idea what we're dealing with and if you really know what you're dealing with the illusion goes away right uh you know there is the illusion of control one of the biggest illusions of the modern day executive like myself and the modern day professionals in general that we actually think we can control things i you know i had insurance policies on my life for ali i had you know um his tuition planned years in advance i even started businesses for him to run when he graduates i didn't plan for that one how much control do you have right and as i always say between black swans and butterfly effects

really there is very little control. Everything you try to control goes out of control. And then there is the illusion of fear. The illusion of fear is probably one of the biggest ones in the modern world. Fear has the derivatives that hide beneath it that are anxiety, worry, and all of the other things. Stress. Stress. And all of those where it is a way of life in the modern world we worry about the future all the time and that keeps us unhappy now you take those six illusions factor them into your happiness equation whichever other inputs you put into the happiness equation you will get the wrong answer there is absolutely no way you can get the right

answer if you are seeing the world through an exaggerated eye of fear or through a controlling, a control freak's eye of like, I want to have everything under control. The other side of it is what I call the seven blind spots. So if you look at the events side of the happiness equation, we think that events are missing our expectations, but that's because we don't see events for what they really are right because there were seven features in our brains that allowed us to

live and succeed as cavemen but those seven features turned into defects in the modern world and so when you use them you don't see the events for what they really are. And you end up in a place where, again, your happiness equation breaks all the time. It's fascinating. I'm happy you like it. Now, is this all stuff you discovered through just the reading for 10 years or through...

And what I also love about this book, as you said, you did a lot of crowdsourcing where you open sourced it and you let people write their thoughts and their research and their feedback online. Did this all, you know, where did all these, you know, six illusions come from? Was it just? So there is, you know, happiness is not a new technology, to be honest. This machine has been, you know, going to maintenance since, since you know the very early civilizations right

the the the the way it was maintained at the time was slightly different than what we can do today so you know yoga or meditation works it does work right it keeps the the the machine in a good condition, right? And you can borrow so much of this. The problem is it's not really always applicable in the modern world. Sometimes we cannot do this, you know, like they used to do in the past. And some of us don't even understand it anymore. We've become so much left-brainers in the world. But at least we glorified the left brain a little more. So a lot of it is found in ancient, uh, you know, uh, knowledge of happiness, but,

but I think that the trick is, can you understand it from a point of view of, um, of the modern world of, of what, you know, of, can you say, can you see, can you say it in a language that appeals to people who are browsing Facebook, you know, right 12,000 times a day, right? And, and, and, and so what I did, which I think was really, really eye opening for me is when I wrote the first version of the book that was just seen by my agent and my publishers and so on. And then they said, Okay, we're just going to edit this through the normal process of editing. And I said, No, no, no, let's do it like we do software. this through the normal process of editing. And I said, no, no, no, let's do it like we do software. Okay. So I, so I put it online and I invited 500 early readers to come and literally walk into the document and edit the document online, which was an incredible experience. You have no

idea. So people would walk in and say, I agree with this. I prefer if you say it that way. And then others on the margin will say, hey, but you're missing a piece of research that shows otherwise. And there would be, you know, conversations that would sometimes be 20, 30, 50 comments long. And so at the end of that process, we ended up almost with a book

that was written by the readers, right? And, you know, almost written in the language of the readers. And so this is why so far- They can receive it in a way that works for them. Absolutely. the readers, right? And, you know, in almost in written in the language of the readers. And, and so this is why so far... They can receive it in a way that works for them. Absolutely. This is why so far, it's not like the usual, you know, happiness book that talks, you know, a bit of mysticism and a bit of, you know, very poetic language. It's really very eight-year-old, you know, kind of language. There are no big words. It's simple. That's why I like it. Yeah. Yeah kind of language. There are no big words. Simple. It's simple. That's why I like it. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Make it easy for me to read. Absolutely. And it's to the point. It's not a quick read at all. I mean, you know, most people will say, I go through the first three chapters quickly in one sitting. And then I, you know, I start to realize that even though it's easy to read every now and then I go like, what did he just say? You know, and then you would have to stop and reflect and then find a little example in yourself. And then mostly, you know, you would do one chapter a day and say, I need to sleep on this. Okay. And, you know, I need to reflect on this. And it's, it's really engaging

in that way because it's not, you know, you're doing a bit of the work as you're going through it so it's you know your your final model is yours uh but it's uh but it's not the normal you know meditate for 10 minutes and you'll be fine right right right well when you have a moment of pain or suffering where do you go to what's your approach to life to getting back to so so so so you have again it all goes to understanding uh let's trace it right you you have an emotion uh you know you you feel overwhelmed by an emotion i'm like i'm i'm very sad because of something right many of us don't even recognize it you know when you go to your partner and you say hey what's wrong and you know she would say um nothing right and then and then you go like okay no but seriously

what's wrong right and you know after a while somehow you start and by the way we too huh and she comes to me or whatever and i would say and i think it's just fine right no problem but then you recognize an emotion you can trace that emotion back, not to an event, interestingly, but to a thought. So, you know, an Uber driver is, you know, rude to you today, okay? It's not the event that made you unhappy. It's what you thought about the event that made you unhappy. It's, you know, people shouldn't be rude to me. Or, you know, what will't be rude to me or, you know, what will this world come to? Or do I really have to depend on this service where I have to be treated poorly or whatever? Okay. And that thought, if you trace it, you will find that there are two, three types

of thoughts. And that's really the most interesting bit of it. If you want to start to have brain control, like sci-fi brain control, right? you have that thought that is causing you pain is happening here in the midline areas of your brain it's you know it's an incessant thought that that that is brain chatter that leads to no action whatsoever but you have two other types of thoughts you have what i call insightful thinking this is when i ask you to solve a problem it's like okay driver was rude what are we going to do about it? Once you have that, what are we going to do about it? You move the thought from the incessant part of your brain to your insightful part of the brain, which is both on the right-hand side,

partly in the back where the processing happens, batch processing, if you want, and then partly on the front where the verbal conversion happens. Okay. Or you actually find an answer and then you start to engage and you start to say okay let me do something about it let me sit down and write an email to or whatever right and when you're experiencing the real world again on the right hand side of your brain is are the parts that are engaged so once you take once you recognize the thought once you recognize that there is no value to that thought and you start to move it to either a problem-solving approach or an experiential approach, the suffering goes away. When you're actually writing the email, if you've decided what you want to do, there are no emotions anymore.

You're just into the action. When you're solving the problem, you're not overwhelmed anymore. You're just trying to come to something. problem you know you're not overwhelmed anymore you're just trying to come to something and so mostly when i do what i do now is whenever i feel there is an overwhelming emotion or a painful you know feeling coming to me i start by asking is it true by the way brain are you presenting me the whole truth if it is what can we do about it right if i if there is something i can do about it uh how can i do it right and if there is nothing by the way then there is that core actually one of the most important uh um you know um concepts

i present in the book a concept that i call committed acceptance can i accept it as i said reset the world as it is now accept it because I cannot change it, and then design a path forward that makes the world slightly better from where it is now. I love it, man. This is great. I want to make sure everyone gets this book, Solve for Happy, Engineer Your Path to Joy. Make sure you guys get this right now. You can get it online, on Amazon, Google Books, Barnes & Noble.

Do you have a website as well? I do, solve & Noble. Do you have a website as well? I do, soulforhappy.com. And one thing that I would like people to do because I am a businessman is I have a counter. So I'm counting down from 10 million. If any of what you guys have heard today made you a little happier, go and click on the counter.

At soulforhappy.com. Yeah, so go to soulforhappy.com. The counter is permanent in there. What are you at right now, do you know, of the time of the recording? I'm a couple of thousand below. Yeah. So I'm, you know,

it's 10 million to go. Yeah, yeah. You just started. You just started. You know what? Say. 2,000 happy people. It's amazing.

That's great. Yeah. Who would want anything more? I mean, 10 million is better, but we're not going to wait there. Don't have an expectation though. Exactly. We shouldn't wait.

We shouldn't wait until we get there so that we're happy right I'm happy with 2000 exactly yeah and we're gonna hit a lot more once this comes live

so I hope so I appreciate that couple final questions for you how were the pyramids built I

yeah you want my story yeah I do right okay because I saw them when I was in Egypt

last year yeah and I watched all the documentaries and all the theories. And I'm just... Let's just put it this way. You're from there. I want to know how they're built.

Egyptians are really nice people. Okay. Some weird guy went and said, guys, I want you to work for the rest of your life until you die and carry stones. And they said, sure. That was it. Yeah. Basically.

That was it. Yeah. We'll die as long as you're happy. And, you know, it was really that was it yeah yeah you want you want the science fiction of it no i don't i don't know that but yeah how do they get them up they're so heavy they uh they had to have some levers in or some of their systems yeah they used um something cylinders or you know yeah and to push them up you know all the way up that high. But you see, I always present that when I talk about technology.

It's like, imagine if you went to those people and said, hey guys, by the way, I have a new technology, stone in a paper bag.

You just mix it with water. Just take it up there 50 pounds at a time and then mix it with water there and everyone will be very, it will work. It will make the same stone.

It's called cement. Hallelujah. It's like, yeah, we have a new technology. I think we sometimes take those kinds of technologies for granted. But life has gone a very long way since that time. And somehow we're still not happy.

What about the mummies? They don't know how to recreate that process, right? There are many mummies around the world, not only in ancient Egypt. But this specific process was... It's lost, right? Yeah, and it was done with a very specific objective, the very strong belief that we will actually live again and that we need to preserve certain parts of it in a certain way and others in a different way right it is fascinating once again

when you think about that that you know 7 000 years ago and they managed to do that crazy right not not bad you know it's unbelievable equivalent to the internet of today i think the ancient egyptians were the most brilliant of all time. Current Egyptians are cool too. They're very cool. The most brilliant though. Exactly. No, I loved Egypt. It was great. A couple of final questions for you.

This is a question called the three truths that I ask everyone. So if it's the last day for you many years from now, you've impacted 10 million people and beyond to be happier, healthier. But you only have three things left to say to the world. You have to write them down on a piece of paper. And this is your message to the world. And this is all people remember you by in written form are your three truths. What would you say are yours?

I think the number one is to say that we are here for a reason. We need to find that reason. Number two is to say that surprisingly, your purpose to find that reason is to be happy. I have a very interesting theory that, you know, like, you know, the tuning fork, when you tune your guitar and you hit it and it will always play in the, you know,

in the key of E or whatever, you and I are the same. Each of us has something that is so you that, you know, that is exactly your natural resonance. And the way to find it is to find whatever makes you happiest. Okay. Unfortunately, as we go through the real world, they tell us, hey, by the way, but you can make more money if you study business or if you work in Wall Street. But if it isn't your thing, you're, you know, you can be successful, but it would be, it would not be your thing. It would take a lot of effort and you wouldn't be happy. Yeah. So I tell people, I tell my, I told my kids and I still tell Aya, my daughter, to absolutely find that E, find that resonance.

Just write down your happy list, find out whatever it is that makes you happiest. And yeah, I know life is tough and you have to go to work and you have to make ends meet. Fine, do all of that, right? But play the E, find out what it is and live your life's purpose. And yeah, the third is you'll be surprised. You know, if it's my very last day, I will just remind people that death is the opposite of birth. It's not the opposite of life. That if you think of life as a video game, I'll just meet you on the next level. That's what it's going to be all about.

So hopefully me and Ali sitting there. Yeah. Having fun. Absolutely. Let's say there was a direct connection to Ali right now and he was listening, which I'm sure he is, but you only got to say one thing to him. What would you say? Profound.

Bad words are allowed damn you Ali left too early my son hmm I don't think he left too early it's just too early for me yeah of course I would have definitely wanted one more hug yeah yeah yeah I'm sure you'll get it again. I hope so. Well, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you, Mo, for your courage to do all the work that you're doing after such an experience that you had. I mean, I don't wish that on anyone ever,

what you've gone through. And I'm so grateful that you've come through with such love and appreciation and gratitude to give to people, as opposed to go into a cave and suffer. And I think you have an incredible gift to inspire, educate, and teach others how to be happy when something tragic like this happens in their life and their own way. So I acknowledge you for taking this courage and going on a journey and inspiring so many people over

this last few years thank you of course yeah and thank you for helping me spread this word and you know uh the only way i can get there is through the help of you and others of course man this is great it's gonna help a lot of people my final question is what's your definition of greatness is to live your purpose. So in two words, none of us is dealt the same hand. We're each dealt a very different hand in the world. Some of us come with certain gifts and some of us come with other gifts and some of us are tall and some of us are short and some of us are fast and some of us are slow.

you know fast and some of us are slow and you know while we have sort of narrowed down the definition of greatness in the modern world to a few amazing examples it's not that at all your version of being great is what you're doing here And other persons might be to cook the best cookies, to bake the best cookies on earth. And finding that, that's true greatness. Well, thank you so much. So I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

The equation for happiness. I hope it makes more sense for you now. And let me know what you think about it. LewisHowes.com slash 467. If you enjoyed this, share that link out with your friends or go direct to the podcast app on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud and just tweet it out or post it on Facebook as well. If you know someone who is searching for more happiness, then send them this episode. Again, lewishouse.com slash 467. Tag me at Lewis House and let me know what you think over on Twitter or your Instagram story. And let me know. Let's start a conversation

together because I want to see if this works for you as the way it has worked for so many other people. Also, make sure to check out the new book called Solve for Happy. I know you guys will enjoy it. So make sure to pick it up and let Mo know your thoughts. We've got some big episodes coming up. One of the biggest Latin pop stars in the world, J Balvin, is coming on next. Then we've got Apollo Anno, one of the most decorated winter Olympians of all time.

And we've got some incredible people coming up after that. So if this is your first time here, make sure to click the subscribe button on your podcast app so you never miss an episode or an interview with some of the most inspiring people in the world. I love you guys very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you. you