Cultivating Joy in Everyday Life with Eric North

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Speaker 7 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today, we are joined by Eric North, a lifelong entrepreneur-turned happiness coach.

Speaker 7 Happiness is something we all want in our lives, but yet we oftentimes do not prioritize or pursue. This is an incredible conversation.

Speaker 7 You're going to get a ton out of this, particularly if you're an ambitious and driven person.

Speaker 7 Lots of tidbits, lots of ideas, lots of tactics to build moments of happiness into your life that can culminate in ultimately a happier life in general if you enjoy this show guys make sure you subscribe whether you're listening to the audio podcast or watching on youtube and know that i love you for watching this show let's get on to eric north

Speaker 8 let's go

Speaker 10 yeah making it making it make it look easy hey stand up guy on 10 toes big body pull up in a range roll i can change the whole game when i say so i pull it up shut it down yet my mindset is very very i used to be i'm a very i i'm i'm a businessman so i'm a very unentrepreneur and i'm i'm i i i had spent so many years building my businesses that i stopped having fun and being creative you know you know and i just was like oh what's going on so i started doing all this stuff to kind of change my direction and i want to make money with my mouth yeah and my words okay that that's that's where i'm so i'm getting ready to publish a book with i'm working on negotiations it's really rough with a major publisher um

Speaker 10 and what i really am trying to do just so you know my goal is tomesty the public my publicist

Speaker 10 his vision is that I will be like a household name, someone that people will say, hey, man, we're having a really bad day. Let's, you know, hold it.

Speaker 10 Let's click into the happiness of warriors, see what he has to say. Okay.
That's my dream. That's what I could really do.
And that's what I know I can do.

Speaker 10 That's where we're going with it. Anywhere you want to go with me.
Ask me any questions. I don't care.
I'm very open.

Speaker 10 I don't, I don't have any, you can't trip me up because I'm open as I'm an open book. Okay.
Yeah. No, I love it.

Speaker 7 And I'll be honest with you,

Speaker 7 my journey is very similar. I'm actually in a weird moment where I just exited from a business that I started in 2020, seven days before COVID hit upstate New York

Speaker 7 and, you know, got rocked by that, you know, invested all this money in starting this business and put all this work in, launch day, seven days later, everything gets shut down, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 7 Well, I sold it two years later, or we were acquired, worked there, and then negotiated in an early exit in November of 2023. And I've kind of been of two minds.

Speaker 7 And I've had one foot in the, I love being an operator. I love running businesses.

Speaker 7 I feel like I have the disposition for it.

Speaker 7 I've been, you know, executive multiple times, both as CEO, CMO, and then as a founder. And I love that side.

Speaker 7 I also have this other equally powerful and equally driven side, very similar to you, where I love helping, I love educating, I love sharing, I love creating. And

Speaker 7 this podcast has been a through line for my career.

Speaker 10 Oh,

Speaker 10 it's amazing. And

Speaker 10 you do such a professional,

Speaker 10 you're in charge. I can tell that this is your thing, you know, so that's great.

Speaker 10 I feel the same way. And I tell you, I had a very similar experience.
I had a partnership with one of my businesses, which grew kind of 2019 was a boom year for me.

Speaker 10 So 2019, and then the first quarter of 2020, we opened up a really expensive extra student, new studio.

Speaker 10 I let one of my other partners go crazy with the budget and for everything. And all of a sudden, we we were shut down.

Speaker 10 And I had health insurance to pay for for everybody. I had all kinds of, you know, I had a lot to do.
And then I had to get rid of that partner.

Speaker 10 And I had a huge financial, you know, I look at money as if you do the right thing, you'll make money.

Speaker 10 I'm never, I don't want to lose money ever, but if I have to part with it to get away from something,

Speaker 10 it's going to be like a divorce, maybe. You know, I look at that was to be really careful who you go into business with, right? Yes.
And that's, that's really the lesson that I learned.

Speaker 10 And it's more about, I don't really need anyone. Okay.
I had myself. Okay.
So maybe that's how you are too.

Speaker 7 Yeah. You know, I struggle with that as well because, you know, it's been weird, man.
This has been like an existential time for me because I love working with teams at the same time. I do too.

Speaker 10 I love creating teams. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah. I found that

Speaker 7 there are certain, there are very particular and certain types of people that I work really well with. And there are a larger number of personality types that I do not work well with.

Speaker 7 So, and I've had to learn that lesson the hard way a couple of times. So, it's just business and life is so interesting, man.

Speaker 7 And I think you said it like it's, it's, it's driving towards what your calling is. And, and really, that that's where I want to start the show here.

Speaker 7 My first, my first question is, is really around,

Speaker 7 you know, in researching you. And I think you posted this.
I found this particular thing on Instagram.

Speaker 7 And of all the things that I want to get into, this was the first one that popped out at me was this idea that

Speaker 7 you said a happier life is an easier life and oh yeah i have not necessarily found that to be the case and i don't mean easy in a negative way i just mean oftentimes in in the pursuit of happiness you have to do hard things so maybe just break down this concept because i think some people may not necessarily understand

Speaker 10 I, when I write, first of all, it just flows out. I have a writing time every day.
It's designated by eight.

Speaker 10 If you see me doing anything else at 8.30, 8 o'clock in the morning, then there's something really crazy going on. And the word, and I know you know what I'm really going to write about that day.

Speaker 10 I'm going to write a column. I'm going to write two columns a week that they could publish all over the web.
But I start thinking about sort of themes and

Speaker 10 trends that I see with people and how they're talking about themselves and how they're feeling about themselves and how angry everyone is all the time and how quick they are to judge and run away.

Speaker 10 And I think about my past life and how I was raised. And it was a sort of dysfunctional home.

Speaker 10 Great parents, but they didn't really do a great job, um always with their example it's okay but they were they were loving good parents and i just

Speaker 10 i i want to teach so that when i started this my kind of teacher i want to help people so i started i started this kind of mindset about talking about how important it is to have a cheerful attitude a cheerful attitude can really show a really strong sense of power and strength because over everything that's going on, there's a cheerful attitude.

Speaker 10 I can take, and there's usually a twinkle in that person's eye. You know those people you're probably thinking about.
With With me, it was my aunts.

Speaker 10 I had three aunts that were super, super, super intelligent and really good people that

Speaker 10 all their lives were devoted to doing good. And there was always a twinkle in my aunt's eye, even though she was going through a really hard time or she was, you know, facing

Speaker 10 a lot of stuff that came out of her at once. And she just got through life and everyone rested.
She was the original happiness warrior.

Speaker 10 So everywhere she went, people just flocked to her and came to her and shared their life and she listened to them and she gave them love. Every person that came to her, she gave

Speaker 10 part of her love.

Speaker 10 And I just thought, if they're figuring out, she's not with us now, but I think that's all the other good things she did, I can go into that forever, but just that was the basic lesson that I learned from her.

Speaker 10 And also, I was kind of a weird kid. Okay, so

Speaker 10 I thought differently than other kids.

Speaker 10 I saw problems faster and different solutions than anyone else ever thought of. And it kept me kind of apart and kind of, I was part of everything.
I was part of everything, but in a way I wasn't. And

Speaker 10 sometimes I felt kind of I felt just very disconnected I felt like I was on different I was on a different track a different age group or anything like that and it was my my happiness warrior aunt that always made me feel like I was incredible always throughout my entire life and

Speaker 10 every success and victory I had everything that was heartache and anything she was always there but she always was like a warrior so she kept things going and it kept me going and it kept me feeling a sense of self-esteem so when i'm writing these things you know it's it's hard to be happy every day sometimes.

Speaker 10 So let me stop. Asked another question.
So let me say, I'll ramble on, but that's really, my heart gets into it for people because I feel, I feel for them.

Speaker 7 Yeah. I think, you know, what I've found in my own life, and I'm interested in your take on this, being that you've studied happiness so much is

Speaker 7 I feel people get hung up on happiness as a goal. And to me,

Speaker 7 that is not the appropriate way to think about happiness. It's so much more about the pursuit.

Speaker 7 And for a long time, and I'll just give you the context of this question is for a long time, I believe that, you know, that cliche phrase, life is about the journey, not the destination, was complete bullshit.

Speaker 7 I was like, that's nonsense. I think part of it was that I grew up poor in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.
And I was like, yeah, the journey. Okay.
Try being poor as shit for a while.

Speaker 7 You know, living on garage sale and, you know, going to school with holy sweatpants because it was the only pair of pants pants that you had. And, you know what I mean?

Speaker 7 Tell me it's about the journey, right?

Speaker 7 And, but as I, you know, fought and scrapped and made my way out and went to college and all these different things, I started to really understand that this, this pursuit of a destination or focusing on the destination did not bring any happiness.

Speaker 7 And all the success I've achieved, it was never when I was there. It was, it really was the grinding time.

Speaker 7 of working through problems, sweating with people, being in the foxhole, whether it's on a sports team or in business or in a community group, that I actually found happiness.

Speaker 7 And so why do you think so many people get hung up on the destination and

Speaker 7 never take the time to enjoy the moment when they're actually in it, in that grind time?

Speaker 10 Well, that's the thing. When we're in the moment and I'm having a really good time, I generally forget to take pictures.

Speaker 10 Okay, so if I'm in a special moment with a lot of special people, I generally forget to take pictures because I'm having such a good, I'm so involved and I'm so into what I'm doing in the present.

Speaker 10 And that's where you find your happiness. Happiness comes from within.
You have to have a sense of I'm capable. I give myself permission to, I can give myself permission to be happiness.

Speaker 10 I deserve to be happy. Those are all things anyone can say.
Those are all things that anyone can deserve to say and should be able to say in their lives. I deserve to be happy.

Speaker 10 I give myself permission to be happy and I can't and I am happy. Those are so important.
And you know, it starts, like you just said, starts, it's not that, it's not that, what's the destination?

Speaker 10 Is

Speaker 10 a trip to Paris for three days that's gone like that? Is that going to make you happy?

Speaker 10 You're going to tell a lot of people and show off. I mean, maybe some people look at happy, showing off with conquest, I think.
Sometimes I think

Speaker 10 we live in such a competitive world.

Speaker 10 My happiness is better than your happiness, that kind of thing. And sometimes that comes down to

Speaker 10 showing off. Okay, so you think about it too.
And I tend to think that we're much better when

Speaker 10 we're quiet about our accomplishments and we show our strength through our actions and behaviors and our values. Yeah.
That's where we find the happiness is the grind.

Speaker 10 It is the grind because it's like the satisfaction of figuring out a problem is so amazing, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 7 So if we agree that, you know, kind of being present in the moment and living through the experience as it's happening can yield a lot more happiness than maybe focusing on the destination.

Speaker 7 How can people be more present in the moment?

Speaker 7 How can they actually take that deep breath, look around for a second and go, wow, like this might be hard, but geez, I'm having a lot of fun while I'm here.

Speaker 10 Okay, well, I am the happiest lawyer, but I've had a lot of unhappy times in my life. And I think that's how I got here in some ways, too.

Speaker 10 So I went through a really bad period in my life where it's usually another person involved that causes us

Speaker 10 trouble. And I walked, I got out of that relationship and everything was really, my life was just

Speaker 10 blown up. I had to start over again.
And that was daunting. And I was like in my late 30s.
And I was like, oh, this is kind of embarrassing. I'm starting over again.
I'm not screwed up my career.

Speaker 10 It was going really well. And now I have, all I have left really is

Speaker 10 my body and my mind. And I need to work on that.
And I thought, I can do anything as long as I start taking care of myself. So I started taking better care of myself.

Speaker 10 I started working out really hard. And then I started looking for jobs that challenged me that I wanted to work in.
And then I started working for myself. And that was kind of another way to...

Speaker 10 feel confident in myself and get out of that get out of that period where I forget about that, you know, forget and forgive myself for the past and that was really important too

Speaker 10 do you think you have to go through conflict in order to be happy yes yes I think we can't hide from conflict I think the best thing in life is to face conflict head on make sure and have a plan for it and have a have a have a measured reaction you know and not to do it just haphazardly or um

Speaker 10 and um

Speaker 10 we need I think everybody I have horrible things that happen to me sometimes you know a dog of mine will die or something will happen i had a major accident a couple years ago and i couldn't i i had to get my my legs rebuilt i rebuild that and you know and i only felt bad one time i felt like a little bit when i couldn't really walk i was feeling like a little bit i was sliding into some dark space and i i closed my eyes i opened them up and i looked around the room and i started saying hey there's my sofa there's my tv there's my dog and then i felt better and i heard that that was something that helps people deal with anxiety and at that moment moment, that's all it took to save me.

Speaker 10 And from that moment on, I went up. I went up and every day I got better.
And every day I got stronger. And every day I was able to move better.

Speaker 10 And it was just that, I think that dark period that was like, it was a wake-up call. It's very fast.
It was like an explosion in my brain that was like, don't go this way.

Speaker 10 You know, don't go this direction. Let's stop right now.

Speaker 7 So is this why gratitude is so, such an important component to happiness?

Speaker 10 Gratitude is everything. I always say that all the time.
If we're not grateful, then

Speaker 10 we're not living our lives fully. We're not experiencing happiness fully.
We're just taking things for granted. How does that go for most people to take things for granted? Not very well.

Speaker 10 So these things are just,

Speaker 10 I'm not a scientist of happiness, but I'm just, it's observations and feelings in life that I want to share, just of how I

Speaker 10 can turn a life that did have a lot has had a lot of adversity and that will have more adversity. I'll have further adversity

Speaker 10 and keep happy all the time. And I'm always happy.
I'm always happy.

Speaker 10 i'm always i'm always in a good mood i wake up every day with an affirmation saying today's gonna hey eric today's gonna be a great day and i say that aloud it's kind of crazy right yeah

Speaker 7 come on eric it's gonna be a great day sometimes verbalizing is the best way you know to get out of our own heads uh have you ever read the untethered soul by michael singer I've seen the book, but I have not read it, though.

Speaker 10 I like the word untethered, though.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Incredible. Very quick read.
You can read it in a weekend, no problem.

Speaker 7 And what he talks about in that book, and one of the reasons that it's one of the core books that I've probably recommended dozens of times on this show, and people listening are probably sick of hearing me recommend it, is because he breaks down in probably the most

Speaker 7 tangible way that I've experienced this idea that we're not our mind and we're not our body and that the voices and

Speaker 7 feelings that we experience from these things are not actually who we are, that we're this separate thing.

Speaker 7 You know, you can call it the soul, you can call it whatever you want, but that all the voice in our head is oftentimes

Speaker 7 there strictly to keep us alive in the next moment, right? The feelings and emotions and pain that we feel in our body, et cetera, is are just

Speaker 7 data points meant to keep us alive for the next moment. And that if we can untether our soul from,

Speaker 7 you know, the voices and the feelings and the emotions, then we can start to experience who we really are.

Speaker 7 And I believe, as you do, that gratitude is an incredibly important part of detethering ourselves ourselves or detethering, untethering ourselves from these voices because it pushes back against all the negativity that you get quite often.

Speaker 7 Now, so I guess my next question is being that gratitude is so important to happiness.

Speaker 7 How can someone who's listening to this, who wants to build more happiness into their life and maybe isn't being intentional about it, how can they start to experience more gratitude or practice more gratitude in their life?

Speaker 10 Well, I think here's what I do. And I have routines.
I have routines for everything. And I have things that I, I have spiritual routines that I do.
And my biggest one is I'm not so much praying, but

Speaker 10 before I go to sleep at night, I am sitting here. I'm doing some deep breaths at the side of my bed.
And then I say, I say, I did my best today. I'll do better tomorrow.
And

Speaker 10 that is my mantra every single night. That's what I say before.
Everything before I want to rest myself. I want to go to rest, sleep peacefully.

Speaker 10 And I'll have to check myself and make sure I, you know, and when I say that statement, if there's anything that I, that I regret, I'll say that aloud too.

Speaker 10 And I'll say, this is something something I don't need to do ever again, or this is something that I can handle differently. And I think about that.
And then the next day is awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Next day I wake up and I'm in a great mood and I have a good day every day. Even if something hits me hard, you know what?

Speaker 10 Something better shows up in the next minute. That happens a lot too.
Yeah. Serendipity.

Speaker 7 So I firmly believe in serendipity and particularly how

Speaker 7 Stephen Pressfield talks about serendipity in the art of or the war of art when he talks about the muse and the resistance resistance and what comes out of feeding the muse.

Speaker 7 Again, if you guys at home haven't read The War of Art, regardless of, you know, take the art part out of it because you can insert whatever it is that you do in your life. That book is incredible.

Speaker 10 Very good, Mark. I read that.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, that's tremendous.

Speaker 7 Pressfield's wonderful. So,

Speaker 7 you know, I think one of the things that you talked about was permission to be happy.

Speaker 7 I think the idea of giving ourselves permission to do things is incredibly powerful.

Speaker 7 So when we're talking about happiness in particular, there's a lot of people who I run into and a lot of my work has to do with advising startups and executive coaching.

Speaker 7 So I run into a lot of people who are either one of two scenarios most of the time when people reach out to me. They're either incredibly overwhelmed or they're stuck on something.

Speaker 7 And oftentimes when they're stuck, they find themselves in a place of, they start doubting themselves, incredibly talented, brilliant people, 99 out of 100 times, you know, exponentially more brilliant than I will ever be in my entire life.

Speaker 7 Yet they find themselves in these places where they're doubting themselves. And I'm like, you can do things that other people can't even imagine, yet you're questioning your ability.

Speaker 7 So, and it's mostly because of what you said.

Speaker 7 They're not giving them

Speaker 7 themselves permission. So, how would you recommend to someone who does find themselves in a moment of darkness or despair, negativity, or just a brief moment of self-doubt?

Speaker 7 How would you recommend that they give themselves that permission to turn that corner and start to come back to the light?

Speaker 10 There's two easy things. It's two easy little tricks.
First one, just to close your eyes, you have to close your eyes. You can do anything you want.

Speaker 10 Think of three things that make you happy right away. Okay, the first three things that make you happy, and you just reflect on that.

Speaker 10 That'll usually raise happiness. Maybe smile from that too, because even a fake smile is actually a real smile.
And

Speaker 10 it raises our endorphins and makes us feel happier. And the second thing I think is really important is to be able to like write down your accomplishments in life.

Speaker 10 Because sometimes we're not really, we kind of forget all the great things that we've done and we kind of forget all the things people that we've helped and we kind of forget about all the value that I think a lot of people forget about all the value they've created in their lives and they take one little setback or they'll look at somebody else that's doing better than they are and it'll just kind of be a step backwards where a lot of we're missing out on a lot of talent because people are afraid to move forward because they're afraid of failure.

Speaker 10 They're afraid of success. Success is a big one.
Success is really kind of hard to take. It's not easy.

Speaker 7 I agree with you.

Speaker 7 I'm interested in your take on this particular concept. I talk a lot on this.
I do solo episodes as well. So the cadence of this show is an interview and a solo episode.

Speaker 7 And the solo episodes, I talk a lot about a fear of status and that I actually do not believe.

Speaker 7 Failure to me is just a label.

Speaker 7 It really, it doesn't exist. It's not real.
However, what I think people are actually saying when they may have a sense of a fear of failure or a fear of success,

Speaker 7 because I think these both play into the same thing, is that they actually have a fear of status and that they're very worried about their status changing.

Speaker 7 And, you know, for the better or, you know, for the consequences that come if you improve your status, as well as the consequences that come if your status falls in a particular community or group, et cetera.

Speaker 7 And there's so much negativity attached to a change in status. And

Speaker 7 so I think

Speaker 7 how do we internalize to me, a big part of being able to weather a status change in your life is

Speaker 7 an intrinsic motivation or happiness that

Speaker 7 you have regardless of where you are in a social structure.

Speaker 7 So how do we cultivate that so that it's not just something that we can call on when we need it, but we're literally living in a sense of happiness kind of every moment of every day as much as possible?

Speaker 10 I think

Speaker 10 it's that

Speaker 10 removal of

Speaker 10 cutting off that need for external validation, first of all. If we need external validation for something that we do, then we're not on the right track anyway.

Speaker 10 So we're not doing anything for us. We're doing it for the sake of others.
And I think this plays into what you're just saying is we do much in our life.

Speaker 10 Most people get stuck in a trap where they think

Speaker 10 they're living their lives in expectations of others, under the rules of others, under the dictations of others. They're being told what to do, told how to think, told how to do everything.

Speaker 10 And they get used to that. And then it puts you in a big trap.
And then you've kind of lost every sense of who you are. There's no happiness there.
There's no sense of accomplishment.

Speaker 10 So the first thing to do is to stop that and stop the ego right in its tracks. Change of status is a change in direction, a change.
It doesn't necessarily mean

Speaker 10 nothing's permanent. Time changes everything.
So time changes everything, and we have lessons to learn.

Speaker 10 There are always messages everywhere we are at any point in the day. There are messages.
Sometimes we see them. Sometimes we receive them.
Sometimes we just, they get lost in

Speaker 10 the energy of the universe, but they're always there. There's always the next step ahead.
It's right in front of us.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I'm reading a good book on decision.

Speaker 7 I love reading about decision making and I'm reading a book by Annie Duke called Thinking and Bets. And she references a strategy.

Speaker 7 And I apologize, anyone who's listening or watching, if you can leave it in the comments on YouTube, if you if you know the name of the person and I'll go back and try to find it.

Speaker 7 She references someone else's work called the 10-10-10 strategy for this at this time element, which I think is so incredibly important. And I'm so glad you brought this up, in which the

Speaker 7 creator of this strategy, who again, I apologize that I forget, I just know it's in Annie Duke's book.

Speaker 7 She says, think about how this thing will impact you 10 minutes from now, 10 days from now, and then 10 years from now. And she said,

Speaker 7 if it's not going to change your life 10 years from now, then 10 days from now and 10 minutes from now doesn't matter, right? And

Speaker 7 I'm not doing the full strategy justice, but I think we put so much pressure on things as if this small change in our life is going to last forever.

Speaker 7 And oftentimes we attach a preconceived notion that a change is going to be for the negative, right? Something will happen.

Speaker 7 And maybe, yeah, it doesn't feel good to get fired or to miss a promotion or not get a sale or be rejected by a partner, a relationship partner or whatever. But

Speaker 7 we, it doesn't, just because that thing isn't perceived publicly as a positive doesn't mean it's not a positive for you.

Speaker 7 And do you have any strategies for reframing the events that happen in our life to kind of swing them towards what could potentially be the positive aspect of that change versus focusing only on kind of the external, maybe

Speaker 7 a societal negative implication of that change?

Speaker 10 I have a rule that

Speaker 10 I won't let my thinking, I won't let my mindset go into a negative space. I won't start thinking what ifs.
I won't start, because I don't think you can ever tell what's going to happen.

Speaker 10 We have no idea what's going to happen. I also believe that we don't know anyone anyone else is ever thinking

Speaker 10 at any time. We don't know what's inside our partner's brain or in our husband and wife's brain.
We don't know what they're really thinking.

Speaker 10 We have a general idea, but we don't, we make too many assumptions.

Speaker 10 We make too many assumptions that hold us back, keep us from moving forward, keep us from being happy, keep us from showing up for life, really, is what it comes down to. I use that terminology a lot.

Speaker 10 My work is very simple. So I think I use things like show up, you know, learn it.
And that means that actually has a lot of meaning.

Speaker 10 Show up has a lot of meaning, but just simple things that we can take.

Speaker 10 I always have one of the reasons I love what I do is because throughout my life, as I was trying to find out my calling, is I would, I would listen to people and they would talk to me and they would start telling me, you know, and I,

Speaker 10 how they feel about their value and where they're going in their lives. And I would always say, I don't want to solve anyone's problems.
That's not who I am. I'm not going to tell you what to do.

Speaker 10 but I'll put a little spark in them with some words.

Speaker 10 You've used some really good phrasing today of how you talk to people. It's putting that spark.
You have so many great things about you

Speaker 10 behind me. And there's like those words, your words changed my life.
And I have a lot of, I have a lot.

Speaker 10 So as I was becoming the happiness warrior and the stage that I haven't even gone to that yet, but I was with a really, was with my best friend down on vacation in Miami.

Speaker 10 And I was talking about, you know, being an entrepreneur and owning businesses.

Speaker 10 And I was, you know, I was feeling like I'm on the go, I'm on the go all the time, but I'm not getting a chance to really express myself other than being kind of like this important guy out in public in a conference or something.

Speaker 10 And I wanted to be more authentic. And so my friend said, you are a way better, I'm not going to say someone's name, but you're a way better version of

Speaker 10 a,

Speaker 10 you know how to make people feel good. You know how to bring the best out in people.

Speaker 10 You're a motivation expert. And you do it in a way that people don't feel threatened.

Speaker 10 They don't feel like their finger, someone pointing a finger at them empowers them instead and you can forget about me and forget what i've told you but still those words will stay in your head and to me it's just about helping others have a better journey you know have a better time in life so how did you become the happiness warrior well that's a little i'll make it really short I um when I was 18, I kind of thought I had potential to be a model and I was like, well, I'd be a model in the RC, but I never looked, I was too afraid to ever have any voice that ever.

Speaker 10 But in my 40s,

Speaker 10 I did some

Speaker 10 men's physique competitions, NPC men's physique competitions. I got kind of into that.
I got kind of into that, the self-discipline and all that stuff.

Speaker 10 And then as I did that, I started getting a lot of invitations to do photo shoots. And then

Speaker 10 I kind of liked that kind of life for a little while because I travel somewhere and take some shoots. And then I said, okay, I want to take this to a professional level.
I want to get

Speaker 10 an agent in New York City. And there's an agent that I had to visualize that does all the

Speaker 10 body models, all the guys that were fit. A lot of the athletes would come to this agency and sign there.
And I'd see them getting signed all the time

Speaker 10 online.

Speaker 10 So I said, okay, no one's ever done this before. Let me go to LA and do a photo shoot and get discovered.
No one's ever done that before. No one's ever gone to LA and go, oh, I don't want to get,

Speaker 10 yes, they have. Thousands of people come every day to LA to get discovered and find and do photo shoots and become active, and then they get jobs as waiters for a while.
They have to be patient.

Speaker 10 And I wasn't really very patient. I'm in my late 40s.
I don't have a lot of time.

Speaker 10 And I took a really, I did a really good photo shoot with a new photographer that I never worked with before.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 on Monday morning,

Speaker 10 I'm on the plane getting ready to take off. And the phone rings.
And it's the agent in New York that I had visualized signing me, saying, hey, how fast could you get to New York?

Speaker 10 So I get to New York a couple weeks later,

Speaker 10 sign as a model. And then that was another learning experience and humbling experience.

Speaker 10 you know, pounding the pavement, literally, you know, and going to auditions and being and being

Speaker 10 a lot of really incredible people that you're up against. And

Speaker 10 my whole mantra over New York is always, the best of the best comes to New York. I need to make sure I'm my best, but I need to be happy.
So I always had this kind of happy expression.

Speaker 10 People always tend to like me when I came into the office to

Speaker 10 get lined up. And

Speaker 10 my agent, I had another agent that came along and she was, she was really incredible. And I, and, but COVID, all these things were happening and I was kind of tired.

Speaker 10 And that kind of, I was in, I was in New York and I'm living in DC. Got a little hectic.
So I stopped. I stopped modeling.
And I still wanted to do it.

Speaker 10 I still wanted to be really good at it, but I had to stop for a while. It concentrated on my business.

Speaker 10 And then one day she called me up and she said, I know you don't want to hear from me, but that's not true.

Speaker 10 But she says, I know you don't hear from me, but I'm determined that you're going to be on television.

Speaker 10 You know, I'm going to start using, I want you to be, I want you to go in a whole new direction with your career. And then COVID hit.
So then we stopped. New York shut down.
Everybody shut down.

Speaker 10 She moved to Hawaii.

Speaker 10 I was very happy for her. She fell in love, moved to Hawaii.
And one of the last things she said with me was, here's a publicist, call him and he's going to help you.

Speaker 10 So I said, what the heck is a publicist? I have no idea what a publicist even really does at that point. So I called my publicist,

Speaker 10 had about a one hour conversation with him. I remember it was a beautiful, like perfect October day.
The sun was perfect. The sky was blue.
And he said, I'm getting chills.

Speaker 10 I'm going to call you the happiness warrior. And that's going to be my next, you're going going to be my next big thing I'm going to create.
I'm going to create the happiness warrior.

Speaker 10 We're going to be, you're going to write books and be on TV and all this stuff. And that's how it kind of happened.
And it's a lot of work. It's hard work.
It's a lot of discipline every week.

Speaker 10 It was

Speaker 10 giving myself permission to write a column every week. These are big, big life-changing steps in a man in his late 50s.
Okay.

Speaker 10 So

Speaker 10 it also takes a lot of faith in that too, the faith in that I am the happiness warrior.

Speaker 10 Who gave me permission other than myself? You know, that's that's the only permission that I need. So that's why I'm the happiness warrior.
Okay. And it's just

Speaker 10 unapologetic about it. So yeah.

Speaker 7 Well, I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it.
Yeah. No, and I think it's phenomenal.

Speaker 7 I mean, I think the world is in a moment, our society is in a moment where anyone who is working to spread happiness and positivity and connectivity throughout our culture is, you know, someone who needs to be shared.

Speaker 7 Their story needs to be shared. Their voice needs to be shared because,

Speaker 7 you know, every day you, if you turn on the TV, you turn on social media, whatever, look in your email, all you see is negativity.

Speaker 7 So do you think that this is a particular moment in time in which, you know, you are needed? And have you seen,

Speaker 7 have you seen that in your work? Have you seen the response to your work kind of play that out?

Speaker 10 I have been, I'm not surprised, but I've had, I have so many people who believe in me, who want want to help me, who do, who are all like,

Speaker 10 they read my stuff, they comment on what I'm doing, but they follow me and

Speaker 10 they look at what I'm doing as something really important in their lives too. And they tell me, oh, I read your column today.
Oh, I saw your video. And you know what?

Speaker 10 Your video is 15 seconds, but it changed my whole day because you were up there helping someone, helping all of us. And it's just, it's just, I can see it growing.

Speaker 10 And I don't want to be the only happiness warrior. I'd like to have a lot of happiness warriors.
I'd like to have kids become happiness warriors because ultimately

Speaker 10 it's really our young people that need so much right now. And

Speaker 10 us older folks,

Speaker 10 we've survived a lot of things and we've been through a lot, but I think it's the kids that I want them to have a better future,

Speaker 10 a safer, emotionally safer, happier,

Speaker 10 self-confident future. And all kids,

Speaker 10 I don't want to leave anyone out. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I agree with that. I think that

Speaker 7 I think that, you know,

Speaker 7 I'm always of two opinions on kids. I obviously have two young kids right now, and I'm trying to raise them as best I can.

Speaker 7 You know, I'm divorced, but I co-parent pretty well with my ex-wife, so that works out pretty well. But

Speaker 7 it's tough, you know, I think there were a lot of things in my own childhood that obviously,

Speaker 7 you know, per that time

Speaker 7 were

Speaker 7 not necessarily positives in the way certain things were handled. But at the same time,

Speaker 7 there are things that

Speaker 7 I feel like we've gone, the pendulum has swung a little too far towards safety.

Speaker 7 I think that, you know, we have to, there's a good balance. Like kids shouldn't run wild.

Speaker 7 You know, intense bullying and things like that, definitely, you know, it's definitely

Speaker 7 those things need to be taught out and trained out of kids and understanding and communication and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 7 But we've also, you know, in an effort to curb, you know, just using as a microcosm bullying, we've made our

Speaker 7 youth programs and schools and education so helicoptery that the kids don't even know how to react to mild situations.

Speaker 10 They need to be able to stand on their own. They need to be able to, yeah, I agree with you 100%.
They don't need a helicopter parent. They don't need to be involved in what they're learning.

Speaker 10 They can just, kids, they're going to learn what they're going to learn. Yeah.

Speaker 10 They're intelligent. I mean, most of them figure things out on their own.
They know more than we think they do most of the time. And

Speaker 10 I'm sure you're always like, what?

Speaker 10 So, yeah.

Speaker 10 So

Speaker 10 I don't have any kids, but I kind of have, I've always had a very sort of mentor approach to a lot of young people. And I have a lot of young employees that are really important to me because they...

Speaker 10 they work with me for years they they stick around because i give i try to get i dunno and try i give everyone that works for me a really great opportunity opportunity to be successful.

Speaker 10 And that's also important. It's important.

Speaker 10 Everything, happiness comes from so many,

Speaker 10 it's just a collage of things because so many things make me happy.

Speaker 10 I think to myself, one of my responsibilities every day is to hold myself up for my employees and to be a good example, to set a good example, and to communicate effectively and to give them some hope in life too.

Speaker 10 Because I came from,

Speaker 10 I had a lot of things in my life that were very difficult.

Speaker 10 I had to also kind of go along with a lot of secondhand clothes and things like that at some at some points in my life too so

Speaker 10 I know what it's like to have very little money for lunch when you're working all day you know yeah so and now my situation has changed it's really important for me for not I don't want anyone else to have to have to live that way but I do think you need to make your own way and I do think this whole

Speaker 10 the safety i i said to have a safe environment without any predators but to have a safe environment they need to fight it all out. They need to work things out themselves and learn.
Yeah.

Speaker 10 Good examples. You're going to have good examples in their lives.

Speaker 7 And I think that's the key.

Speaker 7 You know, what I try to talk about with a lot of my friends when they're having kids and stuff is like, it doesn't, you know, what you say is important,

Speaker 7 but understand that it's what you do that's going to shape your kids. Right.

Speaker 7 And, you know, if they, you can, you can say, respect women, but if you treat their mom mom like shit, that's what they're going to pick up on, right?

Speaker 7 And it's, and it's, and it's the body language, it's the way that you respond to them.

Speaker 7 You know, if they make a simple mistake and you're overly sharp because you're tense, because you, you know, you can't leave work at work,

Speaker 7 that's going to impact them. And, you know, it's these little things that

Speaker 7 we don't think about. And a big part of why I do this show is one,

Speaker 7 I think that personal development and personal growth is the key to

Speaker 7 not just happiness, but satisfaction, purpose, meaning, you know, meaning in our lives. I think it's incredibly important.
Additionally,

Speaker 7 I like to bring on people like yourself who can help give just a new perspective on independent thinking. We've lost,

Speaker 7 I feel like

Speaker 7 we've outsourced our thinking to

Speaker 7 talking heads and, you know, and I know I do a podcast, so maybe it seems a little

Speaker 7 like I'm,

Speaker 7 you know, I'm being disingenuous, but

Speaker 7 I try not to tell people how to live. I just try to show them, you know, not even really the way I live as much.
I try to just highlight you guys because the guests, because

Speaker 7 we need to be independent thinkers. And I don't think you can be happy if you're allowing someone else to dictate.
what you think about and how you think about things.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 to your point, going all the way back to kind of failure and status and all those kind of things, it's like, it's okay to have an opinion, have that opinion be wrong and change that opinion, right?

Speaker 7 It's okay to think about it.

Speaker 6 It's amazing, but

Speaker 10 that would solve almost all of our divisions in this country right now.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 10 Just seven words, you know, and

Speaker 10 it's, it's my, my, my, my, my, one of my really heartfelt goals with this is I've had most of us have relationships and things that have been really strained in the last few years.

Speaker 10 And we've, and how do we get that back again?

Speaker 10 How do we, how how do we move forward and i'm not going to solve that problem but i want to solve the problem of how we think about ourselves yeah we have a better positive image of ourselves we want to share that with our friends again we want to share our positive things that we're doing in our lives and i think that's how we come together with energy builds up and there's you know and and you know you oh that guy he's not so bad you know and you can and you can say i made a mistake and i'm thinking differently now and that's okay yeah and we and we don't need to go into a big apology session, unlike those either, but just a little acknowledgement and respect.

Speaker 10 It's really what it comes down to.

Speaker 7 I completely agree. I completely agree.
You know, one of the episodes, I had an episode about three months ago that

Speaker 7 I don't want to say it went viral, but it was very,

Speaker 7 it did very well for, you know, kind of commonly how the show does, you know, just exponentially more.

Speaker 7 And it was all about how to have a political conversation with a friend who disagrees with you and still love each other was what the, was what the show was about.

Speaker 7 And, and I had a friend on who had different political views than I do.

Speaker 7 And basically, and I, and we've had so many conversations about stuff, you know, I knew that we would still be friends after, but what I wanted to show everyone is like, we can have different takes.

Speaker 7 We can see things from different angles.

Speaker 7 Ultimately, when we're, when we're approaching any conversation, not just a political conversation from different viewpoints, from a place of being a good actor,

Speaker 7 trying, you know, not trying to impose my will or be right, but to ultimately just have a conversation and express views, that you, most of the time,

Speaker 7 we're going for the same goal, just approaching it from different angles. And if we could come at things in our life from the standpoint of, I believe this person

Speaker 7 has

Speaker 7 best interests in mind, they're just approaching it from a different angle, then you can find all these commonplaces, even if ultimately your end, you know, your end viewpoint is different.

Speaker 7 There's so many commonalities, and we've lost that, right? We've lost that, like, I pick a side on a topic, and then I'm given 17 other

Speaker 7 topics that I have to have this view on because I've taken this view on this one thing, and I can't change because I said I was this thing now.

Speaker 7 And it's like, that's just not actually how any of us work. And I feel like it creates, you know, it creates so much

Speaker 7 angst and anxiety and, and, and, and dissension in, inside of organizations and in community groups and families. And it's like, really,

Speaker 7 we're all pretty good people trying our best who, when we, when we actually look at the cross cuts, there's so much goodness and love and gratitude. And

Speaker 7 to me, it's, it's this ability to think independently that allows us to see through the nonsense to get to the really good stuff in the middle, which is where all the happiness is.

Speaker 10 Well, there you go. And I agree with you 100%.
That was something I would have said almost the same words. I have a

Speaker 10 last summer I started reconnecting with an old friend and I started getting together with like five or six guys that I've known since I was in my 20s or college.

Speaker 10 And we started walking, we were walking together. We walked every Sunday morning.
We meet at 8 a.m. It's early.
If someone else wants to come along, great. But most people don't make the 8 a.m.

Speaker 10 They just cut out. So the five of us usually go walk six or seven miles.
Sometimes it's in the parks, it's kind of strenuous. And we all have, we're all entrepreneurs.
We all have our businesses.

Speaker 10 We've all established. We've all been around town for a long time.
There's no competition. We're all successful.
And

Speaker 10 we're all different types of nationalities and everything too. We have different political views.

Speaker 10 We don't talk politics, but we talk about the issues that we have in our lives and our businesses and how dishwashers are $24 an hour now and you know things like that.

Speaker 10 And let me tell you what, our political differences may be, I mean,

Speaker 10 I think the overall, like you said, the overall goal, the overall, at the end point, we're all the same, okay?

Speaker 10 But I tell you, if I'm slipping down that hill and going down a side of a cliff, one of those guys is going to push me up, okay? I know that we're all there for each other.

Speaker 10 And we tell each other every week, hey, love you guys. And we think to ourselves, and I say, we say, hey, if we don't say that, we're going to really be sad that we don't say that to each other.

Speaker 10 And if we can do that, everyone else can do that too.

Speaker 10 And a lot of times, the best thing to do, and this is me too, because I think it's a body-mind connection: go for a walk, go for a walk with a friend. I do a lot of that.

Speaker 10 I do a lot of videos about walking and with friends. And I think walking with a friend is one of the most healthy things we can do.

Speaker 10 So if you want to solve a problem, go for a walk with a friend. I think more interesting things happen in my life on walks with friends and hikes with friends.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I completely agree. I'll tell you, and

Speaker 7 we can leave it here. One of the best things that

Speaker 7 I think about in our society today, particularly for men, this is particularly true for men.

Speaker 7 When I was growing up in my teens, so I'm 43, so this is 30 years ago,

Speaker 7 hugging a dude and telling him that you love him, you know, you just, you know, you slap guys up, you know, whatever, but it wasn't today when I see someone, you know, Big bear hug, love you, man, great to see you.

Speaker 7 Like that part,

Speaker 7 that's a part of our society that I i think i'm so you know i think i'm very happy and i think we should celebrate the fact that uh it is much more

Speaker 7 um socially acceptable to express joy, compassion, love for other people

Speaker 7 openly, and especially for men.

Speaker 7 I think women traditionally have been better at this, but men in particular have really taken that, you know, the culture has shifted to where men can be much more open with each other in terms of

Speaker 7 the feeling of connection and how they express that. I think that's a wonderful thing for our society and something that we need to cultivate.

Speaker 10 I'm really big on that principle as well. I think that men need to reconnect with each other and have friendships.
And I think those friendships, they grow and

Speaker 10 they spread too. And then they become, hey, I know you guys, we trust you, you know this guy, you know, and then it

Speaker 10 becomes something bigger than ourselves. So that's what it's all about.
Everything that we do in life is really, it's really bigger than us. Our actions are bigger than us.
Everything is, it's about

Speaker 10 the community of people that we all share this planet with. And

Speaker 10 it's not getting any less crowded, so we better figure it out, right?

Speaker 10 That's for sure.

Speaker 7 So, Eric, it's been a great pleasure speaking with you, man. This has been wonderful.
I love the work you're doing. I love the message you're sharing.

Speaker 7 So, if someone's listening to this, where can they get more from you? Where's the best place for them to go to learn more about you?

Speaker 10 I love Instagram,

Speaker 10 The Happiness Warrior official. Same thing on TikTok, which I'm starting to do a lot of videos on there.
My Facebook is also the happiness warrior.

Speaker 10 And then I have a website, thwthwarrior.com, where I just started selling merchandise. So I have baseball caps and hoodies and t-shirts.
So awesome.

Speaker 6 I'm getting out there.

Speaker 7 Awesome. I love it.
Well, guys, I'll have links to all that in the show notes, or you can just look up Eric directly.

Speaker 7 But if you're listening, wherever you're listening to this, or if you're watching on YouTube, just go in the description and you'll find links to all of Eric's social properties.

Speaker 7 Eric, it's been such a pleasure, man. I appreciate you.

Speaker 10 I'm so grateful, Ryan. It was so awesome.
I could talk to you for hours. Okay.
So good.

Speaker 10 We're great. Okay.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

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Speaker 9 Yeah. Make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

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