The Secret to Happiness (No, Really!)

0:00 Welcome to the Unapologetic Man Podcast. The only podcast that's all about self-improvement, confidence, success, women, and being a man without making any apologies for it. Studies show that over 70% of Americans are unhappy. Why is that? Why, in a place where everything is at our beck and call, are so many people still miserable? We're the richest, safest, most secure we've ever been. So why are so many people miserable, fat, in debt, and living their lives like the walking dead? I have a very strong opinion as to why this is.

0:42 And yes, I feel I have found the remedy for it. I feel that I have found the secret to happiness. And I'm going to share that with you up next. Here at the Unapologetic Man Podcast, we are thankful for you, our listeners. It's because of you that we're able to do what we love. So please tell us how we're doing. Please go ahead and leave us a review on iTunes or any other network that you happen to be listening to this on. And if you're on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and leave us a comment.

1:08 We really do appreciate it. As some of you are aware, I do offer one-on-one phone coaching. I use NLP, which is Neuro Linguistic Programming. My waiting list is out to seven weeks now. So if you want to come on board, I would suggest emailing me first. Or if you tell me that you found me on the Unapologetic Man Podcast, I will go ahead and try to get you in earlier than some of my other clients that find me on different sources of media. So just let me know that you found me on there.

1:35 And I could probably squeeze you in within the month. I am getting busier and busier. So if you've been thinking about getting coaching with me, I will pull the trigger sooner rather than later. I also offer an approach formula that can be found at gettheapproachformula.com. It walks you through the step-by-step method to approach a woman, engage her in interesting, fascinating, funny conversation, and then walk away with her phone number with the highest chance of her actually texting you back so you can take her on a date and get the kind of success you really want to experience with women.

2:08 All right, guys, without further ado, the secret to happiness, in my opinion. All right, so look, dude, things are going to go wrong, okay? You've been on this planet long enough that you know things are going to go wrong. Perhaps you have an unconscious belief, as many people do, that eventually you will arrive to a place where everything is done, everything is fine. You have enough money, enough sex, enough happiness to hold you over, and you'll just retire on that beach with that margarita, and finally happiness can be achieved.

2:42 Perhaps you, like so many other Americans, probably that 70% that I spoke about in the beginning of the podcast, you might have the illusion that you're going to arrive to a place where you can finally be happy. That's the big sell that everybody's trying to sell you, and it's complete bullshit. Look, life is problems. Life is challenges. You are going to get gut checked. You are going to get knocked down again and again and again. And I'll tell you, if getting money, success, girls, reputation, fame is what you want, more money, more problems, the bigger the man, the bigger the problems.

3:38 So if problems are what you hate and you think that getting more is going to make more problems go away, sorry, brother, it's the other way around. The more shit you get, the more shit you get. So the simple fact is, guys, is that you will never be done. There is no such thing as retirement. You can retire, but you're still going to have to have problems. You can end up on that beach, but then what's going to happen? Your hip is going to hurt. Or you're going to be allergic to the humidity in the air, and your joints are going to hurt.

4:08 There's always going to be some bullshit that you have to deal with. Life is designed that way. If you think I have everything figured out and my life is perfect, believe me, it's not. I have problems. I have issues. I have shit that I have to work through. But here is the big difference. I don't expect things to be easy. I don't expect for things to go right. I have understood that that is an illusion. It took me a long time, probably like 35 years, but it finally got through this thick skull of mine that things don't always work out, dude.

4:40 In fact, things go wrong just as often, if not more, than things go right. So what can we do about that? Okay, you are in a game where things go wrong. What do you do about it? You come up with a fucking solution because you are an intelligent guy. What is the solution? Let me ask you this. What if instead of wanting things to be a certain way, you placed your feelings of satisfaction on a different channel? What if growth, that's right, growth, and becoming the best man you can possibly become was the most important thing to you?

5:15 And what if you view challenges, problems, things going wrong, failures as a chance to grow and therefore you actually saw them as a good thing? You saw them as an opportunity to go after what you really want, which is growth. I know for me, the biggest problem I ever had was anxiety. You guys have probably heard the story. I was in Japan. I had a panic attack while I was a translator. I had to get pulled off the stage and that started for me about a year worth of the most intense anxiety that I ever went through.

5:48 But it's that anxiety that turned me into the man I am today. In fact, the way I look at that anxiety is as a gift, the best gift that was ever given to me. Put me back in my shoes when I was having the anxiety and I would say, dude, get me out of here. This is not the best gift that ever happened to me. But in hindsight, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Why? Because it showed me I have to improve myself.

6:13 I have to figure this shit out. I cannot live this way. It might be the same reason you're listening to this podcast. I highly doubt if you were born rich or if you woke up this morning underneath a pile of hot girls, you'd even be listening to this. So if this makes you better, if this gives you the secret to happiness and you start living this way and actually find happiness and purpose because of it, can we really say that the suffering that brought you here was a bad thing?

6:41 Of course not. We can actually say it was a good thing. You have what I call a growth mindset. You want to get better. Yes, potentially right now for slightly misaligned reasons and that's okay. But at least you're trying to improve yourself and make your situation better. And that, my friend, is a great start into finally finding lasting satisfaction and purpose. When you make growth your top priority, when you want to get better, simply because it's your nature to do so. I want to say that again.

7:12 When you want to get better simply because it's your nature to do so, then you'll start experiencing happiness no matter what the situation. Okay, so there's two different mindsets here. There's the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. And this isn't my own, this isn't my idea. This came from a book that I read called Mindset, which I strongly, strongly suggest. In fact, it's one of the top five books that I recommend to my clients when they hire me. Okay, it's called Mindset by Carol Dweck, D-W-E-C-K, I believe.

7:43 I know her first name is Carol, C-A-R-O-L. But it's just called Mindset, so go check it out. I would also get an audiobook. The audiobook's a really good version. All right. So in this book, they talk about two different mindsets, growth mindset and fixed mindset. In the growth mindset, you focus on getting better. And you actually want to run into obstacles in order to do that. You know that each time the sword, which is you, you are the sword, that goes into the fire of problems and challenges, it gets stronger and stronger.

8:12 So every time something bad happens, that's going into the fire. It's getting hit with that hammer and it's getting stronger and stronger. In the fixed mindset, you don't care about growth. You believe you're born how you are and you think that failures speak to your worth as a person. So people in the fixed mindset are terrified of failure. They think that it defines them. They're afraid to fail. So they never take any chances. This often happens to children. One of the really good things in this book is it talks about how our parents fuck us up as children.

8:46 Maybe you were a kid and your mom was always really complimentary towards you. Oh, Brian. Oh, Mike. Oh, Jason. Whatever your name is. You're so smart. You're so intelligent. You're so creative. Look at this picture you drew. It's amazing. You just have a great talent. What does that do to you that says, oh, shit, my mom thinks I'm a genius. So if I fuck up in the future, if I fail, I'm going to let her down. So now I'm not going to take any chances or I'm going to study so hard, work so hard, kill myself to prove her right over and over and over again.

9:17 It's important instead, and you have to do this with your own self-talk, to put the compliments on the level of effort. Whoa, you really worked hard on that. Wow, you must have really thought about this and organized it, and you really put great effort into that. So I always tell my students, put your feelings of satisfaction on the level of effort, not results. How much effort did it take for you to go open that girl? Bro, I don't give a fuck if you got her phone number.

9:45 I don't care if she rejected you or gave you her number and wanted to have sex with you. That doesn't matter. How much balls did it take to go open her? That's where I want your feelings of satisfaction. When you shift it into a growth mindset, then you always have power over the situation. No longer is it life or death whether or not she rejects you. It doesn't matter. It's the fact that you went over to go open her. If you did that, boom, big pat on the back, great.

10:13 I feel good about myself. This is the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Growth mindset believes I can actually build my brain and grow stronger. The fixed mindset believes intelligence is fixed. Growth mindset wants to train with people better than it so it can get better, so it can grow. Fixed mindset wants to train with people worse than it so we can prove how good it is. This, by the way, is why I believe that 90% of people quit jiu-jitsu. It's because in jiu-jitsu, you are going to get tapped.

10:48 You are going to get your ass kicked. You are going to get choked out. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're a D1 wrestler in college right now. You will get choked out, okay? You roll with a black belt, brown belt, even a purple belt. If you're a D1 wrestler, you're going to get beat. Well, a lot of people's egos can't handle that because, once again, they think that the failure defines them as a person. They have a fixed mindset. But the growth mindset says, as I did, holy shit, if this guy can do this to me, what would I be able to do to other people after doing this for a year?

11:20 Well, I've been doing it for a year. New guy comes in, he's getting fucking choked out. It's just going to happen. But then when I go up against a blue belt, I'm getting choked out. It's just going to happen. And what do I do? I roll with higher belts. I don't even want to fuck with, like, people lower than me. Because it's like, yeah, yeah, whatever, you know? I mean, I'm not being arrogant. It's just not really growing me that much. I mean, sometimes it's fun to practice some move that you learn and to deploy it on somebody.

11:45 But it's like, I'm not better than he is. I just happen to know a little bit more jiu-jitsu. And when I'm rolling with a purple belt, his jiu-jitsu beat mine simply because he's been in it longer than I have. So that's the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset. Growth mindset wants to fail in entrepreneurial endeavors to learn quickly and grow as fast as possible. Fixed mindset is afraid to take chances because it doesn't want to feel like a failure. Growth mindset believes that getting rejected is a good thing because it's a quick way to improve and it prides itself on having the balls to talk to girls.

12:21 Fixed mindset thinks a rejection is a final statement the girl makes about your worth as a man. And it's terrified of rejection because it doesn't want to be judged as not enough. So which one are you? Growth, fixed, maybe a mix of both depending on the situation? Well, brother, here's what I want from you. I want you to step into a growth mindset right now. I want you to look at challenges as a chance to grow. Look at failure as the sword going into the fire.

12:53 And know that no matter what happens in your life, as long as you grow from it, and growth is your number one priority. Yes, even more of a priority than like getting your dick wet tonight with a girl. When growth, that all-important growth, is your number one priority, then you will be able to be happy. This is why I believe that 70% of people are unhappy. 70% in a society where all you have to do is turn on the faucet and water comes out. We get to take hot showers every day.

13:24 We get to sleep in these ridiculously comfortable beds with a roof over our head. Have you ever gone out into the woods and just tried to survive for three days? I like to go out into the woods in Colorado. It's where I live. And I made this thing called a wiki up. It's basically a teepee. And I put two beds in it that are lifted up. And you can heat rocks in the fire and put hot rocks under it. I surrounded the thing completely with pine.

13:49 It's not even completely waterproof, but it's got a shit ton of pine on it. This thing took me 50 hours, 5-0 hours to build. And it will hardly, barely keep me warm throughout the night. Like I have to keep the fire going the whole time. I have to roll hot rocks under the bed. And people think, oh, just put me out in the woods, dude, and I'll survive. Yeah, fucking right. If you foraged all day long, you still wouldn't find enough berries and vegetables and salads to survive on.

14:15 You have to hunt meat. And if you don't know how to trap, if you don't know how to hunt, you're fucked. But here we are, dude, living in this society where all I have to do is get into my car and I can go to Arby's, which is right across the fucking street. I could go to King Super's, which is a supermarket here in Colorado. I can go get anything I want to eat. I just have to open the fridge, pop something in the microwave. I could take a bath.

14:38 I could take a shower. I get to sleep in a warm bed tonight. Yet all these people are miserable. Why is it that people in the past were happier? Well, maybe it's because their mindset was different. I mean, that sounds logical to me, right? Hey, every time I go hunting, like let's say we're prehistoric, dude. Every time I go hunting and I fail to get that woolly mammoth, well, at least I learned something. Oh, shit, don't come up on his periphery so much because they have really good vision.

15:03 Okay, got it. Next time I'm going to do better. Great. I'm glad I failed because now I get a chance to improve. But it seems like somewhere along the way, somewhere in modern society, in civilization, we got this terror of failing. But, dude, failure is a good thing. Challenges are a good thing. Overcoming adversity is a good thing. And, yes, the more successful you become, the more you're going to have to overcome adversity. Here's a separate concept I want to introduce into this podcast. I might do a separate podcast on this, but we'll see how it goes.

15:36 There's the concept of instant gratification. Versus delayed gratification. Now, they've done studies on this. And those who partake in delayed gratification actually have more long-term happiness. Those who partake in instant gratification have less long-term happiness. Delayed gratification is painful to begin with, but it's chosen pain. And then after you choose the pain, you have lasting happiness. So, for those of you who work out, I have one client right now named Lou, and he's totally fucking shredded. What's up, Lou? Shout out to my boy, Lou. And that guy's fucking happy with his health.

16:17 Why? Because he does delayed gratification. His diet is pinned. He works out every day. He's totally fucking shredded. Chicks totally jock him. The guy's a fucking champion. So, what he does is he does the delayed gratification. Works hard. Puts himself in pain up front so that he can enjoy the rollercoaster ride of gratification long-term. Well, if you do instant gratification, it's the opposite. You're eating ho-hos and ding-dongs. You're sitting on the couch. You're not working out. Yeah, it's instant gratification, but then in the long run, you get more pain.

16:50 So, I always have a saying. Choose pain voluntarily so that you can avoid involuntary pain. Involuntary pain to avoid involuntary pain. There's another saying I like. Do things that are hard and your life will be easy. Do things that are easy and your life will be hard. There's another saying I like. Discipline means acting on your higher motives, not your lesser motives. Discipline is acting on your higher motives, not your lesser motives. So, this ties into mindset as well. Do you have a mindset of instant gratification, Instagram, social media, Facebook, eating like shit, masturbating, all these things we do that give us a quick dopamine hit.

17:36 And then as soon as it rescinds, we're on to the next thing to try to get the next dopamine hit. Or do you live in a way where you have discipline, where you have delayed gratification, okay? Getting girls is delayed gratification because it takes a lot of fucking work to learn how to do it. But that's delayed gratification. That's working on yourself. And frankly, the way I see it, your growth should be number one and the girls are just a side effect. The girls are just what come out of self-improvement.

18:05 There's this podcast I really like to listen to. It's called the Jocko Podcast. I'm sure you've probably heard of it. It's by Jocko Willink. He was an ex-Navy SEAL. And he has this thing called good. It's just his term. G-O-O-D. Good. Whenever he got bad news in the SEAL teams, and believe me, there was a lot of bad news, he would say, good. Oh, we didn't get that new ammunition they were promising us. Good. Oh, we have to go in and evade this really difficult part of Ramadi that's totally fortified by the Mujahideen.

18:37 And it's going to be really, really tough. Good. Oh, didn't get that promotion. Good. Why does he say good to all this stuff? Because he's a fucking man who sees the opportunity in adversity. Anytime something goes wrong, can you say good? You know, I fell on my bike and skinned my knee. Good. I just toughened up. Dude, in my case, I forgot. I was going to mention this. I got the worst goddamn food poisoning last week ever. And man, the little bitch inside of me, that fixed mindset fucking pussy, who I call my lower self, wanted to be a little punk about it.

19:15 Like, oh, poor me. I'm going to lose all the gains I made in the gym. I won't be able to go work out for X many days. I can't go to jujitsu. Fuck that, dude. I said good. Because you have to make yourself see what's good about your situation. Why? Because you're going to be miserable unless you do that. Be miserable or be happy. Be a little bitch or be a fucking man. So I was like, dude, fuck this. No, no, no, no. I'm going to be a fucking man.

19:43 Okay. First of all, while I'm sick, while I'm puking, while I have this fever and I'm shaking and my body is trying to kill this thing inside of me, I'm going to take it like a fucking man. I'm not going to whimper. I'm not going to complain. I'm not going to even tell Marissa about it. I'm just going to man the fuck up, sweat it out, and move on. Secondly, I told myself, what else? What else can come out of this that's good? Hmm. Let me see here.

20:07 Okay. I got a little fat during Christmas. Ate some apple pie. Ate some cake. Really went hard in the paint. It was a cheat meal day. But I probably gained a little bit of body fat. So I was like, stoked, dude. I get to burn this all off. And I did. I went down to probably 8% body fat. And I believe I was up to about 12%. It was about, I was sick for about three to five days. Still a little effed up, but I'm dealing with it.

20:32 Good. I get to cut. I get to get rid of all that fat. Man, I thought I had to save that fat until spring, until I did my cut. But nope, it's gone already. Good. So there's always something good. Don't get the promotion. Good. I get to get better. Your computer goes down. Good. I get to get a new one. Or I get to figure out how to fix it. Your podcast isn't getting as many listens as you were hoping for. Good. I get to go meet other podcasters and try to get on their show.

20:59 There's always something good. And it's your job as the man to find it because bro, life is hard. Life's going to gut check you. Life is going to kick you in the nuts and it's going to bring you problem after problem after problem after problem. You are never done. It's like a hole in the ground. I was just talking about bushcraft a little bit, wilderness survival. There's this concept where if you're going to get water from a river, what you do is you build a hole next to the river so that the sand filters it out and you can drink from that hole.

21:31 You don't want to drink directly from a river because it has cryptosporidium and giardia in it. So you dig a little hole next to the river. Well, I've done that before. And it's funny because no matter how much water you take out, there's still going to be water filling up. And that's the way life is. You get a problem. You just take it out and another one comes in, take that one out and another one comes in. But instead of like being exacerbated by it, instead of being exhausted by it, see it as like, hell yeah, another way for me to improve, another way for me to get better, another way for me to grow.

22:04 So that when you walk into a room, people say, oh shit, there's something different about this guy. When you talk, people listen. Suddenly you start getting girls. Suddenly you start closing deals. Suddenly you're making more money, being more happy, being more satisfied. And not because of the circumstances, not because of the situation, but because of your mindset about it. When things go good, enjoy it. Enjoy the good things because there are a lot of good things about life. But when the bad things come, which they will, say good.

22:39 Say, dude, growth is my number one priority. How is this going to help me grow? And I guarantee you, the great thing is, here's the great news, bro. No matter what problem, no matter what failure, no matter what situation befalls you, there is always something to learn. There is always some way to grow from it. So that's my lesson from today. I do want to suggest two books to you guys. The first one is Mindset, which I mentioned earlier. And the second one is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.

23:10 So check out those two books. I'm going to make a podcast about my recommended reading list. But those are two of the big ones. And guys, this was the hardest thing for me. I mean, I was the most delusional of the delusional. I thought that I could finally arrive to a place where I was free of my problems. I thought that I could finally arrive to a place of happiness where everything was done and I could set up a situation for myself where no more problems would come in.

23:34 But that is an absolute 100% illusion. And the quicker you reconcile with that, the quicker you accept it and figure out a way to master it, figure out a way to beat the game that you've been thrown into. You've been thrown into this game along with me, dude. We're in the trenches together, fighting side by side, shoulder to shoulder as brothers. The quicker you figure out a way to beat the system, and this is how you beat it, the quicker you will get to happiness. All right, guys, that's it for me.

24:03 I do thank you so much for listening until the very end. If you found value in my teachings, please do me a favor and leave me a review. Even just five stars on iTunes or even a thumbs up on good old YouTube really does help me a lot, and I do appreciate it. And by the way, I do read all emails. I look at all comments. So if you want to make a message to me personally, that's the way to do it. I really do appreciate you as a listener.

24:27 I'm going to keep going with this podcast, keep trying to deliver really good content for you to improve yourself as a man and to find that happiness that everybody is going for. All right, guys, once again, thank you so much for listening, and I will see you in the next podcast.

This transcript was made automatically, so a few words may be off.