Well, welcome to the Potential LeaderLab, and I am your host, Perry Maughmer. And today, on episode 53, we're gonna talk about how happiness is not a leading indicator. So a little play on words there. Well, let's dig in. So, here's the first thing. If you're listening to this on the day that it drops, it's probably Christmas. So I thought I would just acknowledge that, and I hope you're having a great holiday, and I hope you're having a good time with, with your family and your friends. And and I hope that this is a very happy time of year.

I hope that, everybody's taken some time off in in refueling and replenishing themselves. And it's also gonna be a bit paradoxical because I think that we're talking about how to fulfill yourself, how to be, interesting enough, how to be happy. But but not the typical pursuit of happiness, but how happiness might ensue from the pursuit of something else. And so, hopefully, it provides a bit of freedom. And that's really how I look at this. I look at the topic that we're gonna talk about and how it kinda frees us up from stress and anxiety and some other things that we suffer from quite frequently. Yeah. And I hope it gives you a pause.

I hope it gives you something to just think about over the holidays, as you as we all approach the the new year as it were. And, and gives us kind of a new lease on behaving differently to achieve a different result for those, for ourselves and for those that we care most deeply about. So, here we go. What I'd like to challenge you to do is to change the question and and change from the question of what can I gain to how can I

contribute? Because I think if we if we

look at, gaining through the purpose of greater contribution and not as an end in our for ourselves, I think it becomes easier. And and my whole thought process here as we go through this is to find that never ending fountain of motivation. And I think we can find it if we shift our focus from us to other people. And we find if we have that kind of, those overlapping circles, and we find that overlap from where striving to become the best version of ourselves overlaps with how I show up best for everybody else and provide opportunities for everybody else and make the world a better place for other people. If we find the overlap of those two things, then I think we found a never ending source of motivation. I don't think we have to get motivated to do that. I think, otherwise, if we're pushing too hard and we keep talking to ourselves, if that voice in our head I was just listening to a podcast yesterday and today. Andrew Huberman had, doctor Ethan Cross on, and he wrote a book called Chatter, and it's all about the voice in our head.

And he was talking about that. And if we have to have that a lot, if we have to have that inner conversation about what we should be doing, could be doing, must be doing, my take on that is that we have to reframe the conversation then. And what I mean is, if we're if we're pushing so hard and we have to we have to motivate ourselves every day to think about what we could be doing, should be doing, must be doing, then I think maybe we have to rethink why we're doing it. And it is as with almost everything in life, it is mostly about intent. Not as much about what you're doing, but why you're doing it. And I believe that wholeheartedly about just about everything. In fact, I'll go a little sidetrack here, but I'll go to if if you it's it's funny. I've been thinking a lot about this.

If you if you wish somebody merry Christmas nowadays. So, if I were to say Merry Christmas to somebody, that could that could be theoretically offensive to people. Now, why? There's a whole list of reasons why, and it is it is a little bit myopic, and I'm assuming a lot of things. And I get all that. But but here, I'd I'd like you to think about this. I don't care if you say happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa, you know, whatever the holiday is. If I'm saying it from my point of view, and my intent my intent is to wish you happiness on some occasion,

Regardless of if you celebrate that or not, if

if my intent is just hoping you have a good day or that you have a happy holiday without without my implication being you should celebrate the holiday I'm celebrating. It's the right holiday, not the wrong holiday. That has nothing to do with this. If my intent is just, I'm wishing you good tidings, then how do we get offended? Why do we get offended? It's because we're we're looking to be offended, but that in and of itself is a whole different topic in podcast. So, I just wanna bring that up because I think it's important to understand intent, intent in all things. And we're gonna talk a lot about intent, in this particular episode because we're talking about why we do things, which we we have to understand for ourselves before we can effectively help other people. So the the kind of the foundation for this is gonna be Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. So, you know, you start out with the baseline of physiological needs, then safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and self actualization.

So I'm I'm sure most of us are familiar with that with the with the triangle. Right? The pyramid that Maslow had, and at the top was the little piece of the top of the pyramid with self actualization. But again, if I will tell you that's not what Maslow intended, and that's coming from Maslow. It's not me telling you what Maslow intended. It's Maslow telling you what Maslow intended. And he said later in his life, he said, that was not it at all. The top of that pyramid was actually self actualization. And here in Maslow's own words is what he said.

The goal of identity, self actualization, seems to be simultaneously an end goal in itself and also a transitional goal, a rite of passage, a step along the path to the transcendence of identity. If our goal is the eastern one of ego transcendence and obliteration, love that word, of leaving behind self consciousness and self self observation, then it looks as if the best path to this goal for most people is via achieving self identity, a strong real self, and a via and via basic need gratification. So what he was saying was, in order to get to where we can obliterate our ego, where we can move past, we can leave behind self consciousness and self observation is through basic need gratification and then through achieving a strong identity. So these things and he says up here, it's a it's a transitional goal. So self actualization is a goal, but it's a transitional goal. Because once we have that strong sense of self, we can move beyond it and leave it behind, which is an amazing thing. Now I'm gonna overlay this with a couple different things. So we have the self transcendence and self actualization for Maslow.

We also have kind of the hedonic and eudaimonic ways of life. Now hedonism and and eudaimonia. Right? So hedonism, most people know, is the pursuit of pleasure. Eudaimonia is a was brought up by by Aristotle, and that's to live a good life. And I'm gonna touch on what those mean. But I I think there's a real overlap if you see, you know, self actualization and and hedonic, the hedonic treadmill, which I'll get to in a minute, and then eudaimonia and and self transcendence. So hedonic is something that pursues pleasure to achieve happiness. So I'm gonna do this because doing this makes me happy.

Where eudaimonic is something that pursues meaning to achieve happiness in the long term. So again, what I and I can and my way of talking about this is what I want most versus what I want now. Because typically, the the hedonic part of this, the hedonic part of this is gonna be what I want now. The the eudaimonic side of this is gonna be, what do I

want most? What do I want long term?

Right? And we're talking about a low a well lived life, and and it contains both pieces of this. This is not I I'm not, proposing that you live kind of an aesthetic life, that you deny yourself pleasure. That's not the point here. This isn't this isn't a binary choice. It's not an either or. It's really for me, it's like most things. It's kind of a continuum. So it's kind of like, where on the spectrum am I right now? And if you have, you know, you have self actualization and eudaimonia and what I want most on one side, and then on the other side, call it what you want.

You can have hedonic. You can have self actualization. You can have what I want now. So you have these two ends of a spectrum. And I think that, basically, our goal would be just to make sure we understand where we're at on the spectrum at any given time. Right? We're trying to figure out for for today, for right now, for this hour, for this week, for this month, I'm on this side of that spectrum. You can slide up and down the spectrum. I don't I don't believe there's anything inherently wrong about either one.

In fact, I think that if we try to make this, the worst thing we can do is try to make this a binary choice, is try to make this an either or. Because I think in I think that's one of the things that leads us mostly into anxiety and stress and all those things is when we create these kind of burning platforms for ourselves. Because oftentimes, if we're feeling frustration and anxiety, maybe it's because we're we're striving for the wrong thing. So even if we achieve it, it doesn't satisfy our hunger or quench our thirst. I mean, how many people have ever thought anything like the following? If I could just get that promotion, if I could just get that raise, if we could just buy that new house, if I could just get that new car, if I could take that one vacation, and on and on and on. Right? Well, that's called the hedonic treadmill. That's where we have a desire, then we strive for something, then we get it, then we enjoy it, then we adapt to it, then we desire more, then we strive. You know, the cycle continues.

That's why it's called a treadmill because you never get off of it because we're always trying to we're trying to get more stuff that's gonna fulfill us. And I there's this great story. It at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, has made more money in a single day than Heller earned from his wildly popular novel, Catch 22, over its whole history. Heller's response, yes. But I have something he will never have. Enough. And I think that that's where the well-being lies. That's where our opportunity for well-being lies.

If we if we're if we wanna move in that

direction, and that shifts from what fulfills me to what purpose do I serve.

And see, again, one leads to the other. These are overlapping, self actualization, self transcendence. What fulfills me can also serve my purpose, but I have to make that connection. I I have to overtly make that connection. Again, I'll go back to intent. If the reason I'm pursuing become really good at something or if I'm if I'm, pursuing something, I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it in service of other people. And there's actually research that backs this up that talks about there there's a collection of stats representing the largest and longest standing series of observations on happiness in the world.

The trait most strongly associated with long term success long term increases in life satisfaction is in fact a persistent commitment to pursuing altruistic goals. That is, the more we focus on compassionate action on helping others, the happier we seem to be in the long run. Now it does altruism doesn't just correlate with an increase in happiness, it actually causes it. They did a study. A psychologist named Sonya Lewinboomerski had the students perform 5 acts of kindness on their of their choosing per week over the course of 6 weeks. So 5 acts of kindness per week over the course of 6 weeks. They reported a significant increase in their levels of happiness relative to

a control group of students who didn't. So again,

doing things for other people actually has a causality to being happy. So now we're gonna move we're gonna move beyond pleasure towards meaning. Right? So hedonic,

eudaimonic. Now we have to look on what truly matters beyond personal comfort and then

get into well-being. So, again, what you want most may not be what you want now. And then this is you you make up your mind on this. You decide. Well, first of all, you have to decide in in in communication with other people you care about. This isn't just a you decision. This is who you and those you care deeply about. What do you all care about? What's the end goal? What's the vision? What's the mission? But it but you constantly have to drowned out what I'll call the noise from outside.

Because everything you hear, every most things, not everything. Most everything you hear on the radio, marketing, advertisements, TV, social media, all those things

are really focused on what you're gonna get now, what

you want now, not what you want most, because it's consumerism. Right? It's it's the hedonic treadmill. If I get if I get this promotion, if I get the I mean, seriously, how many people and I know some of you listening probably have. You got the promotion. You got the title. You got the raise. Did you stop? Are you now completely fulfilled, and you just it's a new set point. I'm good.

I don't strive anymore. I don't need anything else. I'm perfectly happy where I am. Are you Joseph Heller? Do you have enough? And and I and I think this is a lot that has to do with social conditioning. I don't I don't actually believe this is in nobody I don't think any of us are are are kinda born this way. I think where we get this is we're we're conditioned socially. But you have to get absolutely clear on what moves your needle, not society's expectations, not your parents, not your spouses, not your boss. What moves your needle for you? And that can take a minute to figure out.

That can take some time. And it's a it's a moving target because what moved your needle, or I can only speak to me, what moved my needle, 20 years ago or 10 years ago or even 5 years ago doesn't move the needle now. So this is an ongoing again, explore, experiment, evolve. This is a process, not an event. This is not something we do once and we don't set it and forget it. But because experimentation actually becomes the bridge from hedonic enjoyment to eudaimonic fulfillment, because it involves action towards meaning based goals. Right? These are no longer goals based on external things. They're meaning based goals.

And all of this experimentation comes up with new ways of contributing and leads to a deeper, more resilient sense of well-being. Because now, the work that I'm doing again, back to that never ending fountain of of motivation. The work that I'm doing now, I don't have to get motivated for because I can't not do it. Again, I'll say it again. What you wanna come up with is something you can't not do. That, even if you wanted to, it's gonna take you more effort to not do it than to do it. That's when you know you're there, when you can't stop doing it. And for not not for external rewards or adulation or accolades or money or whatever, but it's just part of who you are.

I mean, I have I have good friends that are in, the education field. And it happens mostly, with people I see. They're nonprofit, same way. People that have worked many, many years in a nonprofit, they're they're cause based. They they don't they they approach the like, for instance, the the folks I knew in education, this is a way of life for them, and it's not a job. It's not something they do from 8 to 3:30, 5 days a week. They're educators. And they're educators 247, 365.

That's how that's the frame through which they see the world. Right? So that's what we're kinda talking about is finding that spot where I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I can't not do it. So what are some practical steps? Well, there there are some, and and that's what's awesome. Right? There are some things we can actually do. We can practice gratitude. Again, where it's Christmas. Right? It's the most wonderful time of the year. We got a lot to be grateful for.

Now, be genuinely thankful. Not just this this kind of, general general, gratitude, but be specifically thankful. Now, in order to be genuinely grateful, there's a prerequisite. You have to have some sense of humility. Right? Because a truly humble person can easily identify and accept that all of the good things that are happening in their life are blessings for which they should be thankful. Here's what they don't have to do. They don't have to prove to themselves or anyone else that it was their efforts that yielded the reward or outcome. See, we have a we have a challenge with people that are achievers, because I think some of the folks that that I work with, that I coached over the years, they have this need to prove to themselves that it was their efforts that yielded the outcome of the reward.

Now, I actually believe this is fairly, this is kind of a disease in our current landscape. And that this self made person story is, in my mind, is just bullshit. Because no one, and I will say this as an absolute, and I don't say very many absolutes, absolutely no one did it all on their own. This doesn't exist. But we create these narratives for ourselves about amazing individuals who did it all by themselves, and all that does is feed the individualistic nature of our society. And we see it everywhere. You know, pulled up by your bootstraps, the old protestant work ethic, whatever you wanna call it. But we exist in context of other people, and I'm more on that in just a second.

And we actually we are at our best when we're working with and for other people. We're absolutely at our best. Why do you think why do you think we use the word team so much? Why do you think that every every business and organization, team, team, team, team, team? Right? They wanna form teams. They want you to be on a team. Why? I mean, think about it. By the way, almost none of those groups are actually teams. And if you look at the very definition of a team, there was a great one by Katzenbach and Smith way back in the day. And it was a small group of people with complementary skill sets, who hold themselves mutually accountable for previously agreed upon goals.

Right? Now, the first step in that is they have complementary skill sets. They need the first the first thing about a team is I need the other person to

get the work done. Most of

the teams I see when we throw around the word team in the work team because they don't even need each other. You don't need you don't have an accounting team because the person that's doing accounts payable doesn't need anybody else to do their work. They don't need the accounts receivable person to help them. If you're on a team, you cannot complete your task without other people. You can't do it all. Now, the next the next one of these that we can do is practice meaningful relationships. I was watching I was watching a a a new show on Netflix last night called Man on Man on the Inside. It was Ted Danson.

It was a it was a little comedy drama ish thing, and it was about, this, Ted Danson, who I think is probably in his seventies, who had retired and he got a job, infiltrating a retirement home to search for a missing necklace. And the the person that was executive director of the nursing home told him, it isn't it isn't falling. It isn't disease. Those aren't the things that really are that really impact or can take down our senior citizens. What does it is

loneliness. That's the insidious disease, loneliness.

So there are tons of studies done that show that people with with, lots of meaningful relationships live longer and more healthy lives. They they don't take my word for it. You can go research it. But I wanted to bring up this term. Lisa, my wife actually brought it to me the other day. She'd heard I think she was listening to a podcast and said it was very interesting. She went and looked up more research on it and and thought, it might be something that I would wanna talk about, which it is, and I appreciate her bringing it to me. It's the, it's the African word Ubuntu, and it's defined as humanity to others.

And it's it's often described as reminding us that I am, quote, I am what I am because of who we all are. And this ties right into the existentialist thought of relatedness, that we only exist in context of other people. I mean, when it comes down to that part of it, we only exist in context of other people. We, as a as a persona, only exist in the context of other people. We can't define ourselves, we're defined by other people. We're defined by our impact on other people, and Ubuntu says, I am what I am because of who we all are. We owe it to each other.

We can't do it without each other. So, another thing we

can do is engage in acts of kindness. Right? That's easy. Easier said than done probably. Mindfulness and self care, which you heard plenty about. Pursue personal growth and learning. Now, again, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about just a little bit about why. For the goal of it and not something else. Or better yet, to help others or bring joy to others.

Not always what we do, but why we are doing it that matters. So when we pursue personal growth and learning, let it be of itself. It's funny because the easiest definition for play is play is the goal. There is no other goal to playing. It's not like a game where you're playing to win. Play is defined as something you do for the sheer joy of the activity. Limit materialistic pursuits is another idea. Now, again, I'm not I'm not saying you shouldn't do any of that, but why do you do it? Don't use it as validation.

Just understand what you are seeking and why you're seeking it. I I'm not saying it's bad to make money. It's bad to have a nice I don't I'm not saying that. I'm saying we have to be we have to be cognizant of why we're doing it. That's where things get sideways with us. Because if we're doing it I mean, I actually had a a somebody I coached several years ago who was because she's going on was just going on and on and on about this position, this title that they wanted, and how it wasn't fair, and they should have this title, and on and on. And I finally asked him, like, so if you what changes for you if you get the title? I mean, really changes. Not just, I got the title, but how is anybody gonna treat you differently? Are you gonna treat other people differently? Is it gonna make some material difference in the way you come across to people? I mean, what will really change if you get the title? And they actually thought about it for, I don't know, 20, 30 seconds.

Just kinda sat there, and give him credit. They said, nothing. I said, okay. I was just curious. Right? But he was consumed with the title. Now the last practical example is savoring. Practice savoring and mindful enjoyment. This is interesting.

So savory is defined as the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance the positive experience in your life. I'll give you an example. There's something I don't know if you guys know about this. My wife and I actually talk about it all the time. There's something called a 3 bite rule. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but here it is. So it actually stems from neuroscience, which shows us that if we and let's and I heard about this years ago from, a speaker that I listened to, and then, Lisa brought it up again because of the work she does around the health area. But if you let's say you're eating a dessert.

Neuroscience shows us that the only bites we actually taste are the first, the second, and the last. So, the first one, we're fully engaged. It's it's tastes wonderful. It's so great. It's so decadent, all those things. The second one, we taste less than. And then after that, we don't we don't get any residual value from any bites after that. So just try it out, 3 byte rule.

Right? So what I'm saying is that's savoring. Savoring is savoring that first bite, or savoring the second bite, and then thinking, do I need another bite? And all that is is being fully present. If you're if you're walking in nature, right, if you're walking in a park, savoring is just being open to all of the stimulus that's there. And what's funny about it, this is the really cool thing, when you say the more you savor, the more time slows down. The more the the more time we get. Because you're in that moment, and and things just kinda slow down and go away. Because if I'm fully present in whatever I'm doing, it could be a converse I could savor a conversation. I could savor a meal.

I could savor a walk in the park. You could savor anything. But if you're fully present and you open up all of your senses to it, it slows things down. Right? And it puts us kind of in a in a more eudaimonic state of mind. Because we find that, especially when I'm using examples about being out in nature, we find that we're part of something. It's it's really interesting because we and just a little side note, we, imagine that all of our problems are so immense. You know, again, that's I love shifting away from us to other people, and I love the ego obliteration that we talked about earlier. But we get so consumed with our problems and how how horrible our problems are, how meaningful our problems are, how insurmountable our challenges are.

If you, and along with savoring awe, AWE is a wonderful thing. Right? And it's it's an amazing thing because if you go stand in front of some natural thing, say, Grand Canyon, and and you feel awe, and what that means is you feel small. Right? Because if you think of yourself in terms of the Grand Canyon, or the cosmos, or any or a 300 foot sequoia tree, or anything. Right? And you truly think about how insignificant you are, then by default, all of your problems become insignificant as well. So sometimes, it's just about reminding ourself about our place in the universe. So, now, we've talked about exploration. We're doing a little, experimentation that we just talked about, some some real life stuff. Now, if we integrate, we can integrate these experiences for fulfillment.

And again, I'll go back to what you want most is normally linked to and for other people. And this is a process. Again, we're not it's not a one and done. It's not one shot, and we we don't get another shot at it. This is a relentless journey towards not just your personal goals, but your personal goals that end up uplifting other people. Right? That's the sweet spot. If what I'm relentlessly pursuing is a benefit to other people, I'll never get tired. It's a it's a unified sense of purpose that blends my hedonic joy with eudaimonic meeting.

I do feel good doing it, but I'm doing something for other people is is the is why I feel good. Because science, I guess. Now, again, not a so how how does this how does this translate to the workplace? Right? So leading and and and basically collective well-being. So you have to both. Right? I mean, let's be honest. We've all we've all heard that acronym, WIFM. Right? The most the the the most listened to radio station in the world, WIIFM, What's in It For Me? So that's a hedonic part of it. So as a leader, you're you're trying to connect both those things.

It's it's so interesting because, if you go back to Dan Pink's book, Drive, he talks about the three things that he did all this research and these three things, mastery, autonomy, and purpose. He said, those three things, if we if we create an environment where we have mastery, autonomy, and purpose, then there's motivation. Well, purpose. And the definition is I connect to something bigger than myself. Again, self transcendence. I've moved beyond myself in service. I've connected to something I believe in, and I'm and and my accomplishments are not just about me or my department or my company or the money we're making. It's about something greater than that.

And that's really important. So if we create an environment where that exists like, if we're connecting if we're connecting those dots for people, wherever you are,

I don't care if it's at your with your family, with your community, with your, you know, place of worship. I don't care where you are with any group of people. If you connect those dots for people, then great things happen. Because now not only do you have an everlasting source of motivation, but so do they. And that's not easy to come by. Because if I I mean, time after time after time, I hear about people talking about motivation, their own motivation, other people's motivation. How do I motivate people? Well, I think the challenge is if we go back, the it's the framework. So if I continue if I hear an organization talking about motivation, motivation is not the issue.

The issue is we haven't created anything where people feel motivated. Because we can't make people be motivated. Money doesn't motivate. We we do all this carrot and sticking. Right? We do all of these programs with all these all these systems, all these plans, all the everything. Bonuses, and and compensation, and perks, and all these things to try to motivate people. When in fact, the easiest way to do this is connect them to a purpose. Connect ourselves and other people to something larger than ourselves.

Have have meaning. Because, again, happiness, to go back and and go full circle, happiness ensues from the pursuit of something meaningful. It's actually a byproduct. And it doesn't mean that we that you always feel good. This is interesting. Right? The my own opinion. Of course, all this is my own opinion. So take it or leave it.

Right? But I don't think happiness equates to feeling good. This is me personally.

And I've been doing a lot of thinking about this recently. Is that I believe that happiness

is a sense of fulfillment that you're leading a meaningful life. Not that I feel good. That I'm satiated, both emotionally and psychologically and and financially and all those things. That's that's comfort. And I actually believe that is kind of at at odds with comfort. Because I find myself mostly in discomfort. And I don't I'm beginning to understand it's not

a bad thing because discomfort moves us.

And so, I think happiness is awesome. I just don't think we should pursue happiness because I think, just like revenue, if a company just pursues revenue, we might make all kinds of really not so great decisions, if that's the case. So we have to have something of meaning. We have to have something that keeps us on track. What what do

we want most? And again, we have

to revisit that from time to time. We just wanna make sure leaders I think leaders create environments that reward both personal satisfaction and purpose driven contribution. We can connect those two things. Both are good as long as they're connected. And you gotta connect your why for the pursuit, so it's not simply just the pursuit of more. I guess that's that's the message here. Happiness is not the pursuit of more. It's not the hedonic treadmill.

And you can get off the hedonic treadmill if you want to. And boy, does it take work. And it takes constant effort because everything you hear, most things that you read, all of the things, all the messages that are sent to you, all of the noise, I call it, all of that noise wants you on the hedonic treadmill, needs you on the hedonic treadmill. But you choose. That's the that is by that is the most awesome thing. You are always at the moment of choice. So I would invite you to think about how this impacts you and those you care deeply about. And what other choices can you make? What might be done differently? Not better, not worse, just differently.

And this all comes from reframing. Right? We're just reframing the way we look at things. That's it. We're we're not changing anything. No. I hate that word anyway. But we're really not. We're simply looking at things from another perspective.

And it's funny because when we change the way we see the world, the world changes. Because we don't believe things because they're true, they're true because we believe them. So what what else could be true for you? Well, that's it for today's exploration. Now it's up to you. Will you take action? If today's session resonated, subscribe, rate, share to build a community that amplifies your impact. It you know, create your own adventure. And until next time, remember, make your choices or your choices will make you.