Join us as we explore the transformative wisdom of our guest, Ashish Kothari, the founder of Happiness Squad. Ashish opens up about his extraordinary life journey, from a successful albeit anxiety driven career to dedicating his life to guiding others towards happiness and well-being. His unique approach interweaving spiritual wisdom, positive psychology, and neuroscience will inspire you to embrace the power of mindset and beliefs in shaping your life.

What if there was a sustainable solution to combat the profound impact of anxiety on our lives? Our episode takes you on a deep dive into this critical issue, as we unpack the power of relationships, the magic of being fully present, and the transformative potential of turning inward for self-understanding and fulfillment. Learn how spirituality can serve as a powerful tool in overcoming anxiety and fostering personal growth.

Imagine being able to harness the power of your brain to cultivate happiness. We explore the fascinating concept of neuroplasticity and the possibility of rewiring our brains to focus on positivity and gratitude. We also delve into the concept of Ikigai, a Japanese philosophy that guides us in finding our purpose in life.

Get ready to be flooded with practical tips and powerful insights that will inspire you to take small but meaningful steps towards your goals and achieve a happier, more fulfilling life.

About Our Guest:

Ashish Kothari is an executive coach, author, consultant and founder of Happiness Squad, a company focused on helping individuals and organizations unleash the power of happiness and well-being to achieve their full potential. Ashish’s transformational approach, which he covers in his book “Hardwired for Happiness”, is interdisciplinary and integrates learnings across spiritual wisdom traditions, philosophy, positive psychology, neuroscience and organizational development. Prior to starting Happiness Squad, Ashish Kothari was a partner at the global management consulting company, McKinsey & Company and spent over two decades helping thousands of leaders succeed by building new mindsets and capabilities.

https://happinesssquad.com/

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Hey, everyone, and welcome to The ReLaunch Podcast. And, again, I am just pinching myself right now. Because the conversation that we are going to be having all of us together, the three of us, I'm pulling you in right now, to be sitting at the table having this conversation because this gentleman is somebody that I have admired for so long, I've had the privilege of being in person which Come on everyone, the being in person element is is very exciting these days, because there was so much time where we couldn't. And I've been able to start to literally think about collaborating. And when I share with you, and you have the amazing ability to have the takeaways that this gentleman is going to leave you with, it's going to take you from where you are right now, even if today is like your happiest day that you've had it a long time. And if it's one of those that is not quite there, it will end up being and that's the greatest part. So it is my pleasure to have Ashish Kothari. He is an Executive Coach, Author, Consultant and Founder of Happiness Squad, a company focused on helping individuals and organizations unleash the power of happiness and well being to achieve your full potential. Ashish has transformational approach, which he covers in his book, hard wired for happiness is interdisciplinary and integrates not only learnings across spiritual wisdom, traditions, philosophy, positive psychology, neuroscience, which you know, we're gonna geek out on that today. Get ready for that. But he also prior to starting happiness squad, he was a partner at a global consulting company, which you all have at least heard of McKenzie. And this is something that I have to say, understanding McKenzie, this guy is a powerhouse in business. And now he's realizing the importance. He is dedicating his life to getting everybody on this earth Happy, Happy Earth. So let's like you know, let's sit back. Forget about putting the seatbelt on because you know why? There is this is like blasting off.

You're listening to The ReLaunch Podcast and I'm your host Hilary DeCesare best selling author, speaker and transformational coach widely recognized in the worlds of neuro psychology and business launches, which cultivated the one and only Three HQ Method, helping midlife women. Yep, that's me to rebuild a life of purpose, possibility and inspiring business ventures. Each week, we'll be diving into the stories that brought upon the most inspirational relaunches while sharing the methods and secrets that they learned along the way, so that you too, can have not just an ordinary relaunch, but an extraordinary relaunch.

Ashish, I am so excited. You know this, I've been like okay, what are we doing it? What are we doing it? So welcome to the show.

Well, Hilary, thank you. Thank you for having me. You know, I still saw remember, we were on the same car. We were in the same magazine together, right. About three months ago, we launched the we launched the book, we launched our books I met here, and I read relaunch and the parallels of insights and the amazing work you're doing. I was so looking forward to our conversation as well, my friend, thank you for having me. It's such a joy to be here.

Well, and you don't wait when you find someone that is, I mean, you spark more insights into me, you are like my match, you know, I have a match on the cover of my book that's like, you know, spark your heart, but it's like, you know, you have to have those people in your life. You do. That's why, you know, the coaching business has just, you know, skyrocketed, but there are there are coaches out there there are people out there that claim that they're really good claim that they are you know, they're going to be able to help you and and deliver and my gosh, Ashish you deliver so I'm going to start where I live have to start with POs that is, let's talk about your most significant relaunch. And how it brought you to, you know, or from I should even say the whole like McKenzie world of consulting to now, this is your passion. This is your dream, and this is truly what we're going to be talking about your iki guy.

Yeah, absolutely, Hillary. So my most significant relaunch, in fact, that was kind of the huge pivot came in 2016. At that stage, you know, I had, just for folks who don't know me, Well, I grew up in India into a middle class family. All that mattered, you know, and that we were learned from very early age of six was the only thing that matters is being number 100%. If it's not 100%, it's not good enough. 9899 is fine, but you can do better. And that belief, that mindset, you talk so much about mindsets and beliefs that shape our roles. Well, that was the belief that took me to the pinnacle of success, quote, unquote, through my life, I got into IITs, which were the most, you know, one of the toughest schools to get into, brought me to the US. MBA at McKinsey, I made partner in six years. Well, that journey all the way through, took me to 40 to 43. That's how old I was. And I had achieved all the external markers of success.

Okay, Ashish, I got a backup, though, because you're, you're skimming over the details of the challenges that you actually went through being in India. And really, there's there's more there to this relaunch story. It was not easy. It was because Alison, you're saying and then I did this and that. But there was some really tough times there were where you had to, you know, how did you get out of India? How did you How did you know that there was more out there for you when really your childhood was was quite difficult? Well,

you know, I would say my child, you know, my childhood, Hillary was difficult in the sense of expectations and what I had to live into, right, because and it was also, it was unbelievably loving, my mom and dad are like the most loving giving, they always put us before them. But growing up in India, where it was actually, the you know, the economy hadn't opened yet. It wasn't, it was still a closed economy, but 25 years after independence, 2530 years after independence, if you didn't work hard, you didn't make it, it was not about you will make less it was about you will not make it you will be on the street begging for food. Right? Even today, there are so many people with PhDs and masters who are out selling fruits and vegetables on a cart, because they can't get a job. So the stakes were really, really high. But I learned from that stage from an early stage that hard work was going to be it right. So I learned what so many people learn, it doesn't matter where you are, we learn it here, you learn it, you live your life in this reality with his eye if you want to achieve more. So there are two or three again, beliefs that we pick up that are drilled into our head. And I'll talk about what shifted for me in that relaunch. Because that was just launch. My India till 44 was a launch. That was it. There was no relaunch, there was a path I was on. And there was a belief. So the first belief that we all pick up. And I invite you to consider this if you're listening or watching this dear friends. The belief we have is if you want to be happy, you have to be successful. If you have to be successful, you have to suffer. You have to work hard. If you want fame, you have to work hard if you want power, you have to work hard, you work harder, and that's what I picked up. Look,

I mean everyone out there raise your hand if this is exactly what you picked up to. I did right now coming from an orthopedic dad family, his bite, you know, we got a grandfather who was an orthopedic doctor as well, it was like you just keep working like you work hard. That whole, you know, work hard, play hard. But there was a lot of the work, work work and work and happiness. And we are taught happiness equates to success. And success is about you know, you got to give up, give up, give up suffer. And again, work harder, you know, you're not getting that than just work harder, bad another hour.

That's it, right. And so this notion of so there's that belief, there's a belief that success equals happiness, or success leads to happiness. And there's a second belief you want to be successful, you work hard. So if you want to achieve more, you do more. Right and that is the state of the world. And guess what? Everybody out there is working hard. So you have to work harder. And you know, there's this beautiful story in one of the books that Emma Cipla, she's one of the happiness researchers wrote, it was a conversation she had with a college, you know, a student of hers who said, this conversation she had with her parents, she said, You're telling me to work hard. But how do I know when I'm working hard enough? And you know the answer. They said, when you're suffering, if you're not suffering, you're not working hard enough. So we are taught to suffer to be happy, right? If you want to be happy, if you want to get to heaven, repent your sins. Repent your sense. It's around everywhere. It's so much out there. So those two beliefs caused so much agony. Don't get me wrong, they also cause our successes. If I hadn't worked hard, I wouldn't have been where I was to be able to relaunch. You know, and but that moment, Hillary the relaunch came in this way. I was more successful, I was super successful financially, we were doing amazingly, from the $2,000 or $3,000. I had in my bank account. When I arrived in the US to where I was, I had met my wife and work harder is also helped me win her heart call. You know, I was one month into, into dating I we were out I still remember. And I said to her, you know, I love you just don't know it yet. If it's if that is not working hard, hard to convince, tell me. I don't know what else it is. And we still laugh about it. But I was lucky to find her because she genuinely I love her more every day than the day before. And I'm really grateful for that. I got into McKinsey, I was really successful serving clients. It gave me an unbelievable platform. You know, the relationships I built. So I was doing great work there. My family was great. We had moved to Boulder. We had a lovely son, he was four at that time, we had an amazing dog. And so everything was great. You know, I've always had friends, Hillary. So think about friends think about that. Success, relationships, health. I checked all the boxes. Everything was perfect. I should have been happier than ever. Because I did everything right. I mean, I worked my tail off at 90 hours. I did my MBA part time while in consulting, those were like three years of 120 hours a week. So when I joined full time consulting, it was like a walk in the park 6070 hours a week is still 50 hours less than I did. Oh my gosh, right. So I'm in and it was fine. Like it was all fine. It was we're just learn to number ourselves and move through life. Because you're chasing happiness guess one of the core elements of happiness and science, you can't chase. Those who pursue happiness are unhappier, another core tenant of

where I live and want to hear that again.

Those who chase happiness are unhappier because you're so focused on being happy,

right? Which means scarcity, which means you're going for really, I'm not happy right now. And so you're out there. Yes. Right.

What is not making me happy. And, by the way, go back in your in your book you talk about I talked about because our brain has a negativity bias, right, we move on those new target,

you talk about it being hard wired, for fear, yes. Wired for fear. I want to hear more about that. So we'll

get we'll get into that, right. But this is where we got in Hillary, right with my ad 44. Externally, all good. Smiling, all that internally, every day. Every day, I was waking up with debilitating anxiety. I felt like I needed to throw up, I would be curled up in a ball. And you know, what made me more anxious, not knowing why I was anxious. Because everything was good. Right? Like everything is green. So what is it that's making me anxious? And I'm really grateful that I didn't listen to the advice of colleagues really well meaning colleagues and friends. Some of them said, hey, it's very normal. It's in high performance. You know, you're all over the place you fly around. And the anxiety pills is the answer. There's a pill for a new thing.

Yeah, there's a pill. Just take it and it'll make you feel all better.

It'll make you feel all better. Trust me. There's so many people on it. They just we don't talk about it, but they're on it. Now

there's the effect, right? Just take that, but where's the cause?

And I was like, You know what, I'm not going to do that. The second thing was, why don't you go talk to a therapist. And I was like, Look, I didn't have any trauma in my past. Now. I've redefined trauma And my understanding of it through my years of work, sweat, none of the kinds of trauma that is, you know, was at least in my lingo back then, like I define trauma, sexual trauma, I was harassed as a child or financial trauma, we had to leave a food we'd never had scarcity for food. We never had any of those things. And so I was like, and there was nothing about the future. I was worried, right? And so I'm like, again, how is talking going to help? We're just going to create problems. I mean, we I look, I'm a consultant, we walk into companies and find problems. So sometimes, you know, some consultants make problems even though they are on because you can always be better. So let's find a problem. Because if we can't find a problem, how will we get billable hours to fix it? So I'm like, I don't want to actually give an expert a reason to create a problem that doesn't exist. So what I'm going to do is instead turn inwards, I'm actually going to understand I'm going to study I'm going to research what makes us flourish, what keeps us what creates fear, what creates anxiety, and that's really Hillary that I started studying. My relaunch happened. Luckily enough, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I love that. And my two teachers were Amy Fox, Amy, Elizabeth Fox and John Lavoie, Amy Elizabeth Fox is the CEO of Mobius. John is a partner at McKinsey. And they had a program that I had a chance to participate that was run at the firm. It was in Penha longa. In Portugal, it was an old monastery. Like so many things today, that monastery was now a Ritz Carlton, but they still kept the original grounds of the monastery. And monasteries, which have been around it was the lot. It had the oldest monastery in Europe. And so there was a certain level of spiritual energy there that allowed you to go deep, even though spirituality was so much not even in my language back then. And that week was transformative. It was the first week that I had paused, I had stopped running. always on, always on three cities a week. This client, that client is always doing fly back. What are we going to do on the weekends? Vacation? What are all the different places we're going to go see, always running even in break always planning, always doing? Because that belief from an early stage? If you are not doing you're not worthy? Right? Right. So guess what? That becomes a habit. That's what we do. I want to be in action be in motion be moving. First time in 20 years. We stopped. For a time in 20 years, most

people listening right now are probably thinking first time that many, many of us stopped was during COVID. Where we were forced to stop it is. So here you are and you said you at that point, what was it about the alcohol?

Yeah, no alcohol, so no drugs to numb ourselves fully raw present. It was that week that I had three insights in the program that they had designed 30 Strangers came together. And it was this beautiful vessel that beautiful space. All insecure overachievers, everybody had shown up with their smiles. And you know, all of these, you know, this is this is the house I built. And this is the client I'm serving. And this is who I married or remarried or here's what my kids do. Like there were all of these kinds of stories that we all stopped and we dug in and had conversations that were deep. But there were three insights that came together for me that became the, if you will the line for my relaunch Hillary. The first insight that I had was when we peeled everything away when we peel our armors. When we peel these identities, I'm a consultant. I'm a McKinsey guy, I'm a graduate of IIT, I went to Chicago Booth, I'm an MBA, I'm smart, everyone's

hearing it I see I am statement I yeah, I

am this I am this I am that. When we feel all of that away. I tuned into my core essence, which had always been about what was I hungry? And what would I do if none of that was there? Strip it all back. It was relationships that had been the core part of me, right? Connecting, helping supporting that was the core essence that had what had kept me at the firm all of these years and continue to feed me. It had been relationships. I did my MBA part time. So if you've gone to an MBA school and you went through your MBA, I went to MBA part time, which means I was only on campus on Saturdays. And yet when I graduated, I had had over 100 relationships that I had formed from people in my school. Many of them are still in touch with 20 years later

relationships. We're going to talk about that one. It's funny that you bring that up, because that's the one area that as I was going through the book again, I said, we're gonna we're gonna hit on this one. And I have, so relationships.

Yeah, well at the heart. The second thing, Hillary, which was amazing, you know, you can hear about this stuff, you know, our beliefs and meditation and all of these things. And you're like, Yeah, I get it. 18 months, first time, day three, I woke up with no anxiety. There was no therapy needed. There was no pills needed. There was no alcohol needed to numb myself. I woke up with no anxiety. And so I knew that this was real. These practices were real. So that was second notion. The third, I looked around, and in those three days, everyone around us had shed their armors. We were having conversations that they hadn't had, even with their most loved ones. They were sharing experiences that have shaped their beliefs. You know, one of them describe the searing experience of they were in a car and the car was lit on fire with their family within. And they escaped. And that notion of not feeling safe, ever. Think about how those shapers and I looked and every one of them was having the same experience. And to me, that was it. That was my relaunch moment, I decided that I would dedicate my life to learning as much as I could about this field that nobody teaches at the University. So true in any school, ever. We don't even talk about it. We kind of put it into this domain of Yaya that spiritual woowoo stuff. Forget about that. This is practical life. Now

this is the success of your life. Yes, this is living. But before we go on, you mentioned that the third day was the first time in 18 months that you hadn't had the anxiety. Yes. So when you really netted out, and for people listening, that cannot go to a week type of retreat. What was it truly about that? That allowed you to proximity of people I'm hearing people

with nature.

Teacher armor, armor taking off being vulnerable? Yes.

Being vulnerable, the power of the pause stopping you and you don't need to be aware. You know, I always say, we talked about in the episode we recorded yesterday, this came to me. A lot of times people think about retreat. As retreat, I'm going to retreat from life and go somewhere else. Right? I'm going to go somewhere else for a week for 10 days. For many. That's not possible. What if he treated retreat as re treat yourself? So how about trading yourself? And to do that you don't need to escape. But you know, what you do need is find some time to treat yourself every day. It can be

I love what you just said because I do have a retreat. That is an April every year. And I talk about it's a re launching you back into what you really want to be doing. Yeah, yeah, the power within to make you powerful again, because we get so beaten down. We got you know, as you said, at the very beginning, where it's just this, it's the grind, it's, it's you get to the point where you're working, working, working, you're working so many hours, you're not necessarily seeing the results. And so you keep working. That's it and you end up at the burnout zone. And how do you at that point, how do you re treat yourself? It's so it's so fascinating, but we're running we're I'm looking at the clock and I got so many more things so I need to talk about we've talked about those limiting beliefs that fears we have we you know, you specifically that you know the not the not worthy and the good enough and you talked about the person who said that not safe. These are all core core beliefs that we have in each and every one of us that we struggle with, but you talk about hardwiring for fear, and then how How can we rewire us away from fear into happiness? How do we even start that process?

Absolutely. So the power there, Hillary mindset is a really big deal. Once you recognize the problem, then you can do something about it. Right. So that's really the beauty of our brains, and you talk about it and relaunch is our brains are hardwired for fear. Evolutionary, we grew up with the fight flight freeze response, because our brains were designed to keep us safe and secure and predict danger. So we could take action, right? Our brains are not suited for the world we're living in where we face psychological threats to our identity eight to 10 times in a day, they come in the form of a war breaks out here, inflation news, things that are kind of happening with our children, things that are happening at work, conflicts with our boss, or a supervisor, or a supplier. Neither our brains nor our bodies are designed to be triggered that often. And as a result, that hardwiring for fear keeps getting more and more and more, which then results in us feeling stressed results because we're sending an adrenaline and cortisol all day long. It results in us focusing on self, not the other. Because when you're afraid, what's your primary? We like we focus on self like I'm afraid I'm not going to make it so at that moment, I'm not going to focus on the other. We are focused on mine where we lose connection with everything else we focus on the here and now and what their

head component that whole thoughts, our thoughts, and we get into that spiral of zapping Yeah, and we're not even and then more I call them global relaunches and business relaunches and personal. They just keep hitting us. And we're like suddenly notice them more. You're like, oh my god, here's another.

Exactly, exactly. So the answer is actually stopping. And saying, Okay, if our brains are wired this way, and they're not matched to the world we living in what do we do? We rewire them? How do we rewire them? We tap into the power of neuroplasticity? What the hell is that word? Basically, it means neurons that fire together wire together. I didn't come up with that. There is an amazing neuroscientists who came up with that. But the notion is practice. So what can we practice? Small little things that we can do every day that start to rewire our brains. And one of the simplest practices, dear friends, that I invite you if you're not doing it already, to start is the following. Our brains have a negativity bias. That means we constantly notice what's not good. Train yourself, notice the positives. What does that mean? Here's an example of something really specific you can do every day, every night, before you go to bed. Write down what are three things you're grateful for. But don't just write them. Right. What are you grateful for? What would life be if you didn't have them? And who do you have to thank for them being in your life?

Oh, that is so good. I love question number two. Right? If you didn't have it, you take things for granted. And what you're doing is allowing us to be like hey, wait a second. I'm grateful for these three things in Yes, we all hear about like doing this and the benefits, but you're taking it one step further. And then you're saying and who who allow this to happen in your life. Wow.

Yeah. Who do you have to thank for this? So I'll give you an example Hillary of something so specific and we can even start with a lot of people say well, yeah, but it's the same right? my health, my family, my friends, my house, I live in the job that I have the money that I make. I'm like, Okay, this is the classic brain. hedonic adaptation, which means what we have we don't value process at work in it's more fullbeauty. Think about when you hurt your back, or you stubbed your toe or you broke your leg or something of the effect. How do you describe it? My leg is hurting my back hurts. Notice the specificity. What am I grateful for for my health? Macro? What is not working micro? So just this dear friend so do this. Let's count our blessings in micro. If you are hearing this right now, or if you're watching it, that means you have sight. You can be grateful for your eyes and for your year. If you are I am going to be 50 in March. I need glasses if I didn't have glasses I can't see calorie clearly. The fact that I have sight, and the fact that I can see, I'm grateful for my glasses,

it's all about the micro, right?

Think about what life would be for you, if you didn't have sight, you were blind. Or you didn't have these things that allow us to see now go into, I didn't make these glasses, how many people were involved in actually making the glasses, somebody actually researched and said, Oh, light bends, when it goes through glass. Somebody else actually crafted glasses around that somebody designed the lenses, there was a doctor who actually prescribed it and got them created, think about all the people around, that have played a role in this little thing to be on my head, all of those people are things that we can bring into this practice to be grateful for. Because if they weren't there, I wouldn't be able to see.

That is brilliant. And it's such a great way to take a general practice of gratitude to a truly different level. That is so good. But as as I keep going, I had mentioned at the top of the show iki guy? Yes. And how and can you explain for those that don't understand it, iki guy and the relevance to how it plays into happiness? Absolutely.

How it plays into happiness and how it is at the heart of alleviating our suffering. Because Hillary as you and I chatted my original book, and my original research was not on happiness at all. Because an ungrateful for that because if I researched happiness, I would never be happy. Remember, when you pursue happiness, you're unhappy. You're guaranteed, I was researching what keeps us stuck in fear. Right? What was making me anxious. So my original title of the book was from fear to freedom, a journey from within to live your best life. And iki guy is a really important second element of that. Awareness is first, we've talked about our beliefs are at the heart of what creates fear, and that keeps us stuck. And the gravitational pull of current state is so strong that even when we are suffering, we'd rather have that suffering rather than go try something else. Because that feels unsafe. ikigai the power of purpose, I found to be a really powerful second poll. Why? Because when you find your ikigai your why your purpose for being the gravitational pull of purpose pulls you out of the gravitational pull for fear. So

let's let's break this down a little bit more. When you think about iki guy, it is a concept that came out of Japan. Yep. I've haven't read the book. And you know, a little bit, but I love it. And I use the principles. It's what you love. They talk about what you love, what the world needs. What are you good at, and what can you be paid for? Right, exactly. And so and so I want people to be thinking that. And again, there's a great book called iki guy. But what you are doing is incorporate tell me now how the principle of a key guy again, what you love, what the world needs, what you're good at what you can be paid for. Share how these are correlating. Absolutely.

So it's about designing you know, in the end, we are an instrument of what we have designed our life to be. These are powerful tools to redesign your life. Set the direction of where you want to launch, right? relaunches require where you want to go. This can act as the Northstar to where you want to go. When you integrate what you love, go back into your past go look at your spaces to say what are things that I do that really fill me with joy, I lose track of time? What are those things that I'm naturally good at? That I can do much faster than everybody else? You know, my son has an amazing gift for music. He can listen to a song and he can play it on the piano. It takes my wife 10 times longer. I don't even try because I map musically I get that. So I think what you're good at because when you tune into what you're good at what that allows you to do combined with what you love is you achieve flow me Holly Susan Minsky highlighted the concept of flow. W hen you're in flow, you lose track you get better and better at it. When you combine that with what the world needs and is willing to pay for. You can write your own you can write your own check and the best Heart, when what you are doing when you're designing something at this intersection of what you love and what you're good at, and what the world needs and is willing to pay for your work becomes your life. You don't have to differentiate between work and life. Work is your life, it's something you never have to retire from. It is something that you choose to do till the last living day, if that's what you choose, because you're living, you know, we don't say, I'm going to stop breathing now and do something else, or I'm going to stop loving now, and I'm going to do something else. You don't retire from loving, you don't retire from living? Why do we need to retire for work? Change your work, to be something you love what you're good at what the world needs and is willing to pay

for? What is so fabulous is how you just described that this is as you said, this is how you find your purpose. Yes, there was something I listened to yesterday. And the gentleman was talking about, we're taught in school, you know, oh, gosh, that comes easy to you. So don't focus too much time on that focus on the things that are really tough for you. And I think that same principle comes into our work life and in just that we're focusing on, okay, well, you know, that's too easy. So I don't need to spend any time No, that's giving you a huge indication of what you should be focusing more time, exactly. Like you're doing right now with happiness and sending out this message. You know, we're hardwired for happiness. Yeah,

and that's so right. And Hillary and research proves that right. So I say this, the practices, the nine practices in the book, the work I'm doing with individuals and organizations, they are truly take inspiration from wisdom traditions, all of them, not one versus the other. These practices are in all of them. But they are informed by science. Every practice is grounded in neuroscience and psychology with proof that they work. Because you know, with anything spiritual and religious, sometimes there are just dogmas that come in. So my point in any of these practices is don't believe, practice and use your experience as the only guide. Is it working for you. Because even if it is researched, and proven to work in science, it might not work for you. That's okay. There are a whole range of different ways we can choose and create our own tools.

In a way that is so important because again, and people know, my philosophy is that, you know, everyone is like trying to sell you the business in the box. We're trying to sell you the life in the box. We're trying to, it's like blow up the frickin box like, yes, your life. But there's something before because I gotta get to this. In your book. You talk about tips based on what's worked for you to build a rich community of friends. Yes, I this really resonated with me. You talk about well, you know what the the biggest one that was number one where you said step back choosing commit to the set of friends you want. And you said in here, it takes about 30 hours a time for somebody to be considered a casual friend 50 hours before they become real friends and about 140 hours to become close friends. How do you help people realize that it is so important for community, it's important to put the hours and the time in? Yeah,

beautiful question. So first, let's look at the research, longest study on research effort going and how to Harvard the biggest predictor of your quality of life. The biggest predictor of IU flourishing is your quality of relationships, almost 60% predicted by that this is work that was being done in Harvard. It's the waldinger study, you can look at it. It's it's really powerful. Second, if you wanted to kind of say okay, that's the research, but what do we know otherwise? Right, it is, it is all about it. Truly, if you go to every wisdom tradition, that is the community that has the power of the Sangha, you will become, you become like the company you keep, right? I mean, it's a big predictor. So it's as much about having the right friends, Hillary investing in the right relationships, because there are so many, and in today's quote unquote, World of Facebook and Instagram, I have 10,000 followers. Yeah, but how many of them are real friends? How many of them can you really share? When you're struggling? Right, we need that we are social beings at our heart. And so this notion of really finding reconnecting with those friends and truly building those relationships and it doesn't take a lot. It does take time, but We also have this. But what's important is spending time with friends. Or if you don't have a lot of friends right now, and you want to rebuild friends, finding things that again, we love that we're good at, what are some of those things, hobbies, etc, that we can do together with others? When we spend time with others, when How can we actually have real conversations versus the How are you life is good? My wife says, I'm good, fine, I'm good, right? How do we have real conversations? How do we lower our Johari windows, don't do it with everyone find that three to five, that you truly, truly value, appreciate, and spend meaningful time with them? Ashish,

I gotta tell you something really fast. So Eric, my husband, I call him II, he, since college has a group of guys that every year they called, they're called the G five Gang of Five, five, just like you said, three to five. And every year for either, you know, five to seven days, they go away. And they have not missed it in 34 years. And you talk about it, as one of them it says, at least once a year, spend some meaningful time together in person. Yes, thing that came up, that one of the G five said this last trip is if you think about where we are in our lives right now, you know, in our 50s, think about how many more of these Do we really have where we're healthy, and we're in this position to do this. And I sat there and I thought, what an interesting comment, when you say no to something right now, that's an annual event. Are you saying no to getting together? Or going to the reunion? How many more of these do we have? There's a finite amount, and we got to we got to live life and enjoy and have that happiness. And so as we're wrapping up, how can people find you? How can they get involved in your nine steps? I love them. I'm using them daily. How can they? How can they find you?

Yeah, so you can go to happiness squad.com, we have a rewire program that we've designed, which as Hilary mentioned, is around these nine practices. And they are all about the take the science of habit formation and combine it with the science of happiness, to help you build those six to nine practices that work for you. Micro practices that work for you that will change your life. Hilary, Can I do one thing on friendship as you were talking? I want to read a passage or one of my favorite poets? Because it is it captures the power of friendship in a way that our words never will. Your words never will go to their heart. We talked about the head, this will go to the heart and the higher self, your three HQ. So it's a passage from Khalil Gibran. It's from his book, The Prophet, it's on friendship. And I'm going to read a couple of parts of this. Your friend is your needs answered. He's your field which you saw with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside for you come to him with your hunger, and you seek Him for peace. And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also, for what is your friend that you should seek Him with hours to kill? To see him always with hours to live.

Period beautiful. I got chills there. And immediately I thought you know what, I'm glad that today is the day I get to talk to you. Because I have a dear friend coming in. Who hasn't visited our new home. So we've been here almost two and a half years now. And it just sent it sent chills. So thank you so much. And what a beautiful way to end in this time, especially where we are right now in the Thanksgiving time period. And so Sheesh, thank you and I am I'm going to draw up a something that you know, again, you and I are trying to manifest and when we put ourselves together, it will happen. We're looking at jointly coming up with something that will tie in your nine. Your nine base principles, the three HQ having people tune in to this and elevating right we're about the impact of Elon as well, to that vibration All energetic level and I am so excited at what we're going to be producing coming up here in the new year. So I'm sending you a big a big hug. And thank you again for being here today with me and everyone that's listening. Please go ahead, leave us a comment. Come on over to the relaunch CO on Instagram. Go go get this book hard wired, I'm pulling it up right now hardwired for happiness, and start to open yourself up to the idea that again, we live now we love now we relaunch now, why wait any longer, because it's all within you. As she said, It's not about what external we need to do is not. It's all internal. So I'm going to, I'm going to sum this up with when you meet people that are taking others to that higher level, there is that energy, and it's not being like minded. It's like energy. Everyone out there, go find your like energy. And we will see you here again next week.

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