Russell Nohelty joins us today to spill the tea on how to optimize joy while still making some serious cash! Imagine a world where you don’t just chase success but actually enjoy the ride—sounds dreamy, right? With over 75 books and years of experience under his belt, Russell’s got the goods to help us all navigate the chaotic waters of entrepreneurship, especially for those juggling families and side hustles. We’re diving deep into how to cut through the noise and find clarity in our lives, all while prioritizing what truly brings us joy. So grab your headphones and get ready to laugh, learn, and maybe even dance a little as we figure out how to make happiness a priority in our work and home life!

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Frictionless Growth! Build the way you're built by Russell Nohelty

Entrepreneurs don’t fail because they’re untalented. They fail because they’re building the wrong way for who they are.

They copy tactics that don’t fit, chase strategies built for someone else’s energy, and then blame themselves when everything feels harder than it should. Frictionless Growth! shows you how to stop fighting your nature and start building a business that actually works with you instead of against you.

Inside, USA Today bestselling author Russell Nohelty walks you through a complete, personalized system for finding the place where your natural tendencies, your environment, your growth style, and your creative psychology finally align.

You’ll discover: Your SCALE Path: The growth engine that matches how you naturally create momentum Your Evolution Track: Where you really are in your business cycle (not where you think you “should” be)

Your Ecosystem: The internal environment that determines how you operate best Your HAPI Compass: The four coordinates that reveal your real blocks and the exact solutions that fix them

Your Strategic Playbook: Battle-tested growth strategies that actually fit your architecture Instead of forcing yourself into someone else’s blueprint, you’ll build a business where effort compounds, burnout drops, and progress finally feels inevitable.

If you’re tired of grinding, guessing, and “trying harder,” and you’re ready to build with clarity, confidence, and traction that feels natural… Your Path of Least Friction starts here.

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I now have the pleasure of introducing Russell Nohelty. Russell is a USA Today best selling author who helps entrepreneurs optimize for joy and make money doing it.

He has written over 75 books, spoken on dozens of stages around the world and hosts the Hapitlist podcast. He has over 20 years experience running creative businesses in multiple industries.

You can find most of his writing at Hapitalist and he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and dogs. Welcome Russell, it is a pleasure to have you here with us today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. A pleasure to be here.

Yeah. Russell and I had our pre chat chat like we usually do with people and it was just amazing.

Whenever we start connecting it's like how can we help our families be in a happier spot? How can we do set up programs and system different things that can really help us, you know, make this life flow easier.

But most of all, what can we do to help our entrepreneur moms and dads who are also trying to homeschool or raise a family or whatever. How can we all just make this flow a little bit easier? So Russell, thank you for being here and you know, start with the passion.

Why do you like talking about the things that you do in Happylist? And you know, why, why this journey?

Sure.

You know I, I've thought about this a lot and I, I've released, I mean all these books I've released and you'd think after all of that people would have more clarity, but if anything they seem to have less clarity because they keep saying, I need to do this. Oh, I need to do this. I need to have this thing. I need to have this thing. I need to have this thing.

And even like the workbooks and the books and like I have an app called Joy Looper which is great and like all of these things are meant for really to help you get clarity and really capitalist. After 20 years, I think I finally figured it out. It's about doing, not adding undue resistance to your life overall.

So people always come to me and say I have to do this or this. And I say why do you have to do both of those? And they go, I don't have enough time. Like, okay, but like, you know, help is possible.

Like you can hire somebody and they're like, oh, I don't have the, the bandwidth. I'm like, okay, but like you're going to burn this business to the ground and instead you could hire somebody.

And at the best, the worst case scenario, probably it's going to be a Net neutral. Like, maybe you make $100,000. It'll cost $100,000. But once that person spins up, they could do, like, they might do two or three or four or five.

I don't know what's going to happen there. Like, there's got to be an easier solution than. I've burned a lot of companies to the ground, and sometimes there is not. So.

But more often than not, the answer isn't, like, take the most radical action. It's not to do the hardest thing.

And so when I think of my wife works with autistic children, and she's a research director, so we talk about this all the time. And, like, she has a degree in, like, a psycho, like, a psychology specialty in her degree. And it's. We always say, like, you are defaulted.

Well, what I say is people always default to the hardest action. So, like, if someone is tantruming instead of saying, oh, well, like, maybe. Maybe we can figure out how they don't tantrum.

Maybe, like, I don't know, like, that was hard, but is it harder than every, like, 24 hours, like, someone breaks down, like, has a tantrum in the middle of a store? Like, probably not. Like, it's.

It's saying things like, well, I am not listening to what the kid wants, and the kid doesn't have, like, the capabilities. So, like, maybe it's like, okay, what do you actually want right now? This thing. Okay, cool. Can we do that in 15 minutes?

Like, can we do this other thing? You know, my dogs are. Want a walk every morning at the same time. And, like, sometimes they can't get that walk.

And so it's like, instead of defaulting too hard, what if you just defaulted to easy? And what. What if instead of defaulting to perfection, you just take imperfect action?

And like, between those two things, people go, oh, I can't do that. But, like, we always read these books, these parenting books or these. It's like, oh, every day. Like, you have to be perfect.

This is what you have to do every time.

But, like, there's a great Art Happiness Live episode that I just listened to, which was like, we ran all of these studies saying, the kids in this generation are different.

But then when you, like, actually look at these studies from, like, the 50s and 70s and just like, ask students today, like, whether they came from the 50s or now. Like, they say, oh, that came. Like, they all are the same. They're almost all the same.

So, like, maybe, like, we should stop figuring out the newest hard thing to do and instead figure out like the timeless, maybe slightly more imperfect thing to do, but, like, that actually moves us forward. I'm not saying like, like, give your kids everything or give your business everything, because that is not easy.

That is only easy now, not easy over time. Sometimes it's like, oh, well, we have to go through some pain now, but in a month it's going to be better.

But instead we, we pick the hardest thing to do at every instance of our life because we're, we're. We're brought into this puritan work ethic that, like, only hard things are worth doing. But here's the thing. Puritans were lunatics.

Like, like, that's not good. And also, that's not even what they believed.

What they believed is, if you do hard work, then you will be rewarded with like, a, a nice life, and everyone will be rewarded with a nice life. So, like, even the puritan work ethic has gotten like, molded and, and, and. But like, it's really for, like, building a house. You guys build houses?

If you're a house builder, then, yes, doing hard work will help you build the house. But also, we use nail guns now. Like, we don't, we don't use horses like, we used to tractors and stuff to help us do all of this other stuff.

So, like, why do we default to the hardest thing when it comes to our relationships?

Yeah, it's just amazing that we keep going down this path is like, you know, the kids need the newest, greatest tennis shoes, the newest, greatest this, the newest, greatest toy, etc. Etc.

Babies need all these sparkly, lighty things, and they're completely happy with a box and a little bit of crayons and playing in the dirt and being bored until they are trained out of that. Right, right.

Let's go back to, like you said, some of the defaults that just bring a little bit of joy and a little bit of calm and peace into the home.

Yeah, absolutely. And like, I always tell people, because people then come to me and they go, oh, well, like, happiness is frivolous.

Like, what a frivolous thing to want. Like, I don't have, like, two jobs and three kids. Like, I don't have time to be happy.

And I say that's so interesting because in order to be happy, you have to go through a lot of, like, inner searching to, like, figure out what you actually want. So we work on a thing in happiness called the Easeful Joy Loop. And the first step of that is about attunement.

And attunement is about, like, you have A measure of a radio dial in the side of your head. And right now what you're seeing is all opportunities you don't want because your radio dial is tuned.

Like, let's say you really like country music and you get like, I don't know, gangster rap station, like you would not you, what would you do? Would you say, oh, well, all the world is gangster rap or would you like turn the dial?

So the question that I always have is like, what do you actually want? And people don't know. Like they will say, I want a new house or a new this. And I say, okay, now let's assume you won the game.

Would you want anything then that you do now? And most people are like, no. It's like, okay, so like, maybe it's not the new house. Maybe it's like belonging, maybe it's like safety.

Maybe it's like, I don't know, it's like the things are a stand in for something else. And like, what is that actual stand in? And it's not selfish to want those things.

But the, but even if it were, the, the question I have is like, but you want them like you're sabotaging yourself not getting them. So like, maybe if you walk towards getting it, like you would be happier and your whole family unit would be happier.

And that's one of those questions that, you know, people ask, are you happy? And a lot of people nowadays are like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm truly happy. It's like, what would make you happy?

And how do we teach our kids? How do they recognize happy?

Right?

Right.

Like.

I hurt my head, I got brain damage. I can say why I'm not happy. I can like point at pictures of the things that are going on in my brain.

But I, over the years, it's like I've kind of lost what makes me happy. I don't know. I know some things that make me relax. I like, like taking walks through the woods and just kind of being amazed by the beauty and.

But is that fun? Does that make me happy? I don't really know anymore.

So how do we help people start to understand instead of just going through the motions and just trying to make it through the day and then just trying to make it through the week and the month and the year. And it seems like most people's happiness is stuff just not falling apart anymore.

How do we bring back the happiness and the joy so that people can start wanting to be happy, wanting to live besides. Besides just trying to get through.

Okay, well, the first thing that we have to do is.

I just know the number one positive psychology thing, the one that has the most research behind it, is go outside, take a walk, and notice stuff deeply. It is literally, if you could boil it down to, like, one thing that you should do, there's another one that.

Okay, so we're both staring at screens right now, right? And when you stare at a screen, you are artificially telling your body that you're in fight or flight mode. Because when you're.

When your body is in fear or fear response, it, like, locks in, which we go, oh, obviously, like, I. You have to lock into a thing. And I'm like, yes. But, like, actually, the people that are happiest are the ones that see all of the opportunity.

And so if you ever want to, the best thing you can do is walk outside every 20 minutes and look 20ft in the distance for 20 seconds. No one's got time for that.

So what I tell people is, like, a trick, is if you put your fingers in the periphery, then just wiggle them around, it forces your brain to be like, oh, we can't be in fight or flight. Because it has to be in your peripheral vision, though, not, like, it has to be on the sides. It looks very silly, but it's very fun.

And so the question that I have after that is, like, okay, you're going outside, you're noticing stuff. You wiggle your fingers over here, you see the opportunity, you see more opportunities.

And when people say, I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall, this is a big one that we get in business coaching. I say, like, you're not supposed to go through a wall. It's like a wall. Like. Like, if it could go.

If it could be easily go down, it would be much of a wall. There's a door around the corner. Why don't you see the door? Like, why are you going through that window? Like, there's a door. There's an alley.

You could just walk around it, dude. But, like, you're not able to see it because you're locked into this thing. And so much of my clarity coaching that I do is just being like.

But, like, you could just do this thing over there. And they're like, oh, my God, I could just do this thing. I'm like, I know. Because you're focused, locked in on this thing. And the.

And then after that, we have to be able to opt out of other people's futures. So what I mean by that is every company wants to make money and to make money for their stockholders especially.

The biggest companies are venture capital backed, which means they have a lot of money and they need to make a lot more money for their people, which means they have to spend a lot of time telling you the future is coming. But like that is the future that puts them in the direct path to money. So like if you believe their future, they make money.

And you should never believe anyone who says the, who says the future is dependent on going through their product because they are maybe right, but like they are money motivated. And more, more importantly than money motivated because like money motivation isn't a problem.

It's that they are motivated by 10xing, the return of their revenue that they make. So you go, you can go and look up like IPO filings and you can see how much people made in series A and B and C and all these other things.

Like for instance, like someone like Substack made $80 million on their last round, I believe. And so it's like they have to make $800 million for their, that is like the minimum that they are, that those people are expecting.

So like yeah, now they're doing all of these things that are like going to, to that they're beholden to their investors. Not the people who use their, their, their, their app, the people that are giving them money.

And those two things are very rarely in, in, in lockstep. So then you have to fig. Realize that every company also is planning their own future and they often compete with each other.

So we are being bombarded by a third thousand different people all telling you that the future is coming and it's their app. And then we turn around and we say actually it's this thing. Actually it's this thing.

And what we have to understand is they are predicting the future. But like you can't do that. Nobody knows what the future is. So you can opt out of any future you don't want and build your own.

And I'm not saying like start a company, but you can look for companies that are already aligned with the things that you want to do. So like maybe you're not a Facebook person, maybe you like dancing on video.

And like you can do TikTok or like you can have a mailing list or like on every platform, the people who are most successful on it obviously are going to tell you to use that platform to grow because that's what works for them. But not everything works for everyone.

Like we have in our, in our methodology, there's five ecosystems Five scale paths, five evolution levels, and those are all different depending on where you are, what you do for that thing, until I get to that next level. And instead. So instead of saying, oh, I have to do all of these things, we can say, amazing. All of these companies are vying for my money.

Which one do I actually. Which one actually works with way that I operate best?

And then I'm gonna go to that one until it changes its operating mechanism, and then I'm gonna go to a different one.

But, like, you should opt into the futures that you want, opt out of the ones you don't, and only work with things that, like, resonate with you and actually move you forward.

That's kind of the how we help people homeschool their kids as well, because it's the same kind of a thing. It's like, what. What works for your family? It's not what works for everybody. It's. It's what do your children need? And so, again, it brings it back.

What do you need? What is. What is important to you and your family?

Yeah, absolutely. And so, like, in your specific case, you go outside and notice stuff real well. Maybe you get out of.

Maybe you get out of your own head, and you can get out and robbed out of these other features. Most people are pretty bad about that because they don't even, like, know that there are futures to opt out of.

They just think that everything is additive. So the third thing that I say is, in our Joy Looper app, we have this thing called the De Overwhelmulator.

And the question is, how many hours a week can you spend doing tasks you don't like or don't move you forward before you get overwhelmed? And how much of your life is spent in play or in flow? So the question. The. The.

If most people spend zero hours a week in flow, by the way, like, they spend almost no time. So, like, when you say, what do I even want? My question is, well, what happens when you're in flow?

Like, what are the activities that put you in flow? When does it feel easy? When does it feel like playing? And they're like, oh, I don't have time for that.

And it's like, my point is, you don't have time not to have it, because when you enjoy something, two things are happening. One, you like the activity, and two, you get a positive feedback loop from it. So a positive feedback loop is where opportunities live.

The bigger the positive feedback loop, probably the more you enjoy an activity, and probably the more you enjoy an activity, get that positive feedback Loop, the more other people resonate with it. Because the whole of habit list is about not adding undue friction to your life. And I don't mean life is easy.

I mean pushing a boulder and it moving instead of having to, like, use your whole body weight. When does moving forward feel easy? And this is the big lie that we're told. It's like work. If it's not hard, then it's not work.

But, like, kids learn best when they're playing. It's actually proven now that delaying education a couple of more years actually improves the child's brain, and they catch up and they learn more.

So when people are playing, when children are playing, they learn better, they learn more. When adults are happy in playing, they learn better, they learn more.

Yeah.

So I would come back to you, Herb, and say, where are you storing your nose? Because this is the second step is in an attunement. It's. We store a lot of our nose in ourselves. No, I can't. I won't. I shouldn't. That'll never work.

Da, da, da. But we also store our nose in other people. Oh, I can't do that because Timmy needs to go and get braces. I can't do that because my boss.

I can't do that because X, y, and Z. Those are not there nose. Those are your nose. And are you hiding what you actually want because it means a major change in your life, or do you not?

Or are you numb to it? Those are two very different things. If you're numb to it, go play. Like, just go play. And you'll be like, wow, I actually like building model trains.

You can be like, okay, cool.

So, like, let's take building model trains and, like, whatever the other thing is and, like, find out, like, what the mechanism is under it that you like. Is it because you like building? Playing with your hands? Can you it. Do. Do you want to go woodworking? Do you want to do something else?

Like, once you have, like, a thing that gets you in flow, you can test a whole bunch of other stuff.

But more often than not, people actually really know what they want, and they are too scared to do it because they realize that their life is completely misaligned from the things that they want. And that is the scariest one, because people say, I can't do that.

And I say, actually, my love, you can do anything you want as long as you're willing to live with the consequences.

And I want to just pause right there and have parents think about this. Our audience who are parents think about this.

If you're doing this process with your kids as they're learning and growing, what kind of awesome message are you planting inside of them? Look at when you are happy, when you're in flow, when you're, you know, moving forward and doing awesome stuff as a kiddo.

And what do you like about it? What is happening underneath that you really enjoy?

Because if they get those things in their head when they're little, they're going to be able to reapply this when they get older and then hopefully find a job they want, find a career they want, find happiness in the things that they do because they're able to look at those underlying steps. So, you know, back this out of maybe company speak and into family speak, into kids speak. This is.

Yeah. And in families and children, it's like with. With the homeschooling and the way we teach it.

It's like every three to six months, you are able to change and move your focus if you want. If it's working for you, you dig in and go deeper. But when it's like, oh, hey, this kind of run its course, you're able to pivot.

That also helps in life because, again, people are feeling stuck. Oh, I can't do that. Why? It's like, because I've been doing it for so long, I don't know how to shift and pivot and do anything else.

So by having your children being able to pivot and learn to pivot and not be stuck in a classroom, then they gain this ability to be able to shift easier and not get that stuck feeling. And the I can't, and the I won'ts as they need to shift their life.

Yeah. And what's interesting is I tell people they need to do their. Their quarterly planning, and it's the same process. Like, are you resonating?

Is this still working for you? Like, are you still getting what you need from it? And people often, if they're like, oh, I did all that stuff, and like, when was the last time?

It's usually like, two years ago. And I'm like, okay, like, are you the same person you were two years ago? Because if not, you should do. If you are, that's a problem.

But if you're not, then you need to redo the quarterly planning. And, like, I don't know which of those two things you are, but, like, I. I love this, like, optional thing of, like, okay, great.

Like, what is the answer? And then, like, there's. There's a. If you answer this, then I know what to do with you. So one of the things that.

That, that is really powerful when you're like, I don't know, what I want is to go and interview people who knew you when you were younger and be like, what kind of kid was I? What did I like when I was a kid? Like, what did I like? And, like, when you do that, you start saying like, oh, wow.

All of you said like, my mom was like, you've been a writer since you were 8. And I was like, no, I haven't. Or, like, young. And she's like, here's all your writing. And I was like, oh, well.

Like, yeah, like, that was a thing that I, like, really, really, really liked. And people asked me, like, how I just got to be so creative. And I said, no one told me not to be.

Like, I thought in high school all of us were just going to go and be directors and stuff. And, like, I thought I was failing myself because I, like, didn't get my A goal.

But, like, turns out everyone else is, like, working for Google and, like, and like, driving delivery trucks and stuff. And I'm like, well, like, I just was able. The difference is really, I was just never lost the ability to play and do stuff.

And I was always willing to. To take the. To suffer the consequences. Like, there are reasons for all of the things that I have done in my life.

I was able to look at it and be like, okay, well, this sucks. Now I'm gonna put sunset dates on everything. Do you guys put sunset dates on anything? Okay, yeah, no one does.

So, like, you assume that everything is your responsibility forever.

Forever.

And that makes it really, really, really, like, thing. If things don't get. Things will always be added to your plate. No one's going to take things off your plate unless you ask or you sunset it yourself.

So the question is, like, we talked about the de overwhelm you later. One of the biggest things is like, okay, there's four quadrants in an Eisenhower matrix, which is one of the main things that we do. It's love.

I love it and I need it. I love it and I don't need it. I need it. I don't love it. I don't love it. I don't need it.

I.

And like, that fourth box you can just stop doing. But, like, we never do that. It's like, oh, you could just stop doing all those things. You don't need it and you don't love it.

Most people's fullest box.

Right, exactly. And then, so, like, we're just gonna Burn this one. But, like, then you have things you love and don't need. And need but don't love.

So my question is, you have two options. One is you can. Well, you have several options, depending on the category.

Like, the things you need but don't love, you can either try to offload them, or you can learn to love them as, like, part of the rest of your process.

And, like, I don't care which one of those things you do, but, like, you can learn to love most things either by tying them to something that's more important or just telling yourself you like them. We like to think that we're very smart, but we're actually very dumb. If we just tell ourselves we like something, we're gonna like it.

Like, just, like, we will like it. Like, that will just happen. Just say it enough. Like, our brains don't know that there's an entire world out there. So we speak our realities.

We speak our reality. And then the things you love but don't need, you can either make it a hobby or figure out how to make it. You need it in your life.

And, like, those are, like, the options. And I don't know what. Like, you're. I don't. I don't actually have any stake in what you do. I have a stake in you being happy.

And I can say that if you're overwhelmed or you don't. Like, you don't know what it means to be happy. You probably aren't. Just aren't. Like, no one is.

Like, man, I'm so excited to wake up and have, like, 80 hours of stuff to do this week. No one's. No one's like, I'm so happy. It's so great being numb inside to everything. So, like, we have to make some choices in our lives or we don't.

But I. We at happy, we believe either you can.

You can work to fix your issues and complain all you want because it's hard, or you can not fix your issues and then shut up. I don't care. Again, I don't care which one it is. But, like, I. If you keep coming to me saying, I have this.

A nail in my shoe, and I'm like, I can get that nail out for you. And you're. They're like, actually, I'd rather just complete, like, okay, dude, like, go figure out how to get. I don't know, like, not about the nail.

Right. Exactly. You're like, okay, great. Like, you are either avoiding this problem or you don't think I'm the right person to pull a nail out of your shoe.

But either way, like, people ask me a lot. They're like, well, I tried it this other way. What did I do wrong? And I'm like, well, let's just think about this. I have written a process for this.

I teach this process. I've done it for years. I update this process when there are changes. Do you think I think there's a better process?

Because if you do, then go find the person who has your process. But, like, I can't tell you what's wrong because you didn't use my process.

If you use my process and there are problems that are wrong, I can say, oh, yeah, that's a problem, that's a problem, that's a problem. But if you use a different process, I have no idea what the failure points are of another random process.

I only know the failure points of my process. So that's another thing that we do.

We go to people who aren't experts in the process of what we're trying to do, what they're trying to do, and then we, like, argue with them and don't do that process. And then we're like, I didn't do your thing. And also, it didn't work. And they're like, dude, there is no logical reason why this should have worked.

Which you would know if you followed my process.

Because steps three and four, the ones you don't think are valuable because you don't understand them, are the things that solve for part seven, failure. Like, this part is actually solved by the process.

He is a systems thinker, and he can tell you all about that, right? You don't follow the system, you're going to have failure down the road. Right?

And at the same time, I have a lot of trouble with planning, with seeing myself in the future. So that quarterly goals stuff, it's like. That's, like, dreadfully hard for me. I really suck at that. I haven't built that skill up yet.

So here's a great.

I failed out of so many different kinds of programs because it's like, yeah, well, I did. I did everything you said, except for this thing here, that important thing right there in the middle.

So here's a great one. Just say what feels fun? Like, what. What feels fun to you now, Herb?

Like, walking around out in the woods and looking at stuff.

Awesome. Amazing. Okay, so, like, do you want to make that part of your business? You want to make that part more a bigger part of your. Of your.

Of your, like, personal life? Or, like, how. How do you want this to. How would it. How would it best present for you?

How would it best present?

Well, we actually started talking about creating a retreat center, and so wandering around outside could totally be part of me monitoring and being part of their retreat center and helping people out there.

So.

Yes.

Okay, but. But that's a really far into the future. Like, you can't do that in the next quarter.

Then it's just totally personal.

Right? So, like. Well, okay, do you want it to be.

My question is, do you want it to be part of your business moving forward, or do you want it to be personal?

I would like it to be part of my business moving forward.

Awesome. Okay, so you have woods around you, right? Okay, so, like, let's see. Like, you want to spend a lot of time in nature.

You work with homeschool parents and families. Like, how is there a way that you see to combine those two things together, even if, like, not right now?

Well, if not right now, that's our retreat center.

Oh, but not. I mean, not the retreat center before the retreat center center.

Yeah. Taking kids on to kids and families on walks and doing the process and showing them how to wander around and notice things.

Okay, there's one. Is there any others? Like, probably something, like, you could teach, like, an online course about it, and. And you.

You could do all of the videos outside in nature, but then, like, you can teach it online. You can do live streams from, like, nature and be like, look at this cool, cool rock.

You could say, oh, like, we're gonna do a module for, like, this family education thing about, like, flowers, and I'm gonna go outside every day and take a picture of, like, a different flower I see on my walk. And I want you to do it, too, and we're gonna put it all in this group, and, like, we're all just gonna notice stuff together better.

Did any of that resonate with you?

Sounds interesting.

So, like, so something like that in the next quarter. Do you think that's something that, like, while you're walking, you could just think about, like, how you could bring all of this into your business.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, that's quarterly planning. Congratulations. You just had your first successful quarterly planning session. The problem is that we.

When we quarterly plan, we look at all the stuff, and we'd be like, I hate all of this. I don't want to do any of this stuff. I don't like any of these things. And then we're just like, the next quarter, we're like, I still have.

Yes.

Okay, great. I still hate all of this. Amazing.

Like, and then like, over a year, you're like, great, I have just proven that I hate everything about my life and, or, like, except for this, like, one component of it, and I've done literally nothing to change it in a year. And, like, would it be better if you could do like, the most optimized thing that you could find online? Yeah, probably.

You would make more money, but also you wouldn't do it. So capitalism is all about like, okay, like, but what do you do?

Like, you, like, going out into the woods in nature and like, it seems to me like you could lead a Boy Scout troop or a Girl Scout trip. Like, you could, like, work with scout leaders. Like, you could, you could create a curriculum around, like, being outdoors in nature.

Like, you could do all these things to bring this into your life. But instead it's like, I can't do that because I have all this stuff I hate. But, like, if you say all this stuff, I.

What I want you to do, if you do this session again, Herb, is sunset date everything. People always say, I can't sunset date everything. I'm like, your life has a sunset date. Everything has a sunset date.

Sunset things, like, we all, even if you have a brand new child, 18 years from now, they will be an adult. And God, I hope, I hope that you have trained them in a way that allows them to exist and outside of it so the love doesn't change.

But like, you certainly don't have sunsetting them. Yeah, right, exactly. So, like, okay, your life has a son to set date.

The amount of responsibility that you have day to day for your kids, not your kids overall. Just like that responsibility, like sunsets, like jobs, either you have a sunset date, either you retire, you get fired, or you quit.

Like, those are three sunset dates that you have for your things. So whenever someone says, I can't sunset this stuff, I'm like, can't, won't, or don't want to?

Because if you don't want to, that's probably something that you're like, great, I don't want to sunset writing. I love writing. So, like, that's never going to come out of my thing.

But like, I, I had a business for a long time with my business partner last year, almost exactly a year ago, like, that, that business sunset. Because it didn't work for us anymore. But, like, I don't believe that you can't sunset things.

I believe you can't sunset things if you're not willing to deal with the consequences of that. But like any projects, so you could say, I don't want you to abandon a project.

So what I want you to say, though, is, my dear, I take took this project on. I'm gonna finish it, but this is the last time I'm doing it in three months. This whole relationship has to change.

This is not your fault that, like, this relationship got out of whack. It's not my fault. It's just we need to reevaluate because this doesn't work for me. I need this to be a win win for both of us.

And if you just have that conversation, you're going to know two things. One, whether the person's worth working with, whether you need to get out of that relationship. Real quick,.

I just want to pause here. Right. Because you were just dropping so many gold nuggets. But I want families to think about this in a family viewpoint as well. Right.

You can do quarterly planning with your family. Oh, this isn't working for our family. We want to do something different.

What can we do in the next quarter to improve and make us happy around this issue in our family or this thing? Right. How can we plan our vacation so we have that to look forward to? How can we Change this behavior, etc.

Use that quarterly planning that Russell was just talking about in a family setting. Do that sun setting. Guess what? Our kiddos join sports and they maybe don't end up liking it. Awesome. Give them a sunset date. Don't let them quit.

Don't let them just abandon it unless they're in danger, of course, but sunset it for them. Awesome. We're going to finish this season and then you don't have to go back to unless you want to. Unless it's good for you and me and the family.

Right?

Right.

Use these things that Russell was just talking about in family mode. That's awesome and powerful.

A great one also is every. Every kid, every quarter gets one thing that they want to do and one thing that they can vet.

And if the veto doesn't mean the other people don't do it, but it means, like, I veto an activity. Like, that's my one. I get like, so I have agency.

But, like, that doesn't mean, like, if you say you're number one, I don't do it because, like, everyone needs to do that one thing together because that's how we all learn together. But, like, I can veto other stuff. And maybe that means we split up the group. Maybe that means we do.

People love to believe that they can't split up Groups, like, when I go on vacation, I. People are like, I don't want to do that. I'm like, great. I don't, I don't know what to tell you. Like, I'm gonna do it. And, like, I don't.

Like, I spent the other 24 hours of my day with you. You don't have to come with me.

But, like, I am not obligated to go with you if, like, now, I mean, granted, kids are obligated to, like, go with their parents on some level. And, like, so, like, you have to figure it out.

But, like, there are ways to do it where it's not like, so if somebody says they're one thing to do and another person vetoes it, or, like, has a vehement negative reaction to it, that's a chance to say, okay, Bobby, like, Jane just said that they wanted to go to this museum and you said you didn't want to go to it. Like, is there, like, what it. Like, Gene, can you help, like, try, like, educate about why this is really cool?

Can we get, can we give you something to do with that thing? Because, like, I believe that if someone really likes something, you should be like, that's fascinating. I hate all of the things you just said.

But, like, tell me more about it. Because, like, I love you. I think you are fascinating. Like, why do you love it? And usually I'm like, oh, now I want to see it through your lens.

So I do want to do that thing. So, like, there's, there's, there are certainly ways to do this.

And frankly, like, most of the stuff you said today about, like, that's the exact way that we talk about bosses or co workers or employees. It's like when someone says, oh, my employee is bad. I'm like, okay, well, what are the circumstances? Were they not qualified? That's a you problem.

Are you giving them too much work? That's a you problem. Do they have a personal problem you don't know about? That's a you problem. Like, these are all you problems.

Like, there are sometimes, like, oh, do you pay them too little? That's a you problem. Also, like, these are all you problems. And, like, it's not the employee.

So, like, I really love this book, Courage to be Disliked. It's about Adlerism. And one of the things is like, you can only change the things about you. You can't say words.

And like, the words you say can't convince anyone else to do that thing unless they want to. But, like, the things you do affect the things that they do.

And like when you change the relationship then like the relationship changes sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. But to go a little more woo woo on this, like everything is energy and the problem isn't that person is doing a bad job. That person.

The problem is the energetic transfer is wrong. Did you set them up for success? Like did you do X, Y and Z? Like maybe they just need to do something else.

Maybe like they can do this part time or maybe they can do fractional or like maybe your whole company shouldn't, shouldn't rest on this one person doing their job. I don't know. That's like a lot of responsibility for one person to have. I don't know. And again, if you're happy, none of this applies to you.

I mean some of it applies to you, but like you don't have to do anything. The problem is none of us are happy. Like except for me. I'm genuinely happy because I did do all I know exactly what I want.

And like I it the fact that other people don't want it makes me sad. But like it doesn't. It's like, oh well, this is a weird thing. I have a thing called hapitalist.

It's like business clarity coaching for chaos minded creators. And like this is the weird thing to like be doing. Like, I don't know why to talk about it. People say, what do you do? Tell me about what you do.

I say, no, figure it out yourself. And like those are not good ways to sell, but I know they're not good ways to sell.

And like that makes me unhappy, but like the life doesn't make me unhappy.

The question is like, you can change your internal systems, you can change your relationships to just about everything around you, including children. You can change your relationship with your children at, at any point.

You, you may have to go through a lot of trauma work to like get them to, to, to like get back to a level of trusting you. But like you can always change how you enter you walk through the world. You can always be more empathetic.

You can always be like, and you'll learn if you do these things that like the world responds back in a really fun way. But if you are not giving to that world, changing your internal things, then you should not expect the world to change.

I have worked with so many companies and they're like, I don't know, I do all these happiness stuff or like, I like try and make them happy. I'm like, you're not paying them enough. And they're like, we did this survey. And they were like, I'm like, you're not paying them enough.

But they keep going to other. I'm like, you're not paying them enough. You need to double their pay. Like, and they're like, I can't afford to double their pay.

I'm like, that is a you problem. That is not a them problem. That is a you problem. And like. And so, like, again, this is people saying, oh, I can't do these things.

But really, like, their metrics need to change. And the more you know what your. So if you.

For instance, Herb was saying, like, oh, I can't make that program work, even as much as I would want to, as much as I want, like, an outdoor program to work. We tried it five years ago, and, like, it didn't work. Or, like, we tried it, or whatever that thing is, man.

My question is, did you say it with your whole chest? Like, did you say it? Be like, this is what we have to do. We have been behind a camera. We have been behind this thing.

We need to get out in nature and do this stuff. Did you say it enough? Did you make a case?

Because most people say things one time in one way, then, like, I know, and believe me, it's like, no, it is on you to make the case to your kids, to your spouse. Like, why should this thing exist? Because no one else lives in your head. You have to convince somebody else the reasons why.

And this is why I think every single human being in the world loves sales and marketing, because sales and marketing are about finding a group of humans who resonate with you and then showing them stuff that resonates with you and hopefully with them and then going on a little journey together. And sometimes money exchanges hands, sometimes it doesn't. But, like, the point of sales is not to sell. It's to have someone make a decision.

I want you to decide whether you're in or out. If you're on the fence, it's actually like, I'm. I. It's not that I hate that. It's just, like, all of my resources are spent here.

People that are happy, they're really easy to deal with. People that don't want me, that don't want me around, even easier to deal with. People that, like, are on the fence, are the one. I have to do this.

I have to decide to make a decision. And so the question that I have with you, with your family, with anyone, is, what decision are you trying to get people to make?

And have you given them enough information in enough ways to have them make a decision because it's never a them problem. It is always a you problem. And the question is, what about you needs to change to get the reaction that they have? And sometimes it's a deep change.

I have to know what I want. Sometimes it's I have to change just the words out of my mouth to stop saying no.

Sometimes it's like, oh, I said it once and you just said it 500 more times.

I don't know what the thing is, but like, if someone is not performing the action you want them to take, then either they don't resonate and they're a no, or they're a yes and you haven't explained it to them. Those are the only two options.

I like that. Awesome. Well, Russell, we could keep going on and on and I thank you for all these different examples and things.

And then, you know how we're able to switch it between family and business and back and forth. Thank you so very, very much.

Is there something that you didn't get to talk about today that you wanted to talk about that you had written down there like, oh, I really want to mention this.

And we also of course want your contact information because if this resonated with you, our audience, please contact Russell and go deeper and learn more from him. Go ahead.

Absolutely. So, I mean, I'll give you the advice that I give every everyone. I might come to the end of the podcast.

It's your self worth is not determined by anyone else. Every single human being on this planet has the same worth just by being born and taking breath.

And if you don't believe that it's going to make you value other people over yourself. I'm not saying you should value yourself over other people.

I'm saying everyone has the same value from Elon Musk to like untouchable in the streets of New Delhi. And if you believe that, then you will not accept less than what is what everyone else gets the minute.

Even if it's like I'm only worth 99 cents and they're worth a dollar, then you start discounting yourself. One cent compounded over 40 years is like a lot of money.

And so what I would ask is, well, Besides going to hapitalist.com, it's like capitalist with an H is figure out where you are shortchanging yourself. If you are now, that includes with your children. Because here's the thing you teach every day.

If you devalue yourself, then you are more likely to devalue other people. But even that you are teaching your children to devalue themselves, that they, that other people come first.

And it's not, I don't care, it's I need to put my own oxygen mask on first. I need to show you because I need to come up as the best version of me.

In order for me to give you little Timmy 100% of me, I have to get my own stuff together.

Now, I'm not saying you could abandon little Timmy, but like, if you, but, but like you can do things to buttress that, you can say, you know what, I am going to Sunset stuff. There's a bunch of stuff that I don't want to do. There may be even stuff like, Timmy, I know you love that thing, but like, you get three things.

You get three things you can do a week and like you can pick what the three things are. But like, you can't do 50 things, whatever that is. Like, I run across people all the time that have spent their lives devaluing themselves.

And in general it has led to their children devaluing themselves. It does not lead to their children having a good self image.

If every day they're two, one of their two parental figures like devalues themselves for other people. It either makes them resentful or a model. Those are the two things that you get.

Either you have like an opposite reaction or you, you have like someone who's going to do the exact same thing. So you have to go through the world as if you have as much self worth as any other human being on this planet. No matter what you do.

If you're a, if you're a dishwasher or a knowledge worker or the president of Bhutan, I don't care. Like, you have to go through the world as if you are worth the same as everyone else. And sometimes that does include getting out of your own ego.

Sometimes you overvalue yourself. Like, you're like, oh, my job means that I'm like this kind of person, this person.

Like it is about everyone has the same self worth and that allows everyone to be equal. It's the only thing that really in capitalism allows all of us to be equal is if we all value ourselves the same beautiful.

All right, so he said, go to happilys.com and get connected with Russell. Go find out more about him and the happiness and help your families reach that space. Thank you, Russell, so much for being with us today.

Yep.

Thank you for being here today.

Your information is so valuable and so necessary because there are so many people who don't understand what it's like to be happy anymore. And we as a people, we need to come back to that.

We need to come back to being people and to being happy and to being here in this world, because we're not what we do. And so, so many people are forgetting that now. So thank you for being here.

Thank you for that reminder today, and thank you for again sharing this with the world. So many people are too afraid or don't know how, and you're out there and you're putting yourself out there and you know that's tough to do as well.

So thank you for, for being here today.

Thanks for having me.

Awesome. Beautiful, everybody. Thank you so very, very much. It is the end of our show.

Please contact with Russell or any of our other experts who have been on the show because remember, we are raising happy, healthy and successful kids.

And that means that like Russell said, you are taking care of you as parents so that then you can help them raise and be happy, healthy and successful. So until next time, thanks for being here. Bye for now.

Bye.