[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddhart here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.
[00:36] We all want to be happy. For most of us, this is our goal. This is what we want at all times. We want to feel happy, content, fulfilled, alive, energized. Yet our brain isn't wired for happiness. Our brain is wired for survival. This means that we have this tendency to focus on the negative compared to the positive. Because for our survival, it was more useful to pick up on threats than to think what a beautiful day it is, or to focus on being grateful. Nowadays, though, it's the opposite. Nowadays, we don't need this constant negative bias. It's detrimental to our sleep, to our well being, to how we function, to how we live. And on the contrary, being positive can help your immune system, can make you feel good. Focusing on being grateful has tremendous benefits for both your brain, your body, your life. Unfortunately, our brain hasn't quite caught up, which is why we need to train our happiness. And it's not as innate as it sometimes feel it should be. And it doesn't help that society hasn't really given us the right version of happiness or the right answer to happiness. It's in the interest of consumer society to portray happiness as something that you can buy, be it a new face cream or dress or a new fancy car. The ads, the films all portray this image as if this will add to your happiness. Think about it. We don't buy because we need things. Yes, some clothes, food. But a lot of the things we don't buy out of necessity. A lot of things are bought because we feel they will add a tiny bit to our happiness or make us look tiny bit better. It makes us feel tiny bit better. And that's fine if it's occasional. And if we don't believe that, lie fully. If we know that, okay, this is something you want to read. You buy the book, you read it. But you don't think, this will make me happy. It's just something you do because it's something that you enjoy. But believing that adding up short term gratification, whether it's watching Netflix or getting new clothes or having that car and adding just all these things up will suddenly make you feel great and happy, full stop, doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. I can't say this enough, I've tried it. I've seen people try it. I've worked with clients on this. It doesn't work simply because those aren't what make us feel happy. Deep down, you get a dopamine shot from Quick instant gratification, scrolling your phone or buying something new. It's a dopamine shot. It makes you feel good on the moment, very briefly, sometimes even half an hour, that's it. And then you back it alone. And on top of this, the bigger the dopamine shot. Let's say you've just bought this really fancy car that you've been saving for ten years. Huge dopamine kick, so excited. Finally I get my car and then what happens? The body is looking for homeostasis. Crash so that it levels out the hormones. So no wonder you don't feel good afterwards. Same when you're reaching for this big fancy goal. Oh, when I reach this goal, I'll be so happy. Are you? Are you? That goal that you reached, did it really make you happy? No. Crash. Because that's not what happiness is. That's a lie. Again, it's in the interest of society. Make us believe that that's what happiness is. And they sell it in society and films in so many other ways, whether it's business success or huge romantic relationship or fancy house. None of these are happiness. They're quick, dopamine thrills of excitement and energy. Yes, like taking drugs. Same. Or being super drunk. But then crash. And then you're at a sort of low level of homeostasis, constantly looking for the next up. So if that's not happiness, what is? Happiness is connection. Happiness is inner peace. Happiness is presence. Happiness is tapping in to who we are at any given moment within our body, within our mind, within our soul. Not externally. It's that inner connection. And unfortunately, I feel that many people are disconnected from it. This is why my motto is connect with the magic. Because it's about connecting with the magic of life. And it's about connecting again with ourselves, with others, with nature. And when we're seeking these quick dopamine hits, we're 100% totally disconnected. It's a primal urge. Let me get that dopamine shot. It's a habit driven behavior and thought pattern, but we're not really connecting. Not with how we feel deep inside, not with our environment. It's a bit like being an addict. Again, I use that metaphor 2 seconds ago, but it really is when you feel happy in the deep, profound sense of what I believe is happiness. Feels calm, feels peaceful, it feels natural. There's no urge, there's no need, there's no pull. It's just there that inner calmness. And I cultivated this, I was borderline ADHD tendency to be extremely hyper, very fast paced, very impatient. I'm sure you still see this sometimes either on my YouTube or my podcast. And I trained myself to reach this inner sense of calm, to stay at this sense of calm and composure. Because that's real happiness. And I tried for so long the other type of happiness, that fast driven, impatient, goal oriented achiever. Go, go, get so excited and then crash. Or not crash, but then maybe frustrated or still not enough. This doesn't mean that with that sense of inner calmness. You can't still have goals, you can't still buy clothes or car. It just means that you know that your happiness, your well being, your inner peace are not dependent on you buying these things or on reaching these goals. That means that you're able to let go if it doesn't work. And it means that the reason you're doing this, let's say, striving towards a goal, publishing a book, for instance, comes from a different place than the need for you to get that happiness. You're not expecting when you do this, to feel happy. Yeah, you'll feel a bit excited when it happens, for sure, but you're not expecting that if it doesn't happen, then you'll be miserable forever. And that's kind of what it feels like when you have a goal that you're super driven towards. You feel that your happiness depends on that goal. That's not true. It's not true. It's not true. You can be happy right now. This is a secret to happiness. You don't need to buy anything, you don't need to achieve anything. It doesn't mean again that you can become passive and do nothing, still do it, still have goals, still want to impact, still want to help and support others, but no longer, because you feel your happiness depends on it. So the real trick here, to having this connection, to having this inner peace, to having this calmness and stillness, is a not to believe the lies that society promotes around goal achievement, or around purchasing things, or around any sort of external validation of happiness. Choose to see it as internal and then it's actual work. Which is ironic. You'd think that inner peace and calmness wouldn't take work. It's work through practicing meditation, doing your meditation practice, spending time in nature, slowing down your thoughts, viewing your thoughts as external, managing your emotions when things happen, journaling, and just knowing that it's always there inside you. So you just need to tap into it again, not looking outside, but tapping into it. And I had this realization again recently. It comes back several times and I realized, yes, of course it's there. One day I'd feel a bit upset or frustrated or stressed, and next day I'd feel calm. And I think, what changed? You know what changed? My degree of presence. That's what changed. Not the weather, not what people said, not how much I achieved my goal, not if I bought stuff. My degree of presence made me feel happier. And this is something that's super hard to explain if it's not something you're already practicing. I'm not sure before I had a meditation or mindfulness practice that I would have understood what it means, degree of presence. It's the difference between when you're rushing frantically and your mind is always busy, contrasted with when you do a three day hike and you're fully absorbed in nature in those moments. It's not just the difference between town and nature. And I love town. So that's not the point. It's just that in those moments of full connection with nature, genuinely, we're more present inside, we're more centered, we're more at peace, we're calmer, our thoughts slow down and then you're more present. You're literally just more here. You're less in your mind, you're less in your emotions, you're just with what is the environment, people around you, what's going on, your thoughts are slower, you're calmer. And this is what I mean by degree of presence. So I've noticed that the days I feel best, that's it, I'm just more here. Sounds ironic, right? I'm just more aware of everything around me, more enjoying it, more in the flow, in work, just feel the energy vibrating through my body. And on the days where I'm more stressed or upset, I'm a bit lost in my head, in my thoughts, in my emotions, forget to recenter myself. And that's it. The beauty with this is that in spite of any suffering that we might go through, because we all will and do and suffer regularly, in the sense that things happen in life that obviously have an impact on how we feel. The idea isn't to become robots. The beauty of this is that that inner calmness and peace is still there. You can still tap into it. Yes, you won't be happy as in woohoo, dancing, party overexcited, high spike, dopamine happy, but you'll be serene, you'll be calm, you'll be contented. And this can happen in the greatest suffering. I know this not from personal experiences of war zone or what have you. I just know this from reading other people's testimonials and seeing that there is tremendous power in ourselves for this peace, for this calmness, for this groundedness, for this contentment, in spite of the most difficult and challenging and hard circumstances. And this is a real superpower. And you can feel at least at peace inside. Which for me has now become a synonym of how I see happiness. Because I feel this is the true happiness, this is our true essence of joy. Not this external fast stuff. And surprisingly for some people, it's actually in those challenging circumstances that they find it. Because in the busy everyday hectic things they might not. And then when something really grave happens, when something really deep, when something really hard hits them, then suddenly it's like wow, I need help somehow. And then they find it inside them like this degree, this sense, this calmness, this peace, this stability, this centeredness, and it's there always. So you can tap into it at any time. This is how I view happiness. Not believing lies that society promotes. And instead really looking in deep inside us, this degree of presence, this degree of stillness and calmness tapping into it at any moment and remembering that when you're feeling stressed, frustrated, angry, upset, annoyed, devastated, grief, any of those things, it's still there. So just find it, just slow down, slow down your thaws. Calm yourself. Tap into that energy. Go inside and you'll see it. It's there. Just calm in a peace. Always there. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. Wishing you a magical, wonderful day ahead.
[15:16] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback, so let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.