How to Enjoy Your Life

Today I'm going to be teaching you how to enjoy your life. Because to be honest, I think most people are just existing. They're just getting by in life. And if that's the case, what is the point? Like, I don't know about you, but if I'm going to live this life, then I want to live and enjoy the hell out of it. And that is a skill set. And that's what I'm going to teach you today. And it's not just relevant for people who are successful or people who are doing well in life. This is relevant for every person, no matter your life circumstances right now. So, let's dive in and talk about how you can enjoy your life even more without anything changing outside of you first. So, for a long time, I wanted to be successful. That was my number one goal of what I was looking for in my life. But over the past few years, my number one goal is to build a life of happiness and enjoyment. and I have been working to enjoy my life more and more and more the past couple years. And so, let me start with a quick story just to kind of bring you into my life and bring you into my head and help kind of put today's episode into context. Okay, so this morning I was sitting on my back porch with my son Zayn. I had my coffee in hand. I had some music playing in the background and I was just spending time with him because mornings are our time before I go and start working. [snorts] And as I was sitting there and I was just enjoying it, it was a beautiful moment. I was thinking about how amazing life is. This song came on by a guy named Ben Howard. And the song is called Old Pine. And you know how when you're like listening to music, it does that thing where it like reminds you of a moment in your past and it like drops you back into the moment like you're actually kind of there. Like your body goes there, your brain goes there. Like everything. I was instantly back to 2012. And in 2012, I was backpacking Europe by myself for 3 months. And I remember specifically that song came on when I was in Stockholm. And I have this very vivid memory of listening to that song as I was pulling the door shut to the hostel that I was staying at with my headphones in. And I was just going for a walk around the city of Stockholm. And for some reason, that moment is like burned into my brain. There wasn't anything happening except for me just closing the door and that song is playing. And at that point in my life in 2012, I had saved up money as much as I could and quit my job just to travel. And I had no idea what I was going to do when I got home. And the only thing that I knew was that I had to figure out how to make money on my own so that I could be free and so that I could travel. I just wanted to have a life of freedom. Nobody told me what to do. I could travel what I want to. I can make money whenever I want to. And as I sat on my back porch this morning, I did the math and I started thinking about it and I was like, "Oh my god, that was almost 15 years ago." Like, it feels like a lifetime ago, but it also feels like a couple months ago at the same time. You know what I'm talking about? And so, as I was thinking through this, like the thought hit me is those 15 years went by really fast and the next 15 years are going to go by really fast as well. In 15 years, I'm going to be in my mid-50s. Zayn is going to be about to graduate high school. The life that I'm living right now, this exact version of it will be completely gone. And so, I've been sitting with this idea of time a lot recently. Like, once I got into my 40s, I feel like my perception of time and like the way I look at it has shifted a lot. And we will be right back. Hey, if you're looking to get to your next level and you realize that it's not another strategy, it's not another book. It is found by you conquering the version of you that's holding yourself back, then you need to be at my live event this December 3rd, 4th, and 5th called Freedom Live. We're going to find out exactly where you want to be in life, why you're not there yet, and then find and break the unconscious patterns, limiting beliefs, and fears that are holding you back and capping your success without you even knowing it. So, if you want to live to your full potential, but you don't know how to break through, this is the event to be at. You can go to freedomlive20206.com or you can go to this QR code. Scan this right here. There's currently a $50 off coupon right now. So, go ahead and scan that and I will see you live in Austin, Texas. And now back to the show. And here's what I've realized. Most of my 20s and 30s, I was running. I was working. I was building. I was chasing. I was driving. I was achieving. And don't get me wrong, like I enjoyed my 20s and 30s, but I also feel like I missed a lot of my 20s and 30s because I was so occupied with getting there. There being like success, right? And because I was so occupied with the future, I wasn't fully present in my life and I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. And now I've gotten to a place that I was actually running towards my entire life. And right now, what I'm working towards is rewiring the part of me that needs to learn how to enjoy his life, that still feels like he always has to be running, always has to be working, always has to be achieving something. You guys know what I'm talking about? You have that feeling inside of you that always feels like it's running, like it's hard to sit down for a little while. Maybe it's hard for you to like enjoy a vacation or sit down on the couch and play with your kids for an hour. Like if I reach my destination, why do I keep grinding the same way that I used to trying to make it? Because what really matters to me in this season of my life is being with my family. Like I can build later. I can make money later. Zayn will never be this young again. Neither will my wife and myself. And so what got me here won't get me there in the next stage of my life. And so, let me give you three things that I've been actually working on and focusing on to be more present, to enjoy my life, and to actually be here now in every single moment, and try to extract as much joy from every moment, no matter how mundane it can actually be. Okay. The first thing that I'll recommend for you is this, to notice the pull. And here's what I mean by that. I'll be on the floor. I'll be playing with Zane. We'll be playing with his building blocks and stuff. and I'll notice like I'm not fully there and I'm like what the is going on in my head and I'm like working on myself to figure this out. I've been doing it for a while, right? I'm thinking about building the business or I'm thinking about some fire that I have to put out or something that I have to do later. And sometimes like I'll be honest with you, sometimes playing on the floor with a little kid is fun and sometimes it can be kind of boring when you're doing the same thing for the 47th time, right? And so I [snorts] noticed this part of me, not all of me, a part of me that wants to stand up and go do something. That's the pull that I'm talking about. It's the exact same part of me that built everything that I have. And so I do love it. And I haven't trained the off switch. That's what I've been that's what I never did in my 20s and 30s. Now I'm actually starting to train that because I never really gave it like an off switch. I never trained myself how to slow down, how to fully be present. And so there was a study that I think about all the time on this. There was two Harvard researchers and they tracked 2,250 people throughout their normal lives and they reached out to them and pinged them at random times, random days and just asked them how they were doing, right? Asked them what they were doing, what they were thinking about, and how happy they were. And what they found is that most people's minds were wandering approximately about 47% of the time. So that means like statistically almost half of your waking life, you're not even where your body is. You're not present. You're not in the present moment. And the part that really matters in this study is that people were less happy when their minds were wandering. They were less happy when their minds were wandering. And they were more happy when they were present and in the moment. And it didn't matter what they were doing, right? And so the activity mattered way less than whether they were actually present for it or not. Like do you understand what that means when you sit down and think about it? It means that you could build the exact life that you're chasing for and you could still be miserable inside it. How many successful people have done that? They build the life they think they want and then they're still miserable because they think success is going to change them. It's not going to change them. You have to start to become present in the moment as you're building towards a success. So therefore, when you have the success, you can be present and you can fully enjoy it because you know you'd get to your destination that you wanted to get to and you'd still be standing there thinking about something else. And so here's the practice around this one. Okay, it's simple. When you notice the pull of your brain wanting to go somewhere else, don't fight it. Just name it and just go, "Oh, there it is." And then what I do is I notice the pull while I'm sitting down. I'm playing with building blocks and stuff and I notice the feeling of like we should go do something else. I'm just like, "Oh, there it is. [sighs and gasps] Take a few slow breaths." And usually I do about 2 minutes of breathing. And I can notice and I'm trying to focus on my nervous system actually settling into the moment because really what it is, it's running like I have to go go go. And after 2 minutes, that's the whole thing. My body realizes like, oh, basically, here's what I'm doing. I'm showing my body that it's allowed to be still and the world will not fall apart. You know that feeling where you're like, I feel like I got to always be doing something otherwise it's going to fall apart or other shoe is going to drop. I'm trying to train my nervous system that being still is not dangerous. Okay, so that's number one. Number two, which actually helps you enjoy the moment, is to try to bring your whole brain into the room. And this is what I mean by that, right? [snorts] It's it's like you're trying to narrow the frame of your mind. When I catch myself drifting, when I'm sitting with my son, who will never be this young again, ever again, and I notice myself starting to drift, and I feel the pull, like I said, I call it out loud. I do the breathing. And then here's what I do. And I literally do this. I look at his face and I try to bring all of my senses into this moment, especially my visual senses, right? I [snorts] try to remove everything else from my peripheral vision and I try not to just look at him, but I try to like see him. I try to stare at Zayn's face and try to look at the tiniest little details like the little tiny gaps in between his tiny little teeth. The way his mouth moves when he speaks, the deep brown color of his eyes, the skin tones and how it's not just like white, but I can see there's a little bit of red under it and you know, I can see the blue in his veins and stuff, right? And so, because if I do this, the the busyiness that I have to do, the to-do list, all of those things, I just kind of push it out of the way, and I make his little face the only thing in the world for a minute. And something incredibly [snorts] powerful happens when you do this. Like, I heard spiritual people for years and gurus talk about this and they talk about how rich the present moment actually is when you're actually in it. For most of the time, I was like, "That sounds like a nice thing to say." But like, I've been in many present moments. Now that I'm breathing and using my five senses and staring and trying to notice the tiny details, I'm actually finally starting to understand this. Like, I'm finally starting to feel how deep the present moment can feel. And that's where I start noticing all of this joy flood out of my body that was just like waiting to be present for me to finally like release it, right? Because when I can bring my whole brain into this moment, it's unbelievably beautiful. Like the colors feel like they're more colorful. Like I can hear things that I wasn't hearing 10 seconds ago. I can feel things that I wasn't feeling a few minutes ago. That's been available to me this whole time. That's been available to you this whole time. you've just been thinking about your next Zoom call instead of actually being here, right? And so, here's the practice. When you want to do this, you don't have to have your child's beautiful face in front of you when you're trying to be present. Just pick one thing in front of you and go all into it, right? Like, go all into it. Sure, it could be your kid's face. It could be your partner's voice. It could be the taste of your coffee. [snorts] Could be the smell of the coffee. It could be just looking out on your back porch and just fully trying to notice the clouds and the trees that are back there. And you ask yourself one question. What do I notice right now that I normally would have missed? And what you're doing with this question is you're actually tuning your brain in to being here into noticing things that you weren't noticing before, which makes you more present. That's it. You don't have to become anything or try to shut off your brain or try to perfect the art of meditation to do this. Everybody can do this right now. Like try it. Like try to see things around you if you're driving your car right now on your drive to work that you normally would have missed. Notice the sign or notice the tree that was there that you never saw before. Notice the the sound of your car clicking, right? Notice the sound of my voice coming through the speakers. whatever it might be, you become present by getting into your body because your mind is almost always somewhere else. Your body is always in the present moment. So turn the volume up on your senses, okay? And then number three, break your routines. And this is really important, okay? Because routine is important, but last month, my family and I, we went down to Costa Rica for 16 days. I flew in my entire family, my mom, her husband, my sister, three of her four kids, her husband, my wife, Zayn, myself. We were all down there and about 10 days in I was having this conversation with my wife and I was like we were talking about something that happened 10 days before, right? And she was like, "Wow, can you believe that was only 10 days ago? Like it feels like it was a month ago." I was like, "Oh my god, it does feel like it was a long time ago." And it's on vacation. Even when you're doing a lot, time can feel like it's moving slower because you're doing new things. And then we came home and 16 days went by in a flash. same number of days, you know, we spent 16 days in Costa Rica, 16 days at home, but completely different experience of time. And so I started researching on why this happens. And there's a science writer named Claudia Hammond who wrote a book that's called Time Warped. And she calls this the holiday paradox. When you're going somewhere new, the days feel like they're flying by when you're in them. But then when you look back on them, that week feels enormous, like the vacation feels much longer. And when you're in routine, it feels the opposite. routine feels fine while you're in it, but when you look back, there's like nothing there. It just went by [snorts] in a flash. And so, there's a neuroscience named David Eagleman who's done a lot of work on this, and his explanation revolves around this thing that's called memory density. When everything is new, your brain writes down a huge amount of detail. When everything is familiar, your brain stops writing. It goes, "Oh, I already have this file." And it just skips it. And so, what that actually means is this. Your life is not really measured in days. It's measured in days that you actually recorded. Which means that most people aren't like losing time. They're just losing the record of what they've been doing. So if you want your life to feel longer, so if you're not just don't want to enjoy your life more, but also feel like your life is longer, then you need new experiences. You don't have to go to Costa Rica. You can just do a new thing every single week. Like drive a road that you've never driven. Go to a restaurant across town. Take a different route to work. Uh you know, for this weekend, drive 2 hours away to a place that you've never been to. Like take one thing that's on autopilot and do it differently so that your brain has new memories to store and your life will actually feel longer if you do. Now, I do want to say something real quick so people don't take it the wrong way. I'm not telling you to stop working throughout this episode. I'm not telling you ambition is bad. I'm not telling you to sell everything and go find yourself. We all have to work to create the life that we want. Of course we do. But you also have to train yourself to be present or the work never ends. You can be fully present and enjoy your life while still building it. You get that? Like you could still be fully present and enjoy your life more than you ever have with your current circumstances while you're still building the life of your dreams. Otherwise, you just basically spend your whole life working to get somewhere. And then when you finally get there, you won't know how to be present and actually enjoy it. So presence and enjoying your life is actually a skill set that you can build in yourself. And listen, like life is just a series of present moments. That's it. That's all that it is. That's all it's ever been. I don't want you or me to get to the end of our lives and realize that we were always just waiting to arrive somewhere else. always working towards the next moment and never actually fully experiencing the one that we're standing in. Hey, thanks so much for watching today's video. If you love this video, click this one right here. This is the one that you need to watch next. And if you want to make sure you don't miss any more of these episodes, click that button right there. Make sure you subscribe and check out the next