The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. Marcus Aurelius
Product of the day:
When I discovered Groove and saw they offered everything you need to sell online - for free, I thought it was too good to be true but had to sign up to test it out.
I realized with Groove, I could:
- Build all the pages and funnels I need
- Manage and communicate with affiliates
- Sell all the products I want
- Include upsells, downsells, and order bumps to increase store conversions
- And more.
Stories from real life:
Smashed my phone and was forced to upgrade early. Didn’t get the latest greatest newest one, but did buy a newer one than ever before 🤑😱🤯
Highlight of my week: former MLBer Shea Hillenbrand commenting on my FB post.
State of the business(es):
Too much work, no time to do the things I REALLY want to do. Cutting back on the type and amount of work I’m taking on, maybe even the customers I’m taking on.
CTA:
Join the Telegram chat at t.me/constructiveliberty and follow the channel, from there you can join the group chat and leave a written or voice feedback. If that’s too public you can email me at ken@constructiveliberty.com.
“5-KEYS” tip:
On interpersonal relationships: one thing you can look out for in other people is the way they carry themselves. Covered in ep 69, 74, and 81. DISC, Direct, Interactive, Supporting, Critical, personality types.
The Direct person will display confidence, like he or she owns the place and knows what’s up.
The Interactive person will be engaging with anyone and/or everyone in their vicinity.
The Supporting one will be holding a door, or picking up a piece of trash, or looking for ways to help someone else out.
The Critical person will be scanning people/place/things to find what’s missing or out of place. They are looking for the details everyone else is missing.
Main topic:
On Fireside Freedom last night, we talked about stoicism, and how tenets of stoic philosophy can be hugely beneficial to your life.
One question in particular sparked a really good discussion: “How do you handle the general societal push that we should all be “happy” all the time and overcome the entitlement mentality of “But I deserve this!”
The thing we really got going on was the generational divides, and how it seems like millennials especially, and GenZ to some extent, are extremely susceptible to the “I deserve to be happy” mentality.
A quote I came up with a while back really applies here: “You deserve everything you want in life, to the exact degree you’re willing to put in the work to achieve or create it”.
No one owes you anything. Not your dad, mom, brother, sister, or even the guy that punched you in the face in 5th grade. You don’t “deserve” a new phone, the latest xbox, the nicest clothes, or even your next meal. Simply existing is not a reason to be handed the things you want in life, or even the things it takes to keep you alive.
The Constitution said it best: “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
Life, you were given at birth.
Liberty, is slowly being eroded away, but you still have the liberty to go Do/Be/Have what you want in life. You still have the liberty to create the kind of life you want to live. I you believe you don’t or can’t, then you won’t. It’s as simple as that.
The pursuit of happiness is where most people get hung up on. They believe they deserve happiness. And that gives them the expectation they can find it in outside forces (people, places, things, ideas). So rather than pursuing actual happiness, they chase after fickle things. The nice car, the giant house, the shiniest rims, the last gadgets, the most expensive jewelry.
But true lasting happiness only comes through the actual pursuit of it. It’s the result of doing the work, and THEN enjoying the result. It’s doing things you love and are good at to IMPACT a life outside of yourself. It’s taking a walk down the street and petting the neighbor's dog, or smelling the flowers, listening to the birds and crickets sing.
Back to the generational thing, I brought up the hypothesis that the reason for seeking the emotion of happiness without doing the work to get it, might stem from all the various forms of media consumed (especially) by the 2 most recent generations.
Humans are emotional beings. Life is experienced through our emotions. A person who has cut off emotion typically has a dull life experience. Ask me how I know.
All good music and movies are built to draw up or create an emotion inside of you. And having grown up with that experience, it’s easy to see how people could begin to believe that those feelings should be constant and on demand, without having to do through an experience to receive that emotion.
Take love for instance. We can actually feel love for fictional character in a movie or show based on how they are portrayed, the supporting cast, the music, the lighting, etc. We sit and watch the show, don’t do the work of getting to know the person and GROW to love them based on who they are, but based on the feeling the directors want you to have. Is it any wonder then that outside of music and movies (the real world) youth tend to “fall in love” so easily? Get heartbroken so easily? Love em and leave em so easily?
They haven’t learned that love is a choice. Love is work. Love is hard. You won’t always have that FEELING. You instead have to make that CHOICE.
Oh sure, it may start with a feeling. That’s the attraction phase. But it has to grow from there. The feeling, the newness, leaves.
And that’s only ONE emotion.
The happiness thing is on a whole other level. We’ve been so lied to through music, movies, and marketing, that we DESERVE happiness. We think we’re owed happiness. We think others have to give us happiness. When the thing or person or place no longer makes us feel happy, we simply move on to the next thing that makes us happy in the moment.
We don’t CHOOSE happiness.
We instead sit back and WAIT on happiness to come to us.
- We seek happiness without the effort to become happy.
- We seek health without exercising and eating healthy.
- We seek wealth without providing value.
- We seek comfort without getting up off the nail.
- We seek love without being a loving person.
- We seek connection without vulnerability.
- We seek knowledge without learning.
- We seek , we seek, we seek…..but we’re not willing to do the work first.
We think, “if I only had (insert whatever thing, feeling, emotion here) THEN I’d do the work.
If they paid me more I’d work harder (provide more value, first)
If he/she was (hotter, funnier, more serious, less critical, better with money, etc) I’d show more love (be loving first)
If they do this then I’ll do that (do the thing, FIRST)
BECOME the type of person who those things will come to FIRST, the results will come.
Remember the line from the movie ‘Field of Dreams’, “if you build it, he will come”?
The work comes before the enjoyment of the result of the work.
What would happen if you quit using media as a crutch for our children?
How would things change if we quit putting a screen in front of them instead of giving them what they actually need….some quality time?
What if music, movies, and advertisements weren’t the biggest influence in the minds of our youth?
We’ve given them life. Now let’s teach them how to LIVE!
We try to keep them healthy. Let’s show them where health comes from (it’s in the food we eat)
We’ve shown them the emotions of happiness (and all the other emotions) through music and movies. Why not teach and show them where true happiness comes from?
Episode 100 goes into that a bit: https://podcast.constructiveliberty.com/episode/100
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