The Secret to Success & Happiness Nobody Talks About

(01:00):

And I think that is so cool. So thank you. Thank you for spending time listening to something that can help you do that. Thank you for spending time with me. And that brings me to today's topic. So today we're going to talk about happiness. And the reason why I wanted to talk about happiness today is because, hey, it's Mel. I'm so glad you're here with me on YouTube. Thank you for being here. I have a huge favorite ask before we jump into this episode on happiness. It'd make me really happy if you subscribe. It is my goal to have at least 50% of the people that watch this channel be subscribers. It really helps us bring you amazing content. Just take a second. Please, please, please. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Alright, you ready? Let's go. You gave me so much feedback on an episode that I released two weeks ago.

 

(01:44):

You might've listened to it. It's called The four Important Life Lessons that I Learned the Hard Way So that You Don't Have to, and I'm going to link to that episode in the show notes in case you want to listen to it. But it doesn't matter if you heard it or not. I'm going to just dive right into one of the lessons that I shared on that episode. And the lesson was about my journey to become a happier me over the past three years. And you had so many questions about happiness, you wanted to know the details. What do you mean by happiness journey? What did you actually do? Can you explain how I can do it? And so today you and I are digging into the topic of happiness. And I think it's important for me to start with the truth, which is I have been working really hard at being a happier person in earnest for the last three years.

 

(02:36):

And so this is not going to be an episode that is packed with all kinds of fast hacks. I mean, hacks work. They are great. There are a lot of hacks that you can use that will give you a big boost to happiness. But that's not what we're doing today. Today, I think it's time to have a deeper conversation. And I want to share more about what it took for me to personally become a happier person. And one of the biggest insights that I've gained from the past three years, whether it's from all the therapy that I've done or the research that I've done on this topic or the experts that I've spoken to, or more importantly, the painful process of having to look inward and observe my own behavior and my own bullshit is this, the single biggest barrier to my happiness for Mel Robbins was me.

 

(03:32):

And by the time that you were done listening to everything that I'm about to pour into you today, I think you're going to have a million epiphanies. But the biggest epiphany that I am on a mission to have you have for yourself is how you are actively blocking your happiness right now and you don't even realize it. And I can say that because that's exactly what I was doing. And when I read the things that you write to me and when I bump into you in real life, when I even look at the things that people that I love struggle with, I can see the ways that you are also doing the same thing. And look, I was doing all the hacks. I was doing all the things that you're probably doing, the things that boost your happiness. I had a gratitude practice. I was smiling at people.

 

(04:23):

I was appreciating the little moments. I was really, really, really working on bringing happiness to the forefront. But if I'm being honest with you, if I take you back three years ago, the baseline experience for me in my day-to-day life was I basically went through life feeling agitated, frustrated or disappointed. That was my existence. I didn't want to feel that way, but that's just what it was like inside my body. And I didn't know how to be happier for real. That may sound weird because you know me now and I've been doing all this work on myself and also even people that have known me for a long time, they're like, but Mel, you're a positive person, but Mel, you always laugh, but Mel, you seem to have a good time. That's not what happiness is. Happiness is something else. And that's why I want to get very real.

 

(05:16):

And I want to be honest with you about what I was struggling with, about the bullshit I was engaged in and about what it took for me to understand what was in the way of me changing my day-to-day experience. And if you want to be a happier person, which of course you do, I mean who doesn't want to be happier? Here's what I'm going to tell you. If somebody as miserable on the inside and who felt like this grinding existence where I was constantly present to what was wrong, if I can learn how to be a happier person, you can learn to be a happier person, not like the fake stuff, but at a deep, profound level. And 

(06:19):

And in order to change at some point, yeah, you got to change your behavior and change the way you think, but you also have to look in the mirror and you got to confront what you're doing that is blocking you from having what you want in your life. And that's exactly what I've had to do over and over and over again in these past three years. And here's what I want to do. I am going to boil this topic down for you by explaining three significant ways that I was blocking happiness in my life. And my hope in doing this is that I save you the headache, the heartache, and the misery that I created for myself internally. That's why I want to share this with you. And after I share the three ways that I was actively engaged in blocking my own happiness, I will give you a very simple exercise that you can do that will make this even more personal.

 

(07:14):

The exercise makes you look inward so that you can, in the privacy of your own home, call yourself out on your own bullshit and see where you are specifically blocking happiness. And so here's how we're going to start. Let's get a definition of what happiness means in the context of this conversation, okay? Because really not a feeling of positivity for me, when I use the word happy, it is a feeling of being content present and okay with yourself in your life, that whatever is going on on the outside around you, that you have this ability to access a positive and supportive and optimistic baseline that is deep inside of you. And I think that's one of the mistakes that I made. I was always looking outside of me, oh, when I get my bills paid, when I fall in love, when I get into that school.

 

(08:15):

And the truth is, if I'm being honest with you, I've been kind of miserable for as long as I can remember. I was miserable in high school. I was miserable in college. I got into my dream school. I was at Dartmouth, I was miserable at Dartmouth. I then got into law school. I was miserable in law school. I then got a great job as a public defender. I liked the job, but I wasn't happy with myself. I got married to somebody that I love, but I wasn't really happy with myself. Again, chasing on the outside, chasing on the outside. And I bet you do too. I guarantee you somewhere in your mind you're saying to yourself, oh, if I lose the weight, then I'll be happier. If I find the love of my life, I'll be happier. Oh, if I get into that graduate school, if I pay off my debt, then I'll be happier.

 

(08:55):

That's not how it works. See, I'm sure you've heard people talk about the fact that happiness is an inside job. I didn't know what the hell that meant. And so we're going to dig into what that means. And in fact, I want to bring a metaphor into the conversation. I got a credit my friend Hoda over at the Today Show because she gave me this metaphor literally a couple days ago. I was on the show on Friday, and right before we started taping, I was talking with Jenna and Hoda and we're sitting on the couches. And Hoda said this phrase, and I didn't know what the heck she was talking about. She said, pop up in the eye of a hurricane. I'm like, what do you mean pop up in the eye of a hurricane? And I guess she had been covering a story where they were in a hurricane and she said, well, Mel, have you ever seen the eye of a storm?

 

(09:42):

And I'm like, no, I never have. I've seen the swirling kind of tornado hurricane thing before when they see it on the news. Well, she said, well, my gosh, if you pop up in the middle of one, it's crazy quiet. And still there's all this chaos on the outside that you see when you see a hurricane or you see a tornado or you see this huge storm, but in the eye of it, it's still, and when she described this, I immediately latched onto that visual. Now, I of course have never been in the middle of a storm like that, but I started to think about the fact that life can feel like this gigantic storm of chaos and things that are spinning around you all the time. And there are times in your life where things can feel completely out of control. And in my life, if I'm being really raw and real with you, I was the hurricane.

 

(10:42):

I was constantly in a state of chaos internally. Yeah, I was smiling on the outside, but things were spinning around on the inside. And usually it was this negative feeling like something was wrong or something bad was going to happen. I was always just spinning and spinning and spinning. And if you can't relate to that, I bet you can relate to the fact that often in life it feels like you can get swept up by the things that are going on around you. So one of the things that I discovered in the past three years is that when I took a really hard look at myself, I'm the one that has been the hurricane of chaos, that my mood was often out of control because my mood was dependent on things that were outside of me. I was so easily turned into a bad mood or feeling disappointed or being stressed out or being sad or being all these things that I didn't want to feel.

 

(11:41):

And so when Hoda shared this with me on Friday, I thought, you know what? I knew that I was going to talk to you about happiness today, and I thought I got to bring this in because I do think that this connects to happiness. And here's how the eye of the hurricane, that stillness in the midst of something chaotic going on outside of you, that is what I'm talking about when I talk about happiness, that no matter what is happening or who you're with, that you can access this quietness inside of you. Because learning how to be still and content that is powerful, it doesn't matter who you are around or where you are, no matter what is happening, what's not happening, learning how to access that inside of you to me is the secret to happiness. So let me just ask you, can you do that when things are swirling around you, when you feel a bad mood get triggered, when life gets super stressful, are you able to come into yourself and tap into this centeredness, this okayness?

 

(12:57):

Can you let positive energy flow in even when it feels like things around you are kind of chaotic? Well, if you're like Mel Robbins, the answer is no, but I want to be able to do that. You can, and that's the good news. You can find your strength, you can find your center. You can find the ability to be content. Even when there is a storm brewing and I didn't know how to do this, 

(13:57):

It felt like a fight. And the only relief from that hurricane that I felt, which was my life for many years was basically pouring a drink at night or I would focus on the weekend that was coming out. If I can just get to the weekend, I got to get through this work week, get to the weekend. It's just two days from now, then I can step outside of the stress of this. I can escape my life for a minute. I can drive the kids to all the things they need to do over the weekend. I'll blow off some steam at a barbecue with some friends. I'll sleep in and then I'll get right back to it. Or Chris and I would be able to take a short vacation to go visit my parents or his parents and we'd escape our life for that. But my daily existence, I would describe by two words.

 

(14:35):

I was frustrated or I was disappointed. And like I said earlier, I thought that making money would make me happy. I thought that if I just pay off these bills, if I can just breathe a little bit, I will find happiness. And the truth is, there is a certain amount of money that will make you happier because if you've ever been in the experience that I've been in my life where you can't pay your bills, there is a crushing level of stress that you feel because you are constantly worried about money. And so it is true. There is a certain level of money that will make you a little bit happier. But here's what's also true. Once you can pay your bills, once you can make the ends meet, making more money doesn't solve the underlying problem, which is you don't know how to be happy.

 

(15:22):

I think that's the bottom line. I didn't know how to be happy. That's why I was looking outside of myself. That's why I was thinking that something else would somehow make me a happier person. But here's what you will learn. You can listen to a bazillion podcast. You can try to improve your life all day long. You can chip away at all the problems that you have on the outside. You can get your bills paid, you can get yourself out of debt. You can figure out how to make your marriage happier, but that's all outside of you. Once you handle all that stuff, you know what happens. It just magnifies the fact that you haven't dealt with what actually isn't working on the inside. And that's what happened to me once I worked my tail off to fix everything that wasn't working from the issues in my marriage to the crushing debt that we used to face to helping my kids through the various issues that they had, I had to face the person in the mirror.

 

(16:20):

Once you solve all the things that are wrong around you, the hurricanes supposed to disappear right wrong because the hurricane when it comes to happiness is inside of you. And that's exactly what I came face to face with three years ago. I'm going to tell you exactly what happened and I'm going to share the three things that I discovered, the three ways that I was actively fighting against my own happiness. You're probably doing them too. Stay with us. We're going to hear a short word from our sponsors and we're going to dig right back into this after a short break. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and do not skip this because I have something to give you for free. No kidding. Say goodbye to 2023. Let's say hello to 2024. Make it the best year ever. I have a free 29 page workbook. I made this for you to thank you for being here on YouTube, watching all of our videos, supporting our work.

 

(17:10):

I'm going to help you answer what you want in 2024, and then more importantly, you're going to create a plan to go get it. Then I'll be here on YouTube motivating you every step of the way, you and me baby. Let's create the best year ever. Just click the link, boom, I'll take you to the page. You'll have this puppy in your hands in less than a minute, and be right back here with YouTube for me to motivate you. I love you. Let's do this. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I'm so glad that you're still here because we are talking about probably one of the most important topics you and I could have a conversation about, and we haven't talked about this in depth on this podcast. And I got to give credit to a dear friend of mine, Pete Shean, who I have mentioned on the podcast about three years ago.

(18:48):

It honestly used to piss me off. I didn't know what it meant, but I do now because I have spent the last three years asking the really hard questions. Mel, what is all this frustration and agitation inside you about? And here's what I realized. I realized in my day-to-day life, I personally was actively blocking happiness from flowing into my life. There was plenty of reasons for me to be happy, plenty of reasons for you to be happy. I was blocking it from getting into me. And so when people say happiness is an inside job, here's what they mean. They mean you have to let it in. I'm going to say that again. The secret to being happier is realizing you have to let it in and I want you to stop and just think about that. Do you allow happiness in? I didn't, didn't even know how to let happiness.

 

(20:05):

In the episode where I really dug into this, I referred to the lesson that I learned the hard way in 2023 as something I call dropping the sword. And let me explain what that means because it relates to letting happiness in. If you want to be a happier person, and I really want that for you, 

(21:10):

I was blocking the happiness. And if you listen with a very critical ear and if you are honest with yourself, and if you are willing to call yourself out on your own bullshit, I think you will realize, oh my gosh, I'm blocking happiness too. And my mission today is to inspire you to take on a project to become happier, to inspire you to drop the sword wherever it is that you are currently fighting against your own happiness, where you are currently engaged your campaigning for misery. I want you to stop it. And I'm going to tell you something. This is very normal and it's normal because life can be really hard. Maybe you're afraid to be happy, maybe you don't know how to be happy, or perhaps you used to be really happy, you were really content. You were the person that was present in your life and content and and then something horrible happened or somebody that you love died or there was some awful tragedy and now you were so scared to drop the sword.

 

(22:22):

You were so scared to allow yourself to feel good again. Because what if you lose it again? There's so many reasons and ways that we fight against our own happiness. And you know that I love my metaphors. I've already brought in this idea of the hurricane and whether or not you're the one that's able to be okay or whether or not you are able to stand in the center of chaos and connect to that power inside you. And so let me bring in a second one because this visual really helps me understand that saying that happiness is an inside job. I want you to visualize a door, right? Because if you're going to go inside, you're going to pass through a doorway, right? Because there's only two different types of doors when we're talking about happiness. And the first one is the kind that I used to have, which is basically the massive steel impenetrable door that you see on a bank vault.

 

(23:23):

Those big thick, they got a wheel on 'em, big code that you got to do if you finally crack it open. That door is literally like three feet wide. Nobody has the code and nobody can get in. That was me. That is not the kind of door that you want because that means you are blocking it. But there is a second kind of door, and this is what I want you to start to visualize. I want you to visualize swinging galley doors. If you've ever worked in a restaurant, I've worked in lots of different restaurants. If you go from the front of the house where all the tables are to the back of the house where the kitchen is, there's typically these swinging doors, right? And in the restaurant that I used to work in the Red Rooster Tavern, there were these double doors that used to swing in and out to the kitchen.

 

(24:10):

This is the kind of door that you need between yourself and the outside world because when it comes to happiness, it has to flow both ways. Of course, you have to give happiness out into the world. You have to send it out as a signal, you have to give it to other people, but the door has to swing in. And what I've discovered is that allowing the doors to swing in was nearly impossible for me. And I think that this has a lot to do with your experiences growing up and what the adults were like when you were growing up. Were they warm? Were they breezy and easy? Did they let the love flow in and out? Were they welcoming or were they like a big cold steely closed off bank vault? That's where this probably comes from. And today you and I are going to talk about how you can allow more of it in how you can go from being closed off to being breezier to letting it flow in and flow out.

 

(25:19):

So with that metaphor, I want to talk about the first of the three ways that I was engaged in a campaign of misery because it relates to this bank vault door. And the first way is I was so trapped in my head, like behind the door in a vault called my mind that I wasn't even present in my life. How can you possibly allow happiness in if you're not even there? And this is something I'm still working on. I can give you an example from just a couple days ago. So over the holidays, we were on a vacation celebrating my mom's 75th birthday. And so we were all together for four days and my brother's family was there and my parents were there, and Chris and I and our three kids were there, and it was the last full day of vacation. So we have all day together.

 

(26:10):

We have a big dinner that night celebrating my mom. We're going to play cards because our family loves cards that evening and then everybody's going to leave the next morning. And this is the last time that Chris and I and our three kids are going to be together until our son Oakley's graduation in June, which means this is the last time we're going to be together for about six months now, do you think on that last day I was that breezy, easy, warm and present eye of the storm happiness person allowing it to swing back and forth. That would've been wonderful, but not me. Old habits die hard. And on that last day of the vacation boom, I shut the bank door. I closed myself off in my mind because all I could think about is, oh my God, the kids are leaving tomorrow. And our daughter, Kendall lives in Los Angeles and she lives so far away.

 

(27:03):

And then I was like, what if she marries somebody in Los Angeles and then all of a sudden she's going to settle out there and they're going to have kids out there and they're going to be spending more time with that? Talk about a hurricane for crying out loud. I got myself so worked up. I was not only not present during the day and I basically was closed off in my own mind that I not only didn't let the happiness in the hurricane inside me started spinning so much that once I went to bed, I woke up every single hour on the hour until 5:45 AM when my alarm went off, which was the time that I needed to meet Kendall in the lobby to make sure that she had her passport and could get into the cab and get to the airport. I wasted the entire last 24 hours of the time that I had with the five of us.

 

(27:51):

I made myself miserable. And you know what? I actively did that to myself, and I'm sharing this with you, and I'm sure you can hear the intensity in my voice. It doesn't sound like a happy Mel. Why am I intense? I'll tell you why I'm intense because I can see how engaging in a campaign of misery blocking happiness not being present in my life, robs me of those moments. These are skills that you're going to have to practice, and clearly I'm still working on it. I'm giving you an example from just a couple days ago because you got to watch this like a hawk. It is so easy to just slam the bank vault, go up in your head, start worrying about stuff, get trapped up there in your emotions. Next thing you know, you're spinning around like a hurricane that you have personally created for yourself.

 

(28:40):

You're no longer present. You can't possibly let any love in, and you're no longer the centered. Okay? Happy eye of the storm. You yourself are the fricking hurricane, and I did it to myself and I'm sure you do it to yourself time and time and time again. And that's just the first one. There are two more ways that I have been actively fighting my happiness. I guarantee you're going to relate to them. So don't you dare go anywhere you'll be happy you didn't because I'm going to be back after a short break. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins, and today you and I are digging into the truth about happiness, the fact that it's an inside job and that you need to learn how to let it in, that there are things that you are doing just like there are lots of things I've been doing that block happiness.

 

(29:32):

We've already covered the first one, which is when you yourself lock yourself in your head and you're no longer present, when you're up in your mind and you're worried and you're distracted, you're not in your life. So of course you're not allowing happiness. In the second way that I personally was blocking my own happiness is what I call picking up a sword. This is where you go through life and you feel like you're constantly bracing for a fight. Now, if you're the kind of person where you're constantly in the go, you're kind of hypervigilant, you're on edge, you can see around corners, you're anticipating the next move, I want you to be honest with yourself. What does it feel like when your baseline day-to-day existence is that you got to be ready for a fight that you literally wake up and it's like boom, the avengers, you've dropped into the day and you're bracing for the fight and everything's going to be a struggle.

 

(30:30):

And when you walk into work and what your boss says, and that text that you didn't get to, that was me. That was me, that there's this kind of way of moving through your life where you convince yourself that somebody's mad at you or that something's going to be hard or that you're annoyed with something or disgruntled with it. And the first time that somebody really called me out on this again, because I on the outside am a very positive person, I'm great with other people, it's how I relate to myself. That is the real problem. It's the energy that I create internally that is robbing me of happiness. I had no problem spreading it. It's that boom, I would shut the door and block it from me experiencing it. So here I am. This was a couple of years ago, I was hosting a daytime talk show.

 

(31:22):

I'm standing at CBS Broadcast Center here in New York, and my executive producer casually turns to me and she's like, why are you always so mad at Sony Pictures, your production company? It's like you have to have somebody that you're against. You have this energy, Mel, where you're like, it's like our team against Sony. And she was right. And when I look in the mirror and I see the human being look at back at me that's been in my DNA for as long as I can remember that there is someone out to get me, that there is someone that I'm against. And so if you are the kind of person who seems to always be mad at somebody, whether it's your boss or you're annoyed with your spouse or you're mad at the school, the school is doing this thing, or you get all fired up about politics or the news or you're in line at the airport, you're all agitated because the line next to you is moving faster than the line that you're in and the agent is at.

 

(32:29):

This is an example of having a sword in your hand. I was the same way. I want you to just stop and think about that. What does that feel like in your day-to-day life? You're walking into the grocery store. Are you breezy easy with the swinging doors or are you walking in there steely bank vault sword in your hand? I was the kind of person that moved through life with a smile on my face and a fight in my belly. And if you're nodding along going, yeah, yeah, that's me. I brace a lot. I'm prepared for the worst. I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop. I'm kind of angry at people. I don't get it. Drop the sword. There is no fight. And if you've been bracing for one your whole life, trust me, if there's a fight, you'll be ready. You got that handled.

 

(33:21):

What you don't know how to do is to be at peace. What you don't know how to do is to not let the things outside of you create a storm inside of you that is so unnecessary and unhealthy and it is a learned behavior that you can unlearn. What I love about this visual of the sword is you can feel it in your body, can't you? If you're not driving a car, I want you to take your two hands like you're gripping a sword and your elbows automatically come up and you kind of brace. And that is what it felt like for me. The bills would arrive in the mailbox bracing. I'm trying to pick a line in the grocery store bracing. I'm going to pick the wrong line. There's something that's going to go tell me. Does that kind of internal energy, does that feel like a bank door that's closed off or does that feel like this kind of swinging thing?

 

(34:24):

You know the answer because in some area of your life, you've picked up the sword, you've got to fight. You're bracing for something, and that is a way in which you're blocking happiness. It's a way in which you are engaged in a campaign which is a fight for misery, and you have the power to stop that, to drop the sword. 

(35:21):

And it's this being focused on what's wrong. Yep. This is a thing. This is a thing. And in fact, you know because you listen to this show that there is something called the negativity bias. Their are wired to magnify the negative. So you're fighting against some of your own wiring, but you can take this to a whole terrible level. If you're the kind of person that is constantly hyper-focused on the one person who hasn't texted you back, that's a problem. If you're the person who is chasing somebody that is not interested in you, that's a problem. And when you are so focused on what's not working, you know what happens? You miss the fact that there are so many things that are working. You miss the fact that there are a lot of people that are saying amazing things behind your back. It's not all people who are gossiping.

 

(36:15):

There are a lot of people that say great things about you, but you don't let that end. There are a lot of people that show up for you in your life and that love you, but you don't let that end, do you? No, no, no, no. You're complaining about the people that aren't inviting you here. That is an example of how you actively engage in a campaign of misery. You focus on that. You're intentional about that. You are so steely about it. You're right about it. You have shut off any other possibility in your life. The doors are not swinging in and out because you have got your sword. You are focused on what is wrong and you are willing to fight to the death about this thing. Here's another example of how you focus on what's wrong. So when I was on the Today Show a couple days ago, they had these questions that people had submitted on video, and there was this one awesome woman who said that, Mel, it's my goal to spend 15 minutes a day and exercise as a mom, do some yoga, do something for myself, put myself first 15 minutes a day.

 

(37:12):

I got a young toddler. And here's the question. I've only been 50% effective. How can I be better at this? Let me just say something here. If you have a toddler and you're still able to find 15 minutes for yourself 50% of the time, that's amazing. Do not bash yourself for that. 50% positive is awesome, but when you are engaged in a campaign of misery, what do you do? You don't see the good. You don't see 50%. I'm doing it right? I'm going to call that thing out. Note, you focus on the fact that I'm only doing 50%. That's a way that you're not letting the good flow in. How many times do you do that? How many times do you discount what you are doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did great. I met my quota, but I didn't do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done all this great stuff on our house, but we had to do it ourselves that you don't allow the good in.

 

(38:15):

So those are the three biggest ways that I was actively blocking happiness. And I want to summarize them again that number one, you're not present. You are so closed off, you're so locked up in your mind, you're so worried about everything else and everyone else and worrying about this that you're not even present. And if you're not even present, of course you can't let things in. Number two, that you pick up the sword. You are bracing for a fight. Everything is a fight. The customer service rep, the line that's moving too slowly, everything has to have a sword to it. Just drop it. That energy blows and you don't have to go through your life like that. And the third way that you block happiness, I'm sure, is you're not focused on what's working. You are so focused on what's wrong, what's not working that you're not allowing the good to flow in.

 

(39:12):

Now that you're like, oh God, okay, yeah, I'm a miserable. You know what? And now I don't know what to do because I've just listened to a podcast on happiness and now I feel horrible. So thanks a lot Mel Robbins for making me realize that I am actively engaged in ruining my life and not allowing happiness in. Well, here's the good news. Now that you know that you're doing this, you can actually choose to do something different. And there are simple ways you can practice this. If I can go from being a miserable wench internally to a very happy content person that is not hijacked by other people or the storms around me, you can too. So here are two things that I want you to do. First of all, visualize the swinging doors. This has helped me so much. I do this almost every day of my life.

 

(40:04):

Notice your energy. Are you going through your day-to-day life and you are allowing the doors to swing in and out? Are you allowing the good to flow in? Because that was the hardest part for me, and I'm sure it is the hardest part for you. When something good happens, acknowledge it. Let the good come in. Second thing, when somebody gives you a compliment, don't brush it off. Look the person in the eyes and say thank you. When somebody says, do you need some help with that? Can I help you? Don't say no. That's your bank vault door. Shutting out happiness, not allowing it to flow into you. Let someone help you. I can give you an example. This is something I'm working on. I am so used to traveling that when I pull up to a hotel in my Uber and I jump out of the car and somebody is awesome outside of the hotel, I was like, Hey, can I help you with your bag?

 

(40:55):

I'm like, oh no. I've dragged it all the way from Boston. I can get it. No, let them help you. Let it in. That's a way that you can practice this. And here's a third simple way that you can practice this. Do you tell people that you love them? I'm not talking like, Hey, love you, bro. That's not what I'm talking about. The fact is most people do not tell people that they love them. I am constantly shocked and sad by how many of you write in and say that your parents never told you that they love you? I mean, this is a big deal. It's just three words. And this is a way that you can be the swinging doors. I was having this conversation with Oakley and one of his really good buddies and his friend shared something really cool with Oakley. He basically said to Oak, I wrote one of my college essays for the college applications about you.

 

(41:54):

And Oakley was like, really? What was it about? He said, well, I wrote about the fact that you always tell me that you love me. Every time we're hanging out as a group of friends, you just say, Hey, you guys, I love you. I'll see you later. And you just do it. And it's had a real impact on me. And now we all do it as friends. And it made me realize how closed off everyone in my family is that nobody actually says it. And so I've started doing it. Now, that's a small example of somebody who didn't even know that this was possible. He was around somebody who was freely letting that flow in and out. Lots of hugs. I love you all the time when he's hanging up the phone when he's saying goodbye at the end of school. And now guess what?

 

(42:42):

This friend of his is now saying it to his family and his brothers and sister and his parents are saying it back. It's an example of what I'm talking about and how much we all want it. And finally, the exercise.