 What's up guys? I literally just got back from two and a half weeks of eating, sleeping, meditating, and yes, shitting like a monk. So I was living on this monastery on Mount Qingcheng for two and a half weeks where half the time I was spending it living as a monk with some colleagues and some friends and some peers and then the other half was lectured by Chinese medical doctors and some of the mentors that actually are at my school. Now in this video, I want to share three of the biggest lessons that I learned living in this monastery for the last few weeks. What's up guys? Alex Hein, author of the book, Master of the Day. So one of the things, the biggest lessons anyway, that living in this monastery made me realize was that if you don't plan out what your most meaningful, fulfilling, awesome life is, then the world is going to plan it for you and the world does not have anything fun planned for you. It's not going to be the life that you want. So if you want, the first link in the description is for a free goal-setting worksheet. To help you plan out your ideal future that is the most meaningful and the most fulfilling. So you can check it out right there in the description. Now the first thing that I learned is that there are really many different kinds of discipline in life. There's the one kind of discipline, which is waking up at 5 a.m., crushing a workout, going to the office and doing work, coming home, being disciplined about eating right, focusing on your friends, your family, your goals and growth. But there's another kind of discipline, which is something that you can't show from the outside. There's the monk kind of discipline, which isn't about showing the cars you have and the success you've built or the house or the partner. It's not about any of that actually. The other kind of discipline is how little, basically how simple can I keep my life? How can I control my desires? Whereas one person may be like, I'm going to become a billionaire. What if the monk's life, which is a different kind of discipline, is just about, I feel that desire to be successful. I feel it, but I'm not going to act on it. I feel the desire to date people or have sex, but I'm not going to act on that. I feel the desire for something different every day, but I'm not going to act on that. I feel the desire to sleep longer hours, to have a different physical appearance to my body, to dress differently, and I'm just observing those are some of the desires of the mind. It's a very difficult discipline, just like becoming super successful and being happiest can be difficult. But really the difference is that one is inwardly focused, one is outwardly focused. The second thing it taught me is that we often envy what we don't have. So one of the cool things was that the abbess, so half the monks there were mostly nuns. The abbess there is good friends with one of my professors who's a doctor, and she and he had been in close contact for over 20 or 30 years. She would come to the school here in Oregon and he would go to the monastery there. And one thing about the abbess that was so fascinating to me was that she said twice a year, she goes to a different place in the world to just meditate and see how it feels in her body. She's literally been to the South Pole and the North Pole. She's seen a polar bear and she's just gone to every corner of the world just to see how it feels when she meditates that climate affecting her body. And I thought that was really, really, really cool, but it's also something that's very interesting. What's so fascinating about it is that for many of us in the busy, just oldest stuff we've got going on in life, many of us often want to and wish and have this fantasy of quitting our job and meditating in a monastery in the Himalayas, or quitting our job and like having a passive income business and we just sit on the beach drinking Mai Thais. And often when we get that thing that we thought was going to make us happy, we realize it didn't. And it made me realize that we often just envy what we don't have. It's the old grasses greener thing. So just like when I was sitting at my job so many years ago and I booked that one way ticket to China, I had this idealized version of what it would be like to become a monk. But now essentially having lived it, that brings me to my third point, which is that I guess that I'm just not a great predictor of what makes me happy, because it's funny that sometimes in life you get what you wanted, just not when you wanted. So 10 years ago, almost to the year, I had booked that one way ticket to China. I was 22 or 23 and I was unfulfilled in my daily life. I wanted to quit my job. And I said, why don't I do this because I may not get really ever in my life. I may not get another chance. So I did it. And even though then I couldn't find the monks and the mystics that I was really looking for, this time I was in this monastery. You know what I realized though? After two weeks of doing that, it would be incredibly boring for someone like me, someone who is ambitious and wants to grow internally and externally. I realized that this would not have been a very fulfilling life for me. And so sometimes we think things will make us happy, people, jobs, and opportunities. But then when we get them, we realize that we had it wrong all along. And so sometimes it's just good to be more flexible about, you know, I think this is going to bring me happiness. All right. Why don't I try it for 100 days and just see. Because maybe you'll realize like I realized what I had idealized as a fulfilling simple life was that of the monk. And now that I kind of had it, I realized there's not that much there for me. And you don't need to be in a remote monastery in China anyway to become a monk or leave that kind of life with those virtues. So I hope that helps you guys. Some of the insights that I had during this trip was a great experience either way. And I'm very grateful for it. And it's just one of those things that make you realize that, you know, maybe you're the abyss of the monastery and what really fulfills and excites you is not just your daily duties, but going to the North Pole or the South Pole to see polar bears or to travel all over the world. And maybe you realize this person or quitting your job or taking that trip or buying that house, maybe it's not the right thing that'll fulfill you. And you have to think closer about what it is that really will. So if you have any trouble figuring those things out, check the first link in the description because down below there I've included a free download for a goal setting worksheet, which is really all about planning out the vision you have of your most ideal life, fulfilling, happy, successful. So click the link in the description, fill that out, check it out. I hope it'll help you. And then come check out my last related videos right there and right there.