 So, what do you think happened when I started making just enough to get by? Oh, god damn it. How long do you think that happiness lasted, by the way, guys? I didn't even notice it happened, right? And suddenly in my head I'm like, oh man, yeah, but imagine all the people I could influence if I was like running in the whole of Australia. And imagine if we could like, you know, get this going, imagine if we get this podcast going, imagine if, and I was like, oh man, I should actually start using my life coaching more. Now that I'm well-known as a dating coach, I'm stuck in the life of a man, right? My wants multiplied exponentially, okay? I was less happy having achieved that goal than I was before I achieved it, even though it was something that I very much wanted. It didn't actually bring the happiness that in theory it should have, okay? So this is what Hedonia graph actually looks like, when we, if you take someone who typically lives their lives pursuing any type of hedonistic result, okay? Something that short-lived what essentially do you get guys, you get this, you get day one, you start low, you go, I want to make myself happy, bam! Shoot up, yeah, I'm feeling great, I'm feeling great. How long does that last? We know it doesn't last very long. We shoot back down. The next day we say, ooh, no, no, no, I'm going to do something to make myself happy again, happy, happy again, bam! We shoot up. You get this, this typical up and down. I know, I know a lot of you guys recognize this, okay? You recognize this and it might not be day-to-day, it might be one week to the other week, it might be hour-to-hour, but it's like it's up and down. It's up and down, okay? It's manic depressive, but it's not clinical, manic depressive, so, you know, none of you are taking medication for it. But that's the thing. This is what's going on. Sure, you live some of your life up here, but where is so much of your life spent? Below the curve, not being satisfied, not being happy with the way your life's going. So what does it look like? Who can we look to for a role model for hedonistic living? For living your life, trying to keep that happiness bucket as full as possible, okay? Well, me personally, I like to choose this man here. He has, who would like to have some of what he's got? His money, his fame, his boyish good looks, his charm. He's got a lot of talent this guy, right? And let's face it, he's been filling that happiness bucket for quite a while. With women, with drugs, with success, money, it's coming in. And we all know that he's winning. He's winning, right? But it's not, and we all know it. This is not a happy person. This is not a guy for everything he's got. I guarantee you there's probably people in this, there's definitely people here who are happier than him, who actually get more out of life than this guy, okay? We all know that. We all know that this common thing that, you know, happiness, money doesn't buy happiness, success doesn't buy happiness, having 50 women on hand doesn't buy happiness, right? And then some smile ass always goes, yeah, but I was rich and I was sad, I just buy something to cheer myself up. That's what, that's what he does, doesn't work so well, right? You know, I've got a very big, who here is a fan at all of Buddhist philosophy? I've got to have a few here in the audience, I'm a huge fan, I'm a huge fan. You know, religions are fascinating things for me, I'm not religious, but I've actually done a lot of reading about comparative religion and how religions form in the psychology and anthropology behind how religions like develop over time and one very interesting thing is if you read the Bible, the Christian Bible and you read that as an interpretation, not as heaven being this place where this person God resides, and you just read it as heaven being a state of enlightenment, nirvana, okay? There's actually a lot of really interesting parallels between the Bible and Buddhist teaching, but that's a story for another day. If you read it that way and then you look at statements like, you know, it's easier for a rich, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle and a rich man to get in heaven, this is the thing. And if you've traveled very often, well notice that people in poor countries seem happier than people in wealthy countries. They have less, they have terrible, terrible, often irrigation problems, terrible, terrible police, corruption everywhere, right? Life is tough, life expectancy is down, and yet what, they're happier, okay? It's not about the stuff we have. And I find it fascinating that we've known this for thousands of years and still hasn't sunk in into Western psychology, Western way of thinking, okay, that there's something going wrong here, okay? So let's have a look at the other style. What have we got? We've got something called eudaimonia. And it manifests itself in the human brain in a completely different way. So eudaimonia, guys, eudaimonia is essentially a state of doing, a state of pursuit, okay? Instead of looking for a specific end outcome, eudaimonia is a state of pursuit of something you love, the state of pursuit of something you love. It's not about attaining, it's not about an end outcome, it's just a matter of being in the process of going for what you want in life. You know, James touched on that briefly, right? You've got to be a man that goes for what you like, but that's where the pleasure's going to come from. That's where the pleasure has to be derived from, you go for what you want. And the more you do that in life, the more you start being someone who becomes, hey, this is what I want, this is the direction I'm heading. The more you start to light up this eudaimonic happiness, okay? Most people would explain it, hey, we've all had it before, right? You know when you suck it under the gym, two weeks in a row? How is your feeling about life in general, up or down? And it stays up, right? Stays up for a period of time, not indefinitely, but it stays up, right? It stays up if you're at uni and you've actually been doing all your assignments on time. Where does it go? It stays up, right? Doesn't just go, yeah, did my assignment, woo, crap. Now I'm gonna focus on doing 50 other assignments. Tends not to be, we actually feel good about ourselves. Even if we look and go crap, I've got 50 others to go, we feel good. Hey, I've accomplished one, yeah, I'm on the way, okay? I'm in the process. So, you know, right, eudaimonic pleasures include things like hobbies, things that we enjoy, things that we love, right? Surfing, rock climbing if you may. I like some of this physical stuff, but it's gonna be different for different people, fitness, getting healthy, being in the process. If you go, I'm gonna be healthy, I'm gonna be fit, right? There isn't meant to be an endpoint goal, there really isn't. You are getting into shape, you are going to gym, right? I go to gym five, six days a week. Doing this, why? Not because I'm going on competition, not because I'm playing a sport, because I want to be in shape. I'm in the process of being healthy, okay? It's just an ongoing pursuit, and that makes me happy. It makes me feel good, because I'm going in a direction of, I'm in the process of achieving. Me, what I do, I love what I do, okay? But I'll tell you, something really, really dangerous, really dangerous for anyone. Anyone, you talk to any of the coaches here, it's the same deal. The second you focus instead on money and outcomes, and this is business, this isn't just teaching dating coaching or life coaching. The second you start focusing on money, or the second you start focusing on end outcomes, it all falls to shit. It really does, it's really dangerous, it's very hard. You've got to run a business, you have to turn a profit to make sure you pay the people who work for you, et cetera, et cetera. But it's very dangerous, you get to become focused on money, my coaching goes down, my happiness goes down, my life contentment goes down, everything goes downhill. I have to be focused on a state of attainment, ongoing state that this is the direction I want to go, I'm moving this direction consistently, consistently, consistently. That's how I feel my happiness bucket, not with this, not with this hedonistic, ooh, this makes me happy, so I'll throw it in the bucket, ooh, this makes me happy, no, this is what I love, so I'm going to pursue it. And being in pursuit of what I love, that fills my bucket, that makes me happy, that gives me confidence in who I am, it gives me clarity on who I am, and this is what you're going to look like. You're not going to stop having good and bad days. In fact, we're all aware of women's emotional cycles. A lot of you probably don't know men have cycles too. Our bodies actually go through hormonal cycles that just not as pronounced as a woman's and they're not timed around while bleeding from any part of our body. But we have them, we have them, so you expect to have an up and down day, doesn't matter who you are, you're going to have these ups and downs, but where do you spend most of your time? Above the curve, and where does it trend? It trends in an upwards direction, why, because the more you start pursuing this, the more content with life you become.