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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-05
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpg9WnlJMnM
so I was raised in a commune in the woods of southern Oregon for most of my life I do like to talk about it much if you're coming to age in the sixties you know exactly what a commune is it's a place where people would live together and share the work can they would share their material possessions that's not to say that everybody was equal in
our Kanyon in fact my family was unofficially second class but the rules for advancement Robert shifting such that we never really felt staple the risk cooperation for sure but there was a lot of competition a lot of manipulation I remember when I was a teenager I got into a heated argument with a good friend of mine and I ended up an agenda topic for an upcoming
meeting of all the adults so being somewhat resourceful I found hidden location where I could listen in on the meeting without being detected and I wish I hadn't because I heard myself labelled as a troublemaker as a button pusher and I burned with anger because I felt those judgments about my character we're being shared the lift me up there be sure to keep me in my
place it was that moment and in moments like along the way the cosmetic make a promise to myself give me time you give me a fair shot not prove that I can be successful you don't get lost in a light from somewhere I want from a commune bit of a chip on my shoulder something to prove my parents decided to take the family and the comunica
actuated high school neck quickly started making life decisions that would make a life planner absolutely cringe I married my high school sweetheart when I was but a teenager I decided I was gonna skip college altogether I join the circus not really headed but I did join and under capitalized family start a business which is a lot like a circus with some of the first people to
build telecommunication towers to make the cellular networks work thanks to climb those it was the wide open wild west we were building a business in a lot of ways having left economy we were building a new life and I loved it I fell in love with the entrepreneur lifestyle the business grew I had a chance to become an owner we expanded up and down the west
coast and before long we were fortunate to receive an offer to sell our comp it's so with my lawyer with my dad we travel to Philadelphia and we met in the prestigious law offices of the choir and firm and that day we signed papers that's my dad on the right on the one with the puffy shoulders on the left and at that coat from the nineties
and I flew home at twenty seven years old worth more money than I ever thought I'd see suddenly life is pretty good but that sports car I'd always dreamt about chewing the Country Club build a house the nicest part of town all the markers of success we're falling into place you never achieved a major life goal the kind you choose every day what did that feel
like for you when you blog I bet it was amazing how did that feeling last and what did you do next so many of us are like the proverbial dog chasing the car we have no idea what's going to happen after we actually sink our teeth into the tire I remember coming across an article I discovered a phrase sudden wealth syndrome and I remember one quote
from that article the tech executive it struck it rich he said having more money just allow me to make bigger mistakes and when I heard that I was living those mistakes and I was feeling the pain of the thump thump thump of having caught that core with no plan he had fancied myself an investor so invested in a technology company in Florida and a services company
in California and a cellular license in the populous state of Montana and restaurants throughout Oregon and they all have one thing in common I lost every single penny and every single one of them along the way I cultivated a bit of a taste for life in the fast lane summer travel less accountability in structure more opportunity for choices that would compromise my values and undermine my
confidence you see many people can pass the test of adversity but a better test of our character to see how we handle the test excess using the money was painful losing my self respect I was much worse how disappointed I was embarrassed and perhaps I was humbled I started asking myself better questions like what's really motivating you and how would I screwed things up so badly
so quickly and my life changed when I got that answer I finally knew what was wrong with me I have been grateful I was many fics I was determined I was driven I was ambitious but I was not grateful she gratitude is acknowledging a gift received but that dog chasing the car I was doing exactly what came naturally but for many of us particularly driven personality
types gratitude doesn't come naturally ambitious people struggle to feel satisfaction for two reasons that I've seen first we're so forward focused on that next challenge in that next opera we never stop to value what we've been given we appreciate where we come from so why would we protect what we don't value second we believe the pass dissatisfaction is through achievement the satisfaction doesn't live on the
other side of achievement satisfaction lives on the other side of gratitude well I want to essentially the same thing contentment fulfillment peace the promise of peace for most of us use of mythical place we rarely get to visit and we never get to live I figured out my default temperament is triple a almost always anxious I have to admit I was often motivated by envy of
what other people had of what other people were achieving even though I've been given so much and I've learned to use gratitude is as powerful antidote to back out all these negative emotions that would flood over me and what I discovered is it when I filter my feelings with gratitude gratitude actually changes those feelings and I call this entire re orientation process of my thinking our
gratitude adjustment I'm sure with the portions of the gratitude adjustment that's meant the most to me over the last decade now I do this in the shower because several reasons first I need a shower every day and I need gratitude everyday but also I know they're not going to get distracted so here's what I did I think about god and I think about the beauty and
the wonder of this natural world and I just expressed thanks for whatever comes to mind could be the colors of a sunset at the Oregon coast or changing of the seasons in the west the diversity of people and cultures I expressed thanks for things I understand in for things I don't understand and I take a step back and I remind myself I had nothing to do
with any of that so it's really important for me to remember I'm holding this all together it helps me think about forgiveness accepting forgiveness extending forgiveness the people who I think might run me in the past forgiving myself you know it's impossible to feel grateful and hateful at the same time if you don't believe that go try it at home and I like to finish my
exercise by thinking through what I call my domain areas where I've been given influence as a father for children has a husband to my high school sweetheart as a mentor as an author as a business owner as an American and I expressed thanks for the privilege of serving in each of those areas it was a good exercise takes me two minutes or ten minutes if I
open up my heart and I get past the noise in my head without fail by the time I leave that shower my emotional outlook is completely changed you see gratitude changes everything because it works like a lens through which we see everything else Cicero said gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others doctor Sonya Lubomirski is an expert in the
field a positive psychology she's a professor of psychology at UC riverside she earned her a lot undergrad from Harvard her PhD from Stanford Sheena colleagues have done thousands of hours of research and what makes us happy she illustrates this in a concept she called the happiness pa I you get to debate on the flavor of this pie this morning so it turns out about fifty percent
of what makes people happy is tied to their genetics we each get a set point based on our DNA some people are naturally a little bit happier than others that's where we start they discovered this by researching identical twins who were raised in completely different environments and what they found is despite their completely different environments be returned to a very similar set point because of their
DNA so if fifty percent of what makes us happy is our DNA what makes up the other half you might be tempted to think well our circumstances well not really in fact our circumstances only make up ten percent roughly of what makes us happy so money possessions beauty social status that stuff only moves the needle ten percent that's not even a good dessert but it's worse
than that this ten percent is very unstable sociologist look at it like a treadmill or an endless track do something called hedonic adaptation let me explain what that is have you ever observed when something bad even dramatic happens in somebody's life how over time they learn to deal with to cope you don't adaptation observes that when something good even amazing happens to us we learn to
deal with those new circumstances as well so if we're chasing happiness by achievement and stuff pretty soon that emotional buyers wears off and we are right back to chasing again perhaps this is why we as a culture spent countless hours scouring the digital pawnshop of our smart but at the same time we're ignoring the treasures we already have but here's the happiness pie punch line that
gives me so much hope a third thirty percent of what makes us happy is intentional activity it's how we think and it's the actions that we will take in response to those thoughts you cannot change your DNA and by now you may agree that more stuff isn't gonna do the trick either but this forty percent you can change this is where we do the hard work
of thinking through what do we really think is important in life in making intentional steps taking intentional activity in that direction this tremendous satisfaction from making meaningful progress in an area that you feel is important I can't tell you how that discovery process should work for you because we're all unique but I would strongly suggest start with gratitude because gratitude gives prospective for that work of
the top thirty character traits the research says the gratitude uniquely predicts satisfaction with life ten years ago I had an opportunity to lead another company as president of start up this time I knew I had to do it differently I wanted to lead with gratitude the business grew and we became a leader in making smartphones work inside stadiums and subways and skyscrapers last year we were
fortunate to sell the business and there I was having achieved a goal and faced with that question what's next see the gratitude had prepared me had clarified what was real and what was important gratitude is really discover there's abundance headed our way it's completely disconnected from our striving it's really good to take an assessment of our gifts in our resources and the opportunities we have to
make a difference in the it's really make that shift from being driven to being the one doing the driving gratitude clarified for me what's important I know now I want to reach for my potential how would it impact my world and I want to leave a legacy but I'm not doing that out of a sense of striving in chasing now my motivation now as a response
