How we end up spending our life, especially that pesky 9-5, usually has little to nothing to do with our unique strengths and capabilities and everything to do with opportunity and survival just like it did 10,000 years ago. It certainly has almost nothing to do with what will make you happy and fulfilled in most cases. Before you throw the book away, this is not meant to be a woe is me moment of sad reflection on your wasted years. This is a TOOL that will not only help you achieve your dreams, it will help you make smarter decisions every single hour of every single day for the rest of your life… sound too good to be true? Sorry, buster, most of these therapy tools and solutions I’ll give you are that simple. It’s one of the problems the field of psychology and therapy treatment has had with their marketing strategy over the years, all this hokey stuff about gratitude, journals and butthole sunning… it sounds like total bullshit to a person who grew up in a place where we’re led to believe that the only solution to our problems is through a pill or a scalpel (or a pizza, or some money, but we’re talking about medical problems here). 

I felt exactly the same way when this was first presented to me, not just the tools but some of the basic concepts of psychological well being. Before I started therapy, I had painfully come to the conclusion on my own that my goal in life should be to be happy, not to be rich or successful or not to die alone. But I had no idea what being happy meant much less how you go about achieving it, and that scared the shit out of me. My first therapist in San Francisco was a double Harvard graduated psychiatrist, and even she couldn’t explain this basic idea of what being happy meant in a way I could understand. Think about it…really think about it, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you ask yourself what being happy means. Is your answer being with your kids or friends? Sipping espresso in a Paris Cafe? A bottle of high octane liquor? Sure those things are great in the moment, but how do you stay happy during the other 90% of your waking hours? How do you find joy while you plug away at spreadsheets in the dark, or clean your dog’s puke pile off the new carpet, or while you’re sitting in traffic fighting the urge to throw your cellphone at your screaming kid’s face. 

The answer is that happiness is not a thing, it’s a process; a process that you must (actively if you’re reading this book) perform every day. Insert joke it’s as simple as apple pie Achieving happiness, or fulfillment, or whatever you want to call living a good : Step One: define what is truly important to you, your “values” and Step Two: work and suffer every day to achieve or live up to these values

Sound excruciatingly simple? Let me explain…in order to be happy you must have a life filled with the things that make you happy. Forget about how you get there for now and think about what your life would look like in an ideal scenario from an outcome standpoint at a high level. For me i might start with: 1) I want my kids to be as happy, fulfilled, and supported as possible 2) I want to be healthy and fit 3) I want a career that fulfills me and allows me to pay my mortgage 4) I want to make time to pursue my passions like music & writing 5) I want an active social life and the type of fulfilling relationships (romantic and otherwise) that you see on sitcoms (you know where people actually care about each other…). 

By starting with the “ideal state outcome” vs. a lower level action or object (e.g. i’m hoping that you choose “feel true self worth / self confidence” as opposed to  “own a ferrari”) you will avoid doing a shitty job with step 1 by focusing on the more existential qualities of the life you want vs. some “thing” (person, place or object) that you think will make you happy. And if you really want to skip to the end I’ll give you a hint, the answer to what makes a healthy person happy will never be something they can hold in their hands. I like to envision this step as pointing myself in the right direction, whereas step two is launching the missile (I am a missile who’s purpose in life is to destroy goals in a good way in this analogy).

So I’ve made my list now so what? It looks as hokey and idealistic as a flower embroidered gratitude journal. Step two takes my sugar dusted “life goals” and turns them into more tangible goals and behaviors. All that’s required is asking myself “what will I do that is in my power to achieve this goal”. For example:

1. I want my kids to be a happy and fulfilled and supported as possible
   1. I can read 2 parenting books this year and implement 1 idea from each
   2. I can work to create a schedule and structure for our home life that will teach them responsibility 
2. I want to be healthy and fit
   1. I will continue to crossfit 5x a week
   2. I will use chat gpt to create a high level diet plan and start with getting enough protein, then once i’ve done that get enough veggies, etc.
3. I want a career that fulfills me and allows me to pay my mortgage
   1. I will take writing classes at night and work on my book while being grateful for my day job as a corporate axe man
   2. I will reach out to Adriane (former co-worker) about a potential role at Waymo (a more exciting and fulfilling corporate pursuit for me)

And so on and so forth…

I am not downplaying how laughable the prospect of “going to crossfit 5x a week” or “taking writing classes at night” might sound to most people. I’ve spent 6 long years fixing my broken self and creating the space to achieve big goals. Your Step 2 for “i want to be healthy and fit” might be “go for a walk twice a week” and that’s fucking perfect. What you will discover is it doesn’t matter if you goal is to get out of bed in the morning or cure cancer, you will get the same chemical dopamine impact (i.e. “happiness”) by simply setting a goal and following through. If you’ve been bedridden for 5 years you better believe you’re going to be as happy as that nerd who finally cracks the cancer code when you drag your ass out of bed for 5 days in a row. My therapy idol Phil Stutz calls this concept “the string of pearls” which is a beautiful articulation of a buddhist philosophy with a hard ass brooklyn twist. It is our life’s purpose to string pearls on our necklace until we die. Each pearl is a single “task” we must do to exist, and every task from pitching your shitmobile to a potential investor to taking your morning shit is just a pearl the same as the last. Once you string a pearl, you move on to the next one without looking back because ironically every pearl has a little piece of shit in it, which is Stutz’s beautiful way of saying that “nothing you do will ever be perfect, so accept your pearl will have a little shit on it and move on”.