Your Unhappy Brain Needs Some Assistance with happiness expert Mo Gawdat

Summary

Podcast Summary: A Bit of Optimism – "Your Unhappy Brain Needs Some Assistance with Happiness Expert Mo Gawdat"

Introduction

In the episode titled "Your Unhappy Brain Needs Some Assistance," host Simon Sinek engages in a profound conversation with Mo Gawdat, a renowned happiness expert and best-selling author. Released on June 24, 2025, this episode delves deep into the essence of happiness, exploring how one can cultivate joy by addressing internal stressors rather than seeking external sources of happiness.

Mo Gawdat’s Journey to Happiness

Mo Gawdat's path to becoming a happiness expert was marked by profound personal tragedy. Following the tragic death of his 21-year-old son, Ali, due to medical malpractice, Mo was thrust into a deep exploration of happiness and its origins. Despite a successful career as the Chief Business Officer at Google X, Mo found himself grappling with misery and depression, which ultimately led him to redefine his understanding of happiness.

Notable Quote:

[00:13] Mo Gawdat: "If you understand that your default setting is happy, then there is nothing you need to bring from outside you to find happiness. You need to remove shit to be happy."

The Philosophy of Happiness

Central to Mo's philosophy is the belief that happiness is not something one finds externally but a state that is practiced internally. He emphasizes that humans are naturally predisposed to happiness from birth, and societal influences often obscure this inherent trait. According to Mo, the key to happiness lies in removing internal stressors rather than adding external pleasures.

Key Points:

• Default Happiness: Mo asserts that every child is born with a default setting of happiness, which diminishes as external pressures and negative experiences accumulate.
• Negation Strategy: Contrary to popular approaches that focus on adding elements to achieve happiness, Mo advocates for an "elimination" process—identifying and removing sources of stress and unhappiness.

Notable Quote:

[00:26] Mo Gawdat: "You need to remove shit to be happy. And that negation strategy is quite an interesting one."

Practical Techniques for Cultivating Happiness

Mo shares actionable strategies that listeners can implement to foster happiness in their lives:

1. Stress Stock-Taking: Every Saturday, Mo dedicates time to reflect on the past week, listing down sources of stress and systematically addressing them. This involves removing or mitigating factors that contribute to unhappiness.

   Notable Quote:

   [31:13] Mo Gawdat: "I write down everything that stressed me the week before and scratch out the shit that I don't want to stress me the next week."

2. Silent Retreats: Mo practices occasional silent retreats, dedicating half a day to complete solitude and reflection. This helps in silencing the incessant chatter of the mind and reconnecting with the present moment.

3. Meet Becky Technique: Mo personifies his brain as "Becky," an annoying friend who constantly nags with negative thoughts. By engaging with Becky—writing down each negative thought and dismissing it—Mo effectively quiets his mind.

   Notable Quote:

   [74:18] Mo Gawdat: "When you call it out on repeating itself... this is as close to heaven as you'll ever get. Total silence."

4. Presence and Mindfulness: Emphasizing the importance of living in the present, Mo encourages practices that anchor individuals to the "now," reducing anxiety rooted in past regrets or future uncertainties.

   Notable Quote:

   [67:20] Mo Gawdat: "Now is always amazing. The idea of bringing yourself to the now is always bringing yourself away from the incessant thinking that's creating madness within your head."

Challenges in Spreading the Happiness Message

Mo addresses the skepticism and resistance he encounters when promoting his message. Many people dismiss happiness as trivial or equate it with weakness. Additionally, societal norms often prioritize external achievements and material success over internal well-being, making it challenging to reach a broader audience.

Key Points:

• Preaching to the Converted: Mo acknowledges that his message often resonates only with those already inclined towards personal growth, questioning how to reach those who are indifferent or resistant.
• Cultural Perceptions: In various cultures, happiness is misunderstood or undervalued, requiring nuanced approaches to communicate its importance effectively.

Notable Quote:

[39:16] Mo Gawdat: "It's a lot more nuanced than the simple slogans... 'Money most of the time doesn't buy you happiness, poverty buys you unhappiness.'"

The Importance of Being Present

Both Simon and Mo emphasize the significance of mindfulness and being present in daily activities. By paying attention to small, seemingly mundane moments—like making coffee or taking a walk—individuals can enhance their overall sense of well-being and reduce feelings of stress and dissatisfaction.

Key Points:

• Mindful Activities: Engaging fully in simple tasks can transform them into sources of joy and accomplishment.
• Negative Space: Allowing time for unstructured, mindful reflection fosters creativity and emotional balance.

Notable Quote:

[64:07] Simon Sinek: "Making breakfast in the morning... I'm paying attention as if it's a choreography, as if it's a piece of dance."

Balancing Mission and Well-being

Mo discusses the delicate balance between pursuing a mission-driven life and maintaining personal well-being. He highlights the pitfalls of being overly target-driven, which can lead to burnout and a loss of genuine happiness. Instead, Mo advocates for a constant, mindful approach to progress, focusing on daily practices rather than distant goals.

Key Points:

• Mission vs. Targets: Shifting focus from specific targets to a broader mission can sustain motivation and fulfillment.
• Flexibility and Adaptation: Regularly reassessing one's direction and being open to change ensures alignment with personal values and happiness.

Notable Quote:

[84:38] Mo Gawdat: "I don't measure that anymore... it's about constantly moving in the right direction at the best of your capabilities."

Conclusion

The episode offers a rich exploration of happiness, blending personal anecdotes with actionable strategies. Mo Gawdat's insights emphasize that happiness is an internal practice, achievable through mindful reflection, eliminating sources of stress, and embracing the present moment. While challenges exist in disseminating this message universally, the conversation underscores the profound impact these practices can have on individual well-being.

Final Takeaways:

• Happiness is a Choice: Empower individuals to take control of their happiness by addressing internal barriers.
• Practical Application: Implement techniques like stress stock-taking and silent retreats to foster a happier mindset.
• Continuous Growth: Embrace a mission-driven approach, prioritizing well-being alongside personal and professional goals.

Notable Quote:

[56:37] Mo Gawdat: "Nothing from outside you will bring you happiness... Happiness is your default setting."

This episode serves as both an inspiration and a practical guide for anyone seeking to understand and cultivate true happiness in their lives.

Transcript

[Simon Sinek]

This episode is brought to you by True Classic. I wear their T shirts and have long before they became a sponsor and it's really cool to see how their company is growing. Can you share some of the things that you've learned about this happiness practice?

[Mo Gaudat]

If you understand that your default setting is happy, then there is nothing you need to bring from outside you to find happiness. You need to remove shit to be happy. And that negation strategy is quite an interesting one.

[Simon Sinek]

So that's good. This is so actionable. I love this. Which is it's the reverse of what most people do, which is they make a list of the things that they, I think will bring them happiness. But what you do is you make the list of the things that are causing you stress and you go about removing them.

[Mo Gaudat]

You remove the unconsciousness.

[Simon Sinek]

It's a removal process, not an adding process.

[Mo Gaudat]

And there is a reason for that.

[Simon Sinek]

So good. Being happy is a choice, but that doesn't mean it's an easy choice. Mo Gaudat had to face that choice under the most excruciating of circumstances. After the tragic death of his 21 year old son, Ali, Mo was forced to contemplate how being happy could even be a possibility. After a meteoric and lucrative career as chief business officer at Google X, he had all the money and all the power, but he was miserable. It sounds strange to say, but it took the death of his son to teach him how to find happiness. Now a best selling author, Mo has dedicated his work to figuring out where true happiness comes from. And it starts with a powerful truth. Happiness isn't something we find, it's something we practice by choosing joy even when life hurts. This is a bit of optimism. You are living proof at an extreme level that human beings can hold two opposite feelings at the same time.

[Mo Gaudat]

Oh wow. Are we starting that deep? Yes, sir. That's actually.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah. I shouldn't start that deep, should I? I went straight in. We don't have to start there. We can.

[Mo Gaudat]

No, no, we start anywhere. But it.

[Simon Sinek]

I was, but it's when I was. When I was learning about you, you know. Yeah. We could talk about tech and how you all this. But. But at the end of the day, one of the. I learned this during lockdown.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

You know, because my business was thrown into chaos.

[Mo Gaudat]

I know.

[Simon Sinek]

And secretly I was loving it because I like chaos. Because there's creativity in chaos. And I was having fun and I had tremendous guilt that I was having fun. And I didn't tell anybody I was having fun because I was also mourning the insanity and the loss and death and fear. And I struggled with those opposing feelings. Guilt for having fun and yet having real sadness. And I learned during lockdown during COVID era, I learned that human beings can hold to sometimes opposing feelings. It's at the same time, it's the.

[Mo Gaudat]

Design of the universe, my friend. It is the uncertainty principle at its best. I think the idea of paradoxical existence is probably one of the least celebrated forms of intelligence, which I tend to believe is a bit more associated with the feminine. You know, those who associate with the feminine will be a little more comfortable with looking you in the eyes and say, I love you, but I fucking hate you at the same time. You know that feeling?

[Simon Sinek]

I've heard that said to me, and.

[Mo Gaudat]

It'S actually, it holds true. And, you know, and it goes deep into, you know, situations where people would want to believe that one side is right and the other is wrong, when everyone is wrong, or that one side is wrong and the other is right, when everyone's right. And. And, you know, and it is quite a. It's quite a. As a frowned upon, let's say, a view in the business world, because you need certainty and data to be able to make a decision and back it up and say, I made it because of this.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And. But it is important because life is not that straightforward.

[Simon Sinek]

At the risk of going too deep too soon.

[Mo Gaudat]

No, go for it.

[Simon Sinek]

Let's back up a second because you and I know what we're talking about, but people on the other end may not know what we're talking about. How you at an extreme level, hold two feelings simultaneously. Unbelievable loss and unbelievable discovery.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

Is that fair to put it that way?

[Mo Gaudat]

It would be at the time. It would be quite challenging to call it a loss now, honestly.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

So Ali Habibi. I have Ali and a. My son and my daughter.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And Ali, was that one of those people that, you know, sort of overwhelmingly make you love them like it is, you know, those people. It's like you're trying to find something that sort of like breaks it a little bit.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

But he had, you know, when he was in his. In his early teens, Ali. Most of his photographs with his friends, he would be standing in the middle and like, six girls from this side and two boys and five girls on the other side holding him, you know, like, literally reaching out. He had this incredible, incredible presence to him. And. And then he leaves and, you know, he, He. He leaves our world because of a. A medical malpractice, basically. Simplest. Simplest. And, And. And and, and, and shock because he, he was studying in Northeastern in Boston at the time and he had, you know, he had the band and they were touring the US in summer and then he texts in May and says, hey guys, I feel obligated. Verbatim, yeah. To come and see you before the tour. And so we say of course Habibi will book his tickets. A. And my daughter was studying in Canada was coming as well. I took a couple of weeks off as if almost I knew, I don't know. And then he gets an appendix inflammation, the simplest surgery ever. And the surgeon does five mistakes in a row, every one of them fixable, every one of them avoidable to start. And he fixes three of them wrong.

[Simon Sinek]

And so it's malpractice on top of malpractice.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah, I'd, I mean it took me quite a bit of time not to rage because also rage wouldn't have brought Ali back if you think about it. But anyway, four hours later, Ali is no longer with us. And you and I know that, you know, if you sort of are paid your whole life to fix problems and so you have that mentality that everything's fixable if you put enough bandwidth to it. Not death, no. And suddenly you're faced for the very first time with something that really stops you in your tracks. And my daughter and Ali were. Aya and Ali were very close.

[Simon Sinek]

And so what's the age difference?

[Mo Gaudat]

One and a half? One, one and a bit super close. Yeah. One and four months or something like that. And Ali was quite a. Honestly, he was the masculine figure in her life. I was running around like a typical businessman closing billion dollar deals and you know, celebrating my ego. And he would call her every single day, literally Boston and Montreal, not very far. And he would go visit her every. Like really he was the father figure if you want, two weeks before he dies he, he tells her that he had a dream that he was everywhere and part of everyone, which, which if you understand spirituality, of course I understand that now but you know, if you understand, if you have a spiritual inclination, being outside space time in your non physical form gets. Lends you the ability to be everywhere and part of everyone. But that's not how I understood it then. I was then chief business officer of Google X. I had previously been the vice president of emerging markets at Google for seven years. So I had basically opened most of Google's businesses worldwide and, and, and so I knew how to make something everywhere and part of everyone if you want. And so my, the, the message in My mind and my heart really was blur. I heard her say everywhere and part of everyone. And I thought of it as a target. And so I basically, seriously. And it's so weird because all I could hear myself saying is, of course, habibi, consider it done if that's your wish.

[Simon Sinek]

It's a business plan.

[Mo Gaudat]

It's a business plan.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And my devious plan, interestingly, I mean, if you know the story. Before I was the typical success, success story, I was filthy rich by age 29. And I had this very unusual math skill and I was a software developer and like Malcolm Gladwell would say, the, you know, in outliers, right place at the right time. So my peak was when the Internet started. I coded at the time, 1996, a bit of a crawler, like the Google crawlers afterwards, where I would go across the Internet, find news about stocks and I would wake up every morning at 6am with buy and sell recommendations and print money on demand. So it's really, really successful. And I mean, I don't know if I call that success now, but let's call it rich.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And. And so the more you succeed and realize that this is not what you want, the more depressed you become. And so I was clinically depressed, everything I had, a beautiful wife, two wonderful kids, you know, massive home with the garden and swimming pool and, you know, cars and everything you want. And of course, when you're depressed, you try and you're rich, you pour money on the problem, but, you know, money doesn't solve the problem. So you become more desperate if you want. It's like, this is not solvable. And at the time, who helped me? Ali and a. So Ali was this wise little Zen monk. Yeah, it was really, really unbelievable. You would talk to him since maybe age 6 or 7, and he would literally sit there silently looking at you very curious and then asks you a couple of questions almost like, you know, to entertain you. It's like, yeah, you know, I'm interested, I'm interested. And then eventually says something like, well, you could have asked me, right? And then he would repeat what I said, blending a bit of heart in it, which I'm the algorithm guy, and says it in eight words. And I go like, holy damn. Like, this is it. Okay. And so through my depression, if you want, I learned quite a bit with Ali. And so when he died, my way of meeting the target, if you want, was I'm going to take what we discussed and put it in a book. And if I can get to 10 million people and then 72 years later, through six degrees of separation, my calculation would be that a tiny bit of his essence would be everywhere in front of everyone, weird as it sounds. And so 17 days after he dies, I'm sitting down to write about happiness. And.

[Simon Sinek]

Do you weep while you're writing about happiness?

[Mo Gaudat]

I weep almost once a week now, but then I think I stopped once a week. It is. It's not. I, you know, I think people can recognize from the bald head and the voice and the beard that I'm a manly man. But, you know, I have to say, emotions have been. We didn't give them time in this very fast paced modern world.

[Simon Sinek]

I have so many questions. There's so much. Here's the struggle with your message, if I can put it that way, which is, we know these tropes. Money can't buy happiness. We know it. We know the number of wealthy people who come in and say, but you have to understand, it didn't make me happy. We know the importance of feelings, even when we try and resist them. A lot of these things are known. And yet with all that knowledge, people still perceive that money will buy them happiness and they still pursue riches versus fulfillment or joy. That we still think we can rationalize our way through relationships or explain our way through relationships or business plan our way through our emotions. Right. Yes. And, you know, and I guess the question I'm getting at is, you know, how much are you and I preaching to the converted? How much are people listening to this? And it's only the ones who've made the conversion, made the discovery, or are predisposed to it. I mean, you talked about these, you said right at the beginning, you know, women are better at nuance. Women are better at holding paradox and two feelings simultaneously. It's more traditionally masculine to want exactness and clarity and black and white separation. Separation. You know, do we find ourselves preaching to the converted? How do we find language that somebody who knows all of the tropes says, okay, you've made me curious at least.

[Mo Gaudat]

Well, I think the challenge is it's a lot more nuanced than the simple slogans. Nothing you and I can explain, or anyone for that matter, can be summed in one sentence. 1 sentences are made for Instagram, right? While money most of the time doesn't buy you happiness, poverty buys you unhappiness. And the research will tell you that if you're unable to make ends meet, basically, if your income is less than the average income of the place you live in, then it's hard to find happiness.

[Simon Sinek]

Can I question that? I know. Does poverty buy unhappiness? Is that true or is it that we know that up until a certain income that when you gain money it actually does buy happiness?

[Mo Gaudat]

Correct.

[Simon Sinek]

Right. It's not the opposite. It's not that poverty.

[Mo Gaudat]

I was going to come to that. Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

Poverty doesn't necessarily make you.

[Mo Gaudat]

Because some of the poorest people in the world are the happiest, you know, travel to South Africa. Sorry, to Africa or to South America.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And man, it's like if we're fed today, we're going to dance and love.

[Simon Sinek]

Our heads and their lives are difficult. We have to confuse. We cannot confuse struggle and happiness.

[Mo Gaudat]

But you see, then you. Once again, is our life easy?

[Simon Sinek]

Our lives are easy.

[Mo Gaudat]

Easy on some fronts, but the mental.

[Simon Sinek]

We don't worry about food.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah, exactly. The most part. Yeah. But then what. What do we do? We create, you know, mental tigers in our heads and we run them over and over until they, they make us miserable. Right. We, we. We read too much news. We worry about the stock market. We do. You know, I'm not. What I'm trying to say is there is a certain. So many levels of. There is no answer that says money does not buy you happiness or buys you happiness. The answer is very straightforward. What is enough?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. And you know, I am today. And it's really. This is where people struggle.

[Simon Sinek]

I'm only giggling because literally last night I was having this conversation with a friend where the richer somebody is, the, the more they're concerned about their taxes.

[Mo Gaudat]

Correct.

[Simon Sinek]

Right. So like the richest people I know will live in places they don't want to live. And when you ask them why do you live there? They say taxes. I've never heard of anyone going bankrupt paying taxes. Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

You have to make money to pay taxes. And it's the ungodly rich, where if you took away, by the way, and it's only on income, it's not on assets. Right. So they only pay it once when they get that windfall and that's it, you know, But I just find that.

[Mo Gaudat]

Funny because you hyper optimize. Right. And interestingly, of course, I mean, again, for everyone listening, paying taxes is a problem of privilege. So let's not compare that to people who are hungry or in a war zone or whatever.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

But the reality is that for everyone, their problems are as far stretching as they barely can handle. So I'll give you my only example because of my eastern upbringing and my tradition. Spirituality, if you want. And because of a Very weird thing that I did in early in my life around what I call the mathematics of the Divine. I tend to strongly believe that this is not the end of life. Right. That we live here, that, you know, death is the, is the opposite of birth. It's not the opposite of life. Right. Right or wrong.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, let's say that again. That's quite profound. Death is the opposite of birth. It is not the opposite of life.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. If life was a video game, you come to this level of the game through a portal called birth, and you leave this level of the game through a portal called death, and the game continues way long before and long after. Right, right. And, you know, we can get into the mathematics of that if you want, but irrelevant. For me, that means that the loss of Ali is a tiny bit more tolerable than someone else who doesn't have that belief. Right. And so accordingly, when, when I look at my, you know, my, my, my tendency to find certainty, I have absolutely zero certainty that I'll finish this interview, but I have a hundred percent certainty that sooner or later I'll be where he is. Right. And, and if that is my mindset, then my, my, my, the, the, the weight of the problem is slightly different for me. And, and it's quite interesting. Ali habibi, he had the tattoo on his back that he never showed me. Interesting. He had it when he was 16 and he went back to his mom and said, you know, I'm so upset that I used Papa's money to buy to get it, but, you know, when I get to pay him back, I'll show it to him. Right.

[Simon Sinek]

When it's his.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. So, I mean, like, why are you so nice, you little. Anyway, anyway, so he sits up on the operating table before he walks in, before they push him in, and it shows. And it says, the gravity of the battle means nothing to those at peace. And it's the very last message.

[Simon Sinek]

How old was he?

[Mo Gaudat]

He was 21 and a half when he left.

[Simon Sinek]

I mean, 21 and a half to have. And he put that when he. On his body when he was 16.

[Mo Gaudat]

When he was 16. It's almost as if he was plotting a very complex plan to make us love him. And then, you know, literally, the gravity.

[Simon Sinek]

Of the battle means nothing to those who have peace.

[Mo Gaudat]

At peace. Yeah. And it is. And it is qu. Quite, you know, quite the message you need when he leaves four hours later. But it's also almost as if we settled all our debt to each other. Now, that concept of those at peace is very different between you and I and everyone. I am probably 10% of how rich I used to be. Okay? But I'm filthy rich compared to my current needs, which is quite interesting because there were times where I had so much money and I, you know, had to, To. To. To pour it into my depression. Okay. Or pour it into places that I was told I need to pour it into and spend days of my week worrying about those places, Right. When in reality I need. This is, I think now, $14 or something. I have maybe 14 of those a year. Do the math, right? And I still earn shitloads of money that I, you know, I'm not bragging or anything that I don't spend on myself, okay. Spend on so many other people that need it way more than me. And it's an interesting way to find happiness.

[Simon Sinek]

Did you do that before or did that come after?

[Mo Gaudat]

I did that quite a bit of my life, but I became quite extreme to the point that, you know, business people like you would think of me as completely mad.

[Simon Sinek]

You. First of all, my first mistake is thinking that I'm a business.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay, so good.

[Simon Sinek]

Your second mistake, thinking that I would think that was mad.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

I think, I think part of the joy of making money is to give it, is to share it, is to give it away. And it's really funny, you know, I, I.

[Mo Gaudat]

And. And to give it away. Not for tax purposes.

[Simon Sinek]

And not to give away. For tax purposes. Right. Yeah. The. It's a very funny thing. It goes back to masculine femininity. It's unavoidable. I meet men who have some sort of exit or liquidity event or whatever. The stock price goes up and they find themselves extremely wealthy and they leave their job. And you ask them, what do you do now? And invariably they say, I'm an investor.

[Mo Gaudat]

I'm an investor.

[Simon Sinek]

So you made shit tons of money, and your goal now is to make more money. Right. And I meet women who have some sort of liquidity event, and you ask them, what do you do? And they say, I'm a philanthropist. Now, the philanthropists are, of course, investing, and the investors are, of course, doing philanthropy. But what's so interesting is where they put the priority. That one puts the priority on the giving, and the other one puts the priority on the taking on them. And I find that fascinating. And then I talked to very. I had this conversation with somebody who's got more money than any one person needs in multiple lifetimes. And I was talking to him about philanthropy, and he almost got angry at some of my questions. He says, you don't understand how difficult it is to give money away. And I'm thinking, I don't know, I could do some damage. And I give money away the way I give to somebody on the street. I put a few dollars in the cup and I walk on with my day. I don't worry, is he going to waste it? Is it going to go to the things that I want it to go to? You take a risk and sometimes it'll go well and sometimes it won't, but that's it, it's gone.

[Mo Gaudat]

It's a portfolio approach.

[Simon Sinek]

It's a portfolio approach. I think it's less than a portfolio approach. It's a trust approach. Whereas this guy, I was talking to him and he was saying, well, you can't just give money. You have to put boundaries. And how do I know they're not going to waste it? And he's treating it like an investment of some sorts, which is he wants to pour over the management of the company and make sure that they're not destroying his investment. And my attitude is, if there's a dance company I want to give to, I give them a bunch of money with no restrictions. I don't think they're going to run off to Rio and that's it, they're gone. Where the hell are they? They closed the dance company and they're living in Fiji. I'm fairly confident that if I'm giving to them, they're going to want to make art.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

And if I'm going to give to a researcher, they're going to want to find a cure. And I don't need to put restrictions. And I find, again, the ultra wealthy put all these guardrails and they want reports back. And look, some of it's going to go badly and some of it's going to be mismanaged. 100% true. But on balance, if you're giving to good people who are trying to do good things, they'll do good with the money you give them. Or at least they'll try really, really hard to do that.

[Mo Gaudat]

Money is just a symbol. It is what it represents to you. Right. And so you'll find that someone who comes from poverty, for example, if he's, you know, $100 million worth, those hundred million dollars to him represent a risk. Right. And I know many people who are like that. Right. If you come from poverty, there is no way you can stop and tell yourself, am I now safe?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. If you come from, you know, a teenage years or where you were the slightly chubby, maybe, you know, bullied a little bit child, then money to you is in your face.

[Simon Sinek]

Right?

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. If you're the one that, you know, struggled to, because you were the geek and you know, the bad boys were getting the girls and you know, you're, you're now a founder of a tech startup, money to you represents more girls. Right, right, right. And, and, and, and the whole idea is that for most people, as I said, we struggle to find the, to define the context and specifically when the seasons change. Right. So when you're running and your method of acquiring money is being very precise about every calculation and every cent, you may become a multi zillionaire and still go to the supermarket and go like, oh, they're ripping me off on 2 cents. I'm going to walk to the next one. Right. While some others would simply say, well, you know what, 2 cents is not a big deal for me. But also, by the way, next time I'll go to the next one. And while others will simply say, hey, you know what, I don't care. I'm so rich and famous now, I don't care about the 2 cents. And each of those approaches can be judged by us because we're not them. But the trick is to ask yourself, where am I? Where am I in terms of why do I do what I want to do? And I think I learned this in my mba. I had a professor of operations management who worked at Chrysler in the 70s.

[Simon Sinek]

Back in the day.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. And he basically was talking about operations and when the Japanese entered the American market and how they started to optimize everything. Instead of this nut and bolt having four turns to be locked, let's make it three turns. And you know, now we've shaved off a quarter of a second and. Right. And then he basically would go like. But then the Japanese replaced the bolt with a clip and so it doesn't even take a fraction of a second. Okay. And, and he started to talk about why were we doing the things that we were doing. Okay. And I think that applies to life in such a massive way. Each and every one of us, if we really sit down and I do that on Saturdays to observe the seasons of your life, that you're not that teenager that was bullied anymore or that you're not that, you know, young businessman that was, you know, trying to prove, as you were quickly acquiring and learning the three letter acronyms in the company when you walked in, to try and appear, that you know more than you don't, more than you actually do. And I think that the trick is you find fail. You fail to observe that something has changed.

[Simon Sinek]

This is good. You're talking about going to the cause rather than the symptom.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right?

[Simon Sinek]

I mean, that's. That's what this is. I mean. I mean, you. You might know this story. Again, it goes back to the sort of the. When the Japanese started sort of overtaking the American market and the Toyota Way. And of course, just as a quick aside, the Americans completely misunderstood the Toyota way. First of all, we called it lean. No, no, it's not about efficiency. It's about improvement. Those are not the same things. Yeah, the jet. The Toyota way is about concentrate.

[Mo Gaudat]

Improvement was always constant improvement, and we.

[Simon Sinek]

Made it about efficiency. And that's why lean doesn't really work in America, because we don't really get it. We think it's a calculation, and it's about process. As your point. It's about root. And there's this. One of the stories that I love is some American car executives went and toured a Japanese car factory. And, you know, cars are basically made the same way. And at the end, the Americans were confused because on the American assembly line, there's a guy at the very end with a little rubber mallet who just make sure the doors.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah, this guy is not at the end.

[Simon Sinek]

Right. And there's no mallet guy. And the Americans say, where's the guy with the mallet? And the Japanese are like, what do you mean, the guy with the mallet? Like, well, how do you make sure the doors fit? And the Japanese say, we design them to fit if they didn't fit. It's not the problem for the end, it's the problem for the beginning.

[Mo Gaudat]

100%.

[Simon Sinek]

And that's exactly what you're talking about, which is when we are struggling with something, we so often treat the symptoms, which is why we throw money at things or why we become hedonists or whatever the thing is, right? We throw. We treat the superficial. And yet, and I love this. I want to learn more about the Saturday practice you have where you sit. It sounds like you sit and go to the beginning and say, what's the root cause of this? Let me deal with that. And maybe that root cause is me, you know, which is I was, whatever it is, the chubby kid who was bullied in school. I have to deal with my issues.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah, it's me, 100%.

[Simon Sinek]

So what is your Saturday practice?

[Mo Gaudat]

Saturday really matters, believe it or not. So most Saturdays, my. My alarm clock is set to 2pm doesn't matter when I wake up, but I am in reflection mode until 2:00pm, right. And, and I reflect on a lot of things, like simple exercise.

[Simon Sinek]

Are you alone?

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah, 100%.

[Simon Sinek]

So you're, you're a little bit walled off until 2:00 clock.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. So I'm completely alone. No interaction. Interaction with timepieces. So I don't know what time it is. No interaction with the Internet. No interaction with news. You know, I'm not checking my WhatsApp. I'm completely with my little remarkable or paper and pen and, you know, and basically thinking, okay. And there are lots of things that I do repetitively.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. For example, I do a stress, you know, stock taking. Basically I write down everything that stressed me the week before and I basically scratch out the shit that I don't want to scratch to stress me the next week. For example, you know, this annoying friend that's constant, constantly negative will probably receive a text saying, hey, can we make our interactions a little more positive or maybe make them less so you.

[Simon Sinek]

So you're going through the things that are causing you stress and you address them.

[Mo Gaudat]

Address them one by one. Right. And again, you know, we, we think that life should be stressful, especially busy ones, because, you know, it's a trophy and.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

You know, and unstressable. My.

[Simon Sinek]

Well, how else. If we don't suffer stress, how else will we become obsessed with our. Our whoops and our longevity practice.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly.

[Simon Sinek]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Mo Gaudat]

And then we measure everything. Right. You know, you have a. I, I used to have all of those measurement devices. Right. I see you still have.

[Simon Sinek]

No, I don't. No, no. It hasn't been charged for two years.

[Mo Gaudat]

Is that true? It's.

[Simon Sinek]

It's okay. It was given to me as a gift and, and I. It's more sentimental than anything else. But the.

[Mo Gaudat]

You see, that's.

[Simon Sinek]

That one. My ring. Yeah, I know. I wear it. And the people from Aura, it's embarrassing. You know, they reached out and said, oh, we see Simon wears an OURA ring. And we were like, yeah, don't know. Because I can't help. How do I speak about dead. I don't even know where the charger is, I think.

[Mo Gaudat]

So I know the guys from WHOOP very well.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And I think there is a use to it, you know, in terms of learning things about yourself that you may not be able.

[Simon Sinek]

They're fun for a week, but I think they're really fun for the first.

[Mo Gaudat]

Week and, or, or as long as.

[Simon Sinek]

They'Re needed or as long as they're needed, but they become a little bit.

[Mo Gaudat]

You need to notice the context change. It's like, you know, I used to use something called my fitness pad, obsessively measuring every calorie that I eat. Right. After a while, you sort of know that this is a bit too much. This is a bit too little, you know? And after a while, you know, you're much younger than I am, but after a while, you go like. And that little belly, it's cute. I'm happy with this. Right? And honestly. And you see, once again, when I was in my teens, twenties, I was obsessed with my shape. When I was in my 20s, I started to be more obsessed with the health of my brain and how much I read every day. Right. And then when I'm in my 50s, I'm really obsessed about. I'm actually undergoing a season change as we speak. Right. So, you know, we said Saturday practice. Stress is part of it, but also that reflection of what do I want? What do I want is so interesting.

[Simon Sinek]

It goes back to the question I was asking before. Why does it take loss? Why does it take tragedy? Why does it take sadness? Why does it take age for us to come to these conclusions? Why can't people in their 20s and 30s live the life Ali did?

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

That's the irony of this.

[Mo Gaudat]

Oh, my God.

[Simon Sinek]

This magical little child. He did. What did he have? His whole life? It sounds like his whole short life.

[Mo Gaudat]

His whole life.

[Simon Sinek]

He lived the life that you have learned to live in your 50s. That took tragedy to get you here. Today's episode is brought to you by True Classic. And this ad that you're about to hear isn't really like a normal ad. I sat down with Ryan, their CEO, and we had a conversation about his journey, about the lessons he's learned, so that we could use some of those clips to share with you. We call it an ad with authenticity. We have five core pillars. As a company, going fast is literally number one. So when people come aboard, they already know the deal. It is every single day. We're moving and shaking on a million things, juggling a ton of plates. But what I've learned, what really works for us in terms of people, is that entrepreneurial DNA, when they come in and they start making moves, because it's really. It's what they know best. Right? When you're an entrepreneur, you just get in, you start problem solving, start figuring it out. Those are the people that thrive in our environment. The ones that don't work out come from the legacy apparel brands. When they come in and they're just like, this is chaos, guys. I can't thrive in this. And then other people come in and they don't want anything else but the chaos. They just love it because every day is kind of new. So you're capturing my favorite thing about the entrepreneurial journey, which is what most people don't realize is that being a small business owner and being an entrepreneur are not the same thing. Being a small business owner means you just own a small business. Being an entrepreneur means you're a problem solver. And there are entrepreneurs in corporations. Right. It's a mindset rather than an ownership. You know, and what people forget is that if you're a creative person, creativity is finding order in chaos.

[Mo Gaudat]

Tragedy is an interesting one. You have to, you know, you have to make an. Or.

[Simon Sinek]

Pain. Pain.

[Mo Gaudat]

I call it a nudge.

[Simon Sinek]

A nudge?

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. A nudge is, you know, when you, when you're half American, half British. So you know, both, right. In, in, you know, in, in America, if, if a road is a little sloping upwards, right. And you're walking that road, that basically is what needs, what America is so celebratory of grit. Right. You need to try harder. Okay? You come into the UK and it's all roundabouts, right? And, and the idea is you get into a roundabout and sometimes you get in and you want to go out on the third exit. Closes that exit. Yeah, right. And so you keep turning in the roundabout, insisting to hit the third exit. But life is telling you, hey, you know, the force is open. Can you try that? And you keep saying, no, I'm going to, you know, go around and around and around until the third one is open for me. Because you're so stubbornly preoccupied by your current season, right? Life is telling you, change of season, new exit, new life, new exploration, new experiences. Right? And it's so interesting that when we continue to resist, life goes like fourth, do you want to go from the fourth? Like fourth. And you don't. So it nudges the hell out of you. It gives you, it literally shoulders you out through a loss. But again, through depression, through burnout, through. Right.

[Simon Sinek]

I love all of this. And you're talking about serendipity, you're talking about open mindedness, you're talking about what happens when the plan doesn't go according to plan, which is, by the way, always. What's the joke? If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Yeah, exactly. I'm with you. But I'll go back to the original question, which is why does it take loss, heartache, pain, hurt, age, time to learn these lessons? And we know that that's not empirical because we know that Ali didn't have any of those things to come to his magical disposition. What was it about this teenager who had such clarity of life and a calmness that was so attractive to people? It made him so loved and lovable. Why does it take. You see what I'm trying to get to, which is, how can young people learn the lessons? Look, there's a good. You wrote a book about happiness. Because I have to believe in some part of you. You said, I don't want other people to go through what I've gone through to learn the lessons I've learned.

[Mo Gaudat]

Of course.

[Simon Sinek]

So I'm going to write them down so you can learn the lessons without.

[Mo Gaudat]

But the question I get most, believe it or not, is why is your mission 1 billion happy, not 7 billion happy or 8 billion happy? Interesting question, right? Honestly. Because when you really think about it, and simply because I find that happiness is a choice.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. You know, I can tell you what.

[Simon Sinek]

You can lead the horse to water. Yeah, you can lead the horse to water. But they're gonna have to choose it. And it's foolhardy to say everybody, and.

[Mo Gaudat]

It'S so arrogant to believe that everyone would make that choice. I mean, when I go and speak in France or in Poland, I kid you not, the first question I get at the end of the session is, well, we. We. We get.

[Simon Sinek]

We get The.

[Mo Gaudat]

The. The logic is. Works, you know, but why. Why happiness? And I'm like, seriously? Seriously. People go like, happiness is a sign of weakness. We're supposed to be here, you know, fighting it out. Okay? And. And I, you know, I. It's.

[Simon Sinek]

But you don't question that. You don't argue with them. It's their choice.

[Mo Gaudat]

If you. If they.

[Simon Sinek]

You shrug your shoulders and say they.

[Mo Gaudat]

Can'T make the choice.

[Simon Sinek]

Live your life.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. You know, I simply.

[Simon Sinek]

You're not there to convince anybody.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly. I simply say, well, if, you know, I'm here to teach the technique, if you so choose. Right. But that also applies to management and leadership.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. It also applies to war and peace. Unfortunately, there are. There is. You know, for some of us, there is, one, an arrogance that what you know is true. And two, a refusal to see the world from any other perspective. Okay. And three, interestingly, the drive to live based on that lack of awareness. Okay, I don't remember. Who was it? Jack Welch or someone that used to say, you hire people for three things. Their passion and their energy and their intentions or something like that. If the third is wrong, the first two will kill you. Right. You know, basically. Basically, if people have the intention to walk into a company, and I hired people like that in my life before, where their only objective is I'm going to play politics and backstab everyone and go up the ladder, right? And they're with energy and passion, and they're very intelligent and energetic and passionate and so on. They'll use their intelligence and their passion and, you know, not benefit anyone at all. Okay. And I think what we humans do in life is we do that to ourselves. We are told at a point in time that a lot of money in a Ferrari is something that you need to have. Right. And some of us, you know, get to question that. Like Ali. Okay. Who's very reflective and, you know, who would look at things and go, like, I really don't want a Ferrari. And I actually, you know, when Ali graduated, I was a freaking spoiled rich brat.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And I love that boy. So I said, habibi, do you want the car to go to university? And, you know, I have many. Pick anyone you want or, why don't I buy you a Porsche 911?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. And I, you know, I. I don't regret saying that now because I. I matured. Right. But I love him and I have the money, so why not? Yeah. And he would go like, papa, but how would my friends feel about that?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

But I. I'm, you know, it's not something I'm passionate about.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

But it's not something that represents me. Maybe if you're so generous, maybe I can take one of the 4x4 so I can put the band gear in it. Right. And it is quite interesting that he had the awareness of who he is. Okay. And he had the willingness, when I insisted many times for him to drive my fancy cars, okay. And take his friends along. And then his friends would go like, oh, my God. And he goes, like. Like, I just didn't feel any difference. Right. He had the willingness to sit with himself and say, this is not what I want from life. And the season I'm going through now after 58 years of success. Okay. Takes you quite a bit of courage to say, yeah, I effed up a few things, and there are a few things I've never experienced, and there are a few things I'd love to enjoy, and there are a few things that I need to learn. Right. And unless you sit down and find that you're Going to be the same until you're gone.

[Simon Sinek]

There's a guest I had on the podcast named Angela Trimbur. We haven't aired her episode yet. But one of the things she talks about is absolutely amazing. She had breast cancer and it was treated. And everybody who had breast cancer, the other women who had it, who came to her and said, it comes back in two years. And so she suddenly had this horrible fear that it's going to come back in two years. And she talks about it as this kind of magical gift because when you're told you've got three months to live, you go bucket list. You empty the bank account, you travel the world, you go full bucket list, right? If you're told you have five years to live, 10 years to live, you're like, I'll put it off, I got time.

[Mo Gaudat]

Let's see.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, you know, we'll see. But two years was sort of this magical period because it was not enough that she could be complacent, but it was enough that there was some urgency. But not bucket list urgency, the responsible urgency. And she just had this assumption that it's going to come back and she's going to die in two years. And she started making choices. The way that she started living her life is, I've only got two years to live. Do I want to do this or that? And it gave her a confidence and a direction in life. It never came back. But she continues to live her life with this idea that two years. And I thought that was such an amazing number because people like, live your life like it's your last day. No, don't do that. Don't do that.

[Mo Gaudat]

I call that compartment too. Live it like it's your last day and live it it like you have 10 years to go. Yeah, it's interesting. Last year was a very challenging year for me. January, I lost my sister and then my sister in law, but she really is my sister. You know, I met her for the first time when I was a young teen and she really, truly was a sister to me. Then, you know, she had a heart attack next to my brother's bed who was suffering with cancer. Two months later, he was cured from cancer, but still left, left our world. He had an unexpected ulcer. And then two months later, I lost my mom, which, you know, you sort of. You sort of think that you've now, you know, become strong enough after losing Ali. And then life goes like, no, hold on. I can, I'll prove you. I can show you. I can show you variety, right? And so I'm sitting with my. One of my friends, Alexandra, and Alexandra is Serbian, so she's very direct. Yeah, Okay. A wonderful young lady who is so honest, so kind, you know, we love each other for, you know, 13 years, friends and so on. And so I'm sitting there with my philosophical face on, saying, you see how vulnerable life is? And she goes like, you're going to be fine. You're not going to die. And I'm like, what? And she goes like, you're doing good in the world. The world benefits from you. You're probably going to live a little longer. It's like, Alex, you don't know that. And as I'm trying to explain, if you know or you don't, with my philosophical face, she says, but I can guarantee you, you have a few, you know, you have very few good years in you. I was like, what? And she said, you know those road trips that you always talk to me about? Well, I can tell you, you have seven to nine years where you can take a long one in whichever car you want. And if you want to take it in a sports car, probably three years. So chop, chop. Very, very eye opening, I'll tell you that. I mean, truth is, I lived so many lives, Simon. It's just scary when you really think about it. But, you know, I'm Egyptian, born and raised in Egypt, public school, public university in Egypt. You know, I shouldn't have become the chief business officer of Google X. If you take any mathematical probabilities, it's close to impossible. And yet I lived. And I lived a rich life. And I lived for a simple life. And I've lived months of my year, years of my life, where at the end of the month, we could barely make ends meet. And it is. I lived. And somehow in all of those lives, if you remember, the only thing that we started the conversation with was when life was interestingly engaging. I don't want to call it challenging. It's interestingly engaging where you sit down and you go, like, how can I make this go the furthest for me and those that I love? Okay. And I think the challenges with experience over the years, fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer things stress you. Fewer and fewer and fewer things challenge you. Okay.

[Simon Sinek]

You know, because you've been familiar, you've learned it, right? Yeah. Like, oh, this again. I know this one.

[Mo Gaudat]

I've seen this one. You know, this one is different, but it's the same fabric. At least I know how to manage my emotions about it, and so on and so Forth.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And the trick is when it doesn't become challenges in challenging, you start to get into those mind generated, you know, depression causing. Yes, right.

[Simon Sinek]

It's not chemical. It's sort of self imposed.

[Mo Gaudat]

It's, it's, it's, it's incessant mind racing.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And your incessant thoughts start to take you into, you know, all those sorts of scenarios that actually have no bound anymore because they're not even bound by the physical rules anymore. Right. Yeah. And it's, and that, that of, of experience is what I call a problem of privilege. Right. And, and when you have problems of privilege, that actually is the sign that tells you, hold on. You know, life is actually really good.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

I am really blessed. What do I want with my life? What, what do I want the next five years to look like? Do I want to do more of the same? Get more of the same green back that I don't even know, it's just sitting in the bank somewhere that I will never spend just to tell my friends another deal. Okay. Do I want to give it away to people and see the joy? I mean, just for everyone listening to us, your coffee can feed the family in Africa. Right? I'm not talking about the very famous and rich who spend, you know, a few hundred thousand on their vacation. Right. That few hundred thousand can save a village in Africa. And yes, I know, actually one of the things I've started to see recently, you know, I know that it's actually very difficult for us to imagine that those in Africa are humans too, or those in the Middle east are humans too, or those in Russia, Ukraine are humans, humans too. Right? And because we are so used to our own life, getting into our cars in the morning and just going through what we believe is life. Okay? And one of the things I've started to see that is really thrilling, my heart is finally the Middle east is starting to show beautiful dances and music instead of angry. Save us. Okay? So in the, you know, I don't know if you've seen in the last few days the Lebanese posts are all about the, the rockets flying overhead while they're dancing in parties and laughing and you know, saying life is, is amazing. Right? They've been bombed themselves a few days back and they're like, yeah, some of us are lost, some of us are not and we will live. And I think that idea of can we look at each other and say, honestly, another Ferrari is not going to be a big deal.

[Simon Sinek]

But we're still circling the wagons here, which is that they have been bummed and they have had to face their own mortality for them to say, but let us dance.

[Mo Gaudat]

Let's dance.

[Simon Sinek]

And so again, I'm going back. And maybe the answer is no, right? Maybe the answer is, you can learn some from reading a book. You can learn some from listening to a podcast. Maybe a friend will say something to you that will give you a new perspective. That'll. But. But maybe you have to be punched in the face.

[Mo Gaudat]

All I can guarantee you is if you don't. If you don't wait until you're punched in the face and you change.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

You may not be punched.

[Simon Sinek]

You may not be punched in the face. So it's like insurance.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. So I remember that I wanted to write Soul for Happy, my first book. I wanted to Write it in 2011. Okay.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

But I was chief Business Officer of Google. Too busy. Yeah. And, you know, I sit down and I start writing on a flight and then I go, I land on the other side and I have all of those deals and all of those clients and all of those meetings and all right? And I delay it and delay it and delay it. And life keeps saying, write it, it's a good book. Write it, it's a good book. Write it, it's a good book. Until I, you know, I don't. I'm circling the roundabout, so it goes like, okay, you know what? Ali's leaving.

[Simon Sinek]

You know, now write the book.

[Mo Gaudat]

Now write the freaking book. Yeah, right.

[Simon Sinek]

What else do you need? Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

And, you know, I know for a fact in my heart that maybe if I had written it, he wouldn't have had to leave, okay?

[Simon Sinek]

Because you wouldn't have had to learn.

[Mo Gaudat]

The lesson, because you wouldn't have. And that's very arrogant, by the way, because it's his life, not mine. But I can tell you that, again, it's quite complicated. I've had a very enlightening experience. When I was 26, I had the near death experience, right? Went all the way through that same exact description that I've never read before, but went all the way through the tunnel, if you want the light. Okay. Found myself in that peace and tranquility and truly. And, you know, as. As. As the. The. The kind souls, as they describe in near death experiences, were walking in my direction, I was like, yeah, right. They brought me back. And I was really angry with the doctor. Like, I was really angry. Like, why? This is so lovely over there. Right? And, you know, it seems to me in my unproven philosophy from that experience that we Sort of always. All of us get asked if it's time to leave.

[Simon Sinek]

But you didn't learn your lesson.

[Mo Gaudat]

Something about me changed, but I didn't learn my lesson. Right.

[Simon Sinek]

Can you share some of the things that you've learned about this happiness practice that people can implement? Look, happiness to me is, I mean, I think. Look, you said it. Which is happiness is a choice. So number one is you have to choose that you want to be happy. Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

So happiness is a choice. And happiness is. Your default setting is the most important to assumptions, if you want to look at them that way. So understand this. Every child is born happy. Right. So your, your, your default operating system is happy. Of course, you know, some children may be exposed to violence when they're in the womb. Sure, sure. So, so but if, if you're.

[Simon Sinek]

All things being equal.

[Mo Gaudat]

Oh yeah, exactly. If you're just coming out of the box, you know, unboxing a child, the child's default setting is happy. Right, Right. It cries when it has a reason to cry.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. Feed it and it will go back too happy, you know, playing with their toes, looking at the ceiling and that's it. Right. You were that child too. And then, and then as you went on through life. Do you remember Supertramp?

[Simon Sinek]

Of course.

[Mo Gaudat]

Oh, yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, I know. Super Tramp. Breakfast in America is one of the great all time songs.

[Mo Gaudat]

100%. 100%. And Roger Hutchinson is an amazing artist. So they had the logical song. Remember? The logical song. When I was young, it seemed that life was so.

[Simon Sinek]

When I was young, it seemed like life was so.

[Mo Gaudat]

There you go. Yeah. And, and, and so basically when in my, in the depths of my depression years, I'm sitting in a cafe in Seattle, I remember vividly I was working at Microsoft at the time and, and you know, must have been on a Walkman or like a Discman or something. And I'm listening and then this song comes along and comes on and it, and it says, when I was young it seemed that life was so wonderful. All the birds on the trees were singing happily. You know, and then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical, cynical, critical and so on. Right. And, and that's the story of your life, right? The basically life as a child, when you don't overthink things, you're happy.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. And then you start to become cynical and critical and you sort of learn to succeed in life. And we humans are very capable. You tell me the target is to succeed, then go like, yeah, absolutely. And most of us remember that, that you probably into your 20s, you were not that upset with anything. This generation is because of the amount of negativity we pour on them. So if you understand that your default setting is happy, then there is nothing you need to bring from outside you to find happiness. You need to remove shit to be happy. Happy. Okay. And, and, and that negation strategy is quite an interesting one.

[Simon Sinek]

So that's good.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. So I'm, I, I'm sitting there, I, you know, I basically take the rest of the day off and I start to look back at the things that, you know what I, I'm like, yeah. When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful. So, so I keep going back. When I was 18, I was happy. When I was 16, I was happy. When I Was 4, I was happy. When I WAS 2, I was happy. Right. There were things that upset that happiness. But I went back.

[Simon Sinek]

But this goes back to. I love this. Right. And this is so actionable. I love this. Which is, it's the reverse of what most people do, which is they make a list of the things that they think will bring them happiness. But what you do is you make the list of the things that are causing you stress and you go about removing them.

[Mo Gaudat]

You remove the unhappiness.

[Simon Sinek]

It's a removal process, not an adding process.

[Mo Gaudat]

And there is a reason for that.

[Simon Sinek]

So good.

[Mo Gaudat]

There is a reason for that. Okay. Nothing ever from outside you. This is, you know, rule number two or assumption number two. Nothing from outside you will bring you happiness. Why? Because nothing has an inherent value of happiness within it.

[Simon Sinek]

Right?

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. Take anything in in life, you know, rain. Okay. Rain cannot make you happy or unhappy.

[Simon Sinek]

Right?

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. If it's your ex girlfriend's wedding, it makes you happy.

[Simon Sinek]

There's no, there's no such thing as bad weather. Just inappropriate clothing.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. No inappropriate intention, desires. Right. So if, you know, if you, if you want a classic car. I love to restore classics and I lose money on them all the time, you know, if you want a classic car to make money on it, you're going to be unhappy all the time. If you want a classic car because you love the art of restoring it, you'll be happy. Right. If you want a classic car because you want to drive all the time without breaking, you'll be unhappy. Right. And everything else. If you want rain, rain makes you happy.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

If you don't want rain, rain makes you unhappy. So mathematically that means the equation is not one parameter. It's not what life gives you.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. It's what life gives you in comparison to what you want life to give you. Right? And so I wrote that in Solve for Happy. Very clear, straightforward. I said, your happiness is equal to or greater than the difference between the events of your life and your expectations of how life should.

[Simon Sinek]

Say that again slowly.

[Mo Gaudat]

Your happiness is equal to or greater than the difference between the events of your life, or more accurately, your perception of the events of your life and your hopes and desires and wishes of how life should be. Ah, so good, right? Now take that and apply it to every moment in your life. You felt unhappy.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. It wasn't because life was wrong. It was because life was not what you wanted to be. You know what that is?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

That's a six year old behavior. Okay? Like, mommy, I want ice cream, right? It's not the right time for ice cream. Mommy doesn't have the time. Or you didn't have lunch yet, or whatever, right? But you want ice cream. And for some reason, when you cried enough as a child, when you were miserable enough as a child, ice cream showed up. Or mommy tapped you on the back and said, come on, baby. Right? And we continue to do this somehow expecting that life, when we are upset is going to go like, yeah, okay, fine, here's your ice cream right? Now here's the trick. Life doesn't give a shit about you, okay? Life simply is there to say, look, there will be a series of events. Some of them are easy, some of them are tough. Some of them are enjoyable. Some of them you learn from, okay? And it's your choice how to react to every one of them. It's your choice to choose your perception of the event. And it's your choice to set your expectations realistically. So you get stuck in traffic, you can choose a perception that says, I hate this. This is annoying. This is wasting two of my precious moments, okay? I will be late to my event. Everything is miserable. Or you can say, oh my God, I'm in a car. Oh my God, I'm in a city. Oh my God. There are no bombs on top of me. Oh my God. I'm not starving to death. Oh my God, I'm. You know, I am.

[Simon Sinek]

This is the worst thing that's happening to me. Life is good.

[Mo Gaudat]

100, right? 100. If this is the worst that's happening to me, okay, you know, it's, it's a nice little.

[Simon Sinek]

It's a. It's a hack because I know that when things go wrong for me, like somebody, I'm in a restaurant, they bring me the wrong meal. I mean, you know, whatever. It is. Stupid shit, right? I know. Like, you know, and. And because we're all assholes to some.

[Mo Gaudat]

Degree.

[Simon Sinek]

The blood starts to boil over. Stupid stuff. And I say out loud to the person who's very often apologetic or something, don't worry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And I always say, if this is the worst thing that happens to me all week, I'm way ahead of the game. Your hotel room's not ready. I mean, who gives a shit, right? The stuff that drives us nuts, saying it out loud to someone, it's not really for them, it's for you. If this is the worst thing that happens to me all week, I'm ahead of the game, you know? And immediately. Immediately you relax.

[Mo Gaudat]

And by the way. And by the way, it is. It is a. It's a. It's a. It's a very actionable meaning, you know, if you hear your brain saying, this is. Yeah, okay, ask your. This is, by the way, your brain's tendency. Because your brain is a survival machine. We use it to invent iPhones, right? But. But it is first and foremost a survival machine. It wants to know what's wrong with life so that it can work on it. Right? Because what's wrong is what makes you unsafe, right? So when your brain tells you, as per its nature, you know this. You know, the traffic is shit, okay? Ask it and say what's good about the traffic, right? What is good about this? And it will comply. First it will say, yeah, and London taxis are annoying. Now, I asked you what is good about this? Yeah, okay. And if you insist. So my practices, I used to.

[Simon Sinek]

I can listen to supertramps.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly. A lot of. A lot of symptoms. Or I can sing it in my head. My practice used to be, you know, for every negative thing that my brain gives me. Yeah, okay. It is obliged to give me a good one.

[Simon Sinek]

So you play the game. It's like, okay, 100. It's a zero sum. If you're giving me negative, I want positive play.

[Mo Gaudat]

100 now. But then I realized that my brain is quite a coward, right? So I started to. For every negative thing that it gives me, asking for nine.

[Simon Sinek]

Nine. Good.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah, because that's the nature of life, by the way. If you take the mathematics of life. How often do we suffer earthquakes as compared to how often do we walk on solid grounds? How often do you get sick as compared to. Unfortunately, some of us are maybe chronically sick for a long time, but for the majority of Humanity. How often are we sick as compared to how often are we. Are we healthy?

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. In reality, it's not even one to nine. It's one to probably 99.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. And it. And then that's irrelevant, by the way, which strata of the society you're in.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, that's everyone.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. It's everyone. If you're. If. I'll tell you a very interesting thought process to understand if. If life is a. Survival is all about a survival approach. And you're able to sit in that car and tell yourself, you know, I'm going to be late for my event, so a future event, and torture yourself with it, or sit in that car and say, I'm stupid to live in this city, or, I should have left 10 minutes earlier. So a past event to torture yourself with. You know what that means? It means from a survival mechanism point of view, there is no tiger attacking you. Okay? Because if there was an actual threat, if there was actually something wrong with this moment, that in itself would take your mind away from all of those stupid thoughts. You would focus on the tiger. So the fact that you're thinking those negative thoughts is in itself evidence that right now is. Okay.

[Simon Sinek]

How do little things factor in? Because I know one of the things that I do is I do this consciously, which is I try and pay attention to little things, and it's to the point now where it's almost automatic. And when I say little things, I mean, you have no idea how small. Right. Making breakfast in the morning. The sounds of putting the coffee in the coffee pot and filling up the jug and putting it on the coffee machine and the clinks and the clanks and the drags and the swishes. I'm really present and attuned that I'm not just going through the motions of making coffee, but I'm paying attention as if it's a choreography, as if it's a piece of dance. You're listening.

[Mo Gaudat]

Found the secret to life and these.

[Simon Sinek]

I mean, I'm making coffee in the morning, something I do every single day. And I find joy in the. Not every day, because then it'll become mundane. Right? Because I'm trying to avoid the mundane. But every now and then I'll pay so much attention and I smile.

[Mo Gaudat]

Found the secret to life. Do you have the same coffee every day?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

No, I never have. I never do that.

[Simon Sinek]

You mix it up.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. So every morning before I make coffee, I spend 10 minutes trying to feel what I feel today and accordingly, which coffee I want.

[Simon Sinek]

I make Coffee. I have the same coffee every day. I have optimism coffee because I love it and I made it, but I make it differently.

[Mo Gaudat]

There you go.

[Simon Sinek]

So it'll be the same coffee, but sometimes I'll put it in the drip coffee. Sometimes I'll sort of let it.

[Mo Gaudat]

All right.

[Simon Sinek]

Sometimes.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly.

[Simon Sinek]

So I have different beans. A cafe press.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

And I don't know why it tastes slightly different. It does, but. But sometimes it's just the thing that.

[Mo Gaudat]

I feel like doing 100% now. So. So. So I say you found the secret to life. Why? Because think about it this way. We said now is always amazing. The problem with our. Most of our unhappiness comes from that incessant thinking.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. That idea of living in the past or the future. Now.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

There is an interesting exercise people need to think about. Take any emotion, and it's a very good exercise to reflect on with yourself. Take any emotion. You feel the emotion right now, but the emotion has a temporal anchor. Right. Regret, for example, is anchored in the past. It's about something that happened in the past. Fear or anxiety is about anchored in the future. If you write them all down, you'll find that the majority of the emotions that make you feel negative are anchored in the past and the future.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

And the majority of the emotions that make you feel positive are in the present. Right, Right. Calm is in the present. You know, excitement is in the present, and so on and so forth.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. Now it's quite interesting because past and future don't exist.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

Past and future are neural constructs that you create within your own head. You cannot give them life.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

Unless you create them inside your own head. Okay. When yesterday happened, you called it today. When tomorrow eventually happens, you're going to call it today. You're always in present.

[Simon Sinek]

Now.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. Right. Now here's the trick. The trick is, if you get yourself to that presence, to be here and now, here and now, most of the time, there's absolutely nothing wrong. Unless you're in a war zone, unless you have a chronic pain, unless you have a, you know, you're going through a tough period of your time, physically or whatever, most of the time.

[Simon Sinek]

And even in those periods, there's moments of rest and respite.

[Mo Gaudat]

100%. Okay. And I'll come to that in a minute. But think about it this way. Now is always amazing. The idea of bringing yourself to the now is always bringing yourself away from the incessant thinking that's creating madness within your head.

[Simon Sinek]

It's really important also, which is you're not saying this takes. You're not saying you need a meditation practice. And you're not even advocating that somebody spend every Saturday until 2pm you're not advocating any of that. You know, I mean, it help. It's helpful.

[Mo Gaudat]

Meditation is like.

[Simon Sinek]

All of these things are helpful. But for anybody who rolls their eyes and be like, oh, I don't have time to. You don't. It's okay. It's okay. It's fine.

[Mo Gaudat]

Look, if you don't have time, then you probably need the meditation to learn to do it. Right. But the trick is this, that, and I, you know, because of my work, many of the top meditation teachers and Buddhist monks and so on are my friends. Sure. And they will always tell you, meditation is like going to the gym. It's not like carrying something heavy. This is. You prepare by going to the gym so that your mind learns how to focus on the present moment. But meditation is not the objective in itself. It's the practice.

[Simon Sinek]

It's the practice.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right? But here's the trick. Have you ever felt that? Oh, shit, it's June, right?

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right.

[Simon Sinek]

And then we say, my God, this year is going fast. My God, my God, it's nearly over.

[Mo Gaudat]

Have you ever thought why that is?

[Simon Sinek]

I guess because I'm too busy.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. Correct. No, too busy is a very interesting explanation. So I found, and I did that 2018, was I. When I was. When I started to see this. And I apply it. And I can guarantee you the last seven years of my life have been way longer than the previous 51.

[Simon Sinek]

Because you're.

[Mo Gaudat]

Because. Because you have to understand that you're slowing down. You're only aware of the time you live.

[Simon Sinek]

And if your day is filled with a calendar that's back to back to.

[Mo Gaudat]

Back to back, and you're always.

[Simon Sinek]

And the day is over and you're.

[Mo Gaudat]

Always in your head. So even if your day is filled with a calendar that's back to back. But this conversation I will remember forever, right? Because I'm fully present in it. I'm listening to you. You're contributing. You're listening to me. You know the sensations of being a little hot outside, but we're still okay. And if you completely bring yourself to this, time continues to stretch. So every minute that you live fully okay is a minute that registers as a moment of life. Every minute you live inside your head is a moment you'll never remember.

[Simon Sinek]

One of the things that's really helped me is and it took a while to shed the guilt of wanting time to Myself, Right? Because we're in a hyper productive. If you're not using your time to make something, do something, achieve something, hit some sort of. Then you're a loser. Right? And I would sometimes wake up pretty early on a weekend and I would sit in bed till noon. And I'm. I mean like so I maybe Woke up at 8. So. And I'm talking about like maybe I read the newspaper, maybe I did the crossword puzzle, played some games, maybe I made a phone call. I would sometimes go downstairs, get a cup of coffee and get back into bed. And when people be like, what'd you do today? Because it was like 2 o' clock and I met somebody for, you know, for brunch or something, I'm like. And I'd be like, I sat in bed and they're like, what a waste of a day. They would say to me, seriously. I know. And then I got to the point and I would have this guilt and I got to the point where I was like, you know what? It's my life, it's my morning, it's my weekend. I'm allowed to do whatever I want. And if I choose to sit in bed all morning and do something completely that the world would judge as unproductive, so be it. And I gotta tell you, I love sitting in bed all morning. I love it.

[Mo Gaudat]

I'll give you two.

[Simon Sinek]

And so what? Or I could go do something, but it's like my activity is to be in bed.

[Mo Gaudat]

What is that song? Today I'm just not doing anything. Right?

[Simon Sinek]

The activity of doing nothing. Well, where nothing is the thing.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. So I, I do 40 days of silence every year. So I, I just go somewhere all in a row.

[Simon Sinek]

Because I could probably do 40 days of silence if you added up my whole life. So you're amortized. Over the course of my life, I've definitely. I dare you dare like 27 days.

[Mo Gaudat]

I dare you. If you try it. Don't do the monk thing. Don't go to a monastery where they wake you up at 4am in the morning. I go to a beautiful nature, nature place. You know, a converted barn somewhere in, you know, wherever, Right? And I'm not very strict about it. I listen to music, I don't listen to lyrics. Right. I don't follow up on the Internet. And I allow myself paper and pen and I write, okay? Believe it nor or not, almost every single year, I've done the whole 40 days. I wrote at least seven chapters of a book, okay? And it happens in a very unusual way. The first week.

[Simon Sinek]

But most people can't take 40 days off of life.

[Mo Gaudat]

Everyone can.

[Simon Sinek]

No, everyone can.

[Mo Gaudat]

Everyone can, but not in the same.

[Simon Sinek]

They can take a weekend, maybe.

[Mo Gaudat]

No, I was going to say not in the same consecutive way. Right. Okay. So people almost always dare me and say, I'm so busy. Okay, I'm really sorry, I'm so busy. And I go like, but Coldplay is going to be available next week. Do you want tickets? And they'll go like, yep, totally. No problem whatsoever.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, it goes back to, I have no time until I want to make time.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly 100.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, so what you're saying is find a reasonable amount of time that is reasonable for whatever the life.

[Mo Gaudat]

So I, I, I suggest to people what I call the mini silent retreats, which is my Saturdays.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, perfect.

[Mo Gaudat]

You set, you set your alarm until to 2 or 3pm and you have a half a day to yourself.

[Simon Sinek]

Totally legit. Because that scares a lot of people to hear. I have to be quiet and talk, not engage with anybody from the time I wake up to 2:00pm yeah, the.

[Mo Gaudat]

Minute you, you do that, you engage with who? Your brain.

[Simon Sinek]

Right.

[Mo Gaudat]

And your brain attacks you. Right. And the whole idea is, so I call it Meet Becky. So, so one of, one of my famous techniques is I, I call my brain a third, a third party name.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. So Becky was the most annoying girl in school. Right. So, so, so literally, you know, you know those people that walk to you all the time and just say annoying things. Yeah. And then walk away with no solutions.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. That's your brain. It's like, it's just by the way, you're fat. Why brain, why did you say this? Right, right. And the trick here is, when you restrict Becky, when you restrict your brain, your brain pushes harder. It's a bit like that friend that texts you at 7am and goes like, hey, I have this great idea. Call me. And you're asleep at 7, right. Or you're doing something and then by 9am they've texted you 60 times and you go like, hey, I'm walking to a meeting, can I text you back at 10:30? And they'll say, yeah, fine, no problem whatsoever. That's your brain. So what I do is I go to my brain and I go like, hey, by the way, part of Saturday, tell me all the shit that's going on. Tell me everything that's going on up there.

[Simon Sinek]

I just love this practice. Yeah, I've tried it in a mini way. So I heard Matt Walker, who's the sleep expert, and when he Talks about because I struggle with my brain racing at, like, I'm totally relaxed, not thinking about anything. The minute I turn out, the lights on, my head is on the pillow. Okay, game on, right? And I can lie awake for hours and just over and over. And I know, like, don't worry, you'll deal with this tomorrow. You can't fix it now. It doesn't matter. I can't turn it off. Then I heard him say, and I tried it, which is just write it down.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly.

[Simon Sinek]

And so, like, I keep a little red flashlight that next to my bed so I don't ruin my night vision. And I have a little pad and pen and all of the thoughts, whatever they are, just write them down. And it is incredible how well it works. It all just stops. It all just stops. And. And I even tried to trick myself where I wrote them down, that I tried to force myself to think of those same things again. And it couldn't. The brain couldn't do it the minute they were written down. And I realized it's spinning not because I'm actually thinking, it's spinning because it wants me to remember these things correct. But if I write them down, it says, I'm good, go ahead and, go ahead and get spinning.

[Mo Gaudat]

I go even further.

[Simon Sinek]

And so the fact that you're doing this, I've done it in a mini practice you're doing it works so well.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. And it's funny. So, so, so there are two rules to meet, Becky. Rule number one is you take every thought that your brain tells you, okay? You write it down and you dismiss it. Basically, you, you know, hey, you know, you sit down and you go like, okay, go ahead, tell me. And it will say, yeah, I don't believe that thing that Simon said. And you go like, okay, you don't believe this, that Simon said, what else? And you keep asking the question, what else? With one rule that no idea is repeated twice. Okay? So, you know, 25 ideas later, your brain goes, and by the way, I don't agree with what Simon said. Brain, you said that before.

[Simon Sinek]

Right?

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. And I guarantee you. So I do. I normally do that practice for 20 minutes again on a timer. Timers are very useful to tell you not just when something ends, but by when it will end so that you don't end it before.

[Simon Sinek]

You have to fill the time.

[Mo Gaudat]

You have to fill the time so you can set the timer of like 20, 30 minutes and you're not getting up. I do that when I write. So when I write, I write in 44 minutes. And 11 second sessions. I don't know why, but I love those numbers. And So I set 44 minutes on my timer, and as long as the alarm didn't go off, I will not get up, even if I'm not writing.

[Simon Sinek]

Right. I understand that. It's a time to tell you to stop. It's also a time to tell you when. Not that you have to keep going.

[Mo Gaudat]

It's. Keep going. Right? It's clever. So you set your timer to 20 minutes, and you. And you get your brain to tell you, hey, I don't like what Simon said. I like what Jackie said. I. You know, you're fat, you're. You're short, whatever, okay? And it keeps telling you that stuff, and you just take it one by one until it starts to repeat itself. So when you call it out on repeating itself, I guarantee you just try it once, normally around minute 11 or so. So you go like, so, what else? And your brain goes like, that's it, really? And it completely runs out of ideas. Okay? I promise you, this is as close to heaven as you'll ever get. Total silence. It's not. You're trying to stop your brain through meditation.

[Simon Sinek]

It's got nothing else.

[Mo Gaudat]

It said everything, and you have now a rule that it cannot say them again. Okay. My God, it is heaven, right?

[Simon Sinek]

Oh, I'm doing it.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. And then suddenly, a few minutes later, it starts to tell you nice things like, oh, that's really nice.

[Simon Sinek]

We should do it. It's run out of crap. So.

[Mo Gaudat]

Ran out of crap. It basically is struggling for your attention, okay. And you're not doing anything about its thoughts, so it's afraid you're gonna die. So it just constantly tries to tell you, give me more of that. Okay. Give me more airtime. Give me more attention. Give me. I'm telling you, you know, they're gonna kill all of us. Fine. They are going to kill all of us. Okay? Now, the rest of the practice is actually quite interesting. So I normally spend the next 20 minutes looking at what I wrote down, and you will laugh out loud. Like, literally, you look at some of those and go like, that is ridiculous. Like, how can you even think this? And you, you know, you visibly scratch it out.

[Simon Sinek]

And so you get the dopamine hit of accomplishment by scratching out the negativity.

[Mo Gaudat]

And also, you remind your brain so that when it brings it up again, you go like, but we scratched that one out. Right, Right? And then the ones that you need to do something about, put an action plan next to it, right? And somehow that one? Yeah, that one. Practice. If you do that once every Saturday, I love this. It really changes everything.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah, 100% I'm doing it.

[Mo Gaudat]

But you see, again, it goes back.

[Simon Sinek]

To that whole, I'll be in bed all morning, I got plenty of time to do it.

[Mo Gaudat]

What I was trying to say with my silent retreats is really interesting. You become more productive with silence. Sometimes. You become more productive by doing nothing sometimes.

[Simon Sinek]

Okay, well I also, I learned the value of negative space. And as a creative person.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly.

[Simon Sinek]

But this is everybody. It's not just creative people, it's everybody, which is, you know, I learned this a million years ago. Which is our conscious brains have access to the equivalent of about 3ft of information around us. And our subconscious brains have the equivalent, have access to the equivalent of about 11 acres of information around us. So when we engage our rational brains, when we, we weigh the pros and cons, when we access our expertise and we quote, unquote, think about a problem, we've got three feet of information. But when you quote, unquote, let go, your mind wanders. Now you're not quote unquote thinking, but your mind is ruminating. Your subconscious brain is ruminating, which is why we find solutions in the shower, when we go for a run, when we're driving in the car and we go for a walk, and when you're not actively thinking. And so the value of the brainstorming session is not to solve the problem, it's to ask the question.

[Mo Gaudat]

Correct.

[Simon Sinek]

But the problem is we've eliminated negative space. So when you're sitting on the subway going to work, I'm on the phone.

[Mo Gaudat]

Correct.

[Simon Sinek]

When I'm sitting on the toilet, I'm on the phone.

[Mo Gaudat]

Correct.

[Simon Sinek]

When I'm walking from here to there.

[Mo Gaudat]

Which I want to see.

[Simon Sinek]

But yes, I mean, we're all guilty of it, right. When one is sitting on the toilet, it's not me. And I catch myself doing it. I'm walking from here to there, down the street and I'm looking down. And it occurred to me, just today, coming to the studio, I like walked a full block without looking up. I'm like, I could have walked into a frickin pole that I wouldn't have known. But the point is I now work to add negative space. So I'll put in my calendar, do nothing.

[Mo Gaudat]

I used to have that, that was very well known about me and Google X because all of our offices were glass basically. So people would walk by me and I'm sitting in that glass cube, no phone, nothing on the screen. Not talking to anyone and do nothing.

[Simon Sinek]

Doesn'T literally mean do nothing. I could go for a walk. I could watch a movie.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly.

[Simon Sinek]

I can watch tv. The point is it's scheduled, quote unquote, unproductive time. As other people would define productivity.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah. This is the most productive time of day.

[Simon Sinek]

And what I'm just allowing my brain to do is wonder 100% w a n w o to wonder and to wonder 100%. Because as a person who loves ideas, I won't have ideas if I'm thinking the whole time. Time.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly. So I as a creative person.

[Simon Sinek]

Which is ironic.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. As a creative. So I Finish. Google X 2018 solve for happy is now an international bestseller. Like by then it was half a million copies or something. Amazing. And now I'm like running my one billion happy mission. Literally. Like an executive. Of course.

[Simon Sinek]

But that's not a good thing is.

[Mo Gaudat]

It's not at all. Right. And then someday, sometime in 2019, I text my team and I go like. Like guys, the season has changed. I'm not an executive anymore. I'm now a creative person that wakes up frequently at 3am Inspired to write something.

[Simon Sinek]

But this is interesting, right? Which is you're now on the happiness mission, except you're treating it like an executive. And I know people who, they run businesses about meditation and yet they're stressed out. And the irony of all of these people I keep meeting who have these missions and yet they are feeling the opposite of what they're espousing. And so how can you run your business more like a philosophical practice and rather like than a business because you.

[Mo Gaudat]

Yourself know it's an interesting thought. Which moves the macro target to a micro target target. Think about this. Huh? I can only do the absolute best that I can do every day. And if I directionally know where I'm heading by adding those days up, I'll get as far as I can.

[Simon Sinek]

So can I push you a little bit?

[Mo Gaudat]

Of course.

[Simon Sinek]

What if there's no target?

[Mo Gaudat]

There is no target. There is an inspiration aspiration. Meaning 1 billion happy. I'm not gonna. I'm never gonna make it.

[Simon Sinek]

And you're not really counting because there's no way to count.

[Mo Gaudat]

There are ways to count because the mission is actually determined very clearly. We're not measuring video views. We would have achieved a billion happy along to time ago. We're measuring people that get the message and then take an action. An action that you can't calculate that number. You can estimate. Right? You can. They either take an action by going and watching other videos. So I convinced you that you need to be happy. So you start to look for other videos about happiness. Or you take an action by watching the video and forwarding it so you believe others will be happy. Right. Not. Not great. Right.

[Simon Sinek]

I mean, forwarding it. Boy, this guy's an idiot. It. And you calculated that as a win.

[Mo Gaudat]

Maybe I did not go to that level of integrity and probably quite a few of them. But here's the trick. I don't measure that anymore.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Why? Because for a fact, I know that I'm not going to get to a billion happy.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

But that a billion happy might happen after I die.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Right. And the trick here is, what if I can generate one more piece of content today? Or I can, if I can.

[Simon Sinek]

It's about momentum, not about targets.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly. It's about constantly moving in the right direction at the best of your capabilities.

[Simon Sinek]

I mean, there's so many little things that I've been learning, so, you know, I think of business more like exercise than I do like a project.

[Mo Gaudat]

Exactly.

[Simon Sinek]

You know, which is you trust in the process and you'll get into shape.

[Mo Gaudat]

Just keep.

[Simon Sinek]

Just keep doing it and you'll get into shape. Don't worry about it. 100 and you make.

[Mo Gaudat]

You may get into shape a week.

[Simon Sinek]

Later and it might be quick, it might be slow, and sometimes you go. And sometimes it goes in, but you just. You just keep your head down and just keep doing the thing, you know? And John Burke, who was on our. Was a guest, who's the CEO of Trek Bicycles, he talks about Nick Saban's Just play the play to perfection. Just do the thing you've been practicing and do it really well, and the score will take care of itself.

[Mo Gaudat]

And what you need to do is occasionally, frequently, if you can sit down and review the direction. Am I doing this right? You know, am I putting my effort? That's it. Right. So, for example, I.

[Simon Sinek]

The score, to me is something that you look up every now and then, as you said, directionally. It's like, am I heading like the Paris?

[Mo Gaudat]

Yeah.

[Simon Sinek]

You know, because if a submarine's under the. Under the ocean and the captain says, go do north. A submarine doesn't go due north, it zigzags.

[Mo Gaudat]

Correct.

[Simon Sinek]

But every now and then they have to look at some sort of navigational aid or pop up and with a periscope and be like, yeah, we're basically on course. Keep going.

[Mo Gaudat]

And by the way, ask the captain if north is still where we want to.

[Simon Sinek]

Right, right, right.

[Mo Gaudat]

And. And I think that's the trick. Like you take my social media presence for example.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

At the beginning I'm a very introverted person. I don't want to be seen on social media. Ignored it completely. Then someone said, you're never going to achieve anything unless you're on social media. So I put my head behind it and I get to a few hundred thousand followers and then suddenly I realized I really hate this shit. Okay. And honestly. And, and I'm, you know, I'm very open with myself. I hate this.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. And so if I do this and it drains me.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

That's not good for the mission. So I realized at the point time around 2020, I said, Look, I'm going to be on Simon's platform.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. And interestingly, I have maybe total of 400,000 followers on all platforms. Okay. Big number by the way. I should celebrate by. I get tens of millions of videos, video views on your platform on, you know, Stevens, I know you met Steven. Right. You know, on others. And I'm there delivering the message. Not to my credit, not to my. Like I'm not going to make ad monies on it, but I'm never, I was never about ad monies anyway.

[Simon Sinek]

Sure, sure.

[Mo Gaudat]

Okay. And I think that constant change of direction, telling yourself I'm putting half a day, you know, of every day behind social media. I'm going to change that.

[Simon Sinek]

The difference is you've moved from being target driven to mission driven.

[Mo Gaudat]

It's a massive difference.

[Simon Sinek]

I mean that's basically what's happened.

[Mo Gaudat]

But, but shouldn't we all be.

[Simon Sinek]

I mean I, yes, that is kind of made a career out of that 100.

[Mo Gaudat]

That is so mind boggling that people think that by focusing on making a little more money next month you're going to be successful. Larry Page, used to, you call it the, the, the founder of Google. Yeah, yeah. The toothbrush test. And you would go to Larry and you would go like, look, if you, if you find the problem and solve it really well and keep doing it over and over and over, you're going to make a lot of money. That's this, it's the, it's not making money that is the target or it's not the promotion that's the target. It's, it's. I am doing the absolute best I can and it's eventually going to pay out.

[Simon Sinek]

Yeah. Mo, I could talk to you forever, but I have to stop, which is a shame. Can we just go? Let's go for lunch or something.

[Mo Gaudat]

100%.

[Simon Sinek]

I wish I had got to meet Ali.

[Mo Gaudat]

Oh, thank you. You have by saying that. Send him a happy wish, please. You would have loved him.

[Simon Sinek]

Honestly, I mean. And I'm struck by a 16 year old getting that tattoo. I'm struck by a teenager saying, I don't want the thing I'm struck by. I think you knew all the lessons before he left this earth and he already taught you everything before.

[Mo Gaudat]

It sounds like it's quite weird actually. So you. We used to play video games together and Ali, of course, was legendary. I'm now quite serious. But at the time I was sort of like heroic, if you want. And, and he would teach me, he would go like, no, no, no, no, no. Do you. Don't you know that trick? And so on. But then sometimes during a mission, Ali would go, you know, sometimes you're in a mission and it's so difficult that one of us has to walk in, you know, kill 80% of the enemies, but get shot. And then the other one, the silly one, would walk in and do the easy job. I think that's exactly what happened. He came, he taught me, and then at a point in time he had to leave for the mission to actually be finished. And sometimes I think about how, you know, when you asked me at the very beginning, you said is, you know, you said this tragic loss. And I. And I said, I'm not sure I can call it a loss anymore. Because there was a point in time where I realized that if you knew Ali and you know, if he was walking into the intensive care room or the operating room or whatever, and I had told him, ali, by the way, if you choose to live, we will have amazing times together. If you choose to die, 50 million people will find happiness. He would have said, kill me right now. And with the certainty that both of us are meeting again, I have to say this has been a hell of a game. One that's worthwhile if you ask me.

[Simon Sinek]

We have a word in English for the person who runs in to take care of 80% of it. That needs to be done. Knowing that the person gets the glory on the other end who finishes the mission. We have a word for the hero.

[Mo Gaudat]

Oh, absolutely. Fuck that. Yes, absolutely. I've unsung. I hope to get no credit at all. As a matter of fact. One billion happy. We are a tiny team. Four people. The mission statement is very clear. We want to get a million people to champion a billion happy. I want to spend every dollar I've ever earned and then we want to be completely forgotten, which I think is the most difficult part of the strategy if you ask me. This is why we're trying not to be on our own social media or trying to be everywhere else. And and imagine if I finish my life a billionaire. Imagine if Ali Ali's already finished his life a millionaire multimillionaire. Unbelievable.

[Simon Sinek]

Mo, thanks for coming on. I so appreciate it.

[Mo Gaudat]

Thanks for having me. It's wonderful to meet you finally.

[Simon Sinek]

A bit of optimism is brought to you by the Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsey Garbinius, David Jha and Devon Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to SimonSinek.com until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.