2104: The One Formula For Happiness Nobody Told Me by James Altucher on Happiness Ratio & Life Optimization

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Optimal Relationships Daily Episode 2104, The One Formula For Happiness Nobody Told Me by James Altacher of Jamesaltacher.com.

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello everybody and thank you so much for joining another weekly bonus episode of ORD with me Greg Audino.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_01]: This time I'll be sharing a previous airing from Optimal Living Daily, our personal development show that started it all and what our network is named after.

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great show that I highly recommend you check out. You can do so by typing it into whatever podcast feed you enjoy.

[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But for now let's hear OLD narrator Justin with the post and his comments area as we optimize your life.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: The One Formula For Happiness Nobody Told Me by James Altacher of Jamesaltacher.com.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Kissing tastes really good. The first time I kissed a girl I was 18. Tracy.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Man what that?

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like an electric charge to the core.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_00]: How come they didn't teach this in high school? In high school I learned one thing that I was ugly as explosive diarrhea.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Girls would cover their mouths and whisper to each other while they stared at me.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But at 19, I don't know what happened. Some girl graced me with her lips.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And as it is typical with me ever since, I fell immediately in love with her, begged her to move in with me.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: He'd that fact from my parents cried desperately on the floor when I realized it wasn't working

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and finally moved to another city as a clever way to end the relationship.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But still, kissing, I can't stop it, it's in addiction. I'll die from that addiction.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: The autopsy will reveal too much kissing led to cardiac failure, a broken heart.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Bad formula number one. I thought that kissing equals happiness and what an easy formula.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought I'd get more kissing in various ways. I'm just being blunt.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Here are the ways. If I was handsome, funny, famous or rich, if I grew up in the Instagram world,

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I would think kissing equals more Instagram followers. Instagram is a company that has a

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: billion cat photos uploaded every day. It was bought for $2 billion.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Nice is good also but I didn't have enough confidence or charisma to make nice work for me.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be a psychologist. My dad said, don't be a psychologist and you won't make any

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: money. Girls won't like you. But I really wanted to be one to talk to people, to help people.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I said, but if a girl likes me, how do I know she will like me for me or for the money?

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_00]: My dad said, she's not going to like you because you have money. She's going to like you because

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: you are the kind of guy who can make money. Maybe so, maybe so. I don't know. I got a D-inside

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_00]: college. You want to one anyway by the time I was 19 years old. I'll no longer qualify to help

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_00]: people according to the institutions of higher learning. And they were right. Now, I've kissed

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_00]: quite a few women and some women have kissed quite a lot. So after careful scientific

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_00]: calibration of all the statistics and post-kissing MRIs and interviews, I have the following result.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Kissing equals happiness for three seconds but often the quest for kissing in the aftermath of

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_00]: kissing leads to unhappiness, jealousy, desperation and a need for more. In other words, I need therapy.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to tell you what I figure out for at least myself is better. What can make kissing

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: better? What makes my work better? What makes my career better? What makes all my relationships

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_00]: better? What makes me care less about money? What makes me care less about what people think

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: of me? What makes me a better writer? What? What? Magic formula. The happiness ratio.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Happiness equals reality over positive expectations. The higher the reality, the better.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: The lower the positive expectations, the better. Although they can't be zero, then you're homeless.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Reality is your current situation. You might be in a job working for the CIA in a relationship with a

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: drug user. You might be 6'5", you might be 500 pounds who knows. This is your reality.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: You can sometimes change reality but it's slow. Here's how you change reality the same way I always

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_00]: recommend but with one twist. Physical? Every day exercise sleep well. Eat well.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Emotional? Every day improve your relationships, which means eliminate toxic people and bring on

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_00]: positive people. Mental, which means creative, right down 10 ideas a day or take a photograph every day.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: In spiritual, be grateful, celebrate small successes. Try to improve in these categories

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: 1% a day. The one twist? If there's an area where you are unhappy, like bad job,

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: try 1% a day to make a move away from where you are unhappy. Make a resume for instance. But also

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00]: doing the previously mentioned improving relationships being creative, etc, will improve your chances

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: of finding a better job. Done. That's how we can up the reality part. It takes time 1% a day,

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: bad best. The expectations part is different. If you're in a bad relationship because your

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: spouse is not having to go through every day, then reduce your expectations on at least until

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: your reality changes and improve your relationships be creative, be grateful. If you have cancer

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_00]: and are in pain, reduce your expectations. When I wake up in the morning, I want to be mobile enough

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: to move around even though I will probably be in pain. If you have a bad job, reduce your expectations.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait to listen to the James Altuch's show podcast on my way to work and back again.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_00]: You can always reduce your expectations today. And then what helps even more is to reward yourself.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00]: If you wake up mobile even though you are in pain, you can say yes, I meant my expectations.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Lowered positive expectations bridges a bad reality to a better reality. It helps you get from

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: aid to be and it makes you happier every day. Happy enough to celebrate them.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I have low expectations. I don't want any belongings, for instance. I rarely care what people think

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: about me and all I want to do in life is just. My reality changes but if I do my daily practice,

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I increase the chances that the positive side of my reality goes up. Some people have negative

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: expectations, everything I do turns to garbage. It's hard to go from negative expectations to

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_00]: positive expectations. The only thing you can do is recognize that as a choice and try practicing

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_00]: every day for being grateful for smaller and smaller things in life until you find something

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: small enough you can start expecting it and build from there. I want to be happy. I want to kiss more.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So every day these two steps. A reality do whatever I can to increase the positive aspects of my

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: reality using four elements of the day practice described earlier and B expectations.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: List the areas I am disappointed. If I'm disappointed, reduce expectations to match reality

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and find ways to be grateful until you can slowly change the reality. Simple, it works.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I do it. Don't do it if you don't want. I do it for me. 15 months ago something bad happened

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: to me in business. Seven months ago something bad happened in my relationships.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Every day there are irritations and hopes and reality and changes that mess with reality.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just a life. Every life I hope by think has ups and downs no matter how good things seem,

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: no matter what BS self-help advice you follow, including this.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: So the equation is always changing but you can choose how it changes as much as possible.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Happiness equals reality over expectations. But more importantly, if you see me in the street,

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: make kiss me. You just listen to the post titled The One Formula for Happiness Nobody told me

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_00]: by James Altature of James Altature.com. If they get a James, yesterday I decided to leave my commentary

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_00]: until today because I thought there were some points that go hand in hand. Two very different

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00]: writers with a very different life experiences coming to what I think could be argued as similar

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_00]: realizations. So at David Kane yesterday talked about how when we always have things on demand,

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: like our favorite songs or movies or shows, as opposed to having to go down to your local

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: blogbusters video to rent it, it sort of adds a layer of appreciation and you also made that argument

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: about food. If we're always having the best, it ends up becoming your normal which brings the

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: quote unquote best down to like five out of ten instead of an eight or nine out of ten or 10 out

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_00]: of ten. He says that if we had just okay food most of the time then we'd really appreciate those

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00]: really tasty meals and it's hard to argue with that especially if you've moved a lot or

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_00]: changed environments or jobs or have a lot of life experience in different ways. What inevitably

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_00]: happens to everyone I've ever known is that their life becomes normalized no matter the situation

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and then to get to that next level of special something new and something different has to come

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: along again. And isn't that what James is saying in this article too? He says reality over expectations

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and since expectations is on the bottom of that fraction, the denominator if I remember my

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_00]: child and math correctly, when it's on the bottom, the lower that is the higher the score so

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00]: the lower our expectations, the better our happiness according to James. And you can lower your

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: expectations by making your normal lower right? I think these articles line up quite nicely.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Now that isn't to say that we should then make our lives miserable in an effort to make the rare

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: occasions extra happy that one makes sense but this idea applies to things like new cars for instance.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Knowing this phenomenon does it make sense to work so many hours to buy that ultra-logged

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_00]: re-car if you're just going to end up being normalized for you. Maybe a different solution is to

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: keep your current car or get just a normal car and then every once in a while rent an ultra-logged

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: re-car so you get that thrill and excitement of having the new car for a bit and only for a little

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: time so I never becomes normalized. I don't know it's just an idea. That's just one example.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there are many more if you have any send them my way. I'd love to hear them

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe even share them in my newsletter. But that should do it for today. Have a great rest of

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: your day and I'll see you back here for the Thursday show tomorrow. Where you're optimal life.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait.