I said to myself when I started a
thousand often thanks calm I will never
do it for money I never put an ad on the
website ever fifty million hits it’s
only cost me money through URL renewing
there’s something among I call the 24
2002 vation doesn’t actually lead to
action like we all think action leads to
motivation there’s these three numbers
that scare me every single morning I
wake up I think about these numbers
every day I’m a writer
speaker an entrepreneur I’m best known
for writing the book of awesome and my
TED talk the three A’s of Awesome my new
book is called the happiness equation it
shares the nine simple secrets we can
all do every day to live happier life
I’m Neil Paz Rita I’m here with Evan
Carmichael and here are my top ten rules
for success
[Music]
let’s go all the way back to 1932 when
on a peanut farm in Georgia a little
baby bullying in Roosevelt Grier was
born original career or rosey Grier’s
people used to call him grew up and grew
into 300 pounds 6 foot 5 linebacker in
the NFL he’s number 76 in the picture
here he is pictured with the fearsome
foursome these are four guys in the LA
Rams in the 1962 did not want to go up
against they were tough football players
doing what they loved which was you know
crushing skulls and separating shoulders
on the football field but rosey Grier
also had another passion in his deep
deeply offensive self he also loved
needlepoint love he lifts knitting he
said that it calmed him down it relaxed
him it took away its fear of flying
helped him eat chick
[Music]
I mean he loved it so much that after he
retired from the NFL he started joining
clubs and he even put out a book called
rosey Grier’s needlepoint ferment and a
great cover he’s actually if you know
he’s actually needle pointing his own
face and so what I love about this story
is that rosey Grier is just such an
authentic person and that’s what
authenticity is all about it’s just
about being you and being cool with that
and I think when you’re authentic you
end up following your heart and you put
yourself in places in situations and in
conversations that you love and that you
enjoy you meet people that you like
talking to you go places you’ve dreamt
about and you end up following your
heart and feeling very fulfilled my mom
is from Nairobi Kenya my dad is from
Amritsar India so they were immigrants
Canada and when they grew up they said
Neil it’s real simple you do great work
then you have a big success and then you
be happy it’s the kind of classic
parenting advice sometimes I ask people
you know have you heard this advice
before you give it up for never once
again oh that sounds normal
you study hard then you get good grades
and if you’re you soon you become a
doctor right or you work really hard and
in the corporate environment you get
promoted and then you’re happy but the
moment I truly like to put forward is a
reverse of like a profit focused model
and instead it’s happiness focused so
like I said it’s not great work to big
success to be happy it’s be happy
leading to great work leading to a big
success what do I mean by that I mean if
you as a leader can invest in your
employees happiness and well-being at
the beginning then we know from all
kinds of research Sonja Lyubomirsky did
an incredible study based in the book
the half the how of happiness this shows
that your productivity goes up 31% if
you’re in a sales base role and most
people look what many people are they
sales goes up 37% creativity goes up
three times this is from just being
happy and then what happens after is you
have two big success at the end I’m
talking about career success your morale
he didn’t get promoted if you’re in a
good place that working you have a
positive mind also you live longer
you live about 10 extra years so zooming
out from profit like just ignore that
for a second if you watch we want those
variables productivity and creativity
sales out of your employees the biggest
investment you can make is on their
happiness at the front side there’s
something a model I call the 24 20 the
24 20 chalice well I’m trying to say is
if you can commit for 20 minutes a day
for 20 days in a row to do a small
simple happiness exercise then you can
invest in yourself at the beginning what
are some examples not all these you just
take one okay it’s a 20 minute brisk
nature walk or it’s a 20 minute
journaling exercise or it’s a 20 minute
meditation or it’s committing a
conscious act of kindness of 1902
somebody buying flowers or somebody rap
or writing down five gratitudes any of
those five remember the nature walk the
journaling exercise the meditation the
random act of kindness or the five
gratitude will invest and convert your
positive mindset for the remainder of
the day so if you are a boss or you’re
an employee where’s that 20 minutes
I guarantee everyone’s saying yeah I got
it like kind of do to this meeting at
lunch or maybe maybe people say like you
know I’ve got to go grab a sandwich or
something but very few people say oh
I’ve got to go meditate or I really need
to like you know commit my random act of
kindness are going to do my journaling
exercise it’s not part of our
conversation yet but yet if we can make
20 minutes of investment in our mental
health and our happiness then we tip
over our brains for the remainder of the
day and everything else goes up like you
said it’s the service profit chain not a
lot of not a new concept but from 20
years ago we’ve always known that happy
people at work perform better and as a
result your sales your profit everything
else list a meaningful work seems to be
something that you seem to suggest is a
very common way that people can find
happiness yeah
now I think I have a real passion of you
on work so basically I went to high
school with the Ontario thank you
yeah with these math develop a lot there
was lovely at first and then the whole
would be school bus erected
and I know we have a guidance counselor
at my high school who everybody was in
love with and he was often we high-five
teenagers in the hallways and he was one
of those guys everybody could approach
was accessible to everybody you know and
we had mandatory retirement age
sixty-five vamoosh you were given the
sort of like passage to pension and we
have the ceremony at the school sounded
it was like the mr. Holland’s Opus you
know ending and the next week after that
he had a heart attack and died and you
know what when I tell that story you
know the reaction I usually get it’s
fast
oh and then it’s also you know but happy
to a brother-in-law of mine or I had a
my grandfather also retired and then
like he just wasn’t the same you hear
that more often so I look into this
concept of retirement here’s two things
I find out that are interesting number
one fortune magazine says the two most
dangerous years of your life physically
or the year you are born infant
mortality over the entire lifespan of
the human race it’s 40% okay that’s kind
of a big number better now but 40% and
number two the year you retire okay big
deal and then New York Times reports
that the incidences of depression spiked
40% in that year you retire so I start
looking around the world at this
conference of work and of leaving work
and ceasing to work and here’s what I
find Dan Buettner and National
Geographic to study on the Blue Zone
some of you may have heard of it it’s
the people the places around the world
where people live like way longer than
we do he studied a place called Okinawa
in Japan they live on average seven
years longer than the North America and
guess what they call retirement nothing
they don’t even have a word for
retirement literally nothing in their
language describes the concept of
stopping work instead they have a word
which I love called a key guy i ki GA I
a key guy which roughly translates as
the reason you get out of bed in the
morning okay what is your a key guy so I
gave my wife do a little cards at
Christmas last year we put them on on
our bedside table she’s an elementary
school teacher at the TDSB
she writes to educate leaders who make a
difference in the world okay
I write finish write in this book or you
know to increase happiness inside
organizations or whatever I’m filming on
but it gives you a bit of a direction
right gives you a direction and so I
advise and I recommend you never retire
Plus just to throw in their retirement
was invented okay it wasn’t like we used
to do this we invented it in 1889 in
Germany when Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck just arbitrarily said hey guys
retirement age 65 and lifespan was 67
now we all want to retire earlier and we
live way longer and so those years can
be vacuous and they can be troublesome
for all the reasons I mentioned so I
advise people to have a nikkie guy and
to find work that includes the flores’s
social fulfillment the structure of
getting out of bed in the morning the
stimulation of always learning anything
and the story of being part of something
bigger than yourself something you
couldn’t do by yourself you have those 4
SS and you have what I call a meaningful
work if you’re not doing the work that
you love how can you tap in to that
sense of purpose and meaning enjoy great
question and I’m not advocating that
someone about to punch out of 30 years
in the meat packing plant sort of punch
in for 30 more years I’m not saying that
what I am saying is that we all have 168
hours in a week okay you have that many
I have that many Justin Trudeau has that
many marks dr. Bert Hanson and many more
buffett is that many richest man in the
world can’t buy more time it’s the one
thing that’s not for sale so if you take
168 hours in a week and you divided by
three you get three buckets of 56 56 56
and 56 if you are lucky enough to sleep
eight hours a night and with two small
children I am NOT if you are then that’s
56 hours a week okay if you work 46
hours a week as whatever job you don’t
like okay that might be your middle
bucket however I would still argue those
two buckets justify create and pay for
your third bucket the whatever you want
to do bucket is that’s the where you
volunteer is that where you’re in the
church group is that where you’re doing
something you love and even when the
meatpacking plant is over or the gig
it’s done then then your bucket can
expand and you can keep doing work the
definition of retirement I’m using is
ceasing work
becoming Idol okay yeah many people who
are like on retirement they’re like I
love retirement I volunteer at the
hospital I’m always down at the library
and I do and that you’re not retired
you’re doing this hundred thing right
okay so that’s one thing it’s like keep
finding things you love how do you
handle setbacks it’s a great question
and sometimes people say like do you
have setbacks like yeah lots I mentioned
I kind of joked at the beginning I’m
like there’s tons of failures in there
Anita’s saying is you know if you ask a
good photographer how do you take such
good pictures you know what most of them
say I just take a lot that’s what you’ve
heard this before it’s like I just take
thousands so that’s why I always get ten
great ones because I take so many more
and like I think it’s like a table with
legs on it that’s your life if you have
a table like this with one leg on it and
I know because I was here before and I
knocked it over it can fall over it can
fall over pretty easily I call that one
table you can think of it in terms of
it’s up to you cash flow streams if you
want relationships if you want but for
me it’s like how many legs does your
table have so how do I handle setbacks I
try to have a multi leg table at all
time like I said I Walmer I was doing my
blogs on my books it made me more
risk-taking in my writing to know I had
a full-time job it made me more
risk-taking in meetings I was Melfi and
asking questions of the CEO because I’m
like yeah fire me I got this other thing
you know I mean that’s two legs on my
table two legs right there and then if I
had a third thing a passive income
stream room doing something online I’m
speaking now whatever this multi-legged
how do I handle setbacks I look at the
other legs I think about what else I got
going on let that thing naturally come
back it’s okay just be doing multiple
things at once to me that’s how I think
about it and it never makes a low feel
super low so I’m not all-in on anything
the secret to turning your biggest fear
into your biggest success on parents to
admit this especially because we’re
filming it’s going to be on YouTube
forever Paul say it right now for the
first time I didn’t know how to swim at
all in my early 33:6 out
and while I know how to swim my sister
can swim and everything it’s because I
had ear infections my whole childhood so
I had tubes and layers my whole
childhood and I had a traumatic
experience on top of all that when I
found to the pool and I couldn’t swim so
I can still I can almost still see it
today until that’s fine because you know
what who cares I don’t need to swim I
live in Toronto there’s no ocean I’m
good I wouldn’t even bring my bathing
suits at the pool party my friends would
want to go swimming at university I hang
up with a treadmill no problem I
eliminated swimming from my life you see
I didn’t think I can do it I don’t think
I had the capability to do it and I
certainly didn’t want to do it you know
I know motivation so I never did it and
that’s how we think about anything right
you got to have the capability then the
motivation and then you have the action
I never got to do because I these things
were never going to happen all that
changed on my second date with Leslie
when she said to me over dinner one
night
so do you like swimming and I was
thinking to myself Oh play it cool
Pasricha you know you don’t want to you
don’t want to scare off and I said to
her yeah no I’m not really big bad just
ah that’s too bad you see my family had
a cottage on an island for generations
and there’s 20 of us up there the whole
summer my 80 year old grandparents my
five-year-old cousins we get up every
morning in the summer jump into the lake
and swim around the island takes about
half an hour now Jeff you can’t come
suddenly that night without thinking
about whether I can whether I want to do
it I just did it i signing up for adults
learn to swim classes at the city of
Toronto’s downtown pool I don’t know how
many people here I’ve seen the downtown
city of Tron pool this isn’t a
recommended thing to do it’s like you
know right you know it’s right in the
urban center of the city I’m like
getting my life jacket the goggles whole
thing I’m walking onto the pool tech
that first Wednesday night my heart is
beating louder than a head in years I
was so nervous but you know what
happened when I walked in on a full deck
Rachel I get out there I get out there
and you know who’s out there a bunch of
people who suck at swimming for once I’m
not the only one people from landlocked
countries and more traumatic experiences
the main thrust formed very quickly till
we get to the shallow end with the with
the flutter board the lifejacket the
goggles and within five minutes doing
that where I could touch the bottom I
was like hey wait a minute
I can do that like that that’s that’s
not hard I can do that and then you know
what the next week I wanted to do it I
wanted to do it because I was like well
I kind of thought I can do it now and so
the next week I was like flutter kicking
in the deep end the week after flutter
kicking wouldn’t a lifejacket by the end
of the eight weeks I was in the front
crawl
thing I realized is that motivation
doesn’t actually lead to action like we
all think action leads to motivation
it’s completely flipped you want to
write that novel you don’t need the
perfect coffee shop the right idea and
expensive moleskin just write one
sentence with a pen from the hotel on a
post-it note just doing that will tell
you that you can do it and then you’ll
want to do it you want to run a marathon
forget the good shoes the right place
for the running buddy
forget it just run with a stoplight on
your dress shoes by the time you do that
you like I can do that and then you
think you can do it and then you want to
do it is the exact opposite it’s the
exact opposite so just take it from me
you guys are scientists you probably
trust someone like Isaac Newton you know
he’s the greatest of all time after all
I mean up there with Einstein the guy
discovered gravity invented calculus
pretty good resident probably hired at
Google these days and he actually said
this first law of motion I can remember
like great ten slides an object in
motion will remain in motion and let’s
acted upon by an equal or greater force
put another way if you start doing it
you please action first you’ll continue
it’s harder to stop and that’s why at
the end of my adult learn some passes I
signed up again and I signed up again
and I signed up again and it was the
same exact class I didn’t go to learn
some too I just did learn to swim one
I’m like I love this it’s amazing I can
do this bro scroll I loved it so much I
just keep doing it over and over again
it is easier it is easier to act
yourself into a new way of thinking then
to think yourself into a new way of
acting
our brains are often the enemy how do
you do it how do you make your biggest
fear and show your biggest success you
just do it you put actions first we all
know Nike slogans
just do it what you probably don’t know
is that Nike was an 800 million dollar
company with low 20% market
when they came up with this Logan then
they struck a nerve deep inside of us
someone we all believe is true you know
what on the heels of the slogan ten
billion dollar company 5060 percent
market share that’s over the lifetime of
youth in the slogan we can remember the
ads it jazzed you up you’re like I can
do that just get out there and do it and
it works it works look we’re all going
to get lumps and we’re all going to get
bumped none of us can predict the future
but we do know one thing about it and
that sighted ain’t gonna go according to
plan we will all have high highs and big
days and proud moments of smiles on
graduation stages father-daughter dances
at weddings and healthy baby screeching
in the delivery room but between those
high highs we may also have some lumps
and some bumps too it’s bad and you know
it’s not pleasant to talk about but you
know your husband might leave you your
girlfriend could cheat your headaches
might be more serious than you thought
or your dog could get hit by a car on
the street it’s not a happy thought but
your kids could get mixed up in gangs or
bad genes your mom could get cancer your
dad could get mean and there are times
in life when you will be tossed on the
well – with twists in your stomach and
with holes in your heart and when that
bad news washes over you and when that
pain sponges and soaks in
I just really hope you feel like you’ve
always got two choices one you can swirl
and twirl in gloom and doom forever or
two you can grieve and then face the
future with newly sober eyes having a
great attitude is about choosing option
number two and choosing no matter how
difficult it is no matter what pain hits
you choosing to move forward and move on
and take baby steps into the future I
have a really strong viewpoint on advice
and it’s a bit counterintuitive and
here’s an amazing times controversial
the thing is there’s a famous quote from
8,100 that says only are asking for
advice we’re really looking for an
accomplice okay we’re almost always
looking for something to either agree
with what we want or disagree with it so
we can kind of
stand firm in our view one you ask
people what you should name your candle
GUI you should go to you might already
have an idea in your mind and so one day
I was surfing through the newspaper I
noticed the cover of the New York Times
and the cover of the tallest are the
biggest student papers in both countries
has the exact opposite advice on them
one said no need to get extra vitamin D
because there’s a bit of study and a
thousand people have been in the study
and all the research says you don’t need
more remedy the other newspaper said go
on the office to get your remedy none of
us are getting enough beers tilting away
from the Sun like guys this is a big
problem and I’m like it’s because it’s
like huge credible new sources with
studies backing both of them on the
front page the same day showing the
exact opposite advice let’s not think
about advice the constant of advice
realizing that the most common advice of
all is actually cliches right so so true
that you just have them memorized it’s
like you know the early bird gets the
worm right so thanks for thinking about
your like or is it good things come to
those who wait you know and you start
saying okay well it’s actions speak
louder than words right or is it the pen
is mightier than the source and for
every single cliche or piece of advice
you’ve ever heard there is an equal
opposing piece of advice so the biggest
advice I leave anybody with it don’t
take advice the answers are all inside
you you already know what to do and
anything you’re seeking is just trying
to confirm something you already believe
forget it
you don’t need the book you don’t need
the newspapers you don’t need any advice
you already know what to do just do that
so I was I’m 36 now I when I was 20
years old I was going to Queens
University anyone want one go to Queens
here shrim
a lot of good Queens turnout today it
was good and I was running for the
campus humor newspaper golden word it
was free like it wasn’t a paid job but I
love doing and I love writing this
comedy writing stuff and so I took up I
took a little paid internship down in
New York City writing for a comedy
startup Simpsons writers starting I live
writers living in the Lower East Side I
like this is my dream but it turned into
the worst shove that ever has why
because once I got paid to do something
I loved naturally suddenly I had
constraints I had to write an article
but this topic with this person by this
time and it became so
like limiting and I said to myself when
I started a thousand often thanks calm I
will never do it for money I never put
an ad on the website ever fifty million
hits it’s only cost me money through URL
renewing you know I mean it’s never made
a cent and so I’m smart about that I’m
smart about focusing on the intrinsic
motivators doing something you love but
I was really dumb about starting to
focus on stack counters bestseller lists
how like those extrinsic motives kept
creeping in and you know the problem is
Rachel they creep in to our lives all
the time right you can’t you can get a
job for a place you love cool I’m
working for a company I believe in
pretty soon you have a job evaluation
you have a salary
these are extrinsic motivators you start
targeting your behavior to hitting like
I want to be a solid performer that
lowers your performance because you’re
like I just have to get somewhere in the
middle and I get my crappy 2% raise like
I don’t really get much from that and if
they’re going to reward me on that then
the studies all show that those
extrinsic motivators actually block you
from seeing your intrinsic motivators so
dr. Theresa I’m Abby Lee at Brandis
University showed that if you have girls
teach piano to other girls and you say
do it because you love it and you want
peace in piano they do an awesome job
and if you say we’ll give you a movie
ticket if you teach piano for half an
hour they stink at it they get
frustrated they learn they leave after
half an hour like they’re just not very
good and so it could be that paying or
communicating a numerical value for
something actually reduces your own
internal motivation so when the book of
awesome took off I got hooked on all
that stuff because it’s so visible so
tangible so real and to answer that
question for myself with the happiness
equation I drew a new model called the
success triangle okay and I say there’s
three kinds of success there is sales
success there is social success and
there’s self success sales success how
many books did you ship like how many
products did you sell how much money did
you make from something social success
what other people think what’s the
critical review is it nominated for an
award right is there a prize it’s okay
with if it’s a movie did it get in the
Kami award and then self success how do
you feel about it and they can
contradict they contradict like Hotel
Transylvania 2
one the ton of sales right and zero
Academy Award nomination spotlight which
won best picture had nineteen million
dollars of box-office compares it over
two hundred million for teletraan
million to why do I know those numbers
because they contradict all the time and
so the only way to solve it is to answer
it for yourself and focus on self
success like I wrote a letter to my
unborn child I hope he gets to read it
one day and if I can try my best keep
focusing on that mantra then it solves
me from worrying about or at least
stressing over things I can’t control I
love hanging out with three-year-olds I
love the way that they see the world
because they’re seeing the world for the
first time I love the way that they can
stare at a bug crossing the sidewalk I
love the way that they’ll stare
slack-jawed at the first baseball game
with wide eyes and admit on their hand
soaking in the crack of the bat and the
crunch of the peanuts and the smell of
the hot dogs I love the way that looks
spend hours picking dandelions in the
backyard and putting them into a nice
centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner I
love the way that they see the world
because they’re seeing the world for the
first time having a sense of awareness
is just about embracing your inner
three-year-old because you all used to
be three years old
that’s the real boy is still part of you
that three year old girl is still part
of you they’re in there and being aware
it’s about remembering that you saw
everything you’ve seen for the first
time once too so there was a time when
it was your first time ever hitting a
string of green lights on the way home
from work it was there was the first
time you walked by the open door of a
bakery in snow smelt the bakery air but
the first time you pulled a $20 bill out
of your old jacket pocket had sound
money there’s these three numbers that
scare me every single morning I wake up
I think about these numbers every day
okay number one a hundred and forty
seven this is the average amount of
emails people receive a day today 147
the average number of emails average
person is currently receiving 150 this
is the average number of times the
private person checks their cell phone
at bay a day which means three times you
check yourself when there’s nothing
there because there’s 147 times there’s
the three times was like yeah I need to
check that number three the average
person is making 295 decisions a day 295
decisions today did you have lunch where
I had lunch means I want the beef don’t
want the chicken or want the fish they
all look goose one do I choose where do
I say Italy say with there’s so many
decisions you’re making decisions all
the time I mean I’m driving to work and
I’m making decisions what street ones
are left right here there you get on the
treadmill Hill manual inclines what I
want to watch from the TV you’re making
too many decisions and this
decision-making energy in our brains is
a finite resource we only have a limited
amount of it and when it’s gone it’s
gone you don’t even notice you’re using
it and there’s only two ways to
replenish it number one is sleep and
number two is glucose or anything that
turns into glucose in your body which
means at the front of the supermarket
was just done choosing 30 different
salsas and 20 different kind of eggs
used to be that there was one kind of
eggs and now there’s 20 when you’re done
choosing your eggs and your salty get to
the front what is their titles again the
bars at the end of the trip when your
decision-making energy is found they
finally hit you with the thing you don’t
even know you need but you need it
because you just used all of your
decision-making energy as anyone here
ever had the experience of choosing the
wedding registry in a big department
store anyone ever had that you know
where they give you the towels on gun
you walk around yourself scanning
everything it’s not in the morning isn’t
it hey what kind of glasses do we want
always always bright shiny how many do
we need how many bowls how many plates
how many four how many knives howdy boy
do we need blankets yeah by the end of
the day my wife that I did at the end of
the day we’re adding like $300 ice
buckets we never use an ice bucket we
don’t need an ice bucket never mind a
really fancy one our decision-making
energy is gone we’re making 295
divisions a day so to research the
happiness equation I interviewed a
number of fortune 500 CEOs billionaires
politicians world leaders selling
authors and I asked them one question
I said you’re a busy successful person
how
make all the decisions in your day how
do you create space because I know your
schedule is busy and I synthesize the
result from all the surveys into one
drawing I made for you today my drawings
suggest that every decision you make
takes a certain amount of time and it’s
of a certain importance it’s either a
lot of time or it’s a little something
take very long and see they’re not very
important or it’s the big deal every
single decision we make is on this chart
so what do we do with those decisions
that are low time and low importance one
of the successful people do low time a
importance with those decisions your
goal is to automate them to automate
them remember I told you I was trying to
saw which way to get to work every day
now I follow the ways crowd-sourced
traffic app I don’t think about how I
get to work anymore ever again all those
decisions which treat this treat left to
right here I can try to beat the traffic
here listen to the radio for this one
I don’t think about I took 52 decisions
out of my day with that one change alone
came up to me after one of my speeches
and said you know what that makes a lot
of sense because for four years at work
I was also struggling at lunch at my
office it was always like where are you
going to go for lunch today do you want
to go here join Hayes who’s going to
come it who’s going to drive what do you
want your sandwich lettuce tomato
pickles that we got to get back it’s
like so many decisions about what she’s
like now I just have a new policy it’s
called double dinners every dinner I
make I make double and the double amount
is my lunch leftover the next day it’s
not rocket science it takes 32 decisions
out of the day for her my friend Chaz
has Amazon automatic refills on every
single consumable item in his entire
house he never thinks about buying
toilet paper again or paper towel or
soap or anything even towel he’s like
yeah I figured I’d use a towel like once
every 1.5 years so it Auto replenishes
every one point five years ago a new
face towel which every single thing is
automatic for him it’s a decision that’s
for him is low time and low importance
what can you automate in your life now
one of those such as soon’s that don’t
take very long but they’re really
important I’m top
about picking your kids up from daycare
I’m talking about saying hi to your team
in the morning this is important stuff
people you can’t just not do it and
that’s why my model suggests that you
simply have to do it it’s a special way
it’s a big word with a small meeting it
just means get er done
execute simply effectuate those
decisions now what about the decisions
that are low and important to take a lot
of time these are the ones that bog is
down right these are the checking a
hundred and forty seven emails
throughout the day it’s getting home
every night doing a different chore or
errand these are the ones that actually
actually make us sweat and this is why I
want to tell you that for decisions that
are not very important that are taking a
lot of time our goal is to regulate them
find an invisible sense in your life and
pull around those things so they still
exist but they’re only fenced in an
example of the person to mature every
night after work
chores bliss Sunday now I only do chores
and chores put Sunday my wife and I’ve
our address is 276 on our house we have
some when we convention called 276 day
anything I think should be improved in
the house or anything she thinks should
be in prison up this hinge is kind of
broken that wall needs a bit more paint
someone’s got to look at the toilet
upstairs you know we just write on our
276 day chart now one Saturday morning a
month from 9:00 to 12:00 we have on both
of our calendars for the next twelve
months we have 276 days all we’re doing
is all those little things that built up
we regulated it so we don’t worry about
those things for the rest of the month
it’s the same as people that have
created an email window all we answer
emails 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. 4:00 to 5:00
p.m. guess what from 10:00 to 4:00
I’m email free right you regulate it to
a part of the day and guess what happens
when you automate effectuate and
regulate your decisions you actually
have time to debate the ones that matter
you actually have time to think about to
chew on to wrestle with but where am I
going to be Who am I going to be with
where am I going to go all those things
that matter
affect their life more than anything
else you can now give them the time and
the energy they deserve to properly
debate them so Neil thank you so much
for sharing all these great 10 tips are
really appreciated since I have you here
live in person in studio I’m curious if
you could share for my audience a bonus
yeah lovin that rule that those 11
through here’s one for you is we want
contracts for our work lives employment
contracts performance contracts my bonus
tip is you need a contract for your
personal life so my wife Leslie and I
have a personal contract it dictates
that I’ll tell you the bullet point the
number of nights I’m away per year the
number of nights I’m away per month
every week I have an MNO and Neal’s my
dough and every week she said an Ellen a
Leslie night out you laugh but you know
what’s that dinner I have with a body or
that squash game I’m playing with a
friend with no worries about missing the
time with the my wife and my kids makes
me a matter matter dad it really does it
makes me a better husband and I’m not
guilty also because I know she’s God
they do our fourth bullet point is it
every weekend two days we have one day
of the two that’s just our family just
to kind of you know incubate have that
family time and those four bullet points
like the time I’m going to be away are
nice out and the time together on a
weekend helps me have a bit of a
personal contract that if I break it as
a tragedy some of the travels a lot then
I know the next weekend or the next week
I got to make it up again and I think
having a personal contract is just as
important as having an employment
contract and it’s just covered in your
book it’s not it’s bonus just for Evan
Carmichael YouTube channel it’s
something that you know what I’ve been
talking a lot about recently and I’m
getting a reaction to it and I’m
thinking it’s something I need to write
something new about on this topic cuz
it’s something I’ve been doing for years
I had a boss when I worked at Walmart
for a decade he said every time you take
a new job we give you a work contract
you travel more you make more money you
work more hours but you don’t go home
and say hey what does this mean for a
number of dinners at home what does this
mean for number of weekends away right
those things at a home too so that you
don’t apply stress and pressure on one
system and expense exchange for the
other because I sort of do that for work
that as I became an entrepreneur as I’m
starting to write and speak full-time it
became natural for me to
this document out and my personal life
still how do you decide how much of it
you do yourself and then because some of
them a personal yeah and then how much
you’re bringing to you as a joint
exercise with your wife yeah where I
think about it yes I’m an entrepreneur
right I am writing I am speaking I’m
trying to share these messages about
positivity around the world I believe
that I am working to increase happiness
an organization I’m passionate about but
I am living inside a system
that I love with my wife with my
children that is as or more important to
me and that system has to be healthy it
has to be functional has to have great
food great dinners great love great
vacations and if I’m not if I’m being
irresponsible at system what’s the point
so it’s all through conversation it’s
all for organic you write out what works
for you I shared the travel the time
together that the nights out for energy
because that’s what works for us you
could have your own thing it could be
about exercise it can be a personal
vacation it could be about you know
whatever works for you I just think that
having that personal contract it’s
something that we don’t have enough as
entrepreneurs in the back of our mind as
we’re living these busy hectic lives
we’re constantly trading off our
personal for work when there should be
two contracts and how often are you
revisiting those contracts yeah but once
a year okay I don’t want to be here and
it’s because it exists on paper and you
actually write let you sign it wow it
smells so here’s a real pause okay
that’s a that’s why it comes to life
because I’m putting ink on paper here
right not quite blood on paper but it’s
like pretty serious that if you break it
if you break it if I don’t have an end
unknown and I’m going to kind of
frustrate it I need to the next week to
make up for it if we don’t have the day
together on the weekend because it’s a
birthday party and we’re seeing our
parents and you know I’m traveling for
in the days or we have stuff going on we
know we need the whole weekend next week
to kind of incubate so it create
pressure on you in a way that I think is
ultimately healthy I love it well thank
you for sharing thank you for having me
so thank you guys so much for watching
we made this video for Jason spawns DK
Jason thank you so much hopefully get to
meet in person one day I love to know
which one of Neil’s rules you like the
most and what was the biggest takeaway
lesson that you learn from him in this
video please leave it in the comments
below and we’re going to join in the
discussion so thank you guys so much for
watching
continue to believe and we’ll see you
soon
is this a good use of your time
[Applause]
what is a good use of your time
could a conversation that was just
questions be a good use of your time
what is the only time everyone is
thinking is when no one is talking
[Music]
what if instead of a TED talk we did the
first-ever Ted listen do we give
ourselves enough time to just stop ask
questions and think what do your best
days look like
[Music]
is time you enjoy wasting really wasted
time do you remember when summer felt
like forever how do we live so that it
always feels like forever
why do more of us live alone now
compared to any other time in our
species history
why have suicide rates globally recently
passed murder rates could it be that the
most dangerous person to you and the
whole world is now you why do we fight
more with people we love most
if you live with a partner does your
partner meet all your social
intellectual and physical needs what do
you need how do we stop living in the
past and in the future how do we make
right now right now feel longer just
right now why should we exist or is it
just where the past and the future talk
to each other like why does the year
2000 feel closer than the year 2032
[Music]
[Music]
do we get you what we remember
[Music]
how do you want to be remembering
how will you be remembered
Oh
or would you choose to live forever if
you could
Oh
Oh
or is that like that tin foil backing
than a mirror these we are able to see
anything
how well do you know your grandparents
grandparents
Oh
you
how well will your grandchildren
grandchildren know or remember you
[Music]
is there something you feel like you
just have to do
should you drop everything you’re doing
except the biggest possible thing you
can do
Oh
no one messenger shoes who invented your
glasses your books your food your
religion who discovers your city your
conquering your company do we know their
name
do we know how much they’ve given huh
[Music]
what story idea or child of yours might
survive as a tiny flickering light deep
in the pitch-black darkness of the
millions and million year future we
can’t possibly imagine
[Music]
what is Rajas baton pastors desperately
frantically urgently and try to take the
best of everything we’ve been given to
give the future the best of what we got
who are you in this
how will you measure your life
[Music]
what is your baton
how do we maximize your tiny short life
how will you maximize your tiny short
life
Oh
[Music]
any questions
thousand often thanks calm I will never
do it for money I never put an ad on the
website ever fifty million hits it’s
only cost me money through URL renewing
there’s something among I call the 24
2002 vation doesn’t actually lead to
action like we all think action leads to
motivation there’s these three numbers
that scare me every single morning I
wake up I think about these numbers
every day I’m a writer
speaker an entrepreneur I’m best known
for writing the book of awesome and my
TED talk the three A’s of Awesome my new
book is called the happiness equation it
shares the nine simple secrets we can
all do every day to live happier life
I’m Neil Paz Rita I’m here with Evan
Carmichael and here are my top ten rules
for success
[Music]
let’s go all the way back to 1932 when
on a peanut farm in Georgia a little
baby bullying in Roosevelt Grier was
born original career or rosey Grier’s
people used to call him grew up and grew
into 300 pounds 6 foot 5 linebacker in
the NFL he’s number 76 in the picture
here he is pictured with the fearsome
foursome these are four guys in the LA
Rams in the 1962 did not want to go up
against they were tough football players
doing what they loved which was you know
crushing skulls and separating shoulders
on the football field but rosey Grier
also had another passion in his deep
deeply offensive self he also loved
needlepoint love he lifts knitting he
said that it calmed him down it relaxed
him it took away its fear of flying
helped him eat chick
[Music]
I mean he loved it so much that after he
retired from the NFL he started joining
clubs and he even put out a book called
rosey Grier’s needlepoint ferment and a
great cover he’s actually if you know
he’s actually needle pointing his own
face and so what I love about this story
is that rosey Grier is just such an
authentic person and that’s what
authenticity is all about it’s just
about being you and being cool with that
and I think when you’re authentic you
end up following your heart and you put
yourself in places in situations and in
conversations that you love and that you
enjoy you meet people that you like
talking to you go places you’ve dreamt
about and you end up following your
heart and feeling very fulfilled my mom
is from Nairobi Kenya my dad is from
Amritsar India so they were immigrants
Canada and when they grew up they said
Neil it’s real simple you do great work
then you have a big success and then you
be happy it’s the kind of classic
parenting advice sometimes I ask people
you know have you heard this advice
before you give it up for never once
again oh that sounds normal
you study hard then you get good grades
and if you’re you soon you become a
doctor right or you work really hard and
in the corporate environment you get
promoted and then you’re happy but the
moment I truly like to put forward is a
reverse of like a profit focused model
and instead it’s happiness focused so
like I said it’s not great work to big
success to be happy it’s be happy
leading to great work leading to a big
success what do I mean by that I mean if
you as a leader can invest in your
employees happiness and well-being at
the beginning then we know from all
kinds of research Sonja Lyubomirsky did
an incredible study based in the book
the half the how of happiness this shows
that your productivity goes up 31% if
you’re in a sales base role and most
people look what many people are they
sales goes up 37% creativity goes up
three times this is from just being
happy and then what happens after is you
have two big success at the end I’m
talking about career success your morale
he didn’t get promoted if you’re in a
good place that working you have a
positive mind also you live longer
you live about 10 extra years so zooming
out from profit like just ignore that
for a second if you watch we want those
variables productivity and creativity
sales out of your employees the biggest
investment you can make is on their
happiness at the front side there’s
something a model I call the 24 20 the
24 20 chalice well I’m trying to say is
if you can commit for 20 minutes a day
for 20 days in a row to do a small
simple happiness exercise then you can
invest in yourself at the beginning what
are some examples not all these you just
take one okay it’s a 20 minute brisk
nature walk or it’s a 20 minute
journaling exercise or it’s a 20 minute
meditation or it’s committing a
conscious act of kindness of 1902
somebody buying flowers or somebody rap
or writing down five gratitudes any of
those five remember the nature walk the
journaling exercise the meditation the
random act of kindness or the five
gratitude will invest and convert your
positive mindset for the remainder of
the day so if you are a boss or you’re
an employee where’s that 20 minutes
I guarantee everyone’s saying yeah I got
it like kind of do to this meeting at
lunch or maybe maybe people say like you
know I’ve got to go grab a sandwich or
something but very few people say oh
I’ve got to go meditate or I really need
to like you know commit my random act of
kindness are going to do my journaling
exercise it’s not part of our
conversation yet but yet if we can make
20 minutes of investment in our mental
health and our happiness then we tip
over our brains for the remainder of the
day and everything else goes up like you
said it’s the service profit chain not a
lot of not a new concept but from 20
years ago we’ve always known that happy
people at work perform better and as a
result your sales your profit everything
else list a meaningful work seems to be
something that you seem to suggest is a
very common way that people can find
happiness yeah
now I think I have a real passion of you
on work so basically I went to high
school with the Ontario thank you
yeah with these math develop a lot there
was lovely at first and then the whole
would be school bus erected
and I know we have a guidance counselor
at my high school who everybody was in
love with and he was often we high-five
teenagers in the hallways and he was one
of those guys everybody could approach
was accessible to everybody you know and
we had mandatory retirement age
sixty-five vamoosh you were given the
sort of like passage to pension and we
have the ceremony at the school sounded
it was like the mr. Holland’s Opus you
know ending and the next week after that
he had a heart attack and died and you
know what when I tell that story you
know the reaction I usually get it’s
fast
oh and then it’s also you know but happy
to a brother-in-law of mine or I had a
my grandfather also retired and then
like he just wasn’t the same you hear
that more often so I look into this
concept of retirement here’s two things
I find out that are interesting number
one fortune magazine says the two most
dangerous years of your life physically
or the year you are born infant
mortality over the entire lifespan of
the human race it’s 40% okay that’s kind
of a big number better now but 40% and
number two the year you retire okay big
deal and then New York Times reports
that the incidences of depression spiked
40% in that year you retire so I start
looking around the world at this
conference of work and of leaving work
and ceasing to work and here’s what I
find Dan Buettner and National
Geographic to study on the Blue Zone
some of you may have heard of it it’s
the people the places around the world
where people live like way longer than
we do he studied a place called Okinawa
in Japan they live on average seven
years longer than the North America and
guess what they call retirement nothing
they don’t even have a word for
retirement literally nothing in their
language describes the concept of
stopping work instead they have a word
which I love called a key guy i ki GA I
a key guy which roughly translates as
the reason you get out of bed in the
morning okay what is your a key guy so I
gave my wife do a little cards at
Christmas last year we put them on on
our bedside table she’s an elementary
school teacher at the TDSB
she writes to educate leaders who make a
difference in the world okay
I write finish write in this book or you
know to increase happiness inside
organizations or whatever I’m filming on
but it gives you a bit of a direction
right gives you a direction and so I
advise and I recommend you never retire
Plus just to throw in their retirement
was invented okay it wasn’t like we used
to do this we invented it in 1889 in
Germany when Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck just arbitrarily said hey guys
retirement age 65 and lifespan was 67
now we all want to retire earlier and we
live way longer and so those years can
be vacuous and they can be troublesome
for all the reasons I mentioned so I
advise people to have a nikkie guy and
to find work that includes the flores’s
social fulfillment the structure of
getting out of bed in the morning the
stimulation of always learning anything
and the story of being part of something
bigger than yourself something you
couldn’t do by yourself you have those 4
SS and you have what I call a meaningful
work if you’re not doing the work that
you love how can you tap in to that
sense of purpose and meaning enjoy great
question and I’m not advocating that
someone about to punch out of 30 years
in the meat packing plant sort of punch
in for 30 more years I’m not saying that
what I am saying is that we all have 168
hours in a week okay you have that many
I have that many Justin Trudeau has that
many marks dr. Bert Hanson and many more
buffett is that many richest man in the
world can’t buy more time it’s the one
thing that’s not for sale so if you take
168 hours in a week and you divided by
three you get three buckets of 56 56 56
and 56 if you are lucky enough to sleep
eight hours a night and with two small
children I am NOT if you are then that’s
56 hours a week okay if you work 46
hours a week as whatever job you don’t
like okay that might be your middle
bucket however I would still argue those
two buckets justify create and pay for
your third bucket the whatever you want
to do bucket is that’s the where you
volunteer is that where you’re in the
church group is that where you’re doing
something you love and even when the
meatpacking plant is over or the gig
it’s done then then your bucket can
expand and you can keep doing work the
definition of retirement I’m using is
ceasing work
becoming Idol okay yeah many people who
are like on retirement they’re like I
love retirement I volunteer at the
hospital I’m always down at the library
and I do and that you’re not retired
you’re doing this hundred thing right
okay so that’s one thing it’s like keep
finding things you love how do you
handle setbacks it’s a great question
and sometimes people say like do you
have setbacks like yeah lots I mentioned
I kind of joked at the beginning I’m
like there’s tons of failures in there
Anita’s saying is you know if you ask a
good photographer how do you take such
good pictures you know what most of them
say I just take a lot that’s what you’ve
heard this before it’s like I just take
thousands so that’s why I always get ten
great ones because I take so many more
and like I think it’s like a table with
legs on it that’s your life if you have
a table like this with one leg on it and
I know because I was here before and I
knocked it over it can fall over it can
fall over pretty easily I call that one
table you can think of it in terms of
it’s up to you cash flow streams if you
want relationships if you want but for
me it’s like how many legs does your
table have so how do I handle setbacks I
try to have a multi leg table at all
time like I said I Walmer I was doing my
blogs on my books it made me more
risk-taking in my writing to know I had
a full-time job it made me more
risk-taking in meetings I was Melfi and
asking questions of the CEO because I’m
like yeah fire me I got this other thing
you know I mean that’s two legs on my
table two legs right there and then if I
had a third thing a passive income
stream room doing something online I’m
speaking now whatever this multi-legged
how do I handle setbacks I look at the
other legs I think about what else I got
going on let that thing naturally come
back it’s okay just be doing multiple
things at once to me that’s how I think
about it and it never makes a low feel
super low so I’m not all-in on anything
the secret to turning your biggest fear
into your biggest success on parents to
admit this especially because we’re
filming it’s going to be on YouTube
forever Paul say it right now for the
first time I didn’t know how to swim at
all in my early 33:6 out
and while I know how to swim my sister
can swim and everything it’s because I
had ear infections my whole childhood so
I had tubes and layers my whole
childhood and I had a traumatic
experience on top of all that when I
found to the pool and I couldn’t swim so
I can still I can almost still see it
today until that’s fine because you know
what who cares I don’t need to swim I
live in Toronto there’s no ocean I’m
good I wouldn’t even bring my bathing
suits at the pool party my friends would
want to go swimming at university I hang
up with a treadmill no problem I
eliminated swimming from my life you see
I didn’t think I can do it I don’t think
I had the capability to do it and I
certainly didn’t want to do it you know
I know motivation so I never did it and
that’s how we think about anything right
you got to have the capability then the
motivation and then you have the action
I never got to do because I these things
were never going to happen all that
changed on my second date with Leslie
when she said to me over dinner one
night
so do you like swimming and I was
thinking to myself Oh play it cool
Pasricha you know you don’t want to you
don’t want to scare off and I said to
her yeah no I’m not really big bad just
ah that’s too bad you see my family had
a cottage on an island for generations
and there’s 20 of us up there the whole
summer my 80 year old grandparents my
five-year-old cousins we get up every
morning in the summer jump into the lake
and swim around the island takes about
half an hour now Jeff you can’t come
suddenly that night without thinking
about whether I can whether I want to do
it I just did it i signing up for adults
learn to swim classes at the city of
Toronto’s downtown pool I don’t know how
many people here I’ve seen the downtown
city of Tron pool this isn’t a
recommended thing to do it’s like you
know right you know it’s right in the
urban center of the city I’m like
getting my life jacket the goggles whole
thing I’m walking onto the pool tech
that first Wednesday night my heart is
beating louder than a head in years I
was so nervous but you know what
happened when I walked in on a full deck
Rachel I get out there I get out there
and you know who’s out there a bunch of
people who suck at swimming for once I’m
not the only one people from landlocked
countries and more traumatic experiences
the main thrust formed very quickly till
we get to the shallow end with the with
the flutter board the lifejacket the
goggles and within five minutes doing
that where I could touch the bottom I
was like hey wait a minute
I can do that like that that’s that’s
not hard I can do that and then you know
what the next week I wanted to do it I
wanted to do it because I was like well
I kind of thought I can do it now and so
the next week I was like flutter kicking
in the deep end the week after flutter
kicking wouldn’t a lifejacket by the end
of the eight weeks I was in the front
crawl
thing I realized is that motivation
doesn’t actually lead to action like we
all think action leads to motivation
it’s completely flipped you want to
write that novel you don’t need the
perfect coffee shop the right idea and
expensive moleskin just write one
sentence with a pen from the hotel on a
post-it note just doing that will tell
you that you can do it and then you’ll
want to do it you want to run a marathon
forget the good shoes the right place
for the running buddy
forget it just run with a stoplight on
your dress shoes by the time you do that
you like I can do that and then you
think you can do it and then you want to
do it is the exact opposite it’s the
exact opposite so just take it from me
you guys are scientists you probably
trust someone like Isaac Newton you know
he’s the greatest of all time after all
I mean up there with Einstein the guy
discovered gravity invented calculus
pretty good resident probably hired at
Google these days and he actually said
this first law of motion I can remember
like great ten slides an object in
motion will remain in motion and let’s
acted upon by an equal or greater force
put another way if you start doing it
you please action first you’ll continue
it’s harder to stop and that’s why at
the end of my adult learn some passes I
signed up again and I signed up again
and I signed up again and it was the
same exact class I didn’t go to learn
some too I just did learn to swim one
I’m like I love this it’s amazing I can
do this bro scroll I loved it so much I
just keep doing it over and over again
it is easier it is easier to act
yourself into a new way of thinking then
to think yourself into a new way of
acting
our brains are often the enemy how do
you do it how do you make your biggest
fear and show your biggest success you
just do it you put actions first we all
know Nike slogans
just do it what you probably don’t know
is that Nike was an 800 million dollar
company with low 20% market
when they came up with this Logan then
they struck a nerve deep inside of us
someone we all believe is true you know
what on the heels of the slogan ten
billion dollar company 5060 percent
market share that’s over the lifetime of
youth in the slogan we can remember the
ads it jazzed you up you’re like I can
do that just get out there and do it and
it works it works look we’re all going
to get lumps and we’re all going to get
bumped none of us can predict the future
but we do know one thing about it and
that sighted ain’t gonna go according to
plan we will all have high highs and big
days and proud moments of smiles on
graduation stages father-daughter dances
at weddings and healthy baby screeching
in the delivery room but between those
high highs we may also have some lumps
and some bumps too it’s bad and you know
it’s not pleasant to talk about but you
know your husband might leave you your
girlfriend could cheat your headaches
might be more serious than you thought
or your dog could get hit by a car on
the street it’s not a happy thought but
your kids could get mixed up in gangs or
bad genes your mom could get cancer your
dad could get mean and there are times
in life when you will be tossed on the
well – with twists in your stomach and
with holes in your heart and when that
bad news washes over you and when that
pain sponges and soaks in
I just really hope you feel like you’ve
always got two choices one you can swirl
and twirl in gloom and doom forever or
two you can grieve and then face the
future with newly sober eyes having a
great attitude is about choosing option
number two and choosing no matter how
difficult it is no matter what pain hits
you choosing to move forward and move on
and take baby steps into the future I
have a really strong viewpoint on advice
and it’s a bit counterintuitive and
here’s an amazing times controversial
the thing is there’s a famous quote from
8,100 that says only are asking for
advice we’re really looking for an
accomplice okay we’re almost always
looking for something to either agree
with what we want or disagree with it so
we can kind of
stand firm in our view one you ask
people what you should name your candle
GUI you should go to you might already
have an idea in your mind and so one day
I was surfing through the newspaper I
noticed the cover of the New York Times
and the cover of the tallest are the
biggest student papers in both countries
has the exact opposite advice on them
one said no need to get extra vitamin D
because there’s a bit of study and a
thousand people have been in the study
and all the research says you don’t need
more remedy the other newspaper said go
on the office to get your remedy none of
us are getting enough beers tilting away
from the Sun like guys this is a big
problem and I’m like it’s because it’s
like huge credible new sources with
studies backing both of them on the
front page the same day showing the
exact opposite advice let’s not think
about advice the constant of advice
realizing that the most common advice of
all is actually cliches right so so true
that you just have them memorized it’s
like you know the early bird gets the
worm right so thanks for thinking about
your like or is it good things come to
those who wait you know and you start
saying okay well it’s actions speak
louder than words right or is it the pen
is mightier than the source and for
every single cliche or piece of advice
you’ve ever heard there is an equal
opposing piece of advice so the biggest
advice I leave anybody with it don’t
take advice the answers are all inside
you you already know what to do and
anything you’re seeking is just trying
to confirm something you already believe
forget it
you don’t need the book you don’t need
the newspapers you don’t need any advice
you already know what to do just do that
so I was I’m 36 now I when I was 20
years old I was going to Queens
University anyone want one go to Queens
here shrim
a lot of good Queens turnout today it
was good and I was running for the
campus humor newspaper golden word it
was free like it wasn’t a paid job but I
love doing and I love writing this
comedy writing stuff and so I took up I
took a little paid internship down in
New York City writing for a comedy
startup Simpsons writers starting I live
writers living in the Lower East Side I
like this is my dream but it turned into
the worst shove that ever has why
because once I got paid to do something
I loved naturally suddenly I had
constraints I had to write an article
but this topic with this person by this
time and it became so
like limiting and I said to myself when
I started a thousand often thanks calm I
will never do it for money I never put
an ad on the website ever fifty million
hits it’s only cost me money through URL
renewing you know I mean it’s never made
a cent and so I’m smart about that I’m
smart about focusing on the intrinsic
motivators doing something you love but
I was really dumb about starting to
focus on stack counters bestseller lists
how like those extrinsic motives kept
creeping in and you know the problem is
Rachel they creep in to our lives all
the time right you can’t you can get a
job for a place you love cool I’m
working for a company I believe in
pretty soon you have a job evaluation
you have a salary
these are extrinsic motivators you start
targeting your behavior to hitting like
I want to be a solid performer that
lowers your performance because you’re
like I just have to get somewhere in the
middle and I get my crappy 2% raise like
I don’t really get much from that and if
they’re going to reward me on that then
the studies all show that those
extrinsic motivators actually block you
from seeing your intrinsic motivators so
dr. Theresa I’m Abby Lee at Brandis
University showed that if you have girls
teach piano to other girls and you say
do it because you love it and you want
peace in piano they do an awesome job
and if you say we’ll give you a movie
ticket if you teach piano for half an
hour they stink at it they get
frustrated they learn they leave after
half an hour like they’re just not very
good and so it could be that paying or
communicating a numerical value for
something actually reduces your own
internal motivation so when the book of
awesome took off I got hooked on all
that stuff because it’s so visible so
tangible so real and to answer that
question for myself with the happiness
equation I drew a new model called the
success triangle okay and I say there’s
three kinds of success there is sales
success there is social success and
there’s self success sales success how
many books did you ship like how many
products did you sell how much money did
you make from something social success
what other people think what’s the
critical review is it nominated for an
award right is there a prize it’s okay
with if it’s a movie did it get in the
Kami award and then self success how do
you feel about it and they can
contradict they contradict like Hotel
Transylvania 2
one the ton of sales right and zero
Academy Award nomination spotlight which
won best picture had nineteen million
dollars of box-office compares it over
two hundred million for teletraan
million to why do I know those numbers
because they contradict all the time and
so the only way to solve it is to answer
it for yourself and focus on self
success like I wrote a letter to my
unborn child I hope he gets to read it
one day and if I can try my best keep
focusing on that mantra then it solves
me from worrying about or at least
stressing over things I can’t control I
love hanging out with three-year-olds I
love the way that they see the world
because they’re seeing the world for the
first time I love the way that they can
stare at a bug crossing the sidewalk I
love the way that they’ll stare
slack-jawed at the first baseball game
with wide eyes and admit on their hand
soaking in the crack of the bat and the
crunch of the peanuts and the smell of
the hot dogs I love the way that looks
spend hours picking dandelions in the
backyard and putting them into a nice
centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner I
love the way that they see the world
because they’re seeing the world for the
first time having a sense of awareness
is just about embracing your inner
three-year-old because you all used to
be three years old
that’s the real boy is still part of you
that three year old girl is still part
of you they’re in there and being aware
it’s about remembering that you saw
everything you’ve seen for the first
time once too so there was a time when
it was your first time ever hitting a
string of green lights on the way home
from work it was there was the first
time you walked by the open door of a
bakery in snow smelt the bakery air but
the first time you pulled a $20 bill out
of your old jacket pocket had sound
money there’s these three numbers that
scare me every single morning I wake up
I think about these numbers every day
okay number one a hundred and forty
seven this is the average amount of
emails people receive a day today 147
the average number of emails average
person is currently receiving 150 this
is the average number of times the
private person checks their cell phone
at bay a day which means three times you
check yourself when there’s nothing
there because there’s 147 times there’s
the three times was like yeah I need to
check that number three the average
person is making 295 decisions a day 295
decisions today did you have lunch where
I had lunch means I want the beef don’t
want the chicken or want the fish they
all look goose one do I choose where do
I say Italy say with there’s so many
decisions you’re making decisions all
the time I mean I’m driving to work and
I’m making decisions what street ones
are left right here there you get on the
treadmill Hill manual inclines what I
want to watch from the TV you’re making
too many decisions and this
decision-making energy in our brains is
a finite resource we only have a limited
amount of it and when it’s gone it’s
gone you don’t even notice you’re using
it and there’s only two ways to
replenish it number one is sleep and
number two is glucose or anything that
turns into glucose in your body which
means at the front of the supermarket
was just done choosing 30 different
salsas and 20 different kind of eggs
used to be that there was one kind of
eggs and now there’s 20 when you’re done
choosing your eggs and your salty get to
the front what is their titles again the
bars at the end of the trip when your
decision-making energy is found they
finally hit you with the thing you don’t
even know you need but you need it
because you just used all of your
decision-making energy as anyone here
ever had the experience of choosing the
wedding registry in a big department
store anyone ever had that you know
where they give you the towels on gun
you walk around yourself scanning
everything it’s not in the morning isn’t
it hey what kind of glasses do we want
always always bright shiny how many do
we need how many bowls how many plates
how many four how many knives howdy boy
do we need blankets yeah by the end of
the day my wife that I did at the end of
the day we’re adding like $300 ice
buckets we never use an ice bucket we
don’t need an ice bucket never mind a
really fancy one our decision-making
energy is gone we’re making 295
divisions a day so to research the
happiness equation I interviewed a
number of fortune 500 CEOs billionaires
politicians world leaders selling
authors and I asked them one question
I said you’re a busy successful person
how
make all the decisions in your day how
do you create space because I know your
schedule is busy and I synthesize the
result from all the surveys into one
drawing I made for you today my drawings
suggest that every decision you make
takes a certain amount of time and it’s
of a certain importance it’s either a
lot of time or it’s a little something
take very long and see they’re not very
important or it’s the big deal every
single decision we make is on this chart
so what do we do with those decisions
that are low time and low importance one
of the successful people do low time a
importance with those decisions your
goal is to automate them to automate
them remember I told you I was trying to
saw which way to get to work every day
now I follow the ways crowd-sourced
traffic app I don’t think about how I
get to work anymore ever again all those
decisions which treat this treat left to
right here I can try to beat the traffic
here listen to the radio for this one
I don’t think about I took 52 decisions
out of my day with that one change alone
came up to me after one of my speeches
and said you know what that makes a lot
of sense because for four years at work
I was also struggling at lunch at my
office it was always like where are you
going to go for lunch today do you want
to go here join Hayes who’s going to
come it who’s going to drive what do you
want your sandwich lettuce tomato
pickles that we got to get back it’s
like so many decisions about what she’s
like now I just have a new policy it’s
called double dinners every dinner I
make I make double and the double amount
is my lunch leftover the next day it’s
not rocket science it takes 32 decisions
out of the day for her my friend Chaz
has Amazon automatic refills on every
single consumable item in his entire
house he never thinks about buying
toilet paper again or paper towel or
soap or anything even towel he’s like
yeah I figured I’d use a towel like once
every 1.5 years so it Auto replenishes
every one point five years ago a new
face towel which every single thing is
automatic for him it’s a decision that’s
for him is low time and low importance
what can you automate in your life now
one of those such as soon’s that don’t
take very long but they’re really
important I’m top
about picking your kids up from daycare
I’m talking about saying hi to your team
in the morning this is important stuff
people you can’t just not do it and
that’s why my model suggests that you
simply have to do it it’s a special way
it’s a big word with a small meeting it
just means get er done
execute simply effectuate those
decisions now what about the decisions
that are low and important to take a lot
of time these are the ones that bog is
down right these are the checking a
hundred and forty seven emails
throughout the day it’s getting home
every night doing a different chore or
errand these are the ones that actually
actually make us sweat and this is why I
want to tell you that for decisions that
are not very important that are taking a
lot of time our goal is to regulate them
find an invisible sense in your life and
pull around those things so they still
exist but they’re only fenced in an
example of the person to mature every
night after work
chores bliss Sunday now I only do chores
and chores put Sunday my wife and I’ve
our address is 276 on our house we have
some when we convention called 276 day
anything I think should be improved in
the house or anything she thinks should
be in prison up this hinge is kind of
broken that wall needs a bit more paint
someone’s got to look at the toilet
upstairs you know we just write on our
276 day chart now one Saturday morning a
month from 9:00 to 12:00 we have on both
of our calendars for the next twelve
months we have 276 days all we’re doing
is all those little things that built up
we regulated it so we don’t worry about
those things for the rest of the month
it’s the same as people that have
created an email window all we answer
emails 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. 4:00 to 5:00
p.m. guess what from 10:00 to 4:00
I’m email free right you regulate it to
a part of the day and guess what happens
when you automate effectuate and
regulate your decisions you actually
have time to debate the ones that matter
you actually have time to think about to
chew on to wrestle with but where am I
going to be Who am I going to be with
where am I going to go all those things
that matter
affect their life more than anything
else you can now give them the time and
the energy they deserve to properly
debate them so Neil thank you so much
for sharing all these great 10 tips are
really appreciated since I have you here
live in person in studio I’m curious if
you could share for my audience a bonus
yeah lovin that rule that those 11
through here’s one for you is we want
contracts for our work lives employment
contracts performance contracts my bonus
tip is you need a contract for your
personal life so my wife Leslie and I
have a personal contract it dictates
that I’ll tell you the bullet point the
number of nights I’m away per year the
number of nights I’m away per month
every week I have an MNO and Neal’s my
dough and every week she said an Ellen a
Leslie night out you laugh but you know
what’s that dinner I have with a body or
that squash game I’m playing with a
friend with no worries about missing the
time with the my wife and my kids makes
me a matter matter dad it really does it
makes me a better husband and I’m not
guilty also because I know she’s God
they do our fourth bullet point is it
every weekend two days we have one day
of the two that’s just our family just
to kind of you know incubate have that
family time and those four bullet points
like the time I’m going to be away are
nice out and the time together on a
weekend helps me have a bit of a
personal contract that if I break it as
a tragedy some of the travels a lot then
I know the next weekend or the next week
I got to make it up again and I think
having a personal contract is just as
important as having an employment
contract and it’s just covered in your
book it’s not it’s bonus just for Evan
Carmichael YouTube channel it’s
something that you know what I’ve been
talking a lot about recently and I’m
getting a reaction to it and I’m
thinking it’s something I need to write
something new about on this topic cuz
it’s something I’ve been doing for years
I had a boss when I worked at Walmart
for a decade he said every time you take
a new job we give you a work contract
you travel more you make more money you
work more hours but you don’t go home
and say hey what does this mean for a
number of dinners at home what does this
mean for number of weekends away right
those things at a home too so that you
don’t apply stress and pressure on one
system and expense exchange for the
other because I sort of do that for work
that as I became an entrepreneur as I’m
starting to write and speak full-time it
became natural for me to
this document out and my personal life
still how do you decide how much of it
you do yourself and then because some of
them a personal yeah and then how much
you’re bringing to you as a joint
exercise with your wife yeah where I
think about it yes I’m an entrepreneur
right I am writing I am speaking I’m
trying to share these messages about
positivity around the world I believe
that I am working to increase happiness
an organization I’m passionate about but
I am living inside a system
that I love with my wife with my
children that is as or more important to
me and that system has to be healthy it
has to be functional has to have great
food great dinners great love great
vacations and if I’m not if I’m being
irresponsible at system what’s the point
so it’s all through conversation it’s
all for organic you write out what works
for you I shared the travel the time
together that the nights out for energy
because that’s what works for us you
could have your own thing it could be
about exercise it can be a personal
vacation it could be about you know
whatever works for you I just think that
having that personal contract it’s
something that we don’t have enough as
entrepreneurs in the back of our mind as
we’re living these busy hectic lives
we’re constantly trading off our
personal for work when there should be
two contracts and how often are you
revisiting those contracts yeah but once
a year okay I don’t want to be here and
it’s because it exists on paper and you
actually write let you sign it wow it
smells so here’s a real pause okay
that’s a that’s why it comes to life
because I’m putting ink on paper here
right not quite blood on paper but it’s
like pretty serious that if you break it
if you break it if I don’t have an end
unknown and I’m going to kind of
frustrate it I need to the next week to
make up for it if we don’t have the day
together on the weekend because it’s a
birthday party and we’re seeing our
parents and you know I’m traveling for
in the days or we have stuff going on we
know we need the whole weekend next week
to kind of incubate so it create
pressure on you in a way that I think is
ultimately healthy I love it well thank
you for sharing thank you for having me
so thank you guys so much for watching
we made this video for Jason spawns DK
Jason thank you so much hopefully get to
meet in person one day I love to know
which one of Neil’s rules you like the
most and what was the biggest takeaway
lesson that you learn from him in this
video please leave it in the comments
below and we’re going to join in the
discussion so thank you guys so much for
watching
continue to believe and we’ll see you
soon
is this a good use of your time
[Applause]
what is a good use of your time
could a conversation that was just
questions be a good use of your time
what is the only time everyone is
thinking is when no one is talking
[Music]
what if instead of a TED talk we did the
first-ever Ted listen do we give
ourselves enough time to just stop ask
questions and think what do your best
days look like
[Music]
is time you enjoy wasting really wasted
time do you remember when summer felt
like forever how do we live so that it
always feels like forever
why do more of us live alone now
compared to any other time in our
species history
why have suicide rates globally recently
passed murder rates could it be that the
most dangerous person to you and the
whole world is now you why do we fight
more with people we love most
if you live with a partner does your
partner meet all your social
intellectual and physical needs what do
you need how do we stop living in the
past and in the future how do we make
right now right now feel longer just
right now why should we exist or is it
just where the past and the future talk
to each other like why does the year
2000 feel closer than the year 2032
[Music]
[Music]
do we get you what we remember
[Music]
how do you want to be remembering
how will you be remembered
Oh
or would you choose to live forever if
you could
Oh
Oh
or is that like that tin foil backing
than a mirror these we are able to see
anything
how well do you know your grandparents
grandparents
Oh
you
how well will your grandchildren
grandchildren know or remember you
[Music]
is there something you feel like you
just have to do
should you drop everything you’re doing
except the biggest possible thing you
can do
Oh
no one messenger shoes who invented your
glasses your books your food your
religion who discovers your city your
conquering your company do we know their
name
do we know how much they’ve given huh
[Music]
what story idea or child of yours might
survive as a tiny flickering light deep
in the pitch-black darkness of the
millions and million year future we
can’t possibly imagine
[Music]
what is Rajas baton pastors desperately
frantically urgently and try to take the
best of everything we’ve been given to
give the future the best of what we got
who are you in this
how will you measure your life
[Music]
what is your baton
how do we maximize your tiny short life
how will you maximize your tiny short
life
Oh
[Music]
any questions
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