What happy people know is that they can control their emotions.
If they feel down, they make themselves feel better instantly.
Here’s their 3-step method that you can benefit from right away.
Listen to the podcast episode:
Happy or depressed? It’s a choice
The ultimate question that we need to answer to understand what happiness is this:
Do circumstances make us happy or do we choose to be happy?
Example 1: Owen Cook
One good example is Owen Cook, a self-improvement and dating guru also known as Tyler.
When he started years ago, he wanted success so much that he decided to allow himself to be happy only after he got successful.
He pushed for results and felt miserable.
In the mid-2000s, his training business took off.
Owen was able to enjoy his dream lifestyle.
He went to live in a beautiful apartment overlooking the ocean in Hawaii with a beautiful girlfriend.
Owen enjoyed five-star dinners every day.
He traveled a lot.
How do you think he felt?
He was still as miserable as before.
Even though he had everything, his subconscious mind focused on something that he didn’t have such as even more money.
Example 2: Chester Bennington
Another sad example is Chester Bennington, the late frontman of the rock band Linkin Park.
You can listen to this story in this video:
It didn’t matter how much Chester Bennington had in life—what mattered was his happiness philosophy.
How he felt about what he had.
Just think about it: the band sold over 100 million records.
They are the best-selling band of the 21st century.
He was married to a former Playboy model and had three kids with her plus three kids from previous relationships.
So here was a man loved by millions of fans, rich beyond imagination, having a great family and living in the US.
I mean, does it get better than that?
Yet, in 2017, Chester Bennington hanged himself.
Why did Chester do it?
I’ve been a fan of Linkin Park for almost 20 years.
I listened to their records during some of the most wonderful moments of my life.
When Chester died, I felt a huge loss.
I spent hours reading social media, trying to understand why Chester would kill himself when he was so blessed.
I believe that the main reason was that he felt unfulfilled.
To him, it didn’t matter how much fame or money he had.
He was unhappy anyway.
He couldn’t appreciate it.
We can’t know for sure what was the psychological problem that he chose to focus on instead.
Perhaps, he focused on the psychological problems he had since childhood.
But it doesn’t really matter.
What matters is the gap between the abundance in his life and the inability to appreciate it.
This is a lesson in happiness philosophy: possessions, family, and any other achievements don’t bring fulfillment or happiness.
Happiness is a choice.
It’s about appreciating what you have.
Chester’s last message
I believe Chester didn’t die in vain.
His death sent us a powerful message about gratitude.
We need to keep this message in our hearts.
Right next to our fond memories of Chester.
The art of retraining our mind
Our brain is a survival tool that is hundreds of thousands years old.
It always finds something that we don’t have and focuses on it.
It goes, “Danger, danger” to ensure our survival.
To be happier, we need to retrain it to be more reasonable.
What happy people know is that they can use Tony Robbins’ Triad for that.
Step 1: Changing physiology
The first step of the Triad is changing my physiology.
When I feel great, I notice that my back is straight, I smile, and I breathe deeply.
The feeling causes this physiology.
But it also works the other way round.
When I recreate this physiology, it triggers the feeling.
In an interview, Wayne Dyer told Tony Robbins that he had spent 30 minutes laughing with his son before the interview.
When he did this, his physiology changed and his mind followed quickly.
I tried it with my son and it worked like magic.
Last year, we were taking a walk in Oslo, Norway.
He saw a moving light that was coming from a theater and started following and dancing in that light.
He was having such a great time that I got jealous.
But then I thought, “Wait a second, I can do that too!”
I joined him and by dancing, I changed how felt.
Step 2: Change your focus
The second part of the Triad is our mental focus.
I had a mild depression years ago.
Sometimes, I would start feeling better.
And then I would think, “Wait, am I feeling happy? No, I can’t allow myself to do that.”
And I went back to focusing on depression.
When I change my mental focus, I feel better.
Continuing with kids as a role model, I remember how I could play with a toy for hours as a kid.
My mental focus was on the toy 100% and I forgot about everything else including negative things such as being hungry or wanting to pee.
Today, I emulate my younger self.
I focus on what I am doing and let it consume me instead of thinking of negative stuff.
Step 3: Change your language
The third part of the Triad is using uplifting language.
It’s not just what we think that makes us unhappy but also the specific language we use.
When I was depressed, I used to say to myself that everything felt like an uphill battle.
Waking up, taking my dog for a walk, making breakfast, going to work—everything.
And I kept playing these words over and over in my mind: “Uphill battle, uphill battle, uphill battle.”
This language only reinforced depression.
What I should’ve done was replacing that language with a more positive mantra.
Continuing with kids as a role model, I could’ve said “Water slide” instead.
And I would’ve felt like a kid who is happy going down a water slide.
Actionable tip
This is what happy people know.
By changing our physiology, mental focus, and language, we change our emotional state.
Kids know how to be happy unconsciously.
Be around them and model them for fast results.
Let me help you discover what happy people know
If you need help becoming happy, check out my life coaching services.
Here’s a link for you to contact me.