Hello, my name is Austin Shadle, and welcome
back to the Life Endurance Podcast, where we
explore methods of unlocking your true potential
in the greatest endurance race we all partake
in, life. Happiness, success, and discipline.
In a way, that's what self -development is all
about. These are core topics of this podcast.
Three powerful words that are also hard to define.
What is happiness? What is success? And what
is discipline? You'll likely get varying answers
when asking different people. I recently heard
a take on all three that I think really hits
the core of each of these and really connects
the terms in a functional way to our lives. So
here is a definition of each. You'll notice how
these definitions apply. to what I think are
unavoidable parts of life. Let's dig into each
of these. Starting with happiness is having better
problems. I'm sure you've heard it before, and
likely on this podcast, that you will always
have problems. Poor people have problems. Rich
people have problems. Fit people have problems.
Unhealthy people have problems. They're just
different problems. So if we think about happiness,
we likely think about only the good. Having lots
of money, having the body of your dreams, owning
your dream business. But having these things
isn't necessarily why you're happy. Not stressing
about paying rent increases happiness. Not having
obesity -related health issues increases happiness.
Not spending eight hours a day on an unrewarding
job increases happiness. You may have new kinds
of financial risks by having a lot of money.
You have to manage exercise and diet to stay
healthy. You have to work hard to maintain being
your own boss. You still have problems, but they're
better problems. I think this way of looking
at happiness can help us in times of being unhappy.
We wonder why we're unhappy and we feel stuck.
When we start to think about how we can have
better problems, we can change how we frame happiness
and break through the mental roadblocks we have,
allowing us to start making the necessary changes
and feel like we're moving in the right direction.
Next we have success is having better failures.
What this exposes is another topic I've talked
about. The fact that we will never stop failing.
If you're trying to improve, trying to move forward
in life, you will fail. But failure doesn't mean
you're at the end of the road. It's a momentary
pause in progress if you choose it to be. The
most successful people have also failed the most,
but they make sure the failures are worth something.
They fail and learn to do better the next time.
They keep taking action so that the failure didn't
happen in vain. If you fail and give up, it will
always be a bad failure. But if you take the
failure in stride and try again, your future
failures will still create progress. In other
words, you have better failures. When we think
of failure this way, failure becomes less scary.
It influences us to take even more action. And
lastly, discipline is having better addictions.
I think this really touched on a fundamental
truth about being human. That we all have addictions.
That we're creatures of habit, for better or
for worse at times. People look at my endurance
running and think, wow, is he disciplined. But
by the time we are truly, quote, disciplined,
the action is actually a habit. An addiction.
I am addicted to running. It's more of a habit
for me. I run so much that I don't feel as good
when I don't run for a week, or sometimes even
a few days. When we see disciplined people, what
we are seeing is someone who reshapes their habits.
They change their addictions. We're going to
be addicted to something. We can be addicted
to Netflix or scrolling on our phone. We can
be addicted to indulgent foods or gambling. But
we can also be addicted to making progress in
the gym. We can be addicted to running even further.
We can be addicted to getting better at guitar,
getting better at sales, leading a team, or meditating
every day. Again, these are things I've covered
before, so I'll end with today's life endurance
takeaway. If you want to be happier, try figuring
out how to have better problems. And if you want
to be more successful, focus on improving your
failures. And if you want to be more disciplined,
try building better addictions. I hope today's
episode added some value to your own pursuits.
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below. Thank you for listening, and as always,
I look forward to sharing the next episode.