There's two kinds of people out in the world, okay, there's people who are looking for happiness on the other side of that project and there are people who are engaging in that project because they feel a sense of happiness inside, because they feel a sense of fulfillment inside. So, they're informed by where to put that attention next and that project seems like a perfect outlet for what they already have.

In other words, they're not looking to get happier on the other side of that achievement and that's a big mistake that we oftentimes make, is we think that the project or the achievement is going to lead to happiness and so, we'll indulge ourselves in this project a lot of times at the expense of our health, at the expense of our relationships, at the expense of our connection to family.

Because we think that, oh, I'm going to make all this money and then everybody's going to be happy once I become a millionaire, a multi-millionaire and oftentimes the opposite happens, right? Starting with you, you're not any, if that was true that achieving things will make you happier in a lasting way, then think about it, you would still be as happy as you were the day you walked across the stage to get your high school diploma.

Remember that day, how happy you were and the day you got your first real job and the day you got a promotion and the day you got your Tesla and the day you moved into the nice house, right? There were these spikes of dopamine and joy and serotonin, but then after a week or a month, you settled back into wherever you were before you achieve the thing and that's kind of how it goes.

And so, the whole spiritual perspective is that happiness is not found outside to achieve this, it's found inside to cultivating it with your inner work. It's just like meditation, it's just like gratitude, feeling more present, more in the moment and if you do that, then not only are you going to have the spike of joy, but it's going to become stable at some point and increases the baseline level of fulfillment, contingentness, peace and joy.

And the way you know it's happening is that you need less and less to feel content, you're able to let go of control more and more to be present and so, yeah, that's where you start to shift in the why, why you're doing the things that you're doing, it's not to try to get happy, it's because you're happy, that's why you took this job, that's why you dated this person, that's why you're engaging in this particular project.

And everybody else on the outside may not understand, why are you, why did you give up being an investment banker to work at a homeless shelter, right? That's what felt aligned with the happiness that I have inside and that's how I wanted to contribute. And so, you were feeling like your soul was being sucked in the investment banking situation and in the homeless shelter, you're lit up inside.

And then what ends up happening is because you're so engaged and present in that homeless shelter position, somebody notices and then they tap you to become the head of social workers in that city and then in that district and then in that state. And the next thing you know, you're on some panel in the White House helping to engineer legislation around that work because you're the one that's obviously so engaged in it and that took a leap of faith away from something that you thought was the higher paying job, but actually compared to how it was making you feel inside, it was the lower paying job.

And the surface level, lower paying job was actually the higher paying job because it lit you up more. And then it ultimately manifested in you making five times more because now you're a thought leader in that space, you're giving, you're on the keynote circuit, you're writing books about it because you are so passionate about that work.

And that's what we need to understand is that again, the heart is already guiding you, but it's always going to take you out of your comfort zone and into your growth zone. And that's exactly where you want to be because that's where you need to be in order to stretch into the potential to fulfill that vision that you have for yourself.

I've even found that maybe the role at the homeless shelter in this example doesn't turn into the thing at the White House that's so much more lucrative for you, but maybe it puts you in the right state of mind to find another project that you start that becomes that.

And so I spent a lot of time talking about money and there's this whole financial independence, retire early movement. And what I've seen is that people who end up saving up enough money to retire thinking they're never going to do anything, end up spending their time on things they love and then creating these second careers, which actually meant they probably could have retired per se, you know, in quotes a lot earlier because when you have the time and space to find things you're excited about and only work on those very often, not always, but very often they end up turning into things that can support you and your family and ways that you probably didn't imagine beforehand.

Yeah, a hundred percent, man. And you know, there's all roads lead to Rome. All roads lead to your purpose. You can't screw it up, actually. So even if you stay in that investment banking job long enough, eventually it'll become so painful. If it's not aligned, what I mean is if it's not aligned, sometimes it is aligned.

You know, you end up again, like somebody like Jamie Dimon and you're creating policy or at least influencing policy that could be bringing economic empowerment to certain communities, you know, and things like that. Or you're writing about it or you're speaking about it. But either way, you can't really go wrong as long as you're- my work is all about just awareness, bringing more awareness to doing the things that you're doing and checking in and seeing if this feels aligned.

Because I want you- I want all the listeners to have the adventurous routes. I don't want you having the dramatic- I don't want you being in a hospital and you can't use half your body because you stayed in it too long and then it manifested physically. And even that's part of your purpose.

Maybe you'll end up writing about that, right? But that's just a more- it's not the more enjoyable- the more enjoyable path is the path of the unknown where you're choosing this consciously. You're choosing, I'm going to leave this and I'm going to do this other thing because it lights me up inside.

I don't know how it's going to turn out, but I'm trusting that it's going to lead me somewhere that it's going to allow me to become more useful. So, if retiring early lights me up inside, then that is going to lead me somewhere that's going to allow me to become more useful.

If continuing to work lights me up inside, then that's going to lead me somewhere. You know, if you're like the Picasso where, you know, Picasso isn't thinking about retiring from painting because he loves it so much. So, if your work is so close to your heart in that way, you're not thinking about when am I going to retire.

All you're thinking about is when can I go and keep creating and keep finding solutions. So, whatever path you're on, you're going to get to the- you're going to eventually arrive at the awareness that you've been on your purpose the entire time, that everything was preparing you.