140. From Burnout to Happiness: 12 Steps to a More Joyful Life with Todd Patkin

⚠️ Content note: This episode contains references to suicide. Please take care of yourself as you listen.

What does it really mean to be happy — and why do so many high-achieving, outwardly successful people struggle to feel it? In this deeply honest and practical conversation, happiness coach Todd Patkin joins host Serena to explore the hidden cost of perfectionism, the systemic roots of burnout, and the 12 steps he developed to help people move from surviving to genuinely thriving.

After growing a family auto parts business by 20% year-on-year and working 70–80 hours a week, Todd hit a wall at age 36. A complete mental breakdown, suicidal ideation, and an inability to even answer a simple question at a restaurant forced him to stop and ask: Why am I doing this to myself?

What emerged from that dark chapter was a 12-step program to happiness — one he has since shared with corporations, schools, associations, and individuals worldwide.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• Why bullying in childhood can plant the seeds of perfectionism and anxiety that follow us into adulthood
• How the "tombstone test" can help you realign your daily life with what truly matters to you
• Why perfectionism is a socially rewarded addiction — and why that makes it so hard to break
• The real reason social media is making young people (and adults) so unhappy
• How we spend more than half our mental lives in the past or future — and what that costs us in the present
• Why loneliness carries the same health risks as smoking 15 cigarettes a day
• The surprising role of generosity in your own wellbeing (givers are 40% happier and 25% healthier)
• How introverts can lean into friendliness without betraying their nature
• The importance of seeking professional help for anxiety and depression — and why medication is nothing to be ashamed of

Todd Patkin's 12-Step Program to Happiness — Overview

Week 1 – Exercise    

Week 2 –  Prepare your mindset

Week 3 – Be Kinder to Yourself (Todd's most important step)  

Week 4 – Play to Your Strengths  

Week 5 – Living in the Present  

Week 6 – Eliminate Stressors  

Week 7 – Surround Yourself with Positive People  

Week 8 – Spend More Time with Family and Friends  

Week 9 – Be Cheerful and Connect with Others  

Week 10 – Be Giving    

Week 11 – Practice Gratitude  

Week 12 – Connect with a Higher Power  

Memorable Moments from This Episode

"Happiness is just being okay with yourself because you're here."  

"Most people say things to themselves all day long that they wouldn't even say to their worst enemy."  

"We reward perfectionism, whereas we look down upon alcoholism and smoking — and that's one of the problems we have in society today."  

About Todd Patkin

Todd Patkin is a happiness coach, author, and speaker who spent over a decade building and leading a successful family auto parts business before experiencing a severe breakdown at age 36. That turning point led him to develop his 12-step program to happiness — a framework he has shared with corporations, schools, associations, and individuals across the country. Todd is also the author of an autobiography and workbook that accompany his signature course.

Connect with Todd Patkin

Website: toddpatkin.com

Udemy Course Bundle (autobiography + workbook + video series):  https://www.udemy.com/course/twelve-weeks-to-living-a-happier-life/  

Gentle Invitation

If you're navigating anxiety, depression, or simply the quiet exhaustion of always striving, Todd's message is clear: you don't have to live with it. Speaking to a doctor or mental health professional is a brave and practical first step — not a sign of weakness.

If you're a quiet achiever ready to lead on your own terms without performing extroversion — Serena's self-paced resource for quiet leaders was made for you. Download it at https://www.quietwarrioracademy.com/leadershipforintroverts.

Work with Serena Low at serenalow.com.au. 

Loved this episode? Leave a review to help other Quiet Warriors find the show.

This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome. Our guest today is Todd Patkin, a happiness coach who's helping corporations, associations, schools, and individuals build corporate morale and a happy work environment. Equally important, he's helping our youth define what success means to them and work to make their personal self-esteem the heart of their journey. Welcome, Todd Patkin, to the Quiet Warrior Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Thank you, Serena. Very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

I'm so glad to have this conversation with you, which is so important for our young

Bullying Anxiety And Chasing Grades

SPEAKER_00 0:34

people. Let's start with your journey of academic achievement and success. What was that like for you?

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Well, you know, I had a lot of anxiety over grades. A lot of it had to do with being bullied when I was younger. And bullying is a terrible uh problem, especially today, because of the uh iPhones. People can be bullied 24-7. When I was growing up, it was just when I was in school. Because of the bullies, I wanted to get the best grades I could, hoping to do better than they did. And this caused a lot of anxiety. I felt like I needed to get straight A's, Serena, through high school and then college. So it was a lot of stress. I did very well, but I did well because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't. And then I was blessed. I went into the family auto parts business. And I always tell people if you can find something that you're best at, better than most people, and that you love to do, those two things, if they combine what you're best at and what you love to do, you'll never have to work another day in your life. And I found that. I loved motivating young people. And so I would hire young people like myself, and we really did a great job beating the competition. So I loved everything I was doing, but I was working 70, 80 hours a week, and the body and the mind just can't handle that. And at age 36, I had a brutal breakdown. I was suicidal, and it was just a terrible, terrible situation.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

What was the motivation behind working 70 to 80 hours a week? Was that because you felt you had to? Was that because you were so passionate about what you were doing and you sort of lost track of time?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

I think it was a passion. I mean, for the most part, I think most people or many people work long hours because they need to succeed. It starts when they're young and they play soccer, they get a goal, the family runs on the field and gives them a high five and tells them they love them even more because they got the goal, or at least that's what it seems like to the young person. And so as they grow up, they're used to getting goals, they get goals in college when they get good grades. All of a sudden at work, they want to be the person who comes in early, stays latest, and gets the biggest pay raises in the trophies. For me, I really, really just loved what I was doing. A lot of it was growing by 20% a year in sales and doing a great job on the overall bottom line. Um, so I think that was it more than needing to succeed, although both of those play in in a uh similar fashion.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So at 36, all that came to a halt. What happened and what happened next?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Uh at 36, I just really had a breakdown. In fact, it happened when I actually went to a restaurant, and the waitress asked me if I'd prefer potato salad or koslaw Serena. It was that simple with my hamburger, and I couldn't even answer her. That's how much my brain was fried. As I told you, I went into a deep depression. Um, and I came out of it honestly due to uh medication. I believe that if you're so depressed you can't get out of bed and you want to kill

The Breakdown That Stopped Everything

SPEAKER_01 3:56

yourself, you really should speak to the right doctor. And if he or she recommends medication, you should take it. It was a dream come true for me. Within three or four weeks, my brain chemistry was back uh in the correct order, and I was feeling great again.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

And did you have to take medication after that?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

I choose to take medication uh even today because I tend to suffer from some anxiety and some depression. And when I take the medication, I feel great.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

So I would imagine that for person listening to this who may also be having anxiety and depression, a good first step would be having that conversation with their doctor, their practitioner, to find out what the best path forward is for them.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Right. Too many people live with it, Serena. They feel like, you know, I spoke with my mom, I spoke to my dad, they said it's normal, they had these things their whole life. But times are changing. We have different medications today. You don't have to feel that way. So I really want to encourage people, don't live with it. Don't feel like, you know, it's a burden. Some people have uh, you know, different problems physically, I have this mentally. You can get help. So I would

Getting Help With Medication

SPEAKER_01 5:10

definitely would recommend them speaking to someone.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Thank you. So, on the other side of that, what does it mean to you to be happy?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

You know, I boil it down to happiness is just being okay with yourself because you're here. You don't need to always succeed. Many people say when I meet the right one, uh meet the right marriage partner, I'll be happy. Or when I get the right uh promotion, I'll be happy. But then it always leads to the next thing. They haven't got to a point where they're happy just being themselves. I don't do a lot these days, to be honest with you. My wife would like me to do a lot more, but I'm happy, I'm okay with myself. I'm not always feeling like I have to do more to uh feel good about myself.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

So it's just being okay with who you are.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I think that's the simplest definition I've heard so far about what happiness is, and it almost feels like we have to justify that it's okay to not want more, to not have to be perfect or switched on 24-7 or hustling all the time. And for those people who have come from that kind of conditioning who are used to performing at a very high level all their lives, and you've shared that you were like that as well for the first 36 years, that is not going to be easy to ask them to pause and to say it's okay not to perform at that level because they at at heart they really want to do well. Their identity is very much entwined with their happiness. They have to be performing at that level and get the external validation in order to be happy.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I'm thinking of writing a book to help people who are my age and your age, who are addicted to perfectionism and addicted to getting those big raises, but who really would prefer to be able to just be happy because maybe they leave their careers and maybe they do something different that they love to do. I mentioned, you know, doing things that you're best at and the things that you love to do the most. Because I always use a test and we call it the tombstone test. And we say, when you die, would you rather have written on your tombstone that Bill was the greatest uh employee at ABC Corporation? Or would you rather say Bill was a wonderful husband and father? And I think most people say, I like it to say that Bill was a wonderful husband and father, but then he's working 70 hours a week. He hasn't been out on a date night with his wife in six months, he sees the kids two or three hours a week. So it doesn't add up. He's not performing in a way that he's going to be Bill, the great uh husband and father.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Do you see this as a more of a systemic problem attributable to our modern lifestyle and the way things are done and what our employers expect of us? Or is this something that has changed in our personal values over time?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

I think it's very systemic. I think that we have lost the um whole family dynamic in America. I know my wife is from Venezuela, and she is happy just because. And it was the way she was brought up. Lots of family together, lots of love. In America, I think the family is broken. Some people made the family's from Florida and they're living in Detroit. So they don't have a sense of pride in the family. So they need to find it elsewhere. And we're conditioned in America. You know, in grade school, if you are really good at four subjects and bad at one, they don't say, let's really focus on the four you're good at. You're great, Tommy, let's go for it. They get you a tutor to focus on the one thing you're bad at. So it's about perfectionism. It's about always trying to be better than what you are. We become conditioned as a child, and we're still that little child when we're 50 or 60 years old.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

I can relate to that. And I agree with you that those experiences, those things we were told at a very young and vulnerable age, are also the things that sit in us the longest and that become part of our identity even at 50 and 60. And so, what can we do for the person who is still who has not yet made peace or whose inner child is still trying hard to perform for acceptance, for belonging and for love?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Well, just to prove that people would love to go to the other side and be able to just relax and be happy. Most of the people who are in that zone, so to speak, had heart attacks, had nervous

Redefining Happiness Beyond Achievements

SPEAKER_01 10:14

breakdowns, had cancer. So they really didn't know if they were going to make it. And once they made it, they said, you know what? Why am I doing this to myself? Why can't I just live a happier life? When they're lying on the bed after the heart attack, and they have that moment where they say, I really should be spending more time with my family, or I should really be doing something I love. So I always say, if you want to be like me, have a breakdown. I say that as a joke. So my goal, as I said, in writing this new book is to figure out how we can help somebody who wants to make the change and is addicted. It's almost like they're they're addicted to smoking, and we need to come up with the answer. They're they're uh an alcoholic. Well, there's alcoholics anonymous. They're perfectionists. Can we have perfectionists anonymous? These are the ideas that are running through my head. I don't have quite the answer uh for you today.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

And I'm sure in the next couple of months, and perhaps the next time we speak, something would have evolved, something would have landed or dropped into your sphere of consideration as you're writing this book. I like that you mentioned addiction several times because that is what it is, isn't it? It's a sense of you have to have that thing, you can't do without it. Even if that thing is dysfunctional or unsustainable or causes some harmful side effects downstream, it's like we can't live without that thing. So in your case, you just mentioned addiction to perfectionism.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

The problem with addiction to perfectionism versus alcoholism or smoking, society looks down on people who smoke these days. I know I don't want to be near anyone who smells like smoke. Um, if you're an alcoholic and you're in a bar all the time, society looks down on you. But society looks up on the perfectionisms who's constantly getting the A's and constantly is uh the one manager that's up the most in sales in the entire company. So we reward perfectionism, whereas we look down upon alcoholism and smoking. So that's one of the problems that we have uh in society today. As I said, there isn't uh perfectionism anonymous yet.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

But I'm sure once you open subscription to that, there will be a flood of people rushing to apply to become members. And I'm thinking also of the social media influence as well. That when we look at LinkedIn, when we look at you know, influences, people tend to talk about what they have done well and to celebrate the success or the curate a version that looks successful because there is also that element of, well, yes, wanting to celebrate and let people know about the accomplishments, but also wanting to gain approval. It's also a way of filling fulfilling that need for external validation, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah, it's very dangerous. You know, young ladies age 10 through 17, the rate of suicide has gone through the roof in America. And they've looked into it, and it all has to do with social media. The girls see the beautiful, thin girl, but the truth is she's not so thin. It's just the way that you know people are able to fix it up with AI so she looks so thin and beautiful. So these girls are really suffering from comparing themselves to what they're seeing on the iPhone. Um, we all do it that way. You know, I spoke to my son, and he tends to feel like his generation is a is an unhappy generation. And I said, why? And he said, number one is definitely social media. We're constantly looking at people who are more successful than us and you know have more than we do. And there were other things that he mentioned, but he had that as the number one.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Your son is very astute indeed. Now tell us about your 12-step program, why you created it, and who is it for, and how does it work?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah. Serena, so I came out of my breakdown at age 36, and I had to ask myself, geez, Todd, you know, you've been as successful as you could be. You have more money than you ever dreamed you'd have. You have a beautiful wife, a wonderful son, and you wanted to kill yourself. Something's broken. So I looked at all the things that I do habitually on a day-to-day basis, and I came up with a 12-step

Perfectionism As A Systemic Addiction

SPEAKER_01 14:44

program to happiness. Most of the things in the program I was not doing. Some of them I was. It starts out with exercise as number one, and people think, oh my God, this program's gonna be terrible, exercise. But exercise is the fastest way you can go from being unhappy to happy or stressed out to feeling better. Um, so we put that as number one to get you in the right frame of mind. And number two, we uh we put listening to motivational and inspirational material. We do this because weeks three through 12 are very, very difficult to do. So we want your body and mind in the right space. Week three is the most important week of all. This is talking, being easier in yourself, being kinder to yourself. Most people say things to themselves all day long that they wouldn't even say to their worst enemy. I can't believe how fat I am, I can't believe how stupid I am, I can't believe what a bad dad I am, what a bad mom I am. And this stuff affects you. It actually affects you at the cellular level. They see that cells move more slowly when you're putting yourself down. So I encourage people to be kinder to themselves. If they give a speech at the office and it's a fantastic speech, but the last minute they screw up, many perfectionists will go home and beat themselves up and say, I can't believe I screwed it all up. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I want you to learn to say, you know, that was a fantastic speech. I made a little mistake at the end, but boy, I feel good about it. If people habitually come home after a bad day and say, this was the worst day of my life, it absolutely was horrendous. That puts you in a frame of mind that's different than if you said, you know, today was a little bit off. So it's all how we speak to ourselves. And I encourage people to be kinder to themselves in week three. It's difficult. People who habitually have learned from their parents to always put themselves down since they were seven years old, and now they're listening to my 12-week program at 40. Well, it's like a record with scratches in the record. They're used to going around and around to the right, always putting themselves down. I'm trying to get you to go to the left. I'm trying to scratch that record and go to the left. So it's not an easy thing. We start out just asking you to notice it. Like with smoking, if you're going to try to stop smoking, you want to just notice that cigarette coming to your lips before we can actually stop it. Just start to notice it. And then as the weeks go by, we want you to change your dialogue to yourself. Week four, we talk about playing to your strengths, which is what I mentioned earlier. I want you to make a list of all the things that you love to do the most. And I want you to make a list of all the things that you think you're better at than most people. And if anything that's on both lists, you should circle. That's the stuff you really should be spending your time on. That's what God meant you to do. There are things, Serena, that you're much better at than me, and there's things I'm probably better at than you. You should be doing your stuff, and I should be doing my stuff. And then what you do is you say, Well, I'm obviously in the wrong job. I don't like what I'm doing at work. I'd prefer to be doing this, that's in that zone. Well, start taking evening courses, doing what you need to do so you can go move into that job. Or at least do fun stuff. Let's say your whole life you love to sing, but you got away from singing. I want you to make a list of all the ways you can get back to singing. Maybe one of them's doing karaoke. Maybe one of them is joining a local church or temple and being in the choir. Another one might be joining a local uh drama um company where they put on plays in the area. And then we want you to take action immediately, because if you don't take action, you won't do it. You pick one of those, the one out of the three, and the very next day you make a phone call and move in that direction. Believe it or not, we only spend 49.6% of our time living in the present. Meaning when you're with your child out back and they're on the swing set and you're swinging them up and down, you're only with them mentally 49.6% of the time. Instead, 50.4% of the time, you're living in the past or you're living in the future. The past is when you've had a dialogue with somebody, something went wrong, and you just can't get over it. You just can't get past it. You're so angry with them. And this is eight years after it even happened. Something we want to encourage you to move past. Maybe you can write them a text or a letter, but if it's so bitter for you, we want you to write them a letter and just burn the letter. They don't, you don't need to actually send it. But we need to try to move past the things that constantly are taking us away from the beautiful things in the present. Fear of the future is a big one. How many of us are afraid of things that never even happened? I know that I watched a TV show with a 103-year-old woman, and they asked her what was her biggest regret in her life, and she says, worrying about things that never happened. So if you take, for example, let's say you're a student who their entire life has gotten A's, like I was, but they have a big test coming up and they're fearful they're going to get a B. Well, the first question is, what's the likelihood you'll get a B? If the last 97 tests you've taken, you've gotten all A's? Well, the likelihood is very little that you're not going to get an A. And then the next thing is, even though you say to yourself, if I get a B, I'll kill myself. The truth is if you get a B, it isn't the end of the world. Same thing with cancer. You're worried at age 45 that you're going to get cancer. Well, what's the chance you're going to get cancer? Statistically, it's very low at that age. And even if you did get cancer, it shouldn't be an issue. I also want to talk about eliminating stressors. Eliminating

Social Media Comparison And Youth Risk

SPEAKER_01 21:18

stressors are there's certain things that we do habitually during the week that just really bother us. Maybe you're someone who doesn't like writing checks. And you write checks every time one check comes in. So how many days does a check come in? Let's say a check comes in six days a month, you get a different check and a different day, and you write the check. And I want to naturally encourage you to break free of that habit. Why be upset six days a week when you can write all the checks once a month? Why not? You just be upset once a month instead of more often. If you absolutely hate cleaning the house, And you can't afford to get someone to help you, and your husband absolutely doesn't like doing the checks, maybe you can swap. That's another idea. And if you can't change the way you do it and you can't swap, maybe you can look at it differently. So let's say that you have children, and you're the one in the family that helps them with the homework at night. And it really is something you don't like to do, but your wife won't do it, and you can't find someone to do it every single night. Change the way you view it. Instead of viewing it and saying, oh, this is the worst thing that I have to do, view it. You know, this is nice. I get to spend time with my kids. I get to mentor them in school, but also as we're doing it, I can mentor them in life as well. So those are the first six uh things, Serena.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

I particularly like that, Todd, that last one there, the reframe, because often when we look outside to outsource our problems and we find we haven't got a solution there, the the other thing we could do is to go internally and to reframe the way we look at it. And so I like what you said about, you know, instead of I need to do this thing, I have to do this thing, which feels like a real burden inside. You said, I get to do this thing. So I get to spend time with my child. I get to see how well they're doing at school, I get to have an insight into how their mind is thinking at this age. I get to see their curiosity, I get to help them, mentor them. That has a very different quality of energy about it.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

I'll go over the last six, if I may. The sixth one, if you don't

A 12 Step Plan For Real Happiness

SPEAKER_01 23:50

make this change, it's almost not even worth doing the other 11. But it's difficult because I'm going to encourage you to spend less time with negative people, even if you're they're your friends, and more time with positive people. Because if you're doing everything I'm encouraging you to do, but you're always around people who are negative and pulling you down. It's like where I live up uh in Boston, we call it crabs in a bucket. If you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket and one tries to get out, all the other crabs pull them down. So it's very important you're around positive people. And the way we do this is we encourage you to make a list of the people you spend the most time with. So let's say you spend the most time with four girlfriends. We want you to put next to their name a number. One is they're so negative they kill you. Anytime you're with them, the world is just awful and they pull you down. Four uh five is they're so positive you could be having the worst day and they make you feel great. We want you to put a number one through five next to each of these four girls. And then we want you to add up the four numbers next to their name. And let's say that you have, you know, two ones and two fours. Well, that is 10 uh divided by five. Uh, I'm sorry, two fours, and then add an extra one. So it's 11 divided by five. You know, you're somewhere around a 2.2 or something. You need to make a change if you're at a one or a two. Most of the time you're around negative people. We encourage you to, with friends, to let them know, you know, Judy, I've decided to take a course on positivity. I feel like I've been very negative. And I know from the person I listen to that my kids will always be like me. They won't be what I want and tell them to do, they'll be the way I am. And I feel like my negativity is really rubbing off on them. And so I've decided to take a course, and I'd like to encourage you to do the same because I think you're negative like the way I used to be. And if Judy doesn't take the course, a a week or two later you say, Judy, listen, um, you're really rubbing off on me again because I'm trying to go in the right direction, and you're still pretty negative. I really do need to ask you to take a course, or I'm gonna have to spend a little bit less time with you. I think you can do that with a friend. Now, you definitely can't do that with a family member. With a family member, you just let them know that you feel like you've been negative, you're taking a new course and you want to recommend it to them. Of course, if they don't take it, you don't say to a family member, then I can't spend time with you because family dynamics are completely different than friendship. The next one is spending more time with family and friends. And statistically, according to the professionals, the number one thing that determines your happiness is how much time you spend with friends and family. I'll repeat it, that's the number one thing. So I want to encourage you, if you're not getting along with your father or your mother and you're not speaking to them, to try to get over that because they're gonna die. I've got friends who said they'd give you know their right arm if they could just have another hour with one of their deceased parents. So try to move past that. With friends, friends can make life so much more beautiful. When you're having a tough time, they're there to support you. When you're happy, I just had my 60th birthday. We now went out with 18 friends. We had a wonderful, wonderful time. It was so much sweeter because I was with them. I watched an interview of a POW from Vietnam, and they asked him, what was the worst thing about your captivity? And he said it wasn't the terrible, terrible lack of uh food, and it wasn't the beatings, which I had almost every day, it was the lack of being able to communicate with another human being for all that time. So we are um human beings who need to have the touch of another human being. We also don't always know the effect we have on other people. I'll tell you another story. There was a gentleman who got on a bus and he decided that day that he wanted to kill himself, but he also knew how much that would upset his family. So he said to himself, I will see how the bus driver treats me when I get off the bus. And if he treats me nice, I won't kill myself. And if he treats me harshly, I won't. So he was getting off the bus and he stood an extra second, and the bus driver said, Kid, get off the damn bus. So he went to the bridge and he jumped off the bridge and tried to kill himself. The only reason we know the story is that he actually survived. He broke almost every bone in his body, and people said, Why did you jump? But he said that story. I had decided that I would see what reaction I got from the bus driver, and it was it was negative. So that's a very important week. The other thing that I think can really help you when you're feeling down, and this has to do with loneliness. Loneliness today is considered by the Surgeon General in America the number one uh problem today. And when people are lonely, they actually get things like dementia almost double uh double time. Loneliness equals, in terms of the effect it has on your body, smoking 15 cigarettes a day. I'll repeat that. You smoke 15 cigarettes a day, it affects your body the same as being very, very lonely for a significant part of your life. So I encourage you just to be friendly. Everyone's carrying like a sack on their shoulder of troubles. One person may have just found out their son has cancer, another one might have just lost their job and they don't know how they're going to pay their rent. So I want you to light them up. I want you to go to your local grocery store and just be really friendly to everybody. Some people say they're introverts, like I know you had told me when we talked to your introvert. And I want to encourage introverts to come up with their favorite comedian and pretend that they're that comedian and go to the market and act the way the comedian would act. And this may make it easier for them to say, fine, it's not me being this way, it's actually the comedian being this way. And it has a wonderful trickle-down effect, Serena. If you go to the supermarket and you touch someone and make them feel special, well, they touch another person, and they touch another person. And maybe uh Bill goes home that day and he's been fighting at night with his wife, and that night he brings her flowers. And now the kids don't have to hear them fighting, and the kids have a much better night doing their homework. So being cheerful can have a wonderful feeling on yourself, makes you feel great. I also would encourage people to be giving. People who give are 40% happier and 25% healthier. And it doesn't have to be money. You can just give of yourself. Go to the marketplace and help an old lady put, you know, bags in her car. Maybe you have a sister and you know she had a newborn baby, you know that she's divorced, she doesn't get time to ever go out for herself, do her nails, get her hair done. Maybe you let her know that every other Saturday you'll babysit for two or three hours. Come up with some way of helping other people. You'll feel better. It's like when we give gifts on Christmas or Hanukkah. The person giving often feels better than the person receiving. We talk a lot about gratitude. Too often people feel that they have less than other people. I know of people who maybe look across the street and see that the guy has a new Mercedes and is so jealous of that Mercedes, but he doesn't realize that the family's been trying to have a child for years. And if they could have one child, they would buy him five Mercedes. So we always think somebody else has more than us. And we need to start to appreciate everything we have. In America today, we're the wealthiest country probably since the beginning of time, but we don't appreciate that. So I always say you can look to the left and see all the people who have more than you, or you can look to the right and see all the people who have less than you. Which way you look will really determine how you feel about yourself and about life. The other one is playing to a higher power, and that's just believing that there's something bigger than you. It doesn't have to be religious and it doesn't have to necessarily be about God. But you want to have a spiritual uh situation. So when things go very bad in your life, you have someplace to turn.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

So those are the 12 steps in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Thank you for that, Todd. Your 12 steps for some reason reminded me of the Ten Commandments, but also of I think what we used to call common sense of good behavior, of thoughtfulness, of kindness, of compassion, forgiveness, being being kind to others, being generous with others, being the giver, as you said, more blessed to give than to receive. But also reflecting that back on ourselves with self-awareness. I think perhaps our modern lifestyles have made us very distracted, very um overly obsessed or preoccupied with what is happening outside in other people's lives, in you know, on the news, um, what's happening with the neighbors, what's happening with the friendship group. And then we forget to attend to our own backyard, as it were, to see what's happening inside ourselves and how are we contributing to that? How are we responsible for that? What are we bringing to, you know, to do by way of a solution? Are we adding to the world or are we taking more out of the world that we are putting in? And so I think we we probably had more of these sorts of conversations years ago. And it seems like we now need to come back to that, to those sorts of values that have always underpinned, I think, a good, healthy, upright sort of life that we can be proud of when you take your tombstone test and see what others say about you.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Actually, in America, the youth are turning more to religion than ever before. And the feeling is that the life is so out of control. You know, you have a war two wars going on right now, one in Iran, and you know, you've got the uh war in Ukraine, and kids, many kids nowadays can't get jobs. It's worse today than it's ever been. So they're turning to religion. You really can't give of yourself if you're always putting yourself down. That's why my number week three, I think, is so important. So everything you said, I think, is brilliant. Um, but if we're feeling so bad about ourselves, it's difficult to do almost anything else.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

I agree. You have to top up your own tank first. You have to start with that. You have to put yourself on the same level or the same keel as other people. Otherwise, that you're not in a position to give, because then it would be giving out of your deficit and it's not sustainable. So you want to give from a place of abundance, from a place of generosity, from a place of joy. Not necessarily saying that you have to be wealthy in order to start giving, because you said giving comes in many forms. But I think when we feel good about ourselves, which is what happiness is about, when I feel that I'm okay, that I am in a good place, that I am happy, I'm accepting of myself, I love myself, I appreciate myself, I appreciate the life I have right now and the circumstances that I'm in right now, then I'm in a position to also do likewise and motivate or encourage somebody else. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

I couldn't say that better myself. That's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

So, how do people start connecting with you, finding out more about your program? What's the best place?

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Well, the best thing is to go to my website at toddpatkin.com. That's t o d k I N dot com. And then if you're interested for just $27.99, you can buy my Udemy, U-D-E-M-Y. There are many courses on the internet under Udemy. And for $27.99, you'll get my $25 autobiography book, my $15 workbook, and my entire tape set series. So you'll see me on video. So you get a bundle of three things that normally would be $50 for half price.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Brilliant. Well, make sure to have that link in the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

So thank you so much, Todd, for sharing your philosophy about happiness as well as the 12-step program and why you've laid it out in that order and in that way, explaining to us, you know, all the things we need for a happier life. And thank you also for sharing about your journey of how

How To Connect And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 38:24

all that success came to a halt. And then you had to turn around and find a different way of living. I think that will be very, very helpful and very encouraging for someone listening today who is going through something similar.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Thank you. Well, Serena, I always enjoy talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Thank you, Todd. If you're a quiet achiever, ready to be recognized and promoted without having to perform extroversion. I have created a new leadership and visibility resource just for you. You can download it at QuietWarriorAcademy.com backslash leadership for introverts. And the link is in the show notes for you as well. See you on the next episode. High performing introverts with leadership ambition don't lack competence. What many of them lack is a psychologically safe and sustainable pathway to visibility and leadership. If you're successful on paper, but still feel unseen, overextended, or quietly stuck at the same level despite everything you've achieved, the scene executive calibration was designed for you. It helps identify the deeper patterns that may be affecting how you communicate, advocate for yourself, lead, and show up professionally. You'll find the link in the show notes.