Choose Happiness: The Secret to Living Your Ideal Life

Ever been caught in a storm of negativity and complaints, unable to find your joy?

I discovered the power of choosing happiness when I found myself in such a situation during a recent trip to Sacramento. I learned that even amidst challenges and global adversities, it's okay to choose happiness and savor life's simple pleasures.

This episode will reveal how you too can harness the power of positivity, be it in the sensation of rubbing fingertips together or the beauty of soap suds in the shower, and find happiness from within!

I'll also be introducing my "Unlocking Your Ideal Life" masterclass and "Ideal Life Accelerator" program.

These are designed to guide you towards creating a life you love and finding your joy. We'll explore how curiosity and gratitude play a critical role in this journey towards happiness. Together, let's shift our focus away from negativity, savor life's simple pleasures, and create a happier world around us. 

Join me as we discover the secrets to leading an ideal life, filled with joy and fulfillment!

Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!

Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!

Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Recording in progress. Welcome to the show. Today, I'm talking about a topic that is incredibly important. This could be one of the most important topics I've ever done. It's very simple, very important, especially in times like these, where what I'm going to be talking about a lot of people, this might upset a lot of people and you're going to be surprised, like what really this is like a topic that's going to upset and frustrate people. Yeah, yeah, and if you really practice what I'm about to go over today, yeah, you might not have some friends. Some people might be like I don't want to hang out with this person. This is somebody I don't want to be around, yet People that do want to be around you. It's going to be so much better and, most importantly, you're going to enjoy being around the most important person to be around, and that's yourself.

Speaker 1: 0:46

So what is this topic that is so crucial, so important, so polarizing? How is something polarizing in a world of polarization? Like, how can that be? So what I'm going to say this is the radical statement you can be happy right now and you can be happy. It's okay. You don't have to not be happy just because someone else isn't happy or just because bad things are happening in the world, or because it makes somebody uncomfortable, or somebody else had a tragedy. You can be happy no matter what is going on around you. You can also I'm not going to say that you have to be happy all the time yes, you will still experience all of the feelings on the feelings wheel. You might feel sad, you might feel frustrated, you might feel angry, you might feel shocked, you might feel surprised, you might feel dejected, you might feel lonely, you might have a feeling of grief All the emotions you can still feel is. Yet you are also entitled and deserving to feel happiness whenever you choose to. You don't have to give up your happiness for anybody. So why is this so polarizing? Where did this come from?

Speaker 1: 2:05

So this past weekend I went and visited back in the Sacramento area. Those of you who are longtime fans of the show and a lot of my work read my book. You'll know that I spent a good chunk of my adult life in the greater Sacramento region. I got my doctorate at university near there and then that's where I worked at a major tech company for well over 10 years before finally moving to the Bay Area after my divorce.

Speaker 1: 2:32

So this I don't go back often and this was one of the first times where I was like, ooh, I think I'm excited to go back and like meet some new people, see some old friends, maybe have some good experiences, and I was just like, yeah, okay, I think I'm right, because it up until this past weekend, usually I would be going back, mostly out of obligation, like for work or to get something done, and you know, I end up doing some things that were enjoyable, seeing some friends that I enjoyed like connecting with. Usually the purpose was okay, I got, I have to do something here. This is because not just because of shared desire, shared delight, shared joy this is because if I don't do this, I'm afraid something's gonna happen. So usually job related right, this time there was no need to go for any job, it was just oh, there's something, there's, there's something and there's some people that I think I would really enjoy. So let me plan a trip out. And it's so. It's so funny because a lot of things that I planned on doing, that so many things didn't go the way I thought they would. Some things got canceled, some things didn't go the way I expected. Yet I got exactly what I needed out of the trip and this is something that'll kind of bring up a little bit later.

Speaker 1: 3:50

But some you know some of the friends that I met with it's like they're having they're having challenges. You know like they're. They're having things in their life that aren't going so well. They have complaints, they have grievances, and this is and it was interesting because it had been a while since I'd seen most of these people just to, you know, hear them talking about their challenges and things that aren't going well and being able to just kind of go. I don't have to be unhappy just because they're unhappy. I can recognize that they're having a hard time and they're unhappy, yet I don't have to also become unhappy or I don't have to start coming with all the things that are going wrong in my life. You know, although I do have my challenges and things that I would like to be better. Yet I can listen, care, yet I don't have to get in.

Speaker 1: 4:45

I think Brunet Brown uses an analogy that it's like if somebody's feeling down, it's like they're in a pit, we. It doesn't really serve anybody to go and get into the pit with them. It's all about if you can shine a light and show the way to a ladder, to climb up that that's way more helpful than just getting down. And now it's like get two people. And so this is true with both sort of personal challenges. But then there's more of the global challenges that are going on right, like the challenges in the economy, the wars that are happening, uncertainty with the climate and the world, and there's just so many things, and it's getting harder and harder for me to actually list off the things that are not going well in the world because I really I don't put a lot of focus on it anymore. It's like I, I I touch in here and there so that I have an awareness, I have a knowing.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Yet what I learned is that the more I've put my focus on what's not going well in the world, and you might be going like well, how do you put your? How do you do that? And it's like just watch, basically anything that's really easy to to watch. So any, any news, any movies, any TV shows, they are going to make it really easy for you to focus on things that are not going well in this world. There's very few stuff that is easily available, that is uplifting or going to allow you to put your focus on things that are happy and enjoyable and where you put your attention is what you are going to get in return.

Speaker 1: 6:17

So if you put your attention on things that are not going well and I mentioned I talk about this in my book engineered to love, going beyond success to fulfillment that at the time in my life when I had friends, then all we would do is bitch and complain. What do you think happened with our lives? We just had the same shitty lives. We just had what we focused on and as we focused on problems, and so we had problems. And when I stopped focusing on the problems, I and started focusing on like, well, where do I want to go? Who do I want to be? What do I want to experience Things, that's when things started to shift and also those friends shifted out of my life yeah, without to it's relatively quickly, and it was it sad a little bit. Yet this is, this is the thing to kind of look into.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Going back to the my trip to Sacramento, where things didn't really go well is we can still have a little bit of enjoyment and the enjoyment is not that was satisfaction of that. Oh, this isn't going how I wanted, or there's a loss or there's something that I'm not happy about, but there can be a bit of like an appreciation that, oh, but at least I know what it is I'm looking for and that this thing was not it right that we can be grateful for knowing that whatever we're experiencing is something we don't want anymore. We're done with it, and I feel like that was. You know, whenever I go back to the Sacramento region, there starts to be a little I always get a little bit of taste of the life that I used to have there and there's sort of just that yeah, yeah that that that was an option and yeah, I don't that. That's just not what I want anymore.

Speaker 1: 8:01

And I see other people having a life like that, like one of my, my friends, my friends, her family. They just moved into this beautiful new home that was. It was the one of the model home, so fully furnished, and it's just a beautiful, incredible and fantastic. And they let me stay in the guest suite and it was just, it was just great to share that and like they are loving it and I'm so happy for them. And then there's a part of me that I'm like I wouldn't, I wouldn't want this. I want, I enjoy staying with them, but I'm like I don't, I don't want this and that's okay. We don't all have to want the same thing, right? And this is going to sound strange, but not everybody actually wants happiness, right, it's it's.

Speaker 1: 8:42

It can be challenging, and so it might be challenging for you if you haven't been in the habit of happiness, you've been in the happiness of of complaining or seeing the bad, or finding problems. These are just all habits. It's not necessarily who you are, it's just what you're practiced at and that can shift and you shift and you can shift it simply by shifting where you place your attention. So there are lots of people that are, you know, want to bring up, like the wars that are happening in places, and I'm not going to get into that because you could, like I said, you can go just about anywhere else and get 24, seven coverage of all that's going wrong and all the challenges and all the horrible stuff that everybody is doing, and it can seem like, oh my gosh, the world is going to end. And if you place your focus on that, your it becomes true. Your world has ended, it has been become whatever it is you're focusing on. I like I was talking to someone and thinking of. You know, after the cold around the Cold War era, you know the nuclear era.

Speaker 1: 9:39

So, as a view that maybe you've seen the Oppenheimer movie, the, I have become death destroyer of worlds that for some people the fear of nuclear annihilation destroyed people's lives without a single, with another, another single bomb going off on American soil or other soil. Because they started, they feared it so much that they're all they're focusing on is being in bunkers and storing food and how am I going to be safe? And they effectively got that post apocalyptic world without one another bomb, another bomb ever being dropped right. So it really is like, yes, can bad things happen, absolutely, and do you want to be a little bit prepared? Yes, but do you want to prepare for all eventualities? Because if you're doing that, then you're effectively living in the hell that you're trying to prevent already.

Speaker 1: 10:29

You're focusing on that and, whether it happens or not, you're not really probably enjoying or seeing the beauty in the amazement. And so you can be happy now, and you can be happy even if other people are unhappy, even if other people are suffering in the world, because, think about it, there probably been times where you've been unhappy, like maybe you've experienced loss I know I have. And do you really want the entire world to be miserable just because you're miserable? And there could be a part of you that does, because I think we sometimes have these parts where it's like, well, I just want everything to be like me. I knew when I was like a kid I had this interesting concept of the world where when it's raining, it must be raining everywhere. I didn't have this concept yet that, oh, it can be raining where I'm in California, not be raining in Iowa. It's like, oh, everything just tap. You know, whatever I'm experiencing is experiencing everywhere.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Yet, as we know for the weather, that there can be different weather in different places, there can be different emotions in different places and for different people as well, and that's okay. We don't all have to be feeling the exact same thing at the exact same time. So just because there happens to be misery and suffering, if we feel misery and suffering, that doesn't alleviate anybody's suffering or horribleness. It just, it just increases, it makes it more so. Actually, you're doing a service if you can find ways to be happy and shine that light and find ways to add beauty and amazement, because that might be where the like oh, you'll come up with something that could materially help some of these situations.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Right, like you know, there are people that there's always ends up to me being something beautiful about anything horrible that happens in the world. Like when we see like a natural disaster the outpouring of support, of money, of services, of, of giving food, of getting aid that that so many people in the world always outpouring, no matter where it happened in the world, whatever the geopolitics you know are supposed to be. It's one of those like whatever two, two enemy places, but some one place has a horrible disaster, you know the enemy will send aid if they can. You know, because just like, oh, my god, something and to me that's always the beautiful things, looking for that and putting the focus on that of the, the beauty that ends up happening, the giving, the loving, the kindness and being okay with like I'm going to find my joy and my happiness and visit that as often as I can. And again, some people are not going to like that because they're used to you jumping in the pit with them being miserable, being unhappy, being frustrated, and when you suddenly are like, oh man, that's that, that's rough. I sorry that that happened. I'm very much looking forward to, you know, things getting better and better next year, as all these opportunities, and I'm looking forward to this travel, or I'm so grateful that we're here together eating this great meal like they might go like what the fuck is wrong with you, and that's okay. Not every like, not everybody's wanting to be happy, because changing habits is challenging and not everybody's ready to change in the same way at the same time, and that's okay. And saying that, that's wonderful, because that means that you don't have to change in any certain way on any certain schedule. You can change how you want to when you want to, and that's awesome, that's okay. And there's people like me that are here to help, and there's plenty other people here to help, but also you don't have to do anything. You can just keep doing what you're doing. You'll keep getting what you've been getting, and so if that's okay, it's okay. But if you're like I'm sick of this, then it's time to do something different, and so that's why I'm always looking for ways to make, to offer ways to make it easier for people to do something different. So I think probably by the time this airs, there might only be like two two more opportunities left to the end of the year, but I've been doing, you know, these offerings every Wednesday.

Speaker 1: 14:32

So there's the ideal life experience. No, I gotta like remember what I actually call the things that I do. This is so funny. So there's unlocking your ideal life masterclass. So that's justinwinkcom slash ideal life. And then there's my ideal life accelerator, which is where you can do some one-on-one hot seat coaching with me. So that's where it's just like you got a challenge, you all solve it. Check out the hook when my DJ revolves it Ice, ice baby. No wait, that's a vanilla ice song. But no, you bring a problem and we will chat it out after some perspective, maybe some tools, some tricks, and that's justinwinkcom slash ideal life. X for acceleration. So yeah, so I go there, get some. I think there's still some spots left. So I'd love to see in there, so that you're like, oh man, now I know what to focus on, to bring more happiness, bring more joy into my life, cause that's really to me, that's the sign that you're on the right check is you're happy, you're feeling good.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Something's like oh, whatever. That's like ooh, something's not working. Let's see what that is. It doesn't mean, you know, pop a pill, smoke some weed, eat some Mickey D's and try to forget about it. It's like you look at it and go like, hmm, what's going on? Like, okay, there's something that needs to shift here. And then you shift it and you feel a little better. And then maybe you run into something and it's like, oh, okay, here's another thing that isn't working. And it just kind of gets better and better and you start seeing all the amazing things that happen in the world that are just like, oh my gosh, like this technology or this new way that's gonna reduce carbon footprints, or these new way people are helping each other or allowing people to have more housing or better medical care, like there's a lot of amazing things happening the world. More is going right than ever before.

Speaker 1: 16:22

If you just look for it, you just gotta look for it, and it just takes like a little bit of effort, a little bit, and sometimes you don't even have to like, look that far outside of yourself. You can just be happy just by really getting intensely curious about your experience. Now I'll probably maybe do a whole up episode on this, but if you just Look at the truth of the moment, by what your senses are experienced, you can find some profound, beautiful, like whoa, and just a Lot of shit just falls away, just like like the snap of a finger. I don't know that that snap got picked up, we'll find out but it can be something as simple as just really placing your attention on rubbing the two of your fingertips together and just like noticing the texture and how there's like maybe a little bit of like friction and then ease, and then noticing the temperature and just like Recognizing how much is going on at the tip of your fingers, their ability to feel, the ability of your fingertips to to move in Space, that you can connect them together without even looking at them. And then you can like look at them and go like, oh my gosh, look at all the, the complexity of the fingertips and the nail and all that stuff, like there's a lot going on.

Speaker 1: 17:40

And just finding the extraordinary in the ordinary and having that wonder and that gratitude for the simplest thing in your world and Using that to sort of like practice, the habit of like. Oh, I can be happy right now, like even just when I sometimes when I take a shower and it's like I'm, you know, sudsing up my hair and then it's time to like rinse it off. And then I look down and see, see the suds as they hit the bottom of the, the shower, and just the, the, a variety of bubbles and all the shapes and the sort of like the colors that you can get, like little rainbows and iridescent reflections, and and then like the sounds of it, as it, as the watery and the soap hits the, the bottom of the shower, the splash, splash and the was the waters going. There's a lot going on in every single moment. When you just kind of stop and go like, ooh, let me see, what could I be happy about and enjoy right now, that I could just kind of be in wonder and amazement. And when we start focusing on the greatness of the little things, then we can start seeing the greatness of the grander things as well. It does. We don't have to wait for a great big thing, right it's. We kind of get trained.

Speaker 1: 18:47

You know, not everybody celebrates Christmas or had Santa Claus, but I think I know I did. But I think there's a little bit of we all get this of that like, oh, there's going to be some grand thing that happens outside, that is going to show up and that's going to be the gift and that's the time to be happy and grateful and thankful. It's like no, no, no, no, no. Every moment is an opportunity for you to see the amazement and the happiness and you can be happy about so many things in your life. And it's okay. You have permission. You don't need me to give you permission to be happy, but I'm giving it, even though you can just have it because you are you and, and that that is going to do more for other people than you know. Going like, yeah, this fucking sucks, like I can't believe that these guys are assholes and they're so wrong and they should do, do, do, do, do, do, like, the more you can focus on what you want, what brings you joy, and create that, then a lot of this other stuff is just going to like go away, naturally, right. So because it's like off that if you just talk about what's bad, you're just going to get more of what's bad. So it's, it's, it's one of these like you might go like this can't be, but it is. And I'm curious what you think you tell me. Tell me I'm an asshole. Tell me I'm full of it. Let me know. Or let me know that you've tried some of these things and it's like, oh my gosh, yeah, life, life's not so bad. Life is is good and I can see it can be getting better. I'd love to hear that. Actually, I'd love to hear that a lot more so.

Speaker 1: 20:23

Podcast at justinwinkcom. Find me on social media justinwinkphd, tiktok, linkedin, instagram, facebook, yeah, and YouTube. So go on there, follow me. Like my stuff. Really. Appreciate you listening. Tell a friend, remember to rate, follow, subscribe Really does help out. And again, if you want to join some of these things that I'm offering, there's ends up being recordings available and still some slots left. So justinwinkcom slash ideal life, justinwinkcom slash ideal life X. So check those out. That'll have all the details, the times and how to get it, and they are no cost. So if you're like, ah, it's money's tight, I don't know. It's like there's so much out there for free and here's something, so enjoy. Thank you so much and good day I.