00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 67. I'm Al Como. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, talent and treasures, to live out your calling. Having the ability to manage change is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.
00:00:26 The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. Happiness is having that contentment that you're not perfect. You're not doing everything every day where there's never a mistake or never a failure, but that you are a happy person. You're somebody who looks at the world as a place that you want to be and looks at yourself as someone who adds value to the world.
00:01:02 Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, who learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
00:01:33 And tonight's Saturday night special. I talk with you about why the answer to that question. Are you happy being you? Are you happy being yourself is trickier than you might think. I give you some tips on how you can be happier with who you are. And I talk about why happiness isn't really about external or internal feelings. It's about choices and your response to those,
00:01:57 you know, one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really, really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do this, and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity,
00:02:26 not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done. What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.
00:02:50 But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com Slash launch happiness. This is one of those emotions that I think everyone wants at some level. In fact, I,
00:03:16 I would say if you ask people, what is a goal or what is important to you, what do you want out of life? Happiness would come up as one of those things that people would often say, now you may not use that exact word. Instead. You may talk about, you know, getting a certain amount of money or getting a certain job or starting a family or finding a spouse or something like that.
00:03:39 Having children, oftentimes we look at events and we say, this is going to give me that feeling. This is going to make me happy. This pursuit of happiness is often what motivates us to do other things. And I would say that a lot of people actually go throughout life pursuing happiness, but never get it. And I think one of the biggest reasons for that is because what they associate with being happy,
00:04:10 He is the wrong stuff. And because it's the wrong stuff, they end up going through life, feeling Frustrated, feeling upset, constantly striving for the next thing, because they associate happiness with those external things that we were talking about. Massive well, celebrity fame, job promotion, big house, Even a spouse. The problem Well, ms. Though,
00:04:37 if you're not happy without those things, you almost certainly won't be happy with them instead. You'll simply move the needle and say that you need something else. If, if you ask people, are they happy with what they make in terms of income? They'll always tell you that if they just made about five or $10,000 more than they would be happy, and it really doesn't matter how much they make that number always seems to be out there just A little bit more.
00:05:08 And the truth is, I think a lot of us go through life. That way we get frustrated by it. But happiness is one of those things that takes Practice. It's an emotion, It's a feeling, but it's also a state of being. It's also something that you create in yourself. So what can you do to be happy if you're frustrated right now,
00:05:36 if you're unhappy right now, what can you do to be happy? And, and the truth is there. Isn't a magic pill. There is a certain item. There isn't any one thing that you can do. Instead. Happiness is often about a choice. It's about making the effort to decide, to be happy. It's about making the effort to decide,
00:06:00 to have a positive attitude. It's about surrounding yourself with other people that do that as well. It's about taking care of yourself, your health, your mental and physical health. And it's about finding those things that you really see as your calling, as your capabilities, and then pursuing those. And of course it is about learning to be happy with who you are,
00:06:26 learning to accept who you are and be happy with it. Even if it's not exactly the way you want to be in the future. See it's this weird balance of being content with where you are, and yet continuing to drive forward. See it's not wrong to want a bigger house. It's not want wrong to make more money or to want to make more money.
00:06:49 But if that event is what you're hanging your happiness on, you're never going to reach happy because the destination will continue to move. You know, the truth is one of the biggest things that holds us back often from happiness is not being able to forgive ourselves for past mistakes, holding onto the things that have gone wrong and not looking for a way to find the things that have gone,
00:07:17 right? That's one of the reasons that creating a gratitude journal or having a daily practice of gratitude, where you reflect on things that you are happy about is such a great happiness tool, because the truth is happiness is not about your feelings per se. It's about the choices you make. And even more importantly, it's about the responses to those choices. It's about how you choose to react,
00:07:48 to act and to feel how do you want to be remembered at the end of your life? Do you want to be remembered as someone who was happy or someone that is sad because the truth is everyone has a story and everyone has certain things in their life that are difficult or hard things that they wish were different. Things that on the journey that they went through,
00:08:15 didn't really go the way they wanted to. And instead of focusing on those and dwelling on those and letting those be what defines you, you can change it. You can find the things that you aspire for and begin to drive forward towards them. You can have something that you want out of life. You can want to serve and help others. You can look for ways to put it in perspective and that even if your life is rough and bad,
00:08:44 find the things that are good in it and find the things that sets you apart that make you unique. That make you have a story that no one else has because out of comes your power to shape your life, to recognize that you aren't a victim, you have control, you have choices, and you can respond in a way that drives you forward towards happiness.
00:09:11 And I want to be clear too. Happiness and joy are two different feelings. Joy is the temporary little joke. I mean, hit you get when something happens as an event. And we think that that's something that we should have all the time and that's what happy is. But the truth is happy. Isn't that same feeling, happy. Isn't that excited and joyful feeling.
00:09:33 Happiness is having that contentment that you're not perfect. You're not doing everything every day where there's never a mistake or never a failure, but that you are a happy person. You're somebody who looks at the world as a place that you want to be and looks at yourself as someone who adds value to the world. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:10:08 As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively, listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode, please, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate. All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time,
00:10:48 invest your time, your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact.