Happiness

"Happiness is not a destination, it's a means of travel." This is an open discussion with Life Coach Glenn Ambrose, of Life Enhancement Services of Rhode Island. We'll be discussing the things that really matter in life, the lessons we learn from what happens to us/what happens for us, and finding peace, joy.

This was our first episode and is all about "Happiness." What is it? How do we attain it? Why might it seem like others have found it when we are still struggling? What prevents us from finding it in our own lives? All this and more.

Transcript

And now,

Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host,

Glen Ambrose of Life Enhancement Services of Rhode Island.

Hello,

This is Glen Ambrose.

I am a life coach,

Spiritual advisor,

Personal trainer.

What else do I do?

Reiki,

Stuff like that.

And I'm just,

This is our first podcast.

So what I'm trying to do is throw some things out there,

Give you guys some advice,

Some practical things that you can do in your life to find some happiness and fulfillment.

And my cohort,

Ben,

Is a friend of mine,

One of my clients,

And also one of the producers of this show.

And he's going to be helping us along as we go.

Say hi,

Ben.

Hi,

Ben.

Perfect.

Say goodnight,

Gracie.

Goodnight,

Gracie.

Thank you.

So,

First thing we're going to do,

We're going to try to have a lot of fun here.

So it's going to be very laid back and hopefully lots of laughing as we go over some topics.

So what I thought I'd talk about first is happiness,

Because that's what this is all about.

So happiness.

When I first thought of happiness,

I didn't really remember it as a child.

I mean,

I knew I had it,

But I had been a long time since I had experienced it.

So I wasn't sure if it even existed in adulthood.

So when people talked about it,

Actually being really happy,

I thought that they either were insane so they didn't know any better,

Or I thought that they were just kind of basically lying,

Just lying to me,

Just to sound good and hoping that nobody figured them out.

So that was pretty much my thought about happiness.

And then in my life,

Some things had.

.

.

I think that's a lot of people's thoughts about happiness.

I think that people that aren't happy always think that people are just crazy or lying.

Oh,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I mean,

I definitely thought that.

Yeah,

It's true.

And I was definitely there.

And I actually put thought into it.

When people would talk about it,

I would try to figure out which one they were.

And it was a sad state to be in.

But I hit a point in my life where I didn't want to live the way I was living anymore.

So I kind of had to take a chance.

I didn't know if it existed,

But I figured I'd shoot for it and see if I found it.

And if I didn't find it,

Things weren't going to be any worse.

It was miserable.

So let's give it a shot.

So that's what I did.

So I went out and I changed a lot of things about myself and with some help of other people showing me different perspectives,

I found out that it was out there.

And there's a lot of it.

And it's an inside job.

The one thing that we do is we talk about happiness.

Deep down,

I don't think most people really truly believe it's out there.

But when we discuss it,

We think that,

Oh,

It's our right to have happiness.

Oh,

It's our unalienable right.

That's written somewhere,

Somewhere important.

But the,

What is it?

The Constitution that that's written?

I think it is.

Well,

It says,

You know,

To life,

Liberty and the pursuit of happiness,

Which I think is the point that you're making.

Yes.

Is that,

You know,

It's more about the pursuit of happiness than it is that that you all should be happy.

Absolutely.

That's the pursuit of happiness.

But when do we pursue it?

I don't know.

I think a lot of people just don't.

Right.

Or,

Or,

Or I think that a lot of people,

You know,

My perception of happiness was probably that it was fleeting moments,

You know,

That that happiness isn't somewhere that you live.

Right.

And that's a little place that you get to visit every once in a while.

Exactly.

It's not,

It's not,

It's not all encompassing.

And I think that,

And that kind of leads into one of my favorite quotes.

It's happiness is not a destination.

It's a means of travel.

You know,

We're always setting things up.

So I'll be happy when I'll be happy when I'll be happy when I get the house,

The job,

You know,

The wife,

The kids,

Whatever it is,

I'll be happy then.

And the fact is,

Is we're not going to be,

It's not going to happen.

I,

I acquired that stuff.

I bought the house and had the business and got married and had a kid and I was more miserable than ever.

It was because it's an inside job and we're always looking outside of ourselves for happiness.

But that's another aspect of it is we say,

You know,

Does happiness come from within?

Oh yes,

Absolutely.

And we say that,

But when do we actually bring it into our lives?

When do we actually make that applicable?

You know,

We say these wonderful things and we act like they're a part of our lives,

But we never actually bring them into our lives.

So it's the,

That's what I'm trying to do.

What I'm trying to do is,

Is take happiness away from just a nice thought that we discuss,

You know,

That somebody says it to you and you're like,

Oh,

That's a,

That's a cute thought.

Like a child posed it.

You know,

Isn't that sweet?

And it doesn't have to be that.

Don't just look at it like it's a cute little idea that a child posed.

How can I bring happiness into my life?

What do I need to do to pursue it?

It's not that finding happiness is this real difficult job,

But we do need to put some energy towards it.

So at some point we have to change it from a cute little mindset that we discuss without really thinking of it and put it into practical application into our lives.

So that's,

You know,

That's really what I want to kick off the podcast talking about is how we can bring that,

That mindset into our lives.

You know,

The,

One of the first things that we need to do is be honest with ourselves.

You know,

First you have to look around and see where you are,

See what is stopping you from being happy.

If you're not sure what's stopping you from being happy,

Then you're never going to transcend it.

So that's,

That's one of the first things you need to do is take stock in where you are.

The next thing you need to do is set some goals,

Find some things that might bring some happiness into your life and then actually start taking some action,

Walking towards those goals,

You know,

And that's basically what that is.

It's a three part process that you can kind of solve any problem out there with absolutely any problem.

Yeah,

That's,

That's really true.

You know,

First you got to see where you are,

Then you got to see where you're going and then you need to take some action to get there.

It's it's like,

I heard an example of that with Christopher Columbus.

You know,

The problem that he had was the world,

Everybody thought the world was flat and he thought it was round.

So that's his problem.

He identified it,

He knew what it was and then he had to figure out what he was going to do about it.

Well,

He was going to sail around the world.

That was his solution.

So he found his solution.

Now if he would have stopped there,

He would have been screwed.

You know,

That doesn't accomplish anything.

You have to actually take the action and implement that,

You know.

So if he never sailed around the world,

He never would have proven that the world was round,

You know,

But he went out there,

He took the action and then that's when he got the result and the problem was solved.

What do you think of those three steps?

What do you think is the hardest one?

Because because,

You know,

Some people would say that it's really hard to identify the problem or admit that you have a problem obviously is the first step.

And then a lot of people I think would also say that it's really hard to,

You know,

Then choose what to do to make it,

You know,

To make yourself better or to fix the problem.

And then obviously the action also people like which one of those three things do you find people have the most time,

Hard time doing?

Honestly,

All three.

That's why they don't do them.

But I think the they're hard for different reasons.

The first one is really getting clear on what the problem is.

The reason that people have a hard time with that is because their emotions cloud their vision.

So it's very difficult to see your own stuff.

If one of your friends comes to you with a problem,

You have it's very easy for you to see the solution in their situation.

It's very difficult for you to see the solution in your own life.

That's why getting an outside opinion is so important.

And obviously you have to be careful of whose opinion you ask.

You know,

If their life is completely messed up,

Don't be asking them how to fix yours.

You know,

So but and that's one of the things that I do as a life coach,

Honestly,

Is provide that a safe place to get that outside perspective.

But I mean,

A lot of times you can get that from a trusted friend or another thing that you can do is ask several people,

You know,

Ask four people and if three say the same thing,

Well,

You got a good shot that that's it.

You know,

So that's but it's,

You know,

That needs to be a level of honesty,

We need to slow down enough,

Take happiness serious enough to actually stop our busy lives and do something about it,

Which we have to make it a priority.

You know,

If you don't,

If you want to not have something in your life,

Don't put energy any energy towards it.

And you'll lose it.

Yeah,

You know,

If you don't put any energy towards your dog,

It'll run away or starve.

If you don't put any energy towards a relationship that will end,

If you don't put any energy into your job,

You'll lose it.

So if you want to lose something,

Just don't put any energy into it.

And that's what we've done with happiness.

We don't put any energy towards and then we wonder why it's not there.

You know,

So we need to actually put some of this energy towards it.

Yeah,

That's,

That's a really good point.

That's I don't think that anybody,

You know,

Obviously,

Some of you,

I think that the majority of people just don't assume that that's a thing that that's,

You know,

I think that what you just said encapsulates like the majority of,

Of why people don't do it is because also it's easier.

I think it's easier to just not put the energy into it.

And then to complain about not being happy.

Yeah,

That's true.

And the complaint is kind of the key word right there,

Because we only do what works.

Right.

Now it might work crappy,

But it works.

And what the complaining does is by default,

Whenever we complain,

What it does is it just makes us feel better than and that boosts our ego a little bit.

So it just makes us feel a little bit better about ourselves.

Because if we can complain about absolutely anything,

And by default that we are,

As we complain,

We are basically saying that I wouldn't do it that way.

Therefore,

I'm better than.

Yeah.

And so by our complaining,

We get enough of a confidence boost where we're happy enough with ourselves that we don't actually have to go do the real work.

It's just the main,

It's just enough to maintain,

You know,

Our existence without being absolutely completely miserable and feeling completely like crap about ourselves.

Yeah.

Oh,

I get that.

You know,

That's,

That is right on the,

You know,

Where that's easy.

That's the,

That's the part that's easy.

That's the part that's identifiable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

But I don't think that it's,

I think that it takes someone else putting that out to be identifiable.

Right.

Because if when you're in that mindset,

I mean,

I've been in that mindset for a long time,

I think,

And you know,

It's just,

Yeah,

Well,

This didn't work out because of this or like,

I wouldn't do it that way.

So that's the wrong way to do something or I disagree with this.

So it's wrong.

And like,

You know,

It's easy to just not focus on the big picture.

What,

What,

What do you look at stuff like that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's true.

It is.

It takes to do some changing in your life.

Basically any change you want to make takes three things.

You have to be open-minded that this another way you have to be honest with yourself and you have to be willing to do the work.

If you have,

But that's it.

It's just those three things,

Open-minded,

Honest and willing.

And if you do those things,

Because a lot of that's another thing we,

We,

We look at things like there are such huge mountains to climb and they're really not,

It's not that big of a deal.

We can accomplish whatever we want to accomplish,

But we just can't jump up to the top of the mountain.

It's one step at a time.

You have to work your way there.

And if,

If you are open-minded,

Honest and willing to do the work,

You can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish.

You can find that happiness.

You can do the work.

Um,

You know,

But we'll come up with excuses.

Yeah,

But yeah,

But you know,

I can't do this.

I can't do that.

It's just not the way things work.

If you are willing to walk in the direction of something,

You can walk in the direction you know of,

And happiness is one of those things.

You can start walking in the direction of that.

You know,

The,

Um,

The other two steps,

Finding the solution.

I think that's also an aspect of getting outside perspective.

You know,

A lot of times we can come up with this solution ourselves,

But we need to use people as a sounding board.

Um,

But getting the solution and then the last part is taking that action.

Um,

Sometimes if I had to pick one of the three,

I'd say that is,

Might be the hardest of really going out there and taking the action.

You know,

Because a lot of times we'll be able to discuss things,

But then when it comes time to really taking the action,

Um,

We get stifled.

So,

Uh,

The biggest thing that helps with that I found is accountability.

Having somebody to be accountable to,

You know,

Did you take that action?

Did you do what you said you were going to do?

So it doesn't get put on the back burner and then we wake up,

Uh,

You know,

And this is the new year.

So this is the perfect time to implement this stuff.

We wake up in 2015 being the exact same person we were in 2014.

You know,

If we want to have a new year,

A new type of year than we had the previous year,

We have to be a new person.

There needs to be a new you if you're going to experience a new year.

Right.

You know,

So you need to do some changes to how you did things previously.

If you did what you did in 2013 and 2014,

You're going to end up in 2015 the same way.

I'm guaranteed.

Yeah.

The work is inside.

If you start changing the way you see things and the way you do things,

You can wake up in 2015,

A completely new person sitting in happiness.

That's that's great.

That's you know,

That's the goal of the that's the goal of the podcast and the goal of the of obviously everything that you do as a life coach and a personal trainer and all of those things is to is to help people reach those goals.

And that's great.

And we're definitely going to be,

You know,

Happiness and the pursuit of happiness was definitely our theme that we wanted to talk about today.

But it's kind of something that's going to be all encompassing and something that you're going to end up talking about on probably every episode of the podcast.

And now it's the time in the show for our for a segment that we're going to do,

Which is kind of practical.

You know,

Making this more practical.

You asked people to send in questions.

Yes.

For the show.

Yes,

I did.

So what's the first question we have?

All right.

The first question that we have is I've had a string of sad and angry days.

What can I do to get over this string of sad and angry days?

Well the easy answer is just to go back to to the process that we just talked about.

You know,

First you got to find out what the actual problem is.

I mean,

Why are you sad and why are you angry?

Really look at it and then find out the solution and then take that action.

That's the easy answer.

You know,

Which which we all want the easy answer.

But to try to get into a little bit more detail.

The sad and angry days,

Our emotions are basically there as our guides.

That's why we have emotions.

So if we are doing things in our life and we are getting negative feedback from our emotions,

Then that's telling us we're doing something wrong.

We're heading in the wrong direction.

As long as we're looking outside of ourselves for the answer,

We're looking in the wrong place.

You have to look inside.

This is all inside work.

The fact is,

Is we create our own happiness or unhappiness.

We create our own circumstances in our lives.

There are things from the outside that can affect us,

No doubt.

But our reaction to them is what's under our control.

So these,

You know,

What's making you sad?

A lot of it is a shift in perspective.

People talk about having these spiritual awakenings and these life altering events and all this stuff and those are wonderful if you can have them.

But the average person sitting around depressed is,

You know,

If you're waiting for a lightning bolt to strike you in the ass,

That doesn't give you a lot of hope.

So we've got to try starting with something that you can intellectually understand that might be possible.

And what might be possible is just looking at things from a different perspective.

If you can just look at something and say,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

It could be any problem.

I'm alone right now.

It could be a relationship just ended.

Okay,

Well,

A relationship just ended.

If you know,

Again,

We don't think about how we deal with things,

We just deal with things the way we've been taught.

So if you're sitting there and having a conversation,

You say,

Does happiness come from within?

They say,

Oh,

Absolutely,

It comes from within.

Do you need somebody else to fulfill you?

No,

No,

I don't need somebody else to fulfill me.

But then all of a sudden,

The relationship breaks up and you end up going,

You know,

Oh,

I need somebody.

I feel empty.

Well,

The fact is,

Is you don't need anybody.

You don't need anybody to fulfill you.

That Jerry Maguire movie,

I think screwed half the nation.

No offense to the Jerry Maguire movie,

But I mean,

It was just that one line,

Man,

You completely.

You completely,

Yeah.

That just,

I mean,

That caught on.

That caught on to the nation and probably the world like fire,

You know,

Because one of the reasons is it took,

You know,

It took the responsibility out of our hands.

Oh,

I don't have to do anything.

You know,

I don't have to complete myself.

I don't have to do the inner work.

Somebody else will come along and complete me.

Somebody else will come along and make me feel better.

And you know,

That's just doomed to fail.

Somebody will make you feel better for a little while.

But at the end of the day,

If you're going to be happy,

It's your personal journey.

Right.

You know,

You need to,

You need to find what fulfills you.

And then when you get into a relationship in the future,

You walk into it,

Not with what am I going to get out of it?

How is this person going to complete me?

But what can I bring to it?

That's what makes a healthy relationship.

Yeah.

You know,

You bring what,

What a lot of people who are sitting around wanting a relationship that are not in a relationship,

They'll be sitting there romanticizing about how wonderful things are going to be when they have somebody.

And that they're going to be able to go to a movie with somebody and that they're going to be able to talk about their day with somebody and all what do I get?

What do I get?

You know,

And if they stop looking at it from that perspective and start saying,

What can I bring to a relationship?

What can I bring to it?

Well,

You have to be,

You have to have some happiness.

You have to have some good things in your arsenal.

If you're expecting to bring them to a relationship.

So spend some time developing those good things in your arsenal.

Then when you do get in a relationship,

You'll have something to bring,

You know,

That is not a lightning bolt.

That's a shift in perspective.

That's just looking at something a little bit differently.

And if you can grasp the concept and work on it a little bit,

It will improve your life.

That's,

That's great advice.

And,

You know,

One thing just harkening back to the,

To the question.

I think it's important to mention like,

You know,

Being happy doesn't mean you're not going to not get into a rut.

Right.

It's like everybody is still,

You know,

You're still going to have bad days.

You might still have a string of bad days.

I have bad days.

You have bad days.

Absolutely.

It's kind of like a constant reminding of your,

You know,

So how would you,

What would be the advice to somebody that thinks that they're on a,

You know,

Things are going well.

They're putting into practice the stuff that we've talked about today and everything's going well.

They're happy.

They're taking action.

All of,

They're not putting negative energy in the stuff.

And then something happens,

Some sort of a setback.

They've had a couple bad days.

Maybe they got sick.

Maybe someone,

You know,

Maybe they,

They ended a relationship or,

You know,

A loved one had died or something like that.

Like,

Or,

Or even nothing,

Even,

You know,

A couple of hard days at work.

Right.

How,

Like,

How would you,

What would be your advice to not getting down on the fact that things were going well and you thought everything was going well and now you've hit your first roadblock?

I think,

I think two things.

One,

When you're doing good,

Look around you.

That's one thing that we forget to do.

Look around when things are going good and you're feeling good.

Look around and see what you're doing right.

A lot of times we don't notice that.

So if you take some time to look around and notice the changes that you made and,

And know what you're doing right,

When you get off track,

You're going to have an easier time to get back on.

That being said,

It's the big picture,

I think is one of the best tools that we have is to take,

Look at things in the big picture.

We tend to get caught up in our problems and look at them in a,

In a microcosm.

And that's all we can see is the problem of the day.

You know,

But if you take a giant step back and look at your life at,

Like in year long snippets it's,

It's then you can see that a couple bad days really isn't that big of a deal.

You know,

Just having the hope that you're going to get out of it and working towards being happy again,

Instead of staying stuck in it is really all you need to do.

You know,

There's no gigantic secret that's going to pull you out.

It's just,

You need to head in the direction of happiness,

But to do that,

You need to first understand that you need to do that.

You know,

Usually we just get so caught up in the negativity,

It was sitting in it,

Wallowing in it.

And if you just take a giant step back and look at it and go,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

A year's 365 days,

I just had two bad ones.

That really doesn't hold that much weight.

That's really not that big of a deal,

You know?

And if I have five more before I pull myself out of it,

That's nothing.

It's nothing in a year,

You know?

But that lends into a very important part of this,

What we're going to be talking about,

And that is being kind to yourself.

You know,

Be kind to yourself.

Get off your own back.

If you have a couple bad days,

You had a couple bad days.

It's not the end of the world,

You know?

It's just,

It's okay.

I had a couple bad days.

Everybody does have them,

You know?

I do have them.

But what I do when I have a couple bad days,

When I start noticing that I'm stringing a few bad days in a row,

That to me is a red flag that I'm doing something wrong.

I have to be,

Because if I look around at my life,

I've worked hard on my happiness,

And I'm a happy guy,

And I have a lot of things to be happy about.

So if I have a lot of things to be happy about in my life,

And I'm not happy,

Then I must be getting off track.

And I need to do that internal work and find out where I'm off track,

You know,

And get myself back on track.

That's something that I need to work on.

Stick with me.

I'll make you a star.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

Great.

Thank you for answering the question for whoever the anonymous person was that were not sharing their name.

That's it.

Yeah,

And we are going to keep those questions anonymous.

Where can people ask these questions?

They can ask them on my Facebook page.

The Facebook page is Life Enhancement Services,

And you can send them,

Message me privately there or you can also go to my website,

Which is life-enhancement-services.

Com,

And you can message me there as well.

All right,

And those are the places also that people could find you if they're interested in,

You know,

Life coaching services or.

.

.

Absolutely.

All my contact information is on the website.

So you can just go there and send me any questions,

You know,

About my services or that you might want answered on the podcast.

So yeah,

I guess that pretty much does it for our first podcast.

It was a fun experience,

And I'm looking forward to more laughter and lightening up a little bit.

I was a little bit nervous with the first one,

But it seemed to go fairly well,

And I'm sure it's just going to get better and better and hopefully more lighthearted and informative as we go.

And I definitely want to thank Ben and Dave for helping me with this podcast.

It's something that I couldn't do without them.

And I think that's it for this,

The first show.

So thanks a lot for listening,

And I'll talk to you next week.

This podcast is presented by Life Enhancement Services of Rhode Island with New Shore Productions.

For more information on Glenn Ambrose and his work,

Visit life-enhancement-services.

Com.

Reviews

So this is where it all began!! Excellent job, thank you!!

It was a very good podcast. Made me want to look within myself for happiness.

For change you need an open mind, to be honest, and to be willing. Great start!!

I got my notbook out to write down a few notes. So, I know that your talk had some valuable points. As someone with depression... I can say that when at my lowest, the thing that works is gratitude. Starting where you suggedt skips a step. If you can say... "ok, I have clean water, a warm bed..." starting with the basics and a daily practice keeps your mind automatically noticing good all around you. Then, you are not trying to crawl out of a pit...only a valley. From that place you can look from a healthy perspective to see where you are realistically without so much emotional baggage.

Thanks. I love this series. Relaxed and fun with lots of gems along the way.

I really enjoyed this. I thought it was a meditation and was surprised to find a podcast.