Join happiness explorers Sam Powell and Denise Russo as they embark on an enlightening expedition, guided by Mo Godat's wisdom from "Solve for Happy." Together, they dissect the 'grand illusions' that often veil our true selves and how our thoughts, ego, and physical form can deceive us. Discover with them how assessments like DISC can strip away these layers, revealing the core of our being. Navigate the intricate relationship between spirituality and science, and contemplate whether our essence is truly bound by our physicality or if something more profound lies within.
Venture through a landscape where life's neutrality and the power of perception take center stage, shaping our experiences as either triumphs or tribulations. Through heartwarming anecdotes and personal revelations, Denise and Sam examine the serenity that comes from accepting life as an observer, unfettered by ego or identity. They also unravel the threads of self-identity and question if life's purpose might be simpler than we think—an odyssey of experiences, each teaching us anew. This session promises a profound reflection on personal freedom, the impact of others' judgments, and the peace found in life's unadorned simplicity.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Join happiness explorers Sam Powell and Denise Russo as they embark on an enlightening expedition, guided by Mo Godat's wisdom from "Solve for Happy." Together, they dissect the 'grand illusions' that often veil our true selves and how our thoughts, ego, and physical form can deceive us. Discover with them how assessments like DISC can strip away these layers, revealing the core of our being. Navigate the intricate relationship between spirituality and science, and contemplate whether our essence is truly bound by our physicality or if something more profound lies within.
Venture through a landscape where life's neutrality and the power of perception take center stage, shaping our experiences as either triumphs or tribulations. Through heartwarming anecdotes and personal revelations, Denise and Sam examine the serenity that comes from accepting life as an observer, unfettered by ego or identity. They also unravel the threads of self-identity and question if life's purpose might be simpler than we think—an odyssey of experiences, each teaching us anew. This session promises a profound reflection on personal freedom, the impact of others' judgments, and the peace found in life's unadorned simplicity.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Welcome to what's On your Bookshelf, with your hosts Denise Rousseau and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:
Hi everyone, welcome back. It's another episode of what's On your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we're living out loud the pages of our books on our shelves. My name's Denise Rousseau. Today I am here once again with my partner, my friend, my colleague, my happiness adventurer, Sam Powell. We are in the midst of a book called Solve for Happy by Mo Godat, and we are in the second section of this chapter. And, Sam, I'm curious about what? Where are we? What are these things called grand allusions?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so these are the allusions. I think he explains this really well. He's got a nice little explanation on this, but these are basically the things that hinder our ability to make sense of the world, so they submerge us in confusion, and these are some of the. These allusions really are inputs that make us unable to see the world for what it really truly is, and then that puts us in a position where it's impossible to solve the happiness equation, and that's really what this book is trying to solve, that you know, that happiness equation. And so we talked last time about the illusion of thought, which was the important first one, and it's you are not your thoughts. You are separate from your thoughts. Your thoughts are just something you experience.
Speaker 1:
And this one, this one, my friends, is going to get a little meta. I think, like, well, you go on a journey with this one, but this is the illusion of self, you know. So you're like. You know he ends this chapter and it's it's the question I was asking myself right as I was wrapping up the last chapter if, okay, if I'm not my thoughts, then who am I? That's what this really goes into, right, this is chapter four who are you? And it talks about the illusion of self, and it's interesting because he really starts this off by talking about who you are not, which I thought was fascinating. What did you think about that?
Speaker 2:
I thought so too, and what I really liked about this chapter is that it's actually self-centered, but in a good way, because it's really about diving into who you are, the real you, who really are you and who really are you not. And so he talks about things like our ego and the masks that we put on for others, and investigating and sort of peeling back the layers of at the essence and core of who we are, our values and the way we live our life, who really are we and what is the impact of other people on the way that we think and act. And so you and I are both certified in something called DISC, which is a human behavior assessment tool, and in this particular tool. If you're listening and you've never taken a DISC assessment, reach out to us. Scott has our contact information in the show notes. It, to me, is, of all the human behavior tools, one of the best ones, because it really does dive into this concept of who are you at your core, who are you, what do other people think about and say about you, and who do you show up as to people Like? Are you your authentic, real self? So, these grand illusions.
Speaker 2:
I think you're right, sam, it needed to start with. What do we think about and what are our thoughts doing inside of our head and these things that aren't us but are part of us. But this chapter is about who really are you. For me, we talk about this sometimes about what I think is. I believe that we are not the meat suit on the outside. We're a spirit inside of a body, and so he talks about in the chapter that the illusion starts with a belief that you are your physical form, but isn't there something that maybe is more than that physical form? And so you know, regardless if you think of this from the lens of a spirituality form or a scientific form, the reality is our bodies are made up of things like your fingerprints and your DNA and the physical form, but are you your physical form or are you something inside of that? So I agree with you when you said this is going to be a little bit of a meta chapter.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, because I be. And he makes the argument right. So he starts out with the body. You know the answer, you know he just basically says you are not your body and the argument that he makes is right, like, as your body changes, right, you grew up with if, are you your body at six years old or you your body at 46 years old? Right, like, your body is different and so you can't possibly be your body if you are who you are. But the body changes, right, if you gain weight, if you lose weight, if you lose a limb, if you, you know gain, you know change your appearance. You know I dye my hair, I put on, you know, whatever, like, if I change my body in a way it doesn't alter who I am actually. And so, like that's his argument is that you are not your body. Your body is a physical form. You are not that and you know.
Speaker 1:
I think that I think there are a lot of religions in the world that make this an easy concept. I think there's a lot of, you know, religions and thought processes and belief systems that basically think the same thing. So I think for some people, this is probably this one's probably an easy grab of like, yeah, I'm not. I'm not my body, I'm my spirit, I'm my soul, I'm my whatever. Right, like I think that that's a concept that a lot of people you know know about. So I don't know that this one's necessarily like that hard to ascertain, but it's. I mean, he really makes a point of it. You know, it's a very much. You are not your body.
Speaker 1:
And then he goes into this whole other list of things that you're not right. He says you're not your emotions and we talked about that a little bit last time right, like I always, you know, we're helping people with emotions. It's, you know, it's not I am mad, it's I am experiencing anger. I guess you are not that right. But he goes on to say you're not your beliefs, you're not your name, you're not the tribe you belong to, you're not your family tree, you're not your achievements, you're not your possessions. Right Like, you're just not any of these Things. Like I don't know, were that any of those on this list that he gives that were hard for you or I don't know, maybe came really easy? Um.
Speaker 2:
I Think they're all hard because we get caught up sometimes thinking, were those things? Because maybe you're programmed or your Culture or the way you were brought up make you think of those things? But what struck me was let's suppose that you aren't a spiritual person, so I get what you're saying that, okay, most people could grasp a concept that if you have some sort of spirituality you would believe you're a soul in a body of some sort. But let's suppose you're somebody listening and you don't believe that at all. What really got me because I am somebody that believes that was when he said look, your physical form is almost entirely replaced, sometimes many times over Every few years, and what he was talking about there was how your cells, even just you know, when you take a shower You're wiping off cells and at night you're regenerating new cells. Or when you brush your hair and your hair falls out, you're losing part of you, but other parts of you are growing back, and so what really grasped my mind on this chapter was the fact that I am Myself, I also have some controls Over what I do today that will determine how I live tomorrow, but that you can't predict tomorrow, and so you just have to live your best self and live a life that promotes Happiness.
Speaker 2:
Because he talks about something that I thought was also interesting, where he said your body is the physical avatar that takes you through the physical world a vehicle, a container, and nothing more. And so what made me really think about that, in light of the examples you gave, sam, is that if you're the vehicle, then you would think about okay, if I'm the car? Well, the car has an engine, the car has seats, the car needs gas, the car needs oil, and it's your job to take care of the vehicle, but you're not the parts of the vehicle, you're the whole of the vehicle. And so, again, maybe a little bit challenging to think through what that actually could mean for you, but the way that he said it that I think sums it up for me in this part of the chapter, was he said you're the one who sees, you're the vehicle, you know all the parts of the vehicle, you're not the parts, you're the sum of the parts, just like you're not your thoughts, but your thoughts are part of you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and this is right. He goes through all the stuff that you are, not this list of things. But then he says you are the observer, right, you are the seer, you are the one who sees, right, you. To me that was like you are your consciousness, consciousness, essentially right. Like you're the part that is able to observe the vehicle right, you're the part of you, right. Like you're not even really the vehicle, really. Your, you're the, you're the observer of the vehicle right, and you can do that from inside the car. But like you're the, you're the consciousness around. That again like. This is where this goes, super meta.
Speaker 2:
Yeah well um, but I got to thinking about did you think like, okay, here's the gist. This guy lost his son at a very At an age where you wouldn't expect to lose a child. Some is like 21 years old. This guy went through a lot of traumatic thinking because he had put all of his existence in his job. He was working, making tons of money, super successful, Also had great relationships with his family.
Speaker 2:
It wasn't that he was absent from family, but when he lost a family member, then nothing else, really not that it wasn't important anymore, but it took on a whole different observation, to use your word for observing and one of the things that I think was so profound for his journey that I'm still trying to understand how to process, because it hasn't happened to me. Now you may be able to share from your perspective, because it has happened to you. He says to reach the state of uninterrupted joy, you need to accept that everything in the physical world will eventually vanish and decay, but the real self will remain calm and unaffected. That really struck me and it made me think of you actually when I read that part of it, because you do live what I think is a joyous, happy, smiling, positive experience, despite something that happened to and through you. So I was wondering how do you find uninterrupted joy? Is it possible to actually have joy that's uninterrupted?
Speaker 1:
I think so because there's a. I think you get to a state of peacefulness once you accept these illusions as illusions. Right, you have to let go of the thought processes of good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people. That is not true. Things happen neutrally. Things just happen and you might experience them as good and you might experience them as bad, but they're not, they're really not at the core of it, and I think that that's, and I think that if you can take that approach on yourself here, right, but it's the same thing. I experience all of these things, right, I experience my body, I experience my emotions, I experience my beliefs and my name and all of these things, but those aren't really the core of who I am right and what that is, and so if you can get down to that level of acceptance and understanding, then you can really approach life very peacefully.
Speaker 1:
It doesn't matter what happens around you. Right, it is here for you to then go do something with that right. And I'm not a subscriber of like meant to be or things like that. That is something I let go of when my son died because no one will ever convince me that him dying was meant to be, and I think there's a lot of people who've gone and experienced loss that feel the same way. And so it's like when you can let things like that go, when you can let those beliefs go like that and then get back to this place of things happen, and it's my job to figure out what I do with that right, what I do with that reaction, and there is a very, very large sense of peace in that thought process for me, especially right Like I am allowed to hold multiple things. I am gosh. When we do the John Maxwell certification, one of the things you have to do is give a three minute speech, and mine was about that exact concept and it was about this moment from right after my.
Speaker 1:
It was right after my son died. It was actually after he died, before his funeral, so it was the days in between. There and my older son had this best friend. We were in the middle of COVID, right, so we hadn't seen anybody in a long time, right, like everyone was separated. And so this little boy came over, right. I mean, we're deep in grief, we had just lost our son. But my friend texted me and she said, hey, how would I bring, you know, a little Charlie over and the? You know, the boys can play in the yard? I just like, right, we've been isolated, you guys been isolated, like you know, that would be nice. I was like, actually, that sounds wonderful, that'd be great. Like, please, come over. And so they did.
Speaker 1:
And Charlie hops out of the car he was four at the time, right, my son was just five. And so little Charlie hops out of his car seat, walks right up to my son and he says I heard your brother died. And all the adults froze Because we're like, oh gosh, and my son goes, yep, and Charlie goes, I'm sorry about that. And my son goes, that's okay. And Charlie goes. Is this making you feel better yet? And Charlie's mom looked horrified, right, and you can totally see the conversation in the car. Right, it's like we're going to a different Austin's house. His brother died. We're going to go play with him and make him feel better. Right, like seeing you is going to make him feel better.
Speaker 1:
And as a four year old, he like spewed all that right out of his mouth and Charlie's mom, as he said. It was like, oh my gosh, like I like starting to apologize and I busted out laughing. I was like this is so funny. I absolutely love this moment.
Speaker 1:
And it was like it was in that moment that I realized, right, like I'm capable humans are capable of holding really complex emotions simultaneously. Right, like you can be really sad, you can be in the deepest grief of your life and still laugh because of something hilarious that a four year old does. Right, and then the boys scampered off and they played and they chased butterflies and ran through the yard and had like a great time. But I think it's like that, when you can let go of all these beliefs of like I can only be, you know, like I can only experience happy, I have you, like I am happy or I am sad, it's like, no, you're just experiencing things, you're just getting experience of them. Together you can get to the sense of peace. I think around, you know, just around this, I think for me it's like letting go of self in all of these thought processes and thinking of myself as the observer, as the one who just experiences life and gets to watch it go by. There's just to me that's a very peaceful thought.
Speaker 2:
We learn so so much from the innocence of children, don't we? And what a beautiful story of little Charlie. I love this story and it really is highlighted in the book. Actually, where he talks about the author talks about these roles that we play and In the roles that we play, if I think about what Charlie did was he was his authentic, authentic, best self with his friend. That was all he knew. He was told something, he had a thought about it from his perception of it, and he played out that role the way, maybe. Mom said you know, you're here to make your friend feel better, and then and then even to ask him Okay, do you feel better? Now Go play. How beautiful, what an awesome story.
Speaker 2:
What happens, though, when we get older? Then we put on these masks, and so he talks about in the book that there's this masquerade. So why do we try so hard to drink from a fancy cup when all we want is good coffee? If you want to live a stress-free life, ignore the cup and just enjoy the coffee. So you'll have to read the chapter to get the deeper gist of what he meant by that, but suffice it to say that you don't have to keep up with the Joneses. You don't have to put on a mask, you don't have to be something that you are not. Who are you at your authentic, core, real self?
Speaker 2:
I remember watching this interview and the interview was with the recording artist Usher after the Super Bowl a couple months ago. And in the interview it's so funny watching Media people interview celebrities, especially ones that I've worked with before, because I know them, perhaps without the mask on and you see them on TV in a different way. But the media people always have a mask on because somebody gave them questions to ask or maybe they're nervous to be around a celebrity. And I remember this one interview. He was asking a question like oh, you know, there were a lot of other kids of Celebrities at the Super Bowl. What were your kids doing? And he just became a super authentic self.
Speaker 2:
You know he could have said Any random amounts of things and he said well, they're just my kids, like they know me as dad. So one was probably playing on their phone while I was performing. Another one was probably running around with friends while I was performing and another one, you know, is older, more reflective, like teenager, and I think that he was probably just watching it for the fun of it. But remember, they're with me every day. You're with me just this one time, so when you can be your most authentic self Inside of yourself, whether you're at work, like why do you have to have a work persona versus a persona that you are at home? Or do you ever notice people that will act different when they're around someone who has a title? Then, when they're acting around somebody who maybe doesn't, or maybe somebody do you have you ever experienced, sam managers who act differently With people that report to them than the people they report to?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely, and I like, and, being a manager, I've experienced people acting different with me. Then I know them to really be because of some title that I have and you know, I think that that's I always tell people. I this, from the whose line is it anyway? Shows that the rules are made up and the points don't matter. And I like when people do those kinds of things and we wear these masks and we think about, oh, we put somebody on a pedestal, or we think about that, or we put ourselves on a pedestal.
Speaker 1:
I'm so great because I did this or I accomplished this, or right, I'm wrapped up in this identity of I am manager, or you know, hear me roar, it's that's all made up. Yeah, right, like you're human, I'm a human, right, like. We do the same things. At the end of the day, our body needs the same things, we function the same way. Our thought process is probably pretty similar. Like none of that matters, right, and I think that like that's the I don't know. To me, it's like the ultimate level of like Evolution as a human, if you can get to that thought process and like really live life and experience life in that space of there is no like, right, I'm, I'm the observer, I'm, you know, the point of life is to live, is to experience it, to watch this life go by.
Speaker 1:
I Read something once that it was like I don't know if it was a book, maybe, but it was this thought process of like what if the point of life is just living and you get to live life a million times over? Right, it's like a re-incarnation thought. But if you like, what if the whole point is like I just get to go and like this time I'm a nurse in the middle of wartime, this time I'm a teacher, this time I'm, you know, I experienced poverty. This time I do this stuff, right, and and you're this like culmination of all of these lives and all these experiences. And to me it's kind of like that, if you can let go of Self and identity and I, I am a nurse it's like no, I, right now I work, as you know, I work as a nurse, I do nursing activities, right, like, if you can do that separation, I don't know, I think you can get to something very like I said, very peaceful, very fulfilled, very, I don't know.
Speaker 1:
Like I just enjoy life differently when I think of things like that, like it doesn't matter what's happening around me. I'm just experiencing it and it's joyful, even when it's sad, even when it's hard, even when emotions are there. It's like man. If I can take that step back and separate, it's kind of magical.
Speaker 2:
I love that, I love that idea and I think that also, what you're helping me think about is there's this part in the book where he talks about separating yourself from what others think about you, and it's a losing battle to ever try to gain approval from other people, and it's hard to just gain approval from yourself, like your example of no. Right now I am acting in the role of a nurse, yeah, but being a nurse doesn't define me, and so he says something that is like People, let's say that there's. You can't please everybody, right, and I'm even thinking about I had this meeting not long ago With another person that I was talking to about some, some different opportunities, and I just knew when I was talking to the person, sam, that there wasn't like a match. This was not going to be my new but, bff, I just didn't have that gut feeling, yeah, and I was able to go away from that and sure, I felt a little bit, you know, a different kind of way about it when I left the cult. I always want every call to be successful and positive and happy.
Speaker 2:
This one just wasn't, and, and so the book. At the time that this experience happened to me, I was actually reading this chapter in the book and I wrote in the margin about that experience because I didn't want to forget it, because he says most says people will disapprove of you not because they are evaluating you, but because they are Valuing themselves and there's no way to win. It's sad but true and when I hung up from that call, after reading this chapter and thinking about the experience with this person I was talking with, I Started to think about with a really empathetic heart, to why the person showed up the way they did or what might they be thinking, and that maybe it had nothing at all to do with me. It's just that there wasn't a connection.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that's the freedom in it that you are hitting it right at the heart of where I think Real, true freedom and life lives is. If you can understand and he says it in the book this way, others will rarely ever approve of your ego, because they are more concerned with their own ego than yours. The survival of their ego Depends on comparing it with yours. And he doesn't mean ego isn't like on egotistical, he means ego is in, like my perception of myself, right, my perception of myself. Nobody cares about my perception of myself. Everyone's thinking about themselves, and not in a selfish way, it's in a how we're designed. Yeah, and so if you can understand that my perception is my perception, right, and my experience is my experience and that's all that. It is it to, that's, that's it right, and I'm separate from that.
Speaker 1:
I'm the observer in that, then you can also understand that people, when they do things, they aren't doing things to you. They're doing things because they're serving their own perception of themselves, their own perception of reality and a lot of times, right, we're trying to protect that at all costs. Right, because we are working off of a set of beliefs about how life works and how things should work. And if you can let all that go and if you can let go of the fact that, like nobody's ever doing anything to me, they're doing something for themselves.
Speaker 1:
Right, when my son gets angry at me and he yells at me and he inevitably says you know, I hate you. He doesn't hate me, right, he's angry, he's trying to make me feel better, to make him or make me feel bad, to make himself feel worse, right, like that's it. He's trying to counterbalance, he's trying to protect and if you can understand that that's what people are doing like that to me, that's like the freedom in it is. I don't have to be mad at you, I don't have to feel anything because of the way you're acting. I know it's coming from your own sense and your own experience and your own set of thought processes and that's okay, you know, go for it. And I get to just be entertained yeah, not in a, I'm making fun of you, but just like I get to be an entertained observer in this experience and that.
Speaker 2:
And that's freeing to me. Well, and because the great thing is, there's gonna be another experience that you have where Austin comes up to you and wants to be lovey and wants to know the difference.
Speaker 2:
So what makes that any different of an experience? It's just an experience, and maybe, to sum it up, I'll say that at the end of the chapter what I loved was is we talked about sort of this, this idea of watching your life as a movie and being your true, authentic self. That's what this chapter is about being who you really are, no matter what anybody else says, thinks or shares with you about who they think you are. He says get real, you're not really the star of the movie. So again, thinking of watching your life as the movie, he says you're not the star of the movie.
Speaker 2:
Most of what happens around you isn't about you at all. They're an infinite number of other movies, because everybody else is experiencing theirs as well. And then he says in those, if you feature at all, you're just the supporting actor. It would really help your happiness if you started to look at your life that way. Look at the night sky, Remember. The beauty resides in its billions of sparkling stars, and one of those billions your butt just won. And that makes this chapter for me almost like the don't sweat the small stuff, like, because it's all really small.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, and I love that thought process of like because I have a whole exercise I run people through on being, you know, like you're the main character in your movie. But you're the main character in your movie, but you have to understand you're not the main character in the movie because there is no movie. There is an infinite number of things and if you can understand that again like there's such goodness and such happiness living in that space.
Speaker 2:
Oh, yes, yes. So we've talked about so far Sam thoughts. We've talked about self. Next week we're going to be talking about knowledge and what you actually know. So this is going to be another deep dive into the third of the grand illusions. I'm looking forward to that next time with you.
Speaker 1:
Any closing thoughts for the listeners Gosh, I think that maybe this is an episode of Dilton 2 twice, because it's like I said, it's really meta, it's really it's really stepping outside yourself, very existential in a way. But I think there is such joy and freedom if you can work through this for yourself. I think it is something everyone should spend a lot of time on in their life to get to this state of letting go of self, because if you can do that, you can I mean, you really can experience joy even in, you know, very dark times.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I encourage everybody to get a copy of this book. Like I said, it had been on my shelf for a while. I hadn't read it. I don't know why I just because I have hundreds of books. This book is really good. It's really good to walk through how this person grappled with this experience, but in a way that we all can relate to. So next week we're going to talk about the illusion of knowledge, and I'll look forward to that time with you, as always, sam. My name is Denise Russo, you are Sam Powell, we are here together, and this has been another episode of what's On your Bookshelf. So bye for now. You.