List of Questions to Find Direction v2

“Happiness is direction”

Arthur Brooks, Harvard Professor

“Humans function like a bicycle, unless you move up and forward towards the target, you will stagger and fall.”

John D. Rockefeller, Wealthiest Man 1937

Proof

I was pretty lost and confused for a pretty long time. I didn’t know who the hell I was nor what I contributed. I didn’t fit in. I felt worthless. I didn’t much like being alive. Life’s an ongoing process of finding self and finding direction. Happiness research shows we feel best when we have meaningful work… when we contribute towards something larger than ourselves.

Goal: 300 million Americans understand how to enjoy life & die without regrets.

Far too often I fear we start with where we’re at as opposed to where we want to be. “What credentials do you have” “What expereince do you have” “Where have you worked before”

Rarely do we put emphasis on where we want to end up. The hard part about that is it requires copious amounts of failure, trial by fire, and self-reflection. The end state is FAR happier though.

How to Find Direction

“Your worldview is simultaneously your greatest strength and your greatest weakness’“

Jeff DeGraff

The Japanese even have a concept they call “Ikigai”. It roughly translates to “Reason for Being” and is often cited as why they have a life expectancy nearly a decade longer than US. The Western adaptation consists of:

• What you love
• What you’re good at
• What the world needs
• What you can be paid for

Find Direction

1) What are the things you want to Do, Have, and Be? Tim Ferriss

2) Perfect Day, some TedTalk

3) “Your idols give you insights to your values”

This ones been fun to parse through. By studying people that inspire me, I’ve been able to slowly stitch together elements of their lives to create my own.

• Yvon Chouinard – Patagonia Founder. Continued to pursue adventure and live a life he enjoyed despite pressures from the corporate world to ‘get a job’
• Steve Jobs
• Craig Jones – The ability to be a world ranked athlete and not take himself or life so seriously

The cool part about this one is that you get to choose between people both dead and alive.

1. What’s a causes you’d die for? Arthur Brooks
2. What would you do if money was no object? Alan Watts
3. What brings you joy?
   • List your joys, loves, & hates -> That’s uniquely you
   • Love/Hate List
   • 30 Day Joy Journal
4. Money No Object
5. Personality: Curiousity, Structure, Connection, Goals
   • OCEAN
   • Innovation Code
   • Strength Finders
   • Myers-Briggs 16 Personalities
6. How do YOU earn the day?
7. What would you do if fear didn’t exist?
8. Intuition

Overall, these are good thought experiments… nothing beats going and f**king TRYING something.

“You rarely need more information, you need more action”

Unknown

How

He talks in terms of startups… but the same thing applies in life. Seems that we only get to know the next 2-3 steps forward. If you don’t step you don’t find the next.

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than your current results”

James Clear

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul”

Edward Abbey

“Happiness is Direction”

“Aimlessness is the breeding ground of despair”

Dr. Jordan Peterson, Psychologist

Keep studying theories of well-being and over and over you find a few themes:

1) Quality Relationships

• Humans are social animals
• We don’t do well in isolation
• We crave companionship, deep, quality, trustworthy relationships
• Every study on happiness cites this as fundamental.

2) Meaningful Work

• Connect your work to something larger than self
• Contribute to something larger than self
• Help others
• Our sense of satisfaction goes up dramatically when we help others. Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt details this
• We are meant to help other humans, provide value to them. The only way we evolved was by working together
• If we can individually figure out how to optimizing our individual, unique, strengths, while helping others the world will be a far better and more enjoyable place

3) Mindset/Gratitude

• Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Positive Psychology. Over and over the theme comes up: It’s not what happens to us, but rather how we react to it.
  “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” – Haruki Murakami

In my life, Meaningful Work has been the most influential in finding direction. I am deeply interested in using individuals’ unique strengths to contribute to the greater good. Unfortunately, this takes an immense amount of trial and error & self-reflection. It’s difficult. It takes time.

One CEO and philosopher I enjoy, Naval Ravikant, goes as far to say “99% of effort is wasted. I say this because you should be very thoughtful and realize in most things (relationships, work, even in learning) what you’re trying to do is find the thing you can go all-in on to earn compound interest.”

I’ve spent years trying to figure out who the hell I am and how the hell I can do my part to benefit mankind, with my unique skillsets. These are questions and notes that have helped me get closer.