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hey Leo here for actualised org and in this episode I'm going to be talking about the illusion of success how successful people are not happy the way that we usually assume [Music] there's a very deep illusion within you that keeps you from glowing to your full potential and this is the illusion of success and this got imprinted into you as part of our modern culture what is this illusion it goes something like this you see celebrities all around you in the news and in the movies you see your successful friends you see your co-workers who are striving to climb the corporate ladder and acquire stuff for themselves in life maybe you see certain family members who have a lot of money and these people they seem happy it seems like they're doing it they're achieving it they're living the right life they're out there doing the normal stuff they're not sitting at home reading books and doing personal development they're out there engaging in life they're having fun they're working hard and they're putting their lives together and then you see these mega achievers in the newspapers you see these uh Bill Gates's and Steve Jobs and L on Musk's who do all these big things in business who are just like killing it out there and you think yourself that's what I need to be like like one of them if only my life was like that it then I would have the money and if I had the good looks and I I would have my hot girlfriend or my my dream husband and then I have the great social circle and I have freedom and time and money to travel and to do all these exotic things and then I would have a really exciting life and I would be doing big things with my business I would be doing significant things for the world for the economy and that is basically the epitome of self-actualization right that's the illusion and this illusion is further fed by all these false role models that you see highlighted in the news and in Time magazine and just across the internet Arnold Schwarzenegger L on musk Tony Robbins Oprah Steve Jobs Donald Trump you know whoever your role models are these all feed into this illusion now Trump is an interesting example actually cuz you might think like well Leo who would take Trump as a role model actually you'd be surprised I had a client about two years ago a coaching client of mine who we would Skype and do coaching sessions and this guy was really into success and so he wanted help from me to kind of organize his life help them put some productivity habits into place and and so forth and one day he was just picking my brain about stuff related to productivity and then he starts talking about his role models and his role models or all these like mega successful people and then of course Trump comes up and this was a couple years ago so Trump was like just starting to get into the into the presidential race and I knew this guy was trouble but but my client my client is telling me like aw but Leo like look at Trump and I'm like why do you bring up Trump and say well look he's got the perfect everything he's got the perfect he's got the perfect house the perfect lifestyle the perfect wife the perfect kids it's all so well put together and I'm sitting there and I'm just trying to contain my my-my-my shock and kind of laughter because I'm like my jaw is a gape at how he's trying to emulate Trump and that he think that this is his role model and this is what he wants me to coach him to be like and this client was a was a you know was a fairly successful guy already um he was he had his own little small business that he was working on and he was doing well for himself and he was a well educated guy well put-together guy so he was it wasn't just some you know just some some redneck in the countryside or something like that so so yeah I just that's an aside but anyways you got to be careful with all these what I call false role models these role models society puts them out there as these very successful people we gotta be very careful this happens with celebrities also you might fall into this trap with p-waves whatever PUA teachers out there pick up teachers that you're following be very careful because all of these people the PA is the celebrities and all these others that I mentioned really what they're giving you is they're giving you a of success this is all an illusion all of this is surface level stuff these people are not happy at all at all at all these people are on drugs they're addicted to all manner of things from gross to subtle they are addicted to success they are addicted to work they are addicted to ego they are addicted to manipulation they are stressed they're overworked they are depressed they just have a lot of stuff going on in their lives granted but that doesn't mean very much it's got very little to do with actual fulfillment in life and it's got very little to do with your actual development of the human being these are not high quality human beings they just happen to be mega successful and that's a very important distinction to draw what these people are really is they're masters of manipulation and they have found their niche in life which has allowed them then to become very successful by masters of manipulation I don't necessarily mean that they're manipulating you in some nefarious way although many of them are I'm more mean that they are masters at manipulating life and themselves so they have become very very good at manipulating their situation and their lives and the lives of everybody around them and the lives of their audience so that they have this sense of success and it works to a large degree because you create this bubble around yourself of success and then you're able to trick yourself into thinking that well because I have all this success and I'm able to manipulate reality so effectively that that means that I'm a good human being that I'm really developed and that I'm really happy whereas in fact it's a hollow victory for these people and of course we see this in the news periodically with various celebrities who commit suicide or overdose on drugs or have behavioral problems or get angry and rant at people or whatever right we see their true colors once in a while but only once in a while and generally though what we have in our culture is we have this this illusion of success and then this illusion is so deeply soaked into your bones you so believe in it that you think that this is what self-actualization is about what it's for is to help you to do that well I got news for you you're envying the wrong people all these people at you envy these are the wrong people if you actually became like them and here's the really counterintuitive and difficult to believe thing is that if you actually became like them you would be miserable you would be absolutely miserable and your life would be a mess even though on the surface you would be able to put on a good appearance and everybody around you would think that well this guy really has it all together look at him I want to be like him that's the illusion it's a very dangerous illusion there's also this echo chamber effect in our culture because our culture feeds into this and it creates a solution because it largely only highlights external successes see the common mob doesn't understand anything but material and gross things their minds are not subtle enough to to tap into the subtle aspects of life and therefore they can't really even start to self-actualize because they're chasing external gross things and our culture feeds into this because it's very easy to sell success and resale success that's why you have all these magazines like Time magazine's and fortune 500 and all of these what do they do they package and sell the illusion of success by putting these people on their front covers and then writing articles about them how they're successful this person this millionaire that billionaire how much money did in the stock markets and what kind of company they founded none of that has anything to do with real success in life that's all a veneer of success but see it's easy to sell that because once you've got that thing going people are bought into that illusion now you can sell them courses seminars books they buy your magazine they read your self-help books they read your biographies they take you as an expert as an authority in your field then they want to hire you as a consultant and so it just goes on and on and on the success gets resold this illusion gets resold over and over over again and really what it is it's just like a pyramid scheme of success because it's only like the top of the pyramid that can survive because they're riding on the backs of the base of the pyramid which is the common masses which will never even rise to that level of success but the shocking thing is is that even if they do even if you do manage to go from the bottom of the pyramid all the way to the top you'll realize that the whole thing was a sham to begin with because even the people at the top are not really happy but oftentimes they don't know it because the mind is very tricky and of course when you're at the top to maintain this whole structure you're going to have to lie to yourself in sneaky ways that you're not even conscious of yet that actually it's working and that actually you are happy it's very easy to trick yourself into thinking that you're happy when you have a lot of money and a lot of power and you're very good at manipulating your circumstances very easy to trick yourself into that it's very easy to coast on celebrity status and to milk celebrity status and to turn any bit of recognition that you get or any publicity that you get into money and into more publicity and into more success and so this creates the cycle of never-ending success chasing what we need to do if you really want to unleash your potential in life and you want to really grow in the proper manner is to shatter this illusion right now otherwise you will waste decades of your life is not your entire life mislead going in the opposite direction of where you need to go in order to really grow to be really fulfilled but this illusion is very difficult to shake it's not enough just to hear me say it once because like I said it's it's it's an illusion that goes down to the marrow of your bones it's a very deep cultural paradigm that you are trying to shake here so what needs to have is we need to come back to it over and over and over again have you thinking about it over and over and over again to undermine this illusion until you stop believing in it so let's get to work first make a very sharp distinction in your mind between success and Happiness these things are really orthogonal orthogonal and oftentimes they're actually opposite in that to become happy you're gonna have to let go of success not chase more success and that by chasing more success you're actually making yourself miserable it's also important to understand the fundamentals of how happiness works because it works in very counterintuitive ways what you need to know about happiness is that every human action is always aimed towards maximizing happiness I don't care what it is it could be a terrorist it could be Hitler it could be a rapist it could be your politician pick any one you hate whose actions you despise and realize for a moment just for a moment right now that they are actually acting in what they believe will produce the most happiness for them hard to believe so why then do they act in such stupid ways well for the same way for the same reason that you act in stupid ways because from the inside it's very difficult to see that your actions actually aren't moving you towards happiness because like I said happy necessary counterintuitive thing it's easy to lose track of when your actions stop working and producing happiness because the success will seduce you see you start off planning your actions to maximize your happiness and your hat and your actions and your happiness are like this they're together and you sort of assume that that's how it's going to keep being but then you start taking more actions more actions are getting a bit of success you started assuming that all its success is the same as happiness and so these things start to drift apart though you don't really notice that they're drifting apart your happiness is going one way your success is taking another way but see the happiness the happiness is a very abstract and airy-fairy thing it's intangible it's subtle it's going misdirection your success is a gross material thing it's money in your bank account it's cars it's houses it's your growing business it's how many people know your name it's your audience your number of subscribers you have all this and it's going this direction you see and you just assume that oh well this this is the same thing as this because as you're getting this it's sort of addictive and it's stimulating right all I got more subscribers like all I got more money by being out I got a new car all that's addictive and all I got a new girlfriend look she came to me because she saw my success at hokay and so now you think oh now I'm really living the good life and you're living into this illusion success and now by that point you're completely 180 degrees now in the opposite direction of happiness and the trick with this is is that the reason this is such an easy separation that happens is because happiness what is happiness is such an Aries very thing it's an emotion it's a feeling and many people live their life as though they're very rational and pragmatic so a rational pragmatic person when he puts on the scale happiness over here this Airy fairy feeling of happiness and then a car a house lots of stocks money in your bank account and a hot girlfriend or a husband and a family in and vacations and fancy Italian restaurants and all this stuff over here which one is he going to value more you see it takes a lot of wisdom to value this over all of this you see that there's a lot of wisdom your problem in life is not that you lack success that is not why you're unfulfilled that is a huge part of the solution we tell ourselves that man if I was just doing a little better for myself that would really do it for me in life my life would be great that is not the problem the problem is that you fundamentally misunderstand how happiness works that's the real problem because if you really understood what happiness is and how happiness works you would not be under this spell mesmerized by this illusion of success chasing it success is largely about manipulating reality to fit you that's what success is about that's how you acquire success you want a lot of success become a really good manipulator of reality and you will have massive success happiness is the opposite of that it's about surrendering yourself to reality this is where people go wrong as they misunderstand this surrendering yourself to reality and not getting the things you want see you think that to be happy you need to get all the things you want and the more you go and you pursue these things and you get them eventually you will realize what I'm telling you here now which is that actually happiness is about being okay and happy with exactly whatever you have even if you have nothing now that's easy to say the trick is how do you start to embody this you might think well leo uh this is all kind of basic stuff I mean why aren't you talking about more advanced topics this is such a basic target it's like a topic for newbies no no this is a very fundamental topic even if you're pursuing enlightenment even if you think you're doing all this advanced person development stuff you're probably still wrapped up in the illusion of success I know because to a large degree I still am and that's something I struggle to shed every single day it's a real challenge you need to really deeply grasp what I'm saying here that happiness is about surrendering yourself to reality not about acquiring things or even acquiring what you might call the good things or the spiritual things like a loving relationship if I acquire a loving relationship then I'll be happy that's better than acquiring money no that's still a very wrongheaded approach to happiness happiness not something you acquire it's your capacity to surrender yourself to this very moment right now you need to grasp this to such a deep level that your entire life starts to unravel and the reason your life is going to start to unravel and it's going to be scary is because you've spent probably twenty or thirty years of your life if not more building this entire house of cards of success on this assumption that it would make you fulfilled and it's very difficult to admit to yourself that it's not going to work so when you hear me talking about it right now you might very easily be a denial about it not just for a week or a month but maybe for the next ten years you will resist what I'm saying until finally you have enough of this illusion of success and it becomes so sour so disenchanted with it that you come back and you're really able to deeply grasp what I'm saying here and when that happens that will be the beginning of true growth for you that will be the beginning and you will realize how much time you've wasted decades have been wasted just to get to the beginning of this path that's why this topic is so important I really need you to understand that you can never ever ever never ever have happiness happiness is not something you have it's not something you acquire you can only be happy right now with exactly what is without manipulating what is without trying to make it better without trying to make it fit your desires happiness is about making your desires fit reality and not about making reality fit your desires you see how it's exactly the opposite of what we're taught by our culture it is and no wonder then that so many people are not truly happy even though they project a veneer of happiness but deep down inside they're hollow what you really want in your life is you want to develop a connection to being and being is that which is right now whether there is an itch in your ass or on your foot or something's going wrong with your kids or you didn't get the new job you wanted you can get the promotion you wanted or your car broke down you got a flat tire or you have a health problem or you're running low on money whatever your situation is if you're connected with being you can be happy through that regardless of that that's unconditional happiness being happy all the time so just think about this do you want to be conditionally happy or unconditionally happy which do you want to be conditionally happy means that your happiness depends upon success freedom money your comfort the possessions you have and everything basically going your way think of how fragile that is does that strike you as a wise strategy for living life to be conditionally happy to be putting yourself further and further into a situation of conditional happiness does that sound like a good life does that sound like a smart investment into your future to invest a lot of time energy to that because you will invest years into this or does it strike you as a better investment to invest that time energy into developing your connection to being such that you can be happy without relying on success freedom money or comfort think about this right now think about it be very conscious here you have to actually think through the logic of this because that's how something's gonna shift in your mind don't just agree with me and just say oh yeah yeah I already know that I already know that I already know money won't make me happy no at what level of depth do you know it because when you really know it your whole life will change all your actions all your motivations will change radically if you really grasp what's being said here this is not easy stuff to grasp if someone told me this stuff five years ago it would just go in one ear and out the other it's taken a lot of work for me to get to this point where these things really resonate with me and then I'm passionate about communicating them to you because I want them to resonate in you as well but if you haven't laid your foundation I'm worried that it will go in in out the other now you might say bhalil getting X whatever X is money sex husband marriage whatever kids getting X will make me happier I know that in the past these things that made me have you I get something I like and then I'm happier look very closely at that it only seems so the key word here being seems it seems so we're really this getting X is like a drug you get X and it boosts your mood a little bit but then a week later you're just back down the baseline and you know hit and another hit and I'll hit and I'll hit but in the long run it never works you're just delaying the real inner growth that needs to happen in order to develop your connection with being yours putting that off till another day to another day to another day because you keep telling yourself no just one more thing one extra thing let me just acquire that house with that girlfriend or that yacht or that whatever and about that will do it for me if I just get that one thing but then notice you've been doing that your whole life and it hasn't really worked and you keep saying no no I just need to have one extra thing this time I know it'll really work do you really think it'll work think about it really take a look at all the stuff you've acquired in your life and how it hasn't really made you fulfilled and in fact the more you acquire the more miserable you become because success is very addictive one success is never enough it never satisfies notice this is the general principle of life what this creates is a never-ending cycle of achievement constantly acquiring more and more and more more but when you're going in orthogonal direction to where you need to be going you're never going to get there can you see that if you need to go north and you're going east west you're never going to get north it's these ask the problem it's very tricky you tell yourself all well if I just keep going east a little bit more eventually I'll get north no you won't you're just going to go east you're never going to get north success is very addictive because it's very hard to say no to success notice this as well when you're doing well and people around you are telling you how well you're doing and in the world and the economy is rewarding you for doing so well it's ridiculously easy to convince yourself that this is the right path and that you should just do more of it and more and more and more and more and that's exactly what these millionaires and billionaires and these venture capitalists and Silicon Valley CEOs and the Donald Trump's of the world that's exactly the game that they're playing is this game they can never say no to success and then they're hooked on it it's their drug and some of our best people our brightest minds are lost to this trap of success and they are lost forever forever this this absorbs and sucks in your entire life you know a drug addiction can take up quite a bit of your time and waste a lot energy but a success addiction nothing eats up time and energy like a success addiction it'll eat up decades and also once you acquire the success and the money what are you going to do with it you're going to use it to buy comfort aren't you and comfort is extremely addictive as well so the success feeds comfort and then the comfort feeds the desire for more comfort which then necessitates pursuing more success and so your life becomes about maximizing comfort without realizing that maximizing comfort is not how you develop fulfillment in life actually you get yourself more and more stuck and then this is why people get really depressed and ultimately suicidal is because they may realize that all this this time that they spent developing their comfort and acquiring all this stuff all this success has really led to a miserable life now with that said does this mean that you should be a lazy loser and of course the answer is no success principles are still important to learn there's value in pursuing success and that it does build some discipline in you and it teaches you what does work in the world what doesn't work in the world it develops some robustness within you so those are all good things the only thing you do is you just need to apply these principles of success to the right areas in life what I'd call the wise areas like if you applied the principles of success not to business for example but to the pursuit of truth or to the pursuit of love with a the pursuit of being or the pursuit of authentic relationships and authentic communication which has virtually nothing to do with typical marriages or typical relationships these would be good places to apply the principles of success that you have learned from running your business or from being successful and pick up or from being successful with whatever else see but these are much less tangible things and so if you've been addicted to success can be very hard for you to to make that switch from going from something that's so gross like pursuing money or business success or success with women to now pursuing something like success in truth seeking but that's the solution that's what we're talking about here we're talking about making a really big shift in what you're motivated towards in life and why you're motivated towards it by understanding the deeper dynamics that work here you need to deeply grasp that what you want is happiness not success itself and then when you grasp that then try to convince yourself to pursue the happiness directly eliminate all the side roads all the detours go straight for the happiness and see what that means for your life it might mean some radical stuff don't get sidetracked by the parade of chimps the parade of chimps are all these people these chimps and suits these chimps and tuxedos that you see on the cover of Time magazine who are put up there as these successful chimps that you're supposed to emulate see that for what it is it's just chimps in suits chimps with dollar bills chimps that know how to manipulate the stock market chimps that know how to start a new mobile app or some new venture capital project in Silicon Valley but they're nevertheless chips these are not developed human beings these are not high consciousness human beings you're envying the wrong people who you should be envying are the monks and the Yogi's and the Saints not these guys so keep questioning this culture of success that you've been indoctrinated with I've been a doctor with it too and I've spent a lot of time questioning it questioning it and the deeper I go to my spiritual work theá-- the more I realize how hollow it is and how it just is just a parade of chips and just because everyone's in the parade and the pride mends a lot of noise and it's very flashy it sounds like a I should be part of that parade but the more I grow the more I realized that and I've wasted so much time being part of that parade and that it's time to call it quits do that questioning until you stop believing in this this whole illusion needs to be shattered when you do that you will be on track for some of the biggest growth that you've ever experienced in your life all right that's it I'm done here please click the like button for me post your comments down below share this ups with a friend and lastly come check out my website actualized org I have a blog I have a forum a book list I have a life purpose course I keep posting new stuff to the blog so check out that exclusive content and stick with me for more in the future you