Pod Insights The School of Greatness 911 10 “Happy Habits” Successful People Do Differently About this episode “Happy people create healthy relationships.”Habit 1: Have a vision and life-fulfilling goals (1:45)Habit 2: Create healthy relationships with boundaries (4:16)Habit 3: Express gratitude and appreciation (7:02)Habit 4: Have a positive attitude when things go bad (9:10)Habit 5: Volunteer your time, give back, mentor and help others (11:24)Habit 6: Work out and be healthy with nutrition and mental health (13:12)Habit 7: Take responsibility for your actions, thoughts, and life (14:16)Habit 8: Don’t take things personally (15:56)Habit 9: Learn to cope with tragedy and let go of regret, anger, and resentment (17:48)Habit 10: Do things that make you happy and eliminate things that don’t make you happy (21:32)If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/911 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Lewis Howes? This is episode number 911 on the 10 happy habits successful people do differently.
0:09 Lewis Howes? Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.
0:34 Lewis Howes? Gandhi said, happiness is when what you think, what you're saying, and what you do are in harmony. And Dalai Lama said, happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions. Now, there are a lot of unhappy people in the world, and there's a lot of happy people as well. And I hope you're one of the happier ones, usually people that are learning, that are growth-minded, that are trying new things, developing new skills. They are the ones that tend to be happier than the ones not learning, the ones staying stagnant, the ones who don't try to find new podcasts to listen to and read books
1:14 Lewis Howes? and watch videos of new skills and find mentors and coaches. They're typically not as happy. Now, it's not always the case, and there's people that are learning and growing that are unhappy, but that's just something that you gotta think about. It's not ready-made. It comes from your own actions, says the Dalai Lama. And I wanted to do a special solo episode for you because a lot of you keep asking me for this. So I'm doing it all about happy habits. You know, there's a lot of podcasts in general out there just on happiness and the power of happiness. And then there's a lot of ones on habit forming. So I thought about what about just the happy habits out there that we can do every single day to live a better life.
1:56 Lewis Howes? Successful people really do differently. And I've studied some of these great minds. I've interviewed so many big people and I've learned about their habits. And I've also studied myself. Really someone who analyzes human psychology and human behavior obsessively, I would say is something I think about pretty much all the time, all throughout the day, every hour, every minute, I'm analyzing behavior and I've gotten really good at actually analyzing my own behavior. It was hard to do it earlier in my life, but over the last five to 10 years, I'm really good at it and I'm really good at understanding why I'm unhappy in moments,
2:37 Lewis Howes? because I don't do what I think, what I say and what I do. They're not all in harmony, like Gandhi says, and I'm aware of it and I'm just stubborn and I stick to staying unhappy for whatever reason. And I try to trick my mind and say, well, I can try it this way, this way, but I, I know the path. And then when I get back on it, I'm like, well, there you go. Why do I feel in so much peace? Why do I feel so much love, abundance, prosperity? It's just all flows when I follow this pattern. So in this solo episode, we're talking about the importance of vision and fulfilling life goals. We talk about habits that have helped me with my own personal happiness. I discuss about my interview with Dr. Nicole Lepara and
3:22 Lewis Howes? how boundaries in her personal life have supported with her happiness in tremendous ways. So if you don't have boundaries in your life, you gotta start creating them. And we talk about how these habits will not only shift you internally, but externally as well. So I'm very excited. Make sure to share this with your friends. Text someone. You can change and save someone's life by sharing this message, lewishouse.com/911. Yes, 911. Send it out right now. Text your friends, post it on social and tag me at Lewis Howes. So without further ado, let's dive into this episode on the 10 happy habits successful people do differently.
4:06 Lewis Howes? Thank you so much for being here. If this is your first time here, then welcome to the School of Greatness. If this is your 911th time here, then welcome back. I'm so glad that you're here. You know, so many people ask me to do these solo episodes where I share more of my ideas, my strategies, stories, thoughts, mindset. And I love doing the interviews where I'm connecting with world-class athletes and icons and leaders and scientists where I can learn from people because I'm constantly wanting to learn. I want to learn as much as I can and apply it to my life to improve my life. And then I want to share it with you. And I want to help you take your life to the next level and achieve greatness in any level that looks like for you. And that's what this is all about. But so many of you
4:51 Lewis Howes? keep demanding that I come on here and share more from me. So this is an episode just of me talking about the 10 habits happy people do differently. And as I was thinking about this and doing some research and just reflecting on my own life, I realized I've made a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes and habits that didn't support me in the past. And now I do a lot better habits that support me and just make me a lot happier. So I wanted to to share these 10 habits, kind of just reflect with you and share a story on each one and dive in. And if you have any habits that you think increase your happiness or that you've seen help you over the years, then feel free to share with us over on social
5:33 Lewis Howes? media, at Lewis Howes, at Greatness on Instagram as well, Twitter, at Lewis Howes, and all the places you want to connect with me. But these are the 10 habits happy people do differently. Now, this one is that they have a vision and life fulfilling goals. They have a vision and life fulfilling goals that they're working towards in the future, but they live in the present. Ooh, okay, now let me break this down. Have you ever had a moment in your life where you had no clue what you were supposed to do in this world? You had no clue what your goals were, you didn't have any goals, you had anti-goals. You were just like, "I'm gonna sit here and do nothing."
6:15 Lewis Howes? You know, I remember after being done playing arena football, I was on my sister's couch for about a year and a half, and the first three to six months were depressing. I had no goals, I had no vision, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. And the lack of vision, the lack of clarity, the lack of fulfilling goals, when we don't have those, it's actually linked to being more depressed. And having goals and having a vision that you're just working towards is actually linked to decreasing anxiety and depression. There might be other stresses you face, but it's linked to decreasing depression.
6:53 Lewis Howes? And it's when we don't have a dream, a goal, that is fulfilling, a vision that we see for our life in the future, it starts to get pretty dark for us in the present. So, number one, habit. You gotta have goals, dreams, and a vision for your life. And this could be a three-month goal, a six-month goal, a five-year goal, it doesn't matter the length. And we can break down later how to really set and define and create those goals, but you've just gotta have something that you're working towards. And the paradox, I guess, is you want to be working towards something but be living in the moment. Be appreciative of what is actually you're creating in this moment, the struggle, the challenges, the ups and downs of the moment.
7:37 Lewis Howes? You know, I want to achieve my goals as fast as possible. I have zero patience. I don't know if you're like me, where you want things now. And we're definitely living in a society where we want things now more than ever. And...
7:51 Lewis Howes? Appreciating what we've created today, even if it's not as fast as we want it, but just being in the present makes us happier. And that's one habit that happy people do differently. You know, life is a gift and this moment is all we have. So embracing the moment is key, but having clear dreams, goals and visions for the future of where you want to grow into is important as well. Number two, they create healthy relationships and have boundaries in them. So how many of you have had a relationship where there were zero boundaries? Maybe it's a family member that just you feel like they walk all over you or they
8:31 Lewis Howes? ask you for too much, or you're, you're constantly dropping everything at your own health just to be there for them. Or a friend who always calls you when, when they've got some challenges or drama in their life, but when you need them, they aren't showing up. You know, business partnerships, things like that, relationships. You know, when we have this social environment that is unhealthy, it's really hard to find happiness with those relationships that are unhealthy. So happy people create healthy relationships and they have boundaries in them.
9:10 Lewis Howes? I have had to learn this the hard way many times over the years with family, with friends, with intimate relationships, you know? It's just, it's a lesson you gotta learn the hard way, I guess. Unless you have the courage and the, you know, the lack of insecurity to really create boundaries early on. You know, Dr. Nicole LaPera, who was on our podcast recently, she talked about the power of boundaries and how she had to create boundaries and actually kind of break up with her family. She kind of like broke up with her parents because she felt like she wasn't able to have healthy relationship with them for 30 plus years.
9:51 Lewis Howes? And then she said, okay, I'm going, and she's a psychologist and she said, okay, I'm going to. You know, recreate this relationship with my parents, with my family. And she tried for about a year, a year, a little over a year. She was just like, here's what I want to create. Here are the boundaries I'm creating. I want to have a healthy relationship. So she laid out the communication of like, this is what I want to change. And in our relationship, and they were unwilling to change after, I think, a year, a year and a half. And so she said, okay, I need to take a break from this. I need to, I love you, but I need to take a break from this because it's hurting my mental health. It's hurting me physically and it's not healthy for me when I feel like all I'm doing is being taken advantage of.
10:34 Lewis Howes? And you're not seeing it from my point of view. So creating boundaries in all of your relationships so that you have healthy relationships. She said, once she created that boundary, she started to feel so much happier in her life, so much freer, so much lighter. But we've got to create healthy relationships, get out of toxic ones, or create boundaries in the relationships that we're in right now. To have a happier life. That's habit number two. Number three, this is my, uh, one of my favorites. They express gratitude and appreciation. There is a, you see a shift in people when you say that you're grateful for them or what you appreciate about them.
11:17 Lewis Howes? If they're stressed out or angry and you look at someone in the eyes and you say, I'm really grateful for you. And I really appreciate the, the hard work and the effort and the time and the patience that you're putting into this right now. You have no idea how much it means to me. So thank you, and I really appreciate you for all that you do. People shift. When you speak appreciation into someone's life, they shift. You know, it's one of the reasons why I love to acknowledge people on my podcast. At the end of every episode, if this is your first time listening, I acknowledge people. And acknowledge them for the gift that I see in them from that, you know, 30 to 60 minutes that we had together. And you see a shift in people when they feel acknowledged.
11:59 Lewis Howes? Another thing is just expressing gratitude and appreciation for, not only for other people, but just for your day, for your moment. So every morning I wake up and I express my gratitude and every night I go to bed and I ask my girlfriend what she's grateful for and we share a few minutes of gratitude for the day and appreciation for each other. And it just, I don't know, it just takes away a little bit of the stress, the anxiety, it makes things less worrisome. And I think Tony Robbins said something like this, I'm not sure if this is the exact quote, but he said something like, "When you trade expectations for appreciation, you'll live a completely different life." And it's so true. How often have we had these big expectations? And, you know, some of them might be justified.
12:44 Lewis Howes? And I'm not saying like just give up all expectations in your life. Like, yes, you want to create boundaries, you want to have clear communication. But if we set this big expectation that wasn't clearly communicated and we, and we hold on to it, you know, when we just trade it for appreciation and understand that we're all human beings doing the best we can do, you know, we are just happier in general. So that's habit number three. Express gratitude and appreciation. Habit number four, that happy people do things differently, is they have a positive attitude when things go bad. This is something that, earlier in my childhood, I didn't have a positive attitude. And then through sports, I really learned this. As we were, you know, I was playing on some great sports teams and some bad
13:27 Lewis Howes? sports teams. And I learned the most in the bad, the bad teams, where we were losing all the time. And I learned the most about positive attitude when we were down 20 points or down three touchdowns. Because having a negative attitude when things are going bad is not going to make things better. I can tell you that. Just getting angrier is not going to help you. But having a positive attitude actually brings you more energy. A negative attitude makes you tired. So switching the mindset in any bad situation, oh, there's traffic. Instead of being angry and pissed off, that is going to make you not a happy person. Say, you know, my friend Chris Lee, who's been on the podcast, you know, over a dozen times.
14:11 Lewis Howes? He says in any negative or bad situation, just put your hand in the air and bring it down and say yes. And make a fist. He'll say, say yes anytime something bad happens. Uh, my girlfriend cheated on me. Yes, with a smile. I'm 30 minutes late to my meeting. Yes, with a smile. Just reinforce this. My business partner screwed me over. Yes, whatever it is, you know, I failed my test. I lost the game. Say yes with a smile and you'll be a happier human being. It'll just change things in a moment when you shift that mentality of, oh, it didn't work out. Or this person did this, or this, this hurt me.
14:52 Lewis Howes? I understand there's a time and a place for being sad and, and having those emotions. But on a daily basis, if you want to be happier in general, having a positive attitude is not woo woo or weird. This is powerful and just shifting it to saying, okay, what's the perspective here? We're down three touchdowns. Yes, I have a lot of work to do. I get to practice more to figure out how to become better. Yes. And that's what you've got to do. Have a positive attitude when things go bad. Okay, number five. This is again, something that I think I didn't really understand until later in life. Uh, they volunteer their time. They give back. They mentor and they help others.
15:36 Lewis Howes? Happy people volunteer and I, and I, I'm a testament to this because the last seven years, I think almost every year for the last seven years, I've gone on a trip to, with Pencils of Promise, which is a charity that I support that helps build schools and create education for kids in developing countries that don't have physical schools and don't have education.
16:01 Lewis Howes? And every year I'll go on a trip and it's one of the most rewarding things is to be able to connect with people that are lacking something and you're able to give them something. You're able to help them further their dreams and their goals and their vision for their life in the future. When you're able to help that for other people have a better life, helping them in any way, it makes you feel happier. It makes you feel better and you become a happier person when you know that you are powerful enough to give your time, your energy, your resources, money to support another person. And time is a big thing. When
16:41 Lewis Howes? you give time is huge because we can't get that back. You can always make more money and resources, but time, when you're there, you connect with someone and you see them grow, it just makes you light up. It brings a lot of joy to you and it makes people happier. So that's number five. Volunteer their time, to give back, to mentor, to help others. And every time I help, you know, young kids, young athletes, I always feel happier. Feel like, okay, I made a difference. And that's what you can do as well. Number six, to work out and they are healthy with their nutrition and their mental health. You know, when you take care of your health, you feel proud. You feel more self-confident. You feel like
17:26 Lewis Howes? you did something for yourself. When you neglect your health, when you go on, you know, drinking 10 Cokes a day, eating four candy bars and finishing it with a milkshake, you just don't feel good. You might feel a moment of dopamine as the sugar rushes through your veins and then it's going to crash and you're going to feel unhappy and you're going to need more of that to feel happy. But eating healthy and having this healthy lifestyle will be a sustained happiness and it will be less ups and downs of emotional crashings. So, working out, nutrition and also mental health, the thoughts that you have in your
18:06 Lewis Howes? mind towards yourself are very important is number six, habit. Have a habit of working out and eating healthy. Number seven, taking responsibility for their actions, thoughts and life. When we are victims of our life.
18:25 Lewis Howes? Of everything that happens around us, you know, the thoughts, the things that we do, the things that other people do around us. When we are victims and don't take responsibility or control for those things, then we are much more unhappy in our lives. And I used to take a lot of, give a lot of blame to other people. Well, this person did this, or my teacher did this, or my girlfriend did this, or whatever. The coach didn't play me. You know, whatever it is that I was angry about, or, you know, a victim of. I was never happy. I was never happy in those moments. And you can't, you're not gonna be happy being a victim. So stop being a victim in your life and start taking responsibility for your actions,
19:10 Lewis Howes? your thoughts, your life. You have the power. You have the control. I'm not saying you're, you're exactly where you wanna be right now. I'm not saying you have it harder or easier than someone else. I'm just saying you have the power to change, to shift, to learn something new, to grow, to develop a skill. And you can take complete responsibility. And when you take complete responsibility, you'll be happier. But if you always say, well, you know, I got in a car accident and I broke my leg and it's not my fault, it's this person's fault, they hit me, it's not fair. You're just not gonna be happy with that mentality and that mindset. So you need to change that habit, the habit of responsibility for your actions,
19:54 Lewis Howes? your thoughts in your life. Number eight, and this is a big lesson for me, and maybe it is for some of you as well. Don't take things personally. Or there was a book that was called, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. You know, don't take things personally. I think that's one of the four agreements of another book called The Four Agreements. One of them is, don't take things personally. Oh, how hard is this for you? For me, I swear, maybe in the last...
20:25 Lewis Howes? I feel like I go in phases of this. In my childhood and teens, I took everything personally. You know, my classmates were out to get me, my teammates were out to get me, my coaches, my parents, my siblings. Uh, you know, everyone, I took everything personally and needed to defend myself and needed to get back at everyone and prove everyone wrong. Man, that did not make me a happy kid. It made me a very sad, lonely, insecure, jealous kid. And I got a little better in my twenties, but still not that good. In my thirties, I got a lot better. I started to learn through, you know, emotional intelligence training and through
21:04 Lewis Howes? just reflection, through therapies about how to let go of not taking things so personally. It's just, man, it's just not a fun life to hold on to, uh, these things. So if someone does something to you, or if someone did something you didn't like that they said, or someone cut you off in traffic, don't take it personally. You can, you can take all these things personally, but you're just not gonna be as happy. Again, these are habits that happy people do differently than unhappy people. So if you wanna stay unhappy, then take everything personally. And if you want to be happier, then just let it go.
21:45 Lewis Howes? And that is number eight. Number nine. Learn to cope with tragedy and let go of regret, anger, and resentment. So this follows up with not taking these personally, right? And learning to, learning to cope with tragedy and learning to let go of regret, anger, and resentment. Uh, for years, I held on to anger and resentment. There's not really much that I, I, I try to think about this. Is there anything I regret? And there's not. There's things I'm not proud of. There's things that I'm like, oh, that was a stupid mistake and that was. You know, I, I guess, looking back, I wish I would have done certain things because they were hurtful,
22:30 Lewis Howes? or they were stupid, or ignorant, or naive, or whatever. But it's like, I also reflect, and I'm grateful for them, and I show appreciation for the lessons I learned that, that got me to where I'm at right now. But the anger and resentment thing, man, I held on to anger for, you know, for those of you that know my story, I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know. And, you know, my, my brother was in prison for a number of years when I was eight. Uh, my parents got divorced. I was picked on and bullied all through elementary school, middle school, high school, for not being able to read and write, and being very poor in academics.
23:10 Lewis Howes? And so, as a kid, I just took on, uh, I held on to this anger and resentment. And, man, it just doesn't make me, it didn't make me happy. Did not make me happy. So, learning to cope with those things, learning to, to let go of those things, I say, should be a, a thing that will help you just bring peace to your heart. An inner peace will bring you happiness as well. And learning to cope with tragedy. Now, we've had a number of different experts and therapists and specialists come on, talk about dealing with extreme pain, extreme heartache, breakups, death, divorce, and talk about how to cope with these things. And these things take time.
23:52 Lewis Howes? Now, I'm not saying you should rush your timeline for, uh, coping with, with tragedy. These things take time. Deaths take time to overcome. Lo- long marriages take time to go through a divorce and the breakup. These things take time. And I'm completely with you on the healing process of big tragedy. It's, it's just part of life. Some people hold on to these things five, 10, 20 years later, and it makes them unhappy. I'm not saying that you can't be sad for a long time. You know, when I reflect back on my grandfather passing, he was very close to me. It's very sad, you know, I think about it, and it's, and it's sad.
24:35 Lewis Howes? And I have tender moments, and I'll look at some of his writings, and he used to write me letters, and I'll read some of those, and I'll have moments of sadness and joy and emotions, right? It's natural. But I don't ruminate on it and fixate on it day by day, and I'm not saddened by it every moment of my waking life. That will make me unhappy. So, learning how to have the memories, have the moments in your, in your mind and reflect on these things are beautiful. It's part of human nature. It's beautiful. But allowing them to have power and control over your, every waking moment so that you
25:13 Lewis Howes? are paralyzed to continue to live your life, to live in the present, to pursue goals, to have a vision like we talked about in number one, those things will make you unhappy. So, learning those strategies will help you and letting go of regret, anger and resentment will set you free and happier. And number 10, do things that make you happy and eliminate things that don't make you happy. This is very basic. Do things that make you happy and eliminate things that don't. So, write a list of 10 things, 20 things, 50 things, 100 things that make you happy and write a list of everything that makes you unhappy and simply just do the list that makes you happy.
25:58 Lewis Howes? Now, you might say, "Well, I've gotta go to work and that makes me unhappy." Well, I would say, you know, find joy in your work and if it's not where you want to be, then that's one of your goals that you go back to number one and you create a fulfilling goal that you want to work towards. Okay, I don't like this job, then my goal is to leave this job in six months, in six weeks, in two years, in one year. You've got to get clarity of the vision for your future for what you want, but you can also create fulfillment and joy within situations that maybe are not the best. There have been times in my life where I worked jobs that I really didn't like. I did things in sports that I didn't want to do, but I wanted to play in the big games.
26:42 Lewis Howes? You know, was I willing to put in years of training and hours in the gym and constantly running practices over and over, feeling pain over and over? For me, I didn't want to do those things, but I knew in order to achieve my goals and my dreams, I had to do them. So, I made it a positive experience. So, wherever you're at in your life right now, you can make these challenging moments positive ones by changing your attitude, by helping other people at your career, your work, by giving back, by doing other things that bring you joy and then just creating the goals that will fulfill you and work towards those. Do the things that make you happy and eliminate the things that don't. All your other free time should be focused around how can I do more things that make me happy?
27:26 Lewis Howes? If you like taking walks, how can I take more walks? If you like going to the movies, go see more movies. If you like working out, go do more working out. If you like being with friends, spend time with friends. If you like travel, all these things, write a list. Plan them, put it in the calendar, create time for it. If you don't create time for it, then it's just going to go back into default. So you gotta create that habit. Do things that make you happy and eliminate the things that don't. These are the 10 habits happy people do differently. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please share with me, please tag me on Instagram at Lewis Howes. You can follow me over on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, at Lewis Howes. And let me know what you thought of this.
28:10 Lewis Howes? Please share it with a friend. If you have a very happy friend in your life, text them this link. LewisHowes.com/911. Send them this link and say, hey, these are 10 habits that happy people do differently. I think you do a lot of them. Is there anything that you would add to this list that you do? That's a habit that most people don't do and get their thoughts. If you know someone that's just kind of feeling like blah in their life right now, send them this link. LewisHowes.com/911. Say, hey, I thought you'd like this. It's 10 habits happy people do differently. Let me know your thoughts. Post it all over on social media. And if this is your first time here, please subscribe over on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. We've got over 6,000 five-star reviews over on Apple. We'd love to see one from you.
28:55 Lewis Howes? I'd love to hear your thoughts and what you got out of this. Uh, we share this with our team and it also helps us spread the message of greatness. So by you leaving a review, you sharing this with one person, you have the power to change and impact someone's life. And you know what? That's what makes people happier, making an impact in other people's lives. So I hope you enjoyed this. Let me know your favorite one out of the 10 and feel free to send me a message with any others that you would add and why. I hope you enjoyed this very much. You know, I love you. I appreciate you. I am grateful for you and I'm very happy that you spent the time with me today. As always, you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.
29:43 Lewis Howes? My friend, thank you so much for being here. I know your time is valuable and I want to make sure that we create valuable information for you that can help you improve your life in the biggest ways. And if you just take one principle, one habit today and you apply this, you try it for a week, you see what it does, if it brings you 10, 20% more happiness, then it's worth it big time. I hope you enjoyed this. Again, share this with a friend. You have the power to change someone's life, to save someone's life. So many people have emailed us over the years and said, "You have changed or saved my life because of this guest you brought on, because of this thing you taught, because of this lesson this person said." And you have
30:25 Lewis Howes? the power to do that as well, just by sharing this link, lewishouse.com/911, by subscribing to the School of Greatness podcast, by leaving a review and sharing it with a friend. Please tag me on Instagram and Twitter, @lewishouse, follow on Facebook and YouTube, @lewishouse. We are sharing and creating some of the most transformational content out there and we want you to continue to listen and share with your friends. Join them in the party. Let them celebrate and learn and grow with you because learners are earners and are typically happier people. Again, Gandhi said, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in
31:05 Lewis Howes? harmony." I hope you're feeling more peace in your heart, more harmony in your life, and lots of love throughout your entire soul. I love you so very much. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.
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