467 The Happiness Equation with Mo Gawdat

"If you don't know what happiness is, how do you expect to find it?" - Mo Gawdat If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/467 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 467 with Google X's Mo Goddett.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone. If you're looking to find out the equation to happiness, then look no further. Today we have on Mo Goddett, who joined Google in 2007. He managed Google's business in over 50 countries and focusing on his biggest passion, emerging markets and the vast degree of diversity and challenges they face. Now, over the years, Mo has started close to half of Google's operations worldwide. And in 2013, Mo joined Google X and is now Chief Business Officer of that department. He's also a serial entrepreneur who's co-founded more than 15 businesses in his career. He actively serves as the board member of several technology, health and fitness,

• 1:16Lewis Howes?

  and consumer goods startups, as well as several government, technology, and innovation brands in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. And in the last 10 years, he has made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with thousands of people in more than 100 countries. And his new book is called Solve for Happy. And he was faced with his biggest challenge a few years ago when he lost his son. And he talks about if the equation for happiness works even in the biggest tragedies that we may face.

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  And what we cover today are what most unhappy people have in common and the easy way to fix this. Mo's happiness equation that works for every situation. You're going to learn this very quickly. Also, how to handle missed Expectations, the difference between pain and suffering and the six grand illusions that make us suffer and how to get around them. This is a powerful episode. And again, it's solving something that so many of us are striving for on a daily basis, how to be happier. And a lot of people say that happiness is their definition of greatness. And if it's something that so many people are searching for, why is it so hard for us to have and to create for ourselves?

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  And Mo says that there's an equation, and that's what we're covering today. So without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into this with the one, the only Mo Gaudette.

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  All right, welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Mo Gaudette in the house. Good to see you, my man. My fellow handball player, which I just found out he did handball in Egypt, was on the Egyptian national team or in the pool for a little bit. And you've got a book out called Solve for Happy, which is engineer your path to joy. And I'm very excited about this. Well, make sure you guys check it out. And you're solving happiness from an engineering standpoint, right? From not from like a spiritual yoga standpoint, but more kind of like a hacking happiness is what I'm understanding, right?

• 3:27Mo Gawdat?

  I don't use the word hacking. I actually don't use the, any of the brands at all. So no meditation, no soul, no spirit, no body, no, you know, mindfulness. I try not to use those brands, if you want, because in an interesting way, I feel that they've become a tiny bit diluted, maybe a lot, as a matter of fact. I think, I think we take something like mindfulness and we try to brand it in the modern way, you know, to try and tell people, okay, here is something that you can cut and, you know, fit within a specific, you know, view and do it every time. It's much deeper than that and it's much bigger than that. So this is a logical view of happiness,

• 4:09Mo Gawdat?

  if you want, and, you know, a methodology that is repeatable and scalable, like an engineering model that resulted not, of course, it borrowed from a lot of Ancient, you know, studies of happiness of the, you know, from the, uh, from the spirituality and sometimes from religions and so on. Doesn't associate with them, but it borrowed a lot more from an engineering methodology to things. A proper definition of a problem statement, a proper algorithm and an equation for what you're trying to solve for. And then from that, you can, you know, if you have an equation for happiness, you, you can start to see what's wrong. Why, why is that?

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  What's missing in the equation?

• 4:47Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely, right? And, and so a very, very deliberate analytical approach to the problem.

• 4:53Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Yeah. Cause there's lots of books out there on happiness, right? That have, you know, kind of taken over the world by storm because I think so many people are suffering. Some people, so many people aren't fulfilled in their lives and in their work and in their relationships and their health and all these different areas, right?

• 5:07Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely.

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  And why did you want to start on this journey? What was it for you? Were you suffering? Did you go through some type of experience?

• 5:15Mo Gawdat?

  I mean, who, who doesn't? I, I, you know, I, I say I'm one of the modern day warriors, you know, like you and I, the people that go through the modern world and try to succeed and, you know, they start to acquire things and, you know, get to a certain position or status in life and so on. And, you know, in my early years, even though I'm Egyptian and, you know, educated in public schools and public universities in Egypt, I must be the luckiest person you will ever meet, you know, somehow fortune always blessed me. And, and at a very young age, I was given so much. I mean, I was given almost everything that we always work a lifetime for, you know, money, cars, toys. I had an amazing family, a wonderful wife. Uh, you know, two incredible kids.

• 5:59Mo Gawdat?

  And the more I was given, the more unhappy I became, uh, which was.

• 6:03Lewis Howes?

  The more you're given, the more unhappy you became.

• 6:05Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely. So, so you could, you could, I, yeah, exactly. And, and you really need to start asking yourself that, right? There is a point in time where you start, where you go through life and say, You know, when I get this or when I achieve that or when I'm recognized as this, I will be happy. And isn't this the promise we've always been given, right? You know, I don't know about your mother, but my mother always told me, hey, work hard for a few years and then, you know, study hard for a few more and then, you know, you will reach success. And at a point in time, when you've reached success, you're going to find happiness. And how often do you see that happening, right? We all go through life and, you know, you can see some of the most successful people out there,

• 6:47Mo Gawdat?

  swimming in money, recognized like, you know, stars and miserable, right? And so, you know, in a very interesting way, I realized that as an engineer, to me, that meant that, you know, this machine was doing well, right? This machine came out of the box and it worked well and it was happy. And then the more it engaged into the real world, the more it became unhappy. Something broke, almost as if either parts of the machine were not working anymore. Or maybe, you know, maybe it's not in, it's not, it's not in a proper environment anymore. Like, you know, a sports car, I'm not a sports car by any means, but you know, imagine if I'm a sports car and I'm,

• 7:29Mo Gawdat?

  you know, off-road in the desert, I will get stuck, right? And so, when you realize that, you say, okay, so as an engineer, you would say, let me unassemble this machine, see what went wrong, okay? Let me understand which parts of this machine are not fit for the new environment or what part of the new environment is drowning this, those parts of the machine and put it back together in a way that works.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, wow.

• 7:53Lewis Howes?

  So you work at something called Google X, and what is that?

• 7:57Mo Gawdat?

  X is the, you know, is the, if you want the innovation factory of Google, so, you know, one, of course, innovation happens everywhere in Google. But X is very well-known for things that are outside the, the core, you know, part of Google. So things like self-driving cars or Project Loon that, you know, is aiming to connect the whole world through an internet network of balloons and so on.

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:23Mo Gawdat?

  And, yeah, and it's different, I told you I was lucky, so, you know, I'm, you know, I, I ran the business side of that for the last three and a half years and I'm now actually on sabbatical.

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  So you're not there right now?

• 8:37Mo Gawdat?

  I yeah, I I got the exceptional approval because Google is an incredible place to take a six month sabbatical to focus on this mission. Amazing. Yeah, so what we what we do in in Google X is we we launch what we call moonshots. Moonshots are attempts at solving major problems in the world in a very unconventional way, right? So so you know, we're we're aiming not to have an incremental impact on the internet through Project Loon, but to completely revamp or reinvent the internet so that there is coverage everywhere there is air, right? That's a very different approach. It's almost looking at the internet as a human right, okay? And and those moonshots, they require that you do things very differently.

• 9:22Mo Gawdat?

  And so when I spoke to, you know, Astro, our CEO, and Sergey and others in the organization, I basically said, I have a personal moonshot. And and my personal moonshot is I have this repeatable model that I think would help the modern world find happiness. And happiness is an epidemic. Billions of people are, you know, even though I think humanity is is at one of its best eras ever, billions of people are unhappy. So so I'm focusing for six months entirely on trying to make ten million people happy. Who are the people that are the most unhappy in the world?

• 10:00Mo Gawdat?

  I I tend to believe the thinkers. The more we think

• 10:07Mo Gawdat?

  beyond the truth of life, the more unhappy we become. Surprisingly, it's, you know, most of the people that you will meet in your life here in L A

• 10:20Mo Gawdat?

  have an okay life. I mean. Very good life. Sorry to say that. Beverly Hills. You were just telling me about your trip to Ghana. I mean, this is. Well, if you wanna know how bad life can be.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:32Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Mo Gawdat?

  Just, just go and take a look, you know. As you know, Louis CK on one of his, of his stand ups, you know, he basically says, sometimes we don't have problems, so we invent stuff to be upset about, right?

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:46Mo Gawdat?

  And he goes like, you know, there are parts of the world where you, you know, our problem today is they're going to chop all our heads off. Right? That's a real problem, right? It's, it's not as bad as, you know, having to choose a language on the ATM machine or that, you know, it's raining a little too much today in New York.

• 11:03Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 11:04Mo Gawdat?

  It's, and, and so, and so we, you know, we, we look at life in very interesting ways. We think about life in a way, in my view, that, that causes a lot of suffering. And, and that's actually the core of, of my model, right? The core of my model is that if you really understand happiness, uh, you know, if you, let me take a step back. So, so, so when I was searching for happiness, I was, I was, I was very unhappy even though I'm successful.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:32Mo Gawdat?

  And then as an engineer, I realized that, okay, I would never find what I'm looking for unless I define it properly, right?

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  What happiness is.

• 11:40Mo Gawdat?

  What happiness is.

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  And. What's the equation to happiness, right?

• 11:43Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, and, and you'll be, you'll be surprised, uh, you know.

• 11:46Lewis Howes?

  Most people don't know what it is for them.

• 11:47Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely.

• 11:47Lewis Howes?

  And they keep searching and searching, but they're not sure. They think maybe this will be it, this will be it, this will be it. But then it's like, oh, I got that and I'm still not happy.

• 11:54Mo Gawdat?

  Exactly.

• 11:54Lewis Howes?

  Still not enough.

• 11:55Mo Gawdat?

  Exactly.

• 11:56Lewis Howes?

  Still not enough.

• 11:57Mo Gawdat?

  And, and, and so if you don't know what it is, how do you expect to find it, right? Is your happiness the next iPhone? Or is your happiness, you know, a, a, a nice trip to, you know, with, with your partner? But you get that and once you get it, you just, it's almost as if the goal has moved a little further. It's like, okay, let me find the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, right? And so I went, you know, I went reading for a while. I went on reading for a while. I couldn't find a, a common definition. We all know happiness is that wonderful feeling like, you know, I, I, you know, I'm okay with this. I, I wanna keep this, right? But what triggers that happiness? And so I found a million definitions. You know, some people will say, ah, when you meditate, you're happy. When my daughter smiles, I'm happy. When I'm having a good cup of coffee, I'm happy, right? It doesn't really matter what it is. There needs to be an algorithm.

• 12:42Mo Gawdat?

  And so I did what an, you know, an engineer would do. I started to capture as many arbitrary data points as I could of instances when I felt happy. I asked people around me what instances made them happy. And I plotted that on a chart and I tried to find a line, an equation, you know, to fit a line that basically describes what happiness is. And my discovery was very straightforward that you feel happy when the events of your life seem to be meeting your expectations of how life should behave. Okay? Regardless of what your expectations are, how realistic or unrealistic they are, regardless of how generous or harsh, you know, the events in your life are. If the events of your life meet your expectations, you're happy.

• 13:27Mo Gawdat?

  If the events of your life miss your expectations, you're unhappy. It's as simple as that, right?

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  So have very low expectations?

• 13:34Mo Gawdat?

  That's of course, all achievers will come up and say, absolutely. I found the answer, right? If I have low expectations, I'm happy. And I'm sorry to disappoint you. Yes, this will work.

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  It's true. I want to go to, you know, we were just in Guatemala a couple of weeks ago, building schools as well. But when I'm in Ghana or Guatemala and the people that literally have nothing, they're living on the dirt with a little roof, you know, hut roof and no internet, no toys. And it's just like they have friends and they have the outdoor space to run around in. They're happy.

• 14:05Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  They're not expecting something crazy to happen.

• 14:08Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  They don't get a lot of money and then it's taken from them. They're just happy with what they have.

• 14:13Mo Gawdat?

  They don't want the iPhone seven.

• 14:14Lewis Howes?

  No, they don't need it.

• 14:15Mo Gawdat?

  They don't care that much.

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  They don't have shoes. They're just like, oh, there's a swimming pool, there's this.

• 14:19Mo Gawdat?

  And of course, they, they're also blessed with the concept of gratitude. So if you give them a bowl of rice, they're like, wow, that's amazing. You know, even if the waiter is a tiny bit late, right? That's fine, but you don't think through that. But, but, but I also am a businessman, right? I'm, as I say, I'm a, I'm a modern day warrior who believes very strongly that we are all here for a reason, right? So, so we're supposed to be here to make a difference to the world, right? If you have low expectations, yes, I guarantee you, you will be happy. Okay? But you will be mediocre in life, right? You won't create much. You you you yeah, and you won't you won't achieve that mission that you're here for. That you know, there is something that you're supposed to deliver to humanity or to to being in general, right?

• 15:04Mo Gawdat?

  And so I say, uh, you know, set realistic, even stretching expectations, okay? But the trick is, how do you behave when those expectations are missed? And and that really is is where where the whole suffering cycle, you know, begins. So, you know, I um, you know, I wanted to come here, uh, you know, and visit you. And so that's a six hours flight. That's my expectation, right? I was in New York, all right? Uh, if I'm if I'm an hour late on the runway, how do I react to that? Okay, should I should I set my expectations as I as I walk to the airport? That is going to be ten hours so that when I get there and in six I'm happy? No, I want it to be six.

• 15:46Mo Gawdat?

  But what happens is when we when our expectations are missed, a cycle of what we call, what I call incessant thinking, chatter, brain chatter, happens in your head, okay? That basically starts to make you feel lousy about life. Mm hmm. Yet has no impact on the real world whatsoever, okay? So you would sit there in the airplane, maybe waiting on the runway and saying, oh, my God, I'm never gonna fly Delta again, you know? I'm, you know, I'm flying is just killing me. It's never gonna work for me. Oh, I should have chosen another time. Oh, you know what will happen if I get there and, you know, I run, um, I don't find taxis because it's too late. Right. Or, oh, you know, I'm I'm I planned for six hours.

• 16:30Mo Gawdat?

  Now it's gonna be seven. I'm gonna feel hungry. I I don't know whatever weird crap that comes into our heads, right? And that goes over and over in our heads and you and has no impact whatsoever on the real world other than making you suffer. How smart is that?

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  Not smart at all.

• 16:48Mo Gawdat?

  Right. So it's not, so the issue is not how you set your expectations. The issue is how we handle uh uh missed expectations through life. That's one thing. The other thing is, I'm sorry to say, but often we are twenty minutes late taking off. And often we end up landing on time, right?

• 17:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:09Mo Gawdat?

  So so so the reality is, you know, you're you're setting your expectations in a way that uh that is realistic, but you're also not looking at the event in reality as it is. And and this is where all of the unhappiness starts to to to come in.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  So when did you start this journey of like wanting to find the equation?

• 17:32Mo Gawdat?

  I I I think it was two thousand and one. Uh I was a day trader at the time. The market was collapsing. I was making a ton of money.

• 17:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:39Mo Gawdat?

  Uh and you know, on top of my normal job as a director in a big consumer goods company and everything was fine. And somehow I was, uh you know, every day that passed, I was unhappier and uh you know, and so I being a Middle Eastern, uh you know, therapy is not an option. Mucho men.

• 17:59Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:00Mo Gawdat?

  We we have no issues, right? And so I had to secretly start to read myself out of the problem.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 18:06Mo Gawdat?

  Uh I I read everything I could get my hands on. I mean, I ha- I have I had that habit my whole life where you know how we go to the gym an hour a day? I also went to the, you know, brain gym an hour a day. So the fir- yeah, the first thing I did every day of my life was

• 18:22Lewis Howes?

  Was reading.

• 18:23Mo Gawdat?

  Was reading, right? And and so I read, uh you know, incessantly, if you want, about the topic of happiness. I read uh almost for nine years on nothing else. I stopped reading on econo- economics and finance and business and leadership and all of the stuff that makes us makes us succeed in the world. Simply because, hey, it doesn't seem that success in the world is leading me to where I need to be, okay? Um and uh and you know, I I think what happened was um I was being trained, if you want. Uh so so for Um, a- around two thousand and nine, I became a lot more okay with life, you know, I'm again, I'm a middle eastern.

• 19:05Mo Gawdat?

  Post nine eleven, I I come, I came to the US once a month for many, many years. And so it would, you know, from Dubai to here, it would take twelve, fourteen hours and then four more hours in homeland security with a silly smile on my face. Nothing could dent my happiness, okay, I was okay. And it seemed, uh, you know, you know, you you win a deal, you lose a deal, you know, you you know, your car gets scratched, your whatever. Spouse is a little upset today, ups and downs of life, and I would have that weird smile, like, you know, nothing would. I I fa- somehow found a way to just go through uh with a repeatable model that gets me back to happiness.

• 19:48Mo Gawdat?

  And then, of course, in in two thousand fourteen, as I share in in the book, uh, it was the ultimate test, if you want, so. Um, of the biggest gifts I've ever been given was my wonderful son, Ali. Ali was uh not the usual child uh at all, he he he rarely ever cried, uh, he rarely ever frowned. I actually don't recall Ali ever frowning in my face, believe it or not. Really? Yeah, it's like a really, I I remember, uh, I remember vividly, the one time we really disagreed and argued was when he was making a choice on university. Uh, where, you know, that one argument, two and a half minutes later, I went back and apologized.

• 20:28Mo Gawdat?

  You know, it wa- he was that sweet, he was so honest, so wise that, you know, by age eighteen, I started to go to him all the time and ask for his advice. Wow. Yeah, not my bosses, not my friends anymore, I re- I re- I recall vividly that I went to one of my friends at the time and I said, when I grow up, I wanna be like Ali. I, you know, he was that wise. And Ali was my friend, we played video games together, we played music together, he was super funny, so, you know, we. We we joked a lot together, watched a lot of comedy together, had all the, uh, you know, the the the best of a relationship, if you want. And Ali was a student in Northeastern University in two thousand and fourteen, uh, came uh to visit us in Dubai uh in July.

• 21:11Mo Gawdat?

  And, you know, unexpected, actually, so so he just picked up the phone a couple of weeks earlier and said, hey, guys, I really, really feel like I wanna see you. Unfortunately, as life sometimes doesn't go the way you want it to, Ali was, you know, had an acute belly pain and, and, you know, was diagnosed with an appendectomy, which truly is the simplest operation on the face of planet Earth.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Appendix.

• 21:36Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, appendix inflammation. And, and, and so, you know, they, they, they basically put in an endoscopy and then blow a little bit of CO2 and then cut it.

• 21:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Mo Gawdat?

  And just take it out. It's literally a few minutes operation. Unfortunately, the surgeon punctured his main blood vessel and exploded it with, with the CO2 that they.

• 21:56Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 21:56Mo Gawdat?

  And, and then they made, you know, five mistakes in a row, where, you know, few, maybe a few hours later, Ali was no longer with us.

• 22:08Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:09Mo Gawdat?

  And as you can imagine, you would have every reason on earth to literally collapse. I mean, no one would have blamed me if, if I closed my door and cried for the rest of my life and decayed. No one would say that's wrong. You know, if you knew him, you would understand. But somehow, we were okay. Somehow, I wouldn't say we were happy. Don't get me wrong. You know, there, there is a tremendous pain that comes with the loss of a child. You know, I wish that for nobody. I don't even wish it for my enemies, to be honest. I don't have enemies, luckily. But, you know, it's, it's, it's, it is so painful and it lasts. Yet, while the pain was there, there was no suffering. And there is a difference

• 22:54Mo Gawdat?

  between them. So, so we were not angry at the world. We were not blaming ourselves for taking him to that hospital. We were not, you know, wondering if life will end, if, you know, we should shoot the doctor, you know, we, we were. Peaceful and calm, which by the way, truly is the definition of happiness. Just that peace and calm of, I'm okay with life as it is, okay? And so, and so when, when my friend started to come over and see, you know, to his memorial, his memorial had more than a thousand people show up, you know, and they would come in crying. We would hug them, we would tell them our view of life and death, and we would tell them our view of happiness and what can be done in this situation.

• 23:38Mo Gawdat?

  And they would smile and walk around laughing, telling stories of Ali. If you didn't know what was going on, you would show up and think that it was his birthday or something, right? And so every one of my friends told me, you should write that down. Uh, you know, that's something that you absolutely should share. He, surprisingly, even though it was a total surprise for us to lose him, I think he knew he was going. Really? Yeah, there were so many signs, you know, he spoke to every one of his friends for like six weeks before about what happens to us when we die. And, you know, he started to talk to his sister about so many things related to death. But the, but the one thing that really stuck with me very strongly was that, um,

• 24:21Mo Gawdat?

  two days, literally two days before he left, we went out for lunch, you know, the whole family. And Ali sat there and he didn't talk much in general. And, you know, for that time, he spoke extensively, uh, for maybe forty minutes. Uh, he would look at each of us for ten minutes, tell us how much he loved us. You know, how much he appreciated having us in his life, how much, you know, impact we had on his life. He made us feel amazing, I, you know, and, and then he would look at each of us and say, I know this sounds weird coming from your son and all, but you know, and unsolicited, but there is one thing I want you to do. And from me, he said, well, I'm very proud of all that you're doing, you know,

• 25:04Mo Gawdat?

  to make the world a better place, and Google does make the world a better place. But I want you to rely on your heart a little more. Don't ever stop working, but try to work on things that have more heart in them. And so it seemed to be a perfect fit. When, when, you know, when he left, when all of that happened, I sat down, I started to write nonstop, Louis, nonstop, four and a half months, I couldn't stop. And sometimes I could, I felt that I wasn't the one writing, to be honest, uh, until this came out. So, so this is for him, really, you know, the, the whole, the whole journey, I think, is for him. Amazing. Wow. What do you think is the biggest lesson your son taught you?

• 25:47Mo Gawdat?

  Ali had, yeah, I'm, I'm a, I'm a TED Talk kind of guy, right? You know, I, I dream of changing the world in a, in a, you know, like a laptop for every child, or we're gonna end hunger, or we're gonna end poverty. That was the way I thought about it. And Ali was almost, uh, he, he, he wanted to change the world. He always told me, look, Papa, I'm, you know, I, I appreciate how passionate you are, but you can only change your little world. And sometimes your little world could be one person. Hmm. Right? And if you change that one person, then the universe somehow will expand your responsibility. So they become two. And if you do well, then they'll become seven.

• 26:30Mo Gawdat?

  And if you do well, they'll become a thousand and maybe 10 million, right? And to me, that completely flipped my approach to life, completely. It was no longer, you know, the big slide where approach to changing the world, if you ask me. Yeah. Uh, uh, it, it was, it was his way. His way was anything that will ever cross my path will get my absolute passion, absolute presence, absolute attention, and the best that I can do, the best I can contribute. And with that, he was so loved. He was so, he actually made so much difference as a young man that he was, just by making sure that every instance, every single person that crossed his path got the best he could give.

• 27:15Mo Gawdat?

  Hmm. Wow. How did he become so wise?

• 27:21Lewis Howes?

  Muslim.

• 27:21Mo Gawdat?

  How do we, how do we sometimes become so unwise? I think is the question. I, I, I, I don't know the answer to that, to be honest. I think we, we're born with a default setting that is, um, that is fit for the world. And then we go, we grow out of it is what happens. Okay. And Ali had a few experiences as a young child that made him not grow out of his, um, nature, if you want, you know? He, he didn't associate very much with the concept of ego, of being accepted for something that he's not, for, for fit, for pretending to fit in. And, you know, when you stay true to your, to your nature, I think we all have inside

• 28:05Mo Gawdat?

  us a lot more than what we actually use.

• 28:09Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, yeah, for sure.

• 28:11Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So what, how did the, uh, the equation, the test, the greatest test you had a few years ago? Do you feel like you were able to use the equation?

• 28:24Mo Gawdat?

  So it's much more than the equation. Of course, of course, the, of course, you know, you, you know, you, you can apply the equation here and say, events of life and expectations, right? Ali dies. Ali dies, does that mean life has missed my expectations? And I know this will sound harsh, but you know what? You will die. And I will die. And everyone who's watching this will die. It's not, it's not a defect in the game. It's the way the game is played. Right? Some of us will say, yeah, but I'm not ready to die yet. Okay? And some of us may be ready. Some of us, you know, if, if you're a video gamer like I am, you'd understand that if you're done with the level objective, if you collected the tools and the coins that you need, you might as well move on.

• 29:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Mo Gawdat?

  Right? And, and so is, is Ali's death unexpected? Unfortunately not. I, I, I picked up the phone when Ali left and I called my, my brother, who's a very famous surgeon. And I said, Khalid, is this possible? Is this even, you know, does this even happen? And he says, well, yeah. You know, it's a very, very. Tiny probability, but because we do hundreds of millions of those operations every year. It does happen. It happens not in the tens, not in the thousands, but in the tens of thousands of death a year. You know, if if if um um medical malpractice is the third largest reason for death in the United States.

• 29:48Mo Gawdat?

  Oh my goodness. We just and and in in countries like Ghana or India or, you know, other places where malpractice litigation is not that. Uh, you know, um, um, um, widely applied, it's even worse. Hmm. So, so does Ali's death misexpectations? No, it's harsh. It is very, very, very painful, right? But it doesn't misexpectations. Now, this should take us into, so so so the equation holds true. Now, you need to understand the difference between. Uh, you know, which what really helped me is to understand the difference between the pain and suffering. There are two human conditions. Hmm. There is a condition that is, you know, either physical or or or emotional pain.

• 30:33Mo Gawdat?

  That's actually useful. That is, you know, and I and and even if not useful, it's unavoidable. You you cut your finger, okay? You will feel the pain, you will take your hand away and the pain will continue for a day or two because your brain is saying. Don't hit anything with this. Don't put it under cold water or hot water or whatever. Just protect it, right? And and even though you hate that feeling, it's so useful to keep you alive, okay? Emotional pain is the same, right? Emotional pain is, you know, if we're talking now and I. Say something rude to you, I get the emotional pain of like, whoops, I, you know, I feel bad about this and I say, I say I'm sorry. It's good. It's. Not too bad, right?

• 31:14Mo Gawdat?

  Uh, suffering, on the other hand, is when we take that emotional pain, is when we take the emotional pain and just start to apply it. Over and over as if we are we are generating pain on demand. Through thoughts in our incessant part of our brain, right? So. Ali died. There is nothing I can do to bring him back. Okay, but I could adopt the thought of you shouldn't have driven him to that hospital. You should have driven him to another hospital.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:43Mo Gawdat?

  You shouldn't have driven him to that hospital. I can do, I can say that fourteen million times.

• 31:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:48Mo Gawdat?

  Will it bring Ali back?

• 31:49Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 31:50Mo Gawdat?

  It won't bring Ali back. Will it make any difference to the world? It won't make any difference to the real world. The only difference it will make is it will torture me.

• 31:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Mo Gawdat?

  Now.

• 32:00Lewis Howes?

  You'll suffer.

• 32:00Mo Gawdat?

  You'll suffer. Now, here is the interesting thing. You know, we've been talking for some time now. And you've instructed your brain to focus on the words I tell you. Right? Did your brain say, no, no, no, I'm just gonna think about lunch? No, right? Have you ever told your brain to raise your right arm and your, your brain said, and I don't feel like it.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:25Mo Gawdat?

  The brain says, yes, sir, right arm it is, right arm it is. We, your brain will always do what you instructed to do. Other than that one instance of incessant thought where it will say, hey, you know what? I'm the boss, I know what I'm doing, I'm just gonna kill us for a while. Why? Right? And I know, you know, it sounds unfeeling almost. No, no, no, no, the pain is there. The pain is going to last. But I won't let the suffering happen. So, so when I, when I start to think about the loss of Ali, instead of, of saying, okay, you know, let me just torture me for another hour, you know, it's a good time to do that.

• 33:03Lewis Howes?

  Feel bad for myself.

• 33:04Mo Gawdat?

  Feel bad for myself and feel like the victim. I say, no, you know what? I'm going to remember all the wonderful times we had together. I'm going to be super grateful for the fact that he came. Twenty one and a half amazing years with that boy, right? I was blessed with one of the best people I have ever met. So I can think about that, right? And more importantly, I reset. I say, okay, you know what, life? It seems that we're restarting a, a new level here and Ali is not in it. And there is nothing I can do to put him in it. So can I at least reset that level and do the best I can with it? Would this level be better with ten million happy people? Would this level be better with ten million people sending Ali a happy wish and hoping that he's happy wherever he is now?

• 33:48Mo Gawdat?

  Would this level be better if he's looking down at me and saying, hey, I'm proud of you, Papa?

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, and you're following your heart.

• 33:55Mo Gawdat?

  And you're following your heart. It, it, it wouldn't bring him back. It wouldn't take away the pain. But it will make it a tiny bit better. And I think that's really, I think, the deliberate approach to finding happiness.

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you're not gonna, you know, I'm sure you have thoughts of them, you know, a thousand times a day, right?

• 34:13Mo Gawdat?

  Every hour of every day.

• 34:15Lewis Howes?

  And there's gonna be pain in some of those thoughts, but if you just, you know, sit in the pain forever, you're not gonna be productive or anything, you're not gonna be useful to the world.

• 34:23Mo Gawdat?

  Or for him, or for himself.

• 34:25Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, your family or anything else, so. And what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, the pain may stay around for a long time for people. When something bad happens or you're frustrated, you miss expectations, whether it be small or big. But we don't have to sit in it for a long time and suffer. But it may keep coming back, the pain.

• 34:44Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Lewis Howes?

  But we don't need to sit in the suffering.

• 34:46Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, now, the reason why we suffer, though, is so interesting. Again, if you think of the machine that has broke, right? What broke in the machine is really interesting. To engage in the, in the modern world, what we do is we learn to navigate certain concepts in an effective way that makes us successful. But those concepts are not in any way relevant to what they really are, okay? I call them illusions. So, so there are six grand illusions of the modern world that we think are something. We apply everything according to our thought of them. And it makes us successful, but it makes us constantly suffer, right?

• 35:30Mo Gawdat?

  If you start to bust those illusions, see things for what they really are, your happiness equation is going to be solved correctly much more frequently than not.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, what are those six things?

• 35:42Mo Gawdat?

  So, so six, six grand illusions, you know, thought is an illusion. Let's me define what an illusion is. An illusion is not something that doesn't exist. It's something that exists in a form that's different than what you think it exists in, right? So, so thought is an illusion, you know, in, in the Western world, we say, I think, therefore I am. While the truth is, I am, therefore my brain thinks. Okay, and we can talk about that in detail if you want. Self is an illusion, and, and the illusion of self is multi- Layers, you know, including layers that are so entrenched in us, like the layer of ego, right? That I, it's not only who I am, but who I appear to be to myself and then who I want to appear to be to everyone else. And then my profile on LinkedIn and my profile on Facebook and right?

• 36:26Mo Gawdat?

  There is all of those layers, masks, if you want, that we wear. But there is also the illusion of what I call entitlement, the illusion of our place in the world. We somehow think that we are uh worthy of the attention of the universe. And again, we can talk about that. There is the illusion of knowledge, one of my favorite of all illusions is that we actually think we know. Yeah, I'm just gonna leave it at that. Believe it or not, we actually think we know of the entire universe and everything in it. We think that we know. Uh, you know, we actually think that what we know is accurate, even though every day of your life, what you knew was revisited. Right. Uh, there is the. What people say is impossible becomes possible.

• 37:06Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely. And, and you know, when we, we, you know, growing up, I was told that the tiniest uh uh subatomic particle is an electron. Come on, like, you know, it's like, are you kidding me? And, and they insisted when you asked them, never, no one ever admitted and said, no, no, no, the tiniest we could see is an electron. They said, no, it's the tiniest. It doesn't get smaller than that, right? Uh, and, and, and so many of those and knowledge, uh, you know, truly is the, the, the, the protector of all illusions, if you want. Because the illusion of knowledge is the protector of all illusions, because then you actually tend to believe that the others are true, because it's what you know. Right. There is the illusion of time, my favorite of all of them. And again, a topic that I've dedicated a ton of time for.

• 37:50Mo Gawdat?

  Uh, a ton of time for, because you know, because what, you know, with time, uh, we turn, we learn to be punctual. We learn to be effective. We learn to be productive. But time isn't, nobody actually knows what time is. You know, we're measuring something, you know, and when the clock ticks, we respond.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:09Mo Gawdat?

  But we have no idea what we're dealing with. And if you really know what you're dealing with, the illusion goes away. Right? Uh, you know, there is the illusion of control, one of the biggest illusions of the modern day executive like myself and the modern day professionals in general that. We actually think we can control things. I, you know, I had insurance policies on my life for Ali. I had, you know, um, um. His tuition plan years in advance. I even started businesses for him to run when he graduates. I didn't plan for that one. How much control do you have? Right? And as I always say, between black swans and butterfly effects, really, there is very little control. Everything you try to control goes out of control. And then there is the illusion of fear. The illusion of fear is probably one of the biggest ones in the modern world.

• 38:54Mo Gawdat?

  Fear has the derivatives that hide beneath it that are, you know, anxiety, worry, and all of the other things.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  Stress.

• 39:02Mo Gawdat?

  Stress and all of, all of those where it is a way of life uh in the modern world. You know, we worry about the future all the time and that keeps us uh unhappy. Now, you take those six illusions, factor them into your happiness equation, whichever other inputs you put into the happiness equation, you will get the wrong answer. There is absolutely no way you can get the right answer if you are seeing the world through an exaggerated eye of fear or through a controlling. A control freak's eye of like, I want to have everything under control. The other side of it is what I call the seven blind spots. So, so if you look at the events side of the happiness equation.

• 39:40Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:41Mo Gawdat?

  We think that events are missing our expectations, but that's because we don't see events for what they really are. Right? Because there were seven features in our brains that allowed us to live and succeed as cavemen.

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:55Mo Gawdat?

  But those seven features turned into uh defects in the modern world. And so when you use them, you don't see the events for what they really are and you end up in a place where. Uh, again, your happiness equation breaks all the time.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. It's fascinating.

• 40:13Mo Gawdat?

  I'm happy you like it.

• 40:15Lewis Howes?

  Now, is this all stuff you discovered through just the reading for ten years or through? And what I also love about this book, as you said, you did a lot of crowdsourcing where you open sourced it and you let people write their thoughts and their research and their feedback in, you know, online. Did this all, you know, where did all these, you know, six illusions come from? Was it just?

• 40:34Mo Gawdat?

  So there is, you know, happiness is not a new technology, to be honest. This machine has been, you know, going to maintenance since, you know, the very early civilizations, right? The, the, the, the, the way it was maintained at the time was slightly different than what we can do today. So, you know, yoga or meditation works, it does work, right? It, it keeps the, the, the, the machine in a, in a, in a good condition, right? And you can borrow so much of this, but the problem is it's not really always applicable in the modern world. Sometimes we cannot do this, you know, like they used to do in the past.

• 41:15Mo Gawdat?

  And some of us don't even understand it anymore. We've become so many, so much left brainers in the world. But at least we glorify the left brain a little more.

• 41:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:23Mo Gawdat?

  So, so a lot of it is found in ancient, you know, uh, uh, knowledge of happiness. But, but I think that the trick is, can you understand it from a point of view of,

• 41:36Mo Gawdat?

  of the modern world, of, of what, you know, of, can you say, can you see, can you say it in a language that appeals to people who are browsing Facebook, you know, twelve thousand times a day, right? And, and, and, and so what I did, which I think was really, really eye opening for me is when I wrote the first version of the book, that was just seen by my agent and my publishers and so on. And then they said, okay, we're just gonna edit this through the normal process of editing. And I said, no, no, no, let's do it like we do software. Okay.

• 42:05Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 42:05Mo Gawdat?

  And so I so I put it online and I invited five hundred early readers to come and uh literally walk into the document and edit the document online.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, yeah.

• 42:16Mo Gawdat?

  Which was in an incredible experience. You have no idea. So people would walk in and say, I agree with this. I prefer if you say it that way. And then others on the margin will say, hey, but you're missing a piece of research that shows otherwise. And there would be, you know, conversations that would sometimes be twenty, thirty, fifty comments long. And so at the end of that process, we ended up almost with a book that was written by the readers, right? And, you know, in almost in written in the language of the readers.

• 42:45Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:45Mo Gawdat?

  And and so this is why so far.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  They can receive it in a in a way that works for them.

• 42:49Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely. This is why so far it's not like the usual, you know, happiness book uh that talks, you know, a bit of mysticism and a bit of, you know, very poetic language. It's really very eight year old, you know, kind of language.

• 43:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:03Mo Gawdat?

  There are no big words.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  Simple.

• 43:05Mo Gawdat?

  It's simple.

• 43:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's why I like it, you know.

• 43:07Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 43:07Lewis Howes?

  Make it easy for me to read, you know.

• 43:08Mo Gawdat?

  Absolutely. And and it's to the point. It's it's not an it's not a quick read at all. I mean, uh, you know, mo- most people will say, I go through the first three chapters quickly in one sitting. And then I, you know, I start to realize that even though it's easy to read, every now and then I go like, um, what did he just say?

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 43:26Mo Gawdat?

  You know, and then you would have to stop and reflect and then find a little example in yourself. And then mostly, you know, you would do one chapter a day and say, I need to sleep on this. Okay. And, you know, I need to reflect on this. And it's it's really engaging in that way because it's not, uh, you know, um, uh, you're doing a bit of the work as you're going through it. So it's, you know, your your final model is yours.

• 43:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:48Mo Gawdat?

  Uh, but it's uh, but it's not the normal, you know, uh, meditate for ten minutes and you'll be fine.

• 43:54Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. Well, when you have a moment of pain or suffering, where do you go to? What's your approach to life to getting back to happiness?

• 44:06Mo Gawdat?

  So you have, again, it all goes to understanding, let's trace it, right? You have an emotion, you know, you feel overwhelmed by an emotion. I'm like, I'm very sad because of something, right? Many of us don't even recognize it. You know, when you go to your partner and you say, hey, what's wrong? And, you know, she would say, um, nothing, right? And then, and then you go like, okay, no, but seriously, what's wrong, right? And, you know, after a while, somehow you start, and by the way, we too, huh? And she comes to me or whatever, and I would say, I think I'm just fine, right? No problem. But then you recognize an emotion. You can trace that emotion back, not to an event, interestingly, but to a thought.

• 44:50Mo Gawdat?

  So, you know, an Uber driver is, you know, rude to you today, okay? It's not the event that made you unhappy. It's what you thought about the event that made you unhappy. It's, you know, people shouldn't be rude to me. Or, you know, what will this world come to? Or do I really have to depend on this service where I have to be treated poorly or whatever? Okay? And that thought, if you trace it, you will find that there are two, three types of thoughts. And that's really the most interesting bit of it. If you want to start to have brain control, like sci fi, brain control, right? You have that thought that is causing you pain is happening here in the midline areas of your brain. It's, you know, it's an incessant thought that is brain chatter that leads to no action whatsoever.

• 45:35Mo Gawdat?

  But you have two other types of thoughts. You have what I call insightful thinking. This is when I ask you to solve a problem. It's like, okay, driver was rude. What are we going to do about it? Once you have that, what are we going to do about it? You move the thought from the incessant part of your brain to your insightful part of the brain, which is both on the right hand side, partly in the back where the processing happens, batch processing, if you want, and then partly on the front where the verbal conversion happens. Okay? Or you actually find an answer and then you start to engage and you start to say, okay, let me do something about it. Let me sit down and write an email to whatever, right? And when you're experiencing the real world, again, on the right hand side of your brain are the parts that are engaged.

• 46:20Mo Gawdat?

  So once you take, once you recognize the thought, once you recognize that there is no value to that thought and you start to move it to either a problem solving approach or an experiential approach. The suffering goes away. When you're actually writing the email, if you've decided what you want to do, there are no emotions anymore. You're just into the action. When you're solving the problem, you know, you're not overwhelmed anymore. You're just trying to come to something. And so mostly what I do now is whenever I feel there is an overwhelming emotion or a painful, you know, feeling coming to me, I start by asking, is it true by the way, brain? Are you presenting me the whole truth? If it is, what can we do about it? Right? If there is something I can do about it, how can I do it? Right?

• 47:05Mo Gawdat?

  And if there is nothing, by the way, then there is that core, actually, one of the most important, you know, concepts I present in the book, a concept that I call committed acceptance. Can I accept it? As I said, reset the world as it is now. Accept it because I cannot change it. And then design a path forward that makes the world slightly better from where it is now.

• 47:28Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I love it, man. This is great. And I want to make sure everyone gets this book, Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy. Make sure you guys get this right now. You can get it online, on Amazon, Google Books, Barnes and Noble. And do you have a website as well?

• 47:44Mo Gawdat?

  I do, solveforhappy.com. And one thing that I would like people to do, because I am a businessman, is I have a counter. So I'm counting down from 10 million. If any of what you guys have heard today made you a little happier, go and click on the counter.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  At solveforhappy.com.

• 47:58Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, so go to solveforhappy.com. The counter is prominent in there.

• 48:01Lewis Howes?

  What are you at right now, do you know? Of the time of the recording?

• 48:04Mo Gawdat?

  I'm a couple of thousand below. Yeah, so I'm, you know, it's 10 million to go.

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, you just started. You just started.

• 48:11Mo Gawdat?

  You know what?

• 48:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:12Mo Gawdat?

  2,000 happy people. That's amazing.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 48:14Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, who would want anything more? I mean, 10 million is better, but we're not going to wait there.

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  Don't have an expectation, though.

• 48:20Mo Gawdat?

  Exactly, we shouldn't wait. We shouldn't wait until we get there so that we're happy, right? I'm happy with 2,000.

• 48:26Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah, yeah. And we're going to hit a lot more once this comes live, so.

• 48:29Mo Gawdat?

  I hope so. I appreciate that.

• 48:31Lewis Howes?

  Couple of final questions for you. How were the pyramids built?

• 48:36Mo Gawdat?

  Hi, uh, yeah, uh, you want my story?

• 48:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I do.

• 48:40Mo Gawdat?

  Right, okay.

• 48:41Lewis Howes?

  Cause I saw them when I was in Egypt last year.

• 48:43Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Lewis Howes?

  And I watched all the documentaries and all the theories. And I'm just.

• 48:48Mo Gawdat?

  Let's just, let's just.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  You're from there, I wanna know how they're built.

• 48:51Mo Gawdat?

  Egyptians are really nice people, okay? Some weird guy went and said, guys, I want you to work for the rest of your life until you die and carry stones. And they said, sure.

• 49:00Lewis Howes?

  That was it.

• 49:00Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, basically.

• 49:02Lewis Howes?

  That was it.

• 49:02Mo Gawdat?

  We'll die as long as you're happy and, you know, it was really weird.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  That was it.

• 49:08Mo Gawdat?

  You, you want, you want the science fiction of it?

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Nah.

• 49:10Mo Gawdat?

  I don't, I don't know that, but.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  How do they get them up? They're so heavy.

• 49:15Mo Gawdat?

  They, uh.

• 49:16Lewis Howes?

  They had to have some levers in or some of their assistance, right?

• 49:18Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, they used, um.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  Something to push them up.

• 49:20Mo Gawdat?

  Cylinders or, you know, yeah, and to push them up, you know.

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  All the way up that high.

• 49:23Mo Gawdat?

  But, but you see this, I always present that when I talk about technologies, like, you know, imagine if you went to those people and said, hey, guys, by the way, I have a new technology, stone in a paper bag, right? You just mix it with water, just take it up there fifty pounds at a time and then mix it with water there and everyone will be very, you know, it will, it will work, it will make the same stones, called cement. Hallelujah, it's like, yeah, we have a new technology. I, I, I think we, we, uh, you know, we sometimes take those kinds of technologies for granted, but.

• 49:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:52Mo Gawdat?

  Life, uh, you know, life has gone a very long way since that time and somehow we're still not happy.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  What about, uh, the mummies? We, they don't, they don't know how to recreate the, that process, right?

• 50:05Mo Gawdat?

  Uh, they, uh, there are many mummies around the world, not only in.

• 50:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 50:09Mo Gawdat?

  In ancient Egypt, yeah, but, uh, the, this specific process was, you know.

• 50:13Lewis Howes?

  It's lost, right?

• 50:14Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, it was, and it was done with a very specific objective, the, the very strong belief that, you know, we will actually live again and, you know, that we need to preserve certain parts of it, you know, in a certain way and others in a different way. It is fascinating, once again, when you think about that, that, you know. Seven thousand years ago and they managed to do that.

• 50:34Lewis Howes?

  Crazy, right?

• 50:35Mo Gawdat?

  Not, not bad, you know, it's

• 50:37Lewis Howes?

  It's unbelievable.

• 50:38Mo Gawdat?

  Equivalent to the internet of today.

• 50:39Lewis Howes?

  I think the ancient Egyptians were the most brilliant of all time.

• 50:42Mo Gawdat?

  Current Egyptians are cool too.

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  They're very cool. The most brilliant though, exactly. No, I loved Egypt, it was great. Um, couple final questions for you. This is a question called the three truths that I ask everyone. So if it's the last day for you many years from now, you've impacted 10 million people and beyond to be happier, healthier, um, but you only have three things left to say to the world. You have to write them down on a piece of paper and this is your message to the world. And this is all people remember you by in written form are your three truths. What would you say are yours?

• 51:18Mo Gawdat?

  Uh, I think the number one is to say that we are here for a reason. Uh, we need to find that reason. Number two is to say that surprisingly, your purpose to find that reason is to be happy. Uh, I have a very interesting theory that, uh, you know, like, you know, the, the, the tuning fork, when you tune your guitar and you hit it and it will always play in the, you know, in the key of E or whatever. You and I are the same. Uh, each of us has something that is so, uh, you that, uh, you know, that is exactly your natural resonance. And the way to find it is to find whatever makes you happiest. Okay?

• 52:00Mo Gawdat?

  Unfortunately, as we go through the real world, they tell us, hey, by the way, but you can make more money if you study business or if you work in Wall Street, but if it isn't your thing, you're, you know, you can be successful, but it would be, it would not be your thing. It would take a lot of effort and you wouldn't be happy.

• 52:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:19Mo Gawdat?

  Uh, so I, I, I tell people, I, I tell my, I told my kids and I still tell Aya, my daughter to absolutely find that E, find that resonance. Just write down your happy list, find out whatever it is that makes you happiest. And yeah, I know life is tough and you have to go to work and you have to make ends meet. Fine. Do all of that, right? But play the E, find out what it is and live your life's purpose. And yeah, the third is you'll be surprised. You know, if it's my very last day, I will just remind people that death is the opposite of birth. It's not the opposite of life. That if you, if you think of life as a video game, I'll just meet you on the next level.

• 53:03Mo Gawdat?

  That's what it's going to be all about. So hopefully, me and Ali sitting there.

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:09Mo Gawdat?

  Having fun.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Let's say there was a direct connection to Ali right now and he was listening, which I'm sure he is. But you only got to say one thing to him. What would you say?

• 53:23Mo Gawdat?

  Profound, pro, pro, um, bad words are allowed?

• 53:29Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah, damn you, Ali. Left too early, my son. Yeah. Uh, I don't think he left too early. It's just too early for me.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 53:38Mo Gawdat?

  I, I, I would have definitely wanted one more hug.

• 53:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:42Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I'm sure you'll get it again.

• 53:45Mo Gawdat?

  I hope so.

• 53:47Lewis Howes?

  Well, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you, Mo, for your, your courage to do all the work that you're doing after such an experience that you had. I mean, I'm, you know, I, I don't wish that on anyone ever. What you've gone through and I'm so grateful that you've come through with such a love and appreciation and gratitude to give to people as opposed to go into a cave and suffer. And I think you have an incredible gift to inspire, educate and teach others how to be happy when something tragic like this happens in their life in their own way. So I acknowledge you for taking this courage and going on a journey and inspiring so many people over this last few years.

• 54:25Mo Gawdat?

  Thank you.

• 54:26Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 54:26Mo Gawdat?

  Yeah. And thank you for helping me spread this word and, you know, uh, the only way I can get there is through the help of you and others.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man. This is great. It's going to help a lot of people. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 54:39Mo Gawdat?

  Is to live your purpose. Uh, so, so i- i- in, in two words, we're, none of us is dealt the same hand. Uh, we're all, we're e- we're each dealt a very different hand in the world.

• 54:52Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 54:53Mo Gawdat?

  Some of us come with certain gifts and some of us come with other gifts and some of us are tall and some of us are short and some of us are, you know, uh, fast and some of us are slow. And, you know, while we have, uh, sort of, um, narrowed down the definition of greatness in the modern world to a few amazing examples, uh, it's not that at all. Y- your version of being great is what you're doing here. Another person's might be, uh, to cook the best cookies, you know, to bake the best cookies on earth and, and finding that, that's true greatness.

• 55:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Well, thank you so much.

• 55:33Mo Gawdat?

  So, uh, thanks for having me.

• 55:34Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  The equation for happiness. I hope it makes more sense for you now and let me know what you think about it. LewisHowes.com/467. If you enjoyed this, share that link out with your friends or go direct to the podcast app on iTunes, Stitcher, or SoundCloud and just tweet it out or post it on Facebook as well. If you know someone who is searching for more happiness, then send them this episode. Again, LewisHowes.com/467. Tag me at Lewis Howes and let me know what you think over on Twitter or your Instagram story and let me know. Let's start a conversation together because I want to see if this works for you as the way it has worked for so many other people. Also, make sure to check out the new book called Solve for Happy.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  I know you guys will enjoy it, so make sure to pick it up and let Mo know your thoughts. We've got some big episodes coming up. One of the biggest Latin pop stars in the world, J Balvin, is coming on next. Then we've got Apollo Anno, one of the most decorated Winter Olympians of all time. And we've got some incredible people coming up after that. So if this is your first time here, make sure to click the subscribe button on your podcast app so you never miss an episode or an interview. Some of the most inspiring people in the world. I love you guys very much and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.