If you think like this, you will stay poor and unhappy...

My wife and I acquired a $100 million net worth by the time we were age 32. And as a result of that, we had very different views and perspectives on money and happiness. And I was recently interviewed in a two-hour long podcast with Graham Stefen and he asked questions about it. And from what I understand, a lot of people shared and talked about this particular section of the podcast. And so we chose to cut this out and give it to you in the next 11 minutes. And if you don't know who I am, my name's Alex Mosio on acquisition. com. It's a portfolio of companies. So enjoy the video. Welcome to Mosie Nation and I'll see you on the other side. Like a lot of people make statements like as they're like isms like this is this way. Um like I have this thought and it is and you're like and I've just accepted that like I'm always going to have this like I would just never speak that over yourself just right off the bat because like you're just saying I'm never going to get over this thing. Like the statement you said earlier about like at the end of the day I just like I just want to be happy. Like when you admit that you just want to be happy then what happens is you create a deficit between your current reality and happiness which means that it doesn't matter what happens because there will always be happiness that is outside of yourself. Does that make sense? Kind of. Yeah. I mean, but I would consider myself he didn't get that at all. No, I got because I'm like looking at J. Oh, man. But I thought Okay, so here's my interpretation of it. If I'm telling myself that I just want to be happy, then I will never be happy. That's what you're saying. No, I understand what you're saying, but I'm telling you right now that I am happy now. Good. So, but it Okay. Wait, Graham. I Why do you still think I don't understand that? So like deficits, deficits occur when we speak desires, right? And so um I love this statement. Um a desire is a contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until we get what we want. And so whenever we state a desire like I want this, I want this amount of money. I want whatever. You literally sign a contract that says like I won't be unhappy until that happens, right? And so like I had this thing earlier on where I was like I want to have meaning. great meaning in my life. And I was talking to a guy who made a lot more money than me cuz I asked him I said how do you create and destroy meaning in your work? That was the question I asked him on a podcast and he was like, "Why do you think life needs to be meaningful? " And it was the same exact thing as the happiness versus like the meaning thing where it's like I say life has to be meaningful and therefore everything that I'm doing like I create this expectation of life. Whereas if life just is, it just is. And it's the only way that you can actually be there. Um it's just pure acceptance, right? Um which is why like the whole like shoulds of like we should work, we should have balance, we should act. It's like I believe marriage is a compromise. Like these are just statements of belief that are casting expectations out in the world that are just bound to be untrue at some point and then create dissonance. And so it's like I believe marriage is marriage and I believe my marriage is my your marriage is your marriage and like I believe that I can work 24 hours a day if I want to and that is all. Period. Not and it's bad or and it's good and there's no judgment on it. It just is. And so like if I get, you know, if I get dopamine secreted in my brain when I start working, cool. Like and I will optimize for dopamine. And if I die, I know that in a thousand generations, nothing I do anyways is going to matter. So who cares? Like that's like the opening thing in my book is like there are no rules. Like we live in this like shoulds and have to like happiness. Everyone talks about it and it's just like everyone is unhappy because they say they want to be happy rather than being like accept and be like happiness like I just am period and then like I don't need to judge the am it just is. How do you what do you say to that? I don't know that makes sense. Yeah. Cuz so one thing I noticed is if you're like I just want to be happy. Yeah. Does that mean, Alex, that you think that at some point that will change for you or something or you're you have you live with fear that will change? I think you guys maybe are taking what I'm saying the wrong way. I mean, like um Alex is saying, you know, everybody has different beliefs and there's no one rule fits all to everybody. And so if I say I want to be happy, that doesn't make me wrong. Like if I want to live my life that way, that's perfectly fine. But the thing that what Jack is saying is no I am like happy like I but I for me I like to make like a conscious effort to work towards that and Alex can live his life like life is life. My marriage is my marriage. Um and it works for him and that generates happiness whether he's like thinking about but it doesn't have to generate happiness. That's the point. Yes. like right like but like because it makes it like not because it's like when people say like hey um work uh you know set these goals and like the rest will take care of itself it still makes the rest taking care of itself the reason that you're doing it which means that it's actually not getting around it when people are like you got to be process driven if you're like if we focus on the process the goals take care of themselves it still means that the goals are important so like you have to if you want to make the transition from like a process driven life which is like I am doing these things to do them period then the so that I can be happy have a good marriage, meaningful life has to disappear from the equation. It has to be I do them period, not because I do

them. But then it goes back the other way like but why? Because you say so. Like because you want to, right? Like if you want to have ascribe a meaning to why you're doing something, you can do it for whatever reason. Wow, this is deep. So I mean, this is what I spent a lot of my time thinking of because I have nothing else to do. And this is what my last year was like trying to figure out like why I didn't have like I felt the exact same way while I was while I had nothing as to where I have now. I feel the same like people were like man it was cool when the money hit my account. I felt nothing like truly like not even like the two-day like I it was irrelevant. How did you learn all of this? Did was this through speaking with other people who have been there before you? thinking um I mean my closest friend is a philosopher and I use that in terms of like the actual meaning of the word philosopher. So like felt to love and then sofos is wisdom or knowledge. So like he's a lover of knowledge, lover of wisdom and like we talk every week. It's like the only standing meeting that I have is we talk for like two hours and we just talk about life and he's one of these guys who like lives in a cave um and is like he got his PhD when he was 20 like just a very brilliant guy and so he and I just talk about things you know should uh share his contact information for some guests on the podcast. I mean, he's brilliant. I mean, if you like Dr. Gashi is brilliant. He's the smartest human that I know in terms of like brilliance and their ability to communicate it um in a simple way. Um and so he helped me get over a lot of the things that I used to struggle with. And a lot of it was just like the language that we use matters a lot because like how we say things is how we think things. And so like what I was saying earlier, Alex, and this is not like a slight. I'm just saying like when I hear anyone talk like on my team or customers or whatever it's like people talk so many things over themselves and they're like I don't know why I'm not successful and it's like well define success and why are you not and then what are the you know what I mean like I just want to do this to be like there's so many chains that they put on themselves that it be becomes very difficult to live and so like I spent a long time trying to not do that and it was just because like I was unhappy and I didn't like being unhappy and then I stopped judging myself for thinking about it altogether. And so I think that like I'll give you a really real example for this. So one of the things that I'm vehematly opposed and I'm like you no one give Graham flack. You can give it to me. Um and like this is coming from a family who like had al alcoholics and drug addicts and things like that. Like I really don't like the alcoholics anonymous um concept of every morning waking up and saying I am an alcoholic. Hi, you know, whatever. And then they go into their in their meetings because what it does is it puts it at the forefront of their mind and they literally label themselves every morning as having this problem. When somebody who's not an alcoholic just doesn't think about it, they don't think I'm an alcoholic. I have to fight not drinking every day, they just don't think about it. And so I think to the same degree that um like living a meaningful life is not saying like I'm living a meaningful life. You just are and you're not casting it. You're just you just are. But don't you think some of that is just that inherent belief that some people just have they're raised from that. They have positive experiences that turns into a spiral. But the people who don't have that, who are used to every day being like I'm worthless. I suck at this. I am bad at this. Don't you think that maybe that like first step and like getting in that direction is positive affirmations of like I could do it. I could Isn't that like that's better than zero? Like I feel like we're going to zero to one. I think it's exiting the equation altogether. So saying I am worthless instead of saying like I want to be worthy or I am worthy just saying worthiness doesn't matter. But then wouldn't you get just people not caring at all? Yes. Yeah. So I'm 100% a nihilist like I believe we die nothing happens and like you know it is what it is right but and there are different ways to take that. Some people are like life is meaningless and there's no point in any of it which I would agree with them. And then the other people are like there's no point in any of it and so I'll do what I want. And some people see that as like very very self- serving which it might be but to the same degree like you are released from the chains of the expectations of others. And most people in my opinion that I have witnessed who are unhappy is because they are weighted down by the chains of their parents of their friends of their siblings of the whatever things the people that they believe are casting judgment on them and they care so much about that person's disapproval that they don't want to do the things that they want to do. And so if I think it's easier to get someone to realize that none of it matters and then build from there than to try and flip the negatives. It's just to exit the equation altogether. Just say none of this matters. Therefore, I will start my YouTube channel and not care if my dad says that YouTube isn't real. Like it's not about being worth it. Like this is one where they're like I deserve success. Like no, you don't. No one deserves anything. But you can do the stuff that gets success independent of your deservingness. You be a terrible person and get and become successful. So that person doesn't deserve it, but they did the things that create success if we define success as some material whatever. And so I think um like if you

can exit the equation of like labeling yourself and then just doing because what else will you do while you are alive? It creates some levels of freedom that um allow for clarity of thought and also for the ability to take risks that most people can't