Is Happiness a Disease?

Originally posted August 24, 2010

Well, it turns out that happiness and sadness both spread like diseases. In a study done by Harvard University and MIT, a mathematical model was put to a study to see if happiness and sadness, if your emotional state infects other people. Guess what? It does.

Over a several-year period, they realized that by applying a traditional, infectious disease simulation to the data they had collected on 1,880 test subjects, the sadness would spread throughout the people who were exposed to it. The happy would spread throughout the people who were affected by it.

I remember my son saying to us at dinner the other day, “It is so weird Dad. When I am here at your house, my complaints disappear so quickly. I am able to maintain my happiness and my joy so much more easily than when I am over at Mom’s.” It just confirmed for me that one person’s commitment to happiness can massively and dramatically affect everyone else in your life.

So what are you committed to? Are you going to spread the disease of the drunk monkey? Or, are you going to spread the disease of your higher self into your life today?

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Want to Be in a Mastermind With Me?

Matthew Ferry’s Happiness and Success Mastermind

Over the last 3 years I’ve stumbled upon very powerful spiritual principles that have a profound impact on happiness and success.

I’ve been sharing these secrets with my private coaching clients and now I’m ready to share them with a small group of very special people.

I don’t know if you will qualify to be in the group.

If you are interested in hearing all about it, then please join me this Wednesday night 2/15/12 at 6pm Pacific / 7pm Mountain / 8pm Central / 9pm Eastern.

Phone:  760-569-7676
Code: 603-117#
Duration: 45-60 minutes

No need to RSVP, just be there if you are interested in hearing about it.

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Secret Mindset of the Super Successful

I’m doing another free webcast.I’m committed to supporting you in having an amazing 2nd half of this year.

So I’m going to show you what the super successful are doing right now to stay in the game and succeed in 2011.

I’ve got 4 very important mindset secrets of the super successful. Would you like to know what they are?

Join me next Wednesday afternoon 12pm Pacific and I’ll tell you what they are.

 

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COMPLEMENTARY LIVE VIDEO BROADCAST
Topic: Secret Mindset of The Super Successful
Date: Wednesday, September 14th
Time: 12:00pm (Pacific) / 2:00pm (Central) / 3:00pm (Eastern)
Duration: 90 Minutes
====> Register Here <=====
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The 4 Secret Mindset Tricks Include…

- How to block negative energy from harming your life

- A secret recipe for being happy…that anyone can do

- A simple system for making your goals come true

- A daily ritual that will keep you moving forward and feeling empowered

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Extra Special Super Awesome Bonus
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Everyone who registers and is present during the whole broadcast will be eligible to win a 2-year life changing coaching package worth $4648.  I did this last month and one very lucky person won it all.  Will it be you this time?

Make sure you are on the broadcast live!

Your coach,

Matthew Ferry

P.S. Do what the super successful do and you will achieve what they achieve.  Let me share 4 mindset tricks with you Wednesday 14th.  Be there!

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19 Ways Your Inner Child Messes Your Life Up (Revisited)

Back in 2009 I wrote 4 posts that talked about how your inner child messes your life up.  I thought it would be a good idea to revisit them all today.

As a coach, I am confronted with this question on a daily basis,

“How can I feel more happiness and peace in my life now?” 

The answer is simple but most people don’t like the answer.  “Grow up!”  Now I’m not trying to be sarcastic or condescending, hear me out on this one.  Most people are still utilizing behaviors they learned in kindergarten and on the play ground as their tools for success.  And guess what?  It ain’t workin’.

Your so called “Inner Child” isn’t so inner after all.  In fact, it’s quite outer.  One of the most important steps towards happiness and peace is giving up the behaviors you adopted as a child in favor of more conscious, responsible and adult solutions.

Here are 19 ways your inner child messes up your life and ensures you don’t experience happiness and peace.

1.  Self-pity.  Why me?  I’m a victim.  If life was different, then I would be able to be happy!

2.  Jealousy. Being attached to people will make your life miserable.  People will do what ever they do and all you can do is manage your promises, commitments and attitude towards them.  Managing their behavior will only annoy you.

3.  Envy. The Drunk Monkey (your mind) declares, “Now is wrong.  It will be better when you have that stuff over there.”  You will never arrive.  You will never have it all.  We coach people who make hundreds of millions of dollars and they still believe that someday it will all be better when they have more stuff.

4.  Competitiveness. No one is competing with you.  Everyone is trying to get ahead in a world were all the measurements are figments of your imagination.  To compete is to say that there is a way you can be a loser.  You never lose, you just learn.

5.  Temper tantrums. Manipulating people with your anger is something all children learn to do early on.  To continue to use it into adulthood is a guaranteed way to create suffering for you and others.  Most people will opt to not deal with you.  Your life will be small.  You may succeed but your life will be small as in shallow.

6.  Emotional Outbursts. Same thing as above.  If you use this as your way of getting what you want, then you will have a life filled with conflict, struggle, anger and doubt.  You will feel lonely your whole life and not really know why.

7.  Resentments.  If your life is not fulfilling, then this is the number one reason.  This is the highest priority of your Inspired Action Coach.  When you let go of your resentments, everything in your life gets better, and quick.  Standby, I’m going to start uploading some coaching calls where I help people let go of their resentments.

8.  Hatred. The Drunk Monkey loves to hate.  To hate is to demonstrate that you are in control.  To hate is to show the world that you will not be messed with.  But there is one problem.  You get what you focus on.  If you hate, you will bring negative situations upon yourself.  Give it up, today.

9.  Rivalries. To be in a rivalry means you perceive there is a lack of something.  Lack of attention.  Lack of recognition.  Lack of glory.  These are childish misconceptions.  You can always get the attention you deserve.  To be in a rivalry makes sure that you never feel satisfied, even when you win.

10.  Competition. Again.  To compete is to fear that there can only be one winner.  What you seek is the experience you think winning will give you.  Focus on getting that experience and don’t worry about who placed in what order.

11.  Seeking the limelight and admiration. The Drunk Monkey is always trying to be the biggest.  It believes if it is admired by all, then it will survive longer.  It believes if it is admired that it will be able to spread its DNA all over the planet.  Aren’t you ready to grow up?  You are going to die no matter how popular you are.

12.  Willfulness. Isn’t it bizarre how old people display behaviors they developed as 2-year-olds?  Willfulness is just a form of righteousness.  An addiction to being right.  Why?  Because The Drunk Monkey believes that being right will help you survive longer.  It won’t.  It will just make you miserable.

13. Blaming others. To be the victim and not take responsibility is standard protocol for most people.  The truth is, you are not always responsible.  But that’s not a very powerful place to stand.  In the end, there is no blame to be assigned.  There is just the experience you are choosing to have.

14.  Thwarting responsibility. Related to blaming others.  This kindergarten behavior is about declaring yourself powerless.  The only powerful thing to do in your life is take responsibility no matter what.  The person who takes responsibility has options and power.

15.  Making people wrong. This is The Drunk Monkey’s favorite past time.  By making people wrong, you get to be right.  The Drunk Monkey perceives that by being right, you will some how win more favor and stay alive longer.  Maybe you’ll get the more attractive mate if you are more right then others.  Good job, little monkey!

16.  Looking for favor. The class clown.  The know it all.  The helper.  The kiss ass.  They are all looking for favor.  Looking to be more.  Seeking the limelight in hopes of being better then others.  You will get ahead, have it all and still be live with fear and anger if you don’t let go of the idea that something outside of yourself will give you happiness.

17.  Collecting stuff.  The Drunk Monkey believes that more stuff means more life.  By more life, I mean more prestige, more security and more power.  Things do not create any of these effects.  I have seen many clients get the $7,000,000 house and instantly think it is too small or not enough.  Next they are on to the cars, plane and on and on ad infinitum.  What do you think you will accomplish with all your stuff?

18.  Showing off.  It’s all about winning favor and being special for The Drunk Monkey (your mind/survival mechanism).  Apparently The Drunk Monkey believes that if people love and adore it, then it will live longer.  It doesn’t happen and eventually you run out of tricks to show off with.  Then what do you do?  FIND TOOLS TO BE HAPPY NOW.  Good thing you are reading this blog.

19. Petulance. Which means feeling unreasonably irritable or ill-tempered.  Why do we allow ourselves to go down these dark roads?  First of all, no one has ever asked you to question them.  Second, you get so much juice from this kind of behavior.  You get to control people.  You get to manipulate.  You get to be the victim.  All of which messes your life up.

And that does it.  19 ways your inner child messes up your life.  I hope you gained some new awareness from these posts.

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Happiness is a Skill Worth Developing

Happiness is not only good for your health, according to a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences but apparently it’s good for business too.  In his Harvard Business Review article, Shawn Achor sites that happy doctors diagnose 19% faster and happy sales people increase sales by 37%.  He goes on to say, “Happiness is the single greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy.”Over the last 17 years, I’ve seen dramatic business turn-around’s occur in as little as a week.  The only change being an increase in a persons happiness.  The results I’ve witnessed have been dramatic.  My clients on Wall Street made better trades, CEO’s made more profitable decisions and sales people made more sales all with a shift in their mindset, which lead to greater well-being.  Having been trained that correct business systems trumped all human factors, the outcomes that occurred from “enhancing one’s mood” were shocking.As a result, in the late 90s I decided to focus my career on the pursuit of happiness and fully investigate its impact on the success process.  Over a ten year period I found that happiness was a skill that anyone could learn and that happiness was a hidden determinant in success.  Bottom line; when entrepreneurs learn the skills to be happy, they have unexplainable increases in their results.

4 Happiness Skills Anyone Can Learn

There are a set of specific, actionable skills & tools that will cause a person to be happy regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in.  The following is the short list that I suggest to all new clients.

1.  Give up being right.

Most people are addicted to being right and they don’t even know it.  This leads to endless amounts of argument and strife.  To be happy, you must let go of this ineffective habit of thought.
Try this:  Notice that The Drunk Monkey(my nickname for the chatter in your mind) has an opinion on everything including things it knows nothing about.  Opinions are vanities and are always from your perspective.  Your perspective my be right for you, but certainly not for everyone and everything.  And yet, when you pay attention to The Drunk Monkey you see that it actually believes that it is right about almost everything.The desire to be right often puts you into a resistant state which does not lead to happiness.  When you are in a resistant state of mind – trying to prove your opinion is right – you will not be as effective as when you are open to all possibilities.To give up being right, put yourself in the other persons shoes.  Look at the world from their perspective and acknowledge that there are multiple ways to view the situation.  In short, have compassion for others.

2.  Accept the situation as it is and then take action.  

A client of mine found himself in an unpleasant situation.  His company was merging with another company and he was informed that he would be losing his coveted office with the sun shining into the windows that he was accustomed to.  This may sound trivial.  For him, this was the end of a 10 year era and he was very attached to what the office represented in his life.  He had been angry for a week when we finally spoke.  The merger had not yet happened.  Yet, his anger was creating dysfunction in has ability to produce sales results today.  He was suddenly procrastinating on things that were important.  His sales were suffering.In a short period of time I helped him to realize that he was moving no matter how angry he got.  Ultimately he accepted this as the case and promised to stop complaining simply because it was not making him feel good.  Next I asked him a question I want you to ask yourself when faced with adversity, “What are you committed to?”  We shifted his focus to defining what he wanted to create out of the merger.  He described his best case scenario.  As he did, new options began to be illuminated, his mood changed and his energy went up.  Getting happy allowed him to get out of his resentment, see new possibilities and get creative.In the following weeks his sales results returned and he discovered a compromise that would work for his new working environment.  If you don’t accept the situation as it is, you become frustrated, and unhappy, which makes you feel stuck and you can’t move forward.  You literally get blinded to all your available options.

3.  Quit pretending you are a psychic who can tell the future.

Just the idea of a change to his office environment caused him to hallucinate about a future he didn’t like.  Problem is, he’s not psychic so he doesn’t know what the future will hold.  Yet he was suffering, right now, as if the negative future hadalready occurred.  This is a trick The Drunk Monkey plays on people to strip them of their happiness.The Drunk Monkey in your head is not your friend.  As a biological survival mechanism one of its functions is to predict potentially negative situations and then mobilize the body to avoid them.  Problem is, most of your life is not dangerous.  The salesman moving into a new office is not dangerous and yet, The Drunk Monkey invented futures that caused his body to be filled with chemicals that created great stress.  Nothing had happened and yet his life experience had been degraded by a figment of his imagination.Today just remind yourself that you are not psychic and that you can not predict the future.  Work to see the situation with exacting clarity by removing your fear and your opinions.  Next identify what you want to have happen.  Only then will new and interesting possibilities arise.

4.  Stop protecting yourself from people who aren’t attacking you.

A Wall Street executive was managing billions of dollars in assets and yet he felt like nobody listened to him and that he wasn’t important.  This perspective had him feel repressed and defeated.  His positive results didn’t seem to match his

Monkey's got your back

unhappy mindset.  He was making money for his firm and the firm was doing well as a whole.  With further investigation it turns out that he felt like other people in the firm didn’t think what he had to say was important and therefore he was an outsider and not involved in making critical decisions.  He realized that taking on more responsibility was important but felt powerless to do so.

I asked him how he knew this was true.  He told me about incidents that had occurred the year before.  I asked him to give me something that happened this week.  He couldn’t even think of something that had happened in the last six months.  The Drunk Monkey was at it again.

The Drunk Monkey creates generalizations.  Example; you walk over, pet a dog and it bites you.  The next time you see a dog, it shoots your body full of chemicals that put you on the alert.  Do all dogs bite?  No!  But the survival mechanism will steer you clear of anything today that might have seemed dangerous in the past.

This system is great for making sure kids don’t touch the hot stove more then once but it’s terrible for everyday life.  A couple incidents that occurred a year ago that made him feel angry and unappreciated.  Since then, he’s been protecting himself against a whole bunch of people who aren’t attacking him and frankly, don’t even remember what happened.

I asked him to consider that he had changed, they had changed, times had changed, and the world had changed since then.  I asked him if he would be willing to run an experiment to put The Drunk Monkey into place so he could return to happy, fulfilled and satisfied with work.  He agreed.  Here’s what I told him to do.

Instead of trying to keep his ideas safe, instead of wondering how he could move his objectives forward; for the next week, find out what other people were committed to.  See what the other people in the company were working on and discover ways to contribute to each of the people in the company.  Make it a game.  See if you can contribute something to someone everyday for the next seven days.  An idea, a contact, a resource or even just an encouraging word.

Through this process, he shifted from protecting himself from all the people who weren’t attacking him, to being supportive and giving.  Within the year he became one of the most celebrated people in his company.  Everyone wanted to get him involved in their projects.  He was suddenly important.  The next year he was recruited away by a superstar in his industry and made a partner in the firm.  This was a five year dream that came true in one.  The trick was simple, he needed to be the change he wanted to see in the world, just like Gandhi said.

When you are happy, you are creative, approachable, flexible and easy to be with.  Add those characteristics to your skill set and you will see an immediate positive benefit.

Most people believe that happiness is something that occurs when the conditions of life are favorable.  But the truth is, happiness is the skill navigating challenging situations without getting reactive.  If you wait for happiness to find you, you’ll be waiting a long time.  Happiness is an inside job.

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How to Let Go of Self Importance

A facebook friend asked, “I wanted to ask you how to break the habit of attention seeking or can say self importance. It feels like everything revolves around me!”

My answer:
Self importance is just the drunk monkey feeling insecure. The drunk monkey (the talking in your head) wants to look good, be right, be powerful, rich ect for one very simple reason. It mistakenly believes that being any of those things will ensure the perpetuation of your genes. Get a mate, have status and be powerful. All this is a feeble attempt to win salvation and live for ever through your spawn. Of course your are already eternal, infinite and valuable. Each person is a whirling vibrating swirl of energy that is organized into this body. Energy never dies. Your salvation is guaranteed. Tell the drunk monkey to stop burdening you with the demands of proving to the world that you are good enough to have sex with and propagate the species. Just start living and enjoying each day exactly as it is. Any way there are nearly 7 billion of us these days so your spawn is not needed

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