Happiness is an inside job | Ep. 206

[JP] (0:00 - 0:25)

Buddhism really helps me in these human situations that if I'm dealing with somebody who's really, say, angry, I maybe don't like take that as personal and understand that there are things unseen that I do not know about. So that customer has things unseen I don't know about, whether it's dysfunction at their job, whether it's, you know, unhappiness with us, even if it's not something that's particularly my fault.

[Dillon] (0:34 - 0:45)

What's up, lifers, and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man JP with us. JP, you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:46 - 0:48)

Nah, I'mma stay at home because I'm fully remote.

[Dillon] (0:52 - 1:09)

That's a t-shirt. That's a t-shirt. The dude in a wife beater sitting in bed with his laptop.

Nah, I'mma stay at home because I'm fully remote. And I'm your host. My name is Dillon Young.

JP, it's just you and me, and I got a question for you. You ready? Oh, what is it?

[JP] (1:09 - 1:09)

Yeah.

[Dillon] (1:13 - 1:15)

Hey, you like Buddhism, right?

[JP] (1:15 - 1:23)

Oh, yeah. Wait, say it again. Wait, say it again.

What'd you say? Buddhism. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like that. Yeah, I like that.

[Dillon] (1:27 - 1:43)

Off the rails already. Talking about shirtless dudes in bed. Stuff's falling off my desk.

You talk about shirtless dudes in bed. All right, you're right. I tried to share responsibility for that one.

[JP] (1:44 - 1:47)

I'm not taking accountability for shirtless dudes ever.

[Dillon] (1:50 - 2:23)

Anyway, hey, Buddhism is a fascinating topic. Topic isn't the right way to put it. I mean, it's a way of life.

It's obviously an ancient philosophy. You talk about it a lot. I think you bring a lot of, I mean, you'll just throw stuff out there in the middle of a conversation.

That's some stuff from your Buddhism learnings. And so I'm curious to hear from you how you apply the Buddhist learnings or practices to your work life. And I don't know if you have specific examples or if you think about it more at a higher level, but I'd just love to hear your thoughts on this.

[JP] (2:23 - 2:25)

Well, I'm going to tell you what, I got three things.

[Dillon] (2:26 - 2:29)

Okay. All right. It's a listicle already.

[JP] (2:29 - 3:22)

Yeah, I got three things. So I will say the first thing, starting point, is it really helps me around expectations. When you understand that your job cannot make you happy, that is super important.

Because if you go to work expecting your job to make you happy, you're going to be very, very disappointed. Because it's something that we have to do for money. It has challenges.

Things are changing constantly. We can't go into it expecting the job to give us. There are things that we like about our job, of course.

But when I go in and I know that the happiness is an inside job, so I bring happiness to work, I don't go into work expecting happiness to come to me, that's a really powerful expectation switch.

[Dillon] (3:22 - 3:23)

Dude, I love that.

[JP] (3:24 - 3:33)

Yeah. Because then when the challenges do come up, I'm not caught off guard. I have more adaptability.

Yeah.

[Dillon] (3:33 - 3:38)

Can I ask a question though? I mean, it almost, I know you don't like when I do this, because I'm a pessimist.

[JP] (3:38 - 3:40)

Oh, God. Yeah, please do it.

[Dillon] (3:40 - 4:09)

But I default to negativity. And that almost sounded like that's what you were saying, though, of like, your job can't make you happy. I don't know that should inherently make you unhappy, though.

I think it just inherently has friction to it. And that's why you're there, to help remove that friction and keep things moving along. But I think another way I would say it, and then I'll let you keep going, is, and I'm just rephrasing what you said, make happiness at work, a surprise, not the lack thereof.

[JP] (4:10 - 4:56)

I think fulfillment is actually probably a better word. Okay. Fulfilled, like, happiness is actually sort of a bit broad and vague, actually.

People derive happiness from a lot of ways. But I think like we, this has been talked about from ancient times, just even aside from Buddhism, feeling fulfilled by your job, and being fulfilled by your job is different than your job making you happy. In the same sense that like, you know, someone may go to the gym.

And yes, doing all the exercise and stuff is like, difficult. It's not like easy, it may not even be like pleasant, but they do get a lot of fulfillment out of it. So I think like, that's a healthier way to approach it.

[Dillon] (4:56 - 4:57)

Cool. All right, number two.

[JP] (4:58 - 7:24)

Oh, right. I'm supposed to have these. See, you got to be careful, you throw out a list out there and now it's like, oh, You're committed.

So, so the second thing is really human interactions, especially like I'm thinking about this, especially in customer success. Now, we have a lot of customer interactions. And we also have a internal interactions with other people.

And so Buddhism really helps me in a sense of, I can really understand that I am always going to be working with people, people are unpredictable, people are coming from different places. And when the longer I sort of do this, the more I get used to talking to people who are in different, let's say states of life. So it's one thing, of course, we know in customer success, we get customers who may be angry sometimes.

So when people are angry, they bring a certain energy. And what happens is humans, unless we're sociopathic, we usually are empathic to a certain degree. So if someone brings in the anger energy, you're either going to get angry, or you're going to get, you know, maybe you get the flight or flight, you know, you freeze up, or you're going to have these other things.

But I think when, you know, Buddhism really helps me in these human situations that if I'm dealing with somebody who's really say angry, I maybe don't like take that as personal, and understand that there are things unseen that I do not know about. So that customer has things unseen, I don't know about whether it's dysfunction at their job, whether it's, you know, unhappiness with us, even if it's not something that's particularly my fault. Same thing with coworkers, somebody snaps at me, or they have a bad, you know, we're in a fully remote work world, you just really a lot of like, you just don't know, and you can take things a certain way.

So I think like, if I were to sum it up, it's the ability to have more grace in human interactions, doesn't mean I'm perfect doesn't mean that somebody's not angry that I don't necessarily get angry, but, but I'm able to sort of have a bit of a grace and say, like, okay, maybe there's something deeper going on here, and me not take on so much of that not be so reactive.

[Dillon] (7:24 - 8:03)

I've had to learn that, like, I think there's an element of this, I have previously done a lot of self talk, it's like, you're not that special, bro. Like, people are not wasting that much energy being nasty to you. It's more about like being nasty out in the world.

And you happen to be in the line of fire. I don't think that's a super healthy way to think about it. Because you don't ever want to talk to yourself like you don't need anything.

So I modified that slightly to say, I just personally don't believe that people are evil. I don't believe that they're inherently evil. And so when they do something that is that is malicious, it's typically for a reason that they often do not understand.

[JP] (8:04 - 8:04)

Exactly.

[Dillon] (8:05 - 8:29)

And that allows you to say, like, all right, well, then it really doesn't have that much to do with me. As long as I'm confident in the way I'm carrying myself, then that's less about me than it is about them. And I remember hearing that as a kid, like you remember, like, you go home to your parents, and you're like, well, Johnny's, he's being a real jerk to me.

And it turns out he, you know, comes from a real messed up home. And his older brothers are beating the crap out of him.

[JP] (8:30 - 8:31)

Johnny's got it rough.

[Dillon] (8:32 - 8:38)

It wasn't about you. Or your parents say, like, it's less about you than it is about them. And you're like, shut up, mom.

I hate that.

[JP] (8:39 - 8:41)

Where's the meatloaf, mom? Shut up.

[Dillon] (8:43 - 8:46)

All right. All right. With the time we have left, number three, please.

-: 10:16

Number three is really important because I think it's the ability to reflect and to grow. To sort of look, maybe you can say, like, accountability. Really look at, like, hey, what's my part in this?

You know, I'm human too, right? I just talked about human interactions. Like, what if I bring in an energy where, you know, maybe I'm upset or I'm in a certain thing, and I don't understand how the way that I'm beginning an interaction could cause a sort of chain of events.

And so, you know, that ability to sort of see, like, okay, what's my role in this? How can I be better? The ability to, like, take feedback.

Taking feedback is crucial. When you're somebody who cannot take feedback and you're constantly getting defensive, you really, like, hinder your own growth for the sake of your ego, right? You're just like, oh, and so, you know, I'm not saying, you know, I think there's a misconception that blues just lie, just lie down and take everything.

I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm not saying you shouldn't, like, not stand up for yourself or not to have a conversation around things, but to definitely, you know, as you're seeking understanding, to always keep that willingness to take accountability for your role in things and to say, like, hey, maybe I don't quite see where this is, but help me to understand where I do because I want to grow.

[Dillon] (: 10:17

So, this is interesting. This is actually something I've been thinking about a lot in the past, like, 24, 48 hours, which is, I would add, you should seek to understand always, right? But there's an element of free will to all of this that says you can take feedback and decide not to do anything with it.

But the one thing you don't want to do is just refuse to hear the feedback.

[JP] (: 10:38

Bingo.

[Dillon] (: 10:39

And that, I think people get caught in, a lot of people don't know how best they receive feedback. So, they just take it however, whenever.

[JP] (: 10:48

Yeah, that's.

[Dillon] (: 10:49

They also, they don't know, like, I guess as an element of that, they don't know whether they should respond immediately. Like, I know I can't respond immediately to feedback. Like, I got to take it.

I got to chew on it. I got to go to my wife and say, can you believe this mother? No, I have to, I got to process it.

[JP] (: 11:09

Yep.

[Dillon] (: 11:09

But I also, and that allows me to then say, like, is that something I want to work with? And oftentimes it's no, like, there's an element of, like, no, that's just not the way, like, I prefer to operate. Unless it's like, I'm being a jerk to somebody or something, right?

Like, that's usually pretty easy feedback. But again, that goes back to these values of, like, are you confident that you're operating in the world the way in which you'd like to? And I think that's the important piece of, the most important element of feedback is whether it is aligned with those intentions or not.

JP, I love it. That is our time. Let's do this again.

I want to hear more about it and your learnings and when your Buddhism fails you and you just get into a fistfight on the street. You got any of those?

[JP] (: 11:50

Sometimes, sometimes it's just a prayer, baby.

[Dillon] (: 11:57

All right. Until next time, buddy.

[VO] (: 12:06

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