00:00:00 Sana: Let's start with a question that might make some people squirm in a good way. If your calendar is full, your business is growing. People respect you. Why do you still feel hollow when things get quiet? Because a lot of us don't have a success problem. We have an alignment problem. Today on this blend, we are talking about joy, not the Instagram or the party version. The real kind. The kind that can sit behind beside stress, responsibility, even grief and still feel true. My guest is Larry Kessler. His life shifted in twenty twelve on a trip to Uganda. He went to bring computers to rural villages and instead came home with a question that has guided his work ever since. Why are so many successful people unhappy?

00:01:10 Sana: So listeners. Larry has spent over thirteen years, the last thirteen years studying joy, purpose and connection, speaking with thousands of people around the world, and coaching entrepreneurs and leaders who look fine on the outside but then feel disconnected inside. Let me tell you listeners, he's also the author of a new book, which is called the Joy molecule A Simple framework for Joy built around three alignments what you are, who you are, and why you are here. So with that, listeners, let's begin on this explorative journey with Larry Kessler. So Larry, welcome to this blend. And as always, it's an honor to have you here with us.

00:01:54 Larry Kesslin: Thank you son. It's a pleasure to be here. And I appreciate the opportunity to share my story. If it helps others, that's what we're here to do.

00:02:02 Sana: Absolutely. That's not advice. Um, Larry, um. Um, I'm really glad that you are. You have brought up this topic and, uh, through your, uh, through your interviews, through your discussions, your work with other entrepreneurs and people whose life looks good on paper. I mean, they are successful, but then inside out, it's a different story altogether. You're bringing up this this, uh, topic because we are going to talk about joy, but then we are not going to sugarcoat life. And I mean your bio. It includes something deeply human. Um, your daughter's struggle, uh, and and the way that that it reshaped your understanding of mental health and honesty. So I really appreciate you for showing up with the full story for all of us. So, yeah. Thank you.

00:02:56 Larry Kesslin: I appreciate that. My pleasure.

00:02:59 Sana: okay. Uh, so before we get into the book and I know we have, uh, a few, I mean, a very restricted time here, but if you can give us a short version, what happened in Africa that changed the way you think about success? And why did it land so hard that you have spent thirteen years on this question? Well.

00:03:21 Larry Kesslin: I saw people that were happier than anybody I'd ever met in my life, like an unbridled sense of calm and joy and peacefulness that I don't experience here in the United States. And maybe it's my upbringing or where I'm from, or I'm not sure. But I realized that in that moment when I was landing in New York after twenty four days in Uganda and Kenya, that the people that I had just met had something that I wanted, and I was successful on the outside based on my definition of success, which was the ability to do what I want whenever I want to do it. I later wrote a book called Success Redefined. That kind of said, but my new definition of success includes significance. So my new definition is the ability to do what I want, whenever I want to do it, while being part of something greater than myself. But that was just the first step for me. Joy and redefining success were different, and the difference is, the power of the mind, I believe, is the difference. And when I was in Africa. I just couldn't understand why someone that was poor, based on my definition of poor and poverty, could be happier than most of the people I know. And I got back from that conference that that from that trip, I went to a conference seven weeks later and was asked three questions. That totally shifted my life. And those three questions is what is poverty? Who gets to define it and why are we trying to fix it? And when I heard those three questions, that's when everything started to really shift. Is that okay? Who is poor and who's just impoverished? And what I noticed in my journey was that the people that I met were impoverished. They weren't poor, and in many ways, I think I was poor. And the people that I knew were poor because we weren't connected. When I came down to doing the research and just my life experience is that if you look at the study from Harvard over the last eighty five years, its study on happiness. And they can tell at fifty whether somebody will be happy at eighty based on one single criteria and the quality of our relationships. What I witnessed in Africa and I ended up sponsoring a young man. His name is Armstrong. He lives in the United States now, and Armstrong is running into some physical challenges with some, uh, old injuries he has. And he's like Mr. Lowry. He says, when I'm in the United States, I have no idea who's going to take care of me. If things go sideways back at home, the community takes care of you. There's no worries. So that sense of community, that sense of connection, that sense of belonging is part of the DNA of what I experienced when I was there. And I believe that is the joy that they live with is that sense of comfort, of being connected. And they're still connected to the land because they still farm it, and they're still connected to their ancestors because they don't send them to retirement villages or places for old people to go, live and live out the rest of their life. And I think it's just a different way of being, and not that one way is better than another. But if I had to choose, I would choose their way of being. But I want to do it where I live. So when I was asked many times when I got back, I was like, I bet you can't wait to go back to Africa. And so I've not been back since I went in twenty twelve. I didn't want to go back to experience what they had. I wanted what they had here. And I've been on this journey to find out what is Joy really mean? What does it mean to me? How do I go find it and or build it or whatever? And I think it's a conscious choice. But there's a bigger piece to this, and it's basically built around this idea of identity and how we construct our lives around what we believe to be true, and what we believe to be true might not be as true as we think it is. So that's where I've come to at this point in my journey, is that I am a being, having a human experience that knows that my mind is a tool for me to use, where for most of my life I believed my mind and my identity were me. I don't know if that how that lands with you, but that's the way I've been able to explain it to people is that I am the sky. My thoughts are the clouds and my feelings are the weather. And for most of my life I thought I was a cloud. And every time a thought came into my head, I was pushed or pulled in a direction based on those thoughts. And now I'm watching those thoughts and deciding which ones have value, and understanding that all the things that I believe are just constructs that were created through my belief system, which was created by my experiences on this planet, which is a very, very, very, very, very limited view on the totality of experiences possible. So why do I give it so much power? And that's what I've been breaking down over the last few years, is why is it that our thought process is causing us so much pain when we actually have the ability to inspect it and change the way that we perceive it? And as an entrepreneur who's someone who's been self-employed for thirty three years, I've been through the journey that many of your listeners are going through. And there's a survival mechanism in entrepreneurship you need to sell in order to have what you want. But I'm realizing that all the things I was doing to get what I wanted were many of the things that were keeping me from getting what I wanted. And in order to get what I wanted, I needed to be the person that did the actions that created the results versus trying to create the results so I could be the person I want to be. Does that make sense?

00:09:26 Sana: It does. It does. Larry, and I appreciate that you shared this very honestly because, um, there is not romanticization of poverty. I mean, you know, it's not about that. You have to leave all your, um, tangible, uh, belongings, and, uh, you will go up to a mountain or somewhere remote, meditate, and then, you know, as kind of the idea that has been kind of created popularly, but it's about connection and meaning that felt missing in a lot of successful worlds. And I think that is uncomfortable to sit with or maybe to hear for the first time, because I believe, Larry, you know, the joy isn't something that you buy your way into. So that's what I understand.

00:10:19 Larry Kesslin: We can't buy joy. There's. There's no amount of money in the world. And I've met a lot of people with means. And I would tell you there's probably an inverse relationship between money and happiness.

00:10:33 Sana: Okay.

00:10:34 Larry Kesslin: I'm not sure. Money. More money does anything. It just gives you more options.

00:10:38 Sana: Yes. Yeah.

00:10:42 Larry Kesslin: So what do we do with those options? Is really the question and the opportunity for me, what I learned in Africa and what I learned in other situations in my life, is that the most selfish thing I can do is to give unconditionally to others, because that's what brings the most joy. And our society, at least the society I live in. I'm not sure the same is true in India or other parts of the world, is that I don't believe that we give unconditionally. I think here in the United States, there's a lot of people that give because there's a tax advantage to it, but the joy that we get from truly giving without seeking anything in return is some of the most grounded, connected joy that we can feel. So why don't we do more of that? And that's really the question I've been pondering with recently, is how do we connect more deeply with those around us so that we can feel more joy in our own lives?

00:11:48 Sana: Hmm hmm. I think it's more and more.

00:11:51 Sana: Relevant in today's day and age. I mean, I'm not talking about any specific country or society, but overall, if we see the kind of shift we are seeing, um, it becomes much more relevant. And, um, it's it's kind of evident that, um, yes, having money, it opens a lot of doors and options for you, but sometimes I think. It unintentionally or intentionally. It snatches away your truest self. Um.

00:12:26 Larry Kesslin: It can be a trap.

00:12:27 Sana: It can be a trap. Yes.

00:12:28 Larry Kesslin: Easily. Yeah, yeah. We are very strange creatures in so many different ways. I feel like we want to manufacture this idea of joy and create it, but it's actually the opposite. It's deconstructing who we believe we are to figure out who we actually are. We're not building ourselves. I think we are our purest self. When we were first born and we had no belief system at all. I think that's our purest. And as we age, we start to create this identity that we call us. And it is just that. It's just an identity. It is not me. I am the viewer of that. I am the one who is seeing that. So when people say I don't like myself or I don't like the way I've been behaving, who is I and who's myself? And I believe that myself is my mind. And I am the sky who's observing my mind. And the truth is that getting to that place is work, and the work is not external. And I think that's the challenge that most of the entrepreneurs I meet believe there's something outside of them that's going to fix all their problems. And the truth is, the only thing that can fix all of your problems is going inside and figuring out why you have problems in the first place. Because the world is beautiful and perfect. I mean, think about it. Our parents had some physical intimacy. A sperm went into an egg, started doubling billions of times to create this being that came out nine and a half months later with ten fingers and ten toes and a mind and a body. And it's a miracle. Absolute miracle. And then we complicate it with all these things that the world needs to show up a certain way for us to be happy, and especially in a business, especially in a business, instead of looking at something as a lesson to be learned. Oh, this happened to me. No, it didn't happen to you, and it didn't happen for you. It just happened. So are you going to learn the lesson, or are you going to blame other people for not complying with how you wish the world unfolded? Because the world unfolded and you get to decide how you respond to what happened. So you get a big client and the client fires you. Well, they fired me. Well, maybe you choose a bad client that you never should have chosen in the first place. Or maybe you underperformed or whatever, but at the end of the day, the client decided to go do something different, and you have a choice on how you respond to that. You can blame them forever, or you can deconstruct what happened and say, okay, what is it that happened? What did I learn? So this doesn't happen again. And how do I make it the next time? So that same situation turns out differently. Like getting mad at the world for how the world is working to me. Um, as an entrepreneur is not the best way to approach challenges in our life. I think the opportunity is to look back and say, hmm, this happened, and it did happen, and the world unfolded. And what did I learn from it? Versus why didn't it unfold the way that I wanted to? Especially from a business perspective, Mm. Business can be very straightforward. There's lots of lessons to be learned in every step and every corner and every turn of. How do I become a better person at doing what I'm doing. And most people do a thousand actions, and a hundred of them produce results, but they never inspect the nine hundred that wasted their time. They only want to keep doing the same thing over and over again, hoping that the ten percent will grow to twenty percent. But if they spent the time understanding. So there's a wonderful couple of matrices. So urgent versus important creates a matrix of the things that are urgent and important, urgent and unimportant, not urgent and important and not urgent and not important. And if you start looking at the where your time goes, you can start getting rid of the urgent, not important things and start focusing on the non-urgent, important stuff. And then there's the stuff that you're good at and the stuff that you like. So there's the stuff that you're good at that you're you're great at, that you like doing that. You love doing the stuff that you're good at, that you don't like doing. There's stuff that you love to do that you're not good at, and there's stuff you don't love to do that you're not good at. So how do you focus all of your time on the things that you're good at, great at that you love, and the things that are urgent and important and not urgent and important? You start breaking those down as a business leader. Then you will find more joy because you're being realistic to what's happening around you. And I don't see that happening on a regular basis either. And that's part of the challenges. So whether it's business or life, it's the same issues. The world is unfolding a certain way. We need to inspect why it's unfolding the way it is, learn the lessons we need to learn and move forward and enjoy our lives.

00:18:07 Sana: Yeah, that's very interesting.

00:18:08 Sana: Well, actually, it's, uh, you know, the quadrant system that, uh, and most of the applications I've seen in only the business use cases, but, um, I think it's a very interesting approach to look at, uh, from an individualistic, uh, POV, especially for a founder, even as a person. Also like urgent, important what you like, what you love, what you're good at. So, uh, Larry, uh, before we conclude, I think, um, let's not miss it, because in your joy molecule, you, uh, mention. So it has three parts. What you are, who you are, why you are here. Now, there may be just word questions, but I'm very sure more than half of us, you know, would be struggling to answer that. If somebody asks us who you are, we would say, oh, I'm the CEO. I'm, uh. I'm a father. And this and that, all the roles and titles. But then you strip away all of these roles and titles. Who exactly you are? So I think these three are very, very heavy. Huge questions. Um, so if you can maybe in the remaining minutes maybe. Sure. Yeah.

00:19:26 Larry Kesslin: Yeah. What we the what? The who and the why. And there in that order. Because of the value of connection that they provide. So when you lead with what you do, that's a very surface level connection. And what I ask people to do is to stop talking about what they do. Start focusing on who they are, which is your values, your essence, how you show up your priorities in life. And when I do my coaching, the first step is awareness. Simple awareness. Being aware that the world's not working the way that you want it to. And the question is, how do we peel it back? And the second step of the process is alignment, which is the who. Who do I want to be? Who am I and what values do I hold and what's most important to me? But the why for me? The reason for being on this planet is all about the deepest level of connection. So the what? And the molecule itself. There's a picture of a joy molecule. The what is smaller than the who, which is smaller than the why. And they're different sizes because the value of connection. So what we're really seeking at the end of the day is human connection and connecting to others at a deeper level, which starts with understanding yourself. So know what you do clearly understand who you are. So start doing values, exercises and priorities in life. So between your family, your friends, your philanthropy, your spirituality, your physical fitness, your financial fitness, all of these different areas of your life have a priority to you at different points in your life. So prioritizing them and knowing which ones are most important at what time is critical, especially on an entrepreneurial journey. I know when I first started a family that I prioritized family first, and there were many times when my decision was very easy of whether I do a business thing or whether I do a family thing, because the family had more value to me and it was just a decision. So knowing what, who and why is knowing what you do or how you show up in the world and what is your work? But the who and the why are the ones that give us depth are the part that makes us human. Because if we're just a what then in my world, I'm just a walking resume and I don't think any of us want to be a walking resume. So when I walk in a room in the United States, the first question I'm typically asked is, what is your what do you do? and I typically don't answer the question the way they expect. I answer the question first by saying, I'm a dad. I have a twenty five year old daughter and a twenty four year old son, and I'm also an athlete. I like to play sport, and I also happen to be an entrepreneur. And they'll look at me funny and say, well, what do you do? I said, that's what I do. If you want to know how I make a living, that's a different question. But when I visit other parts of the world, they're not as interested in what I do. They're more interested in who I am and why I exist. And it's just a different way of seeing the world. And I greatly appreciate the who and the why questions so much better than the what questions that I created a deck of cards, which is fifty two questions plus two jokers. So fifty four questions. They're all about who you are. And why was this so called spark cards? And I'm trying to help people ask better questions. So at the end of the day, we're here to figure out why we're here. And we're here to connect to ourselves first and then to connect with others. And then my objective, and not everybody's, is to work together with others to leave this planet better than we found it. Not that the planet needs to be better, but there is an opportunity for improvement. I hope that makes sense.

00:23:13 Sana: Totally totally totally totally. And I'm I'm very much aligned with what you said because especially these two questions. Who you are, why you are here. I mean, it can take decades to figure both of them out.

00:23:29 Larry Kesslin: So it's taken me sixty plus years. It's not not a long time.

00:23:35 Sana: Awesome, awesome. So in the interest of time, Larry, I'm very sure now listeners will be so much more curious and inquisitive to explore more. And if they would like to connect with you, get a hold of your book, the Joy molecule. What would be the easiest way?

00:23:50 Larry Kesslin: So the Joy molecules on Amazon, you can get the audiobook. You can get the physical copy or you can get the Kindle version. They can find my website at five dot five dot com. And if they want to email me, it's just my name Larry at com or Larry at Larry com. Either of them work and, uh, I look forward to talking to anybody. I got a email about a month ago from somebody who read the book that happens to be in San Diego, and I had a dinner last night, and he came, and it was really nice to see someone I'd never met before that read the book that found it fascinating. And that's why we're here. That's I write books to help me find more ground, but it's also about connecting with others.

00:24:33 Sana: That must have been such a fulfilling feeling, satisfying feeling within you, even if one person read the book. Yeah. Absolutely. Superb. Um, listen, I'm definitely going to have all the links mentioned into the show notes, so find them attached along with this episode. And, um, if this conversation hit a nerve, I don't think it's a bad thing. Listeners, I mean, that's your inner truth. Asking for attention. Not with panic, but with honesty. And, Larry, thank you so much. Um, this conversation, it really felt like a deep exhale, but then also a mirror. So thank you so much.

00:25:14 Larry Kesslin: My pleasure son. I appreciate the work you do and the difference you're trying to make in people's lives. So let's stay in touch. And, um, I hope your, your, your listeners have a wonderful day and a, a wonderful journey on this planet. So thank you very much.

00:25:31 Sana: Thank you. Thank you so much. Larry, for your blessings and listeners, if you want more conversations like this where we talk about business identity, mental health and purpose without pretending it's all easy, follow this blend. Until next time. This is your host signing off and I'll catch you in the next episode. Stay tuned. Thank you.