Hi, future Jesse here.

My upcoming interview with Leighton Campbell had some audio issues that I'm kind of working on, but it was such a great interview.

I encourage you to listen regardless.

Here goes.

Hello, I'm Jesse Hirsch, and welcome to Metaviews, recorded live in front of an automated audience.

And today we're going to talk about a subject that, quite frankly, I think is indispensable, which is your happiness and in particular, your happiness equation, which is brought to us by our guest today, Leighton, who you know, Leighton, we start off every show here on Meta Views by wanting to talk about the news, you know, partly as a kind of icebreaker, partly as a way to kind of get the guest perspective on kind of what's going on.

But we host a daily newsletter here at Metaviews, and Today's issue deals with mutual aid going on in Los Angeles in response to the fires that are happening there.

But we're also talking about this thing called Free Hour Feeds, which is an attempt to create a social media initiative that's kind of controlled by users in which there's no data or privacy concerns.

And there's a lot of really famous people and big backers behind this initiative.

So it's kind of something that we're letting our audience know about and let our readers know about.

Now, Leighton, as part of our news segment, we often also throw to our guests and say, is there any news that you would like our audience to know about?

Could be personal news, could be world news, could be fake news.

If you really want to go there.

Again, it's more just what do you think the world, in the form of our audience, really needs to know?

Well, I'm not sure how much.

Well, it's a pretty big thing that I heard an interview on the Lex Friedman podcast recently where he interviewed the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and that was very interesting.

And I pretty sure knowing Lex, because I've been listening to him for a number of years now, I'm pretty sure that he's going to have Putin on soon.

He tipped his hand to that, and it came up a number of times in the conversation of I don't know how much leverage Alex has in getting the president of Ukraine and Putin sit down along with President Trump.

But that came up several times, and I know Trump talked about it during his candidacy.

So I think that would be a huge step forward if we could get them to sit down and figure something out that ends hostilities and brings us back from potentially really bad situations if this conflict gets out of hand well.

And that is huge news.

I certainly share your sentiment that that would be a huge development.

And I appreciate you sharing because here as we're talking about the context of podcasting, Lex Friedman is.

Certainly has tremendous influence and is, I think, under.

As a result of what was the podcast election.

I think there are a lot of political leaders who are now taking podcasts seriously as a way of kind of reaching out to the people.

So our second segment, which we like to have here on meta views, is what we call wtf, which is what's the future?

And we like to ask our guests to kind of weigh in on something about the future that they're excited about.

Maybe it's something you're afraid of, maybe it's something you're happy about, but we sort of like to structure the future as something that largely exists in our imagination as a kind of roadmap for where we want to go.

So I'm curious with someone who's clearly interested in helping other people be happy, what you think?

Something about the future that you would like to share?

Well, one of the.

Okay.

The book has many levels to it, but one of the very, very, very deep levels of the book is that I would like to see more people on the planet.

You know, I think that something that.

That is hopeful for me in the future and hopefully some of the changes that we're seeing across the world, kind of like a swinging of the pendulum, is that hopefully the ideas of family are going to be more mainstream.

You know, and if that does happen, which is kind of my hope, I hope that would also mean that, you know, more children are going to be coming into the world.

I hope that that means, like the continuation of our species.

Because for a very.

I wouldn't say for a very long time, but for a number of years, I started to get really concerned about like the global numbers of population rate and the rate that which we replace ourselves, especially in the west, those are greatly coming down.

And then even one of the things I've done is I've been studying Spanish for a number of years, and I've done that like over the Internet with people in different countries of the world.

So a lot of times people think of the decline in population and the popular, you know, the birth rate and so on being an issue for the West.

But this is a thing that's really impacting the entire world.

And I think, you know, if we can make sure that our species is around in a thousand to ten thousand year or however long we're supposed to be, here and not cut that short artificially.

I think that would be.

That would be huge and amazing.

Well, and to your point, the demographic impacts of what, a lot of communities.

So I live in a rural community that has an aging problem.

Right.

Young people don't want to stick around.

So to your point, it's a huge demographic issue where you not only want people to continue to have kids to populate the community, but you want to attract families, families who are young who are starting off to kind of resuscitate declining rural communities.

So I think that's a really fascinating thing for us to look forward to in terms of something we desire in the future.

Now, as part of our feature conversation today with Layton, of course, we're talking about happiness.

And you know, it's funny, in preparing for this interview, I kind of sort of reflected that Happiness, I think, is something we either take for granted or undervalue that we live in a society where, you know, happiness is part of our fabric, our lexicon, but maybe not something we prioritize and maybe not something that we take seriously.

So I'm kind of curious as a way of sort of framing or starting our conversation, why happiness?

And I say that because it seems self evident, but I suspect maybe it's not.

No, it's not self evident at all.

And the fact that it's not self evident is the reason for writing the book.

I think a lot of people go around in their daily life, and I was guilty of this to a large extent prior to reading.

Reading a book that kind of changed my mind on this whole subject is that your happiness is just something that kind of happens to you, like you don't really have a role to play in it.

It's just if life circumstances are good, you're happy, and if life circumstances are bad, you're unhappy.

And then that's just the way the world works.

And I would suspect a lot of your listeners and a lot of people in general would probably say, yeah, I guess I kind of thought of that as well, too.

But the reality of it is you have a tremendous amount of control over your happiness.

Now, the world is a crazy place.

We've alluded to some of that already.

And so a lot of things are out of your control, but the fact that a lot of things are out of your control mean that you need to be prepared for these things emotionally.

And you have an obligation for the people, for yourself and the people around you to be a happy, happy person.

So every time I say that, I have to give credit to the Author who wrote the book that had that statement.

His name is Dennis Prager.

He wrote a book called Happiness is a Serious Problem.

And one of the things he mentions in the book, which I also mention in my book and credit him for it, is you have a moral obligation to be happy.

And given the nature of life in the world, we know these things are going to happen.

Even if, let's say, nothing crazy happens in our lifetime, if you live long enough, you're going to experience difficult things because it's the nature of life and you should be prepared for them.

We prepare for all types of stuff.

Why not be prepared for these things that are inevitable?

Can you elaborate more on what did you say, like the moral obligation or the kind of moral responsibility?

That seems like a fascinating argument.

Can you unpack that a bit?

Sure.

So having a more obligation to be happy means when you are going through something, okay, it's okay to have people you go to, to unload on decompress, like kind of lay it out out there.

And maybe not a pretty way, in a real way, in an honest way.

And.

And you should have some people that you can do that with, whether it's a spouse or a friend or a counselor or pastor, whoever.

That's great.

However, it's immoral for you to go into the supermarket and because you're having a bad day, take it out on your cashier.

That is a.

That is not a moral thing to do.

It's immoral to take it out on innocent bystanders.

They have no idea what you're going through.

They have no idea what's going on in your life.

You have no idea what's going on in their life.

You may say or do the thing that pushes them over the edge.

So you have a moral obligation to be happy.

Now, that could be at the lowest level.

It would be being cordial and not being offensive to people.

And of course, anything authentic that you can do above that is appreciated, but just not going around the world infecting people with your bad attitude and your bad mood just because you're having a tough time.

So there's a few things there I want to get at and start by saying, I think that's absolutely fantastic.

And, you know, I've kind of had to be honest.

I always thought of it as a little bit of reality hacking.

But I've always had this attitude, especially in the wake of how people are treating frontline service workers and retail workers so poorly, that I've always had this mission that I want to make them smile I want to make them laugh.

And, you know, it becomes a game for me.

And I remember it started, like, at toll booths, right?

Because people who work in toll booths often get a lot of crap from people.

And I would just.

To me, it seemed like the greatest challenge.

Like, if I could make them smile, then I know that my Riz is really rocking.

But at the same time, I kind of sense that there's a community dynamic to that, a community responsibility to that.

Cause the negative example you gave, that if you're taking your mood out on people, it kind of rolls downhill, like, they will then take their mood out on people.

And it strikes me that there is a community responsibility to kind of push it back up, to, like, spread that happiness, to spread that joy.

And it was interesting that you use the word infection and the responsibility to mitigate that infection, because I think we are becoming more aware, not just on the literal virus level, but on the cultural level, how emotions travel and ideas travel.

And we all have a kind of moral responsibility, again, thinking of our community to make sure that we're trying to uplift rather than bring down.

Does that kind of align with what you're talking about?

100%?

Again, credit Dennis for that epiphany.

Because I fell in the category of being a naturally happy person.

I didn't know that I was blessed with a gift.

I had no idea.

I just thought pretty much everybody was the way that I was and kind of doing more research, that's really not the case.

But in him telling me, look, you have a more obligation to be happy, and so on, and it really stuck with me.

Years later, I went through one of the most challenging times of my life with a divorce and getting a new business off the ground.

It was just separated from my children.

Used to have 100% access, now 50%.

It was really, really, really ro.

I'm in a number of groups, which is another part of happiness.

But I knew that I could not let my community suffer.

There are people in my group who I have really close relationships with who kind of knew on a deeper level.

But just in my showing up and me being there, no one kind of knew what was going on.

And then after it became known, they were like, leighton, I had no idea you were going through that.

Like, it was not apparent.

And it shouldn't have been apparent.

It should.

Like, just because I'm going through a difficult time, like, I come in with a horrible disposition.

I have an attitude.

It's like, why can you find something to be happy for in even a really Bad situation.

I have yet to find a situation, and some of them are crazy, but I've yet to find or hear of a situation where that's not possible.

Right on.

Well, and I kind of want to come back to that, but I also want to tie this into the scoring piece because, you know, I think what we've been talking about so far, while really empowering, may still be abstract for a lot of people.

Right.

Like, it's almost as if we're talking about principles.

And I think for a lot of people, they're like, yeah, in theory, I'm cool being happy with people, but, you know, if I get upset, right, or if I get challenged or if someone says something offensive, I think that's where people really struggle.

So, you know, let's talk a bit about the happiness equation and sort of why you've come to scoring or a happiness score as a metric to kind of, you know, help people wrap their heads around what you're offering.

So, Jesse, full transparency.

The equation is a Trojan horse.

There is an equation.

There's an actual equation, and there's a lot of thought gone into it, and there's, you know, mathematicians that have checked everything, and it all checks out.

Of course there's subjectivity involved because I created it.

But the whole idea with the equation was I felt that if I were just to put a book out there about, like, the top seven things about happiness or whatever, I think a lot of people who need to hear this would just pass it by as another book or another clickbaity thing and just never interact with it and never potentially get the information, the very timely information that I got that, you know, really saved my life in some ways, in a dramatic sense.

So the idea of the equation, again, this book, there's many, many levels to it, but one of the levels is I wanted to draw in as many people as possible into interacting with the content.

And I know how society is and virality.

I hope at some point people will get their score.

They'll want to talk about it with other people.

They'll start having conversations about happiness, and then it can potentially grow from there.

So that's one of the levels.

Now, in terms of the equation you mentioned just now, it's really hard.

Happiness is so amorphous.

It's like, what is happiness?

Where do I start?

Like, am I happy?

Like, a lot of people don't know.

A joke I like to make is, you know, everyone wants to be the Buddha, but no one ever actually wants to put in the work that he.

Put in yeah, it's.

People want the results, but they don't want to put in the hard work, you know.

So what the equation does is, is it takes something that's so amorphous, so nebulous, so hard to get your arms around, and it kind of breaks it down into an easy seven questions.

You just answer seven basic questions and then you get a score.

So what will happen is for most people is they will have a question that they maybe have never thought of or haven't thought of deeply or haven't thought of in a while, or maybe it's always been on their mind.

It's something that they always struggle with.

And they will say, because a lot of these questions, we'll go through them at some point if you'd like.

But a lot of these questions, they ask you to give yourself a letter grade on your performance in a particular area.

And I think a lot of people are surprised when they think, yeah, I'm pretty happy, or whatever the case may be, but I didn't do as well on that particular question as I would have liked to.

And that's a concern for me.

So one of the powers of the equation is it will help you identify what an area that you need to work on.

And I would also say this could be very overwhelming for people who are maybe going through a very, very challenging time in life.

So if you just get blasted on every single question to not get overwhelmed, pick one that you want to work on.

Well, let's elaborate a little bit on that.

And I don't mean the question, I mean the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Because often in my experience it's been an obstacle for people doing the kind of work or the kind of self awareness or even just the humility.

Because I do think there's a certain kind of humility in recognizing you're not happy, right.

Or that you've been faking it, or that you've been kind of being performative for friends and family rather than being honest about the troubles that you're going through.

So with sort of that in mind, how do you feel that people should start and to what extent?

Like, I love that you were sort of saying, you know, maybe it's just one question, right?

And I think to go back to your own kind of personal struggle, it's easy when you're out, when you're after it, to look back and go, oh, yeah, that's what happened.

But in the heat of it, it can be really overwhelming.

It can be discouraging, right?

It can be alienating and Isolating.

So do you have any, you know, for lack of a better word, the kind of on ramp for beginners, you know?

Yeah.

So that helps them get into the work that you're describing.

So the idea of taking one and working with one is.

So my background and my day job is I own a business and I have an insurance agency and I train salespeople.

And sales can be a really difficult thing.

And when you're training someone, you know, you see them do a presentation or something, and it's the worst thing you have ever seen in your life.

It's just they did a absolute horrible job.

Same thing is true in Jiu Jitsu, because I do Jiu jitsu too.

And like, I'll be working with someone who just started and I asked them to repeat what the professor went over, and they do.

It is the worst thing you have ever seen.

It's horrible.

But everybody has to be a beginner at some point in something.

Of course.

And I was that sales guy.

And I was that Jiu Jitsu guy.

And to the degree, I still am a Jiu Jitsu guy and sales guy.

But as the person training them, if you tell them you did this wrong and this wrong and this wrong, and you could have done this and you could have done that and that and that, it is just completely overwhelming.

They're gonna shut down.

They're not gonna take anything that you have to say, and ultimately they're gonna quit is what happens.

But if you can say.

If you can find two things that they did right, it's like, I really liked your eye contact.

That was really good.

And I like the way that you were genuine.

And I really like the fact that you're actually trying to do this right.

I really appreciate that.

That.

And that's like a gen.

All these three of these things can be very genuine.

Here's one thing that I would say that you could work on.

And then you give them one thing because they like the confirmation and the affirmation of the things they've done.

Right now they're open to receiving what you have to say, and then you give them one thing to work on.

So I don't really talk about this process in the book.

That's really kind of what the book is about.

But this idea of how to implement some of the.

And I guess to a degree, I do.

But if you take this.

That's why I kind of said it.

If you take it and not everyone is in the greatest place in their life.

And let's say they get a zero.

Because it is a zero to 100 point scale.

Some people may take this and get an absolute zero.

Okay, that's fine.

What is one thing that resonated with you that you think you could do better?

And one of the people I quote in my book in a kind of related way is Jordan Peterson.

And his 12 rules for life, I think is rule number four.

Sorry, it's a policy on this podcast that anytime someone mentions Jordan Peterson, I.

Have to hit the laugh button.

Please continue.

All right, all right.

Well, actually, don't apologize.

It makes the show interesting.

The audience clearly loves it.

So I think it's rule number four is like compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.

You know, and kind of forgot where I was going with that.

But the idea is take.

That's where I was going.

Take small steps.

So you may be at a zero right now.

Okay, that's fine.

Okay.

Can you focus on one of the questions and try and do better in that?

And you implied something there that I thought was rather brilliant that I kind of want to tease out and kind of use to elaborate on our culture section.

But I will take as an aside for an explainer for yourself and our audience, because I think the Jordan Peterson button is going to be fun.

My younger brother did his PhD with Jordan before Jordan was famous, because as you may or may not know, Jordan was used to be based in Toronto at the University of Toronto.

Yeah.

And so my brother's actually now a professor at the University of Toronto, but before he was a professor, he did his PhD with Jordan.

So I knew Jordan before he was famous and kind of had a front row seat for, you know, him being going from being a super smart professor to being, you know, this international man of mystery, you know, who evokes such things.

But the point that I wanted to draw out, which I thought was really kind of smart, and it speaks to why I think you're onto something with this.

Not just happiness, but the approach that you're taking to happiness is that it's not a state.

It's kind of a dynamic, moving target.

Right.

It's not as if someone achieves happiness.

And like, okay, I'm done.

Right?

There is a constant need.

Part of what we've been talking about today is preparedness.

Part of what we've been talking about today is like individual and community capability, like your support structures and sort of where you're going.

But I want to talk about culture, and I kind of want to talk about a culture of happiness, and I'M saying this because the insight I got that I thought was really brilliant as you were describing this, and maybe this wasn't intentional on your part, it may have been accidental.

Was thinking about how this applies to organizations, how this applies to companies.

Now you sort of alluded to it in terms of your own role as an entrepreneur and having to train people and give them that positive affirmation.

Right.

So they get encouragement as they progress in the workforce and in their profession.

But to what extent can happiness as a culture not just benefit individuals in terms of realizing that there's a bunch of different things that they need to work on to up their score and get happier and happier and a better member of their community?

But could this apply to organizations too?

Is there a way that the morale or culture of an organization pretty much has the same issues in terms of their happiness or lack thereof?

100%.

Organizations are made of people.

And the better the people in the organization, the better and stronger the organization is going to be.

So not only working on yourself as an individual is going to help yourself, but it's going to help your family, it's going to help your community, and it's going to help everywhere that you, that, that you show up.

You know, one of the components and the questions of, of the happiness equation is do you belong to any meaningful groups?

And then the question after that is on an A plus to F scale, how would you rate the value that you bring to that group?

So if you look at any community or any group, what's.

Now, honesty is a very important thing.

There's no reason to take this because you're only doing it with yourself.

So there's no reason to be like to.

Although to your point, I think there's a lot of people unhappy because they're lying to themselves and they may not be fully aware or the lying may be unconscious and this perhaps process may force them to confront that.

Yeah, yeah.

And I do incur.

One of the things that, that I say is just be honest, you know, with yourself because you're, it's a self examination because the only way you're going to really be able to address an issue is if you have awareness that it needs to be addressed.

Awareness is huge.

Awareness is huge in almost every aspect of life.

Especially if you're trying to like improve in a scenario where you have a community and let's say everyone who answers this question for themselves legitimately gives themselves an A plus, what kind of community is that going to be?

What kind of organism like that, that organization would probably change the world.

So, you know, not.

I don't want people to get hung up on a number score or trying to get like an A plus.

It's the relativity, if I'm reading you right.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

If everyone is really doing.

And I've been part of groups, one of the groups I'm in is business Networkers International, BNI.

I've been in a chapter for 13 years, and we've had great times.

We've had times where we've struggled.

We're doing pretty good now, but I've kind of seen both.

And one of the coolest things is when a large percentage of the group is really dialed in and we're trying to go to that next level.

There's an energy there.

Let me ask you that.

But bring it back to the individual level, because I think you're speaking about something profound in that I think as human beings, we evolved to be social.

We evolved to be in community.

And I think the rapid rise of the Internet disrupted that.

Right.

Even though social media connects people, I think a lot of people have been feeling isolated and alienated.

And I would posit that for a lot of.

Because I loved when you were describing that question of grading how you feel about the communities, the organizations, the groups that you belong to.

I don't think a lot of people think about that or reflect on that.

So let me throw you a curve ball.

This might be an easy question for you, it might be a hard one.

But what advice, within the context of the work you're doing with the happiness equation, what advice would you give to someone who struggles to feel as if they belong to particular groups who struggle with alienation?

And there might be a range of reasons for why that is, but I am a firm believer that our path to happiness has to involve participation in community, has to involve connecting with other human beings.

But I recognize, especially some of the young people I know, they struggle with that.

They struggle with feeling a sense of belonging.

And often the group doesn't prioritize that either.

So how would you advise individuals kind of in that archetype what they could be doing?

So you're right.

You touched on a lot of things.

The first is the awareness to know that we are communal creatures.

And in order to get the most out of this life for those that are able, you need to be connected to other people.

Now, in stepping out there and trying to do that, that can be a social, emotional, and ego minefield, because people can be weird.

People have egos.

People can they.

They're all over the board.

So you got to go out, and you have to go.

You have to find a group if you don't already have one.

And you have to understand not every group is going to be right for you.

Just because a group has a particular interest that you're interested in, that may not be the right mix of people.

So if you run into a situation like that where you've really given them an opportunity, you have presented yourself well, it's not a you thing.

It's a them thing.

It's just time to find another group.

I mean, you can't make them be group members and so on.

I know the groups that I'm in, we prioritize welcoming in new people.

When someone comes either to my BNI chapter or to my Jiu Jitsu academy, I go up to them and I introduce myself to them and say, hey, my name is Leighton.

Like, what's your name?

Who invited you?

I'm glad you came today.

What's your story?

I want to know.

If you go to a group and someone doesn't maybe do that, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad group.

But if you go to a group and someone does that and.

And you can see that the culture is to kind of welcome people in, then you're like, okay, maybe I'm onto something here.

Maybe you don't even like Jiu Jitsu, but because everybody there is so cool, and you just enjoy their presence, you're like, man, this is really tough.

But I just like being around these guys, and I'm just going to do it because I just like being around them.

So what I would say is, if you are getting that kind of negative feedback, legitimate negative feedback, but you're really giving them a shot, and it's just really not working out, then I would, you know, find a different group.

Although I will give you kudos, Leighton, that you're the kind of leader that we need more of in this society, right?

Who makes that effort to reach out to people, who makes that effort to feel welcome.

And I wish there are more organizations like you were describing earlier, who are committed to building that kind of culture, are committed to, you know, trying to make everyone feel as if they're together, right?

Because there's a vibe that comes from that that I think makes more successful, more powerful organizations.

Now, one of the last things we like to do on our show, quite relatedly, is shout outs, because I think we often don't either give enough gratitude to people or we need to promote folks who aren't always promoted.

So as part of our shout out section, where Layton we ask people, is there someone you want to shout out?

You know, one or two people that have really had an impact on your life, on your career, or people who you really think are cool right now and you want us to tune into.

Yeah, I got.

I got two.

So one of them would be Dennis Prager.

He had an accident not too long ago.

He is recovering.

I met him one time.

They say, don't meet your idols.

He's not an idol of mine, but just someone who I look up to and respect.

I met him once and it was an amazing interaction and I've been praying for him and his recovery and his impact on myself personally and this work.

And if this work goes out and helps anyone, then Dennis had a huge role in that.

He's done his own help of people and he's greatly impacted me.

And if I impact someone, then part of that credit goes to him.

So I say Dennis Prager.

And then the second one would be my brother David.

He has been the creative force in terms of artistically behind a lot of the stuff that has happened with this project.

So he did the COVID design, we did a book tour.

We got close to the Canadian border.

I should have crossed over and shook your hand.

But we left for Miami.

He was my videographer and photographer and we did a multi city book tour and a lot of that is documented on our Instagram and other social media pages.

And we did great interviews and I really couldn't have done it without them.

So, yeah, those are two people.

I'd like to say thank you and appreciate their impact.

Well, and on that point, you know, your happinesseq.com is your website.

Is there anywhere else that people can reach you or that you want to go to?

You mentioned your Instagram where you're kind of documenting the journey that you're on.

Anything else you want to plug or promote?

Yeah, Instagram.

If you want to kind of see some of the stuff we've done, it's just your happinesseq.

Right on.

Well, I gotta say, Leighton Campbell, much respect.

I mean, on the one hand, a human being who's spreading happiness, that right there is a great human being, but a human being who's helping other people spread happiness.

My God, I gotta say it, Leighton, you're a revolutionary in that regard.

The revolution of happiness is something I suspect we are all waiting for.

This has been another episode of Metafuse.

We encourage folks to check out Leighton, to follow him on Instagram, to go and get your happiness score?

Because I think Leighton made an excellent argument as to why it offers a kind of guiding light to deal with some of the troubles that we're facing in this world.

We'll be back soon.

Of course, Metaview is always committed to finding a future that can be happy for all of us.

Fundamentally is, I think, our mission.

So thanks again, everybody, and we'll see you soon.