The Happiness Quotient

Are You Authentic? A Life Hack Episode

June 17, 2022 Thom Pollard Episode 104
The Happiness Quotient
Are You Authentic? A Life Hack Episode
Show Notes Transcript

You might be here looking for something about Mount Everest. You might hate this episode. But, you might like it.  

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Thom Pollard:

Hi, this is Thom Pollard Welcome to the happiness quotient. The following episode is a talk about authenticity, about speaking the truth in our lives a short life hack episode that might help you pursue your core passion in life. It is an excerpt from a YouTube video that I posted on my channel called Tom Dharma Pollard. If you would like you can go over there and check it out on this or the YouTube channel. I'd love it if you subscribed and clicked like and commented or reach out to me and let me know what you think. As always, thank you for being here. I truly appreciate you taking time out of your day to come and listen to and watch me. It means a great deal. Have a wonderful day. And here's the episode.

Unknown:

Greetings, and thank you for taking the time to stop by I'm Thom Pollard, welcome to this channel. First things first, thank you for stopping by. If you haven't been here before, please take a look around. And if you have and have returned and haven't subscribed, please do subscribe and comment on the videos. Enter into the discussion. I really want to know what you think. And we'll respond to as many comments as I can. I don't respond to all but I do read them all. This is a community of what I like to think is like minded individuals. Many are drawn here on the Mount Everest topic, but it's not all Mount Everest. It started as an offshoot of my podcast, which is called the happiness quotient. John branch, one of my guests on the happiness quotient. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and journalist for The New York Times. He called the happiness quotient Everest centric, and he's not wrong about that. But there's a lot more here more things like exploration reports from inside Ukraine, stories about life pursuit of dreams, have a look around and click subscribe. And then if you don't like it, hit unsubscribe or leave a comment and tell me how I can make my channel better. So you will stick around. As some of you know, I also have a membership level here on this channel, click the Join button at the bottom and check out what you'll get. It's only 99 cents, it's the least that YouTube charges for a membership. You get free badges, whoo, emojis, so when you comment, you can use emojis. And I also do special posts for just members. So recently, I put up a drone shot of the north face of mountain Everest, that was pretty interesting. For some of the members, they got a look of the face of Mount Everest from 2019 that I rarely share. You might like that, so check it out. Anyway, so I was sitting around today putting together a review video. And I'm working on that now. And there's just something that's been burning in me that I wanted to share first before that review video. So a word if I may. When we don't act in accordance to the central spirit of our being, we get off kilter in a way. And I say that meaning that we've been put on this planet with a fire that burns within us. And and some listen to it and some don't. And millions and millions of people live their entire lives never truly listening to that central spirit or having the opportunity to foster whatever that central spirit is that fire some are kept in slavery or not given the opportunity. But as free people and I'm imagining if you're here on this YouTube channel, you have some level of freedom in some places, no people are even allowed to watch YouTube from the United States. So what I'm saying is when when those people who are unable to follow that fire in their heart or pursue their central spirit, and they die, the world becomes a colder place. And so the people who are following that, despite the collateral damage, the people who who realize that they're going to pay a price for following that fire may be living a pretty, not very good life financially for some years as they become an expert on these certain things that they're pursuing. They have something in common all those people, and it's authenticity. We know those people when we see them, we know an authentic person, an artist who's struggling just to find enough money to buy enough paint or money to buy a canvas and they keep doing it when they probably could be a manager even at McDonald's which is probably not that bad of a job right? So those authentic people are heedless to the judgment and rejection have others, because they know that their central calling is the most important thing to their survival to their own way of I guess transcending the fact that there's a lot of suffering on this planet, that there's sadness, there's death, we're all going to die. And so knowing that we might as well follow the things that we love. And I know it's not so easy, I know that we have to pay bills or some people or have a house or kids, it's not just quit and get in a car and drive to Vegas. It's not that easy. But there are ways that you can pursue your passion. And some of you are doing that right here by watching these Everest videos. And I'm not even talking about Mount Everest right now. So thank you for hanging in there and listening to me, because it's so important. We have to look at those authentic people who've gotten up the courage to live the life that they were born to on this earth, and understand that somewhere deep within them, there's gratitude for everything that happens in their life, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the indifferent. And, and I can't necessarily say that about all of them. But but when you fail, or when there's a mistake, there's a lot of learning in that. So we welcome I, as if I'm included in that I think I'm somewhat authentic. I try not to lie as the train. Oh, looks as the train in the background goes peepee. Maybe that's an omen, right? Maybe I'm, I try not to lie i lying. This is what I'm talking about today. So students come up to me after a presentation that I do. I've done a lot of Everest presentation for students or corporate presentations at sales meetings at events and things. And students and adults will come up and they'll say, Tom, you're so lucky to have this life. And the very first thing out of my mouth every single time is there is no luck. This is not luck, not even my gosh, it's the opposite of luck. You know, I just saw something that I wanted. And I went after it and I paid the price. I lost relationships, I guess you could kind of say my marriage didn't succeed. Because of my pursuit of Mount Everest and exploration and adventure. I've given up really pretty decent jobs where it was either stay on the job or go on an adventure, I quit a job to go to Mount Everest in 1999, six weeks after I've actually bought a house with my wife at the time, slept on couches. So I've had times where I've rolled $2 worth of nickels to put enough gas in my car. So I could get two a day gig filming on a piece of crap camera to make 150 bucks that got me through a week or two, you know, anyway, when one wins, the community wins. It's that Ubuntu thing that African idea of Ubuntu when one wins, the community wins when one succeeds, or one loves or when love wins, the community succeeds. And imagine what a world that would be if we were just to encourage every other human being every day, in the smallest way that it would be impossible to encourage everybody every day that but let's put it this way. I have a very, very close friend. She's a middle school teacher, she teaches literacy and English to seventh and eighth graders. So 12 ish, 13 years old, and she comes home. And sometimes at the end of the day, and she says sometimes they sit there thinking, Gosh, this kid has lives in a bad household or his parents or her parents aren't encouraging him or her to go after his or her dreams. And and I thought can you imagine? Can you imagine just if, if once a week, or every 10 days, each teacher in the world, made sure that every single kid in that classroom heard how beautiful just said, Young man, young lady, you know how beautiful you are, you know how perfect you are, you have the power to do anything you want in your life, you can do what ever you want. Can you imagine if every child heard that, or even every adult heard that just once every couple of days. And so my son watches me at the checkout counter of the supermarket. He goes Dad, dad, you have a way of making people feel better. And I was like, I don't do it necessarily for that. But human decency is such an easy act, and it makes each feel better. You know? So as I wrap this up, that the thing that cripples people is, is that they're fearful of going to that place of courage to embrace the central spirit of what burns within them. And so for maybe for a kid who has a parent tells them they're good for nothing or they're never going to amount to anything. You know, my parents were pretty cool. So I didn't have to worry about that. They were always like, go for it, what the hell you're doing but okay, you know, that's pretty cool, right? But their kids are out there goes home, go home at the end of the day and their parents tell them your piece of crap, you're nothing, you're good for nothing. And they believe it because people believe what they hear if they say it long enough, you know, you can do great things, all you have to do is embrace the central spirit of what burns in you. Take your time, hold on to it, listen to it, listen to the calling, make your plan, don't just jump in the car, as I said earlier, and go to drive to Vegas. Hang around and spend time with people who support that if you have a friend who tells you around your mind, that you're crazy, or you're stupid, that's not your friend, you want people who support you challenge you who actually honor you for the truth and authentic person you are, that's the easiest way to find out who your friends really are. So one way that we can improve our lives immediately, is by embracing the truth. And how do we do that one of the ways that we embrace the truth is to speak the truth. So how do we speak the truth? We start by not lying? And that's a challenge. Sometimes how you feel in great lie? Or how do I look great lie, you know, oh, so and so's a jerk or whatever, that's probably not a lie sometimes. But that's judgment. And we can do that in another video. So one of the ways that we can embrace truth is just maybe by not opening our mouth when we feel a lie coming on. When we tell a story, that's not true. And in so doing, we start to let the truth be revealed, and it rises to the surface. And as we go through time, we start to understand our own true authenticity. So sit, why would that so the way to live properly is to not lie to oneself or to another to others, allow the truth to shine through, not allowing oneself to be condemned or judged by those we pass by each day. And that includes the person we're looking at in the mirror. There's a lot of people that want to see other people fail, we don't want to be around them. We don't want to judge them just don't spend a lot of time around their presence. So when we start to embrace the things that come from the truth of who we are, and why we are put on this planet, we become surrounded by people who are doing the same thing. That's all our life is going to get better in that moment. If you're still here listening, bless your heart. Thank you very much. Thank you for your support. I'm going to talk about Mount Everest in the next video, promise. Take care, have a great day and bless you just for being you.