It's Thursday night.

It's cold out.

I'm walking on the beach.

I got my AirPods in and I'm listening to my favorite podcast The Diary Of A CEO and I just heard something that caught my attention:

"The more you think about yourself, the more miserable you are."

This is what Jordan Peterson just said.

At first, I thought: "What a load of bullocks!"

Because it went against everything that I've been hearing and reading on the internet.

But then I stopped and thought about it.

There's truth behind it.

When I look back at my life, I was most miserable when I was most "self-conscious" and aware of myself.

This happens for one reason:

When you're too aware of yourself and your problems, that's all you see. Everywhere you look you spot what's wrong. This leads you down a spiral of bad thoughts. You start to see the world as a dark place when it's not. You need to get out, talk to people who uplift you and force yourself to see the good in this world.

Truth is, humans are social creatures. As much of a hobbit as I am, I still have to socialize one way or another. Either hop on calls with my friends or go out — otherwise I'll become miserable.

We're so social, that even psychopaths, when isolated, feel pain.

But the most ironic part about all of this is we live in the technology age.

We're more connected than ever. With a few finger taps on a screen and an internet connection, your ideas and words can reach millions of people all around the world. But at the same time, we're the most lonely we've ever been…

Depression is at an all-time high, anxiety is ruling the world, and we're more fractionated, alienated, and isolated than ever.

(Ironic, don't you think?)

We want people to ask about us, text us, call us. But when we get the text or phone call, we don't immediately respond or we even let it go to voicemail so we don't "look desperate" or so we look busy and we have something going on in our lives when there’s nothing more you’d rather do than to pick up the phone from the first ring.

But if you ask me the real reason why most people are miserable.

This is my answer:

Most people feel miserable because they think too much about their problems without directing their focus and energy into something meaningful — they keep going down the spiral of bad thoughts, toxic habits, and self-loath.

Humans are a goal-striving species.

Without goals, you feel overwhelmed and lost.

This makes it easy for you to get sucked into negativity. Because you don't have anything to anchor yourself to and something that demands your attention.

But when you have a goal, that is when you're happiest and most alive.

Now you have something to strive for. Something to improve at. Something to discover, explore, learn about, find problems, solve them, and obsess over.

Why Most People Are Miserable

Most people live the same day over and over again.

Clock in. Clock out. Numb their minds with distractions so they don't have time to think about tomorrow's misery.

There's no substance, no meaning, nothing to aspire for.

It's an empty and shallow life to live.

But not having goals isn't the problem.

The problem is not having goals you actually care about.

You see, you're born into a society with specific beliefs, values, and standards that you inherit through their teachings.

But most people don't question what they're taught.

So as you learn to walk, behave, and speak, your mind is being molded to match those around you. You can't control this. It's how you survive.

And before you know it, the only goals on your mind are similar to everyone else's — get a nice car, a good job, travel once a year, go to the bar on the weekends, but once you get that lifestyle, the shine fades away.

Then you convince yourself that this is the life you want to live.

Never evolve. Never pursue anything meaningful. Never get what you really want.

Here's something no will tell you my friend:

Your happiness is made up of 3 parts:

• Physical Well-being: Being in good shape, eating healthy, sleeping well, taking care of your stress and yourself. Hustle Culture is only making things worse for you by telling you to sacrifice your physical well-being for an imaginary tomorrow where all your dreams come true.

• Social Standings: Having someone who loves you (and you love them), someone who you can talk to. A true friend. Remember, we're social creatures, without being socially accepted we become depressed and miserable.

• Spiritual well-being: This is where most people go wrong. They think of being spiritual as something that’s "woo woo" or fairytales. But for me, being spiritual means working on something that's bigger than yourself. Something that you know can help you and the people you love. There's no greater feeling than knowing that you're helping to make the world a better place.

If you're miserable, it means you missed one of the pillars.

You feel miserable because you don't have a goal.

You don't have a goal because you haven't found a problem you can solve.

You don't have a problem you can solve because don't know what you want out of life.

You don't know what you want because you haven't exposed yourself to the world.

You can't get the results you want because you haven't developed the skills needed to achieve those results.

You don't know what's possible because you haven't exposed yourself to perspectives and people who make it seem possible.

People can give you direction with advice and tips. But they can't think, act, and solve problems for you.

The best thing you can do is do whatever you think you want and go after it.

Because that's when you get to truly see what you want vs what society told you to want.

The more new experiences you gain, the more you'll know what you want.

The idea of "happily ever after" doesn't exist.

This isn't me being pessimistic, because once you know how dopamine works and how your brain adapts to whatever you give it, you'll realize you'll always want something new, bigger, shinier, flashier.

But nothing lasts forever…

Now, this isn't a bad thing…

Because meaning is found in the endless loop of solving your problems, expanding your perspective, knowledge, and what you think is possible. Find problems that are within you, create goals, develop skills to solve your problem, until you go so deep within your psyche that you end up finding what you were looking for.

This is the beauty of life.

The Yin & Yan Of Life

Life unfolds in chapters, phases, and cycles that repeat themselves.

Every year I go through the same phases and chapters just written differently

There's a "planning phase", there's a "building" phase, there's a "feeling lost" phase, there's a "having fun phase", and there's a "strategic degeneracy" phase that is where for 2 weeks, I allow myself to indulge in cheap dopamine only to realize how much I hate this part of life and go back to my routine.

What the cycle of life is made of:

• Feeling overwhelmed, lost, anxious, and depressed: You just achieved a goal, don't know what to do next, and thought it was the end but then you realized your goal didn't bring you the happiness you desired.

• Chasing your curiosity: You explore different topics, interests, and ideas until you become aware of what problem you want to solve next.

• The clarity phase: You find a problem you want to solve, you have a destination you want to reach, and you know how to reach it. This is where things take a turn for something great. You start feeling good about yourself and know you're on the right track.

• Becoming obsessed: You snap. You can't stop learning and building towards your goals. You're happiest when you're chasing your goal. Every day you wake up excited to work on your goals because it brings you fulfillment. There's nothing you'd rather do than chase your new-found obsession.

Understand this, your day, week, month, year, life are all a story.

Each has its own series of highs, lows, problems, goals, moments of despair and moments of true happiness that repeat themselves as time passes.

The reason I call it the Yin & Yang of life is because to feel lost means you must've achieved a goal and to start achieving a new goal you must first feel lost. You're self-destructing and building at the same time (felt kind of philosophical when I said it lol).

Unfortunately most people are stuck in the first phase—feeling overwhelmed, lost, and anxious because they haven't developed goals that they care about.

Now, to answer the main question, "How do you become happy?"

Your Path To Fulfillment

What I'm about to tell you isn't a new method that I created.

It's a method that has been for as long as humanity has been around, but it was forgotten when the new way of doing things took over.

When you feel lost you must experiment.

There are 2 ways you must experiment with:

1) Look within: Self-explore, becoming aware of your thoughts, ideas, actions, habits, and words you use. The problem is most people only focus on this method and not the second method which I'm about to mention, which is why they're stuck in this endless loop of misery and unhappiness.

2) Look outside: Learn. Read. Scroll. Build. Try new things until you find what you enjoy doing. Experiment with different ideas and methods. Create a system that is tailored to your needs from what you found enjoyable and helpful. Only focus on the things that matter in life. Your health, wealth, and relationships.

The experimentation phase has no time limit.

It could be hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

For me, it was almost 2 years.

You have to stick with it until you collect enough information and experience to transition from exploring (experimentation) to settling (becoming obsessed).

But once you find your obsession, you don't stop there—you're just getting started.

Go deep. Learning everything you can about the topic you're obsessed with. Listen to everyone's perspective and find your own truth (the truth lies somewhere in between people's objective reality).

When I started getting into fitness I listened to everyone. Bodybuilders, runners, athletes, calisthenics, physical therapists, and other groups of people and their ideologies.

I experimented with almost every possible way of training. CrossFit, running, bodybuilding, being a college athlete and from my experience, I came to a conclusion that to be healthy, in good shape, stick to a workout routine that is enjoyable and sustainable, and live a good life, it was a mix of everyone's advice.

Now I go to the gym 4x a week. I run 4-5x a week. I stretch, and do my prehab (it’s the same as rehab but you do it before getting injured).

The same thing happened when it came to writing online. I took 10s of courses and listened to everyone’s advice.

Only after experimenting and practicing every day that I developed my own method of doing things and start to see real, substantial results.

Self-experimentation is the only way to solve your problems for good.

People can give you advice and tips on what you should do but it will never be the silver bullet you would hope for because it lacks context, perspective, goals, experiences from the people who are giving these solutions.

The responsibility will always come back to you.

You can have the best mentor, they can give you all the information and systems you need, but if you're not willing to think for yourself and see how the solutions can be molded to fit your situation, then you'll never see the results you want.

All Roads Lead To Being A Creator

Once you've got that taste of obsession, you will want to make it a consistent part of your life.

You snap. You transceded. The normal life doesn’t excite you anymore.

Your newfound obsession is all you want to do in life. Every person has a different obsession that makes them happy.

For some it's Flow State, for others is being with friends and having deep conversations about human behavior. For me, that's exploring my curiosity and sharing it with you in these newsletters and seeing the impact it has on your life.

There's no better feeling than knowing you're competent at something and making an impact at scale.

But to have the freedom to keep chasing your obsession this means you must earn an income from that interest.

This means:

• Building a project to spread help to others solve their problems

• Teaching in public to attract people with those problems

• Selling your project so you can continue pursuing your obsession

• Improving your project as you learn what can only be learned through feedback and iteration

• Evolving to a new project when you've reached a level that can only be achieved through business

Now, there are many ways to do this.

But I can tell you with confidence, through my journey, struggles, experiences, and experimentations, the creator economy is the best model to follow.

It's the only model I found that takes human nature into perspective (how we explore, learn, evolve, and work).

"But I don't have the experience to talk about it in public".

My friend, do you not realize that the internet is a decentralized place?

The Internet is the new school system, marketplace, and place where business gets done.

But it's only those who are willing to fail in their names. Now, you're not forced to be part of this system (this is what makes it so valuable).

Most people are scared to put their names on anything they do. Because if they fail, it comes back on you. You’re seen as a failure—but in reality, nobody is paying attention to you when you fail. So fail as many times as possible until you succeed.

And when you succeed, people start paying attention to you, they will call you a genius, but they don't know that the reason why you succeed is because you invested in your failures first.

The reason why I'm very bullish about the internet and the creator economy is because:

• You no longer need a job to find a career

• You no longer need investors to start a business

• You no longer need a publisher to launch a book

• You no longer need a record label to make music

• You no longer need formal education to become an expert

All you need is an internet connection, a social media account, and the courage to teach, fail, improve, and iterate.

My offer, The Modern Creator, has gone through the same processes I mentioned here.

Experimenting, getting results, teaching it to people, getting feedback, and iterating. That’s how I’ve managed to rebuild my business from making ~$1,000 → starting from scratch → $5,000 in 3 weeks.

And if anything, I’m expecting to double or triple what I’m making a month in the next 12-16 weeks.

Find problems. Set goals. Chase your curiosities, become obsessed, and help others do the same. That’s how you find happiness.

That's all for this week.

Thank you for reading and enjoy the rest of your day.

Hussain.

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What happened in the last 2 weeks:

• Joined a new 12-week program to help me scale my business.

• 5 people joined my exclusive group coaching program and it’s been a blast working with everyone.

• Ramadan started, so my work output has plummeted by 90%.

• A bunch of other things that also happened by I forgot…