#183 - Why Success Isn't Enough: Larry Kesslin on Joy and Identity

Larry Kesslin achieved his own definition of success and found out it was not enough. He had defined it at 28 as the ability to do what he wanted whenever he wanted. Twenty years later he spent a month in rural villages in eastern and northern Uganda, met people with almost nothing who were plainly happier than he was, and came home understanding that his definition had a hole in it. In this conversation with Ryan Watts, he lays out what he put in its place: joy comes from knowing what you are, who you are, and why you are here, in that order, and it deepens through real connection with other people.

Larry is a coach, speaker, and author of The Joy Molecule and Success Redefined. He left the corporate world in 1993 after a week in Aspen with 85 inner city kids, built and sold businesses, ran peer groups for fifteen years, and now works almost entirely within San Diego by choice, because he believes connection is built face to face.

What this episode answers

What is the difference between joy and happiness? Larry defines happiness as getting his needs met, and he has named those needs specifically so the definition stays achievable. Joy is different. Joy is knowing what you are, who you are, and why you are. His argument is that most people never define either word, which is why they keep chasing something they cannot describe.

Can you be deeply aligned and still be unhappy? Yes, and Larry's answer to Ryan on this is the sharpest moment in the episode. If you have defined happiness in a way that cannot be achieved, alignment will not save you. He connects it to how we keep moving the goalposts and never let ourselves finish anything.

Why does achievement stop feeling like enough? Because achievement and fulfillment were never the same problem. Larry traces his own version of that discovery through two moments, twenty years apart, where he met people with far less than he had who were carrying far more joy.

Also in this conversation

  • Why Larry says he is not Larry Kesslin, and what he means by calling it a character he plays
  • The question that reorganized his life: what are you solving for?
  • What happened when three questions at a conference in Mexico took apart his definition of poverty
  • The difference between a coach and a consultant, in his words
  • Why he refuses to ask anyone what they do, and the deck of 54 questions he built to replace it
  • Sky, clouds, and weather, and why identifying with your thoughts makes life harder than it needs to be
  • What separates thinking from knowing
  • Ryan on the subtractive process of putting down the masks he had picked up

Connect with Larry Kesslin

Connect with Ryan Watts