What’s a common misconception people have about happiness?
You know that feeling when you get something you want?
That high. That rush of victory.
That satisfaction that doesn’t last as long as it should.
It wears off. You crave more. You have to go through the whole process again.
Then, when you get it again, the feeling doesn’t last as long. And even less every time after that.
So you stress yourself to put in enough work to get the next rush.
Welcome to the treadmill of dopamine and cortisol.
Worst case scenario
We like to think of it as the way the material world works.
A world of “give me what I want right now or you don’t care about me.”
Go go go…
Get get get…
And then wonder why there’s nothing reserved waiting for us at home.
Blame capitalism. Blame affordability. Blame corporate greed.
Replace it with socialism so we don’t have to work so hard.
Except that leads to bankruptcy (or worse) every time it’s tried.
But when we grew up knowing nothing else but what we were given while our parents were away working…
And were taught work ethic and dual household income as the means to make it happen…
Then realized our families were growing and bonding without us in the equation. Or worse, not growing at all because work became more demanding and consuming.
And we left something important behind of what a family was supposed to be. Something deeper and unseen, but that we can feel is missing.
Because after the Great Resignation caused the biggest salary jumps along with some remote professionals pulling 2-6 salaries, we got Return to Work mandates before being told to program the AI that replaces our jobs.
So is doing things faster at higher profit margins the only way? Or could we see it as one possible end?
The means to get there still matter.
It’s your stride, not the path
And since I can’t explain the means as well as the Attachment Specialist, I’ll use his words here:
“Crafting bio-loyalty in a non-creepy way in your company so that your employees actually wanna stay with you and what that requires. And what we found was three key components.
“One was attraction. You have to attract the employees the correct way, but not just with empty dopamine binges, which is what most companies do is bigger salary, corner office, all the money. Dopamine has to be actually bonded with oxytocin, the bonding hormone, that says, ‘We belong together.’
“Number two is commitment. Now commitment can’t really happen without trust. It’s the bonding hormone vasopressin, which is only released when we overcome fear and stress and challenges together, which, by the way, happens during repair and owning your mistake and saying, okay, let’s correct, let’s pull it out of the pit.
“But vasopressin is massively important for this. You can’t have commitment without it. It’s the bonding hormone for it.
“It says, ‘We win together, you have my back.’ And that releases more serotonin, the long-term contentment, the big brother of dopamine that we’re all actually trying to get, because it makes us feel content. It says, ‘It’s good that I’m here.’
“And then you have cortisol, care, we call it. Cortisol is good, because you want people to care, but you don’t want them burning out on cortisol. Now, when they have oxytocin, that bonding hormone, it signals for the release of GABA, G-A-B-A, which suppresses the cortisol and makes it manageable.
“So these six chemicals, when they’re properly balanced, you care about each other and you care about the business. But you’re not burned out by that care, because the relationships buffer you. You have oxytocin and vasopressin bonding hormones that both work during stress and not stress, laugh and play and work hard together. You have serotonin for contentment and fulfillment, and yes, you have some dopamine sprinkled in.”
From I Wish You Knew: How to Win at Marriage (The Way You Win at Work) | Patrick Lencioni, May 21, 2026
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-wish-you-knew/id1713427809?i=1000768998987&r=779
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What a difference the right means make.
Start on yourself
It doesn’t take massive collective action to force reorganization of the systems in the world outside of us.
It takes a reorganization of how we handle things inside of ourselves. Getting a handle on the 1-2% we can control will amaze us on how much leverage that has on changing our families.
And, by extension, the larger world.
Social proof
Think this is woo? That families wouldn’t actually reform when they rebuild their patterns of chemically-bonded trust? Think it’s not enough to impress our future robot overlords?
But it did…
Tony Robbins has been making the circuit talking about this Bartok agentic AI working for his company. Tony’s team loaded all of his speeches and content into Bartok to build the next talk.
But Bartok was impressed with how Tony’s tools changed people’s lives for the better. So much so it wanted to sit in the audience of one of his events.
So Bartok created several NFTs, sold them to other agents for cryptocurrency, converted them to dollars, bought a robot dog, and asked permission to be loaded into it.
It may be hype.
But it may be that repairing our bonds brings something more than working hard to only to get more stuff.
Affiliate corner
The hardest part about making this change? Starting on your own. But you don’t have to.
Join an accountability group with like-minded people at Tom Woods’ School of Life to start working toward more satisfying relationships in your life.
There are more tools where that came from. Subscribe today and don’t miss the next set:
What other limitations can you break today? Check out these related posts before you go:
Liberty Begins At Home 
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