Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPLive: Unlocking True Happiness with Laura Day, Amy Smith And Scott Glassman

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Join Hala for a live Young and Profiting Podcast episode featuring expert Intuitionist Laura Day, hypnotherapist Amy E. Smith and psychologist and author of A Happier You, Scott Glassman. This panel discussion will explore how we can achieve true happiness in a world still feeling the effects of the pandemic, as well as offer tips and tricks to nurture happiness in our day-to-day lives.    *** MEET THE MODERATORS***   Laura Day is a bestselling author, world-renowned “Psychic to the Stars”, international speaker, and corporate advisor for Fortune 500 companies. She helps people, organizations, and companies use their intuition to create meaningful change in their lives.   Amy E. Smith is a certified and credentialed life coach and hypnotherapist, masterful speaker, and personal empowerment expert. Amy is also the founder of Joy Junkie Enterprises and the host of the Joy Junkie Podcast. Through Joy Junkie she uses her roles as a coach and speaker to help motivate people to address issues of self-confidence while teaching them to embrace radical joy.  Scott Glassman, Psy.D. is a psychologist and author of A Happier You: A Seven-Week Program to Transform Negative Thinking into Positivity and Resilience (New Harbinger, 2021). His seven-week wellness program, A Happier You ®, has been featured on SiriusXM, NPR, and CBS News as a syndicated feature. Dr.Glassman is also a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers and has been a speaker at many national and regional organizations, including the American Psychological Association. He is also a periodic contributor to the Health Section of The Philadelphia Inquirer.   Social Media:   Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Follow Hala on ClubHouse: @halataha Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash profiting. You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halla Taha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast,

we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of XFBI agents, real estate moguls, self-made billionaires, CEOs, and bestselling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity,

how to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at Young and Profiting Podcast. So Laura, Amy, let's get this started. I know you guys are both top happiness experts and you help people live their lives to the fullest. I'm super fascinated to know what made you both want to help people unlock their happiness and how did you start this work? Maybe let's go with Amy. I see you unmuted there and then we can go to Laura. Sure. Well, I think for many people who are in sort of an expert space had some sort of massive breakdown

themselves in order to search out their own truths and to find their own answers. And my story is very much the same. I grew up in a very conservative, born again, evangelical family, where there was just a lot of motivation from guilt and fear and not much focus on worthiness and enoughness. In fact, the major doctrine and perspective was one of you are flawed. And that had a ripple effect into my own life as far as viewing my own enoughness,

which then leads to behaviors like perfectionism or people pleasing or not trusting yourself, all sorts of different things. And I'm sure Laura can speak to not trusting your intuition. And so a series of events, largely in 2007, my father passed away. And prior to working in personal development, I worked as a makeup artist. So when he passed away, I knew that I wanted to do his makeup for his viewing. And so I did. And it was obviously quite intense. And then spoke to the crowd of hundreds that were gathered there. And then we get back home to my mom's house and she finds it the most opportune time to tell me that she feels as though my father and her had failed

as parents because I was not subscribing to the religion that I was raised in. And really the only thing that I could kind of muster in that moment was to say, you probably shouldn't tell a child that. And she said, well, that's just how I feel. And that really became sort of the impetus behind, okay, I either live my entire life with a facade

and a veneer and try to make everybody else happy or I can choose to make me happy. And I don't think that it's always an ultimatum. I don't think that it's always I need to decide between your happiness or mine. But that really defined for me that if it did come down to it, I was going to choose me. And that really set in motion the work that I do now, which is helping people truly, genuinely believing in their own enoughness, their own self worth, and then the external piece of how do I then communicate that with the outside world?

How do I now have tough conversations, established boundaries, say no to things that don't serve me, which all of that is in service of happiness, and joy and how we want to feel in our lives. I love that and I definitely want to get into more about enoughness and really understand what that means and how we can use it to become happier. Amy, let's stick on enoughness since you brought that up. How can you define that term for us so that we can really start to understand what enoughness truly means and how we can use it to find more happiness.

Sure, well I think it really is a semantics thing and I think that a lot of people are discussing the same concept but we use different words for it. So at least in my work, I define it as your self-worth, your view of self and your value. So we will say things like, I'm not deserving of something or I don't matter, I don't have value, I'm not enough, I'm not lovable, but it's all around the concept of, I am is wrong. And if you follow at all the work of Brunei Brown, she talks a lot about shame. And shame is sort of the emotion that we feel when the belief is I'm not deserving of the things that I want in my world, I'm not enough. And that will come in a lot of different forms. Sometimes it's I'm not smart enough, I'm not accomplished enough, I'm not thin enough, beautiful enough,

whatever it might be, but really it does come down to your perception of your intrinsic value as a human. It looks like we've got Laura back on the stage. Laura, I would love for you to help us understand how did you first get started in this work around happiness? For me, happiness is very much about effectiveness. I also am a recovering perfectionist and came from a very abusive home,

which doesn't equip you for normal life, but does equip you to really be able to take what is and make anything out of it. About 40 years ago, universities in the military were studying what the human mind could do. So can the human mind tell the future? Can the human mind view a remote location? And I became a subject of some of these studies.

So at a very young age, all of a sudden, the quirks of my brain that I thought was just being from a crazy family were of interest to all of the sudden the quirks of my brain that I thought was just being from a crazy family were of interest to all of these researchers. And because of that became interesting to me. What I found, and I think I have a little bit of a more, I have a very practical vision of happiness, I always say I'm easy as long as things go my way. So I have not a totally recovered perfectionist, but for me what I see with people is that often each one of us

has a blind spot exactly blocking the things that we want in our lives or our businesses. So one of the things intuition allows us to do is go outside of our blind spots in a sense, be able to answer our needs and guide our attention out of thin air and create what it is we want to create. So I think that happiness in my line of work really comes out of being able to recognize the pieces of what you want to create, recognize what's not there, and then have an effective methodology to create what you need, whether it's, you know,

in your family or your business. One of the things that I do see is that people who become teachers often want to find the joy in purpose of taking something that was difficult for them in their life. And certainly this is true of me, and helping others create what they want in their lives. And there's something in doing it. It's the way you make a chart of something

before you build it. It's a very, very helpful process out of four children in my family to have committed suicide as well as my mother. So I really consider intuition such a gift that sense we have that gives us the right way, that gives us the answer, that finds us the people, whether it's in our

personal life or our business life, I just, I get so much purpose and satisfaction out of showing people how to use it and also out of demystifying it because, you know, we use words like manifestation, which just means making something happen. We have all of these magicalized code words for very simple human functions. And one of the wonderful things about intuition, which is a fancy word for psychic skills, is that it's an innate ability in every single person. So all you have to do is rip off a blinder, and all of the sudden sudden what I love seeing is that people experience resources that they never did before. Certainly intuition saved my life. So it is, it's

something I love to share. Research shows that the number one predictor of well-being is actually purpose, not exercise, weight, smoking status, but purpose. Having a reason to get up every day that is effective and successful. Awesome. I cannot wait to dig into this. I've been wanting to do an episode around happiness for a really, really long time.

And finally, I have two of the most perfect experts to talk to this about. So I always love to start off these sessions with some context. So everybody has a foundation about what we're going to talk about next. So Amy and then Laura, I'd love to understand your definition of happiness. What does happiness mean to you? Well, I think largely what I was talking about earlier with how we genuinely feel about ourselves, that to me is a path to either feeling good

or not feeling so good. So we know that human humans by two major human drivers, right, pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of pain. So every single thing that we do or go after is because of something we think it will give us as far as an emotion. We pursue the career because if we want a sense of freedom or a happiness or fulfillment.

So to me, happiness is truly about, very similar to what Laura was talking about in having that sense of purpose. And I think what ties that in is our core value system. And I think it's one of those things that gets thrown around in personal development all the time. It's not the sexiest of topics. But truly the way I define a value, something in your life that you value, is an element that must be present in order for you to be fulfilled, and to live richly, and to be genuinely happy and full of joy.

So I think for many of us, and I can certainly speak to my own experience, but when I was younger, I felt as though happiness was something to attain outside of myself. So, it was inclinement the corporate ladder, it was in my body image, it was in my relationships, it was in all of these things that I was dependent on this outside source to magically show up and make me happy. And it wasn't until I realized that it was truly cultivating that relationship with self

that changed how I felt on a day in and day out basis. So I think it's a handful of things, but a look at what you believe is going to give you happiness and start to entertain the idea of it coming from inside versus this external chase and also start paying attention to the things that legitimately light you up. So for example creativity is a huge value of mine. If I sort of creative project on, I can absolutely feel a difference in happiness, right? So if I take that away from my life, then I'd significantly less less happy. So that could be working on an awesome Halloween costume. It could be redesigning my website. It could be putting together an awesome

outfit. It could be wrapping a gift. It doesn't matter what it is, but I need to have that element. So start or things in your life, what are those elements that must be present in order for me to be fulfilled? It's likely that those things will cater to your happiness. I love that. And, Laura, I'd love to hear your perspective on your definition of happiness because I feel like it's not super clear what happiness is. And I also think happiness is a spectrum. So I'd love to hear it from you.

Well, I really learned the most about happiness on 9-11. I have lived in Tribeca right near the World Trade Center since I was 23 years old, which is a long time. And on 9-11, I saw the plane hit, I went to my building, I thought, looked around, and I realized that nothing in my beautiful loft, I really cared about, that all I wanted were my people and my cat. So my son was in school, I went to St. Anne's and he was in school in Brooklyn and there was so much connection between everyone in a sense as they left their beautiful Tribeca lofts

that they had worked for and decorated with all the things they had collected. We all simultaneously had an aha, which is all that matters is you, you being whoever it is you were connected to. So my definition of happiness is connection. And I think that people in general often feel like strangers in a strange land, they make partial connections, they narrate their connections too much, and they don't actually even have a sense of what they want from their connections, well, at the same time, not allowing their connections to reveal that sense to them. So I think that the more that we work on how we connect to others, boundaries, as Amy brought up,

you know, how we filter our connections in a way that we can be connected with others and not be injured by them, because people in general are mixed bag. One of the things I hate about the new age community is everyone's so spiritual. Now, everyone's wonderful and everyone's a mess. And it's each person's need to be able to maneuver themselves in a way that you have contact with the good sides while managing the difficult ones.

And once again, I work a lot with large companies and you'll see someone in the same situation having difficulty when another person breezes through it and it's often their ability to filter those connections. So the more we work on how we connect, where our nose are, as Amy said, where our boundaries are, and how to create those boundaries, I think the happier we are. I also think that we're very hard on ourselves. And one of the things that I saw, especially during the pandemic, is here, people were shutting their houses, often, you know,

with their children, and there were no traveling circuses to sell them to and they were beating themselves up for being irritable, not making decent nails. I mean, they were beating themselves up for the most inane things. So I think that part of happiness is also saying, okay, this moment right now is this moment. Some of it may be a mess, maybe I don't have the spouse I want, maybe I don't have the funds I want, maybe I'm not living in the home I want, maybe I'm not doing the job I want. But what is the can do here? What is the can do in this situation? And then once again, we discover purpose. I think it's such an important reminder. And I remind myself of this in what I call my pond slime

moments, you know, where you just think, ah, now I've done it. Now I've really ruined my life, which of course, by my age, you've done about a hundred times a year. I think it's really important to remember and to look at people's stories that tell us, wait, this moment may be awful, but the next moment I choose,

I can create anything from this moment. And one of the things that I really, I come out of, I live through the 60s, and positivity and positive thought and positive visualization, everything was positive. But the problem is, if there is a problem and you're being positive instead of seeing it and addressing it, that problem becomes huge and dangerous. Negativity is also a problem because if all you're seeing is the downside, both of you and your environment, that's a problem.

Empowered realistic thinking makes people happy. There are problems, I will find the tools to solve them. It looks like Amy has something to add there. I think that we are inundated on social media with all of these catch phrases and idioms like good vibes only and things like that and what that does is it can completely disregard the human experience. And I think one of the things we need more than anything is an element of emotional intelligence. So there's a difference between is an element of emotional intelligence. So there's a difference between feeling your feelings

and allowing yourself to experience something that's really uncomfortable, and then becoming a chronically negative individual. It's two different things. It's almost like if you were to eat something that didn't sit well with you, sit well with your stomach, and you know if you just get it up,

you will feel so much better. But that's kind of how we are with your stomach. And you know, if you just get it up, you will feel so much better. But that's kind of how we are with uncomfortable emotions. We go, oh, nothing to see here. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And then it keeps persisting. The pain keeps persisting. The discomfort is still there. But if we would just allow ourselves to expel anger

or frustration or sadness or whatever it is in a very healthy way, not saying go key someone's car, but just like taking it out on your bed, like banging a pillow around or scribbling or something like that, then you can move beyond it so much faster to access the emotions that you would rather reside in. So I think it's really incredibly important and I'm encouraged a lot by the younger generations that seem to be in the fields

and in the emotions a lot more, but that's a superpower, y'all. Like that is a superpower to actually allow your emotions and to what Laura was saying too, I don't think it's always about being overly positive. Sometimes it's just straight-up empowering. So instead of saying like let's say you don't feel really great about your career at the moment. Instead of saying, I'm amazing and I can have whatever career that I want. If that feels like an outright lie, you might say something to yourself like,

I am focusing on the things that I can control, the things that are within my power, or one foot in front of the other, or I'm allowed to feel what I feel. None of those things are overly flowery and positive, but they're very, very empowering. So your language internally, I think, can be incredibly important. There was a study on rats that I love. And it was a study on learned helplessness. Rats were put in a jar of water and they would swim and after about five hours, they would die.

Now rats that were put in a jar of water and taken out for a brief period of time and dried off and then put back in, swam for something incredible. I forget it was like four days and we are told we are powerless and the more perfectionist we are, the more powerless we feel. So finding the winds in our own behavior is actually a magic bullet, you know, seeing where you have been effective.

I have worked a lot with talent over my 40-year career, and I have seen actors who could not, you couldn't buy them a job. And then something shifts because, you know, the moment it's the moment something shifts and all of a sudden they're the hottest thing. So you know finding those shifts is what intuition is about, but it's okay to feel powerless as long as you put one foot in front of the other because you will meet those experiences that will create success. It's also important to look for success, to look for where you're doing things right.

Believe me, the things you're doing wrong are going to hit you over the head. But to look in your actual experience for things you're doing right, I find that in the emails I get from readers, people are always looking for signs. I saw yellow rows. It's a sign of this and that. But the reality is your whole life is a sign. So if you look at simply what happened today and what is it telling you about what's around you and what you're creating and then make some different choices, what do you wish had happened? What does that look like in terms of your own behavior?

And start small. You know, I tell people that even if you want to be madly in love, the place to start is having a nice conversation with somebody on the train. Oh yeah, that's the secret. What does it start small to really pattern those behaviors? We all try to take big jumps without having the muscles to do it, whereas a quarter of a degree of climate change creates tsunamis.

And you want to add those tiny things, make those little shifts, and you'll find that much more quickly than you realize you're what you're doing and what you're bringing into your life changes. Not by magic, by your efforts. Yeah, totally. So I love a lot of the things that you guys are saying. Some of the biggest takeaways for me is when Amy was saying how happiness is really an inside job.

It's not about this external chase to get to happiness and also, you know, using your boundaries, understanding how you connect and relate to others. And then also what you were talking about in terms of not being afraid to feel negative emotions and being able to process them, address your problems, and kind of take a mature realistic approach to happiness, not to say, oh, I'm just going to be positive 100% of the time and that's what happiness is. That's not necessarily what happiness is. And so I think those are all really great points. So, Laura, you brought up intuition quite a few times and I know that you are known to be an intuitionist.

So can you explain to us what that is and some of the best ways for people to hone their intuition? So an intuitive is basically a psychic because I work with large companies. I clearly don't use that word very often because people think of psychics as people with crystal balls wearing purple. And I really work in a mainstream world because I think that

intuition, the ability to use your mind in unique ways, which has been very well studied and documented especially over the last 60 years, it does give us an edge. So even though I do agree that happiness is too a degree in inside job, I think that if you are missing big parts of the pie that is your life, there is a use of not being content because that use can be a drive. Somebody who's happy and they don't have what it is they want. I think that's incredibly wonderful and Zen, but I have the strong conviction that actually what we're here to do is to master the lesson plan and the lesson plan is how can I be healthy, how can I be creative, how can I be connected, and then how can I bring that into my community and larger community to empower others.

And I think that that's really the cycle. How you use your intuition and it's so unbelievably simple is to know what it is your goal is because a goal is like a magnet and even if your goal is somewhat vague to start, it is so important to have a direction. It doesn't mean you can't change that direction, but all of the time. And once again, studies have conclusively shown this all of the time. And once again, studies have conclusively shown this, all of the time, you are getting information about your future, about other people, about your health,

even different perspectives on what happened in your past, you're hearing communications telepathically. And all of these abilities that once again are not unique to me, their abilities, everybody has all of these abilities. Either gossip and scare you about all kinds of difficult places that your attention goes or they inform you about what it is you actually want to create in your life. So I always say start with a goal. Then when you have a goal, notice over the following hours, days and weeks, what changes, not just what changes in your life, in your internal world, and what you notice. But all of the sudden, who do you make contact with? What comes in that you didn't expect? It's called synchronicity, and I know people speak a lot

about it, but synchronicity shows us that actually outer events are causal. Outer events come from shifts that we make internally and they're not always you know emotional shifts or even intuitive shifts. Often they are simply allowing ourselves to look for different things, behave in different ways, open up different receptors to what's possible. So have a target and then notice, stick with that target, stick with that goal. And notice when you do and document it

because the mind's a messy place and memory is very inaccurate. Document where out of the blue, your attention goes and what happens out of the blue that was unanticipated, unexpected, and has relevance to your goal. And those are the first two things to do to ignite your intuition. Thank you so much, Laura. I totally agree with everything that you're saying, especially when you said that your goals are like a magnet because I feel the same way. I feel like every time I actually make a goal, I write it down, I say it out loud. I start to see these opportunities

that I never thought existed that I was pretty much blind to even though they were right in front of my face. And then as soon as I have a goal, my mind just starts to pick things up like, oh, that can help me achieve that goal that I wanted and it puts two and two together. So I feel like that's really true. Amy, I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts about this. I love everything that that Laura is sharing. And I also think that we're in a culture and a society that kind of breeds the intuition right on out of us so that we have to start tapping into it because we're not taught about this massive superpower that we have. It really is this additional sense.

It's a knowing. My personal belief is that it's our internal divinity. It's what is guiding us. But we do what I like to call the ... where we go into our brain instead of into that intuition piece and we go into this cognitive place where we start rationalizing things. And, well, what if that person is going to think this of me or what if this doesn't happen, or maybe I'm not smart enough, instead of paying attention to the signs, like Laura

was saying, we dismiss red flags. This is something I see all the time in interpersonal relationships where especially in dating where something is said that kind of rubs you the wrong way or it doesn't quite sit right with you and we just dismiss it and we overwrite it with some sort of logic or reason or rationale instead of listening to that internal knowing and that internal gut feeling. So I think that I completely agree with Lord too that everybody has it and it's just a matter of listening in a more astute way. I want to move on to boundaries and saying no. So this question is for Amy and I know that

you believe that there's an art to protect your time and that really helps to contribute to happiness. And you often talk about the importance of saying no and how saying no can actually help cultivate yourself worth. So can you share with us why it's so important for us to protect our own time and how doing so could make us happier and maybe some actionable steps to say no because sometimes it's not easy to say no to people especially when we care about them.

Sure, sure. This is really sort of the nucleus of the work that I do. So, you know, first I think we have to understand sort of our primitive makeup. And if we look at our ancestors, if you were not a part of a organization, of a group of humans, that literally meant that you would die. And this is also similar to what Laura's talking about with regards to connection. We are wired for connection originally,

primitively, because it meant our survival. I think it's also one of the reasons why we had such a different clueless time with the pandemic, because we are designed to be in connection with one another. So even if we look at things like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, one of our basic human needs is to belong to be a part of a group, right? And that again stems from those origins.

But now we're in situations where it doesn't actually mean death if somebody in our life doesn't approve of a decision that we're going to make or if they don't understand why we want to start our own business or the person that we were choosing to be in relationship with. And again, I think it does come back to emotionally, emotional intelligence in that when we say no or when we establish a boundary or when we say here's what's going on in my life and we're met with something other than approval. We experience an emotion that is uncomfortable and for us to reside in that uncomfortable place is quite foreign. So that's where we tend to people please and acquiesce and search for approval. But the reason why I think it's so imperative and mandatory is every time you choose to say silent or you say yes when you really mean no or you allow somebody to say something really offensive to you.

And you don't speak up. You are sending a subconscious message to yourself over and over and over again that other people's wants are more important than your own. And that is a massive message to yourself worth. So I don't tell people to start speaking up or start saying no, or how to establish these boundaries just for the hell of it. I do it because quite literally your self-worth is dependent on it. So, if we're talking about where to start with that, if we're talking about saying no,

I have a little bit of a different formula with boundaries, but I'll talk specifically about saying no. We think that we are responsible for somebody else's happiness and we just simply are not. And I think we're also, if that's disproportionate, to those who identify as women, there is this concept of you are here to nurture and caretake and thankfully we're starting to entangle that a little bit more. We have a long way to go. But I do think that understanding that it's not our everybody happy

could be a really difficult thing to sit with. Again, being able to sit in that discomfort of, oh, that person isn't accepting or approving of my decision. But the very simple first step with that is to just by time somebody asks with something of you, say, how soon do you need an answer? If somebody says, I need to know right now, or they have this real sense of urgency,

you know what, if you have to know right now, I'm going to need to politely, or I would hate to have to pull out last minute. I would never want to leave you high and dry. I'm going to have to say no right now because I would never want to do that to you. Or thank you so much for thinking of me. I so appreciate that. I'll be really honest.

I am at my max capacity and I always want to be amazing for you. You know, whatever it is, the two one is say, but at least by yourself some time, by no, I need to look at my calendar, to be honest with you, I'm caught off guard, I need to some time to process, that's a piece of owning what you need in each moment. So one of the things about intuition is that people who are extraordinarily intuitive have terrible boundaries.

So although I can't speak as an expert about boundaries, I will tell you what works for me. I find that mindfulness, so being in yourself in this moment and then upping it one more step, being in your best self in this moment, allowing the possibility that what you want is and could be. So finding a mindful moment in this time zone and being full of you, your best you, is the best way to set a boundary. Because then, when something comes in that's an assault, you are fully inhabiting yourself and much more able to say no.

I think that we all live in three time zones. We live in the past, and we spend a lot of time in the past. We live in the past and we spend a lot of time in the past. We live in the future. There's also the non-local, which is the intuitive time zone, where we are hearing and responding to other people's feelings and emotions, even from the distance. And where we live the least. And if you just check out your thoughts for a moment or two, you're probably thinking, oh, how can I apply this to my future? And all this happened in the past, where we live the least is where all our power is, which is in the present moment. So mindfulness does set your boundaries

simply because you are fully inhabiting you and anything that doesn't support you is seen as something to reject. The other thing that a hippotist told me that I thought was just so important was that life is self-hypnosis. Everything you're saying to yourself is self-hypnosis. Yes, perceiving information. And I think Amy could probably speak to this better. But how you're proceeding information is self-hipnosis. As intuitive as I am, there are times when someone will do something and I'll say, oh, they're doing this because of this.

And a friend or a counselor will say to me, is it possible that there's another reason they're doing it? So often we interpret the present But council will say to me, is it possible that there's another reason they're doing it? So often we interpret the present with the tools of our past and the experience of our past. And even simply asking the question, why might they be asking this? Why might they be doing this? Why might they be saying this? Allows us to experience our present in a way that we're not always

losing our boundaries by trying to defend or placate or be part of. The expression that life with self-hypnosis just meant so much to me because I thought, wow, if I listen to my own inner chatter, my own inner dialogue, that is not what I would say to anybody I like. Ha, ha, ha. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move forward with it? Going into debt for a four-year degree

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boundaries because I think it's really, really important. And Amy, I was doing some research for this podcast and I learned that you and your husband actually have a lot of healthy boundaries and you've been able to successfully take individual ownership of certain areas of your marriage that other couples really struggle with. So can you give us a real life example of you and your husband and how you've used boundaries to create a really healthy and happy marriage? Sure. So, and this is something that's kind of ebbed and flowed over, you know, our nearly 24

years together. And originally, when I would come home, or excuse me, I would be at home, he would be coming home, because I obviously work from home. And he would always say, you have a certain amount of words that you need to get out in a day. And if you haven't gotten out all the words, then I'm going to hear him.

And he also is in a healing modality and he works in bodywork. So he is constantly navigating other people's emotions and holding space. And so it's quite exhausting for him. So then getting home at the end of the day, he would have a difficult time really being present for me. So early on, I would take offense to that and would go, what, you don't wanna hear what I have to say or what's going on in my life.

And we really had to learn how to communicate with one another and establish a boundary of, I'm at max capacity, it for him, I'm at max capacity, and I care so deeply about you, I want to be present and I want to hear what you have to say, but I can't be that in the moment. So the way that that has evolved over time is now I will ask of him, hey, I've got some stuff that I would love to share with you about things that transpired in my day. Are you in a place to hear that? Are you in a place to hold that? And if he says no, this is the key.

If he says no, you know what, I'm genuinely just wiped, I don't get to be pissed. I don't get to go, well fine. It's actually receiving that and being honoring of this space that he's in. And I really believe in speaking your truth into ears that you can hear you. And there's not always ears that can hear you, no matter how close they are to you or how connected you are to them. And that doesn't mean always,

it just might mean in that snippet in time. So that's one thing that we've really implemented over the course of our relationship is to check in and it really is sort of conversational consent, communication consent, like are you able to hear something that is, you know, carry some emotional weight yes or no, and then being able to actually respect it. I love that. And Laura, I'd love to hear if you have any examples of creating stronger boundaries to increase your happiness,

whether it's from you or any of your clients. Well, you know, since we're speaking about husbands here, I've been with my current husband for 10 years. And when I first met him, I thought he was so selfish. When he was tired, he slept. When he worked, he was single-minded. He's a TV writer. You know, when he was hungry, he ate.

And I just, I found that so offensive. And we had so many arguments, and at the time, I still had a child at home, a child who's now an adult. And I one day as I was trying to work while trying to get everybody's food made while figuring out everybody's problems, I took a look at him and I thought, wow, maybe I have something to learn here. And I think that I can never speak to boundaries.

Intuition is the ability for me to be you. And I'm an extraordinary intuitive, but not extraordinary when it comes to setting boundaries. But what I do in its place is I really see everybody as a teacher. And one of the wonderful things about leading workshops is that you have, you know, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand people in a room and there's things to learn from

every single one of them. And when you approach people as learning experiences, I think it does create a natural boundary because you often acquire the very thing that would be a challenge for you in a relationship. So I have been studying selfishness and finding that most healthy people have it. Yes. Yeah, I know selfishness actually can be a really good thing sometimes because it's putting yourself first, it's practicing self-care, it's listening to yourself, all the things that you guys have been talking about today.

And I want to talk about being present because both of you mentioned that a few times already. And so from my understanding, I think living in the present and being mindful is really important. So could you guys talk to us about what's the problem with living too much in the past or the future and how we can be more present and practice mindfulness? Amy, if you want to kick that off. Well, of course, I'm going to immediately go to hypnosis because that's one of my absolute favorite modalities. But I don't

think it always is an extreme problem. I think that living in the past or reflecting on the past rather can give us a lot of learning elements and forecasting the future can be incredible for manifestation or moving your motivation. But I do think that being in our present moment is truly what we have. That's what we have. Nothing is guaranteed. And I think that a majority of getting into the present moment has to do with things that are sensory related. And part of that is intuition,

which I'm sure Laura can elaborate on too. But is you struggle with that where you're always in the past or you're always future tripping to stop and pay attention to what you feel on your skin that you are hearing or sense that you might be smelling, tapping into the emotions. The breath work.

I mean, that's one of the things that we hear all the time because when you focus on breath, you are in the present moment. But truly, mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness, is about recognizing what is happening in your mind at each present moment and even in your body or in your emotional self. So all of those things I think can be conduits to staying in the present moment. And one of the reasons why I love hypnosis so much because it slows down the brain wave state. That's really all that it is. Hypnosis is simply blowing down the brain waves so that you are able to kind of bypass that

critical factor of the mind, the inner critic that's always telling you, this is stupid, you're not enough for, you know, that's not possible for you. So to settle into that immediate, to be in this present moment. But I would say for a majority of people tapping into breath, tapping into your senses, noticing your emotional state can immediately pull you into the present moment. I think that one of the misconceptions about people who are in the future is that they're in an actual future. Because I make my living predicting the future and the only way to predict the future is to be in the present so you have some perspective. When you're in the future, in your mind's

eye, you're really in your imagination. And imagination is wonderful, but the problem with imagination is it only can give you something you've already been exposed to. So imagination is shopping your closet. You know, it's taking what you have, what you know, and rearranging it, and then pretending that it's something real in the future. And it tends to be more neurotically based. So if you're mindful and the way to get mindful is what am I seeing, what am I smelling? As Amy said, be in touch with your senses. What am I hearing, what am I tasting, what am I feeling, where am I? What's around me?

So really being in those five senses and from that place of being in this point in space-time or in this moment and being in your senses, what happens is your intuitive receptors, not your crazy imagination, but your intuitive receptors for the future are open. Your memory for the past as it relates to your present are open because your wide open, you're just overwhelmed. And what happens from that state of being mindful, from using those senses is that you integrate what you see in the future and you make adjustments in the moment. You also reposition yourself, you revision the past and once again I agree with you hypnosis,

I love hypnosis, I think hypnosis is incredible. Hypnosis is great for this but you take the pieces of the past or you change your perspective just enough so you're functional now. And then from the present, not only do you intuitively know the future, which isn't imagination, it is actual data. And not only are you aware of the bits of your past that you need to deal with to function properly in the moment, but because you're in the moment, you can actually take action. I'm sure we all know people whose personal mythology gets in the way. You know, if they're committed to being a victim, they're not going to let something good happen. If they're committed to feeling that someone should take care of them, they're not going to let something good happen if they're committed to feeling that someone should take care of them. They're not going to bring in that

power in their life for themselves. You know, we all know people whose mythology is getting away. Your mythology is an example of living in the past when it doesn't help you be successful in the present. We also all know people who imagine the most dreadful or the most fantastical and unlikely things for the future and it doesn't help their present. The intuitive process is to be in the present and notice the future literally as if you had sponges on you that could touch the parts of the future that you could do something about now, either change them, quicken them, or revise them, or prepare for them in some way.

And that, for me, is the practice of mindfulness. It's very data-oriented in that we get the behaviors, we get the facts, we get the processes that allow us to function well in the moment. And going back to happiness, I think it's once again really hard to be happy when you don't have at least the basics that are functioning in your life. And mindfulness allows you to identify from the moment, identify what's missing

because the minute you know what's missing, intuition, intellect, emotion is already working to construct it. And where are the opportunities? You gain new vision. But it's always from this moment because this moment is the only moment in which you can act. Oh my gosh, you guys are dropping so many value bombs. Thank you guys so much. We've covered so much ground already.

We talked about intuition. We talked about boundaries, saying no, we talked about being mindful and being present. One thing that you guys mentioned earlier is purpose. And so I really want to understand the relationship between happiness and our purpose and our career. Because to me, it feels like more than ever people are feeling empowered to pursue their passion, especially with technology. There's lower barriers to entry, there's the advancement of the creator economy, it just seems like more and more people are making their side hustle, their full-time gig and really going after their passion and embracing their purpose, so to speak. So I'd love to hear why purpose is so important when it comes to happiness. Who wants to kick that off? Well, I remember reading something many years ago

that talked about my generation, a magenta XR, that we would have an average of four full-blown careers in our lifetime. And now, I think, millennial of ZGENs, it's even more vast in such a huge array compared to my parents who were boomers where you did one thing and you drove that into the ground and if you didn't like it it didn't matter. Like it was purpose and fulfillment was not the priority at all. So I say

that because I think we have a really great fortune here that we can now be multi-passionate. We can have multiple purposes. And I think that the things that drove me and that gave me such extreme purpose in my 20s or in my 30s or even in my 40s have shifted and have changed. And I think having that permission, but that's okay. The things that really gave me purpose and had me driven and the things I wanted to get up for and wake up for in the mornings in my twenties is very different than it is now. And so first of all, full permission for that to be malleable and for it to change as you grow and develop. But we see that no matter where you are in your lifespan.

And I know Laura mentioned this a little bit earlier, but is one of the reasons why when people retire, they oftentimes will have a really difficult time acclimating to not getting up every day and having a sense of purpose in their work. So it's incredibly important, or we see it sometimes with empty nesters, where there's been so much purpose in raising children that then removing that piece of their identity, they feel as though the purpose is missing. So I personally think that we are so vast as humans that we can have multiple, multiple purposes. And it could be something that is really relevant to this particular season of your life, like connection. Maybe that is what drives you,

or maybe it's impact, or for a long time, I thought my main purpose was to love and to be loved. And I still feel like that's a huge relevance to my life, but I feel like I've moved into various seasons since then where the things that really drove me and the essence of why I needed to get up every morning and the messages that I was meant to deliver started to change. So I'm not sure if I fully answered that question, but that

that's what I would encourage everybody to kind of to think about that it's okay for it to shift. I think of purpose also as the why, the good why, why am I doing this? And purpose has two sides. What you're doing needs to have purpose and often you need to give it purpose. So for example, I hate to exercise. So if I'm on a treadmill or a stairmaster or whatever I have to be in, I give it the purpose. That's my healing time. That's when I literally have a list of people who've contacted me on Instagram, who need, you know, piece of information, intuitively, or who need me to shift something for them. And I use that time to do my healings

because otherwise it would be absolute torture. So sometimes it's our job as human beings to find the purpose in a job that pays the bills until we can do what we want to find the purpose in a job that pays the bills until we can do what we want, to find the purpose in doing the tasks we don't enjoy. And part of happiness is actually being able to find purpose in what you're doing. But it is also things, the organic purpose, what, as Amy said, what your values are. My values are very much about connection now.

You know, I'm a different gender. I'm a baby boomer. And I've, you know, I've made my career and I've raised my family. And now my purpose is about connection. I had a different purpose 20 years ago and a different purpose 20 years before, but it's very important to remember the why or to find the positive why in how you're doing things. Again, studies show that when something is purpose-driven, lifting a car off your child is not difficult to do and is

hyper-motivated because it has a purpose, whereas carrying two heavy bags of groceries may seem like a drag. So, you know, ask yourself if you're doing something, it needs to have value, purposes value. So either give it value or go back inside and say, OK, do I still value this? Do I still value this job, this person, this possession? And if not, how do I want to shift it?

I think that one of the things that happens often in relationships and I see a lot of relationship issues in my practice, both business relationships and personal ones is relationships become automated and people tend to forget the why in what they're doing. When you have a sense and I don't like to use the word no, because no requires so much. But when you have some sense of the why, and when you continue to dive into that sense and find more of the why, you will find that you are far more effective because you have found

that purpose. This is some really great stuff. I'm really enjoying this conversation. I do want to take a moment and introduce Scott Glassman who came on the stage. He actually has a new book that is really relevant to this conversation. It's called A Happy Or You. So Scott, I love for you to introduce a bit about your book. And then I'm going to ask all three of you my last and final question before we move on to Q&A. So Scott, do you want to just introduce yourself quickly? Sure. Thank you, Hala. So happy to be here. a seven pathway approach to positive psychology and really cultivating meaning and joy every day through you mentioned mindfulness already and we use mindfulness in a way to expand good moments through different pathways which include gratitude, lightness in life, meaningful activity

which we've been talking about as a theme to happiness, purpose, having our values aligned with our choices is a very important piece of that happiness puzzle, as well as looking at kindness and love. So I kind of look at happiness as a psychologist, as someone who's worked with Martin Selegman, who's considered the founder of the field of positive psychology as a multi pathway, skills-based endeavor, and that we can get better at stimulating positive feelings in our lives

and connecting with others in meaningful ways and just enjoying more. So it's really about, I think, to happen this is really like a triumph of attention, like when we're able to shift our patterns of where we look in the world, away from what's going wrong, what, where am I not measuring up?

Who did what to me? Trauma's that we may have experienced as children that have led us to think about ourselves as either worthless or helpless or as just overall ineffectual in the world and shifting to what's going well each day, what are my strengths? If we do that enough and we do that repeatedly, we develop what we call positivity effect, right? So we developed this habit of moving toward the positive versus getting stuck in room-in-a-tive cycles

and negative explanations of self and ways of understanding ourselves, which are unhelpful and which keep us stuck in our lives. So in a nutshell, that's what happier you is. And I'm so grateful to be on the stage with these fantastic thoughts and folks here. So thank you. Thank you, Scott.

Thank you for joining. Wish I got you here up earlier. So I'm glad about that. But I do want to ask you three, one last question before we move on to Open Q&A. So if you are in the audience and you want to ask a question, just raise your hand. Put your question in your bio.

We'll pull you up on stage. My last question to Laura Amy and Scott, who newly joined and is also an expert on this topic, I want to know your top secret to unlocking a life of true happiness. So I know we talked about a lot of different things in tuition, boundaries, saying no, but I'd love to hear your number one secret to unlocking a life of true happiness. Amy, let's start with you. You know, there is a brilliant quote by

Melody Beatty that says gratitude turns what you have into enough and I think it is one of probably the most cliche and the most accurate tips that any of us could really give to you all, that the concept of being in the moment of gratitude and relishing the things that are present and that are good and that are fulfilling creates such a surge of happiness. And we have actually seen that in various studies that if you do a gratitude list for even one week, you will notice a difference in your emotional state.

And then that's dramatically increased with the compound effect. If you are continuing to do gratitude lists, or I do it all in my own mind in the morning. And it's just a radical shift in your optimism in what you start noticing, things that you start picking up on. And I say that is somebody who did not operate in a happy plane of existence for many, many years. It was something that I had to train and that I had to learn. You know, we know

from the National Science Foundation has released a study that we have about 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of them are repetitive. So we, and that does come from us trying to ward out threats, sort of our primitive mind, but we don't need that any longer. We don't need to constantly be worried about threat. We can start to focus on gratitude and the things that are really good and positive and fulfilling. So start there.

It's available to absolutely everybody, and it can make such an incredible difference. I completely agree. I think gratitude is so key and I feel like it is one of the secrets to so many successful people when I ask them this question. This is one of the last questions that I ask everybody on my podcast is what is your secret secret to profiting in life and so many people say gratitude is really interesting. Laura, I'd love to hear what you have to say

about this. Well Scott came up with this wonderful sentence about attention, which I hope you will repeat a symphony of attention, which just spoke to me because my secret is that energy is infinite, but attention is not. And it is so important in life to pick your battles, to avoid toxins, and a lot of the toxins that are most toxic to each of us uniquely are most toxic because they are so attractive. They replicate behavior loops from our childhood, And there's a wonderful book by Candice Perk called Molecules of Emotion,

how we seek out even the same pathological experiences because they create a chemical response in us. So to consciously realize that where your attention goes, your energy, that infinite energy flows. And think about that when you are about to engage or allow or trip yourself up in some other way, make a different choice. I really think that that that is the secret net for the most part except for in moments of unthinkable trauma now is manageable. So energy is infinite, but attention is not choose where you place your attention. That's super powerful. Scott, I'd love to hear what you

have to say. What is your top secret to finding true happiness? I feel like we've already heard two fantastic secrets to true happiness. One being rooted like Laura is saying and attention and Amy, so fabulous that you talked about gratitude. In fact, we focused on that early on and a happier you in week three. I have to turn for my top secret. There's a wonderful researcher named Barbara Fredrickson, who has studied positive emotions. And she's found that when we feel good, it opens up a lot of ways for us to see the world that are new. We can solve problems better. We're more flexible thinkers. We can look around at our environments, our social environments, our spiritual environments, our physical environments, and we can draw in more resources because we feel good, because we feel like we're open to the world. And as a result of pulling in more of those resources, whether it's

a better relationship, believing, wow, you know, I'm recently divorced, but I can go back out into the world and potentially meet somebody to find another life mate. We are able then to generate more good feelings because of having those resources. And because we have those positive feelings, we become even broader thinkers. So the theory is called broad and and build. And when we're constantly creating these upward spirals of good feeling, good thought, flexible thinking, and becoming more and more resourceful, more and more filled with all of the tools that we need to live meaningful lives, which are full of joy and significance and a sense of purpose. So build

upward spirals. I guess that would be my top secret and we do that through attention and I think we can also do that through what Amy was saying through the portal of gratitude as well because that is a powerful generator of good feelings. Peace, tranquility, joy being filled and complete with what is versus what isn't that kind of fullness mindset versus a deficit mindset. Yeah, bam. If you're ready to take your business to New Heights, break through to the six or seven-figure mark or learn from the world's most successful people, look no further because the Kelly Roach show has got you covered. Kelly Roach is a best-selling author, a top-ranked podcast host, and an extremely talented

marketer. She's the owner of NotOne, but six thriving companies, and now she's ready to share her knowledge and experience with you on the Kelly Roach show. Kelly is an inspirational entrepreneur, and I highly respect her. She's been a guest on YAP. She was a former social client. She's a podcast client, and I remember when she came on Young & Profiting, and she I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I'm not As a marketer, I really, really respect all Kelly has done, all Kelly has built. In the corporate world, Kelly secured seven promotions in just eight years, but she didn't

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I've totally leveled up my sales skills. How much would it cost you to take a one-on-one class from the world's best? A lot. But with Masterclass annual memberships, it just cost you $10 a month. I have to say the most surprising thing about masterclass since I started this incredible journey on the platform is the value for the quality of classes instructors. The platform itself is beautiful. The videos are super high quality. You can't beat it gain new skills and as little as 10 minutes on your phone your computer tablet smart, and my personal favorite way to learn is their audio mode to listen on the go.

That way, I can multitask while I learn. Get unlimited access to every class and right now, as a app listener, you can get 15% off when you go to masterclass.com slash profiting. That's masterclass.com slash profiting for 15% off an annual membership. Masterclass.com slash profiting. Brilliant. Man, Scott, I wish you were here the whole time. That was totally my bad. Sorry about that, Scott. But I do want to move on to Q&A. So Douglas here has been patiently waiting to ask his question. So Douglas, I would love for you to ask your question for

the panel. Hi, guys. And thank you, Laura, and Amy and Holly and all that. You guys have hit a lot of relevant major bells. I have to give credit. I think what I hear that doesn't ring a bell that I would like to tap into the group mind about kind of what Clubhouse kind of excels in is all this is very, very noble, but there is a reality call in happiness about to descend itself on the majority who don't have great privilege, who don't have great wealth or power. And that is climate change and happiness don't fit. Climate change, happiness and big AI don't fit. Climate change, happiness, big AI, and biotech,

and economic instability, World War III, doesn't fit. And the group has yet to genuinely and sincerely with great sobriety look into the mirror and say, hey, I get it, it's about the self and healing, but where are the reference models on the planet? of happiness that have looked into the face of climate change who live in 120 degree weather, who face military conflict on their borders, who have immigration, flaws, and problems. What societies, what cultures, what individuals, what studies, what's the reality check

on where we're headed in the next five, 10, 15 years of happiness and unhappiness because to discuss happiness is a gift from the heavens, but it's inverse is the law. And the middle way is gotta be the way. The mystery is who among us can cite attribution reference precedent of happiness in climate change common, climate change war or climate change, all the stuff that's coming. I'm not sure I understand that what is the question Douglas? Laura, if you were to step back in history, if you were to go back 100 years or 10 years whatever and you were to look forward from understanding the past. You would say what about we're happier by the happiest index on the planet to say the Scandinavian cultures but they're about to face an economic accountability.

So Douglas, one of the things that happened at the beginning of the pandemic. And I have a fairly constant online group was everyone said, Oh my God, this unthinkable thing is happening. And they got very unward. And many people, you know, everyone had a different situation. Some people were rendered homeless. Some people just simply couldn't get their favorite coffee, whatever it was. But one of the things that I reminded them, and I say this as a 62-year-old, is that all these problems have always existed.

And the fact that there are periods when we see them more are actually blessings because in our, you know, I think that we all tend to focus on or the majority, tend to focus on, you know, what's in the headline. But these problems have always existed. I lived through the 60s and the 70s, and there were the same issues then. So, and climate change was happening then. I mean, I think that when we make these into monumentous issues, what we kind of get away from is that small choices that each of us make every day makes a difference, whether it's where we spend our dollar in a capitalist system, because that is politics,

how we treat other people, what we choose to use, how we choose to, you know, whether we choose to drink water out of plastic bottles that does those little one foot in front of the other steps actually do make a difference. There are cataclysmic biases and terrible unfairness in the world is certainly not a new issue. I want to jump in here too and I do Douglas, I want to just say thank you for raising this because I do think that there is something quite pervasive in the personal growth sphere that is quite privileged and that does not always speak to inequity and inequality and marginalized communities and things of this magnitude. And I do really agree with Laura as well.

You know, I think even if we look back to egregious atrocities, like Victor Frankl's account in man search for meaning, the things that he surmounted and some of his contemporaries surmounted, is unfathomable to what we're experiencing, many of our experiences. And the through line was the humanity and what we're capable of with our own minds. And so to what you're speaking to, I think it's both.

I think it's a matter of social awareness and social consciousness and doing the work that we can to provide a better future and being vigilant about what we have available to us right now. And that's one of the things that Frankl speaks to is not, you cannot take from me my mind and my ability to control that. So sure, if we're invigorated, we're not going to have the capacity to think or feel or whatever, which again, I think brings back our point of present is truly what we have. Gratitude turns what we have into enough. So I don't think it's simple. I don't think we can do a sort of the spiritual bypassing

sort of concept, but I think it's an end. I think it's a yes, we focus on the change that we want to create in this world. And we focus on cultivating happiness, because what I will say, and I think I'm hearing this from Laura too, is that if we all walk around vibing at a gloom and doom and we're all going to die and this is just the worst, you know, my God, and we better not be happy.

We're causing our demise much sooner. Curious to hear what Scott has to say. Yeah, Victor, Frankl is one of my spiritual mentors, heroes, and the last of the human freedoms in man search for meaning is our ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. And that phrase has always stayed with me to remind me that no matter how deprived we are of remind me that no matter how deprived we are of human freedoms that we always have that choice. And I guess my other thought is that we are not islands, we are inseparable from our environments. And that includes the natural environment, that includes communities that we may not be a part of, other cultures, we are one people, and that spirit, that sense of interdependence

makes us all responsible for suffering, makes us all responsible for happiness, because we share it as one single global community. And I think if we take on the consciousness of understanding that a kind act, no matter how small it is, whether you hold the door open for someone or you donate to an important cause, a charity, you are part of building a better world and you are part of community-based happiness. I will say, though, when people are fighting for survival, when

their basic human needs aren't being met, it is quite hard to reach the upper levels of self-actualization that we may have based on privilege in the Western world and for when we think about white privilege, certainly we need to pay attention to and respect people who are fighting at the very, very basic needs and trying to have those met. But I think we all can play a part in sensing that suffering and doing something every day to alleviate it. I also think that the more that we both see ourselves and behave as one community, not that we each have the same opportunities, but that it is our job as a community to make those available, the more that we create that unity, the more that unity will encompass the reality. I want to tell a really

quick story about the beginning of the pandemic. I was in London, I was living in London when the pandemic started, and when it started, I said to my husband, listen, you know, a lot of my readers and my Instagram people, they're struggling, I'm gonna send out in my newsletter that I've put some money aside, and if anyone needs anything to let me know. And my husband said, don't do that. You know, you're gonna be overwhelmed with requests, you're gonna feel awful, you're not gonna be able

to fill them, and of course, as usual, I didn't listen to him, And I went ahead and I put in the newsletter, listen, you know, guys, whatever you need, let me know. I've put some money aside. It's, you know, it's there for you while it lasts. And, you know, I have to leave my husband and expect it to be inundated. But one of the things about intuition is we do readings on Instagram. So complete strangers are giving predictions for people are helping them navigate their lives are really inside one another.

So we're a very close knit community, even if most of us have never met. We sense each other. And we're a significant part of each other's lives, all 17,000 or whatever we are. Well, my husband was right. I was overwhelmed. I got so many responses, so many emails, so many direct messages. And it was of people on Instagram, people on my newsletter saying, oh yes,

absolutely. We have some extra to give. Or I'm a first responder. I live in Queens. I can run food by anyone on this route. I was, oh, people, even though I spoke, I mean, I'm a writer. I wrote this clearly. I am putting this aside. People read it as there's a need and there was so much generosity. Even by the end of the pandemic, I still had some leftover from what I put aside because people just started helping complete strangers, helping each other.

But that sprung from the practice of anyone in this group. that sprung from the practice of anyone in this group, you can't find your keys, we're all on it. You want to know how you're going to raise money for your project, we're all on it. So we are so in and out and through each other and working together, that was a natural progression. And I don't have the answer of how to do that in a larger world, but I agree with what Scott said, which is any tiny opportunity, you know, smiling at someone, stopping to speak to somebody on a street who looks lost or alone, any little kindness, I think propagates that. Lerick, can I respond to that? Yeah, let's go for it.

It is the height of, you know, humiliating empathy and compassion that I listen to this group. I mean, I have a million positives, but there is something valid and healthy and noble about saying the unsaid. And that is, I don't think the group has an answer. I believe that we've taken a hundred puzzle pieces and they all make a complete puzzle of compassion and love and happiness. But none of them are put together in such a way that you can tell what the puzzle is. And to that end, I would like to suggest that there is a happiness index,

that there is asset-based thinking that studies happen is there are scientific studies that clarify and codify epicurian culture, which clarifies that there's three primaries to happiness. which clarifies that there's three primaries to happiness, and three primaries to unhappiness. I don't hear in the group reference models like blue zones that study happiness and have compelled you, what is it, national geographic, to do entire studies over 10 years of what happiness looks like emphatically.

Instead, what I hear is hundreds a really interesting perspective, Douglas. And I really do think that you had a really brilliant question. So, I'd love to hear if Scott or Amy or Laura have any last things to add to Douglas' question. Sure. Well, I'll say this. I disagree in the sense that I feel like we've given quite a myriad of different ways to talk about happiness. And if there was an answer, if there was an easy solution, everybody would have it. And everybody would do it.

And that's simply not the case. I think we're speaking from each of our own lived experiences and what we're able to offer. I will also say this that personal development is not academia. It is not necessarily something that we can formulate and put into this nice tidy package that can be, you know, submitted everywhere for everybody to consume. So you're right in the sense that we've given a lot of things for people to think about. I would like to believe that we've

affected change. And if we're talking about purpose, I feel very much an alignment with that. And I would encourage you, if that's something that is a passion of yours, and feels as though it needs rectifying to have the pursuit of that, and to put together said formula. Brilliant. Laura, I see you unmuted. Did you have anything to add? Yes, really beautifully said, Amy. The puzzle isn't static. You're talking about a puzzle and the pieces don't come together. But we are always in movement. And I think that the biggest mistake that people make

in life and happiness and everything is thinking, OK, now I'm healed or now it's done or now the puzzle is together. And it never is. That is the condition of life. And I think the biggest challenge in life is to adapt and to some degree guide the constant changes of that picture.

Also, I love research. And I give me a scientific factoid, and I am so happy. However, when I was growing up, hydrogenated oils were all the thing. Don't have olive oils, don't have butter, don't have coconut oil. No, have these fake formulas of oils, which now we know are deadly. So even research, you have to be careful. Today's facts are tomorrow's myths. And I find through individual experience that we do learn. And I think that that is one privilege of being teachers, is that

learning. And the wonderful thing that I didn't have in the 60s and 70s is when my son wants to figure out how to do something, he can find TED Talks and YouTube's, he finds his way of doing something somebody else or many other people did their own way. I think that there are resources available, and the more that we keep them public, public library, public resources, public places to gather, public schools, the more that we focus on those resources for people who don't have, the more ultimately,

I think we're gonna get to a place of happiness because if you're living in an uneven world, part of that blade, no matter how privileged you are, it's gonna cut you at some point. Yeah, Douglas, I wanna thank you for this question, and I really appreciate that the panel, we've had a thoughtful discussion, even though I think there's different perspectives,

we can all have a meaningful educational discussion, and I think that's what Clubhouse is all about, and that's what these panel sessions are all about. So thank you so much for that. Dippel Holly, I wanna make sure you guys don't have any questions before I close this out and ask our final parting question, flash from Mike if you do.

All right, so I think this has been an awesome discussion from Amy's incredible thoughts around boundaries and saying no, from Laura talking about helping people unlock their intuition and finding happiness and Scott's thoughts around upward spirals of feeling, thinking, doing. I think we've covered a lot of ground. I found it super helpful, interesting, and actionable. So I appreciate everybody's content and values that they brought here on stage.

So my last question for you guys is about how we progress forward after the pandemic. I was doing some research for the show and I found out that one in five Americans suffer from mental illness before the pandemic and now it's two in five people who suffer from mental illness after the pandemic. And the world is starting to really open up. People are starting to go back to work. Some people are going on vacation, but more people have mental health problems. So what are some parting words you can say in terms of

optimizing our happiness as we start to re-enter the world? Post-pandemic, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Scott, Amy, Laura, anybody want to kick it off? One of the reasons that people who have never been in love suddenly go on vacation for the first time in 10 years and they meet their perfect partner is that we're held in place by our patterns. And so when we go to a place where we can't maintain those patterns, all kinds of windows and doorways are open for opportunities. It's also, so the pandemic was that what I would call a geographical was something major

shifting that breaks our patterns, whether we wanted to or not. The key to having those kinds of upheavals create opportunities is to also have healthy habits or a healthy prosthetic exoskeleton that keep you in place. So a healthy habit might be you wake up at the same time every day, you make contact with at least two people, you exercise for 20 minutes.

So whatever stake structure, new structure, will keep your pieces in place while the interview is making changes. So coming out of the pandemic, we've had that shake up. Now, before you reconstitute, all of your old patterns, the way they used to be, question them, and notice what new opportunities have arisen

that you can integrate into your daily life. And, and remember that in order to do this, having a structure to your life, even if it's not a structure that has deep significance, will help you gather all the jewels on that framework. Amazing. Amy Scott, any last thoughts or parting words about this topic?

Well, one thing that I think for many of us, especially if we were in a privileged position, we wanted to dismiss how traumatic this actually has been. And are there different levels of trauma? Absolutely, of course. But this was a collective experience of trauma. And when we are in that space, we are looking towards our fear responses, right? Like our fight, flight freeze, fun. So we are doing things to try to get out of that

desperation. So there's a couple of things to know about that. One is that regardless of what you experienced, whether it was, you know, a lighter version of the pandemic or a really egregious version of it, that there was something that was felt that likely needs grieving and to really circle back to what we were talking about at the beginning around emotional intelligence, it's likely that you need to process some of the stuff that came up for you. It was quite interesting to watch at the very beginning these opportunities to start working on ourselves or reading or seeking help. But no, let's learn how to bake bread. at the very beginning, these opportunities to start working on ourselves,

or reading, or seeking help. But no, let's learn how to big bread. We need to learn how to big bread. Slowly, this evolution that you started to see people, we really gave credence to. So, recognizing that it's okay for us to still be treating it as a traumatic event. And when we have trauma, regardless of what emotion that we felt

or what the circumstance was, it deserves healing. And healing doesn't happen if we try to pretend like other people had it worse. So my trauma doesn't matter. Or every, just put on a happy face, it's about giving credit to what it is that you experienced. And then looking at, okay, because of that,

what are my learnings? What are the things that now have meaning? You know, Laura, I have that brilliant example of nine analyzing when you come out of something traumatic. What matters now? Do your passions matter more deeply? Do you have more relevance to you? Where do you want to put your time and energy and attention?

And you can do that depending on how difficult things were for you. You can do that simultaneously. You can work on your healing and you can focus on your gratitude and small habits like Laura was saying and instituting just little moments of gratitude, shifting how you speak to yourself, tapping into your intuition, looking at the environment, the people in your community, were they helpful, were they healing for you, or were they an added element of toxicity.

So allowing both the grief and healing to happen as well as, here's who I want to be going forward. Here's what I want to focus on going forward. Oh my gosh, I think that was super, super brilliant, Amy. I mean, it's so true. I think that everybody's suffered some sort of trauma, whether it was bigger, small, and we all deserve that for ourselves to actually process that and give ourselves time to heal and to actually think through everything that happened to us no matter what level we were impacted by the pandemic. So I think that's really great. Scott, any last thoughts here about this topic? Yeah, I think the pandemic was an example of us all being brought out to see and placed on our

individual rafts suddenly, you know, cast upon ourselves and feeling tremendous amounts of helplessness. And if you look in the experiments of learned helplessness early experiments by Selegman finds that when we are stuck in a situation where we feel like we can't affect change, help others, go out, connect like we used to, we become habitually passive. And I think one of the greatest things that we can relearn is our agency in the world, our ability to reach out, affect others and to do that from a place within ourselves, that we've come to know better as a result of being on the raft in the ocean. So one of the more positive sides from the pandemic has been many of us have turned inward to gain a better sense of who am I?

What do I really want in my life in the world? Many people have just completely changed careers if they haven't been forced to as a result of the pandemic, noticing that what I've been doing for 10, 15 years isn't really making me happy. So we've had a point of deep self-reflection, revelation, and a redirection outward. And I guess the other tip or kind of learning point that we can all use, I think, is this idea of self-compassion. Because like Amy, you were saying, the idea of grief and trauma, the entire, this collective trauma that we've all been through calls for a more, I think,

self-compassionate stance. And who I turn to for a self-compassion, always is Dr. Kristen Neff, who has made, she is the preeminent researcher around self-compassion and she's explored, what is it that helps us be kinder to ourselves and she's come up with these three areas. The first is mindfulness which we've talked a bit about today being in the present moment but just noticing mindfully do I need self-care? Do I need to connect with somebody? Do I feel like something is missing and how can I nurture myself? The second is common humanity, which is really our recognition that we all suffer, we all experience pain

and what better example of that than the global pandemic. We were cast together, yes, out in our rafts, but out in our rafts collectively in the ocean. And if we can recognize that we all suffer, we have all experienced this pain. It becomes a less isolating experience and that we can foster the kindness toward ourselves. And the third element is self-kindness, which is the articulation, the planning of ways to be kind to ourselves, whether in thought and action through relationships. So self-compassion, we can emerge from this traumatic period in our history, being more understanding

of ourselves, more clear about what we want, so maybe a better direction through our values and through our self-awareness, and maybe more appreciative of others. You know, I think one of the things I'm going back into the workplace after not having been there for over a year, just the joy of seeing people and just having simple conversations. I never thought I would experience others in that way. And I think this terrible time period has also some silver linings.

Amazing. I really want to thank everybody who participated today in this panel. Laura, Amy Scott, you all gave such brilliant advice. And thank you, everybody, who tuned in. This was a live episode of Young and Propaganda podcast. And make sure you follow Amy, Laura, Scott here on Clubhouse, follow them on Instagram. Make sure you support their work. I'm going to have some of these guys on my podcast as well. So looking forward to that.

And with that, this is Holly and friends signing off. Have a great night, everybody. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood.

Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a tried-this-at-home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time, energy, or money. Suggestions such as, follow the one-minute rule. Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like, know yourself better, where we discuss questions like,

are you an over buyer or an under buyer? Morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity lever? And every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick, easy shortcut to more happy. Listen and follow the podcast, happier with Gretchen Rubin. The following is a you could get help from progressive online through a mobile app or over the phone. But here, in the future, you'll be able to chat with us from space.

Maybe you're asking why you spend time on insurance in space. Shouldn't you be sculpting something out of moon rocks or jumping around with no gravity? Insurance seems more like a back-on-earth kind of thing, right? Actually, in the future, space is no big deal. Aaron's a totally a burp-race. That was a message from the future. Get the help you need today with Progressive. Progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and other insurers.