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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Take the Next Steps to Happiness With Megan McDonough [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PP: We all have times in our lives that are filled with uncertainty and stress. Maybe it's career upheaval, a change in our life stages or the end of a relationship. Even as we wrestle with the challenges at hand, we wonder what the next step is. I'm Paula Phelps and this is Live Happy Presents, a podcast sponsored by the Wholebeing Institute, that looks at what to do when those inflection points arise in our lives. Megan McDonough is founder of the Wholebeing Institute, which is the world's leading educational organization, teaching the science of human flourishing. She is here today to talk about how the challenges we're facing right now, no matter how daunting they seem, actually hold the opportunity to explore, strengthen and reshape your life. Then, she'll tell us about an online program offered by the Wholebeing Institute to help you take the next step to move toward happiness. [EPISODE]   [00:00:59] PP: Megan, this is an incredible program that you're going to share with us today. I have so many questions, and I'm really excited to hear about it. But I wanted to start out by learning, how did you develop this and what got you here? [00:01:12] MM: For that, we're going to go back to the year of 1999. You remember that year, that was the year everybody was saying, computers are going to crash.   [00:01:21] PP: The end of the world.   [00:01:21] MM: End of the world when computers go from 1999 to 2000, the world was going to crash. It turns out thankfully, that the world didn't crash. But in a way, my own life crashed. I remember specifically the day I was working for DuPont, and I was in their corporate offices in a meeting. Even the day I recall, it was a gorgeous spring day, one with the depth of the sky, it was a beautiful baby blue. And there were these cherry blossoms all ripe and opening. It was incredible beauty outside. But inside, it felt like I had my back against the beauty, like I couldn't see it. This was metaphorical. Actually, literally, because I was sitting in a meeting thinking, "Ah, I'm just dying here." It wasn't because I didn't have a great job. I love my job, love the people. But I remember writing on my notepad, "This is killing me."   [00:02:20] PP: Wow.   [00:02:21] MM: So for me, that day, something became very clear. My work here was done, that this was an inflection point in my life. The reason I start with that sort of background back in 1999, is because we hit these, I think of as inflection points all the time in our lives. That was a big one in my life. But many people, as part of being human, because there's no getting around it. We had times when we feel like we've hit a termination, either we get a – either our relationships come to an end, our work feels like it's dying out, our health might be going downhill, our loved ones' health might be going. We look at these points as times of great change ang angsts. It feels entirely like a terminus and it's really a very rich place. Might feel really difficult at the time. That's when I started changing and moving in different ways in the world that looked at the science of flourishing, how we can go forward in a way that really liberated us to live more into an authentic life, in a way that feels rich, and happy and satisfying. [00:03:30] PP: Well, how do we know that we're at an inflection point versus just having a bad day at work? We all have those moments where it's like, "Okay, that's it. I'm going to go home tonight. I'm going to write my letter." How do we know? [00:03:43] MM: It's a great question, because life is full of little stress points anyways. Why is this an inflection point? One of the things that your listeners can pull from your website is a handout that's related to sort of this discussion we're having today. In that handout, I listed sort of all of those who have felt sense of when life is changing for you. When do I know that this is more than just a bad day? That it’s really an inflection here. Part of that answer is, it lasts longer than just a bad mood. It's like a chronic outcoming of this sense that maybe there's got to be something more, a clarity like I had that data. I've run my length around this thing or it might come from an external situation where you lost your job, or the kids moved out of the house and all of a sudden, you have an empty nest. In many ways, these inflection points, they become ways in which we have to actually redefine who I am. Actually, look at the different ways in which we're shaping ourselves because who we knew ourselves to be before is not who we have to be in the situation, as an empty nester, as a single person, as a person who realized their job no longer works for them or has been retired. These are all things that happen. So if you look up that list of handouts, your listeners can get a sense of, "Ah, maybe this is bigger than just a bad day." Part of that is, what is the felt sense. I mean, for me back in 1999, this wasn't just one episode. This was sort of a building of a felt sense over time where I'm just – there was a sense of dryness, a desiccation and it wasn't enlivened by this very sacred life. So those are sort of the key points that point to, "Ah, this is an inflection point. This is a change of who I see myself to be and where I'm headed." [00:05:48] PP: As you're getting that sense, and you realize this is an inflection point. That realization is one thing, but what to do with it is a whole big, scary next thing. What do you do once you've realized that you need to do something? [00:06:06] MM: It's so funny, because what is the first thing we do when we're having difficulties? Where do we go? Let's ask Dr. Google. [00:06:15] PP: I was going to say the bar, but I knew that was the long answer. [00:06:16] MM: Maybe the bar. So, still, maybe we go for a drink, maybe we talk to our friends, maybe we ask Dr. Google. But what we're really doing is just sort of splattering this – not desperation, but this angst that we're feeling, and we're reaching out and trying to find answers. Interestingly enough, when I was going through that inflection point in my own life, I mean, that's exactly what I did. I was reading, I was taking a little bit from this. I was Googling and getting all sorts of junk. Because when you Google, how do I live happier, you don't get your wonderful side of living happy, because that wasn't around back in the '90s. W What you end up doing is creating a smorgasbord of, "Let me try this. Let me try that. Let me try this. Let me ask the same people that I've always asked about and they're –." They might be wonderful, supportive people, but they might not have the answers either. So the first offer is to find a place, which is what we're talking about today. So program that systematically in step by step takes you through the process of living happier now, as you move into that definition of new self. Because what we're really in and this is actually in your handout, you can feel free to fill in these blanks. The place we're actually in right now is a place that the anthropologist, Victor Turner called the liminal space. When we know that one thing is ending, we don't yet know where we're going, that's a place of uncertainty. It's that liminal space of no longer and not yet. [00:07:51] PP: That's a very scary place. [00:07:54] MM: It's a very scary place. That's why we ask a lot of people, and we have a lot of conversations, and we ask Google and we go to the bar and drink. We try to forget about our problems. Because we're searching for this sense of stability in the no longer and not yet. We don't like uncertain places. It's very scary. So when you ask, "What do we do?" First, we realize, "Oh, this is an inflection point. This is a liminal space. This is a no longer and not yet." There are other words too for it. I think this place of inflection points is a really sacred time. It's interesting when you notice these inflection points when you're younger. You might have the graduation from high school, or college, or getting married, or having children, or finding a partner or landing a new job. There's lots of sort of inflection points when you're younger that are noticing as, "Ah, this isn't change." But when you're my age, I'm 60 this year. In midlife, all of a sudden you realize, "Wow, where are the big sort of milestones? Where are the inflection points?" That's why I wanted to elevate this for your listeners that this sort of challenge that you're going through with emptiness, retirement or even younger than I am into second jobs or more children. This no longer not yet time, along with being uncertain, scary is also a sacred time. It is deeply sacred time to do some deep work about who you are as an individual, and where you're heading in doing so in a conscious way. So that it comes from within out, versus the pressure of society, of norms, of expectations driving what you should be doing. When I think of the liminal space of no longer not yet, it's a sacred time. It's also the time that the mythologist, Joseph Campbell said, "This is a hero's journey" or Jack Mezirow in learning and development called it disorienting dilemmas. They're really times where we think about, "Ooh, what’s next for us?" So instead of this trial and error of going out to Google, to the bar, to your friends. How do we apply and study the evidence-based approach to move towards happiness? That's what our certificate in holding positive psychology does. It takes these uncertain times and it spells out clearly, step by step over the course of nine months, so that you can really use the sacred time to craft not only how you're standing in this present moment, but how you're shaping yourself towards the end. [00:10:39] PP: How important is it for us to prioritize personal happiness in this journey, because we – especially as women, I will say, we take care of our families, we take care of our spouses, we take care of the people we work with. We're caretakers and we tend to put ourselves last. As you hit an inflection point, what happens when you begin to prioritize your own personal wellbeing. [00:11:04] MM: It’s so interesting. When I made this change for myself, and I was just miserable at work. Again, not because it was a horrible place to work, but because I had reached the end of my rope that of doing work. I had two young children and my husband was a stay-at-home dad. In one way, it was extremely selfish of me to leave that role. I was the breadwinner. I had all the benefits. Talk about fear when I decided to stay home, but I would leave in the morning, and my kids wouldn't be awake. I would come home at night and they were asleep.   [00:11:35] PP: Oh my God.   [00:11:37] MM: This isn't what I was leaning into. This isn't what I wanted. My husband was 1000% behind me saying, "Yeah, let's do something different. Let's experiment with this." So part of that task of prioritizing happiness is first, realizing that it doesn't just serve us. We serve our children best when we're in a place where we're open, and giving, and loving, not when we're stressed, and unhappy and demanding. The other thing I would say is that, many times it's hard. We think that happiness, we think that prioritizing the successes will bring us happiness. If only I got the right job, if only I had more money, if only I had more time, then I would be happy. It says backwards, because we know that happier people actually set the conditions for more success. So we're actually starting with the primary view. This is what Live Happy teachers all the time, right? This is the basic premise that if we begin with a sense of grounding, and who we are, and using our strengths of showing up in the world in a way that's pointed to the best of who we are. People will enjoy being around us, we'll get more done. So what is selfish about that? We tend to think as women, we need to be martyrs to flagellate ourselves to do more, get more done, to give more, give more, and let me sacrifice myself on the martyrdom of motherhood or womanhood. It's just – how's that going for you? [00:13:09] PP: Yeah. There's a lot of people I'm sure who are seeing themselves right now in that, because I think we all do. It's become so second nature for us. So give me this high-level view of the steps that you took, and that you've learned and you use toward creating personal happiness. [00:13:27] MM: Sure. This was at first a struggle for me, because this didn't come about until I created the Wholebeing Institute. With that creation of Wholebeing Institute in 20 years of evidence-based work, both in yoga and mind body, medicine and in the field of positive psychology, I was grappling around. What I hope to do is give you an overview of how to save two decades of trying into a really cohesive path. I wish I had this program 20 years ago; I would have saved myself a whole lot of time. So I'm going to give you in the next 15 minutes or so an overview of the steps that we take our students through in nine months. This is nine months of community connectedness, where we're all working towards our highest and best and learning what does it mean to live a happier life. It begins at the very start of the course with the understanding that who you are is more than who think yourself to be. What I mean by that is the concept of self. It isn't just one self that lives within us. We identify the different selves of sometimes, we have an ought self speaking to us. I really ought to just work harder and give more to my kids and give more to my family. I really ought to bring on the paycheck, stop complaining, be – I really ought to be grateful for what I have. This ought self voice inside of us that is one voice of a self. We have our authentic self that in this moment might be happy, sad, challenged, angry, all the things that can come up now. But we also have these things in our head, these concepts of ourselves that are called possible selves. That when we do this mental time travel into the future, we see ourselves in different ways. Sometimes we see ourselves a successful business people, or a loving mother, or becoming a loving grandmother. Or sometimes we have these possible selves that scare us, "I'm going to want to die broke" or "I'm going to retire and be all alone or won't have enough money to get by" or "I'll never find happiness" or "I'll never find a mate." These possible selves are all mental concepts in our head about either what we want, or what we're afraid of. Usually, at 2:00 a.m. in the morning is when we’re creative, right?   [00:15:49] PP: Exactly.   [00:15:50] MM: The first thing to do is identify all of those selves that live in this ecosystem of your own experience. Then, when we get them on paper through this process of working together in this course, you can then decide upon the narrative of the possible self that you want to start taking action on and working into today. So we actually pick a possible self that we need for ourselves, the ideal self. This is my ideal. Why that's important and why it's different than goals? Then we have some sort of measure, "Oh, this is the direction I'm heading. This is how I want to craft my life." This becomes a deliberate shaping instead of a, "Let me try this, and let me try that." It's a deliberate shaping of today towards a possible self. And you'll find that, "Wow! There were times when my possible self is here right now and today." That's what's so brilliant about it. As we go through day by day in the program, we realized that there were times as we work towards our ideal self, that we have to understand the concept of learning as a goal before we perform as a goal. I know early on 20 years ago, when I left my corporation, started my own business, I was do, do, do in a performance type mode. Let me do this, let me try that, let me get this done. What we're saying in the sacred time of a liminal space of moving towards your ideal that there is a learning goal before you get to the performance. That's why we take nine months to do it. It's interesting when I think, even in the last few years with the pandemic, a lot of people are in a place of asking themselves. "Oh, that was a completely different experience. What did I want to take from that and shape from that into the next steps?" Because we're all of a sudden entering back into the workforce and feeling, "Wow, that pace has picked up again. I'm right back to where I used to be. How can I shape this more than ever?" [00:17:51] PP: Right. And you wonder, am I still willing to tolerate that? Is that still what fulfills me even/ I think that has changed the way we receive work. [00:18:01] MM: So true. Part of that is, we look at the course in the possible selves. Part of it is about defining ourself, our ideal self. I call that selfing. Selfing in a way in a positive way.   [00:18:15] PP: I like that,   [00:18:17] MM: Right. How are we constructing who we are in our experience as humans, such that it's enlivening, and engaging, and it’s being an expression of divine expression of who we are at the core of our being. This is what I would call selfing. But there's also another part of this work that's equally important. This I like to call unselfing. What are we letting go of? What are we realizing that this isn’t helping us anymore, this way of thinking, of believing. I don't need to hold on to. One of the things we teach in the course is a five-pointed a methodology for wellbeing. It's called SPIRE. [00:19:01] PP: I love this methodology. Yes, explain this to us.   [00:19:04] MM: Each of those belong to a different category of wellbeing. First is spiritual, mindfulness and meaning. What is it that you believe in that's bigger than yourself, that you can let go and trust into, meaning in your life? Because if you go at this happiness thing as you're carrying everything on your own shoulders, it really becomes heavy in and of itself. It's just builds on the ego, so what do you need to let go of and spiritually connect with? Could be your religion, divine, nature, God, the peace, your physical wellbeing. Not only your nutrition, your eating, your exercise, but how are you using your body as a container to express that idea itself? How do you move in the world? I is for intellectual or inquiry. What are you interested in? Curiosity and openness to experience enlivens us, so what are those things that do that for you? What's the relational wellbeing you have? We know that relationships are the number one predictor of wellbeing, so cultivate consciously in its course. How to map your network of relations? Which ones are you using in a way that's elevating? Which ones might you have to just clip back a little bit because they're actually not serving you? The last one of the models is emotional wellbeing, speaking about the power of positive emotions and how to use them to broaden and build your experience. So that the power of the negativity bias that we all have is decreased. So that's the SPIRE model that we use to both build the positive self and unself, letting go of what we don't need. [00:20:38] PP: That's fantastic. I know you've seen it change your own life. You're seeing it change the lives of others. What point in the program does that hit? Is that about halfway through, three-fourths of the way through that you've hit this point of being able to let go? [00:20:52] MM: Well, it's a process. It's so interesting to watch people go through the course, because it is sort of this unfolding. This unfolding doesn't have a specific timeframe. We've had people start at the very beginning of the program, where we unveil that SPIRE methodology and say, "Ah. This is a whole different way of thinking about how I'm working in the day" to then moving on to really defining happiness for ourselves. Actually, in defining that happiness and understanding the components of it emotionally, using our strengths, and using a meaning, it opens us up. So we begin not only to learn the content, but connect with others, the faculty, the group, because we all go through it as a cohort together. In that conversation, community is one of the most powerful. We hear again, and again, it's the most powerful, is working in connectedness around this topic, this content. Because in module three, what we do is we put people into small groups. We call the learning pods. So, you will be working very closely with other people in the group, define how you're using that content for yourself, and talk about how your day is unfolding and how you're utilizing it. That's usually a game changer for people this unfolding of angst, not just about happiness, it's not just about content, it's really working with others who are defining their next step in life. Or imagine, if you're in a small group, someone thinking about retirement and you're working with a woman who is looking at a career change, right? Or a coach who's looking to build this in their business. Those rich conversations inform. Then, in the next module, you talk about what habits am I building on a day-to-day basis. This is all about habit change. So we spend a month on what are you doing every day that's elevating you and bringing you towards your ideal. It could be something as simple as taking pictures or something beautiful every day. Could be doing a vision board, clipping a picture for a vision board every day for 30 days. It doesn't matter what you do, but what you're doing is activating over 30 days, a habit creation. We talk a lot about the science. Then, because no man is an island and a woman is an island, we talk about relationships. How do you really have conversations and relationships that are active and constructive? Mapping out that relational list is so important to understand. It's only then, after we've gone through all of this work, that we asked you what goals are important to you. [00:23:32] PP: That's the opposite of what we’re used to. I love that. [00:23:37] MM: Most people will start with – and then, do you ever find yourself picking a million goals, because you don't know which one is the right one to pick it and try –here, it's almost – with the start of this new year, people have already probably saying, "Oh, that was the wrong goal. I don't want to do that one." But after you understand what happiness is, how you're applying it in group conversations, and how you're creating habits, then you can ask yourself, "Okay. What's important to me? What goal do I want to reach?" So we have a change model where we get clear on what we want, we activate hope. We then activate our actions, and we go forward and navigate this change going for those things that are important to us. So this is the change model. We spend a month on this. Because our goals never go the way we planned them out in our head, right? Obstacles arise, difficulties arise, irritating people arise. The next month we spend on resilience, right? Things are not going to go the way we expected. Resilience is key. How do we have a setback, and then move forward, and then life happens and we move around? How do we think about in context of mindset, and a way of moving forward where we become better at resilience, of moving, of expounding no matter what happens, we're bouncing back, or bouncing forward passed where we were before. I teach the next module, which is the module on leadership. Because at the end of the day, you're becoming a leader in your own mind? How do we think about the power of leadership in our own life? What that does that mean in context with others? So we begin to actually be a hero in our own journey instead of the victim played out by others. Then we come together again, the last module, which is where the students present their final project, which is what was most personally compelling to them. You started this question, when does the unfolding happen? Anywhere and everywhere again, and again in that process, because this human life is about unfolding. What we try and create in the connectedness of the program is a positive, upward spiral that is ever broadening and growing over time. We keep seeing more, and more and more. It doesn't end even after – [00:25:59] PP: Even after the course.   [00:26:00] MM: It doesn't end.   [00:26:02] PP: Let me ask you. What are some of the most compelling stories you've seen in people, some of the transformations that you've seen in people who have gone through your program? [00:26:11] MM: What’s been really interesting, and one of the things that we look at is, what difference does this make in your day-to-day life. There was this one woman, I remember specifically was in tears when we first got together, because she was so miserable in her very highly successful job. She's just – you could tell, she was one of these goal getters, she would just get things done. She says, "But I'm miserable. I'm just absolutely a cranky woman." Her final project was about daily blessings. She set up this mason jar in her home, so when she got together with dinner with her husband and her children, they created a family ritual of counting blessings, and they would put blessings into that jar. Talk about it and put it into the jar. And it became sort of a habit in the family. So it changed not only her life. She came back like a completely different person, because her final project was about counting blessings, not burdens. She came back a completely different person. Her family life had changed, because of that interaction. Another example are people who are coaches, and I've been approaching their coaching work from the premise of how to be a good coach. What they wanted to do is understand how to ask questions that elicited the best out of the clients that they were working with. So they actually wanted the skills of positive psychology to increase their practice of coaching. What they found happening is that, help them get clear about who they were coaching, what they were coaching people towards, so they get clarity on their own business and their own self in it. So we have a lot of solopreneurs, who – whether they have therapists, or coaches, or teachers, wellness practitioners that not only want to use this in their practice, but they use it for themselves. So they go through this program, and they realize that their life is happier as they help others in their life. [00:28:13] PP: What a benefit of – you're doing it for somebody else, but then you end up being able to give this gift to yourself and a lasting one. I love the fact that people are going through this with someone else, because I've seen that power of connection. I know, I've been in programs where, say, a woman didn't feel supported by her family, or by her husband for going through this. That is so important to have that little community. So even if the rest of your world is kind of disintegrating or not supportive, you've got that community that you've built. I imagine that that community lasts long after the program. [00:28:51] MM: Long after. We've been in business for 10 years; we still have our first small groups back 10 years ago tell me that they're still meeting as a group. I guess, this is sort of close out this conversation by asking viewers to think about. If you stayed on the trajectory of doing what you're doing now, where will you be in nine months? If you took the program and helped you shape possible self future into your ideal self, what would look different in your day, nine months from today? That's really the promise of stepping into the science of human flourishing. [00:29:24] PP: That is so powerful. Megan, we're going to tell our listeners where they can learn more about your program. We're going to send them to our website. You've got some great handouts that we're going to let them download from there for free. Tell them more about the program and let them know how they can sign up for this. As we finish this out, is there any other message that we haven't covered today that you really hope everybody hears as I walk away from this? [00:29:50] MM: I want to say thank you to you. We've worked together for years. So my first thing is just gratitude for you in the work at Live Happy. The second thing I want to say is I look forward to seeing your listeners in the course and getting to work with them, and a certificate of Wholebeing Positive Psychology. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:30:10] PP: That was Megan McDonough, founder of the Wholebeing Institute, talking about how we can take the next step to move toward happiness. If you visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab, you can download a free set of worksheets to help you identify what internal signals you're receiving about personal change, and help you think about how this can become a time of positive growth. We'll also tell you more about Megan, the Wholebeing Institute, and the certificate in Wholebeing Positive Psychology and how this nine-month program can help you walk through the changes you're experiencing. We'll also give you a special link just for live Happy listeners to learn more about the program and how you can be a part of it. Enrollment is underway now for the program that begins in March. Again, just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. We hope you have enjoyed this special episode of Live Happy Presents. From Megan McDonough and myself, Paula Phelps, thank you for joining us and remember to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Making the Most of Your Time with Cassie Holmes  [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 401 of Live Happy Now. Do you feel like you have plenty of time to do all the things you need to get done? Or are you like the rest of us, who are just trying to fit it all in? I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm talking with Cassie Holmes, an award-winning teacher and researcher on time and happiness and author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. Cassie is here today to talk about what it means to feel time poor, and why that has become so prevalent today. Then, she'll explain how we can learn to better structure our days and begin using our time, instead of losing it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:45] PF: Cassie, thank you for coming on Live Happy Now. [0:00:48] CH: Thanks so much for having me, Paula. I'm excited to chat with you. [0:00:52] PF: Well, you have written an amazing book that takes on a huge topic that so many people are dealing with today. I think, before we really dive into that, can you clarify by telling us what you mean when you say time poverty? [0:01:05] CH: Yeah. Time poverty is the acute feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. I am sure, even if you haven't heard that term before, everyone knows exactly what that is, because they felt it is really prevalent. We conducted a national poll that showed that nearly half of Americans feel time poor. That they don't have enough time to do what they set out to do. [0:01:33] PF: That's amazing. Because I mentioned this book to my nurse practitioner when I was seeing her a couple weeks ago. She was like, “Time poor. I'm not familiar with that.” I explained, not as eloquently as you just did, and she was like, “So that's what you call it.” [0:01:48] CH: Yeah, exactly. [0:01:49] PF: Like you said, and even if they haven't heard the term, everyone has experienced this. I find myself saying a lot like, okay, our parents didn't live this way. What happened? Where did the time go? Why is it that we are all living in such a time crunch? [0:02:04] CH: Yeah. It's a really important question. Because it is such an issue. It's an issue, because it's so prevalent, as I said. It's an issue, because it has really negative consequences, which we can speak to in a second. In terms of why, why is it that we feel this way? I think there's a couple of factors that contribute to it. One is cultural. That there's been this taking on as viewing busyness, almost as a status symbol, a signal of competence, and that you're needed. Then we take on so much, because we feel like we should, right? It's that productivity orientation. Also, recognizing that it is a feeling of having too little time to do all that you want to and think you should be doing. That expectation of what we think we should and could be doing is influenced by technology, to be honest. I think that our smartphones are so useful in so many ways. They help us do those things that we should be doing, to check tasks off our to-do lists. We can order groceries at any moment. We can coordinate schedules. We can respond to emails. Also, it's the idea of all the things we could be doing at that moment. With social media, you have this constant view into other people's lives, but only their happiest moments of their lives. [0:03:32] PF: Like the highlight films. [0:03:35] CH: Right. It's like seeing. Well, you're waiting in line at the coffee shop, or at the grocery store, you're looking at your phone and seeing the amazing vacation, or the fun meal that someone is having and have like, “Oh, I could be doing that right now.” As well as we could be learning Spanish at any moment, watching a performance somewhere. Of course, there's no way that we would have time to do all this notion of what we could and should be doing. I think that that's also one of the culprits of why we feel time poor. [0:04:11] PF: Right. We're going to obviously get more into what it means to be time poor and what it's doing to us, but one thing that I found so interesting early on, that you talk about having too much free time is just as detrimental as not having enough free time. I've found that so fascinating. Can you explain why? Can you also talk about what that sweet spot is of that perfect amount of free time? [0:04:37] CH: Yeah. I think that's a really important learning from the data for all of us who feel time poor. Because in those days and in those states where we feel so time stretched, oftentimes, I know for myself, for instance, I have been like, I don't know if I can do it. I need to quit. There's no way, so I should quit this job that I love so much and I've worked so hard for it, but it's just not possible. We day dream. “If only I had all the hours of my days. Living on a beach somewhere.” [0:05:07] PF: I'd been Costa Rica picking whatever is in Costa Rica. [0:05:11] CH: Yeah. Surely, I would be happier. But is that true? In our work, we looked at with Hal Hershfield and Marissa Sharif, what's the relationship between the amount of discretionary time people have and their happiness? Among our studies, including looking at data from the American Time Use Survey. Looking for among tens of thousands of working, as well as non-working Americans, how they spent a regular day. We could calculate the amount of time they spent on discretionary activities. Across studies, we found this consistent pattern of results. Namely, it was a upside down U-shape, or like an arc, or rainbow, suggesting that on both ends of the spectrum, people are less happy. In that data, we found that folks with less than approximately two hours of discretionary time in the day, they were unhappy. Those were the time for folks. That's because heightened feelings of stress. On the other side, we saw that those with more than approximately five hours of discretionary time in the day, were also less happy. The reason is, because we are driven to be productive. We are averse to being idle. When we have all the hours of our days open and available, and we spend them with nothing to actually show for how we spent that time, it undermines our sense of purpose. With that, we feel dissatisfied. I also want to note that it's not just that paid work is a way of spending that gives us purpose. For many of us, it actually is. Volunteer work, engaging in a hobby that's really enriching and develops us, that's also worthwhile ways of spending. Actually, we see that when people spend their discretionary time in worthwhile ways, that you don't see this too much time effect. You don't see that more is better. You don't see that too much time effect. This is, I think, important for all of us, in those heady days to not quit. Don't quit. Don't sell your house and move to the island, because a weekend, you will be bored and looking for a sense of purpose. [0:07:29] PF: Yeah. As I was reading that, I was thinking about some of the research that exists on people, how the death rate goes up when people retire. It's not really associated with declining health. It really ties back into what you were talking about, when they lose a sense of purpose and their overall happiness goes down, their overall well-being goes down, I feel like, that's got to be connected. [0:07:48] CH: Absolutely. Related to that you see among retirees who actually do volunteer work, that you see higher levels of satisfaction. When you have that available time, is making sure that you invest it in ways that do feel worthwhile, that give you that sense of purpose. Again, our days living on the beach might not be quite as happy as we daydream about. [0:08:16] PF: Absolutely. One exercise that you offer that people can really help to figure out their days is time tracking. I thought this was so excellent. We'll make sure that we have a link to your site, so people can go and download these, because you have given some wonderful worksheets and exercises. Can you talk about time tracking and how it works and why it is so important in the way we see our days, and the way we start shaping our days? [0:08:42] CH: Absolutely. In terms of how to live days that feel fulfilling and satisfying, the trick is to really maximize the amount of time that's spent on activities that feel worthwhile. Minimize the amount of time that is spent on activities that feel like a waste. Then, the question is, well, what are those activities that are worthwhile? Research does time tracking to pull out tracking for that individual, or among a broad sample of people, what activities they spend their time on, how they feel over the course of their day, so they could pull out on average, what are those activities that are associated with the most positive emotion? What are those activities that are associated with most negative emotion? You see that on average, activities that are socially connecting, so whether intimately, or spending time with family and friends are the most positive. You see the most negative are commuting, working and doing housework. Maybe not surprising. What's important is that this is based off of averages. There are some folks and I would like to put myself in the category of work is actually a great source of satisfaction. Also, there are instances of socializing that are not at all fun. I suggest that people track their own time for a week. The worksheet is on my website. It's so simple. I mean, granted is somewhat tedious for that week, but it's worth it. [0:10:12] PF: It pays off. [0:10:14] CH: Is that for every half hour, write down what you're doing, the activity. Being more specific than just work, or socializing. What work activity are you doing, so that you can pull out what are those activities that are the good ones? Also, whether those ways of socializing that are the good/bad ones. Because in addition to writing down what you're doing is rating on a 10 point scale, how it made you feel coming out of it. Of satisfied, happy fulfilling. Then what's wonderful is at the end of the week, you have this fantastic personalized data set. You can look across your time and see what are those activities that were your most positive. Also, what are commonalities across them. You might see, for instance, that actually, it's not socializing per se, or being not at work. It's for me, it was like, I really value one-on-one time, whether with a family member, or a friend, or a colleague, that was actually time that was really fulfilling for me. Then I also recognized in groups, less fulfilling. But that's me. You, as you have your own data, you can really hone in on what are those activities that feel not satisfying. To dig into the commonalities to figure out why. Also, you can see just how much time you're spending across your various activities. Helping you pull out like, “Holy cow. I had no idea that I was spending that much time on social media, or watching TV, or burning like, oh, email.” It's like, my entire life is spent on email. Recognizing that, in fact, maybe not surprising for email, but for some, it's actually quite surprising that social media doesn't make them feel very good, even though they have it in their head like, “Oh, this is my fun time. This is my me time.” It's really helpful to have this information to see where you're spending your time, such that there are opportunities to reallocate away from these times that are actually somewhat of a waste, according to you, not according to me, but according to your own data, so that you can reallocate them towards those activities that are more worthwhile. In the context of time poverty, where so many of us feel we don't have enough time, this is really important information to find pockets, where actually, we do have available time. If we spend it on ways that are more fulfilling, then perhaps, and I experienced this myself and have heard from readers, perhaps at the end of the week, even if you're busy, you look back and you feel fulfilled and satisfied and happy, because you spent on these worthwhile things. [0:13:09] PF: That exercise really reminded me of when you're going to go see a nutritionist, or something, they say, write down everything you eat for a week. You're like, “Oh, I got this. I'm going to blow it away.” Then you're like, “Oh, wow. I didn't realize I really picked up that many little pieces of chocolate, or whatever.” It's like, it really does make you sit down and think, “Wow, okay. There are areas where it's not just time has been stolen from me. I am generously giving it away.” What a great way to reset and figure out how to change that. You also give tips for making chores, or things that you don't love doing. Say, housework. How do you make that more enjoyable and feel more fulfilling? [0:13:48] CH: Time tracking, or even in your reflection, there are activities that are not fun. That's just – [0:13:53] PF: We can't just quit doing them, I guess. [0:13:54] CH: You can't quit doing. They’re necessary. Unless, you want your family, or housemates to kick you out, because you're not contributing to chores. We do have to do them. I do share some strategies to make them feel more positive. One of those is bundling. This is out of research by Katie Milkman and her colleagues. It's so simple yet so effective. Is basically, you bundle this activity that you don't enjoy doing, like chores, like folding the laundry, and you bundle it with an activity that you do enjoy, such that that time that you're spending becomes more worthwhile. It becomes more fun. For example, folding the laundry, if you bundle that with watching your TV show. Actually, one of readers was saying that her husband is now bundling ironing with watching sports and he is now so excited to iron each week, because he sets up the ironing board in front of the TV and that is his dedicated time to watch sports. Commuting, that was one of those other activities that is just so painful, because you're waiting through it. You just want to get there already, and it feels like a waste. During your commute, if you're driving, listen to an audiobook. Or if you're on the subway, or bus, read a book. When in this work on time poverty, I ask people to complete the sentence, I don't have time to. One of a very frequent response is, I don't have time to read for pleasure. If every time you got in your car, or that you're on the train going to work, you are “reading,” then you'll get through a book every week or so. All of a sudden, that time that was a chore, or felt like a waste feels more worthwhile and fun. [0:15:49] PF: One thing that you bring out and we all know this is true that when we feel pressed for time, the first things that go out the window seem to be those things that are going to make us feel better and are good for us, things like exercise, things like preparing our meals, so we're eating more healthy. How do we change our mindset and realize that those are the things we need to schedule in first, so that we don't just disregard them? [0:16:12] CH: Exactly. Exercise is a really important one, because exercise is an activity that has direct implications, not only for your health, but your emotional well-being. It's a mood booster. It is very effective at offsetting anxiety, which so many people are suffering from. Also, offsetting depression. It makes us feel really good about ourselves. Once we do make that time, we realize that we can do it. Actually, in terms of our feeling of being time poor, a part of that is that we don't have the confidence that we can accomplish what we set out to do, given the resources that we have, namely the time that we have. If you actually spend your time in ways that increase your self-efficacy, like exercise, then and I can speak to myself and I share this as an anecdote in the book is that, like you said, when I feel busy, my morning run is the first thing I give up. When I make the time and I'm out there running, it's like, “Oh, my gosh.” Thank, gosh, I did, because I'm feeling good. I feel like, I can take on the day on those important things. With that sense of accomplishment, it expands my sense of how much time I have available to do and complete what I set out to do. Both exercise, as well as doing acts of kindness. I have research that shows that when we actually spend time to give a little to someone else, that increases our sense of accomplishment, and self-efficacy. It actually increases our sense of time affluence, too. But it's important that it's giving time, not that time is being taken from you. [0:18:07] PF: You're an expert at this. How do you tell yourself, go ahead, invest the time, do the exercise, take the time to prepare your meals, whatever it takes? We can make a habit out of it. Once we get into that groove after 30 or 60 days, it's not that difficult, but how do we then, we're at this time of the year where people are trying to develop new habits anyway, so this might as well be one. How do we do that? [0:18:30] CH: It's such an exciting time of the year as people with that fresh start, looking for it and becoming more intentional. Actually, towards the end of the book, I have this chapter on time crafting. Pulling all of the strategies together from across the book, how do you design your week, such that you are protecting, carving out time for those things that matter, putting them into your schedule, so my Monday morning run. In many cases, it's the time and investing in those relationships that are so important to us that often do get neglected, when we're in a hurry. Putting those things into the schedule first. Protecting them. Also, placing them in that important work that you love so much. Your deep-thinking work. Put it into your schedule, so that it doesn't get filled by unnecessary meetings, or even responding to email. So that you make sure that you do have that time in the part of your day where you're most alert and most creative, and then seeing, consolidating the activities that you don't enjoy doing, because as we start activities and our anticipation of those activities have a big effect. If we condense them, then all the bad stuff, it's less painful if you get it all done together. Whereas watching TV, for instance, that first half hour is great. Five hours in on binging, less enjoyable. In fact, quite anxiety producing, because you feel really guilty and bad about yourself and it's not even fun at that point anyway. Putting those half hours and being really intentional. I do talk a lot about how to design your week, so that you are making time for the things that matter. Highlighting and increasing the impact of those activities that really matter. This is so important to do, because – Can I share an analogy that I think is – [0:20:35] PF: Please do. [0:20:36] CH: - really helpful for folks to have in their heads? I continue to touch back on it, when I'm making my own time saving, or spending decisions. It's an analogy about prioritization. It's nicely depicted in a short film that I share in actually the first day of my class that I teach to MBAs on how to be happy applying the science of happiness. In the film, a professor walks into his classroom and on the desk, he puts this large, clear jar. Then into the jar, he pours golf balls up to the very top, and he asked the students, is the jar full? The students nod their head, because it looks full. Nope. Then he pulls from a bag on the side, pebbles, and he pours the pebbles into the jar and they fill the spaces between the golf balls, reached the very top and asked the students, “Is the jar full?” They’re like, “Yes.” But he's like, “Nope.” Then he pours sand into the jar and it fills all those spaces between the golf balls, between the pebbles, up to the very top and he asked the students, “Is the jar full?” By this point, they're laughing. They’re like, “Yes.” He explains like, this jar is the time of your life. The golf balls are all those things that really matter to you. Your relationships with your family members, your friendships, that work that you truly care about. The pebbles are those other important things in your life, like your job, your house, the sand is everything else. The sand is all of that stuff that just fills your time without you even thinking about it, whether it's social media. For me, the email inbox. For some, it’s TV. It’s like, those never-ending requests that come in that it's easier to say yes to than no. Even though, you don't really care about what that task is. What's really important to note is that had he put the sand into the jar first, all of the golf balls would not have fit. That is if we let our time get filled, it will get filled with sand. We won't have had time, we wouldn't have spent the time on those things that really matter to us. We have to identify what are those golf balls, put them into our schedules first. Protect, prioritize that time. Then the sand will fill the rest, absolutely. We need to be really intentional and thoughtful. The time tracking exercise that I mentioned was one way to really identify, what are those golf balls for you, such that when you are designing your week, you're doing the time crafting part of it. That goes into your schedule first. That morning run, or whatever your form of exercise is actually really important. Put that into your schedule for us. Because actually, for exercise for instance, not only does it influence how you feel while you're doing it. You get that mood boost and sense of self efficacy, but also it colors how you experience the rest of your day. It has a really big impact, beyond just the experience itself. [0:23:34] PF: That is so huge. I know we have to let you go, but there was one more strategy you talked about that I had never heard of. Absolutely fell in love with, and really want you to share this with our listeners. That's the idea of time left. That was so powerful. Can you talk about what that technique is and why it works so beautifully. [0:23:55] CH: Yeah. I'm so glad you asked about that, because I do think it's a really important one. It is recognizing that some of those golf balls are really, actually from simple, ordinary moments in our life. These everyday moments, like a coffee date for me with my daughter, or having dinner with your family. Or, it's just these everyday moments that sometimes we're moving through them, because they're so every day that we expect they will continue to happen every day. But that's not true. Our time is passing, our time is fleeting, and circumstances in our life are changing. If those sorts of activities that bring joy involve someone else, circumstances in their life, too, are changing. One way to make it so that we do pay attention, we prioritize time and pay attention during these sorts of simple joys that are right there and the time we're already spending is to count the times left. Picking a experience that brings you joy and calculating, how many times have you done it in your life so far? The next step is to calculate, how many times do you expect to have do this activity in the future, accounting for the fact that circumstances in your life will change, if it involves another, circumstances in the other person's life will change. The last step is to calculate of the total times doing this activity in your life, what percentage do you have left? More often than not, it's way less than you think. Initially, it's sad. But the benefits of seeing this is really worth that initial sadness, is because what it does is it makes me protect the time. Then also, it influences how you experience that time, knowing that it is limited, that it is so precious, we remove those distractions, so that phone gets put away, that constant to-do list that's running in our heads, that gets quieter, because we realize that this is the time of our life that really matters, and to really make it count. It doesn't have to be a whole lot. All of us who are time poor, it doesn't have to be a lot of time for these activities to have a really big impact on how satisfied we feel in our weeks, how fulfilled we feel in our lives. I think that the counting times left is a very lenient and impactful exercise to make us spend our time on the activities that matter, as well as make the most of those times when we're spending them. [0:26:29] PF: I would say, that is correct, because that, like I said, it just stopped me when I read that. That's absolutely incredible. This book is so full of strategies, information, hope, techniques. What is it that you really hope readers take away from it? [0:26:46] CH: I hope that people just become more intentional in the time that they're spending and to really soak up. There's so much happiness and joy right there that's available, no matter how time poor, no matter other constraints that we have facing our lives, that there is a lot of happiness and joy available to us, if we are that intentional about the way that we spend our time. [0:27:13] PF: Cassie, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We're going to tell our listeners more about your book, where they can find it. Thank you for writing this. This is something we all need. It's presented so incredibly well. I really appreciate it. [0:27:28] CH: Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. It was a treat. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:27:35] PF: That was Cassie Holmes, talking about how to make the most of our time. If you'd like to learn more about Cassie and her book, download some free worksheets to help you plan your time better, or follow her on social media, visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. While you're on the website, be sure to drop by the Live Happy Store and check out our great selection of Live Happy gear and merch, so you can show the world how you live happy. That is all we have time for today. We will meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Transformative Power of Rocking Out with David Fishof    [INTRO]   [00:00:04] PF: What's up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note, where I sit down with a songwriter, recording artist, or music insider to learn how music can lift our spirits and heal our hearts. Growing up, most of us dreamed of being able to meet our favorite musicians. But this week's guest has taken it one step farther. David Fishof is a legendary music producer and Founder of the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, which invites everyday people to play alongside world renowned rock stars. David has seen firsthand the incredible power of music and how it transforms people, just like you and me, both in their personal lives and their professional aspirations. His amazing story is told in the new documentary, Rock Camp, available now on Amazon, as well as in the book by the same name. Today, he's here to tell us more about how Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp began and how he has seen music changed the lives of hundreds of people along the way. Let's take a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:01:04] PF: David, thank you so much for coming on the show today. [00:01:07] DF: Really looking forward to it. [00:01:08] PF: I am so honored that you are taking the time to sit down with me. You've created something that has become legendary. So can you talk about, first of all, how the whole idea to do a Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp began? [00:01:21] DF: Well, it began when I was doing Ringo’s tour. I created Ringo’s All-Starr Band in ‘89. After four shows, people told me it was never going to work, and I'd get all these superstars in one band touring for 30 shows. It’s great. You can do a One Night Live Aid. You can do a benefit concert. But to get all these bands to become one band, leaders of all these bands, it's never going to work. I love when people tell me something can't happen, and I just love to do it, and I put it together. After the fourth show, all the musicians knew all the fear. They all hear that it was never going to work. So I was having dinner with the president of Radio City Music Hall because Ringo said to me, “I want to play Radio City.” So I said great. So I invited the guy to come see to the show, and we're having dinner. All of a sudden backstage, the late Clarence Clemons walks by my table, and he says, “Fishof, I'm out of here.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “This thing's not going to work. Too much fighting.” Second later, I turned to the other side, and there’s Nils Lofgren. He says, “I'm out of here too, Fishof. This thing's not going to work.” Now, you have to understand, as a promoter, I mortgaged my townhouse in Manhattan to make this tour happen. [00:02:34] PF: So you're feeling a little pressure at this point. [00:02:36] DF: I’m feeling a little pressure, yeah. The first visual that came to me was I saw my townhouse going down the Hudson River. So I said, “What's the problem?” They said, “Well, you know, this Joe Walsh and Levon Helm are fighting, and they're fighting over songs. You've got to go in there and break it up.” So the first thing I do is I'm going to go look for Ringo because these guys are 10 years older than me. He could talk their language, and he can probably knock some sense into him. I can't find him. He's nowhere to be found. To this day, I forgot to ever ask him where he went. But I go down to the dressing room, and the security guard says, “You better go in there.” I see – I walk in. They open the door. There’s Joe Walsh with a knife and blood on his hands, and there’s Levon Helm with a glass bottle, screaming at each other, “You F-ing this, and you –” They were crazy. “You ruined my song.” I walk in like, “Are you guys a bunch of babies?” You could see in the documentary, I'm scared. I'm literally scared. Then they push me, and they throw blood at me. Then they both turned around, and they stuck their tongues out at me. Jim Keltner, the great drummer, he filmed the whole thing. It’s so funny because when you see the video in the movie, it's amazing. Dr. John is there, Rick Danko, Billy Preston, all those superstars in that first Ringo tour. While my heart was beating heavy, I realized later that night. I said, “These people are having a lot of fun,” and I kept seeing how much fun we had on tour. I said, “Boy, if I could give this to the fan, if I could give this to the fan that they can hang with these rockers, and they were writing music. They were getting creative.” There was so much peace and love, as Ringo says, because they just wanted to be like Joe Walsh. We have a democratic band. Whatever Ringo tells us we do. [00:04:17] PF: Democratic dictatorship, right? [00:04:19] DF: Yeah, exactly. It was just seeing that vibe. I kept saying – I even told Ringo. I said, “Boy, if we can find a guy with a private plane that can just fly us around, let him hang with us.” I tried to find every reason to give people this experience because everyone kept thinking there’s fighting, and it’ll never work. That’s how I created the idea of a Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. I wanted to give people this experience to hang with these rock stars and just see how remarkable they are. They’ve gotten – They even got bad names, and people think they’re wild, and they weren't. I mean, five guys in that tour went to rehab but not in front of me. Not in front of me. [00:04:55] PF: Not on your dime. [00:04:56] DF: Yeah. They were so well-behaved and Ringo too. They were well-behaved. But what they did in the background. So it was amazing. That's how I came up with the idea of Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. [00:05:09] PF: Well, what is it that made you think, “I need to give this to the regular fan.”? Because as musicians, they appreciate the fan. They need the fan. But you had that insight of, “Gosh, I should bring them into this.” [00:05:23] DF: So as a producer my entire career, it's always been about the fan. Whether I created a baseball camp for kids years ago with looping all of the Yankees, or I would produce the Happy Together Tour. I came up with this idea to put these four bands together. I always insisted that these bands play only hit songs because I hate to go to a show and see when the artist says, “Oh, I want to play this deep cut from my new album.” I go, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.” I call it the bathroom cut. That’s where everybody wants [inaudible 00:05:55]. I want to hear the hits. [00:05:58] PF: Exactly. [00:05:59] DF: I'm a believer that if you go to a show, and it's a two-hour show, and if you think of anything else but that show, and you're thinking about my issues and my problems, my relationships, my work, then the artists has not done a great job. So I’m always thinking how the fan is thinking, and I wish more artists would think that. But I know they want to promote their new albums and their new – But I'm always thinking about the fan. [00:06:21] PF: You created this experience. Did you have the expectation or the dream that it would ever become as big as it has? [00:06:28] DF: No. I thought it was a one-off. [00:06:31] PF: Yeah, totally a one-off. I did it for fun. I do a one-off. I'm never doing this thing again. I'll tell you what changed. I did one, I lost money, and then I didn't do it again. But every day, I would get an email. “When are you doing Rock and Roll Fantasy? What are you doing again? What are you doing again?” Then I was at this Pollstar convention, and Pollstar is our industry. They were playing a game with Sammy Hagar, Tommy Lee, and Tommy Shaw. They were playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I'm sitting there. It was like a fun thing because it's for promoters, and it's for different promoters, and it's for promoters and managers and agents to come together and talk about the music industry. So one night, they were having fun, and the host asked a question. Who created Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp; David Bowie, David Byrne, David Fishof? Sammy Hagar yelled out, “David Fishof.” I was walking out of the room, and I saw Bon Jovi, and he's hanging out by the bar, and he walked – He turns to me, and he said, “Fishof, they’re just talking about you.” I said, “What?” Then they told me what happened. I said, “Wow. If these guys remember it, let me do it again.” I decided to do it again four years later, and I called Bret Michaels. I called George Thorogood. I just called everybody that I met backstage at a Ringo show or I knew, and I said, “Hey, would you do this again?” They responded yes, so I did another one in Los Angeles to make some noise. Then I went over to England to see Roger Daltrey because we were friends. He did my British rock symphony, and we had developed a friendship. I said, “Roger, can I come over and see you?” So I went over to see him, and we're sitting at dinner, and he says to me, “So what's going on?” I said, “You know, Roger, I came over to see you because I wanted to turn you on to my Rock Camp, and I want to know if you would do my Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp.” He said, “Oh, no. You should –” I try to do his impression. I'm not good at it. He said, “You should do the Thompson Twins, and you should do Boy George.” The whole night he kept stalling me and stalling me and stalling me. Finally, after two hours, that's what he said to me, and I said, “Roger, what do you mean?” He says, “Well, in England, the word camp is campy, and you should use your village people.” [00:08:36] PF: Completely different interpretation. [00:08:38] DF: Yeah, totally different. So I grew up, and my parents sent me to camp, and it's really a place where you can go meet your idols. “Okay. Let me ask you this, Roger. If you had an opportunity to meet your idol, who would it be?” He turned to me and said, “You introduce me to Levon Helm, and I'll come to your camp.” Wow. So I knew I had that in the back pocket because Levon had just toured with me with Ringo, and I was working together with him, and he was a great guy. I said, “Okay, let me find out.” I went back, and I called Levon, and I said, “Levon, I need a favor.” “Anything you want, David,” he says. “What do you want,” he says. “I need you to come and meet Roger Daltrey at the bottom line, and he wants to meet you from The Who and da, da, da. And I'm doing this camp.” So Levon said yes, and he came, and Roger came. Roger came and did the camp, and he stayed for three days. I asked him to come for a few hours. He comes one day. He just enjoys it so much. He turns to me and said, “When are these bands playing their final show?” I said, “Tomorrow night at the bottom line.” He said, “I want to sing with each one of them.” I mean, that's how generous he is. [00:09:42] PF: That is amazing. [00:09:44] DF: Yes. It’s his idea. He got up there and he sang with each band. Then I realized that so much publicity came out of it. That’s why I decided to do another one and do another one. Then I decided, you know what, I'm going to make this into a full-time gig because I don't want to go on the road anymore. I had enough of the road. I've done it my whole life. Really, I got married again and two kids. I want to be there and do their homework. So that's the start of Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp now. [00:10:12] PF: It seems like the musicians get as much out of it as the fans. [00:10:17] DF: But that's what I wanted to share with you when he said to me did I ever think it would be a success. The reason it's kept so long is because exactly what you said. The rockers get as much out of it as the attendees. So for them, as you'll see in the documentary, it reminds them what it was like when they first started. Nancy Wilson, I’ll never forget what she said to me. She said, “David.” She said, “When we first started our career, it was about becoming a star, becoming a star. The once we reached stardom, we got our hit records, it turned out to be about lawyers, agents, managers, the whole business side. And your camp is pure music, and it's just so –” The hardest thing for me is to get rock stars to do this, no question. But once I get them to do it, and they come, then they come back. Here's what the key is. These people are musicians, the campers. They're just like them. So to me, I'm blown away when Jerry Cantrell walks to camp and sits down and has lunch on the table and so on. I love that. I love when they mingle and then the friendships. There's no question that every rock star said to me, “My best friends are people that have gone to Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp.” So the rockers never met these people. [00:11:28] PF: Right. Always there was a stage between them. [00:11:31] DF: There's always a stage. Then every show I was at, we ran out. We ran out. By the last song, I had to be on the seat in the van. We were getting out there to get on the plane to go the next city. We never met fans. [00:11:43] PF: As much as musicians get out of it, and that's like a bonus for them, but the fans – This is truly life-changing. I won't even call them fans. I'll call it the musicians that go and participate in the camp. [00:11:54] DF: Listen, they’re musicians. Joe Perry said a great line. He says to a guy at Foxwoods. He turned to a guy and he says, “What do you do?” The guy says, “I’m a lawyer,” and he says, “On weekends, I play guitar in my band.” He says to the guy, “You're full of crap.” He says, “You're a musician first.” He says, “You do that legal BS to pay for your guitars.” He says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s me.” So musicians are musicians. If you're a drummer, you're tapping in your mind all day. If you're a guitar player, you're thinking about that guitar playing all day. [00:12:23] PF: So what has this camp done for people in terms of – Gosh, I know that you've got so many different points to hit on. Talk to me about what it has done to transform people's lives, both in their personal life, on the stage. How has it changed people to come and be part of this camp? [00:12:41] DF: Well, first of all, when you play with musicians that are better than you, you're going to get better, and that's the first thing. So if you want to get better as a musician, and then you come to Rock Camp, you will get better. There's no question about it. But more important, the friendships that have come out of camp is just remarkable that you can have your best friend every day going to school. Now, you come to camp, and you're in a band for four days, and these people are like-minded. So you become – They become bands. They become friendships .They meet up all the time. You know Mark Slaughter? He invited his band and said they’re invited. They said, “We're coming, Mark. We're coming to your show, the whole band.” They came, and then Mark stopped the show, and he says, “I have my band from Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp here, and they know my songs very well. Let's bring them on stage here.” He told us his band, “You guys go,” and these guys are going to finish the show and -- [00:13:35] PF: That’s amazing. [00:13:37] DF: So the fantasy just keeps going and going. I mean, yesterday, we have a camper who's got cancer, and the producer of the film, Jeff Roe, calls me and says, “I went to visit this gentleman in the hospital, and he said camp has kept him alive. He said all his friends at camp just encourage him.” “You’ll get to the next camp. We're coming to visit you.” The friendship –Now, those guys are friends for life. But musicians, they find such passion with each other, and the stories are endless. Women, they love their husbands. Their husbands tell me, “My wife's the greatest ever, and she gave me the greatest gift.” Because we guys, we have a pair of brown shoes, black shoes, and a pair of sneakers. That's it. [00:14:18] PF: Right. [00:14:19] DF: We cheap on ourselves. So it's mainly women who buy this, and the women say to me, “My husband comes back. He doesn’t road rage anymore. He's happy.” Because what camp does, it reminds you from childhood with that first song or something that really made you happy. Then all of a sudden, you go through life, and you had no choice. You were a musician in high school or college. Then you have to go find a real job. You go find this real job, and you deal with your daily problems. But the music is really what's pure, and it really brings the happiness. At camp, we cover so many bases. Number one, we'd get you on that stage. So how many musicians haven't ever been on stage before that picked up a guitar? We get you collaborating with your bands and writing songs. So you can't get enough. The biggest issue I have – I don't have but these people have it, when they leave camp. [00:15:10] PF: Yeah. That'd be hard to walk away from because you've been learning, to your point, the fantasy camp. I think you have been living your dream for these four days. [00:15:19] DF: Four days. Now, it's not four days. It starts from the day you sign up. You get a list of songs, and you get Zoom calls, and the bands come together on Zoom in advance. So they come in prepared. With Zoom, we come in. We’re all prepared. But the day you leave, you go home. So inevitably, they call – Stories from like a guy who says, “I’ve been going to therapy for three years.” Finally, the therapist says, “You want your happiness? Go sign up to Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp.” The guy says, “That’s why I came back.” But one story I do want to share with you that was really – It didn't make the film but – Again, each one of these campers has a story. There's no question. There's a story. There's one lady who came to camp, and I invited her because she – Susan Komen Foundation, I reached out and I said, “Send me somebody.” The lady is – A woman had breast cancer, and she's a songwriter and a musician. She came to camp. I remember she came to the meatloaf camp, and I asked her to come back for the interview because she wrote a book after she left camp about how she got better physically and emotionally. She wrote a book called Rocking the Pink, and she credits her experience of Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. I said to her, “So when you left camp, did you get depressed? What happened?” She says no. She says, “I swore when I left camp, I'm never going to write another brief again.” She was a lawyer. “And I'm going to live like these rock stars. I'm going to be authentic, and I'm going to write books because that's really what I want to do. I want to write.” Her name is Lauren Rowe now. She changed her name because of the cancer. She's written 14 bestsellers on – [00:16:53] PF: That's amazing. [00:16:54] DF: Yeah. So I love those kinds of stories. [00:16:57] PF: What are some of the other things that you have seen how it has helped people change their lives? [00:17:03] DF: I've seen it help in business. I heard – I had one of the three owners of Oracle come to my camp. He walks into camp, and he comes with five friends because he can afford it. His wife said surprise them. He goes over to the rock star Bruce Kulick from Kiss, and that was his counselor. Each band is mentored by a touring rock star. He says, “Okay, we want to do this song by the band.” He counselor turns to him and he says, “Okay. Excuse me, sir. But I need to teach it to five other people first, and we can't just start playing the song. I got to make sure they do it right.” All of a sudden, after four days, he turns to me and he says, “You know.” He says, “I learned team building here and –” [00:17:43] PF: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. [00:17:44] DF: To run by company different. I think the success that you can learn from rock and roll is incredible. 10 years ago, I wrote a book called Rock Your Business because I really wanted to share how amazing what you can learn from these rock stars. I mean, how many businesses are 50 years old today and are successful? A lot of them went out of business, whether it's Kodak, whether – People – The only thing that's really maintained over 50 years has been rock and roll, and there’s Rolling Stones. I mean, they're grossing $10 million a night, Kiss a million dollars a night, The Who a million dollars a night. These bands get bigger and bigger, and younger kids want to listen to their music, and it’s on commercials. So from rock and roll, you can learn a lot. Number one is being in a band, the collaboration of being in a band, of having patience and dealing with people and writing. The power of music is just so much bigger than you could ever imagine. I know for myself, if I'm feeling low, I'll put my Spotify on and start my playlist. I'm a different person. I know Tony Robbins said, “Oh, make a move. You can change.” But one lyric can change my mood. [00:18:50] PF: Absolutely. Yeah. I have playlists that are designed for certain – For different moods, for different times in my life. That's how I get through my days. [00:18:59] DF: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that music is so powerful, and it brings so much happiness. [00:19:06] PF: So the fantasy camps continue to go on. You survived the pandemic, and it's going on. How are they evolving? What's coming up next? [00:19:17] DF: The pandemic was scary. Every – [00:19:18] PF: Because face to face was gone. [00:19:21] DF: Face to face. Every musician was scared. I have to say that I came up with this concept of master classes online, with all these superstars, along with my associate, Britt Lightning from Vixen. Every night, we did 163 master classes, whether it was Alice Cooper, Roger Daltrey, the band Styx, the Scorpions. We asked campers to come on, donate money, buy a ticket. Most of the artists use the money to pay their crew and for their charities. Roger Daltrey did it for Teenage Cancer America. Everyone did it for a different charity. It was amazing that every night, 30, 40 people would come on. These musicians, they were scared. They thought they would never perform ever again. They thought it was over. So that was one way that we moved during the pandemic. Now, doing camps, I just did a great camp in New York, and I'm theming it, so I got a Led Zeppelin style camp coming up. Then we opened the woman's camp last year, which was a huge success. We did with Melissa Etheridge and Nancy Wilson, women only. What we did was Britt's idea and to give women an opportunity to come and not worry about some guy, John Doe, and feel comfortable. It was the most successful camp. Why? Because women were just more caring for each other. Well, final night after four days, people bring their families to the show. Once that band performs, they're all running out to dinner and with their family. “Hey, you saw me on stage, and I performed this and that.” At the women's camp, no one left to see – [00:20:54] PF: Really? [00:20:55] DF: Right. Oh, yeah. It was just so amazing. The camaraderie was just so much. It was my favorite experience, and I got to watch them at a distance, just to see the love and the passion. I'm excited about the upcoming camp, to see Lizzy Hale, who right away, when I reached out, “Yes, I'm in. What can I do?” Winona, she said, “I'm in. I'm going to create herstory.” So it's going to be an incredible camp. [00:21:20] PF: David, you are doing so much good for the world by bringing this music out of people, letting them really feel what all it can do for them. What is your hope going forward? [00:21:30] DF: I'm hoping with the documentary that while your listeners might not be musicians, I’m hoping that they'll get something out of it. What will they get out of it? That I can do – I want to write an app. I want to write a screenplay. I want to open up a new business. I want to do something new at any age. These people do it through music, but you can do it. I'm hoping that people will get motivated not to be scared, not to be fearful to change their lives in the midst of their – And find the happiness. That's really what it's about, finding your happiness. [00:22:01] PF: I cannot think of a better way to wrap this up, David. You are a delight. I love what you've done. I am – As I said, I look forward to seeing what happens next. Thank you again for taking so much time with me today. [00:22:13] DF: I appreciate it. No, thank you for having me. I love this. I can't stop talking about – As you see, I talk so much. But it's such a passion of mine to talk about music and happiness. So thanks for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:22:31] PF: That was David Fishof, talking about Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. If you'd like to learn more about David and his fantasy camp, check out the Rock Camp book and documentary or follow him on social media. Just visit livehappy.com and click on the On a Positive Note podcast link. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next time. So until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Discovering the Power of Stillness with Jeanine Thompson  [INTRODUCTION]   [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 399 of Live Happy Now. After a busy holiday season, we all could use a bit of stillness in our lives, and this week's guest is going to tell us how to find it. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm talking with Jeanine Thompson, a former clinical psychotherapist and Fortune 50 executive, whose new book, 911 From Your Soul, is all about how to learn to listen for what you need and discover your greatest potential. Today, she's here to talk about how important it is to learn to do nothing and listen to the lessons that are waiting for us in that stillness. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Jeanine, thank you so much for coming on Live Happy Now. [00:00:47] JT: I am so excited and delighted to be with you, Paula, and your listeners. [00:00:53] PF: We're delighted to have you. Our timing on this is so perfect. It's the beginning of the year. People are really being reflective and thinking about what they want to do differently, and your idea of stillness is so important. But it's a word that's become almost foreign in this busy world that we live in. I mean, we are always on. It's 24/7. So I guess before we talk about how to even accomplish that, can you tell us what you mean when you mention stillness? [00:01:22] JT: Yeah. So stillness, to me, means awareness, shifting our attention from our busy brain, our 70,000 thoughts a day that data says we have, shifting our awareness from our head into the inner intelligence, our inter Internet. Typically, I tell people place one hand on your heart center, one on your sacral or near your belly button, and just close your eyes. We follow a touch in the body. So it'll help you move from the hamster wheel into the eternal infinite wisdom that is just waiting to support and guide you. [00:02:08] PF: So is stillness a physical app? Or is it all in your brain? Or where does stillness take place? [00:02:17] JT: I think it's a multi-level experience, right? So I think that there is a physical shifting of attention from the busy brain to the core of your body. I think it's an energetic intention. I usually tell people, say the words I am still. Even if your brain keeps rattling on about what you got to do or what you didn't do sufficiently the hour before, there's an energetic intention to say I am still. When you connect with prana, that vital life force consciously moving in our body, you're making a spiritual connection to say, “I want to connect with the truth of who I am.” So it's this multi-level both practice and experience. [00:03:12] PF: It doesn't need to take a whole lot of time. It's something you can do real quickly. Like if there's anxiety, if there's something going on in your life, you can do these little quick hits to get your stillness. Is that correct? [00:03:24] JT: Yes. Thank you for saying that. That is the truth, and it's really important because I had a narrative. My narrative used to sound like there is no way I can be still. You don't understand how busy I am. You do not live inside this head. It never shuts up. I was in a plane 2 to 300,000 miles a year, a single mom. Stillness was unproductive. By the way, I can't do it. So we must have a narrative that says we just can't be still. Yet it's the most natural act. It's how we're born in stillness. It's actually the truth of our highest nature, peace, quiet, stillness. We just have been duped a little bit along the way. We got seduced by all the external expectations and invitations that constantly moving meant worthiness, meant productivity. So everybody can do it. I tell people, if you are like me, and you have a narrative that says you can't, just commit to 30 seconds. [00:04:35] PF: Oh, wow. We can do that. [00:04:37] JT: We can do that. Anybody can do that, right? 30 seconds to two minutes. Close your eyes. The brain data actually shows on brain imaging, if we don't take a break every hour, our stress levels are significantly higher. So just close your eyes. Feel the breath. Feel that hand on the belly expand and fall and expand and fall. So everyone can do it. If that busy brain of yours kicks up and says, “You must do this. Don't forget to do this.” I want you simply to say, “Noted.” Don't fight the thoughts. If we try and stop them or fight them, they get more persistent. So simply say, “Noted.” Retouch, hand on heart center, hand on belly, feel the breath again. So do that for sure in the morning, ideally before you even hop out of bed, if you can. Then ideally, we would say after every transition. So after we finish this meeting, I will go into breath, just as I began before you with breath. That's true for people at home. If you're working from home, between every kind of transition or shift, close your eyes and practice being still. [00:06:00] PF: And does that become a habit for you now? Because you've been practicing it, you teach it, and you definitely walk your talk. So is it something that comes naturally? Or do you have to remind yourself? [00:06:11] JT: No. Now, it's like brushing my teeth. I would never leave the house without brushing my teeth first. I don't begin my day without being still and getting centered in who I want to be and how I want to show up in the world that day. That's very different for me. I used to get up to my device. What emails did I need to answer? What does my day look like, kids needing love and attention as they woke up in the morning? I still will do all those things, but I do them differently. I make sure I can start my day in stillness and with consciously connecting within. [00:06:57] PF: What a huge difference that makes. I know that I've started a practice of not turning my phone on until after I am done with breakfast. You cannot imagine. Well, maybe you can. How crazy this makes some people. It's not that their need is so urgent that I address it. It's that they can't imagine like why are you not talking until eight in the morning. It makes a huge difference in the way my day feels as I enter it. [00:07:24] JT: Absolutely. Listen, we even know that I'm the beauty of the and girl. We know that from science. We know it from brain imaging. We know it from the High Performance Institute, that when you start with self, you connect with self first. You experience more satisfaction during the day, more calm during the day, better productivity. You're not reacting all day to someone else’s agenda. But then I would say, energetically, you will come to feel a sense of taking command. What really matters today? What are the real priorities? Calming the body, it's incredible. It really is life-changing, actually, that simple act of being with a breath and being still. [00:08:13] PF: Yeah. I want to talk in a moment about the benefits of practicing stillness. But I'm really interested in hearing how you discovered the importance of stillness because to your point, you were traveling. You were a busy professional. You're a single mom. I mean, it's like how did you go from that pace to becoming the go-to person on stillness? [00:08:34] JT: Yeah. Thankfully, it was through the intelligence of the universe. In all candor, I wouldn't have gotten there on my own. Had my other solutions, had always been on call almost 24/7 because I had an international role, had that continued to work for me in my life, I probably wouldn't have changed. I think that's true for your listeners too. Sometimes, we know something needs to be shifted. But honestly, until life starts to get really loud or like, “I'll get to it, but not today.” [00:09:06] PF: Right. [00:09:07] JT: Right? So the practice of stillness came through a time I was going through a 911 in my soul, from my soul. It was a time when the details of my life looked really good from the outside. People would just like, “Gosh, wow. Big job. She loves her kids. She's got a great relationship, really cool travel, the accoutrements of success.” Yet every day, I was successful yet unfulfilled. I had this little whisper that said, “Yoo-hoo, there's something more for you. There's something more through you.” Make a long story short, I ignored the whispers because it wasn't in line with my human plan. I wasn't to leave that job until my kids graduated, until I had reached a certain security. I had a human plan. Then there was the plan of my soul. Ultimately, my familiar solution just didn't work, and I was led to yoga and Reiki and energy work, which is hilarious because I was an evidence-based psychotherapist before I was a Fortune 50 executive. I thought it was woo-woo. I thought I did not have time for this. It taught me that I wasn't just a human being. I was actually this spiritual being traversing in a wonder suit of a body. [00:10:34] PF: I love that. [00:10:35] JT: It taught me that I was living my life through my false self, through a lens of not enough. Don't rest. It's not enough. There's always something to do. I needed to be more. So ultimately, it was through my life kind of falling apart on some levels, my familiar identity being shaken. When our familiar solutions are shaken, we’re invited, but it felt forced at the time to turn – [00:11:06] PF: Absolutely. [00:11:09] JT: To tune inward. I now realize that that yearning, that restlessness, those challenges weren't really a crisis at all. They were the greatest invitation of my life, masquerading in the details of discomfort. [00:11:28] PF: That's so important to hear because I think that happens to us a lot, where our plan is not working out according to plan, and we keep trying to force it. It’s difficult, and it's almost unnatural to us to sit back and say, “Okay, what is being taught to me? What am I supposed to do for next steps,” instead of, “What do I want to do as my next steps?” That's a change in thinking that takes some time. [00:11:55] JT: It's a huge change in thinking. I call it earth view and soul view. In our earth view, we say, “I got a problem. Fix it. I've got an issue. Find the solution.” Go external. Go to the experts. Go to your friends. Go to somebody. Got a problem. Fix it. The soul view says, “You already know the answer. Rest. Be in the discomfort. Talk to it. Say what do you got. What do you have to say? What do you want me to know?” It's about allowing. It's about resting in the stillness of your breath or resting in the stillness of a sunset or perhaps resting in the stillness of a freeing run, anything that softens that busy mind. When you rest in that stillness, the treasure trove of intelligence you actually are starts bubbling up and whispering. You'll start to get an inspired idea. You'll see number sequences. You'll see animals. You'll be in a store, and you'll overhear something, and you're like, “Ha, that's it.” All of a sudden, that shift from outward is my answer to tuning inward becomes your greatest lighthouse, your greatest guiding path to your highest life, honestly. [00:13:25] PF: Don't you think it’s interesting because we resist that? It's like I want the answers. I want the answers and the thing that will ultimately give us those answers. We intrinsically know that we can get the answers that way, but we push against it. It's like, “Nope, not going to sit down and be still with myself. I'm not going to listen to what's going on because I've got too much going on in my head.” So we resist it. [00:13:49] JT: We absolutely resist it until we can't. So that's what happened to me. There was a time where I actually had heard my truth. I heard the inner whispers. I heard I was to be like a matchmaker for the soul, helping people actually reunite with the part of themselves they've lost sight of. Most of my folks were over functioners. They were too much of a caretaker or a peacekeeper, lived for others, and they truly lost sight of themselves. They got to midlife and they're like, “Who am I? What made me come alive?” So avoidance numbing, external solutions, we'll all do them for a while. But I promise you, for all of the listeners, there will come a time where life is going to say there's a greater possibility for you. So I'm going to get a little noisy. I'm going to get a little uncomfortable. But ultimately, you long to meet you, and I'm going to help you remember the truth of who you are. [00:15:00] PF: That's so powerful. Can you talk about what the benefits are when we begin to practice stillness? Let's talk because there are so many. Your book is just such a magical guide to all the things that this can unlock. Let's talk about some of those benefits. [00:15:15] JT: So one of them is clarity. This is – It’s a noisy world. [00:15:20] PF: Yeah. And it’s getting noisier. [00:15:21] JT: It is. It’s exquisitely beautiful. There's so much beauty and love every day and a lot of heightened division, a lot of struggle. So there's a lot of and. I think one of the first benefits is clarity. No one else, and I don't care what their expertise is, I don't care who they are, will never know your unique truth. So one is discernment of personal truth. Secondly is access. We have this treasure trove. It is amazing jewels of the soul; kindness, compassion, love, infinite intelligence. Truly, this wisdom of all ages resides within us, and it connects us to – I would call it the field of all possibility. So it gives us an access that we cannot access in our normal 70,000 thoughts a day. Our mind is going to go to what's wrong. I got to fix it. I got to protect, right? That's our mind. Our soul says, “You are literally everything you seek. Rest, dear one, and I'll show you the way.” [00:16:34] PF: It’s beautiful. [00:16:35] JT: Alignment. When we pause, whether it's 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it is, we get to choose again. We can choose a higher quality thought. We can choose a higher quality action. Especially when we get triggered, most of it's automatic. 40 to 90 percent of what we do every day was repetition. It's behaviors that are habitual. So stillness helps us choose a better choice. Rest and renewal. I think the breath is a sanctuary. It's better than your best vacation. It is more peaceful than anywhere you've ever been. It can be a grand adventure. I mean, it is just this sanctuary of goodness, and we all need it. We're all actually trying too hard. If we'd allow just a little bit of faith and willingness, we can let go of the steering wheel. Or at least let go of their grip. [00:17:39] PF: We don't feel like we ever can. There are so many people who feel like, “If I take my hands off the wheel for a moment, this whole thing, and there's about 30 cars connected to it.” [00:17:48] JT: The house of cards. [00:17:49] PF: It’s going to crash. [00:17:51] JT: Oh, man. Do I have empathy of any one of you listening right now who is saying you don't understand. I can't do this, or it's all going to fall apart. I wish I could look you in the eyes and give you a giant hug and say, “I actually do understand. I don't understand your unique life circumstances. However, I really understand the reluctance and the fear of letting go because you're worried your life is going to crash.” So I totally understand that, and then I'm going to ask you to say, name five times because I bet she can. Name five times in your life where kind of the synchronicity happened. You met this person who opened up a door. You drove down the street, and you don't even remember stopping at the stop signs. Or you could’ve hit the car in front of you. By the grace of whatever you believe, the great mystery in life, the universe, you didn't hit that car. There have been so many times in our life. There's this brilliance that weaves together our life experiences. It's our training ground. It's our training ground to live our highest possibility, and it's a falsehood. I believed. I made myself sick in my 20s with ulcerative colitis. Because I was so perfectionistic, I thought he had to control everything. So it was a lot of lessons learned along the way that, actually, as powerful as I am, I am a co-creative agent, and there's also something else going on. There's a little something bigger than me going on here. Thank God, we never travel alone. [00:19:37] PF: Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. What a powerful thing to recognize. You and I talked about this a little bit before we started recording that, that our age kind of factors into it. Because when we're younger, when we're in our youth, in our 20s, and even into our 30s, we can go on autopilot. There's so much that we can just like, “Here's our path. We know we're supposed to go to college, get these jobs, do this, start this family.” Then you hit this point where it's like, “Wait, I've been on this treadmill, and I didn't even mean to jump on this particular treadmill.” [00:20:11] JT: Yeah. You know what? Days turned into decades like in a blink of an eye. So I think for a lot of people in their 40s and beyond, there's this sense of urgency like, “Wow, I cannot believe how fast it's gone.” They want to make sure that they don't have regret, honestly, that they look back. I do a lot of hospice work from my – The last 30 years. I learned from my hospice patients, in particular, that they never wanted to look back and said, “Geez, I wish I would have worked a little more,” which they usually will say the moments that mattered most were the moments they connected with something meaningful for themselves, connected something meaningful, or shared a meaningful connection with someone else. It was truly the small things, the ordinary things that became extraordinary. [00:21:16] PF: When we start practicing stillness, intentionally practicing stillness, do we start finding that more? Do we start recognizing that? Is it already there, and we just recognize it more? What really happened? [00:21:28] JT: It's already there. It is in our truth. We really – Our pure essence is simply love, joy, peace, wisdom, compassion, those jewels of the soul. That's our true essence. The longer we were in earth school, I call this gig earth school, we got encumbered. We kind of got covered up. We were told by the outside world, “You are not enough. You don't dress right. You don't weigh the right thing. You don't have the right bank account. You don't have the right education. You don't have the right house.” If you turn on the news, it's some version of you are not enough. So our real work here in earth school is to uncover all of that gunk, all of those old messages, all of those old narratives. That's why it's so important to sink into the deeper truth and listen to what the highest self in you wants to whisper. [00:22:28] PF: I love that. So another thing that I want to make sure we touch on is you talk about stillness that can be active. So this is great news. There are some people who the idea of just sitting down and being still is actually kind of horrifying. [00:22:45] JT: Yes. We totally get that. [00:22:47] PF: So explain this. Tell us because you talk about it can be music, running, dancing, weightlifting. I mean, this is great news for a lot of people. [00:22:55] JT: So I'm the beauty of the and girl. There are quiet and there are active. So quiet might be with a breath, might be with a sunset, might be with a flickering candle, etc. Then there are more active pursuits if they get into a place of transcendence. What I mean by that is a lot of people will say when they go on a run, there's a certain point where their mind softens, and they just feel more free, right? In dance, there's a certain point. You're almost not listening to the music, and you're just moving, right? So the active pursuits are active pursuits that also allows for an emptying. So the hamster wheel is not spinning. You do you and commit to starting with 30 seconds to two minutes of just being with your breath. So let's do the beauty of the and. If you really want to be active in physical exercise, that's different than an active pursuit that softens the mind. Does that make sense? [00:23:59] PF: Oh, interesting. Yeah. [00:24:00] JT: Agree to learn to still again. See, it's a falsehood we've taught ourselves, just like I did. I can't do this. I can't sit still. I’ve got too much to do. It's not true. We've got to tell a new narrative. This might feel funky. It might feel a little weird. I might not even be still. I'm practicing stillness, and I'm not still. I'm a little antsy in my chair. My little head is racing away. That's okay. I promise you in time, if you just commit to learning to practice stillness with the breath and whatever way you want, in time, you will start to reclaim more of your natural true nature. [00:24:44] PF: What kind of changes do you see like the subtle? We talked about the benefits of it, but what kind of changes can people kind of look for that like, okay, this is adjusting me, and I'm thinking and living differently? [00:24:57] JT: I think that they'll come to what I call expanded solutions, kind of things that they had never thought of before. All of a sudden, they get an inspired idea that maybe takes them down a path they would have never have went to. So there's some inspired ideation that happens. There is a sense of empowerment. It's like, “Oh, my gosh. I always thought it was outside of me. And now, I recognize that it is within me.” There is – And this is a key. One of the things we're all searching for is what is sacred to us. What is precious to us? When we get to this stage in life, I have people ask the question. If you don't like the word sacred, use the word precious. What is sacred within me? Just rest with the answer. Either that day or that moment, you're going to start to notice maybe even something in a magazine or on a billboard or whatever. It’s like, “Wow. [inaudible 00:25:57]. I want to go play with that again.” When you start asking those questions, what’s sacred within me, around me, and beyond me, you are going to start to feel a spark of feeling a little more alive, more empowered, more of your natural true self. [00:26:18] PF: That is so wonderful. What do you hope that the people listening today who are hearing your voice, what do you want them to walk away from this with? [00:26:27] JT: Oh, my gosh. I want you to get so excited because there's somebody you have been longing your whole life to meet, and it's you. It's your true nature. It is that part of you that knows exactly where you're headed, what this year is about, what this life is about, how to surf through the seasons of life with more ease and more joy. So I'm excited for you to reconnect with the deeper truth of who you are. [00:27:02] PF: That's excellent. Jeanine, thank you, again, for sitting down with me today. You have so much to teach us. This was a wonderful experience, and I really appreciate your time today. [00:27:12] JT: Thank you. It's been a gift to be with you and gift to be with your listeners as well. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:27:23] PF: That was Jeanine Thompson, talking about how to discover stillness. If you'd like to learn more about Jeanine and her book, 911 From Your Soul, or follow her on social media, visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, we invite you to sign up for Jeanine’s free email course that will walk you through the steps to help you learn to listen and lean into the stillness. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]