Why You Should Value Happiness On The Road To Success with Vernon Brown
With over 15 years’ experience as being a trainer and coach Vernon L. Brown is the happiness and success coach. He shows entrepreneurs how to leverage happiness to become more successful, strategic and influential both personally and professionally.
Everyone is looking for magic key that will unlock their happiness, not realizing that we’ve been evading it all our lives. We take it for granted, getting caught up in the minutia of life, failing to stop and smell the roses and appreciate the things that are important to us. I believe your life truly begins when you make happiness a tangible commodity that is non-negotiable. Why is your happi important to me? Because happiness evaded me most of my young life.
It wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I understood the value of happiness, which is somewhat of a backwards experience. Many people experience the wonder of childhood imagination and innocence, only to lose it as they grow older. Not me. Childhood wonder and innocence was foreign to me.
When you shatter a vase on the floor, it takes time to pick up the pieces and put it together. And, once it is put together, it’s never the same; it’s now more fragile than it was to begin with. I was that shattered vase.
My grandmother was the glue that helped me begin to put pieces together when I moved in with her. She showed me how to be a child, something I’d never really known. My experiences taught me to be very observant of people, mostly as a defense mechanism to protect myself. My awkward stage extended into adulthood. I did not grow into the person you see before you today until I turned 20.
At that point, I learned that being happy is not something life gives you; you have to seize it for yourself and control it. That’s one of the biggest challenges people face today; they are allowing someone else to hold the puppet strings on what makes them happy.
I share my story with you because I want you to know that no matter your circumstances, you have the power to claim happiness for yourself. My life experience has not only helped me learn the value of happiness for myself, but it has awakened a passion in me to help others claim that freedom for themselves. It is my desire for everyone I encounter to experience what I see in them.
I want to help you move out of crisis mode and be present. When you discover your happi, finding what’s right becomes easier than searching for the problem in everything. I want to open your eyes to that. There is no agenda or menu when you work with me. I meet you on your level to achieve what’s most important to you – discovering and claiming your happi.
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Full Transcript Below
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (00:03):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy. Thanks for joining us today. Um, you know, what our format is basically, as we bring on a lot of professional, a lot of different disciplines, uh, try to get the message out what they do. Um, sometimes as small business, uh, solo preneur entrepreneur, you know, it’s a matter of, we just don’t know what we don’t know.
And so this is a great way, not only to help myself in my business endeavors, but also like to share the message with you, the audience, because, um, also this helps us. If, if we do have a problem or find something that we need, uh, gives us a lot of people to turn to, to get that help, to be successful. So today we’re going to talk about probably the, um, big, one of the bigger topics that we’ve ever talked about, and that is happiness.
And we were fortunate enough to have Vernon Brown with us. He’s got over 15 years experience as being a trainer and a coach, and he is the happiness and success coach. He shows entrepreneurs how to leverage happiness, to become successful, strategic and influential both personally and professionally. So with that welcome Vernon.
Vernon (01:19):
Oh, thank you. Well, I appreciate you having me here. Appreciate people taking that time to listen. So yeah,
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (01:24):
Thanks so much. And you know, when, uh, when I had, when we had talked, when I had read about you, and then we talked a little bit earlier, of course, we got carried away on the conversation because this is a huge thing for me. I just feel like, um, you know, happiness in our life, even when things aren’t going good, or when we’re squeezed, happiness is such an important factor.
Vernon (01:46):
I agree, you know, seven years ago when I started this, everyone said I was a fool, what are you doing? Two and a half. And it’s going to get out of here. And now it’s just like, I laugh about it now. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (01:57):
Sometimes that’s how we know we’re on the right path when everybody’s telling us we’re on the wrong path. Right. No, you know, and it’s, it’s big for me. I mean, you know, through the day, it’s not necessarily, you know, like Tenter temper tantrum throwing on the floor screaming.
But you know, as D as things are moving through the day, if things don’t work out, if you have, you know, sometimes you have to take that extra time to reload that web page or redo this or whatever. And then, um, you know, it can kind of send you on that downhill spiral. So what are some things that we can do to, uh, you know, try to maintain that happiness level, even when things are starting to crumble around us,
Vernon (02:38):
You know, that’s a, you know, that’s a optimal question. I laugh another webpage that, so Joe was having some issues with mine. You know, fortunately things worked out, you know. I think first, I think, cause I’m gonna answer that. But I think it’s important to understand what happened.
It says by my definition, what’s your happy death, you know, what makes me happy? What makes you happy? What make your aunt, your mom, your dad, anybody, what made you happiness is such a subjective thing. Right? And for me, regardless of whatever your happy is, it’s it equates to the same output and it’s energy.
Happiness for me is energy. No, hear me out. I want to kind of explain the energy. It’s when energy is low concentration focus awareness, um, we get a little more irritable. They’re gone. Like, I mean, you know, I mean, excuse me, you, you, they, they just, through the roof, like you just, it’s not happening.
Vernon (03:29):
You know, you mentioned like with the webpage yesterday, I was like so frustrated, but then, you know, I had to sit back and I had to reframe, right. And that’s where the energy came from. It’s like, what am I learning? And so that, from that point, that’s when, um, you know, you kind of come out of it and that’s when the energy gets higher.
So I think it’s important, you know, to kind of start there with that snippet. Yeah. Now, now you’re thinking, go ahead. I think when it comes to happiness, what, you know, some people can do and you know, can help a lot of people, just so many different clients.
So many, several thousand clients over the years is just recognizing that you got to take some time for you and entrepreneurs are notorious for not taking any time for themselves. They’re like, I’m off, I’m off and they’re on the phone. They always checking emails. Like I’m all, if I’m often Dan looking at this and looking at it out, like, no, that, that, that, that is the first thing we got to do, right?
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (04:25):
Yeah, no. And I’ve got a, I’ve got a wonderful girlfriend that, you know, kind of keeps me on the right path with that because I am that guy I can fall. You know, there’s always a, some kind of a stat to check something to follow up on. And, but, um, before we even get off into that, I want to, you know, kind of drop back and say that what you’re saying about everything being in line is so important.
Because with me, I notice when things, when, when I don’t get enough sleep, that’s when things start to go downhill, don’t get the exercise in. And I, I love to just walk because of the clarity. I’m lucky to live in a very rural place so I can walk quietly here in nature. It gives me that clarity, but when I don’t get that sleep and, uh, you know, it’s just like, eh, this morning I had a couple tough tasks facing me this morning with some stuff.
And I thought, Oh, when I woke up, I was laying there and thinking, do I even want to try to get up out of bed? Because you know, I know these first few tasks are gonna be tough, but I finally got happy and said, you know what? I can do this. And you know, once I got that happy motivator, man, I jumped up and got after it. And you know what things went extremely well.
Vernon (05:38):
Well, excellent. You brought up such a great phenomenon and none of us can say we haven’t experienced. Sometimes. You’re like, I don’t want to go to the gym and you got to get your shoes on and you got to get him to call. You got to just turn the steering wheel. You know what I mean? And it sounds, it sounds like so funny, but that’s, it feels like, but then once you kind of get moving and get into action, all of a sudden, guess what things get easier? It’s not as bad.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (06:05):
Yeah. Speaking of the gym, it’s funny. I was walking into mine not long ago. And there was a frustrated driver that was mad cause they couldn’t park right in the front door. I’m like, Oh my gosh, you came to the gym to get some exercise. And now you’re getting all upset because you can’t park right in the front door. I mean, it was kind of, I know that it wasn’t for them, but it’s kind of humorous for me to think about, you know, things that we, we had to let agitate us.
And I think that’s the other thing to, you know, it’s, uh, my priest is, he’s an awesome guy, just so down to earth. But you know, what he told me a long time ago was that our minds are like grinders. And, but they grind all day 24 seven while you’re up, but we get to choose what they grind and you know, that’s been such an important message for me through life is to always when, you know, when I start feeling that way, I think, Hey, you know what? I’m sitting here thinking about this or making it worse.
It’s up to me to, you know, kind of flip that switch and I guess gratitude, you know, first thing I do is look around and what am I grateful for? You know, I’ve got such an awesome life that really I’m letting them, I’m having to re log into this website five times and now I’m getting all bent out of shape about that. Look around let’s, you know, kind of put things in perspective,
Vernon (07:26):
But you said so many key things here and I’m happy that you’re having, you said this because a lot of people, everybody experiences this when we get caught up in life, right? Like when, when things are pulling us and we feel like we have no gift, it narrows our focus. And all the sudden that parking spot seems like, Oh, it’s the end of the wording of everything means everything, right?
Yeah. Part of our brain that we need, we need to make sure that, you know, we gotta fight. We gotta make sure that we’re safe, but when energy gets low, it just ignites it and it doesn’t see anything other than what it wants. Correct. And you know, I think the really big key point here is something I’m always reminded, you know, audiences, the powers and the questions, you know, you ask yourself, what am I grateful for?
Vernon (08:06):
Which is a fantastic question, asking yourself, what’s really going on here. You know, um, the questions free us up because the questions, openness stuff, you know, and then it’s why questions are, you know, it’s my number one tool that I use every single day, the questions. Right.
And you know, you understand it that, you know, this, this thing when he gets upset, frustrated, agitated, whatever you want to call it, it’s not bringing you closer to what you want. It’s doing what it’s supposed to do with the energy it’s doing what it’s supposed to do with the energy, but it’s not doing necessarily what we wanted to do and the questions for you up so you can see an alternative. Right?
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (08:42):
Yeah. And I think, you know, the other thing to this is that when we start getting frustrated, um, you know, we have an unfortunate pattern of taking it out on others that are around us. So, you know, that’s one reason why I try to keep in check is because, you know, I don’t want to, you know, I’m upset about something else that’s going on.
I don’t want to come on here and, you know, take it out on Vernon or whatever. It’s not, you didn’t have anything to do with that. You know, you may, sometimes you’re just the victim in the fallout from people. But I think if you have staff working for you, it it’s super important to be in touch with yourself. And it’s not the it’s not bad that you get that way. I don’t think it’s just more recognizing that you are going down that path and, and you have the power to change that
Vernon (09:29):
You are you’re right. It’s anger, whatever, whatever that feeling is that you bond on pleasant. It’s not bad to feel it. Just recognizing you don’t have to stay there long. You know, people will come up to me and like, we’re the happy guy. You’re not allowed to have a bad day. And I’m like bull butter. I’m not, no, I have bad experiences.
Like I mentioned a website, I was frustrated and it took me about 10 minutes. I used to have a quick story. I used to have a horrible, horrible temper. And I’m not proud to say this we’re talking 15 years ago. And you know, you produce the word. Thank a few times what stopped me from having a bad temper was that realized that I can’t think of the angry. You can just be angry and you’ll attack anybody who’s near you. You know what I mean?
Vernon (10:08):
Like, we’ll try anything. Cause it’s the closest thing to you. Right, right. Whatever. I think it was bad. I’m like, wait a minute. I’m not in control. And then that’s, that’s not cool. Yeah. But it’s, it’s such an amazing phenomenon. The beauty of it is, is setting that, you know, one of the things you could do to give somebody some strategies is always that people know these are called positive brain breaks.
One, the two who took three minute brain breaks day will change so much. Like even right before we got on the call and my son, you know, we’re on the home, I’m working and I’m doing homeschooling and everything. And he like drove me up a wall and what did we do? We sat down and we started watching marijuana. We started like, that’s my movie. Right. And we’re saying, you know how far I go? And I forgot everything that was going on.
Right. But if you’re having a tough time, you know, you strategically, and I encourage every entrepreneur to do things like that, you know, take a walk, ride in a car with your tenant, windows and scream when no one’s around just to kind of get that energy out. But those brain breaks can be such [inaudible] impact. Yeah, yeah. That one, the Madonna who’s that girl when you’re upset.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (11:10):
Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s important, you know, for me, not only, um, and this is a two-fold situation, but getting out and walking for that 15 minutes clears my head. And you know, I do have to say that my girlfriend gets, you know, she’s nervous when I come back from walking by myself because like, Oh, I had 25 ideas in this little 15 minute walk.
She’s like, Oh my God, if I wait too much time to think there, but what you had said earlier about taking a brain break is that read a study not long ago. And this works for entrepreneurs as well as our children that we are so scheduled from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed that we never take that little break, but that break is where we find our creativity.
And you know, that the, I think the study was based on children more or less, but I think it applies to us that, uh, instead of giving them that, you know, like for me, I’m I’m of an age that, you know, we didn’t have a lot of TV or, um, we didn’t have any electronics for sure.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (12:15):
So when we went outside during the day, I mean, we had to figure something out, whether we were riding bikes, throwing a baseball football, you know, playing hide and seek or whatever. But we had to be a little creative in figuring that out. And unfortunately, you know, we just don’t give ourselves that space anymore.
Vernon (12:35):
I love everything that you just said. It’s something that, um, you know, I really sat back and especially been a father that really stood out to me and it said everything we needed to be successful and happy in life. We learned as children, we need proper nutrition. We need sleep and we need to have fun. And we need you to new experiences.
And there’s many more and we need structure. There’s many more things, but when it comes to that, that space, and I love that you said taking a walk. I think bill Gates was saying that the Mo the, one of his, um, the Casey attributes to assess, um, success and a butcher in his quote, but it was his walk.
He learned so much. Yeah. And one of the things I tell everyone I demand actually entrepreneurs and my clients to do is you have to take thinking time every single week.
Vernon (13:15):
Right? I mean like, what do you mean they can Thomas that you need to take at least two hours. I’m not saying you gotta do two hours of blocks. You go take a walk. One of the things that I deal with is I locked myself in a room with my white board and you’re not allowed to stress about a lot of worried.
But I have to sit there and think it’s because, you know, a business owners, you know, especially we gotten into business because we thought we would be successful. Right. Right. So for us to get to the next level or for us to create gaps or for us to kind of work smarter, you need to think, right. And it’s a powerful thing.
It’s something that we used to do with kids. We let them play adults don’t play enough. Right. When you’re not thinking about what’s wrong in your plane, you start coming up. And all of a sudden these solutions, all of a sudden you start seeing different opportunities. Yeah,
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (13:58):
Yeah. A guy, no, that’s a fitness instructor. He just told me this the other day. He’s like, we don’t get, we see how we don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stopped playing. And I think there’s so much power in that statement.
Vernon (14:15):
George Bernard, Charlotte, isn’t it
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (14:16):
Wasn’t, it could have been. Yeah. He just had a, he just told me the other day, but I thought it was very good because that’s right. I mean, we, we still, and we got into this as entrepreneurs and doing things. So we would have spare time to do what we want to do. But then if we, um, you know, if we work from can till can’t.
Then all of a sudden, all we’ve done is really, we’ve just, you know, kind of bought us a minimum wage job that we don’t get that joy out of life. And I think, uh, you know, joy is so important that in the other thing, talking about joy is not let other people steal that. And that’s, that’s very difficult sometimes going through the day is that, um, you know, we have to protect that and say, Hey, you can’t take that from me.
Vernon (15:05):
Well, you know, um, again, so many key things you’re hitting on, you know, I just made a post about this, about every relationship is a chemical reaction and you need to make sure, are you getting positivity out of reaction? Are you getting plant them out of your interaction or are you get a negativity? Are you getting pessimism or are you getting cold?
And especially now with so many different things going on, I call it the great reset, not to diminish the tragedies that have happened, but to, you know, recognize it. There’s a lot of time for us to grow even more right now. That’s what called the reset. Right. But we need to be guard ourselves guard your mind. Like when we hit it off, we had our call the first time just to see if we’re a good fit. We were like, Oh man, got this idea.
Vernon (15:45):
Or we’re gonna have a great time. Like when you have a relationship like that, like picture had 10 conversations like that day. And it’s not just, you know, um, it just fills you up, but look, what you more, how much more you can give, like, Oh, Hey, no problem. Let me help you. Let me grab that door for you, let me do that.
Like it, it feeds off of it. And there’s some people, especially with the holiday season, you know, out and about in a film every year, I’ll let people know. There’s some people that you need to feed with a long-handled spoon. You need to love some people from afar. I don’t know about you, but I got a couple of them. I’m not family. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (16:18):
There is nothing wrong. I, you know, we have this conversation around our family a lot is that, you know, you, you don’t get to choose your family. You’re born into them. That doesn’t mean we love you less, but you’re right. Sometimes that long handled spoon, I like that. I like that analogy.
Vernon (16:32):
You don’t have to talk with someone and they’re dreading the holidays and I’ll just ask them. I was like, so what’s the time limit? Like, what do you mean? It was like, you’re telling me they make you miserable. They judge you and this and the other. Did you realize, you know, it’s like, since you don’t have to stay there the full day, how long can you stay? That you can show some love. And they’re like, Oh, I never thought of that. I was like, now don’t you all have? How long would you like to be in misery an hour?
Vernon (16:54):
Well, you got to make fun of people because you or somebody, or some people are in different places in life. And it might not be in alignment with yourself. You know, we’re all trying to figure things out. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get the manual life. Yeah. And when people are trying to figure some things out, they can have be a particular way that might not suit you.
Now, what you just mentioned though, is you don’t have to be around them, right? I mean, you can still love them. You might love them, but not their ways. And that’s okay. But I challenge everyone. If you really want to see a significant impact in your life. Um, this probably number two is your environment. There is no man or woman greater than his or her environment. If you are in a negative judgmental, critical place, it is incredibly challenging to get out of it.
Trust me. I came from that. Yeah. Um, but a lot of it started with how a condition, my environment that started with watching YouTube videos, listening to songs, um, songs, watching movies that made me happy. And it gave me the strength to take the risk, which was actually wasn’t even a risk to, um, put myself in a better place. Right? Relationships are,
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (17:58):
Music is, uh, music is great for me too. And that’s usually what I do when I’m eating. You know, if I’m not just listening to nature is turning on a little music, but it can really change my, my outlook immediately, you know, to get a good song, kind of gets you moving. And I think it is, it’s an energy. It’s an energy that, uh, that you use it can have on some of us, not everybody feels that way, but you know, I, I got some good advice.
This has been years ago. Uh, and it was somebody telling somebody else I just get got to over here, but they were dreading going to the, their families for Christmas. And, uh, what this person told them was, you know, don’t go over there in dread, turn it around and go over there with, uh, an abundance of energy, buy little small gifts for everybody go in there.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (18:47):
Like, you know, she actually used these terms. They’d go in there. Like, you’re the cat daddy. And you know, you’re, you’re happy. You’re not dreading be there. It would, you know, it was amazing that this other guy that, uh, that did this came back after Christmas and said, Oh my gosh, it was a totally different experience.
Because I think he, you know, what he said was the dread that I had to do, this was what was bringing all this negative energy. And when I went in with that positive energy, had a little gift for everybody. And like, you’re not messing me up this year. He said it was a whole different experience.
Vernon (19:27):
Yeah. And you bring up again another phenomenon. You’re like a calendar today. It’s oftentimes when we, we, and there’s nothing wrong with some hesitations about going to an event, right. Because who wants to be in a past circumstance in the present, but it’s recognizing that often times the most sophisticated person can control the room.
I used to get into your head. This is bad attitude, bad temper. Then I thought the world was against me. It’s like, no, it’s not, it’s not against me. And it was just a lot of it had to do with my attitude. You know, even when it doesn’t have anything to do with your attitude, you’re positive, you’re energetic.
If you keep being positive with people, they either become positive or they leave you alone. Right. You know, they’ll send him like, what are you so happy for? Just like, give me three reasons why I shouldn’t be right.
And you know, and they’re like, well, uh, well tell me three reasons why you are happy. And then they’re just like, well, something’s wrong with you? Something wrong, wrong. I don’t want something weird about him because something, because that’s just how some people, um, I don’t know, see the world and that’s okay, but that’s not for you. That’s not for me. Right.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (20:29):
Yeah. And you know, I have a little bit of a survivor’s guilt, I guess, because this pandemic, and like you said, I don’t want to ever make light of it because it’s been hard on people. There’s people that have lost loved ones, people that have lost their job, their income, and really hard times.
But, you know, I, I guess I feel like I’ve actually kind of thrived a little bit during this because it has given me that extra time, you know, like to get out, work around my place a little bit to have that clear head thinking. But you know, also, uh, just not, uh, I’m not on the run from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed, there’s actually some time. And, you know, we have, uh, we’ve actually embraced cooking.
You know, we used to pretty much eat on the run, but now we’re getting in the kitchen, cutting up some stuff, trying some different recipes and, you know, we’re just, it’s just, it’s not only good togetherness time for us, but I’ve actually kind of found it a little fun and little interesting to what you can create.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (21:30):
So, um, but I know that there hasn’t been, I know there are people that, that haven’t had that luxury. So, um, you know, what about that? What’s the, you know, how can people, like I said, I try not to be too bubbly about that because it’s like, well, um, you know, you never know the other person’s situation and I sure don’t want to make light of things, but, uh, you know, that survivor’s guilt. It can be a kind of a real thing.
Vernon (21:58):
Yeah. It’s, you know, I appreciate you being so open and honest about that because it is a, this is a subject I talked about often with many clients and, um, just some, uh, loved ones. It’s, it’s not for me. And it’s not that it’s hard to, you know, celebrate a lot of the good times and how like you’ve experienced a positive, um, pandemic, you know, for everything that’s going on.
And that’s the way we might want to play small. It’s why I’m just a big fan of everything I have going on with the gun, call it out. It’s called a double down. Like we need to double down and talking about are the wins because what’s happening is the wins are being overcast by the, the, the negative.
Right. Um, and it’s, you know, uh, it depends like I was talking to, you know, a couple of my clients and agents and they didn’t want to talk about their successes and a couple of hundred, three doors in the metal fabrication.
Vernon (22:51):
They didn’t wanna talk about their successes with family members. I was like, you need to talk to them. You need to share these things because right now people are looking for hope. People are looking for reasons to smile and they, you turn on the news and you’re going to find out the five things that you need to curl up in a ball for, but you need to find that one thing or that one per person, who’s like, we can do this.
And that’s why I’ve actually doubled down on my messaging because people need to recognize we must endure. Right? And we’re not going to endure sitting back, playing small. We’ve got to travel. We got to do some things where you can find strength in others, success, where you can recognize maybe that can be me, right? Because oftentimes we think playing small helps us.
And it’s not that everyone overshadowed the tragedy, we don’t overshadow the losses, always sad, or the struggles people losing their job. If you look at, um, all my clients, you know, they’re not all entrepreneurs, but there’s a few of them that have lost their jobs. But guess what? We found better ones. Yeah. Because if you’re looking for the pain, you will find it. But if you’re looking for the wind, it’s there. Yeah. You got a little.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (23:51):
Yeah. And I think that’s important even in normal times is that, uh, you know, w we go through the day and we have a one or two things that maybe didn’t go right. Or something went bad and we can tend to focus on that instead of saying, what about the other 10 things that went extremely well?
You know, I don’t, I guess we just, as, I don’t know if it’s humans are conditioned as children, or I don’t know why, but it seems like we can always focus on that negative instead of, you know, there’s one negative and we’ll focus on that instead of the 10 positives.
Vernon (24:25):
Well, you’re right on the head. It’s because this, this day state, his organism was designed to keep us safe. It’s not designed and to keep us happy. And the negativity sticks to us, like Velcro sticks to us. You don’t even have to try. You don’t even have to try to find something wrong. It rolls right off your back, like Teflon.
Right. And, uh, we have to flip that switch and you do it with practice. You do it around being around people who have something that you would like to have. May I want to smile more. I want to have a big smile where I love that. And you gotta be around people. And there’s a few more things that you can do, but we’ve got to do that. It’s we have been taught to play small all of our lives. I’m a huge believer of that.
Vernon (25:08):
You know, if you say, you know, people would say things to us, like you’re younger, like, well, maybe you don’t be too full of yourself or don’t get big again. And over while, I mean, there’s a few more things. And I call those interjects that have taught us.
Don’t, don’t make your, don’t let little giant look bad. Don’t make him feel bad. Right? You don’t want to make anybody feel bad. You’re a figure, the sense of feeling bad, right. Or feeling simple. But so we do these things under the habitual, even thinking about it. And one of the big thing is I tell people, you need to know five things that makes you amazing.
There’s many more about you and makes you amazing, but you need to know those and be able to step into those. Right. Because people are looking for permission to, um, to be more positive and be who they would like to be. But we got the, I worked religiously, um, to let people know what they’re amazing at.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (25:51):
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s fine. I think it’s, um, that’s a good point to think about too, is that we can be happy without being obnoxious. I mean, I don’t have to be, I have to be mean to somebody else to, you know, rub in my successes my day. And of course, you know, not what, you know, what I was talking about more or less, a lot of that thinking to myself, but it’s a good point.
Is that, you know, sometimes some people have that tendency to, they need to make people around them feel small in order to make themselves feel big. And, you know, I kind of look at it the other way is like, what can we do to build people up around us? Because there’s enough room for everybody to be successful.
We, it’s not, there’s not a limited number of winners and a number of Lee and everybody else is a loser, can all be winners and encourage each other. And you know, you were talking about giving back and what we can do, but I think we have to finally accept. We need to do things for others without expecting something in return. And I think that’s what frees us, because can’t be like, Oh, you know what?
I gave this person this, and didn’t even get a thank you for it. Well, we sh if we’re going to give something to somebody, we shouldn’t expect anything in return. And that’s what frees us to be happy in our heart. Not looking for that negative in that exchange.
Vernon (27:18):
Right. It’s when we go through life where we forget that, that person, that we’re connected to, that you might’ve given a gift to that car, to that compliment to, we don’t know what they’re going through. Right. And sometimes it might take us a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, even a couple of days, you’re like, Oh my gosh, I am so sorry.
You don’t know what a person’s going through. Right. And many times it’s just, and sometimes they don’t know what they going through. They can just feel like, I feel, I feel off. I feel weird. I feel they don’t know. And so they might not have the space to say, thank you. Right. For me, it’s like you just said, it’s recognized. And I’m happy that I was able to provide something to someone I’m happy that I did good. I’m happy because you’d be amazed at how many people.
Vernon (28:01):
And I’m sure you had this experience where someone might come up and say like, I am so sorry. I was not trying to be rude. You know, they’re hold the door from seal, hold the door for someone, just a simple gesture. But you know, they’re not trying to be evil. Don’t get me wrong. There are some knuckleheads out there.
Don’t get me wrong. But you know, looking at like right now with the pandemic, I, you know, I talked to some, uh, I talked to many people early on and one gentlemen, uh, real quick story here, what gentleman reached out to him? His company was going under and he did light. And he did add light in and everything, you know, speakers, all that good stuff. And his main clientele was colleges and universities. Now, I’m sure you saw that they were shut down at one point.
Vernon (28:37):
And right now even unlimited capacity. So 70 to 80% of his business is completely cut off. Wow. He was so again, rightfully so my survival, I need to fund, I’m looking, uh, I got, what do I do?
This is, we’ve kind of our discovery call. And I sat there and I was listening to him. And with me, we can talk about what’s wrong for about five minutes, maybe 10, but we’re going to spend the next 50 talking about what we’re going to do. Right. He was saying, Oh, people are dying. And people are dying.
I just sat there and I looked at him and said, people are dying. He’s like, yeah, yeah, no people are dying. Then I said, people are dying. And then as I started getting really big, he’s like looking at me. I said to him, where do the deceased to go?
Vernon (29:24):
He was like, funerals. It was like, who’s going to a funeral right now. He’s like, nobody. I was like, don’t you think they need some sort of audio video? And immediately he’s like, I gotta go put half, but you can see it. I’m gonna kind of touching back on a couple things. But I think the big thing here is it’s easy to see the negative. Sometimes you need someone to listen to you and hear and repeat back what you said. Right.
And I do also want to touch on also, um, sometimes she said about when you’re around people and you know, you won’t, you, you hesitated on talking about your wins. You know, I think this goes back to relationships where I never hesitate talking about the things that I have positive going on my life, because my circle that I intentionally set out to do, it’s so happy for me, a buddy of mine, because I get energy from it.
Vernon (30:09):
I’m like, Oh man. And he, Oh dude, yes, you can do this. You got it. Um, a buddy of mine gave me a call yesterday and he said, Ron, I don’t know if I can do this on my own. I mean, I’ve always worked for this one company. And I said, you can absolutely do this.
You got it. Um, excuse me, this is Monday. He calls me back and said, Virta, I’m doing it. I got so excited for him. So excited. That is like, it’s a win. And that they’re like, if your circle wins, we all win because we’ve been doing this together who wants to go to the top of the mountain by themselves. Right.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (30:35):
I know. Right. Yeah. And I think it’s important too. That you, you brought up about talking things out and. You know, I’ve just put in a plug for why people need a success coach because, uh.
You know, we were talking the other day and I’ll just use this as an example about some changes I’m making to my website is I was just sitting there verbalizing some things. All of a sudden it hit me, you know, what I need to do. And so being able to talk that out, having that positive affirmation, somebody that believes in you is not trying to tear you down. Um, all that stuff is important to our growth.
And, uh, you know, even if we’re successful and we’re doing good now, we can’t be still. We have to always be growing, adapting, changing, looking to the future. And so, you know, that’s where I think the success coaching can help us become unstuck is like, we don’t want to just live in this place where we’re at right now. We want to continue that growth.
Vernon (31:36):
Exactly. You know, we’re, we’re all working on some change. I don’t care who you are, where you are. Um, however you measure that. I don’t care if you’re bringing in, you know, 200 K a month, we’re all working on some change right now with, you know, in regards to the financial success, you know, just picking that, um, everything comes with a cost, right?
And there’s certain things that we gotta make sure that we’re talking about, that we’re figuring out and making sure that we’re staying congruent with who we are, um, versus what’s coming, you know, in alignment with what’s coming in and looking at just, you know, relationships. Do you mind bringing in a lot of money and you go in there, but are you really working on the relationship relationships? Are you nurturing those?
Or you find other people who will challenge you because you don’t want to be in a group and you, I mean, you better be sure that you, you know, apologize for, you want to be sure that you’re around people who challenge you. Right. You want to be true. Who pushed you? You want to be and not push you like to hurt, but to say, we’re, I know you can do better.
Yeah. You know, I was thinking about what you said yesterday, and I came up with a plan. You need to be around people who want you judges grow and do the same for them.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (32:41):
Yeah. I love the saying that, uh, if you’re the smartest man in the room, you need to find another room. So let’s, let’s talk about like, uh, and success is like happiness, I think. And I’m glad you, you kind of define this in the beginning, but everybody’s, um, definition of success for themselves is going to be different.
And you know, the money’s nice, but you know, health relationships, happiness, being able to go to bed at night and close my eyes and go to sleep. You know, those are all things that, uh, are important to me before we get to the salary. Not that it’s not important, but, um, so I guess that’s another thing where, uh, somebody, uh, a coach like yourself can really sit down with an individual and say, let’s define that. Cause a lot of people don’t think about it.
They just, you know, they may be, they’ve been brought up thinking that salary is the important thing until you really stop, slow down and think about it. So where I’m going with this is not, you know, once we define that success, it’s like, how do you find that people that are happy in their day-to-day life for the most part, happy in their job, they tend to find that success faster, easier, and stay in that zone for longer. Would you agree with that?
Vernon (34:08):
I think once the person has defined their definition of success, that’s cohesive to where they have chosen. Right. I think that’s when they stand at success. So success zone faster. I think the definition that, um, I feel universally fits is, um, you know, Marta, some Earl Natty Natty in Gail. He said any man or woman, who’s making progress in a direction of their choosing.
And for me, that stuck with me because we were taught so young. I mean, I know I was it, you got to make a lot of money. You gotta make a lot of money. Well, guess what? I made a lot of money, but then all of a sudden I realized like, this is it right now. And it made me sit down and I’m like, what is success for me? Right. And my definition of success. I mean, granted, it’s this, it’s the metric values.
Vernon (34:59):
The measure doesn’t change the fact that you need to figure out where you want to make progress in. Right. And I’m such a big fan of relationships, relationships on everything. Yes. You know, I love being a father. I love, um, my family, who’s not my blood, you know.
I’m African-American but my mommy, dad, momma, and daddy, number two are Caucasian, but they are everything to me. We talk at least once, every couple of weeks. Yeah. But relationships for me, that’s success. Because no matter what I have. As much as people think they want to be on a yacht who wants to getting out by themselves.
I’d rather be on a little John boat, you know, sitting there, you know, not going into, you know, like, but that’s success for me, but making in the direction of your choosing is success for me. Right. So I, I do agree with that. I do agree with that. As long as it’s something that you have chosen. Right. Right.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (35:46):
So, um, what is a tool that you use either? Well, first off, before we get to that, let’s can you kind of give us some pointers about how we can flip that switch? You know, some things that we can do in our daily lives to, to try to regain our happiness or find our happiness.
Vernon (36:05):
Yeah. I think, you know, to, to take it back to being a kid, if, if you’re working on finding your happy, because often times I ask the audience, what makes you happy?
I’ll, and I’ll say, what makes them happy? Do you know what makes you happy? They’ll say everyone throws a handout, you know, two or 3000 people. Then they’ll say, wait, I need to qualify this. It can’t involve bigger spending or involve a bigger car. It only can involve yourself, you know, 80, 90% of the room’s hands drop.
And the last remaining few, I might point them out and grab a microphone. And you’re like, well, I love being with my kids. I’m like, it only can involve you. So, and when people are like, well, what do I do? And I just let people know with finding what makes you happy?
Vernon (36:44):
You know, it’s get curious. And this would be an, a kid is about kids. Children are so curious, you know, why does it seem like once you turned 15 years old life flew by you because when you were eight years old and six year old, you were so curious about things and we didn’t get into these routines. Right. Right.
And it’s about looking to see what makes other people happy. What used to make you happy? You know, we forget that we, what we used to do for fun and enjoyment. So get curious. Yeah. And if you want, if you’re in a rut and you recognize it, you’re trying to shake it off. You know, you’ve been saying it all along, go move your body, go take a walk, go, just go, go drive and look around. Just, just get out of the environment.
If you can, um, you know, find something positive, you know, that you can listen to. I’m a big fan of put yourself in a positive place by listening to some good music. Just like you said, you love music. I love music and transports me. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (37:34):
Yeah. The, uh, I think you mentioned something and of course we could talk for hours. I know. But, um, the other thing that you kind of hit on there was being, when you tell people to define their happiness with themselves only, it’s a good point that we have to learn to be happy with us.
We can’t find our happiness in stuff or others. And, um, you know, I went through this, it’s been five years ago now, uh, downsize from, you know, that my kids were grown and gone downsize from the bigger home to a small place, got rid of, you know, 30 years worth of stuff.
But it was liberating. I mean, it just, I, I felt like I found my freedom, you know, I wasn’t tied to just stuff. And, uh, it’s incredible. People don’t understand it, but there was something about it that just, I felt freer, but kind of, that’s a little bit off track.
But on the other hand, I think it’s, you know, you have to find whatever you can do to be happy you before you can either be with other people, make them happy or help them define their happy place or find happiness in those relationships.
Vernon (38:46):
Exactly. You know, I love being with my son, but I also recognize what am I happy? He’s just cooking. And that’s my time where I can just be in the zone and it’s, for me, I can do that by myself. Right. Because I never want to incur my happiness. So my son and I never wanted him to ever get that sense that without me and him, I won’t be happy. Becomes the older, you know, young man out in the world. Right.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (39:09):
Well, uh, Vernon. So we appreciate you taking time out of your day to talk to us and we will, uh, set something up to have you back on, like I said, we could talk for, we can talk for more hours, but, so what is a tool that you use in your daily life? It can be professional, personal tool, habit, something that you do that you just couldn’t do without
Vernon (39:31):
Every morning. This is something that I’ve done religiously for probably 20 years is taken a walk, put my headphones on and I walk and I don’t. And, uh, the music is just there for background noise, but I just think, and it’s something I do every single morning, some days I don’t feel like getting out of bed, like to your point, but I make myself and this morning it was 28 degrees and freezing. And once I got out there, that is my, that is my tool. I love walking in nature. That keeps me centered. Yeah.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (40:01):
That’s awesome. So, yeah, I just want to, before we wrap up, I just want to say you’re probably one of the most chillest guys. I know. And then also you sitting there with the guitar in the background. I mean, it couldn’t be a more perfect setting. I’m glad you know this. Thank you. Uh, well, so tell everybody, uh, who’s your customer, what do you do for them? How they can reach out and get ahold of you.
Vernon (40:27):
All right. So I’ll just start with how you can contact me itself. www.whatsyourhappi.com as my website. And it’s happi with an i now, before you ask why and I, because do you make that better, but it’s, uh, the i is there to wake you up, but you can also email me at Vernon@whatsyourhappi.com V E R N O N@whatsyourhappi.com. And it’s happy with an I.
Okay. Now my, my ideal client is someone who seems a little stuck. Who’s recognizing that the energy’s low. You recognize them. If you don’t have the same concentration, the same focus and awareness, who wants to figure out what they are successful, but they know they want to be more successful in certain areas. Um, but someone also who’s willing to have fun. You know, I think people forget to take fun out of the equation.
Vernon (41:14):
Like everyone thinks that coach and I’ll have some people get on the first call and they’re like shaking. And I just let them know, like, that’s not the way we roll because to your point, like, I don’t do the high stress job getting, do this. I don’t yell at people. I’m just simply asked, you know, what type of reasons are you looking for?
Are you getting, uh, are you getting it by doing a current behavior? So what can we do to adjust what options do you have available? Because when you’re having fun, everything that we do sticks faster way faster. Right. But, um, yeah, that’s, that’s the best way to get in contact with me and a type of, you know, really cool, fun clients I’m looking for. Okay.
Roy – The Business of Business Podcast (41:47):
Well, great. And I’ll post that contact information in the show notes as well as on the web page when we get there. So again, Vernon, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be with us. Uh, I’m Roy, this is the business of business podcast. You can find us on all the major platforms, iTunes, Google, plus, uh, Spotify, Stitcher, uh, also at www dot the business of business podcast. And, uh, we’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as well. So until next time, uh, everybody be happy.
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