Girl, It's Time To Unlock Happiness: The Equation Explained

In this episode of 'Girl Come Sit With Me', host Dom engages in a deep conversation with author Leighton O. Campbell about the concept of happiness and the importance of vulnerability. They explore the 'Happiness Equation', a framework developed to measure happiness, and discuss the impact of social media on mental health. The conversation emphasizes the significance of self-awareness, the role of community support, and the necessity of receiving gratitude. They also touch on the importance of delaying confrontation with emotions and the journey of writing a book as a legacy for future generations.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Vulnerability and Collective Support
• 1:50 Introducing the Happiness Equation
• 4:27 The Impact of Social Media on Happiness
• 9:52 The Importance of Community and Conversations
• 11:45 Self-Awareness and Emotional Processing
• 20:36 Navigating Emotions and Finding Happiness
• 23:11 Listening to Your Body: The Intersection of Physical and Mental Health
• 24:55 The Concept of Delay vs. Avoidance in Mental Health
• 28:41 Understanding Fear and Anxiety: The Impact of Delaying Issues
• 30:18 Self-Worth and the Journey to Happiness
• 32:34 The Importance of Receiving Gratitude
• 35:05 Awareness and Acceptance: The Power of Compliments
• 37:21 The Legacy of Sharing Knowledge and Experience

Transcript

0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Girl Come Sit With Me. I am your host Dom. As you all know, I'm a psychology professor and this podcast is about us understanding the power of our vulnerability. So this is our kind reminder that we are not alone. Others are going through similar things or even going through similar emotions, situations. So this is our time to remember that there's power in a collective, okay? So say it with me, say on collective. Nope, I don't think I heard you say on collective. There we go, yes. So it is about the power of the collective. And today I have a very special guest, y'all. And not only is he a special guest, let me show y'all something. Do you see this? You see this book? I was just gifted a copy of this book and I cannot wait to read it. It is called Your Happiness Equation. And when I tell you all at first glance, you're like, okay, I want to be happy. Am I happy? How do I get to happy? And it just, I tell you when I met him, it just went straight into. deep discussion and it was incredible. So thank you so much for joining us. Y'all give him a warm welcome. Can't hear but I'm giving you applause. you go, okay I got you now. Cool, hey Dawn how are you? I am doing good. I am happy that we finally get to have this meeting and thank you so much. That's a signed copy of the not just a copy of the book. Anybody can get a copy of the book. You have a signed copy. Listen when I tell y'all your girl is special okay? Special thank you so much. much and today I really wanted us to get into it because What exactly is your happiness equation? What was the premise of it? A lot of levels to it, your happiness equation, essentially I created an equation to measure a person's happiness. That is insane. I love that. Yeah. It's pretty kind of out there, but not outside. I kind of am creative in certain ways and approach things. in a different way. So this actually came from a conversation I was having with my kids. wow. It was a COVID time. They were separated from their friends, extended family and so on. Not in school. It's all these breaks going on, not knowing when they'll be able to really go back outside. Yeah, tough times. Yeah. So I wanted to, I saw first of all that their happiness, their affect was kind of off. And I wanted to talk to them about it, but I didn't want to like give them a lecture because you know, wanting to turn it off. Exactly. So I was like, Hey guys, let's see if we can come up with an equation for happiness. Just kind of out of nowhere out of the blue and they're like, okay, let's see. It was COVID time. There was nothing better to do. So they started throwing out ideas. I'm quarterback in the conversation. I'm kind of staring at a bit. And when the conversation's over, I look down at what I have and I'm like, wow, there's something here. Now it was a very, very rudimentary, it was the very first version of your happiness equation. Yeah. was lot of polishing to do, but I could tell immediately that there was power there. And your children gave you that. Yeah, we did it together and they definitely played a role. Well, they were definitely the inspiration for it 100%. Yeah, I love that. So I'm a member of a networking group and I am the, at the time I was the educational coordinator. So every week I had to bring an educational topic to like give to the members to help them in life, business, anything that would just uplift them and give them information that'd be useful. So I decided to like work on the equation some more over that week time and still not really having any expectation of where it would go. thinking that like, okay, I'm going to have this conversation with my colleagues and it'll come and go. I'll never talk or think about it again. That's what I thought. So I do the presentation for minutes, just kind of like going through the methodology and how it works and why their variables are there and that kind of thing. Still rudimentary, still not the polished version that's in the book, but a little more polished than the initial one. And I was blown away by the response. There's about 40 people in my chapter and almost all of them called me, texted me, emailed me, came up to me and said how impactful it was, how it made them think. They started sharing things with me that I didn't know. And after getting that response, I'm like, okay, I actually have something here. And maybe I need to do something with it. And there's a need for it. That's the real thing. There's a need for it. It's so easy for us to look around and see the culture of people comparing themselves and not even on a negative way. It's just we see a lot of highlight reels on social media or even when we go out and about people usually present themselves to be as happy as possible, as grateful as possible and all these wonderful things and they're like, wow, how come I'm not a bubble of energy all the time? Actually, I just listened to an audio book. my son, all the sons going to FSU now. So I'm doing that drive a couple times a year looking like so I'm trying to fill it with listening to audiobooks and whatnot. So I just read this book called Let Them Theory. It's everywhere because I'm in bookstores now and I'm trying to get my book out but I see that book everywhere I go. So I'm like let's see what the hype is. Yeah what is it what's going on with it? So I listened to the audiobook and it is a good book and I enjoyed it. out of it. One of the things she talks about in there, she talks about comparison. Being, it can either be torture or can be teacher. It can be motivation depending on how you look at it. It could be motivation depending on how you look at it. I know social media gets a really bad rap and a lot of it is deserved in terms of people only putting out their highlight reels the best. They have the perfect family, the perfect physique, everything is perfect and we all know that's not how it is. So there's that negative aspect of it, kind of a positive aspect if you're aware and intentional about how you consume it. I don't think you can consume it blindly because I think our tendency is just to go negative. But if you can consume it with intentionality, then some of that stuff can show you what's possible. Yes, yes, I agree with it. So that's kind of like a prior to hearing that I was 100 % in the camp social media is. you know, has a lot of these negative components. You know, I'm on social media, I'm promoting my book, you know, socially I'm on social media as well too. But that kind of like made me second guess some of the things that I was thinking. Maybe there are more positives around it, but I do think intentionality is important. It really is, even when we check out the intention of why certain people post certain things. So my best friend, and I have been best friends since fifth grade. And he is, you know, successful in his own right, but he's a very private person. And when I tell you he posts his pages private, but he posts a lot, like the fancy cars and the big houses and the, you know, all the knickknacks and the designer thing, stuff like that. And one day I was just like, you're so private. What makes you post this stuff? And he was like, cause we didn't see too much of it growing up. He's like, we didn't see too much of it. So he was like, I need the little homies to see me. Cause now, you know, we're considered aunts and uncles now. So now he's like, he want to make sure that they can see it. Cause they don't have to see us in person anymore. Remember we just have to wait to see people in person to see certain things. Now you get the luxury of doing it over the phone. Yeah. And I think seeing it from people who are like you, who you can. late with who maybe you're from where you're from or been through what you've been through like that really kind of takes it to another level again I think intentionality is really important so I like what you said about your friend like he's got a method to why he's doing it he's not doing it just to show off of here's what I am here's what I got I mean if you want to do that know cool means but I'll part to you but he's doing it with intentionality so that's cool I really like that and then on the receiving end which is a lot to ask for children, you know, but as adults, we are susceptible to the same ills of social media. We are, we are. Definitely are. We can be more intentional and we can help encourage our children to be more intentional if they are exposed to it, which most kids are. And even opening the conversation with them. no matter how young they are, like, hey, okay, you see that. I remember my son was about, my oldest was about four at the time. And we would go in the store and every time we went in the store, typical kids said, I want this, I want that, I want this. Hey son, this is a marketing scheme. They have these things in the middle of the aisle as you walk by instead of having them placed with the other cluster of material things you can get. I was like, as a trick, they want you to buy it. They want you to spend their money. So every now and then he stopped asking for everything he saw here But if he got real bad and he really wanted it, he'll be like mommy. I'm falling for the marketing scheme And people are like did your four-year-old? Yep, he did. We're not judging my baby falling for the marketing scheme. I'm like, okay, so it would not be that much and get it for her. But yeah. That's funny. So it makes a Difference in us holding these conversations like how you did with your many means and even doing that together because We can't get to this alone. No, it's a complete team effort. It's a team effort community Even this like you can write a book, but if no one knows about it like kind of what's the point? know, this is part of the whole process. That's true. That one takes a village raise a child. And I say, I mean, I have business separate from this book. My business is like another child of mine. My book is like another child of mine. Just like you need a village to raise children, you need a village to grow a business, you need a village to have some of these projects. You really do. That's why I'm so fascinated with this because one of the questions on here that really stuck with me was, when a meaningful situation does not go as expected, negative impact on your emotions lasts a short, medium, or long time. This is something that really, you're asking them to dive into where they are, as far as related to their mental health, where are they in that moment? How long or how easy or difficult is it for them to hold on to things? and harbor these things. Yeah, that. All right. So a couple of disclosures. OK, talk to I wrote the book. I have my own score. My score isn't 100 because, mean. That makes sense. OK, so you were honest when you were answering it. OK. And my score really kind of hovers around a certain point. I'm about 84. It is just a number. So don't no one who reads this the book or. can get your score for free online. I'll let you guys know where towards the end. But it's just a number. But the thing that I kind of struggle with is that one. Because I know people. My brother is this person. have three brothers, my one of my brothers, Paul, he legitimately, something happens that's not ideal. It almost like it doesn't even enter his soul at all. He's like over it before he even knows about it. I'm one of those people. you? I'm one of those people. God bless you. Yeah, I'm one of those people. I'm working on it. See? Yeah. I'm working on it. I'm not there yet. I've been making progress though. very good. This book is actually, I'm kind of preaching to myself because I'm more aware of it now. Yeah. Where before it would just be like I would hold onto things and I would just like, well. you that's the way God made me or I need to process stuff. And then I started challenging myself, like, you need to process stuff? Like, what do need to process? Now some things, unfortunately, even though I'm working on myself, I still feel like I need to process, but I've been challenging myself when I think that. It's like, you know what, what do need to process? Just let it go. Let it go, mm-hmm. I could let this one go. So I found more of that that I could do that with. Love that no, that's real because you mentioned something earlier where you said self-awareness that is The first step in everything whether it's a a meetings when you first start going to the counseling and therapy That's the main thing that they say. Hey, we have to be Self-aware I notice another component. I'm very self-aware but another component that helps me release things or at least make it where things aren't staying into my system for too long and I'm not harrowing it and holding it for dear life is understanding not to stress what I don't have control over. Doesn't mean certain situations doesn't make me sad or anger me or anything like that. It's just that I'm like, okay, I don't have control over this. All right. And I release it. Or if I'm anger in that moment, I just release the anger then. If something bothers me then, hey, Um, that made me, that made me uncomfortable. Can we try not to do that again? Okay. Thank you. Let's all right. And then by that time I'm back to normal. Okay. So what we talking about again? And then I'm just going right back into it. So for me, it's also releasing whatever it is. If I'm happy in that moment. my goodness. Congratulations. I'm so happy with you. And I mean it when I'm saying it versus, y'all. Okay. I'm struggling. I'm a little sad right now. get a couple of breathes in, okay, all right, okay, I'm getting up, all right, I'm good. But it definitely, that releasing whatever it is I'm feeling, that way it rolls off me. Yeah, some people do certain things just naturally. Yeah, I'm natural with it. That's good. I'm naturally a happy person. It's hard to get me down. I love that, me too. Yes. But not everybody is, you know. Some people really got to struggle with either their happiness or they hold off, they really hold off to things for a long time, which will impact their happiness. That's why it's one of the questions. See what you did there. Well, mean, all the very well, there's seven questions. All of them play a role in the equation. depending on how you answer, it's going to like affect your score. Affect your score. I really appreciate that because when I was going through the questions, I was like, wow, it forces you. Okay, I get it that it's about our happiness, but it really forces us to explore who we are, like who we genuinely are as a person. it, without asking you who are you, it makes me wonder like, oh, so who am I? Oh, okay, I am the type of person who it's... these negative emotions, the negative impact on my emotion lasts a short period of time. I'm the person whose life purpose is this. I love that it helps people define who they are on their own terms because the world's already gonna place a definition on us. Exactly. Yeah, when we are doing the promotion, well, the promotion never ends, but- That part. That part. I took a week out of my life. And I did a cross country book tour with my brother, David, who you met. Yes. Shout out to David. Hi brother, David. So, so we did a week and we did a multi-city tour. And one of the things we did, we did many different types of promotional things. One of things we did is we did, um, street interviews with people. Oh, I love those on Tik Tok and Instagram. Yeah. Not on Tik Tok, but some of them you can see on Instagram. I haven't posted lot of them also, but we asked them the seven questions of your happiness equation and gave them their score on camera and then we talked about it. Oh, that is insane. Yeah. So it's like some of the people, their interviews were so bad because they didn't really think deeply about them at all. Now granted, their defense, they don't know me. I pulled them. It's a random thing. a random thing. They opportunities to think of it. That's true. So there's that. So we got some of those interviews that were just like really not even worth posting. Then we got some that were like people like poured out their soul. Oh my goodness. So these questions as you go through them, you can be very like surface level with it. And there's value to that to some degree. And it can go really deep. That's the part that I appreciate though. Yeah. Because think about the conversations, those random conversations we have in passing. Hey, matter of fact, when you came in today, I said, Hey, how you doing? How are you? And our natural reaction is typically what? Okay. Everything's good. Everything's good. Okay. How are you? But every now and then you may get that person that's like, wow, I really needed this question. And they may say, oh yeah, I'm good. And then they may think about it and be like, actually, I'm sorry. I'm not being honest. I'm struggling today. Woo-doo-doo-doo. This is what's going on. So I love that. Yeah, actually, it's funny you bring that up because as word gets out, I'm kind of like the happiness guy, especially in my own life, which is. It's interesting, but I'm refusing to take that on as like I'm not able to like experience my other emotions because of this project that I'm working on. Exactly. So I go to a person's business as a friend, you know, we do business together, what not, and I was having some things that I was like, they're not ideal and, you know, going through it. in a healthy way, but it's just stuff happens and you can't get over it. I'm a human just like everybody else, you know? So they're like, Hey, how's the book going? Mr. Happiness? Like, how are you doing? I'm like, actually, you know, I'm dealing with a couple of things right now. I'm not that happy. They didn't know how to do that. But I'm, not going to, I'm going to be myself. I'm going to keep it real. There'll probably be times where I'm like, I'll for the sake of the situation, um not do that. But like, if I'm felt, if I feel like that is a time to like be more honest, not that I'm gonna go into it, but like, you I'm dealing with some stuff right now. I'm sure it'll be fine, but in the moment, like I got some things on my mind. It's some things on your mind. And you're entitled to, we're still entitled to feel our emotions. And that's one of the things that I like that you don't shy away from. with your happiness equation is that we can still lean into how we're feeling. We just have to make sure one, we can identify how we're feeling. And one, understand that we're feeling some type of way, that self-awareness. Two, being able to identify what we're feeling. And then after that, then it's like, okay, now I can process. That's I can start processing. how I'm feeling so that way I can move forward in whatever that looks like, whatever capacity that looks like. Yeah, I think and agree with all of that. I don't know if you would agree, disagree, but I do feel that it's important to get to a place of happiness, get back to a place of happiness. That's one of the things I talk about in my book. It's like life can be brutal. It can, for real. I feel that we owe it to ourselves first and we owe it to the people in our life to work through whatever's going on and get back to a place of happiness. don't think you should rush through it. I think you should take all the time that you need, but I think you should be diligent about it when the time comes. Cause I think there there's a time of just morning, you just depending on what happened. It's like, I'm not working on being happy right now. I'm just sad that this tragic thing happened to me and I'm just going to be sad for this time. That's going different for everybody. But at some point I feel that you need to work towards becoming happy again. Would you agree with that? I completely agree with it. Hold on. I'm going to get you closer for video purposes. There we go. Okay. That way they can really see your face too in that camera sometimes. But yes, I completely agree with you with that because as we allow ourselves to get these emotions out, what happens when somebody shakes a Coca-Cola bottle before they pass it to you and they give it to you? It's going explode. It's going to explode and it's going to be a mess. Not just for the person who's drinking it, for the person, for the people around them in the vicinity. We're all going to get all this stuff and we're all going to get dirty and it's not a good look. Versus, okay, this is how I'm feeling. Hey, ah I get all that, but this is how I'm feeling, right? And when we give ourselves that time, you're releasing it. So not only are you relieving stress off of you mentally, but you're also relieving stress physically. Because what happened? When we hold stuff in, that's when we have heart attacks. That's when we have strokes. That's when it starts showing up in other ailments, because our body's like, you don't want to sit down. You're trying to run from this. mean, it's going to catch up. You're going to be like, why am I sick? Why am I so sleepy lately? I just been so tired. The reason you're so tired is because there's something that you're running from. Your body is trying to talk to you. Yes. And it's trying to tell you. You got to listen to your body. I'm pretty active and one of my doctors. oh He's like, he's a chiropractor. They do physical therapy. when I get banged up or whatever, he was like, you got to listen to your body. Like the no pain, no gain thing. That is true. But people never like explain like what that actually means. If your joint hurts. you should stop doing that because your joint, you're not going to like work your joint out. That's not like the point, you know, if your muscles are fatigued and you can push through that in a safe way, then yeah, cause that's kind of where growth happens. But there, if your, your back is just, you know, on fire, don't push through that. Listen to your body. And the same thing would apply to like, because we're talking about some mental health stuff, like the mental health stuff that you may be going through can manifest itself in your body and you listen to your body. You really should. And I love that because that's the first thing they tell you. I go to the, what's the name of the place? Stretch zone. So they stretch you out, things like that. And there's like, Hey, let us, none of this should be excruciating. Should it be uncomfortable? You're to be uncomfortable every now and then, but you should never be in excruciating pain. It should not, the pain should not be like, ooh, yeah, no. He's like, let us know because we're to stop then because that's how you get injured. And sometimes we can accidentally injure our hearts or an injure our minds through avoidance or, and avoidance can just be done out of fear sometimes. Like, ooh, I can't go through this because if I address it now, I'm going to be on the floor and no one's going to be able to help me. I don't know when I'll be able to get up. But what if that's exactly what you mean to get through releasing that so that way you can get to your happiness equation because things are going to affect you longer when you hold it in. Yeah, I 100 % agree. There's been a thing that I've been thinking about and it kind of ties into maybe our very, very first conversation. OK, OK, talk to him. Sometimes and this is not in my book. This is we're just talking. That works that works So this is not been researched. This is you know, don't do this don't listen to this but this is just kind of something I've been thinking about it's like um Sometimes you're not in a place to confront something. Mm-hmm. like avoidance, maybe there's a better word for it. I don't know. But like, you know, there have been things that have happened in my life that I'm like, you know what? I can't deal with this right now. You have to table it. Table it. I'm going to go and do something productive. And then I'll come back to this at another time. And I've done that for certain, in certain points of my life. Definitely. I, again, not giving advice, not in the book. But it's kind of worked in some situations. Is there something to that or? Hex yeah, there's something to it. Because you're still going, you saw how you told yourself, hey, we're not in this moment. We don't have the capacity, but we're going to get back to it. That just means you're not avoiding it. You're just delaying it. So it's almost like postponing your flight when you're about to go on vacation versus saying I done spent. all this money, I know I need to go on this vacation. If several people have spent money, they're all waiting on me to go. And I'm just like, you know what, I'm not going, I canceled the trip. That's avoidance. Yes. That would be, that would be the difference. Cause at least you're saying, Hey, I'm going to table this until I can. Right. And then versus just like, yeah, no, I don't need to go through this. Things happen. People die every day be on good, right? There is a difference between that versus, hey, I know I need to get through the work day because I know I need this money to make it to get my rent or my mortgage rate. But when I get home, I already know this is going to come out or, you know, there's a difference. you know, people don't ever talk about delay. They always talk about the negatives of avoidance. Like I've never. uh Well, I I have a therapist I go to, know, and we talk about different things uh as the need arise. And I've uh been in, you know, different types of situations like that. I read a lot, listen to a lot, it's never have come up before. Like delay. Is that something that comes up? Is that a known thing? So it's not necessarily known because we typically go for the extremes, which is what's popular. Either you're completely avoiding it or they'll be like, are you an avoidant or are you the type to hit things head on? And it's like, what if I'm in between though? What if I'm the gray in between? That's why like delaying thing is it's okay to delay certain things because it's delayed. It's not denied. It's just saying not at this moment. Maybe you're not ready at this moment or I'm not trying to be the voice of reason for those who are just like, I'm not ready. And they just keep pushing something back because they're waiting for perfection. That's different. But delaying it in a sense of, you know what? I know my time is coming. I know this is something I'm going to have to tackle. Let me try to get myself into position so I can tackle this comfortably, even though the tackling it may be super duper uncomfortable. Or, yes. You're putting it off, Exactly, if you're putting it off. And sometimes we can delay things so much to where anxiety starts to happen. Because you start to fear, but anxiety is fearing of the unknown. Fear is typically when someone is scared of something that's imminent versus anxiety, is something like, it's just fear of the possibility of it. It can be far away, has nothing to do with you. Fear of the possibility. And sometimes when we delay things too long, get to the anxiety part. And that's when you get into the negative with delaying things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Um, that's a good point. Cause you talk about like being honest with yourself about, this something that I'm delaying in an intentional positive way with intent? Yeah. Or am I just saying I'm going, I'm delaying it because I heard this buzzword, but I have no intention of doing it or lie to myself, that kind of a thing. Yeah, and I talk about, I don't talk about that at all, but I talk about people um who will say that they have this barrier to their happiness. And it's just like, there's nothing I can do to be happier. It's just, I'm one of those, I understand all the stuff you wrote and that's great, but I'm just one of those people, I can't be happy. Okay, um are there people like that? Possibly, possibly, you know, because there's a spectrum of almost everything these days, know, or have always been. part. Yeah. um But are you um throwing yourself in that category just so you don't have to do the work? So I am familiar with that concept of making sure that you're not like putting yourself in the category to avoid something. um And that's... m in the way that I'm processing this whole delay thing. And I'm not the type of person who avoids stuff. I usually go head on. But there's some times it's like, I got a lot going on right now. can't go head on this right now in the middle of everything. Agreed. I'm going get back to it. not right now. Just not in this moment. And that's okay too. That's okay. love. In church, they always say delay, not deny. And I just, I'm a firm believer of it. I know I'm just like you when it comes to the tackling things head on, which is probably why I'm so excited to just indulge in your book. Because it's so important for us to get to a place where, granted you do have, like you said earlier, people who are stuck in their ways. They're like, hey, I've been on this earth. this many decades and nothing's going to help me. Or you may have people who are more on the pessimistic side where they're just like, yeah, you know what? I've done so much stuff. This is probably karma. Or they may feel like they don't deserve happiness. sometimes in order to at least in my mind, the way I'm seeing it, in order for someone to fully take complete advantage of your happiness equation, they have to get to a point where they understand their self worth. Because in order for me to feel as though I deserve something, I have to feel like I'm worthy of deserving it. I touch on that a little bit. For real? Yeah, in the book. So it's kind of a bit of a story. So. Weird. So I was always for a very large portion of my life, probably like at the age of 35, I'm 46 now, that I made a switch in this. I was the type of guy that wouldn't let anybody do anything for me. If I'm out with my friends, they can't pay for me. Your birthday's coming up, what do want? I don't want anything. I just would not let people do anything for me. So I would tell myself the reason why I'm doing that is because I'm trying to like... there's no reason for them to spend their money on me. I don't want to inconvenience people, on and so forth. So the church that I was going to at the time, it was kind of like a, they didn't speak specifically on that, but they talked about robbing people of the opportunity to bless you. Like if somebody wants to do something nice for you, like, and if somebody that you love and they have good intentions and everything around the scenario is a hundred percent good. For you to tell that person no. is robbing them of an opportunity, of a blessing. And when I heard that, was like, man, I've been doing this wrong. I've been doing this wrong for a really, really, really long time. And then, so after hearing that, I started to open up a bit. somebody wants to do something for me and again, all those things surrounding it are good. Go ahead. And that has really added to my happiness because One of the things that they talk about that impacts your happiness is not only giving gratitude that has, uh you know, there are studies, I cite some of them in my book of how giving gratitude can help your happiness. But another thing that can help your happiness is receiving gratitude. oh So when someone is, you you've done something nice or maybe just you show up in their life in a way you didn't necessarily do anything in that moment, but they're just like, I just really want to say thank you for who you are and like how you've you know, you know, impacted my life. Like you could say, don't worry. don't worry about it. You know, it's I do anything for you and just keep moving. But more, you can just like, I'm really glad you said that because I really try and, whatever the next words are, I'm appreciative of I'm really appreciative of that. Like, you like let that soak in. That is another way that gratitude can impact your happiness. Not only. um, giving gratitude, but, but receiving gratitude. So that goes into that whole self worth thing being the type of person you're the type of person that is worthy of receiving, receiving gratitude, receiving just blessings from people. I'm so glad you outgrew that because even when you talk about the effects of it, I love that because as a friend or as a cousin or whomever, I'm thinking in my mind, don't rob me of showing my love. If I love you this much and you've provided so much love to me, I want to be able to show that kind of love back. Because sometimes when you were stopping this, it's almost like you were rejecting them in a sense. You were. You're rejecting them. You were like, Hey, I'm a good friend, but I'm not going to get the opportunity to be, you know, in my defense and in their defense, a lot of them don't know. we talk about awareness. So this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast right now, you can't say you don't know because you just heard it. So if you're the type of person that does that, um it probably comes from, it could come from many different places, regardless of where it comes from. start to like become more aware of that. And if you can let, again, the right person, right scenario, all, everything's positive. If somebody wants to bless you, let them bless you. And sometimes just practice saying, okay, thank you. That too. And it can be, I'm going to break it down even further. It can be as simple as a compliment. There's so many people who don't know how to take a compliment and see exactly. So one of the things I do in all of my classes that I teach, so I teach college students and in all the classes I teach, I always have one class where I'm like, hey, here's a challenge. And for extra credit, just tell me what that was like. Next I was like, how many of you all receive a compliment? And you're like, they're like, ooh, matter of fact, give me a random compliment, it could be anything. I love your hair, it looks great. What? Okay, it was man, it was a struggle today. But you know, now my friend hair is longer than, no matter of fact, I like your bald head more than I like my hair, right? So I just deflected, I just pushed the compliment back on you instead of just saying, you know what, thank you. Thank you. And walk on. Don't say thank you and you don't have to, nope. Thank you so much, I appreciate that. Just accept the compliment because we are all deserving. of receiving love and having those moments where certain hormones are being released into our body because of something simple as work, like when we work out and we get the happy hormones that come out. Same thing with compliments, y'all. Imagine how many men are not accustomed to getting compliments. Yeah, that's one of examples that I put in my book. Not only would I not let people pay for me, I wouldn't let them I wouldn't have received their compliments. I would deflect and I was like, no, but yours is great. Like, it's like, man. And I always thought even then at that point in time in my life, because I've always, I'm the same person now as I was then. I just have more information. know? um So that whole thing just really kind of changed the way I approach that. So. No, I. I'm very appreciative for this because now I'm about to have it where my students have to read your book because yes, because I'm sure you will. Yeah, I'm going to read it first. Make sure it's appropriate. I'm pretty sure it is because even you know, because even with the excerpts, I've been able to glance at things like that. I'm already seeing like, hey, this is a game changer. Could be. This is a game changer. be for sure. Not can be, it is. Well, it is for sure because people have, it's been out there long enough for people to have read it and people have already reviewed it and then I've gotten personal messages from people. Yeah, I watched a couple reviews. Not trying to stalk you but I watched a couple reviews on the book and everything. So yes, it is a game changer. Now, how big of a game changer? remains to be seen, but I know for sure, because people have told me it has changed their life. And, um, so that's powerful, you know, and it's a lot of validation because it's hard to do this. I can't believe it. that. you know, you're an author, put your heart and soul into something and you're like, well, let's see where this goes. And to, get the validation that people appreciate it. it. touch them in the way that you intended it. That is really cool. And now, so okay, question. You see how your book has touched so many people already. Your happiness equation, also I like this hoodie by the way. I kind of want that hoodie. Y'all, the hoodie is fine, okay? So since you have been able to do that for other people, you do understand that you're deserving. of all that coming your way tenfold as well, right? I'm an open vessel. Okay, okay, there we go. I am receiving all of it. yeah, I've been almost brought to tears at times when people, and I respond back like, you know, thank you for sharing that. Like you made all the hard work. Worth it. Worth it, you know. So it's been good for them, for the people who've read it and it's touched them. you know, in, in that way, it's been great for me. It's been great for my children to see like how a small conversation, like a mustard seed kind of a conversation has grown into something that is like changing people's lives. Like that's dope. That's incredible. And they get to see your legacy. That too, which is, you get to see your legacy, not just when they look in the mirror, but also. through your work and what you're exemplifying by doing the work. Because we, again, like, I guess this is kind of like maybe a full circle thing. Like the conversation or the book idea came from a conversation with them because I was trying to get to them in a way that they wouldn't, um, like put their guard up. Um, there's so many things that I want to tell them that they're going to probably not want to hear it. maybe they're not at a point in their life where they're even into that stuff. but they have something that has my best stuff. From a life, I I've traveled the world. I've read a lot and I read a lot. I have a business and I've experienced life to, mean, I'm divorced and remarried. So I've really experienced life and I put a lot of that in there. So they may not be a place to hear it right now, but if I'm gone and this book will be here. Mm-hmm. It's a moral as long as the world is here. Exactly. They'll have something to go to. Well, what would my dad say or think about this? What he What would he do? I touch on the biggest things in life. And that's beautiful because it goes to your children, even eventually your grandchildren, things like that. That's real. So where can they find this, Layton? Where can they find your happiness equation? So. our website is like the hub for everything. Okay, perfect. What's our website is? uh Your happiness EQ.com. Okay. Okay. Your happiness EQ.com. That's our website. So on our website, you can buy this hoodie if you want to buy the hoodie, you can buy the hat if you want the hat, you know, we got a bunch of other merch that is that is there. You can of course buy the book. It takes you to a link on Amazon. The book is I think the paperback is$8.64. I'm not doing this to make money necessarily. I am really trying to help people. So I've tried to lower the bars of like getting involved, getting more information as low as possible. So you can get the book, of course. The book is out on all four versions. So we have the paperback. We have the hardcover book. That one's $25. Yes. Hardcover. If you're trying to ball. with the happy or happiness equation then hardcover all day. So we have the e-book version which is $8.64 so again super super low, not a barrier to entry. And then we have the audio book too which I am the narrator. I was going to say are you please tell me you're the narrator. I am the narrator. Very good. all four versions are available. Because people have been telling me as I've been going through this project. Oh, you got the oh, that's great But I don't really do paperback. Let me know when you have the audiobooks and I got all the bases covered So if you're interested in this at all, you have no excuse no excuse all out there right now So you can do that on the website, You can also all our links to social media are there From our website, but our social media handle on all platforms are the same. It's at your happiness EQ EQ. Yeah, so there's that And then also, you can get your score, like I mentioned earlier, for free. So the marketing people have gotten really upset at me if you're doing this, but I'm just, I'm doing it and I'm not changing. I'm not changing. You can go on my website for free. You don't have to put in your email address. You don't have to put in a credit card. You don't have do anything. And you can answer the seven happiness questions and you'll get your score on the spot. That is insane. Now, You can go like we talked about, can go very deep and that's where the book and some of the other stuff is going to come into play. But if you're just curious and you want to find out what your score is, you can do that for free right now. Anyone in the world, wherever you are in the world, you can do it. That is incorrect. Yeah, I know your PR team is just like, why? Okay. It's like, you know, I want people to interact with it. That's true. value beyond that, then they'll connect in other ways. And I love that because even for research basis to see, okay, this is what's working, this is what's not working. You really get to see people's starting points before they get your book. And then I'd be interested. Okay, so for all of my viewers and the Girl Come Sit With Me community, when you all get a chance, I want you to go to the website, yourhappinesseq.com. And what I want us to do is we are going to take the quiz, answer the seven questions. We're gonna dive deep. We don't even want it to be superficial, because let's dive deep, right? We can do superficial at any other time. We're gonna dig deep, answer it, and then once you get it, once you go through the book, give yourself some time to sit with it, and then I want you to go back and take the test again. See if... your score went up. Not saying your score will be perfect because we're not robots, but at least give yourself the opportunity to see where you are after you check out Layton's book, Your Happiness Equation. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for coming to sit with me Layton for real. I appreciate this. Thank you for having me. This was incredible. Now, y'all, I got to go to the website and get a hoodie because... Yeah, so thank you so much. And did you have any parting words? Only thing I'll say is that in our logo, which was also done by my brother David, none of the brushstrokes for the happiness face are perfect. They're intentionally imperfect because everybody's happiness is going to look different. So when you take your score, it's just a number. It doesn't matter what it is. You know, the important thing is answering the questions honestly, seeing what pings you, and then starting to take the next steps after that. I love that. I remember when you first told me that, I was just thinking the intentionality around all of it is that's people are longing for. That's what people are longing for. A labor of love. Yes, for real. So thank you again, and have a good one. Thanks, lady. Woo. Woo. Later, y'all.