Gift biz on wrapped episode 245 It's amazing how just even

one minute a day can make a huge difference in your

entire day.

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz on,

unwrapped, helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue And I'm so glad that you're here with me

today as I'm recording this.

We're just a couple of weeks away from the holidays.

Christmas and Hanukkah are at the same time this year as

you may know,

which can get pretty hectic around my house.

We're an interfaith family so we celebrate both and in terms

of decorations,

I decorate different rooms in the house to different holidays.

So for example,

our dining room and our living room are Hanukkah and truth

be told,

everything else in the house is Christmas.

My house looks like one of those holiday shops with a

festive spirit everywhere.

It's really fun for me to be surrounded by all of

that color and even though it's a lot of work,

putting everything up,

it really makes me happy being happy.

That's the topic of our show today.

I'm excited for you to hear this because my guests takes

a different approach then you may have ever heard before.

When it comes to happiness,

I think you can understand how being able to attract happiness

yourself can make you feel better,

but she also explains how it can make your business better.

Hmm. Affecting your business results by being happier.

That's something I think you'd say is worth considering.

What I really like is how doable this is for every

single one of us.

It doesn't take a lot of time or money and it's

something that we can initiate and control.

I find this a perfect topic for the holiday season right

now and as we enter into a fresh brand new year.

So regardless of when you're listening to the show,

it's going to enlighten you and show you how you can

be happier.

So excited to get into this conversation.

You guys.

Today we have Jennifer Dunham as our special guest.

Jennifer's the founder of profitable lifestyle,

live and owner of time,

money, and happiness matters as a profitable lifestyle designer.

Jennifer helps driven professionals love their career and fully love their

lives with over 20 years experience running her information technology firm.

So designing systems and operating procedures,

it's easy to see why Jennifer's approach is rooted in her

it background.

She's a believer in automation,

habits, repeatable processes,

and streamlining to reduce overwhelm so you can focus on what

matters most.

She teaches her clients how to find more time so they

can make more money and increase their happiness.

Doesn't that sound awesome?

Jennifer, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much,

Sue. I'm so excited to be here.

Me too.

But before we dive into all this goodness and happiness production,

because that's where we're going with this today.

I'd love for you to share with us a little bit

more about you through a motivational candle.

So if you were to pull up a quote and show

us visually a color or what that candle is all about,

what would your motivational candle look like?

Well, the color definitely was an easy thing for me to

think about because I love turquoise blue.

So the candle itself would be a beautiful turquoise blue.

And the quote itself,

I'm going to keep it short and sweet and it's just

something that I teach all of my clients.

It's something that's,

it's a mantra that I think everybody should remember all the

time, which is failure is awesome.

It's short and sweet.

Oh, now not many people would think that.

So expand on that a little bit.

Sure. Well,

you know,

one of the things I always like to share is that

if you're not inaction,

if you're not doing,

if you're not trying,

you're not learning.

So I know that we tend to focus on what we

didn't get done or what didn't go well.

But when you can start to embrace this idea of celebrating

the fact that you failed,

you're allowing yourself to more easily step out of your comfort

zone. You're allowing yourself to go into what I call your

courage zone.

When you're not afraid that you're going to fail,

you're embracing the fact that you could fail.

And so instead of just,

you know,

we talk about celebrating wins and I think maybe women more

than men,

I don't know that might be a stereotype,

but we tend to focus on what we didn't get done

as opposed to what we did get done.

So it's really important to celebrate your wins that creates a

positive connection in your brain with the actions and the motions

that you're taking when you celebrate your wins,

but you also have to celebrate your failures.

It's easier to get off the ground faster and faster each

time when you start to celebrate your failures instead of being

deflated and letting like an entire day,

like sometimes failures really get you down and you start to

struggle with getting back up.

But when you start celebrating your failures,

you can get up faster.

Each time.

Brings to mind to me that if we could just reframe

the way we think this,

we always think about the winds being some result or goal

that we were obtaining versus the wind also being just that

we took the action.

Absolutely. We put ourselves out there and did it.

That's a win unto itself regardless of what the result is.

Absolutely. Every little win is a big win.

And I recently heard a phrase and I've heard it before,

but I recently heard it again and I'll share it with

your listeners cause it's just an amazing,

here's another motivational quote,

but small hinges swing big doors and the idea that a

very small win can really make a huge impact to your

business and that small win may not even be a business

win. It could be a personal one that you allowed yourself,

five minutes of personal self care that you've put into your

morning routine that you didn't use to do can make a

huge impact to your business daily routines.

Oh, that's interesting.

I want to dive into more of that as we go.

For sure.

That's making me think a little bit.

Absolutely. I'd like to go back a little bit.

So you had an information technology firm for 20 years.

I still run that firm.

Okay, so you still have that going.

How did the happiness matters come about?

How did you identify and integrate that in?

Well, what happened was my husband and I moved out into

what I call the country.

We live on a five acre chicken farm now.

Oh my gosh.

Well that's why in the pre chat you said you hadn't

even been out yet to,

So we moved from what my husband called suburbia hell and

we moved out into the country close enough to still be

within commute distance with our it clients.

My husband also has an it consulting firm.

And so we moved out into the country and then all

of a sudden at the time I was also,

I had a photography studio,

a boutique photography studio for 15 years.

And all of a sudden my businesses just started to really

take off.

And my relationship was better.

I was a much happier person and friends and family and

colleagues. We're starting to ask Jennifer like the joke was what

are you growing on your farm?

And that's,

I tell them it wasn't that,

but the key point that like that computer science,

geeky girl and me wanting to reverse engineer cause I was

really curious cause it was so many people making these comments.

What was it that was so different?

And so I ended up coming up with this concept of

my profitable lifestyle formula.

And it's a mathematical formula cause that's just kind of how

my brain works.

But the big thing was is that I was injecting happiness

as an ingredient going into my business success.

Most people think of happiness as an end result.

Like I will be happy after I lose 10 pounds.

I will be happy after I get in the right relationship,

I'll be happy after I get that promotion or that big

break. Well,

and the heartbreaking thing is when then someone obtains whatever that

is and then they get there.

Then they realize they're not happy yet so they keep reaching

and reaching and reaching for more.

Absolutely. In fact,

I did an interview series back in,

high level entrepreneurs and millionaires about their success habits and one

of them,

one conversation actually there was two conversations that really stood out

to me and one of them was where she shared that

she broke the seven figure Mark and she didn't even know

it. Like in other words,

she kept going and she never stopped to celebrate the fact

that she broke the seven figure Mark and it really resonated

with me because again,

the idea that you have to stop and celebrate and that

and of course some of these things were things that I

was teaching my clients and I always like,

I was kind of devastated because I was like,

wow. Since then,

of course you realize that she was moving a too much

of a steam that she couldn't maintain.

So she's taken a step back and she's doing more the

things that she loves now.

But at the time she was just full steam ahead.

And when you start thinking about with this profitable lifestyle formula

that I have,

I call it your profit potential.

And this formula happiness impact are the exponential components.

And they are very intangible.

You can't count happiness and impact.

However, they're such an important ingredient into the success of your

business that they're the exponential component.

So in other words,

it's amazing how just even one minute a day can make

a huge difference in your entire day.

So are the happiness components different by person?

Yeah, of course they are.

So I tell people that they can actually start to put

some happiness on autopilot.

I'm a tiny habits certified coach.

So a lot of what I teach,

even business related type stuff I teach is all through the

power of tiny habits.

And you can start to be happier in five minutes a

day or less.

In fact,

it's how you train your brain.

I know I'm going to date myself,

but I know that we've all done this where we've driven

away from our house and you can't remember.

You get not more than 30 seconds away and you're like,

Oh, did I put the garage door down?

I can't remember.

I so do that.

And then you drove back.

Inevitably of course there might be a flute case in there,

but inevitably you've always put it down and it's just because

it's part of your routine,

it's part of your habit and the more things that you

can put in your daily routines that are habits,

you do them in autopilot mode,

you do them without thinking.

Again, that's how I train my clients for cashflow and client

flow is starting to put habits into their business routines.

But with happiness you can do the same thing and each

person's version of happiness is different.

And so kind of going back to the story of moving

out to the farm here,

one of the things that I realized I needed,

which I never realized before was being in nature.

And I've discovered that being in nature is a grounding point

for me.

And everybody has a different grounding point where you really just

feel connected with yourself.

And it doesn't have to be any lengthy exercise or activity.

I mean it could just be like me going outside and

spending 30 seconds of just really like smelling some fresh air,

hearing the birds chirping,

looking at the leaves blowing or the breeze blowing and hearing

the sounds of the chickens and the birds and being in

nature. And what I recommend is that everyone find their grounding

point. What is that for you And how do you do

that? Just observe what makes you feel good throughout your days.

Yeah, absolutely.

So if there is,

when you think about it,

when you're having a crappy day,

what is it that you can start to instill that brings

you back?

And maybe it doesn't fix all your problems,

but it just makes you feel better.

I usually say that you're grounding point.

If you can in some way connected to all five of

your senses,

you know,

sight and smell and sound and hearing and touch and taste.

Even, for example,

maybe it's really giving yourself the gift of savoring your first

sip of coffee every morning,

feeling the warmth of the cup in your hands.

You like smelling it and listening to it as it's brewing.

And then really just giving yourself the gift of 15 seconds

of the first swallow of coffee.

It's part of your regular routine,

but consciously acknowledging and recognizing the activity and that it's something

that you like.

Absolutely. And it's intentional.

I talked to people about having a recovery plan for when

you have a bad day.

So if you were to start to think about the things

that you would do when you're having a bad day,

it's likely that one of those things could be part of

your grounding point.

Like maybe there's a song that you listen to.

Maybe music is really part of your grounding point,

is it smell?

So like maybe lighting a candle,

maybe it brings you back to a certain memory and it

lifts you out of a bad mood.

Usually one of your senses as a little more in tune

with your grounding point.

So if you can again figure out what it is that

you would do as part of your recovery plan from having

a bad day,

most likely one of those things could become your daily grounding

point. That makes sense.

You know,

it brings to mind to me about a month ago or

so, Laurie,

my assistant came in and I was busy on deadline for

something cause I'm one of those crazy,

really, really driven like I've got to get this done,

I've got to get this done.

Like always like that.

And she came in and there was something we needed to

talk about.

I forget what it was right now and she's like,

Sue, let's just go walk around and talk about this.

It's such a beautiful day and the office is in a

really nice area.

Like the Lake is right near us,

et cetera.

And she's like,

let's just go walk around for 10 minutes and talk about

this so we'll be able to get this accomplished and you

can get out of the office,

whatever. And I was so resistant to doing that because I

felt like it was going to take longer than if we

just did it in the office or something like that.

But going down and taking that quick walk refreshed me and

energized me.

I was to myself,

I need to do that type of thing more often because

I just felt so much better and probably was more productive

when I got back after that.

I don't really know one way or another.

You probably were.

Is that an example?

Oh absolutely.

In fact,

you probably were more productive when you got back.

Here's the thing is you can use this time.

Getting away from the computer is great and using the time

outside for you just to be strategizing and you're giving your

brain a little bit different space in which to think.

So getting outside and whether it be with your assistant or

not with her,

but going outside,

having a conversation.

My assistant and I still go down and run my it

firms. So I'm driving down near the Capitol here in California

several days a week for meetings.

And so when we're driving,

I usually will have a call with my assistant and you

can multitask and I want to use that word very cautiously

right now,

but you can multitask when you're using two different parts of

the brain.

Otherwise you really can't multitask.

We'll come back to that.

But so for multitasking,

if you're out and you're walking and you're enjoying nature,

you're hearing the birds,

you're feeling the air,

but then you're also,

the other part of your brain that you can use is

you can still be strategizing,

you can still be talking through,

you can still be planning and you're unconsciously allowing your grounding

point. If it were your grounding point,

it could become your grounding point.

You're allowing that to really bring in more happiness and productivity

to your day.

Yeah, I,

you know,

I also think just another extension,

I'm bringing this up only to help our listeners try and

think of how this might work for them as well.

But I only live just about a 25 minute walk to

the office and so when it's nice I sometimes will walk

and I find that I get new ideas while I'm walking.

That is if I turn off a podcast cause I'm always

doing that,

but if I just leave myself time,

somehow that change in environment opens up to new ideas.

It's also kind of like how people are.

If they go on vacation,

you know,

and try and get away from their business and then they

come back and they have these great ideas.

Absolutely. It's a different scenery.

You're actually functioning some ways,

kind of a different part of your brain just because you're

so used to the other routine.

I get great ideas when I go out walking because you're

raising your heart rate and you're consciously having to make sure

you're not stumbling over things.

You're physically having to move your body and it's amazing how

when you start to get to the point where you've almost

allowed yourself to be a clean slate and it's the same

thing like you were just mentioning with vacation,

but you're at this point.

Then all of a sudden ideas are just face spring from

the well,

Yeah, because they're being triggered by things that you maybe aren't

normally around or your body's edit different pace acting at a

different pace physically or certainly not in front of the computer.

And that brings up those ideas,

I'm guessing.

Yup, absolutely.

Yeah. Okay.

Let's get back to this a little bit more.

In terms of the five minute a day or less,

is this all based on finding multiple grounding points or are

there other things that you can do?

There are other things you can do.

So the grounding point is just something that I suggest that

people do as one of their habits.

And again,

a tiny habit is based off of 60 seconds or less.

So when I'm suggesting that people can add new habits to

their personal routines or their business routine,

I'm not suggesting that there are big habits because that's one

reason why people don't succeed at like new year's resolutions.

So another example of a tiny habit that you can do

that will automate over time.

When you start to become the you solidify and you do

it on autopilot mode,

that adds happiness is for example,

I'm going to give you some of my example.

I call these brain bliss activation because this is where you're

connecting the neuropathways in your brain with these elements of happiness.

You're doing it on autopilot.

So for me,

when I get in the car and I turn the ignition

on, I always make sure that I have no sound like

no radio,

no sound,

and I give myself that gift for at least like 60

seconds of my drive.

My husband's like the exact opposite.

You turn the car on and the radio's already blurry,

and so for me,

60 seconds of an often I will drive in silence like

the entire drive,

which I know drives my husband crazy,

but being able to give yourself the gift of silence is

another example that I use for myself.

Here's a different example of a happiness habit.

Whenever I get into an elevator,

because we live in this world where we're always looking down

at our phones,

is I intentionally,

my habit is to not look at my phone when I'm

in an elevator because if there's other people in the elevator

with me,

I make sure to to just say hi,

how are you today?

And I know it's such a small thing,

but here's the thing is it's not really a happiness habit

that's directed for like me specifically.

But by having that little bit of human to human conversation,

it is allowing the opportunity for you to brighten someone else's

day. So I have one maybe let's see if this is

one. Sure.

So on my way to the office when I'm driving now,

not when I'm walking,

which to be honest is the majority of the time we

have several coffee shops.

I have a coffee shop right below me.

There's Starbucks,

there's Dunkin donuts,

there's a number of them.

But I will go to a coffee shop and I intentionally

you, everyone in the morning is so busy.

They're so like thinking of getting into their day,

getting on with their day or whatever.

But I intentionally smile at the barrista or the person who's

handing me the coffee through the drive through or whatever.

You know,

they're usually just giving the coffee,

moving on to the next order.

I always smile at them and say thank you.

And I always see like a little,

well people who are regular know that I do that,

you know?

And I do it intentionally cause I want it to be

happy. We're starting our day but I feel like it makes

me feel good cause I know the act of smiling does

something to your brain but I've also then done something nice

for someone else even if it's like a two second,

you know,

you see their lips go up in a tiny smile or

something and they move on.

Would that be one?

Absolutely. Yeah.

That's exactly an example of a tiny habit that helps elevate

like your automated happiness.

Because I feel like I've done something for myself and for

someone else in like two seconds with a routine I already

have. Cause I guess getting my coffee as a happiness habit

too. Absolutely.

That takes a little more than two minutes to get there.

That's a really good example.

Soon. Okay,

so then as guidance for people who are listening,

you know,

finding the grounding point,

maybe have a couple of those.

You're thinking like if it's nature,

I'm also a nature person,

so nature for us it might be something else for someone

else it might be just hanging out with your dog for

two minutes in the morning or some pet,

something like that.

Absolutely. Picking,

picking flowers and putting them on your kitchen table for when

you get home,

things like that.

Absolutely, and it might even be like if you picked flowers

and you put them on the kitchen table as I'm making

sure to go over and just appreciate them when you walk

in the door.

Oh yes.

Are you loving this?

As much as I am such small,

Tiny things that we can incorporate into our day that can

up the happiness level.

We're going to talk about even more of this after a

word from our sponsor.

This podcast is made possible thanks to the support of the

ribbon print company.

Create custom ribbons right in your store or craft studio in

seconds, visit the ribbon,

print company.com

for more information And then the brain bliss activations.

Any other examples of that just to continue getting our listeners

brains thinking here?

Sure, so you know,

people often talk about you can have a gratitude practice and

you can do that in the evening.

As an example,

when you turn your bedroom light off into your head hits

the pillow is to think of you know at least one

thing that you were thankful for that day.

And I caution the word thankful because sometimes that can be

a big word if you're having a bad day,

but one thing that you appreciate is a little bit easier

sometimes to do when you're having a one of those days.

But that's another example because it's a very small habit that

you can get into.

You can also incorporate,

I'm going to give an example of a tiny habit related

to even business activities like envisioning how you want your day

to go.

I tell my clients to start doing a daily,

like not necessarily a mantra,

but like really think about how you want your day to

go or how you want your business activities to go that

day. Yeah.

And to think about that while they're brushing their teeth in

the morning.

Oh there you go.

Cause you might as well be doing something right.

And you probably shouldn't be looking at your phone at that

point. Absolutely not.

So there's a time when you could use some brain power

and I really do,

I believe in the law of attraction and visualization like that.

And that just makes so much sense to me to do

that, to visualize how your day is going to go and

then you're setting yourself up for some portion of success.

I mean,

you might visualize that you're going to win the lottery and

that may or may not happen,

Right? Yeah.

Make it somewhat real as thick.

Yeah. Yeah.

But putting some intention behind it.

Would you add journaling then into this category as well?

So a journaling exercise.

Again, I think that could be a little bit harder unless,

and here's an example of how you can take a journaling,

the desire to do more journaling and turn it into a

habit that can stick.

Because oftentimes when you start wanting to journal again,

it's kind of like the new year's resolution to want to

exercise more.

It often will bite you in the butt and you feeling

like you're a failure because you don't do it every day

is instead of committing to journaling or having that be your

habit. Similar to the idea of,

I've just a thought of gratitude as you could write down

one sentence,

you know,

make the commitment that your tiny habit for journaling is writing

down one sentence every day.

Oh, I really liked that.

I'm not a journaler,

but I could write down a sentence a day.

Right? And when you make it tiny like that,

it feels doable.

And that's the whole point of a tiny habit is it

doesn't take a lot of motivation.

So, but here's the key thing is that once you,

and this works for exercise and it's amazing how it works

for business activities,

when you make the commitment for one sentence,

if you get on a roll or if you write one

sentence and then that leads to a second sentence and then

pretty soon before you know you've got a page that's like

the cherry on top to the big ice cream sundae,

right? Because the whole point was that yours is going to

write down one sentence.

I mean,

heck, you could even make it tinier if you wanted and

just write down one word.

And so your tiny habit,

the important thing with a habit,

which we touched upon at the very beginning,

is that you need to celebrate that you did it Right.

You have to,

and that's part of that brain bliss activation formula is that

you have to not only make it a tiny habit so

that it's doable and then it doesn't take a lot of

motivation, but then you have to celebrate that you did it.

You have to recognize it and then celebrate Pat yourself on

the back.

Feel the benefits of it.

To your point about silence in the car,

you know how like cleansing something like that is the thing

that I love about these Jennifer,

is none of this costs money.

None of it.

Absolutely none of it.

And it barely even costs time.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. So then swinging that back then,

a lot of what you talk about is making more money

in less time.

Does this happiness quotient swing into that somehow?

It does.

In the sense of,

it's twofold.

One, I truly think that having your happiness automated in some

capacity with these Brinkley's activation kind of moments sprinkled throughout your

day will allow you to be more productive in your business.

It is actually,

I might misquote the number.

I think it's 31% 31% of people are more productive if

they're happier.

So the happiness quotient affects our productivity because we're just in

a better place mentally.

Absolutely. Yep.

And so,

for example,

happier people close more sales 37% of the time.

And that makes sense because of course,

if you're happier than people are attracted to you in a

different way.

Right. I think so.

Well people want more of that.

They want to be around people who are happy because they

want it to rub off because let's face it,

when you're around someone who's smiling and jovial,

kind of like my smile at coffee in the morning versus

me frowning,

people would want to be closer to me.

I'm thinking or be with me more likely than if I'm

not then if I'm a grouch.

Absolutely. So the happiness part definitely plays into it,

but then the other part that plays in to like the

making more money and less time is the tiny habit part

of it.

Being able to extrapolate this same notion of creating a tiny

habit but related around business activities that directly bring in revenue.

Got it.

So kind of like how I say step-by-step,

don't look at the whole big picture at the end,

but break it into the little steps.

Absolutely. You're relating that also to tiny habits cause there's so

much more digestible and doable.

Absolutely. And really it's a matter of figuring out,

it's funny when you're really good at something that you don't

realize that it's a struggle for other people.

So for example,

with running my it firm and running these multimillion dollar projects

that I've been on for years,

it's really easy for me to look at a project plan

and it's really easy for me to prioritize what should be

done first and next and like an order prioritization I have

found is not something that a lot of people are good

at, which I just,

again, when it's natural to me it's like,

well we think,

Oh well everybody can prioritize and prioritization doesn't always come easy

to people,

so they don't always see what is the task that they

should be doing.

That is the more direct revenue generating tasks.

Yeah, because it's so easy to go recount inventory or gravitate

to something that's more comfortable.

That's very,

very far from the sale.

Absolutely. And it's because a lot of us and myself included

and I've gotten better with it over time,

we don't like selling.

Oh yeah.

That is almost a hundred percent of the people who are

listening right now.

And one of the things,

I've been on a soap box topic lately,

you know I do a Facebook live training,

a free training every week and one of the things,

you know,

I started out time,

money and happiness matters just to kind of come full circle

and, and finish up the story about how that even began

when we moved out to the country is it started out

as a blog.

I blogged in my photography studio all the time,

like I was blogging like 365 days a year.

And then when I moved out here and I created time,

money and happiness matters,

I started blogging five times a week and I've since reduced

it to three times a week.

So I have loads and loads and loads of content.

And so I've been on this soapbox topic lately,

putting myself on a content diet and not creating anything new

and really leveraging my time.

I'm all about leveraging time,

especially with habits.

And one of the things that I've been talking about lately

is soft selling.

First of all,

for all your listeners,

please don't use the word selling,

especially if it doesn't resonate with you.

And instead use the word helping or serving,

selling. There's a negative reaction to that word itself.

And so if you can translate that to,

Oh well I'm helping someone or I'm serving someone and in

some capacity we are making their lives better.

We're making even in the product based industry.

So when someone buys a product from you,

it makes them feel good.

They want that product from you.

You are helping them,

you're enhancing their lives.

Yeah, I mean you,

in a way,

you're selling happiness.

Like if I buy a new pair of earrings that someone

has made and I'm put them on and I feel better,

I'm naturally happier.

So I think all of us as listeners who are makers,

if I wrap myself in a handmade quilt,

that is the colors that just make me feel so good,

I'm happier.

So I think we could almost say that everyone who's a

maker who's listening here has some quotion of providing happiness to

whoever buys their product.

Absolutely. And when you get out there and if you're blogging

now or if you're in,

you know,

I think even for all product based businesses you have to

be online.

In today's world in some capacity.

It doesn't have to be,

you don't necessarily,

you can have a brick and mortar store,

but you also still probably are still out there needing to

pay attention to what kind of reviews people are writing about

you. I mean there's still an online factor and so when

you're in this online world today,

it is really something that I've been sharing about this technique

of soft selling.

It's really about sharing more about your experiences,

your stories in the service based industry.

It's really sharing more about your personal,

and again,

you don't have to get super personal,

you don't have to air any dirty laundry,

but you might think of a story and then how it

relates to business and then you just make an offer.

You just make a call to action and not every single

opportunity. I'm a huge believer that whether it be on a

social post,

an email that you sent out or a blog post that

that you should have a call to action on every single

thing that you put out there into the world.

Absolutely. I agree with you there.

Totally. I think a lot of people who are online,

I'm sure you see this too,

we all do is you have no choice.

If you're a product,

you have to be showing your products all the time and

it's a hard jump for a lot of people to understand.

To your point earlier,

not everyone can do what you do.

What comes so naturally to you doesn't to everybody else.

It's hard to make the jump of the understanding that why

does someone want to watch me throw clay on the pottery

wheel? Like who cares about that?

They just want to see the finished product.

Tell me what,

think about this.

Putting up the finished product photo.

Now there's a place for it of course,

but in social media is more salesy versus showing a video

of you spinning or painting the pottery and putting it into

the killed,

you know,

whatever the processes are.

I don't claim to be a Potter,

so I got this wrong.

Don't worry.

But that's still showing what you do,

but not in a salesy way.

Absolutely. And then I,

for one,

I would like to see that.

I mean when you ask,

well who would want to see that?

I would need to,

for those of us who like of course I'm really blessed

to be left and right brain.

I'm of course analytical and computer science,

geeky. But then,

you know,

I had my photography studio,

I'm super creative but,

and there are certain things like I garden,

I can,

there's things that I like to do,

but when it comes to making things,

I would consider myself not to be as adept as other

people. And so I'm fascinated by it.

And I think when you get ready to hear a story

about how a piece was made or why a piece was

made, I had one of my clients,

she does custom jewelry and some really beautiful,

amazing custom jewelry,

and she started to get out there sharing a little bit

more about how like this piece was inspired by,

or the time that she had her kids help organize her

beads. As an example,

she's starting to put an infuse a little bit more of

what I call her unique brilliance into her work and into

her stories and into her dialogue.

And when you're doing this,

you're by default creating some soft selling techniques that you're not

even aware you're doing Right now.

Would you say this might be a jump and you're allowed

to say,

no, I'm totally wrong,

but I'm circling back to the idea of all the things

that we're talking about to get ourselves positioned to be happier

with what we're doing and our life,

which I would equate to.

Then having a better mindset,

which when then we finally take action.

We're more confident when we do and then we get reactions

from people.

So let's go back to the Potter.

Let's say someone was so scared to do it.

They decide,

okay, I'm just going to do it.

I'm going to put something out there on Facebook,

whatever platform.

But then the responses are,

Oh that's so cool.

Or I had no idea that that's how that worked or

this is such a pretty color or thanks for sharing.

Then that starts a cycle where people will see,

Oh this works well,

but it started back to your point with happiness,

with getting yourself in that mindset to do it.

Absolutely. And sometimes we really do and I'm not sure where

at some point cause as kids I feel like we don't

have as much fear around putting ourselves out there.

And then as we grow into adults we start to become

a little bit fearful of sharing what we're really good at

doing. And we don't toot our own horn,

if you will,

in a way that allows other people to get to know

exactly who we are.

I would love to know those things.

Other people,

but someone who's a Potter and thinking like,

well no one's going to want to do this is somewhere

along the way we've told ourselves that.

Um, I dunno,

it's kind of like tooting my own horn.

Like there's some mindset block that we've put up about how

not important it is.

Well, and for makers it's all that so cute.

You're going to turn your hobby into a business.

Oh, that's so nice.

And it's kind of like with a little cynical undertone,

or maybe cynical isn't the right word,

but just like patting on the head type thing.

Oh, that's such a good idea.

That's so cute.

And then people are so surprised when it actually turns into

a thriving business,

but I think that's one point for us right here where

that happens because you start hearing those types of things around

you and it's like you start thinking,

is this something I should be doing?

Or maybe I'm crazy and thinking this.

So I'm thinking that might be a place where that applies.

Yeah. In fact,

this makes me think of a story that I read.

Gretchen Rubin is the author of the happiness project and she

shared, and this was kind of at a pivotal point for

me when I was taking time,

money and happiness matters as a blog into a business coaching

business, like I was turning it into helping other people build

their business in the online space.

I remember reading how Gretchen shared her story about she was

going to law school.

She was clerking for Sandra Day O'Connor actually,

and then she was like,

I don't want to do that.

And she ended up having this conversation with her husband and

he just didn't have that supportive reaction that she was craving.

Like we really want to share like what we're excited about

in our business with our spouse.

And the realization that she had that she shared in his

book was that her husband,

Jamie, was not the person that she needed to go to

to talk about business.

In other words like where she needed to go to get

the Pat on the back to get the like,

you know what,

you can do it.

Yes, you can turn your hobby into a business.

You can really like think of your hobby as a business

that the people closest to us often are not the people

that we should go to to get those,

that the Pat on the back and I read that at

such a pivotal point in my journey that I thought,

Oh, that makes so much sense because I was getting the

same thing like,

well, when is this hobby going to make money?

And when you hear that from one of your,

like in this case it was my husband.

When you hear that from someone so close to you,

you can't help but kind of like shrink and when you

have that reaction.

So instead now I realized I don't go to my husband

for that kind of Pat on the back.

He's not the person that I should talk to.

Interestingly enough,

well this is the time that we're recording but just a

few episodes back.

I did a show on how to have this conversation with

your significant other,

which was super interesting in terms of specifically how to walk

through and then what to do if your significant other is

at different levels of support like maybe they don't really agree

but because they love you you can carry on or worst

cases they sat there going to set it up to sabotage

you because they don't believe in it because what are you

doing quitting a full time job and starting this cause you

want to go all in like that affects everything in your

life. Absolutely.

The episode I'm referencing here is number two 32 with Anna

Osborne. It's called navigating through a difficult conversation and you can

also find it@giftofbizunwrapped.com

forward slash Anna Osborne.

It's making me think a little bit how happiness could play

into that too because when you're set with from the people

that you're around the most,

some pessimism,

you need to interject more of these happiness steps in your

life. To be able to keep going.

Absolutely. And happiness also impacts our confidence and I think that's

of course you know,

happiness impacts your productivity,

it impacts your sales,

but it impacts your confidence and when you are a happier

person and you are more confident in what you're doing and

it does lend itself that when you do have those conversations

with your spouse that you're coming from a place of greater

confidence. There's an exercise that I teach my clients where I,

you know,

of course you do want to have,

you know like especially if you're talking to your spouse about

investing in more product or investing in a new idea and

you know you've got some more monetary resources that might go

out the door that you have that conversation and you have

to come from a place of confidence like I am going

to do,

like this is something that needs to be done.

It's not like,

well I'm really gonna.

There's a different tone in your voice and it makes a

big difference when you have greater confidence.

I bet you get a different reaction too because when I

just heard you say it that way,

I almost felt like you were asking for permission.

Right, exactly.

Where do you stand on the idea that we're all responsible

for our own happiness?

Like we have to give ourselves happiness.

Someone else can't give you happiness.

A hundred percent believe it and it comes back to when

I was thinking about my motivational quote for my candle at

the beginning,

one of the quotes that had popped into my head was

that 10% of what happens happens to you and 90% of

it is how you react to it.

You really can't change other people,

but you can change how you react to them and it's

kind of all tied together.

Whereas you are responsible for your own happiness.

Well, and that goes back to if you're in a situation

like that,

once you've identified,

like we were talking about earlier,

the different points in the tiny habits and what do you

do then if you encounter a bad situation,

you have a client who's really frustrated with you and really

like beat you up.

Then you go to one of the things that you know

makes you feel good.

Maybe for me it's going out,

taking a walk,

whatever it is to reground yourself to move forward.

Absolutely. And it might even give you the confidence to get

rid of the bad client.

Well there's that.

I agree there's always that because no matter how great we

are, we will run into people who are returning a product.

Shipping didn't get there on time,

no fault of your own,

but it always comes back to us.

Right? So things happen for sure.

That's the way it's going to be.

Yeah, absolutely.

So how would you circle around everything that we've talked about

and kind of summarize happiness and the role it plays in

our business?

Just to put a bow on this conversation.

Sure. So be very conscious within the tiny habits that you

can create.

And one of the things that I would suggest is that

think about the things that you're currently doing in order to

create a new habit.

The best way to solidify it is to attach it to

something you're already doing.

So when you are getting ready to create your brain bliss

activation, new habits come up with five new things,

whether that be a gratitude practice,

whether that be your grounding point element that you want to

add into your day.

Whether that's adding in silence,

whether that's saying hi or smiling like we've talked about,

all of these little tiny habits.

Make a list of what you would like to add as

a new habit but then attach it to something you're already

doing and that is how you can best make that new

habit stick.

How long does it take to see results?

There's a lot of studies that say a new habit takes

21 days,

it takes 60 days.

I've seen even studies that say it takes even longer.

But to be quite honest with a tiny habit when done

right and there is a science to a tiny habit.

Dr BJ Fogg at Stanford universities is the person who came

up with this philosophy of tiny habits.

And if you can solidify it by attaching it to a

habit that you're already doing and you make sure in celebrate,

cause again the celebrate is huge in order to make sure

that you solidify it as a new habit,

you can create a new tiny habit in as little as

five days.

Wow. And you just have to make sure to remember to

do it,

which the trigger is attaching it to something that you already

do. Absolutely.

And when you're first getting started,

use a reminder on your phone,

use a post it note on the bathroom mirror.

You can use other elements to help you kickstart those initial

few days if that's what's necessary.

Having an alarm go off on your phone.

What I do with my clients is I'll check in with

them every day.

Oh there you go.

I feel like you get instant gratification when you do each

little one of these.

It's kind of like sprinkling.

I'm going to go with fairy dust.

Okay. Sprinkling fairy dust throughout your day.

Absolutely. So for you with your 60 seconds of silence in

the car,

little fairy dust,

you know for me with a smiling at the coffee shop,

little fairy dust,

picking the flowers for the kitchen table fairies,

like you're sprinkling those throughout the day.

So it's almost like you're reenergizing happiness into your day as

a routine.

Absolutely. I like that.

Fairy dust.

It could be a little flower pedal.

I don't know.

Spray of flower essence.

Yeah, I love,

I like the idea Of very desk.

Okay. Alright.

Fairy dust.

We're going with fairy dust.

So where do you see the company going in the future?

The whole concept of happiness matters.

And where are you looking at taking this?

Well, I do have,

so I actually love speaking.

So I actually teach my own three day events.

I'm going to be coming out with some one day and

two day events that I am teaching.

And then of course I liked just motivational speaking and getting

on other people's events and stages and get brought in to

speak. Whether it be talking about happiness habits or whether it's

coming in and talking about really improving what I call your

dash to cash routines.

It's a business routine around specifically related around revenue generation or

your lead generation habits and those are the things that I

really enjoy doing and getting out there in a bigger way.

So more face to face,

more meetings,

more presentations,

just continuing to spread the message.

Absolutely. So for all of our listeners,

where could they go to learn more about you and I'm

specifically thinking the blog to those blog articles I bet would

be really beneficial.

Sure. You can find everything about all my social media handles

and the blog@happinessmatters.com

and for those that want to catch me doing a Facebook

live, happiness matters.com

forward slash F B live allows you to get reminders of

when I go live every week.

Is it a specific time?

There are exceptions of course,

because you do have a life besides,

I do like this coming Friday I'm teaching,

so I might be going live on Thursday this week,

but@happinessmatters.com forward slash FB live is how they can get reminders

sent to them of when I go live.

Perfect. And how long are your live shows?

They're usually about a half an hour.

I like to try and keep them relatively succinct just so

that it's not,

it's not too long.

Perfect. This will all be in the show notes,

gift biz listeners and Jennifer,

you've also been very generous and you are offering a gift

to our listeners.

Absolutely. So for your listeners who want to get out there

in a bigger way on social media and just really want

to do it efficiently so that you don't feel like you're

starting from scratch.

It's part of my content diets structure is how to turn

one blog post or article into 30 plus promotional pieces of

content. So it's really allowing yourself to be seen in a

bigger way to really expand in your business.

And you can get that@happinessmatters.com

forward slash gift biz.

So I love that you're offering this because we talked about

this before.

We actually had this whole conversation obviously,

but it spins back to when we were talking about letting

people see behind the scenes.

Remember when we were just talking about the Potter's wheel?

All of that is any type of content.

So whether it's a blog article,

whether it's something that you put on Facebook live,

you know,

you could attach,

I haven't seen the gift that you're giving us,

but I'm thinking there's lots of content that we all make

that you can regenerate into different things.

Absolutely. It's all about repurposing and this is going to give

you the ideas that you need to really get yourself out

there in a bigger way and more soft selling than that

hard stuff that we don't like.

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

And we're going to all be happier because we're going to

listen and do what you've just said.

So it's all gonna come together beautifully.

Thank you so much.

It's just great.

Thank you so much.

This has been a wonderful conversation.

It feels like a soft topic,

but I really understand in having this conversation with you how

it really,

really can affect our output and our ability overall to feel

good about what we're doing with our lives.

So thank you so much.

I appreciate your being on the show today.

Thank you so much.

So I appreciate it.

I'm ready to interject some more happiness into my life by

adding some new tiny habits.

How about you?

It's so simple to do and maybe you'll decide that this

is one of your resolutions for the new year.

year yet this isn't a tiny habit,

but I bet it's going to put a smile on your

face. I'm talking about my very special Christmas episode up next

week on the podcast.

I'm doing something I've never done before for the holiday and

I guarantee it's gonna make you a little bit happy Fala.

Bye for now.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift is free.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

We've got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week,

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing,

to show pictures of your product and to show them what

you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people and just for fun because

we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody in

the community is making.

My favorite post every single week without doubt,

wait, what aren't you part of the group already?

If not,

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

group gift biz breeze.

Don't delay.