What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Sam Powell, Zach Elliott, Tom Schweizer, Dennis LaRue, and Michelle King.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
91 - The Happiness Project - Afterward
Unlock the secrets to a happier, more intentional life as we wrap up our journey through Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project." Get ready to discover the transformative power of personalized resolutions and practical tips from Rubin's afterword, all while learning how to craft your own happiness project. We'll showcase how concepts from "Atomic Habits" complement Rubin's insights, offering you a flexible framework to kickstart your path to joy and fulfillment.
Ever wonder how having a coach or accountability partner can amplify your personal growth? We'll share our experiences with reading and teaching Rubin's book and highlight the immense value of structured support systems. Learn how both professional coaching and informal help from friends can sustain your progress. We'll inspire you to take actionable steps towards a happier life, emphasizing that even the smallest changes can make a significant impact.
As we transition to John Maxwell's "Intentional Living," we'll delve into the importance of setting intentional goals and simple habits that elevate your day-to-day happiness. Hear heartfelt stories and practical advice on living purposefully, and prepare to embrace a new year filled with conscious, fulfilling actions. Join us, Denise Russo and Sam Powell, on this enlightening journey and get ready to spread the wisdom of conscious living with your loved ones.
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf with your hosts, Denise.
Speaker 2:Russo and Samantha Powell. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we are living out loud the pages of the books on our bookshelves. The book that we are exploring right now is called the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. My name is Denise Russo and I'm here today with my co-host and friend, sam Powell, and today is the day that we finish the Happiness Project book. It's the afterword, sam. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1:I'm good, I'm good, I can't believe. I think we say this every time we wrap up a book is like I can't believe we're here and this is, this is where we're at, but I think that that's. I don't know. I think that's the nature of it, right, like? Or just we get so into it and then all of a sudden, it's like hey, we've done the whole whole thing, which is which is crazy. But yeah, I'm excited to wrap this book up and then look ahead to the next book too. So that's what we'll do.
Speaker 2:today is do a little bit of both game recently as a family and you never think about the ninth inning. But it's like when you get to the seventh inning and there's the seventh inning stretch and you feel like, oh, it's almost done, but then it could really go for a really long time afterwards. It got me thinking about how, when we started this book we plan out that we said, okay, there's this many chapters here's about how much we're going to have to do. But we didn't know till we got started how long these innings would run. Right like there were some chapters that we thought there's no way we can jam pack this into just 20 minutes. We're going to have to have a two episode deal here.
Speaker 2:So I think we're doing pretty good to get us to the end of the year with what we're going to describe next. But I want to make sure we set people up for success for how to take this book and, even though we lived it out loud this year, that they'll also be able to live it out loud for themselves next year. So, sam, why don't you share a little bit about what you took away from the afterward? But I'd love if you could also share what we're hoping people can do to take action themselves next year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and her. Her afterword is very short, it's not even two full pages and it really just is kind of a wrap up of what she's doing. But then after that she does give like her happiness project manifesto and then a bunch of like little tips on things she learned along the way, which are all you know, which were great, great little tips, and a lot of them just align with things we've already learned, right, like things from atomic habits. So one of her tips for what was it? It was for exercise, for sticking to a regular exercise routine. Her number two tip was never skip exercising two days in a row. I mean, that's exactly what we were taught in atomic habits is never miss twice, right? So you know it's.
Speaker 1:It's funny that the things that she discovered on this journey are things that you know. It sounds like our truths, right, we are, we are rediscovering them, you know, as we go. So there's some really good stuff in that. But I, I love that she kind of just gave us a little bit of an update on just the different things that were going on in her life in the afterward, um, about kind of what action she's taken beyond that. Right, like, what are the updates of the things that she mentioned in the book that people would be curious about, and she ends it with you know, and now I'm off to live my happily ever after and I loved, I just loved.
Speaker 1:So it was a very cute like hey, here's a wrap up on so much of what she had said. It reminds me of like the Bonus epilogue, like in a book, right, where it's like the book's over but you get like just a little bit more of like when are they 10 years from now? Or like you know, something like that. So it just kind of reminded me of of that and I thought it was really cute. But I love that. She then goes into your happiness project, right, and she says each person's happiness project will be unique. But it's the rate, but it's the rare person who can't benefit from starting one, right right.
Speaker 1:And so everybody's project and, like as we've seen in this right, she picked a key resolution for each month and then the activities that went along with that you know the resolutions that went along with that to make her happy. And so she gives this, like as we've read this book, she gives this beautiful framework on what you could do if you wanted to spend a year on your on your own project, and you wouldn't even have to do it a year if you didn't want to right, you could shorten the timeframe, like. It's very adjustable, but it gives you this space of if you really wanted to be intentional on this, if you really wanted to take action on this, then there's basically a blueprint in this book on how to do that, and it she acknowledges straight from that, or she talks about your happiness project is that this has to be unique to. You have to pick the activities. You have to pick the resolutions that matter to you, right, that move you in the right. You know in the right direction, and I that one.
Speaker 1:If you go back to the how of happiness, we give you many, many, many options and assessments that can help you figure out which ones of those you might want to focus on, like if you're totally lost, if it's something that doesn't you know, you don't have ideas to kind of get started, but that's, I think, really what you know. What we want to help people with is how can you get started? How can you do this yourself?
Speaker 2:I had a mentor once years ago that said to me you could wash your car in your driveway, right. And it was sort of like a rhetorical, like sarcastic comment in a way, because of course I thought, yes, I could wash my car. I didn't have time to do it that particular day. But the conversation then said you could clean your own house, right. Well, yes, we just talked about laundry, dishes, et cetera. He said you could do all of those things. But why is it then that there is a booming marketplace for car washes and housekeeping services? Because if you want to capture the best of your life and the best time in your life, you could transfer those tasks to experts that could take on some of that burden for you. And so you could read this book, live out your own happiness project. I could tell you with full confidence, as not only someone who read the book and someone hosting this podcast and someone who's spent almost 20 years in leadership and life development, that I didn't intentionally, with urgency and sustainability, do a happiness project the first time I read the book. This is my second time reading the book now, and why is that? I think it's because I didn't have an accountability partner and or a coach.
Speaker 2:When I read the book the first time, going through it this second time because I have all kinds of notes and scribbles and highlighter marks and pages and stuff in here folded over I've come to realize that the only way to live out loud which we say at the beginning of every podcast it's a life and leadership podcast, where we live out loud the pages of the books on our shelves is that to become happier, you have to have a plan, to have an atomic habit, you have to have a strategy and a system, and in order to accomplish all of that, it's easiest if you also have a coach.
Speaker 2:And so what Sam and I want to propose to you is whether it is the two of us or not is not the piece to this puzzle.
Speaker 2:We're not here to sell you on anything, but we are here to share with you is that we've read the book, we've walked through it together, we've learned this book, we've now taught this book and we can take all of these books that we've shared over the last two years and help you, through the lens of us being multi-certified as coaches, to craft your own plan, whether that's a plan for your life and leadership, for your habit stacking and tracking for your happiness, whatever it might be. Maybe it's that you want to get promoted at work, or you want a different job, or maybe you want some other element of a solution to a challenge or opportunity in your life. Reach out to us, because it's hard to do it alone, even if we just talk to you and give you a couple of tips and tricks. This book has tips and tricks but, again, walking through that with a coach can elevate your success measures. On this, I believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I think that, like when we and you know it's been years since you published the book and so there is just a lot there. So I think that when you use these frameworks, when you use these resources and when you find someone to help you, whether that's just a friend and that's accountability buddy, or whether that's a professional, that's a coach, or whether that's a mentor who's gone down the road you're trying to go down before, and you know everybody needs different things, but it I always say it lowers the cost of entry to you know, to the game that you're trying to play, right. It's like finding the discount tickets to you know to get into the arena to go watch the you know the event. It helps you just start faster, right, and the key is starting. The key is getting you know, getting taking action and taking forward momentum, and you know.
Speaker 1:So I think we really encourage people as you're thinking about this book, if you've gone on this journey with us, if you haven't go back, go listen to the episodes, go on the journey with us, but think about what could your happiness project look like? Right? And what's one thing you could commit to now to get started, right? Whether that's go download some of her resources, whether that's talk to Denise or I to get you know some suggestions, whatever, we're here to help you. But just think about what is that one thing that you could do, you could resolve to do right?
Speaker 1:She talks about resolutions, and how could you then implement that to move forward? It doesn't have to be huge. You don't have to commit to the entire project if you don't want to, but if there's this sense in you that, hey, I could be happier than I am, you know, that's the encouragement is that we just want you to have the best version of your life, the best version of who you are, right, that's what I want for all the people in my life. And so it's that question of what's the one thing you could do to get on the trajectory right. That's what we talked about. Atomic habits is. You should be far more concerned with the trajectory than your current position. How can you get on the trajectory of a happier life? And again, this is a great framework.
Speaker 2:Her, her happiness project is a great framework to do that we're almost to the end of the year, and so now is a time when often people will look back on everything that they've done accomplished, didn't do, didn't accomplish. They reflect on it and then they start to think about what to do in the next year. In business, that's what happens is people start doing their goal planning and goal setting in January, which is a little bit too late, because now Q1 has already started. People start resolutions on January 1. They usually drop them by February 1. Maybe the idea here is think about now what's going to be your intention. How can you, with intention, map out what you want to do, even if you just do it for the first quarter of next year, january, february and March? What are three things? Three things anybody can do, three things, three things that you could focus on once a month for those three months that would elevate your baseline.
Speaker 2:Happiness. We've taught about how to know your baseline and the how of happiness, and there's assessments for free. In Dr Sanja's book, we've talked about how you can solve for happy if your mind is stuck and you're trying to overcome significant obstacles. Through Mo Gaudat's book, we've talked about how you can solve for happy if your mind is stuck and you're trying to overcome significant obstacles. Through Mo Goddard's book We've talked about the ideas that Gretchen had as she walked her own journey. But now this is an opportunity for you to take all of that and create and craft your own project.
Speaker 2:And I know that it's not easy for some people to journal. It's not in their conscious competence to do that, or maybe they don't like to do it. But this is simply saying three things. What are three simple things that you can do? She says it could be as simple as just putting your keys away in the same place when you come home every day. Would that make you happier or would it make your life easier? Would it save you time to be able to do something else?
Speaker 2:Whatever these three things are, it's a great challenge to think about. Could you just write those three things down? If you don't have a planner and you don't have a way to track it, I use the Passion Planner. We put a coupon every single week, in every single episode, of how you could get one if you want one. They're so confident in that product. The company gives them away for free if you just want to download and print them off your own computer. But, sam, you have a really interesting journal that you bought that you didn't know when I said, hey, let's do this book, that you also had this other book. So why not share for a moment this other book that you have that actually goes with this, in case people want to try that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we talked about it a little while ago because I think she formally created it after the book was written. But it's the happiness project. It's a one day, it's a one sentence a day journal. That it's a five year thing. So you write down one thing that you're happy about every single day, right, and so that you get to go back and reflect. And again, it's a very low cost of entry, very easy to do. What's one thing that made you happy today? And just that self-reflection and getting into that space of consciously thinking about it sets you up to then want to take action, to be motivated to take action, to think about, even just cross your mind, that happiness is a concept that you can be greatly influencing in your life through your actions. Right, as we learned in the how happiness is 40, 40 of your happiness comes from your intentional activities and actions, and that's really what you know. That's what this journal, I think, helps you do is bring your happiness into a daily conscious.
Speaker 1:And it's literally you writing down one sentence, for I mean, I'll just take you 30 seconds to write a sentence. It's very, very easy, but it's the habit, right? So go back to atomic habits. If you're trying to figure out how do I get this in here, but, like, couple it with something right. Maybe it's when you get your morning cup of coffee, the journals right next to it, and you write the thing from yesterday what was the one thing yesterday that made you happy, right? Or maybe it's next to your bed and you do that before you take your glasses off at night, or you before you turn your light off at night or before you plug your phone in at night. But finding those activities to couple together and really get into it.
Speaker 1:But I think the thing that we're really trying to encourage you is to take some kind of action, because I think that that's what this book taught us is that if you think you're happier you are and if you take the actions to contribute to put you on a trajectory of happiness, you will be happier. But you have to do something. You can't just listen along with us and think about it. You have to take a step. You have to take a step to get you on the path. And when you're on that path, go pick those three things right. Pick the three things you're going to do in January. Pick the three things you're going to start next month right. Whenever this, you want to do this for you, but take some action and and get moving. And if you need help, that's what coaches are for, that's what accountability buddies are for, that's what you know mentors are for, that's where you got to get outside of yourself and have that external you know influence to keep you accountable to moving forward.
Speaker 2:I think you made a really good point, sam, about action is action. So whether it's a small action like just writing down a word, or whether it's a big and audacious action, it's still action, it's still movement. It's still moving you forward and be proud of those moments, even if they're little ones. Now you took a really big, actionable step on something last year that happened because of something that happened many years prior, so several years ago. Well, I'll back it up even before that, 22 years ago, somebody handed me my very first ever John Maxwell book.
Speaker 2:It was before Olivia was even born and I didn't know then that I would become enamored with his books and his writing style and the way that I could change my life through the things that he was teaching in very practical ways.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that, fast forward, I would be able to become a part of his team and sit on the president's advisory council and be able to coach many thousands of people through his teachings. Then, many, many years later, I ended up having an opportunity to have an experience with you, sam before we were working together officially really where you got a glimpse of John Maxwell and the power of some of his books, and then we had a couple of episodes on let's Be Real where we talked about John Maxwell books. I was teaching John Maxwell's materials inside of our former job together, and one day you took a very big, actionable step and decided that you also wanted to get certified as a leadership expert and coach through John's materials. And so tell us a little bit about what that experience was like for you to take intentional action on something and what we're headed into next week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, when I was making the transition out of my corporate career and into what I do now, I was looking for different types of training, certification that we could do and was interested in the leadership space that's where my passion lies and was looking specifically around coaching because that's what I knew I wanted to do. That's where I knew I could help people the most. And you had mentioned the John Maxwell stuff. I didn't realize when I signed up for it. I was like, okay, this sounds great, like right, this is a, it's a self-paced thing there. It all like culminates in a conference. I was like sounds really good, like lovely, right, it checks on my boxes of things that I wanted. I just didn't realize how much content came along with the certification and access to being able to teach his books and his topics. I've done lunch and learns with um um, you know things like that and it's great content. It's very practical, very straightforward. I feel like we're trying to sell John Maxwell stuff, which we're not Um, we just both like it, but the um.
Speaker 1:I think the thing that resonates is that John is a very intentional person, right, and he's someone who steps into action all the time, like we said right, like if you want something in your life, if you want to do something, you have to be able to go do it right. It's not the trying, it's not the wishing, it's not the hoping, it's the doing that makes things happen. And I think that John's a really good example about that, like if you read about his life, about just his daily routines, I mean, he's just he's, he like lives out atomic habits, all that sort of good stuff of just like you have to take the action to do it. And so what we thought like we've gone through these three books about what's all the science behind happiness, what's an equation, right, kind of a different perspective on how we're happy, how you get out, you know, into that default state of happy, and then watching a woman, watching Gretchen, go through her own happiness project right, she's doing a similar journey, like studying what we were doing, but then here's how she implemented it, giving you a really nice blueprint into something super tangible to take action. And really what we think about I think we've used the word 15 times in this episode already is intentionality, right, being intentional on what you want to do and how you take action. And so the next book that we're going to explore is really taking that a step further. It's John Maxwell's book called Intentional Living. Step further, it's John Maxwell's book called Intentional Living and is really about how do you take control of your story, right Now that we've learned what it takes to make you happy, now that we've watched people go through their journeys, now that we've got all these resources and we're sitting on this great pile of stuff to do, now it's how do we, how do we take action, how do we really do that and what does that blueprint look like in a very purposeful way, right, and so that's what we're going to explore.
Speaker 1:Next is intentional living, and you said it's one of your favorite books.
Speaker 1:I had never read it before.
Speaker 1:It was one of the ones that was on my shelf but not read, so I pulled it off the shelf.
Speaker 1:Was on my shelf but not read, so I pulled it off the shelf, read the first few chapters before we get started here and it I'm loving it so far because it's it really is talking about what we're talking about the stepping into doing, the stepping into action, the you've got to I don't know, just be very intentional about what you're doing and I'm really excited to explore the book because he breaks it down into like a four step process.
Speaker 1:He's like, as I've done this, as I've helped other people, there's basically this roadmap that pops out every time, and so that's what we're going to go through, and I'm really excited because I think it's such a great way to end the year so that, when January comes, when the start of the next year comes, when we explore the next books on our shelf which we already have all planned out and I'm very, very excited about that you can step into that with all the knowledge on how to be happy and how to live the life that you want, how to be happy and how to live the life that you want. I think this is just the perfect way to kind of pull it all together and help you step into action as you begin the next year.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited about it as well. It's hard to say what are my favorite books, because John's written over 100 books, but it's definitely Intentional Living's in my top five of my favorite John Maxwell books and I want to encourage you, if you're listening, if you have kids, whether they're young kids like elementary age, school or even in college. When I read the book at the time, my kids were in elementary school. Maybe one of them was just starting middle school, so the book is not brand new. My kids are both in college now, but I have to tell you without a shadow of any doubt that it changed all three of our lives when we walked through this book together and you can go through an intentional living exercise experience with people that you love the most and transform together. This is about really looking at how to take, like Sam that you said, all of these elements of forming good character and values, like we taught with John Wooden. Looking at the ways to get a structure and a system in place with your habits and building up these markers and conscious awareness of your baseline happiness and how to elevate that. Intentional living is a great way for us to close out this year because we've got November, which is a month of as we talked about just two weeks ago, November was the month in the happiness project, of gratitude and reflection and thankfulness and all the things we think about, especially in the United States, with the holiday time around Thanksgiving and then moving into Christmas, and it being about gifting yourself the opportunity to grow and to learn and to elevate your mind and your heart. So I'm really excited about Intentional Living because it's not only just one of my favorite books, but it's my favorite because of what it did for me and my family, so looking forward to sharing that with you next time. Scott will have a link in the show notes if you want to get a copy of the book and you know you never have to get copies of the books to listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2:We are not here peddling other people's books and selling their books and we're not here as even as Sam, you said very nicely earlier we're not here trying to sell our services earlier. We're not here trying to sell our services. However, there are resources like books and our services that, if it helps you, we want you to be able to have easier access. I love that. You said you called it the cost of low entry, that if you need help or you want resources. That's the reason this podcast started. It all started because people asked me recommendations for books that I had already read, that I got value from. So next week comes one that I got a lot of value from and I'm super excited to share that with you.
Speaker 2:Friends, thank you for being with us today. It really helps us if you subscribe to the podcast and share it with others so that we could reach more people. But, even more importantly than that, we'd love to hear from you and hear about how this is adding value to your life. Thanks for telling me the story today, sam, about grandma and all that she's done to help us be able to take those herbal essence moments and spread it to their friends and their friends and their friends, because this is truly about conscious living and elevating our mindset, our heart set and our lives with the people that we care about the most. So, friends, thank you again for being with us. My name is Denise Russo, on behalf of my good friend, sam Powell. This has been another episode of what's on your Bookshelf.