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Giving & Gratitude

Lesson 8 from: The Power of Happiness

Vanessa Van Edwards

Giving & Gratitude

Lesson 8 from: The Power of Happiness

Vanessa Van Edwards

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Lesson Info

8. Giving & Gratitude

Lesson Info

Giving & Gratitude

wear on day six g spot to get a world, have a read Take your feet Who day number six G spots. So I was just telling the audience that this is my favorite day, but I'm very nervous. I'm not gonna deliver it right for you. So I really want this day to be the most impactful. And this is the day that really turned some of these short term lessons in tow. Legacy lessons. For those of you who chose legacy as your main goal, this is gonna be a big day for you and for me as well. So just to review where we've been, we did our We went through our inner kid. We learned how to savor. We learned how to capitalized. We did our skill chart. We did our mastery areas. And now I'm gonna teach you two very quick buttons for happiness. I call this gratitude for real people, and that's because I think that on a day to day basis were busy and after terrible reasons not be grateful. But it's a real reason, right? And I want to talk about how that works on our busy everyday life to. This is where we get int...

o the big stuff, why we're here. What we're gonna leave is a legacy. And so I'm hoping to challenge you, to think a little bit bigger for your life. And lastly, these air both long term and short term triggers. So G spots, right, instant pleasure and all some of the big, long term pleasure. As always, I'd like to start with a warm up. So for this exercise, I would love you to get out your workbook. You can also get out in the free bonuses when you hit R S V p. I have something called your best Future self exercise so you can pull that out of your bonuses. It's also in your workbook pulled it out for me. If you get out a pen, that would be wonderful. What we're going to do is a very powerful activity that is called your best future self exercise. And it was developed by Sonia Livermore ski and I love this exercise. In fact, in your workbook, if you print it out and by the way, if you're at home, I highly recommend printing this guy out kind of nice to have it, Please, Dog ear this page or at a little posted to this page. This is an exercise that I want you to do again, right? This is one of those exercises that is incredibly powerful. So here's what we're gonna do. First in your mind, I want you to imagine yourself at some point in the future months, years, decades from now. Second, I want you to think of your biggest goals and dreams that are on your plate right now and imagine that they have been accomplished in a realistic but best possible way. Right? So something you're working towards have ends up in the best possible outcome. And I want you to write down, think about what does that feel like? What does that look like? So don't write down what you accomplished. I want you to write down the feeling or what your life looks like once you've accomplished that huge goal or those huge goals. And if you can think of that one word to capitalize, right? What's that one word? What's one way to describe that feeling? So if I were to do this myself into this exercise all the time, I think about that place in the future. My word would be peace. Look, I think that that I think that sense of accomplishment would be serene, actually. Like, I'm excited a lot of the time now, but I think that when I accomplish those goals, maybe it'll leave me feeling peaceful. How about you guys? What's your one word kind of pops in your head? Yeah. Relief. Yes. Absolutely. Like it's done. It's achieved. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, your word might change, cause your goals will change. So every time I do this exercise, actually do it in my journal, I am able to track what changes from the exercise. Just kind of interesting growth. Check in with someone else. What's word? Yes. Free? Yeah. Done. And totally. And I think that lost him when we achieve our goals, it does free us up emotionally. Financially. Mentally? Yeah, that's Oh, yeah, just almost. This is good as relief, right? Complete contentment. Someone else. You raised your hand? Yes, they're not sharing. Ah, so you feel like once you're in that place that's going to give to those around you? Yeah. So, getting that, That sharing feeling, I guess the another would. It would be proud. Yes, actually, like sharing. That's really a really good one. It showed the exponential. Yeah, the two that are floating around are bold and unapologetic. Oh, unapologetic So that also not Teoh dive deeper, but to dive deeper. So the fact that achieving your goals, even there is a hint that there could be an apology. I think there's something interesting there, So I would think about why pride makes you feel like there even could be an apology that has to go along with it, right? So sometimes the an apology hints at the other side to So it's cool about this exercise is that researchers have found there's a lot of research on this, that this specific kind of exercise is kind of expressive. Self righting has a bunch of different benefits for us. One. It helps us clarify our priorities because if we think of the future feeling, it helps us think about what do I need to do to get to that future, Feeling writes. It helps us clarify. It also brings us greater self awareness, reduces gold conflict, and that actually is, ah, problem when your goals actually competing. It brings about feelings of control. Remember how important control is from week day number four and then a boost psychological well being? And there's tons of studies that show this. That exercise took us, what, like five minutes? So just that exercise. If you're looking for an instant sort of G spot of happiness, that is something you could just open up your notebook. Teoh, pull out your journal and do it so it's a really easy one to reset a funk if you're in one. So remember this graphic from Day one of the course where I talked about the myth of happiness, that we often go through all these things and we wait to go over the happiness we hope they'll bring us happiness. When we look at this chart, I actually want to clarify something here. I don't think that those things are bad, right? I think that it's great to get a raid. It's great toe by your dream home. It's wonderful to find a partner and pay off your student loans. We have to put it in a different box. It's not the same boxes. Happiness producing these are resume building activities. Wonderful the other side is something different. I believe those air eulogy building activities and those are two different things that are both equally important. So what I wanted to think about is actually a story. This is about Alfred Nobel so most of us know Alfred Nobel from the Nobel Peace Price. It's an interesting story about Alfred Nobel is in his lifetime. He woke up one day, opened up the newspaper and saw his obituary printed in newspaper. Somehow they had confused his brothers recent death with his death, and they actually printed a full obituary for him. Even though he was still living. He had the crazy experience of reading his own obituary wall alive with that obituary said pretty bad things. Most people don't know that Alfred Nobel actually was an explosives expert. He developed war technology. So in his obituary, it had things like Alfred Nobel was the merchant of death. Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday. He was rich, a warmonger, an explosive expert. That's what his obituary said that day. He called his lawyer and he founded the Nobel Peace Price he had this really interesting moment was he was able to see that all of his resume building activities he was rich. They recognized he was rich, but he had not done any eulogy building activities. He realized in that moment that his legacy was gonna be something that he did not want to remembered for. And that's when he started a Nobel Peace Prize, which is how we remember him today. So I want us to think about the differences between resume building and eulogy building. Very curious to anyone in here. Name the last three Heisman Trophy winners. No one. How about last three winners of Miss America about three wealthiest people in the world. So we don't know these names yet. Most of us spend a lot of our energy on winning things, being really wealthy on our looks, being the prettiest. Yet we don't actually know these names. However, how about this in your three closest friends, you could say it out loud. Everyone, you can write it down, write it. Really determined that was being easier. Question. I write down your three closest runs or list three teachers who have changed your life. Think of the teachers you've had, who just changed the way you think. Think of three people that you care about, right? So I actually think that it be really hard to be to strive to be one of the three richest Americans. But it's not hard to try to be a teacher. That's gonna change someone's life, right? That's a much easier thing. And that's actually what we remember. It's easier to try to be an amazing, amazing friend. So this is the difference from two sides. This is not wrong, but there they fall into a different category of why we're here. So specifically, resume building activities. This is actually your master areas I want you to think about, and you already did these for with your fives, fours and fives. What are your top three master areas? I want you to think about How can you make your resume building activities? Tie in your master's? That's great. That's Day two, right? The next thing I want to think about is what are the three things you want to be remembered for? This is so much harder. One could be small, like being an amazing friend, which actually isn't that small it can be. Raising an amazing family could be part of your work, right? Leaving a legacy of work. I want you to start thinking about these two things as separate, but not necessarily equal, right. They're both very worthy goals, but they're different kinds of goals. And for this one specifically to help you with this, I've created this concept called the G Spots. So G spots are two very quick producing pleasure, full activities and the reason why we have trouble with ease. The problem with this is we all know we should be more grateful, right? Like every happiness article, every magazine we've ever read about happiness tells you to be more grateful. And when I started on my happiness journey, this is what I was faced with where every book that I read was like, just wake up and be grateful. And every day I'd get up and something would happen. I'd make lunch, I check my email and go the whole day. Maybe like, I wasn't grateful today. So ended up being this thing on my to do list that wasn't even giving me any happiness that gave me guilt when I didn't do it. And it was this thing I felt like I should do, but I never did. I have a very different way to think about gratitude, which we're gonna learn. And this is actually G spot number one. But I'm not gonna teach you the solution just yet. We know the science of gratitude. Science has found that it helps the immune system prevents depression. It helps our relationships. Before I teach you the permanent solution. Let's do a short term joined moment I actually have for all of us. I want to do a little gratitude bomb everyone in the audience. I'm gonna pass out some thank you cards. And I want you to write, dear and the name of someone that you want to thank. Here's the thing. I want you to thank someone who hasn't given you a physical thing. So I want you to write a thank you note to someone who has given you something on that eulogy building side, an amazing teacher, an amazing friend. And I want you actually start that. Thank you. Note. Taken envelope in a card. So at home, when I want you to do is pull out either an email. You could start in an email to someone, grab your phone and text someone, or you can write a good pen and paper. Thank you. Know, and by the way, all male yours for you if you want. No worries on that. And I want you to text someone right now that you are grateful for them in some way. And it has to be something thanking them for something that is not a physical object. So I have a gratitude. Bama's you guys fill out your dear, so write their name on the front of the card. You don't have to write the whole thing if you don't want to. I have a bunch of thanks to give. First of all, I have to thank my team. Oh, my goodness. My team! My sensible team There. Six of us. Daniel, Jose, Haley, Robbie! Emily, Lauren. You guys are amazing. They've been on social media a lot. So at home, if you're in the twitter of on Twitter or on our Facebook group, you're interacting with my amazing team. Also my creative live team. Oh my goodness. You don't see all the amazing people behind the cameras in the dark whole of a room back there behind that wall that I don't get to see. I just want to thank creative lives. So much for having me for you guys, for being in this audience for making time in your very busy schedule, to be here, giving me these personal answers. I'm so grateful for your vulnerability. I also want to thank my sense people trainers. So we have over 80 science evil trainers who are trained in teaching these techniques. They're all over the world. They are amazing. They tweet out the courses heavy new research. And they are a huge part of our team and growing brands. So thank you guys so much. And you at home. So the coolest thing after each of these days is going on Twitter and going on Facebook and seeing all of your happy Ah ha's I am so grateful for you watching. I know that time is precious. So the fact you take timeto watch this course with me. I am so, so grateful. So you guys start writing your do how everyone have a name written down. Make sure you write a name. Don't worry. I won't ask you think that's very, very personal. I've got a name. Okay, G spot number two, which I'm gonna teach you. How I want to do this is giving. So we know the giving is incredibly powerful. In fact, in one study they asked one group of students to do something enjoyable to something fun. And they asked another group of students to do something altruistic. That could be anything they chose. Both groups got a momentary burst of pleasure. They felt good in the moment from that enjoyable activity, like eating a piece of cake. However, the altruistic group felt better all day long. So what happens is is when we do something pleasurable, like an enjoyable place, charming activity that does give us that nice boost of happiness. However, altruism is an enjoyable activity where the enjoyment lasts much longer than that initial burst of dopamine. So we talk about altruism. I love, of course, the Classic quintessential quote by Gandhi. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others, have that post solid mirror. So my solution here is something called a cause champion. So while I was researching giving and I was trying to think of a way to turn this kind of fuzzy idea of altruism into something specific. I realize that a lot of us know we should give back, right? We know we should give to charity. We want to do nice things, but these opportunities had to pass us by. It will be months or years when we when we have, haven't done anything altruistic. So what I found was is that one thing that happens a lot is we remember specific causes that are friends have. In other words, you were mentioning how in your family your husband loves trains. So any time anyone sees a picture of a train, you texted to him something in my life happened where one of my friends is obsessed with breakfast tacos. That's really silly thing. Um, and so when her anyone sees breakfast tacos on menu, we tend a text, each other. And I was like, Why is it that those little things you remember so well, if you know someone, who is it? A big Lakers fan? Whatever Lakers thing comes on, you think of that friend. I was wondering what if we can take that and make them causes. What if every person in your life new your one cause every time you had a birthday, you asked everyone for donations to that charity that whenever that charity had a big drive going on, you posted about it. You had a badge right up top on your Facebook or your instagram so that people actually, when they think of you, they associate you with that cause, just like we wear our favorite teams jerseys. I think we should each have a champ of cause that we champion. So everyone in our life thinks of us with that. The reason why that's powerful is because it's exponential. Giving one is has you claim that one cause that you want and the moment you claim a cause, it really helps you stand behind it. Second is, you encourage others to 1/4 altruistically and third, they mere it back to you. Right? So if you ask people to support or click through to your favorite cause the next time they see you, they'll ask you, Hey, how did that caused you and your like Ah, right. I should go on in check. So you actually end up setting up your own feedback loop when you pick your cause. That's what I want to do in here and with you at home. I want to actually pick each of your causes. I'm hoping that right now we can sit and sort of think about if you had to pick one favorite sports team, but really one favorite giving idea, What would it be? So here's how we're gonna do it on This is I think, the biggest thing that we can dio I really, really encourage you to not do this exercise passively, right? Don't just think that you want to give more altruistically. I actually want you to pick something really specific and then make a pledge to do it. I'm gonna help you with it. So to help you with this in your bonuses, you have a little thing called the giving warm up. This is gonna help you try to find what you're cause is. So if you turn to that for your giving warm up, I think, actually, have this also. Yeah, I have it. Also in your workbook for use, you have to open up your bonuses. So a couple questions for us to think about it. I'm gonna have the audience answer for us as well. If you had $1 million to donate, what would you do with it? I saw the top of your head. What would you do with $1 million if you wanted to give that away? Yeah, I would give it on Kiva. Don't work. They have different entrepreneurs. You can choose people by country or by what they need, and they give small micro loans. So and when you get the money back from their micro loan, you can just read. Redistribute that to other people who need small loans. That's crazy, cause that's my cause, Champion. One of the chances of that. So I love that answer. Any other $1 million what would you word to give it? Where'd you get it yet? So I partly spend on my cute I volunteer with the Utah Homeless and also first graduate. So partly on that and partly on environmental causes, love, it's you split it up between different causes. Okay, so that was a money question, right? I was asking about money. How about think back in your life. When was the last time you sensed profound meaning and purpose. So now I'm talking about your values, right? When was a time this could be something small or something big. It doesn't have to be giving, but it could be another time. I'm trying to tap into your values of that legacy. So it was the time you felt that meaning or purpose. That's a very personal question. Some, actually, not most. The audience wants to raise their hand. I'm gonna give up that marinate for a 2nd 0 you have one, Erica. Yeah, I get my profound medium purpose by helping others shift the way they believe their beliefs are on food in their body And, like, just accept who they are in love with their. And it's that moment off the shift. Yeah, right. So it's not the teaching part. It's the moment where they're like, I've changed that I love ah ha moments. I joke that I'm addicted. Ah ha moments. So my favorite part of teaching is actually not teaching. It's the very end of every day where I ask you what's the most important thing you learned. Like I'm like, addicted to that when someone's like, Oh my gosh, that something clicked for me when you said that I was the whole reason I got up today. What to do it. So I totally get those shift moments. Last one in the warm up. And I have more questions in your workbook for you and the bonuses. Who do you wish you could help more When I say who, it could be someone specific in your life. It could also be a type of person who pops into your head like it could be clients. But it also could be your son, right? Who? Who is it? Anyone pop into your head either a specific person or kind. First thing that popped in my head is a younger version of myself. Ah, work with middle schoolers. A lot. I said with them a lot. And people, um at my age of my life, I'm not going to say what it is, but I've learned so much lately. Yeah, I just wish. Why didn't anybody tell me this sooner? Yeah. You know, all this stuff I'm getting now, all this stuff from you? Yeah. Why didn't somebody say that sooner? So people in life earlier I love it. Yeah, with my book I wrote the book that I wish I had gotten my freshman year. And so anything you learned in this course, all of your ah ha moments. Like pay them forward. Right? Look, if you learn something really cool, go share it like go re teach it, take this slide and be like Oh my God. I learned the coolest thing. You have to do it. So when you think about who is that person? That type of person, Here's I wanna go into some ideas and these air from previous happiness students. I love some of things I did for their cause champions. In fact, the thing I'm most excited about for after this course is the tweets you guys are going to send me of the cause Champion, you pick. So please send me those. So yes, of course. Top one easiest one of the charity. But I also want you to think about giving in terms of a skill so you might have a skill that you want to give to someone else or help someone else with, like sharing with your students that you meet with. For example, I love these two for my to my first student. So Erin, he's a retired carpenter, and he decides that he wants. He decided he wanted to build benches or make swing repairs and local parks because he found a lot of times when playground equipment would break. Or there was a beautiful pocket, not enough benches where they were graffitied. He could easily go and fix that and doing his time right, a beautiful way to donate skills, something different we wouldn't always think about. Or Elizabeth, a librarian, often goes to book drives and helps kids find a book that they would love. So you know, a lot of kids will get a book, and they're like, Oh, this isn't resonate with me So she would try to find that, like, perfect book to get a kid hooked on reading, which I absolutely love a person. So is there a specific person in your life that you feel that that could be your cause Champion? Here's an example. So this is from Susan, and so she hurts. Part of her values was she went through a really hard time of loneliness and depression. So what she did is she what? To a contact a local nursing home and asked which residents don't get visitors right? Which residents don't have families to visit them. And she wants a month goes and spends the day visiting. Each of these residents are having tea with them. Like that's like makes like, uh Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, this section always makes you like, Okay, the other one is an activity. What I mean by that is I like this one. So after taking your course, my family, I decided to be holiday champions. So what they do is they bring holiday dinner gifts and trees to three other families in need every year. Rights. That's her big thing. Her. She felt that the holiday time was so special for her and her family, but she wanted to give this the three other families. Don't cry. No. Uh, okay. Um, the last one is a mentality. So I like this one because I didn't actually think of this the first time I did it, but Greg said that he decided to champion chivalry. He felt like chivalry was dead. And so he was gonna prove toe women. But men could be chivalrous, and so he makes it his business. Every day to open doors, be chivalrous and like that's his like, new manifesto and mantra of giving, which is, like a very interesting way to think about giving. So in your workbook, I have. And this is the big one. The giving challenge. Okay, this is how we get real specific about what we want to do with our time and our energy. There are four steps. I believed this process. Okay, if we really want to make it official to turn just the idea of being more altruistic in tow, actually being more altruistic first, I want you to think about your values, OK? And this is how cause champions stick with us. I think a lot of the time we get on these kicks, right? Someone says, donate, closed the clothing drive. We're like, Yeah, I'm gonna do that. We don't close. But it didn't really hit our values. And so we kind of forget about her. We give once to ah, you know, feed the Children campaign. But that wasn't necessarily the thing that really got or how heart pounding. And so we don't give again. So why did it start with your values? Like if you could change one thing in the world, or if you have that moment with clients that makes you feel like, wow, that was worth it. I want us to start there. That moment You felt intense meaning and purpose. Like, for example, it might be working with young girls for that shift, right? So that you're getting that with paying clients now and then. You can also tell your paying clients your payments support clients that don't pay, right, like so that they know that. Do your research. The 2nd 1 is before you pick something, I want you to actually get really serious. Like this is gonna be your thing right for the rest of your life. Hopefully, don't pick it willy nilly. Do research to figure out what organization is the best. What would really be a fit for your time in your financial situation? I wanted to make sure that this is a cause that really fits you and your lifestyle and your income. And you can give with time, give with energy, even give with skills, and you get with money. Money is not the only thing that we have to give. Third, make some kind of a pledge. And again, this does not have to be money. This is I'm going to help X number of people. Or every Christmas, I'm gonna give three different trees, or I'm gonna open the door for every woman I walk next to, right. Make some kind of quantifiable, measurable pledge in some way. So it's actually a specific idea, not a general idea. And the last one is Broadcast it. Promise it, Share it. Because you, by doing that, you're giving everyone else a gift. You're reminding them that they want a more altruistic, and they're also gonna bounce that back to you next time they see you. And please tell me, Abdomen Edwards, what your champion is I want to know what you decide to do. So my cause, Champion, I can't believe you brought up Kiva of all of them is Kiva. So these air micro loans to entrepreneurs around the world. Let me explain the process of how I picked this to this kind of can inspire your process one. So I am. I value entrepreneurship a lot. I started my own business 10 years ago and I loving entrepreneurs. I love to support other entrepreneurs I'm also I mean, all my courses have the the thesis or the threat of empowerment so incredibly important to me And global poverty is something that I really think about a lot. I It's part of my mental time travel. So I knew that I wanted some kind of a cause that hit all three of those values. So Kiva values shockingly are the same as mine. So when I was doing my research, I looked in their mission page and found that there's were almost the same as mine. My pledge. So you will. If you go to my website, you will see that on the very top tab is a hero's page. And that is because everyone you know, most people have, like books and about and speaking and those are great. But part of the reason I do what I do is to able to give some of it away. So on my website we have scholarship heroes where I give loans to entrepreneurs every time we make a big a big sale or a big deal, I broadcasted every year on my birthday, I asked people to gift to Cuba so they all know that Kiva is my cause. Rights. That's how I've decided to champion its cause. And I hope all of my readers always are constantly hearing about Kiva all the time. And I think of me when they hear it. So I want to know what cause will you, champion? I'm gonna ask the audience. It'll be time to give you some time to think about it as I go through more ideas. But I'm gonna ask you at home what you're cause champion is if you need more ideas in your virtual toolbox. Science evil. Dutch Stansfield dot com slash 21 I have some charity champion ideas. Some cause champion ideas. If you're running Lohan ideas before I ask you about your cause, champion, I'm gonna ask out the end. I want to do this second g spot. So the second G spot is about finding gratitude. So just like with giving, we all know we should do it, but it was really hard to remember. So here is how I came up with the idea of a way to remember gratitude. This is my lip balm that I used before night before I go to bed at night. It's on my bedside table. This thing happens. You when I get into bed where I remember things that I was supposed to do that day, right? Like, oh, I got a call, Gardner, right. I like throw it. So I would take this, and I would throw it across the room cause I realized that I didn't want to get out of bed or write down my to do list that I was too tired. But if I took something from my bedside table and I threw it across the room when I got up the next morning of you walking and I'd be like, Why is this? Oh, I got a call. The gardener. Right. So it was like, this reminder that I do for myself My poor husband, I would like, be in bed, and I would like throat across from here, huh? What is happening? Like Oh, don't worry. Just my to do list making noises. So this works really well, right? This was a great way. Every morning I would see that that item on the floor and I'd be like, Ah, yeah, I have to do that thing. And I wondered, Could you do that? for gratitude where, instead of relying on just our mind to remember to be grateful, what if something in our life reminded us to be grateful? That's a much easier way to remember because you're not relying on you, you're seeing in your external environment. And this is when I came up with the idea of a totem. So a totem is a symbol, a reminder or representation that serves as an emblem. It helps remind the user of an idea, memory or behavior. So I want us to do is come up with our own gratitude. Totem. This is an emblem or a thing or a symbol of something in your life that reminds you of this idea to be grateful so that you're not having to source it from your own brain. My gratitude. Totem is a red light. What I mean by that is when I'm driving down from my house, there is one red light, and I swear this light is timed against me. Eight stops me every single time, and it became like this life pebble right, like I would write on the hill and I'd be like, Don't do it. Don't do it like unlike see it? I'd like no stay agree and say green like we've got the right. I think it's like times against my lights from going down the hill. So I realize that I had to shift something right. I could not let this red light be the bad mood cause of my bad moods going forward. So whenever I'm stopping, that grabbed about red light. I think of all the things I am grateful for, like I actually now want to stop that red light because I know that is a moment I'm gonna take to say OK here, the three or four or five. Depending on how long light is. And I have Teoh for the entire red light keeping a gratitude, things I change something that would have been either a little bit annoying or totally neutral into a gratitude moment. So here's some gratitude. Ideas for you, some totem ideas for you. So can be an object. Right? Maybe your morning coffee if you brew morning coffee and you stand there and you wait. Maybe as it trickles out on the beautiful smell comes up in the kitchen. Maybe that those few first few seconds are your gratitude moment. Maybe it's looking at a plant or looking at something in your life. That symbol that reminds you of it. It could also be a process. Every time you brush your teeth, you think of something you want to be grateful for my red light or every time you water your garden, you think of something to be grateful for. Could also be a times a couple of our our first happiness Students picked times. So 3 33 PM was a gratitude time. That entire minute they had a little reminder that went off at 3 33 That was a gratitude moment right before bed. Or maybe your 1st 3 thoughts, right? Right. When you wake up, your 1st 3 thoughts should be gratitude, thoughts. It could also be people. So we heard a couple of examples of people with my first students. They said, When your child laughs, what a beautiful, like sounds right that every time they hit her child out, they take a moment kind of what you were saying. When your son makes something for you, you take a moment. You're like I'm gonna enjoy this. I'm gonna savor it or you change the sound of your best friends text whenever they text you. That gives you a little moment to be grateful for that friend. These are just different ideas for ways that we can incorporate gratitude in our life for it. Room our life reminds us to be grateful, as opposed to relying on our brains. Have to remind us the big thing here is and to share it so you don't have to show your ground to totem but actually highly recommend sharing with people in your life. For example, Um, I thought, This is adorable. So one of our first happiness students decided that whenever they see birds as a family hurt, her kids always point out birds. That would be like a gratitude moment. And then whenever anyone in the car sees one, they have to shout out some they're grateful for. So be like bird. McDonald's like decided for McDonald's like, you know, like bird drawing right as they have toe Shout it out. So I highly recommend encourage people in your life, especially with your partner, right. It's great if you're like every time we eat out and we get dessert cause that's splurge we have to spend the entire time talking about things we're grateful for, right to enjoy that splurge a little bit more. I also love the hashtag. I'm grateful. So, actually, people tweet this to me all the time. What they're grateful for. Why this? I love this. If you could do this in yourself, network is if I'm having a moment where I am not feeling grateful, I open up my twitter and I see people who have taken a previous course were read something and they're tweeting me. They're grateful for. I have a rule that I have to tweet back what I'm grateful for to them. So that's a way that I've asked the world to share their graduate with me so I can give gratitude back to them. So I highly encourage you to share it to exponentially increase that happiness. So here is the challenge. Let's talk about in the audience are cause champion way to find your cause, champion. And then I want you to make a pledge. Any ideas here in the audience about what your cause champion might be? Yes. Um, I have volunteered in the past with kids. It was more towards like in action sports. Kind of a big brother, big sister think And I love that. When I moved to the Bay Area eyes, I wanted to give back to my community again, and I really enjoyed working with Children. But I wanted to find a cause that was a little bit more close to my own experience. So I had experience loss at a young age. My father died when I was seven, and so I set out to look for, um, bereavement support groups in San Francisco. And sure enough, I found one, and I trained with them about a year and 1/2 ago, and I've been a in my career. I was a trainer in a facilitator, and so I had that facilitation skill set on. And so it was a really rewarding experience for me to be able to use that skill with a passion that's very close to my heart into my own experience. And, um, you know, it's so funny, cause like when we volunteers like you start up, I think I want to give back. I want to get back, but really you get so much back in return and it's I volunteer with them twice a month, and it's literally the highlights of my month. It's what I look most look forward to, and I even though we could be really challenging at times and, you know, emotionally draining, I leave. They're just feeling so satisfied, so fulfilled and just really peaceful. May I ask you how you share it? So how do you exponentially share that? Yeah, that's actually something that I'm taking away from from you Today is something that I want to share more. I have posted a little bit about it on Facebook, but I think that there's more that I can do. I mean, I I share it with those close to me, you know, with my family with my partner. But I would like to share that, like, make it your sports team. Like be like the avid fan that's your cause. So that, like everyone who meets you, who knows, You know, like that's your thing, as if you wore a jersey for it, and you mentioned any important you have it twice a month. That I'm hoping can be one of your happiness experiments. So if you can add in either finding the cause. If you don't quite know yet researching the cause, figuring out how you're gonna pledge it. I would love that to whatever happens. Experiment experiments until you find the right one. Love it. Thank you for sharing. Yes, I dio like, morbid a mentor ship problem for first graduate. And the reason that I pick that is that, like you mentioned, like, don't anything close to the closing driver. Goodwill. I like those things, but I also like to build a relationship with, like, people that I just which is more profitable than giving the shirt. Yeah, right. Yeah, I like to do that also, but it's just more important to me to be moving their daily life or build this relationship over time. So that's what I enjoy a lot. I have to student and I'm working with, and one of them is just writing the essays for the getting ready to go to school next year. And he told me that he wants to be a software engineering and he needs like, ah, but according and said, Oh, yeah, I can help you with the coating. Yeah, just like mastery still right. Like using your mastery skill in your cause, champion, which is like, Boom, boom, boom, right? Like language that I didn't use for a while. So I learned a lot because I have to go back and prepare for, like, our meeting and stuff, and I really enjoy it. I love it. How about someone who doesn't know yet but has an idea. But you don't have one yet. You haven't done anything yet. You're, like, kind of thinking about what you could do for your cause, Champion. Yes, mine. I think mine will be around like girls and self esteem and body image. But I don't know. Is it a workshop? Is it one on run? Is it? Uh huh s so that would be part of experiment, right? Like running one or talking to a counselor, figuring out what it is, which I love. And I think that's actually where most people are, right. We're kind of with this general idea. And that is exactly where I want you to be. Because just having the idea brings that hoping that curiosity, which then ties into what we learned last time, So I want you to find your cause champion. Make a pledge right Get really, really specific about what you're gonna do with that cause. Second pick, A gratitude totem. So in the audience. What gratitude. Totems? I think you're going to use any ideas for ah, Pacific time process object person What this graduated via, um, I have toe microwave my dogs food every day. And so that's like a two minute, 12th thing. So while I do that instead of rushing around like I just I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I can take time to two minutes and 10 seconds of gratitude. But it is like the violent way, like I feel like I wonder if your dog will, like, feel that, you know, like the difference, Because the dog associates your behavior. What? That's like food time. I love it. This is a specific type. Yeah, I think for me, um, the gratitude is more way of life. So when about something happened, or I say, like I here negative comment, I automatically think or tell the person couldn't be that worst. Now we have this This this this and shouldn't be like be grateful for does that's like a mindset thing really any time. Negativity is actually a gratitude. Totem, right? Like when you hear something negative that flips you into it. Actually, there was a student in our first round who said gossip was going to be her gratitude totem, that she's really trying to wean herself off of gossip. And so when she heard gossip, she would try to sitting. She was grateful for about that person they were talking about. T kind of counter in her own head, like, Great. I love that one other gratitude, totem ideas, process time objects, Yes. So, actually, I was thinking of something last week. It just kind of just kind of came at the present time. And I actually posted something about this about, um, the dignity of women and young girls with education globally that have been denied their their rights. And so I'm I got like, ah, 100 likes on it. When I posted it, and and it wasn't just women, it was men as well. And I began to think, you know, everybody has the same feeling. And so I actually am looking at what kind of opportunities right now where I can find my best perfect. Your in the research phase writing style, You found the value Found some nugget. Why did you bring it up this today? A week later at the same time. So it's kind of an ah ha moment right now? Yeah, perfect timing to sort of solidify into something measurable. So I will also say I love that you said this post got you Ah, 100 likes. I think it's really important also for us to champion other people's causes. So if you see someone else who posts like a really beautiful thing about them being grateful than being happy in the moment where their causes at in the other way that we can sort of give back is by sharing, liking, commenting and capitalizing on their moment of giving as well. And that's a gift that we can give. So I want you at home to think of your gratitude. Totem could be a process, a thing or a person. Share it with me. Always share that you're grateful with me. It reminds me to be grateful. It's my ask to you guys to make me more grateful. And lastly or bonus is I had everyone in the audience start their card. Please finish your card. And if you're at home, send a text to someone that you care about Just time you care about them. We do not do that enough. And that is a gift in itself. Coming up tomorrow, we're gonna talk about saying, Gus, this is about building community. This is going beyond just ourselves. So the 1st 6 days of this course have been very intra personal us focused. Tomorrow is our big interpersonal day about community. And then we're gonna learn about physical wellness. Triangle wellness are lucky, Jack, which is mindset and then assertive ism on Day 10. Let's talk about what we learned today. I'm gonna ask the audience what your biggest ah ha moment was, You know, I already got a couple at home, remember, There's extra credit prompts in your workbook. You can always fill out and let's hear what were your biggest Ah ha. Moments. Yes, I like to make, like family reit also. Ah, and I really love the idea to create your own totem. Yeah, like four, which will remind you about gratitude time. So I will I don't know what it will be now, but they definitely something I will think about. Okay, You gotta tell me by the end of the course. Okay? Got to figure out what What is what you think it might be other Ah ha. Moments from today? Yes. I think one of the things that it made me realize is that I really like puns. So when people see funny puns, they send them to me. So that's the thing that I'm getting, and I get a lot of pleasure out of that. So I'm happy to be known as the punny person here. Yes, I put it out there, right. I love it. It's It's a good one to ask the world and then get it back. Yes, I saw their hands. Yes, just the cause Champion was a really good reminder to get back into that. I meant toward when I lived in Seattle and then moved and lost track of that. And then this is so powerful to me that I'm really appreciative of you having us go through that exercise and then be budget and pick it. I wish we had jerseys for our causes, right? Like I would so much rather were in Jersey for that than any sports team. Maybe we'll have to make some for our causes. So I am so grateful for everyone today. Remember to tweet me or ah ha moments I can give away. My book captivates. And tomorrow we will talking about community. We're going to stand up and dance our way out. Shake it out, get some music. Go in. Thank God.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Desktop Backgrounds
Power of Happiness Workbook

Free Bonus Materials

Best Future Selves
Citation List
Happiness Audit
Happiness Benefits
Happiness Means Forgiveness
Happiness Scripts
Happiness Structure
Happy Calendar
Happy Reading List
K10 Test For Distress
Partner In Joy
The 4 Motivators
The Giving Warmup
Virtual Toolbox

Ratings and Reviews

Naomi Leila
 

I am so grateful for this course and for Vanessa. I took this course a few weeks ago and my happiness audit was at 100 neither happy nor unhappy. Now i feel so much happier and everything in my life has improved as a ripple effect and i am 134 on the happiness audit. This course really pays off if you put the work in and follow Vanessa's amazing guidance. It is such a fun, uplifting and brilliant course, i highly recommend it to everyone.

Jennifer Lee
 

Do you want to find happiness? And take control of your life, and ignite happiness in others? Are you looking to boost your self confidence or looking for ways to make your world a better place? If you said YES to these questions and are curious about the power of happiness, please check out The Power Of Happiness course with Vanessa Van Edwards! This course will awaken you and empower you with practical steps. Check it out. I guarantee you will be glad that you made the investment! Jennifer Lee A student of The Power Of Happiness

Andrea Magee
 

This course gave me actionable ways to think about my mindset and take some manageable steps toward improving my happiness. My cheeks were really feeling how much smiling and laughter (as well as dancing!) is included in each of the 10 days. Accepting that my own happiness is an ongoing skill to be exercised, as well as one that can encourage contagious happiness for my friends and family too.

Student Work

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