The Awakened & Aligned Podcast with Shannon Kaiser
Find Your Happy Book Launch Lecture
I just want to welcome everybody to Shannon's official book launching, and I wish everybody happy holidays. I also want to thank everybody for coming out on such a nasty night. I know everybody's not everybody, but a lot of people have other obligations and other parties and things to go to tonight, so we really appreciate you all coming down here and joining us this evening and helping us celebrate with Shannon and supporting her and book purchases and just joining us and having a good time at this event. So that being said, I just want to tell Shannon how proud we all are of you, and we're just really happy that you've finally accomplished one of your main goals that you've set out to do. This kind of goes back a long time from the time Shannon first got out of the University of Oregon, and she's lived in San Francisco and then moved to Atlanta, Georgia to further her schooling. From there she went to Cincinnati, and now she's finally back home where we feel like she should have been the whole time here in Florida, so we're proud of you, Shannon. We love you, and congratulations. Thank you. With that, I want to have been introduced, my daughter and new author, Shannon Kaiser. [applause] Thank you. Wow, this is amazing, I'm so thankful, first and foremost, that all of you are here. The amount of support along the journey for creating this book, and then also tonight, I understand that it is crazy out there with the weather, everything that's going on in the world, but I've always wanted to throw a life as awesome party. In fact, people do birthdays, they do universities, they do weddings, and I was like, "Man, why can't we just get together and celebrate life?" And so I'm really treating this as a life as awesome bash, and all of us are here to celebrate each other together. So it's not just about the book, it's not all of us. In fact, when I was going through the list, inviting everyone, I thought of each one of you, and I thought, "How special my life has become with you in it." Because we're all in this together, and we're all working towards happiness. And when I tell people that I wrote the book, find your puppy, they say one of two questions. They say, "Well, why did you write the book?" I'll tell you guys that. And then they also ask, "Well, how do you find your happy?" And so they say, "Well, just read the book." I'm going to give you guys some tips. I'm going to share one, how I found my happiness, and two, how you can find your happiness. So to start off with, before we go any further, I want to say thanks. First of all, it's to my family. You guys are amazing. I've had a lot of crazy ideas throughout my life, this is not one of them. Writing this book has been a part of me that has come alive. My heart is free, and I feel this is only the beginning for my future of writing, and all of you here to support those, this is awesome. But all of you have been great. By editor Mary, where are you, Mary? Thank you. She's wonderful. She helped me with this book. She also wanted to help me with the final push, my sister-in-law. She's really good with details at the very end. The publisher, there's a lot that goes into making the book, so I want to say thank you to you for working late hours and click my text on it. And then of course, all of you were coming, but my mom, I dedicated this book to my mom. Hi, Bob. When I was younger, I used to think that my mom should be a motivational speaker because she's so happy and she's so beautiful and excited and full of life. And I guess that's what I'm doing. That's what I decided I want to do with my life. So I'm very excited to dedicate this book to you, but more importantly, thank you for being such a good inspiration for me. And then of course, Cindy and Sharita's space is amazing and I don't see them, but this is a great space. I looked all over Portland, and when I came in here, I said, "Wow, this is perfect." We have a big screen, we have music, and I'm just happy that we're all celebrating here. So let's get right into it. Why didn't I write this book? I don't really want this to be a traditional book party where the author talks about themselves the whole time. But I do want to ground this in my story and why I'm here in front of you, Thomas, because some of you know, I know people who are close to me know. But it's been a journey of course, getting here. I started an advertising design. I worked at some of the largest adages in the world. I graduated college and I said, "I am on a mission, I wanted to own my own ad agency by the time I was 30," and I would have done that, and it was tunnel vision for me. And in that process, a tunnel vision came a lot of depression for me because it was misplaced. All of my focus was putting my energy into helping a client build their business, selling their, selling potato chips. What I didn't realize is my source of depression is that I wasn't back in Brooklyn. You missed all of you guys. It was in Chicago, and also I felt alone, and so when you're doing something that isn't connected with your heart and you're not in it, you can feel very lonely, and it was important to me to get a grip on my life. And so I took stock and I realized what's important to me is to find my happiness. And what does that look like for me? For me, it became writing. I realized I was a writer, and I realized that there's a lot of things that make me happy. I love to travel, so I reinvented my life, and now I'm a travel writer. In the process of moving back to Portland, I realized it's not advertising that was the problem. It was the corporate environment that didn't quite work for me. What works for me is I have to be creative. I have to express myself. And so I learned that I can still express myself, and I can still feel free and happy, and so I started my own freelance business, and I have never been happier. I had some of the most amazing clients in the world who support some of the most beautiful other people. And so we're building businesses together, but it's business for the greater good. It feels more aligned to what is important to me. And inside from that I started teaching, and I have students here, and they're so amazing because a part of me, again, became alive and teach at the Art Institute. And so I'm sharing all of these with you because a lot of people, when I tell them, "Well, I found my happy," they say, "Well, how do you make money doing what you love?" This happens a lot of us when we're in corporate, and we realize we no longer love what we're doing, but we see something out there, and we say, "Well, how are we going to make money doing that?" And I simply say, "Well, I do what I love," and there's a lot of things that we enjoy. I think the model of having one income is, sometimes it works for some people, but I found I most fulfill each bucket. I remember, about a year and a half ago, I was telling my brother, "I really want to be a writer. I want to be a writer." And he said, "Sheena, I just don't see you sitting behind his desk all day." And he said, "Yeah, he'll find me." And in that moment, I realized, "I need to be traveling, I need to be writing, I need to be doing graphic design." And so that's how I found my happy, and I'm happier that I've ever been. I feel more love and more support than I ever have in my life, and that's why I wrote this book, because there are a lot of people out there who are where I was, who feel stuck, who feel trapped, who feel like life circumstances is bigger and harder than what they can actually go through, and it gets scary and gets really hit hard. And so this is my guide, it's an inspirational, fun, easy, uplifting read. It is my heart in a book, shared with you. So I'm happy that it's finally out in the world, but more importantly, I hope it helps others find happy, because I wrote the book if there's any, any way that I can help anyone else. That goes through what I read through, then I would be, I would die a happy person. It's all about making that connection and working together with others. And so this is only the beginning, but I fully, we're growing and changing every day, and it's just a process. And so I want to share, that's how the book came about, but now, how do you find your happy? I'm going to share that story with three, three main main things that I have learned over the past three years. Since I left that door in Chicago, I said I'm going to Portland, so I'm going to go find my happy, move back home. These three things I did, and I work them like a full-time job now, and because I do that, I am so fulfilled. And if you want to take them, take them with you, maybe you'll feel a little inspired, maybe they'll help, maybe they won't work for you. But the first one is to follow your heart. This is my favorite, and I tell my students this all the time. So do what you love, and when you do what you love, everything else falls into place. Because Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss," right? And that is why I'm living proof, because I love so many things, but I found a way to make every single thing work and cover this together. And when we do what we love, we take the money aspect out of it. The whole first year I was traveling, and I wasn't making any money. When I took the job teaching, it wasn't about the money at all. And everything grows, because when you put your heart into it, and when your heart is your main guide, you can't help but to not fail or succeed. You will not fail. And on top of that, you, the money comes, the money will always come. And so do what you love. And I talk to a lot of people, and they say, "I don't know what I love," and say, "You do? Just get quiet for a moment." Think about when you are your best self. When are you the most excited in your life, maybe you're playing with your kids? Maybe you're drawing, maybe you're running, marathons, maybe you're running your own company. Maybe you're working with trees. [laughter] My dad, the tree farmer, you think I'm going to over-ing you the most joy, and you just add that into your daily routine. Do what you love daily, and you look before happy. And you don't have to put pressure on it, like, "I have to make money doing this." It will come. Let's tip number one, I learned that, and then live it daily. And that's why I'm so happy. That's why I have a multi-layered, my own business, and I'm very happy and successful with all of it. Tip number two is to be in gratitude. Sure, for holidays, we're in the holiday season. You know, think about being thankful, but this one, we'll have to take a sip here. Excuse me, this one really resonated with me because when I was in it, in Chicago and feeling depressed and realizing, "This is not what I want. I don't want this big political, corporate, egotistical thing, this career." All I could focus on is what I didn't want, and we do this a lot in life. We think about what we don't want, and we're so consumed and obsessed with what's not working that we don't actually focus or get out of our own way to think about what we do want. And I was in that, and I know that that doesn't work, because you can't get to where you want to go if you're stuck where you don't want to be. It's just kind of the way the laws of the universe work. And so what I learned is as soon as I started to appreciate what I did have, I could get more of what I wanted, and so that looks like I'm so thankful for this job. I have a beautiful place I live in Chicago, I know soon I'll be in Portland. I work with great people, they challenge me, I'm learning a lot from them. These people at work don't quite understand them, but I know there's a bigger picture here, and I'm learning. And when I started to appreciate what I did have, I was able to get more love, more abundance, and it moved me to where I wanted to go much faster. So you can try that on. I started making credit to this, that's a good way to go, just write a whole list of things you're thankful for, or you can just, I wake up every morning and I hug my awesome golden ray-traver, and I say, I am so thankful for you, and I start out my day being thankful for my beautiful place, my beautiful, the career, everything. When we start our day in gratitude, the whole day flows better. How many of you guys have done that, or you know that it works, right? Just be thankful. So that's a really good one too, and also telling the people around you that you appreciate them, that you're thankful for them. That's really cool too. How often do we hear from people, and appreciate you, and thankful for you. It's a good tip. And then the next one, this one was the trickiest one, and I really learned this one when my book came out, and my whole life I was racing to get somewhere, trying to get somewhere, and then I'll be happy. A lot of us do this, when I graduate school I'll be happy, when I make that million I'll be happy. When that person proposes I'll be happy, whatever it is, it happens out there. But the tip number three is, the journey is the reward. This is actually a Chinese proverb, but I used to always be trying to get to a destination, and then everything will be fine. Get to Chicago, over to be great, only working at the larger side, agency in the world, then we'll be fine. To make this amount of money, then we'll be fine. And it just keeps going in the anxiety and the stress, it piles up, and it wasn't until I recognized that this moment, right here, right now, is what matters. I recently went to Brazil, and I went on a trip, a travel-oriented trip, and there was a really great quote from one of the teachers there. And they said, "When you are in the past, you are in pain. When you are in the future, you're in anxiety. There is only the present, there is only this moment here and now." And I really took back to heart because so many of us, especially this time of year, we think ahead, "Oh, when the holidays are over, then all this chaos will be better." Whatever is frustrating us at this moment, we're always out of alignment because we're either in the future or in the past. And so I'd like to challenge all of us to really be in the moment, and I've really embraced this over the past few months, and it's been phenomenal. Life is richer. I see more colors. I am genuinely more connected with people in the moment, and it's a great experience to be present. And these are the three tips that I was going to share with you, instead of the bullet points that highlights, there's obviously a lot more in the book. But I really am striving coming in tonight, and I realize I think I need to add a fourth tip, just to kind of, you know, just share with you guys. And I really want to, this is difficult because there's a lot going on in society right now, and in culture, and out there. It almost looks like the world is ending, not being facetious or trying to get to the mind calendar thing. So I'm just saying we've had a lot of strategy happening all over, and it gets tough out there. My fourth tip, so I'm going to tip, it's a rule for life, is to choose love over fear, especially right now. Everywhere I went today, conversations about what's been going on in society, but conversations fueled with hate and rage and complete chaos, because yes, it is horrible what is going on. But I feel, as Martin Luther King said, throwing hate and hate just creates more hate. So the more we freak out and talk about this is horrible, the harder and worse things happen and the worse it gets. And so my challenge for what I have been practicing is to go to love, go to compassion, go to the light, because all we can do is truly love one another. That is the only way to one heal the world, but heal our relationships and see the world as a better place. And so it wasn't going to do this, but I would like to take a moment of silence for the tragedy that has happened all over for all the victims in America and going back to even Sandy, to what's happened this week. So just close your eyes with me for a moment and we'll just send them love of life. Thank you. That was important to me because we have the power. We have the power to change our outcome in life by one finding our happy, by creating more positive thoughts, but also by choosing love and being more loving to one another. And this time of year, it's more important than ever because we could go to rage and hate, not just with what's going on in the world, but trying to find a perky spot at the wall. It happens and it's this time of year, or you drink too much eggnog and you're feeling funky, like whatever it is, you can choose love and that's really what I'm all about. Obviously, and that's what find your happy is all about. And those are the tips that I really have for you guys. I wanted to talk a little bit about the book and then do a mini reading, but the book itself is divided into two sections. Because I'm an adventure girl at heart and a travel writer as well, I wanted to use the metaphor of an airplane taking off. Before an airplane takes off, it must do its safety checks. You can't just take off. You have to click everything, check everything, make it a little business. So the first section is called all clear. It's about clearing space so you can truly launch off into the perfect awesome amazing life that is waiting for you. And it's simple steps. It's a guidebook. There's awesome opportunities, which is literally what I call my care, which is kind of like extra credit. Take a little step. You decide to do it that day. You might feel a little boost to energy, a little bit more excited, but that's what section one is about. It's all about clearing space because so many self-help books, by the way, I never knew I'd be a self-help author. It just kind of came out of me and I didn't really realize, I knew I had books in me, but I am excited because this makes the most sense. This is the most authentic expression of myself that I have ever delivered out into the world and it makes sense to me. And the all clear is exactly what I did when I was in Chicago. If you can't get to where you want to go, if you're stuck and you're not doing the work right now, the chain's clearing the fear, clearing the space, removing the limiting beliefs that are keeping us from what we really want. And when you truly get to all of the clear, it's fine. It's not hard work. It's fine because you're actually working on getting to your dreams. And then section two, I call it a whole lot of awesome because it's just about creating your dreams, making bucket lists, and really launching off into the future, the life that you know you really want, and where we are today is perfect. I want to say that none of us have to change. Remember, it's the journey, the journey is the reward. None of us, everything is perfect just as it is. Find your happy, it's just as much for people who are happy. It's a great guide for anyone who wants more out of life and that's really what this book is. And so I'm going to just do a little meeting here and then leave it open for questions. Life is always going to throw us curveballs in situations that don't fit or don't work, especially with what we thought we wanted or what we expect. Learning to see the beauty in all situations is what I do and it's what I want to share. No matter where we go in the world, no matter who you are, no matter how much money you make, no matter where you live, we all want the same thing. We all want to be happy. We all want peace and we all want to feel loved. I spent the majority of my life looking for happiness out there. And a boyfriend, a new car, a new promotion, a gigantic lock in Chicago, business car, title, whatever it was, it was always searching in the wrong places. It wasn't until I started to ask myself what is most important to me and I realized that happiness is within us at every moment. My dream started to come true faster, I was meeting people and I had peace with them myself. It all started with my dream of believing in my dream and actively living each moment of my life. It's daring to take a stand for what you want in life, but we all owe it to ourselves and to our life to be fully happy. And then, I just want to share the epilogue because I think this is a really important aspect of the book, because when I left corporate, when I really wanted this to be a trouble writer, I really wanted to go higher, start my own finance business, and how do you do that when you have a pushy job, paying lots of money and a lot of security? How do you get from there? And I have this at the end of my book because it shows how I've done all the work. I live and breathe this every day and it shows how it works. Where I sit, finishing my book in one of the most beautiful places in the world, I made a decoration and I promised myself when I left corporate, so I always follow my heart. And I had the mantra, "The world is my office" and I play with it daily because you make mantras. It's good stuff. At the time, I was behind a desk stuck in a corporation doing design work for people who cared more about expanding their wallets than helping others. Now just a short time later, I am stuck in St. Lucia on a travel running assignment. All of the other journalists have flown home, but miraculously or mysteriously, my plane was delayed, and I am stuck in St. Lucia for an entire week. Wow. All expense trip paid. So what are the most beautiful places in the world? How is that for biking? You're happy. I'm being able to enjoy and gratitude because loving your life and living your purpose is what it's all about. When you do, you will get gifts from the universe and the angels will wink at you and say thank you for being you and giving life all you've got. All this happened because I let go of my expectations of life and how I thought it should look. I knew that my dreams were coming true and I trusted them. I didn't put a timeline on them. I felt it and I believed it with every fiber of my body. You must believe in yourself. Your dreams will come true and once you step into your purpose, the real you, you'll be a shining light of golden opportunity and life will flow and you will find your happy. I'll open it for questions if anybody has questions and we will do more book signings and sales and then we also have a happy movie that we'll do in a little bit as well. I went to Paris in 2009 on a trip. I took some time off from advertising. She had asked how did I know that I could write? I decided to take my computer with me and write and I sent these emails out to my family with email blog and they passed them out to people and soon within a couple hours I was getting emails from people I never met that said Shannon, you're writing took me places that I've been to Paris and you took me back and it started because I realized by connecting with them through my word there was a part of me that said whoa this is awesome and so I kept writing and believe it or not I submitted one of those blogs to chicken soup for this haul. It was just not a whim. I thought yeah sure they're calling for entries and they accepted it and then they accepted four other stories after that and when I first got that letter, that publishing letter, I was happier than I ever was and it's almost like I didn't know that's what I wanted until it was there and I realized for me writing is something even now when I write my articles I write a lot for many different journalism magazines and stuff, when I write I first and foremost do it for myself and I make sure I don't hold anything back because the more honest and authentic I can be the more I can connect with other people and what I find is the more I share the more people, we're all in this together, we're all in life together and so when I realized I'm taking off that criticism hat, oh is this right, is this person going to read this and think this, I don't think about that anymore, I put it all out because when I express myself I'm being true to myself and the writing comes, I'm a naturally creative person so it's fun to write and I am a horrible seller, all of you can laugh because you know it's true, but I managed to write a book, nowhere, so I managed to have a very successful career as a writer, an graphic designer and a child writer and teacher and you've got to look past your flaws because I could have said gosh you know there's such a bad seller, you don't know what you're doing and that would have stopped me from sharing what's inside that needs to come out of you and so I found out that I wanted to write by writing, thank you, what's the easiest way for us to share, since we're all here supporting her, it was easiest way for us to share the upcoming events that you have, or you're on Facebook or Twitter, absolutely I'm into say at the beginning if you guys have your phone you can tweet, Facebook, you know tag away tonight, I love that, but I do have a lot of questions, especially in January, Facebook, please join me, I'm sharing the positive messages all the time, is Shannon Heiser writes, you can go there, or the best thing I think is to go to playwiththeworld.com, I didn't tell many of you guys about that for some of you know but that's my website that started from when I needed an outlet, when I was in corporate I wanted to have a place of fresh air and so now I have this site that's dedicated so when people come to it, they feel uplifted, they can just check in, it has blogs, it has podcasts, it has videos, free book giveaways, lots of really great uplifting stuff so thanks for that question, definitely playwiththeworld.com and then from there, you can link to Twitter, which I love social media and I'm on YouTube too, I send out my newsletter playforworld.com you'll get monthly messages which some of you guys are on there, so I'll just find your happy, oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, and actually over back, Mary, well that's it, yeah, thank you, perfect, so there's a cheat, feel free to take any of those away, those are upcoming events, I have lots of upcoming events actually in January, I'm doing a free worldwide webinar January 9th and it is going to be about finding your happiness and that's free, so why not join online, it'll be fine, so thank you, anyone else, why don't you tell them a little bit about the interview you had last night, I've been buzzing all day because the Huffington Post, okay, we'll back up here, so I'm a big vision board person and vision boards are ready to make boards and dream lists and you put pictures on there, I made a career one and one of my goals has been to be a regular contributor to Huffington Post, which is an online newspaper and well how would you describe the newspaper, how many of you guys have heard of Huffington Post, so yeah, okay, we know, so to me it's a big fish, like when I get there you can always have me find mental moments and as a writer the journalism is very serious but in a good, respectable way, so I always thought everything went right for that, I want to be a regular contributor and lo and behold this Huffington Post live which is their online news streaming online aspect of it and they had heard about find your happy, thought it was a very great, great thing and they called and they wanted me to be on a segment last night so it's on a panel talking about emotional overeating for the holidays, which is brilliant because I have struggled and that's in the book and I talk about that on how to overcome addictions, overcoming anxiety and on this panel it was so exciting because I realized it was on my board, it was on my board, being a Huffington Post contributor but I thought writing the articles is what I wanted, being interviewed by their news share was even cooler and I said to myself this is what happens when you make a dream and you let go of how and when it will come true the universal swoop in and give you something even better and it was wonderful and the coolest thing is there was a panel of four people, they did live camps, they live this in and registered nutritionist, another author and she said Shannon we want to start with you, which meant that they gave me the most time to talk and they showed a play with the world on their Huffington Post and they said you have this site, play with the world and it's about uplifting people and inspiring them but it wasn't always that way with you can you tell us your story and I thought what an amazing blessing and huge miracle because it was an honor just to be on this segment, it was an honor to be featured as an expert in happiness but more importantly to be first and pay that to the interview they said you did so great and we want you back on Tuesday's segment talking about how to overcome depression. When you live from your heart and you're authentically connected, the sky is the limit of what you can do. So you just can tune in and it's how I'm going to post live on Tuesday, I'll be tweeting out the links and sending out, it's very exciting. Shannon @chananelpizer. Yeah, any other questions? I just want to say thank you to all of you, thank you for coming and supporting us and finding your happiness. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. [Applause] (audience clapping) [BLANK_AUDIO]