Today I am joined by a media personality and award-winning CNBC syndicated talk show host and producer, number-one best-selling author, inspirational speaker, organizational psychologist, filmmaker, broadcast journalist, life balance coach, a retired professor, and lounge lizard, Dr. Marissa. The list of accomplishments goes on and on and this episode truly shows why.
As Dr. Marissa strongly believes, we were born to be happy. Happiness is a birthright that we have forgotten. Most of us go from being a worry-free kid who can truly enjoy life to being an adult who is constantly bombarded by trauma, pain, shame, and judgment. In fact, 7 out of 10 people have gone through some sort of past trauma that still haunts them in the present day. All of this gets in the way of our ability to truly be happy.
So what can we do about this? We chose differently. We see what is causing us unhappiness and dis-ease, and we choose a new path, a new reality for ourselves. It all lies in the power of choice. A choice you make every single day to take the responsibility for your own happiness and reclaim your birthright.
This one is jam-packed with value. I promise you that. You will not want to miss this episode.
WATCH
SUBSCRIBE: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Google Podcasts | iHeart Radio | iTunes | Stitcher
WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER
What Dr. Marissa recommends you do everyday (morning and night)
How we block our own happiness
The power of choice
The habit of approving yourself
FEATURED ON THE SHOW
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Jennifer:
Hello, hello, welcome to the Happy Productive Podcast. I’m Jennifer Dawn, and this is the place for simple, straightforward solutions for business owners who want to reach their full potential. Today guys, I’m super excited. We’re going to be talking with Dr. Marissa, aka Asian Oprah.
She’s a media personality and award-winning CNBC syndicated talk show host and producer. Number-one best-selling author, inspirational speaker, organizational psychologist, filmmaker, broadcast journalist, life balance coach, a retired professor, and lounge lizard. That’s probably one of my favorites—a Tai Chi instructor and, most importantly, a mom. Dr. Marissa, I’m so excited to have you here. Welcome to Happy Productive.
Dr. Marissa:
Thank you, Jennifer. Happy to be here, literally.
Jennifer:
So awesome. Well, look, I was, of course, cyberstalking your website, checking out all the amazing things you do. And the very first thing that caught my attention was really the headline on your website. We were born to be happy. I believe this with my entire heart. But I would just love for you to speak to this. Like why? Why is that the headline on your website?
Dr. Marissa:
Because most people have forgotten that, when you’re a kid, you know that. You’re here to play; you’re here to enjoy your life; you’re here to have great relationships; you’re here to do things that you love to do most of the time. Every child without adult intervention is on that path.
Then somewhere around the age of 10, no matter what kind of childhood you have, that voice in your head begins to tell you things like you’re not as good looking as, you’re not as cute as, you’re not as pretty as, you’re not as smart as, you’re not as good as. Then seven out of ten of us have people who take that message or begin that message to the nth degree—seven out of ten of us, my honorable moniker Asia.
The reason why I’m called Asian Oprah is, I was introduced to Oprah by the way as the Asian Oprah by Michael Bernard Beckwith. So that was an interesting time. She looked at me, looked down, looked back up at me, smiled, and said nice pants. It took everything for me not to say, do you want them? But anyway, she says it is as high as eight out of ten.
Psychologists now are saying it’s high as 94%. Childhood trauma is a reality for the majority of us. When you have childhood trauma, someone tells you or acts to you in a way that says you’re not good enough. You’re not beautiful. You’re not smart; you’re not worthy; you’re not special. I was one of those. I was told I was fat, ugly, and clumsy.
I took those words and then made it even worse by collecting all the insults and criticisms that I had after that. So I’m not alone. Seven out of ten of us, if we take the low number, the majority of us walk around the planet, have that message that keeps us from being happy. You cannot be happy and worried, cannot be happy and hate yourself. You cannot be happy and lower yourself. You cannot be happy and have low self-esteem at the same time. It’s impossible. It’s one or the other.
So many of us, just from that upbringing, are not happy. Even if you have had a healthy past or no trauma in your childhood, and you’ve bought into the American dream, or the Cinderella story, or Jerry Maguire. You begin to think that happiness depends on finding the other one to complete you.
Or finding someone who is going to ride off with you into the sunset. Or that you’re going to get happiness from going to a good school, getting a good job, getting a good career, and promotion. Having a great partner, having 2.2 kids, having a nice house, having a nice car, and having enough toys that your relatives will squabble over when you die. Go on vacation six weeks a year.
That is supposed to be happiness making. Sadly, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain prove that that is not the case. You can have all of those things and still be tremendously unhappy. On top of that, if you are a high achiever, which you all are that are listening because nobody pointed a gun to your head to listen to this. You’re trying to improve by listening to this podcast.
I busted you. If you’re an overachiever, if you are a perfectionist, 98% of entrepreneurs are perfectionists. We all have that internal critic that tells us; you shouldn’t have said that; you shouldn’t have done that. If you’re one of those, that will guarantee unhappiness because perfectionism is a dis-ease with life. When you are dis-eased with life, you are not happy. I just gave you now pretty much most of the population. This was hashtag #BC19. The time before COVID. So hello.
Now that we’ve had COVID, we have even less happy people. So all of this said proves that most of us have forgotten that we have a birthright to happiness, that it is our lot in life, to live as if it’s heaven on earth. Now, religion has also done a number; it doesn’t matter how happy you are here. You’re not supposed to be happy here. Your eternal life is where your happiness is. So just suffer through life, which is another BS belief system that keeps us unhappy.
Now that I have depressed every single person listening, there is good news; there is good news. We have the most powerful tool called cha, not a C-word. It’s a cha word. It’s called choice. As simple as that sounds, it is simple. It’s not easy. It’s not easy. But simple.
You have to plug your phone in, in another room so that you’re not tempted to pick it up in the morning. First thing when you wake up and begin that little motion that we never had, right before this generation. We never had scrolling. We never had strong thumbs. I call this a strong thumb generation or the punctuation generation. Never so many hashtags and ad sides. So the choice to take responsibility for your own happiness is the key to claiming your birthright. No one else can do that for you but you, boo.
Jennifer:
That’s right. I agree completely. It’s so true. Nobody else can do this. Nothing external is going to do this. You might have momentary or temporary happiness when you get that house, car, job, or person. Anybody who’s been in a long-term relationship knows to make it work; it’s always going to be work.
You know, the new house, the new car, they wear off, they get old. All those external things are not really what brings us true happiness. It is a choice. I’ve had people throughout my life say, Jennifer, why are you so happy? Because I choose to be. It’s not that I’ve had a perfect life, far from it. I came from very severe childhood abuse, sexual abuse, trauma, all of that. But you overcome because you make the choice that you’re going to overcome. You make the choice that you’re going to learn from it; you make the choice that you’re going to use what happened to you to help others. It is always a choice.
I truly believe this in my heart. If you’re not happy, it’s because you’ve made a choice not to be happy. If you flip that and start to make the choice, things will change for you. You will be able to experience more happiness.
Dr. Marissa:
But that is a blissipline. I stole that. I have to give credit to my brother Michael Bernard Beckwith. I stole that from him. But you have to stop blaming other people for your unhappiness. That is easier said than done. It’s a habit. That’s why I wrote the book. I didn’t write the book, as a psychologist telling you how to be happy. I wrote the book as one of the seven out of ten of us who are convinced that no matter how much we achieve, no matter how much we do, we’re never going to be good enough because we carry around that past pain, like a badge.
The emotional baggage is oversized. It’s time to let that go. Now, it’s also true that you cannot just let it go; you really do have to process through. It’s not what happened to you. It’s what happened for you.
When you make that decision, to begin researching and understanding how that past pain chiseled you into the glorious, magnificent, wonderful guy and wonderful person that you are now. You have unique gifts, talents, and abilities because of what happened to you; you will always stay in the shame, blame, and pain.
I don’t think I’ve said that before that right? The shame, the blame, and the pain. That song. That’s the unhappy song. The unhappy song is shame, blame, and pain.
Jennifer:
I love that so much. The book that Marissa is speaking of is Eight Ways to Happiness: From Wherever You Are. I love this so much. Often I have people say to me, Jennifer, you’re just wired for happiness. It’s just the way that you are. I’m not wired that way. When people say this; I’m not wired for happiness. What do you get? What do you have to say about that?
Dr. Marissa:
I would say you are wired for happiness. You just forgot how to access your buttons. You’re letting other people push your buttons. You’re letting other people decide what wire goes to what wire, what socket. What goes to what wire, and you’ve abdicated your choice to do that. I’m not going to beat you up for it. When you are ready, if you’re tired of being tired, if you’re tired of the same old, and you’re ready to say, You know what? I don’t get a do-over in this thing called Life unless I’m Shirley MacLaine, and I’m not. I don’t want to lose one more year of the same old, in the morning, alarm, snooze, alarm, snooze.
Now I’m late, running around getting people dressed in their stuff, in their homework, in their shoes, sitting in traffic, getting to work, listening to arguments, going to meetings, and getting interrupted. Avoiding people that you don’t like by ducking in the bathroom. Finish work, don’t finish everything on your to-do list and move it till tomorrow. Get mad at people sitting in the car traffic. Get home. Try to get people fed, sit in front of bad TV, can’t move. Fall asleep on the couch, not a good night’s sleep. Forget to floss. The alarm goes off, and we do it again.
No wonder you go; is it Halloween already? Yeah, that’s one more year. People can live an entire decade in the same old, same old. Hashtag BC 19, where people say all the time, I can’t wait to get back to normal. I say you don’t remember what normal was like? Don’t you remember how exhausted and how not in tune with your relationships you were? How not in tune with your own? Who are you? What do you want?
II don’t have an answering machine. I have a question machine. When you call me, it says who are you and what do you want? I want you to ask that question all the time. The hashtag COVID silver lining. We get to ask that question and go holy camolies. Who’s this person I’m living with? What’s wrong with my kid, or what’s right with my kid? What’s right with my partner? What’s right about hugging?
What’s right about not traveling two hours to get to a job that I hate? What’s wrong or right with the whole sentiment of just telling me what to do. Give me a paycheck. I live for my weekends. Your weekends are two out of forking seven days. Really? That’s what you want to go back to?
I just came out with my first film, hashtag COVID Silver Lining. I finally had the time. Amanda Gorman’s speech actually inspired me. It’s called the new PPP Post-Pandemic Possibilities. It’s free on my YouTube. Subscribe there. Watch it. It asks you, what do you want to do differently?
What is possible now that we’ve had a pattern interrupt? You go back and do dog eat dog and rat race? Forcing kids to pick majors when they’re still a minor in life, or I can say, let’s look at what kind of alternative education systems there are. Let’s look at what kind of alternative work processes there are. There are massive amounts of people saying I’m not going back, massive amounts.
My corporate clients are not happy with me for saying that. What is life. Life is your birthright to happiness. Life is a joy. When was the last time you tasted what you were eating? That’s the deliciousness of life. There’s so much good. There’s so much good news. There’s so much to be happy about. There’s so much to be grateful for.
One of my tools and I know you’re going to ask me. I’ll just jump in. As you can tell, I’m very shy. I have nothing to say. I just spoke for the STEAN Symposium. I was the closing keynote speaker. It was so funny. I said, how much time do I have? They said 45 minutes. They said we can do question and answer if you don’t want to speak that long. No, you don’t understand. I’m a motivational speaker. I can go for two days, two hours non-stop.
It’s funny, they asked me, what time do you want to be notified that you’re almost done? I said, five minutes is good. They were offering halfway through. Ten minutes? I said, no, I’m like a squirrel. I get distracted. Five minutes. I didn’t even see the five-minute warning. I spoke all the way up to 43 minutes before I said, how much time do I have?
Jumping into what you were saying. You were asking for some practical tools. Here’s the most practical tool I can give you. When you wake up in the morning and do not reach for your device because it is plugged in another room, you’re just going to have to deal with it. You’re going to be doing this instead.
When you wake up in the morning, you sit up in bed without looking at your phone; you just breathe. You want your breathing to go in and out. Through the nose. Do it with me right now. Out through the mouth. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Soft shoulder, soft elbow, soft knees, one more time. Breath in through the nose and release all the stories in the three breaths.
That’s it. You can keep going. Set the timer for two minutes. Then eight specific things that you’re grateful for. Dr. Wayne Dyer says five. I’m an overachiever, and eight is a lucky number in Chinese. This is a podcast where you can actually see who’s talking. So as you can see, I’m not Swedish. I know you thought I was Swedish. I’m Chinese. Eight is a lucky number in Chinese. It’s a home for good fortune; that’s why I use eight.
You do eight specific things that you’re grateful for. You cannot say friends and family, too general. This morning, I woke up. I’m so grateful. This is my daughter’s favorite weather. It’s raining. I’m grateful for that delicious taste of coffee first thing in the morning. I’m grateful for the incredible feeling of the sheets. My sheets and comforters are three. I’m grateful that my new top arrived in the mail. I’m grateful for the fact that I have a client and we’re going to have dinner tonight at my favorite sushi place.
As you can tell, I’m all about the deliciousness of life. I’m grateful that I was going to splatter more hope and happiness on the podcast today. Number seven, I’m grateful that I actually just got hired to be a spokesperson for my New York news agency that I do b reporting for.
There are eight right there very quickly. That’s what you do first thing in the morning. It’s a blissipline. You have to do this. You cannot; no, I don’t feel like it. Gospel, according to Nike, just do it. Just do this for 31, 28, 21, minimum, 31 maximum. Your life will be completely different, but not because of the gratitude.
Here’s what entrepreneurs do not do very well. The last thing you do at night, instead of, I didn’t do this or I didn’t do that. How dare they insult me? When is that project going to come through? When are we going to get funded for that? Instead of thinking about all those things right before you go to bed? No wonder you can’t sleep?
The last thing you do at night is eight things you specifically appreciate about yourself. That’s the bottom of the bun. You can start this. If you have kids start them at age four, five or six. You can start them in the car. On the way to school, three gratitudes and three appreciations. What do you appreciate about your mom, sister, and yourself? You get that habit.
Then before you go to sleep, you think, I did finish this. I did do that. Wasn’t I nice about this? Didn’t I do this great for this person? Aren’t I creative? Aren’t I a fun-loving person? Aren’t I adventurous? Aren’t I energetic? And aren’t I sometimes lazy, but most of the time, I’m a hard worker?
You begin to make it a habit to approve of yourself. There’s another ticket, drop the mic. How the fork do you expect people to approve of you when you can not approve of yourself? There’s an African American saying, I love; when there is no enemy within, no one outside can hurt you. You have to do that. That’s the muscle. If you can’t love yourself 88% of the time. I’m not talking about, I’m all hot.
Jennifer:
We’re not talking about ego.
Dr. Marissa:
We’re talking about true. Doing this because we can’t hug a lot now. Learning how to do this during COVID has made such a difference in self-care. You can hug yourself. You’re not running around with an antenna up going; who approves of me? Who likes me? Who’s commenting positive? All of that bull shiitake that does not fill the inside out happiness job that it is.
Jennifer:
I love this so much. You can’t be truly grateful and miserable at the same time. It just doesn’t work. You have to feel one or the other. You’re either going to feel gratitude, or you’re going to feel these other emotions. I love that you’re starting the day with gratitude—what a beautiful practice. But at the end of the day, loving and appreciating yourself. That’s a good one. I’ve not heard of that one. That I’m going to keep. I’m going to take that one and start doing it right away. The other day, I listened to a podcast interview with a couple of very successful, well-known people. It was a fantastic interview.
They were both talking about how much they don’t like themselves. I’ve often obviously in my work with clients, my husband, people close to me have spoken so often about how much they don’t like themselves and how hard they are on themselves. I remember saying to my husband, is there something wrong with me?
I like who I am. I like my company, and I’m happy to be alone. I congratulate myself. I’m not perfect. It’s not about ego or anything like that. I genuinely like the person I am. I’ve screwed up. I was saying to my husband; I want to be more successful. Should I hate myself more? I’m sorry, I can’t do that. That’s not a road I’m going to go down.
Dr. Marissa:
That’s negative motivation.
Jennifer:
Exactly. It’s so rare that we hear people actually say, I like who I am. Shouldn’t we love who we are? There’s nobody else like us. Why would we do anything other than love and appreciate ourselves?
Dr. Marissa:
Because of what I said before, the majority of us did not grow up that way. We were told from the get-go how we are not good enough. It’s a habit. Americans have glorified this self-flagellation and self-sacrifice, working 80 hours a week to please your superior. All of that is built into our system. It’s perfectly natural. Every time I speak to a group of entrepreneurs, I say, how many of you say I am my own worst critic? Nobody’s harder on me than I am. If I get 99 compliments and one insult, my mind goes to the insult. I get 100% of people raise their hands. I say there are only two words I have for you. Stop it!
Jennifer:
Really. Stop it. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever. It really and truly doesn’t. I do believe it is like a discipline. I’ve had plenty of people tear me down, plenty of really bad trauma in my earlier years. It goes right back to the choice, right? I always made the choice that yes, this hurts. It’s okay. I’m going to learn how to feel it. Yes, I had damaging limiting beliefs, but I made a choice to heal it.
It really does come back down to your choice of how you want to live because the bottom line is, we’re all going to die. We’re all going to die. You’re not living forever. This is it, and every day is precious. You might not wake up tomorrow. I just look at it as, why would you want to go day after day in misery? If you want to rely on science, science proves now happy minds achieve more, more success.
Dr. Marissa:
Science is a bad word lately, so we don’t want to go back there. I do have an exercise for those of you who can’t go into gratitude immediately. It’s called the 21 Day Fast from Complaining. Feeling bad about yourself, complaining is the external dis ease with life. You just complain about everything. If you go to my website, drmarissa.life, and you register, you put $21 down for my nonprofit. If you manage 21 days without complaining, I will double your money.
It’s very easy, it’s a little competitive. There’s a warning label on this fast. If you go on this fast, you may experience more laughter, more joy, more wonder, more great timing, and better sex. I’ve actually had people say that their relationships absolutely took off in a positive way when they instituted the 21 day fast from complaining.
Jennifer:
I love that so much. And if anything, it’s also just out of awareness. Sometimes I think we don’t even realize it. We’re in such a habit and a routine of how much complaining we’re actually doing. I love that it would bring instant awareness to how often my energy, time, and focus are going towards complaining.
I could sit here and talk with you all day. I love these topics. So fantastic. Quickly, share again where everybody can find you, your website, and your book. That’d be so great.
Dr. Marissa:
Sure, absolutely. drmarissa.life houses my nonprofit called Eight Ways to Happiness. That is for kids, teens, and young adults who have temporarily forgotten their birthright to happiness. If you shop on Amazon and put in smile Amazon, put in Eight Ways to Happiness, you’ll be helping out my nonprofit.
By going to my shop and picking up the book, the audiobook Eight Ways to Happiness From Wherever You Are, the signed copy, the Balance Tai Chi Gong DVD, or the children’s book, Mommy What Are Feelings? You’ll also be helping the nonprofit and the film. The film is free.
It’s on YouTube, Dr. Marissa Pei. You will get an alert every morning at eight o’clock when I have my show. It’s called Take My Advice. I’m not using it: Get balanced with Dr. Marissa. I have great guests. I’m trying to think of your group. I just had Bob Proctor. Neale Donald Walsch, Lisa Nichols. Bernie Dormans, lots of different entrepreneurs. You can get that on my YouTube.
On Social media, I’m @docbalance on Instagram, Dr. Marissa everywhere else. That’s how you know to stay in touch. You get a free happy tip sheet if you sign up on dr.marissa.life. Thank you for the opportunity to splatter more hope and happiness on your audience.
Jennifer:
I love that. I’m sure everybody listening is going to love getting splattered with some happiness and some hope. Thank you so much for being here today. We’ll also put the link to Dr. Marissa, her book, and her website in the show notes.
If you would like more information you can, of course always visit jenniferdawncoaching.com. Thank you, everybody, so much today for listening. Now get out there and have a Happy Productive day. Thank you—bye guys.