Welcome. This is A Glimpse Inside. I’m Wendy Perrotti and today we’re wrapping up our four-part series, Letting Happiness Win, with a conversation about finding happiness at work. 20 years ago, my guest, Lionel Ketchian President of LRK Communications, held a meeting in Fairfield, Connecticut open to anyone who is interested in leading a happier life. He called it The Happiness Club. In the two decades that have passed since that first meeting, Lionel’s Happiness Club has spread across the globe with over 1,000 chapters offering monthly content, conversation, and connection to tens of thousands of people every day.
To this day, he continues to run the monthly meeting of the Fairfield Happiness Club and co-leads the meetings of the Woodbridge, Connecticut chapter along with his longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Bernie Siegel. He’s currently the cohost of the weekly cable television program, The Happiness Show, and the author of Food for Thought, a book of inspirational wisdom that has been endorsed by Reverend Norman Vincent Peale and Ken Blanchard.
Lionel has taught happiness at Sacred Heart University and is currently working at Connecticut hospice to help the staff there, who do such important and emotional work, find space for happiness in their day. I’m so excited to have you here with me today, Lionel.
Well thank you, Wendy. It’s so good to be with you again.
Yeah, we met at The Happiness Club, right?
Absolutely. What a wonderful presentation you had presented, so much value. I never realized that you had so much to give to others and share with us. It was just phenomenal.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Our missions are sort of simpatico, right?
Yes, absolutely.
So, tell me about what in your life inspired you to start The Happiness Club?
Yes. Well, as you had mentioned, I was teaching … my first class at Sacred Heart University was in the fall of 1999 and the class wanted to keep learning because they thought they were just going to learn about happiness, not become happier, which … they didn’t know that was part of the deal. So I thought it was great that they wanted to continue their interest in something that I love. That’s how The Happiness Club was formed, from their desire to keep meeting. We had the first meeting on January 13, 2000 in Fairfield and we continue to have those meetings ever since then and it’s just spread like wildfire because of wonderful people who feel it, you know, becoming a facilitator and becoming responsible for presenting clubs and meetings and presentations like the one you have done. Inspire people, change their lives, give people new meaning and thought. It’s just, it really is a contagious, wonderful spread of the best things in the world.
You have some incredible facilitators and members here in Connecticut that I’ve met and I’m sure across the world. Can you share an inspirational story, something that comes to mind of about what The Happiness Club has done for folks?
You know, one of the thoughts that just popped into my head. A very long time ago. I had this little, a couple of steps and it was that people would walk up two or three steps and just say, “I made the happiness decision for the rest of my life.” I remember an older woman, she could have been in her nineties. We helped her go up the stairs and she yelled out with all of my, you know, “I made the happiness decision,” and then came down the stairs and then shared that she wished she had made it so long ago that she’s older now and making it now felt good but she was talking about all these other years that she could have had this feeling. I said, “Look, we only have now, all of us. We never know what we have next.”
So really no matter what age you are, when you make that decision to be happy now, it is with you the rest of your life. None of us know how long that is. The decision and the feeling you derive from that decision can be made at any age, at any time but the only time it could actually be made is now. So the really, this is the whole point of this. When we talk about a decision, we’re talking about changing our mental thoughts so that now they’re generating positive thoughts of happiness. Now we know where we’re going, we know where our compass is headed, and we know what our focus is. So, it’s as simple as that, really.
You talk a lot about that, that happiness is a choice and that it is a decision that you make. It’s not something that happens to you. It’s something that you create by choosing to think in a particular way.
Absolutely. In fact, in one of the additions of the Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations, I’m in it having said “Happiness is a decision.” Then they state the, you know, it’s a New York Times and it was in my book, Food for Thought from 1989. I’m glad and proud to say that, yeah, this is an original thought. Now the choice is … we’ve heard happiness is a choice and that’s true. But see, with choices, you can only make the choice you are aware of. When you’re not aware that you can make a choice to be happy, you won’t make it. So the decision becomes primary because then you realize what your life is all about, it becomes a very important decision that you’ve made, a commitment, and intention. And not only are you making it, but the universe is drawing it towards you as well. So you have both ends covered. The universe has your back when you make that decision.
I love that. So, if I’m hearing you correctly, it starts with the decision. You have to decide to be happy. Then from there, once you’ve made the decision, it’s about the choices that you make to fulfill that decision.
Absolutely. You will much more readily be aware of that choice once you’ve made the decision because it’s just amazing the people that you think by coincidence you run into and the events that happen to you, but it’s just an amazing thing that goes on in life. It’s really the law of attraction. We are reaping what we’re sowing. So if you want something good like happiness, if you put it out there and focus on it, that’s what you’re going to grow. You know, the seeds you plant are the fruit you reap.
For those of you out there who are thinking, “Huh, that sounds a little bit woo woo for me, that I could just choose to be happy and bibbidi bobbidi boo, I’m happy,” there’s a lot of science, right? There’s a lot of science behind intentionality and behind choice and behind repetitive thinking. I’m a big brain nerd, so I’d love to get into that and let’s start there when we come back from our break. How’s that? We’ll talk more about Finding Happiness at Work.
Sounds good, Wendy.
Okay. So, we’ve been learning a little bit about my guest today, Lionel Ketchian, about how he got into the happiness business and about happiness being both a decision and then a choice that you make every day. We’re going to take a really quick break and when we come back, Lionel and I are going to dig into a little bit of that brain stuff and then today’s topic of happiness in the workplace.
As always, I’ll be giving you some tips and tools you can use along the way. I’m sure Lionel’s got some gems for us too. Lionel, before we break, what can listeners do? Where can they go if they want to learn more about you or The Happiness Club?
Yeah, the primary place to go is the website happinessclub.com. There they’ll get a, they can get the free newsletter, once a month newsletter, information on the free classes that are offered at Happy You every Monday on the phone, and the meetings that we have all over the place.
Perfect. Stay with us. We’ll be right back.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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