Maura Sweeney, the Ambassador of Happiness, is an international speaker, author, podcaster and creator of the Foundations of Happiness eCourse. She guides others on the path of “Living Happy – Inside Out.”
I’m excited to have with me today, Maura Sweeney. Everybody, just hold on, brace yourselves, because she is going to come in with so much amazing energy. Immediately, you will feel it from her. She’s pretty cool. She looks really good on paper, but she feels good too, which is important also. Not only is she a world traveler to places like Hungary, Kosovo and Macedonia, lecturing on things like influence and leadership. She’s an author, a podcaster, a speaker. I could brag for days about this woman. But that’s not the most important part about her. The most important part about her is how she’s woven together all of that to create this really amazing model of what it looks like to be in your brilliance and your uniqueness. We could all take a few lessons from her. Let’s let her share something about herself.
Maura, welcome to the show.
Tonya, thanks so much. This is really exciting for me to be on, just because of the unique space that you play to and address.
Thank you so much. We’re going to throw you right into the mix and ask you, what are your superpowers?
Mind Sight: I would see things with my mind, my inner mind. As a result I could see things before they happen.
I want to reduce it to a single one, but I will go beyond it. I call mine mind sight. Most people have their five senses and they have great eyesight. I was always dyslexic. I would see things from the end to the beginning, and I was always near sighted. But one thing I did have was mind sight. Meaning, I would see things with my mind, my inner mind. As a result I could see things before they happen. I could see people heading in the wrong direction. I’m not saying I was a woo-woo personality by any means, but I literally could see things. I could see questions, issues, problems and even individuals through a completely different and unusual lens that really lent itself to a lot of situations.
The second thing I want to offer about my mind sight is that because I have it, I have this ability to be able to be in someone’s company. It could be at work, I had a long corporate career, or it could be socially. I’ll start talking, I’ll ask a few questions and the next thing I know I can see something within them that I would consider a gem. It’s usually something they’re born with. It’s an innate series of skills or abilities or there’s a quality that is just remarkable longing for exposure and promotion.
I am so on fire about things like this because in my mind, since the time I was very young, I knew there’s a better world. I think most people have all been taught and patterned to repeat the world and answer to the world, rather than going within, finding out what their talents, their curiosities, their skills and desires are. Tapping into those and living at of those spaces and literally becoming your biggest and most authentic self. But in the process stepping out and displaying what it’s like to create a new world to replace and overlay the current world we’ve all been living in. It’s a long answer to a short question.
It’s supposed to be, you’re a powerful person. The whole mind sight conversation is so huge. It really lends itself nicely to how I see a lot of people stepping out tentatively into this space because we all get it. I think there’s something more, I sense it. When people talk to us like, “We know.” We know if what they are saying is congruent with what we’re picking up from them energetically. But until you give it voice, until you say, “I think this is a powerful thing for me to be using,” you do what you see being modeled. For you to come out with that and say, “This was my experiences, this is how I use it, this is the value it has,” is hugely powerful for those people sitting here listening and they don’t even know that’s a thing.
I’m glad you even referenced it that way where you said, “There’s more.” Most people may feel or maybe they’ll get this little inkling like, “I know there’s more I could do. I know I’ve got some other ideas.” But because they’re so accustomed to seeing our existing world, they question themselves or let’s say they are tentative. What happens if there’s somebody out there who’s got an idea that’s really breakthrough? Unless, they see other people modeling their own version of breakthrough or better or more, they tend not to know where to go. In some regard, I almost want to say I’m like a little pioneer on my own, saying to other people, “Come on, I’ve jumped off the ship. I haven’t drowned. The water’s fine. Come on in and you could swim too.” I think that’s very powerful and very inclusive.
I’ve break the journey up from the traditional mindset into what I call the evolved consciousness and then the abstract frequency. Those people who are tip toeing and dipping their little toes into the abstract frequency, what they’re discovering is exactly what you’re talking about, which is there is a space that we all move into that is inclusive. It is synergistic, it is collaborative, but you can only get there once you have traversed through all the phases of that evolved consciousness which include, who am I? What are my gifts? What did I come here to do? All of that purpose driven conversation that we’ve all been having over the last few decades has lead up to the point of, what happens after that? Very few people are talking about it and no one warned us that there’s something after that. We all thought that was the goal, but this is where the real fun starts, to me. I’m having a blast playing in that collaborative space.
For me, it’s fun. A couple of decades ago, I was in the telecom industry and I was thrown into leadership. I didn’t even want the job and I thought, “How do I get all these people to sell stuff when I don’t want to be a pushy person?” I had to learn how to employ every asset I had at my disposal. A lot of it had to be creative, intuitive. I had to really search for new ways. Because back then, they had a lot of people in leadership that were just telling people what to do, which was never my style.
As a result, not only did I learn new ways to lead and to almost bring people collectively into a new space, but I learned the power of what takes place when people are developed into their areas of expertise and promoted and celebrated. Because not only are they more individually feeling empowered or, let’s say, purposeful. In addition to that, they add that energy to the collective and as a result everyone wins. Everyone benefits and the entire group rises up to another level. It’s extremely powerful. Back then, I don’t even know if there were words to describe it, but I was extremely aware of the kinds of atmospheres that can be created in different places and how different responses and successes could result out of it.
It’s amazing what happens when you break out of that separation, segmentation phase. It takes some doing. Through many phases of my existence, I worked with different groups and different models. What I find is that as individuals rise in consciousness and as the world rises and as groups and everything else, the conversation has to change. I’m very fond of saying, once you have mastered a process, it’s over. You’re done. You can’t use it any longer. The purpose of everything is to get you to the next place. Then there’s something else to get you to move on beyond that. That is the game that we’re playing. It sucks for people who like to get comfortable. It’s not really designed for that.
Mind Sight: Isn’t it awesome to know that there’s always a new adventure? There’s another place to expand. There are new solutions.
You’re right, because it’s always pressing at the edges. But you see, I look at it completely differently. Isn’t it awesome to know that there’s always a new adventure? There’s another place to expand. There are new solutions. There’s new ways of looking at things. I love it. I, at some level, compare all of this to happiness. It’s like there’s a collective upward lift when you continue to operate in those kinds places because the air is lighter, the energy is higher, and people tend to show forth their best. Even though, let’s say, they’re not operating at that level, end up moving up without even realizing it. I really expect to see that become a different model for our society, not just here in the states, but really globally.
We’re at that juncture right now where a lot of people are tired of same old, same old and they know there’s going to be more. We’ve got to find new ways to get to the more and get to the better. To get to the collective and to get truly to another level that we are all capable of getting to if we would, let’s say, step out of our comfort zones or be willing to step into new dimensions that are ours to walk into if we have just the courage and, I would say, part way the vision to get there.
To me, it keeps me entertained. I get super bored otherwise. People all the time are, like all the businesses that we’ve created, we being my husband and I, have been hybrid, Blue Ocean Strategy. If it’s been done before, I have no interest at all. I just had to acknowledge that about myself a long time ago. It’s always going to be different and I’m always going to be paving a way, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my moment of stomping my foot and my husband will tell you, “Where’s my Tonya?” He just gently reminds me that’s what I wanted. It’s really being okay to sit in the space that you’re asking for and to say, “If I want things to look differently, then I have to be willing to things differently.” That means that there is no blueprint for it. There is no guide for it and that’s okay.
I’m on this massive kick right now to find what I’m calling The Superpower Allies. All the people who are doing things in a way that means that there’s nobody ahead of them pointing the way, but if you look to your right and left there are others doing that in their space. If we all just look side to side and go, “There are people here. They’re just not ahead of me,” where we’re trained to look for people. We always think the people behind us can’t really give us guidance and can’t really support us because they don’t really know what’s going on. You don’t have anyone ahead of you. But if you just look to sides, there are always transferable skill sets and collaboration and fun projects and synergies and stuff when you’re able to sit in that community space.
I definitely agree with you. I remember as a child, I knew intuitively, I was a pioneer. I knew it didn’t mean I was going to be going cross country. I didn’t even know what it meant, but I knew that that was my calling. Here’s the interesting thing. When we’re pioneering, sometimes we don’t even know where we’re going but we’re following certain unctions, interests. We get new ideas and we run into different people. But I have noticed the same thing, Tonya. The more you get on that path, you may not find anyone specifically in front of you because it’s your path. But you end up being surrounded by people that are on their own path, all moving forward en masse. There’s this exchange of encouragement and support, and even I want to say, ideas that tend to go back and forth so everybody spurs one another on.
I call them concentric circles. There’s always overlap and there’s crossover. It’s just fun. I just think it’s a lot of fun. Speaking of fun, what I didn’t mention in your introduction and I really want to hear about, is your trademarked “Ambassador of Happiness”.
I met, maybe a month or so ago, in an event, with a recently retired general. He said to me, “Maura, you are so filled with enthusiasm, everything that comes out of your mouth. Were you always this happy? How did you get this title, Ambassador of Happiness?” I said, “Frankly, I made it up.” There never was an ambassador of happiness, but I was actually given the moniker a little over a year ago. I was invited to speak at the first Nelson Mandela Day celebrations. I was so thrilled because I thought I feel like I’ve been waiting a lifetime to do just this thing even though I didn’t know it existed. They had various dignitaries. They said, “Maura, how would you like us to introduce you?” I said, “My name Maura Sweeney. I work for myself. My website’s Maura 4 U and I really inspire people to find their own sense of happiness and authentic living.” They said to me, “We’re going to call you the Ambassador of Happiness.”
Not only did they do it once, but they did it for another event they had me speak at. People heard that and they cracked up. They we’re like, “Maura, we already knew you were the ambassador and the goodwill ambassador, we love it.” Then I got it trademarked. Now, I end up still going overseas and speaking at various places. I have been interviewed on places like Serbian News and Macedonian Press. I’ve been introduced to various universities as the Ambassador of Happiness. Had I had, let’s say, my own choice in life, growing up and choosing what I was going to do, I really envision myself as a goodwill ambassador to Latin America. My family wanted me to be a lawyer. That was not my calling.
Mind Sight: I see everybody as a circle of influence. When you could start seeing others like that, you see all the gifts you have around you.
Here I am, 30 something years later, I’ve travelled to all these foreign countries. I write about anecdotal stories. I write about the things that make us who we are. I encourage people to move forward in what they love. I have my own self-styled title that I literally made up and I am received that way, wherever I go, for a position that never existed. Here’s an awesome thing, Tonya. There’s no government, there’s no corporation, there’s no daddy, there’s nobody telling me what my title means. I am that title and I embody it. It continues to grow and pick up space and pick up receptive people that want to hear some of those thoughts that are already alive within them but they just needed ways to express them.
One of them being concentric circles, funny you should mention it because I talk about that as a replacement for the kind of models we’ve seen so far; scarcity and pyramids. I see everybody as a circle of influence. When you could start seeing others like that, you see all the gifts you have around you, you can appreciate others around you. Everybody ends up seeing their own value, their own worth and collectively bringing the masses up.
That is absolutely powerful and so extremely perfect. Let’s move into our final question, which is around the idea of a time when you got your own internal guidance. You talk a lot about the intuitive and listening to that. Can you think of a really powerful example of when you took that guidance and took action with it and what transpired because of that?
I could use several times in my life because I think I’ve gone from one place to another. I’m going to tell you, it was a time midlife. I’d already done so many things but I had been a homeschooling mom. I was a co-owner of a business with my husband. Our daughter was getting ready to go 1,500 miles away. I was like, “Are we going to keep doing the same stuff and just sail into the sunset as these midlife people that have a nice quality of life, supposedly, financially, but we we’re not really fulfilled?” Here I was at midlife, going from being this relatively obscure, quiet person, living in suburbia to saying, “I’m going to take everything I’ve ever been, everything I’ve ever been interested in, every tool for my background, and I’m going to take it as far as I can to become one of the most influential voices in the world for a space that doesn’t yet exist, but we need it.” And here I am.
That was a biggie. It took a lot of guts because you figure, a midlife woman, she’s going to be involved in the media, her face is out there, she’s using her name and it sounds ridiculous. I said to somebody the other day, it sounds almost stupid. But I was willing to go do it and just continue doing it and continue working on my blogs, my videos, and my opportunities to speak. I took my own advice that I would give other people, take what you love, take those passions and continue to work with them, play with them. Keep experimenting and ultimately, you’ll end up creating the new you from the inside out, which goes right back to my mantra, “Living happy from the inside out.” Stop trying to do what the world tells you. You step into yourself, find out what your soul wants and then discover and play with different ways to bring that out into the world. You feel better, the world is blessed by you and then the light and the life of that just continues to go onward and upward.
I know there our audiences are going to want to know more about you. Where can we send them for more information?
Easiest way to find me is if they like to listen on their own iTunes, look for my name, Maura Sweeney: Living Happy Inside Out. But the command central for me is my name, Maura4u.com. Because whoever you are, whatever your background, wherever you’re from, whatever hurdles you have in life, I am for you. They could find blogs, they could find books, they could find podcasts, the connections with Huffington Post. I have an e-Course for emotional intelligence and I have a place to find out if you ever want me to come and speak to your group.
Thank you so much for joining us. It’s been delightful.
Same here, Tonya. I have to tell you, thank you and congratulations for this space that you are occupying because what you’re doing today is something that, ten years ago, twenty years ago, I wish there was a vocabulary for, a place to go, an environment where people like me could think, reason, and grow and be inspired. I’ll be listening to you.
Thank you so much. I appreciate that. To all of you out there, as always, we appreciate your loyalty. Until next time, go out, discover you superpowers and change the world. Take care.
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