A Guide to Happiness
Have you ever wanted your own personal guide to happiness? How can we know our true purpose in this world? In this episode of Wisdom of Ages, host Ayn Cates Sullivan and guest Sherry Stirling Fernandez talk about the challenges to success and happiness. They also emphasize Sherry’s book Life Mastery: Personal Progression Toward an Infinite Potential. Day by day, we are bombarded by many things, yet we must focus on the things that will build us holistically. Tune in to know the eight areas of life mastery and to test how well-rounded you are.
Ayn Cates Sullivan:
Welcome, friends and mystical travelers. This is Ayn Cates Sullivan, host of Wisdom of the Ages. Today, I would like to speak about happiness. From time to time, it’s good to revisit the United States Declaration of Independence, and remember that happiness is important to us. It goes like this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” So let’s explore happiness today.
My guest is Sherry Stirling Fernandez who has just welcomed her 21st grandchild into the world. I think that’s a massive achievement, that’s amazing. So her story, I really enjoyed it. It’s a rag to riches story with some really helpful advice. I don’t know if I’ll ever have 21 grandchildren, but if I have one grandchild, I can leave a book, a guide to happiness to them also. So she’s written a book entitled Life Mastery: Personal Progression Toward an Infinite Potential.
I think no matter who you are or where you are in the world, a guide to happiness can come in handy because most of us are good at certain things, and maybe not as well-rounded in other areas. So she’s divided life mastery into eight categories. So it’s life mastery with the physical self, the spiritual self, life mastery with relationships, with education and motivation, with vocation, money, lifestyle, and character. I like the number eight too, it’s a powerful number. All of these help us become well-rounded pearls, well-rounded human beings.
I also really enjoyed revisiting Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues. I hope we’ll get back to that too. So the main idea behind the book is that as you master these areas in your life, it leads to increasing happiness, and this is true. I actually really feel that this is authentic, sincere, and true. So toward the end of the book, Sherry has a personal assessment form that you can fill out. I did it. I found it very helpful and very interesting, and I’m planning on changing my workout routine. So welcome, Sherry Stirling Fernandez.
Sherry Stirling Fernandez:
Thank you, Ayn. Thanks for having me on your show. Nice introduction too.
Ayn Cates Sullivan:
Thank you.
Sherry Stirling Fernandez:
I liked hearing that little reminder about the Constitution too. I should have included that in the book. I didn’t think of that one.
Ayn Cates Sullivan:
Oh, good. You have a lot of great examples, so we’ll just add another. Okay, so in a little nutshell, because we got to take an ad break here in a minute or two, but what inspired you to write the book?
Sherry Stirling Fernandez:
I’ve been asked to speak a lot of times, or write a book a lot of times after speaking. People would say, “You should write a book.” I would be like, “No, I don’t write, I speak,” but it just was time. I really felt inspired to do it, and I can only touch so many lives mentoring. I do that for many weeks. I try to keep a balance in my life. I thought that I’ve got all this information in my head. It’d be a waste. I’m getting a little older, so it’s just a combination of things. It was just time, and I wanted to make sure that all that I had learned and taught was not lost. Mostly, I was inspired though, honestly.
Ayn Cates Sullivan:
I think it’s a book of wise women’s teachings. It’s really excellent.
Sherry Stirling Fernandez:
I didn’t put anything in there that I didn’t know to be true of myself, and I was really very careful about that. There’s a lot of good ideas that somebody can do to study, or research, or share an idea, and it can get really popular, but it doesn’t necessarily make it true.
Ayn Cates Sullivan:
I felt that about your book, it’s authentic. There’s a sense that you lived this, that you went and learned all of these skill sets, and then your life is successful because of it. So I think it’s admirable, so thank you for that. We’re going to take a really quick ad break. Where can people take this personal assessment? Where can they find it online?
Sherry Stirling Fernandez:
Well, it’s in the book, of course, but also it’s on the website, lifemasteryinfo.com. Just go to, I think, it’s called with Its downloads at slash, downloads, I think, easy to find. There’s a couple of things on there, but the assessment. There’s a reading list and a couple of other things that are available that are just.
Ayn Cates Sullivan:
Good, good, good. Okay, so lifemasteryinfo.com. So, all right. So stay tuned. We’ll be right back. When we come back, we’ll continue our discussion about happiness and life mastery. So stay tuned. We’ll be right back.
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