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Mr. Biz Radio: How to Live a Happier Life with the Happiness Guru

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

 (00:00):

<Silence>

(00:04):

Welcome to Mr. Biz radio, Biz. Talk for Biz owners. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.

(00:19):

Alright, welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz Radio with me Mr. Biz. Ken Wentworth. And when I tell you this is a highly anticipated show, lemme tell you how highly anticipated it is. I first spoke with this week's guest, and we got her scheduled onto the show last September. Last September. So it has been literally 10 months. That 10 months ago when we originally had her scheduled to come on the show. She had some different things happen when we had to reschedule. I think we had to reschedule once or twice as well. So here we are 10 months later, and we're gonna talk about something that impacts you, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a business owner, whether you're working a nine to five. It doesn't, you could be a, a stay at home mom or dad, it doesn't matter. We're talking this week with the Happiness Guru <laugh>.

(01:09):

So Marina Shakour Haber, she's known as Happiness Guru, as I mentioned, she's a life coach who works with people who seek change because their lives broke down. And now they need clarity, direction, and guidance to break through to their new purpose so that they find meaning, fulfillment, and success. But above all, happiness <laugh>, she's also a speaker and the author of the new book, "Your GPS to Happiness". She has immersed herself over decades into studying and honing the physical and metaphysical science of happiness, understanding heart-based thinking, and raising vibrational energies on an individual and collective level so that together we can make our world a better place. Marina, welcome to finally welcome to Mr. Biz Radio.

(01:50):

I'm so excited to be here. Thank you, Ken.

(01:53):

Yeah, well, like I said, I've been looking forward to this and I didn't realize Marina and I were talking before. We came on air here you know, when I was doing prep for the show and you know, my one of the folks on the team gave me all the notes and that stuff, and I looked back and I, 'cause I knew we'd rescheduled a few times, I didn't realize. I'm like, holy heck, it's been literally since last September, it's been 10 months. I didn't realize it had been that long. So really looking forward to this. Before we start diving into that though, and I wanna talk about, I know you had mentioned you know, during some of the prep work I saw, you know, during your second book, you found your, your pyramid principle. I want to talk about that. And, but before we get into all that, I want to really kind of go back. Let's, let's, let's kind of go back in time a little bit and tell us about your entrepreneurial journey.

(02:37):

It started with my mom and I opened a business in Vancouver, British Columbia. We failed. Then I was hired by my competitor, which brought me to New York. And I found employment at the carpet store, carpet store in Manhattan, Einstein Moji. I met my husband, and I started working for his business. That business failed. And then a couple of years later, I started my own business based on that, on that same model. And I succeeded. It was simply, I, I had a benefit. I have to be honest, because he knew the industry, he knew the people I started, but he had all the connections and the know-how. So that certainly made the foundation of my pyramid a whole lot easier because I had incredible guidance. The journey, though, is still the same because so many things change as you progress through this journey to get to your outcome, your desired outcome. So there were many, many challenges. And in the end, I closed it came to, to Florida, and I decided to change my life and to proceed, pursue something completely different, which was a spiritual journey, becoming a life coach. Now, I've also been certified in hypnotherapy. I'm going for my clinical hypno therapy and N L P, which is neurolinguistic programming. And I couldn't be happier because with every step in my journey, I learned I grew and I can give back to other people what I have gained.

(04:16):

Well, it's interesting. So oftentimes that's one of the reasons why I almost always start off in the first segment, talking to the guest about their entrepreneurial journey. Because typically there's something that you've gone through or many things you've gone through that someone who's watching or listening will say, oh my gosh, I went through the same thing. Or something they can relate to. And especially often enough, a a lot of times it's, it's a failure. It's a, it's a challenge that was not met and et cetera. And I know one of the things you talk about are failures are fillers. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, talk to us a little bit about what you mean by that.

(04:48):

I have noticed, observed that many people hang onto their failures and consider their failures to be just that failures, number one, attachment is not necessarily a good thing. You need to let go. You need to learn from something and let go surrender and let go. That's what the, what the lesson is, because it's like going in school. You repeat the lesson until you learn it, but if you hold onto it, then you never let go of the negative aspect, which is the failing. But in everything, there lies a lesson we learned from it. No one has learned to walk without falling. Not one child hasn't fallen and said, forget about it. I'm not ever going to walk again. Of course we are.

(05:32):

Well, it's interesting you say that, marina. So in one of the keynotes I I do, I talk about, you know, achieving massive goals and things, and I use that exact example. As I say this, this applies to everyone, every one of us, unless unfortunately you're, you're handicapped or anything like something like that, of course as a child, but every child, you know, learns to walk and do they does a child at any point in time after fif, I mean, how many times does a child fall down trying to walk? Right? Yeah. So many times. But as a child, we all said, you know what, I'm gonna try again. I'm gonna try again. I'm gonna try again. So somewhere along the line, oftentimes many people lose that, that perseverance, I call it consistent perseverance. They lose that and they start to give up on things, or they try four times and go up. It's just not worth it. And I'm like, you, you know, you, you failed 150 times trying to walk as a, as a toddler, and you persevered. You showed consistent perseverance, and you persevered. And so, you know, that's one of the things I try to awaken in people was you have this in you, you know? Yeah. Even from a very young toddler age, you had this in you. Let's reawaken that spirit to get it, get things going again.

(06:38):

But there's also, the thing that happens is the ego, the doubt, the fear, the the worrying, the what ifs, the catastrophizing of the potentially negative outcome. But if we can catastrophize a negative outcome, we can reframe that. And also potentially, and definitely I would say, visualize a better or a great outcome. And then we have something that pulls us, rather than something that pulls us down. It pulls us upwards. I know you like to say onwards and upwards. It's exactly what it is. Upwards. We have to visualize something that is better so that we can let go. Very often I find that, that the failure can become the push for us to get up and say, I've had enough of this, but without a pull, something that is fabulous and exciting and motivating, then we can get, get up much easier.

(07:38):

Yeah. I love it. And you know, I, I talk about this, you know, I share always on social media. I share a tip every week. And one of the tips I've shared mult, you know, over multiple years is that we often don't realize things that we can do until someone tells us we can't. And what I mean by that is related to what we're just talking about, marina, is that you try something and someone in your family, someone close to you, you try and you fall down and you try and you fall down and they go, it's never gonna work. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So what, what, how do you react to that? Do you go, you know what? You're right. It's not gonna work. And sometimes it might not, right?

(08:11):

It might not. Or

(08:12):

Do you say, you know what? I'm gonna show you. I'm going to make this work.

(08:16):

Let's not show them. It's not about them, it's about you. What do you want? It's not about competing or showing off. It is about saying, I know. And I can also redirect my course.

(08:33):

Yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, again, this week guys, we're talking with Marina Shakour Haber, and you can find out more. We'll put this in the show notes, but her website is dreamabetterdreamnow.com/your-gps-to-happiness. You can follow her on YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. We'll come back after the break. We'll give the Mr. Biz tip of the week, and we'll continue talking to Marina about her pyramid principle.

(08:57):

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(09:36):

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(10:05):

Got a question for Mr. Biz. You want answered on air, email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Now once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(10:16):

Alright Welcome back to the show. It's time for the Mr. Biz tip of the week. And this one, I I say this all the time, of course, I'm, I'm biased, right? These are, these are tips that I've come up with, right? Sometimes they're quotes from other folks, but this is one of my favorites, and I use this, and I promise you, business owners, entrepreneurs, if you are in the business of hiring people, please listen carefully, hire on character, loyalty, and work ethic. Almost everything else can be learned. Now, of course, if you're hiring someone to do brain surgery, right? You can't just, you gotta have someone who has technical skill. But if you hire someone who has those three characteristics, they, I promise you, I have never and I've hired, I don't know, hundreds, at least people during my corporate career. And since done tons of, you know, thousands of interviews, if you hire someone based on those three characteristics, they will be an Allstar employee for you.

(11:09):

I guarantee it. Because if those people that have those characteristics, they will work their butts off to get better at the things they're not good at. They will have a can-do attitude. It will be infectious to other people in the organization. They will be star employees, character, loyalty, work ethic. Hire on those three things, and you will be, you'll have a team of all stars and they will work fabulously together because they're, there's not ego involved with that. Just, just, I, I can't emphasize enough how critically important it is when you're hiring folks to look for those three really, really important characteristics. So that is a Mr. Biz tip of the week. Marina, I wanted to mention, actually, we, you know, you had mentioned during the last segment talking about fear. And I just heard a quote recently by someone that I, I follow on social media.

(11:58):

His name's Alex Hormoze. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And he, what he mentioned, and it sounds obvious, a lot of these things, you know, when, when they're brought to light to you, it sounds really obvious when you hear them, but until you hear them, you're kind of lost. At least I was. And he said, people who face fear, you don't, it, it, it's not fear within yourself, typically, it's your fear of what other people are going to think about you. And he, you know, his, his whole point was having the ability to, to push all that aside. And like you had mentioned towards the end of the segment, it's not about other people, it's about you. Thank you. So losing that ability, I guess, to worry about what others think, and I know people talk about that all the time, but that's difficult, right? Of course it is.

(12:39):

And especially if it, they're people that are close to you, family members you know influential people in your life, et cetera. It's difficult to say, you know what, I'm gonna make this happen. I don't care what people say, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I thought that was an interesting take on it, that fear typically grips people the most when they're fearful of what's, how someone else is gonna react to it. Who's gonna, someone's gonna say something about it. Yeah, their dad, their uncle, their spouse, their, their, their, their, you know, their children, et cetera.

(13:05):

Fear is truly the absence of love. And because there's only one thing, and that is love. So everything else, any other emotion is the absence of love. In this case, it is the absence of self love. I am not good enough. Am I good enough? Is this good enough? And then we start comparing and constantly saying, what will they think of me? It really doesn't make an iota of difference what people will think of you, and you will never know what they think of you anyway. There is no way to know it. It's none of our business. The only business that matters is what do we think of ourselves that is the greatest, either motivator or destroyer? Because if we think that we are not enough, nothing will ever be enough. And we are constantly running and chasing after the rainbow. Something that's out there, while it is truly in here. So this is the first thing, is accept that you are enough, and then you stop the frenzy, you calm down. And in a calm state, that's when you're the most resourceful, the strongest and most empowered creative as well. So that's the state from where you can do your best business.

(14:33):

Well, I think that's actually a good segue. So before we, I know you're gonna give us some tips on, you know, some practical tips on, on living happier lives in general. But before we get into that, I also wanna talk about a little bit, I'm, I'm very curious to hear more about your pyramid principle that you came up with.

(14:48):

Well, what I observed is starting with myself and, and in master groups with others. I noticed when someone starts a new project, be it a business or be it a, a book, whatever it is, we start very broad. Really, it's gotta be big. That's our foundation. So we have a thousand ideas. They usually, first stage, they're really out there, they're dreamlike, illusionary and visionary. Huge. Then as we start, we have to trim it down. Failures, small failures are starting, which are what I call the glue that cements the foundation blocks together, because our dreams are soft. They're the gold, but gold alone is too soft. So you need something that puts it together and gives the whole structure, strengths. Stage one, stage two, you're doing small steps at the same time of the pyramid principle, there's another effect going on. And that is the snowball effect.

(15:51):

You make small changes, you make, it grows slowly, but it gathers momentum. So in stage two, both motivation and the pyramid are sort of imbalance. When you get to the third step, which is at the top of the pyramid, that is where this toughest part is to get through the tip. It is, because most of the time our motivation starts to lower, but at this point, it is when you have to truly push, and if you follow the snowball effect, the snowball gains momentum as you're getting there. Why? Because that's the hardest part. And most people give up right then and there they go, I can't do it anymore. I'm done. Just a put away from, from the, the goal or the outcome, what have you, it's so similar to giving birth, literally giving birth. At the end, the resources are failing, one gets tired, but that one more push makes the difference. Ah, just one more and we get through it.

(17:03):

Well, I'll have to take your, I'll have to take your word for it, Marina, on the ladder that

(17:06):

Yes, <laugh>,

(17:08):

I've experienced that from a, from a, from an external pers perspective, of course with, with with the <crosstalk>.

(17:13):

It's a pattern. It's a pattern that's, I'm looking at patterns because that's clearly pa and you see it repeated over and over again, which is fascinating.

(17:23):

So let me ask you this. Is there, is there like a magic bullet? Is there something to help us expediate the process to getting to the, to, to the top of that pyramid?

(17:33):

What I've learned is, first of all, we need to know what we want. Be very, very clear what we want. Because I find very often that people have, are not clear about that. They're hanging more around the I the, I don't once when you ask them, I don't want this. No, I don't wanna know what you don't want. That may be a jumping board to what you do want. Know what you want, stay calm, be focused. Don't be on a thousand tangents. That multitasking is the worst thing because all you're doing, you you have a multi focus. You have multifocal because you're not there. So focused, centered, calm state, and you will definitely make it. That's my advice. No friends. Well, I love

(18:20):

That. Yeah, I love that because you know, we hear so often in the entrepreneur space, influencer space about getting stuff done and multitasking and everything. And I found myself, I used to be the same way. I would have a bunch of things going on, and what I would find is I was getting a little bit done on a lot of different things, but I wasn't bringing anything to conclusion. Yeah. And so I got very frustrated. I learned through the school of hard knocks with this <laugh> a few years back. And I got really frustrated. Like I was busy, but I wasn't being productive. And I think there's a big difference there. Exactly. Huge. We're, we're gonna hit a break here, guys. Hold that thought. Marina, if you would we're gonna hit a break here again, dreamabetterdreamnow.com/your-gps-to-happiness. We're come back and she's gonna give us some practical tips to leading a happier life.

(19:04):

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(20:05):

Check out all three of Mr. Business best-selling books at mrbizbooks.com. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(20:15):

Alright Welcome back to the show. And again, this week we're talking with Marina sorry about that. Marina Shakour Haber, I almost got 'em reversed. And her website is dreamabetterdreamnow.com/your-gps-to-happiness, and we'll put this in the show notes, but for those that might be listening in a car or something like that can follow her on YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. Lots of good content out there. I know as I was doing preparation for the show and taking notes and everything on a lot of the content she has, she has a lot of really good stuff out there. All of it free, obviously on social media. Definitely check that out. So Marina, I, I'm sure folks have been listening, watching the show, and they're like, okay, you said a couple things at least that really resonated. This sounds good, but I've heard this story before. Oh, I'm gonna be happier. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. So give us, if you would, some practical tips on things that we can do, you know, things that are in all likelihood, pretty simple things that maybe we just haven't thought of, just to, to be happier overall in your professional life, in your personal lives, whatever it might be.

(21:18):

Well, the first thing I would suggest is pay attention to your thoughts. Most of the time we have no idea what we think of all day long. Most of the time, not every thought is ours, be influenced by whatever we are watching and paying attention to. So if you watch a lot of the news, forgive me, but if a lot of the news, news sell when news are bad, that's right. So it does influence us because we are like sponges. We suck it up. And then what we do is we emit that, which we don't like, but we are focusing on it. It goes to us like through a filter because that's all we are focusing on that R A S button system, the filter in our brain. That's what it thinks we want. And it attracts more of that negativity, that heavy feeling to us. And then we go, at the end of the day, I don't know why I'm so depressed. Well change the channel, literally change the channel and you will change the, your inner channel. So that's number one. Once you know, once know what you think of, you can reframe it.

(22:28):

Yeah. And I think that's very difficult for most people to do. And I know it's a challenge for me sometimes, and it's not just, it's social media as well, you know, there's so much absolutely. So much negativity. You know, my wife and I, we for, I mean, I couldn't even tell you the, it's been years. We don't watch the news regularly. Yeah. We really don't. Yeah. And I, we'll see, I I'll on social media or, or on the internet, I'll check out headlines and if there's something I wanna dive deeper into, I'll do that. But I don't wanna be inundated constantly with negative things. And what I've even tried, and this is gonna sound super corny, and I think I may have mentioned this on a show before, I can't remember, but a guy named David Meltzer talked about the same sort of philosophy of of, of trying to keep some of that negativity out because we're so inundated with it during the day, is he said, just simply say to yourself, whether it's, you know, externally or if you're by yourself or even in your head, say, cancel, cancel, cancel. Yeah.

(23:21):

That is,

(23:22):

You just change your train of thought and push it out.

(23:24):

It interrupts, it interrupts the pattern because you're starting to go into this pattern. And when you're in this pattern, it's very hard to get out of the pattern. So you have to boom, you have to really knock it out of its groove. Then you can start consciously looking towards something else of a positive nature. And it is, it doesn't have to be outlandish. Look at the flower, look out the window. If it's a nice day, great. If it's not, oh, the sun will shine. Don't make it too complicated or too big by starting to pay attention what we think and what we focus on, you will observe certain patterns, you will observe certain habits, and by making small changes, because if they're big, you're not going to stay there. Small changes, instead of saying, Ugh, go, ah, oh, and this one look up, don't look that. What do we do all day long? We stick with the head down in our phone. Now physiology, through our physiology, that's a depressed state. So we are telling the body through our state that we are depressed when we are not look up to break the state.

(24:40):

I, I think, Marina, here's the other thing that I see that's really closely related to this, is you find what you're looking for. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, right? So you, you've probably heard the example, I know many people in it, you can put, make whatever it is. If all of a sudden you start looking for white jeeps, right? You're playing a game with your kids in a car on a, on a road trip, and you say, okay, we're gonna look for white jeeps and you know, whatever. Yeah. And all of a sudden you're like, man, I didn't realize there were so many white Jeeps. Yeah. They've always been there. Yeah. You just weren't looking for them. So if you go around listening to negative, negative thoughts, energy, headlines, et cetera, and the news, you're going to start looking for more of that as a, on the opposite side, obviously, if you start, you push those things aside and you start to really look for positive things. Yeah. You, you find more positive things. It's just, you know, again, it sounds so obvious when you say it out loud, but I think so many people get stuck in that rutt.

(25:31):

Yeah. And it becomes like that negative vortex, there's power to that. So it's really, you have to stop the vortex and, and let go of certain thoughts. But what I've also noticed that a lot of people, there is an attachment to this heaviness. There's an attachment to negativity. There's also, of course, we talked about fear is the fear of uncertainty. If I stay here, although it's a rutt, although it's the mock, at least I know what I've got, which is not true because we control nothing. We don't know if the m that we are in is going to be the mock tomorrow, even though we don't enjoy it, because we change everything else around us changes. So this, my suggestion is staying in the comfort zone. And I know people talk about that all the time, but that is just really a cop out to life because you need to go with life. I'm now 68 years old, I'm still taking courses, I'm still studying because I need to keep my brain active. I have to be out there, I have to do things. And that in, in and of itself brings joy, happiness, excitement. It feels like champagne babbling through me when I can do something for someone else. That is how we turn our thinking around by not sticking in that heaviness, but going for the lightness.

(27:03):

Yeah. One of the things I've found is if I get inundated with, you know, in anything, I mean, you can't avoid bad news, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, there's, there's gonna be challenges that happen in your life, et cetera. But what I've found is, again, just like you're talking about, and it's different for every person, but, you know, breaking that pattern and so, so is so key to it, to nip it in the bud so you're not dwelling on something for hours and hours and hours and letting it ruin your entire day, your week, your month, your year, whatever it might be, and moving forward. And so, you know another person, I I I, I love to follow on social media is David Goggins and he's mentally is just a complete warrior and a little bit out outside of the box of almost everybody. But you know, he talks about have a pity party for yourself when something bad happens, but limit it to an hour. Yes. Be as sad as you want for an hour, no matter how negative it is. Be as sad as you want for an hour and at the end of the hour Yeah.

(27:56):

Grab yourself by the bootstraps and figure out what am I gonna do going forward? Yeah, yeah. How do I make the situation better?

(28:02):

Yeah. The thing is also that grief is normal grief, let it wash over you. Really, it's like the river. It's a cleanser. Let it wash over you, but then it needs to stop. And, and here again, I, my suggestion is if we can see something better, then that is the pull to do something better. If we have no vision for the future, and if we are run by people who say, oh, you always dream so big, yeah, that's fine. But again, also, here's what I also noticed. Attachment to future outcome is also can turn very negative because it doesn't, if it doesn't happen the way you visualized it, then that becomes a negative factor. So play with it, allow it to pull you, but don't be attached to it because then you're not flexible. You can't move with it.

(28:55):

Yeah. I love that. And we talk about big goals on the show all the time, and I know we're running out of time here, but real quick, you know, if I have, and I do have, I have really far outgoing, huge goals, but I think for me at least, I need to set a, a whole bunch of milestones in between so I don't get discouraged that I haven't achieved that big giant goal. And I can celebrate along the way with those mini, those mini wins. Yeah. Marina, I look, the time just flies by as always. I really appreciate you coming on the show. You shared so much great stuff. I really appreciate it.

(29:24):

Thank you so much, Ken. Thank you.

(29:26):

Yeah, absolutely guys. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Hope you love the show. I'm sure you did. Enjoy the remainder of your week and have a great rest of your day. And don't forget, as always, Cashflow is King.

To become part of Mr. Biz Nation, follow him on all social media platforms or never miss a show by going to mrbizradio.com. If you prefer free video content, visit the Mr. Biz YouTube channel or check out his streaming channel, which is available on 100 plus streaming platforms at mrbiznetwork.com.