How to Discover Your Happiness | Becky Morrison

BECKY MORRISON [0:00]

If I were going to name a top priority for this season, one top priority, what would it be?

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CAMILLE WALKER [0:13]

So, you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business sharing your voice? How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO.

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CAMILLE [0:35]

Welcome back, everyone. How is 2022 going for you? I hope you are tuning into this episode knowing that you are going to come away with a formula for discovering and claiming your happiness path today. This does mean that if you are listening without a pen and paper, I suggest you come back a little bit later and listen through it again because there are step-by-step pieces that you're going to want to know of how you can turn today or this year into the path of happiness that you've been searching for, for a long time.

I have been thinking a lot about happiness and how many of my interviews here on Call Me CEO have brought about a lot of introspection as well as reframing where you are in your time and in your space and your motherhood and in your business. What does it look right now and how can you move things around to fit what really matters to you?

In today's episode with Becky Morrison, she talks to us about how she left a two decade career in law and finance into becoming a happiness coach and author of The Happiness Recipe: A Powerful Guide to Living What Matters. She is a successful, but unsatisfied high achiever expert, where for those of us who like to push and push and push, but sometimes don't know how to set boundaries to say no, she tells us how. So, let's get started.

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CAMILLE [2:06]

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Call Me CEO. I am your host, Camille Walker, and today we are going to be talking about how you can untangle your happiness with our expert, Becky Morrison. Becky has been looking at this path and this journey for many years, but turned into a business three years ago in January of 2019 and we are going to unpack that journey, her own personal journey, and how we can turn it into a step-by-step process for you. So, Becky, thank you so much for being here today.

BECKY [2:36]

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about my favorite topic with you.

CAMILLE [2:40]

I got to say a business of happiness and helping others discover that, that's got to be very fulfilling and something that helps everyone. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't want that. So, what a gift and I'm so excited to hear about your personal journey and how you got there. Tell our audience a little bit about you, your family, where you live, and let's dive into your story of how you found this path.

BECKY [3:06]

So, I am a mom. I have a daughter, who's a senior in high school, and a son, who is in middle school. He's 13. I am a wife. I live in Northern Virginia and I started my career the way that most of us do, which is to do all the things that we think we should do. We go to school, get the grades, get the job that we think is the "should" job. And then, for me, it meant also going back to grad school, in the "should" grad school, which was Georgetown Law School. And then, leaving there and again getting the job that was the logical path. Go work at the big law firm, become a litigator, be on partnership track.

And I found myself one evening about 16 years ago, sitting on the floor of the bathroom with my toddler daughter in the tub and the cordless phone because this was pre-cellphones clipped to the back of my pants and the toilet seat cover closed with the notebook on the toilet seat cover and papers spread all around me and I was doing two things. I was bathing my toddler and trying to prepare an expert for their upcoming testimony and I had two thoughts in that moment.

The first thought was like, "Who says you can't do it all? I'm literally killing it. I am here. I'm a mom. I'm a lawyer. I'm having some success at work, but I'm still able to be here and do this every day basic stuff with my toddler. I'm awesome." The next thought was, "And I'm exhausted and this is unsustainable," and probably most scarily for me at the time and most important was, "I'm not sure that this is even making me happy, all of this success, all of this stuff that I'm doing, all the things that are filling my life, all the things that I'm pushing for are really doing it for me."

And so, a series of events happened after that, which led to me really taking a hard look at my career in particular and saying, "What do I need from life? And then, how can I have a career fit into what I need from life not the other way around?" And so, I made a transition from practicing law to working on the admin side of law firms because that gave me more flexibility in my schedule and meant that I could be a more present and available mom, a more present and available wife, but I could still be using the legal education that I had and the parts that I liked. I'm engaging my brain in things outside of momming, which was really important for me. And I did that for 10 years.

And then, I reached a new season in my life where my kids, at that point, they're a little bit older and I'm realizing they need less physical presence and more emotional presence and I was bored at work. Not that anything was wrong with the place I was working at. Actually, it remains a spectacular organization and it was a spectacular organization, but I was at the point where I was reinventing wheels that I had reinvented already once and wondering like, "Wouldn't it be better for them if there was a fresh set of eyes on these things?" Because one of the things I really like to do is approach a problem and untangle it and there's only so much you can do to untangle your own problems.

And so, I decided, "Okay. Let me try something entirely new." And so, I left that and went to work for a small financial investment firm in the world of value investing as their COO because I was a process and people person. That's been the hallmark of my career, even my legal career and landed there. They didn't grow the way they anticipated. And so three years ago, found myself at another crossroads. I didn't get fired. I didn't get laid off, but I may as well have. And I knew it was time to find a new job and I did again what a lot of us do when we find a new job, which is what can I do? What would I be good at? What could I get hired to do? How could I make the money?

And I started this furious search for the new job, but the reality again is, what can I do? I'm a lawyer who has a background in management, a background in process, who's managed 200+ attorneys and staff for a decade and was a COO of this investment firm, so there's a lot of things that I could be qualified to do. And again, I had that moment where I was like, "Wait a minute. Remember, it is about aligning your life, and then having the career that fits in that. So, what does that look like?"

And so, I hired a coach and did a wide-ranging exploration of possibility and landed on, "I want to try and help people." And I wasn't sure yet whether that was going to be coaching or consulting. So, I started my business as a coaching/consulting business in January of 2019. And then, somewhere in that journey, realized what it was really about for me was spreading joy and looked back at my own journey and my own life and how I did that. And again, this process and people intersection is, how do we boil this down into doable steps for people? And that's how my book The Happiness Recipe was born was let me make this accessible in a way that can be customized for each person. So, it's really a coaching book. It's like having a coach in your hand, so that they can uncover their happiness recipe and design the life that works for them, including their career.

CAMILLE [8:17]

Oh, wow. There's so much I want to unpack with what you just said because I love interviewing women at the stage of life that you are in because you have been through different transitional phases of the new career, the school, that business model, pushing, and success, and then pivoting and then the kids, young and old. And that's both different transitions, and then again, "Okay, now what?" and really diving into what I believe it is, is that giving back where you've gotten to that point of the mountain where you're like, "Okay. Yeah. I've climbed this mountain. What would fulfill me and giving back with what I've learned?" That's what I'm hearing. Would you agree with that?

BECKY [9:00]

No, I wouldn't have been and I wasn't able to articulate it that way early on, but yeah. I've always liked, I'm not special this way, I think a lot of people like helping people. But there's something really magical about watching somebody else define their own path and their own success. And so, being able to use what I've learned and create tools from it that can help people do that, but in their own way. It's not about what my success was or what my journey was or what my pivots were. It's about, how do I empower you to make the right pivots for you or take the right path for you? And being able to do that for people, it is actually really one of the coolest jobs I've ever had, for sure.

CAMILLE [9:44]

That's amazing. Now, you said something in the beginning of the interview that I thought was interesting where you said that you did the "shoulds," that you climbed this ladder of becoming a lawyer and what's curious to me is that my "should" in my brain because I was born and raised in a very conversative Republican state, my "should" that I was raised with was you become a wife and a mother, career is very much off in the distance, maybe. So, I'm curious about your upbringing about becoming a lawyer. Was that something that you always had wanted to do or where did that "should" come from? Was that from your being raised? Tell me about that.

BECKY [10:26]

So, there's an important piece of the story that I just want to tell in the form of a story. So, I'm an only child. I was raised, my dad was a Lutheran pastor and my mom was an attorney for a large company. She went to law school though when I was in kindergarten, which just to situate that for you timewise, that was probably in the 80s, early 80s, late 70s that she was in law school. So, at a time where there weren't a ton of women in the law yet, and here she was going to law school, not as a straight through to college kid, but as a several years out of college kid with a kindergartener.

CAMILLE [11:00]

What a pioneer, wow.

BECKY [11:01]

Yeah. I've got some funny stories, not for today, but she took me to law school classes with her and that was amusing. So, we joke that I went to law school twice. But she worked for the entirety of her legal career for one company and at that company, she was invited to be part of a leadership development program when I was in middle school-ish.

And in that leadership development program, she was asked to identify her top priority, her values, and then, was assigned to share them with her family. And so, she came home one night and she tells the story that she was really nervous to sit down and have this conversation with my dad and I. And she had to let us know that for her, work was her top priority. And my response as a 12 or 13-year-old was, "Duh. I already knew that" and actually found it really empowering for her to have named it because that meant I wasn't confused. There wasn't a mismatch between what she was saying and what she was doing. It was completely aligned.

CAMILLE [12:08]

That's interesting, yeah.

BECKY [12:08]

And so, I think when you ask, where did this belief that that was what I should do came from, clearly it came from her. She believed that regardless, male or female, your job was to use your gifts and it was very clear early on that one of my gifts was doing school well. And so, it was my job to go and figure out how to maximize that gift.

Fast forward, I told you that bathtub story moment. Fast forward to I decide to take a step off of partnership track and I have to call my mom and be like, "Hey, I'm switching jobs and here's what I'm doing. And I'm putting family first." And it's funny because I had the same fear. What is she going to say about this? And her response, I don't know how old she was at the time, probably 50s, was like, "Duh, good. You found your thing. You found your top priority and you're claiming it. That's wonderful. It’s not about what the priority is. It's about that you have it, that you've identified it, that you're going to live in alignment with it. That's really exciting to me." So, yeah.

CAMILLE [13:03]

Wow. And would you say that that example of her claiming it, naming it, then showing you by action is what helped you write this book and helping others find their happiness?

BECKY [13:15]

Yeah. That's a centerpiece of it. There's a lot more to it, but yeah. No, I think being able to have a front row seat to the ways that she did that and that my dad did that and that they've talked about it openly with me definitely influenced the way I think about things and then it influenced the toolbox of things that I had to use when it came time for me to make those same determinations and decisions in my own life.

CAMILLE [13:38]

Wow. Okay. This is a question that I get asked all the time and I'd love to hear your response because so often I have women asking me or talking to me about mom guilt and mom shame and it's that constant battle between the choices that are made as women and as mothers and wives. What do you say to those who struggle in that path that you've done with coaching of helping people find their happiness? How do you help them navigate those feelings of shame and guilt and really claiming what it is that they want?

BECKY [14:14]

So, let's talk about what guilt is. Guilt is a feeling that we feel when we have done something that is not in line with our morals. So, if I go into the corner store and steal a bar of chocolate, I believe for me, I probably should feel guilty. I have done something. I don't want to be somebody who steals. The challenges comes is when we let other people's morals or values or opinions become the basis for our guilt.

So, to me, the first thing I like to do with guilt is ask, "What line did you cross to make that guilt? Where is the line crossing?" Because in that convenient store answer, it's really obvious. I stole and I don't want to steal. But if it's about mom guilt, who's drawing the line? Did you draw the line? Because if you did, then yeah, we need to talk about it. We need to talk about, do you want to change your behavior? Do you need to apologize? What's the resolution to the guilt?

But if you didn't draw the line, if it's the other moms around you that are drawing the line or your mom that's drawing the line or name the influence here, then do we need to worry about the fact on which side of the line you might be? And I think it's really about actually though just the process of naming that can be really powerful because we have the guilt. We feel it. If you think about the guilt comes from crossing the line, okay, cool. What's the line? Oh, the line is I'm supposed to do X. I don't actually believe I'm supposed to do X, so what am I worried about crossing that line for?

CAMILLE [15:58]

Yeah. That's fascinating. I don't think I've ever quite heard it defined that way. I really appreciate that because I think each of us that are listening to this now can reflect on those choices or those moments when mom guilt does come up and that's where we can really evaluate it. And the beauty of it is that each scenario and answer to that question can be different for all of us. It doesn't have to be the same and that's what I love about that so much.

BECKY [16:27]

There's another part of it too. So, the next step is you think about that line. And I'll just take an example from my own life. If I think about times when I felt guilty for not being able to attend something with one of my kids, but the fascinating thing is I think back about it especially in the earlier years of their childhood, did I ever ask them if they cared? No, I went ahead and felt guilty without even knowing whether I had actually. This goes back to the line crossing, but whether I had actually crossed the line for them.

And so, I think it's a really powerful thing when we think about when we're feeling guilt about the way we're showing up in a relationship in particular, having a conversation with the person with whom you have that relationship can be really importantly powerful to relieving some of that guilt. And we have a deal in my family now and this is a more recent probably in the last five years kind of deal where they tell me, "This is a yes. This is a no and this is an I don't care." And then, I get to decide on the I don't care what I do and I get to decide if they say no, you don't need to be here, but it's important to me. I can still show up. They're not disinviting me. But it's more just they will tell me the times and the ways that it's important for me to show up.

And I'm sure there are people listening to this and saying, "That's wonderful, Becky, but my kids are kindergarteners and 2nd graders. What does that look like?" You know what? They know what they need too. They know the ways that they want mom and dad to show up in their lives if you ask them. You just have to ask it in a way that's digestible to them. "Today, I have a ton of work. Would you rather I sit with you at breakfast or read a book to you tonight?"

CAMILLE [18:18]

I love that. What I love about this conversation is that it is open communication. It is respect for yourself and your individual circumstance as well as the respect for your family, your children, your spouse to have those conversations of, "This is where we are and let's approach this as a team, so that we can all win."

Because I know in my life many times, I call them the plastic or the glass balls where you know sometimes, they're the things that can bounce and sometimes, it's a work ball that can bounce and you can let it go and it'll be fine. And sometimes, it's the family ball that can bounce and be fine. And sometimes, they're glass where you have to navigate that of like, "Okay. I have these 10 things. Let's figure out which of these I need to prioritize today and they're always changing." And so, I really love that idea of bringing that conversation of just being open with your family and your kids and saying, "Let's work this out. What does it matter to you if I make there or not?"

And then, sometimes in my case, I have four younger kids, 13 to 5, and I am only one person, so I have to pick and choose where I can be and how that works out and dividing that with my husband. And I think that having family meetings really helps with that. I don't know if that's something that you've done, but that's something on Sundays where if I'm on my A-game, this doesn't happen every week, but we like to meet as a family on Sundays and discuss the week and what's happening and who's going to be where. And then, even as I'm driving the kids to school, I'll say, "Okay. Today's Wednesday. That means Jayne has activity days. Jackson has this activity at 7 o'clock and we're doing dinner at such and such time. Tell me that you understand what's happening." Because then they can repeat back to me, "Oh, yeah. Jayne's walking home. I'm going to be walking alone this time." And they repeat back to me. And I think that that open communication helps so much.

BECKY [20:18]

It does and I think that the glass and rubber ball thing is such a good way to think about it and it's really important that we are sure that those balls are made of glass or rubber. Because I've seen people and especially working with coaching clients where they're furiously juggling to keep this ball in the air and when we actually look at it, it is the bounciest ball that ever was made into a ball. You know what I mean? It's like they've got a story about it that says, "This is glass and I can't drop it." And they've not done anything first, to even name the story, but then to test that story to see if it's even true.

CAMILLE [20:55]

I love that. So, as an exercise with naming the balls. That sounds really funny. As we're listening to this right now, is that something where we would classify them as personal, family, work or how do you suggest classifying them, and then ranking them? Because I can tell that you're really good at operations and systems and maximizing your time, so take us through that exercise.

BECKY [21:21]

So, let me take a zoom out moment really quick and just tell you what I think and it's going to tie into how I'm going to answer your question what I think the recipe for maximum happiness is. And it's really actually super simple. It's do more of what matters to you and less of the rest. So, actually as I think about putting it in the context of, okay, if I have all of these things, all of these balls that I'm trying to juggle, my question would be maybe it's a matrix. Maybe it's a breakability and importance to me kind of a matrix where what you're really trying to preserve are the ones that are most important and most breakable come first and the ones that are least important to you and least breakable comes second. I could imagine a matrix where you could lay it out like that like I don't know if you've heard of the Eisenhower Matrix, but it's similar.

But even simpler than that would be just make a list and circle the ones that are really about the things that are most important to you. Maybe begin to cross out the ones that are the things that don't actually matter a ton to you that are the noise. And often, we can't spot the noise until we write it down, until we actually make that list in front of us.

So, if I were going to reframe that exercise a little bit, it would be just simple taking stock of what's really taking your time, your energy. And so, by that I mean, what's keeping you up at night, what are you spending a bunch of time and your thoughts thinking about and your resources? Make a list, a full list, a full inventory. Keep writing. When you finish writing, ask yourself, "What did I write down that I was afraid to write down or I'm ignoring or forgot about?" Ask it five times, so that you can really get the whole picture in front of you. And then, like I said, the first step for me with clients is not what do we want to add, but it's, what are the highest value things that we want to protect and what can we start losing now to make more space? Because almost everybody is in a space where they have more balls than they can juggle or we wouldn't be having this conversation about, what can I let drop?

CAMILLE [23:34]

Yeah. I can relate to that. I'm assuming most everyone listening can relate to that. In your experience of going through this exercise with people, what tends to be the hardest thing or the hardest hurdle that people have in a scenario like that in making these lists? What's a common stumbling block?

BECKY [23:55]

So, the first one that I see is you start to make a list and you're like, "Oh, yeah. This is overwhelming. This is too much and in fact I've written the first five things down, but that made me think of 12 things I need to go do, so I'll be back." You know what I mean?

The first hurdle is actually just committing to sit through the discomfort of the process of making the list. It's about owning that it might be uncomfortable to actually write all of this down. It might be new for you and it might not feel good and that's okay. That not feel good doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It doesn't mean you should run to the other room and doesn't mean that you should go in and start doing all the things right now. The purpose of this list is not actually a to-do list. It is actually a map. We are making a map of your life of your time of your energy and your resources. So, the first hurdle is committing to that.

The second hurdle is and it's going to be an obvious one is when we start talking about cutting things out, you nailed it on the head. It's guilt and it's saying no. And sometimes, we think we can't say no because of guilt-related reasons or shame-related reasons. And sometimes, it's other people-pleasing reasons or just we haven't learned to say no.

And if you think about no as a word and you've got four of them, so you know I'm right on this, it's one of the first words that a lot of kids have, within maybe the first 20. And then, we spend a whole bunch of time telling them that they can't say it. "Don't say it here. Don’t say it to this kind of person. Don't say it in this way. Don't say it about this." So, we put all these rules up, and then we wonder why as adults, we can't say no. And I'm not saying it's our parents' fault. I'm saying it's the system's fault.

And it's also a little bit like being right-handed. If you write with your right hand for your whole life and you have to write with your left hand, it feels really weird and you have to learn. Same thing with saying no. But it is about again going back in and naming that story that's behind your resistance to say no. What is it really about? What are you really afraid of? What are you really worried about? What are you really feeling? You said you want to make space. That means we have to get rid of this ball. What is it that's hard about saying no to this ball? Name it, and then we can do something with it. But until you name it, just to generalize like, "I can't say no to that" is the hurdle you have to get over.

CAMILLE [26:18]

Yeah. And that's stuff that I think a lot of times, I would imagine that the reason it's so hard to say no to it's something that we've invested a lot of ourselves in. It doesn't mean that the exchange of that time or that effort or loyalty equals what we're getting out of it. It's that we have a hard time letting go of that investment of ourselves. So, I'm curious for those who then can let go of that hurdle. What are next steps for finding happiness and filling it with the right things or the most important things?

BECKY [26:54]

So, one thought I want to add just to what you said first, which is the whole notion of it's hard to let go of the investment I made, you've assumed and I think we often do assume a binary that saying no means I have to let go of the investment. If there was a real investment that was meaningful and valuable there, how else could you use it? Where else could it go? What have you gained from it? Have you already gotten your value out and don't even realize it? And so, it's really just investing the time and energy to unwind that a little bit.

Now, back to your other question, which is, what next? So, you've made some space. Awesome. And you're right. The question is, what are you going to do about it? And the inclination would be to start going doing all the things. But I actually want to suggest that the next step is to figure out with what's left on that inventory, what would your ideal currencies, and then I say currencies for a very specific reason because it changes as our life changes. We already talked about the ways that even just momhood changes.

So, in my current season, if I could really focus on more of what matters to me and less of the rest, what ideally would it look like? And then, also let's start to identify, if I were going to name a top priority for this season, one top priority, what would it be? And I'll give you an example. When COVID hit in 2020, March of 2020, that is a great example of a season that we didn't choose. And we found ourselves with totally different circumstances. And for a lot of people, what they didn't do right away was adjust their expectations of themselves or their goals. They didn’t adjust their priorities because they didn't know they had to. And what that creates is all sorts of unhappiness and tension.

For me, COVID became a season of I want to exit the other side of this with myself and my family healthy and intact. And so, if that's my top priority, then I can align all kinds of choices about what to say no to, what to say yes to, what to have more of with that top priority. But until I can articulate that, look, let's be clear.

I started a business in January of 2019. I got my coaching certification in February of 2020. My season in February 2020 was I'm going to build a business, which shifted very quickly to, I am going to stay healthy and keep my family healthy through this experience. And when I say healthy, I mean, all the health like physical, mental, all of it. And it very much changed the way I thought about growing my business. It wasn't that my business wasn't important, but it wasn't the top priority. And that made decision-making easier when I had to decide, do I drop everything and show up for my kid in this way because they need me right now? It was a no-brainer.

CAMILLE [30:02]

Yeah. I can relate so much to this because through these last couple of years, we've had, like everyone have had, mental shifts and also struggles in mental health within my family. And it's interesting because I know that you’ve been there where with younger kids, they need you so much physically, and then as they get older, they need you so much emotionally. And they're draining in different ways and it's hard to explain. You're just nodding because you're like, "I know."

BECKY [30:35]

I'm like my head's just going to fall off. Yeah.

CAMILLE [30:36]

Yeah. And so, for me, what's been interesting is relating to that so much because that's exactly how I have felt and trajectory that I thought was happening, and then having to take a couple steps back and say, "Oh, wait a minute. I need to shift a little bit," which is fine, and then also realizing through interviewing so many women is that self-discovery breeds growth and beautiful enhancement to who you are if you listen to the inside of what it is that you really want.

And I would imagine this happiness project has done that for you, where you were able to take a step back and really evaluate that moment of, "I've led this amazing career. I've learned so much and now I want to share this happiness with everyone else." Tell us more about your book and where people can find it and how we can dive into that ourselves because I can't wait to get my hands on it. And if you're willing, I would love to do a giveaway for those who are listening. We could maybe talk about that and put it in the Notes of how you can enter to win one.

BECKY [31:45]

Yeah. Assuming they're in the US and Canada, I'm delighted to even mail a signed copy to somebody to the extent that you want that. What can I tell you about the book? So, we've talked about what I have concluded the recipe for maximum happiness is and we've touched on some other things, but I want to give you just a quick overall structure of the book.

It's in three parts and the three parts are designed to address what I view as the three gaps that stop us from executing on that recipe. And the first is, what I call the authenticity gap, but it's really the knowing gap. It's do you know what matters most to you? Are you willing to claim it? Are you aware of it? Are you connected to self? Do you know the season you're in?

The second gap is the one that often gets missed. I call it the emotional energy gap, but it's do you have the supportive beliefs and feelings that will allow you to make lasting behavioral change to actually execute on that recipe that you've defined? And that's where things like guilt and saying no and our nervous system and all kinds of other "fun" things live. But what I endeavor to do in that section of the book is really just give you a way to uncover the beliefs and feelings that you might need to shift in order to execute, and then tools you can use once you've identified the ones that you think might be the roadblocks.

The last is about the physical energy gap or the doing gap. It's how do we actually live in alignment with our happiness recipe? And the big pieces there are prioritization, habit building, and distinguishing between what a project is and a habit is, which I think is a big thing that people get confused and also can impact especially for people who are really driven type A high achievers can be an issue.

CAMILLE [33:35]

Let's dig into that a little bit because I know that you talk to high achievers specifically. And I think it's definitely the type 3 or type 1 enneagram, if you're familiar with that very much like go, go, go. And so many of us listening probably relate with that. So, what is the difference you said between a project and a habit?

BECKY [33:56]

Yeah, like a task or a project and a habit. And so, the difference is this and it's really simple. You can never finish a habit. And I know that's, "And so?" But when you think about if you're one of those list checker offers like somebody who likes to get it done, what can often happen with a habit is we pick it up and try to dive right in and do it real big and do it real fast, so we can get it done. But there is no done. There's no done for a habit.

And so, actually building a habit looks totally different than what we're used to as high achievers. It actually looks like starting small, and then building consistently because it'll never be finished. And so, understanding which of those things when we talk about those vision of more of what matters, less of the rest, which of those things requires a habit change and how can we begin to make bite-sized progress in that direction? So, that's where the habit piece comes in.

But what I want to say last about the book is that it is full of exercise. As you can tell, I like to ask questions and every chapter has at least one exercise in it that's designed to help you actually implement the concepts that we talked about in the text of the book, so that you can do rather than just learn.

CAMILLE [35:12]

I love that. I think the most impactful books I've loved have had chapter and exercises that say, "Okay, wait. Don't keep reading. Let's do this for real." Because it then takes it from paper to pen or where you can actually make that connection into your own personal life. Awesome. I'm so excited to read it.

BECKY [35:36]

Thanks. Yeah, I would like to add I wrote the book to be a toolbox that you could use if you want to sit down right now and untangle this season of your life. But it's also a resource that then you have for any transition that comes up. This is not a once and done process. Your happiness recipe is going to evolve over your life. And the more you work with these concepts and with these tools and with the structure, you begin to see like, "Oh, my season has changed. Let me go back and do that work again to get things back in alignment" or "Oh, I've run into some new mindset stuff that wasn't there or wasn't an issue or a barrier but now it is, but I have the tools to go and address it." And so, I want it to be impactful in the now, but also available as part of people's toolbox in the long term.

CAMILLE [36:23]

That's awesome. And as a side note for anyone who's listening to this, can I just tell you that so often unloading those menial tasks that you're doing in your business that don't need to be done by you, but can be offboarded to someone else, is that freedom and space that you need to find more happiness. I think a lot of times, we try to fill more by doing and happiness is actually found in space.

And so, if that is something that you relate to or if you're thinking, "I would love to do that as a profession," I actually teach a virtual assistant course where you can build your own business in 60 days and be that person for somebody else. And let me tell you I get emails and messages all the time saying, "Tell me about one of your VA graduates. I need someone to help clear the space and find happiness." So, it's a little plug for my course. I'll be opening it back up probably mid-February, early March. So, if you're listening to this in January, go to www.camillewalker.co/VA to learn more about how you could help someone clear more space and you could create a business where you can create your schedule at home. So, sorry for that little commercial, but I'm like, "This fits in so perfectly."

BECKY [37:40]

It's perfect and actually you made a point that I didn't make that is important. When I talk about subtracting, I am not talking about setting down or ignoring forever, there's delegation. There's delay. There's reframing. Like we said, maybe doing part, but not all. There's a lot of ways to subtract that aren't just about letting the ball drop.

CAMILLE [38:05]

Yeah. That's awesome and I think that you've summed it up really well that investing that time, and then moving on doesn't mean that you're letting it go forever. It just means that you're reframing it and putting it somewhere where you can be at more with your own time or your own mental space. And sometimes, that looks like breath work. Sometimes, that looks like walking down the street with your dog or whatever that might be, just that space for your brain to have a break. So, Becky, this has been incredible. I have loved our conversation. Please tell our audience where they can find you.

BECKY [38:39]

So, I try to be one stop shopping at my website which is www.untanglehappiness.com and you can find me on socials there. You can find information about the book there. You can get information about the one-on-one coaching and other work that I do there as well.

CAMILLE [38:56]

Perfect. And for those of you hoping for that book giveaway, stay tuned on my social media channels @camillewalker.co on Instagram and @callmeceopodcast. We will be giving the details there. And if you're listening to this live, then it's already live on Instagram. So, thank you so much, Becky!

BECKY [29:12]

Thank you so much.

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CAMILLE [39:15]

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. It means so much to me that you are here. Please, please, please come follow me on Instagram @callmeceopodcast and @camillewalker.co. There, you can see more behind the scenes and a resource of community of like-minded ladies like you. And please send me a message and DMs. I love hearing from you. I love hearing your personal stories and questions that you might have. And if you do share this and tag me, I will for sure reshare because that means so much to me. I hope you have a wonderful start to your year, my friend.

If you are interested in winning a copy of Becky Morrison's book, please leave a review where you are listening to this podcast, screenshot it, send me a picture through DM on Instagram @camillewalker.co or @callmeceopodcast to enter to win. Thank you so much and good luck!

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