Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service on the episode today we have Dan Howington. Dan, welcome. Hey Thomas, thank you for having me excited to have this conversation with you. It is very much my pleasure. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do? Sure, I’m a I am a 30 plus year veteran of selling and sales. I am probably a 25 plus year researcher into human behavior and including NLP and human needs psychology. Um I’m trained with Tony Robbins and Chloe Madani’s as a strategic interventionist and I believe our ability to understand who we are, what makes us happy is really the cornerstone of everything we do in life and we really cannot be successful unless we are whole ourselves and we learn to love ourselves and we sort of embrace the power that we have to create our own reality.
And that sounds very deep and it can get very deep, but it’s also a lot of fun, you know, but I try to help people be their best um define what happiness means for them and pursue tactical ways of getting closer to their divine ideal. So that’s what I do. I’ve been doing it for about five years as a separate practice and really regret not getting into it much earlier. It’s very fulfilling for me and the people I work with uh tend to enjoy it as well. So that’s what I do. Thank you for the introduction. Um you touched on the fact that I’m going to ask you a lot about happiness today. I think that it’s beneficial for everyone to study that topic, even if you pick one thing up, it could be beneficial to your life. He did mention that you studied from Tony Robbins and Chloe Madani’s, is that the right way to say that name? I actually scoured the internet for those videos.
So there’s some really, really good videos where Tony does some interventions and Chloe does some narration over the over the top of it. And some of those are really good if people listening want to check them out. But what did, what did you learn from being exposed to those two individuals? Well, you know, it’s very, it’s very uh insightful, right? You learn a lot of things really from a, from a conceptual standpoint about how to help people create meaningful change and really what underlies our behaviors, you know, as a as a coach or an interventionist in my opinion, what we are is sort of a first step to make meaningful change. And and if you have something that’s more of a pathology, right? And you need a therapist and you need to do some regressive sort of memory mining to get to the real root cause of something that’s that’s really seriously impairing your ability to make change. You know, that’s more of a licensed therapist, sort of a situation, right?
But what I can do is, and people like me that have been trained is we can identify these these self defeating behaviors that are the way you’re choosing to meet your needs now. And I think sometimes when you have someone come in from the outside and look at that behavior, it just gives you a fresh perspective because when you’re caught up in it, it’s very hard to see what’s going on, right? Especially as it involves emotions and especially as it usually those emotions revolve around relationships. And we we as people, we tend to create these behaviors when we’re young. You know, we model what we see and we don’t really understand the impact it’s having until we get a little more mature when we start realizing this is not healthy for me. You know, why am I continuing to put myself in this type of situation or why am I continuing to go down this, this, you know, emotional path when it’s not the outcome is not what I want, right? And it’s not uplifting, it’s not elevating and it takes a little bit of introspection to kind of dive into what’s causing that and how to how to create a better response to that stimuli.
So, I know I’m giving you a long answer to that question, but really the short answer, it gave me a framework that gave me some techniques and some concepts to use when I run into some of these common issues that people deal with, that keep them from being their best. And when you took that training, was it for yourself or were you trying to help someone else? Well, the outcome was to be able to help other people, right? It’s probably much as you’ve done in your life. You meet people that um are wonderful people. I mean, everybody really, everyone in the world has that capacity, but I think a lot of times you meet people that are wonderful people that have some negative behaviors, negative thoughts, just their words and actions that come across and in my career as a sales leader, right? In technology, I’ve dealt with a lot of people that had imposter syndrome for example, and, you know, just had a lack of belief in themselves or parents who really had had subjugated, you know, are repressed their own need for happiness in order to take care of their Children and not realizing that in doing that they were being less of a parent, you know, because you cannot be an incomplete person and be your best and when you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not complete, right?
So a lot of my interaction with others in my career really was around positive, optimistic, uplifting uh support of of them and helping them believe in themselves and helping them understand how unique and wonderful they are, right? And uh the biggest thing was how to get them to buy in and believe that that’s the biggest challenge. Um, so I don’t know if I answered your your question or randomly spouted out in some direction, I think you did. Um, and you touched upon something which I was going to ask you about. Um and it’s I’m not sure if you, you answer this in the question, but I’ll clarify which is I was going to ask you, what is the biggest challenge people struggle with, but is it the fact that they’re not prioritizing themselves as you touch them? There are several things that add up to this thing, right? But I think it’s just not having clarity On what happiness means for them.
I mean, I’ve been saying working with people, there’s 5.25 billion ways to be happy in this world and that many ways to live their life, and then I recently I had to update my numbers, it’s more like 7.98 billion, right? It’s more a lot more than the number I was using. But nonetheless, it’s a very unique thing. And I think we tend to sort of be lemming like when we are we get into the corporate world, you know, are we get into business and we’re trying to be successful? I think we tend to, if we’re smart and most of us are smart and not everyone does it this way, but a lot of people that I work with follow people that they think are doing things the right way, right? And that’s that all goes back to how you define the right way, what does that mean for you, if you think it’s the materialistic things. So you see someone that’s got a, you know, a tailored suit and driving a nice car and lives in a nice area and is a member of a nice country club and where’s a nice mechanical watch And you know, just sort of flippantly buys the latest iphone, for example, things that cost a lot of money, Right?
And if that is the thing you pursue at some point in your life, you have this epiphany, you know, you wake up and you’re like, man, I am not happy. I am not happy. I have all the boxes checked, but I’m just, I’m not happy. I’m not fulfilled. My spirit is just low, right. I mean, I I don’t feel worthwhile. I don’t feel valued. I don’t feel elevated. I don’t feel loved. I don’t feel uniquely valued. And that’s because most people look to external people external forces external things to validate who they are and to validate their value and we don’t take time as people to say, what does it mean? What does success mean for me? You know, I I realize that 9 to 5 being there early, staying a little late. Getting more done than I’m asked for. You know, sort of that that grind if you will is what my dad did and that’s what made him successful and that’s what he admired and a lot of people in my generation, that’s what they admired.
That’s the behavior they modeled, you know, and we we get valid, we get validation along that line because when we work for others, because that’s what they want, right? Because they want sort of that blind obedience. And I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. I don’t think people have have bad intent, but I think in our society and especially in our workforce and we’re seeing some changes which I think is great. I think that that’s sort of been the mind think for a long time. And I think some people just really get burned out on that, you know, And then one day they wake up and they go, what in the hell am I doing here? You know, I’ve got two small Children, I don’t spend enough time with them. I have a wonderful wife that I’ve distanced myself a little bit from because I travel all the time, you know, when I’m home, I’m so tired, I’m so emotionally spent. I resent being asked to do things that I really should cherish. You know, So we get into these situations where we’re taking the box that we have of success. All the little bullet points and yet we’re ignoring our our heart and our soul.
And it’s a difficult, it’s a difficult feeling when you’re there and you don’t know how to get out of this, right. And that’s that’s what I try to help people do you referenced perfectly answers the question, but it it gives me a follow up question because you you mentioned that people aren’t defining their own happiness? The next logical question for me is how do you define happiness for yourself? Well, I define happiness for myself and giving back, right? Growing learning as a person being productive, being valued for my my expertise, um but really being able to spend time on the things in my life that are truly meaningful, you know, I have a great relationship. I have two boys that are grown, but we communicate quite often, you know, I try to help them and guide them. I volunteer for some young fellows here at the high School in Greensboro Georgia, help them, you know, prepare for life and prepare for learning and prepare for their career and still trying to help them keep, you know, whether it’s faith or family or whatever first in their life, so that they, you know, were working for the finances that we need in order to have freedom.
And so when you have freedom, how do you spend that time, which is freedom? You know, time, freedom is the is the highest form of freedom, right? Just being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And so for me, it’s giving back, it’s seeing people succeed, seeing people happy, It’s having people when they see me smile and go, man, it’s good to see you, you know, that makes me happy, right? And then I then I also have a I’m a musician and having the opportunity to express myself musically brings me joy and it’s sort of a childish thing, you know, it’s not like I make any money and I’m not going to be rich, you won’t see any album covers or splashy ads on Spotify for me, but here, here around in my community, I can get out and play with some other guys and we have a good time, you know, we can for a while there, we can pretend that we’re pretty good and so, you know, but it’s things like that, I think that for me bring me joy and my only regret is I didn’t start doing this about 10 years ago, you know, I really would have, I think being able to help a lot more people if I had started earlier and in a more and by that, I mean in a more focused and disciplined way, Happiness, Happiness for You is your contribution to others.
Is that a good summary? That’s a good summary. I think, I think from a neuroscience standpoint, it’s been proven that we’re happiest when we serve when we are serving others, when we are helping others, when our motive is transparently for you to be successful for you to be happy, That’s when we are most fulfilled and that fulfillment um spiritually really, really does something strikes a chord with all of you know, Well, you then as the next thing I was going to ask you about um and that is how how science plays a role in happiness, Well, it’s it’s interesting, you know, from a from a neuroscience perspective, the more that we can define things that upset and make us unhappy um the better we are able to compartmentalize that, and I don’t I don’t mean necessarily taking it away where we don’t experience it, but when we can name a negative emotion or we can name a negative experience, we sort of give it a nickname that that robs it of power in a way, you know, it’s not a nebulous sort of something I don’t recognize when you can recognize and name it.
Like sometimes we go through this process, we call it a crazy Eight in our training and it’s where you’re you’re really mad, you know, you’re just angry and then you go down and then you’re really sad because nobody cares about what you think and then you go back and you’re really mad and then you go down and you’re really sad when you call it a crazy eight, you recognize that when it starts to happen, right? And it sort of gives us a buffer from all of that. Um the other thing about about the neuroscience of happiness is when we are grateful when we are grateful consistently, grateful for what is going right in our lives. It sort of keeps us above the line, You know, it’s sometimes we get into these um pity parties if you will and we feel sorry for ourselves or we feel victimized or you know, something’s not going right, or something’s not fair. That’s, that’s kind of when you drop below the line, if you think the line is like, I’m nothing, it’s not too happy and I’m not too sad, I’m pretty content when you go below that line, it begins to compound upon itself sometimes.
And uh, the the idea of um gratitude pulls us above that keeps us above that. And so it’s something that as a daily practice, if you find something to be grateful for remind yourself how lucky you are. You know, I hear people sometimes they’ll say, well, of course that happened to me, like, you know, their course in life is to be unlucky and I’m always like, it’s bullshit, you’re one of the luckiest people I know, you know, it’s like, I remember telling my Children when they were growing up, like, you know, I wish we were rich, I’m like, are you kidding? We’re filthy rich, I got you, I got your brother, you know, we’ve got a nice house, we’re gonna have, we’re gonna have steak tonight, You know, you just focus on you trying to focus on the things that are positive in your life and you’ll find that will fill your mind, you know, there’s not room for a lot of negativity when you focus on the positive, it’s not something you have to do every moment, but it’s a good habit to get into the beginning of the day, you know, and at the end at the end of the day as well, when you’re getting ready to go to bed, just remind yourself of those things that you’re thankful for.
Even if you’re mad, sometimes you can be mad at someone in your life, but you’re still grateful and thankful that you even have that friendship, right? There are people that would to love to have a relationship like that with someone. So that’s that’s one big secret. I think there are the little tips and tricks, you know, there’s uh our bodies and our minds are really closely intertwined. So our physiology drives our psychology sometimes. Well, quite often, as a matter of fact, and I’ll I share with people that, you know, there’s a pose called the superman pose and you can call it the wonder woman pose or if you want, you can call it the hero pose, whatever you’re comfortable calling, it doesn’t really matter. But if you stand up and you pull your shoulders back and you put your hands on your hips, you know, or you can spread your arms wide, like, you know, you’re receiving the adulation of, you know, hundreds of thousands of roaring fans, however you want to think about it, you do that for about two minutes prior to getting on a phone call prior to getting on a podcast, prior to going on a sales call, prior to anything where you’re interacting with other people, you’re the dynamics change and your endorphins and your serotonin and everything increases.
Cortisol decreases. It’s amazing, right? I mean you would think that, but it has a profound impact on how we interact with the world, right? And you’re just telling your brain, man, I feel great just by the the action. Um so just little things like that, there’s a few other tricks I share. When I work with people, almost every every stressor in our lives comes from trying to control those things we can’t control. So there’s a an acronym I share and I forget who first came up with. It was one of the great motivational speakers out there. Um but I forget who exactly it was. But anyway, it’s a it’s E plus R equals O. And so it’s a very positive acronym to keep in mind the os outcome. So when you’re going into an interaction or you’re you’re dealing with the situation, what is the outcome you want have that in mind, right? And I talk sometimes about something called the divine ideal, which is really if you are to fulfill your destiny, if you were to become everything that that our creator created you to be and whatever role that you’re feeling, what would that look like, what would it feel like smell like and taste like sometimes that’s the outcome, it could be something much more, you know, tactical, but whatever that is, you want to have that in mind and then e is for event E.
Is for something that happens completely out of your control, it’s completely maybe it may be something you are anticipating but often it’s something random, you know? And the r. Is the only thing you can control and that’s your response. You can’t you can’t control the event and you you can you can aspire to the outcome. But the only thing you can really do is decide how you’re gonna respond. You know? And a simple a simple example of that is I drive around on our neighborhood sometimes and when I’m in the neighborhood I always wave people because that’s who I am. You know occasionally my wife will say why are you waving everybody? Nobody’s waving back, right? But it’s not about them, it’s about me, I’m that guy that waves at you when you’re in the neighborhood. And that that’s what I do. I like that I like being that way and that’s the way I express that. So it’s not about the person in the truck that doesn’t wave or you know whatever the situation is outside of my control I determine how I respond and that’s something I do.
It’s just a simple thing that I do and it’s a very simple example but the same kind of thing happens if someone goes off and starts yelling at you right? You have a decision to make. You know it’s like when you when you decide to fight with someone like that, then both of you end up covered in mud, right? And so if you decide to maintain your composure and and maintain it, you know that this is who I am and this is how I’m going to respond. It’s a much more powerful position to be in than giving in to the, to the anger and the baiting and whatever it is that’s going on, right? So I use that quite often with, with folks, it’s uh, it’s a powerful concept. Sometimes it takes a long time for people to to really absorb it, start using it. But it’s crazy how many people will remember that, you know, years later, right? Like our man, I am owning my our brother, you know what I mean? It’s important. I was gonna say it’s a very profound point.
So it’s worth highlighting and yeah, I needed to hear it. So thank you and I can understand why why it would be um you know, it sticks like a little formula as like a reminder. The only thing that you really can control is your response to whatever is happening and that gives you your outcome. So thank you for that. I do have one question which I just have to ask based on, based on your answer, which is did you do the superman pose before our conversation today? Absolutely, I do absolutely every time I don’t, I can’t say I did it for 40 minutes, I didn’t time it, but I do it until I feel nice and pumped up and then, you know, then I sit down and do whatever it is. I need to do so little tricks like that, you know, it’s funny, our brains are incredibly powerful and sometimes we trick ourselves and we work against ourselves, you know, and the more you learn about those little things about the integrated decision making systems of our bodies and our brains more fascinating, it is honestly, um it’s it’s, you know, it’s an amazing were amazing people, and the psychology of trying to help people is really, I mean, it’s fascinating.
People can be incredibly frustrating, you know, there are people when you try to tell them how uniquely gifted they are, and you try to open their eyes to their own power, and they just refuse to accept that, right? And they continue to work in ways that will disprove that they’re powerful and disprove that they are in control of their life, because they don’t want to believe it to accept that you can control your reality is to accept that you’ve made some mistakes. That’s the second thing I think holds us back, is our lack of forgiveness for ourselves. You know, you have to accept that there is redemption, whether it’s your faith or whether it’s just your spirituality in general, or whether it’s just the human condition, you have to believe in redemption, you have to understand that you’re an imperfect and you’re, you know, in your life, if you aspire to be your best, that’s one great positive step you can take, but you have to forgive yourself, you know, you have to let go of these things you’ve done in the past that we’re stupid or that we’re even mean spirited um that were mistakes because you’re doing the best you can, and there are more people that love and support you and are pulling for you to be successful than you even know.
So that’s the that’s the second step I think in in trying to and being happy and wanting to be happy. So well, um you mentioned about previously about the gratitude, your practice of gratitude, you do that every night um as a as a practice. Well I do my wife and I we say grace before we eat um any time that we eat together, actually we break break bread. And one of those things is thank you for this woman. So I say that every time, right? Because I think it’s important, you know, I want her to know and I want to remind myself not that I need any reminder, but it’s it’s just a part of what we do that shows gratitude. You know, I’m just so thankful, right? And uh when I say my prayers at night, my private prayers, you know, I cycle through my friends and my family and anyone I know who’s in need and and I’m always just you know, thank you for the opportunity to help others, help me reach as many people as I can, you know, and and help them be happy with themselves, right?
You meet so many people that are so there are such great, wonderful people, such big hearts and they’re hurting, you know, and it’s it’s a it’s a challenge. But man, look, it’s like I’ll tell you now, anybody that hears this, it needs somebody to talk to, you can call me any time. I’m not going to be on a clock, that’s not the way I work. You know, if you need, if a 30 minute conversation helps you feel better about yourself and helps you find one little thing you can use to pull up and get out of whatever, right, you’re in, man, call me. It’s all good. If we end up working together then yeah, we’ll have a fair exchange of value, But not for a 30 minute call that helps anybody. So well, I’m sure you have helped many people because just listening to you today is is refreshing and probably gonna set me up for the rest of the day or even the week probably. So thank you for that. The reason I highlighted the practice of gratitude is because as you mentioned, there are a lot of people struggle.
So when when someone says you have gratitude for the various situation you might be in, there are people who will struggle with that, but if you practice it on a regular basis then that I think can help do you agree? Absolutely. And you know, sometimes, well it’s like I mentioned before, sometimes we get in this, we get into this habit right of of being like a victim. We talked about how things are so bad and things are so unfair. And it’s almost a way of making excuses for not really pulling up your pants and getting after it right, not making, not taking decisive action. And so we avoid them. We avoid taking responsibility for decisions that we made because that’s what we do every day. You you make choices every day. And so if you’re in a situation you don’t like and you continue to stay in that situation, you’re making a choice somehow you’re getting a need met but not acting right. And people need to hear that though, right?
Because you can make just take a small step forward, one small step forward. And if that small step forward is recognizing how lucky you are, right to have your mental capacity right to have all your fingers and toes, right to have the used to be to be ambulatory, to be able to walk around to have your hearing to have your site, you know there, I don’t know how many people, millions of people I would say that are somehow, you know impacted in those ways. And so when you, when you take it for granted just the basic things, you’re just, you know, you’re making a choice not to be positive and that just that works against you. You know, you have to, you have to make choices, you have to make decisions and people struggle with a lot of things and people feel um like they cannot get better. And that’s a mindset, you have to change like one day at a time. You know, find one thing that someone cut out sugar, excess sugar, one thing, right?
One thing, do that. One thing. Stop using the word hate. It has impact on you mentally whether you know it or not, stop, stop hating small things, you know, stop, you know that one little thing, One little thing, let’s work on that for a month and then let’s, let’s see the progress we make. And then once you do that, once you, once you begin to practice discipline self discipline, then you start to build that skill, you start to build that capability, you start to get a little bit of confidence. You know, then we want to build on that. I wanna be thankful that I went 30 days and I didn’t say, hey, I’m starting to get a more positive outlook. I’m starting to speak in a more positive way, something to be grateful for, right? So you have to start small sometimes and, and some people, man, look, you got to go, maybe you need to get a licensed therapist if it’s so bad and so deep and so dark. Maybe you really need to get some help from someone. And and there are occasions maybe, you know, that’s the best thing to do. I would I would I would encourage anyone that feels incredibly depressed or really down all the time to talk to a professional of some sort.
Right, Well, you mentioned previously about the, when you’re let’s say set now and you think that you want something, you sort of model the people who have that and then you tick all the boxes and then you realize that maybe that’s not what you wanted after all, Let’s say there’s some someone who is in that position where they’re like, why I have just realized that everything that I was going for actually isn’t what I want? What do those people do when they’re in that scenario? Well, you have to really step back and look at where you are from an emotional standpoint. You know what you’re, what you’re saying is these things don’t make me happy. These things don’t bring me joy. Well, let’s talk about what does bring you joy? When was the last time you really belly left? You know, I mean really just rolled on the floor laughing. When is the last time that you really shared broken bread with someone either in your family or a good friend from your past, You know, when’s the last time you reached out to somebody you care about?
Just let them know that you love them, right? These these things, it’s a relationship driven emotion, right? So, and there are people, some people thrive off that more than others. But no man is an island, no man is nobody can be alone. You know, babies if they’re not cuddled and loved when they’re born, if they’re left alone and they’re not touched by another human being, they’ll die. You can feed them, give them water, but they’ll die. So as human beings, socially interacting, you know, and being loved and accepted is critical to our well being. And usually I find that when people have been Taipei been driven by by material possessions and chasing the brass ring and that sort of thing, they’ve neglected the personal relationships that are so important and that doesn’t mean that other people are perfect. That doesn’t mean that other people are going to patch you up and pat you on the butt and send you on your way. That’s not the way it works. What works is you remember somebody in your past that went out of their way to make you feel worthwhile to make you to help you and you look them up and you call them and you tell them how much you appreciated that and how much it’s meant to you in your life and you’d be amazed at the feeling you get the emotions that you get and you will, you have no way to know the impact you have on them, it’s fantastic.
Right? And so when you do that with people that are in your family and they might be brothers, sisters, moms, dads, cousins, aunts. I don’t know when you take the time to renew some of those conversations, right? And let go of some past grudges and sort of forgive others and forgive yourself and maybe things that you’ve done and you were knew that that sense of family, that sense of belonging, that sense of, you know, this is my tribe. If you will, you know, it’s uh, that, that’s really critical to be, to re grounding yourself I think. Um, so that’s part of it. The other part is remembering joy. You know what, what brings you joy for some people? It’s music like for me that’s, that’s something for me whether I’m good or not and people like it or not, I don’t care. I gotta do it right. It’s something I have to do and uh, and I’m not self conscious about it at all. And so if you like dancing then hey man, go dance. You know, if you like fishing, if you like skinny dipping, if you like, you know, dancing in the rain.
If you like walking the dogs, if you like, I don’t know, I don’t know everybody. Again, it’s unique, but whatever in your life brings you fills you with joy and reminds you how awesome the universes, right? Whatever it is, rediscover that pick that up, do that thing, take some time to be stupid and foolish, right? And don’t be afraid of don’t be be self aware enough, be self confident enough to do that without regard to worrying about who accepts that and who doesn’t, you know, don’t don’t be afraid of judgment, don’t be afraid of anybody looking and thinking that’s stupid. It’s not about them, it’s about you and it’s about what brings you joy. So learn what that is, remember what that is and go pursue that somehow. Take time out for yourself, you know, and rediscover that. And I think in the act of doing that, you know, and when you remind yourself to about why you chose a certain career, what was it about it that you like?
What was it that you enjoy? You know, try to refresh yourself there as well, right? That’s a role that we play. We’re going out and we’re going to bring home the money and we’re taking care of the family and and that’s important. But you have to remember, you know, remind yourself the good part of what you do, don’t allow yourself to just focus on the negative and get get burnt out on that, right? So those are the things you have to do to rediscover your humanity and I think sometimes we we we become these robotic sort of people that go through the motions and that’s a shame. You know, you have to be as long as this is my opinion, when I, when I meet people thomas like, like meeting you, you know, as long as you’re authentically who you are and you and you trust me enough to be vulnerable and open and honest with me about who you are, I love you man, if I feel like you’re blocking things off, if I feel like you’re, you’re not really, you know, you know, you’re kind of playing a game that that makes me hesitate and I wonder why you’re doing that.
You know, and I just, I wish we were all more like that. And I think as as a people, I think we really are loving, caring people and accepting of almost anything in this world, right, when that’s who that person really is. It’s when we feel we’re being manipulated, that we start to back up and kind of stiff arm people and uh, so that was a little bit of a rant. But I hope that gave some clarity around how we recover our passion in our life and we rediscover our our joy. I think that’s a critical part of it. I certainly wouldn’t describe that as a rent. What I was gonna say was I kind of feel like there needs to be a dan Harrington audiobook for like 10 hours, you could just put it on and listen to it and feel better about, about your day. You know, I need to put that on my car. Have you done an audio book before? No, I haven’t. I, you know, I have to tell you, I struggle with it, it’s interesting, you know, your title of your um podcast being ethical marketing, I struggle with self promotion.
I don’t, you know, I have a I have a little bit of a mental block around it, I think, you know, I believe I really believe in what I do and I’m very passionate about what I do and I love helping people. I just don’t want to put a I don’t want to put like a video out there talking about how I about me, it makes me uncomfortable in some way, you know, and I know I realize I have to overcome that if I want to grow my practices, I’d like to, but I’m still working on exactly how to do that in the right way because I feel like there’s so many bad examples out there, you know, that I don’t want to be one of them. And so, you know, and so I kind of I continue to put that off on my to do list, you know, but it’s certainly something that I’ve thought about, it, thought about really the whole concept of the divine ideal. I thought about expanding on that and and trying to get that in the book. For me, it’s just difficult for me to take that step. I don’t know why, I guess I see 22 year old people that are authors on linkedin.
It makes me think, okay, I don’t want to come across like that. What could you possibly know? I do have, you know, a number of years of experience to draw from. So maybe that’ll make a difference I think, I mean, hence the reason why I actually called the agency was that was because there are so many examples of, as you say, people doing it in a way that you wouldn’t want to be associated with. And I think the summary of ethics in marketing for me is telling the truth. So I would not want and I think probably you as well would not be want to be known for stretching the truth. You want to make sure it’s true, right? And you want to make sure that anyone who gives you money is doing it in their best interest. So, as far as I’m concerned, if if the other person is making their decision, their own decision about whether or not they want to be a client of yours and you’re telling them the truth, you shouldn’t have any reservations about that. If however you’re stretching the truth and they’re actually not making the decision, you’re making the decision for them, then that’s where it starts getting a bit murky and it’s not something that I want.
I would want to be associated with that help at all. No, I completely agree. I do. I, you know, it’s, I don’t know, it’s one of those things, I’ll find the right way to do it, you know? But I just I was just fascinated by the ethical marketing. Sometimes you feel like those two things are divergent, right? Because of the way a lot of marketing is done, right? And certainly I’m sure that you you are experiencing the same sort of automation around linkedin that that I do, you know, it’s um it’s a it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting social media and the way that we leverage it to try to find prospects and and do business is an interesting Right now, a conundrum, you know, to try to do it in the right way. And in the other, the other part of it is when you mentioned writing a book, that’s something that’s on my, my list to think about. But it’s I can’t really service that many people and give them the level of quality experience that I want to give them. So I only need, you know, 8-10 personal clients and uh and from a training perspective, I can really only handle a couple, you know, each month.
So I’m not a mass marketer anyway. Right? So my, my marketing is very much referral driven and that kind of thing, which that’s good. Sometimes sometimes I feel like I want to break out of that shell and be somebody, you know with my own video about how great I am and then other times I just cringe when I think about what that would look like, You know, I just struggle, man, I’m just being honest with you, struggle with that. Yeah, Look how great I am marketing is is a bit cringe at times, I can totally agree with you, but I said that I was going to ask you one question beforehand and that that is what, what does success mean to you? But I’m kind of, I’m going to throw you a curve ball because of the topic we discussed today, which is around happiness and is it am I actually asking when I say, what does success mean to you? Am I actually just asking, what is it that makes you happy? What do you think about that? Well, I think you can’t really be successful if you’re unhappy now, you can chop it up and define it by Am I financially happy or successful?
Excuse me? Uh am I successful in my relationships and am I successful in my career? You know, you can chop things up like that and I guess you could have different measurements and metrics and all that, but from a holistic viewpoint, you really cannot be successful if you’re if you’re on a yacht and you’re surrounded by opulence and you’re you know, you have a self perpetuating financial, you know, windfall that continues to to multiply you don’t have to worry about finances at all and your miserable what I mean, how can that be defined as being successful? I think I think the two are are intertwined, you know, you can’t remove them and so, you know, being successful is being as a whole person, Being successful with all of the roles that you play, you you being in a place of contentment where you you feel good about your relationships, your career, you know, your finances, you’re not perfect and everything is not always fixed.
Everything is always fluid of course. But you know, you’re you’re grounded enough and who you are and what you believe and what your values are and you’re optimistic in the future and you’ve you’ve got a some habits that you’ve ingrained that keep you motivated and kind of keep you rejuvenated and you remember every day to be grateful for where you are, right? It’s a wonderful place to be, where you are already solid and you’re trying to improve. Um and all of us are there. See that’s the that’s the trick. Everybody is in that place when I say, okay, grateful for where you are. I know some people, you know the levels you can define differently and all of that, but the reality is you are if you’re alive, right? And your brain is working okay? You’ve got a lot to be grateful for and there’s always to make to take, you know, take that next step forward. That’s the other thing, The only choice we have in life is to ruminate on past problems or to fix our gaze on something.
An outcome that we want a goal that we have our ideals, our highest intent and take a step forward. You know, if you stop moving, you die, we’re like sharks in that regard, right? So you always have to move, so if you’re gonna move, your decision is do I move sideways to move backwards? The choice I say, the only choice that makes any sense to be happy and then be successful is to move forward, you know? And so that’s the my answer to that. I hope definitive enough, you know, as long as you’re moving forward, it’s in the hunt is what I would say, happiness is in the hunt and in the in the improvement and the growth as much as it is in the destination right? You know, you have checkpoints along the way, but it’s like, you know, it’s that the journey and I know that sounds corny and a lot of this, a lot of this stuff does sound corny, but you know, I gotta tell you it works right? So just just keep moving forward and be happy about where you are keep moving forward. That’s that’s a good life, you know, it’s a good life, is there anything that I should have asked you about today so much, so many things.
No, I think that’s all That’s all good. There’s many different ways to discuss this subject and all depends on your perspective, you know? Um I’ve enjoyed it. I appreciate you giving me a little room to roam, um which obviously I can do without any prompting. So I was in my interest, I was enjoying it. So for those who also enjoy it, where do people find you or connect with you linkedin is a good place, dan Howington linkedin. Just you know, I’m one of the only dan Harrington zone there. I think so. Um I also have my own website. It’s five forges uh dot com um and you can reach me via email at dan at five forges. And I would encourage you guys, my contact information is on linkedin. Um, if you email me, I’ll respond within 24 hours, I’ll do my best to and I would encourage anybody. Honestly, if you’re burdened, if you’re sad, if you’re worried about anything that’s going on that makes you feel like you’re not good enough or you’re not, you don’t feel good about yourself.
Call me email me, I’ll spend some time with you and we’ll change that so I’m gonna encourage you to reach out. Well done for all your work. Um if that audio book ever gets made. Let me know because I’ll be a buyer. Thank you for being a great guest today. That’s my pleasure, Thomas. Thank you