The Pursuit of Joy & Purpose

Welcome to The Unlocked Show, the podcast where business growth and personal development collide. In this episode, we will be diving into the topic of happiness and learning how to unlock the secrets to lasting happiness and living your best life!

Our special guest for today's show is Dannie De Novo, an elite happiness coach, international best-selling author, and former lawyer. With her own battle with depression and anxiety, Dannie is dedicated to helping others find lasting happiness and purpose.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How Dannie De Novo transitioned from being a lawyer to a happiness coach.
2. How Dannie De Novo changed her mindset regarding self-worth and self-esteem.
3. How Dannie De Novo overcame depression and suicidal thoughts.

Join us as we unlock the secrets to happiness and living your best life with Dannie De Novo.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review and rating on your favorite podcast platform. Don't forget to check out our past episodes and follow us on social media for more content.

Resources:
https://www.danniedenovo.com/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/tracymwilson
Website: www.tracymwilson.com

Chapter Summaries:
[00:01:03] Introduction to the topic of happiness and what to expect in this episode.
[00:01:42] Guest introduction: Dannie De Novo, elite happiness coach, international best-selling author, and former lawyer.
[00:02:59] Dannie's journey to happiness and finding her purpose.
[00:11:05] The importance of being brave and honest with yourself.
[00:18:22] The power of positivity and finding the good in every situation.
[00:25:50] Overcoming difficult times and coming out stronger.
[00:29:58] Changing your beliefs about yourself and allowing yourself to explore without barriers.
[00:34:27] Happiness as a sustainable state and how to prioritize it.
[00:43:00] Recognizing indicators of being on the right track.
[00:47:59] The importance of keeping going and trying new things.
[00:50:15] Upcoming free happiness webinar with Dannie De Novo.
[00:55:45] Conclusion and reminder to leave a review and follow us on social media.

Take the Leadership Style Quiz!
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Transcript

Well, hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Unlocked Show. I'm your host, Tracy Wilson, and it is an absolute pleasure to be here with you guys today on a little, I'm going to say overcast day here on the Gold Coast, but not complaining because it has been absolutely stinking hot the last few weeks. And it's very nice to have a little bit of mild relief from that very hot weather. I want to say to you guys today that you know that this is a podcast that you come to where business growth and personal development collide and this is where you'll find all the things to unlock success across your business, your family and your life. And today we're going to be tackling the topic of happiness. Now, I want to ask start today's show by asking you this. I want to know, have you ever felt like you're being stressed? You're tired of feeling stressed, anxious, or just plain right unhappy? Have you been struggling to find the meaning and purpose in your life, going through day by day just wondering what the heck am I doing? Well, I want to tell you that you are in absolute luck today because my very special guest, the one and only Dannie De Novo, she's an elite happiness coach, an international best selling author of get in a good mood and actually stay there and stripping down happy. Now, Dannie knows firsthand the challenges of battling depression and anxiety and she's dedicated her entire life now to helping others find lasting happiness and purpose. And in today's episode, we're going to be discussing some of the biggest concerns or the problems that most people face in their pursuit of happiness. You guys have seen the movie in the Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith, where we're going to be kind of not quite delving into that movie, but Dannie's version of that, our pursuit of happiness. How do we get there and actually stay there? She's going to be sharing with you some practical tips and strategies to help you combat things like loneliness, managing your anxiety, and how to create a life filled with joy and purpose. So without further ado, I should just really zip it and say a huge big welcome to Dannie. It's fantastic to have you here. Welcome to the other.

Dannie De Novo 00:03:06

So good to be with you. Thank you.

Tracy Wilson 00:03:09

You're welcome. I know we were just having a bit of a chat before and I was telling you all about the weather here and you're saying, yeah, we're just coming out of Pittsburgh winter, which is always pretty cold, right? So that being said, I know that you've had this really interesting journey to get to where you are today, Dannie, and going from being and I'll let you tell everybody about your kind of back story. But starting as a lawyer and still being a lawyer right now today, but sort of the journey that you've had to get to this point where you're now helping other people, coaching them into finding happiness for themselves. How did that all come about?

Dannie De Novo 00:03:51

It's a series of stories. I'll start with the most recent one. So, yeah, I was a lawyer, and I was living the life that I thought everyone wanted to live, that I thought I wanted to live, that you were supposed to live, right? I mean, I had the house. I had the job as the lawyer and had good money. I had a nice car, and I went to work every day, and I was good at it. And I went to the gym and I went to the grocery store, and I paid my bills, and I did all the things that you were supposed to do every day. But I was miserable. And I knew I was miserable, but I never did anything to change it because I didn't know how or even if it was something that could happen for me. I really kind of grew up and throughout my life thought I was not wired for happiness. It's just who I was. And then I had my daughter, and I really enjoyed being a mom. It was finally something that I really connected with. I found real joy in it, but everything else in my life was still kind of the same. And then one day, she was about a year old, and I was making dinner. I was stirring a pot on the stove, and I was making my Italian grandmother's sauce. So very slow, deliberate strokes, like nona tatas. And my baby was on the floor. She was playing with her bowls and spoons, and she picked up this bowl and spoon, and she looked up at me with her big brown eyes, and she started mimicking my stirring just very slowly. And I first thought that it was the coolest thing I had ever seen, because it was the first time she sort of copied mom and looked like a real human being. And I bent over and I said, yeah, just like Mommy. And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, I almost fainted on top of her. I thought I was going to throw up all over my own kitchen because I suddenly realized that my daughter was copying my every single move. And it didn't matter what I said. It mattered what I did. And I was showing her how to live this very lonely and depressed and unfulfilled life. So I fell down on the floor and I grabbed her in my arms and I cried my eyes out. And I made the promise to her right then and there. I was going to learn everything there was to know about being happy for her sake. I didn't think I could be happy, but I thought if I learned how to do it, I could teach her and she could learn from a young age and avoid all of the trouble and all the suffering that I had gone through. And so that's what I did. I started studying happiness like I had studied for the Bar exam to become a lawyer. I was highlighting and researching and going to every resource I could find. And the funny thing was the more that I kind of utilized the information that I got and implemented it, my life started to change actually pretty rapidly. And from there it just kind of grew into this whole thing. Now. I was still just kind of using it for my own benefit at that point. And a lot of people in my life thought I was crazy for doing so, because I kind of went from this very serious, typical lawyer with the A personality, right, to all of a sudden talking about happiness and joy and gratitude. And a lot of people sort of exited my life pretty quickly, including my husband. But I just felt like I had found something I had connected to something that was so important it lit me up inside. And then one day my little brother came to me and he said, hey, what are you doing and what are you reading? And I said, oh, are you going to make fun of me too? He said no. He said, Listen, you seem really happy and I have never seen you like this before. And then he said, if it worked for you, do you think it could work for me too? And I hadn't even realized that he was suffering to the degree that he was. And I said, yeah, let's try it. And so he started implementing some things that I gave him and his life started to change. And all of a sudden that kind of puts you together and thought, you know what, maybe I can recreate this for other people. Maybe there's a method to this where people can avoid the pain and suffering that I had gone through or avoid their own pain and suffering by utilizing some of these techniques and exercises and ways of thinking to change their life. And that's how the happiness coach came from being the lawyer.

Tracy Wilson 00:07:50

What a fascinating thing and how interesting that epiphany of oh, my God actually came from your daughter through observation. Observation of not only her observing what it is that Mum is doing, and I'm going to mimic what Mum is doing with her pots and pans and what have you, but then you stopping for a moment and actually realizing and observing, but not just observing, actually realizing. Whoa, what's going on here? She is mimicking my every move and realizing that it's not just about her. Oh, she's going to mimic Mummy cooking at the stove, cooking dinner. She is actually going to be mimicking everything that I do in my life and having that realization that, oh, my gosh, if that is the case, she's not only going to be mimicking me cooking at the stove, she's going to be mimicking me in the interactions that I have. The way that I hold myself, the things that I say. Everything that I do is going to become my daughter is going to become that mirror of what I'm putting out. I mean, that's just such an interesting thing. And I wonder how many viewers or how many listeners today actually stop and how many of us actually take a moment to look and really observe what our little people are doing when they're around us.

Dannie De Novo 00:09:19

Yeah, well, I think it's really easy to put on the blinders, right? I mean, I didn't want to see it, and to some extent, I think I was even a little bit naive about it. But growing up, I didn't grow up in the happiest of households around the happiest of people. And I saw how that took a toll on so many people that I loved and it created who I became, right? And all of a sudden now I'm faced with this whole cycle repeating itself and I have the choice to let it continue on the way that it was going and allow her to continue the patterns and the cycles and go through the same things that I had gone through, which were horrific, quite honestly. Or I could change and help her change and help her see a different way of going forward with life and of looking at life and of living life and of being with herself. Things that I never knew how to do. And I really did not know how to do them because no one ever taught them to me. We don't learn about happiness in school. It's not something that you can take a course at college or university on. Right? I mean, maybe now a little bit, but not really on how you can live a happy life. And so if you don't have those people in your life showing you how to do it, how are you supposed to know? You don't until you get to a point in your life where all of a sudden something that's going on or the circumstances make you realize that you're unhappy. Right? So it's also, I think, very much a journey of learning about yourself and all learning includes mistakes and failures and giving yourself the grace to get through those and get back on track. It is not for the faint of heart finding your happiness. It really is a lot of work and sometimes very lonely and isolating, but I promise you that it is worth it on the other end. It is worth it.

Tracy Wilson 00:11:05

Well, I want to delve right into all of that because I think that's really where the magic is when you get to this point. And I think this is for anybody, whether you might be feeling really happy right now and that is fantastic. But if you're not, then that is likely an indicator that, hey, we need to do a little bit of work here, and there are options and opportunities that are around us that can help us find what does that happy look like for us. So, for you, when you were looking at that and you were like, oh, my God, I'm holding this baby right now. And I'm like, I'm making a promise to you right now that I'm going to do everything in my power possible to become a really happy person so that you can emulate and you can learn from me what it truly means to become happy. What steps did you actually take? Like, where did that take you?

Dannie De Novo 00:11:58

All over the place. So again, I knew nothing about what I was getting myself into, and so I started in the places that made the most sense to me that I figured might have a pathway to it. Right? So I started with religion, and I started with philosophy, and that's where I started studying and reading. And you get into those sort of texts, and it leads you to other research, it leads you to other authors. So I started reading more self development people, business development people, anyone I could get my hands on that I thought might have an answer to this question of what is happiness? How do I get there and how do I stay there? So I was reading and studying with monks and with shaman and anybody that I thought might have an inkling of what this whole thing was about. Right. And what happened was I just started trying things on to see if they worked for me. Right? Okay, you say this works. Let me try it. And I would try it for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, give it enough time that I could honestly say to myself, I've given this a fair shot. And then I was keeping data, I was keeping statistics. How am I feeling? What is changing? What's going on in my life? So that I had some results to be able to show myself, okay, this is working. This is not working. Okay, maybe it's working a little bit. Can we tweak it a little bit? What can we do? What can we add to it? What can we take away? And I was really just playing with it. I was totally obsessed with it. I just couldn't get away from it, which is probably why it happened so quickly for me. But basically what it comes down to is this. There's no necessarily one way to get there, but you are going to have to allow yourself that trial and error period. And that's very scary for a lot of reasons. Number one is, like I said, the people in your life are going to have opinions about your changed behavior or your changed outlook or the things that you're doing differently or the things that they don't think fit with you. You're going to have to be brave if you want to be happy. You have to be brave. I think that's probably the number one takeaway that I've gotten from all of this. You have to be very honest with yourself and then once you are honest with yourself, you have to be brave enough to act in conformity with what you've told yourself. And that includes not listening to society, not listening to friends, family, kids, your spouse, whatever. You've got to really allow yourself that freedom to pull away and try these things out and see what works for you.

Tracy Wilson 00:14:28

Such an interesting thing. So this kind of curious obsession that started to take place, right? I'm like, I'm really curious. How do these people become happy trying things? When you say you've got to try things for a set period of time and you just have 30, 60, 90 days out of that? And I know being someone who's interested in the finer detail, which as a lawyer, you would be trying to understand, what are some of the things that work? How did you identify those? How did you realize each and every day, gosh, I implemented this today or, you know, two weeks ago and this has been the impact or this has been the effect on me. Maybe you could give us some idea of what that looked like and even some examples of some things that actually happened.

Dannie De Novo 00:15:25

Well, when I had gotten out of my marriage and when I had taken this on, I was not in the best frame of mind as far as self worth and self esteem were. I had such a lack of self worth that I could not make eye contact with myself in my own bathroom mirror. I would catch my glance and I would look away. I just didn't think that I was worthy of very much anything. And I had been broken down over a period of time for a lot of reasons, and I had allowed that to occur. And I knew that that was definitely one thing that I needed to change. One of the mentors that I started working early on with was a man by the name of Bob Proctor. And Bob passed away last year, but he was someone who took me under his wing a bit and helped me with something. And I remember going to him one day and saying, bob, how do I get rid of the shame of things of the past? And he just looked at me and he said, you just do. And I just kind of nodded my head. I knew he was right in some regard, but I didn't really know what he meant either. And he said, now listen, that's not the answer that you want to hear right now. He said, but if you stick with this and you do the things I tell you to do, you're going to start to see changes. One of the first things he had me do was write out a sentence, an affirmation, and I had to do it 100 times a day, every single day. And then I had to text him every time I had finished it. And if I missed a day, I had to start over at day one. And he said that this was going to be something I was going to do for him for 90 days. And I remember sitting down and starting writing this affirmation out about my self worth. And I did not believe it. I was lying to myself. I did not believe the words that were going down on that paper every single day. But I kept going, day one, day two, day three. And I got into the second month, day 31. Day 32, right. And so nothing had really changed. And then I remember sitting down and writing down day 66 and starting to write out those sentences. And all of a sudden something was different. I believed what I was writing. I identified with it. It was like it had become a part of me all of a sudden. And it was not this far off idea that I could never imagine being possible for myself. It was actually part of me now. So I guess that's one sort of concrete thing that I can link to because I still have that piece of paper with day 66 on it where I wrote down those things and they started to come to mind. Another thing that I like to do a lot of is mirror work. So feeding those affirmations to myself in the mirror because I had such a difficult time even looking at myself, this is really difficult for me to do. But it is one of the quickest ways to change your belief about yourself. And you can definitely tell if you stick with this and do it consistently. When that light switch sort of goes off, all of a sudden, it's different. And it's something you're going to feel inside of you. It's not something that I can pinpoint to and say, this is going to be different, that's going to be different. You're just going to be different and you're going to know it. So it was cues like that that I was paying attention to more than anything. I was also paying attention to how people were reacting to me in public, especially strangers reacting to how things were going at work, how money was coming in, all the things in my life that I had always struggled with or had stress around or anxiety over. I was paying attention to those things and seeing what was easier, what was lighter, what was more fun, what was more enjoyable for me. And of course, I paid very close attention to my relationship with my daughter as well. And so I was just kind of tracking these pseudostatistics, if you will, on each of these different areas of what was changing. And I'm not saying that every day was great. It's not a linear progression by any stretch, but generally speaking, there was a lot more good than there was bad. And I started going to get into this momentum. And when you get into the momentum of focusing on the good and having the good around you, you see more and more good stuff come in and less and less of negativity.

Tracy Wilson 00:19:29

That's right. It's interesting that you would talk about this cult kind of bob Proct is an amazing man. So to have somebody like that is kind of a mentor and saying to you, you know, you just do just let it go. And then giving you those very practical steps to do in terms of, you know, something that's quite simple and affirmation, but most people dismiss that as being, oh, a silly thing to do, you know, but now you stuck with it for that 66 days, and then all of a sudden, like you said, you just do, you just feel different. It just is a different way of being at that time. And like you say, I would imagine that as you started to do these things, that's when your brother, your little brother's like, hey, Dannie, like something's different with you. You're, like, so different now. You seem to be you seem to be really happy. What's going on? And Can I get a piece of that? That's what you're sort of not just the people around you, but you're saying your strangers start to gravitate to you.

Dannie De Novo 00:20:32

They do, yeah. I'll be waiting in line for coffee now, and somebody will come up and just start telling me their story and what's going on in their life and why this is happening. The duration of just a few minutes, I get their entire life story. And at this point, I'm pretty tuned into people's pain. Right. I really do feel like I have a kind of sense of where your pain is and why it's there and maybe how I can help you with it. Right. And so I'd like to offer a little bit of advice to people as we're waiting for our lattes. It is funny how they just kind of know that there's something that you see that's a little bit different. And look, it's not like I just ended up here by any stretch of the imagination. I did a lot of work just to give you an idea of how bad I know it can be. I remember when I checked myself into the mental institution for the second time, and the doctors there told me there was nothing else that they could do for me. Now I was incredibly suicidal. I knew that if I left that there was no way that I was going to make it because I did not want to live anymore. And I didn't have a concrete, necessary reason why. It's not like I had grown up in poverty or seen a lot of violence or anything along those lines. I had a pretty normal childhood I grew up riding horses. I went to a good school. I got good grades. I had friends. But around the age of 13, I started to feel this shift in me and went to my parents and said, hey, I think I'm sick, because I'm feeling really off and feeling tired. I'm not interested in the same things as I used to be. I think I'm sick. So eventually they took me to the doctor, and of course, they can't find anything wrong with me. And then one day at 16, I'm sitting across the table from this woman who's asking me what's going on, and all of a sudden, she says, Honey, you're depressed. And I said, okay. I don't even really know what that means, but I don't think that I am because I go to a good school, and I have a horse and I have friends, but I don't have anything to be depressed about. And she said, well, honey, I think you're depressed. And she picks up the phone and calls my doctor, and next thing I know, I'm on medication at 16. But none of the medication was helping. It was just making things worse. And I was foggy, and my pupils were dilated, so I was always wearing sunglasses. I had these horrible headaches. It just got so bad, to the point where at 19, here I am in the mental institution begging them to help me, and they're telling me there's nothing else that they can do for me, that they basically figured my life was over, that I was going to succeed in suicide. And that was another case that they could just chalk up to the fact that there was some sort of genetic issue or whatever else, right? So I really had been told that I was not wired for happiness. So I went to the head psychiatrist, and I said, Look, I need something. You've got to give me one more option. And she said, the only thing that we have left for you is electro shock therapy. And I said, okay, well, what do we do? And she said, well, you have to sign here. I was 19. I was in the US. I was of majority age. I could sign the contract. And the next thing I know, they got me in the morning. I'm in a full lockdown unit. I have no idea what's going on. There's no one there advocating for me. My parents just they didn't know what else to do. So they were just kind of a little bit distant with everything at that point. And they wheeled me into the secret part of the mental institution where nobody knows about and everyone is masked up and ready for surgery. And I'm very confused. I don't understand what's going on here. I'm not here for surgery. And they said, well, you're going under anesthesia. And they shove this medicine cup in my face, and they're like, Here, take these pills. But you can't have any water. And I just remember saying, oh, my goodness, no more medication, please. I can't take anymore. And the one nurse said, no, honey, it's Tylenol. Trust me, you'll be happy you took it later. So I took these pills down, and they strapped me down to this gurney, and they wheeled me into this room through these huge double doors, these big brass metal doors into this room that looks like something out of Frankenstein's laboratory. And there's gadgets and whirring and people scurrying around. And I'm scared now because I really don't understand what's going on. And I started to cry, and I remember asking for someone to hold my hand, and then the anesthesia kicked in, and they pushed my head back, and they strapped it down. And as my head hit the pillow behind me, I saw this giant man come at me with these two big metal probes. And then it went dark. And then when I woke up, at first, I kind of thought that I had succeeded. I thought that I was dead. But then I realized where I was, and I thank goodness that I had taken that Tylenol because I felt like I had been hit in the head with a sledgehammer. And I went through those treatments every other day for a series of weeks. I wasn't getting any better, but I was told this was the process, this is what we were doing. And then one day, I was with that same little brother that I mentioned before at dinner, and he starts telling a story about he and I growing up and riding our ponies together. And it was a very important memory for him. He was very excited about this, and he had all this excitement around it and all these details. And we went here, and dad said we couldn't go there, but we went there anyway. And then we jumped over the pond, remember, and we got all wet, and this happened. And then we went here, and blah, blah, blah. And he's just going on and on and on, very excited. I have zero recollection of this day. I have no idea what he's talking about. And he's getting visibly upset now. He's how can you not remember? And he's giving me more and more details, and I could see how upset he was, so I finally said, oh, yeah. And I just kind of repeated some stuff back to him. He said, yeah, you remember? I said, oh, yeah. And I pushed myself away from the dinner table, and I ran into my bedroom, and I pulled my photo album out from underneath my bed, and I started looking through the pictures of my childhood, and I couldn't remember anything. And I realized my entire memory was leaving, going through these treatments. My body was breaking down. I had horrible, horrible headaches. So I finally went in and I said, look, we don't have to do this anymore. I'm. Okay, I'm not depressed anymore. And they said, okay, show us. And I said, okay. So I had to do a list of things. I had to get a part time job, I had to get re enrolled back in school because I had dropped out of college and all these things. And I just started checking off all the things they told me to do. And I went around pretending I was happy because I could not bear the thought of having to go back through those treatments anymore. And I went out and pretended to be happy, like I think a lot of people do, right? Again, I was functioning. I was going to the gym, I was going to cocktail parties. I was killing it in the courtroom, but I was just dying inside. So I really do understand what it's like to be at rock bottom and how hard it really can be to pull yourself up out of that. There were days when it just took everything inside of me to go outside for a few minutes just to get some sunshine or some fresh air and even feel like I was living right. Some people, some coaches are saying to you, like, have gratitude or smile and you'll feel better. I know that that's not going to be enough to get you up out of all of this. So again, it took a lot for me. Not only did I have to deal with everything from the past and all of the reasons why I probably became depressed in the first place, but dealt with all of the trauma that I did to myself by pretending. To be happy and not listen to my heart for all of those years and just take all of that feeling that was giving me this information that was screaming change, and I refused to do it. Right. And you just take it and you press it down day after day because you think it's not possible for you or you think it's too late in life or you don't have the money, you don't have the time. You're stuck now, right? I've heard every excuse you can possibly think of and I don't accept any of them because again, I have been there and I know that if I can do it, then you can do it too. I'm not saying it will be easy again. I am saying that it is worth it.

Tracy Wilson 00:28:49

It's possible. And when you get to the other side, yeah, it's worth it. Well, hearing your story, Dannie, as you're telling that, it's emotional and listening to what you had to go through and my immediate response was to say, look, I'm really sorry that you had to go through that. But at the same time, it's like amazing, strong, independent, inspiring woman has come out the other side of that who is now using everything that she knows in her life to now create and cultivate happiness in herself and everybody else around her, and I believe her that often these things happen in our life for a reason. Not always nice, but we get out the other side. And if we can use that for good, then you say, it's worth it. It was worth you at this point now, being the strong, independent, brave woman that you are today. And this is where I want to go with this, because I think that story is definitely a story of inspiration and somebody who is extremely brave, who no matter what was going on, you knew I have to ask for help. There's more to this. I'm not ready to give up. I need to just keep asking. And I had to go through some horrific things to get to the point that you're at today. So I want you to delve a little bit more into that you talk about. You've got to be brave. Now tell us a little bit more about that, because that story that you've just told, I know if it will be hitting the heartstrings of every listener that's listening today. So tell us about being brief.

Dannie De Novo 00:30:48

When you look inside of yourself and you quiet, listen, we've got these voices in our head all day long coming from so many different places and chirp, chirp, chirp all day long. And how do you even know which voice is the right voice? Because some of them might be you, some of them might not be you. They're just voices you've taken on these things that you've come to believe about yourself. And so I think the bravery really starts with being able to sit and quiet those voices and stop listening to the head and start listening to the heart, which is a hard thing to do. And again, not something that's taught and not something that's easy to get to. But once you're able to listen to that voice and you recognize it and you know that that's it the one true voice, it will tell you everything that you need to know about your happiness. Again, these are not going to be easy things that you necessarily have to get over. But being brave starts with being really honest with who you are, where you are, how you got there, how you contributed to being where you are right now, the things that you allowed to happen, the things that you haven't changed. And not looking at it from an angle of being super critical or being judgmental or angry with yourself. That goes back to the question that I asked Bob how do you get rid of the shame? You've got to be able to forgive and let go of all that and realize you were doing the best that you could at the time with what you knew then. But that doesn't give you the excuse to keep living the same way. So being brave first means looking into that voice, being honest with yourself, what it means, and then admitting to yourself that you have to change. And then the next step in that bravery is doing something to actually change. And again, being able to do it in the face of looking foolish, looking stupid, looking like you don't belong, feeling like you're not good enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not smart enough. You've got to really get over all of those things and just start trying things. And this is one place where I think my brother really got hung up because he was kind of like, I don't know what I want to do. You keep saying about, like, go do the things you like to do. I don't even know what I like to do. And my advice was just go start doing stuff. And he's like, well, what if I'm not good at it? Or what if I, you know, I do it three times and I hate it and I want to quit? And I'm like, then you quit. Like, what? Where why is there so much shame around, you know, us trying to grow as human beings just because we became an adult, we're not allowed to try new things. We're not allowed to experience and explore and see if we like it. Why can't we do that anymore? So it's also being brave enough to give yourself that space to go out and try and like I said, you're going to fail. My motto for the longest time was creating myself one epic failure at a time, right? How bad can I screw this up? Is really the point that I got to. And when I got to that point of being that ridiculous stuff didn't seem as scary, I know I'm going to screw it up. It's just a matter of how bad can I do it? So let's see how bad I can do it. Let's really get in there and try. And you'll find a lot of times that you are more successful than you ever think you would be.

Tracy Wilson 00:34:08

That's great, because in terms of removing that obstacle of or fear of failure, I'm just going to give this a go. And actually, my goal is going to be, how badly can I screw this up? How bad can it get? And if it gets there, well, hey, and it works out, that is fantastic. So I've got this question for you. So in terms of what's your opinion of the biggest obstacle that people often face when it comes to trying to create lasting happiness in their life? Like, what's the one thing that they trip over constantly?

Dannie De Novo 00:34:46

Your self image. You don't think that you're worthy of it. You give yourself a bunch of excuses because you've taken on these beliefs over time. These stories about yourself that you've created that you believe are true. And becoming happy is about changing your beliefs about a lot of things about yourself, most importantly. So if you can kind of get over this whole idea of I'm not this, and so I can't be that. And just allowing yourself to explore without putting barriers or roadblocks in your own way, it feels very reckless. If you're someone who's used to sort of dotting your eyes and crossing your T's and you're in a routine or whatever else, to all of a sudden just sort of be living life, it feels like you're kind of just throwing everything in the wall and see what sticks. It doesn't feel responsible. And I think that's one place that sort of trips us up, but as soon as somebody validates that, as soon as someone says, oh, is that really the best use of your time or the best use of your money? Or honey, those are the glory days. Those days are over. Anytime anyone reinforces that, you're going to go down really fast. So what you've got to do is it's got to be so important to you that it doesn't matter what anyone else has to think about it. Right? For me, it was helping my daughter because I was not going to let my daughter go through electro shock therapy treatments the way that I had been tortured, right. So it was so important for me at that point that I had to succeed at figuring this thing out. You've got to figure it out for you. The clock is ticking. Right. And I don't want to be the person who knows that I have very little time left and that I didn't leave it all on the field, so to speak. Right. I'm not saying that I don't get hung up on things and I don't get scared and I don't hesitate or falter, but I really do try to push myself through that as quickly as I possibly can. Because at any given time, I know that the clock is going to end and am I going to be able to be honest with myself and say I did, or I tried at least everything that I wanted to do? Or was I too scared to live? And I certainly want my daughter to live her life the same way as well, and I know I have to model it in order for her to do it. And so every day when I wake up, I see two things. I see a picture of my daughter and I see a sign that says, when you feel like quitting, remember why you started. And that's the jolt to get out of bed and see what we can screw up today.

Tracy Wilson 00:37:26

I read something the other day that really put what you're talking about here into perspective in terms of the time that we have. And this was about, you know, the average person lives to 82 years old. And so therefore, if you put that into perspective, that's 82 summers, 82 winters, 82 birthdays, 82 Christmas doesn't sound like.

Dannie De Novo 00:37:47

Very much, does it?

Tracy Wilson 00:37:48

Not many, no. When you put it into perspective like that, that conversation that you've just had around every minute of every day is important to me. It is. How can I be the best possible person I can be in this moment in order to cultivate the most amount of happiness for me in this moment? Because every single minute that goes by is eating into that 82 years or 82 summers, Christmases, so on and so forth that we have. The other thing that is really interesting here is that this concept of you've talked a lot about this and alluded to it. It's like a self chatter. And I think where you started with all of this was really being quite introspective and going, what's going on inside of me? What's going on up here? What's the narrative, the story that I'm continuously telling myself and little by little changing that story that's being told by looking at yourself in the mirror, saying some different things and almost reprogramming yourself to become a completely new identity, you've created this new identity for yourself that has stepped into this new world of happiness.

Dannie De Novo 00:39:06

It is a new identity. I mean, it's the identity that I wanted to create for myself. Right? Again, I was told that I was not a happy person. I was wired this way. I was told a lot of things about myself from a young age. I was told that I was fat. And so, guess what? I carried a lot of extra weight throughout many different parts of my lifetime because I formed this belief, I formed this story around it. My father passed away when he was pretty young, and I remember growing up and watching him sort of go through this adoption of this belief over time about himself and his life. And I think it contributed a lot to, quite honestly, my own depression. But when I remember being younger, I remember him being very hungry and very ambitious and loving his work. And as time went on, he became very quiet, he became very isolated. I believe he thought that he was failing more than he was succeeding. But I think most importantly, what he was doing is he wasn't listening to his heart. And I'm sure that his heart was telling him some things that he didn't want to have to deal with that were very hard for him to have to deal with as a man, as a father, as a husband, whatever. But I physically saw that heart start to get walled off a little bit at a time. And what I will tell you is that as that continues, you're going to get signs that you aren't paying attention, that you aren't happy, that you aren't living the way that you're meant to live, and you're going to ignore them. And so the signs are going to get louder and they're going to get more aggressive and they're going to turn into things like illness and disease and everything else. And my father had a massive heart attack and stroke and died very young because I honestly believe his heart couldn't take anymore. He had ignored it for so long and shut it down for so long and been living with this unhappiness for so long that it was an easier way to get out of it than to have to go in and try.

Tracy Wilson 00:41:14

And deal with it'll, eat you up.

Dannie De Novo 00:41:23

But it seems like all of that just came to the forefront of my head that day that my daughter was mimicking me. All of a sudden, it made sense about how important it was to change. And like I said, I didn't have any idea how to do that. But I knew that what I was doing was not working and that it wasn't the right way and that everything I had learned up until that point was not serving me. I was not living a happy life. And to me, it almost as silly as it sounds. It almost made more sense to pretend to live differently and see if I could even find a little bit of joy in that than to keep going the way that I was going. Because honestly, if my daughter had not come along, I don't think that I would have made it. I would have regressed back into the suicidal tendencies that I had gone through the first time, and honestly, I probably wouldn't have found a reason to keep going at that point. As you say, everything happens for a reason. But there are little things that are waking you up every single day, and you don't pay attention to them, or you want to ignore them, or you want to pretend they're not there. And then the next thing you know, the universe is breaking down your front door and you're wondering, why? How did this happen? I'm so unlucky. Well, no, you've been warned. You just didn't want to see it.

Tracy Wilson 00:42:37

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is a message that we need to be here often. We don't even take stock of that, right? We don't even pay attention to the little things that are happening. And I think one of the things that you can really do in your life right now is actually stop and take a look around. Are good things coming to you? Are things turning out the right way? Is your business growing? Like, when good things are happening, that's usually an indicator that you're actually on the right track. You're vibrating at the right kind of frequency to draw in all of the nice things into your life. And when things are not going so well, maybe you can't find a place to live. Maybe your family is not going right. Maybe you've got health issues and so on and so forth. That's often an indicator that something else deep inside it's not quite right.

Dannie De Novo 00:43:30

It could be an indicator. It could also be a time for you to really learn about your happiness, because we want to say right and wrong and good and bad. And the truth is none of it is good or bad or right or wrong. It just is. And it just depends on your perspective and how you choose to look at it. That's where the happiness, that's where true happiness comes from. You were saying we've got 82 Christmases, 82 summers, 82 whatever. Each moment in your life is your life. I mean, whether you see it as good or bad or not, it belongs to you. And are you going to look at it for what it could be? If it's not a particularly happy moment, what are you learning? What are you getting from this? What is it giving to you? Because it is giving you something. There's some sort of information there. And what I have learned by hitting rock bottom more than once is I need very little to be happy. I really do. It is really in the very small moments of each and every day and just how you choose to look at things.

Tracy Wilson 00:44:33

I think that there is really worthy of us delving a little deeper into. So when you say, I've realized I've had the big car, I've had the flash house, I've had all the things that society sort of reflects back and says, you've made it. You're doing well. You're successful. You're a happy person. You should be happy because you got all this stuff, and now you've taken this journey, and now you've realized, you know what? It doesn't really take that much for me to be a really happy person. So tell us about that. What does it take for, like, what is true happiness for you and what have you found it takes to make you happy?

Dannie De Novo 00:45:15

Happiness for me is a sustainable state, right, where I feel at peace and where I feel connected to the universe and to the people around me, which is a little bit woo woo, but I can break it down a little bit more than that. I need to feel like I have some sort of purpose. And I think a lot of people get hung up on this idea because they think my purpose has to be this big grandiose thing. It's got to be huge and it doesn't. Your purpose could be that you have a very small flower garden and you tend to it every single day and every single year, and you just get so much joy and satisfaction out of doing that. Your purpose could be you have a dog and you walk it every day and the two of you have a great friendship together. I mean, it can be something so small and you can find appreciation in the tiniest of things, a butterfly going past you, the sun shining, a good cup of coffee. I mean, it doesn't have to be huge, but when you allow yourself just the awareness to connect with those little itty bitty things and those little things throughout the day that happen that make us feel like we belong together. That's where the happiness lies. I was in a coffee shop before I came here, and this dad came in with this baby and one of those little harnesses, and the baby just looked up and kind of gave me this look. It was too little to even smile, but it recognized me, and it lit up. And not too long ago, I wouldn't have even noticed if that had occurred. But now it just completely made my day, because I know that my heart, my soul was recognized, not just how we perceive each other physically and what you can do for me and what I can do for you. It's just an acknowledgment of being that is the most, I think, amazing state that you can be in. And when you can learn to just bring yourself back there, you don't even have to be there all the time. It's just that bring yourself back throughout the day. You can harness so much amazing energy and feel so good just by doing that. But it takes a lot out of awareness, and you have to be consistent. If I want to go to the gym, if I want muscles, I got to go to the gym every single day. And then when I get in the shape that I want to be in, I don't get to stop going to the gym. Right. If I want to maintain it, I've got to keep going. And your happiness is the same way. It needs your attention every single day. It should be non negotiable. It should be the first thing you do, and she should not feel selfish in doing it, because if you don't do that, you can't do anything for anyone else.

Tracy Wilson 00:47:58

So true. So let's talk a little bit about the books that you've written. So you've got a couple of books that you've written. One, of course, is a bestselling got to best selling author status, and the one I want to talk about in particular is the one titled get in a Good Mood and Stay There. So let's talk a little bit about that book. Why did you decide to write that? Who's kind of reading it these days? And maybe just a couple of takeaways. If somebody was to read that, what could they expect to get out of that book?

Dannie De Novo 00:48:29

That was the first book that I wrote, and it was a little bit of a chronicle of my journey, of this trial and error period. I was talking about what did I try, what worked, what didn't work, and how did I know it worked? And it was just kind of following piece by piece a little bit of what I tried on, what fit and what didn't fit, and how you could try it on too. Who's reading it these days? I think people who know that they need to change, they need to change some aspect of the way that they're doing things, but they're not really sure where to start. I think I give a great example of it doesn't matter, just start. Just pick a place and start. And what I think that I got out of that whole journey more than anything was this you have to keep going. And when you're depressed, when you're lonely, when you feel like your life is falling apart, there's lots of people saying a lot of different things and a lot of it just kind of comes over as noise. But if you keep searching for the answer, if you keep going, sooner or later somebody you come across is going to say something in a way that clicks and all of a sudden you're going to say that resonates. I get that. I understand that now. And that little piece, that little breadcrumb is going to lead you to the next little piece and the next little piece and the next little piece and it's going to slowly unfold in front of you. It's not like it's going to hit you in the face all of a sudden. Nothing about happiness ever rang my front doorbell. Unfortunately I had to go looking for it. But if you keep looking you will find it and it may feel like forever and it may feel like it's a really tough search, but I promise you if you keep going, you will be rewarded for it.

Tracy Wilson 00:50:15

What I like about this particular book and the fact that you have kind of written the journey, the things that you did into this amazing book is that other people can read it and they too then can go, okay, well I resonate with that part. I can do that piece. And in the book I know you talk a lot about some of the things that you can do, practically go and do this and this will make and you can try this out like you said all along in today's conversation is you've just got to try things out. Besides have a go. Have a try of it. If it fits you and it feels good, keep it on. If it doesn't, well go try the next outfit on and give that a go until you find almost the recipe or the outfits, so to speak, that actually light you up, that feel good for you and you continue to wear and do those things and you might.

Dannie De Novo 00:51:12

Find them in places that you didn't expect. So it's really important to kind of again, be brave and really push yourself outside of those limits, those self confining things. I'm not this kind of person. I would never do this. I would never be good at that. Well, go try it. Go try it. Give it a fair shake. Really don't just kind of like I tried it. No, really try it. Be honest with yourself that you really tried again. If you fail, who cares? I mean we're just afraid of being seen as failing more than anything else. And if you don't care about that anymore, then you're really going to risk some things and go out there and you're going to find things that you never thought were out there, right? I never thought I would be on television talking to people about being happy. I couldn't look at myself in my own mirror and then I'm going to go on TV. But all of a sudden, it opened up this whole world of me being able to help people. People who are really suffering, people who aren't talking about the scary parts of mental illness and mental health. People like me don't make it. People who go through electro shock therapy, they don't make it. They end up succeeding with suicide. They become addicts and they overdose. A lot of different things happen, right? But nobody wants to talk about that or how medication didn't work for them, or how the system didn't work for them or just blew them off and never helped them. But now, all of a sudden, I can connect with so many people who feel the same way. And that would have never have been there if I hadn't tried out some of these ridiculous things.

Tracy Wilson 00:52:44

Good on you for just being persevering and knowing that just having that knowing is something better. I have to get through this because on the other side of this struggle and trauma that I'm going through right now is something amazing. And you now, like you say, being on television all over the world and sharing your message, that is going to help and is impacting thousands and thousands and thousands of people is amazing. So I know that people that are listening today are going to be like, I want a piece of that. Like your brother. They'll be sitting there thinking, how do I now take my life and actually create this abundance of happiness for myself? So I want to let everybody know where they can go. So I'm going to pop up on the screen right now. If you're watching today, it's Dannie De Novo. Danniedenovo.com, you can head on over to Dannie's website. She's got a bunch of things on there. I'm going to let her, in a moment, tell you about something amazing that she's got coming up that you may too wish to be a part of. That's also where you can get a copy of both of those books so you can get your hands on get in a good mood and get in a good mood and stay there so you can get that book. And then also a couple of other books that she's got on her website as well as if you want to hear more from Dannie, you want to tune in and listen to what she's got to say and maybe do some of the things that she has been sharing with you today, but in a much bigger. Way, then I would also encourage you to go and find her on itunes and on any other podcasting platform, the Dannie De Novo podcast. That's where you can find her and you too can listen to more of what Dannie's got to say. She tells you more about her story and her journey and also what she's doing these days to help other people really unlock the happiness that's inside of them. So Dannie, do you want to before we sort of round out today's show, do you want to tell everybody what you've got coming up? I believe you've got something amazing happening on the 23 March. Tell us all that.

Dannie De Novo 00:54:51

I am starting a free happiness webinar starting, as you said, Thursdays. We're going to run on starting March 23, and they're going to have some special guests on, but really going to focus on practical guides and exercises and things that you can do day in and day out to sort of help you get to Happy and stay there and talk about the things that get in the way of doing that and basically how you can live in that energy that I was talking about. So you can feel that connectedness and just that surge of goodness throughout the day. You can really measure how happy you are by how you're feeling internally and I want to show you how to do that.

Tracy Wilson 00:55:31

Beautiful. And the place that you guys go, just a reminder, is over to Danniedenogo.com. That's where you can get copies of your book, you can find out more about Dannie, connect with her and if you so wish, you can join her upcoming webinar series. So I want to say a huge big thank you to you today, Dannie, for being such an amazing guest. It's fantastic to talk to somebody who just oozes excitement about their life and obviously where you've been but what you're actually doing now and the impact that you are making to lots and lots of people all over the world. So thank you very much for your time today and for those of you who have tuned in and you've gone, man, that was actually a really good show. There was some stuff that Dannie and Tracy spoke about today that I thought was great and it's helped me then. It's most likely going to help somebody else that you know. So please do yourself and your friend a favor and share this episode with them so that they too can learn how to create happiness and abundance of happiness in their life. For those of you that are watching, that are avid listeners of the Unlock show, I want to say thank you very much for doing that. Every single week I bring to you an amazing guest from all over the world, sharing their secrets, their tools, their resources, their knowledge to actually how to unlock an amazing business, family and life for yourself. And I want to make sure that you guys have the opportunity to tune in every Wednesday 10:00 a.m. Brisbane time is when we go live. If you can't make to the live episodes, not a problem. Go and find us on all of the major podcasting platforms and you'll be able to listen to the podcast version of the unlock show with me, Tracy Wilson. Until next week, I want to say thank you very much everybody. As you know, I'll be back again with another awesome guest next week. But for today, I want to say a huge thank you to Dannie. And if you've got any questions, make sure you put them into the comment sections on Facebook, YouTube and also in LinkedIn. And we'll make sure that we get back to you with those answers that you have to those questions. Thanks very much, Dannie, and hopefully we'll have you back again as a guest another time.

Dannie De Novo 00:57:38

It's been so great. Thank you.

Tracy Wilson 00:57:40

Awesome. Thanks everyone. As you know, I always finish the show with go and live your life unlocked because there is just no other way. Bye for now.