Hi Everyone!
If you have read any of my posts over the past several years, you probably know that I have been a little obsessed with one question:
What does it take for us to experience more happiness in or lives?
I don’t usually share a whole lot of my personal back story about why I’ve been so focused on this because I’m not very interested in my story (it’s in the past and it’s only pictures in my head any way) and I’ve been mostly excited to share the “how to” parts of what I’ve found to work because I’ve assumed that that would be the most interesting and helpful thing for everyone.
On this post, however, I’d like to share the quick version of my personal story of me asking that one question for one reason: I’d like to invite you to work with me in creating a way to share what I’ve learned so far with a larger number of people.
I feel that what I have learned , discovered and tested so far is at a point now that can effectively help a larger number of people bring more confidence and happiness into their daily lives. I am looking to organize a small focus group of people who might be potential “would be” customers of this new product, to learn about, design together and tweak the details of exactly what this product would be, how it would best be delivered, who it could help and more.
Initially I’ll simply be asking the group to fill out a few small surveys and then later, to review the early versions of the product and ads and give your feedback. I want to make sure I provide at least ten times the value of the time you spend on this back to you, so first I’ll be asking some questions to discover how I can best do that for you.
If this seams like it might be exciting to you, then read on to get the quick overview of the story behind this and then email me at: Andy@AndyHarrisonMusic.com if you’d like to be a part of the focus group. Thanks!
At age 11, I was a pretty unhappy kid in life most of the time, but during the process of writing my very first songs, I had a mind blowing experience where I suddenly gained access to complete and total happiness. For whatever reason, playing the guitar became a doorway to this unbelievably blissful state where it literally felt like any and everything was possible.
I could feel this alive, thriving energy all around and flowing though me. Colors were extremely vibrant and everything seamed to crackle with aliveness. I could literally hear already completely finished songs just hanging in the air and all I had to do was simply sing and play them and write them down. This happened over and over on many different occasions back then, and during the process, I felt 100% happy. But feeling this way was limited to only when I was writing songs.
These experiences got me so curious about what it would take to feel this level of happiness and effortless productivity all the time and it became one of the driving forces in my life to discover everything I could about this.
Over the years, I studied with some of the worlds leading experts in personal change techniques, I spent time learning from spiritual gurus and I had the honor of creating music for therapists and coaches all over the world. I wrote several thousand songs, some of which have been played on radio stations around the country and in many other parts of the world.
I discovered that through the process of exploring how we can access what I’m calling our “unlimited natural happiness”, I accidentally invented a new type of rock music and a new type of personal change system. I now call the music “Transformational Rock Music” , rock music systematically designed to help you choose more happiness when you want to, and I call the set of change systems “Everything IS Changing Now” or E.I.C.N. for short.
In 2014, I wrote a book called “Grow Happy! The 5 Transforming Steps of Lasting Happiness” that outlined the best of E.I.C.N. up to that point, and it told the story behind the invention of Transformational Rock Music.
I learned that we do have the ability to choose to be as happy as we want to whenever we want to. I learned that happiness is mostly a result of focusing our attention more on the energy of life than on the stuff of life, and I became very skilled at doing this. During the year of 2014, I felt I had really learned how to be happy (almost) all the time, and I was! My level of overall happiness and productivity was through the roof compared to every other time in my life AND it wasn’t just limited to a few areas – it as happening in all areas every day!
I was sharing this new information with other people by giving speeches and concert / workshops and by writing several blog posts or videos per week. I found that people who already had experience with spirituality, meditation or who were generally pretty happy could easily use the stuff I was sharing and were genuinely excited about it. But when talking with people who struggled with happiness, I discovered there were some missing pieces that they needed to even want to hear about ways to choose more happiness.
I was experiencing more happiness everyday in every area of my life and every area of my life was growing consistently better than it had been – except for one. There was one area of my life where it wasn’t always easy to stay happy about it. I found that thoughts about this area of my life sometimes pulled me back into fear and then the results I created in that area became less desirable.
For the year of 2015, I decided to spend that year, learning, exploring and hopefully filling in the missing pieces for those people and for myself. I decided to focus less on energy and more on stuff in order to do this. I decided to not be as happy in 2015 as I knew how to be, to uncover these pieces.
2015 was, in fact, a great year. I discovered many things, including those missing pieces. The year was not as happy or productive as 2014 was. In fact, in general, my overall levels of daily happiness were about two to three times less. I was focusing way more on the stuff of life than I had been, all the events, people, things, situations and plans were occupying a majority of my attention. I would sometimes get caught focusing on turning thoughts about the future and not even be aware of how I as feeling for long stretches of time. My productivity was also about two or three times less than it had been and the process of doing things became less effortless and more disjointed.
At different times during the year, life felt very much like it felt during certain periods in my 20s; not very fun and not very productive. But I knew it would most likely be that way going in. The advantage I had this time though, was that I knew how to be happier anytime I wanted to. Using the steps outlined in my book, I could quickly refocus my attention and feel as happy as I wanted to. Of course I gave myself permission to do this from time to time, but I was committed to finishing the experiment of living with more focus on stuff until I had discovered what the missing pieces were and I had a reliable way to effectively communicate them to anyone in a way that would be inspiring and actionable.
So you know how it feels to come back to something that you love after being gone for a really long time? You know that AAAAAHHHHHH feeling?
Flying back from Oahu this past Tuesday, I realized the 2015 experiment was over. I had just given a speech on the very latest discoveries of 2015 (and Jan of 2016) and I realized I had learned everything I had set out to learn. I had discovered the actionable steps to ensure consistent growth and happiness in my challenge area of life and in the process I’d found the steps for all the other areas as well. I found a way to show people how to choose more happiness from whatever level they were currently experiencing- even on the verge of suicide. I had discovered a new set of streamlined steps that I had proven to work in my life and I’d been able to help other people get similar results in their lives also.
It was time to integrate everything I had just learned with everything I knew from before. As we were flying, I did a simple 10 minute exercise that restarted the shifting of my attention back to focusing more on the energy and less on the stuff. I instantly felt about three times happier than I had on most days in 2015. Instantly, I no longer had turning thoughts about random stuff or the future. I could see everything I had been exploring in 2015 from a brand new perspective and all the pieces were there along with a knowing that I now knew how to live consistently happy and consistently productive in all areas of life AND I had a way to show this to other people!
I am very excited to focus more on the energy of life again, and now in a way that will allow all the stuff in every area of my life to continue to improve consistently. I am also very excited to discover the very best ways to share all this with as many people as possible so that they can experience similar results in their life, if and when they want to.
Thanks for reading and thanks for choosing to be you!
-Andy
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