Note: Please be aware that the topics of self-harm
and suicide are discussed in this episode.
How do we live our happiest lives, even throughout pain, suffering, and loss? How do we capitalize on the good of life and achieve and enjoy our happiest lives? Mark Jaffe, a former senior executive at The Walt Disney Company, joins the podcast to discuss his book Suitcase of Happyness. He shares techniques and pathways to a deeply and broadly happy life, and how to bring those methods and attitudes into your broader community and work life.
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Brandon: Welcome to the Human Resources for Small Business podcast, this is your host, Brandon Laws. Today I have author Mark Jaffe, he’s the author of The Suitcase of Happyness and is a former senior executive at the Walt Disney Company. Mark, it is amazing to have you! Thanks for joining us.
Mark: I’m so glad to be here Brandon, thank you!
Brandon: I want to talk about your book, Suitcase of Happyness: A Roadmap to Achieve and Enjoy Your Happiest Life. I had the chance to read this a couple weeks ago and I have to be honest with you, this is unlike any other happiness-focused book I’ve read. Most books that I’ve read on happiness are very scientific, and a Ph.D. author has written it for the most part. You’ve put yourself out there in this book, these are stories about your life and your experiences. You’re very vulnerable in this book, and I, for one, appreciate that!
Mark: Well I’ve got to tell you, I’ve gotten a lot of responses like that, particularly from guys. They say, Better you than me! I could never go out there with those stories. You’re right, vulnerability is frightening, but I think if we’re going to make a breakthrough in being happier I think we need to be comfortable and be vulnerable. I think that taking myself and putting myself out there as an example encourages others to see that it’s okay to do that, it’s okay to confront what’s stopping us from being happy head-on. I did that in my life, and I successfully confronted it.Brandon: Tell us how you came up with the idea for The Suitcase of Happyness. You started the book by talking about a woman who passed away in the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015 and how she had been collecting moments of her life. Talk about how you weaved that story and the lessons you learned from that into what you have created in this book.
Mark: That story had really touched me. It’s the story of a woman, Veronique Geoffroy de Bourgies, in Paris who lost her life in the terrorist attacks last year in the fall of 2015. Three days later her husband, and they had totally been in love, they had this amazingly warm and truly loving and supportive family, they did tons of things together, but 72 hours after he’d found out that his wife was no longer alive, he had to deliver her eulogy. And because of the prominence of the attacks, you can see the eulogy on YouTube in French today. And he said something that just hit me at my core, he said that she was such an amazingly happy person and she had something I had never heard of before, she had a valise du bonheur, which in French means a suitcase of happiness.
She took every moment that gave her joy, every moment that took her breath away, and she put it in her suitcase. Moments of happiness, moments of laughter, moments with her husband, moments with her children, moments when their family just looked at each other and relished the fact that they were alive together and experiencing whatever they had at that time. She put that all in her suitcase of happiness and she surrounded herself with these stories, and retelling these stories and experiencing these stories gave her this lasting happiness that just endured.
What struck me the most, though, was at the end of the eulogy, her husband said thank you to her for that suitcase of happiness, because that was her legacy to her, to him, and to her children. And without the strength that he had from having that suitcase—and it wasn’t a real suitcase, it was a metaphorical suitcase—but the strength of having that suitcase gave him and his children the ability to take those hard moments after her passing and make it to that day of giving that eulogy.
I thought of my kids. I have this amazing, incredible relationship with my kids. I’m so blessed and I have so much gratitude for how close we are. And even though we have this great relationship, I can’t say Hey guys, how about we spend a few hours and I’ll tell you how to be happy! That’s a difficult conversation to actually have, and how do you bring it up? How do you launch into it? So I decided as my legacy to them, similar to Veronique’s legacy to her family, I was going to write about valise du bonheur. I was going to write about this suitcase of happiness, I was going to show how, in essence, I had very much done the same thing that Veronique had done in France. I had created my own suitcase of happiness which provided me and has continued to provide me with this enduring state of happiness. I wanted to give that gift to my children, and that’s why I wrote the book.
Brandon: By the time you decided to write this book about the suitcase of happiness, how had you been collecting those experiences that you’d had throughout the years? Did you keep a journal? Did you keep a video log? How did you collect some of these experiences? Most people don’t have perfect recall!
Mark: Oh I have awful recall! But you know, there are so many different ways to crystallize experiences in your mind. For me, one of those ways is gratitude. My mom, for example—every time we’d go on a hike together we’d go to these beautiful places—and she would just stop and say, Just stop and look and bottle it! “Bottle it” became code in my family for preserving a moment. So throughout my life anytime I’ve had a moment I’ve just expressed gratitude for it and, in essence, bottled those moments.
There’s an author, Melody Beattie, who has this great quote that I’ll read to you. It’s just so beautiful, and about gratitude. She said, Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
So if you have this gratitude for these incredible moments, you may not remember a meal, but you’re going to remember a feast. That’s how I do it. I stop, I bottle the moment, and I express tremendous gratitude for having had it in my life.
Brandon: I want to start at the beginning of your book. Happiness means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and I think you allude to that in the book. After your research and all the stories and writing this book, what does happiness mean to you?
Mark: Wow, that’s a difficult question. I continually try to define that for myself.
Brandon: I figured you’d say that!
Mark: Yeah, I struggled with that chapter in the book. I think I even said, how can I, as an author of a book on happiness, not give you a good definition of it? And I still don’t have a good definition of it. It comes from so many different places. I describe 10 pathways to happiness in the book and each of these pathways gives me a different amount of happiness. I hate to put it in these terms, but I really feel that my definition of happiness is the same as the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography. As you know, years ago, the Supreme Court was asked to define pornography and they couldn’t. Obviously you could say it’s nudity—but how about all the great artwork, the Rubens and Michelangelo? They were never able to define it, they had this raging debate, and finally one of the justices read the prevailing opinion which said, I know it when I see it.I think that’s the same for happiness. All these books that you mentioned that are so scientific and, in essence, try to define happiness for people but can’t. My sense of happiness is going to be different than yours. My cocktail of what creates happiness for me, just like cocktails or food in general, my palette is different than yours. What gives me joy is different from what gives you joy.
And interestingly enough, what gave me joy when I was 20 is different from what gives me joy today with grown children. In the book I talk about the fact that I used to throw massive parties that I would call Rum Runners. I would have everybody come over and there would be 20, 50, 75, who knows how many people would show up. Everybody would bring a bottle of rum and toss it in this big bowl. I’d provide the first bottle and all the fruit juice. As you can imagine, as people showed up with bottles and bottles and bottles of rum, it became more and more potent and was really like this drunken bacchanal, which to me was like happiness incarnate! It didn’t get better than 50 to 100 people literally completely drunk having the best time at a party with amazing music going until the wee hours of the morning.
Well, now I’m a little bit older, and maybe that would still be a fun party, but I’d probably pay a price for a couple of weeks after for having had it and for having experienced it. So my idea of happiness has changed over time. And I think people not only have different ideas of happiness but they also change over time, which is why it’s not only hard to define but it’s hard to define in general for any individual.
Brandon: You had this quick little paragraph in the beginning of the book that I found very profound. In it, you talked about how when you were 13 years old you had a lot of friends, you were seen as cool in one particular group, and you had a sense of belonging that you had desired so much. I think in that moment you may have been happy temporarily, but overall you weren’t as happy as you thought you’d be. Why was that?
Mark: This is one of the vulnerable parts of the book, I was not a very popular kid when I was younger, but when I was 13 I discovered a group that would accept me. And I was so excited about it. But the price of admission was that during lunch you had to go to the local 7-11 and smoke cigarettes. And I said, Oh I can do that! And all of a sudden I was in the group, because I was a 13 year old smoking cigarettes. But of course, smoking cigarettes led to drinking at 13 and all of a sudden I’m thinking, Well this is fantastic! I’ve done it, I’m totally happy because I have this group of people who like me and accept me and want to have fun with me and go out with me on the weekends and have lunch with me every day.
But after a couple of months of that I realized that that may have satisfied one of my needs, but I really wasn’t as happy as I thought I’d be. Happiness is more than that. It’s more than just having one of your needs, very core for a 13 year old which is social acceptance, it’s bigger than that. That’s when I realized that I wanted to focus on what that is for me. The book details that journey that started at age 13 and still continues.
Brandon: How does focus play a role in happiness? Because I often think about how when I’m at work and I have a big meeting coming up and I focus on failure or the possibility of something going wrong, inevitably that ends up happening. Why does focus have so much to do with how happy we actually are?
Mark: In the book I talk about the four laws of focus. The truth is, what you focus on, you find. I remember my best friend since I was 15 years old, this guy named Bob, and we are still best friends to this day. A couple of years ago we went on a trip to Oregon. And we were going down the Oregon coast, and the sun is out one day and we were walking through this cute little seaside town, and there’s something about being in a rainy or cold climate on a sunny day and all of a sudden everybody comes outside. They’re dressed in great looking clothes, it’s like the hormones are flying for all these single people, and there are just these beautiful, beautiful women walking down the street and I can’t help staring at them. And after I saw these two in particular I just looked at Bob and said, Oh my god, did you see that?! And he said, Oh yeah, I did! I gotta go in for a closer look. And I’m thinking, Are you nuts? This is not the recipe for meeting someone, you can’t “go in for a closer look”! And I’m about to say something to him and I saw him start to run off! But he wasn’t running off towards them, he was running off the other way towards the ocean and in particular towards this one house on the beach.
And I’m running after him going what are you doing?! And he said, Well you’re right, I did see it, this wood siding is amazing. And I looked at him and asked, What are you doing looking at wood siding for? And he said, Well I’m thinking about building a house on the beach, so I want to see wood siding that really weathers the elements. And I realized that I was looking at women, he was looking at wood siding! We were both walking down the same road by the beach, we both had the same vista of things available, but what I focused on, which was pretty girls because I was single at that point, I found, and what he was focused on, which was wood siding, he found!
So it really is a matter of perspective. What you focus on you find, and what you focus on seems real. And what you focus on grows, so in your case, for example, when you’re focusing on failure, the possibility of failure becomes more real, the probability of failure grows, and then here’s the key—you become what you focus on. What you focus on you find, what you focus on becomes real, what you focus on grows, and you become what you focus on. And so for me, by focusing on my happiness and focusing on really exploring that, I’ve been able to become that. I seek out these moments of happiness, I put it in my valise du bonheur, my metaphorical suitcase of happiness. They become more and more real, they become more instinctive as part of what I do in my life, and I, in essence, become a happier person.
So when you think about focusing on failure versus focusing on success, the more you focus on success in terms of your presentations, the more successful you’ll become because your mind becomes attuned to what it takes to become successful. Just as in my case and in readers who adopt this, their mind becomes attuned to what it takes for them to become happy.
Brandon: In the book you talk about five barriers to happiness and I want to start, and I hope you don’t mind, I want to start by sharing the personal and unfortunate story of your significant other who passed. And you mentioned it was a very dark time for you. Talk about how acceptance is a huge component to happiness in the future.
Mark: After my divorce I fell in love with this woman who was just this amazing, amazing human being. I mean, she was more beautiful on the inside than on the outside, and she was gorgeous on the outside. We had this idyllic romance. So many of the principles of happiness were a part of her as well as they were a part of me before we even met. And seven months into it, I get a phone call that she had committed suicide. And of course I was just devastated. How could this happen? I had no idea. I was just lost and confused. No matter what anyone did to console me I was inconsolable. I was in a sea of black. All I saw was black, I felt like this dark cloud had enveloped me and there was no way out of it. And after months of literally truly struggling, I would go throughout my day, I did what I had to do for my clients, but I was never truly present. I wasn’t truly present with my friends, I wasn’t truly present with my children. I was lost, I was in this horrible, horrible dark place. I thought Beth and I would live the rest of our lives together. I could never have foreseen that coming.
And one day I’m talking to this guy who is actually a corporate retreat facilitator and an executive coach, and he said, Have you ever thought about acceptance? I went, I have absolutely no idea what that means. And he goes, Well, one day when you’re feeling particularly bad, say to yourself, “I feel awful. I feel lost. I feel depressed. I feel like I’m enveloped by a black cloud.” Say that over and over and over. I said, Okay, then what happens? And he goes, Well no, that’s it.
I go, What do you mean, that’s it?! That doesn’t do anything! He goes, Trust me. It does. Because it gets you to accept what has become of your life. And you can’t move on to change until you have acceptance.
And I decided to do that, and slowly but surely it worked, because the foundation for change is acceptance of your current condition. It was absolutely amazing, it was transformative. I mean it takes a while, it really does, and it takes continual practice to acknowledge the place you’re in. But until you truly accept and acknowledge the place that you’re in, you can’t move forward. Because we all try to fight it, don’t we?
Just think about something that’s less pronounced than the sudden death of someone you love. Think about a comment you made or an action you took that you regret and wish you could do over. How many times do we replay that loop in our mind trying to take it back, trying to do it over, trying to redo something that’s already been done? We waste so much time and energy and incur tremendous angst when we do that. But by accepting it, accepting the reality of today, of this moment, we’re able to transform ourselves and move forward. The confusion slowly clarifies and we’re able to move forward and take proactive action to make our life better and to make this specific situation that is causing the angst better.
Brandon: It seems like a lot of people often equate success, material things, with happiness. Like, I’m going to get the next promotion or next raise and I’ll be happy. But that can wear off.You talk about perspective and what that means and how it can make you happy. Could you talk about that a little bit?
Mark: One of the things I learned about suicide, a graphic example which applies to perspective, is how people could commit suicide. I thought of Beth and I thought of this amazing life we had, and she had 3 children who are just unbelievable kids, and I was thinking, How could someone like this commit suicide? And obviously she had demons that caused that, but if you could imagine looking outside at this beautiful vista and somewhere in that vista is someone walking with a black shirt. And all you choose to focus on is the black in that shirt, and nothing else seems real for you, that’s how someone explained to me how suicide is possible. All they do is focus on the black. There’s no perspective, they don’t see that the black piece of that picture is 1/10th of 1% of the entire vista. They only see that little thing that they focus on. And we often suffer from a lack of perspective, I mean thank goodness that lack of perspective doesn’t cause us to do horrific things, but it does cause us not to realize the happiness that we can have.
My dad used to always say, I used to complain about not having a foot until I met a man without a leg. I used to always laugh at that! But the truth is, he was trying to show me perspective. Certainly not having a foot is still pretty awful, but perspective gives us the ability to move forward and enjoy happiness. Happiness can exist side-by-side with our unhappiness, it’s possible to make peace with both good and bad simultaneously existing, it’s part of who we are. How do you explain people with disabilities or people with illnesses who lead really wonderful, enjoyable, happy lives? Because they have perspective. That one troubling thing is only part of our lives. There are so many other beautiful pieces of our lives to create that cause us to be happy. I think we’ve got to stop ourselves from being swallowed up by this rising tide of emotional anguish, when in reality it’s just a small ripple of stress disproportionally disturbing this large pond of pleasure in which we live.
That’s what perspective is! See the world, see everything around you, see possibility—and focus on the possibility as opposed to whatever the issue is that’s troubling you. And in many cases you’re focused so much on the next promotion. One of the barriers that I talk about is this endless pursuit of success. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with success, the problem with the endless pursuit of success is the endless pursuit of it. I think it’s great to try to get a raise, to excel and do incredibly at your role, but if all you’re doing is focusing on this pursuit of success, you’re doing it to the exclusion of everything else that could give you happiness in your life. That’s the kind of perspective I’m talking about.
Brandon: Do you think purpose could play a role in perspective a little bit? Here’s my example: let’s say I work for an organization and I just don’t understand what I’m doing. I don’t feel like I’m tied to any outcome, I don’t feel there’s purpose in my role. But if an organization’s really good about helping people understand what your role in the organization is and what we’re doing for the market or for our customers or whomever, having that perspective of a grander purpose, could that help in terms of what you’re talking about concerning perspective?
Mark: Oh absolutely! And not only that but it could help in terms of how an organization or a company could be even more successful. There are countries that are focused on creating purpose and creating happiness for their citizens to create a better organization and to give the right perspective to their employees for increased success. You’ve got to watch this TED Talk by the Prime Minister of Bhutan who talked about gross national happiness, which is his vision to improve happiness and wellbeing of his people. The truth is that in Bhutan, happiness drives development, not the other way around. And because they want people to feel development as part of the overall happiness of the country and the purpose of the country which is very ego-centered.
So think about companies. If companies instill a sense of purpose or corporate happiness with people, it’s also going to be more successful. I mean last year, for example, Fast Company published this article stating that happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity while unhappy workers grew 10% less productive. Why? Because unhappy workers were unhappy for two reasons: one, as you discussed, that corporations didn’t do the things to give them a sense of purpose, to make them happier in their role, to give them a raison d’être for continuing to excel at their job.
So corporations need to promote happiness more during the work day. But the one thing corporations don’t really understand is that they also have to give employees the ability and the tools to be happy out of the work day. If you think about being in a bunch of cubicles with a bunch of workers and one of them wakes up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning and they come to work and they are just going on and on about whatever’s troubling them, that’s not a very productive workplace no matter how much purpose the workplace has because that employee’s kind of poisoning the well. And so what a number of companies are now starting to adopt is not only promoting happiness as a result of purpose in the workplace but giving workers the tools to be happy out of the workplace, which is really what I focused on.
Brandon: Let’s focus on some of the tools. In the book you provide 10 pathways and I want to talk about just a couple of them, because I want people to read your book, which is great! Talk about how saying “yes” can open up doors to being happy in a perpetual way.
Mark: Well when you think about the concept of “yes” versus “no,” just mathematically if you’re with one other person, it takes two people to say yes, it takes one person to say no. And the possibilities of “yes” are tremendous, because there are moments of happiness all around us. Everywhere! Imagine these incredible moments of happiness, the only barrier to them is saying yes. We just need to know where to find happiness, have the intention of creating them, then collect them and embark on the journey. Just saying yes makes a huge difference.
One of the most pivotal points in my relationship with Beth, for example, was one time early on in the relationship. We went out on this six mile run on a hot day on the beach, it was beautiful and very tiring, and so we finished this run, we’re covered in sweat, looking pretty gross, and all of the sudden she moves in for a kiss. And I’m thinking to myself, I don’t know if I really want to do this! Because we’re pretty sweaty and gross. But I didn’t really have a choice, she just did it and I went with it. And what that did was set up this pattern of saying yes. She said yes to having a special moment with me, I didn’t allow the easiness of saying no to stop me, because trust me, it’s super easy to say no! I’m too tired, I’m too cold, I’m too sweaty, I’m not into it, I’m lazy, it’s very easy to say no. But when you say no you block off a moment of happiness that you could have. That’s the power of yes.
I gave a presentation recently to Wanderlust, which is one of the largest yoga and wellness companies in the world, they put on huge festivals. There were three people from Australia that attended that presentation and they told me that after that presentation, they called it the “Yes Trip.” And for the next two weeks in Los Angeles, they said yes to whatever any of the three people wanted to do, and they said it was the most incredible vacation together. They couldn’t believe how much fun Los Angeles was! And I’m thinking to myself, any place could have been that much fun if you continually said yes. And so yes has this incredible power to be transformative. One of my closest friends who now lives in Florida bought the book and told his 12-year-old daughter about the rule of yes. And he said that she so embraced it that he now has to say yes to almost everything, obviously not things that are dangerous or not prudent. But he now says yes to everything with her other than those things that are wrong to say yes to. And he said his life with his daughter has become so much more rich! And he thanked me, Just for that one chapter, I’m so glad I read your book. The power of yes is huge! When I did the workshop at Wanderlust there were two couples who looked at each other and said we are going to do this in our relationship now. And both of them followed up with me and told me it was transformative. Because it’s too easy to say no, and the power of yes can bring incredible moments of happiness that we don’t even know are out there, but now we open the door and allow them in.
Brandon: Along similar lines of saying yes, one of the tools you talked about that I resonated with personally was learning and discovering and how that’s such an important tool to have in your suitcase. And I often translate it back to professional development, for example, how a lot of people will just check out when they get home. They’ll turn on reality TV shows, they’ll do whatever, versus picking up a book or going and experiencing something with somebody and allowing themselves to be happy in the moment and add that to their suitcase. Talk about how learning and discovering was big for you.
Mark: I kind of discovered learning and discovering in a backwards way. I love vacations, and I always take these amazing vacations. And many, many years ago when my kids were smaller, we went to Newfoundland. Why? Because I thought it would be kind of fun to see how far 25,000 per person would get me on my frequent flyer program and Newfoundland was pretty much the furthest distance away from Los Angeles. So without much more thought than that we went to Newfoundland. We arrived in St. John’s, which is this very sleepy capitol, and we go to this little café with about 8 people in it, none of them are from out of town. And the waitress comes over to us and she can clearly tell we’re not from there. She said, Where are you from? And I said, Los Angeles. She goes, What are you doing here? I said, Oh well, we’re on vacation. And she looked at me kind of quizzically and said, Well why would you come to Newfoundland to do that?!
And at that moment I realized I was in a lot of trouble! Because there isn’t all that much to do in Newfoundland. So the next day we started wandering around and we saw this really beat up, rusty marina and these old, old boats are just bobbing against their moorings and creaking. And there’s this guy on one of these little fishing boats and he’s this old crotchety guy repairing his nets. And I walked over to him and instinctively said, Hey, can we help you out with that? He goes, Sure! Come on board. And for the next 4 hours he showed my kids every part of his boat, he told us all these incredible sailing stories, we worked with him on his nets, and as we left that day my kids were like, That was one of the best vacation days ever!
And I realized we didn’t do anything except be open to discovery. And actually, that was one of the best trips we ever had. All of the sudden, every square inch of Newfoundland was a new place to discover. Every person was a new person to talk to, to meet. And that vacation was one of our best ever. And when I came back to Los Angeles I thought, How could I lead my life like I’m on vacation? And I realized there’s so much to discover in Los Angeles.
I bought a book on secret stairways, who even knew there were secret stairways in Los Angeles? But there are! Back in the day when they were developing all these hillsides they realized it was very problematic for people to go in a Z pattern down the hill, a lot of them would build a stairway in the easements between houses. And so I embarked on walking on every one of these stairways and eating at local cafes. There’s so much to discover.
My daughter, for example, wound up having a number of different health and dietary restrictions. She loves cooking, she loves healthy foods, so now she makes the most amazing meals. They’re three hour things where we go to these health food stores and buy fresh organic produce and come back and it’s all planned out. They become amazing discoveries. Who knew? I always thought you just put some burgers on the grill and you’re done, right? But if you live your life like you’re on vacation, wherever you are, it is an attitude. It’s in your head and, again, it creates these moments of happiness you never thought were possible.
Brandon: Mark, how do we put this all together? For people listening, how do they get started with developing their suitcase, putting in their experiences and reliving those over and over so they can sustain that happiness?
Mark: It’s about focus, where we started the conversation. It’s about focusing on creating happiness. Which sounds like a lot of work! Remember when you were four years old and you had to focus on remembering to brush your teeth every morning? Well, now I don’t really focus much on it, it’s just part of my life, obviously. It’s just instinct, as is happiness, as is being open to discovery, as is saying yes. It’s just taking the couple of pathways that resonate for you and focusing on them as ways to get happiness.And what’s going to happen is, like anything in life, when you focus on something and it actually happens, when you focus on getting happiness and you realize, Oh my goodness, it’s only been two weeks and I’ve already had 2 or 3 or 4 moments of happiness I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t focused. It’s this unbelievably great loop of happiness, you create a happiness loop for yourself. This gives me happiness, I want to do more of it and get more happiness. You want more of it, so you do more of it, it’s the rule of yes. A lot of people focus on laughter, on play, there are so many different things to focus on. And a lot of people focus on gratitude or on creating meaning in their lives or on anything that gives them happiness. The more you focus on it, the more you find it, the more it grows, the more it becomes real, and eventually the more it becomes who you are, so that happiness becomes an instinct. Your suitcase of happiness continually gets larger, and the more you have the more you create and the more you create the more you have. It’s a wonderful happiness loop that can really be an enduring go-to state. A lot of people feel that happiness is fleeting, I don’t. I think you can live in happiness.
And of course there’s going to be unhappy moments, but they coexist side-by-side with the happiness and the enduring happiness you’ve created for yourself with your suitcase of happiness.
Brandon: Mark, I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and I enjoyed the book immensely. Where can people find the book? I assume Amazon, but are there any other links or resources you want to provide where people can find the book?
Mark: The best one is really Amazon, it’s Suitcase of Happyness. Or go to my website and sign up for my newsletters, there’s a free Wake Up Happy checklist that I’ll give to anyone who comes onto the website and signs up. I’m also on Twitter, it’s amazing how this has resonated, I’ve basically doubled my Twitter followers in the last 3 weeks! I don’t have a huge following but I did go from 5,000 to 10,000.
Brandon: Wow! Well, that’s how I found you!
Mark: Yeah, I appreciate that! All of a sudden it’s really resonated. @MarkJaffe on Twitter, @MarkJaffe1 on Instagram. But the best place to start would really be SuitcaseofHappyness.com and the book’s available on Amazon.
Brandon: Mark Jaffe, thank you for joining the podcast! We’re all better and happier for it, I think!
Mark: Well thank you so much Brandon! And people can feel free to reach out to me on my website, I would love to hear from everyone.