Living Life Happy: Triumph in Personal and Professional Relationships

By Joyce A. Salvo and Donald K. Bowman

Seldom has there been a concise roadmap to happiness in a personal way and also in the workplace that hits all the points. This unique book series is a methodology that is blending 30 years experience between an intuitive, holistic healer and a seasoned business leader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483579924

Book preview

Living Life Happy:

Triumph in Personal

and Professional Relationships

Joyce A. Salvo

Donald K. Bowman

Copyright © 2015 Avana Method Inc.

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-4835799-2-4

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by

any means; electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording

or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by: Avana Method, Inc.

2991 Pinewood Run

Palm Harbor, FL 34684

Visit our internet site at

www.avanamethod.com

Living Life Happy

Volume 1

Notes from the Authors

Everyone wants a fulfilling personal life and to play meaningful roles in the community and thriving organizations. Unfortunately, the stress in our personal and social lives creates significant barriers to these ideal aspirations. Trying to overcome these obstacles and stress, we fill our shelves with self-help books on physical fitness, nutrition, diets and many other great topics. Yet, despite this proliferation and the growing number of psychologists, psychiatrists, personal trainers and medications at our disposal, we still can’t find the answer to personal happiness and wellness.

Likewise, it seems that dozens of new books on leadership or management are published weekly. These books contain a wealth of great messages, but unfortunately, those messages are not being practiced in the workplace. As a result, 70 percent of Americans are so stressed that they choose to be disengaged from their jobs,¹ affecting customer service, productivity, business profits and their health. We just don’t seem to have the answers that lead to social happiness and business wellness.

The Authors

We want to help you find the answers you have been looking for. The Living Life Happy Book Series combines the fundamental principles of countless self-help and leadership/management books into a unique and proven technique with a practical application. This series offers everyone a comprehensive, step-by-step approach leading to the discovery of happiness and wellness.

Living Life Happy builds upon the successful practice of Joyce Salvo and her 35 years in the holistic health field. Joyce has used the three principles outlined in this book series to help thousands of clients on a case-by-case basis. Her approach, called the Avana Method, has helped these individuals discover core patterns within themselves that led to their reactive forms of stress. Avana means joy, desire and perseverance and through this approach many have created a positive change that reverses stress in their lives.

Living Life Happy also reflects the success of Don Bowman in the business world. For over 35 years, Don has directed manufacturing facilities to previously unimaginable success. The secret of his success was to focus on the needs and desires of the employees, eliminate unnecessary stress and then serve as a leader worthy of being followed. The result was both personal and business success.

Through personal experience, both authors have learned that discovering and meeting our authentic needs and desires naturally reduces stress. Combined, the approaches of Joyce and Don provide a comprehensive, proven method of dealing with stress on both a personal and social basis. The foundation of their methodology is outlined in the Living Life Happy book series. It draws upon three significant principles in dealing with potentially stressful situations:

Unemotional Awareness

Acceptance

Choice

The message of the Living Life Happy book series is an easy-to-follow method meant for everyone, a simple practice that can become both automatic and very easy to do. As we move through these pages, our purpose is to help you learn how to choose happiness. We will guide you through each step using words you will understand and examples you can relate to. Each book is relatively short and will only take a few hours to read. Enjoy our messages!

Structure of The Living Life Happy Book Series

We want to help you discover your authentic self and maintain the same balanced character in all situations. Supporting one character at home, another in the office and a third late Friday night when we are out with friends does not lead to happiness. We are happiest when we can be our authentic self in all situations and environments. Each of us has a personal life – our relationship with ourselves; and a social life – our relationship with others. Living Life Happy book series is designed to help you become the best version of yourself − your authentic self in both your personal and social lives. The goals of the book series are achieved by following a simple step-by-step approach, with each element building on the other.

Personal Discovery

Personal Life Balance

Social Discovery

Social Life Balance

Personal discovery is at the heart of Living Life Happy and the first element. Only after thorough personal discovery can we understand who we are. In the first two elements, we become more aware of our character and our authentic self. Now we are ready for social discovery. Social discovery is about understanding our environments and how they can affect us. With a thorough understanding of our social environment, we will show how to seek social life balance by allowing our character to thrive in all of our environments.

Personal Life

Being happy and experiencing personal wellness requires a balanced personal life: that is, our relationship with ourselves. Thus, Living Life Happy helps us use all three of its principles to make choices creating balance in all aspects of our personal life: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and energetic. For example, although we can go to the gym and become wonderful physical specimens, if we neglect ourselves mentally we will be imbalanced, stressed and even less capable of maintaining our physical body. Likewise, although we can be spiritual pillars of our community, if we neglect our emotions and avoid our true feelings, we will be imbalanced, stressed and unhappy.

Social Life

To be happy and experience personal wellness, we also need to live a balanced social life − our relationship with others. Of these relationships, our three most common involve family, friends and the workplace. Our social life consists of five aspects: home/family, work, community, recreation and finance. Our approach helps you make the proper choices to achieve balance in all aspects and environments of your social life. If we spend too much time at work and neglect our family, we will be imbalanced, stressed and unhappy. Alternatively, if we spend all our time at home, but neglect time for recreation, we will also be stressed and unhappy.

Goals of the Living Life Happy Book Series

The first goal is to learn how to effectively use the three principles when potentially stressful situations occur in both our personal and social lives. We will give you the skills to cope with stress in a healthy and effective manner. However, as you master these skills, you will soon realize that the endless list of stressful situations remains. This leads us to the next goal.

The second goal and unique aspect of Living Life Happy supplies you with the skills and understanding to change your environments to reduce stress. We are products of our environments. Just as we ourselves have unique personal characters, every environment has a unique character that is highly influenced by its leaders. When conflicts occur between the character of an environment and our own, one of two things will occur. The environment will have an effect on us, or we will have an effect on the environment. With increasing personal awareness and acceptance, we can make proper choices to affect potential conflicts and stress in a positive manner.

Living Life Happy focuses on our two most prominent environments: home and work. Our home and family is our most important environment. In fact, studies show that by the age of five, 85 percent of our personality foundation has already been established.² This statistic should lead us to understand that children’s success is profoundly influenced both by parental involvement and by the home environment. To be a positive role model and leader of good character in the family requires that we lead an authentic life with a balanced personal and social life.

Our work environment is typically our most stressful environment. As with all other environments, we learn that the character of the workplace will have an effect on us unless we have an effect on it. Living Life Happy helps every employee, manager, executive and owner to discover how their unemotional awareness, acceptance and choices can help transform the character of the workplace into a more nurturing and less stressful environment. Just like home, the workplace also needs leaders of good character who lead authentic lives.

Our expectations are that individuals will discover their authentic self and live their authentic life, leading to both a balanced personal and social life and happiness and wellness will follow. By practicing the message of the book series and changing habits, stressed and unhappy people become happy; sick people become well and living examples for others. Following our methodology, poor leaders become better leaders, good leaders become great and models for others, poorly performing businesses become successful and successful businesses become world class.

Happy and healthy employees with a good home life have a better work life and vice-versa. Regardless of the level of personal, professional, company, or business wellness, there is always room for improvement. Personal wellness and business wellness go hand-in-hand and, ultimately, serve both environments.

The Living Life Happy Series

Merging their extensive experience in both the business world and holistic health field, Don Bowman and Joyce Salvo introduce the Living Life Happy six-part book and webinar series. This series, designed to be a multi-sensory learning experience, allows you to read, hear, see, feel, think about, discuss and practice the method. Although personal and interactive, the webinars rely heavily upon memory and immediate attention. The book series, however, offers a thorough explanation that can be reread and used for reference whenever needed.

The webinars, books and support that we offer give you an opportunity to reach a deep understanding of what is necessary to live a less stressful, happier and more fulfilling life. Keep in mind, the goal in the end is to be triumphant in your personal and professional relationships. With a little practice, you can bring your life as a whole into balance and begin living the life you were meant to live.

Following is a brief summary of the six-part series.

VOLUME 1:

Book 1 – The Fundamentals

Providing the basic building blocks, Book 1 leads us through a Personal Discovery of our levels of happiness and stress. The many unhealthy and ineffective methods we use to cope with stress are discussed and contrasted to the healthy and effective methods of Living Life Happy. The authors introduce the three principles to deal effectively with stress and discuss the importance of living our authentic life with a balanced personal and social life.

Book 2 – Personal Happiness and Wellness

This book describes the sources of our daily struggles and conflicts and the role we play in them. Everyone has a character that is the sum of many elements that makes us who we are. Personal Discovery leads us to explore the person we can become. This involves discovering our authentic self, the life we are meant to lead and the ability to recognize the difference between our needs, world wants and inner desires. The authors introduce the five aspects of our personal life − physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and energetic. Finally, methods are shared to support all of these aspects leading to Personal Life Balance, increased happiness and wellness.

Book 3 – Environments and Leadership

The focus of this book is Social Discovery and understanding. Just like individuals have unique characters, so do each of our environments. We are products of our environments and the influential leaders within them. Conflicts between our character and the character of our environments provoke a response that will either change us or change the environment. A key element of this book explains how our leadership abilities influence our environments and how we can best reduce the needless stress in all of them.

VOLUME 2:

Book 4 – Home and Family

Just as we need balance in the five aspects of our personal life, so too do we need that balance in the five aspects of our social life: home/family, work, community, recreation and finance. Gaining and maintaining this balance is challenging because of the influence of our environments and the numerous personalities involved that can cause conflict. Our most important environment is our home and family. This book addresses Social Life Balance in the Home and shows us how to deal effectively with stress and conflicts and how to transform our homes into one that eliminates needless conflict and stress.

Book 5 – The Workplace

The second aspect of a balanced social life involves our workplace, generally our most stressful environment. Book 5 discusses the many sources of stress and conflict for employees, managers and owners. Every member of the workplace can help transform it into one without needless stress. We will discuss how the leaders in the work environment will begin to experience business wellness only after first focusing on employee and personal needs. We will introduce unique and proven methods to accomplish this and transform the workplace beneficially for all leading to Social Life Balance in the Workplace.

Book 6 – Social Happiness and Wellness

This final part discusses Social Life Balance in the Community, Recreation and Finance aspects. If we focus only on home and work, we will be imbalanced and stressed. Book 6 outlines the importance of our relationships with the community and the need for recreational time to rejuvenate. Lastly, we look at financial balance. Money and our fiscal relationships with others are a primary source of stress for many of us and are often the most over-looked link with all other stressors. The series ends with a summary of choices we make while living life happy triumphantly in our personal and professional relationships.

The Approach

Each book of the Living Life Happy series is designed to build on the information shared in the previous books and the new practices and habits that are encouraged. Time should be taken to experience and apply the messages of each book before beginning the next. Reading and viewing all six books within a short period may not be in the reader’s best interest. It would be like trying to understand the information presented in a semester-long course in the first week. For this reason, we recommend beginning each new book, preferably at the first of each month, after taking sufficient time to ponder the messages of the previous book.

Living Life Happy:

Triumph in Personal

and Professional Relationships

Book 1

The Fundamentals

Joyce A. Salvo

Donald K. Bowman

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to our families, especially Douglas Salvo and

Rosemary Bowman for the loving support that guided us to truly

living a life filled with happiness. It is our intent and life pursuit to

share what we have learned with as many people as possible. We are

always thankful for the opportunities that arise from that intention.

Book 1 – The Fundamentals

Are You Happy, or Are You Stressed?

Contentment Quotient Evaluation

Coping with Stress

Overview

The Three Principles

Unemotional Awareness

Acceptance

Choice

Personal Discovery

Book 1 - The Fundamentals

Are You Happy or Are You Stressed?

HAPPINESS -"When I went to school, they asked me what I

wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'.

They told me I didn't understand the assignment;

I told them they didn't understand life."

- John Lennon, Musician and Songwriter

Let’s start by asking a very simple question. Are you happy? When was the last time someone asked you that? Such a simple question, but one we tend to dismiss with little if any thought. Happiness affects everything in our lives every day! So, take a few minutes and honestly answer the question: Are you happy?

It might be a harder question to answer than you think. Your first response might be, Of course I’m happy! Okay, if you’re happy, answer these questions:

How often are you happy?

What makes you most happy?

How do you feel when you’re happy?

When you feel happy, how do you feel physically, emotionally and mentally?

If you’re like many of us, those simple questions may cause you to pause, perhaps thinking, I know being happy is a good thing, but am I really happy? Perhaps you now find yourself feeling surprised, defensive, or anxious about not being able to respond quickly, Yes, certainly I’m happy and life has never been better!

That’s how we would love to answer. Sadly, many of us cannot honestly say that we are. Easier questions might be:

Are you unhappy?

How often are you unhappy?

What makes you feel most unhappy?

We know the answers to those questions because we think about them all the time. In fact, we think about being unhappy much more than being happy. And we certainly know how we feel when we’re unhappy: physically exhausted and weak, emotionally short-tempered, depressed, confused and disengaged.

Statistics indicate that the majority of us admit to feeling and being unhappy. It’s true. For a moment, think about the looks on the faces of the people you meet in a day. How many smile and genuinely look happy? How many look as if the world has taken the happiness from them and that life is just a struggle?

So, what about you? How much time would you say you spend trying to avoid being unhappy, compared with the time you spend on actively being happy? We can focus on either being unhappy or on being happy, but only when we focus our efforts on being happy can we expect happy results. This is not a subtle difference in our pursuit of happiness, but a major shift in paradigm. A major shift in the way we view life.

Do we even know what happiness really means or feels like? For one thing, it should not be confused with fleeting pleasures, physical sensations and daily entertainment activities. Instead, happiness¹ is a long-lasting feeling associated with contentment, satisfaction and completeness.

Experts in the field of psychology are leading the way to support this significant shift in paradigm: to focus on happiness. For too many years, as a society, we have focused on studying unhappiness rather than happiness. Psychological studies on depression, unhappiness and mental illness outpace studies on happiness more than 10 to 1. Only recently are positive psychology studies ², ³, ⁴ gaining the support and recognition that is needed as we collectively try to focus on being happy.

Now, let’s consider the difference between simply being happy versus actively searching for life events that will bring happiness. Examine what your definition of happiness is and then compare it with your life. Does life make you happy? Or, are you happy first within or internally and then life becomes better as a result? If you wait for life to provide happiness, it may be unreachable and you’ll be continually in flux.

The only true constant in life is you and the choices