Welcome to Nobody Told Me.

I'm Laura Owens, and I'm Jan Black.

On this episode, we'll explore how a simple shift in thinking can change everything

you believe about your own happiness.

We'll look at how a different perspective can enable us to live happily when life isn't perfect. And wherever you are in

life, I think you'll benefit from hearing the wisdom of our guest. Joining us is New York Times

bestselling author, Cy Wakeman, whose new book is called Life's Messy, Live Happy. Things don't have to be

perfect for you to be content. So I thank you so much for joining us. We absolutely love the book.

Oh, I'm so glad. And thank you for the opportunity. Now, you are a leadership consultant and

a drama researcher. Tell us more about your work. I started life as a counselor,

and as I became a leader, what I noticed was there was an enormous amount of waste in the

workplace and that that waste wasn't kind of downtime in a process. It was emotional waste or

drama. And we were looking for all kinds of

ways that we could improve the experience of our patients and our work. And I got really focused on

what if we could diffuse or eliminate the drama in our lives, that part that was just pure

waste that we added to already difficult situations,

what would that save us? And I was able, through my research, to quantify that the average

person spends two and a half hours a day, 816 hours a year in drama, doing work harder or with more mystery than necessary. So I thought,

what freedom to bring the world is to help people understand how to move through the world

differently so that they had less drama and less stress and less misery. It's been a fun

ride in terms of leadership development.

It's really easy to be happy and have a good outlook when things are going well.

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