This is Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby and you're listening to the love, happiness, and success podcast.

The super gorgeous song we're listening together right now is called Angola Moon. It's from the band

An Eagle in Your Mind, off their album, Magnificent Weapon. I thought it was the perfect introduction

for our topic today. We're talking about the power of kindness, a topic I think more important than ever in our crazy world.

And today we're talking with an expert on the subject about how we can all intentionally

cultivate real, meaningful kindness in our communities and in our relationships and within ourselves.

My guest today is author Houston Craft.

Houston is the co-founder and CEO of Character Strong and also the author of the book

Deep Kindness, a revolutionary guide for the way we think, talk, and act in kindness. Houston, I am

thrilled to be speaking with you today because the world needs you and your work. Thank you,

Houston. That feels increasingly true, doesn't it? Well, thank you for being here with me. And maybe we could begin

just by talking, if it's okay, a little bit about your journey into being an expert on the

subject of kindness. I must hear the story. Where did this come from? Yeah, an ongoing journey for sure.

Expertise is growing. I hope with every day. But I've just been talking about it for a long time.

I've been working primarily in education. The slightly longer version of a kind of very long story. I suppose it's the story in my life,

but it started in high school when some friends and I got together and we started a club

called Random Acts of Kindness, etc. And we met every week and we talked about kindness and why it was

important and why the world needed more of it. And we put a huge focus on

the sort of the practical side of it. It's like if we believe this thing's important, how do we go out and do it well?

And there's only two rules, only two rules to the club. Every week we had to meet someone new

and whoever that person was or sometimes multiple people. We had to leave them better than we found

them. That was the goal at least.

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