Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP #293: Leighton Campbell - Your Happiness Equation
Leighton Campbell, the dynamic owner of First Allegiant Insurance, joins us to unravel the mysteries behind his soon-to-be-released book, "Your Happiness Equation," launching on February 4th, 2025. Leighton takes us on a journey through his unexpected career path in commercial insurance and how it informed his unique perspective on finding happiness. You'll gain valuable insights into the complexities of commercial insurance, covering essentials like liability and property, while also exploring Leighton’s reflections on balancing a successful career with personal fulfillment.
Our conversation takes an inspiring turn as we share stories of growth and resilience through the Southwestern book program, a transformative door-to-door sales experience. Leighton and I recount the emotional highs and lows of facing rejection, and how these challenges sharpened our perseverance and emotional intelligence. These anecdotes illustrate the vital role of community support and resilience in achieving personal success, with a focus on the importance of maintaining emotional balance in the face of adversity.
In the final segment, we explore the creative journey behind "Your Happiness Equation," sparked by heartfelt discussions with Leighton's children. The book delves into universal themes like gratitude and authenticity, encouraging listeners to embrace their vulnerabilities and passions. Leighton shares his experiences with practices like men's retreats and breathwork, offering a roadmap to personal transformation and true happiness. Don't miss the chance to pre-order the book at www.yourhappinesseq.com and join us on a quest for genuine fulfillment.
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This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2:Well, hello. Hello there, everyone, and welcome back. So we are coming off the heels of 2024. We have arrived, everyone, happy New Year. Hope you had a wonderful 2024. And we are in store for some good stuff in 2025, for sure. Today I'd like to welcome to the show Leighton Campbell, and Leighton and I actually have some shared history which we're going to get into. But Leighton's here today to promote a new book that is being launched February 4th and it's called your Happiness Equation, and I want to get into the book and talk all about it because, like everyone else, I'm looking to be happy and if there's an equation for happiness, sign me up, baby. So, leighton, welcome to the show, brother.
Speaker 3:Jeremy, thanks for having me on. I look forward to our conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, likewise, man. So before we kind of dig in and learn all about this book, this equation for happiness, if you will, I thought it would make sense to kind of dig into the journey that led you to this point in your life where you decided to write a book, because most of us don't wake up one day and say, you know, I think it's a good time to write a book. Oftentimes this is a lifelong work in progress. So many different things have led you to this point where you decided to release this into the world. So why don't we first start with? I know that you mentioned you own a commercial insurance agency and on the Good Neighbor podcast, this platform is typically a place where we have local business owners to talk a little bit about their business and their backstory. Why don't we start there? Tell us a little bit about your commercial insurance agency First of all, what's the name of the agency?
Speaker 3:First Allegiant Insurance.
Speaker 2:First, allegiant Insurance. Okay, so for everyone out there I mean, everybody deals with insurance, we all have our own personal insurance but I think for most people when they hear commercial insurance, that might be something that they don't know a lot about, because they don't typically deal with commercial insurance unless you own a business or that kind of thing. So start there, tell everybody a little bit about what commercial insurance is, and then we'll dig into what you do and how you help people.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So commercial insurance basically is similar to homeowner's insurance, but it's just for a business. So the same things you may need as a homeowner, business owners also need, for example, liability. If you look at it in terms of a business, if someone comes on the premises of a business and slips and falls and hurts themselves, or they hurt themselves or alleged that they hurt themselves with their product, a business would need liability insurance to defend them, hire attorneys, pay court costs and so on. So general liability is usually the foundation of pretty much any commercial insurance program. So that's one thing.
Speaker 3:If the business has property whether it's the building or the machinery contents inside the building they're going to need a policy for that as well too. If they have workers, they're going to need workers' compensation insurance. So if an employee is injured while they're working, they need a policy for that. That's Florida law. If you have above four non-exempt employees, or if you're in the construction industry if you're in the construction industry and you have even one employee that is not an owner, you are required by Florida law to have a workers comp. So that's something that's also very important.
Speaker 3:Then you get into commercial auto. So if the business has vehicles, if you're a contractor and you're a contractor and you're sending your guys and girls out to do service calls and those kinds of things. You're going to need protection, of course, for the auto, but God forbid you get in an accident. Or when your drivers gets in an accident and God forbid does injury to someone or property, then you're going to need liability protection for that as well. And then you get into the boutique coverages like cyber liability and errors and omissions and it just kind of goes on from there. But that's kind of the gist of commercial insurance.
Speaker 2:Now are you typically servicing? I know that for insurance licensing is done by state, so obviously you're licensed here in the state of Florida and I'm assuming you probably provide service to all Floridians. Do you also have non-resident reciprocal licenses in other states? Do you provide service nationwide? Where's the extent of your client base?
Speaker 3:no-transcript in other parts of the country as well too. So we're not actively out prospecting or networking in other parts of the country, but if we get a great opportunity and it's a fit, then we will get licensed there and take care of that. So we're licensed in probably about five or so states, but I would say 95%, if not more, of our business is done right here in Tri-County South Florida.
Speaker 2:And how long have you had the agency for? When did you start it?
Speaker 3:13 years, started it in 2012. Yeah, it's been a wild ride 2012.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been a wild ride. Yeah, man. So why commercial insurance? What was it that led you up to that? But prior to opening the agency, I'm assuming, but I never like to assume, but I'm assuming you were in the insurance space what led you to the commercial space?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I always told myself I would never be in insurance growing up.
Speaker 2:I know right, we don't grow up and go to school. When I grow up, I want to be an insurance agent. Let's do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my parents, they had done life insurance when I was not all the time, but part of their career path involved life insurance and I just saw that sale as a really kind of a tough, emotional sale. Now I also sell life insurance. Now it's not that sale as a really kind of a tough, emotional sale. Now I also sell life insurance. Now it's not a big part of what I do, but it is part of what I do. And I know other people who sell life insurance and they do very well at it and they're doing a huge service for people. But my first exposure to insurance was like that really kind of a tough, emotional over the kitchen counter table sale and I'm like man, that is excruciating. I don't want to do that with my life. So you know, I went to school. I actually graduated from Cooper City High School. I went to University of Florida after graduating Go Gators.
Speaker 3:Woo Gator too, also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man Nice.
Speaker 3:Nice, nice. That little book man from US, oh wow, that's even man. We go real super deep. That's awesome. So after school I majored in finance, minored in economics. I went to work for Morgan Stanley and I did that for four years and that was really not probably an industry that was kind of aligned with how I am.
Speaker 2:For one thing Hold on back up a second there. When you say Morgan Stanley, did you get linked up with Morgan Stanley through Southwestern at one of the career fairs that they had at UF? Because I remember when I graduated I went to one of those and they had all the different vendors and a lot of them were former book people. Did you link up with them through there?
Speaker 3:No vendors and a lot of them were former book people. Did you link up with them through there? No, but of course Southwestern impacts everything that I've done in my life since being in that program, but kind of how I ended up. One of the ways I ended up at Southwestern is, I think in my freshman year at UF I went to a career fair and I kind of felt like I wanted to be a financial advisor. So I went to financial advisors I don't think they were with Morgan Stanley. I said, hey, I want to be a financial advisor. What do you recommend that I do? And he said you need to go and get sales. This wasn't a Southwestern guy, this was like a regular financial advisor.
Speaker 3:You need to figure out how to sell, get sales experience and so on. So it kind of stuck in the back of my head. It's like I don't know how to do that. But lo and behold, a recruiter from Southwestern. One of the student recruiters got a hold of me. They're like, hey, you're going to get the best sales experience you possibly can get in in college in this program. And I was like man, I think I probably need to really check into this. So got into that, did the whole program and so on. And then my ability to sell cause I sold for four summers. I'd love to go into four summers under your belt.
Speaker 3:Yeah you, how many? Two, two. So you got to do it. Well, one is good, one is good, two is like super respect because you're going back. You go back to something that you know is like really good, back into the belly of the beast Exactly, exactly One. You don't know what you're getting into and you can survive. And I have a ton of respect for one summer book people who stay. I mean that's critical. But if you go back for a second summer, that's pretty hardcore.
Speaker 3:Bring a little team with you. I did A very small team my second summer and then in my fourth summer I had my largest team, but it still was relatively small because I never went all in in the recruiting. I kind of dabbled in it. I think I had a four-person team in my last summer, but yeah, but my book experience is definitely what landed me the job at Morgan Stanley. When I spoke to them about selling books and what I did, it's like you're blowing away the person that's interviewing you Like man.
Speaker 2:I don't think.
Speaker 3:I could do that, yeah, so that's interviewing you Like man.
Speaker 1:I don't think I could do that, yeah, so that's quite the experience.
Speaker 2:Now, when were you at UF? Because I remember going back in the way back machine here. I remember your name from when we were selling books, but I don't know that we were out there together at any point or we were actually linked up through Keon. So Ke was your, was your manager. What years were you at uf? When did you sell?
Speaker 3:so, okay, I started uf 96, so I would have been before me 97 to my last summer was in 2007. 98, 99, 2000, because I sold four summers. When did you sell?
Speaker 2:so I was at UF 98 to like oh, I saw the last two, I think the last two summers. I want to say it was 2000, 2001. So I must've my first summer was either your last summer or I came out like right after you finished, but I remember the name Layton Campbell for whatever reason. I remember the aura of Leighton Campbell. It must have been Keon that was building you up for some reason.
Speaker 3:It could have been, but I also had a brother and sister that sold two summers after I did Like my last summer.
Speaker 2:Oh, your sister came out with me, I think. What was your sister's?
Speaker 3:name Leneen Campbell at the time. This is all coming together now.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. She sold. That's why we heard so much about leighton campbell, other than the fact that you were a seasoned decorated book man but your sister was there. So kian would always talk about leighton. He's the best. Okay, it's all coming back together love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'll have to let her know. Uh, she lives here locally too does she nice?
Speaker 2:and you went to cooper city high look, this is all coming full circle here.
Speaker 3:This is crazy yeah, my, uh, I'm pretty deep in cooper. My kids went to Franklin. We go to church in Cooper city. My business is not, I mean Davey, but right on the border, so it's all kind of like right there.
Speaker 2:Nice, Nice, All right. So let's go back. Let's go back and give everybody some context for the books, Cause you mentioned that this experience through Southwestern kind of set the stage for everything. This was the thing that gave you the experience. And about the sales advice that you got getting to sales, I mean that's pretty much true for anything you do in life. Right, it comes back to communication, really asking good questions.
Speaker 2:But the Southwestern experience, this is an interesting one, and I just had a guest on the podcast several months ago who just moved to Cooper City. He's a local realtor. He also went through the book program about a decade after we did. I don't know, you probably wouldn't have heard the name. He's Nick Sproul. You ever heard that name? No, I have the real estate, all these different businesses they built. So he is actually the lead broker down here in South Florida, Really really motivated, driven guy, obviously a little younger than us, but great things on the horizon for him and we talked a lot about the program and also, yeah, for me this was one of those experiences where, goodness, it really made you realize what you're made of and that if you just put your head down and get to work and really bust your ass.
Speaker 2:Anything's possible and you know I went through the ringer. I think everybody that goes out and sells books has many defining moments in their life, so why don't you tell everybody a little bit about that experience for you? Well, first of all, talk about Southwestern like the book program. What is the program? For those that haven't heard, Tell us a little bit about the Southwestern company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Southwestern is a company that's been around since the Civil War. They actually started out by selling, I think, bibles door-to-door back during the Civil War.
Speaker 3:And then over time it kind of evolved and changed. And when I was in the program and similar to when you were in the program it was more about selling educational books door-to-door, primarily through college students, primarily through college students. And what they do is it's a program that helps college students gain experience, sales ability. You really, like you said, find out what are you really made of and can you handle hard things and survive. So it's very intense. But they've really figured out how to do the program, how to train people, and I've been, I've worked for some of the largest fortune 500 companies in America and I got better training at Southwestern than I did in anywhere else I've ever been, and that is a hundred percent true. So the training phenomenal and so on.
Speaker 3:So they recruit kids from college and when I say they, it's usually other college kids recruiting other college kids, and then sometimes you have people who went through the program, who are more established, they may have families and so on, and they're like full-time recruiting teams and so on. So there's that part of it as well too. So for me they recruited me out of University of Florida. You go up to Nashville, tennessee, for I think it's a week of sales training, and then the craziest thing about this job and it's still crazy to me to this day is you're assigned a territory in a part of the country you've probably never been to and you know no one there and no one is expecting you to come, and then you have to go, knock on doors to find a place to live.
Speaker 1:That blows my mind to this day, and the craziest thing about it is that it always works.
Speaker 3:And the craziest thing about it is that it always works. You have about four people who are assigned a geographic territory. So if your listeners are kind of like you know, tri-county Florida area, I think like a headquarters, is like four people and they would have the surrounding area. So I would think, probably like Dade and Broward might be like a headquarters, that they would kind of split that up between the four people there and then they would work that area all summer and um, so yeah, you know you're out there. Um, it's the summer so it's hot. Um, people generally don't like door to door salespeople, just generally, uh, you have you don't say I used to. I got.
Speaker 2:I got warm welcome every time I knocked on a door, especially eight in the morning, or what do we work like eight to ten?
Speaker 3:yeah 14 hours, yeah, eight to ten, and sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later. If you, if you had to get the trick was always to set.
Speaker 2:Then they taught you this to try to set as many quote-unquote appointments as you could in the morning and the evening, because if you had somewhere to go where people were actually expecting you in the morning, it took a lot of the pressure off rather than just cold knocking first thing in the morning. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:That gravy time where you're doing a lot of pre-approach in the day. A lot of times families are out, the dad's not home, the mom's not home, whatever the case may be. So you're just kind of laying the foundation for what your after five period is going to look like. And then after five was what we call gravy is like it's house after house of people you know have children who are kind of expecting you and um well, and I know you've had this too, cause it's like everyone's experience is kind of similar.
Speaker 3:You get a ton of rejection and you have people who are super mean and sometimes nasty to you, but you also meet the best people middle of absolutely nowhere at like you know, it's like 10 o'clock, it's my last sale and these people have given me dinner, they've given me stuff to take with me in terms of like drinks and food and and they just love on me. And then when I see them throughout the rest of the summer, they're always waving to me Like it's it's really amazing. So it's like it's. It's kind of a crazy experience, cause you see like I wouldn't say the worst of people, but you do see kind of a a negative side of people. But then you also see like a really amazing beautiful side of people and that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do get the full spectrum in dealing with this program and I think a lot of the people out there that are very kind to the book people are the people that have, I think, a lot of entrepreneurs, right, people that have been out there hustling and understand the grind and have a deep, deep respect for going out there and pounding the pavement and really, really getting after it. It's funny when you were talking about finding out which homes had children, it gave me a flashback to when I used to walk around with my map and have all the houses, the houses, and I'd have like the names of the kids and I'm like walking around the neighborhood, like I know, I'm like, yeah, I was just talking to Jane next door with little Bobby and then and it's just a wonder that more people didn't call the police on us canvas in the neighborhood asking about children. But no, it works.
Speaker 3:It works. It works. And once people know you know that you've been to all these houses and you know I've sold, I'm sure you've sold chief of police and the mayor and you know all types of names get on your list and you start dropping names with people and they're like those people bought from you and you're like, yes, they bought. And it's like come on in and you, you know, know, sell the bag or whatever. But yeah, it was, uh, it was great, but it was the.
Speaker 3:There were those tough moments and I I allude to like a bunch of them in my book, but one of them is like anytime I meet an alumni, um, we usually always have an experience where you're like really close to quitting and it's like you're probably under a tree. Well, it's the proverbial tree. Sometimes it's not actually tree, but it's the proverbial tree. Sometimes it's not actually a tree, but it's the proverbial tree. You're under the tree and you're crying. You're you're pretty much an adult at this point because you're over 18 and you're crying because it is so hard, it is so hot. All your friends are back home having the summer of their lives, probably, and you're in the middle of nowhere being yelled at and dogs chasing you. Why did I do this? To myself?
Speaker 3:I just want to go home but the uh, all the commitments that you've made, cause they know, they know what the people who are training for this they know they, first of all, they've been through it themselves and second of all, they know you're going to go through it. So they prepare you for that. And it's like you've given your word to so many people. Like I told my mom, I'm not coming home Like I don't care how bad it is, I'm going to stay out here. I may cry every day and never sell anything, but I'm not quitting, and I've told that to my student manager.
Speaker 3:And then you have first you have your own recruits that are out there and it's still not easy just because you've done it before. Sometimes it's harder and it's like you can't quit when you brought people out there. So it's such a tough, tough thing, but you know it really builds character, which is really the product that Southwestern is creating. They're creating people of character that go out into the world and hopefully do amazing things or good things, at least For sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:Speaking of teams, I remember my second summer. I brought out a small team and one of the guys on my team I remember when I recruited him I saw I think it was in Turlington Square handing out those little yellow slips. And I was there with another book guy and we saw this one kid. He just looked like a book stud. He was. He just looked like somebody that'd be good and we both saw him. We were like I, hightailed it.
Speaker 2:I got his information. He came out on my team and he was actually doing pretty well, he was making sales, he was having some good success and he was actually living with me. And probably a month I forgot how long several weeks in a month in he came to me, said I'm leaving, and even though he was doing well, he couldn't handle the rejection. He just I guess he grew up being told yes a lot and the no was killing. I had that conversation with him. I was like you can't, don't run from this now. This is something you need to confront. And he ended up leaving. And then I had other people on the team that weren't doing so well. That stuck it out and it really was for me as well. Just such a transformational experience gave me so much of the groundwork I have now in my life, from going out to sell books. I want to, I want to share with you a funny story about my, my challenges, um, and then maybe you could share one about yours.
Speaker 3:I remember, remember suicide calls where you've already done the demo, done the demo to stay.
Speaker 2:Let's say, a stay-at-home mom forgot to cover the husband objection. Okay, anyway, so my first summer no-transcript. But I showed him everything and she absolutely loved it and I thought it was going to be a sale. And then she's oh, I just got to have my, my husband, check it out. Can you come back later? Could you come back after five? Whatever it was? Oh, yeah, sure I'll come back. This is going to be great. Set up a meeting to come back at five, went about the rest of my day, struggled through that day and then knocked on the door at five and I'll have you guess what happened. What do you think happened?
Speaker 3:Of course I'd be surprised if you made it in the door.
Speaker 2:Yeah, husband answered the door. Hey, we're not like. You didn't even. Let me get a word out. He's like yeah, we're not interested. Let me get a word out. He's like yeah, we're not interested, yeah.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I was. So I remember the feeling of defeat because I had it in my mind you know, rookie sales guy, they love it, of course they're going to buy. I just had it in my mind that this was going to be the same and it just crushed me. And I remember leaving and walked away and I called my mother. I said, mom, I can't do this. This is hard, I don't know what to do. She's like I remember I'll never forget what she told me. She was like, jeremy, you knew this was going to be challenging, you knew this was going to be hard. Just get out there and sell, sell, sell. And Leighton, I tell you, man, it was supposed to motivate me to go actually work, but it did the exact opposite. In that moment it was already the end of the day, or the end of a normal day, right, not for a book day. We should still be working. But I remember walking.
Speaker 2:I think I had another appointment and I walked right by that appointment and there was a little bowling alley, close to where we were staying, and I remember walking just straight to the bowling alley and going to the bar in the bowling alley and trying to drown my sorrows and I drank a bunch of beers but I came out of that evening and out of that night almost renewed I don't know what it was, and I was able to come through that experience and really have a killer summer and get through that fear of rejection and all that. So that was an interesting experience I had. Looking at your journey, was there one experience that you had in that process of really really wanting to call it quits and then you pushed through it?
Speaker 3:I mean, there was definitely a moment. I can't put my finger on it, but I've had a similar moment. I've done suicide demos in my first summer and had the same response as you did and we were both warned not to do that, but we did it anyway because you're like. This one will be different.
Speaker 2:But it never will be different.
Speaker 3:But a weird kind of an interesting story is um, this was in my second summer, so I had a really good first summer and I was off to a great start in my second summer. And, um, I woke up one morning and I forget I know the the areas I sold books in, but I forget the order of of them. But, um, it was a one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen. The sky was, there was not a cloud in the sky, it was perfect. And I woke up that morning and again I had been killed. I killed it my first summer, for a first year, great start to the second summer. I got a crew of people there even my recruits are doing well and and I looked, I was like I'm going to sell so many books today. This is going to be the greatest day in the history of Southwest.
Speaker 2:I'm going to hit the president's club in one day or more with them.
Speaker 3:If I had to put money on it, I would have put money that that was going to happen. So I was so excited so fired up, happen. So I was so excited, so fired up, I went out there and just guns blazing all day, working, working, working. I didn't really do too much in the uh in the morning time like setting up grave or anything like that, but I was out, you know, getting you know pre-approached to know who I'm going to go back to, had all my lists. So pre-approach comes around I mean not gravy comes around. I got all my families lined up. You know, they know I'm coming. I haven't done my demo. It's not suicide calls, but just they have you know mom, dad will be there, they have kids. You know these are legit potential buyers. Line them all up and I'm going going, going in in gravy and it's like I'm not having sold anything yet all day.
Speaker 3:I think I zeroed two times or so in my first summer and I never zeroed in my second summer. We're getting close to the end of the day and it's nine o'clock and I'm still on zero. I'm like what is going on? On zero, I'm like what is going on. So I like I, this is supposed to be the best day ever. Like I, there's got to be. There's a pony story, like you know there's. My pony is in here somewhere. I don't know if your people know about pony stories, but so I'm like, okay, I didn't get it yet, but I know that it's there, I just need to keep working. So 9 30, still on zero, and that it's there. I just need to keep working. So 9.30, still on zero. And now it's getting kind of late and now it's kind of the awkward time of like you knocking on people's door at 9.30 at night. It's like kind of uncomfortable. 10 o'clock, I'm still on zero and I'm like all right, this is my last house. Like it's either this house or nothing.
Speaker 1:So I'm in there and I need the sail. So bad.
Speaker 3:They can feel it, they can smell it on me that I can say exactly and I zero that day, I zero that day and it was a day I should not have zeroed but I did.
Speaker 3:And to this day, anytime I see a cloudless sky, I'm like I prepare myself, like I don't know what this day is going to bring me, but I'm prepared for this to be a very, very challenging day. And my son knows I told him this story and it's true, man, I see cloudless, blue skies, that are just perfect days and I like kind of prepare myself, for I don't know what this day is going to bring, but I'm going to enjoy the beautiful day and if it brings anything crazy, I'm going to be as prepared as I can for it. But that was a really tough day. I went back home and all my guys were like well, how did you do? I was, like you know, built a lot of character today, but I finished up with a relatively good week. It wasn't anything spectacular, but definitely finished up the summer, great summer. That was my last zero day selling books and I had like two summers after that.
Speaker 2:So I bet you learned more about yourself in that day than any other day out there even though you didn't sell anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't. I can't even tell you the day that I had my best day.
Speaker 2:I don't even remember and I know that day was probably the one you remember, the one where you zeroed, where you put 14 hours in and didn't sell a damn thing, didn't sell anything.
Speaker 3:That that day. I'll never forget it and I cherish that day because I've learned so much from that. I'm glad I had that experience and it also kind of ties in a little bit to one of the themes of the book. It's like you kind of got to. It's hard to be on these emotional. When things are great you're just on the top of the world, and when things are horrible you're just super, you know, in a low state. It's kind of better to as much as possible kind of take that through line where you're not on these emotional roller coasters of emotions, because that can really make life a lot harder than it needs to be.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Absolutely, and that's that's one thing for me that I've noticed ever since I turned 40, really in the last four or five years I've been on, I would say, a spiritual journey of self-awareness and self-development, and I think it tends to happen on the North side of 40 for a lot of folks and that's one of the things that I've gotten a lot better at is really bridging the gap between the really highs and the lows. And I still have, you know, we're still human beings, I still I still ride the highs and the lows, but I find myself, um, especially on the low moments, evening out a lot quicker, Whereas in the past something may have happened that I would allow to affect me for hours, sometimes even days, that doesn doesn't really happen anymore. It's more I'm able to kind of catch it in the moment. The things that are deepest, that affect me from childhood, from the longest things, the longest running things, are the ones that tend to trigger me for the longest. But the everyday bullshit that comes up now I'm usually able to look at that and laugh at it and brush it off. So I think that's a good segue to get into the book.
Speaker 2:Right, your happiness equation. So talk a little bit about the impetus behind the book. When did the idea come to you? When did you decide look, I need to write a book specifically about an equation for happiness. I'm interested to get into this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it started from a conversation that I had with my kids. We were sitting around and I was like, because we have all types of crazy conversations and adventures, I've taken them across country.
Speaker 2:How old are your?
Speaker 3:kids. So my oldest one is 17. He's graduating high school right now. He goes to Western. I have a 14-year-old daughter. She goes to West Broward. I have two 13-year-olds One is my stepson and my son, and they also go to school in the area.
Speaker 3:So this was about probably three and a half years ago, yeah, because the book project has been that long. So I'm sitting around, we're talking, we have all types of crazy conversations and I was like, hey, guys, let's uh see if we can come up with an equation for happiness. And they're like they were game because we've we've had, you know, crazy, you know theoretical, sometimes really deep conversations. And they're hanging in there with me and they're throwing out ideas and whatnot. I'm kind of moderating and, um, at the end of it, I look at it and I'm like, man, there's something here, right, and they that we kind of agree. So I like, okay, that that that's interesting. So, um, at the time I was the educational coordinator for my bni chapter, uh, familiar with bni, heard of them, know of them okay, indeed okay so I was.
Speaker 3:I've been in bni for as long as I've owned my business uh, so 13 years I've been in bni. I've been educational coordinator probably seven times, um, so that's 50 times a year doing an educational topic. All right, so this particular week, like a week after I have the conversation with my kids, I have a chance to kind of think a little bit more, read a little bit more kind of polish the equation a little bit more, and I do a presentation in front of my group about the happiness equation and I start my salesman. Because you have to sell that, I mean you're there at a meeting. It can be sometimes our BNI is pretty lively, but business meetings generally can sometimes be boring. So to capture everyone's attention, I say today we're going to talk about the most important equation in the history of humanity, and I'm not joking, that's what I tell them. So like I have their attention right, yeah.
Speaker 3:So then I go through the equation and after almost everybody in the chapter either calls me, texts me, comes up to me and said Leighton, I can't believe you spoke about that. I've been thinking about some of these things, um, some of them open up to me about very personal things. I have pretty close relationships with these people, um, but they were opening up in a way that they had never in the past and it was like kind of blew me away. So I was like man, I probably should do something with this. And three and a half years later, the book we just had a book tour last month. We drove all over the country promoting it, been in the pre-sale process of it now getting the word out. It's been quite the ride, quite amazing and definitely a great experience and I'm glad to have come upon it. But that's the origin story.
Speaker 2:I love it. So go back to when you were with your kids and you mapped out this happiness equation. What did that look like? Because obviously you sat down. I'm trying to picture in my head what a basic framework for happiness. Obviously, you got to get into the book and read all about it to learn more. But, like give give us an overview of of what that looked like. The Genesis of the happiness equation.
Speaker 3:So with the kids again, it was a very rudimentary version, so it was me asking them and me volunteering, like things that I thought were universal, so that. So that's part of the equation is that the things that are in the equation I feel apply to pretty much everyone on the planet. I try to not include any variables in the equation that were like unique, to just like a handful of people or excluded, like millions and millions of people. So everything in there basically applies to everybody on the planet. So I would ask them so, hey guys, what do you guys think would go in there? And they would throw out something. I'm like I don't know. I would think say something I don't know, but then things like gratitude came out. It's like do you think gratitude would be somewhere in the equation? Okay, yeah, we should probably put that there, but where? Where? Where should we put it? So we're all we're having a conversation about, uh, like happiness, but we're also having a conversation about math because, um, we have to determine where in the equation to put it and, depending on where it is in the equation, it's going to have more or less weight. So like, for example, the ultimate position of gratitude gratitude. We ended up putting it as an exponent. I don't know if we did it in that moment, but in the polis version it is. It's an exponent now because I feel gratitude touches all the other variables and it has a way of just igniting happiness and and joy in your life. So we wanted to have a very prominent place for that. Then we talk about other things, like family. But I was like, well, family is tricky because some people have complicated relationships with their family and it's like, does that apply to everybody? And so it was like maybe it's not family, but it's like other people, like a group of people. Like if you have a group of people in your life and you're nurturing that relationship, you're getting something out of it, you're giving and getting something from that. Like that can be an important thing. So that made it into the equation and so on. And a group can be as small as two people. It can be larger, of course, but the American College of Psychology defines a group as two or more people that have shared goals and they have norms and rules on kind of how they operate together. And so if you're in a group with at least two people and that's important to you, I think that can definitely contribute to happiness. So those things. So that's kind of how we came up with the rudimentary version of happiness.
Speaker 3:I also spoke with a lot of people and and read a lot also and it was like man, I overlooked some things that I had to put in. And then we got into the X variable, which is like interesting because the variable is, I mean, the equation is what it is. But I will talk to people and I was looking at I just posted one of the interviews that I did. We were in I think we were at Purdue in Indiana and we're talking to a student and she was awesome because she challenged me. She was like well, all those questions you asked are great, but I get a lot of satisfaction and joy out of art and I'm not I don't think she's like a professional artist and I don't think she was an art major.
Speaker 3:She just liked to do art and I don't discount that at all. I think if that is important to you, then you should nurture and develop that as much as you possibly can. But I would say those fall as like X variables. It's like not universal to everybody, but it's important to you and the same way that you can look at the other variables and get kind of, you know, try and optimize them. You should take your X variable and optimize that as well.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting, because interesting because happiness obviously does mean different things to different people, but, like you alluded to, there are some common variables that transcend everything, like this idea of gratitude, but people have different passions. I think so many people live their whole life without tapping into their true potential. I think every human being, every person on this planet, really really has a potential for greatness locked within them and fortunately, due to many different factors and external factors, internal factors, decisions people end up stuck in the rat race, if you will, working that nine to five job and never really taken the risks necessary to explore themselves to the point where they can tap into that true potential. And it's a shame really, and I'm finally finding that within myself you see the guitar in the background I played. Speaking of art and creativity, I've played the guitar now for 30, probably 30 years, maybe even more, and for the majority of that time I never explored singing, I always just played, and I would play for a couple months and then I'd lose interest and I'd stop playing for a while. And it was like that for pretty much the duration of my musical career, if you will, and over the last several years as I've gone through this spiritual journey of personal growth and development. I've really done a lot of work on myself. I've learned to let the guard down and start expressing myself and really start working hard at getting better at singing and playing while singing. And what I find is that the more work I put into it, like anything else, the more confident I get, the better it starts to sound, the more obsessed I get with it, the more I want to play, and I really haven't put the guitar down now, for like every day it's at least an hour to two hours I'm sitting down just drilling out, practicing singing songs, and I don't even get it.
Speaker 2:I used to tell myself, like the goal of like I want to be, I want to put something out there that's, that's amazing, and become famous and all this, and like none of that shit really matters anymore to me. I mean it does to some degree, because we're humans and we want validation. But I'm getting more and more aligned with the idea of it's just about expressing myself at the deepest level and putting it out there and trying to share that with everyone else. And if, if, what comes out is great and it resonates great. If not, I'm fine with that too. And the more attuned I get with that.
Speaker 2:It seems, the better the music is, the better the creative. The more creative juices, the more divine downloads come to me, the more I let go of expectation and trying to be good and all that bullshit and I just kind of let myself out, and then I think that's where the magic happens. That's where the true genius comes in is when you finally let your guard down and become incredibly vulnerable and just not give a shit about what anybody thinks, and then when those walls come down. I think it alludes to what you said earlier about at your BNI group, when you shared this idea with people about sitting down with your children and talking about the happiness equation and really sharing something so deep, so deep and vulnerable. Making yourself vulnerable helped open everybody else up and they heard that from you. You're like I want more of this and it's just like the law of attraction. You put that out there and people like like, yeah, so I love that man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, it's, it's true, just like any of the other variables in the equation which are universal, like if you started to neglect something like your pursuit of music and your creativity. There, you know it's, that couldn't end up. Um, first of all, it sounds like it's a great source of joy for you, if, if I'm here, it's hard, I'm sure, and, as you know, some of the best things in life are very challenging, uh, to attain, you know, and sometimes they're lifelong pursuits, but the results you get from, from going after it and pursuing it, you know they produce these benefits that are are are kind of priceless. So, yeah, a hundred percent agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, priceless for sure, uh, and, and I still. It's funny because even with all of the effort that I put in and the time and work, I still have a hard time performing for people. And I have a, I have a gold. I want to do an open mic night and I want to make record videos and do all this stuff, but there's still that, that thing within me that that is is holding back from letting it out there, but I'm inching closer and closer and closer.
Speaker 2:I do a lot of, like I said, work on myself, transformational stuff. We do men's retreats. I like doing things like breath work, ice bath, cold therapy, all these different modalities to try to enhance, and when we go on these retreats and we work with plant medicine I've done ayahuasca things to enhance. And when we go on these retreats and we do, we do we work with plant medicine I've done ayahuasca things like that and that's a place for me where I'm able to sit around the fire and really kind of let the guard down and express what's truly inside. And I'm trying to, I'm working towards trying to be that way in every moment in life, towards trying to be that way in every moment in life, and this idea of working towards trying to be the most authentic version of myself possible in every situation.
Speaker 2:It's like what you see is what you get. So many of us go out and we put masks up when we meet people and then we end up getting people in our orbit in our life that really shouldn't be there because we were pretending when we met them. It's like the goal would be to kind of be the most authentic, like whoever I am. If that resonates with you and you want to be around, that great. And if not, then don't. And what you'll find if you do that is that you'll be surrounded by people that appreciate you for who you truly are, and it just feeds off itself right, the more of that you convey, the more authentic you get, and just that's a goal of mine, and I still feel myself in many situations. I feel like I have to have that mask on in social situations, but come a long way in that regard for sure. So you said February 4th, right, the book is being launched.
Speaker 3:Correct, yeah, so go ahead. Yeah, I had written a book prior uh, probably 10 or more years ago and it um, it learned a lot. But one of those things, I built a lot of character. You talk about putting yourself out there on in a creative way and just not knowing what to expect. But that was definitely a character building uh project because it did not go commercially successful and it really didn't have the impact that I wanted it to have.
Speaker 3:Where you know, with this project, of course I want to help people and that is the the genesis of it. But it is good to kind of feel like the validation of people like this. People find value it. It kind of gives you the motivation to keep going and to push through those hard times, because there are hard times and this project has been a lot more expensive than you would probably imagine, like all the things that it takes to make it successful, successful. But it is again one of those things where, if you're putting yourself out there and you're being vulnerable, you're really and the book gets into very I'm very open in the book.
Speaker 3:I'm literally an open book and I talk about pretty much all the formidable things that happened in my life that relate to the variables, and I use things that happened in my life as ways to make points of the things that I've done great that seem to work out and the things that I've done not so good that seem to consistently have like the opposite effect.
Speaker 3:So it's very personal, but I think just in having these conversations with people, the response that I've gotten and people's willingness to open up to me and share things with me and for them, like a lot of times when I have these conversations I can see, even though they haven't read the book because the book is not out yet they're thinking about the things that we talked about and I can just tell and the people that I'm in relationship with, who we do talk. It's not like a person I meet on the street, we do an interview and then they we never see each other again. The people in my life have come to me and said, leighton, that thing that you mentioned, like I've really been working on it and it's really been helping me. So it's been a really amazing experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sounds like it for sure. I was just thinking about. I kind of lost my train of thought. So if it comes back, it comes back. So February 4th, where is the book going to be available? Is it tell us about how we could find it, where we could order a copy? I'm assuming we could pre-order.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ideally, a pre-order would be great. So definitely trying to help people on this project and that's like the main goal, but I'm also trying to uh, you know, get the, the title of best-selling author. I have a lot of other books that I want to write and, um, for a regular guy it's it's really impossible to some degree to break into the world of like literature and get a mainstream publisher who you know will give you a shot, or even a literary agent. But if you've kind of proven yourself on your own, it would potentially open up other doors. So I would encourage anybody, if you like any of the stuff that I said or that we touched on today, I would encourage you to not necessarily wait till the launch date and pre-order the book, just because of the way that the industry is set up. If I have a bunch of sales that land on the first day, it just helps with the algorithm and how they do the metrics for all of that. But beyond all that, if I get it, great. If I don't get it, it's fine. I think I've already touched people and I think it's just the more people that do hear about it is is just going to be impactful for them. But yeah, I would say pre-order.
Speaker 3:The way that you can pre-order is you can go to our website, um, wwwyourhappinesseqcom, so that's our web address, and then our primary social media uh, place place where we post pretty much everything first is Instagram and that's at yourhappinesseq, so check us out at both those places. On the website, there's a link to buy the book. On Instagram, there's a link in the bio to get the book, and I regularly post and a lot of my posts have links to get the book, and right now it's available on Amazon and that's where we're directing people to go. That's where all the links take you to. Is you buy it on Amazon, so it'll be super quick. It's a really quick purchase. Right now it's $11.99 in pre-sale. You to is you buy it on Amazon, so it'll be super quick. It's a really quick purchase. Right now it's $11.99 in pre-sale, so it's really not a bunch of money and I'm not really doing this project to make money per se. Again, it's trying to get the word out, trying to help people and kind of lay the foundation for future projects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, spread the message. I love it. We will, of course, put links in the description to your Instagram page to the pre-order site on Amazon. We're going to make it extremely easy for you guys, if you're interested in picking up a copy, to pre-order. So take the time now. Man, you got one here. I mean, I'm all in on this. I'm really excited to dig in and get a copy and look and learn and get a look inside the mind and all these topics are are are really, really keen on my mind right now, and so I really can't wait to take it in and I hope all you out there listening got something from this today and I hope you go out and you get the book, support Layton and everything he's doing and you know, sounds like it's going to be a really, really good read, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, getting a great response so far and, yeah, it's exciting to see where it'll go and I appreciate you having me on and your support and all that so much appreciated.
Speaker 2:Of course, I'm always, always happy to have a fellow book man on the show. I mean, do so many of these interviews. It's always nice to have somebody that has a shared history and then to see the work that you're doing here and to learn that you're here, local in the community.
Speaker 2:We definitely got to get together go out and have lunch and continue this conversation into the future and, who knows, maybe we'll have you back on the show after the book launches and we'll talk about some of the successes. That'd be awesome. Would really appreciate that. All right man Sounds good. Thanks so much, everyone for tuning in and we will look forward to seeing you next time on the next episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Everyone, take care and stay happy out there. You only got this one life. Let's make the most of it. Everyone, take care, have a wonderful 2025. Catch you next time.
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