52. Bright colors and mismatched patterns, with Meg Kissack

Meg talks about puppies, bright colors, and how being her authentic self makes her happy.

Show Notes

• Meg is the host of the Couragemakers podcast and the author of That Hummingbird Life, the online home for unconventional, creative and multi-passionate misfits who have so much great shit to give the world but so much self doubt standing in the way.
• She is a trained laugh yoga coach. She claims it’s as bizarre as it sounds; the idea is that laughter has so many benefits for the body that we forget—”it just gets ridiculous!”
• Dogs make Meg ridiculously happy—she can’t have one at the moment, so goes on walks to see them. Ferry lights, fluffy llama pen, colorful things, deep conversations on the meaning of life, stationery, bright colors, mismatched, dance like nobody’s watching—there’s no holding back!–loud music, country music, anything that makes Meg wiggle her legs. These are her every-day, superficial sources of happiness.
• For Meg, true happiness comes from a place of living genuinely, being authentic and giving herself the space and permission to be herself and how her true self. Genuineness and silliness are big aspects of Meg’s happiness—silliness needs to be reclaimed.
• Meg makes a difference between the superficial and deeper sources of happiness, because the former are high energy and inconsistent, you can’t sustain them, but the deeper sources are more long-term and sustainable. She makes a difference between the instant happiness with longer-term joy.
• Meg also thinks about what values and how they affect happiness. Some people might seem happy on the outside, but their core values aren’t being met so they are not really happy.
• Authenticity leads to deep conversation. We are afraid to show our true selves because we’ll be judged, but showing our true selves is what leads to authentic conversations, not the curated things we show online that are meant to make you happy. Meg has evaluated how she comes off authentically and vulnerably.
• New country music makes Meg happy—not the old stuff like Garth Brooks. Anything with a banjo makes Meg happy. There are several subcultures for it, and it’s bigger in the US but it’s becoming a bigger thing in Europe. Meg balances her love of country music with her love of the rapper Macklemore. Her favorite country music artist is Cam.
• When Meg was 12, she found a dog magazine and decided that if she made puppy faces and brought the magazine along, her dad would get her a dog—he said no because he refused to pick up dog poop, so she never got a dog. Later in life, she had a mental breakdown, and googled how to take care of it, and she found out that dogs were helpful, so her love for dogs was rekindled.
• There’s so much shit in the world, and we need to be reminded that there is hope. Bright colors do this for Meg—she’s always liked to dress in mismatched colors and patterns, despite external comments. Color are a metaphor that everything is a little bit more possible; show up, be yourself, and put out the good shit out in the world.
• Meg and Bernardo had a lengthy conversation on wearing bright patterns versus bright solids.
• Being her true self makes Meg happy. She’s discovered herself over time; for example, she’s always thought she was an extrovert, but realized she’s not. As a result, Meg to adapt because now she knows she is an introvert. In her discoveries, she’s realized that she needs to live honestly and do what works for her. For a while, she tried to be as perfect as possible that she lost herself, but she learned she needed to take stock and figure out what she wanted to do with her life, to do what she is really meant to do to be happy. Once she gave herself time to explore all the things that make her happy—beyond all the “important things”—she discovered her love for puppies, and country music, and all the little things that make a difference in making her happy.
• “Working for yourself can seem as glitz and glamour on the outside, but it’s hard to see all the hard work that goes into it”.
  It wouldn’t take a lot to make Meg happy; she wants to be ambitious and create a big vision, but all she needs in daily life to be happy is so small. Dream happiness would be spending the day with Mr. Meg, in their own place, with dogs, and bright colors, being able to do the work she loves.