In this episode, you’d learn the breathtaking results of a 75-year and $20M study by Harvard on the “Secrets to a Happier Life” and how you can apply it all to your life, your business and your team.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• How to “lead with love” in your business
• The science behind wellbeing, happiness and love
• How “social distancing” has affected your brain (and how to reverse it)
• The research that shows the optimum number of hours of being alone vs being social to feel happy
• How Christine pivoted her business during the global pandemic
• The breathtaking results of a 75-year and $20M study by Harvard on the “Secrets to a Happier Life” and how you can apply it all to your life, your business and your team.

About Christine Martinello

Christine is CEO of Training Solutions Int’l, an international speaker since 1992, and is the best-selling author of 4 books including ‘The Momager (mom & manager) Guide: Empowering Moms to Leave a Loving Legacy‘ and inventor of ‘Original Love Box’ products. She is a thought leader and creative trail blazer who speaks on women’s leadership, life balancing and love.  She has traveled to over 25 countries and taught leaders across the globe.  She has been on countless TV shows & over 300 radio shows.  Christine is a woman who brings more love & sanity into the world and she’ speaks up in real and practical ways. 

If you’re inspired by this episode, I’d love to hear your biggest Aha! moments. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your social media and tag me, @christieturley!

LINKS:

The Original Love Box: http://www.originallovebox.com/

Christine’s Website, Twitter & LinkedIn

Transcript:

Christie:
Hello and welcome to today’s Mind Muse Podcast. I’m your host Christie Turley. And today I’m speaking with Christine Martinello about Pivoting and Business, and Leading with Love. She’ll be talking to us about the science behind wellbeing, as well as how social distancing has affected. And in essence, rewired, our brains are and how to go about reversing it. We’ll also talk about how Christine pivoted her business during the global pandemic and the breathtaking results of a 75 year and $20 million study by Harvard about the Secrets to a Happier Life.

Christie:
Now Christine is CEO of Training Solutions Int international. She’s an international speaker since 1992. And she’s the best selling author of four books, including The Momager mom and manage your Guide Empowering Moms to Leave a Loving Legacy and she’s the inventor of the Original Love Box, which is an awesome invention that she created, that she will be sharing with us today. She is a thought leader, a trailblazer, and I can tell you, she has a heart of gold, and this woman is on fire. She is committed to bringing more love and sanity into the world in real and practical ways.

Christie:
So let’s go ahead and dive into today’s episode. Alright, welcome to the show. Christine

Christine:
Hi. It’s good to see you. Christie

Christie:
Good to see you too. All right. Well, let’s dive in. So you are the creator, as I mentioned in the intro, the creator of this Love box. So in, and you have so many other really cool things going on in your business. So let’s start out, like tell us a little bit about the why behind this Love box and why you fell in love with this concept,

Christine:
Right? Sure. Well, I fell in love with the whole concept of actually spreading Love when I, well, I mean, I’ve always been sort of more of a romantic, but when I had children, I had three small children and actually I was grocery shopping one day and a large department, and it was around right before Christmas time. And I was, it just a thought, went through my head and it was, what can I give my kids to show them how much I love them? And I was thinking, Oh, it would be, you know, I mean, I was looking at all the toys and I thought, you know what, in years from now, those gifts are just going to be in a big pile in the closet and you know, what is really going to be meaningful for them years later.

Christine:
So I went home and I told my husband about that question. I said, you know, how can we give our kids this Christmas to show him how much we love him? And we just talked about it. And, you know, we said, let’s just write and read love notes to them. And so on Christmas Eve, we let it candles. We had chocolate just to set the whole mood for a real loving kind of Knight. And we did that. We all wrote love notes to everyone else. We put them in a box and then we pass the box around everywhere. We read them out loud to each other. And you know, Christie, I mean, it was like this force field of Love went through around the room and people say, Oh, you really mean that. And we were hugging and kissing when you hand person they’re a love note.

Christine:
And it just was really the most beautiful, peaceful, loving night of our family’s year. And so we just did it that Christmas and did it the next Christmas Eve. And we did it for 15 years before I created the product. So through those years, as I was speaking all over the world and around the holidays, when people would say, Oh, the holidays are so commercialized. I said, Oh, I got to try this Love box tradition. It is awesome. And so people would try it and they’d come back to me and say, you know what? That was amazing. It unified our family. Oh, we laughed. And we cried. And, and Moms of course love to have an Love notes from their kids at different ages and stages, but they all said, it just like gave them this expression of how much they really did love each other.

Christine:
So fast forward, 15 years that year in my dad had been living with us. He had cancer. My mom and dad both moved in with us and I, and I had my three now teenagers. And basically we, my dad actually passed away in, in April of that year. And then in may, as we were going through all this stuff in my son’s room, we opened a drawer. And then there was a whole pile of his love notes in a corner of one of his dresser drawers. And it just like struck me here. It is all those years later. And those love notes were like just a sacred little, you know, thing of love and his tour.

Christine:
And he said, I want to take some of these love notes and put them in my wallet. So when I go up to college, I can read them over and over again. And it just really struck me that 15 years later, that is what ended up being, what showed them, how much they loved, you know, we loved them and he had them from us, from my mom and dad, from aunts and uncles and, you know, friends, whoever spent Christmas Eve with us, we all expressed our love. And so when I realized how powerful that was, and people have been saying to me for years, can you make the product, can you make, make a Love box, write a book about the Love box? And I can say it, no, no, no, because I was doing a corporate training, but then I really, after my dad passed in those Love nodes who were in my son’s wallet, I just really thought long and hard about how meaningful it was.

Christine:
And so I thought, my gosh, this gave us an expression of our love. Plus as a mom to have those love notes for my kids from the time they were really, the youngest was three, when he just like drew pictures of me and I was snow all around us. I mean, we have a physical expression of our love every year, you know, three, four, five fast forward up until 19. And now there are 25 and will do what every year since. And so it really is this amazing, powerful expression of love. And I see that that set a foundation of how we could express love in our family. So we don’t just say, I love you. And then that’s it it’s I love you because your gift to me, because, and it, you know, we really are a very affectionate family, but then we also really know what everyone else’s gifts and talents are.

Christine:
So we appreciate the differences of other people. So it really, I think gave us a fuller expression of love in our family and blessed us so much. And I wanted to bless other people with that,

Christie:
But it’s so lovely. You know, I couldn’t help thinking while you were talking, like, why was this so magical? You know why for each member of the family and my mind went to the book, five, love languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. And you really incorporated all five of those languages, probably without even thinking about it, but that the, the top one, his words of affirmation write and acts of service. I mean, just writing the love note is an active service in itself touch. So you said you were hugging and kissing,

Christine:
Right? Because you, after you read the Love note, you hand it to the other person and then everyone hugs. I mean, my boys, my daughter, I mean, yeah. And K and hugged for a long time. It’s like, yeah. So it’s the physical touch, which is one of my tough love, love languages. Yeah.

Christie:
Yeah. You got to have a quality time. Is it four or five? I feel like I’m missing one to four. I think the missing one is quality time. Physical touch. Oh, Oh, of course, totally. What that is to say, this is so brilliant. It fed each person and your family, not only that, but it’s like, they can look back at it like a scrapbook, you know? And like, I think that that’s one of the best things that we can do as humans is, is when we receive a compliment, like write it down so that we’re having it. When we’re having a bad day, you know, that we have this file to go through or testimonials for your business.

Christie:
It’s like, it, it can really like pump up your, your just sense of wellbeing and enthusiasm. And you remember like, you know, your talents and your gifts, and also like people you’ve helped. And all of a sudden now that gives you more energy you to do more of that. And so this, yeah, this is amazing. So now you’ve taken this to the business world.

Christine:
Yes. And I just want to add, we know that Love box right there is, this is Christine on it. That’s my personal one. Each of the kids have their own that they would keep them underneath the bed or taking it away to school are now in their own apartment. And so there is the Love box, their, and yet you said, Christie actually, you can just put all your lug nuts in it. Then you opened, you opened it up and you read them again. And again and again. So now people use it from birth to death and that’s actually my personal one. So it has Business Love notes that other people who have written to me, and of course I write Love notes to other clients of people that I worked with in coaching clients. And you know, now, gosh, just today, you know, when we launched the love and hope for health, hero’s the digital Love note.

Christine:
So now we moved in to the digital world. And actually today we did a Love renovation for one of the local hospitals break room. And so we put Love box stations at six different tables. And so when the Love from the, when the law, when the health heroes get their breaks, they can go to that room and they can write a love notes to their family, their friends, their colleagues, their, you know, people that they work with. Because while we dropped off over 700 Love notes, the people that people in the community wrote to them to thank them. I also want them to be able to thank and appreciate everyone.

Christine:
They work with everyone. They play with the people that are at home that are sacrificing for them. People, you know, their patients. So doctors or nurses can write them to the patients. People are that are cleaning. I met M two of the guys that are with, I’m thinking of the Marines, but Oh gosh, I forget their name right now. But to have the guys who I’m the president, it sends them in, I’m having a little slip, half of the national guard or the national guard. I met two gentlemen from the national guard today and they said they were going to take Love notes and send some home to their mom’s ’cause they, you know, they don’t get to see their moms very often. And it’s just amazing.

Christine:
I mean, wow. You know? Yeah. So people use it really from birth to death and your imagination is the only barrier too, where you can use a Love box. So while we created it for our family and that way, I mean, businesses, real estate brokers use it a lot to be able to write love notes, to, you know, the clients give the Love boxes to people when they have a new home, you know, because that’s a term, a new tradition. They can start in their new home and then the real estate agent puts her his or her card, just write in the front flap. And then, you know, you can bet that that person remembers that agent, you know, they have a tradition that they’re doing every year and then people use it for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings.

Christine:
Everybody writes a love note to the couple. I mean, it goes on and on.

Christie:
Yeah. I love how you mentioned it’s from birth to death because, you know, I could see people using this as like a baby shower gift or when the child turns one. And like, and I, I actually did a little time capsule for my child when she was first born. And it, it was like a, at age one, you know, now we’re going to put this in and open it when she’s 18. Like we were all the things that, that, you know, the grandparents remember. And, and hopefully the grandparents are still here at age 18, you know, that it’s in the box. And I w and I’m imagining like out a funeral or something, someone could put these memories and a box.

Christie:
I can also see it, like, mastermind’s, you know, fur kind of like a building of, of team, you know, like much like in a corporate environment with the team. But if you think of a mastermind and the members within, as friends and colleagues and deepening those bonds, and for those of you who didn’t see, cause you’re on audio, go to YouTube, go to my YouTube channel and look up this interview so that you can see the box. It’s so beautiful and so clever. And so these, these health notes, I mean, what is a great idea for our community surface?

Christie:
We’re in the middle of COVID-19 right now. And, you know, we’ve got the flyovers of the blue angels happening, you know, and all of these shout outs to the, to the health heroes, are you having people, or can people donate a box to their local hospital? Or what, what are you doing there with the service?

Christine:
Yes, we are doing it. So we, yes, we created these digital Love notes. I think you can see it they’re, you know, with the gold heart, because they have hearts of gold and then the stethoscope around it. And then I don’t know if you can see Christie, but there’s actually within the heart, which is our logo. There. There’s another heart because when you love someone, they’re heart is part of your heart, you know, like in your, in the United. So I really loved how our graphic designer designed that because it really is. Capture’s the multiple levels of Love there that we’re doing definitely. Oh my gosh. You know, as, as far as acts of service with this, people can go to Original Love Box dot com and right on the front page, they can just scroll down.

Christine:
They will see this love note for health heroes, just press on it. And they can customize and personalize their very own Love note to any health hero anywhere in the world. Basically it’s a PDF that’s editable, and then they could just type their message in and save it and shoot it off. So it’s, that’s totally free. That’s totally my give back to the health heroes that are just working tirelessly for us. And, and so anybody could do that. And then if you scroll down on a page, there is a donate button. So actually right now M at for $20, we are giving them 30 Love notes and the Love box.

Christine:
So you can adopt a nurse, a doctor, a healthcare worker, and either I can, you know, ship it to them. And if they want to drop it off to their local hospital, or we have over 1400 employees here in where I am in Brasil to in Georgia. And if we have alliances right now, actually with 207 hospitals and medical facilities, like I know

Christie:
That’s amazing. That is awesome. Christie

Christine:
I mean, let me just add as a business owner, this all came about during COVID. So from two weeks time, we went from someone challenging me, you saying, gosh, you know, wanting to make a digital Love note. And I had said no many years for that, because I just love the, I love to see someone’s hand writing and I love to actually give them a physical note, but somebody can, you know,

Christie:
Then the, the box, the packaging, like the physicality of it too. Yeah.

Christine:
Yeah. It’s so beautiful. So, yes. So right now anybody can do that. And I would love for us to, you know, I have, I think 1200 Love boxes in my garage right now. I’d love to give all those away.

Christie:
That’s amazing. So talk, so on our last conversation, before this podcast, a recording, you were talking a little bit to me about some of the science of, of well-being or the science of this, the Love, you know, can you, can we talk a little bit about that? And you can even mention something that was so intriguing to me, like what this social distancing has done to our brains. Right. And how do we, I mean, the, the new neural pathways have been created, right. And we’ll probably see the effects of that for a while.

Christie:
How can we go about reversing it? Is there a way to do that? So, so tell, talk to me about all that.

Christine:
Yes, definitely. So I took a course through Yale. It was called the ESS. It is called the science of wellbeing. And basically what we looked at through that course is for you to feel well for you to feel happy for you to feel, you know, just fulfilled, what does it take? And happiness or wellbeing is very much like the analogy that the professor shared that I really liked is that it’s like a bicycle pump that is blowing up a bicycle tire. And so, you know, you’re a continually putting imprints into your mind, body and soul imprints, and basically you continually put imprints and then it comes out with weather.

Christine:
You feel well, weather, you feel, if there’s not enough, you feel depressed. And, and there are all kinds of surveys that you can take. But basically what happens is we are we’re, we’d been designed as social creatures. Okay. So one of the top five indicators for happiness and wellbeing is social connection. We are not made to live in isolation for a long time. I mean, babies that are in isolation have severe problems. I mean it imprints. So yes, we can definitely and should be connecting. So when we say social distancing, you know, we want to be safe and you know, where our masks and do everything that we need to do, but we need to be social.

Christine:
Okay. Social distancing, not isolated, distancing, it’s social distancing. So, so if you want

Christie:
It should’ve been called physical distancing. I don’t do social distancing cars. That just, it makes it sound like we’re going to be antisocial now. Right. You’re going to talk to anybody. And I know, you know, at the beginning,

Christine:
Training I just was like, well, that means I’m staying in my house. I’m not seeing anybody I’m going to do anything. Well, that does not work for me at all. I mean, and it doesn’t work for any of us. I mean, it, I think it’s easier for introverts and extroverts because we have different kinds of personality needs, but we definitely want to be social. And so, you know, of course, through zoom and through M groups and through calling people, you know, I think that there’s different levels, but we definitely want to continually connect. And in the science showed that people, and I don’t have the exact numbers, but I can, it’s an estimate right now, I’d have to go back to my exact notes, but it was like people that are more than 5.6, it was either 5.4 or 5.6 hours a day alone are much more unhappy than people that are alone up to three hours a day.

Christine:
So we have, we were not made to be alone for more than really five point whatever hours a day that is. So we really need to socially connect. And of course, before we did it easily, you see someone at Starbucks in the drive-through and you go to the grocery store. And now of course we are doing everything, you know, so much more digitally, but we really need to make an effort. You know, maybe you’re maybe you are getting together for a happy hour with friends, and you’re making sure that you all have your chairs 10 feet apart, you know, but you should still be socially connected. And I play golf and my friends and I are golfing every Wednesday.

Christine:
And we had, we came up with rules before the LPGA did, and they had to follow our rules, but our rules where, you know, one person, two a cart. So, and then we would stay 10 feet away. Nobody touches the flag, nobody touches the ball, but we would do virtual high fives. It was

Christie:

Christine:
Isn’t that a great shot or whatever. So, you know, we would do virtual high fives and, you know, in the air we’d high five, each other be in at least five feet apart. And then of course it is so fun. And every time I’m after in, in mother nature feeling, you know, just taking down the stress level of being in nature for a long time and then being with my girlfriends, I mean, that is just really important for my mental health. And I think we all need to really be thinking about our physical health and balancing our mental health off because we can go down fast if we don’t really make an effort to be social.

Christie:
Yeah. It is so true. And I would even throw in there too, having zoom meetings. I mean, we typically think of them as a business tool, you know, but I’ve seen in my neighborhood, actually, people getting on zoom, like they’re not even working Moms is just like the Moms in the neighborhood getting on, you know what I mean? Like we have so much diversity. We have working moms, we have non working moms, but I’m just saying like it, its becoming a tool, a personal use, a tool, not just for business.

Christine:
Yeah. Yes. I had a couple of times where I got together with different friends all over the country and we’ve played games via zoom on Saturday night and I have this little disco ball and I put out and we were dancing on it. I mean, it really does help us feel like we’re socially connected even though we’re not physically connected, we can still be, be socially connected.

Christie:
Yeah. That’s great. Well, to talk, talk to me a little bit about the Business scenario. I know that you do a lot of trainings and workshops for businesses. Now, what kind of, what kind of impact or what’s the ROI of being more connected at work or doing some of these teams? You know, so-called team building activities, you know, you either love or hate that word, right? Or it’s there’s cake in a conference room. Talk to me about the science behind this. Why w w you know, why is this important creating a better culture and, you know, showing, showing love to your employees right?

Christie:
Your time,

Christine:
Right? I’ll share with you a study. It’s a 75 year study. It’s called the Harvard, hold on a second. And I wrote down in the exact name Harvard grant study. So this study, we started in 1938. And in what they did was they were looking for the Secrets to a life. Okay. And so what we know is that happy employees that have a meaningful connection with people at work are retained longer. They’re better, a more productive employees, and they basically will feel so like productivity is one thing, but then do a better job.

Christine:
Like people that feel socially connected are happier and better employees for the longterm. And this is, this is going to be an important, it is important because M people will switch employees and employers because they’re not happy with the people that they work with, you know, rarely do I see people that switch workplace is because of the work. It’s typically the people. Now, of course it is a combination of the two, but I’ve seen a lot more people that don’t like their bosses or feel like there are being taken advantage of. And, and I think long after COBIT is over, we’re going to remember how did people treat us during this time?

Christine:
Don’t you Christie? A hundred percent. Yes. So let me tell you about the study, because I think it’s fascinating. So they looked at the Secrets to a Happier Life. So for 75 years, they looked at this in 2012, they came out with the findings. They looked at everything, diet, exercise, location of where people live their jobs. If they had powerful jobs, John F. Kennedy, actually, it was even one of the people that was in this study. And so basically the findings for this, Dr. George Vaillant was the name of the researcher that kept it. And he said, I will boil this whole study down.

Christine:
And it was $20 million for this study, big study to five words, happiness is Love Full stop. We spend so much time chasing Money, Houses, success, things that quite honestly, when you have enough, like the mesial heart rate hierarchy of needs, once you reach that basic need of, I have enough. And actually even in the studies for average, each American, it’s about $75,000. Now, of course, it depends on where you live, California and New York, that wouldn’t work, but, you know, I’m on average $75,000. So I think we have to wrestle with, and we have the opportunity with now how much is enough, how much money is enough because when we have our basic needs met and then a little bit enough to stay at St in the future, or do nice things, buy a nice gifts for our family, there is no quantifiable happiness that goes above the hat.

Christine:
So say you make $250,000 a year. Our minds actually will trick us into thinking wherever we are. We need to go to that next level. So it, it did show up in the science to people that made a a a hundred thousand than I thought they would be much happier when they made 250,000 a year. They weren’t. And of course we see also when people win the lottery, those people In, they get, they lose their money mostly, and they really are not quantified. They are actually less happy. So we really have to look at what brings us happiness. And so it is those loving relationships it’s having meaning and flow.

Christine:
And so when I think about Love, you know, we’re not talking about just romantic love. That’s like one of many levels of Love, you know, I’ve learned that you can love on so many different levels. And when I talk about creating a fulfilling life, because I do education programs on two things, how to have a loving family, how to create a loving family and then how to create a Loving life. And so when we were looking at the wholeness of your life, you want to think about having work, that you love, having people that you love at work, all those create a very strong, meaningful connections in your mind and in your spirit. And that ultimately, like, when you think about at the end of the day, you know, like at the end of your life that you’re looking back, that one book is called the M top 10 regrets, regrets of the dying.

Christine:
Have you heard of that book? No. Yeah. Excellent book. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that we learned how to truly live when we understand that we’re only going to be here for a short time. Like we’re here for a limited time only. And yeah. And so the number one regret is I regret that I did not live my fulfilling, like my fulfilling life, what I was created to do here. So that’s creating a life is like a work list that you love and relationships that you love. Number three is that you didn’t express really express your feelings. Love in what you truly wanted and with who you were.

Christine:
So, I mean, it’s really important for us to think about how can I create a loving, happy life, not how can I be successful because the successful come. But even if you don’t have a huge levels of success, you will be, you will be happy. And the goal is to have a happy, loving life. You know, those Loving imprints that you Leave with, everyone in your life are what really matters.

Christie:
Yeah, it’s so true. And I would even add to that list of Love for yourself, not, not in a selfish way, but I mean, some of us really pick our selves apart, or we don’t appreciate ourselves. We put ourselves last and, you know, one insight that I’ve had in my life, his, you know, you can only love someone else as much as you love yourself. You know, there was someone famous ones that said, you know, love one another as yourselves, you know, and what does that really mean? It means you’ve got to love yourself to increase your capacity, to love others.

Christie:
And when you’re coming from that healthy sense of love for yourself, you have more confidence. You will make different choices in your career and your business. You will, you know, look with more appreciation and gratitude for the people in your life. And I feel like it’s much easier to access what your purpose is and what your mission is when you are practicing love and compassion and, and applying that in your life for yourself, not just others. Right?

Christine:
Absolutely. And I’d also add love, compassion and forgiveness. Yes. Yes. You know, I totally agree with you. Christie I think that, especially as women, and especially as a mom, I have three kids in three and a half years, and, you know, I wouldn’t put their needs.

Christie:
We did two kids in two and a half years. So almost the same, but not really. What are we thinking? I know. All right. Well, now that they’re all 20 somethings. It’s awesome. Christie

Christine:
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that we have to put ourselves in the Mo in the mix and the more I like to think of it as the more I actually spend time with my own self love and self care, mind, body, and spirit, the more I have to give to my family. And in the more I have just to be joyful as supposed to be cranky and resentful, you know, like if we’re continually giving to others and we don’t have ourselves in the mix, then we feel resentful. So it is this balancing act of really spending time, you know, getting to know what it is.

Christine:
I think, what do you want? That’s a big question. And then really affirming. One of the courses I did in my recreate your life Ceres is, you know, like setting the affirmation of looking at all your strengths and then continually affirming who you are. So one of my top strengths, and have you ever done the via character survey? No. Oh my God.

Christie:
The other thing Christie, it’s got the Yale course on well-being. Yeah. So many good things. Yeah. This is all good. This is good to be.

Christine:
And this is called the via character survey. And basically what it is is you get to take this questionnaire and it will give you your top 24 strengths. And so once you know your strengths, you work in that lane, you’re more fulfilled. You’re more, Happier more successful your, because you’re doing what naturally comes to you. And then of course we learn as we go along, but the learning is even better. ’cause you want to do it? So it’s funny because I took this last year and I found out my top 24 strengths, but my top three number one was creativity.

Christine:
And I knew that I was creating all these new words, mom, and your mom manager. And I, you know, as I have been growing my career, I keep doing all these creative things. But if you had asked me two years ago, are you creative? I would of said, Oh, Oh no. Cause I don’t do arts and crafts kind of thing. But this is more along the line of you creatively or innovatively, look at things which I’ve done that for 26 years. Right. And so, yeah, and I started my business based on being creative. Like I couldn’t do it mainstream. So I was like, well, I’ll just start in myself then, you know? So anyway,

Christie:
The way that I feel that way, I feel it, sorry, I feel that we really are all creative. Yeah. Because we have this creative life force, like humans are born to create, they really are. And it does not mean being artistic or being in the performance arts. Like that’s not what it means at all. So yeah. I mean, I think when you’re not creating, if you’re shutting down that creative life force or that, that urge to create, I had a guest on, I believe it was Gina Paris. She’s talking about that. If your not creatively expressing you can easily become depressed.

Christine:
I totally agree. Yeah. And then when you do create, you create something outside of your self, that is an expression of yourself, which makes you feel so amazing. Yeah.

Christie:
Yeah. So yeah, this sounds very similar to Clifton StrengthsFinder and that, so they basically organized all of these patterns are saw patterns and, you know, thousands of people and they created these top 34 signature themes that all humans have just, you know, how does it show up in a more dominant way in your life? And you take the test and you can get your top five and then you can even pay a little extra and then see, you know, I think it’s interesting to see what your bottom five or your bottom tenant and, you know, but it sounds really similar.

Christine:
You can ask your husband and he’d probably tell you it, you know,

Christie:
Like they probably,

Christine:
And one of my bottom ones was organization. And I know that just walking to my office that, you know, so it is, is good to know those things because then I farm that out. I hire organizers, I hire VA’s to help me like, yes, like we are no, one’s perfect. And we all do, we do, we have these different character strengths and it is super neat to see what they are and then to be able to just grow in the fullness of that. Because when we look at Loving your life and loving yourself, you’re honoring, you know, I think who God created you to be, you know, like we’re all so different. And while we’re all creative, you know, I’m the only one that created the original box on the planet.

Christine:
Right. So, you know, and I just thought that that was a little questions that popped into my head and then a little answer that we did, and then it kept growing and growing and growing. So I’m sure every person has something like that in their life.

Christie:
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And M, yeah, I think it is so important to know who we are and also who are not, because I think that just, as you were explaining before about chasing the external thinking that we’re going to find happiness in and chasing all these external things like money or success or the house or the car, and really we’re just filling a void we’re avoiding going within. And we are not those things. We or not, you know, the money in our bank account, we are not our title or our, the groups we belong to or the status that we have.

Christie:
That’s not who we are, but it’s easy to confuse the two, you know, and, and looking at it from the perspective of a character traits or talents or strengths, I think that is coming from a sense of being, you know, and when you are creative, what are the things that you do? You know, what are the things that you have when you’re a creative, instead of the other way around where we were like, well, I’ve got the house, I’ve got the cars, therefore I’m this, and that’s totally backwards, right?

Christine:
Yes, totally. I agree. A hundred percent. And I think that, you know, for me personally, it’s like, I graduated college in the Knight and the eighties, and there was all of this status. Like, you know, you’ll want the house, you want the car. It was just, we were sold, I think a bill of goods of what would bring us happiness. And I got all of those things and I still felt a void. So, so that was, I think, God knocking and calling and saying, yeah, you have things, but w who are you? You know, who are you going to be in this world? And one of the quotes that I, you know, Shakespeare said to thine own self, be true, which I love that quote.

Christine:
And one time I was doing a national tour, a national speaking tour on my first book. And this one reporter asked me this question. She said, well, if you could give one piece of advice, what would it be? And I was like, Oh gosh, like, that’s like picking your favorite child. You know what I mean?

Christie:
Yes.

Christine:
But, you know, I re I thought about it long and hard, and I really thought it’s about being true to you and having fun to, you know, being true to you is about what do I love and who was I created to be in the world and growing in that, whether it’s gardening or creating art or creating anything, you know, or just do an incredible job Training or do you want to podcast that people can, you know, really relate to it? It’s like everyone has different gifts and talents. And when we connect with that and grow in the love of who we are, then we just become more and more that we can give to the world. Yeah.

Christie:
I love that. So tell us Christine how can people learn more about you? M give us the link to your Love box again, as well as your training solution company. And then go ahead and end us on a final thought your final wisdom for today. Maybe you had it. Maybe you have the second one, but go ahead and end us on a high note.

Christine:
Okay. Well, people can be in touch with me at two websites. There’s Original, Love Box dot com. That’s how you can get started with the Love box and the tradition, or giving it to your health heroes or whoever you want. And then if you want to contact me for training or any events, I’d love to be in touch with you, and you can go to Christine Martinello dot com and that’s what a ch Christine Martinello. Alright, so the final words,

Christie:
It’s exciting, no pressure. Think of something big,

Christine:
You know what? I’m gonna leave you with the story. And I alluded earlier to how my dad and mom lived with me while my dad was sick with cancer for a year. And I interviewed my dad every Sunday as an Italian family. We always had Sunday night dinner, and I would put the video cameras on, in the corner of the room. And we, I would just ask him questions and he shared his life story and we’d laugh. We cry, but I really listened to his story. And he was an immigrant from Italy. And one of the questions I asked him was dad, if you have one piece of advice to Leave with me or with your grandkids, what would it be?

Christine:
And it actually makes me emotional thinking about this. And he’s been gone for many years, but he said, you know, Christine love everything. He said, love your family and love yourself, love your work, love your community, love everything. And so I’ll leave you with that because I think that was a huge revelation to me. And when I think about, you know, everything I do now, I just try to do it from a perspective of love. I am by no means perfect. None of us are, but the question that I ask myself every day is, you know, and that I want people, you and anyone to ask is how can I love and serve?

Christine:
And then do that. And another thing I think about is when I’m in a transition phase, you know, we are in a huge transition phase. What should I do with my business next? What should I do with my kids next? Or what the question I always like to think about is what is the next Loving thing that I can do. And then do that. Thank you so much for Christine. And that was a beautiful, thank you. Christie this was a great, great time together, and I’m delighted to be able to share. I hope that your listeners to not feel all of the love that we have for them and just, just can grow in love.

I hope so, too. Thank you.