Welcome back to the podcast where we ask the question, what makes you happy?

Our guest today is a young entrepreneur who loves to help people with their personal growth and educate others about the deaf community. Our guest has been deaf since the age of four and has recently launched their book Every Day I Am Just Deaf. Please welcome author, life coach and speaker, Kellina Powell from Toronto, Canada. How are you today? And welcome to what makes you happy.

Thank you so much for having me today. I'm excited. Oh my God, I love this. I love it. What makes me happy today, honestly, in general, be able to be able to hear, and a lot of people are not grateful for the little things. And so what makes me happy is able to be able to hear with my hearing aid and also be able to help people in terms of making an impact on the younger generation, especially with my bug and speaking to different people. And that's what makes me happy.

I love that. And you've got such a unique story that it might give people, like, how are you on this podcast? Sort of thing. If you're deaf, do you mind? Is that too personal to share? That personal part of the story. Could you go into that a little bit? And how you manage that?

To those who are wondering, I have a hearing aid, so it helps rule fear. So it's like a bluetooth connected to my hearing, literally like an earpot, if you think about it that way. And also too, sometimes I actually have closed caption on my computer so I can read the words like one by one to have a conversation.

Beautiful. So besides being able to hear that gives you happiness, is there anything else in your life that brings you joy and happiness?

I would say maybe reading a book to young generation. The reason for that is because I was able to connect with the younger generation and also too with people in my community to really connect with me. And that lightness they have when they see that page or even when they're reading, they're like, I been through the exact same thing. So that lightness, the joy that I'm being given to someone able to give them the opportunity to say that they are not alone and that's something that bring me joy.

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. And What Makes you happy, Kellina, what would your advice be to those listening right now or those reading or watching who are struggling to find what makes them happy?

Take a piece of paper, write down everything that makes you happy, and write things that doesn't make you happy. The reason why I would say that, because it's very important to visualize what makes you happy and what makes you not happy, because you have a better understanding what you need to work on.

And once you have that paper written out, you're able to crash something that you don't want in your life again. And if you want, like, I was like my client, burn the paper, burn it, light it up, burn it so you can feel that release.

There's a lot of strength in writing down your strengths, your weaknesses, things that make you happy versus things that make you unhappy, because it's that visualization, right? Because then you're committing pen to paper.

You're taking ownership of those feelings or that feeling of happiness and the things that make you unhappy. And it just gives you a bit more clarity, would you say? Yeah, and definitely I would say it's super hard to find out. And also, too, it all comes down to honesty.

A lot of time, a lot of people have difficulty being honest. Like for me, I was super afraid to cut my friend off because I didn't realize how much negativity they were putting into. And you have to really tell yourself, you know what? I have to do this for myself.

Because at the end of the day, your life matters more than anybody else. And that's something that a lot of us struggle with till this day to really says, I deserve more. I am worth more.

So you really have to pull yourself together and really be honest. And that's the most important thing. Yeah, I really, really agree, being honest with yourself.

And if you're listening to this podcast, watching, reading, however you are, when was the last time that you were honest to yourself? And we'll leave it at that. Kellina, thank you so much for sharing all things that make you happy. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you here today.