These Strategies will help you Change your Mindset during COVID-19

And have a mindset that things will pick up eventually and things will get back to normal. And also they should actually utilize this time that they have to figure out strategies to remarket and rebrand themselves once the situation does improve.

Mental health is a very real concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. Welcome to Marc Haine Live! I'm your host Marc Haine. And I have to be honest with you. This is not live. We had some scheduling conflicts and I had a really good presenter today to come in. And I didn't want to lose the opportunity to speak to our presenter today. So, we decided that instead of going live, we would tape it and then just release it on the Tuesday.

Tuesday.

I think that's probably the easiest thing and the best way for us to be able to get good value from our speaker. You know, healthcare workers and frontline employees are feeling the grind that is really created by the sheer volume and the workload which they're undergoing. The hospital workers, people in grocery stores, they just seem to be going, going, going, going. While on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have entrepreneurs and small businesses who along with their employees are homebound, They're feeling stress. They're feeling the stress of isolation. They're feeling the financial stress. And ultimately, they're wondering where their next paycheck is going to be coming from. Joining me today is happiness expert and founder of Mission Happiness Today, Arjun Chowdhury. Arjun is an Amazon number 1 bestselling author with an extensive resume. He is, my goodness, he is an inspirational speaker.

Thank you.

He's a success coach. He's an engineer. And he's a corporate trainer. He works with organizations, educational institutions, and communities who want to build strategies on mindset and build success habits that will inspire them to unleash their inner greatness and share it with the world. So, without further ado, and I really shouldn't use that, please welcome Arjun Chaudhary. Arjun, how are you today?

Good. And yourself, Marc?

Doing really well. You know, it's really an honor to have you on this broadcast with me because ultimately, what I'm looking for is I do deal with a lot of entrepreneurs. I deal with a lot of small business owners and their employees. And I know that this is a really, really stressful time. And I know that you have been for at least a year been doing little video snippets called Mission Happiness. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about what that project was all about?

Well, firstly, Marc, thank you for having me here. It's an honor to be here on your show here. So, thank you very much for that. So, Mission Happiness started about a year ago where essentially, I wanted to start inspiring people and give them mindset strategies and success habits which would allow them to unlock their potential. let them to be the best versions of themselves and really enjoy life and make the best of what their life is. So I release a video every— essentially every Sunday and like share it with— on my LinkedIn, on my Facebook. And I'm very happy with the response that it's received. And I'm just happy to share whatever I've learned from my mentors and coaches in the past with the world.

Very cool. So I mean, you are in the same boat with the rest of us. Right? The COVID-19 pandemic is in full swing. A lot of people are isolated. Some people are working. Some people aren't. How are you handling the social distancing and the isolation?

So, what I'm handling, the way I'm handling, Marc, is I'm just trying to keep myself busy each day. I'm setting new goals for myself. I'm watching a lot of inspirational videos online and learning new skills such that when this situation does resolve and things do do get back to somewhat normal, I have used this time to build that knowledge and build that skill set which will come in handy when the situation does improve.

Wow! That's pretty cool. And I don't think right now in this day and age, I don't think that we are shy of any kind of inspirational videos or ways to be able to keep us busy. I just read an article that said that more people are picking up music now in the last 30 days than have done in ages. And people are just finding ways to pick up new hobbies and such. I did see that there was an article in the Edmonton Journal this past Saturday talking about single people and mental wellness. What, if anything, can you offer to people who are single, who are stuck at home? They can't go out to see their family. Can't go out to see their friends. They really feel isolated. What are— can you offer any kind of advice to single people?

Well, one of the advices I would give, Marc, is try to sort of set goals for yourself because the human mind decides that it needs something to look forward to each day. You should wake up each morning and know exactly what you want to do that particular day. So having those goals in mind gives you something to look forward to, makes life interesting. And eventually, when you meet those goals, it will give you a sense of accomplishment, which will give you positivity, happiness, and more encouragement to pursue goals in the future as well.

Okay, so when should the goals be written? Like, are you talking about like long-term goals? Are you talking about short-term goals? What kind of goals are you talking about?

I'm talking about Just both short-term and long-term goals. You've got to start off first with short-term goals, and eventually when you accomplish them, then you sort of work on your long-term goals. It's essentially you have like a 5-year plan, and then you break that down into each year what you want to accomplish, essentially.

Mm-hmm.

And then as far as working on those goals, when do you work on them? Well, you sit down in a quiet place, And you really figure out what you want to do with your life going forward. And once you have figured that out, figured out your why, in fact, what's your why? What's your purpose in life? Then, you establish those goals in a piece of paper because without a piece of— without goals being written, it's not really goals.

Right. There's actually some psychological research that was done that said that when you write something, you tie what you're writing directly to your brain. Which was a really interesting way to put it. One of the things that I coached one of my colleagues recently and I said, if you wake up in the morning and you don't have a goal of what you want to accomplish, you're going to be wallowing in an ocean of options. And so, what I suggested she do is the night before, she sits down. She actually writes, tomorrow, this is what I need to be doing. And I find what happens in that particular case is that you wake up in the morning And you already have goals set out so you can get up and get going rather than get up and wallow. Exactly, exactly.

The other thing I would recommend is for those who are not avid readers to take up reading a habit because I wasn't an avid reader when I was young. My dad was an avid reader and he always used to tell me, Arjun, read, read. He had so many books in his bookshelf but I never listened to him. Now, for the last couple of days when I've been reading, I've realized how much it has changed my life. Because believe it or not, books can be some of our greatest mentors. So, I would encourage people to read a variety of genres to build that knowledge in them so that they can share that knowledge eventually with somebody else.

Right, right. No, and again, I'm an avid reader. But the thing is it's not necessarily any particular focus. Read everything. Read fiction. Read nonfiction. Immerse your brain into different types of things. And all of a sudden, your creativity will also come out as well. Yeah, it's interesting.

Absolutely.

The stress of being isolated, the stress of being alone is one thing. But then, we have the stress of first responders, the stress of essential workers. I opened this segment by talking about how healthcare workers, Just seem to be going, going, going. From one day to the next, they don't know when they're going to get their next rest. What are some of the things that you can suggest for first responders and essential workers who might be feeling the burden of having all that on their shoulders throughout this whole pandemic crisis?

So, let's just take the example of healthcare workers, Marc. So now, With the current situation, their their their sort of duties and responsibilities and the workload has doubled tripled as as they have to take care of more patients. So I would say that they have to adapt a mindset especially especially right now of gratitude because a lot of people have lost their jobs, but they they still have their jobs, and they should wake up each morning and say I'm grateful that I still have my job, and I have have something to look forward to and go to, and they and they should say that. My performance in my job can directly impact and get us one step closer to the elimination and reduction of this pandemic. So, let's just go to work with a positive frame of mind and eradicate this pandemic.

Right. But there's also that fear, right? That fear that I'm going to go to work today and I potentially could catch the COVID-19 myself and I myself will be ill. So, there's that stress as well.

Absolutely. I agree. I agree with that. And I mean, there are a lot of precautions that they can take. For example, wearing masks and the necessary protective equipment that can prevent them from getting this. But definitely, that fear is there. But having that positive frame of mind and that mindset will eliminate that fear or reduce that fear to a certain extent.

Very cool. And of course, then, you know, I really love your message. You seem to be a very uplifting kind of guy. You seem to really have a focus towards this idea of look for the silver lining. And I know at this time, in this date, time, and age where entrepreneurs have been sitting now for over 30 days with some of their stores closed or limited operations, they are worried about how they're going to pay their rent, how they're going to deal with their landlords, how they're going to deal with their employees. who are sitting at home now waiting for unemployment checks to come and so on. That stress in itself is challenging. Do you have any feedback for entrepreneurs and business owners?

Well, I would say the entrepreneurs and business owners should consider this situation just as a temporary setback and have a mindset that things will pick up eventually and things will get back to normal. And also, they should actually utilize this time that they have to to figure out strategies to remarket and rebrand themselves once situation does improve. Because what may have worked in the past before this pandemic hit us may not necessarily work after things come back to normal. So they should utilize this time to read various business books and rebrand and find out different market strategies. So that's one thing that they should do. And as far as the finances is concerned, I do understand that the Government of Canada is providing some certain financial assistance to small business owners. So they should definitely make use of that, that assistance. And then as far as their employees is concerned, I would say is to continue to maintain relationships with those, with their employees through like online weekly meetings. Because if you maintain those relationships, when you do reopen your business, those employees would come back to you because you maintain those positive relationships.

Right, right. Well, if you're just joining us now, I am interviewing Mission Happiness Today founder Arjun Chowdhury. Arjun, we've talked about entrepreneurs. We've talked about essential workers and the essential workers and the first responders. We've talked about single people, employees that have been laid off. I guess a lot of what you've been talking about now can apply What advice would you give to people who are right now not working and who are stuck at home waiting for their unemployment cheques?

Yeah, so what I'd like to sort of recommend to the people who have recently been unemployed is to firstly be grateful that you will be getting the insurance, employment insurance from the government and assistance. to continue to maintain relationships with your former employer and former bosses. Because once again, the situations will improve. And if you continue to maintain that positive relationship, you may have the opportunity to be called back to the same organization.

Right.

So that's, that's the other thing. Now, if there are certain companies, different companies that you want to work for in the future, and you figured out those companies, nothing is stopping you from building those new relationships by connecting with them through LinkedIn, especially recruitment professionals in those companies or certain hiring managers in those companies. build those relationships and potentially request online informational interviews from them, which will be an opportunity to sort of know more about their company, their culture, and also for them to gauge your qualifications and your skill set. So there's nothing stopping you from building those new relationships. The other— sorry, go ahead.

You want to say something? No, go on.

The other thing I wanted to say is that Also try to incorporate, try to build a side hustle in your life. Because for example, ask yourself, is there like a passion of yours or do you have a particular strength which can be used to change people's lives? You know, that can benefit society. If your passion, if something that you're good at in your skill set can do that, then your skill set can be converted into a business and a side hustle.

Sure.

So, do think of that.

Yeah, you know, I don't really agree with the term side hustle. I think it has a negative connotation. But I know exactly what you're talking about. There's lots of studies that say people who have hobbies actually do better in their jobs because of the focus and the skill sets provided by their hobbies, right? And now, I think probably the biggest crime, and you're probably going to agree with me on this, probably the biggest crime that people can do right now is to say, Absolutely.

I know actually recently a statistic was released by Netflix that over the first quarter of 2020, there are— the number of subscribers on Netflix has gone up by 15.8 million. And that happened mostly after the pandemic hit us. So a lot of people are watching Netflix. I mean, I have nothing wrong against people not watching Netflix. Yeah, I agree. For sure, you can watch it once or twice a week, but don't watch it every single day. Instead of utilizing your time to watch Netflix, like maybe read a book, you know, watch an educational video or learn a new language. So I'm a big believer of continuously grooming and growing yourself.

And now, like you mentioned at the beginning, you mentioned looking at inspirational videos, at learning videos. There's so much information on YouTube right now. You add to that that there's the MOOCs, the Massive Online Courses that are given free of charge from all the different universities. Somebody just posted this morning on LinkedIn. I saw that they ended up getting a Hospitality and Food Service certificate for a free online course that was given out from a university here in Canada. That was— they did it over the course of the last 6 weeks and they got a certificate that they now can post on their wall and add it to their resume. So, it's a great opportunity I think for people to be able to say, hey, what is it I would really love to do 5 years from now? And then, take steps now while you're on unemployment, while you're waiting to get rehired to learn something new.

Absolutely. And essentially, what you're doing is just building a resume each day by learning something new and making yourself stand out.

Yeah. Arjun, this has been some wonderful insight. Again, I always look at you. I can't help whenever I see you. I have to smile because you are such a ray of positivity. But before we wrap up, I know that you've just published your very first book. And on the day of its release, it skyrocketed to number 1 on Amazon. Can you tell us a little bit about your book?

Thank you, Marc, for those kind words. So yeah, I recently released my debut book, ebook in fact called Smile Your Way to Success. And what this book talks about is essentially the positive impact on the various— positive impact of humor on the various aspects of life such as your mindset, your relationships, your career and workplace, your health. So, and the book basically has my personal stories, celebrity success stories, and strategies that you can incorporate in your life which will get you to success.

Oh, that's so awesome. I did take the opportunity. I did take the opportunity to read your book. I thought it was wonderfully uplifting. I love that you had a mix of your personal stories in there. You had a mix of celebrity stories in there. You had a mix of how to apply the learning of the things that you're teaching in your book, which I thought was a really great way to kind of format the book and take your way through it because one thing that's absolutely perfectly clear is that we are not alone. We are not the only ones who are going through issues. And the way that your book is outlined, you kind of go through the facts of this, the theories that you're teaching. You go through celebrity stories about how hard they had it and how they overcame it. And I just thought it was a really great book. And again, It's available on Amazon right now as an ebook?

Yes, it is.

And so, when will the print version be coming out?

So, the print version, Marc, I'm currently working on it and it's going to be released in the summer of 2020.

In the summer of 2020. So, a couple of months from now.

That's right.

So, now I know what you're doing in the middle of this pandemic.

I'm keeping myself busy with the paperback version of Nice.

Nice. And will that also be available on Amazon?

Yes, it will be available on Amazon. In fact, I actually have an offer for all your viewers. If they actually go ahead and purchase the ebook that is currently available on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca and read the entire ebook and then give a review on the book either on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca and Send me a message. I will give them a complimentary copy of the paperback version in the summer of 2020 and it'll be delivered to their home.

Oh, nice! Oh, that's really generous. Yeah.

Oh, that's awesome.

So, what I would recommend people do is a lot of times when people leave reviews, they'll go because we're in Canada. They'll go to amazon.ca to leave a review. I would also suggest that if people are going to go and take the time to write a review on amazon.ca, that they copy and paste it on the amazon.com site as well. It just takes a few extra minutes but it makes a world of difference because then, the books will hit internationally. And they'll be marketed a little bit stronger south of the border as well. So, Arjun, if people needed to get a hold of you, if somebody wanted to pick your brain, somebody needs a conversation with you just to help pick them up, How can I get a hold of you?

Well, you can reach me by going through my website, which is www.missionhappinesstoday.com, which also has my email in there, which is arjun@missionhappinesstoday.com. And I'm happy to chat with anyone.

Nice. Well, thank you very much. And Arjun, again, thank you so much for doing this with us today. I know that your schedule is super tight, and that's the reason why we couldn't do the Facebook Live or the YouTube Live version of this. But I really appreciate that on a Sunday that you're able to set some time aside so we can do this. It has been an absolute pleasure talking with you today. And please, please, please, we need the positivity that you exude each and every day. So, please don't stop.

Hey Marc, it's been an absolutely honor being, you know, doing this. And I thank you. Thank you for your time and for, you know, for allowing me to have a conversation with you. And I just want to end by saying that, you know what, stay happy, stay healthy, and remember, happiness is the key to success.

Terrific, Arjun. Thank you so much. So if you want to, I will put my offer out there as well. I have every video I've mentioned the fact that I am home alone. I do have a lot of extra time on my hands. If you're an entrepreneur, or a business owner who would like to get together and just brainstorm 30 minutes. If you just want to take 30 minutes and brainstorm some strategies for you and your business and your team, I encourage you to get on to book a time with me. You can go onto my website at marchaine.com or you can email marc@marchaine.com and drop me a line and just say that you If you'd like to get together with me for 30 minutes, I won't— it's— this is all about you. I promise, promise, promise this is absolutely free. I promise I am not going to sell a thing. This is you time. This is a way for me to be able to give back as well. And I know you've probably heard that a trillion times, that the minute you get on the call, it's like sell, sell, sell. But I promise this is nothing but my willingness to be able to work with you for 30 minutes. Brainstorm some strategies and see what you can accomplish with that. My name is Marc Haine. You've been watching Marc Haine Live. And the only reason why I called it that is I can't think of a better name to call it. But Marc Haine Live, I am your host Marc Haine. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you got a lot out of this. And again, another special thanks to Arjun Chowdhury for blessing us with his mindset.

Thank you. of happiness.

My name is Marc Haine.