EPISODE GREG CREECH – Finding Joy Everywhere

My name is Lin and I’m the founder of the Canadian School of Laughter Yoga and of the Haha sisterhood. Welcome in the Joy Element, the Feelgood podcast that will inspire you. Hopefully it will. Today’s episode is sponsored by the YouTube channel for Le. You can find a multitude of videos there to inspire you, help you to smile, to laugh, to relax, and just be in a better state of mind.

Subscribe to our channel and enjoy the videos. Okay. Meet Greg Creach. Not only is he a computer expert, a real techie would say he is the president of, okay, let me say this slowly, tech attainment. Tech Entertainment Services,  and the name of his company, gives you a pretty good idea of the joyful energy he has.

He describes himself as the Zoomer Boomer. He has written over 15 books on the Microsoft Office Suite, and you will not be surprised to hear that he’s an actor and comedian. Now, that’s a person who understand that we learn better when programs are combined with fun and pleasure. That’s his style. Here’s Greg’s joy element.

Hello, Greg. Hello, Linda. . You guys, you have no idea like this, this person here next to me, he is a fantastic person. And we met for the first time 12 months ago. Yes. Um, so I don’t know when this episode is going to air, but we met in June 18. Mm-hmm. , uh, at a conference in Toronto and we just clicked. We connected because he’s full of life and joy and yes, he.

Spark, uh, that you want, you want your friends to be like him, so you want to be friends with him. , thank you. How much I owe you ? Nothing. Nothing. . Okay. So Craig, uh, you welcome to the Joy app. Thank you. Welcome to the Joy Element. So darling, what? Oh, I’m sorry. I called you darling. That’s all right. We love terms end endearment honey, so dear.

Okay, so darling, the first question I ask people is what you, what do you do when you’re, because you two are traveling a lot, you’re working with. Many types of groups and many situations cuz your focus is, well what I’ve known you for was like the Microsoft expert on many, many things now. Technology. Yep.

Yes. And now you’re working with balancing life and work. Yes. Is that the title of your presentation here? Um, the Great Balancing Act, work Life in You. Oh, oh, balancing off. Great. So you see it’s even more complete and not falling off the balance. Very important, very important. . Yeah. So what do you do when you’re stressed out?

Because we are all stressed out at some point, except for Rhonda, who just, yes, spoke with us. But what do you do to just relax and bring yourself in a more calm state or. Just, uh, what do you do to unwind? Well, there’s several things. First of all, I’m a person of faith. Mm-hmm. . I think that’s very important for me and I think for people that regardless of your religious denomination, um, , uh, people of faith have a deeper sense of joy.

They have more resilience than people that are not of a faith. So I really celebrate my spirituality. Mm-hmm.  that helps above all else is being a person of faith. Again, I’m not gonna go into Christianity, a Muslim or Jewish or whatever, but people should have a faith and believe in. Power and share that spirituality with each other.

And so when I’m stressed, I just remember that old saying, I am too blessed to be stressed. And I look at the priorities of my life, and at that moment, yes, I’m feeling stressed and I don’t deny it. However, there’s a higher calling, there’s something bigger. And I think people of faith have a deep. An abiding joy that cannot have any explanation.

There is that peace that passes all understanding. So that’s how, and I think there’s three phases for me in dealing with stress. One is pressure. So if you’ve got a deadline, you’ve got a pro, you’ve got the complete, you should have some pressure. . If you procrastinate on that, then the pressure becomes stress and has caused stress management because we’re all gonna experience stress is how do you manage that stress?

But then I’ve had times that were at the end of the rope and that is burnout. I realized when I worked for Corporate America, I had been a compensation manager for over 12 years. My whole role was satisfying other people with their salary commission. So after 12 years of doing a really great job, I. I lost purpose, and so I was devoting a lot of time, a lot of energy, which is okay, but then when you experience stress, you’re not able to enjoy yourself and you lose your sense of purpose.

Mm-hmm.  that my purpose is yeah, joy and I could not find any joy. So that’s how I. Deal with it and through nature. I live in a beautiful village called Pine Lake, so I can walk around the lake and I have you go there to connect. I have absolutely no electronic devices.  at all. It’s not allowed for me to walk around the lake and to experience beautiful nature with wetlands.

When you’re in nature. Mm-hmm. . Okay. No electronic devices can go with me to the lake. It’s a, a law in my book that you go to experience nature, pray, develop your spirituality, and look at the beautiful lake and go swimming and running and enjoying that. So they don’t bring your phone with you to take pictures of mm-hmm.

A sunset or, well, I can, but that’s, Mm. Because I can go see the sunset, say what a beautiful sunset, go home and come right back within two minutes. Oh, that’s the . So it’s not like I have a big walk. All right. So I only, I live 0.2 mile from the lake, so, okay, so that’s a difference then. Exactly. So you unplugged from technology, what you’re walking around the lake being Microsoft Officered and doing a lot of technology training.

Mm-hmm. , the last thing I want to sit end of the day is a computer. I’ve had enough screen. . It’s now for sky time. That’s good. Go look at the sky’s good. Yeah. Go get the moon and enjoy the nature. That’s good. So that’s a very great, like, it’s a perfect way to unwind and just mm-hmm.  de-stress a bit because Exactly.

Then you’re focusing on breathing and what you see around you. So it’s, you’re mindful of things that are surrounding you and this, this spirituality is giving, like, I like the, the thing that you said about like, I’m too blessed to be stress. Right. I’m too blessed to be stressed. Yes. Because even if it’s not, like, it’s not a question of religion, not at all.

Right. It’s just a question of consciousness. Exactly. Yeah. And that’s important. So is it the same thing when you feel like, today I feel a bit of sadness, or I have the blues, or I’m not so cheerful today, so what could I do to cheer myself up? So is this the same thing you do? Yes. But. I realized my purpose, my purpose in life is joy.

Mm-hmm. , it’s always bring to bring others joy. That’s my purpose. When I’ve had low times and I talked to friends, I was going through a difficult time. I was talking to my sister and I said, you know, I just don’t have any joy. I, there’s no joy. I’m sad. I, I’m, I’ve got the blues in my sister. . She said, Greg, you can’t do that.

You are the joy generator. You gotta generate this joy. I, you know where it comes from. You go get joy because that’s your purpose. That is why God created you, is to bring joy. So you gotta bring joy. And so when my sister said that, I said, okay, no more blues, no more depression or anything like that. My purpose and my reason for living is.

Yeah. That’s the nature of our heart. Hopefully Linda, we’ve known each other for over a year now. Hopefully that comes across. It’s not like, yeah, okay. Oh, this person is so, my God, he’s horrible. Ooh, . He is, he’s beyond stress. He’s mean and nasty. I hope that when you see me, the smile and Yeah. Just the way I love to be, be, do we want people to get from us?

Exactly. It’s very imp like, because when someone is dressed and, and, uh, bitter. Like we don’t resonate with that as much. Exactly. And the problem is that when people see other joyful people, their green eye monster, they get jealous about how can they be like that? How can they be happy? How can they be joyful, nasty place?

How can you do that? They just haven’t found, because this is the nature of our heart. It’s the nature of our heart to be joyful. Yes, joy is there. So that’s what you do, but people don’t seek it. So, nah, I think that it’s like we have an expression in French, so if you want to have fudge, you have to make it yourself.

You have to make some because nobody’s gonna make it for you. Mm-hmm . So it’s the same thing for joy. Yeah. We’re just nodding right now. You can’t see that.   affirmations, we affirm each other . Be careful with that one. But we are affirm affirmation

Well, thank you. And the laughter. Don’t we love laughter? Oh yeah. Linda, can I ask you a question? Sure. Do you laugh for absolute no reason I, that’s what I do. I laugh for no reason. And we can we do the, the cow . , yes. Laughing for absolutely no reason. Being silly. Yeah, for nothing. I’ll be walking around the.

Something will strike me and I’ll just start laughing. I’ll have neighbors that are a mile away and they say, Greg, I could tell you’re at the late today. I heard you laughing.  . Well, you see this is, this is one thing, like don’t take yourself so seriously. It helps on every inch and every level. Mm-hmm. , you can’t, you can’t be that stressed when you don’t take yourself seriously.

You can’t be that. Sad or upset or bitter or angry when you’re, when you don’t take yourself seriously. Exactly. And I, Linda, I bet you like me, if you act serious, if you take your se self, you’re gonna do something so stupid. You’re gonna trip, you’re gonna be so ungrateful, graceful. You’re gonna say something just loud on your mouth and Oh,

Yeah. You might take yourself serious, but you’re gonna be humbled. Okay. Oh yeah, . Oh yeah. It’s bound to happen. It is. As it is. Like, what is it? Disaster in in, in making. In the making. Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you so much, Karen. Oh, no. Thank you, Linda, too. It’s a real joy, pleasure. It is, isn’t it? With you, and thank you guys for listening.

I’m going to give all the details about where they can find you and, okay, and where is your beautiful material and your beautiful next book, . All righty. Thank you, Linda. Thank you,

Thank you for listening. If you’d like to know more about our programs, services, retreats, trainings, and all sorts of tools to bring more laughter and joy in your life, visit us@www.yoga julie.com and for the women’s laughing@hahasisterhood.com. Until next time, keep smiling and laughing.

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