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August 4, 2025 • 22 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It has been said, success is never owned, It's only rented,
and the rent is due every day. Success and happiness
are similar in this way. They both require ongoing effort.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to the Public Library Podcast. Sorry, here's your host
and podcast librarian award winning poet, future bestselling author, and
host of one of the most listened to radio shows
in America, Helen Little.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hello, book lovers, Welcome to another episode of the Public
Library Podcast Today. My guess is Layton Campbell. You know,
I was reading this book in public, your Happiness Equation.
I was reading it in public and everybody's like, Oh, I.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Like that name, Layton.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
So many people commented on your first name. Is that
something you've experienced just out of curiosity?

Speaker 5 (00:45):
I have. So.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
My background's Jamaican and so of course there's a heavy
British influence, and Layton is an English name, so it's
kind of a unique name, but it's not like a
weird name at the same time. Yeah, so I have
gotten a lot of comments on it over the years.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
Anyway, what your book is about?

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, so my book is about happiness, of course, and
it started out of a conversation that I had with
my children. This was around COVID time, and I could
just tell that their mood was off, their affect was off,
and I can see that they were kind of struggling
with like their happiness. So I wanted to talk to
them about it, but I didn't want to give them

(01:26):
a lecture.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I was like, here goes dad again talking about the
stuff that I talk about kind of a thing. So
I was like, let me just take a more like
not a direct path with them on it. So I
was like, hey, guys, let's see if we can come
up with an equation to measure happiness. And they were game,
and you know, we started talking and they've thrown out ideas.

(01:47):
I'm kind of quarterbacking the conversation and so on, and
then there's maybe thirty minute conversation. I look down at
what I have at the end of it and I'm like,
this is actually there's something here. Maybe I don't know,
but it looks like there may be something here. So
it was very rudimentary. It was very very first version
of your happiness equation. But at the time, I was

(02:09):
in a business networking group and I was the educational coordinator.
So every week we had to bring an educational topic
to the group for three to four minutes and present
an idea to help in business life, anything just to
help edify, you know, the members and so on. So
I take that week and I polish up the equation,
do more research and stuff. It's still rudimentary, but I

(02:30):
present it to my group of like forty business professionals
and Helen. Almost all of them come up to me,
They call me, text me, email me, and tell me
how impactful it was to them. And after that experience,
I was like, maybe I need to do something with it.
And three and a half years later of research and
editing and all of that, then that's kind of how

(02:51):
the book came to life.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
That's wonderful. So this was basically motivated from a conversation
with your kids and tell us how you came up
with the actual equation. So because there is an actual equation,
and I'm not a math person, but okay, I tried
to do it in my head.

Speaker 5 (03:09):
Yeah, it's hard, it's all.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Let me go to the website.

Speaker 5 (03:12):
The website is much easier.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
So the way that it worked was I wanted to
first come up with variables that impact happiness, and then
once I had all the variables, in place. Then I
would create an equation to wait things some thing's heavier
than others, and just put it in a way together
in a way that made sense. Now, the disclaimer is

(03:36):
is that the equation isn't so important and the score
isn't so important. What's really important are the variables that
go into it, and that is really this is an
opportunity for people to think about things that they maybe
don't normally think about, and to talk about things that
they normally don't think about. So in the conversation with
the kids, they came up with certain ideas that impact happiness.

(04:01):
For example, they said family is really important, like family,
You got to have family because you know, in their worldview,
that's what they think, right, And I said, not everybody
has family, Like can someone who doesn't have family be happy?

Speaker 5 (04:16):
They're like, yeah, yeah, sure someone.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
They didn't think about it, but as I jogged their
memory and kind of like push them a little bit,
they're like, yeah, yeah, sure they don't. Yeah, if they
didn't have family, they could still be happy. But I
think they would need to have other people in their life,
regardless of they're family or not. I was like, yeah,
I agree with that. So I was like, it's not
so much about family, it's about being part of meaningful groups.

(04:39):
And they're like, yeah, that's it. So that's an example
of how a variable comes to life.

Speaker 5 (04:44):
It's like from.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Different sources, from that initial conversation and then other research
and study afterward, and then kind of really polishing it
because I wanted to make sure that I didn't include
a variable that excluded millions of people, right, And I argue, no,
one's really, you know, given me a significant challenge to
this yet, but I argue that the seven things that

(05:08):
I put in the equation are universal to everyone on
the planet.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
I especially thought it was interesting, how I mean, just
jumping way way ahead to purpose, and you're like, everybody
may not have a purpose, but if you have one here,
if you don't have one, here, so I could tell
you had put a great.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
Degree of thought into that.

Speaker 5 (05:27):
I did.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
My score was ninety seven.

Speaker 5 (05:29):
By the way, Oh congrats, you're better than me.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Well, as I was reading you like I'm a naturally
happy person, I am too, But I felt like this
is such a great blueprint for someone who doesn't have that.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
I'll call it a.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Gift, gift of natural happiness or optimism, and I do
believe it's important as an optimist.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
To be very aware of people.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Who aren't and not to present my version of happiness
to them because they don't always want.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
To hear it.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Now I have something I can present, a tool, so
to speak. One of my favorite lines, okay and the
book was there are no finish lines, primarily because that's.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Something I had to learn in my life.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Explain that in relationship to happiness.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, it's one of those things. With happiness, a lot
of people sometimes feel like, you know, there's this one
thing that I can do, this one thing that I
can get, this one thing that I can experience, that
after I get to experience that, I will have arrived
at this fictitious place of happiness that I can now

(06:48):
focus my attention on other things. And that is completely
not how it works. I learned nothing in life works
that way, Nothing of value in life works that way.
If it's in important and if it's valuable, it requires
constant effort to maintain.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, basically, and you mentioned earlier about groups. There is
plenty of real estate in your book dedicated to the
importance of groups and belonging. I love that in my
life I refer to them sometimes as communities. I've been
recently cultivating a more connected community with other writers, and

(07:25):
to be honest, it's been so rewarding of for a
long time, I felt like that's a place I want
to be.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
I'm on the outside, I'm not really a writer. I
want to be writer.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
But I changed my perspective on that and immediately became
a part of the group. But one thing that stood
out to me was what you wrote about groups. If
you seek to be a part of a group, you
must do what the group does, especially.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
The hard parts, exactly I did. But tell us how
that's connected to happiness.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
So it's connected to happiness because group. Being in a
group is important. So that's like the foundation of this concept. So, okay,
a group is important to you as the group member,
not to anyone else, not to other group members, but you,
as a group member, this group is important to you, okay.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
Perfect. So what I found over.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
The years and through my reading research, my own experience,
is that to really be part of a group, you
have to do the things that are difficult that relate
to the group. If you are part of a group
but you don't experience the difficulty you will always be perceived.

Speaker 5 (08:30):
As an outsider.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
And the only way to really be brought into the group,
brought into the fold completely, is when other group members
see that you have done the things that they have
done and you can really understand them when they talk
about their struggles and the things that they had to overcome.
You know, you can relate to them on that level.
So with that in mind, like people don't necessarily go

(08:55):
through life like thinking about, okay, well, it's important to
belong to a group. Maybe on an intuitor level, Somewhere
deep inside of them, they know that maybe they don't
want to be alone, maybe there's something that's calling them
to a group, which I think that is natural, But
I don't think a lot of people think intentionally what
does it mean to be a group member? And how
do I become the best group member that I can?

(09:17):
And this concept of okay, this group is important to me.
Am I just someone on the outside, or am I
like a core member? And if you want to be
a core member, you have to look at the difficult
things that they do and you have to jump in
and do those things.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Also, did the a word or a phrase? I'm hearing
a lot now the epidemic of loneliness. Did the epidemic
of loneliness have anything to do with you writing this book?

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Also, if I could have anything like that, this book
is a result produces something, it would be a contribution
to that effort. Because there's a lot of people out
there talking about loneliness and the fact that we're become
more isolated largely because of technology. And I talk about
technology and how that impacts all of it and we

(10:05):
can't really stop it. It's just the reality of our
world now. But if people can say, oh, yes, I'm
going to be on technology because it's hard or impossible
not to be, but I'm going to make sure that
I carve out a part of my life to be
with other people in a physical way. I think that
would be a huge contribution to society. If I can

(10:29):
encourage a lot of people. Are one person, and I've
already encouraged clearly many people I'm encouraged, Well, thank you, huh.
But the bigger the better. And I know a lot
of other people are working on that. But yeah, that's
a huge thing.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Gratitude and relationship to happiness. It starts with the little things,
meaning the things we may not often think about, and
that part just touched me. One.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
I'm one of those people who likes to pay attention
to the little things.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
I might have something to do with my last name,
but I have a sign in my house that says,
have gratitude for the little things.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
Oh wow, that's awesome. I like it.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
But I love this list of reasonings just to be
thankful for this book because when you're reading this, and
it's like when you're reading anything, you probably don't think
of these. Being alive to read it, having a sound
mind to analyze the info, functioning eyes to read the words,
ability to hear and listen to an audiobook, the trees
this one. I love the trees from which the book

(11:28):
was made. Who thinks about that? But that is one
of the little things that brings gratitude. Obviously, I've always
thought that gratitude and happiness go hand in hand. But
tell us about it from the equation perspective in your book.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
So gratitude is important in the layout of the equation,
like I mentioned before, is like, okay, I have to
wait certain things. Certain things have a higher weight than others.
Gratitude has the largest weight and the equation and The
reason is, in my opinion, is because it has the

(12:05):
ability to impact every other variable. So the very first
question is are your basic human needs being met? Now,
someone that lives in the West, are parts of the East,
they're just you know, maybe affluent people or they middle class,
or their basic needs are met. They may answer that
question and say, Okay, yeah, what's the next question? It's

(12:28):
like pause, like wait, can we just sit there for
a second. How many people alive today can't say yes
to that question? How many people from the beginning of
the humanity to now could never say yes to that question?
And we can say yes to that questions. Some of
us can say yes to that question so easily and

(12:49):
readily and move on to the next. But no faults
of anyone, But just maybe take that for granted in
the moment. That is huge, And then you take gratitude
and you look at all the other variables and it
has the ability just to ignite every single one.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
So that's why another thing that kind of piggybacks off
of that. Givers gain joy comes from helping others. Clearly,
and I've had friends, you know, going through tough times
and I'm like, if you're instead of like sitting in it,
go do something for someone else. It will change your perspective.
And I saw that you had that in there as well.

(13:27):
I also noticed that you are an avid reader. You
mentioned so many books that impacted your life. What are
you reading now?

Speaker 5 (13:34):
What am I reading now? Well?

Speaker 1 (13:35):
The book I just finished is a very popular book.
And I'm out there, you know, presenting and promoting my book.
And there's a book that everywhere I go.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
Book you're talking about? You read it?

Speaker 5 (13:46):
I read it? Let them theory. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
So the woman beside me on the train yesterday had
it and she told me she's loving it. And I'm like,
all right, I'm going to break down and get this
book because I have seen it everywhere.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
I've seen it everywhere, and you know, there's a there's
an element of like, okay, how does a person get
to the point where everybody has seen this book? So
it was like, let me jump into it. So I did.
So I read the book. It was really good and
I enjoyed it. So that was and it's it's a
not a small book, it's not, but it is a

(14:19):
it is a good read. And I do and I
do encourage people who are here, interested, interested, to read it,
and so something that your listeners may like. I'm doing
a book club with my daughter that a father daughter
book club, and the book we're reading is le Mes Real.

Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yeah. So I've already read.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
It and she's she says she has like a couple
more chapters left, so she's almost done.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
How did you choose that book?

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Well, I read the book myself, like without her, and
I just love the book. And then I also wanted
to I'm big on experiences. You kind of probably know
more about me than most people that I talked to,
because you know, you read the book and you have
an idea of.

Speaker 5 (15:01):
My background and so on.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
But I love experiences because I think that is like
how you really get to show That's one of the
ways I show my love for people as we go
and have experiences together. So I wanted to read a
book that I could with my daughter and then go
and watch the play together. And it was such a
great book, such a great story, and then we're going

(15:23):
to now watch the play when she's finished, and I
just think that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
That is a great experience.

Speaker 5 (15:28):
Yeah, so that was really cool.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Speaking of experiences, I have a goal to visit all
seven continents.

Speaker 5 (15:35):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
You had a similar goal to see the seven Wonders
of the world. Out of the seven wonders, which one
ranked highest for bringing you the most happiness.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
That's the easiest question so far, really, Yeah, for sure,
Machya Picchu.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
I was just so fascinated with doing that, with you
doing that, and that was the first question that pop
in my line. You know, is he going to say
all of them were the same because they're the seven Wonders?

Speaker 4 (16:01):
But that's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, you know, uh, let's not. Well, I can if
you want me to. But there's some that I would
say shouldn't even be on the list. And I was surprised. Yeah,
that's fine, And you know, in going to these other countries,
they're like, for example, this is one that I think
should be on the list, POMPEII in Italy. Yeah, that
was And the reason why I like Pompeii was a

(16:25):
very similar reason as to why I liked Machu Picchu
because it is preserved so well. You feel like you're
walking through that village, that town back in the days
that the people from that error are there. I've never
had it's I've never had an experience like that where
I feel like I'm almost in a time travel situation, right,

(16:46):
And Machu Picchu gave me that feeling. Wow, Pompeii gave
me that feeling.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
Do you journal?

Speaker 1 (16:54):
I don't journal, but sometimes I'm like, I feel led
to write down stuff. So sometimes in my notes, and
it's not regular, it's not on schedule. But sometimes like
I'll go through my notes and I'll just write like
a thousand words of something. Sometimes it's stream of consciences,
sometimes it's specific. Sometimes it's poetry. So I do that,

(17:14):
but I'm not like regular with it.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
So it's interesting because I felt like I was at
times I was reading part of your journal. I'm an
avid journal three pages every single day. I got the
idea from a book called The Artist Way by Julia Cameron,
and she suggests writing your three day three pages when
you get up in the morning and then tossing them,
you know. But I decided I want to write my

(17:39):
three pages and put them in a journal.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
So this is your second book.

Speaker 5 (17:43):
It is my second book.

Speaker 4 (17:44):
Yeah, do you have plans for more?

Speaker 5 (17:46):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, okay, yeah, Well this project, I'm really going like
all in. Well I shouldn't say I'm going all in
because I have a separate business that I run, and
I have four children. I'm married, I have a lot
of hobbies, and I'm going to really give this project
time to grow and to mature into everything that it

(18:09):
can be before I move on to my next thing.
But I have probably eight books in my mind. I
already have a book that's already half written, more than half,
it's like three quarters written. Yeah, so there's more on
the horizon, and.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, let this one marinate, because we could use a
lot of happiness. You know, we're bombarded with bad news
of the world, and I appreciate the solution you wrote
about how to manage that. Tell us a little bit
more about how this factors into happy the happiness quotion.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
You know, when you.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Get up and you see the horrific things that are happening,
but you still want to hold on to your happiness.

Speaker 5 (18:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
So that's difficult because at one point in my life,
I was a news junkie and I found out that
I was very informed, but I was it impacted my happiness.
I think it's almost impossible to be very informed about
everything that's going on in the world and then to
also be indefactably happy.

Speaker 5 (19:07):
It's just difficult.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
There are some people who are wired that way and
can do that, and God bless them. I'm not one
of those people. If I hear exactly, if I hear
really horrible tragedy after horrible tragedy after horrible tragedy, I'm
going to be sad. And I don't want to be sad.
I want to be happy, you know. So the way
that I approach that is me personally. I don't listen

(19:31):
to the news. If something is huge and unavoidable, then
I will tune in to make sure that I'm informed.
I do listen to a lot of podcasts and the
uh yes, for sure, for sure, I listened a lot
of podcasts, and I will kind of hear what's going
on like through that. But a lot of times it's

(19:52):
not in the moment. The event is probably a day
or two behind the new schedule, so the regular news
schedule has already moved on, and that issue sometimes is
already resolved, so it's like, Okay, yeah, I heard about
that thing. It didn't cause the end of the world.
Like almost every issue that is brought to the table,
it's like this is the one. Every day, it's this

(20:13):
is the one every day, all day, every day, all day,
and I just really think that's hard, impossible to manage it.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
And I thought this book offers such a great solution
and a way to balance that, and I thought that
to be very valuable in this book.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
So if people want to find you and connect with you,
or find the book or find your website, give us
all the details.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
So the hub for everything is our website. It's your
Happiness eq dot com. So that's everything. You can buy
the book there. You can get your completely free no
obligation at all, no credit card, no email, no nothing.
You just answer seven questions and you will get your
happiness score right there on.

Speaker 5 (20:58):
The website, which I did.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, And the reason why I did that is because
I want people to interact with this information. If someone
decides they want to go further and buy the book, great,
If not, then hopefully that was a meaningful experience for
them and they can have great conversations with their friends
and family. So you can get your free happiness score
there as well too. We also have a merch store.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
So if I love the first of all, I'm a
smiley face free yea.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
And so when I met you, in the hallways here
a while back and you were wearing it, and I'm like,
I was immediately drawn to the merch and to your
energy as well, and I'm like, this is great, and
I love the cover of the book. You know, everything
about it says choose me. Yeah, And what I saw
about this is not only are you choosing the book,

(21:43):
but you're choosing your happiness exactly.

Speaker 5 (21:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
I would be remiss if I didn't give my cover designer,
my brother David Campbell, who is here in studio. He's
taking video and pictures of the whole event. But he's
been like a creative force behind like the visuals and
the branding. So it's been a complete team effort.

Speaker 4 (22:02):
And if they want to find you on social media.

Speaker 5 (22:05):
Social active. Yeah. The preferred social that I'm.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Most active on is on Instagram, okay, and the handle
is the same across all platforms. It's at your Happiness EQ.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
Thank you so much for this book.

Speaker 5 (22:18):
Thank you, Helen.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
Thank you for taking the time to tell us about
it and coming in today.

Speaker 5 (22:22):
Thank you, Helen. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Another show in the books. Join us for the next
episode of the Public Library Podcast, A place to check
out books
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