Alex Shalman . comPractical Personal Development

This creative cartoonist really has had a great deal of success working from his nest. Freelancing since his early 20s, Tony D. Clark has been a freelancer for nearly 15 years. This freelancing stuff has led Tony to develop a jewelry business, web design company, independent software development, instructional design, and now the building and running of a small software company.

Not bad for someone that gets to stay home with his 3 dogs, 3 daughters and a wife. What strikes me the most about Tony is that he isn’t really selling cartoons, or software, that’s not his game at all. He is selling being free to live life on ones own terms, doing fun and meaningful work, while having a rich and close-knit family life. That’s the business he’s in, from my perspective, and it sells.

You can find Tony at his blog Success from The Nest, or as a regular contributor on lifehack.org. He is also the co-founder of the wildly successful Teaching Sells, as well as a cartoonist for Implementing Scrum.

1. How do you define happiness?

Happiness is the ability to see life as it is, and as it can be. Then let go of expectations, attachments, and the things that piss you off. The only way to be truly happy is to accept things — the good, the bad, and the ugly — and focus your thoughts on your ideal, and take the action to make it a reality. You can’t try to be happy — you are or you aren’t.

2. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?

10 when I’m still like a child, about a 6 when I’m not.

3. What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness? (and how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day)

Being with my family and walking my dog. There’s something Zen-like about walking a dog. I call it my mediation in motion. There’s also something Zen-like about watching Sponge Bob with your kids. Shared humor is a magical thing.

The consistency comes from focusing on those things rather than the little annoyances that pop up.

4. What things take away from your happiness? What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?

What I call the Inner Destructor. It’s not just the voice of negative self-talk, but also that part of us that tends to focus in on the smallest little crappy thing that happens to be occurring. The rest of your life can be paradise, but the Inner Destructor will find the one thing that sucks.

To lessen the impact you have to show up for your life. Really show up. Take action, do things to work towards your goals, and the Inner Destructor becomes less of an influence.

5. What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?

Walking my dog more, and watching Sponge Bob with my kids more

I’ve found that the simplest of things can bring the most pleasure — a good pizza, a great book, answering someone’s question in a way that causes a light-bulb to go off. It’s those things I want to have more of in my life.
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To get more info about what the Happiness Project is and isn’t, please visit the Introduction Post. To see a running list of all participants, which I will be updating as things happen, please visit the Happiness Project Page.