Gary King shows that believing in positive thoughts just may change your daily habits.
Courtesy of Mason Moore | The Crow’s Nest
By Mason Moore
Gary King has devoted much of life to placing red metal signs all around St. Petersburg to inspire others to choose happiness each day.
More than 400 red metal “Happiness” signs have popped up around St. Petersburg over the last four years. These signs have been nailed into telephone poles and city limits signs near intersections, local hospitals and school entrances.
The man behind this “Happiness” project is Gary King, an international speaker and author who created this experiment to show others how positive thinking can have an incredible impact on daily lives.
The Happiness Experiment started Nov. 7, 2019. King, who was diagnosed with PTSD, developed the project as a way to change his own narrative and adapt to the hardships throughout his life.
“On November 7th I went, I’m going to see if I can do what nobody else has done. I’m going to see if I can cure my complex PTSD because there is no cure there’s only management. I’m going to see if I can cure it by constantly handling the word happiness so that’s what I started doing,” he said.
King is often asked to place his signs in specific neighborhoods, but most of the time he searches for the busiest intersections to display them at
“In my travels what I do is look for the busiest intersections. Number two, I put them at almost all school entrances so that everybody that drives into a school dropping off their children can see and they’re at all the hospitals,” he said.
King has committed his time into researching the science behind his project, “There’s 31 years of research behind me doing this. People just think it’s a guy who runs around putting up happiness signs but it’s actually 31 years. Those signs stop suicides, depression and school violence. I have the data to back it up so it’s not my imagination.” King also has a background in psychology, having studied it for 31 years.
The inspiration for King to choose the word happiness came from a calculated formula. King said, “The word happiness has a frequency, it vibrates at a frequency just like all words vibrate at a frequency.”
King has been profiled by various local news outlets such as the Tampa Bay Times and Bay News 9. Stephanie Harrison who is an expert in positive psychology and founder of thenewhappy.com, reported to the Tampa Bay Times, “Humans are also wired to focus more on the negative. A Happiness Sign might remind people to look for the positive in their lives, which research has shown might increase feelings of happiness.”
King explained how in life, children chase after three things: acceptance, approval and appreciation and when they go on to become adults, they don’t realize they are still chasing the same things. “That’s why I call it the Happiness Experiment. See what all these people are doing? They’re experimenting with happiness,” he said.
Between the 406 signs, every single one has been put up by King.
“Here’s the irony: St. Petersburg is the only city in the United States with Happiness Signs” King says.
Karina Grajcarek, a 21-year-old real estate agent shared how she has been inspired by Gary King and the Happiness Experiment, “I’ve always taken the Happiness Signs around St. Pete as a good luck token. When I’m having a bad day, I don’t even have to go out of my way usually to find one, I just look up around me and there they are.”
Christy’s Enchanted Notions located at 633 Central Ave North is the only store front in St. Petersburg that sells King’s Happiness Signs. Liz Young who is a worker at the crystal shop says, “Young, old, all different walks of life come in to buy the signs.” Christy’s Enchanted Notions has been selling the Happiness Signs for over a year now and the cost of the signs are $25.
Today, King continues to be an avid professional speaker across all over the world, he’s spoken at different universities such as the University of California, San Diego for twelve consecutive years. “I’ve spoken in schools in Australia, the UK and all the Scandinavian countries. I’ve even facilitated 12 women’s retreats,” he said.
King’s red metal sings are a huge inspiration to many people around St. Petersburg and his Happiness Experiment is a direct result of that, “The human imagination is so powerful, it can create miracles.” King said.
