Earlier this month the community had the chance to nominate someone they believe to be an outstanding, positive person in our Flagler County community. Many people were nominated, however the community spoke out in numbers that they wanted to see Michael Granam, owner of Good Vibes Nutrition Bar – Palm Coast, as the featured person of the month.
During our interview with Michael, we talked about what went through his head when we told him he had been nominated by the community for Positive Person of the Month. “Humbling, very humbling. I do not like being the center of attention for anything, but one on one with people at the bar here.. I like being positive,” said Michael, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, we appreciate you. I wish I could hug everybody.”
Being positive is not always an easy feat as many of us can attest to. We wanted to know what drives Michael to be so positive. It was at this time that Michael told us about his mother and how she originally inspired him to be a positive person. He told us about how his mother battled cancer during his younger years, and when he was 14 years old she lost her battle. He recalled how his mother went through her battle and always remained positive. In fact he told us one of the last books he saw her reading was a book called, ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’. “She was optimistic, positive until the day she died. For someone to stay positive in the face of something like that, I can be positive with anything,” recalled Michael.
Michael talked about how he has always been a positive person, and in all of his jobs he has always been a positive person. His mother used to work at Kmart, where she was always doing things to make people smile. Michael talked about how his mother and her actions and positive lifestyle has impacted his positive and community oriented nature. “I am also an empath, so I take on whatever emotions they have on; if they are down and low then I try to bring them up.”
Being positive and helping others often has an impact on the person doing the helping. Michael told us about an instance where that was case. Before opening Good Vibes Nutrition Bar, he was a mechanic working for his brother, Mobile Mark; during that time, Michael had started his weight loss journey and lost over 100 pounds. While Michael was working on a car, he happened to be right next door to where an acquaintance of his, at the time, lived, Chris Murphy. Chris Murphy and Michael knew each other, and Chris wanted to know what Michael had done to loss all this weight. Michael took the time to work with Chris and help him loss a hundred pounds. But Chris took it further and went on to continue to lose weight and get into body building, as well as competitions. Michael talked about how much Chris’s devotion to a healthy lifestyle has motivated him to take his own health journey a step further and continue to get in better shape.
Is being positive rewarding? According to Michael, it is. “If I keep dumping positivity, good vibes, cheering people on, it will come back to me. All the people that I’ve helped the last couple years, come and see us every single day here. Putting that out into them, helping them, motivating them, brings it back to us,” replied Michael.
“Initially it is easy to be kind and positive to people, the challenging part of it is that, being an empath, it is draining. It is totally worth it to help make people feel special, and positive, and helping them recharge and be accepted, but it can be mentally, emotionally and even physically draining,” said Michael regarding the question of if it is easy to be kind and positive to everyone he meets, every day.
Michael told us that he sees Good Vibes as a lighthouse, “A lighthouse doesn’t move. It is built on solid rock, and it shines a light on everything else around. It is there on solid ground, and I want people to see this place as that solid place that people can come to if they need someone to listen to them. They may not have family or coworkers to listen to them and if we can get them through another day, motivate them to improve their lives, that is what we want to do.”
We also wanted to ask Michael to give readers some advice on how to build a better positive, kind and happy community. “Get back to God, family and supporting small businesses. God, family and small businesses is what creates a community. In Palm Coast, McDonalds is going to survive, Starbucks is going to survive and none of the people making money at those places is living here in Flagler.”
