Live Happy Now

After a busy holiday season, we all could use a bit of stillness in our lives. This week, host Paula Felps is joined by Jeanine Thompson, a former clinical psychotherapist and Fortune 50 executive whose new book, 911 From Your Soul, is all about how to learn to listen for what you need and discover your greatest potential. Today, she’s here to talk about how important it is to learn to do nothing and listen to the lessons that are waiting for us in the stillness. And then she’ll teach us how to do that. In this episode, you’ll learn: What stillness is and how you can add it to your life. The five main benefits of creating stillness. How stillness can help you live more of your true potential.

It’s a brand-new year and we’re all thinking about creating new habits, so … why not make yours a fun one? This week’s guest is Mike Rucker, PhD, an esteemed organizational psychologist and author of the new book, The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life. His research shows us how prioritizing fun can make us happier, more productive, and more energetic. In this episode, you’ll learn: The difference between happiness and fun. Why the pursuit of happiness may make us miserable. How to assess your daily activities and design your day for fun.

While many people are thinking about their New Year’s Resolutions, others are taking a different approach to the new year and setting an intention. To do that, choosing one word to focus on throughout the year is a helpful and effective practice, and this week’s guest is here to tell us how to do it and how it works. Matt Derrenbacher is a fifth-year rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and has served as a chaplain candidate for the U.S. Air Force and a Jewish educator. He explains how using a single word can help us set an intention for the year and help us stay on track in the months to come.  In this episode, you’ll learn: Why choosing one word to focus on throughout the coming year can help guide your actions. Why many people find it more effective than setting a resolution. How to decide what your word should be—and how to remind yourself of it regularly.

With her bestselling book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, psychotherapist, author and podcast host Lori Gottlieb taught us more about how therapy can change our lives. Now, she has created a guided journal based on the feedback she received to that book, which is designed to walk users through 52 weekly sessions that will transform their lives. This week, she talks about how to use it to create positive change in the coming year. In this episode, you'll learn: How regular guided journaling can help work through challenges. Why small incremental changes are the building blocks of big transformations. How to use journaling to help make the new year happier and more fulfilling.

The sounds of the season are all around us, but have you thought about why holiday music makes us happy? This week, Paula Felps sits down with sonic strategist Steve Keller to find out how holiday music is tied to nostalgia and what happens in our brains when we listen to it.   In this episode, you'll learn: Why even melancholy holiday music can make us feel happier. What role dopamine plays in the memories involving music. How to use holiday music to boost your mood throughout this busy season.

Grief and loss are something all of us experience throughout our lives, but they can be more difficult to manage during the holidays. This week’s guest, Julia A. Nicholson, shows how reframing that loss can help us navigate it better. As an executive leadership expert who has made it her mission to help others transform the way they view and manage grief, Julia drew upon the immense losses of her past to create a new framework that she shares in her forthcoming book, Move Forward Stronger. In this episode, you’ll learn: How the holiday season may amplify feelings of loss — and how to manage those feelings. Why the traditional stages of grief often don’t apply. How to change our neural pathways to create a more positive approach to grief — while still honoring our loss.

Navigating difficult emotions are challenging for all of us, but that’s especially true for children. This week’s guest, Nadine Levitt, has turned even our most complicated emotions into a magical adventure. The author, educator, music artist, lawyer, and parent wanted to change the way children learn about their emotions, so she created Emotion Wonderland: a magical place where all our emotions coexist and we get to meet them, befriend them, and better understand them. In this episode, you'll learn: How Nadine created the Emotion Wonderland — and why it was so important to her. The many different tools children can use to learn to express their feelings. How approaching our emotions differently can change the way we process our feelings.

December 1 marks Women Supporting Women Day, and this week, author, speaker and coach Caroline Miller is here to talk about why it’s so important for women to start looking out for one another. Her concern about women’s failure to support one another led her to write the ebook, #IHaveYourBack, which is about creating mastermind success groups for women. This week, she shares what she’s learned about why women don’t support one another, explains what it’s doing to our culture, and then tells us what we can do about it. In this episode, you'll learn: Why women consciously and subconsciously fail to support each other’s success. The importance of having a group of women that support you. How to show support for the women in your life.

As the holiday season begins, getting caught up in the frenzy of buying gifts is easy. But this year, decluttering expert Tracy McCubbin is asking us to take a step back and become more intentional with our shopping. In this episode, she explains how we can approach the holidays differently to create more joy, focus on giving ourselves rather than giving gifts, and shift the focus from shopping to sharing the spirit of the season.  In this episode, you'll learn: How to be more mindful as you shop for holiday gifts. Why experiences can be more meaningful than “stuff.” What to keep in mind as you begin shopping.

When you hear Snoop Dogg’s name, the first thing that comes to mind probably isn’t social emotional learning. But with his latest venture, Doggyland, Snoop has teamed up with producer Claude Brooks and recording artist October London to create a very special learning project. On this episode, Claude sits down with host Paula Felps to explain how Doggyland was created, what they want to accomplish with their songs and how they’re using music to change the way children view themselves — and the world around them. Let’s take a listen. In this episode, you’ll learn: How they use music as a learning tool. Why music and rhyme is a great way for children to learn acceptance of themselves and others. How they are working to make sure this message is available to everyone.

It’s beginning to look a lot like the holidays, and for many of us, that can be a challenging time for many. This week’s guest, Melissa Urban, tells us how setting boundaries now can make the holiday season run smoother. The Whole30 founder has become known as “the boundary lady” and her bestseller, The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free is changing the way people learn to say no. In this episode, you’ll learn: What a boundary is — and how to learn to set one. How setting boundaries can improve relationships. How to hold boundaries throughout the holiday season.

Can being a sports fan make you happier? Research says yes, and this week, David Sikorjak and Ben Valenta, authors of the new book, Fans Have More Friends, explain why. These two strategies and analytics experts are die-hard sports fans who set out to prove their hypothesis that being a sports fan leads to happiness. In this episode, they share what they’ve learned and tell you why cheering on your favorite team is doing more for you than you might have realized. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why sports fans show higher levels of happiness. The importance of “passing down” fandom within families. How sports fandom can help overcome polarization.

Not everyone feels that work and happiness go hand in hand. But in this episode, Tia Graham — a certified Chief Happiness Officer, founder of the company Arrive at Happy, and author of the new book, Be a Happy Leader — explains the importance of leading with happiness. Tia has multiple certifications in neuroscience, positive psychology and leadership coaching, and she works with executives and teams to help create happier workplaces. This week, she talks about how we all can find more happiness at work. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why happiness is such an important part of being a leader. The high cost of unhappiness and stress in the workplace. How to manage your job if you work for an unhappy leader.

If you ever wonder why you think or feel the way you do for seemingly no reason, you’re not alone. And this week’s guest is going to explain how—and why—that happens. Judy Wilkins Smith is a world-renowned speaker, author, and expert in family patterns. In her new book, Decoding Your Emotional Blueprint: A Powerful Guide to Transformation Through Disentangling Multigenerational Patterns, she explains how our DNA is influenced by trauma and emotions and can create patterns that limit us from reaching our full potential. She’s here to tell us how to identify some of those beliefs and patterns and, more importantly, give us the tools to overcome them. In this episode, you’ll learn: How trauma and thought patterns from previous generations could be affecting you. Ways to identify your family patterns and understand systemic sentences. Tools to start rewiring your brain and changing those patterns.

If you’re like most people, you probably have a little bit of extra “stuff” lying around the house. But listening to this episode might just change the way you look at it.  This week, decluttering expert Tracy McCubbin, author of Make Space for Happiness: How to Stop Attracting Clutter and Start Magnetizing the Life You Want, shares some surprising insights about the relationship between clutter and happiness. And she’ll also tell you what straightening up the space in your house can do for the space in your head. In this episode, you'll learn: Why decluttering goes hand-in-hand with positivity. What “clutter blocks” are and how to get rid of them. The benefits of living an uncluttered life.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and that made it the perfect time to sit down with Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, best known as the Grammy-winning duo Cathy & Marcy. They have been entertaining audiences for more than 40 years, and when Marcy received a breast cancer diagnosis, they faced it the same way they have faced all of life’s challenges — side by side, with music and humor. The result is the comedic musical All Wigged Out, which has been made into a film and details Marcy’s journey with breast cancer. They sat down with host Paula Felps to talk about how they transformed this health challenge into a musical story of hope and healing to share with the world. In this episode, you'll learn: How they used music to process Marcy’s diagnosis. Why celebrating even small milestones was important to their journey. How they turned the experience into a humorous healing story.

World Kindness Day is just a month away, but there’s no reason not to start observing it now. This week’s guest is Dr. Michelle Robin, founder of Small Changes Big Shifts, the Big Shifts Foundation, and the 31-Day Kindness Campaign. Launched in 2019, the Kindness Campaign is a free inspirational email adventure that begins October 14. When you sign up, you’ll receive a daily email suggesting an act of kindness that you can do that day, and Michelle tells us what to expect from the campaign and explains what kindness can do for your overall well-being.  In this episode, you'll learn: Why kindness is so good for us — and those we share it with. What happens in our brains when we practice kindness every day. How Michelle’s desire to spread kindness grew into a month-long campaign.

October is one of our favorite months at Live Happy, and this week, you’ll find out how to make this a truly Happy Halloween. Host Paula Felps is joined by Live Happy CEO and co-founder Deborah Heisz and e-commerce marketing manager Casey Johnson to talk about our all-new #HalloweenHappyActs campaign. If you’ve been with us for a while, you already know that every March, we encourage well-being with a month of intentional activities that we call #HappyActs. This year, we’re combining #HappyActs with our favorite holiday to create an entire month of happiness while celebrating the spirit of Halloween. In this episode, you’ll learn: What #HappyActs are — and how to practice them. Why Halloween is the perfect time to explore #HappyActs. How to turn #HalloweenHappyActs into a challenge for greater participation.

Fall is a time for turning inward, and this week’s guest, Kassandra Reinhardt, is here to help us learn how to connect with ourselves through yoga. Her newest book, Year of Yoga: Rituals for Every Day and Every Season, helps experienced and novice yogis alike move through the seasons using affirmations and intentions that coincide with the time of year. She’s here to tell us why our practice may change along with the seasons and talk about what affirmations may be particularly helpful as we move into fall. In this episode, you’ll learn: How yoga can help us manage stressful situations Why yoga is not a one-size-fits-all practice. Affirmations to focus on this fall.

This week, host Paula Felps sits down with renowned cinematographer, director and producer Louie Schwartzberg. Louie is best known for the stunning imagery he creates using time-lapse photography; in films like Fantastic Fungi and the 3D IMAX film Mysteries of the Unseen World with National Geographic, he has shown us the beauty of the world in ways we’ve never seen before. With his new film, Gratitude Revealed, he has created an immersive, awe-inspiring experience that takes us inside the human spirit to explore the wonder, beauty and joy of gratitude. In this episode, you’ll learn: How this film was a natural evolution of his work with nature. What he learned about gratitude while creating this film. Why gratitude is so important to him.