Habits for Happiness

Join Dr. Rosenthal and me as we discuss Season Affective Disorder (SAD) and how sunlight and light therapy can help. Dr. Norman Rosenthal is the world-renowned psychiatrist and bestselling author who first described seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and pioneered the use of light therapy as a treatment during his twenty years at the National Institute of Mental Health. A prolific researcher and writer, he has written more than three-hundred scholarly articles and authored or co-authored ten popular books, including Poetry Rx, the New York Times bestseller Tran- scendence and the national bestsellers The Gift of Adversity, and Super Mind. His most recent book is DEFEATING SAD A Guide To Health and Happiness Through All Seasons. For further information go to: www.normanrosenthal.com

Listen in as Somatic Guru Jay Fields and I discuss experiencing your Grief as a Habit for Happiness. Whether it is processing your grief with experiential exercises or facing it head-on with therapy. Grief can be healthy and naming it and taming it can make us happier. Jay Fields, M.A. is an educator, coach, and author who has taught the principles of embodied social and emotional intelligence to individuals and organizations for twenty years. Her approach to helping people have their own back at work and in life is grounded, playful, empathic, and intelligent. Jay received her BA in Psychosocial Health and Human Movement from the College of William and Mary and her master's in Integral Transformative Education from Prescott College. She is the author of the book Teaching People, Not Poses and the Linkedin Learning courses Managing Your Emotions at Work and Practices for Regulating Your Nervous System and Reducing Stress. When not working with clients or facilitating training, you can find Jay riding her motorcycle with her sweetie in the mountains outside of Ojai, California where she lives.

Kansha is the practice of expressing thanks for the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak. It's about finding appreciation for both the blessed and the horrible things that have taken place in your life. Kansha is the ability to reframe situations in a way that rewires your brain to find at least some good in every experience, no matter how terrible it seems initially. Join author and executive coach Jennifer Mrozek and Sukalo as we discuss this century-old art of gratitude and its positive impact on one's well-being and happiness.

Amy Weinland Daughters will join us to discuss the habit of Writing letters and Thank you Notes. Amy's story begins when saw a post that her friend Dana’s son was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She bravely picked up her ballpoint pen and wrote a letter to Dana; the rest is history. Amy and Dana’s support for one another as pen pals inspired Amy to write all 580 of her Facebook friends a handwritten letter, and her life would never be the same. Amy is the author of Dear Dana: That time I went crazy and wrote all 580 of my Facebook friends a handwritten letter. Her story is inspiring others to pick up their ballpoint pens in pursuit of real connection.

Thomas M. Sterner is the author of The Practicing Mind, Fully Engaged, and most recently It’s Just a Thought: Emotional Freedom through Deliberate Thinking. The CEO of the Practicing Mind Institute, Sterner is an in-demand speaker and coach working with high-performance industry groups and individuals, including athletes, to help them operate effectively in high-stress situations and experience new levels of mastery. Prior to writing the bestselling The Practicing Mind, Sterner studied Eastern and Western philosophy and modern sports psychology and trained as a jazz pianist. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware. Visit him online at http://www.tomsterner.com. Here’s a link to It’s Just a Thought on Amazon: https://a.co/d/bQ66ncq You’ll find him on social media here: Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicingmind Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tommsterner/ Is there anything else you need from me? If not please confirm that we are confirmed and we’ll be all set!

Join Dr. Aaron Ahuvia and myself as we discuss the powerful habit of sharing music with your friends. Dr. Ahuvia is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn College of Business and the most widely published and cited academic expert on non-interpersonal love. He has published more than 100 academic papers and conference presentations, and his research has been quoted in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and Glamour. He has appeared on public radio talk shows as well as popular television shows such as the Oprah Winfrey Show. Dr. Ahuvia received a BA in Philosophy from the University of Michigan (1985) and a PhD in marketing from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management (1993). He joined the faculty at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor’s Ross School of Business in 1992 before moving to the Dearborn campus in 1999, where he has won awards for research and teaching. He also holds an appointment at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design. His book The Things We Love: How Our Passions Connect Us and Make Us Who We Are, was recently published by Little, Brown Spark.

Join me as talk with author and change-maker Jennifer Sukalo on the habit of gratitude! Jennifer is a speaker, author, transformational expert, performance coach, and the Chief SWAGGER Officer at SWAGGER U. Her bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees are centered around behavioral change. Jennifer's work as a global leadership consultant has reached nearly fifty thousand leaders across levels, cultures, countries, and industries. Her work in leadership development and coaching cancer survivors to transform their circumstances from survival to a spark for the rest of their lives laid the groundwork for the SWAGGER method, a personal development approach to harnessing your untapped potential and becoming who you were born to be. Jennifer is a passionate home chef, curious traveler, and avid fly-fisher. She and her husband live in New Canaan, COT. Her three Arabian horses keep her humble and grounded.

It’s not easy to be courageous. Feelings of fear and uncertainty often stop us dead in our tracks. But what if you had the courage to take action anyway? What changes would you make to transform your current reality into the life of your dreams? In his new book, SCARE YOUR SOUL: 7 Powerful Principles to Harness Fear and Lead Your Most Courageous Life (Balance; December 6, 2022), happiness entrepreneur and founder of the global Scare Your Soul courage movement, Scott Simon reflects on his childhood spent running from fear - and his adulthood spent chasing it - and inspires readers to take small, boundary-pushing actions to expand comfort zones, harness their fears, and lead a confident and audacious life. When fear presents itself, we are deterred from the essential work of holding tough conversations, defending new ideas against the status quo, and standing up against injustice. Simon has helped thousands of people become more courageous in life, and his popular TEDx Talk on positive psychology and his science-based work of creating, curating, and leading opportunities and challenges for people around the world has helped people of all backgrounds become braver, happier and more courageous.

D.M. Blakey is a writer, teacher, artist and inventor. He created visual effects and animation for film and television at Walt Disney Animation Studios and other production studios for thirty years. He received a prime-time television Emmy for the pilot episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His work can be seen in movies such as Iron Man III, Tron: Legacy, 2012, Into The Storm, Disney's Dinosaur and Home On The Range, Dante's Peak, Apollo 13 and The Fifth Element. He was also chair of online animation and visual effects graduate students and an instructor for eight years at an art university. He animated the Galileo Spacecraft for NASA/JPL on a room sized mini-supercomputer, and created a scientific software center for the Naval Research Laboratory. He was a full-time inventor creating machine and software inventions from advanced lossless and lossy compression algorithms, animation registration, binaural underwater whale audio recording hydrophone hardware and a couple other advanced projects. He graduated from California Institute of the Arts with a degree in experimental film graphics while learning to solder since the age of seven and growing up a kid of science who liked early tube-type lasers, radio, telephones, and xray machines. In addition to his interests in art and science, he has a teaching certificate in the Chinese internal arts of Xing Yi and standing meditation. He has twenty years of experience exploring clear channelings in the L.A. metaphysics community while learning with help from channels to receive three messages for his first book. These messages are about appreciating what is unique in each person and ending racial, gender, class and other ways we separate ourselves from an understanding of being of one thought to evolve all together in our future toward pure consciousness. Dennis enjoys sifting through metaphysical ideas with a skeptical scientific mind who loves to build and solder, but is also open to persistent loving ideas from beyond that he can personally verify. He loves animals and Nature. He has ridden dressage with soulful horses and rode a motorcycle. He learned both will go where one looks but horses have the sense to correct the rider. He's worked on diesel locomotives for a railway museum restoration and is a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association as well as Association of Computing Machinery Computer Graphics Pioneers.

Join Jennifer Cassetta as we discuss her life as a motivational speaker, author and total black belt BADASS. Jennifer Cassetta is a nationally recognized motivational speaker and health and empowerment coach with a third degree black belt in Hapkido and a master’s degree in nutrition. Over the past two decades, she has helped people to feel strong, safe, and powerful from the streets to the boardroom. Her keynotes and trainings have helped tens of thousands of women tap into their innate power, speak up against predatory behavior, and level up their mind, body, and spiritual wellbeing. From teaching Carrie Fisher self-defense on The Today Show to being a featured weight loss expert on ABC-TV's My Diet is Better Than Yours, Jenn brings a unique passion plus practical tips for self-defense, optimal mental and physical health, and personal badassery.

Join a conversation with Dr. Tracey Marks as we discuss the habit is lowering the bar for what I say no to (not doing things I don’t want to do) and discuss her new book Why I am SO anxious? Anxiety is so prevalent in our society you will not want to miss this riveting conversation! With expertise in perhaps the most newsworthy subject pervading our lives both personally and culturally, Dr. Tracey Marks is ready to address, advise and help heal our nation’s anxiety epidemic. She broadcasts to over a million followers weekly on her YouTube channel and is a general and forensic psychiatrist of over 20 years. Dr. Marks’ mission is to increase mental health awareness and understanding by educating people on psychiatric disorders, mental well-being, and self-improvement. She believes that insight creates change, both on a micro-level (personal growth) and a macro-level (reduction in fear and social judgment). Dr. Marks produces educational videos on her YouTube channel, DrTraceyMarks. As a forensic psychiatrist, she has formulated over 1,000 opinions through independent medical evaluations, criminal assessments, or civil litigation consultations. She has been qualified as an expert in multiple federal and state courts and military court-martialed. She also maintains a general psychiatry clinical practice focusing on mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and burnout. Dr. Marks has been sought after by CNN and HLN for forensic and general psychiatric commentary.

ARI is described as an overwhlemologist … the GURU’S GURU!! Ari is an entrepreneur, author, CEO, real estate developer, green building consultant, and productivity expert. A graduate of the Wharton School of Business…..His discoveries about personal and professional productivity have improved the lives of thousands of individuals and businesses. His proprietary process, the Less Doing More System, is the foundation of his company Less Doing which offers individuals and enterprises road-tested methods to optimize, automate, and outsource everything. The goal is to learn how to work smarter, instead of harder.

Join Best Selling Author Dr. Kristin Neff as we discuss the habit of how we talk to ourselves - with compassion rather than criticism and HOW we can talk to ourselves to be our own best friends. Dr. Neff received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, and is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. During Kristin’s last year of graduate school she became interested in Buddhism and has been practicing meditation in the Insight Meditation tradition ever since. While doing her post-doctoral work she decided to conduct research on self-compassion – a central construct in Buddhist psychology and one that had not yet been examined empirically. Kristin is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, creating a scale to measure the construct almost 20 years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, and in June 2021 she will be releasing her new book Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive. In conjunction with her colleague Dr. Chris Germer, she has developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. They co-authored The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook as well as Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals. She is also co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Mindful Self-Compassion.

Join me and authors Perry Zurn & Dani Bassett as we discuss the habit of connection. PERRY ZURN is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University and the author of Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry. DANI S. BASSETT is the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2014. Together they authored Curious Minds: The Power of Connection.

Please join a conversation with Catherine Gildiner to discuss the beautiful habit of compassion. Catherine has written the best-selling childhood memoir titled Too Close to the Falls. It was on the Toronto Globe and Mail’s best sellers’ list for an amazing 157 weeks and the New York Times list as well. A decade later, she published a sequel, a teenage memoir of life in the 60’s called After the Falls. Then she wrote her third and final memoir called Coming Ashore, which covers her life as a student at Oxford in England, teaching in the burning ghetto in Cleveland, and finally her graduate school years in Toronto. She has also written Seduction, a novel about Darwin and Freud, which has been an international bestseller and was listed by Der Spiegel in Germany as one of the year’s ten best mysteries. Her latest book titled Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journey’s to Recovery (Penguin Fall 2019) is about patients she has had in her psychology practice who, despite their desolate childhoods, have overcome their traumas and managed to thrive. The book looks at their resilience and what traits they used to persevere. The book was on the Canadian best sellers’ list and was chosen in the U.S as one of the three top Amazon Choices for the fall. It was positively reviewed in Psychology Today and Entertainment Weekly. it has already been translated into eleven languages. It was featured on Good Morning America and on the top ten books taken out of U.S Libraries for the year 2021.

Join me as I discuss Reading with the retired NBA Star, Coach and Author: Ray Scott. Philly native Ray Scott was chosen as the 4th pick in the 1961 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons. He spent six years with the Pistons as a stand-out rebounder and deadly shooter from the perimeter, and another five years playing for the Baltimore Bullets and the Virginia Squires. Then, in October 1972, Scott was promoted from Assistant to Head Coach of the Detroit Pistons. Two years later he was named NBA Coach of the Year, the first African-American to win the coveted award. He’s the author of The NBA in Black and White: The Memoir of a Trailblazing NBA Player and Coach.

Join me and the bestselling author The Power of Letting Go, John Purkiss, as we discuss the powerful habit of Completion as it relates to learning to let go and live in The Flow. John grew up in England and studied economics at Cambridge University. He began his career with The First National Bank of Chicago and completed his MBA at INSEAD in France, where he won first prize. John was then diagnosed with clinical depression, which nearly proved fatal. He realised that he didn’t know how to live a successful and fulfilling life. John began to look for answers while co-founding a software company and working in sales and marketing – in the UK and continental Europe. One day he learned to meditate while reading a novel. He let go and asked to be guided. Within six months he was in the perfect job, achieving his financial goals with ease. John now recruits senior executives and board members for a wide range of companies. He is also a co-founder of Enlighten Ventures. His latest book is called The Power of Letting Go. It describes the completion technique, which he learned from his guru SPH Sri Nithyananda Paramshivam (known as Swamiji) in 2014. The completion technique removes the pain patterns which are preventing us from manifesting what we want in life. Show Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ_ifaTihus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knGO2hmvy00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQVdF_AY2QI

Marci Shimoff is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a world-renowned transformational teacher and an expert on happiness, success, and unconditional love. Her books include the international bestsellers Happy for No Reason and Love for No Reason. Marci is also the woman's face of the biggest self-help book phenomenon in history, as co-author of six books in the Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul series. With total book sales of more than 16 million copies worldwide in 33 languages, Marci is one of the bestselling female nonfiction authors of all time. Marci is also a featured teacher in the international film and book sensation, The Secret and the host of the PBS TV show called Happy for No Reason. She narrated the award-winning movie called Happy. Marci delivers keynote addresses and seminars on happiness, success, empowerment, and unconditional love to Fortune 500 companies, professional and non-profit organizations, women's associations and audiences around the world. Marci is currently leading a one-year mentoring program called Your Year of Miracles. Her opening seminar has been heard my more than 200,000 people. Marci earned her MBA from UCLA and holds an advanced certificate as a stress management consultant. She is a founding member and on the board of directors of the Transformational Leadership Council, a group of 100 top transformational leaders. Through her books and her presentations, Marci's message has touched the hearts and rekindled the spirits of millions of people throughout the world. She is dedicated to helping people live more empowered and joy-filled lives.

There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Award-winning science journalist, James Nestor, travels the world to find out what went wrong in our evolution of breathing -- and how to fix it. James Nestor is an author and journalist who has written for Scientific American, Outside, The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Public Radio, The San Francisco Chronicle, and more. His latest book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, was released May 26, 2020 by Riverhead/Penguin Random House and was an instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and London Sunday Times bestseller. Breath spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in the first year of release, and will be translated into more than 30 languages. Breath was awarded the Best General Nonfiction Book of 2020 by the American Society of Journalists and Authors and was nominated for Best Science Book of 2021 by the Royal Society. Breath explores how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly. This sounds impossible, but it’s true. Snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, allergies and even autoimmune diseases are among the most prevalent diseases in the modern world, and all of them can be either exacerbated, or sometimes caused, by poor breathing. Nestor spent years in laboratories and ancient burial sites, working with researchers at Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, and other institutions to figure out what went wrong with our breathing--and how to fix it. Breath spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in its first 11 months of release, and will be translated into more than 30 languages in 2021 Nestor has spoken at Stanford Medical School, Yale School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, the United Nations, Global Classroom, (World Health Organization+UNICEF), as well as more than 60 radio and television shows, including Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Joe Rogan Show, ABC’s Nightline, CBS Morning News, and dozens of NPR programs. He lives and breathes in San Francisco. More at mrjamesnestor.com.

At the age of 23, Anne Berubes life was interrupted by a near fatal car accident and a mystical experience. Trapped in the car, unable to breathe, she had a vision that forever realigned her lifes trajectory. Even after this dramatic experience, there was still much work to be done. Subsequent years were marked by chronic pain, emotional distress, and malaise. Her journey of introspection and personal transformation would lead to profound insights around selfhealing, happiness, and inner peace. Now living her purpose every day, Anne is a powerful teacher with an uncommon ability to share her story and insights in a way that awakens the inner wisdom in others. Her accident ignited a passion for sharing her experience and knowledge, and she has made it her lifes purpose to help individuals remember the happiness within them.In 2007, driven to share her experience with others, Anne founded Autopoetic Ideas: a social enterprise that supports healing and transformation by gathering people to share inspiring content through live experiences. Projects range in scope from intimate workshops and coaching programs to community gatherings to massive events andconferences. Through her own workshops called The Happy Sessions, she has refined the process of Be Feel Think Do and has helped hundreds of individuals discover an inner freedom and a connection to their own unique source of sustainable happiness.