Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with some instant inspiration for you from Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today I want to talk about mothers as role models, because when you’re in the trenches raising your kids—or even later, when they’re grown but you’re still trying to give them advice, which is sometimes unwanted—you wonder if you’re getting through. Did you make a difference? Did the kids even listen to you? Well, the answer is yes, as we saw in dozens of stories in our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Moms.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we’re going to talk about how you can become more productive by building down time into every workday. Our special Friend Friday guest is my friend and newly minted Chicken Soup for the Soul author, Cosmo DeNicola.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. Today I’m sharing two stories about when getting that all important me time really means we time, because making sure you have we time with your spouse or your friends can be just as important as the traditional me time that we’re always trying to put aside for ourselves.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul, and today we’re talking about the miracle of finding love, and I truly mean finding love in a miraculous, I-can’t-believe-that-happened way. Sometimes it seems like people were just meant to find each other, based on the amazing coincidences that bring them together. And that’s why these stories appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Miracles & Divine Intervention.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today we’re looking at the many benefits of volunteering, especially later in life. If you are enjoying your retirement years, or you know someone who’s retired but needs a little extra spark in their life, these stories from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Age Is Just a Number will inspire anyone to look at volunteering as a means to finding joy.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today I’m going to share a piece of advice that seems to shock a lot of people—that you’re allowed to CHOOSE your friends, and if they’re no longer working for you—UNchoose them. Our new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Making Me Time, covers the many ways that people reclaim a bit of their calendar for themselves, creating more balance in their lives. And one of the ways to reclaim that time and make more space for “me time” is by making sure that you’re only spending time with people who add VALUE to your life. That can mean assessing the time you spend with friends, and even relatives. Because you need to zealously look out for own emotional health and not let people sap away whatever energy you have. You want to save that energy for yourself and the people who are most important to you.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul and today I want to talk about that miraculous thing that sometimes happens, which is a continuing connection with someone who has passed on. We see these stories all the time and they always amaze me. Sometimes you can come up with a scientific explanation for why they happen… and sometimes you can’t.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with a little Chicken Soup for the Soul inspiration for you from our latest bestseller, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Cats. Today we’re talking about the magic of cats for their dog family members, not their human ones. Because even though we’ve all heard the stories about dogs and cats that don’t get along, we see lots of stories where cats take their intuition, their natural ability to be therapists, their kindness—and work their magic on the dogs they live with, much to everyone’s surprise.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with your Chicken Soup for the Soul. We’ve been talking a lot about dogs and cats on the podcast because we have new books out on those topics, but we also have a new book about dreams. So today will be a bit of a crossover episode, with stories about dreams that involve dogs and the magical way these dogs manifested to our writers.

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Hey, it’s Amy Newmark with a little Chicken Soup for the Soul inspiration for you from our latest bestseller, Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Dogs. If you have a dog you’ve probably been spending a lot more time together, and your appreciation for your dog’s loyalty and intuition has probably increased. We learn so much from our dogs, don’t we? If we rescued them, they rescue us back. They show us how to be better humans. And they teach us so much about resilience, and fortitude, and loyalty. And then sometimes they’re so surprisingly smart, which is what I’m going to talk about today in two stories from our new collection of dog stories.

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