I truly enjoyed my conversation with Professor Dan Ariely of Duke University. Dan is an award-winning, bestselling author of multiple books and the star of an excellent documentary film. Beyond this, he served as inspiration for the NBC TV show The Irrational, which was just renewed for a second season and is loosely based on his extraordinary life. He is also a source of inspiration for many, especially people with disabilities. After surviving a devastating explosion as a teenager that left him with third-degree burns over 70% of his body and the loss of the use of seven of his fingers, Dan could have given up on life. Instead, he has become a brilliant success story, embodying resilience more than anyone I know. He also shares his story of self-acceptance, including his decision to embrace a unique appearance due to the accident that left only half of his face growing facial hair, which he highlights with his signature half-beard. It is a privilege to call Dan my friend, and it was a pleasure to interview him for this podcast.

I had a blast talking to Manisha Thakor, the author of a new book, "MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your Enough.” Both her book and our interview focus on creating an emotionally healthy emotional relationship with money. She explains how the key to financial well-being isn't just about the numbers on our bank statements, but also about our mindset about money and how it fits with the rest of our life. Manisha's thought-provoking book offers insights about the intricate relationships between money, emotional well-being, physical health, and genuine contentment. We touch on many of the pearls of wisdom from her book during our conversation, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to chat with her and to share this awesome interview with you.

Today I had the fun and enlightening experience of talking to the highly awesome author and marketing professor, Zoe Chance. Zoe teaches an MBA course called Mastering Influence and Persuasion at Yale. I personally would love to take this course from Zoe, but I'm not at Yale. Fortunately, for me and everyone else, she has an AWESOME new book titled “Influence is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen,” and I had the joy of listening to it on Audible before talking to Zoe about her work. Her book is not just about influence, it is also about sparking joy and making sure you are following your own passions and dreams rather than someone else’s. I felt grateful both listening to Zoe’s book and recording our conversation for this podcast. If you enjoy this interview half as much as I did, you will likely be listening with a big smile on your face.

I had a delightful conversation with clinical psychologist and author Edith Shiro! That's right, I actually enjoyed discussing her work onTRAUMA! In this interview, we discussed the potential transformational silver lining of trauma, which is the focus of her book, The Unexpected Gift of Trauma: The Path to Post Traumatic Growth (PTG). During our chat, Edith shared her extremely helpful framework for dealing with trauma. Her book offers hope for not only healing from trauma, but even emerging better and stronger with a clearer sense of than before. Her wisdom and warmth were apparent throughout this interview, and I hope her insights help you on your journey to greater happiness!

I laughed and was moved by my fun and INSIGHTFUL conversation with evolutionary biologist, author and FEAR expert Dr. Rebecca Heiss. Many of us worry about failing at what we try to do, but few of us think of the pain of REGRETTING all the things we wanted but were afraid to try. Confession time—FEAR has played a huge part in my life, and I have paid a big price for it! However, Rebecca’s research-based wisdom and advice truly inspired me! I have been more courageous just from what I learned in my conversation with her! As Rebecca said during the interview, when we fear less, we make room for more! We quoted Denzel Washington, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Carey and more! We also laughed quite a bit and exchanged both science-based and silly-fun tools we use to increase happiness. If you enjoy this interview half as much as I did, you will LOVE it!

I had a great time chatting with best-selling author and certified integrative nutrition & health coach, Sonia Hunt, about how our well-being affects our health and vice versa. Sonia has over 1,000,000 views on her TEDx Talk about her personal story with food allergies and road to transforming her health, and it was a pleasure chatting with her about some of our favorite well-being tools, as well as sharing some of our favorite inspirational quotes. Enjoy!

Raj Raghunathan is both a highly published happiness expert and a Professor of Marketing at the McComb School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Our conversation was both informative and fun! Raj has won a prestigious Career Award from the National Science Foundation, and he has a fabulous book titled "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?" He also has very popular happiness related courses on Coursera and EdX that you can audit for FREE! His course on Coursera is "A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment" and it is full of research-based tools for increasing happiness. His course on EdX is "Happier Employees and Return on Investment,” and it both makes the business case for infusing well-being practices into the workplace and offers insights for leaders who wish to foster a happier work environment. I highly recommend Raj's book as well as both of his online courses. I also very much recommend this delightful episode of my podcast! Raj and I talked about a variety of relevant topics including his favorite tools for maintaining his own happiness and his recent research related to Post Traumatic Growth. I had a blast talking to Raj and hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. : )

Today I had a last-minute cancellation of my podcast interview with Professor Raj Raghunathan. Raj is recovering from ear surgery, so he phoned in for our interview to let me know he was still in pain and not feeling well. He asked if we could reschedule our conversation for after his ear has had more time to heal, and, of course, I said yes to his request. This is the Happy Podcast! I can’t do something that will make my awesome guest unhappy!  Raj and I rebooked our Happy Podcast conversation for June 15th. 

That said, I still found myself dealing with DISAPPOINTMENT because I was looking forward to interviewing Raj today! Therefore, with the goal of making lemons into lemonade, I decided to create a podcast about the best ways to deal with disappointments. Importantly, in this episode, I talk about tools and advice we can all use to handle our disappointments in a way that will make us happier! I even tell a couple of fun and inspirational stories. Hope you enjoy it!

Michal (pronounced like "Michelle") talks about how you can apply what is covered in the Happy Podcast to increasing your own happiness and well-being. She will also talk about her background and what led her to become OBSESSED with studying all the ways she can help people (including herself and YOU) experience more happiness and well-being!  Finally, she will introduce a tool for happiness with some "secret sauce" (basically a bit of a twist) to make it even more effective for increasing your own happiness!  ENJOY! : )