Harvesting Happiness

The American Dream was founded on the belief that anyone dedicated to thrift and hard work could create opportunities and achieve a better life. Now that dream has been reduced to a hyper quantified desire for fancier clothes, sleeker cars, and larger homes. As our standard of living has climbed over the past forty years, our self-reported "happiness levels" have flat lined. We've somehow lost our way, but it's not too late to find it again.

Lisa Steadman is an internationally acclaimed best-selling author, sought after speaker, results coach, creative consultant, and CEO of Woohoo, Inc. A masterful mentor when it comes to Awakening your Woohoo WithinTM, Lisa loves showing woman how to step into their spotlight, stake their claim in the world, and create the life, relationships, and business of their dreams. Lisa is a frequent media contributor, having appeared on The Today Show, The Tyra Banks Show, iVillage Live, The Fran Drescher Show, Playboy Radio, and New Zealand's Good Morning. In 2012, she's leading a year long mission called The Year of You to help women celebrate themselves and stop playing small.

This week we explore the depth and width of resilience of the human condition. We will discover how to overcome adversity and stress, and live the happy life we were meant to. Tune in as we learn how deep an individual can reach into their soul and find happiness after a tragic accident or misfortune? Are there limitations of the human spirit and condition, and how far it can it be stretched to create the quality of life one longs for? Our guest this week discusses his journey from being on top of the skiing world, to a heart breaking accident, to arriving high above the world, once again.

Charley Johnson: An entrepreneur and former Owner/Executive V.P. of a Manufacturing company with over 250 employees has a deep passion for Pay it Forward. Believing in Pay it Forward so much so he left his company, career & millions behind to change the world and how people view humanity.

He has been a Board member of the Pay it Forward Foundation for the past 4 years and will become President January 1st, 2012. He is the creator of the Pay it Forward Bracelet, a physical reminder to do good that has been sent to over 1 million people in 108 countries.

Kenneth Cloke is Director of the Center for Dispute Resolution and a mediator, arbitrator, attorney, coach, consultant, and trainer, specializing in communication, negotiation, and resolving complex multi-party conflicts, as well as designing preventative conflict resolution systems for organizations.

Rudy Wietfeldt has personally faced and overcome incredible tragedies: at 18 he was pallbearer for his father, who died suddenly in his 40s; at 25, Rudy had also served as pallbearer for his mother. By the age of 33, Rudy had buried three sons and a daughter. And Rudy has also suffered with what Wikipedia has called "the most painful condition known to medical science," the Cluster Headache. Through all the pain and suffering, the book "The Core of Happiness" was penned by Rudy in the hope that his surviving children and others would ultimately derive benefit from his philosophy of hope that has guided his life. "The Core of Happiness" is the first in a series of books with "a ‘novel' approach to self help." Rudy is currently co-authoring a chronic pain management book with Dr. Barry Mitchell; look for this to be released in 2012.

Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick are founders of the University of Santa Monica, a small, private graduate school offering master's degree programs in Spiritual Psychology. Most recently, Ron and Mary have released their newest book, Loyalty to Your Soul - The Heart of Spiritual Psychology. Loyalty to your Soul means learning to live life from within the spiritual context of who you are. Which means the YOU that is the spiritual essence of your very being as opposed to who you think you are, which is really all about your ego or personality. The idea is that "We are not human beings who have a Soul, we are Souls having a human experience."

Chrissy Carew is a Hall-of-Fame Master Certified personal and business coach, mentor and trainer as well as the author of Insightful Player: Football Pros Lead a Bold Movement of Hope, published in October of 2011 by Morgan James Publishing.

Thanksgiving is a time of giving thanks and gratitude. When we give thanks, we are expressing our love and happiness towards others. This week , as we usher in the Holiday Season, I give my thanks to you, through music.

I am very grateful and thankful to the guest musicians this week as they share with us their expressions, creativity and talent, through their love of music.

WAYNE HANKIN is a period instrument specialist and has played 400 different instruments over a 30 year career. Specializing in medieval, renaissance and baroque periods, Wayne has mastered instruments played only by a small handful of people in the world including various bagpipes, hornpipes, flutes, whistles, gemshorns, trumps, bone flutes, double reeds and others. There are also instruments made exclusively for his talents of which he is the sole performer.