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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.