Follow along with the transcript below for episode: What’s Coming Up in Season 10 With Paula Felps and Deborah K. Heisz
[EPISODE]
[0:00:02] DH: Welcome to another episode of the Live Happy Now podcast. I’m Deborah Heisz, co-founder and CEO of Live Happy. I couldn’t be more excited to be here with you today. In fact, today, as we wrap up Season 9 of Live Happy Now, we want to talk a little bit about what’s coming up in Season 10. For those of you who are used to our regular podcast host, Paula Felps, she is on here as a guest today. We thought we’d flip things on its head a little bit, and let me interview her for a change because we got a lot of exciting things coming up.
She works so hard to make Live Happy Now, the success that it has been, with our regular listeners, we’ve had more than six and a half million downloads, we’ve had nine years of tremendous success. We’ve got a massive library of great interviews, great information out there for you to tap into. If you’re new to Live Happy Now, and we’re excited that you’re listening, and we just got a lot to talk about. We’re coming up on our 10th season. So, you know, there’s new podcasts launched every day, but we’ve been going at it for 10 years. Paula, tell us a little bit about what’s coming up for Season 10?
[0:01:04] PF: Well, first of all, thank you for the introduction. It feels so odd to be doing it this way, because you know, I like asking the questions, not answering them. But yes, so Season 10, we’re really going to build on what we did in Season 9. As you know, we did some things differently, and you’re a big part of that, because we introduced a couple of email courses that we had tried. We’d started that back in Season 8, we did one on pet loss, and that has done well. So, in Season 9, we did our shot at love email course for Valentine’s Day. Then, of course, we’re just wrapping up our – we’re actually still in it, our summer of fun email course. So, because of the response we’ve had, we’re going to be doing more of that.
One of the things I’m really excited about is, we’re working with a psychologist, Dr. Lauren Cook, and we’re going to be presenting a four-part email series on election stress. I think that’s something everyone’s familiar with, everyone’s failing in some way or another. So, that’s one of the things I’m most excited about. We have a lot of great guests lined up, but I’m really excited about being able to do more with our email courses.
[0:02:08] DH: So, we’re a podcast first and foremost, Live Happy Now. We’re about bringing you all of the information you need to craft the life you want to live a happier life. But as listening to Paula, you should picked up by now, we also have other avenues where you can connect with us, our email courses, our website, livehappy.com. If people don’t know about our email courses, which I know we’ve talked about on the podcast before, where can they access the old ones or can they access the old ones? Where can they make sure that they are registered so that they can find out about the new ones and get access to those.
[0:02:41] PF: We have our weekly newsletter. I appreciate everyone who subscribes to our newsletter, because we have an incredible following. I so appreciate the support that we’ve gained. So, you can just go to livehappy.com. In their drop-down box, there’s a newsletter tab, you can click on that, subscribe for free, you’ll get happiness in your inbox every week. We get our song of the week, which I always love picking that out for everyone every week and it always goes with the theme. So, you can start with our newsletter, and then our newsletter will also keep you informed when we have special courses. And on that same webpage where you can sign up for the newsletter, you’ll see a list of our courses. So, you can just kind of scroll down, find one that works for you, and sign up for free.
[0:03:23] DH: Well, enough of the commercial because I know a lot of people out there know, never enough of the commercial. But I know a lot of people out there are just podcast listeners, maybe they’re listening to this podcast as they take their morning walk, or maybe they’re listening to it as they’re working around the house, maybe they’re listening to it as they drive into work, which is actually how I listened to it. Don’t feel like you have to do all the other stuff to get a lot of stuff out of the podcast. We have a lot of great topics and a lot of great guests on here.
Paula, you mentioned something, and I’m so glad that there’s a course coming with it, which is upcoming, which is just a dialogue on how to deal with the political election stress that really is hitting so many people right now. I’m really excited about that. I need to make sure that all of our listeners understand, Live Happy does not have a political point of view. That is not what we are about. You are entitled to whatever your political beliefs are, we are happy to have you as a listener, we’re happy to have you engage with us because we’re really all about allowing you to craft the life that you want, so that you can be happier. We aren’t here interjecting our own thoughts or beliefs, which are myriad across the Live Happy organization. We have people of all political persuasions working on this particular product.
But election stress is real. So, tell me a little bit about how live happy is going to be helping our listeners and people connect with us deal with that stress.
[0:04:46] PF: So, the first part of any problem, as you know is recognizing it, and this all started because of Dr. Lauren Cook, who is the psychologist who is creating the course with us. Because of course, we always want to make sure that we are rooted in the science and the psychology of it. She specializes in working with Gen Z, which is another topic we’re going to talk about. But she had noticed in her client base that particularly among Gen Z, there was so much trauma and tension already early in the year about what to do with the elections. So, she and I had a conversation about it, and that just kind of snowballed. I started talking with some other experts, who are also looking at it from different perspectives.
I work with a man named Rob Volpe, he’s out in San Francisco area. He works in the empathy space. He brought up something that is simple but genius. He said, “Even by saying the other side, we’re creating a divide.” He said, “We need to quit othering one another and stop looking at it. It’s not another side, it’s a different viewpoint.” So, there’s so many things I’ve learned already just from talking with the guests that we’re going to have and getting this all lined up. So, I’m really excited, and I know that they’re going to add so much to the conversation.
The thing, just as with every episode we ever do, you may not agree with every guest, but there will be something. I look at Live Happy Now as a buffet table. Because when you go to the buffet table, you don’t load up everything. Well, I hope not. You don’t take everything from the table, but there’s always something for you, that you can find that you can learn, you can nourish yourself with.
[0:06:26] DH: Yes. I think this is a very, very important topic. Like I said, we don’t have a political viewpoint for Live Happy at all. In fact, our viewpoint is that we would hope that people would come together. No matter what happens in this election cycle, at the end of it, we’ve all got to get on with our lives and do what we can to improve our communities around us, regardless of the outcome. I think it’s very important for people to learn how to deal with that stress and deal with radically different viewpoints than the ones they personally held, and how they can continue to live their life and make a difference in the way they want to make a difference. Despite the fact that they may not always feel congruent with the people they’re talking to.
Then, really, when we’re talking about political differences, that’s what we’re talking about. It’s no different than religious differences. It’s no different than any other fundamental belief that you hold that someone else a different fundamental belief that might appear or occasionally be in conflict to the ones you hold. We all need to get better at dealing with people who think differently than we do. It’ll be a much happier world when we can have civil dialogue and civil discourse, and not other people. I love that, don’t other people. Welcome people, listen, understand, have constructive dialogue, but move forward.
I’m really excited for that discussion. I’m really excited to listen to everything that’s been brought to the table, that we’re going to be going over in the next couple of months. Because let’s face it, we live in the United States, the next few months are going to be dominated. When you turn on your television, when you turn on your radio, when you turn on your computer, and you open up that browser, they’re going to be dominated by election news. It’s impossible to escape, and they’re going to be dominated by people who share and people who directly oppose your opinion. I think it’s really important to keep yourself mentally healthful through all of that.
I find it really interesting that you brought up Generation Z, because the happiness report that came out in March, we’ve talked about this on this podcast before, what it showed us is Generation Z is fundamentally less happy than any other generation we have. Well, we haven’t really looked at Generation Alpha yet for that, but they’re fundamentally less happy than Generation X, than the millennials, than baby boomers. It really, I think, was shocking and surprising to everybody to have that outcome. So, I know we’re doing some content on Generation Z. Tell us what you have planned, Paula?
[0:08:54] PF: Well, that’s going to be an ongoing conversation that we have. We’re going to do something about once a month, where we deal with a topic that’s relevant to Gen Z. Don’t mistake this for a bit, to get Gen Z listeners, because this isn’t – just like with any other rights movement, they aren’t the ones that are going to make the change. It’s the other people around them. It’s the millennials, and the baby boomers, and Gen X are the ones that are going to make a difference for Gen Z, because we have to help change the way that they move through this world.
So, those are some of the things that we look at, like what can we do, what is it that Gen Z is suffering from, and why is this. I see so many headlines where they’re just like, “Well, it’s because they’re lazy. It’s because they’re on their phone.” We as the adults in the room are not taking the time to really dive into what’s driving their behavior. And until we do that, we can’t help them. The fact is, they are our future, and how they move through the world is going to affect us later in life. So, again, we’re all on the same ship, just as with the political beliefs. We’re all in this together, and you can’t wish that their side goes down because we’re on the same ship. So, it’s like, we rise or we sink together.
So, we have to learn what it is that they need, why it is they see things differently, why they’re so stressed out, and what we can do about it. If we don’t change that, what does that mean for Generation Alpha? If each generation subsequently becomes less happy, we’re not looking at very good outcomes for our grandchildren and their children. So, it’s trite, but we need to be the change.
[0:10:32] DH: We do, which isn’t to say, we don’t want Generation Z listeners. We do.
[0:10:37] PF: Exactly.
[0:10:38] DH: It’s not just about us, but it’s not just about our Gen X’s, but it is everybody else.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
[0:10:44] PF: This episode of Live Happy Now is brought to you by BetterHelp. We’ll be right back with the show. But I wanted to take a moment to talk about self-care. Self-care is so important, but even when we know that, it’s often hard to make time for it. It seems like there are so many other things that take over our calendars, and we end up making time for everyone, but ourselves.
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[EPISODE CONTINUES]
[0:12:59] DH: I think this is a really important topic because I have Generation Z children, those are my children. I was surprised by the outcome of the World Happiness Report, because I don’t find them to be less happy, but I do find them to be more fearful and more stressed about things. We weren’t fearful or stressed about it all that I remember, at least my peer group wasn’t in the ‘eighties, dating myself. But in the eighties, we just seemed a little more risk taking, a little less fearful of going outside the lines, a little more, I guess, empowered to have control of our own lives than I see in Generation Z right now.
I think part of the issue we have is they don’t feel empowered to take control of their lives and to live. I think there’s a little bit of helicopter parenting, I think it’s a little bit of coddling, I think it’s a little bit of sheltering. They were all impacted by the pandemic, and it’s easy for us as adults to say while the world is getting back to normal. For them, that was normal. So now, there’s a new normal. If you’re only 18 years old, and you spent a year and a half year life, not leaving your house or your neighborhood, that’s a very different life experience than I had.
[0:14:10] PF: I cannot imagine having to spend any of my high school years holed up in my house. I can’t. I mean, a curfew was hard enough to deal with. So, I can’t even imagine.
[0:14:21] DH: I have to be home by 11? What? But I can’t imagine how different they’re set up. I mean, it’s so different. The world is so different. So, I think it’s going to be a really interesting topic.
[0:14:34] PF: Can I bring up too that this is a generation that consumes their news from social media feeds. The algorithms know something that is fearful is going to get the clicks. So, they are being fed in addition to everything that they’ve experienced, the trauma of the pandemic, and everything else. They’re being fed such negative news. I know we’ve talked about this with you, and your son, and you talking differently with him about that. Just because it’s presented that way doesn’t mean you’ll never have a house. It doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to afford things. But that is where so many in Gen Z are coming from.
Well, what’s more concerning to me than that, is that Generation Alpha, which is also being called Generation Glass, because they are the first generation that’s raised completely on screens, they’re going to have that same messaging as well. So, they’re going to be even more entrenched in getting that news that is undermining their wellbeing.
[0:15:35] DH: They are also the generation that, particularly the upper end of that generation that truly missed some relationship development time with the pandemic. I have a 12-year-old, and she’s very comfortable never leaving the house, she’s happy. For me, that’s just bizarre. I mean, she goes in the backyard, in the front yard, and we have friends over, and she does get out of the house. I don’t want you to think my child’s a recluse, but she’s perfectly happy if she doesn’t. Which is very different than, even my older two. She’s at the very upper end of that Generation Alpha. So, they’re just now becoming able to voice who they are. It’s going to be different, because it’s always different. It’s always surprising.
[0:16:12] PF: Right. I think it’s going to be quite an adventure for us, and really eye-opening to be so aware of what’s going on, and what needs to be presented differently. I think we’ll learn as much as they do.
[0:16:26] DH: I do too. I think it’s going to be a really good season. I mean, I love that we cover these topics, because we don’t have the answers yet. It’s always interesting to talk about the stuff that there’s no answers to, because there’s so much work to be done. And I know there’s a lot of studying that’s going to be done, there’s going a lot of stuff that we don’t even know that’s going to be available to us next year that’s going to be coming out. It’s going to be a great year. Great Season 10, Paula. Ten years. Isn’t that crazy?
[0:16:53] PF: How did we do it. Here’s what’s funny, because as I was prepping for this, and I’m like, “Wow, 10.” I couldn’t even remember our first podcast. So, I went back and listened to it. It was you, and you’re introducing the podcast, and it was really nostalgic, it was really touching for me, because there was such enthusiasm, and optimism, and trepidation too of like, what are we getting ourselves into, and what’s going to happen. To listen to that, and your hope, and your expectations. Everyone should go back and listen to it if they haven’t. It’s like a 10-minute podcast introducing it. It made me so joyful to listen to that. Then, to be able to look back, 477 episodes later, and say, “Wow, we did all that and more.” That was really touching.
[0:17:45] DH: We have definitely evolved. I haven’t listened to the first one probably in eight years.
[0:17:51] PF: You should.
[0:17:51] DH: Maybe longer. I should go back and listen to that. But I know we started as a lot of companies, we’ve been through the digital revolution, we started as a magazine company, printing and mailing magazines to your house. Then, we added our digital website, livehappy.com, which has also evolved over time. Then, we added the podcast, and the first episode in the podcast were all about, what was in the magazine, when you go back. Not the very first episode, but what was in the magazine.
Then, over time, I get to be jealous now, because Paula gets to do all of the interviewing, she gets to be the one who gets to meet with all these fascinating people and discuss their ideas. But over time, it really has evolved into the center of our business. This podcast is now our primary function. Yes, our companion newsletter is amazing. If you don’t subscribe, you should subscribe. I’m going to share a little bit, and this doesn’t mean anything to anybody out there in the world who doesn’t follow media, but it’s not just that we have a lot of subscribers to our podcast, is that our open rate is triple an open rate. Meaning, the average open rate. Meaning, people get it and they want to read it. You can unsubscribe any time, it’s completely free.
But we have the newsletter, we have the podcast, we post new stuff on the website. It really has evolved into being something that I’m very proud of. I’m excited about what we do, and to know that it’s still all about making your world a happier place, and giving you the tools that you need. And it’s all still grounded in science, we’re not making stuff up. I mean, sometimes –
[0:19:21] PF: Not often, anyway, no.
[0:19:23] DH: Not often. Usually we’ll say, this is our opinion, and we have really no idea, but we think this may be what’s going on. But we’re not making stuff up. But it’s still grounded in science, and I’m really proud of it, and I’m excited to be entering our 10th year. I’m going to be on as often as I can. I want to close by asking you, Paula, two questions. The first one is, what is your favorite recollection about being the podcast host? What is your favorite thing that you’ve been able to do from the seat and the role you play at Live Happy?
[0:19:52] PF: Oh my gosh. That is probably the toughest question you could ask me. I cannot even put into words the way that it feels when I have a dynamic interview. I feel like it’s how a musician must feel when they walk off the stage, and they’ve just had the crowd roar. There’s a feeling that you get when you’re interviewing people, and there’s a flow, and insight that they’re giving to you is so meaningful. You’re like, if it means this to me, I know it’s got to resonate with somebody else. That has been the most gratifying experience that anyone can imagine.
[0:20:27] DH: I’m chuckling because for our related podcast and other podcast that I’m in, which is called, Built to Win. We just did an entire episode on flow, and getting into flow, and how that feels. It’s fascinating you find your flow through dynamic dialogue, that’s great. For those of you who don’t know what flow is, we’ve got tons of stuff on it, we’ve done tons of stuff on it on Live Happy. It’s kind of essential to achievement, it’s essential to an overall sense of positive wellbeing.
There’s a great book on it. It’s a little technical, but there’s a lot of articles summarizing that book. It’s by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, and it’s called Flow. You should check it out if you haven’t already. It’s one of the foundational books of really Live Happy and Live Happy Movement. So, you should check that out if you haven’t. So, that was question number one. Question number two is, what are you most looking forward to in our future? What do you think is on the horizon that you’re just super excited about?
[0:21:23] PF: Oh, our newsletter. We have so much growth plan, and so many exciting things that we’re going to be unveiling through our newsletter. People don’t know this, but I also work with an International News Media Association, and have learned so much about how we can engage with people, and how we can really reach people through newsletters. It has kind of changed our whole platform of how we approach this. I’m super, super excited. I love our listeners, I love our audience, and I’m really eager to share all these great new things with them through the newsletter.
[0:21:56] DH: Well, thank you, Paula. Thank you for letting me sit in the interviewer chair.
[0:22:00] PF: Any time.
[0:22:00] DH: Although I probably pontificated more than I used to, more than I needed to, I mean. But I’m super excited about this upcoming season. I’m honored that you still let me take credit for a lot of this, because Paula – for those of you don’t know, Paula is the heart of what we do at Live Happy. She is the center of the wheel that keeps all the other folks moving, and I could not appreciate her more. It is a joy working with her, and it’s also a joy being able to be a guest on the podcast when I’m a guest, and letting me host this time brings back old memories. I miss hosting, I missed that flow that you get from that dynamic conversation. But I love listening to them, so thank you so much for everything you do.
[0:22:34] PF: Well, thank you, and we’ll have you back to host again.
[0:22:38] DH: All right. Take care, Paula.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:22:44] PF: That one was Deborah Heisz, talking with me about what’s in store for Season 10. If you’d like to learn more about what we’re up to, or sign up for our weekly newsletter, or any of the email courses we talked about, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode. If you aren’t already receiving us ever week, we invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. While you’re there, feel free to drop us a review and let us know what you think. That is all we have time for today. We will meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
