Live Happy

Diane Pollard’s job in financial services paid well, but sitting behind a desk to improve the company’s bottom line left her marginally fulfilled. “I was scared that I had only so many years left of living,” Diane says. “I thought, Wouldn’t it be sad to always take but never really give something back?”A seasoned volunteer, Diane had long recognized the satisfaction she received from helping others and desired to find similar work full-time. A family trip to Jamaica provided the impetus.

When Amar Khanderia left Toronto for India in 2003, he thought he was embarking on a short spiritual retreat. Fresh out of university, he planned to spend time with his spiritual teacher, deepen his meditation practice, do some self-reflection, and then return to Canada to begin his career. Instead, he stayed in India for 17 years. What happened during those years would not only reshape his own life, it would eventually inspire a growing movement of service and connection back home.

As we close out our Summer Reading Program, host Paula Felps sits down with cognitive and behavioral neuroscientist Dr. Sydney Ceruto to walk through her book, The Dopamine Code: How to Rewire Your Brain for Happiness and Productivity, which explores one of the most misunderstood forces shaping our motivation, mood, and modern well-being.

Not all family time is created equal. Each day, time together might look like sharing meals, shuttling kids to and from activities, tackling household chores, or even watching TV. While those moments matter, they don’t always translate into feeling connected. Between busy schedules, stress, screens, and the pressures of life, it’s easy for family time to feel focused on logistics rather than genuine interaction.

In this week’s episode of Live Happy Now, Paula Felps sits down with author Angelica Glass to explore her remarkable book, Scavenging Beauty: A Memoir in Walks, which chronicles her decision to walk every street in Santa Cruz County. What began as a stress‑relief habit unfolded into a profound journey of awe, healing, forgiveness, and rediscovery.

Few activities out there offer as many benefits for young kids as reading together. Beyond building language and literacy skills, books create meaningful opportunities for connection and imagination, while creating a catalyst for conversation about emotions and life’s moments — both big and small.

This week, as part of the Live Happy Summer Reading Program, host Paula Felps sits down with Elizabeth Margulis, a professor of music at Princeton University and director of the Music Cognition Lab, to talk about her book, Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams.

The Live Happy Summer Reading Program continues this week as host Paula Felps sits down with author and activist Deborah Santana to talk about Loving the Fire: Choosing Me, Finding Freedom, her powerful memoir about identity, courage, reinvention, and choosing a life aligned with your spirit.

We all remember the early days of COVID-19 survival: toilet paper shortages, grocery deliveries, and everyone suddenly at home, all the time. Schools closed, and at-home learning became the norm for some. For others, learning simply stopped. Without access to classrooms, libraries, or a steady supply of books, many students lost the opportunity to read and stay engaged. COVID didn’t create the problem; it exposed and magnified a long-standing gap in access.

For Week 2 of the Live Happy Summer Reading Program, award‑winning journalist and author Donna Jackson Nakazawa sits down with host Paula Felps to discuss her groundbreaking new book, Mind Drama: The Science of Rumination and How to Outwit Your Inner Defeatist. Donna explains that rumination is an evolution‑wired survival response that has gone rogue in modern life, trapping us in negative “mental movie reels” fueled by the brain’s default mode network.