The Happiness Quotient

This powerful episode revisits an inspiring interview of hope with Holocaust survivor Irene Butter. For the thousands living today who survived that period in history, when the Nazi’s reigned terror around the world and attempted to rid the world of those who they deemed were a threat to their so-called superior race, the memory is a daily experience. Irene, like many, has chosen to honor those wh...

Chris Carter grew up the son of missionaries in Kenya, Africa. He moved to the United States to study, climb, learn. In 2018 Chris took the physical and spiritual challenge of hiking the 2,650 mile Pacific Crest Trail in the western USA. The film he created grabbed me from the first sounds of a camp stove lighting up.  I welcome Chris to The Happiness Quotient to discuss the journey, about the fri...

"All of my wisdom came from all the toughest days I never learned a thing being happy" These words from The Wood Brothers' song Happiness Jones sum up our podcast. The band has given us the green light to use the song as our new theme music! We are beyond honored here at The Happiness Quotient. Hear the story of how it came to pass. We're also going to introduce you to 6-time E...

Recorded just as the polls closed during the runoff elections in Georgia, USA, we bring back Dr. Nathan Schwartz-Salant for his insightful take on how an individual must stand one's ground during times of chaos and uncertainty.  The late Dr. Nathan Schwartz-Salant, a prominent Jungian analyst, in this interview from February 8, 2020, on the eve of the New Hampshire primaries, offers a way for...

Our thoughts are very powerful. The thoughts that make up a great part of our conscious life create the person that we project onto the world, create the reality of our own lives.  Imagine a person being a tiny little radio station, broadcasting out to the world the thoughts, fears worries emptiness and depression that fill the mind. To commune with your soul, all it requires is for you to be like...

A quotient is an answer to a mathematical division problem. When we gather experience and look at the opportunities within our most challenging days, by deduction we begin to grow in wisdom. Hey, at the very least, we might learn what not to do. When we become wise and stop desiring the acquisition of wealth, or love or spiritual enlightenment, we will begin to become naturally happy. The Happines...

Folks, the winter solstice approaches. Thom gets prepared to announce some HUGE news about the future and where things are going.  Groove to some music by Daniel Donato and let Thom tell you what it's all about.  Music by Daniel Donato, the real Cosmic Cowboy "Always Been A Lover"  Find him at: www.danieldonato.com Find his music on Spotify by typing in 'Cosmic Country" an...

What do you get when you mix a Jam Band with a Country Band? You get Cosmic Country, a la Daniel Donato, a rising Nashville musician who got his start on Lower Broadway in Nashville at the age of 14 when he first stepped on stage. His story is inspiring, amazing, insightful and filled with positivity and wonder.  Daniel's new album is called A Young Man's Country, and you can find it her...

After eight wonderful years locked in the embrace of a warm cabin in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, it was time I had to move. The news came as such a shock that it hadn't occurred to me to shop for a home to purchase. Time was short. I had two months to find a place to move the entire kit and kaboodle, in an absolutely over-saturated rental market, tapped by AirBnB and second home buy...

This is the Truth about Everest. Hours after the passing of my mother in 2016 I was visited by a magnificent presence that assured me of my safety on Everest. Three months later, high up inside the Khumbu Icefall, that same presence assisted me during a serac avalanche in which four of us might have been killed.  PLEASE SHARE AND PLEASE SUBSCRIBE on Apple Podcasts. If you would like to be added to...

As Chair and CEO of Warner Bros., Ann Misiaszek Sarnoff became the first female to serve as a Studio head in the entertainment industry. Ann is truly a trail blazer, an inspiration to young and old to prove that hard work, determination and persistence far outshine the traits championed in the age of immediacy.  Ann was named head of WarnerMedia’s Studios and Networks Group in August 2020. In this...

Michael Palmisano has created a brand for himself as one of YouTube and the internet's premier guitar teachers. Known for his "Guitar Teacher REACTS" videos, he has - as of this date - over 171,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel "Michael Palmisano.  Micheal can't remember a time in his life that he wasn't playing or holding a guitar. He decided to go 'all in&...

A few years ago I had a hernia operation. The first thing I said to the nurse after I awoke from surgery was "The subconscious is a place created for people who need to hide their fears." Honest, that's what I said.  This brief episode investigates how fear and negative thinking can ruin us, starting with the idea of NOT feeling sorry for oneself. The power is in how we think, plain...

You could say that in every dark cloud there is a silver lining….  COVID, as you know, has wreaked havoc on human life and the economy, around the world and in the US.  In this episode we welcome back a guest who visited us in April for our HEROES OF THE QUARANTINE CULTURE episode. David Brancaccio, is HOST AND SENIOR EDITOR OF MARKETPLACE MORNING REPORT ON PUBLIC RADIO. Anyone who has a page dedi...

It's not lost on me that on this day in 2001 nearly 3,000 lives were lost and a nation was shocked when four coordinated terrorist attacks were waged. The gravity of the situation pales in comparison to the bump in the road I'm currently going through.  I, we, have been asked to leave a home that I have lived in - rented - for over eight years. The abrupt and shocking news was delivered...

HOW NOTES HERE Oliver Wood has a touch of survivor's guilt. Many of his peers and even some mentors in the music business didn't stick with it. Finally, after years of sleeping on couches and sharing hotel rooms with bands he got a decent paycheck in his mid-40's. He and his brother Chris, the younger Wood Brother, call is "the slow rise to the middle.' Oliver's take...

Canoeing the heights: rock climbers in the Mount Washington Valley of New Hampshire in the USA performed a high profile, high wire, eye catching demonstration in New Hampshire's White Mountains at Cathedral Ledge on September 5, 2020. Sightseers and curious tourists hiked up the Cathedral Ledge road to see the Rainbow flag representing the LGBQT movement and a huge Black Lives Matter flag fly...

Herein is a revelation straight from Havana Cuba, where I witnessed a mirage of my father, who had passed more than a decade before. My father was a poet, an English literature major at Brown University. He instilled in me an almost surreal sense of the romantic, which, and this is for a future episode, I believe is what made him an alcoholic, and, tragically, partially inspired the death by suici...

Barry Katz does not disappoint with his unique and inspiring blend of life philosophy, Hollywood chutzpah, life coach and all 'round good guy. For a man that towers over me at, what, 6-foot-four, he is soft spoken and mild mannered. Give him a chance, though, ad he'll spellbind you with his insight, wit and wisdom.  In Part 2 of my interview with Barry, we veer off into new territory. In...

This is a story about a father's enduring legacy, about a man who left this world young. While any dad who leaves before his time is worthy of consideration, this dad was world famous. He was the legendary blues harp (harmonica) player, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, vocalist and band leader the late Paul Butterfield. Today we go for a ride through Paul's old home of Woodstock, N...

On April 18, 2014 the silence of Everest was forever rocked by a devastating serac avalanche that took the lives of 16 souls. In an instant, all that was ever believed about Everest changed.  The gigantic block of ice was believed to be the size of a six story apartment building. As it tumbled down over the steep wall of the west shoulder of Everest, it smashed into thousands of pieces, many the s...

Barry Katz is a modern day renaissance man. He is also funny as hell. Smart. Successful. Humble beginnings. I met Barry in high school, where we competed on swim teams from neighboring towns, then went on to compete together on the Boston University Swim Team. Barry's beginnings are inauspicious: he was a high school bully. A swim coach - who happened to be my AAU coach - spotted Barry servin...

When I first started climbing back in my late 20’s I wanted to mix my newfound love of the mountains with my career….  It was my dream to bring the two together, so that I could make a living doing what I love, that being a filmmaker or cameraman filming on mountains around the world. It’s taken me many places, including four expeditions to Mount Everest. The Highpointers with the Bargo Brothers i...

I awoke today to news of an old college buddy, my first roommate, who is very sick. I had coincidentally had a dream about him last night, where I hugged him and told him that I was sorry I hadn't stayed in touch over the years.  I also was attacked on social media by someone I thought was my friend, who went insane when he heard me make a comment about Donald Trump bragging about his genius...

THIS IS A MUST LISTEN for all interested in current events, about how an elementary school in the most violent neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York has virtually transformed thousands of lives. This is a story about two separate worlds intersecting to make something beautiful. About an amazing elementary school that gives hope where there is only hopelessness and despair. It’s a story about a now de...