I am Happy Podcast | Parenting, Health, Relationships, Personal Development

Laura is the lead planner and designer at Wrap It Up Parties. In this episode she covers the top 2 trends she’s seeing in party planning, how she would spend her money if she were planning her own party and five ways to save money in party planning without feeling like you’re skimping. Enjoy this episode with Laura Schweir.

Married for 34 and a half years with two sons, and they all provoked her to write her book.As a marriage counselor she’s more known for high-conflict couples and trauma. She mentioned that most high-conflict couples have trauma in their background and they need to learn to deal with it because it does affect their marriage.

Debbie is a mom of an 8-year old daughter and an 11-year old son, a wife, and a friend to many. She's a licensed social worker and has done a lot of parenting work prior to having her kids. That made her think parenting is going to be easy and even said she was the absolute parent, until she got kids. Parenting was not as easy ass she thought it would be.

Our guest today is Dr. Steve Hodges, who's a Pediatric Neurologist at the Wake Forest University Medical Center. He has uncovered the root cause of pee accidents and poop accidents one a child's potty trained. It's not widely recognized; however eye-opening so listen carefully to what Dr. Hodges has to say. He is an author of numerous scientific articles and he's made toileting issues the heart of his research and medical practice.  

Today, we’re excited to have Nicole Johnson on the show. She’s a baby and toddler sleep coach and a mother of two boys. She launched the Baby Sleep Site in 2008.  As part of the website she launched a helpdesk to provide more personalized assistance to families worldwide. By thoroughly researching she became an expert in sleep method, scheduling routines and babies developmental needs.  

Today's episode is for you, if you're an overwhelmed parent just trying to get through the day. Marie is our guest today and she talks about her Create Balance Method in addition to her membership group where she helps them clean up their "junk drawer". She's giving away 2 annual memberships if you're looking for some more help to getting organized.

Today’s guest is Dr. Carla Cupido. She is passionate about bringing movement into everyday life and not just through exercise like you normally would everyday but integrating that into your daily activity seriously is so important - it makes sense from a scheduling and lifestyle perspective. Honestly everything she talks about sounds so much fun. Enjoy today’s episode.

Today’s podcast is with Erin Benson, the founder of With Purpose, a non-profit organization that helps to fight childhood cancer. Erin shares with us her very personal story of losing a child, of building again, and finding hope through the actions of neighborhood children who took on the mission of With Purpose and through their passion created phenomenal results.

Naya Weber is a certified lactation consultant based in Austin, Texas. She teaches classes on breastfeeding education and blogs about motherhood, breastfeeding and more. In this podcast, Naya discusses topics such as what government support you could expect, what you shouldn't be doing when breastfeeding; finally the must-have's for breastfeeding moms.

In today's podcast we listen to Dr Mark Trolice, the leading fertility expert in central Florida. He's gone through infertility challenge personally, ultimately adopting 5 children and openly discusses the fear and psychological pain that accompanies so many woman as they go on their pregnancy journey and yet the challenge that it's still not out in the open today. He gives good advice putting an individual in control when experiencing fertility challenges, what fertility challenge really means and giving us all listeners permission to expect your doctor to care and to leave if that doctor is not living up to your expectations.

Kass is a mom first and foremost, a businesswoman, a wife, and a friend. She mentioned it’s not easy to be all those things at once. For Kass, having it all means not going crazy while having kids and trying to work outside the home. Her philosophy has always been that she was never balanced. If she had balance or was doing it all, it meant she would be doing a lot of things not very well or one thing really well.

Language development is a huge part of a child's progress and learning to speak is vital to their social developing, learning, and understanding. In today's episode, Molly will talk us through some of the ways to help us encourage our babies to put their speech on the fast track.

Being a single parent is very difficult, but with the right attitude and the help of the right people, raising kids can be a little less stressful. In this episode, Delane, Executive Director of DNNC Steps to Success, shares her inspiring story about her

Today's interview of the Theory of Loose Parts and Early Childhood Development is really interesting.  If you can listen through what Diane has to say she has some really great ideas on how we can easily improve our children’s environment and encourage play with things that are just around the house.

This episode, we had Shelly Pace Weiser on the podcast. She owns the Hive which is a co-working space/ coffee shop, and child care facility. The idea started in 2015 and she recently opened her doors in October 2017. The Hive has an open seating cafe area, a lounge area, and a picnic area where everyone can visit or work absolutely free. So imagine, you need an hour of  work time. You can go to the Hive, drop off your kids, get a latte, sit down and get done whatever you need, last minute or not! And, you know your kids are well taken care of.  I was really interested in interviewing Shelly when I heard about the concept she was launching because I think there is such need for spaces like The Hive, and I selfishly wish we had a Hive near me. 

Chino is a social worker, and has been at Educational Alliance for 12 years. She runs the Youth Program, and has some great advice today on the importance of perseverance, exposing your kids to opportunities that will build their self esteem and skills, as well as how much you can really shape peer groups, and exposure to mentors that can shape your children's life. 

If I were to write my rules for a happy life, what would they be? I can say that I am too young to know, but I’m 35. I’m old enough to know, and old enough to have kids, which means old enough to pass on the wisdom.

For moms thinking what school to bring their kids to, we have Mary Ellen Maunz to give us insights about Montessori. She is the Founder and Program Director of Age of Montessori in Bozeman, Montana. A mom of three, an author, and a 40-year experience in Montessori education, I'd say she has loooooot to share with us today.

Our guest for today is Lynne Goldberg, who is the co-founder of Breethe.com and OMG! I can meditate app. Lynne has a pretty phenomenal story of how she was a pretty stressed person, had a lot of hurdles she had to deal with in her life, and how through all those struggles, she came out the other side with clear vision on her passion in life - meditation. And, we are lucky that she is generously sharing that passion with us and the world today. And she is humble, because the advice she gives to us is that - if she can do it, any of us can do it.

In this episode we have Lisa Bilyeu on. She's the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, a billion dollar nutrition company, and a co-founder of Impact Theory, a company that helps empower businesses with their ability to effect change. But more than that, Lisa has the power of words and inspiration. In this episode, she explains how to break down her barriers specifically the fear of failure and she gives insights on how to look deep and tactics on how to overcome times when you just want to hide under your sheets. Because trust me we all had those days!

Maruxa coaches moms that wants to create value-driven businesses, as well as founding Perky-Perky coffee. She is also founder of Austin's Moms Network. She hosts #aroundthecup, a daily dose of Maruxa and friends discussing parenting, finding your inner power, and everything in between.

Pregnancy can be an exciting but scary time. With so many questions on how to give birth - natural, hospital, home birth, etc. Doula's help us to make that journey easier and help you stick to your birth plan. So today, we're going to dive in to what does it really mean to be a doula and how does that help you. For that we have Samantha Lee Wright who's on this podcast and she was really great in uncovering more about what to expect in working with doula's and gave some great tips on misconceptions that we might have as well about giving birth.

Shannon has this innate power of recognizing what you see as challenges that maybe you're not aware of. It's this crazy ability to push on  your pressure points to have you recognize them and to move away those challenges to help you to really come into your own. She is so phenomenal and so inspirational. Everytime I talk to her and i leave, i feel so energized. And that's so important when interacting with people.

Getting a good night's sleep is everyone's ideal. Yet, 70% of Americans admit to routinely not getting enough sleep and 50-70 million people have a sleep disorder. Clearly, many of us have issues with getting a good night's rest. That is why we have Patrick Fuller as our guest today. Patrick Fuller is an Associate Professor of Neurology, at Harvard Medical School. Today, he will be talking to us about what causes sleep deprivation and how we can each get some healthy sleep.

Tony and Alisa were very engaging and informative. So many times during the interview, I thought to myself, "This is me!" It seems so simple, but I keep thinking about Tony's point he made during the interview that the 7 Day Sex Challenge provides you with the "time" together that is so needed. It sounds so simple, but it is really really profound.

Dana Davis found out she had bad posture almost as an accident. Posture is such a hard subject in that it is easy to implement in theory, but difficult to implement in everyday life. Dana provided some easy tips that make it so much easier to implement, thus improving your health and posture. Listen for simple tips like sitting back in your seat. It is the small tweaks that make a big difference.

Jessica knows food. She understands how food can affect your health,as well as the joy that food can bring to the world as well. Jessica believes that food that is great for one person, is not necessarily great for the next. I think that is so insightful, and she recommends some great books to learn more about how to incorporate the right foods into your diet.

Jenna Zigler is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to eyecare for yourself and your family. She shared with us how to get a free eye exam for your baby under 1 years old, how you can care for your eyes daily, and what you can do to protect your kid's eyes...sunglasses, anyone? I think you will really enjoy all the eye information she shares with us on this episode.

Talking with Olga is inspirational. She is one of those rock-star women who more than made it worked, but has excelled with 3 businesses, and a family. She came to the US when she was in her 20s, and built her life from the ground-up. She learned English while in the US, and became a single mom.  Despite the odds, she has excelled with her businesses and Dream Big Podcast with her daughter Eva. I think you will really enjoy the interview with Olga Karpman.

Interviewing Kitty was such fun! She has this beautiful voice that just brings out emotion. I could feel myself tearing up while talking with her. She gave me goose bumps, and had my emotions all over the place. She is truly a master, and really enjoyable. I know this doesn't give much summary about the interview itself, but she left more of an impression on me emotionally than anything else, so I had to point that out!

We were very lucky to have Greg Peterson on the show today to discuss Urban Farming.  The importance of Naming Your Farm (I'm going to name our farm Andyama) Soil Quality being the most important thing to consider when getting started farming Easy tip to add wood chips to your yard to improve the quality of the soil AND that you can get wood chips for FREE Tree Farming vs. Garden Farming Rain Water Collection Basics

Hugh provides stories for audiences between ages 3-11. Stories that Storynory publish are both original and existing popular fables. This is a great way to get kids to utilize their imagination instead of having them watch the television. I love the concept of audio stories, and that Hugh makes it accessible to everyone. I also thought it was interesting that he does not think about morals with the stories. Enjoy the episode with Hugh from StoryNory.

In this episode, Amanda talks to us about her child development background and gives us great tips on how we can use positive language to help better communicate with our kids. In addition, she mentions how even though she had a background in child development, it was a whole different beast when she actually had kids. I think you will enjoy this entertaining episode, and learn a thing or two from Amanda Morgan.

What I love about Mary Ann is that she is real. There is no fluff. She doesn't put on pretenses about being the best mom in the world. She talks like a real mom with real struggles. She started the blog as a way to remember positive memories with her kids. I love that! And, she's got some gold nuggets that are really helpful such as: The most focused time for her kids is between 10-12PM Over the years, one of her biggest lessons is to relax Think about things through your kids' perspective

Renee Israel is a phenomenal business women, entrepreneur and mom. In this episode, she talks about: how she was juggling various ventures while holding a full-time job how she dove into the business, instead of backing off when she got pregnant what it means to be a franchise owner and have other people relying on you

Danielle went from being a 5th grade teacher in debt with a failing marriage to a successful fitness coach and public speaker who now works from home inspiring other moms to be fit and healthy. She is now financially secure, has a successful marriage, and business, and also collaborates with other famous fitness leaders to film work-out videos around the world. In this interview, we learn about: how she turned her life around her transition from teacher to fitness instructor what she believes makes the difference in finding financial freedom and success

What I love about Kristi is that she is building a new business model, and new way to work. That involves focusing on family benefits, including allowing new parents to bring their baby to work. Some people might shy away from that kind of thinking, worried that it will hinder the productivity. Instead, Kristi supports family values in every aspect of her life. Who would not want to work for a boss like Kristi?  Kristi covers how she has some top evening routines including: Putting her phone away when she gets home Having dinner ready by 5:30PM every day She also covers how she had major mom guilt because she felt she needed to cook her kids meals, but how she learned to outsource that so that she was not so stressed out.

Lucinda is married, has 2 kids and is one of the brains of the coolest party and play space known as The Coop. The business started with the need and want to look for a kid’s place where she and her now business partner, Julia Boydston, could also enjoy themselves. Looking and finding nothing inspired her and Julia to come up with a party and play space for kids and adults. Now, they have The Coop which continues to thrive. Another cool fact about the duo is that they made a big splash on shark tank.

Juliet Boydstun is a mom of three and is one of the owners of The Coop. She and her business partner started coming up with ideas of creating a next level kid’s play place where parents could also enjoy with their kids. With their collaboration – ideas turn into reality. I loved Juliet Boydstun enthusiasm, and I found her perspective on the Shark Tank effect hilarious. She mentioned, ” All the moms wanted to talk to us before Shark Tank. And now when we are at a parties’ the dads want to talk to us.”

This is the introductory episode where we cover:  How the "I am Happy" Podcast came about What we think about "Having it All" Where we will be taking this podcast moving forward