Everyone wants to be happy or even happier as if a book, a podcast, a psychologist can make it happen.  As of 2025, over 100,000 books have been written on the topic of happiness, according to database estimates from Amazon, WorldCat, and Google Books.

And there are thousands of courses on happiness in one form or the other.

A comedian can make us happy or at least laugh like we are happy but in spite of the popularity of pursing happiness, it’s like chasing a butterfly.

There is another approach that we use in the music business department at NYU where young people devote their lives to making other people happy (at least temporarily) by listening to music.

Concentrate on becoming more resilient – getting up again when you’ve been knocked down.

And cultivating a love for giving gratitude that helps others and empowers us.

“Even in the tough times, you have to find a reason to keep going. That’s where joy starts.” — Alicia Keys

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One of the few humble multi-billionaires announced his retirement.  94-year old Warren Buffett is retiring at the end of the year.

Buffett is the Oracle of Omaha for lots of reasons.  He says successful people have one two-letter word in common.

No.

No is like yes for people who take on too much, have weak boundaries and who get lost in other people’s work.

Buffett goes further.  He says no to almost everything. 

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“I don’t look at my phone anymore. I spent all my time seeing everybody else’s life, and I forgot that my own was right in front of me.” — Billie Eilish said this after winning multiple Grammy’s.

Billie Eilish didn’t quit her phone — she quit using social media apps to live through everyone else’s life.

She realized endless doom-scrolling was stealing her focus, her energy, her presence — so she chose something better: living her own moments fully.

The goal isn’t to ditch your phone.

It’s to make your real life too good, too vivid, and too real to want to trade for anyone else’s.

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Learned this weekend that the mother of Pittsburgh Steelers first-round NFL draft pick Derrick Harmon died Thursday night shortly after her son was selected by the team.

Tiffany Saine was on life support in the hospital after suffering a stroke in 2022.

Derrick used some of his NIL money (financial compensation athletes receive in college) to buy his mom a wheelchair accessible van and he said she took him to many practices then went on to work.

The story is touching but the motivating part is what Derrick learned from his mom:

“If I’m tired, I’m injured, whatever it is, why can’t I keep going if she can get up and she keep going after brain surgery.”

“Why can’t I keep going if she can get up and she keep going after brain surgery”.

Life is tough, some people are tougher and all of us can always find good in bad.

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I’ll admit, I am a college music business professor and I’ve had a love affair with music all my life – we know the curative effects of music – now I have discovered this which I am going to share with my students this week before the semester wraps up (and you now).

Singing for 14 minutes a day could have the same positive effect on the heart rate variability (HRV) as light exercise according to a Medical College of Wisconsin study.

HRV, the variation in the time between heartbeats – is one of the key features of cardio health. A high HRV says our bodies are more resilient and adaptable to stress. 

Singing with friends may be even better and group singing promotes emotional health because of social connection. 

My friends Tom and Sharan Taylor love singing in groups.

Music may be the new penicillin.

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Removing obstacles to confidence, oddly enough, starts with eliminating anger.  That’s not a common view but a powerful one.

“Forgiveness is a choice that you make to give up anger and resentment, even while acknowledging that misconduct happened.

Forgiveness is choosing a higher path. Forgiveness is for you, not for the forgiven.

Forgiveness is your gift to others, even those who are undeserving of your kindness” according to Dr. Amit Sood.

Confidence grows when you release anger through forgiveness, choosing peace and personal strength over resentment.

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I’m teaching a class on performance anxiety and imposter syndrome this week and in preparation discovered that 80% of us – not just performers and entertainers – experience it in our lives.

Barbra Streisand famously said “The only way I could perform was to believe I had something important to say.  If I thought about the audience judging me, I’d freeze.  But if I focused on the message in the music — I could sing.”

Lizzo:  “I used to get nervous before every show, thinking I had to prove myself.  Now I remind myself: I’m not here to be perfect — I’m here to be present.”

World renown violinist Hilary Hahn said “Performance anxiety never fully goes away — but I’ve learned to welcome it. It means I care.  I don’t try to fight it anymore; I work with it, like a partner.”

I’ll save you the tuition of taking the course to hearing the answer to performance anxiety that is so rampant in our world today – and it’s so simple but true.

Keep going.

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Getting down on yourself is a dangerous flirtation.

Bad feelings can emerge.  Loss of self-worth can start pretty quickly.  And depression can take you off course.

My NYU Stress Class students struggle with rejection, criticism and negative thoughts which is a form of self-sabotage that can be stopped in its tracks.  How?

Do good, not just focus on it.  Actually, make a difference in some outcome.  It doesn’t have to be life changing just small or even insignificant compared to earth shattering.

The size of good doesn’t matter because the feeling you get is the same – that you are capable of positivity.  It’s lots of little rehearsals for the big thing that may – no, will come along.

Do good, feel good – banish negative thoughts that are useless.

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Perhaps you’ve heard about “The Four Agreements”?

Authors Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills make the most sense of a haunting issue of our time – judging, made easier through instant communication and social media.

They ask you to imagine living your life without the fear of being judged by others.

What others say no longer influences you or patterns of your life.

You’re not accountable for someone’s opinion.

You’re done with controlling anyone and no one gets to control you.

That’s living your life without judging others.

True freedom comes from releasing the fear of judgment and the need to control others.  When we stop worrying about what people think and let go of judgments, we can live authentically, forgive easily, and experience inner peace.

I love this, from Miguel Ruiz:  “Don’t take anything personally. What others say about you is a reflection of their own reality, their own dream.”

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… its default setting would be tuned to ‘threat channel.’

You have to consciously change the station to find peace.

That’s the wisdom of Global Center for Resilience and Wellbeing’s Dr. Amit Sood who reminds us in a way relatable to my entertainment industry readers and for that matter anyone in the audience for the need for intentional mental shifts.

To “change the station” is to interrupt those automatic threat-based patterns and intentionally focus your mind elsewhere:  Gratitude, connection, present-moment awareness and joy, beauty, or creativity.

This doesn’t happen passively. You have to decide to guide your attention toward peace — because the brain won’t land there by itself.

If we can turn the channel on a radio, choose from thousands of podcasts on our phone or build a playlist from millions of choices on Spotify, we can surely take charge of our attitude.

This topic of the hidden power within is so motivational because everyone has it even if they don’t know it.

“The greatest power you have is the power to choose. The moment you decide to change your thinking, you begin to change your life.”

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In our NYU stress class we discover something so important that it can be life-changing.

That our brain is not programmed for happiness!  It’s been functioning in humans since the beginning of time for safety – to protect and warn us.

And, by the way, how social media pings us tends to trigger warnings not happiness is not nothing – it’s teasing the brain.

It’s almost a relief for some young people to discover this fact because it helps to reassure us that we are not doing something wrong if we wake up on a sunny day and don’t feel sunny.

So, the trick is to stop feeling bad about not feeling good.

There are workarounds – move on to something else, focus on someone different or simply just understand that your brain is doing its job and your job is to tap into the things in life that bring you happiness and pursue them.

Our brain’s #1 mission is survival—not mood optimization.

Your mind is a problem-solving machine.  But you are not a problem to be solved as psychologist Steven Hayes reminds us.

Such a powerful line — our brains scan for threats like we’re broken, when we’re just human.

I feel better already.

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“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward,” says philosopher  Søren Kierkegaard.

It means that we often make sense of our choices, struggles, and turning points — only in hindsight.  Looking back, we can see patterns, understand consequences, and gain clarity about who we are and how we’ve changed.

But we can’t live in reverse.  We’re always moving into an uncertain future, making decisions without knowing exactly how they’ll turn out.

Our challenge is learning to live with purpose and courage even when we don’t yet understand the meaning of our path.  In other words, life is an adventure.

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I learned something new again last week in my NYU Stress-Free Living and Working in the Music Industry class.

One student suggested in an open class discussion that there is now a new type of shaming that is worrying him – the shame of not having a good enough job and posting it on social media site LinkedIn.  Yes, LinkedIn which is designed to be the antidote to Facebook and Instagram and others that are more superficial.

The other 25 class members almost to a person, chimed in in agreement.  That not having a prestigious enough job (or cool enough) at varying stages of employment can be seen in a negative light – some want to resist it.

You can’t ignore shame even though it’s important to put in perspective that one person’s shame may actually start out as another person’s pride.

Social media has been killing the self-esteem of young people for long enough now for us to understand that it can be lethal.  Whether on social media or not, where we work is part of our narrative.   I’ve accomplished some broadcasting, business and educational goals but I also worked at Sears selling sporting goods as well as parks, recreation working with young people and being fired that led to a phenomenal job.

What matters is not the coolness of a career but where it ultimately fits in to your total journey.

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Author Meg Jay puts it bluntly when she quotes how young people look at pride:

“My mom goes on and on to me and everybody else about how great I am and how proud she is of me, and I want to say: ‘For what? What exactly stands out about me?’”

And that’s it!  Why are you proud of me and why am I proud of myself?

No reason is not a good enough reason.

The whys and wherefores are just as important as the feelings which often times are well-meant.

So as the day goes on, why not pause and specifically identify why you might be feeling self-pride and should others compliment you, remember the glue that holds pride together is what it is attached to.

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I chose the best in sports, business, and personal life – the things that get me up to defy the odds on days when I need a boost.

Business:  Apple was near bankruptcy when Steve Jobs returned as CEO in 1997. He streamlined products, launched the iMac, iPod, and later the iPhone, transforming Apple into the most valuable company in the world from $1 billion in losses to $3 trillion in valuation.

Personal:  JK Rowling rejected by 12 publishers to go on and become one of the most successful authors with Harry Potter.

Space:  After an oxygen tank exploded aboard Apollo 13 mid-mission, NASA engineers and astronauts improvised fixes under extreme pressure to bring the crew safely home. A “successful failure” that redefined crisis management.

Sports:  Soccer or more accurately the Union of European Football Associations. In the UEFA Champions League Final, Liverpool trailed AC Milan 3-0 at halftime. Against all odds, they scored 3 goals in 6 minutes during the second half, then won on penalties. It’s considered one of the greatest comebacks in sports history.

The “biggest” comeback is about defying odds, refusing to quit, and doing the seemingly impossible – a reminder that resilience is humanity’s superpower.

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Saturday my wife and I happened upon a tasty bakery in Haddonfield, NJ.  I’ve been thinking about this since while nibbling the past few days.

When you open the door (and this is weird), the first thing you must do is climb down about ten stairs and then climb over a four-year old who was sitting on the bottom step playing games on his iPhone.  His parents wisely were ogling the cakes and treats – I went right for the cookies, yet this boy never looked up.

I got to talking with another delightful mom who was tasting “cake bomb” samples for the surprise birthday party she was planning for her 30-year old daughter.  But she had a pastry fatal accident – dropped the “cake bomb” sample on the floor which the proprietor happily replaced.  Such fun.

When this little one grows up, he’s not going to lament missing out on playing a video game, but he will not have the fond memory of bargaining for a treat at the bakery.  My kids would have at the least thrown a temper tantrum to get a goodie.

The past is history.

The future is a plan.

The present is life, the only meaningful currency we ever have – something not to waste.

National Hockey League coach Scotty Bowman won 9 Stanley Cups with three separate teams.

He has never been fired — every coaching job he left was either by his own decision or due to a transition into another role.

Not true of the typical NHL coach where 6-8 coaches are fired every year with the shortest tenure of all sports – about two-and-a-half to four years on average.

This is for my many friends in the radio industry who increasingly don’t have the luxury of job security.

They devoted their careers to entertaining and caring about audiences – tens of thousands of them have been fired since hedge funds took advantage of relaxation of radio station ownership rules.

But every one of the major consolidators has been through bankruptcy even following their predictable plan to fire people to cut costs and/or increase profits.

Industry after industry, being fired has more often been about the employer’s inability to understand how to run a company than the employees’ ability to help them.

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Shyness and confidence are related, but they’re not the same thing.

A shy person can still be confident in their abilities or self-worth, but they might feel uncomfortable in social situations. An outgoing person might seem confident because they’re more comfortable engaging with others, but that doesn’t always mean they’re more self-assured.

Confidence is about how you feel about yourself, while being outgoing is more about how you interact with others. So, a shy person can be just as confident, if not more so, than someone who’s outgoing.

Actress Emma Watson is often described as introverted and shy, especially in public settings.  She has confidence in her values, such as advocating for gender equality and her work as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador showing how shyness doesn’t have to undermine self-assurance.

Comedian Robin Williams was known for being charismatic, quick-witted, and outgoing in his performances and public appearances. Despite this, he struggled with deep internal battles including depression and self-doubt. His ability to make people laugh didn’t necessarily reflect his inner sense of confidence showing that outward charm doesn’t always equal inner confidence.

True confidence comes from embracing who you are and trusting your abilities, not from how others perceive you.

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Neuroscientists tell us that we waste too much time and energy on imagined problems – things that concern or even scare us but have no way of actually happening.  Obviously, they add to our anxiety quota anyway.

Out of 100 things that we worry about, 96 will never happen or turn out better than we expected leaving only 4 worries that will actually affect us (although not usually the way we fear).

Our brains are naturally wired for negativity, but most of the fears we obsess over are unfounded which means if we can recycle this thought in our mind, we will tend to disarm our potential for adding to anxiety today.

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While it’s important to surround yourself with supportive people, there will be times when others may not believe in you simply because they don’t see your vision, don’t understand your potential or have their own limitations.

That doesn’t mean they’re always wrong or that you should dismiss them entirely.

True self-belief comes from within, not from external validation. Some of the most successful people have been doubted by others but proved them wrong by staying focused and persistent.

J.K. Rowling comes to mind as her Harry Potter work was rejected numerous times by publishers, a single mother, living on welfare and running out of hope. But she kept pushing forward becoming the first author to earn billions of dollars from writing.

Who knew?  She did.

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