Michelle Wax: American Happiness - How to Find It

Happiness. What does it mean to you? How do you find it? How do you get it back when it’s lost? Today’s guest visited all 50 states speaking with folks of different walks of life to answer these questions.

We address:

• Why it’s never worth living a life and career that you’d only regard as “fine”
• How a non-filmmaker was inspired to create The American Happiness Project
• Common “happiness” trends among Michelle’s interviewees across the U.S.
• What you should not do if you want to live a happy existence
• How the pandemic impacted Michelle’s research on happiness

Karen speaks with Michelle Wax, Founder of The American Happiness Project, a 50-state movement that grew out of the documentary of the same name, to create more joy, energy, and connection in the everyday.

3 MAJOR POINTS DISCUSSED

• Beware the “fine” life. Not to be confused with enjoying the “finer” things in life, a “fine” life is one where you live every day doing little more than go through the motions. It’s one where you settle for average instead of visualizing and working toward the lifestyle and career of your dreams.
• Happiness is a choice. The journey toward your personal happiness is a completely internal one. No outside circumstance or person is going to be able to keep you happy for the long-term—and no outside force can take it away from you.
• Do a “happiness” audit every so often. At times, it may help to take stock of the different aspects of your life and single out those things that are draining your happiness, whether it’s a person, the media you’re consuming, or even a destructive pattern of thinking. We tend not to notice things that we live with every day. Becoming aware of these “happiness vampires” is the first step to eliminating them.

RESOURCES

The American Happiness Project

American Happiness: The Documentary

Michelle Wax on LinkedIn

 

Michelle Wax is the founder of American Happiness Project, a movement across 50 states focused on creating more joy in the everyday—in every area of life.

 

Wax works with top companies and schools across the USA to help teams thrive in uncertainty, use stress to their advantage, and create positive mindsets through workshops + accountability programs to build community and connection.

 

She produced the American Happiness Documentary, set to release in early 2021 and also works privately with individuals through private coaching.

 

Prior to founding American Happiness Project, Wax founded two companies in the food industry, which she sold in 2019.

 

She takes an energized and spirited approach to everything she does, and has been praised to be "incredibly knowledgeable, relate-able, and approachable" and she "brings great energy that very few are able to bring to the online world".

 

Karen Morales is founder and brand champion at Marketing Magnet.

Marketing Magnet was founded by Karen and her lean team of Fortune 500 marketing and advertising talent. We’re a world-class marketing department that has decided to take our big brand experience and direct it at the clients we want to serve: purpose-driven enterprises. Our secret sauce is our ability to focus companies on three marketing pillars to create great impact.

If you are looking for a solution to a marketing challenge, a specific project to be completed or a team to drive marketing on your behalf, we can help.

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