Search Results for: Nataly Kogan

Nataly Kogan: Living in a Friendly and Joy-Filled Univ...

What brings you your greatest joy? How do you access your inner “awesome”? Nataly Kogan has made it her life’s work to help people overcome burnout and break free from endless busyness. In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with Nataly about her new book, The Awesome Human Journal, and the practical steps we can begin to take right now to shift out of self-defeating thought patterns (and their corresponding emotions), reclaim our energy, and share our gifts with the world. 

Tune in as Tami and Nataly discuss insights from neuroscience that everyone should know; the human brain’s negativity bias; creating a better relationship with your thoughts—a key to well-being and emotional fitness; the worst-case scenario exercise; finding certainty in uncertain times; working within your sphere of impact; cultivating agency; freedom from skepticism and mistrust; living an aligned life in a universe that is friendly; energetic self-care; breaking the habit of denying ourselves joy; changing our habitual frame of reference to something positive and supportive; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Nataly Kogan: Happier Now

Nataly Kogan is a public speaker, author, and the founder of the training organization Happier. With Sounds True, she has published the book Happier Now: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Embrace Everyday Moments (Even the Difficult Ones). In this edition of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Nataly about redefining happiness not as a state where we experience no negative feelings whatsoever, but as a skill we must constantly hone. Nataly shares some of her life story, including her childhood experiences as a refugee and why she spent much of her life chasing the unattainable goal of “I’ll be happy when . . .” Tami and Nataly also discuss the benefits of maintaining a regular gratitude practice, then walk listeners through a five-minute “happiness workout” that can be done on the spot. Finally, they talk about how personally fulfilling creative activities can actually make us more productive and help us practice the everyday skills of happiness. (67 minutes)

The Awesome Human Project

Nataly Kogan is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author on a mission to help people cultivate their “Awesome Human” skills by making simple, scientifically backed practices part of their daily lives. The author of the books Happier Now and The Awesome Human Project, she has appeared in hundreds of media outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, TEDxBoston, SXSW, and the Harvard Women’s Leadership Conference. In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Nataly about how we can live in a way that enables us to thrive while we give all of our gifts. They also discuss developing the five skills of emotional fitness; the practice of “struggle awareness” when faced with a challenge; overcoming the brain’s negativity bias, and the art of “courageously talking back to our brains” with kindness and compassion; the five traits of the Awesome Human; a leader as someone who positively impacts another person’s ability to flourish; sharing your emotional “whiteboard” to support the best possible interactions with others; the concept of “surface acting” at work and how it contributes to burnout; investing in a daily check-in with yourself; the power of self-compassion and self-acceptance; self-care as the skill of fueling your emotional, mental, and physical energy; and connecting to your “bigger why.”

4 Ways to Practice Gratitude This Holiday Season

The holiday season can be hectic and overwhelming, with many mixed emotions, from excitement to stress. It’s the perfect time to commit to a daily practice of gratitude which will help you experience more moments of contentment and joy and give you resilience to handle the many challenges (including travel and stressful relatives). And when you share your gratitude with others, you help them feel seen, valued, elevated, and help yourself feel more closely connected to people in your life. Here are four ways to practice gratitude this holiday season. 

Say Thank You and Mean It

When you thank someone, be intentional about it and put your heart and appreciation into your words. Take a moment, pause, look them in the eye, smile, and say ‘Thank you’. If there is something specific you want to thank them for, do it, go the extra step, that’s awesome.

Daily Gratitude Bookends

Begin and end your day by writing down a few things you’re grateful for. Literally bookend your day with gratitude. If you’re not a journaling type, that’s fine—how about sharing what you’re grateful for with someone else, like a family member, friend, or co-worker—in-person or via text or email. You won’t just be practicing gratitude for yourself but inspiring them to do it also. Remember to be as specific as possible and don’t neglect really small moments.

Gratitude Zoom

If you’re feeling down or caught in a negativity spiral, pause and challenge yourself to find something you can appreciate within your experience, however small. For example, if you’re sad about being sick and missing out on what you would rather be doing, can you feel grateful that you have medicine or a comfortable place to recover or people around to help care for you?

Gratitude Antidote

When something stresses you out—too much traffic, an annoying colleague, etc.—use it as a reminder to practice gratitude. You don’t have to be grateful for whatever is stressing you out, but use it as a nudge to pause, take a breath, and think of something, however small, that you are grateful for in that moment. When you do this, you prevent your brain from going into a negativity spiral, where one annoying thought brings on another, and another, and another, until you have a really rough day.

 

Nataly Kogan is an author (Happier Now), speaker, and the founder of Happier. Her work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, TEDx Boston, SXSW, and Dr Oz. Nataly lives with her husband and daughter in Boston. For more, visit happier.com.

 

Six Summer Reads You Won’t Want to Miss!

After the stillness of winter and the slow waking of spring, summer is a time for getting up, getting out, and getting our hands on what inspires us the most. Here are some recent Sounds True releases for tapping into a life well lived.

1. The Biophilia Effect – Clemens G. Arvay 

Summer Super Sale - The Biophilia Effect

This is a book that celebrates our interconnection with nature and shows how to deeply engage the natural world wherever you live to dramatically improve your health. Clemens G. Arvay presents fascinating research, practical tools and activities,

inspiring stories, and more in this accessible guide to the remarkable benefits of being in nature.

Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/the-biophilia-effect.html

 

 

 

 

2. The Healing Code of Nature – Clemens G. Arvay

The Healing Code of Nature - Clemens G. Arvay

Human beings are inseparable from the natural world, coevolving with all of life. In order to thrive, we need to nourish this bond. In his latest book, biologist Clemens G. Arvay illuminates the miraculous ways that the human body interprets the living “code” of plants, animals, and our larger natural habitat for healing and sustenance.

Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/the-healing-code-of-nature.html

 

 

 

 

 

3. Book of Beasties – Sarah Seidelman

Summer Super Sale - Book of Beasties

From an ancient perspective, everything—including all natural things, like rocks, flowers, trees, insects, birds, and mammals

—is alive and infused with conscious energy or spirit,” writes Sarah Seidelmann. If you’re one of the many people looking to reconnect with the creativity, wisdom, and vital energy of the natural world, here is a fantastic guide for tapping into the power of animal totems, or “beasties.”

Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/book-of-beasties.html

 

 

 

4. No Recipe – Edward Espe Brown

Summer Super Sale - No RecipeMaking your love manifest, transforming your spirit, good heart, and able hands into food is a great undertaking,” writes renowned chef and Zen priest Edward Espe Brown, “one that will nourish you in the doing, in the offering, and in the eating.” With No Recipe: Cooking as Spiritual Practice, Brown beautifully blends expert cooking advice with thoughtful reflections on meaning, joy, and life itself.

Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/no-recipe.html

 

 

 

 

5. Yoga Friends – Mariam Gates & Rolf Gates 

Summer Super Sale - Yoga FriendsFrom the creators of Good Night Yoga and Good Morning Yoga comes a beautifully illustrated city adventure that introduces children to the delights and benefits of partner yoga.

Perfect for teaming up with a friend, sibling, parent, or caregiver, each easy practice shows how cooperation helps us to imagine, move, and have fun in a whole new way.

Includes a back-page guide for parents and caregivers, showing how to do each pose and how to connect them into an easy-to-follow flow.

Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/yoga-friends.html

 

6. Happier Now – Nataly Kogan

Summer Super Sale - Happier Now

What if you could be happier, right now, without radically changing your life? As nationally recognized happiness expert Nataly Kogan teaches, happiness is not a nice feeling or a frivolous extra. It’s a critical, non-negotiable ingredient for living a fulfilling, meaningful, and healthy life—and it’s a skill that we can all learn and improve through practice. In Happier Now, Nataly shares an illuminating, inspiring, and science-based guide to help you build your happier skills and live with more joy, starting now.

Get it here: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/happier-now.html

 

 

 

 

 

Have other books you’ve read by the poolside or under a shade tree ended up changing the way you see the world? Tell us about those summer reads that ended up being more than you expected!

 

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