Thank you for joining us for episode 460 of Live Happy Now.

On March 20th, we celebrate the International Day of Happiness, and that makes this the perfect time to talk to a happy activist.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and today I'm talking with Will Thomas, who founded Good News magazine in the

midst of the pandemic to give people a break from the steady stream of negative news.

What was supposed to be a one-time publication has turned into a growing media brand, and he's

here to tell us how that happened. Let's have a listen. Will, thank you so much for joining me for Live Happy Now.

Thank you. I'm excited to be able to talk to you about what we're doing. This is a big week

for us at Live Happy because it's the week of International Day of Happiness that actually

happens the day after this episode airs. We've been celebrating happiness all month with a campaign we called Happy Acts,

where we encourage people to go out and do things for other people and build happiness

in their communities. And from the moment I first heard your story, I knew that I had to get

you on the air as a happy activist because you embody this. You saw a need. People complain about we need good news,

and you actually went out and did something about it. So tell us your story. We were in the

direct mail shopper publication business until two years ago, 2022. And it was a great business.

We served small businesses in Southern Mill, Tennessee,

and it's a family business. And we loved helping all those companies and had customers for 40

years. It was rewarding. And then COVID happened. And like for a lot of businesses, our business

was under pressure in some elements on the print side. And COVID, I think, you know, made those wounds

and those risks highlighted them more. And while we were still performing in most on markets,

we knew it wasn't a business we're going to be done for another 20 years. So during COVID in

2021, we had sold ads for the Lincoln County Fair magazine here in Tennessee.

And the fair got canceled because of COVID. And so we were like, what are we going to do?

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