Thank you for joining us for episode 553 of Live Happy Now.

As we enter this new year, we want to look at how to make the most of it.

And this week's guest says that means going from surviving to thriving.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I sit down with John Rosenberg, a leadership coach and consultant, an author of A Guide to Thriving.

He's here to break down some of the misconceptions we have about what it means to thrive and explain the role that agency, or the ability to make intentional choices plays in building a meaningful, connected life.

And even better, John gives us his formula for developing

more agency in our lives. Let's have a listen. John, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

Paula, it's my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Great topic. Very timely, any time of year,

but particularly as we're starting a new year, you have a lot of great

tips for us.

And before we really dig into those, I wanted to start with a big question and get us all

on the same page.

And that is, what does it mean to thrive these days?

I love that question.

And I'm going to start by saying what it doesn't mean.

I think we often confuse

thriving with success. This is an equivalence that we're making in a lot of places in society.

We're saying, I'm thriving if I'm successful, and if I'm successful, I'm thriving. Now,

let's kind of define the two. When we talk about success, we're talking mostly about extrinsic motivators. We're talking

mainly money, power, and status. Those are the main success drivers. And by the way,

there's nothing wrong with success. I want success just as much as the next person. And we actually

needed to navigate our systems and our society, which are built for success. I want success just as much as the next person. And we actually needed to navigate our systems in our society, which are built for success. So those would be kind of

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