The Currency of Happiness
The Currency of Happiness is a podcast for people who want to win with money without losing themselves in the process. It offers practical systems for building financial clarity, stronger habits, and intentional leadership at work and at home. Hosted by Andrew Rocha, a banking leader, real estate investor, and father, each episode blends personal finance, leadership development, and life design through honest solo episodes and meaningful conversations. The show focuses on building a life that's truly worth it, rather than chasing more.
Episodes
He Built Other People's Businesses to the Top 1%. Then He Walked Away to Build His Own. Richard Oostra
What does it take to spend two decades building other people's success before you finally build your own?Richard Oostra's public story starts with the highlights: top 1% in the network marketing industry, teams of thousands, stages across four continents, 25+ countries, six of them home. But his real timeline, the one buried in his own LinkedIn history, tells a slower story. Nine years h
The Millionaire Who Went to Prison for Money He Didn't Need
Have you ever hit a goal you worked years for, and felt almost nothing?I remember the exact night our net worth crossed our biggest milestone. I sat there waiting for something to hit me, relief, pride, some kind of internal celebration. Instead I opened a new tab and started calculating the next number. Two minutes, and my brain had already moved the finish line.That pattern has followed me my wh
She Spent 16 Years Climbing the Ladder. Then She Pivoted. Dr. Tristin Brisbois
What does it actually cost to walk away from something you spent eighteen years building?Dr. Tristin Brisbois has spent her whole career, in wildly different settings, chasing the same underlying question: what makes people well? It started with her PhD at the University of Alberta, a clinical trial giving cannabis to cancer patients to see if it could restore something chemotherapy had taken from
You're Running Two Races Every Day (And You Only Trained for One)
Are you actually done when you walk through your front door, or does it just feel that way because you're exhausted?Justin Whitmel Earley finished a 10K Tough Mudder dead last among his peers, sixty seconds behind a twenty-two-year-old who collapsed into a chair the moment he crossed the line. But Earley didn't get to stop. His kids ran up. One of them said, "Now it's the kid r
Our Filmmaker Breaks Down Every Step of Making Currency of Happiness - Behind the Scenes Dion Wiebe
Ever wonder what actually happens before and after we hit record on this show?For this episode, I sat down with Dion Wiebe, the filmmaker behind The Currency of Happiness, to pull back the curtain on how this podcast really comes together. Dion isn't just running a camera. His whole approach starts with something he calls Storyfinding, a process of listening and understanding before a single
Why Successful People Are Secretly Unhappy (3 Questions That Explain It)
Are you happier now than you were ten years ago? Not richer. Not further along. Happier.Harvard professor Dr. Arthur Brooks has spent years studying that question, and his research reveals something uncomfortable: the people with the best jobs, the nicest homes, and the most real accomplishments are often privately struggling the most. Not because they lack success, but because they're missin
Addiction Recovery in Canada: What Actually Happens Inside a Treatment Centre - Darryl Wilkie CEO
What do you do the night you've decided this is either going to be the night you get help, or the night you don't wake up?Darryl Wilkie is the executive director of the Red Deer Dream Center, a residential addiction recovery facility built inside a former downtown nightclub, the same kind of building where many of his clients first tried the drugs that would go on to define years of thei
Brandon Turner's Story: How He Left BiggerPockets and Built Something Bigger
What do you need to let go of to get to the next level of your life?There's a kid in Washington state lying in the dark, listening for the sound of the front door. Waiting for his dad to come home from work. His dad was a good man who worked hard and provided for his family. But the job owned him. The schedule owned him. And that kid made himself a quiet promise, the kind you make before you&
Small Business Marketing Strategy: Why Your Marketing Isn't Working and How to Fix It - Peter DeWit - Edge Marketing
Most small business owners aren't bad at marketing. They're doing random acts of marketing, spending before strategizing, chasing trends, trying things without a plan, then wondering why none of it sticks. The problem almost never is the budget. It's that the strategy was never there to begin with.Peter DeWit is the owner of EDGE Marketing and Design, a strategist with 25 years of e
Walt Disney Lost Everything and Created Mickey Mouse: The Leadership Lesson Nobody Talks About
What is the one thing you would not give up, even if it meant losing everything you have built?In February 1928, Walt Disney sat across a table in New York from Charles Mintz, expecting to negotiate a bigger budget. Instead, he learned Universal Pictures now owned Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, his hit character, and that Mintz had already signed away most of Disney's own animators behind his back.
Kettlebell Keith: The Action Comes Before the Motivation
Have you ever waited to feel motivated before you did the hard thing? Keith Weber says that's backward.Keith Weber, known to most as Kettlebell Keith, found his first kettlebell in a bodybuilding magazine before the internet existed. He ordered a VHS tape and a book, waited months for the bells to ship to Canada, and taught himself the basics before becoming one of the first people in Canada
Ambition vs Ego: How to Know Which One Is Actually Driving You
Have you ever worked as hard as you possibly could for an entire year and ended up exactly where you started?I was staring at a spreadsheet at the end of the year, twelve months of work laid out in rows and columns, and the ranking hadn't moved an inch from where it sat twelve months earlier. My response was to work even harder. Not because I had a new strategy. Because I needed to prove some
How the Red Deer Food Bank Became a Social Enterprise Nobody Saw Coming - Mitch Thomson
What happens when you stop treating a food bank like a food bank and start running it like a business?Mitch Thompson has spent five years turning the Red Deer Food Bank into something most people wouldn't recognize. What used to be a dusty stove and a handful of community barbecues is now a food distribution hub with three Red Seal chefs, a 40-foot hydroponic growing container, a mushroom far
A 3-Year-Old Asked Why. Her Father Spent 3 Years Answering. This Is What Happened. - Edwin Land
In 1943, a three-year-old girl asked her father why she couldn't see a photograph right away. He didn't have an answer. So he spent three years finding one.Edwin Land grew up the son of a scrap metal dealer, dropped out of Harvard twice, and snuck into labs at Columbia at night to test his own theories because no one would fund them. He had no degree, no institution, and no financial bac
Grief and Losing a Brother: An Honest Conversation About What Remains - Stephen Van Santen
What do you say to someone who just lost a brother, when you've buried one yourself?Almost a year after losing his brother Simon, host Andrew sits down with his friend Stephen VanSanten, who lost his own older brother Phil to addiction in 2022. Instead of a typical interview, they flip the format and interview each other, asking the questions they wish someone had asked them.Stephen shares wh
How to Set Goals That Actually Change Your Life: The SMARTER Framework
What would you find if you dug up a list of goals you wrote down ten years ago and forgot about?I was cleaning out a closet and found a notebook from my early 20s. Inside was a list of things I wanted before turning 30. Some practical, like owning a home. Some specific, like a certain net worth. Some personal, like writing a book or owning a Jeep Wrangler. Every single item on that list had happen
America's #1 Parenting Coach on What Most Parents Don't Know | Pastor Jonathan Brozozog
What if the biggest gift you gave your kids this year wasn't a toy, but a letter telling them exactly who you see them becoming?Pastor Jonathan Brozozog and his wife Joanne are raising eight children, ages 5 to 20, and have spent years teaching parents around the world how to lead a home without losing themselves in the process. His book Raising Parents flips the usual parenting question on i
Meaningful Father's Day Ideas: How to Make Your Kids Feel Truly Seen
What happens when a beautiful idea for your kids completely misses who your kids actually are?A few years ago, Andrew heard a speaker describe a Father's Day tradition that stopped him cold: writing each of his kids a letter every year, reflecting on who they were becoming. Andrew decided to do the same. He wrote from the heart, got emotional as he put the words on paper, and gathered his fam
Red Deer Mayor Cindy Jefferies on Leadership, Loss, and the Long Game
What does it take to run for the same job twice, lose the first time in front of your entire community, and come back twelve years later to win it?Cindy Jefferies is the mayor of Red Deer, elected in October 2025 after nearly three decades of public service. She served nine years on the local school board, nine years on city council, and ran for mayor in 2013, a race she lost. In this conversation
I Failed at 6 Businesses Before This One. Here's What Each One Built in Me.
What if the years that feel like nothing are actually the years doing the most work?In 1948, David Ogilvy arrived in New York with $6,000, no clients, and no advertising experience. Before that, he had been expelled from Oxford, cooked meals for dogs at a Paris hotel, sold stoves door to door in Scotland, tried farming with the Amish, and failed at that, too. At 38, broke and uncertain, he opened
96% of Abused Kids Know Their Abuser. This Building Was Built to Stop the Cycle. - Mark Jones CEO of Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre
What do you do when a child discloses abuse, and the next step is making them repeat that story to four different people?Mark Jones is CEO of the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre, now housed inside the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence in Red Deer. After the 2015 suicide of Lindsey Moore, a close friend of his daughter, and years of watching kids get passed between police, children's
How to Retire Your Wife Before 30: Real Estate, Sacrifice, and Keeping Your Promise
What does it actually cost to keep a promise you made on your wedding day, years after everyone stopped expecting you to?When Andrew and Emily got married, Emily had a goal: financially free by 23, done working for money on her own terms. Her 23rd birthday came and went, and the dream got quieter. Watching that happen did something to Andrew he didn't have words for at the time, so he made a
Stop Fighting About Money. Fix the Order You Spend It In. - Ryan Gaunce
Most people don't feel stuck with money because they're lazy. They feel stuck because they're overwhelmed and afraid of making the wrong move.Ryan Gonce is the founder of Bridgeline Wealth Strategies, a financial planner who has spent his career helping people build a plan instead of guessing their way through money. Ryan started investing at age 10 under his uncle's direction,
He Lost the Ship, the Mission, and Still Brought Everyone Home (Shackleton's Story)
What if the thing falling apart in front of you right now is actually what saves you?In November 1915, Ernest Shackleton stood on the Antarctic ice and watched his ship, the Endurance, get crushed and swallowed by the frozen sea. He had 27 men with him, over a thousand miles from any other human being, no radio, no rescue coming. The mission he'd spent years planning, the first overland cross
How to Rebuild Your Life as a Single Parent When Everything Falls Apart - Steve Moser
What do you do when life hands you a season you never signed up for?Steve Moser was a single father raising two toddlers alone, working midnight shifts so he could spend his days with his kids. No plan beyond the next week. No mother figure in the house. Just survival, grocery runs that drew judgmental looks, and a quiet decision to keep showing up.A decade later, Steve is married, has adopted thr
We Bought a House While My Wife Was in Labor. Here's What It Taught Me About People.
What if the way you look at a rundown house is the same way you should be looking at people?While Emily was in labor with their third child, Andrew got a text from his realtor: a property that fit exactly what he was looking for. He ran the numbers in his head, turned to his wife between contractions, and asked if she was okay putting in an offer. She said yes. They bought the house sight unseen.
A Child Psychiatrist on the Age Kids Stop Listening to Their Parents (It's Not What You Think)- Dr. Kene Ezeibe
More kids are anxious, overwhelmed, and struggling than ever before. What if the real issue isn't just what's happening to our kids, but what's happening around them?Dr. Kenechukwu Ezeibe, known as Dr. Kenny, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who has spent the last decade working with kids, teens, and families in Red Deer. In this conversation, he breaks down what it actually m
Why Reading Is the Highest-Leverage Habit You're Not Taking Seriously
What if the years that feel like nothing are actually building everything?Years ago, Andrew spent a summer repairing windshields in a parking lot, sitting under a neon orange tent waiting for cars to pull in. To pass the slow hours, he started bringing books. Sales books, communication books, entrepreneurship books, whatever pulled at him that season. He didn't know it then, but that parking
Success Doesn’t Fix What’s Broken Inside - Garret Cook
What happens when the very thing you worked hardest to build starts breaking you?Garret Cook is one of the top performing realtors in central Alberta and the founder of Elevate Collective, a team he built around collaboration over competition. From the outside, his life looked like proof that hustle works. On the inside, comedy and performance had become a trap: something he leaned on to connect w
We Paid Off $60,000 in Debt in 7 Months. Here's the System, Not the Hack.
What actually changes when a couple decides they're done carrying debt, and how do you make that decision stick past the first hard month?Andrew and Emily carried $60,000 in debt early in their marriage. It didn't happen from one bad decision. It built up the normal way: a student loan, a car payment, a line of credit that was supposed to be temporary, a credit card that slowly became ro
Why So Many People Are Searching For God Again? - Jachin Mullen
What if the thing you call "church hurt" actually has nothing to do with the church at all?Pastor Jachin Mullen leads Home Church, a multi site congregation with locations across Canada and roughly 110 more sites spread across 14 countries. He and his wife Becca oversee a community built on the phrase "everyone needs Jesus, everyone needs a home," and in this conversation he op
Your First Deal Won't Make You Feel Like an Investor. It'll Make You Feel Like a Fraud.
Most people wait for a moment of confidence that never actually arrives. What if you started before it did?When Andrew and Emily bought their first rental property, Andrew didn't feel ready. He didn't feel experienced, and he definitely didn't feel like an investor. What he felt was excited and quietly terrified at the same time. They had just come out of a heavy financial season, p
Leading When There Are No Perfect Options with Chad Krahn
What does it actually take to love a city enough to change it?Chad Krahn moved to Red Deer at 27 to plant a church. That church never came together the way he pictured it. What did come together, over the next decade, was a life he never planned on: eight years of foster parenting, the adoption of two of those foster children, a byelection win after the sudden death of a beloved city councillor, a
The 5 Places Every Dollar Goes (And Only One Makes You Happy)
Have you ever wondered why some people with far less money seem to sleep better at night than people who have more than they ever imagined?After years of sitting across from thousands of people, and living through it in his own life, the host has noticed a pattern: almost every dollar we earn goes toward one of five things. Most people default to the same one without ever choosing it on purpose, a
Leadership Has a Cost: Responsibility, Stewardship & Legacy (Mike Bolton)
Can you lead other people if you can't lead yourself first?Dr. Mike Bolton has spent over 25 years in ministry as a pastor and college instructor, and today works as a leadership coach, executive advisor, and board member for organizations around the world. In this conversation, he breaks down what actually separates a real leader from someone who just wants the title, starting with a questio
We Had $5 Left Over After Bills. Here's What We Did Next.
What happens the month you finally do the math and realize you have five dollars left over?Early in their marriage, Andrew and Emily were living in a basement suite that was too big for them, paying bills every month that seemed to multiply on their own. One night they sat down and went through their budget line by line. Rent, insurance, debt payments, groceries, gas. When it was all accounted for
He Flipped a House at 14. Now He Owns 34 Doors With None of His Own Money. - Bryce Kander
What if the first six months of your career made you no money on purpose?Bryce Kander got his real estate license at 18, already owning three houses, trained by his mother Penny, a realtor for 47 years who never spent a dollar on advertising. His first months in the business, he sat with homeowners who were losing their houses and helped them restructure their mortgages instead of selling, work th
He Was Dying at 33 With Everything He Wanted. Then He Asked One Question.
If your self-worth collapses the moment you stop achieving, you don't have a performance problem. You have an identity problem.Before John D. Rockefeller became one of the richest men in history, he was driven, ambitious, and afraid to fall behind, chasing achievement like it was oxygen. Every deal was another brick in the identity he was building around one belief: if he achieved enough, he&
The Artistic Director of The Chosen on Why Nothing With God Is Wasted - Steven Schwartz
How do you know when you're actually called to something?Steven Schwarz is a biblical teacher at Home Church and the artistic director for The Chosen, the most watched show about the life of Jesus ever made. Before any of that, he was leading a young adults ministry in Red Deer that grew into one of the largest in Canada, running a wedding photography business with his wife Stephanie on the s
My Wife Stopped Talking to Me for a Week. It Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us.
What happens when the life you're building on the outside stops matching who you're becoming on the inside?Early in his marriage, Andrew found out the company he worked for was on the verge of collapse. No one knew if paychecks were coming. So he took the first job available: a warehouse position that came with a $5 pair of thrift store steel toe boots, a full size too small. Every day h
They Both Lost Everything, Then Built a Family Neither of Them Planned For - Garth & Melanie Mitchell-Epp
What does it take to rebuild a life twice, once alone and once together?Garth and Melanie Epp both walked through seasons that broke them completely. Melanie lost custody of her two-year-old son after a two-year court battle. Garth found himself separated, then homeless, working a solo night shift in a sawmill while raising his kids every other weekend with no place of his own to put them to bed.
Welcome to Episode Zero - Why I'm Starting This Podcast (And What "Currency of Happiness" Actually Means)
A few years ago, Andrew Rocha was buried in debt, overwhelmed, and convinced his value came from performance. He and his wife paid off $60,000 in seven months, bought multiple rental properties, and built the systems that led to financial freedom. But somewhere in the middle of raising kids, leading teams, and walking through loss, he learned the real lesson: money alone doesn't create happin
This Is The Currency of Happiness (Official Trailer)
Most people think happiness is something you chase, something you buy, or something you stumble into if life finally goes your way. What if it's actually a currency, something you build, protect, invest, and multiply?I'm Andrew Rocha. Husband, father, real estate investor, and banking leader. But before any of that, I was drowning in debt, overwhelmed by life, and convinced that if I jus
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