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
Grief and Losing a Brother: An Honest Conversation About What Remains - Stephen Van Santen
Stephen Van Santen lost his brother Phil to a drug overdose on November 11, 2022. Andrew lost his brother Simon in July 2025. A few weeks after Simon passed, Stephen called. That conversation is why this episode exists.This is not an interview. It is two people who have loved someone they could not save sitting down to tell the truth about what that actually costs.Phil and Stephen were 1.5 years a
How to Set Goals That Actually Change Your Life: The SMARTER Framework
I was cleaning out my closet when I found a notebook from my early twenties. A list of things I wanted to accomplish before I turned 30. Practical things, specific things, personal things. Some of them felt impossible when I wrote them.I had done all of them.Including the rental properties, everyone told me a young person couldn't afford. Including the book. Including the Jeep, which turned o
America's #1 Parenting Coach on What Most Parents Don't Know | Pastor Jonathan Brozozog
Most people become parents and then figure it out as they go. Jonathan Brozozog has spent over 20 years arguing that there is a better way.Jonathan is America's #1 Christian parenting coach, Lead Pastor of Creative Church in Minnesota, father of eight, and author of Raising Parents alongside his wife Joanne. His central argument is that the most important variable in how you parent is how you
Meaningful Father's Day Ideas: How to Make Your Kids Feel Truly Seen
A few years ago I heard a speaker describe how he writes a letter to each of his kids every Father's Day. A reflection of who he saw them becoming over the past year. I thought it was one of the most intentional things I'd ever heard a father do.So I tried it. I wrote from the heart. I got a little emotional putting it together.Then Father's Day morning arrived and I looked at my au
Red Deer Mayor Cindy Jefferies on Leadership, Loss, and the Long Game
On October 20, 2025, Cindy Jefferies found out she had been elected Mayor of Red Deer by watching a TV screen at a press conference. The people who had run against her were standing in the same room.That moment is where this conversation starts. But the real story started decades earlier.Cindy has served Red Deer for nearly 30 years across school board, city council, and now the mayor's chair
I Failed at 6 Businesses Before This One. Here's What Each One Built in Me.
In 1948, David Ogilvy arrived in New York City with $6,000, no clients, no credentials, and no experience writing advertisements. He was 38 years old. What came before that moment was seventeen years of getting expelled from Oxford, working in a hotel kitchen preparing meals for customers' dogs, selling stoves door to door in the Scottish Highlands, farming with the Amish in Pennsylvania, and
Child Abuse Prevention in Canada: Building a $29M Centre That's Changing Everything - Mark Jones CEO of Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre
In September 2015, a 22-year-old named Lindsey More died by suicide. She had been close friends with Mark Jones's daughter. She had spent time in his home. And when she was gone, Mark, a former teacher and principal with 35 years in public education, decided he had to do something.What followed was seven years of coalition building, fundraising, institutional battles, and refusing to stop. On
How to Retire Your Wife Before 30: Real Estate, Sacrifice, and Keeping Your Promise
Before Emily and I were married, she had a goal. Free by 23. Financially free before her twenty-third birthday, done working for money, living life on her own terms.Twenty-three came and went.I watched that dream get quieter. And it did something to me I didn't have words for at the time. So I made a decision. I was going to retire my wife. I didn't tell her how serious I was. I just got
Financial Planning for Real Life: How to Stop Feeling Stuck With Money - Ryan Gaunce
Most people don't feel stuck with money because they're lazy or irresponsible. They feel stuck because they're overwhelmed. They don't know where to start, they're afraid of making the wrong move, and the longer they wait, the heavier it feels.Ryan Gaunce is a financial advisor and wealth planner who helps people build plans that actually fit their real lives. He's sp
His Ship Sank. All 27 Men Survived. Here's What That Says About Leadership.
November 21st, 1915. Antarctica. Ernest Shackleton is standing on the ice watching his ship sink. The expedition is over before it ever started. Twenty-seven men are stranded over a thousand miles from any other human being with no radio, no rescue coming, and no plan left to follow.What he said in that moment, and what he did over the next nineteen months, is one of the most extraordinary leaders
How to Rebuild Your Life as a Single Parent When Everything Falls Apart - Steve Moser
Most people think joy is something you find when life finally gets easier. Steve Moser learned it's something you choose when it doesn't.Steve has walked through betrayal, single parenthood, rebuilding, remarriage, and opening his home to children who needed one. In this conversation, he doesn't talk about joy as a feeling or a mood. He talks about it as a decision, made repeatedly,
I Bought a House While My Wife Was in Labour. Here's What It Taught Me.
My wife was in active labour with our third child. My phone buzzed. It was my realtor.I waited a reasonable amount of time before looking. Maybe two minutes. We made an offer before the baby arrived. I walked through the front door a few days later and found carpet stains, layers of wallpaper stacked like geological sediment, and a bathtub in a shade that hasn't existed since 1974. It was not
How to Raise Emotionally Resilient Kids: A Child Psychiatrist Explains - Dr. Kene Ezeibe
More kids are anxious, overwhelmed, and struggling than ever before. But what if the real issue isn't just what's happening to our kids, it's what's happening around them?Dr. Kene Ezeibe is a child and adolescent mental health physician who has spent over a decade working with kids, teens, and families. He doesn't just see the symptoms. He sees the patterns behind them. An
Why Reading Is the Highest-Leverage Habit You're Not Taking Seriously
I spent a summer repairing windshields in a parking lot. No plan. No vision. Just heat, slow days, and eventually, books. That summer didn't look like much. Looking back, it was the beginning of everything.Reading doesn't just give you information. It changes how you think. And that's a completely different thing.In this episode, Andrew Rocha makes the case that consistent reading i
Success Doesn’t Fix What’s Broken Inside - Garret Cook
In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, we explore the tension between hustle culture, high performance, and mental health.Many people chase success, believing achievement will fix what feels broken inside. But the reality is often the opposite. Success has a way of amplifying what is already there.Andrew sits down with Garret Cook, a high-performing real estate professional and leader at eX
How We Paid Off $60,000 of Debt in 7 Months
Sixty thousand dollars.That is how much debt my wife Emily and I were carrying early in our marriage.In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, Andrew Rocha shares how they paid off sixty thousand dollars of debt in seven months. Not through luck or extreme sacrifice, but through a clear decision and a system that supported it long enough to work.This conversation focuses less on tactics and mo
Why So Many People Are Searching For God Again? - Jachin Mullen
In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, we explore why so many people across cultures are searching again for meaning, purpose, and something solid to build their lives on.There is a growing spiritual hunger happening right now. More people are asking deeper questions about faith, identity, healing, and what actually lasts.Andrew sits down with Jachin Mullen, Lead Pastor of Home Church, to t
How I Bought My First Rental Without Feeling Ready
Most people wait to feel ready before they do something meaningful. More confident. More prepared. More certain. But that moment almost never arrives.In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, Andrew Rocha shares the story of buying his first rental property without feeling ready. Not confident. Not experienced. And not sure he knew what he was doing.This is not a tactical real estate breakdown
Leading When There Are No Perfect Options with Chad Krahn
Leadership is easy in theory. It gets complicated in real life.In this episode I sit down with Chad Krahn, Red Deer City Councillor, husband, father, and author of Welcome to Monday. We talk about the real weight of responsibility, the challenge of making decisions when resources are limited, and what stewardship looks like when every option has tradeoffs.Chad shares openly about the parts of lead
The Five Things Money Can Do
Money is just a tool. So why does it so often feel like a trap instead of support?In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, Andrew Rocha breaks down the five things money can actually do and the one direction most people unconsciously send the majority of their income. Not because they are irresponsible, but because they never stopped to decide what their money was for.Drawing from his own lif
Leadership Has a Cost: Responsibility, Stewardship & Legacy (Mike Bolton)
Leadership looks like influence from the outside. But real leadership carries weight, responsibility, and consequences.Dr. Mike Bolton advises companies, sits on boards, coaches leaders, and helps shape organizations around the world. From the outside, that looks like success. But leadership always carries weight.In this conversation, we talk about responsibility, stewardship, the long arc of call
Debt Looks Like Freedom… Until It Starts Controlling Your Life
Debt rarely feels dangerous at first. It feels like relief. Progress. Momentum. But over time, it quietly begins to shrink your life.In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, Andrew Rocha shares the season when he and his wife Emily were doing everything right financially and still ended each month with almost nothing left. Not because of recklessness, but because their financial system was de
Building Legacy Through Real Estate - A Conversation with Bryce Kander
In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, we explore what it really looks like to build legacy through real estate, family, leadership, and influence.Most people meet Bryce Kander and see the realtor, the investor, and the content creator. What they don’t see is the eighteen year old who entered real estate early, trained by one of the best mentors possible, his mom, and the leader who is now
The Cost of a Performance-Based Identity
In this solo episode of The Currency of Happiness, we confront one of the most common and costly traps in modern success.A performance based identity.If your self worth collapses the moment you stop achieving, this episode is for you.Most people think they have a performance problem. In reality, they have an identity problem. When achievement becomes the foundation of your life, success stops feel
Faith, Formation & The Weight of Story A Conversation with Steven Schwartz
In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, we explore faith, formation, creativity, and the responsibility that comes with helping millions engage with Scripture.Most people read the Bible. Very few people carry the weight of helping others experience it in a way that feels alive, grounded, and faithful to the text.Andrew sits down with Steven Schwartz, a Biblical teacher at Home Church and the
What Are We Actually Chasing?
In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, we ask an uncomfortable but necessary question.What are we actually chasing?Most people spend decades chasing more money, more success, more approval, and more proof that they are doing well. But often, the thing we are chasing is not the thing we actually want.In this episode, Andrew Rocha shares a defining season from early in his marriage. A season
Healing, Wholeness & Rewriting Your Life - A Conversation with Garth & Melanie Mitchell-Epp
In this episode of The Currency of Happiness, we explore what it really means to heal, become whole and rebuild a life after everything falls apart.Some people rebuild their lives once. Garth Mitchell‑Epp and Melanie Mitchell‑Epp rebuilt theirs twice. First, individually, after seasons of divorce, identity loss, and deep brokenness. Then together as a blended family rooted in restoration, faith, a
Welcome to Episode Zero
This episode introduces the heart of the show and why money, leadership, family, faith, and purpose are all part of the same system. Host Andrew Rocha shares the story behind the podcast, his journey from debt to financial clarity, and what you can expect from future solo and interview episodes.If you want practical systems you can apply immediately, visit thecurrencyofhappiness.com to get a free
The Currency of Happiness - Trailer
The Currency of Happiness is a podcast about personal finance, leadership and building a meaningful life without burning out or losing what matters most.Most people think happiness is something you chase, buy or earn once life finally goes your way. But what if happiness isn’t a feeling at all? What if happiness is a currency, something you build, protect, invest in and multiply through the system
