Thanks to you Happiness Happens Month just gets bigger, better and happier every year. Each of you simply make me happier than you will ever know.

To help us happily wind down the celebration we're going to be on Ustream on Tuesday, August 31 at 9:00 pm CST. It's easy to participate. If you want to join the conversation, you'll need to a free Ustream account. It's really easy. If you want to watch me, without seeing the conversation, just click the Ustream link, but I hope you'll get an account and will want to participate. We're going to be doing Ustream every week.

This year was extra exciting because our HappyThon, the 24 hour online social media event was busier than ever. Companies and members are doing formal celebrates. Thanks for the emails. And this year people were awarded the Happiest Person Medal and Certificate. If you are a recipient please post your picture on in our Facebook Happiest Person Album.

We've also added our Happiness Happens @ Work Kit that has activities designed to help you remind people that Happiness Happens @ Work for a whole year. You can start any time, so it's the perfect time to get a kit for your company.

We'll continue to send this email communication out about once a month -- August is always the exception. But we're connecting with not-so-secretly happy people everyday on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and LinkedIn Secret Society of Happy Professionals. If you're not on any of these, you can also check our home page for the Facebook stream that has a daily quote, happy news, and lots of other happy activities.

Again, thank you for being not-so-secretly happy and making our 11th Annual Happiness Happens Month celebration the happiest ever.

Keep smiling...when you're in the mood,

Pamela Gail Johnson

Several T-shirts are on sale for $9.99 through Sunday, August 15, 2010.

We've given away two Happiest Person Medals to a TV news anchor and an internet guru. Both very happy people. Will announce these awards winners next week.

If you have a celeb type, even local folks like business leader, mayors, reporters, you get the idea, that you think should be awarded a Happiest Person Medal, nominate them by sending me an email, connect me with their info, and tell me why you think they are happy. One medal will be awarded monthly medal a month.

Also, if you've given someone a Happiest Person Medal, please post their picture on in our Facebook Happiest Person Medal photo section. Or send me the picture and I'll post it.

I'll be on Ustream on Sunday - still debating time but you'll see it Sunday morning on the Facebook Stream on our homepage. Join us as we increase our web connections. It's fun chatting with people. If you open a UStream account (it's free) you can type in questions and participate in the conversation. We'll have two shows starting in September.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Orange County Register

Thank you from making the 11th Annual Happiness Happens Month so happy...and for celebrating happiness the rest of the year too!

When the Society started 13 years ago, the purpose was simple, get people talking about their happy experiences with the same zest and enthusiasm as they did their unhappy ones. So a natural question to ask was, "Are You Happier Than You Admit You Are?"

The slogan was on those original, now vintage T-shirts. I know some of you still have them. Happiness Happens Day and Month were originally called Are You Happier Than You Admit You Are? And now it's on a poster with the 31 Types of Happiness.

Are You Happier Than You Admit You Are?, is a great question to ask yourself everyday because it will get your mind looking for the answer. It will help you start thinking and talking about the things you are happy about instead of just the the things that make you unhappy.

It's not that you don't need to talk about your unhappiness. You do. If it's something you need to be sad about, you have to be sad. If it's something you need to change, you need to figure out the best way to go about that. If it's something you have to learn to live with, you will. It may take time and be uncomfortable, but it will happen. But unhappiness needs to be talked about in proportion to the rest of your life. And if it is, most likely, you'll find that the happier you feel, the easier it is to work through your unhappy or annoying experiences.

So this month, take the Are You Happier Than You Admit You Are? challenge. Write the question on post-its, paper, your computer, and leave it everywhere you might read it. Then at the end of the day, answer it by writing down the happy things that happened and see how they add up.

Thanks for being part of my happiness.