October 28, 2026- Would you consider yourself a happy person? Happiness can be elusive – there are a lot of factors that have an enormous impact on your happiness, especially when it comes to your work-life balance. When you begin to focus more on what you feel like success should look like, it’s easy to neglect the things that bring real joy and balance to your life.
Repertoire Magazine spoke to Kristel Bauer, keynote speaker, workplace performance and well-being expert, award-winning author, and host of the Live Greatly podcast, about the importance of finding happiness at work. Bauer’s book, “Work-Life Tango: Finding Happiness, Harmony and Peak Performance Wherever You Work”, looks at what it takes to build a better work-life balance.
Defining happiness
Before entering media, Bauer worked in healthcare as a physician assistant and then later as an integrative medicine fellow. While she was practicing in an integrative psychiatry practice, she came across many individuals who were struggling with stress, burnout, and a sense of disconnection in their work and personal lives.
She said, “One pattern I noticed repeatedly was that many people had unintentionally started sacrificing the very things that contributed the most to their happiness and fulfillment while pursuing their version of success. They had become disconnected from what truly energized and inspired them.”
From that experience, she wanted to explore the science and strategies behind happiness, resilience, well-being, and maintaining a sustainable high performance. This inspired her to launch the podcast Live Greatly to begin sharing these conversations and insights with a wider audience, which also led to the opportunity to give a TEDx Talk about how individuals and organizations can rethink what it means to be alive.
Bauer’s own definition of happiness has evolved over the years, shifting from achievements and milestones to something that’s much more personal. “Today, I see happiness as something much deeper: living and working in alignment with what matters most to you, finding meaning and purpose in everyday moments, cultivating high-quality relationships, and developing the resilience to navigate life’s inevitable challenges with intention and perspective.”
Continue Reading in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.