Have you ever had an "aha" moment? Michelle DeAngelis has had at least 13 of them in her life. She uses them as the basis for her company Planet Joyride, a program that has a goal of helping people find joy in their lives no matter their circumstances.

What gave you the idea for Planet Joyride?

I was provoked to start Planet Joyride after a monumental event in my life — my mom fell suddenly very ill and died soon after. She was a great lady and had a wonderful outlook on life. Even though that sounds like a horrible story, it was actually wonderful, because she had a really wonderful last month of her life recounting all the great things in her 70 years. For me, it was a wake up call that we can not waste another minute. I see so many unhappy people in corporate America, and being there with my mom on her deathbed, she was able to see all of the beauty of the things that had happened in her life. I thought there is a whole other way to live that people aren't even aware of, so I created Planet Joyride to show them that there is a structure to joy — there are mechanics to joy. You can create a life that's wonderful rather than a life that is focused on everything going wrong.

Planet Joyride is based on 13 'thoughts to live by' or "ahas" as you call them. How did you come up with the "ahas"?

The "ahas" were really more like a distillation of what I found to be so pivotal in not only my life, but when working with my clients to have them shift to this other way of living. I came up with them after actively coaching people for three years and after a lot of examination of my own life patterns, it became clear to me that these were very important premises — almost like pillars to a building that keep the keeps the right structure so I realized that they were that fundamental.