A New York Times Bestseller! An extraordinary look at what it means to grow old and a heartening guide to well-being, Happiness Is a Choice You Make weaves together the stories and wisdom of six New Yorkers who number among the “oldest old”— those eighty-five and up. In 2015, when the award-winning journalist John Leland set out on behalf of The New York Times to meet members of America’s fastest-growing age group, he anticipated learning of challenges, of loneliness, and of the deterioration of body, mind, and quality of life. But the elders he met took him in an entirely different direction. Despite disparate backgrounds and circumstances, they each lived with a surprising lightness and contentment. The reality Leland encountered upended contemporary notions of aging, revealing the late stages of life as unexpectedly rich and the elderly as incomparably wise. Happiness Is a Choice You Make is an enduring collection of lessons that emphasizes, above all, the extraordinary influence we wield over the quality of our lives. With humility, heart, and wit, Leland has crafted a sophisticated and necessary reflection on how to “live better”—informed by those who have mastered the art.
In this “powerful personal story woven with a rich analysis of what we all seek” (Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google), Mo Gawdat, Chief Business Officer at Google’s [X], applies his superior logic and problem solving skills to understand how the brain processes joy and sadness—and then he solves for happy. In 2001 Mo Gawdat realized that despite his incredible success, he was desperately unhappy. A lifelong learner, he attacked the problem as an engineer would: examining all the provable facts and scrupulously applying logic. Eventually, his countless hours of research and science proved successful, and he discovered the equation for permanent happiness. Thirteen years later, Mo’s algorithm would be put to the ultimate test. After the sudden death of his son, Ali, Mo and his family turned to his equation—and it saved them from despair. In dealing with the horrible loss, Mo found his mission: he would pull off the type of “moonshot” goal that he and his colleagues were always aiming for—he would share his equation with the world and help as many people as possible become happier. In Solve for Happy Mo questions some of the most fundamental aspects of our existence, shares the underlying reasons for suffering, and plots out a step-by-step process for achieving lifelong happiness and enduring contentment. He shows us how to view life through a clear lens, teaching us how to dispel the illusions that cloud our thinking; overcome the brain’s blind spots; and embrace five ultimate truths. No matter what obstacles we face, what burdens we bear, what trials we’ve experienced, we can all be content with our present situation and optimistic about the future.
An unconventional book of wisdom and life advice from renowned business school professor and New York Times bestselling author of The Four Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway teaches brand strategy at NYU's Stern School of Business, but his most popular lectures deal with life strategy, not business. In the classroom, on his blog, and in YouTube videos garnering millions of views, he regularly offers hard-hitting answers to the big questions: What's the formula for a life well lived? How can you have a meaningful career, not just a lucrative one? Is work/life balance possible? What are the elements of a successful relationship? The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning draws on Professor Galloway's mix of anecdotes and no-BS insight to share hard-won wisdom about life's challenges, along with poignant personal stories. Whether it's advice on if you should drop out of school to be an entrepreneur (it might have worked for Steve Jobs, but you're probably not Steve Jobs), ideas on how to position yourself in a crowded job market (do something "boring" and move to a city; passion is for people who are already rich), discovering what the most important decision in your life is (it's not your job, your car, OR your zip code), or arguing that our relationships to others are ultimately all that matter, Galloway entertains, inspires, and provokes. Brash, funny, and surprisingly moving, The Algebra of Happiness represents a refreshing perspective on our need for both professional success and personal fulfillment, and makes the perfect gift for any new graduate, or for anyone who feels adrift.
Filled with endless heartfelt wishes and beautifully cute illustrations, I Wish You Happiness is an inspiring book of hope and happiness for wishers of all ages. This timeless book is a truly thoughtful gift for any occasion.
How may we find happiness and peace? In this book, Rupert Spira distills the message of all the great religious and spiritual traditions into two essential truths: happiness is the very nature of our self or being, and we share our being with everyone and everything. Drawing on numerous examples from his own experience, Spira demonstrates that to seek lasting happiness through objects, situations and relationships is destined for failure and disappointment, and skillfully guides the reader to recognize that we are already the happiness we seek. This book is for anyone who yearns for lasting happiness and is open to the possibility that it is continuously available within ourselves, irrespective of our circumstances. Could there be any greater discovery in life than to know that we are already that for which we long?
This is not just another happiness book. In Happiness by Design, happiness and behavior expert Paul Dolan combines the latest insights from economics and psychology to illustrate that in order to be happy we must behave happy Our happiness is experiences of both pleasure and purpose over time and it depends on what we actually pay attention to. Using what Dolan calls deciding, designing, and doing, we can overcome the biases that make us miserable and redesign our environments to make it easier to experience happiness, fulfilment, and even health. With uncanny wit and keen perception, Dolan reveals what we can do to find our unique optimal balance of pleasure and purpose, offering practical advice on how to organize our lives in happiness-promoting ways and fresh insights into how we feel, including why: • Having kids reduces pleasure but gives us a massive dose of purpose • Gaining weight won’t necessarily make us unhappier, but being too ambitious might • A quiet neighborhood is more important than a big house Vividly rendering intriguing research and lively anecdotal evidence, Happiness by Design offers an absorbing, thought-provoking, new paradigm for readers of Stumbling on Happiness and The How of Happiness.
The #1 international bestseller from the author of The Book of Awesome that “reveals how all of us can live happier lives” (Gretchen Rubin). What is the formula for a happy life? Neil Pasricha is a Harvard MBA, a New York Times–bestselling author, a Walmart executive, a father, a husband. After selling more than a million copies of the Book of Awesome series, wherein he observed the everyday things he thought were awesome, he now shifts his focus to the practicalities of living an awesome life. In his new book The Happiness Equation, Pasricha illustrates how to want nothing and do anything in order to have everything. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, you simply have yet to unlock the 9 Secrets to Happiness. Each secret takes a piece out of the core of common sense, turns it on its head to present it in a completely new light, and then provides practical and specific guidelines for how to apply this new outlook to lead a fulfilling life. Once you've unlocked Pasricha’s 9 Secrets, you will understand counter intuitive concepts such as: Success Does Not Lead to Happiness, Never Take Advice, and Retirement Is a Broken Theory. You will learn and then master three brand-new fundamental life tests: the Saturday Morning Test, The Bench Test, and the Five People Test. You will know the difference between external goals and internal goals and how to make more money than a Harvard MBA (hint: it has nothing to do with your annual salary). You will discover that true wealth has nothing to do with money, multitasking is a myth, and the elimination of options leads to more choice. The Happiness Equation is a book that will change how you think about pretty much everything—your time, your career, your relationships, your family, and, ultimately, of course, your happiness.
Everyone wants happiness and success, yet the pursuit of both has never been more elusive. As work and personal demands rise, we try to keep up by juggling everything better, moving faster, and doing more. While we might succeed in the short term, this approach comes at a high cost in the long term: it hurts our well-being, our relationships, and—paradoxically—our productivity. In this life-changing book, Emma Seppälä explains that the reason we are burning ourselves out is that we fall for outdated theories of success. We are taught that getting ahead means doing everything that’s thrown at us with razor-sharp focus and iron discipline, that success depends on our drive and talents, and that achievement cannot happen without stress. The Happiness Track demolishes these counterproductive theories. Drawing on the latest scientific research on happiness, resilience, willpower, compassion, positive stress, creativity, and mindfulness, Seppälä demonstrates that being happy is the most productive thing we can do to thrive—whether at work or at home. She shares practical strategies for applying these scientific findings to our daily lives. A fulfilling, successful, and anxiety-free life is within your reach. The Happiness Track will show you the way. Happiness Is the Fast Track to Success “Are you a hard-driving, multitasking, conscientiously striving professional? Then your ideas about success are probably all wrong—and you need The Happiness Track, Dr. Emma Seppälä’s investigation into the counter-intuitive factors that create career and life success. The best news of all? All these skills are well within your grasp.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind “Emma Seppälä convinces us that reconfiguring our brain for happiness can change the way our lives unfold and the way we approach success. A worthwhile read for anyone who wants to achieve a successful and fulfilling life.”—Amy Cuddy, professor at Harvard Business School and author of Presence “Backed by extensive research in psychology and neuroscience, The Happiness Track offers a wealth of insight on changing how we approach our work, our personal lives, and our relationships. It’s a carefully researched, engaging look at how to improve ourselves without losing our authenticity or our sanity.”—Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals “Through her research-backed strategies, Emma Seppälä teaches us not only how to thrive in our chosen profession, but how to stay true to ourselves—and enjoy every moment of the process.”—Susan Cain, cofounder of Quiet Revolution and New York Times bestselling author of Quiet “For decades we’ve been tied to theories of success that have burned us out and driven us into the ground—because we don’t know of any alternatives. The Happiness Track provides us with a highly readable, science-backed solution to obtaining sustainable success, the sort of success we are all really striving for, that leaves us fulfilled, happy, and healthy.”—Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., scientific director at the Imagination Institute at the University of Pennsylvania