Live Happy: Ten Practices for Choosing Joy PDF
Preview Live Happy: Ten Practices for Choosing Joy
DEDICATION For Katie, Zach, Emma, and Quinn, who bring joy into my life every day CONTENTS Dedication Foreword Introduction The Truth About Happiness ATTITUDE Mary Miller: Discovering and Achieving Dreams Jason Mraz: Saying Yes to Life Susan Bender Phelps: Taking Note of the Good Hoda Kotb: Looking Forward The Science Behind the Wisdom of a Positive Attitude Get Happy! CONNECTION Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan: When Happiness Experts Fall in Love Gary and Vicki Flenniken: More to Love Jenn Lim and Tony Hsieh: Happy at Work Judy Kirkwood and Gretchen Brant: Friends for Life’s Ups and Downs The Science Behind the Wisdom of Positive Relationships Get Happy! MEANING Alastair Moock: Performing a Service Kerry Stallo: Jumping Off the Career Track Rebecca Weiss: Delivering Cheer Dan Miller: Helping Others Succeed The Science Behind the Wisdom of Meaning Get Happy! CREATIVITY Ben and Holly Raynes: Making Creativity a Priority Stephanie Dolgoff: Writing Myself Happy Billi Kid: Reinventing Himself Levon Helm: Finding a New Voice The Science Behind the Wisdom of Creativity Get Happy! GRATITUDE Ryan Bell: Giving with a Thankful Heart Kristin A. Meekhof: The Healing Power of Gratitude Brandon Mancine: Committed to Gratitude Joan Lewis: The Power of Gratitude The Science Behind the Wisdom of Gratitude Get Happy! MINDFULNESS Gretchen Rubin: Savoring the Moment Adam Shell: Pursuing Happiness Barb Schmidt: On Becoming Mindful Alanis Morissette: Ever Mindful The Science Behind the Wisdom of Mindfulness Get Happy! HEALTH Tory Johnson: A Shift for Good Arianna Huffington: Everything Can Wait Natalie Wilgoren: One Step at a Time Roy Rowan: Ninety-Five Years Young The Science Behind the Wisdom of Health Get Happy! RESILIENCE Rhonda Cornum: Soldiering On Sabriye Tenberken: The Beauty of Blindness Lauren and Mark Greutman: Thriving After a Financial Crisis Celeste Peterson: Always a Mom The Science Behind the Wisdom of Resilience Get Happy! SPIRITUALITY Mathew Newburger: Finding Unconditional Love Laura Benanti: Wishing Others Well Stephanie von Hirschberg: Nature as Her Cathedral Shane Claiborne: A Twist of Faith The Science Behind the Wisdom of Spirituality Get Happy! GIVING BACK Michele Larsen and The Joy Team: Changing Lives by Sharing Messages of Joy Kenrick Wagner: The Gift of Giving Niki Taylor: The Gift of Time Monya Williams: Can Happy Acts Change Me? Stacy Kaiser: Helping, Her Way The Science Behind the Wisdom of Giving Back Get Happy! Closing Happy Thoughts Acknowledgments Notes Copyright About the Publisher FOREWORD As the founder of Live Happy magazine, I’m absolutely thrilled to bring you this book. Helping people change their lives for the better has been my life’s passion for over two decades, so this book is the fulfillment of a long-held dream. Growing up, I was not always a happy camper. My dad died when I was very young. I was a C student and not very athletic, so I was neither a sports nor an academic star. I dropped out of college and went to live as a party-hearty beach bum in Florida. Then one day when I was eighteen, I was cutting grass for rich golf-club members and I took a good look at them . . . and then at myself. I now call that my “day of disgust and decision.” I realized I needed to massively change my life, and to do so I began to devour personal-development books, videos, and seminars. They taught me how to improve my attitude, habits, health, and relationships. I went back to college, then on to business school, where I rose to the top of my class. I was hired by Fortune 100 company Texas Instruments and climbed the ladder fast, so that by age twenty-eight, I was the manager of the Intelligent Systems Division (which was pretty crazy considering what I had been doing just ten years earlier). I went on to use what I learned to build huge organizations around the world. My current startup has done $1 billion in sales in just four years, and was ranked No. 12 in the 2015 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America, as well as No. 1 in the category of consumer products and services. I once launched a television network to showcase the leaders in personal development and produced over nine hundred shows. I did this because I had totally changed my life for the better and wanted to help others who struggled like I had. But there was a flaw in the promises made by the personal- development experts. To sell their books and seminars, they were offering what I call quantum leap promises—you know the type: become a millionaire in six months, have a perfect body in three. When the programs didn’t work, people gave up on them and, far worse, gave up on themselves. I was incredibly frustrated, so I wrote a book called The Slight Edge. Simply put, it’s about how doing little things, and doing them over and over persistently, creates a compound effect and leads to fulfillment and success. It became a surprise bestseller, and people started writing me and telling me how I’d changed their lives. That’s when the power of giving back really hit me. I got more out of hearing about others’ success than I did from my own. Way more. When I started learning about positive psychology and the studies on happiness, I got really excited. Here was research coming out of leading universities telling us that happiness was achievable simply by changing everyday habits. I realized that while “personal development” sounds like work, happiness sounds appealing. Everybody wants to be happy! And getting happier is easy to do—it’s an anti-quantum-leap model. It’s been proven that you can take grumpy people and, with little exercises that anybody can do, rewire how the neurons fire in the grumps’ brains and turn them into more positive people. Again, small things, done over and over, were being shown to profoundly change people’s lives. Incredible research on happiness is going on all over the world, and yet nearly everyone has the wrong idea about what makes us happy. If you went to the nearest mall right now and interviewed one hundred people, ninety-nine of them would say that happiness is something that comes after you get the spouse, house, car, and job of your dreams. They’d say that the more recognition, love, success, and money you have, the happier you are. They’ve got it backward. In fact, the happier you are, the likelier you are to have a loving marriage, to be successful, healthy, wealthy—and even to live significantly longer than grumpy folks. Most important of all, the happier you are, the more you contribute to the world . . . the more you share your happiness, your money, yourself. And the more you share your own fulfillment, the happier you become. When I learned all this, I knew I had to share this knowledge with others. I started Live Happy magazine in 2013. As the owner, I have been privileged to be a part of the burgeoning happiness movement. I’m proud to be able to help fund the International Positive Education Network (IPEN) and to serve on its advisory board. I was thrilled to be able to speak before the United Nations on 2014’s International Day of Happiness, and to be inducted into the Happiness Hall of Fame that same year. Now my wonderful Live Happy team has produced this gem of a book. Besides the easy steps you can take to add joy to your life right now, it also gives you forty stories from notable and regular people who describe their journeys to happiness, to inspire you on your own. I have no doubt it will change your life. And as happiness grows, person by person, so does the hope for joy—and peace —in the world. Jeff Olson Founder, Live Happy LLC
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