A mix of good and bad

What did you like best about The Happiness Equation? What did you like least?

The Happiness Equation gives some solid and practical ways of producing happiness in one's self. Pasricha's ideas about starting out happy rather than letting your environment determine your happiness has some truth to it; even if it is nothing new. However, some of the examples he used were god awful. He struggles to admit to others that he attended Harvard so he experiences being inauthentic and that makes him feel bad, gee wiz what's a guy to do. It's not relatable to the vast majority of his audience. He goes on about how he was on the bestseller list with his "awesome" book for way too long and how that 'didn't really make him happy.' Instead he suggests you should "want nothing" and that is part of his equation to finding happiness.
It is a flawed equation. Pasricha's ideas are meant to produce a sort of happiness which really is not sustainable in most people. It is a cookie cutter approach to life, making all your variables line up to produce the same happiness ad nauseam. He talks about never retiring and just doing this approach to enjoying your work and what not FOREVER. Not going to happen for 90% of the population who work themselves to death in dead end jobs anyway.
I'm not surprised to find out the author works at Walmart and enjoys their "culture" and is the type of person to own 7 pairs of the same outfit for simplifying his life. These people are the most neurotic and fearful bunch who hate anyone expressing actual emotions other than obsequious joy.

Would you recommend The Happiness Equation to your friends? Why or why not?

No, there are better books out there.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Neil Pasricha?

Liam Neeson. Pastiche's voice is INSUFFERABLE.

Do you think The Happiness Equation needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No thanks.

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24 people found this helpful

Bragging

I feel like this book is a five hour platform of the author bragging about his success of his book.
Having a hard time finishing it.

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16 people found this helpful

The Best Book I Have Read on This Subject!

I was desperately looking for a book to guide me back to the self I thought was lost forever! At midlife : I lost my dog, family member, career, savings, home and any real hope for a future. Neil nailed it, no matter where you are in your life's journey, I believe this book will change your negative spiral and set you on a path to your amazing authentic self! Get the book now! Do not waste anymore of your precious time in despair, confusion, what if thinking! Thank you Neil, excellent job!

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13 people found this helpful

Voice = super annoying

Good message but voice ruined it. Getting a new reader would greatly improve the audiobook.

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9 people found this helpful

Solid content but questionable narration.

While the content was solid I believe the audio presentation would have been stronger and more pleasurable to listen to had a professional narrator read the book.

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6 people found this helpful

Good and helpful, but don’t like the ending

I loved the majority of the book. Neil presents a lot of good, helpful, and much needed insights into contentment, productivity, time-management and relationship advice, but I don’t like his 9th secret to happiness. It drives me nuts and it doesn’t make sense when people advise “don’t take advice.” It seems contradictory. Based upon that 9th secret, then should I even take his advice in his book? It’s a circular argument, right?

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3 people found this helpful

Great narration and very practical!

This book has great narration and is very practical. The author is really enthusiastic and uses great examples and research to back up the points. definitely worth a listen if you are looking for something that is practical and inspirational.

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3 people found this helpful

a bit out of touch

decent story. the author presented an over-reliance on work as it relates to feeling alive and finding purpose. simply put, we do not work to live. this author presents the opposite.

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2 people found this helpful

Be Happy First

Great little book. It definitely had its ups and downs during the actual story and I wasn't HUGE on the narration by Neil (it's not bad, it's just fine.). However, there are plenty of ideas in this book that I absolutely loved. What follows is a summary of my favorite parts.

"Happiness is 10%what happens to us and 90% how we react to it." Some proven ways to be happy right now:
1. Exercise
2. Journal
3. Be kind
4. Unplug to recharge after work
5. Hit flow: Do an absorbing, time melts away activity
6. Meditate
7. Gratitude Journal

Always do it for you. If you focus on critical success or financial success, your own self-success, that is when you do it because it's just important to you, will inevitably take a backseat. Do it for you.

Find your ikigai. Okinawans have no word for "retirement", they only have ikigai, which roughly means "the reason you get up in the morning". Have an ikigai, which can range from "feeding my family" to "helping people reach their fitness goals". Neil goes on to mention that you should never retire, mostly because of the social aspect of work. He said "If I sat in front of my computer all by myself, all day, I would go insane."

This is one of my favorites, since I have always been kind of obsessed with how I use my own time. The Three Time Buckets:
168 hours in a week
-56 hours: Sleep
-56 hours: Work + Commute + Lunch at work (if you are thinking about work, you are pretty much at work)
-56 hours: Passion. Going out to dinner, friends, watching movies, lifting weights, coaching your kids' baseball team, writing in coffee shops, dates and making love. Just make sure that whatever goes into this bucket is something you are passionate about.

According to research done by Neil, school teachers, assistant managers at retail stores and Harvard MBAs all make the same $ per hour. It's just that the Harvard MBA works 2x+ the amount of time. Always know how much you're being paid by the hour!

Creating Space: Newton came up with the concept of gravity while sitting under a tree. Nils Bohr came up with the concept for the structure of the atom while dreaming. Creating space allows our minds to reach creative heights.
Fewer choices = Fewer decisions. Decisions cost brain power. Stuff like emails, chores, checking calendar, etc. should have a pre-determined time each week, like a Sunday chore blitz or similar. Your gym routine, shopping list, etc. should be automated so you're not guessing what to do when you're there. The only things that you should be dedicating brain power towards deciding are things like: Buying a house, getting married, having kids, etc.

Create deadlines to create urgency and focus! "Delay is the deadliest form of denial". Remember that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Move deadlines up.

Remember when doctors used to be the only ones who had pagers for emergencies? Now everyone's got a cellphone. Sunday used to be for family, church and you couldn't get anything done. Now, pretty much all stores are open on Sundays. So, "close the doors, lock the windows, but answer the bell." Attend only true emergencies.

BE YOURSELF! Happiness: When your thoughts, actions and speech are aligned.

He also mentions the regrets of the dying, which included not having the courage to be who they were meant to be, working too hard and not keeping in touch with friends.

This is my favorite part: "97% of lung cancer patients are smokers. 97% of smokers don't have lung cancer." Don't know if those stats are true, probably not, but the point is that ALL ADVICE CONFLICTS! So, make up your own mind, because there is no such thing as "rock-solid advice".

But in summary: Be happy first, do it for you, never retire, overvalue you, create space, just do it and don't take advice.

A pretty good little book. I really liked it and would definitely recommend.

Update 2020: Happiness is a luxury. But still, that doesn't mean we should be suffering away needlessly, so some of the advice in the book still holds, although I don't know if I would recommend it.

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2 people found this helpful

Muy práctico, muy completo, me gustó mucho

Me gustó mucho. Lo escuché dos veces porque tenia muchos detalles, mucho contenido que encuentro muy útil. Me hace mucho sentido lo que dice, algunas cosas son de sentido común y otras hasta contra intuitivas. Lo recomiendo completamente. Uno de los libros de felicidad y productividad (ahorro de tiempo) que más me han gustado. Aprendí harto y me entretuve harto.

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1 person found this helpful