Customer Reviews

What Happy People Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Life for the Better

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really enjoyed this book. The author gives real life experiences from a variety of his clients. It was very informative and heartfelt. I have read many books on happiness. This one is my favorite.

Dan Baker's book about happiness should be required reading for everyone on the planet and then re-read at least once a year. Fantastic 'meaningful' and more importantly 'useful' information about the one thing we all want . . . to be happy. Thanks Dan for a amazing insight into happiness. Ron Hurak

I originally bought this book to give to a loved-one that seemed lost, but I started to read it and couldn't put it down. I plan on buying one for everyone I care about. Even though I considered myself a relatively happy person before I read it, I learned to become even happier when I finished. Couldn't everyone use a little extra happiness?

I have already passed my copy of the book on to friends. I hope each of them passes it on to another - and I hope it NEVER makes its way back to me. :)
This book helped me understand my thoughts and behavior. (Whew! I'm not crazy after all! It's just my reptile.)
Most importantly, this book gave me the tools to put my new insight to work for me right away.
Please read this book. I think you'll love it.

I have been in and out of counseling for 18 years and have read many self-help books. I have spent countless hours trying to figure out what was "wrong" with me, so that I could fix it.

Until about four years ago, my life was a story of three steps forward, two steps back, one forward, two or three steps back.

I then finally found the courage to make some difficult decisions that allowed the movement to be three steps forward, two back... three forward, one back. At least it was finally, consistently moving forward.

But, I still wasn't happy and was convinced it was because something was "wrong" with me that I needed to "fix."

About a year after my father passed away (an event that completely rocked my world) my mother entered grief therapy. After about a year of therapy, she was introduced to this book by her counselor.

My mother has NEVER been the self-help book type of person. She always lovingly said that I've always read more than enough for us both. So, I was stunned when I saw that she was not only reading this book, but was taking notes and I could see a noticible, positive difference. She finally was becoming happy!

I, of course said that I was grateful she finally realized what I had been trying to explain to her all these years and was glad that she had found a book that worded my "lessons" in a way that she could relate to and understand. I believed that my years of counseling, self-help books, introspection, and research had taught me everything I could know on the subject of how to be happy.

About a year later, through a variety of circumstances I realized that I still was not as happy as I pretended to be and decided that I needed to try therapy again - that I still didn't know what was "wrong" with me.

Long story short, my mother ordered this book for me and all I can say is Thank you, Dr. Baker. Thank you for having the courage to go against traditional psychological approaches to therapy and working to develop an approach that actually works! Thank you for writing about it in such effective language that helped me to understnand the clinical basis for fear and for unhappiness. Thank you for providing the tools, in every-day language to help me defeat the fear of not being enough and to learn to live a happy, fulfilling life. Thank you "Christopher Conner" for providing Dr. Baker the inspiration to write this book.

Some may read this book and cynically choose to believe that because Dr. Baker's Canyon Ranch is expensive, he is just a money-hungry doctor who offers no real guidance. I choose to focus on the results of this book and am not concerned with what his motives may or may not be. What I know is that this book have provided guidance into the root cause of my 20+ years of unhappiness and has provided practical tools that I have seen work with my mother.

He teaches that "There is no resolution to an unspeakable experience... Your worst memories don't go away, and they don't get better." But, he further teaches how focusing on your strengths, rather than what's "wrong" with you - along with other tools he outlines will result in true happiness.

I will take notes and will read, reread, and then read again.

I also used the books to supplement "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People" by Stephen Covey; in that it provided many ideas in selecting my personal values that matter most to me.

This is a very good book, one that I will read over and over. It's not the typical self-help book, preaching unreachable goals. This book is great for all, easy to read, practical answers and easy to use applications. All healing comes from within!

I've read and own dozens of self help books. This book is a gem and has changed my life. The entire scientific explanation by the author on how parts of our brains have not evolved (brain stem, amygdala and endocrine system) is well explained and in turn, a huge revelation. He continues to explain that we emit stress hormones to abstract threats (as opposed to physical threats) such as money issues, potential meetings . . .etc.

This in turn made me realize that these are my cluttering ABSTRACT thoughts and carrying those stressing thoughts is very detrimental to my health. Upon pondering upon all this, I am now relatively stress free because I now understand that it just isn't my own personality weaknesses that stress me, but how my brain has not finished evolving.

Of course there are a few chapters that don't really apply to me, but I still enjoyed the authors way of interspersing real case studies with theory.

I love this paragraph

"In every life, there are defining moments - moments that set the course of fate. When they are happening, you're not always aware that they will change you forever. At the time, these moments usually just seem like one more mountain to climb in an endless series of peaks.

And that's all those moments are - if you back off."

Buy it, now.

I've read so many self help books over the years, and I can't say any of them have been very helpful. Interesting, definitely - but nothing that got me closer to feeling the way I've dreamed about for so long: happy, confident, & relaxed. I've gotten so skeptical. Thank God there was still enough of a spark of desperate hope buried in me to get me to pick up this wonderful book.

A thousand "Thank You!"'s to Dan Baker who has shown me the light and allowed me to embark upon a whole new journey as I actually begin to enjoy my life and succeed at everything I try the way I never thought I could. Everything in this book now seems so obvious to me, now that I have worked many of Mr. Baker's brilliantly simple ideas into my thinking and my daily life and things are becoming 2nd nature. I wonder why so many of us drag ourselves through our miserable lives for so long, never coming to the conclusions represented in this book.

Some of the key ideas in this book include understanding the relationship between fear and appreciation, taking power over our emotions, finding good in everything, and seeing the pitfalls of money and possesions. The terrible VERB's (victimization, Entitlement, Rescue, and Blame). Dan Baker spits liquor in the face of traditional psychotherapy with all its failings. (Ever been to a shrink who said, "How does that make you feel?," "and how does that make you feel?," "and how does that make you feel?...." - all a bunch of crap, just as you probably suspected.

There's no way for me to explain the content of this book, and there's no need to. This book is an easy and enjoyable read. Get this book! I wish I had found it 20 years ago. I have wasted so much time and energy wandering through life miserable, exhausted, moody, anxious, fearful, angry, irritable, overwhelmed, and sometimes very depressed - with my eyes and my heart closed. When I think about this, for just a second I feel sadness and loss about all that wasted time, but I am so excited about the future that it doesn't even matter. The future is all that matters now. This book holds enormous implications for parents. Worried your kids are picking up your negativity, your worry, your moods - they are - do something about it - read this book.

Some quotes from Dan Baker:

"When you focus on problems...you become bogged down in you own negativity and fear. It's much smarter to focus on possibilities."

"Life hurts. If it doesn't hurt some of the time, it's not life. But you can't allow yourself to get wrapped up in this hurt, constantly reliving it, fearing the futre and grieving the past. That's victimization."

"I often see this [entitlement] happen to rich kids. They grow up in the condition that I call "enriched deprivation." They have so much that everything becomes meaningless. There's nothing left to yearn for, so they lose their power to grow and grasp. They feel entitled to luxury and come to expect it - but expectations, as you may recall, are one of the worst enemies of happiness. These kids become weak, jaded, and ungrateful... They not only lack of self esteem, they lack a sense of self."

I have read many self help books and they all help in some way but this is the first book that I went out and bought five more to give to people I really care about just because I wanted to share this gem of a book with others. This is also the first time I have written a review about anything. I feel this strongly about it.
Dan has discovered through years of practice that many of the things we think would make us happy tend to do the exact opposite.
An interesting twist of the book is that most of the cases Dan talks about come from the lives of people who already have what most people think would make them happy; money, prestige, status, loving families ect, and yet these people were just as miserable as your average person if not more.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to open themselves up to the possibility that happiness is already near and waiting for them.

Publishers Weekly has presented an editorial that truly depicts exactly how I felt about this book. It is an easy read and there is a sense of the author speaking right off the page. I have had the privilege to meet Dr. Diamond and hear her speak on some of the brain research the author's base some of their findings on the brain and happiness. I appreciate the frank no nonsense approach because it is offered with many caring example of people that discovered their happiness through the thick of the deepest sorrow. I have recommended this one to educators, new age specialists and psychologist colleages of mine. Catch that glimpse of a moment where your choices are made and make the choice of purchasing this insightful book.