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What Happy People Know
By Dan Baker, Ph.D.
 Sometimes
I really enjoy reading a book that gets to the point quickly
by pulling together a lot of widely known information. "What
Happy People Know" is an easy, gentle read with a simple
message: happier people become healthier people.
Dr. Baker explains the twelve qualities of happiness and
the six happiness “tools” as well as the five
happiness “traps.” These little lists are helpful
in crystallizing key factors to be remembered by any reader.
Dr. Baker knows what he’s talking about. As director
of the award-winning Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch,
he has devoted his life to teaching people how to be happy.
In the book, co-authored by Cameron Stauth, Dr. Baker stresses
the importance of appreciation in the happiness equation.
He identifies and reviews the connection between contentment
and spiritual awareness. I particularly liked the four deadly
“sins” which he has grouped together in an acronym,
VERBs: Victimization; Entitlement; Rescue;
and Blame. These are like happiness vampires that will
suck the joy right out of your life.
There’s plenty of data offered to support the author’s
thesis – graphs, percentages, studies – but the
bulk of the book consists of first person accounts of meetings
with his clients. These stories underscore and elucidate the
prodigious, but easy to grasp, explanation of the brain, the
back story of our emotions: how it develops, why
it develops the way it does, and how the neural pathways
established in early childhood affect an individual later
in life.
Neurologists know so much more than they did twenty years
ago. New research is released everyday. The bottom line on
the brain stuff is this: use it or lose it. Those
who search for meaning and purpose beyond the superficial
in life seem to develop a quality Dr. Baker deems critical
to being happy: wisdom.
Most everything in the book I had read or heard elsewhere
and yet this simple book, with its simple message, hit home.
You may already know this stuff intellectually, and a quick
reminder of the basics is a good thing.
One can never be too happy. Or too wise.
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Leadership
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