Here are 100 books that Life's Messy, Live Happy fans have personally recommended if you like
Life's Messy, Live Happy.
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When I entered my fifties, I was very surprised to discover that I didn’t have my life all figured out. This was especially surprising since the nature of a good human life has been my research topic for decades. What I have learned, from philosophy and from my collaborations with psychologists, is that it’s always going to be a process. We have to figure out what matters and how to get it, we have to navigate value conflicts, and we have to accept that the answers will change as our circumstances change. The books I’ve recommended aren’t guides to life, but I think they’re great for understanding the process.
Everyone values being happy – it’s something we all want and should want!
Haybron’s little book has so much wisdom packed into it about what happiness is and how best to get it. He draws on philosophy and psychology to argue that the feeling of happiness is actually made up of three different emotional states: attunement, engagement, and endorsement.
He then explains the research about good strategies for getting into these positive emotional states.
My students have really enjoyed this book and it contains one of my favorite lines from a book of philosophy: “don’t be an asshole in the pursuit of happiness.”
Happiness is an everyday term in our lives, and most of us strive to be happy. But defining happiness can be difficult.
In this Very Short Introduction, Dan Haybron considers the true nature of happiness. By examining what it is, assessing its importance in our lives, and how we can (and should) pursue it, he considers the current thinking on happiness, from psychology to philosophy.
Illustrating the diverse routes to happiness, Haybron reflects on contemporary ideas about the pursuit of a good life and considers the influence of social context on our satisfaction and well-being.
My entire academic life of over 20 years has been focused on how to help people and organizations become their Best Self. I am the author of 15 books. Six of my books were published by Academic Presses: Cambridge University Press; Stanford University Press; and Columbia Business School Publishing. My work has appeared in over 400 global media publications including Fortune magazine, European Business Review, HBR, SHRM, Fast Company, WIRED, Forbes, INC., Huffington Post, Washington Post, Business Week, the Financial Times,CEO World as well as on CNBC Squawk Box, Fox Business News, Big Think, WSJ Radio, Bloomberg Radio with Kathleen Hayes, Dow Jones Radio, MSNBC Radio, Business Insider, and Wharton Radio.
This is a unique book in that it integrates the learnings from the great philosophies and religions with modern science to create a powerful story of how you and I can live a happy and a meaningful life.
The Author takes you on a great journey illuminating how our thinking and how our mind and body influence our beliefs and ways of being. He puts together a compelling new story that you can embrace to be on your Journey to Best Self. This book was so good that I have read it three times since I bought it.
In his widely praised book, award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines the world's philosophical wisdom through the lens of psychological science, showing how a deeper understanding of enduring maxims-like Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, or What doesn't kill you makes you stronger-can enrich and even transform our lives.
I am an investor who happens to love writing, music, and simply life in general. I was born in Murmansk, Russia, where I spent my first 18 years. My family moved to Denver in 1991, and I have lived there since. I’m CEO of IMA, a value investing firm where I have creative freedom to focus on things I love. I was so fortunate to stumble into writing; it has completely rewired my mind by providing a daily two-hour refuge for focused thinking. I am constantly on the lookout for new stories and fresh insights. Writing is what keeps me in student-of-life mode, and there is so much to learn!
This book is solely responsible for hooking me on Stoic philosophy, prompting my deep exploration of practical aspects of life in my own book and, most importantly, the application of them to my daily life. William’s writing is easy to follow, and his advice is very practical. I’d advise you to start reading the book from chapter four; and then when you are done with the book, come back to the first three chapters.
One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives.
In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using…
I have a Ph.D. in Psychology and a lifelong fascination with people and why they do the things they do, including why I do the things I do. My life and career have been all about trying to learn as much as I can about psychology, brain science, how people think, how people learn, and how to use this body of knowledge and research to understand myself and others. My work is about applying behavioral science to the design of technology to better fit and serve people.
It’s the 2nd book on my list that’s about happiness, but it’s more philosophical and personal than Dan Gilbert’s book. This book changed my life. It made me realize that I had an expectation that my life should be easy and comfortable. Before I read this book whenever something happened in my life that was not easy and comfortable – my plane was delayed, I got sick, a client was late paying an invoice – I would spin into unhappiness. Why was this happening to me? Everything was personal. Stuff happens all the time. What makes us miserable is how we react to it. I remember reading a passage from the book and feeling my frame of reference change. It permanently changed my view of myself and how I deal with life.
A Zen teacher explains that true happiness can only be found by dropping our ideas about happiness—and learning to live fully and fearlessly in the moment
Many books have been published in recent years on happiness. Ezra Bayda, a remarkably down-to-earth Zen teacher, believes that the happiness “boom” has been largely a bust for readers. Why? Because it's precisely the pursuit of happiness that keeps us trapped in cycles of dissatisfaction and suffering.
In Beyond Happiness, Bayda draws on Zen teachings to question our conventional notions about what happiness is and where we can find it. Most of us seek…
In my view, there is no bigger quest than to understand how to live a long and fulfilled life. Most of my professional life has focused on running neuroscience experiments in my academic laboratory and developing technologies for companies I have started to understand and increase happiness. I have devoted 20 years to this quest and I continue to work to build a happier and healthier world. I am one of the most cited scientists in this area and also regularly communicate to the general public through TED talks, books, magazine articles, and public lectures.
I like and dislike this book! Ricard is a scientist and a Buddhist monk, and is reported to be the happiest man on earth. I know, respect, and like Ricard, and this book harkens back to the Stoics by suggesting that moderation is the key to happiness. My research says yes and no to this. Ricard is correct that spending too much time worrying about the past or future will drag down one's happiness. My research, and that of many others, have shown the positive effect of meditation on happiness and here Ricard is masterful in explaining how and why meditation is important. Calmness and self-insight are very important to avoiding depression and setting the conditions for happiness, but, as Ricard notes, we must be in communities of other people to truly thrive. A little wildness is awesome, go for it!
Combining science and spirit, a cell biologist turned Buddhist monk blends new scientific research with traditional Western philosophy to reveal how readily attainable happiness is.
As a career and executive coach for the past 25+ years, I have been on a mission to help people develop more satisfying and meaningful connections to their careers. I am passionate about this because most people spend the better part of their adult lives at work, more time than they do with their families, sleeping, and other priorities. Yet many become unhappy in their work, losing themselves over decades, and get blinded by their financial and career success. It can seem unimaginable to find a way to a more fulfilling career. I am determined to show them the pathways of possibilities, no matter where they are in their lives.
The first thing I loved about the book was its title. I have seen first-hand how curiosity can be a powerful force in improving people’s lives and making a difference in the world. Having interviewed over 260 people who changed their careers to gain greater fulfillment and meaning in their lives, curiosity was the one common thread that guided them to take risks, walk through doubts, and make critical decisions.
I love Shigeoka’s D.I.V.E. framework: Detach–Intend–Value–Embrace. It gave me guidelines for deepening and expanding my own curiosity with prompts to spark my thinking and opportunities to question my assumptions, discover new things, and cast aside self-doubts to take action, regardless of the outcomes.
'A timely bridge for our divided world' - Adam Grant, bestselling author of Give and Take
Open your mind, heal your relationships, and connect across divides with this groundbreaking guide to deep curiosity from internationally-recognized curiosity expert, Scott Shigeoka.
At a time when tensions over race, religion, gender identity and more have fractured our lives and relationships, curiosity is the key to fostering connection, growth, and healing.
Seek will help you build the courage to be transformed by the people, places and experiences you encounter - unlocking deep curiosity, and strengthening this fundamental human skill.
Using Shigeoka's transformative four-step framework,…
We all want peace. We all want a life of joy and meaning. We want to feel blissfully comfortable in our own skin, moving through the world with grace and ease. But how many of us are actively taking the steps to create such a life?
I'm the Founder and CEO of Intertech, an IT firm I started over 30 years ago. I've written three books and more than 100 articles on business, leadership, and technology. Intertech has won over 50 awards for growth, workplace best practices, and employee engagement including being named one of the Best 30 Employers in Tech by Fortune Magazine and one of the Top 10 Consulting firms in America by Consulting Magazine.
Do you know of any effective leaders who are chronically unhappy? I don’t, which is why I’m rounding out my recommendations with a non-leadership book.
I give this book to anyone I’ve mentored over the years. This is a book I reread yearly. It clearly lays out what’s needed to have a fulfilling life and the qualities that all happy people have in common.
How to live a happy life--made so simple and doable that you believe it's actually achievable.
Dr. Dan Baker, director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch, has devoted his life to teaching people how to be happy. And apparently, most of us could use a little tutoring. Research has shown that the root of unhappiness--fear--lies in the oldest, reptilian part of our brains, and negative reactions are often dictated by primal instincts. We're literally "hardwired for hard times." In What Happy People Know, Dr. Baker uses evidence from the new science of happiness to show us how we…
I am a caregiver who became an author. Both my parents had dementia. I found few books written from a personal perspective to give me guidance, so the journal I kept ultimately became the book I wished I could have read during our dementia journey. The journey didn’t end for me with the death of my parents. It led me to form a non-profit with two other dementia authors. This passion project has become a global community of authors who have written about Alzheimer’s and dementia from personal experience. Now more than 300 strong, we provide quality resources for caregivers and others concerned about dementia. Learn more at AlzAuthors.com.
This is the #1 caregiving book of hope I’d want my family to read, should I ever be diagnosed with dementia. Helene Berger’s memoir shares her experiences caring for her husband after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I learned the many ways she discovered to make life more meaningful for her husband, especially through art (much of his artwork through the years is included). It reiterated to me that the attitude of a caregiver can make all the difference. With kindness and patience, Helene teaches how to be a loving caregiver.
CHOOSING JOY is a book of hope. Most accounts of Alzheimer's describe a process of irreversible degeneration and decline. This is a rare success story, the story of a woman who refused to surrender to the implications of her husband's diagnosis, instead inspiring him to join her in making every moment they had together meaningful and precious. A few months after their fiftieth anniversary, Ady Berger was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He responded, I don't want to live anymore. His wife, Helene, was determined to find creative ways to make their lives as fulfilling as possible, for as long as possible.…
I am a freelance illustrator who specializes in children’s literature. I now live in Montreal, surrounded by my little family, after many years spent in London as a Winnie the Pooh character artist for the Walt Disney Company. What's Up, Maloo? is my first book as an author and was inspired by my own experience of suffering with anxiety and depression. I wanted to create Maloo as a tool for children and adults to discuss the importance of being well surrounded and to reach out to a friend when we are feeling low.
Where Happiness Begins is a clever picture book that depicts happiness as a character that can take any shape and form. Sometimes it is hard to find. And sometimes it is right there with us. The illustrations are bright and beautiful. To me, we should read it frequently as a gentle reminder that happiness always begins within ourselves.
This follow-up to When Sadness Is at Your Door suggests that happiness can always be found by looking within.
This helpful picture book is a great introduction to mindfulness and emotional literacy. A spare text and simple illustrations encourage readers to find happiness even if it feels far away. The book gives it a shape, turning this elusive emotion into something real while acknowledging that you can't be happy all the time. The thoughtful text reassures readers that when happiness is hard to find, they can look for it in many places. Sharing something with a friend or reaching out…
The plan was insane. The trap seemed to snap shut on Bruce and Maggie Tate, an isolation forced on them by the pandemic and America's growing political factionalism. Something had to change.
Maggie's surprising answer: buy a boat, learn to pilot it, and embark on the Great Loop. With no…
I’m a veteran teacher, instructional coach, and speaker. I’ve dealt with the bull crap and beauty of education for a decade and a half. As such, I’m dedicated to helping educators find their love of this work, even amidst the struggles. I’m a columnist for Education Leadershipand host of the Educator Happy Hour podcast. I travel all over the world to help teachers and school leaders learn the science of well-being so they can be at their best in order to give their best, even on full-moon, post-holiday, “WIFI crashed” days of student chaos.
Another happiness book!? Okay, if a philosophical book on the “art” of happiness isn’t your cup of Tibetan tea, then how about the scienceof happiness? Dr. Martin Seligmann is considered the founder of positive psychology – a movement to understand not just what’s wrong with people but what’s right.
Though Seligman has written a few books over the decades on the research of well-being, I think Authentic Happiness is the best introduction to the many studies helping us find more meaning, engagement, and joy. My favorite part is that Seligman seems like a “natural grouch” – like a guy who didn’t want to believe in positive psychology but couldn’t ignore the robust research showing that we canchange our well-being. Reading this is like chatting with the gruff, 40-year-teaching-veteran who is chock full of stories, wisdom, and insights to look at and live life differently.
A national bestseller, Authentic Happiness launched the revolutionary new science of Positive Psychology—and sparked a coast-to-coast debate on the nature of real happiness.
According to esteemed psychologist and bestselling author Martin Seligman, happiness is not the result of good genes or luck. Real, lasting happiness comes from focusing on one’s personal strengths rather than weaknesses—and working with them to improve all aspects of one’s life. Using practical exercises, brief tests, and a dynamic website program, Seligman shows readers how to identify their highest virtues and use them in ways they haven’t yet considered. Accessible and proven, Authentic Happiness is the…
