Tal Ben-Shahar - Short Cuts to Happiness: Life-Changing Lessons from My Barber

TAL BEN-SHAHER, PHD taught the largest course at Harvard, Positive Psychology, and the third-largest, The Psychology of Leadership, attracting 1,400 students per semesterapproximately 20 percent of all Harvard undergraduates. Ben-Shahar obtained his BA and PhD from Harvard, and for the last fifteen years has been teaching leadership, happiness, and mindfulness to audiences all over the world. He is the author of five previous books, including Choose the Life You Want and the international bestsellers Happier and Being Happy, which have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

also by tal ben-shahar

The Joy of Leadership: How Positive Psychology Can Maximize Your Impact (and Make You Happier) in a Challenging World

Choose the Life You Want: The Mindful Way to Happiness

Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

Even Happier: A Gratitude Journal for
Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

Being Happy: You Dont Have to Be Perfect
to Lead a Richer, Happier Life

SHORT CUTS TO HAPPINESS: Life-Changing Lessons from My Barber

Copyright 2018 by Tal Ben-Shahar

Originally published in Israel as and in France as Conversations avec mon coiffeur: pour aimer la vie in 2017.

First published in North America by The Experiment, LLC, in 2018.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ben-Shahar, Tal, author.

Title: Short cuts to happiness : life-changing lessons from my barber / Tal Ben-Shahar.

Other titles: Sihot im ha-sapar sheli. English

Description: New York : Experiment, 2018. | Description based on print
version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018009575 (print) | LCCN 2018013049 (ebook) | ISBN
9781615195121 (Ebook) | ISBN 9781615194872 (cloth)

Subjects: LCSH: Happiness.

Classification: LCC BF575.H27 (ebook) | LCC BF575.H27 B44613 2018 (print) |
DDC 158--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009575

ISBN 978-1-61519-487-2

Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-512-1

Cover and text design by Sarah Smith

Back flap author photograph by Judy Rand

Back cover photograph by Naomi Redel

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing September 2018

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To all the barbers and hairdressers

Who make us more beautiful

Within and without

W e go to the hair salon or barbershop in search of some kind of change. We ask for anything from a minor trim to a major cut, a barely perceptible highlight to a transformational new color. Many of us, however, secretly or openly desire to go beyond external change, beyond altering the way our head looks from the outside. What we truly seek is internal changeanything from a trim to a transformation of that which goes on inside our head.

As a result, many of us tend to have a special relationship with our hairdresser or barber. We freely share our cares and concerns, our sorrows and secrets, as we seamlessly extend the trust we have in their adept hands, swinging sharp scissors, to an overall trust in them. And when our defenses are down, when resistance is gone, when the wall separating us from the world collapses, it is then that we are ready to listen, to grow, to learn.

This book is about the big lessons I learned from my barber, Avi Peretz, who for almost twenty years has been working in the same small salon in a small neighborhood in Ramat Hasharon, a small suburb of Tel Aviv. The salon is a well-known fixture in the local landscape, located in the neighborhood center, alongside Caf Caramel, Yuvals convenience store, and Jacobs grocer. Together, these entities encircle an area paved with large tiles, unevenly spread, some of them broken; a wooden bench that was once green, now worn out by the harsh Mediterranean sun; and a few dozen postboxes, each belonging to a family living nearby. Witnessing this all is the old tree with roots bulging out of the paved floor, providing shade to the grown-ups talking about their new startup, the children playing tag, the cats and dogs and pigeons coexisting peacefully.

In the midst of all this, Avis salon is a gathering place that provides women, men, and children living in the neighborhood much more than a hairdo. His relaxed manner and generous hospitality, his wit and wisdom, affords people just what the fast-paced, high-tech, postmodern world lacks.

* * *

I had been going to Avi for a haircut since 2010, shortly after returning to Israel from the United States. And though I always enjoyed my time in the salon, and always learned something from Avi, it was only in 2014 that I started to take notes, to document the lessons I learned each time I visited.

It was ten years earlier, almost to the day, that I submitted my doctoral dissertation. Whether this was a coincidence or a carefully orchestrated move by my subconscious I dont know, but the point is that since 2004 when I completed my academic training, I had a persistent desire to return to school, to learn in a formal setting again as I had done for most of my life. And while I continued to read extensively after graduating, I missed the face-to-face learning I had been accustomed to as a student in a classroom. Starting to write this book was my formal return to informal educationonly instead of a classroom I attended the salon; instead of a professor there was my barber. The lectures were short rather than long, with silence creating space around the wordswords that were inspiring and thought-provoking, that communicated little theory and much practical wisdom.

In the following pages I try to convey the spirit and substance of Avis teachings as I encountered them. Toward that end, the chapter progression is chronological, which means that some topics are addressed more than once at different points throughout the two years. Were I writing a traditional book or offering a traditional course, these chapters would have appeared in close proximity to one another, but I felt that going the traditional route would have taken away from the spirit of Avis teachinga spirit that is organic, natural, free of constraints, aligned with the way life unfolds.