Heisz - Live Happy: Ten Practices for Choosing Joy

For Katie, Zach, Emma, and Quinn,

who bring joy into my life every day

A s the founder of Live Happy magazine, Im absolutely thrilled to bring you this book. Helping people change their lives for the better has been my lifes passion for over two decades, so this book is the fulfillment of a long-held dream.

Growing up, I was not always a happy camper. My dad died when I was very young. I was a C student and not very athletic, so I was neither a sports nor an academic star. I dropped out of college and went to live as a party-hearty beach bum in Florida. Then one day when I was eighteen, I was cutting grass for rich golf-club members and I took a good look at them... and then at myself. I now call that my day of disgust and decision. I realized I needed to massively change my life, and to do so I began to devour personal-development books, videos, and seminars. They taught me how to improve my attitude, habits, health, and relationships.

I went back to college, then on to business school, where I rose to the top of my class. I was hired by Fortune 100 company Texas Instruments and climbed the ladder fast, so that by age twenty-eight, I was the manager of the Intelligent Systems Division (which was pretty crazy considering what I had been doing just ten years earlier).

I went on to use what I learned to build huge organizations around the world. My current startup has done $1 billion in sales in just four years, and was ranked No. 12 in the 2015 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America, as well as No. 1 in the category of consumer products and services.

I once launched a television network to showcase the leaders in personal development and produced over nine hundred shows. I did this because I had totally changed my life for the better and wanted to help others who struggled like I had. But there was a flaw in the promises made by the personal-development experts. To sell their books and seminars, they were offering what I call quantum leap promisesyou know the type: become a millionaire in six months, have a perfect body in three. When the programs didnt work, people gave up on them and, far worse, gave up on themselves.

I was incredibly frustrated, so I wrote a book called The Slight Edge. Simply put, its about how doing little things, and doing them over and over persistently, creates a compound effect and leads to fulfillment and success. It became a surprise bestseller, and people started writing me and telling me how Id changed their lives. Thats when the power of giving back really hit me. I got more out of hearing about others success than I did from my own. Way more.

When I started learning about positive psychology and the studies on happiness, I got really excited. Here was research coming out of leading universities telling us that happiness was achievable simply by changing everyday habits. I realized that while personal development sounds like work, happiness sounds appealing. Everybody wants to be happy! And getting happier is easy to doits an anti-quantum-leap model. Its been proven that you can take grumpy people and, with little exercises that anybody can do, rewire how the neurons fire in the grumps brains and turn them into more positive people. Again, small things, done over and over, were being shown to profoundly change peoples lives.

Incredible research on happiness is going on all over the world, and yet nearly everyone has the wrong idea about what makes us happy. If you went to the nearest mall right now and interviewed one hundred people, ninety-nine of them would say that happiness is something that comes after you get the spouse, house, car, and job of your dreams. Theyd say that the more recognition, love, success, and money you have, the happier you are.

Theyve got it backward. In fact, the happier you are, the likelier you are to have a loving marriage, to be successful, healthy, wealthyand even to live significantly longer than grumpy folks. Most important of all, the happier you are, the more you contribute to the world... the more you share your happiness, your money, yourself. And the more you share your own fulfillment, the happier you become.

When I learned all this, I knew I had to share this knowledge with others. I started Live Happy magazine in 2013. As the owner, I have been privileged to be a part of the burgeoning happiness movement. Im proud to be able to help fund the International Positive Education Network (IPEN) and to serve on its advisory board. I was thrilled to be able to speak before the United Nations on 2014s International Day of Happiness, and to be inducted into the Happiness Hall of Fame that same year.

Now my wonderful Live Happy team has produced this gem of a book. Besides the easy steps you can take to add joy to your life right now, it also gives you forty stories from notable and regular people who describe their journeys to happiness, to inspire you on your own. I have no doubt it will change your life. And as happiness grows, person by person, so does the hope for joyand peacein the world.

Jeff Olson

Founder, Live Happy LLC

M y six-year-old daughter, Emma, lately enjoys putting thingsand peopleinto categories. On a recent day, while taking in a Texas Rangers baseball game, she declared that my son, Zach, was the strongest, she herself was the prettiest, my younger daughter, Quinn, the cutest, and my better half the funniest.

What am I then? I had to ask.

Youre the happiest! she said, without missing a breath.

As the cofounder, COO, and editorial director of Live Happy, LLC, that was good to hear. The truth is, Ive brought inner joy and my own spirited, spontaneous expression of it along with me wherever I go, for as long as I can remember. A tenacious curiosity and unquenchable thirst for learning keeps me awake and open to the unexpected, for starters. But spending time outside in naturewalking, observing, doing, and playing with my family and dogsis where its at for me. I am grateful for every moment of sunshine and do my best to not take any of it for granted.

Whats interesting is that Im an introvert. Im not necessarily demonstrative, and still my daughter sees the happiness in me. She understands that happiness is felt and expressed differently by each person. Considering that I devote a good bit of my professional time and thoughts to happiness, Emma also likely connects me with what I do for a living, as does the rest of my family. When I asked my eight-year-old son what he thought I did when I went to work every day, he said, You make people happy!

Before I learned about positive psychology and began working with Live Happys founder, Jeff Olson, to launch the magazine, I didnt completely grasp how everyday choices in addition to the right foundation can build even greater life satisfaction and fulfillment. Doing the work I do nowand having direct connections and access to the latest research and toolshas made me a better parent, spouse, daughter, boss, and friend and has deepened my commitment to building a happier life for my family and myself. More so than ever before, I understand the importance of having a clear sense of meaning and purpose for my lifeand that understanding inspired this book. I, along with the rest of the Live Happy team, want to connect you with the information and tools you need to find