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

Dan Baker (Author), Cameron Stauth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 19, 2004

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 can overcome this genetic predisposition toward negative reactions and lead a truly rich, happy, and healthy life.

In this book, Dr. Baker shares the program that has revolutionized the lives of countless unhappy people, VIP's and regular Joes and Janes alike. First, you'll learn the only two issues that ever cause unhappiness and devise your plan to overcome both of them. Then, Dr. Baker teaches you how to spot the happiness traps, the five doomed ways we try to make ourselves happy, only to dig ourselves further into misery. Finally, he shares his happiness tools, the six simple skills that, when practiced consistently, will inevitably lead to greater optimism, courage, good humor, and fulfillment--in short, to happiness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Baker, a psychologist and director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, offers a new way to look at unhappiness. He believes that people can teach themselves to be happy instead of remaining trapped in a vicious cycle of stress from work and family: "If you adopt management of your life as a primary goal, you'll be able to participate in your own destiny. But if you squander your energy struggling for complete control, you'll lose the reins of management and become just another leaf in the wind." It's essential for people to avoid such traps as trying to buy happiness or trying to find it through pleasure, Baker argues. Instead, people should use and take advantage of the six happiness tools-appreciation, choice, personal power, leading with strengths, language and stories, and multidimensional living. To demonstrate his strategy, the author offers various case studies. For example, one wealthy CEO comes for therapy, complaining about his children, wife and employees. Baker listens and offers just one piece of advice: he tells the man to visit a pediatric cancer ward; the visit allows the man to look beyond his self-centered complaints. Baker's advice is sound and his presentation engaging, but some readers, especially those coping with serious life crises, may find this approach too New Age or simplistic. He makes the transition from the traps to the tools of happiness sound easy, perhaps too much so.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Baker's advice is sound and his presentation engaging."

--Publishers Weekly

 

"This wonderfully helpful book is sure to increase the number of happy people with its wisdom."--Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People

 

"Everyone wants to be happy. So much suffering and illness occur when we look for happiness in the wrong places. In What Happy People Know, Dan Baker distills the best of science and spirituality, sharing with deep and profound wisdom how we can learn to be happy and let go of suffering. Highly recommended."--Dean Ornish, M.D., founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco; ad author of Love and Survival and Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease

 

"Dr. Dan Baker has created a book that we all have been waiting for. It is a significant, practical, insightful, easy-to-read book filled with nuggets that lead us to the road of happiness."--Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., author of Love is Letting Go of Fear

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 259 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition (January 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312321597
• ISBN-13: 978-0312321598
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can Even Help An Angry, Anxious, Depressed, Cynic Feel Good February 25, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

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."

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You! Thank You! Thank You, Dr. Baker! April 4, 2004

By 9 Lives and Counting

Format:Paperback

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.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Focus on strengths, rather than weaknesses or past failures December 29, 2002

By High Standards

Format:Hardcover

Dan Baker provides a guide to creating a meaningful life through tools for fulfillment, self-awareness, gratitude, and finding joy. Happiness, according to Baker, encompases a healthy outlook on life, physical and mental wellness, a sense of spirituality, and personal fulfillment through acts of altruism and kindness.

The book addressses the "new" psychology which, contrary to the standard medical model of emotional health - in which healing is based on "curing" one's past - instead focuses on building on individual strengths to help sustain people not only in times of crisis and but in making their lives meaningful overall. The book is not a sophistcated academic text and should not be approached as such. Rather, the book is written in the first person, in a very conversational style that is accessible to all readers. Although the title might lead some potential readers to think the book is the standard psychobabble self-help text that is ubiquitous today, the book is not psychobabble at all - it is clear guidance and tools that anyone can use to build a foundation of happiness on which to live one's life.

Dan Baker has a wealth of personal experience and vignettes drawn from his experience at Canyon Ranch and in other settings. These stories and the lessons drawn from them provide helpful guideposts for all of us as we continue our life journeys.