If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?

By: Raj Raghunathan

Narrated by: Raj Raghunathan

The first book by the creator of COURSERA®'s most popular online course in 2015, "A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment"

Could the same traits that drive your career success also be keeping you from being happier?

Fifteen years after getting his MBA, Raj Raghunathan spent some time with his old classmates. He noticed that though they’d all done well, there didn’t appear to be much correlation between their academic success and career success. What Raj found even more curious was the even smaller correlation between career success and what he calls life success. The greater the career success, the more unhappy, out of shape, harried and distracted his friends were.

If intelligence helps with decision-making, smart people should naturally make better life choices. So why are so many of the smartest, brightest, most successful people profoundly unhappy? Raj set out to find an answer to this problem, and extensively researched happiness not just of students and business people, but also stay-at-home-parents, lawyers, and artists, among others.

If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? takes readers on a fun and meaningful tour of the best research available on how some of the very determinants of success may also come to deflate happiness. Raghunathan explores the seven most common inclinations that successful people need to overcome, and the seven habits they should adopt instead. Among his surprising findings...

·The correlation between wealth and happiness is much smaller than you'd expect it to be
·Generosity is not only a key to happiness, but a determining factor of long term success
·Appreciating uncertainty, rather than seeking full control of outcomes, is necessary for happiness

If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? will give you a powerful new perspective on your work, personal goals and relationships, whether you’re already successful or just starting out.

Palatable mindfulness and introspection

If you could sum up If You're so Smart, Why Aren't You Happy? in three words, what would they be?

Sharp, witty, and accessible

Any additional comments?

The best non-fiction book I have completed to date. If there is only one book I can convince my four best friends to read, this is hands-down the book. And shrinks, take note!

Stretched out

I feel this book could have been shorter, and the performance quicker paced. good content that was hard to ingest due to the slowness and repetition.

Science-based, Actionable Happiness Advice

This is one of the better works I've found so far that leverages scientific research on happiness to create a prescription for its pursuit. This did not come off as a gimmick or the work of a charlatan. It's just science explained to the layperson.

But before I write this review ...

What made the experience of listening to If You're so Smart, Why Aren't You Happy? the most enjoyable?

The book's content is fantastic but the organization is horrible. Raj drifts into tangents every few minutes. He must have said, "but before I talk about X, let me ..." about 75 times in the book. This would be such a better book if someone could re-write it in a straight-forward, organized manner! I want to recommend it for the content, but hesitate to do so because I know most people won't enjoy the frustrating narrative.Raj self-narrated this audio book. Usually I love when authors self-narrate but his accent is very strong and required my absolute focus just to interpret (even at 1.0x speed).

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Best parts, great content on understanding happiness. Worst parts, trying to understand Raj's accent and follow his narrative.

What about Raj Raghunathan’s performance did you like?

Actually did not like it.

Thought provoking and well researched

Overall, a great book that has in-depth coverage of the various aspects and detract or contribute to happiness. I'd never thought about my "logical" rationalization dominating my gut-instinct emotions, so that was an interesting revelation.

My main criticism would be that Raj is very calculated in his content and delivery vs feeling like a natural conversation. But I wouldn't let that get in the way from anyone enjoying this book. Thanks, Raj.