Most people search for happiness for their entire life and don’t find the answer.  The Happiness Equation is the cheat code for this generation to the age-old question of how to be happy.

It is from the New York Best Selling author Neil Pasricha. He has tons of experience with leaders and people around the world and he has done tons of workshops for people to become happier. The Happiness Equation is a great book because it gives great life advice backed up by evidence. Although, the book can drag a little in some parts.

The book has three simple steps to accomplish happiness. They are: want nothing; do everything and have everything. These steps are subdivided into another three steps that explain exactly what to do in your day to day life. They are tips, for example, be happy first. The book says that if you base your happiness on goals you will be sad in the long run. This happens because you make a goal and you accomplish it you’ll be happy for a while but then you’ll set an even higher goal. When you fail to make a goal you will be sad instead of happy. Instead, the author says you need to be happy before you do anything. This is the opposite of the mainstream that says that to be happy you need to set goals and work hard to accomplish them. This is the type of advice the book gives consistently elevating it above the rest of the competition.

The book shows real examples and counterexamples to show why its ideas work. One of the books best example is a personal anecdote from the author showing why you should be happy before pursuing your goal. The author wrote another book called The Book of Awesome. It was based on a blog he did for a long time where every day he would write down something he thought was awesome about his day. His goal was to get on the New York Best Seller list. He surpassed his goal and got #1 on the list. He was happy for some time, however, he later set another goal that was to stay on the list for a week and then a month until finally, he fell off the list. When this happened he was disappointed and sad because he set a goal that he couldn’t achieve, as he kept setting his happiness on goals. This is different from life advice coaches that give an example of one of their customer did to succeed and doesn’t show that everybody struggles with this problem. This great counterexample separates The Happiness Equation from its contemporaries.

The writing is easy to follow and fun. Pasricha writes in a casual matter like if he was having a conversation with the audience. This makes the writing easy to understand and you feel like the author is a friend giving you life advice. It is organized very systematically splitting the steps into chapters and the chapter are divide it into explaining the topic and giving examples. This makes reading a fun experience and you are not constantly trying to understand what the author is trying to say like in The Odyssey.

The book in some chapters can become repetitive and drag on for a little too long. After, explaining the idea and giving a great example it can give at least two or three more examples of how the idea works. It is understandable because most ideas in the book go against the norm but some ideas have way too many examples and can go on and on. It isn’t like A Brief History of Everything, that explains its topic quickly and gives an example and moves on. This can make the book drag on for a long time.

The Happiness Equation gives you amazing advise which is grounded in real life experience. The book can drag but even with that I would say it is a must read in the confusing times of today. When there are so many view on life The Happiness Equation nails some revolutionary ideas that can change your life.