Our Journey to Happiness

Like all journeys, ours took us in so many unexpected directions. We could never have imagined ten years ago, that a few conversations about happy people in a Northern California coffee shop, would blossom into a three-year voyage of in-depth interviews with extraordinary people from the back roads of Mississippi to the boulevards of Budapest. It was inconceivable to us when our book, How We Choose to Be Happy first came out in 1999, that our happiness model of nine choices would be used around the world by universities, churches, corporations, and hospitals to create better teams and communities. But perhaps the biggest surprise, is that today that same model has brought us to the halls of major research institutions, including the Mayo Clinic, NYU Hospital, and Wake Forest University Medical Center, where it's become a key to research into positive health outcomes and the mind/body connection.

The Story

Back in the mid-nineties, we were corporate leadership consultants, traveling from one Fortune 500 Company to another, watching the toll of stress mount on us and everyone else. But every once in a while we would stumble across a few unusual people who stood out from the crowd. They seemed to live in a different world from the rest of us. They had life "wired." Regardless of the problems swirling around them, they moved through life with a grace, warmth, and vigor that was both alluring and mysterious. There was only one way to describe them: extremely happy. And, we were fascinated by them.

So we shifted gears, deciding to focus our attention on the world of profoundly happy people, not just at work, but in every aspect of life. We had so many questions. What makes them tick? How do they stay emotionally elevated? What are they doing that the rest of us aren't?

For the next three years we hit the open road, stopping in both large cities and small farming towns - and everything in between - where we simply asked the locals, "Who's the most richly happy person around?" They'd caucus and proffer a name. We'd track down their suggested subject and invite ourselves over. To our amazement, people all over the world knew exactly what kind of happiness we were talking about; and never once were we turned down.

Our off-beat research methodology and the amazing people we met along the way were moving, invigorating and downright fun. We traveled to rural Alabama to talk with the 4th generation owner of a hardware store. We shared a meal with a cafeteria worker in the barrio of East Los Angeles. In Holland, we had the privilege of meeting a holocaust survivor in her home on Amster Canal.

What we uncovered was astounding. Rich or poor, black or white, married or single, old or young, they all had something in common: everyone of them created happiness by making the same nine choices!

The gift they gave us changed us in ways we could not have imagined, opening up a whole new world, a whole new way to be, to think, to live. It revolutionized the way we related to each other, the way we parented, our notions about friendships, our approaches to consulting, and our feelings about the value and richness in ordinary lives well lived.

To this day we remain students, not gurus, of happiness. But early in the process we knew we had to pass along the intelligence of this model. By 1996 we had created and were conducting happiness workshops. Since then, through training programs in corporations, hospitals and universities, in public workshops and keynote speeches, we have taught people from all walks of life.

The results have been stunning. Even beyond the people with whom we've had "hands-on" contact, we have heard from readers and listeners all over the world who have changed profoundly as they integrate the nine choices.

And, the model has grown far beyond its original incarnation. From it, we've developed a template of ideal leadership attributes, currently used by some of the largest companies companies in the world. It's also the basis of Greg's latest book, LeaderShock - And How to Triumph over It! (McGraw-Hill, 1993) We use the model as a behavioral guide in shifting organizational cultures to profitability and high morale. In the corporate arena, it's become a focal point for the team training we conduct as well as a behavioral interviewing instrument, available online for hiring the best employees. Also, it has been embraced as a strategy for relationships - among parents and children, teachers, social workers and therapists. And to medical people it's fast becoming a paradigm of behaviors that lead to better health and healing.

In short, five years later, we now know that this particular synergy of nine choices not only drives personal happiness, it also contains the fundamental building blocks of healthy human groupings - families, teams, organizations, even entire communities. And from the standpoint of individual wellness, doctors are telling us that if you look at a human being from the cellular level, the same set of behaviors pumps-up our biochemistry as it generates optimal health. See "Our Medical Research"

But, however surprised and honored we've been by these developments, our greatest delight is watching the model of nine choices transform people's lives. We've seen people grow and change and, yes, learn to make themselves happier.