Based on science and Robert Mack’s personal experiences, this instruction manual offers practical advice for living a happier and healthier life.
The Big Ideas!
- Investing your time and energy wisely pays off.
- Detaching your sense of happiness from the achievement of specific goals results in greater overall well being.
- Focusing attention on positive things helps build a greater sense of good feeling.
- Appreciating yourself and all your best attributes is an excellent start to transforming your life for the better.
- Using positive language helps you to encourage the people around you to disregard the negativity that pervades our lives.
- Recognizing that a full life is not without difficulty and that overcoming adversity and misfortune makes for a stronger, happier person.
- Instead of focusing on negative thoughts, trying to spin any action positively so that it will benefit yourself and others.
- By loving yourself, you have the energy and enthusiasm for loving others more fully.
Neutrino’s Nutshell
Robert Mack, a former professional model and actor, currently makes his living as speaker and coach. His message is clear and uncomplicated- overcome unhappiness with positive actions. A common misconception about having a goal in life, and then arriving at that destination, is that it automatically ensures fulfillment. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case. Most people are not completely fulfilled even when they accomplish one, or several, major goals in life. Mack recommends that people reduce, delegate or eliminate unpleasant activities, find their natural strengths and surround themselves with happy like-minded people. He reiterates that a person’s happiness is not dependent on others. By making happiness a personal responsibility, one can take charge of their own life with no excuses.
Like any other learned skill, people have to focus on what feels right, what feels natural, and what fits them as a person, as opposed to following expectations and rules that are laid out for them. For example, Mack provides advice on learning when to change the subject or location if something is not going well. By becoming more sensitive to one’s surroundings, a person can examine the root cause of any discomfort and change it. He urges everyone to become self-sufficient and independent by mastering yourself from the inside out, you will become a happier person.
Quotables
“Life is not like preschool. It is not a meritocracy, and we don’t get rewarded in real life just because we try hard. Happiness is more elegant than that; it takes more finesse. If happiness is a science, it is also an art.”
IMEO (In My Eudaimonian Opinion)
Robert Mack’s theory that happiness can be learned-the main message of this book-is an encouraging and endearing concept for those of us who feel tired, overworked, overwhelmed, or merely trapped with no direction to proceed in.
Take Action, Humanoid!
- Start making decisions that bring you more pleasure and result in more meaning in your life.
- Spend more time with loved ones.
- Vacation and enjoy spending the money you’ve worked hard to earn.
- Exercise and make a point to take better care of yourself
- Work at a job you love, that fits your personality, skills, knowledge and experience.
- Use cash instead of credit to avoid debt that can depress you.
- Avoid buying trendy, expensive appliances, furniture and vehicles. Don’t let marketing messages tell you what you want or need. Decide for yourself and spend your money on experiences, rather than items.
- Give yourself permission to wait to solve problems when you’re not feeling bad.
- Accept that you can’t control conditions, but you can control yourself with each and every thought you make.
The Deets
Happiness from the Inside Out: The Art and Science of Fulfillment
Author: Robert Mack
Publication Date: 2009