Publisher's Synopsis
As Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
Whether choosing a higher-paying but thankless job over lower-paying but enjoyable work or purchasing an item because it’s cheap rather than desirable, many smart and successful people claim to value happiness, only to then rationalize their way into decisions that make them miserable. In fact, it is often the very qualities that enable success—drive, intellect, and knowledge—that thwart happiness.
In If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy , business school professor Raj Raghunathan draws on original research and interviews with leading experts in psychology, business, and behavioral economics to show how the smart-and-successful can learn to be happy. By developing a clear-eyed definition of what happiness is and keeping in mind that wealth, power, and control are only means along the way, not ends in themselves, he shows how even the most intelligent and driven people can win at work and at life.
Whether choosing a higher-paying but thankless job over lower-paying but enjoyable work or purchasing an item because it’s cheap rather than desirable, many smart and successful people claim to value happiness, only to then rationalize their way into decisions that make them miserable. In fact, it is often the very qualities that enable success—drive, intellect, and knowledge—that thwart happiness.
In If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy , business school professor Raj Raghunathan draws on original research and interviews with leading experts in psychology, business, and behavioral economics to show how the smart-and-successful can learn to be happy. By developing a clear-eyed definition of what happiness is and keeping in mind that wealth, power, and control are only means along the way, not ends in themselves, he shows how even the most intelligent and driven people can win at work and at life.
