Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy

Mo Gawdat

Mar 2017 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

In this “powerful personal story woven with a rich analysis of what we all seek” (Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google), Mo Gawdat, Chief Business Officer at Google’s [X], applies his superior logic and problem solving skills to understand how the brain processes joy and sadness—and then he solves for happy.

In 2001 Mo Gawdat realized that despite his incredible success, he was desperately unhappy. A lifelong learner, he attacked the problem as an engineer would: examining all the provable facts and scrupulously applying logic. Eventually, his countless hours of research and science proved successful, and he discovered the equation for permanent happiness.

Thirteen years later, Mo’s algorithm would be put to the ultimate test. After the sudden death of his son, Ali, Mo and his family turned to his equation—and it saved them from despair. In dealing with the horrible loss, Mo found his mission: he would pull off the type of “moonshot” goal that he and his colleagues were always aiming for—he would share his equation with the world and help as many people as possible become happier.

In Solve for Happy Mo questions some of the most fundamental aspects of our existence, shares the underlying reasons for suffering, and plots out a step-by-step process for achieving lifelong happiness and enduring contentment. He shows us how to view life through a clear lens, teaching us how to dispel the illusions that cloud our thinking; overcome the brain’s blind spots; and embrace five ultimate truths.

No matter what obstacles we face, what burdens we bear, what trials we’ve experienced, we can all be content with our present situation and optimistic about the future.

Ratings and reviews

This is such a wonderful book: it offers honest, personal, logical and scientific yet simple and easily digestible story of what life REALLY is. Even if you're not a much of a reader or if you're not into this whole 'self help' topic. I think this book is so inspiring and eye-opening for everyone. Personally for me, I love reading about happiness, psychology, I've read several similar books and loads of articles on similar topics in the past but I still found tons and tons of new inspiring thoughts in this book! We all live such busy lives and it's easy to rush through life and not notice how wonderful and special it is. Even in the times of change, challenge, when we are out of our comfort zone. And maybe especially then. The most unexpected circumstances often bring beautiful surprises later. And there is always something good that comes out of every situation. If you just choose to see it. Solve for Happy helps with seeing the good in life and knowing how to grow through any life situation, in fact it kind of helps train your happiness muscle so to say! It left me incredibly inspired. Highly recommended!

Powerful. Cried at multiple points during the book. Really loving and vulnerable. Thank you for sharing this work with us.

Hurt

About the author

Mo Gawdat is the Chief Business Officer at Google’s [X]. In the last ten years he has made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with thousands of people in more than a hundred countries. He is also a serial entrepreneur who has cofounded more than twenty businesses. He speaks Arabic, English, and German. In 2014, motivated by the tragic loss of his son, Ali, Mo began pouring his findings into his first book, Solve for Happy.