Climb Your Stairway to Heaven: The 9 Habits of Maximum Happiness by David Leonhardt

From the Publisher

Personal development written with pep and zest, humor and wit, emulating the author's highly energetic and interactive speaking style. It seeks not to answer the big questions in life, but to help readers increase their happiness through daily habits. Like a giant fortune cookie, it reveals wisdom, anecdotes, quizzes, exercises and examples from around the world to teach and entertain. The off-beat illustrations add a whimsical sensation to the book. "Self-help" has never been this much fun!Climb your Stairway to Heaven provides nine habits people can use in their daily lives to increase their level of happiness, regardless of how happy they feel now. The book is divided into four parts and one stretch. The first part helps readers understand the science of happiness. The second part, which is the largest, helps people feel comfortable and satisfied with themselves and their environments. It helps readers value who they are, what they do, what they have and how they feel. Hire a cheerleader. Break out of your comfort zone. Write yourself a very special letter. Travel in David's Incredible Time Machine. The Seventh Habit Stretch serves ups some food for thought on how our physical condition can affect our happiness. Defeat octopitis. The third part is about our relationships with others and how they can affect our happiness. Learn how to manage the Wheel of Friendship. Solve the riddle of altruism.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

"You can define success as impressing yourself: that you are happy, that you stand by your values, that you feel fulfilled, that you love. Or you can define success as impressing others: that you have fame, status, money and toys, or even the appearance of a happy family."

"When you drive along the road and see the blacktop right in front of you, do you ever notice how many cracks and potholes appear? But look ahead several yards, and the surface looks smooth? ... Put in perspective, all those irritants, all those daily wrinkles, all the potholes and cracks along our path disappear when we look farther down the road."

"They replay the videos of their weddings, not their divorces. Why replay painful memories in the cinema of your mind? Reruns of joy -- repeat. Reruns of pain -- delete."

"Like hamburgers on the grill, teenage girls feel the heat and the pressure to squeeze every last ounce of fat from their bodies. If Claudia Schiffer can look so thin, so must they. If Naomi Campbell can be that slender, they can too. Why not?"

"Every face you meet is a mirror. Shine a smile on someone else's face, and see how your smile reflects back at you. Bask in the glow of your own smile reflected in the joy you bring to others."