I caught a brief part of a radio interview today with “transformational expert” Marci Shimoff, about her book Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out. Marci is also co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul and a featured expert in The Secret DVD and book. The part that caught my ear was that you can catch happiness from the five people you spend time with most often, just as you’d catch a cold. From my own long-ago days in a nine-to-five job, I’d have to say that you also catch bad moods very easily!
Ms. Shimoff also mentioned that we all have a happiness set-point, the tendency to remain at a certain level of happiness similar to a thermostat setting on a furnace. While this set-point is 50% genetic and 50% learned, it appears you can raise the set-point the same way you’d crank up the thermostat on a cold February day. Of course, the book tells you how. Has anyone read it? Was it helpful?