The Happiness Experiment: A Revolutionary Way to Increase Happiness

I found the presentation of this book as a guide to improve my own life by finding purpose and expressing generosity a bit misleading. For me, the book read more as an inspirational memoir than a self-help guide for others. The author is a compelling figure and he shares a worthwhile message.Full transparency: I found myself more envious of the people he gifted with "prequests" than motivated to employ his tactics.

Carl Barney’s book, “The Happiness Experiment,” recounts the origin, rationale, execution, and outcomes of his decision to give the people he named in his will their bequest before his demise so that he could see how it enhanced their happiness. He asked recipients to develop a plan for the money that involved spending it for their own happiness over the next 3 to 5 years and to let him SEE (not evaluate or approve) the plan before they received the money. Since the author is wealthy and these “pre-quests” (as he calls them) involved large sums of money, he also provided professional life and financial coaches to the recipients to help them develop their plans.Although my synopsis does not capture it, the book makes for compelling reading. The writing grabbed my attention from the beginning when it recounted the author’s near-death airplane-accident. It held my attention in the middle by giving me lots of ideas regarding happiness to think about and apply in my own life and by telling moving stories about the author and his beneficiaries. I often found myself wiping tears from my eyes as I read these stories.As a college professor who thinks for-profit colleges often exploit unprepared students who end up with no degrees but lots of debt, I was immediately put off when I learned that the author made his wealth by creating and managing for-profit colleges, but I am glad that did not deter me from reading the book. I may not like the industry he worked in, but the author comes across as a principled and caring person and the content of his book is worth reading and thinking about.

This is a great book for putting life and happiness into perspective because, after all, what is life worth if you aren't happy and living your best life? I love the idea of pre-quests and plan to implement that into my own life, and I love the stories as well!

The Happiness Experiment is an in depth experiment on how one can easily access happiness in life, regardless of current conditions or situations. I enjoyed Carl Barney's life stories and the stories on how he shared this formula with others and the results they experienced. It's provocative and fun with a new, fresh perspective on how anyone can create more happiness in ones life. AND it includes a full plan and blueprint on how to achieve this happiness, right here, right how.I highly recommend it! Two thumbs up!!

An interesting idea. It seems the author decided he wanted to do something truly nice to his friends. He wanted to give them their share of happiness from him before his passing. It was not just his way of seeing how his gift would enhance their lives he but giving them also the path to follies his lead in what he called “Happiness Grants” he directed 20of his close friends to receive these gifts and in this book he relates to we the readers how the reacted to their gift and how each grant effected their lives . He was able to see how it changed their lives .He also added how we can a achieve our own values and get our own happiness How we can determine what brings joy and purpose and in his step by step plan we too increase our happiness through his happiness planning he provides a complete way to intensify for happiness and to change our lives.An interesting book and I give it a 5 star rating