If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Happy?

Widely admired psychological researcher Raj Raghunathan explains how the traits that usually lead to success can also lead to unhappiness--and how to be happy and successful

Fifteen years after Raj Raghunathan completed his MBA, he checked in on his old classmates and noticed something strange: many of those who had achieved the highest levels of career success were among the most dissatisfied in life. No matter how successful they were at work, they were prone to be unhappy and out of shape. Why were so many of his smartest, brightest friends so unhappy?

Raj set out to find an answer to this problem, and undertook extensive research, looking at the happiness of not just students and business people, but also of stay-at-home-parents, lawyers, and artists, among others. From his research he came upon a startling discovery: even the smartest and most successful people--despite their intellect, their drive and their knowledge--make all the same mistakes in life as their less smart, less-successful counterparts. In fact, many of the psychological traits that lead to success can foster habits that get in the way of being happy.

In his book, Raj identifies the misconceptions that smart people have about their happiness, the elements of their personality that distract them the most from achieving it, and then clears a path to building the habits and attitudes that enhance happiness in both the short and the long-run.

Raj Raghunathan, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, and one of the most popular bloggers forPsychology Today. He serves on the editorial board of Journal of Marketing andJournal of Consumer Psychology. He is also one of the fourteen faculty members of Whole Foods founder John Mackey's Academy of Conscious Leadership.