You may have seen claims about how a book can improve your life. Thousands of people have provided supportive evidence for this book. It gives both clear help and evidence for its ideas. Even if you have a history of unhappiness or depression or are facing difficult circumstances, you can learn to be happier. For those who doubt they can affect their emotions, the book provides strong contrary evidence. The factors Dr. Stevens' research identified are specific learnable beliefs and skills--not general, inherited traits. Each chapter teaches some of these factors about how to be happy and successful. The book is for people who value growth and self-development to become happier and healthier. Perhaps you want to improve self-esteem, positive thinking, assertiveness, autonomy, motivation, emotional control, relationships, self-control, or achievement. Chapters deal with these issues, but also deal with core issues underlying these problems. This book is for people who are serious about being happy. No matter how difficult your past history or current circumstances, striking insights into the causes of emotions can empower you to rise above negative emotions, and choose to be happy. When Dr. Stevens was 16 he started a life-long experiment in learning how to be happy and help others be happy. He combines expertise of 31 years as a psychologist with a cognitive-philosophical-spiritual approach and his personal experience to make this an important book about achieving happiness. His research provides crucial, detailed support for his ideas not found in most self-help books. Yet, his clinical and personal experience helps him provide practical, detailed self-help advice. Well-known author and PBS speaker, Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote this book is, "A thorough presentation, rich in detail, yet very reader friendly. I enthusiastically endorse Tom Stevens' book and recommend it as a powerful tool for human development." What Dr. Stevens learned about happiness was the basis for his own happy life and marriage. It gave him new approaches to therapy that greatly enhanced his ability to help others. That's why readers say, "I have found your book to be such an inspiration to me." "It's packed with insightful knowledge and expertise." "All the personal experiences and skills I learned will stay with me forever." "I'm a self-help book 'junkie'-I've read them all; and this is the best self-help book I've ever read." "Already I am more at peace and will never be the same again." "The book is a terrific combination of scholarship, superb information, and spirituality." 100% of a reader test group said they would recommend the book to a friend--40% already had. They rated the book an average of 8.23 out of a possible 9.0 on a scale of "overall usefulness of the book." After writing the first edition, Dr. Stevens wanted even more proof that the content of this book was valid, so he developed the free, online questionnaire, SHAQ (The Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire), by going through each chapter, taking each main idea, and turning it into questions. He correlated these questions (and related scales) with over 3400 SHAQ users' emotional and life success measures. SHAQ scales correlated with Happiness, .87; with Low Depression, .73; with Low Anxiety, .68; with Low Anger-Aggression, .70; with Relationship Success, .70; and with good results for career success measures as well. Correlations this high are rarely found in this type of research. We aren't aware of any self-help book that has ever tested its ideas so extensively. These dramatic results impelled Dr. Stevens to revise this book and include the results of his study and other new sections. Take SHAQ for help related to what you read in the book.