What does a happy life look like? We all know appearances can be deceiving. And never is this adage more relevant than when it's applied to happiness. For instance, you'd probably imagine that anyone with financial success, a loving family, and a respected position in the community would be the very picture of contentment. But you'd be wrong just ask Todd Patkin.His book, Finding Happiness: One Man's Quest to Beat Depression and Anxiety and Finally Let the Sunshine In, explores the painful emotions that often lie just beneath the surface of a perfect life. From a childhood riddled with insecurity and perfectionism to an adulthood marked by the exhaustive need to always excel and achieve more to a devastating breakdown at the age of thirty-six, Patkin chronicles his own very difficult but ultimately successful journey toward cracking the happiness code.In the end, Patkin has discovered that happiness isn't a job or a bank account or a car or even a group of people. Happiness is the daily act of choosing to accept and love yourself as you are and for who you are.As this engaging and unusual book reveals, real happiness isn't measured by what your life looks like, but by how you look at your life. If your current view isn't what you'd like it to be, Finding Happiness can help you bring everything into focus. Not only does Patkin share his own hard-won insights, he ends the book by giving readers the step-by-step tools they need to build their best and happiest lives.Throughout Finding Happiness, Patkin's story is augmented by commentary from nationally recognized licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Howard J. Rankin, whose expertise has been featured on CNN, The View, and ABC's 20/20. Dr. Rankin provides explanation and advice on topics ranging from handling bullying to tackling challenges in a healthy way to dealing with depression.Part memoir, part self-help guide, Finding Happiness is a compelling portrait of one man's quest to find the good life that eludes so many of us. Packed with honest observations and lessons that can be applied in the living room, the boardroom, and just about everywhere in between, this book has something to teach us all.
Todd Patkin is forty-six years young, and hopes to help as many people as possible to live much happier and much less burdened lives.
Patkin was born into a family who loved him very much and gave him many opportunities. And yet, these privileges didn t translate to happiness. Throughout his growing-up years and even in high school and college he struggled with low self-esteem, being bullied, separation anxiety, and debilitating perfectionism.
Just as Patkin s perfect childhood didn t bring him happiness, neither did his perfect job. After graduating from Tufts University, Patkin joined the family business. He shouldered a lot of responsibility early on, and his first few years at Foreign Autopart (later Autopart International) were marked by even more anxiety and a driving desire to achieve. He was deeply stressed.
The first turning point in Patkin s journey to happiness came in his early twenties when a colleague introduced him to motivational speaker Tony Robbins. Robbins teachings showed Patkin that he could control his thoughts and reactions to the things that happened in his life, and they also gave him the tools to begin managing his overwhelming anxiety and insecurities.
Around this time Patkin also met his beautiful, wonderful wife, Yadira, who is his mainstay and one of his greatest teachers in how to live a truly happy life.
For the next decade, Patkin grew Foreign Autopart, motivated its employees, and welcomed his son, Josh, into the world. He thought he was living the good life...and then everything came crashing down.
After a perfect storm of mental and physical blows, Patkin suffered a crippling breakdown at the age of thirty-six. He couldn t work, exercise, laugh, or even reason, and he thought that, for all intents and purposes, life as he knew it was over. He didn t think he would ever be normal again.
To make a long story short, Patkin s breakdown was actually his breakthrough. He was no longer willing to ruin his own life, as he now realized he had been doing for the last three and a half decades. And today, Patkin can honestly say that he is a truly happy and fairly relaxed person.
Patkin now also realizes that his past bouts of depression, anxiety, and even his breakdown itself are not reasons for shame. Instead, they are the very common results of living lives based on our culture s skewed definition of success an achievement that comes at the expense of balance, family, and, thus, happiness.
Ultimately, Patkin believes that he was put on this earth and made to go through so much unhappiness and anxiety so that he could one day be able to help others learn to become much happier themselves. And if Finding Happiness improves your life in any way, then Patkin s greatest ambition will have been fulfilled.
