Prologue

Happiness Is an Accomplishment

How I came to be a student of personal growth, positive thinking, resilience, and happiness is a bit of a horror show, honestly. Two failed marriages and family turmoil forced me to navigate through some serious shit.

My early life went much better. I grew up in an idyllic Idaho lake town with a solid, loving family, surrounded by a large group of close friends and constant adventure—a storybook come to life. I took it for granted and assumed that most people had this foundation.

I went to college at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, with a plan to become a high school football coach. Both of my older sisters were in school there, and I had cousins, aunts, and uncles who were Zag alumni, too. It was a family thing and, if I learned nothing else from my parents, I learned to cherish family at an earlyage.

My introduction to journalism came during my sophomore year. I had a weekly assignment to write a news article that would be passed on to the college newspaper editors for review, and they published the first article I submitted. Once I saw my byline in the school paper, I was hooked. After graduation I started working as a sportswriter for local newspapers, combining my passion for sports and journalism. Writing came easily, and watching sports while getting paid (very little) felt like ano-brainer.

A couple years later, I was bored. Covering sports felt like the movieGroundhog Day. Everything had a set schedule, a defined cadence. Football followed baseball, basketball followed football, and so on. One summer night, sitting by the campfire at my family’s lake cabin with my first wife, we thought up a new plan: quit our jobs and move across the country so I could attend graduate school and get a master’s degree. Part of me still wanted to coach, and I thought teaching in college seemed like a sensible alternative and a fulfilling professional future.

After completing my master’s degree at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, we moved back to the Pacific Northwest. I started working for newspapers again, this time on the digital side and in management. Eventually I started writing books about digital journalism at the suggestion of a respected colleague.

At the time, new technologies and new internet platforms exploded into our lives. I developed an insatiable entrepreneurial itch as I tried to help newspapers transition into this digital age. Eventually I quit my job to launch a startup company in 2008, right into the teeth of the global recession. Despite the timing, it seemed like we had a safe plan to manage our family finances, which included budgeting to send our two young children to Catholic school. My wife had afull-time job and benefits, our safety net. But the following year, she got laid off. We had to meet with the principal of the kids’ school to ask for financial help. My startup company struggled as the customer base reeled from the recession. I managed to earn enough money with speaking gigs and consulting work, thanks to my books. This work m