About the Author

Sanjiv Sahay has studied the science of happiness for over twenty-five years and has meditated for more than thirty, working to integrate the two with his spiritual life. His interest began with Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness and a thought he never put down: almost everything we do is aimed at increasing our happiness, so why do we spend so little effort understanding how it works?

He believes that making a positive difference in the lives of others is one of the most important goals a person can have, and a lasting source of happiness besides. In 2000, that conviction led him to create the website myhappiness.com, to share what he had learned about becoming happier as widely as he could. This book, tested against the published research over years of work, is the fullest expression of that goal: the most useful thing he knows how to leave behind.

By profession, Sanjiv is a technology entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, California. He has run a technology consulting company for more than two decades and recently co-founded an AI startup. Because he is an engineer by training, a scientific, evidence-based approach to happiness comes naturally to him. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in business administration. He also helped found the global PanIIT alumni organization, which connects hundreds of thousands of graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) across many countries.