by Valerie Alexander

I listen to a fantastic podcast while hiking each morning, called the Self Publishig Podcast, by Johnny B. Truant, Sean Platt and Dave Wright.  I can listen every day because I’m getting caught up on all the back episodes, so I have no idea when this one aired, but this morning’s show contained this quote:

“When things get difficult, that’s only good for those who aren’t deterred by difficult.”
-Johhny B. Truant

He was talking about self-publishing and marketing, and specifically about how changes in the Amazon sales algorithm make it harder for indie authors to get their work out there and get known, but I was thrilled to hear all of that.  You see, I am not deterred by difficult.  In fact, I sort of embrace it.

My book, Happiness as a Second Language, will be coming out this week.  THIS WEEK!! And now, I’m excited to start the “difficult” part – getting people to buy it, and read it, and review it, and share it with their friends, and let it change their lives and make them more happy.  That last one being the most important.

I really want this book to sell.  I really, really, really want that.  Of course, for the obvious reason that I’d like to be a successful author, but far more importantly, because it fills a real void in the Happiness market.

As far as I can tell, it is the only book that gives readers concrete exercises, and behavior changes that they can do every single day, regardless of their circumstances, to become happy.  Sure, a book about Happiness can tell you to take a “me day” every now and then, but how does that work when you’re a single mother with four kids?  Plenty of books will tell you that having a circle of friends will make you happier, but what if you don’t have a circle of friends?  What if your unhappiness blocks you from connecting with other people?  How do you get from where you are to Happy?

That’s what Happiness as a Second Language is about.  It’s about what you can do completely on your own to become happy.  It does not require any money, it does not require anyone else in your life, it helps you overcome other people’s attempts to keep you from being happy (whether intentional or subconscious), it shows you how to release the negatives in your past that keep you from being happy.  It’s all in there.

I don’t think anyone’s happiness should be dependent on their circumstances, but so many of us grew up without the tools to be happy, without the brain synapses that choose happiness instead of fear or anger or self-doubt, that we can’t begin to know and understand how easy it is to be happy simply by training our brains to go there.

I don’t care that it will be difficult to tell the world about this book.  It would be a lot more difficult to live in a world where people aren’t happy, and to know that I could have changed that, simply by marketing a book.  Nothing would be more rewarding to me than building an empire based on Happiness.  It feels like what I was always meant to do.