The Algebra of Happiness: The pursuit of success, love and what it all means

by Scott Galloway

From the New York Times bestselling author, a provocative book of hard-won wisdom for achieving a fulfilling career and life.

- How can you have a meaningful career, not just a lucrative one?
- Is a work/life balance really possible?
- What does it take to make a long-term relationship succeed?
- What can you do now so there are no regrets aged 40, 50 or 80?

As Scott Galloway puts it, by the time you hit your mid twenties sh*t gets real. Life become stressful. Even the smart, the hard working and the elite can feel lost in a chaotic, noisy and unpredictable world. As a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, the debate in Galloway's MBA class often veers away from business strategy to the challenging issue of life strategies. Which is why Galloway, in his signature, take-no-prisoners style, has developed a dynamic formula for a life well lived.

In The Algebra of Happiness Galloway tells you how life can be navigated and negotiated better to maximise happiness and minimise the inevitable stress. Delivering practical advice and hard-won wisdom on everything from when to own property to how hard to work, this is self-help for anyone struggling with life's big questions. Through simple equations that measure the relationship between success, resilience and failure or the correlation between happiness and money, Galloway attempts to convert intangible advice to tangible equations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Business, Personal Development, Philosophy, Audiobook

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Scott Galloway is a clinical professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business, and a public speaker, author, and entrepreneur. He was named one of the world's 50 best business school professors by Poets and Quants.

Reviews

[Melanie Bisson · Rating 2 out of 5]

We have dramatically different views of happiness. I think the title should be The Algebra of Happiness for Insanely Wealthy Men.

[Diversity Horror · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great advice if you want a heteronormative, monogamous marriage with kids, and come from a privileged background. Otherwise you're going to find incredibly unhelpful advice from a man seemingly unaware of his own privilege, and wish he would shut the hell up about his kid already.

Galloway's writing comes off as smug, even bragging, which is another huge turn off. His advice is based solely on personal experience, not on any kind of QoL (quality of life) research and is therefore biased, in addition to only covering one, very narrow view of "happiness". I guess that's what I get from reading a book by a business man rather than a psychologist.

[Aria · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bunch of small stories. It feels to me just a collection sometimes without a clear purpose. Nice and quick read. Author is new to me but probably famous anyway. I can’t help imagining his big ego jumping out of the paper (kindle) while reading it.

[Barbara Osmec · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rarely write reviews on Goodreads, but I feel like it's my duty to warn you before you start reading this book. The only reason I gave it 2 stars is because it's easy to read and I liked the drawings. However, everything else is an absolute disaster. This book has no beginning and no end, just him talking about his accomplishments and success while claiming he's a condescending asshole (I don't see the point of him emphasizing that as it's very noticeable from the beginning). Just skip this book, I'm begging you!

[Kimi Ceridon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish the description would have included that the primary audience was for man-children and sit-com caricature portrayals of men. The summary uses coded language like "brash" and "no-BS insight" to pretend the author is giving candid, straight-talking, frank advice with a hard-love kind of delivery, but what's really in the book is a highly privileged guy who led a highly privileged life doling out condescension, misogyny, tired old tropes about what makes up masculinity, men's roles in society and how women fit in the picture. Even the research he uses is male-based.

To be sure this is meant for men to read, he constantly uses "wife" instead of spouse or partner. He tosses out his younger exploits and sexual encounters to beef up his frat-boy cred as if chest-thumping and talks about how all the women, by the end of college, looked for successful men, rich men, and men who had it together. I don't want any man in my life reading this antiquated garbage.

I admit I only got through half this book on Audio. Unfortunately, I was in thick traffic on the Mass Pike at the time and couldn't shut it off earlier. I was going 85mph and kept letting this book go on thinking it might pivot to be more inclusive of women, but as I realized I was getting a bit road rage-y I had to drive in silence for a while and meditate on calm happy thoughts until I got to a safe area to switch to radio.

I have no idea how I came to buy this book. Was it mentioned in another book? Did it show up on NPR? I cannot figure out how this landed in my library. It languished for a while because I don't usually go for self-help genre, but for a long drive, I thought, "Why not?" I regret paying for this crap, but I am glad I will never be misled about taking a class or seminar with this guy

[Jak Krumholtz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Current reflections on their life by someone in the middle of trying to figure it out. This book is a good overview of Galloway, someone I've always admired, (despite probably being an asshole and not always agreeing with everything he says,) for pointing out when their predictions are wrong and cutting through corporate BS. He's found great rewards in having kids so the book has a big focus on that. Also love the focus on providing a loved one (his mother) with a good death. As it's bite-sized, I can see myself reading it again in the future.

[Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few memorable/interesting/funny moments, but mostly seemed like a book written to make a quick buck. Lots of aimless stories at the end.

[Fellow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like everyone, I am struggling with personal happiness and balancing it with ambition and caring for others so every now and then I read something that may produce some findings on how to be a happier person. This is not a great book, it's not scientific but it's a personal account of a high achieving entrepreneur - a perspective close to mine and therefore valuable for me.

If you are, like me a frequent reader of Scott's No Mercy No Malice newsletter you've already read around 1/3 of this book. However, it was worth it to read the rest of it.

The fact that Galloway narrated the book is also a plus.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

While reading this, I kept thinking the advice in this book could fit on a coffee mug: "Don't be a jerk." And then it ended with a chapter titled "Don't Be an Asshole." Not bad advice, but not for everyone. I hope that the people who need this basic wisdom can hear it before they've wasted educational opportunities, ruined their relationships, alienated colleagues, exploited acquaintances, etc. The author was able to reassess his life to some extent after getting lucky in business. Many people have to hit bottom first. It would be ideal if we could prevent assholiness and its consequences earlier. But that probably requires a system change away from a culture of corruption and incompetence. (See Detroit: An American Autopsy.) It would be nice to see some evidence that his students are any happier than anyone else.
.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scott is a very naive man. An odd comment about a NYU Stern School of Business marketing professor but he is.
First he believes everyone wants to be married. Then he wants everyone to have children and finally one should be good to them. Ok I would agree there, if you have them you should be good to them, but not everyone either wants or has them. Finally he believes no one absolutely no one has a job they enjoy and like. At first i thought he was joking but as the story goes on, I realized he was not. He has no understanding of ambition -- everything is judged by being a "nice" person which he equates with happiness. If that's not enough to make you wonder about him, he has a bizarre recommendation on the stock market, & recommends REAL estate instead -- well that I can testify against. Real estate is a great method to lose your hard earned money in a heart beat because to make money they you have to buy way over your head -- everything in the middle is chancey and not everyone wants to reno that in itself requires a lot of money and skills. Then there is something about saving. Finally He is against following your passion. Instead...recommends following your talent and zero in on that. I am not sure how you would be able to separate the two. I'm giving this 3 stars because...well I don't know why to be honest. I guess because it wasn't obnoxious.

[Scott Carpinteri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book was impressive. I heard Galloway in several book-tour interviews talk about the book and decided to give it a read.

First off, I love that he starts the book owning that he has absolutely no formal training on the topic, but decided to put his life's lessons to print. Perhaps this sets the reader's expectations in a way for the author to under-promise and over-deliver. Well done.

The author just tells it like he has seen it. His style is brutally honest and simultaneously quite sincere. It's a short read and worth every minute. I anticipate reading this again sometime as a reminder to stay grounded.

For those who enjoy audiobooks, the author narrates this one which added to my enjoyment.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not very good. I like more evidence-based happiness books. This is a rich guy who is a bit of an asshole telling us why the way that he lives his life is the way we should live our lives. I think he's actually got some wisdom in there, but I am not a fan of telling people that my way is the way they should do things. BUT... relationships and experiences are more important than things (anyone who has read about happiness knows that). I did appreciate his recommendation that we move to a city (a city-city... not a Tucson-sized city) if we want to tap into better financial rewards. And I appreciated that there is not work-life balance. It's more of a blend.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing super revolutionary but a cute read, and I'm sure it'll resonate a lot with dads. Though this definitely isn't marketed as a memoir, I liked learning more about his background and upbringing. This gets a four because I've bought into Scott Galloway universe. He's good at his job, so I care more about the things he says simply because he's saying them. As a world renowned brand strategist his personal brand is no exception.

[Brent Spilkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 2-hour read every man in his prime should read.
I would love to turn this into a course.

[N Rizkalla · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extremely empty and shallow. What a waste!

I paid $2 for a kindle edition and I want my money back.

[Anda · Rating 5 out of 5]

O carte tare drăgălașă din care te poți informa din mai multe domenii. Îmbină utilul cu plăcutul.

[Vlad Bezden · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very primitive. I did not learn anything from this book. For me, it was just a waist of time.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the first half of the book more interesting than the second half. The first half was more like what you would expect from the title while the second half was more like "Scott Galloway's auto-biography" (which I never would read since I don't really know Scott Galloway).

[Marcelo Galdieri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long version of Scott Galloway's YouTube video of the same name. Nothing earth-shattering, but a collection of going things we need to be reminded of as frequently as possible.

[Denis Vasilev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Похоже на Скотта Адамса, но менее экстраваганто. В основном - цените отношения, с чем конечно не поспоришь. Self-help такой типичный, откровенный, неплохой

[Marley Jenks · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the end, relationships are all that matter.

[Grace Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I’ve ever read.

[Molly · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is for white men age 22 whose life goals are to get married after sowing their wild oats and make babies and make shitloads of money with your dude-bro financial business men- because happiness is all about how financially successful you are so “invest early and often”. If you’re a relatively successful single woman in her 40s with no kids, this book will beat the shit out of you with its toxic, money hungry masculinity: “strong like bull” “be a gorilla by fucking a lot of women when you’re young and being a provider when you’re 40, married and have kids.” OK that last quote was paraphrased, but it was pretty close to what he actually said. And yes, he word-for-word did say “strong like bull” Bulllshiiiit!

DNF. Next!

[Henrik Haapala · Rating 5 out of 5]

• From age 25-45 “shit gets real - work, stress, building a life takes a toll”. Then in your 50s things you begin to register the wonderful blessings around you.
• Lack of balance in twenties and thirties, sweat and work translates into balance later. Young —> get busy (work)
• Career advice: less sexy job = more professional fulfillment. Sexy job = less fulfilled. Boring company = good investment. Exciting company = bad investment.
• In 50s married couples have 3x the assets of their single peers. Why? Sharing expenses, streamlining decisions, buying assets that increase in value instead of things that rust, rot or depreciate.
• Drink less, think long term (compound interest) and spend money on social and experiences.
• Happiness = family. Expect to reverse roles with your parents.
• Give somebody a good death. Spending time with a somebody that is terminal.
• Get the easy stuff right: show up early, have good manners and follow up.

Assume you are not M Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. Ask 4 questions: can you sign the front, not the back of checks? Are you comfortable with public failure? Do you like to sell? How risk aggressive are you?

Quotes:

Idolizing risk-takers: “The truth about 90% of entrepreneurs is that we start companies not because we’re so skilled, but because we don’t have the skills to be an effective employee. On a risk-adjusted basis, being an employee of a good or great firm is more rewarding than being an entrepreneur.” 97

“Studies show that marriage is advantageous economically. Having a partnership, sharing expenses and responsibilities, being able to focus on your careers, and utilizing the wisdom of crowds (couples) generally leads to better decisions (“No, were not buying a boat). There is a streamlining or choices , which lets you allocate your attention capital to things that grow, instead of decline, in value (your career vs your attractiveness to others or being seen at the right places).
Once, married, your household worth grows at an average of 14% a year. Married couples, by their fifties, on average have 3x the assets of their single peers. The key? Taking the whole ‘till death do us part’ seriously, as divorce seriously eats into the 3x.” 118-119

[Jameson Di Nucci · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was intrigued to read this book after having Scott Galloway provide a keynote presentation at a work function a few weeks ago. The talk was sharp, fast, smart, and informative. I was hungry for more and gave a chance at his podcast. After a few episodes I felt a little disappointed that none had quite matched that same level of valuable info-tainment (I also found that the presentation I saw was near word for word with one of his podcast episodes).

I turned to this book, one he had mentioned several times in his keynote, as one in which I would extend that “final chance”. While the book was charming at parts, I would continue to mark this work as underwhelming. The book reads like a thousand quick winded statements on various topics, many of which can be repetitive. I would say close to half of them are interesting but if you would like to see some elaboration the most you usually get on a topic is about 500 words. All in all, it makes for a very quick read (the book is the smaller than the dimensions of my hand) and still leaves me unsatisfied, longing for greater information on several topics. If he ever writes another book, I’ll have to be very impressed with the reviews to give it a chance.

NOTE: if you like reading memoirs that follow the “I’m a white dude from California that attended the best schools and was given all the right opportunities to be rich and successful“ storyline, you will LOVE this book.

[Zahava · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hadn't read any reviews or anything so I really had no expectations of this book. I ended up being disappointed. I felt like the book started off pretty well, simple "equations" depicted by illustrations followed by related anecdotes. Then it started going in random directions and I felt like the author was going off on tangents that really didn't relate to the overall theme of the book or sometimes even the theme of the chapter but for vaguely.
At first the author pointed out his flaws in a way that seemed like he was trying to make himself relatable. Then, at some point the continuous reminders of how much money he'd made, how many companies he'd founded, and how terrible he is with regard to treatment of strangers started to feel like outright bragging with an emphasis on highlighting being a jerk. How often he refers to his kids as beings "that look and smell like" him made me uncomfortable to say the least and seemed unrelated almost every time it came up.
At the end it left me feeling like I was listening to a successful old white guy talking over coffee about how great he was while occasionally reliving his regrets then finishing with a decision to restate how great his still is. All that after being asked a simple question that had nothing to do with any of his stories.

[KNCHNGL · Rating 5 out of 5]

230107
Reread approximately a year later. Such a great book, makes so much sense, written in an extremely honest, self-examined manner, yet still managing to retain a (somewhat cynical) sense of humor. Will definitely re-read again.

220221
Amazingly practical and honest thoughts on the pursuit of happiness, especially for those that have finally worked out a semblance of a career, but yet to work out the most important part on how to value love and relationships.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read with an author that is blunt and willing to admit his own flaws in the theories he now is sharing. Interesting perspective on a variety of topics and a read I would recommend to young professionals.

[Hannah Schumacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

He talks about evolution, Darwinism, mating and species too much for my preference but he’s also trying to reach early twenties business school boys to teach them to care about their families so. Anyway this wasn’t bad I just didn’t care for it

[Mike Dennisuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting little book about Life Hacks. I listened to Scott Galloway on Nicole Wallace’s program and found that he had an interesting take on the most recent election so I downloaded one of his audiobooks. I am a bit older than Mr Galloway so this book was more of an affirmation than eye opening. Our takes on “life hacks” are similar. Might be more enlightening to a much younger crowd