Audio only

The Happiness Masterclass

Timeless Lessons from 12 Great Minds Who Studied the Good LifeBy Nathan Cole
Listen with Sir Michael Caine™ and 1,000+ voices
Length1h 27m

About this audiobook

What actually makes a life good — not comfortable, not successful, good? This book follows twelve people who spent careers on that exact question, from ancient Athens to a neuroscience lab wired to a Buddhist monk's skull: Epicurus, who was badly misunderstood for two thousand years; Aristotle, who insisted happiness was an activity, not a feeling; Seneca, who wrote calmly about loss from closer to catastrophe than anyone else here; Bertrand Russell, who diagnosed self-absorption as the quiet engine of unhappiness; George Vaillant, who directed Harvard's 75-year Study of Adult Development; Ed Diener, "Dr. Happiness," who mapped why nothing new stays new; Daniel Gilbert, who proved we're terrible at predicting our own future feelings; Sonja Lyubomirsky, who found the 40 percent of happiness actually within our control; Barbara Fredrickson, who explained what positive emotion is evolutionarily for; Elizabeth Dunn, who showed money does buy happiness — just not the way most people spend it; Matthieu Ricard, the molecular biologist turned monk whose brain scans changed the field; and Tal Ben-Shahar, whose Harvard course gave 1,400 students permission to stop chasing a finish line that kept moving. None of them agree on the mechanism. All twelve land on the same inconvenient fact: happiness is never the direct target — it arrives sideways, through a side door, while you're occupied with something real. Written by Nathan Cole, author of The Money Masterclass and The Mindset Masterclass.

Audiobook details

GenreSelf-Help, Philosophy, Psychology
Length1 hr 27 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJul 16, 2026
LanguageEnglish

Table of contents

1Introduction 1
2The Wrong Kind of Pleasure 7
3Happiness Is Not a Feeling 15
4What You Don't Control 23
5The Man Who Watched Himself Too Closely 31
Mostrar todos os capítulos
6Seventy-Five Years of Watching 39
7The Treadmill Nobody Can Feel Moving 49
8Bad at Predicting Yourself 57
9The Forty Percent 65
10What Positive Feelings Are Actually For 73
11Money Buys Happiness — You're Just Spending It Wrong 81
12The Happiest Man in the Lab 91
13Permission to Be Human 99
14The Side Door 107
15The Thinkers 111
16Notes 115

Series

More from Nathan Cole

Learning to PrayJames Martin13h 24m4.5 (3.4K)$33 · $0.00
Truth Without ApologyAcharya Prashant6h 41m4.8 (2.2K)$18 · $0.00
Autism Out Loud: the instant New York Times Bestseller. Moving Stories and Parenting Lessons Learned from Three Mothers of Children with AutismKate Swenson, Carrie Cariello, Adrian Wood8h 41m4.8 (2.1K)$26 · $0.00
The StepsSylvester Stallone9h 4m4.8 (635)$29 · $0.00
Swayam Ki AwaazPrem Rawat8h 34m4.7 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m4.7 (5K)$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m4.7 (4.8K)$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m4.6 (256.4K)$29 · $0.00
Spiritual AnatomyDaaji Kamlesh D. Patel9h 47m4.7 (319)$29 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m4.7 (385)$20 · $0.00
The Gospel according to Spiritualism (Translated)Allan Kardec14h 39m4.6 (3.9K)$5.70 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m4.6 (6.5K)$26 · $0.00
CrossroadsKaleb Dahlgren7h 56m4.6 (4.9K)$26 · $0.00
Life on the BridgeKaelynn Partlow5h 40m4.6 (1.1K)$24 · $0.00
Keep Your Love OnDanny Silk9h 4m4.6 (8.1K)$10 · $0.00
The Tao of Joy Every DayDerek Lin10h 24m4.6 (762)$20 · $0.00
UndividedVicky Beeching9h 2m4.6 (1.3K)$29 · $0.00
HE CAN WHO THINKS HE CAN & OTHER BOOKS ON SUCCESSOrison Swett Marden5h 54m4.6 (1.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
Level UpRob Dial7h 42m4.6 (3.3K)$26 · $0.00
The Tao of Joy Every DayDerek Lin10h 24m4.6 (762)$20 · $0.00
Metaphysics (Annotated)Aristotle13h 30m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
Sceptical Essays (Annotated)Bertrand Russell9h 16m4.6 (1K)$2 · $0.00
WitnessAriel Burger8h 1m4.6 (1.3K)$20 · $0.00
The Magic PresenceGodfré Ray King10h 21m4.6 (307)$1.20 · $0.00
The Art of LivingThich Nhat Hanh5h 1m4.5 (14.2K)$24 · $0.00
Moral Letters to LuciliusLucius Annaeus Seneca24h 26m4.5 (71.7K)$1.99 · $0.00
Lessons in TruthH. Emilie Cady3h 50m4.5 (2.4K)$20 · $0.00
Letters from a StoicSeneca6h 5m4.4 (80.4K)$6 · $0.00
The Discourses of EpictetusP. E. MATHESOM12h 47m4.4 (17.7K)$1.20 · $0.00
IlluminationsWalter Benjamin10h 12m4.4 (16.2K)$20 · $0.00
That Bird Has My WingsJarvis Jay Masters9h 49m4.4 (13.7K)$29 · $0.00
Tâo Teh KingLaozi2h 34m4.4 (230.9K)$2 · $0.00
SymposiumPlato3h 26m4.4 (97.9K)$1.20 · $0.00
Buddhist Boot CampTimber Hawkeye2h 39m4.4 (8.4K)$18 · $0.00
Enchiridion & The Discourses of Epictetus (Annotated)Arrian Epictetus18h 9m4.4 (3.5K)$2 · $0.00
The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius AntoninusEmperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius5h 41m4.4 (1.8M)$1 · $0.00
Crime and PunishmentFyodor Dostoevsky23h 11m4.4 (1.3M)$12 · $0.00
MeditationsMarcus Aurelius5h 52m4.4 (433.7K)$1 · $0.00
Everyday DharmaSuneel Gupta5h 2m4.5 (761)$20 · $0.00
Matters of the HeartJacinta Nampijinpa Price9h 35m4.8 (359)$29 · $0.00
Black AF HistoryMichael Harriot15h 43m4.7 (14.6K)$33 · $0.00
Bad Fat Black GirlSesali Bowen6h 32m4.7 (2.8K)$24 · $0.00
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m4.7 (3.2K)$24 · $0.00
I Am The StormJanice Dean9h4.6 (1.5K)$8 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
TerraformPropaganda5h 39m4.7 (594)$24 · $0.00
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (Annotated)Ida B. Wells-Barnett2h 44m4.6 (1.3K)$2 · $0.00
Hour of the HeartIrvin D. Yalom, Benjamin Yalom8h 19m4.6 (2.3K)$26 · $0.00
Braving the TruthRachel Held Evans11h 31m4.7 (359)$29 · $0.00
Level UpRob Dial7h 42m4.6 (3.3K)$26 · $0.00
As a JewSarah Hurwitz8h 36m4.6 (1.2K)$26 · $0.00
Saint Joan (Annotated)George Bernard Shaw6h 20m4.6 (1.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Burn the HaystackJennie Young, PhD9h 30m4.6 (543)$29 · $0.00
Woman and the New Race (Annotated)Margaret Sanger6h 30m4.6 (1K)$1.99 · $0.00
Good InsideBecky Kennedy9h 55m4.5 (59.3K)$29 · $0.00
The Mis-Education of the NegroCarter Godwin Woodson5h 4m4.5 (29.4K)$1.20 · $0.00
Du Bois: EssaysW.E.B. Du Bois6h 22m4.6 (1.5K)$1 · $0.00
The North American Indian (Illustrated Edition)Edward S. Curtis, Frederick Webb Hodge5h 59m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
Valley of the BirdtailAndrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson10h 1m4.6 (2.4K)$29 · $0.00

You may also like