Our Book of Awesome
“We live in overwhelming times. Highest-ever rates of anxiety, loneliness, depression, suicide. Nothing is more important — and vital! — today than cultivating the habit of positive thinking.”
Those are the words of Neil Pasricha, who by necessity in his own life, turned his attention to the power of positive suggestion and created an entire brand around the idea of awesomeness.
Pasricha is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation, which together have spent over 200 weeks on bestseller lists and sold over a million copies. And now he is launching his latest book, Our Book of Awesome, which is what he calls a tool to cultivate a positive mindset.
“Being happy first is the lead domino to becoming a better spouse, parent, son, daughter, brother or sister,” says Pasricha.
Easier said than done. Pasricha knows from first-hand experience, as this recent Q&A revealed.
Q: What happened in your own life that served as a catalyst for your “awesome” mindset?
A: In my late twenties, my wife left me and my best friend took his own life. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep and I lost 40 pounds due to stress. I started going to therapy twice a week and began a blog to try and cheer myself up. The blog was called 1000 Awesome Things, and for the next 1,000 straight weekdays I posted a short essay about one small joy in life.
My mind was dark and many of my attempts were duds — my first awesome thing was broccoflower, the “strange mutant hybrid child of nature’s ugliest vegetables” — but some posts started finding a nerve. Still, nobody read the blog except my mom. Although, one day, she forwarded it to my dad and my traffic doubled. And then one day I started getting tens of hits. And then one day I started getting hundreds. And then thousands. And then … millions.
Q: That’s a great viral story. But what happened next?
A: It just got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and then I got a phone call and the voice on the other end of the line said, “You just won the Best Blog in the world award!”
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences flew me down to New York City to parade me down a red carpet before handing me the award for “Best Blog.” When I got home to Toronto I found 10 literary agents waiting for me in my inbox, eager to turn 1000 Awesome Things into … The Book of Awesome.
Q: You use the word “awesome” quite liberally. Shouldn’t “awesome” be reserved for things truly awe-inspiring — like the Grand Canyon or your wedding day?
A: No! Wide eyes on graduation stages, father-daughter dances at weddings, healthy babies screeching in delivery rooms — these big moments only ever add up to a tiny, tiny percentage of our lives. We need to train our brains to see awe in the simple and smaller joys of life.
Q: How do you find all these awesome things?
A: I have a few secret ingredients to source awesome things. I take a long late-night walk at least once a week … I take deep cell phone breaks — I keep my charger in the basement so I create free space for my brain before I sleep and when I wake up … I schedule one “untouchable day” per week to give myself writing space, days when I am untethered to the Internet and unreachable by anyone so I can do deep work.
Q: Why is this particular book called “Our” Book of Awesome?
A: I believe the collective “we” is being lost in society today. You can see it in any public space where, instead of interacting, we all have our heads down in our phones.
Our Book of Awesome is the first book of awesome where you can hear voices from people all over the world. (I took out my face, bio and even the dedication and acknowledgements, so it could feel like our book — not mine.)
You’ll hear the story of a couple using awesome things to connect on a brief Christmas layover between military stints, a cancer patient using awesome things with her young children, teachers teaching lessons on awesome things to students and lots of incredible entries from people around the world.
