Why Being Your Whole Self--Not Just Your Good Self--Drives Success and Fulfillment

Not at all what I expected. A relatively quick and engaging read with numerous useful insights on dealing with the non-positive side of our life. " In the failure condition, the optimists were far more likely to write off failure as inevitable. Framing an event as an inescapable failure makes it easier to digest." Should be more than a little for most everyone to take away from this book. One of the few of this genre worth shelving for a reread.

In recent years we have been inundated with books by psychologists espousing the benefits of positive emotions and their value in life and work. This book, written by two leading researchers in psychology, pushes back on what has become the conventional wisdom of "happiness" and argues instead for the value of accessing and integrating the full range of our psychological and emotional "strengths' even those considered "negative".

Kashdan and Biswas-Diener, both prolific researchers, show us the ways in which difficult emotions like sadness, anger, and guilt can help us optimize our performance in a wide range of situations. Rather than viewing these emotions as hindrances, the authors argue that these so-called negative emotions are actually "superpowers" we can use to maximize our personal effectiveness.

Grounded solidly in the results of hundreds of international research studies, the book addresses in depth a number of diverse areas:

How comfort addiction weakens resilience.
The benefits of anxiety, defensive pessimism, and mindlessness.

And my favorite

How Machiavellianism and narcissism can help us deal with really difficult situations.

This book is definitely not an encouragement for people to be a@%holes or to indulge in unethical behavior. Rather, the book is about working towards becoming whole. It's about facing into difficult emotions with a recognition that they are an important part of the psychological repertoire we have inherited to adapt to life's challenges, large and small. The book has a conversational tone and is very readable; it is full of wit, stories, and a refreshing touch of sarcasm, in addition to the mountains of research.

Disclosure: I am personal friends with one of the authors (that said, if I thought the book sucked I wouldn't write a review no matter who wrote it). This book is a game changer for the field of positive psychology and a must for everyone on the quest to maximize their potential. Highly recommend.

A wonderful book that looks at emotions more holistically. Whilst I haven't seen it that way, for a while now the media in particular have perpetuated the myth that positive psychology and positive emotions are the cure all. Never in all my years of consulting and writing around emotional intelligence has this been the case. Emotions are there for a reason, they are data, information. It is how we use this information that is important.

Robert and Todd have brought this to life in their usual inimitable style to help people understand emotions more holistically. For those thinking this is a happiness book you will be disappointed. Yet for those of you thinking this is an anti-positive psychology book you will also be disappointed (or potentially reading it with a significant bias).

I love the writing style - easy to read. Putting things into perspective. It is a view well worth integrating with your existing knowledge. Thanx again. Love your work guys. It has been added to our 2015 critical contributions list for our PP bookclub and our Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing!

These two scholars and research psychologists combine a balance of research, interesting stories and examples with a friendly conversational tone to create a clearly written, enjoyable and highly controversial book.

Doctors Kashdan and Biswas-Diener, Dr. Philos, are iconoclasts who present the idea that wholeness consists of embracing all our emotions (including the dark ones) and state throughout the book that "avoiding uncomfortable yet useful states keeps us from reaching our full potential." They state that the ability to tolerate discomfort, which is defined as `distress tolerance' makes us stronger wiser and more resilient.

The authors challenge the view that discomfort is an unmanageable, unpleasant state that should be avoided. They discuss our beliefs that happiness and comfort are not just expectations and goals, but moral imperatives

The authors define `emotional agility' as being able to match our behavior to the challenge we are facing, even if that behavior is less than what we've been taught is ideal. There's a chapter on `The Teddy Effect' that promotes the positive traits of psychopathic behavior such as being charming, being immune to the paralyzing effects of anxiety and being physically fearless.

Each chapter concludes with `The Takeaways' which restates the chapter's main points.

A few caveats: The authors (at the time of the writing) were research psychologists and not clinical psychologists who treat clients. If a person seeks therapy and uses their health insurance, their normal (though unpleasant) emotions and responses to their life experiences will be diagnosed as a mental illness, according to the symptom list in the DSM (the therapist's symptom recipe book) in order for a therapist to receive payment from an insurance company. The normal feelings the authors describe here must be pathologized in order for a therapist to get paid. Often, clients are encouraged to take medication for appropriate and normal feelings. If a client has the luxury of being able to pay cash they will be able to explore the palette of all their feelings without having to be diagnosed as having a mental illness.

This book makes some debatable assumptions, like the vast majority of Americans are "faring better - materially speaking- than ever before." Current research disputes this.

One study cited in the book attributes the increased use of pronouns, `me' and mine' over `we' and 'us' to narcissism, and not to the upward trend of increased singles and the ageing population who live alone.

This book is enjoyable, informative and uplifting.
It offers relief.
The authors make it okay to not be okay.

I've been looking forward to reading this book for a few months as I'm a huge fan of Todd Kashdan's research and writing. It COMPLETELY lived up to expectations. The main messages are about how striving to be emotionally and physically comfortable all the time isn't useful, that negative emotions have benefits, and that the most psychologically healthy people are those who are able to handle situations flexibly e.g., be strategically tough or nice, depending on what the situation calls for. If you're looking to be an effective CEO of your own life then this book will help you do that. I think it's also essential reading for anyone struggling with anxiety or for parents who want to help their kids develop a healthy relationship with their emotions - both positive and negative. As well as awesome info, it's an enjoyable read. I ended up getting an e-copy and the audiobook so I could finish listening to it in the car.

As someone who is familiar with much of the research in this book, I was very satisfied with the treatment that Kashdan and Biswas-Diener gave to that research. I would strongly recommend this book to any practitioner hoping to get an accurate and thoughtful overview of research on the nuances of positive and negative emotion -- when each is helpful vs. detrimental (and both can be either, depending on the circumstances), and how to harness the advantages of key negative emotions. Furthermore, I would recommend this book to... well... any human being, in general. I learned a lot about myself and my own well-being from this book, and that's not an easy feat for a researcher who studies well-being! Lastly, it's delightfully written; good stories, clear language, compelling rhetoric. All in all, highly recommended.

An honest, humorous, and helpful journey looking at the benefits of all emotions (yes, even the 'bad ones'). Plenty of great stories. Very well written. Easy to ready and follow along. I found the information in this book to be of great benefit as a parent dealing with adolescent and pre-teen children. Lot's of emotions with these human-like animals (the kids that is), now I feel as though I am better able to be with them in all of their emotional goodness and badness. Great work. Great resource. Plus, it's fun to think about the benefit of our own "dark sides". Muwahahahahaha. Bust seriously, a must read for anyone that has feelings.

This is a fantastic and important book. In an era when everyone is focused on positivity and happiness, Kashdan and Biswas-Diener focus on an all-too-often-overlooked quality: There’s a balance between our quest for happiness and our darker qualities — narcissism, anger, guilt, anxiety, mindlessness — that contributes to an overall wholeness of being. A quest for happiness that ignores our darker sides is fruitless. As the book concedes, “being your WHOLE self, not just your good self, drives success and fulfillment.”

Bravo to Drs. Biswas-Diener and Kashdan on their thought-provoking tour of the dark side of human emotion. As a coaching professional and learning consultant, my natural tendency is to look for the positive, to build on the positive emotions. I've learned those emotions are key to living a life of meaning. I have a tendency to want to shame any negative emotions that are just naturally a part of who I am -- emotions that make me whole. What a relief to know that I can embrace these emotions and even contemplate how the "negative emotions" might be functional. I highly recommend this book to anyone who struggles with accepting every part of their being and only wants to show the world their positive side.

Utterly fantastic book by two scientist-practitioners at the absolute vanguard of what positive psychology and the science of well-being will look like in 10 years. Science, stories, examples, action items, humor, data, and *most importantly* a full, 360-degree perspective on what makes for an optimally functioning person. As we've become captivated by happiness, we've neglected wholeness. This book clearly, cleverly, and persuasively argues that authenticity and the embrace of the full range of our human experience is the true goal we should have in mind, not just bigger smiles, easier lives, and more mindless giggling. Further, because this book takes us past positive emotions, gratitude, and the other chestnuts of positive psychology, there is something for every person to learn, at every step along the path to living a full, flourishing life. Join these two brilliant guys on a journey through your dark side to your best life.

We all have a darkside. After years of books telling us how to find happiness, Todd Kashdan tells us it's ok to have a bad day... In fact we need bad days to thrive.

Our current culture of comfort is not doing the average person any good. It is through discomfort we grow and thrive. The Upside of Your Dark Side will help you use your dark side to help you grow.

For those in the positive psychology or strengths movement you might think at first glance that this book is embracing weakness fixing, but it's NOT. I loved the body of research presented that expands our understanding of positive psychology. There is a diminishing return to happiness and positivity if the whole person is not embraced. In fact if you have a 11:1 positivity to negativity ratio the research reveals too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. The book expands our thinking to embrace our dark side such as anxiety. Jim Collins in his book, Built to Last even talks about productive paranoia. I whole heartedly recommend this deep probing book and the audible version. It will not only expand your view of your whole self but also extremely powerful tool for coaches, counselors, and people helping professions.

I found this book very insightful and useful. The notion of happiness is more complex than the conventional wisdom out there and that by defining the goal as a state of wholeness, you can really free yourself of resistance that you don’t need to have in your life. It teaches you that instead of trying to mitigate the less glorious aspects of your personality, you should value the 20% advantage of allowing the "whole" you to show up, so to speak. This book will expand your framework for understanding, accepting, and even celebrating your entire personality.

This book explores what is a frequently ignored aspect of human behavior that is fundamentally important to a happy productive life. The roots of this perspective have been around for centuries, as seen in early Yoga texts that describe emotional agility and flexibility. In recent times we have become entranced by the self-help thought process that minimizes those "dark" sides of ourselves. We need those dark sides, and exploring and using them are vital to our lives.

I was lucky enough to have Kashdan as a professor as a freshaman at George Mason University, he by far push the boundaries as a professor. Almost 4 years after graduating I can still say that Kashdan was and always will be a major influence in my life as well as my career. This books is a must read!!! (jag är)

I had Todd on my podcast, The Entrepreneurs Library, to give a deep dive on The Upside Of Your Dark Side. With Todd's experience he gives amazing insight an turning your negative traits into powerful strengths. If you would like to hear a review from the author himself check out episode 79 on [...]

This book is different. The Upside of Your Dark Side offers a refreshing approach to psychology and resilience. The authors provide a balanced approach to resilience. They not only acknowledge the benefits of positive thoughts but also give value to negative ones. As they point out, growth and change emerges from feelings such as discomfort, doubt, and anger. I especially liked the segments of the book that connected their thesis to child development and resilience. The emotional labeling section was insightful as well. I have used this technique in my occupational therapy practice, so I was glad to see it mentioned in their book. It's so simple and yet so powerful.
The authors back their arguments with much research and examples. This book is well written and provides thought provoking ideas, as well as concrete guidance for a whole person approach.

If you've been riding the wave of positive thinking this book is a fantastic read. Looking only at the bright side can get a little exhauting! It's really helpful to hear from top experts in the field of happiness about why all of our emotions matter. The authors take a hard, evidenced based look at when tougher emotions like anger and frustration are useful, and how we can succed by appreciating them. Every college student, job seeker, parent, team leader, and evolved thinker should read this book!

The best psychology book i've ever read. Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener dare to push the boundaries of positive psychology. The key message is simple yet challenging, happiness is about developing psychological flexibility, to understand what there is to gain and to lose in allowing ourselves to feel positive or negative. If you think that GOOD positive psychology is all about feeling positive and smiling and being optimistic all the time...well...think again and read this book. It was written for you.

A great read! Very interesting and thought provoking! This book will change the way you approach many things in your daily life, in a very effective way! Excellent examples throughout the book. Definitely a worthwhile investment of your time and money!

Amazing book! I would recommend it to anybody, but especially to people who feel guilty for not feeling happy all the time. This book helped me appreciate my "dark side" and use it to my advantage. Thumbs up!

An updated look at emotions. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener look at the positive impact of negative emotions. Negative emotions are there for a reason and much good can come from not brushing them aside.

The topics covered in different chapters are:
CH 1 The False Nose of Happiness:
- Why the way we've been pursuing happiness is not going to make us happy
- The rising tide of anxiety
- What wholeness looks life
- The virtues of throwing in the towel
- The benefits of fantasy
- The approach in this book
- Emotional agility
- Social agility
- Mental agility
CH 2 The Rise of the Comfortable Class
- The origins of comfort addiction
- How can you avoid what is inside you?
- Comfort addiction harms our children
- What's the alternative?
- Psychology's holy grail
CH 3 What's So Good About Feeling Bad?
- Why bad can be more powerful than good
- If negative emotions are so helpful, why don't we like them more?
- A tour of 3 deadly emotions
- Anger
- The right way to get angry
- Guilt & shame
- Turning hawks into doves
- How to escape the shame trap
- Anxiety
- Better than positivity
- Effectively harnessing & using anxiety
CH 4 How Positive Emotion Can Lead to Your Downfall
- Has happiness been taken too far?
- Research finding 1: your happiness can interfere with your success
- Happy people are less persuasive
- Happy people can be too trusting
- Happy people are lazy thinkers
- Research finding 2: the pursuit of happiness often backfires: ending in unhappiness
- Research finding 3: sometimes people want to feel bad
- Research finding 4: someone else's happiness can impair your performance too
- If happiness is so great why aren't we better at it?
- A playbook for mild unhappiness
CH 5 Beyond the Obsession with Mindfulness
- 3 mindless paths to success & well-being
- Harnessing autopilot
- Mindless detection of sketchy social situations
- Mindless emotion regulation
- Mindless creativity
- Acting on impulse
- Liberating effects of losing control
- Making mindless decisions
- Mindless interventions
CH 6 The Teddy Effect
- Understanding the 3 parts of the teddy effect
- You've been naughty
- Under the influence
- All the world's a stage
- 2 narcissists are better than 1
CH 7 The Whole Enchilada
- Recognizing your positive bias
- It's complicated, but in a good way
- Balancing pleasure now with meaning later
- Balancing novelty with stability
- Broad strokes or fine-toothed comb?
- Beyond happiness

This book is a breath of fresh air amongst positive psychology books ~ I really like the insights and appreciate and accept that our full range of emotions play a part in driving our success and fulfillment, the authors discuss life aspirations that goes beyond happiness to WHOLENESS!! It's All About Emotional / Social & Mental AGILITY!!! #UpsideDarkSide 5 STARS!!!!!

Pure propaganda. This is a bad book. Why? It wants to make a non problem into a problem. Happiness is not a problem. People function just fine when they are happy. The author is wanting to make a name for himself and I will not be surprised if he uses this book to promote Conservative politics.
Kashdan thinks that Americans undermine their competitive, narcissistic, psychopathic anger in our culture and that kindness, being comfortable and happy are qualities that are traps. He says in order to be whole we need to amp up our less cooperative qualities. That is the whole book and he spends 221 pages to tell you this.
This is not a helpful message to relationships, business environments, communities or society. It is already so prevalent in the culture and it is precisely the noise that those seeking well being are trying to get away from!
The book is poorly written and choppy with sideways examples and fragments of studies cherry picked to somewhat support a point. It tries way too hard to seem scientific and it is not.
It uses the same fears that FOX news does to get viewers riled. It adds nothing to the lexicon of creating pathways to self understanding or social awareness.
This is not a book for thinking people. It is a book to promote Kashdan and his next steps to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. There are references to everyone of the Conservative Agenda's divisive hot buttons- from Reagan changing the world for the better and "handing it off to Clinton" to using mindlessness to deal with race relations and that people are not as tough as they should be like in the good old days of the WWII -greatest generation. Spin this and you get welfare loving Liberals, weak and ineffective people looking for the government to provide them with comfort. etc, etc. This book is a set up for the authors career path. Period.

I like the idea of turning negative emotions into happiness. As the book says,"Distress tolerance is important not just because it makes you a better camper or soldier, but also because it allows you to become stronger, wiser, mentally agile, and, most important, happier in a more resilient, and therefore durable, way."

For me, it depends on the person. This may work for one but may not work for some. Whenever I am disappointed, I would always want to make sure that it will never happen again. I feel embarassed? I turn around, change and make sure not be on the same scenario again. Easier said than done! So it depends on every person. Others may feel this is contrary to being realistic.

There are times that I want to agree with the author but I can't. Sometimes, he tries to bend science research to make us agree to his points. It appears inaccurate and misleading.

I gave it 3.5 stars because I believe all this fluff can be toned down into 50 pages or less. I hate to waste time reading a complete 200 to 300 pages unless it is novel.

I also have quite a bit of problem on the author's tone throughout the book.

Positive psychology, unfortunately, tends to attract two groups: the cheerleaders who are eager to prove that all things positive are good for you, and the self-proclaimed “negateers” who are just as biased in the opposite direction, looking for any excuse to shoot down anything that might give legitimacy to a positive branch of the science.

This polarization is human nature. But it makes it that much more interesting to notice researchers who are able to maintain a critical approach to the science and avoid the pull of one extreme or the other.

Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener are two researchers that don’t fall into either of the extremist camps. The best way that I can describe them is that they attack positive psychology from within. Unlike the negateers that would like to see it shut down, or the cheerleaders that are too eager to accept anything that promotes positivity, Kashdan and Biswas-Diener challenge the ideas of their own field and push it to be better.

This book is a perfect example of their attempts to keep the science in check. Consumer interest in happiness and mindfulness has gone too far, and Kashdan and Biswas-Diener are here to remind us that positive experiences and positive outcomes do not always go hand in hand.

They do not bash happiness (as some of the staunchest critics of positive psychology might do) but they remind us that negative emotions also serve a purpose. Anxiety helps to alert us to problems before they loom larger. Anger helps us to mobilize ourselves and others to confront a challenge or a threat. Mindlessness can be just as important as mindfulness. Even narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy can give us an edge in certain situations.

Human experience is complex. Sometimes bad things lead to good outcomes. Sometimes good things lead to bad outcomes. To ignore this simple truism is to leave humanity undiscovered under a patina of illusion.

These two researchers serve as important models for how to look critically at human wellbeing. And their work might even provide clues for solving the biggest problem with positive psychology.

I have always been a pretty happy and cheery person, and I have rarely allowed my "dark" side to realistically ever rear its head. I grew up in an environment where conflict was avoided at all costs, and negative emotions considered to be bad, so reading this book was not only highly informative but allowed me to access and harness a side of myself I have ignored.

The authors begin by observing that most people don't know what makes them happy. We estimate the effect events will have on us, and typically don't experience the highs or lows that we expect from events. So rather than striving for happiness all the time, the authors suggest going for something closer to 80/20, 80% positive to 20% negative, taking advantage of the benefits of perceived negative concepts like anger, guilt, anxiety, and mindlessness. This leads to social, emotional, and mental agility, the ability to function optimally across the wide range of human emotions rather than unrealistically pretending to be happy all the time.

The authors focus on the downsides of being happy, such as that happy people are less persuasive and less likely to spot lies. Happy people tend to take mental short cuts and thus when things get stressful, happy people are more likely to rely on stereotypical views of others. They also explain the benefits of negative emotions. For example, anger can lead to greater creativity and guilt can cause positive change in people. The authors provide ways to effectively use anger and guilt, avoiding rage and shame, which are rarely effective accomplishing anything.

The quest for happiness at all costs, evidenced by our "comfort at all costs" culture, is actually hurting our ability to be happy. In fact, studies show that doing things with the expectation to be happy actually decreases the happiness we get from them. In fact, our own brain gets in the way of us being happy, and there is nothing wrong with this, if you know how to deal with it.

They also explain the benefits of mindlessness (more creativity and instant access to our valuable subconscious mind), the downsides of being polite (polite people get their way less than assertive people), and the upsides of following one's impulses (taking risks that lead to great rewards). What about "dark triad" traits like Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy? Yes, they too have a place in our mental toolbox, demonstrated by the fact that the most effective presidents possessed these traits in greater amounts than the least effective.

The authors are careful to admit that there are limits to embracing our "bad" sides, and that is why this book is so amazing, as it provides research-backed guidelines to making states like anger, mindlessness, impulsiveness, narcissism, etc, work for our benefit.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It has opened up a new realm of possibility for me. Rather than effectively pretending I don't have a bad side, I have the tools to make *all* of myself function optimally. This is quite possibly the best book I have read in 2014.