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Learner Reviews & Feedback for A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment by Indian School of Business

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5,808 ratings

About the Course

What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life? This is surely one of life’s biggest questions, and a question that has interested many of our ancestors. Buddha famously gave up his kingdom in search of happiness. Several Greek philosophers (from Aristotle to Epicurus and Plato to Socrates) had their own views on what it takes to be happy. And of course, we all have our own theories about happiness too. How valid are our theories? Until recently, if you wished for an answer to this question, you would've been forced to base it on discussions with spiritual leaders. Or, if you were lucky, you could've based it on late-night (and perhaps intoxicant-fueled) conversations with friends and family. Happily, all that has changed now. Over the past decade-and-a-half, scientists have gotten into the act big time. We now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to lead a happy and fulfilling life. This course, based on the award-winning class offered both at the Indian School of Business and at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, developed by Prof. Raj Raghunathan (aka "Dr. Happy-smarts") draws content from a variety of fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory to offer a tested and practical recipe for leading a life of happiness and fulfillment. Although not mandatory, reading Prof. Raj's forthcoming book, titled If you're so smart, why aren't you happy? can help you review and assimilate the material covered in this book at your leisure. For Coursera learners alone, the hardcover version of the book is available for a deep discount of 50%, plus shipping and handling. You can order the hardcover for 50% off by writing to Aaron at: Aaron@800ceoread.com. Please mention that you are a student of the "coursera happiness course" in your email. The course will feature guest appearances by several well-known thought leaders, including: - Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational and, soon to be released, Irrationally Yours), - Ed Diener (“Dr. Happiness”), - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Flow), By taking this course, you will discover the answers to questions such as: - Why aren’t the smart-and-the-successful as happy as they could—or should—be - What are the “7 Deadly Happiness Sins” that even the smart and the successful commit?, and - What are the “7 Habits of the Highly Happy” and how can you implement them in your life? By the end of the course, I expect students who have been diligent with the lectures and exercises to not just gain a deeper understanding of the science of happiness, but to also be significantly happier....

Top reviews

CR

Apr 23, 2018

Excellent course, Professor Raj is great. I found it very helpful to see what types of personality traits I have that may contribute to my happiness level and possible approaches to dealing with them.

LS

Jan 23, 2017

This course is a joy! I cannot recommend it highly enough. Practical advice based on long-term research, interviews with worldwide experts on the topics discussed, and a fabulous professor. So great!

Filter by:

76 - 100 of 2,036 Reviews for A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment

By M S M S

Aug 8, 2020

I want to quit

By Paola A G A

Jul 17, 2020

Insoportable

By bernard p

May 13, 2020

Horrible

By Bharat P

Apr 18, 2017

pathetic

By Divyansh A

Jun 9, 2016

Boring

By Aedrian A

Apr 10, 2022

It took me a long while (around two years) to finally complete this enlightening course, as life got in the way. If I am going to summarize, in one sentence, what this offering is all about, it would be this: “This a crash course on being a good person.” The course is packed with so much great content that I had no other choice but to save the lectures offline indefinitely. This will allow me to revisit the lectures from time to time as if they are parts of a pocket reference. Furthermore, it is delivered by someone most, if not all, people will listen to with respect: a business school professor with an engineering degree, an MBA and a PhD. If someone with such credentials, experience and expertise in an extremely competitive discipline believes in everything contained in the material, then I think everyone should really give some pause and consider what the course has to offer. For me, the most important component of the course is the comprehensive discussion on mindfulness. My only issue with the course is that some of the evidence presented felt either preliminary or too-much-leap. Nevertheless, one is unlikely to lose anything unfavorable and likely to gain something beneficial in heeding the prescriptions of the course. All in all, this course is highly recommended to everyone regardless of age, status in life, and experience.

By Foteini D

Sep 23, 2020

Professor Raj and every single person of his team has instrumented an extraordinary course, which covers a lot of fields about what happiness and fulfillment , means . An excellent balance between thougths , feelings and logic.

Based on scientific papers , many interviews of brilliant specislists and at the same time enriched with music and shapes.

From day 1 u need to dedicate as much time is possible to the course. From exercise 1 u start to come closer to yourself: discover your needs, your goals, your sourse within. Understanding your surroundings with all of your senses.

Time flies and before u know it , u are already at week 6, than a dilemma comes to your mind : -What Happend ? - What is the purpose of this ? In a magical way the answer is there , from now on u can see life not only with your eyes , u are a more positive and optimistic person , u become again what u were from your birth , a human beeing. Of course its not a magical way , its the way which Professor Raj and his co-collaboratos , reveal u.

Please , enroll to this couse , u will become better person for yourselves, for the people u love and for the humanity.

Many thanks from Greece. Namaste !

With smiles .

By Güney G

Jan 1, 2021

That's a very nice course. It's a life-changing course everyone ought to take one day. The Professor is very friendly and he's really an expert to present the scientific topic in a friendly and casual manner. My favorite parts of the lectures were his jokes, :)) and my favorite video was the meditation exercise in the last week. Inviting many different scientists to the lecture made the lecture an essential milestone in this topic.

The only negative feedback, I can contribute, is that sometimes the videos were a bit longer than required. Also, in the quizzes, it could be better to focus on the main ideas instead of the "which benefits were not discussed in the x video, y research, z paper?" type of questions. :) It's not important to memorize which strategy belonging to which professor. The audience, as long as, they don't do academic career on this topic, doesn't need to memorize the scientist names, research names, but instead, some kind of case questions which could only measure if students absorb the main idea of each lecture would be better. :)

By Sweta G

Aug 6, 2020

This is one of the best courses I have taken in my career! I never thought, one can learn how to be happy but this course proved me wrong. There are few important life lessons that the course has taught me and I have been practicing some of them and they have a huge impact on my overall well-being. Thank you professor Raj, I loved your style of presentation and also the passion with which you taught such a tough subject. Few Key Takeaways for me which I am implementing in my life

a. Labeling my emotion, whenever I am in a distressful situation

b. Being a fly on the wall and just observing what is going on rather than jumping and reacting

c. Practicing self-compassion rather than ruminating, doing an analysis of what went wrong

d. Trying to control other people especially family members

e. Understanding the idea behind flow and trying to engage in activities which can trigger flow

f. Moving around more rather than spending a lot of time sitting

g. Taken up meditation. The presence practice helped me a lot

By THANGARAJU S

May 7, 2020

Dear Raju,

I am very happy to share with you that my hometown is also Trichy, Tamilnadu. On seeing that you too belong to my native I had a good gratitude towards the course. I started the course because of the compulsion of my organisation during the lock down period, but when the course progressed I get to know the value of the content which became a part of day to day activity.

First of all I thank my organisation for giving this opportunity. This course is a very important basics for all. I enjoyed the course and practicing the message in the course. I admire Raju Ragunanthan for his easy and simple way of teaching without any complex. This made me to understand the course very well.

I started informing my friends to start the course which is the influence the course created. Surely I will follow the exercise given in the course in my day to day life and will be the happiest man. The entire credit goes to the coursera Team.

Thanks a lot

Thanks a lot Raju Ragunanthan.

By Sajna h

Jul 29, 2020

ALOHA Raghunathan sir! You were awesome. His beautiful narration and explanation of facts were so touchy. ALOHA is the word I use now to greet someone or to wish someone . It was a remarkable and wonderful session overall. Lock down days has been life altering for all of us. But these courses really help us to keep motivated and get a feel of brotherhood. Being an educator, I find many of the modules very impressive and would really share it with my colleagues and students once life resumes to be normal. To maintain a repose and equanimous mind is really difficult during these unprecedented times. Confinement is a silent killer and it spreads its tentacles in a fast pace than expected. So always wish to remember sir's beautiful narrations about being happy and spread joy around with our short lives!!

Thanks once again for being such a wonderful motivator to remain happy!!

Stay awesome!Stay Productive!

By JOHN D B

May 26, 2020

When I joined I did not pay the fees for certificate. But after undergoing the classes for three weeks and I paid the fees to get a certificate. I started enjoying the course. I found it useful. So i wanted to get the certificate.

The course was very interesting, very useful, learnt many new and innovative ideas.

The Course teacher Prof.Raj is excellent in explaining the difficult concepts so easily.

The videos, interviews, short stories, examples, exercises, references are very useful.

Overall the course was excellent and I would like the congratulate the Course teacher Prof.Raj for his outstanding contribution. The Coursera has done a wonderful job. Congrats to all.

I have immediately purchased the book written by Prof.Raj through Amazon. I will start reading from today. Other reference books and materials are also very useful.

Thank you Professor Raj and his team.

By Nitin G

Oct 7, 2017

ALOHA(F) sir,

I want to thank you for setting up this course in such detail and format. It was a pleasure to become a part of this group and learn so much things. The way it has been structured shows how much effort has been put in and you have presented it so well and innovatively that I was feeling that we really have known each other while going through this course. The external references you took from other teachers made it more comprehensive and inclusive.

I am certainly going to refer this course to many others whom I know and who can really benefit from this. I regret that I could not complete a couple of exercises towards the end of this course.

Thank you for showing me and a lot of others a different way of living and looking at life. I hope I will try to gain a lot from it.

Regards

Nitin Goel

Delhi, India

By Danila G

Feb 26, 2016

I used to always say that everyone in life no matter what their profession was, should take at least one basic psychology course in their lives. After taking this course I can now say that this course is another one on the list for everyone in life to take --it should be a requirement. I feel very fortunate to have stumbles upon it, and I´m very happy that I took it! And just by taking the course my life has already started to change, because I am now aware of things to make myself happier that I was not aware of before, so this course has shed a lot of light on life, human beings and how to be happier. Last, I´m very grateful to Prof. Rajagopal Raghunathan, for coming up with the great idea of giving this course! And wish him all the best with his new book! Thank you all!

By Katja S

May 19, 2020

Ich fand diesen Kurs so toll! Ich glaube, ich fange direkt noch mal von vorne an :) Da es ein kostenfreies Angebot ist und mein erster Kurs auf Coursera waren meine Erwartungen bezgl des Inhaltes nicht sehr hoch. Aber ich bin absolut begeistert! Wer mehr über sein eigenes Handeln (und vielleicht auch Verständnis ggü seiner Mitmenschen) wissen möchte, ist hier richtig. Den Grund einiger meiner Stress-(Über-) Reaktionen und woher das Gefühl des Unglücklichseins kommt, bin ich nun noch mehr auf der Schliche. Dieser Kurs läßt einen einen Schritt zurück treten und hilft dabei, Lösungen zu finden. Die praktischen Übungen waren durchweg hilfreich und einfach anwendbar und lassen sich nach belieben auch noch fortführen.

Einfach ein toller Kurs, vielen Dank dafür!

By Janne N

Mar 7, 2016

Very good course. Professor Raghunathan is extremely invigorating lecturer and the course is full of great information. One thing that bothered me, though, was how the maximizer and desirability for control test scores were not explained further.

Edit: I think my point about DC and maximizer scales sounded a bit more negative than I meant. Very minor thing, but as the course was so good otherwise it stuck out to me. In my case, I got "contradicting" scores (low DC, high maximizer) and the following discussion mostly addressed the overly controlling case. This left me at first a little uncertain whether the corresponding habit of the highly happy would suit me. (It does.)

I highly recommend this course for everyone who wants to learn what makes people happy!

By M. A T B

Nov 4, 2017

Amazingly interesting. I've not only learnt a lot but also I've confirmed why I use to do some things I do but before now I had no "logical" explanation, just intuition about that doing such kind of thing made me happy.

It has surprised me a lot that something as supposedly "abstract" as happiness has undergone so many studies and researchs and has so many supporting and proven outcomes.

I love the structure of the course: sin - habit - exercise to enhance happiness. The videos, the studies and the participants in the course have also been superb!

Two great surprises have been the "healthy lifestyle" to enhance happiness, and the mindfulness section with that "Presence Practise" wonderful exercise.

Without any dout, I do eagerly recommend this course!

By tima b

Jun 19, 2020

An excellent and well organised course. Dr Raj's signature informal style is very appealing and the short videos are all very interesting: the timings of the videos are perfect! The interviews with top academics when discussing findings are impressive. There is a notable and refreshing generosity about this course, the sense of a genuine desire to contribute to the general flow of happiness . The Presence Practice was a definite highlight: its amazing and extremely powerful. I found the whole approach of this course including the assignments just very helpful and enlightening. I would highly recommend this course to anyone. .. and have done so already! Thank you Dr Raj and all those who contributed to this course in their joyfully abundant way!

By Vismit B

May 12, 2020

I really feel happy and excited. When I was enrolling in this course, I was thinking that its just another online course but after getting involved in the course, I started enjoying. I gained so much of knowledge which certainly help me in future.

This course is beautifully designed with interactive features that keep you involved like classroom program.

This course really have a great impact on us if you pursue honestly.

Lastly I want to convey my sincere thank & gratitude to Prof. Raj who designed this beautiful course of happiness with full dedication and interest. I also want to thank to ISB and the entire team, all the guest speakers from the bottom of my heart!

Be in touch!

Thank you!

Vismit Bhardwaj

vismitbhardwaj@gmail.com

By manjit s

Jun 3, 2020

This course is extremely useful if u spend ur 31 hrs of life in it u will get the best u want in life and of course the 6th week mindful training is also equipped in this course. If u are a guy who feel life is biased and extremely bad and everything need to be changed go ahead u will be getting great perceptions.

If u thing u are lacked behind a lot of people go ahead and do it there is no reason to say no to such great course after all we have inert desire to be happy want to know how can we be go ahead and do the peer review exercise do it with utmost focus u will find a new u charming u and the flow state u the mindful u who can enjoy everything life have to offer thanks to prof Raj and his team for a great course.

By SWATI N P

Aug 14, 2017

A super thumbs up to this course. I was in different state of mind when I registered for this course. I was unhappy with myself and was thinking life is very cruel. I even started to believe no matter how good you are, people are not satisfied with you. When I started this course, the more I realized my happiness dose not depend on anybody else rather it depends on myself and how I am reacting to different situations. I am practicing all the happiness deciding factor in this course and it really making difference in me. Thank for having such course and very much thanks to Prof. Raj, for delivery of this course thank you Catherine for giving exact instructions on assignments. Thank you all, I will miss you.

By alfonso b

Jan 23, 2016

This is a very complete course if you want to understand how happiness can be achieved in your daily life and practice different methods to internalize them.

Definitively after taking this course, your view about happiness will be different, and if you were neglecting happiness in your life, you will have now a motive to prioritize it in your life.

I want to congratulate Dr. Raj and the course's support team. The idea, research done, the video assembling, the quick tests, etc., are well engaged and create a great synergy throughout the course in favour of the student. This methodology helps a lot to internalize the ideas and it is so playful that despite you will have to work in the course, you will do it happy.

By unnat s

Nov 15, 2016

Man Man Man!! What a nice and interesting woven course.

First of all hats off to Prof. Raj for presenting a course on a topic like happiness which is really important to us but is missing its relevance in today's age.

The concepts explained have scientific backing so I as an IT Analyst, was spellbound on the extensive research put to prepare this course.

I felt really great and definitely recommend this course to everyone. Please try it once, I am sure you will get addicted (in a good sense!!!!) to complete it, like me!!!

I can confirm that my happiness score has improved and I feel more at peace with me than I was before joining this course.

Three cheers to ALOHAF, HIP HIP Hurray, HIP HIP Hurray, HIP HIP Hurray!!

By Jas K B

Jul 30, 2019

Excellent course!!

Makes one aware of blind spots in his own knowledge and practice which blocks/reduces his happiness. Very well structured and Raj has interlinked everthing in a simple and easy to understand manner. Course taps into latest reseatch findings and therefore comes across as very authentic in terms of content.

Strongly recommended for everyone. Will broaden the perspective and will give both birds eye view and snails eye view of happiness. Equips the student with sufficient tools and perspective to increase his or her happiness!!

Appreciate the all round work done by Raj and his team in putting this together and making it so interesting and useful. Congratulations and well done!!

By Cathy B

Apr 20, 2021

A fabulous course. Extremely helpful, thorough and interesting, with strategies that can readily fit into making anyone's life happier. Prof. Raj was a knowledgeable, friendly instructor, who was very motivating; guest lecturers were very informative. I can enthusiastically recommend this course for anyone who is interested in pursuing goals to attain a happier, more peaceful and compassionate life. I opted out of the assignments after completing the first peer-rated one; comments from peers were vague, one-word only, and not helpful, and I'd put much thought into responding to the assignments I'd evaluated. So that to me was not good use of my time and I didn't feel I gained much from it.