Emotional Success ― The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride

A string of bestsellers have alerted us to the importance of grit—an ability to persevere that is so necessary for success. But no book yet has charted the most accessible and powerful path to grit: our prosocial emotions. In contrast to traditional means like willpower and self-denial, these feelings—gratitude, compassion, and pride—are easy to sustain and actually become stronger the more we use them.

As this myth-shattering book explains, prosocial emotions evolved specifically to help us resist immediate temptations in favor of long-term gains. Originally, they enabled us to build lasting relationships with other people. But they can also be adapted to strengthen our bonds with our own future selves, who will benefit most from the grit we need to succeed in life. No matter what our goals are, Emotional Success can help us achieve them with greater ease and deeper satisfaction than we would have thought possible.

DAVID DeSTENO is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University. He is also a fellow of the American Psychological Association, where he is editor in chief of the journal Emotion. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the?Wall Street Journal,?Pacific Standard,?and other publications.
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