Kirk's personal story of overcoming cancer, obstacles and becoming truly happy.

Until a few years ago others who knew me would conclude that I was living an ideal life. I had a great family and wife, nice home, good job and appeared satisfied and content with what I had accomplished. While life was good on the outside a major crisis was brewing on the inside and I was completely unprepared for what happened. Over the course of a few short years my life turned upside down. I faced a challenge that was greater than any challenge I had faced before. What challenged me was the overwhelming feeling  that no matter how I measured my life, I was failing. I was not making the salary I wanted nor did I have the position at work I had expected, my children were straying from the values I had taught them, my wife was struggling with severe depression while at the same time my employer was threatening significant downsizing and my job of 22 years was in jeopardy. After 25 years of marriage I had hoped to be a better husband, a better father, a better provider. My assumption had been that if I did what was right, live a good life and do my best, happiness and fulfillment would automatically follow. At the time I didn’t realize that happiness, like anything else, just doesn’t happen, you have to make it happen and it can be learned and practiced in a way that you can become happy and stay that way. I tried many things and studied literally hundreds of sources to find the ‘magic cure’ for unhappiness and found none. Today I am happier than I would have dreamed possible though my circumstances have changed very little. This same happiness can be yours as well.

When I was eight years old my mother sent my two siblings and I to the grocery store. We returned to an empty house. We had been abandoned but didn't realize it right away. I faced even more challenges when my father remarried and I had four new siblings and a stepmother. I did not have any contact or see my own mother again until I was twenty-two. Only recently do I now have a meaningful and consistent relationship with her. As a young man I left a full-ride scholarship to the University of Southern California to become a volunteer missionary in Yucatan, Mexico. In Mexico I saw first hand that you don’t need a big house, nice car and a lot of money to be happy. That lesson was forgotten when I came home, married and entered the rat-race to achieve and accumulate. At the age of twenty-nine I was diagnosed with cancer, survived and was diagnosed with another form of cancer just seven years later. When I was 46 I experienced that trauma again when I was misdiagnosed with lung cancer. Those experiences, along with the normal day to day challenges of getting an education, raising four children and managing a career I expected to be satisfied and happy.  Yet, no matter how I tried I couldn’t shake the feeling that the happiness I desired all my life was only meant for others and I would never experience it.

 One night while I was away on business I spilled my prescription sleeping pills into my hand and fought with all my strength to resist the urge to swallow them and be done with my miserable life. I was able to resist and the very next day a colleague noticed something amiss and shared with me that all of my problems would be solved from the inside. Not the other way around. For once I listened and instead of blaming others for all my problems and dissatisfaction I began to look inward for the solution. Though painful, I persevered and found that happiness is obtainable even when things go wrong. Happiness does not just happen, it is created. You create it! With new found determination, intense study of a literally hundreds of sources, and a desire to help people like you, I learned how to be happy regardless of my circumstances. Learning to be happy does not need to be as hard for you as it was for me! Through The Happiness Factor I share that insight in a practical and easy to remember set of principles that you can apply immediately. You will be happy after the first page and be happy no matter what!

For 25 years I have worked at Hewlett Packard specializing in international partnerships and alliances. I graduated from California State University with a degree in Computer Science and attended The Whittier College School of Law. I currently reside in Mesa, Arizona with my wife of 28 years and four children.