Joy on Demand

The Art of Discovering the Happiness Within

By: Chade-Meng Tan

Narrated by: Telly Leung

Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

A long-awaited follow-up to the New York Times best-selling Search Inside Yourself shows us how to cultivate joy within the context of our fast-paced lives and explains why it is critical to creativity, innovation, confidence, and ultimately success in every arena.

In Joy on Demand, Chade-Meng Tan shows that you don't need to meditate for hours, days, months, or years to achieve lasting joy - you can actually get consistent access to it in as little as 15 seconds. Explaining joy and meditation as complementary things that naturally reinforce each other, Meng explains how these two skills form a virtuous cycle and, once put into motion, become a solid practice that can be sustained in daily life.

For many years, meditation has been taught and practiced in cultures where almost all meditators practice full-time for years, resulting in training programs optimized for practitioners with lots of free time and not much else to do but develop profound mastery over the mind. Seeing a disconnect between the traditional practice and the modern world, the best-selling author and Google's "Jolly Good Fellow" has developed a program, through "wise laziness", to help listeners meditate more efficiently and effectively. Meng shares the three pillars of joy (inner peace, insight, and happiness) and why joy is the secret is to success and demonstrates the practical tools anyone can use to cultivate it on demand.

©2016 Chade-Meng Tan (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers

Distilled actionable mindfulness

I've been a Zen Buddhist for 15 years and Chade is able to really distilled down a lot of really core pieces of my personal (also experiential) spiritual paths. Most of those are rooted in my years of wrangling with Buddhist philisophy.

Many people ask me for good ways to start, and this book has catapulted to the top of my recommended books. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Required Reading for Anyone With A Pulse

For years I have struggled to grasp meditation and visualization - this book is the most practical and straightforward answer to understanding both concepts. And that's done in a matter of minutes. The whole book is full of great ideas that are easy to use in your own life. Easily one of my favorite books.

Logical and Relatable

I think because this book was written by a software engineer, I found the analogies and instructions logical and relatable. He compared meditation to exercise. There are many forms of exercise and different benefits depending on the forms that people select. Even when you do light exercising, you still gain immediate benefits from it. The author explained that even if you start with taking one deep breath a day, you would benefit. Also, you cannot expect your mind to focus due to your early efforts. You must give it time for it to settle. Again, the author uses an analogy - it is like a snow globe. You breathe and try to be alert but relaxed. By being still, your mind will settle on its own. Like the glitter in the snow globe, it will start to settle when its surrounding is calm.

I really WANTED to like this book...but no

This was recommended to me by by physician because I have a great deal of trouble staying asleep at night due to my “busy mind”.
This guy tries waaaaay to hard to be funny and is absolutely painful to listen to most of the time. Sorry but I will have to find a different book to help me with my mindfulness and quiet my head.

I really wanted to like this book...

What would have made Joy on Demand better?

The narration really did not work for me. Perhaps I should have read this book myself. I don't think I'll be able to listen to the end.

What was most disappointing about Chade-Meng Tan’s story?

He equates a lot of things toward work. It is a book on meditation...which I did not understand from the start. Then he says on one hand that you can get benefits quickly...and on the other hand....talks about the importance of having thousands of hours under your belt.

How could the performance have been better?

It could have been a bit more contemplative, and a bit less cheerleader ish.

Any additional comments?

This may be the very first book I've purchased from Audible (I have over 100) that I do not finish.

A Little Repetitive

I read Search Inside Yourself, Meng's first book and I would give it 5 stars and recommend that book over Joy On Demand. Joy on Demand is a little repetitive of his first book. I was disappointed. The reader was average but enthusiastic.

Practical uses of meditation and the potential benefits.

I enjoyed the narrative taken by the author. He took a laid back approach to a commonly serious topic. The mixture of practical illustrations and personal experience make listening enjoyable and the idea of actual execution of the practices more likely, for me anyway. Thank you for sharing your experience with the world and I look forward to joining you on future adventures.

how predictable...

couldn't get past the introduction before the author took a veiled jab at Trump. so sick of authors weaving their political bias in a book that has nothing to do with politics.

Fantastic Introduction into Mindfulness

If you have ever wanted to understand the true benefits of mindfulness and how to achieve it through meditation, this book is for you.

Funny and useful

I really enjoyed this. I learned a lot of techniques and things about myself. I am looking forward to using the tools.

highly recommended

good and entertaining read with lots of practical advice on meditation and other benefits from it

A must for any meditator!

Very engaging and fun to learn more about how to Meditate, and the philosophy. Great read!