Review of October’s Business Book Brunch:

Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman

We have a saying in our family: “This is happiness”. We use these words to describe a perfect, happy moment and find ourselves saying it often while away on holiday or sitting in a picturesque location usually with a drink in our hand. Happiness has, therefore, always been very top of mind for me, and I actively try to pursue a ‘happy life’ day to day. I was very excited to be reading Martin Seligman’s book called Authentic Happiness and looking forward to discovering secrets on how to be genuinely happy more of the time.

I soon discovered I’ve been pursuing, what Seligman calls, a Pleasant Life. I’ve been using short cuts to find moments of happiness that have an immediate and positive impact on my emotional state but don’t have a long-lasting effect. Seligman uses examples like eating an ice cream or having sex. My short cuts have been holiday adventures and alcoholic beverages. He says people leading this sort of life can feel like they are “fidgeting unto death” because they are going from one thing to another without finding real purpose in life.

Early New Zealand Game Changers included

Catherine Wilson SHEPPARD, Anna Paterson STOUT, Meri Te Tai MANGAKĀHIA, Dame Jennifer Mary SHIPLEY, Helen Elizabeth CLARK and Jacinda Kate Laurell ARDERN.

 Read their biographies here.

And take a look at  New Zealand's Political Timeline here. 

Early NZ Game Changers
As personal account by NZBWN member, Elizabeth Sullivan

In March I was fortunate enough to spend the day with my grandmother’s cousin, Madeline Anderson Orlowski. Born on 4th May 1907, on Baldwin St, Dunedin, the world's steepest residential street, Madeline is the oldest person in New Zealand. She is the granddaughter of New Zealand's earliest Polish settlers, who arrived at Port Chalmers in December 1872.

The eldest of 4 sisters, fear did not feature in Madeline’s vocabulary, nor that of her youngest sisters Rayena, Mavis and Gertrude. One day when they were staying in Wanaka, the 4 sisters took their dad’s car, a Crossley, to visit friends at a station in Glenorchy, on the far side of Lake Wakatipu. Driving down the treacherous Crown range towards Arrowtown, the brakes failed, but Mavis managed to control the car, driving it to Arrowtown and then on to Queenstown.

The sun had set before they started on their way home, not to be put off by the man who said, ‘If you’re going to drive through the Kawerau Gorge in the dark, you’ve got the courage of Ned Kelly’ (an Australian outlaw). The battery and headlights were low & Madeline had to walk in front, so they could see where they were going. They got home eventually, returning the car to their dad without brakes or lights, but they and the car were all in one piece.