Learn how to be Happier with Greg Davis’s Book: Checkmate: Tips & Lessons to Help You Make the Right Moves to Achieve Happiness! 🙂
When I asked author Greg Davis to be part of my Smart Conversations podcast, I knew he would deliver an experience, not just a response.
I knew this because his book delivers in unexpected ways. As he tells us in the Introduction,
“After crying in my hotel room and wondering whether I may have made a huge mistake in leaving HE&R and changing professions at age fifty-three, I decided someday to write a book about my life experiences. I was hopeful my book would encourage others to achieve their dreams and increase their happiness.”
Checkmate: Tips & Lessons to Help You Make the Right Moves to Achieve Happiness: Introduction p. 12
This opens us up to Greg’s life, a journey of more than 60 years. With stories of a childhood on a farm, and siblings who do what siblings do – they torture each other (all in good fun, of course!).
But the book is more than a journey through Greg’s life as a child, then a college student, and then his many years at Hershey (HE&R) the very place that makes most of us think “chocolate!” and start drooling. But there is more to the company and brand than chocolate. There is Hersheypark, created by Milton Hershey as a “leisure ground for Hershey’s Chocolate Factory employees.”
You and I know it as an amusement part for our enjoyment but its early beginnings are interesting to hear, as Greg shares more about his work there. And the people he worked with. Like Scott Newkam, CFO and VP of Finance, and Greg’s boss.
“An interesting side note is Scott would text me every holiday to check on Abby (Greg’s wife) and me until he passed away suddenly in 2022. This special touch from a respected leader was a great lesson for me in leadership. Treat everyone with respect and stay in touch when possible, even if it is a brief message.”
Does that lead to happiness?
Perhaps it does. Perhaps it doesn’t. You’ll have to read Greg’s book to find out.
Greg became someone I wanted to interview shortly after I met him on LinkedIn and discovered the smiley face on the cover of his book. A unique and welcoming icon to the book itself.
Greg and I became friends as I watched him take his book to the masses in all the right ways. What do I mean by that? I mean he arranges book signings. He promotes on social and then engages! He isn’t sitting back waiting for sales to fly in from Amazon. You’ll hear him talk about this in the interview.
Greg is so passionate about this book and about the purpose of it – achieving happiness – you can feel it in everything he says. His smile is bigger than a golf course and the way he speaks about his work draws us in as we begin to understand that this author isn’t looking for fame and fortune. He’s here to put his hand out and say, “What can I do to make your day better today?” Truly.
You learn a great deal about Greg in the book. There is sincerity and authenticity there, something you don’t often find in a nonfiction book. Greg takes us on a journey through his 60+ years, never hiding the emotions that go with many of his stories, both tearful stories and stories with laughter.
When, as the back of his book notes, a 2022 survey indicates that only 19 percent of Americans say they are very happy, it’s time for a book like this. A book that doesn’t judge. Doesn’t point fingers. Doesn’t dictate.
You might expect Greg to get didactic, but he doesn’t.
The voice, the tone, the language of this book is about acceptance, and joy, and learning to achieve greater happiness by taking the worry about the ‘numbers’ we all stress over (will I have enough to retire on?), sharing a plan on how to take that worry away.
He shares best practices you can use to change careers and realize your true passion.
In the very first chapter, he pulls us right in by describing his family growing up.
“I was born in the Carlisle Hospital in Pennsylvania on December 15, 1959, as the youngest of five children. My family raised me on a farm outside the small town of Your Springs. I grew up in a loving yet poor family as I wore my brother’s hand-me-down clothes until I was ten years old.”
Checkmate: Tip & Lessons to Help You Make the Right Moves to Achieve Happiness – Chapter One p. 18
This is story sharing at its best. Because we all know that feeling. Don’t we? No matter where we were in the order, if we had siblings, hand-me-downs were a given. And if you didn’t have siblings, you heard about it from your friends!
The story doesn’t begin or end just with Greg and his life. Or with our usual pursuit of happiness. There is a good deal written about careers. About choosing the right career. About changing careers. Greg knows what it’s like to change careers, more than once, and as a man over 50. It’s not always easy.
The key is to understand what you to do most in life. I love helping people write better books. Greg loves teaching. His days teaching his students in academia are among his most fond memories. Read how he made the choice to pursue this path and how his venture didn’t go as planned. Which made him regroup and make some hard choices.
In the end, he is happy where he is now. He and his wife Abby are enjoying life in Philadelphia. We should all be so lucky.
Watch the interview (below). Buy the book. Connect with Fred on LinkedIn. Tell him Yvonne sent you.
Greg’s LinkedIn profile is here.
Visit Greg’s website to learn more about him and his book.
Buy the book (no buy two or three to share) on Amazon.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel to meet more amazing authors and to learn more about the world of writing and publishing a book.
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