Truth be known, Stephen Pfahler and Dan Strull have been writing a book about success and happiness their entire lives. In the last two years, however, the friendship that traces some 40 years—back to when they were in high school—yielded a literary collaboration that has two intertwined objectives: discovering one’s better self and unlocking happiness.
The result is “10X Happiness: Maximize Your Full Potential to Achieve Your Happiest Life,” released July 1 on Gatekeeper Press. It is the first literary effort for Strull—the CEO of Woodland Hills, California-based GoodSuite—who is a bibliophile with an impressive library centered mainly on stoic philosophy and business. His collaborator, Stephen Pfahler, has served as a Superior Court Judge in California for 19 years.
The book pivots off Pfahler’s first effort, “The Whole Truth for Lawyers: A Complete Guide to Flourishing in Your Life and Career,” published in 2022. Pfahler received much positive feedback, with numerous comments suggesting the book has applications beyond the legal world. So he sat down with Strull to write a follow-up that would appeal to a much broader audience. Two years later, they realized their goal.
“We’d been studying success and happiness for a long time,” Strull noted. “We would read these books and get together every month or so to talk about how we can improve our lives. We documented it all and decided at some point that it would be great to give back, so that our friends and family could follow this path.”
The pair first met in high school, and remained friends/roommates throughout their journey at USC and beyond. They also share a love for literature—for the past three decades, they’ve sustained a book club, “Plato’s Cave,” a philosophical journey through success, fulfillment and human potential. Ardent supporters for the works of Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins, they would often bounce Ziglar quotes off each other. Given their passion for personal improvement tomes, “10X Happiness” served as a natural extension of their discoveries.
During their formative years, Strull and Pfahler were part of a 10-person friend group, all of whom went on to enjoy significant success in their personal and professional lives. Citing the quote “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,”1 Strull and Pfahler wanted to discover (and document) common denominator traits that would propel this swath of middle-class buddies to achieve substantial success.
Pfahler notes that they’ve “done a deep dive” into the personal development/self-help literature space in search of truths to unlocking both career and personal success. Many of the works were narrow in scope, and the duo wanted to offer readers a roadmap for a more holistic betterment.
“There are lots of books that explore how to have good relationships and others that cover professional success, but we’d never come across a book that tied together what constitutes success in your career, personal life, health and well-being,” Pfahler said. “We feel our book fills a void, demonstrating how to bring it all together practically and specifically.”
Documenting their findings was a key foundational element for the book, and it had organic roots. Each December they would note how they performed in achieving goals, and extract philosophical nuggets from the works of others that they would incorporate into their daily lives. They discussed stoicism at length, which they found to be fundamental to self-improvement.
One of the less-heralded truths they discovered was the role of competition in life as a success driver. Both men confessed to being ultra-competitive, with themselves and others, on multiple levels. The desire to improve and win is ubiquitous, whether it’s playing flag football with your friend group or sitting atop the sales leaderboard at your company. Pfahler cited the 11-volume series “The Story of Civilization (1935–1975)” by Will and Ariel Durant, in which they evaluate “survival of the fittest” concept and how it applies to human societies, emphasizing cultural and social evolution alongside biological evolution.
“We took the notion that ‘life is competition’ a bit further, which is not necessarily competing against others, but competing with ourselves to become the best people we can be, and not just from an ego perspective,” Pfahler added. “We try to be 1% better each day by competing with our prior selves.”
The literary journey was spent in search of fundamental principles, or truths, to align with as much as possible. Stoicism yielded the notion that nearly all of our behaviors fall inside two categories: those things one can control, and those things you cannot control. The idea is to focus on the things we can control: our actions, attitudes and behaviors. In the end, Strull notes, “10X Happiness” is based on the fundamental principles aimed toward the reader enjoying a flourishing, happy life.
But can a self-discovery book penned by high achievers be accessible (and executable) for the average Joe/Joan? Pfahler says the intent is to help readers of all ages—regardless of their station in life—evolve and grow into a better person.
“Steve has a simple yet playful way of sharing these ideas and mindsets,” Strull added. “Even though he’s accomplished so much, the easy way he relates ideas makes it accessible for a wider audience. Steve puts these linear steps in place, which makes it extremely useful.”
Read more about “10X Happiness” here. The book is available through Amazon.
1Fun fact about the quote: with a multitude of variations, it has been attributed to many authors and philosophers, from Jack Canfield, creator of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” self-help series, to as far back as Cervantes’ 17th century masterpiece “Don Quixote.” In it, Quixote’s servant, Sancho Panza, proclaims, “Tell me your company and I will tell you who you are.”
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