Emma is an ace researcher and highly skilled communicator. This book will be massively useful for anybody who’s looking to do life better. I know I will read it, and help promote it. – Dan Harris, Good Morning America host & bestselling author of 10% Happier

Sovereignty helps emancipate readers from the many ways in which they subjugate themselves (knowingly or unknowingly) at every level of their existence.

As our lives become more cerebral, urban and virtual, we are more and more disconnected from our bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our environment. From our very selves. Well over 50% of people across industries are burned out, disinterested (work engagement levels are very low at 34%, according to Gallup), overwhelmed and down– we are prone to fear and easily influenced by outside forces. The pandemic has further sent us into a state of languishing and dramatically increased mental health problems. People have started looking for answers and they continue to reevaluate what’s most important and how they want to live their lives.

The pandemic’s great resignation, in which 4.5 million people voluntarily quit their jobs because they didn’t want to go back to the office or comply with mandates demonstrates just how many people are sick of the status quo and want to live life on their own terms. They want to own their lives, perhaps for the first time. The pandemic, by making us face the reality of death also woke people up to the value of life – and how we want to live it. This is why I am writing Sovereignty.

This book is a manual, a roadmap, a manifesto by which we can systematically become aware of all the areas in our lives where we have abandoned our sovereignty and how can reclaim it now.  

Sovereignty invites readers to reconnect with themselves at every level.  These levels form the Table of Contents of self, instinct, mind, emotion, thoughts, relationships and the impact of body on mind. The structure leads readers into accessing their whole brain, showing up with their full potential, and becoming their true selves. Each chapter describes our state of bondage, how we turn that bondage into sovereignty, and finishes with practical take-away exercises to put that into practice immediately. 

Written in a highly practical way with stories, science, research and case studies that myself or my colleagues have conducted, each chapter ends with exercises and takeaways (including a QR code for direct link to online or app-based instruction). The last chapter provides additional takeaways and tips as to how to turn Sovereignty into a lifestyle and presents an accessible and  7-week challenge including further online tools, support and community.” – Emma Seppälä.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emma Seppälä is a leading expert in the categories of positive leadership, emotional intelligence, well-being, and social connection.

She is the Faculty Director (and a Lecturer) of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program.She is also the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.

Her bestselling first book, The Happiness Track, has sold 47,500 units in North America to date and has been published in 13 international territories.  She is the recipient of several research grants and service awards including the James W. Lyons Award from Stanford Universityfor founding Stanford’s first academic class on the psychology of happiness and teaching well-being programs for students. She graduated from Yale(BA), Columbia (MA), and Stanford(PhD).

Originally from Paris, France, she is a native speaker of French, English, and German and conversant in Spanish and Mandarin. She is the mother of two young boys.