Book excerpt: “Emotional Advantage is such an uplifting answer to our challenging times. In its pages, you will find encouragement, support, and new perspectives. Randy Taran offers an antidote to emotional overwhelm—a powerful way to discover how useful your emotions can be in guiding you towards your best life.”—Marci Shimoff, #1 NewYorkTimes bestselling author of HappyForNoReason and ChickenSoupfortheWoman’sSoul Award-winning author, producer, and founder of Project Happiness, Randy Taran knows that every emotion, feeling, and mental state has the power to bring us back to our true essence, and that readers can use Emotional Advantage as a guide to get there. In recent years, there has been an overwhelming interest in the science of happiness and positive psychology, and many books on the subject. There is a good reason for this: it is a core, universal human drive. And while happiness has opened the door for many to move forward, there is a burgeoning curiosity about the full range of human emotions, all of which factor into the human experience. What do we do when life does not go as planned? Neuroscience reveals that to understand and utilize any emotion, we need to “name it to tame it.” It turns out that even negative emotions have something to offer, if we know how to learn from them. Have you ever woken up in a fog of feelings and felt directionless? Or maybe it was hard to pinpoint exactly what you were feeling, but it wasn’t where you wanted to be? What if we could actually use our feelings as a pathway to guide us back to our inner compass? What if, like alchemists, we had the tools to transform our emotions to take charge of creating our very best life? What if we could comprehend how even the most troublesome emotions are sending messages to alert, protect, and fuel us forward? Emotional Advantage is that guide. It will show us how a new perspective on fear can move us to courage, how guilt can clarify our values, and how anger can help us create healthy boundaries.