Take a Shot at Happiness: How to Write, Direct & Produce the Life You Want

National Indie Excellence Wellbeing Book Award Winner and Finalist for Personal Growth

Nautilus Book Silver Award Winner for Creativity & Innovation 

NYC Big Book Award Winner for Wellbeing

Paris Book Festival How-To Runner Up

Hollywood Book Festival Anything Goes Honorable Mention

Take a Shot at Happiness will teach you how to change your perspective and better your mind. In taking charge of your own life, you can learn to become your own writer, director, and producer.

On a steamy jungle island in the middle of the South China Sea, a new television show is about to come to its shocking conclusion. A small television stage lit by tiki torches illuminates a show host, a jury of seven contestants sitting on tree stumps, and the final two runners-up for a million dollars. It was season one of CBS’s competition show, Survivor, a show that will become one of the longest-running unscripted series—and one of the most beloved. Maria Baltazzi was one of the original supervising producers.

Survivor strips its contestants of everything but their wits while they battle it out to see who will be the winner of a life-changing prize. In watching this, Maria realized that the contestants learned things about themselves that they might never have known before. During the production of this show, Maria realized that she could not be her true self until she stripped back the negativity that was clouding her life and made more self-affirming actions that would lead her to what she truly wanted.

This book is Maria’s insights about being happy learned from her time in the entertainment industry, observing people and events, traveling, and studying wellbeing. Within these pages is a practical guide for a creative path to happiness through taking photographs with your camera phone, journaling about things that matter, and being part of a supportive community.

You can create a healthier state of being and have fun doing it. Even when your world turns upside down, you can still be the writer, director, and producer of the life you want.