The secret to my happiness started during my high school days (yes, drugs were involved) and continued through hitchhiking across the country, through the suicide of my girlfriend, through bartending in many cities around the country and then a move to Japan. I lived there for nine years, helping start a $500 million business, including a LARKINS (my last name) line of product, finding enlightenment and meditating in Zen temples in the mountains of Hiroshima, meeting Mother Teresa in Calcutta, partying with Bon Jovi, experiencing the death of my business partner and then the loss of my daughter, and all the life lessons that come with the following statement: I Get To do this!

About the author: Ted Larkins is an accomplished business executive and entrepreneur with a focus on international licensing. Ted co-developed a leading entertainment licensing company in Tokyo, representing major movie studios that including Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and 20th Century Fox. He’s worked on projects with Jon Bon Jovi, Jack Nicklaus, Mariah Carey, and many other artists. He is former Senior Vice President of the North American division of CPLG, one of the world’s leading entertainment, sport and brand licensing agencies. He is on the board of directors of the Licensing Industry Merchandise Association (LIMA), co-chairing the charity committee and sitting on the executive committee. He is a guest lecturer for the UCLAx Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts program.

Over the last year and a half, during his daily 4 hour train commute to work in Hollywood, he wrote the book, "Get To Be Happy: Stories and Secrets On Loving the Sh*t Out of Life”. Ted lives with his wife of 22 years and their two children in Southern California.