The Happiness Advantage

You shouldn’t expect to become happier after you gain success. Become happier first in order to gain more success. Never underestimate how striving to achieve goals impacts happiness. If you’re sitting around complacent and not working to achieve the goals you set before, do not be surprised if you don’t have the best mood. The Happiness Advantage is about realizing that we can change the way we understand our relationship with the world around us so that we can change our mood. Approaching the world with optimism versus being consumed by negativity is one key to living more happily. Changing our language of “failure” to “growth potential moments” can impact our lives for the better. 

Shawn Achor, born March 9, 1978, is an American author and speaker widely known for his positive psychology advocacy. He spent twelve years at Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude and earned a Masters from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. Achor has become one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success. He authored The Happiness Advantage (2010), Before Happiness (2013), and founded GoodThink, Inc. His research on mindset made the cover of Harvard Business Review. His TED talk is one of the most popular with over 13 million views. His Happiness Advantage training is one of the largest and most successful positive psychology corporate training programs in the world. In 2014, he did a two-hour interview with Oprah at her house to discuss the science of happiness. Achor has also worked with over a third of the Fortune 100 companies, and with places like the NFL, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Treasury.