The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work

by Shawn Achor Narrated by Shawn Achor

Overview

Our most commonly held formula for success is broken.

Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we'll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.

When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn't just an empty mantra. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.

In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research-including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS and KPMG-to fix this broken formula. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work.

Isolating seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, he shows us how we can capitalize on the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential. Among the principles he outlines:

• The Tetris Effect: how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see-and seize-opportunities wherever we look.
• The Zorro Circle: how to channel our efforts on small, manageable goals, to gain the leverage to gradually conquer bigger and bigger ones.
• Social Investment: how to reap the dividends of investing in one of the greatest predictors of success and happiness-our social support network

A must-read for everyone trying to excel in a world of increasing workloads, stress, and negativity, The Happiness Advantage isn't only about how to become happier at work. It's about how to reap the benefits of a happier and more positive mind-set to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Shawn Achor and The Happiness Advantage
 
“Achor transports us to his virtual classroom, a journey along which we glean the seven secrets of happiness. The Happiness Advantage reveals the most important discoveries coming out of modern psychology.”—Rom Brafman, bestselling co-author of Sway and Click

“Thoughtfully lays out the steps to increasing workplace positivity.”—Forbes
 
“Powerful . . . A supremely important book for anyone in management . . . accessible [and] easy to read.”—Medium
 
“A big star . . . a world-famous expert.”—New York Times

“Shawn Achor is funny, self-deprecating, and devastating to my notions of what his field is all about. . . . I’m butter to his knife.”—Boston Globe

“Achor bases his training on a burgeoning body of research on the positive psychology movement, which emphasizes instilling resiliency and positive attitudes.”—The Wall Street Journal

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169120042
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/14/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	623,946

Read an Excerpt

I applied to Harvard on a dare.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Happiness Advantage"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Shawn Achor.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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