The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life
by Shawn Achor
This month we will be reading The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life by Shawn Achor. Shawn spent twelve years living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University before bringing this research to nearly half the Fortune 100, as well as places like the Pentagon, impoverished schools in Africa, and the White House. His research has also been published in numerous newspapers and psychology journals. He now serves on the World Happiness Council and continues his research.
The main premise that Shawn is trying to debunk is the idea that our happiness is conditional. Too often we tell ourselves that happiness will follow if we get that dream job, have X number of clients, loose X number of pounds, get that thing, accomplish that goal, etc. Shawn argues that the opposite is true. “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.”
I like this book because it’s relentlessly positive, full of anecdotes and personal stories of real people, and offers very specific doable strategies for reprogramming our brains to become more positive, which, in turns fuels our creativity, productivity and resilience. I felt inspired while I was reading it. And while Shawn mostly focuses on how those strategies affect our work lives, I also find them universally applicable to our lives in general. The chapter on habit-building is probably my favorite one.
If you want to get the gist of the book and get a sense of author’s writing style, please check out his very popular Ted talk called The happy secret to better work. It is quite funny and very easy to follow. Some even called it “Buddhism in modern context” 🙂 See for yourself!
Join us live on Thursday, February 28 at 5.30pm PST/8.30pm EST to discuss the book. Check out some sample questions I would like to discuss on the BOOK CHAT PAGE. Hope to see you there!
