Shawn Achor

Most business is done under the guideline that: if you work harder, you will be more successful, and then you will be happy. This formula is scientifically backward. What over a decade of research shows is that training your brain to be positive first actually leads to greater success at work. In fact, only 25% of job success is predicted by intelligence, the rest is determined by your optimism, social support network and the ability to manage energy and stress in a positive way. Based on Shawn’s book, The Happiness Advantage (2010) and research studying top performers at Harvard, the world’s largest banks and Fortune 500 companies, Shawn explains what positive psychology is, how much we can change, and practical applications and strategies for reaping the Happiness Advantage in the midst of change and challenge.

Common sense is not common action. This is because awareness does not necessarily equal transformation because we require a certain level of “activation energy” to start a change. Shawn’s research in the field of positive psychology reveals how small shifts in our mindset and behavior can ripple out to a team and even an entire organization. Audiences will learn about the latest scientific research on mirror neurons and mental priming to explain how positivity and negativity spread, case studies on how to become a lightning rod for change, and findings on how a positive ripple effect profoundly affects an organization’s ability to transition and change.

Confidence, trust and job satisfaction are at historic lows. At the start of the economic collapse, Shawn worked with the world’s largest banks to restore confidence and forward progress. By researching the managers who maintained high levels of success and leadership during this challenging time, he found that our brains develop confidence based on the belief that our behavior matters towards creating the outcomes we desire. To overcome learned helplessness, we must create “wins” for our brain and train ourselves to be rational optimists. Based on the science of positive psychology and case studies of working with companies in the midst of an economic collapse, Shawn provides practical applications for raising the belief that individual behavior matters and strategies to help leaders to keep teams motivated and engaged.

At schools and companies alike, we often are taught: “If I work harder, then I will be successful, and then I will be happy.” This formula is scientifically backwards. Shawn explains how when we flip the formula, and focus on being positive first, we raise nearly every educational and business outcome. By demonstrating how happiness is a choice, we can help students not only cultivate positive habits and mindsets, but achieve higher levels of success as a result. Based on Shawn’s study of 1600 Harvard students, his seven years as a Freshmen Proctor, and his subsequent work at schools and companies in over 50 countries, Shawn uses the latest research, interactive experiments, and humorous stories, to show how simple changes to our mindset and habits can bring this research to life and create happiness and success for our schools and for ourselves.

Why are some people able to make great changes, while others stay the same? Based on the research in Before Happiness (2013) and cutting edge of positive psychology and neuroscience, Shawn takes us to the beginning of human potential. Each of us has a picture of reality, and this mental picture determines our likelihood of success and our ability to harness our brain’s IQ, emotional and social intelligence. Using his signature humor, new case studies and interactive experiments that engage the audience, Shawn clearly demonstrate how each of us can become a “positive genius,” someone who can continually use true facts to see the most helpful and positive reality and then share this reality with others. In this program, participants will learn how to harness the latest research on managing stress that Shawn did with Yale University, how to navigate multiple realities at work, cancel internal and external noise, add vantage points to planning, use success accelerants to speed goal completion and use meaning markers to spread positive genius throughout a team, family and an entire organization.