Conventional wisdom holds that if you work harder, you will be more successful, and then you can feel happy. That formula is scientifically broken and backward. After a decade of research at Harvard and work in 51 countries, Shawn Achor came to understand that the formula should be reversed: happiness, optimism, and social connection are the fuel that increases our potential, allowing us to achieve higher success rates. Moreover, Shawn found that conscious positive habits could overcome genes and environment—even in crisis and challenge—to significantly raise our levels of happiness and meaning.
In Shawn’s newest book, Big Potential, he demonstrates how inextricably linked our potential is with others in our ecosystem. Thus, we need an interconnected pursuit of happiness and success. In his talk, Shawn uses research and case studies to show practical ways in which individuals and teams can enhance the ecosystem of potential, expand power out, defend the system against the negative, and sustain the gains.
Shawn Achor is the New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work and Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being. Shawn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and earned a master’s from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. After spending 12 years at Harvard, Shawn traveled to 50 countries, studying how to create an interconnected approach to potential and happiness. He has now worked with over a third of the Fortune 100 companies and at places like NASA, the NFL, and the Pentagon.
Shawn has battle-tested his research in high-challenge environments, including working with all the public schools in Flint, Michigan, six battalions of Marines at Camp Pendleton, government leaders at Camp David, students in Soweto, South Africa, hospitals in the wake of a mass shooting in Orlando and the Boston bombing. In every place, Shawn has found that optimism can be increased through mindset and behavioral change and that by creating an interconnected approach to happiness and success, we shine brighter together.
Shawn’s research made the cover of Harvard Business Review, his TED Talk is one of the most popular of all time with over 26 million views, and his lecture airing on PBS has been seen by millions.
