Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor
Shawn Achor is an American happiness researcher, author, and speaker known for his advocacy of positive psychology. He authored The Happiness Advantage and founded GoodThink,Inc. His TEDxBloomington talk "The Happy Secret to Better Work" is one of the 20-most viewed TED talks...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
CountryUnited States of America
Shawn Achor quotes about
individual-choice giving choices
Happiness is actually an individual choice, even in the midst of negative circumstances. It's not something our employers can give to us, though they can limit and influence that choice.
strong jobs land
I've worked with farmers in Zimbabwe who've lost their lands. I've worked with people in Venezuela, under threat of kidnappings, whose external world is unstable. But they have very strong social connections with their family and friends. And as a result, they're able to maintain a greater level of happiness and optimism than I've seen from bankers, consultants, or salespeople who are on the road all the time, who follow jobs separated from their families, and, as a result, find themselves missing out on the happiness that comes from those very connections that they severed.
loss thinking world
As we got more interested in time management and productivity, we lost the individual, and with that individual loss, we lost happiness as well. So I think the world has actually been malnourished as we've focused so much on productivity and ignored happiness and meaning to our own detriment.
mean successful goal
Most people keep waiting on happiness, putting off happiness until they're successful or until they achieve some goal, which means we limit both happiness and success. That formula doesn't work.
joy strive feels
Happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential.
finding-happiness ifs hard
It's hard to find happiness after success if the goalposts of success keep changing.
forever study gravity
You can study gravity forever without learning how to fly.
meaningful way paychecks
The fastest way to disengage an employee is to tell him his work is meaningful only because of the paycheck.
real views waste
Just as our view of work affects our real experience of it, so too does our view of leisure. If our mindset conceives of free time, hobby time, or family time as non-productive, then we will, in fact, make it a waste of time.
inspire productivity
Happiness inspires productivity.
positivity ideas priorities
The idea of investing in the positivity of employees is often low down on companies' priority lists.
important outcomes study
Study after study shows that happiness precedes important outcomes and indicators of thriving.
precursor
Happiness is the precursor to success.
choices brain world
Scientifically, happiness is a choice. It is a choice about where your single processor brain will devote its finite resources as you process the world.