Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor is a Harvard researcher, bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage, and one of the world’s leading experts on positive psychology. He speaks on happiness, productivity, and human potential, sharing research on how positive brains fuel success. Shawn’s TED Talk has been viewed over 25 million times, and his work has been featured in Harvard Business Review and The New York Times.

Leading Expert on Happiness and Success

Winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, Shawn delivered lectures in Harvard’s most popular class on positive psychology. His research on happiness made the cover of Harvard Business Review, and his PBS lecture has reached millions. He teaches for the Advanced Management Program at Wharton Business School and collaborates with Yale and Columbia University on research.

Founder of GoodThink Inc. & Global Speaker

In 2007, Shawn founded GoodThink Inc. to share his research worldwide. He has lectured in over 50 countries, speaking to CEOs in China, doctors in Dubai, school children in South Africa, farmers in Zimbabwe, and the Royal Family in Abu Dhabi. He has worked with the US Department of Health, St. Jude Children’s Hospital, and led the Everyday Matters campaign with the National MS Society to promote happiness for those with chronic illness.

Academic Excellence & Ongoing Research

Shawn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and earned a Masters from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. He served as a Harvard Officer for seven years, counseling students through their first year. He continues conducting original psychology research on happiness and organizational achievement with Yale University and the Institute for Applied Positive Research.

The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance

Most companies and schools follow this formula: if you work harder, you will be more successful, and then you will be happy. This formula is scientifically backward. A decade of research shows that training your brain to be positive at work first actually fuels greater success second. In fact, 75% of our job success is predicted not by intelligence, but by your optimism, social support network and the ability to manage energy and stress in a positive way. By researching top performers at Harvard, the world’s largest banks, and Fortune 500 companies, Shawn discovered patterns, which create a happiness advantage for positive outliers—the highest performers at the company. Based on his book, The Happiness Advantage (2010 Random House), Shawn explains what positive psychology is, how much we can change, and practical applications for reaping the Happiness Advantage in the midst of change and challenge.

Positive Leadership: Restoring a Culture of Confidence

Confidence, trust and job satisfaction are at historic lows.  When the economic collapse began, the world’s largest banks called in Shawn Achor to research how to restore confidence and forward progress.  While many managers succumb to helplessness, with their teams and clients quickly following suit, Shawn researched those who maintained high levels of success and leadership during the challenge. He found that our brains create confidence based on the belief that our behavior matters to the outcome we desire.  To develop this trust, we must create “wins” for our brain necessary to overcome learned helplessness and must train our brains for rational optimism. 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 helping leaders to keep teams motivated and engaged.

The Ripple Effect: How to Make Positive Change Easier

Common sense is not common action.  This is because information does not necessarily cause transformation because we require a certain level of “activation energy” to start a change. Shawn Achor’s research in the field of positive psychology has revealed how changes in our own brain due to mindset and behavior can have a ripple effect to a team and an entire organization.  This positive ripple effect can create a more productive, positive work culture making positive change easier. 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.

Rethinking the Formula for Success:  The Power of Positive Education

At schools and companies alike, we are sometimes taught to think: “if I work harder, then I will be successful, and then I will be happy.” This formula–which undergirds much of our educational and professional world–is scientifically backwards. Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage,explains how positive brains reap a unique advantage raising nearly every educational and business outcome–but only if we get the formula right. 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. Shawn’s study on 1600 Harvard students and his seven years as a Freshmen Proctor gave him a unique window into the thinking of success-driven and sometimes overwhelmed students. His subsequent work at schools and companies in 51 different countries now reveals how very simple changes to our mindset and habits can result in positive changes that cascade to others around us. Using his new research which made the cover of Harvard Business Review, interactive experiments, and humorous stories, Shawn shows how we can bring this research to life for our schools and for ourselves.