When there is negative news everywhere you look and unprecedented financial and logistical challenges facing so many companies, it can be tough to advise people to stay positive. Many leaders we work with worry, especially now during the global pandemic, that trying…
Originally published at Today.com How happy are you? It's a question we might ask ourselves from time to time, and if you're feeling pretty miserable, this advice could help. It’s the time of year when the craziness starts back up…
Shawn Achor has dedicated his life to studying the relationship between happiness and success. A New York Times best-selling author and speaker whose TED talk has been viewed nearly 14 million times, he has helped thousands of individuals and organizations around the world find…
Over the past few years, I’ve traveled to 50 countries researching happiness. During this time I have worked with nearly half of the Fortune 100 companies, did a two hour interview with Oprah in her backyard, and been invited by…
Last fall, I did a documentary with HBO, directed by Peter Berg and produced by Michael Strahan, called State of Play: Happiness. In the film, we explored how to create a positive culture in organizations where the culture or conditions make it difficult to…
Your downtime is more precious than you think. You could be much more efficient, productive and happy if you changed the way you view the hours in your day. Many of the business leaders and Harvard students I work with…
As constant travelers and parents of a 2-year-old, we sometimes fantasize about how much work we can do when one of us gets on a plane, undistracted by phones, friends, and Finding Nemo. We race to get all our ground work done:…
This article was originally published on Wrike, by Brianna Hansen, May 9, 2016. How do you define happiness? How do you think it relates to the productivity of your team? Are your employees and coworkers happy? These answers affect more…
This article by Charlotte Seager was first published on The Guardian and was featured on GoodThink, Inc.'s blog. For many of us, work’s not working out. Mundane tasks, too much to do and the nagging feeling that your job may be, well,…
In The Happiness Advantage, I describe an experience with a leader at a Fortune 100 company who told me, “We don’t need a happiness program; we pay people to be engaged.” This is a surprisingly common refrain from unenlightened leaders, an assumption based…
The most forward-looking companies are willing to take risks to achieve greatness. Most leaders give lip service to this idea, but few actually do it. We have worked with banks willing to take on toxic assets (again) and hedge funds…
There are few better ways to witness the sheer power of human potential than to watch a runner cross the finish line of a marathon. It’s incredible to see months and years of training, determination and self-discipline culminating in one…
Help people fall in love with your company. In any line of work, there’s a good chance you do your fair of selling. You’re selling your ideas, your products, even yourself. Maybe you’re not in sales—but don’t forget to sell…
Don’t let the fear of making a mistake distort your decision-making and lead to an even worse mistake. Do you know what “icing the kicker” means? In football, when a kicker is preparing to make a potential game-winning field goal,…
Make Yourself Immune to Secondhand Stress by Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan was first published on Harvard Business Review. Over the past decade, we have learned how our brains are hardwired for emotional contagion. Emotions spread via a wireless network…
Scientifically, can happiness be an advantage? Some people think if you are happy, you are blind to reality. But when we research it, happiness actually raises every single business and educational outcome for the brain. How did we miss this?…
This interview with Shawn Achor by Brigid Schulte was featured on The Washington Post To those who think of happiness as a “nice to have” luxury or something that comes after a lifetime of sacrifice of single-mindedly driving to achieve a…
Too many people limit their happiness and success by assuming that taking time off from work will send a negative message to their manager and slow their career advancement. But new research, says that the exact opposite is true. Taking a…
This Broadcasting Happiness interview with Michelle Gielan by Kathy Caprino was originally published on Forbes. When I was in my corporate life years ago, I could see very clearly how bad news and rampant negativity could crush an organization and…
We often think that if we had more choices, it would be easier to change our lives. In fact, we do have plenty of choices, but we don’t change. What we really need in our lives to make a positive…
