The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor

3 Key Takeaways

• Happiness leads to success (and NOT the other way around!)
• Focus on small, manageable goals first
• Social support is our single greatest asset

Book Summary

Most people think that happiness comes after success, and that success comes after hard work. But we’ve had the equation all wrong: Happiness isn’t the result of success—it’s the cause of it.

The Happiness Advantage is a must-read for anyone trying to excel in a world of increasing workloads, stress, and negativity. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives worldwide, Shawn Achor explains how we can become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge. He isolates seven practical principles that have been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in management, psychology and neuroscience, and in one of the largest studies of happiness and potential ever conducted. These principles show us how we can capitalise on the Happiness Advantage to not only maximise our potential at work, but also to maintain a more positive mindset about all aspects of our lives.

Principle 1. The Happiness Advantage

Recent research in positive psychology has overturned the old belief that success leads to happiness. Instead, it’s now clear that happiness can actually drive success.

According to Martin Seligman, a prominent figure in positive psychology, happiness consists of three key elements:

1. Pleasure
2. Engagement
3. Meaning

While seeking pleasure alone can enhance your mood, combining it with engagement and personal meaning will maximise the benefits of happiness. This approach aligns with Aristotle's concept of “eudaimonia,” or “human flourishing.”

The Impact of Happiness

The advantages of happiness go beyond mere good feelings—happiness has tangible, lasting effects on both mental and physical health.

Mental and Emotional Advantages of Happiness

Positive emotions trigger the release of dopamine and serotonin, which not only uplift your mood but also stimulate brain functions. This effect can enhance your:

• Cognitive speed and creativity
• Analytical skills
• Problem-solving abilities
• Capacity to organise and retain new information
• Openness to novel ideas

Research supports these cognitive benefits of happiness:

• Doctors who received candy to boost their mood diagnosed patients twice as quickly as those who didn’t get candy.
• Children assembled blocks more efficiently after reflecting on something joyful before starting.
• Students who recalled their happiest day performed better on math tests compared to their peers.

Furthermore, positive emotions can alleviate stress and anxiety, a phenomenon known as the “undoing effect.” While some stress is inevitable, you can often reduce its impact by focusing on happy memories or engaging in enjoyable activities.

Physical Benefits of Happiness

Happiness not only improves your emotional well-being but also your physical health. In one study, participants who reported higher levels of happiness recovered from a cold more swiftly and exhibited fewer symptoms compared to less happy individuals. Additionally, unhappy employees tend to take more sick days, suggesting that fostering a happy work environment can reduce absenteeism and lower healthcare costs.

Professional Advantages of Happiness

Given its cognitive and physical benefits, it’s unsurprising that happiness boosts workplace productivity. One study tracked 275 employees over 18 months and found that those who were happier at the start received better pay and performance reviews by the end, even after accounting for other factors. Another study showed that happier students earned higher incomes 19 years later, regardless of their initial wealth.

Increasing Your Happiness

Although your happiness levels may fluctuate, you can take steps to raise your baseline level of happiness. Consider integrating the following practices into your routine:

• Meditation: Just five minutes of daily meditation can enhance calmness and awareness. Over time, it may rewire your brain for sustained happiness, improve immune function, and reduce stress.
• Anticipating Joy: Anticipating future events can stimulate your brain’s pleasure centers as much as experiencing them. Reflect on future events you’re excited about and plan activities that generate enthusiasm.
• Acts of Kindness: Performing acts of kindness can significantly boost your happiness. Aim to carry out five planned acts of kindness each week.
• Positive Environment: Surround yourself with elements that lift your mood, such as photos of loved ones, and spend time outdoors when possible. Reducing exposure to negative stimuli, like violent media, can also improve your happiness.
• Exercise: Regular exercise releases endorphins, boosts motivation, reduces stress, and enhances focus. Incorporate physical activity into your daily routine.
• Experience Investment: Spending money on experiences or on others, rather than on yourself, fosters more lasting happiness.
• Utilising Talents: Engaging in activities that leverage your strengths or passions can elevate your mood and reduce feelings of depression.

Fostering Happiness in the Workplace

Some organisations have recognised the value of promoting positive emotions at work. For instance, Google offers video games in break rooms and allows employees to bring their pets. Toyota improved productivity by focusing on employee strengths through a new training program.

Managers and leaders are ideally positioned to foster happiness because they can shape company culture and policies and have regular interactions with employees. To boost workplace happiness, consider:

• Providing benefits like health insurance, gym memberships, and on-site childcare. Coors, for example, saw a $6.15 return for every $1 invested in its corporate fitness programme.
• Regularly recognising and encouraging employees’ achievements. Simple gestures, like sending a “well done” email, can be highly effective. Research shows that teams with supportive managers perform significantly better. Even in demanding environments, positive reinforcement can improve outcomes.

The ideal balance of positive to negative feedback in workplace interactions, known as the Losada Line, is approximately 2.9013 positive comments for every negative one. Achieving a 6-to-1 ratio of positive to negative feedback can optimise productivity. For instance, a mining company saw a 40% increase in production after improving its feedback ratio.

Whether aiming to boost your own performance or enhance your team’s success, prioritising happiness can lead to substantial rewards.

Principle 2. The Fulcrum and the Lever

While positivity has clear benefits, sometimes the biggest challenge is overcoming your own negative thoughts. Think of your mind like a seesaw: when negativity weighs you down, it’s hard to lift yourself up. But by shifting focus to positive thoughts, you can tip the balance in your favor, unlocking the potential for greater happiness and success.

Perception Shapes Reality

Your brain filters experiences through either a positive or negative lens, and that lens dictates how you perceive the world. In turn, your mindset shapes your reality, mentally and physically. For instance, research has shown that perception can even influence physical outcomes. In one study, a group of 75-year-old men were asked to live as if they were 55. By the end of a week, they showed measurable improvements in physical strength, memory, and even vision—simply by perceiving themselves as younger.

This power of perception is also evident in the Placebo Effect. In one experiment, students allergic to poison ivy developed rashes even when exposed to a harmless plant, believing it to be ivy. Conversely, when real poison ivy was applied but they believed it was harmless, only two students showed a reaction.

Boost Performance by Shifting Your Mindset

If your mindset influences your outcomes, how can you use it to improve performance? Start by reframing mundane or stressful tasks. For example, if you're dreading a meeting, focus on what you can learn or how you can grow from the experience. Similarly, viewing downtime activities as opportunities to recharge can help you make the most of them.

Here are three ways to adjust your mindset for better results:

1. Believe in Your Abilities: Confidence in your capabilities is often more predictive of success than actual skill. Focus on your strengths as you approach challenges—believing you can achieve something is the first step to making it happen.
2. Believe in Your Ability to Improve: Psychologist Carol Dweck’s research shows that a “growth mindset” (the belief that effort leads to improvement) is key to success. Students who embraced this mindset saw steady academic improvement, while those with a “fixed mindset” stagnated.
3. Reframe Work as Meaningful: Whether you see your work as a job, a career, or a calling shapes your experience. Focus on how your work contributes to your larger goals and the value it brings to others. Shifting this perspective can make even tedious tasks feel more purposeful.

Your Mindset Influences Others

Your positive mindset doesn’t just affect you—it can impact those around you. The Pygmalion Effect shows that believing in someone’s potential can help them realize it. In one study, teachers were told that certain students had exceptional potential (though they were actually average). By the end of the year, those students had significantly outperformed their peers, simply because the teachers had unknowingly communicated higher expectations.

In the workplace, a manager’s belief in their team can similarly drive performance. If you believe your employees are capable of growth and find meaning in their work, their outcomes will improve. To harness this effect, leaders should ask themselves: Do I believe in my team’s potential? How am I conveying that confidence?

By adopting a positive mindset and believing in the abilities of both yourself and others, you can drive meaningful change and achieve greater success.

Principle 3. The Tetris Effect

We've covered the benefits of happiness and the power of a positive mindset. Now, let’s dive into how you can train your brain to focus on the positive rather than the negative. The more you repeat certain thought patterns, the more your brain sticks to that way of thinking. This is similar to the Tetris Effect, where gamers who spent hours playing started seeing real-life objects as if they were pieces to fit into a game.

Professions like auditing or law, which focus on finding mistakes, can also lead people to develop negative thought patterns in their personal lives. For instance, a tax auditor kept a spreadsheet of his wife’s mistakes. The more you train your brain to look for negatives, the more you’ll see them. But by training it to seek out positives, you can shift your mindset and reset your mental focus.

Your Focus Shapes Your Experience

In any moment, you’re exposed to countless stimuli, but your brain filters out most of them to help you focus on what’s important. However, this filter can cause you to miss obvious things. In one experiment, nearly half of the participants didn’t notice a person in a gorilla suit walking through a basketball game because they were focused on counting passes. This phenomenon, called inattentional blindness, shows how much your focus dictates your reality.

When you develop negative thought patterns, you experience something similar—your brain filters out the positive and fixates on the negative.

Reprogram Your Brain for Positivity

The Negative Tetris Effect primes you to focus on problems and miss opportunities, but you can train your brain to develop a Positive Tetris Effect. By focusing on the positive, you’ll notice more opportunities, boosting your success and reinforcing your positive mindset.

A Positive Tetris Effect can:

1. Increase happiness, which enhances performance.
2. Boost gratitude, improving emotional intelligence and lowering anxiety.
3. Raise optimism, helping you set bigger goals, work harder, and overcome challenges.

In one study, self-identified lucky and unlucky people were asked to count photos in a newspaper. The lucky ones quickly spotted large messages announcing the correct number of photos and a reward of $250. The unlucky ones missed these cues and took longer to complete the task. This shows how a positive outlook can help you spot opportunities others might miss.

How to Create a Positive Tetris Effect

Just like Tetris rewires your brain, you can use simple mental exercises to train yourself to focus on the positive:

1. Spend five minutes daily writing down three things you're grateful for.
2. Write about a positive experience three times a week for 20 minutes.

To make this habit stick:

• Do your writing at the same time every day.
• Keep your writing materials handy.
• Involve others—make it a group activity, like sharing three positive moments around the dinner table or at meetings.

Studies show these strategies can lead to:

• Greater gratitude and happiness
• Better sleep and fewer illnesses
• Stronger social connections and a more optimistic outlook

Building a positive mindset also helps you improve other areas, like recognizing strengths in others, giving positive feedback, and finding gratitude in your work.

The goal isn’t blind optimism but a balanced view that prioritizes positivity. By focusing on the good, you create a mindset that leads to more positive outcomes.

Principle 4. Falling Up

Improving your mindset is tough, especially in adversity. When faced with challenges, you have three options:

1. Dwell on the problem and make no progress.
2. Make poor decisions, worsening your situation.
3. Use the setback as an opportunity for growth. This is called "falling up."

Adversity is inevitable, but staying positive helps you grow. Even in the hardest times, people who stay optimistic can experience Post-Traumatic Growth, leading to greater compassion, strength, and satisfaction. Failure can be a valuable tool for growth. When you encounter setbacks, don’t just return to the norm—learn from them and rise higher. Successful individuals use failure to drive creativity, speed up learning, and improve competitiveness. Many organizations even value early failures as a way to learn before heavily investing in new ideas.

Learned Helplessness Blocks Growth

Despite knowing the benefits of “falling up,” many people don’t choose this path. Repeated failure can lead to learned helplessness, where people give up instead of trying to improve. This was demonstrated in experiments where people gave up solving problems after repeated failure, even when solutions became simple. This mindset often spreads to other areas of life, making it harder to overcome obstacles and leading to pessimism and depression.

How to Fall Up

To follow the Third Path, view adversity as a chance for growth rather than a roadblock. People who “fall up” tend to accept challenges, confront problems, remain optimistic, and reframe situations positively. For instance, being shot in the arm during a bank robbery can be seen as unlucky for getting shot, or lucky for surviving. This reframing, called a "counterfact," can help shift your perspective.

Also, examine your explanatory style—how you interpret adversity. Optimists see problems as temporary and specific, while pessimists view them as permanent and widespread. Studies show that optimistic people, such as salespeople, tend to outperform their pessimistic counterparts, leading companies to prioritize optimism when hiring.

Falling Up with ABCD

To practice "falling up," use the ABCD method when faced with adversity:

1. A for Adversity: Accept the situation.
2. B for Belief: Analyze how you’re interpreting the event. Is your belief optimistic or pessimistic?
3. C for Consequences: Understand that your belief influences the outcome more than the adversity itself.
4. D for Disputation: Challenge negative beliefs, as if disputing a friend’s pessimistic thoughts.

In tough situations, people often overestimate how long they’ll feel unhappy. Things may seem bad, but rarely as bad as we imagine.

Principle 5. The Zorro Circle

Success often comes from believing that our actions make a difference and that we have control over our future. However, when stress and workloads pile up, that sense of control is usually the first thing to slip away—especially when we try to take on too much at once.

There are two lenses through which you can interpret your control:

1. People who have an internal locus of control believe that they can have a direct impact on their futures. When these people face a challenge or setback, they reflect on how they could have performed better, and then they improve for future situations.
2. People who have an external locus of control blame events and circumstances on external forces over which they have no control. This perspective leads to learned helplessness because if you don’t feel that you have any control, then it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do—so, why bother? People with this view not only shirk the blame for failures, but they also deny credit for successes, which robs them of the feelings of confidence and commitment that come with achievement.

Feeling a sense of control is one of the biggest factors in both happiness and success, and it contributes to:

• Motivation
• Job satisfaction
• Lower stress
• Better relationships and communication
• Physical health

How Emotions Hijack Your Control

When you're overwhelmed, your brain's emotional system (fight-or-flight response) takes over, sidelining your rational brain that makes thoughtful decisions. This "emotional hijacking" is useful in life-threatening situations, but not in everyday stress, where it can impair your problem-solving abilities. Even small stresses can build up, triggering emotional hijacking and making it harder to regain control.

Take Back Control with Small Steps

Instead of chasing big, overwhelming goals, aim for incremental progress. Small, manageable tasks help you build confidence and calm your emotional brain. For example, tackling a full inbox one day at a time can reduce anxiety and restore control.

Here’s how to start:

1. Acknowledge your emotions by talking or journaling. Naming your feelings helps reduce their intensity.
2. List what you can and can't control. Focus only on what you can impact.
3. Set a small, immediate goal to gain a sense of accomplishment.
4. Tackle another small goal, building momentum as you progress.

Principle 6. The 20-Second Rule

Knowing what to do is one thing, but actually doing it is another. You probably know you should eat more vegetables or get eight hours of sleep, but how often do you follow through? In this chapter, we’ll look at why we sometimes fail to do what’s best, how to break bad habits, and how to build good ones.

Willpower Is Finite

One reason you struggle to follow through is limited willpower. You don’t have separate reserves for different tasks—whether resisting a donut at work or staying focused in a long meeting, your willpower gets drained throughout the day. By the time you're faced with choosing between a healthy dinner or fast food, you may not have the willpower left to make the best choice.

A study showed this by asking participants to resist eating cookies, and then solve an impossible puzzle. Those who resisted the cookies gave up quicker than others because their willpower was already depleted. This shows how exhausting even small acts of self-control can be, leaving little energy for more challenging tasks later.

When willpower is depleted, people tend to fall back on their habits—their most familiar behaviors.

Form Habits to Save Willpower

Habits are actions you do so often that they become automatic, like brushing your teeth. You don’t have to think about it, and it doesn’t drain your willpower. To make healthier choices easier, turn them into habits.

To successfully form habits, try these tips:

1. Lower activation energy. Make the desired action easier. For example, if you want to play guitar daily, leave it out where you can easily grab it.
2. Use the 20-second rule. If an action takes more than 20 seconds to start, reduce the time needed. Even small barriers can derail your progress.
3. Increase activation energy for bad habits. Make it harder to do unwanted behaviors. For instance, remove the batteries from your TV remote to discourage mindless watching.
4. Set rules for your habits. Clear guidelines, like when and where you’ll exercise, save willpower by reducing decisions and help keep you on track.

By turning desired behaviours into habits, you conserve willpower and make healthy choices feel effortless.

Principle 7. Social Investment

When facing a stressful project, it's common to isolate yourself, skipping breaks and social interactions to focus on work. However, this often backfires, as social connections are vital for both productivity and well-being. Avoiding social interaction can actually make it harder to complete your project and leave you drained for the next task.

Successful people maintain social ties even during challenging times. Social connections boost energy, productivity, happiness, and resilience. Research shows that stronger relationships lead to better health and greater career success. For example, a Harvard study found that strong relationships were a key factor in long-term health and well-being.

Social interactions also offer immediate benefits, like increasing oxytocin, which reduces stress and improves focus. Moreover, they strengthen immune and cardiovascular systems, and can even extend lifespan.

How Social Support Enhances Work Performance

At work, social connections can counter stress, improve creativity, and boost performance. Teams with close bonds are more innovative and focused, and they tend to see stress as less overwhelming.

Fostering Social Bonds in the Workplace

Companies can promote social interaction by organizing spaces to encourage connection, holding in-person meetings, and introducing employees across departments. Managers can build stronger relationships by regularly interacting with employees and encouraging non-work-related conversations.

Building and maintaining social bonds helps people perform better at work while enhancing their overall well-being.