Shawn Achor Believes Happiness Comes Before Wealth

Shawn Achor, a leading author and speaker on the connection between happiness and success, believes your thinking is backwards.

Today, American culture makes you believe monetary wealth generates happiness.  But, according to Achor, it’s actually the other way around.

Happiness generates monetary wealth, Achor believes.  When you’re happy, you’re more creative, responsive and attune to people’s actual needs and desires.  Instead of being driven by wealth, you’re driven by the idea of making a real difference.  In effect, you make a real difference and are rewarded for it, personally AND financially.

By traveling the world and investigating the connection between happiness and success in many different cultures, Shawn Achor has become the figurehead for the true power of happiness in business.  He’s become one of the best motivational speakers among successful U.S. companies and has won over a dozen distinguished teaching awards for his lectures on positive psychology at Harvard University.

What makes Achor successful on speaking about success are his real-life experiences and real impact on aspiring professionals.  People don’t just listen to and read about his ideas.  After learning about his ideas of success and happiness, people implement them.  This is the main reason successful companies contact him to speak at corporate events and other functions.  Achor isn’t just a source of happy-go-lucky entertainment; rather, he inspires people to take step toward a better life.

What employees get in return from Achor is a better outlook and lifestyle.  What companies get in return is higher quality work from happier employees.

When companies book Shawn Achor for an event, he expounds upon various ideas written in his best-selling books, Before Happiness and The Happiness Advantage.  Some of the things company leaders and employees learn about include:

• the Zorro Circle: how to invest time in smaller, more manageable tasks to achieve your big goals
• The X Spot: how to use success accelerants (completing a marathon, writing a manuscript, losing “X” amount of pounds) to move closer toward your career goals
• Success Mapping: why focusing your career efforts on something that makes you happy is the best approach

He’s talked about these ideas in front of employees at places like Adobe and Mindshare Technologies and consistently inspires people to exceed expired expectations of themselves.