What We Are Reading: The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor

July 23, 2014 Jillian Koeneman blog

Here at Freshlime we are a happy bunch. And, no it is not because our lives are filled with fluffy puppies and fresh lime mojitos every day (albeit we do have days that include both). Our role in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs leverage the power of the web to connect with their customers is a pretty rockin way to spend our days, but our source of happiness is much more than that.

Each team member at Freshlime shares a common core belief – the belief that you have to choose to be happy now, to celebrate the beautiful, small gifts in life now, so that success will magnetize itself to you in the future.

We believe that play, joy, and happiness is just as important as hard work, drive, and dedication. We choose to focus on the positive and the possibilities. We choose to be go-givers of our time and talent to help the greater good. We believe in constantly learning and improving ourselves.

We believe that happiness is a precursor to success, not the other way around.

When I stumbled across Shawn Achor through a TED Talk, I was refreshingly intrigued.

Here was a guy who not only understood the power of happiness and having a positive mindset, but had the scientific data to back it up!

In the book, The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS and KPMG—to fix this broken formula. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work.

Not only is Shawn Achor an incredibly powerful and knowledgeable story teller, he is also uniquely humorous. I decided to pick-up Shawn’s book as an audiobook through Audible.com so that I could listen to the book as I traveled and in between client meetings.

I am halfway through the book and it is honestly, one of the most eye-opening, refreshing books I have ever encountered. I was already tuned-in to the power of positivity and how your mindset creates the world in which we live, and The Happiness Advantage has opened the door even further.

The Happiness Advantage will have a serious impact on your business, your bottom line and the overall culture of your business. I highly recommend it.