The Happiness Advantage is an exploration of how happiness affects business. Told in four case studies, it explains the links between gratitude, intrinsic motivation and success.
The “The Happiness Advantage” is a book written by Shawn Achor. This book discusses the science of happiness and how it can help you to succeed in your career and personal life.
Are you seeking for a synopsis of Shawn Achor’s book The Happiness Advantage? You’ve arrived to the correct location.
I completed reading this book last week and took notes on some of Shawn Achor’s important points.
If you don’t have time, you don’t have to read the whole book. This summary will give you a quick overview of what you can expect to learn from this book.
Let’s get started without further ado.
I’ll go through the following points in my synopsis of The Happiness Advantage:
What is the Happiness Advantage, and how does it work?
The Happiness Advantage is a research project that looks at the causes of happiness and how it influences human productivity.
Based on substantial research in positive psychology, the book offers real advice on how to boost your personal happiness and consequently your chances of success.
Who wrote The Happiness Advantage, and what is the author’s name?
Shawn Achor is an American author who spent 12 years at Harvard University researching what makes people happy.
His work with world-class executives has earned him a reputation as one of the world’s foremost authorities on happiness and success.
He’s also the author of many New York Times best-selling novels, including Before Happiness, Ripple’s Effect, and The Orange Frog.
Who may benefit from the Happiness Advantage?
Not everyone will benefit from the Happiness Advantage. If you are one of the following folks, you may like the book:
- Anyone who thinks that happiness comes as a result of hard labor is mistaken.
- Anyone who is stressed out and can’t seem to get a handle on it
- Those that may benefit from a bit extra joy in their lives
Summary of the Book The Happiness Advantage
Introduction
In today’s fast-paced world, seizing whatever opportunity you can to get an advantage over your competition is essential. The expectation is that your success would lead to a sense of fulfillment as a consequence of your achievements and money.
As you’ll see shortly, it doesn’t really function like this. Happiness isn’t the end consequence of all your hard work; it’s one of the instruments you may use to improve your performance and, as a result, your quality of life.
This book will teach you the seven key concepts that will help you accomplish your objectives and live a happier life.
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Lesson 1: Traditional psychology focuses on the bad aspects of life while overlooking the good aspects.
Averages are examined in conventional psychology: are persons less satisfied than the average? Are they less content? As a result, conventional psychology seeks to return individuals to a state of pleasure or contentment that is deemed ordinary.
Psychology has always concentrated on the negative, questioning what causes individuals to be below average rather than what causes them to be above average.
The difficulty with this strategy is that we can’t get beyond that threshold of perfection because of our concern with averages. By concentrating on your areas of weakness, you will lose out on the potential to outperform the average.
Consider the fact that four out of every five Harvard students are depressed and feel their schoolwork to be difficult.
Traditional psychology would judge our four Harvard students to be happy on average based on this data. After all, the great majority of people are content! Despite this, they miss the one exception: the fifth student, who is not sad.
It’s crucial to remember that a kid who isn’t depressed has the best chance of succeeding in school and subsequently in life.
Good psychology arose from the recognition that we should concentrate on the positive aspects of our lives.
Positive psychology researchers look into what makes individuals flourish, with the ultimate objective of using what they learn to improve the average.
How did that one Harvard student succeed when everyone else failed?
After spending 12 years among Harvard students and traversing the globe in search of what distinguishes successful people, the author has come to the conclusion that successful people view reality differently than others.
His observations of pupils in Soweto, South Africa, indicated that the great majority of them were enthusiastic about their studies, seeing education as both a struggle and a pleasure. Harvard students, on the other hand, are often concerned about school.
Lesson 2: Happiness drives success, not the other way around.
What does it mean to be happy? “The feeling of happy emotions” is how happiness is typically described. It is, however, very subjective, depending on the person who is experiencing it.
We are smarter, feel more motivated, and achieve greater achievement when we are cheerful and have a good mindset, according to positive psychology.
Psychologists have known for a long time that negative emotions limit our capacity to think and act. Indeed, if you’ve ever been too sad to leave the home, you’ve undoubtedly had firsthand experience with this.
Positive emotions may therefore have the opposite impact, broadening our horizons and allowing us to consider new ideas.
From the standpoint of neuroscience, this is self-evident. Positive emotions cause the production of dopamine and serotonin in the brain, chemicals that make us feel good while also assisting in the learning process by organizing new knowledge, keeping it, and recalling it later.
Simply said, you will do better on a math exam if you are in a good mood.
Happiness, on the other hand, has far more significant consequences. Happiness correlates to success in practically every element of life, from relationships to employment, health, and creativity, according to a review of over 200 scientific research involving over 275,000 individuals.
Google, for example, invites workers to bring their pets to work, while Yahoo, for example, provides massage services to staff. These activities are not only enjoyable and soothing, but they also help you perform better.
Now that you know what happiness is, we’ll look at the seven principles below that you may use to improve your happiness, and hence your performance and success.
Lesson 3: The “Happiness Advantage” will help you perform better.
You’ve undoubtedly observed that when you’re in a good mood, job is easier. It’s true that when we’re pleased, our brains function at their best.
In this research, the degree of happy emotions of 272 workers at the same organization were examined and compared to their performance during an 18-month period. Researchers observed that those who were happy when they first began out got better reviews and earned more money later on.
It’s noteworthy to note that these accomplished individuals don’t see pleasure as a reward for their hard work and achievements. They succeed exactly because they have a positive mentality that helps them to reach their full potential.
This is what we call the Happiness Edge: the competitive advantage that comes from feeling good about yourself, which then feeds your performance.
Some individuals assume that they are just not cheerful people who are unable to profit from pleasant emotions. Nonetheless, everyone may benefit from the Happiness Advantage. The only criteria are consistency and a good mindset.
It’s a fantastic place to start by expressing thanks for the little grains of positive that dot your existence. It might be a brief yet enjoyable talk with friends or the viewing of a humorous film.
The next stage is to do positivity exercises on a regular basis in order to maintain a positive mindset.
One such exercise is meditation. The prefrontal cortex – the region of the brain responsible for happiness – expands in the brains of monks who meditate for years, according to research.
You don’t have to be a monk to spend five minutes focusing on your breathing. With a little patience, you may attain an increase in happiness and a reduction in stress.
You may just just think about something you’re looking forward to! The majority of individuals think that anticipating an action is more pleasurable than actually doing it. Just thinking about your next trip may increase endorphin levels by 27%.
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Lesson 4: Develop a performance-enhancing mentality.
If you have siblings or children, you’ve probably seen how, when an older sibling “accidentally” smacks a younger sibling, the older sibling will frequently attempt to prevent the younger sibling from crying in front of their parents. Usually, this entails making a joke or saying something kind.
What makes this work in the first place? What gives our words the power to change people’s perceptions of pain and suffering?
We can modify how we view the world – and how we respond to it – even if we can’t change our reality.
Your brain’s limited resources may be leveraged to your advantage. If you want to feel things like hope, optimism, and purpose, your brain must choose whether to spend its energies on pain, negativity, and stress.
Even if you slap your younger sister in the head after telling her a humorous joke, she will not weep. She can’t feel the agony and laugh at the same time because she can’t feel the pain and laugh at the same time. She needs to make a decision between the two.
Surprisingly, our perceptions of our everyday lives shape our reality more than our actions.
In a 1979 experiment, for example, 75-year-old men were put in an atmosphere that simulated 1959, replete with period clothing, newspapers, and other props. The group was told to behave as though they were in 1959. As a consequence, they were transported back in time and were able to see the world through the eyes of a 55-year-old.
The majority of individuals improved significantly on assessments of physical strength, posture, perception, cognition, and short-term memory! They were able to boost their performance because of their thinking.
A positive mindset, on the other hand, leads to actual enjoyment and enhanced performance. It is true that if you believe in yourself, you are more likely to succeed.
Lesson 5: Teach your brain to concentrate on the good rather than the bad aspects of life.
Now that you understand the importance of having a positive mentality, you’re probably wondering how you can start being happy right now.
The first step is to understand how your mind perceives the world.
For example, Harvard researchers paid 27 participants to play Tetris for many hours each day for three days in a row.
After a few days, the participants stated that they started to reorder cereal boxes in the supermarket into straight lines and even envisioned turning buildings around on the street to put them closer together!
This addiction is referred regarded as the Tetris effect. There are two ways to get this effect:
The first is a negative Tetris impact. This might happen when your brain becomes trapped in routines that are detrimental to your achievement. Tax auditors, for example, who concentrate on finding errors, are more likely to notice their colleagues’ flaws than their merits.
The Tetris effect is the polar opposite, since your brain has been conditioned to seek out situations that will boost your chances of success.
The more positive experiences you have, the more hopeful your brain gets. Because optimistic individuals set more difficult objectives and put in more effort to achieve them than pessimistic ones, you should actively seek out happy experiences.
You may want to attempt jotting down three positive things that occurred the day before to help you concentrate on the positive. It doesn’t have to be significant; any nice event qualifies here as long as it was specific. A joke that made you laugh, an accomplishment, a deeper relationship, and so on are all examples of this.
The work needs consistency in order to be successful. If you establish this habit, you will be on the lookout for pleasant events all of the time, which will improve your life and make your days more joyful.
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Lesson 6: Turn negative momentum into good momentum.
You may look at a problem from several angles, and those angles are critical to your success and pleasure.
In the face of hardship or catastrophe, the mind takes one of three paths:
- Negative occurrences have no effect, therefore you’re back to square one.
- There might be negative effects as a result. You end up worse off as a result of the situation; this is why we are afraid of confrontation and challenge.
- The Third Path: overcoming hardship and failure to become stronger and more competent.
Those who discover the Third Path are those who overcome failure rather than those who stay stuck in it. The reason for this is that individuals are characterized not by what happens to them, but by what they are able to generate as a result of those circumstances.
After being sacked from a newspaper due to his “lack of originality,” Walt Disney, for example, was not seeking for a new employment. Instead, he went all-in and became a global sensation.
Furthermore, following a crisis, our minds generate counterfactuals, or alternative situations, that assist us in evaluating what has just occurred.
Consider the scenario of being in a bank during a robbery and receiving a gunshot wound to the arm. Is it possible that you were the only one who was shot? Was it a fortunate coincidence that you were shot in the arm rather than the head?
Even though the brain develops counterfacts without your participation, you have the choice of selecting which ones to believe. As a consequence, pick those that make you happy and lead to favorable results in the future.
It’s not about staying on your feet; it’s about pushing yourself to be happier and more successful. This is the Third Path: falling up rather than down. Michael Jordan did not crumble when he was cut from his high school basketball team. Instead, he became a legend by putting in more effort and becoming a legend himself.
Lesson 7: Gaining control and concentrating on tiny improvements is the most effective way to develop.
One of the most important determinants of success, as well as well-being and performance, is the conviction that we have control over our destiny. People who think they have control over their results achieve more academic and professional success and are more satisfied at work.
When a successful athlete loses, she does not blame referees or the weather, and she does not credit her victories to chance.
When our stress levels grow to the point that we feel overwhelmed, it’s easy to lose this sense of control. When you concentrate too much on the things you can’t control, you’ll be less joyful, demotivated, and lose your motivation and confidence.
However, there is a method to reclaim control!
You have the ability to verbalize your unpleasant feelings. Tell someone you trust or write down how you’re feeling. Verbalizing unpleasant emotions reduces their potency, according to research, and is the first step in regaining control.
To go ahead, focus on little objectives at this time. As your knowledge, talents, and confidence grow, you will be able to achieve higher objectives.
Make a distinction between the components of the circumstance over which you have control and those over which you have no influence. Making a list with two columns, one for things you can control and one for things you can’t, may be useful.
Don’t be concerned about things you can’t change. This will enable you to focus your attention and efforts on the aspects of your life that you can control, increasing your chances of success. Don’t take on too much at once! A little triumph may lead to a significant victory.
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Lesson 8: Self-discipline isn’t enough to bring about change – It is more effective to reduce obstacles and create positive habits.
Isn’t it self-evident that exercising is beneficial for you and smoking is bad? Even when individuals are aware of this, they fail to develop healthy habits or break harmful ones when they attempt.
They have the dilemma of relying on their own willpower, which is a finite resource. Because willpower depletes with time, utilizing it excessively has been demonstrated to be unsuccessful at maintaining lifestyle changes.
In this experiment, participants were given two plates, one with cookies and the other with radishes. They had no choice but to eat radishes instead of cookies.
They had to solve riddles after that. Those who had previously depleted their willpower from not eating cookies gave up the problem sooner than those in the control group who were not presented with the cookie-radish option.
Consider how many individuals (including themselves) gain weight after dieting for a month. After depleting their willpower, they promptly revert to their previous behaviors.
What are some strategies for forming – and maintaining – excellent habits?
The idea is to lower activation energy, which refers to the mental and physical effort necessary to overcome inactivity. In practice, how does activation energy show itself?
As suggested in our last insight, make a list of five things that have been nice to you in the past 24 hours. Keep a notepad and a pen open on your bedside to lower your activation energy.
If you want to improve your guitar skills, invest in a guitar stand so you don’t have to continually bringing it out of the closet and out of the case to play.
Hide your pack of smokes from yourself if you want to quit smoking.
These modifications take only 20 seconds to implement, yet they may have a significant impact on your lifestyle.
Lesson 9: You can rely on the help of your social network.
Your employer hands you a new project, and you dive right in, entirely closing yourself off from the rest of the world. There were no friends, no socializing, and nothing else. There are only two conceivable endings in this scenario: either you sink and fail or you exhaust yourself trying.
Successful people, on the other hand, recognize the importance of social interactions. Positive social connections fill us with pleasure, and as our relationships improve over time, our baseline level of happiness rises.
Your outcomes will be better if your team invests in social harmony at work, for example. Even the slightest encounters at the water cooler may cause happiness.
Harvard study has even validated the link between social support and happiness, revealing that the two are twice as strongly linked as the baseline. Furthermore, studies discovered that persons with few social ties are two to three times more likely to suffer from depression than those with many.
Leaders should attempt to establish an atmosphere that stimulates social interactions since they are clearly beneficial.
It’s sad that some managers believe they don’t have time to socialize with their staff, that doing so would result in them losing their power, or that business and friendship should be kept separate.
Employees with strong links to their supervisors, on the other hand, earn larger profits than those with weaker relationships, according to MIT research.
To put it another way, if you’re in charge, take the time to introduce new team members to everyone – even colleagues from various departments – or organize team lunches.
The most essential thing to remember is to express thanks. Taking the time to acknowledge someone’s accomplishments is the most effective method to strengthen ties. Recognize them individually, and if feasible, in public, such as during a monthly meeting.
We’ll move on to the future now that you’ve learned the seven principles of the Happiness Advantage.
Lesson 10: You have the ability to share your joy with others.
You’ve undoubtedly seen someone yawn and been compelled to do the same. When you are joyful, you experience a similar effect.
Despite the fact that the discoveries begin on a personal level, they do not stop there. When we begin to reap the advantages of the Happiness Advantage, it spreads across our communities and society. To put it another way, they don’t only help us!
When you employ these concepts to change your life, you’re inadvertently changing the habits of many others. Assume you have an impact on your kid, who then has an impact on his best friend, who then has an impact on her sister, and so on. The ripple effect is the name for this phenomenon.
This unintentional habit adoption is caused by mirror neurons. When you think others are going through something, you emulate their conduct or go through it yourself. You gasp and hold yours as if in agony whenever you watch someone on television knock their knee.
Similarly, if you’re apprehensive or otherwise down, it’s probable that your coworkers will be as well. The converse is also true: if you’re pleased, everyone else will be as well.
It’s no surprise that sitcoms have a laugh track. This is something that businesses have understood for a long time!
There are occasions when ripple effects are so big that they induce the butterfly effect, which is the belief that a butterfly flapping its wings on the opposite side of the earth might trigger a storm.
Small adjustments may lead to great changes, which is true. Like the butterfly, each of us has the ability to favorably influence the dynamics of a group, and even the whole globe, by applying the Happiness Advantage.
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Summary at the end
Happiness is not a result of success. Your happiness, contrary to conventional thinking, influences your success. You don’t need to make drastic changes to be happy.
All you have to do is shift your viewpoint and look for the good in your surroundings.
Additional Reading
If you like The Happiness Advantage, you may be interested in the following book summaries:
The Happiness Advantage is a book that you should get.
If you’d like to purchase The Happiness Advantage, click on the following links:
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