I have always thought I was a fairly positive person, but about 13 years ago, someone challenged me on that belief. I asked around and a couple people reinforced that despite how I saw myself, they saw me as leaning towards the negative. It shocked me and made me really think and reflect.

Since then, I’ve worked hard (sometimes harder than others) to maintain a positive mindset. This past year has been especially difficult (hello pandemic and perspective challenge). I recently finished a book, The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, which has really challenged me.

What would you do if I told you these statistics?

• Students who were told to think about the happiest day of their life before taking a standardized math test outperformed their peers (p.46)

• Project teams with managers who encouraged them outperformed teams with less positive managers by 31% (p. 58)

• Our external circumstances predict only about 10% of our total happiness (p. 78)

• In a study of MetLife salespeople, those with an optimistic explanatory style sold 37% more insurance than those with a pessimistic style (p. 124)

• Nursing home residents who were given more control over simple tasks such as taking care of a houseplant experienced increased happiness and a 50% decreased mortality rate (p. 132)

• The one characteristic which distinguishes the happiest 10% of people from everyone else is the strength of their social relationships (p. 176)

• The greatest predictor of a team’s achievement was how the members felt about each other (p. 185)

• Gallup estimates US companies lose $360 billion each year due to lost productivity of employees who have poor relationships with their supervisor (p. 189)

Achor has over 15 pages of references to studies which reinforce the incredible power of happiness, positive relationships and mindset (written in what looks like size 6 font so suffice it to say that he has a lot of data to back up his thesis).

Sometimes, I can distill down a book into a neat summary, but there is so much amazing information in this one, that I am not exactly sure how to summarize it.

The information, research, suggestions and framework Achor presents in this book is incredible. He argues that happiness drives success, not the other way around; he cites a multitude of studies which back him up. If you buy into his thesis (which I do), it has the possibility (and hopefully the probability) to change your life. Literally. I often read a book, reflect, pull a few learnings out and then put it on my bookshelf. This book, however, will be one I reread, dissect, and analyze as I pull out ideas and concepts I can integrate into my work, teachings and life.

Achor describes 7 principles to his Happiness Advantage:

1. The Happiness Advantage: we can retrain our brains to a more positive outlook which will yield gains in terms of our productivity and performance since positive brains have a biological advantage over neutral or negative brains.

2. The Fulcrum and the Lever: we can adjust our mindset (fulcrum) which then affects how we experience the world, and how we can achieve success. Adjusting our mindset gives us power (lever) to be more successful and happier.

3. The Tetris Effect: we can learn to spot patterns of possibility which allows us to seize opportunities. We do not see these opportunities when we are stuck in a cycle of negativity, stress and failure.

4. Falling Up: we can create a mental path out of crisis and stress which allows us to learn from the experience, rather than remaining stuck in it.

5. The Zorro Circle: when faced with challenges, our emotions can overtake our rational brains. By starting with small, achievable tasks, we can work out way out of these challenges.

6. The 20-Second Rule: willpower will not help us overcome challenges, however, making small changes that reduce our resistance can.

7. Social Investment: the most successful people have a strong social network and invest in it regularly. The support from these people propels them forward.

Whenever I read a book, I try to reflect on what I can take away in terms of learnings, and how I can implement these learnings to improve my life. With this book, however, there is just so much to take away that I don’t know how to distill it down to a blog post. Achor has a great Ted Talk which prompted me to search out and read his book. He’s actually quite funny which definitely helps too. But there are some key learnings.

Achor’s core argument is that happiness drives success, not vice versa, as we often believe. When we chase success, rather than happiness, we never truly achieve happiness since once we reach one goal, we immediately set our reach further out. We constantly seek the harder challenge. He cites multiple research studies which found that we are more productive and successful when we have a positive mindset. While success isn’t my main driver of happiness, the idea that a positive mindset is key to both success and happiness was a key learning for me. He describes the importance of ensuring we have something to look forward to, as well as, practicing gratitude in shaping our happiness. In December, I committed to a one month daily gratitude practice (see this post and this post). I’m happy to report that as of mid-February, I am still maintaining that practice. And without reading the part about finding things to be excited about, I actually added a section to my daily practice called, “Excited” where I find one thing to look forward to each day. I was thrilled to read that that part of my journaling is important according to science too (I may have even written BIG WIN in the column beside that paragraph).

His core principle of Social Investment also hit me hard. In normal times, I am constantly talking, texting, and gathering with friends and family. During the past (almost) year, however, that has diminished greatly. At the beginning of the pandemic, I held video calls, and texted people constantly; I worked really hard to make up for what I was missing. Almost a year later, however, I find myself not reaching out. There are actually times when I think about calling someone, but because it’s been so long since I’ve talked to many people, I can’t even think of who to call (outside of my core 3-5 people). So, I am committing to reach out to someone (outside of my core group) every single day to try to start a conversation.

From a leadership and work perspective, his research has huge potential impact. While I’ve heard the phrase, “people don’t quit a job, they quit a boss” numerous times, we now have scientific evidence of the impact a positive versus negative supervisor can have. As a manager, we don’t need to be best friends with our teams (in fact, I’d argue that’s actually a bad idea), but we need to develop positive relationships with them; we need to build trust so that our employees feel empowered and supported. When you think to your workplace, do you have a formal recognition program? If so, how can you ensure that you are using it? If you do not naturally lean towards recognizing others, then create a reminder or some calendar appointments so that you stop, reflect and recognize your peers and team. If you don’t have a formal recognition program, then send an email, call them, or better yet, walk up to them in person and tell them (when we are all back together in person). Achor talks about one supervisor who started each meeting with a positive comment about someone in that meeting.

Really, I could probably take this blog post and make it a whole article, but I want to appeal to my reader’s attention (and frankly, mine to write too). I do think that Achor’s Happiness Advantage will be a recurring theme moving forward though. In the meantime, I challenge you to reflect on what I’ve written so far, and choose one thing you can start doing, or better yet, read the book and make a whole list.