The Happiness Advantage

One of the most influential books I’ve read that has impacted both my personal and work life is The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor. I first read the book about 10 years ago when I was a year out of grad school and in my first job at PwC. I wasn’t happy with being stuck in the rat race and I had focused on a lot of the wrong things when it came to “success” at work.

The Happiness Advantage theory is fairly simple. Happiness and optimism fuels our performance and achievement in life, not the other way around. When I first started work, I was set on working as hard as I could to move up the ladder. If I only worked hard and moved up the corporate ladder, I would live a fulfilling and great life.

Shawn Anchor argues that we have this completely backwards. In fact, happiness precedes “success” at work. This simple theory based on research he conducted at Harvard simply changed my viewpoint of work and the world. From then on, I was focused on living, not neccesarily working.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t work hard. I still did, but I was able to reprioritize a lot of my life to make sure that I focused on personal growth and my own happiness rather than putting every ounce of my energy into arbitrary goals at work. It’s worked out well so far in the last 10 years for me.

As we head into 2024, it’s a a great for me to go back to that theory and remember what is important in life and what fuels success.