ELITE ADVISOR BY
JOHN J. BOWEN JR.
C’mon, Get Happy!
Think success brings happiness? That’s not the way it works.
In fact, it’s the other way around.
At my firm, CEG Worldwide, we strive to emphasize having a great quality of life along with achieving business success. The reason: The happier and more positive you are in life, the more success you will achieve for yourself, your team
and your clients.
That’s why our company has been working with Shawn Achor,
CEO of Good Think and an expert in the field of positive psychology.
Through his research at Harvard and elsewhere, he has proved that,
when our brains are in positive states, the outcomes we achieve in
business improve. Contrary to popular belief, happiness isn’t ancillary
to success — it actually generates and magnifies the success you and
your clients can enjoy.
The upshot: The investment you
make in your happiness and that of your
clients generates a demonstrable return.
Achor calls it “the happiness advantage.”
even neutral, our brains prevent us from learn-
ing and adapting. If you’re stressed out and
unhappy and you change your mind-set to be
more happy, you will achieve greater success.
Contrary to popular
belief, happiness
isn’t ancillary to
success — it actually
generates and
magnifies the
success you and your
clients can enjoy.
A LINK TO SUCCESS
When people are happier and more positive, Achor says, they become more intelligent, more creative and ultimately more
productive. Consider a couple of the
experiments he discussed recently with
participants in CEG’s coaching program:
• Some 4-year-olds were split into
two groups, one of which was primed to be extremely happy and positive. That group later put blocks together 50% faster and more accurately than the group that wasn’t encouraged to be positive.
• Doctors who were primed to be more positive before meeting
with patients were 19% faster and more accurate with their diagnoses
than another group that wasn’t encouraged to be positive.
Happiness has a special function. When our moods are elevated,
dopamine, a neurochemical that makes us happy, is released in our
brains. Dopamine also activates the learning centers in our brains.
Those moments when we feel positive and happy are also moments
when our brains are most capable of taking in information and adapting to changes in the world around us. When we feel stressed out, or
Financial-Planning.com
November 2012 Financial Planning 33
