[GET] Shawn Achor - The Happiness Advantage + MORE

[GordonShumway]

Shawn Achor - The Happiness Advantage

A Story Before The Share!

I had a strange childhood. My father ran very large machines and the company he worked for built pipelines all around the world, so we were constantly on the move. By the time I finished High School, I had gone to 28 different schools... In many different country's.

My Dad dropped out of school in 8th grade, and my Mom was fortunate enough to make it to the end of High School, but that was it. For both of them, work was essential for survival and that was what they did.

I consider the childhood I had to be fantastic. We never had much extra money, but we always had something to eat and a roof over our heads.

It wasn't until I left my parents behind (they we in Saudi Arabia) and I was in University when during one of the school breaks that I had a bad work related accident that nearly broke my back.

I spent a lot of time in hospital, and was told that for the rest of my life, I would be in pain and not be able to do much physically. My future was large dosses of pain medication and living in a mental fog because of those medications....

I was finally discharged from the hospital and did what they told me to do. I would eat handfuls of pills every day, and still was in a lot of pain constantly. I could not sleep for more than 1 hour at a time and would wake up with tears rolling down my face because the pain was so bad...

If you have even been sleep deprived in your life, you know how bad that alone is, but add on top of that the constant pain and it is just bad, bad, bad...

This is the ONLY time in my entire life that I felt like giving up. And this is the danger of listening to what I call "The White Coats".

This is a term that I came up with later in life. But the idea came from me trusting those Doctors that walked around in "White Coats" and told me what my future was going to be.

It was about 7 months after leaving the hospital that I finally decided enough was enough. I was either going to end my life OR I was going to do something to change it.

I am writing this, so you know the choice I made.

I had no money, so the only thing I could think of was to start reading. I started going to the Public Library (I was in Canada at this time). I walked up to the Librarian on the floor I was on and asked were the business section was. She walked me over (I had a cane and moved very slowly) to the business section and asked what book I was looking for. I just said to her, "were does the section start"?

She pointed and I grabbed the first book and found a chair to sit down. I could only sit for max 1 hour before the pain was so bad I had to get up. I would hold my book and slowly walk around the inside perimeter reading. Soon that was too much and I would sit down again.

From opening to closing, every day, I was in the library reading.... I became such a regular, the Librarian reserved me a small table with a good supportive chair AND she would reserve the next books in the shelf for me.

One day, as I was just finishing one of the books, she handed me the next one. I read the title and asked her, "Is this a business book?". She just smiled at me and said, "Just Read It!".

That book was "Think And Grow Rich", by Napoleon Hill. Now, some people will say great things about Napoleon Hill and others will say he was a scam artist. I don't care what you think. I know his works have changed my life and that is all that matters to me.

In my entire life to that point, I had never had any type of "positive influence" in my life and the words in that book just about knocked me over. It changed my life forever.

Two core ideas in that book jumped out at me...

Anything the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.

No matter what it is, if it is humanly possible and you have a burning desire for it, you can have it.

And from that point forward in my life, everything started getting better. At the time I had only ONE burning desire. To get my health back, stop the pain and stop the pills...

The "White Coats" had said this was not my future and for the first time I decided they were wrong.

It took me about 14 hard months or trying different things and working my backside off, but I 100% recovered. I went on to get a Black Belt, my SCUBA license, jumped out of a plane (parachute) and a long list of other stuff...

For a long time after I got better, I was focused on 2 main things. One was building my business and the other was reading/implementing self-help materials.

Over the years I have read, studied, watched, and attended so many different things. It has been a passion of mine since first learning about it and implementing these "new" ideas that set me free.

Before I introduce the share to you, I want you to know this. Don't let any "White Coat" (a white coat is ANYONE in your life that you allow to have authority over you and tell you what you can or can not accomplish with your life) stop you from going after the life you want to have.

And the most important thing in your life is Happiness. Do what make you happy. Don't do it for money, or someone else tells you what to do, follow your heart and your passion. Be grateful for all the good things you want and have in your life and for all the bad things you don't want and don't have.

And now on to the share.

I believe these two books are incredible. They talk about WHY Happiness is so important in your life and how to get more of it starting right now. What could be better than that?

The Happiness Advantage
How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - An engaging, deeply researched guide to flourishing in a world of increasing stress and negativity - the inspiration for one of the most popular TED Talks of all time

“Powerful [and] charming . . . A book for just about anyone . . . The philosophies in this book are easily the best wire frames to build a happy and successful life.”—Medium

Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the realization that we can.

Our most commonly held formula for success is broken. Conventional wisdom holds that once we succeed, we’ll be happy; that once we get that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But the science reveals this formula to be backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.

Research shows that happy employees are more productive, more creative, and better problem solvers than their unhappy peers. And positive people are significantly healthier and less stressed and enjoy deeper social interaction than the less positive people around them.

Drawing on original research—including one of the largest studies of happiness ever conducted—and work in boardrooms and classrooms across forty-two countries, Shawn Achor shows us how to rewire our brains for positivity and optimism to reap the happiness advantage in our lives, our careers, and even our health. His strategies include:

• The Tetris Effect: how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility so we can see and seize opportunities all around us
• Social Investment: how to earn the dividends of a strong social support network
• The Ripple Effect: how to spread positive change within our teams, companies, and families
  

By turns fascinating, hopeful, and timely, The Happiness Advantage reveals how small shifts in our mind-set and habits can produce big gains at work, at home, and elsewhere.

Before Happiness
The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This fresh, uplifting book is filled with ideas for improving our organizations and our lives.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast WorkLife

“With his characteristic blend of academic rigor and twinkle in the eye, Shawn Achor will change your view of happiness, of reality—and of yourself.”—Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet and Bittersweet

Why are some people able to make positive change while others remain the same?

In his international bestseller, The Happiness Advantage, Harvard-trained researcher Shawn Achor described why happiness is the precursor to greater success. Before Happiness is about what comes before both. Because before we can be happy or successful, we need to first develop the ability to see that positive change is possible. Only once we learn to see the world through a more positive lens can we summon all our motivation, emotion, and intelligence to achieve our personal and professional goals.

In Before Happiness, Achor reveals five actionable, proven strategies for changing our lens to positive:

• The Most Valuable Reality: See a broader range of ideas and solutions by changing the details on which your brain chooses to focus
• Success Mapping: Set goals oriented around the things in life that matter to you most, whether career advancement or family or making a difference in the world
• The X-spot: Use success accelerants to propel you more quickly towards those goals, whether finishing a marathon, reaching a sales target, learning a language, or losing ten pounds
• Noise-Canceling: Boost the signal pointing you to opportunities and possibilities that others miss
• Positive Inception: Transfer these skills to your team, your employees, and everyone around you
  

By mastering these strategies, you’ll create a renewable source of positivity, motivation, and engagement that will allow you to reach your fullest potential in everything you do.

Magic Button :

https://www.mediafire.com/file/jk5jltdkw...A.zip/file

Reps are always appreciated.

Cheers,

G.S.

[PeanutButterFalcon]

Thank you, GS, for recommending this book. Though it seems to be getting harder and harder to find happiness these days, I truly think that everyone deserves to feel it.

Sorry to go off topic, but I was wondering if you had studied storytelling in any classes or had read any books about it. I found your writing to be utterly captivating. In your opinion, what are some ways to improve the art of storytelling?

[GordonShumway]

(07-13-2024 08:17 PM)PeanutButterFalcon Wrote:  Thank you, GS, for recommending this book. Though it seems to be getting harder and harder to find happiness these days, I truly think that everyone deserves to feel it.

Sorry to go off topic, but I was wondering if you had studied storytelling in any classes or had read any books about it. I found your writing to be utterly captivating. In your opinion, what are some ways to improve the art of storytelling?

@PeanutButterFalcon

Thank you for your comments...

While I have not had any "formal" training in storytelling, I believe it is something that all humans have. It goes all the way back to sitting in our caves and telling the story of the hunt we just had.

It is how we share information to connect with each other.

I believe that one of the best ways to improve your storytelling is to read a lot and to watch movies. Watching and reading with an eye on structure.

I know a young lady and she joined Bain Consulting. Bain and McKinsey are the top 2 companies in the world for doing Business Consulting to the major companies around the world.

During one of my coaching sessions (I was coaching her on some mindset skills) with her, she told me about one of the frameworks for storytelling that Bain uses all the time.

The SCR (Situation - Complication - Resolution) Framework

• The Situation: The reason action needs to be taken.
• The Complication: Why the situation needs thinking though, why do you need to resolve this. What's stopping your from moving forward.
• The Resolution: The answer.
  

This is a very simple version of the "Hero's Journey" used in so many movies (look that up on Google to see this framework).

When I am going to write something, I start with those three points. I write a super simple idea for each. Then once I have that, I am ready to start filling in the details.

When you do that, and if you can add in details about it happening to yourself or someone you know, this makes your story more powerful because it connects with others.

The next thing is, like anything in life, if you want to be good at something, you have got to be willing to suck at at it starting out. Everyone sucks at first. It is only the people that stick with it during the "I suck at this" stage that move on a get better at it.

Cheers,

G.S.

[PeanutButterFalcon]

I appreciate your thoughts.

I do agree that storytelling is something that should come naturally to us, given how our ancestors shared stories with one another as a means of communicating and sharing experiences. We have so many paintings in caves that are proof of how good their storytelling skills were, and then I wonder how a lot of us lost that skill.

Reading a lot and watching movies while paying attention to their structure is a great tip, and the SCR framework you mentioned is super clever.
When you mentioned "The Hero's Journey," it sounded so familiar, and then I remembered that there was a product called 24 Hours Expert by Russell Brunson, where he gave away a bonus DVD called " "Storyselling, which had a 2 hours presentation by Michael Hauge explaining to a bunch of marketers how to use Hero's Journey in their marketing.

Quote:The next thing is, like anything in life, if you want to be good at something, you have got to be willing to suck at at it starting out. Everyone sucks at first. It is only the people that stick with it during the "I suck at this" stage that move on a get better at it.

I couldn't agree more. The key difference really is in the mindset.

Thanks again for sharing the SCR framework and your thoughts.

[GordonShumway]

(07-21-2024 01:59 AM)PeanutButterFalcon Wrote:  Reading a lot and watching movies while paying attention to their structure is a great tip, and the SCR framework you mentioned is super clever.
When you mentioned "The Hero's Journey," it sounded so familiar, and then I remembered that there was a product called 24 Hours Expert by Russell Brunson, where he gave away a bonus DVD called " "Storyselling, which had a 2 hours presentation by Michael Hauge explaining to a bunch of marketers how to use Hero's Journey in their marketing.

@PeanutButterFalcon

Thanks again for your comments.

You are correct, that the "Storyselling" set of videos inside of the Russell Brunson package is pretty good.

You may also want to search BBHF for "Donald Miller". One of his core products is "StoryBrand". His course is about using the Hero's Journey in your business and marketing to build your brand.

This is a powerful model as we are so familiar with it. So many movies and stories today use the Hero's Journey framework....

I highly recommend finding and having a look at his material(s) if you are serious about building an online venture OR want to increase your ability to connect with your audience.

More recently, Donald has also been doing stuff on Small Business Building and you can find his products under the brand name "Business Made Simple". Again, I find a lot of his content to be pretty good in this niche.

After running a lot of companies and also working with thousands of clients over the years, I believe that the foundational stuff that Donald talks about in this course can really help business to grow and increase their survival rates.

Building a small business that has employees is not easy. You have a lot on your plate as a business owner and anything that can point the way to proven systems and ideas that work should always be looked at.

Again, it goes back to the "you got to be willing to suck at it at first" mindset... But you also need to have the mindset of "everything is just feedback". When things blow up in your face (and I promise you things WILL blowup!), don't let it stop you. Learn from it, realign yourself, pick your backside up off the floor, and continue moving forward.

Every successful person comes from a long string of failures. If you want success in your life or business, you must learn from your mistakes, you must have a clear vision of what you want and WHY you want it, and you must keep pushing forward towards your goals no matter what obstacles or people try and stop you.

Cheers,

G.S.

[sakurawa]

Thank You For sharing, is quite interesting!

[PeanutButterFalcon]

@GordonShumway.

Thank you for letting me know about the "StoryBrand" course by Donald Miller. Without a doubt, I will look through his resources, particularly the "Business Made Simple" course.

Quote:Building a small business that has employees is not easy. You have a lot on your plate as a business owner, and anything that can point the way to proven systems and ideas that work should always be looked at.

This hit a nerve. Some of my old pain points came to light after reading this. I am not in business right now, but when I was, managing employees was my sticking point.


My two businesses both failed in three years. It has been difficult to lead employees since they view me as a buddy rather than a boss or an authority figure. As I was just out of college, I was more comfortable being a buddy. BIG MISTAKE. It is a bit embarrassing to admit that I have never seen anyone in business treated like a buddy by their employees. Sure, it gets the work done, but it's not worth it. I have since come to see that I need to improve my leadership abilities.

I wonder if anyone else has ever been in such a situation and how they managed to correct it.


I see that the first chapter of business made simple is about leadership.

[GordonShumway]

(08-07-2024 03:34 PM)PeanutButterFalcon Wrote:  @GordonShumway.

Quote:Building a small business that has employees is not easy. You have a lot on your plate as a business owner, and anything that can point the way to proven systems and ideas that work should always be looked at.

This hit a nerve. Some of my old pain points came to light after reading this. I am not in business right now, but when I was, managing employees was my sticking point.


My two businesses both failed in three years. It has been difficult to lead employees since they view me as a buddy rather than a boss or an authority figure. As I was just out of college, I was more comfortable being a buddy. BIG MISTAKE. It is a bit embarrassing to admit that I have never seen anyone in business treated like a buddy by their employees. Sure, it gets the work done, but it's not worth it. I have since come to see that I need to improve my leadership abilities.

@PeanutButterFalcon

Failure in business is common. When you look at most successful people in business, the vast majority have tried other things before they reach success and in those things they failed.

The true mark of success is being able to pick yourself up, dust your self off, and look objectively at why you failed. To be sure, that is not easy to do.

The week of mind will always blame outside sources rather than look internally. Real strength comes from being able to identity your own weaknesses, and then taking action to fix those areas.

When I say "fix", that does not mean that you must take on that specific skill, but you can hire it out to a trusted adviser.

As an example, I personally do NOT like learning about all the ins and outs of the current tax laws. I do have a good grasp of reading a profit and loss statement. I understand about watching the bottom line of revenue being higher than expenses, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of tax law, I am not interested.

I shopped around, tried different people until I found a good match for what my goals were and how risk adverse I was. I needed that balance and wanted someone that saw things from perspective, and would then work with me to progressively pursue my financial goals while staying 100% legal with current law.

Now, specifically about your comment.

If you want to be an Entrepreneur and do your own thing, leadership is key. Doesn't matter if you are a Sole business or running a large multinational.

Being able to set a vision for what you want and putting in the effort to maintain consistent effort over the long term is critical.

And while you can be on "friendly terms" with your employees, there must be no doubt in your mind and theirs that you are in charge and you set the rules and expectations.

Having a clear set of KPI's for each role you hire for and then measuring against that goes a long way to fixing issues you have.

As a leader, you must be setting those expectations and then making sure that the employees know exactly what is expected and then you must follow up on it constantly to make sure those items are getting done.

I have talked before on this topic in a different post. In my life and in all my business practices, I use a planning system that has made my companies much easier to run and deliver results.

I like it as it keeps me on track. My employees like it as they know exactly what the goals are for the company AND exactly what is expected of them in their current position.

People are most happy when they have clear goals that are achievable and that when they reach them, they get recognised for it.

While I have often said here on BBHF that Copywriting is the number one skill you want to develop, in running a successful business, leadership is right near or at the top.

Keep pushing!

Cheers,

G.S.