Shawn Achor: Before Happiness @ Talks at Google (Transcript)

Shawn Achor @ Talks at Google

Here is the full transcript of psychologist Shawn Achor’s talk on Before Happiness @ Talks at Google conference.

TRANSCRIPT:

CHADE-MENG TAN: Morning, everybody Thank you all for being here.

My name is Meng. I’m the Jolly Good Fellow of Google, and I’m delighted to be here with my friend Shawn, a fellow Jolly Good Fellow and also a fellow international bestselling author, whose latest book is “Before Happiness,” available at all major bookstores. The first thing you need to know about Shawn Achor is that he is genuinely really nice. You know about his public persona. He’s that nice, smiling, happy guy. And in person, he is really that guy.

So that’s the first thing you need to know about him, genuinely beautiful human being. The second thing you need to know about Shawn is that he has one of the most popular TED Talks ever, almost 6 million views the last I checked, like 59 million or something. So if he has $1 per view, he’s going to be the Six Million Dollar Man.

He’s going to run in slow motion all the time. His lectures airing on PBS have been seen by millions. He is the winner of a dozen Distinguished Teaching Awards at Harvard University, a fairly good university the last I heard. Just kidding; Shawn is one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success, and he has traveled to 50 countries.

The first 49, it’s kind of meh. But 50, that was impressive. With that, my friends, please welcome my friend Shawn.

SHAWN ACHOR: Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

CHADE-MENG TAN: So thank you for being here. I’ve been looking forward to having you for a really long time.