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Home » The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance by Shawn Achor (Transcript)

The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance by Shawn Achor (Transcript)

Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor, CEO of Good Think Inc., discusses The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance at TEDxBloomington. Below is the full transcript and summary of the TEDx Talk.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here:

TRANSCRIPT: 

When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we were playing on top of a bunk bed. I was two years older than my sister at the time — I mean, I’m two years older than her now — but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do, and I wanted to play war.

So we were up on top of our bunk beds. And on one side of the bunk bed, I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry. And on the other side were all my sister’s My Little Ponies ready for a cavalry charge.

There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, but since my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story. Which is my sister is a little bit on the clumsy side. Somehow, without any help or push from her older brother at all, suddenly Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this crash on the floor. I nervously peered over the side of the bed to see what had befallen my fallen sister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees on all fours on the ground. I was nervous because my parents had charged me with making sure that my sister and I played as safely and as quietly as possible.

And seeing as how I had accidentally broken Amy’s arm just one week before, heroically pushing her out of the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet, for which I have yet to be thanked, I was trying as hard as I could — she didn’t even see it coming — I was trying as hard as I could be on my best behavior.