Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor is redefining happiness. The American author, motivational speaker and Harvard graduate is an advocate for positive psychology. He believes that positive psychology is the key to success, rather than success being the key to positivity, so tours the world promoting this ideology. As a young psychologist, Shawn earned a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, then later graduated with a Master of Arts in Christian and Buddhist Ethics from Harvard Divinity School. His passion for happiness, gratitude and spirituality shapes Shawn as a public speaker.

After Shawn graduated, he worked as a teaching assistant at Harvard, supporting the renowned happiness course by Tal Ben-Shahar. Continuing his exploration of psychology, he then founded GoodThinkInc in 2007 and later co-founded The Institute for Applied Positive Research, both businesses invest in speakers, research and advisors on workplace performance, driven by positive psychology. Shawn has also presented one of the most viewed TEDx talks, with nearly 21 million views, on how success and happiness are directly linked. His speech has been listed as one of TED's 25 most popular talks.

Shawn completed a research paper entitled The Happiness Advantage while at university. As he continued to explore psychology and happiness, he expanded upon his research to later publish Before Happiness with Crown in 2013. In the book, he includes studies by the likes of Prof. Peter Salovey at Yale University, and explores topics on changing your mindset and handling stress. In 2018, he published another book entitled Big Potential, as well as writing for the Harvard Business Review.

As a motivational business speaker, Shawn is an integral speaker for business conferences and industry events. Charismatic, hilarious and passionate about his field of study, he has received countless positive testimonials for his speeches, with business owners seeing a visible improvement in their employees' wellbeing. From practising gratitude to overcoming personal challenges, Shawn's engaging presenting style is both personable and knowledgeable.