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181 " That was a brilliant reminder that looking at the world from the vantage point of other cultures can open us up to all kinds of ideas, possibilities, and paths to success that we might otherwise have missed. "
― Shawn Achor , Before Happiness: How Creating a Positive Reality First Amplifies Your Levels of Happiness and Success
182 " Happiness is not about lying to ourselves, or turning a blind eye to the negative, but about adjusting our brain so that we see the ways to rise above our circumstances "
― Shawn Achor , The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work
183 " Even the way we describe seemingly straightforward tasks can make a difference in how people perform. In one experiment, subjects were asked to play either the “Wall Street Game” or the “Community Game,” a task designed to measure people’s willingness to cooperate under different conditions.19 In reality, they were the exact same game. But those who had been primed to think of community were more likely to be cooperative than those thinking of Wall Street. What we expect from people (and from ourselves) manifests itself in the words we use, and those words can have a powerful effect on end results. This means, as you will continue to see in the coming chapters, that the best managers and leaders view each interaction as an opportunity to prime their employees for excellence. "
184 " Luckily, I was in a unique position to conduct this research. "
185 " Martin Seligman, the pioneer in positive psychology, has broken it down into three, measurable components: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.3 His studies have confirmed (though most of us know this intuitively) that people who pursue only pleasure experience only part of the benefits happiness can bring, while those who pursue all three routes lead the fullest lives.4 "
186 " simply introducing two employees who don’t know each other is probably the easiest and fastest way to invest in social dividends. "
187 " Coercing employees into awkward icebreakers or forced bonding activities, like making everyone at a meeting share something about their private lives, only breeds disconnection and mistrust.42 Better that these moments happen organically—which they will if the environment is right. "
188 " Believing that, for the most part, our actions determine our fates in life can only spur us to work harder; and when we see this hard work pay off, our belief in ourselves only grows stronger. "
189 " Acontece que o nosso cérebro é literalmente configurado para apresentar o melhor desempenho não quando está negativo ou neutro, mas quando está positivo. "
190 " happiness is the precursor to success, not merely the result. And that happiness and optimism actually fuel performance and achievement—giving us the competitive edge that I call the Happiness Advantage. "
191 " Not only had the happy films made them feel better, but they had undone the physiological effects of stress. In other words, a quick burst of positive emotions doesn’t just broaden our cognitive capacity; it also provides a quick and powerful antidote to stress and anxiety, which in turn improves our focus and our ability to function at our best level. "
192 " Common sense is not common action. "
193 " okapi—indeed "
194 " what we spend our time and mental energy focusing on can indeed become our reality. "
195 " Yet hundreds of years ago cartographers from Europe decided that Madrid was above Rio de Janeiro and that Australia should be way “down under.” From then on, we have always looked at the world from the same fixed viewpoint. "
196 " in both academic and business settings, these same benefits persist throughout our adult lives. For instance, students who were told to think about the happiest day of their lives right before taking a standardized math test outperformed their peers.19 And people who expressed more positive emotions while negotiating business deals did so more efficiently and successfully than those who were more neutral or negative.20 "
197 " It’s not the weight of the world that determines what we can accomplish. It is our fulcrum and lever. "
198 " As my mentor Tal Ben-Shahar likes to say, “things do not necessarily happen for the best, but some people are able to make the best out of things that happen. "
199 " By scanning our mental map for positive opportunities, and by rejecting the belief that every down in life leads us only further downward, we give ourselves the greatest power possible: the ability to move up not despite the setbacks, but because of them. "
200 " eudaimonia, "