BIG POTENTIAL - ACHOR SHAWN - Random USA

Quando aspiriamo al successo in solitaria, non stiamo solo limitando il nostro potenziale, ma stiamo anche diventando più stressati e disconnessi dalla realtà come mai prima d'ora. Prendendo spunto dalla sua personale esperienza maturata in cinquanta Paesi, Achor mostra come il successo e la felicità non siano degli sport competitivi. Al contrario, dipendono quasi totalmente da quanto sappiamo entrare in connessione con le altre persone e quanto siamo in grado di imparare gli uni dagli altri. Nuove ricerche mostrano che proprio come la felicità è contagiosa, così ogni singola dimensione del potenziale umano - le performance, l'intelligenza, la creatività, la leadership e perfino la salute - viene influenzata da coloro che ci circondano. Pertanto, quando aiutiamo gli altri a migliorarsi, anche noi raggiungiamo nuovi livelli di potenziale. Lo Small Potential è il successo limitato che siamo in grado di ottenere da soli. Il Big Potential è invece quello che possiamo conseguire insieme. In questo libro Achor propone cinque strategie - i "semi" del Big Potential - per innalzare il tetto di ciò che possiamo realizzare reinserendo la felicità e il significato nelle nostre vite.

"Non sei felice perché hai successo, hai successo perché sei felice". È questo l'assunto base del libro, supportato da rigorose ricerche scientifiche e dall'evidenza pratica riscontrata nelle ricerche sul potenziale che lo stesso autore ha condotto per anni all'interno di aziende importanti quali UBS e KPMG. Il libro non costituisce solo una ricetta per diventare più felici in ambiente lavorativo, descrive piuttosto come riuscire a trarre vantaggio da un atteggiamento mentale più positivo per conseguire risultati straordinari sia nella vita privata che in quella professionale.

La capacità di creare una realtà in cui tutto è possibile è uno dei più grandi precursori del successo, delle performance e perfino della felicità. In questo libro Shawn Achor, uno dei maggiori esperti di fama mondiale nel campo della Psicologia Positiva, illustra le cinque strategie che ci aiuteranno ad aumentare le nostre possibilità di successo attraverso il raggiungimento dell'eccellenza in ogni ambito della vita privata e professionale.

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. This book 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 10 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 an renewable source of positivity, motivation, and engagement that will allow you to reach your fullest potential in everything you do.

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. This book 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 10 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 an renewable source of positivity, motivation, and engagement that will allow you to reach your fullest potential in everything you do.


From the Hardcover edition.

Come riuscire a trarre vantaggio da un atteggiamento mentale più ottimista e positivo per conseguire risultati straordinari sia nella vita privata che in quella professionale.

Our most commonly held formula for success is broken.
 
Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we'll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn't just an empty mantra. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.
           
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS and KPMG—to fix this broken formula. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work.
           
Isolating seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, he shows us how we can capitalize on the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential. Among the principles he outlines:
 

   • The Tetris Effect: how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see—and seize—opportunities wherever we look.
   • The Zorro Circle: how to channel our efforts on small, manageable goals, to gain the leverage to gradually conquer bigger and bigger ones.
   • Social Investment: how to reap the dividends of investing in one of the greatest predictors of success and happiness—our social support network

 
A must-read for everyone trying to excel in a world of increasing workloads, stress, and negativity, The Happiness Advantage isn't only about how to become happier at work. It's about how to reap the benefits of a happier and more positive mind-set to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives.

Our most commonly held formula for success is broken.
 
Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we'll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work. This isn't just an empty mantra. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigorous research in psychology and neuroscience, management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.
           
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS and KPMG—to fix this broken formula. Using stories and case studies from his work with thousands of Fortune 500 executives in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive edge at work.
           
Isolating seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, he shows us how we can capitalize on the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential. Among the principles he outlines:
 

   • The Tetris Effect: how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see—and seize—opportunities wherever we look.
   • The Zorro Circle: how to channel our efforts on small, manageable goals, to gain the leverage to gradually conquer bigger and bigger ones.
   • Social Investment: how to reap the dividends of investing in one of the greatest predictors of success and happiness—our social support network

 
A must-read for everyone trying to excel in a world of increasing workloads, stress, and negativity, The Happiness Advantage isn't only about how to become happier at work. It's about how to reap the benefits of a happier and more positive mind-set to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives.


From the Hardcover edition.