Just before I went on vacation, I read a book called The Happiness Advantage, by Shawn Achor. I love reading books on leadership and personal development, and I always have a backlog of about 5 books ready to go when I finish the previous one. But The Happiness Advantage was not on my list. My wife actually got it from her boss. Once she finished reading it, I picked it up…and I could not put it down.

The Happiness Advantage centers on The 7 Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work. I really though this was just going to be study after study of random research. But Anchor is a great story teller. He took research, his own life experience, and created a framework for being positive and, maybe just as important, spreading that positivity. I also enjoyed that this was not solely for your personal life, but also your day-to-day work or professional life.

And about halfway through reading the 7 Principles Achor outlines, I knew I wanted to document it and start implementing them. So not only are these principles in my own life purpose playbook, but I wanted to help others by writing this blog post.

Now, a warning. If you plan on reading this book soon, maybe you should read it before reading my blog post, as I don’t want to ruin any surprises.

I’ll outline the 7 Principles from the book, and try to give my own story around them as well.

Principle 1: The Happiness Advantage

The first principle talks about ways we can improve our moods and raise our levels of happiness throughout the day. These are helpful to always keep in mind, as they are proven to raise serotonin levels, known as the happy chemical.

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