May 15 2025
IT-Security Inside 2025 – Keynote Speaker Keren Elazari – Zurich, Germany
AURA , Event Hall
Shawn Achor is a bestselling author and global expert on happiness and human potential whose groundbreaking work on positive psychology has transformed organizations from the NFL to NASA.
Shawn Achor is one of the world’s leading experts on happiness, success, and human potential. He is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage, Before Happiness, and Big Potential, and his TED talk is among the most popular of all time with over 24 million views. Shawn is also well-known for his keynote and motivational speaking. His signature blend of cutting-edge research, engaging stories, and infectious energy makes him a sought-after speaker for audiences ranging from Fortune 100 companies to public schools. Shawn Achor is available to be booked for corporate and private events. Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group today to inquire about Shawn Achor’s fees.
Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group at (215) 995-0905 to book Shawn Achor for corporate or private events, keynote speeches, workshops, fireside chats, motivational speaking, or virtual appearances. Our agency will work directly with your organization and our keynote speakers to create an unforgettable event.
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Shawn Achor graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and went on to earn a Master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. He spent 12 years at Harvard, where he pioneered original research in positive psychology and taught one of the university’s most popular courses.
Determined to test his theories in the real world, Shawn traveled to more than 50 countries—working with students in Soweto, South Africa’s shantytowns, public schools in Flint, Michigan, six battalions of Marines at Camp Pendleton, and doctors and first responders after the Boston Marathon bombing and the Orlando shooting. Across environments both high-performing and high-pressure, he found one consistent truth: happiness is not the result of success—it’s the cause of it.
Shawn has worked with over a third of the Fortune 100, including Microsoft, American Express, AT&T, and Johnson & Johnson, to reshape how organizations think about success. His research was featured on the cover of Harvard Business Review, and his PBS special has reached millions. With practical, science-backed strategies and unmatched storytelling, Shawn shows how shifting our mindset can lead to extraordinary results.
Whether addressing government leaders at Camp David or speaking to educators, Shawn’s message is simple but revolutionary: by creating an interconnected approach to success, we shine brighter together. His work continues to prove that optimism, connection, and small behavioral changes can ripple outward—raising performance, deepening engagement, and transforming entire cultures.
Find out how to hire Shawn Achor to appear at your next event. Contact the Mollie Plotkin Group to inquire about Shawn Achor’s availability and cost. When booking Shawn Achor for an event, we need to know the type of venue and location the event will take place. Shawn Achor is a popular choice for corporate events, private events, and virtual events. So, you can click the Check Availability button or contact us and an MPG Shawn Achor booking agent will get back to you within 48 hours.
How much to book Shawn Achor depends on the type of event. So, the cost to hire Shawn Achor for corporate or private events is available by contacting a Mollie Plotkin Group Agent. Notably, Shawn Achor is available for conferences, festivals, private parties, and events. Just contact the Mollie Plotkin Group and tell the booking agent the proposed date, time, and location.
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Until now, we’ve been taught that to be successful, we must better ourselves and rise above others. The pursuit of fulfilling our potential has been individual and isolated. Research shows that this self-focused approach to achievement puts a cap on our happiness and success. It is only by pursuing potential in an interconnected way that we can achieve the heights of our potential in business and education. Only by making others better as we grow, can we see what we are truly capable of. Based on his research, new findings revealing the ripple effect of our actions, and work in 50 countries, Shawn outlines a five-stage strategy for achieving interconnected success and demonstrates how to apply them to your work and home life for greater energy, productivity, and success.
Most companies and schools follow this formula: if you work harder, you will be more successful, and then you will be happy. This formula is scientifically backward. A decade of research shows that training your brain to be positive at work first actually fuels greater success second. In fact, 75% of our job success is predicted not by intelligence, but by our optimism, social support network, and the ability to manage energy and stress positively. By researching top performers at Harvard, the world’s largest banks, and Fortune 500 companies, Shawn discovered patterns that create a happiness advantage for positive outliers—the highest performers at the company. Based on his book, The Happiness Advantage, Shawn explains what positive psychology is, how much we can change, and practical applications for reaping the Happiness Advantage amid change and challenge.
What is more important than IQ and emotional intelligence combined? Based on the research in Before Happiness, Shawn Achor takes us to the beginning of human potential to explain why some people can make great changes while others remain the same.
Before you can make a change at work or home, your brain first constructs a picture of reality; this mental picture already determines your likelihood of success and your ability to harness your brain’s IQ, emotional and social intelligence. In this exciting talk, Shawn takes the audience to the cutting edge of positive psychology and neuroscience to demonstrate how one can become a “positive genius”: one who can continually architect successful, positive realities based upon facts and then transfer those realities to others.
Using his signature humor, new case studies, and interactive experiments that engage the audience, Shawn makes this research come alive. Shawn illuminates new research he did in collaboration with Yale that shows how a leader can change their mindset about stress to increase productivity by 30% and lower health problems and fatigue by 23%. Audiences leave with five clear, practical takeaways, which can immediately start to transform their life, raising both happiness and success rates. In this program, participants will learn how to navigate multiple realities at work, cancel internal and external noise, add vantage points to planning, use success accelerants to speed goal completion, and use meaning markers to spread positive genius throughout a team, family, and an entire organization.
Confidence, trust, and job satisfaction are at historic lows. When the economic collapse began, the world’s largest banks called in Shawn Achor to research how to restore confidence and forward progress. While many managers succumb to helplessness, with their teams and clients quickly following suit, Shawn researched those who maintained high levels of success and leadership during the challenge. He found that our brains create confidence based on the belief that our desired outcome depends on our behavior. To develop this belief, we must create “wins” to overcome learned helplessness and train our brains for rational optimism. Based on the science of positive psychology and case studies of working with companies during an economic collapse, Shawn provides practical applications for keeping teams motivated and engaged while raising the belief that their individual behavior matters.
Common sense is not common action. This is because information does not necessarily cause transformation; we require a certain level of “activation energy” to start a change. Shawn’s research in the field of positive psychology has revealed how changes in our own brains due to mindset and behavior can have a ripple effect on a team and an entire organization.This positive ripple effect can create a more productive, optimistic work culture and make positive change easier.
Audiences will learn about the latest scientific research on mirror neurons and mental priming to explain how positivity and negativity spread, case studies on becoming a lightning rod for change, and findings on how a positive ripple effect profoundly affects an organization’s ability to transition and change.
“We have used Shawn globally to deliver workshops for our Managing Director and Executive Director audiences (both individuals and intact teams). As an estimate, he has presented to close to 1000 people at this level at UBS. We are pretty selective about who we would put in front of this level of audience but Shawn never disappoints. The feedback from the seminars he has run is amongst the best across any of the training courses we deliver. Shawn has partnered exceptionally well with UBS to tailor his materials and research to our needs. He is always open to feedback and ideas.” – UBS
“Shawn’s presentation on happiness was absolutely amazing! Funny, engaging, smart, optimistic, and practical, Shawn inspired us to shift the way that we look at the world, and to make simple yet powerful changes in our own lives. His uplifting message had a positive impact on those who attended – the feedback we’ve received has been extraordinary, and people are still talking about his presentation!” – Goodwin Procter LLP
“Our expectations for Shawn’s talk at our recent H.R. Conference were quite high and all those expectations were exceeded! While I knew the content would be powerful and anticipated the delivery would be engaging, I underestimated the positive impact it would have on the audience beyond the conference. The attendees have been quite energized and have begun taking actions to be happier and more grateful in their own lives. Further, while the learning will be applicable at our workplace, I think the attendees felt the impact was transferable to all aspects of their lives (and their families).” – The Wendy’s Company
“Shawn Achor brings the science, research, and factual data behind why happiness happens and teaches how to reproduce happiness. Shawn will bring a new perspective on happiness by presenting a new lens that eliminates traditional “normal” worldly view on why we are happy, in exchange for a scientific, fact based, process any person can use to create real happiness in their own life.” – Jimmy John’s
“A vibrant book on how to bring out the best in others—and how they can bring out the best in us.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast WorkLife
In a world that thrives on competition and individual achievement, we’re measuring and pursuing potential incorrectly. Pursuing success in isolation—pushing others away as we push ourselves too hard—not only limits our potential but makes us more stressed and disconnected than ever.
Harvard-trained researcher Shawn Achor reveals a better approach. With exciting new research combining neuroscience and psychology with Big Data, Achor shows that our potential is not limited by what we alone can achieve. Instead, it is determined by how we complement, contribute to, and benefit from the abilities and achievements of people around us.
When we—as individuals, leaders, and parents—chase only individual achievement, we leave vast sources of potential untapped. But once we put “others” back into the equation, and work to make others better, we ignite a Virtuous Cycle of cascading successes that amplify our own.
The dramatic shifts in how we approach work today demand an equally dramatic shift in our approach to success. In Big Potential, Achor draws on cutting-edge original research as well as his work with nearly half of the Fortune 100 and with places like NASA, the NFL and the NBA, and offers a new path to thriving in the modern world.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “With his characteristic blend of academic rigor and twinkle in the eye, Shawn Achor will change your view of happiness, of reality—and of yourself.” — Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet and Bittersweet
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. Before Happinessis 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. By mastering these strategies, you’ll create a renewable source of positivity, motivation, and engagement that will allow you to reach your fullest potential in everything you do.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • An engaging, deeply researched guide to flourishing in a world of increasing stress and negativity—the inspiration for one of the most popular TED Talks of all time
Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the realization that we can.
Our most commonly held formula for success is broken. Conventional wisdom holds that once we succeed, we’ll be happy; that once we get that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But the science reveals this formula to be backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.
Research shows that happy employees are more productive, more creative, and better problem solvers than their unhappy peers. And positive people are significantly healthier and less stressed and enjoy deeper social interaction than the less positive people around them.
Drawing on original research—including one of the largest studies of happiness ever conducted—and work in boardrooms and classrooms across forty-two countries, Shawn Achor shows us how to rewire our brains for positivity and optimism to reap the happiness advantage in our lives, our careers, and even our health. His strategies include:
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